A/N: Everything that rings a bell belongs to Tolkien.
Thank you to all reviewers for sticking with me while I write the story's next chapters. This chapter is short, but the next one should hopefully be up very soon.
Chapter 7: Interlude
Breakfast was a peaceful affair, and Legolas was very pleased to see that Mel quickly fell into conversation with Mirkwood's main scholar, Orundel. The dark elf sat opposite Legolas, flanked by Arwen to one side and Orundel to the other. Aragorn sat beside Legolas, opposite his wife, while Thranduil took up the other end of the table. At first, the Mirkwood prince thought this seating was slightly odd, but his mild confusion only lasted until the other four began questioning them of where the orcs were, as Sarn's troops had reported of a week-old trace in the forest after a large group of orcs – and Thranduil would not tolerate the foul beings existence.
Legolas quickly found his memory to be faulty, and he could only provide minor information of their approximated whereabouts after he had been brought out of the orc camp – everything else he knew such as the place where the orcs had placed the ambush had already been recounted when the survivors of his party had made it back to the Palace. And so, instead of him, everyone's attention was turned to Mel, as he was the only one who had any idea of where the orc camp had been, and how many orcs that remained within it.
To aid his limited vocabulary, Orundel quickly fetched a fairly large map over the Mirkwood and rolled it out over the table in front of the dark elf. Using Legolas' knowledge of the terrain, they quickly calculated the approximated area in which Sarn and his party had found them, and Legolas could see how Mel thought as he watched the map. Leaning forward, the dark elf placed a single finger on the map, tapping a small glade near the border of the forest.
"Yrch camp here," he said, then moved his finger slightly deeper into the wood. "Here Mel capture. When take Leglas out, go here."
The eyes of all were as if clued to the map as Mel, in details – even taking into consideration his limited grasp of the common tongue - told of the way he had carried Legolas' unconscious body – which, to Legolas' surprise, was not as far from the orc camp as he had first suspected. However, it did not fail the elf's attention that his friend did not, with a single word, tell of how exactly he had managed to get Legolas out of the camp in the first place, and, now back in the safety of the Mirkwood castle, he realised that he had never found out. Even though he had seen Mel's ability to create fire with force of his mind alone, he had noticed how fast the dark elf had tired when they had been attacked by orcs the second time.
It had not escaped the attention of Orundel, apparently, and the scholar looked at Mel, asking the question that they each thought: "But how did you manage to fight your way out of the camp?"
Mel frowned lightly, and Legolas was willing to swear he could literally see the thoughts churn within the head of the darker elf. Finally, he held up a hand, and the rest of the table could see how tiny flames danced around his fingertips.
"Yrch burn easy," Mel explained, although it was clear to all that he severely lacked the words he needed to describe what he had done. "They panic, run fast. Those with fire burn other, spread fire. Throw fire, and kill many yrch – got Leglas down, left yrch dead. Not know many count."
"Well, I'll have a patrol comb that area through and be on the lookout for other ambushes," Thranduil said with a nod, studying the map. "It doesn't bode well if they still are able to launch a surprise attack, even this long after Sauron's defeat. In fact, I believe it would be wiser to launch most of our soldiers, and drive the foul creatures from Mirkwood once and for all."
"Just make sure you don't plan the assault to be before I can come along," Legolas said with a light grimace. "I have a personal score to settle with them…"