Avadis - A legolas story (slow moving!)

Chapter 31 - Realisations

Avadis felt as though she was going to be sick. She had figured it out, the answer to every question that had been keeping her awake at night. The answer for the night her people marched from their homes. The answer for the night she heard the voice of Sauron echoing through her mind. It was all linked, and it was all his plan. 

"Avadis?" 

Meneldor's voice barely registered in her brain, and she reached out blindly to hold onto him and she sunk back down to the ground in disbelief, her hand pressed to her foreheard. 

"It all makes sense. Meneldor it all makes sense." Her hands shook but she continued, "just the other week, my friend, he summoned Sauron's presence to us and I heard... I heard him. Speaking in my mind as if he was sitting right beside me. I could not speak, I could barely stand for the pain I felt." 

"What did he tell you?" the eagle was extremely concerned, and turned to face the girl properly, who was still a curled mess on the stone floor. She shook her head, trying to focus back to remember exactly what the voice had said. 

"To begin with, the first thing the voice yelled at me was to run. It told me that he was coming, and to close my mind. Then, it changed. It told me it could see me, and told me to come to him." 

"And this has not happened before?"

Avadis shook her head, "nothing like it, no. I have felt others... feelings before, but never so real as this. It was beyond feelings, it was words, sentences." 

"That is because you have an open mind. Much more so than any other creature. Your people have always been this way. You have the ability to read into creatures minds in a way that most others cannot."

Avadis frowned, "what does this mean though? How have I never noticed this until now?"

"Have you never wondered how you are able to talk to me?"

The eagle's words made Avadis pause, surprised. Of course she had never thought to question that, speaking with them was just something she had always been able to do. 

"Or perhaps have you wondered how you speak so easily with the trees and plants. Or the moths and birds?" 

"Can others... not do that?" Avadis frowned, looking up at him as she began to question every conversation she had ever had with the eagles. Was anything real anymore?

"You have seen that the wizard cannot hear us. Nor could he understand the trees which whispered to you in the forest. Only we have this gift, to have a mind open enough to read, even speak with, the instincts of other living things."

"Instincts?" 

"You surely do not expect me to open my mouth when I speak with you, as the other creatures would." The eagle was almost sarcastic. "I would look ridiculous. I am a bird, not a man. No Avadis, you understand me in the same way that two animals understand eachother without a language. You understand my instincts, you feel my emotions. It took us eagles some time to learn to speak with creatures such as yourself, same as it did with the trees, who were taught by elves of old." 

She blinked her eyes once, twice, completely baffled at how she had never contemplated these things before. Of course she had never heard the eagles talking, she had only felt it. Their voices, which rumbled along in her mind had never once been heard aloud. She had just assumed that it was... the way they were. Never with any reason to question such things. 

But now that she thought back, she began to realise all of the instances where she had, completely unknowingly, heard and spoken to many creatures. Even the simplest of times, like her listening to the trees pass her messages from far away forests, or speaking with the moths to send as messengers to Gandalf. She did not know that others were not able to do the same as her. 

"And so, it is because of our open minds that Sauron was able to... take them?" she asked him. 

"He found a weakness, and he manipulated it until he found a way in. He is not just a man, or an elf, there is something else... more, to him. This ability is not a common one." 

She nodded her head slowly and frowned. "So he knew I could hear him. Because he has done this before." She had been ready to prepare herself with armour or weapons to fight against him, but preparing her mind was not something she was quite sure how to do. The notion that the dark lord had spoken in her mind was enough to make her begin to feel sick, let alone the idea that he was actively trying to take over it. 

"But it seems as though your instincts are strong too. Did you not say that you heard voices telling you to run before he came? That was not him, Avadis. That was you. It seems have a strong mind which can sense this danger before it arrives. Listen to it. I only wish more of your kind were the same as you, then perhaps we would have had more warning."

"Should I just not go?" she sighed with defeat, "what am I risking the rest of the company? That I march alongside them only to be taken over by Sauron and destroy them? Surely it is safer for me to leave them. Go back to my home and hide from him." She felt as though she was under a curse, she was a threat to anyone near her. That at any moment her mind could be stolen from her, and she would have no idea who she would become. Or what she would do to her friends. It was too dangerous, too frightening. 

"Follow your instincts." Meneldor replied, "learn to listen to your mind. Guard it closely. Just because you may hear him, does not mean you must listen."

She was silent, her mind still worrying over all the possibilities she faced if she decided to march to Gondor. 

"They need all the help they can get. I have seen the armies of Mordor. They are outnumbered."

"Then I must go" she decided, "for if I do not, then I would only be left wondering of the possibilies had I done so." She thought of her friends, of the hobbits who were even now walking closer to the gates of Mordor, of Gandalf waiting deep within Minas Tirith, of the company of friends who were willing to die to protect their people. She could not abandon them now. 

"The sun is beginning to rise. You must return." Meneldor stood and began to unfold his wings, stretching them out to shake off small crystals of dew that had settled over his feathers. Avadis did the same. 

"Will you visit me again?" Her voice quivered slightly, betraying her fear and worry. She did not want to face Sauron without speaking with him again. 

"I will be watching over you always, youngling." The eagle replied. He rubbed his beak against her side, and she rubbed her hand over the feathers of his face. 

"Thank you friend" she whispered, before stepping backwards and falling away from the platform. On her flight back, she did not take the time to enjoy the sunrise as she normally would. Her heart felt heavy and her mind was full with worry. She needed time to think, but time was the one thing that she did not have. 

...

Author's note: 

Hiii! Wow thanks so much for reading this far into the book! The last two chapters have really been a grand reveal for an ability that Avadis has, and hopefully it ties together some of the mysteries in the story so far nicely. 

Please let me know if you're enjoying it, it would be amazing to hear from you all :)