Post by Admin on Jan 2, 2021 4:08:44 GMT
Author: Mirrordance
Ranking: Tied for 1st place
Summary: While journeying through the Misty Mountains, the King of Mirkwood’s party becomes the target of a vicious pack of hunting orcs. “I have a plan,” Legolas says, and Thranduil knows his notoriously ingenious son well enough that these four words just about terrify him.
Rating: K+
Characters: Legolas, Thranduil
You can review the story here:
www.fanfiction.net/s/12891688/3/The-Halls-of-My-Home
Night falls and I dream about him, as I sometimes do in precisely this way – my son stands at the head of a mighty column.
Legolas is wearing the colors of my house, and outfitted in dully gleaming armor. The formidable metal is well-kept and beloved, but has the patina of use. There are scratches on its surface, dents buffered out, miniscule cracks from innumerable repairs that even the most skillful craftsmen can no longer hide. He refuses to change it – he likes how it feels, he says, how his body had made a home of it.
In my older dreams, the armor he wore to this unknown, imagined battle was gleaming so brightly it was almost luminous. Legolas was younger then, and I had greater freedom to ascribe my own plans and wishes upon him. Now that he is a more seasoned warrior, he has his own ways and I know him better. He will, for example, not suffer stiff, shiny, new armor; he barely suffers them at all. In a few years, I might have no choice but to dream of him in nothing but the barest protection afforded by leather pauldrons. I hope he finds the heart to at least wear these. He shouldn’t sacrifice his safety for dexterity, as he is wont to. He shouldn’t be exposed to any more danger than is necessary. He shouldn’t tempt fate so much –
“Ada?”
This single word jolts me to wakefulness. I did not even realize my eyes have fallen shut. I am lying on cold, hard, jagged ground. It is a startling contrast to the smooth, hewn rock that surrounds the walls of this gods-forsaken trap, from which there can be found no purchase for a climb. I’ve been looking up at the hole over my head, the one I’d fallen in from, for endless hours now. Unable to move, I watched the clouds dance, and I watched the sun set and the skies darken. The dim light it lets into my prison is covered by a familiar silhouette.
“Ada, I’m coming.”
The shadow vanishes for a long moment, and I wonder if I’ve been dreaming of Legolas again until I do dream about him again.
I dream of my son at the head of a mighty column. Row after row after row of our finest soldiers flank him, thousands of them in disciplined lines. I concede – it is debatable if they are indeed the finest elven warriors in all of Arda. But what is unquestionable to anyone is that they are the hardiest, by virtue of our constant struggles as a people. My son is the best among them. He wears my crown. The brilliant green of spring leaves twined around the jagged branches look like emeralds on his proud, golden head.
It is a dream I will never see come to light. He will stand before that column with that crown on his head, only when I am dead -if he should bother with it at all. Even the humblest circlet required of him in diplomatic ceremonies, I am hard-pressed to force onto him.
“Ada, I’m here.”
He wrests me from my dreams.
He’s always wrested me from my dreams.
Not that he wakes me often, but that he keeps re-shaping and re-fashioning them to his own will. He has his own ways now, his own plans, his own ideas. Sometimes a dream is just a dream.
“Legolas,” I say, and my voice is gravelly and broken. I raise my hand to touch his face. We seldom ever touch nowadays, but I need to know if he is real. He is warm flesh beneath my palm.
“Your hands are cold,” he says softly, taking them in his and rubbing at them to infuse warmth. They cover mine completely, and I wonder when they had gotten so large. The last time I held his hands, his were so small I could have cupped them into my fist. I feel disproportionately bereft when he releases me. He runs his freed hands across my body, feeling for injury.
“The worst of it is the head wound, hir-nin,” one of my companions report. His voice is rough too, and I’d almost forgotten that I am not alone in this prison. There had been an elaborate trap that triggered an avalanche. Our traveling party ran to evade it, only to end up here – another trap. Half the company I was traveling with was lost. I am left with four of the royal guard, two senior ministers, and a healer who always accompanied me on the road.
“How bad is it?” Legolas asks.
“He lost a lot of blood,” the healer reports, “and was unconscious for a few hours. When he woke he got sick twice, and was coming and going. He was unresponsive until your arrival.”
“Ada, do you know where you are?” Legolas asks, slowly and carefully, as if he was speaking to a dull child.
“I would rather forget,” I hiss at him. He almost smiles, and it lightens up his somewhat harried appearance – hair unkempt, face grimy, eyes worn and tired. He is wearing a travel-worn cloak, tunic, leather pauldrons, and a miscellany of weapons secured on belts and quivers. These are the same clothes he had on when we last saw each other – the last time we saw each other!
“What are you doing here?” I bark at him, and he winces at my tone. I slap his hands away and force myself up to dangerously shaking elbows. I will not be defied. Although, I do have to suffer the indignity of being steadied precisely by the target of my profound displeasure when I sway where I sit.
He is wearing the exact same clothes as the last time we saw each other. The last time we saw each other... The last time we saw each other, we were saying goodbye.
#
Legolas had just finished making his farewells to our hosts in Imladris, and was about to take the journey back home. For reasons of security, we never took long travels together.
In days as dark as the one we endured in, it was agreed that the succession in our Realm had to be protected at all times. In the event that one of us was lost, there always had to be someone left to rule. Thus, we always traveled different routes, at different times.
Coming from Elrond’s House, it was agreed that Legolas would leave earlier and take the longer route over the Misty Mountains – the Redhorn Pass. I would depart later and take the High Pass, and we could expect to return home at roughly the same time. Each way had its own perils, but that could be said of any road in all of Arda nowadays.
Saying goodbye to Legolas was neither new nor uncommon. We’ve both been needed together at various points of the world before, and we would travel to and from such destinations apart. But something about this trip was nagging at me, and I couldn’t quite understand why but I did not want to let him out of my sight.
“The discussions this summit proven especially fruitful, don’t you think?” I asked him, before Legolas could open his mouth and say goodbye.
Legolas’ brows furrowed in puzzlement at the delay, but was as quick to indulge me as always. “We covered a lot of things in such a short span of time,” he agreed, and it was plain truth.
High level discussions between delegates of our kingdom, and that of Rivendell and Lothlorien, were held every few yen, as the need arose. The last summit had been at our own Realm and the one before that was held at Lothlorien. This most recent one hosted in Imladris had secured a miscellany of deals for trade, security, information sharing, and – the brainchild of Legolas and the twin sons of Elrond he’d long been fast friends with – an education exchange for elves on all sides to learn each one’s warring skills, healing arts and other specialized knowledge.
“I am especially impressed by your initiative, ion-nin,” I commend him. “The running of a Kingdom, it becomes you.”
Legolas fidgeted. He did not like this kind of succession talk, and I think my sudden desire to linger worried him.
“What’s on your mind, adar?” he asked. “Perhaps... perhaps we can travel home together, just this once.”
I was tempted. By the gods, I was tempted to leash my son to my side today, but this feeling was not new too. If I could keep Legolas from going on missions, patrols or distant assignments, I would. But that was not the way of the world.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I scoffed at him, though mostly I was scolding my own weakness. “You know why this is done. Deviation is unacceptable.”
