Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3223106.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      The_Hobbit_-_All_Media_Types, The_Hobbit_(Jackson_Movies), The_Lord_of
      the_Rings_-_All_Media_Types, The_Hobbit_-_J._R._R._Tolkien, The_Lord_of
      the_Rings_-_J._R._R._Tolkien, The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(Movies)
  Relationship:
      Thranduil/Original_Male_Character(s), Bilbo_Baggins/Thorin_Oakenshield,
      Kíli/Tauriel, Durin/Original_Female_Character(s), Gimli/Legolas
      Greenleaf, Aragorn/Arwen, Beren_Erchamion/Lúthien, Bard/Original
      Character(s)
  Character:
      Original_Male_Character(s), Original_Female_Character(s), Thranduil, Bard
      II_of_Dale, Legolas_Greenleaf, Gimli, Tauriel, Durin_VII
  Additional Tags:
      Fourth_Age, Dale_-_Freeform, Erebor, Greenwood, Mirkwood, Eryn_Lasgalen,
      Elves, Story_within_a_Story, Backstory, Future_Fic
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-01-24 Updated: 2015-02-24 Chapters: 5/? Words: 27424
****** "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" ******
by beetle
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 sworn off the throne, 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.
Notes
     Notes/Warnings: 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.
***** "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 1 *****
Chapter Summary
     Sildan Bowman, a prince of Dale and direct descendant of Bard the
     Dragonslayer, loses the person he loves most to another, and decides
     to make a drastic life-change.
Chapter Notes
     Notes/Warnings: None. But thanks to BadSkippy for the invaluable
     help, brainstorming, and generous gift of a spiffy title.
Dearest Sildan,

By the time you or anyone else reads this missive, I will have signed a
marriage contract—I think you know with whom.

I know that finding out this way will .. .hurtyou, to say the least. And that
is entirely my fault, for I am a coward, when it comes down to it, and as such,
in my own way, as unfit to rule as Tild (who I imagine will be leastput-outby
my marriage, should he even care at all).

I would never have left you. Never, Sild .. .butI am in love. I understand,
now, that feeling you write about in your songs and lays. I_know_what_it_is_to
no_longer_own_my_own_heart. And now, I can do little else but followwhitherthat
heart leads .. . even if it leads away from the family . . .andyou.

But know that I will always love you and miss you. I don’t imagine you’ll ever
wish to see me again after the hurt I’ve dealt you. But see each other, I
imagine we will, if only on state-visits. I ask only that you try to harbor as
little hate for me in your heart as possible. That you forgive my fickle heart
its greatest triumph and greatest failing.

I’ve written a letter to father and mother, left—as you have no doubt found—in
your care. To be delivered exactly one day after the finding of this letter. I
ask for one day, that I may have that blissful idyll with my husband before our
respective parents come down upon us like war-hammers. But if you choose to
deliver the letter immediately .. . I will understand, and not hold your
decision against you.

Be well, Sild . . .andbe happy. As well and happy as you may. And when the time
is right, follow your heart, for astray, it may lead you, but it will never
lead you wrong.

With love,
Sig
 
 
                                       *


Wiping his now-dry, but rubbed-raw eyes out of habit, Sildan shifts in his
favorite hiding space—shown to him when he was wee by none other than Tild—of
unused dumbwaiter. He’s been in the dumbwaiter since early morning, after
taking Sig’s other’s letter to Uncle Bard and Aunt Ianthe.

He can hear the echoes of their arguing with varying degrees of clarity from
his spot in the dumbwaiter—Tild used to use the spot to eavesdrop before he
fell into the bottom of a bottle and decided to never climb back out—as they
alternate between absolving and blaming each other for Sig’s elopement.

There, in the stuffy, musty darkness, knees tucked against his chest, he
inhales a shaky, but shallow breath. Despite being small for one of Bard the
Dragonslayer’s line—a slightness he supposes he inherited from his absent elven
mother, whose name Sildan’s father will not even speak and which Sildan does
not even know—the dumbwaiter is a tight fit for Sildan. But then, it was never
meant to hold the form of a boy nearing manhood, no matter how small.

He inhales, though it hurts simply to breathe, as if there are daggers piercing
the shattered remains of his heart. He clutches the letter past his knobby
knees, to his chest, and a few leftover tears escape his irritated eyes. In
spite of the darkness, he can see perfectly well. Another thing that’s always
marked him as different from his kin, and in which he’s never taken pride.

“Oh, Sig,” he murmurs quietly, lest it carry to his aunt and uncle. He grits
his teeth and leans his head back against the wall of the dumbwaiter, turning
his eyes to the low ceiling of his safe-space. On it, he can see, as if through
some magic, every moment of closeness he and Sig had shared from the time
Sildan could toddle after her and Tild on their adventures throughout the
ancient castle and city.

Most particularly, he remembers the time he came closest to telling Sig that he
loved her, when they were thirteen and sixteen, respectively.

The sun is setting on the belltower of Dale, and their royal highnesses, Prince
Sildan Bowman and Princess Sigrid Bowman lean in the tower’s west-facing
window, watching the sky shade from fiery orange, to dreamy pink, to luscious
purple.

But more than the sunset, which he had seen a million times before, Sildan is
taken up with the loveliness of his cousin. Tall and lean, built like a
whippet, she stands in Harad-style tunic and breeches, similar to ones Aunt
Ianthe’d had made for Sildan as a birthday present. Both of them also wear
their bows and a quiver of arrows at their backs, as is the tradition of all
Bard’s descendants, whether in peace-time or war—part of Bard’s tradition of
being ever-vigilant. Though, in the case of this royal pair, only one of them
was ever any good with that hallmark of their line.

(Not that this has ever bothered Sildan, any, though Tild still occasionally
pokes fun at him for not being at least as good as Sigrid—who is, admittedly,
surpassed only by Tild and Bard II in skill with the bow, but whose weapon of
choice is the curved scimitar of her mother’s people.)

But the last thing Sildan is worried about in this moment is his prowess with
the family weapon . . . or lack thereof. No, he’s worried about something a
good deal closer to his heart.

“We’ll . . . we’ll always be together, won’t we, Sig?”

Sigrid looks over at him, an absent, dreamy smile on her strong-featured face.
She’s not pretty, not in the way the average girl of Dale or Laketown is
pretty. She’s exotic, as is a hothouse flower, her skin a flawless nut-brown,
her eyes the color of golden fall leaves, her wayward hair in piled on her head
in fly-away curls and strands of ebony. Her almond-shaped eyes regard Sildan
fondly, her full lips caught in that dreamy smile he will always love, and that
makes him desire nothing so much as to kiss her breathless.

“Of course, we will, Sild. After all,” the dreamy smile turns into Sig’s more
customary puckish grin, the one that shows off her dimples. “A proper queen
needs a talented jester to keep her amused.”

“Berk.” Sildan laughs and elbows her in the side, prompting her to giggle and
ruffle his unfashionably short auburn hair—at thirteen, he’s barely reached her
shoulder in height, and it’s not so much that the women of Bard’s line are tall
(though they are) but that he is quite small—something he only tolerates from
her. “You know what I mean, though. When we’re older, and . . . you’re on the
throne, and I’m . . . sat around being the spare. You won’t marry me off to
some well-born foreign girl for mineral rights, or some such bollocks?”

“Never!” Sig says, sounding offended. “If I plan to marry for love, then I
could hardly expect you to do any differently. Unless the circumstances were
dire. War or the like.”

“Mm,” Sildan hums absently, himself. The idea of a war in this Age is as unreal
as it is terrifying. The elders’ and Aunt Ianthe’s tales of war aside—and the
Haradrim could be absolutely bloodthirsty—he simply cannot imagine anything
coming along to threaten the peace that has begun to spread across Arda. Even
to such mercenary peoples as the Haradrim. More of them enter into peace-talks
with Gondor and Arnor every year.

The world is changing, and for the better. More and more each day, and even
Sildan, who has been accused of living too much inside his own head, to the
detriment of everything else in his semi-charmed life, hasn’t failed to notice.

“Besides,” Sig goes on, almost defiantly. “I don’t think it shall ever come to
marriage for me, for I doubt I shall ever fall in love. Mam says I’m far too
stubborn to give anyone else control over my heart and life. She says I get it
from her.” Sig snorts a little.

“Yes, well, look at what happened to her. Her arranged marriage turned into a
love-match because she lost her heart to Uncle Bard, anyway. It’s very
romantic,” Sildan ventures, and Sig brushes a trailer of ebony hair out of her
face whilst making a rude noise.

“If you want to call that romantic. They butt heads like two dwarves trying to
hammer out a contract over mithril rights!”

“True,” Sildan concedes. But grins up at Sig, who scowls. “But anyone can see
how much they love each other beneath it. The fact is, if they didn’t care
deeply about what the other thought, they wouldn’t bother to argue with each
other.”

“Such words of wisdom from one so young.” Sig lightly punches his shoulder and
Sildan blushes, turning his face to the sunset in the hopes that its light will
paint his face too orange for that blush to show up.

“Well. Am I wrong?”

“No.” Sig sighes heavily, and leans gracefully out over the city, closing her
eyes and inhaling deeply. Then she ducks back into the tower, her eyes
glittering almost grimly as she stares down at the city that would one day be
hers. “But I want love on my own terms, not on my parents’ terms. Their
marriage works for them, but I’m not overly certain it would work for me.”

“Ah. You want a love like those silly novels you read, eh?” Usually needling
Sig about her choices of reading materials is a quick way to get a blush and a
nervous giggle. But this time, Sig merely sighs again.

“No, I want a love like the ones in those silly songs you write.” Sig smiles
over at SIldan, a bit sadly. “But how often does one find that outside of the
great songs and epics? I imagine most people are just lucky they can find
someone who won’t eventually poison their soup or kill them in their sleep.”

“Spoken like a true romantic.” SIldan rolls his eyes.

“You’re the romantic of the family. I’m the sensible one. And Tild is—”

“The one who’s always drunk off his arse?”

“You said it, not me.”

“Tild says it, all the time.” Sildan sniffs. He’s never touched a drop in his
life and doesn’t plan to. He appreciates every one of his faculties as they
are, without the dubious aid of liquid courage-cum-inspiration.

And speaking of inspiration. . . .

“Say, Sig—er, Sigrid?”

“Yes, Sildan?” A mock-serious tone that matches SIldan’s earnestly-serious one.
He blushes again, and leans out over the city, himself, for a moment pretending
he’s a great Eagle, like the ones from the stories of Thorin Oakenshield and
his company, and the War of the Ring.

“Would you . . . would you want to hear a song that I wrote yesterday? I mean,
it’s nothing special, and I haven’t worked out all the chord changes
precisely—and the lyrics aren’t exactly as I’d have them, yet, but—”

“Sildan.” Sig laughs, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and turning them
both away from the city. “You mustlearn to talk yourself up proper! Every song
is an opus, every poem a work that will shine for an Age!”

“Forgive me for not being as boastful as all that,” Sildan huffs, feeling as if
he’s being made fun of. But then Sig pulls him close and kisses his cheek.

“I simply meant that if you don’t believe in yourself and your skills, no
one else will!”

Sildan mumbles something to the effect of: Easy for you to say. You’re so
bloody good at everything. Sig laughs again.

“I’m only good at things because I’ve never had cause to think I wouldn’t be.
Nor have you had cause to think your songs and poems and stories are anything
but amazing. Everyone tells you how good you are. Even that barbarian, King
Durin.” Now Sig is the one to sniff, and ever so disapprovingly. She’s not
liked King Durin VII since a state visit when she was seven, during which he’d
pulled one of her pigtails and called her “a spirited, wee sprite.” Sigrid
being Sigrid, even at seven, she’d sweetly called him the diseased offspring of
a barrow-boar and a back-alley cur, in a dialect of Harad that, apparently,
King Durin was familiar with. For he’d smoothly replied in that same dialect
that with a mouth like that, she’d have hard luck catching a husband who would
put up with her.

Kings Bard and Durin had been quite amused at Sig’s utter shock and chagrin.
Queen Ianthe had been mortified. And Sig has never lived down the episode, even
almost ten years later. She still makes a point of being absent during King
Durin’s state-visits unless she absolutely must be there.

Sildan finds him to be quite a jovial and canny fellow, all told.

“I suppose beautiful music soothes even the savage breast,” Sig says
thoughtfully, as they start down the tower stairs. “And you, my dear cousin, do
make quitebeautiful music.”

“Never as beautiful as when you accompany me.” Sildan’s voice is so soft as he
says this, that he’s certain Sig doesn’t hear him. But hear, she does.

“I squawk like a dying crow that’s just got kicked in the nethers, and we both
know it! But somehow, I never sound as bad when singing
something you’ve written. Really, it’s as if you write these songs of yours
just for me.” Sig giggles and SIldan flushes, because that’s exactly what he’s
been doing since he composed his very first sonnet.

Every song, every lay, every bit of doggerel that he’s written has been either
about Sig, for Sig, or extolling the virtues of loving Sig. And in that moment,
it wells up in him to tell her, finally, of the love he’s born for her since as
far back as he can remember. To tell her that if she will never marry, then
neither will her, for he can imagine a life with no one but her. That even if
the worst were to happen, and he was forced to marry for some political or
diplomatic expedient, she would still ever bear his heart within her.

He opens his mouth to let out some inkling of this great feeling that’s been,
at turns, the joy and bane of his brief existence . . . and out comes. . . .

A hiccough.

Then a belch.

And finally a sound like: “Gruh,” and another hiccough.

Sig blinks over at him, then laughs till she’s snorting and giggling again, her
face flushing deeply enough that it shows up even on her complexion. “Oh, Sild,
never change—promise me you won’t? Ever?”

“But, Sig, what on Arda would I change into?” Sildan bleats, around hiccoughs.

And then Sildan is, aside from hiccoughing, laughing and giggling, too. Not
because he finds himself remotely amusing, but because he can’t be near a
laughing Sigrid for long without laughing, himself.

Arms around each other, and hailed by most people they cross paths with, the
pair makes their way back to the castle, and the kitchens, first, for a few
draughts of cold water, to cure Sildan’s unfortunate hiccoughs. Then to the
family wing and Sildan’s rooms, where waits a plethora of musical instruments,
sheets of paper with musical notation, and journals upon journals of writing.

Once he’s made his audience comfortable, Sildan selects his lute and beings to
play and sing.

