Author's note: I received some great constructive criticism from a reader (ShadowTravel) recently, and wanted to address one of the points. The reader noted that Legolas seems less cheerful in this story than he did in the books. Thankfully, that is the point! For me, this is the story of how Legolas becomes the interminably hopeful elf we meet in LotR, but there is a lot of learning that has to happen before then. Again, take a look at PTSD and vicarious trauma as explained online. I am glad his less than hopeful outlook comes across here. Please enjoy chapter 9; it is a little long.

To Rekindle Hearts

Chapter Nine: A Facsimile of Healing, and Exhaustion

The weeks Legolas spent recovering were frustrating and tedious, for both himself and those around him. He spent a large amount of time with Ithildim's father Healer Anaron, more time than he had spent with him since he and Ithildim were children and they passed endless days flitting in and out of Anaron's cottage and the Elvenking's halls; in and out of his home to the training grounds and back for meals or wound care; and, once, Legolas had even lived there with them after his own family suffered a great loss, and it was then that he learned another important skill from Orodiel—baking. But Legolas knew Anaron now better than he maybe would have ever liked to have known him before, and while Legolas knew it was unfair, he had at several points in the process resented Anaron. Healing from a head injury, Legolas found, was nothing like healing from a break or bite—it required a kind of patience and endurance he did not know, until it was required of him, he even possessed.

Several days after their return with Mithrandir, Anaron had allowed Legolas to recommense council duty, for he sensed the younger elf was despairing in his idleness, which he was. After a week more, Legolas could write reports again for their company, for which Ithildim was sorely relieved. A week after that, he was allowed back to the odd hours at which captains' often found themselves meeting for tactical planning. And finally, when the moon was new once again, Anaron released Legolas from his care with a list of reasonable limitations, a stiff leather brace to stablize his forearm and wrist, and directions to report to him every other day to check on the effectiveness of his medicines, (which Legolas did without complaint, because Anaron was a great person and kind and, in his own way, powerful, and he would not disrespect him). Upon his relative return to health, Lostariel immediately assigned Legolas to a young training group, for he was healed almost entirely in body and mostly in mind, and was simultaneously impatient and exhausted from the wait.

The first few days on the field were not entirely pleasant for him or for the young novices. They often watched him sidelong as they practiced, excited to see not only how a captain fought, but also shamefully excited to see first hand Legolas' malady, that they had all heard their families and tutors whispering about for weeks. Legolas was pleased they had not yet been graced with such a show, but it was not to last much longer, and it would culminate in a decision made above him which he would not very much appreciate.

One and a half months after their return

"Ai, Elbereth, Legolas, what happened to your face?" asked Lostariel when she saw Legolas at the mess table against the wall, sat on the bench with his arms tightly crossed and his head and body leaned back against the cool stone behind him.

"I am certain you will get a report on it later," said Legolas, not moving. "Probably written by me."

"And?" she said impatiently, crossing her own arms and leaning against the rack of practice spears near the door.

Legolas sat now upright to address her. "My consciousness lapsed while Sinnafain and I demonstrated an offensive response to an opponent's undercut. I was unable to pull my punch before faltering—Sinnafain did not properly block—and I thus hit her rather sharply in the abdomen. Sinnafain continued in the demonstration in the short moment before she realized I was unable to continue, and I could not defend myself, and she neither pulled her blow."

Legolas smiled wryly.

"So I was thus essentially incapacitated by a youngling with barely a yen, while she had only to gasp for a minute to restore the air my hit had taken from her. It will be a good tale for her to tell to her peers, defeating a captain of the Southern Defense," Legolas said, laughing. "But they were all, besides, rather in a flurry when I stood back up! I know they had been waiting to see one of my 'fits' since I started training them, but they seemed rather upset once they realized what staring vacantly could mean for me in battle."

He looked at his hands. "I have asked Amonhir to finish with them their lessons, for I could not continue and they are more scared of him than me, I wager."

"Aye, I wager, too," said Lostariel. "Well, I do not expect a written report on the incident; your verbal message will suffice. Besides, it was not anyone's fault."

"I do not know at all about that," said Legolas, his eyesbrows lowered so they scrunched on his brow, one corner of his mouth quirked upward in a disbelieving frown, and his nostrils wide as if about to sigh. "But all right."

Legolas continued considering his hands, and finally sighed. Lostariel watched him quietly for a while, and then she spoke out of concern for her charge.

"I know we—though more often Amonhir—have time and again said that you do not listen, that you are rash or insolent, too slow or too impulsive," said Lostariel. "He has said that you are meant to be a follower and not a leader."

Here, Lostariel ducked her head to draw Legolas to her movements and then caught Legolas' eyes with her own and held his gaze for a moment. She continued.

