Chance Encounter

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize. I'm just borrowing them without permission but with every intention of putting them back where they belong after I'm through with them.

Chapter 13: Into Elvish Territory

The elves prepared to shoot Balian and turn him into a pin-cushion. The blacksmith closed his eyes and prepared for death. He hoped they would kill him quickly. It would be painful otherwise.

"Wait!" shouted Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam at the same time.

"He's innocent!" said Aragorn.

"I can vouch for him!" declared Legolas.

"I can explain!" cried Frodo

"Don't kill him!" begged the rest of the hobbits.

The other elf arched his eyebrow. "Do elaborate," he said. "Why shouldn't I kill a servant of the Dark Lord, a haradrim, by the looks of him?"

"He's not one of the haradrim," said Aragorn. "He's from…another faraway country. He was shipwrecked when we found him in Hollin…"

Bit by bit, Legolas explained how they met Balian, albeit not very clearly, and what sort of person he was. The elf captain's expression became more and more perplexed.

"He was shipwrecked in Hollin," stated the elf flatly "and he is a blacksmith who just happens to inherit a sword with a ruby in the hilt."

"No, no," said Aragorn. "He was shipwrecked and we found him in Hollin."

The elf looked skeptical.

"Look here, Haldir," said Legolas impatiently "I can promise you that he does not serve Sauron." Aragorn recognized that tone. Legolas only used it as a last resort.

"Are you certain?" asked Haldir.

"I swear on my honour as a prince of Mirkwood that he is not a servant of the Dark Lord," said Legolas. "Will that suffice?"

Balian gave a start. Legolas was royalty? He turned to look at him. Legolas stood tall and proud. His eyes were cold and piercing and his mouth was set in a firm line. Yes, he definitely looked like royalty.

The elf called Haldir looked uncomfortable. "Yes, my lord," he said. "We will allow him to live, but we can let neither him nor the dwarf pass."

"They're part of this fellowship, Haldir," said Aragorn testily. "They have to come with us." The ranger was not aware that he had lapsed into Sindarin and now only the elves could understand their conversation. Frodo, who had a scant knowledge of the language, found the quick and heated exchange rather hard to follow.

After some hand-waving, raised voices and earnest expressions, Haldir finally relented. "Fine," he said, although his expression said it was anything but. "They can pass through the woods on the condition that both are blindfolded and the man is bound."

"Now wait here," growled Gimli "I will not be insulted like this!"

"A plague on dwarves and their stiff necks!" cried Legolas in exasperation. "You cannot pass if you do not agree to this!"

"I will oblige if Legolas here shares my blindness," said Gimli with an evil mischievous glint in his eyes.

"I am an elf and a kinsman here," said Legolas, growing angry in his turn.

"Now let us all say 'a plague on elves and their stiff necks!'" said Aragorn. "The whole Fellowship shall go blindfolded. Now hush, you two! I didn't see our young blacksmith complaining about his conditions."

Balian was already being bound and blindfolded. He had not said a single word.

"Well," said Gimli as a piece of dark cloth was wrapped around his eyes "just as well the lad didn't complain or Aragorn would've insisted that we go bound as well. A merry troop of fools we will look then."

"Alas for the folly of these days," said Legolas, who did not find the situation as amusing as Gimli did. "Here all are enemies of the One Enemy, and yet I must walk blind, while the sun is merry in the woodland under leaves of gold."

The Fellowship listened to Legolas' tirade with some amusement. 'Elves are certainly very strange,' thought Balian. 'Some of us were almost shot and he laments the fact that he is not allowed to admire the scenery.'

They continued their journey without their sight, led expertly by the residential elves along the safest paths. No one stumbled or fell. The woods had a fragrant and wholesome smell. It was how Balian had imagined heaven to be like. Birds sang in the branches above them and the trees rustled in reply. He thought that he had never heard a sweeter sound, save for his wife's laughter and Sibylla's musical voice. The ground was firm beneath his feet. The ropes that bound his hands sere smooth as if they were woven of silk. They irritated him not at all. Although the elves treated him with suspicion, they were by no means cruel and he was grateful for that.

