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Title: Show Me the Way (excerpt: Chapter 8) (#3525)
Author: Sommer
Chapters: 1

Archive: Tolkien
Category: Lord of the Rings
Description: This story was originally posted at a time when you could not add 'girl falls into Middle-earth' stories to this website. Please see my other listing of "Show Me the Way" for the full, juicy, NC-17 version. Drama! Action! Lust!
Published: 23 Jul 2007
Updated: 23 Jul 2007
Warnings: Erotica, Character death
Type: Romance
Characters: Legolas; Flynn; Ellos


Chapter 1 - Abandoned

CHAPTER 08
ABANDONED

When Flynn awoke, it was late in the morning. Hours before, birds had begun to sing for the violet dawn light, and now the day was fully aroused. It was warm and humid up in the heights of the trees, and smelled thickly of pine. But the ground was the place of activity, for the elves woke with the sun and worked hard for their hunger before the reward of the morning feast.

Sleep gave in to waking and gradually Flynn's mind cleared. She had been left to sleep in peace for quite some time, which seemed rather considerate of the elves; she had expected to be woken with dawn and put to work, probably in the sculleries. This long stretch of sleep was a sufficient deal more than she had been having of late, considering all the recent waking at the crack of dawn for traipsing-of-the-countryside with Ellos. With the thought of the half-Elf, she rolled over with a lazy stretch of limbs and eyes creased shut in a yawn. Flynn brought her hand gently down to the place where Ellos lay, but her hand was greeted with only air and the hard wood of the talan. Her eyes snapped open. He was gone.

Flynn sat up and rushed to lean over the back edge of the platform, but only shrunk back with the realisation that she was still nude. Gathering a spiral of blanket around her, she hastened to the edge once again. The forest was thick despite the light sun, and as far as she could discern, Ellos was nowhere below. Creeps of doubt met her sternly; had he left without so much as a goodbye?

Flynn cursed softly and looked around for her clothes. The effort was fruitless for they were nowhere to be seen, or else tangled up impossibly in the bedding. She fumbled with her pack, tipping its contents out and grabbing at the last spare change of clothes that were passably clean. Not bothering with shoes, she attempted to pull her hair into some incarnation of a ponytail with only mild success.

Rushing clumsily down the rope ladder, Flynn burned her hands as she slipped and grappled her way to the ground, hoping silently that Ellos was still in the vicinity. Puffing and cursing, she set off at a trot through the trees in what she hoped was the right direction. The last thing she needed was to be stranded in a foreign forest – again – without her pack or even her knife. But she sighted activity up ahead. She slowed down as it occurred to her that it look suspicious to rush in frantically seeking Ellos. With a forced air of calm, she strode into the clearing. Elves milled about quietly, tending to weapons, horses, equipment, and the like. Celeborn, Legolas, and Gildaer sat together around the central table. Gildaer noticed Flynn first and smiled his warm grin. She waved and forced a smile, preoccupied with thoughts of Ellos. Nervously her eyes skipped about the glade and in doing so she realised that Gildaer was waving her over, and Legolas and Celeborn had stopped conversing to look up at her. Hoping strongly that they had not seen the darting of her eyes, or the lump in her throat, she swallowed hard and crossed the shining grass quickly.

“Good morning,” she greeted, trying to sound casual, not convinced she had succeeded. The presence of Celeborn unnerved her like nothing else, and she balled her hands into tense fists.

“Good morning to you. I do hope you slept well,” Legolas responded with a smile.

Tensely Flynn replied, “Yes – thank you for allowing me to sleep so late.”

“You have journeyed long, and it is only fair,” Legolas said. “Please, have a seat,” he offered, and Flynn did so tentatively, still awed and intimidated by these fair and composed elves, and not a little struck by Legolas's cool composure in contrast to his light playfulness the night before. Or had she dreamed they had splashed gleefully in the stream? She had been a little drunk, after all...

