CHAPTER 33) FATHER AND SON
"Adar?" Legolas exclaimed breathily, as Thranduil crossed the room as sinuously as ink in water.
He glanced at Aragorn with a look of complete bewilderment, his eyes wide and imploring, seeking confirmation. The man gave a small, reassuring smile, which did not seem to instill the confidence he had wished, for the Elf added shakily:
"This is a dream. It cannot be so…"
He trailed off croakily as Thranduil neared his bedside, wordlessly reaching out and bringing a slender hand to his son's paling cheek. Neither spoke a word, but merely stared at each other, transfixed, Thranduil's hand still gently resting by his face and tracing his jaw with inconceivable lightness.
"Legolas." he murmured. "It has been far too long, ionneg."
"It has." came the soft reply.
It was Legolas who broke the lingering glare by glancing away, evidently unsettled, and Thranduil's hand fell away from his face.
"Why are you here, adar?" he asked softly, drawing his gaze back to his father with a pained look. "You have not left the Greenwood in an age."
"I came because my son had need of me." Thranduil replied coolly. "The kingdom will be perfectly fine in my stead, do not fear. I am able to stay here so long as you continue to require me."
"I am fine." Legolas interjected, sitting up a little straighter. "I assure you, I am not at all – "
"I did not raise my son to be a liar, so do not lie." Thranduil cut across sharply, and a light blush appeared on Legolas' cheeks. "You wish that I had not come, do you not?"
"No, that is absurd." Legolas protested, shaking his head firmly. "I owe you my life, no less; do not think me ungrateful. It is simply that… I am not yet ready to discuss that which I know we must, considering the manner in which we last left each other."
"We left each other?" Thranduil repeated incredulously. "Unless my memory fails me, which it does not, there was no mutual separation – the way I recall it, you ran away into the night without a word of explanation."
Aragorn raised his eyebrows and glanced sharply at Legolas, whose pointed ears flushed red.
"I did not mean to cause you any pain – " he began.
"And yet you did." Thranduil interjected bluntly. "What does one mean by acting so rashly, taking off without notice or reason? It is the behavior of a child, or a Man, not an Elven prince – "
"You wished me gone!" Legolas blurted out. "My mere presence brought you continual pain, a constant reminder of what we had lost in the fight for our homeland. I was responsible for his death, adar, and you were too blinded by grief to act. I banished myself from Mirkwood, because you were too damaged to do so yourself!"
Thranduil recoiled as though he had been scalded by boiling water, and Aragorn shattered at the mere look on his friend's face. This was worse by far than seeing him bleed, a million times more painful than watching him be beaten and bruised, an infinite amount more ghastly than the possibility that he might never awaken. He would take all of those, and more, if it could stop the pain that seared in those blue eyes. But whilst wounds of the body can be bandaged and mended, those of the heart are far more complex, and he felt as hopeless watching Legolas' suffering as a man walking into battle armed with only a sewing needle.
"And I would take it back! I would take his place in a heartbeat, if only that luxury were available. But it is not, is it?" Legolas panted, gasping for breath. Aragorn could only imagine the pain his broken ribs must be dealing him, to yell so, but it did not hinder him.
"What you did was done with only the best intentions, you could not have – "
"It was parricide!" he retorted, and his eyes, which had brimmed with tears, now streamed openly and in earnest. Aragorn took a small step towards the bedside, but was shot a glare of such fury from the father that he stopped dead in his tracks.
"And so you decided that the best way to remedy this," Thranduil began, his anger mounting. "Was to leave? Did it even occur to you what anguish that would cause?"
Legolas stifled a sob, and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off immediately.
"When you left, it was without reason or notice or warning. I sent out parties, naturally, to search, but I knew that you would be gone, whipped away like a leaf in the wind. You were always speedier and quieter than most; as a child, your habit of hiding out in the trees past dark caused quite a lot of anxiety for the palace staff." he reminisced, with a small smile. "So, for months, I maintained hope that you were alive. And then came a messenger from Imladris."
Aragorn's mouth opened an almost imperceptible distance, and he had to consciously shut it.
"They told me that you had come forwards as a representative of our people, to partake in Elrond's Council." he said, with a light eye roll. "Of course, I had not sent you – I had not intended to send anyone to such an event, for surely any mission that Elrond deemed worthwhile was surely foolhardy."
Legolas glanced up at Aragorn with a look that screamed of guilt – the words his father spoke were not lies, not in any regard.
"A few days later, another message came, saying that you had set off with a Fellowship. A party, not even of Elves, but of Dwarves and Men and Halflings. I do not even know which of those ideas most repulsed me." Thranduil stated, shaking his head slightly. "But I was told of your mission – an act of suicide, by all accounts – and… I stopped hoping that you would return."
"Adar – " Legolas interjected tearfully, but a slender hand stopped the flood of words, of apologies and remorse that he could not help but give, even though of course, of course he had realized that all of this would happen, and yet still deemed it right.
"There was no faith in my heart from that day, because how could there be? You would surely be injured, at best, or killed, at worst. I faced an immortality filled with only guesses to fill the void of how you had been taken from me – kidnapped by orcs, or broken on the battlefield, or frozen to death on a rocky outcrop." Thranduil said with a tremble. "In short, I gave up hope, because I realized that the war that claimed my father would also claim my son."
Suddenly all of the pieces, the fragments and tears and angry exchanges, all clicked into place in Aragorn's head. He had never met the man of whom them spoke, of course, but he knew his story the same as he knew so many stories of Elven kings passed – Turgon and Fingolfin and Thingol and more, whose names were legend and whose tales were sung even ages after their passing.
"Oropher, of Doriath." Aragorn murmured under his breath. "But I do not understand how you can be at fault for his death – he died in battle, as a hero."
