Chapter Seven: I'm Sorry
Despite the lethalness of the opponent, his sword sang with avarice as he swung into the Nazgûl strike, cutting through the sheeting rain to clash steel to steel, pitching muscle and bloody-minded will against a preternatural power backed by the fires of Mordor itself. Aragorn centred his fear and made it into something stronger, something more pliable, an element of himself that he could use to exacerbate the strength of his fight, the shadow he fought becoming a target for all his hatred and frustration and fear. He refused to be cowed by the awesome power trying to force past his defences, trying to render him and everything he stood for to something less than dust.
They were three, their hunters.
One each.
Gimli's glee at being able to participate in the fighting now that it was more at his level was clear in the fury he put into every axe swing. He was such an indomitable warrior that it mattered little to him that his enemy towered over him even more so than they did Aragorn and Legolas ... his thirst for victory was pure and unyielding, a quality that any who witnessed it could not help but admire.
But Gimli's axe was not suited to fighting such lengthy blades, and the span of Aragorn's own weapon was too much of a hindrance in the tightly clustered trees. Legolas was the only one well enough equipped with his knives, having been armed for millennia to fight in such confined spaces ... but he could not hold them on his strength alone, and they were being forced ever back towards the brink.
-(())-
Boromir's hold on the two hoods kept all three on the trunk as the root end dipped with a cascade of falling land. Even as they turned and watched, horror welding their feet to the crumbling surface, the water streaming from the sloping earth ate away at the slip of dirt anchoring the end of the tree in place –
"MOVE!"
Cautious steps were no use to them anymore. The rotted wood came away in great chunks at the onslaught of their sprinting feet, desperate to throw them off and end its agony. Even as they tore for the far bank the weak hold at the root end gave in, slipping in a fall of mud for the pitching waters below. Boromir thrust a palm into each back and shoved them violently the rest of the distance and onto the scree slope, using the plunging wood himself for one final push.
It was enough.
He lay for a moment, vainly trying to convince his heart to stay in his chest. The shouts of the others and clashes of blades were a distant sound, something miles away for which he held little care. They were alive, through some grace of the Valar, they had made it and not been swept away to their deaths. All that stood between them and true safety was the towering incline of scree, a virtually vertical plate of unstable rock shards and water-logged mud. After conquering death, however, Boromir did not feel that something as pathetic as thirty feet of loose stone and dirt was anything to be overly concerned about. He staggered to his feet, mindful of the threat the land held, and hauled the hobbits up, urging them towards the forest above.
He did not know then how misplaced his sense of safety was.
Some of the rocks they tried to use as leverage to drag themselves up the slope proved deceptive, coming away completely in their hands and showering their heads with stone. Suddenly, thirty feet felt like three hundred to Frodo. He was behind, always behind, his eyes whenever he dared lift them being greeted by an ever increasing distance between himself and Sam and Boromir. They were too busy in their own struggle to reach level ground to pay any heed to his floundering efforts, not knowing that his shoulder flared with every movement and that every upward motion sapped his strength. His hands were numb from cold and his clothes were thoroughly drenched through, the relentlessly pounding rain mocking his silent prayers for it to give him some relief. He was tired, so tired, and his joy when he next dared raise his eyes was almost insurmountable when he realised there were little more than ten feet between him and safety. The other two were waiting for him on the solid and level earth, the relief he felt reflected in their faces at his coming.
But the sound of cascading stone was laughter in his ears when the land played its cruellest trick and carried him away in a rush of cutting stone. His hands slapped uselessly at anchored rocks as his body streaked past them, the appalled faces of Boromir and Sam rapidly becoming smaller. By some immeasurable mercy, the flow stopped when he was above the brink. He lay as still as his uncontrollable shaking would allow, giving no mind to the sharp sting of the cuts on his hands as he dug them into the semi-solid surface. His entire world was engulfed in life and breathing and not moving, no frantic shouts from Boromir and Sam reaching his ears...
Then he felt it. An echo in his heart, singing forlornly in his stillness to those it knew desired to listen. And they heard. With every fibre of their distorted beings, they listened to its cry, and there was no possible measure of concealment deep enough to shield him from them now. He felt them behind him. They were all wrong when they had thought the Wraiths were all on the opposite bank. Frodo rolled from his belly and stared up into the empty hood.
-(())-
"Ha! Come back, cowardly rag!" Gimli's euphoric and mocking shout followed his Nazgûl in his retreat down the slope. "Bested by a dwarf! Methinks you'll think twice next time before taking on one of Durin's folk!"
