To Live Again: Waiting Between Worlds {Lord of the Rings Fanfiction}

The Mortal Flaw

SouthWestern Greenwood - 

The Watch Tower of 

Amon Lanc

Legolas' heart hammered in his chest, and with his pulse racing so fast he was almost certain he felt faint...he didn't have time to feel faint.

He had been right about the watch tower connecting with the feast hall - it did on the lower courtyard by a bridge that was now broken.

The jump was too far to reach on his own but he was pretty confident he could swing the gap at a slightly lower point, then use the fallen rubble to clamber up the rest. He was quite the nimble elf, it was always his strong suit in training, and he was forever being tested on how far he could push himself psychically; how he could use the terrain, or how far he could suspend the laws of gravity to make a jump or near on impossible move.

He had loathed it when he was younger, but his Adar always insisted he keep up that element to his training and he never understood why until now. Fighting was grand but if you got yourself caught in a tight spot knowing how to escape was always extremely useful. And this was indeed a tight spot, only he was't trying to escape, he was trying to rescue.

He had spied the battle between his father and the terrifying orc - a monster so large and ugly that Legolas wasn't even sure if was orc - and he was intent on reaching him as quick as he could.

His mother was beyond the bridge, he had saw her try and move! She was alive and he was determined to get to her before any more harm could befall her.

There was the remains of old, elven, rope in one of the lower corridors which he raced to retrieve so he could make the planned jump. But by the time he had resurfaced with a decent length of rope the scene of the fight had drastically shifted.

The deafening crack was the first thing that alerted the young prince to the danger as he raced to a lower ledge - one he felt was the best to jump from. It jutted out just clear of the corridors level and had a main supporting column running through it, he could secure the rope to that and use it to swing to the far side, and hopefully - with some luck - the old rope would hold. But the sudden shift in the trembling foundations made Legolas question his decision.

Tying the rope to the column his eyes darted upward at the sound of a shriek so earsplitting that it made him cringe...that was his Adar.

It was only a moment later that the orc appeared at the broken bridge above Legolas dangling a frail form over the drop tauntingly.

Legolas sucked in a sharp breath, his keen eyes zeroing in on the familiar form of his Naneth as she fought uselessly with her captor.

He was going to throw her!

His quick mind sped ahead of his body; he measured the distance of the gap, he judged the force of the fall, the angle of height, and the split second timing it would take to execute his plan.

He dared not think of what had befallen his father, for he must have been truly incapacitated for it to come to this - a monstrous creature to have its claws wrapped around his mother again!

He remembered a time not so long ago when his father spoke in vehement promise that never again would any vile creature lay a hand on his family.  A promise that he would die first before he would allow any of them to succumb to such a fate, and he knew his father to hold onto promises with steadfast loyalty. Now with his mother on the brink of peril he could only assume the very worst...and in that instant he felt it was his duty to pick up the mantle of his Ada's promises.