Imperfection Chapter 5, a lord of the rings fanfic

Sincere apologies for the wait, life caught up with me for a while there. Christmas coming, climbing course coming, work coming, so much to sort out and so little time! Anyway… on with the show.

The pain had only grown worse, and now it seemed the very air he breathed threatened to choke him, and he fought not to show the children that he was struggling for breath. Riven was reading slowly aloud, trying desperately hard to form the complex words of the foreign language. The script he had been given had been enlarged to aid reading with his poor eyesight, and he held it away from him, as though hating to look at it. Eldarion frowned as he practised his own script in his head, in preparation for his own go. Riven paused and looked up as his adopted Uncle's head fell into his hands.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, putting the paper down on the desk. "I'm no good."

"No, no." Came the wheezed words. The exertion left him coughing heavily. Controlling himself he brought his breathing back in hand with sheer willpower. "I swallowed a fly." He finished with a smile.

Arwen met him at the door of the makeshift classroom, kissing first Eldarion, then Riven on the forehead as they passed her, the two rejoicing in their freedom as they disappeared off down the corridor - Riven trailing after his brother, their hands entwined.

With a smile and a half-bow Legolas greeted her and she replied in kind, leading him back into the room. She took a seat in the chair her oldest son had been using only moments before and waited for Legolas to seat himself too. She met his eyes with a gaze that was so reminiscent of her grandmother that Legolas almost felt the need to shake himself as he released him with a blink.

"Go." She said at last. "I will not blame you, and I will watch over him for a little longer."

"I do not understand your meaning." He replied, his voice cold and face blank.

"I will not have you die in front of him." She continued softly, but with force. "He has enough troubles on his shoulders for a young man." There was worry in her eyes but for whom, Legolas could not say. He sighed and buried his head in his hands for a moment. There was no use claiming ignorance, he knew Arwen would not allow it.

"My heart grieves for our separation, yet it seems to suffer more in our stilted reunion. I don't know what to do. I had never intended for us to meet, and my mind curses the decision I made when I took the road into Gondor near a year ago. And yet… there was no thought as to whether or not I would return."

"And you will return again, have hope. But now you must take your leave, for you are destroying yourself."

"Mother?" Arwen looked up at Riven from the missive she was reading through for Aragorn.

"Yes, my son?"

"Do you know what has become of Legolas? He was not in his room this morning and none have seen him around the palace." Arwen breathed an inward sigh of relief. She had left the Mirkwood Prince pondering her words the night before, and had wondered if she had said enough to convince him. His stubbornness was well known to her. It had shocked her to the core to see the depth of the despair in his eyes when she had spoken with him. It almost seemed as if he had accepted his grief-borne doom. It was a blessing, she supposed, that the children were both still to young to understand the meaning of such symptoms in the elf. Even they had seen that he was 'sad', and she had soothed their fears from him with words of home-sickness. Sending a silent prayer Legolas' way, Arwen turned her attention back to Riven.

"He was called home last night, Riven. I thought he might leave a message for you, but he was in a great hurry, perhaps he did not have the time. You know that he is a prince within his own lands, with duties of his own. He must go when his people call." Arwen pulled the young boy close as he sighed in barely concealed dejection.

"It is well. We have kept him away from his home, and he has missed it. He will be happy again." The tone of his voice held very little happiness, and Arwen resisted a second sigh. Some situations left no winners.

Several months later

The camp was quiet and stillness had descended over the trees as the wind dropped. The peace around him was enough to assure him that all was well in the forest and his thoughts turned contemplative as he whiled away the hours of his sentry duty.

He had lingered long in Fangorn after leaving Minas Tirith, wishing that the ache in his heart would fade or simply allow him release. He had passed many weeks beneath the darkling forest before he realised that the pain was not going to leave him any time soon and that there would be no easy way out for him while so much still held him in Middle Earth. He had returned to Eryn Lasgalen at last hoping for solace under the boughs of the trees that had watched over him from birth. Arriving to find a spider hunt forming, he had quickly been accepted into their ranks as an archer, only sparing a moment to wash the dirt of the road from his clothes and body and wish his father well.

It had taken them two weeks to reach the nest that had been discovered, knowing better than to dash headlong into such a dangerous area of forest and taking their time though the thick foliage. They were much further south now, entering lands that once belonged to Dol Guldur and its dark inhabitants.

The elves of Lothlórien had been living in the dark wood for several years, and though the process was slow the light was seeping back into the forest. Still there were pockets of resistance; orcs, wargs and the ever-present spiders, hidden away after the fall of the dark lord. The elven hunters were now well practised at destroying spider nests, and the battle had gone well. Two elves had been bitten, but were readily recovering from the venom, and the only other hurts had been scratches and bruises. Already they were three days closer to home and yet reluctance was flaring in Legolas, pulling him south once more. The thought of the slow, peaceful life that awaited him at his father's side - once a blessing as he recovered after his flight from Rivendell - was now less than appealing.

