JC: Wow! Next day update!

Kathrine: We got a wonderful, flattering review from the wonderful Eressë and couldn't help but want to post this sooner.

JC: Unfortunately, or maybe not so unfortunate, you won't found out who the father is until next chapter. We didn't mean for it to happen, but that's how the chapters came out.

Kathrine: You get another chance to guess!

JC: Yeah, so if anyone wants to change their answers or answer a question they over-looked, feel free!

Kathrine: There will be SOME action in this chapter, not a lot, but some none-the-less.

Disclaimer: We do not own LOTR in anyway, unless you count the books, DVDs, and a Legolas poster.

Warnings: Slash, Slightly AU, Violence, Ignorant Lords

Weight of the Burden

By Jennifer and JC

Chapter 3

A week he had thought over the words of his friend, his confidant. He did not know if such a decision would ever be easy for him to make, for it would essentially and undoubtedly change his life and those of the ones he cared for, as well as most likely ruin the most precious bond he had…the one with his sons. But he also knew that he could not lie anymore, the ache had worsened and he could not deal with this alone.

His sons had gained a close bond of their own with the twin sons of Elrond in the short time they had known them, the four spending much time together. Although, Amúntel was always attentive when it came to Ithinor, never forgetting about him for too long. He was proud of how his son was able to handle his duty as a representative of Eryn Gael, spend time with others for fun, and still keep private time for the object of his heart…even if Ithinor didn't know it yet.

Andúnel was having problems of his own, with the Balrog Slayer of Gondolin in their mists. Whenever Glorfindel entered the room, the auburn-haired Edhel would blush slightly, but then manage to control himself. He became quiet, not being able to speak with his crush near. He also took to not-so secretively following Glorfindel with his eyes. Legolas knew that the other blonde was not blind; he most certainly could tell something was going on.

His sons' behavior towards love was one curiosity he had yet to fill himself on. To him, they were open, loving, and trusting, knowing they would always receive the same in return. But to others they would act differently. Andúnel was the more adventurous of the two, always ready for a challenge, while at the same time being more thoughtful and shy towards relationships with others. Amúntel was more strategic, but always friendly and open to people, though he did have a temper. And if he wanted something, he went for it in a roundabout way that let him know if it was worth it or he should not even bother.

Their personalities blended in contradiction, but whenever together they were complete, one whole. They felt no physical love, but their spiritual bond was so strong that they would read each other's thoughts and emotions easily. Legolas expected no less from them. It was himself that he felt was lacking. And with the push of his friend he hoped that it would change.

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" Come we must ride!" Amúntel urged his brother. " I am so bored!"

" Then go enjoy the day with Ithinor," his brother suggested.

His twin sighed, " He is busy with guard, showing techniques to the novice warriors, I had planned to spend the morning with him."

Andúnel raised an elegant brow identical to his own. " So I am your second choice?"

" Only because I had planned on spending the afternoon with you instead of morning," he told him. " I thought you would be too busy watching Glorfindel." He was prepared for the harsh punch to his arm and didn't try to avoid it. He was used to getting struck like so when he said something that embarrassed his older brother in some way. He just brushed it off.

" Fine," Andúnel gave in. " We'll go riding, but you owe me because I'm assuaging your boredom. And I do intend to collect."

" Whatever," the other shrugged. " I know you, so I'm not worried." He didn't see the slight mischievous grin on his brother's face as they treaded down the halls to the door leading to the stables.

They entered the stables and notice a group of boys appearing past the reaching age of adulthood towards the back, all three staring into the farthest stall. Sharing a glance, the twins wondered what could be so interesting and inconspicuously listened as they set their horses for their ride. They noticed he quiet sound of whinnied cries coming from the stall and neither believed it to a good thing.

" Do it again!" one of the boys exclaimed quietly.

" But aren't your hurting it?" another asked.

