Chapter 13: What I never told you
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o'er-wrought heart and bids it break. (Shakespeare)
\*/*\*/
Night had fallen on the Elven encampment, but there was no sleep to be found. Fires had been lit, and along with fiery golden sparks, laments for the fallen warriors rose up into the starless, moonless sky.
Next to a tent on the very edge of the camp, Tauriel stood, gazing desolately at the large space in the centre where the bodies of all the fallen had been laid out, waiting to be taken back to their homeland and being laid to rest there.
There were so many.
"Is this my doing?" she whispered in a strangled voice. "Am I guilty of causing this?"
For a split second, Feren, who had taken it upon himself to guard her through the night, wanted to say yes. Many of the fallen had been his students, just like Tauriel, and had been dear to his heart. Some wounded part of his fëa needed someone to blame.
But he didn't. "No," he replied quietly. "Your actions were certainly not helpful and forced us into entering this battle at an inopportune time, but I think it was unavoidable. Sooner or later this would have happened anyway."
"I was only following my heart!" the young warrior wept. "I never meant for any of this to happen!"
Feren sighed deeply. "I know. However, you still fail to understand that hearts are easily misled. Hearts are like wild horses: in order to make good use of their great power, they need to be harnessed and directed. If you let them run wild, they can do all sorts of harm."
Tauriel shook her head, now sobbing openly. "I do not know if I can!"
The chief diplomat turned to her, put one hand on her shoulder and used his other hand to force her to look him in the eyes. There were both fire and ice in his voice as he replied: "You will have to. Otherwise it will be your fault next time."
\*/*\*/
King and prince stood side by side, unmoving, watching as the bodies of the fallen warriors were brought to the centre of the encampment and carefully laid out side by side.
There were so many.
Too many.
Legolas looked on, recognising comrades he had known for centuries, comrades – friends – with whom he had trained and shared life and fought battles.
He had been relieved to hear that some of those he held dearest to his heart had been ordered by his father to stay at the royal stronghold. The thought of losing Thalanir, Elros, or Galion was unbearable.
There was a sudden moment of silence between one lament and the next as the last body was laid on the ground and covered reverently. All the survivors stood, lost for words at the price that had been paid today.
Then the Elvenking spoke. "Goheno-nín. Forgive me for leading you into so much suffering and death. Inevitable though this day might have been, I still wish I could have spared you. Thank you for your loyalty and love, following me willingly into this battle against the forces of darkness. I hope with all my heart that this sacrifice will not have been in vain, that we will yet enjoy a reprieve of many years and whatever peace we can have this side of the sea."
With their right hands on their hearts, everyone bowed their heads to their king, including the prince. As they raised their eyes again after a few moments, it was to the sight of their king mirroring their gesture.
Only the prince stood close enough to see the tears on his face.
\*/*\*/
Thranduil was too tired to sleep. Bone-deep weariness made itself known as a dull ache in his entire body that prevented him from finding rest.
Also, he sensed his son's inner turmoil, even though Legolas was out in the camp, seeing to some duty or other. These past months had taken a heavy toll on all of them, and the Elvenking found himself desperate for some respite, however brief.
Giving up on sleep for the moment, Thranduil rose and reached for his cloak, when quiet but agitated voices made him pause.
"You're not going to disturb him now!"
"He's been tossing and turning for the better part of the hour. Just go and put both of you out of your misery!"
A grateful smile flitted across Thranduil's tired face. Leave it to Sadron to wrap his concern and love in a grumpy order so as not to overwhelm the prince with emotions.
"All right, no need to push me!"
There was a rustling of canvas and a soft knock on the wooden pole at the doorway.
"Come!" Thranduil called, sitting back down on his cot and waiting for prince and healer to enter.
"Forgive me, adar. Sadron made me come. I told him not to disturb you, but …"
The king held up a hand. "Whatever is the matter?"
"You are both bruised, battered, and dead on your feet. You need to sleep," the head healer announced concisely.
"I could have slept outside with the other captains," Legolas muttered.
A part of Thranduil's heart both swelled and broke at the defiant words, with pride for his son who never took advantage of his royal status in the field (and even at home, really), and with pain that somewhere deep inside Legolas thought he might not be welcome in his father's quarters.
"Thank you, Sadron," the king replied softly. "I will take care of the rest."
The head healer gave a satisfied nod and withdrew, but not without a final order: "Sleep! Both of you!"
"When did he get so bossy?" Legolas grumbled as soon as Sadron had left.
"Oh, he has always been like that. I suspect Elrond's training is to blame," Thranduil chuckled while not-so-subtly looking his son up and down in search of hidden injuries.
