Author's Note: I'm sorry for such a long time in between updates. I really did mean to get this chapter posted in a timely manner, but in early November, a friend of mine was killed in a car accident. I went to elementary school with her, and she and I were in choir together; the choir sang a song at her funeral in which I had a solo. It went well, but I hope it's understandable when I say that I really didn't have much of a heart to write. Now then, on to the chapter.
Four: Leo
It had been nearly ten thousand years since he had set foot on the ground of his homeland. He had left on a boat, hand in hand with a dear friend, eyes on the horizon, both anticipating a new life with old friends long gone. They watched for any sign of land, eagerly awaiting a joyous reunion, one to wash away all the pain and age from their bodies and souls.
Imagine their surprise when they finally reached the shores of the Blessed Realm, only to discover that nearly all of their dear friends had been dead and gone for nearly a century. Imagine their shock upon realizing that all their dreams of rest in paradise were a thin illusion.
Damn the Elves and their vague, ambiguous ways. He had arrived expecting a home exactly as it had been described to him, and the lesson of its true nature was entirely too late. It was such an unwelcome jolt that even he, an Elf himself, was consumed in rage. Elves die in battle or in heartbreak; lands free from war or sorrow are thus the Undying Lands. If only he had known that before arriving; he would never have allowed himself, or Gimli, that letdown.
Of course Gandalf had known; the wizard had a talent for revealing his knowledge too late to be of any use, so it seemed. It was like an arrow to his heart to realize that a being he had trusted, would have trusted with his life, had left out that tiny little detail that would have saved him from so much pain and anguish.
But he lived on. He was determined to survive the anger, the bitterness he still felt in the depths of his heart. He kept himself alive through grief and rage, through pain and brief moments of pleasure, through the outrage when ships began arriving once more, this time carrying men of greed and violence to their pristine shores. He survived when the rest of his people were slaughtered, pushed aside into dry, parched land. He carried on, blended in, became a part of society, never staying anywhere long, never becoming too attached to those he met. He had continued this way for nearly three hundred years, watching times change and men spread across the continent, and never looked back.
Now he stood a crowded line in front of a nightclub, staring off into space and sucking on a cigarette. Anyone who had known him all those years ago, before… before, would scarcely recognize him. The hair that had once hung around his shoulders in warrior-style braids was shorn, spiked, and bleached white, the tips green and gold in a sort of halfhearted homage to his home. Gone were the elegant, lightweight clothes that befit an Elf of high standing; in their place were old, torn jeans and a beat-up motorcycle jacket that made him look more like Sid Vicious, bassist of the Sex Pistols, than Legolas, prince of Mirkwood.
"Leo," a voice from behind him said suddenly. He turned to see a nondescript young man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. It was Ray, a guy with whom he had maintained the guise of friendship for nearly a year. "Man, can I bum a cig?" Ray said. Legolas shrugged, offering the man the pack of Marlboros from the inside pocket of the Elf's leather jacket.
No sooner had he put the pack back than the last of his own cigarette was plucked from his mouth by the girl on his arm. He looked down at the short young woman, whose slick black cherry lips smiled demurely around his cigarette. Under all the layers of cheap makeup, he was sure that she was almost pretty, but to attempt to wash all that paint off was to sign on for an archaeological dig. Her maroon hair looked hard and dangerously sharp under the fluorescent lights in front of the club. The shellacked nails and spindly stilettos were enough to be deadly weapons as she plucked the used cigarette butt from between her lips and ground it beneath one pointy toe. Her name, as she had introduced herself to him a month ago, was Cindra, but Legolas was sure that she had given that to herself. He guessed her parents were the normal sort, the sort who would have named their daughter Linda, or Patty, or Cynthia. She had that bitterness around her that suggested an all-too-perfect childhood; one she was trying to escape. It was that aura of rancor that had attracted him to her; that, and she looked like a pretty good lay.
When did I become so cynical? He laughed hollowly as he lit up another cigarette. He had never really gotten over certain habits of his former life; even now he'd occasionally get the itch in his hands to hold a bow, but he had learned to disguise it as a cigarette craving. Being an Elf, he was free from worries about the health risks of smoking, or the worries about addiction. He simply enjoyed the feeling of inhaling death, feeling that dark rasp of smoke in the back of his throat. It made him feel alive in a way that few things did; in fact, those few things had led to a long faux-addiction to drugs in the seventies and eighties. The sensation of knowing that if he repeated this action enough, he may not survive; it was a thrill, a thrill that quickly died when he realized exactly how much of the action it would take to even injure him, much less be fatal.
