Meluieth stretched out on her bed and groaned, a half-eaten roll clutched in her fingers, while Charlotte stared out the window at the training field.

She knew the blond ellon whirling across the dirt, locked in an aggressive battle with an ellon who was clearly Ellavorn. Meluieth's single-room home overlooked the training grounds and edged against the fence, and it was proving to be the worst place to seek a distraction from the conundrum that was Thranduil.

"I'm caught between thanking you and wondering why you would punish me so?" Meluieth said to Charlotte, eyeing the basket still half-filled with rolls.

"Next time, I promise I won't bring so many."

"Now, that would be a punishment!" Meluieth pulled herself upright and eyed the roll in her hand before sighing longingly and wrapping it up.

"Look on the bright side: you'll have rolls for tomorrow."

"Yes, but they won't be warm and fluffy and fresh."

"Just how many sweet rolls did you 'liberate' from Idhrenes?"

"I can't quite remember. I counted to five, and after that, it was a blur." Meluieth waved her arm dismissively. "What I want to know is how you managed to convince the old dragon to let you have them?"

Outside the window, Thranduil whirled under Ellavorn's blade, his long hair fanning out behind him. It seemed such a hazard to her, having long loose hair in battle. The orc had captured her by seizing her hair. Ellavorn could just as easily grab Thranduil's and yank it to throw him off.

"Charlotte?"

"Hmm?"

Suddenly, Meluieth was over her shoulder, staring out the window to see what had caught her attention. "Ah," she said.

Charlotte did not want to talk about her fight with Thranduil, so instead, she said, "I got a letter from Celebrían today. Lord Elrond is planning to arrange a visit to Eryn Galen with Thranduil. It looks like you might not have to wait an entire year to finish your healer training."

"That's wonderful," Meluieth said, but she looked a little pale. She tucked the linen carefully back over the basket of bread and fingered the handle.

Charlotte quirked a brow at that but decided not to pry. Not when Meluieth had always been so considerate about giving her space to deal with her thoughts. "It's not definite. Anyway, will you be going with us tomorrow?"

"I honestly don't know. I haven't heard whether I'm to be sent with you or not. I would think as your lady's maid that I would attend, but I've received no orders. It may just be you, Thranduil, and Legolas."

"Not to mention, my two new shadows." And then slightly louder, Charlotte said, "No offense!" She heard a snort through the door and grinned. They had followed her to Meluieth's house and stationed themselves outside with practiced ease. It seemed like a terrible way to advertise her location to everyone in the village, including the elves who were supposedly a danger to her. Regardless, Charlotte had gifted each of them with a sweet roll before she delivered the basket to Meluieth.

She watched Thranduil yank his robe off, tossing it carelessly to the side, before throwing his sword up just in time to catch Ellavorn's attack.

Meluieth tsked, "If he tears another tunic, he's going to send Galion into fits."

Both ellon stopped fighting, turning as if listening to something approaching, and Charlotte said, "I get the feeling that won't be a problem today."

There was a banging on Meluieth's door, and it burst open before she could get to it. Maethor and Haedirn surged in first, heading straight for Charlotte. They stood directly in front of her, two great pillars of muscle decorated in daggers and swords. There was a wailing sound behind them, and two ellons stumbled into Meluieth's tiny home, dragging a third shouting ellon between them.

The wailing came from the last intruder: a dainty elleth who rushed to Meluieth and begged her, "Please, I cannot help him. At first, he slept, and I could not wake him, and now his mind is gone! He is hallucinating, eating dirt and leaves, and claiming he sees a feast. He's talking to his adar as if he lives. He insisted he was with the Elvenking. Please, you must help him."

Meluieth was already examining her patient, who was thrashing in the arms of his fellows. "Has he eaten anything?"

"My husband knows the forest, and he would never eat something he should not," the elleth insisted.