Legolas and Celeborn sat close together at the far end of the table, conversing in hushed tones. Flynn caught Celeborn's eye and he smiled curtly. He turned to Legolas and resumed speaking hurriedly in his peculiar old Elvish, and Legolas responded in kind. Their conversation was shared with haste, as though they fussed about some common source of concern. In fact, to Flynn it sounded suspiciously like they were gossiping, if elves ever indulged in such a base activity.

Flynn looked at Gildaer in bemusement, who had refrained from joining the discussion. Instead he spoke over their hush of voices and asked, “Would you like something to eat, my lady? We take breakfast much earlier than this hour, but it will not be difficult to account for the eating habits of men.”

“Or women,” she corrected with a smile.

Gildaer raised an eyebrow. “My apologies, my lady.” He grinned then, and Flynn relaxed a little, but still the matter of Ellos was on her mind.

“Well I would not mind something to eat, if it is not too much trouble,” she told him, then added, “But there is something I should like to ask you first.”

Gildaer was already half risen from his seat, but he sat again. “Yes?” he said.

Flynn took a forcedly subtle breath. “I wondered where Ellos might be this morning."

Silence fell. Birds trilled high in the forest. The moment was awkward and heavy, like differing political views at a dinner party – but far worse because it seemed to have fallen from nowhere. Six eyes conversed with each other. ‘You talk.' ‘No, you talk,' they seemed to say, communicating something Flynn was not privy to, and wished to be. Legolas seemed anxious, and Celeborn glared at him, but it appeared as if this head butting competition had come to a horn-locked stalemate, and neither Elf wanted to answer Flynn's query. Why was Ellos a bone of contention? Gildaer looked to Flynn. “Ellos has departed,” he said.

Flynn's heart increased a hundredweight and sunk into the pit of her stomach.

“He left very early this morning, as far as we can gather, and took with him a horse he had arranged for last night.”

At this she frowned. “What do you mean by, ‘as far as you can gather'?”

Gildaer glanced quickly back at Legolas, whose tense countenance offered no support. Alone he went on. “We did not see or hear Ellos leave. He slipped past us at some dark hour of the morning. It seems as if he intended to depart unnoticed.”

Flynn's frown deepened into pained frustration. “He did not even say goodbye to you? He did not tell you what he was doing? Where he was going?” she asked.

Legolas shook his head slowly.

“He did not speak a word,” Gildaer replied.

“That is to say, he did not speak to us,” Legolas added.

Flynn pressed her lips together. She regarded him differently for a moment – defensively. Was he implying that Flynn should know more about Ellos's plans than they did?

“Let me clarify, Flynn – we are not surprised at your friend's actions,” Celeborn finally intoned.

“Not surprised?” she asked, curious. “He leaves in the early morning without a word of thanks, fails to consider anyone else, and you are not surprised?” She added, “And please do not say that he is my friend; I think he is a closer friend to you elves. I have known him but ten days.”

Legolas cocked an eyebrow and shared a knowing look with Celeborn. Every hint of suggestion in Legolas's face annoyed Flynn more. If he had something to say, she wished he would just say it.

“It is typical for Ellos to come and go in this manner,” Gildaer explained. “We have come to expect his behaviour, though it is not condoned.”

“He is not the wisest or most chivalrous person you could have as your travelling companion,” offered Legolas.

Something dawned upon Flynn. “Wait,” she said, shifting a glare between Legolas and Celeborn. “That is what you were talking about together in whispers, is it not?”

The two older elves shared an uneasy look. “We were discussing Ellos's behaviour, yes,” said Legolas.

Celeborn added, “The elves grow tired of those who become separatist; who choose oftentimes to ignore the values and generosity of their kin.”

Flynn's language receptors scrambled over words, hoping she was interpreting correctly, unsure she was.

“But he is largely untouchable,” Legolas added. “Because he is royalty.”

