Nepenthe [Legolas]

13

They followed the smoke, up the hillside, past the valleys. Until the air gave way to something thick and vile. Orc blood spilled. Orc flesh burned.

Viridis' nose scrunched in disgust as he beheld the scent, horse skidding to a stop as they approached.

He dismounted in a fluid motion, eyes trailing over the stack of corpses, all burnt and black now. And the leader's head most clearly stood beneath the dying light. Severed and decapitated and struck up upon a pike. A message. A warning. A plain grudge.

Gimli stooped down quickly once he had dismounted his horse. Viridis watched his expressions closely as he stood, smiling; a sad smile, a sorrowful smile.

"It's one of their wee belts." He said.

Viridis' jaw set, eyes stubbornly studying the wreckage that was lain out before them. Beside him, Legolas dipped his head, muttering an elvish chant beneath his breath. A chorus for safe travels, for hopes still not lost.

In a rage, Aragorn cried out, unable to contain the pure grief and sorrow that he'd been forced to harbor for the past many days. He kicked at a stray Orc helmet and sunk to his knees, burying his head within the folds of his arms.

"We failed them," Gimli said numbly, as if he could not truly comprehend such a fact, that saying it out loud was the only way he could make the idea tangible— to see it there before him, to watch it mock him with the most of severest displeasures.

"I do not see their bodies," Viridis spoke suddenly, plainly. It drew attention to him like moths to a flame.

Aragorn cast his eyes upon Viridis in disbelief. His voice wavered as he spoke. It was perhaps the first time that Viridis had seen the man look so unsure of himself. "How can you believe at such a time as this?"

"I believe because it is absurd." He said with a soft smile. He tilted his head as he gazed upon Aragorn. "Come, ranger. Strider." He gestured to the earth around them. "Tell me what you see."

Aragorn half looked like he would stand then suddenly and strangle Viridis, perhaps channel his rage into a fist. But he also looked upon the Elf with that stubborn gleam of hope in his eye.

The absurd was a witless source to draw the feeble string of hope. But the absurd seemed, in a world such as this, the only thing that could be paradoxically relied upon.

So Aragorns eyes drifted downward, once more toward the earth and he shifted his fingers, watched them shake as they ghosted above the blades of grass. He noted their indents, read the stories they told.

"A Hobbit lay here." He said, shifting his hand. "And here, the other." He stood now, invigorated as he relayed the story upon which he was learning. "They crawled... their hands were bound. Their bonds were cut. They ran over here." Aragorn was darting forward quickly now, guiding the company forward. "They were followed. Tracks lead away from the battle... into Fangorn Forest."

They'd come to a stop before the edge of a tree line. What stood before them however was not like the forests of Old or the ancient ones Viridis had traveled to in his lifetime. This one was dark. Convoluted with a sick green, black splotches that attached themselves to trees making them appear almost deathly. The trunks and branches were so close together that it was impossible to see one league in front of them. If the absurd was right to tell them that the Hobbits were still alive against all odds, it was the absurd that was responsible for leading them here.

"Fangorn?" Gimli echoed darkly. "What madness drove them in there?"

"Not madness," Viridis said, hands coming to rest on the hilt of his blades. "But desperation."