Author: Mirrordance
Title: Love, War
Summary: The War brought them together, but the peace will tear them apart. How much is a man willing to pay to keep a friendship, and how much is a friend willing to lose for revenge? Slash.
TIMELINE: the story happens about a year or two after Return of the King— the exact year is immaterial really, just as long as certain future events operate as a given: one, peace is yet to be attained with the Eastern tribes of Middle-Earth. Two, Ithilien is already restored and Legolas lords over the elven colony there, just as Gimli is lord of the Glittering Caves. Three, Eomer is already engaged, as is Eowyn and Faramir. Four, that Elrond and Galadriel have already sailed away to Valinor. The fic is generally faithful to the book and the movie with respect to the major events, although some factors about it may be considered as an AU; the irrepressible Haldir, for instance, is very much alive in this piece.
ORIGINAL CHARACTER GUIDE:
The Sang-age Tribe: a tribe name created from Latin roots which means 'belong to blood.' They a creation of the author and is supposed to be one of the multitude of Easterling tribes, not particularly powerful but also influential. excuse any possible inconsistencies haha.
King Nathaniel: the King of the Sang-age tribe.
Princess Nadina: Nathaniel's daughter, Nicolo's sister, and Danielli's wife.
Lilian: Legolas' murdered betrothed. An elf from Lothlorien.
Mikael: Legolas' personal guard.
PART ONE: Those Lost
Chapter Eleven: No One of Them
Minas Tirith
He was so occupied by the ceiling of stars that stretched out over his head, and their power to turn his thoughts and pains into nothing, that he did not realize he had company until Elrohir's warm hand was pressed upon his shoulder.
He jumped a bit, caught himself and then whipped to face his old friend. "Elrohir," Legolas said under his breath, "You shouldn't be sneaking up on people like that."
"And instincts of warriors should never rest," Elrohir chided him gently.
"Yes, well," Legolas retorted, "You also have to take it into context. I feel very safe here."
"Did Elladan and I teach you nothing?" asked Elrohir, pretending offense, "Even the safest places, naughty people could still play tricks on you."
Legolas smiled at him wryly. "Did you not grow any mature with age? I wasn't expecting tricks from you anymore."
"Fair to say," Elrohir conceded with a frown, after a moment of thought.
"Ah!" said Legolas triumphantly, "I see some signs of maturity after all. An almost graceful acceptance of defeat."
"Not defeat," laughed Elrohir, "Never a defeat. I'm merely regrouping."
They lapsed into comfortable silence, both turning toward the sight of the stars. Legolas' usual room in the King's home had a balcony that looked out over the expanse of the territory. Even past the mountains, out toward the sight of the once-dreaded Mordor.
"It no longer holds so much menace," Legolas murmured, and Elrohir knew at once what it was he was referring to.
Elrohir's eyes drifted toward that now-barren, once-forbidden land. "But it still lies empty. Evil pasts have the ill habit of lingering."
"Good pasts too," Legolas said, wistful.
"Fair of you to say," breathed Elrohir.
"So," said Legolas, "What are your immediate plans, old friend?"
Elrohir shrugged. "Our people are diminishing, the demands of our realm not quite so great. I can move about as I please, it is but a matter of deciding what I want. How fares Mirkwood's populations by the way?"
"Still strong," Legolas replied, "We were never one amongst those who desired to leave."
"But you've had sight of the sea, yourself," Elrohir pointed out, "Known its call, been awakened by the ultimate fate of your kin. Where does that leave you, prince ling?"
"Miserable," Legolas said with a sad chuckle, "But it is bearable too. My people, who've not had taste of the sea as I have, need me here as my father's heir."
"The answer to your bit of problem," said Elrohir, "Is to find yourself a wife, give her a son, raise him, make him your heir, and then leave for our distant shore of paradise. It shouldn't take you more than a few years. Two decades, maybe. That is but a breath along the length of our lives."
"Except promises bind me here too," Legolas said.
"Ah," Elrohir quieted, a bit eyes understanding. "Damn things, aren't they?"
"I've had a few occasions to find out first hand," said Legolas, "Yes. Cursed be these Words."
Elrohir smiled grimly. "And the tireless man who wrings it from you. Estel is very… not fair to say persistent, for he plays no active role to press any of us into duty. He is simply… magnetic. I suppose. I'm thinking it is much easier to stay here, than to see his sad silver eyes watching us, feet planted on these shores as we depart it."
"Anyway his life is short," Legolas said, a bit too abruptly, feigning indifference, "It matters not. We will be away from here in no time at all."
"You say it," said Elrohir quietly, "Yet you find no comfort in it yourself. Why bother, mellon-nin? The words sting."
"I…" hesitated the Mirkwood elf, "I apologize. I curse the fates. Elves should have kept to elves and mortals to mortals. Friendships and loves were not made to cross these lines, they only guarantee tragedy. Who were we to think we could escape destiny? Or perhaps we were all too short-sighted. We sacrificed our hearts and our futures for immediate and short-lived gratifications. Foolish."
