Fall From the Truth
Chapter Three
Reverence
(A/N: Slight reformat of the standard chapter for easier navigation; apparently some were mistaking my authors notes for part of the story, and so I'm testing better ways to separate the actual story from my brief rants. I have a few topics to touch on here that have absolutely nothing to do with this story. Number one: toques. I was talking to one of my American friends, and he asked what my basic style was. I said, Bohemian Hippy with a Toque. Well, it took me about half an hour to explain to him what a bloody TOQUE was-eventually found a photo of one on Google and he's like, "Oh! A sock hat!". No offense, but they are *clearly* TOQUES! Secondly, if you've never heard any music by David Gray, run! Don't walk! To your local record store and purchase 'White Ladder' or 'A new Day at Midnight'. He's my new musical obsession.
As for this chapter's plot…I'm sorry to everybody who had confidence in me, but I've officially ruined this story. This chapter is the absolute epitome of crap, I'm pretty sure-I feel incredibly talent-less. I reformated this chapter about a half-million times, trying to get it to be just an iode less incredibly horrible…Crossed fingers I succeeded at least somewhat. Also! I wanted to thank all my beautiful reviewers for all your inspiration…If it hadn't been for you I definitely would have stopped before I'd even begun to touch the intricacies of this plot if it hadn't been for you pushing me ahead.
Particular thanks as always to Bobo, Celestra and Tithen Min for their wonderful support, and encouragement. You guys can have Orly weekend privileges =^^=
Thranduil's hands quivered like the leaves of an aspen, sweat staining the pale Lothlorien parchment he clenched in his ashen fingers. His lips could barely form around the painful words scripted before his eyes, as he read aloud, "Dearest Thranduil," his voice cracked deeply, hoarse in his grief. "I felt as though I died hearing word of your son's passing. He was a beloved Light, not only the Prince of Mirkwood but among the most noble and kind elves in all the Ages. He brought about the mourning of not only three prominent Elven communities but as well has plunged Gondor into grief-clearly exposing his extensive eccentricities compared to the rest of his Kin. A light has been snuffed. May Valar deliver us from darkness."
Movements deft despite, Thranduil neatly re-folded the letter and tucked it protectively into his robes. His gray eyes slowly scanned the patterned tiles of the floor, memorizing the webbed details of a cloven scene in fading grays, greens, golds and browns. Brow furrowed, he dropped his eyes shuts, concentrating on regulating his breathing. Paces, and yet eons, away stood Thranduil's eldest son and heir, Aduial-literally, twilight, the Mystery of Mirkwood.
"Saes, Ada. Tampa," [Please, Father. Stop.] Said the Elf tenderly. Always, the King of Mirkwood was slightly set in awe of the husky qualities surrounding the almost humanly voice of his firstborn. Though there were distinct tones of absolute love and tenderness characteristic to all Elves, there was also a husky quality that was rather alienating to Elven ears.
Aduial's character was as literal as the meaning of his name. He was cold, and dark, each atom of his being melded in with mystery and each of his steps followed by the inquisitive eyes of those who beheld him. He radiated a certain quality of gloaming, even in appearance. Though Elves were natural pale, he had an almost iridescent quality to his shimmering skin, so much like the moon. His eyes were an endless chasm of the velvet of the night sky, and indeed it was sung centuries later that his eyes were in fact a mirror to the night sky, be it daytime or otherwise. But, same as dusk, the oldest son of Mirkwood was indeed beautiful, in his own way. He was cold, but the natural cold of a midnight stream or of late autumn chill, and he was isolated but in the way of a solitary wolf or a hunting owl; a warrior, a hunter, first and foremost an observer.
He eliminated the distance between himself and his father with shadowy grace, laying a long hand across his Father's shoulder in the most affectionate way he knew. "Ada," he whispered, for only his father's ears. Thranduil opened his eyes, almost nervous in the way he lifted his gaze to meet that of his Eldest. "Lle tyava quel? Lle anta amin tu?" [Are you well? Do you need help?] He quirked his head, a jerky movement similar to that of a horned owl.
