Tolkien owns all. A slice of life with a bit of depth, I hope.
Strange traveling companions.
The only kind he knows. These two, remnants of a broken company, strange to each other and certainly acting like it, one stocky, strong, and proud, the other thin, swift, and wild, both running, running as if chasing the sun or being chased by the sun, and Aragorn driving them on. Keeping up with Legolas has been almost as difficult as keeping up with the Uruk-hai, for what he has mastered from years of elite conditioning, the elf has in natural ability.
But he has been matching and even surpassing Legolas at times, like he dreamed of doing when his friend's voice goaded him on in the forests of Mirkwood, years ago. Legolas' skills have not diminshed; rather, Aragorn's have grown. The never-ending competition would be stimulating were it not for the circumstances of the chase, two little folk in mortal danger, and the dwarf who stays near them with persistence alone. No matter how daunting, Gimli, son of Glóin, has never been bested by a task. Aragorn did not need to know him long to know this.
"Can you manage?" he asks about an hour into their trek, a short break, as Legolas finds higher ground to look at the road ahead.
"As long as the elf's spindly legs are moving," Gimli breathes, trudging along with his axe as a walking stick, "I will be as well."
Aragorn claps Gimli on the shoulder and walks ahead to join Legolas, who is standing still, arms crossed. "What do you see?"
"They are almost beyond my sight," he states. "But their pace slows."
"So ours must quicken. We shall hasten until the sun sets and allow ourselves only a few hours of rest tonight."
"Yes, let us hope my spindly legs survive," Legolas mutters before leaping down from the high rocks.
Aragorn shakes his head and follows. As if someone has set a fire under his feet, the elf now moves more quickly than he has since leaving Rivendell, and it takes every bit of energy the ranger possesses not to slip behind. His only reassurance that Gimli is keeping up is that he can hear the dwarf's breathing. A small part of him is grateful when the sun finally disappears behind the furthest hill, and as promised, they make camp and a small fire.
Gimli is the first to sit, while Aragorn approaches Legolas, who is tightening one of his braids. "Have I worn you out?"
"Nearly," he admits. "But that does not give you the satisfaction as someone else does."
"Indeed? Never liked the word 'spindly.'"
"Legolas-"
"No need for that, Aragorn. I would not compromise the hobbits' safety for satisfaction. Besides, Gimli is growing fond of me, I think."
"Forgive me if I doubt that."
"Doubt if you will; Lothlórien changed us both." Legolas quirks his head in a certain way Aragorn has not seen for a long while. "You really are very gentle."
Legolas asks for his arm and a walk back to the Elvenking's halls. Lightheaded from the wine, he says, which must be potent beyond reckoning to have any effect on an elf. Still, most of the Silvan are managing, Aragorn notices, drunk, happy, loud, and quite graceless wood-elves draped over each other beneath the trees, in the trees, as if the Woodland Realm is the safest place in Middle-earth. Aragorn knows firsthand this is not so, as every time he visits the darkness of Dol Guldur encroaches further, making the warriors more restless and the king less trusting.
"Look at my people," Legolas says softly as they begin at a comfortable pace, and he's proud of them, just as proud as he is to hold onto the arm of a Dúnedain ranger. Aragorn doubts his friend is feeling anything, as he's never known Legolas to drink himself near the state in which some of the others are flittering about, but he could be craving the quiet or different company.
Still, he knows Legolas loves them, and they love their prince, maybe even more than their Sindarin king. Even though Legolas will be the first to tell a stranger that he is as much of a wood-elf as they are, Aragorn wonders about his parentage: Sindarin, Silvan, a kind of mix. At times, he thinks his friend must be part Silvan, when he sees Legolas in command of the Silvan archers, lithe, focused, with a steely gaze and the wind whipping at his pale gold hair, its ends soaring as his arrows do, or on nights like this, when he sings and laughs and drinks in the beauty of the stars. It is one of many reasons Aragorn enjoys the Woodland Realm, encroaching darkness or not, because the wood-elves are hardly the grim-faced Ñoldor scholars of Rivendell. Although he would never say this here, they are as boisterous as well-fed dwarves when they celebrate. But other times, when Legolas is near his father, hair back on his shoulders, he's undoubtedly Sindarin and just quite good at adapting.
