Aragorn and Legolas
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost. Fellowship of the Ring
#1: Playmate
Legolas first met Aragorn when he was six hundred and thirty-two years old and Aragorn was eleven. In each of their cultures, they were about the same age, and Legolas became his playmate. For years he was ferreted between Rivendell and Mirkwood, always yearning for his home in the mountains, for his friend, for Aragorn.
#2: Estel
"Oh, Estel." Legolas breathed, smiling up at the radiant figure of his friend perched on a tree. The small eleven-year-old Dunedain had woken up in the early hours before dawn to be the first to greet him at the edge of the woods where Rivendell blended into the rest of the land.
Estel meant hope in elvish, but to Legolas and Aragorn, it would always meet home.
#3: Halfbreed
It was during one of their hunts, often month-long excursions taking them deep into the country, blending the boundaries between forest and river and plain that Legolas first heard the word Halfbreed applied to his friend by passing elves, three hundred years older than Aragorn, elves who should know better. Legolas floored them with well-placed kicks and, when Aragorn reminded him that elves should not express anger, said that he was merely defending a man's honor.
#4: Mutiny
It took seventy years, but the first time Legolas had to stand up to his childhood friend, because he really believed that Aragorn was mistaken when it came to the fight at Helm's Deep, his heart was pounding in his chest, because even if he thought in his mind that his course of action was logical, he knew in his heart that going against his Estel was wrong.
#5: Council
It wasn't saving the world, or protecting Frodo, or destroying the ring that made Legolas volunteer his life at the Council of Elrond, it was the knowledge that, if he didn't go and Aragorn ended up dying, he would never forgive himself.
#6: Vision
They were meditating, and Aragorn was fidgeting. "Calm yourself, Estel." Legolas breathed, opening one eye to look at his friend. "You are doing yourself no favors by refusing to meditate. You are gravely injured."
"I do not want to close my eyes, mellon." Aragorn whispered, and Legolas looked at him carefully, remembering whispers of visions that hung around the man child. Before he could put that into a question, the seventeen-year-old sighed and tapped his arm, sending electric shocks through the elf's touch-starved body. "I do not want to see you as you were before."
And Legolas nodded, because he understood, because every time he closed his eyes to meditate, he saw Aragorn, broken, an arrow piercing his leg, saw the scene through the eyes of his own inadequacy: he'd been shot in the chest, the shoulder... It just never occurred to him that the young man would care as much for him as he did for Aragorn.
#7: Flute
"Are you aware that elves invented music?" Legolas asked, taking his mouth of the flute long enough to speak. He was playing a beautiful melody, low and haunting and so achingly familiar that it seemed to resonate inside of Aragorn's bones, in his soul, and that more than anything made him believe his friend's words.
#8: Que Sera, Sera
"What if I don't want to grow up to become King?" Aragorn asked one day, tossing his practice sword from hand to the other. They were fourteen, and the trees of Rivendell were in full bloom. The question had come out of the blue, and Legolas was unprepared for it. He was a Princeling, yes, but he had three older brothers and it was quite possible that the burden of the throne would never be thrust on him.
"Perhaps when the time comes, you will think differently." Legolas pointed out. "But the future is not ours to see. What will be will be, my Estel."
#9: Say
"I wish I never met you!" Aragorn turned his back on Legolas and ran swiftly, perhaps faster than even the elf could keep up with, not that he was chasing. He was old, very old, and yet those words still managed to hit that soft, vulnerable part inside of him, still managed to elicit one glittering, perfect tear.
#10: Regret
"I wish I never met you!"
He'd been taught not to look back. In battle, you do not have a second chance, but when he ran away, like a coward, like the weak man he was, he looked back to see Legolas crying, and never in his life had he ever wanted anything more than to take the words back.