Neither royal notices when supper-time comes and goes without them. . . .

And although, in time, it became obvious to Sildan that Sig had realized how
deeply for her his feelings ran, he’d never been brave enough to tell her, and
now. . . .

Now, she’s run off with that son of a diseased barrow-boar and back-alley cur,
and I’m sat here alone, and destined to remain that way, Sildan thinks,
crushing the letter to himself as if it’s Sig’s heart, and he has the power to
wound it as deeply as his own has been. Why didn’t I ever say something when I
had the chance? Why wasn’t I born braver, smarter, better—more like Durin-the-
bloody-seventh, since that’s what she wants? Why is it that everyone I love
leaves me? First my mother . . . Da, as often as he can get away . . . and now
Sig. The only person who ever believed in me, and so much that I
started—unwisely, it turns out—to believe in myself.

Why does everyone leave me? What’s so terrible about me that no one ever wants
to stay?

More tears—will he never run out?—well up in his eyes and he sniffles. His aunt
and uncle have finally stopped fighting, and all Sildan can hear is his Aunt
Ianthe’s soft sobs, and his Uncle Bard’s gruff, but gentle voice consoling her.

I will never have that, he realizes bleakly. Never have someone to comfort and
be comforted by. Never have a wife and children. Never have a soft place to
fall, if fall I do. That’s not fair! What have I done to deserve being left so
bereft? What will I do, now that my one purpose in life has been taken away?

Sildan receives no answer, from within or without. For hours, he sits there in
his dumbwaiter, at last thinking nothing at all, ignoring even the threnody of
his own broken heart, till the sounds of sobbing and consolation have faded,
and the evening bells have long-since rung.

It is only after the night watch has halved its shift, and breakfast is a
closer eventuality than dinner, that he at last wedges himself out of
dumbwaiter and makes his way to his rooms. After many years of doing so—and a
certain knack for not being noticed when he doesn’t want to—he gets there
without being seen by the night staff, nor even hailed by the guard.

Once he’s shut and locked the world out, he stands in the cluttered mess of his
receiving room (which is where he keeps all his instruments, including the
pianoforte sent as a gift from Gondor, and for which no one but Sildan had seen
a use), the gittern, the many flutes and pipes—wooden and metallic—the tabor,
the small set of Harad hand-drums, the horn, and dozens of other instruments,
and stares at the tools of his chosen trade as if at an alien landscape.

None of it makes sense to him—not anymore. It all seems so pointless without a
Muse to guide it. The instruments, the music, the journals . . . what point any
of it, if not Sig? How could he ever write or compose again when his heart,
that once powerful engine, is naught but ashes in his chest?

He turns in a circle, emotionlessly examining everything his eye falls on, and
slowly realizing that none of it matters to him. He no longer needs these
instruments of expression because there’s nothing left in him to express but
deep, bitter regret and loneliness. Even the well-spring of his inspiration,
which had, just two days ago, seemed endless, is completely dry, now.

The instruments and accoutrements are the tools of a person who is dead. They
are unnecessary reminders of a pain the person standing in his stead suspects
he will always feel as keenly as he does in these natal moments.

So, that person starts with a small wooden flute, given as a gift years ago.

By sunrise, most of those instruments feed the roaring fire in Sildan’s
fireplace. The sheet music and journals had gone with moonset.

As for the boy who once owned them, he, too, is gone by the time the morning
bells ring; dead of the crucible of his own heart-break. Morning sees a man
born: one with nothing to live for and no memories onto which he wants to
hold—nothing in him but the instinct to get away from his past, and his future.
To find a quiet place where no one knows the person he once was and will
therefore have no expectations of him.

He needs to go someplace where, for once, he won’t stand out—just be another
(pointy-eared) face in the crowd.
 
 
                                       *


Jittney Rolla clucks to his mules as they slowly pull his cart down the Great
Road.

He doesn’t know why, after all these years, he bothers. They never move any
faster and he never has the heart to whip them. So, whither they go, they go
slowly.

Yet still not as slowly as the cloaked and cowled stranger trudging along the
roadside with hunched shoulders, yet kicking up no dust as he drags his booted
feet.

Rolla watches the stranger as he draws even with him. He can’t make out any
features, the stranger has his hood pulled down so far over his face and his
head hanging, besides. But when he reaches up to rub his nose with one dusty
hand, the gesture is graceful. So graceful, that Rolla thinks he’s mistaken a
lass for a lad.

“Hullo, there . . . need a ride?” Rolla calls out of habit, despite still being
uncertain as to the gender of this cloaked and cowled stranger. Though it
matters not in the end whether it be lad or lass; company’s company, all the
same.

The stranger pauses for a moment, but then resumes walking. “How far down this
road do you travel, sir?” a low, pleasantly deep baritone emerges from the
cowl, and the stranger’s head—which barely clears the mules’ hanging heads, and
they’re short for mules—turns slightly, allowing Rolla a glimpse of a pointed
chin and bow-shaped mouth, the lower lip of which is held hostage between
perfect white teeth. Rolla scratches his head while he shakes it, bemused.

“Wella, I travel as far as the Greenwood, young man, where I do a bit of
trading with the woodland elves. Then my road brings me right back to Erebor
and Dale.”

At the word Greenwood, the young man pauses again, for long enough that Rolla
brings the wagon to a halt. When next he looks at the young man, it’s to see,
staring up at him, a pale—somewhere under all the soot and dust it’s covered
in—oval of a face, too pretty and fine-featured to be handsome, but weary, too,
if the strain that shines out of moss-green eyes is to be believed.

After a few moments of taking each other’s measure, the young man bows low.

“I would be very grateful for a lift as far as you’re willing to take me, sir,”
the young man says humbly. “I can also offer remuneration for—”

“You’ll pay me back by listening to my stories and telling me yours,” Rolla
interrupts, laughing and waving the blinking, surprised boy aboard his wagon.

After a moment of hesitation, he boy springs aboard as nimbly as a frog,
settling on the bench next to Rolla, who quickly makes room. The lad is like
the shadow of a dagger: long, lean, barely there. Unlike most young lads,
there’s an air of stillness about this one, rather than rambunctiousness just
barely held in check. Rolla is intrigued.

Once introductions have been made—“Taleteller” the boy introduces himself as .
. . quite memorable as aliases go, Rolla thinks, amused—and the mules are
moving again, Rolla and the boy fall into a comfortable silence for a few
miles, till Rolla, ready for some of his remuneration, breaks it.

“So, what’s awaiting you in the Greenwood? Friends? Business? Adventure?”

The boy glances at him sideways, his wide green eyes startled and shining with
more than alertness and morning sun, and looks away again, very quickly.

“A new start,” is all he says. And that silence falls again. This time, it’s
distinctly uncomfortable. So Rolla fills it up once more with talk and tales.

The boy’s a good listener and, after the first few hours, even tells a few
tales of his own in that pleasant, lulling voice of his. Cracking good tales,
too, that even Rolla has, in his seventy-one years, never heard. By the time
they stop for the evening, Rolla’s bemusement has passed, to be replaced by an
almost fondness for his new travelling companion, who has, Rolla’s noted, a
hunger for tales of the Greenwood. So Rolla tells him what tales he knows. Old
tales, of Eryn Lasgalen; newer tales, of the Mirkwood, and its spiders and
tricksy trails; and finally of the Greenwood, and its reclusive elves.

Some of what Rolla tells is rumor, some of it fact, all of it fantastic.

“It sounds like a fair and wondrous place,” the boy, Taleteller, says
longingly, poking desultorily at the fire with a yardstick. Rolla chuckles.

“’Tis indeed fair and wondrous. But perilous, in some ways. I, myself, keep
only to the edges of the Greenwood, unless invited and escorted further in by
the elves.”

“A-And what are th-they like?” The boy’s eyes, made eldritch-green by the fire,
tick to Rolla’s, tears standing out in them that he quickly blinks away.
Rolla’s eyebrows drift gently to his nonexistent hairline.

“Oh, fair, and wondrous. But perilous, in some ways.” He nods, and the boy
holds his peace for the rest of the night, till they turn in. He’s soon asleep,
in that enviable way of the very young and very tired, leaving Rolla awake for
a while longer, whilst puzzling out his companion.

Placing the boy’s age is a job of work—he’s small for his years, Rolla senses,
but his too-pretty face is still very young. Fifteen, perhaps. Maybe sixteen.
His voice belies both his age and size, however. It’s the voice of a natural-
born story-teller—or even a singer, profound and rich.

His clothes, though dusty and sooty are well-made of fine, deeply-dyed wool and
the money-pouch the boy wears—in plain sight, were he not so dourly cloaked—is
clearly full.

He’s a cypher, is young master Taleteller. But Rolla reckons that’s none of his
concern until and unless it becomes his concern.

And in the meantime, it’s over a week’s trip to the Greenwood, at the pace his
mules have set. More than enough time to, if Rolla is of a mind, tease a bit of
the boy’s true story from him.

He has a feeling that once the boy thaws, “Taleteller” will more than live up
to his assumed name. . . .
 
 
                                      TBC
***** "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     Sildan and Mr. Rolla make their way to the Greenwood. But there's
     trouble in their road. . . .
Chapter Notes
     Notes/Warnings: 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.
“If I may ask,” Sildan begins, hastening to help the old peddler up into his
wagon, but Mr. Rolla waves him off and, with many a creak and pop, makes his
way up into the wagon’s seat. He then slides along it with a grunt to make room
for Sildan, who scrambles aboard with alacrity. “What is it that you peddle to
the elves of the Greenwood, Mr. Rolla?”

“Oh,” Mr. Rolla exhales gustily, obviously trying to catch his breath from his
climb into the wagon. He wipes his soil-dark face with a clean handkerchief
that he then shoves back into the breast pocket of his jerkin. “This and that,
my lad, this and that. Mostly seeds and samples and the like, from far off
places. Have a taste for exotic flora, do the elves of the Greenwood, heh.”

The old man laughs just a tad wheezily and Sildan frowns. It is barely Spring,
yet, but an early and warm one. Notoriously the kind of weather in which the
elderly and infirm develope illnesses that have a nasty habit of sometimes
killing them.

After nearly three days of sharing a road and company with Mr. Rolla, the
thought of the old character falling ill, perhaps to his end, is . . .
unpleasant. Sildan has a moment of wishing for his Aunt Ianthe—the closest
thing to a mother he’s ever had, and a dab hand with herbal lore and healing (a
talent which none of her children had inherited, she was known to frequently
lament). She’d know for certain what preventative measures Mr. Rolla would need
to take to avoid such an illness.

As it stands, the old man comports himself as if he’s one-third the age he
actually is, pushing himself and his ornery mules till it grows too dark to see
well, and then staying up late to regale Sildan with stories of his actual
youth and the dangerous times he’d lived through. Of course, he then would wake
up with the figurative crowing of the cock to push on toward the Greenwood. And
he insists on cooking their meals. A blessing about which Sildan feels
guilty—for the old man is a wonderful cook, and doesn’t stint on servings,
saying only that: “A growing boy needs to eat like one”—and grateful at turns.
For he, himself, is a terrible cook, managing to burn absolutelyeverything, up
to and including water. Why, Sig, a dab-hand at cooking, herself, had always
said of Sildan—

—and there that thought gets cut off at the knees. Sildan forces his mind down
another trail, one more relevant to the situation he’s in.

“Why don’t the elves just travel and get the things they need for themselves?”
he wonders aloud, and Mr. Rolla huffs.

“Because they’d like an old man to keep his livelihood, that’s why!” Another
wheezy laugh, and Mr. Rolla clucks to his snorting, sleepy mules. “In truth,
the elves of the Greenwood have always kept themselves to themselves,
preferring the bounds of their forestlands, to the wide world. Peddlers, such
as I, do a brisk business in the fanciful and exotic, and in news and gossip of
the wider world, as well.”

“Hmm.” Sildan watches his breath plume white out in front of him. Early spring,
yes, and warm. But not until the sun’s had a chance to do its business
properly. Hunching a bit under the cloak he’d taken from Tild’s rooms—warm, it
was, and of plain make: simple, dark wool without any silly chevrons or
insignias or coats of arms—Sildan looked up at the pale sky, then at the
horizon, which was a green line that Mr. Rolla had told him yesterday was the
first of the Greenwood. “Do they at least deal fairly with you?”

Mr. Rolla snorts. “My boy, you’ve never dealt with elves, I can tell.
Especially the elves of the Greenwood. They always deal fairly—more than—with
traders and peddlers. Especially the ones who’ve formed a relationship with
them over the long years. Which aren’t really that long to them that’s
immortal.”

“Are they . . . are they anything like the Dwarves?” Sildan asks tentatively.
Mr. Rolla cackles wildly, till he begins to cough.

“Oh, my, no!” Out comes the handkerchief, and Mr. Rolla laughs and coughs into
it till he’s composed himself once more. “Don’t take me wrong, lad, the dwarves
are a fine lot, and generous to them as have won their respect and allegiance.
No greater allies in a fight, dwarves. No one better to have on your side in a
scuffle. But elves are a different story, altogether. They’re more . . .
rather, less . . . well, it’s hard to rightly explain. . . . “ Mr. Rolla sighs
then casts a sideways glance at Sildan, smiling. “If you’re still with me when
I reach the Greenwood, you’ll see for yourself, lad. The elves don’t, unlike
the dwarves, wear their passions on their sleeve, which leads some to doubt
they even have them. But I know different. The more reserved the elf, the more
powerfully he or she feels about—something. Or everything.”

Sildan thinks that over, and wonders, not for the first time, if his mother had
felt any love for him, or for his father. Girion had been, it’s rumored, a
gregarious and lovable young man, before the elven maiden—an elven maiden of
the Greenwood, some say—stole his heart. After her abandonment of Girion, he’d
. . . changed. Become grim and somber. Cautious and sad. And even the child
left—without any witnesses, despite the many guards and servants around the
castle and city—on the doorstep of Girion’s personal quarters had done nothing
to leaven that somberness and sadness. Indeed, the arrival of the child, who
looked nothing like his father, and apparently everything like the elven maiden
few had even seen, seemed only to bring Girion more pain and consternation. To
the point that he was and is almost never in Dale, if he can help it. Always
off in Laketown or, more often, traveling to the lands of the South, setting up
trade agreements with peoples that most Dalemen would never see or meet.

