Chapter Nine
"Lord Elrond?" Legolas' voice seemed to be the only sound in all of Imladris as they wove through the halls.
"Yes?" Elrond paused and turned to face him.
Legolas stared at the floor as he gathered his words. The colour that had risen in him from his earlier tears started to fade. Now he was turning pale, wilting under the weight of his armour and weapons, flinching at what effort it took to lift his head.
"Has any word been sent to my father's kingdom? Or has anything come from there?"
"No," Elrond replied. "We wanted to wait until you knew. And I'm afraid we have no knowledge about what happened. Your father has hardly been conscious enough to tell us. If there is anything the Kingdom of Mirkwood needs when you get home, Prince Legolas, Imladris will answer your call."
Legolas nodded, but could not manage much more after his display of princely duty. As Elrond continued on, he kept glancing back over his shoulder to make sure Legolas had not collapsed some paces behind.
"I must ask you to prepare yourself," Elrond said. "If you have never seen you father's scars, they are a disturbing sight, but they are quite healed. His only injuries are to his hands."
"I never have," Legolas said.
On his next backward glance, Elrond found that Legolas had stopped in his tracks.
"I can't," Legolas said, his blue eyes wide. "I'm not… I can't see my father like that. I can't—!"
Elrond strode back down the hall and took Legolas' shaking hands in his. "Legolas, I cannot tell you that this will not be difficult. Your father is improving, but I cannot say what effect all of this will have on him."
"This will kill him," Legolas said. "He won't go on without my mother, Lord Elrond."
Elrond was grateful that Legolas would not look at him, would not see the pain in his face to think that Legolas thought so little of himself. "He will go on for you, Legolas. You are his son. You are his only hope in recovery."
"So if he dies it will be because I was not enough?"
Elrond put his arms around Legolas in a fierce embrace. Even through his layers of weapons and armour, Elrond could feel what exertion it took for Legolas just to stand there. All the muscles in his back bristled and twitched, his chest heaved with empty breaths, his heart palpitated.
"Legolas." Elrond laid one hand on the back of the prince's head, though Legolas was taller than him. In this, Legolas was only a child who needed comforting.
"My mother is dead." Legolas' voice was thin and strained.
"Yes."
"My father is dying."
"Without you, he certainly will not survive."
Legolas was still and silent for a long time. He did not pull away from what comfort Elrond offered.
"I will help you," Elrond said. "I know you can be strong enough for this."
Legolas nodded against Elrond's shoulder and finally pulled away. He stayed in step for what remained of the journey, pausing for only a moment before he stepped into his father's sickroom.
Elrond caught Legolas' arm when the prince whipped back around at the sight of the scarred and mutilated creature in the bed. Between Elrond and his own hand braced against the doorframe, Legolas just barely kept himself upright. His eyes were huge, his mouth caught open in silent horror.
"I know," Elrond said. "But it's only his hands, Legolas. The rest are ancient, healed long ago."
"I didn't know it was so…" Legolas looked back over his shoulder, but after one glance, he spun back.
"Now you do. Are you ready?"
Legolas appeared to be shrinking as his burdens became more and more. He took a deep, shaky breath and turned towards his father. Crossing to the far side of the bed—Thranduil's less scarred side—Legolas sat down and gazed at his father's face.
"Can I touch him?" Now that he was off his feet, Legolas crumbled where he sat.
"Very gently." Elrond took a few steps into the room, but no closer.
For a long moment, Legolas did not move. Then, slowly, he reached over his shoulder and unfastened the leather straps that held his sword and his bow behind him. He took off his knife belt and lay all in the corner beside him. Slow fingers undid the clasps of his armour, peeled it off his body. None of it could protect him now, not from this. In a rumpled tunic and muddied doeskin breeches, the prince of Mirkwood leaned back in his chair and gingerly took his father's hand.
Galadriel ran her fingers through Aradess' red hair, stroked her thumb against her temple. She released a heavy exhale, which Celebrian knew to be one of the few signs of her mother's anger.