Behind him, the clashes of steel likewise fell to nothing, and despite his words he was only just able to suppress his shudder as the other two shades all but glided past him. They were backing up, keeping their faceless hoods on their combat partners as they levelled out at the foot of the incline. Gimli heard his friends come to his side and flashed them each a triumphant grin. But what little he could see of their faces spoke only of confusion as they both stared unblinkingly at their enemies, breath condensing before them in shallow panting bursts.
"Sparring with the hobbits is more taxing." A note of worry lined Aragorn's words, and he could see in the silver gleam of Legolas' eyes as they caught the dimness that he shared the same sentiment.
"Who cares, look at them!" Gimli gloated, a little annoyed that his partners clearly did not share his sense of victory. "See them flee! We should never have run ourselves." He gave a self-satisfied chuckle, waving his axe at their foes in one last gesture of his dominance and flinging a few choice Dwarvish curses at them.
"They aren't fleeing," Legolas observed quietly. "They're walking away..."
There was something more chilling about hearing it declared as fact, something that settled a deep unease on Aragorn's heart like a winter fog over a thicket. Watching the Wraiths meld silently with the darkness until they were nothing more than a shadowed memory in the night only served to further his disquiet. Their disappearing like that made his soul quake with the sense that they were everywhere at once, like smoke and air. Untouchable themselves, but able to reach across the void to crush them all with iron-clad fists...
"But why? Why would-"
"STRIDER!"
The anguished cry of a hobbit – Merry, he recognised – jarred his attention from the blank stillness that shielded their enemies. The ranger spun on his heel and tried to run to aid his wards, the grasping mud feeling like it attempted to haul his feet down into some crushing embrace in its efforts to slow him reaching the hobbits. As he fought his way to Merry and Pippin's side, he concluded that the elf wasn't all that wrong about the evil intentions of the land...
He only realised the real truth of Legolas' earlier conviction when his eyes settled on the crippling scene across the ravine that had invoked such terrible desperation in Merry's shout. He knew then as his heart stopped and his stomach plummeted the sheer magnitude of his error.
It was akin to watching a warg pack toying with a fawn before tearing it apart. This was it, this was the trap all along, and Aragorn had allowed them to play him like a fiddle. He was only dimly aware of Legolas joining him, hearing the elf's breath hitch in his chest at the sight of what was about to play out.
Frodo surrounded by Nazgûl, stranded and alone and helpless in the face of his oncoming death, unable to move as the long black blade of the Witch-king arced and made to descend in the one fatal blow it would take to kill the defenceless Bearer and claim their ultimate victory. Boromir was struggling with the near-vertical incline, his own sword drawn and his face desperate to get to the aid of their small companion ... but he would be too late, he was too far away –
He realised too late that Legolas had removed himself from his side. And he could do nothing to stop him when he understood what the elf's intentions were, as a tall mass of grey and green streaked past him, the greedy mud gaining nothing of him as his feet sprinted its surface as though it were a solid track. The utter powerlessness that consumed Aragorn as he watched his best friend launch himself from the disintegrating edge elevated in his unintelligible cry of dismay and loss.
-(())-
This was it. This was death, this was the end. There was nothing beyond the keen edge of the tainted plains of steel bearing down on him, nothing save a chasm of unending space. He choked on his own breath, his heart forgetting what it was to beat rhythmically and without pain as his wide eyes watched the descending blade with morbid fascination, until it reached a point where his numbed mind recalled what it meant and he could not stand to look any longer. Life. He wanted to live, he wanted to see the Shire again, he didn't want to die yet, and he threw his arm over his face, shrinking back into his stony deathbed to get as far from the inevitable as possible –
But the expected strike never hit. Stone shards and mud sprayed in his face and metal shrieked agonisingly as blades came against each other. An angered screech erupted from his would-be executioner, echoed by the others in a climbing cacophony of billowing rage. Heaving unplanned air into his lungs was shock enough to kick his body back to functioning as a living entity. His eyes prised themselves open, and Frodo didn't fully understand what he saw through the streaking rain...
The Valar knew how, but it was Legolas. Virtually on top of him, the elf was crouched on one knee, twin knives crossed before him with the fell blade of the Witch-king locked in their biting embrace. His arms trembled with the effort of stopping the weapon of their enemy, having elected a vulnerable position in favour of blocking Frodo's death. His back foot fought to get under him, but the unstable stone kept slipping from under his boot and rendered his efforts futile.
"Frodo," Legolas gasped through gritted teeth. "Go!"
