Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T
Summary: LotR, Fifth Element. Many times, the Darkness has come. This time, Leeloo has been given the chance to do more than just protect. 750 words.
Spoilers: The Fifth Element (1997); references to events in the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.
Notes: This one is all kerravonsen's fault! She asked for Leeloo, first person, meeting Eowyn.
"So," Korben said, tracing the edges of my face with one rough fingertip. His tone was light, but there was concern in his eyes: concern for me, something I was still not used to seeing. "Every five thousand years, huh?" he asked, quietly. "How long you been doing this?"
"Very long time," I replied, turning my face to nuzzle against his hand. I was getting better at speaking his language, but it was still easier to understand it than to put the words together in the right order. I didn't think he minded, though; he always smiled when I spoke. Always, since he had held me as the stones woke and I drove the Evil out of the dark planet, casting his spirit back where it belonged.
"Many times the Darkness comes, in many forms. Always, I am ready to protect," I explained.
"Always," he repeated, softly. "That is a very long time."
His other hand moved up and down my bare back, tracing patterns on my skin; I sighed and wrapped my arms more tightly around him, turning my face again to press an ear against his chest. This was new to me, too; for all the millennia I had lived before I met him, never had anyone dared touch me as though I were more than a weapon-- or less than a divine being. I had not known what I had been missing-- and now that I knew, I never wanted to give it up.
"Yes," I replied, sleepily. "He walks behind the Door of Night; when he returns, he will turn light to dark, make all life suffer." I had heard the litany often enough, from my masters when they made me in the Uttermost West, and from the scholars and priests who woke me each time the Door opened; many details had been lost, but the basic story stayed the same. "I was made to protect; I shut the Door when it opens."
"Hmmm," he said, slowly. "So does that mean you have to go back to sleep soon, to wait for the next time?"
"Soon," I agreed, then smiled against his chest. "But soon can also be very long time."
Soon had been nearly fifteen hundred cycles of the Sun, once. The first time the Door opened my masters were prepared and I closed it quickly, but the Dark One's servants still lived then, and the Valar feared someone might find a way to force the Door again before the set time. They set four precious gems, one for each element, in a sword-- the leeloo mi naï for which I was named-- and left me awake to guard it. I was always alone, in those days; I had food to eat, and water to drink, and the stars to watch, and that was all. I did not know what loneliness was, then-- not until she came.
She came on the wings of a dream; she was mostly human, with long pale hair and cloth wrapped around one of her arms. She was not the first mortal I had seen-- many in those days had true dreaming, and wandered in their sleep-- but she was the first to speak to me. She held a sword in her unwounded hand, and her eyes were cold and hard; she stared at me and said, "I have not died, and the battle still goes on."
She did not come again, and soon after that the lesser Dark One perished. The gems were removed from their settings and placed in rough stone containers, while I was sent back to my long sleep-- but every time I woke I thought of her and what she'd said and wondered if that was all I would ever be allowed to have. To never die, always preparing for the next battle.
I didn't know if she'd ever found her own Korben, someone to teach her of love and help her be strong without breaking. I didn't know if I would ever find one again, later; my Korben was mortal, too, while I would live until the End of Time. But as long as he lived, I intended to stay; I would not miss the smallest moment of the wonder that he shared with me.
"I love you," he whispered, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "You know that, right?"
"I do," I whispered back, tilting my head so the next kiss would reach my lips. "And I love you."
-fin-