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Chapter Text

It must have been eons. Eons of waiting. Rotting away in a cave with no one but the earthworms and bats for company.

The bats made good conversation, the worms less so.

Not that it was overly important for her. Moy was just pile of bones after all, sagging against the wall, humming to herself and chatting with generation after generation of bug, bat, and mouse.

Once, she'd spent decades watching a slow drip of water from the ceiling carefully erode away until there grew a noticeable divot in the stone to collect those drippings. It was all for her own amusement, if one could even call it as such.

At first a curse would seem a terrible thing, until she realized the true curse was her own boredom. In life, she was never one for patience. She'd longed for action, excitement, passions. Now all she wanted was a distraction.

Then there was a sound out of place. The sound of something slick against the stones. And she knew it was no mere rat.

Her nonexistent ears were quite skilled at recognizing these subtle differences.

"Why would patrols have not discovered this before?"

A voice?

A voice!

Human? No, these voices spoke in the lilting tongue of elvenkind. Sindarin, perhaps? Completely nonsensical and foreign, no matter how sugar sweet they sounded. She resisted the urge to move, the rattling would give her away and that would not go over well.

"It stinks of rot and vermin. Why would anyone bother?" A second voice, a little harsher than the first but no less melodic.

"It appears to be some sort of abandoned shrine. A temple perhaps?"

They drew closer to where Moy lay, descending the steep and slippery stone steps, and she could not stop her fingers from twitching, clicking together, creating the loudest sound in all of Arda.

"And it sounds like there could be spiders scurrying about. Do you hear it?"

In an instant, she was struck with the strength of a light. Two lights in fact. First was the low flame of a torch, which was blinding enough to one so long held in the dark, second was the unmistakable shining of a soul. The soul's light throbbed and pulsated with more life than anything ever before known in this foul tomb. It radiated and the force of it was stunning to say the least. It had been so long since she'd felt this warmth and power.

The light of it faded to glint, and two elves entered her viewpoint around the corner, examining the walls of the cave as it transitioned from marble to the rough natural walls. They glowed with the light that all elves share, that ethereal glow of immortality and youth. Even to look at an elf was enough to make one feel young and healthy again, in a way.

The first elf was in his prime even by immortal standards. Blue eyes pierced the shadows, and he seemed more fascinated that perturbed to be standing in this ancient place. The second was an inch shorter and his face more sharply angled, his eyes suspicious and uncertain.

The moment Moy was waiting for came when the young one tripped over her outstretched legs. He seemed momentarily alarmed, but to his credit, the flame stoked in his eyes quickly died.

"A skeleton... of an ellon?" He squinted down at Moy, appraising her. She could hardly keep herself from shaking with anticipation. He could see the curse that shrouded her, could he not?

The second elf came up behind him. "It is hard to say, Prince. Ellon, elleth, human, or something even we have no knowledge of. But the bones of the long dead concern me not. If I may be so bold, I say we leave and dare not return."

"Why not?" The prince was indiginant in tone, that much she could tell.

"Evil lurks here. Can you not sense it in the very air? And I find myself not overly fond of dark places underground."

"Very well, Thamil. But first I will speak the rites."

He crouched on his knees, and placed a pale hand on the dusty forehead of her skull, chanting something under his breath in that beautiful language. He produced a key next, the key that had been long out of reach thrown across the floor, and Moy's long since gone heart leapt for joy.

"Perhaps spirits linger for a reason." He took hold of her wrist, unlocking the single chain that bound her to the wall, jumping back when her arm slumped and her wrist detached, clattering across the floor.

They left quickly after that. Elves didn't do well underground.

Once under the cover of darkness again, and certain that they weren't returning, Moy was able to stand again, leaning against the cave wall for support. Her bones were weak and dusty, pulling up clouds of dirt when she moved.

But she could move! Walk, run, dance, jump. All that and more. The feelings of humanity returned with a vengeance, and she wanted nothing more than to run as far away from this hole as possible.

First, she stooped to pick up her stray hand and reattach it, then she followed the walls from the natural to the carvings and cold smoothness of the shrine, following them to the entrance.

The door had been an ornate piece of work in it's day, iron enchanted with mysterious spells. Now it was rusting and hung crookedly on the frame, surrounded by fallen rubble. And beyond that rubble and rock, a narrow hole through which pure sunlight streamed in. The sight of it would have brought tears to her eyes, if she still had eyes.

Laying a hand on the old door, she sighed and pressed her forehead against it in an almost loving gesture. She loved and hated this cave, but would never return.

The sunlight held warmth beyond anything she remembered, and the grass was painfully soft. She paced quietly through the wood beneath ancient trees. In places mud squished beautifully between her toe bones. It was bliss.

She didn't see any trails or discernible markings. She did see what she thought might have been a deer in the far brush, and the air was alive with birdsong. Moy could almost pretend she was a child running through tall heather with no cares and a lot more flesh.

It grew dark quickly and the birdsong changed. The occasional bat flew by and once did she spot a pair of shining yellow eyes watching her from the bushes.

Soon a trail began to make itself known. A thin dirt track, and hardly more. Still, it was a start. Not that she even knew where she was going or what she could be looking for. Freedom was all that mattered in those first few moments, but now the questionings set in. Where would she find herself? Who would approach her like this? How would this precious, precious freedom be spent?

There was a light up ahead, and the growing sounds of voices, not dissimilar from those who'd journeyed into her cave.

With a barely audible squeak, Moy dived into a nearby thornbush, hoping she did not rattle and give herself away to these voice holders.

"Yes, a cave he spoke of. While on a small patrol no less. Some sort of abandoned temple from a past age."

"Relics of the past. Pah, they are of no use to Mirkwood."

Booted feet moved swiftly, and passed right by Moy's eye socket. All she caught of the conversation was what mattered. Mirkwood. Now she at least had an idea of where in Middle Earth she was.

Once the patrol passed, she stood again, brushing away the thorns that clung to her joints. One had even gotten stuck in her eye, and she tilted her head, struggling to shake it out.

That was how the lollygagging elf of the patrol found her, bent over with fingers digging through her skull, moonlight reflecting off her bones like a beacon.

Damn.

She bolted into the trees, thorns forgotten as cries rose up behind her like raging waves to the shoreline.

She scrambled up a tree, hands slipping until she was clinging to a branch with all her might, wathcing below fearfully for a mob of confused and angered guards to swarm upon her.

The branch began to bend and groan under her weight, and she tried to grappled for the trunk, succeeding... sort of. With a loud crack, the branch fell, and her arm followed, still hooked onto it's grooves.

She shuddered, and sure enough, the sound was enough to bring them running. One of them took hold of the skeletal arm with eyes of disgust, then fear as he tossed it far away from himself and slowly looked up. Yet again, Moy was in an awkward position.

She didn't blame the guard (not entirely) for his look of horror and fascination. There she was, a one armed skeleton hugging the trunk of a tree, branches poking through her ribcage, holding her suspended in place.

She didn't think elves could climb so well. In mere moments, the patrol was surrounding her, wrenching her from the protective tree branches, throwing her to the ground.

It didn't hurt to land, much. And she was subject to a ring of arrows pointed at her.

"What manner of monster is this?"

"A spy of men?"

"No human could master magic of this creed."

Moy didn't appreciate being regarded as an object to be discussed while lying defenseless in the dirt, and her jaw flexed anxiously, producing sharp clicking noises.

"Do any of you speak the common tongue?" She mumbled, her voice coming out as a wavering, high pitched whisper.

The expressions shifted, but none seemed to understand. Her voice was disarming. It sounded so very... human.

In the next instant, she was being secured with elvish ropes, and to her humiliation, she was quickly slung over the back of a particularly tall elf like she was no more than a piece of luggage. She made a noise, a note of disgust. She could see, even at this upside down angle, that one of the elves carried her arm, holding it at a distance like it might bite him.

Every step jolted, and it was pretty clear that she could still feel pain like a mortal, though if someone was to thrust a sword through her chest, they would find it a tad difficult to actually make an impact.

She understood their fears, but this was ridiculous and simply degrading. She could hardly attack them and they didn't even attempt to communicate!

After a fashion, they reached a wider path, probably the main road. Even though she saw everything upside down, she could see the elves that lived there congregating, and the beauty of the woods, no matter how ancient, gnarled, and shadowy they may be.

Mirkwood.

And that was how Moy found herself tossed unceremoniously into a cell much like her last prison, still hogtied with magic rope.

Chapter Text

Moy was lying there, within that dormant state that was as near to sleep as she could get when booted feet made a presence known.

"Did they find someone who speaks the common tongue yet?" she whined to herself. A whole day it must have been since she'd been dumped in here. Traded one prison for another and the only differences was that elves, she concluded, were terrible conversationalists. Wasn't very aspect of elven life supposed to be perfect? Including the prisons? No, they were miserable as ever can be expected.

"Has it stirred to attack?" one voice spoke up.

"No. It speaks in common tongue and hardly stirs."

"Shall I send for one who speaks the tongue of men?"

"Indeed. And should it be a trick, be on your guard. These minions of evil have many cunning ways about them."

Moy groaned in frustration, rolling as best as she could onto her front. The guards started in surprise, hands on their weapons.

"Idiots," she muttered.

All Legolas had heard in the past day was hushed fearful whispers. It was a growing concern of his. In the halls he caught snatches of talk, mentions of dark monsters and the evils growing throughout the land. And, alarmingly, talk of such an evil within Mirkwood's own borders. Worse than the plague of spiders.

"The guards say it whispers evil things in the night, and utters the black speech!" A chambermaid intoned to a pair of scullery girls, gravely serious.

They stopped most abruptly soon as he grew closer though, and he could have sworn one of them swooned a little. The other was blinking rapidly as if she thought she was batting her eyes charmingly.

Typical, though he cared little for them and more for an answer. What was this creature held in Mirkwood? He would investigate immediately, brushing aside the girls without so much as a second glance. Hushed mumbles followed him, and his ears caught their flirtatious cooing.

Approaching the stairwell to the dungeons, he addressed the nearest guard. "I will see this creature captured in the night."

"My prince, your fath-"

Legolas pushed through anyways. He would see, he would! He would put the rumors to rest in his mind.

The guards were stationed as per usual, and gave their courtesies as he passed, also as per usual. What wasn't usual was the frustrated vocalisations coming from down at the end of the line of cells. It sounded like... the common tongue?

"Well met, my prince," the guard who stood at the end bowed. "We had sent Hathinirel looking for someone to translate the creature's words, but there are few who speak Westron in Mirkwood I fear. "

Legolas simply waved a hand. "I came of my own accord, and I intend to see for myself what has caused all the stir in the night." He peered around the guard and his blue eyes widened, first in surprise, then confusion.

"Is that what it appears to be? A mere bundle of bones?" To his alarm, at that very moment the 'bundle of bones' rocked slightly where it lay trussed up and gave a loud moan.

"Why is everyone here so daft?" it complained. "Can no one tell a friend from foe these days?

He might have been put off ordinarily at the creature's words, but now he was more curious than anything.

"Leave us," Legolas ordered with hardly a head tilt of acknowledgement to the guards perplexed look, as he stared at the skeleton. He left in a hurry.

"What sort of dark magic could create a being such as you?" he asked slowly in common tongue.

The skeleton began to rock back and forth even more furiously, worming itself around to better see him through the bars.

"I wasn't created by nobody, elf," it declared as proudly as it could while in such a degrading situation. "I'm just relieved one of these imbeciles found a translator."

It was then that Legolas drew the connections within his mind and he stepped closer to the bars, eyes narrowing. "You were the one chained to the wall in that old temple, were you not? Or perhaps you are a dark spirit that has latched onto a physical form?" Possibilities ran through his mind, and he suddenly understood Thamil's desires to leave the place so soon after it's discovery.

The skeleton rattled furiously within the ropes. "Oh, that was you! Great, now can you lend me a hand again? You freed me from one prison, how about getting me out of this one?

He crossed his arms, leaning casually against the cell door. "I would not blindly trust a creature such as you. You are a dark being are you not, a minion of the dark lord of ages past? He whose strength rises again in the east?"

"Well, I don't trust you either, elf," it muttered bitterly. "I'm no dark minion and i'm sure as a soothsayer that Sauron is long dead. Or you wouldn't still have your pretty forests and rivers. Just a lot more fire. Like, a lot, lot more fire. And orcs. And bugs the size of-"

"I've heard enough," Legolas interrupted. This creature was beginning to wear his patience thin. “What are you? What sort of evils do you bring with you into the heart of Mirkwood?"

It tried to scoot itself closer to the door, and it's skull swiveled around til eye sockets glared at him. They were empty, yet he could feel the radiating force of its stare, and a heaping measure of resentment.

"I didn't bring any evil, elf!" it spat, skull rocking back and forth in agitation. "It's not my fault i'm me, and all I want is for someone to relieve me of these valar forsaken ropes!"

Legolas sighed. This interrogation, if one could even call it that, was going nowhere, yet he sensed no taint of evil, nor any noticeable dark magics. Just anger. The skeleton was unarmed, and hardly a danger. So he relented.

He placed a hand on the lock, murmured a quick spell, and the lock clicked open. He entered and kneeled by it who was still angrily rocking back and forth, and it calmed when he began to untie the ropes.

"Thanks..." it mumbled, sitting up and stretching its arms above it's head. "Seems you're either about to make me eat my words, or you're not entirely unreasonable."

Legolas almost cracked a smile then, but his momentary amusement was overshadowed by curiosity, confusion, and doubt.

"I cannot release you, creature, you must understand this. I will speak to the king on this matter, and your fate will be determined." He locked the gate once again, swiftly making his way out of the dungeons. He had met his goal, but was no less uncertain than when he'd set out for answers.

As for Moy, she watched him depart with curiosity and lessened frustration. He seemed a little less of a prick than she expected, and was almost cordial. Elves, she snorted. So perfect, even during interrogations of living skeletons such as she. Not something you'd see everyday. She rotated her head back to normal, and played with her fingers. Now all she had to do was wait. She had no idea how long, but hopefully the elf would get her out, and soon. She couldn't stand the thought of any more dark spaces or prison cells. She was a free spirit after all, and the world was calling to her, singing to her after so long held in seemingly eternal chains. She was never a patient woman, not in life or this parody of such she was living.

One day, she would be free forever.

Chapter Text

Moy was a lot more comfortable, to the elven translators credit, but this was still aggravating her. The guard who’d taken over watch sensed that and was noticeably tense.

She was an it to these stuffy immortals, a creature as that elf called her. And evil to boot. She could understand a misconception. She was unusual after all, and probably looked at least a little terrifying. She wouldn't know, having not seen herself since she’d been a lot more… fleshy.

When she was little she was terrified of the dark and of dead things. She’d spotted a rat in the cellar once while she tried to brave the darkness and squealed, running back to the safety of the light. Funny now wasn't it that she’d disposed of both those fears. She missed having fears, if only because she missed having someone there to put those fears to rest, to take her in loving arms and assure her that everything was, and always would be, safe and right.

She even longed for her bats and bugs and ceiling drips.

“I’ve spoken to the king,” a voice announced, cutting into Moy’s reverie. She recognized the shining of his fea.

“You’ll have your audience, a chance to prove you mean no harm and bear no evil intentions.”

She tilted her head towards him and regarded him coolly. He looked young, even younger than some of the other elves. Soft even, except for his eyes. There were worlds hidden in an elf's eyes, a thousand histories and lifetimes that came after a thousand years of life.

“What happens if i’m set free? You’ll throw me onto a riverbank and wish me good luck? Not likely. I’ll be shunted along to become someone else’s problem at best, and at worst…”

“You would doubt the word of King Thranduil?” The elf asked, eyebrow raised.

“Yes, of course. Immortality gives you plenty of time to practice being a liar. And plenty of time to give up on decency.”

The elf gripped the bars of the cell very tightly. “You know not of what you speak, creature!”

Her jaw clacked with annoyance. “Enough of this ‘creature’ nonsense. My name is Moy, and I too consider myself a being with thoughts and feelings.”

“You never saw fit to announce your name,” the elf deadpanned, his grip slacking as his sudden bout of righteous anger faded. “Did you expect us elves to read minds?”

“Announce?” she scoffed and stood, doing her best attempt at a curtsey. “At your service, sir elf. I was not after all chased down by a pack of buffoons and forcibly dragged here. I was formally invited to your prisons like a proper lady.”

His expression shifted and his eyes roved across her with an unexpected intensity. After a moment, he glanced back up with a look of confusion. “Forgive me, I did not realize you were, ah, female.”

“What, didya think I was? A man or an it? My voice should have given it away. Maybe this eternal life has gone to your head and made you all soft?” It was surprising he didn’t notice that her voice that of a woman, no matter how hoarse it was from disuse.

“I meant no offense,” he said tepidly.

“Well, congratulations. You failed.” She sat back down, wrapping her arms around her knees, determinedly not looking at him. “Now if you have nothing else to say, kindly piss off. I need more time to wallow.”

“You would dare speak to me in such a way?” he asked with a tone as cold and brittle as steel. “You know not who I am, do you?”

“Mm, no,” she drawled. “Am I supposed to? I don’t care, you’re an elf who speaks the common tongue, that’s all.” She waved a hand dismissively.

“I am Legolas Thranduilion of Mirkwood,” he declared. “Son of King Thranduil, prince and heir.” He was growing more and more disgruntled with her and her words. She secretly took joy in pushing this supposed paragon of elfly goodness to his limits, turning perfection into pettiness. He was a prince though, it seemed, and that gave her pause. Of course they would send no mere translator, but one who could coax information out of her like drawing poison from a wound.

She laughed, a shallow sound with no true mirth. “Prince, swineherd, it makes no difference, elf. Now I appreciate you coming down here just to have a nice chat, but spare me your cordialities and titles. Now shoo.” She made shooing motions and turned so that her back was to him. She could hear him storming off from miles away and chuckled to herself.

How dare it? How dare she? Legolas scowled to himself as he replayed her words over and over in his mind. The impudent creature; it seemed to take pleasure in getting under his skin, like some sort of sickness that clung to him for hours afterwards. He still did not think her evil, but arrogant and presumptuous. Utterly baffling too. Moy, she was called. Not like any name he’d heard from man, elf, or even dwarf. He wanted nothing more than to release her into the realm of men to never be heard from again, and maybe then he would never again face a creature half as irritating.

He floated through the halls in thought, and his mood hung above his head like an unpleasant cloud.

“Legolas.” Only two would address him as such. He stopped and turned to see Thamil behind him.

“I would have words with you,” he said, adding, “If I may?”

“Of course.” Legolas nodded stiffly, leading him up to his quarters and personal study.

Thamil stood with ramrod posture at the door, declining an offered seat. Legolas simply sat at his own desk, hands clasped and elbows resting on his knees. “What is it you would discuss, Thamil?” He had a feeling he knew what the subject would be, and hoped it might be otherwise. His annoyance still hung foul in the air.

“You spoke to the creature, yes?”

Moy. It was bound to turn to a discussion of her, and Thamil was the only other one who knew of the old temple. This was certain to happen.

“Yes. And I gained nothing from it.” He could not keep his feelings from infecting his tone.

Thamil’s mouth twitched. “Am I to take it then that it is responsible for your anger? As I had deduced, the skeleton is of human origin. A human or something resembling such seems hardly to bother the likes of you.”

“Is that what you wished to speak of, then? That it’s a human skeleton?” He glanced at the floor. Thamil’s eyebrows rose.

“Yes, and you are deflecting from my question? What could it have said to have incensed you so?

Legolas continued to stare at the floor, looking like he wished to punish the floorboards. “Nothing I care to repeat. Just know that she is the most vexing, arrogant, intolerable creature I have ever spoken to.”

“Such strong words, mellon nin. She?”

