Strongholds

Set between the Battle of the Five Armies and the The Fellowship of the Ring. Movie canon by virtue of Legolas's role in the Battle of the Five Armies and in the appearance of Legolas and Thranduil.

After the battle at the Lonely Mountain, Legolas and his father, Thranduil, part on uncertain terms. The Elven King's eyes have been opened to the damage caused by his own cold isolation, but too late to prevent the departure of his son. Legolas strikes out on his own, acknowledging his father's farewell, but too angry to return to Mirkwood.

Many years later, when the Fellowship of the Ring is formed in Rivendell, Legolas is present as a messenger of his father. Clearly at some point he has returned to Mirkwood and resumed, at the least, a working relationship with the Elven King. This tale explores one way in which their relationship and trust could be rekindled.

~**~ Chapter 1 ~**~

The Elven King's son returned to the Halls of his father as the last of the beech nuts turned brown and cracked open to release its bounty for the creatures of the forest. He came on horseback, on a fine grey mare whose lines were inherited from a herd far from Mirkwood. He came with a jaw firm with defiance, clad in travelling clothes of brown and green and armed in the manner of a warrior.

He never did say how he came by the mare, although she seemed to find pleasure in his company, as most animals do with elven kind. She sidestepped with feisty and delicate paces into the stable yard with the white mist of an autumn evening creeping in behind her. At the stable doors, Legolas bade farewell to the two elves of his father's guard who had accompanied him since he met with a patrol on the edges of the realm.

"Remember," he told them in a grave voice. "No word to my father. I wish to…surprise him."

The elves bowed their heads in acquiescence and departed to re-join their patrol. If they wondered at the reluctance to warn Thranduil, they gave no indication of it, knowing their station and having no wish to offend either of the high ranking elves.

"Ai." Legolas sighed, taking much needed reassurance from the warm neck beneath his hand. He patted the silky mane absently and the horse twisted her head, turning a knowing eye in his direction. There was no delaying it any longer; he'd been gone for several years and in all that time there had been no communication between himself and his father. It was return now, or perhaps never return at all.

"Wish me luck, mellon-nin," he said, his light tone deceptive of his feelings. He slipped to the ground; first he would see to the comfort of the mare.

.

Thranduil needed no warning of his son's return. He had been aware of Legolas's presence long before he met with the patrol. No word had been sent ahead, and by this he deduced that Legolas was unsure of his welcome, was perhaps still angry. Thus the Elven King remained within his Halls, performing the duties of ruling a kingdom with his haughty façade firmly in place. He would give his son time to approach of his own accord. Time was something of which he had seen much, aeons, stretching back as far as he could remember. A little more time in the life of an immortal should be of small import. But it is a fact that the passage of some hours weigh more heavily than others, and Thranduil, every nerve alive with the knowledge that his child was nearby, found the hours of this final waiting bowed his shoulders with their immensity. An insidious fear crept into his heart; perhaps his son would turn around and leave without ever reaching the Halls. What would he do then? Cast aside his duties and dignity alike and chase after him? He could not be certain that he would not.

As no king of any worth can be seen with bowed shoulders, Thranduil hid his anxiety beneath an icy exterior, straightened his posture and swept his cloak behind him in a regal manner as he stalked about his business.

It was so that Legolas found him, a parchment in one hand and the priceless gems on the other splitting candlelight into brilliant shards as he gestured. His back was partially turned to Legolas, but his son knew his father was aware of his presence. There was a momentary stillness about the golden head, some unseen change to his expression that made the elf he was addressing look away in deference.

"You may go."

Calm, precise, the deep tones just loud enough to hold absolute authority, never as loud so as to appear vulgar. The elf bowed and retreated at speed. Legolas sucked in his breath, cursing his own nervousness, and drew up to his full height. It was not enough; his father was several inches taller than him, the height advantage adding to the factors that always made him feel like an errant child in the Elven King's presence.

"Legolas."

Thranduil turned slowly, his ice-blue gaze fixing on his son's face, penetrating, almost…hungry? Legolas swallowed, feeling as though a rough piece of wood had lodged itself in his throat.

"Lord King," he offered, grateful that there was no shake in his voice.

"You have returned."

Thranduil moved with controlled grace towards him. It was a statement of the obvious; the Elven King was not given to statements of the obvious. He was playing for time, Legolas realised. It made him feel calmer, more secure in his position as the pieces were moved in this stately game.

"That appears to be correct." His dry delivery and the sarcastic quirk of his eyebrow brought an unexpected tinge to his father's face. Thranduil circled him slowly, head tilted as he eyed him up and down. It was unnerving but Legolas ground his teeth and bore it.

"You are well?" The soft question was equally unexpected.

Legolas eyed him in confusion. "I am well. The kingdom?"

"Is as well as can be expected. The spider nests grow ever more troublesome. There are dark creatures afoot." The Elven King gestured. "Come. There is food and wine in my quarters."

"I have eaten." It was a last attempt at independence, swept away by a haughty eyebrow.

"You have not eaten what I can provide." And with that his father was striding away, forcing Legolas to choose between following him and staying like a recalcitrant child. It was true that nothing could match the purity of the honey on the King's table; the memory of its flowery sweetness brought a rush of saliva to the younger elf's mouth. He blew out a quick breath of frustration and hurried after the Elven King, lengthening his stride to match the longer legs of his parent, careful not to step on what he considered to be the over-indulgent length of Thranduil's cloak.

