"How's your arm?" Eloissa asked, coming up behind Legolas and managing to surprise him.
Much to her obvious delight.
Glancing over his shoulder at her, "It's fine," he lied, even as he carefully lowered his right arm back down towards his side from where he had been gingerly testing out its range of motion.
Eloissa came to lean on the same low stone wall next to him, crossing her arms in front of her, "Is that right?"
"That's right." Legolas replied confidently, briefly moving as if he was going to cross his arms in imitation of her but quickly thought better of it.
"Then why is it bleeding through your shirt?"
He began inspecting his right arm sleeve, "Is it? Where?" Failing to see anything he pulled the fabric this way and that a few times in order to locate the stain that was eluding him.
"It isn't, I lied." Eloisssa was almost painfully smug, "But if it was fine, why were you so worried and quick to look?"
Legolas gave her a long, hard and extremely unamused stare, "You're really annoying sometimes, did you know that?"
"I did," She cackled, "But unfortunately for everybody else, I'm fine with it."
"I'll never know how your dear, sweet, honest wife puts up with you."
"Simple, she's a much better person than you."
His expression changed so that he could scoff with disdain, "That much is obvious, she would have to be to not strangle you in your sleep." He turned more fully towards her and continued. "Why are you here?"
"Because Ava wanted to come and ask Jah'har and all her other Avari friends for ideas."
"No, why are you here pestering me, specifically? Ava has one on her leg, go bother her."
"Easy," Eloissa said grinning, and clearly immeasurably proud of herself, "You're much easier to trick than she is."
"Excuse me!" Avaleina objected from where she was finishing up her extremely lengthy conversation with the aforementioned Avari, "Leave me and my leg out of whatever it is you two are arguing about, at least until we're there to defend ourselves."
...0.0.0.
A singular bright, green light sailed across the night sky until it rested directly overhead where it hung like an extremely unique kind of star, bathing everything underneath it in a dark emerald. Slowly it faded into non-existence.
Silence followed.
Elrond turned to frown at Celeborn, who was too busy exchanging glances with his wife to take much notice, "What was that?" He asked anyway.
"Greenwood." Galadirel answered simply.
"Greenwood?" Elrond asked, both confused and surprised.
"Legolas, to be specific." Celeborn pushed his chair back from the table and added before Elrond had the opportunity to ask, "I can tell by the color of the flare."
Elrond pushed his chair back from the table as well, standing as Celeborn leaned across the corner of their small dining table to kiss Galadriel goodbye. She caught him by the neckline of his shirt and placed a hand over his heart, "Find peace, he only fired one flare. It is not an emergency."
Celeborn removed her hand from his chest and brought it up to his lips to kiss it gently, "I know, but I will not find peace until I know for certain what is or isn't wrong."
Galadriel didn't say anything else, and the two Ellons moved for the door. Elrond waited until they were in the hallways outside and headed for the stairs before he asked, "Legolas has his own flare color?"
Celeborn didn't look at him as he gave a deep and hearty laugh, "Legolas is Green, Farlen is Pink, Avaleina is Yellow, and Eloissa is Blue."
Elrond couldn't think of anything better to say than, "Huh."
Celeborn descended the steps two towards where a small group of his marchwardens had gathered to accompany their lord. "Were you expecting contact, Lord Celeborn."
"No. I haven't heard anything from anyone in Greenwood for almost five years."
"Not encouraging," Another one of the archers muttered more to himself.
Celeborn replied anyways, "Not in the least bit."
...0.0.0...0.0...0.0..0.0.0
"Well go ahead Legolas, show Lord Elrond" Farlen said, "I want to see what he makes of it."
Elrond didn't know whether to be curious or suspicious. Out of caution, he decided to be both, "Show Lord Elrond what?"
Legoals gave a long hard look at Farlen, who remained entirely unphased. Expression softening entirely, he looked over to Avaleina who shrugged, "Might as well, Jah'har cannot find any other ideas for us to try that we haven't already tried seven times and if we can't think of something soon we'll have to do another burning again before the fall."
Behind the rest of the group and with arms already crossed Eloissa made a noise of general disagreement and disdain.
"And what is wrong with you?" Farlen demanded with almost zero genuine concern or desire for the answer and without turning to look at her, already knowing that he wasn't going to like it.
Eloissa pushed her lips together in a thin line and kept her eyes fixed on an object in the distance so she wouldn't have to mee anybody's eye, "I don't think this is a good idea." She glanced briefly over to Elrond and Celeborn, "No offense, Lord Elrond."
Elrond silently held up his hands to show that no offense had been taken.
There were two near identical groans released into the air from Legolas and Ava, meanwhile Farlen focused his energy and more importantly his vocal cords to something more direct, "Well then, it's a good thing it isn't your turn to think. It's Ava's turn, and she says it's alright."
Dark brown eyes turned remarkably cold with disdain turned away from the distant object and directly at Farlen, "Thranduil would not think any higher of this plan than I do."
"Well, it's not his turn to think, either."
"Who is it, then? Ava's?"
Farlen snorted, "Don't be absurd. It's Galion's."
"He's our King, Farlen-"
"Yes," Farlen agreed, "The King of Greenwood the Great and everything and everybody within it. But we are not in Greenwood."
Somehow, Eloissa's eyes glowered with even more unimpressed accusations, "That's not how it works."
