Author's Note: Well...it's really late, and I've been working for the last eight hours. Too tired to comment on this. Hope it's not too incoherent. That's all I got to say. Oh yeah, I took some liberty with the elves, but nothing that doesn't already fit them. This is Legolas's last angst-ridden chapter (at least on Aragorn's behalf; I haven't even started in on Haldir yet). Next chapter should be at least a little light-hearted. But enjoy this one first, you shmucks. ^_- By the way, Newmoon, that pun was *not* intentional, and I didn't even see it until you pointed it out. *laughs wildly and falls asleep over the keyboard*
Update - Thanks, Ola, for pointing out the grammar error. My comp didn't catch it in spellcheck, and like I said...I was a little incoherent. All fixed now. ^_^
Premonition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gimli awoke in the darkness just before dawn, his mind groggy with sleep. All around him was stone and rock, things of comfort and security. He had awakened before anyone else in the Deep, it seemed, save the king's men who were guarding it.
Nearby, he heard soft muttering, nonsense words. It was a light voice, deep and murmuring. Legolas. He knew it was; after weeks of traveling with Legolas, he could recognize the elf's voice even when he couldn't understand him.
Lying under the window, Gimli saw the elf in profile, fine, clear moonlight pouring over his body. The elf's eyes were wide and blank in that disconcerting disconnected sleeping gaze that had made Gimli unquiet for many days after he had met him, and even now, it gave him a chill. There was nothing in those blue eyes but reflected light. They were absence, they were goneness, they were the space between stars. This wasn't any different from before, but somehow this night, it seemed to disturb him more violently than before. There was no sign of the elf that had saved his life by dragging him up by the beard in Moria. Legolas was running with the night.
Looking at Legolas, slim pale feline muscles, face slack in sleep, lips barely moving with guttural, rapid singsong, the smooth soles of his bare feet, his slender, narrow hands-twitching like a cat's paws in a dream-Gimli was reminded of Galadriel, and his heart filled with longing and sadness. Legolas shifted in his sleep, turning his face to the moon, letting out breath in a sigh of words, and Gimli let out his breath as well, unaware that he had been holding it.
// He's beautiful, like she is, // Gimli thought, aware even more now than before how wrong he and his people had been about the elves. // Everything that is beautiful, or ever was, is in them. Their kind. But everything that is sorrow is in them too. They carry all the woes of the world. //
But as much as he wanted to, Gimli had no idea of how to comfort his friend. He had learned much of elvish grief since Aragorn's fall, and even more about himself.
Turning over to spare himself such a beautiful and sorrowful sight, the dwarf lay for a long time, just thinking. It was something he didn't do very often; as a hard, fast rule, dwarves acted first and thought later. The first emotion he had felt about Aragorn's passing had not been grief but fury. Burning rage that had demanded to be vented into violence. He had thought about the battle over and over, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. There was nothing he could have done, he decided, with a dwarf's grim practicality. Nothing could have been done to avoid it. But Aragorn was dead, and for what?! He wanted to get those damned orcs for that! He remembered how it had felt to sling his ax in that battle, how he had gone around finishing off wounded orcs lying on the battlefield, the feel of sinking his axblade into their dirty, stinking flesh. That had felt good! It had been good, to end their dark, barbarous lives. He had felt no mercy.
But Gimli was logical, mercilessly realistic. It had been two days and two nights, and Aragorn had not returned. He was gone. So he was dead, then, and nothing could bring him back. So that was that. He died in an endless plain, far from his home or even his own country. He died fighting giant wolfish beasts, and his last sight might very well have been one of their terrible mouths, yellowed razor fangs and carrion breath. He died like that, and Gimli couldn't help but want something more than a few words of sympathy, a few words of praise, a verse of song. He couldn't help wishing that if Aragorn had had to die, he could have died fighting Sauron himself, like the father of Isildur.
// I'll make his death worth something, // Gimli thought, half-dozing. // I'll make those orcs wish they had never ventured from their rotten caverns. Really kick those ugly curs in the balls, make them wish they had never heard of a dwarf. //
He felt asleep with a smile on his face as if he awaited the chance with pleasure, dozed off with that last thought of vengeance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Legolas's dreams were of the ocean.
He had never seen the sea that lay between the lands he knew and the Grey Havens. But every elf was drawn to those deep, dark waters, like lemmings to the cliff. He longed for gullsong and the waves, like the planet's undying heartbeat, as immortal as his own.
