In the Dim Light

by ScribeofArda

Sometimes it feels like they are perpetually at war in Mirkwood. Sometimes, when news like this comes, of what horrible things the orcs have done once again to people who have never deserved it, they don't know what to do once their job is finished. Or: orcs attack a Mirkwood village, and Legolas takes out his frustration with sparring weapons. Oneshot, light angst/feels.

In the Dim Light

So my good friend 1monster2 asked whether I could write something of Legolas and Belhadron- angst and friendship, in essence. A lot of people loved the scene where Belhadron falls asleep in front of the fire in In a Field of Blood and Stone, so this is similar towards the end. I also probably owe you guys a story, after people very kindly reviewed the draft of that book thing I wrote for a school project. In addition, this is also a thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed In a Field of Blood and Stone so far- we're at 127 reviews and there's still plenty of story to come, so thank you!

This is a bit angsty, especially at the beginning, though the catalyst for the events of this oneshot is not described in detail. The elves of Mirkwood are at war, and in war, awful things do happen. The idea of the big map (you'll see what I mean) came from the multitude of war dramas I have watched- they always have big maps on tables with little things they can move around to show where enemy bases are established, or where their troops are. So I thought that would be a fun thing to play with. Also, I wanted to try and play with weapons beyond the usual- swords, knives and bows- so I decided to go with quarterstaffs. These are long wooden staffs (poles) that are about as tall as a person. They were used massively in England in the medieval period and up until, apparently, the 1700s. Maybe not useful in a close-packed forest, but I have this headcanon that Mirkwood elves are trained to fight with basically everything, including orcish weapons, just in case, so they'd have quarterstaffs lying around.

The music thing, at the end (you'll see what I mean), was inspired by the Throne of Glass series. In the books there's a bit of emphasis on music and the arts, and just how important they are. And there's this quote from Celeana: 'When I play. I'm not...for once I'm not destroying, I'm creating.' If you like fantasy and magic, strong and complex female and male characters and a beautifully crafted world and plot, then you should read these books. If you want to know more, feel free to ask. If you have read them, then feel free to come fangirl over it all with me!

Anyway, here's the oneshot. As always, I only own Belhadron and Rhavaniel, and reviews are very welcome.

0-o-0-o-0

The map was huge. It covered half the table, the tattered edges curling up on themselves apart from where they were weighed down by random objects. A knife pinned one corner of the map down, a clay bowl held down another. Ink lines scattered across the parchment, and from the random strokes a world was formed: mountains, haphazard strokes of trees and the more definitive, spindly lines of spreading paths, the thick stain of the river.

Legolas leant across the table, biting his lip as he studied the small wooden statuettes strategically placed across the map. He nudged one of them, a block with rough wooden warriors on top of it. "What if we move the company here?" he asked, slowly pushing it across the map with a soft hiss. "Come in from the west and catch the orcs in a pincer."

Belhadron shifted, studying the map from where he was lounged in one of the chairs around the table. "You're forgetting a slight problem," he said with a wry grin curling the corner of his lips. "It's only a tiny issue, nothing really important, but I thought that-" He stopped at the look on Legolas' face.

"Stop drawing it out," Legolas said. "What?"

"You might want to rethink that," Belhadron said, nodding at the map. "Take the company west and we'd have to pull from the other companies to cover their movement. We can do that easily enough, we have before, but there's a pocket of spiders in that area. The report just came in, it's around here somewhere." He stood up and began to shift through the papers covering the other half of the table, still speaking as he did so.

"There's a small settlement a few hours north of that area," Belhadron said, waving at the map as he kept looking through the papers. "And there won't be anyone there to warn them of spiders if they decide to come north through the gap." He found the right report, and handed it over to Legolas.

Legolas read through it quickly with a slight frown, and then sighed. "You're right, as usual," he said. He reached out and pushed the wooden block back to its original place. "But we still need strategies to counteract the problem at hand. Let's wait for the others before we decide anything."

Belhadron nodded, and slouched back into his chair. He pulled the knife out of the table, where it was pinning the map down, and spun it slowly in his fingers. Legolas levelled him with a look, and pushed a spare block of roughly carven wood into that corner of the table as the map curled up on itself. Belhadron merely shrugged, and kept the knife wandering lazily across his hand.

The other captains, those around at the moment, slowly trickled into the room as the hour wore on. Rhavaniel had been out for the past few days with a dozen of her spies, but the rest were around the stronghold. Slowly the chairs around the table filled up and strategies and tactics were given, taken apart and put back together again over the ink strokes of their realm.

"What's our perfect situation?" asked one, leaning back in her chair and studying the map with it's carven blocks. "What would we do if we had unlimited resources and power?"