Fatal. Such a funny word, and clearly coined by man. Only to them was death truly a part of fate anymore. The few of his kind left had the opportunity to choose whether or not to die. Many had and did, granted, but it was still a choice. Not destiny, not unavoidable.
It had been unavoidable for his friends. He had heard firsthand accounts from others when he first arrived. No one he had spoken with was sure if the so-called "Undying Lands" had always been a relative term, or if the land had at some point crossed through the mists of magic and time, like the fabled Isle of Avalon from Arthurian legend. Besides, time wasn't much an issue there. No one paid much attention, because there was no need. All anyone knew was that the few mortal residents of the land began to die.
Bilbo had been first, but that wasn't surprising. He could have very well chosen to die himself; he was quite old, and of the mind that death was the next great adventure. Frodo apparently went at a ripe old age; he spent the last few years of his life constantly staring out over the water. When asked, he simply said he was waiting for Sam. Sam did eventually come; the sad part was that Frodo died only a few weeks, maybe a month before. Legolas had been told it was a rather jarring shock for the old hobbit; he didn't last long afterwards. That was, of course, long before Legolas arrived, but he couldn't help but think that he should have been there for the poor thing.
"Dude!" Ray said suddenly, snapping Legolas out of his thoughts of the past. "What, are your thoughts in Europe already?" The young man seemed to find it funny, but Legolas failed to see the humor. Gandalf had suddenly started writing to him a month before, after years of silence. He didn't totally understand some of what the old man had been saying, only that he was needed for some reason or another. He had received word of a plane ticket waiting for him at LAX, where he was headed the next morning, after one last night in an LA nightclub.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cindra reach up to take a drag of his cigarette again. He deftly intercepted her hand with his pack of cigarettes. Shrugging, she took one, lighting it with the chrome Zippo lighter she took out of the pocket of his jeans. Since day one, she had displayed an odd fascination with stealing is things. Even now, she was wearing a shirt of his, one she had hacked into with a pair of scissors until it was a tiny, fringed midriff-shirt. In all truth, he was glad that within twenty-four hours he wouldn't see her again.
The long line moved forward a few steps, then a few more, slowly taking him toward the bright sign above the entrance to the club. It read "The Goldmine," but Legolas refused to acknowledge the reflection of his thoughts. He had had enough with dwarves and gold.
He didn't notice that the line had stopped, just kept walking forward, lost in his thoughts of the past and what was to come, when a rather forceful hand on his chest stopped him in his tracks.
"Hold it right there, buddy," a gruff Southern-accented voice said. "You're not gettin' in anytime soon unless your name's on the list."
"Leo Wood," Legolas said aloofly. He looked up at the rather large face of the bouncer, and froze. Those eyes, he thought. No, it's impossible. But… his mind kept saying no, but something, a force throughout his body, was telling him yes.
"Gimli," he whispered.
"What?" The bouncer said, seemingly uncomprehending, but something behind his eyes changed slightly, as if in recognition.
"Do you remember me?" Legolas asked hesitantly.
"Let me set you straight," the bouncer said dismissively. "We're not old high school buddies, we're not distant relatives, and I do not nor have I ever owed you money or a favor."
"Fine," Legolas sighed, and searched his mind for words of a language, two languages, he hadn't spoken in thousands of years.
"Yeni ve duin kheledul kele, a kirelmet ve baruk-dûr."
"…What did you say?" The bouncer said, his face a mixture of fear and hesitant recollection.
"Diro a ele, mellon nîn."
The man gaped at him. Leo stood back with a look of self-satisfaction on his face. Fumbling, the bouncer reached for the walkie-talkie on his belt.
"J-Jack," he stuttered into the hunk of black plastic, "I'm going on my break. Can you cover for me?"
After an affirmative response on the other end of the walkie-talkie, Leo shook Cindra off his arm and followed the heavily muscled man into the club.
"Hey, at least get usin!" Ray yelled after him, but Legolas ignored him. The two made their way into the smoky club, sitting down at a small table in a dark corner, where they could more easily disregard the pounding base from the cheap, shallow power-pop blaring from the speakers.
