AN: You're going to kill me. I'm the typing dead. Tolkien save my soul.
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bows to Sessyangel My fabulous beta, brave soul. Thanks a lot.
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The birds scattered only moments before the elves heard the clatter of hooves in the courtyard, pulling their attention back outwards. Standing, Elrohir brought Legolas up alongside him, still limp from the emotional outpouring. Scrubbing inelegantly at his eyes with his sleeve, Legolas gestured towards the door, suggesting that they should go out and find out who the unexpected visitor was.
As they headed towards the courtyard, they came across Lindir hurrying in the other direction. He paused upon seeing them and looked about himself before telling them:
"Something bad is afoot in Gondor, that the young Prince should appear at our door so dishevelled. I will have food and rest prepared for him when your talk is done."
"My thanks Lindir." Elrohir replied, following Legolas who was already dashing towards the courtyard. Eldarion stood there, soothing Trini quietly as the mare shifted uncertainly in her new surroundings. He appeared uninjured, though his dress suggested he had been riding hard for many days, travel-worn as it was. But what struck Legolas most of all was the weariness in his eyes. Reddened and blood-shot, it looked as though he had been crying, and this more than anything worried the Mirkwood Prince.
"What news from Gondor, Prince of Men?" Elrohir enquired, moving forward into the light. Elladan appeared at his side and he greeted him with a nod.
"Fell news, Lords of the Elves. Fell news indeed." Eldarion looked away as his voice hitched, focusing on some point in the distance.
"Come inside, Mardus will take your horse. Rivendell is a long distance for one so young as yourself. Do you travel alone?"
"Aye, alone. That is what I am. And weary." The young prince looked close to collapsing as Trini was taken from him. Legolas hurried to his side, taking his elbow and leading him back into the building as the twins exchanged a worried glance. Something was very wrong in Gondor.
Guiding Eldarion to a soft seat, Legolas crouched before him and held his gaze.
"What has happened in Gondor that Aragorn would allow you to travel so far unaccompanied?"
"He gave no consent to my leaving, I simply could not remain any longer."
"Then let me ask again, what has happened in Gondor?" Eldarion stifled a sob as his eyes misted over, brimming with tears.
"My brother is dead."
Legolas reeled, standing and backing away from the tearful boy, letting Elladan and Elrohir take his place as comforter. Words they exchanged, yet he heard none of it — he was far away, listening to the laughing voice of a young boy as he called across the field to him,
"Uncle Legolas!" The voice called. "You must stay with us forever."
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Elladan held the young Prince as his body finally became lax, his breathing evening out as exhaustion took him.
"Rest, young one." He breathed, lifting him into his arms. The bed Lindir had prepared had sat in waiting for the boy as he cried out his grief into his uncles' arms. Now he carried him gently though the house to it, leaving his brother with Legolas.
Elrohir rubbed wearily at his eyes as he took a seat where his nephew had been only moments before. Realising that Legolas had been awfully quiet as they soothed the young boy's fears away, Elrohir's gaze sought him out. He found him at last slumped in the corner of the room where he had fallen upon hitting the wall.
"Legolas, why did you not talk with Eldarion? He knows you better than either Elladan or myself." He asked, worried for his silence.
"There is nothing I might say to him that would hide the wound in my own heart." He stood jerkily - as though pulled upright on strings - and headed for the door. "I will pack for Minas Tirith. Eldarion must be taken home."
Elrohir, unable to find the right words, simply watched him go.
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Elrohir and Elladan rode side by side behind the two Princes. Neither seemed quite aware of their surroundings, their gazes lost in the middle distance. Elrohir had been able to coax no words from Legolas that night, and though Elladan attributed his extreme reaction to the news due to the close connection he had forged with the two younger Telcontar during the last few years, Elrohir was not so sure. He sensed that there was something deeper that he was missing.
"I taught him swordplay and how to use daggers and knives, though father was against it." Eldarion admitted guiltily. "It was not so much that he wanted to go to war or fight, only so that he could defend mother if the need arose." Eldarion spoke at last, as though justifying his own actions to those who would judge him. "He was out in the yard with only his horse, practising I did not know I should have" His voice trailed off, too pained to continue.
"I think Arwen would argue that she is more than capable of defending herself." Elrohir answered, with a soft smile.
"We knew that of course, but still, we were her sons and had some sense of duty towards her. I might be at war when mother finds herself in need of defence. When I turned twenty I was to go to join the Dunédain in the north and train to be a Ranger as my father had done. Riven would have had to protect her all of that time." Legolas had not missed the past tense in that comment.
"What will you do now?" He asked.
"I plan to part ways with you when we reach the northern path, for I am twelve and the Rangers will still take me in. I cannot return to Gondor. Not now. I might return later, when I have grown to understand this pain a little better."
"You will not support your parents? They have lost a child, and might suffer unduly to lose the other so soon afterwards, however temporarily."
"They have each other for support. I have no one." Eldarion answered coldly, before turning to gaze back out down the path out of the valley.
"You cannot believe that!" Elladan gasped.
"I once turned to him as he turned to me. We were brothers. Now he is gone." Pain brought his voice to a shout.
"You cannot forsake your parents now, Eldarion." Elrohir remained the voice of reason.
"I cannot go to them without him at my side. I have failed him."
"You could have done nothing more." Legolas offered.
"Those are the words of the defeated." He spat back, temper rising.
"He was no longer your charge, in your care. You must accept this defeat else everything you do hereafter will be a further defeat. You have to accept defeat to go on to future victory in his name." Legolas' words were strong, though they were filled with sorrow.
"He should have been victorious in his own name." Eldarion's voice was a cry as he fought back tears of youth spoiled.
"And he was, many times over. But his path has lead him elsewhere." Legolas softened his tone.
"You loved him as a son, how can you not hate me?"
"You loved him as a brother, I could not have asked for more. No one else could have done that. Nowhere else would he have received such love." Legolas graced him with a sad smile, but nonetheless a grateful one. "And for that I thank you."
"You must think of your parents, Eldarion." Elladan added. "If you are missing, then your father will search for you, and then they too will be separated. Would it not be better to face your return now than to separate your whole family in this time when you need each other the most?"
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Aragorn met the four riders at the gates, Arwen at his side. Their reunion with their son was filled with tears as he begged their forgiveness and they granted it without thought. Aragorn's eyes met Legolas', and hesitated there for a moment before calling them all inside out of the chill spring winds.
It was much later when Aragorn came looking for Legolas, after he had missed the evening meal. He found him in Tara's stall, sitting at her side and lost in his own thoughts.
"It wasn't her fault, you know." He said at last, breaking the silence. Legolas did not look up, nor respond. "He had a seizure; there was no way she could have stopped him from falling. She ran to get help, but we didn't get back in time. His body couldn't handle the strain. He" Aragorn hesitated. He had all-but convinced himself that he was not going to tell Legolas but now he felt he needed to, or the decision would haunt him.
"He died with your name on his lips." He flinched at the harsh sound of pain that the bereaved father made, knowing no way to ease his pain, his own still hot in his chest.
"I'm sorry."
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Sesshyangel : Legolas is older, though not by more than a few years, nothing in the life of an elf. I normally follow the line of thought that Legolas is very much younger, but for this fic he's older. Ta for the beta :D
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Haldir's Heart and Soul : Yes they are ;-) That might be the only way they get through this.
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LadyJanelly : Glad you liked it. Hope you don't hate me too much for this.
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smoothNcreamy : I'm sorry I confused you. That took place about a month after the previous chapter. Legolas pulled his standard disappearing trick, and ran away when it got too painful for him.