Hello everyone!
Thank you to all who are still reading along with me. Special thanks to the kind - and in afterthought even the unkind - reviews. I admit I was thrown off a bit, but in the end we are all learning here, not just to be better writers, but better readers, better reviewers, better communicators, and better people in general too. To Tisa-Tisa, I hope you reach out to me with a PM so that we can have a proper discussion outside of the public sphere - I don't bite :) I appreciate anyone who is willing to gamble their time on the possibility that some reward can come from my words. I love writing, and I just hope you also enjoy the reading.
This is the last chapter, but there will be an Epilogue and an Author's Afterword to explain, as usual, the method behind the madness. I hope you stick with me 'til the end. Constructive comments and criticism are always welcome. I wish everyone well, and without further ado:
# # #
20: You May Let Go
Mirkwood, T.A. 2851
# # #
The first of the Mirkwood elves arrived at the settlement and among them: Tauriel and Renior.
Their southbound patrol searching for Rochanar's sons were intercepted by Woodmen dispatched to the task, and they were promptly informed of Legolas' state and led to the village.
Tauriel organized her soldiers quickly. The fastest runner was sent to the king's halls. A small task force was dispatched to the site of the skirmish, to tend to the remains of the dead. A group was organized to secure the settlement from any incursion. By the time she got to Legolas' side, she was alone.
She couldn't stifle a gasp at the sight of him, but she had presence of mind to quickly wash her hands and divest herself of her dirtied outerwear before rushing to her prince's side. She did a familiar gesture, something Glorfindel had previously seen on Legolas – her usually steady, capable warrior's hands flailed, as if she did not know where and how to touch the person before her. They were all so very good at killing here, but caring for the ill was less familiar an endeavor.
"How long has he been like this?" she asked Glorfindel hoarsely.
"He lost consciousness on the road here days ago," Glorfindel reported. "He hasn't woken since."
"Legolas," she whispered, touching his hair. "You're not even supposed to be out here..."
# # #
Glorfindel did not expect it, but perhaps he should have: eventually, Thranduil himself came.
He arrived uncrowned and clad in regular soldierly wares, but he still stood out, extraordinarily tall and imposing just the same. His clothing of choice indicated to Glorfindel that he had come in stealth, and indeed, the soldiers he passed looked suffused trying not to bow to him. If they were trying to prevent the larger world from knowing Thranduil the Elvenking himself had ventured into poorly secured territory though, they were doing a piss poor job of it.
He entered the room where Glorfindel again had his hand on Legolas' wrist. He'd gone out of the room on occasion, but whenever he was in it, he would lay claim to the limb straight away. The pulse was stronger by now, but he couldn't for the life of him let go and dare to become complacent. His nerves were frayed, and he felt he couldn't blink, lest another setback befell them, another crisis, another complication.
Around them were Tauriel and Istor, and the healer Sara and the child who assisted her, Alina. They all stood at wary attention, waiting for the Elvenking to take charge of the situation.
"Maenor," the Elvenking called out sternly, and the greatest healer in the Mirkwood stepped forward at once, to care for his most important patient. He moved around Glorfindel, and started debriefing Sara even as he examined his prince.
Thranduil leaned over Glorfindel and murmured, "Thank you, my lord - you may let go."
His mind told him to release his hold on Legolas, but his hands were malfunctioning. Glorfindel looked down at them in accusation, and while could clearly spell the request in his head, his fingers were uncooperative. His breath caught, and he frowned in confusion.
As if understanding his plight, Thranduil lowered his own hands over Glorfindel's and over Legolas' skin. It was a warm, powerful, reassuring hand. Glorfindel lifted his gaze up to the Elvenking's steady stare.
It's been a long time since he'd yielded strength or control to someone, and very few could ever command it of him. But Thranduil's touch became the key to release both Glorfindel's hand that gripped Legolas to life; and the grip the dark situation had on Glorfindel's mind. He pried his fingers off of Legolas' wrist, and yielded the prince's life into the capable hands of his father.
# # #
Glorfindel realized quickly that he had nowhere to go.
So long he had been at Legolas' bedside that he now found no place that was his own to retire to. He settled for the narrow, rickety wooden porch around the house that held Legolas. He sat on the ground and leaned against the walls.
