I wake up at dawn feeling much refreshed and greatly encouraged when I realize the reason I have slept so well in the movable cot that has been moved in for me, is that Legolas' symptoms seem to be abating. His breathing was much improved last night and he wasn't bothered by night terrors or hallucinations. He has been able to rest quietly, which is just the thing needed to get him on the road to recovery. I expect he will feel much improved today, so I am surprised when he wakes up that he looks just as dismal as ever if not more so. Perhaps I was expecting too much. After all he has been gravely ill and Aragorn said the toxin was deadly without the antidote. He said we should expect a slow recovery. I know all that but still I cannot help feeling a little disappointed and concerned.
Aragorn arrives with the first daily dose of the antidote and with good news as well. First off he tells us that the searchers have managed to come up with enough of the milk thistle seed to ensure that we will have the prescribed number of doses available. Now that is good news indeed, but Legolas doesn't seem to see it that way. Apparently he never knew there was a shortage at all.
"What do you mean that the searchers have found enough?" he asks in surprise.
"We don't keep such tremendous amounts of the seed on hand," Aragorn says, " Faramir has arranged teams of folks to scour the countryside and the city in order to find all that we needed."
Legolas looks more distressed than relieved at this news. Perhaps he is uncomfortable with the number of people who have had to be involved. He doesn't say any such thing but simply politely requests that the King thank Faramir for all his hard work. That is when Aragorn tells us even better news. Because of our testimony and that of witnesses from the Black Swan, the troublemakers have been identified and arrested. That is information to cheer about and my relief is so great that I am not far from doing just that. By the look on the king's face, I cans see he is in accord with me, no doubt happy to be able to lessen his security measures on his less than cooperative wife. Legolas again looks less enthusiastic than I would have thought, but again is mannerly enough to wish to thank those who took care of things.
"Please thank for me those involved in taking care of this situation, Estel," he says, "and especially thank Faramir again. I appreciate very much what he has done."
He talks like he will never see Faramir again, which is ridiculous.
"Why can ye not thank him yourself, Lad? I am certain he will stop in sometime today." I remind him.
He looks unhappy at this thought.
"I…I would rather he not come."
"Why ever not, Child?"
"I do not wish to be a bother." He explains quickly.
"Pah! That is absurd!" I growl, "No one thinks you are a bother. Get that notion out of your head."
"Well it is just…just…I am very tired." He looks at me, hopefully but I am not buying it.
"You slept all night and I am certain he would only stay a few minutes…" I cut off my words when Aragorn touches my arm.
"It is all right Gimli," he says, "it is not unusual for him to be tired and if he doesn't feel up to visitors then we will just keep them away for now."
"Of course," I say though somewhat suspiciously, "if that is what you prefer."
Aragorn stays a bit longer but cannot engage Legolas in conversation no matter how much he teases or jests with him. Finally he gives Legolas the cup containing the bitter drink, and I am gratified to see that he is able to manage to hold the cup with only a little assistance from the king. When Aragorn leaves I can see more relief on the elfling's face than when he learned of the arrest of those men. There is definitely something up and I scrutinize his face as I try to figure it out, finally I just decide to ask.
"Is there something ye are not telling me, Laddie?"
"There is nothing to tell Elvellon," he says, but I can see he is hedging. Still remembering Aragorn's words I do not push the issue. He closes his eyes, but I have a feeling he is only pretending to sleep to avoid my questions.
His behavior is certainly odd and worrying. He is clearly getting better, yet he looks worse than before. He has gotten nothing but good news today, yet he has not even cracked a smile. The celebrations kick off tomorrow, and he has not even mentioned it or argued that he will be well enough to attend. Now that is not right, for he would normally insist he was fine even if he were skewered on an orc blade. I had expected to have to argue and threaten to prevent him from attempting to get out of bed, but he has been thoroughly cooperative. Granted he is still very weak and would likely find it impossible to do so, but I would have expected him at least to argue about it. Yes it is very worrying indeed.
His behavior becomes even stranger when the Queen comes in the afternoon.
"I know you did not want visitors, but I had to see how you were faring, and I will stay but a moment." She says squeezing his hands.
