Cale au Aratar 13

All over the palace people looked up from what they were doing as they heard the rustling of thousands of leaves, wondering why the trees were swaying in such a way when there was no storm. Their confusion only grew when nearly every elf that had come to Minas Tirith stood hurriedly up and excused themselves before rushing into the palace.

Gimli, who was sitting together with the hobbits and Luimîr on a small terrace sprang up as he saw the elf raise startled his head:

"What happened, why are the plants behaving this way?"

Defeated the elf answered him as he was hurrying inside:

"They are grieving for their child, it won't be long now before they announce his death."

Angered by the calm the elf showed at this announcement Gimli growled at him:

"How can you be so calm when Legolas is dying? Does he mean nothing to you?..."

Before he could continue Luimîr interrupted him by raising his hand:

"Peace Master Dwarf! I ask you not to think so little of me just because I do not show my grief as openly as you.

Legolas means nearly everything to me, even though he is "just" my nephew I love him like a second son as does my wife and my son loves him like an older brother. When Legolas fades not only his family and friends will be grieving but also the trees and every Eldar on this shores... soon all of us would be leaving Arda and all that would be left of us would be a faint memory...

Never think that I am not grieving for him though I deny to grief for him as long as there may be a chance that he might survive!"

With an almost pleading glance at the hobbits and Gimli Luimîr stood up to go as the other elves to the room of his nephew; hesitating for a moment Gimli stormed after the elf but turned after they had passed a few rooms and stomped to the garden where he had sat earlier with his friend - and where he had left him with Aragorn.

"What have you done now!"

he growled as soon as he spotted the king. Puzzled Aragorn looked at his friend, still wondering what had caused the unusual behaviour of the plants.

"What do you mean, my friend? Do you know what happened to the plants?"

he asked a question of his own but was brushed of by the dwarf.

"What I mean? You ask me what I mean?

Legolas is DYING!

You must have said something to him because he has said goodbye to all this blasted plants and now they are begging him to stay alive for just a few more weeks!

So what in Mordor have you said to him to cause him to give up! We could have still found a way to save him as long as he had the will to live!"

To angry to stand still Gimli was pacing in front of Aragorn while he spoke, only when he had ended did he turn around to the man and registered with satisfaction how pale he had become.

"Legolas is dying?"

choked Aragorn, not wanting to believe what the dwarf was telling him,

"But he was fine! He wasn't as quiet today as he had been when the ilsa tirnoë arrived, he had seemed fine since the coronation! How could he have been dying when he was able to join all the festivities and even dance most of the time?"

"Fine?"

Gimli exploded,

"You say he was fine? He was most of the day unconscious and could only join that blasted coronation because he was so heavily drugged that an Orc could have stood next to him without him noticing!

Ignorant man, doesn't even know when his best friend is dying in front off his own eyes.

So what were you talking about I wont stand that the princeling is dying just because you were not willing to help us save him!"

"He told me his age ad I asked him if he had known Eregion..."

"Eregion," interrupted him Gimli, "wasn't that the city were the Rings of power were forged?"

Aragorn nodded and continued:

"Yes, they were forged in Eregion by Celebrimbor and Sauron, that was before Sauron betrayed the elf's trust and Eregion was destroyed.

Legolas told me how the rings were forged and that he last saw his friend a few weeks before he died protecting the fourth of the Elven-Rings.

He then told me of my parents and fulfilled a promise he had given my mother on her death-bed."

Gimli frowned at his friend:

"You said fourth Elven-Ring, I believed that there were only three not four..."

still deep in though he turned to go to the elf's chambers:

"Come, laddie"

he spoke over his shoulder to Aragorn, his tone friendlier then just moments ago,

"We will have to ask the Lady Galadriel if the rings could be of any help and if she knows of a fourth ring!"

In silence they walked to the rooms of the prince of Eryn Lasgalen, Aragorn berating himself during the whole way how he could have been so blinded by his own happiness to not see that his best friend since he had been a small boy was dying.

Legolas had been there for him his whole life, and now that the elf needed HIM he had failed, he had ignored his friend and now he was dying!

When the ilsa tirnoë had arrived in Minas Tirith he had sworn himself that he would make it up to his friend that he had been so demanding, so arrogant during the last months but now he was not sure if there even was a way for him to repay his friend for all he had done to him.

Not only three months ago had he demanded of his friend that he should die if necessary to defend the people of Rohan - and now the elf was following that order, a order he had given him out of fear and despair. He knew, that it could not only be the poison that was killing his friend but had to be something else, something much more grieve and important.

Aragorn did not notice, that they had already entered their friends rooms and was therefor startled when he felt the slender hand of Arwen on his shoulder.

"Estel, he does not want for you to see him in so much pain... but I believe that you are the only one that can give him his hope back, he still has his love but his hope is lost."

