Imperfection

By Faceted Mind

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Rating: PG-13

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Pairing: Legolas/Elrohir

Disclaimer: Tolkien would be turning in his grave. I claim to own nothing save the words on the page in front of you.

Summary: Elves are a race of perfection. When a child is created that is less than perfect, what will become of it? And what of its parents? Legolas/Elrohir Slash&Mpreg

AN: I love the idea of a 'Silvan' elvish (the language of the more Eastern elven Kingdoms - ie Mirkwood and Lothlórien) still existing, though only being used amongst Silvan elves. We know that most Silvan elves still speak Sindarin with a 'Silvan' accent, and I find it very hard to believe that a race would have discarded a language that they have always used (more literally than normal, for they are elves) to take on another elven language. Because of this, I will refer to Silvan as a language more than once during this story but won't make any attempts to 'create' the language. Try to think of the accent as a Welsh accent - long vowels and rolled r's - as such, Legolas would be called by his own people a name sounding somewhat more like Laegolass.

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"Aragorn?" The king turned from his advisor and looked across the hall, surprised, as his elven friend appeared at the other end of the hall. Dismissing the advisor he moved quickly across the empty space to embrace Legolas; but was confronted before he could reach him by a young elf-maiden carrying a cotton sling about her front. A stream of snapped elvish followed and Aragorn was left baffled as Legolas pulled the other elf away with a soothing word.

"What was that? It sounded elvish, but not like the tongue I know." Aragorn asked as the maiden turned away, obviously fuming.

"Do you not remember Silvan? I tried to teach you once." Legolas answered with a smile.

"Ah yes, but I seem to remember we hardly got past the pleasantries and something tells me that what was just said was not said pleasantly." Legolas grimaced.

"No indeed, the gist of what she said was that you should fetch me a chair, though much was added that I think it better you didn't hear. I do not think she realises you are the King..." Legolas wavered. "A chair, Aragorn, please? Else I shall fall where I stand."

"Of course." Aragorn replied, looking about him and finally settling on taking one of the chairs from around a nearby table. "What has happened to you?" He asked as he dragged the chair over. Legolas settled into the stiff-backed seat with a sigh. He was preparing to answer when there was a weak cry from the other elf's sling. So unexpected was the sound, the King of Gondor jumped in surprise.

"Aia." Legolas muttered, turning to take the babe from the woman as she lifted the tiny thing from the sling.

"Valar, Legolas. What are you doing travelling with such a small elfling? It cannot be a month old!"

"He is two weeks old," Legolas confirmed. "And was a month premature. We have travelled as soon as we felt it safe."

"Is this your wife?" Aragorn asked of the elleth that stood beside his friend.

"Wife!?" This was a westron word that the woman obviously knew, for she fell about laughing and continued to mutter 'wife' under her breath and chuckle to herself. Legolas too, smiled at her good humour and waited for her to finish before replying.

"Nay, she is a midwife and a nurse to the babe."

"Then where is the mother? Surely the child is too young to be weaned."

"Aragorn, I must ask your aid." The man frowned at the evasion of the question, but replied,

"Ask it and I shall do what I may."

"A family must be found for this boy. To foster him. The nurse will stay with him, for he will need special care. He must be hidden, for he is in danger if he is found with me."

"What danger, Legolas? Who is this child that he would call for such desperate measures?"

"Can you not just accept that I am asking and that is reason enough?" The reply was growled in anger as the elf, stood and confronted the man. The burst of anger, so uncharacteristic of the elf, took him aback for a moment. He struggled for words as the baby began to wail. Stepping forward he placed on hand on Legolas' shoulder and the other on the baby's head.

"I will care for the child myself if you would ask it of me, but if we are to protect him we must know what we are to guard him from." Legolas slumped back into the seat, and brought the baby close to his chest, hushing it.

"My father." He answered eventually. "You must protect him from my father."

"But why?"