He threw me a helpless smile. “As the King bids it then,” he said, lightheartedly. He took no offense at my tone, he seldom did. It’s how we both survive. “But if I am to take to the road, I really must make leave of you now, aran-nin.”
I let him leave. I watched until the smallest speck of him vanished from my sight.
#
“What are you doing here?” I ask again.
“We took the Redhorn Pass as planned,” he replies. He turns away from me and busies himself with a pack filled with miscellany. I hear soft padding of cloth, the slither of rope, the clinking of tins and bottles. I do not know what else he has in there. He draws out a flask, and the sweet smell of miruvor is quick to encapsulate the small, confined space. He presses it to my lips, and I take the barest of sips. It will be needed by many.
“Something felt wrong,” Legolas continues. He gives me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, before he begins to pass the flask around to our compatriots. “There were too many obstacles along the way – an avalanche of rocks, a freshly fallen tree, a collapsed foot path... one or two can be expected in such a journey but it was soon apparent to us that we were being herded somewhere. We were being hunted.”
Everyone listens to his recounting of events, while carefully sharing the restorative drink. I myself am feeling more restored by it, after hours of dizzied drifting.
“We took extra precautions with scouting,” Legolas goes on, “We lost one of our soldiers thus. He triggered a trap. But his life had purchased for us the barest foreknowledge that kept us alive. When the attack came, we were as ready as we could be under the circumstances. We found a defensible post and drove the yrch away at the cost of a few more lives.”
“That does not answer my question,” I point out.
“Patience, aran-nin,” he replies playfully, as he sometimes does when evading my hardest questions. “That was over two weeks ago. We were halfway home and so the farthest distance from any help. We suspected the orcs must have had a similar plan in place for you, and we kept one of the enemy alive for questioning. He was only all too pleased to brag about their plans.”
The Intelligence Minister who had traveled with me, Lastor, is intrigued by this news. “So the orcs knew the King would be on the road. They were prepared for him.”
“I think some of them have wizened up to the summits held over the years,” Legolas reports. “Of course they knew not when precisely our travels would be, but the traps were set and waiting. Someone new leads them, someone with ambitions.”
“It was only a matter of time,” Lastor says gravely. “Every once in a while, there emerges a great goblin. Azog and his spawn, Bolg, for instance, are known to us.”
“This beast who threatens us is called the Bastard Brother of Bolg,” Legolas says.
Lastor is aghast. For an Intelligence Minister and an elf of high standing in my court, he is prone to theatrics, especially for information that piqued the insatiable curiosity demanded of his job. “Do they have constructs of marriage, such that one may actually be called a bastard?”
Legolas finds it funny, because that is how he is. “Maybe it just sounds better, my lord. At any rate, upon discovering their plans, we split what remained of our forces. The fastest were sent home to gather reinforcements. The injured we sent with a security detail to return to Imladris. We spared a brave messenger to venture alone to Lothlorien – they must be told that their own parties are likely in danger. The best and the fittest, we sent to aid our King.”
He finishes with a small bow. I realize he’d been calling me adar until now. I suspect it is also the only time he remembered his duties to his King, rather than his love and worry for his father.
“You are still not supposed to be here,” I tell him darkly. I have no doubt he is among the best of whichever group of warriors he happens to be with and so would be the first to be sent to aid me. But he is also the Prince, and we cannot both be targets. The security of our Realm cannot be so at risk.
“Neither of us are supposed to be here,” he tells me, “So perhaps it is best to rise, yes? By luck, you must have set off the trap shortly after it was last checked, to have been spared the despicable company of our enemies for so long. But night has fallen, and the vile creatures that arranged for your capture here is sure to return to collect their bounty. We must make haste.”
His hands hover around me uncertainly. He had held my hands but moments ago, and checked me for injury after that. I realize now that he had touched me unthinkingly, perhaps in some panic from the ghastly sight of his father unmoving on the ground. I can readily sympathize. But now that he has seen his King is relatively well, he hesitates.
“If I may, aran-nin...” he says haltingly.
I give him a short nod, and he exhales in relief as he pulls me up carefully to a knee. The world spins. It is dark and the lines of rock are blurry and indistinguishable. His hands on my arms are the only anchor.
He waits for me to settle, before pulling me to my feet. He keeps me standing by bracing my right arm over his left shoulder. He keeps his main fighting hand free.
Legolas ushers me to a thick rope hanging in the middle of the hole we had fallen through. He plants me onto swaying feet, and peers at me closely to check if I can keep them.
“Do what you must,” I growl at him.
He gives me a wicked smile. He looks like a wild man, in this better light right beneath the hole. He seems at the edge of control. I can see it in his eyes, all the emotions lodged there and carried for weeks now. He bears the realization of his peril. He bears grief and guilt for his soldiers lost. He carries hypervigilance against day after day of danger and potential attack. He carries worry for me, and the desperation to get here. There is relief that I am alive, and determination to see us home. There is, inextricably, exhaustion too. He is tight as a coiled wire, about to spring. The grime on his face isn’t all travel grime too – I see a bloom of bruises, and a healing wound on the side of his head.
He suffers my observations as he winds the rope deftly about my torso, before giving a quiet signal up to his allies aboveground to lift me. He watches me rise, inch by inch by inch. He turns away to help others only when hands reach for me on higher ground.
I sit on the grasses, beneath the stars again. I watch as all of us who had fallen are hauled out of the hole by two of Legolas’ royal guard. My son, expectedly, emerges last. I release a breath I did not know I was holding.
He frees himself from the rope quickly and walks to me. “We cannot linger here. We’ve secured a small camp from which we can determine our next course of action. I am no longer the highest rank in this company, aran-nin, but I request you let me assume command until I can get us there safely.”
He isn’t wrong. He is our Prince and therefore second only to me. But in the field of battle, he has the humility, discipline and ultimately, wisdom, to defer to others’ earned rank and experience. He has become a captain on his own merits, but is still outranked by the more seasoned soldiers and ministers that surround me when I am on the road. The truth is, though, we are all bedraggled at the moment, looking blearily up at the open skies. He will know best.
“It is done,” I say, and the words are simple but his sense of responsibility and willingness to be accountable, even as he suffers from obvious physical and mental exhaustion, warms me as a father. It gives me the strength to sit taller and push to my feet.
“Lead the way, Captain,” I command him.
#
There aren’t enough horses and it is just as well, as some of us are unable to keep our seat for long – myself included.
My son shares his steed with me. I sit in front of him, and lean my head against his strong, broad shoulder. If I had been able to keep my head straight, I would have blocked his sightline by virtue of the difference in our height. I think it always irked him somewhat, as he came of age and stayed just as he was. It is, however, a minor comfort for me – he has made quick work of the feats I’ve set in training, after all. The height advantage, the gods at least spared for me.
We ride quickly. I am lulled by the movement, and it pushes my discomfort to the edges of my awareness.
I dream of my son again. Again, he is at the head of the column. Unlike tonight, he is clean, steady and unhurt. He looks formidable, like a conqueror. He is beautiful and terrifying.
“I thought I lost you, ada,” he whispers in my ear. His arms tighten around me. He is a gentle soul, and he takes the dream from me again.