It was early evening, and the settlement was subdued. Elven soldiers dispatched for their king and prince's strict security walked freely amongst human men, women and children as they tried to get on with their lives.
Glorfindel watched them absently for an indeterminate amount of time, until he felt Istor sit beside him. The familiar, reassuring presence made him sigh.
"It's a hell of a situation," Istor said – an understatement.
Glorfindel chuckled dryly. "You don't say."
Istor gave him a grim smile. "I don't even know how you plan to report all of this to my Lord Elrond."
Glorfindel winced. Spring was coming, and they were expected back in Imladris soon. They needed to leave at some fixed, imminent date, before Elrond dispatches another group to determine their whereabouts, starting this chain all over again. But when days ago he could leave with a viable plan – a diplomatic exchange borrowing Legolas, who would take the time to recover in Rivendell while liaising with them on behalf of his father, and bearing trained rock dove messengers breeding to boot – none of that looked likely now.
"Everything's changed," Glorfindel muttered.
"You've changed," Istor pointed out.
Glorfindel raised an eyebrow at him, but his second-in-command didn't shy away. Istor shrugged.
"I thought you coming here would bring this benighted place some of your light," Istor told him quietly, "Instead, I think it gave you some of its darkness."
"It is... catching, isn't it?" Glorfindel murmured. "But maybe I'm just tired."
"How do they live like this," Istor hissed.
"Things must change," Glorfindel said. "Somehow, things must change. This cannot go on."
"I can't wait to get home," Istor sighed. "From here we are so near, my lord, don't you think? It's the closest we've been in weeks. We could almost just – leave."
# # #
Istor told Glorfindel quarters have been prepared for his use, but while grateful for it, Glorfindel could not bear to be far from where Legolas was, just yet. He stayed where he was and found rest in the quiet night. The settlement was drifting toward sleep; it should be their first good one in a long while, under the protection of the formidable Mirkwood elves.
He fell into a weary daze himself. People were coming and going from the house – Sara and Alina, the healer Maenor and his cohorts, a rotation of soldiers guarding the royals, Tauriel and Renior – he barely minded them, and save for a few early inquiries on his wellness, they otherwise left him to his own morose company.
Except for one.
Thranduil emerged from the house and stood towering over him, casting a dark shadow, obscuring the moonlight. The sight of him almost made Glorfindel scramble to his feet.
"Is Legolas-"
"He is well enough for now and is expected to recover," Thranduil said.
"But who sits with him?" Glorfindel demanded.
Thranduil took his time answering. He tilted his head in thought, and he narrowed his eyes at the presumptuous question. "I wouldn't leave him uncared for," he said, with an edge of warning.
Glorfindel eased back into his position warily. After a beat, Thranduil sat beside him and leaned on the walls himself. Their shoulders touched. They've sat like this before.
"I understand you and your second-in-command have been debriefed by Tauriel," Thranduil said. "I expect a firsthand account, when you are less..." he motioned vaguely at Glorfindel's harried state. He let his voice drift off until he ended with, "When you are ready."
Glorfindel found it in himself to smirk, albeit tiredly. "Of course, Elvenking."
Thranduil nodded. "But from what I already know... it seems I owe you a life debt I might never be able to repay. Again, if that can be believed. I am... unfamiliar with this position."
"You mean, gratitude?"
Thranduil's brow quirked, and he gave Glorfindel a sidelong glance of wry censure.
"I did not do it for you," Glorfindel said. "I did not even do it for Legolas. I did it for myself."
"Yet the outcome is the same," Thranduil pointed out. "He is alive, by your actions."
"Don't remind him," Glorfindel said. "He blames me for Silon."
"Should he?"
"Well, by direct causality of actions-"
"No," Thranduil interrupted. "Should Legolas blame you for the death of Silon? Is it right that he do so? Tell me - why did you defy my son's wish for death?"
"The truth is, I barely gave it thought," Glorfindel admitted. "I find though... lately..." He hesitated and shook his head at himself. "I am increasingly afraid of what I am willing to do, just so he can live."
He remembered it well, the sheer wrongness of the single step he took away from Silon's dying breaths and toward Legolas in the forest. Yet he had taken Istor and the children's offer of a horse for the dying prince, and thundered away in the night - leaving them without a glance behind.
"That is an affliction widely shared," Thranduil said after a long moment of weighty silence.
