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Summary: Looks can be deceiving.
Author's Note: Many a canon liberty have been exercised in the writing of this fic, to which I apologize beforehand. There would be an extended version of this piece which would be posted... somewhere, once I get around to writing down the rest of the still hopping bunnies, only don't expect too much from me. Am only a broke fanartist who wish to have a go at writing before the unpredictable end of life. A big shout of thanks for my hero of a beta, Arcanewinter.
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Mirkwood, Third Age 1924
As his light archer's frame was sent slamming into a sturdy trunk with enough force to stir even the highest leaves, Legolas dazedly rued his clouded judgement and witless decision to brave the less-traveled path by his solitary self in order to avoid alerting Mirkwood patrols of his homecoming. He was the king's conscientious son and warrior, the sworn champion of his people. He had no excuse to be so addled and reclusive, not even on account of a broken heart.
The wood elf had encountered a flock of spiders ere dusk. A seasoned warrior in his own right despite not having greeted the morning of his first century, Legolas regarded his ominously outnumbered situation with nary a crease of worry. He spurred his trusty charger and engaged the arachnids in a merry chase around the bleak forest, escape but a laughable concept far from his mind. These foul creatures might have the benefits it took to be a daunting predator, but for a black race whose existence was dedicated obsessively to feeding, they possessed surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, perhaps) underfed brains for intelligence, which explained their pitiful lack of foresight. They wouldn't recognize a trap even when said trap had snared them before. Coupled with their blind, edacious zeal when chasing a potential meal, they never failed to fall into this old trick.
Legolas spared a brief skyward glance as they began to gain ground through higher boughs. Thrust in his particular situation, any Mirkwood soldier would know better than let himself be surrounded by these spiders, because...
The speeding steed took a smart, timely turn to elude a volley of viscid phlegm that landed splat on tree bark instead. That projectile of sickly-white, glutinous substance was the Mirkwood spiders' best weapon to render their prey helpless before closing in and injecting their paralyzing venom into the hapless creature. The fluid had a binding property more resilient than the stickiest gum and each dose carried enough of it to cover a full grown elf from waist to feet. To be caught in such a discharge was the same as laying down your weapons and offering yourself freely to be feasted on.
In calm, deadly precision, Legolas let fly the beginning of his counter attack.
His first kill of the day fell to the ground without much ado.
On with fluid speed, the admirably synergic duo of rider and charger weaved through the shadow-draped forest, bringing down their arachnid foes one by one, until the young ace archer depleted what few arrows were left in his quiver in the wake of a perilous journey across Hithaeglir.
There were only two spiders left still scuttling with lamebrained eagerness for their elven prey, blithely ignoring the fact that said lonely, delicate-looking prey had just cut their eight-legged community to near extinction.
With options down to only frontal combat, Legolas made a leap to grab a branch and let the momentum carry him on to the slim but stout column in a swinging arch. His equine comrade, having grown in tune with his master's wishes over long decades of servility, did not slow down nor tarry behind to pass for a source of distracted worry for the valiant archer.
The wood elves had been widely acclaimed amongst the elven race for their quicksilver agility and peerless superiority when it came to warfare beneath the forest canopy, but Legolas in his native element was unsurpassed, no less than Gwaihir was in open sky. Any beholder would usually be rendered agape and speechless at their first sight of his seemingly weightless and gravity-defying mobility amid the green branches. His deft feet seemed to have eyes and grip on their own, and wings too judging from the length and distance of his airborne leaps.
The two spiders paused simultaneously when they lost sight of their elven prey, only to have him dawning before them seemingly like an apparition out of thin air scant heartbeats later. Their death's summon came in the form of a pair of noble, elegantly-crafted long knives. The closest spider did not even have the chance to so much as raise a long, jointed leg ere its fused head and thorax was rent apart. Realizing it would soon become the next foe-come-victim, the last spider gathered air pressure in its book lungs to shoot another glutinous spit ball at his prey-turned-assailant. It was an exercise in futility as it turned out, for Legolas had anticipated that desperate move two steps ahead. With an airy yet powerful leap, Legolas propelled himself up into the air in a spiraling arch to land astride on the space between the spider's head and the hump of its rotund abdomen, all the while sheathing one of his blades away. The other he plunged hilt deep into the spider's head, twisted, and cleaved its way out forcefully with both hands, drawing blood-curdling shrieks that echoed throughout the forest. He repeated the endeavor several times until the severity of the damage all but claimed the arachnid's life. Lifeless, the dead weight of the giant spider slid off the branch, joining the last of its comrades far below on the ground with a distant thud.