#11: Missing
Legolas has been missing for almost three months, gone on a scouting expedition with two of his trusted elves, securing the perimeter of Mirkwood against the orcs that were getting more and more abundant there. The other two elves were found, dead, a week after they left, but not Legolas. Elrond, Arwen, the twins, all watched Aragorn slowly become more and more listless. He stopped eating, learning, stopped sword playing and taking walks and singing. He just…stopped. And there was nothing they could do about it.
#12: Relief
When Legolas is finally able to come home after two months of being captive in orc camp (and if they'd known who he was, they would have definitely killed him) the first person he saw was Estel, who met him on the plains during that long, torturous journey home. "I've missed you, mellon, my friend." Legolas had murmured, his voice hoarse and ragged from too many hours of those screams so unbefitting an elf.
Aragorn didn't say anything, just crushed his weight against the much older being and held him there, and if was at that moment that Legolas realized the man was as relieved to see Legolas as he was to see the rest of the world.
#13: Exhaustion
He had miles to go before they were even close to finding the younger hobbits, and he was exhausted. "Just a few more steps, Estel." Legolas urged, though he was worried about the limits Aragorn was pushing himself too. They were all injured from the Uruk'hai battle. What if Aragorn was more hurt than he let on? But they had to keep moving, or Legolas was afraid that they wouldn't be able to start again, and if that happened, Merry and Pippin wouldn't be the only ones lost to them.
#14: Old
"This forest is old. So old it makes me feel young, as I haven't since I began traveling with you." He spoke to Aragorn, to Gimli, and smiled. He was still barely a dot in the life spans some elves had. His father was nearing three thousand, his brothers each several centuries older than himself.
"When will you learn, mellon, that you are old?" Aragorn crept up behind him and pushed the steel of his blade under Legolas' neck, earning a laugh from Gimli. "If I were a foe, your ancient ears would have betrayed you to death."
Legolas smiled and whirled too fast for either Aragorn or Gimli to follow. "Perhaps so, but I can still best you at speed, youngling." He danced forward then, holding two of Aragorn's knives high above his head, an accomplishment.
#15: Brothers
Elladan and Elrohir taught Aragorn to fight, to dance, to play music. They taught him how to be an elf and encouraged him to embrace his human body. But at the end of the day, the twins would leave to battle and talk in a way that only people who knew and trusted each other implicitly could, and Aragorn would be alone.
When he met Legolas for the first time, he attached himself to him because he was lonely and adventurous and ready for a chance to get out of Rivendell, but he mostly hung around with Legolas, at first, because he reminded Aragorn of his elvish brothers.
#16: Words
It happened less often the older they grew, but when they were younglings, Aragorn often thought he needed to prove himself to the elves, to Legolas, prove himself because of his ancestry, though he had little choice in the manner of his birth.
The reckless, suicidal path was stemmed then stopped when Legolas told Aragorn, fiercely, forcefully, "You are the bravest man --- nay, the bravest person --- I've ever met,Estel, and it is a great honor to me to be serving under he who will one day have a role in the shaping of our world."
#17: Hobbits
Legolas often roamed through the Shire on his many treks between Rivendell and Mirkwood. The hobbit land was green and rich and rife with young life, happy life, life that understood and respected nature and wanted nothing to do with war and strife. The first place Legolas took Aragorn, when they left Rivendell together, was this simple place, because he felt he had to share it with someone.
#18: Fall
The necklace was hard and heavy in his hand when Legolas held it, when he carried it with him. He was going to give the Evenstar back to Arwen, back to Rivendell. He was going to have to tell the twins and Lord Elrond and Aragorn's lover that the man had been lost while he stood not a hundred yards away.
And the necklace was so heavy…
#19: Somewhere
Aragorn doesn't know where it is, but between long walks under dense trees and months spent under the stars, somewhere between elvish and the language of man, between careful conversations and easy banter, Legolas became his best friend.
#20: Language Barrier
Whenever Legolas is angry with Aragorn (angry in a way that only elves could be, so quiet, yet radiating ire, hidden power) he reverts back to Falathrin, a dialect of elvish invented in Mirkwood that is beautiful on the tongue and ears but Aragorn cannot understand, no matter how much he wants to make things right between them.
