In the Chains of Honor: Shades of the Past

In the Chains of Honor
Author: Tanesa Etaleshya, Email: tanesa_etaleshya@hotmail.com
Author’s Notes : Please review! By the way, if you are getting a bit depressed on the part of our intrepid elf-prince, do not worry, there will be good times in his future. I promise!


Part 1 In the Darkness, Two Beginnings…
Chapter 9

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Fourth Age

He was brought back from the scant peace of his waking dreams, and the ensuing sleep, lent him if for only so short of time by the soft, nearly indecipherable sounds of elven feet making their way towards his lowly place amongst the stone and shadow, so attuned was he to any sound for it signaled a break in the long isolation which he endured here. His waking dreams brought comfort to him in immersion in the past and the memories, anything to distract him from the crushing loneliness. But his dreams could only last so long and inevitably he slipped back into the grim reality of gloom and despondency. And therefore, in his quiet desperation, he hearkened to any soeveneven if the source of the sound’s arrival heralded naught more than pain or disappointment. He knew when he heard the sound of one pair of feet in particular, that this day, if day it was indeed, would be little different from others, or so he thought.

He listened, holding his shallow breaths as the key was fitted to the lock and the door swung open though he could not see it. He could feel the onrush of air, the welcome scents of another in the small chamber, and he could not help but smile inwardly that at least he was no longer alone. He recognized the scent and knew he was in the presence of one he had long had the blessing of having called ‘friend’ all of his long life. He felt the elf’s hands on his shoulder, squeezing lightly before they moved to release him from the position in which he had been left. His legs were freed, then the leash.

He stood upright, made as if to step away from the table, but fell backwards in seeming slow motion, coming to a rest against the cold stone wall. Silinde tried to stop his fall, but knew not where to hold onto the bruised and battered elf. He knelt beside him now, his hands checking the fallen prince for serious wounds, taking grim note of the broken rib, the dislocated shoulder and the blood seeping from his mouth where his teeth had cut into flesh. There the archer remained, allowing his wounds to be tended by hands he knew to be moved with care and motivated by concern. Both remained silent, unwilling to break the comfort of the silence with the tension words would bring.

It had been thus between them for centuries as Silinde was there to pick up the pieces of the fallen elf when the elder elf had had his fill. It had been Silinde who had been the one to pick the elf up, tend his wounds and put him back together. It was no different now, but Silinde realized this would possibly be one of the last times he would comfort his long-time friend and suddenly he realized the value of the archer prince’s friendship, a friendship he had had to keep largely secret over the long centuries of their lives. It still sickened Silinde, but he was and had been among a small minority and had neither the power nor the support to stand against the King in his endless disparagement of the son he had never wanted or welcomed into this life.

The archer scrambled to raise himself once Silinde had finished, but stayed his motion when Silinde pushed him down and he sat with his back against the cold stone behind him. He heard the approach of three others, felt and heard them enter the small chamber. He knew who it was, the King’s scent drifted over to him, as did that of the King’s two closest advisors. The fallen archer straightened himself, pushed himself to his feet, his head bowed in reverence for the mighty presence that had deigned to bring himself to the presence of the fallen elf. And the archer actually felt himself both awed and disturbed that he would find himself in such august company yet again, and embarrassed for his condition before such an elf, lord among his people and beautiful as the dawn itself. The archer had always been reticent to be seen in his current appearance, his body and its various bruises, cuts, the tell-tale signs of his recent abuse both above and below the waist laid bare for all to see. He had always been embarrassed, and the opposition within him was telling, that he would resent what was done to him and feel so keenly the shame of it even before the one who had seeded the causes for his treatment.

The archer dropped to his hands and knees in supplication and complete abasement, skittering forward as far as his chains would allow him in order to press his forehead to the stone floor just before the soft-toed shoes of the Woodland King, not touching the august elf as the fallen elf would not taint the elder elf in such a manner. Even after more than one millennia of sheer disdain and outward hatred, the heart of the prince lived on in the battered body of the prostrated elf, and the prince’s long and deeply held desires to find the love of a father somewhere buried behind the stern façade of the King remained as strong as ever they had been.

This day was different, however, for the fallen prince knew it would be the last chance he would have in the presence of this august elf and he strained against his bonds to reach the majestic elf now retreating in disgust. He found his voice at long last, the first he had spoken in what had most likely been at least weeks, if it had not stretched to the duration of time measured in months, and he found it be hoarse, ugly and grating, a voice strangled by its own fleeing life, “Please, my Lord, please forgive me my iniquities. I tried, my Lord, to live up to your expectations; I tried.” He bit back the sob threatening to choke the words from his throat, “I wished it had been me with every breath I have taken. Why can you not forgive me? I did not choose to be born as I was. Why could you never forgive me for what I could not change?” He pleaded with the King, his forehead against the cold stones of the floor; his hands splayed helplessly, his fingers digging into the slim cracks between the stones as if his life rested upon this grip. And the King made no effort to respond.

