For the love of a Dragon (Thranduil fanfic)

Chapter 18

It was a fine Autumn morning as I fumbled with the sheets of the bed. I had upgraded to a new room, at Thranduil's insistence, to a room with a beautiful wide view of the forest, and the slumbering snow-capped Mountains of Mirkwood. But even the wondrous view couldn't take my mind off the words Thranduil said to me yesterday.

I was no longer a Dragon. I was free. 

I was a meek 500 years old on the fateful day I was cursed. I remembered the experience all too vividly.

2,400 years ago....

I was walking along the border of a forest; my memory failed me to remember which. After a while of minding my own way, walking by myself, out of the corner of my eye I spied an old woman hobbling along the same path as I was, her old legs barely able to carry her body. Her hood was drawn over her head; likely to withstand the blistering summer sun that beat down on weary travellers like her and I on that day.

Naive as I was, I ran to help her without thinking or possibly suspecting that something could be amiss. "Here, let me help you," I offered as I bounded over, placing a hand on her back and grasping her frail, withered hand with my own. She held it tightly, her hood never catching the breeze and revealing whatever was underneath, and didn't say a word.

I walked her until I had no idea where we were. But ever the reserved young Elleth I was, I kept quiet about my doubts to be polite. 

"My dear," her croaky voice uttered, those two words barely audible from her mouth. I leaned in to listen closer to what she was about to say.

That was my deadly mistake.

Like an adder about to strike, her eyes whipped up to mine; unnatural, ageless, blood-red things that pierced into my soul. I screamed in agony, crippling to the ground as a cold sense of dread and fear swept over my body. The old hag then whipped her hood off and knelt down to my level, grabbing my throat and squeezing with unprecedented strength for her age and crippled appearance.

"Like I would ever need help from the likes of you," she hissed, her voice suddenly powerful and clear. I wheezed in her tight grip and struggled but she didn't let go.

She began chanting, reciting something in a frightening language that I could not understand or recall. As the words filled the air, a brutal, stabbing pain tore through my chest. I screamed and tried to jerk out of her grip but she only tightened it, sneering to reveal rows of blackened teeth. Fear clamped my heart, setting off alarms in every corner of my body. 

A fiery, burning pain blazed in my throat, ravaging through my lungs like a forest fire. Finally managing to tear myself from her brutal grip, I collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. My throats painful burning sensation, at least I could tell in my haze of agony, was not from her strangling. It was something old, angry and fiery; something that I had never felt before. My screams soon became raspy and whispery, like whispers on a parched wind.

The witch brought her terrifying face close to mine, a grin of pure malice tugging at the corner of her cracked lips. "Cursed to eternal darkness you shall be," she said darkly, before she faded out of my vision and everything...went....black.

I shuddered at the memory. That was the last day of me being an Elleth - a normal one, with a functioning body which didn't defy the laws and nature and cross species every fortnight. Now I was one again. I would no longer breathe fire, or soar through the soft lilac clouds as the sun rose over the world. I would no longer be a beast from children's nightmares or a Dwarvish warrior's worst fear, but I would no longer be a beast of my own free will, with a massive body that I grudgingly knew every inch of, how to maneuver through the sky. My father used to tell me that one day you would miss what you hated the most once it was gone. I never knew he would prove to be right one day.