"Destroy Dol Guldur and march on Mordor?" Belhadron offered. Legolas snorted in amusement, and a number of elves around the table rolled their eyes.

The captain threw a spare block at Belhadron's head, which he easily caught. "Be serious," she said, though a grin curled her lips. Belhadron nodded.

"I would get a few hundred elves and drive a wedge through the orc's line," he said, pushing the relevant blocks around the map with a soft hiss. "Send more elves through it and attack from behind."

Legolas hummed in agreement. "It would only work if we had information on what is behind their line," he pointed out. "Or we could just be hitting more orcs."

"Supply chains?" asked another captain. "If we disable them then we could weaken them in areas, force them to gather around their stronger areas and then pin them down there."

"Captain Rhavaniel must be able to get us that information," a lieutenant said. "And disable them."

"We may already have some of the information we need," Legolas said, eyeing the pile of papers at the other end of the table. "Dig through there and see if you can find the right report. If you would like to organise the papers at the same time, then go ahead."

The lieutenant nodded, and then began to sort through the piles and separate them out. A few other lesser captains or lieutenants stepped up and began to help. Though Legolas had not expressed it as so, they knew it was an order, and acted accordingly. Legolas' attention turned back to the map in front of them.

There was no emergency, no need for them to throw together a plan as quickly as they could and then watch, hoping it would hold together. They had done that plenty of times before, all knowing full well that even the best plans, the ones they'd picked apart and put back together late into the night until they had everything as good as they could possibly get it, even those didn't survive first contact with the enemy. But for now, they could sit back and work without the threat hanging so close over them, and the mood was light enough.

New strategies were thrown out and examined. There was no pride at stake in these discussions; they had learnt long ago that it was pointless. Belhadron conceded his original plan after some argument, and they moved to talk about supply chains and moving troops to the most effective places.

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside in the hallway. The room was close to the great gates of the stronghold and to many of the rooms used for running their defences, and so such noises were not uncommon, not when they were at a stalemate such as this with the orcs. But this time the sound of running feet drew nearer and nearer. Belhadron slowly rose to his feet from where he had been lounged in his chair and the others looked up, sensing the fraying of the rope holding the threat over their heads.

An elf skidded to a halt in the door, breathless. There was a roll of crumpled parchment grasped tightly in his hand. Legolas walked around the table and took the scroll from him. The others fell silent. All of them were standing now, arrayed around the table and watching as Legolas unfurled the parchment and began to read.

His eyes flickered over the hasty scribbles of the report, and his hands slowly tightened around the parchment as his gaze fell further and further down the page. The edge of the parchment fluttered as he jerked, as if stung.

The room was silent now. Legolas swallowed, his throat working as he slowly walked back towards the table. Each footstep, loud against no other sound but the harsh breathing of the messenger and the crackling of the fire, cut another strand of the fraying rope. Belhadron made an aborted move towards him, but at the last moment held himself in check, as if he could put off the inevitable by staying still.

The parchment dropped to the floor as Legolas reached out across the table. His fingers, now trembling slightly, closed around one of the blocks, a roughly carved little house. He picked it up, turning it over in his hand. The silence clawed at everyone, grabbing their throats and choking them and leaving them unable to do anything but watch as Legolas carefully set the block down at the edge of the map.

He looked up, fist clenching around the sudden empty air where the little house had just sat. "They burnt it down," he murmured.

Belhadron blinked. "What?" he managed to say, his voice rasping as if he hadn't used it for weeks. Legolas met his gaze, and found something there to steady himself.

"The orcs broke through the line earlier today," he said, gaze turning back to the inked strokes of the map lying across the table. "A group got through before the gap closed. They found the small settlement further north."

There was a choked off sound from someone. Someone else flinched, their hands moving to grip the back of the chair in front of them.

"The orcs started fires in the village a few hours ago," Legolas said tonelessly. "They don't know how many are dead. Soldiers nearby saw the smoke and arrived in time to fight the orcs off, but the settlement-" His throat worked. "It's been burnt to the ground. And they didn't get everyone out."

The rope snapped. The threat landed heavily across their shoulders, smothering them, clawing harshly at their throats. Legolas picked the parchment back up and flung it onto the map, the scribbled writing there for all of them to see. "That's it," he said. "We don't know anymore."

"Innocents," said one of the captains, looking at Legolas like he could defy the past and tell him something else, something that would take just a fraction of the weight back from them. Legolas merely nodded. The captain briefly shut her eyes and whispered something under her breath, a curse or a prayer or something in between.

Another captain sank into his chair, hands gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that his knuckles were white. Someone grabbed his shoulder, digging their fingers in as they themselves, staring at the map. Belhadron was shaking, his hands white and trembling at his sides.

