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lobelia321Fic: Of elves and wraith
Author: Lobelia;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lobelia321
Fandoms: Lord of the Rings fps / Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Legolas / Wraith
Rating: PG
Length: 1,500 words
Disclaimer: This is an amateur story. No copyright infringement is intended. No money is made.
Author's note: Inspired by this entry inios_pillow_book's journal.
Summary: Two ancient civilisations meet in a forest glade in spring.
Of elves and wraith
by Lobelia
One spring day, Legolas happened upon a secret glade in the woods, and in that glade there stood an unknown creature.
"Good morrow to you," said Legolas with a welcoming smile but his fist tightened around his bow.
The creature was tall and had the long, fair, straight hair of the elves of the South, worn in the familiar Anduin fashion. The stranger's face, however, was wondrous strange, marked by mysterious runes and with eyes more like the night-goggles of dwellers of the deep than elven lookfar eyes.
"Chrrr," hissed the stranger.
"I beg your forgiveness," said Legolas, "but I know not your tongue." He inclined his head in the gesture of humility, all the while tensing the string upon the hocking.
The stranger looked Legolas up and down with glinting pupils. "Chrrr, human," he growled and flexed a gloved and rather large hand.
"Ah," said Legolas, "you speak the common speech. But I am not a Man."
"No human?" The stranger lowered his hand.
"I am Legolas, son of Thranduil, an elf of Mirkwood."
"An elf?"
"Yes." Legolas waited. He had given his name and pledged his trust thereby. Now it was the turn of the other, and if he did not offer his own name, he was fair game as foe or fiend.
"Chhhhr." The stranger closed his hollow eyes and opened them again. His lids were lashless. "And what..." He coughed, a queer, dry sound. "And what is an elf?"
Legolas stood still as his shadow. With only the slightest twitch of his middle finger, he adjusted his arrow along the riser.
"Does an elf have a life? Does an elf have a soul?"
Legolas stepped back one pace. "These are quaint questions, stranger. Gladly will I attempt an answer but first..." He made his voice a blade of mithril, sliding and hard at once. "...who are you, and what is your business in this lone wood?"
The stranger coughed, moved forwards, stumbled and grasped onto a low-hanging tree branch. It occurred to Legolas that the pale hue of his complexion and the caverns of his cheeks were not natural but signs of a sickness.
"Have you not met my kind before?" rasped the stranger. His breath came in fits. "What is your planet? And why, I wonder, did the Ancients put a stargate here?"
"A stargate? The ancients?"
The stranger was sliding down the side of the tree, one hand fluttering at his throat. "I need..." He retched and slumped to the grass.
Legolas stood, betwixt fight and flight. Once more he asked, "Who are you, and whence do you hail?"
"I am a wraith, you idiot. Have you never seen a wraith before? Have I stepped through time into another galaxy?" And more; the stranger said more, but it was lost in a fit of coughing. Yellow bile streamed from the stranger's lips and hissed onto the ground.
Legolas lowered his bow. "A wraith? One of the ring wraith, then?"
"I must... I haven't fed... weeks..." The creature lifted his head, groaned, dropped it onto his arm. His hand clawed at the earth.
"You do not look to be one of the undead," said Legolas. "Speak truth, stranger -- have you ever borne one of the rings?"
"What fucking rings?" muttered the stranger but his voice was weak now, and his arms trembled inside their thick leather sleeves.
"This is marvellous strange," murmured Legolas. "A wraith of flesh and blood? An elven kin, corrupted as the orcs? A puzzle, indeed."
"You," gasped the creature in the grass, the so-called 'wraith'. "Do you have a soul? a life? Can you be fed upon?"
Legolas drew himself up tall. "We elves have souls, lofty and fine, and we elves have a life that spans that of Men thrice times thrice and thrice again."
"Really?"
Spring breezes soughed in the trees. A dragonfly hovered and hummed.
With a shriek, the stranger sprang upwards and with one mighty bound hurled himself at Legolas. Quick as a dart, Legolas loosed his arrow; it flew; it hit true; it pierced the leather of the 'wraith's coat.
The 'wraith' barely paused. He pulled the arrow out whole, cast it aside and grabbed Legolas by the shoulders. And he was strong. Very strong.
Legolas fell to the ground, and the 'wraith' fell with him, crushing him, catching him off guard.
What was this infernal creature? What magic did he weave? Or was he wearing a mithril vest underneath his black leather?
And what was he doing now?
