Disclaimer: I am too happy with my own love to want to own Legolas. I whished I owned J.R.R. Tolkien's range of ideas. You get the message, don't you?
Chapter 2: Father's thoughts.
Thranduil, Lord of the Elves of Mirkwood, saw his son disappear in the verge of the wood. He sighed. He felt Legolas's restlessness and it had become heavier every time they met. This time his son was really downhearted. He could almost see the heartache radiating from his son's eyes.
'Small children, small worries but with them growing up, their problems did as well.' thought Thranduil and let out a sigh, if only his wife was still with them...
Thranduil's relation with his son was one of love and respect. But when it came to matters of the heart.... He and his wife equally loved and cared for their children, yet she only needed one look at their children to know what the problem was. "Oh, Nîn naeg gur, ni harthon gwa min arad" the whisper that left his lips was only for the stars to hear. (Oh, my heart's pain, I hope to be together one day)
She always saw through everyone. She was needed here, with him...
He had, on previous occasions, tried to talk to Legolas about his feelings. But the only thing Legolas could say was that he was at a loss, feeling depressed. This concerned Thranduil, for it was dangerous for elves to feel this way. Thranduil had lost friends who had died of a broken heart. Yet, he did not know of anyone hurting his son like that. There had been maids around, Thranduil could not help but smile, beautiful maids yes, but there never was any seriousness in those relationships. And yet... 'Did I miss something?'.
He knew Legolas changed during his quest with the Fellowship of the ring. 'At first I thought that he had just grown up. I know war can make an infant into a warrior.
Not that I thought Legolas to be an infant when I sent him to Rivendell to attend the counsel of Elrond...'
However on returning after the crowning and wedding of Elessar and Arwen Undómiel (the Evenstar), he could sense Legolas had changed.
'Even then I had the feeling that there was more than just mere growing-up from war but since Legolas left very soon with Gimli to travel 'all of Middle Earth', I did not had to think about it then.'
This time Thranduil had to. The pain his son was in was obvious to see, at least with a father's eye. Could it be the love for this world that was consuming his son from within? He knew of soldiers returning from war with this everlasting look of loss about them. They did not live long. Most of them journeyed to the Grey Havens and over the seas within a decade. But it had been longer since the one ring was destroyed. And still Legolas was here in Middle Earth. 'Just not all of Legolas,' Thandruil thought, 'only part of him.'
Thandruil looked at the sunrise from his balcony and made a decision. Only yesterday a herald from Lothlórien arrived with a message that urgently needed an answer. He would send Legolas away. Maybe a task, although in no way equal to the quest of the One Ring, would give Legolas some grip back on his life.
Yes he would send Legolas, and if he would ask him to first see Elessar, who knows what the reunification with an old friend could do.
A/N: 24 may 2003: Since the time frame changed during writing, I had to make a minor adjustment.
14 August 2003:'Just dotting my i's and crossing my t's' as an english teacher of mine used to say!