" Of course not," the final one stated matter-of-factly. " It's just a wimpy colt, it don't feel nothing. Watch." A crack sounded and Amúntel halted his actions. It was the sound of a whip. Another cry came from the horse inside the stall. " See? It's all ready got a bum leg so it's not much use anyway." The brown-haired boy raised the whip again, but a heavy hand on the boy's wrist stopped it.

" I wouldn't do that if I were you," Amúntel warned. " You have no right to strike that animal, lest you wish for someone to strike you the same way."

" Who do you think you are?" one of the boy's friends demanded haughtily. " We can do whatever we want with our property."

" He's an Elf," the other, more subdued boy realized. " He's one of the ones from Ithilien!"

" I don't care," the 'leader' wrenched his wrist from Amúntel's grasp. " That weak horse is my property. I can do what I want with it."

" You know that abuse of animals is illegal within Gondor," Andúnel stepped in. " The king would have you whipped for doing it."

" Twins!" the young man's eyes widened before smirking. He cut his eyes at them and laughed. " I know who you are! My father told me about you two. Bastard sons of the Elf whore, who runs Eryn Gael. I don't see how any of you could be-" The fist that connected with his face struck so fast and so hard that a loud cracking noise was heard throughout the stables. Andúnel had to grab his brother back before he did more harm.

" Gregor!" the one boy shouted while the other dropped his jaw in shock.

" How DARE you say something like that about out father," the younger twin's voice was low, but as hard as steel.

" You shouldn't have hit him!" the young man shouted. " You'll be arrested for it! He's the son of the king's fourth advisor!"

" You insulted the Lord of Eryn Gael!" Amúntel boomed. " I should beat you within an inch of unconsciousness for that slight against our father's honor!"

" It's true!" the young 'Gregor' sputtered from the ground, his mouth bleeding from where he had bitten into his tongue and cheek. " My father said yours became pregnant! He's a freak! You don't even know who-"

This time Andúnel didn't stop his brother from lunging at him. He knew it was probably going to be put against them, but he didn't care. No one insulted his father…no one. He also knew that when angered, Amúntel was not a force that could be easily stopped until he released most of his rage. The second boy went forward to help his friend, but the elder twin immediately grabbed him. " Your friend started this," he warned. " He will deal with the consequences." He didn't see the third boy rush form the stables.

" He'll kill him!" the boy struggled.

" No he won't," Andúnel stated with authority. " But I would not bet on him being able to walk tomorrow."

Amúntel punched the other man across the face for the last time, and then held him down, pinning his body beneath him. " If you EVER say something like that about my father again I will…!" he didn't need to finish his words. The boy was barely awake, his face turning shades of black and blue while he had a cut above his eyes, a split lip, and was still bleeding from the mouth. Amúntel hoped that he had cracked a rib or two as well.

" Let them go." It was a voice he knew, speaking with hard authority.

He turned his head to see Elrohir standing in the doorway of the stables, eyes glaring holes into them. He sneered down at the battered body beneath him before letting go of him and standing, stepping away from the carnage he'd wrought. " What happened?" Elrohir all but demanded, his voice emotionless.

" They were beating the lame colt it that stall," he pointed to where the young horse was, curled up against the back of the stall, shivering. At seeing the actually damage done to the young creature, he wanted to beat the boy all the more. Its pale grey back was littered with angry red lines, some looking as if they were beginning to bleed.

" You should have come to me or the king," Elrohir started. " It is against the law, they know this. You should not have taken out your anger on him."

" That was not why I struck him!" the auburn-haired Elf snarled.

Andúnel still held the other and shoved him onto his knees. " Tell him," he ordered the boy. " Tell him the disgraceful lies you spout about our father!" Pulling his head back, his force the young man to stare straight into the older Elf's silver/grey eyes.

" Let him go," Elrohir ordered, his voice darker. " Elladan is waiting outside. You two will go with him and I will have someone come and get these two. We shall put this before the King and then the Council. Your father would be disappointed in you right now."

