Love the Hardest Way

" Why are you here, Ren?"

Seren sat up. The white expanse of snow around her blinded her to everything but the tree under which she sat. It was the tree standing sentinel over her brother's grave.

"Taliesin!"

She rose to her feet and rushed forward but paused a few paces from him. "You aren't real..." The air was cold but the snow hitting her skin felt like nothing. "This is a dream."

Tal smiled. "It is your creation, little sister. It's as real as you need it to be." His smile faded. "You can't remain here long, however."

Gently he placed his hands on her shoulders. "Do you realize what this place is?"

She gazed around the white void. "I'm not dead…"

"No," Tal confirmed. "Though you have drifted too far from life to seek me out. You must return."

"If I refuse?"

"You promised…" Tal said a bit sternly.

Seren scowled. "I promised my brother."

"I am your memory of Taliesin. You know what I say to be true. He would not want you to squander your life on fear."

Seren scoffed. "My life… I fear I am losing myself..."

The apparition of Tal smiled kindly and his hazel eyes shifted with deeper blue hues until they resembled the night sky, set alight with stars. "You are already lost. You have been for time beyond counting. All that you fear to be leading you astray are the pieces of the life of which you were robbed so long ago. It was all I could do to save your essence."

A strange timber had entered Tal's voice and Seren retreated from him. The apparition wasn't her doing after all. Suddenly she knew him.

"Mandos…"

He nodded once, a small downward tilt of his chin.

"You could have chosen the appearance of anyone I know. Why take my brother's form?"

"I thought you would be more receptive to my words if they came from Taliesin for I do not doubt he would agree. I was there when his mortality ended."

"You guided him home?" Seren breathed through her words.

Mandos smiled sadly. "I watched him leave. Not even I know where human souls journey to after they are released."

"He should have been sent back to Earth!" Seren's tone rose higher. "Can you not return us to where we belong?"

Mandos gently shook the head wearing Tal's features. "Earth was never for you."

Seren winced and paced away though she couldn't help but hear his words.

"Earth is a mirror," Mandos said patiently. "Upon creation, Arda was corrupted with disharmony. Magic requires rules. The discord allowed those rules to be broken. Arda would have been lost to chaos. We guided Arda's formation but in resisting the disharmony, we discovered a counterpart had formed - one to which Arda's rules are anathema. They are linked by the dissonance that creates them. Thus the disharmony was given free reign. Magic cannot exist there. They are two sides of the same coin. Neither can exist without the other and no one can truly be of both worlds. You cannot be of both worlds."

Seren considered this. It explained why Tal hadn't responded to magic and why the elves faded as they did when they came to her home. "I'm only here because I'd hoped to save my brother. Earth was all I knew before that day."

Mandos smiled. "But that is not all there is… Your king understands more than he realizes..."

A vast ocean of memories shimmered below her thoughts and she could recall each one. For a moment she was no longer Seren - or, rather, no longer just Seren, no longer only Seren. She was Seren as she comprehended herself to be with another - and far longer - lifetime as the foundation of her identity. The twenty-eight years of her life on Earth were a mere blink of the time she had lived, her humanity a very small part of who she was.

It frightened her. It overjoyed her. Her mind was whole, though she hadn't understood it to be sundered. An expansive awareness of the world settled around her like a fresh blanket of snow on a clear star-filled night. She nearly wept. She nearly ran. She nearly broke.

Through the confusion, Mandos' voice reached her. "You cannot remain as you are. By sundown, you will run from Destiny no longer."

Seren bolted up, sitting on the ground and shivered against the cold. She felt awful; weak, dim, as barely alive as though she was trying to settle back into her own skin. Memories of the dream shifted through her mind and she knew she wasn't the same though she couldn't undertsand how. She felt utterly insignificant and panic threatened to grip her when she recalled the parting statement Mandos left her with.

What destiny awaited her? The remark had sounded ominous. ' You cannot remain as you are.'