Already secure in a higher branch ere the black carcass took the tumble, Legolas slipped into a more relaxed stance once he uncoiled the battle tension from his joints, looking none the worse for the grand feat of bringing down a cluster of giant spiders single-handedly. He was about to begin his descent from the trees when the unexpected happened: a surprise attack launched by an adolescent spider whose presence had gone unmarked by the archer until it was too late. Perhaps the little arachnid (what was termed as little in the family of Mirkwood spiders was easily as big as a full-grown Man, if only shorter in compactness and longer in extremities) lagged behind in his delinquent eagerness to join its elders in the hunt, thus arriving in auspicious timing to catch the elven warrior unaware. It jumped out from the concealment of dense foliage and latched itself to Legolas' back, long legs immediately curling inward, tightly locking his arms down. Pinioned and thus rendered defenseless, Legolas could only bite back a pained cry when a set of sharp fangs pierced his exposed neck.
It was not common for the younglings to join the band of adults in hunting, but this little one seemed to be raring for adventure: a fearless one indeed. Legolas would have found the whole situation ridiculously amusing - that he, the pride of Mirkwood's Third Age generation, should be brought down by a spider-equivalent of himself. Granted, this young spider barely looked fit enough to leave its silk-spun cradle, much less fend for itself against the threat of Men or Elves, yet apparently it was old enough to have developed a significant reservoir of venom behind its fangs. A telltale chill began to course through his veins rapidly. Legolas would have to act swiftly ere the incipient stiffness took hold of his faculty.
Thrash as he did with all his might, the binding clutch would not relent, stubbornly so. This he mentally stored as another behavioral similarity whose recounting he would later amuse his family with, bedridden as he would most assuredly be. The thought of being teased mercilessly by his older brothers while his doting father made a physical effort to hide his mirth so as not to aggravate the all too irresistible pout on his youngest son's sweet visage somehow uplifted Legolas' spirit, fueling his struggle anew.
Meanwhile, the spider was gradually plagued with trouble. The elf showed no signs of weakening. In fact, the struggle was inching closer to success. The strength of the Firstborn was not the sort of force a spiderling could outdo any day, even though Legolas was slender and smaller in stature compared to his fellows. The little arachnid was ignorantly convinced the venom would have long subdued the pale-haired creature ere the need to worry over its fate in the next seconds would become a necessity. Little did it know that this silvan was no stranger to spider venom, having already been bitten several times in the course of his martial upbringing to become a warrior of magnificence. The subsequent treatments had always made him violently ill for the better part of a week, yet they also raised his limit of endurance and prolonged his tenacity, which proved to be beneficial in circumstances such as that he was currently mired in. It would take hours for one mere bite to efficaciously afflict him, or more than three bites if any spider should desire an instant result.
At this rate, estimated the spider with growing distress, the tables were about to be turned drastically. It waited impatiently for the short interval needed for its glands to refill the venom pouch and prepared for another injection when suddenly, Legolas' body went lax. The smooth, varnished hilt of his long knife slipped soundlessly from his fading grip with a far-off muted clang as it met the rocky floor of the silent forest echoing like bell of victory for the spider. The arachnid almost danced in glee when slowly but surely, the formerly resisting body lost all sense of being and pitched forward into the dark void stretched above the ground. Just wait until its siblings took a good boggle at its first hunting trophy!
Misled by false victory, the spider loosened its constricting clutch on the insensate elf in the process of readying itself for the jarring impact with the solid ground. It wouldn't do to have its legs crushed beneath the elf's weight. Somewhere in the narrow space between the rushing air and the inescapable magnitude of mother earth, the spider suddenly found itself being grabbed by its spindly legs and flipped in reversal. The creature's shriek of terror was cut short by the pain of death.
Legolas staggered to his feet, unharmed from the fall save for mild grogginess, partly due to the spreading poison in his system as well. He didn't bring himself to care yet, there would be time enough to continue his ride home and mind the poison later, as no doubt his arrival would send the sleepy court healers into a tailspin. As much as he disliked the royal fuss the whole palace would kick up once he dragged his poisoned self home, the longer he withheld the curative treatment of the venom antidote, all the greater he would suffer later on. Curse his carelessness to have left behind his pouch of herbs!
Leaning lightly on the hundredth tree that stood on the line of his trek, Legolas closed his eyes as a stronger-than-before wave of dizziness washed over him. Strange, something was not right. Emmelin [Yellow hammer, the name of Legolas' horse] was nowhere in sight, not answering to the summon of his whistle nearly an hour earlier, nor a few minutes ago. She couldn't have run that far off. And the forest was unnaturally silent. Ithil was sickly pale and clinging behind an erratic rope of clouds as if cowering in fresh terror.
