Disclaimer: Legolas belongs to the Tolkien estate, as do all the characters, settings, and elves who show up in this story. I own none of it, nor do I claim to. (Well, I occasionally claim Legolas as my own, but then I get arrested and beaten to death. Then I don't do it anymore…)

Till Death Do Us Part?

They carried him into the palace with long faces and heavy hearts. There had been a skirmish on the western border, and they had been badly outnumbered. Many had been wounded, and a number of them had also died.

Their captain was close to being one of the number.

King Thranduil ran out of his chambers to greet them, and was already at the gate when they arrived. He had heard that the scouting party had returned, but when he heard that his son was returning, on a stretcher, his pace quickened dramatically.

It wasn't the first time Legolas had returned invalid, the first time, he had been awake and fully conscious, with a two broken legs. He had been complaining all the way home. But this time it was different, no complaints, no grumbling, no resistance; the prince was deathly still. The silence would have been relieving for his carriers, had there not been a large gash on his head and an arrow in his chest.

Thranduil strode up to the party with a stricken look on his face, "What happened?" He managed to croak out.

The leader of the party, Legolas's second in command, spoke first, "We were attacked by an army of orcs, we could have taken them, but they were too great in number… and they were well organized. 5 wounded… 3 dead."

Outside, the rain continued to pour.

---

Legolas lay in the healing rooms, hardly any different from the day before, except that he had considerably less blood now. His wounds had been cleaned, and the arrow was removed, but he remained motionless and deathly pale. King Thranduil his father sat by him for long periods of time, cursing the shadow and wondering why he had so many children. Legolas's siblings would peek in occasionally, inquiring on his condition and speaking to him in his comatose state. The king was currently sitting by Legolas, laying a hand on his arm and chatting to him about the weather.

A messenger showed his head at the door. "King Thranduil, there are visitors from Rivendell."

"Is Legolas really injured?"

"I bet it's just a broken nail or something"

"But I was so looking forward to hunting with him this time…"

Three cloaked figures on horses whispered to themselves, they were obviously from Rivendell, by their dress and the way they handled their horses. All whispers quieted, however, when King Thranduil showed up at the gate.

The three figures got off from their horses and bowed low as the king approached. Two of them revealed themselves to be Elladan and Elrohir, the infamous spawn of Elrond King Thranduil thought to himself. The third took off his hood to reveal Aragorn, son of Arathorn, future hopefully king of Gondor. He was also known as Estel, Elrond's pet. The servants of the palace took their horses while Elladan greeted the king.

"King Thranduil, we are the sons of Lord Elrond, of your kin in the West. We had originally hoped to stay a few days, but that was before we heard of Prince Legolas's unfortunate injury. Is he well?" Elladan, the spokes-elf said.

King Thranduil's ire grew inside of him, as well as his resentment for many of the Noldor. While our kin near the Misty Mountains goes on hunting parties, my son lies inside dying because of how quickly the shadow is growing. But Thranduil was a king, and is was his responsibility to behave like one, sohe swallowed his anger for the moment, and turned around.

"He is not well."

The three sons of Elrond looked at each other, then followed Thranduil.

---

Aragorn cringed. Being a healer in training, he should have been used to seeing blood and injured people, but elves weren't the type to be injured, sick, or dead, for that matter, especially in the safe haven of Imlandris. Here though, was one very unnatural looking elf. In other words, he looked dead. His eyes were closed, and he had lost quite a bit of weight. The bandaged wounds added to the gloominess of the picture. Aragorn felt his brothers next to him grow uncomfortable. They had seen orc wounds before, and they had experienced loss from it as well.

The king Thranduil was silent as the grave; he merely looked at his son with a heavy, angry stare. His anger was directed at many things, the Shadow, for one, the pesky Noldor, secondly, and finally his complete inability to prevent his children from the pain and sorrow of fighting the shadow, no matter how hard he tried.

The four stood in the room for a while, staring at Legolas, each thinking their own thoughts, then King Thranduil abruptly turned around and headed out the door. "Come. You have had a long journey, I have prepared rooms for you, though there will be no feasting tonight." He said with a grave voice.

Who could feast, knowing their friend is lying in the healing rooms dying? Aragorn thought.

As the twins unpacked and changed out of their wet clothing, Aragorn was wrapped up in thoughts of his own. He sat by the cold window, pressing his head against the glass, pondering death and what it meant to elves. Elrohir came over and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Come Estel, we must go have dinner."

