Chapter Text
Anglach- Legolas’ best friend and Thranduil’s foster son. Anglach worships Thranduil. He Who Can Do No Wrong.
Dameron- the King’s Cook and mortal enemy of Galion.
Úroch-see above. These two are interchangeable.
Galion- the King’s ‘butler’, old friend.
Laersul- Thranduil’s oldest son.
Thalos- Second son.
Lagorúthon- the Commander of the Stronghold Guard and Recruit Commander. Lagorúthon is a Holy Terror.
Note: Spiders don’t have lipped mouths, but they have chelicerae -- jaws with sharp edges, their mouthparts. The appendages are reminiscent of fangs. Spiders employ their chelicerae to seize and immobilize their prey targets. (according to Wiki anyway!) I am no expert.
This is just terrible fluff for Anglach fans and for the very patient reviewers of Battle Under the Trees (I promise I have not abandoned this and am working on the next chapter while I am waiting for Anar to beta Seven Stars- on its way!), and for Keekercat (who has a cameo- as a cat)
Anglach’s Spider
Chapter 1.
It was a very small spider, Anglach told himself as he hurried through the palace, and Legolas will help. He held his pocket very gently in case he crushed the small furry beast he had found on the Elf path, looking lost and alone.
It is nearly Yule, and it won’t eat much. No one will know it’s even here, he told himself. And it has no one else. He glanced up at the trees to check if some huge Spider-Mummy was glaring at him with multitude of eyes from the trees. There was not. This was just another small, orphaned creature, like Anglach and his soft heart squeezed with pity.
The spiderling gazed up at him with many, big, wide hungry eyes, and gave a small, pathetic cough.
That did it.
0o0o
A few weeks later, the cooks had decided that Keeker, the Kitchen Cat, (who was a small, fat, previously ineffective mouser,) had suddenly become their very best mouser ever for not a single mouse crept through the stores or scuttled across the palace floors. Not a single mouse dropping was found in the larder, the flour, the stores. She had transformed into an amazing mouser. Úroch, the chief cook, elevated her to a position almost of Queen. She had cream every day and the choicest tenderest bits of meat.
She is fat and lazy, said Galion as he was pounding out any softness or air from a pastry case that looked grey and greasy (he was making the King’s favourite, rabbit pie, as a special surprise for Yule.) but Úroch glared at him and said there were still no mice.
Anywhere.
Of course, there was that one day that the cat had raced into the kitchen, fur standing upright all over her so she looked twice her size and leapt for the rafters where she clung, hissing and spitting. None of the kitchen Elves could coax her down until at last her favourite, Dameron, had climbed up to tempt her with a saucer of her favourite fish in a cream sauce, and when he tried to bring her down, she yowled and dug her claws into him and hissed and spat. After she finally descended, she rarely left the kitchen unless Dameron carried her. But there were still no mice.
Anywhere.
It was a mystery how the cat did it, they said, when she never seemed to leave the kitchen. But no one questioned it deeply for there were no mice and the cat was sleek and fat and happy. She looked like she was eating the mice.
Legolas thought that Anglach was eating a lot of cake.
Or rather, he was sneaking it into his pockets, but Legolas was pretty sure that he wasn’t eating it.
And that only ever meant one thing.
Anglach had a pet. A pet he knew he shouldn’t have.
0o0
Which was why Legolas was now staring up at the spider that was the size now of a small dog, lodged in the rafters of Anglach’s room, and the spider was glaring at him balefully. Legolas’ mouth was open, and he had still not yet found the words.
‘So you see,’ Anglach was explaining helpfully, ‘I do think that if he’s fed correctly, he could be strong enough to bear the weight of a warrior and we could use him to drive out the Bad Spiders.’
Legolas’ mouth opened and shut. And opened. At last he managed to croak out, ‘How do you know it’s a he?’ Legolas looked up at the spider in confusion. Confusion because either Anglach had really, finally gone stark staring mad or Legolas himself had gone stark staring mad and was imagining or dreaming that there was a spider in Anglach’s bedroom. Not a small spider, or even a large house spider. No. This was a proper Wicked and Evil Spider from the South. Ungoliant’s Spawn. It would soon eat one or both of them. Neither option was good.
