Archery {Legolas}

[KATNISS EVERDEEN]

Katniss slung a bow and quiver full of arrows over one shoulder and shrugged her pack onto the other. She walked into the forest, despite how dangerous it looked. She needed some place secluded to practice with her bow. She didn't want to be interrupted. She had yet to speak to anyone on this damn island anyway.

Her long dark hair was braided down her back, and her mockingjay pin was pinned above her heart, as always. She ran a finger over the gold pin as she remembered the rebellion, and the games and all she had lost in both. She had hated the games. Both of them that she had been in and all the ones before them. Seventy-five years those horrid games had gone on. It was barbaric to make 24 children fight to the death! What pleasure the Capitol had seen in the, Katniss would never know.

Katniss shook her head to expel such thought as she travelled deeper into the forest. Finally she reached a clearing. There was a tree at the far edge that would serve as a good target. She set her pack down and pulled a few arrows from her quiver. She stuck most of them in the ground, but kept one in her hand. She tested the string on her bow. When she was ready she strung up the arrow, took a deep breath and fired. The arrow flew straight and true and embedded itself deep in the tree trunk. Katniss smiled, satisfied with her shot.

[LEGOLAS THRANDUILION]

✶ O H, W R I T T E N I N T H E S T A R S ✶

✶ A M I L L I O N M I L E S A W A Y ✶

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For once – and this had proved to be a very rare occurrence in his thirty-two days on the island -- Legolas Thanduilion, king of Mirkwood, the last of the Nine Walkers, the Greenleaf, the trusted advisor of three kings of Gonder, was actually in a good mood.

He could not, for the life of him, say just why it was that he was happy. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened on the island; quite to the contrary, his life now was more ordinary than it had been for centuries, disregarding the bit where he was inexplicably pulled from his universe into this one. However, it could not be said that he had looked too hard for a reason. As the Elf had both suffered and seen people suffer, he knew that it was pointless to question happiness. That only made you miserable.

It was a beautiful day outside. Wisps of white clouds streaked the clear sky and flowers rustled gently in the breeze. Striding towards the forest with an Elf’s grace, the king felt like a child again, something that he had not felt in many years. There was a kind of bright optimism to the day that made him want to sing -- so sing he did, a tune Frodo and the Hobbits had taught him many years ago. Legolas' voice was more suited to the gentle melodic sound of his native Sindarin than the much more guttural English. Idly, he mused on the reason why the clouds moved South when the wind was blowing East, and other things like that.

Legolas could not have said when exactly he knew, but he knew there was someone in the forest long before he could see or hear them. When he was within earshot, the sound was more than welcome: the familiar twang of a bowstring was music to his ears. There had always been a kind of kinship between those that used the same weapons, or, at least, as much kinship as Elves could have for anyone but their closest confidantes. This was no less true with the king. So, he set off in the direction of the sound, adjusting as he walked his own quiver full of arrows, strapped across his back. It was always there, and had been there every moment since Legolas' arrival. It was a piece of home. The Elf wondered if the archer ahead of him clung to their bow, too, because it was a piece of a home lost to some unknown power.

The idea that he might be approaching someone hostile occurred to him several times as he glided across the forest floor. He gave it, however, very little thought. If he had been feeling less than wonderful, then he would have taken measures to insure the person's friendliness, but today Legolas was confident: he knew that, if worst came to worst, he could shoot them before they could shoot him. He approached the girl – he could tell she was a girl by the long braid hanging down her back – while she was occupied with her bow and looking the other direction, slipping silently through the trees until he was a yard or so away. Then, the Elf leaned up against an oak to watch her. ”Might I try?” he asked quietly, one eyebrow raised above the other.

As soon as he spoke, he remembered the unfortunate incident with Johanna. Legolas raised his right hand in a gesture of peace as quickly as he could, in order to stop her potentially shooting him. The corners of his mouth turned upwards in a small smile. "Do not spoil the day with haste!” he cautioned amiably. ”I interrupted you. I am sorry. Much has happened on this island, and the kingly courtesies with which I was raised are deemed so odd by the humans here that I often forgo their use at all. Alas, though, for not announcing myself earned me some enmity, from the lady Johanna especially.” Legolas’ smile became almost rueful.

"Come, be thoughtful. My name is Legolas, of Mirkwood forest, though there is little chance you know of it. And with my name take my word that I mean you no harm -- I only wish to have a shot at yonder tree." As he spoke, the Elf slipped his bow out of its shoulder holster and strung it deftly, not even needing to look at his hands. After three thousand years of practice, the bow became a part of you, and the living magic in Galadriel's Bow made this all the truer. Legolas eyed the girl carefully, coming quickly to the obvious conclusion that she was a good shot, but by all means too young. Talent rarely beat out experience.

✶ A N D I'L L F I N D M Y W A Y ✶

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------Tags: Katniss
------Notes: Monologues ftw
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