.: Afterthought :.

: Chapter 3 - Legolas' Discovery :

I do not remember the details of that terrifying, bloody night, just the overwhelming emotions that rushed through my veins - the intense fear, the bottled anger, and the purity of the relief when Aragorn's eyelids fluttered at sunrise.

We had all initially planned to stay awake through the night, though when the sun's glow began to creep over the distant forest I realized that only Gandalf and I were conscious; one by one, the others had drifted off into uneasy slumber. I stole a weary glance at the old wizard. He was leaning against a boulder, gazing unblinkingly at Aragorn's unconscious form, his expression unreadable.

Between the remaining Companions, we had done all that we could that night. Aragorn's forehead had been dampened with a moistened towel, his shivering body covered in thick blankets, his open wounds washed, treated by kingsfoil, and carefully rebandaged whenever the blood soaked through, and we had forced copious amounts of water down his throat by the hour. Ironically enough, though, none of us had his healing powers, so all we could do was wait for him to awake

When the dark-haired Ranger finally did stir, nobody bothered to hide their happiness. Aragorn, confused at first and then rather embarassed, was for the most part horrified to find that everybody had worried so much over him. Though he took Gimli's ' gruff comments well ("If it hadda been me, I'd have shown those wolves the Dwarf in my blood") and even let Gandalf rebandage his wounds (which already showed signs of healing), I had the peculiar feeling that he did not want to speak to me. Whenever I looked towards him, his attention was elsewhere, but whenever I turned away, I was sure his eyes were fixed on me.

The Ranger insisted vehemently that he could manage walking, so by eight o'clock we had set off again, spirits high. The October air was fresh to inhale, and the Hobbits entertained themselves by seeing how many dandelions they could insert into the back of Gimli's helmet before the Dwarf realized what they were doing, while the rest of us tried to cover our sniggers.

By noon, we had reached the rocky slopes of the Cahadras and took a well-deserved break. By now, I was positive Aragorn was avoiding me, for we had not exchanged any words since he had awoken. Truthfully, I wasn't missing his companionship much – the way he had talked to me in the forest had been, in my opinion, nothing short of rude. So while he watched Boromir "duel" with Merry and Pippin, I decided to look around and made an unfortunate sighting - Crebain from Duneland, bird-shaped but very intelligent spies, undoubtedly sent by Saruman to report our progress.

After shoving myself under some scraggly hedges to avoid being seen, I knew at that instant that Saruman would never allow us to pass over the mountains alive. Gandalf, however, was still insistent as ever on this idea and it wasn't until Saruman practically brought down half the Cahadras did we turn back, this time towards the Mines of Moria at Frodo's decision.

At this point, the lighthearted mood of the group had settled into a much gloomier one. A week into the journey and we had already been ambushed, injured and now, being forced to change our route? As we descended the snowy slopes, I heard the hobbits exchange a few worried words.

"Are you sure Gandalf knows what he's doing, Mr. Frodo?" Sam asked, squinting doubtfully into the distant snowy slopes as if he could already see Moria. "I'm not so sure about these mines - my ol' Gaffer didn't trust any roof that wasn't under the open sky. An' in some books I read about the awfulest creatures who make their homes underground. Fire-breathing monsters and wicked little demons and flesh-eating goblins and –"

"I'm sure we'll be fine, Sam," Frodo interrupted, whose face had turned palish green at the mention of flesh-eating goblins.

"Besides, being eaten is a much more dignified way to die than freezing ontop some random mountain," Pippin said enthusiastically, which earned him a smack 'round the head from his cousin Merry.

The trek down the mountain was arduous for everybody. I tried to put my immaculate Elvish balance to use, but when I offered Boromir a hand after he'd slipped on an icy patch, he shot me a haughty look of disgust and turned away, leaving me with my arm extended and feeling very stupid. If my face had been pressed to the ground at that moment, I was sure the heat would've melted all the snow away.

The following afternoon, we arrived at the entrance to the great Mines of Moria, admiring its gargantuan, stony walls in silence. When Gandalf could not recall the password to the gates, I felt all the weight of my feelings finally coming down upon me. The fear of losing Aragorn, the terror from the Crebain and Saruman, the doubt of our path, the way I was completely useless to everybody else - all these emotions had been suppressed for a while now, and now each of them were making me more miserable by the moment. I sat down on a large expanse of rock and allowed myself to wallow in my misery.

