Fic: "Ode to a Woodland Daughter," (5/?) OMC/Thranduil, R
”Ode to a Woodland Daughter” (5/?)
Author:
_beetle_
Fandom: The Hobbit/LoTR
Pairing: OMC/Thranduil, OMC/OFC (UST), (mentions of: OFC/Durin VII, Thranduil/OFC, Thorin/Bilbo, Tauriel/Kili, Tauriel/OMC, Legolas/Gimli, Aragorn/Arwen, Beren/Luthien)
Rating: R
Word count: Approx. 5,500
Notes/Warnings: Previous parts are here. Thanks to BadSkippy, for letting me brainstorm, and for coming up with a kickass title as well as making me dig deeper into my own fic. Thank you, my friend.
Summary: It is the Fourth Age. The lands are locked in a lasting peace. Bard II sits justly and well on the thrones of Dale and Laketown, as have his fathers before him. Yet the line of the Great Bowman is not without turmoil and strife. The heir-presumptive of Bard II, Sigrid, has run off to Erebor to marry Durin VII, son of Thorin-called-Stonehelm, son of Dain-called-Ironfoot. Sigrid’s older brother, Tild, has never shown interest in becoming heir, preferring to while away his days in revelry and drunkenness. Next in line for the throne is Sigrid’s cousin, half-elven Sildan-son of Girion, son of Brand, son of Bain, son of Bard-called-Dragonslayer-who is bereft: his cousin and one true love is marrying another and he, too, has a perfect horror of ruling. So what is this least and latest of the Great Bowman and Dragonslayer’s scions to do? Run away to the Greenwood, of course.
Even when it becomes clear that the boy-Sildan-had passed out, Malthengon’s grandfather continues to hold him, and tenderly caress his cheek. Thranduil’s gaze, intent and intense as it is on the boy, is somehow, simultaneously, as tender as his touch.
“He was right, after all, it seems. As ever he is,” Thranduil murmurs lowly, his voice torn between rue and wonder. “He said you would return to us, no matter how far hence you were sent . . . and return to us, you have. And now that I’ve seen you . . . now that I’ve seen you, Sildan, to know that I’ve come so close to losing you. . . .”
Thranduil closes his eyes as he trails off, and to Malthengon’s surprise, tears leak out from under his closed lids, to dampen silver eyelashes and pale cheeks.
“Grandfather?” Malthengon ventures, stepping closer to bed, boy, and grandfather. Thranduil doesn’t move, but to hold the boy closer. “Grandfather, what-”
“Captain Maethilwen said that you and she found him just outside the bounds of our lands?”
“Yes, sire.” Malthengon bows low. “He had two wounds, both made by arrows.”
“Indeed?” Thranduil’s mouth twitches downward, the closest to a frown Malthengon has ever seen his grandfather wear. And if Thranduil’s angry enough to nearly frown, he must be quite angry. Indeed.
“Yes, my king.”
That anger-twitch again, then Thranduil’s opening his eyes and blinking away tears that have already begun to dry. “And where, pray tell, are the arrows that felled him?”
Licking his lips, Malthengon looks around the sickroom and spots the very objects sitting on a table, on a now-bloody blue cloth. Of human-make, those arrows-shoddily made, but apparently serviceable enough.
Thranduil’s gaze follows Malthengon’s to the arrows, and they narrow, that almost-frown becoming a momentary grimace of rage that’s gone as soon as it appears. Before Malthengon can even register that such a look has crossed his grandfather’s normally stoic face, Thranduil has carefully, gently disengaged from the boy-who sighs unhappily in his healing slumber-laying him down amongst the pillows and pulling the coverlet up over him with a care Malthengon has never seen him show anything.
For a moment, that tender look is back in his eyes-in the weight of his gaze and the very stillness of his face: like a minutely shivering crystal under the assault of a high-C-as he caresses the boy’s sallow cheek once more.
Then he’s standing up and skirting the front of the bed to stride across the room, to the table where lay the arrows.
He leans over them grimly, reaching out as if to touch the whole one-for the other had been broken, no doubt while Malthengon’s mother tried to retrieve it-before closing his long-fingered hand. Then he’s gingerly wrapping the arrows up in the stained blue cloth.
“You will take this to Aduacharn,” he says softly, but with a tone of command that causes Malthengon to bow again. Then he’s accepting the grisly bundle Thranduil hands out to him. “I want to know where these arrows originated, and by whom they were shot. I want to know why. I want to know this as soon as possible. And I want the miscreants who shot this boy . . . brought to me.”
Shocked, Malthengon can only stare for moments as his grandfather turns away, back to bed and boy.
“You . . . you mean to have outsiders brought into Eryn Lasgalen?”
“That was my command, was it not?”
Cold-iron tone as Thranduil pauses at the boy’s bedside, his head canted slightly to the left. Malthengon swallows and hastily bows again, though Thranduil can’t see it, and clutching the bundle of blood and arrows, turns to go.
He’s half out the door when, greatly daring, he glances back into the room, meaning to ask his grandfather who this boy is, that Thranduil is breaking his own rules about allowing outsiders into the forest.
But the sight that greets him when he turns back to speak-Thranduil, kneeling at the boy’s bedside, one pale, dirty, bloody hand clasped between his own . . . the mighty elven-king’s eyes are closed once more, and he brings the boy’s hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the scraped fingers-floors him. Drives the very words from his lips.
And so he doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there, observing this never before guessed at, let alone seen side of his grandfather, when Thranduil murmurs: “Malthengon?”
“Yes, grandfather?”
“Do as I have bid you. Go.”
And with a fourth and final bow, Malthengon absents himself, his mind still a-whirl.
*
“I’m alright, Maethilwen. . . .”
Lightly booting open the doors to Lady Nimiel’s room, Maethilwen snorts and enters the receiving room, kicking the door shut behind her. Without further pause, she strides to Lady Nimiel’s bedroom, the aforementioned lady struggling weakly, half-heartedly in her arms.
“If you’ll pardon me for gainsaying you, my lady, you’re not. You were barely conscious mere moments ago. You’re still barely conscious.”
“Really, I’m fine, just a little . . . disoriented,” the lady allows as they enter her bedroom. A lamp is burning lowly, and Maethilwen lets its light guide her to Lady Nimiel’s bed, which the lady, herself, had long ago pushed into a far corner to make more room for her herbal racks and drying tables.
With great care, she places the lady in bed, noting that despite their weakness, Lady Nimiel’s arms remained looped around and clutching at Maethilwen’s neck. Even as the suddenly uncomfortable captain of the watch seeks to stand, the lady clutches tighter, her fluttering silver eyes struggling to focus in the dim lighting.
“The boy will live,” she says softly, smiling a little, and Maethilwen returns it certainly, proudly.
“My lady’s skills as a healer are formidable.”
Lady Nimiel laughs weakly. “’Twas not my skill that called him back from the Lady Yavanna’s Fields, but-“ and here the lady falls silent for several long moments before going on. “It was not Nimiel of Eryn Lasgalen whose voice called Sildan Bowman back from death.”
Frowning, Maethilwen shakes her head in confusion. “If not yours, then whose?”