Anglach laughed. ‘Oh, I think it’s a he, but I haven’t checked. In fact, I don’t really know how to tell the difference. Do you?’ He turned to his friend trustingly. ‘But now that you know about him, you can help me. I need to talk to the King about my plan.’
‘Plan?’ Legolas knew he looked, sounded and was stupid right now. Stupid with shock. Stupid for being Anglach’s friend. Stupid for not bringing a bow and arrow and shooting the darned beast whilst it was sleepy.
He hoped it was sleepy. It hadn’t attacked him yet, or eaten him, or wrapped him up in a sticky cocoon. Or poisoned him, he added to himself.
Anglach tutted. ‘Honestly Legolas.’ He laughed indulgently. ‘You know. Your father? The King?’ he said emphatically. ‘He will be very interested to know my plan for War Spiders.’
Legolas stared at Anglach, then the spider, then Anglach.’Wa…’
‘War Spiders,’ Anglach repeated, excitedly and Legolas knew his friend had been dreaming about this, he had that daft expression on his face that meant he had been imagining himself in the role of hero. ‘Like a War Horse but far more useful in the Wood. Imagine! The King himself might ride on a War Spider into battle against the Shadow.’
Legolas stared. He knew his mouth was still open and he was trying not to imagine his father riding the spider, but he couldn’t help it; Anglach was describing it all too vividly.
‘Thranduil in his green velvet cloak… No! The red velvet. That will set off the carapace perfectly,’ Anglach said, gazing adoringly at the hairy spider. ‘The sun glinting on the King’s armour as they leap up trees and scuttle through the branches…Actually, maybe not a cloak. It might get caught up. Maybe his silvery shirt and red velvet tunic though. The armour will have to be especially light though. Look, I’ve been designing it.’ He thrust some drawings under Legolas’s nose, and he looked at them, disbelieving.
They were rather good, and Legolas saw how well the light leather armour could be made to resemble the spider’s carapace. ‘Forget about the velvet and stuff and just use the leather armour and it could be a really good camouflage,’ he murmured. He couldn’t help himself and the words were out of his mouth before he could think to stop them. ‘They could be Ambush Attack Spiders.’
Anglach crowed with delight. ‘I knew you’d see it, Legolas! You always do in the end. Look.’ He turned the drawing over and there was another sketch. This time it showed an exaggeratedly heroic and majestic Thranduil, in full King of the Wood regalia, red velvet cloak trimmed with white fur, astride a rather cheerful spider that looked so innocuous and harmless. It had a cute little red nose like the reindeer. It was almost cuddly.
Legolas sighed. This was so very Anglach. ‘You haven’t made the spider very war-like,’ he said critically. ‘If you want the King to really think about it, then you have to make it more aggressive.’
Anglach took a pencil from his desk and started to draw alarming eyebrows on the spider, which did make it look aggressive, Legolas admitted, but unrealistic as the spider did not have eyebrows. He glanced up to check and found the Spider rather closer than it had been a moment ago. It regarded him beadily.
Suddenly, it scuttled forward. ‘Cake! Cake!’ it hissed malevolently with its many hungry eyes fixed upon Legolas like he was a large, iced bun.
Legolas gasped. ‘It talked! Elbereth’s tits! It talked!’ He knew he was gibbering, but this was like a bucket of cold water had been tipped over him and brought him back to his senses. What had he been thinking?
Anglach smiled fondly at Legolas. ‘Of course he talks, Legolas.’ Then he sighed and turned to the spider, which was now hanging from the rafters almost eye level with Legolas and staring at him with unsettling interest. ‘I can’t keep stealing all the cake, Lagorúthon. Úrloch is starting to notice how much is missing and anyway, it’s not good for you.’
This time, Legolas squeaked. ‘Lagorúthon?’ He stared at Anglach astounded. ‘Lagorúthon?’ This time he said it more loudly, more horrified than astounded now. ‘You called it after the Commander?’ he said slowly, incredulously. Anglach had finally gone mad. Legolas really didn’t know which was more likely to get Anglach into the biggest trouble of his life; having a spider in the palace, or calling it after the legendary Lagorúthon, aptly named for his furious temper.
