Chapter Eight: Elven melodies
"That is no ordinary orc horn," Eldarion said when he heard a strange noise from the south battlements. He raced around from his position looking northward, and came to a small clump of soldiers.
Looking down he saw a small party making their way towards the gates. Then with an excited sound that he quickly muffled, he found the familiar form of the elf-prince.
Legolas' skin seemed to glow even more as he marched at the head of the small platoon. In his hand was a horn; he lifted it and blew at it. More people were alerted to the sound and came running to the gates as the elves of Mirkwood marched towards them.
The elves were garbed in green and brown, and underneath could been seen shining armour. In their hands were polished weapons that looked lethal in the long hands of the First-born.
The doors were opened and the elves were accepted into Gondor.
~
"Thranduil sends his blessings with him," Legolas said.
Elessar turned around and ran his hands through his hair with a sigh. The elf was shocked to see the dark strands streaked with grey.
"That is all fine and good Legolas, but what help are a hundred elven warriors?" Elessar asked.
"This is all I could get," Legolas said between gritted teeth. He knew that this wasn't going to be easy, but couldn't Estel understand this was the most he was going to get?
"Well, thank you Legolas, send your numbers up to Faramir, he's organising all this," the King said. It was a dismissal if the elf had ever heard one.
Legolas stood his ground. "You don't quite realise my worth."
"You're a very good fighter Legolas, but you don't quite make up for the lack in nine hundred warriors you promised us," the man said, managing to be patronising and sarcastic at the same time. He was tired and snappy after not much sleep recently, and Legolas fretting and arguing wasn't really making his day run any smoother.
The elf felt his cheeks become hot slightly at the mention of the promise he had made, knowing that it would not be fulfilled. "What about a hundred warriors and one that actually knows what it is you're fight"-
"Father!" a breathless Eldarion burst into the room. He had run straight from the gate where he had received the news.
Legolas sighed impatiently and crossed his arms and rolled his eyes slightly. He was overjoyed to see the Eldarion, truly he was, but know was not the time.
"Edoras is in flames!" Eldarion cried and within seconds Elessar had grabbed Anduril and was out of the room.
"A dragon," Legolas finished lamely.
~
"Saddle yourself up, Legolas!" Elessar said when he saw his friend running into the stable.
He mounted Hasufel, and started to trot out of the wooden structure when his way was barred by the determined elf.
"Legolas, move," the King said irascibly.
"No, not until you let me finish," Legolas said jutting his jaw forward stubbornly.
Behind Elessar came the figure of Eldarion on his horse. "Legolas, please could you move?" he asked. He was more patient than his father, but he was intrigued by the prince's strange behaviour. Legolas was becoming more and more unpredictable with each moment that Eldarion spent with him.
"Elessar I know what it is that is attacking Rohan. You're far safer staying in Gondor. Not even Anduril alone could slay this creature," Legolas said earnestly, willing himself to stay in the same place when the hooves stamped the ground as impatiently as his master.
"What creature?!" the King snapped.
"A dragon."
"They are creatures of mythology!" Eldarion laughed.
"Nay," the elf said solemnly. "You are too young to know the history of the world--I am too--but there are dragons. This is one that has been hibernating for years, but it has been awakened and with it, it has rallied orcs to it's banner. Evil needs guidance, and the orcs have found a leader in the dragon."
"Well what do you propose that we do?" Elessar asked, still slightly dazed by the quick revelation.
"Go to Rohan and help protect the people. The dragon may yet have left"-
"Edoras was just set alight. When dawn came, no one knew what had happened," Eldarion said.
"Exactly," Legolas replied. "May I ride with you, Eldarion? I do not have time to saddle a horse."
Eldarion nodded out of politeness and so that his father didnâEt suspected anything, trying to blank the fact that Legolas' hips were resting against his back and his arms were around his waist.
"Come!" Elessar spurred Hasufel into a gallop, and they rode out of Minas Tirith, followed by a hundred other horsemen.
~
When they were nearing the border of Gondor and Rohan, Prince Eldarion felt warm breath on his neck and tried to stop his heart from beating so fast. Legolas had declared his intentions towards Eldarion, and they were not good, but the man could not help the fact that he had some kind of attraction towards the elf.