.

It was not the most auspicious of new beginnings, but it served well enough. Father and son resumed the somewhat distant relationship they had practised for several centuries. The elves of Mirkwood, having held their collective breath, began to relax. Things were as they had always been.

Except they were not.

Legolas had changed in subtle ways; his years apart from his father's influence bringing greater maturity, more wisdom. In turn, Thranduil had made changes of his own. The events of the battle at the Lonely Mountain caused a fissure in the icy shell with which he'd surrounded his inner self after the death of his wife, a shell that at one time had been porous enough to allow the early years of fatherly interaction with his young elfling, but a shell that had become increasingly cold and brittle until even his son had felt himself excluded. That fissure had, over the years since the battle, gradually widened and deepened, causing subtle changes in the Elven King's interaction with those in his kingdom and the outside world.

To Thranduil, the changes in his son were immediately obvious. Legolas resumed his duties without protest, was less likely to be drawn away by the thrall of the trees when such duty called, and was altogether more reliable; his advice and opinions were reassuringly sound and well considered. He was maturing into the elf that his father had always hoped he would be.

To Legolas, his father seemed outwardly the same, and yet there were tales of aid to Lake Town, of communication, albeit guarded, between man and elf and even dwarf and elf. An ancient elf in the kitchens once told him that the King had sorely missed his son, and that his fae had dimmed a little with each year that had passed. Legolas found it unlikely that Thranduil's guarded exterior would allow such a thing to be seen, even if it were true, but still he watched his father carefully, noting the small changes in his policies, noting more the way the Elven King trod carefully around their relationship.

It is possible that this situation may have continued indefinitely. In truth, the more time that passed the less the opportunity arose to set things right between them, and each reverted to the strongholds of mistaken belief held close in their hearts.

.

Sometimes Legolas wondered in despair why he had ever returned home. His father may seem to have softened a little in his attitude towards the elves in Mirkwood and the mortals that surrounded it, but to Legolas he was as unreachable as ever. Physically present, as he had been for the majority of the younger elf's life, a cold and beautiful being clad in fine cloth and intricate patterns, but emotionally closed to his son's tentative attempts to establish a connection.

Many times Legolas considered packing the few possessions he treasured and leaving. Each time the thing that stopped him was the memory of his father's farewell after the battle of the Lonely Mountain. Through the dark nights of long years on the road, Legolas had replayed those treasured words about his mother, saw again the pain etched into his father's face, a shine that may even have been tears in his eyes as he gave the heartfelt gesture of farewell. It was, after all, why Legolas had come home, because in hindsight it seemed that back then there had, for a moment, been every reason to stay, but he was too angry to see it at the time. So he'd come home, to see if that moment of emotion, of affection, had been real. It appeared it was not. His hope began to fade with each passing day, his heart playing its steady drumbeat of life and every beat bringing nearer the day of his departure.

Thranduil, equally desperate to re-forge the bond, took the greatest of care over every word, every gesture, not wishing to offend or alienate his son. Too much care, so that his languid calm was seen as being lack of interest. He knew it, could see it in the disappointment on Legolas' face, and knew of no way to put it right.

Always destined to rule Eryn Galen, as Mirkwood was then known, the young Thranduil had few close relationships. When his father, Oropher, was killed in front of him in the War of the Last Alliance, a part of Thranduil froze and remained frozen. Even his wife, who he loved beyond all reason, thawed it only a little. Her loss cast his soul into darkness. He would surely have died, heart-broken, if it had not been for their little elfling. The tiny elf was devastated at the loss of his Nana, to lose his father too would be cruel beyond all imaginings. So Thranduil hung onto life and endured, for the love of his son. His little Greenleaf grew and he had a mischievous way about him, a life force so strong it could not be ignored. It broke through the miasma of desolation surrounding his father's fae, gave him the strength to be a loving father. But in time, as Legolas matured into a youth, Thranduil's fear of losing him, of suffering that same devastating hurt again, caused him to use that same strength of purpose to manufacture an emotional armour stronger than mithril. Everything outside it, even his own son, was excluded, presented only with the ice-cold exterior and chilling decisions for which the Elven King became known throughout Middle Earth.

Now the Elven King, his heart re-awakened at the Lonely Mountain, could see his son slipping away from him, for ever. His fae shuddered in torment, but he had no idea what to do, what to say. The pain of Legolas's departure would be unbearable. In anticipation Thranduil withdrew behind barriers of his own making, every glance and every motion making him appear more remote.

The months slipped by and the King and his son moved through the trees of Mirkwood and the splendid caverns of the Halls in an elaborate dance of mis-direction, hidden feelings and confusion.

But fate doesn't care about the feelings of one or two individuals; it has its own agenda that affects all, mortal and immortal alike.

.

So it was that some ten months after Legolas's return fate, or evil luck or perhaps just the whim of a passing breeze, caused a horde of orc and goblin to enter the fringes of Mirkwood. The horde was of a considerable size, not an army by any means, but still the largest group to be recorded since the Battle of the Five Armies. They attacked the trees with savage delight, slaying any creature that came before them. The spiders, encouraged in their darkness by the presence of the marauders, went on a rampage, expanding their territories more in the space of a few days than in the preceding twenty years.

Every available warrior within a reasonable distance took up arms and went to battle, with the Elven King and his son heading the two columns.

To be continued…

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