"Release me," the ellon barked, kicking his legs and yanking his arms. "Adar, stop them! I was having the most wonderful dream, and they awoke me. The Elvenking; I must see him. Set me free, I tell you!"

"We'll take you to see the Elvenking, mellon nin," Meluieth assured.

"You will?"

"I promise you will see him. Let me just examine you first."

The ellon settled, but the assembled elves were horrified when he picked up Meluieth's blanket and chewed on the corner. "It's true what they say," he mumbled around the linen. "The Elvenking's table hosts a magnificent spread. The most delicious venison I've ever had."

Charlotte had enough watching. She shoved through her guards, snagged a sweet roll, and gently said, "Here, try this. Isn't it even better than the venison?"

The ellon dropped the blanket and seized the roll, nibbling on the end and repeatedly declaring that it was even better than the venison. Charlotte scooped up the sheet and tossed it into the chair to keep him from eating it again. Her guards tried to bundle her away, but her glare stopped them.

"How long has he been like this?" Meluieth asked the crying elleth. Methodically, she checked the ellon's pupils, followed by his heart rate, temperature, and the inside of his mouth. Charlotte could tell that her friend was stumped.

"Like this? Maybe for an hour?" The elleth said, wringing her hands. "But he slept most of yesterday. I don't understand. He just dropped suddenly and wouldn't wake. We dragged him home to see the healer, but they found nothing to explain it. No bites. No hives or swelling. He just slept. When he started hallucinating and mentioning the Elvenking, we brought him here, but he fought us the whole way. He—" her voice broke on a sob, "he doesn't remember any of us."

Thranduil and Ellavorn swept in next, followed by an ellon who looked nearly identical to Meluieth: Galion.

The ill ellon leaped from the bed and tried to reach for Thranduil, but Ellavorn stepped in his path.

"My king!" The ellon cried. "My king, I've searched for you."

Thranduil, to his credit, didn't balk. He nudged Ellavorn aside and gently took the ellon's hand, noting the wild eyes and crazed smile that showed he was not wholly present. "You've done well, mellon nin. Rest now. You have found me."

"I found you," he murmured, settling.

Meluieth filled them in quickly, adding, "There's nothing to suggest poison and there is no known venom that affects us, save for the spiders we've encountered, and his symptoms don't match for that either."

The room was crowded and warm. Charlotte reached back to open the window she'd been watching Thranduil through only minutes ago.

"Where were you when this started?" Thranduil asked the crying elleth. "What were you doing?"

"We were having a picnic, Your Majesty," she sniffled. "By the Tithenduin. We'd just exchanged betrothal rings, and then he collapsed."

"Can you remember exactly where?"

"No more than a day's ride north," her twisting hands shifted, and Charlotte spotted the slim silver ring on her index finger. A matching one adorned the ellon's hand.

"Ellavorn, prepare our horses," Thranduil said. "You and I will inspect the area along the Tithenduin for the source of this ailment." He surged to his feet and was halfway across the room before the ellon was shouting again.

"My king! My king, please!" He lunged at Thranduil, and the ellons who'd dragged him to Meluieth's jumped to seize him. The crazed ellon thrashed in their hold, begging for Thranduil.

Charlotte's heart was twisting at his cries, at the pained look on Thranduil's face, the sobs of the ellon's newly betrothed. She didn't notice the heat on her chest until the light from the necklace filled the room, and the ellon collapsed, silent.

"What did you do to him?" The elleth panicked.

Maethor and Haedirn yanked Charlotte behind them, and Meluieth checked over the ellon again.

"He's only resting," she said with a tired sigh. "We'll have to wait and see how he is when he wakes."

"Maybe not," Thranduil said, eying Charlotte. "You soothed him and put him to sleep, maybe you can heal him as well."

The elleth eyed her suspiciously. "Hethuon wouldn't like some outsider working magic on him."

"It might be the only way to bring him back," Thranduil said softly.

The elleth frowned, quietly debating. Charlotte knew the moment she decided because she took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and said, "Very well."

