Post by Admin on Jan 31, 2021 23:16:46 GMT
Author: Elemmire
A/N: Story is based off of Amanda Falk's Fireflies. Character death.
Gwahir nîn = My blood brother
Mellon nîn = My friend
Tiro = Look
Light dappled through the green laden boughs, illuminating the young beech wood in the clear glow of high noon. The wind flowed over the trees, causing them to bend and sigh, swaying gently to the rustling song of their leaves. A lament; a lament echoed in the heart of a still form kneeling on a little used pathway through the forest.
The light flickered on the golden hair, and the wind teased strands of it to dance, but the elf did not stir, as though he was made of stone, unfeeling to the beauty of the world around him. A dark shadow veiled the eyes of the figure, and his mouth, the only part of his body that moved, twitched ever and anon as though some painful word moved silent over those cold lips.
“Legolas! Gwahir nîn! Tiro!”
The elf flinched.
“Legolas! Come and play with me!”
A low, pining moan plied itself from the constricted throat of the elf. As if in answer, the wind blew harder, and a ripple passed over the trees like a shudder, pain flowing and piercing the whole wood from root to bud.
Legolas closed his eyes. The visions had not lessened, but increased. Elladan had commanded him to never stray alone, but what could even Elladan understand? Chance had made him relation to a human child, and though time brought forth a deep and lovely bond betwixt the sons of Elrond, still so Elladan could not begin to understand.
“Estel... gwahir nîn...”
The prince's tentative whisper fell hushed upon the air, and the words were carried away from him on swift wings of the wind. So cruel! The world would even bear the beloved name away from him. Trying again, he dared a little louder, “Estel.”
Blast the infernal wind! It rose to hasten away the name from the one who desired nothing more than to hear it spoken. “Estel... Estel!”
His voice rose in pitch and earnestness. “Estel! Gwahir! Estel, Estel! Estel! Estel! ESTEL!”
His screams rent the air, and the echoes crashed upon him like plummeting rocks, resounding in his ears and beating him to the ground. He fell to the earth, his hands pressed over his ears, eyes tightly closed, though he did not stop his cries. The name rose from the pale lips, in desperation. He had to hear! He had to hear and heed him!
“Gwahir!” The last wretched scream came burning from his throat, and no more sound came. Grabbing at the earth below him with his shaking fingers, he gasped in breaths of accursed air. Air that lasted the death of Aragorn son of Arathorn was no air at all, but a vanishing dream into cold and unshakable nightmare. The earth, the wretched beastly earth, still stayed firm beneath him.0 Rage flared in his breast at its insolence, ignorance. Did it not know that Hope had passed from it, never to touch its soil again? Every fibre of his being longed to tear it apart, grain from grain, thread from thread, with his two, weak, helpless hands.
Clawing the ground, he hissed on ragged breath every curse he ever knew in all his years. Thousands of years— wastes and turmoil! Nothing could be gained, everything lost! Gone, gone, gone as a candle's light dies under a puff of air, never to be lit again.
His fingers stung and bled as dirt and debris wedged under his skin and nails, but still he dug, pitifully writhing on the ground as he did.
His voice returned, strengthened by the murmured name, “Estel... Estel, oh my brother... my blood brother, where are you?”
Faltering, laying his face on the ground, he whispered, “Where? Where... where are you, Estel? Where did you fly? Whither did they take you, my friend, my brother, my Hope? Where... where? Where are you?!”
Stumbling drunkenly to his feet, he turned his dirtied fingers to the sky, as though he meant to tear through the blue itself, and cried so that the air trembled about him, “Where did you take him! Do you hear me! Bring him back to me!”
His feet stumbled, and he dropped to his knees, watching the world spin into patternless shapes and colours. Everything looked so dark. Choking a whisper, he implored helplessly, “Take me to him, I beg you... oh please, please bring me to my brother... we were always meant to be together... always. You know. You've seen it, you formed it! So please... please take me to him.”
He felt the world shift under him as though his grief had rent its center in two. He cared not. His eyes were fixed to the cruel, heartless light above him. So merciless. It bared him to a pitiless world that bore nothing but a lonely, dark road.
Slowly, his eyes closed.
