Chapter Two

"I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir."
Romeo and Juliet (Act V Scene I), William Shakespeare

Legolas dismounted at the bottom of the hidden path into the mountains. He could have ridden up it but his coming would have made too much noise. He preferred to go ahead silently past Faramir's guards. They had yet to catch a single elf on their way up and Faramir had asked for the chance to let them try. In the darkness the Ithilien rangers could hardly see, compared to the elves who walked as if in full daylight.

In the solitude of the hills he could think. Here the darkness of Mordor was already gone; although there were few trees there were no corpses. In the hills he could lose the companions Faramir saddled him with and let his mind wander. First, as it always did now, he thought of the sea, of the endless waves and the gulls reeling overhead. Ever yday it took him longer to draw his mind and heart away from those thoughts. It invariably went next to his family, by coincidence or as a furtherance of his thoughts of leaving them. The might of Gondor protected Yarna back in Minas Tirith from any of Suaron's creatures, yet Legolas could not rest easily knowing she was so close to a more dangerous enemy. His father had the girls safely in the Halls, where they had been kept for the whole of the war. Legolas ran his hand along a branch idly, sighing. His brothers, none of them were as safe as his girls. Maybe Orision was, for the Halls of Mandos were safe. He hoped Thranduil had enough heart to keep Feuil at home, to keep his youngest carefully hidden from the forces of evil.

Legolas stepped out of the bushes behind the last guard, slipping inside the cave.

"You have blind men guarding the path, Captain," he told the young lord by the fire. The conversations of the rangers died down the moment they saw him until the only sounds were their breathing and the crackling fire.

"I have Men," answered Faramir. "More than that I cannot ask." Legolas smiled and turned away, setting his pack down with the others. He heard Faramir stand up slowly. He did not need to be graced to feel the tension in the cave, the expectation of impending disaster.

"Grave news will not tell itself," he said to them. Standing up straight he had several inches on Faramir but the Captain knew better than to stand too close for that to be apparent.

"If only it did and could spare me this duty." There was pain on Faramir's face behind the stubble that came from days in the wild. "You said to me once that you knew the pain I felt on learning of Boromir's death. It pains me now that you shall have to feel it again." Legolas felt a weight in his chest drop. His brothers' faces immediately filled his mind. Hestlean, brash and riding away into the forest with a bitter laugh, Legolas had not seen him since. The two younger boys, Matlar and Feuil, surely they were safe in the Halls. One of them was lost, following their eldest brother to the grave.

"What has happened?" he asked Faramir, his voice tight and drawn.

"Lord Celeborn has killed the elf traitor you will not name north of the Anduin. Prince Hestlean was with her, he was shot down." Relief came first: his little brothers were well, then guilt at that thought. They had had their differences, great ones that had threatened to divide their family and Legolas' marriage at times, but he was knocked back at the guilt he felt for being relieved at which brother it was.

"Lord Celeborn sent a letter," Faramir added kindly, handing it over. He retreated, the hushed conversations of before did not restart as the Men watched their Elven guest intently.

Glorfindel had added a word at the bottom, Legolas noted, after Celeborn's words of condolence and a brief explanation of the battle. They had destroyed the Easterlings in the hills and the army had broken up, making its way home in various directions. His brother's body had been burned with the enemy corpses. Even the eloquent Lorien Lord's words did nothing to gloss over that fact.

Legolas repulsed himself even more when he found the second, still sealed envelope underneath the first and almost smiled at the familiar hand. Matlar had written a handful of lines to him.

Legolas,
Coming home would be dangerous. If you mean to go through with your plans for the girls' then fetch them to Rivendell or Lindon with all haste, it would be wiser to find Laurina or a cousin to take them. You are the eldest now but heed me well: any move you make will be seen as profiting from Hestlean's disgrace. His stain rubbed off on you. Let me smooth the ground out before you. I will send news when I reach the Halls.

Matlar

There was no mention of grief or even of Orophin's wound as in Celeborn's letter. Usually the most eloquent of them all, Matlar's words had the urgency of a general, the letter Legolas would expect Valion, his Father's Marchwarden to send. Somehow in the heat of battle and grief Matlar's mind still worked and he was thinking in the way their father had taught them. His logic was sound, however. Hestlean's departure nearly a century before would make Legolas' actions now suspect. Nonetheless he wanted to be there, to console his brothers and cousins as one of them was taken.

"If you have need of a messenger, the man who brought those letters will return to Minas Tirith before nightfall," Faramir told him from the fire. Legolas nodded his thanks and ducked into the small cavern they used as writing room. Someone had lit a candle on the desk, Faramir's papers were strewn about. Legolas cleared them to one side and sat down.

The candle flickered as he watched it, mesmerised for a moment. It cleared his head slightly, reminding him of something he had once heard. One by one all the candles were being blown out. He took up a pen.

He ended up writing three letters. One to Yarna, he did not bother with sympathy as she would not want his, he merely explain Matlar's plan to move the girls. It would be wiser for her to go to his father than him himself since she at least had no obvious ulterior motive.
The second he wrote to Laurina, knowing he had to secure the household guards for whatever was about to come. She would keep his girls safe, and his brothers too.
The third and by far the longest was to Erestor. That too was a request, that he take the girls and keep them in Imladris, the home of save guarded children.

Finally, he went back to staring at the candle. Grief was a strange thing, the idea that he would not see his brothers again for years. Then, he supposed, it was not really grief, since it was not an eternal good bye. Again his thoughts went to the sea, beyond which now dwelt most of his family. His grandfather, his mother, two brothers- and to test his faith- a son. Grief was something best left to the Edain, he mused and blew the candle out.