“But so are you, Legolas,” Gildaer protested, “and you do not act as such, and we would certainly confront you if your behaviour displeased us. I do not see why we treat Ellos so differently.”

“It is different, Gildaer, and perhaps always will be. Ellos and myself are entirely dissimilar. He is not approachable about such things. And I am sure he does not feel wholly answerable to our kin when he is, as he says, only half Elf. His loyalty to either race can only stretch so far,” Legolas argued calmly.

In his strangely slow, heavy tone, Celeborn added, "I would question that he should not be purely loyal to the race of Men." When the others at the table only stared at him, he went on, "For I do very much doubt that any Elf blood still runs in the veins of his kin. I feel it so little in him that I do not think him an Elf at all."

Softly, Legolas added, “Nor do I.”

Gildaer leaned in. “Forgive me, but this is not our concern. The lady wished to know what may have happened to Ellos this day."

"No, I would like to know –" Flynn started, but Gildaer pressed on.

"Though I must say," he added, "I am sure that catering to the needs of another person besides himself and travelling slower than he required to adds more concern to his life than that to which he is accustomed."

“He would not normally do for someone what he did for me?” Flynn asked, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“It is unlikely that he would,” Legolas offered.

Flynn's brows rose slightly, but she said nothing. What to make of this? If the elves themselves doubted his heritage even more than she did, then how well did she even know this strange person called Ellos at all? Of course it was kind of him to trouble himself for her, but who on earth was he, and why had he run so hot and cold towards her? Even more pressing a question: why had she let him come so close to her, when she had always suspected the depth of his sincerity? She shivered, remembering the heat in his fiery umber glance, the spark in his touch.

Flynn looked at the elves at the table. It seemed they inferred that something rather unorthodox had played itself out between herself and Ellos. She fiddled with the edge of the table, at a loss for words that would prove her innocence. Glances were exchanged while she was busy avoiding eyes.

"Perhaps I should see about your breakfast," said Gildaer with a fresh smile, rising from his seat again.

Flynn smiled and nodded distractedly, worrying just what the elves knew. Feeling a hand upon hers that brought a brief comfort with it, she glanced up to its owner, Legolas, whose blue-grey eyes regarded her silently. A moment passed. “I do not mean to pry,” he said softly, “But if you asked me my thoughts, I would say that you should not worry about something that may not be worth your trouble.”

Flynn looked away, an unwanted blush burning at her cheeks. A moment later an Elf approached Celeborn and murmured something in his ear. Celeborn rose and excused himself. He followed the Elf from the clearing, his heavy brow creasing. Flynn watched him go, but felt the eyes of the remaining Elf burning on her. She looked back at him. “Well... thank you,” she said.

“For what am I to be thanked, my lady?”

“Your concern.”

“My concern is not out of niceness, but fairness,” Legolas replied, his gaze unwavering. “A lady should not be treated as Ellos has treated you, but sometimes we are shocked by those who are not what they seem. Or what we would like them to be.”

Flynn was suddenly uncomfortable under his eyes. She felt the urge to go, to steal some time for herself, to leave this conversation behind. She moved to get up, not wishing to engage with the Elf any further, compelling though he was.

“Are you going?” he asked.

“I think I need to be alone.”

“No, stay,” Legolas said, rising from his own seat. “I will go. Stay, and let Gildaer tend to your every need.” He hinted at a grin. In a moment he had turned and strolled through the sunny grass, unaware of Flynn's eyes on his back as he vanished into the woods.

Flynn's mind ticked. She could have steeled her heart against Ellos. She would have made her decisions differently. Wouldn't she? Perhaps Legolas was right; perhaps the novelty of Ellos and his vain, deceptive beauty had blinded her. Part of Flynn suggested she was analysing too much – Ellos had never said anything false as far as she could tell, and if she was surprised, it was because she had convinced herself that he was more than what he was; that he was more than temporary, that he might not leave. But he had left, after all. And there was nothing she could do.
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