Lady Nimiel raises her dark eyebrows and Maethilwen suddenly recalls that the lady had not been the only person in the room when Sildan had awoken.
“King Thranduil?” Maethilwen couldn’t be more surprised if Lady Nimiel had claimed it was Maethilwen’s voice that had brought him back. “But how did he call Sildan back-and why did it work?”
Sighing thoughtfully, the lady frowns. “I do not know. The power to heal serious infirmities is given the kings and queens of Arda, since time immemorial. Some monarchs hone this talent, some do not.” Lady Nimiel licks her lips and Maethilwen would go to get her water, but the lady’s grasp of her has grown tenacious, indeed. “My father has always spoken of himself as a middling healer. Yet tonight . . . tonight, I saw otherwise. I saw him reach beyond the veil of death, into a place I could not go, and reclaim Sildan from the Evergreen Fields.”
Maethilwen shakes her head again. “Such power is beyond that of even the greatest king or queen, I would think. It is the power of a God,” she says with soft reverence.
“There is only one power I know of which can rival that of the Gods, Maethilwen, and if I didn’t know otherwise-” Lady Nimiel shakes her own head, now.
“What is this power you speak of, my lady?” Maethilwen asks, uncertain she wants to know, but worried for Sildan. Worried that he might find himself under some alien power’s control. She can easily think up at least nine relatively recent instances where that sort of control over another was to the detriment of all.
But Lady Nimiel smiles gently, her still-pale lips curving like the most perfect bow, her eyes dancing like starlight. “The same power with which the souls of the unborn are pulled from beyond that shadowy veil. The power that keeps us going, many miles beyond the point we should have long since given up. The power that keeps one by the side of another with or without the promise of even eventual reciprocal affection . . . the greatest power for good in the world, Maethilwen. . . .”
Now thoroughly lost-but relieved that whatever this power is, it isn’t, apparently, a bad one-Maethilwen blinks. “I . . . I don’t follow, my lady,” she says apologetically, then adds: “But if you like, I can fetch you some cool water, and some fruit to revive you.”
“Maethilwen,” Lady Nimiel murmurs, smiling a little. And: “My brave, practical captain of the watch . . . you always take such excellent care of me, whether I am in need of it, or not.”
“If I may say, my lady is often in need of caring for,” Maethilwen responds tartly, then blushes. “And Lord Caladhael has charged me with your care. It is a duty I do not take lightly.”
Lady Nimiel’s fluttering lids open wide, now-for a few seconds, anyway-shining and somber. “Duty, then . . . is that all that keeps you by my side, even in your free time? Even after a peaceful span since the Last Great War? Even when the one who charged you with my care has gone to his rest over a century ago?”
Maethilwen swallows, and looks away from the lady’s intent, silver eyes. “My lady . . . Lord Caladhael honored me more than I can express by charging me with the care of his beloved wife and son. I would never toss away such an honor simply because the great wars have passed. And simply because, perhaps, as you say, you are sometimes not in need of my care. My lady-Nimiel-” Maethilwen’s brow furrows and she meets the lady’s wide silver eyes. “My lady, I am yours, whether or not you need me, whether or not you even want me . . . my life is ever yours to command.”
Lady Nimiel blinks, her shining eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Do you not know, Maethilwen-have you not known that as you are mine, I am yours-beyond wanting or needing or commanding? Do you not understand what Caladhael did when he charged you with my safety, and Malthengon’s?” Lady Nimiel’s arms slide from around Maethilwen’s neck, but her hands, clammy and shaking, cup Maethilwen’s face gently. The tears in her eyes spill over and she bites her lip, just the way she did when they were children, and played together in the safety of the trees at the heart of Eryn Lasgalen. “He gave us to you to guard and protect, yes, but he also gave us to you to love and have joy of. With his last breath, he gave you his family to make your own. So what . . . what are you waiting for?”
And now, Maethilwen would look away again, but she cannot. Though she dares not read the emotions that lay so plainly in Lady Nimiel’s eyes, either.
“My lady,” she begins, not knowing what she will say after that. Lady Nimiel blinks and more tears roll down her pale, wan face.
“Or will it be like this till we sail to the Undying Lands? Me placing my heart before you on a silver platter and you not seeing-refusing to see what’s been in front of you since we were children together, and had no name for love?”
Swallowing again, Maethilwen finally tears her eyes away from the lady’s. “You . . . you’ve had a rather harrowing evening, my lady. You must let me get you settled in, so that you may rest before you say something else that’s. . . .”
“Entirely true?” The lady’s hands fall away from Maethilwen’s face and Maethilwen sighs, closing her eyes and bowing her head. Long minutes of silence tick between them, loud and dinning, before Maethilwen finds it within her to speak.
“What do you wish of me, Nimiel? Tell me, and I’ll do my best to give it to you. Not because it is my duty, but because . . . because I love you,” she says quietly, at last, and to no response.
When she risks a look up, Lady Nimiel is fast asleep, her face turned slightly to the side, but still creased with lines of care.
Sighing again, Maethilwen watches Lady Nimiel sleep for as long as she dares before claiming one of the lady’s delicate hands and kissing it, feather-light. . . .
Then she’s tucking Lady Nimiel into her bed with tender care that, had she been awake, the lady would likely have protested.
Leaving the lamp burning low, Maethilwen makes her silent way out of the sleeping lady’s quarters, her heart and mind a tumult of emotion.
But she is long used to burying desire under duty-so used to it, she wouldn’t begin to know how to stop, even if she wanted to-and does so with a soldier’s alacrity and lack of melodrama.
By the time she closes the lady’s door behind her, her face and demeanor are once more as impassive as the stone around her.
*
Minutes later, when Maethilwen lets herself back into Sildan’s sickroom, heart and mind still unsettled, it is to find that the sleeping boy is not alone.
“My king!” she starts, shutting the door behind her. Thranduil, standing by the room’s small, lone window, arms crossed, does not look away from whatever has captured his gaze.
“How is Lady Nimiel?” he asks softly. “Has she recovered from her swoon?”
Nodding stolidly, Maethilwen rolls her shoulders. “Somewhat, my king. She awoke, spoke for a little then fell asleep.”
Now, Thranduil inclines his head toward Maethilwen, turning that silver gaze-so like and so unlike Lady Nimiel’s-to her. “And of what did she speak before slumber claimed her?”
Maethilwen’s gaze slides away, to the window, then to Sildan. He looks as if he’s been propped up amongst the pillows and tucked in properly. He also appears to be less wan and deathly-pale as he had been just minutes ago.
“She . . . spoke of Lord Caladhael and of Malthengon, and of her childhood.” Maethilwen bites back a sigh. “And she spoke of a power that brought Sildan back from the dead. That had the strength to reach beyond death and reclaim him for this world. But she did not tell me what this power was before she fell asleep.”
“Hmm,” is Thranduil’s reply, and he returns his gaze to the window. “Ever has my daughter waxed poetical about such things. I suppose now would be no different. Well.” And with that, Thranduil turns away from the window decisively. He strides toward the door, frowning, and when he draws even with Maethilwen, he pauses to speak, his expression somewhat torn between concern and a defensiveness Maethilwen has never seen him display.
