Alright, sorry this took so long. This week has been rather... odd. Add in that I couldn't get quick-edit to work for quite a while... Or maybe it was just my internet connection. Either way, I've needed much more than the time I've had to fight with the computer (whatever evils possessed it) and get this up. That said, I'll try and get the next Trial by Fire chapter up within the next few days.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed!
Autumn-Crystal: Ashes is the main mystery in the story, so I won't answer much about her. Despite the name Terine is male. The only female captain is Jarthey. She's the trainershe trains every elf who goes through the halls, except those rare ones who already know all she can tell them. If you were meaning to ask about her, well: she's been in the service nearly all of Legolas's life, and is the only female to ever become a captain. Females in the service are rare, so that is enough to set her apart (up until Ashes, anyway.). She has trained Legolas beyond weapons. Jarthey is a big studier of body language. She trained Legolas to notice little things, to watch his own body language more carefully. You should be able to really see that in this chapter. And I love getting questionsshows me how well I have or haven't done in getting across what I thought I did.
SilverRaiine: Nope, no slash. I don't think I could write slash. Nothing against slash, some is very nicely written, I just don't think I could write it. I did reread it and I can see where you got that impression, though. ;-)
LJP: Well, it would really depend. And Legolas will no doubt understand eventually...
Animir: Hope this one goes better!
Chapter 2 The Dwarf
"All right, you lot!"
The elves straightened, drawing tenser as the captain walked in. Several blinked and a few snickered.
"Silence!"
The bellow overpowered the snickers. More were looking vaguely nervous than derisive as the echoes of the commanding voice died down.
"Now. I have trained every soldier to serve the King in the last nineteen hundred years." There was a long pause as this information sunk in.
Several were shaking their heads slightly, trying to keep it from sounding like truth. It couldn't be. It just… couldn't. The elf they had heard of, the famous trainer, The Dwarf… couldn't be the petite female before them.
"Most of you probably heard of me as 'the dwarf'," she continued, hardly oblivious to the thoughts running through their heads. "When you speak to me, you will call me Captain, unless you should manage to survive long enough to become a Captain yourself—highly unlikely, as you are the sloppiest lot I've seen in centuries."
She paced slowly over to the practice targets, and turned sharply to study them with a hint of steel in her eyes—enough to reinforce what all the recruits knew to expect from The Dwarf. Uncertain, confused, their defenses were for the most part unstable if at all in tact.
"Now. If any of you have decided, in the last hours, that you can't hack being in the King's service, the door is behind you." She waited for a long moment, and then nodded when no one left. "In that case, I want to see how poor you all are at archery. Break up four to a target. Switch to a different target or get a fresh score of arrows if you have a set similar to anyone else at your target."
The elves slowly began the usual scramble for place and arrows when they realized they all had similar arrows—as they were mostly homemade.
"You sent for me?" a voice came from the door, gathering quite a bit of attention.
"Yes. Your style has some hints of Mirkwood to it."
"It should, Dwarf," the other murmured, walking in languidly, with the easy, unassuming grace of one who spends a lot of time moving untiringly across long distances. "I watched you training others for many years."
Jarthey tossed her long braid over her shoulder and studied the younger elf for a long moment. "I wanted to test you before allowing you to join the prince's patrol."
The elf smiled faintly, ironically, but inclined her head, pushing her black hood back. "Choice?"
"Your lead," she answered.
"Now?"
"Of course."
With a faint nod the dark-haired elf drew a long, curved blade. "Swords, then."
"As you wish." Jarthey chose a familiar blade from those along the wall. She glanced at the recruits, and lifted a brow, but swung her blade out quickly.
It was countered long before she would have worried, were the blade not turned so it would merely bruise, rather than cut. The swiftness made her lift a brow, and relax the tenseness she usually had when confronting an unknown opponent that she didn't intend to kill.
The other elf nodded at the change, a slight narrowing at the corner of her dark eyes indicating a smile though nothing else did.
Jarthey had been intending to analyze her style, having recognized bits and pieces of it, thanks to Thranduil's spy on the fighting styles of the other lands, but soon found herself at a grand disadvantage as she always did when faced with someone with a style far different than those she was somewhat used to. She inclined her head shortly, and the other female stepped back. When she felt she had regained her balance, she spoke one of the observations she had made. "You are not formally taught."
"Not formally, no."
"Name?"
"Ashes."
Jarthey lifted a brow. "Truly."
A raven brow lifted. "It is what I have been called for more time than not."