Charlotte was suddenly being nudged forward, and she felt her own panic rise. She had no idea what she was doing! No idea how the necklace even worked. She only kept it on because her mother had given it to her, and it had helped Legolas so many times.

Now she was supposed to use it intentionally? She thought back to her moment of decision while she'd bathed that morning. When she'd decided she would focus on figuring out this strange power, she'd never realized she would be forced into hands-on practice so soon.

She sat beside the sleeping ellon, under the watchful glare of his betrothed, wondering where she was supposed to start.

Her body flinched when Thranduil dropped a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Try sinking first, see if that helps you tap into it."

"She hasn't done this before?" The elleth cried.

"Patience," Thranduil said. "Give her a chance."

But Charlotte couldn't focus with everyone staring at her, couldn't get herself to relax and drop into that beneath-place where her fëa rested. She peeked an eye open, "Does everyone need to be here right now?"

The elves were in upheaval: Ellavorn insisted he would not be leaving Thranduil's side, and Thranduil wasn't moving. Maethor and Haedirn swore they wouldn't budge from her sight either, and the list went on and on.

"Fine," she sighed, defeated. "At least try to be quiet, so I concentrate."

She let her eyes drift shut. Felt her body still. One of the ellons shifted their weight. Meluieth scuffed her boot. Charlotte's body tense.

Breathe, relax, drop, she thought. She could do this. Her mind sank, lower and lower until she finally had her light in her hands, and then she was hauling it up to the surface. She opened her eyes. The whole room glittered so brightly the elves were squinting. All of them, save for Thranduil, who watched her with a look she could only describe as reverence.

The necklace remained asleep, as did the ellon.

Her light faltered, but Thranduil said, "Focus on the stone. Think about what you want it to do."

She concentrated. Pictured the ellon awake and healthy. Imagined him embracing his betrothed.

Nothing.

She tried again. Visualized the elf's eyes fluttering open, calm and lucid. They remained unnaturally closed.

"We'll keep trying," Thranduil assured her. "Something activates it. We just need to figure it out." He turned to Galion, "Please see to it that they are all given lodgings here, and let's move this ellon to the healing house. Ellavorn, arrange a patrol. I want a search done of the area. See if they can find the source of this."

Breakfast was subdued the following morning when Charlotte and Ellavorn arrived after their early training session. Even Legolas picked up on the concern rolling through the elves silently assembled at the table.

"Adar, are we still going north today?" He asked.

"We will have to wait, ion nin," Thranduil said. He gently placed his utensils and turned to Legolas. "An elf arrived last night. He's very sick, and we must help him before we can take our journey together."

"Well," Legolas scrunched his brow in thought. "I could help. I can go with Meluieth and help her with her herbs. Naneth taught me some of them. Mostly which ones not to eat, but I can learn more."

"No," Thranduil ordered, and then softened his voice. "No, you must stay away from the healing house. We do not know what has caused this. I will not see you hurt."

"But I can help!"

"I know you can," Thranduil reassured him. "I promise you, if there is a way you can assist, I will tell you. Now, why don't you go practice your archery?"

Legolas reluctantly scampered out, and she prayed he'd listen to Thranduil and stay out of the healing house. Her heart had stopped at the mental image of sweet Legolas hallucinating like Hethuon, calling out for his naneth. She would sooner be poisoned herself than see him crying for a naneth who wouldn't come. Not again.

Once he was gone, Charlotte asked Ellavorn, "The patrol didn't discover the source then?"

Ellavorn was somber, serious in a way he rarely was. "The patrol never came back."

"Do not give up hope yet," Thranduil said. There was a tension in his eyes. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "We'll give them a few hours to return. They may have found a trail or searched further north than planned."

The rest of the day was filled with nervous energy. She found herself in Idhrenes's kitchen again, and the elleth took one look at Charlotte's anxious expression and pointed to the same table she'd used to clean pumpkins. This time, there were three wooden buckets filled with bright red apples.