#
Legolas takes us to another cave, and by the barely-suppressed humor on his face, he recognizes the irony of it.
The cave is well-hidden; anyone would have missed it if they were not looking. Its entrance is on the side of a narrow, steep ravine with intermittent streaming water, obscured by thin aerial roots from trees above, the branches of a weathered and long fallen log, and large boulders we had to maneuver around. The hole is small, but the space inside is large and deep. It is a livable space. Air stirs inside from a complex network of cracks and holes. There is even a small body of water inside, fed from an unknown source in the mountains.
“How in the world did you come by this?” Lastor asks. My intelligence minister is astonished again.
“The topography seemed ripe for cave systems,” Legolas answers as he helps me settle on a dry spot near the water. The healer in our traveling party sits beside me and prepares his wares. “It is the limestone. We were on the lookout for steam coming from entrances. The air is warmer in the caves, you see, and the cold of the mountains makes steam coming out of blowholes easier to spot.”
My Intelligence Minister looks at me pointedly. I narrow my eyes at him in irritation. I am too tired to resume a conversation that we’ve had all too many times before.
We make a respectable, makeshift camp of the cave. Watch assignments are arranged, and we deliberate our next course of action over hot tea and lembas. I feel my body slowly regaining its strength.
“We believe the traps have been set long ago and so have no constant watch upon them,” Legolas shares. “The enemy is unaware of precisely when we would by and which route we would take – they only knew we would use the paths, sooner or later. The traps have been triggered now and so they are aware of us, but are perhaps still massing their forces to attack. It means we have some time.”
“But the question is,” says Lastor thoughtfully, “Time for what. Do we hold this position until our reinforcements find us? Do we seek something more defensible? Do we attempt to escape, not knowing how many pursue us and if there are other traps set along the way?”
“This isn’t a defensible position,” my War Minister says, “this is a tomb. If we are found here, our backs are against the wall, not that we have very many left of us well enough to put up a good fight. They may even choose to simply trigger a land or rock slide and block the entrance, burying us until we are dead. I am opposed to staying.”
“Perhaps we wouldn’t be found,” Lastor says, but even he does not sound convinced. Sometimes he contradicts the War Minister out of habit. They’ve exchanged heated words before.
“I wouldn’t venture to go out and attempt to find another place,” Legolas says quietly. “We took long enough finding this one.”
“So the choice is either to hold our position or make a hasty escape,” Lastor concludes.
We fall into silence. Legolas is chewing at his lip in thought, and his brows are furrowed. He blinks, and I see him making calculations in his mind. He takes a deep breath before speaking, and I find myself doing the same.
“I have a plan,” he says, and I know my notoriously ingenious son well enough that these four words can terrify me.
Lastor leans in closely, intrigued by what he has to say.
#
It was late, and we were debating assignments for the fresh crop of warriors to come out of training. On most days it was an easy task, almost rote, and it did not have to involve me. But my War Minister and Intelligence Minister were determined to fight about one particular soldier. I’d heard all manner of this debate over the past few months and have been putting it off. That night years ago, I could postpone a decision no longer.
“Legolas is wasted on infantry,” the Intelligence Minister argued.
“Wasted!” exclaimed the War Minister, placing a hand over his heart. “Wasted! What harsh words you speak, Lastor, of our finest warriors!”
“But he is not just a fine warrior, is he?” the Intelligence Minister pointed out.
“You don’t know of what you speak. He is my best marksman! He is exceptional in close combat besides, with an eye for strategy. And the soldiers adore him almost as much as the horses do.”
“And where would you put him, hm?” Lastor asked. “Light infantry, given his skills with a bow and the horse. Do you imagine him behind the frontlines, sending out the opening volleys in a battle? And when our forces engage, he is to charge forward on horseback, as a shock troop, yes? Before he finally plants feet on the ground and fights with his knives and sword among the multitude? I know this picture well and I can promise you, his ingenuity is stifled there.”
“And where would you put him, hm?” countered the War Minister. “If he is posted to your detail, half his soldierly life will be spent on the road. In the times his task is not dull in travel, he is deep in foreign territory under a cloak or hiding under trees and rocks, waiting and watching. You will keep his bow and arrows in a quiver and his knives sheathed. Who is wasting him, then?”
“Now it is you who are slandering our finest,” Lastor argued. “You do not mention – foreign territory is often enemy territory. It is a good day when the weapons are sheathed because if caught, our soldier-spies are vastly outnumbered. You also do not mention, when they wait and watch, they do so with the most observant eye, and whatever they discover is pivotal to informing your own strategies. Aside from information gathering, it is this posting that keeps our communication lines open with other Realms. Our messengers daily traverse roads that are far from dull – they are almost constantly perilous. A posting with my men requires singular skills for fighting and survival. It requires intelligence, flexibility, a sense of independence, and inventiveness. Traits which Prince Legolas has in spades. Of the latter two, occasionally too much. Maybe too much for where you intend to put him.”
“But being among infantry is the path to a generalship,” the War Minister pointed out. “It is the way of Kings and Princes!”
He was an old friend and knew me well. The vision of my son in his gleaming armor and standing before thousands of his soldiers was always close to my mind.
“He is not a wartime general,” Lastor retorted, and at a dirty look I could not stop myself from giving him, he adjusted. All Kings dream of their sons as generals. “At least, not yet. The nature of the war we fight now is different. It is not open, decisive battle and it won’t be for a long time. We need his singular skills in this changed environment. Let him cut his teeth with me, aran-nin, and you will find his path to the top of your soldierly ranks not only uncompromised, but made richer by expanded knowledge. Eventually.”
“If he lives long enough to get there,” the War Minister countered, which in turn enraged me. He was quick to amend his words too. “Do not be angry with me, aran-nin, but at your Intelligence Minister, who covets your son so hungrily that he does not bother to speak of the attrition rates of our messenger-soldier-spies. How many do you lose, statistically?”
Lastor grimaced before replying. “One in five is reasonably representative. But this is a sacrifice we ask many families across the Realm to make, every single day.”
“I am aware of that,” I snapped at him, bristling at the insinuation that I, as King, must be willing to pay the same price – that of the life of my son.
I place Legolas on assignment in light infantry, in accordance with the War Minister’s advice.
#
“We cannot defend this position but we can survive being held within it for a long period of time,” Legolas says. “There is air, there is water, we have stores of food. Why don’t we block the entrance ourselves? The ravine is steep – there are no shortage of boulders and fallen logs directly above us that we can push over. We can block this entrance. Even if the enemy finds the cave, they cannot enter it.”
“This is madness,” the War Minister says. The soldiers around us, overhearing, look just as properly horrified by what insanity my son is proposing.
“The King can stay inside with a few soldiers,” Legolas continues, “Fewer is best – the food stores will last longer, if the worst should happen. Those most injured must stay. The strongest will be needed to move he earth above.”
“And what of the elves who cannot re-enter the safety of the closed cave?” one of the soldiers asked, “what happens to them?”
“They intercept the arriving reinforcements and take them to where the King was left,” Legolas says.
“But will they not also be besieged by the same danger we fear could overcome us if we attempted to escape – potential traps? A determined orc hoard?” asks the same elf. He is unhurt and in fighting form, and knows which assignment would likely fall upon him.
