Enchantment of Sorrow

Chapter 02

She started laughing like a crazed person from her spot in the shadows. Thranduil glared at her with indignation.

"I cannot believe you gave her the food of The Blessed. What, my king? Do you think she can 'save' you?"

"Be silent foul creature! My choices are no concern of yours!" Thranduil shot back tightening his grip on the stem of his wine glass.

The woman just let out another laugh at his outburst. She came out of the shadows then her appearance ever pale and ghostly, beautiful and terrible at once. "Foul creature? You used to call me your greatest love."

Thranduil continued glaring, teeth bared like a wild cat ready to pounce. "You are not what you once were."

She scoffed. "And whose fault is that, 'my lord'? I'm not the one who tried to be a necromancer." Her smile, which was feral and mocking left her features, replaced only with a stern expression. "You knew the price."

The stem on the wine glass snapped in his hand, as he reached his limit. "GET OUT!!!" he shouted at the top of his lungs throwing the wine glass across the room. It hit the wall with a crash and red liquid stained the stones he color of blood.

She gave out another mocking laugh. "As you wish..."

She retreated into the shadows but Thranduil could still the outline of her figure and the ever mocking mile on her red lips. He knew she would still be there. She was always there.

Thranduil turned and walked to the heavy wooden door of his chamber and opened it feeling her move in the shadows beside him. Following him. Always following him. He went to the deep parts of the earth, and out unto the very bridge you had come across. He looked across it, at the blizzard raging on about his wooded realm. He spoke a quick incantation and brought his hand to his lips. He blew out a breath across his fingertips and it carried his voice upon the wind reaching the ears of every elf who still braved the storm.

"Come inside and rest. The forces of wind and chill protect us tonight."

Quietly and deftly all made their way across the enchanted bridge, and back into the warmth of the king's halls. The king however retreated further and deeper within. Lower and deeper into rooms below even his own dungeons. As he entered he noted she did not follow. As was usual.

The cavernous main room was lit by torches and lycan, ivy and nightshade creeped along it's walls. A gold rune was permanently tiled into the floor. The room had sparsely little else aside from his staff, and lanterns. A table with various bottles and potions, and of course a large cauldron to brew them in. A book of spells. A book of reference and tales. Along the walls in a circular pattern eight tall, proud standing objects, all covered with a cloth.

He past them without a glance turning his attention to the mouth of a dark hallway where the white stag appeared, heading his call. He nodded to it in silent acknowledgement, and it snorted a greeting. Thranduil then turned to a spot in front of the table and gathered his lanterns, set them each at their points about the symbol on the floor, and lit them. He walked to the opposite wall behind the tall objects and grabbed his scepter which was leaning against the wall. Thranduil entered the middle of the symbol and the stag began to circle around the outside.

He tapped the staff three times on the hard ground and closed his eyes, relaxing his mind and heart, and with this began his ancient chant. With each pass the stag made the symbol glowed brighter and brighter, and with it his voice began to boom against the walls filling it with a thunderous sound though he never raised his voice even an octave.The sound was deafening by the time he finished.

Only during these rituals would she stay behind and never interfere. She dare not even enter. This was a protected, pure place... something she was not.

Uttering his last words while in his trance, Thranduil opened his eyes, perspiration dripped down his face and body. The new season was set in it's course. The trees, plants, animals, even his own and his people themselves - all that should be born or pass had their fates sealed as of that moment. Thranduil tapped the scepter on the floor three times again. It was done.

He stepped out of the circle and collapsed feeling the power drain from him. He let out a couple of deep, hard caught breaths, before standing as the symbol's glow died returning to it's normal gold motif. Thranduil gave a quick glance to the stag. Both nodded at the other and then it slowly went back out the way it had came. As immortal as he, it would suffer no ill effects from the storm, and would in fact relish in it.

Thranduil went to each lantern in turn, speaking a blessing before extinguishing each flame, gathering it's chain in hand. He placed them back by the table behind the symbol, and returned his staff to it's prior place.

Weary, he hesitated before taking the winding stairs up to the main floor knowing in the shadows his tormentor would be waiting at the top. She dared not come to the deep places of the earth. It was where she was made, and it is where she could be unmade. That was where lie the problem.

He closed his eyes as he took the last step up ready for the deluge. When none came, he looked around himself, finding her perched on a chair in the shadows. Green eyes shimmering, hair pale and moonlit blond - yet somehow not the color it was before.... Skin pale and unreal. She didn't glow, but he could always clearly see her even in the shadows she lived in. She said nothing, and he merely stared at her long and hard, before turning and heading to the stairways which would eventually lead to the bed chambers.

He felt her moving along the corridors with him, and he did his best to pretend she was not there. His people thought him to be mad. He knew that. He heard the hushed exclamations in the night when they thought he was not paying attention. If only they knew the real truth, they would be even more horrified!

Finally he reached the corridor where you were sleeping. He could not resist the pull he felt when he came to the entrance, and upon seeing your sleeping form, went inside. His breath escaped him when he looked at you. You glowed with the same golden light of his own symbol had in your sleep, and he could not help musing that you were one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

As he came to your side, he looked up and around him, then at the door. Crouched in the hallway shadows she lingered staring wide-eyed and frightened at your sleeping figure. He could not keep himself from making the smirk that came to his lips at seeing this. She let out an animal-like snarl. He walked back to the door and shut it. She would not enter. She could not.

But he knew as he came to your side and lay down next to you reaching a hand out to touch your face,with his fingertips and run them through the strands of your hair exactly why. You were now tied to him and this place. His fate rested in your oblivious hands. Could you be the one to correct the mistake he had made so long ago? Heal him and his realm of the darkness he had brought unto it due to his grief and desperation?

It was not kindness that made the stag lead you there. It was not the sheer need for contact with an non-judging party - and one he found so alluring at that which let his ill temper leave him at the site of your eyes. It was providence.

He wound his body about yours, cradling you in his arms tenderly and you turned into him welcoming the warmth in your sleep state. Tonight he could truly rest. For the first time in ages he would sleep undisturbed.