The 'wraith' pinned Legolas to the grass with his mighty thighs and pulled one glove off, then the other.
This was no wraith. This, surely, was some new breed of orc. For out of the sleeves jutted not hand, but claws, with hooked cruel fingernails and ungood armour along the knuckles.
"A life?" The creature's breath smelled foul, just like the stench of the uruk-hai. "A long life? A life much longer than that of a human?" And with those words, the 'wraith' tore Legolas's jerkin in half with one of its long, sharp nails.
"What..." began Legolas but then said nothing, just screamed and screamed until there was no scream left in his lungs and he lay gasping and shuddering, his chest open to the sky, his life flowing from his very blood and marrow into the terrible claw pressed against his rib cage.
"Ah," said the stranger whose skin glowed with the health of a freshly-plucked apple. His voice was rich and fruity now. The cough was gone. "This is..." He made a sound, almost a sigh. "Where, did you say you were from? And what are you? A... elf? And where may I find more of your kind?" He looked about him, at the trees and the sun and the clouds. "These are splendid new feeding grounds. So much better..."
Legolas was dizzy with pain, the pain of the body and the pain of the soul.
The stranger scratched a pointed nail along Legolas's cheek. "And you have lost barely any years. You look as young as you did when I first saw you. Still so much left, so much to feed on."
Before Legolas could form a thought or hatch a plan, the claws dug into his flesh again and a blackness came upon him. He tried to move his hand to the creature's wrist, to prise away the hideous sucking palm, but the sky echoed with shrieks and the world was made of shards.
"Still no change," gasped the 'wraith'. His other palm was now on Legolas's cheek. "Still as plump as a pupa. Ah, you are fit for a queen. You are..." The creature paused. Legolas shook and drew in great racking breaths. "You do not taste like humans do. You are different. You make me feel... different." The 'wraith' was still, his slotted eyes trained on Legolas.
He lifted his claw; Legolas girded his soul. It was no good; he screamed as if all Middle Earth was coming apart.
The 'wraith' left off, panting. "Your life," he said. "It is very strange. I have never felt so strange. What is it doing to me?" He shook Legolas by the shoulder. "What are you doing to me?"
Drunk spots danced before Legolas's eyes.
"Is it poison? Is your life poison?" The 'wraith's voice was wild. He sat up and, instead of whacking his palm down on Legolas's chest, he rubbed it over his own torso in wavering, frantic circles. "What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me? What are you making me do?"
The 'wraith' ripped at Legolas's clothes. The jerkin came off in strips, the belt was flung aside, now the claws were tearing at Legolas's leggings.
"Here," said the 'wraith' in a voice as thick as cobweb juice. "Drink this." The creature undid his sleeve, using some unknown mechanism, and slashed at the inside of his elbow, at some sort of pouch that was secreted there. And then he pressed that patch of his flesh to Legolas's helpless mouth. A slow sweet potion dripped from the wraith's veins into Legolas's throat.
"Ah," he said.
"Ah," echoed the wraith.
Something was happening to Legolas's vision, a narrowing, a quivering. His flesh, too, trembled and rose. The strength flowed back into his limbs but it was a different kind of strength from warrior's strength. And it wanted to do different kinds of things.
So they lay together, elf and alien, upon the tender shoots of late-winter plants, among the buzzing and bustling of the forest floor.
The 'wraith's life juice trickled from the corner of Legolas's mouth; his own life quickened that of another; and Legolas felt it, the affinity, the ancient age of the other, older perhaps than even himself, older than the ents, as old and powerful as the stars.
'Nothing,' thought Legolas, 'nothing will ever be the same again.'
THE END.
All original parts of this story © Lobelia.
1 April 2008
Author: Lobelia;
lobelia321Fandoms: Lord of the Rings fps / Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Legolas / Wraith
Rating: PG
Length: 1,500 words
Disclaimer: This is an amateur story. No copyright infringement is intended. No money is made.
Author's note: Inspired by this entry in
ios_pillow_book's journal.Summary: Two ancient civilisations meet in a forest glade in spring.
Of elves and wraith
by Lobelia
One spring day, Legolas happened upon a secret glade in the woods, and in that glade there stood an unknown creature.
"Good morrow to you," said Legolas with a welcoming smile but his fist tightened around his bow.
The creature was tall and had the long, fair, straight hair of the elves of the South, worn in the familiar Anduin fashion. The stranger's face, however, was wondrous strange, marked by mysterious runes and with eyes more like the night-goggles of dwellers of the deep than elven lookfar eyes.
