Okay, so ... I have neither died, nor been kidnapped, nor have I abandoned this story to the pits of hell. I've just been really, really busy. There is not enough time in the world! But I am sorry to all of you who have waited so patiently - and impatiently, in some cases! - for an update to this story. But I thank all of you for your continued support, and as a bit of a Christmas present, I'm giving you a super-duper long chapter...
Enjoy!
~Ghost
Chapter Eighteen: Falling
He did not know what they were going to do.
A care-worn, weighted sigh pushed half-heartedly at the stale air, air that had not been refreshed for at least ten hours, because he doggedly refused to let himself out of his study until the matter was resolved. For this was a very, very serious problem for their people. But no matter which way Daerahil looked at it, there was no feasible way he could maintain the imports from the south.
The lands south of the river were lost. Only eight nights ago, six settlements of their people had been completely annihilated in one foul synchronised attack. Many had died, and those few who had survived had lost everything to the plague of orcish might. A weighted pall of grief had settled over the Halls, and only the tears of those left behind lifted the silence.
Thranduil's fury was unparalleled. Daerahil had seldom seen their king so consumed by wrath. The order was immediately passed for all south of the river to evacuate to the Halls. The patrols along the forest road were pulled and commanded to regroup at the northern riverbank. Thranduil had gathered their key forces and ridden out to hold the river … for Eryn Galen was deep in winter's bite, and the river would not remain impassable for much longer.
It was the pulling of the patrols that caused Daerahil the greatest concern. Without the patrols, there was no defence on the road. Traders from the south who brought much needed supplies would not walk the road to the Halls without the watchful eyes of the elves guarding them. News of their plight had travelled quickly, and Daerahil cast a despairing eye over the tiny scrolls brought by bird from each of the traders, severing their contracts indefinitely.
The hours had stretched from him, his eyes strained through pawing over maps and documents charting their supplies. Their stocks were healthy, but with the flooding of the Halls of new mouths to feed, reserves that should have lasted them the winter out would not last them a month. Even if game was plentiful, hunts had to be restricted through necessity…
Daerahil pulled at his brow with long fingers. Stress stamped at his soul. He did not know what to do…
He jumped when the door was flung open. Irritation barbed at his already poor mood: his request to be left alone had been ignored, and he openly growled his displeasure as he turned from his desk to glare at the intruder. But Galion was not so easily cowed, and Daerahil felt the scowl lift from his brow as he took in the open worry on Galion's face.
Galion was not a character prone to open expression of his feelings. Too many years as Thranduil's butler had taught him to school his features in the face of the king's frequently flitting moods. He possessed such an extreme sense of propriety that he bordered on prudish, and there were few within the Halls whom he called friend. Galion did not care, however: he was head butler to the king, a position that fitted perfectly with his pride and manner, and he was more than happy with his position.
For someone so composed, so steady, to have agitation so clearly etched into their face, was cause to be very worried.
Daerahil found his feet, all thoughts of irritation wiped clear. "Galion … whatever's the matter?"
The other elf stepped forward, the urgency so clear in his eyes portrayed in the thud of his boots on the oak floor. Only when his hand extended did Daerahil notice the tiny scroll in his fingers. "This has just arrived by hawk," he stated, his tone clipped. "It's from Elrond."
Elrond? Whatever was in the scroll was urgent if Elrond would willingly risk a hawk in this weather… Was Imladris under attack? Was Elrond looking to them for aid? They were barely managing themselves, they could not possibly afford to send any forces away –
But when the tight twist of parchment unravelled its secrets in his fingers, Daerahil felt his face pale. His heart clenched painfully and he felt panic elevate through his blood.
"I need my horse."
Galion looked horrified. "Your horse? Daerahil, you can't possibly ride out with the-"
"It's Legolas, Galion." The words barged through Galion's protests and split them apart. The butler's lips were agape, but his shock held his silence. But for Daerahil, giving the words of the tiny scroll voice forced them into reality, and he had to clench his fists at his side to stay their sudden shaking. "Thranduil must be told, and I must be the one to tell him."
Because it is my fault.
-(())-
In the waxing light, the focus that an elf fought so hard for finally slipped. His eyes shuttered themselves from the agonised stare of his friends to find what little shred of peace might be left to him. He did not want to leave, but nor could he stay. It was not death that claimed him, not this time, but the cold and dangerous slip into unconsciousness that sought to disconnect him from the world, from his friends, because while he had been pulled back from death, he did not have the strength to cope with life.
Aragorn felt his chest shift in panic as he watched his friend's eyes seal him out. His hand jolted from the elf's slack grip to find the pulse point in his throat-
He is not dead. Calm, knowing.
He did not understand from where the reassuring thought in his mind stemmed, but his panic ignored it, pressing his fingers deep into Legolas' throat … only when he felt the weak yet consistent flutter did he lift his touch. Aragorn started to breathe again, unaware that he had ignored the basic request of his body until his chest ached. Fighting the swell of nausea triggered by the plunge between two extremes of fear and relief, the ranger carefully disengaged himself from the limp body in his arms and laid him back on his uninjured side in the leaves.
"Aragorn?"
He did not have the composition to answer, not immediately. Aragorn eased himself back on his haunches, his palms braced against his thighs as he stared at a ghost. Legolas was still, so very still, and it seemed an impossibility that life could reside within the broken husk his body had become. The ranger hauled one steadying breath, and another, easing them out through his nostrils as he balled his trembling hands into fists where they were: he needed to clench the shake from them, they had to be steady…
Aragorn plied his eyes from Legolas, and looked up at Gimli. The dwarf did not notice that he was being observed. His face was ashen behind the braided fire of his beard, his eyes caught in a net of uncertainty. Aragorn could see so much of what he felt mirrored in their earthen hues as the dwarf kept them riveted on their elven companion. The old grievances that had stood between the pair for so long were not even shadows in the weight of concern Gimli bestowed on Legolas. He had openly elected to disregard the opinion of his entire people to allow for a forbidden friendship, and now that he had stepped so far away from their state of traditional loathing, there was no way he could backtrack to their previous condition.
Given the choice, Aragorn would have no-one else by his side.
"Will you help me finish this while he is not awake?" His voice juddered and skipped, but there was no hiding what he felt, and it would be a mark of disrespect to Gimli to try and hide it. As a return, all the dwarf could offer him was a slight incline of his head, but it was all Aragorn needed. With one final deep breath, Aragorn retrieved his tools and continued with his task.
There could be no greater contrast between then and the time before. It felt strange to him that he did not have to pin his friend down as he took his fine tools to Legolas' flesh once more, plucking tiny fragments of dirt and grit from the angered wound. Gimli provided some of the cooled water to rinse the blood away whenever it was needed, and after only a few prompts, he was able to accurately anticipate when Aragorn would need his service. They worked in silence, the muslin parcel of sleeping herbs with the tiny glass vial of alcohol close to Gimli's hand … but all through Aragorn's attentions, Legolas did not rouse.
"I think I preferred it when he struggled."
Against his better judgement, Aragorn was inclined to agree as Gimli echoed his thoughts. This caustic silence was eating at his nerve: the healer in him appreciated the stillness of his ward, but worried endlessly over the drastic change in condition. "As did I, my friend."