"There are no hero's deaths." Thranduil replied emotionlessly.
"Oropher fell on the fields of the Dead Marshes." Aragorn stated, his certainty fading. "I learnt the tale as a child. He led your people as a part of the Last Alliance, in a bid to overthrow Sauron's forces – "
"Nay, he did not: this is an inaccuracy that has become fact in the accounts of Men, though our memories yet serve us differently. It is little surprise that our histories are so often mistakenly told, for seldom do the Elves of Mirkwood stray to tell their tales elsewhere." Legolas murmured with a brief glance at his father, who either did not sense it or ignored the gesture. "Oropher – my grandfather – was killed in a siege against Dol Guldur, in an attempt to gain freedom for a Dwarvish king."
"Thráin? Son of Thrór?" Aragorn interjected in shock. "I did not know there was such a siege."
"That is because it did not succeed." Thranduil stated bluntly. "We lost many that day, including my father."
"But how was that at all your fault, Legolas?" Aragorn implored.
"I deemed it prudent that we aid the Dwarves, for they could not aid themselves. I was little more than a child, he should not have taken heed of my demands, but…" tears threatened to spill from his eyes again. "When news reached Mirkwood, I knew that it was my doing."
"Does Gimli know?"
"Know what? That we lost one of our own blood for a Dwarf?" Thranduil retorted derisively, but Legolas ignored him and shook his head.
"Nay, he does not."
But he came very close, Legolas added internally, his mind scrambling back to conversations that the two had held not months ago, while exploring the Glittering Caves.
"You are illustrating falsehoods!" Gimli spluttered angrily. "No battalion was sent forth from Mirkwood to rescue a Dwarf. Their king is Thranduil, and he despises my race!"
"Nay, my father is not fond of your kind. In fact, his resentment for your kindred runs very deep." Legolas admitted. "But there were those in Mirkwood who believed that we had a responsibility, for the sake of ancient allegiances with the Dwarves, to attempt to help him."
"Who? What Elf would think such a thing?" Gimli asked tauntingly.
"It was I." Legolas replied softly, diverting his eyes as though shameful. "I requested of my father that we lead a siege on Dol Guldur."
Gimli's jaw dropped, and his eyes bulged in shock. "You? How is it possible?"
"Remember, I had walked the lands of Middle-earth for hundreds of years before you were born, and will continue on indefinitely when you and your people fade from this earth. I was a mere century old, an Elfling by all common terms, but I had heard much of the conflict further south." Legolas uttered, his voice little more than a whisper. "My father, Thranduil, was not king at the time; his father, and my grandsire, Oropher, ruled the Greenwood. Oropher had equal distaste for the Dwarves as my father did, but I begged of him that we do something to help Thràin. Eventually, he listened."
"So you persuaded him to send troops to Dol Guldur?" Gimli asked incredulously.
"There were other forces at play; there was the danger that Sauron might attack our people, or else destroy more of the forest. But yes, for the most part, I was responsible." Legolas answered, his tone saddened for reasons the Dwarf could not comprehend.
"You were responsible? You make the gesture sound like one of cruelty, instead of kindness!" Gimli exclaimed. "Why does this sorrow you so?"
"I have not the heart to tell you, Gimli son of Glóin, for never again would you see me in the same light as you do now." Legolas replied, with a cold burst of laughter. "Nay, I have faced judgement enough. I do not need yours to add to my regret."
Legolas shook the memory firmly from his thoughts.
"He will discover the truth soon enough, I do not doubt." he said softly. "In time, all things foul must come to light."
"There is nothing foul in this." Thranduil interjected softly, startling both Aragorn and Legolas. "Sorrow, certainly, but not foulness."
Legolas' fine brow crinkled lightly. "You speak in twisted tongues, with words that both commend and condemn. How can you rage about your father's death, yet not call it foul? It seems our time apart has left us strangers."
"Well, you might have known, had you stayed, that I never did blame you for it." Thranduil replied smoothly.
His son cocked his head slightly, blinking up at him with the same wide-eyed expression he had bore as a child who did not understand their lessons.
"Perhaps it has taken me a long while to realize that fact, and it required losing not only him but you too for me to truly see it, but…" Thranduil murmured the words so gently that Aragorn was surprised it could issue from one so cold. "I do not blame you for my father's death, Legolas. I never really did."
"But you said – " Legolas began in confusion.
"I am angry that you ran away from home." he amended pointedly. "But I do not hold you responsible for my father's death. How could I? You merely followed your heart, just as you were raised to, and your judgement was right, even if it had dire implications. But there is no guilt on your part, my child."
Legolas' bottom lip trembled almost indiscernibly as his father glanced up from his feet, face framed between two curtains of silver-blond.
"By all accounts, my father died a soldier's death – an honourable death. Your heart was steady when you sent him off to fight. He would have been honoured to fall in the line of duty, for a cause so noble." he stated, chin jutting proudly. "And… and…"
His words faltered as his voice trembled like an earthquake.
"I am just glad to see you, my Greenleaf." he whispered. "I never expected that I would be granted the chance to stand beside you once more, and for that alone, I am blessed beyond all grief, beyond all suffering."
Legolas reached out to grasp his father's shaking shoulders, to pull him into his arms just as Thranduil had when he was an Elfling, but he shied away from his son's touch.
"Forgive me." he implored, his voice desperate. "Forgive one who has grown too old to know what it is like to be young, and strong, and good. But I know, now, that you are wearied, and I know that you are hurt, and yet I beg that you realize these burdens are not yours to bear. They never were."
"Adar." Legolas mumbled tearily, resting his head against his father's chest, once again no more than a weary child.