Post by Admin on Jan 2, 2021 2:24:43 GMT
Author: Mirrordance
Ranking: 1st place
Summary: Word of Ithilien’s splendor is taking Middle-Earth by storm. Everyone is eager to visit, except for two kings who know its beauty may be coming from the worsening torment of its chief elven architect, Legolas.
Rating: T
Characters: Thranduil, Aragorn, Legolas
Warning: None
He travels practically in rags, with a gaggle of similarly-dressed men. His scout and mine had run into each other a few hours back, and returned to inform their respective masters of our parties’ coincident arrivals. I knew to expect him on this road, just as he knew to expect me.
And here we both are.
Elessar is dressed down in a ranger’s travel-worn cloak, and does not come with the standards of his freshly-reclaimed Kingdom. His head hangs low, and he is trying to be discreet except life had never meant for him to walk the world thus.
I know right away who among these cloaked travelers is the King. By presence or real physicality he is larger than all of them, his bearing strong and sure. The men around him give him a wide berth, and he walks the world as if he owns it; a fair truth I once might have begrudged but have long known how to live with. Our time is past, and our kin are called elsewhere. It is, after all, why we are both now on this road...
He recognizes me right away too, though I am outfitted in my own simpler wares and also traveling sans the standards of my House. I suppose we share the same (apparently) lofty ambition of trying to ride here in anonymity.
Elessar lowers his cloak to reveal his face, and bows at me first. It is gracious of him to do so, even if I am in his fiefdom now. I lower my own cover, and return his bow deeper, in recognition of his generosity.
We ride side by side, with scouts ahead and our respective protective details several paces behind us.
“I do not wish to intrude upon your reunion with your son,” he assures me. “I swear to you my business with him will be quick, and I shall be away immediately afterwards to leave you with yours.”
I wave the concern away casually. “The High King of Gondor and Arnor should stay as long as he wills in his own lands.”
“I do not come here as such,” he says, “and so the Elvenking must take precedence.”
“I do not come here as such either,” I murmur, but he already knew that. “I am here as a father.”
We ride silently for a long moment, until I find myself telling him, “Do not hurry away, Estel. I do not know if it is I he needs, or someone else.”
The adan presses his lips together grimly, but nods. He understands my meaning, because this is not the first time, nor will it be the last... We are, after all, both here for the same reason and we both know it.
My drifting son needs an anchor. We just do not know how to toss him one and who will be the one to do it.
As word of Ithilien’s incessantly-growing, breathtaking beauty spreads across our lands, only those who know Legolas best understand what it might mean. Where others see splendor, we are the ones who suspect torment.
This land is my son’s gold gilded prison, and he is a caged bird in song. Unless I – we, now I suppose – are wrong, this is Legolas’ aria, a singular opus of tortured, masterful work.
# # #
I expected a feast for the eyes. I did not expect unrelenting beauty.
Legolas’ affinity for greenery was apparent the moment we entered the bounds of Ithilien; many of the trees were young here, the ground still recovering from the ravages of the war. They stirred and shook in welcome, and the brushing of the branches and leaves were like music, in concert with seasonal fauna and the strong rushing of a nearby, powerful stream.
One of the paths were lined by shrubs and bushes in a gradient, with pale yellow plants at the entrance gently deepening to emerald as one traversed deeper within it. We passed high grasses that brushed against the sides of our horses, who lingered and were reluctant to leave. I reached for the plants and realized why; they felt like thick, rich velvet in my hands. There were flowers here that I’ve never seen before; my son and his settlers can make grow here things that cannot grow elsewhere. The air was sweet and citrusy with the smell of blooms and fruit.
It was forest you could see, smell, hear, feel and taste.
We felt eyes on us the moment we entered the territory, but we traveled undisturbed until Legolas himself met us on the path headed to where he and his modest colony built their new home. He appeared as if from nowhere, so much a part of this forest was he.
Suddenly he is on his horse in front of me. He is unescorted and surprisingly unarmed, comfortably clad in a rugged tunic. His hair is loose and unbraided. He is smiling.
“Two Kings enter the wood,” he teases. His eyes are deep-set and dark-rimmed but alight. “One an elf, the other an adan. It sounds like the beginnings of a very good joke.”
“I wouldn’t leave it to your paltry sense of humor to fill in the rest,” Elessar teases back. “Gimli, perhaps, can be relied upon for something serviceable.”
“The one talent I might concede to the dwarf,” Legolas replies good-naturedly.
Elessar barks out a laugh, and manipulates his horse such that it comes up to Legolas’ beast so closely that their sides brush. By some marvel of balance and willpower, Elessar leans sideward and reaches for my son, to lock him in a hard embrace.
Legolas laughingly takes it, and he pats at the human King’s back affectionately. When he pulls away from Elessar, he looks at each of us with such love and marvel that my heart aches. He sighs.
“I am either the most extraordinary being in all the land that you should both be here, or I am in the worst kind of trouble.”
“May I remind you, ion-nin,” I say, “These are not mutually exclusive.”
“Even my fearsome father is funnier than me!” he teases. “Come, my lords. The roads are safe and beautiful but nonetheless long and tiring. Let us see you settled!”
# # #
I settle in the suite of rooms assigned to me. It is grand in my eye, a well-considered space with careful and very deliberate design. My son always could have had anything gold could buy, and though he is loathe to admit it, an aristocratic taste to go with his princely stature. He likes thinking he is one with his people but really, he fools no one. The rooms I settle in have that creative conceit of his in every corner, this refined craftsmanship that is unabashed and at points even aggressive. But the room has surprisingly delightful, little details too.
Ithilien was war-ravaged, and its surrounding environs were as well. There are traces of that here, in pieces of cracked rock and broken ceramic that the colony’s rebuilders had used and repurposed as the occasional decorative accent. Legolas and his merry little crew had apparently mended them with seams of gold, such that the breaks form shining jagged glints that boast of survival, rather than carrying the shame of damage.
I have time to ponder the various elements of my chambers because my delinquent brigand of a son is taking his sweet time before seeing to me. My valet has already arranged my things. I’ve bathed and dressed for a formal dinner. Still I wait. I try to appreciate the beauty around me and I try to be patient, but I also begin to stew in jealous thoughts. I wonder if, perhaps he has seen to the needs of his essential human Strider, before coming to see his own father.
He finally comes to my door; I am near chomping at the bit and a hair away from spoiling for a fight. That is, until he enters and I realize the likely cause of his delay.
He walks to me with his head hanging low, and he is tugging uneasily on his clothes and fixing his hair. He has freshened up too, and is very concerned about how he looks. I think he is aware he appears unwell.
“How do you like your accommodations, father?” he asks. I smell miruvor on him when he speaks, it is so sweet and distinct. That he finds need of the precious, restorative cordial to face me is worrying.
“They are unparalleled,” I tell him generously. It is also the truth.
He smiles, but it rapidly disintegrates into a pained wince.
“You’ve seen the repairs with gold?” he asks. “I saw these in my travels and learned the technique from a craftsman of the far, far east. But I cannot quite capture the deep but subtle, organic character of it. We’ve reworked these several times but I wonder why on this occasion it can seem gaudy.
“In the east,” he shares, “they look at breakage as part of an object’s character and history, nothing that need be hidden. I liked that sentiment but cannot seem to replicate it here. It looks like it is only playing at recovery and learning.”
He uses the tips of his long, graceful fingers to flick at one such golden detail with a kind of casual dispassion, but then he takes back the slight by patting at it apologetically before letting go completely. When he lowers his hands, they curl and uncurl in restless fists at his sides. They are such small gestures, and he is quick to mask them. But it bothers me, all this uncharacteristic uncertainty. He’d always been one to plunge headlong into things. He always came out on top, however, so I often wondered if he was indeed reckless, or he just thinks and acts faster than everyone else. Either way, he was almost never uncertain of his objectives, of his abilities, of himself, of the things he likes and loves. That he should be so pained over a piece of decoration is unnerving to me.
“It’s perfect,” I assure him, “Maybe too much so.”
“There is no such thing,” he tells me merrily, with a dazzling smile. I’ve missed it, and I’ve missed him attempting to escape my scrutiny with it.
“These are quite lavish, for guest quarters,” I comment of the suites appointed to me.
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh but ada, these are my rooms. They are the best, and so I yielded them to you.”
