A/N: MERRY FRIGGIN' CHRISTMAS! ^_^ Bet you never thought this day would come, huh? Well, I promised I would finish this, and I'm going to finish it! I do apologize that it was not posted before Christmas as I said on my profile, but, one day after isn't so bad, right? So... THIS IS NOT THE END. There is one more chapter to go! Omg, I can scarce believe it! We are almost done with this thing! To all the new readers, welcome, and I hope you enjoy the remainder of this tale. To all my faithful, loyal, amazing, beyond-awesome, incredible, wonderful, and un-friggin-believably-patient long-time readers who have stuck with this story for half your lives... you have my eternal love and gratitude. Really. If it weren't for you and your persistant reviews, PMs, and favoriting, this thing may never have been finished. But because of your enthusiasm and love for the story, I owe it to you to finish it. And so I will. I hope it will not take another year and half, though. Also, please go to my profile and take my new poll, if you would be so inclined. I am working on my debut novel and hope to have it sold by the end of the year. :) If you are interested in keeping up with my writerly projects, including the novel and this monster of a fanfic, you can find me as Jennifer R Frontera on Facebook, or jayaevenstrider on LiveJournal. I hope to see you around!
Very much love and appreciation, Losse
To Keep Living
... many years later ...
Thranduil approached his son from behind, a frown forming on his face as he took in Legolas' appearance. The young Elf leaned against the frame of the palace's outer doors, staring blankly into the depths of the forest beyond, his youthful face strained and pale, his blue eyes brooding and dark. Thranduil reached Legolas' side, but still the prince took no notice of him, and the king took a deep breath before speaking.
"Legolas?"
He startled at the sound of his name, turning in surprise to see his father standing next to him. He blinked in confusion, wondering how the elder Elf could have gotten so close without detection. He quickly regained his composure, straightening his shoulders, and nodded to his father in greeting.
"Legolas," Thranduil said quietly, firmly, "you must let go."
Legolas' insides flinched at the words, but his face remained a steely fixture of resolve and agony. His eyes searched those of his father, but Thranduil's face held only worry and concern for his son. Legolas clenched his jaw as he felt the sting of tears, bitterly refusing them, and when the threat of them had passed he opened his mouth to speak. "I cannot," he said thickly. "I will not."
Thranduil pursed his lips, his brows furrowing. "Legolas," he tried again, "it has been twenty-six years. Twenty-six years. You must stop hanging on to her or it will kill you."
Legolas stared at his father for a moment before turning away to face the forest again. "Then I will die," he said gruffly, clenching his fists at his sides. His eyes clouded with tears, but he did not let them fall. He looked to the tall trees of Eryn Lasgalan, but did not see them. He saw through them, looking far back into the past, back to the precious few days he had spent with Laimea. They had been so few, but they had been enough. He would not allow her memory to die as his father wanted, as so many others wanted. No. He would keep her alive within him for as long as he lived, no matter how long or how short that would be.
"I do not understand this, Legolas," Thranduil protested, and in his voice rang a clear note of frustration. "You spent hardly more than a weeks' time with her. You did not wait through the time of betrothal, and you were not married to her. Yet in your grief you act as if you had loved her for centuries."
"I had," Legolas answered immediately. "I have. I just did not know it."
Thranduil stood for a moment in silence, trying to comprehend Legolas' words. His frown deepened. "She was a mortal, my son. The time you spent with her is not even a breath among the Eldar. You should be grateful that she died so soon and saved you the folly of loving her more deeply. Do you not understand, Legolas? This grief you feel is not real, it cannot be. You hardly knew her! If she had lived through the battle and you had gone through with your desire to wed her, she still would have died, and you would still be suffering, a thousand times more than you suffer even now."
Legolas whirled on his father, his eyes bright with fury. "But I would have had more time! I would have had more time with her… she should not have died in that battle! She died because of me…" He broke off, the lump in his throat choking him, and turned away from his father again, swallowing gulps of air to try and stop himself from breaking down. He closed his eyes, letting the warm tears slide over his cheeks. He could not stop them from falling this time.
"You have spent too much time among men," Thranduil stated bluntly, anger edging his voice. "You allowed yourself to fall for that woman too quickly, too rashly. What you felt was passion, and still you are hanging on to that. But passion is a thing of men, Legolas, and it fades quickly, just as they do. You are not one of them, you are an Elf! Your years are yet unnumbered; do not waste them away grieving for a mortal, a woman you never truly loved!"
