Avadis - A legolas story (slow moving!)

Chapter 44 - You were not yourself

Avadis leant her arms gently over the cold stone balcony connecting to her room. She had not gone much further than the walls of the city before Aragorn sought her out and swiftly dragged her away to the healers, insisting that he would simply not have her walking around covered in her own blood. Only once they reached the healing house did she fully take in her injuries. She made a careful list in her head, one large cut to her thigh, two across her left arm and one above her eye. Her wings remained for the most part completely unharmed, aside from dust that coated each feather. After she had been swiftly whisked away by a weird assortment of healers, Avadis was fussed over head to toe. She felt as if she was a display ornament in a museum with the way they stared at her wondering how to even begin to heal her. The most helpful thing they did for her was find her a fresh gown with an awkwardly cut away section to make way for her wings.

After far too long of being poked and prodded like a lifesize doll, eventually she decided to take things into her own hands, drinking down an entire bottle of ent draught (silently thanking Gandalf for stealing it) and stitching up her own cuts along her legs, wrapping bandages over her arms and carefully sewing together the gash atop her left brow with the help of a small and slightly cracked mirror. It was certainly painful, but she was not comfortable wasting the valuable time of half the healers in Gondor while there were still plenty of others who required far more attention than herself. 

Until her stitches began to settle, she had been confined to bed by none other than her dearest wizard friend under the promise that as soon as her friends were able, he would send them straight to find her. While she desperately wanted to escape and find them herself, she knew that Gandalf was only doing what was best for her out of love, and she respected him enough to listen to his words. However, since she was never really good at actually following his words, she had taken it upon herself to climb from her bed despite the pain in her leg from the fresh round of stitching, and make her way out into the fresh evening air, letting the breeze blow the mess from her wings. 

Though she knew she should not be thinking of her dealings with the nazgul, she could not stop the memory from replaying over in her mind. Though at first the experience had been a terrifying experience, the more she contemplated it the more she began to realise it had taught her much of what a battle with him would entail. Even her own muscles could betray her beyond her better judgement, and more importantly she now knew the horrifying satisfaction that came from obeying his commands. But she had overcome it this time, for now. That knowledge brought her peace, and a slither of hope. And as her good friend had told her, she must hold onto hope until there is none left to grasp. 

A quiet knock at her door caused her to spin around in surprise, twisting the cut on her leg causing her to gasp in pain. "Uh... um one moment please" she called out in a panic, lifting the long fabric of the makeshift gown as she raced back to her bed, lifting herself up and under the covers whilst gritting her teeth against the pain of her sudden movement. Tucking her wings underneath and quickly flattening out the wrinkles of the sheets infront of her, she fixed her windblown hair and shook her shoulders. "Uhh, you may come in?" She called out, her voice filled with a false sense of confidence and sophistication. 

Legolas' walked into the room, still in his fighting clothes but somehow with his hair and face completely mess free. Avadis was suddenly glad he had not been there to see the combination of blood and mud that she had become covered in by the end of the battle. It must be some elf ability to stay looking completely perfect despite being in one of the biggest battles Middle Earth had seen in a long time. 

He didnt say anything at first, instead coming and sitting on the edge of the bed with a gentle sigh as he relaxed his shoulders. She could tell that he had not taken a moment to rest by the way his body sunk deep into the edge of the mattress, his face betraying his tiredness if only for a brief moment. Avadis would have said something witty and funny to greet him if she hadnt been focussing so hard on trying to appear as if her leg was not screaming in pain from her dash across the room just moments before. 

"You know you should not be walking around so much" he finally spoke, looking over at her with eyebrows raised in amusement. Avadis lowered the rest of her body weight down onto her leg, sucking in a hiss before shrugging her shoulders innocently at him.

"I don't know what you are talking about" she replied, "as you can see I have been perfectly comfortable right here this whole time." She patted the bed beside her, knocking off a fallen leaf that must have caught onto her wing from the adventure outside.  

"Gandalf did tell me to inform him if you took any..." he paused and eyed down the opened doors to the balcony which were letting in a cool breeze, "... adventures." He paused and a cheeky smile crossed his face, "but since I see absolutely no suspicious evidence of any adventures then I suppose there is nothing to tell him." 

Avadis laughed. "How are you? Are you hurt?" She asked. The last she had seen of him, he was running head on towards a pack of retreating orc. 

"No, I am well, just weary from a long journey" he replied with a small smile. The pair fell back into an awkard kind of silence. Legolas looked down at his hands and anxiously fidgited with his fingers, looking as if he was deep in thought. Something was wrong.

Avadis frowned, "are you sure you are well? Has something happened?" Her mind immediately raced to the worst possibilities. Was it Eowyn? Or the hobbits? Or news from Mordor? 

"I should be asking you the same thing," he replied, looking over at her, "don't act as if I did not see your encounter with the nazgul." His brows furrowed with concern and he moved slightly closer towards her. "Forgive me for saying this but... you were not yourself. It was as if I was looking at a different person. Avadis, I've seen that you've been hiding so much from us along this journey, and I feel as if these events were not purely a coincidence." 

Avadis' eyes welled slightly with tears. Of course, she remembered now his voice crying out to her from beneath her on the battle field while the nazgul stared her down. She had forgotten that he had been so close, that he had been the one to help bring her back. 

"I don't need you to tell me that everything is fine. Infact, I will not believe you if you do. But I need to know that you will be safe Avadis. Please." He looked desperate, forehead crickled with concern as he carefully grabbed one of her hands. Taking a deep breath in, she thought about where to even start. How to tell him everything that had gone on, everything that she was.

After a long moment, she opened her mouth and began to talk...