Legolas held me while I ugly cried into his very nice–and probably expensive–tunic. The green of the fabric deepened in colour as my tears soaked in. His arms were strong and warm. They gripped onto me just as fiercely as I gripped onto him.
My brother was here. Alive. His pounding heart beneath my ear was evidence of that.
Mum guided us back to a sitting position and wrapped her arms around the pair of us. A hand found its way into my hair, and I felt Mum place a kiss on my temple. Then she moved and repeated the motion with Legolas.
"I never dreamed I would get to hold both of my babies again," Mum whispered.
She leaned back slightly so that she could see us both better. One of her hands rested on each of our shoulders. "I remember a time when I could hold both of you, one in each arm," a small laugh bubbled up. She moved to cup Legolas' face. "I can't do that anymore, can I. Look how much you've grown."
"At least one of your children has managed to grow to a normal height," I joked, voice still rather thick from tears.
Legolas's laugh rumbled in his chest beneath my head. I leaned back so that I could see his face.
"I don't understand how you can be here," he said.
"It's a long story that involves other worlds; time travel; shapeshifting, and dwarves," I explained.
"And a hobbit," came a timid voice to our left. Bilbo stood awkwardly on the sideline, and I felt a sudden urge to smile. "I'm here too," he waved but then suddenly looked horrified under the weight of everyone's stare. "So sorry. Just ignore me, go back to your reunion. Pretend I'm not here."
"You can join the hug too if you like," I said, stretching an arm out towards him.
His face reddened. "I'm fine, thank you. Sorry for interrupting."
Legolas looked momentarily stunned. Eyes wide as if trying to take everything in. "What is happening? I don't–wait, did you say, dwarves?" Legolas' eyebrows drew together. "As in the dwarves currently being taken to the dungeons?"
"The very same," I said, "And we kind of need them not to be in there."
"That reminds me," said Mum, "I should go and find your Adar."
She said it so nonchalantly. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. But her face told a different story. She looked like she was feeling every emotion at once. After a deep breath, she seemed to compose herself a little more.
"If I'm remembering correctly, then he should be in the throne room," She breathed. "I'll look there first."
"We'll come with you," Legolas said, dragging me to stand along with him. The size difference between us was a lot more noticeable now. I just about reached his shoulder. Last time I saw him, we were neck and neck in height. The audacity of him to grow so much taller than me.
Mum thought about it for all of a second before she nodded. "Come on then. We should be quick."
Legolas entwined our hands together and pulled me along after Mum. Like the way, we used to when we were younger. Bilbo tiptoed along behind, scared of getting in the way. I would have to make it up to the hobbit somehow. But that could come later.
We entered the mountain through the carved doors. A short corridor drove further into the halls, splitting into two at the end. The walls were earthen and hewn from the mountain itself. Rich carvings lined the surface depicting forest scenes, and lit braziers hung along the edges, casting soft, orange light across the hallway. Mum strode purposefully to the right, with us close at her heels.
The tightness of nostalgia banded around my chest, and it almost hurt to breathe. I remembered these halls, these floors, these walls. They belonged to me just as much as they belonged to everyone that called this place home.
"Where have you been?" Legolas asked as Mum led us through the palace. His voice was tight as he spoke. "I remember Adar…" he shook his head as if to stave off a bad memory. "He said that your Fëar were no longer in Arda."
"It's true," I breathed.
Legolas looked at me with a strange mix of bemusement and shock.
"When we died," A flash of pain crossed his face, but I continued on. "We were sent to another world. One so completely different from this one."
"Another world," he said in astonishment. "I never thought it was possible."
"Neither did we until a few months ago," Mum turned to us with a small smile.
A wrinkle formed between his brows. "Wait, how could you only have known a few months ago? Surely you would have realised as soon as you arrived there."
"It's a bit more complicated than that," I muttered. Legolas looked back at me, silently urging me to go on.
"Well, for a start, elves don't exist in that other world. So we were changed into humans," I said.