Sildan could, at the end of the day, pick his father out of a crowd of men (but
mostly because as a small child, he’d spent so many hours staring at the
portraits in the Royal Family Gallery, and wondering why his mum wasn’t among
them).

And that’s still more than he could say for his mother.

Clearly she wanted nothing to do with me, or the line of Bard the
Dragonslayer, Sildan thinks as Mr. Rolla launches into another of his
stories. If, indeed, she was a maiden of the Greenwood, and still resides
there, it could be extremely awkward for me to turn up on King Thranduil’s
doorstep, asking for succor. Though that’s assuming rather a lot. For starters,
that he’ll take in a half-breed bastard with no necessary skills, such as
hunting or fighting, and whose only remaining talent is rehashing ancient
stories, songs, and poems that a bunch of immortals have no doubt heard
thousands of times already.

What am I doing?

And what will I do if the elves of the Greenwood turn me away?

The only answer he receives, as he had since the first time he’d asked himself
that question several days ago, when choosing a direction by which to leave the
city, is: They won’t. They can’t. You’re one of them, even if you are half-
mortal. You have elven blood in your veins. The proof of it is plain to anyone
who sees your bloody ridiculous ears.

Snorting softly to himself, Sildan pulls his cowl closer and further down
around his face. He has yet to push it back in front of Mr. Rolla. Not because
he distrusts the old man, but because he has managed, thus far, to avoid
talking about his reasons for seeking out the Greenwood. He means to avoid that
for as long as possible, if possible.

Anything that would keep him from having to explain not just why he’s going to
Greenwood, but why he left Dale.

                                       *


They’re but two days slow ride—or one day’s fast ride—from the dense line of
green that marks the Greenwood, or so Mr. Rolla says, when they notice the
thick, seemingly endless smoke rising from the north and east of their camping
spot.

Their own travels had been taking them steadily north and east, up to that
point.

“What do you suppose that is?” Sildan asks, his mouth half-full of a bacon and
egg sandwich. Mr. Rolla has been staring at the smoke for some minutes, his own
breakfast untouched.

“Trouble,” the older man says grimly, squinting into the pale pink sky ahead.
Above them, however, the sky is still a pale purple-grey. “And in our road.”

“Maybe . . . maybe there was a fire and someone needs help,” Sildan offers
hesitantly, swallowing his mouthful of sandwich. Mr. Rolla glances at him.

“Could be, lad. There’s been talk among the other peddlers of groups of bandits
springing up near the Greenwood.” He hmms and turns back to the smoke. “The
bandits take what they value, then burn the wagons, leaving the peddlers
stranded . . . sometimes wounded or dead.”

Going cold all over, Sildan is suddenly less hungry than he was mere seconds
ago. “Dead?” Swallowing, SIldan glances down at his sandwich, then back up at
the sky ahead. Dawn is coming on fast. “Um . . . do you suppose the bandits are
. . . are still nearby?”

“There’s no way to know, lad,” Mr. Rolla says thoughtfully, stroking his white-
tufted chin. “But from what I’ve heard, they rarely stay around once they’ve
got what they came for. They disappear into the hills to the east of the
Greenwood with their ill-gotten gains.”

“If they’re operating so close to the Greenwood, and stealing from and harming
the peddlers who bring things into his kingdom, why doesn’t King Thranduil do
something to stop them?” Sildan asks, perplexed. For Uncle Bard would never let
brigands go unpunished so close to his own lands. Neither would King Durin. “He
could probably lay waste to the whole lot of them with a small squad of elves
in but a fortnight.”

“Probably,” Mr. Rolla agrees, sighing. “But the thieves are careful not to set
foot in the Greenwood. Not so much as an inch. And it is well known that King
Thranduil will not police the land outside the borders of his kingdom. Once
upon a time, he did, but in recent years, he has withdrawn. He hasn’t been to
visit either Dale or Erebor in nearly a century. And it’s been nearly that long
since word has come of him leaving the Greenwood. And his emissaries are few
and far between, only sent out for matters of great and dire importance. The
happenings of the other races beyond his doorstep rarely concern him.”

Sildan frowns. “But this is happening to peddlers and merchants who
have dealings with his people! Peddlers and merchants who would not even be in
harm’s way but for their dealings with the elves of the Greenwood!”

Mr. Rolla shrugs wearily. “It’s a risk we take, traveling the long road between
the Greenwood and our respective lands.”

“But as king, he should be taking steps to lessen that risk!” Angry, now, at
these elves and their isolationist king, Sildan takes another angry bite of his
sandwich. “His first care should be his own people, yes, but he should also
have a care for his neighbors!”

“What a king should do and what a king will do sometimes do not coincide, my
boy. It’s a sad fact of royalty that their whims, be they for good or ill, rule
us,” Mr. Rolla says gently, turning away from the smoke in the distance and the
sunrise behind it. He watches SIldan wolf down his sandwich with hungry, angry
bites and chuckles, offering Sildan his own sandwich, when Sildan’s is done.

Sildan takes the still-warm sandwich gratefully, then feels guilty, blinking up
at Mr. Rolla. “But what about you?”

“Ah, you go on, lad. I’m not hungry, this morning,” Mr. Rolla says, chuckling
again. “Leastaways, not as hungry as you.”

“Sorry,” Sildan apologizes, turning beet-red even as he eyes the sandwich with
clear intent. “I’m always hungry. Dunno why.”

“Because you’re a growing boy. I reckon you’ve still got an inch or two left
before you’re done. You’ll never be tall, but you’ll be taller than you are
now.” Mr. Rolla winks and Sildan smiles.

“I’d be glad of even an inch or two more. I’ll still be the shortest person in
my family, but—” Sildan falls silent, and takes a bite of his sandwich. He’d
been about to say that it didn’t matter anymore, since he’d never be seeing any
of them again. But even saying that seems like saying too much. Giving away too
much. Even to a man as kind and trustworthy as Mr. Rolla.

Sildan glances away from the canny look in Mr. Rolla’s eyes. “Anyway, I’ll be
glad of another inch or two.”

“I’m sure you will,” Mr. Rolla says, standing and stretching. “In the meantime,
you can finish that on the go. I mean to get to those poor, stranded peddlers
by moonrise.”

Sildan’s eyes widen and he nearly drops his sandwich. “You mean to help them?”

“If I can.”

“B-but what if . . . what if there’re still bandits about?”

Mr. Rolla grins and climbs the first two steps up to the wagon’s front seat
with a grunt. He reaches into the open door of the enclosed section and
rummages around for a bit, before coming out with a shortsword that gleams and
sparkles in the sun.

Sildan’s mouth drops open as Mr. Rolla swings the sword in a brief arc. Its
make is unfamiliar—not of Dale or Erebor, or even of Gondor—and inscribed up
and down the hilt are characters that look like writing. Graceful, strange
writing. . . .

“It’s of elven make,” Mr. Rolla says, stepping gingerly off the wagon and
approaching Sildan, who puts down his sandwich to take the sword when it’s
offered, hilt-first.

It’s heavy and cool in his hand, and the hilt has the same strange writing—some
dialect of elvish, Sildan supposes—and is also inlaid with small white and
green gems.

“Where . . . where did you get this?” falls from Sildan’s lips as he admires
the blade. Mr. Rolla watches him with a smile.

“It’s been passed down from father to son in my family for generations. It
saved my ancestor’s life in the Battle of the Five Armies. A Laketown
fisherman, he was, and he’d been wounded in the battle. Wounded so badly that
he fell . . . on top of the body of another who’d fallen, and lost his life. An
elf. My ancestor took up the fallen elf’s sword and slew the orc that had been
harrying him. And a few other orcs, besides,” Mr. Rolla snorts. “After the
battle was over, my ancestor tried to return the blade to King Thranduil’s
lieutenant, but the lieutenant looked at the writing on the hilt, and bid him
keep it, saying only that its former bearer had no kin to pass The Blood-
Letteron to.”

“That’s—amazing. And sad,” Sildan says, reluctantly handing the blade back to
Mr. Rolla, who turns to put it back in the wagon. “The Blood-Letter . . . can
you—I mean, do you know how to use it?”

“Aye. Before I was a peddler, I was a guardsman in Dale—oh, this was ages ago,
when I was young!” Mr. Rolla laughs. Sildan, meanwhile, sighs in relief. For a
moment, he’d been certain his pretense at being merely a random traveler had
all been for naught. But no. He’s far too young for Mr. Rolla to recognize. And
even if he isn’t, as a peddler, the other man spends precious little time in
the city of his birth.

Taking up his sandwich again, Sildan sighs. He feels terrible lying, even if
it’s only by omission, to someone who’s been so kind to him. But there’s
nothing else for it. If word were to get back to Uncle Bard and Aunt Ianthe,
he’d shortly find himself dragged back to Dale, beyond all doubt.

“Well!” Mr. Rolla says, slowly climbing off the wagon and approaching his two
ornery mules with hands on hips. “Let’s get these beasts harnessed in and we
can be on our way.”

“Yes, sir,” SIldan says, putting his sandwich down again and jumping up to help
the old peddler. As he gets to the wagon and the mule to the right, he glances
at the horizon again to see the sun peeking over it like a blood-red eye. He
shudders and looks away.

“A red sun rises,” he murmurs to himself, and Mr. Rolla grunts, patting the
mule on the right’s flank.

“Aye, lad. Blood was spilled last night. Or so the elves would say,” he
replies, sounding troubled. “All the more reason for us to make haste. Someone
may be dying, out there.”

“Yes, sir.” Sildan begins harnessing the mules just as Mr. Rolla had shown him,
every so often sneaking glances at the pink-orange-red sky in the distance.

Against the backdrop of the brightening horizon, smoke continues to billow and
unfurl like a prolonged cry for help.

Or a sign of warning.

                                       *


They ride long and hard, that day. Mr. Rolla even takes out and cracks his
long-unused whip in the air to spur the mules on. To Sildan’s surprise, the
animals do move quite a bit faster under Mr. Rolla’s threats of whipping.
Ornery, they may be, but they’re certainly not stupid.

The billows of smoke in their road get closer even as they diminish slightly,
then more dramatically. But not before Sildan picks up the scent of the smoke:
burning wood and cloth, and . . . charred meat.

It makes him shudder and breathe through his mouth thereafter.

“There is a fell scent on the air, Mr. Rolla,” he says reluctantly, and the old
man clucks at his mules, urging them on.

“Fell, indeed. My old nose cannot smell it, whatever it is. I cannot smell the
smoke at all, yet.” Mr. Rolla casts a sideways glance at Sildan, who blushes
and looks away.

“I s-suppose a good sense of smell must r-run in my family,” he says lamely.
Mr. Rolla hmms, and turns his eyes back to the road ahead.

“What exactly do you smell, lad?”

Sildan hesitates for a few moments, then, with a sigh, answers. “Burning wood,
of course, but mingled with that, a smell like . . . like burning flesh.”

“A pyre,” Mr. Rolla says immediately, nodding. “Blood has indeed been spilled
this past night, if there’s a pyre. We needs must move a little quicker, lad,
in case the survivors need aid.”

And with that, Mr. Rolla cracks his whip again, twice, and the mules snort and
grumble . . . but move a bit faster.

                                       *


It is nearing moonrise when they reach the remains of the small caravan of
wagons, which had clearly been ambushed near a small copse of trees lining
either side of the road. In the near distance, the line of green that is the
Greenwood, stands tall and mysterious. Almost forbidding.

Nearer at hand, however, there are three, formerly high piles of wood and
possessions, still burning and smoking slightly, and no signs of anyone nearby.

After pushing a hard pace all day, Mr. Rolla finally slows his tired mules,
about one hundred yards away from the trees and the three burning piles.

“Halloo!” he calls out, and a frisson works its way through Sildan, who
suddenly wants nothing more than to spur the mules on to ride past the copses
at top speed, skirting the three piles as best they can, and without stopping
until they reach the safety of the Greenwood. He has, with no reasoning behind
it, quite a bad feeling about this situation, and it goes beyond the expected
wariness of a site of recent foul-play.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t call out, so,” Sildan whispers, his eyes ticking from the
detritus in their road, to the dense copses of trees looming like enemy
sentinels to either side of their road. “It looks as if everyone’s moved on.”

“It looks that way, aye, but there may be survivors hiding in yon tangle.” Mr.
Rolla gestures to the trees, which seem to be coming on far too fast for
Sildan’s liking. “They may be scared to reveal themselves, and with good
reason. Halloo, wagons!”

Shuddering, Sildan keeps watch on the trees. Not a leaf stirs.

When they’re within mere yards of the copses, and still no sign of life
disturbs the bright evening, Mr. Rolla stops calling, seeming to have caught
Sildan’s wariness and unease.

The mules step carefully around the first pile of burnt wagon and possessions,
snorting and uneasy, themselves. Sildan glances down at the smoking pile, and
sees wood mostly, but also clothing, books, a child’s wooden doll, singed and
still smoking, and . . . a human hand, near the very bottom of the pile, black
and red from fire.

“M-Mr. Rolla,” Sildan stammers softly, fighting nausea and fright. He points at
the hand, where it lays at the bottom of the fired possessions, and Mr. Rolla
gasps, then nods, cracking his whip, urging the mules on again.

“Oy-ya! Oy-ya!” he clucks, leaning forward with the reins. Just as he does,
Sildan feels a burst of knowing and fright that has him reaching behind him
into the wagon for Mr. Rolla’s sword. In those awful moments, he understands
what’s happened—what ploy has been worked on them, and how, because of good
intentions, they’ve now found themselves in the same position as the last
peddlers to come this way.

Sildan understands all this and, from the trees to either side of the wagon,
all hell breaks loose.

                                       *


Laughter . . . rough and cruel.

Sildan opens his blurry eyes even as he takes a breath that hurts more than
anything in his life ever has.

In the bright darkness, he can see the sky and the moon, bright and full and,
far closer, trees looming above, stark, screaming shadows in the darkness.

He tries to stir, and finds he can barely move. A groan of agony escapes him,
low as a whimper, and another burst of laughter sounds from his right.

Turning his head at a glacially slow pace toward the laughter, Sildan takes
slow stock of himself. His legs seem to be fine, and he can move them without
pain. His right arm—at the shoulders—seems to be another story, as does his
left. Both cause him agony in his chest that sharpens his vision and clears his
head—though moving his left arm makes the agony worse by tenfold.