“You and Malthengon are relieved from duties for the next few days-I will inform Aduacharn-and I want one or the other of you here to keep an eye on him while he recovers. I . . . I do not wish him to wake up alone.”
Glancing at the boy in the bed-he seems so fragile, so small . . . indeed, he’s probably only a few inches taller than Maethilwen, which isn’t saying much-she nods and bows. “It will be as you command, my lord.”
Thranduil nods once, also looking back at the boy in the bed, his expression at once determined and worried. “Should he wish it, Captain, he shall have the succor for which you have plead so . . . eloquently. Should Sildan wish it, he will have a home in Eryn Lasgalen.”
Feeling a relief so great it’s practically elation sweep over her, Maethilwen doesn’t trust herself to speak, only to bow, and repeat: “Yes, my king.”
When she bobs back up, Thranduil’s intent gaze is waiting for her, searching and piercing. “And when he wakes, you and Malthengon are to answer any questions he asks, with regard to anything and anyone . . . save his origins.”
Maethilwen bites back a frown and bows again, ignoring the pang in her heart as well as the churning in her gut. “As you say, my king. However . . . what shall I tell him when he asks why I will not answer those questions?”
Thranduil smiles a little, rueful and wistful all at once, and glances back at the boy thoughtfully before answering.
*
He struggles, quite literally, to wakefulness.
It's like swimming up from the bottom of the Lake, all darkness, but with the sense that if one simply keeps moving up, one will finally encounter light. So he moves up-swims up from the depths of his dreams and nightmares, fighting against the very powerful urge to simply stay under, where everything is rather awful, but at least he's familiar with the flavor.
But then he remembers the bright silver eyes and strong arms waiting for him in the light, and the urge to remain is obliterated by the bone-deep need to be wherever those eyes and those arms are. He can almost see them, for they are so close by, so close. . . .
He moves toward them, toward the shimmer of those eyes, which are occasionally shuttered by pale lids and paler lashes. He opens his mouth to call out wait! Reaches with all his being for those arms, hoping that once again, they’ll catch him and hold him. But they drift ever farther away, farther up, leaving him in the murk of down-below.
So, calling on the talent and drive that have made him the strongest swimmer in a family of strong swimmers, Sildan Bowman pushes his way upward, two words on his lips the whole way-
*
“Wait . . . please. . . .”
Maethilwen starts awake from a light, thin doze to sunlight slanting in the window and soft moans coming from the bed.
Blinking, she places her book on Sildan’s night table, careful not to upset the pitcher of cool water sitting there. Then she stands, turning to the window behind the chair to draw the curtains and filter the green-gold sunlight. By the time she has the curtains adjusted to her satisfaction, Sildan is trying to sit up, his eyes barely open, as his weak arms tremble under even his slight weight.
“You must rest, Sildan,” Maethilwen says soothingly, putting her hands on his shoulders and pressing him back to the bed. He doesn’t give up trying to sit up, but jarring his own wounds makes his struggles that much weaker, and he groans, his startling and familiar eyes rolling up under half-closed lids. His breathing is light and quick, winded, and his entire body is shaking. When he finally stops trying to sit up, Maethilwen pulls the coverlet back up over him.
“Try and rest,” she says again, putting her hand to his forehead. It’s still cool and dry. In the days since his arrival, Sildan’s fevers have come and gone several times, though after the last one had broken this past night, Lady Nimiel has assured them all that he is finally on the mend.
Greener-than-green eyes open again and meet Maethilwen’s with fuzzy focus.
“Am I d-dead? Are . . . are you my Mum?” he croaks out desperately in Westron, settling back into the pillows. Maethilwen’s eyes widen and she looks away from Sildan, busying herself with pouring him a cup of water and blinking away the tears in her eyes.
“You’ve been ill for some time, lad, but you’re healing nicely now,” she says briskly, brightly, also in Westron. “You’re safe, now, in Eryn Lasgalen.”
Sildan gives her another desperate look, this one equally confused. When she holds the cup to his lips, he takes a few sips-initially for politeness’ sake, that much is clear-but those sips turn into gulps as he realizes how parched his throat is.
When half the cup is emptied, Maethilwen holds the cup away. “Slowly, or you’ll make yourself sick.”
“Thank you,” he says gratefully, his voice no longer a harsh croak, but a rich, low, sonorous burr, hinting very strongly at his Dale-ish origins. His round, wide eyes take in Maethilwen, then the room, then Maethilwen once more, before he closes them briefly.
“If I may ask . . . where is this . . . Eryn Lasgalen in which I find myself, Madam?” he asks without much interest, his eyes squinting as he looks to the curtained window.
“You are in, as it is called by men, the Greenwood.”
Sildan’s eyes widen as they meet Maethilwen’s again. “I . . . I made it? But I was so far, and-and I was wounded-” he touches his bandaged chest and shoulder as if just remembering his injuries. When he looks up at Maethilwen again, he’s quite agog. “I thought-I was certain I would die in the grasslands between the road and the Greenwood. Those bandits ambushed us, and Mr. Rolla, he-he didn’t make it.” He closes his eyes on sudden tears. “It was my fault. He only wanted to help. He thought it was maybe another peddler who needed aid. But I knew-I knew it was something bad. But I didn’t try hard enough to talk him out of it. We could’ve gone off the road and around, and none of this would ever have happened.”
Covering his face, Sildan begins to weep, and Maethilwen, at a loss as to what to do next, puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.
“It was not your fault, Sildan. The fault lay only with those who would take advantage of and harm those who seek only to help the helpless,” she says gently, sitting on the bed just in time to get Sildan’s arms wrapped around her neck. With a burst of sudden strength, he’s holding onto her tight, shaking and weeping even harder. “Rest assured, this attack will not go unavenged.”
“H-he doesn’t even have a f-family I could give his sword to! I-oh, Yavanna, save me, I lost his sword!” Sildan sits back, his wide eyes shocked and horrified. “I took it with me when I escaped, but I must’ve lost it somewhere between the road and the Greenwood! Oh, gods, no!”
This brings on a fresh bout of weeping and face-hiding. Maethilwen pries Sildan’s hands away from his face and cups it in her own hands, tilting it up when he would look down.
“If, by his sword, you mean the Blood-Letter, then you have lost nothing, Sildan,” she says, smiling through tears of her own. She points across the room, at the opposing wall and he follows her gaze. There, upon a waist-high weapons rack, rests none other than the Blood-Letter, shining and cool-seemingly ablaze in a slant of mid-morning sunshine. “When Prince Malthengon and I found you just beyond the bounds of the Greenwood, the Blood-Letter was in your hand. And you would not let go of it through all the hours of riding it took to get here.”
“I . . . I didn’t lose it?” Sildan sniffles, wiping his face and smiling. Maethilwen’s arm around him tightens.
“No, you did not.”
“Oh,” Sildan says softly, laughing a little, then throwing back the coverlet and laboriously bringing his legs out from under it. He tries to sit up again, but this time, Maethilwen is ready for him.