"Though we were not truly changed. The bodies already existed. We just slipped into them," Mum added, though not entirely helpful.
"What?" Legolas's confusion had only deepened.
"Doesn't matter," I said with a wave of my hand. "The point we're trying to make is that in the other world, we were human, and we were given completely new memories. Memories from that world."
New pain grew in his eyes. They shone in the torchlight in a way that they hadn't a second ago. "So you could not remember anything. Not home or Adar…or me."
Mum stopped her purposeful stride and turned to him. "Of course, we remembered you, darling."
"Yeah, you're my twin brother, and no world is going to change that," I said. "There was a different version of you there. Your name was Lachlan."
Mum placed her hand on Legolas' cheek. "In that world, it was you and your Adar that perished."
"So while I was here mourning you, you were there mourning me?"
"Yes," Mum nodded with a sad smile. "But no more. Now we can be together again."
Mum dropped her hands from Legolas' face. One of them strayed to her chest, just over her heart and rubbed hard. With a barely concealed grimace, Mum turned and continued walking. Her pace was considerably more hurried, and we had to half jog to catch up.
The end of the hallway bloomed, and a vast cavern opened up above us. Long, winding bridges stretched up to other parts of the mountain. It was a beautiful maze of pathways, crisscrossing like a spider's web. Though, I feel like the people here would not appreciate that analogy.
Above, in the centre of the hall, a deep intonation echoed out. The voice of someone confident and used to rule. The sound caught somewhere in my chest, bouncing erratically around my rib cage and pitching my heart rate higher. I knew that tone, the smoothness of his words, the inflection of his voice.
Mum quickened her pace even more until she was nearly running. A pair of spears crossed in front of her path, barring her journey.
"The King declared no one should disturb him," said the brunette one.
"What is the meaning of this?" said the other, this one with long red hair and distinctly familiar facial features.
They had not fully looked towards Mum yet. She drew herself up to her full height and faced the ginger-haired elf head on.
"You need to let me up there, Gwaenir," she spoke through gritted teeth as if she was in pain.
Gwaenir! That name tugged on half-forgotten memories. Of a stoic-faced captain of the guard rescuing me from a tree when I climbed too high. Or a smuggled treat in a folded napkin when I was upset. He had been in charge of my and Legolas' well-being on more than one occasion.
Gwaenir faltered when he finally acknowledged Mum completely. His spear fell, and he took a step backwards. "My-my Queen? It cannot be."
I heard a sharp inhale behind me.
"Gwaenir, Lithion, let her through," said Legolas.
Their bewildered stares shot to their prince, then down to me, their confusion deepening. Lithion lowered his spear, inelegant and unsure. Mum wasted no time and shouldered her way through.
"Leah," Bilbo whispered forcefully, pulling on my shirt sleeve. "Leah, did they call your mother queen?"
I swallowed hard.
"Leah," Bilbo's eyes were like saucers. "Who is your father?"
Thranduil (Throne Room)
Dwarves.
It had to be dwarves, didn't it.
Thranduil's guards brought the prisoners in earlier. They were caught trespassing on his lands while the soldiers were hunting spiders. The hunts had been increasing exponentially as of late. Spiders infested his lands and choked out life with their webs. It was getting worse by the day. Becoming harder and harder to keep them at bay. Just when you thought you had cleared an area, you would return only to find a new infestation, somehow larger than the last. They encroached ever closer to his kingdom. The Elvenking's halls would never be overrun, but they lost external land every season.
Thranduil had to protect his people from the evils of this world. He had lost too many already. His lands were closed off from all travellers. Anyone who trespassed was considered a threat, a potential harm to his people. All who attempted to pass through without permission were treated without impunity.
It was Gwaenir who came to inform him of the dwarves. Something Thranduil found strange. Usually, Legolas would be the one to inform him of events from his watch. When Thranduil asked Gwaenir over the whereabouts of his son, the guard said that he saw him circling the outer walls. He would have to ask Legolas about it later. Now, unfortunately, he had another task at hand.