Tears leak out of Sildan’s eyes as he slowly angles his head to the right. As
he blinks away blurriness, he can just make out two arrows protruding from his
chest, one high on the left side, the other low in his right shoulder.

What has happened? Where am I? Why am I injured? What—?

Suddenly, it all comes rushing back: Mr. Rolla, their travels together, the
smoke on the horizon, and the sentinel copses of trees from which had come a
volley of arrows. Sildan’s hand had just closed around Mr. Rolla’s sword when
there’d been a blow like a punch to his right shoulder, then another
immediately following it, to his chest, on the left side. Sildan had grunted,
and toppled backward off the still-moving wagon, seeing as he fell and
consciousness fled, Mr. Rolla’s wide, shocked eyes grow wider before he toppled
onto the seat, those eyes closing.

Then, with the pain of jarring impact, all had been blackness, until that
laughter had awoken him.

Now, Sildan squints in the moonlit air, toward the laughter. He can see several
figures, a dozen or more yards down the road, moving about what looks to be Mr.
Rolla’s wagon, emptying it out quickly and efficiently.

“—nothin’ but bloody plants and seeds and the like,” one of them complains
loudly.

“Too-bloody-right. But at least the ol’ geezer had a decent bit of coin on him.
And we might get a good bit for the mules, too—”

“Will you two shut up? Lift with your hands, not your mouths!”

Silence falls and more gets moved out of Mr. Rolla’s wagon. But someone
whispers something, and that cruel, careless laughter breaks out again,
stirring something hot-cold in SIldan’s chest, which spreads to his limbs,
infusing them with a vigor he cannot countenance, only make use of.

Carefully, quietly, he rolls to his right side and begins the laborious task of
sitting up without making a sound.

It takes forever, or so it seems, and several times he thinks he’s been spotted
by one of the bandits. But they’re too busy emptying Mr. Rolla’s wagon and
building a pyre. And chatting:

“—plants is kinda pretty. Probably worth a bit of scratch. Maybe we should try
and sell ‘em to the elves—”

“We ain’t peddlers! We’re bloody marauders! And that means we don’t go sellin’
flowers to no pointy-eared sprites! Now, just pile the bloody damned things in
the road, and—”

“Do we put the old man’s body in with the plants?”

“Nah, we’ll stick him in with the wagon. He’ll burn faster, that way. Oi! Quit
gold-bricking, you louts, and start breaking down that wagon, sharpish!”

Sildan, once he’s managed to make it to his knees, drenched in sweat and near
to passing out from pain, wonders if Mr. Rolla is already at the bottom of that
pyre . . . another hand to be burned and abandoned. . . .

Tears fill his eyes and that hot-cold feeling fills him again, and with a
silent grunt and a herculean shove, he’s gotten to his feet, Tild’s
cloak—bloody and muddy—sliding to the ground with a near-silent slither,

His legs wobble, and the arrows—shoddily made, but obviously serviceable—seem
to stand out of his chest and shoulder like branches from a tree.

He dares not pull them out, for fear of bleeding to death. Though he knows the
left one has, at the very least, nicked his lung, if not perforated it. Simply
breathing hurts worse than anything Sildan ever hopes to experience.

Staggering his way toward the closest of the three pyres that had drawn him and
Mr. Rolla like honey draws flies, Sildan notices something glittering in the
moonlight on the ground less than a yard away from his foot.

Mr. Rolla’s sword: The Blood-Letter.

As he creeps from pyre to pyre, thence to the trees to the right of the road,
Sildan clutches The Blood-Letter. His senses have been tuned up, and it seems
as if he can hear every sound the night has to offer: each cricket, each
rustle, each flutter of leaf.

Once in the copse, he leans carefully against the bark of a tree, trying to
catch his burning, agonized breath and think.

Mr. Rolla is . . . is dead, and soon to be on a pyre. And when those bandits
remember there was a second rider on the wagon, they’ll come looking for me.
Once they can’t find me, they’ll track me, and if they catch me, I’m surely
dead. . . .

I have to make it to the Greenwood before they really begin to search for me.

But according to Mr. Rolla, the Greenwood is still several hours away as the
mule travels. Which means it’s even longer as the walker travels, Sildan
supposes wearily, fighting the urge to cough. But then, what does it matter how
far away the Greenwood is? He has no choice but to reach it or die in the
attempt.

Pushing himself off the tree, Sildan quietly makes his way through the copse,
walking in what he hopes is a northwesterly direction: away from the road and
the hills in which the bandits have likely quartered.

Looking up at the sky, at the now setting moon, he reckons he has till it sets
completely before the bandits realize their second victim is gone.

When Sildan’s made it a few hundred yards away from the noise of the bandits’
chatter and destruction, he breaks into a lopsided, staggering run, The Blood-
Letter at his side.

                                       *


False dawn arrives, and there’s still no sign of pursuit.

Sildan’s staggering run has long since turned into a staggering lurch, his
breathing a labored agony that rises as a stark counterpoint to his noiseless
footfalls. His shirt and jerkin are soaked with blood and cling clammily to his
torso, even spreading to the waistband of his trousers.

He can barely think for pain and breathlessness. At first he wonders why there
seems to be no pursuit of him, putting it down to the bandits not wanting to
approach the Greenwood even as close as a few hours away. Or perhaps they feel
one half-grown boy isn’t worth the effort of chasing.

Whatever their reasoning, Sildan is glad of it, for he has an even more
pressing concern on his mind.

He doubts he will reach the Greenwood before his strength gives out.

His destination lay but a few miles off, now, in the light of true dawn, and
he’s close enough to get the heady, thick, green scent of it, and despite his
injuries, that scent fills him with hope and slightly renewed vigor.

Indeed, that scent leads him along like a siren, for his clouded eyes have
given up on discerning direction based on the rising, blurred, blood-red sun.
So he follows his nose, and pays for it with each pained breath.

                                       *


Sildan has quite lost track of time and place.

He knows only that he needs must keep moving in the direction of the
strengthening green-home-safe scent. His vision is blurred and trebled to the
point of uselessness, his sense of hearing limited almost entirely to the
slushy throb of his own heartbeat and roaring rush of his own blood.

Clasped in his hand, The Blood-Letter is cool and surprisingly light. It fits
his hand as if made for it and does not weigh him down. In fact, it comforts
him, as if he is holding Mr. Rolla’s hand. As if . . . he’s not
alone—not truly.

The pervasive taste of copper in his mouth has, however, become quite worrying.
He must spit every few minutes just to clear his mouth of blood, though he
never quite manages to cleanse it of the taste.

But he staggers on, the heat of the sun on his face and the scent of green in
his damaged lungs telling him he’s going in the right direction. He staggers
on, half-blinded and more than half-febrile, afraid to stop, for to stop means
to lose more time and energy that could be used to carry his body that much
closer to the Greenwood.

He carries on, not because he wants to, but because he must. Someone must tell
King Thranduil what the bandits are doing on the edges of his lands. Someone
must tell him that it’s not right to let one’s neighbors bear the brunt of a
scourge that can, with one sortie, be easily taken care of.

Sildan knows that he isn’t the best person to do the job, but it would appear
that he is the only person. For the average peddler doesn’t seem to be making
it closer to the Greenwood than a couple copses of trees that have seen more
than their share of murder and mayhem.

I have to tell King Thranduil . . . about the bandits and the peddlers, and
poor Mr. Rolla . . . this cannot go unavenged. This cannot—

Sildan cries out, his chain of thought broken as he stumbles on a small
scattering of loose stones and falls to his knees, The Blood-Letter finally
falling from his numb hand with a light clatter. The arrows, which still stick
out of him like quills from a porcupine, are jarred so badly—so painfully—that
the wind is driven out of Sildan. He coughs rackingly, the taste and scent of
blood stronger now, by far, than the green-home-safe scent of the Greenwood.

Sildan lists to his right, then his left, on his scraped, bloodied knees,
before sitting back on his feet and, less than ten yards from the Greenwood,
passing out.

                                      TBC
***** "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     Prince Malthengon and Captain Maethilwen of the woodland realm
     stumble upon a wounded enigma during their patrol of the southern
     border of the Greenwood.
Chapter Notes
     Note: Maethilwen: Warrior Maiden
     Malthengon: Golden-Prince
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“. . . and now, Fingaladh is angry at me for absolutely no reason!”

Maethilwen, Watch Captain of the Southeast Sector, snorts, elbowing Prince
Malthengon lightly as they step over an ancient deadfall, wistfully,
remembering a time when she would have tousled his hair, instead. But of course
now, the young prince is markedly taller than her, and she’s not bothered
enough to ask him to bend down so she can indulge in pointless nostalgia. “No
reason that you can see, anyway.”

Prince Malthengon sighs ruefully, kicking at a pile of dead leaves, making a
moue when it uncovers a long-dead skunk, then carefully stepping over it.
“Well, my dearest captain, if you can see a reason for her childish ire, I’d be
more than grateful if you’d share it with. . . .” he trails off without
finishing his statement and Maethilwen looks up at him, frowning. Prince
Malthengon is frowning, as well, his silver eyes narrowed as he sniffs the air.

“What? Bothered about that skunk?”

“What? Oh, no. No, it’s just . . . it’s getting stronger as we move to the
south and east,” he says distractedly, speaking, no doubt, of the other scent.
The scent of smoke that has colored the air, as the wind changes, for the past
day and night. “Can you not smell it, Maethilwen?”

“Of course I smell it, my prince. I’d have to be born without a nose to miss
such a dreadful pong.”

Prince Malthengon wriggles his regal nose—he is, like his mother before him,
the very spit and image of his grandfather—and glances at Maethilwen with
stern, idealistic disapproval. “And, of course, we will do nothing about it.”

The captain of the Eryn Lasgalen’s southeastern watch spreads her scarred,
dusty hands. “What would you have me do, my prince?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . perhaps investigate this burning, which has been going
on for into the second day?” Prince Malthengon nods southeasterly, his voice
rising from its usual low cadence as he goes on. “Should we not at
least investigate such a burning so close to the borders of our forest.”

“It is not close enough to be a worry to our people. We will, of course, report
the presence of the scent to your grandfather when we return to the Halls, but
we have not been given leave to break the cover of the forest to investigate
the doings of men.” Maethilwen stops, putting a hand on her prince’s arm to
calm him. Something that would be unthinkable with any other member of the
royal family. But Prince Malthengon has been her charge in some form or another
since before he was born—since before the death of his noble father and the
bereavement of his lady-mother. “Let it go, Malthengon.”

“How can we?” he demands, shrugging her hand off impatiently. “Someone could be
hurt, out there, or dying. Surely in some sort of grievous danger! A red sun
rose yesterday morn, and this morn, too! You know what that means, Maethilwen.”

“Death,” she agrees somberly. “But death that does not concern us.”

“How can it not, so close to our lands?” Prince Malthengon now puts his hands
on Maethilwen’s shoulders and looks steadily down into her eyes, his own
worried and irritated. “If someone, man or dwarf, needs our help, the help of
his good neighbor, how can we not respond? How can we not at least bear witness
to the goings on that cause such a smoke to drift into our lands for two days?”

“My prince—”

“Please, Maethilwen,” he says, as startling a thing as Maethilwen’s ever heard
from him—for the charming and charmed Prince Malthengon has never
said please that she can recall. Not for lack of manners, but simply because
his wants and needs have never gone unanticipated, let alone unmet—before his
own shoulders droop and he sighs. “I weary of mysterious smoke that smells of
charred flesh and these red suns rising as harbingers to blight our days. I
am going to investigate this matter, Captain, and though I cannot order you to
come with me . . . I ask that you do.”

Maethilwen heaves a sigh of her own, shaking her head. No, he cannot very
well order her to do anything regarding the watch. Only his grandfather, or
Lieutenant Aduacharn could. And yet. . . .

He has not tried to order her . . . merely asked her.

He, who has never asked—never had to ask—for anything.

And it certainly doesn’t help matters that he’s making that ridiculous sad-face
that he uses shamelessly and to such good effect on his mother, uncle, and even
grandfather.

Sighing, she shakes her head and for a moment his handsome face falls.

“At the first sign of threat, we retreat to the borders of our lands,” she says
firmly, as if she’s not just let herself be talked into an act of
insubordination that goes as high as the king, himself. And Prince Malthengon
brightens, living up to his name, as ever he has. He nods and whoops, the last
remnants of his recently passed childhood showing themselves without reserve at
getting his own way on something he, at least, deems important.

I doubt anything will come of this, Maethilwen tells herself as the prince
leads them towards the edges of the forest, the fingers of his left hand
flirting eagerly about the pommel of his shortsword. Most likely indigent men
were having a bonfire and roasting some poor beast on its flames. We will
arrive at the edges of our lands to find them in a sated stupor a few miles
distant, and that will be the end of that.

Nodding to herself, Maethilwen lengthens her stride in an effort to keep up
with her excited and hasty prince. When they reach a suitable tree, their path
takes them up.

                                       *


By the time the patrolling pair reaches the outermost edges of the forest, they
can see the smoke staining the sky in the east, less than half a day’s travel
away. Too far to spot the source in the gently rolling hills, and certainly too
far to go investigating. Malthengon is, to put it mildly, crushed.

The least he’d expected to find was a mystery somewhat closer at hand, and
perhaps a good fight, too. Maybe even some orcs, though he’s never seen one,
and even his elders haven’t since the early years after the War.

But the scent of burning is stronger than ever, the hints of charred flesh
among that of burning wood undeniable, and growing stronger. In fact,
Malthengon notes with a shiver of unease, though he is largely unfamiliar with
the smell of roasting beast, he would almost swear that. . . .

“That is no animal,” Malthengon finally says of the charred flesh-scent, when
they’ve been paused warily in the last of the trees for some time, scanning the
landscape for as far as their eyes can see.

Nothing out of the ordinary moves on the ground they can see. Indeed,
nothing in the ordinary moves, either. All is silent and still on an otherwise
pleasant spring day.

“Indeed, it is not,” Maethilwen agrees worriedly, her lightly tanned face
caught in a frown, pale blue-grey eyes steady on the distant smoke. Malthengon,
too, trains his gaze upon it once more. “This is . . . disturbing.”