Action kept his thoughts empty, and when there was none he found his mind focused on very little save what he had lost. When he had first sought out his homeland he had been blank and empty in himself. Numb, he had got through the days in a good imitation of living, but he could barely remember the months that had passed in the haze. Eight years had been a blink of the eye and - upon waking - he had found Arod leading him determinedly back towards Minas Tirith. How it had pained him to see him there, so grown. So like his cousin… his brother. So distant.

And now every moment spent away from him was pain, just as every moment spent near and yet apart was agonising. His soul was torn, but his heart knew where he would rather be. His heart knew.

Rousing the next watchman, Legolas explained his plans and wished him well, hurrying into the night.

South once more.

Winter was setting in to Minas Tirith when the rider was spotted, and the first snows were falling as he reached the gates. Arod was taken from him and rushed to the yard to get dried off and into a warm stable. Borrowing a horse from the gatehouse stables, the rider made the final leg of his journey in near blizzard conditions as the wind threw the snow down at them through the thin alleyways of the city.

The palace stables were empty when he reached them, the horses of the royal guard, the royal family and even those of the nobles who might have been spending time in the palace itself… all were gone. The stable hands at the gatehouse had said nothing about any goings-on at the palace, nor told him of any alternative stabling arrangements. Panic welled up in him unbidden.

Quickly stabling his borrowed horse within the complex, he hurried towards the palace praying his worries were misplaced.

The grand doors of the palace, big enough to let in a sizeable troll, were not the every-day entrance to the grand building at the very top of Minas Tirith. The stables, hidden around the back of the building out of sight, had an entrance of their own. A perfectly modest door, it was more than capable of accepting most visitors into the grand halls beyond without the undue fuss of calling the two sturdy young men it took to open their rather larger counterparts.

On most days, that is.

Today, as tried to enter the halls of King Ellessar, he struck an obstacle. The door jammed solidly, only an inch or two from the frame.

"HOLD ON!" A voice shouted from the other side. There came from around the doorframe a sound that reminded him of a horse champing on feed. Now even more worried - who was eating what inside the marble halls of the King? - he pushed harder with his shoulder and was rewarded with an inch or two more. Only a little further and he would fit though the gap.

"Will you STOP it!" The voice came again. This time it seemed to Legolas that it sounded rather like Eldarion. He paused. A face appeared in the gap he had made between the door and the frame. It was indeed the crown prince, looking a little ruffled. "Uncle… Prince Legolas!" The voice came out shocked and panicked. "What are YOU doing here?" Eldarion seemed to realise how rude the question might have sounded, so phrased, a moment to late and winced. "I mean… please don't tell father. We'll get into so much trouble." The despairing plea came out breathless as at last the obstruction was moved from behind the door and it swung open to reveal… possibly the most bizarre scene he had ever been subject to.

The marble-floored hall was filled with horses.

Many, many horses

In fact, it seemed the stables had been emptied. Water buckets and feed bowls stood here and there amongst the mass of steaming bodies as the snow evaporated off the horses' blankets in the warmth of the heated halls. All of the animals looked a little uncertain at their new lodgings, but none seemed too upset. Riven appeared, Tara close on his heels, and greeted Legolas with a frown.

"Did you ride up here?" He demanded crossly. "You've left another horse in that damp cold stable, haven't you! And I bet you didn't even leave him a blanket."

"What's going on here?" Legolas asked, a little bewildered at his welcome.

"There's a hole in the stable roof and all the stable hands are away in the town. No one will go out and mend it in this weather." Eldarion explained hesitantly. Riven was already half way out of the door, on his way to get Legolas' borrowed mount.

"So you brought the horses into the great hall?"

"It seemed the most sensible option… at the time." Eldarion grimaced. "Father's going to kill us."

nonchristian, dawn, grumpy : Thanks!

nevermind : Thank you! My apologies for my grammar, etc. Sometimes I write things without reading them, makes for the kind of mistakes you pointed out there. I'll try be more careful in future, but I can't promise anything. I'm glad you can find enough in this fic to keep you reading. It makes me feel quite good about the fic as a whole, because there's enough to weigh up with the bits you can find to complain about :P

Haldir's heart and soul : I agree, Elrohir was a complete bastard about the whole thing, but he was only trying to protect Legolas, trying to keep him from the very pain he's experiencing here, or worse, from his people's wrath and his potential death.

And to everyone else who's wondering about Elrohir… patience is a virtue. Legolas' certainly not going to take up with anyone else, but this is an L/E fic because this was the main pairing. Legolas obviously feels they are 'separated' and so no longer lovers, but this doesn't mean love no longer exists between them. I'm trying to only focus on places where we see two or more of them together. Obviously there are some individual pieces here and there that are needed for the flow of the fic, but Riven has never met Elrohir (in his own memory) so their first meeting has still to come. You won't see him until then.