If the Elvenking caught Glorfindel's admission of love for Legolas, he did not address it directly. Instead, he said, "I always knew Silon would die for my son. I think in Legolas' heart of hearts, he knew it too."
"Yet I am unforgiven," Glorfindel said.
"You are alive and thus – convenient," Thranduil said, pragmatically. "For is it not true that both you and Silon gambled with your lives to save Legolas, and it is only by incident that Silon is dead and not you? If you had died, it would be Silon that is unforgiven. But take heart. That is... too heavy a word. Legolas will forgive. He always has."
"That is... kind of you to say."
"Don't sound so surprised," Thranduil said dryly. "Why should I be unkind? You might think Legolas will never forgive you, but for my part I know – I can never thank you enough."
Thranduil paused, and bit his lip in thought. He nodded to himself, as if coming to a decision. "I would have killed him."
Glorfindel believed Thranduil meant what he said, but it did not make the situation any less unbelievable.
"If I were in yours or Silon's place," Thramduil said slowly, "and an uruk-hai was to make off with my son and he would be tortured and irrecoverable short of a deal that would strike a deathblow to all that is good in Arda... I would have killed him myself."
Glorfindel raked his hands over his hair and face, uncomprehending, unaccepting. The darkness here was so ravenous and unquenchable that even now, only speaking of things in theory, he could feel its claws raking down the skin of his back.
"I speak of this to no one, but I will tell you, to whom much is owed, how we found his mother," Thranduil went on. Glorfindel – who had dared glance against this topic but once before – suddenly found that he did not want Thranduil to say more.
Still, he listened.
"She was captured in battle and taken to Gundabad," Thranduil said dully, looking away from Glorfindel, tilting his head up against the wall and staring at the ceiling above. "The uruk-hai knew who she was. They sent her hair to me to begin a bargain, then her ear. A finger, another. We couldn't give them what they asked and live with ourselves but with every piece of proof of her life, I was losing pieces of my mind. We mounted a desperate rescue and lost many soldiers - only to find first her skin, and then all the rest of her.
"She died in unspeakable agony a day later, on the road home," Thranduil continued. "She did not even know she had been safely retrieved. I know now – I should have had the courage to end her misery sooner, and she should not have been taken alive at all. Legolas had that courage, when he spared his brother a similar fate. And so I tell you in absolute certainty – if I were in your place, I would have killed my own son. There is a good reason for the things that we do here, as abhorrent as they may be to someone like you."
We make the decisions that we do, Legolas had told him once, based on a wealth of experience.
I want very much to go home, Glorfindel thought. I would like that very much.
"But this is why my thanks for you is infinite," Thranduil said. "I would have killed him and if you had done the same or let the same happen, I could not have blamed you. But for reasons all your own, you did not and my son is alive. Perhaps the foolish hopes we harbor for better outcomes are not always in vain."
For reasons all my own...
"I don't know what hopes I may have harbored," Glorfindel said gruffly, "The world was – is - simply unimaginable without him in it."
Thranduil inhaled and exhaled a careful breath. "He will recover, in time. Thank your gods."
"Our gods," Glorfindel corrected quietly.
Thranduil was noncommittal. "Hm."
"If I may ask - what did Lord Maenor say about his outlook?" Glorfindel asked.
"You may ask anything of me now," Thranduil said before replying, "He will sleep for some time. If Legolas' condition attains more stability in the next week, he will be transferred by litter to the stronghold. While we wait, the road through will be well-secured because he and I will take it – outside of standard practice. We tend to travel apart to preserve the line of succession, but I heard my son had been brutally skewered you see, and it drives one all sorts of mad. I was indulged, as I had been – for the Elvenqueen. Now here we are, and thus for a brief time, we are all hands on a mobilization the likes of which we have not done in centuries. But I get to bring him home."
"It is just as well he is unconscious," Glorfindel said with a tired smile, "He would hate it, all this risk and bother."
He and Legolas had this talk before, about accepting help – I may need it, I may even deserve it. But I do not want it...
"It is not solely for his benefit," Thranduil said thoughtfully. "We are a pragmatic people, after all. This initiative, while unsustainable in the long-term, has made our roads the safest they have been in a long time. By our reckoning, our enemies do not know what to make of it, yet. In this narrow window, the Imladrian soldiers you left in the stronghold can travel here under reasonable security, and from here, we are close enough and can give you escort to the High Pass. It is a singular opportunity for you to return home safely at less risk for you and your soldiers, and my own people."