Was she going to die? If she was never meant for Earth, where was she meant to be? Why such effort to take her from there? If she belonged here, how did she get to Earth? And why? Surely it couldn't have been her doing?

Flashes of a gathering and a flood of disjoionted images, scored by random voices, assailed her. Terror and resolve, grief and accomplishment; all this and a dozen other images and sensations she couldn't name whirled about her before darkness rushed over it all.

She swayed and swallowed a swell of nausea.

Shaking off the shadow, she rose clumsily to her feet and gazed toward the mountain in which she lived. And then she remembered…

"Nuineri!"

She jumped with sudden adrenaline and took off at a shaky run.

The path through the woods gently sloped upward and the sun grazed the trees, lazily illuminating the darkness of the forest beyond the passage. Caireann paused and held a hand up. Behind her, the other scouts halted and they began to look about. She turned back to them and grinned.

"Do you hear?" she asked Nuinethir.

He listened carefully before grinning. "The river; we are nearly home." After a moment more, he picked up the sounds of weapons clashing.

"It seems we haven't missed the party, after all," Caireann said.

Excitement rushed through them as they renewed their pace. A runner was sent to inform the king and his retinue and they pressed forward.

"My lord, Thranduil! We are nearing the kingdom!" A runner wove around the outliers of the company of elves and men and came to a halt before his king. He bowed and waited, breathing slightly labored from the short sprint several acres back to the main group.

Thranduil nodded, sending him on his way and ordered everyone to be ready. The night had been long, trekking through the white sparkling woods of his land. The path they'd found in Seren's wake had maintained its integrity for the entirety of the journey and eased their progress. The elvenking kept his surprise about this development to himself but he was glad of the trail's existence.

The sounds of the river soon murmured above the chirps and rustling leaves and their pace quickened, so eager were they to be done traipsing through the forest. Less than a half hour later they joined the fast flowing water that passed under their halls. Thranduil demanded everyone keep to the main canal, veering them north toward the caves beneath his kingdom and behind the mountain ridge guarding it.

In the distance ahead, he heard one of his patrol guards yell for the scouts to halt and rushed through his caravan to greet the patrolling elf. Caireann was explaining their presence in so conspicuous a location when he strode out of the trees.

"King Thranduil!" The guard and his companions immediately dropped into formal bows. The one who spoke gestured excitedly for another to run ahead and inform Legolas. He ordered the rest to take up defensive positions around the king.

"The river caves were opened, my lord; to allow for reinforcements without compromising the front gate."

"Very good," Thranduil replied, his voice clear and commanding to everyone present.

The caves were wet and slick but the elves' preparations had made traversing them safe with hastily made gang planks laid over the rocks. They had to enter two abreast but everyone was inside in admirable time.

Once on the rocky deck, Thranduil gave orders to have weapons and armor readied and waiting for all who were lacking and still more of the guards ran off to have the orders spread.

Bard paused next to Thranduil as elves and humans disappeared in groups through the various tunnels leading into the mountain.

"The efficiency you demand of them is enviable. It is a sight to behold and I had forgotten it in the years since the battle at the Lonely Mountain."

Thranduil smirked. His army was all that had stood between his people and the shadows of Mordor for centuries. He felt no shame in the pride he took in their readiness.

Nuinethir assumed the lead but not before commanding three dozen of the mixed company who possessed arms and armor to remain and guard the cave entrances. "Pull back, only once the tide covers the gates."

"Loose!"

Legolas watched the hail of arrows sail across the space between the ramparts and the throng below. His people had engaged the Easterlings on the ground, keeping the enemy's archers from getting closer. His own archers prevented them from launching Dragon's Heart poisoned arrows into their midst at too great number. He had set up two columns of bows that alternated shots. Along the ramparts stood manned stations of supplies to replenish arrows and broken bows at a moment's notice.

