Galion was woken abruptly in the middle of the night, something he wished to say was a rare occurrence but it was not. With a sigh he opened the door to reveal one of the young guards, "Lord Ferdan ordered us to come and retrieve you if-"
"Where is he?"
"The king's study."
Closing the door behind him he set off for the study, rolling his eyes at the guard who followed three feet behind like that could save him from the prince when Galion arrived. Stopping outside the study door he turned to look at the young elf, "Goodbye."
The guard stared at him wide-eyed, "I have orders from Lord Ferdan to-"
"You had orders to come and get me, I don't particularly care about the rest. Thank you for your service, have a good night." The royal family was incredibly private and Galion had spent millennia chasing people away from Thranduil and was more than willing to do the same with his son.
The poor elf still stood there frozen like a deer between his fear of the archery master and of Galion. The archery master could make every aspect of his training and assignments to be especially grueling, but Galion could quite potentially ruin every other aspect of his life if he was determined enough. All of the cooks, messengers, attendants, housekeepers answered to him. Not officially, of course, but if he told them to do something they would do it.
Galion crossed his arms and stared at the guard until he nearly sprinted away. Satisfied, he entered the study without knocking.
Candles were alight everywhere, with papers strewn across most surfaces. Some were maps, some messages, some were books, and Valar knew what else.
"I don't want to hear it."
"Don't want to hear what, my prince?"
Legolas didn't even spare him an ounce of energy to glare but kept staring down a particularly complicated mound of papers. Nor did he care to respond, it seemed.
"Don't want to hear that it's very late and you should be sleeping."
Ever his father's son, Legolas decided to just ignore him.
"Don't want to hear that you know you should not be going out into the forest with your warriors anymore."
It was a low blow, he knew it was, but he needed a reaction, "What would your father tell you."
Legolas flicked his eyes up to him, "I fully expect that he would cross his arms and give me 'that look' right before threatening to tie me to my bed. But he is not here, he is not awake, and he can't help me so somebody has to do this."
"It doesn't have to be you. Not all of the time."
"Then who? If not me, then who? Lord Ferdan, who just this morning left to replace a captain that will never wake again. Aolassa, who's commanding by the northern border, Avaleania who is commanding the eastern border? Farlen who has been in a deep sleep for weeks? How about all the captains who lay injured and potentially unable for duty. Who, Galion, is going to do this, if not me?"
Galion blinked at him, he wasn't here for an argument. He was here to get Legolas to bed before he fell over. Picking a fight sometimes had its merits, but now was not one of those times.
Learning to be a King was a hard thing to learn, even harder with no teacher, and hardest during a war. He could still remember Thranduil acting nearly in the exact same way, seemingly always on the brink of potential hysteria, but still so focused on every task at hand. Perhaps to their own detriment.
Legolas heard it first and Galion a moment later, footsteps in the hallway coming purposefully towards them, "Oh Valar, what now?" Before whoever was outside could bother giving a pathetically tentative knock Legolas had called for them to come in.
Surprisingly it was one of his archers, Tern, and not a messenger. "Sorry to intrude, but Elrond's twins are here."
"As in at the borders of the forest?"
"As in waiting in the throne room."
Had Legolas been drinking anything he probably would have choked on it, "They're where? What part of 'Close the borders to everyone' was hard to understand?"
Tern crossed his arms, "Don't get snappy at me, I am just following the orders of both Lord Ferdan and Avaleania. Feel free to travel east for two days to yell at Avaleania or two days west to yell at Ferdan yourself, or perhaps you can write a strongly worded letter which I can deliver upon my return." He smiled charmingly at the end.
"Don't tempt me." Legolas passed Tern in the doorway with a notifiable sniff, "Go have a bath you smell horrible."
"It's wonderful to see you too!"
They waited for about three hours before Legolas finally appeared, he didn't look happy to see them. Although considering how long it had taken them to be allowed in the forest they had not expected much else.
He stopped near the throne but did not sit in it, "And how did you two manage to end up here?"
