"He could hear us! He was not unconscious at all." Aragorn cried staring at Elrohir accusingly. "And you knew it!"
"It was not my fault! I told him to be ill, not unconscious. That was all his idea. And then you and father came in calling him odd and eccentric and flighty...and you wouldn't stop!"
"You mean he is not allergic to marigolds!" Elrond gasped, "and I did not have to pull them all out? And you were in on this, Mithrandir?" The wizard looked ever so slightly sheepish before he answered,
"Yes, well, enough about that." He said brusquely, "All seems to be sorted out here now so I will just be off. A lot to do and all that—"
But Elrond was having none of it and blocked the door aggressively.
"Not so fast. Explain yourself, Mithrandir. And you too, Elrohir. Why did you instruct Legolas to pretend to be ill? What is going on here?"
"Hang on..." Glorfindel interrupted. "I seem to have missed something...are you saying you did call Legolas names to his face now, Elrond? Because we don't seem to have resolved this and I do not want it to be swept under the carpet."
Elladan had begun to feel ever so slightly ill. All the arguing and back and forth was doing his head in. He couldn't keep track of who said what to whom or why they all did it in the first place but since none of them were paying him any attention, he quietly, softly, pressed himself back against the wall and began to creep across towards the door.
The situation was a mess. His father was arguing furiously with Glorfindel for bringing up the bullying again which seemed to not have happened at all in the first place, Aragorn was shouting at Mithrandir about deception and how he had caused innocent people worry unnecessarily and Elrohir just looked utterly and completely wretched.
Elladan had never felt more relieved than when he reached that doorway and bolted out of it and away from their endless racket.
He did feel just the tiniest bit guilty however. Perhaps he should have stayed with Glorfindel who still seemed hot under the collar...or Elrohir, who Elladan knew from long years of experiance, would be a mess. Because every single time he and Legolas argued, Elrohir was a mess.
He dithered about in the hallway letting the raised voices and shouts wash over him but in the end he decided to high tail it away to his room and lay low. Let Elrohir and Glorfindel look after themselves for a change.
But his route took him right past Legolas' room. He should have thought about that a bit more carefully.
He could hear the banging and crashing from halfway down the corridor. What was Legolas doing in there?
He stopped outside the door, uncertain. He hated decisions like this.
Did he go in?
Legolas and he did not get on. The likelihood was he would just make things worse. And anyway he had just left a lot of arguing behind him. Why go seek more out?
But the crashing inside that room upset him...that and how distressed Legolas had been when he stormed out...and then there was those strange looks Legolas had been giving him during the Council. He didn't fancy Elladan did he? It had looked like it but surely not because THAT would never work.
That's reason to stay away, Elladan. He lectured himself. Don't encourage him.
Then he opened the door anyway.
"Get out!"
The boot that bounced off the wall beside him when he ducked was definitely meant to hit him.
So he doesn't fancy me then. Elladan thought, and although it was a great relief there was also just the slightest tinge of disappointment.
Legolas had ransacked his room. It was in complete disarray. Belongings strung across the room which at the moment he was randomly stuffing into his pack.
"What are you doing?" It was pretty obvious what he was doing but Elladan just had to check to make sure.
"Why are you here?" Legolas just ignored his question. "Come to laugh at me wih the others?"
"No one is laughing at you, Legolas."Elladan reached out to stop the current shirt being scrunched up and packed away. "What are you doing?"
"Leaving. Now I know how you all feel about me, why would I stay?"
"What do you mean?" Elladan himself did not really care if Legolas stayed or left but he knew Elrohir would. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck with moping, lovesick, self blaming Elrohir for months and months. "You cannot leave now. It is late in the day and the road beyond the valley is dark."
"So?" Legolas could be so sarcastic when he wanted Elladan thought. "I will travel with my men and we are woodelves. We can look after ourselves easily enough. No matter what you think. Time of day matters not to us."
"You will never get your men assembled and ready to travel before nightfall!"