Sleep.
Deep, dark sleep.
Freedom could be found, if he could only sleep in... darkness...
“I won't let you do that, you know.”
Legolas opened his eyes. The moon hung overhead, shining down coolly upon him through the feathery leaves of willows, bathing his stinging eyes in a gentle, pure caress.
“You are not going to just give up.”
“Wh... what?” Legolas mumbled, his brow furrowing. That voice. He sat up swiftly, wide eyed, and stared at the child standing not three feet away from him.
The boy was adorned in a simple grey tunic, wrinkled beyond recovery, and his brown breeches were rolled up his thighs. His dark brown hair was covered in bits of grass and dirt, and his arms were poised in front of him as if he were about to snatch something from the air.
He paused, and turned around to look at the elf quizzically. A wry smile had been caught upon his youthful, keen face, yet to fade, and his grey eyes glimmered in the darkness like silver stars. Hesitantly, tentatively, the elf whispered, “Estel?”
The child, relaxing enough to turn aside and take a swipe with his deft hand through the air, answered calmly, “Yes?”
Before Legolas paused even to begin to wonder, he had scrambled to his feet and thrown his arms around the boy, holding him close, crushing him in a trembling embrace. Estel squirmed, exclaiming in protest, “Oh, come on, you don't leave yet! And I'll save you one to take with you, Legolas!”
The words slowly penetrated Legolas' mind, and he asked witlessly, pulling back a little from Estel, “One of what?”
The boy lifted up his clenched hands and unveiled a small firefly flashing on his palm. “I don't need all of them. This one you can keep.”
The elder opened his mouth to answer, but cried out in pain when something struck the back of his head. White specks flashed over his vision, and he sensed he was falling. A groan came from him as the searing light faded into blackness.
“Legolas! Gwahir! That's it, come on! Wake to me!”
Legolas forced his eyes open, and then squinted. A young man, with the scraggly beginnings of a beard covering his face, and worry etching deep grooves in all of his features, stared back at him. Legolas touched his forehead and moaned at the pain coursing through his whole body, let alone the confusion.
“Welcome back,” the man laughed, relief on his face, and Legolas muttered, “I don't see why you're laughing, Aragorn.”
A hand clasped his shoulder gently, and softly the Ranger said, “I was afraid for a while that I had lost you.”
Those words jarred Legolas from the relaxed position he had settled into on the cushion of cloaks below him. No. He could not be here— he was not. He was not gazing into the eyes of his brother. Aragorn bent over him anxiously, asking, “Are you comfortable? How is your head?”
“It feels a little numb,” he answered, his eyes following every movement of the one before him. The Ranger slipped a hand behind the Elf's head, and Legolas hissed. “Never mind. It feels very much on fire.”
“I was afraid of as much...” Aragorn murmured, shaking his head, worry reappearing on his face. He glanced up at the sky, which was turning red at the rising of the sun. He sighed, and then said, “I was hoping to save this, but I think that you need it now if we are to make it to Rivendell ahead of the tracking party.”
“The tracking party?” Legolas echoed, closing his eyes as he relaxed again. The voice of Aragorn was so soothing to him.
No.
His eyes snapped open. Turning resolutely to the Man beside him, who was busy about the fire boiling athelas over a low, smokeless fire, he stared intently, taking in every detail presented. He needed to see the rise and fall of the man's chest, the proof of his breathing, the steady motion of his hands as they worked tirelessly on the menial task, and the twitch of his brow as he focused. All so dear, all so defined... but was it real? A fading hope in Legolas' breast told him that it was only a passing vision, a moment's reprieve before darkness consumed more vividly.
The elf pushed himself up onto his elbow, and was immediately admonished by Aragorn's stern command, “Lie back down, mellon, before I knock you out again to be sure you don't move.”
“I will haunt you for the rest of your life if you try it,” Legolas answered, a gravity in his voice, and a tingling pain spreading through his chest. His throat tightened. He wondered how he had had the strength to say that.
“Well, then, I will look forward to haunting you in return,” Aragorn replied blandly, inching over towards Legolas as he balanced the pot in one hand and a cup in the other. Legolas sat up again swiftly, ignoring the pressure pounding in his ears. He snatched the Ranger by the collar of his tunic and seethed, “No. Do not talk of that.”