"I am not wounded, adar," the prince said quietly, his tone softening as he sensed his father's concern. "Just a few bumps and bruises. I have had much worse."
Thranduil pressed his lips into a thin line. "When was the last time you slept through the night?" he asked after a moment.
Legolas blinked, trying to remember. Knowing this was all the answer his father needed, he decided to turn the tables. "What about you? The other captains mentioned you had an unwelcome encounter with the ground in the battle?"
The king made a displeased sound. "I am not so much out of practice that I forget how to roll," he bit out. He did not want to be reminded of the cause of his acrobatic dismount earlier in the day.
"And yet you hold your left shoulder stiffly. You did not earlier, so the bruising must be spectacular by now." Legolas knew he was poking the bear, but he was desperate for a distraction from his own misery.
"You are much too perceptive for your own good, elfling," the king grouched. "Tell me, is your nose still hurting from that break?"
By now, father and son were standing toe to toe, a battle of wills almost as old as time being fought without a single word.
They reached out exactly at the same moment, Legolas' hand gently coming to rest on his father's battered shoulder, and Thranduil's fingers tenderly tracing his son's weary face.
"I can find no rest, adar," the prince confessed in a helpless whisper. "I tried so hard not to let her out of my sight, but time and again she slipped out of my grasp, each time with direr consequences. I tried so hard to prevent … all of this, but I could not. I feel like I never failed so badly before."
The king wrapped his arms around his son and drew him close. "You could not have prevented this, nor could I. This was orchestrated in a dimension far beyond our reach. Even the ringbearers just about killed themselves trying to contain the enemy."
Legolas shuddered at these words, pulling back a little to look his father in the eyes. "Did they, though?"
Thranduil sighed. "They have bought us some time. I suspect Mithrandir knows more than he lets on, but for now, they have succeeded in putting some distance between Sauron and the One Ring."
"For how long?"
The king shrugged, wincing a little when his almost-forgotten shoulder injury made itself felt again. "Hopefully long enough for us to prepare for one last war. We can never allow ourselves to be as complacent as we have been this time."
Legolas narrowed his eyes. "I have never known you to be complacent, adar. Nor have I even once seen you underestimate those hidden dangers."
Thranduil smiled, a tiny, sad smile, and pulled his son close again. "Yet even I have indulged in the illusion of being able to keep my people safe a little longer. Maybe see a few of their children grow up this side of the sea, under green leaves and blue skies."
Both of them let their thoughts drift to Amdirwen, Galion and their little ones, and their hearts grew heavy.
"So what will you do? Bid them all sail?" the prince asked softly.
"I shall," the Elvenking confirmed his son's assumption. "Only I fear it will be to no avail."
\*/*\*/
Dawn was still several hours away when the Elvenking woke to the distinct feeling of something being wrong. He took a moment to listen, but the encampment and its surroundings lay as still as could be. The sense of imminent danger did not abate, however, at this first taking stock, so Thranduil decided to investigate. One hand going to the knife beneath his pillow, he listened into the darkness again. A moment later he cursed himself for not noticing right away. He rolled from his cot, landing precisely in the narrow gap between his bed and his son's bed.
Legolas was asleep, but shivering uncomfortably, as if he was feeling cold. Thranduil reached for his son's hand, only to find the prince wrapped tightly into his blanket, with just his pale face visible among the folds.
The king put a hand on his son's cheek, finding it clammy and colder than it should ever be.
"Legolas?" he asked firmly when the prince didn't even stir at the touch. "Legolas, wake up."
The young warrior's half-lidded eyes opened slowly, confusion clouding his gaze. "Adar? What is it?" he slurred, whether from sleepiness or from something else, Thranduil could not discern.
"Tell me what hurts," the king demanded, worry making his tone brusquer than he intended.
"Nothing hurts," Legolas replied, slightly more articulate. "But why is it so cold in here?"
His father's deft hands patted him down in search of injuries, stopping when they reached his ribcage. What had been hidden under the prince's armour before was now easily recognisable.
"When was the last time you had a proper meal?" Thranduil hissed in dismay. "You are naught but skin and bones!"
The prince pushed himself up on his elbow. "Before I left home," he muttered, sitting up and rubbing his face in an attempt to rouse himself. Facing the Elvenking's indignation was not something one wanted to do half-asleep.
"Wrong answer!" his father growled predictably, getting up to slip on his robe and cloak. "Why on earth did you not have supper with everyone else?"
"I was too tired to be hungry," Legolas admitted, accepting the piece of Lembas that his father pressed into his hand.
"You get started on this while I go get your supper!" And before his son could think of a reply, the flaps of the tent swished closed behind the king, carrying in a gust of icy air.