He hoped it wasn't obvious, because he knew for certain that his father would not be pleased at all at the revelation that his son was homosexual. It was a practice that was not uncommon between warriors, men that lived by the sword. Their only company was other men, but that was something to while away the hours. It was not usually love but lust that they held for their partner.
Elessar had made his views perfectly clear when Eldarion had first shyly told his father that he had a crush on the Captain of the Guard. The King had shown that he did not mind other people's sexuality, but would not brook it from one such as a prince, or someone similar who was going to be relied on for an heir to the throne.
"Eldarion, any other parent would say that producing an offspring would be fine and that you can remain loyal to your lover, but I do not believe that. If you impregnated a woman, you should at least love her dearly. Sex without love is a devilish thing. Women should not be used a merely breeding instruments."
Those were Elessar's very words, and they were imprinted in Eldarion's mind forever. He would probably find himself repeating them to his own children come his time to rule.
"Eldarion," Legolas whispered in a voice that the man knew only he could hear.
"Yes?" he answered with a deep, nervous gulp.
"What I said... before," the elf said in a surprisingly husky voice.
Eldarion felt goose bumps rising on his arms and his stomach twisting into knots.
"I take it back."
The man nearly dropped the reigns of the mare in shock. "What?" he hissed slightly too loudly, and a couple of soldiers turned around. Eldarion smiled foolishly and waited until they had turned back before continuing.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that my words were rash, and Eldarion...." Legolas' voice became even quieter and the long arms wrapped around his waist relaxed slightly.
"Eldarion... I know we both have feelings for each other," the elf said coyly and the prince smiled slightly.
"Well, I was wrong in pushing you away. Eldarion, could we try again?"
At that moment, Eldarion never remembered being so hopeful or joyous. His heart sung in his heavily thumping chest.
"Of course," Eldarion replied, his voice cracking slightly.
"Good," Legolas murmured and placed a soft kiss on the man's neck that immediately made Eldarion shudder.
"Out of interest, what made you change your mind?" Eldarion asked suddenly.
"I-I don't know," the elf stammered slightly. "It'll sound silly..."
"Go on," the prince encouraged.
"A dream and a voice inside my head."
Eldarion smiled gently, although Legolas could not see. "It does sound silly, but I'll take your word for it."
~
The small party all mounted on horses had stopped for the night. After several pleads on the behalf of the weary steeds, they had persuaded Elessar that dead horses would be no help to Rohan.
They stopped on the edges of a small wood that in turn was on the edge of the White Mountains that cut through Rohan and Gondor. The peaks were lofty and beautiful, for in the snow-covered landscape, they were even whiter. Not only were their peaks were now covered in snow, but the whole of the rock.
The contrast against the green of the leaves was stunning and made all of it seem cleaner and brighter.
But the natural wonder was not seen, for it was dark when they stopped. Elessar, who for all his kingly duties, had not forgotten how to start a good fire, starting one hastily.
The men were slumbering fast and sat in a nearby tree was Legolas on guard. He had denied flatly any requests to go on watch first.
"You feeble mortals need all the rest you can get," he had laughed, and skipped towards the woodland.
The men had laughed along with him and had rolled their eyes at the strange antics of the elf as he placed his hands on the trees and started to murmur elvish words into them.
They did not seem to reply to him, but Eldarion noticed that the tips of the branches swayed a bit more, and the tree groaned slightly.
The man could not sleep, and the fact that his keen hearing could hear Legolas' soft song did not help.
"To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying, The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying. West, west away, the round sun is falling. Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling, The voices of my people that have gone before me? I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me; For our days are ending and our years failing. I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing. Long are the waves on the Last Shore calling, In Eressea in Elvenhome that no man can discover, Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!"
It was meant to be a joyful song, Legolas knew it, for he had sung it before in Ithilien, but now it was tinged with sorrow and even jealousy. He had returned and now it would be many years, the years of Eldarion's life, before he would be able to hear once again the sound of the waves.
Legolas' snapped down from the stars and realised that in his peaceful dreaming he had not noticed the figure walking towards him.