Aragorn stared at him, eyes wide with surprise, and then his face softened, pity and sorrow crossing over his visage. “Not again, Legolas? Will you stop worrying about that? It cannot be helped.”
A tear dripped heavily off of the elf's eyelash, and he breathed, “No... it cannot be helped...”
“Now, gwahir nîn, it is a long time off,” Aragorn said, holding the cup to the elf's lips. Sweetly the smell of athelas washed over Legolas. He leaned back, his eyes drifting shut despite himself. No. It could not be helped.
“At last, Legolas! I am so glad to see you!”
The Elf's eyes shot open again. He glanced up and saw the sun shining through the wide window, and the tall, noble king striding toward him, arms outstretched. Legolas was pulled into a hearty embrace, and then Elessar asked, “So, mellon nîn, how goes it in Ithilien? I have not heard from you in a while, and had grown anxious. But my Queen told me that I should not fret so, despite your habit of finding trouble, and that all that I could wish would soon be upon me. And you know Arwen... always right, and yet never around to gloat about it.”
Legolas stammered for a moment, then clapped his brother on the back. “Well, if I may remind you, you are the one more likely to find trouble than I. But where is the Queen Arwen, if not here?”
“But I am here, Thranduilion. Suilaid. It has been many months since last we met, you and I,” Arwen said, stepping into the room, shimmering softly in a pale blue dress, looking like a young Spring sky. Legolas turned to her quickly and bowed, and she inclined her head to him, her deep, thoughtful eyes never straying from his face. Elessar gave her a warm smile, and then turned laughing to Legolas, “Ai! You must wait here a moment while I go to fetch your nephew! He is still lingering on the balcony fighting orcs.”
Legolas laughed, but felt it tasted bitter in his mouth. The king swept out of the room, and Arwen drew forward, pausing beside Legolas and bestowing a kind smile upon him. Inclining his head to her, he felt a question burning upon his lips. When he lifted his eyes to meet hers again, he saw that she waited on him to speak, as though she saw clearly that he wore a burden that he wished to speak of. Quietly she waited, and after only a moment of debate, he murmured, “Do you ever regret your decision to forsake your people for him?”
She did not seem shocked at the question, though her face fell ever so slightly. After a moment, she smiled again, sadly, and answered him, “I told him once that I would rather spend one lifetime with him, than face all the ages of this beautiful world alone. I do not now regret that choice, though at whiles it tastes... bitter of sorrow. But in the end, when all is come to pass, and no more lies in the future for me, I will not even then regret that I chose to live with him, and let his life fill my own. It will be my greatest joy. What of you, Thranduilion? Would you rather have never met him?”
Legolas looked out upon the balcony, where Elessar stood with Eldarion in his arms. Both were laughing, so carefree, so at peace with the world, a world that their mortality would not let them long enjoy.
“No. I would rather taste the bitterness of mortality than never having known Estel.” And with his answer, like a sigh, the image passed away, and the midday sky turned to one of deep dusk, and all around him there was a flash and glow of thousands of fireflies. They seemed to have risen out of the stonework, like stars going to the heavens to return to their kin after a long imprisonment inside of rock and earth.
Legolas stared for a moment, then noted that he stood calmly in a place where he had been not long before. He stood outside of the House of the Kings in the Silent Street. The doors opened, and Eldarion stepped out, Arwen behind him. Her cheeks were stained then with tears, and her gown was blacker than her raven hair, but she made way for him to enter and did not follow, her last kindness to him that he knew of her. Legolas bowed his head to her, and then passed silently through the doors. The ghosts of men held no terror for the Prince of Mirkwood and Ithilien, but there was one soul that resided yet that he feared to lose.
The shadows were long, and the lights were few. Great in majesty and wisdom was the grey haired man that was before him, rested upon the bed that had been prepared for that day and hour, his hands upon his breast. He had closed his eyes, but his chest rose and fell with each deep breath he took.
Legolas drew near him, and whispered, “Gwahir nîn?
The old Man's eyes opened and looked at him. They seemed to pierce his flesh and bore straight into his soul. A tear lighted on his eyelash and quivered.
