COTTONCROW'S CRY - EPILOGUE
Like a careful mother, treading on tip toes, the day came slowly and smoothly, not wanting to frighten away too harshly the dwellers of the night.
The sun lazily stretched out its bright arms, at once seeming to want to embrace all of Arda. To Cottoncrow too, this day, its warmth reached.
Of the four elves and dwarf, three elves had already taken the path back to the mountain, intended on retrieving the remaining group of elves and men. Together they would make their way back to Cottoncrow, before the elves returned to Lasgalen.
When Legolas had asked Gimli to remain with him at the ruins, the dwarf could not guess the grim task that the elf had reserved for them both, as they waited for the others.
Legolas had not yet seen him, but he had not forgotten the murdered guard that Samuel had hidden in the ruined tower. That man, like so many others, had been fooled by the fake-healer. The price to pay had been his own life and Legolas would not allow the man's passing to go unmourned.
Silently, the two friends worked as they extracted the scorched body and laid it to rest. The man's father, Gimli remembered, would be devastated by the news of his son's demise, either his grave was near the village or in the middle of the forest. To take such a disfigured body back with them would've been cruel to the poor man.
"Are they listening to us now?" The dwarf asked after a time, breaking the silence in which they had been working.
Legolas looked at his friend, confusion marring his face for a moment, before he realized that Gimli was referring to the trees.
"I thought you put no faith in such things," he said lightly.
The dwarf grumbled, looking around in suspicion, but said nothing.
"What has you so worried, my friend?" The elf asked when he noticed Gimli's concerned actions.
"Think you that they might have developed a taste for dwarven flesh?" He whispered, apparently not wanting to incur in the wrath of the surrounding forest.
Legolas would've laughed, had he not realized how serious this was for the shorter warrior.
"You need not worry mellonin. I suspect their appetite is only for those who have wronged them."
Still, Gimli seemed little assured by his friend's words.
"They were very kind to me," Legolas went on, not wanting the dwarf to develop any ill feeling towards such gentle beings. "They gave me back my strength and health."
Gimli, however, only snorted.
"Great comfort that brings me," he finally said. "You're a wood-elf, of course they'll be nice to you!"
Legolas smiled, shaking his head.
"You remind me of Salmadras, the son my father' sister," he explained. "When he was very young, Salmadras firmly believed that the eagles were bad, because he had once seen one of them hunting smaller birds in the fields near home."
"Nonsense!" Gimli was quick to react, remembering the great help that the kind eagles had been to their fight near the gates of Mordor. "They are gentle beings that, like all of us, need to eat."
"Yes, we explain that very thing to him. But, like you, he was slow to see that which was obvious to all others," Legolas said with a teasing smile.
Gimli cursed and was tempted to use his axe on the elf's neck, before bursting out laughing.
"I see your point, crazy elf, but I'm sure I'm a little older than that cousin of yours."
"Actually, I believe you are about the same age as he was then," the elf managed to say between laughs, seeing the reddening of Gimli's face.
"I'll teach you to respect for my age, you… you princeling!"
The elf ducked with easy the pebble thrown by Gimli, the dwarf's reactions by now familiar an expected. Legolas' laugh died in his lips as his hand moved to push away phantom hair out of his face, a gesture born out of habit that he had taken to do without thought for ages. Now, he realized, there was no point in doing it.
Gimli noticed the silence and recognized the look of lost in his friend's face.
"How did that happen?" He finally voiced the question.
"It matters not," Legolas said, dismissing the subject. "As you've said, it is only hair."
A year ago, when he knew little about elves and did not count Legolas as a friend, Gimli would've wholehearted agreed with the elf. Now, however, something told him that there was more to the matter than that.
He had seen the pained surprise in Thranduil's face when he had first looked at his son. He had seen the manner in which the other elves looked at Legolas, staring, as if to make sure that he was indeed the same elf.
Legolas, however, was making clear that he would rather talk about anything else but what had happened to his hair, so Gimli indulged him.