It is my turn to be surprised. I arrived unannounced, and so I doubt he had very much time to clear out his things in preparation for my occupancy. So how come these suites of his appear so immaculate? There is no lived-in spirit to them, no worn-in character. There are traces of my son’s taste, but none of his life. No one lives here, I am sure of it.
“Where did you settle Elessar?” I ask instead.
He smiles. “This room has a uh, shall we say, a twin. Equal in status and grandeur. Both are fitting for two kings, though that is only by incident rather than design. If you must know, it was meant for the elf-lord of Ithilien’s wife.”
He surprises me again. “You intend to pledge yourself to someone...?”
“My architects held hope I would find an elleth with whom to share my life,” he explains with a soft chuckle. “I did not have the heart to disappoint them that my priorities are elsewhere. ‘Someone is sure to come along soon, hir-nin,’ they all proclaimed, with much certainty. ‘You have so much to offer,’ someone or other added. It is still mostly Gimli who stays in them whenever he visits, however.”
“Your dwarf wife,” I say wryly.
He appreciates the joke, and his eyes glint in mischief “Some have wondered about that, certainly.”
“It reaches your father’s ears,” I say blandly.
“What of it?” he asks, daring me. “If indeed I’ve decided to spend my heart thus?” I’ve missed his irreverent humor.
“Life is long with many paths,” I answer.
He laughs aloud and shakes his head at me in endearment. “The Elvenking. Archaic, insular, dangerous – surprisingly progressive?”
“Love amongst males is hardly new.”
“Ah, but he is a dwarf.”
“A handicap I am sure,” I concede with sham gravity. “But your preferences in romance is the least of my problems at the moment, believe it or not.”
I immediately regret it when his eyes take on a steely quality. I’ve walked into a trap, lured in by his levity.
“What, pray tell, might your larger concern be?”
“I’ve heard such tales of the home you’ve built for yourself and your people,” I answer, and this is one of many truths. I keep the others to myself, for now. I do not for example ask him, Do you suffer? Should I come bear you away...?
“It is lovely, ion-nin,” I go on, “I wanted to see it firsthand, and determine by my own eyes how you are faring here, so close as it comes to the breezes of the sea."
His eyes narrow at me in thought and estimation. My answer does not satisfy him, but it is perhaps too early in my visit for the host to interrogate me, and Legolas can be so proper sometimes. So he pushes his inquest no further and asks instead, simply – “Pray tell me this one thing, adar. You and Aragorn here at the same time... am I being ambushed?”
I shake my head at him. “No. It wasn’t by design.”
He nods and accepts this for only a moment. “If it were an ambush, and you mean to disrupt my life in ways I do not yet understand – would you tell me?”
“Of course not.”
He sighs. “Well that wouldn’t be wise, would it?” He gives me a weary smile. “I am here to fetch you for dinner, but I must apprise you of something first.”
I open my hands up for him to elaborate.
“I have given the elf Tauriel sanctuary here,” Legolas confesses. “I know your former captain continues to be exiled from your Halls and will long be in disfavor, but I needed her skills and she needed a home. I have not the heart to turn her away even to please you, but I did advise her to stay scarce while you are here. She will be no bother to you, aran-nin, I swear it. But as I wish for you to feel free to roam these lands wherever and whenever you will, I thought it best to warn you in case you run into each other.”
It was almost at the tip of my tongue to say, I know she is here. Who do you think has written me to come, for you have been unwell?
Indeed, I needed someone within Ithilien to inform me of my son’s wellbeing; his letters home could be sporadic and worse, uninformative. Sometimes even misleading. But an informant in my son’s sphere – dare I say spy? - was difficult to find because Legolas gathered loyal friends and brothers everywhere he went. He’d returned from the Black Gates with a devoted dwarf of all things, for crying out loud. But Tauriel... I have seen firsthand her willingness to defy her king out of a keen, irresistible sense of right and wrong. She kept her own counsel and had the courage to stick to her convictions.
When she defied me, it was to my disadvantage and I had no choice but to send her away. Now I can leverage on her righteousness. I do not need her to be loyal to me or to Legolas, I only need her to have compassion to be on my side. And this, she has in abundance.
She was wary but responsive to my initial engagement of her ‘services,’ but eventually, the letters she’s been writing to me became generous with details any father would hunger for. They spoke of Legolas’ work and his achievements, of how the men of Ithilien and the elves who had come with him admired him, and of how elves from neighboring kingdoms have come to join in his endeavors. She spoke of how the colony grew in energy and diversity, and of how its beauty was unparalleled because it was a collection of the best of the world, and because of its tireless Elf-lord.
Thoughts of my “spy,” Tauriel, make me wonder if Elessar has his own eyes and ears in Legolas’ company, someone just as equal to the task of balancing loyalty to Legolas and respect for his privacy, with care and worry for his health. He had emerged from the War physically intact, but the sea-longing has scarred his mind and his heart. When all the battles ended, we’ve all had to lead our own lives and he had been left to find his own way forward. I worry about him in this context as all those who love him do, for none of us could be with him all the time and neither would he tolerate a coddling. I’ve no doubt Elessar would be of the same mind, and has an agent here like I do for the same reasons. It is just a question of who...
The dwarf is the likeliest candidate, though he is busy with his own territories of late and perhaps too loyal to his elf (as I’ve heard he’d been claiming) to tell on him. Elessar’s Prince, that Steward’s son Faramir, is in both close proximity and in his and Legolas’ close confidence, and I wonder for a moment if he would be willing to inform on Legolas for Elessar until I remember his wife. Ah, Eowyn of Rohan. She would be more equal to the task, I imagine. And no stranger to successfully defying kings and lords and men in pursuit of what is right, too.
“Ada?” Legolas prods. “I will not change my mind to accommodate you, I speak of this only so that you are prepared.”
“I do not expect you to,” I say. “Well I hope she has been useful.” She certainly has been, to me.
“Thank you, adar.” He places a palm to his heart and sighs in relief. “At any rate, as I said - I am here to fetch you for dinner, if you are ready.”
“I’ve been ready,” I say, “Lead on, elf-lord.”
# # #
Dinner is set on a long, slim, irregularly-edged table that seems simple at the onset, until I realize it is a single piece of petrified wood, a massive tree trunk cut in half lengthwise. It had become more gem than plant, with streaks of bold colors and sections of deep spotted black that looked like a heaven specked with stars. It was hand-polished to a smooth, shiny surface that I could not help but run my hands over. I imagined the incarnations of its life; it was a tree once, mighty and thick and old. Over the years the Earth reclaimed it, and by water and soil and salt and time, it became the treasure that now stands before me. Legolas has given it a third life in the small but grand keep he has built for himself and our – his now, I suppose - people.
Its only flaw is that it is too grand and long, and there is only three of us for dinner. On one end, a setting was placed for Elessar. On the other is a setting for me and in the very middle is one for Legolas. We all settle at our designated places, but I can see my irreverent son is already finding it hilarious. His shoulders are quaking.
I meet Elessar’s gaze from the vast ocean of my son’s table, and we come to a silent agreement. Almost instantaneously, we each pick up a wine glass and stride to the middle, where Legolas awaits us, grinning. His servants scramble to bring our plates and cutlery. I settle in on a seat across from my son’s, while Elessar takes the one beside him.
It is a good meal shared amongst friends.
Legolas knows how to navigate the distance between Elessar and I, merrily explaining away this quip or that to the adan or myself, whoever needed clarification. It helps that our glasses are never empty; Elessar was like other men in that he had a disdain for half-filled or empty wine glasses. He kept reaching for a decanter here or a carafe there, serving all of us joyously.
Legolas’ sommelier had prepared several wines, and the one I take a shine to is a fine Ithilien grape long unavailable due to war, and made refreshing by an infusion of native, seasonal fruits. It is a reminder that Ithilien is truly a rich land of natural bounty, once cultivated and brought back to life. We cheer Legolas’ efforts and achievements more than once.
Whether by drink or exhaustion or some other malady, however, I notice my son drifting off in ever lengthening spaces. It started by increasing spells of quiet, as he stepped back from participating in conversation and simply listened to his friend and father talk. Then came a delay in responsiveness, even when he was prompted to engage. Soon he was nodding off.
It alarms me, until I catch Elessar’s pointed look. I realize that he’s been filling Legolas’ glass with a different decanter from what he’s been using to fill mine and his own.