Legolas stood abruptly and glanced out the window overlooking the closest of the Mirkwood trees. “It is named Moy and refers to itself as a female. I sensed no evil from her, but…”

A hand was on his shoulder. “You have doubts. In these times of growing evil, I fear we must all have doubts. The dark lord’s minions may hide in the most unlikely of places.” He let go of Legolas's shoulder, and followed his eyes to the trees and borders beyond. “Trust. And if I may, I should like to speak to her myself.”

Legolas turned back to him looking slightly perplexed. “She doesn't speak Sindarin.”

“You’ll just have to translate for me then.” He gave a tiny smirk. “If it pleases you, of course.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Very well.”

There would be yet another encounter with Moy and there would be two days more until Thranduil saw her and passed judgement. This was going to be a long two days.

Chapter Text

It was not long before Legolas found himself leading Thamil down to where Moy was held, praying to the Valar that his friend could keep calm better than himself. He wondered if he might be able to strangle the skeleton should things grow... out of hand. How would that even work?

Thamil was almost cheerful, and that cheer was enviable. He reached the end cell on the left and peered into its darkness curiously, Legolas coming up behind him.

She seemed to grin if that was possible, as she leaned against the far wall. "Oh, you brought friends. Great, what's your game this time, elf?"

One sentence and already he was regretting letting Thamil rope him into this yet again.

"You may not recognize Thamil, but he too was there in the temple that day."

She tilted her head at him. She crossed her arms and her teeth rattled as she laughed. It was an unnerving sound and set him on edge. "Ah, of course. I recognize his fea now. Silly me."

Thamil was staring at Moy with a strange mix of emotions filtering across the face, subtle yet apparent. Confusion, curiosity, wonder, and a little uncertainty. "What does it, she say?"

"That she recognized your fea somehow from that day in the temple."

"Fascinating. The magic it must have taken to animate her is extraordinary."

Legolas shrugged. "I suppose, although it begs the question; why?"

Thamil was hardly listening. "If we could study this technique, perhaps replicate it, imagine the possibilities. We could-"

"Oi, elfy." Moy drew both their attentions as she waved her arm at them. "Will you quit that? I'm right here you know, and i'm neither deaf nor blind."

"Despite having no eyes or ears?"

Moy covered where her ears might be with her hands, glowering at him. "I can't explain how this works, I just can. Now proceed to talk about me in Sindarin while I sit here like a lifeless chair in the corner."

Legolas glared right back at her, then repeated what she first said to Thamil.

"No eyes, but still with sight? I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“No one does, not even her.” Legolas sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Speaking in common, he asked, “Do you understand anything about what you are in the slightest?”

“Nope,” Moy said popping the ‘p.’ She was preoccupied with flexing her fingers, cracking the knuckles with obnoxiously loud snaps.

“You cannot expect us to even dream of trusting you or releasing you if you will not tell us a single thing,” Legolas said stonily. He moved away from the cell, gesturing for Thamil to follow.

“Leaving so soon?” he asked the prince lightly.

“I find that I cannot stomach this a moment longer. I don’t intend to return.” There was a definite finality in his tone, and so the two elves departed.

“I hardly had the chance to speak to her,” Thamil commented with just a hint of wistfulness.

Under his breath, the prince muttered something about getting him a common dictionary. Thamil just smirked, taking great delight in seeing his feathers ruffled.

Moy found it disturbing that she could no longer remember Pa’s face. She had a vague idea of the square outline of his jaw, the soft creases of his age, the scent of horses and home. She was in a dream, and ran to him. He was always out of reach, and behind him stood everyone else. All those she loved with their details rubbed away until there was nothing left to speak of but an image and an idea, a memory and a sweetness long since soured.

She reached to grab the hem of Mama’s sleeve. As she lifted her hand, the figures shook and wavered and she screamed and screamed and-

She was in the cell. She rubbed her eyes, the most natural movement in the world, only to find empty sockets again. And a certain wetness of tears she could improbably shed. The salt was quick to dry and itch. She scratched absentmindedly, glazedly gazing at the stone bricks in the wall.

Those bricks were her only companions, and she’d grown sick of them. To the void with them, elves, men, wizards, chains, all of them!

A scuffle of feet and the glimmer of a fea announced the elf’s arrival. Not the prince, the other elf. He carried in his arms an enormous book, looking extremely proud of himself for some reason.

“I return.”

Yes, she was aware of that… She regarded him boredly.

“Bring common of book. To... speech.” He squinted a tiny bit and waited for a reaction, good or bad. Moy perked up, amused by his incredibly broken common. At least someone other than boy-prince was attempting to communicate.

“Hello. What was your name again?”

He rifled through the book for a moment. “I am Thamil. Forgive, no scholar am.” He turned a few more pages. “Guard shield.”

The conversation that followed was more interesting than anything else so far, apart from annoying the prince of course. Thamil’s common was utter rubbish, but he took to his book eagerly and Moy spoke slowly and sparsely. He was a palace guard, there was garbled bit about… melons? And a few things related to life in Mirkwood.

Moy refused point blank to answer any questions regarding herself, and despite his obvious burning curiosity, he soon realized that she would not indulge him. Not in the slightest.

“Was good talk. Will see Thranduil soon.” He got up from where he’d sat himself on the floor, dusted off his essentially immaculate pants, and bustled off to Eru knows where.

She pieced together that he was going to speak to Thranduil on her behalf. That was the king, right? King, emperor, lord of darkness, whatever he was, he was her key to freedom now.

Thamil bowed respectfully before Thranduil.

“You would vouch for the creature in the dungeons, then?” The king asked, drumming his fingers across the arm of his throne.

Thamil nodded and said, “She holds no evil, sire. We have spoken and I cannot speak to any malicious intent. And forgive my forwardness, but Prince Legolas has said the same.”

Thranduil’s face remained perfect and passive but he leaned forward ever so subtly, his eyes brewing with skepticism. “Has it revealed any pertinent information, either on itself or it’s creator?”

“No, sire.” Thamil lowered his head. “She refuses to speak on those matters.”

Thranduil leaned back again, waving a hand dismissively. “I will have the audience upon the morrow. I will be the judge of this creature’s use, and if I find that my guards have brought a spy of Sauron into our midst, there will be severer consequences than you can possibly imagine.” His voice brokered no argument, and Thamil was quick to exit, relaxing as soon as he was outside the sphere of the King’s intimidating air. The king always gave the impression of calm but beneath that veil lie a predatory gaze and a ruthlessness one could only dream to acquire in his position.

If any creature in Middle Earth was going to push through that layer of terrifying calm, it would be the skeleton woman. In Thamil’s mind, she seemed to have a knack for annoying certain elvish royals so far that boded ill.

Chapter Text

Sometimes in the dark she could still feel the roving hands, and in the silence she could hear the voices that still echoed hauntingly after all this time.

It was hard to believe or imagine that once her life held promise. Not a lot to be certain, she’d always been too tall, wispy, and plain, but there was a future that glinted like some deceptive temptress just beyond the horizon. It just wasn’t meant to be that way, she supposed, resting her head between her knees.

It was also hard to believe that she’d been barely on the cusp of womanhood when she and those other simple folks disappeared into the west. Not by choice, and sure as the Valar are callous and cruel, she fought. So did the rest of those buxom girls and reedy boys with nothing but pitchforks in hand. They fought and defied best as they could.

Orcs aren’t known for their kindness or lack of ferocity. They’d played their games as they were wont to do, ruining those humans one by one. Purity defiled, spirits (and limbs) broken. All for the glory of Mordor. They became experiments of the dark lord and his twisted pursuits.

She couldn't stop herself from thinking of darker times, she hated thinking of the days when she’d been nothing but a mess of an experiment, something she hardly understood. They wanted soldiers, and humans are easily swayed or otherwise bent to the will of evil. Humans are as malleable as riverbed clay and have a resilience most other races of Middle Earth simply lack.

Of all the things stripped of her humanity, the evils forgot the only thing she didn’t want; tears. She could sob and bemoan her fate all she wanted if she was so inclined. And she did, until she realized how fruitless it was. A waste.

The guards came again, just as deaf to her tongue as ever. She could spit curses and rattle with fury but they just grabbed her by the forearms, tying ropes around her wrists. They were so paranoid that she might run, weren’t they? It would be incredibly and utterly foolish. It didn’t mean that she wouldn’t wriggle and struggle so they might release her. Nope. They had grips of iron.

She was dragged up to Thranduil’s pedestal throne like a wild horse that bucked and reared and dragged it’s hooves. He might have found it entertaining had this creature not been so… strange.

The people of his court were clustered around the edges of the great hall at a safe distance; anticipating tenseness and fear laced the air. Whispers and hisses of accusation flew by. When the skeleton was brought in, there was a recoil and many cries of alarm.

“Such evil in our land!”

“A servant of Mordor?”

“Why would they bring this into our midst?”

It was shoved to the floor at Thranduil’s feet onto it’s ribcage and thrashed and kicked at one of the men who held it by the forearm.

“Release it. It will not run,” he drawled. They did as he commanded and backed up a respectable amount, but untied the ropes so that she might move freely.

The skeleton raised it’s head and if it could even be considered possible, it was sending him a glare through those soulless sockets. Perhaps not quite soulless, he speculated as he stared back. There was a definite shining of intelligence and anger that flared within the depths.

“For the last time, i’m not an it!” It declared crossly. It’s voice was jarringly feminine, and might have been called sweet if not for the vehemence of the speaker.

A moment passed in which they held each other’s gaze, silent. Even the crowd’s mutterings had dulled to a faint buzz.

“Why would one bearing the appearance of an evil being journey to Mirkwood?” Thranduil asked coldly. He noted the almost indignant tilt of her head and how she seemed to shake in his presence.

“I was in a cave, then I emerged and I was here. I didn't decide to just visit you lot. If this is how you treat all your unwanted arrivals, I have to say you're even worse than I thought.”

Her boldness would curry her no favors, and the king’s amusement vanished. He leaned back in his throne and pursed his lips.

“A cave? I would think you’d be a better liar than that.” His tone remained cold but there was a hint of condescension to it, a smugness that suggested he thought her daft.

”I am not a liar,” she protested hotly. “Ask your son, prince whatever his name is.”

Thranduil nearly scoffed at her outburst, but looked around and saw his son was missing entirely from the room. There was a murmuring to his right as one of the guards stepped out towards him. It was the same one who’d spoken on her behalf not more than a day ago.

“She speaks true, Sire,” Thamil blurted. “Twas I and the prince who discovered the cave, hidden within trees and long buried.”

“I would ask how you came to find this cave, but it matters not,” the king remarked blithely. “Let us examine the present case.”

He exuded grace and his movements were elegantly snakelike as he circled Moy with a piercing eye. He took ahold of her bony jaw and tilted it upright, smirking.

“Don’t touch me!” Moy hissed, batting his hand away and twisting from his grip.

“Hmm, spirited. You’ve a spark within you.”

“I don’t care what i’ve got, just keep your distance elfking! You and your freakish eyebrows,” she snarled at him.

Thranduil stepped back and with a wave of his hand, commanded, ”Send everyone from the room. Except for you, Legolas. And your guard companion.” He directed his gaze at his son who’d only just entered the throne hall.

“This creature is no spy, she hasn’t the temperament or an evil way about her.” His eyes narrowed as he continued, “As she was your discovery or so i’m told, she is your responsibility. Do as you wish, so long as she is sent from my sight.”

“I’m not a toy to be given away and played with, you imbecile!” Moy shouted, and in her anger she lost all little rationale left. She grabbed her bony hand and threw it at the king. It hit him in the chest and clattered to the floor.

She turned to run down the throne’s steps, as far away from that elf as she could get.

A hand was on her shoulder blade before she could get more than a few feet, guiding her away. She did not look at the prince, but kept her eye sockets to the ground.

“You would continue to speak rashly until all the elvenkind of Mirkwood despised you.”

She said nothing.

“Angering the king was an ill decision.”

Moy kept her quiet another moment, unsure where he was leading her before she spoke, “I hate this place more than any other. How can you live trapped in a tomb with him for company? And for that matter, where will I be trapped next? The dungeons, a torture room, a broom closet?”

She glanced up and saw a wide hallway with windows. The sun that shone through the glass bathed the place in yellow light.

“As incorrigible a being as you are, I would not place you in a broom closet.” He sounded offended, a cheering thought.

She was steered into a room, and the sight of a real bed was enough to nearly bring tears to her eyes.

“Is this some sort of trick? Tis an ill jest you play, prince.” She whirled around and glared at him accusingly.

“No, it is no trick, Moy.” His eyes seemed tired, she noted. “You have been judged and found innocent. I would not keep you here in the place you hate most in the world. Nor would I throw you into a cell or a closet. I would offer a choice.”

“Why the sudden change of heart, prince?” she asked crossly.

“I trust my father.” He spoke simply and there was no lie in his pretty elven eyes. “You will find all common necessities here, though I doubt how many comforts you might require being as you are, and in the morn you may leave Mirkwood’s borders.”

He was gone in a blink, leaving a confused skeleton lying in her back on the softer-than-a-dream mattress, rubbing her hand over the stump of her handless wrist.

Chapter Text

A young handmaid entered the guest room unknowing. She looked to the bed and screamed, disappearing as fast as she’d come.

It wasn’t the best wake up call, and Moy grunted in frustration, her face planted in the soft covers.

She bolted up, glancing back and forth in disbelief. She had a room all to herself. At least for now. She might as well enjoy it and have a look around.

She glided to the bay window where through dawn’s reddish light streamed. She clambered onto the window seat and looked down upon a small courtyard overgrown with vines and brush. She could see guards the size of ants below and a river that ran into the dark trees. It was a nice view to be certain but not the most intriguing.

A small door led to a washroom with an enormous claw footed tub and a wall lined with soaps. Oh, she was definitely going to make use of that, she thought gleefully. And it looked like there were pipes so no one would need to carry up a dozen buckets of water at a time.

No more terrified-out-of-their-wits handmaidens, she thought sourly.

Something else that caught her eye off to the side was a massive vanity and a full length mirror. The thought occurred that she’d never seen what she looked like now or why she scared everyone out of their wits. She was just bones after all, and that didn’t sound quite horrifying.

She stepped onto the frame and if she could frown or bite her lips, she would have.

Her body was filthy for starters, coated in dust and dirt of the ages. She looked so unnatural, utterly out of place. Her eye sockets were so big and cold. There was a funny hole where her nose should be. Worst of all was a thin but distinct crack she hadn’t noticed in her skull that ran from near the corner of her eye around the crown of her head.

That was from an orc’s club, but she never realized how extensive the damage was.

She needed that bath right then like a human needed air to breathe.

That was how Legolas found her, sunk to her chin in a bath overflowing with bubbles and smelling of flowery soaps.

Thranduil picked up Moy’s hand and examined it, turning it over in his palms before tossing it aside with a sneer.

“You,” he snapped his fingers at Thamil. “Return it to her or dispose of it.”

The elf guard bowed and retreated with the hand in hand, unsure where Legolas had taken Moy. He chose to instead return it to the prince’s chambers where Legolas sat at his desk and brooded.

He slapped the offending thing onto the desk in front of him.

“She’ll be needing this,” he said.

“Why am I the one put to this task? Could Adar have not simply sent her out with a patrol?”

Thamil was amused as ever by Legolas, but didn’t pretend to understand Thranduil’s decision either. “Perhaps he thinks it humorous, or simply couldn’t be bothered? Or he wishes to entrust the important task of dealing with such a strange guest to his son? You are rather important, or I should remind you?”

“I suppose,” Legolas said. “It would make sense…” There was a pause and Legolas stood, making his way to his bedchamber. He glanced out the window at the fading light.

“What have you arranged this eve until you escort her out?” Thamil asked, hand clasped behind his back as he too cast his eyes out the window. “No dungeons, I presume?”

“One of the guest bedrooms. I could think of no other place and she thought I meant to lock her in a broom closet.”

Thamil snorted derisively. “Of course. I will take my leave, see that her hand is returned to her.” His face was passive but for the humor in his eyes and the tilt of his brow.

Legolas heard the scream of a handmaid down the hallway as opposed to spring birds upon his wakening. The source was not hard to guess.

Throwing on his clothes, he snatched up the hand on his desk and briskly made his way to the guest hall.

The door was ajar and he could hear nothing, so he entered.

“Moy?” his voice echoed slightly, and his grip around the hand tightened.

“In here,” a quiet voice called from behind the second door.

He walked in to find her languishing in the bath and quickly stepped back, averting his eyes.

“Oh, quit being such a child. You’re not gonna see nothing,” she snapped.

Right… Legolas willed away the faint blush on his cheeks and took in the sight of the overflowing bubble bath.

“You know, I may hate you elves but you sure know how to bathe in style.” She’d gone from irritated to cheerfully blase a matter of seconds.

Her gaze flickered to his hand, and hers.

“Thanks for bringing that back. The room is nice too. Toss it here.”

He passed the hand to her and she snapped it hack into place, dunking it in the water and bringing up a handful of bubbles. She flexed the joints.

“I was worried the king would throw it away or feed it to a dog or something.” She laughed to herself. When she did so her teeth clicked lightly. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound by any means, and this creature was obviously elated compared to how she’d seemed to sulk in the dungeons.

“Are you just going to stand there until I’m done?” She asked him, causing him avert his eyes again and to take a few steps back into the main bedchamber.

It was only polite to have checked up on her, a courtesy seeing as she was his charge. The screaming maids would be blessedly short lived, so long as they were away before noontime, and he would be rid of Moy.

As he sat on the bed, noting that it was still made up despite the obvious indent of a body, he reflected that he did not hate Moy as he thought he might have. She was irritating, true. She seemed to say whatever came to mind regardless of consequences, but few elves would be bold enough to speak to his adar out of turn, nevermind insulting him and attempting to strike him, albeit in an unusual way.

There was a faint splashing and Moy returned a moment later with a towel draped around her shoulders like a cape.

“You’re still here, huh?” She mused aloud. “I guess I shouldn't have expected less. The sooner we go the better.”

“Quite,” he said stiffly.

She moved to the intricately carved wardrobe in the corner and threw the doors open, poking her head around.

“There’s a lot of fancy elf things here. Why do you need to wear something pretty every day of your lives?” She started rummaging through the clothes hung there, mumbling quiet, colloquial things to herself.

“It’s simply the style I imagine,” Legolas said, slightly baffled. He stood and retreated from Moy who seemed intent on whatever she wanted and was no longer paying him any heed.

He returned to his chambers, braided his hair back, attached his sword belt and quiver, securing them tightly, and prepared himself to depart.

He came back for Moy and was met again with a slight shock.

She’d taken a dress from the wardrobe, homespun dyed a deep green and it hung loosely about her frame. A sash was wrapped around the middle giving a slight shape. Around her shoulders hung an old cloak. It was a deceptive look and for a moment, forgiving what he knew, she looked almost human.

She twirled the skirt, and he could swear that she was grinning at him. “I missed a lot of things while I was underground. Especially clothes.” You could hear the longing in her voice, and she flipped the hood of the cloak up, pulling it down just enough that only her lower jaw was easily seen in the shadow of it.

“It is a good disguise,” Legolas had to admit. “You will need it once we reach the border.”

I’d prefer we not send everyone who passes in Middle Earth screaming. Now come on, time is wasting!” She was bouncing from foot to foot, impatiently agitated. She needed to get out into the sun or she’d truly be mad and dangerous.

Legolas hesitantly linked arms with Moy, feeling the obvious wrongness of her hard bones where soft flesh should have been. She was ever an anomaly it would seem.

Chapter Text

Legolas knew the twisting halls of Mirkwood intimately but Moy’s head spun as they moved further down into the caverns and towards wherever they were heading. There were no more windows here. These caverns were so different from what she was used to, warm and well lit with a homely scent that carried through the air.