“Perhaps . . . perhaps it is a funeral pyre,” Malthengon suggests, suddenly
more uneasy upon realizing that they’ve gotten closer to the certainty
of death. He’s never known anyone who’s died, nor has he witnessed any being
other than sick animals die. He shudders, and leans back against the tree
they’ve taken up position in, casting a hopeful glance at Maethilwen. The
captain still looks troubled, however. “Men sometimes burn their dead kin, do
they not?”

“Yes. Equally as often, they burn their dead enemies, too.” Maethilwen sighs,
brushing a trailer of curling dark hair from her brow. Malthengon can only
stare at her, for several moments in horror . . . and cautious excitement.

Perhaps he’ll get his fight, after all.

“Think you there was a battle, here, then? A small one, perhaps?”

“Hmm. I doubt it. The other watches would have heard the noise and reported it.
No battles have taken place near the forest recently.”

Torn between relief and disappointment, Malthengon refrains from pouting.

“Then what do you think—did you hear that?” He frowns, turning his head east
and brushing the braids at his temples behind his ears. But he does not
hear it again at first—that sound, like the soughing of the wind . . . if the
wind were in a pained delirium.

“Hear what?” Maethilwen’s head turns in the same direction as Malthengon, and
she goes utterly still and silent, as has Malthengon. Both elves train their
senses to the southeast, and listen. . . .

It is nearly a quarter of a mark before Malhengon hears it again. This time,
however, it sounds like the moaning of an injured beast, its weak voice torn to
shreds even by the gentle zephyr playing across the land this day.

He and Maethilwen exchange a glance.

“Whatever it is, it’s in pain,” Malthengon says quietly, and Maethilwen sighs
again, drawing her fighting daggers.

“From the sound, ‘twould be a mercy to put it out of its misery. It’s probably
a deer caught in a steel-trap, or a bear, perha—”

The moan sounds for a third time, and this time, there are words on its back.
Words they cannot make out, but words, nonetheless.

“That is no animal,” Malthengon says again, and Maethilwen nods, sheathing her
daggers and already leaping spryly into the neighboring tree. Malthengon is hot
on her heels.

                                       *


They spot the—possibly dead—boy from a distance, quite before they reach him.
He’s wearing the dark, heavy woolen garments of a Daleman or Laketowner,
sprawled on his back in the grass mere yards from the first of the trees
leading into Eryn Lasgalen. In one dirty, bloody hand is a blade of elvish
make. . . .

There are two arrows protruding from high in the boy’s chest and he hasn’t made
one of those awful moans in some minutes.

His chest doesn’t appear to be rising and falling at all, as far as Malthengon
can tell.

“Is he . . . dead?” he asks softly as they descend from the trees some yards to
the west and north of the boy’s position. Maethilwen lands soundlessly in the
soft mulch, Malthengon a second behind her.

“Possibly. There’s only one way to find out,” she says tersely, her eyes
narrowing as she squints at the surrounding landscape. Still, nothing moves.

“I’ll defend, and you carry,” she commands, marching silently, quickly toward
the edge of their cover. Malthengon, his blood racing, draws his shortsword as
she draws her daggers.

Seconds later, the pair slink out of the fringes of the forest, low to the
ground, Malthengon hyperaware of how visible they both are in their forest-
green uniforms, and their respective dark and bright hair.

But it is the merest distance from trees to boy, and when they reach him,
Maethilwen barely spares him a glance before taking up a defensive stance
beyond the boy and Malthengon.

Malthengon glances around perfunctorily before sheathing his sword and kneels
by the boy, his fingers immediately going to the boy’s cold, pale neck for a
pulse. He gets one, thready and slow, but a sign of life. However something
else takes up his notice at the same moment he feels the struggling beat of the
boy’s heart.

“This is no Daleman!” Malthengon breathes, one finger going drifting from
pulse, to ear lobe. He follows the boy’s ear up and up, to its pointed end. At
this touch, the boy moans softly, his eyes rolling under grey lids in dark
hollows. A moment later, they open, a startling, but soft green like moss-
agate. Pinprick pupils try but fail to focus on Malthengon before fluttering
shut again.

“He yet lives?”

Malthengon looks up at Maethilwen. Like a spooked cat, she practically bristles
out from under the safety of their trees. Malthengon, who has only rarely been
from under the forest’s shadow, revels in the feeling of possibility and
uncertainty.

This, he thinks almost giddily,is why my Uncle travels so much. This lightness
and openness. This danger . . . this freedom. . . .

“He lives. But I know not for how much longer,” Malthengon says, scooping up
the boy’s light frame. The boy starts to struggle weakly, but soon subsides,
going limp in Malthengon’s arms, though he does not let go of his sword. He
smells of mortal sweat, burning, and clean grass. “I dare not even remove the
arrows that felled him. We’d best get him back into the forest. To my mother.”

Malthengon takes one last breath of the free air, then strides purposefully
back toward cover, Maethilwen at his back, matching him step for step, still
facing outward, daggers at the ready.

Once under the safety of the trees, Maethilwen halts Malthengon with a hand on
the arm. “Let me see him,” she says, taking a look at the boy for long moments,
her sharp eyes missing nothing: the seeming frailness of the boy, his freckled,
too-pale face under a Daleman’s fading winter tan; even the very cut of his
fiery auburn hair—worn quite unfashionably short, even for a mortal man—cut to
above the ears; the too-fine, pretty features that are nonetheless vaguely
familiar. At least to Malthengon.

And perhaps to Maethilwen, too, for she stares at him for some time, her face
growing more and more disturbed as she does so.

“Maethilwen?” Malthengon asks tentatively, and his captain looks up at him,
startled from her reverie.

“We must get him to your lady-mother,” she says slowly, heavily. “’Twill be
best to have him under healing hands ‘ere the sun sets.”

Clutching the boy to him—he couldn’t be more than . . . seventeen summers,
Malthengon estimates, perhaps eighteen—Malthengon follows Maethilwen into the
beginning thicket, towards the dense, green, healing heart of the forest.

                                       *


As they leave behind the edges of their lands, Maethilwen seems more and more
disturbed about the boy, not less, sneaking glances at him as they travel the
well-worn—to an elf’s eyes—paths of Eryn Lasgalen.

Malthengon, for his part, steals quite a few looks at the boy, himself,
puzzling out the riddle of who this mortal-seeming elf might be. For certainly,
though he reminds Malthengon of someone, Malthengon cannot for the life of him
recall with any specificity whom. Perhaps it is the style of clothing that is
throwing his memory. And the sword—which the boy still clutches despite the
overall limpness of his body—Is older than Malthengon.

Who is this boy?

Well, he’s pretty enough that Fingaladh will no doubt despise him, Malthengon
thinks wryly, admiring the soft curve of the boy’s cheek and the fan of auburn
lashes spread upon them. Assuming he stays with us for any length of time.
Which he likely will, since he was clearly coming to the forest when his wounds
felled him. Oh, I wonder who he is. . . .

With the extent of the boy’s injuries—his labored, wet breathing and blood-
loss—Malthengon is starting to wonder if the poor thing will die before being
able to disclose his identity. He very well might if they don’t get him the
Halls soon.

Malthengon’s worry begins to double and treble as they make their way north and
west. Thankfully it’s not much longer before they cross paths with other
watches—most fortuitously Gaelgal’s and Siladuilin’s—and word is sent ahead by
messenger bird, so that by the time they’ve entered the true deeps of the
forest, they find mounts waiting for them at Captain Eirien and Tondor’s
sector: a stag and a doe in their primes, as gentle and wise as the patient
Earth.

Their gait is swift, but as careful and measured as that of any king, and
Malthengon finds his worries for the boy’s wounds being jarred fading as they
ride. Next to him, Maethilwen is now focused on the path ahead and the woods
around them.

In his arms, the boy—fevered, and muttering to himself in Westron—continues to
live.

Whoever he is, whatever his line . . . they’re fighters, and Malthengon’s hopes
for the day not ending in this strange boy’s death begin to climb.

When they at last reach the Halls of the King, sometime after the sun has begun
to wester, when the doors to the Halls open at their approach and the guard
stands stolidly aside—when Lady Nimiel hurries out in her flowing silver gown,
her personal guards in Maethilwen’s absence acting as bearers of a long, padded
litter—Malthengon breathes a sigh of relief that he supposes he will always
feel upon coming home and to his mother’s arms.

There’s precious little in this world or any other, in his experience, that a
caring and determined mother can’t put right.

“Mother,” he says, smiling his relief when the stag stops, the doe stopping
right next to it. Maethilwen springs off, and is immediately at Malthengon’s
side, arms held out for the boy.

“Let me take him,” she says, almost croons, and more to the boy, than to
Malthengon, who carefully hands the boy off to her. She takes his light body
without any sign of strain or effort and turns to face the approaching Lady
Nimiel and her erstwhile assistants.

Lady Nimiel smiles, her regal face lighting up with warmth and genuine pleasure
to see her oldest friend, despite the circumstances. “Hello, Maethilwen,” she
breathes, curtseying girlishly when she stops near the arrived duo.

Maethilwen bows slightly, with a care for the boy still in her arms. “My lady.”

“It has been far too long,” Lady Nimiel says softly, her silver eyes steady on
Maethilwen’s. Maethilwen smiles back, almost shyly—she is, Malthengon’s
noticed, only ever shy around his mother—her face coloring ever so slightly.

“Even a moment out of your ladyship’s presence is far too long for those of us
who are fortunate enough to know you.”

Lady Nimiel laughs, like a tinkling of silver bells in a playful breeze. “Oh,
my good captain! You should have been named Celebeth, not Maethilwen!”

Reddening even further about the cheeks, Maethilwen clears her throat and
clutches the boy to herself tighter for a few moments, before holding him out
as if proffering a rather grisly gift. It’s then that Lady Nimiel looks down at
him, and the amused, knowing look on her face is driven away by an expression
of shock and . . . recognition, perhaps, that causes Malthengon to wonder. When
her gaze ticks to Maethilwen’s again, her hand flies to her mouth in distress.
“Where was he found?”

“To the southeast, my lady.” Maethilwen is all business, now, and at Lady
Nimiel’s direction, she places the boy on the litter borne by the two
assistants. “Just outside the borders of Eryn Lasgalen.”

“Oh, my,” the Lady leans down over the boy and looks into his face for long
moments, before placing a hand over his forehead and eyes and closing her own
eyes.

For a few seconds, there’s a strange feel to the air—a rallying of Lady
Nimiel’s powers that causes every hair on Malthengon’s body to stand on end—and
the boy on his litter twitches once and sighs tiredly. The sword falls from his
hand to the ground, with a loud clatter.

Maethilwen—never one to leave a weapon laying on the ground—instantly snatches
it up and hands it to Malthengon, who takes it with a frown as he studies the
runes on the hilt and blade.

Blood-Letter, is the name of this sword. It is a name Malthengon has heard
before, from his Uncle Legolas. In some story or other about the War. . . .

I wonder where such a young boy would have gotten a famous blade such as
this, he thinks. It’s one of many such questions that attend this boy. This boy
whom, it seems, everyone recognizes but I. . . .

Then he’s catching up to the litter bearing this mysterious guest onward into
Hall of Healing, his questions forgotten. For the moment.

                                       *


Maethilwen strides down the corridors of the Halls of the King, lost in
thought.

Her feet know the way to the throne room without her input, and it is there
that they carry her without deviation.

With absent, but familiar nods to the guards—and nods of deference to the
nobles—she passes, Maethilwen’s long-legged stride—quite long, for a woman so
small in stature—takes her through rooms dedicated to nothing so much as their
own beauty, rooms that showcase their own decoration, rooms whose quieter
loveliness invites stopping for a moment of meditation or remembrance.

Usually, Maethilwen’s mindfulness permits appreciation of these rooms, even as
her primary focus and business lay elsewhere (usually reporting to Aduacharn or
the king), but this evening, her mind lays as far afield as ever it has. It
lays many miles hence, in the city of Dale, on a night not so long ago. . . .

Maethilwen adjusts the dark cloak she wears, feeling as if all eyes have landed
on her. Dressed as she is, as a noblewoman of Dale, under the cloak of rich
wool and the cloak of evening, she creeps down the dark, slightly smoky
corridors of the close, stone castle, careful not to disturb the bundle in the
basket on her arm.

Despite her feelings of being singled out, she passes unseen—unnoticed—by the
servants of the palace. She is, of course, noticed, but only in that absently
deferential way servants show to the betters who cross their busy paths, but
don’t require assistance.

They will never remember seeing her, and if they do, they certainly won’t
remember her face, shadowed as it is by the hood of the cloak. (And the fact
is, the servants are used to cloaked and cowled noblewomen covertly entering
the palace on business . . . or pleasure. Bard II’s sister-sons, all three, are
wastrels and philanderers, it is well known among palace insiders.)

So Maethilwen’s presence, though noticed in passing, is not marked upon. It is
presumed that she’s some daughter of the city sneaking in to see either Princes
Andrion, Kilyan, or Philib. Or perhaps all three.

But Maethilwen does not know this. As she moves through the palace, telling
herself she belongs there, at least for this brief moment in time, the bundle
in the basket starts to stir, making lonely, yearning little cries.

“Hush,” Maethilwen murmurs under her breath, taking the risk of pausing near a
torch to peer into the basket. Familiar green eyes, wet and melancholy, meet
her own, and the babe’s mouth works as if he’s hungry. Or about to cry.
“Shhh, idh hen . . . idh.”

Rocking the basket, she smiles down at the babe until his eyes flutter shut and
his breathing evens out. For a few moments thereafter, she watches him sleep,
transfixed by how tiny, how perfect, how like her he is, in miniature.

Lost in her contemplation of the child, she does not move until voices coming
down the corridor from around a turn draw closer.

Stepping with alacrity into the shadows of a recessed door, Maethilwen bows her
head and stays utterly still till the speakers pass her, laughing and speaking
what sounds like a dialect of Harad.

Itself not surprising, as the queen herself is from Harad, but it gives
Maethilwen pause . . . reminds her of that of which she chooses to think about
rarely: the War.

And, as if sensing her changed mood, the babe begins to stir again, making
noises that even a mortal man could hear, were there one nearby.

It’s time to stop woolgathering and get this done.

Maethilwen hurries down hallways and corridors as if she’d been born to them.
The descriptions she’d received of the palace in Dale were quite specific, and
she manages to find her way not only to the royal family’s wing, but to Prince
GIrion’s rooms in a timely fashion.

