We've tried everything, Estel. Now it is no longer in our hands.
Is he dying, Mithrandir ?
If he is, then there's nothing any of us can do about it.
back in the days of old, all future bared to my eyes
yearning to leave my own and fill my lungs with the air of the world
yet when my heart took its first breath
and earned its first scars like all things do
fate answered with the promise to weigh easy on me
but know that when the hurt leaves you weary
and the dark will not let you rest
keep your eyes on the sky
and find me singing to you
when none of your paths lead to light
and your own heart can't be trusted
rest assured that when you keep your eyes on the sky
you will find me singing to you
through the depths of Anduin I shall dive
the mellyrn of Lórien shall I revive to keep you warm
our hearts touched and bound by fate
until the world will end
so know that when the hurt leaves you weary
and the dark will not let you rest
keep your eyes on the sky
and find me singing to you
"Follow my voice, Legolas. Do not fear the darkness. Today, it is only the light failing you, not your eyes."
This voice … That was impossible.
She couldn't be here. She was long on her way into the west. A dream, sure, just another of the fever dreams, like the one about this ghostly meeting in Lórien. Or maybe a last hallucination before it was over. It couldn't be long now. There was no strength left in Legolas' body, hardly enough to even open his eyes.
When he finally managed to, he startled so violently, the pain nearly flung him back into unconsciousness. No, not a dream, he was wide awake – and not alone.
Next to him on the bed was his secret betrothed, Tarisilya Vandriniel. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her body was all but reduced to a skeleton, her skin deathly pale, and never before had he seen her in a black dress … But it was her, definitely.
"I sent you away," he whispered, the fear for her even worse than the dismal memory of what had happened earlier.
He had wanted her to get away from here, to be gone from the terrors of war. And now she had come to the one place where only hours earlier, the creatures of Sauron had slaughtered kids and Firstborn.
Firstborn - some of them they had both known, of course they had been closer to Tarisilya though. After all, she was the one who had spent her whole life in the Golden Wood. Was the grief for her friends making her long for a black blade in her own heart now?
"Ilya, you need to leave … It's much too dangerous here. The battle … So many have fallen ... Haldir, he's still fighting for his life …."
"I know. I heard the men on the hallway talk." She blinked a few times, trying her best to not let this possible loss get to her, not in this moment. "Usually, I would go to him too, for Tegiend's sake alone, but there's no time. And I don't have the strength for two large healing sessions within such a short time. Besides, one of Lórien's best healers has fought with you last night, he's with him now. If he can't make it to save him, there's nothing I could do either. And I'm afraid, those won't be the last losses caused by this battle. You can't smell anything but blood and death within these walls, Legolas. This world is dying. I am already on my way to leave all that behind."
She tenderly caressed his hand. "I turned around only to make sure, you'll be following me into the west once your heart can accept, there is no rescue for Middle-earth. I pray that you won't take as long as I did to understand that."
A few months ago, Legolas would have sharply objected, blaming her for giving up the home she always had so vehemently defended against her brother and father. Gone was all that, replaced by the bitter awareness that she was right. He could have had the life with her, the two of them had always dreamed of, if he'd only made the right decision in Imladris back then. Now it was too late.
It didn't matter how she had managed to come here so quickly. Maybe this abstract mental meeting in Lórien had happened after all. She was with him in what was probably his last minutes, that was all that counted. "I love you, moon-queen. Still and forever."
"Be careful with words that big whilst you're unable to stand by them, my prince."
Her narrow hand rested on his sweat-covered forehead for a moment, then on his cheek. "We can't talk. I have to begin."
"Begin?" Legolas' mind tumbled back to reality more and more - and found a hundreds of years old concern there. Someone must have seen Tarisilya entering Helm's Deep. Someone who would ask questions. With much effort, he made it to turn his head a little and spotted Aragorn, sitting on a chair by the window.
Breathing noisily, he had sunk down deeply in it. If he woke up though, if he saw them … Aragorn knew Tarisilya, fleetingly, but his well-trained memory would recall it at once. The secret the two of them had guarded for a thousand years, would be revealed ...
"You really think, I would do that to you?" Tarisilya asked bitterly. "As long as you can't commit to us, no one will know, Legolas. Nothing's changed about that. I rode on darkest wooden paths through half of Rohan, and like a ghost in this field of rubble here, just so one would notice me. You think I want to waste time now, trying to explain what a she-elf is doing by your bedside? I used a song to sent Estel to sleep. That wasn't hard; I don't think he's had any for days."