“You’ll need something with which to defend yourself,” the prince said. “Can you shoot a bow, or wield a sword?”

“How about a rusty hatchet or a stick?” Moy asked dryly. “Otherwise, no. If you plan to arm me, I’ll have you know that i’m utter rubbish.”

She could have sworn she saw him roll his eyes, the smug bastard.

“I would have thought you’d be some kind of warrior or at least hold some fighting skill.”

He’s so condescending, Moy noted. Damn elves...

“In case you haven’t noticed, i’m a little bit lacking as far as muscles go,” Moy grumbled, tugging her hood further down over her face as they passed an elf in the corridor. “Besides, a sword or an arrow is just as likely to bounce as it is to go through my ribs and out the other side. I should test that, now that I think about it…” 

The elf prince seemed to stumble for a moment but his movements were so fluid that he managed to recover in a split second, making Moy wonder if she was just imagining things.

“You’re saying you’re invulnerable to weapons?” His tone was neutral but there was a hint of something else, indistinguishable to her ears.

“I dunno? Maybe? I haven’t tried getting myself killed if that’s what you’re wondering.”

The pair fell into an uneasy silence.

The armory was mercifully empty. The lamps were burning low and their meager flames reflected eerily in the blades that carefully lined the wall. Legolas paused for a moment before selecting a particular one and it’s sheath. “This will do for now.”

He held it out to Moy who stared at it like she’d never seen a sword in her life.

“You sure about this?” she asked. “Just a day ago I was kind of the sworn enemy of the kingdom. Now you’re entrusting me with a weapon?”

“If it is as you say and you cannot fight, you’ll only be a danger to yourself. I am a grown elf and I can fend off a single untrained whelp.” Yes, he was very smug and it irked Moy.

She pulled off her hood and stepped towards him, getting her face uncomfortably close to his. To his credit, he didn’t back away or turn his gaze. She stared at him for a solid minute silently. She reached out and flicked his nose.

“I don’t like your tone, elf. Stay humble.”

He made a startled noise and said something in elvish that was probably a foul curse word.

“Besides,” she added with a shrug. “I’ve no doubt you think you’re above me in some way or another, but i’ve seen some shit in my day and I don’t take kindly to being underestimated.”

Legolas kept his composure well, but inwardly he was fuming. The sooner she got to the borders of Mirkwood the better in his mind. His nose still stung faintly even an hour later as they stood at the gates.

Three guards and himself were to accompany, or rather escort her away. Thamil was one of them and the tension did not fall unnoticed.

“Do not speak of it, mellon nin,” Legolas murmured in elvish as Thamil came to stand at his side.

“I wouldn't dream of it, my prince.” He glanced at Moy and grinned cheekily. “Though I spoke to her only a little, I fear i’ll miss her, if only for seeing you get so worked up after every visit.”

They’d been walking for only half an hour before the convoy began to notice signs of spiders. They’d been growing bolder and bolder as of late, yet another omen of the darkness looming in the west.

Legolas grew more tense, listening carefully around him for every rustle and sway of the trees in the wind. Ahead of them were fainter sounds, indicators of slow movement. He held out an arm to stop Thamil in his tracks and the other two guards halted.

Moy was oblivious and took another few steps forward before realising that they’d stopped.

“What is it?” she asked.

A spider from behind leapt onto her shoulder. She let out a scream and dropped to the ground. There was a twang of arrows and it was dead, slung across her back. She shoved it away from her with disgust, scooting away from it across the forest floor.

It’s voice still rung in her ears.

“Hungrrrrry, we will taste the ssssweet flesh of elf this day!”

She was shaking like mad, staring at it’s corpse.

“Pa! Pa!” A small wild haired girl shrieked, running from the stables with terror in her eyes.

“Where are yeh running off to, wee one?” A strong hand was upon her shoulder, and Thormod was kneeling in the straw before her. His face, like all the others, was long since faded from her mind, and only an imprint of him remained. She remembered though the sweet scent of hay that clung to her brother like a second skin.

“I saw a monster!” she sobbed, pointing to the corner.

She knew though she could not see, that Thormod smiled reassuringly in this moment. He rose and moved the corner.

“It’s no monster, Moy. Only a little silk spider.” He held it out in his palm. It wasn’t little at all! No, it was huge and round like a shiny copper coin.

“No, it’s evil! It’s evil, Thorry!” All she could see were it’s sharp pincers and gross spindly legs. She repeated it over and over in refrain until he’s tossed it out into the grass to never be seen again.

“Imagine that,” he mused. “My tough little Moy bein’ afraid of one wee spider. They won’t hurt you, and there are a lot scarier things out there. Like big brothers!” He grinned and Moy caught the hint, feigning terror and squealing as he chased her around the farm in circles.

Unbidden memories came to her in pieces, but a piece was all she could bear. So she stuffed them down, buried deep in her heart where even she couldn’t dredge them up again.

A hand was on her shoulder.

“Thorry?” she mumbled faintly. The childish nickname once so dear to her now sounded cold and hollow in its unfamiliarity.

“Moy? The creature is dead.” Legolas was confused by her sudden change. The fear radiated from her very core and she was in some sort of trance.

“Yes, it’s… let’s just continue.” She picked herself up, shrugging off his arm and patting away loose dirt from her skirt. She held her head high, continuing forward. She still shook though, and that aura of fear remained no matter how hard she might try to hide it.

Chapter Text

Moy pulled herself together and remained at the head of the group, meanwhile Legolas hung back, slightly baffled once again. He couldn't begin to guess who or what Thorry was, but it would be best to avoid any more… incidents with the spiders.

"Mellon, we should prepare ourselves," Thamil warned, his hand resting loosely upon the hilt of his sword. "Those foul things are never alone."

"And neither are we," he said giving him a particularly telling look. The spiders would not dare attack again, not after seeing what quick work was made of the first.

"And what of other patrols?" Thamil pressed, "Men will always be cautious of the wood and we already know that they keep close enough watch upon the trees from afar, but orc activity has been ever increasing."

Legolas frowned, and glanced ahead to where the horizon line blurred amidst the leaves. Moy appeared more than recovered, jovial even, with a smart step while the other two guards followed close behind.

"The orcs are surely not that dimwitted, Thamil. Recall that only a few decades ago they tried and failed spectacularly. They will not make the same mistake again so soon."

Thamil grimaced. "We're a bit lacking in dwarves this time." Even he could not exactly disguise his distaste for dwarves.

Tauriel came to mind when that strain of thought came up, and the dwarf she'd foolishly fallen for. She, Legolas knew, was a fair judge of character. The dwarves were crude and crass as anyone could be, but their company was good in heart.

He wondered to himself if Moy had picked up her equally rude mannerisms from some of them. She came off as quite similar at times. Perplexing, adding yet another layer to the frustratingly disorganized pile. Why did he care to know so much? Was it pure curiosity, fueled on by a stubbornness inherited, or some other third thing? Nevertheless, she was blindingly fascinating, enough so that he tried to look past her attitude.

A distant roar echoed through the trees. The elves were running in seconds, seeking out the source in mere minutes while Moy trailed behind them.

It was a trio of orcs locked in furious combat with spiders, at least a dozen of them. Moy froze.

Legolas leapt gracefully as a deer and grabbed ahold of a tree branch, swinging around and aiming a solid kick at an Orc's face. It flew back into a pair of spiders that squealed and made ugly crunching noises beneath its weight. Thamil had his bow and was aiming so fast his hands seemed to blur, filling an orc with arrows before he could bludgeon a guard in the head. Its eyes bulged and it toppled.

The orc Legolas kicked reared it's foul head and rose with its fists outstretched to wring his neck before a sword was planted firmly through it's stomach. It grasped at the blade fruitlessly.

The third and final orc was preoccupied with throwing the spiders that swarmed it, tossing them into trees and at the elves.

Legolas caught them in midair with a volley of arrows. The two surviving spiders scuttled away into the trees but were quickly shot at, giving pathetic screams as they writhed and died.

Moy could hear their dying words, their cries for food and vengeance. It scared her out of her wits, how could she- why could she understand them? She'd never hated spiders more.

The orc was surrounded by four elves with weapons pointed at it, yet it looked past them straight at Moy, like it could see beneath the dress and cloak, through her very soul.

She was paralyzed, all her memories struggling to surface like a turbulent tide of horror and torture.

"We meet at last, undying one," it growled in that foul, dammed language.

She clutched her head, and Legolas could swear she whimpered. He flicked his finger and the orc was dead, it's tainted blood seeping into the dirt.

"I can't! Why me? Why me? Not again, it's-" she was sobbing. Actually sobbing. He could see the tears, those inexplicable tears that dripped down her cheeks onto the grass.

Legolas hesitated, then kneeled at her side. "You could understand it? The black speech?"

"Yes." Her voice hardened in an instant like cooling lava. "Believe me, I take no pleasure in it. They disgust me, I disgust me! Let's just get this over with and you'll never have to see me again." She rose and dusted herself off, striding back in the direction from which they came. She acted so stoically all of a sudden and Legolas had to wonder, was he sorry for this miserable creature? He doubted many of his kin would feel this… empathy?

Moy was so embarrassed. She was supposed to keep it together, be strong for herself and for those she'd loved. Well that was a complete and utter fail. All she could do now was hike her defenses and hold her head even higher.

Moy watched the orcs bring in their latest catch into the dark room. Her eyes were glazed over with a kind of glassy emptiness, huddled away in the cracks and corners with the rest of the current captives. There was two battered little girls and an old man who'd be dead before anything worse could likely happen to him. She figured that her lot were the weak and dying unwanted. The pain in her core was immense and the blood ran down her leg and pooled beneath her.

It was a dwarf they'd brought, she realized with a start. Though she'd never seen one before, the height and beard were unmistakable. As was the ruckus he caused, shrieking and cursing in his own language. He lashed and kicked and bit until he was red in the face and three orcs held him by his stubby legs and arms.

Moy crossed her arms, melding further with the rough brick wall. The irons on her leg chafed and itched terribly.

To her displeasure, the dwarf was deposited not more than three feet from her. The doors slammed shut again and she longed for even the harshest torchlight from halls beyond.

That the doors were sealed hardly discouraged the dwarf, and in fact, he began pounding on the metal until his fists bled and he gave way from exhaustion, slumping to the ground.

"I wouldn't do that, dwarf," Moy mumbled. "They can't, or won't listen to you or any of us."

"Aye'll never let the bastards take me!" He shouted, causing the old man across the cell to flinch. "They'll have to skin me alive if they wanna have their way with me!"

"And they will…" Moy whispered. "We're already dead."

Already dead. Yet no matter how dead Moy was, she was still here. If she could have only died in that cell. She rubbed her arm absentmindedly, a gesture of comfort she remembered fondly.

She saw the golden light shining through as they reached the end of the wood and nearly melted with relief. The golden light of the sun was her salvation and freedom lurking in the distance.

"We're here," Legolas said. It was hard to discern any emotion from his tone, she didn't think he would be sad or sorry to have her out of his impossibly perfect elvish hair.

Thamil was first to approach her actually. The other two guards hung back with wary eyes.

He held out his hand with a small smile. "Am sad to see go. Much humor makes daylight. In heart." He thumped his chest.

"Thanks," Moy said, shaking his hand with an upturning of her jaw that could be a smile. She didn't even feel like insulting his atrocious common tongue.

She didn't say anything to Legolas but tilted her head at him standing behind Thamil and gave him an almost wistful look before turning and heading down the slope away and towards Rohan.

Her cloak waved in the wind in the distance and he couldn't tear his eyes from the flutter of dark fabric. He did feel sorry for her, he realized, and wondered briefly what would become of her before he turned back and headed home again

Chapter Text

Moy wasn’t sure which way her home was, but it was debatable whether that was a problem or not. Everyone was dead and the buildings probably long since gone. She could venture in the direction of where she thought it might be, but there was no real gain apart from a sense of nostalgia and the slap of bitter reality.

She instead went a different way, letting her feet guide her. She needed no rest, nor food or drink and so she just walked.

Nature’s beauty was a constant feature on this trek. The shining of a late sun on the grass and the call of what she guessed was a flock of chickadees were her only kind of respite. She missed her verbal back and forths with the elf, Legolas, as opposed to empty fields, no matter how pretty they were.

It had been maybe two weeks by her estimate of walking aimlessly, and not a soul in sight, until she saw the men in the distance, a distance they were shortening with alarming suddenness. So Moy did the only thing she could think to do; she played dead.

There was a cry of alarm and she was surrounded by three human men, one who kneeled at her side. She could barely see them as her face was mostly planted in the dirt, hiding her bones from view.

“A dead woman? But where did she come from?”

“I’ve no clue. I swear I passed through here not more than a day ago.”

“Give me a hand, we’ll carry ‘er back and do ‘er proper.”

This is not going to end well. Moy groaned internally as she felt herself being flipped onto her back and promptly dropped again.

“What devilry is this? She’s already rotted away!”

“Yet the clothes remain unsoiled? It’s unnatural!”

She clenched her teeth, willing herself not to move in anger.

The men left quite abruptly after that little altercation. But she knew if she didn’t move, they’d be back and ready to do something worse than sputter in confusion. Yet if she moved, they would be looking for her.

She sighed into the dirt. This was a bad idea, everything was terrible, and if not for the soldiers and insufferable elves, she would almost have preferred to stay in the woods.

There was what looked like a decent sized patch of trees ahead and a small creek so she followed it in her search for a decent hiding place. She stumbled around on the creek bed, but slipped on a rock and landed flat on her face for the second time that day in the water.

“Maybe if I sit here long enough, i’ll just erode or drown or something…” she mumbled to herself.

It could have been hours, she didn’t know for sure seeing as her judgement of time was pretty pathetic, but she sat in the creek for a long time. At this point, she’d given up. There was nothing to do or see, and people wouldn’t exactly fall into the understanding category if she was to wander into a settlement. They’d be worse than the elves probably, who were smug and that was about it. Humans were terrible, and Moy used to be one so she knew well that they were.

Someone was humming nearby. It was a sweet tune, the kind that no one would expect to hear in the middle of nowhere or from an enemy.

There was a sloshing in the water and the sound of something slick on the stones.

Moy felt something poking her side, between her ribcage. Was that a stick? It felt like a stick to her.

“Hello? Why are you sleeping in the river?” The voice was that of a child, a girl child from the sound of it. Moy started, splashing on her stomach like a fish as she sat herself up.

“Oooh, oh!” the girl’s voice whisper-yelled. Moy tugged her hood down but it was too late to hide her face. The girl was a small thing, perhaps five years old, with a messy yellow plait and a chubby face. She stared at Moy with this strange look she couldn't identify but knew was not fear.

“You look funny,” was all she said, hands clasping a stick behind her back as she glanced at her.

“Well so do you,” Moy retorted.

“My face doesn’t look like yours. Yours is all whitish and looks like the fancy bowls on the top shelf that Grandy never uses. Are you like an elf?”

Moy bristled, schooching from the water to the muddy bank, caring little for the clothes that were already stained and ripped beyond recognition. “Bowls are made from ceramic, i’m made of bone. And i’m no elf, girl. You ought to know that.”

“Bone? Like the hard stuff in arms? One time Grandy says he broke a bone and it was because he felled out of a tree and his arm was all snapped like twigs and it hurt real bad and-”

“That happens to people sometimes, yeah,” Moy interrupted. “Now you should go back to find Grandy and be sure not to tell him about me. It’ll be like a secret.”

A tiny hand was grasping her by the arm, tugging at the ripped sleeve of her dress. Moy reflexively pulled back, toppling backward into the mud where she lay there, arms crossed.

“Why a secret? Secrets are no fun, and Grandy is really nice to everyone and he can help you find the other elves.” She leaned over and stared down with wide eyes at Moy in the mud.

“No, no elves and no Grandy,” she muttered. “I don't want to scare anyone and spoil the secret…”

“Please? Pretty please? With apples and cinnamon and fresh cream on top?”

“Putting food with the pleases doesn’t make them taste any better, girl. Now shoo.” Moy turned over onto her side as she continued to sink into the mud.

Tiny footsteps took off, growing fainter until the nuisance was gone.

Then they returned. And there was more of them.

“And she was just laying in the mud getting dirty, Grandy, and she didn’t know about the rule with pretty pleases, and she looks like your fancy bowls!”

“Oh, no…,” Moy groaned into the mud. Small children were not to be trusted, at all costs.

“Now lets see here, dear.” That was definitely an old man’s voice, close enough to her that she was visible in all her wallowing.

“Lookie, lookie! Elf lady, I brought my Grandy to say hello. He can teach you about the rule with the pretty pleases!”

Moy lifted her head. Cue screaming in three, two, on-

“That’s no elf, my dear” the old man murmured almost dreamily. “That’s something else entirely.”

“Thanks for not screaming and sending for pitchforks and torches,” Moy spoke up, propping her head up on her arm. “That’s what I usually get.”

“See? I told you she was like your fancy bowls! She called it cer- cera-” the girl fumbled her tongue, scrunching her eyebrows together in thought.

“Ceramic, which I already told you I am not.”

“Are you a living, breathing skeleton?” Grandy asked. “It’s miraculous, I never thought in all my days…”

“Well, if this can be called living then sure. Are you sure you’re not going to get a group of angry villagers after me?”

The old man seemed aghast. “Never! This is a blessing in my age, a sign from the Valar certainly.”

The girl who was clinging to his hand, let go and hopped excitedly from one foot to the other. “Can she come with us? Pretty please with apples and cinnamon and cream? She can be like my big elf sister!”

“Of course, dear. Provided that our friend here would not mind. Would you?”

Moy sat up, letting the mud drip all around her. “If you don’t mind, I suppose… I-” she cut herself off. She needed a place to stay, and this old man and what was likely his granddaughter seemed well intentioned.

That was how Moy found herself being dragged along by a small child through the flowering fields to where a nice, nostalgic little homestead lie in wait.

Chapter Text

“And this is my room!” The little girl boasted with a puff of her chest. “But we can share it!”

The room in question was tiny and bare of anything but a child’s bed and a small wooden dresser. The whole house was like that, holding only the essential and the occasional dash of decoration such as a small wreath of flowers or a set of neatly stacked books on a rug by the fireplace.

It was the most beautiful place, and grander than any elven hall.

“I don’t need to sleep, girl, it’s all yours,” Moy said, backing up a step into the centre of the cabin and into Grandy, who laid a hand on her shoulder.

She nearly flinched or cursed, but held her tongue and stilled her arm.

“It’s not much, but for me and my granddaughter it’s just enough,” he said with a soft smile. “I’m sure you’ll fit in nicely, Aisowyn adores you already.”

“Thank you… Grandy.” The ridiculous name seemed less so when coming from the mouth of a small girl rather than from her

“Call me Ioded,” he corrected, stepping around Moy toward the small kitchen. As old as he might be, his hands were swift as they moved through familiar motions in the kitchen.

Moy stood there, more out of place than ever. She did not belong, but this family seemed hardly to notice let alone care.

Maybe, just maybe, she could be happy here with Aisowyn and Ioded.

Legolas was pretending he was writing the patrol report he was meant to when there was a knock at his chamber door.

Seconds later, the handmaid answered only to squeak in faint surprise.

His father had come to call.

For three weeks now, King Thranduil and his advisers argued back and forth over the course of action to take regarding Imladris. Specifically, a request from Lord Elrond.

Legolas was rarely involved, but from what he knew, the elf lord in question was calling for representatives from all corners of Middle Earth to a council.

“My son,” Thranduil addressed with the slightest incline of his head. “A decision has been made.”

“Yes, Adar?” Legolas stood.

