I Won't Bite by Agelast

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Chapter Two

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He woke up surrounded by strange faces, speaking in distorted tongues. He was poked and prodded, and then pronounced a spy.

“Wolves around every corner you look, and now a half-dead elf on our watch, you'll be sure that they'd be pleased to hear about this,” said one, a tall ranger with a vaguely worried air.

“And his garb pronounces him from Doriath,” said another.

“I didn't think they went outside their – what's it, some lady's underthing – Girdle?” said one particular wit.

“Where,” croaked Oropher, his voice cracked with disuse.

“It speaks at last!” said another, who had the look of a leader about him. He gave Oropher a hard look. “We'd better get him to the castle and let them sort him out.”  

And they grabbed his arms and dragged him to a horse, and none-too gently swung him across its back. The jolts from the ride seemed to him to bring him to his senses, and he struggled to get out of his bonds (some bright man having thought to tie him up), but it was hopeless. So, furious but weakened, he was brought into the camp of Fëanorians, a nightmare, worse than anything else he could have ever imagined.

He was handed over to a dark-haired, grim-faced woman who did not seem afraid to his would-be-rescuers the rough side of her tongue once she had a good look at her new patient. from the saddle and trundle him into bed. 

The leader, who began to look a little sheepish, said, "Pardon, Madam-Healer, but our orders were clear. No one crosses our borders without our knowing. We brought this man in to be questioned by the prince himself."

“With your rough ways, I'd be surprised if he should live so long as that,” said the Madam-Healer, quite tartly. They bowed hastily, and made their exit; Oropher managed to give her a small smile.

“Thank you,” he said.

She only shook her head and went to work.

* * *

He woke up again, in a small room, white-washed and plain. He lay in a narrow bed, staring up at the ceiling. Questions buzzed around in his head, with little regard for any answer he might get. Was he a prisoner here? How long would he be kept? Would they kill him? They had searched him, surely, and his clothes and gear were gone. He felt his chest tentatively, and found it to be clad in plain white linen. Pushing away the light blanket that covered him, he saw that he was wearing a light linen shirt and breeches, the left leg of one cut off at the knee.

His left leg was neatly dressed and bandaged, and more importantly still present.

Steadying himself for the coming effort, he tried to get up. But he only collapsed onto the bed once again.

The healer came bustling. She commanded him to lie in his bed, quietly, as she checked his wound. She peeled back the bandage, and took a look at it.

Oropher, morbidly curious, peered at it as well. It looked much as it had done in the weeks before – but the pain had lessened, and the bleeding had stopped. Some spirit of dead courtesy stirred in the back of Oropher's mind.

He said, “Lady, what is your name?”

At the same time, she said, “You're lucky to be alive.”

Well, all things considered, he did not feel so terribly lucky... But she went on,without waiting for an answer. She said she was Síriel, and she came from Lake Mithrim. He offered that he had cousins in Lake Mithrim, and after a period of intense conversation, they found that they had  a cousin (through marriage) in common.

But what, he really wanted to say, are you doing here, with such people?

She pushed her dark hair (which had escaped out of the bun on top of her head) out of her face, and said wearily that he had better rest.

He said, hating how weak his voice sounded, “I have a message for the Prince, from the kingdom of Doriath.” Though perhaps he could not stand, he was still able to put more than a hint of pride into his voice. No one must think that he, a subject of – a representative of! – Thingol, would be daunted – ever!-  though he was in the midst of enemy territory, and helpless. But the healer looked not so much hostile as supremely irritated. “You'll be off that leg for a month or more. The poison in your wound was difficult to remove.”

“But,” he said, working to keep his voice steady, “I have a message to give.”

More kindly, she said, “And you have messages to hear, for much has changed since you were last in the land of the living.”

He felt a sudden jolt of despair. I knew it! Mablung has come and gone without me!

And she settled him down into his bed, and he let her do it, though he watched her with narrowed eyes.

“We are living in extraordinary times,” was all that she would say.

Oropher said, wearily, “More than you can know, lady.”

“ Síriel.”

“Lady Síriel.”

She made a mocking bow, and left the room. Oropher went back to contemplating the ceiling.

* * *

They weren't interested in his secrets.

All right, he didn't have many interesting ones, but it was insulting how they just assumed that this was true. He had prepared himself to withstand any amount of torture, to lie, bald-faced, for the sake of his king and country. But such preparations were (sadly) completely unnecessary. His only visitors where Síriel and her silent assistant. When he asked about his things, she replied snappishly that she wasn't responsible for such things.

(Which was quite true.)

And he lay in his bed, looking as meek as possible.

(This did not work particularly well.)

So he waited, not particularly patiently, for an opportunity to speak. He was forced to listen instead, and from that, he learned much. Voices carried, even in his obscure corner of the castle. It was true enough that their accents were strange to hear, but he could understand them well enough.

There came certain words that jumped out at him. Wolves coming from the north. Trouble. Nargothrond.

Lúthien. Beren.

Silmaril.

Doriath.