After what felt like an eternity of picking, the cloth by Aragorn's side was peppered with tiny bloodied fragments of stone and muck. Though he looked, he found no further evidence of sword shards within the archer's side, which was the only mercy he could see in their entire damned situation. With a final flush, Aragorn deemed that they had done as much as they could for him. The poultice was applied, and Gimli gently lifted Legolas upright so that Aragorn could wrap his torso with linin bandages, the binding tight enough to hold the broken ribs in place for them to heal. Aragorn doggedly ignored his own bloodied fingerprints standing so stark against the soft white.
"Have we done enough?"
"It's the best we can do."
"That's not what I asked."
"It's all I can give you."
He was too weakened to maintain the element of him that was the prevailing healer, and the strength he had relied on so desperately abandoned him. Now that it was gone, tremors caught Aragorn's hands up and made them near useless, and all he could see in the waxing light was their crimson coating, feeling the tackiness of congealing blood tighten on his skin and attempt to meld his fingers to each other.
Revulsion mounted in the back of his throat and forced him to his feet. Dimly, Aragorn knew that Gimli called after him, but he had no time to pause and offer an explanation as he staggered through the crowding trees for the river. They were stopping him, trying to keep him from what he needed, and twice in his frantic state they managed to herd him into sheer banks, a trout in a fish trap…
The sudden break of oppressive forest to the open light of the pebbled shoreline made his pounding head wheel, and he did not care that he pitched his knees into the water when he all but flung himself down at the river's calm edge. The numbing cold was nothing to him as he plunged his stained hands into the gently lapping surface, flinging wide the shimmering mirror of the first night stars.
Swells of water carried the staining away in lazy wafts, but it was too slow. He scrubbed at his skin in desperation to be clean again, even taking up a stone and drawing it over the tiny channels in his hands, dragging it over the planes of his palms - and stopped. It was not the vigour of the punishing cleansing that halted his actions, or even that the roughness of the stone threatened to flay his skin from his hands. It was the sting in his palms that awoke at the rough treatment, dulled by the frigid water but there all the same, and horror melted into him as his eyes took in the impossible:
A myriad of cuts patterned them in streaks running down his palms, his fingertips scoured and sensitive … cuts that would be synonymous with pulling his body over sharp stones.
Nausea rose in his throat, strong and insuppressible, and what little there was in his stomach left him in a violent purge.
-(())-
It seemed a strange and foreign thing, this span of silence. There was a sharp perfection to its withering embrace, and he wished he could stay wrapped in its folds for the rest of eternity. If he could meld with it, if he could become as much a part of the silence as the clouds on high, or the wintering trees, or the snow itself, then perhaps he could find true peace. It twisted with the snow flurries and coated the trees, numbing the forest to memories of what had just happened beneath the contorted boughs.
But this peace was a lie.
Thranduil did not move. A movement would sully the stillness, and the weight in his heart would not permit him to do so. He simply stood, watching as the fresh snow attempted to cleanse the forest floor of the blood that saturated it. Soon everything would be a smooth carpet of sharp white, and the outside world would be oblivious to what had occurred here. Yet Thranduil knew that the stains would still be there, and there was no depth of snow nor passage of time that could possibly erase the memory of what had happened in this place. Three of his kin had fallen here today, and neither he nor the forest would ever forget.
The narrowest point of the river slipped before him, a black band cutting boldly through stark white. He could leap it, if he had a mind to. The distance was not great, it would take only a stretch of effort for an elf to clear it … but to do so would be suicidal. For the river, constant and unassuming, was their last line of defence. It was the barrier between life and death, the last stand of the elves of the wood… And it was seeking to betray them.
Even as Thranduil observed, clods of ice were harried down the water's course. Most of it jostled its way downstream, but some of it succeeded in catching in the jagged contours of the banks. It was naught but a matter of days before the black water would become a white bridge. Seldom did the ice become thick enough in other stretches of the river to cross without risk, but where the water bottlenecked at this point, it often froze solid enough to bare considerable weight … and the orcs knew this just as well as the elves did. They had to hold it. If their defences failed at this juncture, everything would be lost.
It promised to be a very long winter.
Sharper cold snapped his hair into his face. He could hear them from across the bank, their guttural tongue not far enough away to be dismissed, but not close enough to be deemed a threat at that moment. They had lost many today. Thranduil could smell their corpses from where he stood, abandoned without a care to the few scavengers of the night that still dared to wander the old paths.
Thranduil lifted his eyes to the sky through the thick net of the tree branches. The pregnant clouds were taking on the dark weight of coming night. It would not be long until it all started again, when the shy sun was well and truly gone from the skies and the orcs embraced the strength of the darkness. There would be no stars tonight.
But there was a darker oppression pulling on the king, something separate to the nightmarish situation in which he and his people had found themselves marred. Anxiety frayed his nerve and harried his thoughts and distraction pulled on his attention. Something was wrong. He did not know what it was, but it amounted to an unrelenting pulse of fear deep in his breast that made him nauseous whenever he lent it thought.
Something else ruptured the peace, something on his side of the river, and Thranduil felt his heart sag as the angered tones of hot confrontation grew louder:
"Your disrespect disgusts me-"
"Likewise: for you to not allow them the basic right-"
"It is not a right! They are not children-"
Fury now: "Children? When did respect become-"
"Enough." Weariness dragged his voice down to a quiet shadow of its usual self, but it was enough to silence the two warring parties as they came to a halt behind him. Thranduil took a moment to collect himself before he turned to regard the two elves, casting them each a cool look: Halastore, his lieutenant, and Laehril, Legolas' second. Halastore's lips were pinched in a thin line of righteous conviction, his senior position never relenting the rod of pride seemingly permanently disabling his back. But Halastore had been at Thranduil's side from the beginning, and there were few he trusted more.
Laehril was something quite different: everything about his carriage suggested an almost coltish pride married with his youth. For he was young, very young … not much older than Legolas had been when he had first started his warrior training, and certainly not as old has Legolas was when he had actually taken his brother's place in command. Thranduil had thought Legolas' decision to leave the young laegel in his place as foolish and brash, the dangerous whim of an angered captain determined to irk his king through spite. Indeed, Laehril's inexperience was always perfectly clear whenever Thranduil met with his captains, when the prince's second fell into an overwhelmed silence in the midst of so many who – in some cases – had millennia of experience on him.
Right now, Laehril openly seethed, the hot colour of anger patterning high on his cheeks, his eyes dark with almost feral fury. His stance before his king was respectful, his back straight and eyes fixed and forward in preparation to report … but his temper was barely in check, and it would take little to entice him to lose it altogether. Further proof of his inexperience and unsuitability…
"I would care to know," said Thranduil, his irritation with the pair clear in the calm bite of his voice, "why you have both seen fit to show such a disappointing lack of professionalism."
"My King," Halastore stepped forward half a pace in an attempt to monopolise Thranduil's attention. "The acting captain proposes to further endanger the lives of those not only under his command, but all others else as well."
Laehril shot the other elf a look of fire before he remembered himself and pulled his eyes forward.
