AN: This chapter contains reflections and flashbacks from Elfleda's POW.
There was not a day – as far as Elfleda could remember – when she didn't see the big Uruk-hai beside her. He was always there, his taciturn presence a permanent fixture in her life.
And when he was in a good mood… She could talk him into many shenanigans – into games only boys were allowed to play, even into secret knife wielding lessons. However, her favorite pastime was sneaking out to the pastures, climbing up onto Uglûk's shoulder and let him race the half-wild horses.
When they were caught – because they always were – and her father's frown couldn't hide his worry, Uglúk just shrugged unrepentant:
"She is unharmed, right?"
Not many girls around her age lived in Edoras, so a beast became the princess's best friend.
-/-
As Elfleda slowly grew, she began to understand the world around her better and better. She had many questions, and the answers weren't always to her liking. She remembered a hot summer afternoon when she was nine…
She had a history lesson about the great war. The War of the Rings.
Her tutor, an aging scholar from Minas Tirith, drowned on and on about the treachery of Saruman, the White. When he began to list the horrible crimes the wizard's monstrous creatures and the Dunlandings committed, the raised villages, murdered innocents, Elfleda pressed her palms to her ears and cried:
"No! It's a lie!"
"It is true, my child. You can ask your guard." Her tutor spat the word with disdain "He could tell you everything about it. He was there, I'm quite sure."
Elfleda turned to her friend with wide, horrified eyes. She was very afraid of his answer.
Uglúk had been leaning against the door during her lesson, uninterested, his arms crossed. Now he gave her tutor a dark look and a menacing growl from the back of his throat. The man flinched.
"Is it true?" Elfleda whispered, her eyes searching his dark face.
The Uruk's jaw was grinding. Finally, he nodded.
"Were you really…?"
"I was."
Elfleda couldn't contain her tears anymore. Bitter disappointment laced her voice:
"How could you…?"
The Uruk flinched, as if he had been slapped.
Then slowly he straightened, his back rigid as a board, and looking somewhere above her head he said:
"The wizard wanted it. He was whispering in our heads. Always."
Uglûk's face contorted for a moment with an emotion Elfleda couldn't decipher. Was it shame? Disgust? She didn't know. Then he looked straight into her eyes and went on:
"That's no excuse. Truth is, we were weak, and we didn't know better."
She couldn't ask any more questions, even if she wanted, because the Uruk-hai wrenched the door open and was gone.
Later that evening, she wanted to say goodnight to her father as usual, so she went searching for him. She found him in the kitchens of all places. He wasn't alone.
Éomer and Uglúk sat by a butcher's block, a few jugs of beer and two cups between them.
Elfleda stopped at the doorway and plastered herself to the jamb. She didn't have to worry about them noticing her: they were too drunk to do so.
Elfleda knew she shouldn't be eavesdropping, but she was too curious about their slurred conversation.
Her father was talking.
"… you atoned for it. For everything."
The Uruk snorted.
"Means nothing. They won't come back from the ground just because… because I'm sorry."
A lone tear was making its way down his brutish face. Elfleda had never seen the Uruk cry – or drink this much – before. Her disappointment in him slowly disappeared.
She watched in morbid fascination as her father put a comforting hand on Uglûk's scarred forearm.
When someone touched her shoulder, Elfleda jumped a foot into the air.
With a racing heart she looked up. It was her mother with a disapproving scowl.
The woman glanced at her husband and the Uruk above Elfleda's head, then took her daughter's hand and led her away without a word.
Elfleda never forgot the sadness on her face.
-/-
After her tenth birthday something changed between them.
She didn't know why, but Uglúk became withdrawn and moody – well, even moodier than before. He was less affectionate with her for a while and she had to admit, it hurt.
Then – after a few months – he seemed to find his old self, and all was well again. But something cold and dreary touched her soul at that time and she couldn't forget it even after all these years.
-/-
And now, at fifteen, as Elfleda was leaving the merriment of the feast behind, Uglúk's acidic words were echoing in her ears.
"Fishing for compliments? Didn't you get enough already? Well, there is none from me!"
None from him.
But it was all she longed for!
It had happened a few months prior, in her little garden. It wasn't really a garden, rather an orchard, with a few apple and pear trees. She loved pears.
She was smiling as she reached for the first pear of the season. And reached. And… reached. At her exasperated huff a deep chuckle sounded behind her. A hard body brushed against hers; the back of her head bumped to a broad chest. A heavily muscled black arm appeared above her and plucked the fruit easily.
The Uruk held the pear in front of her. Encased between his hard arm and enormous body his heat and his earthy scent engulfed her.
She reached for the pear with a suddenly shaky hand, her fingertips brushing his calloused palm. His breath caught. But then he stepped back, and she felt cold and bereft. Yearning for… she didn't know what.
From that moment on she was acutely aware of… him.
He was oblivious.
Trustworthy and loyal as always, beside her as always, but nothing more.
And then she went and ruined even that.
A week ago, Elfleda had got her first compliment from the Uruk-hai. She had forced it out of him to be honest. What if Uglúk had called her beautiful just because he had wanted to humor her? And he had been avoiding her ever since. He had never done that before!
Elfleda was confused, lonely and hurt.
Frankly she was dreading the feast, knowing he must attend out of duty.
Uglúk was indeed there. And he was finally looking at her. He barely looked at anything else, she knew. She could feel his piercing gaze on her the entire evening.
Elfleda was overjoyed. She didn't dare to look at him not to make another mistake.
As Elessar's son was holding her in his arms during their dances she imagined stronger, larger arms around her. It was a heady, exciting feeling.
Emboldened by that feeling she gathered her courage and talked to him.
From there all went to hell.
She shook her head with a self-deprecating smile.
How stupid she was to think that he could ever look at her the way she looked at him. His rejection stung enough in itself, but his calloused rudeness made it even worse.
Was it a way friends talked to each other?
She didn't think so.
Was he not even her friend anymore?
She spent the rest of the night sobbing in her room.
