"What did you mean, Legolas, when you said you have taken your Mother from me? That makes no sense."
I wish I had never mentioned it now. What was I thinking? This is a touchy subject between us and one we usually steer away from. And now he has his teeth into it and he will not let go.
"She left because she thought I hated her. She told me so, and I am sorry for that as well, Father."
"I do not know what she told you, Legolas, but she most definitely did not mean that."
"She told me she could not forget...how angry I was when she pulled me from the dark. How I hated her then...and I did, I did, Father but it was not real. It did not last."
He stands up then, from his place on the floor at my feet and moves to sit in the chair next to me, leaning across to take my hand.
"She did worry about that. It is true. It did torment her that she had hurt you and some of that hurt may have lingered but that is not why she left." It seems strange, so strange to be speaking of my mother with him after so many years of silence.
"She left because of me, Legolas. Because she could not forgive me for Laerion. Because she decided, if she stayed, the resentment she felt would destroy us. This way, although we are apart, there is hope things may have healed when I reach the other side of the sea." He looks devastated as I have never seen my father look and that frightens me. "She blamed me for the loss of Laerion and she blamed me for the damage that loss did to you."
"She blamed you? Why Father? It was me, not you! It was all me."
He squeezes my hand in his, tight, so tight it is almost painful.
"You were the least to blame in that, Legolas. Tell me you have not carried guilt over it all these years."
I cannot tell him that because, of course, I have. I have carried a heavy burden of guilt that has weighed me down and broken me. When I do not answer him, he knows it.
We do not talk about Laerion, we do not. It is an unwritten rule between us. He is a subject too painful, too likely to hurt us both, to mention. I am uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation and squirm in my chair. I do not want to hear what my father thinks about Laerion's death and my part in it.
It can only be bad.
I would run from here if I could. In fact my body screams at me to do that. Leave! Leave! It tells me. Do not sit here and listen to this. You will only discover how much he despises you. The urge to run is so strong I leap to my feet, but he stands as well, hands on my shoulders so I can not go anywhere.
"Too long have I allowed this to languish," he says firmly. "I was frightened of traumatising you further, but perhaps I have caused even more damage by not addressing it."
"No, Father," I gasp twisting against his firm hold. "I do not want to talk about it. There is nothing to say."
"There is a multitude of things to say, Legolas and we will speak if it now." He will not let me back away. He will not let me move and I am overwhelmed by panic.
"No! no! no!" The panic gives me strength and I wrench myself free from him, but I cannot get past him and out the door as I wish. Instead I find myself with my back against the wall and I throw my arms out to protect me because I do not want to hear this.
"Oh Legolas," I slide down the wall to huddle on the ground then and he is beside me. He takes me in his arms and holds me still. "Oh little one, How have I been so remiss as to let you hurt this badly? There is nothing to fear from what I have to say."
He sits there then holding me tight as my panic subsides and my thudding heart slows. He says nothing more, simply keeps me still and it is reassuring, even in the midst of my upset. Reassuring that perhaps he will not abandon me as I fear.
I remember him doing this when my mother first pulled me back from the darkness. When being a part of the world hurt me and they discussed in hushed tones at my bedside the merits of making me sail to Valinor. He would come and sit and hold me when I screamed from nightmares which forced me to relive my brother's death. He would read to me, tell me stories of life in the stronghold, relay any gossip he thought may amuse me. I seldom answered but that did not deter him. He would just sit, and talk and stroke my hair, healing me simply with his presence. He needed no response from me. He spent hours with me then. I have no idea how he managed to achieve any of his normal work needed to run our kingdom during those days.
"This is my fault, Legolas," he whispers eventually into my hair. "You are not to blame. It is my fault. I am sorry I have hurt you so."
"You were not even there Father." I am calm now and have found my voice for he is still here. He does not hate me, he will not leave me. He is still here.
"Listen to me Legolas," He says firmly. "I want you to listen to what I have to say and hear it. I am the King. My decisions led to you being in the south and your brother with you. Bad decisions made for the wrong reasons. I knew you were not ready."
Despite myself that annoys me. I hated the way they held me back.
"I was ready. Erynion had been to the south twice by then and I was easily his equal!"
"I did not mean you were not gifted with the bow and your talents in the field were obvious. But Legolas you are different, you have always been different. There are none as sensitive to the trees, and the land, as you. That was why we had to be careful with you. Especially in the South. I knew that. I allowed you to badger me into letting you go when I had doubts, because the waiting was making you unhappy. I had a foreboding as to what would happen then and I turned my mind from it. I told myself it was nonsense."
He has never told me this before, that he had a warning of our disaster. The knowledge shatters me.
"Laerion was as concerned about you going as I was. He knew the risks you would be exposed to. That was why he demanded to go with you. He trusted no one else to keep you safe and it would have destroyed him to have lost you."
"It has destroyed me to lose him." I cannot keep the bitterness out of my voice.