"Do you have a better idea then?" Avaleina asked, breaking out of the silent spectator role that her and Legolas had thus far adopted, "Because if you do, it's about damn time that you share it with the rest of us. I'd love to hear it, because so far I'm hearing a lot of "
"I don't have a better idea" Eloissa admitted, "but-"
"But nothing, 'Issa!"
It was a rare occurrence for Avaleina to yell out of frustration or anger. Extremely rare. So when she did it was customary for all in attendance to give her their undivided attention.
This occasion was no different than the rest.
The only movement was Elrond and Celeborn exchanging awkward glances. Both of them felt as though they were witnessing a matter that ought to be private, and both of them were starting to wish the ground would swallow them up from beneath.
"We've been arguing about this for three hundred years. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of this-" She gestured angrily towards her leg where a bandage was being perfectly concealed by clothing, voice growing louder as she continued, "-and of burning them out every other decade. It hurts. It gets worse every time. It gets harder every time. Believe it or not, I'm not overly keen to find out how much longer until the burning starts to kill us, too. Or do you plan to wait until even the burning stops working one day, then what will we do?"
Legolas silently reached out a hand to rest on the small of Avaleina's back to gently rub small, soothing circles, Ava paused, closed her eyes, and took three long deep breaths to help calm herself. When she opened her eyes and spoke again her tone held more guilt and regret than anger, "Legolas was going to tell Lord Elrond on his next visit to Imladris anyways, but they keep getting canceled. If Jah'har is right about what's likely to happen to us if the wounds continue to spread…"
Eloissa sighed, her confrontational stance melting into one of defeat. Looking off into the distance where Elrond could only assume was the exact location of the Silvan Elves mountain home she let out another long breath through her nose. "Fine. But I don't have to stay and be a part of it."
"How wonderful" Farlen commented dryly, "That way she has several hours to ensure that Thranduil and Ferdan are both on her side before we've even done or said anything to be upset over."
"Stop being such a grumpy little pessimist. I'm not going to assist or interfere with how this whole situation plays out for the rest of you. I'm just going to sit on the sidelines and laugh." Eloissa bypassed both Farlen and Legolas to stop directly in front of Avaleina to briefly take both of her hands in her own, "I'll see you back at the village."
Eloissas gave Ava's hands a gentle squeeze to let her know that she wasn't upset with her for doing this, or for yelling. Avalinea squeezed back, "Be safe and swift."
The rest of them waited in somewhat tense silence as Eloissa's soft footsteps faded beyond Elven hearing.
Legoals still did not say anything, but he did begin to roll up his right shirt sleeve until most of his bicep uncovered and the expertly warped bandage was suddenly exposed to the quickly cooling night air.
It was not the white fabric bandage that Elrond was accustomed to seeing, it didn't appear to be fabric at all. As far as he could tell, it was some type of greenery woven together to create a sturdy yet flexible adhesive covering.
Idly, he wondered if it was waterproof.
Avaleina stepped forward - with the slightest of limps, Elrond noted - to release the woven bandage with a maneuver that happened too quickly for him to even identify. He might have been disappointed, had the reveal of what was underneath had not been so entirely unexpected that it removed every other thought in his head.
Removed to make room for the kind of complete and overwhelming dumbfoundedness Elrond had experienced blessedly few times before the present moment.
The wound was perfectly circular, and Elrond found himself uncharacteristically at a loss to even guess the origin or the age of it. Beside him, Celebonr made a noise which was a unique combination of sympathy, curiosity, shock, and disgust that Elrond had never previously heard before.
To say it looked extremely painful was an understatement.
The wound itself looked fresh, raw. With the pressure of the binding now removed Elrond found himself constantly expecting it to begin bleeding, the expectation did not lessen with time. The skin immediately surrounding the hole was nearly black, or well on its way. His eyes told him that the skin was necrotic, but his healer's sense told him otherwise.
Just behind him, Elrond heard Celeborn swear under his breath.
Somehow, Legoals managed to snort with laughter, before gently offering Elrond his arm. Knowing that the Lord of Imladris' healing senses worked best with physical touch.
Elrond found himself for the first time in centuries hesitant to touch near the wound, certain that his touch wouldn't be feather light enough.
To his surprise, Legolas had no outward reaction to his touch, even though he was certain even the wound's existence would be causing the Greenwood Prince great pain.
Even as his eyes continued to insist on the freshness of the wound, Elrond's gifts could tell that this wound was old. Much too old. So old that the skin had grown completely accustomed to it, and no longer seemed to even make an attempt to heal it.
Like the skint itself had simply accepted it as part of their lives.
It wasn't until Elrond looked back up to Leogla's face as he struggled to bite back a grink that he realized he must have been making a ridiculous expression, "I don't understand what to make of it, it feels like it should not be possible."
"You would be surprised," Farlen said, pulling another weaved bandage from somewhere Elrond did not see, "What's possible after a millennia or two of being nose to nose with the personification of darkness itself and all his favorite minions."
"What is it?" Celeborn asked, briefly resting a hand heavy with sympathy on Farlen's shoulder. Which was quickly shrugged off.
Avaleina accepted the bandage from Farlen, and set about re-binding Legolas' arm, "Nobody's quite sure, there's a few theories. A few different names."
"What does Greenwood call it?"
"I'm not sure what the healers call it, I can never remember." Avaleina admitted, "But among the warriors we like to call it "The Rot."'
"Catchy," Celeborn commented, eyes still staring wide eyed at the spot on Legolas' arm where the wound was, now covered.
"Thank you, we like to think so."