#26: Lost
The search took an hour that stretched into a day, then a month. "Estel…" He knew better than anyone, with the possible exception of the man-child's adoptive father Elrond, how very important this broken teenager was. "My dear Estel, you have done all you can for your friend."
But the listless boy wouldn't even look at him. He sat, perched on one of the balconies of Rivendell, staring out into the forest, holding onto the hope that his mellon would come home unharmed. How was an old man to explain loss and death to a boy who should know nothing of such horrors? "There are white shores…" he began, clinging to this last hope that if the young prince of Mirkwood was no longer being taken care of in this world, perhaps he was thriving in the next.
.***.
One of Legolas's brothers had ridden hard through the night to find Gandalf just crossing over the mountains towards Rivendell. "Mithrandir!" The brother had called, leaping nimbly from his horse so he could deliver the message with both feet on the ground. "You must tell Lord Elrond…"
Gandalf's face became like stone as he listened to the news. The young man-child raised under Elrond's care, the one who only a select few knew was Isildur's heir, had gone missing, along with the youngest of King Thranduril's sons, the laughing, golden boy who was doted upon by his older brothers. "Can they have merely become distracted by some fancy in the woods? Legolas and Estel are both very young. Losing track of time is not unheard of, especially for an elf surrounded by such beauty as the majesty of Mirkwood."
"Of course," The brother had replied, delicate eyebrows coming together in concern on his high, unblemished forehead. "But Legolas is known for being very punctual, and our father is afraid that perhaps the orcs that have been raiding the outskirts of Mirkwood have become bolder than previous years…"
"Orcs?" Orcs were a different matter altogether. Brutish, and without even the tenuous loyalty of goblins, they stole whatever they wanted, and especially liked to wreak havoc on the pristine lands of the elves.
Of course elves, despite their outward appearance of being less hardy than dwarves or even the flimsy creatures of man, were a race made powerful by war. Though they were too dignified to attack a race unprovoked, even one as despicable as the orcs, they fought like savages if someone else threatened their precious trees and fields with fire and axes.
"So you're afraid that Legolas and Estel wandered into the path of the orcs? And what are you doing about that?" Legolas was the Prince of Mirkwood, albeit seventh in line for the throne. Estel, if his future is everything Gandalf foresees for him, will be King. And everything prophesied in the olden days point to the fact that these two and the bond they share will bring the world to its knees.
But they have to live long enough for that to happen.
"My brothers have taken a full fifth of the army of Mirkwood to scour the woods where they were last seen. Legolas and the man-child were on the path back to Rivendell when they disappeared."
At his words, Gandalf felt his bones itching to tear back through the woods. He had an unusual liking for Estel, for the young man was quick and smart and had fire in his blood that was so unlike the quiet, sedate manners of the elves he'd grown up with. But he knew that his place was somewhere else.
"Keep me informed." He told this older brother. "I will be in Rivendell." He steered his horse (not Shadowfax, but a worthy counterpart) in the direction of the elvish home in the mountains, never letting himself look behind, for fear of what his meddling emotions might have him do.
.***.
Lord Elrond was understandably frantic when word of his ward's disappearance reached him. Though the elves of Mirkwood, Rivendell, and Lothlorian had lived in peace for centuries, such a peace can be strained by one infraction. Like an important young man going missing in another King's woods. Elrond sent his twin eldest sons, Elladan and Ellrohir, to search along with the other brothers, instructing them not to return until they found Estel. Dead or alive.
"Orcs." Elrond had mumbled after they left. He was sitting with Gandalf in the open air of Rivendell, staring out over the gardens and rivers and woods that somehow seemed less beautiful than before the news of the boys' disappearances. "Something so…mundane…can unravel the whole future." He never turned, but his voice changed as he addressed Gandalf directly. "Tell me, Wizard, did the prophesies foretell this?"
Gandalf bowed his head low, puffing absently on his pipe. The prophesies, he explained around the object, did not foretell a great many things.
Like the fact that friendship can form in the oddest of places: between a wizard and an elf. Between an elf and a man. Like the fact that, sometimes, the world just doesn't make sense, and even learned people like Gandalf could not pretend to know all the answers. Like the fact that the disappearance of a single man-child could turn the whole history of the world upside down.
.***.
The twins returned a tense three weeks later, Estel riding in front of Elladan. He was very nearly dead.
The combined powers of the elf healers and Gandalf's vast knowledge kept him alive, though he hovered in a half-world of dreams and pain. His hand was always held by Elrond or one of the twins, who gripped it hard when he cried out in pain or kept repeating, over and over again, "Legolas! Legolas! Mi mellon!"
