Hi all! This fic is a six-parter; I played around with the format and it seemed to flow best like that. It's ended up as quite a hash of book and movie canon, with my own interpretations of Tolkien's work thrown in for good measure. The result is not what I expected when I started writing it. Constructive criticism is always appreciated; I hope you like it.
This fic is now illustrated! Thanks to the wonderful lycheesodas on tumblr for creating such beautiful art for chapters 4 & 6. Unfortunately I can't link them directly from this site, but you can access them from my AO3 - the deconstructed URLs are:
Chapter 4: lycheesodas. tumblr (. com)/ post/ 638034694825492480/ a-scene-from-the-days-of-the-king-by-elklights
Chapter 6: lycheesodas. tumblr (. com)/ post/ 639151628264587264/ final-scene-from-the-days-of-the-king-by
Translations and additional notes are at the end. My thanks for reading!
~Elk
The Days of the King
Part I – The Crowns we Wear
Elessar was crowned, the crowds cheered, and the petals of late spring fell.
The colours were rich; the King's tunic boasted a soft, night-dark velvet, a fair white mantle clasped elegantly at his neck with a precious jewel of vivid green that glowed from afar with youthful vitality. Upon his brow rested the Age-old sea-bright silver of his new crown, bold and winged and lofty, and seven gems of adamant were lit with sun-fire at its peak. He held his head high, though Legolas knew the weight it bore would be heavy indeed.
"Behold the King!" his steward cried, and the crowds echoed. "Behold the King!"
The procession from the Gateway wound long and slow through the cobbled streets of the citadel. Tossed garlands smeared orange and pink across the ground, torn up by the press of one thousand feet and one hundred hooves. Horse bits jangled like bright silver bells.
The city gleamed in the morning light, radiant with the brilliant shine of dancing sunbeams and the promise of a new king. Seven levels of white stone rose high above the festivities, proud and dazzling, steady in the cliff face, steady on the plain. It is a noble city, befitting of a noble king, Legolas thought. How strange it seemed to have fought so passionately and desperately for its freedom, not even two months past.
"They are commissioning citadels in Gondor to watch for the darkness," his father had told him, an Age and yesterday ago. "Minas Anor and Minas Ithil, the Towers of the Sun and Moon."
Legolas looked up at Minas Tirith and wondered when the Tower of the Guard had become a more appropriate name than the Tower of the Sun. The encroach of darkness here had been fast, he knew, nothing like the sickening creep of poison through Mirkwood's boughs, but although Legolas recalled every moment he had lived with still-pool clarity, elven seasons blended as running water over rolling plains. Eight months of close companionship with mortals had taught him much, but he still struggled to sequence time as they could; sometimes, in the middle of a dark watch, he would look on his sleeping companions to ensure they still breathed. Sometimes Aragorn would rise with the sun and ask why Legolas had watched through the night without waking him. Often, Legolas could not find the words to explain.
A creeping coldness lingered around his spine, at odds with the warm southerly breeze brushing his face and lifting his hair. Such unease was far harder to bear than any physical wound.
Realisations of fleeting mortality, Legolas had found, did not strike as fire-bolts of lightning. The process was more one of gradual awareness, an abstract knowledge of things come to pass and things yet to come, in cycles of seasons of running water over rolling plains where one drop could be carelessly lost, just like that. Legolas had discovered, in the last year, that he had a lot of drops to lose.
The procession turned a corner and Legolas caught a flower thrown by an old maid. It was large and purple, and he twisted the stem through the browband of Arod's bridle to sit with the silver ferns already woven there. His fingers were smudged blue with ceremonial war paint when he finished, and he patted Arod's shoulder in apology, barely refraining from wiping his palm on the silver silks of his formal robes.
"A royal flower, that," said Gimli from behind him. Legolas twisted in surprise and eyed the dwarf suspiciously.
"Purple's a good, strong colour," said the dwarf, voice a little gruff. "Symbolises wisdom, nobility, the like. A nice cut gem of that would be a kingly gift indeed."
Legolas wondered at Gimli's thus far undiscovered poetic tendencies and if such associations extended to the colour of his beard, which he had knotted with bright red string and golden beads for the ceremony. Legolas was somewhat familiar with Gimli's superstitious ways (he always laced his right boot first and never lit his pipe without turning it twice), but he had not considered dwarves to assign individual meanings to different rocks. Silvan elves rarely cared for precious trinkets, and Legolas' father chose his gems by their Song of reflected starlight rather than their hue.