Eldarion's milky skin seemed to glow from an inner light as he climbed up the tree with grace born of his human father. The branches creaked as he climbed up using them as footholes. Legolas chuckled.
"The trees wish that you had some more of your mother's grace," he revealed.
Eldarion found himself rolling his eyes also as he sat next to his love. "Legolas, may I kiss you while I am sober?" he asked.
"A strange question," Legolas laughed. "Yes."
The man leant forward, wrapping his arms around the elf's torso and drawing him in. He wobbled slightly as the branch moved beneath them, but he found Legolas' body a pillar of balance. The elf was sitting upright, his legs dangling over each side of the branch.
Then Eldarion lowered his lips over that of the elf prince and they kissed gently and timidly.
Legolas let the man's fingers run through his smooth hair, and in turn his own mapped Eldarion's face, committing it to memory. They drew away, and Legolas sat serenely, his eyes still closed, on his face a contented smile.
"You look like the cat that got the cream," Eldarion observed with a playful tap on Legolas' nose.
His coal lashes fluttered before Legolas opened his eyes and remarked bashfully: "I feel like that."
Eldarion looked at Legolas' face in the darkness, only slightly lit from the right by the burning fire. His eyes were darker in the firelight, almost a black blue like the colour of the sea at night, the stars reflected in it. He saw so many emotions in those eyes: love, happiness, desire, grief and a painful longing.
"Legolas, why did only one hundred elves come?" Eldarion asked.
"Because...."
Legolas tilted his head up to look at the stars once again. They seemed so far away from where he was. "They all left."
There was silence while Eldarion swallowed this information. "Why didn't you?"
"I realised," Legolas said simply.
"What? What did you realise?"
A small smile lit the elf's face like someone had suddenly thrust a torch in Eldarion's hands and had aimed it at Legolas.
"That I love you." Legolas leant forward and placed another kiss on the man's lips.
"Y-you love me?" Eldarion had found many things out tonight that he was having trouble believing in. The prince sitting in front of him had just declared that he loved him so much that he was willing to forsake his place in the Undying Lands, in Eressea as the song had told.
"I love you utterly and completely Eldarion," Legolas vowed. "And I always will."
"How much do you love me?"
"Like salt loves meat," the elf said, using an old proverb that Gimli had taught him.
Eldarion obviously hadn't heard this saying; it was showing on his baffled face. Legolas laughed.
"Do not worry, it is an old dwarven saying," the wood-elf said.
"Legolas, one final question," Eldarion interjected when Legolas looked like he was going to move. "Do you have the same.... longing for the Sea?"
"Aye. I have since long before your birth," Legolas said, and without knowing it, made Eldarion feel young and naive; the man shrugged it off and continued to listen. "Everyday and everynight I have Sealonging. I fight it, but one day I know that I will have to give into it. I hope that day comes in many years, so that I will still be able to spend time with you."
"I've never seen the Sea, what's it like?" It was true, the human had lived all his life in Minas Tirith, occasionally straying into Rohan. He had never a reason to go into South Ithilien of Belfalas.
"It's beautiful. So wild and untamed. Not even the bricks and stone of men would be able to repress it. The Sea is a fickle thing in its moods. One minute it will be as smooth as an inland lake during summer, other times it will be like the spring river: the ice has just melted it and the river is overflowing and travelling down to the mouth so quickly and boisterously."
Legolas' eyes were slightly closed as if lost in some memory then they snapped open at the sound of a slight yawn.
"Come Eldarion, you need your rest."
Legolas made as if to jump down from the tree, but he was stopped by a hand on his wrist. "Please A'maelamin," [my beloved] the man said, relishing in the amused look. "If I sit up here, I will sleep better than if I did on the ground. Just your company will lull me to sleep."
"You may have my company," Legolas promised, frowning slightly, for the last sentence of Eldarion's sounded strangely like an insult. "But I fear if you sleep on a branch, you will fall off. At least sleep on the ground, against the trunk of the tree."
Eldarion nodded, seeing the sense and knowing his own knack for clumsiness. They climbed down and the man sat on the velvety soft moss at the base of the tree, resting his head against the bark, and slept soundly.
