The Odyssey of the daughter of the forest

Chapter 7 : A Happy Return

Twenty years had passed since the battle. Twenty years he had not seen her. He missed everything about her : her long red hair, her forest green eyes and, of course, her passion. Absolutely everything. He thought to her often, maybe too much. His adventures with the rangers make him forget the red-hair elf stayed in Mirkwood, but never for a long time.

He missed Mirkwood too. Maybe not the spiders, obviously, but he missed running under the trees, while the sun was setting. The landscape he was looking at was beautiful, yes, but nothing is more beautiful that its own house. Especially that he lived there since his birth, so since around 2900 years.

He felt good with the rangers. Those men had the same values that him and they fought every day for the freedom of their homeland. They were in charge of the protection of the Shire, what they were doing fervently since centuries now. Unfortunately, people thought that they were vagrants, to their shame.

If people did not appreciate them, it was because they did not know them. Few people knew their sad story. It was totally unjust because they were ready to die for the freedom of Middle-Earth.

His horse stumbled, and that made Legolas come back to the real life. He stroked the neck of the black horse, with stockings up to his knees. Although his big hooves, it seemed that the stallion was not used to walk on the craggy paths of the north of Bree. He was yet too young.

Legolas had traveled a lot, these last years, but always at the west of the misty mountains. He had, with the rangers, crossed many times the Shire, traveled a little bit more to the west, until the blue mountains, but never to the east. He had gone a few times with Aragorn, Elladan and Elrohir to Rivendell, where lord Elrond had welcomed them, glad to see him again. The young ranger grew up there, with his mother, after his father's death. Her mother had passed now, and her grave was under the trees and near the beautiful flowers of the Imladris valley.

This time, they were traveling to the north. It was there they spent the summer. In winter, they used to go to the south, sometimes until Eriador.

But, after many of those long winters, he felt more and more like he wanted to go home. He could not ignore it.

So, while his horse crossed a little stream with clear blue waters, he promised to himself that he will be home for the spring.

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W

hat Tauriel loved with summer, it was that the sun illuminated for a longer time the ground with its yellow rays. The trees seemed to be greener too. This fact was very important because the Mirkwood forest had not yet back to normal.

She never knew why Gandalf came to talk with Thranduil. All she knew was that his king was not happy of the meaning of the conversation. Gandalf had gone few days later, more than angry. Maybe it was not so important, in fact. Anyway, since this unexpected meeting, ten years ago, she had never crossed the wizard's road.

A noise on his left interrupted her. A monstrous beast entered in her vision, with two others. She took her bow to shoot the first one, that quickly collapsed to the ground. Then, she took out her daggers. She planted the first one in a spider, before turning one herself to plant the last one in the other beast's throat.

The three spiders, dead, were now lying on the forest ground.

The red-hair elf took back her daggers. In fact, they were not hers. It was daggers she had found in the armory. In reality, she did not find them, she looked for them. Indeed, Merelin had gone for the battle of the five armies with just her bow and her sword, leaving her daggers in Mirkwood. So Tauriel wanted to take them, to honor her best friend. Her own daggers, she gave them to Legolas, before he left to join the rangers, in the north.