"But without Legolas."
"You will still have valuable intelligence information to share and positive reports to make on a nascent alliance," Thranduil said adding, surprisingly wryly, "By most measures this is successful diplomacy. And I can still furnish you with a few trained messenger pigeons."
The thrice-damned birds. Glorfindel knew what – who - he wanted more. But he also knew Legolas could not travel in his state, and Glorfindel could not wait for him to get better.
For a long moment he genuinely contemplated it, making a request to Thranduil for this departure to be pushed back. A few more days, just so Legolas would wake again to find him still here. Just to give Glorfindel a chance to make a decent goodbye.
But there were clear security implications to the change that he did not want to risk. Time was of the essence – the window of safety they had was slim. He had the welfare of his soldiers and their Mirkwood escorts to consider, and he was also concerned for Legolas and Thranduil. He would not keep them at the settlement longer than necessary if Legolas was stable enough for travel. The sooner he could be transported to the safety of his father's halls, the happier Glorfindel would be.
As a tactician, he knew the timings Thranduil intended had to be followed, even if it meant he might not see Legolas open his eyes.
"I won't see him wake," Glorfindel said softly, almost unintentionally voicing this precise, aching thought.
"You may or you may not," Thranduil said, not unkindly. "Either way he will understand – duties always take precedence."
"I know," Glorfindel said, "He told me as much."
He had agreed, too, when they were talking about what their shared affections meant for their future. Glorfindel just wondered how it came to be that for him, things have changed.
"I on the other hand," Glorfindel said with narrowed, thoughtful eyes, "seem to have lost some of my objectivity."
"You will drive yourself mad worrying for him at this rate," said Thranduil. "He will be well, now. You'll see. Somehow, he is always the one who lives at the end."
The phrasing was too familiar.
Legolas had said it to Glorfindel before, but he did not completely understand what it meant. He did now, after it came from Thranduil's mouth. This was carefully constructed delusion, otherwise the Elvenking would never let his son out the door... just as Glorfindel could no longer bear to let Legolas out of his sight.
"Imagine if you will, my lord," Legolas had once told him, "just how good I would have to be at my job, to be allowed all the things that I do without my father losing his mind waiting here..."
I will lose my mind indeed, Glorfindel thought, worrying about you.
But it was, as he told Legolas before his heart clouded his own judgments - the nature of loving. Love was inextricable from fear, and it makes one wish desperately for the invulnerability of those one cared about.
Glorfindel wanted to partake of at least some of this madness, if possible. Just so he could leave. Just so he could continue on and do his work.
"Your tumbleweed will probably outlive us all," Glorfindel said experimentally, wondering how it would feel to be so falsely confident. His mouth felt dry at the contrived irreverence.
Thranduil stared at him, and Glorfindel knew then, that neither of their delusions ran much deeper than the skin. Thranduil looked away.
So this is what it takes to leave you be, Glorfindel thought. This is what it takes to function nowadays. A bit of willful, managed madness - to preserve some sanity.
"Maybe it's just as well," Glorfindel said into the sudden quiet. "Legolas had explicitly asked me to leave. He cannot stand me."
Thranduil rose easily to his feet, and he stood tall and impervious, Elvenking again, well-armored.
I want you to conjure it, the incarnation of my father that is invulnerable, Legolas had once asked Glorfindel. And here that version of Thranduil was flesh and blood. The private audience, the show of vulnerability, the gratitude - all adroitly obscured. But Thranduil gave him a subtle dry look, barely-there and even then, fleeting.
"Of all things I've heard about the Balrog Slayer," he said with a nonchalant expression, "Imladris' vaunted champion – I never heard he could be cowed by a wood-elf princeling."
Glorfindel stared at him for a long moment. "I would like to sit with him for as long as I can - If you will allow it."
Thranduil gave him a regal, dismissive wave. "I already said – you can ask anything of me."
# # #
Glorfindel couldn't sleep to anything else but the rhythm of Legolas' steady pulse beneath the tips of his fingers.
It was music to the ears.