"I need someone to peel those." Idhrenes didn't say why or what they were for, and Charlotte didn't care. It was something productive to do.

She spent hours in the kitchen, letting the chatter and activity roll over her quiet corner. There was no word about the patrol and no update about Hethuon. She ate a small meal in the kitchen between peeling buckets of apples and even coaxed a reluctant Maethor and Haedirn to join her. "I'm sure you can both eat and guard me. Honestly, when do you two take breaks?"

"For now, only while you're sleeping," Haedirn shrugged and bit into one of the meat pies Idhrenes had served for lunch. "You sleep more than any elf I've met."

Maethor nudged him, "Try not to announce her guard rotation to all of Arda."

They both jumped to their feet, hands on their daggers when the kitchen door flung open and cracked against the wall. A harried Meluieth stood in the opening, searching the elves until her eyes settled on Charlotte. "We need you in the healing house. Come quickly."

Charlotte dropped her paring knife and was hurrying across the field in Meluieth's shadow before she could even ask what was wrong. Her hands fisted in her skirts to keep her from tripping, and her mind raced over the possibilities. Why would they need her?

The healing house was on the western border of the settlement. Isolated from the other homes, it stood under the arching forest canopy, its creaking wooden steps lit by the late afternoon sun.

The inside was sparse: two orderly rows of beds, one on each wall, ran from the front of the house to the back. A door on the left appeared to open into a supply closet, and beside it was a small bathing room, the wooden tub just visible through the crack of the door. On the nearest bed, Hethuon still rested with his eyes closed, looking for all the world like he hadn't moved a single inch since she'd knocked him out the night before. A breathing statue, he was the least of her worries.

On separate beds, three elves rocked and rambled.

"The Elvenking," one said, over and over. "I must find the Elvenking."

"Nana, the stars weep," another whispered, his eyes wild and glazed, "Do you see them?"

A group of sane ellons stood nearby, poised as if to catch their crazed counterparts should they try to run.

"They were found this morning, and they've only gotten worse since. I've tried everything. At this point, we need you to make them sleep," Meluieth said.

"All of them?" Charlotte's eyes went wide. She'd never intentionally put an elf to sleep, and the one she knocked out on accident was still sleeping. "I don't know if I can, and, even if I could, what if I can't wake them?"

"They're hurting themselves with these hallucinations," Meluieth gently squeezed her arm. "We've tried sleeping concoctions, and they wear off quickly. Whatever this is, it has a stronger hold than any of the herbs or medicines I possess."

The sick elves rocked on their beds. The third one was chewing on air, his hands hovering in front of him as if he held a loaf of bread. There was anxiety in their companions' eyes. The six ellons who crowded the corner of the room were narrow-eyed and fidgeting. As she watched, one reached up to rub his eyes, as if he were terrified of blinking.

Thranduil had a muscle in his jaw clenched. He was so protective of his people, and the best he could offer them at the moment was essentially a magically-induced coma. Which brought other concerns to the front of her mind.

"How will you feed them?" Charlotte asked. "What if their organs start to fail? Or they stop breathing?"

"I can take care of feeding them," Meluieth reassured her. "We've already successfully fed Hethuon this morning. I can handle figuring out care for them, but right now, we're out of options to protect them without restraining them, and in their state, I worry what it will do to them."

As if to prove her point, the "eating" ellon reached the end of his imaginary snack and chewed on his fingers instead. Two of the elves leaped to pull his hand from his mouth, and he shouted at them, "Release me!" He thrashed and flailed until the ellons holding him had no choice but to allow him to chew his hand. Meluieth gently coaxed him to trade the fingers for one of the few remaining sweet rolls Charlotte had gifted her.

The ellons who'd no doubt dragged these crazed elves to the healing house seemed to be sagging against each other. Defeat and concern warred on their features. How long had these elves been sick before their fellows dragged them to Meluieth? The group looked so tired. One swayed on his feet before he straightened, blinking as if to clear his eyes.