The audacity of it all irks me, but I have the patience to wait and see what he intends to do. For now, I let myself become his conspirator. It is not hard, because Legolas listens to us sleepily, with an easy smile on his face. Our idle chatter relaxes him, and I abhor the thought of taking that away when he has been looking so weary. Elessar and I continue our conversation, but both keep an eye on him.
Legolas leans forward and perches his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his palm. His eyes lose focus in sleep. He startles awake and straightens, pretending to be awake and alert, only to fall asleep that way again and again. A few more tries and he finally succumbs – deeply, at that. His eyes slip closed. It worries me, but he breathes easily, and still has a small smile on his face. He is drugged and I think, perhaps only tired.
Only, I think spitefully. I’ve belittled it, but by the dark rings about his eyes, the miruvor he’s apparently been consuming, the nervous energy that has him on edge and in knots, and by the food untouched on his plate – there is nothing insignificant about this exhaustion.
“So you’ve been busy,” I say to Elessar, reaching for Legolas’ abandoned glass and smelling it. There is a sleeping draught lacing the drink indeed, in quantities minimal enough for a weary elf to miss. It could have been negligible in effect too, but glass after glass a long-exhausted Legolas had it, and so now the results are upon us.
I partake of some of the drug-spiked wine, which makes Elessar’s eyes widen in surprise. I care not, I feel at the edge of a perplexing anger, and I find the need to curb it or, in failing to do so, at least curb my tongue. One must buffer up these edges. I wave a dismissal at the elves attending us. They scurry away accordingly.
“If one weren’t careful,” I tell the human King, “one might be accused of removing another’s agency and forcing upon him something he does not desire. It could even be looked upon as an assault against a citizen of mine.”
Not to mention my son.
Elessar attempts to make light of things. “We are on my land as you’ve said.”
“You did not come here as King,” I remind him too, “as you’ve said.”
He knows now to take me more seriously. “That remains true. A just king would not impose this on him. A friend would.”
I reach now for my own glass. One needs to be on one’s toes with this audacious adan. But he has a point; where an interfering parent may be considered invasive and ultimately unsuccessful and a King may overstep his bounds and tread on someone else’s freedoms... a well-meaning friend may be both forgiven and effective. If I’d drugged my son into a stupor for example, I almost certainly would have faced indignation and rebellion.
I watch as Elessar sidles up to be close to my son, nudging him just so. It is, I quickly realize, a familiar move, for even in Legolas’ drugged exhaustion he responds to the other’s nearness. With an unintelligible murmur, Legolas shifts sideways until his weight is partially borne by the man sitting beside him.
In my mind’s eye, I see the two of them in travel-worn clothes, beneath the eaves of wild trees and starry skies. The resplendent confines of Legolas’ Ithilien melts away and the world is wider, more dangerous, far removed from this one. It held such blinding promise but also pitch black death. They stood at that precipice in between, hurting and tired. But they were alive, they were together, and they had hope.
“You’ve done this to him before,” I say.
“And he has done it for me,” Elessar says.
That makes a big difference, indeed. My anger vanishes.
“What pray tell,” I ask, “is the precursor of this?”
“I received word he’d been hurt in an accident a few weeks past,” Elessar explains, “As you know, he’d taken pains to preserve and build around the old ruins of his new land. He was doing some greening and rehabilitation of a decaying fortification when it collapsed.”
Tauriel’s most recent letter had said as much, which is what drove me here. The information therefore is not new, and my son sits in front of me alive and reasonably well, besides. Except, details like this still make my stomach feel hollow. I take another sip of wine.
“Luckily, the worst of the hurts were fairly minor,” Elessar continues, “Legolas himself would have ordinarily shrugged off such injuries after a few days’ rest. Mild concussion, bruised lungs, cracked ribs, cuts and contusions. He’s survived far worse.”
I drink again, only to find my glass empty. Elessar fills it almost absently as he continues to speak.
“But his recovery has not progressed well,” he says. “He tired of the healers seeing to him which is no surprise, so he is trying to deal with it on his own. But how can he hope to heal when he barely sleeps and barely eats?” He motions dispassionately for Legolas’ full plate. “This cannot go on. He neglects his health and occupies his mind and his hands by working, but I do not know if rebuilding this place is consuming him, or saving him.”
“From the call of the sea,” I finish.
“Yes.” Elessar nodded gravely. “His casual approach to health and well-being can no longer be acceptable now that he suffers sea-longing. I think this is why he is recovering so poorly from these injuries. When I held him he was overwarm, trembling skin and bones.”
I wish I had held him too, if only that these are also things I should have known, but that has never been our way. What Elessar had said – trembling skin and bones – made me think of a green leaf barely clinging to its place, shaken by the breeze before the coming Fall. Sometimes I wonder if I should have named my son for something more rooted and sturdy, rather than something that can be whipped away by a capricious wind.
I brush my fingers against the stem of my glass, and watch the rich red wine swirl with the smallest of my movements.
“The cry of the gulls and the call of the sea strikes everyone differently,” I tell the human king. “They may even strike one differently at different times. It is really just about when you receive your own destined call. The sea... it is such a live thing, isn’t it? It is never the same twice, so why should its call be the same for everyone? But all of our kin will be called each in his own time to differing degrees, because we all have a place in the water and the promises beyond it. Everything connects in the water. We are interwoven. It pulses with energy and song. We are infinitesimal in the sea, but small and precious like pearls and diamonds, rather than insignificant. It is belonging, it is homecoming.
“I can imagine why he does not sleep,” I continue with a wince. “Why must one walk in elven dreams when they’ve all become bland and pale compared to a new home promised and glimpsed? The life he walks here is the dream, and the havens is the grand, distant reality. I know why he does not eat – I imagine he forgets, because he is anyway always hungry. One hunger is the same as the other. Do you understand, the existence he continues to eke here, Elessar?”
The human king presses his lips together and glances at our subject, who is still very much asleep and leaning against him. “I cannot understand, I am in no place to understand. But I do know him, and I know he is hurting. It’s why I am here.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve come to relieve him of a burden. I am here to release him from word he’d given to me, that he wouldn’t sail for as long as I’m alive.”
I shake my head at him in dismay. “You can try. But you know as well as I that he will go on and just do whatever he likes.”
They really are like brothers now, because Elessar chuckles rather than despairs of that. “But at least he knows it as an option he can exercise at any time.”
“He doesn’t fear pain or hardship,” I say with a grimace. “He fears... loss. Everything short of that he can suffer. At any rate you must not attribute his ailments only to the call of the sea. Consider also – he is a warrior, suddenly with nothing to do. No danger to warm and stir his blood, no excitement, no-“
“Purpose,” Eleesar finished thoughtfully. “I have seen it in some of my men. The restlessness, the inability to believe and trust in safety. Eyes always wide to danger, even when it is no longer there. Hands hungry for work. Some soldiers do not find peace in... peace.”
“And killing - the thing he is unequivocally the best at,” I go on, “is suddenly with less relevance.”
“You were a soldier too,” Elessar points out. “How do you do it?”
“I cannot pretend to be better than my son in bearing this,” I say. “Long have I shifted to tasks of a more, shall we say, administrative nature. Ion-nin on the other hand, has been a soldier for thousands of years at a time of particular hardship. He was born into it. He’d never known any other life.”
“I’ve seen men driven mad with these preoccupations,” Elessar shares. “They leave their families and friends, and they go to the forests as wild men seeing danger in every sound and shadow, still fighting a war long ended. This cannot be his fate.”
“You know him,” I point out. “What do you think?”
Elessar shook his head. “I know only what I hope. But I also know there are real limits to what a body and a mind can withstand. He is testing all of them.”
“As he does,” I murmur.
“So what did you come here to accomplish?” he asks me. “I’ve informed you of my business.”
I watch my son for a long, quiet moment. He is going into deeper sleep, which will, ironically, loosen his limbs and have his head falling and his limbs flailing, which can very well wake him up.
“I just wanted to see how he was faring,” I reply. It is the simplest of reasons, but also the most complex. Because once accomplished, what should be done about that which has been seen? I see my son in, in fading... am I thus to drag him perforce away from here, or let him continue on the way that he has? I have, after all, seen my son in abject misery before many times. This isn’t even the first time his pains are because of Elessar. They’ve bled for each other before, the gods know how many times now. But this is not the same -
Legolas jerks and almost wakes. Rather drunkenly, he reaches for his wine glass, pretending as if he’d been aware all this time. But Elessar murmurs at him reassuringly and he goes back to sleep.