" We defended his honor!" Andúnel countered. " They called him-"

Elrohir silenced him with a wave of his hand. " It matters not," he told them. " You should not have attacked them. Legolas would say the same. As I said, this will be brought before the King."

Both Elves suddenly felt very chastised, even though they still believed their cause righteous. NO ONE spoke of their Adar in such a way! Still, they both were cooled by the look of disappointment in Elrohir's eyes. They also knew that if he felt this way, then Elladan most certainly would as well. The prospect of the older twins being upset with them left both boys feeling depressed. Perhaps it wasn't as worth as they first believed.

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" I want them beaten and thrown in the dungeons!" The man was incensed, angered by what had been done to his son.

" You cannot deign punishment, Gredon," Elessar warned him, though his tone was not harsh, taking into count how he would feel if this had been done to his own son. " We do not even know what has transpired." He turned his gaze to the four young ones standing before him. " And we will find out, just as soon as Legolas arrives. His sons are under his jurisdiction. And if the Lord agrees, their actions shall go before our own Council for judgment for their act was committed in Gondor."

" That wretch has left my son bloodied with cracked ribs and his face so bruised his eyes are swollen shut!"

Amúntel kept his head bowed, his eyes set in a glare and his hands clenched. / That son of Mordor deserved worse than that! / He spoke mentally to his brother.

/ Stay calm / Andúnel told him. / Adar will most definitely not be pleased with us. Those boys were barely even one-fourth our age. /

/ But they have past their majority just as we have! / His twin showed no sign of calming down as the advisor, Gredon, continually on with his tirade. He was enraged by the fact that his son was beaten so badly, and by an Elf at that! Amúntel was beginning to think it was have been better if he could have beaten both father AND son. / This man is younger than we are! Yet he acts as if he is our better and should push about like young babes. /

/ Calm down. / Andúnel's tone did help to keep his brother thinking clearly. But it did no good knowing that this was the man that had raised that wretched urchin he had trampled over. Elladan watched from the back of the room, a mere spectator to the preliminary trial.

The door opened then, letting Legolas enter the room. His attention went to Aragorn first, his eyes questioning. Then he let them land on his sons, who bowed their heads even more at his interrogating stare. " What has happened, Lord Elessar?" he finally asked. " What transgressions have they performed."?

" Your 'children' attacked my son and his companions!" Gredon bellowed. " Your one, beat my son into unconsciousness while the other held his friend, Hilmer, backs! If Tresir had not found Lords Elrohir and Elladan I would be demanding charges against them of murder!"

" Gredon!" Aragorn's frustration was beginning to show. The advisor silenced himself, understanding that his lord was nearing his last thread. The King shook his head towards his long time friend. " We do not know the full trail of events. I thought waiting for you would be best. I would first ask Hilmer to give his side of events, seeing as it is claimed that he and Gregor are the victims of the act."

The blonde young man raised his head and gave a quick glare in the twins' direction. " We were training the new colt Gregor's mare gave birth to," he stated, trying to appear honest. " It has a lame leg and tends to be obstinate. Gregor was just teaching it some manners." A snort came from Amúntel, but glare by his father, Aragorn, and Elladan forced him to curb his temper. Hilmer almost smirked, but continued with his 'side' of the story.

" The horse was becoming hysterical," he went on. " The horses down from us were being quite irritating and it caused the colt to act out. Gregor was just about to give up it when those two entered the stables. The one got angry at us, calling us barbarians and savages, saying that we didn't know how to train our horses properly. I was angry and said that we didn't have the power to just 'talk' to them, but they wouldn't stop. Gregor finally got upset and spouted that they needed to go back to their father and be treated some manners. That was when the one over there on the left attacked him for no reason at all! I know it was him too! He's still got Gregor's blood on his knuckles!"

Amúntel was more than angry by now. The idiot didn't even try to make lies from the truth, but rather spouted full falsehoods from his mouth! It took everything that he and his brother could think of to keep himself from forgetting decorum once more to put this snake-tongued upstart in his place. He could feel slight pain from where his nails had dug deep enough into his palms to cut wounds. Legolas stared at his son, knowing that this was completely false. Yes Amúntel had a temper, but he would never beat someone so thoroughly over something so slight.

