Where Elrohir's healing came in dribs and drabs, Elladan's came all at once two days after their arrival - his body expelling the evil laid upon it - and resulted in his immediate collapse. When he woke, a full day later it was to the sound of his brother talking with Aragorn in worried tones. All talked ceased as he opened his eyes with a groan to a blurry view of a visitor's room in Mirkwood Palace.

Suddenly all of the abstract information he had been receiving was brought into sharp focus, and any joy he might have taken at the knowledge that he and Elrohir were safe was quashed by the sorrow of the truth in Elrohir's eyes. Aragorn held him as bitter tears flowed.

With blankness akin to shock, Elladan sat for most of that day and the next alternating between tears and cold unresponsiveness. Aragorn relayed all that he knew regarding the events of the last week, and he accepted this knowledge wordlessly and without reply. Only the focus of his eyes told Aragorn that he had heard every word. Elrohir looked on with tears in his eyes.

"Please brothers." Aragorn implored at last, after a long silence in which he had waited for a response - any response to his words. "Talk to me of this pain you share, else it will overwhelm you."

"We have no wish to speak of it." Elrohir replied softly, an apology in his eyes. Elladan only sighed and turned his back on them both.

"Then will you allow this to be the death of both of you? Will you not fight for him, strive for vengeance?" The pain of the week's events was catching up with him, and though he knew his words were harsh he was too tired to try and rein them in.

"There is little joy to be had in such action, this is something we both know well." Elrohir replied coldly, reprimanding Aragorn for his rashly spoken words. He faltered for a moment.

"Will you give me no hope?" His voice sounded small and lost - even to him.

"Hope is the light you find in yourself when all is dark. It cannot be given so freely as that."

"But…"

"Let us mourn in solitude!" Elladan's outburst was unexpected and for a moment both were silent, unsure how to respond.

"You say those words, and yet the ones I hear are 'let us die in peace'." Aragorn replied, his voice soft. "I would not have you die, brothers. Not now. There is so much more to come." His piece said; Aragorn turned on his heel and walked from the room.

"I know fear, my brother." It was the first words Elrohir had spoken since Elladan's outburst, several hours earlier. It had been a tenuous silence - neither knowing how to voice what pain they knew they shared. Neither wanting to put into words the truths they knew in their deepest hearts.

"What can I do to ease your fear?" Elladan spoke over his shoulder, his back still to Elrohir, his tone vacant. They lay side by side on the bed, Elrohir on his side as his wound healed.

"I do not know, only I remember a time when we shared all that we were - and though now we are… divided by this event, I would have you know that I wish us to be united once more." The terse anger in Elrohir's voice finally brought Elladan out of his shell. Biting his lip, he rolled over and shuffled closer to Elrohir to pull him into a tight embrace. Elrohir's healing was enough to allow him to reach out and return the embrace, but little more.

"Forgive me brother." He whispered, laying a soft kiss in the corner of his mouth. "My sorrow drowns out rational thought, I am too weak to fight it."

"You are forgiven, it is nothing I am not guilty of myself."

"What do you fear?"

"The slowness of my healing. My arms and shoulders - that is the extent of it. What is this infuriating malady? What if I am to remain this way forever, what then?"

"We cannot give up hope, nor stop striving for your recovery."

"Do we…" He hesitated. "Do we still strive, brother? After this loss? I fear the grief also, and yet I would embrace its offer of a peace beyond this place."

"I had not wished to speak of it with you. I… I feared what you might say."

"Did you fear that I would embrace the grief - or that I would turn it away and leave you to walk the path alone? I know you, Elladan. Sometimes better than I know myself. How is it that you can doubt me so?" A weight seemed to drop from Elladan's shoulders.

"We are agreed then? We follow the light until the darkness becomes too strong. Together. As it has always been."

"As it should always be."

Thranduil was on his knees when Aragorn strode past the front gates, a still body in his arms. The sight brought Aragorn to an abrupt stop as he took in the scene. The soldiers that had returned with the bodies had made the honourable decision that they would carry their charges into the city, to spare them the indignity of the litter for the last few miles. They had gathered a cloud of mourners, from the city guards and any who had crossed their path on the last leg of their journey home. There was a terrible blankness on the Kings face as he stood with his son's body in his arms and turned towards the palace. Cries of pain and sorrow announced the arrival of the families of the other elves, and soon all had found their place in the arms of those that had loved them and had lost them. Turning away from the sorrowful scene with a heavier heart, Aragorn followed Thranduil back inside.

As soon as he was out of sight, the King collapsed to his knees and began sobbing his grief to the halls. His advisors gathered around, but Aragorn dispersed them with a strong word and stood to one side to stand guard over the King as he offered his grief to the gods. It was the first time he had had a chance to see Legolas in full light - out of the depressing murky darkness of the south of the forest. He found himself grateful that Elladan and Elrohir were not around to see for themselves, for it was heartbreaking for him and he was nothing more than a good friend to the elf.

Thranduil - broken - clung to his son's body like a lifeline, holding him as one might hold a child, cradled in his arms. His tears - now silent - washed at the bloody patches on his son's skin, smearing the blood into trails that coursed down the palest skin and puddled in his own clothes, onto his own skin.

He didn't notice - his mind too far away.

The bruises that Aragorn had convinced himself had only been shadows in the forest were now undeniable. The cloak that one of the soldiers had cast over him to hide his worst indignity did nothing to hide the marks around his throat, across his chest, across his feet. Aragorn turned away, unable to look any longer. Quietly he left, allowing a father to grieve.

An advisor came to Aragorn later that day, apologetic yet with his own pain in his eyes.

"I am the father of Elanor." He spoke after a long pause. "I come firstly to offer my thanks for your work to bring our children home." He bowed - deep and low. "Regretfully my King sends me hence on other business. A period of mourning is to start tomorrow. All those not of Mirkwood must leave the wood." He held up a hand to halt Aragorn's immediate protest. "We understand that the Noldor twins cannot be moved, but you are no longer needed here. Our own healers will care for them, you need not fear. We will expect you out of the wood by tomorrow morn, and you must not be seen back for fourteen days."

"Would it make any difference if I pleaded for my right to stay with my brothers?"

"This is our way, forgive us."

"There is nothing to forgive. Fourteen days then."

There was resignation in his eyes when Aragorn mounted and made his way to the gates the next morning. He had watched the elves pouring in earlier in the day and once he left he knew they would seal the gates behind him - saving some emergency - for the full fourteen days of mourning. A soft wind made the trees sing outside those gates and to Aragorn it seemed they were already mourning. Every time the elves of Mirkwood mourned - it struck him - they distanced themselves from the trees that supported them. He remembered tales of times when the trees would talk with the elves, and the elves would sing for the trees. Yet no more. What did the trees mourn for? Or who?