“If you wish the sword, I will bring it to you. You’re still weak and not to be up and about for at least another day.” She holds him down by the shoulders until he sighs and nods, and stops trying to get up. Then she swings his legs back up into bed and tucks him back in. “Though you needn’t carry a sword here, in the heart of Eryn Lasgalen. You are quite safe.”
“I . . . I believe you, Madam,” Sildan says earnestly, his wide eyes steady on Maethilwen’s face as he swallows. “But at least with Blood-Letter close by, it feels as if . . . Mr. Rolla’s still here, you know? Like I’m . . . not alone.”
“You’re not alone, Sildan.” Maethilwen promises, standing. Sildan smiles sadly-a smile that’s too old by far for the youthful face it sits on.
“Of course, I’m alone, Madam. I’ve always been alone . . . even and especially when I thought I wasn’t.” He looks away, toward the window, but not before Maethilwen sees the shine of tears on his cheeks. “At any rate, you’re right, I expect. ‘Twould be silly of me to keep a sword in my sickbed. I’d likely only behead myself in the night.”
“There is that likelihood,” Maethilwen agrees, walking over to the weapons rack. Once there, she pauses, gazing at the gleaming Blood-Letter to give the boy a few moments to collect himself. “Which is why, if you like, I can move the rack closer to your bed, hmm?”
And Maethilwen is carefully moving the empty-but for Blood-Letter-rack across the room, to Sildan’s bedside, when she glances over her shoulder. “If it comforts you to have Blood-Letter near, then near it shall . . . be.”
Sildan’s eyes are closed and his breathing has evened out. With his face in a ray of sunshine, he looks like any elven youth on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood.
That’s because that’s exactly what he is, Maethilwen thinks, smiling as she finishes moving the weapons rack closer to the bed. Till Blood-Letter, holding its place of pride in the center of the rack, is within easy grasp of Sildan’s arm’s reach. He has been long gone from us-all his life to the point of manhood, as mortal men reckon it-but he is home now. And we will take care of him, teach him our ways . . . in half a century, it shall be as if he’s never lived anywhere else. The loneliness that has inspired such melancholy in him shall be forgotten completely in less than half that time,
Smoothing her hand over the coverlet again, Maethilwen does something she hasn’t done in nearly eighteen years: she leans down and kisses Sildan’ forehead, closing her eyes against waves of tenderness and remembrance that threaten to swamp her under.
Then she takes up her post in the chair by the window, and further keeps watch over Sildan while he slumbers.
*
Sildan is laying in the grass, under the starry sky, gazing up at the profusion of constellations and galaxies and-despite what he’d, in another life, told a woman who may or may not have been his Mum-he is not alone.
For he lays in strong, warm arms-arms that seek only to protect and care for him. And if he looks up (not quite as high as the sky, but getting there) he’ll see a pair of familiar silver eyes, watching him with warmth and amusement.
Sildan smiles, settling back into those arms and placing his own hands on the larger ones that rest clasped together at his waist. “You’re laughing at me,” he murmurs softly, almost to himself.
This is followed by a deep chuckle and those arms hold him slightly tighter, pulling him close against a strong, hard chest. “I am laughing with you, my pale and brilliant jewel.”
“Ah, but I wasn’t laughing, was I?” Sildan banters right back, blushing, and this is good for another low chuckle.
“Yes, you were. Though you remained outwardly silent, I could feel the small quiverings of your body, as it fairly shook with amusement,” that voice says, and Sildan sighs. Every hair on his body is standing on end and his body, itself, is starting to get some funny ideas about what it wants him to do next. None of those ideas involve talking or stargazing.
“It’s not fair that you can read me so well, while I am able to read you not at all.” Sildan pouts and turns his face up toward his as yet unglimpsed companion, and before he can get more than an impression of silver eyes, strong, sharp features, and a rather wicked smile, he’s being kissed.
A brief, sweet, chaste pressing of their lips, that’s over before Sildan can do more than inhale the dizzying scent of his companion: something like green, growing things, night-blooming flowers, and musk.
“No,” Sildan moans, his eyes still closed as his companion withdraws. Quite completely, actually, for he eases his stronger, larger body out from under Sildan’s, even as Sildan is still rocked to his core by his first kiss. “No, please . . . don’t go?”
“It is best that I do, Sildan . . . though . . . I will return. This I promise you.” Gentle fingertips ghost across Sildan’s still-tingling lips. “*O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. . . .”
Sildan shivers, and just as he starts to open his eyes, his companion darts in to plant two more kisses: one on each eyelid. Immediately tears well from under Sildan’s closed lids and he chokes back a sob. For it seems it must always be this way . . . always he loves, and always he is abandoned.
“**And none but thou shalt be my paramour,” Sildan’s mysterious companion whispers from an alarming distance away-seemingly further than he could have possibly gotten in a mere few seconds. . . .
“Wait-please-tell me your name, at least!” Sildan cries, reaching out . . . utterly bereft that he is about to be left alone . . . so very alone . . . once again. “Can you not stay a little while longer?”
No answer, only a gentle sweeping sound, as of cloth brushing leaves of grass. And that scent of green, growing things, night-blooming flowers, and musk is all but gone-
“Wait!” Sildan opens his eyes to darkness and bolts up from a nest of pillows.
His heart races and there are tears on his cheeks and he cannot for the life of him see through the murk of the place he’s in . . . except that he can. The almost-light of false-dawn shines in through the window to the right of him, washing out the now-faint shine of the stars.
Where am I? he wonders, one hand over his pounding, rabbiting heart. For he knows that this is not his rooms in the castle at Dale or the manor house in Laketown. What has happened?
It takes a few seconds of staring into the darkness before him, but he soon remembers all: Sigrid eloping; himself running away; meeting and traveling with Mr. Rolla; the ambush waiting for them less than a day’s travel from the Greenwood . . . then the long, delirious stagger from the site of the ambush, toward the Greenwood . . . then. . . .
“Then, here,” Sildan murmurs to himself absently, as he also remembers the woman from the last time he’d woken up clear-headed. He’d not gotten her name, but he remembers her very clearly, for despite her youthful looks, there was something about her-an air of age and stillness-that spoke of a longer life than Sildan would ever have guessed, once upon a time. “Here, in Eryn Lasgalen . . . the Greenwood.”
“Yes,” a voice says from the shadows by the window, and Sildan starts, gaping and half-frozen with fear, thoughts of ghosts running through his mind. At least until a paler shadow than the others detaches itself from the wall and steps forward, into the meager light.
A tall, young elf of solid build, with long platinum hair and . . . stunning silver eyes-like stars fallen from the very sky above-emerges from the darkness, smiling kindly. He bows in that strange way elves have, one hand over his heart, the other extended in welcome. He’s wearing a grey tunic and leggings in a style that seems half-familiar to Sildan, whose heart is now skipping beats.
It’s him! he thinks excitedly. He said he would come back and he has! He came back for me!
The remnants of his dream begin to return to him in earnest-a dream of being held in strong arms and gazing into eyes like stars fallen to Arda. Of a kiss as intense as it was gentle, and a warm, low voice promising him it would return. . . .
Sildan is lost . . . utterly lost in those eyes, and he hopes to never be found. . . .”