“As you know, I cannot leave these halls of Mirkwood unattended and so I will send you in my stead to the council of Elrond. Prepare an envoy to depart in a week.”

Legolas nodded, laying a hand over his heart, and his father did the same before vanishing as quick as he came with a swish of his robe.

He sunk back down, resisting the urge to massage his temples. Every since his return from time with the Dunedain and Isildur’s heir, he and his father seemed to be on tenterhooks with one another. Thranduil was as ever an aloof ellon, hesitant to command his son with the strict certainty of sixty years ago. They were distant now, and less trusting, though Legolas swore in his eyes he could see glimmers of light and affection from time to time.

He would need to gather for the envoy quickly as possible, and yet he could find little motivation at the moment. He continued to write his report, feeling like his quill was weighted with lead.

For what must have been the hundredth time in the past three months, he inevitably started thinking about the skeleton again. Would she come slinking back into Mirkwood’s borders, was she scavenging in the Rohan wilds, or could she have been dragged to Mordor by an orc?

Somehow, he both doubted and trusted that Moy would have made her own way. She seemed resilient enough and more stubborn than any creature he’d yet come across, even more so than Estel.

Why did he think of Moy so often? She was an anomaly, that was why he told himself. A strange creature in even stranger times, who had quite the sharp tongue and an inability to see authority as it stood before her.

This time he did massage his temples, groaning into his hands. With the coming days and coming council, he held no time for distraction and wandering thoughts.

Moy could not hold back the tears that streamed messily down her cheeks. Her face was mottled red and she curled into herself, hands running along her mutilated arms.

Those… things, the orcs, she didn’t know what they were doing, but after days and weeks and months of testing, poking, prodding and humiliating, they only increased in fervor.

She was an experiment, along with three other girls. Two were dead, and the third was no longer eating and seemed to be in a dreamlike trance, waiting to be taken away from this place.

They cut strange runes into her skin, prodded her with sharp vials of horrid liquid, cut off chunks of her hair, all for an end she knew nothing about.

“Lass…” The dwarf was hesitant. He too had gone through similar experiments, though not to nearly the same frantic degree, and seeing her bolstered his resolve to murder each and every one of those damn monsters.

“Doru,” she sniffled. “How do you seem so strong, where I am so weak?”

“We dwarves are stubborn creatures, lass. When the world throws itself at you, you spit in it’s eye and tell it to go ishkh khakfe andu null.” He actually spat after that sentence, grinning with vengeful glee..

Moy gave a faint hiccuping giggle. “That’s the great dwarf secret?”

“Indeed, aye. Use it well when we are free.”

The door shrieked as it opened and a human was tossed into the little cell as carelessly as a sack of grain.

The human man too had the marks Moy and Doru shared of the orc’s twisted tests. Unlike them however, he was broad shouldered and looked to be in his prime. His flaxen hair was shorn brutally and unevenly, and he was unfortunately bare of clothes.

Moy gave a faint squeal, twisting around away from where he fell. Doru barked out something likely filthy in his language.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I don’t know what they want, what anyone wants. Nor why they would leave me with you.”

All he saw through blurry eyes was a dwarf with a bristly black beard like a halo around his face who seemed scandalized, and a skinny waif of a girl determinedly not looking at him.

“I’m sorry about what they’re doing, what we’ll all become when Sauron’s evil is through…”

“What do you mean? Speak plainly, lad!” Doru grunted in frustration. The human man was unconscious, head lolling to the side.

Moy stole side glances at the man, he sounded so dire and yet now his face seemed almost peaceful. He had a pretty face for a man, and his cheeks were stained with blood and bruises.

She blushed at his nearness and nakedness, but she was infinitely more curious, letting her forget her own pains. What would he say when he woke and what did he mean?

What would she and Doru and he become

Chapter Text

In all her years, Moy never imagined herself in her position; living a normal life, with normal people, and spending her days doing normal things like woodcutting and childminding.

The old man, Ioded was at first seemingly reverent of Moy. he regarded her as though she was indeed a blessing of the Valar. Over time though, he saw not a miracle, but a woman with nowhere else to go. He treated her now as one would a hired hand. She began taking charge of his labors. Not only was it a distraction for her, a way to pass her infinite time, but she could feel normal and useful, and give the old man a break now and again.

She chopped firewood, cleaned, kept a watchful eye on the ever energetic Aisowyn, and even baked!

After that it was resolved to never let Moy bake again.

The weeks turned to months, winter came, and she was more settled than she’d ever been in her life.

She sat on the edge of the muddy creek, watching Aisowyn scuttle back and forth as she picked things from the ground, carrying whatever she collected in her skirt like a pouch.

“Girl, you’re going to get mud all over your skirts,” Moy complained. “I hope whatever you’re planning to do involves a bar of soap later.”

The girl shook her head like a wet dog. “No, no! Don’t be silly, Sister. I’m making somethin’.”

She called Moy sister most of the time, and still referred to her as an elf, but Moy had long since given up correcting her on anything. The girl was a tiny, constantly muddy, stubborn wee mule.

“Here! Lookit what I made you,” Aisowyn crowed, holding out what could only be described as the ugliest flower crown ever conceived. It was all twigs and brown autumn leaves, with the occasional wilted sprig of wild grasses or dandelion.

She plopped it onto Moy’s head, and beamed.

“Your grandfather will never let you or me, especially me, hear the end of this.”

Naturally, it was all Aisowyn’s fault, starting the water fight that made them both tumble into the creek in giggling heaps. A pair of dirty, soaked-to-the bone sisters trudged back to the cabin, and Moy felt… light.

Ioded took it in stride, though the glances at the pair could not hide his distaste for the mud that dared come near his beloved, spotless cabin.

They bathed, then the two humans ate while Moy watched, afterward the girl was ushered to bed. Despite insistence that she needed no sleep, nearly every night now Moy found herself embracing the girl, scrunched into the small bed, bony arms wrapped around her tiny, blanket smothered form. Her soft, grunting snores were music to the world weary skeleton’s ears.

“Pardon, sirs, but this is not the most pleasant of times to be entertaining at the door.” Ioded’s quiet, yet firm voice floated through the doors. There was the sound of many booted feet trudging about, and some muffled words exchanged.

“We heard you’ve been cavorting with a witch,” was the sentence that stood out clear amidst the noise.

Moy stiffened, and Aisowyn grunted again, squirming. Moy tried her best to relax, carefully pulling a blanket over the pair of them.

Ioded frowned at the lot who barged in on his lovely slice of paradise. There were three men, dirty and uncouth with their horribly muddy boots.

He’d only been sitting by the fire, slowly nursing a cup of his best tea. They dared accuse him of harbouring witches?

“Of all nonsensical-” He shook his head and sputtered. “Gentlemen, this is no house of superstition. If you wish to talk, perhaps we should settle this tomorrow morn? I’m afraid with all the ruckus you’re making, you’ll wake my sleeping granddaughter.”

The largest of the three buffoons snarled, “We’ve seen the witch’s work firsthand, we have, and scouted these lands til we became blue in the face, we did. ”

The other two men began rifling through Ioded’s cupboards, rattling pots and pans.

Moy felt Aisowyn stir again, rubbing her eyes and tugging the blanket to her face to hold tightly.

“Moy...” she murmured, “Why is Grandy being so noisy? Is it breakfast yet?”

The skeleton shushed her hurriedly, “No, no, just go back to sleep.” She tried to keep her voice low and soothing, and for a moment the little girl seemed to be nodding off again until there was a terrifying crunch, and the sounds of breaking wood.

Aisowyn bolted upwards, quickly scuttling away. Before Moy could grab her and pull her back, she’d slipped from her arms and run to the kitchen, dragging her blanket with her.

The bulky man towered over the girl, monstrous and foreign. He held his hand over Ioded’s arm, pressing it down onto the table, held an awkward angle.

“Tell us where you’ve been hiding the witch, old man!” the monster snarled, unaware of Aisowyn. The other two monster men looked at her and she burst into tears.

“Grandy!” she sobbed. She turned to run back into the bedroom, but was held up by the scruff like a kitten by one of the monsters. The three glanced between one another, then the focus was drawn to Ioded as he gasped in pain, leaning twistedly against the table leg, his arm broken.

“Don’t hurt her, she’s only a little girl, you fools!”

The man set Aisowyn down, still holding firmly onto her collar. He smiled grimly at the old man.

“Search the rest of the house,” he commanded with a bark that brokered no arguments.

Ioded’s legs gave out and he slumped to the floor, groaning softly in pain.

Moy meanwhile hid in the nearly bare bushes beneath Aisowyn’s window, listening and waiting for the worst.

No less than two hours later did they finally leave, and Moy quickly scrambled back through the window. The house was a mess, Ioded was in need of a healer, and the little girl was beyond distressed.

Moy couldn't exactly waltz up to a healer and ask for assistance, so she took initiative. She wrapped Ioded’s fractured arm as best as she could, and grabbed a branch large enough to serve as a cane, sending him alone to the nearest healer.

The unpleasant wait was so reminiscent of Moy’s days chained to the temple wall that she felt as though she might actually go mad. Aisowyn was a little better, trotting about picking things up and keeping a strong face.

When the agonizing wait ended with Ioded’s return, Moy almost could hug the man. His grandaughter did, regardless of his injuries, wrapping herself around his leg joyfully.

Moy was… conflicted, to say the least. She knew those men, those voices. They were the one who’d found her in the plains and run in fear. It was doubtlessly her fault they came in search of a witch, and she’d put this innocent little family in danger. I have no desire to abandon the comforts of fami- companions, but if I stay…? They may very well come again.

Moy said nothing, and life carried on.

The human man held himself to retain modesty, leaning into the corners of the cell. The grinding of the door startled him, as did the filthy rags that hit him in the face. Clothes befitting a prisoner.

He watched the girl opposite himself and the dwarf, how she leaned on him, desperate for warmth. Dwarves did not strike him often as warm, or friendly creatures, but the way he stood watch over her and glanced hawkishly at him every now and then suggested a great bond.

“What did you mean by it, boy?” the dwarf asked.

“Pardon?” Caelon shifted to face towards them.

“You said we’ll ‘become’ something? What? Speak, I have no patience to suffer fools, even now.”

Caleon blinked. “You did not know? We are being made to fight, to fight against all that is good and light in this world.”

“Fight? I’ll fight for Mordor the day Eru himself descend from the skies and spits in my drink! And her,” he jabbed a thumb at the sleeping girl who gave a faint whimper. “She’d never make a fighter, she’s altogether unsuited.” His voice softened. “War has not killed her yet, but it surely will should she stand to fight.”

“You care for her so.” Caelon was not usually so blunt, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.

“Yes, of course I do!” the dwarf blustered, then realized his voice was only rising. In a carrying whisper, he said, ”Moy is the only girl who made it. I could not save the rest, and even she was not spared the horrors of those primal, evil beasts.”

“Yrch,” the man muttered to himself. “The defiled ones.”

Moy stirred and glanced up at Doru’s frizzy beard, having caught only the last word, beasts, then look to the human man. Except, not that she looked he did not look entirely human. His face was foreign, and his eyes deep.

“H-Hello,” she murmured, teeth chattering slightly. “Who are you? Are you a man?”

“Observant,” he said with a faint smile, that turned to a grimace when he shifted and felt the laceration on his back sting. “I am peredhel, halfelven, though my blood is weak.”

“An elf,” Doru snorted, crossing his bruised arms and grunting in distaste.

“You’re here alive, how can you be weak?” Moy asked, playing with her fingers and keeping her eyes downcast.

The man stood and with limping steps came to their side. Doru flinched and reached for the weapons no longer at his belt. All he did however was pull Moy’s chin up to face him, to look him in the eye.

“You see yourself as weak, little one, but you are strong. One day you’ll see, when even I and the dwarf have fallen, you will persist.” He smiled at her again.

Chapter Text

It had been maybe two months since the “incident” and the guilt was already eating at her, like a swarm of hungry spiders crawling through her ribcage. Moy could not stay, not for much longer. Yet, with every day of deliberation, this family needed her more and she was less and less inclined to abandon them and the love they gave so freely.

She had so long been denied love in life, and the thought of leaving was almost a physical pain. She was growing too attached, she realized, and it had to stop before she ruined this small piece of beauty in Arda, soiled already by her very being.

Ioded knew almost the instant Moy made up her mind. He could see it in her gestures, her voice, even he reckoned, in her eye sockets. This was further confirmed by the small pile to the side of the door, hidden away from plain view, where small gatherings of supplies grew slowly. Old cloaks and clothes of his in a basket, along with a bread knife that a week earlier had “vanished” from his kitchen, and a book of maps taken from his shelf.

His arm was healing well, but he knew he could not ever use it the same way he had before. He would soon rely on Aisowyn for more than comfort in his age. He only worried how Aisowyn would take the news.

Moy was shuffling her feet, uncharacteristically nervous. Ioded sat in his chair, reading with his arm propped on the rest. Aisowyn was asleep in her room, blissfully unaware.

“Ioded, I, ah…” Moy started.

“It’s time, my dear, I know.”

She was fiddling with the tips of her fingers, twisting the chinks of bone around. “I’m sorry, I just… I can’t do all of this, and what if there’s a next time?” Her voice grew faster and higher pitched as she continued, “What if Aisowyn is the one who gets hurt? What if-”

Ioded slapped his book shut. “Moy.” He looked up at her, the usual good natured softness was gone from his face. “Don’t torment me, or yourself. Sometimes we must do what we feel is right, but I categorically refuse to let you blame anyone but the man who committed the crime.” He sighed, slumping backwards into his chair.

Moy backed away, unsure what response she might give. For once, no snippy words or sarcastic rebuttal came to mind.

The next morning, in the wee hours before the sun could bear to rise, Moy grabbed her basket. She gave a backward glance towards the rooms where her family slept, pulled the old brown cloak over her head, and left.

She had the book of maps, and the question remained of where she might go. Elven realms were out of the question, of course. She might journey towards the Iron Hills and the dwarves, but they were too unpredictably prone to either violence or merrymaking. Maybe she might go north, possibly as far as Bree and the mysterious Shire?

With a direction in mind, she set her sights over the mountains.

She’d been gone less than an hour. The plains stretched out before her, wide and breathtaking in morning's light. Moy paused a moment to look, when she jumped at a distinct keening, wailing noise. She whipped out the bread knife and turned.

“Moy!” Aisowyn sobbed, rushing up and launching herself at her legs. Moy stumbled, panickingly pulling the knife away from the girl. She was horrified that this little girl who reminded her so of her life before everything was ruined, had followed her, and could have very well been following death.

“Aisowyn, what are you doing here? Your Grandy must be worried to death without you, running off after me!”

The girl pressed her snotty, tearstained face into Moy’s pant leg. “You left us all on our lonesome, Sister-Elf! Why did you leave us, why? Why, why, why?” Aisowyn was caught between a tantrum and despair, as she clung to Moy.

Moy sighed, grabbing the girl and gently as she could prying her off her leg. “I have to go, girl, otherwise those bad men might come back and try to hurt Grandy again.”

“But you were gonna stay with us forever, and be my big sister…” she sniffled.

Moy sighed again, scooping up the child into her arms. “Let's get you home, girl.”

They returned to find the cabin set ablaze. A beacon of smoke rose into the air, and there were Orcs swarming.

Moy froze, and she quickly slapped a hand over Aisowyn’s mouth to stifle the wail in her throat.

She began to back away, fighting the absolute, paralyzing fear that filled her to the brim and shuddered down her spine.

It was too late, one of them turned it’s head to see them at the crest of the hill. Moy was already running, as fast as her legs could possibly take her and the girl. No, please just let these nightmares end!

Arrows whizzed by, and she dared not look behind to see if they were gaining on her.

A single arrow flew, straight through Moy’s clothes and back, piercing Aisowyn’s leg. Her screams carried, ringing directly into Moy's ears. It was a sound she would fear to recall for the rest of her days.

She refused to falter, carrying the child as blood and mingled tears flew behind them. A taunting voice, laced with the evil of Black Speech called to her, “You cannot run forever, undying one! There is no place we cannot find you!”

Hours and hours lead to days of running, never slowing, never tiring, even when Moy knew they’d stopped to rest. She cradled Aisowyn who was stronger than anyone she’s ever met in her life. The girl cried all her tears, and the blood was starting to dry around the wound. However, Moy knew the instant the arrow hit its prey that Aisowyn’s life was forfeit. Already the black scourge of Morgul poison traveled, lacing its way up her leg.

Still, she ran for days and nights with only fear to guide her, until she came to the woods from the plains.

The elves encircled her, fearful eyes and pointed blades. Moy collapsed onto her knees, hugging Aisowyn tighter and tighter. When the elves pried her from her grip, she fell into unconsciousness in the grass. Her only thoughts were of Aisowyn, and of death.

Moy woke, feeling the absence of a small warm body curled up against hers. Maybe she and Ioded are making breakfast?

She jolted upwards into an unfamiliar world. An elven world. Not as she had in Mirkwood, mind you, for now she was in a simple bedroom instead of a prison cell. Do these elves have no fear of me?

There was a knocking at the door, and an elf entered. A male with dark golden hair looked to her and his eyes widened, but he appeared to steel himself and his nerves.

“Lady Galadriel-” he started.

“Where is she?”

“The lady is waiting for you at her Pavillion.”

Moy stood. The elf quickly stepped back.

“Not her, her! The girl, you idiot! Where is she?” Moy shouted, her voice venomous. Beneath her yells was an undertone of despair, a wavering.

“Healing, thanks to the Lady Galadriel, to whom we must go.”

She started towards the elf, stumbling, and grabbed ahold of him by the shirt.

“That arrow was laced with Morgul poison! Do you not understand what that is, what that does!?”

The elf already had his sword drawn, held against Moy’s neck. “I am aware, and had Lady Galadriel not intervened, you would not be here, I can assure you. Now you will follow me, else our hospitality will wear thin.”

Silent and fuming, Moy conceded to follow this miserable elf. All she knew of this Lady Galadriel came from stories of an elf witch from long ago, who ensnared unwise mortals into traps and sorcery.

She gawked, however angry she might have been, for all around her the trees were aglow and the entire area shone like starlight. The trees were golden, and the area seemed so pure and untouched. She felt like a stain daring to stand in such a place. The pavilion was brightest yet,open to the night stars, and soft breezes through the trees around them rang like bells

“Thank you, Haldir,” a melodic, somehow quietly powerful voice spoke. Galadriel turned to them, and Moy was transfixed. This elf was the opposite of King Thranduil in his shaded, hollow halls, leaning with arrogance. She was starlight, glowing from within with the kind of beauty that only legends described.

“Hello, Moyaden,” Galadriel’s voice echoed throughout her skull, reverberating like drums. Moy clutched her head. She was a mind reader?

“Yes, I am. And I will take you to your sister soon. She is fighting, and she is strong like you.”

“Why can’t I see her now,” Moy asked. The elf, Haldir glanced between them, and, placing a hand over his heart, he strode away.

Galadriel smiled, but there was a strange mistiness in her crystal eyes. She spoke aloud, “It is not the time. Now you must rest. Even in your state, you cannot continue sleeplessly forever.”

“I just was resting,” Moy grumbled, rubbing her arm bones agitatedly. “I’m sick of resting! I need results!”

“Perhaps, you might prefer the company of a familiar face then. The Fellowship has arrived, naught three days past.”

“The fellow-what?”

“I believe you are already acquainted with one of it’s members, the Mirkwood Prince.” There was a knowing glint in the elf witch’s eyes. “They are camped in the near grotto at the base of the trees, where they have pitched many tents.”

Moy turned and walked away. No, please not now!

No, please not this! Moy screamed internally, being dragged along rough the stone floor towards the room.

She was thrown onto the table by an Orc and left to the witchery of the tester, a figure always cloaked and hidden.