"And some of these things, in some instances, are sometimes true. But you would not have progressed so far and so quickly if you were not implicitly trusted by your peers and superiors, and if you had not demonstrated—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that your insight and presence in the field are a boon to your company strategically and emotionally; if you had demonstrated irresponsibility, you would not have elves under your command; if you were anything but wholly and passionately dedicated to your people and your charges, you would not have the power you have, nor carry the responsibilities you do," she said. "You are a different warrior and a different captain than most, but you are yet a good warrior and an excellent captain. Amonhir conceded all his centuries of concerns about you in a matter of weeks. Do not doubt yourself now."

Lostariel paused again and met Legolas' eyes, and he looked back at her evenly and nodded, and she then continued.

"Nearly every irresponsible decision you have made since I first met you as a child did not result in injury to anyone but you, or occasionally Ithildim. While your judgement is sometimes unfortunate, one could say that your self-sacrifice does not often affect those around you."

Lostariel stopped speaking and looked at Legolas assessingly. He did not notice her evaluating gaze, and so nodded innocently without looking at her from his position behind the mess table.

"I am lucky it does not," Legolas said quietly.

Suddenly Lostariel's eyes narrowed, and she crossed the distance from the spears to the table in two long strides. She pressed her hands into it as she leaned forward onto its surface, her face leaning well over Legolas'. Her hair swung in her agitation so that the tips of it tickled his nose.

"Legolas, have you listened to a single thing I have said?" Lostariel asked with a quiet anger.

"I have," said Legolas, lifting his eyes from his hands and considering her livid face calmly. "I notice now that you are angry with me, Lostariel, and I would understand why."

Lostariel hovered above him for a few moments longer and then pushed herself back from the table with a huff and crossed her arms across her taupe tunic, pacing in a slow ellipse between the wall of weaponry and the mess table in silence for more than a few minutes. Legolas watched her, then watched his hands, then observed the shadows playing on the wall across from the window, then considered his hands again, then his lap, and then watched Lostariel a while longer, until he could no longer sit quietly.

"Commander, I beg you speak," said Legolas. "Perhaps it is selfish, but I am confused, and I spent the past month being far too confused over simple things to be confused now over something of potential monument, while the one who is experiencing the grief and could explain it to me is right before me, walking in silent circles and thus making me slightly nauseous."

He looked at her seriously and then bowed his head respectfully when Lostariel finally stopped pacing and turned to face him. She looked at his passive and deferent mask for a moment before bursting into laughter, and at that Legolas looked up and laughed, too.

"Thank you for bringing me back this time, Legolas," Lostariel said, sitting down on the bench across from him.

"However I can best be of amusement and service," Legolas replied, and laughed.

Lostariel reached across the table and grasped his forearm, that had just a week before been still painful; Legolas grasped her forearm also, and smiled appreciatively.

"I will tell you what has upset me, though it is a bit more complicated than anger," she said.

"Thank you," said Legolas, and they released each other's arms and Legolas waited patiently for Lostariel to speak.

"I am upset because you do not place enough value on your own life," said Lostariel. "I have read the true report that you and Ithildim put together for Amonhir and I after your meeting with the king, several moons ago."

Here, Legolas flushed, feeling caught, as neither Amonhir nor Lostariel had yet approached him about the differences between their original oral report in the Council Room and the written one they had submitted for the records.

"It angers me to hear, even now, that you thought you were giving your life away for Ithildim, but were still subjugating your will to men who did not deserve that sacrifice."

Legolas opened his mouth to speak but Lostariel held up a hand to silence him.

"Yes, I am or course grateful that because of your decision both you and Ithildim survived, but you could not have known it would be so at the time," Lostariel said quickly, and Legolas closed his mouth and folded his hands again on the table. Lostariel continued. "So it seems you yet believe injury to yourself is not truly injurious to those who love you. I am upset that you grew up in a time that made you feel that way, and that in trying to give you and Ithildim the freedom to heal from the recent tragedy of the fire on your own, that you both have suffered for it."

Legolas scrunched his eyebrows and looked in Lostariel's face. He was perhaps more confused than he had been before.

"Lostariel, it is odd," he said. "For the emotional wounds I have caused to you and Ithildim and my father, and then the soldiers I have failed in my absensce? It is the very reason I doubt myself now."

Legolas' eyelids fluttered momentarily, and then he seemed to stare at a button on Lostariel's shoulder. The fingers of the arm that lay on the table rubbed together lightly as if he were trying to remove sap from the pads of them. Lostariel climbed off the bench and walked to the end of the table where a pitcher sat. She poured a glass of water and walked back to Legolas and sat again on the bench. Lostariel gently placed the water in front of Legolas near his arm and waited patiently, passively considering the way he had woven the shorter locks of hair around his face into his larger braid.