He was watched over by Legolas Greenleaf, who sat all night with a smile on his face and a song on his lips. ~
"That is no ordinary orc horn," Eldarion said when he heard a strange noise from the south battlements. He raced around from his position looking northward, and came to a small clump of soldiers.
Looking down he saw a small party making their way towards the gates. Then with an excited sound that he quickly muffled, he found the familiar form of the elf-prince.
Legolas' skin seemed to glow even more as he marched at the head of the small platoon. In his hand was a horn; he lifted it and blew at it. More people were alerted to the sound and came running to the gates as the elves of Mirkwood marched towards them.
The elves were garbed in green and brown, and underneath could been seen shining armour. In their hands were polished weapons that looked lethal in the long hands of the First-born.
The doors were opened and the elves were accepted into Gondor.
~
"Thranduil sends his blessings with him," Legolas said.
Elessar turned around and ran his hands through his hair with a sigh. The elf was shocked to see the dark strands streaked with grey.
"That is all fine and good Legolas, but what help are a hundred elven warriors?" Elessar asked.
"This is all I could get," Legolas said between gritted teeth. He knew that this wasn't going to be easy, but couldn't Estel understand this was the most he was going to get?
"Well, thank you Legolas, send your numbers up to Faramir, he's organising all this," the King said. It was a dismissal if the elf had ever heard one.
Legolas stood his ground. "You don't quite realise my worth."
"You're a very good fighter Legolas, but you don't quite make up for the lack in nine hundred warriors you promised us," the man said, managing to be patronising and sarcastic at the same time. He was tired and snappy after not much sleep recently, and Legolas fretting and arguing wasn't really making his day run any smoother.
The elf felt his cheeks become hot slightly at the mention of the promise he had made, knowing that it would not be fulfilled. "What about a hundred warriors and one that actually knows what it is you're fight"-
"Father!" a breathless Eldarion burst into the room. He had run straight from the gate where he had received the news.
Legolas sighed impatiently and crossed his arms and rolled his eyes slightly. He was overjoyed to see the Eldarion, truly he was, but know was not the time.
"Edoras is in flames!" Eldarion cried and within seconds Elessar had grabbed Anduril and was out of the room.
"A dragon," Legolas finished lamely.
~
"Saddle yourself up, Legolas!" Elessar said when he saw his friend running into the stable.
He mounted Hasufel, and started to trot out of the wooden structure when his way was barred by the determined elf.
"Legolas, move," the King said irascibly.
"No, not until you let me finish," Legolas said jutting his jaw forward stubbornly.
Behind Elessar came the figure of Eldarion on his horse. "Legolas, please could you move?" he asked. He was more patient than his father, but he was intrigued by the prince's strange behaviour. Legolas was becoming more and more unpredictable with each moment that Eldarion spent with him.
"Elessar I know what it is that is attacking Rohan. You're far safer staying in Gondor. Not even Anduril alone could slay this creature," Legolas said earnestly, willing himself to stay in the same place when the hooves stamped the ground as impatiently as his master.
"What creature?!" the King snapped.
"A dragon."
"They are creatures of mythology!" Eldarion laughed.
"Nay," the elf said solemnly. "You are too young to know the history of the world--I am too--but there are dragons. This is one that has been hibernating for years, but it has been awakened and with it, it has rallied orcs to it's banner. Evil needs guidance, and the orcs have found a leader in the dragon."
"Well what do you propose that we do?" Elessar asked, still slightly dazed by the quick revelation.
"Go to Rohan and help protect the people. The dragon may yet have left"-
"Edoras was just set alight. When dawn came, no one knew what had happened," Eldarion said.
"Exactly," Legolas replied. "May I ride with you, Eldarion? I do not have time to saddle a horse."
Eldarion nodded out of politeness and so that his father didnâEt suspected anything, trying to blank the fact that Legolas' hips were resting against his back and his arms were around his waist.
"Come!" Elessar spurred Hasufel into a gallop, and they rode out of Minas Tirith, followed by a hundred other horsemen.
~
When they were nearing the border of Gondor and Rohan, Prince Eldarion felt warm breath on his neck and tried to stop his heart from beating so fast. Legolas had declared his intentions towards Eldarion, and they were not good, but the man could not help the fact that he had some kind of attraction towards the elf.