Kneeling at his door, she places the basket on the step and makes certain the
complaining child is well tucked in. His blanket is blue, like the sky above
Eryn Lasgalen, with white patches on it that represent stars. And in the top
right corner of this blanket, stitched into the woolen fabric, is a single word
in crimson Westron. Maethilwen can read it if she focuses on each individual
letter.

“S-I-L-D-A-N . . . Sildan,” she murmurs to the boy, who quiets once more at the
sound of her voice. He stares up at her as if mesmerized. Indeed, he is only a
few days old and she is the first and only person he has ever seen.

She has been, up until this point, his world.

Swallowing, Maethilwen glances both ways down the corridor before quickly
planting a tender kiss on the boy’s forehead. He makes a surprised sound, and
smiles a toothless drooling smile up at her.

“Fare thee well, Sildan of Dale. Until our paths cross again,” she whispers,
blinking away tears at her choice of farewell. She knows it is unlikely she
will ever see thischild again, and yet. . . .

“Until we meet again.” She brushes a gentle finger down his soft, warm cheek
before standing up and knocking briskly on the door to Prince Girion’s rooms.

It is only when she hears someone inside stirring—a voice calling, a laugh, and
another door closing inside—that she disappears down the hall, and back the way
she came.

In half a mark, she is exiting Dale, and bearing northeast on the great road.

Shaking her head, Maethilwen’s focused stride slows until, within visual
distance of the doors to the throne room, she stops, one hand on her hip, the
other gone to her forehead, as if to shield her eyes. Or to block from the
sight of others sudden tears.

Maethilwen does not yet know what drove the boy from Dale after not even a
quarter of a century there. Perhaps he was persecuted there, for his half-elven
heritage. Perhaps he was pursued for crimes he’d committed. Perhaps he was
merely curious about the other half of his heritage and fell afoul of brigands
along the way . . . there was no way to know, just yet. But if there is one
place he should be able to come and find succor, it should surely be here.

In another life, he might have grown up here—might have been under her tutelage
just as Prince Malthengon had. He might have—

Oh, he might have a lot of things, Maethilwen thinks impatiently, wiping her
eyes and continuing on after a deep, steadying breath. He might have grown
wings and flown to the Undying Lands. I’ll never know. But he’s here, now, and
in need of help. I must convince the king to allow him stay for as long as he
needs to. He is, after all, one of us. He is . . . home.

And that last fragment rings in her ears all the way to the doors of the throne
room, which the guard open for her, then shut behind her when she passes
through with a nod.

The king’s dais is set back far from the door, and all the way to it,
Maethilwen tries to come up with convincing words in argument for the boy
finding succor in Eryn Lasgalen. Communication with words has never been her
strong-suit. Even when she was younger, and she and Lady Nimiel were more
confidants than guard and guarded, she’d never been much for talking. The
silences that Lady Nimiel had always sought to leaven with music or laughter,
Maethilwen had loved for their stillness and tranquility. The only thing she’d
loved more had been Lady Nimiel. . . .

Though everyone had grown quieter—become, atimes, wrapped in their own cocoons
of silence and remembrance—since the War. Even the bright Lady Nimiel, whose
beloved husband Prince Caladael had died in battle.

But now, silence would do no one any good, least of all the boy who lay
fighting for life under the hands of the greatest healer in Arda, since the
departure of Lord Elrond.

Maethilwen climbs the stairs to the dais, her mind awhirl with trivialities
despite her attempts to wrestle it into some sort of focus. The king is, on the
best days, mercurial and melancholy, isolationist and clannish. This had not
been the case immediately after the Great Battle of the Five Armies, but, as
with many who’d lived through the War of the Ring, he’d become grim, and wary
of the lands beyond his own in spite of the semblances of friendship. Even
Erebor and Dale were looked upon with that same wariness: not as if those
realms housed deadly enemies, but as if, at any moment, they might be bereft of
allies . . . whether through politics or conflagration.

The sylvan elves were, as men might say, on their own, in the eyes of their
king. . . .

Bowing deeply at the first of the dais’ three steps, Maethilwen waits to be
acknowledged, banishing her prior weighty thoughts from her troubled mind.

Once upon a time, the king was known for letting supplicants and servants await
his leisure before deigning to notice them, but in these latter days, he treats
each petitioner with his utmost attention and consideration the very moment he
notices them.

The problem is, of course, the king’s mind, though still sound . .
. wanders. Maethilwen has, on several occasions, waited to be noticed for near
to a mark, while the king recalls his mind from when or where it sometimes
travels.

(It is whispered, among many, that the king is perhaps ready to make his
journey to the Grey Havens. The woodland realm would then fall to either Lady
Nimiel, or Prince Legolas. The former being a much more likely candidate, as
the latter is always off travelling with his dwarf-companion.)

“Captain Maethilwen,” the king’s voice rings out, rich and clarion, in the
otherwise empty throne room. Once, even now, in the marks before supper time,
the throne room would be filled with nobles, supplicants, petitioners, and
entertainers. But, like Maethilwen, like so many others, the king has come to
appreciate his own cocoon of silence, without interruption. “Rise and report.”

Biting back a sigh—just when she could do with a bit of waiting to be noticed,
and perhaps pull-together some sort of argument for allowing the boy to stay
even after he’s been healed—Maethilwen straightens and climbs the last two
steps, till she’s facing her king.

As ever, the king is resplendent. A vision of a king of elves. Under his living
crown, heavy platinum hair hangs straight around his shoulders and frames a
face like something out of the old stories, all noble bone-structure and
alabaster skin. His silver and green robes sparkle intermittently when he
moves, light flashing off of gems sewn into the fabric. But none sparkle so
much as the silver eyes that watch Maethilwen unreadably from under heavy, dark
brows.

She meets that gaze and holds it for as long as is respectful, then bows again,
this time, keeping her eyes on the hem of the king’s robes.

For the king is still, on occasion, capricious, and if he reads on Maethilwen
how much she wants the boy to stay—should he choose to do so—he might just
refuse the boy, based on that.

It’s not as likely a scenario these days as it was two hundred years ago, but
it’s not unheard of. And the king is very touchy about whom he lets enter the
woodland realm.

And never before has he let any guest not born to the realm stay. . . .

“My king,” Maethilwen begins softly, without inflection. A moment later, when
she has nothing to follow that acknowledgement with, she risks a glance up at
the king’s eyes, before looking away again, her brow furrowing. “My king . . .
the child has found his way back to us,” she says, slightly rushed, and with
emphasis on the back to us. “Sildan has found his way home.”

                                      TBC
Chapter End Notes
     Note: Maethilwen: Warrior Maiden
     Malthengon: Golden-Prince
***** "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 4 *****
Chapter Summary
     Maethilwen must convince her king to let Sildan, who is on death's
     door, stay. Sildan gets a choice to make, and he makes it.
Chapter Notes
     Notes/Warnings: None.
King Thranduil is silent for some moments after Maethilwen’s announcement.
Silent for long enough that she gets bored with the flashing of the gems sewn
into his robe, and dares a look up at his face.

He’s not looking at her. Instead, he’s staring off into the distance, frowning.
Thinking his mind may have gone wandering again, Maethilwen ventures to speak
further.

“Prince Malthengon and I were out on watch when we came across the scent of
smoke from beyond the forest, and—”

“Did you investigate this smoke?” the king asks, still staring into the
distance beyond Maethilwen’s right shoulder. Her brow furrows and she bows
deeply.

“We did not, my king. We were not given leave to investigate matters beyond the
bounds of Eryn Lasgalen.”

To that, the king makes no reply, so Maethilwen goes on.

“The boy was laying less than five yards from the tree-line, having fallen in
his tracks from his injuries. He hovers near death’s door, but we believe he
was making his way to Eryn Lasgalen.” Taking a breath, Maethilwen meets the
king’s distant gaze again, or tries to. “I take full responsibility for leaving
the safety of the forest to retrieve him.”

The king’s eyes close and he puts one hand to his brow, as if greatly tasked by
his own thoughts, taking a breath of his own.

“And you say he is injured?”

“Yes, my king. High in his shoulder and chest by two arrows. He has lost a lot
of blood.”

The king takes another deep breath before opening his eyes. They glitter at
Maethilwen from under the shelter of his hand like silver gems left in a near-
lightless place.

“Did he say who had injured him, and why?”

“No, my king. He was unconscious when we found him. He had no possessions but
for a bag of coins—Dale-ish—and . . . this.” Maethilwen steps forward and
removes the Blood-Letter from her belt and presents it to the king with a bow.

The king’s gaze shifts to the famous blade and only now, does he sit forward,
his hand leaving his forehead to reach for the hilt of the blade.

When it leaves her hands, Maethilwen steps back and waits for the king to
speak.

He looks down the length of the blade for a few moments, then swings it
experimentally, economically, before his eyes tick to Maethilwen again. “It has
been well-cared for. That would have pleased Faefair to know, and will, no
doubt, please Aduacharn. But one wonders how such a young boy came to carry,
let alone be felled whilst in possession of, such a noble blade. There’s not a
speck of blood on it.”

“He may have been ambushed, my king,” Maethilwen says heavily, shaking her
head. “That smoke smelled of burnt flesh, and may have drawn him to
investigate, just as it drew the prince’s interest. I think—”

“Speak to me no more to me about this smoke from beyond the borders of our
lands, Maethilwen, for whatever it may be is the province of our neighbors, and
we shall letthem speculate further about it.” The king settles back in his
throne, the Blood-Letter still in hand. “How fares the boy at my daughter’s
hands?”

“The Lady Nimiel was tending to him as I left to come here. I know not whether
he yet lives, my king.”

“We shall have to see, then, whether he lives or dies,” the king says absently.
“Though I suppose in either event, word will have to be sent to King Bard and
Prince Girion, so that they may come and collect boy or body, forthwith.”

Maethilwen freezes, then forces herself to relax. “My king . . . in all
likelihood the boy was coming here. To us. Eryn Lasgalen was his ultimate
destination.”

“And?” Those silver eyes have landed upon her once more, as sharp as the Blood-
Letter.

Biting back a sigh, Maethilwen bows again. “He may have questions, my king.
About his heritage.”

“And we will answer them,” the king replies with a negligent wave of his
elegant hand. “When he is well enough to hear such answers as we have to give.
When he is well enough to travel, his kin will take him back to Dale.”

“But, my king . . . we are his kin.” Maethilwen meets the king’s eyes, greatly
daring. It’s not easy to hold his gaze, but hold it she does. “What if he came
to us seeking more than answers?”

“Such as?” The king’s tone is positively frosty, now. But having been asked a
direct question of her king, there’s nothing for it but for Maethilwen to
answer.

“Such as . . . succor. A home.”

“He is a child of men, and belongs with his people.”

“He was born of the Sylvan elves, my king.” It slips out before Maethilwen can
remind herself whom she would argue with. But having spoken, she can only go
on. Go on for the child she’d once tended and guarded, and delivered to his
father . . . for the child she even now regrets leaving in Dale.

For that child, she would be brave, now. Even to the point of insubordination.

“He was born of us—born here, at the hands of the Lady Nimiel, herself. And he
has clearly risked everything, including his life, to come back to us. To turn
him away without even hearing him out would be. . . .”

The king’s eyebrows drift gently upward when Maethilwen hesitates to finish
that thought. Finally, sighing, she does. “’Twould be . . . cruel.”

Silence from the king, who watches her with his unreadable, sharp eyes.
Maethilwen bows again. “I mean no disrespect, my king. I simply anticipate not
only the boy’s questions, but his desire to be someplace where he . . . fits
in. And clearly, that place is not Dale.”

“On what evidence do you base such conjecture?”

“On his very presence here, my king.”

“In Dale, he is a prince of men, Captain Maethilwen. With the potential to lead
a truly charmed life, as men reckon it. Here, he would be simply another elf.
One of no family or standing. He may not know that, having no inkling of our
ways, but you, Captain, certainly know better.” The King sits back in the
throne, his hooded eyes taking Maethilwen’s measure. “Once this is explained to
him, whatever childish dreams he has of . . . running away to live with the
elves will vanish, like morning mist in the silver sun.”

Despite wanting to push the issue, Maethilwen bows deeply and bites her tongue.
The king has been exceedingly patient with her so far. To say anymore would be
to risk the sharp side of the king’s tongue, and possibly censure.

Suddenly the king laughs, an amused, almost condescending one. “And yet, I see
you would say more for this boy. Speak, then, that I might be swayed to let him
stay, should he wish it.”

Blinking in surprise, Maethilwen straightens and gapes at the king. He’s
staring off into the distance beyond her shoulder again, so hard, that
Maethilwen is tempted to look around to see what might be there. But she
doesn’t. Merely asks: “My king?” and takes an uneasy step backwards.

“It has been nearly twenty years since you smuggled the child into Dale and to
his father. And yet you’re fighting harder to keep him now, than you did then.
And that is saying something. Clearly the boy has made some impact on you, that
you would argue so sincerely and strongly on his behalf. Share with me that
impact, that I might understand.”

Startled—shocked, really—Maethilwen opens her mouth to speak, not knowing what
will come out, but knowing it’d better be damned good.

                                       *


Prince Malthengon sits in a chair outside the boy’s sickroom in the royal
quarters and waits.

The sun has long since set, and the torches in the corridor are lit.
Malthengon’s keen ears train for even the slightest sound from the sickroom.
But he hears nothing. Not even the occasional murmur.

It’s been at least an hour, he thinks worriedly. In that time, my mother could
have saved the boy’s life ten times over! What’s taking so long?

Malthengon half-stands, wondering if he dares go back in. His mother had had
already shown him the door once for pacing about and asking questions while she
scanned the boy and worked her wonders.

His hand is on the door knob, and he’s debating turning it when he hears nearly
noiseless feet coming down from around the turn of the corridor. He recognizes
both sets and hurriedly sits back down in his chair, attempting to look as if
he hadn’t been about to disobey his mother’s unspoken command to remain outside
till she was done.

Within seconds of him having sat down, Maethilwen and his grandfather round the
corner. The former looks both weary and worried, the latter determined and
austere, as ever.

Malthengon jumps up and bows respectfully. “Grandfather. Captain Maethilwen.”

Maethilwen bows back. “My prince.”

“Malthengon,” his grandfather says somberly. “Is there any word, yet, on the
boy?”

“None. Mother has been in there since we got back.” Malthengon sighs, shaking
his head. “I fear for him, in spite of Lady Nimiel’s talents at healing.”