All of a sudden, Legolas' internal alarm of danger went off like a whiplash.
There, from the deeper shadows of the woods, out prowled a lone warg, eyeing the elf with mounting voracity, fangs bared in a cruel smirk.
Right at that moment, Legolas knew with the certainty of his hammering heart that the night would end in tears.
In a combustion of speed and ferocity, the beast pounced, answered just as swiftly with the baring of a fierce blade. Yet, the warg was quicker by luck, for the spider poison was beginning to thicken Legolas' movement and dull his sharp reaction. The incisive fangs caught the left forearm. Legolas' thick leather bracer was but a paltry mercy from the feral savagery, giving him the split second leeway to plunge his hunting knife into the beast's throat before its powerful jaws could crush his bones. The beast howled in pain, its knee-jerk reaction being a violent, manic swipe of his hefty head to throw his assailant away.
Thus Legolas ended up in a bloody, crumpled heap at the base of a quivering beech.
The worst was not over yet, his prickled instinct warned him through the haze of disorientation. Indeed it wasn't. The warg was still standing with a dripping wound. It would take a longer while still for the full toll of the lethal wound to fell the demon wolf, and in the interim the poisoned and wounded prince would have to survive from the bestial wrath of impending doom.
The brute sprang for the kill. Legolas' body jerked into motion and even as his bearings had not fully returned, survival instinct took over. Angry, bloodthirsty jaws snapped on empty space, vacated by the elf who swiftly rolled into the warg's underside, his good hand flying to the hilt of his mithril dagger. The blade made short work of burrowing deeply into the exposed abdomen where it dragged and ripped as the animal barreled forward.
A gush of blood and viscera rained down on his face and chest in a crimson cascade of belly-churning filth. It came down with such saturation that Legolas couldn't help swallowing some. The revolting impact on his acute senses was ineffable, staggeringly too much for his equanimity to take. Never before in the meagre decades of his existence had he ever experienced something this grisly. The acrid taste on his tongue, the foul coppery stench choking his breath, the horrid grotesque offal that seemed to seep into his every cell, the taint of darkness slowly wrapping its cold fingers around his vulnerable soul...
Legolas succumbed to wretched fit of regurgitation. The swallowed filth found its way back out with pale bile and what little remained from what he cared to nibble yester eve, which was thankfully not much. Despite having nothing more to give, Legolas still continued to retch from his gut until he ran out of breath.
As if the sensory torment wasn't enough, another kind of torture crept up from the darkest depths of his memory as the blond archer caught sight of his haemally drenched self.
The defilement... it was too strong a reminiscence of the mutilated body of his mother, witnessed through the eye of an innocent elfling.
Wild-eyed and breathing harshly, Legolas frantically fought to quell the rising hysteria.
The warg turned and swayed unsteadily, furred limbs growing rapidly lifeless as the seconds passed, yet the savage glint in its beady eyes flared all the more murderous. They bore the vicious, maddened look that must have the satisfaction of shredding elven flesh and spilling immortal blood before its last dying breath.
Caught in a momentary mental paralysis, Legolas failed to rise to the snarling menace in time. The beast pounded him to the ground, raised its barbarous claws and carved explosively blooming agony on his chest, wrenching a sharp cry of pain from the fallen archer. That pulled him violently out from the traumatic stupor. The dagger rushed up to rip another gash, and another, and even so far as to almost dismember a paw.
It was a matter of seconds before the warg finally toppled over, unfortunately onto the elf's heavily defaced torso. The beast's massive weight deflated his nicked lungs with nearly unbearable pressure. Legolas gasped and gulped for air: already he could feel liquid warmth pooling in his air duct. He turned his face and began to cough up blood.
Drawing a fortifying deep breath, Legolas summoned every reserve of strength he still had left to push the crushing weight off of him. The relief was instant and wonderful. The woodland prince fell to boneless heap directly after, too dry of energy to move. Perhaps of life too, quite soon, mused Legolas detachedly.
Ironically, the spider venom he ill-fatedly incurred in the earlier fray helped numb the monumental pain that was his mangled forearm and torso. He dared not assess the full extent of his butchered condition with his own eyes for that would only disrupt the strange fugue his mind seemed to be floating in. He felt tired and full of longing at the same time. He wished to find rest in a pair of strong, beloved arms, enfolded in the warmth of love and protection against a cherished heartbeat. He longed for soothing kisses and comforting whispers to ease his worldly anxieties, gently relieving his soul into the care of Mandos.
He wished, oh how he wished with every beat of his dying heart, for the unreachable.
