Elladan
Estel was not exaggerating when he wrote and told me there was a problem with Legolas. That much is obvious the moment he walks into the room. He looks terrible, tired, as if he has not slept for weeks. When Elrohir approaches him he backs away as if he will burn him. He cannot follow a simple conversation and he attacks Estel with vicious words that make no sense.
He stares at me with an intenseness that is slightly intimidating, as if he could devour me. It is unnerving. He is not at all the Legolas who left Imladris a few short months ago. We do not realise exactly how bad it is however until later, when Elrohir comes charging into my room, eyes wide, face white, he is panicked.
"What is wrong?" Glorfindel leaps to his feet in alarm for Elrohir looks a sight. He holds his hand to his jaw where a bruise is spreading, dark blue against the pallor of his face.
"Legolas...Legolas has lost his mind."
"Did he hit you?" I am up and at his side, he is shaking.
"Yes," he removes his hand so I can see the full extent of the bruise. "He is...I cant explain it Elladan but something is seriously wrong with him. He makes no sense, he would not listen to me. I thought he would kill me."
"You exaggerate Elrohir. I admit he seems not himself but that is a ludicrous suggestion." Glorfindel frowns. "A punch in anger does not equate to doing you real harm." Elrohir has always been prone to exaggeration.
"You were not there!" Elrohir turns on him, "He is insane...delusional even. He accuses me of cheating on him with Elhadrel. He says he has seen us. It is all ridiculous."
"Elhadrel?" Glorfindel suddenly pays more attention, "What did he say he had seen?"
"He would not elaborate, but he believes I have betrayed him with her. He kept saying he had seen us, that I need not lie for he knew it all. He was so angry."
"I was there..." Glorfindel says almost to himself, then he raises his voice to include us. "We did see you with Elhadrel, the day before Legolas left Imladris. He asked who she was."
"What were you doing with her?" I ask, surely he wasn't that foolish as to be messing around wiith her in front of Legolas' eyes. I had thought whatever had been between them was long over.
"Talking, only talking I swear it." Elrohir swings his head to look at Glorfindel, "Tell him! You did not see anything incrimminating, anything that would have suggested to Legolas we were lovers?"
"No." Glorfindel shakes his head. "It was certainly innocent. I saw nothing untoward...but apparently Legolas thinks otherwise. I wonder why?"
"I told you he was delusional!" Elrohir rubs his jaw with his hand, "Delusional and dangerous. I do not know what to do."
"Let me think on this," Glorfindel muses, "Aragorn arranges for us to go hunting tomorrow, all of us. Perhaps Legolas will be more relaxed there, I can maybe speak to him and get to the bottom of it."
"He will likely impale me on an arrow if I am not careful," Elrohir mutters. Glorfindel is right, he does exaggerate, Legolas is surely not that bad. Elrohir has just had a scare, the punch must have unsettled him. I put it down to that anyway.
I find out the next morning just how wrong that assumption was.
I am getting dressed when there is a knock on my door, Glorfindel has gone with Estel to the stables to ready the horses and Elrohir is... well I am unsure exactly where he is, in fact at first I think the knock on the door will be him. It is not, it is Legolas.
He looks as tired and weary as he did the day before. A nights rest seems to have done him no good at all. Obviously this tiredness is something more than just the result of the ride here, something more substantial.
"May I come in?" He asks and of course I let him in, I have no reason not to.
He looks at me with that unnerving hunger, the same way he did earlier.
"I need you to give me the sea-longing," he says bluntly, there is no good morning, no introduction.
"I have told you again and again I will not Legolas. Nothing has changed."
I need it!" He cries, "It is mine, it is not yours to keep. You stole it from me!"
"I did not steal it," he is making me nervous and I begin to back away. "Do you not remember what it did to you? You could not survive if I had not intervened. You came to me begging for help."
"It will be different now," he says earnestly. "I know what it can do. I will master it." and he advances towards me.
"No Legolas, if I return it to you you will have to sail. That will destroy Elrohir. I will not do it."
Nothing has changed, I tell myself, nothing at all. The sea longing consumed Legolas and spat him out. He was a shell of his real self. I am not prepared to revisit that. I am doing a much better job of handling it myself.
"It will not destroy him." His voice is cold and bitter. "You do not have to worry about that any longer. There is no Elrohir and I. He has someone else."
"He does not! He has spoken to me about this Legolas. There is nothing between him and Elhadrel."
"He lies to you as well then." He shakes his head and I begin to see what Elrohir was talking about when he said Legolas had lost his mind. He is quite impossible to argue with.
"He does not lie." I sigh, "What purpose would that serve? We have no secrets between us."
