OLD WEAPONS
Author's Note: For those who have not read "The Return of The King" and do not wish to know the destinies of some members of the Fellowship, you may rather not read this. This is purely a piece of elf introspection that I wrote while tired and feeling rather world-weary myself!
The Lord of The Rings was written by JRR Tolkein and all associated characters belong to him.
The cliffs are tall and windswept, and the sky above them that dull yellowish grey that comes before snow. These are the sort of cliffs that lonely poets write long sweeping verses about - the sort of cliffs where jilted lovers might cast themselves, weeping, onto the rocks below.
They are also currently the sort of cliffs where sharp eyes would spot Legolas the Elf, sitting amongst the long scrubby grasses. He is dressed all in birch-bark grey, and his head is tilted slightly up, his thin, beautiful face whipped by his own hair as the quick breeze catches it.
Strange how someone so old can look both so young and so tired at the same time…
Legolas is watching the seagulls with the unerring concentration of a cat watching butterflies. The gulls wheel and cry above the cliffs, hanging on the updrafts as if they weighed no more than one of their feathers. A big black-headed male bird yammers loudly from the elf's left, and Legolas, reminded of his task, goes back to replacing the string of his bow with quiet patience.
It is probably the last time he will have to do this, and if he were being completely honest with himself he would have to admit to some doubt as to why he is doing it at all. After all, the bow is old, now, and the worn, woven Galadrrhim grip has lost all its shine - but he is no more able to leave it untended than he would be able to cut off his own arm. It is part of him.
Perhaps we are both as old and worn as each other, he thinks, and his lips quirk in a slight smile. Although I wonder which of us is showing his age more…?
He stands, and in a quick, fluid motion draws the new string back to full extension. The bow, empty of an arrow, hums a little in the wind. He holds it drawn for a moment or so, then relaxes and sits back down cross-legged, the weapon across his knees, and goes back to watching the gulls.
Actually seeing them dive before him and hearing the thunder of the waves as they crash into hidden caves beneath the cliff is somehow not quite as fulfilling as he imagined it to be. Sauron's downfall had not saved the Elves: their fate was sealed, along with the fate of all magical things, with the ascent of Men.
But I am not the last…some will stay, and what will become of them, I wonder?
Yes, of course some would stay. And so there would be places still on Middle-earth, forest glades and tiny golden copses, where Men would pass in wonder and be sure that some spirits guarded them. Places where it seemed to be always summer…but those that remained would be lonely, lost - they would be merely continuing, not really living.
Legolas remembers Lothlorien, beautiful even in winter, and closes his eyes. And now I am here, and my mind is still in limbo. Can I take myself away from all of this?
He is not to know that many, many years ago Frodo Baggins felt this same dislocation, a sense of being "torn in two", before he came to the Havens at last. Legolas is old now, and becoming tired, although his eyes are as bright as a young man's and his body as supple as any warrior-prince of Men. Samwise Gamgee and his wife, and his children, and their children - all are long dead and gone. Aragorn, king and saviour, kind ruler of Gondor, is likewise gone away. There is nothing left but the empty sky, and the gulls, and the Sea.
It is all history now, dusty like old books. Forgotten. Like me.
Legolas wonders whether this is the legacy of Sauron at work after all, and his long white fingers grip harder on the smooth wood of the bow. The War of the Ring, the Paths of the Dead - is this the feeling these things leave behind in their wake? The guilt of the survivor who surveys the wasteland left behind a tragedy, wishing in part that he had died himself? Anything rather than face this emptiness, the longing to go back to happier times…
…when all I wanted was to sit under the stars, the trees, and feel the night air on my face.
The Ring has taken away my simplicity, and for that talent alone I could have named it evil.
Legolas turns his attention back to the bow lying dormant on his lap, and runs his hands over the length of it. The murmur and crash of the waves in the bay below has taken on a different timbre: is it now the sound of water slapping merrily against a wooden keel?
It is. There are tall masts against the sky, rigged with gull-grey sails. Legolas rises to his feet, shouldering the bow.
There comes a time when a bow outlives its usefulness…you can replace the string, re-wind the corded grip, you can give the arrows new flights…but the bow will never be the same as it was before, when it was made new.
The gulls land amongst the gorse and thrift only when they are sure that the cliff is empty once more, and the yearlings, brindled like granite, peck and play with the length of bowstring almost hidden amongst the grasses.