“Welcome to Eryn Lasgalen, Sildan.”
TBC
*Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
**Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
Author:
_beetle_
Fandom: The Hobbit/LoTR
Pairing: OMC/Thranduil, OMC/OFC (UST), (mentions of: OFC/Durin VII, Thranduil/OFC, Thorin/Bilbo, Tauriel/Kili, Tauriel/OMC, Legolas/Gimli, Aragorn/Arwen, Beren/Luthien)
Rating: R
Word count: Approx. 5,500
Notes/Warnings: Previous parts are here. Thanks to BadSkippy, for letting me brainstorm, and for coming up with a kickass title as well as making me dig deeper into my own fic. Thank you, my friend.
Summary: It is the Fourth Age. The lands are locked in a lasting peace. Bard II sits justly and well on the thrones of Dale and Laketown, as have his fathers before him. Yet the line of the Great Bowman is not without turmoil and strife. The heir-presumptive of Bard II, Sigrid, has run off to Erebor to marry Durin VII, son of Thorin-called-Stonehelm, son of Dain-called-Ironfoot. Sigrid’s older brother, Tild, has never shown interest in becoming heir, preferring to while away his days in revelry and drunkenness. Next in line for the throne is Sigrid’s cousin, half-elven Sildan-son of Girion, son of Brand, son of Bain, son of Bard-called-Dragonslayer-who is bereft: his cousin and one true love is marrying another and he, too, has a perfect horror of ruling. So what is this least and latest of the Great Bowman and Dragonslayer’s scions to do? Run away to the Greenwood, of course.
Even when it becomes clear that the boy-Sildan-had passed out, Malthengon’s grandfather continues to hold him, and tenderly caress his cheek. Thranduil’s gaze, intent and intense as it is on the boy, is somehow, simultaneously, as tender as his touch.
“He was right, after all, it seems. As ever he is,” Thranduil murmurs lowly, his voice torn between rue and wonder. “He said you would return to us, no matter how far hence you were sent . . . and return to us, you have. And now that I’ve seen you . . . now that I’ve seen you, Sildan, to know that I’ve come so close to losing you. . . .”
Thranduil closes his eyes as he trails off, and to Malthengon’s surprise, tears leak out from under his closed lids, to dampen silver eyelashes and pale cheeks.
“Grandfather?” Malthengon ventures, stepping closer to bed, boy, and grandfather. Thranduil doesn’t move, but to hold the boy closer. “Grandfather, what-”
“Captain Maethilwen said that you and she found him just outside the bounds of our lands?”
“Yes, sire.” Malthengon bows low. “He had two wounds, both made by arrows.”
“Indeed?” Thranduil’s mouth twitches downward, the closest to a frown Malthengon has ever seen his grandfather wear. And if Thranduil’s angry enough to nearly frown, he must be quite angry. Indeed.
“Yes, my king.”
That anger-twitch again, then Thranduil’s opening his eyes and blinking away tears that have already begun to dry. “And where, pray tell, are the arrows that felled him?”
Licking his lips, Malthengon looks around the sickroom and spots the very objects sitting on a table, on a now-bloody blue cloth. Of human-make, those arrows-shoddily made, but apparently serviceable enough.
Thranduil’s gaze follows Malthengon’s to the arrows, and they narrow, that almost-frown becoming a momentary grimace of rage that’s gone as soon as it appears. Before Malthengon can even register that such a look has crossed his grandfather’s normally stoic face, Thranduil has carefully, gently disengaged from the boy-who sighs unhappily in his healing slumber-laying him down amongst the pillows and pulling the coverlet up over him with a care Malthengon has never seen him show anything.
For a moment, that tender look is back in his eyes-in the weight of his gaze and the very stillness of his face: like a minutely shivering crystal under the assault of a high-C-as he caresses the boy’s sallow cheek once more.
Then he’s standing up and skirting the front of the bed to stride across the room, to the table where lay the arrows.
He leans over them grimly, reaching out as if to touch the whole one-for the other had been broken, no doubt while Malthengon’s mother tried to retrieve it-before closing his long-fingered hand. Then he’s gingerly wrapping the arrows up in the stained blue cloth.
“You will take this to Aduacharn,” he says softly, but with a tone of command that causes Malthengon to bow again. Then he’s accepting the grisly bundle Thranduil hands out to him. “I want to know where these arrows originated, and by whom they were shot. I want to know why. I want to know this as soon as possible. And I want the miscreants who shot this boy . . . brought to me.”
Shocked, Malthengon can only stare for moments as his grandfather turns away, back to bed and boy.
“You . . . you mean to have outsiders brought into Eryn Lasgalen?”
“That was my command, was it not?”
Cold-iron tone as Thranduil pauses at the boy’s bedside, his head canted slightly to the left. Malthengon swallows and hastily bows again, though Thranduil can’t see it, and clutching the bundle of blood and arrows, turns to go.
He’s half out the door when, greatly daring, he glances back into the room, meaning to ask his grandfather who this boy is, that Thranduil is breaking his own rules about allowing outsiders into the forest.
But the sight that greets him when he turns back to speak-Thranduil, kneeling at the boy’s bedside, one pale, dirty, bloody hand clasped between his own . . . the mighty elven-king’s eyes are closed once more, and he brings the boy’s hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the scraped fingers-floors him. Drives the very words from his lips.
And so he doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there, observing this never before guessed at, let alone seen side of his grandfather, when Thranduil murmurs: “Malthengon?”
“Yes, grandfather?”
“Do as I have bid you. Go.”
And with a fourth and final bow, Malthengon absents himself, his mind still a-whirl.
*
“I’m alright, Maethilwen. . . .”
Lightly booting open the doors to Lady Nimiel’s room, Maethilwen snorts and enters the receiving room, kicking the door shut behind her. Without further pause, she strides to Lady Nimiel’s bedroom, the aforementioned lady struggling weakly, half-heartedly in her arms.
“If you’ll pardon me for gainsaying you, my lady, you’re not. You were barely conscious mere moments ago. You’re still barely conscious.”
“Really, I’m fine, just a little . . . disoriented,” the lady allows as they enter her bedroom. A lamp is burning lowly, and Maethilwen lets its light guide her to Lady Nimiel’s bed, which the lady, herself, had long ago pushed into a far corner to make more room for her herbal racks and drying tables.
With great care, she places the lady in bed, noting that despite their weakness, Lady Nimiel’s arms remained looped around and clutching at Maethilwen’s neck. Even as the suddenly uncomfortable captain of the watch seeks to stand, the lady clutches tighter, her fluttering silver eyes struggling to focus in the dim lighting.
“The boy will live,” she says softly, smiling a little, and Maethilwen returns it certainly, proudly.
“My lady’s skills as a healer are formidable.”
Lady Nimiel laughs weakly. “’Twas not my skill that called him back from the Lady Yavanna’s Fields, but-“ and here the lady falls silent for several long moments before going on. “It was not Nimiel of Eryn Lasgalen whose voice called Sildan Bowman back from death.”
Frowning, Maethilwen shakes her head in confusion. “If not yours, then whose?”
Lady Nimiel raises her dark eyebrows and Maethilwen suddenly recalls that the lady had not been the only person in the room when Sildan had awoken.