"It's a tulip," he replied. The procession continued. He made no more moves to catch any flowers.
"So?" asked Gimli. "You caught it, lad. You may not care for the finer points of Mahal's work, but I'll shave my beard if your people don't have some symbolism or other for that plant."
Legolas patted Arod's shoulder and twisted the reins between his fingers. Blue paint smudged across the dark leather. The cries of the crowd echoes with the cries of the gulls. "Rebirth," he said, after a length. "They symbolise new life."
Gimli hummed. "A new Age of kings," he said.
"For Elessar," said Legolas.
"For us all," said Gimli.
The crowds cheered around them as they climbed the remaining levels of the citadel in silence.
o-O-o
The procession ended at the White Tree, which was, in Legolas' humble opinion, rather poorly named. It was barely white and barely a tree.
"A sad bit of vegetation, that," said Gimli, and Legolas found himself reluctantly agreeing. It looked more dead than alive, grey-streaked branches twisted, thin, and grasping, and it listed heavily to one side. He had seen healthier trees in Southern Mirkwood during the days of The Necromancer's rule. There was, he concluded, a distant irony in what was a rather sorry symbol for one of the greatest Realms in Arda.
Gimli cleared his throat, and Legolas nudged Arod into line behind the hobbits. They were livered in the respective colours of their service and mounted on shaggy ponies, situated at the front of the crowd in what was, Legolas suspected, both an honorary and practical position. Meriadoc twisted in his seat to wave at them, and Peregrin twisted in his seat to see who Meriadoc was waving at.
"Hullo Legolas," he said, craning his neck to see past him. "Is… Gimli? Can you see anything?"
"Aye," grunted Gimli from his seat behind Legolas. "I can see just fine, lad."
Legolas was unsure how Gimli could see anything other than his back, but the dwarf had grumbled enough about mounting Arod in the first place, so he held his tongue. Apparently satisfied with this answer, Peregrin returned to face the front and started pointing out interesting outfits to his cousin.
Samwise turned his head to see who Peregrin had greeted. He was gripping the pommel of his saddle so tightly his knuckles were starting to turn white.
"It's rather decent of you both to join us here," he said, with the air of someone making conversation to take his mind off the fact he was sitting more than two feet off the ground. "When you could be with your own people, and all."
Legolas had already met with his own people. His father had been unable to attend the coronation, but he had sent a number of Lords and Ministers in his place, and they had barely finished their formal greetings to Legolas before swamping him with overdue princely duties. He had obliged, of course ─he had never been one to take responsibility lightly─ but for now, he was quite happy over here.
Gimli grunted. "We're here to support the lad," he said. "We can hardly do that from back there, can we?" Legolas felt him gesture in the vague direction of the Erebor delegation. They had stationed themselves at the opposite end of the courtyard to his father's elves.
"Fellowships such as ours cannot be broken," said Legolas softly. He wondered who he was trying to convince.
"Well, it's still jolly decent of you," decided Samwise. "All these lords make a hobbit feel quite out of place, if you follow me."
"But Legolas and Gimli are lords too, Sam," said Peregrin, losing interest in his people-spotting and returning to the conversation. "And so are Merry and I, and Strider is King, and Gandalf is, well, Gandalf, so really, it's just you and Cousin Frodo─"
"That'll do, Pip lad," said Frodo. "Don't drag me into this one, please."
Peregrin shifted his seat and turned to face the front again. Legolas traced the curled edges of the ferns in Arod's bridle and the paint smears on his reins and flexed his left elbow absently as they waited.
"My friends," said Elessar a short time later, standing in his stirrups. His full plate armour caught the sun and flashed silver-bright as he moved, seven stars and a gilded tree glinting from his breastplate. Andúril hung sharp with cutting sunbeams at his hip. Legolas had never seen the man so fully armoured. Despite his own high collar and heavy silks, he felt strangely exposed.
A hush fell over the crowd.
"My brothers," said Elessar. "My kin."
He swung down from his horse and knelt before the White Tree. Two thousand people watched as he bowed his head, unsheathed Andúril, and laid it on the ground.
"I will serve," he said, "in life and in death, with all the strength in my body and all the resolve of my heart, I promise to protect Gondor and her people."
With those words, Elessar rose smoothly and picked his sword up off the dirt. Legolas heard his right knee crack when he stood, as it always did. The pearls of his winged crown gleamed with the light of the sun and the sea upon his brow.