A loud groaning noise drifted above the shouts and clinking of swords and moments later a large battering device appeared from the tree line. The tip was encased in a sculpted metal dragon's head.

His archers immediately targeted the men pushing the ram but as they fell, more took their place, doing their part to advance to device a few feet before also being hit by elvish arrows.

"There are too many!" The captain of the archers called out.

Soon after, the ram was at the front gate and the men inside its armored walls began pulling back the battering arm.

Legolas scoffed. "Let them waste their effort." He blinked as the ram abruptly swung forward and bashed against the gate. The massive stone doors rang with the vibration of the impact but showed no sign of being affected.

Halloran appeared beside him. "If that head was forged in dragon's fire…"

"Dragon's Fire is unpredictable. It burns high and swift, leaving little time to forge anything of that size."

"Yet they spent the effort to extract heart blood from a dragon's corpse…"

It wasn't impossible, Legolas knew. Once dead, a dragon and its various resources were far less dangerous. However, the fluid in the sacs lining a wyrm's throat was prone to incinerating, at the slightest provocation. Never mind that heating it enough to light a smithy was a slow and laborious process – one prone to spontaneously exploding at any given moment and best kept to a small furnace..

"If they managed to salvage anything from the glands, it's far more likely they would cast arrowheads and swords with it for piercing armor."

"My lord, Legolas!"

An elf vaulted the entire staircase coming from the mountain in just three strides and landed on the deck of the ramparts. "I have word! The king has arrived through the river tunnels!"

Legolas smiled. "Take me to him."

The messenger bowed before returning to the mountain, Legolas close behind him.

A whetstone was offered and Thranduil took it, making Seren's long dagger gleam. He waited patiently in the armory for another set of his armor to be brought to him, and stood over a depiction of his kingdom and the Easterlings' forces outside.

"How many, Mairienn?" he asked of his advisor.

"Our scouts count our current assailants at two-thousand strong."

Thranduil scowled. "That is two-thirds the number we tracked here."

Mairienn nodded. "A large section of their contingent is holding back. Their family crest does not match that of Rhun. There are many crests among those waiting."

A gleam lit Thranduil's gaze at the news. "Something divides the houses…

Nuinethir leaned away from the makeshift table and map slowly. "When they came to Esgaroth, they were united."

"They also demanded Seren," Thranduil replied with a slow pass of the stone on the blade rasping to underscore his point. "Lagdar seemed overconfident until he learned she had survived the Lothrim. Tolvaris sent a legion to our camp while I was away. Had she stayed as commanded, they would likely have taken her in place of the others."

The runner's expression paled. "They might have simply killed her. Her tent - Carieann's tent - was ruined."

"It seems the remaining clans' participation is dependent on Tolvaris securing Seren in one capacity or another," the elvenking agreed.

"Yet now they have failed, the clans have left the house of Rhun to this assault." Nuinethir fixed the king with a meaningful stare. "Why?"

Loud footsteps in the hall outside the armory interrupted further conjecture and Thranduil looked up to see his son enter the room with his armor and another of his swords in hand.

The prince bowed his head and when he raised it, a faint smile graced his features. "Father…"

Thranduil returned the greeting before lifting his armor and slipping into it. Legolas and Nuinethir immediately went to work closing the buckles and clasps as the prince spoke.

"It seems a lifetime since Seren arrived yesterday morning. The Dragon's Heart has caused many casualties and our people are frightened by the prospect of absolute destruction. They fight with as much courage as ever but the poison ensures they cannot return to battle once their wounds are tended. We will prevail but at great cost. If we seal the mountain, however, we can outlast them."

Thranduil sighed. He knew this was why Tolvaris spent the effort to cultivate such a weapon. "No. I will not consign our people to cower under the mountain while our forest is overrun."

Legolas frowned. "I did not expect such a decision from you, father... The forest -"

"The forest is our kingdom as well as these halls. I will not lose what is left of it to these men. They would only hasten the shadows of Mordor upon our lands."

