Disclaimer: This story was written for enjoyment only. I do not own any of Tolkien's characters.
Author's note: Thank you, Isadora! Chapter 4 was a favorite of mine especially the last part between Aragorn, Elrohir and Legolas. :) As you can see, flashbacks are a favorite device of mine. I believe people can find comfort or release with their memories. I've read many different takes on how Legolas and Aragorn first met and became friends from different authors, and through my own story I wanted to create a more hesitant bond between the two at least in the beginning.
Readers, I made a mistake in chapter 3 when noting that Aragorn's left arm was confined so he had to try and shake the leaves off of him with his right. It is actually his right arm that Legolas had bound. Sorry for the mix up!
I hope you enjoy this next part:)
Moving forward toward his goal, sleepless dreams filled the elf's travels. The Fist Born possessed the ability to go on for days without rest, but during these times while their bodies kept working their minds sometimes strayed into sleep like trances. Legolas tried to keep his mind from slipping into one, but with the added stress that he had endured over these last few days compounded with injuries his body had sustained, he found it an increasingly difficult task to accomplish.
For over a day's time, through both daylight and night's shadow, Legolas had continuously towed the litter that bore his friend as they journeyed onward toward Rivendell. He had ignored his own pain and the start of a fever, the result of untreated injuries, as he gathered distance over the terrain, stopping only for brief intervals in which to try to cool Aragorn's raging fever and to encourage his friend to swallow a few sips of water. Each break in travel was proving increasingly taxing to the elf's emotions and reserve as his friend slipped further and further away from him. The restless motions of the ranger's body had stilled sometime ago, and though his eyes remained open, they appeared listless. Aragorn's skin had taken on a grayish hue and was covered with sweat, while his mouth now hung open as his body's struggle to gain breath increased.
The elf's spirit clashed within him as he watched this battle wage on within the Man's body, knowing that it was by his hand that his friend now suffered. Feelings of helplessness permeated his soul, and to push them away he would talk or sometimes chant as his feet moved forward over the path leading toward Aragorn's home. At first he perceived such action on his part to be inane, but as their course continued, he realized that his words and songs somehow penetrated the deep fog that kept the Human captive and helped to ease the ranger's distress.
At first they had begun as elven verses, but the lure of their melody furthered to distract Legolas' attentions toward these sleepless dreams that held his mind, and he felt it dangerous to continue on with them. He needed to keep alert to his surroundings for fear that additional interlopers might impinge upon their travels, so he switched to speech. At the start, it was just frivolous musings regarding the landscape they were passing through, remarking on the flora, fauna, rock formations, and the native animals that dwelt there, but eventually his pattern changed and he began mentioning events from their past finding comfort himself in these familiar remembrances.
Finishing up one such recollection, the elf gazed up into the afternoon sky, observing the position the sun held within it. He estimated the hour of the day to be around the 16th, while his eyes moved lower to pass over the surrounding landscape. He wished that he was more familiar with this particular environ they were now traveling through, so he could calculate with more accuracy the number of hours left to their trek. The best he could do was place its duration somewhere between three to six hours barring any unforseen complications. If Aragorn was alert, he would be able to tell him with certainty, but his friend was long past offering any cognizant advice.
Easing the harness he had fashioned from twine from his shoulders, Legolas extended his weary arms forward to stretch his cramped muscles after lowering the travios to the ground. He then turned to move back toward his friend. The sight that met him as he did unnerved the elf. For in that heart wrenching moment, he discovered that what he had feared most had taken place without his knowing. Aragorn's body was completely limp, his eyes shut to the world around him, his head lolled to the side and his jaw now slack. Frozen with horror, the elf's eyes quickly moved toward the Man's chest searching for some sign that Aragorn's body still sought to draw breath, but he detected no such movement. An inarticulate cry escaped his lips as he fell to his knees beside his friend. Tears glistened in his eyes as the muscles in his throat contracted choking off a sob that rose up. Tremors coursed through his body as Legolas recognized that Aragorn had finally succumbed to his injuries. The breath of life had left his body and with it his soul had fled sometime during this last length they had traveled. Anguish suffused the elf, and he reached forward to cradle one hand behind Aragorn's still head as his other hand grasped his shoulders to gather the Dunadan's body within his arms. The elf's head fell toward the Man's chest in defeat as his tears began to flow.
" No, Aragorn, No! Please don't leave me, nin mellon!" He cried out only to find his voice cut short by emotion as his grief overwhelmed him. The elf's mind finally gripped the harsh reality that he would never see his friend's animated features again, never hear his voice, the sound of his laughter, or the glint of mischief that filled his gray eyes whenever he was up to something. He had acknowledged to himself when he had sought out the Human's friendship that some day he would lose Aragorn to the Fate of Men, he had been reluctant to form such a bond because of this, but he had never considered that it would arrive so forthwith not even with all that had befallen them. The elf had held out hope that they would reach Rivendell in time, but now that hope had been lost, and he would never again have the chance to share his friend's company. "I am sorry, Estel. The blame lays with me..." He stammered as tears of agony flowed forth followed by accompanying sobs that shook the elf's body, and he tightened his hold around Aragorn as his mind retraced these facts. In death a Human's spirit would depart toward the Halls of Mandos, but unlike his elven brethren, who had lost their lives in battle or found their souls diminished by despair, Men's souls did not stay there but would proceed onward away from this world and leave its borders to some other fate.
