Reckless.  That is the only word that can describe this whole endeavour, and in particular what Thranduil decides we are to do now. He knew we would be outnumbered.  He knew that the orcs were expecting a rescue attempt.  Of course, he ordered us to arm ourselves, and the moment we walk out of the room, my fingers sweating around the hilt of my sword, all hell breaks loose.

The orcs engulf us in a wave of shrieking, clattering chaos, the cacophony of iron on iron ringing down the halls like a death toll.  I know how to fight now, I know the movements and patterns of a standard swordsman, I know how to send the orcs crashing to the floor with black blood erupting from gashes across their chest.  I soon learn how to block out their incessant roars and growls, which become merely part of the background clamour of battle.

The fear doesn't break me.  It makes me stronger.

I do not know if Thranduil knows it, but it was him who made me into the fighter I am now.  It was him who turned a Star into an elf.  Today, I am proud to be fighting alongside them as one of their own.  I would feel entirely so if their Prince accepted me.

As a shaft of light falls upon Elidir, I notice a headband, wrought from thin strips of green-tinged metal and woven intricately into a pattern of leaves, strapped alongside his many weapons.  I have seen this before, gleaming in glory upon Eirwen's little head.  He is fighting for her, fighting his way through the unrelenting torrent of orcs to find the source of her feeble cries for her ada.

We soon break the wall of angular swords and crude axes, stumbling and clambering over the ever-growing piles of carcasses to reach the next room.  This one is darker and tighter than the others, and chained to the far wall amid another rabble of orcs is Eirwen.  Her clothes are ripped to shreds and her small body bruised, while her once immaculate gold-brown hair is a tangled mess.  The fear in those eyes identical to her father's, the quivering lip, the dirt staining her face, the bleeding cut on the side of her head...

'Ada!  Ada, natha!' she cries, appearing too weak to struggle against her bonds, or to go to the trouble of speaking in Westron, which would be immense for someone so young. 

Elidir rushes to free her, leaving the rest of us to slaughter the remaining orcs while he frantically examines the chains.  'They're too strong!'  He grits his teeth, still battling adamantly against them while Eirwen sobs quietly.

Memories of a time thousands of years past comes to mind: a time when I watched Maedhros, the eldest son of Fëanor, sacrifice his right hand to be freed from chains like these.  The notion of cutting off little Eirwen's hands is enough to freeze my blood, far more than the screaming orc whose mottled neck was just sliced open by my blade.  There has to be some way to release her, a way that doesn't cause her any more pain—

'Elena?  What are you doing?' blurts Elidir as I throw myself over a bloody carcass to reach him and wrap my fingers around the metal cuffs at Eirwen's wrists.

The little elfling sniffles, and I grip tighter.  'I'm going to save her.'

And I am.  I put aside everything else, every doubt and hindrance and danger, every ounce of insecurity about my powers, and I focus.  I am Elena, a Star of the host of Varda, honed purely from the light and essence of the sky, and gifted with powers too great for the hearts of Middle Earth to comprehend.  Whatever they may be, I will use them to free this innocent elfling, even if it drains me of my life.  I have had enough of not understanding, of following an unclear course, so I will make my powers limitless.  If no one tells me what they are, then they are everything.  If I am defying the laws of the Stars, then Varda can materialise down here and stop me herself. 

I started all this. It's up to me to finish it.

A burning sensation ignites in my hands, but it's not a bad pain. Then comes the light, the same light that saved me from Avalor's lust, which obliterates the shackles in a matter of seconds. Eirwen squeaks, her youthful face lighting up as she moves her hands freely and throws them around her father's neck.

Elidir embraces his daughter with such relief and joy that I have hardly ever seen the likes of before. They exchange rapid conversation in whispered Sindarin, but Elidir pauses to mouth 'thank you' over Eirwen's shoulder. Only now does the burning sensation begin to fade and shrink to little more than embers on the tips of my fingers, ready to ignite whenever I require it.

An orc comes charging towards me, and I instinctively pull my sword out again, only to feel the burning spread again, through my fingers and into the hilt.  The light follows it, gleaming down the blade until the entire sword is flaming with a dancing white fire.  The orc lets out a frightened growl as I bring the glowing blade down its chest, the starlight cleaving straight through its armour and searing the skin beneath.

'Elena, your sword!' Tauriel cries as the white flames consume another terrified victim.

'I know!' Another falls to the ground, the slice across their neck smoking.

I was once afraid to go near this power, but I'm not afraid anymore. This is pure burning starlight, in the form of a lethal weapon. Once I have finally gained control, I finish off the last of the orcs, much to the awe of the others around me. Thranduil removes his sword from his final kill and sheaths it, before striding over to admire the flaming weapon in my hands, the pale tongues of fire reflecting in his eyes.

He opens his mouth as if to speak, a proud smile beginning to spread across his face, but it freezes and fades as quickly as it arrived. His eyes suddenly reflect a new image: the door across the other side of the room.

Thranduil sinks to his knees.

I drop down beside him. 'Thranduil?  Thranduil!'

'Adar?' Legolas utters in confusion, shaking his father's shoulder gently.

Elidir, who has stood up with Eirwen on one hip, says gravely, 'he cannot hear you.  He is having a flashback. We must wait until it is over.'

The words shake my very core, so much that I fling my sword aside and desperately attempt to gain Thranduil's attention, despite his eyes having glazed over to a paler, frosted blue. 'THRANDUIL!  Meleth, please!' He doesn't respond. I turn back to Elidir, 'I must do something!'

'No elf has ever stopped one of his flashbacks.  Or a flashback from anyone who survived a terrible war,' he replies. Eirwen murmurs something in Sindarin into his ear, and he hushes her again.

