Redone again, for what seems like the tenth time. And I'm still not satisfied. This first chapter has been giving me so much pain...

By the way, I only own the stuff I made up. Just Lithrae. She’s my precious. Everything else belongs to the master.

Chapter I

Like many others after the war, it was a quiet day. It was also an uneasy day. The war had ended, and the whole of Middle-Earth had sunk into an exultant lull after they had buried their dead and begun rebuilding families and homes. That said, its people could not deny in their hearts the tension that still hung in the air. They would go about their merry-making and rejoicing, all the while trying to place a finger on exactly why there was still a frantic edge to their breath, like their fragile grasp on this dream would break any moment. For one particular elf, the restlessness of an impending eternity and a loss of a sense of purpose was particularly unnerving.

Under the golden boughs of the Mallorn trees, the elf stood still and calm, an outward state with no semblance of the hollow squirming inside of her. Eyeing the target from the corner of her eye, she nocked an arrow onto her bow, pulling the string back into a softly chuckling creak. A certain urgency was weighing down on her, dampening her movements, placing a slight ache in her bones. But then again, having free time always made her feel uneasy. She adjusted her position into a solid stance and raised her bow. The tip of the arrow glinted dully in the late afternoon light.

The shaft cleaved the quiet air., and with a decisive thump, it pierced the makeshift target. She drew another arrow from her quiver and set it on her bow, aiming to split the previous one. A faint breeze whirled forth, playing at her neck and lifting dark tendrils of hair into the air. A gentle rustling of leaves behind her rippled the delicate waters of her concentration. Her focus broken, she let go of the bowstring with the arrow pointed a fraction of an angle off trajectory. The arrow bit the outer edge of the target. Her mind swirled with a momentary alarm, the already anxious buzz in her head intensifying. She spun around to see who was there, and found her cat busily grooming his fur.

Just a cat. And just a little too uneasy. The coil of disquiet in her gut twisted tighter still.

"Amras," she sighed, sagging into lethargy. She was off duty that day, but it was spent tracing the perimeter of the forest anyway out of routine. On days like these, she would eventually retreat to her favourite clearing where a mallorn sapling cast a cool shadow over the uneven underbrush. The elevation in the clearing was varied, with boulders nestled in the abrupt slopes that made a comfortable, secluded seating area.

Amras looked up and blinked a few times, and rose, tail tracing lazy patterns in the air. He slunk away into the dense bushes and out of sight. She hooked her bow onto her quiver and jumped up to grasp a low branch with both her hands. Swinging herself up, she landed on the next branch. She paused and took a moment to still the simmering waters inside, and with a whooshing exhale, let her senses reach out. Her body became still as a rock, melting into the vast mallorn, letting the natural energy ebb through her; leaves conversing in breathless whispers, creatures, winged and furred, chattering in a symphony of bell tones – then a cackling shadow unexpectedly blinded her, overtaking her senses. It echoed from the distance up into the branches.

The heady rush of distress muted everything around her for a heart beat, imploding in the air before exploding in a feverish flurry. Suddenly, her senses heightened into a frenetic, soundless scream of absolute consciousness. Something was disturbingly amiss. She reached for a silver whistle in her hip pouch, but froze when her ears caught a pure warble, a lilting trill – to untrained ears it could easily have been mistaken as birdsong. Springing into the trees, she followed the melodic, silvery trail, climbing higher where the leaves were thinner.

Within a few seconds, a flaxen-haired figure appeared before her, shrouded in camouflaging silver and grey. She spoke with a coarse edge,

"Orophin, a shadow draws too near too quickly. I don’t have a good feeling about this."

"A border scout just reported back. A horde of orcs." A rustle sounded nearby.

"Rumil, we must gather some archers. Spread the message to those off-duty, and bring the archers to the east side," said Orophin. The rustle subsided. Not long ago, it would have been Haldir giving directions. His sudden absence was still difficult to get accustomed to. Lithrae still greatly missed him, his comfortable, reassuring presence. Now, Haldir’s position as military captain fell to Orophin, with Lithrae and Rumil only one step down as support generals, second in command.