A reassurance, but a small one only. Aragorn would become suspicious. He didn't just sleep. He would want to know, and maybe someone would tell him, long after Legolas had succumbed to the death waiting for him in this bed.
If that actually was what fate had planned for him. For the first time since those horrible last seconds in the hands of his enemy, the smallest of hopes filled him that maybe it wasn't over just yet.
If it wasn't indeed, then he would have to face a battle even more difficult. Life. Marked, haunted and with the fear on top that his weakness, forcing Tarisilya to come here, would start another war, this time one between their realms.
He was way too exhausted to get upset about that right now, but Tarisilya knew him well enough to read the doubt in his narrowed eyes. "We don't have time for your favorite dispute right now, so how about you forget about our differing ancestry for an hour?" Leaning her forehead against his, she let him feel the comfort of proximity for a long moment. "I will do my part to make sure we can really be together, once you have enough of the life of a hero. But you have to want it, or death might come to us both and the Halls might divide us for much longer, and maybe in a much more final way. This will only deepen our bond, and at some point, there's no return."
"I didn't ask you to come here." He tried to break away instinctively. Tarisilya's words triggered even more fear, no longer the fear of a scandal uncovered. Only the fear for her. The heat of anger and reluctance welling up in him drew the last of energy in his cells. "I don't want you to get yourself in danger for me!"
"You should have thought about that before you gave your heart to me, Legolas Thranduilion. I can try to heal you, better than the men and Mithrandir have, especially your soul." Her fingertips caressed his cheeks, her eyes never leaving his. "But a few minutes of closeness can't make everything forgotten. If you give up now or pretend something for me … If I leave you alone, and in a few days, you'll let an orc shoot you … Then I probably will die, with my heart broken and without the suspect of seeing you again real soon. So tell me, Legolas, do you want me to go? Or do you want to live?"
"I have to." His eyes closed, from tiredness and because he suddenly couldn't look at Tarisilya anymore. "If there really is a way to leave this darkness in me behind, I have no choice. I have to be there for the others. They need me. My own fate has long stopped mattering."
When he felt Tarisilya's deep dismay, he forced himself to look up once more. "Except for you, I know that just too well. And I will not let you die."
"Then we have something in common." She put a finger on his chapped lips. "No more."
The decision, no matter how risky it was, was made.
The silence lasted only until Tarisilya bent down to the beg next to the bed where she kept her healing utensils. Coming up with a knife, she removed the bandage around Legolas' shoulder. "You know what you have go to through now, right?" She'd love to spare him that part at least, but that would mean stopping where the limited healing abilities of men had ended.
"It will hurt you just as much." He quickly kissed her free hand, showing her how much he trusted her and still worried about her. "Why can't I stop you?"
"Because we are bound to one another, my prince." Tarisilya hugged him gently, nestling close to him for a moment, then prompted him to turn around, softly pushing down against his temple until he took the pillow between his teeth.
"I'm begging the Valar for the strength to get through this." Tears in her eyes yet again. In despair, she looked out the window, at the moon that had given her power all her life. Since parting from her father, she could barely feel its light. She had to make it without its support.
With what determination the months of fear had not drained her of, she grabbed Legolas' right upper arm and made the first cut. It was easier once she had started. Tarisilya had early learned to shut out her emotions when treating someone. Even if it was someone she loved. With the first blood shed, her hands started to act all by themselves. What choice did she have? She had to be quick and merciless now, or Legolas would lose even more blood and not recover from that alone.
So she did what drew barely muffled screams from Legolas' lips again and again, until she had to wonder about Aragorn not waking even from those, about no one in the quiet fortress hearing them either. Every of those screams hit her to the core, but when she finally bandaged the wound again, the swelling started to go down. That had been the easy part.
After helping him lie on his back again, Tarisilya rested her head against Legolas' chest for a precious moment, just enjoying the feeling of his soft skin against her cheek. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she forced herself to sit back up. Murmuring a few quiet words on Sindarin, she gathered all the energy left in her and concentrated on the tender mental connection between her betrothed and herself.
The worst pain was only just starting, deep in her soul where she tried to ease Legolas' agony by sharing it with him. Humiliation, helplessness … Never before had she experienced anything like this. She could see the torture in all its cruelty before her inner eye, pictures that marked her just as much as him. Never would she forget this feeling of being completely at someone's mercy. She understood much better now why he had wanted to die, why so many elves did when something like this happened to them. Nothing could be worse than being used this way. It would take centuries, millennia to heal this wound, if it could at all. Tarisilya could only hope that Legolas would survive this war, no matter how it would end, so she would at least get a chance to try.
Only when a still very agitated hand wiped away her tears, she realized she was crying.