"So—" the bouncer began.
"I hate the word 'so'," Legolas stated in a flat tone. "It indicates small talk, and I've had to deal with enough small talk in my life to kill a man."
"Okay," the man said slowly. "I'm Geoff, Geoffrey Scott."
"Legolas," the elf replied evenly. "Are you going or not?"
Geoff looked confused. "Wait, rewind," he said. "You're who?"
"You heard me."
"I did, but I'm going to pretend I didn't."
"Don't act like you don't already know," Legolas rolled his eyes. "The 'amazed and unbelieving' thing gets old fast. Just answer the question, are you going or aren't you?"
"Going where?"
"I said to cut the routine," Legolas said, clearly exasperated. "There's no need to play stupid games; no one can hear you over this techno-shit but me."
"Listen," Geoff said, clearly doing his best to seem apologetic. "I'm sorry, but I honestly don't know what you're talking about. All I know is that you tried to pull a runner, and when I stopped you, you started talking in gibberish, except it was gibberish I knew." The man sighed, putting his head in his hands. "I think I'm going insane, but then part of me says that I should talk to you, so here I am."
Legolas was surprised, but kept his face a carefully composed mask of stoicism. "So you didn't get a letter?"
"Nope."
"And you… have no idea who or what I am?"
"Excuse me, what you are?"
"Er, never mind."
They sat in silence for some time. Geoff kept getting a look on his face as if he was about to commence in the small talk Legolas had already professed to hate. In fact, the agony of just sitting there with nothing between them but the pounding bass of the music was so maddening, the elf actually considered small talk a much-needed escape. He opened his mouth to ask some mundane question (the nature of which he didn't yet know), when a scream sounded out from a table across the room. Most would not be able to see what had caused the disturbance from across the dark smoky club, but Legolas' deft Elf eyes easily spotted the reason for all the commotion: a strong, mean-looking young man was standing, holding a sharp knife to the throat of another club-goer.
Both Legolas and Geoff stood up; Legolas pointed out the knife-wielder to Geoff, who moved forward briskly. The heavily muscled man delivered a strong punch to the glass case on the wall, retrieving the fire axe from within. Swinging it with an apparent ease that was clearly not his own, but wasn't exactly a problem at the moment, he approached the man with the knife.
"Come on now, laddie," Geoff said, his voice lower and gruffer than it had been only moments before. That was not the voice of any Man, Legolas thought, much less this Man. No sort of people sounded like that, except one.
In that moment, a change seemed to overcome Geoff. He was no longer the bouncer that had stopped Legolas in front of the club; no, that man had neither the strength of character nor the foolish pride of the creature before them now.
The young man with the knife did not flinch when Geoff approached, but a hint of fear was definitely present in his eyes. "You wouldn't," he sneered, his bravado faltering ever-so-slightly.
"How can you be so sure?" Geoff smiled confidently, swinging the axe back and forth expertly (all people near him had backed away far before). "I mean, we've never met before, have we? I don't know you, you don't know me, and you certainly don't know what I'm capable of, now do you?"
"Don't lay in on too thick, mellon nîn," Legolas said to himself. "Wouldn't want to appear too—" He broke off as Geoff swung the axe suddenly, stopping it in midair, mere inches from the side of the other man's neck. "—arrogant," the Elf sighed.
The man with the knife whimpered, dropping his hostage and surrendering to the police officers that had arrived. Geoff crossed his arms over his chest, clearly pleased. Two of the officers stepped forward to speak with Geoff, but a short, stout man made it to him first.
"Scott!" The man shouted. "What the hell do you think you're doing, pulling a stunt like that?"
Geoff looked down at the pudgy little man with a look on his face so condescendingly arrogant, so utterly Dwarvish, that it brought something akin to a smile to Legolas' face. "Well," he said, his Southern accent returning with a vengeance, "Ah do believe ah just broke up a hostage situation, Mr. Jackson."
"You were harassing my customers," Jackson sneered. "If you'd hurt a hair on that guy's head, I'd be the one getting my ass sued off!"
Geoff stared at the man with one eyebrow raised. "You think you'd be any better off if he'd hurt that lady?"
"That's it," Jackson glowered. "Get out, I'm sick and tired of your face. Consider yourself fired."
