Dim voices drifted into his thoughts and the world around him began to press in. Legolas felt consciousness drift slowly to him carried by a hushed argument in a room beyond his sight. The place he was in was utterly foreign to him but he could sense the natural materials of the structure. It was a wood of some kind, pine maybe, but it didn't smell quite right. In fact the very air around him felt wrong, though a familiar energy caressed his awareness. It was an ominous heaviness that lurked in the back of his mind, this place; this… realm was thoroughly imbued with it. Shadow…
The voices suddenly rose as they disagreed more passionately about what to do with him. One voice he recognized from the snowy landscape in which he'd awoken earlier.
Seren… That was her name. Now he could hear her arguing with a man she called Tal and seemed rather familiar with.
Legolas lifted the blankets covering him, trying not groan as pain radiated through him. Then he noticed his tunic was gone as were his weapons and he was covered in bandages. He stared in wonder at the white patches strapped to him with a strange sticky ribbon and felt one with a finger, finding it soft, though it stuck to his skin where his wounds had bled. A strange salve coated the cuts and gashes and they didn't sting as much as they should for which he was grateful. The salve didn't smell very medicinal and wouldn't help speed healing but it did protect the opened skin and reduced the pain.
His head was the most grievously injured, he knew; for it hurt to turn too quickly and it seemed too heavy to bear for long. He couldn't stay and heal, though his body was desperate for rest. What he found in Gundabad was too important to wait. His father would surely come looking for him, if he hadn't already. His most recent memories seemed fractured and he feared he was gone longer than he believed.
Now that his eyes, had adjusted to the darkness, Legolas could see the wooden walls of the abode around him. A clear pane of glass allowed him a glimpse of the world outside but all was dark, save for a brief glimpse of the moon through the clouds here and there. He surveyed the room and spotted his daggers slung over a chair, his tunic folded neatly on the seat. He lifted it and a strange scent wafted to his nose. Carefully he sniffed the fabric, trying to determine if the odd perfume was a poison intended to incapacitate him. There were many traces of unnatural substances but nothing seemed harmful so he slid it carefully over his torso and fidgeted with it for a minute. It felt odd on his skin. It seemed to have been washed clean of the blood and dirt it had suffered during his fight against the orcs, with whatever they used to cleanse with here.
He felt much better after strapping his daggers to his back, though his arrows were still missing. A sudden sadness claimed him as he remembered his bow. He shook the memory away, letting his curiosity get the better of him and explored the room.
Heavy wooden furniture stood around the bed he'd been lying in. The lower, longer piece had many drawers and he found only clothes of strange fibers in them. On the surface, sat an array of things he recognized: a brush, a hand held looking glass, a phial of scented oil and something he believed to be a hairpin.
He picked it up gently and admired the swirling silver wires bearing bronze and copper leaves intricately woven together in a shape that loosely resembled a pair of wings. Small stones, almost white in color, were set in the boughs of the piece and they caught the weak moonlight, twinkling at him. He let a thumb drift over the surface and smiled. There were no shadows here.
Setting it back where he'd found it, he continued to caress and prod at the strange things in the room. There was so much that felt wrong and unnatural here and other things that were plainly made by hand and were as comfortable as home. A chair carved of a lovely oak wood but lacquered with something foul was where he'd found his things. Of the bed covers, some were woven threads and others were a smooth and alien fiber he couldn't recognize.
Strong scents drew his attention to a door in the corner of the room and he entered a dark small antechamber. There was no light here at all and the scent of damp pervaded the space. Though he didn't like it, at least it was something familiar to him. He sniffed toward the unnatural odors until he bumped a tray of some sort, with many objects on it. The kaleidoscope of smells came from there and he felt for the phials, lifting them in turn and trying to ascertain what they contained but they only made him sneeze.
Footsteps resounded through the abode and stopped just outside of the other door in the room. Legolas backed out of the smaller room and moved to a corner near the window, not sure what to expect but worried he'd have to defend himself. His head swam with the sudden motion but he kept to his feet and waited. Long moments followed before a quiet knock sounded on the door.
"Legolas?" It was Seren.
His brow knit in confusion at being addressed and he shifted on his feet nervously. "Yes?"
"I thought I heard you," she said, a smile evident in her tone. "May we come in? Are you dressed?"
Further confused, Legolas looked down at himself and blurted, "Yes."