"Ashes, then," she agreed at last, when it was clear there was nothing she could say that would garner her a different response. "You are more than proficient."
"I would hope so," she snorted. "Otherwise I wouldn't be here." She sheathed the sword and resettled her cloak. "Have I passed, Dwarf?"
"That's Captain, deary."
A faint smile touched Ashes's lips as she inclined her head. "Captain?" she murmured, pausing on her way from the large cavern.
"Hmm?"
"Have things changed so drastically in the last years?"
"What things?"
"You knew how to counter the techniques most commonly used in Imladris and Lothlorien. When I left, the Wood was not all that friendly to other realms."
"It still isn't."
The dark eyes shuttered a bit, and she reached up, snapping her hood over her head as she turned to leave.
"Ashes, was it?" he asked, pausing her obvious retreat. "You did not finish your inquiry."
"Does it matter?" she turned, and Jarthey saw something rarely seen—the Crowned Prince of Mirkwood faltered under someone's gaze… other than his father's. Of course, even Thranduil hadn't managed it often in centuries, and never without extreme effort.
He recovered enough to frown within instants, and only one accustomed to watching body language would have noticed the moment at all. "It was an interesting question."
She snorted. "Interesting or not, I intend to leave it be, for the moment." She turned away from him, inclining her head to Jarthey. "Captain." She couldn't very well leave things as they were, so she turned to Legolas. "Prince." A slight incline of her head, and she left with a soft snap of her cloak as it flared out behind her.
"Is it just me, Jar, or does she not like me?"
Jarthey shrugged. "Spoken with your patrol?"
"As if I needed to. They all knew before I could find them, of course. They have just about shown too much interest in her."
"Too much, Legolas?"
"She's a soldier, Jar. They can't forget that."
Jarthey laughed, putting the sword away. "She won't let them, Legolas. Don't worry about history repeating itself."
He looked at her for a long moment, but pulled back his words and inclined his head to her instead, turning his attention to the new recruits. "Want help?"
"Of course," she smiled, tossing him the bow in her left hand as she checked the string of the one in her right.
Legolas strung his practice bow quickly, grabbing a score of arrows. He caught a glimpse of a familiar cloak out of the corner of his eyes and whistled a short note. "Come help."
Elleri sighed, but left the shadows, picking up a bow. "You couldn't give me a morning off?"
"Hardly. Should you ever make it through your training, you won't have a morning off."
Elleri rolled his eyes. "Then maybe I'll just give up on being a captain," he grumbled.
Legolas hid his smile by turning to the elves once more. Swiftly he and Jarthey separated them into groups based on competency. Still, it was with a decided air of impatience that he met his patrol for their turn at the weekly spider-search along the edges of where all non-hunting elves traveled. Sometimes they would press a bit farther, but that was far from likely tonight.
His group took one look at him, and he saw a few winces. "Are they that bad?" one called.
He snorted and whistled for his horse to join the others, checking them quickly. He sighed. "I take it our new member hasn't seen fit to join us yet?"
"Hold your accusations, Prince," a tart voice called from the forest. A black horse melted out of the dark wood, his equally darkly cloaked rider sitting with familiar ease.
He studied her for a moment, and mounted. "Good. Ashes, group, group, Ashes." He looked at her. "You can get to know them better over meals. We have no time now."
"The weekly spider-search?" she asked.
A sharp glance made her lift a dark brow in the dying light.
"I've been away, not dead."
He heard a snort of muffled laughter and glared behind himself to silence it. "Yes," he agreed shortly.
Thanks to the quieter mood of the patrol, the round was completed well before dawn—which was rather unusual, and got a surprised glance from the elves preparing the great hall for breakfast. Still, they soon had a meal in front of them in the side room given over to their group meals. Once done eating, Legolas leaned back, closing his eyes, trying to release the tension he always gathered in terrible quantities at the time of the trials. Thank the Valar they were only held every ninth spring.
"So… Ashes?"
"Yes?" she replied quietly.
Legolas cracked an eye open as his usually boisterous group remained practically silent and looked quite uncomfortable. Still, there were enough of them that they soon gathered their wits to continue their questioning.
"Why'd you decide to join the Service?"
She tilted her head, the light catching on her face beneath the hood before she finally pushed it back, allowing the rest of the group to study her previously practically unseen features. "I've been on my own for centuries in places darker than the Wood. I expected I would find it rather dull to try and settle down any more quickly than I did."
"You enjoy the dark?" Ferien asked in shock.