Incredulity raised Thranduil's brow. "Really? And how, pray tell, will he manage to achieve this?"
"I seek to fulfil the wishes of my warriors, nothing more," Laehril injected through gritted teeth.
"Laegrim foolishness!" Halastore shot back. "Typical of a lae-"
Thranduil's patience was rapidly fraying. "If neither of you are capable of telling me what the actual argument is here, I will reissue your commands to others with a greater sense of propriety. Are we clear?"
He meant it, and the ensuing silence informed him that they knew he did. Thranduil's mood was rapidly slipping, and it was in the better interests of his two officers that they reveal the crux of the issue to him swiftly.
"Laehril and his command wish to sing, my King." Derision rang through Halastore's statement, echoed in his eyes as open distain.
Surprise lifted Thranduil's brow. "They wish to sing?"
"It is a lament, not a child's ditty," Laehril snapped. The sharp retort was fired at Halastore, but its direction had still gone to the wrong person, and the youth cowed at the flare of anger in his king's face. But his brazen attitude pushed through his embarrassment: "We wish to honour our fallen kin through a lament as we always do, my King. That is all we ask."
"It is a foolish beacon to our enemies of weakness! Sire, if we do this, we leave ourselves wide open."
Despite Halastore's fervent protest, Thranduil's interest was trapped by Laehril's proposed intentions. It was so long since he had fought alongside the laegrim that his attentions to their traditions had faded. Two of those three lost today had been from Laehril's detachment … Legolas' detachment.
"The dead will be honoured on our return to the Halls, as they always are."
"I beg your forgiveness, my King, but the laegrim traditions of respect are not honoured by the sindarin means."
"That is the way those who fall are honoured," Halastore interjected, moving in on what he heard as support for his argument from his king.
Laehril gave a derisive snort. "Yes: in the Halls, where few laegrim will tread. You will honour children of the forest in a house of stone where they would never set foot by choice."
While Halastore bristled at Laehril's sharp tone, Thranduil finally thought he understood his son's choice: for all Laehril's quiet presence in the councils, his dedication to those under his command was unwavering, even to the point where he was prepared to challenge his king in their defence. He needed to mature, but there was promise there.
"Laehril… Does your prince allow for this?"
Something broke in the youth's eyes, a snap of surprise. He fixed the king with an almost saddened honesty, more open and direct than most dared. It was clear to Thranduil in that moment that he was not the only one who missed the prince … and that there were things he did not know about his own son. "Yes."
And Thranduil believed him, even as Halastore openly shook his head and sneered at Laehril's claim. Thranduil was taken by the undeniable sensation that, had Legolas been there, this conversation would not be occurring. He would have overridden Halastore's objections with the weight of his seasoned authority out-right, and this argument would never have escalated as high as the king. Thranduil found it suddenly shaming that any question had been brought to Laehril's intentions at all.
"Then I have no right to stop you."
For the first time that night, both captains were united in their stunned expressions. It was short-lived, as Halastore quickly recovered and moved to object – until Thranduil raised his hand and gave him a silencing look, pitched with warning. Grudgingly accepting the king's ruling, Halastore bowed, clear betrayal in his eyes as he respectfully submitted. Laehril, on the other hand, seemed suddenly hesitant, the fiery zest of his passionate convictions leaving an unsure elfling in their wake.
"What is it, Laehril?"
"Please, Sire … it is the highest-ranking officer who opens the lament."
Surprise raised Thranduil's brow so high it threatened to disappear. Lead the lament? Under sindarin traditions, laments were carried by a minstrel, with whom all others joined in the core of the song. As it was, there were three minstrels in the Halls. All three were charged with safeguarding the lore of their people, and that duty included remembering those who had fallen. But a part of him distantly recalled the laegrim tradition Laehril spoke of, trapped in a web of unwanted memories of a battle long ago in which his father and so many of their kin perished. It had fallen to a much younger Thranduil to do as Laehril was asking of him now, and while Laehril was far too young to remember that awful time, he knew there would be some amongst them who would.
"How you can have the gall-"
"It is alright, Halastore."
Halastore bit off the scathing reprimand at his king's instruction, but the seething glare he flung at Laehril said more than he could ever vocalise. To Laehril's credit, he kept his nervous eyes on his king … and only when Thranduil gave a single nod of agreement to Laehril's request did the young warrior's expression brighten. Laehril extended his hand from his heart in a too-quick bow, and made to leave his king-
"Laehril!"
The elf turned ridged as one of the stone-still trees surrounding them. Worry was in his eyes as he looked back on his king-
"Legolas would be proud of you today."
The young captain's eyes softened, and Thranduil felt something change between them, something deeper than a granted request could ever reach. His silver head dipped respectfully, and he was gone.
"Never did I think I would be bested by a sapling."
Thranduil gave a weary smile at Halastore's beaten remark. "Neither did I, my friend, yet here we are." He paused, then: "He is young and has much to learn yet, but he is not so undeserving … perhaps we should lend him our attentions more readily in future."
It was a soft rebuke as well as a suggestion, but Halastore bowed to it: he might hold contempt for a captain so young and not placed by the official means, but his respect for his king was boundless, and if this was Thranduil's desire, he would see it through.
With that as his parting word, Thranduil left his captain in the snow for the nearest tree. A leap to a low branch and a spring, and he was in the boughs as he had not been in centuries, embraced by the many iron-cold arms of the beech. A shower of powdered snow tumbled from his chosen limb at his weight, the fact that so many years had lapsed since he had last been in a tree betraying him. Thranduil stilled, listening. The song of the river garbled as it pulled sluggishly over its bed. He could hear the soft landing of thickening snowflakes, like the padding of countless cats, and if he really listened, the slowed life-force of the tree he occupied could be detected under its winter blanket, groaning at the cold and dreaming of summer.
But above the sounds of winter peace, of life, he heard the growing snarls of the enemy. The darkening skies sapped the light from the forest, pressing the stark black of the trees against the blue shadow of the deepening snow. Approaching was the favoured time of the orc, and even now, Thranduil could hear their demonic snarls becoming more prevalent as they hounded the sun into hiding.
They had no right to be there. They had no right to be in his lands, terrorising and murdering his people. It disgusted and enraged him that their filth had so successfully swarmed through the forest.
His voice opened to the night, defiant and proud. He sang for those who were lost, and for those who grieved them. Even through the gravity of the song, Thranduil felt his fëa glide, and when the song passed to those around him, any fears he might have harboured that it would not be taken up were dismissed. A chorus of voices rose to meet him, strong and sweet, spanning wide from the trees surrounding him with their spectre-like archers, to the warriors far from the riverbank. And he was delighted for Laehril when he heard not only the laegrim, but the sindarin amongst them.
All present arrived under one banner, but now they were as a single people, united through loss to set aside their cultural divides. There was not an elf in the forest who did not feel the desperation of their situation, none who did not morn the destruction of the forest and the loss of kin … but they had not carried their loss together since the War, and that was far too long.