"Through incredible stealth and precision, we managed to sneak our way into the forest and close enough to the stronghold that your archers had no choice but to bring us here," Elladan answered, always the first to speak.
Legolas might have laughed, should have laughed but didn't. "Wrong. You would not have gotten past any of our controlled borders and neither of you could survive traveling in the enemies lines alone. Elrohir?"
The younger twin shrugged, "You will not let us enter the forest, but you cannot keep us from trying over, over, and over again. We have nowhere else to be."
"So you annoyed my captains into letting you through."
"Pretty much."
"Exactly."
He should have laughed at them, but he didn't. "Why?"
The twins looked at one another and Elrohir waved his brother off. "Because you are our friend and suddenly you treat us like an enemy, we heard about what happened at the mountain. We have been trying to see if you are okay but you will not so much as accept a letter."
"Only because you are my friend?"
"Yes, what other reason could we have?" They asked, together.
Then Elrohir added, "We were starting to fear the worst."
This Legolas laughed at, "And what was this terrible fear?"
Elrohir wasn't going to say it, in case it was true. Elladan however, had no problem getting right to the point. "That King Thranduil was killed in the battle at the mountain."
Legolas gave no reaction in the slightest. No indication if the rumor was true or not.
"Legolas what is happening in this forest?" Elrohir took a step closer, "Whatever it is we can help."
The perhaps king looked down at them, and they were struck by how - Hollow? No, not hollow - tired, sad he looked. Then he sat in the throne, but not in a regal way but perhaps defeat. "But you can't keep a secret."
"From who?" Elrohir asked, not Legolas but his twin who appeared to have figured out the answer already.
"Our family. The other powerful elven realms left." But just because he knew the answer didn't mean he believed or agreed with it, "Which, by the way, is not true. With Galadriel as my grandmother do you not think she would have taught us how to shield ourselves. Besides, Ada and Glorfindel know when not to pry."
Legolas leaned back in the throne, elbows resting on both armrests, "And Lady Galadriel? Mithrandir?"
Elladan continued on, completely undeterred."We have not seen our grandmother for quite some time, we can't bring ourselves to visit the woods since the sailing of our mother, and she can no longer leave her tree's. As for Mithrandir; he seems to have fled to Gondor for the time being but if he is to return we shall depart Imladris that moment. I swear it."
He seemed to think this information over for no short amount of time, glancing at the door he had entered through like it might present him with the right course of action to take. The twins stood in silence, giving their friend the time he needed to think it over. Then, finally, he spoke again, "Ada didn't die at the battle of the mountain, but sometimes it feels like he did."
They hadn't really expected Legolas to share everything with them, for he had stopped doing so many years passed. But he did. He showed them every report of the new master, told them every story he had heard or experienced, showed them the remedies Radagast had been using to try and treat the king, and then finally the king himself.
King Thranduil, the last elven king this side of the sea. King Thranduil, who it seemed was made out of the same stone as the mountain that sheltered his people. King Thranduil who somehow, someway always found a way to keep his people and his kingdom together, happy, and functioning. King Thranduil who looked so pale he might have been dead, so deep in his sleep he didn't so much a twitch a toe at Legolas' approach when usually it could wake him from the deepest of sleep.
Elrohir snuck a glance at Legolas while Elladan investigated closer to the sleeping King. Their friend had shown them much, showed them all the information but kept himself hidden away behind a mask. A carefully constructed mask, hard to spot, but a mask nonetheless. Neither twin said anything about the cot pushed against one wall, out of the way enough but still very close to Thranduil's bedside.
Elladan began examining Thranduil just as their father had taught them but was unable to find anything to fix that the wood elves or Radagast hadn't already, "He's been like this since the battle?"
Legolas wouldn't look at either of them, "Yes."
"With no change?"
"Depends what you consider change. He wakes up, sometimes. Every few weeks."
"Weeks?" The twins demanded together. And then Elladan continued, "He should be gaining strength. Why hasn't he healed himself? It's been over a year, Legolas"
"I know! I know it's been over a year." Still, he wouldn't even look at them. He took a few steps forward to the bed, lovingly brushing a few strands of hair from his father's face from where the breeze had blown it and adjusted his pillows and blankets.
