#Zero Jessa in this fanfic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

trishfullertonwriting75 · 8 months ago

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METAMORPHOSIS - a Thranduil fanfic

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Jessa,” she replied. “It’s short for Jessamine. A variation of Jasmine, like the flower.”

“A beautiful flower,” he replied, his voice reminding her of velvet for some strange reason. “A soft white, with a yellow centre.”

She smiled. “The Egyptian ones, yes. I am dreading asking this…”

“My name is Tharden,” he said, before she even got the question out.

“Somehow I already knew it would be something like that,” she sighed, turning her eyes to the waitress who appeared at her side. “Two coffees, please,” she told her.

The waitress disappeared, and she turned back to him.

“You knew of my name?” he questioned, with a slight frown. “How can this be?”

She stared at him as the seconds ticked past. “I’m not as stupid as I might seem,” she said eventually. “Don’t make the mistake of assuming that I am.” Her cool demeanour was back, and he sat back slightly. “How can I know your name? I just knew that it’d be something...mystical, ethereal. And totally made up.”

“I have not indicated that I assume you to be stupid,” he said, and she could hear how insulted he was in his tone. “I have indicated nothing.”

“I’m tired, and I don’t want to play games,” she said decidedly. “So where do you live, and how do you intend to get home?”

Something in his eyes changed. “I am not from here,” he said.

“I gathered that much,” she muttered. “So where are you from? Our meeting twice isn’t a coincidence, and anyway, I don’t believe in those. How did you get here? Bus? Car?”

Confusion clouded his eyes, which she noticed were a perfect shade of ice blue. “I do not know what these things are that you speak of,” he said. “And I do not know how I came to be here.”

The waitress reappeared and placed two mugs of coffee on the table, retreating with a smile.

“I think you probably do have amnesia,” she replied as she tore open two sachets of sugar and stirred them into her coffee.

He frowned. “You seem to be convinced I have a problem with my memory,” he said. “I do not.”

“Then how come you don’t know how you came to be here?” she asked. “Pieces of your life don’t just disappear. You must have some idea. Don’t tell me that you wear clothes like that for fun.” A finger gestured towards his seemingly odd attire.

His gaze roamed up and around, and she found herself in awe of his perfect bone structure.

“Something terrible has happened,” he murmured. His eyes dropped back to hers. “I do not belong here; I should not be here. I do not know how to fix this.”

“I’ve read about this kind of crap,” she grunted, blowing across the surface of her mug and taking an experimental sip. “I just never thought I’d ever come face-to-face with one of the idiots caught up in it all.”

He fixed her with a death stare.

“Oh come on,” she reasoned, setting her mug back onto the table. “You appear out of nowhere, dressed up like you’ve just stepped right out of another time, have zero knowledge of where you are or how you came to be here, and you expect me to believe it? Ha – not in this lifetime, mister, or the next one either, come to think of it.”

“You know of my time?” Excitement flared to life in his eyes as he leaned forwards.

“Oh for fuck…stop this!” she hissed in anger. “I can’t help you if you keep this crap going. Just tell me where you’re from; it’s not that difficult a question.”

He leaned back again. “Perhaps the answer is,” he said quietly, looking out of the window at his side.

She gave a soft snort. “So you’re going to tell me that you’re really some sort of majestic elf, probably a King or something, and have a huge palace and-“

“How do you know all of this?” he demanded in a low whisper, leaning towards her again. His angry eyes searched hers.

“You’re good, I’ll give you that,” she retorted. “Unfortunately, some of us have an education and common sense, and don’t buy into complete nonsense.”

“I do not speak nonsense!” he hissed. “I do not tell untruths!”

“Maybe not in your own mind,” she retorted. “Drink your coffee. If I can’t figure out where you’re from, I can’t help you. I have a home to go to.”

A sudden sadness filled his eyes, taking her breath away.

“What?” she asked. Her eyebrows came down in a concerned frown. “What is it?”

He shook his head, rising to his feet. “I will take my leave.”