He approached, holding aloft a jar. Inside the contents glowed an eerie blue, shifting and morphing within glass confines.

She moaned as her mouth was forced open and that glowing shit was poured down her throat, wriggling. It was only one of many evil concoctions of unknown purpose.

When she was tossed back into the cell, and Doru was dragged away for his own tortures, she doubled over, crying out in pain and her stomach rebelled. Caelon crawled to her side, his hand circling in slow movements over her back as she rocked. She puked the blue poison into the corner, it having burned its way up out of her stomach.

Caelon took a corner of his ragged shirt and wiped at her blue stained lips. She hiccuped.

“See? All better now.” His words were obviously false, yet Moy couldn't help but believe him when he spoke with such soft sincerity.

“We’re going to be fine, the three of us,” he murmured, continuing to hold her as the pair of them sat.

“You’re such a liar,” Moy whispered, “Thank you."

Chapter Text

With every day that passed, Legolas found himself paradoxically both more and less optimistic for the fate of his fellowship. He could see already that the bonds holding them together were thin, and that the ring was taking it’s toll.

He could almost, almost breathe freely again when he found himself in elven lands once more. The woods of Lorien, though beautiful, would never compare to the richness and ancient comforts of home.

He found himself inclined to wander a while in the night beneath the stars when his mortal companions slept. He could have sworn he saw Aragorn watching him as he slipped away, a knowing look in his eye.

There was a commotion at the pavilion steps when he returned. A slight figure in ripped trousers and a wildly flapping cloak was flying down the steps two and three at a time, nearly colliding with Haldir at the base of them.

Legolas was compelled by sheer curiosity to watch.

“Where is the healing ward?!” A high, lilting voice with a noticeable, and familiar, snarl came from the cloaked figure. She clutched at Haldir’s lapels, as if she meant to shake him.

Legolas faltered, his eyes wide and round as dwarven coins. He recognized that voice, he knew those white skeletal hands.

“I will take you to her later. For now, you must return to your quarters.” Haldir grasped Moy’s arm, leading her away.

Legolas leaned against a tree, his mind leaping into battle with itself. It can’t have been her, not here. It was some mortal woman likely, and why would an invulnerable being require healing? But those hands!

He groaned, rubbing at his temple. Rationalizations aside, it was her. She didn’t even have to speak to him before his headaches began. If there was any kind of magic she performed, that would be at least part of it.

He had the sudden urge to follow them, but with a shake of his head Legolas resisted.

Upon returning to their makeshift campsite, all were fast asleep. He silently weaved through their tents and bedrolls, seating himself on a rock, and meditated on his thoughts until the lights of dawn broke through the golden trees.

Moy, summoning the bitter stubbornness she could always rely on, sat and waited until morning came. She needed rest as much as she needed food or drink, and Lady Galadriel was clearly trying to stop her from seeing Aisowyn for some reason. The reason was bafflingly unclear, and it made Moy want to smack her head into the wall repeatedly.

She hadn’t been locked in, that would be too blatant an action perhaps, but there was someone at watch outside the door. This was Mirkwood all over again, but without the interaction she craved. Even an argument laced with barbs and sarcastic cynicism was preferable to… nothing.

The door opened. It was the elf again, Haldir. He looked about as companionable as he had before.

“You wished to see the girl? I shall take you to the healers now.” His expression was uncomfortably stiff and stern, yet his eyes seemed strangely melancholy.

Moy leapt to her feet. Her bones were shaking. Whether in fear or anticipation, she did not know.

The healing ward was in another tree, one even wider than the others with many floors and circular balconies. Despite the size, it was eerily empty apart from the soft feet of a single pair of elleths down the spiral steps towards them. They barely paid Moy mind, turning to Haldir.

“She’s upstairs, stable but unconscious,” one of them explained.

Haldir nodded, glanced at Moy, and gestured to the stairwell. She didn’t have to see it twice, racing ahead.

Aisowyn was all but dwarfed by the enormous bed she lay in and all it’s thick coverings. Around her lay dozens of bottles, herbs, and medicinal instruments of uncertain purpose.

Moy had eyes only for her, and stopped short. The girl was pale, too pale, her face scrunched in an induced sleep. Those were ill signs, but moreso than that was the blood.

Moy saw red.

Blood on the floor, as best as they’d tried to scrub it clean, blood on the bed, dried and sticky along the sides and in small drips and patches across the blankets, and blood on implements, sharp ones. Moy pulled back the blankets, eyes rolling from Aisowyn’s face down to her remaining leg. She drew her arm back quickly, as if she’d been bitten.

“What did you do to her?” she asked. She was quiet, soft spoken, and she swore if she still had a heart at it would have ceased to beat for a moment.

“Morgul poison,” the healer behind her said. “The scourge was travelling too fast to contain, and we had to halt it before it spread too far from the root of it.”

Moy looked to the table, seeing an arrowhead in a sealed glass jar. “I see.”

“She has been feverish, and we gave her plenty of blankets to help sweat it out. She will recover soon enough.” The elleth flinched when Moy suddenly kicked the side of the bed so hard that her foot flew and skidded across the floor. She tumbled to the ground.

“Recover? What, will her leg grow back through the power of elvish goodliness?” She glanced up at the healer, and at Haldir who stood at the door.

“W-We will leave you a moment to, to grieve,” the healer stammered, nearly chasing Haldir down the stairs.

Moy didn’t look back, she stayed where she fell.

“Hey, elf boy, have yeh been sitting up on that bloody rock all night?”

Legolas snapped to alertness. The sun was rising, casting the woods in an almost holy light, and Gimli was staring up at him with an incredulous look on his face.

“I suppose, yes. I need little sleep,” he noted. He disliked the blunt comments the uncouth dwarf made, but mentally chalked it up to him being a dwarf. They were all like that, and he was growing used to this sort of behavior. Like Moy’s own attitude and clear lack of pre-thought.

Stop thinking on it, he mentally chided himself. Moy was ultimately unimportant to his long and immortal life, yet he wondered constantly at the nature of her being.

Gimli grumbled something under his breath and sat himself against the side of the raised rock. He produced a bottle of what looked to be an elvish wine, sniffing it derisively before taking a swig. Dwarves, they always had to be under the influence of something. “What’s eatin’ ya? Shouldn’t yeh be prancing around in the daisies with yer own kin?”

“We don’t prance,” Legolas remarked flatly.

“Coulda fooled me,” Gimli muttered.

“As for what is ‘eating me,’ I merely thought to have seen an old acquaintance who... by all accounts should not be here.” He spoke hesitantly, unsure why he would even be indulging Gimli.

“Hmmph, why?” Gimli grunted. “Dead, banished, unwanted?”

Legolas sighed, “Try all three.”

There was movement a short distance away, and the rest of the fellowship was rising and preparing for the day.

Sam was already busily hunched over the small fire with breakfast, Merry and Pippin were watching with eager eyes, Boromir was to the wayside, face cupped in his hand as he sat on a log, and Aragorn was organizing their packs of remaining supplies while Frodo looked on.

Aragorn glanced up at Legolas, a knowing glint in his eyes to rival any elf.

Legolas got to his feet, and with a nod of acknowledgment to his companions, he left.

He wasn’t sure what to expect as his feet carried him to the healing wards. Disappointment? Maybe so.

What he did see was that the place at first glance was empty of patients and healers. Perhaps upstairs...?

He moved up the stairs and pushed open the ajar door, pausing when his foot connected with another. A skeletal foot, old and battered, lay on the floor innocently. He picked it up, all his suspicions confirmed. He knew only one who threw their limbs about so carelessly.

He was floored at first by the stench of the room, the smell of shed blood that had been fruitlessly overlaid with medicinal herbs and tonics.

Moy laid collapsed against the side of the bed. She was unresponsive, but he knew it was her. He even recognized the crack along the side of her skull.

She tilted her head and saw him, then laid down, facing the other way. Some things never change, and Moy’s closed off stubbornness was one of them.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. Her voice was quiet, not abrasive in the slightest. “The Valar really do despise me...”

“I did not expect to find you here in Lothlorien of all places.” It was then that he looked around more and his eyes landed on the miniature face peeking out from beneath a veritable mountain of blankets. “Who is she?”

“None of your business, elf.” There was rage there, simmering beneath a veneer of fragility.

Moy was not one to make friend, or, it would seem, to mourn them. So he assumed of the arrogant, nihilistic skeleton. Until now, when she lay broken and bitter at the feet of a comatose human girl.

“If I had known of this-” he started.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Moy yelled, clamping bony hands over her ears. “Shut up and leave us alone! Why can’t you just bloody leave me alone?” The last part was a wail, a keen of distress. She sounded like a hound who’d lost all it’s pups.

Legolas stepped towards her and she slithered back against the bedframe, retreating into herself. He’d expected her to slap him away or worse, but when he sat next to her and placed a comforting arm around her shoulder blade, she didn’t fight him.

He’d touched Moy before, and though she was cold as a corpse, there was an innerness to her, a flicker of redeeming light buried deep in the marrow of her bones

Chapter Text

“Doru, what is your family like?” Moy asked. He was sitting, bleeding from many round incisions they’d given him not an hour ago, and they were both desperate for a distraction.

Grunting, he managed a smile. “Large, large and happy. And well fed. I had a hundred cousins, and you ne’er saw a finer feast or merrier hall that that of the Iron Hills.”

Caelon glanced up. “I would see it one day, if your kin will allow it.”

“And I!” Moy chimed.

“I daresay, when we are free, they’ll welcome you with open arms. I’ll teach ya to drink like the dwarves do!” He coughed, holding his stomach with one arm. “Even you, elf-boy.”

Moy nodded, but her thoughts were already turned away from drinking or merriment. She turned quiet, and retracted again into herself. A few minutes later, she spoke, “I wish I could-” she cut herself off, shaking her head. “Nevermind, I am such a fool…l

Caelon tilted his head. “Moy, you are no fool. Speak to us, we would know your fears and doubts.” His voice was soft, hesitant, and Moy imagined that she could hear the elvish wisdom in his throat when he drew close to her and whispered sweet elvish things into her ear.

“I wish I could have my family back,” she choked, burying her nose into his shoulder.

Doru was the rough warmth of a stone that lay in the afternoon sun, but Caelon was like a cool spring. Musical, soft and gentle.

Doru gave him a side-eyed knowing look, and he would turn away when Moy and Caelon spoke to themselves or sought comfort in each other’s embraces.

This time when the doors opened, something was different. The tester was there, along with even more orcs than normal. The tester did not come to them, they never did, and not so soon after the last disastrous failure.

Moy was asleep, head resting against Caelon’s side. She woke with a start, wide eyed with familiar terror. On instinct her hands latched onto the peredhel, and he stiffened. Doru who sat on the other side of the cell was trembling from head to toe with suppressed rage, beard bristling and eyes blazing.

The tester crooked their finger and beckoned Moy forward, and when she did not immediately obey, they snapped their fingers. The four orcs seized her by the forearms and legs, ripping her away from her hold on Caelon who tried to grab her back and was kicked in the stomach and sent flying across the floor.

Something in her head snapped. Moy flew into a raging panic, thrashing and screaming, reaching out for her point of comfort.

“Stay away from me! You can all go fuck yourselves with a bloody rusting shovel! ishkh khakfe andu null! No!” She cursed and struggled.

The tester seemed to smile beneath their hood, and she screeched as she was clouted across the head by an orc so hard that she heard a crack and saw stars before the world fell away into nothing.

Moy at first hardly noticed Legolas’s touch, but in her foolishness and weakness, she thought of Caelon. She shoved Legolas away from herself, reattaching her foot and moving to the other side of the bed. Legolas made a small noise of surprise, resisting the reactionary urge to grab her arm back.

She focused on Aisowyn’s face, sitting on the bedside. She traced a finger through the snags of her hair and across her forehead.

“You know this human child?”

“You should go now, Legolas. You’ve seen enough.”

He sat on the other side of the bed. “Forgive me for being curious, but I would like to know how you came to be in Lothlorien. With a gravely injured human no less. And you cannot keep pushing away from all who would show you compassion.”

“Watch me. I don't need your fucking compassion. I never have.”

His hand was reaching, grasping her shoulder tightly. “All your actions indicate otherwise, you stubborn bonebag.” His eye twitched, and his fingers flexed.

“Ah, so he is capable of slinging words,” she crowed. “Yet, incapable of listening.”

“It seems it is you who cannot listen,” Legolas snapped. “Unless you simply fall deaf upon all my questions in order to avoid simple truths.”

Moy wrenched herself from his grip, continuing to back away until she hit the wall.

He approached, his arms bracing against the wall along either side of her head. “How far gone you must be, to fight all who would help you. Moy, I-” He hesitated. “You’ve made me wonder…”

“Wonder what?” she spat.

“Oh, I don't know!” He threw his hands up. “Who you are, what you are, how I can help? You vex me, woman, and yet here I am offering to help.”

“You can’t help me, and sure as the Valar are holy, you cannot help that little girl,” Moy said bitterly. “There’s no cure for lost innocence or limbs, Legolas… as sure as there is no cure for Morgul poison.”

Aisowyn whimpered beneath the blankets. Both heads turned simultaneously, and Moy was at her side again in seconds. In a lower voice, she said, “She is the only kin of mine, and I hers. That is my fault, as was this. She took an arrow that was meant for me.”

Aisowyn let out a mewl of distress, eyelids fluttering. Moy continued to stroke her hair, softly making shushing noises.

Legolas watched, seeing pieces that finally fit together. The tenderness she displayed was worlds apart from who she seemed to be both months and moments ago. Whoever this child was, she was a link to a part of Moy long since forgotten.

“I know you don’t want pity from me,” Legolas said. “Even so, I... I am sorry. I can only hope she wakes soon, and wish you good fortune.”

Moy walked up to him, and he half expected her to flick him on the nose again. She opened her mouth to speak and the door flew open.

Boromir strode in. “Legolas, Aragorn sent me to-” His eyes fell on Moy.

The shortsword at his belt was drawn and in a second he plunged it through her shirt into her ribcage. She looked at him, down at the blade, then back up again. “This doesn’t seem to have worked as you intended.”

Legolas grabbed Moy by the arm and yanked her back, standing between them.

“Legolas! What- what is this? Who let that thing in here!?” Boromir blustered, growing red in the face.

“Daro. Boromir, stay your hand,” Legolas warned. “She is not our enemy.”

The man was aghast, disgust written into every corner of what might have otherwise been a handsome face. “You would defend monsters? The living dead?”

Moy attempted to shove Legolas aside, itching to stab the man with his own sword that protruded from her ribs. He stopped her with his arm.

He stared the man down, steely eyed. “The only monsters here are the ones who would draw a weapon in a place of peace and healing such as this. I will speak to Aragorn later.”

Boromir opened his mouth to object, but Moy cut him off. “Piss off, why don’t you? Try not to stab the next one who gets in your way.” She pulled the sword from her chest and tossed it to the floor at his feet.

His glare was red with violent thoughts as he huffed his way out of the room.

“That was unnecessary,” Legolas said. A tiny frown dug at the corner of his lips.

Moy groaned and turned back to Aisowyn, reassuring herself that the girl was still calm and sleeping dreamlessly. “What in Arda is wrong with that man?” She crossed her arms, fingers tapping along her biceps.

Sighing, Legolas explained. “My purpose in Lothlorien is as part of a fellowship, seeking to destroy the One Ring. It seeks to stop us, and Boromir has been deeply affected.”

“The One Ring?” Moy’s jaw dropped. “It was supposed to have disappeared forever. Hundreds searched!”

Legolas nodded vaguely. “I need to return to our camp. Walk with me, i’ll do my best to explain.”

Moy looked back one more time. She needed to get out of this room, and as much as she worried after Aisowyn, she could hardly stand to see her like this any longer.

Legolas was surprised when Moy agreed to join him, to say the least. He could hardly understand why he’d offered in the first place. The elves of Lorien were no doubt pacified by Galadriel and their own curiosity, but the Fellowship was another story entirely.

He still grimaced thinking of Boromir’s rage and quick swordwork. Had it been anyone else stabbed, blood would have run red through the healing halls.

As they walked, he was silent at first. Moy seemed more focused on the sheer beauty of Lothlorien than anything else, taking in the golden dappled sunlight, and drifting of soft music from high in the trees.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to know of the One,” Legolas said. “Perhaps only in passing.”

“Really?” Moy asked dryly. “Strange, since I was there and around when everything went to hell. You should have seen the search parties.”

He stopped. “You were there? In Mordor?”

Moy froze, looking for all the world like a startled deer. “At the time yes…”

“And yet you aren’t a dark creature. How did that come to pass?” A gentle nudge, perhaps not as subtle as he’d imagined it in his head. He waited patiently for her to continue.

“I didn’t just melt into existence, you know,” she snapped. “I was stuck in Mordor for a time, then I got out. More importantly, what are you planning to do with the Ring now?”

Legolas resisted the urge to roll his eyes at what was a truly awful diversion from the question. “It must be destroyed, at all costs. The task given to myself and the other is to assist the ring bearer on his mission.”

Moy protested, “It’s suicide. You cannot possibly-”

“And yet we must,” Legolas cut in. “For the good of Arda and all of Iluvatar’s creations.”

Moy stopped, huffed, and fell into silence. As stubborn as she was, even she would have to accept and concede to some things.

Their silence was companionable, peaceful even. They walked for a time, no clear destination in mind, though Legolas knew he would soon have to return to his own encampment. For the time being, he delved into his own daydreams of the light and beauty of Arda, turning from the dark thoughts that stole away all optimism.

He stopped at a small clearing, and sat in the lush grasses amidst the spring flowers. Moy hesitantly followed suit.

“At times, when the world seems too dark and strange a place, I find it comforting to sit among the trees.” He flexed his fingers into the ground. “I see the roots of this place, their simplicity and beauty. What do you see?”

Moy was baffled for a moment. “Plants, lots of plants.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Descriptive, aren't we? When one is among nature, they stand on an island of life. Death is not the end, only the next step in creating new life, and this is the purest form of such. In such a long life as an elf’s, we learned to take pleasure in this.”

Moy picked at the grass, twiddling a blade in her fingers. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re surprisingly poetic, or is that an innate trait of you elves?”

He laughed. “Perhaps it is.” He sobered, eyes turning to the golden canopies suspended above them. “I’ve travelled throughout Arda, and seen its beauties and horrors. I only hope one day that you have a chance to do the same.”

Moy’s jaw pulled upwards into a sort of smile. “Maybe.”

Chapter Text

Moy’s world swam in and out of focus, as the leering orcs and the hooded robe of the tester surrounded her on all sides. Hands were roughly grasping her head, feeling and evoking a soreness that made her whole head pound with anguish.

“-next time, you fools will answer to our lord for this carelessness!” The tester hissed.

When she tried to move her arms, she found herself tied down to the table, hands clapped in irons.

Moaning weakly, she shifted against the chains, hearing their muted clanging along the cold metal surface of the table.

Her head was afire with pain, and she could not recall exactly why. The fuzziness that surrounded her snapped into clarity at the sight of the dagger being held aloft, too close to her face.

“Ah, so my little friend isn’t going to miss out,” the tester simpered, turning to retrieve a glass jar.

The contents of the jar were blacker than night, so dark they seemed to suck all the little light in the room out of it, pulling away all color and scant beauty. Moy could feel the evil that emanated from that little jar, and struggled further against the table.

“No… please… please! Get away!”

The tester was dead and deaf to her pleas. He opened the jar, revealing the stench of rot and ruin, and carefully dipped the dagger into its contents.

Moy’s animalistic panic only grew. She thrashed and begged. He plunged the dagger into her stomach and she screamed.

The sound was so terrible and carrying that Caelon and Doru in their little cell could hear her faint cries, though the sound was so warped they could not say what it was.