Legolas faced the king stiffly, using all his strength to keep himself under control. He had never before had the urge to strike out at a fellow Elf, but it took all his willpower not to do so now. He fixed his father with a smoldering gaze that would have cowed even the fiercest Orc warrior. But the king did not back down from his son's glare.
"What would you know of how I feel?" Legolas growled, his voice not sounding his own. "What would you know of love? Or of passion? I did not see you grieve when mother died!"
The slap echoed through the corridor and caught Legolas completely by surprise. He stumbled, righted himself, and looked back to his father with a face that raged a mixture of anger and shock. He held back the hand that itched to return the blow and gritted his teeth at the sting that spread through his left cheek. He glanced briefly at their surroundings, checking for anyone who might have seen that exchange, but the forest paths and palace hallways were empty.
"Of that you know nothing," Thranduil hissed, and Legolas looked back to find his father's dark blue eyes livid. "I loved your mother very deeply," the king said, his voice hardly above a whisper. "But I am the Lord of this realm, and I could not abandon my people."
"I would have succeeded you," Legolas pointed out darkly, barely resisting the urge to rub at his flaming cheek. He would not give his father that satisfaction.
Thranduil's eyes narrowed and then he turned away from his son, walking to stand at the opposite side of the doorway and letting out a dismissive grunt. "No, Legolas," he said, his tone softening just slightly. "You were not ready. You still are not ready." He turned to face the prince, folding his hands inside his voluminous sleeves. "You speak even now of leaving your people to fade away in your grief for some mortal woman. That is selfish, and a leader cannot be selfish."
Legolas glared at his father, his heart burning with fury and anguish, pounding hard into his ribs and through his temples. Selfish. He swallowed hard, realizing somewhere in his mind that his father spoke mostly the truth, but his heart still bitterly refused to believe it. No. No. The core of his being still belonged to Laimea, and he could not bear the thought of living centuries without her, pretending as if the things he'd felt for her were merely trivial.
Selfish? No.
"I grieved for your mother," Thranduil said quietly, and now Legolas could see the sheen of tears in his father's eyes. "More than you could ever know. But I could not leave you, and I could not leave the people of this place. It was not easy, Legolas," the king admitted, and his voice trembled for a brief second. "But it was necessary. Do you understand?"
Legolas swallowed hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly with his harsh breathing. He felt another tear fall and swiped at it angrily, hating to show such a lack of control in front of his father. "I loved her," he confessed harshly, the only words he could manage to say. "I told her I would never leave her… I stayed alive for her! I cannot just forget her. I cannot, and I will not!"
Thranduil let out a quiet breath. "You do not have to forget her, my son, just let her go. The life within you is fading, and I am not the only one who has noticed. I lost your mother long ago, and I nearly lost you once already. I do not want to lose you again, Legolas."
The prince looked at his father silently, but the king's eyes were now dry, looking to him sternly. "Think of your people in Ithilien," he said. "Did you lead them there just to abandon them now? You have no child, no heir. Who would lead them when you were gone? Who would protect them? They have made a home for themselves there; surely you would not cause them to leave?"
Legolas leaned with one hand against the doorframe, the other on his hip, staring at the ground beneath his feet, his mind working furiously. "You said yourself I am not a leader," he muttered sourly at last.
"You are not behaving like a leader, Legolas, and that is certain. But you are my son and thus you were born a leader. You just have yet to find that courage within yourself… but rest assured it is there, somewhere."
Legolas turned on his father again, snarling. "Do not speak to me of courage!" He jabbed a finger out toward the forest, in the direction of Gondor and Mordor, now so far away but once ever-so-near to him. "I have felled thousands of Orcs, stood in the face of the Nazgul, brought down a cave troll, walked the Paths of the Dead, and fought at the Black Gates themselves – all without so much as blinking! What do you call that if not courage!?"
A small, sad smile pulled at Thranduil's mouth as he shook his head. "You still have a great deal to learn, my son, and it appears your expansive travels have not taught you much."
Legolas opened his mouth to snap back, but his father spoke again, interrupting him.
"Dying is easy," the king whispered, and the words took Legolas aback. "Look at all that is around you, Legolas. All of it mortal, aside from the Eldar. All of it dying from the moment it is first birthed, or grown, or hatched. Victims of time itself, or of each other. It is easy to rush into battle and sacrifice yourself for a cause. It is so easy to die. Most creatures of this world don't even need try in order to die." Thranduil took a few steps forward, his steady gaze boring into his son's. "But living. That is another matter. Living is hard, Legolas. Living is the true battle, the true sacrifice. And in that sense we Eldar are perhaps the most cursed of all of Illuvatar's children. We do not get to die so easily, do we? No. To live takes true courage, Legolas. To keep on living despite all we see and experience in this world – the wars, the hatred, the violence, the evil… the deaths of those we love. That is the courage I speak of; the courage to carry on. To keep living. But you, Legolas… you have been unwilling to live for twenty-six years now."