After a handful more seconds had passed for Lostariel, Legolas suddenly noticed that Lostariel was sat a few inches left of where she had been what seemed like just a moment before. He looked down to see the previously nonexistent cup of water she had sat by his hand, and Legolas felt himself becoming overwhelmingly frustrated. Had Lostariel not moved from her seat nor placed the glass of water before him, Legolas would not have even noticed he had lost any time. He resisted smashing the glass against the wall, but he instead brought both hands to the table and leaned onto his elbows. He took a deep breath and looked Lostariel straight in her dark eyes.

"I am sorry to have caused you such pain. I feel like I have lost touch with who I have always been," Legolas said, one hand tapping out a light rhythm on the back of the other as he spoke, urged on by anxiety. "I feel lost now, and all I want to do is go back to what I have always done, and what I know well, by muscle memory. And yet I cannot fully, and I feel angry, and like my purpose has been sundered from me, and my identity and relationships with my peers abandoned. I have put upon many people these past few weeks as a result of my foolish action, and now I despair, which is not a thing I knew before..."

When he trailed off, Legolas watched the almost imperceptible movements in Lostariel's face—an unnamed emotion tugged at the edges of her mouth; an unidentifiable feeling compelled her nostrils twitch once and her right eyebrow convulse indiscernibly. But Legolas could not put together the pieces to guess at what she was thinking, so he was glad when she finally spoke.

"You may have noticed, Legolas," said Lostariel quietly, "that those in the king's army and, especially we officers, do not often discuss our feelings, one to the other."

Legolas flushed and dropped his head; he pulled his hands into his lap with speed where they clutched together tightly.

"I am sorry then for my hasty words," he said.

Lostariel reached across the table and touched Legolas' chin, raising his eyes to her own.

"But that has not ever been the way with us, nor should it be the way among our warriors at all," said Lostariel; she dropped her hand from his face and folded them in front of her. "We each hold a lot of pain in our hearts, and I would not see one of my most intuitive captains and my longest trainee suffer needlessly. I need you healthy, as does our land."

Legolas did not speak for a long and silent minute, and his eyes had returned to the wood top of the table. Lostariel began to wonder if Legolas had once again slipped from the world around them, and she said softly his name. When Legolas did not respond, she reached across to touch his face again, lifting his chin to look in his eyes.

He turned his head away from her and his braid shifted from his shoulder to fall onto his chest. Lostariel removed her hand.

"I am here, Commander," he said, still not looking at her. "I am just exhausted."

"Yes, you are," said Lostariel. "Nevertheless, now—if you will, Legolas—I would talk to you about my concerns about you."

Legolas lifted his eyes. Lostariel saw him quickly survey the room as surreptitiously as possible, eyes lingering for a moment on the door to the training fields.

"No one has reason to be in the mess hall for quite a time yet," she said. "It is safe here."

"I know it is safe here!" Legolas said sharply, turning his head now to look at his commander.

Lostariel only appraised him and said nothing.

Legolas sighed. "I was rude, Lostariel. I do not know what is wrong with me. Please forgive me."

"It is well," she said, and she stood. "Come to my study. I will make tea and we will talk there."

Legolas stood and followed her as she walked away, several paces behind her. He bent to stealthily retrieve the brace he had ripped from his arm and thrown at the far wall in frustration when he first reached the reprieve of the mess hall. He slipped the brace back onto his arm and tightened the laces with with one hand as he walked.

When they had come to Lostariel's study, Legolas slipped into a tall oak chair across from her usual spot at the table, and dropped his head into his hands, untied laces dangling from his wrist like limp ivy in the height of summer. Lostariel turned away from him and dug some discarded mugs from beneath a map Legolas' brother had left absentmindedly draped over her things in the otherwise immaculate study. Lostariel checked the mugs for mold and then put a pot of water on in the fireplace at the far wall of her office. She stood there and waited for the water to boil. Once done, she walked back to the table.

"Chin up, Legolas," Lostariel said after several moments observing his sulking.

Lostariel sat a mug of steaming water in front of him and slid a metal net filled with chamomile, lemon balm, and mint into it. She took the laces of Legolas' brace into her hands and roughly tied a double knot, tucking the remaining length between the leather and his skin. He considered her vaguely as she did this, and then set his eyes to the mug, looking as if its presence offended him.

"I know what is in that water," said Legolas. "You have been speaking with Anaron. You have kept the rosehips and ginger for yourself, then!"

Lostariel was for a moment confused at the tone of his voice, and then Legolas looked up at her with a mischievous glint in his eye, and she laughed, and he did, too. Lostariel missed his brand of cheek.

"I did keep it for myself, Legolas. This is my study. Besides, as far as medicines go, yours are rather inoffensive. Just drink the draught."

He shrugged. "Once it has steeped, it is as you command."

Lostariel rolled her eyes and then pushed her own mug aside and folded her arms in front of her. She watched Legolas pushing the floating metal net around his mug with the tip of one long finger.

"Now we will talk," Lostariel said. "But, first, you will listen."

Thank you for reading! One long chapter and a shorter epilogue left, and then this story is at its end. Please consider reviewing!