Authors Note: Ok so I think you definately need to read Walls of Glass to totally get what Elladan is going on about in this chapter.
Elves heal quickly, even grieving elves and Legolas is no exception. The fever subsides. The damage to his shoulder will take longer to repair and to be honest I am worried it may not ever be the same. I do not tell him this, I think I will leave it to Estel to discuss that with him.
I am a coward.
But along with the disappearance of the fever goes our newfound openness and candour. It is as if the discussion on the balcony never was. Legolas reverts to type, sarcastic and cutting and I respond in kind. Even to my own ears my responses to him sound cruel. My sister pours her disapproval upon me but I cannot change things. This is how we are and have always been, Legolas and I, we know no other way of communicating. He taunts me and mocks me as always.
He says no more about Elrohir, or his guilt and I am left to put it down to hallucination caused by illness. Now he is fully in control of course he will not tell my brother. Unless I am treating him I stay out of his way. It is better for the both of us. I have only a few days to keep him well until my brothers arrive but it is a struggle...for both of us.
As it turns out keeping clear of him is easy to accomplish. Legolas is not at ease in this city of Men. Arwen tells me this is the first time he has ventured back here since the attack. I think if he had not been so grief stricken, so desperate to find my brother, he would not have come here at all. He stays in his room or with my sister. He is never out alone, never near Men. I fear that as soon as he is able he will flee, shoulder or no shoulder and so I issue orders to the gates not to let him pass. I need not have worried, to flee would involve interacting with Men and that he will not do.
Legolas is younger than I, younger than us all and to me he has always seemed so very youthful. Wide eyed and open, eager and accepting. He rode with us, my brother and I, more than a few times to the Dunedain and I remember with some fondness now his excitement and inquisitiveness in the camps of Men. Not any more. That Legolas is lost to us and I do not think we will ever see him again. Now he is closed off and tense, anxious and introspective. He wants nothing to do with anyone not Elven. Even my brother, especially my brother. I miss the young and candid Legolas, even though I liked him no more then than I do now still I feel his loss. It is a loss to us all.
And so I stay away but I watch him. From a distance I try to keep him safe for Elrohir. And I watch my sister with him.
There comes a night when the storms are upon us again. The wind howls through the streets of the city. I expect my brothers tomorrow. This is the earliest they could be here and I am sure they will have been riding at speed. I only hope they are safe and have shelter from this weather. The wind brings the sea creeping round the edges of my soul and into my very being and I find myself searching him out. I never seek him unless it is to berate him for some wrongdoing. I tell myself I go to guard him from the sea longing for he is vulnerable in his grief and I will not risk disaster befalling him this close to my brothers arrival.
He is where I expected him to be, as before, outside on his balcony in the storm. I do not understand these Silvans. Do they never seek shelter from the elements?
He turns to me when I enter and he is wild, feral almost. His eyes dance with an intoxication.
"You feel it too!" he exclaims, "I knew you would come."
If that is so then he knew better than I for I have no idea why I am standing here at all.
He turns his face back to the wind and lifts it up, eyes closed in ecstasy. There in the darkness he is beautiful.
He looks back at me and his face lights up with a smile as bright as sunlight itself. A smile for me?
"Is it not glorious my friend?" he asks and I am taken aback, caught unawares, for I am not his friend. Why does he address me so? It is incongruous with our reality of bickering and resentfulness. Something about his smile is infectious and so I return it.
"It is quite exhilarating," I admit.
"I wonder what it is like there?" his tone is conversational and light and I am so unused to hearing that from him.
"I wonder what it will be like to leave, to be upon the sea?" He sounds so like the old Legolas, eager and enthusiastic, my breath catches in my mouth.
Where has he been?
"If I could leave now I would." he says and my heart falls to hear it.
"How do you resist it?, How do you not become one with the glory of this?" He stares at me intently.
"I have those I love who anchor me." I say, and it is a desperate message to him. Stay, stay, There are people who love you here.
He holds out his hand.
"Be my anchor then Elladan for I cannot deny this tonight. I fear this will engulf me, consume me. It is hard to remember why I remain."
For what feels an age I stare at his outstretched hand. We do not touch. We never touch. A memory intrudes on my thoughts. It seems I am plagued by memory lately. I remember the last time he begged for my touch, the only time...almost, when he was broken beyond repair and would accept healing from none other than me. Not my brother, my human brother, my healer brother, whose touch filled him with terror. My other brother Elrohir says he cannot heal but I know he is wrong, he does not see himself clearly. For while it was I who healed the broken bones, the wounds upon Legolas's back, Elrohir healed the vicious gouges made deep into his very soul. He has power, he just does not know it. I wonder why I think of this now with Legolas standing tall and alive beside me . I do not want to remember that time, it pains me.
I take his hand.