He could hear the song of his people in his ears, a song that didn't make sense to him, and did make sense. It was not any song of mourning, or of lost valor. It was a song of triumph, and a song of going on. It was enough to make his heart leap with the clear, silvery joy only an elf can feel. He knew it was a dream, and didn't care if it went on forever; he could not remember being so peaceful.
He felt the presence of Aragorn behind him, and he turned around. The Ranger stood on the damp sand, staring out across the stormy waters. Anduril was in his hand, and an army of ghosts stood behind him.
// Aragorn! //
The sea grew more violent. Winds shook the beach.
// Aragorn! Run! //
The world tilted wildly. Legolas tried to go towards Aragorn, but it seemed he didn't have control of this dream, whether he knew he was dreaming or not; his feet would not move.
Aragorn lifted Anduril to the sky, and it glowed as if lit with its own inner light. The sky split with fierce lightning above them, like great river rocks slammed together. The phantom warriors stood behind him unmoving, as Aragorn was swallowed by the churning sea, until Anduril shone beneath the waters like a trapped star.
// Aragorn!! //
::he is coming::
Legolas jerked awake in the darkness, rapid breath dry and rasping in his throat. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he was disoriented. His dream, muddled and frightening as it was, was already lost to him. There was no smells of leaves or bark or fresh wind in this gloomy place, only fire and stone. He was lying on stone, cold stone. He hated it; it felt as if he was in a tomb.
He sat up, glancing around, swallowing back panic, and forced himself to realize where he was. Torchlight, stone, moonlight shafting in through the hole in the stone wall that served as a window, warm dreaming forms all around him, the soft steady pounding of sleeping mortal hearts. Gimli snored loudly near him, and as soon as Legolas's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see Gimli sleeping flat on his back, ax cradled over his chest.
// You're safe! You're safe! Window, stone, torch. Rohan! Rohan! It's only Rohan! //
Suddenly, without really understanding what he was doing, Legolas stood up and picked his way gently through sleeping humans, past Gimli's snoring form, and out into the courtyard. Past that, he was drawn into the sheer unlit darkness of the grasslands. Only the stars and moon lit the night, and dimly. He walked out into a fog that was thick and white to the backs of his knees. It was like walking through a ghostly drift of snow (which was something Legolas had never experienced in his life to begin with, being too light to sink into snow).
He looked up and saw a billion stars overhead, cold pinpoints of light in the darkness. He had always loved the stars, had been comforted them before. But now, alone in the dark, they made him feel small, meaningless, unable to change the course of anything.
He crossed his legs in front of him, opening his mind, letting it fly. He listened as he had before, listened to all the sounds of the night. Hoofbeats on the earth...water flowing....wind sighing. He could hear the armies marching still, if he listened close, but they were still very far.
Legolas sank into the night, sweeping high on the wind as he allowed his free consciousness to touch a passing hawk's. Part of his consciousness stayed with his body, which had slipped back into wide-eyed sleep. He experienced the night through his senses, through the hawk's senses, through the senses of a dozen other creatures. It was a gift among the Eldar.
He didn't know why he had gone there, out into the darkness alone. He had been called. Gimli didn't know it, but his thoughts of Legolas "running with the night" were more true than he would have ever understood. The elf thought about thirst; felt thirst, terrible thirst, even though he was not physically thirsty. It was like a memory of agony, there and gone again. He cried out for the need of it, and didn't know why. And heat, he felt terrible heat even though the night was cool, almost cold. He smelled the warm, dry, soothing scent of a horse's pelt, felt it like velvet beneath his clenched fingers. He didn't know what either of these things meant. They were like an amputated limb that cried out it was still there in phantom pain.
When he came back to himself, minutes later, though it had felt like hours, the sensations were gone. He felt only a vague chill, and exhaustion, a weary submission. Even his deep, stabbing grief had left him. It retreated to a dull suffering in his heart, an ache for Boromir, and an ache for Aragorn. That was all. He did not have the strength left for anything else.
He knew, dimly, that he should return to the Deep. That if Gimli awoke, Gimli would worry for him. Legolas cared for Gimli, didn't want to worry him. He knew that the grief of Aragorn's fall-he still refused to think of it as death-had struck Gimli as hard as it had struck him, although in a different way that Legolas couldn't understand any more than Gimli could understand *his* sorrow. Mortals healed of such grief, he knew. They had to put it behind them. They did not have the luxury of all the ages to mourn. But just as the sadness of Boromir's passing had never truly left him, neither would Aragorn's. He resigned himself to it like a wound he knew would never heal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ Okay, that's enough bellyaching. Time to bring Elessar back in the next chapter.
