Chapter 16
Legolas watched his siblings blossom.
He watched Lainfea skip to school every day, finally getting a proper education, although it was not an elvish one. She was a fast learner, and that was a good thing, for she had much to learn. There were so many things she had never done before, never heard about. Trees, flowers, animals, friends. She learned to swim, to dance, to play games. She was always running off to somewhere, trying to fit all she missed out on in her twenty years of captivity in a single day, every day.
Every night she would lay in bed, telling Legolas stories about what she had done that day, trying to make him laugh. He watched her and stroked her hair.
Every day she grew stronger. Every day he could see the soft glow surrounding her shine a little brighter.
He watched Lanthir joining Lainfea as she walked to school. Lanthir's knowledge exceeded the schools highest grade, but the school had a excellent library when Legolas' brother could bury himself in. After he had found a new fact, he tried to persuade one of the professors to debate with him. He joined Lainfea's swimming classes as well; for there he had never had had the change to learn that eigther. After the swimming classes he ran off to the practice field where Artamir would teach him of everything he knew.
Late at night as Lanthir lay in bed he would tell his brother of new moves he had learned, and how he had adjusted them for elvish use. He informed Legolas of the little facts he had picked up at the library.
"Did you know, Legolas? Seagulls can drink salt water because they have special glands that filter out the salt. Did you know that?" Legolas could see the muscles on his little brother's arms form. Lanthir' glow had increased almost as much as Lainfea's had.
Limloeth did not go to school, but went to Osgiliath's Houses of the Healing instead. The healers their were very glad with the work she did, and Limloeth enjoyed the fact she was useful. Limloeth's glow brightened by every wound she healed, with every pain she made disappear.
Legolas could see his siblings pick up the pieces of their broken lives and build it anew. He could see them, Biddy and Artamir starting to form a family.
A family he could not be a part of, for his own light dimmed. He didn't go to school. He watched his siblings, and if they were all gone, he would go to the archery field where he would shoot arrow after arrow into the target, as if the target was a group of orcs. One arrow for every image of an orc that had disturbed his dreams.
One arrow for every laugh he didn't take part in.
One arrow for every tear he hadn't shed.
At night he listened to the stories of his siblings and fletched arrows to shoot the next day. He could feel Artamir and Biddy were worried about him.
They tried to convince him to go to school, to join the hunters, to learn anything to "stop eating himself up" as Biddy put it.
Legolas still didn't trust them. After the humans had found out their real names nothing had changed. Biddy or Artamir hadn't betrayed them in any form. It had convinced Legolas' mind that they could be trusted, but in his heart he still didn't feel it. That part of him still refused to trust. He had been hurt too many times, by too many beings for his heart to trust them.
The fact that his mind now trusted Biddy and Artamir had made him feel more useless than ever. His only responsibility, the reason to exist, had been taken away from him. He needed to keep his siblings safe, but they no longer needed him.
"Come," the trees of Greenwood, his home, whispered in his mind. "You have been away for far too long. Come. You need us, son, as we need you. Come."
That night he made a decision. A decision to put his heart at ease.
The next day, he joined Lanthir and Lainfea on their way to school. Their faces lit up, and both of them tried to talk the entire way, showing him things on the route he might have missed, introducing to people he hadn't met.
The teachers of Lainfea's class laughed as Lainfea dragged him into her classroom and gave him an encouraging smile. He let Lainfea show him her books and the drawings she had made. As class began, he kissed the top of her head, and silently moved away.
In the school library he met Lanthir again. His little brother showed him all the volumes that he had read already, and the ones he had planned to read today. Legolas sat in a corner for a while, pretending to read, but watching his brother instead. Lanthir quickly became absorbed by the book in his hands, oblivious to all around him.
Legolas smiled sadly. He knew his siblings too well. It was so easy to deceive them. He put down the book in his hands and moved to a different department: Topography. He spent the rest of the afternoon copying maps.
The following day he joined Limloeth in her journey to the Houses of Healing. He listened to her stories, cooled the foreheads of children with the flu, or other such sicknesses, and bandaged wounded soldiers. But as Limloeth was busy helping a woman with the delivery of her baby, Legolas sneaked away to the supply room. He needed bandages and herbs.