A lone, crystalline tear was the last thing of purity Legolas spilled that night before consciousness finally deserted the cold shell of flesh, the ghost of a whisper swept away by the sorrowful rustle of the forest.
'Glorfindel...'
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As dark and grim as death could be, apparently light was meant to shine at the end of the tunnel, and the vision that awaited the sluggish return of awareness was one he would willingly die all over again to see.
"You are awake."
Ah, the vision even spoke with the same rich, deep voice as he fondly remembered, although there was something that didn't feel quite right - most likely his befuddled mind.
"How do you feel?" The voice came nearer.
"Like any other time I saw you," came the quiet, whispery answer.
"How is that?"
"In love," said his eyes before his lips.
And it was all right to let himself go - right? - to be weak and honest. There was no need to hide anything anymore, nor reason to. This must be a kind grace from Lord Mandos, to give him a chance to lay bare his heart, to unburden his soul from those suffocating unspoken words. It mattered not what the answer would be, even should this vision take pity on him and invent sweet falsehood for his posthumous indulgence. Legolas already knew the stony truth.
Therefore, it was all right, Legolas wanted to tell the golden being, when the silent pause began to sink into fathomless stillness and the growing tides of drowsiness began to overwhelm his senses. Everything was all right the way it was. He never regretted anything, he wouldn't want to change a thing, even his tragic, forlorn end, even the doom of eternal, spiritual loneliness.
Because in the vast infinity of the Great Music, I am grateful to have met you.
The pull of darkness soon made him disregard everything else, including the soft, cool touch to his face and the faint, enigmatic smile that puzzled him to no end.
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On his next awakening, Legolas was assaulted with a severe fever and a headache so intense it left no room in his brain for rationality. He couldn't seem to recall anything in his prior life beyond this omnipresent pain that ruled nearly every inch of his person. He felt bilious more than a great deal, yet his stomach only made half-hearted contractions to force the bitter fluid out, rising just high enough behind his tongue to spread the acidic taste and then retreating back to stir the concoction of miserable gastric torture. He felt he was breathing in flame instead of air, and swallowing nails instead of saliva. But worst of all, he couldn't will his consciousness to leave this cocoon of agony, and it was slowly driving him insane.
Surely, death couldn't be this cruel to one that didn't have much of a chance to fully taste the living world. Why did he still need to suffer so?
To rub salt into the wound, someone had to force him to sit up - intensifying his headache in the process, and imbibe some foul-tasting liquid. It was the last straw. The mouthful of the obnoxious liquid never had the chance to finish its destined journey ere his body shook from violent expulsion. Had his mind been more coherent, the usually self-effacing and a tad reticent prince would have been mortified to note the unsavoury mess he'd made of himself in front of other people. At this moment, he was too sick to care.
Long minutes after the worst nausea had passed, Legolas was still bent on the ground heaving. His bowels felt like a jumble of knots that wouldn't stop twisting and writhing. He would've dropped into the puddle of his own vomit had not a pair of strong arms held him back and offered him a blissful sip of cool water. He was then slowly lowered back to his makeshift bedding of a spread blanket, and a fold of heavenly cool dampness was placed on his forehead.
Whoever this kind soul was, Legolas was willing to part with his firstborn for him, or her. He promised himself he'd let this person know the extent of his gratitude once he was strong and sensible enough to make out the blurry face and string a line of intelligible speech. Right now, he was too physically drained to deal with anything other than being sick to the bone.
"Sleep." The voice seemed to come from some distant land beyond the sea, penetrating the thick fog of semi-consciousness that was clouding his grasp of reality.
Yes, sleep would be good, sleep would be a blessing. To stay awake was otherwise pure torture.
"Then give yourself in to the gentle spell of my voice and sleep. Be at peace, you are safe with me."
A part of Legolas' deepest psyche stirred in confusion, but of what exactly he had no hope of finding out in his current ailing state. It was summarily silenced for the time being by the great desire to lose himself in oblivion, lulled by the soporific murmurs of a beguiling voice.
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The moment Legolas first woke up with some semblance of lucidity, Anor had journeyed well into midday. Legolas knew this for sure even without the aid of sight, for the restless chirpings of a nestful of hungry chicks at the edge of his hearing easily told him so. The thought of sunlight made his head want to crawl away from his feeble body in abject consternation and seek refuge under the bed, or maybe some cave, since his body was pretty sure it wasn't sleeping on a bed right now. Any rabbit hole would do just fine, actually.
