Author's note: So, we are actually still two chapters away from Part V, because I have put in a spurt of short chapters instead of a longer and more sweeping one. Thank you for sticking with me. Also, I realize that Gwaerain's behavior may be underexplained, and that is something I will be addressing in the editing process (and it is a pretty significant part of the sequel, and from her own POV). However, I also think I am overthinking things now... When I started this fic in 2016, I was working in the child abuse investigation field, and now I am a graduate student in, very broadly explained, mass trauma and family interventions. So. I think about war trauma and chronic stress a lot more than I did when I started this—when I was primarily thinking on a family unit in context basis—and I have a lot to repair for Gwaerain, I think; a lot of the atmosphere of Mirkwood ought to be more...fleshed out, to help situate her behavior. Excuse it? Absolutely not. Give the disintegration of family roles and responsibilities amidst a chronically war- and trauma-exposed society more weight? Yes.

Alas, I am only a humble fanfic writer. And hindsight is 20/20.


Part IV:

Chapter Twenty-Three


Lumornon stepped between mother and brother and extended a hand toward both, increasing the sense of distance between them. Legolas, meanwhile, stood tense beneath Ithildim's firm hold, though his weight was shifted to the balls of his feet, and he clenched one hand in a loose fist at his side; the other hooked on his belt beneath his tunic and sweater, uselessly fingering that spot to which he usually attached his knife and sheath. He felt the rising energy of those he knew and loved swirling about him—as well as the arrival of his father and Piniriel—but he could not look away from his mother.

"Hello, Lumornon," he finally said, glancing at his brother quickly and then nodding toward his friends and captains, before returning his gaze to Gwaerain, cold and young and challenging but—Lumornon could tell, whether Legolas knew it himself or not—still scared.

"Emlineg," Lumornon said quietly, and he dropped his raised hands and stepped toward him, pulled the hand away from his belt and let it fall loosely to his side. "You do not know what you are doing, Legolas; let Ithildim take you back to the Halls."

But then Legolas had turned on him, dislodged Ithildim, and stepped forward with arms crossed over his chest defensively. "I know what I am doing, brother, and I intend to do it; I intend her to actually hear me!" He gestured at his mother without looking at her. "I have given her my life, my childhood, my love. I have allowed her to grow me and I have allowed her to reach into me, even now, and remind me of what we have lost—" His voice cracked and he tilted his chin to his shoulder as he coughed, tone rough and tired from shouting. "And I will not be intimidated by my own mother," he managed as he turned back, with bitter control. "I will not be manipulated into concession, made to feel selfish for something I cannot control, something that she gave me: my love for this place and its green; my love for this land, my heart..."

Lumornon reached to place a hand on Legolas' shoulder to ground him, but Legolas shifted swiftly away like a leaf in the wind, and he slipped back into his place at Ithildim's side, refusing to meet Lumornon's eyes. Amonhir and Lostariel had edged closer, as well as Saida.

Thranduil was close to them now, too, with Piniriel still pressed to his chest, and he sidled past Gwaerain to stand behind Lumornon. He felt his heart breaking as Piniriel shifted in his arms to face her beloved brother, tugging at her father's robes as she did so. Legolas looked up at him, then, with the tiredest eyes Thranduil had seen in an age.

"I have done what you asked, Father, because the 'people are nervous'," Legolas said then, gesturing toward the recruits behind him, to the few other soldiers who had emerged from the barracks at the commotion, "and because the inquiry was unfinished. I have reported myself to Lostariel, have told her all—done everything she asked, lowered myself to the memory of it—and, now, I am done." He looked from his father to Lumornon and back again. "I shall not be talking any more, and I will not suffer being asked to do it again. I am serious. Do you understand?"

Thranduil readjusted his hold on Piniriel and nodded, though his throat felt tight as the ruins of his family was so laid so clearly around him. "Of course, Legolas."

"And I will not be asked to leave this place again, Mother," Legolas said, looking at her as directly as he could manage, though his heart was loud again in his ears and he was barely cognizant now of the chill of the air, or the feel of Ithildim's hand begun to dig again into the wool at his wrist. "I will not."