Legolas did not wait for Frodo to get out of his way. Giving up his struggle to recover his footing, he made a move that both Frodo and the Witch-king least expected and threw his hold on the Nazgûl blade away to the side, flinging his weight down onto one shoulder and lashing out with his feet to deliver an almighty kick. The hobbit's limbs were forced to remember what it was to move at the elf's violent manoeuvre, only just getting out of the way ... something the Witch-king did not succeed in. The absolute power of the blow would have left any other being gasping and prone on the slope, but the Witch-king's damnable existence barred such pain. Still, the Nazgûl stumbled back in a rare moment of lost preternatural grace as the elf's strike hit his gut. For Legolas, the lull was enough. He brought himself to his feet and adopted his favoured fighting stance just in time before the onslaught of black fury and crudely-crafted steel.
Frodo found the utter violence and speed of the battle frightening. Though he stood alone, Legolas' prowess was deathly beautiful. His opponents might outnumber him, but he showed no fear in his fight, just a pure destructive aggression delivered with a kind of poise Frodo had never before witnessed. His movements were so fast and pinpoint accurate that it seemed to the hobbit that he was the embodiment of cold skill, a weapon in himself, and Frodo was so transfixed by the horror and beauty of what was happening that he couldn't move.
Legolas parried, throwing one blade away from himself and blocking an attack to his flank in the same instance. There was no time to reflect on his actions as a fresh assault called the attention of his reflexes to defend himself again, twisting into the strike and succeeding in turning it to his advantage as he managed to get the attacking Wraith too close to one of his companions, drawing an angered screech from the demonic being as his fellow's sword nearly gutted him.
Droplets laced his lashes, merging with water streaming from his crown straight into his eyes as the rain sought to wash the land from under his feet. He was so utterly sodden that his every move was marked in the air by flying rivulets of water. The hilts of his knives were so slick with wet he was constantly forced to readjust his grip, making the small ring of defended space he occupied barely tenable. Everything was a blur of water and steel and towering darkness, darkness so very complete he could see no way past them. Legolas had fought against them before, but never so many and never with such intensity.
Never on my own.
They feared his knives, he knew that; elven blades were said to be the only type capable of actually harming a Ringwraith ... but he feared striking them just as much. Elven-crafted or otherwise, if his knives struck true, the steel would disintegrate in a billow of dust and leave him utterly defenceless. All he could do for Frodo was be no more than a distraction, not eliminate the threat. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and the Wraiths knew the elf's predicament. For them, it was only a matter of time...
-(())-
Across the ravine, Aragorn prowled the narrow ledge in a search for something, anything, to get him to his friend. Desperation clutched his heart in a suffocating panic as his lack of options loomed into a more solid certainty. There was no additional bridge, no fallen tree either old or otherwise, nothing but completely impassable raging floodwater. The Nazgûl had planned their trap well, and they had predicted Aragorn's actions with cleaner accuracy than any of them had foreseen.
He had damned them all.
"But we have to help them!"
The words from behind him were a shower of glass shards to Aragorn's torn soul. Pippin would not let what he perceived as inaction lay, no matter how fervent and logical Gimli's returning argument. "Confound it, lad, we can't get to them! There is no way to cross!"
"But we're abandoning them!" It did not help when Merry added his own objections to Pippin's. The pair were good at backing each other, a result of a close relationship spanning the years of childhood and beyond. Not unlike us, mellon nin. Aragorn lifted his eyes back to the ill-matched battle, watching every sword stroke, every parry, every defensive block. Even in this, one of his darkest hours, Legolas' lithe form exhibited pure and fluid grace; a flaxen spirit, the embodiment of the might of the Eldar pitting himself against the prevalent disease of Mordor.
And Aragorn was watching, just watching.
Watching...
Standing by and merely waiting for an outcome did not sit well with any ranger ... but for Aragorn, it was agony. Observing his best friend embroiled in a battle with impossible odds was torturous. No way to cross, no way to help; he had a bow and quiver as Pippin had sharply pointed out, but he did not have the skill to wield it during a storm in the dark, aiming at constantly shifting targets and relying on luck more than skill not to kill his friend. No. He could do naught but stand there praying that the end would be in Legolas' favour, even as the heavens tried to wash him away and the land gave him no sound purchase, slips of stone pulling his feet from under him as he battled to keep the Nazgûl from Frodo...