They couldn't go on like this. She steeled herself, tucking away her worries and concerns until only laser-sharp focus remained. There was no place for emotions here, not when these elves needed her to figure out the necklace.

Charlotte slowly approached the ellon who thought he was speaking to his naneth. She froze when his wild eyes darted up to meet hers, and for a moment she thought he was lucid, until he said, "The stars, Nana. Do you see them? They weep, Nana. They weep."

"I see them," Charlotte said softly, trying to keep the concern and anxiety buried. "Would you like to see more?"

The elf nodded erratically, and she settled beside him. His clothes were damp, and he'd dripped onto the sheet covering the bed. She felt the cold moisture against her leg as she sank into her fëa, pulling it up until it illuminated the room. Meluieth was right, each time she did it, she grew faster. Where it felt like a struggle before, now it was a matter of moments before she raised the blue-white light to the surface of her skin.

"Nana," he said awed. He stretched out to grab her, and Thranduil gently nudged his arm away. At some point, during the search for her fëa, the Elvenking had stationed himself beside her.

She tried to shove her fëa through the necklace. Imagined the ellon tired, his eyes slowly drifting closed, restful and content. Her brow knotted, and she frowned. Sleep. Peace. Her invisible hands pushed her fëa toward him. Sleep, she thought. Rest and fall asleep. Nothing. He was still awake, wild-eyed and crazed, staring happily at her fëa. At least he was calm.

She sat there for what felt like hours, trying to coax the necklace to activate, growing more frustrated with every passing heartbeat. Eventually, Thranduil intervened.

"Enough," he said, his warm hand settling on her shoulder. "Wearing yourself out will not help them."

She never felt so much like a failure as she did at that moment. Four sick elves and she could do nothing to help them. Why did she even come here?

Meluieth sighed, her shoulders collapsing under the weight of her next words. "We'll have to restrain them then."

"I'm so sorry," Charlotte whispered. She wanted to rip the necklace off and hurl it across the room. She should never have been chosen for this supposed Valar-ordained task. Whatever it was. She couldn't save her own mother, and she'd had the necklace then.

Her feet were wobbly under her, and she was almost to the door when one of the ellons standing in the cornered group, mumbled, "I feel unwell." She turned just in time to see him smash into the floor with a thunk! None of the others had moved to catch him, and it quickly became apparent why.

It was like dominos.

One-by-one, the remaining five ellons collapsed until they were a heap on the wood floor. Eyes closed and still as death. Meluieth kneeled beside them, running her hands over their faces, lifting their eyelids, checking for pulses.

"They're all asleep." Her wide eyes turned to Charlotte, worry etched in the twist of her mouth. "Did you put them to sleep?" It sounded hopeful, pleading.

"I don't think so," Charlotte said. "I wasn't focused on them at all, and I didn't feel the necklace warm."

Thranduil paced between the beds, his cloak swirling around his feet. Charlotte tracked him with her eyes and resisted the urge to comfort him. Finally, he looked to Ellavorn and said, "I want guards assigned to this house. Have them move these ellons into beds. Guard Legolas. He is not to eat or drink anything without your permission. Charlotte and I will check the Tithenduin with Maethor and Haedirn."

Ellavorn followed them out of the house and down the stairs. "You mean to ride out now?" He eyed the fading sun. "Would it not be better to wait until morning?"

"Those elves will likely wake by then, and Meluieth will be overrun with mad elves," Thranduil explained. "We need to find the missing patrol as well. They have been gone far too long without checking in with one of the posts. I want the village sealed. No one leaves."

"I'll have your horses and packs prepared," Ellavorn said, and Charlotte watched him disappear up the hill to the stone house.

Charlotte left to hunt down Berior, wondering why they were bringing her along when she was so far proving useless.

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AN: Another early post. Thank you for the kind comments; they brightened my day! I can't wait to hear your thoughts!