He hoped it wasn't obvious, because he knew for certain that his father would not be pleased at all at the revelation that his son was homosexual. It was a practice that was not uncommon between warriors, men that lived by the sword. Their only company was other men, but that was something to while away the hours. It was not usually love but lust that they held for their partner.
Elessar had made his views perfectly clear when Eldarion had first shyly told his father that he had a crush on the Captain of the Guard. The King had shown that he did not mind other people's sexuality, but would not brook it from one such as a prince, or someone similar who was going to be relied on for an heir to the throne.
"Eldarion, any other parent would say that producing an offspring would be fine and that you can remain loyal to your lover, but I do not believe that. If you impregnated a woman, you should at least love her dearly. Sex without love is a devilish thing. Women should not be used a merely breeding instruments."
Those were Elessar's very words, and they were imprinted in Eldarion's mind forever. He would probably find himself repeating them to his own children come his time to rule.
"Eldarion," Legolas whispered in a voice that the man knew only he could hear.
"Yes?" he answered with a deep, nervous gulp.
"What I said... before," the elf said in a surprisingly husky voice.
Eldarion felt goose bumps rising on his arms and his stomach twisting into knots.
"I take it back."
The man nearly dropped the reigns of the mare in shock. "What?" he hissed slightly too loudly, and a couple of soldiers turned around. Eldarion smiled foolishly and waited until they had turned back before continuing.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that my words were rash, and Eldarion...." Legolas' voice became even quieter and the long arms wrapped around his waist relaxed slightly.
"Eldarion... I know we both have feelings for each other," the elf said coyly and the prince smiled slightly.
"Well, I was wrong in pushing you away. Eldarion, could we try again?"
At that moment, Eldarion never remembered being so hopeful or joyous. His heart sung in his heavily thumping chest.
"Of course," Eldarion replied, his voice cracking slightly.
"Good," Legolas murmured and placed a soft kiss on the man's neck that immediately made Eldarion shudder.
"Out of interest, what made you change your mind?" Eldarion asked suddenly.
"I-I don't know," the elf stammered slightly. "It'll sound silly..."
"Go on," the prince encouraged.
"A dream and a voice inside my head."
Eldarion smiled gently, although Legolas could not see. "It does sound silly, but I'll take your word for it."
~
The small party all mounted on horses had stopped for the night. After several pleads on the behalf of the weary steeds, they had persuaded Elessar that dead horses would be no help to Rohan.
They stopped on the edges of a small wood that in turn was on the edge of the White Mountains that cut through Rohan and Gondor. The peaks were lofty and beautiful, for in the snow-covered landscape, they were even whiter. Not only were their peaks were now covered in snow, but the whole of the rock.
The contrast against the green of the leaves was stunning and made all of it seem cleaner and brighter.
But the natural wonder was not seen, for it was dark when they stopped. Elessar, who for all his kingly duties, had not forgotten how to start a good fire, starting one hastily.
The men were slumbering fast and sat in a nearby tree was Legolas on guard. He had denied flatly any requests to go on watch first.
"You feeble mortals need all the rest you can get," he had laughed, and skipped towards the woodland.
The men had laughed along with him and had rolled their eyes at the strange antics of the elf as he placed his hands on the trees and started to murmur elvish words into them.
They did not seem to reply to him, but Eldarion noticed that the tips of the branches swayed a bit more, and the tree groaned slightly.
The man could not sleep, and the fact that his keen hearing could hear Legolas' soft song did not help.
"To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying, The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying. West, west away, the round sun is falling. Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling, The voices of my people that have gone before me? I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me; For our days are ending and our years failing. I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing. Long are the waves on the Last Shore calling, In Eressea in Elvenhome that no man can discover, Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!"
It was meant to be a joyful song, Legolas knew it, for he had sung it before in Ithilien, but now it was tinged with sorrow and even jealousy. He had returned and now it would be many years, the years of Eldarion's life, before he would be able to hear once again the sound of the waves.
Legolas' snapped down from the stars and realised that in his peaceful dreaming he had not noticed the figure walking towards him.
