Building Ithilien [Legolas] LOTR

Unwanted Visitors

The elves fell into a hush as the canyon walls loomed ever higher over them. No one had ordered silence, but all fell quiet. The air thickened, closed in around them; no wind or summer breeze teased this lonesome corridor, and the sky above narrowed to a bright blue sliver. Every so often a few small rocks skittered down in a cloud of dust from the edge of the rocky incline.

Legolas and the elves snaked forward in their single file line, and the gorge tightened around them. Once earlier Legolas had craned his neck around trying to catch a glance of Miredhel to check on her, but the curving walls and slim passage hid her from sight. He knew she still rode with the group and that she was safe, but still the prince worried for her. She had not taken Farothin's disappearance very well, to say the least. If anything, merely to glimpse her eyes alone would prove enough to satisfy him, to see her eyes, clear and rich, as they had been earlier, the color of a thousand rippling leaves across a forest canopy.
In his heart, Legolas feared for her, that she might succumb to her grief once more, or that she would blame him for what evil might befall their young friend. She had called on the prince to help Farothin. Miredhel, who had never demanded anything of him, had finally made a heartfelt request, and Legolas had denied her. His responsibility to the safety of the group had forced his hand in the matter, but he still felt horrible about it. He thought back to the time in Mirkwood when he had begged her to allow him to give her a gift, and now he could not bestow on her the very thing she wanted.

The deeper he traveled into the pass of Emyn Muil, the worse he felt. The passage way constricted more and more, and Legolas felt as though he were being swallowed. How like his life, he mused. For his dreams also seemed to close around him. Somehow his plans for Ithilien had become just like this road, and every decision he made led him deeper into a binding path from which he could not break free.

Legolas nudged Arod to stop so that he might try again to spy Miredhel among the line, to win a glance from her. When the procession slowed to a halt, the prince became aware of a peculiar noise echoing faintly from the stone walls around them. The sound was not like a constant hum, but more inconsistent, a pulsing, rustling noise. Before he could turn to Eledhel to ask him if he heard it as well, the cause of the disturbance soared into view from above the confines of the passage.

A black-winged cloud thickened in the distant sky and hurtled toward the elves with alarming speed. A dismayed murmur ran among his people before the shrieking swarm drowned out their voices, and Legolas strained his eyes to make out the cloud for what it was. Birds. His keen eyes discerned a glossy crop of midnight-hued feathers, wings edged in violent red, and shrewd dark eyes staring soullessly toward him. Carrion birds, birds of war and death, corpulent from the blood of the slain, looked to feast again.

Legolas hoped the flock would turn before their paths crossed. He had seen the shade of their darkness before, like a deathly shadow on the battle grounds before attack: blotting out the sun over the Lonely Mountain in the Battle of the Five Armies, roosting upon the sharp stone walls at Helm's Deep, scouring the skies over Pelennor Fields, and then before Morannon, like shards of the Black Gate come viciously alive. Legolas hated them. He hated what they represented. Seeing them now only confirmed his suspicion that the orcs' battalions prowled nearby, and he fervently hoped that these foul creatures would not compromise his group's position.