"Legolas."
Still, the Prince ignored them. Or actually didn't hear him, they weren't sure which one. He carefully lifted a cup of water that had been resting on a table nearby to let Thranduil take incredibly small sips of water.
"Legolas." They demanded together.
"Because he's a stubborn fool, that's why." He nearly slammed the water cup back onto the table. "He's a stubborn fool that doesn't know when to stop putting others before himself. He's a fool who seems set on giving everything to the forest even if it means killing himself and he's making me watch! That's why."
Somehow, almost out of thin air Galion appeared in the room with the energy akin to a rabid, starving, angry Wolverine, "That is enough. This is exactly why we closed the borders, you two appear in the dead of night and force him to go through every painful experience of the past year and offer no help whatsoever until morning. Can you not see that-"
"Galion-" Legolas attempted to interrupt but was spoken over by both of the twins.
"No he's right Legolas, but we do have an idea if you want to hear it." The two woodland elves drew quite and exchanged loaded glances with one another that the twins could not decipher.
Elladan crossed his arms, "We force him to let go. We force more of him back into his body and out of the forest, give him no choice but to do it."
"How?" Galion asked when Legolas said nothing.
"Injury him. Not bad, it would not take much. Enough to scare him. Enough for him to know he needs to come home. Enough for the tree's to push him away for good."
They exchanged glances again, and the twins saw that degree of panic one got when they thought Legolas was about to do something impulsive on Galion's face right before the prince spoke, "Say like just a smidge of some sort of poison, perhaps a venom."
"Exactly like that." The twins agreed the same moment Galion muttered a warning: "Legolas."
Both twins felt the exact same panic when Legolas snatched a quiver from under the cot and easily fished out a vile that held some sort of foul blue-black substance. Before they could do anything a knife appeared in his hand the tip already dipped into the vile, "Sorry, Ada." and cut a shallow cut down part of his forearm.
Immediately the wound seemed to bleed like ink under his skin spreading the black over most of his forearm. "Legolas!" Elrohir cried, completely shocked at the utter brashness.
Their friend glanced up at him somehow more lively than before, "It won't kill him. It'll hurt, but it won't kill him."
"Oh Valar." Galion groaned and threw himself into a chair, but did not seem particularly alarmed.
"I agree with Galion!" Elrohir continued, voice still a smidge higher than it probably should have been. "We meant to let us do it, or somebody more qualified."
Legolas wiped the knife on his pant leg and it vanished from view again, "I know what I'm doing. If that was all the venom it took to kill us there would be no woodland realm left." Having decided that ignoring his friend, for the time being, was his best option Elladan made to clean and bandage the fresh cut but Legolas caught his arm, "Leave it."
The older win pulled his arm free, "What?"
"You said to give him no choice. I know how to win a fight with my father; so leave it."
Waking up was different this time. It didn't feel like falling from one dream and into another. It felt sharp and real, and painful for some reason. This time he did not have to drag his eyelids open with trembling will but with the closest thing to ease he could remember.
It was the middle of the day, it seemed and the first thing he saw was his son's incredibly anxious face, "I'm sorry but you gave me no choice."
He frowned, he hurt but not as much as he remembered before. It didn't cloud his vision with stars or roar in his ears, but there was a prominent and dreadful throbbing form his right arm. Legolas came to sit on his bed with him and the dip in the bed didn't ignite the same fire in his back although it did still hurt.
Reaching out of view a cup of water appeared in his hand and Legolas held it to his father's lips waiting until he had swallowed before he spoke again, "I poisoned you. A few times, actually. And I'm not that sorry either."
Thranduil managed to shake his head weakly, "I'm sorry."
He didn't know exactly why Legolas had done it but fully believed that it had been needed. That he had done something to make his son so desperate or scared or alone that he would do it. He knew it was his fault and he hated it.
He was also almost positive this was not the first time he had thought this.
Thank you for reading, I really hoped you loved it.
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I'll see you for the next chapter