Hey, I came out of hiding. Please read and review. If anyone has any ideas for the events in this story, please tell me in a review or email. Thanks!
Thanks to Fk306 animelover, Eowidith(my first reviewer!), Mystical Full Moon Maiden(Really? Elizabette sounds like you? Interesting.) for reviewing.
-
Chapter 2: Cruelty
-
The sharp clanging of the morning bell jerked Elizabette awake as usual. She dressed hurriedly and went to the dining hall. As she finished her tasteless and meager breakfast, Matron came to stand behind her.
"You will complete your punishment today until two o'clock this afternoon," Matron hissed menacingly. "Then, at three, you will be in your room, studying. Am I understood?" She glared.
Elizabette nodded. "Yes, madam." She knew Matron wouldn't physically threaten her in public, but when there was no one else around, she was dangerous.
---
Legolas sat safely in the cover of the trees, watching Elizabette and the gardeners carry heavy stones and place them in gouges cut into the earth. It seemed to be pointless labor to him. Elves walked on grass, could not these humans do the same?
Matron's head gardener forced Elizabette to do the most menial tasks: carrying the heaviest stones, digging the trenches to lay them in; or splitting them into flat pieces with a hammer and rock chisel.
Legolas hissed under his breath. The sag of Elizabette's shoulders told him clearly that she was weary, and the careful way she carried her hands suggested that they were rubbed raw from the rough stones and heavy work. Her jeans were muddy and covered in rock dust, and her curly hair was knotted and tangled.
The gardeners would not allow Elizabette to pause even for a break. Legolas gasped as the head gardener slapped her across the face when she sank to her knees in exhaustion. He could only watch as Elizabette was forced to stumble to the rock pile again.
---
As soon as the gardeners saw fit to release her, Elizabette hurried up to her bedroom to change her clothes. The orphans were made to live with as few belongings as possible, as most of them had no money. Elizabette had only the one pair of jeans that fit her, and they were too dirty. She was forced to wear a pair that was too small and made her thin frame look even more skeletal when she wore them.
Elizabette took the requested trilogy carefully in her aching hands and hurried down to the forest. Legolas waited for her in the shadows of the trees.
"I'm really sorry I'm so late-" she began, but Legolas cut her off.
"It matters not, Lady Elizabette. I have been watching you."
"Please, call me Elizabette," she requested, sitting down by the old oak. She leaned back against the rough bark. The overcast sky shaded the dim forest below, making the faint rustle of leaves sound ominous, predicting a storm.
She held the books out to Legolas. As he took them, his finger brushed her palm and she flinched. Her hands were cut and bruised and rubbed raw. She had washed them, but, having nothing to bind them with, she had left them open.
Legolas saw her blanch and glanced at her hands. Hastily setting the books aside, he opened his leather pack, exposing a small bag of herbs. He gingerly selected a plant with dry, sage-green leaves, and crushed them so that a pleasant scent filled the air. He flattened the leaves out, and set them gently on Elizabette's palm. She winced at the light touch but remained still. Legolas bound each hand in a short length of soft white fabric and tied the ends securely.
"This is a plant that grows only in Mirkwood, my homeland," he told her softly. "We call it olva envinya, or 'plant that heals'. It remedies wounds more quickly than most other plants used by men. It is similar in nature to athelas, but unlike athelas it heals only wounds caused by ordinary weapons. Its powers over evil or poisoned wounds are rather more limited."
"Thank you," said Elizabette gratefully, examining the cloth. "But I think that Matron will take it away if she catches me like this."
Legolas frowned. "Why would the gardeners not let you stop to rest this morning?"
Elizabette was embarrassed. "Oh... That was punishment for skipping dinner last night."
Legolas' sharp eyes widened in disbelief. "You are forced to work without rest, for the simple reason that you didn't attend a meal?"
Elizabette dropped her head. "Matron hates me."
"Why?"
"Because of my trunk." The words leapt unbidden to her lips, though, as she considered them, she saw that they could be true.
"Your trunk?"
"My uncle sent it to me before he died." She paused, unwilling to linger on that subject. "Legolas, I'm sorry I didn't believe you yesterday."
Legolas understood that she was deliberately changing the subject and respected that. "It is forgivable," he responded. "I did not expect instant belief."
He picked up one of the books and leafed through it. After a few moments, he looked up.
"I remember this," he told Elizabette, dropping his eyes to the page once more. "Mithrandir's return..." he continued. "I recognized him first..."
"Is he still in Middle- Earth?" Elizabette asked him.
"Yes. He travels around here and there, on his great horse Shadowfax. He visits Mirkwood when it suits him."
He turned back to the book. Elizabette heard him mutter,
"Ni áva hanya manens ná anwa." (I cannot understand how it is possible.)