Somewhere in the trees to Thranduil's right, a hidden archer lifted his voice high above the others and diverted the song from its original course. A pause, and other voices climbed to join him: they no longer sang for the fallen, but for the living, an ancient laegrim war song of strength and courage, of light and heart. Across the river, dismayed shrieks and hateful jeers rose against the wall of elven unity, afraid of the light rising in the forest where there should be none-
A warning call, sharp and separate to the song:
The song snapped. Where the trees had channelled the strength of elven voices across the forest, silence fell. Those on the ground melded so perfectly with their surroundings that wayward travellers could be forgiven for believing that some spell had emptied the forest completely … until a second cry rang out: elven rider.
From the murk, the pounding of galloping hooves reverberated through the trees, and a single rider suddenly emerged through the snow flurries, his honey-coated mare steaming and snorting as he pulled her to a sudden stop. Elves rushed to meet him, trying to calm the flighty mare as her master dismounted, an elf with golden hair and amber eyes…
Thranduil felt his heart plummet. He prayed that this was some minor quibble that had brought his most trusted friend out here into danger, a foolish misjudgement on Daerahil's part that would be resolved in a moment. But he knew as he left his tree that Daerahil would never choose to leave the Halls lightly. Whatever this was, it was grave, and the look in the eyes of his trusted friend told him so as he approached. Never had he seen them so heavy. Fear coiled in his gut to know what could possibly take the light so completely from Daerahil's honey gaze.
Daerahil said nothing as Thranduil approached, merely holding out a tight, tiny scroll…
-(())-
Time abandoned Aragorn in much the same manner as the water pulled over the falls: immeasurable, unstoppable. He was rendered into a subdued quiet, silenced by the weight of his own thoughts. At some point, he had edged away from the water, but the cold had its grip on his legs, biting down like a dog on the throat of a dear. Aragorn could not find it within himself to care.
The unparalleled headache … the vivid 'dream' … knowing above his trained healer's sense that Legolas lived…
He understood now, and the sheer power of realising what he had done, what he – what they – had so narrowly escaped should not have been possible. What in the name of Arda had he wielded in place of his sword? What was he, that he could overthrow the Nazgûl, even for so short a time? How had they managed to pull Legolas' fëa into such a vile place? Aragorn had never known that such a world existed. It seemed like a realm in which the Nazgûl had total power … what did it make him, that he could follow? Who was he, that he had the ability to equal them in their own world? The truth of what had happened was frightening … but the mounting catalogue of unanswered questions were equally so.
Yet despite the unanswered questions and clamouring doubts, all he could envision in his mind were those black blades, ripping into Legolas' fëa with savage abandon. The sound of the thrushes greeting the night were overwhelmed by the archer's agonised screams, the sharp glint of the emerging stars dulled by the cruel glimmer of jagged swords…
Oh, Legolas … what have they done to you? A finger glided over the cross hatch of scores in his palm. If this was how his encounter with the Nine manifested itself, what damage had they wrought on Legolas? He did not want to think on the implications of what they could have done to him, but the more he resisted, the more intense the thoughts became, hammering at his walls like an unstoppable disease…
Discomfort tugged at the back of his skull. It was not his own: a tiny beacon to him that he recognised now from their shared horror. It peaked, and subsided into nothing. He likened it to a blunt needle pressing into numbed flesh. A space of empty moments, and it was there again, sharper. His call to go. Aragorn dashed water over his face and swilled his mouth, forcing his numb legs to work for him and take him back to camp.
The uneven, rich gilding of fire on the flanks of the trees guided him back to their camp. It was more vibrant than the one he had left behind, fed and merry in its nest of shadows. The dwarf sat on the rotting log on the other side of it seemed framed with flame, the orange light catching in his beard and hair and making him look like some kind of fire spirit. But it was to Legolas that Aragorn went. He pressed his fingertips into the elf's pulse point, feeling his lifeblood fly too fast and too weak under the careful pressure, his skin hot with climbing fever.
"He's not moved."
Aragorn straightened at the quiet statement and joined his friend. He sat heavily in the leaf litter, preferring to lean his back into the dead wood of Gimli's seat than share it with him. Silence sat with them, unpunctuated by the anticipated questions from dwarf to man. It was a surprise, but it was welcome: Aragorn did not feel that he had it in him to answer any of the questions that doubtlessly writhed in Gimli's head, and he was thankful that they were not broached. But he was subjected to a shameless level of scrutiny. Aragorn tried to ignore it, but it was akin to Lord Elrond inspecting his writing when he was a boy, and he felt unbelievably self-conscious.
But before Gimli could broach whatever it was that teetered on the edge of his tongue, Aragorn felt a sharp and constant pull at the edge of his mind. Before Legolas' awakened pain came as a cracked exclamation from his lips, Aragorn was beside him. The archer's eyelids fluttered, his breathing coming in sharp intakes as he rediscovered the damage to his chest and struggled against it. He attempted to twist away from it, but succeeded only in pushing himself against a wall of pain and choked out a ragged gasp –
"Sedho - hodo, Legolas!" Aragorn urged. "You mustn't struggle. Be still-"
-(())-
Consciousness broke through and snatched him from the cavern of oblivion in which he had somehow managed to hide. The sensation of sickening weightlessness plucked at him, like he was completely adrift in an endless expanse of water. To make it worse, a great serpent of nausea writhed in the pit of his stomach and quickly raised its ugly sights to his throat. He tried for a deeper breath to quell it-
Deep and raw agony was his only reward. The breath that was meant to steady him felt hot and airless as forge heat. Every fibre of his being thrummed with its power, and his body sang back, too hot, too cold, unable to stand the harsh and unrelenting cord of pain. The strength of his misery dominated his need to stay still and vocalised itself with a treacherous choking cry.
With a pulse of despair, he realised that feeling came with existence, and that in turn meant that he had not somehow escaped. He had not faded, he had not dissipated into nothingness, and he had no memory of what had become of Estel. He was still a prisoner, still as helpless as a child's play thing and completely under their control.
Dark utterings of his own name spoken in a black tongue leaked through his flesh and poisoned his blood, relishing his pain and wanting more. He would give anything to stop existing, to become little more than a lost memory. Even though it could only be the end, he refused to open his eyes to them: if he could preserve one last part of himself from their corruption, it would be his eyes … his mother had loved his eyes…
How cruel it was that he had not died that first night.
"Legolas … look at me."
No - I will not-
There were no reserves left to draw on, no more walls he could use to protect the lethal secret he kept in his heart. Why did they still toy with him, when he was laid completely bare to them?
"Look at me, Legolas."
Something lighted on his arm – a hand, a grasping claw, reaching for his flesh again-
"Don't … don't touch me…" It was meant to be a show of defiance, a blast of strength backed by the might of his race … but even his voice mocked him as it emerged as little more than a pathetic whimper, the whine of a crippled pup. And he hated himself for it, true, vehement hatred. "Don't touch me!"
A violent jerk, and he snatched his arm back. The shock of the sharp action hurt and his throat betrayed that to his tormentors. Without his instruction, his eyes flew open on his attackers, and the last shield he had against them was gone.
