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Prince in Training	By : Pippychick_TAFKAB Category: -Multi-Age > Slash - Male/Male Views: 24084 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: We do not own Tolkien's world, Middle Earth, Lord of the Rings or any of the characters. We make no money from this.

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<u>Chapter Ten</u>

When morning came Legolas dragged himself from Thranduil’s bed with great reluctance, bathing himself and going to meet the soldiers who were to venture out to meet the poachers. They were already prepared, for his father had held him late to claim him once more before he went. When he walked in, he knew he was in for considerable mockery and teasing.

Tauriel raised a brow at him, barely hiding a small smirk. “Look who has come to join us at last. I had thought he would lie in with his new lover until the sun was in the west.”

The others laughed, smiling on him – they meant no harm, but Legolas knew he deserved to blush, and blush he did, thinking why he was so late. Normally their patrols departed well before dawn.

“As long as the king does not learn of our delay, all will be well,” Tauriel laughed softly. “But we should go now before we are discovered.”

As if Thranduil could complain when it had been he who barred Legolas from leaving until they were both sated and gasping! He could still feel the pleasant ache and stretch from his father claiming his body. It lingered with him as they filed out, then took to the treetops, running and leaping along the wild pathways there, exulting in the simple freedom of motion.

It had been long since he left the caverns, and it felt good to be out in the woods again, leaves and wind brushing his face – but he also missed the knowledge that he would go to his father’s bed in the night and make love with him there. Perhaps they could find the poachers swiftly so he might return to his place. Assuming he was wanted… He hoped Thranduil would not repent of their liaison while he was gone, or try to forbid his return when the mission was finished.

Well, Legolas thought, setting his lips and raising his jaw in a determined manner. He had a say in it too, and he would not be tossed aside upon his return. Not even if he had to lock them both in together and swallow the key! He supposed that to be his last thought on the matter, but of course it wasn’t. In the meantime though, they had poachers to find.

They travelled south through Eryn Galen for most of the day, and came upon more than a few of the giant spiders that had begun to populate the southern areas. How stupid – or desperate – must these poachers be, to hunt in a wood where they themselves might become prey?

They neared the area where the reports hailed from, moving silently among the trees, meeting and discussing with the posted guards in quiet whispers. It seemed the white deer were being hunted for their pelts. While the occasional carcass would disappear, often they were found hidden deep in wooded thickets to rot, or tossed near to webs for spiders to dispose of. Not only Legolas was troubled by this. All the elves shared a love of the white deer that roamed Eryn Galen.

Since much of their day had been taken up reaching this spot, they determined to camp for the night, and found a place to stay in one of the trees, a guard talan where they could lie down and rest, even if they were all quite close.

In the deep of the night, Legolas found himself lying awake, staring at the stars through the leaves. He imagined his father, alone in the bed they had shared, and wished he was there still. Tauriel was on watch, and he went to sit with her for a while, rather than let his thoughts turn to desperate longing.

They sat on the edge of the talan platform, far above the forest floor, swinging their legs. Legolas sighed. “He or she?” Tauriel asked.

Legolas swallowed hard against a surge of fear. He had hoped not to be forced to dissemble.

“He,” he answered with reluctance, trying to come up with a plausible reason why he would not tell his lover’s name.

“You’ve been very distant,” she noted. “We have missed you among our group in the evenings; Faragon in particular would like a chance to win back the coin he has lost to you at dice, and without you to take your share of a tun of wine, we all grow drunker than we ought.” She smiled on him, kind and knowing. “Who is he?”

“I cannot tell,” Legolas admitted, unable to meet her gaze. “My father would not approve.”

“He will learn of it, sooner or later.” She set her hand on his arm, sympathetic. “Such secrets do not keep for long. It is obvious to one who knows you: you move differently than you did before.”

Legolas sighed for fear she might be right. “I will face the loss of my secret when it comes, if I must. For now… I will have my joy, and I will not regret.” He arose to step away, feeling uncomfortable with her nearness.

“You seem very happy with him,” she said, her voice soft. “There is a light of joy in your eyes, and a lightness in your step as you leave us at the end of each day.”

Legolas’s heart jumped, and he stared at her. “Truly?” he asked, wondering. At least some of those times he had been sure of attracting a punishment for some infraction or other of his father’s rules. Each day? Even those? Legolas did not quite believe it.

“We have all noticed it,” Tauriel said, nodding. Legolas gave her a little smile then went back to his bedroll. Well, there would be no infractions of his father’s rules here. There was hardly space to stretch out and breathe, let alone… Legolas sighed. Immediately his mind furnished him with a vision of Thranduil alone in that bed, but now he was doing what Legolas could not. Touching himself. With a frustrated little sigh, Legolas turned over onto his front and buried his face in the bedroll until he fell into reverie, ignoring as best he could the visions brought forth by his own mind.

The next day, they awoke as the first grey light appeared in the east, which would still be night to most folk, but elves knew the light and sensed early changes in it. Without fuss, they tidied the talan, leaving their bedrolls ready for use, and went to keep watch, waiting for the poachers to turn up. The guards had become used to their comings and goings, and soon enough, there they were.

They couldn’t have stayed in the woods overnight. It was too dangerous, even for heavily armed men. They had concealments in the mountains, according to the guards, where they kept stores of the pelts they had taken. The skins were removed, possibly to order, to be traded with other men.

Legolas followed the poachers along with Tauriel and the rest, and his eyes widened when he saw who they dealt with. Boromir himself was not present, but Legolas recognised a couple of the aides who’d travelled with the Embassy, and he made a silent sign to Tauriel, pointing them out. She nodded.