The blade dug deep into her flesh, and the black poison dripped into the wound. Wherever her blood ran, the black poison followed and hardened like crystal, trapping it within her. It sunk into her skin and her entire stomach was a mass of blackened, hardened skin that jutted out, unsettlingly artistic in it’s arrangement

Her veins were burning up on themselves as poison coursed through her blood, but then everything seemed to still.

“It worked,” the tester quietly remarked, throwing the blade to the side. Scooping up the jar, they abandoned Moy on the table.

It was hours later that an orc dragged a salt stained Moy back to the cell, trading her for Doru this time. She collapsed into sleep almost immediately.

Caelon’s finger ran absently through the tangles of her blood soaked hair, but his eyes were drawn to the cuts into her shift around her stomach. Reaching to tug aside the fabric, he hissed and withdrew. The layer of black and dried blood stood out like the blaze of the evening sun. Moy whimpered in her sleep.

“Melda,” he breathed, a terrible storm brewing from the bottom of his very fea. His hands shook and there was the urgent need to kick, hit, destroy, to see the blood of orcs on his hands.

When Moy woke again, Doru was there. He slumped at her feet, weeping unabashedly. Caelon was missing.

“Lass, are yeh still with me?” he sniffled.

“Of course, you ridiculous dwarf.” Moy reached to wrap her arms around his shoulders, but let out a note of pain and fell back.

“Yeh were sleepin’ for far too long. Whatever they did to us, it bodes ill, and you seemed the worst of it yet. The elf was sent too.”

“Oh…” Her eyes fell and she saw that his shirt too had been cut open, and a hint of black peeked out. “Are you alright?”

“Just hurtin’,” he wheezed.

“We… we’ve survived worse,” Moy said. She gave a pained smile. “As long as I have you two, I feel no fear.” Hesitantly, she added, “I- I suppose you are all that’s left of family…”

She bit her tongue. What a foolish thing to say. He had hundreds of family members he would return to in the mountains, and Caelon would journey to an elven place to live again among his like. She would never be able to return to her old life, not now.

She lapsed into silence.

It wasn't long before Caelon was back, in similar condition and looking exhausted enough to sleep through to the next age.

The testing stopped, or so it would seem. It had been a while, a week perhaps? It was hard to tell.

“Moy, come here,” Caelon beckoned, eyeing her with a sharp look. She scooted near, and he carefully parted her hair to see the remnants of a blow to the side of her head. It was red and angry, swollen to the touch.

She winced and he quickly withdrew his fingers.

He frowned. “The wound on your head, it doesn’t look right. It should have begun to heal already, but it’s barely scabbed over and still looks fresh.”

Moy blinked in confusion. “I don’t know anything of healing, maybe it’s just worse than it seemed in the first place.”

“Perhaps,” was all Caelon said, fingers idling across her shoulder.

The world was in chaos, and all the trio could hear beyond the door was panic, shouting, and violence. Why was uncertain, but the fear was mounting.

The door slammed open. It was the tester. They were alone however, and looked almost fearful.

“Girl, get up!” They hissed, roughly taking ahold of Moy’s arm. “You two, come quietly or she’ll be first!”

They complied, chasing the tester who ran frantically down twisting passageways like a deer being hunted.

The tester muttered many indistinguishable things, but all that Moy made out was, “My life’s work will not be ruined!”

Orcs ran as well, back and forth in the chaos. The air stank of sweat and fear, and the sounds of fighting continued to beat in unison with their running feet.

“Halt!” A goblin screeched at them. The tester did not stop, but produced a long dagger and cut him down as easily as a straw dummy.

They were moving down, and Moy’s knees gave out. Her lungs heaved with exertion, and the tester snarled, “Get up!”

She tried and failed, falling against their knees. The tester grabbed her forearm and harshly yanked her to a stand.

Moy reacted quickly. In a single motion, the dagger was plunged through the tester’s hooded face. Stab, stab, stab! Moy was all anger, and her only thoughts were of the motions of violence.

Doru’s hand was on her shoulder, and she just about took his eye out, her own glazed with fear. Instead, she’s merely scratched his cheek and taken out a chunk of his black beard.

Doru beamed. “You’re a wonder, Lass!”

Caelon was already donning the tester’s robes, leaving behind their tormentor. In reality, when uncloaked the tester was a small man with a hooked nose and an ugly bloody face who was striking in his insignificance. Moy could not look at her handiwork, feeling like she might puke.

“Come on, we must continue,” Caelon urged once the body had been pushed into an unsuspecting corner. “We will play the part.” He took Moy’s arm roughly, and continued to run down the hall, Doru puffing behind them.

“Our lord is dead!” An orc thundered as he tore down the hall, gratefully ignoring all around him. “The ring is stolen, our master vanquished!

Caelon did not slow, even for an instant, until they pushed aside the doors and found themselves along the black gate. They stared into the smoke strewn sky for the first time in months, and Moy almost wanted to cry.

“Come, this way!” The peredhil urged, dragging her along the gate. All around them orcs poured forth. A frenzied panicked mob, their mournful, vengeful cries could be heard from every corner of Mordor for miles in all directions.

In the grace of the confusion, the trio found themselves along the edge of the mountains, pressed tightly against the rock. Moy tripped and nearly plunged through a hole. Doru grabbed her arm, and the pair of them stumbled into the mountainside..

The drop was short, only five feet at the most, and Caelon jumped in after them.

“This is our way through,” he said, squinting ahead into the dark cavern. “Come, and we’ll be free.”

The word free echoed back at them tauntingly.

Tripping and cursing all the while, Moy’s head leapt up at the feel of a cool breeze, and the smell of clean air. With no heed to caution, she bounded forward, joyous as a springtime doe.

She reached the light at the end of the tunnel. She saw the sun, and let out a whoop of pure happiness, throwing her arms in the air.

She turned and saw her friends standing with radiant eyes. She grabbed Doru’s forearms and spun with him clumsily. Caelon merely smiled. He’d never thought to think what she would look like in the light of the sun, and the light made her hair glow as much as her smile.

“Now, we run,” Caelon said, this time taking Moy by the hand.

Chapter Text

Legolas stood and stretched, cracking his neck and raising his arms behind his back. As oddly peaceful as it was, he had duties yet.

“Aragorn still likely waits for me,” he admitted, glancing down at Moy who was staring blankly into the trees. “He is a good man, kingly in nature and disposition. He would bear no grudge against you. Not as Boromir does.” He paused. “Nor as I did.”

Moy swivelled her head lazily towards him. It was a disconcerting sight, seeing her skull rotate until almost entirely backwards atop her neck like a bizarre white owl. “Is that so? You want me to meet him? It seems you won’t stop until everyone has had a good long look at the freakshow.”

Legolas opened his mouth to protest, but she held a finger to her mouth. “Shush, Elf. Don't muck it up with words. I’ll come with you if you so insist.”

She was up and already walking ahead of him in seconds while he was left a little miffed, and yet somehow amused.

Aragorn was leaning against a fallen log sharpening his sword. Every shrill movement sent little sparks flying and made Legolas’s ears twinge in discomfort. The man glanced up at him, then his gaze slid to Moy hiding halfway behind him. Steel grey eyes widened.

“Ai, the rumors are true,” he said. Setting down his sword, he placed his arm over his chest and gave a strange bow. Moy continued to stare blankly.

“So no panic?” She asked after a moment. “I know your friend tried to stab me in the chest earlier, and that didn’t go as planned.”

“So he told me,” was all Aragorn said, returning to his blade oh-so-casually. “There is a great deal we do not understand in this world. Far be it for me to cast aspersions upon one who has committed no wrong, and who has been welcomed in by one of the wisest of elves.”

That was the most he would likely say today or to her. Moy gleaned that he wasn’t much of a talker, or perhaps this mysterious quest was a greater burden than she thought.

Or maybe he was just insane?

Legolas spoke in quick elvish, “Estel, you would speak with me in private?”

“Indeed, Legolas. It’s about Boromir… And the hobbits.”

They continued back and forth for a few minutes, all the while Moy waited impatiently.

“No, no! That’s not ready yet, Pippin!” A voice sounded from a short distance away, and Moy drifted closer.

Four strange little men sat around a cooking fire in a cozy circle. Or rather, two sat, while the other two stood over the pot animatedly speaking.

The rounder one was waving a spoon and the other was more focused on the contents of the pot than anything around him, including the very threateningly held spoon.

“But it’s already past second breakfast, Sam,” he whined, hopping from hairy foot to foot. As he spike, his twin was sneaking his arm around before his hand was firmly struck with the implement.

So ensued a chase around and round the campfire, the little man chasing him, spoon aloft like a great weapon.

Moy’s peals of laughter broke free, and she froze, cursing herself. They all turned to see her lurking behind a tree. They all shared open mouthed fishlike looks, and Moy was about to bolt before one of the twin men blurted, “Are you the one Boromir was talking about?”

She edged ever so slightly closer, nodding. “He told everyone, didn’t he?”

Nodding returned hers.

“Something about an evil monster who seduced Legolas?”

Little heads continued to bob up and down. She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Of course. That idiot… Couldn’t tell an orc from a rotting log, that one.”

“You don’t look very evil-like, missus, if you don’t mind me saying so,” the little man with the spoon spoke up, still a bit wide eyed.

“And you look like midgets, what’s a look worth?”

That was less than kind, and Moy was still pissed at Boromir, that oaf.

“We’re hobbits!” The dark haired one piped up, his first words yet. “If you please.”

She muttered, ”Sorry,” before slumping to the ground against the tree. ”Never heard of a hobbit before.”

“Most of the big folk haven’t, it seems,” one of the twins remarked. “The name’s Pippin, that’s Merry, Sam, and Frodo.”

She wasn’t going to remember those names, but she was grateful for their extraordinary manners in the face of her snappishness.

The hobbits carried on their tasks, while Sam frantically tended to the boiling pot. Moy watched them, boredly tapping her hands against the tree trunk.

“You don’t have fangs or claws either,” Merry added.

“Oh, for the love of-” Moy shouted, “I’m going to string that man up by his guts and-”

“Moy?” Legolas’s voice rang clear. He stepped forward, looking between her and the hobbits. “Have you seen where Boromir has gone?”

“No,” she bit out. “I don’t where he’s buggered off to.”

“Are you alright?” he asked, a little nonplussed.

“I’m taking a walk,” she said curtly. He shook his head in frustration, abandoning the hobbits to follow her.

She was tearing blindly through the trees, heedless of direction or destination.

“Moy,” Legolas started.

“What?” She did not look at him.

“The hobbits are a simple, peaceful folk, they would not-”

She let out a strangled noise of irritation. “It’s not that!”

“Then what is it?” He was on his last nerve with this woman.

“Oh, you don’t care! It’s none of your business, your highness.”

Legolas cursed in elvish, throwing his hands wide.

"Why can't you just be forward, Moy? For once, please. All you seem to do is deflect, and raise your defenses. You block out the light, you scorn and sneer, and try to drive away everyone who dares speak to you candidly." All at once, his thoughts and building frustrations came tumbling out into the open.

“You refuse to answer even the simplest of questions. How can you live like that? We elves are markedly different from mortals, but even we understand how to speak our thoughts, our emotions, our long lives. Even we understand trust! Ai, woman!"

"I-I don't know, legolas!” Moy spat. “What do you want from me, you stupid, obtuse, son of a-!"

She was being caged in again, retreating into the cave of her mind. He stepped further into her way, and she reared to slap him. He caught her wrist, then the other as it swung.

"Yet again, we find ourselves in this position. Over and over, Moy. Why?"

"I don't know!" she repeated, caught between a snarl and a sob. "Maybe if you just left well enough alone..." She tried to jerk her arm back, but he held her fast.

"What are you Moy? Who are you?" The almost unnatural tension of him in that moment, the rigidity and unwavering, intenseness in his every line of his face.

Her resolve cracked.

"I'm... I was... a farmgirl..." She tugged again, but his grip was about as pliable as steel.

"I-I had a family, and ... a brother. We had horses..."

Something in his eyes softened, imploring her to speak. She'd never paid much mind, but now she couldn't help noticing how bright they were, so, so blue, and infuriatingly pretty.

A fresh wave of anger swelled within her, hardening her voice like magma. "Orcs came in the night. They killed, raped, kidnapped.” Her voice trembled ever so slightly at that last word. “They made me what I am, Legolas"

He flinched, and his grip loosened a fraction. She ripped her hands away.

Deathly silence was permeated only by soft breathing.

Then he had the nerve to move closer, as if he wasn't disgusted, wasn't angry, wasn't revileing in horror from her very presence.

She stepped back when he came forward, keeping her distance. It was almost as if they were caught between each other, circling, and prepared to fight or flee.

"You've gotten what you wanted," she said, fists clenching. "You would pull everything out into the open, wouldn't you? Regardless of the consequences. Draw out my poisonous thoughts, things no one, no one ought to know! All my shame, my fears, everything I am! Strip me bare of that and all for what? To try and fix me?!” she screamed. “You fucking elves think you can just... fix everything, don't you? You are vile, and I hate you!"

She disappeared into the trees, and he watched her go. It was only after minutes of staring at where she’d been that he noticed the wetness upon his cheeks.

Nothing had ever quite stuck with him like Moy's words of confession, save perhaps his father's rare moments of vulnerability.

Those words rattled uncomfortably around his head. Was he supposed to take something away from this? That he pried too far, and delved too deep, like the dwarves of Moria, in search of answers. And all to sate his own piddling curiosities. They were nothing, after all, but questions. Yet, evidently those secrets were all that held Moy together. To tear those away, would be to undo her very being.

She had been human once, a Rohirrim. She’d had a family. She’d been hurt, and some dark power had been involved. Beyond that, what was there to her past? Guard towers she built around everything she said and showed hid something...

"You think heavy thoughts, hir nin" a voice said from behind him.

Elve rarely startled, but Legolas turned to see the lady of the wood watching him. Her expression was neutral, but her stare was strange.

"I cannot show you the way," she continued. "But, I can offer you a glimpse, if you are so desperate for insight."

She glided away, and he followed, entering a small clearing in which her mirror lay waiting.

He did not hesitate, leaning over eagerly, but Moy's words came unbidden to the forefront of his memory

You would pull everything out into the open, wouldn't you? Regardless of the consequences. You are vile.

He felt that he was yet again prying too deep, but when he glanced up at Galadriel, he saw something else within, dark and sorrowful.

"She would not want..." he trailed off.

"Not all insight in a sin, and perhaps you may glean something of your quest that even I cannot divine."

He turned back to the mirror, and furrowed his brow in focus as images formed.

He was standing in a yellowing field, watching a small homestead in the distance. A fair haired boy, he could not guess his age, but young to be sure, ran among the wheat and laughed.

Then the sun was gone, the house was aflame. An elderly man stood in the doorframe, yet the fire that licked at him did not burn. He was staring right through Legolas, towards some point upon the horizon.

There was a roaring sound, a peculiar scent, and Legolas turned to see a wall of towering, foaming water. Before he could be swept away, the water turned to a sea of tossing red and gold.

He was looking into a pair of eyes, shining golden brown. Almost a golden as... they were not eyes, he saw, but golden rings forming into One. The red all around him crumbled away to ash, and he was in a wide cavern. Blackness crept towards him from all sides, oozing and foul. Rough whites hands, cold as ice, were grabbing at him, pushing at him, wrenching at his head, pulling at his clothes and hair desperately.

Galadriel was holding his head up. The cold sensation was water, and his face was just brushing the surface of the mirror.

He leapt back, face reddening. Had he nearly drowned himself in an inch of water?

He left without a word, and Galadriel watched him with a barely audible sigh.

Legolas was nowhere to be found, and Moy did not see him for two days afterwards, but she lingered at their encampment outskirts. There wasn't really anywhere else to be but here, or in the healing wards for no real purpose other than to feel miserable and hopeless.

Hobbits, she decided, were wholly pleasant creatures. Even forgiving her outburst, they spoke so casually and earnestly about whatever was on their minds. Usually their long and illustrious family trees, food, the Shire, food, or food.

Never, of course, on the ring that hung around Frodo's neck that radiated power and magic. That was a forbidden subject, and she guessed, part of this “quest.”

That night, she almost wished she could eat because the roasted potatoes Sam was frying were a delightful scent in the air.

She’d seen both Merry and Pippin burn their hands trying to sneak a piece for themselves. She’d giggled quietly, a stranger noise coming from her throat.

There was a polite coughing behind her and she whipped around to face an elf looking very strained in keeping a straight face around her.

“The lady Galadriel asked me to fetch you. She said to tell you that your little friend has awakened.”

Before the entire sentence was loosed from his lips, she was gone

Chapter Text

Moy tore through Lothlorien and into the healing wards like a wild animal.

She could hear a loud wail, that of a child, and she was up the steps two at a time.

A cluster of elves surrounded the bed. One stroked Aisowyn’s forehead, shushing her fruitlessly in Sindarin. The other two covered their ears and edged around the bed, looking utterly bewildered.

“I want my sister!” The girl cried from beneath her piles upon piles of blankets. Her face was blotchy red and her nose was dripping.

The elves eyes flew up to her standing in the doorframe before they were shoved aside.

“Moy!” Aisowyn shouted, feebly tossing aside the coverings and squealing in delight. She came and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the girl into her.

“I-I was scared, Sister Elf,” she whimpered into her tunic. “They wouldn’t let me leave, and no one would tell me where you went. Those pointy ears are mean !” She sniffled and pouted.

“I know they are,” Moy said, stifling a laugh. “Those are elves, Ais. Real live elves.”

“You’re a lot nicer, and you’ve never tried to steal my feet.” Aisowyn wriggled until she was sitting across from Moy. The stub of her leg was clean and bandaged, but it still made Moy wince to see. “I asked for it back, but the pointy ears said no! All they said was jibberish anyway…”

Moy groaned. She was not prepared for this conversation.

“I’m sorry, Ais, they didn’t steal your leg. They…uhh, you got really sick and they had to take it so you would get better.”

She waited for the tears to start up again, indignation, really anything.

“Oh, okay.”

Wait, what?

“It’s gonna be a lot harder to play tag with one leg,” she added, her little face scrunching in thought.

Valar bless you, you strange little beast, Moy thought, drawing her back into an embrace.

“I can’t believe i’m to be carrying you around everywhere,” Moy’s voice carried on the air towards the encampment. Legolas jerked upwards from fletching his arrows. “You’re going to get fat and spoiled.”

A child spoke next, impetuously saying, “No! You’ll just do the exercise for me, Sister Elf.”

Moy emerged, carrying the small human child in her arms. It was the one from the healing ward. And he could see where her leg dangled without a twin.

She went straight to the hobbits, ignoring him, Aragorn, the open mouthed gawking of Gimli, and even Boromir, whose face looked pinched and irritated.

“Aisowyn, the hobbits, hobbits, Aisowyn.” Setting her on the log, Moy sat hunched over, elbows on her knees.

He watching the curious happening unfold, all the while pretending wholeheartedly not to notice.

Aisowyn sat side by side with the hobbits, and she cheerfully babbled away to Frodo all the while.

"I suppose you're not old enough for ale," Pippin said. "But when you are, you should visit the Green Dragon with us."

"There's food, and music, and dancing!" Merry added. Pip smacked his shoulder.

You shouldn't be prattling on all insensitive like, using the d-word. " He glanced nervously at the girl.

"I like dancing!" Aisowyn declared. “You can be my dance partner! Can you teach me how to to a wal- uhh, whatever that dance is called? Walf?”

“A waltz?” Moy provided.

“Yeah!” Aisowyn moved to leap up, but staggered and flopped into the grass in a giggling heap. “We’ll make our own with a good name, better than a stupid waltz. Ooh, how about the Hop? Since all I can do is hop on one leg.”