“And what do you see, of how he fares?” the human King asks.
It terrifies me...
“He is unwell,” I say, uselessly.
After a while, Elessar and I lift Legolas between us and bear him to my rooms; we realized we had no idea where he had situated himself after the arrival of two kings deposed him from his own chambers. We pass by many of my son’s people, but none dare stop us or ask any questions or even offer any help. Between Elessar’s and my own forbidding expressions, none dared come close. I imagine they could have let the two of us together get away with anything short of murder – and maybe even that.
Along our long walk, Legolas stirs awake once. He has one arm over Elessar’s shoulders and another over mine. His legs are leaden, but suddenly stiffen as he tries to carry his own weight. They fold back to no avail, but he does lift his sagging head a little and looks first at me, and then the human on his other side.
“Oh you fools,” he murmurs with a soft laugh, before his eyes slide close in sleep again.
# # #
Legolas sleeps for two days.
The first night he was caught in a drugged stupor, exactly by Elessar’s design. The next night, he’d just given in to his body’s natural demands. He drank in sleep as if parched, long deprived. Once he’d had a taste, he took it hungrily, as if he couldn’t have enough. He couldn’t eat thus, but by some gods-given talent, Elessar managed to coax some broth into him for sustenance. He needed the rest more at that point and sure enough, he seemed to heal before my very eyes. A warm radiance returned to his skin.
By some wordless concert, Elessar and I took turns sitting with Legolas. There was always a light on, and warm pots and cups of tea, the aromatic scent of athelas, the rustling of papers from two kingdoms, and the quiet entrance and exit of his and my aides. We came here as father and friend, but the business of our homes do not cease even when we set aside our crowns.
I was working on a desk in the anteroom to my – or Legolas’, now – sleeping chambers, when I heard him begin to stir awake on Elessar’s turn at watch.
I rise from my seat and make my way toward them, but stop at the door. Legolas is turned away from me and looking at Elessar. He does not seem to sense I am here. The human, if he does, has other fish to fry. His face is taut, and he is getting ready to say his piece. It keeps me from entering. But it certainly does not keep me from listening and watching. I’ve yielded many rights as a father, but I will not yield this. I want to know how this conversation goes and what impact it will have on my child’s future. I need to know.
“How long...?” Legolas murmurs. His voice is thin and rough, just woken.
We are at the height of dusk but there is warm, ample light in the room. There is but a small light from a candle, but the blanket of stars from the windows are proving generous with glow. I see the two of them again in my mind’s eye - they are younger and more uncertain, and the world is so large around them.
“Two days,” Elessar replies tightly.
“A drugging record, even for you,” Legolas teases.
It does not yield the levity it was intended to court.
“Most of it was you, mellon-nin,” Elessar says. “Your body needed rest, badly. This cannot go on, Legolas. Not the way that it has. I think... I think the call of the sea is beginning to get the better of you.”
Legolas sighs. “I know what you will say next. I should leave, for you refuse to be the cause of my suffering.”
“No, mellon,” says the other gently, “I refuse your suffering, and that is all. Responsibility for pain and death, I can always bear. I have borne it. I still bear it. We never could have accomplished all that we’ve done, if many were not willing to stand with us at the cost of their lives. It was a cost I had to be willing to pay for the prize at the end. I was willing to pay it with your life at many points, just as I was willing to pay it with mine. But to see you suffer thus...” he took a deep breath. “There is no prize, Legolas, is there? No prize at the end. Only pain, and when everyone around you is... is gone, only more of it. Why prolong? This is almost, almost like a slow death.”
Legolas sighs again. I wonder if it is the weight of the conversation or the limitations of his healing body. Perhaps both.
“Would you have me heed the call and sail?”
“I would have you wherever your body finds healing and your heart finds ease,” Elssar replies. “I release you from word you’ve given me to stay upon these shores until my death. You are called to sail and you are struggling here, mellon-nin. It shouldn’t be so. All I desire is your peace.”
“For me there will be no more peace,” my son says quietly, and it takes my breath away. I ache for him deeply, to the core of me.
“Not here,” he continues, “not in the trees. And in the end, when I am alone bearing all my losses, not even over sea. When you are... when Gimli... when all of our friends...”
He does not, cannot, say ‘gone.’
He clears his throat. “That will take my heart, I think,” he says instead. “But to leave now, when there are still years to share, it would be as if I cut it out myself. I refuse to do that.”
After a long moment, Elessar says, “I am sorry, Legolas.”
Ion-nin finds the heart to laugh quietly.
“That conceit of yours,” he teases the other gently. “One must admire your sense of accountability, Estel, but there is arrogance in it too, isn’t there? The thought that everything is your fault, is always underlined by the belief you have the power to change or affect things. Have you come here, for instance, under the belief that you can fix me?”
I hear the smile on his voice, but Elessar, like me, have lost all desire to treat this situation as something we can cover with an easy laugh or a clever barb. There will be no more escaping, not for Legolas and not for those who love him.
“Why shouldn’t I be sorry for what has befallen you?”
“Because what has befallen me is love,” Legolas answers. “And that, not even the gods can take away. I will lose those I love, but not my love. It is mine and I hold it close to me. It is all I will have at the end. I will not sail until you are gone, Estel. I will feed and fatten my love first, with experience and memory. I will sate it, let it gorge until I have a wellspring of reminders to last all my life. And I will live.”
He says it so fervently, and no one, not the king of anywhere, would have been able to resist believing him.
“I will live,” he says again, softer. “I am torn between here and there and it isn’t easy, but I do not wish for relief from all of this, Estel. I cannot. It is too entwined with my happiness. I will stay until the end. You are stuck with me.”
“This cannot be the right course of action,” Elessar reasons, “if you are so unwell.”
“I think it is unfair that you should expect me to adjust so quickly,” Legolas points out, “when I’ve never known the sea before. I confess, it was tortuous at the start to deny its call, and the thought has crossed my mind to leave. But I am beginning to understand it, you see, and I have recently come to believe this... incompleteness is something I can bear. I am learning how to live with it until I sail. The recent injury has been a setback, I admit, but I am learning.” At Elessar’s skeptical frown he insists, “I am.”
Elessar gives him a long, measuring look. His brows are furrowed in thought and consideration.
“But didn’t you always brag about how you were a quick learner?”
Legolas barks out a surprised laugh, and it is like the small spark that starts a bright, hot, burning flame. It warms the room. It breaks the tight tension that was cackling around it.
“My tutors said I was prodigious. Just ask ada.”
Mention of me reminds Elessar of my presence. He sends the barest of glances in my direction, not as a greeting to me, but as a loyal friend’s warning to my son that they were not alone, that he was being watched, that he should put up whatever masks he meant to bewitch his own father with. I roll my eyes in consternation at the thought that I was being ganged upon. I am especially displeased when Legolas makes an immediate effort to straighten and sit. He looks at me earnestly, and I see in his eyes that he is wondering how much I’ve heard, and he is weighing how much of it I should have. Elessar is considering me with the same look.
They share the same expression, these two. As different as can be and yet, quite... brotherly. When I sent Legolas to the Dunedain in search of precisely this man and the renewed energy and purpose his quest entailed, I was only hoping to relieve my son of heartache. I did not know he would find another attachment, and a fleeting, mortal one at that. When I first saw them together, they shared an easy camaraderie, loud with laughter, generous with touch. I found it almost... common, for lack of a better term. I’ve never seen my son behave so familiarly. But I’ve often despaired of never giving Legolas brothers, and now I am relieved he’s gone and made one all on his own.
“You’re looking better,” I say, and I watch with pleasure as his lips curve into a wide smile.
“I don’t know why you’d think otherwise,” he says wryly, and his hands motion for me to come closer in an almost minute gesture. The movement is soft and shy, a small wave of the wrist, barely anything because he is unused to ordering me around. But I do see it glaringly, precisely because – no one orders me around. Nevertheless, he does it for his need of his father, he bids me, and I come.
Elessar rises, realizing he’s had his turn and therefore my son is now to be left to me. He favors me with a small bow, and I return it. We’ve both done here what we set out to accomplish.
I see now – my son fares well.
I don’t know why I’d think otherwise...