"My men" Legolas spat into his face, "Are ever ready to depart at a moments notice. I but need to click my fingers and they will be here."
In truth Legolas' men were a tangled mess of woodelf chaos. Does he not realise? Elladan wondered to himself. They were almost worse than Legolas himself and getting them ready to leave would take hours, not minutes.
"No one is laughing at you Legolas. Far from it." Elladan had to try another tack to get him to see sense.
"Oh are you not? Because I am so flighty and eccentric. Don't deny it. I have heard what they all think. I know now the instant I am out of here Elrohir is laughing behind my back with Aragorn about the state of my mind."
"He does not laugh about you, Legolas."
"I heard them. I was awake and I heard them discuss it. They think I have a short attention span!"
"But...you do have a short attention span, do you not? No, hear me out—" Elladan pleaded talking over Legolas' indignant response to that. "Look, none of us are perfect. I am uptight and I worry too much. I hate it when people say that but it is true."
Legolas paused at that, tilting his head in thought.
"You are uptight." There was the smallest of smiles as he said it.
"See!" Elladan was encouraged. Maybe this was working? "I am uptight, my father is so terribly boring, Aragorn chooses to model himself on the Man who led my Great Uncle to his death and does not understand we may find that just the slightest bit insulting. Glorfindel—" Elladan did feel somewhat guilty speaking badly of Glorfindel but needs must so he carried on. "Glorfindel is so vain you have no idea, and Elrohir...he will be standing there blaming himself because he is always unhappy when you argue and he does not feel he deserves anyone to love him."
He stopped then for he had just had the most brilliant idea.
"Come with me," he said eagerly.
"Why would I go anywhere with you?" Legolas was instantly defensive. "You should be happy I leave...isn't it what you want? You hate the idea of Elrohir and I together. I know you think me not good enough for him."
"Perhaps...but whatever I think, he loves you, so I am stuck with you. Come with me I have something to show you."
He held his breath for he did not think Legolas would acquiesce. But to his great surprise he did. This was easy than he had thought.
He led the woodelf down the hall towards Elrohir's room and then straight to his desk.
"Why are we here?" Legolas grumbled when they came to a halt. "Elrohir's desk. So what." The moment when he was open to listening had obviously passed.
But Elladan ignored him. Instead he rifled amongst the mess of paperwork—Elrohir always was so incredibly disorganised—until he found what he wanted right at the bottom of the drawer.
"Here!" He cried shoving a pile of sheets into Legolas' hands. "This is what Elrohir does when you leave here. He does not laugh, believe me. He does not so much as smile for days when you are gone. He comes here and sits and shuts us out until I drag him out of here. Look at them!"
And so Legolas did. He shuffled through the papers, at first moodily and then again, and again, until he stopped and looked up at Elladan in confusion.
"They are drawings." He said in amazement. "Drawings of me." And indeed they were, sketches of Legolas, riding, training, laughing. Legolas in a thousand ways and all of them beautiful.
"He says it helps him keep you close when he is miserable you are gone. He sits and draws and holds you in his memory. He does not laugh, Legolas."
Elladan watched as Legolas stared down at the papers holding them with a death grip. Would this work?
"I must put them back," he said tentatively at last, not standing the silence any longer, "for Elrohir will not thank me for showing you these."
"Then why did you?"
"Because he needs you." Elladan thought that went without saying.
"Right." Legolas shoved the drawings back at him suddenly, "Put them back then." And he spun on his heels to leave, as Elladan's heart sunk. If the drawings had failed to appease the Woodelf's anger he did not know what would.
"Where are you going?" His voice sounded desperate, he knew, but that was because he was. Days and days of miserable Elrohir loomed ahead of him and it was not pleasant, not pleasant at all.
But Legolas paused, turned back towards him and his face was grim.
"I go back to face the music." He said seriously, "as my father and Mithrandir say I must. I only wish—" he said back over his shoulder as he continued to walk out the door,
"—that if they want me to face the music they would play a more pleasant tune."