But the expected kick-pounding to his skull never came. He remained blissfully floating in the pleasant, feathery realm between sleeping and waking, feeling warm and content like a newborn babe securely tucked in the protective arms of its parent. Curious, he gingerly cracked an eyelid. The dense shade of the beech tree underneath which they laid for sleep was shielding them from the stabbing brightness his brittle brain feared so much. The forest was smiling kindly on him and assured him with gentle, caressing breeze that everything was well, that nothing undesirable would disturb the peace.
Legolas closed his eyes with indolent relief... only to snap them open with bulging intensity scant seconds later.
They?
Much to his stupefied horror, Legolas found himself snugly nestled within another's arms with no recollection how it came to be. The length of their bodies was so wrapped in each other the Mirkwood archer was having difficulty locating his own limbs. At first he was so shocked he didn't know what to think. Then he tried to shift minutely so as to rouse the rest of his muscles that had not fully awakened yet, making a conscious effort to weigh the situation calmly and figure out how to free himself with the least amount of fuss, fuss which might result in uncalled-for awkwardness.
That's when he discovered the brain-freezing fact that barring the swathe of bandage decorating certain places on his body, they were as naked as the day any living being was born to the world.
Legolas felt like fainting on the spot: so exquisite was his abashment that he actually forgot how to breathe for a long, surreal moment. His frenzied mind immediately jumped to the worst conclusion, yet cool wisdom bade him take a second look. Though his mind couldn't discern whether... something had really happened between them, having never experienced any dual act of intimacy before. But surely his body would've left some hint behind, no matter how small or subconscious it was.
Suddenly, memories of the ordeal that begot the wounds caught up with him and his thoughts grew even more convoluted. Wasn't he already dead? Then why should he still worry over petty things such as whether he had sex with this stranger - a supposition of which he still needed to clarify with his own eyes yet - or not? Was it even possible to have sex in the afterlife? Why was he contemplating about sex in the afterlife anyway? Shouldn't he be more concerned over why his body still felt weak and hurting inside out, why he was still wearing his grim wounds? Was it some form of punishment for his lifetime sins which he had to endure for the rest of his stay in Mandos' territory?
Owing to the whirlpool of perplexities eddying restlessly in his thoughts, Legolas was thrown close to startling the local wildlife with his vocal outburst when a whispered "Aur maer" [Good morning] landed on his unprepared ears. A slight tightening of the restrictive hold, meant to prevent him from precipitating himself into frenetic, detrimental agitation, preceded a deep-throated chuckle that reverberated through the broad chest his face was pressed to, unbidden.
Piqued by the obvious amusement this fey creature derived from his little coronary episode, Legolas rose with a bit of difficulty from the tangle of limbs he was ensnared in and prepared to douse any spark of indecorous merriment at his expense with the torrential force of his cold disapproval.
Only the censure never made it past the tip of his tongue, ousted by a disbelieving gasp instead.
"L-Lord Glorfindel? But you can't be!"
The Noldo Lord stretched languidly under Legolas' nonplussed attention. Clearly, the legendary Balrog-slayer's history and extraordinary beauty were not the only qualities to account for his fame, as the creeping heat on the archer's pale cheeks would testify. He believed he now had an inkling of why all those historical narratives glorified him so. If not for the fact that he felt profoundly humbled by such quintessence of Eru's most thoughtful creation, Legolas was sure he would not survive through any intellectual conversation with this paragon of masculine grace and virility.
"Then who, pray tell, do you wish me to be?" There was a breath-stealing intensity in the pinning gaze of the ancient elf that Legolas never thought could be directed at him, even though the rest of his lineaments fashioned an easy, disarming smile. It made him strangely uneasy.
"That's not what I..." Legolas pushed himself further upright, hoping to put more heart-calming distance between them. He ended up failing spectacularly as a wild parade of dark spots burst before his vision. He lost track of his surroundings for a few awful, vertiginous moments. Glorfindel was quick to cushion the golden head that lolled forward ere it had the chance to meet the ground in a not-so-gentle reunion.
"I'm afraid you're in no condition to engage in anything more exciting than sleeping for the moment, my sick prince," soothed the seneschal as his fingers took pleasure in smoothing the sylvan's moonlight locks.
Legolas blinked hard to clear his murky vision, gasping softly when a stray thumb brushed the pointed peak of his ear. Might as well be assaulted with sickness rather than be compelled to worry out a meaning behind this exhibition of affinity from the Balrog Slayer that heretofore was unknown in the course of their acquaintance.
"Where are we?"
"Just shy of the northern border of Mirkwood."
"You mean I'm not dead yet?"
"Praise Valar, no."
"Are you really flesh and blood?"