She beamed goofily up at Merry and Pippin.

With an enthusiastic bow, he nodded and pulled her up. “We’ll do the best Hop in all of Middle Earth.”

The dance, as it formed, was nothing more than a rowdy circle, the hobbits linking arms with Aisowyn and hopping round and round, back and forth.

It was the kind of lighthearted fun the fellowship hadn’t seen in weeks, and Legolas allowed himself a smile as he continued to perfect his arrows.

Still, he thought sour thoughts whenever he turned his head again, only to see that Moy would not look or even glance over at him.

It was then that Gimli, who seemed much recovered from any sort of shock, spoke up, “Yer a fine dancer, Lassie. I’m sure yeh’ll put these elves to shame.”

Aisowyn glanced over at the dwarf from where she sat on the grass with childlike curiosity. “Oh, Moy doesn’t like to dance. I’m better than her without even trying!” She puffed her chest out like a tiny peacock.

“Moy, eh?” Gimli gave the skeleton a once over. “Heard stories once about your kind. Never took ‘em for truth.”

Moy leaned forward, voice low. “Do you know a dwarf named Doru?”

He scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Hmm, can’t say that I have. Might be that my cousins have, but there’s no saying for sure. Why’dya ask?”

“Oh… I- nothing…” She put her head in her hand dejectedly, and the subject was quickly forgotten.

An hour passed in quiet cheer, the human child lifting everyone’s spirits somewhat. Moy at one point excused herself, leaving Aisowyn with the hobbits, to her annoyance.

“Whatcha doing?” A piping voice at his feet made legolas look up, or rather down. A childish face was staring at his hands and their deft work.

“I am making sure my arrows will fly straight,” he explained. How did one talk to children, especially Edain children? He did not know.

“Those feathers are pretty,” she said, little fingers working their way towards his finished pile. “And your hair is pretty too. It’s so long! You’re an elf right? Just like Sister Moy? She said she isn't an elf, but I don’t believe her. She’s pretty too, and shiny. Like your hair!” She dragged herself onto the log proper, reaching out to grab at the blond strands.

He was utterly baffled by the stream of words coming her her mouth, and winced as she tugged admiringly.

“I wish I was shiny too, but Grandy says-” she paused, and her eyes grew large and round with tears. “I forgot...”

Legolas panicked. It was so sudden of the girl, and the she was sobbing on him. His hands pulled her closer, carding reassuringly through her yellow tangles as she bawled.

Moy burst back into the clearing, and stopped at the sight. Sighing, she approached Legolas for the first time in days, but refused to look at him, instead zeroing in on Aisowyn.

“Let’s go, elf,” was all she said, gesturing with a hand to follow her.

She slept now, tearstained but sound in his arms as he walked. Her rapid heartbeat was soothed, and he wondered exactly how old she was. Not very, from the size of her, but human ages were tricky.

“She’s staying with me,” Moy said stopping at her flet.

“Moy-”

“No.”

“You didn’t even-”

“I had no need to. Come on.”

He followed her inside, noting how cold and bare it was. And how tenderly she took the child from his arms, tucking her in as a mother would and running a fingertip across her arm.

“As heartless as you think I am, I do care about some things,” she spoke, voice echoing in the melancholy of the room. “I… I cared about my family, and about my brother, Thorry, and Ioded, and…” She couldn’t finish that sentence.

“We’ll be leaving for Mordor tomorrow,” Legolas said. He wasn’t sure why he said it.

He turned to leave, but she was there, grabbing at his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” A simple statement of humility, as she started him right in the face.

“What for? Moy-”

She leaned in and bumped her jaw against his cheek.

“Just for the record, Legolas, I don’t hate you.” She turned away, and he left without a word.

She moved to the bed, securing Aisowyn within her arms, and dreamt.

Chapter Text

Legolas realized at some point down the line that he cared. He cared a lot .

But that was of no concern for the time being, for the ring pressed ever harder against them and their hearts. Sauron lurks, orcs move, and the elf princes do not have the time to sit and wonder the nature of such a sudden deep and intrinsic caring.

The fellowship packed, they received their gifts, and they left.

Aisowyn came to bid them farewell before the boats departed, carried by an elven handmaiden.

“I want to come with you!” She squirmed in the elf’s arms, making grabbing motions with her little hands.

He took those hands and smiled. “Lothlorien is the safest place for you, penneth . But I will come back bearing gifts. Mayhaps i’ll bring you a young pony from Rohan, or a leaf off the White Tree of Gondor.”

He lied because he had to, staring into such young, hopelessly young eyes. There would be nothing, no ponies from fierce Rohan or leaves off trees that had been dead for nigh centuries.

Aisowyn scrunched her brow, a parody of sterness. “You better, Mister Elf Prince.” After a moment she added, “Or Moy will be really sad. She gets sad a lot, but her sad looks just like her mad so it’s hard ‘ta tell a lotta the time.”

Legolas blinked, them smoothly replied, “Of course, penneth . We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

She shook her head. “Nuh uh.”

Legolas retracted his hands from hers and turned away towards the boats. There was no more to be said, or done.

Moy sat on her own now in these ancient woods that seemed to mock her in their beauty. The leaves whose rustled harmonized and the wind that carried sweet eleven scents upon it were there, not for her, but for the immortal denizens of Lothlorien

Rubbing her cheek, she knew. Oh, she knew what sort of dark and dangerous trap she’d fallen into. She knew that only despair lay ahead, and all the hiding and bitterness and she tears in the world meant nothing. She meant nothing; she was a relic of a time since lost where innocence lived and her existence was not a stain nor sin upon the earth.

Legolas surely would have left by now, off the save the world and be that beautiful icon of legends. Maybe, she liked to imagine, he could think of her fondly some day down the line.

This wallowing she knew would do her no good, and after a time, it could have been hours, or mere minutes, she moved on.

She knew in that instant that she had to go, and that she would follow him there, or to the ends of Arda.

Travel upon the boats was going as well as it reasonably could. The waters were swift and the sun that winked through the treetops at the Fellowship was bright and encouraging.

Legolas focused on the rowing, shutting away his mind and repeating the automatic gesture as the hours passed, deathly quiet for even an elf. To think was to lose focus, to lose focus was to risk the Fellowship, and to risk the Fellowship would be an end to these lands.

There was rustling along the banks, frantic as vegetation was being trampled.

Legolas had his bow drawn in a split-second, aimed for the orcs that would surely crash through the trees. But so close to Lorien?

Moy leapt out of the trees, running along the bank as she followed them, and waving with one arm.

His entire body at first relaxed then tensed with apprehension and confusion.

Moy’s foot caught on a root, and she plummeted forward into the water. Moments later, a skeletal hand was gripping the edge of his boat, hauling herself up to the shock (and hobbit grins) of the group.

“I want to help,” was all she said, standing in Legolas’s boat. “I can help you get to Mordor.”

The three injured escapees huddled together in the night, arms around arms to keep away the chill their meager campfire could not. They’d run for days, never seeming to grow tired. Well, Doru did, but as a dwarf that was more understandable.

And now he snored as loud as anything possibly could.

“I’m surprised he doesn’t wake himself up,” Moy whispered, giggling as she tucked her head further into Caelon’s chest. He smiled as he ran a hand over her hair soothingly. “It’s a novelty. Elves don’t snore. Not like that.”

“You’re not a full elf though, right? You said you were half? That’s strange. What’s it like?” She twisted her head slightly to see his reaction.

“Half elves are rare, incredibly rare, melda . Not like true elves who live forever, and have hair made of spun sunlight and air.”

She scrunched her nose. “They live forever?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Well i’m glad you won’t live forever.”

Caelon stiffened slightly. “Why is that, Moy?”

“I’d like to stay with you forever, but when i’m gone, you won’t have to spend eternity without me,” she said, stifling a yawn. Moments later she was asleep in his arms.

She was tired, she was delirious, Caelon assured himself, she surely did not… love him? This sweet child with no one else to turn to in the world seemed all at once a different person to him.

Kissing her brow, he prayed for better days.

Chapter Text

Moy did not dream.

Oh she used to dream and hope and imagine in the days of her youth, but youth is fleeting they say, and she held no such childish innocence.

This time however, she sat in the little boat, staring into the water and watching it ripple and burble. She was lost in the simplicity of every little bubble and nuance, how it seemed to go on forever like a life of undeath, or perhaps a cycle of continuous ever flowing movement. She watched, and her bones began to slump as she lost herself in a dream.

She and her elven prince, spinning and falling, and with the scattering petals of spring's blooms all around them. Everything was a haze of sorrowful delight, and she smiled and laughed like a youth again. Soft light surrounded them and the world was a place of beautiful sunshine.

He was beautiful too, not blindingly or with a heavenly radiance, but simply. It was in the upturned corner of his lip, or the subtle glint of life and joy in his eye. The relaxed posture of his arm behind his head, and the softness of his white hand in hers. His being there washed away Moy's ugliness and fears, soothed her tormented mind, and brought her joy again, in the infinitely brief moment of true, genuine, dreaming.

She stirred not of her own volition, but rather as she felt herself being carried, barely jostled, but enough to rip her from her outrageous reveries.

“Tunnels to Mordor? Can you imagine our luck?” That was the dwarf’s voice, rumbling like the earth of his homeland.

Deeper still came the second voice, lilting through her body with its closeness, “ Ai! and surely this stroke of fortune will be yet matched by an even greater struggle. Such seems to be our luck.”

They were along the bank, boats were being secured, and all around her was Legolas. For a moment, there was the fleeting thought of, “This is nice,” before the treacherous thought was quickly squashed.

This would not do, and Moy made it clear.

“Put me down, now,” she ordered, wriggling around like a fish out of water as she attempted to get away from the absolute presence of this elf enveloping her.

Legolas startled and fumbled to set her on her feet, while Gimli watched this exchanged goggle-eyed and bemused.

She “scowled” at him, taking off after the others already moving ahead.

“Real charmer,” Moy heard Gimli comment. “Like a dwarven lass, she’s got tha’ attitude of an unyielding rock.”

It was later as they made camp that she approached Legolas again.

“Gimli’s right.”

He was starting a fire, and startled enough that he nearly set his hand alight.

“About what?” he replied, smoothly as ever, straightening out and giving Moy a now familiar look, the equally smug and confused eyebrow positioning.

“I’m a stubborn idiot, and I’m, ugh i’m sorry, okay?” She coughed and turned to leave. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sit down, i’ll finish the fire. We’ll be here a while yet.”

Aragorn returned with firewood and excellent timing. Legolas let go of Moy, returned to his task, and she found herself soon wedged between Aragorn, him, and a pair of perpetually snacking hobbits.

“You got any good stories, Moy?” the one who she thought might be Pippin asked through a mouthful of lembas bread.

She shook her head. “No.”

“You sure? You look like the kind of person to pick up stories. Even us hobbits have a grand tale here an’ there. There was this one time my uncle, y’see he...”

Probably Pippin continued in that vein for quite some time, and there was a kind of peaceable nature to the way he and Merry carried on, speaking of home and the little day to day stories of Hobbits. It was an enviable life to live for the sake of pleasure, a garden, and small homey comforts.

The few stories Moy had to tell would only sour the mood, and that was only the bits she remembered clearly. There were pieces she would ever wish to wipe out, tamped down in her soul. Best keep those bits safe in her heart.

She glanced up at Legolas again, who was watching the trees. His lookout duty kept him thoroughly distracted, enough that she could watch the elf a while and observe his little habits she’d begun to pick up on. There was a tenseness to his frame, understandable given the nature of the quest, but also the way he played with his hands, running the fingertips over the moss of his perch. His eyes never darted, and barely seemed to blink. It was a bit like he’d gotten himself into a staring contest with the woods.

Yes, it was best she keep some things to herself.

“Caelon, we…” Moy stopped to lean against a tree. “I’ve barely slept, eaten naught, but… I don’t feel anything.”

Her half elf looked back at her, injuries still prominent even weeks later. And then his gaze when to a panting Doru who looked… half dead.

“Ah’m fine, lass… we’ve got tah keep moving…” his voice was raspier than ever, laced with the slur of a man nearly asleep on his feet.

“We will stop for the night.” Caelon’s voice brokered no debate, and they all agreed regardless.

It had been a fortnight, and they still pressed on. But they had no food, and yet Moy still felt no need or desire of it. The only one who seemed the same was Doru, and yet all three of them bore cuts as deep as the day they earned them.

“Caelon, i’m scared.” Moy’s voice echoed between the pair. Doru slept a distance away, but Moy and her half-elf looked to each other.

“I don’t know what’s happening to us! I, I, fuck that hellhole!” She swore and spat, angrier than she ever really dared to be, at least openly.

“Moy.” His hand was on her shoulder then. “We’ll make it. I promise you, I will keep you safe.”

An unseen fierceness was risen then in his voice, and it both terrified Moy and drew her further towards him, like a moth to a flame. 

She clung to his shirt. “Cae, I l-love you. Please, please…” Even she barely knew what she was begging him for, but he understood anyway, his hands on her face, in her hair.

“I promise,” he repeated between kissing her softly. “I promise.”

Chapter Text

She should have known this would not last. Peace, even a moment of it, was not meant to survive in this world.

It began with the fall of Boromir, a man she did not wish to see die.

Amidst the chaos of the battle that fell upon the Fellowship, Moy could do nothing to stop it, and so she did what she did best. She fled into the trees, after the little hobbits.

From the corner of her eye, she saw her elf in the dancing throes of the horde, dispatching the creatures with a swift and blood-stained beauty. A dance of death. Still she ran, like the cowardly little girl she always knew herself to be.

She was suddenly being grabbed from behind, monstrous hands grasping her around the ribcage and hip, iron against her panicked struggle.

Moy screamed, brought back to the days before her humanity was stripped away, piece by bloody piece. To little avail, for she was being taken again.

Legolas heard through the panic of combat and orcish warcries, as clear as day, a heart wrenching scream of his name. He whipped ‘round, but it was too late. He could do nothing but cut down the last orc yet to flee, before all was as deathly still as a corpse.

He watched with growing numbness as Aragorn kneeled by the man of Gondor.

“I, I would have followed you to the end…. my brother, m-my captain, my king…”

‘I will follow you, o’ my stubborn-hearted love…’

He knew it was foolhardy, but he could no longer deny that was what he felt. She did not need flesh and blood to have changed him completely.

It was time now to hunt some orcs.

---

Doru was dying, despite Caelon’s reassurances that they would live, live and see a better future.

Gangrenous sores were opened all along his flesh, and his eyes sunken with defeat and sickness. Should they not take a a slowly weakening pace, he would begin coughing blood. Still, they marched on, through marsh or forest, rain or shine.

Moy could do nothing but watch her friend succumb.

Caelon had picked up a sword, found on the body of some unfortunate soul in the marsh, but it was all they had between the three of them, and he led them further and further west.

Nights would come and go, Moy cradled in the arms of her beloved half-elf, having no desire for sleep nor food. All she truly wanted was his comfort, his love, and his warmth, though there was little to be found in the chill of night.

The day came that Doru was cut down.

The orcs came upon them suddenly, but Cael held his blade aloft to face them, all three at once.

“Run!” he screamed to them, keeping the orcs at bay.

Moy took Doru’s hand and they ran and ran, but he stumbled and fell. Moy dropped to her knees at his side, clutching at his arm like a child.

“Please, Doru, we have to run, please, please!”

His eyes were drooping shut, and he opened his mouth to speak but all that came was a burst of coughing. There was a trickle of blood running down the corner of his mouth.

Moy was picked up by Cael, ripped away from her friend’s shuddering body, as he carried her in his arms away from this place.

She clawed at his hands, his face, struggled and screamed for him to go back, but Doru was already gone, left behind by his only friends.

Moy jolted in and out of consciousness at times, still carried in Caelon’s arms. He was looking forward determinedly, a particularly nasty cut dominated his temple and cheek, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching to lightly trace it with one finger.

“It will not be long before we reach our safehaven,” he said. He still did not look down at her, but she saw the corner of a sad smile.

Moy likewise looked away from him, losing herself in solitary grief. She could only feel numb and watch their world go by, a world cast in grey.

He set her down gently, at the edge of an ancient wood. Moy watched him out of the corner of her eye, arms crossed as her mind turned to darker moods and ideas. He knelt to start a small fire, and she hiked her threadbare skirts and fled into the trees away from him.

She could not bear this any longer, knowing they let him die, and her beloved Cae acting as though nothing had changed. Everything was changed, and Moy found every second of guilt building within her, a well of poison.

She tripped and stumbled her way through these unfamiliar woods, finding a hollow beneath the brush to hide in, curled into a ball. There she let the silent wracking pain overtake her.

It was not hard for him to find her again, so he knelt and picked her up again, setting her on her feet with one hand cupping her cheek and the other on her shoulder.

He stroked her chin with his thumb, and she pushed his hand away.

“You let him-! You left him, how could you?” She turned her head away, shoulders shaking.

“Melda, he was already gone. I did what I had to, to protect you.” His voice was like stone. “You were salvageable, he was not.”

“You should have tried! Anything! My life is worth nothing!” She reared and recoiled from his advance.

“Moy… “ he was quiet, flat-toned. “Your life is everything, everything to me.”

She did not look at him, nor the hand he held out to hers.

He took her hand anyway, gently guiding her further into the woods, and she did not stop him.

Sun was falling, and they stood hand in hand, in the shade of a rock outcropping.

“Here is my secret place, our place.” He smiled down at her, squeezing her hand slightly before letting go.

He pushed a boulder aside, muttering an elvish phrase or two as he did so, and she watched him reveal a small gap, big enough for one to crouch and pass through. The edge was marked by some kind of rune, though it looked ancient beyond ancient.

“Home,” Caelon whispered. “This is a place only those meant to see may ever lay eyes on, protected by something I cannot comprehend. It was mine, and now it is ours.”

With a childlike sense of adventure Moy had long since thought dead within her, she followed after him into her tomb

Chapter Text

There was fight in her yet, but it was fruitless. No muscle, no strength, and no way to overpower her foe.

These orcs and goblins ran through the night, tireless it seemed to her, and as disgusting as ever. Moy suspected if she were human, she would have retched from the sheer rankness of it all.

Every now and then she caught glimpses of those dear, brave, stupid hobbits. A part of her knew they would not last, not as she had. There was too much life and light and joy in the little people, and even now they still put up a valiant fight.

Fruitless.

It was hours later, but what might have felt like an age all over again with the rising intermingled anger and fear. Ever it plagued her, like diseased, ensnaring vines.

She was tied, shunted to the dirt, and forgotten by the orcs as they made their crude… well it was far from a camp. The hobbits were less fortunately forgotten, with the leering creatures hovering around them mockingly.

She could not watch this go on, but she could not help them. She felt again as helpless as a babe.

It came to her, a memory. A patrol of elves, being tied like a wild boar and dragged through the palace. The beautiful face of a stuck up elven prince.

Moy might have smiled at the thought, but his fate was a mystery to her.

Caelon was a mystery to her, there was so little she really knew of her love. Only that it was love, the kind forged in fire and misery.

Mysterious caverns, ancient temples, protective spells, and… death. He had seen so much of it, more that her, he was almost numb. It scared her, to see him when he thought she was not looking, when the glint in his eye was the saddest star in the night sky.

Moy never asked him how he found their new home, who he was before. Did he have a family? A… a wife?

He was part elven, she knew they lived long lives. He could have loved another before, couldn’t he have?

She had precious little to do when he was out aside from to ruminate upon these wonders. She’d explored the cave to its fullest, examined every nook and cranny. The caves were small, with little springs of sweet river water running into the stony earth. Riverwater she no longer thirsted for. And she saw the old carvings, remnants of fragmented history. She saw the abandoned manacles and chains in one chamber, the old altars in another, and the pitch black that reminded her of the spiders and dark she’d once feared.