Limloeth and Lanthir smiled at each other as they watched Legolas starting to participate again. They had been very worried about their older brother, but as he sparred with Lanthir, the colour returned to Legolas' face.
When he baked cookies with Lainfea in the evening his glow was visible again.
They didn't see the food that disappeared from Biddy's kitchen. The backpack Artamir had lost. They didn't notice he never returned the bow he had borrowed. They didn't miss the two knives that had disappeared from the armory. All they saw was the older brother they loved and missed slowly returning.
One day, as Biddy went outside to dry the laundry she heard a soft voice singing a song.
"If you're ever lost, my sweetheart,
If you're ever scared, my child..."
The woman smiled and walked towards the singer.
"You have such a beautiful voice, Legolas, you should sing more often. Do all you siblings sing that beautiful? Oh we should buy and instrument of some kind. I believe Artamir can play something! It would be beautiful.
I've never told you this, but I'm so very glad you finally decided to join us. Me and Artamir really enjoy having you in the house, you must understand. It was so quiet without you. And it is good for the four of you as well.
Look at how you are all lighting up! When I think about how you all arrived here. Terrible. But now you are all playing and dancing, and even singing!
I have to admit it was you I was most worried about. Always staying in the corner, always worried about your siblings. Never trusting. Oh it almost broke my heart just to look at you. You were so alone. To be such a little boy, with all that responsibility." Here Legolas almost snorted. "Little boy" coming from someone he was probebly older than still struck him as funny, even if by human standards he wouldn't even be sixteen yet.
Biddy continued "Oh I just can't say how happy you made me! That you didn't choose to stay in the darkness forever."
Legolas waited for the moment she had to breathe. "Biddy?" he asked. "I was wondering. Have you maybe got a cloak for me? Something warm? Please? "
Biddy dropped her laundry on the floor and clasped her hand over her mouth.
"Oh Valar! I didn't even think... you are cold! I'm so sorry! I didn't realize elves could get cold! And I send the little ones of without a cloak or anything, in summer clothes! Oh, I'm so, so sorry!" "Biddy, please," Legolas interrupted. "Please, it is not so bad. Please. I just asked, because I'm a little chilled. I'm not cold. This is nothing me or the others can't handle, I was just asking. Please, it is nothing. I didn't mean to upset you."
"Of course you didn't mean to, child! Well come on, inside! I think I can remake one of Artamir's cloaks for you. Just wait a minute.."
She half dragged him to a closet in her and Artamir's room, where she started pulling out several cloaks.
"What color would you like, dear? This one perhaps? It would match the colour of your eyes. "Or this one. Green. Isn't there a group of elves called the green elves somewhere?" Well, I don't know... How about this one?"
"It doesn't really matter Biddy, I just..."
"The green one," she decided, not listening to a word he said. She draped the cloak over his shoulders, measuring its length.
"Well," she mumbled, "It needs a little adjusting. It will not take long. Go do something boy. It will be finished in a moment."
Legolas went outside picking up the laundry she had left there, and hanging it on the clothes-line. As he stepped inside again after half an hour, Biddy proudly showed him the result of her work. Legolas smiled. A cloak had been the last thing he needed.
It was night once again. In the corner of the bedchamber stood a lone figure, wrapped in a cloak.
Legolas Thranduillion turned one last time to look at his sleeping brother and sisters and whispered a last goodbye.
"I'm sorry I couldn't join you. I'm sorry I couldn't stay. But I wasn't strong enough. I have to go. I need to be home. When I'm home I'll convince Ada to come and get you. I'll be back with horses. I promise you that. I promise."
His siblings didn't move.
"I love you," Legolas whispered, and he left, to finally seek out Greenwood, where he could be at peace at last.
TBC..
Roguish Smile: Well you weren't wrong ..
Karone Evertree: No siblings love is not enough for Lainfea.. She really needs an adult to look up to.. She is only a little girl after all.
CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur: THANKS! More will come tomorrow
Moriarwen: Well will take a while before they see Thranduil again..
Rutu: No, Legolas would never hit Lainfea.. No even in a fight..
Aly K : Thank you so much..
kel: Of course he wants to leave.. He is the only one that really remembers what he misses..