"Your father surprised me," Gimli said after another awkward silence.
Legolas looked up from his digging.
"For the better or for the worse?"
"For the better, I must say. He is nothing of what I'd expected," the dwarf confessed. "My father saw a side of Thranduil that I have not yet met, and I, on the other hand, witnessed a side that my father would never believe yours to have."
Legolas couldn't help but agree with the dwarf. He, better than any one, knew how difficult his father could sometimes be. But, given the darkness that had for so long surrounded them, the king of Mirkwood had had no other choice but to command his lands with a strong wrist.
If that led him sometimes to be seen as harsh by some, it was something that Legolas lamented, but did not condemn his father for.
"My father can be very stubborn when he feels that someone is wrongdoing him. Gloin was most unfortunate in that aspect," Legolas explained Gimli.
"Aye, I often wondered where you'd pick that particular trait," Gimli jested, enjoying himself when he saw the tip of Legolas' ears reddening. He guessed that those were words that the elf often heard.
Gimli was just searching for a stone to mark the man's grave when Thranduil, his elves, the men from Cottoncrow and Alumna joined them.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
The group that entered the village at the night's fall was a grim one, despite their victory. A deep sentiment of loss and waste had started to overcome men and elf alike.
The guards that had, at first, been forced to escort Gimli in his search, finally understood the madness that had overpowered Samuel's mind. The dead healer's words were still fresh in everyone's heads and they could now truly understand their meaning.
Samuel had warned about a two-headed monster that would arrive to send them all to their graves. They could now understand that the two-headed monster had, in fact, always been amongst them. And every family that had lost someone to the Bruisenbite had felt that monster's venomous bite.
The Lasgalen elves, used as they were to confront evil every day in the forests of their home, used as they were to fight spiders and orcs, found it hard to understand how, so far from the influence of Mordor or the Necromancer, could exist two beings that caused such pain and sorrow.
Like the sudden arrival of winter, the wood-elves could feel the cold of death inside them as they left the protection of the trees and entered the village.
Bomieth, alerted by the frantic reports that an angry party of elves was moving to take siege of Cottoncrow, had raced to meet them. Fearing that the search group had failed in their purpose and that a revengeful throw of elves had finally arrived to claim their lives in pay for the demise of the elf Legolas, Bomieth jumped in joy and relief when he saw Gimli and Legolas at the head of the group.
From what they had heard tell about the elf-king of Mirkwood, who they now knew to be Legolas' father, every person in Cottoncrow had expected to be killed by the enraged elf. The fact alone that the elves, armed as they were, had entered peacefully in to their village, had gone a long way in to changing their view of the elves.
In a place where the entire elven race was feared and associated with evil, all could see now that maybe their ancestors had been unlucky in their meeting of the elves. The beings in their midst now were nothing like the ones in the tales of Caranthir and his elves. Fair of face and heart, these elves brought with them a brightness and peace that calmed and gave hope to the tired souls of the people of Cottoncrow.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
It was with a mix of sorrow and sense of fulfilment that the arriving group explained to a gather mob of villagers what had come to pass and what were the fates of those who were missing.
The only one able to cry Samuel's demise had been his defeated wife. Mistreated as she had been, the poor woman was probably the only soul in the whole village that could feel anything but hate for the man.
Her father held her in his arms as she cried bitter tears of release. Old Bomieth had lost a son to Samuel's devilish, but now that the man was dead, he could at least reclaim his long lost daughter.
The elves made their own camp outside of Cottoncrow, politely refusing all offers to stay with the villagers. Like they tried to explain, the grief emanating from every corner of the village was too much for them to stand, and they would much prefer to stay under the stars.
That night, lulled by the sound of melodious voices that could be heard coming from the elven camp, most hearts in Cottoncrow found themselves lighter and starting to fill with long lost hope.
When the morning arrived, none could really blame the elves' for their eagerness to leave. The place had suffered at the hands of the elves and had paid in kind.
