hi everyone!

Thanks so much to all who read and especially all who voted for and kindly reviewed my last work, When to Stay (the latest installment of my The Halls of My Home series on one-shots). Personalized responses coming soon! I was working on several stories at the same time and ended up finishing nothing when this snuck up on me and suddenly I'm sixty pages deep, lol. I know it's the middle of the week and this probably won't get a lot of eyes but I am in one of those moods and, well - anyone else in the mood for something very very heavy-handed on the angst? No? Just me? I hope not ;)

At any rate, please let me know what you think - c&c's are always welcome. This will be a bit of a stretch for me, and a topic that gets very dark later and one I've long feared to write about so your thoughts are invaluable if you are able to share them. If not - I just hope everyone enjoys reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I intend to give updates every week :)

Title: No Grave, No Memory

Summary: A rescue mission stirs up long-buried memories for Legolas. Secrets of his mother's own imprisonment and torture finally come to light years after her brutal death at Gundabad.

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1: Misplaced Memories

The Mirkwood

Third Age 2509

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The high, vaulted ceilings of the Prince's sleeping chambers comes first as a blur then into sharper relief as his eyes focus. Awareness quickly follows.

He takes a deep breath, and releases it in a long exhale that stutters as it pinches and pulls at a stitch (or two or three or a hundred) on his side. He groans and raises his head from his pillows in confusion to look at what afflicts him.

Three pairs of hands cut into his line of sight. They settle – gently but insistently – upon his chest.

"Rest easy, hir-nin," says one voice.

"Not so fast, Captain," says another.

And a third, "Peace, Legolas."

He is surprised he is not alone even in the privacy of his own rooms, and he is surprised he had not detected the presence of others with him. He quickly understands that it is because he is unwell. But the conclusion brings forth another question. If that is the case, why is he here instead of the healing wards?

He lets himself fall back against the pillows and closes his eyes. His head is swimming, both in lingering affliction and utter confusion. He raises his hands up over his eyes, seeking to find some purchase in the swaying dark.

"Do you know where you are, my lord?"

It is Maenor himself, he realizes. No less than the head of the healing halls and their kingdom's Health Minister attends him here in his own chambers.

"I know..." he rasps out, and dismayed at his gravely voice, he clears his throat only to slightly better effect. "I know where I am. Why are...you here?"

A most un-elvish snicker. "Ah, that gallows humor. I can do nothing to guarantee our Prince's right thinking, my lords, no one ever could. But I can vouch for his, shall we say, relative health. He should be well enough to carry on a conversation now."

Legolas opens his eyes and turns his head in the direction of the other elves with them. The Intelligence Minister Lastor is there, and his thin lips are pressed together grimly even in spite of Maenor's attempts at levity. The War Minister beside him, Brenion, looks similarly grave. Legolas' heart suddenly pounds in his chest, and it feels over-large and caged in there. He can't breathe.

"Is it adar?" he asks, fighting to rise again. "Where is he?"

Did something horrible and unthinkable happen to the King? Is that why everything is so strange? Is that why Legolas merits the attentions of no less than three of his father's closest advisers and those amongst the highest ranking elves of their land?

Maenor steps forward and presses him down again, saying quickly - "Legolas, your adar is perfectly well. Not a single hair on his fine head is harmed." He turns to Lastor and Brenion. "And my ministers, before you make the damsel swoon, perhaps you should get on with what you wish to say immediately."

Legolas looks at them imploringly, but for once in their long-running rivalry, Lastor the Intelligence Minister and Brenion the War Minister are giving ground to each other. Legolas struggles up again against Maenor's (by now) half-hearted attempts to keep him lying down. The healer knows him well and understands there is probably little he can do to stop the determined Prince once he sets his mind on something.

"Either help me my lord," Legolas growls at him, "or keep out of my way." He softens it with imploring eyes. "I know which I prefer. Only you will know how to do it best."

