Disclaimer: I don't own Legolas or Middle-Earth or anything of the kind. :o)
Author's note: I can't believe it. I can't believe all the exams are really over! I'm free:o)))
Zelinia: Don't blame him, he's just confused. Thanks for your e-mail-help, by the way, I appreciate it. :o))
Callisto Callispi: I'm very glad you find it interesting. :o))) Thank you for such sufficient reviews, they are inspiring.
Name1: Help yourself. :o))) Hugs!
Faerlas: It's your turn to congratulate me. :o) I found the strength to cope with the last lady! The mark is excellent.
Neniel Sildurien: It's always pleasant to hear from new reviewers. Nice to meet you. :o))) Thanks for "the favourites", too. I'm flattered.
Chapter 7.
Delirium.
She couldn't have hit too hard… She had been unconscious before her head touched the dirty floor. There was a moment of overtaking of what had just happened, while Legolas was simply staring at the outstretched body at his feet, and then his brief astonishment dissolved in a surge of panic, compelling him to fall on his knees and raise her a little, his hands trembling and disobedient.
For a dreadful instance the elf thought that she was not breathing, but a weak echo of heartbeat under his palm relieved him. All of a sudden he forgot everything he knew about bringing people to themselves. All he could do was to place her head onto his laps and helplessly peer into her pale face, feeling wounded in the very heart. He could have slapped her, as she had once done it to him, yet instead of that his hand was just blankly stroking her cheek. Come back, begged he, come back to me… Please.
The twilight of the cell was melting the contours of her frame, and in a flash of imagination Legolas saw her leathern outfit turn into an emerald dress of velvet.
…A stream of blood was slowly creeping out of her mouth, and her eye-lashes began to palpitate, and he knew that when they would pull apart, her stare would be hungry and hostile…
"No," whispered the elf, "No, no…"
He shrank back, so that she almost fell on the floor again, as the vision faded away in a blink of an eye.
Eru, what insanity was coming over him? He had to brace himself, to so something...
Suddenly Gwirith took a sharp choking breath and opened her eyes, still dull with the remnants of a faint.
"The cursed arrow," muttered she hoarsely, "The cursed luck…"
Her glance met the anxious one of the elf - and he perceived the flood of pain and sufferings, she was attempting to swim out of.
"Did I scare you?" weakly asked the girl, "Forgive me. I'll be up now… Just a moment… Just one…"
Her voice trailed off, as she dropped her eye-lids once more, her muscles endeavoring to relax. His heart sank in terror. If he could only understand what was happening to her to suppress this utter helplessness and fear for her.
With an enormous effort he shook off his stupor and gathered himself. She shouldn't lie on the floor – he might have thought about it instead of wallowing in dismay.
His hands dutifully lifted a limp body, pressing it against his chest, while Legolas carefully stood up from his knees. When the girl appeared on the narrow bed, he sat near and brought his palm to her forehead.
It was hot, unhealthily, luridly, frightfully hot…
Gwirith stirred under his touch, a moan fleeing out of her lips.
"Don't…" forced out she, "It's cold…"
"Gwirith," it seemed to him, that she was balancing on the edge of a swoon again, "Please, tell me, what is wrong… Please…"
Two shapeless red spots were spreading over her cheek-bones, as she began to shake so violently, that Legolas could barely hold her. Still, somehow she managed to open her eyes once more, though there was nothing but pain and sickness pouring out of them.
"I stepped on an arrow there, in Rivendell," husky, faltering sounds were cutting into his ears, making him cringe, "An orc's… arrow… I thought … there was nothing to be afraid of… The battle was so… so long ago… No poison…lasts…"
The last words thawed in another moan, but what she had said was already enough to cause the elf get cold with horror.
He saw people pass away of a mere scratch, inflicted by a poisoned arrow. Nobody knew what kind of lethiferous blend the orcs applied to their foul weapon – but there was no doubt that anyone, stung by the steely snake which was belching such venom, sooner or later found himself in the painful embrace of death. And the weakest were the luckiest ones, for they perished on the spot, while the strongest had in their lot an endless chain of sufferings with no hope of surviving. Fever, unconsciousness, delirium, convulsions… Days of neither living, nor dying.