"A," replied Thranduil distantly, his voice dropped into a dizzy, practically incoherent whisper. "Uuma dela, ion-nin," the King said. Aduial furrowed his brow, catching the almost grogginess in his Father's voice. The last time such a tone had been laced with his father's dismissive words had been immediately following the death of his wife, Aduial's mother. [Don't worry, my son.]
"Ada," repeated Aduial firmly. He squeezed his father's shoulder, his intentions tinted with affection but primarily used to recollect his father's attention. Thranduil looked up, eyes stormy with emotion. "We must ride to Lothlorien," he continued in Sindarian, "I must look upon my brother."
Thranduil hesitated, contemplating for a moment barring his son from ever leaving Mirkwood, or letting him leave alone. Could Thranduil really bear looking upon his son's dead face, his colour-faded lips that would never again sing? But, the moment of reluctance passed and, steadily as always, Thranduil nodded. He passed the tips of his fingertips over the high cheekbone of his son, as if assuring himself that his child still existed in his realms of being.
They left immediately.
~***~
Aragorn's artery seemed to jump from the flesh of his forearm as obvious as a white-clad maiden against a blackened sky. It jutted attractively out of his skin, seducing him with the utter simplicity of its existence. Why would the Valar place a life force so close to the surface, make it so perceptible if he didn't want Aragorn to somehow destroy it?
Aragorn's brow quivered with a horrific bloodlust. With the callused tip of his fingertip, he traced the thin band obsessively, a breathless endeavor that caused the man to repeatedly shiver in surprise. His mind was overwhelmed with the absolute rapture of how it would feel to empty himself through his slashed forearm, how blissful it would be to feel the steel of his blade against his pulse, to die…
His eyes sculpted the region hungrily, not straying as he grappled ungracefully at his belt. Feeling the leather of his dagger at last pass beneath his finger, he easily slid the blade from the sheath, testing the weight. One slice, down, across, and it would end. He could escape from this, the utter feeling of complete loss. He wouldn't have to live the rest of his hours distracted from Arwen, have to dwell in a time and place where something that had mattered more than his own life to him had been so brutally ripped away. Just one cut, and he wouldn't have to feel guilty…
The inorganic cold of his sword contrasted painfully with the grief-fevered heat that had consumed his flesh, and he winced in surprise at the new feeling. He hadn't felt tears overwhelm his eyes, but was sobbing quietly, rocking back and forth in an infinitely childlike way. He dug his blade deeper, testing the leathery resistance of his weather-worn skin.
Outside, the joyful singing of the birds pitched into a toneless hum. All the light in the chamber dissolved to unbroken black, as Aragorn clenched his eyes shut. He could feel his pulse in his ears, beating like a warm drum in its rhythm, consistency. "Oh, Arwen, forgive me," he whispered, too low to hear himself. His heartbeat sped, the drumbeat of his life now irregular, faster and faster still…
"ESTEL!"
His reverie was broken. The familiarity of the call stirred him from the almost blissful stupor of near-death, and his eyes shot open. He lifted his head, facing the horrified, bone-white face of his wife. Aragorn's vision swam, his entire being overwhelmed with sickness as the room swirled before his eyes. The malformed blur of Arwen Undominel collapsed to her knees before her husband, desperately grabbing at his hand, deterring the path of the blade, knocking it to the floor.
"Estel! A, Aragorn, no, no…You have me!" Her voice was pleading, her fingers now grappling at his face, holding his gaze steady with hers. His pupils were dilated, face flushed and sweaty. He blinked steadily, beating his vision back into reality.
"A-Arwen," he said slowly, as if pronouncing a completely new word.
"Shh," she coaxed, staring at him in bewildered horror. "Oh, Estel! Why? You have me! Do you love him more than me?" Arwen shook her head vehemently in denial, as though arguing with herself. "I know he is the brother of your Heart, Aragorn, but I am your wife! I am the one you love! I am the mother of your son, and you are destroying me!" She sobbed dryly, averting her eyes. "Legolas would not want this," she persisted, striking a chord at last.