He had tried resting in the humble but at least private quarters that the elves and the Woodmen saved for him, except it was too silent, too empty. And like all empty spaces in the world, it begged to be filled. His mind raced and flooded it with thoughts, thoughts that could only be quieted after he left his room, settled on the chair by Legolas' bed, and let the other's heartbeat ease him into dreaming.
Thranduil indeed let him stay with Legolas – perhaps needed him to stay too, in afterthought. The Elvenking's time was in heavy demand after all, and Thranduil was always either working at a desk near the bed or commandeered to leave and have meetings outside.
Clever of him, Glorfindel thought wryly, to have reframed Glorfindel's request to stay as a generously granted favor. Not that Glorfindel minded. Seeing Legolas improve, even as slowly as he did, gave Glorfindel such a quiet, tender delight.
His pulse, his temperature, his coloring, his breathing... everything became better, and as he improved so did Glorfindel's mood, and so did his outlook. Everything seemed dire when Legolas was unwell. Everything was better now that he was better...
... and so was Legolas to be the lens with which he looked at the world? Glorfindel scolded himself half-heartedly.
Inevitably, the time came that his Imladrian soldiers arrived at the settlement – bearing as promised, breeding messenger birds. Thranduil did him one better too: an apprentice of Garavon's was young, unmarried, adventurous and willing to take on a long assignment. He too would be going to Imladris, to look after the birds.
Istor's joy at seeing his Rivendell comrades was unquenchable.
"Sanity at last!" he had said under his breath and to himself when he and Glorfindel watched the new arrivals enter the village. It made him laugh. For a long moment the sound was overloud and hung in the air.
It has been a while.
But life goes on, as it does, as it has to.
# # #
The gods, they had a perverse sense of humor.
Or Glorfindel was being punished (but why?).
Or Glorfindel was being blessed (in a way).
Or Glorfindel was being taught some obscure lesson (whatever it may be).
Or Glorfindel was being tested.
Either way – on the night before he and the other Imladrian elves were slated to leave for the High Pass and home, the steady pulse beneath Glorfindel's oversensitive fingers beat faster. In his hypervigilance, he almost shot from his seat by Legolas' bed. His own heart mirrored the frantic rhythm, and he waited breathlessly for other signs of Legolas' long-awaited wakening.
There was none – the pulse he held at the wrist slowed, and the prince's eyes remained closed. Still, Glorfindel knew something significant had changed. Legolas was awake – and rather impressively, increasingly cognizant of his vulnerability.
Like a good soldier he was playing possum, taking stock of his surroundings first and gathering himself. His pulse steadied even before Glorfindel's did.
Glorfindel decided to help him along. "We made it to the settlement of the Woodmen safely. The children have all been restored to their families and are in good health. You have been tended well. Full recovery will take some time, but you are healing."
He did not say – Silon is still dead.
He did not need to. Glorfindel watched the younger elf's face carefully. Still with eyes closed, Legolas' jaw clenched, his lips pursed, and he took in a shuddering breath. The tip of his pert nose turned red, and his body trembled.
When Legolas opened his eyes, they were glassy with more than just grave injury and lingering illness. They stared dazedly up at the ceiling and in spite of his best efforts, a few tears still leaked from them, thick and round, going down the sides of his face to his pillow.
Wary of his welcome now that Legolas was not only awake but also more or less aware of his situation, Glorfinsel withdrew his hand from the other elf's. He knew his touch would not be wanted.
To his surprise, Legolas' long, graceful fingers enclosed around his wrist. The physical grip was weak, but it was shackle – cuff – irons- and - chains just the same. He might as well have held Glorfindel's wretched heart in an inescapable, ever-tightening vice.
Glorfindel lifted hopeful eyes to Legolas'.
Hope.
I prefer possibility and hope, he had always told Legolas. Even now I find... I still can.
"You..." Legolas asked, breathily.
Glorfindel frowned in confusion, until he realized Legolas was making inquiries about his well-being.
"I am well," Glorfindel said quietly, and he found his own eyes welling at the implications of the question. Its simple kindness and concern, outweighing all the other complications that now lay between them: perceived betrayal, Silon's death, an unknown future.
Legolas licked at his dry lips, and Glorfindel glanced at a nearby glass and pitcher of herbed water. He calculated how he would be able to get it for the patient, without relinquishing Legolas' precious hold.