Legolas knew it was a silly question he ought not ask. Yet everything had felt so bizarre and confusing he didn't know what to believe anymore. Mayhap he'd escaped the Doomsman's path, but Glorfindel couldn't possibly be here with him. No sort of coincidence could bring the seneschal here so far from Imladris, at the precise moment when the prince needed rescuing. It was simply... inconceivable. Impossible.
Staring into Legolas' limpid blue eyes with a lazy smile, Glorfindel neither answered his implicit question nor gave the pretence of not being aware of it. Legolas always thought that Glorfindel's exotic shade of blue-violet eyes was mesmerizing to behold. He wouldn't have minded getting lost in their enthralling depths with no hope of self-rediscovery.
"Would you care to prove it yourself?"
Legolas blinked uncomprehendingly. Somehow, in the latest missing moments of his life, the object of his thoughts had moved so much closer they could feel each other's breath. He had no clear notion what the Elda had been asking him to prove that warranted such a discomfiting proximity and for a mindless moment, he half-feared, half-anticipated that Glorfindel would...
Oh.
"I believe you!" he blurted out hastily, hoping to dissuade the mighty warrior from... whatever he had in mind to do with him. His heart simply wasn't ready for any kind of physical intimacy that was purely born from desire alone ... at least, he was sure such was the Noldo Lord's case.
"Do you, now?" That handsome face advanced even closer, the deep voice sliding into a smokier timbre, setting Legolas' poor heart on the verge of failing. Ai, the unfairness of it all! Why could he not attract deeper and more meaningful feeling from the one his heart pined for so long than some passing, carnal lust? How could he hope to preserve his virtue when it took only one pregnant look and a rakish smile to undo his resistance?
"You have the look of a cottontail caught beneath the paw of a wolf," intoned Glorfindel with undisguised amusement ere finally relenting the play of seduction the prince clearly found unwelcome, despite feeling too cornered and conflicted to push his aggressor away. "You're so gullible, ernil dithen [little prince]." This was whispered into his ear and ended with a playful peck on his nose.
As soon as the golden warrior disappeared for a dip in the Forest River, Legolas reached across the empty space his saviour just vacated to fold the blanket over his bare self and tried to sleep off his misbehaving erection.
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For three cycles of Ithil since Legolas broke through the mire of unconsciousness they had camped in the outlying grove, and not a single visit from civilization had ever dropped in on them. This normally would bother the silvan archer, for he was well-acquainted with Mirkwood's fastidious measures of defence: very few goings-on in the forest could escape the watchful eyes of the Wood-elves. They should've been found and approached by one of the patrols long time ago.
Glorfindel had then apprised the skittish prince of the situation. The majority of Mirkwood's army, led by the Crown Prince of the woodland realm, was currently embroiled in vanquishing a vast host of goblins that sought to invade their forest from the direction of the Goblin-Gate. At the same time, word arrived from human settlements in the East, requesting aid from the Wood-elves in fending off a troop of Warg-riders who had been ravaging their villages and towns and taking innocent prisoners for their fiendish pleasures.
Thranduil did not even think twice about sending off a battalion of his fiercest warriors to slay the accursed creatures - Down to every last twitching limb! - for great and bottomless was the Sinda King's enmity towards these vermin. 'Twas one of them that had spirited his queen away in the thick of an ambush and left her a bloody ruin in the clearing where his youngest son loved to play as a child.
To make matters worse, a large horde of ruthless brigands from the south saw fit to take advantage of the heavily thinned ranks of woodland soldiers to take a stab at the heartland of the Great Wood, lured by the hearsay of magnificent riches stored beneath her cavern palace. Battle was brewing before the gates of the woodland kingdom even as they spoke.
At this point of recounting, Legolas could no longer contain his mounting worry and wished to set forth right away to his father's side. He only managed to survive a short walk on his own feet...
...and woke up to find that the soft light of Ithil had replaced the brightness of Anor.
"As I would tirelessly remind you over the past three days," remarked Glorfindel casually near the small campfire, stirring something that smelled awfully good in a cooking pot. "Your body has not recovered enough to accommodate your youthful exuberance, impatient one. The only thing you can do to be of any good to your loved ones right now is putting your mind on getting well. In due time, if I may add."
He ladled the clear broth into a mug and delivered it to the archer, who accepted it with a nod of gratitude and a weight of guilt in his eyes. Legolas knew he was behaving far from the ideal patient, but he couldn't seem to bring himself to discuss the truth with his saviour. He felt he - they, his mind corrected - shouldn't linger overlong in this place, but wherefore he could not say. His gut feeling perceived a lurking threat, yet his heart was reluctant to be forthcoming. What was wrong with him? He barely understood himself lately.