Malthengon’s grandfather crooks one eyebrow. “Well. I see Captain Maethilwen
isn’t the only one who’s fallen under the boy’s enchantment,” he says,
searching Malthengon’s face intently.

Malthengon blushes. “I—I am under no enchantment, Grandfather. I merely wish to
see the boy live.”

“Hmm,” is all Thranduil replies, drifting past Maethilwen and Malthengorn to
the door. He puts his hand on the knob and turns it. But before he opens the
door, he glances back at them, his eyes unreadable.

“Wait here, both of you,” he commands, before letting himself into the boy’s
room and shutting the door firmly.

Malthengon and Maethilwen look at each other. Malthengon shrugs and Maethilwen
sighs, leaning against the wall next to the chair.

                                       *


Walking.

He’s been walking for so long, he cannot now remember towards what he is
walking . . . or from what he is walking.

But the day is pleasant: the breeze swift and crisp, the sky a brilliant,
cobalt blue, the leaves so many brilliant colors . . . but the grass still
green. It is a perfect autumn day and, glancing around, he marvels that autumn
isn’t everyone’s favorite season.

The only thing that could possibly make this day better would be . . . a
companion. Yes, he muses, kicking up drifts of orange, gold, and red as he
strolls along. A companion would be nice. . . .

“All you ever had to do was wish for one,” an amused, vaguely familiar voice
says at his side, and he looks up, both surprised and somehow . . . not.

Walking next to him is a young man of average height, with skin the color of
freshly-tilled earth and dark, laughing eyes in a plain, pleasant face. He’s
dressed in a light, dark-blue tunic and brown trews. His feet are bare.

“That’s how it works here, after all,” the young man says, gesturing to the
world around him before chuckling. “’Course, we’re all a bit disoriented when
we first arrive. Takes a bit of experimenting to suss out how things work in
the Fields, but time is fairly irrelevant, here. For those of us that belong,
at any rate.” Those dark eyes scan him intently, curiously. “I don’t think you
do, son. It’s not nearly your time, yet.”

“My time?” he asks, confused, but not overly alarmed. Indeed, who could be
alarmed in such a fine place as this? In such fine weather? With such fine
company? “What do you mean?”

“Ohhhh.” Another chuckle, this one seeming rather too old for such a young man.
“Nothing important. Just that it was my time to come here, young Sildan, Prince
of Dale. But it’s not yet yours.”

Sildan, he thinks bemusedly. Yes, that was my name. Sildan Bowman . . . Prince
of Dale.

And so realizing this, he looks at the young man beside him with new eyes. Eyes
that half-remember.

“And you’re . . . familiar to me . . . but I can’t place you.”

“Jittney Rolla, formerly of Dale and many other places, at your service,” the
young man says, bowing with spread hands, a twinkle in his eyes. “We knew each
other back on Arda. Not for long, mind, but you were a good companion.” Those
dancing, friendly eyes dim briefly. “I’m only sorry for the way it ended, my
boy. Sorry for the pass I’ve brought you to.”

“Pass?”

The young man—Jittney—nods once, putting a hand on Sildan’s shoulder. “I
should’ve known better. Should’ve scented a trap. And that’s what it was, make
no mistake about that. And I drove us right into it. I’m so sorry, lad.”

At this, Jittney hangs his head and sighs. Sildan, still more entranced by the
day, and its complete and perfect serenity, covers the hand on his shoulder and
squeezes, till Jittney looks up, a hang-dog expression on his earnest face.

“Whatever you’ve done, or think you’ve done wrong, it is of no moment, here.
Not in this place,” Sildan says kindly, his heart lighter than it’s been since
. . . ever. For he knows that what he says is true. That in this place, guilt
and self-recrimination are about as welcome as a full-body rash. “Can we not
simply enjoy this place, wherever it is, for as long as we are here?”

Jittney blinks at him. “Sildan, lad . . . do you not know where you are?” Off
Sildan’s shaken head, Jittney sighs again, guiltily. “You are in the Fields.
The Evergreen Fields of the Lady Yavanna. Where men and halflings come to rest
after death and before the next life.”

Brow furrowing, Sildan looks around him. “Then that means that . . . I am
dead?” he asks, uncertain how he feels about that. Or about anything else. The
pervasive sense of contentment that seems to be part and parcel of this place
makes it difficult to think—at least of unpleasant things.

Frowning, Jittney stops walking, and Sildan stops with him. “Not entirely, I
think. Some part of you yet clings to life. There is a . . . glow about you. An
aura of white-gold light that I have only seen around those who are to be sent
back. Or sent on.”

“Sent on?”

“To their next life.” Jittney looks up at the sky. “I have not yet been lucky
enough to make the Lady’s acquaintance, but I’ve met many of the other
residents of the Fields, and they’ve all told me the same thing. Indeed, I’ve
seen people with the aura disappear before my very eyes. Off to their next
lives. Or perhaps their old lives, I suppose.”

“What makes you think I won’t be sent on to my next life? Who says the old one
still waits for me?” Sildan asks curiously, looking behind him as if he could
see that old life. But all he sees are endless fields and hills and valleys,
dotted with bits of forest, here and there.

Forest. . . . Sildan thinks, his brow furrowing once more in thought. Thought
that’s hampered by the pleasant sense of well-being that attends this place and
the fogginess of his mind.

He remembers. . . .

“I . . . I was going to the Greenwood,” he grits out, eyes squinched shut as he
wrestles the fog in his mind for even a scrap of memory about who he had been
and where he had been going. Even on this cool autumn day, it breaks him out in
a sweat, and causes him to put two trembling fingers to his temple and groan,
as if literally moving about great blocks that stand between him and his
memories. “I was g-going to the Greenwood and you were with me. And you
were older. . . .”

“Certainly older-looking than this handsome devil walking beside you, now.”
Jittney laughs, a familiar sound meant for a much older man than he currently
appears to be. “What else do you remember, Sildan?

Shaking his head, Sildan sighs and opens his eyes. The entire world seems to
throb like one giant heartbeat. “Only that I was traveling from my home of
Dale, to the Greenwood. I do not remember why, only that I was. I don’t even
rightly remember what Dale was like, only that I lived there, and I was mostly
happy there, until. . . .”

“Until?”

Shaking his head again, as if to clear it, Sildan laughs limply.
“Perhaps you could tell me. You knew my name while I did not.”

Jittney smiles kindly and claps Sildan on the shoulder. “I knew your name
because, though it took me a while to piece it together, I figured out who you
were while we traveled together. Despite your attempts to hide those pointy
elf-ears.” His eyes tick to Sildan’s right ear, and Sildan reaches up to touch
it. It is indeed pointed. Jittney’s ears are not.

“A young, auburn-haired, green-eyed elf from Dale, wearing finer clothes than
most people will ever be able to afford, as fair as a summer’s day—if you don’t
mind me saying—with the bearing of a prince? Who else could you be, but Prince
Sildan of Dale?” Jittney snorts and Sildan blushes. “But you seemed to want to
keep that secret, so I let you have your anonymity. You told a good story, and
you were an even better listener. Didn’t put on airs and you were quick to help
with the work, whether it was making camp or breaking camp. You were a good
lad.”

Blushing harder under such praise, Sildan looks down at his feet. He, unlike
Jittney, is shod: in well-made brown boots that come up to just above his
thigh. And he’s dressed quite strangely. At least, not like how it seems he
should be dressed. His clothing consists of leaf-green leggings and tunic, both
of which fit almost as a second skin.

Just then, the breeze, which had been playful before, if a bit brisk, picks up,
blowing Sildan’s hair all over the place. Annoyed, he reaches up to gather it
up and twist it into a knot, when he realizes that his hair has never been long
enough to twist into a knot.

He can’t exactly remember for sure, but he is nonetheless certain that his hair
has always been quite short. Just long enough to cover his unfortunate ears.

Now, however, it seems to hang almost to his waist. And his attempts to gather
it up are foiled by the sudden onslaught of wind.

Finally, giving up on the hair, Sildan catches up with Jittney, who’s walked on
by some yards, now, hands clasped behind his back.

“A good lad,” he says again, picking up where he’d left off from before. “Too
good to come to such a grisly end.”

“What do you mean?” Sildan asks tentatively. Jittney doesn’t look at him,
merely frowns and hangs his head. “How did I . . . wind up here? You said there
was a trap . . . is that right? An ambush?”

“Yes.” Jittney sighs, shaking his head. “Bandits, on the road to the Greenwood.
We were shot with arrows from the cover of trees lining either side of the
great road. You were shot first, and fell off the wagon. But I imagine you
didn’t die instantly, else we’d have arrived here at the same time. Though time
here is relative. I know that on Arda, less than two days have passed since the
ambush, and yet I’ve been in the fields for longer than that. How much longer,
I could not tell you.”

Sildan thinks that over, or tries to. He can’t quite wrap his mind around time
moving differently in two such similar-seeming places.

“How long, do you think, till I know whether I’m . . . going to go on to my
next life, or go back to my old one?” he wonders. “Who decides? Is it the Lady
Yavanna? Or . . . or Eru, Itself?”

“Actually, it is you who decides, Sildan of Dale.”

Startled, Sildan looks to his left at the achingly familiar voice, and sees. .
. .

“Sigrid?” he breathes, and upon saying her name, his memory returns fully.
Dale, and his reasons for leaving. Meeting Jittney Rolla on the road. Their
days spent travelling and telling stories. The ambush. . . .

Jittney’s death, and Sildan’s own pained, delirious stagger toward the
Greenwood.

He staggers a little under this second onslaught, this time not of external
forces, but of internal ones. Jittney and Sigrid each catch him by an arm.
Sildan can only stare and stare at Sigrid, tall and regal in her Harad-style
black tunic and trousers.

“You’re . . . you’re dead, too, Sig?” slips from numb lips, and Sigrid smiles
gently.

“I was never alive. At least not in the sense that you mean,” she says, and
it’s then that Sildan notices instead of dark brown, her round eyes are a
strange greeny-gold. “And I am not your cousin Sigrid, Sildan. I merely appear
to you in the form with which you are most comfortable. To Jittney, I appear to
be someone else, entirely. But my name is Yavanna, and you are in my demesne.”
She bows slightly. “I bid you welcome.”

Sildan retrieves his arm from Her, backing toward Jittney, who is bowing,
himself. He nearly knocks the other man over. “You’re—You’re—”

“My Lady,” Jittney says, sounding both awed and humbled. When he straightens,
there are tears in his eyes and, oddly, hope. The Lady Yavanna’s smile turns
almost tender when Her gaze falls on him.

“Jittney Rolla,” She says, laughter in Her voice. In Sig’s voice. Sildan shakes
his head and finds himself leaning against Jittney for stability. “My dearest
Jittney. Or do you prefer Peregrine?” She asks playfully, but tilting Her head
at a genuinely curious angle. “As I recall, that was, of all your lives, the
one that suited you most.”

Jittney blinks in confusion, then his dark face lights up in sudden
understanding and wonder. “Oh!” he says, the tears that had been in his eyes
falling. “Oh, my Lady!” He wipes his cheeks, laughing bemusedly. “I had sought
to remember it all, but I could not. It was as if there was a wall in my mind.
I could only remember being Jittney Rolla. But I knew there was more—more to
me, more to my memories. Oh, my Lady . . . is he here, too? For he was the
reason I sought those memories. Ever has he been the most important thing in my
life. In all my lives. As Jittney, I knew, without knowing what, that there was
always something—someone—missing.”

Sildan gapes in shock. For all while Jittney had been speaking, his accent—his
very voice had been changing, going up an octave and gaining a northern brogue
the likes of which Sildan has rarely heard. And his eyes . . . slowly the color
had leached from them, till they were a light, merry, cornflower blue.

Side-stepping away from his changing friend, Sildan glances at the Lady,
who hasn’t changed, but still looks like his cousin Sigrid.

“Meriadoc will be along shortly,” She says softly, Her greeny-gold eyes taking
on a far-seeing look. “Even now, the battle in which he fights draws to its
inevitable conclusion. He will be felled by a spear, and die on the field of
battle.”

“Oh,” Jittney says, more tears rolling down his face. “My poor Merry . . . I
wasn’t there to look after him. . . .”

“But you are here, now, Peregrine. And that is what matters. For he will need
tending to when first he arrives here. May I count on you to do that tending?”
the Lady asks, and Jittney straightens, blinking away his tears.

“Of course you may, my Lady!”

“It is well, then.” With a grin, the Lady turns Her gaze to Sildan. “Now, what
to do with you, my dear young Sildan?”

Fighting not to quail under the consideration of a God, Sildan squares his
shoulders. “You said that . . . that it was my decision whether or not to live
or die?”

Nodding, the Lady spreads Her hands. “And truly, it is. To be honest, you
should not even be here in the Fields, for you have not yet chosen whether to
live a mortal life, like your father’s kin, or an immortal life, like your
mother’s. Until you make that choice, you may not sojourn in the Fields. Nor
may you travel to the Undying Lands.”

“I . . . I don’t understand,” Sildan whispers, certain he’s heard wrong. “I
can choose whether or not to live forever?”

Nodding again, the Lady sighs. “Yes. However, it is not a choice to be made
lightly. There are, of course, drawbacks to each choice, and—”

“MERRY!” Jittney suddenly calls from Sildan’s side and, startled once more,
Sildan turns to look first at his friend, then in the direction his friend is
staring.

Coming down a gentle hill from back the way they’d come, looking battered and
weary, dressed in Harad-style armor, his face wrapped in the traditional black
scarf, a tall warrior approaches, large, curved scimitar in hand.

Jittney hurries toward the weary warrior, who raises his scimitar and shouts in
a dialect of Harad that Sildan can mostly understand. But he doesn’t need to be
a languages scholar to understand the import of what the soldier says:

“Stay back, I warn you!”

“Merry! It’s me! Do you not remember?” Jittney says, laughing as he gets closer
to the warrior, who is backing away as if frightened, despite his harsh warning
and raised scimitar. Suddenly noticing this, Jittney slows his approach and
extends his hands in the traditional Harad greeting of friendship. “Merry, it’s
me! It’s Pip!”

“Who are you?” the warrior demands, raising his sword slightly. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the Evergreen Fields of Lady Yavanna,” Jittney says in flawless
Harad that’s closer to what Sigrid taught Sildan, than it is to what the
warrior had said. And there’s a warm smile in Jittney’s voice. One that, it
seems, calms the warrior some, for he lowers his scimitar just slightly. “The
Evergreen Fields, and I’m Pip. YourPip.”