And that it had worked.
"Thank you, Ilya. Once more, you gave yourself up completely only to support me."
Still trembling all over, Legolas hid his face against her hair. The invisible thread linking their souls that had become even more indestructible in the last minutes, allowed her to witness a wall of pure, iron suppression being built in him, banning every thought of this horrible morning out in the woods to the most hidden corner of his soul, where it would be buried at least until the end of this war. Lurking, in weak moments always ready to erupt and tear Legolas to the ground … But for the moment, this shield that they had together built so arduously, stone by stone, to save him from getting lost to two misguided men, was holding up.
That was all she could expect right now. There wasn't time for anything more.
Unbelievably relieved, she caressed his neck until her fingertips bumped against the ring there, which didn't exactly help stopping her tears. "I had to. I thought, I would lose you. Without any hope left that we can ever be happy. If we will ever be allowed at all …" She stopped. Not now. He had been through enough, without her burdening him with these problems yet again.
She startled back in surprise when Legolas raised his voice again, not insecure or disheartened anymore, but with a firmness she had seldom heard from him when it had been about this.
"Do you think I'd have betrothed myself to you if I didn't want to marry you, Tarisilya Vandriniel? Do you think me fickle or dishonorable?"
"No, of course not." Abashed, she lowered her head. She had hurt him again, and this time without a knife. "I didn't mean to …"
"I know. I hear your brother talking, and I can't hold it against him. I hesitated for a very long time before I asked you for your love, you know that. For your sake and for his, too. But at some point I realized that we can't spend our eternity apart, in spite of all the trouble, a future together brings for us. Le melin, Ilya."
Legolas tenderly took her face between his hands. It was a big relief, seeing him use the right one, after fearing it might never happen again at the beginning of this night. "You hear me? If I am to die in the battle for Middle-earth, I will do it with your name on my lips. And if I survive, there will not be a day when I won't think of you, until my way leads me back to you. That might not happen at once, for my love for the Fellowship binds me, but my yearning for you will lead me west, once I have shed the scars of the War of the Ring. I know I'm asking something horrible of you, Ilya, but please wait for me. I don't want to lose you."
"You will not." She softly stroked his forehead, his beautiful full lips no longer distorted by pain. "I wish I could fight with you. But my heart already accepted that's not possible when you were in Lórien. I will not be alone in Valinor. My father is waiting for me, and my brother will never leave my side. Maybe even our mother will join us one day. And still, I will be lonely. I will never stop yearning for you. There will be days when I will wish to never have met you. But never being united with you would be worse than all this pain. I carry your promise with me." Tarisilya wistfully touched her betrothal ring that fortunately did not glow anymore.
She couldn't see his, she only felt it, right where she had braided it in herself, in a strand of hair that Legolas would cut off as a symbol for their commitment when the war ended.
That was what she had seen in her dreams. That was what would happen. After this night, she didn't have a doubt. "I love you so much."
"Le melin, moon-queen." This time, she could believe him. This time, there was no fever in his eyes. Only deep, unconditional feelings. Their lips meeting, they both breathed a sigh when the touch allowed the emotions between them to tangle, to let them feel what the other was feeling. Happiness, contentment, hope. Never had they expected to experience something like this in an hour of war of all times. It was a unique, a rare moment that would help them face what was yet to come.
"I can't let you go." And yet his hand tightened around hers when they backed away as slowly as they'd approached the other. The determination he had shown in Lórien, his wish to know Tarisilya safe … All that he was questioning again already, just a kiss later.
"You have to." She lovingly pushed his messy hair from his face.
"Your life here is awaiting you, and mine is waiting for me. There won't be ships docking at the port forever." She abruptly got up when a heavy shudder took hold of her, the memory of how hard that journey to Mithlond had been so far, and that the rest of the way wouldn't be any easier. On the contrary. This night had made sure of that. "I can't be here any longer. It would tear me to the ground. I would be stopping again and again until I ran out of strength. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize." Legolas pulled her hand close for a last time and kissed it, slowly, deliberately, before reluctantly letting go of her. "Ride like the wind, Ilya. I want nothing happening to you on your last journey through Middle-earth."
"The moon will protect me, remember?" she replied with a weak smile, though she hadn't quite believed that for a while. "And Tegiend is waiting for me outside, so I won't be alone. Once we left the Gap behind, nothing can happen. Until the day we meet again, you are always in my thoughts, Legolas."
"Until the day we meet again, you are always in my thoughts." He repeated the oath they'd first sworn to each other at their betrothal and then turned away just as quickly as her … before their hearts could make them do something they would regret forever.