Big long sigh. Much angst, much pain, not a whole lot of anything else,
consider yourself warned. So here we go, the end of it all and the last
chapter of this fic. Lovingly dedicated to the one and only Cowgoddess,
for without you, how would I make it?
Guilt By Association
Chapter 4 - No Tomorrow
Legolas stood with his hands pressed up against the warm wood that made the door to his father's many rooms. He was trying to slow his heart rate which seemed determined to break his body in half. Never had he felt more nervous to see his father, not even the numerous times he had been sent here after doing something wrong. Yet here he was trying to find some way to change the years of disrepair that they had fallen into without a clue of how to even start.
"You may as well just come inside."
The powerful voice floated through the heavy wood and Legolas felt himself flush. The guards standing on either side of him pulled the heavy door open and let him through. Legolas remembered the long hallway that separated the many chambers of his father's house as if he had seen it in a dream. The reality of it now, harsh and shadowed, left him with a cold feeling of dread. He turned left at the second doorway and found his father watching him from the corner of his study. Legolas stood by the doorway, not really sure what to say, pretending to look around the room.
"Does it look the same as when you were last here?" Thranduil's voice was soft, muted with a type of sorrow.
Legolas didn't answer at first, searching his memory for things that were similar in the room to what he remembered. "Some of it."
Thranduil ran his slender hands over his ancient books, sending small clouds of dust into the air. The room lit up slightly as the sunlight caught on the dust sending sharp rays of light piercing the air. Father and son watched the beams play on the floor. "But it feels different."
Legolas closed his eyes, trying to find a way to explain this. "I don't know why it does, but yes, it feels different." "You have been away for far too long, my son. Everything changes with time even us." Thranduil paused, holding out his hand and letting the yellow glow move on his palm. "The only constant in life is change itself."
"You have not changed." Legolas said, his eyes shinning with the sun.
Thranduil looked up and met his son's eyes. Blue and blue, one bright with the future, the other dimming with the pain of the past. "Legolas, I'm leaving. Soon I'll be sailing west to Valinor with the last of my household. I want you to come with me."
The silence was deafening.
"Father, I, I know not what to say." Legolas was truly shocked. He couldn't leave, not now with Arwen pregnant again and he still had more places to show Gimli, and then there was Aragorn, what would he say to him? "I have much left to do here."
"Nay son, your tasks have ended." Thranduil crossed the room and gripped his son's shoulders tightly. "You ran your crucible, you threw down your enemy and now you have finally returned home. The time has come for you and I to leave our misery behind. To find our peace in the undying lands."
Legolas pulled out of his grip. "Father I can not. I have ties still in this world."
"What ties? You feel obligated to stay for a human and a dwarf?" The incredulity in Thranduil's voice was making Legolas angry.
"They are my friends, I have seen many-"
"Yes Legolas. I know what you have weathered with them. Do you know how many long nights I have spent sleepless because of the directions your friends" Thranduil voiced the word distastefully, "have chosen?"
Legolas felt his anger leave him. His father had worried about him? "I am here now. All is well."
"Yes," Thranduil's voice was faint, as if a thousand miles away. "Yes, all is well now yet you refuse your own father."
"I must follow my heart." Too late Legolas realized what he had just said. He tried desperately to find a way of rephrasing but no words came. Perhaps that was simply the truth. The thought was sobering.
Thranduil shuttered slightly and backed away from his son as if he had just been struck. "I see now."
"Father-" But Legolas was cut off.
"Nay Legolas, you speak the truth. I have known of it for a long time I just never really took it to heart." Thranduil laughed at the small pun, it was a cool, bitter laugh void of all joy. When he continued speaking his voice held the same tone. "So here it is then. You care more for a dwarf and a human than your own father."
"Not more, it's different."
Thranduil's eyes now held more than pain. "Yet they are the ones for whom you stay. Is that not also true?"
Legolas took a frustrated breath. "I am still needed here."
"Nay Legolas. You were needed here but you left, remember? You left us to fight on without you. And what has that choice gotten you? You now feel out of place in your own home and that is simply because you no longer belong in this family. You abandoned it a long time ago and now you are abandoned it again."
Legolas tried to get his breathing back under control. How fast his father's emotions changed. One moment he was open, loving and the next, bitter and cold. "I have never abandoned you. I was summoned on a great quest."
"Yes, a great quest to end all evil and yet Mirkwood still fights every day to keep it's borders safe. But what would you know of that?" Thranduil's voice was dark and shaking with rage. "What would you know of loss, of pain? You never witnessed death, you ran from it like a coward."