“The traps you might be able to avoid if you know what to look for,” Legolas replies. “Our traveling party had encountered many on the way here, so we can recognize the signs. It is how we reached the King safely. One of the soldiers was with me will join you to watch out for them. As for the orcs – we will need a diversion.”
My son looks away from me. It clenches at my heart.
“I think I know how to deflect their attention away from you and away from where the King is safely held,” Legolas says. “If they use the traps as a signal for where we are, I think we can use them to provide shall we say, disinformation.”
“You want to safely trigger traps in the wrong direction,” Lastor says, enlightened, “so that what forces they can gather will mass there and away from everyone else.”
“Is there a safe way to trigger a trap?” I ask, tightly. Because I think I know what assignment my foolhardy son plans to take on.
“It is all mechanical,” he replies, “pulleys and levers. I know what to look for. At worst... well. They seek a golden-haired royal from Thranduil’s House, do they not? I think I can function as a reasonable diversion.”
I feel my face frown and freeze there, as if set in stone. The elves around us know to make themselves scarce quickly, even without my having to give voice to profound displeasure. My son and I are given immediate privacy.
“You speak of me as if I were a useless lump of clay,” I tell him. “I fight, Legolas. I do not cower in some cave. And you know very well who among us is the best at that.”
“Do we really?” he attempts to kid.
“Legolas!”
He sighs and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the blue orbs shine with earnestness. “I will not have you in open combat, especially not in the state you are in. Besides, to protect the King is to protect the Realm. Please. Let us serve our beloved land, and let us help our kin endure. We can do this best by sheltering you.”
“Then is it not also a responsibility to look after your own health?” I point out. “You are a Prince. You cannot speak to me of our responsibilities to succession and discount your own place.”
“There are certain things only I can do in this particular instance,” he says quietly. “I know where the traps we’ve avoided are and I know how to look for more. At worst - I am the only one who shares your features and your blood. If I am caught, I have a chance at surviving. They won’t kill me outright, as they will the others.”
“If you are caught they will ransom you to me,” I say. “And isn’t there also considerable danger in that?”
“But you will never give in to their demands,” Legolas says simply.
My heart aches. “Won’t I?”
“You won’t,” he says with absolute certainty. “Because it won’t be right.”
I look away from him. “You overestimate me as a King,” I say softly, “and underestimate me as a father.”
Legolas reaches for me, stops to reconsider, and then does so anyway. He lays a hand upon my hand. “No, adar. I am sorry that my words should bring you to think that. I would never believe it.” He places both our hands over his heart. “I adore my father – my father – only for the person that he is, because he is both father and king all at once all the time, and he will always do what is right. Now I beg of you to let me do my job. I swear to you we will succeed.
“Trust me,” he implores, “I ask you to trust me, aran-nin. Adar.” He is invoking whichever incarnation of me would help him get his way, this impossible, irrepressible elfling of mine.
“Trust me as your son, your subject, your captain, your kinsman. A soldier of the same cloth. A friend who has never let you down. As someone who loves the land and its people as much as you... Surely one of these must fit. Please. Trust me.”
Two words alone of that mouthful, however, and he should have known he had cornered me. If I yield, he gets his way. If I do not yield, I hurt him by my lack of faith. But what was there to argue, really. He has always had my faith, he has always had my trust. I know he can get any job done. But I can never trust him to look after himself. That right, as a father, I cannot ever yield.
“I swear to you, adar,” he says, as if reading my mind, “I will live, if only because I refuse to let you die buried here. We will bring help, and we will ride home together.”
I do not trust him to care for himself. But I trust his love for me and in this instance, they are entwined - I will live, if only because I refuse to let you die buried here.
I clench his hand tightly, before releasing it. I give him a nod and dismiss him to his work.
#
They work quickly.
I am left with the most grievously injured and the least able fighters. We have water, food, air and each other. We stand away from the cave entrance in case of a miscalculation in the objects thrown or pushed from the top of the ravine to cover us. Little by little – boulders and rocks, branches and logs – the entrance to our shelter is obscured from prying eyes.
It blocks out most of the light save for a few cracks here and there, ushering in an artificial night.
My son has long since left, but I know he will return and with him, the light. He will fetch the sun for me.
#
I dream about him as I sometimes do, but especially now that there is naught else to do but survive and wait, and take mental excursions away from the rocks that have been home to us over the last few days.
Lately, my dreams of Legolas have shelved the gleaming armor and the mighty column. There is now more mud and grime, and blood - some of it, his own. He is scarred but standing tall. He stands not with an army, but a handful of fellows against an unimaginable evil. He is weary, but winning. He is unafraid.
At this vision, my blood rushes in my ears, and my heart hammers in my chest. I feel warm and alive, and hungry for ground. I feel incandescent.
I wake to the sound of movement outside of our self-imposed prison. The debris shifts, and a familiar silhouette stands against a backdrop of brilliant sunlight.
I wince against it, but move closer to Legolas’ figure. My eyes quickly adjust to the light, and I see him better than before. He is bruised and bloodied, but his gaze is burning.
The sight of him like this is better than any dream.
I engulf him in an embrace, and for a long moment, he stiffens in my arms. It is not our way to begin with, but I feel his body taut like a raw nerve and tight as a coiled spring, still braced for danger after weeks on top of weeks of vigilance. I wish I could knead him until his mind and body can return to rest and tenderness. I can only hold him tighter, so I do.
He breathes hard against my neck, and when he finally raises his arms to return my embrace, he does so greedily. Hungrily. He is almost clawing at my back. But it is quick; he is exhausted beyond imagining, and hurt besides. His arms fall from me limply, a beat before his knees give way. His weight brings us both to the ground.
I hold him in my arms and look down at his pale face. He is awake and aware, but confused by his collapse and sudden powerlessness. Sometimes, I tell myself, sometimes victory and glory look like this.
“You did well, ion-nin,” I tell him fervently. “You’ve redeemed your promise to me.”
No one else was lost, I would be told later, and Legolas’ plans go off seamlessly, save for the survivable injuries here and there. My son’s harebrained rescue plans have succeeded beyond everyone else’s imaginings but his own.
We ride home to our Realm together this once, just as we both always wanted to. But because luck smiles on Legolas on most other days, he misses out on this deviation from protocol by being exhausted and listless in my arms for most of the way.
I hold him tight and hoard the memory of it for myself - the scent of his hair, the shape of his head, the warmth of his body, the angles of his bones. I gorge myself on it. I’ve never wanted a ride to last forever. I relish the closeness of my son.
Especially since my opportunistic Intelligence Minister – a necessary trait for his line of expertise too, I gather – has been looking at me pointedly and eyeing the impossibly gifted son I still held in my arms.
I sigh. I’ve seen firsthand what incredible things Legolas can do with a bag of tricks and a handful of soldiers. Not quite the shining general in my imaginings, and twice as likely to die on top of everything. But he has his own ways, and I do trust him, just as he had asked me to. This time, I trust that he can make greatness out of anything.
“Give him a few seasons more polishing his close combat skills on patrols,” I growl at Lastor. “then I can yield him to you. But he starts as a messenger, do you understand? To a route he knows intimately, perhaps like the one to and from Rivendell.”