He glances at her briefly but says nothing at all. She tries a few more angles, talking about the goings on about the Citadel and his friends who so badly wish to visit him, about the arrest of the men. Nothing seems to grab his interest. In fact he refuses to even catch her eye and Lady Arwen finally gives up with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Here you have said you did not want visitors and I have forced myself on you when you are clearly feeling tired and ill. Perhaps tomorrow will be a better time to chat." She says with a warm smile and then exits the room. I have seen quite enough. It is time for this charade to end and I'm about to end it. I go to sit on the edge of his bed and when he tries to turn his face from me as well, I do not allow it but turn him back so he must face me.
"Do not try to pretend nothing is wrong for I can see there is something. You are behaving oddly, you have been avoiding talking to me all day and you were not very nice to the queen!"
Instead of bristling, as I would have expected, he seems to crumple at my words.
"I am sorry," he says burying his face in his hands, but I take the hands away and make him look at me. Tears have gathered in his eyes, but still I do not relent for this game has got to stop.
"Do not seek to hide from me that there is something wrong for I am no fool," I growl, "It is plain to see that something is on your mind and you will tell me what it is without further delay."
He gives me a look something between desperation and longing and I can see I have almost tipped him over the edge so I press on.
"Ye may as well spill it, Lad for there are ways of convincing you to talk and I have all the time in the world."
I sit back, cross my arms, and prepare to hear some answers.
Legolas' pov:
I am fallen into the depths of despair. I know it is wrong of me but I cannot help myself.
Tenets that I have held lifelong have been proved false.
My confidence in my abilities and the natural superiority of the elves in comparison to those lesser mortal races has been shaken to the core and I do not know how to deal with these changes in my world.
I have been shown to be weak and gullible, lacking in proper judgment and incapable of taking care of myself.
My damnable pride, my ego, my belief in my superior capabilities have all been shown to be false, and how easy it was to do too. I was so lacking in proper awareness that I handed myself over to those evil men. How they must have exulted in my stupidity, laughed at my naivety made game of me and I helped them do it.
I groan at the memory of that evening and worse the following morning when I … brainless, crass, immature, dim-witted me paid them gold coin while they attempted in return to poison me.
Worse, my reckless thoughtless action here in the city has now put the reputation of the whole of my people at risk.
And all of this has been done under the gaze of the ordinary men and women of Minas Tirith, rather than enhance my people's reputation, which as the son of a king of Eryn Lasgalen I should have been doing, I have managed to do the complete opposite, capping my foolishness by taking part in a race and managing to fall insensate at the feet of the watching Court of Gondor.
I squirm as I realize I have likely done irreparable damage to Arwen's position here as Queen of Gondor. She was held in high regard by most of the folk in the White City until I came here and showed myself to be a complete fool. Now her reputation is marred by my failures.
The pain and mortification I am currently suffering is proving to be a sharp lesson in humility for me, for I am well served for my belief in my infallibility. It is perhaps only right that my helplessness due to the poison in my system has left me at the mercy of my mortal companions even while it tears at my pride.
A pride which has proved itself to be false. If there is anything worse than false pride I have yet to become aware with it.
What I am to do about my present situation I do not know, I only know that my shame is such that I cannot bring myself to face my friends or attempt to explain my present conscience stricken thoughts and fears of their reactions when they become aware, as they inevitably will, of all of my failings.
I will be well served if they all turn against me, and it will be no more than I deserve, for I am a coward and a weakling which is why I seek to avoid seeing any of them. I cannot bear to accept their kindness when I know I am undeserving of it.
The twins will be furious with me and rightly so, for I have put their beloved sister in a very awkward situation, their foster brother also. More than that my conduct dishonors our race albeit they are Noldor and I am of the Sindar, and like me they have great pride in their heritage, save theirs is honestly come by and deserved while mine no longer is.
Already I have felt a difference in their attitude toward me. They came this morning to begin the muscle rubs that Aragorn has devised to help my limbs regain their strength.
I felt uncomfortable in their company and they seemed ill at ease with me. They kept exchanging looks and frowns and I was so tense that the ease their ministrations were meant to bring me failed to materialize.
After only a short time they made their excuses and left and I was relieved to see them do so. All I wish to do is wallow in my misery.
If they are disgusted with me how much more will my mortal friends be so, when they come to hear of my overweening pride and false belief in the superiority of my race.
