Living with Death

Chapter 5

Elen woke up that morning with less of her usual attitude. Still she got up and placed a nice blue dress on before going down stairs. Upon seeing the food being placed on the table she lost her appetite.

“I’m not hungry.” Elen shook her head and Satariel looked at her daughter with worry.

“Are you sure dear? It’s your favorite.” Elen still shook her head, even making a disgusted face towards the food.

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna go into the forest today.” Satariel hesitated, but picked up the plate and set it on the counter before nodding.

“OK, but don’t wander too far, you know the forest is sick, and if the guards tell you to go inside you need to ok?” Elen nodded and turned, opening her door and exciting, heading towards the gates she saw her friends. They too saw her and quickly caught up with her.

“Hey where’ve you been?” She shrugged and looked around.

“Just busy with the stables, hey I’m going into the forest today, you wanna come?” Upon saying that her vision began to blur again, this time she saws Lessiel, the youngest girl of the group, in the woods. She appeared to be panicking, clutching her doll as she looked around the dark forest, suddenly a dark figure came and a stinger stung her, she quickly fell limp and was hauled away by the figure.

“Elen? Elen!” She blinked back into reality, seeing the others stare oddly at her. She hesitated, she didn’t know whether to bring them with her or not, I don’t want Lessiel to die!

“Uh, Lessiel should stay here. It’s dangerous in the forest.” Lessiel of course didn’t like that.

“I wanna go!” She whined, stomping her feet. The others then joined in.
“Yeah I mean, we’re all elflings, and we’ll be going in the safe parts where the guards can look after us!” Elen panicked, she didn’t know what to do, but she was in no room for argument. So reluctantly they left, but before Elen followed she knelt down, knocking on the wooden flooring before rushing to catch up the others. They reached the gates and the guards looked at the kids, worry in their eyes.

“Woah there little ones, where you off too?” One of them asked, his low voice gentle for the kids.

“The forest,” The oldest boy, Almar, pipped up, “We’ll stay in the shallow parts don’t worry.” The guard nodded and sighed.
“Alright, but stay where we can see you too, so don’t go too far to the sides.” The elflings nodded and ran into the woods, climbing the trees and playing their games. The guards kept an eye on them, calling out when they got too far in, but Elen was only focused on one ellfing, Lessiel. She would stare at her as she stumbled from branch to branch, the other elfling helping her up. Hours passed of them playing in the trees, and soon the guards saw the prince and captain returning from capturing the dwarves, the guard then called out.
“Elflings! It is time to go inside, it is time to leave.” The elflings heads popped out of the trees, eyes saddened, but they obeyed, carefully getting down from the trees they began to hurry back. However, upon Lessiel descending from the tree, one of the branches caught her doll, but she couldn’t get it out. Suddenly the branch under her snapped and she fell on the forest floor, her doll still lodged in the tree.

“Lessiel come on!” One of the elflings call out, Lessiel was about to object when her ears picked up the gruff sounds of dwarves, and chains clinking on their wrists. She ran back, the guards picking her up and setting her inside, then straightening up for the approaching prince and captain. The elflings hid up on one of the ledges, looking down as the dwarves marched in, one by one, chains clanking. Elen and the others crept by, following them until they were above the throne area. The elflings watched Thranduil question the dwarves, and whisper something in his father's ear. Soon the dwarves were being led down to the dungeons, all but one who Elen noticed was Thorin Oakenshield, the one Thranduil was mainly talking to. However, as they talked Elens vision started to get blurry, and images started to come in her head, one of snow stained with blood. Her mind was strained with these images, but she couldn’t stop it no matter how hard she tried. Her head started to hurt, throb even as she fought the images and as the images pounded into her head. The other elflings started to back away from her, running to get some help. Lessiel blindly ran to the throne room where Thorin was being dragged off to and back to the dungeons. She ran onto the circular platform and Thranduil gave her a cautious, but worried look.

“E-elen is hurting!” That was all Thranduil needed, he quickly leaped up and questioned.

“Where is she?” Lessiel then ran again, back to where Elen was screaming and fidgeting around. Thranduil collapsed next to her, turning to her back and feeling her head to try and see what was wrong.Suddenly the other elflings appeared with others following, Elen’s parents, and healers. Thranduil stood to let the healers look at Elen while he held Satariel back. The healers took out a vial of nightshade, managing to get it down Elens throat, she suddenly went limp. They picked her up and began carrying her to the healing ward, but Satariel shouted in franticness.

“What happened?!” Randur approached her and tried to calm her, holding her hand and stroking her arm.

“I do not know lady Satariel, Lessiel hear just told me that she was gripping her head and screaming.” Satariel was still breathing heavy, but followed the healers, ignoring the king. She went to her daughter's side, holding her hand as the healers examined her, but it didn’t last long. They finished and told the king and mother.

“We’ve done everything to see what was wrong, but... we couldn’t find anything wrong with her.” Thranduil sighed and accepted it, but Satarial didn’t take that as an answer.
“There has to be something wrong with her! She sees things die for Valar’s sake!” Randur hushed her again and Thranduil spoke.

“We have contacted Gandalf, Radagast, and even Elrond. They’ll be here soon I know it.” Satariel stayed silent after that, and left her and Randur to their child. Legolas soon approached his father, and relieved.

“I’ve just received word that Elrond will be in our boarders soon, but I’ve received no word from Gandalf or Radagast.” Thranduil nodded, his shoulder relaxing from the news. He then left to attend to his duties.

Satariel stayed with Elen everyday until she awoke, and then she barely let her out of her sight. Satariel though had to break the news that Lessiel was killed from spiders last night, she was in the forest trying to get her doll back. Elen felt terrible that she couldn’t protect Lessiel, and the mourning day only made it worse. Having to wear white during the day for the purity of the child and black to mourn her death during the night. However, the next day things were back to normal, and everyone seemed to forget that Lessiel ever existed. Elen though didn’t forget, she shouldn’t forget the way she died, the spiders surrounding her and picking her off like a fly in a trap. She managed to let her mother follow her to the forest, for the last two days she was stuck inside and away from all life. She walked around the fall forest, the plants dying out from the cold air approaching. As she wondered she marveled at the sudden sight of a flower patch, and saw lovely flowers with them. She picked off some of the flowers and hurried back to give to her mother. Running back she smiled with joy.

“Mom look!” She squealed as she held up the flowers, “aren’t they pretty?” However, instead of the beautiful flowers she saw before, was dead, rotted flowers that wilted away to a dead, ugly color. Satariel eyes widen with the shock at the sudden dead flowers. She knelt down to the now depressed Elen, taking her hand she hesitated.

“Ah, they’re... they’re...”

“They’re dead.” Elen sniffed, tears swelling up in her eyes, “when I plucked them they were nice colors of white and red and orange... WHY ARE THEY DEAD!” Elen screamed, tears escaping her now and crying uncontrollably. Satariel quickly hushed her, running her fingers through her hair and trying to soothe her daughter.

“Hush my dear it’s alright... it’s probably just because of winter coming and they were already getting ready to die. There’s no need to cry over this, spring will come again and there'll be plenty of flowers rip for the picking.” Elen sniffed, nodding her head as she dropped the dead flowers.

“Now was don’t you go back inside and get ready for dinner?” Elen huged Satariel and hurried back inside the palace. Satariel sighed heavily, slowly picking up the flowers and examining them, I’ll need to tell the king about this... he won’t do anything though... they never do. She placed the flowers carefully in her pockets before striding back inside to prepare dinner.