Home now, so I'm on my brother's computer and i'm not completely sure how to use it - keep opening outlook accidentally and it keeps talking to me in strange voices... how computer literate am i! Hopefully it'll still talk with We'll soon find out i suppose.
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Aragorn's face was drawn as he wandered back through the halls towards the warm conference room where he had left the others. On entering the room he stood for a moment, allowing those alerted to his presence to return to their peace. Arwen sat on the long sofa, Eldarion on her knee though he was much too large for such a position, his head buried in her shoulder. His reasons for fleeing had been long discussed, and his heart settled, if not totally cleared of its guilt. Elladan sat by her side, a supporting arm around her shoulder, a second around her son's. Elrohir stood separate, by the fire-place staring into its flickering glow. He seemed distant to Aragorn, and he had not looked up when he had entered the room.
"Elrohir." He called softly. "Come outside for a moment." Elladan looked up, curious, but made no move to follow as the man led his brother out of the room.
"What is it, Aragorn? What troubles you?"
"You are not needed here, but at Legolas' side." Aragorn answered bluntly, trying to hide surfacing anger that his brother was not already at his side. The anger was not all Elrohir's fault, for it had been building up these past weeks over things he could not control, hurts he could not heal. It was, however, finding its outlet here, in the one whose hands the blame could most readily be laid.
Elrohir shook his head. "He has refused to see me for a decade now, and not without good reason. I doubt I can offer him any consolation for this loss. I would rather be with you and Arwen, whose suffering is the strongest."
Aragorn could feel himself reddening as he stepped forward and into Elrohir's space, near burning with rage. "He has lost your child for the second time," he seethed. "You will offer him whatever he needs, your head on a platter if it would make things better, understood? And know this: if I had known it was you in the first place, I would have gutted you myself that day in Imladris. I only let you go now because he needs you at his side."
Elrohir could not breathe, his lips a fine line and cheeks paling. The strong arm of shock and horrified grief had closed about his chest and he could not breathe past the pressure it was applying. The arm shifted only long enough to clamp a hand around his throat and he staggered backwards against the wall, slumping in a heap to the ground as his legs gave way beneath him.
"Riven." He gasped past the chokehold. "Riven was…" Aragorn knelt by his side, suddenly guilty at the effect his words were having on Elrohir.
"He was hidden to keep him safe from Thranduil."
"Thranduil… of course… but why me? Ten years! Ten years I didn't come and see him, because I thought he would remind me of a child I had lost. I could have known him. Could have watched him grow."
"Legolas tried—to know him, that is. It nearly killed him, grief tore him apart every time they met. As it does now." Aragorn added a little extra weight to those last few words.
"I must find him." Elrohir realised, gaining his feet with a little help from the wall. "I must speak with him."
"Go. And hold on to him when you find him, for I fear he will need all the anchorage he can find."
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Legolas sat alone in the corner of the stable complex. Tara looked mournfully over the door at the passers-by, and waited for his master's return without understanding.
The elf did not look up or respond as Elrohir called out his name in relief. Reaching him, the dark-haired elf took him up in his arms and held him.
"Aragorn has told me everything." He murmured when the fair elf still did not respond, his body limp in his arms.
"And how do you feel about me now, with these accusations laid against me?" Came a cold, emotionless response.
"There were no accusations in Aragorn's tale save those against my person, only a story of great loss. I am… not yet sure how to feel about this news. For now all I can do is regret I have spent so little time with him, getting to know him."
"Do not regret this. Every moment was a dagger in my heart. Knowing and not having is a torturous pleasure."
Elrohir tightened his arms around the fair elf at the admission. "Do you regret time not spent with him as a son?"
"I spent much time with him as such, though the grief that tainted every moment made it hard."
"How could you grieve over such a thing?"
"Because I forsook my fatherhood a long time ago. And with it any claim I might hold over him. And because I had forsaken you, accepting my path into darkness to save the two I hold most dear."
"But you still live…"
"I swore never to abandon him. He made me. I left only when the grief was so strong it opened a void at my feet and I was forced to choose between staying and taking that final step or running to return when I had found the strength to take a step back from the edge."
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Elladan walked into Elrohir's room to find him half way through returning his belongings to his saddlebags, his thoughts far from the wall he stared at.
"You plan to leave so soon?" His brother's question brought Elrohir suddenly back from his daydream.
"I find this place weights me, and Legolas does not need reminding of things he has lost right now. It will be best for both of us were we far from here." He replied, stowing his knife close to hand in the top of the bag and tying it off.
