Disclaimer: Don't own LOTR
This is the first in a collection of mildly AU stories exploring the dark side of the LOTR characters. They are unconnected (unless otherwise stated) to one another or to any of my other LOTR stories. Each story will include a rating (just in case), a summary, and the main characters so you can decide which ones you want to read. Enjoy!
A Grief Unobserved - After Gandalf's death, Frodo discovers just why the woodelves are considered more dangerous than their cousins.
Rating: K+
Characters: Frodo, Legolas
A Grief Unobserved
Frodo had always wondered about the Fellowship's elf. He could laugh easily, and his songs filled the air with wondrous music. Sam admired him, and Merry and Pippin thought him a joy. But from the beginning Frodo thought there was a strangeness to him, like a cold day in the middle of summer. He saw it most clearly when the elf was fighting. There was a danger to him, and Frodo had a feeling that it was a danger not only applying to the orcs. Legolas killed without mercy, firing arrow after arrow, using his knives when those ran out, and using his hands when the knives were lost. Frodo had once seen him break a goblin's neck as easily as if it had been a stick.
At first he thought it was only the benefit of elven reflexes that gave Legolas such speed with his kills. Yet as he learned to fight himself, he learned there was more to it: Legolas did not hesitate. He simply killed. And yes, it had saved their lives, but did the elf never think of what he was doing, never wonder what consequences were to be had for killing a creature before it had time to defend itself? Maybe it was only the hundreds of years of experience he had, as Merry suggested when Frodo brought up this question one evening while the others were busy and Legolas was hunting. There was always meat to be had when Legolas hunted for them.
It was not until they left Moria that he understood what it really was that made him so uncomfortable, and that the others began to see the elf the way Frodo always had. Frodo's heart clenched and bled, crying for the loss of dear Gandalf. The others, too, were in various states of disbelief and grief. Legolas looked out over the rocky hills, as if he was scouting, but Frodo thought he must have been trying to compose himself. Not that it mattered. Frodo wanted to run, he was barely aware of the others. Aragorn suggested they move on, which Frodo would have thought callous if not for the desperation in his voice and the comforting way he spoke to Sam. Frodo assumed the best of anyone who was good to Sam and his cousins. When he turned back, he saw Legolas pull Merry to his feet gently, but without a single word of kindness. There was no hint of the devestation Frodo felt on the elf's face.
Frodo could have put all this aside as the way Legolas was dealing with his grief. He really could not find room in his heart to care, were he perfectly honest with himself, about anyone but Gandalf at the moment. He was hardly hungry, and so hardly listening over dinner as they tried to decide how best to approach Lothlorien. Legolas insisted they press on, while Aragorn thought it best they stop for the night to allow them time to rest, to grieve. What caught Frodo's attention was the elf's incredulous, unsympathetic question: "Why?"
Frodo started at that. Had Legolas truly asked why they needed to grieve? But perhaps he misunderstood. Aragorn did not seem to mind the question, though he sighed as one who had answered already many times. "Because we need the time to come to terms with his death, to spend an eve at least alone with our thoughts, thinking of Gandalf."
"Gandalf is dead." This was not a question. Legolas might as well have been commenting on the state of the weather.
"Yes," said Aragorn, the overwhelming grief in his voice making Legolas' monotone all the more apparent.
"So there is no need to think about him. We will be safer in Lothlorien, and you can think about him then. The Lady will want to hear of his encounter with the creature," Legolas replied evenly.
"No need to think about him?" Merry called out. Clearly, Frodo was not the only one who was surprised by the turn that the conversation had taken. "But of course there is! Gandalf was our friend, and I would give anything to bring him back to us!"
Legolas shook his head. "Thinking will not accomplish that. Gandalf did what was necessary, and now we must do our part. But, if you truly wish to remain here, I cannot argue it." With a shrug, he moved back over to his pack and started cleaning the gore off of his knives, humming a pleasant, even tune as he did so.
Frodo couldn't help finally voicing his own concerns. "Legolas."
The elf looked up, and Frodo noticed that there was a splash of blood on his cheek. Whether it was from the deer he had skinned for their dinner or something else, the hobbit did not dare to guess. "Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
Legolas raised an eyebrow. "Whatever for?"
"For Gandalf, of course. You knew him longer than the rest of us, surely his death pains you," Frodo prompted.
"Oh." Legolas went back to his knives. "No, it does not pain me, no need for sorrow. I expect we shall all meet a similar fate."
Frodo felt a chill go through him. No one had said as much, though they all knew it was likely to be true. It hurt, though, that the elf who must have loved Gandalf, must have felt something for him, seemed indifferent his death, and to the end of the entire Fellowship. "Doesn't it matter to you at all?" he asked quietly.
"No," Legolas answered. He sighted along the blade of his knife, then reached for a whetstone.
"You don't care?" Merry exclaimed. The little hobbit was on his feet, and his voice shook with anger. "How can you just not care, not shed one tear, when you knew him for years?"
"Merry!" Aragorn cried, pulling on the young hobbit's shoulder. "That is quite enough. You are upset, and you are saying things you do not understand."
Legolas himself looked very confused. "Am I meant to do more?"
The hobbits let out anguished cries, and even dark Boromir looked upon the elf as though Legolas were an orc. Gimli growled low in his throat. "Heartless creature! I should have expected it of an elf! I suppose you mean to slaughter us in our sleep?"
Legolas' eyes narrowed. "I swore to protect this Fellowship, and so I shall, to my last breath. So Gandalf is dead; what changes, truly?"
Aragorn kept a hand on Gimli's shoulder to keep him from rising against the elf. The ranger looked desperate to ease the situation. "Tell them of Mirkwood, Legolas, they don't understand!"
Legolas looked around at each face, and it was only when he met Frodo's gaze that he seemed to comprehend why the others might be upset. There was a flicker of memory, of feeling, behind his eyes, perhaps of some bittersweet day of long lost childhood. "In my home we are accustomed to death," he began. "I do not expect to return on any given day; none of us do. So we live for when we are, and we accept when we are not. I have seen many good friends fall, more than you shall ever see, I suspect, even were you to live as long as I."
Again there was that hint of sorrow. Frodo almost reached out to him, for it seemed suddenly that Legolas had simply seen too much in his life and would surely fade from grief if he did think about Gandalf and all the others. Then Legolas' face hardened to a look that frightened Frodo, and instead the hobbit pulled away. The firelight shone on the bloody line across his cheek, and the elf's musical voice sounded harsh. "Grief is foolish. If you waste your time mourning in Mirkwood a spider will eat you even as an orc arrow pierces your heart. So we do not mourn; I do not mourn. Not my friends, not my mother, not my siblings, and certainly not Gandalf, and when I die I shall not expect anyone to be bothered by my passing, save as an inconvenience."
Legolas turned his back on them, and set about sharpening his knives while singing a light song, the same as always. It was only now Frodo realized what the lyrics translated to, and he felt ill to hear it. It was a song of fighting, of dying, a song made to teach soldiers not to care if they sent a hundred brothers to die if it meant saving the rest of their people. He wondered if Legolas even knew how to grieve, or if he had ever in his long life known comfort. He suspected not. Legolas was a soldier, born and raised to fight and die. Frodo shivered, rolled over, and tried to cover his ears. He would rather turn his thoughts to Gandalf then watch those knives dance, listen to the song of pitiless death. Frodo did not want to wonder about the elf anymore.