#21: Difference
The difference between elves and men is that men are mortal, and though that fact is there, staring the pair in the face, Aragorn and Legolas chose to ignore it, because sometimes it is easier to delude oneself than face such hopeless facts.
#22: Broken
He couldn't help Legolas. Perhaps if the positions had been reversed the elf, who was so much stronger than him, would have been able to move the tree, but Aragorn could not.
"Stay with me, mellon. Help is on the way."
But Legolas couldn't. His mind was a sheen of white and the pain… "Goodbye, Estel." And he drifted into unconsciousness before he could watch Aragorn's heart break.
#23: Running
"I do not want you to watch me die, mi mellon." Aragorn's voice was paper thin and hoarse and Legolas allowed him that luxury. After all, the human had lived to be nearly three hundred years old. "Im lhaew. I'm sick, more so than Arwen knows. My time will come soon."
"And I will stay with you until the end." Legolas swore. "I have been able to put up with you for three centuries, Estel. I do not intend to run away now."
But then Aragorn looked at him, eyes round, big as saucers. "Please."
So, really, it was Aragorn who had the idea to build the boat.
#24: Comfort
"Elladan! Elladan!" Still, Aragorn was calling for his lost brother. Elrohir had carried his twin on his back through the battle, unwilling or unable to let the body be forgotten on the field. Legolas had tried to find Aragorn to warn him, to comfort him, but he hadn't been there in time, and the young man, soon to be King, saw the body his brother was carrying.
"Shh…" But Legolas could not say it would be alright, not when he himself was hovering on the knife's edge of tears. "Shh…calm yourself, Estel." Even he did not believe the words, but seeing Aragorn, so crushed, so…young…it made Legolas' old heart tear in two.
#25: Proof
For the moment, Legolas cannot care about the outside world, about the brewing battle right within Helm's Deep. All he can focus on was Aragorn's heart beat, rapid and hot and definitely there beneath his fingers letting him know that Estel is, impossibly, alive, and won't fade away if Legolas closes his eyes.
#26: Goheno Nin
"Goheno nin." A young Aragorn murmured, kneeling at Legolas' bedside. The elf was told that Aragorn had been there for the six days Legolas had hovered on the precipice between this world and the next. "Goheno nin. Forgive me, mellon."
Legolas propped himself on his elbow, even though it made him dizzy, even as he thought of the arrow shot by his friend, aiming for the warg that had attacked Legolas and missing, penetrating deep into the elf's chest. "Estel." He said the word as carefully and quietly as he could, and, impossibly, Aragorn looked at him. "There is nothing to forgive. You saved my life. Le hannon. Thank you."
And when he drifted back into unconsciousness, he felt the warm weight of Aragorn's hand in his, a hope, a promise, to never let go.
#27: Anger
Aragorn is so angry that Legolas put himself in harm's way to protect him, but in his heart he knows that, no matter how furious he is, he can't blame him because he would do the same for Legolas.
#28: Weep
As they wash the filth of battle, the streaks of the blood of kith and kin from their bodies, Legolas doesn't realize his tears are aiding the process until Aragorn touches one of them. "Why are you crying, mellon?" And Legolas doesn't have words enough to explain, so he just shrugs, wraps his arms around Aragorn and squeezes until both aren't quite sure what happened in the first place.
#29: Thy Heart
Legolas never suspected that his life would lie outside the forest. He never suspected that he would end his days in the company of a dwarf, barely seeing his childhood friend. But every time he does meet up with Aragorn they put their heads together and Legolas says Estel at the same time Aragorn says mellon and once again Legolas' heart is whole.
#30: Rest
"Please lie down, mellon, you have a fever."
"Gandalf…Mithrandir…"
A tear drop on his hot cheek, then the same voice. "Shh…please rest…lie down, mellon, you have a fever."
