From the View of the Elvenking

I had come upon an empty encampment. There I found remnants of fire and in the air there remained the trace of a foul smell. I recognized it well. The stench haunted my memory. Orcs.

I believed I found where they had been, and that was something. Tauriel was leading me in the right direction. But when I found Laewyn, what would I face? How many orcs were there? If it was only me, and perhaps Tauriel alone, against fifty, a hundred or so, how would we fare? My skill was surely unmatched against many. But in the back of my mind, I knew that even I had my limits.

My father and grandfather before me had fallen, surrounded by orcs. I knew all too well the possibilities.

Still, I came prepared to die in order to save her. And if I could not save her, then we would both perish, and we would dwell together in the halls of Mandos. For I could not bear this torturous life a second longer if I lost her again.

I rode on for hours, following Tauriel's bent grass and branches, well into the late afternoon I sped, and as I went, I scanned the horizon, looking towards the mountains, the flatlands, South and then West.

It was there I saw approaching a line of horses at quite a speed. I stopped my own in anticipation of them.

The riders coverered the distance between myself and their company quickly, and once arrived, they surrounded me, kicking up dust.

"Lord Thranduil," said a fair-headed elf. I knew who this was.

"Celeborn?" I said. "How?"

"I have come to retrieve my niece," he said.

Shame and devastation rent me silent for an instant. Then I said, "She is taken by orcs. It is my fault. I sent her away. "

"I know that you did. Galadriel foresaw this. Why else should we be here now?"

"I...I am grateful. I would have faced the orcs alone to save her, but I am much relieved you are here. I have been a blind fool. I did not see that... that it is her, Celeborn... isn't it..."

Celeborn nodded. "Yes, Thranduil. It is her."

My heart exploded in my chest with the confirmation. Then I said, "I only pray... she..." But I could not speak the rest.

"Let us not think bleakly. I have brought my Marchwarden, Haldir," Celeborn nodded at his Captain, "and his soldiers. Now let us waste no more time."

"Have we a direction?" asked the Marchwarden.

"South," I said. "I follow the marks left by one of my Guard."

"Then onward," said Celeborn, and I reared my horse with renewed hope, taking off across the land with a small army--one that also loved Laewyn--behind me.

---

We raced Southward, many keen eyes upon the land in search of some definitive sign of where the orcs might be.

Night fell, and still we rode on, my previous hope sinking like a boulder with every passing hour in darkness.

Then as the dawn broke, there came streaking from a ahead of us an elf on horseback, her shock of red hair trailing behind.

"Tauriel!" I haulted my horse at once as she stopped before us.

"My Lord!"

"Where is she?!"

"I have found their nest. It is in the Grey-Horned caves. They are keeping her there, not half an hour from here. Or at least I pray they remain. I fled to meet you when I saw it."

"Meet me?"

"Of course, My Lord, I knew you would come, you love her," she said with almost a tone of exasperation.

Though I widened my eyes at her forthrightness, I did not bother to respond with surprise, for it was true, and she was wise.

"You travel with another guard?" Tauriel questioned.

"It is Laewyn's people. But I will not make time to explain. Take me to her. Now."

My Captain nodded and took off ahead of me. I surged after her, my head down and preparing for what I must do. Preparing to tear every orc I saw limb from wretched limb to get to her--to get to my love, to get to my soul and never, ever loose her from my arms again.

I would rule the kingdom holding her, if it meant we should never be parted.

I would love her more madly, more wildly, more furiously than ever I had before. I would hold nothing back--not one thing, if only I could bring her safely home with me.

And I would destroy them all for taking her. I would burn them all to ashes with the fire in my veins.

---

I could not tell if I were waking or dreaming.

I heard voices, some rough and unpleasant, some familiar.

There was a tree before me, and it glowed with light from within. I recognized it, calmly approaching its entrance with bare feet.

The Great Tree of Lorien, in the root of Caras Galadhon, gave its warmth to me, calling me more deeply into its heart, and I climbed the winding steps of its branches higher and higher and higher, until at last I saw her.

Aunt Galadriel smiled at me.

"Have you sought me or do I seek you?" I asked.

"It must be both at once, to bring you here."

"Oh," I said.

She neared me and took my hand. "Where were you before?"

"Before? I was...I was..."

I felt lost at her question, for it seemed to me an odd one. Before?

I looked around me, and there was the beloved tree, but behind me was a cave, and it, too, felt familiar, though it frightened me.

Then I turned again to Galadriel, and saw that she was now pouring water from a silver pitcher into her mirror.

"Laewyn... come." She held out a hand.

I did as she said, and bent my head over the mirror to look into the water. I saw my own reflection there, but then...someone else, also fair of hair, with eyes of deep sapphire, just like mine, but she was different. "Who are yo--who is she?"

"Laewyn...do you not feel it?"

"Who is she?"

"Who are you?"

I did not answer.

"Êlúriel... who are you?" she said.

I looked back to the water, and the image there shifted.

It was King Thranduil, stood before the elf with eyes like mine, and he said, "Nenluin, I would drown in those eyes."

Nenluin. Familiar.

Water. It meant water.

"He loved my eyes. To him they seemed as as an ocean," I found myself saying.

"And so he called you Nenluin," Galadriel said. "Look again."

Again the water shifted and there was a tiny child...a most beautiful, golden-haired boy. The elf with my eyes held him close and tickled him and he laughed.

My heart lept. "Legolas."

"Êlúriel. Laewyn...Who are you?" asked Galadriel once more.

"I am Laewyn."

"Yes?"