He was in a cage of shadows, rotting faces grinning at his plight, their open malevolence pouring over him in rancorous waves. But the thing that really terrified him was the melting face of the Witch-king above him, empty sockets boring through him and searching out the last of his secrets. He was speaking, saying his name, the words oozing from his grisly tongueless maw, toxic and smothering-
Terror made him fight past the pain to shove the demon from him – but his arm was caught in a grip of strength he could not counter, his body crushed into submission. A sob melded with bitter, sickening fear and ripped from his throat when his other arm was trapped and he tried to twist away-
Searing agony sheered through his wrist. He screamed – he could not hold it back-
"Aragorn!" A voice separate to the nightmares, gruff and harsh with surprise and anger.
A closer voice bit back, coloured red with anger and strain-
As soon as the crushing grip had come, it relinquished. The clawed fingers did not completely let go, but the hold was suddenly gentle, almost too light to notice, but Legolas could not stand to look upon the spider-like grip, encapsulating the total damning power they had over him in one simple hold…
"Legolas! Saes, mellon nin! Look at me!"
There was a voice he knew, a voice he should not be hearing … but it was so near, so strong … more powerful than the foul whispers in the dark. He could hear the quiet bickering of the flames of a small fire. High branches gossiped with the wind, and creatures of the night jostled leaf litter as they foraged for food. Distantly, the forceful roar of tumbling water sounded with unstoppable might…
The command came again, Aragorn's voice pleading and strained. And he obeyed. Because it was Aragorn who willed him to do so, Aragorn who had done the impossible and followed where none should ever tread…
Framed by the night above them was not the decaying face of evil, but a face he knew well, coloured warm amber on one side by firelight that caught in his silver eyes and turned them gold. The winter wind caught in his untidy hair and jostled it about his face, but he had no care for it, as he never had. Stress pinched at his eyes and mouth, but the tired smile of relief he gave Legolas, of a hard battle won, erased some of the evidence. There was nothing about Aragorn's countenance that suggested he feared the shades that had plagued his elven friend.
"Quel undome."
Legolas felt his brow furrow, the action catching at the bruising there. He turned his attention beyond Aragorn to the encroaching shadows. What had been leering demons delighting in his suffering were now majestic beech trees, tall and non-threatening as they guarded their camp.
Over Aragorn's shoulder, he glanced the dwarf, hovering uncertainly and clearly struggling to find a comfortable way of being in their company.
He tried for a deeper breath and immediately wished he had done no such thing. His chest was a mess of pain, but there was something different about it, and he groggily realised that his ribs were being restrained. A leaden hand tried to explore the new tightness, and his fingers brushed over precisely bound material-
"Let it alone," Aragorn chided. Legolas' questing hand was gently removed and positioned back at his side. Even if he had wanted to, he did not think he could lift it again. The roughness of bark snagged at his face, and he knew he lay at the foot of a tree. Beneath the cool hard skin, he could sense the enduring life of the living sculpture, steady and wonderfully alive.
Water was offered to his lips without need for him to ask. He drank deeply, only then realising how truly thirsty he was. The coldness of the water was in sharp contrast to the dry furnace of his throat, and he was so grateful for it, he could have wept. When the flask was finally taken away, he could do nothing save breathe. Every breath was a short snatch of air, shallow and fast. He could feel his heart fluttering and bucking like a panicked bird caught in netting. Another attempt at moving-
"Be still," Aragorn advised. The ranger pressed his hand into Legolas chest, emphasising his words with the firm touch. It was a healer's instruction, the version of Aragorn who would not be disobeyed. "Your body needs you to suffer it a little leniency right now."
Legolas had encountered this version of Aragorn before, the assertive healer who had adopted the indomitable nature of his tutor. It would prove a foolish decision to try and defy him: while Aragorn was not quite as merciless as Lord Elrond, he possessed his severity. All Legolas could do was as he was bid. Even if he truly wished to resist, he did not have the strength for it.
The dark was a tight blanket. The stars were stolen from his view … whether they were jealously concealed by cloud or dimmed from his sight by his own weakness, Legolas did not know … but their absence pained him. Even the moon did not choose to look down on him. The only source of light was the fire, nestled in the centre of their camp like a complacent guard dog: throwing the advance of the shadows, but not with enough force to banish them completely. And it was so cold…
When he drew his wandering gaze back, he found that he was being analysed with unforgiving scrutiny. The thrown shadows across the ranger's frowning face mercilessly displayed every care the man had like flourishing penwork across parchment. He looked bone weary, the weight of the world on his shoulders and pulling the joy from his eyes. It was sad.
"You look awful."
Aragorn snorted at the quip. "Perhaps you'd revise that statement if you could see yourself."
Legolas smiled tiredly, his eyelids sagging. A tremor of shivers convulsed his body, the discomfort they enticed warping his brow still further and gritting his teeth. Flashes of searing heat and deep chill burned his brow and stroked his skin uncomfortably. Fogging numbness claimed his head with a sickening weightlessness, a sensation he was familiar with …
Legolas' breath snagged in alarm, and he could only look in horror at his friend's face as the shadows cast into stark relief by the throw of the firelight bled into unnatural red, the amber glow of Aragorn's illuminated skin blotching with virulent green. The ranger's suddenly jet black hair was silhouetted against a sky of dark purple. Desperate to stop it, he shuttered his eyes and angled his head down towards his chest, willing it to leave him alone… But the world tipped and bucked violently away from him anyway, and Legolas felt his weak grip on control fall away…
He thought Aragorn might have called out to him – he felt his hand close over his arm – but he heard nothing.
His body erupted into a trap of agonising spasms. Waves of sickness contorted his stomach and toyed with the back of his throat. The pain tore into him as it had done on so many occasions now, and he did not know how much more of it he could stand … his flesh could be shredded from his bones and he might not feel so much blinding agony.
And then it was gone. As viciously as it had ensnared him, it let go. His body trembled uncontrollably in the aftermath, and he was too hot … too cold… And so, so tired.
Legolas only realised he had clenched his eyes when he felt his eyelids flutter with the effort of keeping them so tight. Even then, he resisted the desire to open them for fear of what he would see…
The archer started at the hand that lighted so gently on his shoulder, and his eyes disobeyed him. It was Aragorn's hand that touched him and the ranger maintained the connection. The seemingly ever-present worry that had marked his features so distinctly was nothing but a shadow compared with the open alarm that warped them now. Even now, Aragorn's features swam in an ethereal haze that further aggravated Legolas' nausea. It was too much to stomach, and he turned his gaze away.
"How often does this happen?" Quiet, assessing, a healer's pledge for information through the voice of a friend. It was clear from the set of his question that Aragorn had surmised that this was not a one-off.
"Sometimes." His voice was little more than a throaty whisper, but for the energy it sapped from him, it could have been a holler. His throat was dry and cracked as it had not been before, and he thought he might have screamed. "It comes on…" Legolas' voice melted from him. Admitting out loud that this had happened before frightened him, and expanding on the little he had revealed exceeded what he could stomach himself.
Aragorn was silent, and Legolas wandered dully what he was going to say. When he said nothing on the matter at all, Legolas was surprised, but almost overwhelmingly grateful. He did not want to think on it now that it had mostly past … he did not want to face whatever it could be.