There was no need to mention that she was mistaken, having supposed the years to be able to remove the basilisk qualities of the poison. They just delayed the outcome…
For the second time he had to stand by her, watching her life drift out and doing nothing to withhold it. She was going to die.
The thought whipped him with all its bare inevitability. Her every breath could appear to be the last one.
She. Was. Going. To die.
What a fool he was not to appreciate her coming back to him! What a blindman to understand this gift only now, when it was going to be taken away from him again, because he didn't do anything to deserve it. He didn't guard her. It was as thought he murdered her once more.
A cold sweat crawled down the elf's neck at the realization that he was thinking about her like she had already been dead; and his despair changed into hopeless deliberateness. He wouldn't let her forsake him this time. While there was a glimpse of life in her, he was determined to fight for it to inflame.
She said she had stepped on the arrow. Legolas moved closer to her feet, and dragged off her boots, casting a studying glance at the soles. The left one bore a narrow slit – a mark of a wrong move of the foot, it was intended to protect. The elf threw it away to bend over the foot itself. A deep, scarlet-coloured wound stared at him from the strangely unhardened skin. One look was enough to understand that it was inflamed, and the inflammation had begun long before this day. It didn't skin over, didn't make a single attempt to. Eru alone knew what efforts it cost her not to limp.
The more Legolas scrutinized the cut, the less hope there left. Even if by some miracle he found water to cleanse it, it would be of little help, as the poison had probably contrived to soak into her veins. It was useless even to dream about procuring something to withstand its effect. Had he been at home now! Or had he been able to give up his blood in exchange of her envenomed one. He would have sacrificed it up to the last drop…
Water. He needed water.
The flask was empty, and if it were not, he wouldn't dare apply its contents to her wound.
Gwirith hadn't brought anything but food with her.
He couldn't come down in search of help. Not for a moment he allowed himself to think that the host was deceived by his disguise. The petty man was ready to overlook Legolas's origin for a fee of several coins while no one else guessed about his awareness, but would he be as ready to hide an elf if everyone in the hall saw him? Probably not…
Legolas jumped up, setting to pace from one corner of the room to the other. She would die, if he stayed here. He would die, if he revealed himself, and then she would be doomed all the same.
His feverish reflections were interrupted by a thin groan, followed by a strange sound, in which the horrified elf recognized gasping for breath. Gwirith was wriggling in the bed - her lips opened and closed, while her hand was desperately scratching her chest in attempt to let in the air. He rushed to her, grasping her shoulders not to allow her to hurt herself. Her cheeks were now burning-red. She tried to push him away, still fighting for breath, but he didn't obey. It was the vest, he supposed, that prevented her from inhaling, so he tore it off her, the hooks flying asunder all over the room.
"Hold on," whispered he pleadingly, "Hold on… Don't leave me…"
The girl gulped the air with a wheeze and became quiet. Her bosom was rising and falling much more easily, yet Legolas saw that the outbreak of life-battle tired her.
There was no more time to lose.
"I will be back," he stroke her hair, uneager to leave her even for an instance, "Just… Just breathe…"
And, having hooded his face again, Legolas stole out of the room.
Nobody detained him, while he was maneuvering between the tables in the direction of the host, who had obviously just begun a row with the plump evil-eyed woman at the bar. She favored the approaching elf with a harsh glance, which, to her disappointment, produced little of the expected impression.
From what he had seen in this place, Legolas made a conclusion that civility here was not made much of. So he just took the host by the sleeve and, paying no attention to a surprised gasp of the shrew, who seemed annoyed to be cut off in the middle of her fierce rambling, pushed him into the dark doorway near the bar.
They appeared in a cramped pantry, where reigned a rank odour, exhaled by two or three deer carcasses. The host, probably having appreciated the exceptional strength of the shove and not wanting to undergo another one, was keeping silence and didn't try to object, when Legolas shut the door behind them.
"My companion has fallen ill," plump started the elf, unbending himself so that he towered a head and a half above the wonder-stricken man, "I need water, light and something suitable for bandaging."
At first the host gave a start, yet soon his windy countenance concealed itself under the mask of impertinent obstinacy.
