So this was what it felt like to be completely numb.
Odd, how one event gone completely unnoticed by all save one person had killed the passionate warrior in him.
There was nothing now, just the wind whistling.
When Aragorn had come to him to tell him, the numbness had come upon him instantly. There was no more room in his heart for tragedy or despair. What a warrior. Over two thousand, nine hundred and thirty-one years, he had seen and slain too many, and after the death of Boromir it seemed impossible to feel anything anymore, no matter which of your comrades fell upon the raging field.
Whiteness outside the window, and wind.
They had won the battle, but at a greater price than even Aragorn could be aware of. To feel nothing, for someone you once loved so passionately. To not realize he was gone and mourn for him! This was the price of their battle. This was what accompanied their joyous victory.
Legolas alone felt no joy. Felt no sorrow. He could have drifted peacefully away in his mind if it hadn't been for Aragorn, Aragorn gently leading him inside Helm's Deep, comforting words falling sweet-sounding and unnoticed on dimly aware ears. Aragorn mistook his numbness for sorrow that transcended even tears. Ordinarily, he would have been right. Haldir was dead! There was no triumph over death this time, as there had been for Gandalf. Boromir had at least gotten an honorable funeral with bereaved mourners after his passing.
Haldir lay alone and broken outside, one more corpse unrecognizable amongst the pile of carnage that had once been Orcs and Men and Elves.
They had left him.
Legolas had not known until the battle was over. His love had died in crushing pain, resting in the arms of a man who was the glue that had held the Fellowship together, up to a point. What had he thought, in those moments? Had he wished for his lover to come and hold him, to cry and reassure him that he was there?
The Prince of Mirkwood was numb. That was all; not even comfortably numb. It was a blindness and deafness of the entire body.
The whiteness beyond his window matched the petals of the rose he held in his hand.
Bowing his head, Legolas let his eyes linger in the pale void, trying to remember Haldir's face and coming up with only scenes of war and carnage. The proud Elf he had loved so deeply was just a face among the hordes nor, undistinguished by anything or anyone.
An abandoned corpse.
The rose sailed out of his hand, drifting down to the hard, frozen ground where it immediately crushed, petals crumpling and flying off into the receiving wind.
Was this how Haldir had gone. How he had died? Broken and alone, unnoticed like that rose?
His numbness left, and in its place came the wild grief and sobs that shook him, wracked his body and obscured his breathing, made him think he was going mad. The tears splattered on the windowpane, clear and motionless as if waiting for him to say something, like the blood of the fallen on the ground below. Like the rose.
He grieved now, grieved more deeply than he had ever loved. He was truly alone in this moment, with not even one person to hold and comfort him. The grief was strong, ripping through him in waves almost like nausea, forcing him to choke back the cries of a madman.
He had died, when Aragorn told him the news!
On the ground outside, the rose was broken and bent, all the petals carried off into the vicious, bellowing wind.
Legolas of Mirkwood grieved indoors and alone, eyes on the whiteness.
And Haldir would never, ever know.