Finally the ranger straightened, having reached some conclusion within himself that set his jaw and brought a strength of resolve to his eyes that had previously been lacking. "I'm going to give you poppy milk." It was a statement, completely devoid of the opportunity for his patient to argue or resist, and he ensured that fact came across loud and clear as Aragorn retrieved the glass phial from his pack.
Poppy milk? The words sank into Legolas' understanding with all the speed of a twig in quicksand. Poppy milk … dangerously potent, and the strongest drug known to his people. He had never been given it before, but he knew what it did. The suggestion prompted him to find his friend's face. Aragorn's countenance was difficult to keep in focus as he moved in the firelight, the darker aspects of his profile melding with the surrounding pitch. The frayed concern of the friend and the innate knowledge of the healer in Aragorn had finally concluded their internal battle, and it was the healer preparing to drug him senseless.
"I would have you rest, Legolas," Aragorn stated as he measured out a shot of liquid from a separate flask into a cup. "If you take the poppy, your pain will be masked from you, and you will be able to sleep."
"Poppy fogs the senses…" Legolas stated tiredly. His eyelids sagged shut, but not in rest.
"I know," said Aragorn. Legolas could hear the lopsided grin his lips had adopted in his voice. "That is the point of it."
"I don't … I do not want it."
"At what point did what I say sound like I was offering an option?"
"Aragorn-!"
The knife of pain severed the sharp exclamation from him. It was so sudden he was not prepared for it, not this time. Every fibre in his body tightened to the point of snapping. Taking control again was like fighting to stay a landslide with a blade of grass. He wanted to die, he wanted so badly to be rid of this unbearable form of existence that had somehow become him –
It could have been seconds, it could have been hours. When the cruelty of his pain finally released him to tremble in fear and exhaustion, he was no longer in the cold bed of the beech bole. He was encompassed in a tender hold of controlled strength, sheltered against any other wrongs the world might have for him by the strong body of a brother. The warm scents of wool and leather reaching out to him were calming in their striking familiarity. He could feel the steady rhythm of Aragorn's heartbeat under his damp cheek as he was held to the ranger's chest, contrasting so vividly against his own flying pulse, and he knew he should push away, that he should not be so weak … but there was no part of him that could be persuaded to do so.
Legolas had no concept of how long he was cradled, or of how long it took for the silent tears to cease. And it hurt him to hear the sorrow in Aragorn's voice as he made his request once more: "Legolas, my friend, I am begging you: take the poppy."
-(())-
Beneath the whitening net of branches far to the north, a hunting cat paced in a cage of captors.
Tension held the muscles of the Woodland King in tight knots, binding his body into an unrelenting state of readiness to which he would ultimately fall foul. He was ready for flight, physically primed to bolt … and it had nothing to do with the threat from across the river. The very same tension that made his body so unrelentingly rigid set a dangerous fire in his eyes. Right now, as he stalked the centre of the ring of the hastily gathered council of his commanders and captains, every face he encountered was a careful mask of schooled indifference.
His child was endangered, and his lords refused his release to go to him.
It mattered nothing to them how much he stormed and threatened, and they closed themselves to his open agony with only Eryn Galen in their minds. Even so, only the most confident could meet the king's eyes as he searched for a single soul who would support him. There were many amongst their number who lacked the conviction of their words to display their support of the council ruling with a steady stare. Thranduil was not the only father in attendance…
But he was the only king, and in that one fact alone lay his isolation.
Daerahil could not blank Thranduil's desperation as the others could. Sitting as a part of the ring of lords in attendance grated against his instinct. It jolted him to see, not Thranduil, but a very young and equally upset Legolas in his place, pacing the confines of his own status and learning very quickly exactly how restrictive his boundaries were. It was truly awful to fetter a father so, but – as Legolas had reluctantly accepted all those years ago – Eryn Galen could not exist without the living blood of the House of Oropher…
"I will not stay idle while my son needs me!" Thranduil spat, grey eyes spearing an all too-collected Lord Tarran.
"We know nothing of the prince's whereabouts," the other elf repeated patiently, unmoved by the barely restrained fury that roiled in the king's eyes. So far as Tarran was concerned, his king's judgement was impeded by emotional stress, and while the king might at that juncture wish to tear him apart, he was merely the voice of those gathered. "It would be foolish to jeopardise your life-"
"He is your prince!"
"And you are our king," Tarran returned, unfazed by the king's explosion. "We are at the weakest we have ever been in three thousand years. The lords were neither consulted nor informed of the prince's plans: Prince Legolas has ensured that this was a private venture, undertaken at his own risk. He has removed himself of his responsibilities, and so has in turn removed himself from ours."
The words were like a sabre. Daerahil saw the wound they tore through his own soul reflected in Thranduil. Something snapped in Thranduil's eyes, whatever fine thread that had kept the balance between father and king gone. The set of his shoulders buckled from the proud and commanding ruler of their lands, to a parent desperately afraid and finding no help from those he believed should be providing it.
Of course Thranduil could not go. It was madness to even consider it … and there was nothing crueller than denying him. For all his brutality, Tarran was right: they had nothing to tell them where Legolas was. Elrond's message had been clipped and short, but the implications of its contents were massive for them all. The king had to remain in the kingdom, he had to stay and orchestrate the defence of their lands … but their chief was compromised by his own heart. Thranduil would not live up to the expectations of his lords. Daerahil had witnessed how Thranduil had floundered with his duties under the breaking weight of his grief when he had lost most of his family in a single year. He had stayed beside his friend on the darkest of nights and had held the council in check on those days when Thranduil had not been able to face them himself.
And this entire situation was his fault.
As much as Daerahil agreed with those gathered, he could not deny the strength of feeling that aligned with Thranduil's plight. It was he whom had plotted with Elrond to send Thranduil's last child with Aragorn. It was he whom had made the decision to actively go behind his friend's back. But for all the years of their planning, he had never really believed that any of it would come into fruition. Elrond had been wrong before, it stood to reason that he could be wrong again. It was a plan for the worst, borne of a need to ensure that, should Aragorn choose his path, he would have a guiding force, a companion of unshakable loyalty…
The decision was made and given voice into the frozen air faster than reason could question:
"I will go."
Several pairs of eyes turned on him, forgetting the king in a moment of surprise.
"I will ride south and find the prince."
"You, Lord Daerahil?" Halastore queried, leaning forward. "Forgive me, but that is as foolish a notion as any we have heard tonight."
Daerahil's lip quirked in a fleeting semblance of a smile. "I do not think it a foolish suggestion at all," he said. Careful. He was not in a council meeting with his normal peers, but with Thranduil's military leaders, and he was altogether unfamiliar with how they thought as a collective group. Not knowing your friends was almost as dangerous as not knowing your enemies… "I can leave now and be in Imladris within four days."
"Idiocy!" Tarran exclaimed with a derisive snort. "Why is it that you think we are here, right now?" he demanded. "Our lands are completely overrun, up to the boundary of that river-" he gestured south of their gathering and not fifty feet away, to where a sluggish strand of water separated them from the evil plague beyond. "You think they will let you pass? You would not survive long enough to see the dawn!"