"I feel for you, milord. But there's nothing of the kind in my humble house," with that he attempted to pass by Legolas, but at the very moment let out a yelp of pain at being caught by a stone-strong hand and flattened against the wall.
"Such a pity," hissed the elf in a threatening whisper, "I wonder what you would do, when in need of it for yourself."
The knife, glittering from behind his belt, sobered up the host, whose eyes once sparkled with feeble malice and died out.
Legolas leaned against the jamb, watching the silent man rummage in the insides of the pantry. He could barely restrain his impatience, for with every minute of delay the boiling blood in the veins of the only one he ever cared for was slowly and inevitably cooling.
"That's all I've found," the host, who had turned into a hostage, was evading his eyes. The elf looked over the procured objects: there was a bottle of relatively clean water, an oil lamp and a rolled-up piece of fabric. He nodded, taking the man by his shoulder.
"Go out," said he calmly, "And bear in mind that the dead do not benefit from their state."
They crossed the hall together, and Legolas had to play a difficult ascent up the stairs, while his heart was beating in his throat at the necessity to waste precious time. Her precious time…
A sudden pang of indecision and fear made him linger in front of the door. What if he was late? What if she…
The image, flashed up in his head, was so bright, and the thought, aroused by it, stung so painfully that he almost stormed into the room, plunging into the stream of whispering that filled it.
She was alive, but relief didn't to hasten to come to Legolas, as he saw how much her state had impaired in his short absence. Her body was squirming, shaken with the heaviest fever he had ever witnessed. She was muttering something, words pouring out of her in uninterrupted torrent, grasping one at another and turning her speech into incomprehensible range of sounds.
"Light it up," ordered Legolas, pointing at the lamp in the trembling hands of his temporal prisoner.
The latter obeyed, having nearly dropped a luminous thing in a hurry, because his eyes were chained to the girl on the bed. The elf carefully tore a piece off the delivered fabric and watered it to cleanse the wound. All of a sudden the door opened again. Legolas had scarcely looked up, and his glance fell on the stout figure of the shrew, about whom he had almost forgot.
She swam into the room strangely soundlessly for the one of such corpulent appearance and drooped over Gwirith, staring at her with grave concentration. Something moved in her impassive face, as she turned away to leave the room as quietly as she had entered.
In several minutes the woman showed up at the threshold once more, her hand clutching a bowl of steaming water, which she handed to Legolas. Then out of the pocket on her worldly-wise apron she produced a thing, which forced the elf, who had thought himself to be prepare to everything, to give a start of surprise.
"Poor girl," uttered she hushfully, placing a dry and priceless leaf of Athelas into the bowl and leaning to touch the forehead of the fevered one, "So much like my baby…"
With that she took herself off together with the host, seemed crushed by her words.
The sweet fragrance of Athelas was made to soothe – no doubt it was not enough to beget at least a small ray of hope, but for the one, who not so long ago hadn't reckoned at anything it was the greatest treasure ever imagined.
Under the touch of the potion-sodden material the aggressive colour of the wound became a little milder. Legolas carefully bandaged the injured feet, peeped at the girl's face to check if his actions brought her any relief, and involuntary started back…
She was staring at him with glassy unseeing eyes, her pupils so tiny that it looked like she had none at all.
"Legolas," her voice was distinct and calm as compared to the crisp rattle of the previous hours, "Where are you?"
"I'm with you," he reached out, running his fingers against her cheek, but she didn't move a muscle, as if his touch was weightless
"It's cold," complained she as blankly, "I'm freezing."
As she was lying over the only cover, he began to pull off his cloak, when she suddenly continued, her gaze still penetrating through him to fix on the nowhere:
"I hate marshes," then she paused, as if listening to somebody, and shook her head, "No, I cannot sleep. They are … they are looking at me."
There was so much dread in her phrase that it made him shudder. With a striking clarity he realized that he had tried to answer her in vain, for it wasn't him she was speaking to. All the shreds of his impressions, received in here, composed into the whole tale, and he got angry and disappointed at himself for not having seen it before. So easily he had accepted the existence of another Middle-Earth, another War, another Gwirith… Only one thing passed by his attention unnoticed, or rather disregarded. Another Legolas, whose ghost he suddenly felt standing behind his shoulders, there, where her glance had focused.