I speak to him of those I love who love him also. I reminisce and wander in memory. I hold him back against the power of the sea and at the same time we indulge in it together. I am right, it is exhilarating. I feel alive.
In the end it subsides and we sit, still he does not want to go inside and still I do not understand him.
"Thank you." He says simply when the roar of the wind has reduced itself to just a whisper and all is still.
"At the time I could not remember them."
"You have many who love you here." I say, driving the message home. Pleading with him to keep hold of it.
"Elrohir, Gimli, Arwen, Estel..."
"Not Aragorn," he interrupts me in a rush, " I have lost him."
I stare at him in surprise,
"You have not lost him. He loves you still."
"I hurt him. He will always carry the scar of what I have done. I cannot look at it. We will never be the same."
I think of the thin silver scar that snakes it way down Estel's arm now and then I think of him weary, drawn, bereft when we arrived here as he spoke to Elrohir of how he had not seen Legolas, not heard from Legolas. I think of his grief at the loss of him from his life and his confusion, his bewilderment at what to do next. I think of the bitter hurt he must have felt when he recieved my letter and discovered Legolas had decided to face the loss of his Father without him.
Anger spikes within me, this is a more familiar feeling than the strange almost friendship we have just shared and I embrace it. I attack.
"The scar you speak of is nothing, it does not bother him. He does not dwell on it. You should be more worried about the damage you do to his soul, the hurts you inflict now as you turn away from him. They will not heal, they will never heal." My anger flows out into the sharp, hurtful words and I do nothing to hide it. There is nothing I dislike more about him than his willingness to harm my brothers.
"I seek to protect him. I will not allow myself to hurt him again. I can never forgive myself." His voice sounds numb and detached as he attempts to defend himself. As if he does not even believe the words himself.
"You cannot forgive yourself? Oh excuse me Legolas, I did not realise you were perfect. Are you one of the Valar now? Even they are not perfect if my Father is to be believed...but you are?" I drown my words in sarcasm and rejoice when he flinches.
"You are not allowed to make mistakes then as the rest of us who are more ordinary do?"
"This was more than a mistake." He cries
I lean forward towards him, place my face in front of his. I am furious.
"It was not even that." I spit with venom and within myself I wonder where this anger has come from so abruptly.
"It was not a mistake for it is not even you who was at fault. You choose to destroy Estel over nothing!" The anger is raging inside me and I cannot stop it.
"You were broken, after pain and grief immeasurable, it broke you. I know, I was there. But you cannot admit it so you pretend you had control when you had none. You pretend rationality when rational thought had deserted you. You try to claim responsibility when it is obvious to us all you were responsible for none of it. It broke you Legolas. You are no God, you are the same as the rest of us."
He stares at me white faced, and I notice his hands shake. Suddenly I am filled with a rush of remorse. I have gone too far. My brothers will not forgive me this and nor should they. But before I can take back my words, reel them in and apologise he answers me.
"You are right. They did break me." His voice cracks with the emotion of it. "I always thought nothing could. I am a prince, I have fought the war with the dark for so long...and they broke me, those Men, ordinary men. It shames me."
He is crying.
I am the one who is ashamed.
I try to repair the damage my words have done and I hope it is not too late.
"There is no shame in it Legolas. What was done to you would break any one of us." I say flatly, truly I despise myself at this moment.
"I should not have spoken thus, forgive me, please."
I am too late with my words of apology, my olive branch. He withdraws and the look he gives me is shuttered and cold.
"You were right. I am weak."
"Weak is the one thing you are not" I say but I do not think he hears me.
"Will you go now. I wish to be alone." He curls himself into a defensive ball, knees to his chest arms around them to shut me out.
"I don't think that is wise." There is no way I am going no leave him alone here.
"Let me call Arwen..."
"No!" He cuts me off with his point blank refusal.
I am left wondering how we have ended up here so far from the camaraderie we shared just moments ago. How did I manage to make such a mess of this? I hesitate, I do not wish to leave, I do not trust him with himself.
"I will wait inside," I say. "I will be there if you need me."
"I will never need YOU." His words drip with poison, He detests me and I do not blame him.
I retreat inside and sit in the dark with my thoughts. The image of that smile he gifted me, his face alight with joy at my arrival drifts before my eyes. How have I managed to destroy something so precious? Why have I done this? What is it that drives me to such cruelty? This is not who I am.
It is who I am with him though, I cannot ignore it.
There is not a sound from the balcony. He does not stir and certainly does not call me. I never thought he would although perhaps I hoped for it. When dawn begins to light the sky I know that Arwen will soon be there with breakfast and bright words and I cannot face her. She will see right through me ...and him, straight to the damage I have inflicted upon him. The first pink blush of the sun fills the sky. It is then I take my leave. She will be here in minutes and he will be safe with her.
"I am leaving Legolas,"I say into the empty space. "Arwen will be here soon." It seems only polite to let him know he is free of me.
Of course I receive no reply.