"Aragorn!" The bereaved elf wept looking upward toward the seemingly endless cloud-covered heavens above them. "Aragorn!" He beseeched again as if calling out to his friend's departing soul in once last attempt to halt its progress. Then he allowed his head to fall forward, and Legolas ran his hand through the ranger's tangled hair, bringing his friend's face toward his own. The elf's tears fell to wet the still warm flesh of his countenance, and he moved forward allowing his lips to rest against the Man's brow while he began to utter his final goodbye. "My friend..." He choked until his voice stilled in his body as he felt an almost imperceptible stir of breath against his hair and neck.
Legolas' heart began to beat faster with incomprehensible awe as he shakily raised his palm toward the man's face, holding it mere inches away from his nose and mouth almost afraid to trust, but he felt it again, an almost undetectable trace of exhalation exited his friend's body. Dropping his head to the Man's chest, he distinguished its weak rise and fall and finally a faint heart still beating within. Legolas looked toward the heavens in disbelief and wonder, pondering if the Iluvator had granted them a reprieve.
Strangely, he found words of Aragorn's coming back to comfort him, "Today is not a day to die, my friend." not realizing he had spoken them aloud. Legolas looked back toward his friend, and stopped questioning this gift they had been given, immediately lowering the Man back onto the pallet. He did not delay the time spent on further ministrations for he realized that if indeed Aragorn had been granted a brief respite from death's grasp, then he needed aid beyond the meager attempts his hands could offer. He would not hesitate any further in prolonging to get his friend to the one who could administer such help.
Reaching toward the ground, he retrieved the harness he had only moments before abandoned, and looped it back over his shoulders as he strode forward with an increased pace, while his mind played back over his last words. "Today is not a day to die." Aragorn had issued forth this same statement during a very bleak time in their acquaintance. It had been more than six years prior...
Legolas had found himself companioned with a 16-year-old Aragorn against his better judgement. Nothing could have surprised him more than when the teenaged boy had met up with him at the stables that morning of their departure. When he had accepted this commission during the late hours of the previous night, he was sure the Lord of Imaldris would pair him with one of his two elven sons, Elladan or Elrohir, or perhaps both. To learn that the elven lord had sent his youngest, human son to be his companion on this assignment stirred deep misgiving within the archer, but he could not find it within himself to dispute Lord Elrond's decision. Five short days later as he found himself beaten and bound beside the boy, he regretted he hadn't.
The two had been sent out on a scouting mission into the foothills of Hithaeglir to report on the increasing shadow that had spread over the territory. During their campaign, their presence had been discovered. They were greatly outnumbered and though both elf and Man had fought valiantly against their foes, the two were overcome.
A swift death had not been the ignoble orcs' intent, and the two were carried back to their encampment. Beaten and abused, the elf concluded that the orcs derived pleasure in toying with their captives, driving them to the brink of despair only to relent at the last possible moment, so they could trifle with them again later. They found immense gratification in humiliating the elf especially, perhaps, because at one time they had shared a similar history with his race, until the atrocity of the imprisonment from which this bitterest of races was begotten, one defiled by evil and ugliness.
After suffering one last particularly brutal beating, the orcs had dumped Legolas' battered body back beside his bound friend not troubling to secure his hands or feet, feeling that the blows they had dealt the elf would incapacitate him until they wished to derive further pleasure. His companion's breath caught in his throat as he witnessed the abuse the elf had born at their captors' hands. Bruises covered his face and welts appeared along his body beneath the torn fabric of his garments. The elf's breaths came in short, choked gasps as further testament to the mistreatment he had suffered. Realizing the archer would not be able to withstand any further punishment and that his own turn would soon follow, the boy worked anxiously at loosening the ropes that restrained his hands. The fell creatures had been negligent in their last attempt to tie him up, and using the strength he still possessed, Aragorn worked toward freeing himself, ignoring the pain that his actions were causing him. Eventually he felt the coarse ropes break and give way, and immediately he was up upon his feet and beside the injured elf as he attempted to rouse him from his pain-filled stupor.
"Legolas!" His voice hissed in whisper. "It is Estel. I am free. You must get up. We need to get away!" Pain filled eyes fluttered open to meet those of the boy's before him, as he repeated his words again. "We need to flee!"
"Can't..." The elf groaned as he added, "Save yourself..." before closing his eyes again.
"I won't go without you!" The boy asserted.
"Don't be foolish..." The elf slurred. "My presence will only slow you down. They'll catch up to us...don't forfeit your life for mine."
Aragorn stared back at the elf before him as he muttered a muffled oath. "Such a stubborn race...I'm not going without you! My life will not be forfeited. Today is not a day to die, my friend!" Gathering the elf's abused body within his arms, he lifted Legolas with a strength the immortal being did not realize he possessed.
"You were right, my friend." The elf spoke out remembering the days that followed as the boy, who at that moment had become a Man in his eyes struggled to get him to Rivendell, nursing him back to health along the way, and a bond that he had been reluctant to develop had formed. "It was not a day to die, nin mellon, and neither is this one! Hold on, Estel!"
Author's note: Well if you've reached this note, then you made it through the chapter. :) Perhaps it was cruel of me to do what I did. Did Aragorn come back to life? In my mind, I'd say no. With the precarious state of Legolas' emotions and his well being, I see him more likely mistaking that his friend had died, but the real choice is up to the reader. I hope to have the two reach Rivendell by next chapter. I see possibly two or three more chapters after that. Sue aka Quickbeam