When what has befallen him is love.
THE END
Ranking: 1st place
Summary: Word of Ithilien’s splendor is taking Middle-Earth by storm. Everyone is eager to visit, except for two kings who know its beauty may be coming from the worsening torment of its chief elven architect, Legolas.
Rating: T
Characters: Thranduil, Aragorn, Legolas
Warning: None
He travels practically in rags, with a gaggle of similarly-dressed men. His scout and mine had run into each other a few hours back, and returned to inform their respective masters of our parties’ coincident arrivals. I knew to expect him on this road, just as he knew to expect me.
And here we both are.
Elessar is dressed down in a ranger’s travel-worn cloak, and does not come with the standards of his freshly-reclaimed Kingdom. His head hangs low, and he is trying to be discreet except life had never meant for him to walk the world thus.
I know right away who among these cloaked travelers is the King. By presence or real physicality he is larger than all of them, his bearing strong and sure. The men around him give him a wide berth, and he walks the world as if he owns it; a fair truth I once might have begrudged but have long known how to live with. Our time is past, and our kin are called elsewhere. It is, after all, why we are both now on this road...
He recognizes me right away too, though I am outfitted in my own simpler wares and also traveling sans the standards of my House. I suppose we share the same (apparently) lofty ambition of trying to ride here in anonymity.
Elessar lowers his cloak to reveal his face, and bows at me first. It is gracious of him to do so, even if I am in his fiefdom now. I lower my own cover, and return his bow deeper, in recognition of his generosity.
We ride side by side, with scouts ahead and our respective protective details several paces behind us.
“I do not wish to intrude upon your reunion with your son,” he assures me. “I swear to you my business with him will be quick, and I shall be away immediately afterwards to leave you with yours.”
I wave the concern away casually. “The High King of Gondor and Arnor should stay as long as he wills in his own lands.”
“I do not come here as such,” he says, “and so the Elvenking must take precedence.”
“I do not come here as such either,” I murmur, but he already knew that. “I am here as a father.”
We ride silently for a long moment, until I find myself telling him, “Do not hurry away, Estel. I do not know if it is I he needs, or someone else.”
The adan presses his lips together grimly, but nods. He understands my meaning, because this is not the first time, nor will it be the last... We are, after all, both here for the same reason and we both know it.
My drifting son needs an anchor. We just do not know how to toss him one and who will be the one to do it.
As word of Ithilien’s incessantly-growing, breathtaking beauty spreads across our lands, only those who know Legolas best understand what it might mean. Where others see splendor, we are the ones who suspect torment.
This land is my son’s gold gilded prison, and he is a caged bird in song. Unless I – we, now I suppose – are wrong, this is Legolas’ aria, a singular opus of tortured, masterful work.
# # #
I expected a feast for the eyes. I did not expect unrelenting beauty.
Legolas’ affinity for greenery was apparent the moment we entered the bounds of Ithilien; many of the trees were young here, the ground still recovering from the ravages of the war. They stirred and shook in welcome, and the brushing of the branches and leaves were like music, in concert with seasonal fauna and the strong rushing of a nearby, powerful stream.
One of the paths were lined by shrubs and bushes in a gradient, with pale yellow plants at the entrance gently deepening to emerald as one traversed deeper within it. We passed high grasses that brushed against the sides of our horses, who lingered and were reluctant to leave. I reached for the plants and realized why; they felt like thick, rich velvet in my hands. There were flowers here that I’ve never seen before; my son and his settlers can make grow here things that cannot grow elsewhere. The air was sweet and citrusy with the smell of blooms and fruit.
It was forest you could see, smell, hear, feel and taste.
We felt eyes on us the moment we entered the territory, but we traveled undisturbed until Legolas himself met us on the path headed to where he and his modest colony built their new home. He appeared as if from nowhere, so much a part of this forest was he.
Suddenly he is on his horse in front of me. He is unescorted and surprisingly unarmed, comfortably clad in a rugged tunic. His hair is loose and unbraided. He is smiling.
“Two Kings enter the wood,” he teases. His eyes are deep-set and dark-rimmed but alight. “One an elf, the other an adan. It sounds like the beginnings of a very good joke.”
“I wouldn’t leave it to your paltry sense of humor to fill in the rest,” Elessar teases back. “Gimli, perhaps, can be relied upon for something serviceable.”
“The one talent I might concede to the dwarf,” Legolas replies good-naturedly.
Elessar barks out a laugh, and manipulates his horse such that it comes up to Legolas’ beast so closely that their sides brush. By some marvel of balance and willpower, Elessar leans sideward and reaches for my son, to lock him in a hard embrace.
Legolas laughingly takes it, and he pats at the human King’s back affectionately. When he pulls away from Elessar, he looks at each of us with such love and marvel that my heart aches. He sighs.
“I am either the most extraordinary being in all the land that you should both be here, or I am in the worst kind of trouble.”
“May I remind you, ion-nin,” I say, “These are not mutually exclusive.”
“Even my fearsome father is funnier than me!” he teases. “Come, my lords. The roads are safe and beautiful but nonetheless long and tiring. Let us see you settled!”
# # #
I settle in the suite of rooms assigned to me. It is grand in my eye, a well-considered space with careful and very deliberate design. My son always could have had anything gold could buy, and though he is loathe to admit it, an aristocratic taste to go with his princely stature. He likes thinking he is one with his people but really, he fools no one. The rooms I settle in have that creative conceit of his in every corner, this refined craftsmanship that is unabashed and at points even aggressive. But the room has surprisingly delightful, little details too.
Ithilien was war-ravaged, and its surrounding environs were as well. There are traces of that here, in pieces of cracked rock and broken ceramic that the colony’s rebuilders had used and repurposed as the occasional decorative accent. Legolas and his merry little crew had apparently mended them with seams of gold, such that the breaks form shining jagged glints that boast of survival, rather than carrying the shame of damage.
I have time to ponder the various elements of my chambers because my delinquent brigand of a son is taking his sweet time before seeing to me. My valet has already arranged my things. I’ve bathed and dressed for a formal dinner. Still I wait. I try to appreciate the beauty around me and I try to be patient, but I also begin to stew in jealous thoughts. I wonder if, perhaps he has seen to the needs of his essential human Strider, before coming to see his own father.
He finally comes to my door; I am near chomping at the bit and a hair away from spoiling for a fight. That is, until he enters and I realize the likely cause of his delay.
He walks to me with his head hanging low, and he is tugging uneasily on his clothes and fixing his hair. He has freshened up too, and is very concerned about how he looks. I think he is aware he appears unwell.
“How do you like your accommodations, father?” he asks. I smell miruvor on him when he speaks, it is so sweet and distinct. That he finds need of the precious, restorative cordial to face me is worrying.
“They are unparalleled,” I tell him generously. It is also the truth.
He smiles, but it rapidly disintegrates into a pained wince.
“You’ve seen the repairs with gold?” he asks. “I saw these in my travels and learned the technique from a craftsman of the far, far east. But I cannot quite capture the deep but subtle, organic character of it. We’ve reworked these several times but I wonder why on this occasion it can seem gaudy.
“In the east,” he shares, “they look at breakage as part of an object’s character and history, nothing that need be hidden. I liked that sentiment but cannot seem to replicate it here. It looks like it is only playing at recovery and learning.”
He uses the tips of his long, graceful fingers to flick at one such golden detail with a kind of casual dispassion, but then he takes back the slight by patting at it apologetically before letting go completely. When he lowers his hands, they curl and uncurl in restless fists at his sides. They are such small gestures, and he is quick to mask them. But it bothers me, all this uncharacteristic uncertainty. He’d always been one to plunge headlong into things. He always came out on top, however, so I often wondered if he was indeed reckless, or he just thinks and acts faster than everyone else. Either way, he was almost never uncertain of his objectives, of his abilities, of himself, of the things he likes and loves. That he should be so pained over a piece of decoration is unnerving to me.
“It’s perfect,” I assure him, “Maybe too much so.”
“There is no such thing,” he tells me merrily, with a dazzling smile. I’ve missed it, and I’ve missed him attempting to escape my scrutiny with it.
“These are quite lavish, for guest quarters,” I comment of the suites appointed to me.
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh but ada, these are my rooms. They are the best, and so I yielded them to you.”
