Allies and Enemies

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dreams and Confessions

I was running. Running far away, through a plain, small fires to my left and right. An electrified whip hooked around my feet and I fell to the ground. Several other whips whipped around my body and bound me, forcing me on my knees. The whips cracked, and electricity ran throughout my body, making me scream. Electricity hit my back, the pain washing throughout my body. It was pain beyond pain, agony beyond agony. Throughout the haze of torture, I saw someone walking toward me, a ball of Everblaze in their hand, their face blurred. They raised their hand, poised to throw, and the face cleared. Sophie. I gasped, waking up. I held a hand to my heart, which was beating fast. Air. I needed air. I stumbled out of my bed, or mattress, rather, and ran out of my quarters, breathing hard. I felt claustrophobic like the walls were closing in around me. I tried to run faster and faster, until I burst through the doors and gasped, breathing in the cool night air. I slowed down, silently thanking Rowan for making a pocket of nature in our dimension. I made my way through the birch, oak, and weeping willow trees and came upon a clearing with soft, dew-kissed grass. I sat down, slowing my breathing, trying to relax. Hugging my knees, I thought about my dreams.

"I can see why Sophie never slept," I whispered to myself. I heard someone come up behind me. I knew who it was.

"Going for a walk in nature, Legolas?" I asked.

"Nature is calming," he said simply.

"I find that to be true, especially in these times," I replied. I rested my head on my knees. Legolas sat down next to me.

"When I was younger, if someone had told me exactly who I was to become, I would have told them they were lying," I said. "Because back then, as much as I wanted to believe that magic was real, I knew it wasn't. I was hotheaded and impatient... even when I learned of my powers, I wanted to master them on the first day. I didn't have the knowledge that I do now."

"I was like that as well," Legolas replied. "I was arrogant and selfish in my youth. My priorities did not extend farther than myself."

"I guess we both grew past that then," I remarked. I was silent for another minute, then said, "I didn't want to talk about my past earlier this year. Just because... it's not for people I don't trust." Legolas looked at me, listening. Gotta admit I don't know the last time I spilled my past to someone outside of my close friend zone.

"Well... when I was younger, I teleported to Christophsis and that's how I found out about the worlds. The reason I ran away and teleported by accident was that my mother had plans to kill me." I let that sink in for a second. Legolas stared at me in shock. "She was going to poison my evening tea, and I found out, so I ran away. It's why I was so hotheaded, because I had never found inner peace, and I had that raging inner darkness that I only calmed when I traveled outside of the worlds I knew." I stopped talking. I looked to see his reaction. Shocked, sorry, but caring for me too. Nice.

"Anything about you?" I asked, making sure my voice sounded open.

"Mirkwood is a very secluded place," Legolas said after a while. "I never got to see Middle-Earth, really, just the woods of my home. Being hotheaded and selfish also caused me to lose my father's trust. I was supposed to be his successor, but he took that away. I regained his trust after a while, but it's no longer the same." I nodded. I wasn't sure I could quite relate, but I knew a bit of this from all the wiki pages I used to read about Lord of the Rings.

"I used to also pry about my mother," Legolas continued. "I never knew who she was, and my father doesn't like to talk about her."

"My mother was like that too," I empathized. "She couldn't talk about my father without crying."

"Oh. I suppose that's something we have in common, then."

"Single parents." There was a beat of silence. "Do you think you'll ever know who your mother is?"

"No," Legolas replied honestly. My father will not tell me, and it's hard to try and look for her. All I can glean is that she had a very private life." I nodded with understanding, then laid back. The two of us talked about happier things until I could talk no more, and I drifted off to sleep.