She smiled faintly—the barest quirk of the left side of her mouth. "The dark is merely what we make of it."
"Is that a yes?"
She laughed softly, but shook her head. "No elf could enjoy the dark and yet be an elf. I enjoy being… challenged, I suppose you could say, and testing my own strengths."
"Your father is fine with this?" Legolas asked, unable to remain silent any longer.
"I told your brother I had permission," she answered crossly, her eyes chilling as they met his.
"You didn't answer my question."
"My father, Prince, has been dead many long centuries. But your father is, indeed, quite fine with this."
He narrowed his eyes as she got to her feet. "Going somewhere?"
"I have traveled among humans, yes, but I do not share their disinclination towards bathing. Perhaps the daily routine has changed—when I left the patrol with spider-duty was given the following day off for rest."
After a long moment he shook his head. "It hasn't changed."
"Good."
He paused her when she was almost out the door. "Where are you sleeping?"
"In my room, Prince. Where else?"
"Which is where?"
"I don't want visitors," she snapped.
"I wasn't inviting myself," he snarled back. He took a moment to control his tone and consciously relax the muscles of his shoulders. "But as your Captain, I need to know where you are. Unless you want to actually stick out a meal with us once in a while to know the next day's plans?" He wondered how she got under his skin so easily. He hadn't sneered at anyone in years. It was a little-used training tactic he hadn't needed to control the elves under his command—his title was usually more than enough to see to it that they obeyed him. Throw in his greater experience in the Service, and he'd never had a real problem.
He hadn't been trained by Jarthey—beyond her normal training—for nothing. Her eyes narrowed in the reflection he could see in a corner of the over-shined picture frame, despite her having turned to leave once more. Then a thoughtful determination settled over her features before being wiped clean. "Dinner is in here, or the great hall?"
"It's um… the great hall, tonight," Ferien murmured hesitantly when it was clear his Captain wasn't going to respond.
She nodded once and swept out.
He snorted at the way her cloak flared so dramatically. With a shake of his head he reached for his goblet, sipping the juice as the soldiers around him began talking about Ashes. At a particularly graphic comment, he leaned back and lifted a brow. Slowly they all fell silent. He nodded once—they, at least, knew he was their Captain, and that the title commanded respect. "She is one of the King's soldiers, now. If you do not act accordingly, you will be reassigned."
"But… She…"
"Will be given the respect and courtesy due any other new recruit."
A few wry smiles appeared at that, each remembering their own first days. She had already done the unprecedented—snapped at the Captain. He would have to talk to her about that if it continued.
For now, though…
He made his way through the halls, and had just about knocked for entrance to his father's study when the door opened, a black cloaked figure sliding out. Dark grey eyes looked up at him, a sable brow lifting for an instant. Then her face cleared of any emotion and she inclined her head slightly before sweeping past.
He blinked after her and belatedly completed his knock.
"Well, come on in, Legolas."
He tilted his head after her. "What was she after, Da?"
"That is between me and her, isn't it?"
Legolas folded himself in his typical chair, and found himself a bit uncomfortable at the warmth it already had. "You aren't usually so evasive," he complained after a moment.
Thranduil's sapphire eyes had noted many things. "And you aren't usually so put out by a new soldier."
"I am always put out by such an irately disrespectful attitude."
Thranduil lifted a brow. "I find that difficult to believe," he murmured, though there was an edge of amusement there that caught Legolas's ear, making him frown.
"No you don't. Why?"
Thranduil chuckled. "She has been independent and self-sufficient for centuries, son. It will take her time to accept being ruled—and you shall have to earn her respect… which is not really a bad thing. To always be given unconditional respect can give one an over estimation of himself."
"Speaking of me, or yourself?" Legolas responded dryly.
Thranduil chuckled and sat back in his chair, studying his son. "How does she handle herself on the field?"
"Jarthey conceded… but only because she is a bit set in her ways, and doesn't think on her feet as well as she could. She has, after all, been doing nothing but training for a very long time."
"Yes."
Legolas gazed into the fireplace. "She has aspects of swordplay from Imladris, and akin to those travelers and messengers from Lothlorien that I have met. There are other styles she uses as well, with which I am unfamiliar."
"Then she is a good addition to your patrol."
"Perhaps…" Legolas frowned.
"What is it?"
He shook himself slightly and looked up at his father. "You know her?"
"I did once," Thranduil answered slowly.
After a moment, Legolas sighed. "Do you trust her?"
"I no longer know her, my son."