Chapter Thirteen
Crouching in the back of his horse's stall, Legolas could not get to his feet fast enough to avoid whoever it was running into the stable. He leaned back into the shadows and hoped that whoever it was would pass, but it appeared that the world had no care for even his smallest wishes.
"There you are." The dark-haired Elf peered from over the stall door—Elladen or Elrohir, Legolas could not tell. They shared a stare for a long moment, and the son of Elrond grew so uneasy in the silence that Legolas decided he had to be Elrohir, the one member of the family he had not yet seen. Elrohir glanced back to the door he had come through, scrubbing Legolas' stallion's nose while the horse stood placidly.
"What are you doing down there?" Elrohir asked overly casually, his voice high with affected familiarity.
Legolas lifted his face out of his hands and showed Elrohir his bloody nose.
"What happened!" Elrohir's genuine shock was more inviting that his intense friendliness.
"Thumped by this no-good, high-minded beast," Legolas replied.
The horse did not dignify his master's complaint with even so much as a backward glance.
Elrohir fought a smile and patted the stallion's head. "Well done, you."
"Hey!"
"Come on," Elrohir said, stepping back to open the stall door. "Everyone's been sent to look for you."
Legolas stood up. The once-overpowering urge to run had been knocked out of him and he did not have the will to be disobedient.
"You were the only one who thought I would make good my escape?" Legolas asked.
"People have far too high opinions of the sons of kings and lords," Elrohir replied. "But we're as desperate to make a break for freedom as anyone else."
"You speak from experience."
"I've kicked off my share of search parties," Elrohir said. He stood in the middle of the wide aisle that divided the stalls. He glanced at the open stable doors, but did not move.
"Are you not here to take me back?"
Elrohir sighed. "That part of the order was rather vague. As far as I know, I'm only supposed to find you and make sure you're all right."
Legolas touched his nose again and grimaced. Not broken, but certainly bruised and still stinging of his horse's betrayal.
"So, what can I offer you to make you feel better? A ride is out of the question, but I could find you something to hit, or something to break, or something to drink—"
"A drink," Legolas agreed, quickly enough to receive a discerning arch of an eyebrow in reply. "Please."
"A drink it is," Elrohir said. He led the way to the door. The wind carried all the voices calling for Legolas in towards them. "If you like, we can take the long way around."
Thankfully, Elrohir appeared to have finally reached a degree of comfort that allowed him to stay silent on their journey. They climbed rocks, wove through trees, at times it seemed they had climbed out of the valley entirely and the whole expanse of Imladris lay glittering before them in the dark. Legolas was almost surprised that they did not climb a rope of bedsheets to get into Elrohir's chambers. They did take the narrow spiral staircase for the servants, though, rather than ascend to any of the main halls.
The room was wide, full of books and artifacts, not unlike Lord Elrond's study, if a little less orderly. On either side of the sitting room, doors were open to identical bedchambers. It seemed the twin brothers could not bear to be far from each other even hundreds of years on.
"Forgive my brother his eccentricities," Elrohir said as he flipped aside several books to get to a small wooden cabinet tucked in the deep windowsill. He withdrew a squat, dark bottle and two pewter goblets, and had to clear the table of papers before he could set them out.
"I left a watermark on one once and he acted like I'd set his whole collection on fire." Elrohir pulled the cork out with his teeth and spit it across the room. He poured both glasses full of the thick liquid and passed a cup to Legolas.
"It's Dwarvish. Very old, very strong. I imagine I could be convinced to live in a hole in the ground too if I were drunk enough on this."
Legolas turned his head at the smell alone and fortified himself for his first sip. "To your good health."
They both drank; Elrohir's sharp exhale was only a more practiced iteration of Legolas' burning cough. As they recovered, Elrohir settled against the windowsill and Legolas leaned against the edge of the table.
"To your mother," Elrohir said, raising his cup.
Legolas sealed his cracking heart by draining the rest of his drink. He held out his cup for more, though he was left breathless by what he had already consumed.