“King Thranduil?” Maethilwen couldn’t be more surprised if Lady Nimiel had claimed it was Maethilwen’s voice that had brought him back. “But how did he call Sildan back-and why did it work?”
Sighing thoughtfully, the lady frowns. “I do not know. The power to heal serious infirmities is given the kings and queens of Arda, since time immemorial. Some monarchs hone this talent, some do not.” Lady Nimiel licks her lips and Maethilwen would go to get her water, but the lady’s grasp of her has grown tenacious, indeed. “My father has always spoken of himself as a middling healer. Yet tonight . . . tonight, I saw otherwise. I saw him reach beyond the veil of death, into a place I could not go, and reclaim Sildan from the Evergreen Fields.”
Maethilwen shakes her head again. “Such power is beyond that of even the greatest king or queen, I would think. It is the power of a God,” she says with soft reverence.
“There is only one power I know of which can rival that of the Gods, Maethilwen, and if I didn’t know otherwise-” Lady Nimiel shakes her own head, now.
“What is this power you speak of, my lady?” Maethilwen asks, uncertain she wants to know, but worried for Sildan. Worried that he might find himself under some alien power’s control. She can easily think up at least nine relatively recent instances where that sort of control over another was to the detriment of all.
But Lady Nimiel smiles gently, her still-pale lips curving like the most perfect bow, her eyes dancing like starlight. “The same power with which the souls of the unborn are pulled from beyond that shadowy veil. The power that keeps us going, many miles beyond the point we should have long since given up. The power that keeps one by the side of another with or without the promise of even eventual reciprocal affection . . . the greatest power for good in the world, Maethilwen. . . .”
Now thoroughly lost-but relieved that whatever this power is, it isn’t, apparently, a bad one-Maethilwen blinks. “I . . . I don’t follow, my lady,” she says apologetically, then adds: “But if you like, I can fetch you some cool water, and some fruit to revive you.”
“Maethilwen,” Lady Nimiel murmurs, smiling a little. And: “My brave, practical captain of the watch . . . you always take such excellent care of me, whether I am in need of it, or not.”
“If I may say, my lady is often in need of caring for,” Maethilwen responds tartly, then blushes. “And Lord Caladhael has charged me with your care. It is a duty I do not take lightly.”
Lady Nimiel’s fluttering lids open wide, now-for a few seconds, anyway-shining and somber. “Duty, then . . . is that all that keeps you by my side, even in your free time? Even after a peaceful span since the Last Great War? Even when the one who charged you with my care has gone to his rest over a century ago?”
Maethilwen swallows, and looks away from the lady’s intent, silver eyes. “My lady . . . Lord Caladhael honored me more than I can express by charging me with the care of his beloved wife and son. I would never toss away such an honor simply because the great wars have passed. And simply because, perhaps, as you say, you are sometimes not in need of my care. My lady-Nimiel-” Maethilwen’s brow furrows and she meets the lady’s wide silver eyes. “My lady, I am yours, whether or not you need me, whether or not you even want me . . . my life is ever yours to command.”
Lady Nimiel blinks, her shining eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Do you not know, Maethilwen-have you not known that as you are mine, I am yours-beyond wanting or needing or commanding? Do you not understand what Caladhael did when he charged you with my safety, and Malthengon’s?” Lady Nimiel’s arms slide from around Maethilwen’s neck, but her hands, clammy and shaking, cup Maethilwen’s face gently. The tears in her eyes spill over and she bites her lip, just the way she did when they were children, and played together in the safety of the trees at the heart of Eryn Lasgalen. “He gave us to you to guard and protect, yes, but he also gave us to you to love and have joy of. With his last breath, he gave you his family to make your own. So what . . . what are you waiting for?”
And now, Maethilwen would look away again, but she cannot. Though she dares not read the emotions that lay so plainly in Lady Nimiel’s eyes, either.
“My lady,” she begins, not knowing what she will say after that. Lady Nimiel blinks and more tears roll down her pale, wan face.
“Or will it be like this till we sail to the Undying Lands? Me placing my heart before you on a silver platter and you not seeing-refusing to see what’s been in front of you since we were children together, and had no name for love?”
Swallowing again, Maethilwen finally tears her eyes away from the lady’s. “You . . . you’ve had a rather harrowing evening, my lady. You must let me get you settled in, so that you may rest before you say something else that’s. . . .”
“Entirely true?” The lady’s hands fall away from Maethilwen’s face and Maethilwen sighs, closing her eyes and bowing her head. Long minutes of silence tick between them, loud and dinning, before Maethilwen finds it within her to speak.
“What do you wish of me, Nimiel? Tell me, and I’ll do my best to give it to you. Not because it is my duty, but because . . . because I love you,” she says quietly, at last, and to no response.
When she risks a look up, Lady Nimiel is fast asleep, her face turned slightly to the side, but still creased with lines of care.
Sighing again, Maethilwen watches Lady Nimiel sleep for as long as she dares before claiming one of the lady’s delicate hands and kissing it, feather-light. . . .
Then she’s tucking Lady Nimiel into her bed with tender care that, had she been awake, the lady would likely have protested.
Leaving the lamp burning low, Maethilwen makes her silent way out of the sleeping lady’s quarters, her heart and mind a tumult of emotion.
But she is long used to burying desire under duty-so used to it, she wouldn’t begin to know how to stop, even if she wanted to-and does so with a soldier’s alacrity and lack of melodrama.
By the time she closes the lady’s door behind her, her face and demeanor are once more as impassive as the stone around her.
*
Minutes later, when Maethilwen lets herself back into Sildan’s sickroom, heart and mind still unsettled, it is to find that the sleeping boy is not alone.
“My king!” she starts, shutting the door behind her. Thranduil, standing by the room’s small, lone window, arms crossed, does not look away from whatever has captured his gaze.
“How is Lady Nimiel?” he asks softly. “Has she recovered from her swoon?”
Nodding stolidly, Maethilwen rolls her shoulders. “Somewhat, my king. She awoke, spoke for a little then fell asleep.”
Now, Thranduil inclines his head toward Maethilwen, turning that silver gaze-so like and so unlike Lady Nimiel’s-to her. “And of what did she speak before slumber claimed her?”
Maethilwen’s gaze slides away, to the window, then to Sildan. He looks as if he’s been propped up amongst the pillows and tucked in properly. He also appears to be less wan and deathly-pale as he had been just minutes ago.
“She . . . spoke of Lord Caladhael and of Malthengon, and of her childhood.” Maethilwen bites back a sigh. “And she spoke of a power that brought Sildan back from the dead. That had the strength to reach beyond death and reclaim him for this world. But she did not tell me what this power was before she fell asleep.”
“Hmm,” is Thranduil’s reply, and he returns his gaze to the window. “Ever has my daughter waxed poetical about such things. I suppose now would be no different. Well.” And with that, Thranduil turns away from the window decisively. He strides toward the door, frowning, and when he draws even with Maethilwen, he pauses to speak, his expression somewhat torn between concern and a defensiveness Maethilwen has never seen him display.
