Title & Chapter Number: Dragon Fever - Author's Notes
Author(s): - Author's Index
Fandom: LOTR
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. The characters, settings, and languages used in this work are the property of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, and possibly New Line Cinema, except for Elwen and other original characters who belong to this author. I make no money from this, more's the pity, considering the number of hours burning the midnight oil.
Warnings: Mild BDSM and non-consensual situations in a few chapters. Some het.
Betas: Many thanks to Caz and Dhvana for beta reading, and to friend Dhvana especially for advice, consultation, and moral support and to Dalogas for being my most thorough reviewer.
Cast: Legolas/Aragorn; Legolas/OCs; also Thranduil, Smaug, Gimli, Balin, and Gloin.
Timeline: In the Third Age of Middle Earth, shortly after The Hobbit.
Spoilers: None
Summary: Legolas tells Aragorn a story about a trip he once made to Esgaroth (Lake-town) with his lover, Elwen, a Rivendell elf. But something is rotten in Esgaroth and Legolas is forced to strike an unusual bargain. A mix of adventure, romance, humor, angst, and hot sex.
Notes: This is actually both a prequel and asequel to "Ohtarnil: A Warrior Love." The first and last chapters (1 and 21) are sequels and take place shortly after the Fellowship leaves Lothlórien. However, most of the story takes place 73 years earlier when Legolas first becomes involved with my fictional character, Elwen. Feedback, as always, greatly appreciated.
Author's Notes
p align="justify"> Many, many thanks to my talented friend Dhvana who served as beta from Chapter 6 on and whose comments and moral support greatly improved the piece. Also thanks to Dalogas for being my best, most thorough, and appreciative reviewer
General note: Being a long time devotee of J.R.R. Tolkien, I try to keep the stories as much within canon as possible. The following notes concern interpretation considerations that may be of interest.
Chapter 1 - The trip to find the portage trail occurs in the chapter, The Great River in FOTR. Tolkien writes, "The day was now growing, and the fog had lifted a little. It was decided that Aragorn and Legolas should at once go forward along the shore, while the others remained by the boats." Great slashy opportunity. *g*
Chapter 2 - Smaug's curse. I remember when I first read The Hobbit at about age 13 (ahem, a number of years ago), I wondered about the statement that Tolkien makes at the end of the chapter "Fire and Water." He writes, "They [the Lakemen] removed northward higher up the shore; for ever after they had a dread of the water where the dragon lay. He would never again return to his golden bed, but was stretched cold as stone, twisted upon the floor of the shallows. . . But few dared to cross the cursed spot, and none dared to dive into the shivering water or recover the precious stones that fell from his rotting carcase." Human opportunism being what it is, I couldn't imagine the Lakemen leaving diamonds lying about, unless there was a very good reason. Hence, my interpretation.
Esgaroth Trade Network: One area where this piece goes against canon is that Tolkien says in the chapter, "Flies and Spiders" in The Hobbit, that the elves of Mirkwood "neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much with trade or with tilling the earth." This is not a realistic economic system, especially since the elves are clearly importing goods in the barrels that the dwarves escape in. Specifically mentioned is the Dorwinion wine, apples, and butter. Something must be used in exchange, so I invented an economic system summed up by Legolas in the market place.
"This, Elwen, is the one product that the Lakemen make for themselves." They passed by other vendors. "Here the commerce of the region, all comes together," the prince continued. "Over here, from the Mirkwood elves: fine woven fabrics, cured skins, wine, glassware, bows; there from the dwarves of Erebor: iron tools and fittings, armor, jewelry; this booth from the farmers in the lake region: wheat and barley, fruit, and wine-grapes; there fish from Esgaroth; smoked meats from the huntsmen that live against the borders of southeastern Mirkwood. It all comes here. And we are all dependent on the smooth operation of this trade."
So, not exactly canon, but more functional. Even in a fantastic world, someone has to do the work.
Chapter 3 - Elwen's name: Elwen translates his name into two different meanings which would depend on the spelling. According to the Sindarin dictionary: êl -means star, and hwîn is giddiness or faintness; chwinn or hwind means whirling or twirling. So, Elwen could spell his name either êl- hwîn or êl-chwinn.