"If he were to see him and I together there would be no doubt in his mind as to what I have done. Both our lives would be forfeit. I can protect myself, but he..." He looked down on the child in his arms.

"Is he yours?"

"Yes." Legolas smiled. "But no longer." The smile fell as his face hardened. "This is the only way."
"Why!? What is it that you have done that is so terrible? Where is his mother and why do you look as though you have just survived Pellenor Fields for the second time?" Rolling the babe onto one shoulder, Legolas lifted the bottom of his jerkin and the undershirt beneath it to show a swathe of bandages around his middle.

"You were attacked by orcs? Was the mother lost?" Legolas smiled softly as the assumption.

"Sometimes I forget that you are so very young. And others you make it blindingly obvious. You have a child of your own, and have spent time in the houses of healing, do you not know what this is?" He indicated the wound.

"Did the mother do this to you?" Legolas blinked, stumped by the leap in logic.

"What?" He asked, baffled. Aragorn looked a little abashed.

"It is only that I remember that the time before Eldarion's birth was very... stressful for Arwen. She became a little violent and threatened several times to gut me if I thought to get her pregnant again." Legolas laughed heartily.

"My thanks, my friend. I needed that." He said as he swiped tears of mirth from his eyes. "No, the 'mother' did nothing of the sort. There was no mother, I birthed the child myself." The man looked mildly dumb-struck.

"How does... that... work?" He stuttered out.

"Much as it would with a woman."

"So there is a... a sire?"

"Aye, though if I name him it will be three lives at stake instead of two and so I cannot. These types of coupling are strictly outlawed amongst my people for this very reason. The punishment for such a relationship is banishment. For a child created... all three are sentenced to death."

"Why so strict a ruling?"

"The child is always... flawed, imperfect. The elves cannot stand to have one such amongst them. They are a perfect race." The sneering tone sounded foreign in his mouth. "The child might be slow to learn, he could find it hard to understand even simple things. He may not grow properly, or be weakened in limb or sense. There is so much that he might suffer in his life... I cannot stand to think on it."

"What will your father do?"

"Right now he knows nothing. I disappeared as soon as I began to show, only Mian has seen me throughout. I will hide a while longer and return when I am fit. He will suspect nothing if I am careful to keep the scar hidden."

"I thought your people didn't scar."

"Rarely. It will fade, but it will take longer to heal than most."

"And the sire?"

"The sire thinks I aborted the child when it was still safe to do so." Legolas replied sadly. Aragorn looked shocked.

"Who is this elf, that I might give him a piece of my mind. None should be asked to give up an unborn child. Not even one with such trials in his future."

"He was only trying to protect me." Anything Aragorn might have said in retort was lost as Legolas gasped in pain, clenching a fist to his abdomen. The nurse quickly took the babe from him and thrust it into Aragorn's arms, turning back just in time to catch the blond elf as he keeled forwards. Laying him down on the cold marble floor she lifted his shirt again to show that the clean white bandages of moments before were now seeped in blood.

Turning to the King the nurse spoke quickly in Silvan.

"I don't speak Silvan!" Aragorn near-shouted in panic. "Sindarin? Please say you speak Sindarin?" He continued, switching to the more common elven tongue.

"Bandage. Boil water. Needle, thread and room." The accent was so thick it took Aragorn a moment to process the words past the rolled r's and the extended vowels.

"There's a room here, I'll get the things you need, but you must take the baby if this subterfuge is to work." He hoped the woman would understand the rushed Sindarin and held out the baby so that he could carry Legolas into the other room. She looked at him with a despairing glance and lifted Legolas herself.

"Room now." She urged.

He left them alone in the small study off the main hall. There was a small sofa in there that Aragorn used for the nights he had worked too late to try and sneak into his own bed, and Legolas was quickly settled in it. He rushed back with the medical supplies and set them down beside the woman, who was removing the old bandages. She glanced up at him and offered a nod of thanks.

"Too early." She said, as she worked, revealing a wound the length of a finger along Legolas' side that was pumping with blood. "Too early to ask your help." She glanced up at the King to see if he had understood. His frown said he had not. Muttering, the nurse turned to Legolas who was stirring as she began to stitch the wound closed. Aragorn flinched as Legolas gasped, the nurse continuing the sutures despite the obvious pain of her patient. She offered him a stream of Silvan as she finished and he began to breathe steadily again. She punctuated her words with an expressive gesture at Aragorn.

"She says I have travelled too early, and risked myself for nothing. She thinks you will not help me." Legolas translated, not meeting his friend's eyes.

"Why did you travel so early, my friend? If no one knew of your pregnancy then there should be no one looking for you."

"I can only hide for so long. I must get fit again quickly to avoid arousing suspicion, and I needed to know he was safe first. If it is not to be with someone you know of, then I will find someone else to care for him, but it must be done quickly."

"Do not think of travelling further before you have received proper care." The nurse mirrored his sentiment in Silvan and for a moment man and elf exchanged an agreeing glance.

"I cannot be near him Aragorn." Legolas continued, not seeing the exchange.

"We can hide him, or you. We will find someone to care for him within the city and you can stay here until you are healed."

"You do not understand."

"What do I not understand?"

"He is my son, Aragorn. I cannot sit here while he is being taken from me. I cannot watch him grow and see him without feeling the grief of his loss. I have travelled so early so that I would not bond with him to have him torn from me. He is not yet named for that reason."

"You intend to sever all ties with him." Aragorn half-whispered, shocked.

"There is no other way."

"But how can you..."

"There is NO OTHER WAY!" Legolas was choked with emotion and the nurse pulled him back down onto the bed as he tried to sit up, scowling at Aragorn.

"Then I should like to care for him myself, as a second son. Arwen has been travelling with Eldarion, we shall say that she was away so that she could birth the child away from the city, under her father's care. The deception will not be difficult, it will be safer for him and your father will never suspect."

"You would not care about being seen by your people to have a sickly son?"

"Would you?"

"I am not king in this place."

"He will be as my own, however his difficulties present themselves."

"And he will have dark hair." There was a smile on Legolas' face as he drifted into unconsciousness again. Nodding to Mian, Aragorn hurried away to prepare a carriage for himself and the nurse the following day.

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The next day dawned bright, and Aragorn hurried down the empty early-morning corridors to the rooms he had given the nurse and the babe so that Legolas should not be disturbed. Finding the rooms empty he hurried downstairs into the main hall. Mian was waiting for him in the doorway to the study, a face full of fury.

"Gone!" She cried out as he moved across the hall towards her. "No watchers? Idiot man." Her Sindarin might have been broken, but Aragorn understood. He had placed no guards on Legolas during the night, assuming he was too weakened to move far and assured by Mian that he would not worsen during the night. Legolas had crept away unnoticed. Sighing, Aragorn led Mian to the carriage with the baby hidden in the sling once more. A glance confirmed what he had suspected, Arod was gone from the stables.

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Arod felt his load begin to slip sideways and shifted quickly to keep it from falling. There was a moan at the sudden movement, but it had long been obvious to the horse of Rohan that speed was more important than comfort on this trip. He knew where he was headed, though his rider's aids had been confused. Keeping a steady pace he continued on, day and night until he reached a familiar archway. He did not stop there, though, despite the calls for his halt. He hurried through the courtyards and up onto wooden platforms until he came to a door and stopped, kicking the door with a large forehoof.

A tired face appeared in the doorway and blinked a little as it was faced with a horse staring pointedly back at him.

"Arod, what do you think you are doing!?" Elrohir asked.

The horse contemplated walking inside to deposit his load, but decided the roof was too low and so backed out into the courtyard and lay down so that his rider could be taken from him easily. He doubted Legolas was capable of moving himself. Elrohir gasped as his lover toppled lifeless from the top of his horse onto the wooden boards of the platform.