"And you would leave Aragorn and Arwen to mourn without our support?" Elladan sounded a little taken aback by this.
"Stay, if you feel so highly about it. But I cannot."
"I will." Elladan replied, disgruntled. "But I think it about time you two consigned past mistakes to the past, and begin living again. There are other things here that need your attention. Wounds heal if left to rest a while."
"Brother, I would that I had a moment to rest."
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And so it was that Aragorn watched as the two fathers rode out of Minas Tirith, not realising that it would be that last time in his mortal life that he saw them.
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Elladan passed into the borders of Imladris with a smile on his face. The end of his journey was in sight and he was looking forward to the comforts of home.
His horse, however, hesitated as he entered the woodland that surrounded his home. As Elladan urged him on he spotted a white horse, just off the path. Recognising Arod as he looked closer, Elladan dismounted and left his horse on the path, pushing his way into the trees. It wasn't like Legolas to leave Arod to wander so close to the borders, he had to be somewhere near at hand. He did not see Legolas in the tree as he entered the woods, and so he started as his voice came from above.
"Welcome home, Son of Elrond, Lord of Imladris. Though cold welcome it may be." Looking up, Elladan found that Legolas lay on the branches directly above him, facing upwards into the canopy.
"Cold? Why, what has happened at home while I have been gone?"
"It seems, though long I waited for the inevitable to happen, I am left to live on while all those that I love fall around me." Legolas replied wistfully, not turning to look at him.
"What has happened to Elrohir, Legolas? Where is he?" Elladan asked, infused with fear.
"He is in Lindir's care, failing to challenge the grief that attacks his soul - where an elf is weakest."
"Grief… but how?"
"He found he had a son, and that his son was dead and lost to him, all in the space of a day."
"He has known of your still-birth for near two decades now, how has this come across him now?" Anger and frustration made Elladan's tongue harsh.
"His 'still-born' son only died a month ago."
"A month…! That is not possible. Unless…"
"Ah yes, now you see."
"Riven?! How can that be? I knew that the births were close in date, but the babe was so small I thought it impossible that you would have been able to birth him and then ride. And Arwen looked upon him with such care, with all the love she had given her first son. Even father seemed convinced… But dead, you say? Oh Legolas, I am so sorry."
"Save your consolations. Elrohir needs you now, it is too late for my soul."
"Why are you not with him? Surely it is your companionship that will help him survive this…"
"I find I have put all of my strength and will into the raising of a son that was never my own, and was doomed long before he was ever conceived. I have none to spare for the living with whom I should have spent my time. Elrohir's advice was the best after all."
"I will not believe that. Pain of grief can never out do the joy of a life well lived, how ever short. Come with me. Elrohir needs you close, you cannot abandon him now."
"I hang by a thread on the precipice of grief. I know not what holds me here. There seems to be nothing left inside of me." Legolas hardly seemed to hear Elladan any more.
"Elrohir is still here, Legolas. Do not talk of him as though he has already passed! I will not accept that his fate is sealed. Together you have a chance to save each other, apart you are both lost."
"I should go to my father, show him what I have done. He would make the ending swift." Legolas told the trees absently.
"You talk of ending you own life when it could still save another. What have you become?"
Legolas turned suddenly and met Elladan's eyes, holding them as he answered. "A shell, Elladan. A shell made hollow and empty by the death of my soul inside. The remains worn away, year by year, until there is nothing left." The flicker of madness frightened Elladan as he sought for some way of rectifying this.
"Do you not remember the promise you made me? Or does your promise mean so little to you these days?" He asked softly.
"I am not sure I am the same that made that promise to you."
"That is a fine excuse for those who need one." He retorted.
"I have no excuse for the ill I have wrought upon the world. For here I am, as grief and mourning falls around me. And I find my grief is finally gone, for I have no soul left for it."
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LadyJanelly, nevermind, dawn, kitty. Haldir's Heart and Soul, drew's girl : Thanks For the review
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smoothNcreamy : I'M SORRY!!! but it was always going to happen that way... there was nothing i could do about it...
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narcolinde/erobey: Oh My Goodness... hi... iloveyourficsandcan'tbelieveyou'rereadingmineand... i'm... completely in shock... breathes THANKS FOR THE REVIEW!!
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Sesshyangel : Thankies hugely for the beta once more. and without saying too much... you might just find out... only you'll find out loooong before anyone else :p if you haven't read it already hehe
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Landos Star : I'm afraid you haven't misread, but patience is a virtue. :P Thanks a lot for the review