Maenor raises his eyes up to the Valar in consternation. He shifts his grip accordingly, this time to help Legolas sit rather than stay down. "Yes, yes," he grumbles all the while, "I am the only one who knows which parts aren't bruised or broken. Few and far between as they are."

Maenor's banter relaxes Legolas as it always does, and in this particular instance gives him a small measure of patience. If Maenor can stand to joke, he can stand to wait for proper news. His father and their kingdom are probably well.

Maenor helps the Prince to sit up and leans him against straightened pillows and the headboard at his back. The two other ministers slink back onto chairs situated around Legolas' bed. The Prince realizes they had been at vigil with him.

They have been watching him sleep...

Legolas frowns and presses a hand to the side of his head. He has no specific recollection of what had brought him here to his rooms in this condition, commanding the attention of his father's most senior advisors. He is dizzy and nauseous and he supposes he must have suffered a concussion if he cannot recall anything, but his scant memories from the last mission do not seem to support the theory -

There was an elven woman, a lady.

Her face was hidden beneath her grimed hair and her clothes were brutally torn. She was bruised and bloodied and beaten, obviously tortured and, and, worse.

She was found in a cave, turned to her side, facing away from the world and instead toward the unforgiving, jagged rocks. Her slim, pale white, limp limbs were splayed about. She looked like a puppet with its strings cut, an image exacerbated by the lines of rope on her wrists, on her ankles, on her long, slim, swan-like neck.

For whatever reason the sight of her bare, once-delicate feet were especially striking for him. Her nails had been pulled off. Her soles were burnt. Her toes were broken.

She had lost her elven glow in her dank prison, and even when her rescue party had drawn her out beneath the sunny skies, it was clear to all that her light had dimmed.

- Legolas gasps, seeing the images unfold in quick flashes in his mind's eye. He blinks as if to clear his vision, even as he knows that it is his memory that is damaged, not his sight.

In one image her hair was a cascading near-silver. In another image, it was richer and darker, restrained in small, tightly coiled braids on the sides of her head.

In one image she had the fine, shimmering robes of a Noldorin noblewoman. In another image, she was wearing the leathers and deep greens of a Silvan warrior-queen.

In one image she was the Lady of Imladris. In the next image she was...

Naneth.

In one image she was pulled from her torture prison alive. Barely, but alive. In the next image she was…

Nana...

He cannot get a decent breath and the world tilts, and he feels sick, sick, sick to his stomach. He presses a fist to his mouth and turns away from the older elves watching him with increasing alarm.

"You said he was well!" protests Lastor.

"My precise words," Maenor murmurs as he sits beside Legolas upon the bed and holds the younger elf's head in his gentle, ministering hands, "were that he was well enough."

Legolas lets himself be tended. The healer's thick thumbs presses to the sides of his heath soothingly. He feels like a bewildered child, ill, confused, lost. He and Maenor are long used to each other; he is a soldier and a constant if unwilling visitor to the healer's wards. But never before has he let himself be held like this. He closes his eyes in shame and inextricable need. If he can just gather his bearings, if he can just understand what is happening, he will better be able to care for himself. He takes one deep breath after another as he gathers his scattered thoughts.

"Lady Celebrian," Legolas gasps out.

"Ah, see?" says Maenor. "He knows where he is or perhaps more precisely, when he is. Am I correct, hir-nin?"

Legolas looks up at Maenor blearily. "I was on the southwestern detail," he says slowly, remembering his most recent assignment as one of Lastor's elite messenger-spies, scattered about Middle-Earth in small groups in service of their Kingdom's intelligence-gathering.

"We noticed unusual activity in the bounds of Lothlorien and Imladris," he continues. "Very lean, very fast units assembled and mobilized in the quickest possible time. We believed it could yield important information for our Realm so we investigated further. What we discovered led us to offer our services to our kin."

He takes a deep, shaky breath before continuing, "The traveling party of the Lady of Imladris - Lady Celebrian - was accosted by orcs and her entourage murdered and left on the roads a few days past. She herself was missing and believed held in captivity."