The door clicked and slowly swung open, allowing light from the room beyond to spill inside. He blinked and shifted away from it and studied the woman standing in the frame.
Seren made no move to turn on the light in the room, fearing that it might spook her guest. He looked like a trapped animal as it was. "You should be resting," she said gently. "Your head suffered a pretty good knock."
"I still think we should take him to the hospital," said the unfamiliar voice.
Legolas leaned to see beyond Seren and spotted a tall man reclining at a table under a strange unnatural light, picking at an orange.
Seren sighed. "Please forgive my brother –"
"Where am I?" Legolas suddenly had to know. "This place… it's not like any I've been to in all my travels through Middle Earth."
"'Middle Earth'? Well this is Earth – as in just 'Earth'. There's nothing 'Middle' about it." The man at the table scoffed.
"Taliesin!" Seren scowled at him before turning back to Legolas who still looked ready to bolt. "You must be hungry. I will answer your questions as best I can while I prepare you something."
She turned toward the lighted room, leaving the door standing wide open.
After a long silence, Legolas cautiously approached the door's arch, though he remained on his side of it. "I'm free to go? I'm not a prisoner?" He slowly stepped into the room, wincing at the glare coming from a lantern in the room with many round little lights on it, far too many he thought.
Seren was shocked at the question and stared at him, blinking once or twice before answering. "I… no, you're not. I mean you're not a prisoner and yes you can go, if that is your wish." She glanced at his head wound; startled to see it remarkably diminished. All of his wounds seemed to be days into healing, rather than hours.
"Where would you go?" Taliesin asked. "A new snowstorm just arrived, the roads are impassable and the… portal you came through disappeared."
At this, Legolas furrowed his brow. Seren sighed from where she was slicing cheese and vegetables. Her brother was still having trouble believing her story about Legolas's arrival and was nearly convinced he was being had. The taller man stared at the side of the elf's head and Legolas turned his gaze to see what had his attention but the man just averted his gaze to the other side.
"What?" Legolas snapped.
"How did you…? Your ears…"
Legolas frowned. There was nothing wrong with his ears. "All elves are born with such ears."
"Elves?" Taliesin's dark rust-colored eyebrows rose. "Uh, sister? Are we sure we shouldn't be taking him to a psychiatric hospital?"
"I know what I saw, Tal. If he says he's an elf, after what happened, who am I to say he's not?"
Tal shook his head. "You'll have to forgive me. I've never met an elf before."
A platter of food was set upon the table and Legolas had to admit he was hungry, though he was dubious about what might pass as edible here, given the strange unnatural essence to everything here. Gingerly, he picked up a slice of carrot and considered his question as he nibbled the smallest piece from it.
"There aren't any elves here, in this… 'just Earth'?"
"Elves exist only in our fairy tales, Legolas," Seren said. She placed a tumbler of water and a piece of stone flatware on the table and indicated that he could sit.
"No elves…?" The idea made his head spin. He gripped the chair in front of him for support as he considered it. His people weren't here. How would he get back? If there was even a place to get back to? "And what of dwarves? Wizards? Hobbits and orcs? Do any of them exist here?"
Seren claimed a chair opposite her brother and shook her head. "Such manner of beings are all fiction to entertain our people but never have they existed here."
Legolas paled. "Never existed…?"
The room seemed to tilt strangely and Tal sprung up from his chair in an instant, gripping the elf's shoulders and guiding him into a chair. For several long minutes, Legolas sat with his head in his hands trying to accept what they said. Seren watched him with sad, green eyes, wondering if she was in over her head.
"Legolas…" When he finally raised his eyes to her, a deep sorrow shone in the blue depths and she felt like she could cry for him. "Please eat something. We can talk more when you feel more yourself." He nodded mutely and started picking at his food.
"Captain!"
Haavelas looked up from his study of the stolen map from king Thranduil's armory. A lieutenant was rushing toward the group, one of the scouts he sent to check the pass ahead. In his hands he carried pieces of polished wood; elegant and pointed on one end, broken and jagged on the other, an arch snapped in two. There was no mistaking Legolas's bow. The carvings adorning it were specifically laid for him. It could be no other's.
Caireann gasped. The entire group feared what this could mean for the prince and despair took hold of their hearts.
Haavelas accepted the remnants of the weapon and wrapped them in a soft bundle, stowing it away. He would take it back to their king but they wouldn't return just yet.