“Legolas, my brother. Draw near and take my hand,” the king said, holding out his hand. Picking up the hand extended to him with both of his own, he whispered pleadingly, “Why do you go, Estel? We have years yet that we can see and welcome together!”
“It wears on us all,” was the soft reply. “I see it day by day. I weaken, and your heart breaks. My wife's heart breaks. I only prolong the agony that will swiftly come regardless. I will not fall useless and decrepit from my throne. I will not watch your memories grow to hoard only the last days of my life, dark and full of despair, only to then lose me to the long defeat. We have won many victories, but I will not let those fade away with my age, and make me dim and doddering.”
“Estel... Estel!” Legolas breathed, his throat constricting. Vision or no, he could not simply let his brother go. If perhaps he could convince him now, as he could not before, maybe the Valar would see fit to bring him back. To let him live, if only a short while longer. Maybe. The word held so much, even in its wavering of possibility. It still held the life of hope. “I cannot accept it. Why? Why must you go? Why now?”
“It is time. I have felt it, and delayed it as long as I could. I can no longer stand it. I will fail and hurt you all the more if I try to remain. We will come to loathe the time.”
Legolas dropped to his knees, tears falling heedlessly down his cheeks. “No! How could I hate the time that I will spend with my blood brother? Estel, my own Estel, I love you! I need you to stay! Our time has been so short, gwahir! Do not give in so easily! I need you to remain with me! Just a little while more, my brother, my brother! I beg you!”
Aragorn sat up at those words, something he had not done before. The Man seemed to grow. His essence filled the whole of the still court, and his voice, growing richer in power and grandeur, flowed as if out of the high past and washed all around the kneeling Elf.
“Legolas Greenleaf— gwahir nîn, it cannot be helped. The time has come to part, but you will live on. You have much left to live for, beyond my passing. Do not follow after me. Your time is come to take a new journey. Go, with the blessing of one who has loved you all his life long, and know that though the body lies dead, it does not mean that the soul has been crushed into oblivion. It will follow your footsteps with blessings uncounted for all the rest of your days. And then one day, long from now, there will be joy in our reunion beyond the foretellings of this world.”
Then the vision swept up into a grey mist and began to fade. Legolas clung to the hand he still held, weeping bitterly, “Estel! Estel! Wither shall I go when you have left me, but to follow after you? What journey could I find that can be blessed as it bears me away from Hope? Gwahir, gwahir nîn! Do not leave me alone!”
The hand slowly faded from his clutching grasp, and Legolas, with a cry of grief so acute no word of any tongue could capture it, dropped to the ground in the blackest of swoons.
Soft grass brushed against his cheek. He opened his eyes, and saw the fireflies dancing about him, weaving gentle patterns through the air. One landed before his face, flashing gold before the weary, dull blue eyes. Darkness came again.
A bird trilled above him. His eyes fluttered open once more. The bright sky was decorated with the elegant branches of the wood he had helped to sow in Ithilien.
With a dull gasp, he struggled to his feet, wondering numbly if there was anything left for him to do but return. Stumbling feet, with a weariness from the soul, bore him back with a slow, faltering step down the footpath. With the passing of his brother, he was alone. The idea of death danced again through his head, but he knew that journey was not the one that Estel had spoken of. Still, what of it? Alone in the world, it would not matter so much if he vanished from the realm of the living. Slumber, cradled in the arms of nothingness, invited him, but a stern will kept him from heeding it.
The last gift of Aragorn, Legolas thought, a dark smile gathering around his lips.
“There ye be, laddie,” a gruff voice said, a little out of breath, but well pleased with itself. The elf's eyes darted up to see Gimli, his long-time friend and companion, standing on the path, one hand on his hip and the other rubbing the head of a walking stick. Legolas lifted a thin eyebrow, and Gimli replied to the unasked question, “I was wondering what was taking you. We're ready to sail. The boat is quite ready to bear us on.”
“I see,” Legolas murmured, his eyes turning to the ground.
Then, with a deep sigh, the Elf clapped the Dwarf's shoulder and said, “Yes. Let us go. The journey awaits us.”
Perhaps not.