"Chrrr," hissed the stranger.
"I beg your forgiveness," said Legolas, "but I know not your tongue." He inclined his head in the gesture of humility, all the while tensing the string upon the hocking.
The stranger looked Legolas up and down with glinting pupils. "Chrrr, human," he growled and flexed a gloved and rather large hand.
"Ah," said Legolas, "you speak the common speech. But I am not a Man."
"No human?" The stranger lowered his hand.
"I am Legolas, son of Thranduil, an elf of Mirkwood."
"An elf?"
"Yes." Legolas waited. He had given his name and pledged his trust thereby. Now it was the turn of the other, and if he did not offer his own name, he was fair game as foe or fiend.
"Chhhhr." The stranger closed his hollow eyes and opened them again. His lids were lashless. "And what..." He coughed, a queer, dry sound. "And what is an elf?"
Legolas stood still as his shadow. With only the slightest twitch of his middle finger, he adjusted his arrow along the riser.
"Does an elf have a life? Does an elf have a soul?"
Legolas stepped back one pace. "These are quaint questions, stranger. Gladly will I attempt an answer but first..." He made his voice a blade of mithril, sliding and hard at once. "...who are you, and what is your business in this lone wood?"
The stranger coughed, moved forwards, stumbled and grasped onto a low-hanging tree branch. It occurred to Legolas that the pale hue of his complexion and the caverns of his cheeks were not natural but signs of a sickness.
"Have you not met my kind before?" rasped the stranger. His breath came in fits. "What is your planet? And why, I wonder, did the Ancients put a stargate here?"
"A stargate? The ancients?"
The stranger was sliding down the side of the tree, one hand fluttering at his throat. "I need..." He retched and slumped to the grass.
Legolas stood, betwixt fight and flight. Once more he asked, "Who are you, and whence do you hail?"
"I am a wraith, you idiot. Have you never seen a wraith before? Have I stepped through time into another galaxy?" And more; the stranger said more, but it was lost in a fit of coughing. Yellow bile streamed from the stranger's lips and hissed onto the ground.
Legolas lowered his bow. "A wraith? One of the ring wraith, then?"
"I must... I haven't fed... weeks..." The creature lifted his head, groaned, dropped it onto his arm. His hand clawed at the earth.
"You do not look to be one of the undead," said Legolas. "Speak truth, stranger -- have you ever borne one of the rings?"
"What fucking rings?" muttered the stranger but his voice was weak now, and his arms trembled inside their thick leather sleeves.
"This is marvellous strange," murmured Legolas. "A wraith of flesh and blood? An elven kin, corrupted as the orcs? A puzzle, indeed."
"You," gasped the creature in the grass, the so-called 'wraith'. "Do you have a soul? a life? Can you be fed upon?"
Legolas drew himself up tall. "We elves have souls, lofty and fine, and we elves have a life that spans that of Men thrice times thrice and thrice again."
"Really?"
Spring breezes soughed in the trees. A dragonfly hovered and hummed.
With a shriek, the stranger sprang upwards and with one mighty bound hurled himself at Legolas. Quick as a dart, Legolas loosed his arrow; it flew; it hit true; it pierced the leather of the 'wraith's coat.
The 'wraith' barely paused. He pulled the arrow out whole, cast it aside and grabbed Legolas by the shoulders. And he was strong. Very strong.
Legolas fell to the ground, and the 'wraith' fell with him, crushing him, catching him off guard.
What was this infernal creature? What magic did he weave? Or was he wearing a mithril vest underneath his black leather?
And what was he doing now?
The 'wraith' pinned Legolas to the grass with his mighty thighs and pulled one glove off, then the other.
This was no wraith. This, surely, was some new breed of orc. For out of the sleeves jutted not hand, but claws, with hooked cruel fingernails and ungood armour along the knuckles.
"A life?" The creature's breath smelled foul, just like the stench of the uruk-hai. "A long life? A life much longer than that of a human?" And with those words, the 'wraith' tore Legolas's jerkin in half with one of its long, sharp nails.
"What..." began Legolas but then said nothing, just screamed and screamed until there was no scream left in his lungs and he lay gasping and shuddering, his chest open to the sky, his life flowing from his very blood and marrow into the terrible claw pressed against his rib cage.
"Ah," said the stranger whose skin glowed with the health of a freshly-plucked apple. His voice was rich and fruity now. The cough was gone. "This is..." He made a sound, almost a sigh. "Where, did you say you were from? And what are you? A... elf? And where may I find more of your kind?" He looked about him, at the trees and the sun and the clouds. "These are splendid new feeding grounds. So much better..."