Update - Thanks, Ola, for pointing out the grammar error. My comp didn't catch it in spellcheck, and like I said...I was a little incoherent. All fixed now. ^_^
Premonition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gimli awoke in the darkness just before dawn, his mind groggy with sleep. All around him was stone and rock, things of comfort and security. He had awakened before anyone else in the Deep, it seemed, save the king's men who were guarding it.
Nearby, he heard soft muttering, nonsense words. It was a light voice, deep and murmuring. Legolas. He knew it was; after weeks of traveling with Legolas, he could recognize the elf's voice even when he couldn't understand him.
Lying under the window, Gimli saw the elf in profile, fine, clear moonlight pouring over his body. The elf's eyes were wide and blank in that disconcerting disconnected sleeping gaze that had made Gimli unquiet for many days after he had met him, and even now, it gave him a chill. There was nothing in those blue eyes but reflected light. They were absence, they were goneness, they were the space between stars. This wasn't any different from before, but somehow this night, it seemed to disturb him more violently than before. There was no sign of the elf that had saved his life by dragging him up by the beard in Moria. Legolas was running with the night.
Looking at Legolas, slim pale feline muscles, face slack in sleep, lips barely moving with guttural, rapid singsong, the smooth soles of his bare feet, his slender, narrow hands-twitching like a cat's paws in a dream-Gimli was reminded of Galadriel, and his heart filled with longing and sadness. Legolas shifted in his sleep, turning his face to the moon, letting out breath in a sigh of words, and Gimli let out his breath as well, unaware that he had been holding it.
// He's beautiful, like she is, // Gimli thought, aware even more now than before how wrong he and his people had been about the elves. // Everything that is beautiful, or ever was, is in them. Their kind. But everything that is sorrow is in them too. They carry all the woes of the world. //
But as much as he wanted to, Gimli had no idea of how to comfort his friend. He had learned much of elvish grief since Aragorn's fall, and even more about himself.
Turning over to spare himself such a beautiful and sorrowful sight, the dwarf lay for a long time, just thinking. It was something he didn't do very often; as a hard, fast rule, dwarves acted first and thought later. The first emotion he had felt about Aragorn's passing had not been grief but fury. Burning rage that had demanded to be vented into violence. He had thought about the battle over and over, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. There was nothing he could have done, he decided, with a dwarf's grim practicality. Nothing could have been done to avoid it. But Aragorn was dead, and for what?! He wanted to get those damned orcs for that! He remembered how it had felt to sling his ax in that battle, how he had gone around finishing off wounded orcs lying on the battlefield, the feel of sinking his axblade into their dirty, stinking flesh. That had felt good! It had been good, to end their dark, barbarous lives. He had felt no mercy.
But Gimli was logical, mercilessly realistic. It had been two days and two nights, and Aragorn had not returned. He was gone. So he was dead, then, and nothing could bring him back. So that was that. He died in an endless plain, far from his home or even his own country. He died fighting giant wolfish beasts, and his last sight might very well have been one of their terrible mouths, yellowed razor fangs and carrion breath. He died like that, and Gimli couldn't help but want something more than a few words of sympathy, a few words of praise, a verse of song. He couldn't help wishing that if Aragorn had had to die, he could have died fighting Sauron himself, like the father of Isildur.
// I'll make his death worth something, // Gimli thought, half-dozing. // I'll make those orcs wish they had never ventured from their rotten caverns. Really kick those ugly curs in the balls, make them wish they had never heard of a dwarf. //
He felt asleep with a smile on his face as if he awaited the chance with pleasure, dozed off with that last thought of vengeance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Legolas's dreams were of the ocean.
He had never seen the sea that lay between the lands he knew and the Grey Havens. But every elf was drawn to those deep, dark waters, like lemmings to the cliff. He longed for gullsong and the waves, like the planet's undying heartbeat, as immortal as his own.
He could hear the song of his people in his ears, a song that didn't make sense to him, and did make sense. It was not any song of mourning, or of lost valor. It was a song of triumph, and a song of going on. It was enough to make his heart leap with the clear, silvery joy only an elf can feel. He knew it was a dream, and didn't care if it went on forever; he could not remember being so peaceful.
