Summary: Estel shows the King of Mirkwood what friendship really means.
Disclaimer: I do not own them. I only let them out to play.
A/N: This is a one shot AU fic of course. Any reviews would be welcomed.
Thranduil gazed out of his window. He had paced the floors for hours now, after sending Legolas and the other elves out to kill the latest group of spiders that had slain two of his best guards. That had been hours ago and now he paced the floors in his study, wondering where his son was, and what had become of him.
Legolas stared at the numerous spiders, surrounding him and the other four elves. They were outnumbered and he knew it, but there was no other way out other than to fight.
"Fight! fight for you lives or die here!" he yelled to the others and the battle began.
When the battle was over the spiders were slain, the blood tainting the ground beneath his feet, and Legolas Thrandulion stood staring at his fallen comrades. Gathering what little strength he had Legolas started the walk back to the gates, alone, and injured.
It was not until Legolas came through the gates that he noticed he could not recall the walk there. His vision was blurring, his steps becoming sluggish. It was the sight of his father running towards him that he saw, and then he crumpled to the ground.
Estel, had spent the last six months traveling Arda, and now his destination was but a few miles away. Legolas and he had not gotten together in many years, and he looked forward to seeing his old friend. True, Estel had never met his father, but the one time and they had not parted on the best of terms, as Estel and Legolas had been foolish and gotten injured. Estel wiped all these thoughts from his mind as he approached a horse standing in the middle of the forest, riderless.
Jumping from his own horse Estel drew his sword, not liking the fact that the woods had grown silent suddenly. He moved with calculated steps through the forest now, leading his horse towards the other mare, and when he got closer he saw the mare stood not alone, but over the body of a fallen elf.
With a leery glance at the surrounding area, Estel hoisted the elf upon his horse and led them towards his own mare. Over the course of reaching the gate Estel found two other fallen elves and placed them as well on the horse, leading them all back home.
Estel rode swiftly then through the gate and into the courtyard, yelling for someone to help him. Several healers came out and saw his burden and relieved him of it, not bothering to ask what or who had caused the tragedy.
Estel walked through the front doors of the palace and up to the room he had shared with Legolas the last time he had visited. When Legolas was not there Estel went in search of him. Each room he searched he came up empty, until at last there was only one room he had not searched.
Cautiously Estel opened the door to the healing ward and saw several healers running about, and Legolas laying on a bed in the corner of the room. Estel pushed past one of the healers and was at Legolas' side in an instant.
"What has happened?" he said, peering up at King Thranduil.
"He was attacked by spiders, and now lays on the edge of life."
Estel stood up, his throat constricting with each word. "Is there nothing you can give him? Is there nothing you can do for him to ease his suffering?"
Thranduil stood up, anger on his face now, and he grabbed Estel by the back of the neck.
"How dare you assume that I would not do everything for my son! We are out of the antidote, and none within a hundred miles possess it. Winter is coming within the week, and no elf, nor beast would survive the journey back."
Estel's own fury blazed in his eyes."Are none of you here going to go?"
Estel stared around at the elves in the room and only one met his gaze, and that was Legolas' friend since he was an elfling.
"What would you have us do? Would you have us to get the cure, only to die before we could bring it back? No one feels worse about this than I do, and I will not have some adan stand here and tell me I do not care!"
Estel stood back, from Lothriel knowing he had struck a nerve with the elf, and instead went to sit beside Legolas, his earlier tiredness fading. All night Estel sat there, holding Legolas' hand, talking to him, telling him to come back to the light, but there was no answer.
Tears stung at the corners of Estel's eyes, as he watched Legolas' life slowly slipping away. On the third day Estel stood from his bedside vigil and went to seek out Thranduil. After searching he found him standing inside his study. He wasn't doing paperwork, but instead staring at a picture of Legolas someone had drawn.
"He has always been so strong so independent, never needing me, never sharing with me the pain I knew he held inside."
Estel stood silent beside him not speaking until Thranduil stopped. After taking a deep breath Estel told him what he had come to say.
"I am going to retrieve the antidote. I will be leaving within the hour."
Thranduil jumped up from the chair, and grabbed Estel again by his collar, this time the look of pure hatred showing on his face.
"Tell me son of Isildur, just how to you plan on getting back here alive? You make a mockery of those who are close to him with your silly notions."
Estel's own fury was now edging him closer to losing control. he slung Thranduil's arm off of him and stood glaring at the elf. Before he could stop himself a tirade that had been building rolled from his tongue.
"You think you know so much and yet you do not take the time to listen. Do you ever stop to ask how Legolas feels? Do you ever ask him about his fear of snakes or why he doesn't like to go swimming in the river because he fears drowning?"
