Disclaimer: Hey my homie g's, what's crackin? Dese ain't my peeps, ya'll hear whut I'm sayin? (Lol, gangsta mode… sigh, I need to get off the pixie stix… lol…)
AN: Hey guys, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I'd like to apologize for taking so long with this, but it's up and I think it's ok, so that's pretty much it!
IMPORTANT! First of all, I am not abandoning either of my stories, and yes, the next chappy of MoM is due next. Second, and MORE IMPORTANTLY: Due to family issues, my updates may become more infrequent. (than normal, lol) I've gotten into my rhythm, and I hate to break that, but pressing matters are crowding into my writing time. I just wanted to warn you, although things may clear up soon, and I'll still be posting regularly. Thanks!
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Legolas turned in his chair, long legs folding neatly into place. His hair fell across his face, shielding his features. His bandaged hands clenched and unclenched slowly, almost thoughtfully. He remained like that for some time, seemingly oblivious to the figure watching him.
Thranduil sighed, even through the sheet of golden hair, he could tell his son was sleeping. He ached to give Legolas a fierce hug, and tell the youngling how proud he was of him.
He restrained only because he knew his son desperately needed some rest. Legolas had faithfully stayed awake long past midnight, perhaps sometime around four in the morning. He would probably be furious with himself for falling asleep.
Thranduil had a feeling that trait would follow Legolas throughout his entire life. The feeling of guilt seemed to come all to easily to little Thranduilion.
Legolas turned, burrowing even deeper into his chair, (how did he fit into it?) and let his hands go limp. The bright sun was beginning to shine into the room, and of course, it chose to angle directly into the elf's face. It shone onto his hair, seeking a way through the fine sheet to peek into Legolas's piercing blue eyes.
After several minutes, it succeeded, and Legolas sat up with a start. "Ai, Valar!"
He twisted in his chair and fell onto the floor with a thud: his legs had been asleep. Cursing, (half to Thranduil's amusement, half in horror, where had he heard that?), he massaged his calf; trying to get some feeling back into the deadened limb.
The prince glanced up, still muttering. He stopped in mid-curse, a look of dismay crossing his face. "Um… hi, Ada."
Thranduil continued to stare at his son in amazement. Legolas tried to bound to his feet and properly address his ada, no doubt in an attempt to placate the temperamental king. He failed miserably, his legs still had no feeling in them, and he collapsed back to the floor, landing rather hard on his rear.
The king continued to stare. Only now, his silence was a hard-fought battle to keep from laughing out loud and ruining what little chance he had of punishing Legolas properly. His son clambered shakily back into his chair, and reached for a glass of water that had been placed on the night-table.
He took a great gulp, eyes never leaving his ada. The next thing he knew, he was sputtering and choking, the whites of his eyes beginning to turn red. "Narvosalv…" he managed to choke.
Thranduil instantly understood. Narvosalv was extremely potent alcohol usually only consumed by the hardiest of dwarves. Needless to say, it was not the most appropriate thing to drink if you were a young elf used to fine wine only.
Legolas continued to cough and sputter, and the sight he made was incredibly funny. His fair face turned red to match his eyes, a rasping sound issued from his throat, and his hair hung in his face, blinding him.
Thranduil knew his son would be all right, after all, a little narvosalv never killed anyone. As a matter of fact, Legolas's coughing slowed, and nearly stopped. "Sorry…"
His voice squeaked, sounding rather like a mouse that had consumed too much wine, and he collapsed into another coughing fit. Thranduil retained his stolid features for an instant, before he began to laugh too.
"Not--funny!" Legolas squeaked out, though, upon hearing his own voice, he began to laugh as well. In a tiny part of his brain, he was extremely glad that no one else was in the room, he would most likely be teased mercilessly if word of his high voice got out.
He was also laughing because he was so relieved that his ada was laughing and not scolding him for using such language. He did not even care that Thranduil was laughing at him.
Ada and son shared a long laugh together, the first in days. Legolas's voice kept squeaking, and that made them laugh, which worsened the squeak, which made them laugh all the harder.
Sometime in the midst of this, Nethidal woke and eyed them suspiciously. To the dazed and disoriented elf, the scene in front of him was no less than incoherent madness. As Legolas tried once more to speak, Nethidal realized the source of the laughter, and he in turn, joined in. Though doing so hurt his side, there was no way in Arda that anyone could refrain from at least snickering at the squeaky voice.
His pained laugh instantly alerted the other two, who were by now on the ground, unable to stay upright. Still laughing, Legolas dragged himself to his friend's side. "I'm so—" A string of unintelligible words followed, with the prince laughing ever harder at his voice. A tiny part of him realized in alarm that he had caught a dreadful disease, the almost incurable giggles.