" Now I want to hear from you two," Aragorn turned to the twins.

" What else is there to hear?!" Gredon demanded. " You heard the truth from a young man of upstanding nobility with absolutely no reason to lie! It's obvious who is at fault here!"

" Of course, the boy has no reason to lie," Elessar agreed. " Unless it is he that has something to hide. Now I have heard the side of he and your son, now I must hear it from the sons of Legolas." It was obvious that the man was not pleased with this, but he remained quiet.

Andúnel gave his brother stare, telling him to remain silent. He was the more calm of the to and wasn't going to say something that would hurt their side of this. He had a tendency to do that. " We had planned on going riding this morning," he stated. " When we reached the stables we heard the three Men at the far back stall. There was crying from the horse inside the stall. At first we did nothing, until we saw that one with dark hair, found to be Gregor, was beating the horse with a whip. The horse's crying was beginning to upset the other horses, including our own."

" A whip if often used to train horses," Gredon butted in. " They cannot be faulted for breaking in a colt!"

" Silence!" It was enough for Aragorn. " If you speak out of turn once more I will have you removed from this hearing and confined to your chambers for the rest of the day."

" Yes milord," Gredon's position suddenly became submissive.

" 'Breaking in' would not constitute bleeding welts on the young horse's back," Amúntel finally spoke. " It was quivering at the back of the stall when I saw it. Its grey fur tainted brown from blood. Beating of animals is against the law of Gondor and I warned them of that. I will not lie and say I was not angered for I was, and I even said that he himself could be beaten like so if he would strike another that way. But that was not why I struck him. He slandered my family and the honor of my father. I will not apologize for I am not sorry. He deserved it and it just happened to be I that gave it to him rather than another."

" He insulted Lord Legolas?" Elessar remained regal and stoic, though he did not appreciate the thought of someone slighting Legolas. But it was impossible to end all prejudice and hate in Gondor, no matter how hard he tried. He saw the look in Legolas' eyes and knew that his friend was proud of his sons for defending him, yet also disappointed that they would let their anger take control of them so fully. " What was said?" he asked.

" We will not repeat what he said," Andúnel shook his head. " Those words will never leave our lips. Know that he insulted our father's honor, our heritage, and we ourselves. The words he used were too strong to be have been said in any other way. And we could not allow them to get away with it."

" If you will not say, then how do we even know anything was said at all?" Lord Gredon inquired. " My son lies in the healing wing and yet you will not even say what you 'allege' he has done to deserve such?"

" He called Lord Legolas a whore." All turned to the speaker in the room. It was Tresir. He was still staring at the ground, not looking up at anyone, as he stepped away from Hilmer's side. " Gregor did beat the horse, said that it was too lame to feel it. When the Elves stepped in, he called them bastards and their father a whore, who was a freak for birthing his own children. The one struck only in defense of his father. The other held Hilmer back when he tried to step in. It was a one on one fight, but the Elf was just too fast for Gregor to fight back. He got what he deserved."

" Shut up you coward!" Hilmer growled at him. " They had no proof!"

" Yes they do," Elrohir took this time to step into the room. " I have just spent the last half-hour tending to the bleeding wounds of a horse not even a full month old. The poor creature was not even lame, only sprained its ankle. It could have easily been tended to. What was done to that horse was nothing short of barbaric. It no doubt unable to be ridden now, due to its fear of people. I have barely been able to calm it enough to take care of it."

" This is a plot by the Elves against my son!" Gredon exclaimed. " They have even conned this disgraceful wretch in on their schemes!"

" Why do I have a reason to lie?" Tresir asked. " I too am guilty for not stopping Gregor when I should have. I am willing to accept my punishment, but I am not going to let them get in trouble for something I have been dying to do for years and would of done had he spoke such about my own parentage."