"This day does not belong to one man, but to all," said Elessar. "Let us together rebuild this world, that we may share in the days of peace." The crowds cheered, and blossoms fell, and Elessar walked among his people until he reached the steps to the Hall of Kings. The doors stood tall and dark amidst the pale marble of the surrounding masonry, and though they were open, Legolas could not see inside. Elessar paused at the top of the steps and turned to scan the crowd as if searching for something.
"Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta!" he sang, and his voice was low and lilting, and his eyes were bright.
He paused a moment longer, then turned and entered the Hall of Kings. Legolas watched as his figure merged with the shadows of columns and disappeared from elven sight.
o-O-o
"Come on, lad," said Gimli.
The courtyard was almost empty. Only a few lords still mingled, none of which Legolas knew; most everyone had left to offer Elessar their blessings and prepare for the evening's feast. With the crowds dispersed and the horses seen to, the only colour could be found smeared orange and pink across the flagstones. Occasionally a breath of wind would lift a blossom up over the edge of the citadel, where it would flutter a while and fall.
Legolas perched on the narrow wall of the seventh level outcrop and flexed his elbow absently as he overlooked the fields of Pelennor. The plains stretched wide and grassy below him, unrolling into a horizon which fell away under clear, still skies. Legolas could make out the crumbling windows of Osgiliath's ruin below the towering shadow of the Ephel Dúath. The running water of the Anduin flowed steadily over the rolling plains. Everything seemed both very great and very small.
"Oi, you crazy elf," said Gimli. Legolas hummed in acknowledgement and did not move.
Another petal fluttered past. It would have presented an ideal target for practice, had he been armed and permitted to shoot within the citadel. If Legolas squinted it could have been a feather, salt-white with the promise of wide seas and wild forests and seeing his mother again and leaving permanently behind all his mortal friends and everything he held dear in Arda, including Gimli and Aragorn and Elessar.
"At least come down and acknowledge me from where I can see you!"
Legolas jumped to his feet on the wall and looked down at the dwarf. Gimli's head finished an arm's length below his perch, and from this height and without his mail to bulk him out he seemed very small. It is a good thing the wall is so high, though Legolas absently, or he might blow over the edge. The cry of a gull echoed in his ears, the taste of salt light upon his tongue. A warm breeze lifted his hair and he closed his eyes and swayed with the movement.
"Lad, get down," said Gimli. "I'll not explain what happened to Aragorn when you kill yourself with your reckless behaviour. A crazy fine pair, you two make!"
Legolas stilled his movement and opened his eyes. "I am a wood-elf," he said, and dropped noiselessly to the ground beside Gimli. The dwarf cursed under his breath and stepped back. "I would not fall."
Gimli grunted and tucked his beard into his belt, knotting the decorative strings around his thick buckle to keep them in place. "You can tell him that yourself," he said. "Drag your pointy-eared head down from the clouds and stop moping. Our presence in the hall is overdue."
Congratulations to Elessar were in order. There were festivities to prepare for, circlets to make, and probably papers to sign for his father's Ministers. Legolas had not even seen to Arod, yet.
"I will follow," said Legolas, without moving.
Gimli considered him for a moment, rolling a golden bead at the end of his beard between his fingers. It caught on his signet ring with every other pass. "Follow soon, lad," he said, and re-tucked his beard before making off across the courtyard.
Legolas took a final sweeping glance over the Pelennor and wondered why he felt as if he had come to an end, at this time of new beginnings.
Translations:
Mahal = the Khuzdul name for the Vala Aulë. He's responsible for building things in Middle Earth; his side hobby is building dwarves, for some reason. The dwarves are very grateful for this and like him a lot.
Arda = Sindarin name for Middle-Earth
"Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta!" = Aragorn's song is a Quenya translation of "Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world." This is lifted from the book 6 of LOTR, which quotes: 'And those were the words that Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea on the wings of the wind'.
Ephel Dúath = Sindarin name for the Mountains of Shadow. This is the mountain range on Mordor's western and southern borders.
Notes:
Minas Tirith (Tower of the Guard) was originally called Minas Anor (Tower of the Sun). Minas Morgul (Tower of Dark Sorcery) was originally called Minas Ithil (Tower of the Moon). At some point Sauron took it over and decided it was high time for some gentrification and rebranding. The rest is history.
Part of Aragorn's coronation speech is lifted from the film: "This day does not belong to one man, but to all. Let us together rebuild this world, that we may share in the days of peace." It's too perfect not to include!