But the fact was, Legolas was losing ground to them. As fierce as his fighting was in defence of his charge, he wouldn't be able to hold out against them for much longer, not against five. And they knew it, just as well as Aragorn. Having sparred with the elf more times than he cared to remember, the ranger recognised the growing signs of fatigue in his movements, the give in his footing that could not be attributed wholly to the unstable scree, the slight difference in the way he used his shoulders and the too-close blocks he was being forced to perform to stay the black blades...
But to Frodo, he seemed untouchable.
Frodo's fear had him paralysed, locked in a suspended moment of fixed terror. He wanted to run, with every breath he had ever taken and wished to yet, he wanted to flee ... but the idea of abandoning Legolas to the Nazgûl was an too abhorrent to fall within his scope of acceptance. To just leave the one who risked his life for him with such towering odds against his own survival was the utmost treachery to the hobbit. There was nothing Frodo himself could do to aid him, but he would stay. His head knew that was the wrong decision, a dangerous and foolish commitment to someone he barely knew ... but his heart refused...
And nearly gave out completely when a thick arm closed around his chest and lifted him bodily, flinging him round and heading up the scree slope.
Frodo filled his crushed lungs and gave a strangled scream, thrashing his body and flailing his feet desperately, his hands pulling and clawing at the limb with which his captor had him pinned, his nails slipping over a leather gauntlet slick with wet and snagging in chainmail before they found thick and rich cloth -
"Boromir!" Relief flooded him, warm and dazzling at the discovery of his unexpected saviour. Finally, there was hope for them, for Legolas. They could defeat the Nazgûl now, Boromir's might and skill with a blade presented him with a chance to give something back to the one who faced death for him. But Boromir was not looking at the fight, he wasn't even pausing: his feet strained to take him back up the slope, taking them away from the battle.
"No – Boromir, wait, we have to go back!"
His words went unheeded.
"Boromir! We can't leave him!"
"We can, and we must," Boromir hissed, grabbing a rock and in his free hand and hauling them up. The rock came away and sent them down several feet before the big man could catch his fall. He started again. "He has accepted this as his oath: you must accept it too."
-(())-
What was Frodo's salvation was Legolas' end. The hobbit's scream snagged his attention for a split second too long and his defences slipped beyond a recoverable point. He didn't hear Aragorn's dismayed cry at the sword's bite, or his own keening exclamation of pain and surprise. There was only fire. His body acted without him, folding around the sword at his side and coiling into the wet stone and dirt...
-(())-
Mirkwood, October 21st
He was not accustomed to visiting such a place. There was no-one else around, and he felt something of a vulnerable intruder, a mouse venturing too far into a kingdom of cats. His senses were almost overwhelmed with the unfamiliar, particularly the smell: leathery and nearly overpoweringly metallic with the dry cold of cave stone, a thin layer of burning sconce oil slipping through. He walked through chamber after chamber of weaponry, the tools of their defence wracked in neat rows of gently glinting swords and knives, longbows similarly held with new arrows patiently awaiting service.
A member of the council he might be, but was it not the council that saw to the running and finances of Mirkwood's defences? Was it not the council that directed the people who would rush in here to take up arms and possibly never return? It felt somewhat surreal to him that an area of the grounds he last visited over three centuries ago should be so intrinsically entwined and influenced by his own decisions.
Daerahil cast a careful tawny eye over the table he had reached in the far chamber, taking full stock of the neatly laid items. Their orderly display troubled him, a seed of unease settling in the pit of his stomach. It was not a frequent occurrence for all of them to be needed at once, the presence of some denoting the planning of something serious, something the king was very likely to not approve. Thranduil's fury would be unparalleled...
He extended a long hand to one of the objects, his fingers wrapping around the fine gold filigreed bone handle and testing the weight. A thing so ornate and so deathly perilous at the same time, he could not help but admire such a brilliant example of the skill of his people. In a moment of curious abandon, he brought a stray strand of pale honey into the blade's path, marvelling at the lack of pressure it took to send the departed hair floating to the floor. He recalled when this knife and its fellow had served their previous owner, and he caught a glimpse of his own sadness at the recollection as a perfect plane glimmered his own eye back at him. The balance was perfect, but the grip was not for his hand, giving the knife an alien feel; Daerahil's weapon of choice was his tongue, and he employed it well in the council. Blades he had never really become accustomed to. He could use them, yes, but his skill with one was comparable to a child next to the abilities of the current wielder of the knives.