“You and Malthengon are relieved from duties for the next few days-I will inform Aduacharn-and I want one or the other of you here to keep an eye on him while he recovers. I . . . I do not wish him to wake up alone.”
Glancing at the boy in the bed-he seems so fragile, so small . . . indeed, he’s probably only a few inches taller than Maethilwen, which isn’t saying much-she nods and bows. “It will be as you command, my lord.”
Thranduil nods once, also looking back at the boy in the bed, his expression at once determined and worried. “Should he wish it, Captain, he shall have the succor for which you have plead so . . . eloquently. Should Sildan wish it, he will have a home in Eryn Lasgalen.”
Feeling a relief so great it’s practically elation sweep over her, Maethilwen doesn’t trust herself to speak, only to bow, and repeat: “Yes, my king.”
When she bobs back up, Thranduil’s intent gaze is waiting for her, searching and piercing. “And when he wakes, you and Malthengon are to answer any questions he asks, with regard to anything and anyone . . . save his origins.”
Maethilwen bites back a frown and bows again, ignoring the pang in her heart as well as the churning in her gut. “As you say, my king. However . . . what shall I tell him when he asks why I will not answer those questions?”
Thranduil smiles a little, rueful and wistful all at once, and glances back at the boy thoughtfully before answering.
*
He struggles, quite literally, to wakefulness.
It's like swimming up from the bottom of the Lake, all darkness, but with the sense that if one simply keeps moving up, one will finally encounter light. So he moves up-swims up from the depths of his dreams and nightmares, fighting against the very powerful urge to simply stay under, where everything is rather awful, but at least he's familiar with the flavor.
But then he remembers the bright silver eyes and strong arms waiting for him in the light, and the urge to remain is obliterated by the bone-deep need to be wherever those eyes and those arms are. He can almost see them, for they are so close by, so close. . . .
He moves toward them, toward the shimmer of those eyes, which are occasionally shuttered by pale lids and paler lashes. He opens his mouth to call out wait! Reaches with all his being for those arms, hoping that once again, they’ll catch him and hold him. But they drift ever farther away, farther up, leaving him in the murk of down-below.
So, calling on the talent and drive that have made him the strongest swimmer in a family of strong swimmers, Sildan Bowman pushes his way upward, two words on his lips the whole way-
*
“Wait . . . please. . . .”
Maethilwen starts awake from a light, thin doze to sunlight slanting in the window and soft moans coming from the bed.
Blinking, she places her book on Sildan’s night table, careful not to upset the pitcher of cool water sitting there. Then she stands, turning to the window behind the chair to draw the curtains and filter the green-gold sunlight. By the time she has the curtains adjusted to her satisfaction, Sildan is trying to sit up, his eyes barely open, as his weak arms tremble under even his slight weight.
“You must rest, Sildan,” Maethilwen says soothingly, putting her hands on his shoulders and pressing him back to the bed. He doesn’t give up trying to sit up, but jarring his own wounds makes his struggles that much weaker, and he groans, his startling and familiar eyes rolling up under half-closed lids. His breathing is light and quick, winded, and his entire body is shaking. When he finally stops trying to sit up, Maethilwen pulls the coverlet back up over him.
“Try and rest,” she says again, putting her hand to his forehead. It’s still cool and dry. In the days since his arrival, Sildan’s fevers have come and gone several times, though after the last one had broken this past night, Lady Nimiel has assured them all that he is finally on the mend.
Greener-than-green eyes open again and meet Maethilwen’s with fuzzy focus.
“Am I d-dead? Are . . . are you my Mum?” he croaks out desperately in Westron, settling back into the pillows. Maethilwen’s eyes widen and she looks away from Sildan, busying herself with pouring him a cup of water and blinking away the tears in her eyes.
“You’ve been ill for some time, lad, but you’re healing nicely now,” she says briskly, brightly, also in Westron. “You’re safe, now, in Eryn Lasgalen.”
Sildan gives her another desperate look, this one equally confused. When she holds the cup to his lips, he takes a few sips-initially for politeness’ sake, that much is clear-but those sips turn into gulps as he realizes how parched his throat is.
When half the cup is emptied, Maethilwen holds the cup away. “Slowly, or you’ll make yourself sick.”
“Thank you,” he says gratefully, his voice no longer a harsh croak, but a rich, low, sonorous burr, hinting very strongly at his Dale-ish origins. His round, wide eyes take in Maethilwen, then the room, then Maethilwen once more, before he closes them briefly.
“If I may ask . . . where is this . . . Eryn Lasgalen in which I find myself, Madam?” he asks without much interest, his eyes squinting as he looks to the curtained window.
“You are in, as it is called by men, the Greenwood.”
Sildan’s eyes widen as they meet Maethilwen’s again. “I . . . I made it? But I was so far, and-and I was wounded-” he touches his bandaged chest and shoulder as if just remembering his injuries. When he looks up at Maethilwen again, he’s quite agog. “I thought-I was certain I would die in the grasslands between the road and the Greenwood. Those bandits ambushed us, and Mr. Rolla, he-he didn’t make it.” He closes his eyes on sudden tears. “It was my fault. He only wanted to help. He thought it was maybe another peddler who needed aid. But I knew-I knew it was something bad. But I didn’t try hard enough to talk him out of it. We could’ve gone off the road and around, and none of this would ever have happened.”
Covering his face, Sildan begins to weep, and Maethilwen, at a loss as to what to do next, puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.
“It was not your fault, Sildan. The fault lay only with those who would take advantage of and harm those who seek only to help the helpless,” she says gently, sitting on the bed just in time to get Sildan’s arms wrapped around her neck. With a burst of sudden strength, he’s holding onto her tight, shaking and weeping even harder. “Rest assured, this attack will not go unavenged.”
“H-he doesn’t even have a f-family I could give his sword to! I-oh, Yavanna, save me, I lost his sword!” Sildan sits back, his wide eyes shocked and horrified. “I took it with me when I escaped, but I must’ve lost it somewhere between the road and the Greenwood! Oh, gods, no!”
This brings on a fresh bout of weeping and face-hiding. Maethilwen pries Sildan’s hands away from his face and cups it in her own hands, tilting it up when he would look down.
“If, by his sword, you mean the Blood-Letter, then you have lost nothing, Sildan,” she says, smiling through tears of her own. She points across the room, at the opposing wall and he follows her gaze. There, upon a waist-high weapons rack, rests none other than the Blood-Letter, shining and cool-seemingly ablaze in a slant of mid-morning sunshine. “When Prince Malthengon and I found you just beyond the bounds of the Greenwood, the Blood-Letter was in your hand. And you would not let go of it through all the hours of riding it took to get here.”
“I . . . I didn’t lose it?” Sildan sniffles, wiping his face and smiling. Maethilwen’s arm around him tightens.
“No, you did not.”
“Oh,” Sildan says softly, laughing a little, then throwing back the coverlet and laboriously bringing his legs out from under it. He tries to sit up again, but this time, Maethilwen is ready for him.
“If you wish the sword, I will bring it to you. You’re still weak and not to be up and about for at least another day.” She holds him down by the shoulders until he sighs and nods, and stops trying to get up. Then she swings his legs back up into bed and tucks him back in. “Though you needn’t carry a sword here, in the heart of Eryn Lasgalen. You are quite safe.”