THE END
Ranking: Tied for 1st place
Summary: While journeying through the Misty Mountains, the King of Mirkwood’s party becomes the target of a vicious pack of hunting orcs. “I have a plan,” Legolas says, and Thranduil knows his notoriously ingenious son well enough that these four words just about terrify him.
Rating: K+
Characters: Legolas, Thranduil
You can review the story here:
www.fanfiction.net/s/12891688/3/The-Halls-of-My-Home
Night falls and I dream about him, as I sometimes do in precisely this way – my son stands at the head of a mighty column.
Legolas is wearing the colors of my house, and outfitted in dully gleaming armor. The formidable metal is well-kept and beloved, but has the patina of use. There are scratches on its surface, dents buffered out, miniscule cracks from innumerable repairs that even the most skillful craftsmen can no longer hide. He refuses to change it – he likes how it feels, he says, how his body had made a home of it.
In my older dreams, the armor he wore to this unknown, imagined battle was gleaming so brightly it was almost luminous. Legolas was younger then, and I had greater freedom to ascribe my own plans and wishes upon him. Now that he is a more seasoned warrior, he has his own ways and I know him better. He will, for example, not suffer stiff, shiny, new armor; he barely suffers them at all. In a few years, I might have no choice but to dream of him in nothing but the barest protection afforded by leather pauldrons. I hope he finds the heart to at least wear these. He shouldn’t sacrifice his safety for dexterity, as he is wont to. He shouldn’t be exposed to any more danger than is necessary. He shouldn’t tempt fate so much –
“Ada?”
This single word jolts me to wakefulness. I did not even realize my eyes have fallen shut. I am lying on cold, hard, jagged ground. It is a startling contrast to the smooth, hewn rock that surrounds the walls of this gods-forsaken trap, from which there can be found no purchase for a climb. I’ve been looking up at the hole over my head, the one I’d fallen in from, for endless hours now. Unable to move, I watched the clouds dance, and I watched the sun set and the skies darken. The dim light it lets into my prison is covered by a familiar silhouette.
“Ada, I’m coming.”
The shadow vanishes for a long moment, and I wonder if I’ve been dreaming of Legolas again until I do dream about him again.
I dream of my son at the head of a mighty column. Row after row after row of our finest soldiers flank him, thousands of them in disciplined lines. I concede – it is debatable if they are indeed the finest elven warriors in all of Arda. But what is unquestionable to anyone is that they are the hardiest, by virtue of our constant struggles as a people. My son is the best among them. He wears my crown. The brilliant green of spring leaves twined around the jagged branches look like emeralds on his proud, golden head.
It is a dream I will never see come to light. He will stand before that column with that crown on his head, only when I am dead -if he should bother with it at all. Even the humblest circlet required of him in diplomatic ceremonies, I am hard-pressed to force onto him.
“Ada, I’m here.”
He wrests me from my dreams.
He’s always wrested me from my dreams.
Not that he wakes me often, but that he keeps re-shaping and re-fashioning them to his own will. He has his own ways now, his own plans, his own ideas. Sometimes a dream is just a dream.
“Legolas,” I say, and my voice is gravelly and broken. I raise my hand to touch his face. We seldom ever touch nowadays, but I need to know if he is real. He is warm flesh beneath my palm.
“Your hands are cold,” he says softly, taking them in his and rubbing at them to infuse warmth. They cover mine completely, and I wonder when they had gotten so large. The last time I held his hands, his were so small I could have cupped them into my fist. I feel disproportionately bereft when he releases me. He runs his freed hands across my body, feeling for injury.
“The worst of it is the head wound, hir-nin,” one of my companions report. His voice is rough too, and I’d almost forgotten that I am not alone in this prison. There had been an elaborate trap that triggered an avalanche. Our traveling party ran to evade it, only to end up here – another trap. Half the company I was traveling with was lost. I am left with four of the royal guard, two senior ministers, and a healer who always accompanied me on the road.
“How bad is it?” Legolas asks.
“He lost a lot of blood,” the healer reports, “and was unconscious for a few hours. When he woke he got sick twice, and was coming and going. He was unresponsive until your arrival.”
“Ada, do you know where you are?” Legolas asks, slowly and carefully, as if he was speaking to a dull child.
“I would rather forget,” I hiss at him. He almost smiles, and it lightens up his somewhat harried appearance – hair unkempt, face grimy, eyes worn and tired. He is wearing a travel-worn cloak, tunic, leather pauldrons, and a miscellany of weapons secured on belts and quivers. These are the same clothes he had on when we last saw each other – the last time we saw each other!
“What are you doing here?” I bark at him, and he winces at my tone. I slap his hands away and force myself up to dangerously shaking elbows. I will not be defied. Although, I do have to suffer the indignity of being steadied precisely by the target of my profound displeasure when I sway where I sit.
He is wearing the exact same clothes as the last time we saw each other. The last time we saw each other... The last time we saw each other, we were saying goodbye.
#
Legolas had just finished making his farewells to our hosts in Imladris, and was about to take the journey back home. For reasons of security, we never took long travels together.
In days as dark as the one we endured in, it was agreed that the succession in our Realm had to be protected at all times. In the event that one of us was lost, there always had to be someone left to rule. Thus, we always traveled different routes, at different times.
Coming from Elrond’s House, it was agreed that Legolas would leave earlier and take the longer route over the Misty Mountains – the Redhorn Pass. I would depart later and take the High Pass, and we could expect to return home at roughly the same time. Each way had its own perils, but that could be said of any road in all of Arda nowadays.
Saying goodbye to Legolas was neither new nor uncommon. We’ve both been needed together at various points of the world before, and we would travel to and from such destinations apart. But something about this trip was nagging at me, and I couldn’t quite understand why but I did not want to let him out of my sight.
“The discussions this summit proven especially fruitful, don’t you think?” I asked him, before Legolas could open his mouth and say goodbye.
Legolas’ brows furrowed in puzzlement at the delay, but was as quick to indulge me as always. “We covered a lot of things in such a short span of time,” he agreed, and it was plain truth.
High level discussions between delegates of our kingdom, and that of Rivendell and Lothlorien, were held every few yen, as the need arose. The last summit had been at our own Realm and the one before that was held at Lothlorien. This most recent one hosted in Imladris had secured a miscellany of deals for trade, security, information sharing, and – the brainchild of Legolas and the twin sons of Elrond he’d long been fast friends with – an education exchange for elves on all sides to learn each one’s warring skills, healing arts and other specialized knowledge.
“I am especially impressed by your initiative, ion-nin,” I commend him. “The running of a Kingdom, it becomes you.”
Legolas fidgeted. He did not like this kind of succession talk, and I think my sudden desire to linger worried him.
“What’s on your mind, adar?” he asked. “Perhaps... perhaps we can travel home together, just this once.”
I was tempted. By the gods, I was tempted to leash my son to my side today, but this feeling was not new too. If I could keep Legolas from going on missions, patrols or distant assignments, I would. But that was not the way of the world.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I scoffed at him, though mostly I was scolding my own weakness. “You know why this is done. Deviation is unacceptable.”