Legolas was dizzy with pain, the pain of the body and the pain of the soul.
The stranger scratched a pointed nail along Legolas's cheek. "And you have lost barely any years. You look as young as you did when I first saw you. Still so much left, so much to feed on."
Before Legolas could form a thought or hatch a plan, the claws dug into his flesh again and a blackness came upon him. He tried to move his hand to the creature's wrist, to prise away the hideous sucking palm, but the sky echoed with shrieks and the world was made of shards.
"Still no change," gasped the 'wraith'. His other palm was now on Legolas's cheek. "Still as plump as a pupa. Ah, you are fit for a queen. You are..." The creature paused. Legolas shook and drew in great racking breaths. "You do not taste like humans do. You are different. You make me feel... different." The 'wraith' was still, his slotted eyes trained on Legolas.
He lifted his claw; Legolas girded his soul. It was no good; he screamed as if all Middle Earth was coming apart.
The 'wraith' left off, panting. "Your life," he said. "It is very strange. I have never felt so strange. What is it doing to me?" He shook Legolas by the shoulder. "What are you doing to me?"
Drunk spots danced before Legolas's eyes.
"Is it poison? Is your life poison?" The 'wraith's voice was wild. He sat up and, instead of whacking his palm down on Legolas's chest, he rubbed it over his own torso in wavering, frantic circles. "What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me? What are you making me do?"
The 'wraith' ripped at Legolas's clothes. The jerkin came off in strips, the belt was flung aside, now the claws were tearing at Legolas's leggings.
"Here," said the 'wraith' in a voice as thick as cobweb juice. "Drink this." The creature undid his sleeve, using some unknown mechanism, and slashed at the inside of his elbow, at some sort of pouch that was secreted there. And then he pressed that patch of his flesh to Legolas's helpless mouth. A slow sweet potion dripped from the wraith's veins into Legolas's throat.
"Ah," he said.
"Ah," echoed the wraith.
Something was happening to Legolas's vision, a narrowing, a quivering. His flesh, too, trembled and rose. The strength flowed back into his limbs but it was a different kind of strength from warrior's strength. And it wanted to do different kinds of things.
So they lay together, elf and alien, upon the tender shoots of late-winter plants, among the buzzing and bustling of the forest floor.
The 'wraith's life juice trickled from the corner of Legolas's mouth; his own life quickened that of another; and Legolas felt it, the affinity, the ancient age of the other, older perhaps than even himself, older than the ents, as old and powerful as the stars.
'Nothing,' thought Legolas, 'nothing will ever be the same again.'
THE END.
All original parts of this story © Lobelia.
1 April 2008
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 01:18 am (UTC)...
This is a disturbing scenario.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 04:22 pm (UTC)I once, long ago, read elf/orc and was strangely moved because the orcs were elves once upon a time. The first time I saw wraith on TV I thought, elves!!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 07:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 04:24 pm (UTC)Thus pragmatic are at times the narrative closures. :-)
There could, of course, be a sequel... Not 'through the looking-glass' but 'through the stargate'.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 10:12 am (UTC)I'd love to read more. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 04:25 pm (UTC)As I said above, there may well be a sequel. Even as I typed THE END, I was thinking, hm, not really, what about the stargate? What about the morning after?
But you know: first I must finish my long, long, long Sheppard/wraith! *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 04:35 pm (UTC)Did you post something already? In case you didn't, I'm adding you, so I won't miss it! ;)
If you don't mind, obviously! ^^
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 05:05 pm (UTC)Alas, this fic has been through seven revisions and four betas and I am currently annotating all the margins in scribbled pencil. I somehow can't let this one go. But it will be posted very soon, I promise!
Oh, and friend away! *is terribly flattered*
P.S. The icon shows the setting of my wraith/Sheppard fic. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 09:12 pm (UTC)Sooooooo beautiful!!! ^^
Can't wait for your fic!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-02 09:11 pm (UTC)Shawn???!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-03 07:08 am (UTC)I thought he was nameless too, as many other Wraith in SGA... but then I found out they gave a name to each single Wraith, the writers I mean, and not only to Steve, Bob, Toddie, or Shawn, but even to those Wraith we never see in SGA... ;)
Just one linkie: linkie :DDD
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-03 11:46 am (UTC)I googled a bit and someone called Infernorhythm claims just to have invented the name Shawn himself. Here, on this forum.
