To Love and Be Loved

Summary: Legolas has his first close brush with death. AU, Slash

Author: Emmess

Legolas Thranduilion sat splay-legged in a chair in his father's Great Hall, watching the King's servants clear the remnants of breakfast from the tables. He was in a foul mood, having wanted to go on the hunt with several of his friends that morning, but his father, King Thranduil, had forbidden him from going, much to Legolas' chagrin.

The King's rationale, thin at best to Legolas' reckoning, was that the forest had become far too dangerous a place, as the giant spiders bred unchecked, for youngsters to cavort through it on the pretense of a hunt.

Growling softly in his throat, Legolas swung one long leg up on top of the table before him, crossing the other leg over it. His hands clasped behind his fair head, he dwelled angrily on his father's refusal to admit that he was a grown Elf, perfectly capable of taking care of himself. A fierce frown graced his brow, as his clasped hands felt the warrior braids he had so recently earned, wondering why his father refused to acknowledge him as an adult.

He was just past the age of his majority, and as such a new adult, of course, thought he knew everything. "Pretense, indeed!" He thought to himself. "Cavorting…too dangerous…bah!" The more he thought about it the more certain he became that unless he proved himself otherwise, his father would always think of him and treat him as an Elfling. A thought occurred to him then…a mental image of himself bursting through the gilded double doors of the King's Throne Room, dragging one of those horrendous spiders in behind him, to deposit it, neatly dispatched with a single arrow to it's evil red eye, at the feet of his father.

A slow smile grew on his handsome face, as he unfurled his long frame from the chair. With determination in his step, he quickly retreated to his room, grabbing up his weapons. Strapping his quiver to his back, along with his pair of white-handled knives - a gift from his father on his Day of Majority - slinging his bow over his shoulder, he left the Great Cavern without a word to anyone, making haste, and yet being careful not to be seen.

Slipping silently though the courtyard, he held his head high and tried not to look as though he were doing anything he shouldn't, namely disobeying a direct order from his father, the King. As soon as he reached the closest border of the forest, he melted into the trees, swiftly heading for the darkest parts of the wood where he knew the giant spiders lurked in the shadows.

After several hours of walking, the wood growing thicker, denser, and darker with each step, Legolas had yet to spot a single spider. Their webs were numerous, strung like silken dreamcatchers between the limbs of the mighty hardwood trees of Greenwood, or Mirkwood, as the forest was slowly becoming known. Yet, not a single spider made an appearance. If not for the webs, Legolas would have been inclined to believe that the stories of the giant spiders were false.

Six feet across, nearly half the length of a grown Elf in height, the orange and black striped furry menaces had become the bane of his father's realm. It was said that their poison could be lethal, even to an Elf, and that should an Elf be bitten the agony induced by the poison was enough to make the Elf wish for release to the Halls of Mandos.

Legolas fought to stifle a shiver that threatened to turn into a shudder, shaking his head to clear it of the horror the stories brought to his heart. He must focus, or he might actually fall prey to one of the spiders - and that would ruin his plans. The spiders were to be his prey…not the other way around.