"Do you fear the time when you must rule them?" Aragorn asks, and he's not really sure why he does. Legolas wouldn't think it rude, but he doesn't talk about it much and likely only with King Thranduil, he guesses.
His grip on Aragorn's arm tightens just a bit, his eyes on what's in front of them. "More and more each day," he replies. "Will I be wise enough, kind enough… strong enough? Still, I envy my position more than yours."
At this, Aragorn could almost laugh in disbelief. "Than mine? But you're to inherit a grand kingdom of Elves."
"Yes, grand and beautiful and temporary." He looks at Aragorn and smiles. "I know they don't seem that way to mortal races, but they are, none of them meant to endure, not even with the power of the Elves. But Gondor, the greatest kingdom of Men, this is meant to endure beyond all else, and its true legacy will begin when the king returns... and only the king." He stops them for a moment to look at his friend again. "In short, I do not envy you. Come, Estel; walk me home and no more talk of kings."
"I am honored."
While decades are nothing to Legolas, they seem a lifetime ago for Aragorn. His friend rarely calls him Estel now, and it feels like a slip when he does. These cold, gray nights don't suit him, but one could never guess, the way he carries on with Gimli by the fire, exhausted – not as the other two get exhausted but exhausted still – yet high-spirited. It's something difficult for Aragorn to understand, how Legolas, centuries older than both he and Gimli, has room for such untainted joy, centuries to watch his homeland decay, centuries under his father's hard gaze, and the only thing that betrays his youth is his eyes, which gradually pale with memories. Though he supposes, to his people, Legolas is the green of youth.
"Dreadfully heavy, isn't it."
"Just be careful, Master Elf."
He's trying to make sense of one of Gimli's axes, and the dwarf is holding the bow of the Galadhrim in return, squinting to better see its design in the orange light. "No axes among your people?"
"I might as well ask if there are any bows among yours." Legolas stands, takes a stance, and throws the axe in the air, catching it with one hand just to make Gimli jump. He lies back down in the grass before the dwarf realizes he's angry. "It is a unique weapon," he says, handing it back.
"Humph. Quite chipper, this one," Gimli responds, inviting Aragorn into the conversation for the first time by expecting some sympathy, but the ranger simply gestures as if the elf is out of his control. "How old are you exactly?"
Lying on his stomach, Legolas rests his cheek on his hand, amused by the bold question, and gazes up at the sitting dwarf, who is warming his rough hands by the fire. There is cracked skin, a bit of blood, and his cheeks are wind-burned. It is only now that Aragorn feels the sting on his face as well. The journey has not always been kind. "It is quite rude to ask an elf's age."
Gimli clears his throat, and Aragorn swears this is his attempt to apologize for being direct, to respect an unknown custom.
"That is not true," he reveals before Legolas can savor the moment, and the dwarf turns to him with a familiar suspicious gaze.
Legolas shrugs. "How old do you suppose I am?"
Poking at the fire with the end of his axe, Gimli looks in deep thought, the disturbed embers moving upwind like winged stars. "Three hundred or so."
Arching an eyebrow, Legolas laughs and looks at Aragorn. "That is kind."
"Bah," Gimli says, fed up before he even begins. "It hardly matters. You remain a riddle to me." But he hands Legolas his bow in a gentle way that the other did not expect, judging by his eyes.
Finally sitting by the fire, Aragorn rubs a hand down his face before telling his companions, "You should rest."
"As should you," Legolas counters. "And I am resting."
"I hope you are. Tomorrow will be as unrelenting as today."
Gimli, now lying down with his axe at his side, offers a gruff "Hmm."
"The Uruk-hai must feel us on their trail," Aragorn says, almost to himself. "But even if they feel us, they cannot evade us." With this promise, he settles onto a patch of grass for a few hours of sleep.
"Oh my, that was frightening," Legolas whispers.
"Aye, I fear for the creatures myself," Gimli agrees.
By the time Aragorn realizes the two are laughing at his expense, with each other no less, he is too tired to think it strange.