It is my turn to be surprised. I arrived unannounced, and so I doubt he had very much time to clear out his things in preparation for my occupancy. So how come these suites of his appear so immaculate? There is no lived-in spirit to them, no worn-in character. There are traces of my son’s taste, but none of his life. No one lives here, I am sure of it.
“Where did you settle Elessar?” I ask instead.
He smiles. “This room has a uh, shall we say, a twin. Equal in status and grandeur. Both are fitting for two kings, though that is only by incident rather than design. If you must know, it was meant for the elf-lord of Ithilien’s wife.”
He surprises me again. “You intend to pledge yourself to someone...?”
“My architects held hope I would find an elleth with whom to share my life,” he explains with a soft chuckle. “I did not have the heart to disappoint them that my priorities are elsewhere. ‘Someone is sure to come along soon, hir-nin,’ they all proclaimed, with much certainty. ‘You have so much to offer,’ someone or other added. It is still mostly Gimli who stays in them whenever he visits, however.”
“Your dwarf wife,” I say wryly.
He appreciates the joke, and his eyes glint in mischief “Some have wondered about that, certainly.”
“It reaches your father’s ears,” I say blandly.
“What of it?” he asks, daring me. “If indeed I’ve decided to spend my heart thus?” I’ve missed his irreverent humor.
“Life is long with many paths,” I answer.
He laughs aloud and shakes his head at me in endearment. “The Elvenking. Archaic, insular, dangerous – surprisingly progressive?”
“Love amongst males is hardly new.”
“Ah, but he is a dwarf.”
“A handicap I am sure,” I concede with sham gravity. “But your preferences in romance is the least of my problems at the moment, believe it or not.”
I immediately regret it when his eyes take on a steely quality. I’ve walked into a trap, lured in by his levity.
“What, pray tell, might your larger concern be?”
“I’ve heard such tales of the home you’ve built for yourself and your people,” I answer, and this is one of many truths. I keep the others to myself, for now. I do not for example ask him, Do you suffer? Should I come bear you away...?
“It is lovely, ion-nin,” I go on, “I wanted to see it firsthand, and determine by my own eyes how you are faring here, so close as it comes to the breezes of the sea."
His eyes narrow at me in thought and estimation. My answer does not satisfy him, but it is perhaps too early in my visit for the host to interrogate me, and Legolas can be so proper sometimes. So he pushes his inquest no further and asks instead, simply – “Pray tell me this one thing, adar. You and Aragorn here at the same time... am I being ambushed?”
I shake my head at him. “No. It wasn’t by design.”
He nods and accepts this for only a moment. “If it were an ambush, and you mean to disrupt my life in ways I do not yet understand – would you tell me?”
“Of course not.”
He sighs. “Well that wouldn’t be wise, would it?” He gives me a weary smile. “I am here to fetch you for dinner, but I must apprise you of something first.”
I open my hands up for him to elaborate.
“I have given the elf Tauriel sanctuary here,” Legolas confesses. “I know your former captain continues to be exiled from your Halls and will long be in disfavor, but I needed her skills and she needed a home. I have not the heart to turn her away even to please you, but I did advise her to stay scarce while you are here. She will be no bother to you, aran-nin, I swear it. But as I wish for you to feel free to roam these lands wherever and whenever you will, I thought it best to warn you in case you run into each other.”
It was almost at the tip of my tongue to say, I know she is here. Who do you think has written me to come, for you have been unwell?
Indeed, I needed someone within Ithilien to inform me of my son’s wellbeing; his letters home could be sporadic and worse, uninformative. Sometimes even misleading. But an informant in my son’s sphere – dare I say spy? - was difficult to find because Legolas gathered loyal friends and brothers everywhere he went. He’d returned from the Black Gates with a devoted dwarf of all things, for crying out loud. But Tauriel... I have seen firsthand her willingness to defy her king out of a keen, irresistible sense of right and wrong. She kept her own counsel and had the courage to stick to her convictions.
When she defied me, it was to my disadvantage and I had no choice but to send her away. Now I can leverage on her righteousness. I do not need her to be loyal to me or to Legolas, I only need her to have compassion to be on my side. And this, she has in abundance.
She was wary but responsive to my initial engagement of her ‘services,’ but eventually, the letters she’s been writing to me became generous with details any father would hunger for. They spoke of Legolas’ work and his achievements, of how the men of Ithilien and the elves who had come with him admired him, and of how elves from neighboring kingdoms have come to join in his endeavors. She spoke of how the colony grew in energy and diversity, and of how its beauty was unparalleled because it was a collection of the best of the world, and because of its tireless Elf-lord.
Thoughts of my “spy,” Tauriel, make me wonder if Elessar has his own eyes and ears in Legolas’ company, someone just as equal to the task of balancing loyalty to Legolas and respect for his privacy, with care and worry for his health. He had emerged from the War physically intact, but the sea-longing has scarred his mind and his heart. When all the battles ended, we’ve all had to lead our own lives and he had been left to find his own way forward. I worry about him in this context as all those who love him do, for none of us could be with him all the time and neither would he tolerate a coddling. I’ve no doubt Elessar would be of the same mind, and has an agent here like I do for the same reasons. It is just a question of who...
The dwarf is the likeliest candidate, though he is busy with his own territories of late and perhaps too loyal to his elf (as I’ve heard he’d been claiming) to tell on him. Elessar’s Prince, that Steward’s son Faramir, is in both close proximity and in his and Legolas’ close confidence, and I wonder for a moment if he would be willing to inform on Legolas for Elessar until I remember his wife. Ah, Eowyn of Rohan. She would be more equal to the task, I imagine. And no stranger to successfully defying kings and lords and men in pursuit of what is right, too.
“Ada?” Legolas prods. “I will not change my mind to accommodate you, I speak of this only so that you are prepared.”
“I do not expect you to,” I say. “Well I hope she has been useful.” She certainly has been, to me.
“Thank you, adar.” He places a palm to his heart and sighs in relief. “At any rate, as I said - I am here to fetch you for dinner, if you are ready.”
“I’ve been ready,” I say, “Lead on, elf-lord.”
# # #
Dinner is set on a long, slim, irregularly-edged table that seems simple at the onset, until I realize it is a single piece of petrified wood, a massive tree trunk cut in half lengthwise. It had become more gem than plant, with streaks of bold colors and sections of deep spotted black that looked like a heaven specked with stars. It was hand-polished to a smooth, shiny surface that I could not help but run my hands over. I imagined the incarnations of its life; it was a tree once, mighty and thick and old. Over the years the Earth reclaimed it, and by water and soil and salt and time, it became the treasure that now stands before me. Legolas has given it a third life in the small but grand keep he has built for himself and our – his now, I suppose - people.
Its only flaw is that it is too grand and long, and there is only three of us for dinner. On one end, a setting was placed for Elessar. On the other is a setting for me and in the very middle is one for Legolas. We all settle at our designated places, but I can see my irreverent son is already finding it hilarious. His shoulders are quaking.
I meet Elessar’s gaze from the vast ocean of my son’s table, and we come to a silent agreement. Almost instantaneously, we each pick up a wine glass and stride to the middle, where Legolas awaits us, grinning. His servants scramble to bring our plates and cutlery. I settle in on a seat across from my son’s, while Elessar takes the one beside him.
It is a good meal shared amongst friends.
Legolas knows how to navigate the distance between Elessar and I, merrily explaining away this quip or that to the adan or myself, whoever needed clarification. It helps that our glasses are never empty; Elessar was like other men in that he had a disdain for half-filled or empty wine glasses. He kept reaching for a decanter here or a carafe there, serving all of us joyously.
Legolas’ sommelier had prepared several wines, and the one I take a shine to is a fine Ithilien grape long unavailable due to war, and made refreshing by an infusion of native, seasonal fruits. It is a reminder that Ithilien is truly a rich land of natural bounty, once cultivated and brought back to life. We cheer Legolas’ efforts and achievements more than once.
Whether by drink or exhaustion or some other malady, however, I notice my son drifting off in ever lengthening spaces. It started by increasing spells of quiet, as he stepped back from participating in conversation and simply listened to his friend and father talk. Then came a delay in responsiveness, even when he was prompted to engage. Soon he was nodding off.
It alarms me, until I catch Elessar’s pointed look. I realize that he’s been filling Legolas’ glass with a different decanter from what he’s been using to fill mine and his own.
