Chapter Five—Alasse's Return
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Well, no one answered my question, but I guess that's because ya'll were thinking too much about reviewing at the end that it slipped ya'lls minds…or because no one knew the answer… Anyway, if any of ya'll do know what it is, PLEASE inform me. I'm begging, here.
Elraralia—Hmmm…. boiling would probably be an understatement, but, sadly, I don't allow much of a glance just yet at just how angry the parents are.
Elven Dragon Rider—Thank you! I'd actually thought that was one of my sadder chapters, but everyone seems to think other wise. Good, good! And Thranduil is VERY protective of his little elflings.
Avey— Nope. No hobbling for Ireth.
Coolio02—More compliments! Beams
HyperSquishy—Again—much trouble, but you only really get to see that with the punishment. WHICH, we will see more of!
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Two Months Later
Alasse
It's really quite funny, I think, to see the difference of people once you've been away from them for a while. Before I'd left, Legolas, Ireth, and Elros were the most boisterous, rowdy, and mischievous elflings I'd ever known. However, upon my return the change was undeniably dramatic. Elves that didn't laugh at stupid jokes, didn't make faces at their elders, or steal food from the kitchens were what I found when I arrived. And I must say, it unnerved me. It TERRIFIED me. What on Middle Earth had happened since my departure? What could have caused them to suddenly turn into such-such…perfect children? My mission had commenced. And I strove to find out what had thrown my friends into their case of too-good-to-be-good states. Whatever it was though, had made my friends shut their mouths up like threatened clams. I couldn't budge a single one of them to throw up their story. I slipped in a good many "So, three months is considered a long period of time to humans. I'll wager you all did a lot of things" and "How did you fare while I was away? No adventures, I hope…"
But nothing was working.
One day, when I turned to Legolas, trying to pry out an answer, he simply broke into song, singing like a strangled orc. When I asked Ireth she actually spun around, yelling behind her shoulder that she'd heard her father calling her. Elros was a bit easier to work on. Several times he looked ready to crack, but every single time either Legolas or Ireth would appear and drag him away before I could get an answer. I was very near strangling myself with all the unanswered questions floating around in my head.
And it wasn't just their unusual behavior that was bothering me so. My mother told me that Ireth had been bed ridden for a month for some time with a bad leg. She'd of course recovered quickly like all elves do, but she'd been in quite a dire state. Also, Legolas had been treated for a large bruise across his stomach where something had hit him fiercely. Not to mention, all of them had been assigned the task of polishing the Greenwood Guard's swords, and fletching their thousands of arrows for the next three months. I wanted to know more than ever what had happened, but each of them seemed to be completely unwilling to tell me. But I didn't give up. Elros was still close to cracking, and I was determined to snap him in half like an egg on a rock. So it was that I decided to stroll out into the stables one day…exactly where Elros was. He was petting his new pony, Galad, whom he'd ridden to the palace that evening. Next to his was my own horse, and across from mine was Ireth's. We'd all decided that the palace was the best place for us to meet weekly (or daily sometimes) and, every chance we got; we came to see Legolas and each other. Elros visibly jumped when he turned and saw me approaching. His mouth contracted a rather unattractive twitch that nearly had me laughing.
"Hi, Alasse," he squeaked. He knew why I was here.
"Hullo, Elros. What are you up to? I think Galad is going to obtain a large dip in his forehead where you've been stroking him; you've been doing so for so long now."
Elros shrugged his shoulders, but I could see the relief that flooded into his face when the subject turned out to be about Galad. "I like being with Galad. He isn't loud or obnoxious, and he doesn't give unwanted words or criticize me in any way. He's just glad I'm here to stroke him and speak to him."
I smiled. "If only other elves were like horses."
"Yes, I agree. We could learn a lot from them, I think."
There was suddenly an awkward silence, and I fidgeted with my skirts nervously, wondering how I would broach the subject. Luckily for me however, Elros did that for me.
"I know why you're here, Alasse." He said, his eyes looking deep into mine, "But I don't think I'm supposed to tell you. They think you'll get ideas or…something. I know you want to know, but I just can't tell you. Can't you understand that?"
"No, I can't. Why is it that my friends, my brothers and sisters, my comrades can't tell me what they did that caused them to be hurt and get 3 full months of punishment. If anything, I should be told, because I feel like I'm unworthy to be told. I'm hurt. I feel like no one trusts me or cares about me anymore." That was entirely a lie, but I knew that soft Elros would feel pity towards me, or at least try and convince me otherwise. He seemed to do both.
"Nay, it is not like that, Alasse. They are just afraid. Of what, I'm not quite sure. They never fully told me what happened, I could only make guesses. I don't think it was too bad. I mean, Ireth just hurt her leg by falling fro—" He stopped and glared at me. "You sure are sneaky, Alasse. I wasn't going to tell anything, but now I've gone and said too much."
"I don't see what's the problem! You yourself said that you didn't see the big deal, so tell me what you know!" I raised my arms in the air, as though holding them out for the answer.
Elros looked at me oddly for a bit, but finally his face softened. "I don't know why not. Ireth and Legolas never did tell me why they didn't want you to know."
