An iceling in mirkwood ~ thranduil love story

Chapter 18 ~ a witch's help

Thranduil lay helke's cold still body to rest on the bed and examined her. Her lips had a slightly blue tint to them and her whole body had frosted over in a thin layer of black ice.

"My helke" he whispered quietly. "What has happened to you?" He asked and he stroked her cold cheek.

"Varya" said anwa quietly, recognising the iceling's form.

"Protect?" Enquired the king, translating the elvish to man's language.

"Yes your highness. It is a process any iceling or iceler goes through when the weather is too hot. Their body shuts down and conceals itself in a shield of ice" explained anwa. His fingers skimmed along a book shelf nearby and he pulled out a large brown book with silver lettering down the spine in elvish. He flicked through the pages then set it down on the table so both him and the king could observe. On the page was an illustration of an iceler with white hair and high cheek bones, lying on a table with black ice over her. The top of the page was labeled 'varya' but very little was written underneath. All that was written in elvish was that varya was when an iceler or iceling could sense the weather becoming to hot and went into a protective mode. It only lasted for a few days and nothing could break or stop it.

"We must wait" stated anwa as the king traced the soft beauty of helke's face.

"I shall stay with her your highness, you need not fret" said anwa as he watched the king.

"She is afraid of me" stated the king and anwa was surprised at his open tone. "I struck her without thinking and now she fears me" he sighed.

"I am sure that, in time, she will also understand it was a mistake.

"You are causing all hell to break lose my little helke" whispered thranduil as he thought about all the events that had happened in the past week.

-----> 1 week later ------>

A few days, that was how long the book said the ice would last. A week after helke had collapsed she had still not awoken and the king was beginning to worry. Thranduil decided to move helke to his chambers so he could keep a better eye on her condition but it never changed.

"Why has she not awoken?!" Snapped the king to a nervous anwa.

"I am sorry your highness, I have no answer for your question. There has been no record of such events happening in the past" explained anwa looking upon helke who had not changed a bit since her collapse. Still pale and unmoving. "Leave me, you are useless" snapped the king coldly but anwa bowed calmly and left. "Helke" said the king quietly. "Helke, please if you can hear me. Please awaken or give me a sign you are....still alive" he said softly and felt a lump in his throat. He could not bare losing his lover again but nothing happened, there was no sign from her. Could she be dead...? Did he fail once again at protecting his lover?

"Helke" he said quietly and was surprised to find his own voice cracking. He was even more surprised to feel warm tears run down his cheeks. He never cried, the last time he had had been many many years ago. "Please, please come back to me" he chocked over her cold, stiff body. As the tears fell upon her cheeks he hoped that some how they would awake her, like he had read in tales when he was an elfling. Fate however, was not kind to him and she stayed as still as stone.

"I need guidance, I need...a witch" he whispered to himself. There had been speculations for thousands of years that icelings were type of witches and if these words true the king hoped another kind of witch could help him. They were not creatures one would happily interact with, they lived in the cold and desolation of the mountains and were most difficult to negotiate with. Thranduil gently pulled a silk blanket over helke and kissed her forehead softly before whispering "please, recover soon my love. I must go and seek help for you". He went straight to the healing tower to tell anwa to take care of helke and that he was to embark to the mountains to seek help from the witch known as fayla.

He felt lethargic as he saddled his elk up for the journey. He knew it would only take just under 2 days to travel to the mountains but he did not want to leave helke, but this was his last option. He did not want her to die and if she was already dead...

The king shook the thought from his head as he packed a small amount of food in a leather pouch and strapped it to the elk's saddle. He smiled sadly to see the elk calf that was taller now and growing out it's baby coat in place of a sleek, shiny brown one. It snorted unsurely as it watched it's mother be lead out of the stable calmly. The king sheathed his sword before he mounted his great elk. He had heard terrible stories of people going out unprepared against witches, most ending up dead. He gave the elk a small nudge with his heels and it trotted forwards obediently. He could not remeber ever feeling this nervous (apart from when legolas was born) in his life. What if fayla could not help helke? What if she was to stay in her frost cocoon forever? He was never to love her again, never hear her laughs, her sweet sighs. He would have to at least try.....