Lost Tales from Middle-earth

Memories

It was ere three thousand years before, during a harsh winter, and a young elf was trapped. 

She had come to visit Greenwood the Great, as an embassy from Lothlórien, and had been attacked by a company of orcs and an enormous spider. 

The monsters had crept upon her and she was terrified, but not by the foul creatures made by Melkor as a mockery of elves, but by the spider. 

She knew how to fight, and could have easily killed them, but her legs couldn't move. She had never been so afraid in her life. The two guards accompanying her had been killed. She was alone. The spider approached her while making a clicking sound. She closed her eyes, ready for death to come. 

Suddenly, she heard a foreign sound and opened her eyes.

An elf dropped out of the trees, wielding two silver swords, as her. He sliced through the first Orc and twirled to pierce the second. She was entranced by this Dance of Death. He had distracted her from her fear. She gathered her courage and started fighting. She killed the spider and started slaying the foul yrch. 

Soon he was watching her as she emotionlessly executed dozens of orcs in mere seconds. More of the pawns of Gorthaur arrived in the snow-covered clearing and met a steel death. None survived. At last, when only the two elves were standing, they turned to face each other. She was taken aback. 

Her savior, though covered in blood and gore, was beautiful. He had golden hair, now more black than blond, that arrived at his waist, and a perfect body, muscular but not too much and graceful, but it was his eyes that held her attention. They were two icy lakes that made her drown into their depth, into an unknown world.

She also left him speechless, as her fiery hair tattered with blood glowed as the Sun in the thin Moon crescent.

He noticed the scar that crossed her left eye and realized that she was a warrior who had seen battle. They looked each other in the eyes for what seemed to them like hours. He spoke at once breaking the spell that had befell upon them both.

"Who are you? Are you the embassy from Lothlórien which my Adar has so long awaited?"

"I come, as you have guessed, from Lórien. I am the cousin of Galadriel."

"Very well. Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Prince Thranduil of the Woodland Realm, son of King Oropher."

"And I am Alcariniel, daughter of Fëanor. But, are you sure that you are a Prince? You look not like one."

"Perhaps it is the fault of the blood I am covered in. The blood that I spilled to save your life."

"Perhaps. Why did you come to my rescue? I am no damsel in distress."

"I can see that. You wield your sword quite well."

"I was taught long ago by the best, but you are not so bad either." she said, which made him laugh a pure, cristalline laugh that felt as if the breeze that ran through the trees was turned into music. After a moment, though, he approached the carcass of the web spinner and frowned.

"This is no good omen. War is brewing. We barely have a few centuries before it is upon us. You should come with me to my home. You will be safe there. We should not linger here."

"You are right, though I have one question to ask you, your eminence."

"Then ask me."

"Why were you, the child of a King, sent here and not just another guard?"

"It was merely by chance, Lady Alcariniel. I was simply having a little stroll when I thought I heard something odd. I also happen to be the best swordsman of my realm. And the best archer. No other guard would have survived anyway."

"I see. A pleasure to meet you, Thranduil."

"A pleasure to meet you, Alcariniel."

And so it began. Soon, as they started to know each other better, they became great friends, and then lovers.

Their love was as a Rose. Beautiful, strong, passionate, but prickly. Every night, except when the Moon was full, then she would lock herself in the dungeons, and ask to be left alone there, for a hundred years, she would look at the stars and the Moon, lying next to him in a meadow, and the call of the Wild would overwhelm her. She yearned to become a Wolf once more, to feel the wind in her fur and howl to the Moon. She was torn between that call and her Love. For it was Love. The greatest since the one of Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel. 

In the end, she could stay no more. She nearly had killed him, by accident, and could not live with herself afterwards. She feared to hurt him. Hurting Thranduil would destroy her. 

As a Wolf, she could kill him. And if she did, she would not live long afterwards, for she knew that she would rather slay herself rather than live in a world without him.

Even after three thousand years of not seeing him, she still loved him. His Kingship of her heart had never ended, though her love for him was probably not returned.

It was in Spring, after a century spent with him, on a full Moon, that she had left.

They had been walking in the forest, when the Wolf came out. Drunk on him, she had forgotten about the Moon. She changed into the Wolf in front of him, looked him in the eye, saw fear, and fled far away. 

When she was younger, she had not been able to control the Wolf and she would have killed him. 

She had run for miles and miles until she could run no more. She had arrived at the very edge of Middle-earth, at the farthest point from Greenwood. There she became an elf once more, for the Sun had risen, and cried. For days her tears fell, as she was alone. She could not suffer to see him again after what he had witnessed. He already must have been much preoccupied, for War was brewing against an Evil that grew once more.

She was afraid of getting rejected, for he was a Prince and could not marry a cursed elf. 

She then chose, breaking both their hearts, that she should never see him again, to spare him the choice that she had just made.

It was the second worst mistake of her life.

Later took place the battle of Dagorlad, the death of Oropher and Thranduil's crowning. 

But why did her heart ache so much whenever she thought of him?