A/N: I am sooo sorry for being away for so long. I couldn't help it. Blame my cousin for getting married and then blame my mother for paying for my trip to Germany. I'm a bitch I know. These characters aren't mine.. yackety yack. The title might be that of a certain play stating Ian McKellen, in which case neither is the title of the chapter.

Chapter Eleven: The Dance of Death

Legolas unsheathed the knife at his waist and started spinning it between his fingers. His back was still away from Gladrau and the dragon was patiently waiting.

The actions became quicker and quicker. More exaggerated they flipped through his fingers; his thumb spun around the hilt.

Then reaching behind him, his hands still spinning the blade, he pulled out the knife that was used for cutting arrows. It wasn't as sharp but it was the same length. They were twin but Legolas had found that he was far deadlier with only one of the white handled knives.

With his left hand he started spinning it.

They spun in exactly the same movements. Between his fingers, over his thumb, around in circles, around the other way, in a star pattern.

The star pattern was exceptionally breathtaking. The blades pricked the air in five different points and connected them while it was spinning. At the speed it was going, for a brief second, you could see the path of the knife, blurred as it was, and then you watched as it drew the shape of the star.

Then Legolas threw them up into the blue sky. They caught the sun and glinted. Instantly, Gladrau's eyes were drawn to the blades still twirling as they fell down.

Legolas spun around on the ice and caught them. This time he was facing the dragon as he performed the same pattern again. It became even quicker and quicker.

His hands were moving in a blur and it took Gladrau's keen eyes to follow the blades.

The beauty of the warrior elf's dance captivated Gladrau. Legolas gradually started swaying his lissom body in time to the beat that he tapped with his foot.

He started spinning, his golden hair caught in the noontide breeze. It was lifted above his head and toyed with by the wind like seeds from a dandelion flower. His deep blue eyes followed the blades intently and the movements that came in time seemed more natural than intended.

The knives gyrated above his head and then they were moved down and underneath one raised leg and back to waist height. He threw them up in the air and clapped his hand, and glided in a circle on the ice before catching them again and resuming the dance.

The dragon stood all the time his eyes eagerly watching the movements of the blade. They were the only things that captured him. The spell they cast him on him was because of two reasons. The first was that the knives were of elven blade and Gladrau impulsively feared them because of this so he watched them in case Legolas was going to strike him. The second reason and really the most truthful was that Legolas was the wizard wielding his staff.

Legolas' source of magic was that of his weapons. A spell was lowered on Gladrau that was so undetectable that the dragon didn't fight it.

For a second the movements of the shiny metal slowed and Gladrau watched in shock as he met his own eyes in the reflection in the metal.

He realised why Legolas had wished to fight at noon. It was the time of the day that had the most sun and the blade would reflect it the best.

Gladrau stared into his own eyes and saw what had captured so many helpless people. He was sinking into his own pool of dragonfear!

Legolas speeded it up and Gladrau was forced to follow it. He needed to look into those eyes again. So much wisdom he thought even as he felt the first icy grip on his heart that signalled the beginning of the fear.

Between his fingers, over his head, around his torso they spun Legolas still watching them. For an instant he looked away and saw those yellow eyes staring at his knives. He looked into those eyes but saw nothing. Gladrau was busy focusing without noticing it, the dragonfear at himself.

Legolas lost his concentration and slipped slightly on the ice, it was getting hotter from the long contact that the dragon's warm body had made on it.

The knives fell from his hands and were thrown up into the sky. They twisted and spun below the clear sky.

Gladrau gave a cry of dismay as they carried on upwards. His gaze was still lost in the reflection. His eyes were still staring at his own. He lifted himself of the ground with mighty effort and flapped his wings hurriedly trying to get to the knives.

The dragonfear was overcoming him even more. He felt his limbs starting to stiffen as he nearly reached the knives and yet again was filled with the lust to stare into his own eyes.

Legolas quickly straightened himself up and in an action that he could now do with his eyes blindfolded, he bent his bow and fitted it with an arrow.

The hair of Galadriel rested against his cheek for a millisecond as he aimed at the unprotected belly of the beast.

Legolas's eyes were cold and merciless as he released the string.

The arrow flew straight, the bright blue fletching on it nearly invisible against the sky of the same hue.

There was a slight shriek as it cut the air and headed towards it victim.

Suddenly Legolas' mind snapped into play and he realised what would happen if the arrow were to strike Gladrau. Turning on his heel to swiftly, he slipped again on the ice and landed facedown with a heavy thud.

There was a loud caw that could be heard in lands as far as Gondor and the arrow met its victim just as dragonfear finally killed its owner.

The spell that had been used so successfully against many innocent victims would no longer be used as both Gladrau and the knives started falling.

The arrow possibly may not have been needed but Legolas wasn't one to gamble his life when it was already at stake.

Due to Gladrau's phenomenally greater mass, he fell quicker, the knives were still in the air when the dragon hit the ground his eyes dull already.

There was a loud crack and the hard ice of the Sea of Rhûn split under the impact.

Legolas was still on the ground when beneath him the ice separated. He was plunged into the waters with a gasp.

He felt himself sinking lower and lower. His heart's beating became slower and slower.