Legolas swallowed at the strong rebuke. He'd been so sure the king would choose to sequester their people from harm, even as it galled him. Words failed the prince now and he flushed with shame at having misjudged his father so.

"We must exploit the chasm between the clans," Thranduil continued, "and discover what importance Seren is to them. This began with her arrival and I foolishly took her from the protection of the mountain. It cannot be a coincidence."

"Do you think she is complicit?" Legolas asked, surprise on his features.

Thranduil shook his head. A fond look softened his gaze a touch. "No. There is no malice or duplicity in her. Whatever she is to the Easterlings, she is as unaware of it as we."

Now with his armor secured, the king ordered everyone out to battle stations and followed Legolas to the ramparts.

Seren gazed into the infirmary, wincing every time the battering ram outside made the halls echo terribly. Ceridwen seemed unfazed as she bustled about, tending her patients. From the door, she could see behind the partition that shielded those suffering from the poisoned arrows. Nuineri had withered considerably and her skin was a dark ash color, her eyes red as coals but she yet lived.

Fresh tears fell with every agonized whimper the woman issued and Seren's heart ached for her friend. In the back of her mind, a thought nagged at her but she couldn't catch it, seeing only an image of fire when she tried.

"Seren."

Ceridwen was staring at her sadly. "There is nothing to be done."

The human nodded. "I just wish…"

The healer nodded kindly. "She knows. She's aware you're here but it pains her further to see you aggrieved by her condition. I implore you to leave her be."

"How much longer?"

"She will not last the day."

Seren closed her eyes and dragged in a breath. "I thought we would have driven the Easterlings off by now. What good was running here if so many are going to die?"

Ceridwen stepped closer and whispered. "It would have been more dire and Nuineri would have far more company." The healer gently swept a loose strand of Seren's hair back from her face.

"I need your help. There are many wounded just inside the south gate by the ramparts. Some may be saved with immediate tending but the healers there need help." A bag of supplies was lifted for Seren to take.

She accepted the burden and turned away from the sight of Nuineri's dying form.

The halls blurred together and, before she knew it, she had reached the triage area. Moans of pain and cries of agony drifted down from the ledge above and she slipped into the staircase that spiraled up to the next floor.

The healers took supplies from the satchel as soon as she appeared, rushing to stem blood loss and give healing poultices or pain managing elixirs.

"Help me get him out of this!"

Seren looked to the speaker and found a healer meeting her gaze. Her stomach jumped and she rushed over to help. The rent and mangled armor made releasing the buckles impossible so she took her small knife to the straps and the plates sprang open.

The elf was a gory mess of torn garments, bruises and blood underneath. The gash in the breast plate made a sick squelching sound as the sharp metal was pulled free of flesh. The elf shrieked and then gasped, blood bubbling out of his mouth. The healer poured something past his lips and his patient settled, breathing heavy and rasping but the blood stopped flowing from his mouth.

"Thank you," the healer said to her without looking as he prepared a pressure bandage.

Seren nodded stiffly before rising to help another.

"Where's my blade?!"

Thranduil paused, listening to the cacophony coming from the triage area above. Seren… He glanced at the tunnel leading outside and those marching ahead of him continued on, unaware of her words.

He veered to the staircase leading up, stepping easily over them by twos and nearly stumbled over a healer when he emerged. The elf apologized and then gasped, dropping into a bow.

"My lord!"

Seren stood from the elf she'd been trying to free from a dented helm and stared at the king. A pressure pounded slowly in her chest and her cheeks flamed. At her feet, her charge started convulsing and she spotted the glint of her knife then, lying in the dirt next to the bowed healer. She strode over, scooped it up and returned to her patient. Another healer finally pried the ruined headpiece off and Seren used her blade to cut the bindings on a poultice, opening it and wetting it before pressing it to the contusion on the elf's head. His violent twitching soon subsided and she tied the bandage straps around his head before arranging him in a comfortable position to rest.