Without any warning he swept a bowl off the table with a wordless shout of grief and rage. The bowl shattered against the wall, the sound smashing through the silence. Legolas, who had been expecting it, just winced. Everyone else jumped, hands going to weapons as the shards fell down around Belhadron's feet. He heaved a breath, leaning against the wall.

Legolas walked around the table and slowly, showing every movement in Belhadron's sight, reached out and pulled open Belhadron's hand. He grasped the shard of ceramic and pulled it away, letting it drop to the floor with small beads of red blood from shallow cuts across Belhadron's hand. Belhadron heaved a sigh, and then nodded. With a gentle tug from Legolas on his arm, he sat back down at the table.

Legolas reached for a spare piece of parchment and a quill. After a pause, he scratched down a brief message and signed it. "Take this to the King," he said to the messenger still standing in the doorway, handing him the original report and his note. The messenger nodded and bowed, before turning away. His footsteps could be heard echoing down the hallway as he left at a run.

"What did the note say?" someone asked. Belhadron had shattered the choking silence along with the bowl and the captains were stirring now, drawing out of their grief and putting it aside for the job they had to do.

"That we will get to work," Legolas said as he took a seat next to Belhadron. His jaw was clenched, and he was resolutely staring at the map. Legolas looked over at him, and without his gaze moving Belhadron nodded, once. Legolas turned his gaze to the rest of the captains, and they all met it steadily.

He pulled a blank piece of parchment towards him, and picked up a quill. "So let's get to work."

0-o-0-o-0

The messenger never returned to the room. The captains didn't notice, too busy planning their next moves after what had happened. There was still so much they didn't know, still so much information they were waiting on, and it left them hobbled and frustrated, unable to do plan much without knowing the number of orcs or the number of dead and wounded.

Thranduil walked into the room, the original report held in his hand. All conversation ceased, and the captains rose from their chairs as the lesser lieutenants and captains silently left the room. Thranduil placed the report down on the table.

He could tell that all of them, the seven or so captains that between them controlled most of their defences and that he had come to rely on, all of them were shaken. Legolas, whom he looked to first, was pale and restless, his hand tapping against his thigh. Another was still gripping the back of her chair, her knuckles white. Belhadron was sat still, but Thranduil knew him well enough to see that the anger was sitting perilously close to the surface. He had noticed the shards of ceramic on the floor already, and the way Belhadron was pressing down on his palm to stop the bleeding.

He had expected them to be shaken. He was shaken by what had happened, and grief and rage had clouded even his mind for a few brief moments. But he had much more experience than them in hiding it, and there was no visible crack in his impassive mask as he looked at them all.

"I do not need to tell you what needs to be done," he said. "I expect more reports will be coming in, and we will know more soon enough. Regardless, we cannot waste time on grief. There is a job that must be done. I trust you can all accomplish that."

There were nods from everyone around the table. "We can have a comprehensive plan in three hours," Legolas said, steadily meeting his father's gaze. Thranduil nodded.

"Make it two," was all that he said, and he turned and left. The elves outside cautiously filed back into the room, and the captains sank down into their chairs.

"Rhavaniel is in the area, isn't she?" asked one of the captains suddenly. Belhadron looked up, and then nodded shortly. "Let's get a message to her," the captain continued. "If she's in the area then she can take out the orcs that did this before they cause any more trouble."

"I would hardly call what they did 'trouble'," Belhadron said shortly. "They burnt down a village." There were winces all around the table. The other captain raised his eyebrows.

"Well, I'm sorry for trying keep this professional," she said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "Instead of smashing things. How did that work for you?"

Belhadron growled under his breath. "Leave it," Legolas said, holding up one hand, and Belhadron looked away, turning back to the map. The other captain paused, and then nodded, if only a little reluctantly.

It turned out, as the next report reached them, that there was no need to contact Rhavaniel. The report was written in her own hand, and it was a little relieving to know that her spies were moving out to track down the group of orcs. They all knew that revenge wasn't the best idea, most of the time, but it still felt good.

Over the hours the reports kept coming. Like any similar situation they'd been in over the years, rumours began flying thick and fast around the stronghold before too long. After about half an hour the captains shut the door to their room in an attempt to stop people coming in and asking about what had happened. It only partially worked, until Belhadron scrawled a note on parchment and then held it in place on the outside of the door with a knife embedded deep into the wood.

With each report, the tensions rose between the captains as they tried to sort fact from rumour, even in the reports from the soldiers there. It was strange to think that everything they were reading about had happened hours ago, that the village had burnt early this morning and was not, at the moment, still on fire. For all they knew, Rhavaniel may have tracked down the orcs already. It was frustrating, and the captains couldn't help but feel it.