Thorin Oakenshield stood before his throne. Red, hot anger was barely contained beneath the surface of the would-be dwarven king. His visage was travel-worn. Though it was nowhere near as bad as was to be expected. He had journeyed through the realms of Mirkwood and managed to come out of it practically unscathed. That was almost unheard of unless you were of elven blood. It made Thranduil very suspicious.
Thranduil descended from his throne so that he was on the same level as the dwarf. Well, one can never be truly level with a dwarf. Their height difference didn't account for such. It allowed Thranduil to lord his presence over Thorin.
"Let us go, Thranduil. You have no right to keep us here," Thorin seethed, teeth clenched.
"No right?" Thranduil scoffed, "You trespass onto my lands, nearly cause harm to my people in your recklessness, and you destroyed the statues of the late queen and princess."
When one of his scouts informed him of the destruction of the statues, Thranduil felt like he couldn't breathe. Like someone had thrown him to the waves and held his head under the water until his lungs filled.
It was true that they had not been maintained for over one hundred years. With the threat of the spiders increasing, he could not spare the elves to tend to them. Nevertheless, the fact that these intruders had demolished them made a vicious, pervasive rage encompass him. How dare they deface his family like that.
Thorin had the gall to look embarrassed. Eyes flicking away from Thranduil's in a show of guilt. He wasn't even going to deny it. "That was an accident," Thorin's voice was heavy with irritation. "It was not our intention."
"An accident?" His voice was low, dangerous. The statues were nought but rubble and dust. No distinguishing features left at all. One cannot simply pulverise a statue like that by 'accident'. It would take repeated hits with a large weapon. Requiring malice and a determination to destroy the figures.
No, this could be no accident.
This must have been some sort of revenge on Thorin's part. For Thranduil's role in the destruction of Erebor. He had refused to endanger his armies against the might of the dragon. A threat that Thror's own greed had brought upon his people. His desire for gold had lured the demon from some fiery hellhole to descend on the mountain. Thranduil knew the ruin that dragon fire could cause and would not risk the deaths of his people. He had to protect them at all costs. For his refusal to charge a dragon, a deep-seated hatred had formed in Thorin's heart.
Thranduil walked around Thorin, facing away from him and into the halls. He needed to collect himself. There was something he desperately needed from the dwarven King. He knew exactly where Thorin and his company were heading. Why else would they risk their lives traipsing through this forest unless they were headed to Erebor? A noble quest, it seemed, was underway. To reclaim their once-prosperous kingdom from the clutches of a dragon.
Thranduil could use this opportunity to recover what was rightfully his. The gems of Lasgalen. He had commissioned the dwarves to craft him a necklace out of those magnificent jewels. A necklace fit for his queen to wear. Though it would have never graced her neck. His wife had been long dead when he had asked for it to be made. Thranduil could not say what drove him to desire such an item. All he knew was that when he laid his eyes upon the gems, they reminded him of her. Of his Elinneth. They were pure starlight, just like she had been.
His broken Fëa was a never-ending reminder of her absence. The pain would often try to consume him. It was like trying to walk with a broken limb. A part of him was forever severed, but he still had to continue on. His kingdom. His people. His son. They needed him and were the only things that kept him going. Keeping them safe had almost become an obsession.
Though that was not the only reason, he remained. How would he ever be able to move on to Valinor when he knew his wife was not there? That she was nowhere in Arda for him to find.
When he saw the gems, a dark, vulnerable part of him yearned to possess them. It told him that if he held them, then he would be able to feel her again. The gems were of pure magic and would fill the hole she had left when she was wrenched apart from him. Blunt the edges of his shattered Fëa. Dull the pain he felt every day.
He knew this. It would work. It had to. Otherwise, nothing would. He needed them desperately. Now that they were finally within his grasp, he could not wait any longer. With the dwarves in his captivity, he had the upper hand. He could offer help in exchange for the gems.