“Sit the hell down,” she said in exasperation, grabbing his wrist.

He looked at her hand then at her, and she could clearly see the restrained anger in his eyes. Pursing his mouth, he slowly lowered himself back down.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, both acutely aware of the other’s irritation and frustration.

“Ok,” she said finally, breaking the silence. “You believe you’re some sort of hierarchy of elves or something. What year is it?”

He frowned. “I do not understand the question,” he said.

One eyebrow lifted. “It’s a state of time,” she snapped. “Like as in how old someone or something is, when something was made, or created, or whatever the hell…I don’t know.”

“It is the Coltan Age,” he said, tucking some of his luxuriously long blonde hair behind his ear.

Jessa gasped. “Oh my…fuck…they look real,” she gasped, ending on a short laugh.

“What does?”

“Your ears,” she said, indicating with her mug. “Not bad at all.”

“Of course they are real!” he said indignantly. “You humans may have small, ugly ears, but we do not.”

Her laughter bubbled over, and she set her cup back down before she spilled it.

The blonde seated across from her slowly folded his arms over his chest. “Something amuses you?”

She bit her lip in an attempt to hold back her amusement. “I think exhaustion must be seriously fucking with my head,” she decided. “So…your ears are real.”

“Everything about me is real,” he retorted. His gaze darted over her. “Unlike some.” His attention span had already catalogued that her hair was a lighter colour at the roots. She had dark lines painted on her upper eyelids, and a blue colour on her fingernails that sparkled as her hands moved.

She chuckled, lifting her cup again. He watched how she held it, how she blew on the hot liquid before sipping it. Deciding that whatever the odd-smelling drink was, it wasn’t poisonous, he copied her. She sighed, running her hands through her long black hair, and his eyes narrowed.

“What is this scar?” he asked, reaching over and gripping her arm, tugging it towards him.

“Childhood accident,” she replied. The touch of his fingers on her limb made her flesh sizzle and tingle. “I fell out of a tree.”

One eyebrow arched upwards as he glanced from her arm to her eyes. Lowering his eyes again, he gently rubbed his thumb over the scar, murmuring something in a soft whisper that she couldn’t make out. Releasing her arm, he sat back, watching her.

Shocked eyes met his across the table. “I’ve had that scar for over twenty years,” she gasped as she looked from her arm to him.

The scar had completely vanished, leaving unblemished skin in its place.

“In my world, we do not fall out of trees,” he informed her. “And we certainly do not have scars which say otherwise. Our scars are from winning wars, being victorious over our enemies.”

**********

She broke off with a gasp of pain as the sharp glass slipped from her hold, slicing her four fingers open. Blood instantly poured out of the wounds, splattering over the glass and the table. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” she wailed, hurriedly setting the weight of the mirror down. “Shit! How could I be so stupid?!”

She held her hand up, turning as she looked for something to wrap around her fingers.

A strong, warm hand gripped her wrist and pulled her forwards. Tharden prised her fingers open, allowing the blood to flow faster.

“What-“ she started.

“Sssh,” he whispered softly, pressing his fingertips against the bloodied cuts. Low murmured words in a tongue she didn’t understand reached her ears through the sounds of her panicked gasping as she stared at him in horror. A faint tingling feeling coursed through her hand.

He slowly released her, stepping back from her.

Her gaze lowered to her fingers, her heart thumping erratically in her chest. Turning with a frown, she walked over to a small sink and turned on the flow of cold water, washing blood away. “My God…” she whispered, inspecting her hand.

Her skin was flawless, with no cuts or marks.

“What did you do?” she gasped.

He said nothing, but gently pushed her to one side so he could wash his hand. Using the hand towel to dry, he held her gaze as he handed it to her.

“This isn’t real,” she said, shaking her head. “This can’t be. It’s impossible. What the fuck’s happened here..?”

“I healed you,” he replied.

Her gaze darted up to meet his. “I see that,” she retorted. “But how? What did you do?”