He threw me a helpless smile. “As the King bids it then,” he said, lightheartedly. He took no offense at my tone, he seldom did. It’s how we both survive. “But if I am to take to the road, I really must make leave of you now, aran-nin.”
I let him leave. I watched until the smallest speck of him vanished from my sight.
#
“What are you doing here?” I ask again.
“We took the Redhorn Pass as planned,” he replies. He turns away from me and busies himself with a pack filled with miscellany. I hear soft padding of cloth, the slither of rope, the clinking of tins and bottles. I do not know what else he has in there. He draws out a flask, and the sweet smell of miruvor is quick to encapsulate the small, confined space. He presses it to my lips, and I take the barest of sips. It will be needed by many.
“Something felt wrong,” Legolas continues. He gives me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, before he begins to pass the flask around to our compatriots. “There were too many obstacles along the way – an avalanche of rocks, a freshly fallen tree, a collapsed foot path... one or two can be expected in such a journey but it was soon apparent to us that we were being herded somewhere. We were being hunted.”
Everyone listens to his recounting of events, while carefully sharing the restorative drink. I myself am feeling more restored by it, after hours of dizzied drifting.
“We took extra precautions with scouting,” Legolas goes on, “We lost one of our soldiers thus. He triggered a trap. But his life had purchased for us the barest foreknowledge that kept us alive. When the attack came, we were as ready as we could be under the circumstances. We found a defensible post and drove the yrch away at the cost of a few more lives.”
“That does not answer my question,” I point out.
“Patience, aran-nin,” he replies playfully, as he sometimes does when evading my hardest questions. “That was over two weeks ago. We were halfway home and so the farthest distance from any help. We suspected the orcs must have had a similar plan in place for you, and we kept one of the enemy alive for questioning. He was only all too pleased to brag about their plans.”
The Intelligence Minister who had traveled with me, Lastor, is intrigued by this news. “So the orcs knew the King would be on the road. They were prepared for him.”
“I think some of them have wizened up to the summits held over the years,” Legolas reports. “Of course they knew not when precisely our travels would be, but the traps were set and waiting. Someone new leads them, someone with ambitions.”
“It was only a matter of time,” Lastor says gravely. “Every once in a while, there emerges a great goblin. Azog and his spawn, Bolg, for instance, are known to us.”
“This beast who threatens us is called the Bastard Brother of Bolg,” Legolas says.
Lastor is aghast. For an Intelligence Minister and an elf of high standing in my court, he is prone to theatrics, especially for information that piqued the insatiable curiosity demanded of his job. “Do they have constructs of marriage, such that one may actually be called a bastard?”
Legolas finds it funny, because that is how he is. “Maybe it just sounds better, my lord. At any rate, upon discovering their plans, we split what remained of our forces. The fastest were sent home to gather reinforcements. The injured we sent with a security detail to return to Imladris. We spared a brave messenger to venture alone to Lothlorien – they must be told that their own parties are likely in danger. The best and the fittest, we sent to aid our King.”
He finishes with a small bow. I realize he’d been calling me adar until now. I suspect it is also the only time he remembered his duties to his King, rather than his love and worry for his father.
“You are still not supposed to be here,” I tell him darkly. I have no doubt he is among the best of whichever group of warriors he happens to be with and so would be the first to be sent to aid me. But he is also the Prince, and we cannot both be targets. The security of our Realm cannot be so at risk.
“Neither of us are supposed to be here,” he tells me, “So perhaps it is best to rise, yes? By luck, you must have set off the trap shortly after it was last checked, to have been spared the despicable company of our enemies for so long. But night has fallen, and the vile creatures that arranged for your capture here is sure to return to collect their bounty. We must make haste.”
His hands hover around me uncertainly. He had held my hands but moments ago, and checked me for injury after that. I realize now that he had touched me unthinkingly, perhaps in some panic from the ghastly sight of his father unmoving on the ground. I can readily sympathize. But now that he has seen his King is relatively well, he hesitates.
“If I may, aran-nin...” he says haltingly.
I give him a short nod, and he exhales in relief as he pulls me up carefully to a knee. The world spins. It is dark and the lines of rock are blurry and indistinguishable. His hands on my arms are the only anchor.
He waits for me to settle, before pulling me to my feet. He keeps me standing by bracing my right arm over his left shoulder. He keeps his main fighting hand free.
Legolas ushers me to a thick rope hanging in the middle of the hole we had fallen through. He plants me onto swaying feet, and peers at me closely to check if I can keep them.
“Do what you must,” I growl at him.
He gives me a wicked smile. He looks like a wild man, in this better light right beneath the hole. He seems at the edge of control. I can see it in his eyes, all the emotions lodged there and carried for weeks now. He bears the realization of his peril. He bears grief and guilt for his soldiers lost. He carries hypervigilance against day after day of danger and potential attack. He carries worry for me, and the desperation to get here. There is relief that I am alive, and determination to see us home. There is, inextricably, exhaustion too. He is tight as a coiled wire, about to spring. The grime on his face isn’t all travel grime too – I see a bloom of bruises, and a healing wound on the side of his head.
He suffers my observations as he winds the rope deftly about my torso, before giving a quiet signal up to his allies aboveground to lift me. He watches me rise, inch by inch by inch. He turns away to help others only when hands reach for me on higher ground.
I sit on the grasses, beneath the stars again. I watch as all of us who had fallen are hauled out of the hole by two of Legolas’ royal guard. My son, expectedly, emerges last. I release a breath I did not know I was holding.
He frees himself from the rope quickly and walks to me. “We cannot linger here. We’ve secured a small camp from which we can determine our next course of action. I am no longer the highest rank in this company, aran-nin, but I request you let me assume command until I can get us there safely.”
He isn’t wrong. He is our Prince and therefore second only to me. But in the field of battle, he has the humility, discipline and ultimately, wisdom, to defer to others’ earned rank and experience. He has become a captain on his own merits, but is still outranked by the more seasoned soldiers and ministers that surround me when I am on the road. The truth is, though, we are all bedraggled at the moment, looking blearily up at the open skies. He will know best.
“It is done,” I say, and the words are simple but his sense of responsibility and willingness to be accountable, even as he suffers from obvious physical and mental exhaustion, warms me as a father. It gives me the strength to sit taller and push to my feet.
“Lead the way, Captain,” I command him.
#
There aren’t enough horses and it is just as well, as some of us are unable to keep our seat for long – myself included.
My son shares his steed with me. I sit in front of him, and lean my head against his strong, broad shoulder. If I had been able to keep my head straight, I would have blocked his sightline by virtue of the difference in our height. I think it always irked him somewhat, as he came of age and stayed just as he was. It is, however, a minor comfort for me – he has made quick work of the feats I’ve set in training, after all. The height advantage, the gods at least spared for me.
We ride quickly. I am lulled by the movement, and it pushes my discomfort to the edges of my awareness.
I dream of my son again. Again, he is at the head of the column. Unlike tonight, he is clean, steady and unhurt. He looks formidable, like a conqueror. He is beautiful and terrifying.
“I thought I lost you, ada,” he whispers in my ear. His arms tighten around me. He is a gentle soul, and he takes the dream from me again.
#
Legolas takes us to another cave, and by the barely-suppressed humor on his face, he recognizes the irony of it.