Belhadron was practically vibrating with anger as he argued with one of the other captains over whether they should send out a company to retrieve the bodies. "We cannot leave them there," he hissed across the table.

"And we cannot risk sending a patrol to fetch them whilst there are orcs in the area!" the other captain countered. "We don't have the numbers to strengthen the border enough to make it safe enough. Any bodies will be burnt to basically nothing anyway."

Belhadron snarled at her, wordless in his anger, and the captain held up his hands. "I'm being practical," she said. "The village was burnt. It's horrific. And we have a job to do."

"And I've been doing just as much as you have," Belhadron shot back quickly. "Don't you dare accuse me of not pulling my weight."

"I'm not," the captain replied. "And you know better than to suggest that I would. But we have more important things to think about than recovering the bodies."

"More important?" Belhadron echoed, a crack in his voice. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he stared at her, incredulous. The other captain sighed.

"Do I really have to be the practical voice?" she asked. "We have a lot to do, and this is not the point we should be focusing on. Yes, we have more important things to worry about."

Everyone was warily watching Belhadron. Abruptly he stood. Legolas, sat next to him, picked up the water glass near him and moved it down the table.

"I'm going to check if there are any more reports," Belhadron spat out, a final glare shot at the other captain as he pushed his chair back with a shriek of wood against stone floor. He stalked out of the room. The door shut behind him not quite forcefully enough to have been slammed, but the sound still echoed through the room.

0-o-0-o-0

There was a pause around the room. "Well, that was helpful," someone said. The captain looked over at them. "What?" the other elf said. "It really wasn't useful to anyone to rile him up further."

"I'm so sorry for also being angry over this," the captain replied scathingly. She scraped her hair back from her head with a general glare to the room.

"We're all angry and upset," Legolas said. "But arguing amongst ourselves is not the best thing to do at the moment." He saw the look that the captain quickly hid, and held back a sigh. "I would say the same to Belhadron if he was in the room," he added. He knew he wasn't the most impartial when it came to arguments such as these with Belhadron as his second, especially when they were all still reeling from the news and not fully thinking straight, but he'd had enough.

"We have over an hour still," he said. "Leave it, and let's get back to work." The last comment was aimed specifically at the captain, who leant back in her chair and crossed her arms.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "But what gives him the right to get so angry?" She waved a hand at the shattered remains of the bowl, still on the floor. "Why do you chastise me, and let him storm off in the middle of all this?"

"Would you rather he stayed?" asked someone wryly, but any muted laughter soon died down.

"I'm not chastising you," Legolas said. "You had valid points. But it doesn't help by intentionally provoking Belhadron, and you know it. And anyone is allowed to storm off, as you put it, if they cannot focus on the job and need to calm down. You can leave yourself, if you'd like to."

"I'm fine," the captain responded quickly. Legolas nodded. He paused, wondering whether Belhadron would mind him telling the rest of the information they both knew, and then decided that he could take the fallout later on, if Belhadron did have a problem with it.

"Belhadron was also set to take out a covert patrol alongside Rhavaniel's," he said, his voice softening slightly. "This wasn't common knowledge, because two weeks ago Belhadron damaged his shoulder and the plan was put on hold, so we never brought it to the table. Rhavaniel obviously went ahead, but if Belhadron had taken his company they would have been right there last night. And I mean that literally, because Belhadron had plans to take a few days in that settlement to rest and talk to the people there."

There was a soft murmur of surprise from someone, but for the most part they were silent. Legolas nodded. "Exactly. If he hadn't done in his shoulder sparring, he would have been there with a company of some of the most elite soldiers we have. And that would have probably made all the difference."

"So it was my fault."

They all looked up, a few jumping with hands going to weapons, as Belhadron slipped back into the room. Legolas looked at him with a pained expression before he carefully schooled it, but nobody said anything as Belhadron sat back down in his chair. He placed a piece of parchment in the middle of the table.

"A new report," he said, tonelessly. He looked up at the captain sitting across from him. "A compromise," he offered. "There's a patrol there at the remains of the village and in the surrounding area. Once they're finished, which according to the new report will be in a few days, they can return home with the bodies." It went unsaid that the company should not, perhaps, return to the border after standing witness to such events. The captain nodded.

"I can agree to that," she said. "And I'm sorry." Belhadron dipped his head to her, looking calm, but Legolas could see the clenching and unclenching of his fists under the table, the small tic of the muscle in his jaw.

They returned to work. Belhadron was quiet for the most part, offering clipped comments on whatever plans were being pulled together, but none of the anger and grief had dissipated. Nobody said anything, outside of the job they had to do.

Truthfully, they all shared the same anger and grief. It wasn't going to disappear anytime soon, just like all the other hurts they had endured. They would bear it. The dead demanded it of them. They could not step away from that weight, even if they wanted to.