“You do not know of elven powers?” he asked with an element of surprise.

“Apparently not,” she retorted. “Look…you need to start being honest with me. What the hell are you? Who are you?”

“I am Tharden, King of the Whitewood realm,” he answered. “I carry the healing power, as do select numbers of my people.”

She backed away from him, fear in her eyes.

“You need not fear me,” he said. “I mean you no harm. Surely you know that?”

“I don’t know what I know,” she whispered. “This can’t be real, this can’t be happening.”

“I am as confused as you are,” he said. “I am here in this strange world, I have no idea where this is, or how to get back to my own land. You are the only being I have come into contact with, other than the scoundrel who accosted you earlier this night. I too am confused.”

She could feel the vibration of her heartbeat pounding hard against her ribs. “I’m dreaming,” she said finally, shaking her head as she looked away. “I’m dreaming.”

“This is no dream, Jessa,” he told her. “If it was, I would gladly wake up in my own bed, back in my own kingdom. But I fear that is not going to happen. I am here, for whatever reason the Gods see fit to have sent me here, and I do not know how long they intend to keep me here.”

Deep blue eyes watched him suspiciously, and he sighed.

“What else can I do to prove that what I speak is the truth?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t think I even know my own name anymore.” She had kept backing away, and stumbled into a sitting position on a small table near the door as she bumped into it. Staring down at her hand, she flexed her fingers.

He took a deep breath. “There is one other way which may persuade you to believe that I speak the truth,” he said, picking his words carefully.

She looked up at him. “And send me even further off my head?”

He leaned his hip against the table where the half-finished mirror lay, and folded his arms. “It is neither my wish, nor my intention to traumatise you in any way,” he said softly. “You have shown me nothing but kindness since I arrived here. However…the only thing I can think of to prove that what I say is true might not be acceptable.”

She huffed quietly. “I don’t think there is much more you could do to shock me,” she muttered.

He leaned away from the table and began to pace the length of the room. “Over the years, I have seen many battles, many wars,” he said. “Many elves have perished in what seemed like unwinnable wars against the Great Evil that plagues our lands. Families destroyed. Towns and villages desecrated and ruined. Lives changed forever. My life too was altered during these battles.” He stopped and faced her. “I have survived against the odds.”

She gazed up at him. “What happened?”

“There were times when I have been careless, too motivated by my anger and my desperation for victory,” he replied. “It blinded me to the dangers around me, and during one of these battles, I fell victim to my own limited vision.”

She frowned slightly.

He took a deep, slow breath, closing his eyes, and push up one of his sleeves.

Her mouth opened as she stared at him, a horrific scar materialising on the otherwise flawless skin. It covered his entire limb, stretching from his wrist up past his elbow. Slowly rising to her feet, she hesitantly stepped towards him, stopping just a foot or so away.

Layers of exposed muscle were visible, dark reddish-brown in colour. He opened his eyes, not looking at her, but rather focusing on something on the wall behind her. Deep concentration showed on his face.

“My God,” she whispered, stunned.

She took a step back as he shifted his gaze to her, the scar disappearing before her eyes.

“That is not something I show on a whim,” he said, his voice low. “Very few people have seen it. And you are the first of your kind.” He pushed the fabric of his tunic back down to his wrist.

If she thought her heart was beating hard before, it was trying to force its way out through her chest wall after seeing this. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I just…” She trailed off, shaking her head for the umpteenth time. “I think somebody drugged my coffee or something.”

“I apologise,” he said. “I know that what you saw is not a pleasant sight to cast your eyes upon.”

“Is it painful?” she asked suddenly.

“Occasionally,” he replied. “But I have had it for centuries. I am used to it.”

“You healed me, why couldn’t you heal that?”

“Some injuries are too deep, too severe to heal,” he said. “The burn was very deep, and destroyed the flesh. Even elven powers cannot rebuild what is no longer there.” He could read the confusion, the questions, and the reluctance to believe his words in the depths of her

eyes. “We can heal others, but we cannot self-heal…at least not to the depths that I would have required.”