It was not an unexpected counter to his argument, but Daerahil resented the delay all the same. But to his surprise, there were eyes amongst their number that seemed softened towards his idea, not least of all young Laehril, whose brow was set in tight anger. "A single rider who knows the lay of our lands would be more than an even match against them. My horse is fleet. If I ride hard enough-"
"You will kill your horse as well as yourself."
"-If I ride hard enough, I will reach the mountain pass before it seals completely."
A run of disagreement rippled through the collected officers.
"This is not a plan that will end well," Halastore remarked with a shake of his head. "Who is to say that the passes will not already be sealed?" When he fixed his eyes with Daerahil's, their warning was weighted. "If you get to the mountains and cannot pass, there will be no escape for you from them."
The truth in his words sent a shiver of fear down his spine. He would never succeed in travelling unseen through the overrun stretches of the forest, not at the speed he needed to travel. And if he did reach the mountains and find the way closed, he would be cornered and taken.
"The snows started late-"
"And look around us!" Tarran interrupted, gesturing with a flick of his hands at the deepening carpet about them. "Look at how deep it has become in the space of an evening, and you think it will be clear in the mountains?"
"It passes my understanding," came the barely restrained voice of the youngest captain, "how we can be sitting here while my prince needs us!" A pause, then: "I will ride out."
"You will do no such thing!" Halastore cut in sharply. "You were entrusted with command, and you will honour that agreement!"
Daerahil could see the shake of anger to Laehril's frame, the emotions Daerahil successfully schooled into check so clearly depicted in the youth's open agitation with his peers. While Daerahil found himself regarding Legolas' chosen second with new admiration, Halastore and Tarran both turned on their young comrade with open contempt, ready to tear savage teeth through his youthful naivety-
"He goes."
Silence. All eyes found the king again, a somehow forgotten entity in their midst, standing in the heart of their circle with the stillness and grace of a listening hart. Snowflakes lighted his hair like a wreath of down, seemingly crowning the king of the forest anew. But his eyes … there was something new in them, an unknown darkness…
A darkness focused unerringly on Daerahil.
"For it is thanks to you that he is gone, is it not, old friend?"
Daerahil's gut dropped. Their eyes were locked, Thranduil's stare unwavering as his hair snapped in the wind and snow billowed around him, his sharp grey focus far colder than winter's hardest bite. Daerahil lacked even the capacity to blink under their condemning hold, and he was not released even as Thranduil gave the order for his officers to disband and return to their posts. He felt the looks of the others light on him uncertainly before they left, attempting to find some reason behind the king's words in the set of Daerahil's face, wondering what the closest friend of the king could have possibly done. Even with their judging stares, Daerahil would have had them stay.
All too soon, it was just they two: a king burning with a rage of which he did not yet know the boundaries, and his friend, remorse and justification warring violently enough in his head to tear him apart. Daerahil's feet took him across the short distance, trying to find some level of the equality they had always shared.
"Thranduil…"
"Were you ever going to tell me?" The king's voice was quiet, ringing with a depth of betrayal that burned Daerahil to hear. The flurries of snow that otherwise muted the world around them failed to infringe the cold anger in Thranduil's tone. "Or did you presume me blind enough to not guess at the games you played with Elrond?"
Whatever he said now, he knew Thranduil would not hear it. Daerahil felt the thousands of years of friendship between them bowing under the pressure of his own actions. How Thranduil had learned of his part in Elrond's active plans to involve Legolas in Aragorn's fate, Daerahil did not know. It did not really matter. What had happened was done.
"Thranduil … you know I love Legolas as a son -"
"Don't you dare!" Thranduil snarled, turning with a flash of rage into a savage wolf, teeth bared and eyes stark with unfettered fury, wild and cold. "How could you?" Their breath mingled together into one plume, they were so close. Everything about Thranduil trembled with a very real threat of violence, but Daerahil did not back step. The gnawing sensation of guilt dominating his stomach would welcome a strike should one come. Valar know I deserve it.
"You just - took him! My son! My only son, and you piss away his life on one of Elrond's meddling schemes!" Thranduil shook his head, his anger pinching his lips into a tight line. "When?"
Daerahil did not require an expansion on Thranduil's demand. He knew the answer too well, and rued the day he had even thought about taking it to Elrond. "When Legolas' gift of foresight first started to show itself."
Thranduil's face wiped momentarily in shock. "You have been conspiring with Elrond for over two hundred years?" The king stepped back, distancing himself and leaving Daerahil to the cold, his lips apart in reflection of his open horror. "Why have you even come here, Daerahil?"
"I came for you-"
"Do not say that to me!" Thranduil snapped, an irrepressible snarl dominating his features. "Do not profess that this is through some false sense of friendship! Your presence here is for you to assuage your guilt, not for me, not for him." The king shook his head to himself, his rage melting into something softer, something more damaging. "Always, I have thought of you as a brother. Now, I see no-one I know before me."
The look Thranduil gave him … it was as though he shared a stare with a stranger. Keeping their friendship was like cupping smoke in his hands, and Daerahil knew with a keening cry of his heart that it was lost as the king uttered: "There is nothing more we can say to each other."
The quiet sentence paralysed time. Only the snow was unaffected, spiralling about them in an ignorant play of innocence and purity. It sought to cover the two elves stood so still, melding with their hair and coating their shoulders. But it could not erase the wrongs inflicted here as it so easily could the bloodied ground.
"Thranduil… I am sorry."
Those eyes, so dead of warmth and friendship … there was no apology he could make that would be enough. It could never be enough.
It was Thranduil who broke their stillness. The silver of his eyes marbled with the darkness of grief and betrayal, and his shoulders sagged, forgetting the dangerous tension of anger and knowing nothing save defeat. He stepped back, distancing himself and making to turn away. When he spoke, he did so into the frigid night air, his eyes to the river. "Leave, Daerahil: I do not want to hate you."
Daerahil paled at the implication of his friend's words and he thought to counter them, drawing forward with an extended hand – but Thranduil shied from his touch with the slightest shift of his shoulder and a warning glance at that offering of peace. Distressed but knowing better, Daerahil let his hand fall back to his side…
In the not too-far distance, the wind carried the mocking shrieks of their enemies through the trees. But it was the sharp zip of arrows that caused Thranduil to baulk. He needed to return to the front, he had stayed behind too long…
Yet still he tarried, igniting the touch-paper of Daerahil's hope as his weighted stare met again with his own. So much damage had been wrought to their friendship … Daerahil would take anything Thranduil had for him, anything, just to know that age-old connection between them still existed. The harshest scorn, the most vicious and biting comments, even a strike … he would welcome it all. But as Thranduil's silence pulled at Daerahil's anticipation, there was nothing that could have prepared him for the quiet question the king eventually voiced.
"Would you send your own son into such danger? Or just mine, whom you love as your own?"
Daerahil's heart froze. His breath caught in his chest on the knife of Thranduil's words. All his years bandying quick words with the council, using his tongue with the skill of a seasoned warrior, and there was nothing he could possibly say in answer. Helplessness shook his head, his desperate stare begging forgiveness and understanding where he knew now there could never be any.