"What are you talking about? You are speaking nonsense!" Thranduil yelled, advancing on Estel as he spoke.
Estel's face hardened with the truth. "You don't know do you! You have never just sat down and listened to him speak about all of is fears, about his ambitions, his dreams! You don't know him at all, and yet you claim to love him. I am going to leave and bring back the antidote."
Estel marched out of the study and down the stairs, flinging open the doors to the outside, but Lothriel stopped him.
"Do you truly think you can survive adan. Do you think he truly cares whether you come back alive or not?"
Estel stared Lothriel straight in the face when he answered, "Yes, I know he cares for he has told me so when I held him as he cried. He is my friend and that doesn't mean a friend only in during the times that suits you, but a friend when the only thing you wish to really do is lay down and die. I know deep down that the elf laying upstairs cares for me, as I care for him," and with the Estel jumped atop is horse and took off for Lorien where the antidote was.
Days on end Estel rode, through the snows that came, and through the freezing rain that pelted him day and night, and yet he did not stop till he saw the outline of Lorien. As Estel rode through the gates his body finally gave in to the fight for sleep it begged for, and Estel awoke to find himself covered in blankets, and his Grandmother staring down at him.
"Welcome back to the land of the living tithe pen. You have given us a fright for I did not wish to be the one who had to write to your father and tell him of your passing."
Estel moaned and rolled off the bed, his feet hitting the floor and his knees buckled underneath him sending him collapsing to the floor. It was Haldir who caught him before he hit the floor, whispering something about foolish adans in his ear.
"You are not well Estel, and you will not recover if you do not rest for a few days and regain your strength."
Estel peered into her eyes, "The antidote,"
"I have prepared the antidote, but if you try to leave now you will only kill yourself in the process of getting there."
Estel tried again to get up, but his Grandmother pushed him down again, "Rest Estel, if the Valar wish it then Legolas will hold on till you return it."
Estel waited for his Grandmother to leave and then asked Haldir if he would get him pen and parchment to write on. The guard agreed only if Estel promised not to leave the bed. Estel agreed and soon Haldir was back with the requested items. While Haldir had been gone, Estel looked around and spotted the antidote sitting on the shelf to his left. He knew Legolas needed it, and he sat thinking of some way to get back to him.
Estel sat for the next hour, despite his Grandmother's instructions to rest, writing several notes which he tucked under his pillow when done. Haldir watched Estel, the sheen of sweat on his brow alerting even the guard to the fever. He had known the adan to be foolish many times over, ending up trying the patience of Lord Elrond to patch him and the son of Thranduil up many times.
"Will you go and get me more water Haldir, for my mouth is parched?"
Haldir looked at the sweat soaked sheets and at Estel. Something in his eyes told the guard not to leave, and yet Haldir started his climb down the flet to retrieve the water that was requested.
Estel wasted no time once Haldir was safely away from the flet. On shaky legs he climbed from his bed, and stood for a moment till his vision cleared. He knew he was sick, but he cared not. Placing the note on the bed, Estel scurried down the ladder of the flet, antidote in hand, and went in search of his horse.
When Estel made it to the stables he found not one but two guards on the north side of it, and went around the back. As carefully as he could he led his horse away from the stables and once far enough away he mounted her and took off back towards Mirkwood.
Haldir returned with the water and found only an empty bed. He snatched the note up that was laying on the bed and went quickly to find Galadriel. Running to her flet Haldir climbed until at last he reached her, handing her the note he had found and then bowing before her.
"I have failed in my task my Lady."
"Nay, I have seen that he would leave, and have alerted Lord Elrond on the day he arrived as much. I have sent word for him to make for the halls of King Thranduil at once."
"He will not make it in time, the journey is too far."
"Lord Elrond is nothing if not persistent. He will make it in time Haldir, do not fret, but what awaits him when he gets there we do not know."
Estel rode for many days again through snow drifts as high as the flanks on his mare. The wind bit as his flesh, and chilled him to the bone despite the fever that was raging inside him, and his vision blurred from the lack of sleep. All of these things made Estel ride even harder for Mirkwood, as everytime he closed his eyes he saw the face of Legolas staring back at him.
On the twentieth day Estel's horse staggered beneath him, and two hours later his mare, the one he had helped bring into the world took its last breath. Estel had no time to mourn her. He prayed a silent prayer over her and walked away through the snow, a piece of his heart remaining behind.
Step by excruciating step Estel trudge onward, the will to see Legolas open his eyes the only thing keeping him going. He slept little, and by the last day his breaths were coming in short raspy gasps.
It was the last day of his journey that Estel had staggered through the same forest he had not so long ago, seeing the fallen elves, now he saw much more as his legs shook and finally gave way beneath him. Estel placed the antidote in his pocket and crawled hand over hand the last hundred yards to the gates of Mirkwood.