They travelled in silence until one of the elves began speaking in their melodic language to Haldir. The two elves conversed for a while then Haldir addressed the Fellowship. 'It seems that the Lady knows that you are coming," he said. "She has ordered that you are all to go free, even the dwarf and the haradrim."

When Balian's blindfold was removed, he realised that it was night. These sacred woods looked even more ethereal under moonlight and starlight. The trees looked as if they had been crafted out of the finest silver, with each leaf lovingly wrought by its creator. The cool night breeze gently caressed his skin and tugged playfully at his hair, like the hands of a lover. "Oh Sibylla, I wish you were here with me," he whispered. She would have enjoyed this magnificent sight. He knew that he would have enjoyed it more with her by his side. Then guiltily, he remembered his late wife, Jocelyn.

"It is lovely, is it not?" said Aragorn, approaching from behind to stand beside him.

"Yes," said Balian softly. The other man did not seem to hear him.

"We need to get rid of that mark on your hand sometime soon," Aragorn continued. "It will cause you nothing but trouble."

Balian looked at his hand and scrutinized the unsightly scar. "How do you plan to do it?" he asked.

Aragorn took Balian's hand and inspected the mark. "I don't want to damage any of the muscles and tendons in your hand, so I won't be cutting the mark out," said the ranger. "I was thinking of putting another brand there to cover it and make it look like a scar from a really bad burn. We will need the proper equipment and sedatives so I suggest we wait until we reach Calas Galadhon. Until then, I suggest that you hide it from the elves. It makes them uncomfortable."

The blacksmith nodded but said nothing. The ranger put a hand on his shoulder. "Come," he said "get some rest. We still have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow."

Balian followed Aragorn to where the rest of the Fellowship was lying on the ground upon beds of soft grass and golden leaves. Legolas was nowhere in sight.

"Don't sleep there," said Gimli to Balian, indicating a spot under a particularly tall and majestic tree. "The elf might fall in the middle of the night and crush you, lad."

"Elves do not fall out of trees," said Legolas' voice in annoyance from amidst the branches. "Only heavy and clumsy mortals do that."

"Hey!" protested Aragorn. "That only happened because you insisted that I would be safer sleeping in the manner of the wood elves than on the ground!"

Balian settled himself near the hobbits to watch the show from a safe distance. Only Sam was asleep. Merry and Pippin were whispering to each other while Frodo sat slightly apart from them, staring into the distance with dull eyes. Gandalf's death had hit the Ringbearer hard and the hobbit looked like he was in need of comforting. The blacksmith went over and sat beside him. Frodo turned around and looked at Balian with large sad eyes.

"I see him every time I close my eyes," said Frodo in a small voice. "I see the look on his face as he falls. Why did he have to be the one who dies? Why did he have to leave?"

"I don't know," said Balian softly. "I have yet to find the answer. I asked myself the same thing when my wife and child died. I only know that Gandalf loved us very much. A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. As long as you remember him and the things that he taught you, he'll always be with you."

"You have a wife, Balian?" asked Pippin. It seemed that the conversation was no longer private.

"And a child," Merry reminded his younger cousin. "Anyway, he had a wife and child."

"What happened?" asked Gimli. Dwarves treasured their women and children very much. It was a tragedy to lose either and unthinkable to lose both.

"My child was a stillborn," said Balian quietly, not looking at them. He plucked a few blades of grass from the ground and twisted them between his fingers. "My wife fell into melancholy. She hanged herself one day while I was not in the house."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Pippin immediately, putting a comforting hand on the man's elbow.

Boromir looked in Balian's direction in surprise. Although he did not like the blacksmith, he felt sorry for the younger man. He would not like to go through what Balian had experienced and he would not wish it on anyone else, not even his worst enemy.