They were like brothers to her, Rumil and Orophin, though they had no relation to her whatsoever; with Haldir, they had raised her. She had been trained in hand, bow, and sword by Haldir himself – the closest thing to a father she ever had. It was his wish before he left that she would jump the ranks when Orophin replaced him as captain, despite her insistence that he would return to reclaim the position. She was wrong. None had come back – alive or dead – bodies hewn beyond recognition.

Where the mallorn trees lessened, she halted. Around her, she saw dozens of elven archers readying themselves, white tufted arrows halfway nocked onto their bows. She had unclasped her own when Rumil appeared at her side. A moment of silence passed between them, as both could not find the proper reassurances to offer. Finally, he turned to her,

"Lithrae, there has not been such an invasion since goblins came trailing behind the Eight. It will not be so easy to stop them this time, especially if they are armed with bows and arrows." A chill crawled over her skin; this was far from the first time she had seen orcs, but suddenly she felt vulnerable. What he said was true. The militia had suffered a significant loss when Haldir’s battalion failed to return from Helm’s Deep. Since then, Lothlorien’s security was spread thinly across the vast of area of Lorien’s woodland. Rumil features were frozen in worry as he looked off into the distance. Lithrae was not used to seeing Rumil in such a state, and it did not help her own anxiousness.

"Soon, orders will be given to attack. They have entered the forest," said Orophin, with a note of urgency in his voice. Lithrae’s heart gave a clumsy stumble. As she reached behind to thumb an arrow, she quickly scanned the treetops. From what she could see, there were at least two dozen around her. And from her knowledge of practiced military formation, there were at least another two dozen in the higher reaches of the trees – backup, not having as much of an accurate shot, but safer, obscured in masses of foliage. A great commotion bubbled up over the slight knoll; a muddle of snarling and gnashing of teeth. She quickly estimated the number of orcs shuffling their way forward; the defending party was roughly outnumbered by at least five to one.

The sound of their malicious snickering echoed up into the branches of the mallorn trees. They seemed not to notice the glinting forest of aimed steel that hung above their heads.

Beside her, Orophin delicately whistled, again like a bird’s chirp, imdiscernable to foreign ears as a battle cry. As a shower of arrows rained down, the wave of orcs waned, but as some hit their mark, some missed. Lithrae frowned inside. Was Orophin using inexperienced elves, barely weaned off of elflinghood and unfamiliar with the touch of a bow? Logistically, the odds she had worked out crumbled. Lithrae face twisted with revulsion as the surviving orcs trod right over the dead, feet crushing brittle bone and skull. The ones bleeding and not yet dead squealed as their skulls were crushed. Pulling out their crudely-made bows, the orcs began their own barrage by firing blindly into the trees. The orcs fired madly in every direction, at flashes of steel and fine grey as the leaves waved in the breeze.

A stray orc arrow shot past Lithrae’s cheek, scraping it, a slash of air causing her to flinch. A drop of blood trailed its way down her cheek. The orcs were relentless, pushing further into the forest, darting side to side, making aim difficult. The last orc was less than five yards away from her position when three arrows buried themselves in its spine.

She slowly slid down from her perch and landed on the soft underbrush. It was standard protocol to assemble the corpses a small distance outside the forest and burn them. Lithrae knocked aside with her heel a dead orc, its black tongue lolling. She bent and pulled an arrow out of its throat; with a little water and polish, it was still good to use. A grimace stretched her cheeks, and she remembered the cut she had previously received.

Absent-mindedly, she touched the spot where the orc arrow had grazed her cheek. Lithrae winced. The wound was deeper than she had anticipated. She drew back her hand, and upon her fingers was a swirl of dark, purplish liquid mingling with crimson blood.

Poison.

Hellfire; she should have known. Cursing, she wondered exactly how much of the substance entered through the scratch.

Then, like a candlelight being extinguished, feeling faded from the side of her head as if half of her face had disappeared from existence. Her whole body drooped; everything around her distorted. The numbness ebbed through her body as the deadly poison continued to devour her consciousness, slithering eagerly through her blood. Her bow clattered out of her tingling hands. The last thing she saw before darkness was the ugly warped faces of orc corpses. Lithrae managed to cry out for help before the world around her crumpled and dissipated.

Sigh. Well, there you go. Please forgive the slight crappiness of this first chapter; I've wrestled with it for so long that I won't even bother anymore.

On to the next chapter.