Pain flared up, white-hot as if freshly wounded. He covered his chest in a bid to dampen it, biting his tongue to not cry out, to not lose face in front of the dwarf. It was never usually this bad, feeling as if his soul was actively trying to escape his body. His grief about the statues must have affected him more than he realised.
He schooled his face into something more neutral and turned back around to face the dwarf.
"Let us get back to the matter at hand, shall we?" Thranduil drawled. His cool façade back in place. "There is only one reason Thorin Oakenshield would travel through these lands, and it lies northeast of here. You mean to take back that which was stolen from you. A Noble quest, some might say."
Thorin remained in seething silence as Thranduil glided past, arms held tightly behind his back, nails digging in to stop their shaking. Thranduil looked up towards his throne when he caught a new sound in the air. The quickened approach of footsteps climbing up the winding paths behind them. Thranduil gritted his teeth, another pulse of pain flaring through him. Why was this agony befalling him, and why had his guards let someone slip through?
"Ellen, what are you doing here?" the dwarf asked in an angry whisper.
Had one of the dwarf's companions slipped free?
Thranduil finally spun around, eyes livid, ready to clash with whichever dwarf had managed to break out and come to their King's aid.
"Who dares–" His voice broke off in a strangled gasp as he laid eyes on the intruder.
It was no dwarf.
She stood before him, looking just as beautiful as the last time he saw her. Tall and dressed in a strange collection of garish pink fabric. Her grey eyes seemed to glow silver as they filled with unshed tears.
Elinneth. It was Elinneth. His wife, his queen, his love. The other half of his soul.
Only it couldn't be.
Thranduil's hand shot to the dagger at his hip. He scrambled at the hilt with useless, fumbling fingers and levelled it at the imposter. His traitorous hands shook, and he saw his own reflection quaking back at him in the steel. It was the face of a broken elf, fractured beyond repair.
The pain, by Eru the pain increased tenfold. As if he was being torn apart, shredded into ribbons, unravelled strand by strand.
"What wicked torture is this?" he barely recognised his own voice, the beseeching, distorted shape of it.
The illusion did not flinch. Not from the threat of a blade or the bite of his words. She pressed her lips together, and a tear slipped down her cheek. "Would you hurt me, meleth nin?"
The sound of her voice sent a shock through him. Like the sharp clang of steel hit directly by your ear, ringing, deafening, consuming. It was a melody that he only ever heard in his dreams. Always fading in the light of day. Thranduil's resolve failed entirely, and he lost his grip on the dagger, lost his grip on reality.
He staggered back, away. The closer she got to him, the more it hurt. His ankles struck stone steps, and he was thrown backwards onto them. He barely caught his fall, hands grazing against the solid stone beneath. But Thranduil did not care about the jolt that flew up his arms. Hardly felt it at all.
It could not be her. If she were here, he would not still feel the crushing emptiness inside. He would not feel like he was one light touch away from shattering completely. Yet the pain was still there. Growing more and more as he looked upon the visage of his wife. She must be a hallucination. Some ghost or apparition. Another cruel punishment, just like Liriel's garden. To dangle his loved ones before him with no hope of ever actually having them back. Were the Valar really so cruel to punish him this way? To chip away at his heart and mind until he was left as nought but the shell of an elf.
"Elinneth," he whimpered, speaking her name like a prayer.
Elinneth walked towards him as if she was scared that he would run. Each step was a promise, a threat of downfall, his destruction. He would not live past this, he knew. The moment she proved to be a false hope, he would fade. There was no salvaging him afterwards.
"I'm really here, Thranduil," she cried. "I'm alive."
"You cannot be." The agony in his heart told him so
She kneeled down so that she was level with him. Eye to eye. He could not look away if he tried.
A hand reached up towards him, and he flinched violently away. If she were truly an apparition, then her hand would have no solid form. It would feel like nothing was there at all. This was it, the moment he would lose everything, the final blow to his damaged heart and mind.