Legolas eventually put down his quill and leant back in his chair as he ran his hands through his hair. Next to him Belhadron was still writing. The table beneath the parchment was dotted with black spots of ink where the quill had broken through the paper. Finally he finished, signing the bottom of the parchment before pushing it over to Legolas. He added his name, and then the parchment went around the major captains until an array of names attested to the plan set out in ink strokes in front of them.

"Take this to the King," Legolas said, holding up the parchment. A lieutenant came and took it, and he disappeared from the room. There was a sigh of, if not relief, then the strange feeling that came with knowing that it was, for the moment, out of their hands.

Thranduil came into the room a few minutes later, looking pointedly at the note pinned with a knife to the door as he entered. It took another hour before Thranduil, and everyone else at the table, were pleased enough with their comprehensive plan for it to be sent out to the lesser captains, for orders to begin to be issued and the realm to, once again, fall into a state of war.

They were finished, for the moment, and none of the captains knew what to do with themselves. A few sat down in front of the fire in the hearth, just staring at it like the flames could hold all the answers to the world. Legolas sat without thinking, still studying the map as if he couldn't stop.

One by one, they left the room. As soon as the first of the captains left Belhadron stood, chair scraping across the floor, and he began to tidy up. The map remained, ink strokes and wooden blocks and their realm, spread out across a table. Legolas watched, face blank, as Belhadron began to gather up reports and lists and preliminary plans, burning those no longer useful in the hearth, and beginning to sort those that needed to be kept. Their final plan, of which many copies had been made and passed out to everyone who needed it and probably some who didn't, sat on the table still, untouched.

0-o-0-o-0

Eventually they were the only two in the room. Legolas, snapping out of his thoughts, watched Belhadron as he crumpled up pieces of parchment and threw them at the fire. Belhadron's fingers tightened around the next piece, white at the knuckles as the parchment crumpled. Already his hands were stained with ink, smeared across calluses left from long years of fighting. He muttered something under his breath, crushing the parchment between long fingers, and then threw it into the hearth.

After a while Legolas stood, and began to help. They were quiet as they worked, with a silence between them that wasn't quite as comfortable as it usually was.

Finally they were done, or as done as they could be whilst their minds were not really on the task at hand. Legolas sighed, and leant on the table. His gaze fell to the map once again.

Belhadron nudged his shoulder, jostling him. When Legolas looked up, he attempted a weak smile. "Do you want lies, half-truths or the truth?" he asked.

Legolas huffed a soft laugh. "Lies," he answered. It was an old thing between them, a joke that wasn't really a joke. Neither of them remembered when it had started, but it was habit for one of them to ask, after something like this happened. It was a way of checking how the other was thinking, where their mind was wandering. Legolas looked over at him. "What about you?"

Belhadron laughed bitterly. A small knife appeared in his hand and he spun it between his fingers, the blade catching the light from the hearth and shattering it on the sharp steel, before he put it back on the table again. "Lies," he replied. "Definitely lies."

"They'll be remembered," Legolas said slowly, looking at the map. "The people who died today. They'll be remembered." There was another moment of silence, a little more comfortable as the two leant on the table, next to each other.

Belhadron's hands were still fists on the table, his knuckles white, and Legolas, now that there was nobody else but the two of them in the room, let out a deep sigh and dropped his head. Belhadron looked over at him.

"Sparring halls?" he asked. Legolas huffed what began as a laugh, but trailed off into a sigh. He nodded, pushing back from the table, and the two of them left the room. Belhadron pulled the knife out of the door as they went, catching the note and crumpling it. He threw it behind him, and it tumbled across the table to land on the old parchment of the map, their realm spread out in ink strokes and carven wood, as the door swung shut.

0-o-0-o-0

They hadn't realised just how late it was. Judging by the activity around the stronghold as they walked towards the indoor practice rooms, it was the early hours of the morning, and as such there were few people around. Most of the sparring rooms stood empty, though as they walked past a few of the doors stood closed, with clashes of steel just audible through the thick wood. They knew enough to guess whom it could be, at this time of the night, and none of the guesses were at all comforting. They wouldn't be the only ones with the idea of sparring.

Belhadron led the way into the armoury at the end of the long hallway. He spread his arms. "What do you want?"

Legolas paused, looking at the rows and rows of every weapon imaginable in front of them. To his left sat the swords, from the shorter, compact blades to long sweeping two-handed swords, used on open plains instead of close forest. A variety of knives were shelved beyond them; only the stiletto knives, ones only Rhavaniel's people often carried hidden on them, were absent from the rack. Most elves didn't even know they were in use. At the back of the room, next to another door, sat a shelf of orcish weapons: scimitars, spears and short knives. Any elf that became part of the standing, permanent, army had to train with orcish weapons, just in case.