The elf lord replaced the long blade in its sheath beside its twin, moving over the rest of the table and lingering occasionally, running a curious finger along the sharp edge of fresh-trimmed fletching and testing the new bowstring. Two well-used hunting knives - not nearly as ornate as the white knives but just as sharp and with more practical uses - shared a soft leather cloth with a whetting stone. He is serious indeed.
'He' entered the armoury with cat-like silence, but the elf lord had felt his coming. Daerahil knew surprised eyes alighted on the back of his neck and smiled to himself. "Come now, Thranduilion," he quipped in way of greeting, "surely Noldor politics are not this dangerous." He tipped his head meaningfully at the table, throwing the prince a wry grin.
Legolas did not return the gesture. He recovered quickly from his surprise at unexpectedly finding his father's closest friend and advisor surveying his table of weaponry, adding a much smaller knife for trimming fletching to the collection. "I think we both know that I do not just go to Imladris to attend a council meeting." Legolas did not grant the older elf so much as a glance, and Daerahil was under the distinct impression that his presence was not wanted. The prince flatly ignored him, handling his quiver and checking the straps for weak points before hoisting it onto his back.
Daerahil frowned, troubled by the darkness in the younger elf's demeanour. He backed from the table, allowing Legolas fuller access to the crowded worktop. The elf lord observed quietly as the prince checked over his armaments with an expert eye. He had discovered long ago that the easiest way to provoke Legolas into discussing his concerns was to remain quiet until the prince broached the topic himself, an understanding that had existed between them since Legolas was very small: Legolas talked, Daerahil listened, and Thranduil never heard.
Daerahil was the closest to an uncle that Legolas had, and he loved him as such. Following the discovery of a scorch mark on a fine and rather ancient desk, coupled with an upset candle and a pile of unsuspecting and long worked-over trade documents, coming to a peak with a very tearful confession from a young child, Daerahil had unwittingly become the prince's confidant. Daerahil's rebuke had been strong, but his pity had been stronger and invoked him to take the blame on the child's behalf. Even when the child grew to an adult with responsibilities and power in his own right, he still needed someone to talk to, someone who was not his father that understood him; Thranduil was a loving father, but he could also be somewhat brash and single-minded. Daerahil was detached enough to respect Legolas' wishes, and close enough to care.
It was because of this that the trouble weighing on his heart like a stone could not go unvoiced. "You've been having the dreams again, haven't you?"
Legolas stilled in his task momentarily at the quiet question. He blinked and turned away slightly, a little too late in trying to hide the shadow in his eyes from Daerahil's keen observance. As much as he clearly wished to avoid the topic, the directness of the question did not offer him a hiding place. "Yes," he finally gave edgily, giving the much older elf a flicker of a glance before busying his attention with secreting one of the hunting knives carefully in his right boot. "Every night for some weeks now."
Daerahil stiffened. These dreams that often stemmed into nightmares had occurred on and off for nigh on two centuries. Their content and consistency were enough to warrant concern and had led to many hushed discussions between the Houses of Oropher and Elrond to which the prince had not been party. It was agreed that the dreams held a prophesising quality, but their outcome was impossible to determine as their endings tended to hinge on the smallest change within the dream make-up. Simply too many catalysts marred a true reading even for the powers of Lord Elrond, gifted with foresight himself and far more experienced than all of them. As for Legolas, he carried his dreams with him during his waking hours like an overbearing hand on his shoulder, his expression harried and his character decidedly marked with a quick and perilous temper, occasionally so strong he was the mirror image of his sire.
But something else had come to pass from the prince's dreams.
An accord had been struck between Daerahil and Elrond to which even Thranduil was not privy: at all costs, Legolas must accompany Aragorn when the time came for him to take his place.
The meaning of the prince's premonitions – while chiefly as clear as thick mud – was glaring in the one final truth the inconsistent messages told: Aragorn must reach Minas Tirith and take his place there. All other endings were the ending of all else on Arda, futures in which darkness alone prevailed to the ruin and death of all. The two lords orchestrated the meeting of prince and exile with much careful planning. Initially, they thought their plan doomed to fail due to Legolas' deep-seated distrust of the Second-born, but Elladan and Elrohir's persistent and gentle coaxing at their father's bidding drew his trust out. Daerahil and Elrond were both guilty of playing on Legolas' sense of loyalty to an extent neither of them had a right to.
The consequences of Thranduil's wrath should he discover what Daerahil had done with his only son's future did not bare thinking about ... but it was the consequences to the son himself that knotted Daerahil's gut every time he gave it thought.
His stomach was positively balled up on itself now.