Legolas's voice rose now in answer, rage spurring him on, anguish flittering in the back of his head. "I was there when mother died, I watched Mithrandir plunge to a fiery death, I saw every elf that Elrond and Galadriel sent to Helm's Deep fall in battle and I've been to the very blackest places in Mordor, to the very gates themselves." Legolas was violently shaking with his fury. "Those gates. you can't even imagine it." Legolas was about to go on when he caught his father watching him.
Thranduil's body shook as fiercely as Legolas' but with grief, a grief so terrible and so long buried that it rocked the king with sobs. Again Legolas felt his fury drain away to be replaced by guilt although not really knowing why. "Father." He placed his hands on the trembling back of the king. "I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say.
Thranduil with a massive effort pulled himself back together. He drew his arm across his eyes, brushing away the stray tears. For the first time since he had come home, Legolas saw the real state of his father. And it was more horrifying than all of Mordor combined. Thranduil was literally in ruin. His exhaustion and despair covered his face. In a strange act of emotion, Thranduil grabbed his son and hugged him tightly. They held the embrace for an eternity. Time slowed to a stop and in that moment Legolas remembered his father, his home, all the things he had left those years ago. And grieved for them for he knew now, he was never getting them back.
The two parted finally, standing a hair's breath apart. Thranduil's eyes were red, brimming with tears. He placed a gentle hand on his son's shoulder. "I must leave this place. To stay and watch it fall, after all the fighting, the death. I couldn't do it."
"But Mirkwood is in no danger."
Thranduil bowed his head. "It is crumbling down before my very eyes. Soon there will be nothing left but broken stones. How can you be so blind?"
Thranduil led him to his window overlooking the gardens down below. "The trees have stopped growing. The plants no longer flower. Most of the houses lay empty. Never again will this place ring with the sounds of children. The spiders will come and overtake it. It has already begun."
Legolas turned his back on the window unwilling to believe him. "Then fight! Defend yourselves as you have done in the past. You must not give in."
Thranduil closed his eyes. Visions of a thousand battles spanning the years flew through him. Death. Mayhem. And all for nothing. "It is too late."
"No father, it is never too late. You are still alive. You can still-"
Thranduil opened his eyes and beheld his son, as the daylight bathed him in a warm glow. "I died a long time ago."
Legolas forgot how to breathe. "What?"
Slowly, as if asleep, Thranduil began to speak. "There was a battle. A huge battle of men and elves. I was there, thousands of years ago. I stood by and watched as my father was cut off and slaughtered. I never moved. I waited for Gil-Galad and ignored the command of my own father. And for that I watched him die. He's still there you know. His spirit forever trapped in those marshes, not alive, not dead. Eternally caught between." He refocused his attention on the shocked and badly shaken Legolas. He reached up and gently stroked his face. "I will set sail tomorrow. I beg you. Come with me."
For a moment Legolas wanted to say yes. He wanted to help his father so badly but then the moment fled and Legolas realized that his father was right. "You know I can not. What you said was correct. I don't belong to you anymore."
Thranduil dropped his hand. "You never did Legolas, you never did."
And with that, there was nothing left between them to be said.
Legolas laid his head against his father's shoulder, listening to his heartbeat. Memorizing everything about it, storing it in his brain so that he would have something to himself. He felt his tears start to fall and he stood up straight. With a final deep bow, Legolas left the room. Thranduil could do nothing but watch him go. The last member of his family, the one he had really lost a long time ago, departing and he had no power to stop him. Thranduil began to shake, now past being able to cry. This was the end.
Legolas, fighting to hide his tears, raced through the palace, hoping no one would see him. He had just reached the main hall when he stopped short. Gimli had not moved from the spot where he had left him. Making a final effort to compose himself he crossed the great hall and joined his friend in the sun. Gimli looked him up and down and Legolas knew that he was not fooled in the least. The dwarf spoke first.
"Ready to go?" He had gathered all their things and strung them upon Legolas' horse who waited just down the steps.
"Go? Yes, I'm ready to go." Legolas descended the stairs of his once beloved home for the last time. They mounted the horse and headed off into the vast forest surrounding the city. "Just where are we going?"
Gimli snorted. "So much for your fine elven senses. Why Gondor of course."
"Gondor?" Legolas felt confusion fighting with his depression.
"Yes you foolish elf. We must help Aragorn, remember what happened when Arwen was pregnant with Eldarion? I thought he would go mad."
At this Legolas laughed. "Yes poor Strider could never handle Arwen when she's upset."
Gimli continued the conversation, rattling on as was his way. Legolas' eyes found the peaks of Mirkwood, cresting through the trees now fading into the distance. He would never come back, he knew that and he also knew his father was right. Mirkwood had begun to die. He swallowed his grief. Aragorn needed him. Gimli would travel with him. He was not a part of Thranduil's family, perhaps never truly was but he wasn't alone. At least, not yet.