Legolas' gaze passed over them as he thought. All of them had green leather bands wrapped around the hilt or part of the weapon, denoting them as sparring weapons with blunted edges. This armoury was small and useless, compared to the main one within the stronghold. There were yet more armouries around the stronghold, smaller ones in case weapons were needed quickly, not to mention caches of weapons dotted around the forests, but this was the only one containing solely sparring weapons. The door at the other end opened to the beginning of the practice fields outside.

Legolas paused for another moment, and then strode into the room. Belhadron nodded in approval as he headed for the long staffs stacked against a wall. "Quarterstaffs," he said. "We haven't used those in a while."

"I know," Legolas said, picking one out and passing it to Belhadron, before picking his own. These, like all the weapons around them, weren't the same as those used in battle, though quarterstaffs were rarely used anyway. These were made out of a lighter wood, without the steel caps at each end that could cause so much damage in a fight.

Belhadron hefted his in his grasp, his hands curling around it in the right places by what was enough training to be considered instinct, and then they found an empty practice room.

Their first few passes were slow, controlled, the two of them stepping around each other without thinking of it as they warmed up. There was a restless tension between them, one they had carried from the ink strokes of the map and that room, and was spreading throughout the stronghold. For now they held it at bay unconsciously, with their centuries of training, but there was still a reason they were in an empty practice room in the early hours of the morning, and it wouldn't be long before the sparring became more than that.

Legolas' staff clashed against Belhadron and he spun, the smooth wood sliding easily in his grip as he stepped back out of Belhadron's reach. His lips were pressed tightly together as Belhadron circled him and he waited, tense only to the practised eye.

Belhadron leapt forwards and brought his staff around, the weapon cutting through the air with a grace only reached by decades of practice. Legolas stepped up to meet him and the two staffs clashed together with the low echo of wood on wood. They fought for control, until Legolas abruptly switched positions and Belhadron fell forwards from the sudden lack of resistance.

"We're out of practice," Legolas said, spinning his staff around him in a lazy circle. The words were not accompanied with their usual wry smile, nor soft laugh uttered in an excited breath. Given what had happened, they could not allow themselves to be out of practice, and it was a mistake to fix rather than an old joke. There was no room for imperfections in their minds at the moment, even though they both know how absurd that really was.

Belhadron nodded, face tight, and they began once more. Slowly, as the minutes wore away, the bouts became less controlled, less artfully mastered as the grief and the rage and the weight on their shoulders, the weight that was so heavy at the moment, found its way into their minds and pushed them forwards.

Belhadron's arms were trembling, but not from exertion. His knuckles were white where he was gripping his staff too tightly. Legolas was no better than him. His blond hair hung in limp circles around his face and impatiently, he pushed it out of the way.

Belhadron stepped forwards with his staff lowered, a wordless offer, and for a moment their staffs were laid on the floor as Belhadron pulled back Legolas' hair and plaited it. Legolas could see, out of the corner of his eye, Belhadron's hands trembling slightly as he pulled his hair back, as if they could not stand such delicate work. The finished plait was messy, but it would do.

They picked up their staffs once more, and began once again to spar. The room was quiet, the sounds of them sparring muted by the high ceilings and tapestried walls, the Mirkwood banners hanging, a hundred shades of green, from their places high on the walls. In the early hours of the morning it was just the two of them, raging against the grief and anger that they had become so accustomed to shouldering.

Legolas could tell that the Belhadron's control was slowly shredding. His moves were becoming less refined, based more on pure instinct than the recall of decades of training, and his lips slowly pulled back in a soundless snarl as he struck at Legolas again and again, the two of them dancing across the room on feet weighed down and heavy.

Legolas parried his blow, and returned one of his own. He could feel his own grief urging him forwards, looking for a release, and for now, he was inclined to indulge it. The bouts became faster, the moves devolving until it was instinct that drove them forwards against each other yet again.

Belhadron let out a wordless cry, filled with a thousand things that they had no names for, as his staff came round in a blur. Legolas parried the blow, and then another, and another, as Belhadron's face twisted and he pushed Legolas back across the room. He was shaking, his grip on the staff tight enough that his hands were bloodless, and Legolas felt something twist and threaten to snap within him as he watched his friend's face.

But it was Belhadron who snapped first, and his staff spun away across the floor as Legolas knocked it out of his hands. A choked cry forced its way past his clenched teeth and he doubled over, breathing harshly. Legolas' staff fell, forgotten, on the floor to join Belhadron's. Legolas rested his hands behind his head and breathed deeply.