"Ah've been waitin' for you to say that since ah got the job," Geoff scoffed. "Just pop mah last paycheck in the mail; ah don' wanna hafta come back."
Jackson started raving again, but Geoff turned away, making his way back to the table where Legolas stood.
"Master Elf," he said, the Dwarvish gruffness back in his voice. "I do believe I know what you were talking about now."
"Hi, we'd like to check our bags."
The woman looked up from behind her desk at the airport. "Certainly sir, if I could please see some identification."
Legolas nodded, sliding his California driver's license and US passport across the shellacked surface.
"Ah, yes," the woman said, typing his name into the computer. "Wood, Mr. Leonard M. Business class, Flight 715 to New York, and according to your itinerary, transfer to Flight 179 to Prague."
"Yes," Legolas replied, hoisting his luggage onto the platform next to her. "And if possible, we'd like to purchase an additional ticket for each of the two flights, if that's possible."
"Certainly," she said, typing rapidly. "Will this third passenger be flying first class, business, or coach?"
"Business," sighed Legolas idly, before suddenly holding his hand out to stop her. "Wait, we only want one additional ticket."
"Oh, I'm sorry," the woman said. "I misunderstood. Are you asking to buy a third ticket just to New York, from New York to Prague, or on a direct flight from here to Prague?"
"I don't want a third ticket," Legolas said firmly, clearly a bit exasperated. "I want one, one, additional ticket, making a grand total of two tickets."
The lady looked confused. "But sir," she protested. "According to your itinerary, there were two tickets purchased with the same credit card already. One is accredited to you, and the other is for a Mr. Geoffrey Scott."
Legolas and Geoff looked at each other, their faces wearing matching looks of surprise.
"Mithrandir," the Elf sighed. "Always one step ahead."
"Is there a problem, sir?" The woman behind the desk said, clearly confused.
"No, no problem," Geoff assured her. "Just a miscommunication between travelers." He handed her his passport and hefted his own duffel bag onto the platform.
The two finished their check-in as quickly and easily as possible, to avoid further confusion of the innocent airport worker. They didn't talk much as they went through security, or when they waited in line for lukewarm black coffee from the Dunkin' Donuts near their gate; indeed, neither said a word to the other until the plane took off. It wasn't an awkward silence; they both simply knew that nothing needed to be said. Despite Geoff's rather recent reawakening, he remembered that they hadn't done much unnecessary talking in their first lifetime together either. But that didn't stop him from asking Legolas a question that had been on his mind since the woman at the airline desk had said his name.
"How do you suppose Gandalf knew you and I were going to meet?"
Legolas looked over at Geoff, his eyes faintly glimmering with that sort of 'what an obvious question' look. "Magic. Wizard, remember?"
"Oh, yeah," Geoff said, shrugging. "That does make sense, doesn't it?"
They sat in silence for a while longer. Geoff sipped at the gin and tonic he'd ordered, a faint smile dancing across his deceptively gruff features. Legolas watched him for a while, before sitting back and watching the vapid teen comedy that was the in-flight movie.
"Where do you suppose I could find a quality axe?" Geoff asked suddenly.
"Hm?" Legolas pulled off one of his headset earphones. Geoff repeated his question. "Now how am I supposed to know that?" The Elf rolled his eyes.
"I don't know," Geoff shrugged. "I assumed I could go about looking for one wherever you got your bow. Or did you make your bow from scratch?"
"Don't have one," Legolas replied coolly.
"What?"
"I don't have one," he repeated. "I haven't had a bow since we left Ithilien."
"Really?" Geoff scratched his head. "Now, I thought I would have remembered something like that. I mean, I didn't die so terribly soon after we reached the Undy… the shore, did I?"
The matter-of-factness in Geoffrey's tone struck Legolas quite hard. Considering that the man was talking about a death, his own death, so calmly knocked the Elf off balance, especially since it was a death Legolas himself was still not over.
"You seem to be taking it well," he remarked evenly.
"Taking what well?"
"This. All of this. Not since the nightclub have you made any attempts at denial. It seems a bit… I don't know, unnatural."
Geoff grinned. "This is coming from the Elf who expected me to instantly know everything about, not only my Dwarvish past, but this new expedition?"
Legolas rolled his eyes.
"You do that too much," Geoff said, cocking his head to the side thoughtfully.
"Do what too much?"