She nodded and shifted under Elednil's hold on her— "Of course, my son. I do not know what came over me; of course, Legolas."

He turned back to his father and looked at his tiny sister for a moment, she who he had tended and loved for her entire short life, who had given him purpose outside of the work he did in the woods, a more gentle place for his mind, his energy—

He looked firmly to his father (ignored Lostariel and Amonhir, ignored the trainees and his peers), and he spoke as if his family were the only ones about him. "I will go pay respect to the memory of Felavel now, and no one will follow me, except for Ithildim."

Ithildim shifted beside him, reaffirmed his hold on his wrist.

Lostariel turned then and shooed the trainees away, quietly suggested Saida dismiss them early; she sent Amonhir to her office to draft a message to the Board and call a meeting of soldiers and guards after dinner hour.

"King Thranduil," she said then, quietly but firmly, not bothering to lower her voice. "The Elvenqueen should go back to your rooms and, Elednil—if I may—if you would go with her, as well." She jerked her head back toward the Hall Guard who had, earlier, left Gwaerain. "In addition to this one here." The guard stood with his head bowed, in confusion and shame, behind Piniriel and the King.

"Of course, Captain," Elednil answered immediately, and he waited to be dismissed.

Lumornon had stepped toward his brother and pulled off his own cloak; he draped it about Legolas' shoulders, tightened it and pulled the hood up about his head. Their differences were stark then: Lumornon's height was their father's—the height of the Sindar and the build of the Laegrim of ages past—while Legolas their mother's—less tall, lithe but muscular, a Silvan form of a lesser age; one was dark hair, bright in the snowscape about them, and the other a honey-gold, hidden in the folds of a brother's borrowed, burgundy cloak. Lumornon shaded him then, as they looked upon one another, like a sturdy oak, and the cloak fell from Legolas like a willow weeping.

Lumornon swallowed hard, took up his brother's shoulders and squeezed. He pressed a kiss to his brow, inclined his head to Ithildim and stepped away.

They turned.

But Piniriel was squirming down before they had taken even two steps, had run to her brother and thrown arms about him, and so Legolas knelt and spoke to her quietly, lower than his parents could hear. Eventually, he spoke louder, voice shaking slightly and face hidden in the folds of his cloak:

"Perhaps Lumornon will work the puzzle with you, the one with the flowers?"

She smiled, and he held her cheek, pressed a kiss to her temple.

"All right then, go."

And then Lumornon picked her up and endured her tugging, the fingers she sank into the hair at the nape of his neck as she settled. Legolas watched him carefully and then glanced toward his mother one final time; Elednil had tightened his grip on her arms slightly as Legolas shifted again to walk away.

But Legolas said nothing, even as his mother opened her mouth to speak, and he turned abruptly; Ithildim was at Legolas' side, then, like a shadow. He adjusted a heavy pack on his back—which Lumornon had not noticed until that moment—and then he had pressed a gentle hand between Legolas' shoulder blades, and they stepped over the fallen log into the trees.

They had only taken a few steps, and the wide world was silent and still around them, when Gwaerain's voice came loud from behind:

"Do you no longer have love for me then, emlineg?"

A pause, filled with a lovelorn admonishment from Thranduil, that she did not heed.

"For she who made you, child?"

Legolas did not immediately turn, but he was struck still, burnt to the soul by the carelessness of the accusation. "How can you ask me this?" he finally forced out roughly.

Ithildim slid a hand beneath his cloak to steady him, but he jerked immediately away, turned around in a flourish of heavy wool and hurt-heart.

"You have stolen much, mother. This has broken me," he hissed, and he purposefully avoided looking at her face, could not look at Piniriel or Lumornon or his father as he turned his back on her, took another step to walk away, adding quietly as he steeled himself and forced his feet to move again: "But being broken does not stop the loving. You, of all people, should know that."

