Author: Mirrordance
Title: Tempus Edax Rerum ("Time, the Devourer of All Things")
Summary: The Fellowship of the Ring runs across a time-traveling Legolas of the future whose mission is, strangely, to keep them from succeeding…
PART EIGHT: Tol Eressea
The Undying Lands,
The Near Future
~I did not return with it,~ were the first things out of his mouth, when he opened his eyes and blinked around him and tried to adjust to where he now was.
~I know,~ Lord Elrond said, ~I know the quest succeeded.~
~I could not return with it,~ Greenleaf—perhaps just Legolas now, said, ~There would have been no future for us if it were not destroyed.~
~Then perhaps this doom is fated,~ said Elrond flatly, dispassionately. Elves were not wont to admitting defeat, or helplessness. They seldom had to. As a matter of fact, not in his immediate recollection could he think of such a grievous time.
~Not yet,~ said Legolas fervently, ~Not yet, Lord Elrond. Not all is lost. I have a plan.~
* * *
His life was beginning to seem like a multiplicity of unsightly events that occurred over and over.
He stood beside Lord Elrond in the port of Alqualonde in Eldamar, Legolas watching the waves recede before his booted feet, and the ominous clouds preceding the arrival of Yuno crawl towards them as he had but… days or centuries ago. But as was always the case, there was something slightly different in the situation, and he watched wistfully as the last of the Teleri ships that emptied the ravaged Middle-Earth of all its few survivors docked. Stunned and bedraggled men, women and children looked about them, at these strange, legendary elves who had emerged from their untouched paradise to aid them.
"This is all of them?" Legolas asked.
"Yes," Elrond replied mournfully, "Perhaps we acted too late."
"It is never too late," said Legolas, "If there is one thing that I learned from all this madness."
"Tol Eressea is also completely vacated now," said Elrond, "All who have ever lived in Arda are now here, or deeper into Aman in Valinor. The Lonely Isle belongs completely to you."
The isle was actually a ship that was made to transport the Teleri elves towards Eldamar in the Undying Lands. But seeing their love of the sea, Ulmo ceased the transport and let them stay in the bay of Eldamar, within sight of their kin, hence the name of Lonely Isle. Sailing from Middle-Earth into the West, one passed Tol Eressea first and this was why Legolas wanted it freed; Yuno would have to come through the isle before reaching the other lands beyond, and there he would be accosted.
"All that I need is there?" Legolas asked.
"Yes," replied Lord Elrond, "And more."
Legolas nodded, and glanced at one of the ships that were docked, waiting to transport him to Tol Eressea. "I do not understand Eru's ways, Lord Elrond. Where is he in these times?"
"His will is more often unknown," said Elrond, "but you must not question his goodness."
"Nay, I do not," said Legolas wearily, "but… I just do not understand. He leaves us so empty. I've long had so little, and his ways take what there is left. I have nothing."
Lord Elrond looked at him intently, devouring the elf with his eyes. "Legolas… he simply gives us a free hand and lets us become what we will. I think he can look upon you and find you one of the best of his children. Do not lose faith, or hope. Success is nothing if your heart is gone. Such as this Paradise is useless to you if you are unhappy in it, and long have I seen you to be so. I do not even know why you do what you do for us. Because you live as if it were only a habit. Although… you fight as if your miserable paradise were worth saving."
"I can only move forward as I know it," he said quietly, quoting Aragorn's words.
Lord Elrond looked away, wistful. "If you succeed, have you thought about what awaits your return?"
"Yes," Legolas replied, "Nothing awaits my return. Not you, not this machine, not even myself, because this future as I know it will never come to pass. Whether or not I fail or succeed, I will have nothing in the end. Whether I stay here or went. As I said. I do not understand. But you needn't fear, Lord Elrond. I will try my hardest."
"I know."
With a nod, Legolas turned away from Elrond and stepped into the smaller Teleri ship that was docked for his use. The elves about him were looking at him as if he were already dead and gone, and he could not bear their lonely gazes, so he kept his eyes towards the Lonely Isle, as his sure hands maneuvered the seas towards it.
Minutes ago, the shores of Avallone facing East have been prepared for him and his mad plan. The harshest of Manwe's winds and lightning and thunder would burst the skies open with their brutal force as Yuno makes his way past, and the craftiest of the Noldorin creations would harness his strength in its defiance of time and space, and take all that it touched with it back into the past. The road to the Second Age was hard enough to begin with, and from there Legolas' battle would only have begun.
The winds whipped about him as he docked, and he did not even bother to secure his ship after he stepped out of it for he knew there was no returning anyway. Standing ashore, he felt the earth shake and the air cackle with suppressed power, and it seemed everything around him was stirring to life.
He took a deep breath and faced the approaching black clouds.
Come closer, Yuno, he dared to think.
"Come closer!" he bellowed, releasing his anger and frustration and hardening his heart.
Yuno seemed to hear the challenge, or perhaps it was his own guilty mind playing tricks with him, but the clouds seemed to move faster, engulfing the skies, eating all the light, moving angrily towards him.
As the darkness closed in, he punched at one of the machines that lay about the shore. Thunder and lightning. Blackness and fierce light. A deafening boom, and an ominous silence.
TO BE CONTINUED…