"How did you get your sword?" asked Merry, trying to change the subject. They were all feeling rather uncomfortable. There was nothing that one could say to a man who had lost those dearest to him, and in such terrible ways.

"My father gave it to me, before he died," replied Balian. Another death. Balian's family seemed to know the Grim Reaper very well.

"How did he get it?" asked Aragorn.

"He was the Baron of Ibelin," said Balian. Bit by bit, the Fellowship managed to worm his story out of him. By the end of it, they were all amazed at what had happened to their 'young blacksmith'.

"So in fact, you are not a blacksmith at all," said Gimli. "You're a knight!"

"You defend cities and build siege engines?" asked Boromir in disbelief. Balian thought he heard a hopeful note in the Gondorian's voice.

"You seduced a princess?" said Legolas with wide eyes full of respect.

"No, the princess seduced him," corrected Aragorn. "Weren't you listening?"

"Why did you decide to let Guy live, after all that he's done to you?" demanded Merry. "Why didn't you take up the King's offer?"

"Because it would've been wrong to do so," replied Balian. "To let the King kill Guy so that I could marry Sibylla and become Prince Regent would have been murder and adultery. I couldn't sell my soul."

"You would've made a better Prince Regent —and King— than Guy," said Legolas. "Then you could have prevented the war."

"I don't think the people would have accepted a blacksmith as a king," said Balian. "They would've overthrown me. Anyway, I didn't want to be king and I still don't want to be king. I'm just a blacksmith."

"No, you're a knight and a baron, not to mention the defender of a city," said Aragorn. "The Free Peoples of Middle Earth will have need of your services before the end."

"And I will be glad to serve them," said Balian "but for the time being, I would like to rest for a while. It has been a rather trying day."

"Aye, I second that!" said Gimli. With that, the dwarf closed his eyes and was soon snoring.

They reached Calas Galadhon late next morning. It was a grand city nestled amongst the giant trees of Lothlorien and Balian had never seen anything like it. All the houses were built amongst the branches and stairs curled around the trunks of the trees like climbing serpents. Everything was so graceful and elegant that he felt completely out of place. Haldir led them to a giant platform supported by the topmost branches of the tallest trees, where a whole delegation of elves awaited them.

Two very tall people, presumably the Lord and Lady of this place stepped forward solemnly to greet them. They were arrayed in fine garments made of light silvery material and they shone with internal light.

"Nine there are here, but not the same nine who set out from Rivendell," said the Lord. "Tell me, where is Gandalf? I much desire to speak with him. I can no longer see him from afar."

"Gandalf the Grey did not pass the borders of this land," said the Lady. Her voice was low and melodious. "He has fallen into shadow."

"He was taken by both shadow and flame," said Legolas sadly. "A balrog of Morgoth, for we went needlessly into the net of Moria."

"Needless was none of the deeds of Gandalf in life," said the Lady comfortingly. "We do not yet know his full purpose." She turned to Gimli, who was looking rather depressed. "Do not let the darkness of Khazad Dûm fill your heart, Gimli son of Gloin," she said gently "for the world has grown full of peril, and in all lands love is now mingled with grief."

Her eyes travelled over them, and rested on Balian. The man thought he could hear her voice inside his head. 'Welcome, Balian son of Godfrey,' she said to him. 'I have seen your coming long before you were born. Do not be afraid. It is by the will of the Valar and indeed the One that you are here. Your purpose is known only to them.' She released him from her gaze. He felt stunned. Who was this woman who seemed to know everything about him? He had so many questions that he wanted to ask her but she was already addressing the Fellowship, who seemed unaware that she had spoken to him.

"Go now and rest," she was saying "for you are weary with sorrow and much toil. Tonight, you shall sleep in peace."

A/N: Galadriel finally makes an appearance and the Fellowship finally gets to know Balian's story! Thanks to my loyal reviewers. You guys inspire my muse and me. Reviews make me write faster! So reviews please!