The weary young warrior shivered, pulled his blanket more tightly around his shoulders and began to nibble on the piece of waybread.
Only a few minutes later his father returned, arms laden with food and another blanket. His frustration had given way to undisguised concern, and Legolas couldn't decide which he preferred.
"I am sorry, adar," he said sincerely as Thranduil laid out the meal before him. "I did not mean to worry you so."
His father sat down beside him, draping the second blanket around his shoulders and scooting close for additional warmth and comfort. "Just eat, but slowly," the king admonished quietly, starting to rub his son's back in long, soothing strokes.
Silence fell for a while, both father and son taking comfort in each other's presence. When Legolas finally pushed away his plate and allowed himself to slump into his father's side, Thranduil thought he was ready to go back to sleep. Instead he asked: "Tell me about naneth. I know she died not far from here. What did you mean when you said that she loved me more than life?"
The king froze for a split second, then seemed to fold in on himself. For the longest moment Legolas thought his father was not going to answer, but eventually he spoke in a flat, detached tone.
"Her twin sister had been to Erebor to pick up the begetting day present for your mother which I had commissioned the dwarves to make. The gems of Lasgalen. On her way back she was captured by Gundabad orcs. When she did not return to the Greenwood at the appointed time, I sent out search parties. Your mother insisted on coming along. You were still a baby, barely weaned. I refused to let her go, but she went anyway.
"So I had no choice but going, too.
"When one of the search parties brought back the mutilated corpse of your mother's twin sister, she almost immediately began to fade – from grief, but also from guilt, I suspect. You see, we found out that the orcs had mistaken your aunt for the queen and taken her to draw me out, and kill me, too.
"I tried to keep her alive through our bond while we started to make our way back to the Greenwood. We were about a day's journey past Erebor when Galion's father met us, bringing you along, for you were fading also. You were still too young to withstand the weakening of the bond with your mother."
The king wrapped his arms around his son, holding him so tightly that the prince could feel his father's agitated heartbeat.
"Your mother knew that she was past saving, but I would not hear of it. She also knew that I had to pour everything into my bond with you if there was any hope of saving you. So after pushing the last of her life force into you, she closed off her bonds with you and me, ordering me to save you. She was gone within minutes."
Thranduil's voice was distant, back in the moment of his great loss. He felt Legolas' hot tears soaking his robe near his heart and lifted a hand to wipe them away.
"We could not resume our journey for some time because both you and I were too weak. So we laid your mother's body, and her sister's, to rest in the lake, never again to be seen by unworthy eyes. This is why there is no grave for either of them. And I could not bring myself to create any other memorial, because it seemed like a lie."
Thranduil lapsed into silence, his words and emotions spent. Remembering that horrible time was never painless, but speaking about it … well, he could count the number of times he had done that on one hand.
And yet the pain of it all was not the reason why the Elvenking had never told his son the entire story of the queen's death. Pain was an old companion: not an enemy to be fought but a wise – if at times unwelcome – counsellor that reminded him of all he had suffered, and survived.
The fear of placing the burden of this knowledge on his son, on the other hand, had always been an insurmountable obstacle. Until now.
Fate had brought them here, to this place, to this moment, and boxed them in so they could no longer escape the full truth of who they were, of what they had been through, and of what they were to each other because of it.
"I understand." Legolas' whispered words pulled the king out of his exhausted resignation to the inevitable. "And I think I understand why you have never told me all of it. I would not have understood before this, but I do now."
Thranduil tightened his hold around his son. "Thank you," he said softly. "That means the world to me, ion-nín." He hesitated, then continued. "And yet, I was wrong in not telling you sooner; for I fear something like resentment towards your mother has been growing in your fëa because of it. And in that, I have wronged both you and her."
Legolas considered this for a while. When he spoke, it was quietly and haltingly.
"Not resentment, no. But … for the longest time, I have felt this deep sense of … rejection … that I could not understand. It confused me, for it simply was not consistent with anything that I knew to be true. Now … now it makes sense, though. She did reject me."
Thranduil winced at these words. He had known that his son's feelings about his mother were conflicted, but Legolas had always kept this part of his fëa carefully shielded.
"Can you see, though, that she did it out of love, ion?"
Nothing could have prepared the Elvenking for the sense of utter failure that hit him with the answering silence.
\*/*\*/
A/N: Dear readers, it has been too long. I apologise. The last three months of 2019 were not what I wanted them to be, and both work and family responsibilities consumed all my time and energy. My gratitude to all who have read and reviewed so far, and to all "favourites" and "follows". A special shout-out goes to invisible obsessor, whose review spurred me into finishing this chapter (which I started writing in November!)
I hope all is well with you.