“They did not get what they wanted, so they have decided to take it,” Legolas muttered to her when she joined him. “This does not bode well for future relations with the Stewards of Gondor.” He firmed his jaw. “Wait here with the group. I will trail them through the trees and gather proof that they poach the white deer. Then I will return, and we will go after them in force.”

She agreed with reluctance, and Legolas set out, noiseless, confident the men would not think to look for him amidst the trees. They were self-important and tended to assume no others could do more than they; they rarely thought to look up, unless it were for spiders.

To judge by a few of the silk-shrouded corpses he passed, they would do well to adjust their expectations. He shied away from touching the telltale signs of human corpses: the rounded skulls and long femurs protruding from the silk told him enough.

He did not see the men shoot any white deer, but he located their camp, a small alcove tucked away beside a river near the mountains, with a crack behind it, dividing a wall of dark granite.

Several of the men passed in and out of the crack carrying bundles of dark rabbit pelts, and Legolas waited for nightfall, wanting very much to creep close enough to investigate the cache. If they had poached the deer, perhaps their pelts lay inside.

He waited until the men drank themselves to sleep, then avoided the single drowsing sentry, stepping silently past the very ashes of their campfire, over sprawled bodies, and into the crack.

Sure enough, a stack of white pelts lay near the rear of the narrow den, shining redly in the firelight. He went to run his hand over them, making certain of his find, and slipped out as easily as he had made his way in, taking off through the trees at a trot.

“They have pelts of two dozen white deer,” he reported to Tauriel when he found his group again. “There are also foxes and wolves among the skins, and those of wild cats, as well as the allowed harvest of squirrel and rabbit and red deer. They have violated the letter of the treaty many times over.”

“Then it is decided,” Tauriel said. “We shall take them unawares while they sleep!” She made a hand gesture to some nearby elves and a signal hissed between her teeth, barely heard, but sharp and full of intent. Legolas laid a hand on her arm.

“Wait!” he said, thinking, and Tauriel held up her hand to halt. Legolas knew they should act now, yet something in him wanted to be sure they caught the men of Gondor in the act of trading with these men for illegal animal skins. If not, then they would find some other men willing to take the risk, and the poaching would continue.

“We should wait until they meet again, then take the groups together,” he said. His father would be pleased if they managed to cut off the supply and the demand all at once. Tauriel nodded tightly – Legolas was her commander, after all – but she did not seem pleased.

“What you suggest is much more dangerous, should they feel desperate enough to harm us,” she said. “But I understand what it would mean. The white deer would be safer if we can ensure there is no trade to be had here.”

Legolas and Tauriel smiled at each other in agreement.

They had to wait. It was several days later when the poachers finally met the men of Gondor again. At that point the patrol Legolas had organised with Tauriel attacked. The men were so ignorant, so convinced they were unobserved that most of them were captured without much more than a little shouting. One or two of them drew swords, but these were no fighters. They were used to killing animals from afar. Legolas was sure they were each one of them cowards, who dared the spiders through stupidity rather than courage.

At least one of them fired arrows, and though most of them flew wild – mere warning shots – one of them pierced Legolas’s thigh, going deep, the hit an accident if the horrified look of the archer was anything to go by.

In short order, the men were bound and rounded up ready to be taken to Thranduil’s palace for justice to be done upon them. Legolas, however, was set upon by Tauriel, who found that the arrow was barbed and could not be removed. At least, not without getting back to the healers in his father’s caverns.

There was an additional flare of anger in Legolas at this, for surely the arrows were used to bring down the deer. It meant that even those who escaped, who were hit but not killed, would linger on in pain and misery before succumbing to an infected wound. What kind of animals were men, that they would so easily and joyfully cause the pain and suffering of another creature?

“You have shot the prince,” Tauriel told the archer, her voice tight, as the party prepared to depart with their prisoners in tow. “I would not look forward to my meeting with the king, if I were you.”

The sickly look on the man’s face seemed to give her satisfaction as she watched them go, one hand resting on Legolas’s brow.

“I have called for healers and a conveyance to return you to the palace,” she sighed. “Should I have sent for your lover?”

Legolas winced, not from the pain of the arrow. “No, he will find out soon enough.” He felt strange, a little ill, as though he sat too near a roaring hearth-fire.

Tauriel frowned at him. “Those men are filthy creatures; they had not cleaned their arrows. I fear your wound may become infected.”

Legolas nodded. “That may be so,” he answered, then frowned. There was too much to think about, and all of his thoughts were getting in the way of each other, leaving him confused. His father, he did not hardly dare imagine what Thranduil would do. Perhaps he would even take this as a sign and use it to push Legolas away?

But then there was this, here, now. Legolas looked at Tauriel helplessly. It was already late in the day because they had waited. By the time the fleetest of them had taken news back, and healers were on their way, they would have spent at least one night in the wood. Legolas closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up at the trees.

“I cannot climb,” he said, feeling useless as he tried to straighten up, leaning gratefully on Tauriel, but he could only really hobble.

Being unable to climb was a problem. It left them exposed to any danger that might be lurking around them. It put Tauriel in danger. “I’ll stay with you,” she said firmly, and she was not to be argued with. Legolas could only nod. He had not the wherewithal to argue, but he made sure to get as far as he could, as fast as he could with her help, hoping that they’d reached the kinder area closer to the palace by the time he collapsed.

When evening fell and night came, Legolas fell into a fitful, feverish and exhausted sleep despite his fears, wearied by pain and the effort of walking. They’d made a small fire, and Tauriel watched over him. He loved her: as a friend, and as a comrade, but she did not feature in his dreams at all.

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Prince in Training