Perhaps he was not quite yet alone.
A/N: Story is based off of Amanda Falk's Fireflies. Character death.
Gwahir nîn = My blood brother
Mellon nîn = My friend
Tiro = Look
Light dappled through the green laden boughs, illuminating the young beech wood in the clear glow of high noon. The wind flowed over the trees, causing them to bend and sigh, swaying gently to the rustling song of their leaves. A lament; a lament echoed in the heart of a still form kneeling on a little used pathway through the forest.
The light flickered on the golden hair, and the wind teased strands of it to dance, but the elf did not stir, as though he was made of stone, unfeeling to the beauty of the world around him. A dark shadow veiled the eyes of the figure, and his mouth, the only part of his body that moved, twitched ever and anon as though some painful word moved silent over those cold lips.
“Legolas! Gwahir nîn! Tiro!”
The elf flinched.
“Legolas! Come and play with me!”
A low, pining moan plied itself from the constricted throat of the elf. As if in answer, the wind blew harder, and a ripple passed over the trees like a shudder, pain flowing and piercing the whole wood from root to bud.
Legolas closed his eyes. The visions had not lessened, but increased. Elladan had commanded him to never stray alone, but what could even Elladan understand? Chance had made him relation to a human child, and though time brought forth a deep and lovely bond betwixt the sons of Elrond, still so Elladan could not begin to understand.
“Estel... gwahir nîn...”
The prince's tentative whisper fell hushed upon the air, and the words were carried away from him on swift wings of the wind. So cruel! The world would even bear the beloved name away from him. Trying again, he dared a little louder, “Estel.”
Blast the infernal wind! It rose to hasten away the name from the one who desired nothing more than to hear it spoken. “Estel... Estel!”
His voice rose in pitch and earnestness. “Estel! Gwahir! Estel, Estel! Estel! Estel! ESTEL!”
His screams rent the air, and the echoes crashed upon him like plummeting rocks, resounding in his ears and beating him to the ground. He fell to the earth, his hands pressed over his ears, eyes tightly closed, though he did not stop his cries. The name rose from the pale lips, in desperation. He had to hear! He had to hear and heed him!
“Gwahir!” The last wretched scream came burning from his throat, and no more sound came. Grabbing at the earth below him with his shaking fingers, he gasped in breaths of accursed air. Air that lasted the death of Aragorn son of Arathorn was no air at all, but a vanishing dream into cold and unshakable nightmare. The earth, the wretched beastly earth, still stayed firm beneath him.0 Rage flared in his breast at its insolence, ignorance. Did it not know that Hope had passed from it, never to touch its soil again? Every fibre of his being longed to tear it apart, grain from grain, thread from thread, with his two, weak, helpless hands.
Clawing the ground, he hissed on ragged breath every curse he ever knew in all his years. Thousands of years— wastes and turmoil! Nothing could be gained, everything lost! Gone, gone, gone as a candle's light dies under a puff of air, never to be lit again.
His fingers stung and bled as dirt and debris wedged under his skin and nails, but still he dug, pitifully writhing on the ground as he did.
His voice returned, strengthened by the murmured name, “Estel... Estel, oh my brother... my blood brother, where are you?”
Faltering, laying his face on the ground, he whispered, “Where? Where... where are you, Estel? Where did you fly? Whither did they take you, my friend, my brother, my Hope? Where... where? Where are you?!”
Stumbling drunkenly to his feet, he turned his dirtied fingers to the sky, as though he meant to tear through the blue itself, and cried so that the air trembled about him, “Where did you take him! Do you hear me! Bring him back to me!”
His feet stumbled, and he dropped to his knees, watching the world spin into patternless shapes and colours. Everything looked so dark. Choking a whisper, he implored helplessly, “Take me to him, I beg you... oh please, please bring me to my brother... we were always meant to be together... always. You know. You've seen it, you formed it! So please... please take me to him.”
He felt the world shift under him as though his grief had rent its center in two. He cared not. His eyes were fixed to the cruel, heartless light above him. So merciless. It bared him to a pitiless world that bore nothing but a lonely, dark road.
Slowly, his eyes closed.
Sleep.
Deep, dark sleep.