Caelon went out every day, but not to hunt. They had no need of food, only each other. It was strange, but she felt that she would never need such things again. She felt… cold.

How many days had they been running now? Two? Three? Legolas was not sure. Time was a mere haze to an immortal, but never like this. Not in all his years. They needed to press forward, to find them, to… to… well anything but rest, time was of the essence.

Time, time, time. Moy had so much of it alone, and so cold, always so bitterly cold. It was indescribable. Only when she felt the love of her Cae as she free of it.

Time was passing, but how much of it? Moy did not know how long these orcs had been running, running, running. The bitterness of it all was palpable, as though she had the tongue to taste it. The wind was blowing over the plains in the night, carrying with it the memory of bone chilling coldness, and heartbreak,

Running running, find the hobbits, find Moy. A straightforward goal, a desire only to see the cold blood of orc running black across the earth. A desire for cold white bone, shining like the moon.

Moy was ill, she knew she was, and Cae, oh her Cae, he was gone so very often. He would return, refuse Moy from leaving. She could not, she musn’t. She was so very fragile to him, like crystal and glass.

She was losing herself, growing delirious of life. It was hardly life without him there, and her skin was dry, itching, patchy and strange. She did not know what this was.

It was the thundering of hooves that changed everything in the night, the distant rumbling of hope. And it was the sound of beautiful slaughter she could not see from where she lay that gave her equal measure of hope and fear.

His ears were ringing and he felt unwell. Aragorn looked no better, and Gimli, well… he was a dwarf to say the least. His face showed exactly his condition.

Time was of the essence, time and time again.

Her Cae returned home to find Moy in the old chamber, staring at her flaking hands.

“I-I am sick, Caelon. S-Surely you could find an elven healer. Please, I… I don’t know what is happening to me!” She was sobbing tearlessly, pleading with her whole soul.

The look in his eyes was strange. He simply knelt beside her, cupping her chin in one hand.

“I love you Moy, with all my being. Always know that. I would do anything to protect you from the cruelness of this world.”

Moy knew now the bitterness of her world, and yet still she was terrified of the way her shriveled heart sought hope and joy. Even as she was near trampled, and aware of the sickness of her joy when the orcs were cut down, one by one.

He was taking her hands, kissing her, running fingers through her dry and tangling hair. She fell into his arms, he was running his hands everywhere. Over her shoulders, along her neck, arms, wrists.

She closed her eyes, forehead pressed against his. Her heartbeat should be racing, blood flowing, but it seemed only to be slowing, as it had been for weeks. She was cold, bitterly cold.

Coldness on her wrists, the clamping of rust and iron, the fleeting feeling of fingers as they released from her hair, leaving her with nothing.

She looked at her shackled wrists, at the man she loved, at his changed eyes.

Legolas knew he had no right to wonder what Moy had been like, but still his imagination conjured its images against his better judgement. A strong face, one to match the wit of her tongue, with eyes full of innocence, of mischief and light.

The light in his eyes was gone, this was not her Cae.

She shifted her wrists, pulled against the chain.

“Why- Caelon, what is this? What-”

He was standing, not looking at her, but towards the door. “You’re not safe anywhere else in this world.”

“O-Of course I am, i’m always safe with you, I- I- I- love you! You are everything to me!” She parroted his words, frantically pulling against the wall, towards him.

“One day, when the world is pure again, I promise to return for you.” He was gone, without a look behind him, out into the moonlight.

Cold, so cold. It crept into her soul, like growing ice on a windowpane. She reared like a wild animal, screaming out for him.

It was the wail of a cold broken banshee, tearing through the cavern like a winter gale. She struggled against the chains.

Her skin at the wrists began to slough off, like fading paint. The blood was drying in her veins. Her heartbeat was gone.

Her death took years.

Agonizing pain constant gnawing. It began with bugs.

Maggots, spiders, blood seeking vermin, rats, worms.

They tore her to pieces, one by one, biting clawing, gnawing, tearing, shredding.

She screamed and screamed as they ate away at her very being, but she was dead and could not stop them from picking away at her.

And all that was left in the end was bones.

Chapter Text

Moy didn’t move. Petrified of discovery, she only waited. Playing dead was a natural thing to her, it seemed. The riders rushed off the monsters like valiant knightly heroes, albeit with a lot more grit and spewing gut that any heroic tale might let on.

She knew not if the hobbits lived, or if the little ones had been trampled to death like the rest.

More death, more lost goodness in this world. Those simple little folk deserved better than this war.

She was being hauled, she realized, along with the bodies numerous, into a massive pile.

They were burning them, she realized.

Was she susceptible to the flames, fueled by enemy corpses? Hell if she knew.

Nevertheless, she was flung with a respectable measure of disgust, into the fray. Luckily fell towards the edge, away from the heart of the started flame. It was no less vile though, as she found herself pressed face to face with one of the orcs

If she moved and gave herself away, she would be understandably noticed, but the proximity was making it more and more tempting with every second that passed.

Finally, finally, the riders turned away, preparing to mount their horses and begone. She was left to crawl her way out of the pile of what used to be orcs, collapsing onto the grass with a barely held back groan of distaste.

They were not gone yet, but she was quick to worm her way along the ground towards the woods and away from an endless open plain. She’d be spotted from a mile away, and the somewhat ominous trees looked, from her perspective, incredibly welcoming.

 She bolted fast as she could, and only stopped once she was certain that no one could see through those twisting trees the way she came.

 Sinking to the base of a tree, head in hands, she sighed.

 “This is fine,” she said to herself aloud.

It was not fine.

She didn’t know what had become of the hobbits, she needed to keep moving, she had no idea where the rest of the fellowship was, and she was pretty sure that where one orc tribe died, there would be more to follow.

But, she told herself, gazing up at the ancient trees, she needed to stay focused. Get a grip, Moy! She needed to prioritize.

Assess area safety, avoid orcs, find the fellowship, Legolas.

She hoped he was safe, she didn’t know. Everything was up in the air right now, and it was enough to drive her mad.

With a chuckle devoid of humor, she realized she was afraid. Not of something, but for someone. It always had to be that way, didn’t it? Afraid. Alone.

“The Valar love me,” she muttered, picking herself up off the ground. Choosing a random direction, she set off through the trees, climbing over ancient roots and weaving around the long untouched brush.

It was hours later, and she felt like she was making exactly no progress. The trees were all the same. Dark, foreboding, and most of all confusing.

And then she felt herself being thwacked in the back of the skull with such a crack, that she felt her head twist. If she’d been mortal, her neck would have snapped like a twig.

She saw white stars, and tumbled.

She didn’t dream. So where was she?

She registered that she was floating somewhere, blackness all around encased her like a bubble made of twisting, writhing ink. It was quiet, not deathly so, but comfortably. Like a familiar bedroom with the candles blown out. There was a presence to air, a slight pressure against her body like a gentle nudge.

She felt oddly content.

The bubble burst, and she was lying on her back in the dirt, returned to reality and the wood.

She was staring up at a blindingly white visage for a moment, but seconds later, a blink if she’d had the capacity, she saw that it was an old man, and the light was the sun behind him.

Did she recognize this man? For a moment, she almost mistook him for Ioded. But no, he was entirely different.

“Your mind is a tumultuous thing, if you don’t mind me saying so.” His tone was casual, but the implication was clear.

She was on her feet and ten feet back as fast as she could scramble. “Stay out of my head, you-!”

He paid her hasty motions no heed, peering at her curiously from beneath his enourmous white hat.

“I’ve heard a fair bit about you, undying one. All of it interesting to be sure, but nevermind all that. I feel as though we’ll be shortly joined by more company.”

As if uttered into existence by his word, there was movement some distance away, footsteps and voices.

Moy didn’t hesitate to duck behind the nearest tree, barely seeing past it and the clearly insane old man to the trio.

What followed was a confusing dialogue, she had no context to who this old man was exactly. Her focus was on the three.

He was safe, and Aragorn, and Gimli. But the others?

She wanted to cry, from joy as surely as grief.

“And behind me is, well I believe she is a friend of yours, though I originally mistook her for quite the opposite.”

She poked her head forward, almost comically shy and sideways.

“H-Hi. I made it out…”

Legolas didn’t push past the old man exactly, but he was direct in his movement towards her. His hands were on her shoulders, his look seemingly stern. She was close enough to see the facade crumbling in his eyes.

“It’s good that you’re here, Moy.” God, his eyes were beautiful. He released his hands quickly though, turning back to his companions.

“You look terrible. Have any of you slept or bathed in the last fortnight?” It was a poor joke, but she didn’t know what else to say.

In the hours that followed, Moy kept mostly to herself. She felt ashamed almost, that she had been so easily caught by the orcs, but relief is a powerful drug.

It wasn’t until they first stopped to make any sort of camp, between the forest and the apparent destination of Edoras, that she spoke again.

“I… i’m sorry it all had to go that way, our last encounter. That we had to split and fracture like this… and Boromir.”

She hadn’t been overly fond of the man, but it didn’t sit well with her, his death.

“He died a noble death,” was all Aragorn said. Moy couldn’t disagree.

It was later still that night truly encroached, and she sat next to Legolas. He’d perched himself on lookout, a fair distance from the others.

She didn’t know what to say, what to think, or even what to feel. Words were not needed at times like this.

She was inches away, but dared not touch him. Almost pathological was the fear that he was a dream, and touching him would dissolve the image entirely.

“I must say,” he began after a long while,”I still don’t know what to make of you. I suppose i’m growing used to it.”

“You’re becoming numb to the thorn in your side that is my existence.” She twisted a strand of grass between her knuckles.

“Perhaps that is it, ai! A simple answer. But you’re hardly a thorn, Moy.”

“Oh what kind flattery he doth bestow upon me.”

She swore that he laughed then, it was a nice laugh, oddly melodic.

“Really,” he insisted, “You’re no pain to my existence, however long it may be. Never suggest as much, i’ll not have it.” He put on a princely, mocking tone, tilting his chin.

She realized she was leaning into his side, and found that she didn’t care to stop. Nor did he stop her. They stayed that way a while, the strangest pair in Middle Earth.

He suddenly took her hand, tilting her head towards him. “I was terrified.”

“Of what?” Her voice was meek.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Those blue eyes spoke volumes. “Of losing you.”

His fingers tightened around hers. If she had a heart, she didn’t know if it would more likely swell with joy or break.

“You’re a fool,” she said.

“Perhaps I am.”

Chapter Text

Time goes on, and so did the War of the Ring. You all know the tale better than even I. 

Moy was less than pleased at spending the duration of the weeks being smuggled from place to place like a criminal.

“I refuse to do this. It’s humiliating. ”

Moy crossed her arms, staring at the two emptied bags on the ground. Aragorn was distracted, sorting and organizing their dwindling rations into a single pack along with their extra equipment. Gimli and Legolas had surrendered their packs, dwarven grumbling included free of charge.

Legolas couldn’t entirely hide his amusement. Gandalf just seemed impatient.

“I don’t think I'll even fit in both those bags,” she continued. “And who says they won’t search your packs arriving into Edoras.

The alternative options were slim, so Moy begrudgingly agreed to be temporarily pulled apart and hidden inside the packs. It was nothing short of uncomfortable, and this became a pattern.

The bags were used to great effect, and when they were no longer an option among the scores of Rohirrim, a hooded cloak, and absurd number of layers, and straw stuffed tunics were instead. Legolas even found something akin to a horsehair wig (from where or who exactly, she did not know), just enough to give the right impression from afar.

She was declared to be a companion of Aragorn’s, a ranger, and thus her concealed face and distant demeanor were for the most part understood.

Moy was familiar with the horrors of war, too familiar even now. A small mercy was hiding, and looking away, brushing off the nightmares of orcs and dark places. Not unavoidable however, was the aftermath of every bloodbath. From Helm’s Deep to Osgiliath, she was reliving many old nightmares, watching the butchery from the safety of shadows.

A bright spot for her was the damn elf. He really had become something, someone unthinkable close.

His scheming was helpful, yes, in getting her around without trouble, but it was the consistent company she craved and sought. The remnants of the Fellowship were kind enough, but it was always Legolas she stayed close to.

He never seemed to mind, even in the darkest hours of Helm’s Deep, when she could see the look upon his face. An immortal faced with countless deaths, something not within the nature of elves to understand.

He left her hiding in the lowest corner of the keep, in a long abandoned storage room home only to moths now. 

Her hand lingered in his and he pulled away gently. There was a physical ache in her hollow chest. His eyes were soft, but solemn. 

He left to join the fight, and she waited.

She realized that she loved him, sitting there listening to good men die above her. 

He returned in the morning, but noticed in an instant that Moy had retreated somewhat into her own tormented mind.

She was quiet and did not remark upon his return or the battle, or crack an ill-timed joke at his expense. She didn’t fight him about disguises or bags, or travel plans.

He both loved and abhorred her stubbornness and sharp-tongued wit. To see it absent was unsettling.

Her subdued nature and melancholy, as far as he could surmise, was due to the war around them. However, a small part of him couldn’t help but blame himself. That he was responsible for bringing her into the center of this absolute chaos again, subjecting her to relieve horrors against her own will. 

It was Aragorn’s next journey that made Moy understand.

For all the trials thus encountered, she would follow them until she stared Death in the face, at the Paths of the Dead.

A dark reflection, what she saw in herself: a lost soul cursed and bound to Arda’s soil.

They approached together, she and the three brothers of fellowship. A cold breeze wrapped around her frame, a subtle nudge forward.

This is where you belong, a voice within seemed to say.

Legolas’s hand was on her arm for a brief moment. Then it was gone, and the wind was howling, and the cavern was calling, and she stumbled back to their small encampment outside the depths.

Aragorn’s task was upon him, but they had wisely agreed to at least rest beforehand. However, no one, not even Legolas, could stop Moy from hearing the call of the dead. And it was when her elf had turned his head away, towards the plains behind him as he scouted, that she slipped away, drawn into the grave.

Chapter Text

With careful, hypnotic precision, Moy made her way down the path, around the edges of the caverns. It was a rough go, as she slipped along the rocks and followed… well, something. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was feeling anymore, but it felt at once like she was finally on her way home, as she was at that exact same moment falling far away from all she loved. 

With one last inopportune slip of her foot, she clattered all the way down. Down, into a thin gorge and into the dark. Though it seemed like a long way down, akin to tumbling into an abyss, eventually Moy landed in the sand with all the grace and elegance of an elf. That is to say, she landed facedown in a jumbled-up pile of her own limbs.

Her femur was cracked, and she knew it would not heal.

She was… she was where she meant to go? 

She was at the edge of a small pond, with dotted blades of colorless grass grew and she might have even seen a darting minnow. The strange chance of life being found, even in the deepest valley of death was not lost upon her.

Across the pond was something else, a simple archway constructed from simple, unpolished stone. And a figure.

The archway was calling to her, and the beating of her long-lost heart pounded in her ears, speaking to her in a whisper she could no longer hear. It was overwhelming as she crawled through the water towards the figure beneath the arch’s stare. 

She could barely see, her vision ebbed and flowed like the tide, but it was her brother protecting her from a treacherous house spider, no, her father with his arms outstretched.

It was Ioded, smiling kindly, with laughter in his eyes, and it was Doru, Doru ! Telling her to never give in, never let them win.

She saw Legolas reaching down, offering her a hand as she flailed in the water was suddenly was pulling her down into it’s empty depths.

Then she was sitting in a small pond again, as her once love crouched beside her, and she stared into Caelon’s eyes.

He was not her Cae anymore, for his eyes were emptier than they’d ever been before. Empty of joy and despair and a fool’s conception of love. His form was withered, grey and lifeless and cold like steel. 

“We cannot pass over the great seas, yet our souls bound to our bodies seek escape.” His mouth moved like a rusting beartrap, grinding with disuse and decay.

Moy’s vision was still a blur, and the pounding in her ears was heightening, yet she could not block his voice from her mind.

“It was destiny that we should meet again, Moy.” His hand reached for her, and she flailed away, splashing water into the suddenly stifling air

All Moy could do, all she could croak out was a single word. 

“W-Why?”

“Because I love you, and I cannot let you go.”

“That wasn’t love, it was torture!” She was screaming, and no one could hear. Ugly wracking sobs letting out all the fear and suffering of a millenia.

“All roads for us lead here. I knew I would see you again before the end. I am part of the Eldar, and I cannot die.”

Moy thought back to that long line of the lost, to what could have been any number of real lives. She thought of Legolas, and of love, true unselfish love. But nothing with him was meant to be, real as it is, as it was.

Reaching down, grasping fingers around the broken bone of her leg, she felt the snap and a searing course of pain. Running a finger along the jagged edge of it, her vision was clear as a lifeless lake, as she stabbed the end of the bone into Caelon’s throat.

Moy shoved his corpse aside, fingers dug into the stone of the earth, as she dragged every screaming limb of herself she had left towards the archway.

Ba-thump, ba-thump.... ba-thump…

Then silence, and the pond was still once more.

Legolas found her this way hours later, collapsed against an ancient archway which led to nothing but the cavern’s stone wall. On her face was something akin to a smile.

He should have been overjoyed, standing there amidst his dearest friends and watching a good man become an even greater king.

He wasn’t. He was happy for them, proud even, nevertheless, he could not help feeling… melancholic.

He had buried Moy himself, alone alongside the shore of the seas that called him.

The others might not have cared for her, or her defensive off-putting mannerisms, but he felt her absence like an open wound, one that tore him apart from the inside out.

She should have been there, with him. At his side, no matter her looks nor flaws.

Then again, she wouldn’t have liked the stares and the whispers.

Whispers be damned.

He sat in an unused bed, thinking.

A glint of red caught the corner of his vision, and he looked up.

She sat across from him, with a hint of a smile.

Her hair was the reddish gold of the sun, a frizzy, curly mane untamed. Her face was thin and only half that of a grown woman’s. Her nose was a bit beaky and her cheeks were ruddy and freckled. 

He had never seen her eyes before, the colors of earth and honey. 

She leaned forward and playfully flicked his chin. 

“Don’t you have any expression other than brooding or stoic, my prince?”

He could not speak, yet his eyes said all they could ever say and more.

She kissed him lightly on the nose, and her laughter echoed from all sides like music.

“Now go, cross the seas already. You’ve waited long enough.”

“But you, you won’t be there... “

She shrugged. “In dreams maybe, but what matters is not what could have been, but what shall be. All elves shall travel on in due time.”

“Perhaps, in due time.”

She was gone from his eyes, but her last whispers felt against his ear, they remained for ever.

“My long forgotten heart within you beats, as my bones shall lay in the earth.”

Chapter Text

Hey y'all!

It's uh... it's been a hot minute since I finished this little story, and the love it has received since then has been overwhelming and very much appreciated. Your comments invariably make my weeks a little brighter.

For the first bit of news! A very kind reader has begun the process of translating the story into Russian which is- so fucking cool, I am unbelievably excited.

You can check that out here:

ficbook (dot) net (slash) readfic (slash) 13417565

Second, a bit of musing: I go back and forth on rewriting earlier chapters to iron out the many many grammatical and descriptive problems I'm sure are there (I am terrified of reading my old work so I haven't scanned through the first half in probably 4+ years). I'm not sure how much interest y'all would have in an "updated" edition of this work, so I'll let public opinion guide my hand.

I haven't written anything since this wrapped up, and it's a little scary jumping back into the fray. Maybe I'll eventually do some new LOTR writing (I have a vague idea for something featuring Glorfindel, but it's not fully formed).

Anyway, just wanted to give y'all this mini update and restate how much I appreciate your support!

Cheers~
-Aries