"You are absolutely sure it is time?" He wanted there to be doubt, he wanted Legolas to return in a week from Imladris when the dratted meeting was done ... but Legolas was not a creature of uncertainty, near enough his every deed carried through with utter conviction. Infuriatingly...
"The Ring is found." Legolas offered the blunt truth as justification with little requirement of a response. "Its fate is bound to Aragorn's, and the whole of Arda to him." He paused, drawing his knives in one fluid motion and running an expert eye over their planes. "And my fate is just as tethered." His gaze lingered a little too long on the white blades. The light in his eyes dulled with a remembered sadness, similar to the emotion Daerahil had experienced when he handled the fine blades, only much, much stronger.
Then he realised. Everything was so very clear now, too clear. "Oh, Legolas," Daerahil sighed. "Baerahir is gone. Ghosts don't ask the living to avenge them, and he certainly wouldn't ask it of you. You won't bring him back."
Legolas stiffened. He finally fixed his blue eyes on his mentor, aggressively sharp in the flame's flicker. "But do you not see? Baerahir should never have died. Or Haru, or Naneth..." He stopped, swallowing his pain before he continued, offering Daerahil a very tight smile: "Estel is very aptly named, Daerahil; what would it make me if I could help him rise and save my people, but remain here instead? Everything has been leading to this point. This is the juncture of change, and I will see it through. Whether I live beyond the outcome is immaterial."
"Legolas..."
"Don't try to stop me, Daerahil, please." There was honest plea in the prince's voice, a pained and unwilling sound. "My mind is set, and I will have enough of a battle with Ada when he learns my intentions."
"Yes, I know that," Lord Daerahil returned, a gentle grin tilting his lips and a fond sadness in his eyes. "I was trying to say, come back to us." The sorrow in his heart stripped the strength he had to hold the grin, instead etching pained lines into his forehead. What in the name of all that is good have I done? "Ai, Legolas, please come back to us."
He hated that Legolas smiled back at him warmly, the gesture holding far more affection than Daerahil knew he deserved, love unknowing of his betrayal shining in his eyes. Legolas extended a hand to Daerahil's shoulder and clasped it with firm, reassuring gentleness. Daerahil carefully nestled the touch in his store of memories, already convinced that this would be the last time he would see the soft smile in those clear eyes, or witness the quiet strength of the prince's heart. He understood that Legolas' motives went beyond Aragorn, beyond Arda, even beyond his unwavering sense of duty to his people. It was likely to kill him, but he would go out into the dark nevertheless. Just like his brother did...
"Peace, Daerahil, he only goes to Imladris to convey a message!"
The two elves started at the king's entrance. Thranduil smiled genially at them, a relaxed and soft expression he had little opportunity to wear these days. It will not stay that way, Daerahil could not help but think as Thranduil joined his side.
The king's grey eyes moved between his son and best friend at first with jovial curiosity, then clearly mounting suspicion at their silence and awkward shared glance. The silvered eyes narrowed a little, catching amber in the torchlight. "What goes on here?"
"I think," said Daerahil slowly, "that you have much to discuss with each other. I take my leave." He offered Legolas a reassuring smile at the prince's horrified expression before he departed.
Several millennia might have passed since he rescued a small boy from his father's wrath, and the boy might have matured to a highly respected figure in his own right, but with every fibre of his being, Daerahil saw the boy still ... and he felt that he had led the boy into the woods and left him to the wolves. Every footfall that increased the distance between them scarred his soul with guilt and deepened the awful sense of foreboding that possessed his mind. Even as he left the armoury, the sweet touch of fresh air did nothing to assuage his worry.
-(())-
"What's he talking about? What do we need to discuss?" The suspicion was very firmly set now. Thranduil's eyes quickly scoured the table, taking in the various paraphernalia of warfare with a new eye, and finally to his armed son. Then, a little firmer: "Why are you so armed to attend a council meeting, Legolas?"
Legolas' hesitation dominated the short distance between them, unintentionally making barely three feet three leagues. Past arguments loomed in his memory, and the gap of understanding began to yawn before him like an impassable chasm. He knew with a sinking feeling that his father would never understand his motives or give his greatest need any form of blessing. Unable to find voice for what he needed to convey, he lifted his cerulean stare to his father, the steady and apologetic gaze confirming what Thranduil's heart already knew.
Disbelief blossomed across the king's visage, quickly replaced with a flat denial broaching no opportunity for debate. "No."
"Ada..."
"Do not Ada me!" Thranduil hissed, his face pinched in sudden panicked anger. "You honestly believe that you can leave your people in their greatest time of need to prowl Arda on some mortal's foolish mission? And what of your command? Will you abandon your duties as readily as you abandon your people?"