"I am..." Then I broke into weeping, weeping with such force that it shook my spirit, weeping with such power that the air around me vibrated, and Galadriel wrapped her light around me, calming me at once, and spoke in my head.

"Yes, you are her and she is you. You are Êlúriel, and you are Laewyn."

"And Thranduil. And my son. Galadriel..." My mind reeled with sudden remembering. "I begged the Great Ones to send me back the moment I had died. The very moment I realized."

"Yes. And they have... but now you must be healed, for your body remains on Varda, but your spirit is somewhere in between. Look..."

Again I stared in her mirror, but now I saw Thranduil, and Tauriel, and Uncle Celeborn, and an army of Lorien soldiers.

And they were in battle.

Thranduil swung his blades as a devastating storm, swords in both hands, his face blazing in fury. He sliced through orcs many at a time, until those who remained shrank in fear.

"You will die as you deserve," he roared.

Then the image faded, as did the mirror itself, and then, too, the great tree surrounding me.

I looked to my aunt, who smiled one last time, then nodded behind me to the cave.

"I do not want to go there," I said, frightened.

"Do not fear the dark, it is only a passage," she said.

I hesitated a second more, then stepped into its depths.

-----

From the View of the Elvenking

When the caves were in sight we slowed our horses. "We shall go on foot from here, as quietly as we can. I would give them little time to prepare."

The company agreed and dismounted at once.

It was daylight, and the orcs remained beneath the ground, even as we approached the caves.

"Should we sneak in, take them by surprise?" Tauriel asked.

"We could be trapped," spoke the Marchwarden. "We have advantage in the daylight."

I agreed. "Yes, it is better to draw them out."

"How?' she asked.

I decided the most direct course of action was best, so I approached the caves myself and stood before them.

"Beasts of the dark, you will come out and face me!" I shouted.

There was a moment or two of utter silence, then a rushing of feet from within the earth.

"They come, ready yourselves!" said Celeborn, raising his sword.

No sooner had he spoken than the orcs poured forth from their lair, and I tore at them, slicing heads and stabbing them through with my swords.

I did not care how many there were. Let them come to me. They were only rats, and I would crush them all underfoot.

"Kill the warg!" I heard Celeborn shout to his soldiers, and his Marchwarden charged for the wolf, dodging its snapping teeth to jam his sword into the warg's mouth. It fell dead.

The elves made quick enough work of the orcs and their numbers thinned, but there stepped forth from the caves an ugly, hulking beast, bigger than the others by far, who held a curved short sword in both of his hands.

"Have you come for the she-elf? You waste your time. I've strangled her myself. She'll be dead soon enough, if she isn't already," taunted the orc, and my vision turned red.

I yelled and charged at him, though I did not really see him at all. I was a mountain, whose top had been blown, and I would bury him in fire and stone.

He swung at me, he tried, I will give him that. But I drove a sword far into his belly, and did not pull it out, for I wished him to live long enough to fear my next blow. Then I sliced off his cursed head.

Nearly every orc was now dead or run away.
The last few stood hunched in fear of my blades, which would soon bring a swift end to them.

"Let us go, and...and we will tell you where we have her!" a noseless orc rushed out his pleading. "For it is her you have come for, isn't it?" he said, desperately.

"Where...IS she!" I growled through tightened jaw.

"Sh...sh...she is in the Northmost cave, with the horned head! There!" he pointed with a vile hand.

I followed his hand, then turned to them and raised my swords.

"We told you! You would let us go!"

"You will die as you deserve," I spat, and took off both their heads in one swing.

Then I ran at once for the horned cave and rushed inside its narrow passageway.

When it opened, I saw her there, laying upon the dirt, her poor body twisted and lifeless in a pile.

In anguish I cried out, and ran to her, grabbing Laewyn up and running with her outside and into the light.

I kneeled, laying her over my knees, cradling her head in the crook of my arm. Tauriel and Celeborn fell to the ground beside us.

There were marks, red and violent, upon her beautiful throat from the orc's hands, and she was covered in bruises. Those heinous monsters had put hands on her, had strangled the life from her. I would kill them all again were they not already dead.

But she was not cold yet. And she breathed, though it was small and shallow. Her color was pale as snow.

"She lives," I said, hardly recognizing the quaking desperation in my voice. "She breathes still. Oh, please, Laewyn..." I shook as I held her, for dread overwhelmed me.
"

I have you, My Love. I will help you."

Laying a hand gently upon her throat, I closed my eyes, speaking aloud the prayers I had heard her use so many times before, until finally the warmth of grace poured through me in a great rush.

I willed it out of my hands and into her flesh, and I did this, I became aware that another pair of hands were upon her.

Tauriel laid one atop Laewyn's head, and the other upon her heart. Then she prayed with me, in one voice.

We would drown her in grace. We would storm the heavens, and they would heed me! I would not let her leave. They would not take her from me again. Not again. Not this time.

I gave her everything I had until my mind spun and my hands trembled with effort, and I stopped only when I felt her head turn against my arm. Then her blue eyes opened.

Holding my breath, I removed my hand from her neck to find that the redness was nearly gone.

"Laewyn," I said quietly, looking to her for recognition.

She gazed upon me, then smiled in a way so dear to me that I could not help but return it.

"My King," she said, and lifted a hand to hold my cheek. "Thranduil... Le Nathlam Hi."

Tears flooded my eyes and fell upon her chest. My smile turned broad enough to split me in half. "And I know your face, Nenluin."

Then I bent and kissed her tenderly, so tenderly, for she was still weak. And with my eyes closed, I whispered against her lips. "I love you, Laewyn."

--

Chapter 13, coming soon!