The audacity of it all irks me, but I have the patience to wait and see what he intends to do. For now, I let myself become his conspirator. It is not hard, because Legolas listens to us sleepily, with an easy smile on his face. Our idle chatter relaxes him, and I abhor the thought of taking that away when he has been looking so weary. Elessar and I continue our conversation, but both keep an eye on him.
Legolas leans forward and perches his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his palm. His eyes lose focus in sleep. He startles awake and straightens, pretending to be awake and alert, only to fall asleep that way again and again. A few more tries and he finally succumbs – deeply, at that. His eyes slip closed. It worries me, but he breathes easily, and still has a small smile on his face. He is drugged and I think, perhaps only tired.
Only, I think spitefully. I’ve belittled it, but by the dark rings about his eyes, the miruvor he’s apparently been consuming, the nervous energy that has him on edge and in knots, and by the food untouched on his plate – there is nothing insignificant about this exhaustion.
“So you’ve been busy,” I say to Elessar, reaching for Legolas’ abandoned glass and smelling it. There is a sleeping draught lacing the drink indeed, in quantities minimal enough for a weary elf to miss. It could have been negligible in effect too, but glass after glass a long-exhausted Legolas had it, and so now the results are upon us.
I partake of some of the drug-spiked wine, which makes Elessar’s eyes widen in surprise. I care not, I feel at the edge of a perplexing anger, and I find the need to curb it or, in failing to do so, at least curb my tongue. One must buffer up these edges. I wave a dismissal at the elves attending us. They scurry away accordingly.
“If one weren’t careful,” I tell the human King, “one might be accused of removing another’s agency and forcing upon him something he does not desire. It could even be looked upon as an assault against a citizen of mine.”
Not to mention my son.
Elessar attempts to make light of things. “We are on my land as you’ve said.”
“You did not come here as King,” I remind him too, “as you’ve said.”
He knows now to take me more seriously. “That remains true. A just king would not impose this on him. A friend would.”
I reach now for my own glass. One needs to be on one’s toes with this audacious adan. But he has a point; where an interfering parent may be considered invasive and ultimately unsuccessful and a King may overstep his bounds and tread on someone else’s freedoms... a well-meaning friend may be both forgiven and effective. If I’d drugged my son into a stupor for example, I almost certainly would have faced indignation and rebellion.
I watch as Elessar sidles up to be close to my son, nudging him just so. It is, I quickly realize, a familiar move, for even in Legolas’ drugged exhaustion he responds to the other’s nearness. With an unintelligible murmur, Legolas shifts sideways until his weight is partially borne by the man sitting beside him.
In my mind’s eye, I see the two of them in travel-worn clothes, beneath the eaves of wild trees and starry skies. The resplendent confines of Legolas’ Ithilien melts away and the world is wider, more dangerous, far removed from this one. It held such blinding promise but also pitch black death. They stood at that precipice in between, hurting and tired. But they were alive, they were together, and they had hope.
“You’ve done this to him before,” I say.
“And he has done it for me,” Elessar says.
That makes a big difference, indeed. My anger vanishes.
“What pray tell,” I ask, “is the precursor of this?”
“I received word he’d been hurt in an accident a few weeks past,” Elessar explains, “As you know, he’d taken pains to preserve and build around the old ruins of his new land. He was doing some greening and rehabilitation of a decaying fortification when it collapsed.”
Tauriel’s most recent letter had said as much, which is what drove me here. The information therefore is not new, and my son sits in front of me alive and reasonably well, besides. Except, details like this still make my stomach feel hollow. I take another sip of wine.
“Luckily, the worst of the hurts were fairly minor,” Elessar continues, “Legolas himself would have ordinarily shrugged off such injuries after a few days’ rest. Mild concussion, bruised lungs, cracked ribs, cuts and contusions. He’s survived far worse.”
I drink again, only to find my glass empty. Elessar fills it almost absently as he continues to speak.
“But his recovery has not progressed well,” he says. “He tired of the healers seeing to him which is no surprise, so he is trying to deal with it on his own. But how can he hope to heal when he barely sleeps and barely eats?” He motions dispassionately for Legolas’ full plate. “This cannot go on. He neglects his health and occupies his mind and his hands by working, but I do not know if rebuilding this place is consuming him, or saving him.”
“From the call of the sea,” I finish.
“Yes.” Elessar nodded gravely. “His casual approach to health and well-being can no longer be acceptable now that he suffers sea-longing. I think this is why he is recovering so poorly from these injuries. When I held him he was overwarm, trembling skin and bones.”
I wish I had held him too, if only that these are also things I should have known, but that has never been our way. What Elessar had said – trembling skin and bones – made me think of a green leaf barely clinging to its place, shaken by the breeze before the coming Fall. Sometimes I wonder if I should have named my son for something more rooted and sturdy, rather than something that can be whipped away by a capricious wind.
I brush my fingers against the stem of my glass, and watch the rich red wine swirl with the smallest of my movements.
“The cry of the gulls and the call of the sea strikes everyone differently,” I tell the human king. “They may even strike one differently at different times. It is really just about when you receive your own destined call. The sea... it is such a live thing, isn’t it? It is never the same twice, so why should its call be the same for everyone? But all of our kin will be called each in his own time to differing degrees, because we all have a place in the water and the promises beyond it. Everything connects in the water. We are interwoven. It pulses with energy and song. We are infinitesimal in the sea, but small and precious like pearls and diamonds, rather than insignificant. It is belonging, it is homecoming.
“I can imagine why he does not sleep,” I continue with a wince. “Why must one walk in elven dreams when they’ve all become bland and pale compared to a new home promised and glimpsed? The life he walks here is the dream, and the havens is the grand, distant reality. I know why he does not eat – I imagine he forgets, because he is anyway always hungry. One hunger is the same as the other. Do you understand, the existence he continues to eke here, Elessar?”
The human king presses his lips together and glances at our subject, who is still very much asleep and leaning against him. “I cannot understand, I am in no place to understand. But I do know him, and I know he is hurting. It’s why I am here.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve come to relieve him of a burden. I am here to release him from word he’d given to me, that he wouldn’t sail for as long as I’m alive.”
I shake my head at him in dismay. “You can try. But you know as well as I that he will go on and just do whatever he likes.”
They really are like brothers now, because Elessar chuckles rather than despairs of that. “But at least he knows it as an option he can exercise at any time.”
“He doesn’t fear pain or hardship,” I say with a grimace. “He fears... loss. Everything short of that he can suffer. At any rate you must not attribute his ailments only to the call of the sea. Consider also – he is a warrior, suddenly with nothing to do. No danger to warm and stir his blood, no excitement, no-“
“Purpose,” Eleesar finished thoughtfully. “I have seen it in some of my men. The restlessness, the inability to believe and trust in safety. Eyes always wide to danger, even when it is no longer there. Hands hungry for work. Some soldiers do not find peace in... peace.”
“And killing - the thing he is unequivocally the best at,” I go on, “is suddenly with less relevance.”
“You were a soldier too,” Elessar points out. “How do you do it?”
“I cannot pretend to be better than my son in bearing this,” I say. “Long have I shifted to tasks of a more, shall we say, administrative nature. Ion-nin on the other hand, has been a soldier for thousands of years at a time of particular hardship. He was born into it. He’d never known any other life.”
“I’ve seen men driven mad with these preoccupations,” Elessar shares. “They leave their families and friends, and they go to the forests as wild men seeing danger in every sound and shadow, still fighting a war long ended. This cannot be his fate.”
“You know him,” I point out. “What do you think?”
Elessar shook his head. “I know only what I hope. But I also know there are real limits to what a body and a mind can withstand. He is testing all of them.”
“As he does,” I murmur.
“So what did you come here to accomplish?” he asks me. “I’ve informed you of my business.”
I watch my son for a long, quiet moment. He is going into deeper sleep, which will, ironically, loosen his limbs and have his head falling and his limbs flailing, which can very well wake him up.
“I just wanted to see how he was faring,” I reply. It is the simplest of reasons, but also the most complex. Because once accomplished, what should be done about that which has been seen? I see my son in, in fading... am I thus to drag him perforce away from here, or let him continue on the way that he has? I have, after all, seen my son in abject misery before many times. This isn’t even the first time his pains are because of Elessar. They’ve bled for each other before, the gods know how many times now. But this is not the same -
Legolas jerks and almost wakes. Rather drunkenly, he reaches for his wine glass, pretending as if he’d been aware all this time. But Elessar murmurs at him reassuringly and he goes back to sleep.