Freedom could be found, if he could only sleep in... darkness...
“I won't let you do that, you know.”
Legolas opened his eyes. The moon hung overhead, shining down coolly upon him through the feathery leaves of willows, bathing his stinging eyes in a gentle, pure caress.
“You are not going to just give up.”
“Wh... what?” Legolas mumbled, his brow furrowing. That voice. He sat up swiftly, wide eyed, and stared at the child standing not three feet away from him.
The boy was adorned in a simple grey tunic, wrinkled beyond recovery, and his brown breeches were rolled up his thighs. His dark brown hair was covered in bits of grass and dirt, and his arms were poised in front of him as if he were about to snatch something from the air.
He paused, and turned around to look at the elf quizzically. A wry smile had been caught upon his youthful, keen face, yet to fade, and his grey eyes glimmered in the darkness like silver stars. Hesitantly, tentatively, the elf whispered, “Estel?”
The child, relaxing enough to turn aside and take a swipe with his deft hand through the air, answered calmly, “Yes?”
Before Legolas paused even to begin to wonder, he had scrambled to his feet and thrown his arms around the boy, holding him close, crushing him in a trembling embrace. Estel squirmed, exclaiming in protest, “Oh, come on, you don't leave yet! And I'll save you one to take with you, Legolas!”
The words slowly penetrated Legolas' mind, and he asked witlessly, pulling back a little from Estel, “One of what?”
The boy lifted up his clenched hands and unveiled a small firefly flashing on his palm. “I don't need all of them. This one you can keep.”
The elder opened his mouth to answer, but cried out in pain when something struck the back of his head. White specks flashed over his vision, and he sensed he was falling. A groan came from him as the searing light faded into blackness.
“Legolas! Gwahir! That's it, come on! Wake to me!”
Legolas forced his eyes open, and then squinted. A young man, with the scraggly beginnings of a beard covering his face, and worry etching deep grooves in all of his features, stared back at him. Legolas touched his forehead and moaned at the pain coursing through his whole body, let alone the confusion.
“Welcome back,” the man laughed, relief on his face, and Legolas muttered, “I don't see why you're laughing, Aragorn.”
A hand clasped his shoulder gently, and softly the Ranger said, “I was afraid for a while that I had lost you.”
Those words jarred Legolas from the relaxed position he had settled into on the cushion of cloaks below him. No. He could not be here— he was not. He was not gazing into the eyes of his brother. Aragorn bent over him anxiously, asking, “Are you comfortable? How is your head?”
“It feels a little numb,” he answered, his eyes following every movement of the one before him. The Ranger slipped a hand behind the Elf's head, and Legolas hissed. “Never mind. It feels very much on fire.”
“I was afraid of as much...” Aragorn murmured, shaking his head, worry reappearing on his face. He glanced up at the sky, which was turning red at the rising of the sun. He sighed, and then said, “I was hoping to save this, but I think that you need it now if we are to make it to Rivendell ahead of the tracking party.”
“The tracking party?” Legolas echoed, closing his eyes as he relaxed again. The voice of Aragorn was so soothing to him.
No.
His eyes snapped open. Turning resolutely to the Man beside him, who was busy about the fire boiling athelas over a low, smokeless fire, he stared intently, taking in every detail presented. He needed to see the rise and fall of the man's chest, the proof of his breathing, the steady motion of his hands as they worked tirelessly on the menial task, and the twitch of his brow as he focused. All so dear, all so defined... but was it real? A fading hope in Legolas' breast told him that it was only a passing vision, a moment's reprieve before darkness consumed more vividly.
The elf pushed himself up onto his elbow, and was immediately admonished by Aragorn's stern command, “Lie back down, mellon, before I knock you out again to be sure you don't move.”
“I will haunt you for the rest of your life if you try it,” Legolas answered, a gravity in his voice, and a tingling pain spreading through his chest. His throat tightened. He wondered how he had had the strength to say that.
“Well, then, I will look forward to haunting you in return,” Aragorn replied blandly, inching over towards Legolas as he balanced the pot in one hand and a cup in the other. Legolas sat up again swiftly, ignoring the pressure pounding in his ears. He snatched the Ranger by the collar of his tunic and seethed, “No. Do not talk of that.”