The cave is well-hidden; anyone would have missed it if they were not looking. Its entrance is on the side of a narrow, steep ravine with intermittent streaming water, obscured by thin aerial roots from trees above, the branches of a weathered and long fallen log, and large boulders we had to maneuver around. The hole is small, but the space inside is large and deep. It is a livable space. Air stirs inside from a complex network of cracks and holes. There is even a small body of water inside, fed from an unknown source in the mountains.
“How in the world did you come by this?” Lastor asks. My intelligence minister is astonished again.
“The topography seemed ripe for cave systems,” Legolas answers as he helps me settle on a dry spot near the water. The healer in our traveling party sits beside me and prepares his wares. “It is the limestone. We were on the lookout for steam coming from entrances. The air is warmer in the caves, you see, and the cold of the mountains makes steam coming out of blowholes easier to spot.”
My Intelligence Minister looks at me pointedly. I narrow my eyes at him in irritation. I am too tired to resume a conversation that we’ve had all too many times before.
We make a respectable, makeshift camp of the cave. Watch assignments are arranged, and we deliberate our next course of action over hot tea and lembas. I feel my body slowly regaining its strength.
“We believe the traps have been set long ago and so have no constant watch upon them,” Legolas shares. “The enemy is unaware of precisely when we would by and which route we would take – they only knew we would use the paths, sooner or later. The traps have been triggered now and so they are aware of us, but are perhaps still massing their forces to attack. It means we have some time.”
“But the question is,” says Lastor thoughtfully, “Time for what. Do we hold this position until our reinforcements find us? Do we seek something more defensible? Do we attempt to escape, not knowing how many pursue us and if there are other traps set along the way?”
“This isn’t a defensible position,” my War Minister says, “this is a tomb. If we are found here, our backs are against the wall, not that we have very many left of us well enough to put up a good fight. They may even choose to simply trigger a land or rock slide and block the entrance, burying us until we are dead. I am opposed to staying.”
“Perhaps we wouldn’t be found,” Lastor says, but even he does not sound convinced. Sometimes he contradicts the War Minister out of habit. They’ve exchanged heated words before.
“I wouldn’t venture to go out and attempt to find another place,” Legolas says quietly. “We took long enough finding this one.”
“So the choice is either to hold our position or make a hasty escape,” Lastor concludes.
We fall into silence. Legolas is chewing at his lip in thought, and his brows are furrowed. He blinks, and I see him making calculations in his mind. He takes a deep breath before speaking, and I find myself doing the same.
“I have a plan,” he says, and I know my notoriously ingenious son well enough that these four words can terrify me.
Lastor leans in closely, intrigued by what he has to say.
#
It was late, and we were debating assignments for the fresh crop of warriors to come out of training. On most days it was an easy task, almost rote, and it did not have to involve me. But my War Minister and Intelligence Minister were determined to fight about one particular soldier. I’d heard all manner of this debate over the past few months and have been putting it off. That night years ago, I could postpone a decision no longer.
“Legolas is wasted on infantry,” the Intelligence Minister argued.
“Wasted!” exclaimed the War Minister, placing a hand over his heart. “Wasted! What harsh words you speak, Lastor, of our finest warriors!”
“But he is not just a fine warrior, is he?” the Intelligence Minister pointed out.
“You don’t know of what you speak. He is my best marksman! He is exceptional in close combat besides, with an eye for strategy. And the soldiers adore him almost as much as the horses do.”
“And where would you put him, hm?” Lastor asked. “Light infantry, given his skills with a bow and the horse. Do you imagine him behind the frontlines, sending out the opening volleys in a battle? And when our forces engage, he is to charge forward on horseback, as a shock troop, yes? Before he finally plants feet on the ground and fights with his knives and sword among the multitude? I know this picture well and I can promise you, his ingenuity is stifled there.”
“And where would you put him, hm?” countered the War Minister. “If he is posted to your detail, half his soldierly life will be spent on the road. In the times his task is not dull in travel, he is deep in foreign territory under a cloak or hiding under trees and rocks, waiting and watching. You will keep his bow and arrows in a quiver and his knives sheathed. Who is wasting him, then?”
“Now it is you who are slandering our finest,” Lastor argued. “You do not mention – foreign territory is often enemy territory. It is a good day when the weapons are sheathed because if caught, our soldier-spies are vastly outnumbered. You also do not mention, when they wait and watch, they do so with the most observant eye, and whatever they discover is pivotal to informing your own strategies. Aside from information gathering, it is this posting that keeps our communication lines open with other Realms. Our messengers daily traverse roads that are far from dull – they are almost constantly perilous. A posting with my men requires singular skills for fighting and survival. It requires intelligence, flexibility, a sense of independence, and inventiveness. Traits which Prince Legolas has in spades. Of the latter two, occasionally too much. Maybe too much for where you intend to put him.”
“But being among infantry is the path to a generalship,” the War Minister pointed out. “It is the way of Kings and Princes!”
He was an old friend and knew me well. The vision of my son in his gleaming armor and standing before thousands of his soldiers was always close to my mind.
“He is not a wartime general,” Lastor retorted, and at a dirty look I could not stop myself from giving him, he adjusted. All Kings dream of their sons as generals. “At least, not yet. The nature of the war we fight now is different. It is not open, decisive battle and it won’t be for a long time. We need his singular skills in this changed environment. Let him cut his teeth with me, aran-nin, and you will find his path to the top of your soldierly ranks not only uncompromised, but made richer by expanded knowledge. Eventually.”
“If he lives long enough to get there,” the War Minister countered, which in turn enraged me. He was quick to amend his words too. “Do not be angry with me, aran-nin, but at your Intelligence Minister, who covets your son so hungrily that he does not bother to speak of the attrition rates of our messenger-soldier-spies. How many do you lose, statistically?”
Lastor grimaced before replying. “One in five is reasonably representative. But this is a sacrifice we ask many families across the Realm to make, every single day.”
“I am aware of that,” I snapped at him, bristling at the insinuation that I, as King, must be willing to pay the same price – that of the life of my son.
I place Legolas on assignment in light infantry, in accordance with the War Minister’s advice.
#
“We cannot defend this position but we can survive being held within it for a long period of time,” Legolas says. “There is air, there is water, we have stores of food. Why don’t we block the entrance ourselves? The ravine is steep – there are no shortage of boulders and fallen logs directly above us that we can push over. We can block this entrance. Even if the enemy finds the cave, they cannot enter it.”
“This is madness,” the War Minister says. The soldiers around us, overhearing, look just as properly horrified by what insanity my son is proposing.
“The King can stay inside with a few soldiers,” Legolas continues, “Fewer is best – the food stores will last longer, if the worst should happen. Those most injured must stay. The strongest will be needed to move he earth above.”
“And what of the elves who cannot re-enter the safety of the closed cave?” one of the soldiers asked, “what happens to them?”
“They intercept the arriving reinforcements and take them to where the King was left,” Legolas says.
“But will they not also be besieged by the same danger we fear could overcome us if we attempted to escape – potential traps? A determined orc hoard?” asks the same elf. He is unhurt and in fighting form, and knows which assignment would likely fall upon him.
