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Title: Awakening
Author: Evandar
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Genre: Gen
Warnings: Blind!Thranduil
Pairing: Bard/Thranduil preslash
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Bard awakes in an unfamiliar room with the taste of blood in his mouth. His world has changed, and he has much to learn.
Author's Notes: No bats! Yet! This is the prequel to Vampire and The Beginning of an End.
He opens his eyes to grey light and a vaulted ceiling, and to an Elf watching him. The Elf sits perched on the edge of the bed he has awoken on, and when Bard moves to push himself up, the Elf leans back ever so slightly. Bard freezes, disappointed. He’s never seen an Elf so close, and he wants so desperately to touch him. He doesn’t. He can’t.
He can see the pulse jumping in the Elf’s neck; hear the blood rushing through his veins and smell the scents of fear and forest on his skin. He doesn’t know why he can sense these things, but he can. He wants to ask, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, and all he can taste is bitterness.
The Elf shifts forward again, reaches for him with a pale hand, and helps him move into a more comfortable position. The skin on his face seems to warp and shift as he moves; one moment he is perfection incarnate, while in the next his face is marred by hideous scars and his blue eyes bleach white and sightless. Which face is real, it’s impossible to say, and Bard presses himself back into his pillow. He’d known that the Elves of Mirkwood were fierce and strange, but he hadn’t thought that they would be frightening.
“You are in the halls of Lasgalen,” the Elf says. His voice is deep and calm. Bard would like the sound of it if the situation wasn’t so strange. “Do you remember how you came to be here?”
He doesn’t. Not at first. But as he thinks, as he watches light and scar tissue shift across the Elf’s face, he does. He remembers a shadow. Pain. Biting at the thing that gripped him, and the bitter taste of its blood in his mouth.
It wasn’t an Elf. So far, with the Elf, he has been safe; has felt safe, albeit disturbed.
“I was attacked,” he says, though it is difficult and comes out more as a croak.
“By a child of Thuringwethil,” the Elf says, “come from the south. The creature was slain by my guards – its attack brought it close to a patrol – but too late. Its blood was on your teeth.”
“I was trying to defend myself,” he says.
“And in doing so, cursed yourself.” The Elf looks at him, and Bard has the impression that – blind or not – he can see far more than any mortal Man would be able to. “You can feel it.”
He can. He can feel it; and see it, and smell it. “What will happen to me?” he asks. “My children?”
The Elf smiles. It’s at once beautiful and terrifying to behold. “You will remain here until you can control your instinct to feed – if, indeed, you can. I will release you then, under the oath that should you desire sustenance, you feed from me.”
Thoughts and implications swirl and tumble together in his mind, but the only one that he can put a voice to is: “why?”
“Because I would rather risk myself than my people,” the Elf replies.
That, Bard thinks, is something he can understand.
Author: Evandar
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Genre: Gen
Warnings: Blind!Thranduil
Pairing: Bard/Thranduil preslash
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Bard awakes in an unfamiliar room with the taste of blood in his mouth. His world has changed, and he has much to learn.
Author's Notes: No bats! Yet! This is the prequel to Vampire and The Beginning of an End.
He opens his eyes to grey light and a vaulted ceiling, and to an Elf watching him. The Elf sits perched on the edge of the bed he has awoken on, and when Bard moves to push himself up, the Elf leans back ever so slightly. Bard freezes, disappointed. He’s never seen an Elf so close, and he wants so desperately to touch him. He doesn’t. He can’t.
He can see the pulse jumping in the Elf’s neck; hear the blood rushing through his veins and smell the scents of fear and forest on his skin. He doesn’t know why he can sense these things, but he can. He wants to ask, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, and all he can taste is bitterness.
The Elf shifts forward again, reaches for him with a pale hand, and helps him move into a more comfortable position. The skin on his face seems to warp and shift as he moves; one moment he is perfection incarnate, while in the next his face is marred by hideous scars and his blue eyes bleach white and sightless. Which face is real, it’s impossible to say, and Bard presses himself back into his pillow. He’d known that the Elves of Mirkwood were fierce and strange, but he hadn’t thought that they would be frightening.
“You are in the halls of Lasgalen,” the Elf says. His voice is deep and calm. Bard would like the sound of it if the situation wasn’t so strange. “Do you remember how you came to be here?”
He doesn’t. Not at first. But as he thinks, as he watches light and scar tissue shift across the Elf’s face, he does. He remembers a shadow. Pain. Biting at the thing that gripped him, and the bitter taste of its blood in his mouth.
It wasn’t an Elf. So far, with the Elf, he has been safe; has felt safe, albeit disturbed.
“I was attacked,” he says, though it is difficult and comes out more as a croak.
“By a child of Thuringwethil,” the Elf says, “come from the south. The creature was slain by my guards – its attack brought it close to a patrol – but too late. Its blood was on your teeth.”
“I was trying to defend myself,” he says.
“And in doing so, cursed yourself.” The Elf looks at him, and Bard has the impression that – blind or not – he can see far more than any mortal Man would be able to. “You can feel it.”
He can. He can feel it; and see it, and smell it. “What will happen to me?” he asks. “My children?”
The Elf smiles. It’s at once beautiful and terrifying to behold. “You will remain here until you can control your instinct to feed – if, indeed, you can. I will release you then, under the oath that should you desire sustenance, you feed from me.”
Thoughts and implications swirl and tumble together in his mind, but the only one that he can put a voice to is: “why?”
“Because I would rather risk myself than my people,” the Elf replies.
That, Bard thinks, is something he can understand.