She closed her eyes, turning away from him and taking several deep breaths. “I can’t process this,” she murmured. “This just goes against everything that I’ve ever learned, been taught. None of this makes any sense.” She glanced back at him. “So you’re telling me that you’re not a human being?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“So you’re what…an alien?”

He frowned in confusion. “A what?”

“Never mind,” she sighed. “Why the hell did I stop the damned car..?”

He stepped closer, placing his hand on her arm in a gentle touch. “Because you are clearly a caring person,” he said. “In my experience of humans, that is a seldom shown trait, something I have not witnessed often.”

**********

The rain had eased off to a slight drizzle by late afternoon, and the gale-force winds had died down. The sun shone intermittently, reflecting a blinding sheen off the wet road surface.

“I think this is probably close to where I pulled in last night,” Jessa said, leaning over the steering wheel of the car as she peered through the glass in front of her. “Yes…look. There’s my tyre treads.”

He leaned forward too, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the trees. “It looks so different during daylight,” he murmured.

“Everything does,” she quipped, turning the engine off and unbuckling her seatbelt. “Come on. Let’s see what we can find.” With that, she bounded out of the car and walked over to the woods.

Tharden unfolded himself from the vehicle, glad to be free of the infernal restriction. Long strides carried him over to stand beside her, and he gazed up at the leaves as they fluttered in the breeze. He stepped forwards onto the wet grass, walking towards a particular group of trees.

Jessa watched him in silence as he touched a hand to the bark of one of them, wondering what would happen.

Nothing happened.

He held his position for a few moments, before moving to the one beside it.

Still nothing.

“I cannot sense anything,” he said. “There is no energy here indicating that this is where I should be in order to return to my world.”

“Maybe we need to give it some time,” she suggested. “Maybe once whatever it is knows that you are here, then whatever happened to bring you here will happen again to take you back.”

He moved from one tree to the next, trying to lock in on something only he knew of, and she could almost feel the despair in him. Tree after tree passed under his hand, and still nothing happened.

“Maybe me being here is changing the outcome of things,” she said eventually. “I’ll go and wait over by the car.”

He nodded, saying nothing.

The light rain continued to fall, and before long he was soaked through. She took refuge in the car, idly playing around with her cell phone to waste some time. Occasionally she glanced over towards the trees, and saw that he had almost disappeared in amongst them as he searched for something.

After around an hour had passed, she looked up to see him standing at the edge of the road again, so she opened her door and climbed out. Shoving her hands into her coat pockets, she slowly approached him, wary of his expression.

Ice blue eyes turned in her direction, and she was blown away by the deep sadness that lurked in them.

“It seems that I am unable to return,” he said quietly. “At least, not at this moment in time.”

She touched a hand to his arm in a show of sympathy. “Maybe try again another time?”

He nodded, just a slight movement of his head. “I would like to thank you for your hospitality,” he said.

She frowned. “Why do I sense a but coming next?”

“I shall remain here, in the hope that something happens,” he answered. “I will not encroach on your life any more than I already have, or intrude into your habits.”

“Listen, I know you must be feeling like shit right now, but no way am I going to leave you out here,” she opposed him. “There’s no problem with you staying at mine until you get sorted, honestly. If anything, it’s actually been fun having someone around to talk with.”

His mouth curved up in the briefest hint of a smile as he shook his head. “You have your own life, Jessa, your own way of doing things. You do not need a lost elf wandering in the midst of things.”

“Now you’re talking crap,” she said. “You can’t stay here all alone for God-knows how long. You could be waiting for weeks for all you know. At least at my apartment you have food and shelter, somewhere to sleep.” She watched him, convinced he was arguing with himself inside. “And anyway,” she added. “At least with me, you know I’m not going to attack you or try to do weird experiments or anything on you. You’re safe at my place.”