“I . . . I believe you, Madam,” Sildan says earnestly, his wide eyes steady on Maethilwen’s face as he swallows. “But at least with Blood-Letter close by, it feels as if . . . Mr. Rolla’s still here, you know? Like I’m . . . not alone.”
“You’re not alone, Sildan.” Maethilwen promises, standing. Sildan smiles sadly-a smile that’s too old by far for the youthful face it sits on.
“Of course, I’m alone, Madam. I’ve always been alone . . . even and especially when I thought I wasn’t.” He looks away, toward the window, but not before Maethilwen sees the shine of tears on his cheeks. “At any rate, you’re right, I expect. ‘Twould be silly of me to keep a sword in my sickbed. I’d likely only behead myself in the night.”
“There is that likelihood,” Maethilwen agrees, walking over to the weapons rack. Once there, she pauses, gazing at the gleaming Blood-Letter to give the boy a few moments to collect himself. “Which is why, if you like, I can move the rack closer to your bed, hmm?”
And Maethilwen is carefully moving the empty-but for Blood-Letter-rack across the room, to Sildan’s bedside, when she glances over her shoulder. “If it comforts you to have Blood-Letter near, then near it shall . . . be.”
Sildan’s eyes are closed and his breathing has evened out. With his face in a ray of sunshine, he looks like any elven youth on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood.
That’s because that’s exactly what he is, Maethilwen thinks, smiling as she finishes moving the weapons rack closer to the bed. Till Blood-Letter, holding its place of pride in the center of the rack, is within easy grasp of Sildan’s arm’s reach. He has been long gone from us-all his life to the point of manhood, as mortal men reckon it-but he is home now. And we will take care of him, teach him our ways . . . in half a century, it shall be as if he’s never lived anywhere else. The loneliness that has inspired such melancholy in him shall be forgotten completely in less than half that time,
Smoothing her hand over the coverlet again, Maethilwen does something she hasn’t done in nearly eighteen years: she leans down and kisses Sildan’ forehead, closing her eyes against waves of tenderness and remembrance that threaten to swamp her under.
Then she takes up her post in the chair by the window, and further keeps watch over Sildan while he slumbers.
*
Sildan is laying in the grass, under the starry sky, gazing up at the profusion of constellations and galaxies and-despite what he’d, in another life, told a woman who may or may not have been his Mum-he is not alone.
For he lays in strong, warm arms-arms that seek only to protect and care for him. And if he looks up (not quite as high as the sky, but getting there) he’ll see a pair of familiar silver eyes, watching him with warmth and amusement.
Sildan smiles, settling back into those arms and placing his own hands on the larger ones that rest clasped together at his waist. “You’re laughing at me,” he murmurs softly, almost to himself.
This is followed by a deep chuckle and those arms hold him slightly tighter, pulling him close against a strong, hard chest. “I am laughing with you, my pale and brilliant jewel.”
“Ah, but I wasn’t laughing, was I?” Sildan banters right back, blushing, and this is good for another low chuckle.
“Yes, you were. Though you remained outwardly silent, I could feel the small quiverings of your body, as it fairly shook with amusement,” that voice says, and Sildan sighs. Every hair on his body is standing on end and his body, itself, is starting to get some funny ideas about what it wants him to do next. None of those ideas involve talking or stargazing.
“It’s not fair that you can read me so well, while I am able to read you not at all.” Sildan pouts and turns his face up toward his as yet unglimpsed companion, and before he can get more than an impression of silver eyes, strong, sharp features, and a rather wicked smile, he’s being kissed.
A brief, sweet, chaste pressing of their lips, that’s over before Sildan can do more than inhale the dizzying scent of his companion: something like green, growing things, night-blooming flowers, and musk.
“No,” Sildan moans, his eyes still closed as his companion withdraws. Quite completely, actually, for he eases his stronger, larger body out from under Sildan’s, even as Sildan is still rocked to his core by his first kiss. “No, please . . . don’t go?”
“It is best that I do, Sildan . . . though . . . I will return. This I promise you.” Gentle fingertips ghost across Sildan’s still-tingling lips. “*O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. . . .”
Sildan shivers, and just as he starts to open his eyes, his companion darts in to plant two more kisses: one on each eyelid. Immediately tears well from under Sildan’s closed lids and he chokes back a sob. For it seems it must always be this way . . . always he loves, and always he is abandoned.
“**And none but thou shalt be my paramour,” Sildan’s mysterious companion whispers from an alarming distance away-seemingly further than he could have possibly gotten in a mere few seconds. . . .
“Wait-please-tell me your name, at least!” Sildan cries, reaching out . . . utterly bereft that he is about to be left alone . . . so very alone . . . once again. “Can you not stay a little while longer?”
No answer, only a gentle sweeping sound, as of cloth brushing leaves of grass. And that scent of green, growing things, night-blooming flowers, and musk is all but gone-
“Wait!” Sildan opens his eyes to darkness and bolts up from a nest of pillows.
His heart races and there are tears on his cheeks and he cannot for the life of him see through the murk of the place he’s in . . . except that he can. The almost-light of false-dawn shines in through the window to the right of him, washing out the now-faint shine of the stars.
Where am I? he wonders, one hand over his pounding, rabbiting heart. For he knows that this is not his rooms in the castle at Dale or the manor house in Laketown. What has happened?
It takes a few seconds of staring into the darkness before him, but he soon remembers all: Sigrid eloping; himself running away; meeting and traveling with Mr. Rolla; the ambush waiting for them less than a day’s travel from the Greenwood . . . then the long, delirious stagger from the site of the ambush, toward the Greenwood . . . then. . . .
“Then, here,” Sildan murmurs to himself absently, as he also remembers the woman from the last time he’d woken up clear-headed. He’d not gotten her name, but he remembers her very clearly, for despite her youthful looks, there was something about her-an air of age and stillness-that spoke of a longer life than Sildan would ever have guessed, once upon a time. “Here, in Eryn Lasgalen . . . the Greenwood.”
“Yes,” a voice says from the shadows by the window, and Sildan starts, gaping and half-frozen with fear, thoughts of ghosts running through his mind. At least until a paler shadow than the others detaches itself from the wall and steps forward, into the meager light.
A tall, young elf of solid build, with long platinum hair and . . . stunning silver eyes-like stars fallen from the very sky above-emerges from the darkness, smiling kindly. He bows in that strange way elves have, one hand over his heart, the other extended in welcome. He’s wearing a grey tunic and leggings in a style that seems half-familiar to Sildan, whose heart is now skipping beats.
It’s him! he thinks excitedly. He said he would come back and he has! He came back for me!
The remnants of his dream begin to return to him in earnest-a dream of being held in strong arms and gazing into eyes like stars fallen to Arda. Of a kiss as intense as it was gentle, and a warm, low voice promising him it would return. . . .
Sildan is lost . . . utterly lost in those eyes, and he hopes to never be found. . . .”
“Welcome to Eryn Lasgalen, Sildan.”
TBC
*Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
**Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships