Author: Mirrordance
Title: Last Stand
Summary: The battle at the Black Gate leaves Legolas strange wounds that do not heal. He knows he is slowly dying & keeps it a secret, as he tours the fleeting mortal pleasures of the world before his last breath. He finds an unwilling coconspirator in Eomer
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18: Aragorn, Son of Arathorn: A Memory III
(Some Other Field)
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Mordor, Earlier in 3019
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"I never thought I'd die, fighting side-by-side with an elf," Gimli had said.
"What about side-by-side with a friend?" Legolas asked him with a wistful smile.
The dwarf was silent for a moment, but his dark eyes seemed moved. "Aye," said Gimli with a slight nod, "I could do that."
___
Except they didn't die. Came very closely, yes. But they managed to survive with few fatalities and with bodies relatively intact.
The victorious armies made a temporary camp not too far from just outside of that despicable Black Gate to tend to their wounded and to prepare for their respective journeys home.
Good that triumphs over evil, however, does not immediately cleanse a place that's long been burdened by its ages of unspeakable ills. The air was still thick in Mordor and the lands that surrounded it; a heavy pall of misery still hovered.
Or maybe it's just me, Legolas thought to himself wryly, finding his evening walk inadvertently took him from the camp and out to the open space where the Battle of the Black Gate was earlier held. While Mordor largely fell to its own evil, the plains just outside the gate were mostly intact, and he stood upon the ravaged land.
The bodies of the fallen edain were quickly recovered, and the orcs properly disposed of. The plains were empty save for him, and all of its ghosts and memories.
He was still in his battle clothes; it was not like him, really, to tolerate the spectacular dirt any longer than necessary. But he was loathe to make time to change, or wash up just yet.
He clearly remembered the curious feel of the ground beneath his lightly-booted feet during the battle. The ground was rock-hard with a sandy layer at the start. But once swords crossed, once lives began to be taken… the blood and the ash made for a spectacular kind of mud that clung to everything and hardened there.
Ghosts and memories…
Victory had been exhilarating, yes, Legolas reflected, closing his eyes, recalling how the world stilled for this one telling moment. At first there was fear; the change in the air was palpable. Things could have gone for better, or for worse. And then the very air seemed to burst, and ripple with Sauron's defeat and his despair.
But the event that directly preceded it was a cursed nightmare. It was Fate teasing him again. Giving him a little reminder of his ultimate loneliness, lest he forget. Make no mistake, it seemed to say to him, I've been watching you.
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"… I never thought I'd die, fighting side-by-side with an elf," Gimli had said.
"What about side-by-side with a friend?" Legolas asked him with a wistful smile.
The dwarf was silent for a moment, but his dark eyes seemed moved. "Aye," said Gimli with a slight nod, "I could do that…"
___
There was almost something comforting about it, he reflected, that moment, to stand there and think that perhaps the world would end. At first, he attributed it to the calm he's learned to employ at the start of a battle. But there was something else too. Something unspeakable, dark thoughts that pained him to realize.
Did I want to die? he wondered.
The face of death had a tendency to clarify things. The world always seemed so large… There always seemed to be a host of things that demanded for one's attention. But at the face of death, the world shrank into its barest moments. Things became simpler.
He may not have wanted to die, no, he corrected himself. He simply didn't mind it, at least for himself. It was a realization that wasn't as dark, but certainly paining too.
He put a hand to his lips, so deeply immersed in his thoughts. His noticed that his hand was in parts caked with dried blood and in parts slick with it. His wounds from this melee were smarting, and he could tell he was not healing as he was supposed to. It was making him nervous.
I think I'm dying again, he thought mildly, Estel will be mad.
He chuckled mirthlessly. That was a vast understatement. He ran his hands tiredly over his face. What a fix.
The first time he had this affliction was after witnessing the death of his mother, a brother and some friends. The wounds of his body mirrored those that refused to heal upon his marred soul. He was saved by Estel in childhood. Curious, for one so small to have such fire.
___
"Two broken hearts equal to one full one," Estel had said, "It's not so bad. I know your heart is broken, but I can give you some of mine, and then some of Elladan's, and some of Elrohir's and some of Ada's. Or we can steal them if they refuse. We'll all make a big full one yet. It's not so bad. You'll see. You'll see when you wake up."
___
But how long could a patched-up, rag doll of a heart survive the empty promises of the ages, he wondered now. There's nothing more that needs doing. There's no enemy to fell, short of a destiny that pulls one toward being alone.
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"Aragorn!" he had exclaimed, with widened eyes and a profound horror that was stealing his breath.
How did I wander so far? He wondered with a pounding heart as he fought across a sea of foes in an effort to thwart the enemy that threatened to steal yet another friend from him.
"Aragorn!" he called again, even as his mind raised and wondered precisely what the point might be, to keep shouting thus, as if the man he was calling was not already painfully aware of the dangerous situation he was in.
"No!" he cried out, watching as the man was thrown of his feet by the formidable troll. Legolas pushed his way forward. He was not going to make it in time. He was not going to make it in time.
The enemies that surrounded him would soon note his distraction and resulting weakness. His eyes were held by the sight of Aragorn, his attention arrested. He was watching a friend die, he knew. Aragorn was dying before him. And he could not change it. He pressed his way forward.
The sounds of the battle were dimming all around him. He collided with foes and allies, dodged some strikes, received others. But the world shrank. There was nothing else to do but to get there. To stop a dear friend's death.
Dimly, he felt a cut to his forearm. He pressed forward persistently. He felt the sting of a blade upon his chest. And he pressed forward persistently. These were telling instances that had his heart bared open with his fears and his painful misery.
___
They will not heal, he concluded, remembering that his present wounds came from that instance of realization, that moment his heart was bared wide open to bitter truths that long have called for his attention.
Fate once again decided to tease him. He had the most concrete sense now of what it meant to watch someone he loved die, and to have one's hands tied. There was nothing he could do then, just as surely as he can do nothing for all the ages that he would watch things around him perish.
He always said that Estel was like a looking glass… He changed how people viewed things. He is dead and things seem so bleak and impossible. He is alive and there is just… estel…
Now, however… still very much like a looking glass, Legolas knew that while Estel's death would have been a grandly devastating loss, he was just a magnification of Legolas' entire situation.
I'm not destined to lose just you, he knew. I will lose more. I've been set to lose from the very beginning.
The wounds stung now, as they did the first time they were inflicted. And they bled just as heavily.
___
He remembers now that he stumbled to the ground, which was probably why he was so miserably stained. Then suddenly, these strong pair of hands grabbed at the back of his clothes and pulled him up back to his feet.
He must have lashed out; it was a battle, after all. He crossed blades with a man wearing the colors of Rohan. Blinking at the soldier, he realized that this was not just a man from Rohan. This was the man from Rohan. Eomer. Her King.
Eomer acknowledged him with a nod, before turning away to fight more of their foes. He vanished in a sea of enemies and kicked-up ashes, just as the sounds of Sauron's defeat broke across the air.
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It was one of those things that he forgot he remembered. He would have to thank Eomer, when he runs across the King of Rohan again. If he remembers to, that is, for he had more pressing problems, now.
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The battle ended. The war ended. He remembered thinking with a rather great measure of bewilderment that he managed to survive. But what was even more stunning was that he also had a measure of disappointment. I didn't die here.
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You know you have a problem when you begin to find tragedy in survival, rather than in death.
So did I want to die?
Maybe, he managed to concede. Or maybe it was not a question of wanting to die. It was more a question of wanting to escape the loneliness that persistently chased him. The helplessness and the lack of a definitive foe that marked the end of the war.
No, he did not want to die. He just wanted to be spared the grief, wanted to be spared the tears and the bother of not merely losing friends and losing even more borrowed pieces of his shattered heart, he even had to watch the losses unfold.
The wounds will not heal, he accepted,
But it's all right.
TO BE CONTINUED…
THANKS TO ALL WHO READ!!!
THANKS ESP. TO MY REVIEWERS: silvertongue, noone, andruil1043, nikki, starlit hope, LOTRfaith, tychen, amy, platy, gozilla, barbara kennedy, wadeva, karri, dragonfly, amthramiel, deana and stoneage woman.
To starlit hope: oh I've heard of them. I'm not a fan, but I'll sure give it a listen now, thanks :)
To lotrfaith: actually its called 'last stand' because of a line in chapter 16 :) this will be further explained in my afterword at the end of the fic :)
To tychen: sorry for ruining your day!!! 8)
To stoneage woman: wow, thanks for taking the time even when you feel awful. Get well soon!!! :) it is uneventful but I like quiet scenes that are kind of just gentle, you know. I'll be talking about this in my afterword after the whole fic :)
THE NEXT POST takes us back to Rohan and the arrival of a neighbor from Gondor… 'til then!!! :)