Guilt By Association
Chapter 4 - No Tomorrow
Legolas stood with his hands pressed up against the warm wood that made the door to his father's many rooms. He was trying to slow his heart rate which seemed determined to break his body in half. Never had he felt more nervous to see his father, not even the numerous times he had been sent here after doing something wrong. Yet here he was trying to find some way to change the years of disrepair that they had fallen into without a clue of how to even start.
"You may as well just come inside."
The powerful voice floated through the heavy wood and Legolas felt himself flush. The guards standing on either side of him pulled the heavy door open and let him through. Legolas remembered the long hallway that separated the many chambers of his father's house as if he had seen it in a dream. The reality of it now, harsh and shadowed, left him with a cold feeling of dread. He turned left at the second doorway and found his father watching him from the corner of his study. Legolas stood by the doorway, not really sure what to say, pretending to look around the room.
"Does it look the same as when you were last here?" Thranduil's voice was soft, muted with a type of sorrow.
Legolas didn't answer at first, searching his memory for things that were similar in the room to what he remembered. "Some of it."
Thranduil ran his slender hands over his ancient books, sending small clouds of dust into the air. The room lit up slightly as the sunlight caught on the dust sending sharp rays of light piercing the air. Father and son watched the beams play on the floor. "But it feels different."
Legolas closed his eyes, trying to find a way to explain this. "I don't know why it does, but yes, it feels different." "You have been away for far too long, my son. Everything changes with time even us." Thranduil paused, holding out his hand and letting the yellow glow move on his palm. "The only constant in life is change itself."
"You have not changed." Legolas said, his eyes shinning with the sun.
Thranduil looked up and met his son's eyes. Blue and blue, one bright with the future, the other dimming with the pain of the past. "Legolas, I'm leaving. Soon I'll be sailing west to Valinor with the last of my household. I want you to come with me."
The silence was deafening.
"Father, I, I know not what to say." Legolas was truly shocked. He couldn't leave, not now with Arwen pregnant again and he still had more places to show Gimli, and then there was Aragorn, what would he say to him? "I have much left to do here."
"Nay son, your tasks have ended." Thranduil crossed the room and gripped his son's shoulders tightly. "You ran your crucible, you threw down your enemy and now you have finally returned home. The time has come for you and I to leave our misery behind. To find our peace in the undying lands."
Legolas pulled out of his grip. "Father I can not. I have ties still in this world."
"What ties? You feel obligated to stay for a human and a dwarf?" The incredulity in Thranduil's voice was making Legolas angry.
"They are my friends, I have seen many-"
"Yes Legolas. I know what you have weathered with them. Do you know how many long nights I have spent sleepless because of the directions your friends" Thranduil voiced the word distastefully, "have chosen?"
Legolas felt his anger leave him. His father had worried about him? "I am here now. All is well."
"Yes," Thranduil's voice was faint, as if a thousand miles away. "Yes, all is well now yet you refuse your own father."
"I must follow my heart." Too late Legolas realized what he had just said. He tried desperately to find a way of rephrasing but no words came. Perhaps that was simply the truth. The thought was sobering.
Thranduil shuttered slightly and backed away from his son as if he had just been struck. "I see now."
"Father-" But Legolas was cut off.
"Nay Legolas, you speak the truth. I have known of it for a long time I just never really took it to heart." Thranduil laughed at the small pun, it was a cool, bitter laugh void of all joy. When he continued speaking his voice held the same tone. "So here it is then. You care more for a dwarf and a human than your own father."
"Not more, it's different."
Thranduil's eyes now held more than pain. "Yet they are the ones for whom you stay. Is that not also true?"
Legolas took a frustrated breath. "I am still needed here."
"Nay Legolas. You were needed here but you left, remember? You left us to fight on without you. And what has that choice gotten you? You now feel out of place in your own home and that is simply because you no longer belong in this family. You abandoned it a long time ago and now you are abandoned it again."
Legolas tried to get his breathing back under control. How fast his father's emotions changed. One moment he was open, loving and the next, bitter and cold. "I have never abandoned you. I was summoned on a great quest."
"Yes, a great quest to end all evil and yet Mirkwood still fights every day to keep it's borders safe. But what would you know of that?" Thranduil's voice was dark and shaking with rage. "What would you know of loss, of pain? You never witnessed death, you ran from it like a coward."
Legolas's voice rose now in answer, rage spurring him on, anguish flittering in the back of his head. "I was there when mother died, I watched Mithrandir plunge to a fiery death, I saw every elf that Elrond and Galadriel sent to Helm's Deep fall in battle and I've been to the very blackest places in Mordor, to the very gates themselves." Legolas was violently shaking with his fury. "Those gates. you can't even imagine it." Legolas was about to go on when he caught his father watching him.
