Mae Govannen!
I hope anyone reading this is enjoying it, but i'll keep blabbing to a minimum:
so,
disclaimer: i own nothing of J.R.R. Tolkien's work.
and please reveiw!
namarïe!
"To all those who doubted us… rue this day!"
-Thorin Oakenshield
"Tinúviel elvanui,
"Elleth alfirin edhelhael.
"Hon ring finnil fuinui,
"A renc gelebrin thiliol."
.
The ancient song turned in Thranduil's head as he spurred his mount on, its hooves pounding on the smooth riverbank, cold beads of water spraying up about its legs as it plunged on through the shallows. His mind was reeling, hands numb from where he clung to the reins with knuckled as white as his face.
"Your son lives."
A stab of pain lanced into his heart, and Thranduil drove his elk on even faster. The animal huffed softly, clouding the cold air with its breath. Raised by orcs? Turning on his own kind? Tauriel had looked shaken and scared but had begged him not to go after Legolas. Had got down on her knees and pleaded.
Ingwil and Galion had stood by; their faces full of horror as they took in the ruin of Helluin's body. Thranduil had avoided looking to closely at it, but what he had seen was enough to make him feel sick.
"Forgive me, aran nîn, I was going to keep it from you."
Tauriel's last words before she had set off had rung with her sorrow. She had told of how Helluin had made her swear not to tell…and how she had broken her oath. She had felt that he needed to know.
The elk huffed, pricking its ears. Its body rolled under Thranduil as it slowed, sniffing deeply at the air, nose quivering. Pawing at the stone, it lowered its great head and began to drink from the clear shallows of the river. It was stiller here, the water crashing down into a little pool of sapphire, the small beach made of grey stones.
"Althî, Hwellen," said Thranduil, gathering the reins.
Not now.
"You can drink later."
The elk huffed, raising its dripping muzzle and shook itself. There came a sudden sharp snap, and a drone as of an arrow being loosed. The elk bucked, rearing with a bellow that split the stillness. Taken by surprise, Thranduil was thrown from its back as a deep furrow opened on the beast's chest. Blood ran steaming from the wound. Lost to flight, the elk charged, clearing the pool with one mighty leap, before vanishing into the trees on the far bank.
Thranduil found his feet, silver blade gleaming in hand, but faltered as he beheld his assailant. Words deserted him.
He looks so like you, aran nîn… Tauriel had murmured.
Legolas had grown up well. His ash-blonde hair long and silky, frame graceful as he shifted on his feet, two black blades gleaming from between his fingers. The scarred side of his face, however, sent a chill striking deep into the Elvenking's heart, for it so resembled the Pale Orc…Thranduil felt bile rising into his throat. Words failed him as he beheld the black hate in his son's eyes.
"Ion nîn?" he ventured softly.
Legolas moved as a shadow slinks, coiling back, blades a gleam of inky darkness. Thranduil hardly had time to raise his own sword before the young elf was on him. Legolas struck again and again, his steel a blur of menace. Nothing that Thranduil pleaded or cried in desperate Sindarin drew even a flicker of emotion from the features of his son. Legolas only snarled something in Black Speech, the vulgar tongue harsh and mocking.
Unsure of how to defeat Legolas without causing him harm, Thranduil stayed on the defensive, sparks flying as midnight and starlight sliced in vain at one another.
"Legolas-" he shouted, deflecting a vicious blow a second too late; he was cut off as the silver fabric of his sleeve tore and pain lanced up his arm, blood misting the air. Ignoring the wound, Thranduil gasped, "Pedni adh le ieasandîr!"
I only wish to speak with you!
Legolas sneered. "I do not speak your language, Elvenking."
The blood was now all over Thranduil's arm, slick on his pale fingers, and the blade was struck from his grip. Clattering to the stones with a wearying finality. The wound burnt with a cold fire quite unlike anything he had felt before.
Once again, in a movement faster than blinking, Legolas had shifted position; now behind Thranduil, with one arm encircling the elf king's chest, binding his hands to his sides, the other hooked about the slender column of Thranduil's throat. Legolas's grip was harder that iron. Unyielding and harsh. The pain in Thranduil's arm was growing, like the storms over the far-off mountains. He had not the strength left to fight anymore.
"Amman, lass tithen nîn?" he rasped as he was dragged backwards, his heart giving a great wrench deep in his aching chest.
Why, my little leaf?