Elrond happened to walk in at that moment, unusually worried: no one had seen hide or hair of his sons since they had torn out of the room the day before. From past experience, Elrond knew that something was wrong. If no one had reported a mishap centered on the two in over four hours, they were either lost or planning a spectacular prank.
Either option seemed appropriate.
He walked into a scene of chaos. Legolas was giggling insanely, and was that squeaking? Thranduil was on the floor, silver circlet askew, howling in laughter. And his patient was cackling with mirth, and no doubt irritating his side. That would not do.
"ENOUGH!"
The elven lord's cry echoed through the room, silencing all forms of jollity. His eyes pierced Legolas, who was last to stop. "Legolas, what is going on?"
The prince bit his lip, trying to hold in a snicker. He squeaked out a single syllable and fell back, laughing again. The elven lord stared in amazement as the entire room echoed with elven laughter.
He took one last look at Nethidal, decided the laughing was doing more good than harm and retreated. He didn't even want to know…
Sometime later, Legolas managed to stop the confounded snickers, and pointedly held his breath, forcing the squeak to disappear. When he spoke again, his voice was still a little high, though nowhere as near as bad as it had been.
He turned to his long-time friend and said plainly, "Do not ever speak to the twins about this. I shall never forgive you."
Nethidal just smirked, knowing that Legolas would have a rotten time indeed if Elladan and Elrohir would learn of the temporary insanity that had taken place. Which is precisely why he planned to tell them the instant he came across the two.
Legolas missed the sudden gleam that came into his friend's eye as he considered the options; the prince was instead intently staring at his hands.
The injured elf could plainly see that something was upsetting his prince, and more importantly, upsetting his closest friend. "What is wrong, mellon-nin?" he asked gently, pushing the squeak ideas to the back of his mind.
Thranduil watched from the floor. His circlet hung over his face, partially obscuring his vision, but he wished to see this little drama played out.
His son picked at the bandages on his hands, suddenly very nervous about what he had to say.
"Nethidal, I wish to… apologize to you."
Said elf brushed his light brown hair away from his eyes with his good arm, wondering what on Arda Legolas was talking about.
"What for?"
The blonde elf flinched slightly. "Well, for… for getting you into this awful mess. What I mean to say, is that if it weren't for me, I suppose you would not be in this position."
Nethidal's eyes softened. "But it wasn't your fault at all! And you would have done the same for me. What are friends for, after all, if they don't go running through Mirkwood to help their best friend when he's in danger?"
Legolas's nail suddenly dug into his hand. "But you don't see at all!" he cried out passionately. "You would have never gotten into that position in the first place, you certainly would have been able to shake off your fear and act quicker, and you," the prince's face twisted slightly, "you definitely wouldn't have shot me in the side!"
Nethidal's hand flew to his left ribs, a finger tracing the bandages ever so slightly. His recollection of the last moments he was conscious came back. He remembered being surrounded by two very hungry looking spiders, his arm hurting, and the poison coursing through his blood. And he remembered seeing a spider die with an arrow through its eye an instant before white-hot pain exploded in his side.
But he was still alive.
He said this to Legolas, who didn't really answer except to move back to his chair and sit. It was quite obvious that Thranduilion felt extremely guilty, and was holding onto that emotion to punish himself.
Nethidal thought back to the moment, searching for little details about that last moment that might tell him how to make his friend feel better. Of course he didn't blame Legolas, any more than Legolas would blame him if their positions were switched. The dark haired elf sighed. A curse on me and my kind for having such strong emotions!
He remembered that the spiders were positioned both front and back, directly so. The shots, came so fast that not even the most skilled elf in Mirkwood would have been able to fire them one after another. Which meant that Legolas had actually used that fool method of two arrows at once!
He felt a momentary flash of anger and much belated fear before he calmed, reminding himself that he would be in a much different position now if Legolas had not took the risky chance.
He said as much, but Legolas's face remained doubtful. The elder wood-elf sighed and indicated that Legolas should sit on the bed. He moved cautiously over, settled himself on the very edge. His blue eyes were searching, and Nethidal thought, as they swept over his face, that the young prince could see straight through him.
He was vaguely aware of the king getting to his feet. Thranduil watched carefully, pleased that everything seemed to be going well.
Nethidal spoke once more, his eyes holding Legolas's with their intensity. "I do not blame you, anymore than you would blame me. Trust me."
A barely perceptible pause followed these words, in which time the two friends held the other's gaze. Finally, Legolas nodded, and smiled. The two clasped forearms and grinned at each other.
Over his friend's shoulder, Nethidal caught Thranduil wink proudly at him and exit silently. He felt a rush of excitement that the king was proud of him, before he realized that Thranduil was probably always proud of him, after all, he did manage to keep Legolas from doing incredibly stupid things all the time.