Touch had become as much an anathema to the King as it was to the fallen elf. No longer would he degrade himself and lay hand upon the filthy, mute elf now prostrated before him. And he smiled, if only for so short a span of time; so cruelly wrought was the smile as to chill the very lifeblood of the advisor standing at the side of the King when he looked from the disowned son to the blond elf’s stoic father upon hearing the gravelly chuckle of grim amusement. Thranduil relished the sight before him, the once-beautiful elf now covered in dust, mud and filth, his golden hair dim and dank, tangled into long locks no brush could ever hope to unravel. Hair now lying splayed around the head of the elf, collecting ever more dirt from the floor and the sullied elf did not care, only cared it seemed to have another presence to break his long loneliness. His pleas rang hollowly in the ears of the King, and were met with telling silence.

The Golden King heard the small sounds escaping the disgraced elf when he did not respond, and chuckled again, thinking how fitting it was to see him thus, the curse of his life laid out in shame and grime, his face and hair as stained as his soul, his very being, looking every bit the rubbish that he was and had always been. He was amused; the elf was still beggfor for the affection the King had never bestowed upon him, when the archer was yet young the King had realized this affection was all the elf lived for: to feel his father’s hand upon his shoulder in pride. Thranduil remained smiling as he compared this day to one so distantly removed to most as to seem shrouded in the mists of time, and yet, to this high ranked elf, as near to hand and mind as the moment just passed. So real it was to him, in memory and in breath, that his life seemed to still its eternal progress at the mere thought of that infamous day, that day when his heart had died its first death and had learned what it was to be betrayed by the very Powers. A Doom upon his house had this debased elf been, so this day seemed more than fitting. He would finally be rid of this troublesome, ungracious, indecorous, debased malfeasant blight. He would pass him off in a matter of days to never see or hear tale of him again. For he, Thranduil, was setting his eyes to the West, leaving the scant numbers of elves behind who still wished to remain in these Hither Lands to make their way to Aman on their own or to remain and fade into the foggy mists of myth, to be remembered only in fairy tales in this land of Men.

Thranduil was no fool. He knew that the Age of Men had begun the moment the three Elvish Rings of power had passed forever out of Middle Earth, and the elves who had long been waning were at last facing the end of their tenure in these lands. He knew that the choice was still upon them to stay or to journey, the choice a long-standing, long-heard echo from the dawn of Elvendom upon Arda, a choice long ago set forth when the Valar had come to lead the Eldar to Valinor. It had been a free choice then, as it was now. Thranduil’s distant kin had deemed it fit to remain upon Arda and not to seek the uncertainty of the distant shores of the Blessed Realm as it later camebe kbe known, and had been caught up in the wed of Middle Earth, to be named the Moriquendi, the Dark Elves, those who did not see the Light of the Two Trees while they lived, and also called the Avari, the Unwilling. It had, at first, been his distant kin’s intent to seek the shores to which the others were led, but Thingol as he was thereafter known, had been entranced by the Maia Melian and here he stayed to found the first elvish kingdom, that of Doriath and in which he inedined and built the legendary halls of Menegroth.

And now, Thranduil had made his choice, and, in keeping with his proud and oft forthright manner, he chose not to fade away intoory ory and myth, but to take hold of fate and leave these shores to take up his reign where he would not need fade and disappear, but where his legacy would live on as would he until the end of time and the Changing of the World. But this, this wayward elf, would not accompany them, for he bou bound to this world, and his fate would be to to it, for the elf had chosen to avoid his fate, a fate the King had welcomed, a fate in the form of grief unto death. The accursed archer hadd hid himself in spirit and life to the Wood in an effort to stay his end. And now, the King was taking full advantage of that decision by leaving the elf to fester and wallow in the loneliness he had brought upon the King through his misadventurous failings. He would live as long as the Greenwood existed, and perish if and only if the Wood fell, and he would live in poverty, despair and in servitude. Thranduil had seen to that, and the elf need only be delivered. This cursed elf would remain among men, to serve whatever purpose they would set forth for him, to remain always bound not only to these Lands, but to this eternal life of his. He wished the elf to never trouble him by its willful travel to the Halls of Awaiting, nor to the Blessed Realm itself. He wished his taint to remain in these Lands where he belonged amongst the most despicable and vilest of the race of Men.

