#every step that is taken by the fellowship had to happen that exact way for the story to unfold as it did

[slechterick]

oh my god the only part of the LOTR movies (the part where Smeagol frames Sam and the ensuing split between Frodo and Sam before Shelob's lair) that I vehemently dislike IS NOT A PART OF THE NOVEL?!

[reality-warp]

Point That Thing Somewhere Else: Bonus

Part 1 | Part 2 | Bonus

A/N: In answer to the very popular AU question in my inbox: what would it have been like if Eleanor had woken 65-ish years earlier in The Hobbit timeline, and joined the Company of Thorin Oakenshield instead of the Fellowship? Well…

(Bonus: Legolas’ POV)

It was a trick.

That was all Legolas could think as he flew back up the stairs from the dungeons, taking the steps two, sometimes three at a time.

It had to be a trick. A cruel, heartless, faithless trick.

And yet…

The memory of what had just occurred down in the cell blocks lanced through him like molten metal poured into his blood. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he’d been wearing gloves when he’d pushed back her hair in the forest, but the second the bare skin of his palm had touched her wrist just now…

Warm pins and needles still prickled up his arm from his right hand.

He tried to ignore it, shove the feeling down beneath his panic. But it still felt as if the limb had been frozen all this time, and only now was it coming almost painfully back to life after being dunked in a warm stream.

Only it wasn’t water that had sparked that reaction.

It had been her.

The next few minutes passed as a blur for Legolas. He couldn’t honestly remember specific details when he thought about them. Only that after escaping the dungeon stair cases, he’d gone straight back up to the feast — which was still in full swing — and downed an entire bottle of the king’s top shelf wine.

No glass. No breaths.

He just drank straight out of the bottle in a few long gulps.

He vaguely remembered Tauriel and several other guards gaping at him like he’d lost his mind. To their credit, perhaps he had. Orelion, however, had taken one look at him, set down his own glass, pulled the empty bottle out of his hands, and yanked him out of the hall into an antechamber.

“What has happened?” he asked, shutting the door behind them.

“She…” He started, but damn everything, words and speech itself had all but abandoned him. “Her… she’s… she’s my…”

Orelion’s dark brows furrowed over inquisitive brown eyes that had barely changed since they were elflings.

“Who?” he asked. Legolas gestured somewhat clumsily in the direction of the dungeons. Orelion’s brows furrowed even more. “You mean that tiny elleth travelling with those Dwarves? What about her?”

“She’s… s-she’s mine, Orelion.”

His longest childhood friend just looked confused for an agonisingly long moment. Then slowly, his eyes widened to saucers as comprehension finally dawned.

“Oh… shit.”

Something of an understatement, in Legolas’ opinion.

He might have been a fumbling mess on the outside, but on the inside his mind was racing. How could this even be possible? He’d always been given to believe when an elf discovered their Intended, it was something incredible, beautiful, wondrous to behold. It had certainly been that way for Rȋnwen and Celemir, their dominant senses showing them clearly who their best match truly was. He’d almost been envious to the point of depression of his two close friends in their mutual joy, back when they’d first discovered that unique bond Iluvatar had crafted for them before they’d even been born.

But he wouldn’t envy anyone this feeling.

She wasn’t anything like what he had let himself hope for in those few weak moments of loneliness; when he was constantly surrounded by younger, joyously paired friends and acquaintances, and he past the “typical age of bonding” as Himeleth liked to say.

But this elleth… she wasn’t graceful, poised, patient, kind spoken, or any of the other things he’d once believed his match would be. As far as he could tell, she was a barb tongued she-wolf wrapped in a young woman’s skin.

And now that he thought of it, from what he’d seen of her reaction, did she even understand what had just happened between them…?

Without a word, Orelion stood, and walked from the room. A minute later he returned with another full bottle of red, and two extra large glasses. He filled one to the brim and pushed it towards his friend.

“Here,” he insisted, pouring one for himself too. “Drink, and tell me everything.”

So he did just that.

The next morning, Legolas woke face down on the dining table in that same antechamber, with a snoring Orelion slumped in the chair opposite him, a table littered with empty bottles, and a raging hangover.

Despite his modest age by elf standards, he’d always been rather proud that drinking to the point where his body rebelled had only ever happened thrice before. The first had been after his first official hunt when he’d been a but a hundred and seventeen, barely an adult at all, and not half as wise as he believed himself to be. He’d woken slumped in a broom cupboard to the sight of his father just shaking his head, and closing the door quietly on him.