"Where did you get the cooking wares?" Legolas took time to inhale the rich-smelling, savoury aroma, occasionally blowing across the steamy surface while leaning against the tree trunk. He was sitting comfortably in his clean pants, courtesy of the Balrog Slayer, of course.
"There is a shallow cave up ahead just beyond the compass of firelight, packed with the comforts one would need for a prolonged stay outdoors. The providence of Wood-elves is as commendable as ever."
They shared a mutual smile of good spirits, then let the silence take over the camp in a peaceful way.
The broth warmed Legolas from inside as the fire did outwardly. Mayhap 'twas due to the influence of a certain lord-healer of legendary renown, for never before had he imagined the seneschal to be this skilful in the healing art, nor in culinary aspect for that matter. Whatever medicinal herb the reborn elf from Gondolin had used to enhance the tea or broth he made, it always calmed his mind and mellowed his mood.
Ever and anon, it also loosened his tongue.
"You're not your usual self," Legolas blurted out after a lengthy, surreptitious study of his golden idol.
"You seem to know me well enough to confidently pass the judgement," remarked Glorfindel nonchalantly as he added another piece of wood into the fire.
"No, I don't..." the words rushed out even before he fully knew what he was saying. Legolas bit his lip as his cheeks grew warm from shame. "I'm sorry. You're right. Barely we ever exchanged words more than superficial courtesies. I... overstepped my mark," he finished quietly.
Now it was Glorfindel's turn to eye the prince studiously. Without severing the eye contact, he abandoned his stone seat to approach the prince, invading his personal space as if he had every right to do so.
"Tell me, Legolas, are you attracted to me?"
The question was divulged in naught but solemn sincerity. Nonetheless, 'twas obvious that Legolas was poorly prepared to hear it, let alone provide an answer. 'Twas not as simple a matter as letting yourself go and embrace the present, though many a lover would beg to differ. Legolas would have had less of a hard time abandoning caution to the wind had it been only the welfare of his heart that would be exposed to the risk of harm.
'Don't do this, I beg of you. You have a lover waiting for you in Imladris.'
Attempt as he might to voice the thought, his mouth wouldn't heed his command. His limbs suddenly grew lax and his eyelids felt heavy. He sensed something shifting in him, a presence of alien energy slowly coalescing in his sentience, pushing aside his will-power and grasp of control.
"Answer me, Ernilen [my prince]," the voice spoke to his mind rather than to his ear. It filled him with a nebulous desire to yield and obey. Legolas tried to make sense of what was going on, tried to shake off the sensation akin to sinking into an abyss. He looked up into Glorfindel's eyes, hoping the Elda would hold the answer to this mysterious ailment.
What he found instead was an emotionless stranger gazing at him through the shards of icy indigo crystals.
"Yes." He felt his lips move and heard the faint sound of his own voice.
"Would you do anything to please me?" The otherworldly tone carrying those words was now whispered into his fea [soul], caressing his inner being intimately and sensually. Legolas couldn't contain his moans of consuming pleasure, for an intangible touch to fea was translated tenfold into its vessel.
"Yes," the young elf answered weakly.
The ancient Elda broke into a dark, sinister smile.
"Then bind yourself to me."
His body was lowered on to the forest floor like a lifeless puppet, hands and feet arranged as his master wished. A flash of silver heralded the outset of an unnatural ceremony of fear and unholy union. Inebriated blue eyes dazedly watched scarlet beads pooled in his palm before breaking into a thin rivulet. He watched and could do nothing about it. He was beyond hope, beyond help.
'No.'
His bleeding palm was raised to the touch of a moist tongue, dragging over the cut to taste the salty droplets with devilish delight.
"You taste sinfully amazing, my little elf," crooned the Noldo Lord.
Legolas wanted to close his eyes from the sick image, but even that petty amount of freedom was no longer his. With a wicked gleam in his eyes, the taller elf sealed their lips together, plundering the wood-elf's mouth in a manner nigh barbaric, revelling in his pained cry as strong fingers encircled the bandaged forearm and cruelly wrung the mending tissues.
"Yes, you would make such a sumptuous possession."
'Valar, no!' Tears began to leak from the corners of his eyes. 'Please.'
The elf he no longer recognized as anyone but the spawn of Sauron himself took up the dagger and cut another gash, this time on his own palm. In a parody of gentleness, he took Legolas' hand and entwined their fingers together, palm flush upon palm.
"Let us be one, Alqualos [White swan].”
Legolas felt his liquid essence flowing - nay, pulled - viciously into another's as the invading presence inside his being grew stronger and stronger, slowly building a bridge of bonding that would fuse their fear[souls] together for eternity, with or without his compliance.