These elves could do nothing to emend the wrongs their kin had committed against Cottoncrow, no more than Cottoncrow and his people could really take back what had been done by Samuel, what they all had allowed to happen to Legolas.
A silent agreement was common to all. Leave the past be passed and allow the present to become deluded in the passing of time. The elves were leaving as friends and Legolas and Gimli would always be remembered in Cottoncrow as heroes.
For ages they had lived in fear of the elves' return, and now that they walked in their village's streets again, they felt sad to watch them leave.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Bomieth, with an uneasiness that seemed out of character for him, approached Legolas and the elves surrounding him. He stole a guilty look at the imposing king, before presenting Legolas with the shrouded parcel in his hands.
"I fear some of your things might have been displaced by the guards, but we have managed to retrieve these," he shyly said.
Legolas looked at the large parcel and smiled. Of the few things that he had carried with him, only two he deemed irreplaceable and had lamented their lost. Holding the parcel in his hands, the elf dared to hope that they were once again in his possession.
Carefully peeling away the cloth in which they were wrapped, Legolas discovered some of his clothes, the grey cloak offered by the Lady and beneath them, the items he had hoped for.
"Thank you for find them, master Bomieth," the elf said sincerely, as he caress the soft wood of his Galadhrim bow like it was a long lost lover. The blades of his white knives were inspected next, before Legolas remembered that he no longer possessed the twin back scabbards where he used to keep them.
"We cleaned them to the best of our knowledge," Bomieth ventured, looking at the shiny blades. "We didn't wanted there to be any sign of…" he was about to say 'your blood', but restrained himself as he looked at the elven-king. Though the older elf had said little since his arrival at the village, Bomieth could see in the ancient being's eyes the restrained anger.
In all truth, the old man could not bring himself to resent the elven-king for his sentiments. He too was a father, and none better than he could understand the pain of losing a child.
"They are very well kept, master Bomieth," Legolas said with a bow. "I thank you."
Legolas was still holding his twin knives, thinking where he could store them, when a pair of scabbards was pushed in to his hands.
"Will this do?" The dwarf's familiar voice said.
Accepting the items with a quick thank-you glance to the dwarf, Legolas almost dropped his precious weapons to the ground when he looked back at Gimli's face.
"The Valar be praised!"
At the surprised gasp of the elf, all others turned to look at the dwarf too. Gone was Gimli's long, trimmed and braided beard, leaving behind a smooth face to the likes never before seen in one of the dwarven kind.
"What happened to you?" Legolas asked with concern. Knowing how much Gimli appreciated and praised his long beard, the elf was sure that such strange occurrence could have nothing less than a horrendous explanation. "Were you attacked?"
The dwarf chuckled.
"Nonsense, crazy elf," he said amused. "Although we chose not too, we dwarves do know how to use a shaving blade!"
"I'm certain you do," Legolas said, still taken aback by the dwarf's appearance. "But why would you do such a thing?"
Gimli seemed reluctant to confess his reasons. He looked at his boots; he looked at Bomieth, searching for a way to escape answering.
At the time, and after a few drinks, it had seemed the reasonable thing to do. Now, sober, in front of all others and under the watchful eyes of Legolas' father, he felt foolish.
Sensing the dwarf's discomfort in sharing his reasons in front of so many, Legolas placed a friendly arm around Gimli's stout shoulders and effectively dragged him away from the crowd.
"Mellonin…" he insisted, "What passed through you head?"
The dwarf looked back, making sure that none was taking interest in their conversation. He passed a hand through his unfamiliar smooth face, much like he used to do with his beard and, with a sigh, finally answered Legolas inquisitive eyes.
"I was talking to one of the other elves last night," Gimli started, avoiding his friend's look. "He told me about that nonsense of you Mirkwood elves', the one about marking banned elves," he said, venturing a look at his friend face, only to discover that it was now Legolas who could not face him."I will not claim to understand the ways of your people, for they make little sense to me, but it seemed to me unfair that you'd be taken for a criminal just because your hair now looks different from the other elves."