The elf that had a tendency to do such things slid off the bed and stretched. "Mellon-nin, I have to go. The twins tore out of here last night in a frenzy. I should go and see whether they've managed to kill each other off yet."
Nethidal laughed as Legolas left the room, sure that he would be back shortly, and bearing a new bruise, cut, abrasion, or all three. His amusement dissipated suddenly as he reached up to scratch behind his ear and found a little bit of confetti stuck there. Wincing, he tore the pink circle from his skin and cursed lightly as he felt several hairs come free in the process.
He no longer felt quite so… fond of the little bratling prince.
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Elladan glanced around, his eyes slowly refocusing. He had slept very little, too unnerved by the ever present darkness pressing in about them. They had wandered, lost, late into the night. At least, they thought it was late; there was no light to give them indication of the time. All they had was the steady growing ache in their feet.
They had lost the light sometime ago. The torches had fluttered and gone out, as though a ghost had blown them out quickly, and as easily as a child blowing out a candle. They had panicked for a minute before reassuring themselves that there was, in fact, no ghost coming to get them.
Finally, they had stopped for the night, accepting the fact that they were only wending themselves deeper into the twisting passageways. Neither had slept well, as their eyes were unused to seeing pitch black over their heads. Both preferred some of light, be it bright sunlight of the twinkle of stars. This pitch-dark tunnel made both of them nervous.
"El?" Elrohir inquired nervously. His hand found his twins and clutched it tightly.
Elladan sat up. "'Ro, you're freezing! What's wrong?" His brother's hand was like ice, and Elladan realized with a start that he was shivering. The elder of the two drew his brother into a tight embrace, feeling Elrohir's body shudder.
"'Ro, what's wrong? Are you well?"
Elrohir exhaled a shaky breath. "Ai, I think so. I don't know. I'm so cold." He felt a wave of fear wash over him like river water over a stone.
Elladan felt this emotion, and knew immediately that his brother was absolutely terrified. The two could share strong emotions through their link with each other, as well as the occasional thought. In this way, Elladan would try to discern some of what was troubling his brother.
He hugged his twin tighter, nervously. Elrohir's thoughts remained blocked, with the thin veil that kept them separated; Elladan may as well have been trying to see into his ada's head.
It wasn't working. Elladan felt his brother's tremors grow worse, though he desperately tried to soothe them.
Now shaking himself, Elladan began to talk, as much to hear his voice as to try and calm his brother. "Gwador-nin, remember what happened after Ada taught us to swim? We'd decided that it would be fun to go down to the river one day and swim in the pool that is formed behind those rocks. We obtained Ada's permission for once, and went immediately.
"It was fine for the first hour or so. But then I got caught in the current: without realizing it, I'd gotten too far out into the river. You followed, first tying a vine around a rock to ensure your safety, and then to your self. You reached me just before I was swept into the rapids. Remember those? How the water was forced through a narrow passage and dashed against the rocks? I would have been thrown against them too, but you caught my hand and refused to let go.
"I was terrified, I remember screaming, feeling the hungry pull of the river, and my hand beginning to slip out of your grasp. I was begging you not to let go, and you kept reassuring me, saying that you'd as soon as untie yourself, than let me go.
"You pulled me back into the shallow water, on your own, I was too scared to be of much help. Remember what you said then? I was holding onto you, afraid to let go, and you said, "I'll always be there, gwador-nin. You can count on me to catch you when you fall. I'll always be there for you, no matter what.' And then you made me laugh by adding, 'even if you're being chased by a pack of huge ugly orcs claiming that you were singing and therefore, begging to be caught.'
"I know you remember that. And now it's my turn to catch you. I'll always be here." As Elladan recited the words his brother had told him years ago, he felt Elrohir's shudders slowing. "I'll be there… even if Ada's after you, with that huge, awful voice he uses, after you've slipped burping powder into his wine at a huge meeting."
Elrohir laughed, breaking the tension. "Hannon lle, gwador."
They rose to their feet then, and started off, knowing now, that they could handle whatever the tunnels of Mirkwood had to throw at them.
Except maybe, the trailing shadow that they had picked up…
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AN: jeeze, this was another difficult chappy to write. Honestly, I don't think I'm much good at the comforting, apologizing thing. Neway, HAPPY NEW YEAR (again) and welcome to 2006! I thank you all for sticking with me thus far!
I'd like to thank:
Alenor Peredhil, Haldir's Heart and Soul, flames of the mo0n, Aurehen, Aranna Undomiel, Eshlyn Kar, and silverkonekotsukari. I really appreciate you guys!