"What was that?" Legolas's tone was mocking. His arm tightened about Thranduil's throat and the Elvenking gagged, struggling against his son with no avail, his head spinning as he felt the blood draining from his body.
"Any last words, father?" spat Legolas in his ear.
"Le ni meleth, ion nîn…" whispered Thranduil softly. He felt his son release the arm about his throat, reaching back. Thranduil took the opportunity and thrashed against the young elf, struggling to get free from the iron grip. The blood over their hands made the hold tenuous and he had almost pulled free when, quite suddenly, a white-hot brand of pain burst over his back, just beneath his heart.
A scream burst from between his lips, and he struck the ground hard as Legolas let him fall. The water was cold as winter, and it bit at his skin with a numbing maw. Thranduil tried to stand, but his boots slipped on the rocks, the strength leaving his legs, and he fell back down, onto his knees, gasping in agony as the water about him clouded, dark with his blood. River water stung his eyes, the faint trace of salt and steel lurking on his tongue.
Legolas stood watching, a dark satisfaction shining in his eyes. He moved forward, slamming Thranduil onto his back with a boot to the chest. Thranduil choked out a cry of pain as the rocks dug into the wound in his back. Black shadows swam before his eye, his body aching from wound and sorrow.
"Daur, Legolas…" he whispered, trying to fight off the darkness that reached for him, calling his name. "Elnir nen…"
It hurts…
Legolas merely looked down at his father, his eyes cold as the winter snow. "You deserve this." His voice was caustic with hate. He watched the agony flowering in Thranduil's eyes, as blood bloomed around him- a grisly flower in the pure blue of the pool. "All of it. You abandoned me. You deserve to die."
Hardly any of his strength remained, but Thranduil managed to choke, "They stole you away, ion nîn. I never…I never stopped looking."
His very breath a soft rattle in his chest, Thranduil felt his blood sliding from his body. Never had he felt so helpless…for elves felt not the cold nor the heat. Lest not the way men did. But now, for the first time in his life, Thranduil was so cold that his body felt numb. He could no longer even feel his wounds as his body betrayed him. His life spilling out into the water lapping gently at him.
Legolas stepped off him with a look of disgust, before he turned and strode out of the stream. Thranduil weakly turned his head to allow himself one last sight of his son, before Legolas sheathed his knife and vanished once again into the shadowed maw of the forest, leaving Thranduil cold and alone.
"Tinúviel the elven fair,
"Immortal maiden, elven-wise.
"About him cast her shadowy hair,
"And arms like silver, glimmering."
"Has the Elvenking had any sign of Lindir, hîr nîn? Or the other?"
Elrond shook his head wearily. "No. he lost three of his people trying to rescue them. The orcs butchered two…the other died at his feet."
"Ai," said Glorfindel, his eyes dark and clouded with misgivings. The wind unfurled their hair out behind them, streamers of deep brown and gold. They rode along the western eves of Mirkwood, the forest's cold breath dewing on the horses' necks. They searched for Gandalf the Grey. Elrond knew that the wizard had led the dwarves here. But now he realized that they had gone on alone. Gandalf was not here…and where he was, they could not guess.
"How think you fare the dwarves?" Glorfindel asked now, reining his Asfaloth in closer to Elrond. The pure white steed snorted, looking silver in the starlight.
"I know not…yet I sense they draw ever nearer to journey's end." Elrond let out a sigh. "That is my hope, at least."
"The streams shall run in gladness,
"at the Mountain King's return.
"but all sorrow fail in sadness,
"and the lake shall shine and burn…"
…said Glorfindel softly.
"Dragonfire," replied Elrond. "I have seen Esgaroth in flames."
"Then-"
Glorfindel got no further.
With a bellow, a mighty elk burst from the shrouded forest, flanks heaving, eyes rolling, white foam flying from its muzzle. It stamped cloven hooves, panting as it swung its head to espy the two elves; struggling to control their frightened horses. It seemed to relax; urgent dark eyes now fixed on Elrond. It huffed, raising its head, reins dangling limp from the bridle, the saddle scored with wounds from its flight through the undergrowth.
"Hwellen," said Glorfindel, face white as he took in the crusted gash on the beast's chest. "Hîr nîn, 'tis the Elvenking's steed!"
Elrond dismounted and held out a hand to the elk, using soft words in sindarin as he gently ran his fingers down the beast's trembling flank. "Nére cath mas rochben?" he murmured. Hwellen turned that great head to regard Elrond with a liquid brown eye.