Lastor nods encouragingly. "Yes, yes. This we know from your earlier report. Proceed with what else you recall, Captain."

Legolas frowns. He'd done a report? The memory escapes him but he continues on, hoping he would get some illumination the further they went in the discussion.

"Their forces were very small," Legolas continues. "Meant both for stealth I think, as well as for the fastest possible response to the situation. Lady Celebrian's sons were among them and led the Imladris group - Lords Elladan and Elrohir. They were distraught, anyone would be, and eager to act. They were apprehensive from our interruption but grateful for the aid. I've met them a few times before but they barely realized who we were, I think.

"At any rate, by their emotional proximity to the situation," Legolas continues, "they wisely yielded field command of the joint forces to the Lothlorien Marchwarden, Haldir. Our own group – myself and two other elves from home, lent ourselves to the same structure."

"That was the right thing to do," Brenion, the War Minister, murmurs approvingly.

"The Imladris scout was best at navigating the mountains," Legolas relays, "and he made quick work off-path to what looked to be an orc base. He heard the foul beasts talking about the Lady Celebrian, saw them fighting over, over some of her effects. Amongst them," he swallows thickly, "thick strands of her hair and, and her smallclothes. It was how we knew the Lady was kept there, but the scout could not know her precise location within the base without revealing himself.

"We broke into small groups," Legolas continues, "each one carrying a member of the Imladris, Lothlorien and Eryn Galen parties; the better with which to signal and coordinate with each other. The Imladris twins were separated. They liked it not, but they couldn't risk being in the same group in case of capture. It would have been a boon to the enemy, if both of the Lord Elrond's sons were captured on top of having already captured his lady wife."

He closes his eyes. "It was our group – I was assigned with Haldir, Elrohir and a handful of other elves from both their homes – who found her. Elrohir, having been trained by his father in some of the healing arts, gave her field treatment but there was little else he could do with what torture that had been inflicted on her.

"He carried her out of there but she struggled the whole way. She... she started screaming. She... she did not even know she was being held by her own son. Elrohir could not, he could not silence her. He knew how, I think, but would not do it. Neither would the others of Imladris and Lothlorien as she was their lady and deferred to Elrohir. It was quickly clear that it had to be me."

He taps, almost absently at a nerve upon the neck, indicating how he had rendered her unconscious enough for a more or less quiet escape.

"She fell unconscious," Legolas says softly, "and it bought us some time for stealth in our escape, though I think I bought myself some of Elrohir's ire. But the Marchwarden looked grateful, so I suppose it was the right thing to do. We spirited her away from there and signaled for the rest of our group to make a hasty exit, but one of them had been spotted and engaged the enemy. The entire base soon stirred with the knowledge of our presence and the loss of their prize. We evaded more than engaged, we knew our small group was outnumbered and so our priority was escape.

"I reunited with my Eryn Galen party," Legolas says, "we held the rear. The Imladris elves rode hard for their home, where their lady could be quickly tended. The Lothlorien group held the rear with us but as soon as it was clear the danger had gone, they followed after the Imladris party to give them armed escort. We were invited to join, but decided to ride for here instead. The intelligence we carried was vital, I thought."

Brenion nods in agreement. "It is. The existence of a hidden orc base of that complexity near such a well-trodden passage over the mountains carries dangers for many. We initiated talks on a concentrated effort with our kin from the Golden Wood and the Hidden Valley to empty and destroy it. Furthermore, the brazen capture of so important and well-protected a figure as the Lady Celebrian is... well, almost unprecedented."

Legolas winces. Almost unprecedented...

"Furthermore," says Lastor, "The orc can be extremely gratuitous with violence. But to go beyond short-term thinking and to keep her alive for so long in the condition she was in, gives us much to think on. Was she tortured for sport or for information? The former is in keeping with conventional beliefs on how we understand these monsters. But if she were hurt for information, it means they are driven by a greater intelligence, discipline and organization than what we usually credit them for. Something could be afoot."