He felt the presence of Aragorn behind him, and he turned around. The Ranger stood on the damp sand, staring out across the stormy waters. Anduril was in his hand, and an army of ghosts stood behind him.
// Aragorn! //
The sea grew more violent. Winds shook the beach.
// Aragorn! Run! //
The world tilted wildly. Legolas tried to go towards Aragorn, but it seemed he didn't have control of this dream, whether he knew he was dreaming or not; his feet would not move.
Aragorn lifted Anduril to the sky, and it glowed as if lit with its own inner light. The sky split with fierce lightning above them, like great river rocks slammed together. The phantom warriors stood behind him unmoving, as Aragorn was swallowed by the churning sea, until Anduril shone beneath the waters like a trapped star.
// Aragorn!! //
::he is coming::
Legolas jerked awake in the darkness, rapid breath dry and rasping in his throat. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he was disoriented. His dream, muddled and frightening as it was, was already lost to him. There was no smells of leaves or bark or fresh wind in this gloomy place, only fire and stone. He was lying on stone, cold stone. He hated it; it felt as if he was in a tomb.
He sat up, glancing around, swallowing back panic, and forced himself to realize where he was. Torchlight, stone, moonlight shafting in through the hole in the stone wall that served as a window, warm dreaming forms all around him, the soft steady pounding of sleeping mortal hearts. Gimli snored loudly near him, and as soon as Legolas's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see Gimli sleeping flat on his back, ax cradled over his chest.
// You're safe! You're safe! Window, stone, torch. Rohan! Rohan! It's only Rohan! //
Suddenly, without really understanding what he was doing, Legolas stood up and picked his way gently through sleeping humans, past Gimli's snoring form, and out into the courtyard. Past that, he was drawn into the sheer unlit darkness of the grasslands. Only the stars and moon lit the night, and dimly. He walked out into a fog that was thick and white to the backs of his knees. It was like walking through a ghostly drift of snow (which was something Legolas had never experienced in his life to begin with, being too light to sink into snow).
He looked up and saw a billion stars overhead, cold pinpoints of light in the darkness. He had always loved the stars, had been comforted them before. But now, alone in the dark, they made him feel small, meaningless, unable to change the course of anything.
He crossed his legs in front of him, opening his mind, letting it fly. He listened as he had before, listened to all the sounds of the night. Hoofbeats on the earth...water flowing....wind sighing. He could hear the armies marching still, if he listened close, but they were still very far.
Legolas sank into the night, sweeping high on the wind as he allowed his free consciousness to touch a passing hawk's. Part of his consciousness stayed with his body, which had slipped back into wide-eyed sleep. He experienced the night through his senses, through the hawk's senses, through the senses of a dozen other creatures. It was a gift among the Eldar.
He didn't know why he had gone there, out into the darkness alone. He had been called. Gimli didn't know it, but his thoughts of Legolas "running with the night" were more true than he would have ever understood. The elf thought about thirst; felt thirst, terrible thirst, even though he was not physically thirsty. It was like a memory of agony, there and gone again. He cried out for the need of it, and didn't know why. And heat, he felt terrible heat even though the night was cool, almost cold. He smelled the warm, dry, soothing scent of a horse's pelt, felt it like velvet beneath his clenched fingers. He didn't know what either of these things meant. They were like an amputated limb that cried out it was still there in phantom pain.
When he came back to himself, minutes later, though it had felt like hours, the sensations were gone. He felt only a vague chill, and exhaustion, a weary submission. Even his deep, stabbing grief had left him. It retreated to a dull suffering in his heart, an ache for Boromir, and an ache for Aragorn. That was all. He did not have the strength left for anything else.
He knew, dimly, that he should return to the Deep. That if Gimli awoke, Gimli would worry for him. Legolas cared for Gimli, didn't want to worry him. He knew that the grief of Aragorn's fall-he still refused to think of it as death-had struck Gimli as hard as it had struck him, although in a different way that Legolas couldn't understand any more than Gimli could understand *his* sorrow. Mortals healed of such grief, he knew. They had to put it behind them. They did not have the luxury of all the ages to mourn. But just as the sadness of Boromir's passing had never truly left him, neither would Aragorn's. He resigned himself to it like a wound he knew would never heal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ Okay, that's enough bellyaching. Time to bring Elessar back in the next chapter.