Deep they delved us… Whose lips did she remember to pronounce it?
All of a sudden Gwirith exerted herself like a tight bow-string, fear written on her face.
"Someone's coming," whispered she, "Legolas?"
Undetained, she jumped off the bed, stretching her hands in front of her, as if trying to hold somebody beside her… Her attempt seemed a failure, because she was continuing to step forward, no gestures this time, only a pleading glance of two transparent windows under her brows.
"Legolas, don't do it…Don't go there," tears swelled in her eyes and coursed down her cheeks, her chin was trembling, while she was as desperately reaching out for someone.
"Don't do it," repeated she shakily, with so much pain that his heart stood still, "I beg you… Don't… Legolas!"
A loud shrill shriek seemed to turn the girl inside out, yet she reiterated it, like she was being murdered. Her legs sank under her, and she fell on the floor, rocking herself back and forth in a mad fit of grief, till her forehead was against the soiled desks. There she lay folded and motionless, the soul-tearing sobs being the only signs of her remaining alive.
As if having woken up, the elf left the bed, kneeling down her. His uncertain fingers brushed against her back - she jerked up her head to let her eyes sink into his, and in the next moment he appeared in the circle of her arms, thrown around him. Her face was wet, but despair left it, giving place to mistrustful elation.
"You didn't go, did you?" she was feeling all over his chest, his shoulders, his neck and uttering short outcries, "Eru be blessed, you didn't…"
And before Legolas found any words of respond, Gwirith impulsively drew in to press her lips against his with brusque tear-filled passion, and then again, and again. For a short instance he managed to comprehend the depth of her delusion, but all his hesitations were washed away in a flood of bittersweet fervour, as he returned the kisses, the saltish flavour of her sorrow lingering upon his mouth. The girl bent back, cupping his face with her palms.
"Promise that you'll never leave me," demanded she suppliantly, "Can't you see, I'm not able to go through it anymore? How could you do this to me?"
"I won't leave you," his shaky arms clutched around her, as he leaned his head against her shoulder to hide his untruthful eyes.
He felt her smile, but then her body went limp, depriving him of its support and slowly sinking on the floor again.
It was a dark room, and even darker thoughts plagued the mind of the wakeful occupant of it, who was sitting at the foot of the narrow bed, never ceasing his vigil even to wink. A poor-looking oil lamp was emitting smoke with the faint and bitter savour of cinders, and casting goldish spots of light over the face of the immobile person in front of him.
She was pale and quiet. Several times Legolas took fright at her not moving and reached out for her, uttering a sigh of relief, when her skin appeared to be warm under his touch.
He had hoped to conquer her heart again. Again – this word sounded so unmeaning and so conceited. The heart he had longed for had stopped too many years ago. As well as the one of the girl he chose as his guide, because from what he had observed it was impossible to believe that any heart was able to overcome such pain. Happy he was whose shadow aroused so much love and grief in her… He probably deserved that. He probably loved her, and this feeling was requited. Even as dead he continued to be an object of her affection.
And he himself was nothing more but a mere resemblance of his twin. He would never obtain his Gwirith, because she had already belonged to him. What a sneer of fate… He would laugh if he didn't want to cry so badly…
Had the Legolas of hers known how it hurt her to lose him, before he stepped over the edge of life? Had he known how it hurt his living replica to see her mourn this loss so inconsolably? Had he felt the same giddiness as her lips granted him with the treasure of her ardent kiss?
The lamp gave a small hiss and went out, immersing the room into the dangerous darkness. The elf started. For some reason the sudden death of the drop of light seemed to him a dismal omen. The biting draught crept along the floor, slamming a loose shutter. A strange thing – he was almost sure that Gwirith had locked the window.
She stirred uneasily, and his cloak, which had been serving her as a cover for all this time, slipped a bit. Legolas leaned to restore it to its proper place, but was stopped still by her voice, sounding so ghostly, as if she was speaking from afar.
"Let me go."