"Mithrandir…"
#31: Absolution
After Helm's Deep, after Legolas betrayed Aragorn with his words and was pushed to the point of exhaustion, they spent the next day in saddle. He didn't know how to ask for forgiveness, not for this. He'd questioned Estel's ability in front of a roomful of people who expected Aragorn to be strong.
A bump against his body makes him look up into the eyes of the future king. "Mellon, you have been silent all morning. Are you injured?" Aragorn's eyes were so concerned but held something else..forgiveness, perhaps.
And, if Legolas wasn't sure, Aragon's hand touched his face, impossibly gentle, which gives him more absolution than words ever could.
#32: Music
Aragorn smiled as tiny Pippin, barely a teenager in the standards of men, sang in voice as pure and sweet as a dove. He turned to Legolas to comment on the wondrous sound only to find his friend walking through the snow, oblivious to his surroundings except for the tears in his eyes.
#33: Torment
"We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left." Aragorn looked so fierce, so ready to go out and kill every Uruk'hai he met, that Legolas didn't have the heart to tell him that Merry and Pippin were most likely dead, and, if they continued on this path, they would be as well.
#34: Sorry
"Where's Aragorn?" It's the first thing Legolas says when he awakens to the warm light of Rivendell. All he could remember was the fire swirling around them, cornering them in one section of the wood, leaving the only option: to jump off a cliff into swirling currents.
"Mithrandir, where's Estel?" He looks up into the ashen face of the wizard and knows, even if doesn't want to consider the possibility.
"I'm sorry, Legolas." And it's the finality of Gandalf's words that bring tears to his eyes and make him turn away, because at that moment for Legolas it is the end of the world.
#35: Perfect
Aragorn knows he isn't perfect, and being around the graceful, beautiful, strong elves only accented that fact, but around Legolas he didn't have to be perfect. He just had to be Estel, because that's all Legolas wanted him to be.
#36: Garden
It seems that everyone in the Fellowship is connected to the Earth in some way. Sam grew up a gardener, and Frodo grew up with Sam. Pippin loved the Earth and the flowers almost as much as Legolas did. Merry and Boromir conceded that, indeed, when the world was in bloom in the Spring, nothing could top the smell of cherry blossoms that were omnipresent in the air. Gandalf respected the earth for its beauty and its awesome power.
Aragorn loved to garden because it was something elves had cultivated, and, if nothing else, Aragorn loved the elves.
#37: Pathos
Once, when they were journeying across the mountains, a very young Pippin asked Aragorn why elves kept their emotions bottled up inside. Aragorn stared at the tiny hobbit for several minutes before answering. It wasn't that he didn't understand the question, it was that he didn't understand how anyone could miss how elves displayed emotion more prominently than anyone, with song and dance and kind words on dark nights.
"They do not keep them bottled up, my very young hobbit. Legolas and other elves do not show emotions because if they did, those emotions would destroy them." Aragorn stopped walking and knelt until he and the young hobbit were level. "You see, elves just love things too much."
#38: Logos
Later, he was told it wasn't logical that he volunteered his own life on the chance, the slim chance, that somehow it would save Aragorn, but to Legolas, nothing in his life had ever made more sense.
#38: The Brave
They were riding up a steep mountain when Aragorn told him that his dream was to become an elf.
"You know you cannot do that, Estel." Legolas told the eleven year old as gently as he could manage
Aragorn was quiet for a long minute. "I know in my heart that it is not possible, mellon, but it is my dream to become like my brothers and Ada and you. I just want to fit in with my family, and be one of the brave."
#39: Travel
Even the Ranger had not traveled all the way into Mordor, not even on the most extensive of scouting missions. And, though he knew he was just being a fool, he would never be able to tell Legolas how much having a familiar face with him would be a comfort on the long road ahead.
#40: Fade
"Legolas!"
But the elf was already gone, the light faded from his eyes, knife wounds littering his chest, and in the dark and chaos of Helm's Deep, it seemed as if Aragorn was the only one to watch, to care, as the elf passed into the next world.