‘If Lagorúthon ever hears of this, you will NEVER be allowed to join the King’s. Troop. You will never fight the Shadow. You will have to work in the kitchens as a scullery boy all your life.’ And then, because they had just started to notice girls in THAT way, he added, ‘No maidens will ever look at you. They will say, there goes Anglach. The Spider Boy.’
‘It is a compliment,’ Anglach protested. ‘The name suits him. He even looks a bit like the Commander. Look, he’s got angry little eyes that see everything, and he can probably roar very loudly. I haven’t let him,’ Anglach added hurriedly. ‘I don’t want anyone to know until I have spoken to the King.’
‘Anglach, if you go to the King and tell him you have a spider called Lagorúthon in the Palace, it will be the Black Squirrel incident all over again but so much worse.’
Anglach’s face fell. ‘That ended well though,’ he said finally.
‘It didn’t end well,’ Legolas said firmly. ‘It just wasn’t as bad as it could have been and only because Laersul arrived in time to rescue both of us.’
Anglach hummed in a sort of agreement. Then he said wistfully, ‘Perhaps he will like Lagorúthon. Like he did the toad.’
‘No,’ Legolas said firmly. ‘This is not like the toad. The toad was just a toad. And the King knew you only put it in his pocket because you thought he needed company.’ He sighed and wondered how Thranduil had known that it had been kindly meant and was not Anglach being naughty. Thranduil never seemed to know when Legolas was being kind and not naughty. He just thought Legolas was naughty. ‘But the squirrel was a menace and a horrid little beast,’ he said, remembering the chase through the palace, the chaos the wretched thing had caused, the trouble that he, Legolas, had been in as a result. Unfairly. The shit. The actual shit it had left in Legolas’ room that had stank for months afterwards. And in his hair and clothes. ‘We will have to get it out of the Stronghold somehow. Before it gets really big.’
Anglach was looking crestfallen. ‘But he knows his name now.’ His face went a bit silly. ‘He even comes when I call him. Lagorúthon,’ he called softly and sure enough, the spider’s many eyes turned towards Anglach expectantly and it descended rapidly to the floor and scuttled to crouch at Anglach’s feet.
‘Cake? Cake?’ it hissed again and Anglach scrabbled in his pockets and dropped a chunk of much crumbled cake that had bits of lint and sawdust in it from having been in Anglach’s pocket.
Lagorúthon leapt upon it horribly and there was a clacking of its jaws and bits of cake flew everywhere. It made a wet slurping sound and Legolas grimaced, trying not to imagine how it might eat something a bit meatier, a bit warmer. A bit bloody.
‘The next time the King wants to know how the recruit training is going and bellows for Lagorúthon, he’ll get one Troop Commander, furious for being interrupted and questioned even if it is the King,’ Legolas said with heavy sarcasm, ‘AND a big hairy spider. With lots of eyes. And legs. Looking for cake.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Honestly Anglach. Galadhon is right. You really have lost whatever sense you were born with.’
‘He said that about both of us,’ Anglach said defensively to which Legolas did not reply because it had been true. They watched the spider for a moment. The cake had gone but there were a few crumbs on its …Legolas tried to decide what it was, not exactly a nose, or a muzzle, he thought. Or perhaps that was its lips. He didn’t think spiders had any of those things. But Anglach crouched down and gently wiped the crumbs from the spider’s whatever it was.
‘I told you, Lagorúthon,’ he said solicitously. ‘You need to eat meat, not so much cake. It will make you big and strong so you can be a War Spider and we can ride to battle together. What about coming out after everyone is asleep and hunting those nice fat mice again? You know you like them.’
Lagorúthon, the Spider that is, scuttled back up to the rafters with horrible speed and looked down at them with its many, many eyes. ‘Yuk! Mice skinny.’ It almost spat in disgust and Legolas, who liked mice, was upset.