Once inside the gates the shouts went out to say that someone was there and Thranduil went to the window to look out. What he saw was someone crawling on hands and knees into the courtyard, fighting off all who tried to stop him.
Thranduil took off running down the hall, and out into the courtyard to find Estel coming toward him, hands bleeding, face ashen. Thranduil picked up Estel and ran the rest of the way to the healing ward, and laid him down on the bed beside Legolas.
"I told you foolish child that the trip was not possible, that the elements would kill you if the minions of Sauron did not find you first."
Estel lifted his head from the bed, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Taking a deep breath he stood and walked over to the healer standing at the foot of Legolas' bed, and placed the antidote in his hands before his body wilted to the cold floor beneath him.
"What is it? What has he given to you?"
The healer stared at the vial and uncorked it, sniffing the contents. "It is the antidote Sire."
Thranduil lifted Estel and placed him back on the bed, while the healer went about giving Legolas the antidote to the poison that was slowly killing him. Thranduil rubbed the stray hair from Estel's forehead and felt the heat coming off him. He stared down at the bleeding hands, and the windburned face, and wondered not only how but also why the adan had gone.
It was two days later and Legolas opened his eyes for the first time. His father's face stared back at him, smiling to see his son on the way to recovery, but when Legolas' eyes shifted to the left of his father he could see Estel in the bed beside him.
"Estel!" he screamed, trying to scramble from the bed. Legolas' own legs were not sturdy enough yet to hold him up for long and he fell atop Estel's bed. The sound of the commotion brought the door opening and Lord Elrond running in.
"What has happened, has Estel woken?" he asked helping Thranduil to put Legolas back in his bed.
Their efforts were in vain as Legolas once again tried to get to Estel, and in the end they helped him into the bed where Estel laid.
"What happened Ada? Why is Estel here, and why is he as he is now?"
Thranduil told Legolas all he knew about Estel leaving, and how he had found him on the steps three days before.
"He spoke to me harshly saying I did not know you Legolas. That you feared things that you do not share with others. How does someone else know and yet neither myself not Lothriel was privy to it?"
Legolas swallowed back the sob wanting to escape and looked first Lord Elrond and then his father in the eye.
"It was as I visited Estel and we went out on a hunt. You remember it father for we came back injured, but what you do not know is what happened while we were there. The men of the village were cruel, claiming that no adan should ride alongside an elf. Estel spoke to them, telling them they were wrong, even going as far as to kill when they threatened my life."
Thranduil flinched at his son's words but he begged him to continue, Lothriel coming in during the conversation to stand by the door.
"It was as we were held captive that I gave up hope, but not Estel. He talked to me, he asked me about what I feared, about my goals in life, and everything else he could think of, and I found it easy to tell him."
"Why did you find it easy to tell him, when you could not tell any others?"
Legolas looked shamed but he went on. "Estel does not judge me. He does not care if I am weak, or if I have fears for he too has fears and weakness. I thought that his attention to my needs would end when we were rescued but he wrote to me often, and each time he asked me to send him back letters of how I was doing, if there was anything I needed to talk to him about. He never stopped writing not even when I sent him a twelve page letter complaining about everything, he only wrote back telling me how much he cared, and that he was there for me."
Legolas could not go on any further, for the sobs had choked off any remaining words. Lothriel stood in the corner of the room, tears running down his face to match those of his king. How often had he simply sat and just talked to Legolas? How often had he really cared if Legolas needed to talk? He recalled a time when Legolas had come to him. They had spent the night speaking of the evils of Arda, and how they frightened them both, but he had left and told Legolas he had other things to do. Now he understood, now that it was too late.
It was early the next morning when Estel felt someone rubbing his face with the cool cloth. He fought back the pull to stay where he was, for it was peaceful there. He opened his eyes to see those of his brother, Thranduil, and the piercing blue eyes of Legolas staring back at him. He wanted to speak to them, but his mouth no longer would form words. He stared at his Ada first the tears in his eyes telling him his time was near, and his father held his hand tightly in his grasp.
Estel next looked to Thranduil, is eyes brimming with tears, and then his gaze once again fell upon his friend of so many years. Estel coughed and his words were raspy a soft but the elven ears in the room heard them nonetheless.
"You are well, so my death will not be in vain for I love you," and Estel smiling, closed his eyes on the world of Arda.
Legolas wept openly that day, and Lord Elrond was inconsolable. Someone they had considered a son, a friend was gone and nothing could bring him back. It was the next day as they stood at his grave that Legolas cleared his throat. The tears streamed down his face as he turned to face everyone there.
"Today we mourn Estel son of Elrond, but I wish to tell you about Estel my friend."