Sorry for the long silence with no updates. A rather horrible real life is the cause, some of which is reflected in this chapter.
Eldarion
I am finding Legolas' son to be an enigma.
He is not what he seems at all.
He faces the tumultuousness that is my sister and comes out smiling.
He speaks to me in immaculate Westron, out of the blue, even if he reminds me strongly of Gimli when he does so. I am astonished.
And now he tells a tale of an often painful childhood, of an adored father so striken with grief it rendered his child invisible. Elrohir has already told me some of it but hearing it from Estel himself hurts all the more. His eyes flash with a challenge when he finishes his story. As if he expects me to doubt him.
"I am sorry." It is all I can say. "I am sorry his grief for us has hurt you."
But he shrugs off my sympathy.
"Why should you apologise. It was not your fault after all. Elrohir has made me see that."
But still I have the impression he does think it is someone's fault. He does not leave me guessing who for long.
"You are not your father," he finishes off.
"You cannot blame my father."
"I can and I do." He is all fire now. "He is the cause of it. He allowed their friendship. He made my father move to Ithilien so they would be even closer. He led him to the sea when he knew it would harm him."
Who has told him this?
"Friendship is not something you can allow or command. It just is. If you wish someone to blame for our parents friendship blame Gandalf. It was him engineered them both into the Fellowship. They were destined to be friends from that moment on and likely Gandalf knew that."
But he shakes his head. If anything I have only made him more angry.
"And do not bring Olórin in to this! Do not use him as an excuse!"
He makes no sense.
"I have no idea who it is you speak of."
And he looks at me as if I am ever so slightly mad.
"He has been good to us." He says in the end. "He has watched over us in Valinor. He cares for us. I will not have you disparage him."
Well I have no wish to insult any he might know and care for in Valinor that I do not know and nor have I. The conversation has descended into bewilderment, at least on my part.
I try to steer us back where we were—to more secure footing—away from this Olórin he is so passionate about who appeared out of nowhere.
"Legolas chose to follow my father. What would you have had him do differently to stop that?"
"Everything!" He throws his arms wide to demonstrate his point. "He did not have to continue their friendship after the war. He could have left my father alone instead of dragging him to Ithilien. He knew Father would grieve for him. He knew it and he did not care. He did not care about him, only about himself!"
That hurts.
I have not long been reunited with my father after years without him. I know for him our separation seems but a blink of an eye and that has caused us problems, but for me it has been years. Years without my hero, without the strength that guided me, without his love always at my back.
I think I understand a part of what Legolas has gone through . . . A glimpse. I watched my sister grieve differently from me—not Tinu but Gilraen, my other sister who has not a shred of Elvenness about her. Gilrean wept as we did. She mourned the loss of our parents deeply, but then, amazingly, she moved on.
While the pain still cut me like a knife, deep enough to leave me breathless when I stumbled across a memory, Gilrean would laugh at hers. Time passed and enabled her rememberings to bring her a joy that mine and Tinu's never did.
Those years were an endless weight of missing my father in every little aspect of my life. Missing talking to him—discussing the latest troubles after a meeting, using his broad shoulders to take my load. Missing riding with him out across the Pelennor where he was at his wildest. Missing the simple knowledge he was there.
Now that weight has finally been lifted from me. Now he is back. I can leave this conversation should I wish, go hunt him out and ask his advice. After all those years of the pain of the loss of him I will not stand and let him be disparaged by one who does not know him.
"I do not know who has been telling you these stories," I snap. "But they do not know my father and they do not know Legolas!" I do not give him a chance to protest though I can tell he wishes to. "Do you think my father could have made Legolas do anything he did not wish to? It was Legolas who asked to come to Ithilien. He was miserable in the Greenwood. He could not stay there with the sea-longing so he asked Father to find him a safe place. And yes—" I hold my hand up to silence him as he starts to argue, "before you start on the sea longing, Father attempted to send Legolas home rather than take him to the sea but he would not go. All of it was Legolas' choices . . . Not my father. If you want someone to blame perhaps it should be Legolas himself."
"No—" Estel begins to argue back but I am not done yet.
"You think Legolas did not control his own life? Do you think him a child who carried out my father's every bidding without question? All of it was down to him. All of it he chose. Right down to Father bringing him back from the Doors of Mandos. Father agonised about that decision for decades afterwards but it was Legolas who chose it!"
I am so carried away with my words I almost do not notice Estel's face has suddenly drained white.
"What do you mean? The Doors of Mandos?"
It stops me in my tracks. He must know about that.
"The accident in Minas Tirith. You must know of that. Surely they told you."
Instantly he is defensive.
"I know. A wall fell on him. I know it. He cannot write because of it. Of course I know! What has that to do with Mandos?"
And I realise—too late—he does not know.
How can they not have told him this? I should not be the one to . . . But what can I do? The horse has bolted and it is too late to take it back.
I was only a child. I only know the very edges of this. My father would be better at explaining but judging Estel's attitude towards him that would not go well anyway.
"I was a child." I may as well continue now I have opened this can of worms. "About twelve I think. Elrohir and I were heading for the stables when they called for him. There was a commotion down by the walls. He took me with him because he thought it would be good for me, as a prince, to be involved. Had he known what awaited us he would not have."
Estel stands pressed back against the railing, as far from me as he can get and he stares.
"A wall had collapsed." I tell him. "A huge pile of rubble and someone was buried. All was chaos and they called for my Father. Elrohir told me whoever lay under there would not have survived but we had to try free them regardless. Then we saw Maewen. She was on her hands and knees scrambling through the rocks and she was crying. I knew then. I knew it was Legolas. Maewen did not venture into the city without him and where was he?"
I have to pause as the memories of that day flood my mind. I still have nightmares of it, that moment I realised it was Legolas underneath all that rock. I cannot look at Estel.
"It is the only time I ever saw my Father cry." I tell him.
He blinks, and silently bites his lip.
What does he care about the infrequency of my father's tears after all.
"He was still alive when we dug him out. I saw his chest rise and for a moment I was joyful. He was an elf. Surely he would be able to heal. And then it stopped. There were no more breaths. My father, Elrohir, Maewen, my mother, were all crying. I remember Father yelling at Legolas to stay. It is all a jumble of horror, Estel so I cannot tell you anything clearly. I was only a child."
"My Father did not die." Estel finally breaks his silence, his voice small and tight. "It was Laerion who died and went to the Halls. Not Father."
"You should talk to my Father. He would be better able to describe it. He said he saw the light of Legolas' fea as it fled and chased it using his healing power. That he found him in a glade, with Laerion, and bought him back because Legolas asked it."
"No Laerion was dead. Aragorn-the-King has not met him."
But Estel's voice quavers. I think he is trying to convince himself of that not me.
All I know, Estel . . ." my voice softens for I feel sorry for him, "is he was not breathing and then suddenly . . . He was."
"You were only a child." He repeats my words back at me. "It only seemed like that to you."
"I have spoken of it with my father, and with Legolas since then, when I was grown."
He looks up at the sky, over my shoulder, anywhere but at me and wipes a hand across his face. There may even be tears there. I would comfort him if I could but I do not think he would accept it.
I curse my loose tongue and my incautious words.
"Why did they not tell me?" He asks in the end and my heart breaks for him.
"Why did none of them tell me?"
And I am angry at all of them for it is not fair.