He deserves this end, Thranduil thought to himself yet again, for what he has done. For what he did that day. It should have been he and not my son who took that poisoned wound and perished stealing the very light of my soul and this Wood with his loss. It was this elf that had been the thief, for no higher reason than his base jealousy and sheer disregard for life. Wanton irresponsibility has always been his mark in trade, irresolute misbehavior and disdain for our ways. He deserves this. It was he who allowed this Wood to fester and die a slow and painful living death as if fell ever into darkness, its trees growing cankerous and festering with the evil seeping from the ruin of Melkor’s making. It was this elf who let it happen; it was this elf who ushered in the era during which Greenwood the Great became known by its grim epithet of Mirkwood, when spiders and all manner of the twisted spawn of Melkor grew wild with abandon, ruling vast stretches of the Wood and imprisoning us within our own Halls but for the magic with which I have maintained the elf paths through the dark, twisted and misguided wood. It was he who allowed the infection to spread unchecked, so absorbed in his own machinations, stewing in his jealousy and contempt until he was indifferent to the harsh, dying screams of the trees, inured of its torturous calls for help.

With this last thought, the King let loose the fury that had been building within at the tack of his thoughts: he began to savagely kick the prostrate elf. His foot met with brittle bone and little else, for there was little more to the elf than pallid, jaundiced skin stretched over prominently visible bone. He heard the crack of ribs, the harsh intake of breath, and the accompanying pained exhale, and yet he continued, aiming with force at the elf’s unprotected abdomen, his face. He poured all his long-simmering fury into the force with which his foot hit the fallen elf below him, writhing on the ground in a useless attempt to avoid his foot. Thranduil drove his foot into the fallen elf with his never-evaporated anger in careful concert with his malice for the disgraceful elf. He did not stop until he saw the elf was unmoving, his eyes vacantly staring into the void of unconsciousness.

He stepped back gingerly, admiring the swiftly spreading bruises upon the elf’s once elegant and lovely face, now turned haggard, emaciated with prolonged hunger and thirst. He watched with grim satisfaction and surprising curiosity as the blood bloomed beneath the skin, giving the only color to the elf’s skin. He watched the elf’s c ris rise and fall if with a little difficulty. The King nodded to himself, picturing his son there instead of this filth, his son who had died with none to comfort him save this one, none to hold him but the cursed elf now laying in eternal penitence for his wrongs, his failings, his disappointments. He saw the hope of Greenwood lying lifelessly before him where this elf had dropped him seeming without ceremony or respect upon the cold ground of the late autumn in which this elf was supposed to have been guarding his son’s return to Greenwood.

He had seen this elf kneel above his son, false tears upon his face as the disgraced elf had dared to touch the Crown Prince with his soiled fingers, still red with the royal blood, blood that had never washed away. Thranduil saw it every time he looked upon the elf, saw it now as he lay curled in upon himself. The scorn had washed through him, scoured the King with its heat and Thranduil had acted upon it. Now passed, all that was left was his hatred, a hatred born on the wings of a grief he could not ever bear, nor could he now on the eve of departure from these Hither Lands. He had hopes that his son had been gifted with a new life in Valinor, but slim they were and rancorous to his soul. He knew with a grim and tacit certitude that his wife still lived and would be waiting for him, but even that was not now enough to quell the grief swelling anew in his soul. He was preparing himself for the worst, that his son was not found worthy of new life and lingered still in the dim, hollow halls of the keep of Mandos, ever to remain in stagnant life yet unlived. He kicked the unconscious elf once more as he snorted in disdain, disappointment surging through his veins like the unwavering, unstoppable tide- that this elf had lived when his son had been shorn of the long life that should have been his. This elf had usurped that life, stolen it from his son, but the life he had stolen had not been worth it, he had made sure of that much: the elf’s life had not been worth living.

In his mind, Thranduil saw himself as if he had been another, dropping down beside the still body of his son, seeing that the light had faded from his eyes, his soul had fled. He saw himself drag that lifeless body, growing colder with every passing moment, into his arms, saw himself bury his face into the neck of his beloved son, his hands tangling in that golden, silk-spun hair, breathing in the scent of his son. He saw his own tears fall, saw the spreading wet patch upon the blood-stained tunic of green and brown, saw his shoulders quake from the burden of grief now swift-set upon him.

And he had, without a word, risen with his beloved son cradled in his arms to return to the safe warmth of the Palace, taking his son home. His anger had been as swift in building under the spurs of his grief, and the archer had felt every wave of it as part of a relentless onslaught. He had not cared that the archer had been wounded, nor did he care to hear the tales told by those others who had survived, and had, indeed, guarded both the Prince and the archer with their very lives, as arc archer had refused to allow any other to carry the precious burden he had struggled to carry.

‘Useless usurper’, is what Thranduil had thought. He seeks to gain status as the only son and heir I had heretofore is passed and gone. He seeks to feign honor and respect if only to gain position and rank, but I will not allow him to take my son’s place, he who is naught but a reminder of our isolation, our low rank in the eyes of the Valar. He is their eternal remindf ouf our place, we who descended from those who did not seek to return to the light of the Two Treend tnd those who sought not to see it at all, but preferred to remain here in the dark before the Sun and Moon were set to light the day and night.