"You regret," Elrohir concluded.
More than you think, Legolas thought. But he stared back at the Rivendell elf, and there was a shift about the way Elrohir looked at him. Searching, searching, those eyes were hungry for understanding and seemed to be grasping at some sort of answer that Legolas' tongue refused to say but his sad eyes apparently betrayed.
"I regret," Legolas admitted.
There was no mistaking the flurry of the return of the King, some days later.
It never seemed to get old to the proud inhabitants of the White City- every welcome was a hearty one, for this King was much loved and much adored.
The four noble elves were having dinner when one of the guards made the announcement, out of breath and excited.
"My queen," he had said, "The King-"
He needn't have said anything else. She was up from his seat the very moment she had seen the wide smile across his face. Her twin brothers grinned at each other and rose to join her, heading out of the breakfast room of the King's lavish home, eager for the sight of him.
Legolas watched them go with some dread. He knew what Estel's hasty return meant. It meant his respite was ending. It meant too that a whole other part of his life was ending: the part of the careless rage, the part where he lived to kill for those lost. A new life was beginning and it was one he unfortunately dreaded.
He pushed up to his feet slowly as he reached for a goblet of wine. He liked how it burned through him, but desired more of its anesthetic effect on his mind. He was going to lose his nerve before Estel walked through those doors, unless he strode up to his old friend right now and knock himself out of his misery.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, he thought tentatively, although that small voice in his head wasn't one that he readily trusted.
He glanced at his empty glass, and then reached for Elladan's abandoned one and downed that too. Taking a deep breath, he walked out of the room and made for the balcony that overlooked the north, where one could easily see the approach of the riding party.
Elrohir, Elladan, the Queen and a number of guards stood there, all unknowingly sharing the same eager pose; their hands were on the railing, their bodies leaning forward just-so, as if they were ready and eager to spring upon the new arrival. Legolas stood apart from them, easily seeing over their heads with his considerable height.
The King led the riding party at a break-neck pace, and it might have been his guilt and anxiety, but Legolas sure thought those silver eyes of Estel were staring straight up at him.
It took him a good hour to break free of the crowds that had reveled in his welcome. The throng of people had thickened the streets, touched his boots, touched his horse, touched any part of him that they could as they bowed and looked up at him with love and awe.
He may have indulged them because that was the sort of ruler that he was. Or maybe it was because he was in no rush to face up to old friends and say things he did not want to say, these things that equally did not want to be heard.
So what are we all doing here? He thought sardonically, profoundly mirthlessly. He's traveled non-stop from the front of Rohan, and arrived here only to find he did not quite know what to say.
It seemed a minor eternity when his horse was ushered to the stables and his feet hit solid ground at last, after days of endless travel. He patted at the flank of his loyal horse absently, before leaving him to the care of the able page and heading for the castle that made up his home.
He was met at the doors with a running embrace from his wife, which eased his heart some as he hugged her back with considerable force. She laughed- and the sound was musical- as she pulled away from him and yielded him to her twin brothers.
Estel pretended to glance about the room. "It still stands!" he said, eyes wide in mock surprise.
Elrohir laughed and claimed a quick embrace, and then stepped aside from Elladan who redeemed the both of them by saying in the same, grave and mocking tone of surprise Estel had used on them, "You're still alive!"
The King's brow quirked, and his head tilted a bit, as if to concede. When Elladan stepped away, the mirth vanished from Elessar's eyes, and the change was so drastic that it seemed as if the room had dimmed. Legolas stood behind the Rivendell elf, and a tentative, grim look was set upon his face.
"Welcome back," he said to the King quietly.
Elessar nodded, still unsure. "Thank you. You look well." The latter was a lie, but he was searching his mind rather furiously. "Your fellow rode with me. Mikael. Good man."
"You can keep him if you like," the elf said, some humor lighting his eyes. Elessar smiled too. He clung to that light as a man with a log in a raging sea. There was no easy way around the damned words. There was no easy way.
"There is some business we must attend to," Elessar said.
"I know," Legolas breathed.
"What business?" Arwen asked.
Legolas glanced at her, and then looked to Elessar, trusting his judgment, knowing he'd respect Legolas' privacy and be the one to know how to dismiss his wife without offense.
"I will apprise you later," Aragorn promised her gently, looking at the twins with the same guarantee. She reached over and squeezed her hand, before she let herself be steered from the room by Elrohir and Elladan.
Legolas and Estel watched them leave, and when they left the room, listened to their fading footfalls.
"You could have told me everything and saved me all the trouble of the long roads," Estel told his old friend wryly.
"I couldn't seem to find the words," Legolas said plainly. The same seemed the case, now. Perhaps he should not have delayed, for all the time he took in thinking still yielded nothing of use.
"I know the feeling," Estel said.