The king sighed softly. "You say you loved Laimea, but do you not also love your people?"
Legolas inhaled a deep breath and exhaled it through his nose, mulling over what his father had said. He lifted his eyes to the trees, feeling his frustration grow. There was truth in the words, he knew… he could feel it stabbing at his heart like a spear of ice, cold and sharp and merciless, trying to break through the guilt that had shrouded him since he'd realized he had lived while Laimea had died. But the curtain of misery was thick and dark, and could not be torn so easily.
"You know I care for our people, father," Legolas said finally. "You know I care for my people in Ithilien. But you cannot compare that love to the love I have for Laimea. You should know that. If you loved mother half as much as you say you did then you should know that!"
A stiff silence stretched between them, but the younger Elf's keen eyes had been trained to notice the slightest movement of a body, and now despite all the king's heavy robes he saw his father tense, the dark blue eyes flash.
"Legolas," Thranduil bit off sharply, "listen to me very carefully. You are being foolish. Foolish and selfish. Your mother was an Elf. I had enough sense to marry within my own race at least-"
Legolas felt his own body tense, his anger flaring hot enough to bring a flush to his face.
"-and when your mother died I nearly decided to go with her. But I did not, because I knew that would be unreasonable considering the circumstances. Because I knew I could not abandon those who still depended on me in the world of the living. But I also knew that if ever a time came later on when I decided I wanted to join her, I would be able to do so."
Thranduil shook his golden-haired head, a look of pity coming to his face. "Laimea was a mortal, my son, you must remember that. She has died, and the souls of mortals do not remain tied to this world as the souls of the Eldar do. Legolas… even if you should abandon your people and die of your grief, Laimea has passed beyond your reach. Even in death you could not be reunited with her. Do you understand? It is not possible."
Legolas stared blankly at his father, a sudden stab of horror crushing his previous anger as he realized consciously for the first time that what his father said was true. It had been so instinctive: the want, the need, the desire to die after he'd found out about Laimea's death. But first there had been the healers, who would not let him slip away into the world of the dead, and then there had been a few things worth living for: Aragorn's coronation, Aragorn and Arwen's wedding, saying farewell to the Hobbits… tears bit into his eyes once more.
Aragorn and Arwen's wedding - a mortal and an immortal, just as Laimea and I… just as we should be…
But those few events had been merely distractions, and as soon as Legolas had come home to Eryn Lasgalan the despair had consumed him once more. It was only natural for an Elf to desire death after the passing of much beloved mate, just as he supposed it was a natural thing for widowed mortals to feel as well. It was a common relief for grief stricken mates of any race to think that they would soon be reunited with their loved ones after death. And isn't that what his father had just said?
So easy to die… so difficult to keep living…
But it would not be so for him and Laimea, even if he were to give in to his grief. It could not be so.
Legolas turned away from his father abruptly, facing the edge of the doorway and biting his lip as a well of panicky desperation clogged his throat. No… it isn't true. There is a way… there has to be a way… His mind struggled feebly, but he knew by the cold heaviness of dread settling into the pit of his stomach that his father was right. It was not possible.
All this time he had known, he understood with sudden clarity. He had known but he had refused to believe, refused to think about it, refused to allow such a horrid reality to even enter the fringes of his consciousness. For twenty-six years he had been deluding himself. But he could fool himself no longer, and the finality of this recognition pressed down upon him like a suffocating cloud.
Laimea was gone.
She has passed beyond your reach, Legolas.
He reeled, steadying himself with a hand on the wall, seeing his vision blur with tears. She was gone, forever gone. No matter how much he wished it, no matter how much he yearned for it, no matter how much he craved to hold her in his arms again… he could never see her again.
Not in this world, not in the next.
A sob hitched in his throat. He had been holding on to one hope: that in death he would see her again, and spend all the days unto the ending of the world at her side. That had been his only hope, and now that hope had been shattered. Now he had no hope. No escape. Nothing would bring her back to him now, and that was the most torturous thought of all.
He fell to his knees, no longer caring about the presence of his father or any others who might pass, and for only the second time in his centuries of life the Prince of Eryn Lasgalan, the Lord of the Ithilien Elves, wept openly in helpless sobs.