He could feel his mother staring, his father breaking, and then Ithildim trailing behind him, but he focused all his energy forward, forward, forward on walking away—

They disappeared into the woods slowly darkening with dusk, towards his sister's cairn, and he relished the harsh pull of the heavy evening air at his tired throat, for it kept him stuck and weighted, anchored to the ground.


At the treeline, there was a moment of stillness as the two blended into the forest. All left behind stood still and staring, until Piniriel had tugged and pulled and worked to be let down.

Lumornon lowered her and then turned to his father, to Lostariel. Gwaerain suddenly collapsed beneath Elednil's hands—wrists slipped out of his grasp with her momentum, and his surprise—and she hunched in the snow. Her hands worried at her sleeves, ever-busy, just like her youngest son's. Lumornon immediately pulled her to her feet, tried to ground and sooth her, but she became an immediate whirlwind and a storm, a cutting winter wind rushing up a cliff. She raged and fought until Thranduil was beside her, one hand on either side of her face, knees bent slightly so he could look directly into her eyes—

She fell silent and was back; her face seemed to dissolve in that moment to blank, empty as a frozen lake, a dazed bird—lost.

"I am not enough to control myself," she said in a choking voice, smaller than Lumornon had ever seen or heard her. "I cannot stop it."

"And neither can I," Thranduil said quietly, shifting his grip on her face; she clutched at his arms. "You have set something in motion that cannot be undone."

She fell silent, dropped her head, and Thranduil pulled her to his chest as she sobbed.

"I have lost him, Thranduil; my star, my love," she spoke into his robes— "I have lost him."

Thranduil said nothing and Lumornon did not either; he only stepped away from them, his parents, to stand by Lostariel, and together they turned to watch Piniriel struggling with her mittens so she could roll in the snow.

"I will help you pack, Gwaerain, my love," his father was saying quietly, and then he was walking past them, her arm looped through his and Elednil close at her other side, hand wrapped firmly about her upper arm.

There was a cut of salty shine on his father's cheek as he glanced over at him, murmured quietly, "Please assure that Legolas is back before the morning."

Lumornon nodded and watched him go. His father's voice came from farther away: "There is the Board tomorrow, Gwaerain, and we should begin to have your things prepared—"

"And Piniriel's?" his mother was asking.

"We shall see."

And then his parents' voices were lost to the muting magic of snow-cover, dissolving into grey. Lostariel looked around at the last few lingering soldiers and compatriots, and they immediately bowed their heads and walked away, returning to wherever and whatever they had been doing.

Eventually, it was only he, Lostariel, and Piniriel left behind at the forest's edge.

After a time, Lumornon finally looked back to his small sister, and he was startled into smiling—Lostariel knelt before her, patiently working the child's small hands into the mittens. Piniriel beamed. Lostariel ruffled her hair when she was done and stepped away, settled gently on the ground.

"What do you say, child?" Lumornon asked Piniriel, almost automatically.

But Piniriel only stared and shook her head, brows knit low, and she turned away and sank into the snow, burrowed hands beneath to the quiet, untouched layers below, deep and dark, bright and endless. She did not acknowledge them again in her play.

Lumornon sighed and settled down into the snow beside Lostariel, dropped his chin into his hand.

"I think the eyebrows meant 'Thank you, Lostariel," he said flatly, tilting his head toward his friend. "'Thank you for helping me so I do not lose my fingers, Lostariel.'"

Lostariel laughed lightly but then fell quiet, watched the child where she lay flat to the ground, one arm shoved as far as it could go into the tunnel she had made. "Your family does have a way with silence."

Lumornon sighed, but said nothing. He threw himself onto his back and watched the winter clouds burn into lightest gold as the sun sped a hasty retreat. He wished for a moment of peace, some time to rebuild—

But—too soon—the sun was gone, and Lostariel had tugged him to his feet.

She pressed a shivering child into his arms, laid a kiss on his cheek, and then she was gone, too, back to her office to finish her reports and distribute them to Board members.

Lumornon was alone, then, with his sister.

He spoke to her quietly and hefted her up; turned away from the fields and took the path to the Gates.

Behind him, the wood darkened and was muted—silent—in the fallen winter light.


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