‘Have you been feeding mice to it?’ he accused Anglach, for usually the two of them made a point of catching any mice and ‘releasing them into the wild,’ as they described the back garden. The mice simply came back inside for up until now, Keeker had been too fat and lazy to catch them anyway and the living in the Elvenking’s palace was easy and good for mice. Spiders too, it seemed.
‘Of course not,’ Anglach looked sheepish, but the spider had grown animated.
‘Nice fat pussycat?’ Lagorúthon suggested.
Legolas was even more appalled. ‘You can’t let it have Keeker!’ he protested.
‘Of course not,’ Anglach retorted. ‘I would never hurt Keeker.’ Anglach sighed and turned to Lagorúthon mildly. ‘You mustn’t eat any pussycats. Or hounds. What about we hunt some rabbits and bring them back?’
‘Freshssshhhh, freshhhh!’ hissed Lagorúthon. It scuttled down towards Legolas, who backed up quickly, but not quickly enough and Lagorúthon poked out a hairy black leg and prodded Legolas in the belly speculatively. ‘Nice fat elf.’ It clacked its chelicerae together appreciatively.
Anglach laughed indulgently. ‘Oh Lagorúthon, that is so naughty. You can’t eat Legolas. He wouldn’t taste nice at all.’ He made a face. ‘He will be all stringy and mud-flavour. Like goblin.’
‘What do you mean I won’t taste nice?’ Legolas protested and then he realised what he was about to say and closed his mouth firmly. He looked at his friend. ‘Anglach, I am sorry. You know it will not end well.’
Anglach’s face fell, and he looked so disappointed that Legolas almost stopped. But he had his own future to consider as well. ‘There is no question about this one, Anglach. It’s not like the Toad. Or even the Black Squirrel with all the stinky shit,’ he added bitterly, again for he really had hated the squirrel. ‘This one is more like…the bat. Or the…You Know What,’ he hissed, eyes darting about for they never talked about that.
But it was the memory of the Y.K.W as the two friends called it that finally penetrated Anglach’s brain and he looked miserably at Legolas.
‘He has to go,’ Legolas continued more gently. ‘If he was caught here, you know what the warriors would do to him.’ Legolas forced Anglach to look at him. ‘You do know.’
‘Hush. Don’t say it, you’ll frighten him,’ Anglach pleaded with Legolas and then made soft, soothing noises to the black and hairy spider that was still edging towards Legolas and a long proboscis shot out of its maw and it licked its chelicerae hungrily. ‘Ah,’ he cooed. ‘Look at his little face. He is just a bit peckish.’
The hairy face was certainly hungry, Legolas thought. Its many, beady eyes were fixed upon Legolas ravenously. ‘We have to get it out of the Stronghold. Seriously, Anglach. No one is going to agree with you about a War Spider.’
Anglach pressed a hand over Legolas’ mouth. ‘Don’t,’ he said softly, looking into Legolas’ eyes and shaking his head slowly. He closed his own eyes briefly and then, when he opened them again, he said earnestly, ‘Don’t tread on his dreams, Legolas.’
‘All right,’ Legolas agreed, as he always did and knowing that it would be him who got into any trouble, as he always did. He sighed in resignation. ‘I won’t tell anyone. And I will help you. You know, he needs to be with his own kind. He needs…spider-friends. Imagine if you were found by spiders and kept like a pet.’
‘Well that would never happen, Legolas,’ Anglach said, suddenly sensible. ‘They would eat me.’
‘Yes. They would. But just imagine if Lagorúthon found you and kept you as a pet,’ Legolas said, barely believing he was even calling it by its name now. ‘And you never knew any Elves, and you never met me,’ he said, thinking how devastating it would be if he and Anglach never became friends. ‘Imagine if you never knew what it was to eat raspberries, or Dameron’s iced-cream.’ He watched Anglach’s face become a bit soppy. ‘How hard it will be for the only spider in the Stronghold. And how lonely he will be.’
Anglach’s mouth wobbled a bit and Legolas knew he had won. But his tender and kindly heart winced at the hurt to his friend. Which is how Legolas ended up helping Anglach.
Again.
And getting into huge trouble.
Again.
0o0o