The Avari we were called, the Unwilling. Moriquendi, too, the dark elves. So lowly we are held to be in comparison to the treacherous Noldor who raised sword and bow against their own kith and kin in their deluded madness, led ever by the nose by the lies of Melkor and Feanor’s prideful greed.. It was they who turned against the Valar, and yet we, we are the ones that bear the brunt of their anger, their disdain. For they thrust upon us this malformed elf, this twisted being, and it was they who allowed it to live while my son, my beloved son and heir, died. It was they who forgave the Noldor their crimes, as unforgivable as they were to me, and yet the curse upon my House remains intact, unbroken though I have cleansed this Wood of the dark, cleansed it of the foul residue this elf let breed unchecked. It was I who held this Land without the aid of magic Rings given by a deceiver to the deceived. It was I who led our people to this height, and yet I am still shackled to this elf, to this longing for the West that has arisen like a cruel joke.

Well, I know one elf who will never set foot in the Blessed Realm, that is my one conciliation, that he never taint the soil of the Land to which I am called. He will not follow, for oath holds him h and and his miserable life. A vow everever breaks, yet he fails in all else. A vow he will never break, for it was made to me. He will be gone in a matter of days. Gone from my life, from the realm of Elvendom. None will speak his name, a name I cannot bear to think of for it grates my soul and stirs my heart to grief anew that it was he who let my son die, and he who drove my beloved wife from my side with her grief. To save herself she had turned West, as if in supplication to ease the curse we bear. And to her aggrieved and despairing pleas the Noldor-loving Valar must, too, have turned a deaf ear in all of their eternal wisdom, for the elf remained among the living.

The fallen archer remained prostrate, frozen in place as he listened helplessly to the silence roaring in his ears, the final disappointment to a broken soul. He listened to their breathing for a long time, the nervous fidgeting of Silinde behind him while they stood without sound. When finally the King did speak, the filthy elf nearly started from the sound of the voice that had echoed in his mind all his life, “We leave this place this day, elf, get you up and answer this question, would you prefer to remain here until your death or go out into the world as I see fit? Choose now for the choice will be taken for you if you do not speak.”

He nodded in acceptance of the order, strugg tog to make his unwilling legs comply, only to find hif haf hauled upwards by two elves familiar in scent and touch as the elf-King of Eryn Lasgalen spoke to them, “I will go as you will, my Lord,” he managed to whisper, never raising his head, nor his sightless eyes. He once again resigned himself to the will of his Lord, to duty and honor of his father and his King.

“Make him presentable, no one will want him as he is.”

“Yes, my Lord King,” the fallen archer heard Silinde reply tonelessly from where he stood at the fallen elf’s left, and then began, with his partner, to lead the weakened elf from the cell which had been his erstwhile home for nigh on… he knew not how long he had been there. Whether it had been years, decades or centuries even, it mattered not, for the King of Eryn Lasgalen was at last setting sail for the West with all that remained of the Woodland Kind and he, he who had followed honor and had found only disgrace, would be left behind, never to see the Blessed Realm. Neither in sight nor in any other sense would he perceive its grace and beauty. He was foresworn to abandon the promise those shores, a sentence he tried with all within him to bear without strong regret, for in speaking this vow he had bought the freedom of another and he would do so ever more if it was asked of him and, indeed, it was.

Ever would he be tempted by and drawn to the sea and its promise of peace, the teasing release of reunion from the grief of eternal separation, and the honor of knowing the elves for whom he had sacrificed his future. He wordlessly did as he was bid and soon found himself cloaked heavily and astride a horse steadily making its way through the tref Erf Eryn Lasgalen, once called both Greenwood and Mirkwood in its long history, for the final time. He relished the passage and let his mind slipk tok to better days, the scent of forest and of home hanging about him: a hollow welcome to life again.

Upon the horse to which he was bound, he turned his face into the West, and he sent a wordless prayer to the Valar, a prayer that he knew would never be answered. He prayed desperately the same thoughts, the same dreams he had always had, that of Glorfindel’s caress upon his cheek, his voice whispering of his love, his scent. Though he knew it to be impossible, the dreams, the prayers continued long into each night of their journey, and consumed him during the day, sapping him of the energy gleaned from the sun light for whose warmth he had long been starved. He turned once again to waking dreams to find the answer to his prayer he would not have in reality. From this dawn breaking over the long-retreated gloom of Eryn Lasgalen, he turned to the dawn his heart had found so long ago, to the day he had first found himself in the warm embrace of his Elven Lord after his voice had echoed in his mind with the promise of the future. In this way the journey west and then south passed. And in this journey, an end to one journey, a beginning to another, but one in which he held no hope but for that found in the past, his past,…their past.

To be continued in “In the Chains of Honor: Shades of the Past and Promises of the Present”…