Aragorn stared at him, eyes wide with surprise, and then his face softened, pity and sorrow crossing over his visage. “Not again, Legolas? Will you stop worrying about that? It cannot be helped.”
A tear dripped heavily off of the elf's eyelash, and he breathed, “No... it cannot be helped...”
“Now, gwahir nîn, it is a long time off,” Aragorn said, holding the cup to the elf's lips. Sweetly the smell of athelas washed over Legolas. He leaned back, his eyes drifting shut despite himself. No. It could not be helped.
“At last, Legolas! I am so glad to see you!”
The Elf's eyes shot open again. He glanced up and saw the sun shining through the wide window, and the tall, noble king striding toward him, arms outstretched. Legolas was pulled into a hearty embrace, and then Elessar asked, “So, mellon nîn, how goes it in Ithilien? I have not heard from you in a while, and had grown anxious. But my Queen told me that I should not fret so, despite your habit of finding trouble, and that all that I could wish would soon be upon me. And you know Arwen... always right, and yet never around to gloat about it.”
Legolas stammered for a moment, then clapped his brother on the back. “Well, if I may remind you, you are the one more likely to find trouble than I. But where is the Queen Arwen, if not here?”
“But I am here, Thranduilion. Suilaid. It has been many months since last we met, you and I,” Arwen said, stepping into the room, shimmering softly in a pale blue dress, looking like a young Spring sky. Legolas turned to her quickly and bowed, and she inclined her head to him, her deep, thoughtful eyes never straying from his face. Elessar gave her a warm smile, and then turned laughing to Legolas, “Ai! You must wait here a moment while I go to fetch your nephew! He is still lingering on the balcony fighting orcs.”
Legolas laughed, but felt it tasted bitter in his mouth. The king swept out of the room, and Arwen drew forward, pausing beside Legolas and bestowing a kind smile upon him. Inclining his head to her, he felt a question burning upon his lips. When he lifted his eyes to meet hers again, he saw that she waited on him to speak, as though she saw clearly that he wore a burden that he wished to speak of. Quietly she waited, and after only a moment of debate, he murmured, “Do you ever regret your decision to forsake your people for him?”
She did not seem shocked at the question, though her face fell ever so slightly. After a moment, she smiled again, sadly, and answered him, “I told him once that I would rather spend one lifetime with him, than face all the ages of this beautiful world alone. I do not now regret that choice, though at whiles it tastes... bitter of sorrow. But in the end, when all is come to pass, and no more lies in the future for me, I will not even then regret that I chose to live with him, and let his life fill my own. It will be my greatest joy. What of you, Thranduilion? Would you rather have never met him?”
Legolas looked out upon the balcony, where Elessar stood with Eldarion in his arms. Both were laughing, so carefree, so at peace with the world, a world that their mortality would not let them long enjoy.
“No. I would rather taste the bitterness of mortality than never having known Estel.” And with his answer, like a sigh, the image passed away, and the midday sky turned to one of deep dusk, and all around him there was a flash and glow of thousands of fireflies. They seemed to have risen out of the stonework, like stars going to the heavens to return to their kin after a long imprisonment inside of rock and earth.
Legolas stared for a moment, then noted that he stood calmly in a place where he had been not long before. He stood outside of the House of the Kings in the Silent Street. The doors opened, and Eldarion stepped out, Arwen behind him. Her cheeks were stained then with tears, and her gown was blacker than her raven hair, but she made way for him to enter and did not follow, her last kindness to him that he knew of her. Legolas bowed his head to her, and then passed silently through the doors. The ghosts of men held no terror for the Prince of Mirkwood and Ithilien, but there was one soul that resided yet that he feared to lose.
The shadows were long, and the lights were few. Great in majesty and wisdom was the grey haired man that was before him, rested upon the bed that had been prepared for that day and hour, his hands upon his breast. He had closed his eyes, but his chest rose and fell with each deep breath he took.
Legolas drew near him, and whispered, “Gwahir nîn?
The old Man's eyes opened and looked at him. They seemed to pierce his flesh and bore straight into his soul. A tear lighted on his eyelash and quivered.