Eldarion's milky skin seemed to glow from an inner light as he climbed up the tree with grace born of his human father. The branches creaked as he climbed up using them as footholes. Legolas chuckled.
"The trees wish that you had some more of your mother's grace," he revealed.
Eldarion found himself rolling his eyes also as he sat next to his love. "Legolas, may I kiss you while I am sober?" he asked.
"A strange question," Legolas laughed. "Yes."
The man leant forward, wrapping his arms around the elf's torso and drawing him in. He wobbled slightly as the branch moved beneath them, but he found Legolas' body a pillar of balance. The elf was sitting upright, his legs dangling over each side of the branch.
Then Eldarion lowered his lips over that of the elf prince and they kissed gently and timidly.
Legolas let the man's fingers run through his smooth hair, and in turn his own mapped Eldarion's face, committing it to memory. They drew away, and Legolas sat serenely, his eyes still closed, on his face a contented smile.
"You look like the cat that got the cream," Eldarion observed with a playful tap on Legolas' nose.
His coal lashes fluttered before Legolas opened his eyes and remarked bashfully: "I feel like that."
Eldarion looked at Legolas' face in the darkness, only slightly lit from the right by the burning fire. His eyes were darker in the firelight, almost a black blue like the colour of the sea at night, the stars reflected in it. He saw so many emotions in those eyes: love, happiness, desire, grief and a painful longing.
"Legolas, why did only one hundred elves come?" Eldarion asked.
"Because...."
Legolas tilted his head up to look at the stars once again. They seemed so far away from where he was. "They all left."
There was silence while Eldarion swallowed this information. "Why didn't you?"
"I realised," Legolas said simply.
"What? What did you realise?"
A small smile lit the elf's face like someone had suddenly thrust a torch in Eldarion's hands and had aimed it at Legolas.
"That I love you." Legolas leant forward and placed another kiss on the man's lips.
"Y-you love me?" Eldarion had found many things out tonight that he was having trouble believing in. The prince sitting in front of him had just declared that he loved him so much that he was willing to forsake his place in the Undying Lands, in Eressea as the song had told.
"I love you utterly and completely Eldarion," Legolas vowed. "And I always will."
"How much do you love me?"
"Like salt loves meat," the elf said, using an old proverb that Gimli had taught him.
Eldarion obviously hadn't heard this saying; it was showing on his baffled face. Legolas laughed.
"Do not worry, it is an old dwarven saying," the wood-elf said.
"Legolas, one final question," Eldarion interjected when Legolas looked like he was going to move. "Do you have the same.... longing for the Sea?"
"Aye. I have since long before your birth," Legolas said, and without knowing it, made Eldarion feel young and naive; the man shrugged it off and continued to listen. "Everyday and everynight I have Sealonging. I fight it, but one day I know that I will have to give into it. I hope that day comes in many years, so that I will still be able to spend time with you."
"I've never seen the Sea, what's it like?" It was true, the human had lived all his life in Minas Tirith, occasionally straying into Rohan. He had never a reason to go into South Ithilien of Belfalas.
"It's beautiful. So wild and untamed. Not even the bricks and stone of men would be able to repress it. The Sea is a fickle thing in its moods. One minute it will be as smooth as an inland lake during summer, other times it will be like the spring river: the ice has just melted it and the river is overflowing and travelling down to the mouth so quickly and boisterously."
Legolas' eyes were slightly closed as if lost in some memory then they snapped open at the sound of a slight yawn.
"Come Eldarion, you need your rest."
Legolas made as if to jump down from the tree, but he was stopped by a hand on his wrist. "Please A'maelamin," [my beloved] the man said, relishing in the amused look. "If I sit up here, I will sleep better than if I did on the ground. Just your company will lull me to sleep."
"You may have my company," Legolas promised, frowning slightly, for the last sentence of Eldarion's sounded strangely like an insult. "But I fear if you sleep on a branch, you will fall off. At least sleep on the ground, against the trunk of the tree."
Eldarion nodded, seeing the sense and knowing his own knack for clumsiness. They climbed down and the man sat on the velvety soft moss at the base of the tree, resting his head against the bark, and slept soundly.
He was watched over by Legolas Greenleaf, who sat all night with a smile on his face and a song on his lips. ~