Legolas shivers, and Maenor catches it with a critical eye. The healer tugs up at the twisted, wrinkled blankets on the bed and settles them higher up on his patient's body. Legolas looks at him with a kind of miserable gratitude.

"You mentioned I've reported all of this before?" the Prince asks Lastor.

The Intelligence Minister nods. He draws out several sheets of papers and lays them on the bed, beside Legolas' hand.

"What exactly did you find, Legolas?" he asks carefully, "What did you see when you came upon the Lady Celebrian?"

The younger elf's brows furrow together in thought.

"She was lying on the ground," Legolas replies quietly, "turned away from us. She was facing the jagged rock walls of her prison. Her face was obscured by her silvery hair, rendered almost unrecognizable by blood, mud and grime. She wasn't moving. We weren't sure she was alive. Her clothes – shining robes of a noblewoman – were soiled and torn. There were marks of torture and, and brutalization."

"What precisely do you recall of her injuries?" Lastor asks.

Legolas shakes his head in frustration and dismay. "It was dark, I did not see much."

"I implore you to try, Captain," Brenion says, and the invocation of Legolas' military title is deliberate. The minister knows it is more commanding but also grounding. It pushes a soldier to do his duty, even if his heart finds pain in doing so.

"There were rope burns on her neck," Legolas reports. "I remember from when I held her there to quiet her. I saw similar marks on her wrists and ankles. She was bruised almost everywhere that one could see, with small cuts all over. Blood ran down her legs. They hurt her everywhere we could see, and likely where we could not. Yet they spared her face. It was strangely horrifying, that they had spared it so completely. It wasn't even grimed. I remember thinking – perhaps they had enjoyed looking upon her whenever they hurt her. She was very beautiful." He shivers again and this time it does not abate. He trembles helplessly, and Maenor clucks his tongue in dismay at Lastor and Brenion disapprovingly.

"We do not mean to distress you when you are still ill, Legolas," Brenion says earnestly. "But there is something you need to know, and something we must all act upon sooner rather than later."

Lastor places his hands over the papers on the bed. "These are written records of your debriefing, Legolas. Of the things you reported to the council when you came back from Lady Celebrian's rescue. You and the soldiers you were with were debriefed separately as per custom, to preserve the independence and integrity of the individual information you all carried in your memories."

Legolas frowns but try as he might, all memory of standing in front of Lastor, Brenion, the other council members and good gods, likely his father the King too, escape him. He has no memory of standing before them and speaking.

"Here you said the elven lady you found had darker hair," Lastor says quietly, "wearing the forest colors and leathers of a warrior."

Legolas' world tilts again, and he clutches at the sheets desperately for some purchase. "But, but why would I say that when it is not true!"

Lastor nods gravely. "You were debriefed first, and then promptly dismissed for rest. You looked dead on your feet then, but seemed otherwise unharmed. We quickly realized this was not the case when your other companions were debriefed after you, and your information was accurate and aligned in everything they said until we came upon the description of the rescued Lady."

"I do not know what any of this means," Legolas says shakily, in a voice barely above a whisper.

Lastor presses his lips together and looks to Brenion to continue. The War Minister, who is also Thranduil's longest friend, nods in acceptance of the burden.

"Legolas," he says carefully, "You were very ill when you made that report. The discrepancy in the information you provided was quickly noted, and someone was sent to your chambers to make clarifications with you. You were found unconscious, with a blistering fever. You had an injury to your side, a minor graze apparently negligible for a warrior used to such things as you. Or perhaps the rescue of Lady Celebrian weighed heavily upon you and you were distracted. Either way, it was poisoned, untreated, and had spread and festered. You were not of your soundest mind when you made the report days ago, to say the least. But what you did tell us... what you managed to say did not necessarily come from thin air."

Brenion takes a deep breath. "We think you are beginning to remember what happened to your mo-our Queen," he corrects quickly, "when you were both captured and held prisoner in Gundabad all those years ago."

TO BE CONTINUED...