“And what do you see, of how he fares?” the human King asks.
It terrifies me...
“He is unwell,” I say, uselessly.
After a while, Elessar and I lift Legolas between us and bear him to my rooms; we realized we had no idea where he had situated himself after the arrival of two kings deposed him from his own chambers. We pass by many of my son’s people, but none dare stop us or ask any questions or even offer any help. Between Elessar’s and my own forbidding expressions, none dared come close. I imagine they could have let the two of us together get away with anything short of murder – and maybe even that.
Along our long walk, Legolas stirs awake once. He has one arm over Elessar’s shoulders and another over mine. His legs are leaden, but suddenly stiffen as he tries to carry his own weight. They fold back to no avail, but he does lift his sagging head a little and looks first at me, and then the human on his other side.
“Oh you fools,” he murmurs with a soft laugh, before his eyes slide close in sleep again.
# # #
Legolas sleeps for two days.
The first night he was caught in a drugged stupor, exactly by Elessar’s design. The next night, he’d just given in to his body’s natural demands. He drank in sleep as if parched, long deprived. Once he’d had a taste, he took it hungrily, as if he couldn’t have enough. He couldn’t eat thus, but by some gods-given talent, Elessar managed to coax some broth into him for sustenance. He needed the rest more at that point and sure enough, he seemed to heal before my very eyes. A warm radiance returned to his skin.
By some wordless concert, Elessar and I took turns sitting with Legolas. There was always a light on, and warm pots and cups of tea, the aromatic scent of athelas, the rustling of papers from two kingdoms, and the quiet entrance and exit of his and my aides. We came here as father and friend, but the business of our homes do not cease even when we set aside our crowns.
I was working on a desk in the anteroom to my – or Legolas’, now – sleeping chambers, when I heard him begin to stir awake on Elessar’s turn at watch.
I rise from my seat and make my way toward them, but stop at the door. Legolas is turned away from me and looking at Elessar. He does not seem to sense I am here. The human, if he does, has other fish to fry. His face is taut, and he is getting ready to say his piece. It keeps me from entering. But it certainly does not keep me from listening and watching. I’ve yielded many rights as a father, but I will not yield this. I want to know how this conversation goes and what impact it will have on my child’s future. I need to know.
“How long...?” Legolas murmurs. His voice is thin and rough, just woken.
We are at the height of dusk but there is warm, ample light in the room. There is but a small light from a candle, but the blanket of stars from the windows are proving generous with glow. I see the two of them again in my mind’s eye - they are younger and more uncertain, and the world is so large around them.
“Two days,” Elessar replies tightly.
“A drugging record, even for you,” Legolas teases.
It does not yield the levity it was intended to court.
“Most of it was you, mellon-nin,” Elessar says. “Your body needed rest, badly. This cannot go on, Legolas. Not the way that it has. I think... I think the call of the sea is beginning to get the better of you.”
Legolas sighs. “I know what you will say next. I should leave, for you refuse to be the cause of my suffering.”
“No, mellon,” says the other gently, “I refuse your suffering, and that is all. Responsibility for pain and death, I can always bear. I have borne it. I still bear it. We never could have accomplished all that we’ve done, if many were not willing to stand with us at the cost of their lives. It was a cost I had to be willing to pay for the prize at the end. I was willing to pay it with your life at many points, just as I was willing to pay it with mine. But to see you suffer thus...” he took a deep breath. “There is no prize, Legolas, is there? No prize at the end. Only pain, and when everyone around you is... is gone, only more of it. Why prolong? This is almost, almost like a slow death.”
Legolas sighs again. I wonder if it is the weight of the conversation or the limitations of his healing body. Perhaps both.
“Would you have me heed the call and sail?”
“I would have you wherever your body finds healing and your heart finds ease,” Elssar replies. “I release you from word you’ve given me to stay upon these shores until my death. You are called to sail and you are struggling here, mellon-nin. It shouldn’t be so. All I desire is your peace.”
“For me there will be no more peace,” my son says quietly, and it takes my breath away. I ache for him deeply, to the core of me.
“Not here,” he continues, “not in the trees. And in the end, when I am alone bearing all my losses, not even over sea. When you are... when Gimli... when all of our friends...”
He does not, cannot, say ‘gone.’
He clears his throat. “That will take my heart, I think,” he says instead. “But to leave now, when there are still years to share, it would be as if I cut it out myself. I refuse to do that.”
After a long moment, Elessar says, “I am sorry, Legolas.”
Ion-nin finds the heart to laugh quietly.
“That conceit of yours,” he teases the other gently. “One must admire your sense of accountability, Estel, but there is arrogance in it too, isn’t there? The thought that everything is your fault, is always underlined by the belief you have the power to change or affect things. Have you come here, for instance, under the belief that you can fix me?”
I hear the smile on his voice, but Elessar, like me, have lost all desire to treat this situation as something we can cover with an easy laugh or a clever barb. There will be no more escaping, not for Legolas and not for those who love him.
“Why shouldn’t I be sorry for what has befallen you?”
“Because what has befallen me is love,” Legolas answers. “And that, not even the gods can take away. I will lose those I love, but not my love. It is mine and I hold it close to me. It is all I will have at the end. I will not sail until you are gone, Estel. I will feed and fatten my love first, with experience and memory. I will sate it, let it gorge until I have a wellspring of reminders to last all my life. And I will live.”
He says it so fervently, and no one, not the king of anywhere, would have been able to resist believing him.
“I will live,” he says again, softer. “I am torn between here and there and it isn’t easy, but I do not wish for relief from all of this, Estel. I cannot. It is too entwined with my happiness. I will stay until the end. You are stuck with me.”
“This cannot be the right course of action,” Elessar reasons, “if you are so unwell.”
“I think it is unfair that you should expect me to adjust so quickly,” Legolas points out, “when I’ve never known the sea before. I confess, it was tortuous at the start to deny its call, and the thought has crossed my mind to leave. But I am beginning to understand it, you see, and I have recently come to believe this... incompleteness is something I can bear. I am learning how to live with it until I sail. The recent injury has been a setback, I admit, but I am learning.” At Elessar’s skeptical frown he insists, “I am.”
Elessar gives him a long, measuring look. His brows are furrowed in thought and consideration.
“But didn’t you always brag about how you were a quick learner?”
Legolas barks out a surprised laugh, and it is like the small spark that starts a bright, hot, burning flame. It warms the room. It breaks the tight tension that was cackling around it.
“My tutors said I was prodigious. Just ask ada.”
Mention of me reminds Elessar of my presence. He sends the barest of glances in my direction, not as a greeting to me, but as a loyal friend’s warning to my son that they were not alone, that he was being watched, that he should put up whatever masks he meant to bewitch his own father with. I roll my eyes in consternation at the thought that I was being ganged upon. I am especially displeased when Legolas makes an immediate effort to straighten and sit. He looks at me earnestly, and I see in his eyes that he is wondering how much I’ve heard, and he is weighing how much of it I should have. Elessar is considering me with the same look.
They share the same expression, these two. As different as can be and yet, quite... brotherly. When I sent Legolas to the Dunedain in search of precisely this man and the renewed energy and purpose his quest entailed, I was only hoping to relieve my son of heartache. I did not know he would find another attachment, and a fleeting, mortal one at that. When I first saw them together, they shared an easy camaraderie, loud with laughter, generous with touch. I found it almost... common, for lack of a better term. I’ve never seen my son behave so familiarly. But I’ve often despaired of never giving Legolas brothers, and now I am relieved he’s gone and made one all on his own.
“You’re looking better,” I say, and I watch with pleasure as his lips curve into a wide smile.
“I don’t know why you’d think otherwise,” he says wryly, and his hands motion for me to come closer in an almost minute gesture. The movement is soft and shy, a small wave of the wrist, barely anything because he is unused to ordering me around. But I do see it glaringly, precisely because – no one orders me around. Nevertheless, he does it for his need of his father, he bids me, and I come.
Elessar rises, realizing he’s had his turn and therefore my son is now to be left to me. He favors me with a small bow, and I return it. We’ve both done here what we set out to accomplish.
I see now – my son fares well.
I don’t know why I’d think otherwise...
When what has befallen him is love.
THE END