"Roll your eyes. It's like you're trying for some kind of detached, wise, 'the world bores me' cool, when in fact it makes you look pompous and stupid."
Legolas stared at Geoff with a look of both surprise and annoyance. "Back to the topic. How are you handling all this so well?"
Geoff shrugged. "I don't really know," he said. "It just felt right, I suppose. I don't have any connections; parents dead years ago, no wife, girlfriend, or kids, and what few friends I have don't care about much more than their Harleys or their record collections. When the whole incident happened in the club, everything clicked in my head, if you will. Part of me felt like, this is what I've been looking for, this is why I don't have anything real, so why fight it? After that, everything, memories, mannerisms, just started to appear." He sighed calmly. "The only thing I really think I'll miss during our little excursion is my motorcycle, and even that's just a silly sentimental thing."
"You ride a motorcycle?" Legolas looked at him skeptically. "Somehow I saw you as more likely to spend your free time in Napa County, swilling a glass of red wine and giving free psychiatric advice to anyone who will listen."
"Don't use dry humor to offhandedly insult those around you," Geoff remarked. "All it does is push people away."
"This is what I'm talking about," Legolas grumbled.
"Can we end this conversation?" Geoff asked. "I did want to learn how you've been since last I saw you, but now I'm not sure I want to know, and I'm finding I quite preferred the silence." With that, he shut his eyes and put his headset on.
Legolas sighed. He had hoped that, with seeing Gimli again after all this time, things would immediately go back to the way they had been, but all that had happened since meeting Geoffrey just showed the Elf how much he himself had changed. He frowned, turning back to the movie just in time to see the overly predictable kiss between the unpopular-pretty-girl and the sensitive-popular-jock just before the credits began to roll.
"What a happy coincidence," Legolas muttered. "They end the movie right before she finds out he's actually gay." He couldn't be sure, but he swore he heard a soft, almost-silent giggle from Geoff.
"Come on," Legolas called over his shoulder as he sprinted for the gate. "We're going to miss the flight!"
"No we're not," Geoff replied, stopping to buy a muffin from the Starbucks kiosk. "You set your watch on Prague time already. We have six hours."
The Elf stopped running and joined Geoff in line, blushing furiously.
"What do you know," Geoff grinned. "Elves aren't infallible."
Legolas gave Geoff a look that clearly said 'shut up'; upon the word 'Elf', others in line had turned to stare at the two. Geoff smiled awkwardly, now as red as Legolas had been.
"Honestly, who has a six hour layover in New York City?" Legolas muttered.
"People who fly cheap," Geoff offered. "Or people hoping to meet up with others."
"Others like who?" Legolas asked. Geoff elbowed him, and pointed to the just-barely-visible baggage check. Two men were at the desk; one was conversion with the airline employee, while the other struggled to shut his bag. Legolas' keen Elf eyes helped greatly, but even Geoff could tell that the bulky object that wouldn't fit in the bag was a broadsword. The Elf gasped.
Eventually the sword did fit into the bag. It took a while for the pair of men to make it through the security checkpoint, but during that time Geoff and Legolas got their muffins. They made it back out to the common walkway just as the two men did. Legolas stopped the one who'd been struggling with the bag by tapping him on the shoulder. The man turned, only to be hugged by the Elf, who then bent down on one knee before him.
"My king," he said, smiling ominously. "It's been a long time."
The man stared at Legolas awkwardly. "I think you're looking for my friend," he murmured, turning to look after the other man. "Yo, Mantovani! J-Man, get over here!" The other man headed over to them, standing between his friend and the laughing man that was Geoff. "This is the guy I think you're looking for, man," the first man said.
"Barry, what's this all about?" Asked the second man.
"I present to you Julian Mantovani."
Legolas looked up at this man, Julian. He had presented himself to the other one, Barry, acting on blind luck, but now, seeing Julian, there was no doubt. Within those unfamiliar eyes lived the soul of an old friend.
"Aragorn," he whispered.
Author's Note: Sorry it took so long, as usual! Thanks to my reviewers, without whom I wouldn't have the motivation to keep writing.
In the next chapter, we look at this final pair of lost souls, and the Fellowship comes together for the first time!
Merry Christmas, Happy (belated) Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Blessed Yule, and everything else I forgot!
Love and happy thoughts to you all, and Namaste.