Belhadron, after a few moments' silence, looked up at Legolas. "Do you ever regret it?" he asked, in between gasps for breath. He grimaced. "Regret is the wrong word. But do you ever wonder what it might be like, to not be this?" The implications of what they were went unsaid, but between the two of them, they both knew. They'd been fighting for a long time now, too long for it to not leave scars.

Legolas paused. His hands dropped to his sides, though he still breathed deeply and his tunic stuck to his back with sweat. "I don't know. On days like this, maybe. I sometimes wonder what this would all be like if we weren't at war," he said, waving his hand at the stronghold around them. "But those are dangerous thoughts."

"Believe me, I know," Belhadron replied. He rested his hands on his knees, still catching his breath. "But sometimes…" He sighed, and whether it was because it was so late in the night, or because of the exhaustion in his muscles, or the enormity of what had happened, something loosened his tongue. He looked up at Legolas. "Sometimes I wonder just what I'd give for all of this to not be the way it is. And I think the answer scares me."

Legolas sighed, dropping his head. "On days like this, it scares me too."

They stood together in silence for a few moments, with only the sound of their harsh breathing in the room. Finally Legolas reached out, offering a hand. Belhadron grabbed it and pulled himself up, and then tugged Legolas forwards into a tight embrace. They clung to each other, a few brief moments where they did not have a job to do, where they were not everything that was demanded of them but just people, weighed down and weary and scared.

0-o-0-o-0

They found themselves returning to the captains' room, eyes avoiding the old map spread out across the table and slumping onto one of the divans and low couches around the hearth. They were the only ones in the room. The fire was still burning, but was merely embers nestled in cooling ash, and for a while they watched it in silence.

Belhadron shifted and leant into Legolas, tucking his legs up underneath him on the divan. Legolas looked down at him. "I'm not a pillow," he said, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Belhadron shrugged. "You'll do for now," he replied. Legolas huffed a soft laugh, but it fell flat and muted in the room.

They tried to fill the silence for a few minutes with quiet conversation, but soon Legolas trailed off halfway through a sentence, and Belhadron didn't say anything in reply. But now the silence now felt too little and too much at the same time. After a few minutes Belhadron got up and headed over to one of the many shelves around the room, to a chest sat up high on a shelf. It hadn't been opened in years, judging by the thin layer of dust covering it.

Legolas watched over his shoulder as he opened it, and then pulled out a small harp. It was old, made out of some pale wood with gold leaves and vines entwined around the base and stretching up the wood. Belhadron huffed a soft laugh as he turned it over in his hands. "You haven't touched this in years."

"I've been a little busy," Legolas replied with a small smile. Belhadron handed the harp over to him, and slouched back down onto the divan as Legolas began to test the strings, light fingers moving nimbly over the harp. "Besides," he said. "I never was a musician. I can only play because of all the lessons I had when young."

Belhadron shrugged, leaning back into Legolas and tucking his legs beneath him again as he watched him tune the instrument. "You're better than I am," he murmured.

"Any requests?" Legolas asked, shifting the small harp on his lap. Belhadron shrugged, slouching elegantly on the divan and against Legolas. Legolas huffed the barest of laughs, and then began to play.

The music was just music, just Legolas' fingers playing gently over the strings of the harp, but it was so much more, for being so little. Half-forgotten tunes, laments and old songs, rose from the harp as Legolas played what he could remember, what his hands had learnt over the years. Belhadron was a heavy, steady weight at his side, silent as he watched Legolas' fingers dance over the strings.

There was grief in the music, grief neither of them knew how to speak of. The notes briefly faltered as Legolas' fingers tripped over the strings. Both of them were weeping silently, tears slowly rolling down their cheeks as Legolas played. Neither of them said anything. This was a soldier's grief; raw edges sharpened by centuries of memories and profound, more profound than either of them knew how to voice.

Legolas kept playing, not stopping even when Belhadron's breath hitched and he wiped at his eyes, sinking further into the divan. He didn't stop when Belhadron finally fell asleep, curled up and half leaning on him. The sweet, quiet music flowed from the harp and fell softly across the room, and Legolas kept playing, soft tunes that he barely remembered until his fingers were touching the strings and found the next notes.

Rhavaniel, of all people, walked into the room hours later. Legolas had stopped playing and was dozing, half asleep, on the divan. Belhadron was still soundly asleep, leaning against Legolas. At some point Legolas had covered him with a cloak, and its dark colours softened the edges of Belhadron's sleeping figure in the dim light into a blur.

Legolas looked up as Rhavaniel entered, careful not to stir Belhadron. "I thought you were hunting down the orcs," he murmured. He wasn't too surprised; he'd learnt a while ago to not be surprised by anything Rhavaniel did.