I beamed, "You're making a good choice, Elros. Now, tell me, what is this all about?"
He looked around shiftily as though he expected to see Legolas come flying out of one of the stalls at any minute, ready to thwack him with a pitchfork. "Well, see, we all went to this pool that Legolas' parents had met at—"
"Why's that so bad?"
"It was across Forest River."
"Oh."
"And so…"
And he told me, from top to bottom, everything that he knew. How Ireth fell from the tree, and the lightning that struck down the crossing tree, and how they'd stayed there the entire night while search parties were out everywhere. When he finished, I was confused. "Then why did Legolas have that big bruise?"
Elros shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. He never told me. And when I commented on the burnt tree to him, he just told me that it had been a close call. I don't think he told me everything though. I think he's being valiant and not relating everything so that no one will make a big deal out of it or something. I'm not sure."
I nodded, "This reeks of something dangerous. I want to know."
"So do I," said Elros, "but I can't get Legolas to tell me what happened. He seems to think there's some type of danger in me knowing."
"I wonder why…"
We stood there for a while, in silent musing. Both of us trying to figure out just what it was that Ireth and Legolas were keeping from us. "Maybe we should confront them," suggested Elros, but I shook my head.
"You yourself said that they'd never tell us."
"Yeah…"
"How about we go back to where they were? We might find some pieces to our puzzle there."
Elros looked doubtful, "I don't know. It's across the river, and I'm already in huge trouble as it is."
"Look! Do you want to know what happened or not?"
Elros turned his eyes to the ground and sighed, "Yes."
I grinned triumphantly. Finally things were going my way. "Then it's settled! We'll go back there next week, after the Seasons Festival for this year. Autumn is just now coming around the bend, and no one will notice that we're missing. And we'll be back before the festivities are through with anyway. There's no way we'll be missed." I felt pride swell up in me with my superb arrangement, and Elros nodded in agreement. He had to concede. It was a pretty good plan.
Or at least we both thought it was…
LegolasI was worried. Bad worried. Alasse was being too nosy for her own good. And it didn't look like Elros was holding up very well to her prying. I would have told Elros about the spider if I hadn't thought it was a bad idea. But I knew our parents would never allow any of us to go into the woods again if they found out about the spider, and Elros had already proved to be unreliable with secrets. If I told him, he might blurt it out somewhere, or he'd get some stupid notion that I was a hero and needed to be rewarded for my gallantry, or something foolish like that. No. Elros couldn't know, and neither could Alasse.
Ireth wasn't so certain though. "What if—because they don't know about the spider—they go and do something foolish? Hmm? What about that?"
"I don't know, Ireth. But they're far more likely to do something stupid if they do know about the spider than if they don't."
Ireth crossed her arms and sulked. "I'm not so sure. You seem to think you've got everything figured out, but I think you're underestimating Elros and Alasse. Elros isn't stupid. I don't think he'd do some of the things you seem to think he would."
I stood up from my chair in the corner of the library and took a defensive stance. "I never said that they were stupid. I know Elros isn't dumb, but he's not discerning. And Alasse is not exactly the expert on what to do with information. She's only 89 years old! You do realize that, don't you?"
"Of course I do! I'm not dim!" Ireth plopped down in her chair angrily. Picking up a book from its place on a stand, she began to flip through it absentmindedly. "I'm just afraid. The entire thing was stupid in the first place. I wish you'd never told me about the pool. It's been nothing but an utter nuisance. It got us into a huge pot of trouble, it did, and I feel like a heel for urging you all to go in the first place."
I softened as I saw the guilty expression cross over Ireth's face. "I told you Ireth. You're not entirely to blame. I was just an accessory. I didn't even stop you or Elros. I could have said no, and none of it would have ever happened, but I didn't, and there's nothing we can do about it now. It's all water under the bridge."
Ireth set the book on her lap and sighed, "You're right, of course." She groaned, "Oh! WHY must you always be right!"
I chuckled. "I'm not always right," I paused and rolled my neck to let out some stiff joints, "Just most of the time."
"How humble our prince is!" exclaimed Ireth jokingly, "I must tell the king to get you a very large chair so you can sit above all of us, and possibly regain some of your confidence, for indeed, you are so retiring that you even walk low to the ground."
I made a very un-princely giggle and threw the pillow that was in my chair at her. "That was unfair, Ireth. I wish to the Valar that they had granted only a piece of the wit that they bestowed upon you to me."
Ireth beamed and stretched out in her chair. "Nay. It is not something you are born with, my prince. One must be very skilled to learn such an art as wit. Tis something that comes with wisdom."
"Ah! And humbleness, too, would have something to do with your wit, I would venture?"
"Aye," she turned her blonde head and grinned at me, "humbleness."
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Whew! Sorry that took so long. It's just that I'm in the middle of our play "The Fiddler on the Roof", and I've got a lot to deal with right now. Anyway, I hope ya'll enjoyed this, and WHEN DID GREENWOOD BECOME KNOWN AS MIRKWOOD?