"It has destroyed us all." The sadness in my fathers voice tears at my heart. "I allowed him to convince me, Legolas, because he was so distraught at the idea of you going without him. I allowed myself to believe he was right when he told me he could keep you safe better than anyone. It was not true, of course. His love for you clouded his vision. He could not make the rational decisions he needed to. And I. . . I made my own decisions as a father wanting to please my sons, not a commander doing what was best for my people. I have paid a heavy price. But yours, I think, has been even heavier."
I do not know what to think. It is as if he has turned my world upside down and everything I thought I knew was not what I thought it to be. Deep inside of me the twisted ugly knot of guilt and pain that I have carried for so long begins to unwind.
"Why did you not tell me this before?" I ask him. "Why did I not know this?" If I am honest, I do not know if I would have listened before now but that is not the point.
He takes my hand in his as he replies.
"I was afraid." He says quietly and that admission terrifies me for my father is never afraid. "Your mother resented me for my part in this and I was frightened you would resent me also. Why wouldn't you? And you were all I had left. I did not know you were labouring under such pain all these years...but then I haven't looked closely enough to see it either. I haven't wanted to see it. Can you forgive me Legolas? I cannot forgive myself but can you?"
How can I not forgive him? How can I not love him? He is my father.
And he has lost so much, a son, a wife, his friend. I will not take anything more from him. He is right, it is just the two of us. All we have is each other.
"Aragorn says Laerion's death was a series of events that combined to make a tragedy that was no-ones fault," I say quietly. "I think I am inclined to agree with him. Of course I can forgive you Father." In fact it is proving much easier to forgive him than it has been trying to forgive myself all these years. "How can I resent you for being my father? For trying to please me? Fathers are not perfect, and nor are Kings. I am sorry I pressurised you to let me go South."
"Elessar speaks a lot of sense. . . For a mortal." He smiles at me then and pulls himself up of the floor, reaching down with a hand out to help me up. "Come Legolas, show me this new land of yours. We can speak more as we go."
And so we wander through the settlement and he is interested in all parts of it. We talk as we have not talked for years and I am feeling giddy with a strange relief. The thought he somehow held Laerion's death against me all these years. No matter how patient, how loving he was towards me, is gone. It leaves me feeling so light I think my feet may lift off the ground, as if I could reach to the skies if I wished it. I want to take to the trees and run but I cannot imagine my Father joining me in that. I think, perhaps, he is as relieved as I am, for his smile as we walk is a brilliant one.
We end up in Maewen's glade. An oasis of the Greenwood I built her and he is astonished. A joy burns within him when he sees this part of his woods so far from home.
"I made this for Maewen," I explain, "so she would have a place just her own, so Ithilien would feel more like home."
"How is Maewen?" He asks me. "How are the two of you?"
I hesitate. Do I tell him of our troubles? A large part of me does not want to admit we are anything but perfect but then I remember he has had problems with my Mother. Perhaps he will understand?
"It has been hard," I admit in the end. "We have been in a bad place with each other because of fault on both sides. She has struggled here and I have contributed to that. There was too much change. But I think we have found ourselves again. I think things improve now. I love her and she loves me. What else matters but that Father. . . In the end?"
"What else indeed." He says sadly and I know he thinks of my mother. Then he changes the subject. "You have built something exceptional here, Legolas. You and your people. I should not be surprised, of course. You have always been exceptional."
I laugh out loud at that.
"You mistake me for Laerion, Father!" It feels good to be able to say my brothers name. "I am not exceptional, He was the Golden Prince!"
He grasps my elbow firmly and turns me towards him. The smile on his face has faded. He is deadly serious.
"Do you often compare yourself to your brother?" He asks.
"How can I not? He was magnificent, He was perfect. . . And I . . . I am not. I am Silvan and wild and sometimes chaotic." I smile to let him know I am not upset by this. It is just how it is. "I have felt I owed it to our people to try and replace him, but now—I realise that is impossible. I can never do it."
But my Father shakes his head.
"You do not see yourself as you really are, Legolas." He reaches out to cup my cheek in his hand. "Laerion could never have achieved what you have done here. It would have been beyond him. The woods reborn from nothing, from a wasteland. He simply did not have the ability to reach the trees the way you do. The alliances you have built with Men to help our people grow, he did not have the ability or desire to struggle through misunderstanding and distrust to reach a place of mutual benefit. He did not have your affinity with mortals. I could not have sent him here and he would not have wished to go.
"Elrond would not have chosen Laerion for his Fellowship. He saw something special in you, the same thing I see, I imagine, a light, missing in so many of us now. Your brother had his strengths and you have yours. He could not have matched them. And he would have been the first one to admit that. He thought you as precious as I do."
I am stunned.
No one has ever said this and I have never thought it. My brother had so many strengths, was so amazing, so wonderful. Can I really match him. I am truly his equal?
It is a moment of discovery and I am without words.