She knew not what the words meant but recognized them as the Quenya language, the more formal tongue spoken by the elves of Middle- Earth. She did not interrupt Legolas to ask him what he had said.
After a time, the elf looked up and commented, "You informed me yesterday that your name is Elizabette. What is its meaning?"
"Meaning? I don't know. It's just a name."
"Do names not have meanings in this world?"
"No... They are just names..."
Legolas shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the books. The clanging of the afternoon bell startled them both.
"If Matron finds that I'm not in my bedroom she'll whip me," Elizabette told the elf. "I must go. I'll leave the books with you."
"Farewell," Legolas called after her. He noted that she was careful to keep her hands in front of her where they were less likely to be snagged by branches. They must pain her greatly, he thought compassionately. She did not run as she had before; she was weary. Yet the hour in the quiet forest, sitting, listing to the wind and the trees and the bird calls, had lifted her spirits and again her thoughts were quick and clear. She jumped nimbly over a log, her curly golden brown hair bouncing on her shoulders.
---
Legolas sat again, his eyebrows creased into a frown. He did not understand the reason for Elizabette's toil that morning. Surely the gardeners could have gotten just as much work completed without her. Then, as his quick mind hit upon the answer, anger rushed through him. These people were making Elizabette work for their own entertainment, not to further the tasks. They enjoyed watching someone less fortunate then they labor without rest. He recalled what Elizabette had said- 'If Matron finds that I'm not in my bedroom she will whip me.' This woman, Matron, would whip Elizabette just for not being in her room? Why did these people hold so much power?
---
Elizabette hurried to her room but found when she arrived, to her dismay, that Amanda and Valerie were already there. They pretended not to notice her as usual, but they glanced at each other and the glance held some malice, something that warned Elizabette of trouble.
Indeed, when Matron appeared to confirm that she was there, studying, as ordered, Valerie rose respectfully and divulged,
"Madam, Miss Allan arrived here ten minutes after the bell rang." She smiled sweetly and sat again. Elizabette tensed. She knew what was coming.
"Miss Allan, what did I tell you?"
"To be here at three this afternoon," Elizabette muttered.
"Speak up, girl," Matron snapped, slapping her.
"To be here at three this afternoon," repeated Elizabette, louder.
"Yes, girl, and you were not. Come with me." She seized Elizabette's upper arm in an iron grip, and, with a savage wrench, dragged her along the hallways. Elizabette tried in vain to get away. She knew what would happen next: Matron would take her to an empty room and whip her with the riding whip that she always carried at her belt. Worse if she was unfortunate.
She was indeed quite right. Matron jerked her inside an unoccupied room and shoved her into a chair. She then glared menacingly at her prisoner.
Elizabette tried to push her bandaged hands into her pockets but Matron caught the movement and grabbed her hands.
"Where did you get this?" she demanded, ripping off the cloth with merciless roughness.
"I... I found the leaves in the woods," lied Elizabette messily.
Matron slapped her hands, causing her to wince with pain. "Now," she growled with a savage gleam in her eye, "Now you will pay for your disobedience." Without any warning, she sharply curled the whip around Elizabette's palm. Only Elizabette's proud spirit kept her from uttering a cry of distress. She gritted her teeth as Matron brought the whip down again.
---
By the time that Matron was finished, blood dripped from Elizabette's hands, staining the sleeves of her sweater. Matron suddenly pushed her from behind, forcing her to put out a hand to keep from falling. Elizabette could not restrain a whimper as her injured hands hit the gritty floor.
Matron laughed cruelly. "I shall break you yet, my dear." She left with a swish of her black skirts.
Elizabette allowed a soft hiss of pain to escape her as she pulled her palm from the floor. There was sand in the wounds and both hands bled profusely. She looked around for the leaves and the bandages that Legolas had given her. They seemed to be unharmed. She picked them up carefully, trying not to get blood on them, and hurried to the bathroom. She latched the door securely and carefully rinsed away the blood. The scratches from the morning's work seemed minimal compared to the horizontal cuts gouged into her hand from the whip.
The cuts were still oozing blood but Elizabette couldn't stem the flow. She pressed the leaves against the deepest slashes and bound them tightly in the soft white cloth.
When she returned to her room, Amanda and Valerie had departed for dinner. Elizabette grieved little for their absence. The pain in her hands did not subside and she had difficulty concentrating. Finally she succumbed to her weariness and slipped into sleep.
-
Sorry, really short chapter. I'll try to make the next one longer. Please review!
-
August 18, 2005: Rewritten. This chapter was originally better written than the first. Again, if you read it before revisions, I'd love it if you'd tell me whether or not the changes make any difference.