I would give anything to be hundreds of leagues away from Gondor but I am not capable of leaving here at the present so all I can do is seek to avoid my friends and hope that they will eventually stop asking about me.
By dint of pretending that I am feeling tired, a deception which only adds to my recent record of conduct unbecoming a prince, I avoid having to see any of the Hobbits and have just managed to send Arwen away when she would have stayed and kept me company. But I know it is a situation that cannot long prevail. I have seen the glances being sent my way by Gimli. My dwarven minder is not someone who is easily gulled, and I know he is suspicious of my sudden desire to be 'left alone'. I can only hope he will allow me to keep up this pretence until after the One Year Celebrations are over and the many honored guests invited to mark this special occasion have left for their homes. Perhaps then I can persuade Gimli to let me go home as well and I can return to Eryn Lasgalen and never leave my forest again.
Of course that hope is likely to be a vain one for my minder has already challenged me once on my strange behavior and will likely do so again very soon. His patience is not endless, as I have learned to my cost in the time I have been in his charge.
Confused and miserable I slump back into my pillows as Arwen closes the door behind her and if I needed any proof of my weakness I have it as tears begin to fall once more.
It is then that Gimli comes to sit on the edge of the bed and when I turn my face away he forces me to look at him.
"Do not try to pretend nothing is wrong for I can see there is something. You are behaving oddly, you have been avoiding talking to me all day and you were not very nice to the queen!" He grumbles.
His words of censure are enough to make me weep and I bury my face in my hands whispering. "I am sorry,"
"Do not seek to hide from me that there is something wrong for I am no fool," he growls. He is not so much angry as perplexed and concerned and that hurts me all the more. "It is plain to see that something is on your mind and you will tell me what it is without further delay."
I give him a look somewhere between desperation and longing for I want desperately to speak of my failings yet fear to do so.
"You may as well spill it, Lad for there are ways of convincing you to talk and I have all the time in the world." He warns even while taking one of my hands in his briefly before sitting back, crossing his arms and lifting a bushy eyebrow at me.
I want to, I so dreadfully want to speak of my shame to someone but I do not know what his reaction to my confessions will be.
Yet, in the last year or so I have come to know Gimli Gloinson very well and I know he is one of the kindest of creatures who has always done his best by me even when I have not necessarily deserved it. My hand comes out of its own volition and I grasp his great paw holding onto it desperately and take a deep breath.
"I said yesterday that I had made a terrible mess of things," I whisper, "but you do not know the worst of it Gimli. I do not want to lose your friendship but I fear that will be the case when I explain to you just what sort of a person I have become."
Gimli looks at me as if I have grown a second head "What are ye talking about lad?"
I cannot look at him any longer and allow my hair to fall forward partially hiding my face, "I believed myself to be better than those about me Gimli. In blind arrogance I decided I would ignore the advice and orders of those who knew better than I and show them that I could do what they could not. Because of my false pride I walked in ignorance into a situation that I did not even realize was dangerous and had it not been for good fortune I may well have paid for that conceit with my life and it would have served me right if I had."
"Do not talk such foolishness" Gimli snaps "And do not seek to hide behind all this talk of false pride either. You are an elf, a naughty willful elf but an elf nonetheless. You are accustomed to being able to do things that mortals cannot. That is not false pride, Laddie. That is truth. Where you went wrong was that you failed to take in account your lack of knowledge of men of that type, something that age and experience will mend soon enough. Now stop worrying yourself over something that is over and done with. Now tell me what I really want to know which is why are you keeping your friends at arms length?"
"I can do no less" I mumble, "for they, unlike you, will very soon take me in dislike when they hear the full tale of my doings. Already Elladan and Elrohir are treating me differently."
"Aye of course they are … couldn't do anything else the way you have been carrying on, ye foolish elfling. Is that what is at the heart of all this hiding and denying entry to those who have your best interests at heart? "
He looks at me severely " You talk of unjustified pride and it is true that it is a bad habit to get into. Such arrogance is something we will needs discuss at some length when you are fully recovered, but it is not unforgivable laddie, as long as ye learn from your mistakes. Now I want you to listen to me."
I brace myself for a lengthy but well deserved lecture.