Thranduil's body shook as fiercely as Legolas' but with grief, a grief so terrible and so long buried that it rocked the king with sobs. Again Legolas felt his fury drain away to be replaced by guilt although not really knowing why. "Father." He placed his hands on the trembling back of the king. "I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say.
Thranduil with a massive effort pulled himself back together. He drew his arm across his eyes, brushing away the stray tears. For the first time since he had come home, Legolas saw the real state of his father. And it was more horrifying than all of Mordor combined. Thranduil was literally in ruin. His exhaustion and despair covered his face. In a strange act of emotion, Thranduil grabbed his son and hugged him tightly. They held the embrace for an eternity. Time slowed to a stop and in that moment Legolas remembered his father, his home, all the things he had left those years ago. And grieved for them for he knew now, he was never getting them back.
The two parted finally, standing a hair's breath apart. Thranduil's eyes were red, brimming with tears. He placed a gentle hand on his son's shoulder. "I must leave this place. To stay and watch it fall, after all the fighting, the death. I couldn't do it."
"But Mirkwood is in no danger."
Thranduil bowed his head. "It is crumbling down before my very eyes. Soon there will be nothing left but broken stones. How can you be so blind?"
Thranduil led him to his window overlooking the gardens down below. "The trees have stopped growing. The plants no longer flower. Most of the houses lay empty. Never again will this place ring with the sounds of children. The spiders will come and overtake it. It has already begun."
Legolas turned his back on the window unwilling to believe him. "Then fight! Defend yourselves as you have done in the past. You must not give in."
Thranduil closed his eyes. Visions of a thousand battles spanning the years flew through him. Death. Mayhem. And all for nothing. "It is too late."
"No father, it is never too late. You are still alive. You can still-"
Thranduil opened his eyes and beheld his son, as the daylight bathed him in a warm glow. "I died a long time ago."
Legolas forgot how to breathe. "What?"
Slowly, as if asleep, Thranduil began to speak. "There was a battle. A huge battle of men and elves. I was there, thousands of years ago. I stood by and watched as my father was cut off and slaughtered. I never moved. I waited for Gil-Galad and ignored the command of my own father. And for that I watched him die. He's still there you know. His spirit forever trapped in those marshes, not alive, not dead. Eternally caught between." He refocused his attention on the shocked and badly shaken Legolas. He reached up and gently stroked his face. "I will set sail tomorrow. I beg you. Come with me."
For a moment Legolas wanted to say yes. He wanted to help his father so badly but then the moment fled and Legolas realized that his father was right. "You know I can not. What you said was correct. I don't belong to you anymore."
Thranduil dropped his hand. "You never did Legolas, you never did."
And with that, there was nothing left between them to be said.
Legolas laid his head against his father's shoulder, listening to his heartbeat. Memorizing everything about it, storing it in his brain so that he would have something to himself. He felt his tears start to fall and he stood up straight. With a final deep bow, Legolas left the room. Thranduil could do nothing but watch him go. The last member of his family, the one he had really lost a long time ago, departing and he had no power to stop him. Thranduil began to shake, now past being able to cry. This was the end.
Legolas, fighting to hide his tears, raced through the palace, hoping no one would see him. He had just reached the main hall when he stopped short. Gimli had not moved from the spot where he had left him. Making a final effort to compose himself he crossed the great hall and joined his friend in the sun. Gimli looked him up and down and Legolas knew that he was not fooled in the least. The dwarf spoke first.
"Ready to go?" He had gathered all their things and strung them upon Legolas' horse who waited just down the steps.
"Go? Yes, I'm ready to go." Legolas descended the stairs of his once beloved home for the last time. They mounted the horse and headed off into the vast forest surrounding the city. "Just where are we going?"
Gimli snorted. "So much for your fine elven senses. Why Gondor of course."
"Gondor?" Legolas felt confusion fighting with his depression.
"Yes you foolish elf. We must help Aragorn, remember what happened when Arwen was pregnant with Eldarion? I thought he would go mad."
At this Legolas laughed. "Yes poor Strider could never handle Arwen when she's upset."
Gimli continued the conversation, rattling on as was his way. Legolas' eyes found the peaks of Mirkwood, cresting through the trees now fading into the distance. He would never come back, he knew that and he also knew his father was right. Mirkwood had begun to die. He swallowed his grief. Aragorn needed him. Gimli would travel with him. He was not a part of Thranduil's family, perhaps never truly was but he wasn't alone. At least, not yet.