The words stung, but Legolas held fast against them, a sea wall accepting the pounding of the storm-riled ocean. He understood the hurt behind their source and kept his tone civil. "Laehril has been my second long enough for me to entrust command to him. He knows his duty and he knows what is expected of him in my stead."
"Duty?" Thranduil snorted. He shook his head to himself, the pale gold hair his son had inherited catching the sconce-light and radiating such a deep amber it was as though he were wreathed in flame himself. "From the foolishness spouting from your mouth, it seems to me that you know less of duty than I thought."
The disdain in the father's voice was too much for the son to bear with good grace. "You always taught me that your word was your bond," Legolas defended, his voice rising with his anger. He checked himself, suppressing his tone before it became too aggressive, but his eyes were hard as he asked stiffly: "Or does that teaching not stand if your word is to a mortal?"
"I also taught you not to betray your people!"
"Don't you see, Ada? It is my people I betray if I stay! Aragorn -"
"Aragorn be damned! You can't go, and that is final. I will not have you walking into danger with such reckless abandon!"
"Danger?" Legolas could not stop the incredulity snaking into his tone, pushed too far by his father's open disregard of his best friend. "You are so willing to send me out to ambush orc battalions and lead assaults against the Dark Tower, and you say this is dangerous?"
"Do you delight in reminding me of the risk I place on your shoulders?" Thranduil snapped. He paced in aggravation, placing the table between them, widening the gulf. His finger stabbed meaningfully at the tabletop with such force that the few remaining implements jumped. "You will stay, Legolas!"
Legolas shook his head to himself, pure frustration bending his barely restrained control beyond the respectful boundaries of king and prince and deep into the vicious world of father and son. "I have been an ellon for nigh on three millennia, and yet you still insist on treating me as a child-"
"BECAUSE YOU ARE MY CHILD!"
The outburst stunned them both into silence, the very air thrumming with Thranduil's grief at his only son's intentions. The threat of loss was so very real to the elven king that it was as though Legolas had already been slain. The sheer force of Thranduil's love was tearing him apart, it was crippling him, and it was all he could do to grasp the table, his back bent with the agony in his heart. "You are my child..." There was no king in his voice, no commanding lord betrayed by a captain's strong will, but a father, his fears laid bare to the too-cruel world as the one son he had left deigned to abandon him on a fool's errand.
Neither moved. Legolas was frozen to the spot, staring at the bent form of his father, a powerful and respected figure brought down by his single determined resilience. He did not make a habit of defying his father, his king, but there was no choice for him, not any more. If his decision lay beyond his father's comprehension, then that was the way of it... But his own solid convictions did not stop his heart from tearing with the pain he caused his only flesh and blood.
His attention came crashing back to his surroundings with the awkward clearing of a throat behind him.
Laehril stood in the entrance, looking decidedly uncomfortable. The Silvan elf settled his eyes rather sheepishly on his prince and commander. "Please forgive my intrusion, Sires; you requested I alert you when your company was ready to depart, Prince Legolas. They await you now."
Legolas nodded politely, apologising to his friend for his discomfort with an appreciative smile. "Thank you, Laehril. I will be out presently."
Laehril bowed, offering Thranduil a respectful: "My King" before he all but fled.
Legolas sighed, his anger completely sapped from him and leaving him utterly drained. He never wanted their parting to be this way ... of course, he understood now that it was foolish of him to have imagined it any different. Thranduil often stated that their family was cursed, and Legolas was inclined to agree. Knowing the loss they had suffered as keenly as his father, he understood his sire's upset at his plans to leave. His going sparked the worst kind of foreboding in his chest. Not for himself, but for the one he left behind. What if he didn't come back? If he were killed, what would that do to Thranduil? Still, despite his misgivings, all he could do now was give a respectful and formal bow. "Namàrië, Ada." Legolas hesitated, watching Thranduil's bowed head for a response. When none came, he quietly picked up the remainder of his weaponry and turned to leave.
"Legolas ... please, my son, don't do this."
The words arrested his heart more than they did his feet, his resolve nearly crumbling at their broken plea. But there was no choice for him. There never had been.
"I'm sorry, Ada."
Only when the hooves of the horses had dimmed to nothing, consumed by the jealous trees, did Thranduil look up, unashamed at the tracks marring his face with their passage. He straightened, the familiar emptiness hollowing his chest as it had all those years ago. Still, he passed his fist over his heart and extended it from his body, even though no-one was there to witness it. It meant more to him that way. "Nai tiruvantel ar varyuvantel i Valar tielyanna nu vilya."