"His brain is addled." Ellrohir said grimly one day as he walked with Gandalf around one of the many beautiful gardens in Rivendell. "I understand perfectly."
"What happened to him?" Gandalf asked, the question that had been plaguing him for a week slipping out in frustration.
"The orcs must have known they had captured important people. I think they were trying to work out how to negotiate a trade – Mirkwood and Rivendell land for the return of Legolas and Estel. But the orcs are stupid creatures. Slow-witted. They were…they were torturing Estel and Legolas while their best and brightest figured out the finer points of a hostage situation."
"So you saw Legolas?" Gandalf asked. There had been no formal threat of war from Mirkwood, but the elves that used to pass seamlessly from one kingdom to the next had ceased, and all Mirkwood elves that had been residing in Rivendell went back to their own king. This situation could well result in a bloodbath between two provinces of an immortal and passionate race, and Gandalf did not want to be nearby when war broke out.
"No, but the last coherent thing Estel said before Elladan got him on his horse was that Legolas was nearby…of course, he could have been confused. It's possible they'd already killed Legolas…or, even if they hadn't then, they could have by now." Ellrohir sighed, looking out over the beauty of his world and not seeing the violet blossoms or bubbling brook at all, but instead remembering the agony and despair in his adopted brother's eyes when he realized his best friend was no longer beside him.
Gandalf put a comforting hand on the elf's shoulder. "Take heart. Estel is made of hardy stuff. His mind will not succumb so easily."
"I hope you are right, Mithrandir." Ellrohir murmured, "But I find that the future is not what I once believed it to be. I am confident in nothing." He took a few quick steps forward, the beginning of a run, and the movement was so fluid and beautiful that it caused something to ache dully in Gandalf's old heart. "I'm sorry. I must go."
Gandalf watched the elf run into the woods, dashing between trees, picking his way through underbrush without fault, and knew that he had fled because the tears of elves have been known to move mountains, to cause wars, to bring even the most powerful people on Middle Earth to their knees.
.***.
"Estel…" Gandalf murmured, putting his hand on the teenager's skinny back. Bruises and harsher marks still stretched across the bare skin, and he was careful not to touch these areas. Even a month after his rescue, even with all the powers of the elves and of Gandalf himself, Estel was still in pain. Pain that went beyond his physical wounds.
"Legolas is the strongest being I know." Estel murmured, sitting on the balcony and staring towards the distant mountains that marked the beginning of Mirkwood. "Stronger than Ada. Stronger than you, Mithrandir. He is not dead."
Gandalf did not want to think of the laughing young elf that had been flitting around Estel for the last decade, did not want to think of his nimble fingers or dancing feet or quick bow, and once these images were in his mind he could not banish them.
He knew that the last days or weeks of Legolas's life could not have been anything other than a pain-ridden hell, but at least he had his faith that, if the prince was no longer being taken care of in this world, at least he could thrive in the next. Estel had no such belief system, for as far as Gandalf knew, Elrond had never told Estel of the white shores that were the haven, the heaven of the elves.
So he cleared his throat, heart a little lighter for the first time in weeks. He could at least offer this much comfort. "There are white shores," he began gently, fingers gently tracing the network of scars on Estel's back. No child should know of such horrors.
Estel turned to him, eyebrows raised at Gandalf's abrupt halt. His face was a picture of anguish, or heartbreak, and an old wizard found himself praying for the right words.
"The journey doesn't end here." Gandalf began again, not knowing that he'd use these very same words half a century later, to comfort another scared young boy. "Death is just another path…one that we all must take." He tried to convey the majesty of the next world in his words, a world that he believed in with every fiber of his being. "The grey curtain of the world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it."
Estel's eyes were bright with unshed tears, and he didn't wipe them away before he croaked, pleading, "What? What do you see, Mithrandir?"
"White shores…and beyond. A far green country under a swift sunrise."
For the first time in a month, a tiny smile twitched the corners of Estel's lips. "That isn't so bad." He conceded quietly, eyes flitting again to the boundaries of Mirkwood.
"No," Gandalf said, smiling behind his beard, smiling because that is what this very young man needed to see. "No, it isn't."
And on that day, four days before Legolas would wander into Rivendell, bruised and beaten but very much alive, Estel gave up all hope of ever seeing his friend again.
.***.
We mentioned this incident a couple of times in a couple of different drabbles, and felt we just had to expand on it.
Anyways, please review.