A glow began to emanate from her hand as she brought it closer. Though it was not the white glow of a healer's touch. It was something wholly new. A deep golden light unlike any he had seen before. Unbeknownst to him, his own skin began to glow with that same ethereal quality. Stemming from his face, where her hand was closest.
Then her fingers caressed his cheek. Solid, warm and real.
Real. Real. Real.
The light from Elinneth's hands rushed into Thranduil's body. His own doing the same for her. It spread under their skin until they glowed from within. Thranduil took in a deep, shuddering breath as the magic flooded through him. Wherever it touched, it breathed new life. Healing. Mending. Reforming.
The light was not merely magic. It was their Fëar. Their souls made visible. Finally recombining after being wrenched apart. The light coalesced around their hearts. Glowing and golden. Until a clear outline formed and you could see every beat. Like someone had opened a window in their chests to see their hearts below. They pulsed together in tandem synchronicity.
With one final swell of magic, the light dissolved back into their skin
He was whole.
The piercing emptiness that had made its home within him had been driven away. In its place sat his wife's Fëa. The other half of his soul. Finally back where it belonged. After so long in such a dark place, Thranduil never thought he would resurface. Never thought he would step out into the sun. But in the space of one minute, he was hauled out of the pit and thrown back into the light.
He did not care how. He did not care why. All he cared about at that moment was the rush of emotions he long thought petrified and the inexplicable, unfathomable presence of his wife in his arms.
Leah
My heartbeat thundered in my ears as I made my way up the path. So much so that I got another panicked tug down the bond. I quickly pulled back, trying to infuse it with peaceful and happy thoughts to let Kili know I was okay. Though I knew that the bond didn't really account for emotions, I hoped Kili would interpret it as such, anyway.
Seeing my dad would be different from seeing Legolas. My brother had changed so much since I last saw him. He had grown, and his voice was deeper. Even though my mind had known who he was when I saw him, it still took a second to fully recognise him. To look at his features and seek out the brother I knew.
Adar, however, would be unchanged. Same face, same smile, same voice.
The throne loomed high as I crested the raised bridge. When I reached the summit, I could finally see the people below it. Thorin stood off to one side, hands hovering as if he did not know what to do with them. His face was awash with unnameable emotions, flickering and changing rapidly.
Mum's back was to me as she crouched on the ground, holding onto someone with a discernible shake in her shoulders. All I could see of the person she clung to was a shock of blonde hair. I stuttered to a stop, legs refusing to carry me any further.
This was it. An instance in time so monumental my body refused to respond to me. I froze, silently begging for him to lift his head, to break the building pressure and free me from the anguish of suspense.
Mum whispered something into his ear, and Adar's face shot up. His familiar eyes met mine, and a sob tore itself free. I covered my mouth in a bid to mask the sound, but it was no use.
"Adar?"
It was him. It was truly and indisputably him. Not the static lines of a photograph, harsh in their permanence and immovability. Nor was it the soft focus of a memory blurred with time. This was flesh and blood and real and here.
My Adar.
He climbed to his feet with slow controlled movements. His hand never left Mum's, and his eyes never left mine.
"Tithien ven, is it truly you?"
At the sound of the old nickname, something cracked within me, and I could finally move.
I ran.
Ran towards comfort and home, and safety. To the arms, I had been craving to be held in for as long as I could remember. Adar caught me, half stumbling with the momentum, and wrapped his arms around me. He was still so much taller than me and had to stoop to hug me properly. His hands threaded through my hair. I felt a kiss crushed into the crown of my head.
"Liriel," he gasped. Moisture dropped onto my forehead. A tear "My little girl."
Mum leaned in, too, close enough to hold us both. Then I felt a slam from behind me that nearly sent us all toppling over. The solid warmth of a new body at my back somehow held us all upright.
"I didn't like being left out," came the voice of my brother, and I could not suppress the laugh that bubbled up.
I was being crushed from all sides and was entirely too hot from everyone's body heat, but I had never been happier.