Where is your rider?
Hwellen huffed and bit the elf lord's sleeve, tugging him forwards, ears laid back, the wound in his damp chest beginning to ooze blood once again.
"Rhai, rhai," soothed Elrond, before gathering the reins and mounting the elk, taking care not to startle him.
Easy, easy.
Glorfindel took the reins of Elrond's stallion in a white-knuckled hand. "Something has befallen Thranduil."
"I believe so," said Elrond darkly. "Men, Hwellen! Mabanére men na herder!"
Go! Take us to your master!
Haldir awoke in a cold sweat, a breath of fear catching in his dry throat. The cold stone was hard under his back as he rolled over with a groan. Dol Guldur was silent this eve; nothing stirred in the murky blackness, and the rattling of Haldir's chains echoed out so loud that he shivered- the sounds became akin to chattering voices the fainter they grew.
As he lay still, the faint, wheezing breaths of Lindir filled the air with ghastly flutters. The small cell they had been shut in had a ceiling so low that, if Haldir knelt, the top of his head brushed the stone. Lindir let out a weak gasp from between chapped lips and mumbled something in broken Sindarin.
"Lindir." Haldir shook the rivendellian elf. He was far too pale, with eyes sunk into dark hollows, and that crusted whip wound across his face. When he received no response, he shook him again.
"Lindir, echuia!"
Awaken!
Lindir stirred, his lank brown hair tangled and sticking to his skin from sweat. "Haldir…?" His voice was a dying man's last breath. So faint, that the Lothlórien elf had to strain to hear it.
"Sinin ad," he whispered gently.
I am here.
He brushed a lock of hair out of his fellow elf's eyes. Lindir's were glazed with pain, and he let out a weak keening sound as Haldir helped him roll of his ruined back. "Naedhel mae nére manen?"
How are your wounds?
A small, quivering moan was his only answer. The lashmarks on Lindir's back were so deep in some places, that you could see bone. The edges were an angry red, like the eyes of the foul little orc that sometimes came by just to sneer at them. Blood still oozed from the fresher ones, dark and ruby. As Lindir moved, they stretched, broad red smiles carven deep into his flesh. Lindir curled his trembling hand around Haldir's, fingers cold as ice.
"Elnir…" was all he managed to gasp. "Elnir nen."
It hurts.
At that very moment, Thranduil had uttered the same words on the riverbank with Legolas standing over him; Elrond and Glorfindel were found by Hwellen; and Tauriel was healing Kíli of his wound in the house of Bard the Bowman, in the centre of Esgaroth. Haldir knew none of this however and tried only to hide the worry in his voice as he beheld how destroyed Lindir was. "Nesta le innas," he murmured. "Alinnas ni eruî."
You will heal. I will not desert you.
Lindir's liquid-brown eyes held a mountain of things unspoken but all he said was, "Daginnas thur men."
They will kill us.
"I know." Haldir gently helped Lindir sit up, letting the Rivendellian lie against his chest, head resting on the base of Haldir's bruised throat. The dark-haired elf's skin was clammy, his bare chest and arms studded by dark lacerations and dark shadows. "Saftaug le lennín," he whispered into a pointed ear, squeezing the cold fingers.
You have been so strong.
"Haldir-" Lindir's voice broke as his shoulders trembled, and Haldir realized with a sickening pang that Elrond's advisor was crying. Lindir sobbed in a ragged beat as Haldir's arms came about him, holding him close. When he spoke again, his voice was a whisper. "Haldir...car nil alerin...fasta..."
Do not leave me...please...
The Marchwarden's throat closed up, chest tight to the point of pain, and he his his face in Lindir's filthy hair, unable to speak. For a long while they remained as such, utter hopelessness beading their skin with little jewels of sweat. Small shudders ran along Lindir's frame, their hands still clasped tightly together. Faintly, Haldir reflected that if they could manage to escape from this hellish place, a long-lasting friendship would remain binding the two of them. It would have been inevitable. Such tended to come from bearing pain together...
That very second, Elrond was trying to staunch the blood running from Thranduil's wounds, knee deep in scarlett river water; Tauriel was amidst the blaze of dragonfire, watching in horror as Lake-Town burned; and Haldir, weather in anger or perhaps just sheer desperation, surprised and overpowered the small, stunted orc whom had come to check on them.
It never made a sound as he bound his chains about the ugly creature, and choked it to death.