Of dreams…

        Fire and smoke covered the sky everywhere, choking his lungs, smothering him into a dizzy haze. Startled screams shrieked from the silent darkness, as one moved silently through the nigh, discerning over the anarchy.
        Many other much darker creatures moved throughout the forest, but none so stealthily. Their sinister dark robes whirred haphazardly, though their hooded faces remained shrouded unnaturally at all times. Once silver weapons glimmered stark scarlet with the essence of blood. Spinning, dodging. Thrusting through startled and wide eyed elven bodies, which fell limply to the ground, never to awaken again.
        The lone one, moved on with light feet and a heavy heart, as trees caught on fire, and as more branches fell, with many piercing screams sounded through the night behind him.
        A piece of crumpled paper clutched tightly in his hand was the only thing that pushed him on. Passing word of this ambush was absolute golden priority. This one thought, along and beside strong grief, so fresh and real was all that ran through his mind.
        And then one caught him, with the most magical of an eye. And the last thing the young elf saw before cold steel tore through his shoulder and he fled in anguish was the face of a foe race, and that of a cold proud ex-king.
        And with this the short dwarf and the orc alongside him laughed screeching barks of laughs and they watched the grievous figure fade…
        …Chaos were such a dream that provoked ones being, and twisted those who are kindly in it, into such pure evil…
        Legolas tossed restlessly in his bunk, where sheets flung discorderly and had strewn themselves into twisted piles. A glisteningly fine sheen of sweat covered the Elven Prince’s brow, and as events turned over and over in this twisted dream, soft whimpers rose from the sleeping elf, only to fade away into the silence of night…

…end dream…

        The morn’s golden sun was only beginning to brush the treetops of glorious Rivendell as Legolas, son of Thranduil stirred from dark dreams to awaken with a deep heartening ache. Alas the brightening sun did nothing to thaw his dismal heart.
        As he sat, his sleep-fogged mind cast a sorrowing thought to that of his dear friend Gimli, who had departed Rivendell the morning before with Sam and Frodo on a long but seemingly simple errand. The trip's destination, no less, was the Bag End, the Shire.
        News of a mourning period was to be passed about the death of Bilbo Baggins, who had drifted listlessly from his place of resting not two days past, into the realm of eternal rest. This sad occasion involved the tediously depressing task of his lifeless body being transferred back to Bag End, the hobbit's previous home, where he would be laid to rest in the Baggins vault.
        All of this, would be very well, thought Legolas, had they not separated Gimli from me. Surely in their haste, they could have chosen a more suitable or appropriate guard.
        But as soon as the Elven prince had thought this thought, he hastened to take it back in guilt. For there were, in Legolas’ hearty opinion, perhaps few finer and gallant warriors existing.
        Since the Fellowship had been broken that fateful day at the river, dwarf and elf had put aside their racial absurdities and had separated company scarcely twice, and it was a great blow to both companions hence that Frodo, stricken by grief over losing the hearty Baggins had requested a guard known to him to accompany him to Bag End for the protection of living and deceased alike.
        And so it was that Gimli had been chosen by the Elven Council, not for his seemingly racial exclusion or a bid to get rid of what is not Elven, but for his courage and strength, and selflessness. If trouble should arise, his brave and stalwart companion would meet it.
        It had scarce been a day in passing since his quarrelsome companion had left, but almost instantly, the Elven prince had felt a foreboding sense of loss. Loneliness had long since left him when Gimli had arrived, but now it returned in great measure and as Legolas readied himself to face another morn. He sighed a great sigh as he fastened his Elven tunic, and laced his boots all without the regular throw of insults, quips of contest and various other oddities that were the friendship between dwarf and elf.
        Ready now, Legolas took one last look around at the silent room, and with a great heartfelt sigh, he left. Alone.