"Mister Legolas?" a timid voice called some time later. I looked up and met the kind, concerned eyes of Samwise Gamgee.

I smiled weakly at him. "You don't have to call me that, Sam. I'm just Legolas."

The chubby hobbit sat down next to me. "But Gandalf tells me you're from Mirkwood, and that you're a Prince."

The word Mirkwood immediately brought back memories of the land I loved, the land that had once been dappled in sunlight and cultivated by careful gardeners and provided the sweet, crisp golden pears in the fall...

"Yes Sam, technically, I am a Prince. But it's different. For one thing, my father's immortal, so I don't have the responsibility of ruling for a while," I grinned, glad to be talking about something light of heart. "For another, I have three older brothers who are all fighting for the throne, so I'll probably live my life as nobility but not with all those boring responsibilities and jobs pestering me all day. And that's fine with me," I bit my lip thoughtfully. "I'd rather be outside exploring any day than sitting at some conference, negotiating treaties with other stuffy old Kings."

"Not all Kings are stuffy. Mister Strider won't be." Sam said stubbornly.

"No, I'm sure he won't," I said after a moment's hesitation, picking my words carefully. "But if he does go get his head a bit up in the clouds, he'll have us to drag him down to the ground, won't he?"

"Yeah, he will," came Aragorn's voice from behind me.

I turned around and met his eyes, then instantly wished I hadn't, for my stomach gave the most peculiar flip, the color drained from my face and a chilliness seemed to descend upon me, all at once because of one stupid glance into those grey irises.

Breathe, Legolas. You're not the one who acted the ungrateful prat here.

"So you've finally decided I'm worthy of speaking to," I turned away, not bothering to contain the bitterness in my voice. To my right, I noticed that Sam had quietly slipped away, and the Ranger took his place instead.

"Legolas, don't be like that," he said quietly. For the first time in my life, I found his calm manner irritating.

"Funny, you're still telling me what and what not to do."

"Well I'm sorry, alright?" Aragorn spat angrily, no trace of regret in his voice at all.

"You know, for some reason, I'm not quite sure you're being sincere," I said sarcastically. I expected a quick retort from the man beside me, but he shut his mouth and glared at the ground with smouldering eyes.

We sat there for a few minutes, a thick tension looming in the atmosphere, while the other Companions merrily chatted to themselves and Gandalf kept trying to blurt out the password.

I clenched my fists, furious. How dare Aragorn just try to come over and talk to me like nothing had happened? How dare he ignore me for the entire day after I'd shed so many tears over his bleeding body? How dare he apologize like this, as if a stupid "sorry" would just take away all the hurt and pain I felt inside? How dare he –

Calloused fingers touched my chin, jerking me out of my thoughts, and gently guided me to turn my head to face Aragorn. He slowly lowered his hand, but I barely noticed, because his eyes were so tragic, so remorseful, that despite myself, I felt my anger quickly waning.

"Legolas. I'm sorry," he said, and this time I did not for one moment doubt his sincerity. "My attitude towards you in the forest last night was astonishingly rude and ungrateful, and my only lame excuse is that I was preoccupied with my own anger so that when you came, I vented it out on you. I really shouldn't have, you were totally uninvolved, and it was completely selfish of me to act my feelings towards something different on you. Thank you for saving me even after I'd treated you so poorly, Legolas. I don't deserve the kindness you showed me last night. I don't even deserve your forgiveness right now. I-I just wanted to tell you that I'm so sorry. You must be disgusted with me."

"No, Aragorn, I'm not-" I started to say, but he didn't seem to hear me.

"And thank you for alerting the others and helping to get everybody out of the forest, I would never be able to live with the guilt that somebody else was injured because of my own recklessness. And I'm so sorry for ignoring you today, I just felt so guilty and angry with myself that I was too ashamed to approach you, and it wasn't until I saw you offering to help Boromir did I realize that no matter what I had to apologize because you are one of the kindest, most unselfish people I've ever met, and that I could never live with these feelings b and that you're truly an amazing person, and oh yeah, if I got any blood on your clothes, I am so sorry ottled up inside until I told you how truly sorry and thankful I am, because you need to know how I feel, I didn't mean to ruin any articles of clothing, and oh, I'm just thankful that you're alive, Legolas, because I don't know what I'd do without you because you must the world's most patient and understanding and compromising–"

"Aragorn! For the love of the Gods, stop raving!" I burst out, unable to contain myself.