Both healers moved on as she stood again, leaving her to greet Thranduil alone. For a long moment he assessed her, noting her drawn and pale features. He said nothing; his mind having gone blank with disbelief at the sight of her, his breathing shallow within the vice his ribs had become.

"My lord…" She nodded once and moved around him, picking up her empty satchel before disappearing into the staircase.

Unsurprisingly he followed, releasing an abrupt exhale. "Seren…"

She stopped. Even in the dim cast of the torches that flickered into the nook, he could see she was exhausted. Her frazzled braid caught the firelight in a burnished golden haze around her face as she looked at him.

"Are you well?"

She grimaced. "Better than so many others…"

"Legolas tells me you nearly perished reaching our halls. You should be resting."

Her eyes gleamed in the dark at him. "Could you rest at such a time as this?"

"I suppose not," he murmured.

She was silent for many long moments before awkwardly apologizing. "I'm glad you've made it unharmed. I've lost enough friends today."

He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Many have perished and more will follow, but still far fewer than would have been lost had you not returned."

His grip on her shoulder increased ever so slightly as though to keep her from vanishing. "I admit I had not entirely believed you could reach Legolas in time, though I did not realize I harbored that seed of doubt until I saw you with my own eyes."

The heat of his hand seeped through her tunic, contrasting against the chill in the stairs and she shivered. "Only death would have prevented me..."

"I know." He swallowed. It hadn't been easy to watch her leave, believing he was allowing her to die for a fool's hope. The possible chance she gave their people had been too precious to forfeit. "Of that I am certain and had believed likely. In this I am glad to be wrong."

Thranduil leaned into her space, his jaw grazing her left temple and his fingers curled into the fabric of her tunic at her sides. Without words, it felt like… gratitude …

There was nothing she could say that felt appropriately worthy. She let him claim her weary weight, letting go for just a moment.

A slight tremor shook him as they stood there before he relented to the desire he'd been keeping at bay. With a tilt of his head, he pressed his lips to hers for the second time.

Seren responded instinctively and a charge zipped through them both. A tiny hum slipped from Seren and her stomach flipped, heat washing over her.

He rejoiced in it and he was dismayed.

He felt her cool fingers slide over his neck and under his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. He moaned quietly and her tongue darted out to taste him. No further invitation was needed and he pressed forward, fervor in his rhythm, delving into her with crushing pressure, rumbling low in his chest when she met him without hesitation. He cursed his armor's presence as he held her there. His other hand cradled her jaw and neck, thumb grazing her ear.

Abruptly Thranduil released her, breathing noticably labored. "Forgive me…. This was not my intention..."

Foreboding settled over Seren and she retreated, breathing hard and watching him warily.

"Quite the opposite, in fact," he continued.

She said nothing and waited.

He glanced at her, unable to hold her gaze lest he give into himself again. "During the journey here, I was certain of the decision I had to make; a decision I had forgotten as soon as I saw you."

Seren nervously licked her lips with a tongue that had gone dry. "I cannot go back and forth with you like this and I will not beg..."

Finally he looked at her. "I expect not, nor would I wish it."

Everything he wanted to say swirled through him and he settled on self-reprisal. "I am a coward where you are concerned…. And I am weak."

Seren frowned with confusion.

"You are finite and I am assured of your passing. I fear that day. There was no memory sent to the Halls of the Valar the day my beloved perished. She was utterly gone. I dare not think I can weather such a void a second time. Yet despite knowing this, I am drawn to you."

To hear him speak plainly of his regard for her, Seren's composure threatened to crack. She ached to speak of all she felt but her pride was enough to stay her tongue and her logic reasoned that a king had more than himself to consider. A king who feared he might be lost to grief far too soon. She pulled him around to face her and nuzzled his cheek, drawing a deep breath through his hair. For a long moment, she clutched him to her and he relished her embrace, gaze shuttered from the stone walls around them.