Feebly, he reached out one hand to grasp something, anything. He opened his mouth to scream but all that came out of his mouth was a couple of bubbles of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Legolas' heart finally stopped beating. The blood stopped going to his brain and all his organs shut down.

His face frozen in a shout for help and his hand frozen in the outstretched position, Legolas sunk deeper and deeper into the icy waters of the Sea of Rhûn.

Near him the form of Gladrau sunk swifter. The yellow eyes were now shut and he had almost a peaceful look on his face. He had seen the future and he did not like it, it was almost a blessing that he did not have to be included in it.

The last of the dragons on Middle-earth died and with them their legacy of fear and terror. Dragons were only even seen from that day onward by the pictures in book of mythology.

Legolas Greenleaf felt himself falling deeper into blackness and thus the dancer of death died.

~

Before them was the broken Sea of Rhûn.

The frozen water was broken up into numerous ice floes. They seemed to have split up because something heavy broke them up.

"But what?" Elessar asked looking out over the Sea.

"Gladrau." was all that Eldarion murmured and started to step forward but he was stopped by his father's arm.

Elessar's question was unspoken but his son still answered it: "The dragon."

Aragorn swallowed deeply, his hand dropped to his side and Eldarion stepped onto a piece of ice. He slid slightly but then regained his balance and determinedly started walking slowly towards the large gap in the middle.

"Legolas?" the King suddenly cried.

Silence was the only thing that answered him.

Eldarion stepped over a gap and onto another ice floe. Beneath his weight, he felt it cracking again. "Get down!" Elessar shouted.

"What?" the prince said turning back to his King.

There was another crack and Eldarion felt the ice separating. He jumped to one side just in time for where his foot was only the bitter water remained.

"Lie down, you need to spread your weight!" Elessar advised and Eldarion nodded, seeing the sense in this. He lied down on his front and started edging his way forward on his belly like a snake.

The large the surface area pushing down was, the smaller the pressure upon the ice would be. It was less likely to crack under all of his body than just his feet.

Meanwhile, Aragorn had gone along the shoreline and found an area that had a fairly large and unbroken piece of ice stretching most of the way in. He darted back to one of the horses that the Rohirrim had lent him. It came with saddlebags filled with brandy, bread and soft leather boots with blades attached.

Elessar pulled off his own boots; taking care not to let his feet touch the air and pulled on the leather shoes. They were slightly uncomfortable. The metal blade could be felt right down the middle of your sole, as the leather was only soft. But inside, it was padded with animal fur that kept the King's feet nicely warm.

He stumbled forward on the blades, cursing himself for not putting them on closer to the ice.

Elessar had skated along rivers and over small lakes when he was younger, but never quite had the hang of it. He left that to his more elegant and perfectly proportioned friend.

Legolas.... he thought and stomped on tenaciously. As he did the wind whirled around him and he was taken back to a childhood memory.

Flashbackend flashback

Elessar shook his head and smiled slightly. This latest escapade of Legolas' was so unlike him, but then, when the prince got something into his head, he would not stop until he had attained it.

His smile quickly froze at the sight before him.

It disappeared from his face as quickly as darkness comes in an eclipse. Elessar felt darkness had come over his heart in that moment.

He had come to a gap between two large ice floes and there, one hand outstretched but not in a welcome gesture, was Legolas' drifting and still body.

The hand was trying to grasp for something that obviously wasn't there. His eyes were wide in terror and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

The King felt his head become light and his legs turn to water beneath him. He collapsed to the ground without a care for the fragile ice. His knees ached from the impact and his mind was reeling.

"No," he whispered in disbelief.

"NO!" he screamed in denial.

In an instant, Eldarion knew something was wrong. His head spun around with speed that made him wince. His keen eyes fixed on the form of his father, holding onto something in the water.

"Legolas." Eldarion felt something in his gut revolt as he jumped from floe to floe. Suddenly his clumsy human limbs were as nimble as a deer in flight.

Elessar was struggling valiantly to haul the frozen body out of the water, but he wasn't having much luck. Legolas' body seemed to be stuck in place. His limbs were staying in the same position, as they were when he had died.

The King noticed his son's presence behind him and with renewed hope, started pulling.

He managed to get Legolas' upper torso onto the ice and from there, Eldarion grasped the legs partly out of the water and swivelled him around. Then the prince rolled him over so that the face was looking at him. The eyes were so scared that it made Eldarion himself felt the dread.

With shaking hands, Elessar fumbled at the elf's chalky white neck for a pulse. There was none.

With grey eyes that were filled with pain and anguish, he met his son's blue ones and Eldarion knew.

"No!" he shouted. "I won't believe it!"

He did believe it and as he checked himself and then held his cheek over the prince's blue lips, he believed even stronger. Legolas was dead: gone from this world.

Eldarion's face went white and he started weeping, throwing his fists down to beat the ice repeatedly until his own hands started going blue. And then he felt warm arms around. Clumsily, Elessar embraced his son and turned him around so that the prince was facing him. Eldarion hurtled himself into the King's hug and buried himself in his chest wishing that this was all a bad dream and that he would soon wake from it.

It wasn't a dream though.

~

I know I probably don't deserve this, but could you please review? It doesn't take long. honestly!