Chapter 4 - The elves aid to Esgaroth: In "Fire and Water" in The Hobbit, Tolkien says that the elven host marching to claim Smaug's treasure turned aside when they saw the plight of the people of Lake-town, whose town had been destroyed by the dragon. " . . . but great store of goods he [Thranduil] sent [to Lake-town] ahead by water. . . . Their [the elves] welcome was good, as may be expected, and the men and their Master were ready to make any bargain for the future in return for the Elvenking's aid."
Chapter 9 - Legolas's age: To my knowledge, there is no canon reference to Legolas's age, other than the ambiguous passage in the Two Towers quoted below. Apparently Orlando Bloom mentions that Legolas was 2,931 years old in several interviews. (I don't have citations). I don't know who developed this concept, perhaps Peter Jackson? My guess, based on no knowledge whatsoever, is that the supposition was made that Legolas was about the same age as Elrond's sons who were born in 139 of the Third Age, and would therefore have been 2879 at the time the Fellowship was formed.
However, since no canon age exists, we are free to invent. It suited my purpose to have a younger Legolas but one who was sufficiently old enough to remark in the chapter, "The White Rider" in The Two Towers upon entering Fangorn forest, "It is old, very old," said the Elf. "So old that I almost feel young again, as I have not felt since I journeyed with you children."
So, I randomly chose 736 for this story, which would have made Leggy 809 at the time of the Fellowship, a nice number with no basis in anything. Wouldn't it be nice to be young and beautiful at 809?
Chapter 10 & 12. Re: the possibility of Legolas meeting Gimli, the dwarf: There is a canon date for Gimli in Appendix A of ROTK. He was born 2879, so at the time of this story (2946), he would have been a mere 67, young for a dwarf and, most likely, he was living with his father, Gloin at Erebor at the time. It would not, perhaps, be movie canon for Gimli to have met Legolas and formed a positive impression of him before the Council of Elrond, as happens in this story, but it certainly wouldn't go against book canon.
Balin and Gloin are depicted wearing their proper colors: red for Balin and white for Gloin.
Chapter 14 - On Elwen's playing the Celtic fiddle: Tolkien doesn't mention many musical instruments in connection with elves, mostly he just talks about their singing. I do believe he says that elves played the harp (but I'm too lazy to look up where just now). In the chapter, "The Unexpected Party," in The Hobbit, Tolkien mentions the dwarves' instruments: fiddles, flutes, a drum, clarinets, viols, and Thorin's gold harp, although how they got two huge viols and a drum to Bilbo's house, and what they did with them afterwards is never explained. LOL. So, again, a little invention on my part brought about the instruments mentioned at the Esgaroth festival. I love the notion of Elwen playing the fiddle, which he learned from men in Bree in a previous time.
I know I don't depict dancing to a jig correctly, but I needed Legolas to dance with Meril and a foursome didn't work. So, I used artistic license; it is an imaginary world after all.
Chapter 18 - Tolkien says of Smaug in "Inside Information" in The Hobbit "Dragons may not have much real use for all their wealth, but they know it to an ounce as a rule, especially after long possession; and Smaug was no exception." J.R.R. also mentions how much dragons love riddling talk, hence Smaug poses riddles to Legolas.
Chapter 19 - Distance to the Wood-elves palace from Esgaroth: In The Hobbit, Bilbo takes about 24 hours to float downstream in a barrel, with a stop-over for the night at a riverside village. It can therefore be assumed that a determined elf like Thrin could easily cover the distance in a day, even though paddling upstream.
Chapter 20 - Translation of "I love you" to gerich veleth nîn - you have my love: Under the wonderful website, www.councilofelrond.com is a section on language. I found this translation by Suilade Olwe under the Elvish 101 Forum. The reason the word is "veleth" and not "meleth" meaning "love," is because of a concept called lenition in Sindarin. Lenition is a softening, meant to make the words flow better. In this case the m transmutes to a v. So, according to this, Arwen says it incorrectly in The Two Towers. Go figure. That's probably way more than anyone wants to know about it.
Chapter 21 - Date: The next day the Fellowship passes the pillars of the Argonath and the following day, Feb. 26, is the breaking of the Fellowship. Certainly the month that followed were days of fire and reckoning.
Wow, you got this far. Congratulations - like me, you are into this stuff way too much. Now drop me a lineto tell me what you thought of the story: Namárië!
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