I set my jaw. 'Good thing I'm not an elf, then.'

'Elena...' Tauriel begins with concern, 'Elena, what are you...'

I don't hear her finish.

The air around me seems to implode, and I hang tightly onto Thranduil to bear through the intense pressure racing through my mind and body. When it subsides, I dare to survey my surroundings. Legolas, Tauriel, Elidir, Eirwen and the orc carcasses have been replaced by at least a hundred elves in identical bloodstained Woodland Realm armour, and through the door which Thranduil's gaze is fixed on is a band of orcs with their backs to us. The elves somehow know to steer clear of us, despite them not actually seeing us.

I did it. I have control... I'm inside his vision.

In the crowd of elves jostling to make it through the next doorway, I notice a young Elidir, looking no less tall and strong than usual, and as handsome as one can be while battered, bloodied and utterly terrified.  Beside him, and clinging onto his arm as though it were a life buoy at sea, is a fiery-haired ellon barely into adulthood, whom I recognise as Írendor—the future father of Tauriel.  He is equally handsome, equally battle-worn and, if possible, about ten times more frightened than his ebony-haired counterpart. 

Time seems to slow down as the two young ellons scrabble desperately at each other, trying to hold on, to stay together as the surge of the crowd pushes them away down the passage.  Their calls of the other's name are lost in the loud panic that is drowning the fortress like a tidal wave.

Elidir mentioned none of this before.

As the elves finally begin to disperse, a series of screams and roars from the other room alerts me.  I don't rise from my position knelt by Thranduil's side.  I know what's happening in there without having to stare at the rabble of orcs through the low doorway—I've seen it all before, and so has Thranduil.

Then it comes, the half-dead Queen of the Woodland Realm being dragged out into the room where we kneel, her body contorted violently into agonising positions and bleeding steadily from various open wounds.  It plays out exactly how it did all those years ago; Ellerian prays to the Valar in her final moments while the tears fall down her scratched cheeks and the orcs' iron claws dig into her tainted skin. 

Protect my son.  Protect my little leaf.

Thranduil jerks when a spear is lodged through her heart, and then retracted when her body goes limp.  The corpse is then tossed aside, rolling to a halt right before Thranduil's knees.  To my surprise, he doesn't reach out and touch it.  He only stares, devastated, yet at the same time almost blank in his paralysed expression.

The orcs have vanished before I can say anything to him.  Ellerian's body suddenly begins to swim in and out of existence, having altered slightly each time it returns.  The straight, honey-coloured hair pales, and develops a natural wave; the face shifts, enlarging the glazed eyes and transforming them from delicate hazel to vibrant blue; the entire body elongates as the silver armour, rent and shining with blood, exchanges itself for an equally damaged set of clothing with a familiar bronze-hued belt. 

I am face to face with my own lifeless body, lying sprawled and mangled on the cold ground.

There is a moment where I do nothing but watch the thick blood pool around it, my grip on Thranduil's shoulder slackening.  But then I turn away from the horrific sight, and lock my eyes on Thranduil's.  He doesn't see the true me, only my mutilated corpse.  'It's not real,' I urge him, 'it's not real, Thranduil.  I promise, I'm here, it's not real—it's just your imagination.  Meleth nín, I'm right here.'

No response.  I grip tighter on his shoulders with both hands this time, pleading desperately as the first tears spring into my eyes.

'Iesten, Thranduil—le melin, le uivelin—'

His eyes lose their glaze at last.  The room implodes a second time and we return to reality with a jolt.  Thranduil struggles for words, 'I thought I would be able to fight it, but I—I couldn't—'

'Wait, you—you knew this would happen to you?' I stutter in disbelief, my hands falling from his shoulders down to his own hands.

He nods slowly, his breaths still short and shaky.

'Why did you still come when you knew?'

'I came for you, meleth, and for Eirwen.'

'I thought you were weak earlier, but you're not, you're the strongest ellon I know and have ever known.  I should never have doubted you, I should never have assumed anything of you... I wish I had known this would happen to you.'

Thranduil gives a sad smile.  'You would have tried to stop me if you did.'

'Yes, and you would have defied me and come anyway.  Then I would have known to protect you, keep you away from that room—'

'It matters not now,' he interjects reassuringly, 'you saved me.  I owe you so much that I could never repay.'

I squeeze his hands, feeling them squeeze back and tell me so many things that words could never say.  'You being alive is payment enough,' I say softly, 'your love is the greatest gift I could ever ask for.'

Thranduil's hands break from mine and pull my head towards his own.  Our lips meet in a hard, passionate kiss, one which consumes my soul and obliterates my fear.  I could never tell him how much it means for him to kiss me again, how much it means to feel his strong hands cupping my face, after seeing the Queen he had once loved murdered in front of him. 

A white gleam catches my eye when we pull out and clamber to our feet.  'I should probably take this,' I say, picking up my sword from where it was cast aside.

Thranduil smiles.  'Tell me everything on the way.'

He grabs my free hand, and avoiding the orc carcasses, we cross the room to where Legolas, Tauriel, Elidir and Eirwen have gathered in the entrance to the passage leading away from these accursed rooms.  Even Legolas appears happy, despite none of them finding the will to speak. 

It's time to go.  It's time to return to the Woodland Realm and finish what I have started.  I will put everything right, and if that means I go to the ends of Arda and back, then so be it.

***

Elvish:
Ada = dad/daddy
Natha = help
Meleth = love
Meleth nín = my love
Iesten = please
Le melin, le uivelin = I love you, I will always love you