Just as Arwen wanted to stir her beloved into Legolas bedroom they were stopped by the voices of Lady Galadriel and Mithrandir.

"Aragorn, Gimli told us that you know something of a fourth ring?"

Gandalf asked the edain, not fully sharing the dwarf's enthusiasm.

"Legolas told me that Celebrimbor forged first Narya, than Vilya and Nenya and that each Ring was more powerful than the one before, Cuilya was the most powerful and that it was its completion that caught Saurons eye as it pulsed with power.

He said that Celebrimbor sent Narya, Nenya and Vilya in the same night to you, my Lady but that he kept Cuilya for himself as he had planned and because he did not dare to burden someone else with the power it possessed.

Legolas last saw him two weeks before Eregion was destroyed and Celebrimbor asked Legolas to bear the fourth Ring but as both knew that no one could bear it till Sauron was destroyed he hid it somewhere shortly before his death....

I believe that Legolas knows where the Ring is hidden, but could it really be of any help to him?"

Slowly Galadriel shook her head:

"No, if Celebrimbor asked him to become the next bearer of Cuilya than no-one else can bear it till Legolas does choose someone else and he is in no condition to think of something like that. When he is once again able to enjoy the world around him there will be a time to ask him of the fourth ring but not now."

"You mean there is still hope, my Lady?"

Aragorn questioned, with a soft smile in direction of her granddaughter she answered him:

"There is always hope! We are just not always able to see it and then someone has to show it to us...

Legolas believes that he has lost his hope, show him that he is still alive, Ellessar!"

She added, he warm eyes firmly boring into his own before she turned to her son in law who had just entered the sitting room from the bedroom.

"He is sleeping, to restless to be in a heeling sleep but to deep for it to be natural...

The trees are still begging him to hold on just for a little longer but they are already grieving for their prince...

There is nothing more we can do for him, we will loose him if not a miracle happens..."

Reported the Lord of Imladris after he had sat down with a sigh. With thoughtful faces did the three elves, the Istari and the dwarf observe how Aragorn stepped closer to the open door of his friends bedroom till he went through.

The light in the room seemed dimmed, even though the room had wide open windows through which the sun was shining. On the wall opposite to the door stood the bed, next to which to chairs were placed, occupied by King Thranduil and Lady Althilwen, Legolas father and betrothed. Legolas himself was lying in the bed, pale and motionless.

It was by far no the first time that Aragorn had seen Legolas sleeping or wounded, but never had his friend seemed so lost, so helpless. As he regarded the sleeping elf he understood for the first time why someone could mistake the prince of Eryn Lasgalen for weak: lying on the bed, nearer to death as to life he looked so frail, so delicate as a new born child would, as if unable to raise even the lightest weapon or to fight much less be the victor of uncounted battles... No, the elf he saw before him seemed more suited in a library or singing in a hall of fire - as were the other elves that occupied the room.

He had grown up among elves and had known all his life how strong this seemingly frail creatures really were, and yet now that he had seen the elves at their strongest, willing to sacrifice their immortality for the sake of the mortals he had to learn that no matter how strong and battle-proof they were they really were just as fragile as some people thought.

While they could survive almost any wound that was given to them by a weapon they would die if their heart was broken by the death of a loved one or a thoughtless action.

Aragorn had of course always known this fact but only now did he understand what it meant, what it meant when an immortal being was fading, not because he was slain in battle but because his heart was broken and he lost all will to live. Without a doubt Aragorn knew that this was the fate that awaited his beloved Arwen just because she loved him, a mortal.

As he sat down onto a chair that one of the guards had placed for him next to Althilwens and he was looking into the pale face of his best friend and saw the closed eyes, the eyes that were so vivid blue and normally so full of life did he realise what Elrond and Gimli already knew: he was responsible for Legolas fading, it was him who broke the heart of this wonderful elf.

He had asked of him to die for him who had never done anything important for him. Legolas had been there for his family on more than one occasion as he had learned earlier that day - and what had he done for the elf? Nothing! He had only ever asked but had never given, he had asked of Legolas to keep Gollum safe, to guard this creature who had caused with his escape four warriors their life and then he had asked of the elf to die, had treated him as if he were a coward when he could have already left Middle Earth and sail to the safety of the Undying Lands.

It took a while before Aragorn felt the pressure of a hand on his arm and came out of his thoughts.

"What worries you, Estel?"

the tired voice of his friend asked him, filling his heart at the same time with happiness and guilt.

"You, you worry me, Legolas! I had never thought that I could loose you, that one day you would not be there...

Why didn't you tell me that you were wounded? Why did you fight when you knew that it would worsen your wound?"

Aragorn asked, his voice thick with suppressed tears. Softly the elf was caressing the hand of his younger friend as he answered him.