But I'm relieved it's not TV-canon! Anything not in an episode I don't count as canon! (Heh, it's like HP all over again. Book canon vs movie canon vs 'interview canon'.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-03 12:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-03 01:00 pm (UTC)*runs away*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 12:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 04:26 pm (UTC)You know, I think I started being disturbed when Legolas was overpowered. I actually had to delete a few lines, they made him so passive that I was too disturbed! That's odd, isn't it? The need to have Legolas in control?
So I had to make the wraith a little out of control, just to balance the situation.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 02:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 04:30 pm (UTC)And oh, as soon as I saw wraith, I thought Legolas. And orc. And wrote this.
It was a little later that the gorgeousness of Sheppard/wraith hit me, so I must sashay off to finish that long, long fic finally! :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 07:18 pm (UTC)That was good. :) In the sequel, can they braid each other's hair?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-01 08:09 pm (UTC)Braiding each other's hair!!!!!! Oh, that is genius, that is.
And then maybe wraithie can file Leggie's teeth!
And Legolas can don a hot badass black leather coat with buckles!
And then an orc will jump out from behind a passing bush! And a dementor will come!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-03 01:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-03 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-04 10:57 am (UTC)I told you that I'm barely familiar with SGA. I never knew what you meant when you talked about 'wraiths' (and I still don't quite understand how they feed upon other creatures, is it some kind of vampirism? Through palms and the inside of elbows? I'm kind of disappointed there, I would have preferred kisses or actual sex, just saying, but, well, I understand such concepts wouldn't fit into a tv series). Anyhow, I find this vampiric aspect is VERY appealing. I love vampires!
Now, at least, I know what 'wraiths' are and I can totally see your point. Crossing these two verses is almost inevitable. One could say 'tis only logical.
The first part was completely hilarious:
""Have you not met my kind before?" rasped the stranger. His breath came in fits. "What is your planet? And why, I wonder, did the Ancients put a stargate here?"
"A stargate? The ancients?"
----
Legolas stood, betwixt fight and flight. Once more he asked, "Who are you, and whence do you hail?"
"I am a wraith, you idiot. Have you never seen a wraith before? Have I stepped through time into another galaxy?" And more; the stranger said more, but it was lost in a fit of coughing. Yellow bile streamed from the stranger's lips and hissed onto the ground.
Legolas lowered his bow. "A wraith? One of the ring wraith, then?"
"I am a wraith, you idiot. Have you never seen a wraith before?
---
I like this use of Tolkienesque language ("betwixt fight and flight" "whence do you hail?") when it comes to Legolas. His characterization is spot-on.
At this point, however, you already had me worried about poor Legolas. I was afraid the wraith was going to feed on him quite literally (because remember, I didn't know about wraiths, they could have been cannibals as well).
Legolas drew himself up tall. "We elves have souls, lofty and fine, and we elves have a life that spans that of Men thrice times thrice and thrice again."
"Really?"
Spring breezes soughed in the trees. A dragonfly hovered and hummed.
---
This is just perfect, lull the reader with peaceful spring images before the wraith really attacks.
The 'wraith' pinned Legolas to the grass with his mighty thighs and pulled one glove off, then the other.
Ummmm, yeah ... that's very nice :-)
And the ending? It's Cronenbergesque-ly wonderful. IMO this is the perfect spring!fic because spring is a time of metamophosis.
You were worried about the last sentence? But noooooo, it fits perfectly!
♥ ♥ ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-04 05:23 pm (UTC)And no, it is not this fic that tormented me over the last line! The last line here came flying in on a spring breeze, just as it was supposed to! *kicks other fic wot is stubborn*
I am amazed you understood even anything here if you don't know about SGA because I kind of took canon knowledge entirely for granted, *g*. But you worked it out! Sort of!! I'm thinking, should I enlighten you to the details or not? And perhaps I don't need to! Except for this one little detail: the wraith feed on human lives. So my little fanonic contribution was to figure out that elves have a much longer life than humans. And may therefore be very desirable to the wraith. ;-)
Also, the wraith feed with their hand clamped to the chest of their victim. This is a cop-out on behalf of the TV makers (how lame is a hand?) but can be, I find, marvellously sexualised in fic...
Whenever I write lotr fps, I am reminded of the wonderful world of pre-movie Tolkien. When Legolas was not yet called 'Greenleaf' and when the elves of Mirkwood had dark hair, not Orlandish blonde wigs. *is nerd*