"So," breathed Legolas, "We both know what we know, don't we? So let's not bother with those things and just say the things that need saying. I will seal your treaty with my marriage. Isn't that all that you need to hear and all that I need to say?"
"No," Estel argued, "It is not. We've gone on in circles too long, old friend. We've gone your way of keeping quiet, of secrets and wordless words. Things that I'm suddenly just supposed to understand. You're going to burst from your skin. I'm going to lose my mind. We will say more of the things that need saying and we will say them now."
Legolas fell silent. His heart thundered in his ears. He wanted to be elsewhere. The room was too closed in around them, the words were bouncing off the walls and reverberating inside his head. The things he did not want to say and did not want to hear were echoing over and over and over.
"I need to be outside," he said beneath his breath. He wanted the wind to eat up the words and bear them away. He did not wish for the walls to throw them back at him, he did not wish for the walls to share his secrets and let them hang in the air like a pall over the room, there for eternity.
The elf did not wait for the King's consent. He made for many of the home's tiers and balconies, searching for the wind, aching for the expanse of the horizon and the stars. He liked the feeling of being small and insignificant. He liked the feeling that there was a world beyond his woes, that they were nothing to the face of the world.
This is nothing, he told himself.
There was a guard on the balcony, whom Elessar had dismissed wordlessly. The armored Gondorian shuffled away with a few tinkling sounds of armor and scuffed boots on the fine marble floors.
Legolas took a deep breath and looked at Elessar pointedly. "What are the other things that need saying, hm?"
It was almost a challenge; Dare you say them as well? Was the question that seemed to be hanging before Elessar.
"You did not tell me Lilian was dead," Aragorn said, watching the elf's face.
"What good could such a thing have yielded?" Legolas replied coldly. "I've made my choice, you've made your choice. Hurtful though it may seem to say, but her death was almost incidental to the rest of our lives. You were to be with Arwen, and I with someone else."
"You did not tell me," continued Aragorn, "Even as a friend."
"The death of she whom I loved," said Legolas, "And my friendship with you, they are hard to divorce. They created possibilities and hurtful dreams that I did not wish to think of, nor wished for you to think of. Arwen deserves you fully, the entirety of you. You did not need one loose end like me, making things harder. The happy ending's already been made. I was no longer welcome."
Aragorn stared at him for a long moment, not knowing what to say. "The Easterlings-" he said, haltingly.
"Hapless victims of my rage?" Legolas scoffed, "You can say so. But I maintain that they are takers who scour this Earth, and they know it. I am one of many, but I have the power to avenge us all. They took Lilian. And because my returning to her took you from me, and that my choosing her and her death effectively left me with nothing, is it not fair to say the cursed Easterlings had taken it all?
"But no matter," continued Legolas quickly, "If you think it through, very little's changed, really. We chose to be apart. You chose to be with Arwen, and I with someone else. What is it to you, who? It could have been Lilian and it could have been anyone, you'd never even know, you never even knew her. What is it to you who I wed? The end is the same."
"I wanted you to be happy," Aragorn said quietly, "Even if it was not with me."
"It doesn't matter anymore," Legolas said sharing his gentle tone but infusing within it his steely determination, "It doesn't matter who comes next. No one of them is Lilian, and no one of them is you. This means I'll never love again. In that case, I might as well wed someone who can purchase your peace for you."
He hesitated, paused for a long moment. "But… I need you to ask it of me."
"Why?" Elessar asked.
"Because we need to end this together," Legolas said.
Elessar's eyes clouded with the familiarity of those words. Dear gods… the past was a hurtful ghost…
"I've said my piece," Legolas continued, "I want to do this. But you have to know you wanted to do this too. You shouldn't have the luxury of one day standing in the future and looking over this as the past and thinking I've deserted you-"
"-You shouldn't have the luxury of hating me," Elessar finished for him with a wince, "I know how it goes."
"Then you know what to say," Legolas pointed out.
Don't say it…
Elessar stared at him for a long moment.
"I ask it of you."
To be continued…
HEY GUYS! Thanks for reading and thanks for the reviews! As always, c&c's are very VERY welcome :) thanks for taking the time :) oh! And two chapters for this post so I hope you have fun. These two chapters end part one of the fic "Those Lost." Part two will be on its way soon, and its entitled "Possibilities." Part one was the set-up; it worked like a kind of backdrop to the real story, which we will see more of in part two. "Those Lost" is an angsty drama, but "Possibilities" will be more of an action adventure, and more of the OC Easterlings, more of Legolas and Aragorn and the summary mentioned in the teaser, and more of Elrohir and Haldir. So there. Enjoy the double-header and 'til the next post!
Okay some replies:
To orlandochick05: oh, sorry about the confusion. How my stories go are generally independent of each other, except for two trilogies. These fics go together under the "Exile" trilogy: "Exile," "Escape" and "Return." The other trilogy is the "Allies" trilogy: "Allies," "The Ghost of Imladris" and "Sacred Betrayal." So there generally isn't a carry over of the original characters :)