“Legolas, my brother. Draw near and take my hand,” the king said, holding out his hand. Picking up the hand extended to him with both of his own, he whispered pleadingly, “Why do you go, Estel? We have years yet that we can see and welcome together!”
“It wears on us all,” was the soft reply. “I see it day by day. I weaken, and your heart breaks. My wife's heart breaks. I only prolong the agony that will swiftly come regardless. I will not fall useless and decrepit from my throne. I will not watch your memories grow to hoard only the last days of my life, dark and full of despair, only to then lose me to the long defeat. We have won many victories, but I will not let those fade away with my age, and make me dim and doddering.”
“Estel... Estel!” Legolas breathed, his throat constricting. Vision or no, he could not simply let his brother go. If perhaps he could convince him now, as he could not before, maybe the Valar would see fit to bring him back. To let him live, if only a short while longer. Maybe. The word held so much, even in its wavering of possibility. It still held the life of hope. “I cannot accept it. Why? Why must you go? Why now?”
“It is time. I have felt it, and delayed it as long as I could. I can no longer stand it. I will fail and hurt you all the more if I try to remain. We will come to loathe the time.”
Legolas dropped to his knees, tears falling heedlessly down his cheeks. “No! How could I hate the time that I will spend with my blood brother? Estel, my own Estel, I love you! I need you to stay! Our time has been so short, gwahir! Do not give in so easily! I need you to remain with me! Just a little while more, my brother, my brother! I beg you!”
Aragorn sat up at those words, something he had not done before. The Man seemed to grow. His essence filled the whole of the still court, and his voice, growing richer in power and grandeur, flowed as if out of the high past and washed all around the kneeling Elf.
“Legolas Greenleaf— gwahir nîn, it cannot be helped. The time has come to part, but you will live on. You have much left to live for, beyond my passing. Do not follow after me. Your time is come to take a new journey. Go, with the blessing of one who has loved you all his life long, and know that though the body lies dead, it does not mean that the soul has been crushed into oblivion. It will follow your footsteps with blessings uncounted for all the rest of your days. And then one day, long from now, there will be joy in our reunion beyond the foretellings of this world.”
Then the vision swept up into a grey mist and began to fade. Legolas clung to the hand he still held, weeping bitterly, “Estel! Estel! Wither shall I go when you have left me, but to follow after you? What journey could I find that can be blessed as it bears me away from Hope? Gwahir, gwahir nîn! Do not leave me alone!”
The hand slowly faded from his clutching grasp, and Legolas, with a cry of grief so acute no word of any tongue could capture it, dropped to the ground in the blackest of swoons.
Soft grass brushed against his cheek. He opened his eyes, and saw the fireflies dancing about him, weaving gentle patterns through the air. One landed before his face, flashing gold before the weary, dull blue eyes. Darkness came again.
A bird trilled above him. His eyes fluttered open once more. The bright sky was decorated with the elegant branches of the wood he had helped to sow in Ithilien.
With a dull gasp, he struggled to his feet, wondering numbly if there was anything left for him to do but return. Stumbling feet, with a weariness from the soul, bore him back with a slow, faltering step down the footpath. With the passing of his brother, he was alone. The idea of death danced again through his head, but he knew that journey was not the one that Estel had spoken of. Still, what of it? Alone in the world, it would not matter so much if he vanished from the realm of the living. Slumber, cradled in the arms of nothingness, invited him, but a stern will kept him from heeding it.
The last gift of Aragorn, Legolas thought, a dark smile gathering around his lips.
“There ye be, laddie,” a gruff voice said, a little out of breath, but well pleased with itself. The elf's eyes darted up to see Gimli, his long-time friend and companion, standing on the path, one hand on his hip and the other rubbing the head of a walking stick. Legolas lifted a thin eyebrow, and Gimli replied to the unasked question, “I was wondering what was taking you. We're ready to sail. The boat is quite ready to bear us on.”
“I see,” Legolas murmured, his eyes turning to the ground.
Then, with a deep sigh, the Elf clapped the Dwarf's shoulder and said, “Yes. Let us go. The journey awaits us.”
Perhaps not.
Perhaps he was not quite yet alone.