As Aragorn grappled for a response, she desperately pitched herself forward, crumpling against his flesh. The heat of her tears melted against his skin, sending Aragorn into a faraway state of self-hatred-the passion and grief behind her tears caused them to feel like fire against his exposed flesh. He started, feeling the silken perfection of her lips on his neck, kissing him again and again there, and then at the hollow of his throat, devouring him with her grieving affection.
Aragorn found himself closing his eyes, savouring the moment silently. When he spoke, his voice was a faint repetition of Arwen's words. "Legolas would not want this," came the distant whisper. Arwen nodded her affirmation, desperately nuzzling against the tangled tresses of his hair. Her fingers found his clothes, fisting it tightly, as she kissed the tip of his ear. "He would never want me dead…" Arwen trailed ghost kisses faintly down his jawbone, before stopping, her hand splayed on his chest to feel the beat of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest.
Suddenly, Aragorn jumped in realisation, staring in mystification at his wife. "Arwen, mela, what do you mean son?"
~***~
Legolas was but a line of inanimate flesh, a useless, lifeless elf that was breathlessly draped across Haldir's arms. His hair fell from his scalp as loomed sunlight, a waterfall of golden beauty. His eyes had been forced closed, and didn't move behind the lids. A cloth had been tied tightly about his neck-Haldir had, in a moment of sensibility, covered the probably brutal wound from the eyes of Legolas' mourners.
The Lothlorien elves stared at the pair through the cover of the trees with wide eyes and barely suppressed horror. Naturally, their curiosity would overwhelm their common sense and they would approach Haldir, question him about the well-known Blonde he bore, breathless in his grasp. But the emotions they sensed emitting from Haldir were so utterly confused and sad, so alienating compared to the joyful emotions normally radiated from Haldir's being as fluently as his breath.
Galadriel appeared from nowhere, stepping before Haldir. She sharply inhaled, lurching forward slightly before catching herself. Eyes wide, she allowed herself to look over Legolas' limp form. Celeborn felt her grief before she fully understood it, and appeared as she had from the Mallorn trees, gracefully throwing his arms around her waist and twisting her to face him.
"Oh, Celeborn, no," she breathed, tears catching in her eyes. She pitched into the familiar warmth of his chest, burrowing herself against him. He felt her grief and spoke to her silently with his mind, stroking her hair with a quivering hand. She feverishly clenched at his shirt, all her strength forgotten, forbidding herself to look again upon the slaughtered Prince.
Haldir bowed his head respectfully to Celeborn in what might have been apology, and disappeared into the roots of one of the Golden Trees. He found himself in a familiar subterrain bower, earthen walls rising full height beside him. He finally felt how cold the body in his arms was, and distastefully lay Legolas on the ground, before crumpling to it himself.
Where he sat, head burrowed now in the crook of his knees, Haldir the Guardian of Lothlorien and the old friend of Legolas Greenleaf finally slept.
~***~
Arwen passed her fingertips over their familiar path down the sensitive jawbone of her stony Estel. His eyelids fluttered, dropping shut. In harmony, their bodies shifted, hers against his, until each of Arwen's fitted against Aragorn's, and together despite their different appearances they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, flawlessly blending until it was impossible to decipher where one began and the other ended.
Arwen tilted her brow against her mate's, absorbing the mortal warmth he emitted into her own head. At last, she allowed herself the silent, victorious luxury of knowing that, despite the never-ending affection Aragorn would always feel towards his now-dead best friend, she would always be first in his eyes.
She allowed herself to close her own eyes, comforting herself with the immobile blackness. She knew Aragorn's touch so well that vision barely helped her in analyzing his emotion through the simplest graze of his fingertips across her flesh. She could tell when the quiver of his hand was grievous or nervous, when his touch was meant to be elusive or he was simply being tender. His palm barely touched her as he traced her hip, scanning her waist, and finally allowing his hand to warmly splay at her navel. Despite herself, she let out a tremulous sigh.
His words came to her ear as a hot wind of love and hope, recovery. They ghosted over the upswept, sensitive peak before finally registering in her brain, causing at last a smile to spread over her lips. "Do you have a name for him?" His thumb massaged her belly, nervous of the child he knew blossomed within. She opened her mouth, but reformed her answer before even a letter had been uttered.
