Title: In Dreams Together
Author: Gevaudan
Author's Note: My apologies on the lateness of this. I've been busy with AS level work, Christmas, my birthday, a trip to Nottingham and see Two Towers three times. To top it all off, I wrote this and saved it on a disk. The disk worked on my home computer but then mysteriously deleted everything I had written and now appears to have been reformatted by a considerate member of my family who didn't check what was on it...who later explained that he had not deleted it he had moved it…Grrr, younger brothers are so annoying!!!
To White Wolf and Linis.... Thanks. Between the two of you I got round to writing again :-)
***
The King of Gondor, Elessar, the holder of the Elfstone, sat at his heavy, mallorn wood desk, signing his name carefully on document after document using a long eagle feathered quill that Gandalf the White, Head of the Istari, had given him shortly after his coronation ten years ago. The feather was said to come from the eagle lord Gwaihir himself. Gandalf had said that the Lord Eagle had permitted the wizard to take a single feather, and have in made into a quill as a gift from one monarch to another. Elessar had been deeply touched and now counted the quill among his most treasured possessions.
A knock came at the door to his study, after a pause the knock came again, louder this time. It seemed whoever waited outside was not to be dissuaded from their purpose.
'Come,' the monarch of Gondor sighed, secretly relieved to have a distraction from the tedium of day-to-day bureaucracy. The dark door swung open to reveal a young man in his twenties garbed in a charcoal grey doublet bearing the white tree emblem, revealing him to be a guard of the tower. Aragorn recognised him as Eragor, a distant cousin of his close friend, Faramir, the steward of Gondor.
'Yes, Eragor? What can I do for you?' the monarch asked his subject, smiling gently as he turned to face him.
The young man shuffled uneasily into the study as though unsure of how to proceed. Elessar could see in his eyes his conflict and subsequent battle to sort his thoughts into order.
'Sir,' he finally began, 'on our regular morning patrol of the plains we discovered a rider-less mount straying alone.' He stopped then, abruptly as though waiting for the King to guess the rest of the context of his conversation. His nervousness at this encounter was betrayed by the frenetic tapping of his feet upon the ground.
'A horse of Rohan, do you think?' Elessar asked, trying to draw the young man into conversation.
'No sir. The horse, carried packs and was bridled yet it wore no saddle.'
Elessar could think of only one person that he had seen ride in such a way, worriedly he asked his next question.
'Did you find the rider?'
'Yes Sir. We bought him to the Halls of Healing. We are not sure but we think the rider may have been Lord Legolas of Ithilien.'
He may as well have been speaking to the wind, at his words Elessar had exited the room to be at the side of his friend.
***
He entered the Halls at a dead run, stopping suddenly at the sight of the Elf laid out before him. His face was such a deathly white that it appeared to blend into the sheet he lay on. Elessar's breath caught in his throat, Legolas was so still and unmoving that he had to look hard to see the faint rising and falling of his chest. He approached slowly not wishing to disturb the creature so still before him. His fears were allayed slightly when cool blue eyes flickered towards him, dark as coals in his alabaster face.
'Ai, mellon nin,' he whispered softly, shocked at the haunted look in the eyes that regarded him unblinking.
'Aragorn?' Legolas whispered, his voice as dry as leaves on a breeze, 'What happened?'
'I was hoping,' his friend replied, smiling at the use of the name he had borne as the Dunedain of the Rangers, 'That you could tell me something of that.'
He poured a tumbler of watch from a pitcher beside the Elf's bed, before gently assisting into a sitting position, with one gentle hand at his back.
'Steady,' he cautioned as Legolas drank thirstily, 'do you remember nothing that happened to you?'
The Elf sat for a moment before reaching gentle probing fingers to the back of his head, fingers that Aragorn knocked away before they reached their intended target.
'I banged my head,' he commented finally with a wan smile.
Aragorn returned the gesture although it did not reach the eyes. Although for a mortal Legolas' wound would have been considered severe, he had never seen such an injury affect the Mirkwood warrior so badly. It suggested that something more was amiss that the Elf could either not remember or was loathe to reveal and the King was determined to find out what was afflicting the archer so badly.
'And how,' he asked, 'did you achieve such a feat?'
There was another pause, slightly longer this time.
'I was riding, so I must have fallen off...Arod! Did your patrol find him Ara... forgive me, Elessar, for I do not think Eomer would forgive me easily were he to become lost.'
Aragorn touched his stricken friend's shoulder reassuringly, 'You may call me Aragorn, I have been known as that to you long before I took the name Elessar, and yes, Arod is here he is in the stable with Hasufel.'
The Elf relaxed then leaning back into the soft cushions Aragorn had propped up for him.
'Why were you riding in the dead of night Legolas? Surely nothing is amiss in Ithilien?'
'No, all is fair in Ithilien now. Faramir and I had a problem with a band of rogue orcs but that was last month and since then all has been quiet. Ithilien is once again a garden, as I hoped it would be. I will indeed be sorry when my people depart to the west.'
'As will all of Gondor,' Aragorn commented thinking sadly of the day when his oldest friend would make his final journey across the sea to Valinor, 'no land is as beautiful as one in which the Fair Folk dwell.'