“The traps you might be able to avoid if you know what to look for,” Legolas replies. “Our traveling party had encountered many on the way here, so we can recognize the signs. It is how we reached the King safely. One of the soldiers was with me will join you to watch out for them. As for the orcs – we will need a diversion.”
My son looks away from me. It clenches at my heart.
“I think I know how to deflect their attention away from you and away from where the King is safely held,” Legolas says. “If they use the traps as a signal for where we are, I think we can use them to provide shall we say, disinformation.”
“You want to safely trigger traps in the wrong direction,” Lastor says, enlightened, “so that what forces they can gather will mass there and away from everyone else.”
“Is there a safe way to trigger a trap?” I ask, tightly. Because I think I know what assignment my foolhardy son plans to take on.
“It is all mechanical,” he replies, “pulleys and levers. I know what to look for. At worst... well. They seek a golden-haired royal from Thranduil’s House, do they not? I think I can function as a reasonable diversion.”
I feel my face frown and freeze there, as if set in stone. The elves around us know to make themselves scarce quickly, even without my having to give voice to profound displeasure. My son and I are given immediate privacy.
“You speak of me as if I were a useless lump of clay,” I tell him. “I fight, Legolas. I do not cower in some cave. And you know very well who among us is the best at that.”
“Do we really?” he attempts to kid.
“Legolas!”
He sighs and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the blue orbs shine with earnestness. “I will not have you in open combat, especially not in the state you are in. Besides, to protect the King is to protect the Realm. Please. Let us serve our beloved land, and let us help our kin endure. We can do this best by sheltering you.”
“Then is it not also a responsibility to look after your own health?” I point out. “You are a Prince. You cannot speak to me of our responsibilities to succession and discount your own place.”
“There are certain things only I can do in this particular instance,” he says quietly. “I know where the traps we’ve avoided are and I know how to look for more. At worst - I am the only one who shares your features and your blood. If I am caught, I have a chance at surviving. They won’t kill me outright, as they will the others.”
“If you are caught they will ransom you to me,” I say. “And isn’t there also considerable danger in that?”
“But you will never give in to their demands,” Legolas says simply.
My heart aches. “Won’t I?”
“You won’t,” he says with absolute certainty. “Because it won’t be right.”
I look away from him. “You overestimate me as a King,” I say softly, “and underestimate me as a father.”
Legolas reaches for me, stops to reconsider, and then does so anyway. He lays a hand upon my hand. “No, adar. I am sorry that my words should bring you to think that. I would never believe it.” He places both our hands over his heart. “I adore my father – my father – only for the person that he is, because he is both father and king all at once all the time, and he will always do what is right. Now I beg of you to let me do my job. I swear to you we will succeed.
“Trust me,” he implores, “I ask you to trust me, aran-nin. Adar.” He is invoking whichever incarnation of me would help him get his way, this impossible, irrepressible elfling of mine.
“Trust me as your son, your subject, your captain, your kinsman. A soldier of the same cloth. A friend who has never let you down. As someone who loves the land and its people as much as you... Surely one of these must fit. Please. Trust me.”
Two words alone of that mouthful, however, and he should have known he had cornered me. If I yield, he gets his way. If I do not yield, I hurt him by my lack of faith. But what was there to argue, really. He has always had my faith, he has always had my trust. I know he can get any job done. But I can never trust him to look after himself. That right, as a father, I cannot ever yield.
“I swear to you, adar,” he says, as if reading my mind, “I will live, if only because I refuse to let you die buried here. We will bring help, and we will ride home together.”
I do not trust him to care for himself. But I trust his love for me and in this instance, they are entwined - I will live, if only because I refuse to let you die buried here.
I clench his hand tightly, before releasing it. I give him a nod and dismiss him to his work.
#
They work quickly.
I am left with the most grievously injured and the least able fighters. We have water, food, air and each other. We stand away from the cave entrance in case of a miscalculation in the objects thrown or pushed from the top of the ravine to cover us. Little by little – boulders and rocks, branches and logs – the entrance to our shelter is obscured from prying eyes.
It blocks out most of the light save for a few cracks here and there, ushering in an artificial night.
My son has long since left, but I know he will return and with him, the light. He will fetch the sun for me.
#
I dream about him as I sometimes do, but especially now that there is naught else to do but survive and wait, and take mental excursions away from the rocks that have been home to us over the last few days.
Lately, my dreams of Legolas have shelved the gleaming armor and the mighty column. There is now more mud and grime, and blood - some of it, his own. He is scarred but standing tall. He stands not with an army, but a handful of fellows against an unimaginable evil. He is weary, but winning. He is unafraid.
At this vision, my blood rushes in my ears, and my heart hammers in my chest. I feel warm and alive, and hungry for ground. I feel incandescent.
I wake to the sound of movement outside of our self-imposed prison. The debris shifts, and a familiar silhouette stands against a backdrop of brilliant sunlight.
I wince against it, but move closer to Legolas’ figure. My eyes quickly adjust to the light, and I see him better than before. He is bruised and bloodied, but his gaze is burning.
The sight of him like this is better than any dream.
I engulf him in an embrace, and for a long moment, he stiffens in my arms. It is not our way to begin with, but I feel his body taut like a raw nerve and tight as a coiled spring, still braced for danger after weeks on top of weeks of vigilance. I wish I could knead him until his mind and body can return to rest and tenderness. I can only hold him tighter, so I do.
He breathes hard against my neck, and when he finally raises his arms to return my embrace, he does so greedily. Hungrily. He is almost clawing at my back. But it is quick; he is exhausted beyond imagining, and hurt besides. His arms fall from me limply, a beat before his knees give way. His weight brings us both to the ground.
I hold him in my arms and look down at his pale face. He is awake and aware, but confused by his collapse and sudden powerlessness. Sometimes, I tell myself, sometimes victory and glory look like this.
“You did well, ion-nin,” I tell him fervently. “You’ve redeemed your promise to me.”
No one else was lost, I would be told later, and Legolas’ plans go off seamlessly, save for the survivable injuries here and there. My son’s harebrained rescue plans have succeeded beyond everyone else’s imaginings but his own.
We ride home to our Realm together this once, just as we both always wanted to. But because luck smiles on Legolas on most other days, he misses out on this deviation from protocol by being exhausted and listless in my arms for most of the way.
I hold him tight and hoard the memory of it for myself - the scent of his hair, the shape of his head, the warmth of his body, the angles of his bones. I gorge myself on it. I’ve never wanted a ride to last forever. I relish the closeness of my son.
Especially since my opportunistic Intelligence Minister – a necessary trait for his line of expertise too, I gather – has been looking at me pointedly and eyeing the impossibly gifted son I still held in my arms.
I sigh. I’ve seen firsthand what incredible things Legolas can do with a bag of tricks and a handful of soldiers. Not quite the shining general in my imaginings, and twice as likely to die on top of everything. But he has his own ways, and I do trust him, just as he had asked me to. This time, I trust that he can make greatness out of anything.
“Give him a few seasons more polishing his close combat skills on patrols,” I growl at Lastor. “then I can yield him to you. But he starts as a messenger, do you understand? To a route he knows intimately, perhaps like the one to and from Rivendell.”
THE END