Legolas laughs then, and it is a harsh sound, completley unlike his usual bright laughter.
"No secrets? What were we then?"
I cannot answer that for he is right, the only time I have kept a secret from my brother and Legolas was at the heart of it.
"Give me my sealonging." He comes closer, so close I can feel his breath warm upon my face. He is really quite threatening and I am nervous. "Give it to me Elladan. I have to have it back." Suddenly I realise he does not ask this for my sake as he has before, he is not worried about me. He wants it for himself, he genuinely wants it. Why would that be? Can he not remember how it nearly destroyed him?
"No Legolas I will not." I stand my ground but I wonder also what I can do if he attacks me, if I am put in a position where I have to hurt him, but I will not back down.
He watches me then, his eyes glint as they roam over me, what is he thinking? Then suddenly, lightening fast, before I can avoid him, his lips are on mine, his arms are around me and he is kissing me. It is delicious. It lits a fire within me, but it is wrong, so wrong!
"No!" I cry as I push him off me, he maybe strong but I am stronger. He is lithe and graceful but I am Peredhel. I will always have the greater strength.
"What are you doing? This is wrong!"
"You know you want this. Why fight it?"
"Whether I want it or not is immaterial. What about Elrohir! We will not do this. I will not do this."
"I told you," Legolas sighs, "There is no more Elrohir and I, it is over. We do not have to worry about him now."
"He is right!" I gasp, "You are crazy!"
"Come on Elladan," he reaches out and runs his hand gently down my arm, "I am not crazy to want this. You are beautiful. We have a connection, tell me you do not feel it too."
He is right. We do have a connection. There is something special between us, a possibility. But it is a possibility we can never explore because of the damage it will do my brother.
"You are not yourself Legolas, what about Glorfindel!" I desperately search my mind for reasons that will cut through this madness and enable him to see sense.
But he only frowns angrily at my continued resistance.
"Glorfindel has Erestor why should you not have me?"
"No!" He is scaring me now. This is not right...it is not him...I know the agony the guilt from our last assignation caused him. He does not mean this.
He lashes out then and pushes me away in anger.
"Have it your own way then Elladan." He snarls, "It is your loss, but hear me now. I will take my sealonging back from you. I will. It is not yours to keep."
Then he turns and strides from the room leaving me gasping with relief at his disappearance. No wonder Elrohir was shaken yesturday. What is going on here?
By the time we leave on the hunt I have recovered my equilibrium slightly but I steer well clear of Legolas. I need not have worried though. He ignores me, as he ignores Elrohir also. Back ramrod straight he gives us both the cold shoulder. There is no sign of the earlier viscious anger. He is a cold block of ice.
Poor Elrohir, the entire time his eyes are on Legolas, watching his every move, he lets his gaze linger over him but he receives no response.
He is so totally and utterly distracted by him, hungering for a scrap of affection or acknowledgement and it is painful to watch his pain.
It is also dangerous.
He is watching Legolas when the boar comes charging from the undergrowth, flushed out by Estel and Glorfindel to the side of us. He does not see it or hear it until it is too late, too late for even his elven reflexes to save him, and it is enraged.
It catches him in the side, tosses him in the air like a ragdoll, and I am too far away, too far away to do anything. It is as if time stands still.
" Elrohir!" It is Legolas, panicked and despairing, finally he pays attention to my brother, finally he looks at him. Too late, far too late.
He has an arrow notched, aimed and then buried in the boars neck before I can even move.
I am running then and I cannot run fast enough. Legolas reaches Elrohir before me. He is kneeling at his side, hands slick with blood, my brothers blood.
"Elrohir," he pleads, "Do not leave me. I am sorry, Elrohir." he is crying out in anguish.
And Elrohir gazes at him eyes dazed and confused,
"My beloved," he whispers and raises his hand to Legolas' face smearing it with blood, and then slowly, slowly, he closes his eyes.
"Get Estel now!" I push Legolas away angrily, this is all his fault! It is his bizaare behaviour that has caused this. If he hadnt ignored my brother...if he had only paid attention to him earlier, this would not have happened. When he does not move, simply kneels there shocked and silent I repeat it, shoving him hard to make him go,
"Now! Legolas."
Then he goes, shouting for Estel and Glorfindel and I look down at my brother where he lies white and still. I look at the gaping hole in his side, the ocean of blood, it is worse than an arrow, worse than a wound from a blade. Oh so much worse.
I am awash with horror, drowning in grief, The worst moment of my life is this, it eclipses finding my mother and losing her, the departure of my father, Arwen telling us she would choose to leave us forever.
It is worse than them all.
I do not see any way my brother can survive this.