#41: Achievement
"Congratulations, Strider." Merry and Pippin's high voices carried over the noise of the crowd and Aragorn nodded at them, a smile spreading across his features at the sight of the tiny folk.
Pippin reached up for his hand and gripped it tightly, tugging Aragorn towards the ground until they were eye to eye. "He always wanted to see you become King, like he knew it was going to happen all along."
Beside him, Merry nodded. "He'd be happy for you, you know."
I missed you, Estel. Aragorn turned to see Legolas leaning against a draped wall, a smile flitting across his face, blue eyes dancing, and finally Aragorn begins to smile widely.
"I know," Aragorn says in response to Merry. With one last little smile, Legolas fades, and Aragorn turns his back on the vision. "I know."
#42: Rain
Legolas always turned his face up, towards the rain, because he said rain was the whisper of fish breathing, the cool kisses of angels, the hum of crying snowflakes. And, sometimes, when Aragorn looked up into the fury of a storm, he could almost believe him.
#43: Drawing
Aragorn wasn't very good at it, but Legolas had the natural talent elves possessed for all things beautiful. When they were running for those long days, Aragorn would wake up in the morning to Legolas (always Legolas, who used the heightened endurance of his race as an excuse to take every watch) outlining against the ground a sharp, poignant, achingly beautiful diagram of their story, a testimony to their attempt to destroy the Ring and save the world, left behind for others to see until the wind blew the drawing away, left behind just in case something happened, just in case they didn't come back, just in case…
#44: Sea
"I know how to swim, Estel. I just don't want to." Legolas pulled his legs up closer, eyeing the water beneath him distastefully, making it very, very hard for Aragorn to believe him.
#45: Lie
Legolas looked at the towering Oiliphants and the destruction they were spreading and knew that he had only one choice. He caught Aragorn's tunic and helped him slay the orcs and goblins all around, giving them time, just enough time, for a few words.
"I have to go." Legolas said, staring up at the giant creatures. "I know I can fix this."
Aragorn followed his gaze, eyes widening slightly. "You'll be back. You can't leave me forever."
"I won't." Legolas lied, already flying towards the oncoming charge. To the wind, to himself, to the man he was leaving behind, he could only whisper, "Goodbye, Estel."
#46: Sickness
"No…"
"Shh…Estel, you're here with me. We're in my home. You are safe here."
A blade, a camp, cold nights, rain, a burning in his throat, in his chest, all over. "No…Legolas, please!" Teenaged back arched in agony, one tiny drop of water landing on it from the elf over him, crying because he had no idea how to help.
#47: Different
He hadn't really been the same since the day Legolas died, though few attribute his new personality to that. Shell-shock from the war, perhaps, anguish over the many lives lost, but only the Fellowship and Arwen understood the real reason why Aragorn never smiled properly after that, why he'd spend sunset alone, looking towards the woods. For seventy years, he and Legolas had been in each other's company, and now that was gone, and he would never be the same.
#48: Heartbreak
Aragorn used to think that, if Legolas carried on the way he was going, his heart would break before too long, because Legolas would kneel over everything he killed and mourn the life lost so thoroughly it would be thought that the animal was a beloved pet, not something shot for sustenance.
#49: Power
Though Legolas knows it is wrong, that it goes against everything he's been taught by his father and Lord Elrond, he knows that it is a very bad thing indeed if both he and Aragorn are captured by the enemy, because he will do anything to keep his friend from being hurt.
#50: Love
It was something that went mostly unspoken between them, already known by both, that every time Legolas said Estel and Aragorn said mellon, they were expressing all the love between them, and that was enough…it was enough.
***
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! Merry and Pippin are our favorite characters, too, and there should have been five expanded drabbles for them. Same rules apply for these guys. Pick some of your favorites and we'll write the most popular. A few notes: We totally made up the ages to suit the story. In the movie the hobbits were young and in the books they were old and Legolas was young and bah, we chose ages as they suited us.
Review? Please?