The other two times had all been joint efforts between Orelion, Elladan, and Elrohir — Lord Elrond’s twin sons, who’d seemed intent on corrupting his innocence in increasingly inventive ways since he was an elfling.

However, none of those times compared to this.

It wasn’t so much that he’d woken with a screeching headache that made it so bad, the slightest sound of a passing maid or a closing door all but breaking open his skull. Nor was it the fact that when he tried to peel his cheek of the solid oak table his head spun and the floor tilted.

No.

It was because despite the table littered with empty bottles, and the company of his passed-out friend, he still had that Valar damned tingle in his right hand from where he’d touched her.

A soft knock came at the door, and it was the loudest thing Legolas had ever heard. He tried not to wince as he sat up, a half conscious Orelion groaning in pain opposite him.

“Yes?” Legolas grunted, trying to sooth the throbbing in his head. “What is it?”

The door swung open with a clamouring screech that probably wasn’t much louder than a whisper, and a distinctly nervous looking guardsman peered in; one of the newer, recently promoted trainees.

“My prince? Are you well?”

“I will be once you’ve stopped talking so loudly,” Legolas growled, unable to feel as bad as he normally would about being so rude to one of his juniors. He was simply in too much pain. “Again, what is it?”

The young guardsman shifted uneasily, peering back down the hall as if contemplating his chances of fleeing.

“It’s the Dwarves, my prince. They’re… gone.”

“What?!” Orelion’s head was instantly up off the table, and in a split second they were both barrelling out of the room and down the hall, straight for the dungeon staircase. When they reached the bottom, they were greeted with the sight of every single cell door wide open, and a pack of frantic looking guardsmen trying to establish how in holy Aman this had happened.

“Where is the keeper of the keys?!” Tauriel was bellowing, a couple of the greener guardsmen actually flinching back at her flaring temper. Head still pounding, especially at the noise, Legolas just stared in disbelief at the baffled expressions on his guardsmen’s faces. Even Rȋnwen — by far their best trapper and tracker — looked utterly stunned by the sight of the entirely empty jail cells.

“This is the securest cellblock in the Woodland Realm! How in Nienna’s mercy did they just break out?” Orelion had the sense to demand.

“One of them must have lifted the keys. The cells weren’t forced. They were all unlocked from the outside,” Celemir answered from where he was examining one of the locks.

“Well they cannot have gone far. Half of you sweep the upper floors, the other half come with me and sweep the cellars,” a still fuming Tauriel ordered before storming down the stairs towards the basements with half the guard in tow.

“Ur… my prince,” one of the younger guardsmen said slowly, and Legolas turned to find him peering into the cell at the very end of the ledge, and peculiar expression on his face. “I think you should see this…”

The second Legolas saw which — or rather who’s — cell the young guard was standing before, he knew what he was going to find…

She’d jammed a small throwing knife into a crack in the mortar, right at the back where no one could miss it. An exact twin to the one he’d managed to take from her the previous evening. The one he still had tucked away in his tunic now.

For a long moment he could do nothing but stare at it, head throbbing, eyes narrowed.

How in the abyss did she even…

“I took a blade off her last night, exactly like that one,” he heard himself muttering.

“She must have had a second one,” Orelion groaned, giving him what might have been a consolatory pat on the shoulder. And damn everything, he was right. The one he’s managed to take when he grabbed her hadn’t been the only one she’d stashed. Just the one she’d intended him to see.

Because right below the embedded knife were a few jagged words she’d left carved into the smooth stone of the cell…

Get over yourself and tell her, Prince Charming.

E. x

Orelion squinted for a long moment at the words, then slowly turned to look at him, both brows raised in incredulity.

“Prince Charming?”

Legolas decided then and there that — Intended or not — if he ever saw that infuriating tornado of a she-elf again, he was going to cheerfully dump her off a cliff. And yet, even as he thought the words…

He couldn’t help but find himself grinning ever so slightly at the idea of seeing that wicked smile of hers again, and getting his own back.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Bonus

A/N: Well that was fun. :) Hope you guys enjoyed reading that half as much as I enjoyed writing it. I still stand by the decision to set RB during the LotR timeline, but I can’t deny setting it during the Hobbit would have been a blast too.

Rella x