Dinner, for the most part was uneventful. No words were exchanged between the king and his subjects, nor was much sound made except for the occasional clatter of spoons on plates. None of the palace servants dared talk to the king, and the three visitors from Imlandris felt the same. Everyone's mind was on the same thing that evening.

---

Late at night, when they were all supposed to be asleep, Aragorn woke up. It was unfair that an elf like Legolas should be laying there dying. It wasn't right that elves died at all, yet here was one bleeding his heart out, and one of his friends too. He sat up and snuck out to the healing rooms. Perhaps if he could just explain it to the guards…

Aragorn got to the healing rooms about half an hour later, after getting lost over and over, and having to re-explain to each guard each time that he was simply up trying to find his way to the kitchen, which was conveniently located right next to the healing rooms. Eventually, he got there. Surprisingly the guards stationed in front of the healing rooms simply shared a look and let him in. He had no time to ponder this development though, because he noticed that apparently a few other people had the same idea as he did.

The room was rather filled actually, Legolas's brothers, sisters, father, and even confound it! Even the twins had made it down before he did. He grumbled a bit on the unfairness of the situation, then he found a place next to Legolas's bed and sat down.

---

Legolas Thranduillion was not feeling well. Ever since the encounter with the blasted orcs he had been feeling downright terrible. He wandered about in the darkness of his mind, and struggled to make sense of why he could still think. The pain was quite terrible, he realized, but to his surprise, he didn't feel it. He didn't feel it like it was his own body, but more like, it was in a separate being. It was as if he had two bodies, one inside of the other.

He looked around him, there was only blackness. He wished he could open his eyes in the other, bigger body, but it was impossible right now, as they felt separated from each other. Outside of himself he could feel many other sources of heat and light. Some of them were brighter than the others. He knew in an abstract way what they must be, but he felt absolutely no motivation to think about it right now.

He tried calling out experimentally. "Hellooooooooooooooo" He said, finding that it echoed. "Is anyone there?" He tried again, to find the same result. "Your mother was a dwarf!" He said, this time simply to hear the echo. He realized that no one would respond to his calls, and sat down, weighing his options.

He was debating whether he should go to sleep or try to fly when suddenly the world became light again; really, really light. There was an opening in front of him, from which came the brightest light he had ever seen. It surpassed the beauty and warmth of the Earendil, the Lady Galadriel would be jealous he thought. He looked around, to see if there was anything more interesting here to see, and after deciding that there wasn't, he stepped into the light.

In the room, Legolas's breathing became quick, and then it suddenly slowed down altogether. Everyone in the room noticed this change, and chaos erupted.

"Call the healer! HEALER!!!!" Thranduil yelled, not waiting for someone to respond to his command. Legolas's siblings crowded around him, they were anxious to keep him from leaving for the Halls of Mandos. Aragorn, amidst the flurry of movement, managed to keep a spot next to Legolas, using the excuse that he was a healer, and tried to revive Legolas from his sudden drop in heart activity. The twins and friends of Legolas were frustrated at the fact that they had been pushed to the outside of the circle without knowing it.

Legolas felt none of this.

"Legolas, awake! Awake! Mirkwood (ahem, Greenwood) needs you!" Aragorn shouted in his ear, and Thranduil held his son's head in his hands for dear life. Tears were streaming down everyone's cheeks.

"Don't go"

"Don't leave"

"Don't you dare…"

But Legolas heard none of this, and true to his stubborn personality, refused to listen. His breathed his last breath contentedly, then his body moved no more.

To be continued…

Well, this isn't part of the birthday gift for ED, but the story was pretty fresh in my mind when I was writing it, so I had to get it down on…digital paper. Sorry to all you angst lovers, this is probably the heaviest chapter. Basically this is a different approach to the Legolas deathfic. It's pretty fun to write actually =P. Hum… anything else… oh yes, I didn't use any elvish (Sindarin) in this fic because, well, just imagine it's all in Elvish ok? Because I'm guessing elves don't think in Westron, and when they do, they don't throw bits of elvish in. No offense to the other fanfiction writers, I guess I'm sort of a purist =/. Sorry for the long delay with no updates ^ ^. I'll be updating this soon. Please review. Oh, and please tell me if the chapter is too short or something =P.