At first he though that she was still delirious, and didn't answer, knowing the futility of such conduct. But she went on with no signs of being unconscious:
"I'm dying, Legolas. I want to die. Please, let me go…"
There was something in her calm, abrupt phrases that made him give way to despair, he had been suppressing for so long, absorbed in his cares about her. No troubles of his cost anything if she gave up.
"You don't understand what you are asking about," a dull attempt, almost an obvious prompt. Her chuckle sounded softly and indulgently, as she moved her hand an inch forward to squeeze his fingers. And her answer was breathing with the gravest sincerity:
"I do. Don't hamper me – it hurts to stay any longer."
Legolas bit his lip at her statement. She had studied him too well. The last thing he wanted was to cause her to suffer, and he would have surrendered, if he had failed to realize that it was hardly more than a war-game with his feelings. It unsettled and hardened him. Hardened – because once more she had tried to toy with him, while he almost let himself be led on this leash. Unsettled – because for a moment it seemed to him that her reasoning, on which she based the assumption of her having a right to do so, was different from what he had supposed it to be the first time.
"You a liar," said he coldly, "You promised to lead me out of here, and now want to escape…You are a contemptible coward."
"I am," but the elf saw that her lips began to tremble with offence and weakness. Valars, he despised himself for having abused her, but was intended to go on this very way…
"You owe me," reminded he with as much of a chill as he was able to elicit from his nearly distracted person, "You must keep your word."
A tear slipped down her temple, leaving a thin wet pass for whatever drops of moisture were going to follow it.
"Please," begged Gwirith thinly, "please, let me go. They are calling for me. They are waiting."
"They will have to wait," Legolas was inexorable, "I don't want to appear in the mercy of fate."
A sob broke loose from her lips, and she stopped restraining herself, getting lost in silent weeping. In a complete agony of desire to console her he felt as if he was holding her heart in his hands, slowly and deliberately piercing it with needles, while she was squirming of physical pain before his very eyes. But he continued to do it, inwardly praying for her not to come out of a strange error that she was indebted to him.
"I entreat you," now she was whispering, her gaze not for a moment withdrawn from the door behind him, "I beg you. You don't have to say you let me. Just turn away. For a breath, for a heartbeat… Please… Why are you so merciless?"
"Because I care about you," confessed he simply, watching her gasp in powerless astonishment, "Hate me if you want, but don't leave me."
Her eyes closed in defeat, while she let out a thrilling sigh and relaxed, sinking into immobile meditation. Uneager to believe the retreat she performed after such persistent blandishments, the elf kept waiting for another supplication to decline, but minutes were going by as nothing except her unsteady sniffs reached his strained ears. Fear and doubts woke up in him. What if he had been too hard? What if Gwirith justly concluded that she didn't need any permission of his to pass away?
Having hesitated, he carefully slipped into the bed near the girl and put his arm around her, his cheek prickled with the spikes of her wetted hair. She gave a slight start, but in the next moment turned to him, daring a quick look, filled with reproach, into his eyes. Yet somehow it brought her greater misery than it could have brought him, so she averted her glance and guardedly buried her face in his chest, allowing him to draw her nearer.
And so they lay, crushed and tired, clutched in each other's arms, but hardly paying attention to their closeness. Half-laid-back, Legolas was whispering something into her ear, something of comfort and consolation… A lot of words, a lot of caressing names, so significant in any other case, and so helpless now, they were but a mere husk of what was pounding inside his mind. Too "not his" to come closer… Too unshielded to leave…Too precious to lose again. It was hopeless to try and express it all, so he left all the attempts in favour of solicitously rocking her to sleep, taking delight in her quieting down in his embrace till the fatigue prevailed over him and he let himself be lulled by the reassuringly even sound of her breath.
The first rays of the nascent sun, which was falling through the window, found him in a deep troubled slumber, knitting his brows and wincing at the gloomy images that invaded his dreams.
A/N: If there are mistakes – I sincerely apologize. I haven't been sleeping for two nights already because of the last exam. I hope you all liked the chapter. The next chapter will be soon, but it doesn't mean that I don't crave for getting reviews from you. Love you all.
Yours, Adamanta.