-o0o-
Legolas stumbled, his foot brushing against something on the ground - a chunk of snow, uneven and ragged and, he realized as he dragged his head up, just the beginning of a vast expanse of white where the snow had covered the trail in uneven lumps and boulder-sized blocks.
He tried to get his eyes to focus on the field in front of him, tried to find the marks of the trail that should run somewhere under the snow, to find the end of this white desolation. He could not see it.
Glancing up the sloping side of the mountain on his left, he at least saw the edge of it. A jagged but pristine line marked where the snow had torn free from the glacier, from where it had spilled down the slope and over the path with what must have been irresistible force.
He shuddered.
At least he had not been here for that.
Well, there was nothing for it now. He had to cross the remains of the avalanche if he was to reach Imladris, if he was to have any hope of survival. Pain flared sharply in his side as he moved towards the half-high wall of snow that covered the path just ahead of him, and his hand flew up to cover the injury again. It was still bleeding. Just as it had been ever since that cursed orc had stuck the poisoned dagger into his side, its jeer gleeful when Legolas had whirled around. It had died with that vile grin still on his face. Deeming itself victorious even in defeat.
And maybe it had been.
His own bloody footprints stretched far up the mountain, all the way to the edge of the trailhead, to the place he had been when the snowfall had finally, mercifully stopped.
No wonder he was feeling so lightheaded.
His vision spun lazily as he turned back to the path, back at the insurmountable obstacle that was the climb up onto the avalanche field. He would be damned if he let it defeat him. Or at least he would be dead. A chuckle escaped him, before he could force it back, could imprison it behind a wall of rationality.
The poison was starting to affect his thoughts. Or perhaps that was the bloodloss. At this point it was a toss-up between which one would kill him first. But if the poison prevented his wound from closing then was not bloodloss just a product of the poisoning?
Enough! He grit his teeth and dug his fingers into the cut in his side, welcoming the clarity brought by the flash of pain. He would not let that orc bring him down. He had not bowed to the snow-covered mountains. He would not surrender to this poison!
In his mind he could still see that foul smirk, that knowing grin. It wavered and warped, just like his vision, but Legolas held on to it, letting it stoke his defiance, his anger. It fueled him as he climbed the snowy barrier, as he regained his feet and set them one in front of the other, trudging across the uneven treacherous field of white.
Step after step. It was the only thing he focused on, the only thought he allowed himself - aware of the dangers of the poison-brought hallucinations steering him astray, leading him off the path and to a slow death in the vastness of the mountains - or a fast one at the bottom of a cliff.
Dark had long since fallen, perhaps even back when he had climbed the edge of the snowfield - he could not remember. Everything seemed to be the same, darkness in different states of cohesion. Slightly brighter where Ithil's rays reflected off the edges of snow, deeper where it pooled in the imprints of the horse that he was following.
Wait! A horse? Had these prints been here before? How long had he followed this trail unthinking, unquestioning? No horse could have climbed up onto the vast expanse of the avalanche, or could have walked far atop it. These prints too were deep, testament of a slow, desperate struggle to move forward and down the slope. Where had it gone?
He raised his eyes from his own feet and along the path winding down the mountainside and towards the valley beyond, alighting on an impossible sight. There in the valley stood a spruce - and its cones were glowing.
Legolas shook his head, trying to dispel the illusion, the vision conjured by the poison in his veins, but the sight did not waver, did not dispel - and for a reason that he could not quite explain the spruce seemed to call to him, to offer succor and rest. So, with nowhere else to go, Legolas angled his steps towards the strangely lit tree.
-o0o-
tbc…
A/N: Only one more day to go, can you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Is it a Christmas tree?