"This proves nothing," Haavelas said. "Legolas may yet be out there. Until a body or further evidence of his demise is found, a broken bow is just a broken bow." Somberly, they nodded and straightened to attention. Haavelas again took out the map and laid it on the ground. He traced a finger along the path Legolas would have been most likely to take.
"Gundabad… Just over this ridge. None have ever gone into the great orc fortress and returned. If we reach its gates and no other sign can be found, I fear Legolas will remain lost to us."
It was a thought that made them heart sick to consider but it was a possible reality and it seemed more likely with each day they spent in these accursed lands. The shadows chipped away at their resolve and keeping their hopes bolstered grew more difficult as time passed.
Already, they had been here long enough for Thranduil to know something was amiss. Having neglected the day he was meant to report in and the armory inventory report coming due yesterday, the king would quickly figure out what he'd done. Haavelas had nothing left to him but this task and seeing his kin home to safety.
The skirmishes they had with orcs were coming more frequently and it was getting harder to evade large numbers. Soon they would be unable to travel further.
They split into three groups of four. One group, Haavelas sent back to wait at edge of the forest and report what they'd found to Thranduil if they failed to return. The remaining two continued on. One group, including Haavelas, kept to the ground while the last and most agile traveled through the trees and over the rocky ridge, scouting ahead for signs of orc activity while the group on the ground served as bait.
They hadn't gone far this day when a faint whistle from the scouts alerted Haavelas to orcs nearby. The following signal was a numbers count and there were too many to take on with just eight of them. Haavelass ordered the men around him to take to the trees and they watched and waited.
Soon, the thunder of dozens of armored footsteps hitting the ground in tandem could be heard and not long after that, a swarm of darkness appeared from around the bend. It was an entire company! A small army of orcs, dressed for war made their way down the pass. Fear settled in Haavelas's stomach as he watched the column draw closer. There was only one place the orcs could be heading, only one destination on this path they could want to march on: Mirkwood.
"Surely they don't intend to assault the kingdom of the wood elves!" Caireann hissed from her tree.
Still the dark formation marched south. Haavelass thought of the group he'd sent with orders to wait at the edge of the forest. The orcs would come right past them! He hoped they saw them in time to head off and warn their people.
Where the pass forked, the orcs stopped. Watching from the trees, the elves traded confused glances between them as they listened to orders being shouted through the column. Abruptly, the orcs turned east, marching into the wild lands of the Grey Mountains far north of Mirkwood. Wilder and more savage orcs were the only ones to call those mountains home. Were they going to march against their own?
As the creatures filed up and over the craggy rocks and down out of sight, Haavelas decided they should learn more. A couple of stragglers wandered toward the ridge last and the elves swiftly and silently picked off all but one and surrounded him.
"Elfling…" the orc drawled as Haavelas stepped forward.
"Why are you marching on your own kind?"
The orc laughed. "Foolish Elfling!"
Haavelas leveled an arrow at him. "I won't ask again!" When the orc laughed, he loosed the arrow at a leg and the creature shrieked. While the orc snapped off the shaft of the arrow, Haavelas nocked another and took aim.
"You can't stop us! The elf prince will be found!"
"What is Legolas Greenleaf to you?"
The orc answered this with more laughter and Haavelas let the second arrow fly, striking the orc's other leg. With a gesture, he signaled the rest of his company to release an arrow as well and the orc quivered on his feet as he was pelted. When it stopped, he fell on all fours breathing heavily.
Still he smiled as if he'd won some great victory. "Whatever magic he used to hide from us cannot endure. We will find him and he will lead the Orc of Gundabad! Your land will be laid waste by your own!" He laughed again but it quickly trailed off on a wheeze and he slumped to the ground beneath him, eyes sightless.
Haavelas stared at the dead orc for a time, thinking on what was said. His mind spun in circles on what would happen if Legolas were corrupted like the east elves had been. His thoughts were lifted, however, when something else occurred to him. He smiled as real hope bloomed anew in his breast.
"What did he mean, Captain?" Caireann stood next to him, casting a worried look at him.
Haavelas grinned wider still. "I do not know. What I'm certain of, is that Legolas still lives." He stepped away from the orc's corpse and addressed the rest of his kin. "Legolas still lives!"
Cheers and smiles greeted the news so dearly hoped for. He gazed toward the Grey Mountains. Now they knew where he might be and it was of the greatest importance to find him. Legolas still lives!