He looked shocked at my interruption and for a few seconds we just looked at each other, both out of breath, until I started to laugh. And he joined in. And we kept laughing for well, I don't know exactly how long, but a long time nonetheless. I'm sure the other members of the Fellowship thought we were mad, but it didn't matter because the situation was suddenly so stupid...and hilarious.

Finally, when my stomach muscles felt like they were on fire and no more tears of mirth would come, I stopped laughing long enough to choke out an "I forgive you" to Aragorn, who in turn suddenly looked very pleased with himself and this made me begin to laugh again.

"Okay, okay, stop," I said aloud after another wave of gut-wrenching laughter.

Aragorn managed to shut his mouth, but the corners of his lips were still switching as he held out a hand.

"Friends again?"

Without hesitation, I took it.

"'Course we are."


"Okay, here's one. If you had to choose between living in here or in Mount Doom for the rest of your life, what would you pick?"

"That's not even a hard one. Mount Doom. I could just jump in the lava and rid myself of boredom."

It was the second day the Fellowship had spent in the Mines of Moria, which turned out to be some sort of gigantic tomb indeed infested with all the terrible things Sam had mentioned. Luckily, we had managed so far to avoid being seen or heard by any enemies. Unluckily, this meant that the past 48 hours had dragged on considerably. I was positive that I would die of the stench and the gloomy, unfit-for-breathing-air so Aragorn and I had resorted to asking each other silly questions to distract ourselves as we walked behind the rest of the Fellowship.

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask you this. What exactly were you thinking about that day in the forest?" I asked Aragorn.

"That's not a fair question, it has to be stupid for me to answer it," he argued back.

"Well, I think you owe me some answers," I said defiantly.

He sighed, staring at his feet. "You really want to know?"

"Now that you're making such a big deal about it, yes I do!"

"Alright, fair enough," Aragorn capitulated. "I was thinking about Arwen. You know, Elrond's daughter...you've probably heard of her, there are rumors everywhere. Well, she and I are..together. What? Don't look so surprised!" he exclaimed, for my face had betrayed my astonishment.

But it wasn't just astonishment that hit me, I felt...a twinge of...of...jealousy?

"But I thought - you're not - she's -"

"Immortal, yes. She chose to give it up. You see the necklace around my throat? It is the Evenstar jewel, a gift from her to remind me of her love. It is the most valued possession I own."

I had noticed the beautiful pendant before and had wondered a few times why Aragorn's hand constantly went up to touch it, but had never bothered to ask. As the truth unfolded before my ears now, I saw for myself the true brilliance of the jewel, how its pure silver and eternal shine truly represented the essence of Elven immortality.

"Obviously, Elrond was not happy about her decision. He still treats me like his own son, but until I take up the throne of Gondor, I shall not have his permission to wed Arwen. Given that I make it through this journey alive," the Ranger ended bitterly.

"I-I don't know what to say," I stuttered, but Aragorn did not hear the tightness of my voice, the hammering of my heart. Silence settled over us as we continued to walk in the darkness. I was thankful for this lull in the conversation, for my mind was ready to explode.

I was fully aware that the situation Aragorn had explained to me was heart-wrenching and hopelessly tragic. Although I could never personally know how they felt, I now understood why Arwen had looked so forlorn that day – the man she loved was leaving her and she could very well never see him again. As an immortal myself, I realized how deep her love ran for Aragorn if she was willing to forsake her immortality to be with him. And I acknowledged the burden that was now placed on Aragorn's shoulders - he had to succeed on this journey, he had to fulfill his duty as King of Men one day. The seriousness of otherwise consequences left him no choice but to face his fears.

But in the depths of my mind, a small part of me was feeling...glad. Glad that they were separated, glad that Arwen was doubtful, glad that now there was no beautiful Elvish princess to entrance Aragorn's eyes and capture his heart.

What are you thinking, Legolas? Aragorn is your friend! How can you feel anything but sorrow for his pain? You have absolutely nothing against Arwen, you know that Aragorn is capable of rising to become King, and you deeply admire the love he shares with Arwen.

But I didn't just admire it, I told myself. I wanted it.

I wanted him.


A/N: Oooh...the realisation dawns upon our favorite Elf! Please lengthen my life expectancy by leaving a review )