"It's done," Rhavaniel replied, moving over to the fire. She paused, looking down at Belhadron with a faint smile. "They're dead. I took a horse back here to report to the King."

Legolas took her in for the first time, seeing the mud and dried blood coating her, black in the dim light. She still had a garrotte wire dangling from one hand, which she set down by the fire. Her face was darkened with mud and paints to keep her hidden in the thick forests, and she hadn't yet taken it off. Her eyes gleamed from amid the shadow of her face. "Are you going to see my father like this?" Legolas asked with a small smile.

Rhavaniel huffed, sitting down in front of the hearth as she began to shed her gear. "He's seen me in worse," she replied. "But I'll clean up a little." She sighed, pushing her hair out of her face. "It's been a long day."

"I know," Legolas replied. He watched as Rhavaniel put another log on the fire and stoked it, blowing at the embers until a new flame began to lick at the wood. "We have a plan set out. It was put into motion a few hours ago."

Rhavaniel nodded. "A messenger told me. I haven't read it yet. I'll pick up that copy on the table before I go to the King." She studied Legolas. "You look tired."

Legolas huffed a laugh, and then stilled as Belhadron stirred. "As I said," he murmured. "It has been a long day. In short, Belhadron shattered another bowl, there was a discussion about that, we put together that plan and did a whole lot more, and then Belhadron and I sparred."

Rhavaniel eyed him, and then Belhadron. "There's a lot more to it than that," she said. "He was angry?"

"We all were," Legolas replied. "Though he had more reason to be than others, in a way. You know about the patrol he was meant to take with you." Rhavaniel nodded, remembering the details. She studied the two of them.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

Legolas laughed softly. "Not even close," he said. "But it will pass, as it always does." He sighed, watching the fire in the hearth.

"Spit it out," Rhavaniel said, looking up from where she was trying to knock the mud off her boots. Legolas huffed the barest of laughs.

"Do you ever wonder…" He trailed off, thinking. "Belhadron said earlier that sometimes he wonders what we, what all of this would be like if we weren't, well, this." He waved a hand at Rhavaniel's steadily growing pile of weapons. "For this not to be the way things are. Do you ever wonder what you would give to have that?"

Rhavaniel blinked, looked at him, and then let out a startled laugh. Belhadron jerked awake at the sound, and she quickly turned to him. "Sorry," she said through another laugh. "Go back to sleep."

"You're back?" Belhadron asked, voice rough from sleep. He began to sit up, blanket slipping from his shoulders as he blinked at Rhavaniel.

"The orcs are dead," she reassured him, pushing him back down. "They're all dead. Go back to sleep."

Belhadron blinked again, and then nodded. He lay back down and within moments was asleep again. Rhavaniel reached over and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders, still laughing to herself.

"What's so amusing?" asked Legolas, looking down at her with a frown. Rhavaniel laughed again.

"You look far too much like your father when you do that," she replied. She began to try to clean the mud and dark dyes off her face. "I find it funny that you ask me whether I ever think of what I would do, for this to not be the way things are. What I would do to make things different." She laughed again, softly this time. "I don't need to think about it. I do it every day."

Legolas blinked. "What?"

Rhavaniel looked at him with a wry smile curving her lips. "What else do we fight for," she asked. "If not the possibility of that future? What do we do, but fight for the world to be different, to be better? So I know exactly what I would give."

Legolas paused, and then huffed a laugh, letting his head fall back against the back of the divan. "You're right, as usual," he murmured. "You should write that down and put it up on the wall."

Rhavaniel laughed. "I might do that," she replied. She tucked her hair behind her ears, and then stood. "I must speak with the King," she said. With a soft smile on her face, she pulled the cloak up further around Belhadron's shoulders, smoothing the ripples in the cloak down across his side. Her gaze dropped down, and Legolas followed it to the harp set at the foot of the divan. "You haven't played that in years," she said, a small smile curving her lips. "I forgot it was even here."

Legolas shrugged, and leant down to pick it up. His hands ghosted over the strings, the barest of notes rising from the harp, before they dropped to his lap again. "Belhadron pulled it out. But I'd forgotten what it was like to play."

Rhavaniel nodded. "Keep playing," she said. "Amongst all this it's good to hear something being created, even if it's only music." That was as close as she would come to admitting that what had happened had shaken her, but Legolas knew even that was a little difficult for her to say beyond the few people she truly trusted with everything, with far more than just her life. He nodded slowly.

Rhavaniel turned and headed for the door, leaving the two of them on the divan in front of the hearth. Belhadron slept on as Legolas studied the harp, and then lifted his hands to it once more. Fingers far more used to the string of a bow, to training and fighting, began to dance over the strings.

Rhavaniel slipped out of the room with a smile. Behind her, sweet music rose in the dim light of the morning.

finis