"Show me," Galadriel said.
Celebrian drew the shroud back from Aradess' body to reveal the stab wound in her side.
One hand still in Aradess' hair, Galadriel traced her finger along the knife's mark and recoiled as if it had struck her too. She withdrew and Celebrian draped the shroud back over Aradess. Galadriel pulled the green leaf pendant from where it had caught under the edge of cloth and righted it reverently over Aradess' heart.
"You've no knowledge of what happened?" Galadriel asked.
"None. Thranduil was in such a state when he arrived. He only said that he could not remember and he hasn't been conscious since then."
"And Aradess?"
"She was already dead," Celebrian said, her voice straining with the grief still so near to her. "I believe she had been dead for some time."
Galadriel looked up at that. The faraway stars that usually filled her gaze were dimmed; she was entirely taken by what was occurring now before her, no distractions of the greater world or the future were equal to this moment.
"He was so stricken," Celebrian continued. "I think it was only his desperate hope that she might be saved that gave him the strength to come this far, to overcome his own injuries."
"How is he?"
"Improving, but Elrond does not have high hopes."
"No," Galadriel said—a statement, not a question.
"You don't believe having Legolas here will help?"
"Thranduil may pass before he even knows his son has come to his side."
"So this is it? The most powerful beings in Elvendom surround him only to watch him fade?" Celebrian realized how tightly she held her fists, how she had narrowed her gaze at not only her mother, but one of the most revered beings on earth.
"We are not gods, iell-nín," Galadriel said.
With that old endearment, Celebrian knew that her fears and anger were for someone centuries younger than herself. Still, her wisdom was a rock out of arm's reach in the middle of the sea, and she was still tossed in the frantic water.
"In the end, there are precious few things we truly control." Galadriel's focus was drawn back to where her hand lay on Aradess' chest. "Now, you must leave us, Celebrian."
Celebrian left without a word. It was several steps before she released her fists and shook out her hands. The days that Thranduil still lived were meant to bring more hope, but now Celebrian felt as if all of it had been dashed. No one around her seemed to believe in his recuperation, no one believed that his love for his son could save him. After Legolas' display of grief at his mother's side, Celebrian could only imagine how he was dealing with the sight of his father. Had they truly only summoned him so he could watch his father die? Was that any better than arriving to find him already gone? Celebrian felt strangely sundered from Legolas: despite her vast experiences, she had never mourned a parent. She trusted that Elrond would comfort him, would share what wisdom he could.
Though she had hoped to encounter one of her children, Celebrian found no one and so she wandered back towards the study for lack of anywhere else to go. Her heart had grown so heavy again that she felt weak to bear it. But before she took a seat by the fire, she saw her father standing out on the balcony.
"Ada," she said as she came up behind him.
Celeborn offered her a smile, laid his hands on her shoulders and kissed her brow. At the sight of her clutching her shawl so tightly around herself, he took off his cloak and laid it over her shoulders. He wrapped one arm around her and they stood together in silence gazing out at the valley.
"Your mother heard you crying in the night in Lothlorien," Celeborn said. "When your message came, we knew it must have been something very grave."
"I felt it, death coming towards us." Celebrian dropped her head against his shoulder. "And then the Black Breath… what it did to Arwen and to Elrond..."
"What it did to you," Celeborn said. He tightened his embrace. "But your light is coming back."
Celebrian put her arms around her father. "Do you think he will die, Ada?"
"I cannot say," Celeborn replied. "I hope not."
"How was Legolas on the journey here?"
"He was very quiet. There were whispers of some violence in the north, nothing specific. But that drove him on."
"Thranduil rode all the way here looking for help for Aradess, but she was already dead. He couldn't face it. He was delirious with grief, Ada, just at the thought."
"Our children give us strength we could never imagine ourselves capable of, elanor-nín. Do not give up hope."
Celebrian held her father as she had when she was young. She leaned on him, shed tears against him, and prayed that all children would know such never-ending comfort in their fathers' arms.