'The lands will remain beautiful Aragorn. The very earth and stones will remember our dwelling there and tell of our passing long after our voices fall silent.'
Aragorn nodded, remembering the Vale of Hollin at the base of Caradhras, where his friend had heard the stones in the earth remember the passing of the Fair Folk into the West.
'So all is well in Ithilien,' he clarified, receiving a gentle nod from Legolas, 'then what persuaded you to travel here in the dead of night? I have not seen you give up your rest for anything less than the arising of the Dark Lord himself.'
Legolas smiled again, briefly, before answering, 'Nay, the Dark Lord does not rise, I merely left later in the evening than I anticipated I would, yet I saw no reason to delay my journey until the next morning.'
'Legolas, to be where our patrol found you, you must have left in the dead of night! Are you sure nothing is amiss?'
Legolas' eyes flared with a blue fire at these words.
'I am not so grievously wounded, Elessar, that I forget any danger, to Ithilien or myself! I know what my errand here was and I know that it was no more that a desire to see old friends once more and to meet Eldarion, since I have not seen since him since he was a babe.'
Angrily he stared at the man before him until he was forced to drop his gaze to his knees, upon which his hands were held clenched.
'That is not,' he replied, voice strained, 'what I was implying Legolas.'
The man lifted his eyes to meet the blue orbs of his friend, which were now filled with repentance.
'Forgive me,' the Elf spoke softly now, 'I have been somewhat on edge of late.' He forcibly brightened his face. 'Now, since I have arrived I have completed only one of three parts of my task. I have not yet seen the Lady Arwen or your son, Aragorn.' He made as if to swing his legs over the side of the bed, grimacing slightly at the dull stab of pain the movement caused him.
'Steady,' Aragorn cautioned him, the hand once more returning the hand to the elf's shoulder, 'I cannot let you see Arwen with the state you are in at the moment.'
'I am not hurt Aragorn. I am almost completely recovered now.'
A gleam of wicked humour appeared in the man's eyes.
'It is not your injury that concerns me my friend. It is merely the state of your appearance. At the very least your hair needs a good brush, Master Elf, before I will let you anywhere near my wife.'
Legolas' eyes glinted.
'I think, that however I may appear, I should be a distinct improvement to behold than you, my friend.'
Aragorn tipped his head.
'Tell me, Master Elf, which of us did Arwen marry you or me?'
Legolas paused for a moment, as if deep in thought.
'Well,' he replied finally with a light laugh that lifted the spirits of all who heard it, 'they do say love is blind.'
***
Time passed swiftly in Minas Tirith, as Legolas had known it would. He had been overjoyed to meet with Aragorn's wife once more. Arwen Undomiel, Evenstar of her people had lost none of her beauty and grace since giving up her immortality to be at the side of the mortal man she loved.
Eldarion had grown much since Legolas had seen him last, reminding him sadly of how fleeting the time of a man on Middle Earth was. He had the dark hair and eyes of his father and reminded the Elf greatly of the child Estel who had been brought up in the House of Elrond at Imladris. He had seen the child, as he had been on his way to bed, led unwilling by the hand by his mother. Briefly the child had turned curious eyes on the visitor to his house but had paid him no mind as he had returned to protesting that he did not want a bath.
***
The dream struck again that night, with the same figures reaching out to him. This time they stood not in a desert but on the Plains of Rohan. Far behind them Legolas could make out the Halls of Edoras, shining golden in the sunlight. Dimly too he sensed a presence at his back but try as he might he could not turn to see who stood there. The blue figures came closer and closer, skeletal hands outstretched to caress his pale cheek. Their touch was as cool as ice sending a shiver through his body like a cascade of icy water. He gasped and flinched away but the skeletal fingers dug into his jaw, forcing his eyes to a dark shadowy hood.
A reedy voice echoed around him penetrating his mind and lodging there like a thought he could not get rid of.
'Gandalf?' it asked with a hissing sibilant tone, 'Where is Gandalf?'
***
Legolas awoke gasping unsure of what to make of the question asked of him. Long minutes did he lay there, the message playing over and over in his head until finally he stood and left the room in search of fresh air to clear his head.
Wandering the corridors aimlessly he came across a small figure dressed in his nightclothes. Smiling Legolas slowly approached Aragorn's son, the heir to the throne of Gondor.
'Hello,' the small child greeted him as Legolas crouched before him, 'Who are you?'
'I am Legolas, son of Thranduil,' the Elf replied with a smile, 'I am an old friend of your father's.'
'Are you an Elf?' The boy asked reaching out with small hands to caress the points on Legolas' ears, 'Like mama?'
He nodded slowly, thinking back on a time when the boy's father had done exactly the same thing.
'Why are you out of bed Eldarion? It is late, you should be asleep.'
The young prince looked embarrassed at the question.
'I had a nightmare,' he finally admitted in a small voice, he looked up at the Elf Prince for reassurance.
'I shall tell you a secret,' Legolas whispered to the boy who's eyes lit up, 'So did I.'
'And so,' the voice of the King of Gondor echoed down the corridor startling the two figures, 'did I.'
As he said this his eyes bored into those of his friend.