The warrior reaches up slowly and removes the portion of his head scarf that
covers the lower half of his face. He’s a handsome man, in a craggy, hard-
bitten way, with scars lining his almond-colored face. His dark, dark eyes,
smudged with kohl, are steady on Jittney.

“I . . . I know you,” he says uncertainly, those dark eyes narrowing.
“Your eyes. . . .”

“It’s me, Merry!” Jittney insists excitedly. “Look into my eyes and remember .
. . remember the Party Tree and fireworks, good food and even better friends.
And theGreen Dragon’s ale. . . .”

Jittney sighs and falls silent, while the warrior puts his free hand to his
forehead as if fighting a headache. His face scrunches in frustration for most
of a minute before clearing, that frustration given over to wonder.

“Fireworks, yes . . . in the . . . shape of a dragon. And we set it off,” the
warrior says absently, in perfect Westron, with a northern brogue vaguely
similar to Jittney’s. He’s almost—almost—smiling. It sits strangely on the
harsh planes of his austere face. But Jittney dares to move a few steps closer.
And another few steps. Until he is a mere yard from the warrior, who’s closed
his eyes and is swaying slightly. “And there was a wizard . . . he’d made the
fireworks special for Uncle Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party . . . and he
made us wash dishes for ruining his big finale.”

“Oh, yes. Oh, Merry!” Jittney laughs, but it’s a tear-logged one. He closes the
distance between himself and the warrior, who opens his eyes, the scimitar
falling from his hand. It hits the grass with a muffled thump, and promptly
disappears. Simply fades into transparency, till all Sildan can see is the
grass where it had fallen.

Meanwhile, Jittney has launched himself at the warrior, who catches him up in
an embrace that is both tentative and surprised, as if he’s just been tossed
something so precious, he dares not to hold it too tight, for fear of it
breaking.

Or disappearing on him.

“Oh, Merry,” Jittney keeps saying, hugging the warrior tight, arms and legs
wound around the tall soldier like a spider-monkey. “This last life was so long
and empty without you! Never leave me again!”

“I . . . I won’t,” the warrior says, finally hugging Jittney back as tight as
he, himself, is being hugged. He turns in a slow circle with the smaller man in
his arms. “You’re . . . my best friend . . . my Pip.”

“Yes. Always yours,” Jittney murmurs, laughing again and leaning back to look
at the warrior, who smiles again. This time, it seems less strange on his face.
“Bloodyhell, Merry! You’re a sight!”

The warrior—Merry—laughs, too, low and rumbling. “And so are you, Pip. Still
shorter than me, though,” he replies saucily, that smile turning into a grin.

Jittney cups Merry’s face in his hands as the warrior carefully sets him down,
and searches his dark eyes.

“Shorter, yes, but much cleverer. A person of intelligence, no matter what life
I’m in,” he says finally. Merry’s smile widens and he leans his head down till
his forehead is touching Jittney’s.

“I . . . I love you, Pip. I don’t want us to go another lifetime without me
saying it and you knowing it.”

“I love you, too, Merry! Of course I do! I always have! You’re my best friend!”

“No, Pip . . . I mean I love you. I am in love with you.” Merry searches
Jittney’s eyes, though he must not be able to make out much, from such a close
distance. Jittney leans back, clearly shocked.

“Me? You love . . . me?”

Merry nods once, a pained look crossing his face, as if he expects to be
laughed at or dismissed. “Yes.”

Jittney wipes at his eyes. “Oh, Merry,” he breathes quietly, hiding his face in
the warrior’s chest. Merry simply holds him tightly, stroking Jittney’s tightly
curled hair. Jittney’s shoulders shake as he weeps and Merry looks fairly
alarmed, now.

“Curse my fool tongue—it’ll be alright, Pippin, I promise. I promise. I’m
sorry. I’ll make it alright. Just tell me what to do,” he says in a whispered
rush, and Jittney laughs that tear-logged laugh once more. He finally looks up
at Merry and says:

“Well, for starters, you can kiss me like you mean it, Mr. Brandybuck. I’ve
waited a lot of lifetimes for you to do so, you know.”

Merry blinks. Then blinks again. Then grins, holding Jittney tighter and flush
against him. Jittney’s arms wind around Merry’s neck and he bounces up on his
toes to meet Merry halfway.

The moment their lips touch, a white light begins to emanate from them both,
quickly growing so bright, Sildan must look away. The light intensifies until
even closing his eyes whilst looking away does nothing to mitigate it, and
then—with a sudden clap, the light is gone.

As are, Sildan discovers when he opens his eyes, Jittney and Merry.

He looks around him and sees nothing and no one—except, of course, the Lady
Yavanna, who is smiling quite contentedly.

“What happened to them?” Sildan asks, and She grins.

“They’ve gone on to their next lives, of course. This time, and nearly every
time hereafter, they will be living those lives together.”

Sildan smiles, and in his heart, he wishes Jittney—Pippin—and Merry well in
their next lives.

But then he’s feeling a familiar melancholy. For that very love is what he
thought he’d had with Sigrid. Or he’d hoped to have. But clearly she isn’t the
right person. Not if she’s given up everything to be with Durin VII.

And yet, if not Sigrid, then whom? No one knows him better, nor cares more
about him. No one makes him laugh so hard nor does he commiserate as easily or
empathetically with anyone as he does with Sigrid. Is it so strange, then, that
he’d wanted to marry her?

“My Lady,” Sildan says, meeting Her greeny-gold eyes. She bends a gentle look
upon him that makes him suddenly miss the mother he’s never known. “My Lady, if
I stay here, choose a mortal life, and stay here, will I find the person I’m
meant to love till time and times are done? Will I find my Merry here, in your
Fields?”

Lady Yavanna’s look softens even more. “The one you seek is not in the Fields,
Sildan, but back on Arda.”

Sildan gapes, his hopes sky-rocketing. “Is it . . . is it Sigrid, after all?”

The Lady Yavanna’s smile turns sad. “You know she is not the one, Sildan, and
no amount of wishing will make her the one you seek. In your heart of hearts .
. . you know this.”

Looking down to hide the tears in his eyes, Sildan nods. He knows. “But she
knows me so well. Knows me, and loves me, anyway. And I love her. I
have always loved her.”

“Yes, you have, but you have confused the affections of a beloved sister, for
those of a lover. You are lonely, and fear that you may never be loved. You
fear abandonment—with good reason—and have hitched your wagon to the first star
to shine on you. But always have you known that Sigrid was not the one. And you
have denied this with all of your being. Even now, even with that knowledge
firmly in your mind and heart, you would fight it.” The Lady steps toward him
and puts a hand on his shoulder. Her touch is at once startling and comforting.
It energizes him even as it soothes him.

And without warning, he finds himself sobbing, and seeking the haven of Her
arms.

“Oh, Sildan,” She murmurs, holding him as he weeps. Her arms are as kind and
loving as Aunt Ianthe’s have ever been . . . only multiplied a thousand-fold.
That only makes him sob harder.

“I am alone, my Lady. I have always been alone. Never have I known the love of
my father, and even my own mother did not want me . . . will it always be like
this? Will I always be left out? Abandoned? Forgotten? Passed over?”

“Of course not, my dear!” The Lady laughs, rich and low. “It only seems that
way now! But I promise you . . . it will get better.”

It hurts to hear those words because, after losing Sigrid, and the life he
thought he would have with her, hope hurts. “Will I never be loved? By anyone?”

The Lady leans back to look at him, Her greeny-gold eyes wise and infinitely
kind. “My child, as long as there is life, there is love. As long as there
is hope there is love.”

“But all my hopes have been dashed!”

“Have they?”

At the Lady’s gentle interrogative, Sildan sniffs and wipes his face, thinking
her question over with the focus it deserves.

Sigrid is not his love, true . . . but it is a wide world, filled with people
worthy of love and waiting to give love. Is it not possible that at
least one of them would love him?Could love him?

Is that hope not enough for which to go on living? Even if it hurts more than
he thinks he can bear, in some moments?

Sniffling again, Sildan wipes his nose. “It is a wide world, my Lady. Filled
with so many people. If I wish to find love, where am I to even begin?”

“Why, begin with friendship, of course.” Her dark eyes laugh at him, but not
unkindly. “Even now, you are among friends.”

Sildan blinks. “But I thought—I thought I was not meant for the Fields, yet?”

Another laugh, and She reaches up to caress his cheek. “I mean on Arda, my dear
child. You are among friends who would see you live and thrive.”

“I . . . I don’t understand.” Sildan shivers under Her touch. “Is my body not
lying dead in a field somewhere between the Greenwood and the great road?”

Her smile is amused and tender. “As we speak, your body is in the Halls of the
Elven-King. Who, himself, along with his daughter, Lady Nimiel, tend to your
wounds and attempt to revive you from your death-like slumber.”

Eyes widening, SIldan’s hand comes up to cover his mouth. “I made it to the
Greenwood?”

“To within yards of it, yes. And the elves rescued you from certain death.”

In that moment, Sildan remembers his yearning—almost as old as he is—to seek
out his mother’s kin. To learn about the other half of himself. This same
yearning had given him meaning when he’d thought all meaning fled with Sigrid.

“Is . . . is my mother among them? Is she an elf of the Greenwood?” he asks,
without knowing he means to ask it, and meeting the Lady’s kind, greeny-gold
eyes. She raises one dark eyebrow.

“That is the question of the hour, is it not?”

Gaping once more, Sildan struggles to find words. “What must I do to find out?
To find her?”

“Would you then, continue the quest for your mother? And the quest for the one
who will love you and accept your love in return?”

Sildan swallows, and looks at the Fields around him, tranquil and welcoming . .
. but ultimately not what he wants. At least, not yet. For there are questions
he seeks answers to, and . . . possibly love waiting for him to find it, too.

Plus, when all is said and done, Sildan wants to live—wants his life back. He
does not seek the oblivion of the Fields, or of rebirth.

It is, as Jittney had said, not his time.

He nods, swallowing his fears. “I would, my Lady.”

She grins, wide and winning, and places Her hand over his heart. “Why, then,
all you must do is open your eyes.”

Confused and frowning, Sildan opens his mouth, questions on his lips, but once
more, that white light appears, this time emanating not from Jittney and Merry,
who are long gone, but from Sildan, himself. Rather, from where the Lady’s hand
rests over his heart. In seconds, it’s so bright, he cannot keep his eyes open.
And yet, squinching them shut does little to keep it out.

“My Lady—” he starts to say, reaching up to shield his eyes with his arm.

“Open your eyes, Sildan,” a voice says, and before Sildan can shake his
head no, there’s a great turning over in his chest . . . a thud, slushy and
slow, momentous and portentous.

It hurts quite a bit, and Sildan falls to his knees with a cry.

The thud happens again, like a fist pounding in his chest while simultaneously
clenching and releasing.

The third such thud sees Sildan sprawled on his back in the cool, dew-soaked
grass, clutching at his chest and trying to scream as the thuds continue,
coming faster, now, and harder. Suddenly, his right shoulder hurts, as well as
his chest . . . high on the left side and quite irrespective of the thuds.

And that white light is so bright, now, that Sildan may as well not have
eyelids, for all the good they’re doing. In extremis, his body strung as tight
as a lyre, Sildan arches up off the ground, screaming.

“Sildan,” a deep, rich, somehow familiar voice commands. “Open your eyes!”

Unable to disobey this voice—not merely its tone of command, but the implicit
trust that he feels for its speaker—Sildan opens his eyes—

                                       *


Maethenwil and Prince Malthengon are left to pace and wait mere minutes after
the king has gone into the boy’s sickroom, before the screaming starts.

It is the wild howl of a lonely, wounded animal, high and keening, and upon
hearing it, Maethilwen and Malthengon both draw their weapons and are rushing
the door instantly, the command of their king forgotten in the heat of the
moment.

Maethilwen reaches the door first and kicks it open, daggers drawn. Malthengon
is but half a moment behind her, his sword also drawn. As they enter, the
scream cuts off.

What Maethilwen sees is, for the tenor of that awful yowling, not what she
expects:

The Lady Nimiel is laying on the floor, barely conscious and moving sluggishly,
her platinum hair covering her face. On the bed, sits the king and, laying half
in the king’s lap, is the boy, Sildan, also barely conscious and wan-looking.
His slowly rolling eyes have the shine of a fever about them, but they
are open.

Maethilwen takes this in within a split second, then she’s going to the Lady
Nimiel’s aid, her heart in her throat.

                                       *


“Grandfather—” Malthengon begins, his eyes trying to be everywhere at once.
They go, first, to his fallen mother, who is moaning in Maethilwen’s careful
arms as the other woman gently picks her up and stands.

“I am here, my lady,” she murmurs so tenderly, that Malthengon looks away,
feeling as if he’s eavesdropping on some private moment. Maethilwen carries his
mother past him and out of the room, Lady Nimiel stirring and moaning softly
all the way.

Malthengon’s grandfather, however, sits with the boy in his arms and lap,
staring down at him with a concerned and almost pained frown. There is such an
intensity of feeling in his silver eyes that Malthengon feels that interpreting
such a look would be tantamount to spying.

The boy, himself, is trying to speak, his eyes squinting as he looks up at
Thranduil. He reaches up painstakingly slowly, with his right arm, wincing and
groaning as he does so, but not stopping till his fingers brush Thranduil’s
cheek.

“Y-you . . . you found me. . . .” he croaks out, licking dry, chapped lips, and
smiling a little before his eyes roll backward and he sags in Thranduil’s
embrace. His hand drops back to his side limply and Thranduil’s frown deepens.
He then reaches up to caress the boy’s cheek as if touching the most fragile
bird ever to light upon a branch.

“Yes, Sildan . . . I found you,” Thranduil murmurs somberly, brushing the boy’s
short, fiery hair off his damp forehead. “At last . . . I’ve found you.”

                                      TBC
***** "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 5 *****
Chapter Summary
     Malthengon is mystified by his grandfather's actions. Maethilwen is
     mystified by Nimiel's words. And Sildan . . . wakes up.
Chapter Notes
     Note: *Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
     **Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
See the end of the chapter for more notes
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 sometimesnot 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
Chapter End Notes
     Note: *Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
     **Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
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