A slight frown creased his forehead. “I am humbled by your generosity,” he said quietly. “But I do not wish to become a burden or be in the way.”

“You won’t be,” she assured him. “Come on, let’s get out of this rain. Your clothes will need to be dried again. Maybe I’ll wash them first.” She turned and made her way back to the car, stopping when she realised he wasn’t following her. Glancing over her shoulder, she frowned at him. “Do I have to drag you over here?” she demanded.

He smiled at her pretend annoyance, and gave in, following her. “I am not used to not being in control of my life or my own destiny,” he told her, once they were on the move again. “In my world, I am the King – I control everything around me. Nothing happens without my approval.”

“It’s got to be difficult, being stuck in foreign lands,” she admitted. “But to reiterate what I said – you’ll be safer at my place, as opposed to standing around in all weather conditions waiting for some sort of sign that you can get back. We don’t know if, or when that sign will present itself, and realistically, you could be waiting around for quite a long time.”

“Yes,” he agreed in a low voice.

She changed gears as he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “All I can suggest is that however possible, you try to relax and whatever will happen, will happen,” she advised. “Maybe you came to this world for a reason. And I still can’t believe I’m having a conversation with an elf about another world!” She broke off in a laugh, and he grinned in amusement.

“I dare say it is very strange, for you also,” he acknowledged. “I seem to have been looking at it only from my point of view. I had not really given any consideration to what must be going through your mind.”

“Lots and lots of weird things,” she laughed. “It’ll all come good, Tharden. Just have a little faith.” She flashed a smile at him and he contemplated her words.

**********

“I find it sad that this is where my Whitewood forest should be,” he remarked as they strolled along. “Such a large, dense woodland, yet this is merely a scratch on the surface of the true beauty.”

“In this world, humans are cutting trees down all the time,” she replied, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets. “Houses are being built everywhere, shopping malls, business complexes…it’s no wonder the cities are known as concrete jungles.”

“The beauty of nature is something which should be cherished; protected,” he said.

“I agree, and I hate seeing the forests hacked down,” she told him. “But again, like so many other conversations we’ve had – what can one person do to change an entire planet’s viewpoint?”

He stopped, turning to face her. “I could not live my life in this world,” he said. “Yes, it is beautiful in its own way, but it is cold…remote…mechanical. There is no heart and soul in a lot of what I have seen.”

Knowing he’d spent countless hours on the internet, she knew he’d seen quite a lot.

“Humanity has a lot to answer for,” she said as they started walking again. “It seems to be our nature to destroy ourselves and everything around us, and that makes me sad. I can only imagine that it’ll get worse as time passes. I honestly can’t see things improving.”

“I do not wish to lower your mood Jessa, but I agree with you,” he said. “From what I have learned since I came here, the human race seeks only to profit. Not to learn, or to cultivate and preserve, but to amass as much wealth as possible. I have an immeasurable amount of wealth in my kingdom, but what nature gives us is more important to me.”

“And that’s the way it should be,” she said. “I actually think-“

Her words were drowned out by an enormous clap of thunder, so loud that she took her hands out of her pockets and covered her ears. The sky overhead turned pitch black as thick, heavy clouds rolled across, and a strong wind picked up.

Tharden felt an odd sensation course through his body, followed by an ice cold chill in his heart.

It was time for him to return to his own world.

He turned to Jessa, and the instant her eyes met his, she knew. He could tell by her eyes that she knew what was going to happen, and both of them were powerless to stop it.

He opened his mouth to say something, reaching his hand out for hers, but a brilliant flash of lightning blasted overhead and the ground shook beneath them as another peal of thunder seemed to tear the skies apart.

Jessa instinctively turned away from the flash of lightning, covering her eyes with her arm against the searing brightness. She turned back, to find herself completely alone.

Falling to her knees in a combination of devastation and horror, she stared in stunned silence at the spot where Tharden had been standing. The thunder and lightning had stopped, and the wind had faded to almost nothing. An eerie silence surrounded her, and nothing moved.

*********

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