Legolas swallowed thickly, through an almost certainly parched throat. He coughed, and shut his eyes tightly in pain. A miserable hum exited his mouth as he shifted in pain and tried to curl into himself. The grip on Glorfindel's wrist spasmed, and fell away.
Glorfindel almost jumped for the medicine water.
"This is for the pain," he explained as he tilted the pitcher toward the glass. "You can have some, but try and stay awake. I shall fetch your father. Would a king take offense if I perhaps just, you know – yelled?"
He was nervous and it was a joke – Legolas' cheek hinted at a strained and desperate half-smile, but his face crumpled again and he groaned instead. His hands crawled and clawed over his stomach.
"Don't move, don't try to help," Glorfindel told him as he lifted Legolas carefully but purposefully about the shoulders and neck to help him drink. The body in his hands trembled in misery. He set the prince back down to his pillows, and let him catch his breath.
"I will only be a moment, Legolas-"
"My... adar," Legolas said through grit teeth, finally catching up to the implications of what Glorfindel had said earlier. He opened his eyes. "I am... home...?"
"No," Glorfindel replied. "He traveled to you."
Legolas was alarmed and shifted as if to rise, except Glorfindel's steadying arms kept him where he was.
"Not... safe...!"
"Oh it is at the moment, believe me," Glorfindel said easily. "I will call him. He is eager to see you awake-"
"Wait..." Legolas gasped.
Glorfindel did. They both knew there were things they needed to discuss, but they also both knew Legolas' current capacity was severely limited and diminishing quickly. Already his gaze was glazing again, shifting in and out of focus, his mind and body fighting for opposite ends of wakefulness and sleep, lucidity and escape through oblivion.
He stared at Glorfindel unsteadily. His eyes were doing strange things, thoughts and weaknesses racing across his wavering gaze. He was in pain and tiring quickly, but looked to be as desperate as Glorfindel felt for some kind of resolution.
They both held their breaths, but Legolas couldn't do it for long. He coughed again, moaned and curled again, shook again, eyes closed again, was almost absent again.
Glorfindel shot forward as Legolas turned against his side on the edge of his makeshift bed, and he held the younger elf with a bracing hand to his chest and a supportive arm around his shoulder and back; a careful embrace not only wary of the other's injury but uncertain of welcome.
Legolas wordlessly accepted the comfort and leaned into Glorfindel's hold, pressing his head against Glorfindel's neck, huffing out pained, strained breaths on the ancient warlord's collarbone until they settled. His body began to slacken, and Glorfindel knew he would soon be asleep again.
Glorfindel knew also, that real conversation and resolution would not be forthcoming for a long while. And because he had to leave before the sun rose tomorrow, it might not even come for years.
The idea made his chest ache. But for all the life of him, he just could not find it in himself to burden Legolas with a goodbye that would force the issue, force them to try and resolve things now.
He looked down upon the younger elf in his arms, whose face was upturned toward his, whose struggling dark-rimmed eyes sought out his own. Legolas knew where he was and why, knew who held him and what problems they had. But there were so many weighty things unsaid between them, and he was clearly past his limits of bearing them.
Glorfindel knew the younger elf could carry none of it in that moment – what had happened to Silon, forgiveness, their contradicting philosophies of life and death, all the work still waiting for them, Glorfindel's love, Glorfindel's impending departure. Legolas could bear none of it – he was already crushed beneath pain and a long recovery. Love affairs were the least of his problems.
It – I - might not even be in his three foremost priorities, Glorfindel reflected. I might not even be in ten.
But he could wait. And in all that time, he could hope.
Glorfindel held the prince tenderly, and brushed stray strands of hair away from his face. Legolas' stare softened at the touch, and his breathing eased, and he slowly drifted toward sleep.
I don't need you to be mine, thought Glorfindel. I don't need you to forgive me. I don't even need you to love me...
...I just need you - alive and well, even in your distant corner of the world. You can be my star in the night.
My light in the dark.
I may not have you in my reach, but you will always shine for me. The light of my life, the torch on my path.
Legolas sighed in contentment, as if some secret part of him knew he was safe, held in love, and absolutely cherished. Glorfindel smiled down upon him fondly.
"No matter what," Glorfindel murmured at him, "No matter when or where: you will always have my love."
He leaned over the golden head, and placed a kiss upon it.
Goodbye.
TO BE CONCLUDED IN AN EPILOGUE
'til the next post!