"I refuse to be guilty of this," she whispered shakily in his ear. "I refuse you."

She released him then, and straightened her posture even as her vision blurred and her eyes burned.

He stared wide-eyed at her, appalled and awestruck in equal measure. "You… 'refuse' me?"

"No decision you make here matters." A cold fist settled under her breast and she forced herself to stillness, breath barely kept smooth and even. "You are refused, Thranduil." She drifted away from him and down a step. "Let us not speak of this again."

He warred with the change for a long moment before eventually nodding. She didn't wait beyond that small acknowledgement before resuming her journey down the stairs, leaving him to wonder what he felt about this unforeseen turn of events.

Seren squared her shoulders and breathed deep to restore her composure as she walked. She focused on her poise, lifting and drawing back her shoulders and raising her chin. Her steps evened out until she was all but gliding over the stone on which she walked. When she caught sight of her disheveled hair in a mirror, she pulled the tie from her braid and gently tugged the plait apart until her long red tresses flowed in waves about her. She finger combed the locks and smoothed down the flyaways on her head until all was neat and smooth. The shadow she cast now was more agreeable and she smiled slightly for her own benefit and, for the moment, put her thoughts of the king behind her.

A child's cry echoed down the hall and Seren quickened her pace, sweeping into the healer's ward. Nuineri was surrounded by elves, frantically trying to ease her pain as her skin turned to red embers. Near her right shoulder sat Menui, sobbing quietly. Seren's heart clenched. She drifted further into the room, a feeling of urgency gnawing at her.

Ceridwen came to Seren and led her to their friend's bedside. "It is time…"

Nuineri gasped, her eyes black and pupils red, when she saw Seren. Her head turned toward her as if to speak but her mouth merely opened on a dry raspy cry.

Seren gently took her left hand, ignoring Ceridwen's attempt to protest. A buzz hummed in her mind and a familiar pressure began to rise. She stared down at Nuineri's hand, caressing the flaking ash of her skin and transfixed on the red firelight clowing through the cracks.

Heartbreak shone on Nuineri's features as she returned the gaze. Menui sobbed and an herbalist hurried to soothe the child. Ceridwen watched Seren, mouth a grim line as ash drifted up from the contact of Seren's hand.

"My friend..." Seren stroked a gray cheek. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. A lump took up residence in her throat. The buzz in her head grew louder and she let it, becoming a solid singular pressure. Everything around her seemed flatter somehow. Everything except Nuineri.

Through the ash and embers consuming the elf, a light glowed weakly underneath and it was slowly dimming. Seren felt her gaze narrow, trying to see more. Voices boomed dimly around her like distant thunder. A new light encroached on the edges of her sight and the room in which she stood dissolved.

Ceridwen couldn't take her eyes from Seren and the call to withdraw her grasp refused to be uttered. Halloran stepped into the room and wove around the healer to stand mere inches from Seren's fixed expression and unnaturally bright eyes.

"What are you doing, human?"

"Do you feel it?" Ceridwen asked. "Such a magic I have felt once before; the day we returned with Legolas through a hole between worlds…"

Halloran cast a worried glance at the healer. "Is it dangerous?"

"I do not know."

She saw fire. She saw shifting colors of briliant light within the flames. With a thought alone, Seren embraced Nuineri and the scorch of ash and embers tore at her. She resisted the urge to cry and opened herself to it. Light swelled around her, bathing all of her awareness in a silent roar. She was everything and nothing. Raw. Fundamental. Memory and restoration and she flowed like water, washing away the burn. A large heart, flames blooming wherever it bled, bent on consuming everything, flashed before her and she stared back. Flames engulfed it and the blood ceased, its path of flame thwarted and water washed the ash away. Light reflected from it until it was all that remained. She was light. It was within. And she was surrounded by it. She commanded it. She was its will. She nurtured it. She protected it. And cast a bright and long silver shadow.