"What are you doing?" came a reproachful voice from the doorway. Elladen stood with his arms rigid at his sides and Legolas wondered at how he could have failed to tell the two apart, the minister and the trickster.
"I'm sorry, Prince Legolas, my brother should have taken you back to the hall. Your father—"
"Since he commanded me to go, I doubt it was he who gave any order for me to return," Legolas said, his voice singed with both the liquor and his anger.
Whatever authority Elladen had built himself up with disappeared. He crossed the room to stand beside his brother, took his cup, and sipped with a grimace.
"Did he really?" Elrohir asked.
Legolas nodded. "He's been unconscious for, what, a week? But he rallied to order me out of his sight. Let it not be said that King Thranduil does not have his causes. He'll scream you out of a room if it's the last thing he ever does."
"He had terrible dreams those first few days. Maybe…" But not even Elladen could convince himself of any excuse as to why Thranduil would do such a thing.
"What were you going to do? If you made it out?" Elrohir asked, taking his drink back from his brother.
"Leaving seemed like a whole enough plan." Legolas glanced down at his cup and found it half empty without realizing he had taken a drink.
"But you're the heir to—"
"Elladen," Elrohir said, elbowing his brother. He passed the cup and Elladen silenced himself with a sip.
"All I prayed for was for my father to wake up, but he took one look at me and decided he didn't want to see me," Legolas said, his eyes burning. "For a second… for one second, I wished that he had died and my mother had lived. And now if… I'd never forgive myself."
"You can't hold it against him, Legolas," Elladen said. "That darkness, it did terrible things to all of us. Even our mother. Even Arwen."
"What about Arwen?" she said, appearing in the doorway. "Is everyone out looking for someone who is stolen away in the halls of this very house?"
Legolas managed an apologetic look at her as she came up beside him.
"Have some pity, sister," Elrohir said. "Have a drink."
"You have no more glasses," Arwen said. Both cups were suddenly thrust within her reach. "Is this really making all of you feel better?"
"I don't know about better, but it's helping me feel less," Legolas said.
Arwen frowned, accepted his cup, and took a long drink. "I heard your father."
"I think every Elven ear within twenty miles heard him," Legolas said.
"I'm sorry. His injuries—"
"I'm sure all of your defenses are valid, but I can't hear them right now," Legolas said, looking into each face around him. "Let me have my anger for a little while before I go back to unimaginable heartbreak."
The children of Elrond and Celebrian exchanged loaded glances. Elrohir topped up their drinks and the cups silently went around the circle.
"Can we at least be maudlin somewhere a little better than this mess?" Arwen asked, gesturing at the table strewn with papers and inkwells, at the room cluttered with weapons and outerwear and books. "Are any of you still in any condition to climb to the roof?"
Elrohir led the way, with Legolas behind, each with a glass, then Arwen, then Elladen with the bottle. They sat between two peaks in the roof, gazing out at the view their vantage point afforded of the cliffs and even the plains above the valley.
Relieved of his cup by Arwen, Legolas lay back on the shingles and stared up at the stars. Shining orbs that held the memories of all creation, perhaps the only witnesses to his mother's death. Perhaps one was now the essence of Aradess herself. A few tears loosed down his cheeks.
"The sun," Arwen sighed at the sight of the glowing dawn on the horizon.
Legolas was content to lay staring at the small glimmer he had picked out as the newest soul in the sky, trying to feel its light like a touch on his hand, a kiss on his brow. But soon even the stars had faded, and the thought of the sun offered him no warmth. Legolas sat up and took the bottle from Elrohir rather than disturb Arwen's enchantment with the dawn. Between them they had left only a few sips, or one brave gulp.
"You're one of us now, Legolas," Elrohir said with a broad smile.
"Thank goodness. I needed a new brother," Elladen said.
Arwen laid her hand over Legolas'. "When we get down from this roof, you have the three of us. No matter what happens."
Legolas felt a smile tug at his lips, felt his eyes brim with his bottomless well of tears. He laced his fingers through Arwen's and the first rays of dawn broke over them, the children of Imladris and the Prince of Mirkwood.