"Legolas," she said with reverence, the interlaced undertones of horrible sadness and absolute defeat overwhelmed by the love of her old friend conveyed in the syllables of his name.
Aragorn's hand drifted about her belly, the other hand reaching behind her head to pull it just a bit closer, to nestle her raven hair against the crook of his neck so that the King could rest himself on his Wife. And, from his touch, Arwen knew that at last, without opening her eyes, the King was smiling.
~***~
Haldir's eyes were closed, and his expression was so serene despite the tension lines creased over his forehead that the unlearned would have thought him asleep. But he slept not; instead, he concentrated deeply on the war of emotions that fiercely plucked at his will from within his mind, the sickly whisper of his suppressed conscience from deep within his gut. When he opened his eyes at last, much time had passed; the moon had risen, as he could feel from the different, spicy qualities in the air.
Haldir set his gaze on the curve of Legolas' back where he lay on the floor. The Elf had been deposited, horribly limp on his side, in a way that he curled in upon himself, almost fetal. Not even a hair on the fair Legolas' head stirred in the stolid air of the sunken chamber.
Haldir spoke only to himself in Elvish, his words to soft to be deciphered from the laments that overhung the forest, from the whispering ruffle of the trees and the distressed conversations of nearby mourners. The Guardian for a long time didn't stir, and appeared so much like a statue carved of fair marble that even the roots around him stopped whispering for a while, perplexed by the transformation.
Suddenly, Haldir started, his russet eyes widening. He stood so quickly that for a moment he felt he was going to overbalance, dizziness overwhelming his mind. He hesitated, courage wavering as his morals fingered against the courage he had pressed into his task, nearly eating away all resolve he had earlier developed. Without warning, he regained his composure, his face splitting in a grin that could be described as nothing short of malicious.
He stared at Legolas, tense like a cat before it pounces that unwary mouse, his fingers splayed but not even twitching, only his hair lifting and falling occasionally from his shoulders when a breeze found its way through the tangled roots of the above tree.
Slowly, Legolas' eyelids lifted, and his glassy cobalt eyes glanced confusedly about the surrounding chamber.
~ Nobody you can save who can't be saved…~
(A/N2: You don't think I'd actually be able to kill of Dear (godlike) Legly, no did you? If you did, I think you must seriously re-examine my worship of the Elf. I really do have a Legolas shrine in my bedroom! When I first read about the Call of the Sea, and thought it meant Legolas was going to die in the third book or something, I was practically bawling my eyes out. Anyway…
Elecyn Starmaker: Thank you so much for your swelling-ego causing review. You made me seriously blush! I can't believe you don't think that my characters are one hundred and fifty percent OOC…
Bobo: YAAY! I *finally* posted it…Grahhh…I'll send you the next chapter soon as I get around to writing it =^^=
Celestra: Thank you so much for your review, all though you are clearly mistaken; chapter two was horrible, and unfortunately I didn't manage to do better on chapter three…Thank so much for your support, though. CAN'T WAIT TO SEE MORE PARODY! And I've got my Garden Gnome handy, thanks for the Rabid Platypus tips =^^=
HaloGatomon: Hullo! New reviewer; a thousand Yays! Thank you so much for your review. Though I definitely am by all means a review whore, I love writing far to much to do anything like refuse writing until I receive a certain number of reviews…Sort of makes me nervous when nobody review though because I think I've descended into a whole new, uncharted level of terrible…Hope you enjoyed this chapter!! =^^=
Alexa: *BLUSHES* Graah! Thanks so much for your review, no matter how red it made my face…Of *course* Legly is alive, did you really think I had the heart to kill of such a lovely being? LOL I think I'll use your idea for the last chapter. Aragorn: You were dead! Legolas: *shrugs* Just kidding! (hug) GIGGLE!!! *cough* Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thanks again!
Evil Spapple Pie: It's not self pity! It's the brutal truth, I swear! Oops! Didn't see that word is final bit. *submissively falls silent* As for your hypothesis about the story, all I can offer is a ridiculously mysterious grin and a 'We'll see'. Hope you enjoyed!!!