" You daft whelp!" Hilmer stepped towards him. " I don't know why we ever let you come around us! You are not even to your majority yet! Your just a childish wretch following us around!"

" I would watch who you spout blame upon, young one," Legolas finally spoke. " Are you more angry at him for speaking the truth, or for him disproving your lies against my sons." He then spun his stare to Gredon, his eyes as chilled as ice. " And you, Lord Gredon of Fillowild, you have something against us Elves, do you not? Is it because you despise your own Elven heritage, the heritage of the Númenor? It is you yourself who has taught your son this hate! And now you see that he has paid for it."

Aragorn stood, his form regal and stern. His eyes fell on all involved. " It is my decision that this will go to the Council, should Gregor wish it so. But with the evidence to the contrary on his claims and the claims of his fellow 'victim', charges of animal abuse shall also be brought. If this proven true by the evidence, then your son will be whipped much like he did to the poor beast, and then the horse shall be removed from your ownership."

" Milord!" Gredon's eyes were wide. " Has my son not already paid for this supposed 'crime'? Is he not already now lying unconscious in the Healing Ward?"

" But he was not struck for his transgression upon the colt," Aragorn pointed out, " but for his slandering of Lord Legolas' honor. And it is the right of the son to defend the honor of his parents. Just as it is also the right of Legolas to demand penance of your son for his slighting of him."

" What?" Gredon was in shock. He had saw this as his chance to finally begin ridding Gondor of the arrogant race of Elves, and yet it had not gone as he had planned. It had turned on him and his son, who was now seen as the guilty party. He had not expected one of his son's supposed 'friends' to turn traitor at such a crucial moment. And his son had told him that Tresir was too much of a coward to speak out against anyone! He had to think of something fast to make all of this go away.

" What would 'Lord' Legolas ask for in assurance that this all would be forgotten?" he asked. " Surely we can come to some sort of agreement?"

" I want nothing," Legolas stated, his voice still empty. " Only that you would leave us be and hope you never step foot with in the boundaries of Eryn Gael."

" No," Amúntel shook his head. " The colt, it should not remain with them. It is far too young."

" Then that is what I ask for," Legolas gave his son a small smile. " I ask for the colt as penance. One of our own recently gave birth, so she would not have objections to caring for another as well. Give us the colt your son harmed and this will be easily set to the side, though not forgotten."

" But…but that is the result of prize breeding with a Lord from Rohan," Gredon stuttered. " You cannot possibly…?"

" A wounded horse is more important to you than your heir?" Elladan asked him.

The man was silent before tossing his hand up carelessly. " Take the wretched beast," he told them. " It will be of no use to me. But this is now sealed. Over."

" So done," Aragorn nodded. " Now you all may go, return to your rooms or homes for this hearing had ended." He stood and stepped down from his throne walking off to the side through another exit rather than the main one. He still had much work to do within his study and this alone left him feeling drained. Guards led Gredon, Tresir, and Hilmer from the room first, preventing any incident from occurring on the way out. Elladan and Elrohir watched as Legolas and his sons left, going to his rooms no doubt, but they could tell from the look upon the blonde's face that this was far from over.

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Translations:

Adar - Father

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Kathrine: Okay, so the trial thing was really crappy. We'll probably go back and redo it later.

JC: Look at it as a Grand Jury hearing, seeing there is enough evidence to go to trial, but seeing as Aragorn is King, he is the Grand Jury.

Kathrine: Only special cases get sent to him, like ones dealing with delegates from other realms/colonies and such.

JC: We kept pointing out the Council, which is like the head of Aragorn's advisors in a group to decide cases, like a jury, with Aragorn as judge. Makes it easier on the king instead of having to decide everything.

Kathrine: Okay, with that out of the way…You find out the answer to your questions NEXT! And that chapter is all ready set to come out. But we'll post it in like two days. Be patience.

JC: Leave us a review and tell us what ya think!