Reason

Torchlight flickered from a bracket on the warmly hued stone wall as Thranduil sighed. It'd been two or three years since he had last seen Loki, he was getting bored without the black-haired mischief maker's coming and going. Without so much as half an announcement the throne room's double doors started opening and his heartbeat sped like a rabbit through once fair Doriath. His hope that it was his Loki returned at long last were crushed when it was Thor that strode into the room. Had Thor finally come to apologize for insulting him before Legolas or was there some other reason for his visit ?

Nonchalantly, Thranduil asked, "Have you come to apologize at last Crown Prince of Asgard ?" Yet part of him had started to fear, Loki would not have sent Thor in his place, unless it were dire. Was something wrong, had Loki taken some Asgardian sickness ? Had it already killed him ?

Thor stopped a foot from his dais and raised his head, "No, I've not. I have come on a very different matter, one that will mean much to you."

"Enlighten me then Odinson to this so grave matter." He would have needed blindness in both his eyes not to notice the younger man's flinch.

"Loki...Loki is dead."

First his wife was killed by that orc and now, now Loki somehow had died. Legolas must've been following Thor for now he entered the room demanding, "How ? Why is Ada dead ? What did you do to him, Asgardian ? What did you do ?!"

There was a great pain in Thor's eyes. "I freed him from prison after my lover released Yggdrasil's version of Dark Elves from their slumber. He was to take us to Svartalfheim, so that we could head off another attack like the one that killed our mother. Eventually, one of them was going to kill me...but Loki, he impaled it instead."

Agony hot as dragon fire lanced through his chest and beleaguered his breath. His eyes squeezed shut as he hissed, "Enough ! Leave us." They did not need elaboration to know what had happened afterward. Not even Loki could have escaped from that. Was this his doom ? To drive away or see killed everyone that he loved ? It seemed so because the hurt of Ivoreth's death had only stopped aching so fiercely when he'd met Loki. Just as with Ivoreth he'd first appreciated the mind and then the body. Loki who had saved an eleven years-old Legolas from what he'd called a bilgesnipe with great skill in strategy and trickery.

"I am sorry, Thranduil, Legolas, you have only myself to blame. It will not make it easier, but know that without his sacrifice Malekith would have darkened Arda and even Valinor. Know that...he did it for you and for Legolas." The rustle of clothing as Thor bowed, the scrape of boots on stone before the doors swung shut.

"I-I love you, Adar." Legolas's forehead suddenly pressed against his and he wrapped his arms tightly around his son.

Unwilling tears fell as he whispered, "I love you too, Legolas." His little green leaf, the one both Ivoreth and Loki had loved. He could not lose Legolas, surely Elrond would keep Legolas safe in Imladris.

Two weeks later, he received a letter explaining that Legolas had joined the Fellowship of the Ring. The very last words ? "For Ada, so that his death might not be in vain."

It was all that he dared hope for.