Legolas blinked, his heart touched by Gimli's gesture. Truly a friendship to treasure, never had it crossed the elf's mind that the dwarf would show such compassion and understanding for ways that, as he had so well put it, was so strange to him.
Gimli, seeing the way his friend's eyes were beginning to shine a little too brightly, place his rough hand over the elf's one, still resting on his shoulder.
"Now, I figured, at least there will be two of us with funny looks about them."
In his discomfort, Legolas could not help but laugh.
"Funny looks indeed," he teased the dwarf. "Have you yet looked upon a mirror?"
"Aye, laugh all you want, Calen Lin," Gimli said, carefully pronouncing the elven words that he had so often heard being used by Thranduil to refer his son. "Hairy stories were not all that your elven friend shared with me."
Legolas actually looked scared for a second, before blushing red.
"He would have not!" He spurred, searching the faces of the surrounding elves for the 'traitor'. Many were the ones avoiding his gaze, leading Legolas to believe that there was more than one guilty party.
"Indeed he would," Gimli said with a chuckle that came from deep within his belly. "And here was I thinking that the hobbits were the most mischievous creatures that I knew. An impressive attire for singing, I must say, although I can not understand how you manage for the leaves to stay on…"
"Bee's honey," a deeper voice, belonging to Legolas' father answered the dwarf. From the older elf's imposing face, none could guess how much fun he was having with Legolas embarrassed poise.
Sharing a look that promised painful retribution with both his father and Gimli, Legolas gather as much composure as he could muster and turned to say his goodbyes to Bomieth and the rest, hoping that the conversation would end there.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
For each that had died at the cruel hands of the Bruisenbite, the people of Cottoncrow had decided to raise a coloured banner to the skies. When they were finished and looked at their work, the eyes of many filled with tears, as they realized just how many had been lost.
As they finally left the village, leaving behind well-wishers and tears, Gimli and the elves of Lasgalen passed through the field of flags, waving like a sea of silk. They too felt their eyes water for each red, yellow, blue, green and purple that they saw. For each banner they passed, they felt the touched of sorrow and grief that was associated to it, like a particular smell was associated to a particular flower.
In the midst of the waving field, Gimli spotted Alumna, standing by a red banner, strapped to a pole as tall as she. The pendant in her neck shone as brightly as it had when he had seen her for the first time.
The dwarf had already said his goodbyes to his newest friend, so he simply bowed his head to her when her gaze fell upon the departing group. Neither Gimli nor Legolas had the need to ask for who her flag was.
The death of young Bomieth had been the start of all the others that had fallen. It was only fair that his flag should be remembered alongside the other victims.
Alumna placed her hand above her heart and wave them goodbye. At last she had the closure she'd been searching for, and a life back at Cottoncrow.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Where once stood nothing but parched bushes and yellowed grass, now flours bloomed under a tombstone. And under a the tree that once had no name and was now, bearing the carved face of strange looking female, called of the Guardian, the people of the nearby village tried to overcome their past and look forward to a brighter future. Cottoncrow was still healing, but it would cry no more.
The end
A.N. – Well, it's finally over. And now that I no longer have it pending over my head as an unfinished story, I'm sorry to watch it end. It's been over two years since I had the strange idea of starting a story with Legolas' impending beheading, and now, all this time later and over 200 pages after, I can finally write The End.
To all you brave souls that started reading it then and were able to withstand my erratic updates, my deepest thanks, you are all my heroes.
To all of you that only now started to read it, count yourselves lucky, you'll wait no more :o)
As to my reviewers, thank you! Thank you! Thank you many times for all of your kind words. They kept me going when nothing else would.
Another A.N. - Calen Lin, according to what I've read, means Green Song. Between the singing, the honey and the leaves, I leave the rest of Legolas' embarrassing tale to your imagination. I know it will serve you all right ;o)