May the Valar protect you on your path under the sky.
-(())-
Now, as Legolas lay curled around his wounded side and consumed by a pain that presented him with no possibilities of its end, he felt the crippling and devastating sense of complete failure threaten to engulf him. Lifting his face from the stone and forcing his eyes to penetrate the hazes of pounding rain and fogging agony, he managed to discern the bent and struggling figure of Boromir, fighting his way up the merciless incline with Frodo clenched to his chest. The Nazgûl, blessed with the unnatural capabilities of the damned, were closing on them fast, having forgotten the elf as something slain and unimportant. They would reach his flailing companions, and every loss, every sacrifice, both now and three thousand years before, would be for nothing.
If he stayed still, if he kept his position and allowed events to play out, it was quite likely that Aragorn would be able to reach him at some point. Perhaps not some time very soon, but at some point. But he couldn't stay there and allow things to pan out as the Dark Lord would intend, he couldn't. Legolas damned the Adan and all their clumsiness, and he cursed Boromir all the stronger with tears stinging his eyes at what he was being forced to do as he dragged first one knee, then the other beneath himself, hauling himself to his feet. No sooner was he upright then his pain forced itself from his throat in an agonised wail, his knees buckling and impacting heavily on the sharp scree.
-(())-
The tears fell unhindered and completely lost in the rainwater as Aragorn watched Legolas struggle to his feet. He did not need to see the wound to know that it was serious, that his friend was in terrible, terrible pain ... that much was evident in the way he fought to rise, his usual grace lost like a pebble in a landslide. He has to stop moving! "Legolas, stay down! You have to stay still, mellon nin! You must stay still!"
His shouts went unheeded as the damaged figure across the ravine found his feet at last.
"Legolas!"
-(())-
Aragorn's voice battered at him over the rage of the racing water and hard scorn of the wind. The words were barely discernable to him through the heavy blanket of hurt. Legolas could not find the strength to focus on the meaning of Aragorn's cries and push his body through the barrier of pain at the same time, it was simply too much.
All he was able to do was listen to the sound of his friend's voice, blocking the desperate plea in it and focusing instead on the fact that it was Aragorn, his best friend and dearest companion. He did not feel quite so lonely in his decision with the constant company of that voice, a voice with which he had shared many moments of mirth and companionship, sadness and victory. It was all he had left. Even now, in his final darkest moment, his friendship with Aragorn was enough to make him go beyond his pain and drag the last vestiges of his strength forth.
Because it was for Aragorn.
Regret ate at him at what he was to leave behind, and he hated himself for the desperation he could hear in his friend's cries as they pierced his resolve to not hear them. I'm sorry, my friend; I've made my choice.
Legolas forced himself into a determined run, sheets of loose stone sliding under his feet with a vicious determination to undo his efforts. He drew his bow and pushed his run up into a sprint...
While the scree slope was for the most part a treacherous and unpredictable mass of shifting mud and stone, Legolas had spotted one element of its makeup that could save Boromir and Frodo: a jutting length of thin and poorly-anchored rock formed a shelf in the unstable face a mere ten feet directly above the advancing Nazgûl, somehow supporting a hulking mass of collapsed dirt and stone dumped by the water draining from the land above. The sheltered overhang beneath it would eventually be its undoing, as the streaming water steadily devoured the unprotected mud holding it in place. For Legolas, it was his last chance at redemption ... and he took a grim pleasure in the dismayed screams of the Nazgûl at their realisation that he was both alive and still a very real threat as he shot past them.
He leapt –
"Legolas – DON'T!"
Aragorn's dismayed cry of realisation and terror crippled his heart, and he was sorry, so, so sorry ... but there was nothing to be done for it as he descended on his target, wielding his bow like a sword and gouging deep under the slab of stone -
It worked.
The ledge gave out like some hulking wounded creature finally succumbing to the inevitable. The land lurched free of its restraint, tumbling over itself in its eagerness to fly the cliff edge into the whitewater below, and there was nothing in its path that could possibly stay its release.
Across the ravine, Aragorn screamed his grief into the storm as he saw the earth consume the pale gold figure he counted dear as a brother, carrying him away in a merciless mass of dirt and stone to share the same fate as the enemies he strove to defeat.
Translations: Ada - Father
Naneth – Mother
Haru – Grandfather
Namàrië – be well/fare well