"You had other things to do, to think of, it would have made no difference for me, the only way to treat Morgoths Tear is a poison that needs over a months time to be made, there would have been nothing you could have done for me but it could have made the difference in this war. How would you have acted if you had known that I was wounded, would you have been able to concentrate fully on the battles as was necessary or would your thoughts have strayed to me?

Believe me when I say that it was better this way, Aragorn."

Even though Aragorn knew that he was at least partly responsible for the state his friend was in he was not able to say something in front of so many others, others among which was not only the father of the wounded but also his own foster-brothers. And of what use would it be if he apologised to his friend? What good could such an apology do? Wouldn't it be only spoken to ease his conscious?

It were for this reasons that Aragorn didn't apologise for his past behaviour but asked his friend instead how he had met his father.

"It was early spring when we first met, he was just four years old and had run away from his parents and the other rangers who were on their way to Laketown to prove to them that he was brave and strong by slaying one of the giant spiders as he thought that they couldn't be much bigger than the normal spiders he knew.

When I found him he was tangled in a web and a spider was right before him... After I had shot the spider and cut him free he thanked me, looked me over and after realising that I was an elf he asked me why elves couldn't fly as his father, your grandfather had told him how light and graceful we Eldar are.

As he had run away in the night and had managed to get astoundingly far into the woods it was early morning when we reached the camp where they were about to sent search parties after him..."

Legolas trailed of, a smile on his face as he remembered how he had met Arathron: on their way back to the camp the small child had fallen asleep in his arms, his arms placed around his neck and his head resting on his shoulder. His family had been so relieved to have their son back that they didn't realise at first that Legolas had called him the next in the line of Elros. Only when he had shared their breakfast did they realise that he knew who they were and whom he had saved.

As they told him that they were on their way to Laketown he invited them to his fathers palace, knowing very well how his father thought of the edain, especially Isildur and his heirs, in his mind Isildurs weakness had made his own fathers death needless. But as soon as they had entered the throne room and the small boy whom Legolas had once again been carrying demanded to be set down and marched right up to Thranduil and climbed onto his lap because it looked so inviting as he claimed, the Elven Kings heart softened a little bit towards the guests of his son.

Legolas had always known that his father wished for grandchildren but only after he had met Arathron did he himself wish for a child, a child that would just climb onto the lap of one of the most feared kings because it looked so inviting.

"Your father was just as respect-less and curious as a child as you have been, Estel... the first time he met my father he climbed onto his lap because it looked so comfortable, just like you were fascinated by my hair he was fascinated with my father and followed him for a day around till he found that I was more exciting: no child finds the duties of a king exciting, it was my boredom after one day spend with my grandfather and his advisors that drove me into the armoury where I found the first weapon, a bow, that I liked."

Thranduil also had to smile as he remembered that day, how his son had entered his throne-room, a small boy in his arms... he had looked so content, so happy... How much time had past by since that day... and now he was sitting with his son, his sons betrothed and the son of the small boy from all those years ago on the dying bed of his son.

He didn't have the illusion that his son would survive and he wasn't even sure that he wished for his son to survive, not if that meant that Legolas had to live with a broken heart like he himself did for now almost three millennia...

When his little Greenleaf had been born all had feared for the life of the child of the crown prince. Never before had a child of the Eldar looked so frail and weak, even now his son looked more delicate than most of the other First Born. Legolas and himself shared the same features and yet did his son look compared to him like a christal-figurine.

It had not wondered him when Erenion had mistaken Legolas for an elleth when he had first met the twelve-year old prince as Legolas was even more frail as Celebrian, Galadriels and Celeborns first daughter who was only a few years older than his son. Of course had he never told his son that he feared for his life every time he played with other children of his age a little more roughly than he would have wished. His heart had nearly stopped when his small son, barely older than ten years had stolen into the armoury after he had spend a day at Orophers court with the king and his advisers and came back with one of their finely crafted smaller bows. Even though his son had been able to shoot the bow he wished that Legolas would never pick up a weapon again as it made him look even frailer than usually.

In spite of his seemingly fragile body Legolas had fast become one of Greenwood best warriors and the realms best archer. There was no one in Arda who was - had been - able to best the young prince with a bow. After he had returned the first time from Eregion he had had three new playthings: a pair of white fighting knives and a double-blade. Both had been forged by Celebrimbor himself out of Mithril from Moria and ivory from Harad. Never in his life had Legolas carried a normal elven sword and even when he went to battle he carried only his bow and his twin-knives. He seldomly fought with his double-blade as it demanded room to be wielded, room he normally didn't have while fighting against enemies.

Even though fighting-knives were common for the Avari and their use came as natural to them as the use of a bow to the Woodelves, he feared every time when his son left the palace without a sword: the range of a sword was much wider than that of his sons knives, letting the enemies closer to his beloved child.