'No, I do not want this bond! Someone please free me from this sorcery!'
"Fi... on..."
A throaty laugh answered his wavering whisper. "Very soon now, my swan."
Then suddenly, the triumphant smirk faded into a pinched look of incredulity. The seneschal looked down to find a length of blade rising forth from his chest. Just as swiftly as it was thrust in, the sword was pulled out without a flea's breath of mercy, leaving a hole of cascading gore.
"Naraiwe... [Flame-bird]" Blood began to dribble down from the corner of the mouth that uttered the derisive sneer. "I should've known..."
A wrathful hand reached out to grip the elf's shoulder and flung the dead weight as far as its impressive strength could accomplish.
"Legolas." There was a riot of emotions in the mere voicing of the prince's name. Worry, dread, gladness, grief, rage, hope... and undying love.
"Fion... [Hawk]" whispered Legolas for a final time before consciousness fled his frazzled body.
Casting the bloody sword away, the elf who had just arrived rushed to the archer's side, checking meticulously for injuries and gauging their severity ere he bundled the smaller elf in his heavy cloak and gathered him up from the ground, murmuring soft reassurances into his ear. "You are safe now, my heart."
"How fares our prince?" Another voice, coloured with concern, approached them.
"I fear for him, Mithrandir. 'Tis as you saw in your mind's eye, his wounds appear to be old but show no sign of healing progress, and the paleness of his complexion distresses me so. You must take him home to his father and have the healers examine him. Whatever poison he has taken must be forced out from his body! Take Asfaloth with you to prompt haste!"
"What about Naurfirin?" asked the wizard.
"To Timeless Void with that black-hearted Maia! Ever since the beginning of days he has sought to tyrannize over my beloved, even when he was but a pure, innocent spirit living in the Garden of Lórien. Gladly would I repeatedly pierce his heart shapeless once I make sure Legolas is in no danger."
Both wizard and elf turned their gaze to where the corpse lay, only to find it empty save for a dark blood-tainted spot on the soil. Yet despite the unearthly disappearance of what was supposed to be a dead elf, both parties' immediate reaction was only to heave a sigh, one of irritation and the other of suppressed fury.
"The gall he had using my face to torment my beloved!"
"We have no time for fruitless anger now, Seneschal. Summon your horse now and I shall be off to Thranduil's Halls."
Few moments later, Asfaloth trotted into their sight. Glorfindel looked heavy-hearted when he transferred his precious burden into Mithrandir's safe keeping.
"Glorfindel, you know Legolas' fea is beginning to recall yours even as his memory of your previous love in Aman is but a blank parchment, as yours was when you were first born to Arda ages ago. That's why the cunning Naurfirin laid him up to near death and plied him with a decoction that would allow his foul enchantment to work. He sought to subdue Legolas' subliminal percipience and confuse his wits, in hope of ensorcelling him when he was weak and feeling out of sorts.
"Yet I do believe that deep down in his psyche, our golden prince has sensed the underlying deceit, despite the all-too-convincing illusion. He would no doubt have come to recognize the real truth had the circumstances been more in his favour."
"You do not have to console me, old friend," the noble warrior smiled thinly in resignation. One of the prince's hands was still clasped in his. From the look of his face, he had no plan of letting it go until the last half-second afore the wizard's departure. "I do not care if Legolas wakes up rife with hatred and abhorrence aimed my way, I... All I wish is to see him safe and happy, even at the cost of my life and heart."
"Take heart, my friend. All is not lost yet. In fact, I do possess something serviceable for your plight." The wizard relieved a set of fingers to rummage in the pocket of his robe. He pulled out a clear glass phial of dark liquid, which the Elda eyed with blatant suspicion.
"Water from the Enchanted River," declared the Maia.
Glorfindel's brows rose in alarm. "What do you plan to do with it?"
"No need to fret. A few drops of this water would erase the history in the last handful of days from his memory. He would not remember anything beyond the fateful incident of being waylaid by spiders and warg."
"Thranduil will suspect something is amiss," reminded Glorfindel soberly.
"Then I will simply have to don my wizard hat and exercise my signature confounding speech, do you not agree?" quipped the grey wizard with a wink of conspiracy, which elicited a grateful smile from the Balrog Slayer.
"Please see him through, my friend." The golden-haired Noldo took one last long look at the treasure of his heart. "He is my reason for living."
With a kick to the horse's flanks, Mithrandir took off southward, leaving the reborn Elda who wouldn't take his eyes off the departing figures, even after their silhouette had long receded out of sight.
The End