Another volley of unseen arrows tore at the silence, and Thranduil stepped forth to the call of battle, having not so much as a parting look for the one he had once called brother.
It was in a daze that Daerahil found his mare and mounted, ignoring the curious look he was given by the one holding her, only dimly aware that he had few provisions for the journey he was about to make. There was no part of him that could care about himself as he turned her head to the west, gathering the reins to get a sufficient feel of her mouth-
He did notice the hand that took her bridle, quelling her excitement with a quieting touch…
Stopping my flight of disgrace.
He could see that it was Halastore, though he could not grant him so much as a glance, the shame sitting too hot and thick for him to dare meet eyes with another.
"Daerahil," he toned urgently, his voice pitched for his ears only. "Legolas would have left with Aragorn, with or without your influence. Riding out like this…" He shook his head despairingly. "This is folly."
"I have to make it right." Daerahil noted how dead his own voice sounded to his ears, a shadow consorting with the dark.
"And you can make it right by giving your life needlessly? Think on what you do!"
"There is nothing to think on." With that, he kicked his horse, forcing Halastore to release her and move out of the way. She threw her head at the sharper than usual instruction, lunging forward without hesitation. Halastore watched with a heavy heart as mount and rider were swallowed by the night.
-(())-
"Is that all he gets? Three drops?"
Aragorn cast Gimli a sideways glance at the dwarf's incredulous question as he carefully measured the poppy milk into the cup of alcohol. He barely dared breathe lest it shook his hand. "I want him to sleep through the night, not eternity," he supplied darkly. Even three drops pushed the boundaries of what Legolas could safely take, and Aragorn's capacity for taking risks was well exceeded. The alcohol he used was no more than a drop to properly disperse the poppy, but, wanting to increase his chances of Legolas taking it and keeping it down, Aragorn diluted the solution with water. Even so, this was a very powerful drug. He could only implore the Valar that they show some level of mercy where there had previously been none, and allow Legolas this one relief free of complications.
When he returned to the elf's side, the lack of clarity in the eyes that met his own was an unneeded confirmation that this was the right thing to do. Raising Legolas back into his arms and leaning him into his chest so that he could drink without straining his wound, Aragorn decisively set aside his reservations and tipped the liquid against Legolas' lips. But with a bite of frustration on his part, the offering was not immediately accepted, as though the misgivings Aragorn had managed to dismiss had transferred to his patient.
Aragorn was too worn for this. He ached in both body and heart, and he recognised a level of selfish desire to have some respite himself. With the acknowledgement came no shame, to his surprise, an indication of his own desperation for some reprieve. There would be no rest for him while Legolas openly suffered – he would probably find none even when his brother slept – but he needed the opportunity.
"Legolas. Please."
His voice was no more than a thin veil over the strength of his own despair, and as much as it invoked a sense of disgust in himself, Legolas listened. Damaged as Legolas' defences were, his reluctance was little more than a final display of defiance, and no matter how much he might wish to, the archer did not possess the strength of will to overpower Aragorn's wishes. Not entirely willing, but not wanting to further exacerbate Aragorn's pain, Legolas drank. A grimace shook his features at the bitterness of the drug and aggressive burn of the alcohol, but he obediently consumed every drop.
There they stayed, Aragorn watching sharply for signs of the poppy beginning to take hold. Tension still thrummed through Legolas' body, wound tight through pain and anxiety. The anticipated tell-tale relaxing of the muscles in Legolas' back were long in coming, and Aragorn had to quell the anguish that incited in him. Legolas could not be given more, and he did not know what he would do if the poppy did not work. But it was a waiting game they played, he knew that better than any. His pain is great. It's not surprising it's not worked yet. Give it time…
"Is there anything I can get for you?" Aragorn queried softly, unable to stand the irrational sensation of inaction.
"A new body might be nice…" Legolas quipped tiredly.
It was little more than a flare, a glimmer of the Legolas he knew before Wraiths and Rings of Power and loneliness, and Aragorn gave a small buck of laughter, even as he felt his throat tighten. A breath and a careful swallow, and he steadied himself. "I shall keep my eyes open for a spare. Anything else I'd be more likely to find?"
Silence was the only answer he received. Despite the drug he had just administered, Aragorn found any silence from Legolas terrifying – but when he looked down into his friend's face, what he saw surprised him. Legolas would not return his stare, even though Aragorn knew his state of awareness had picked up from mere minutes ago. The archer's dark eyes were fixed on the gently bickering flames of the camp fire. The fickle amber veil of light over his face plucked and skittered over the dark bruises and ruptured skin with a cruel level of definition, ghosting over the swelling under his eyes and hollowness of his cheeks.
Finally:
"Mortals must be stronger than the Eldar think."
He did not understand. "In what sense, Legolas?"
"I do not know how you can stand having your hands so cold." Legolas pulled his attention away from the fire and gave it to Aragorn. He tried for a smile, but it buckled under the very real fear that leaked into the dulled blue of his eyes as Aragorn took his hands to test this cold for himself. They were not cold: they were icy. Even in sickness, it was not normal for an elf to be so terribly cold. Aragorn swallowed and engulfed the slender hands in his own.
"Aragorn…"
"It's alright, Legolas," Aragorn lied, the words tripping from his tongue perhaps a little too quickly to be convincing. He pressed and prised the archer's hands through his own to work some semblance of warmth into them. "Your body is fighting your fever: it is better that it concentrates on making you better than keeping your hands warm, do you not think?" He tried for a smile then, turning his face quickly when he felt it buckle.
Life does not tend to allow for choice. It is too heavily constrained by circumstance and fate. There had been no choice for Legolas when he leapt the river, as no mortal could, to put himself between Frodo and the Nazgûl, and the wound that now dealt him such pain and suffering was a consequence of that. But Aragorn could make a choice now, and he made it freely. Any thoughts he may have half-heartedly harboured of making food were abandoned. Aragorn kept Legolas' hands within the warm confines of his own, moving only to lean into Legolas' tree to ease his back as he settled to take his friend's weight for longer than initially planned.
Legolas' breath snagged at the movement, still battling what must now be the irresistible urge to sleep.
Come on, Legolas. Let it go.
Still there was that hook of discomfort at the edge of Aragorn's mind … but slowly, it began to ebb away, succumbing to the lulling peace of the poppy. The constant iron tension in Legolas' body began to tremble as it started to release, shivering with the running vibrations of a released bow string before finally settling into calm. Aragorn felt the catch at the corner of his mind let go even as the body in his arms grew slack, the golden head against his chest growing heavy.
Aragorn remained as he was long after Legolas fell asleep, watching the fire as his friend had and gently plying the lax fingers in his hold and willing them to warm.
The muffled crunch of leaves underfoot announced Gimli's coming. The dwarf stopped at Aragorn's shoulder, looking down on the pair of them in prolonged silence. The ranger did not take his eyes from the fire, too lost in the brilliant orange fronds that flirted so shamelessly with the darkness.
"I've stepped in orc spit that's looked better than you."
Aragorn made a sound, half huff, half laugh. He had never forgotten that Gimli was there with him, but his focus on Legolas had isolated the dwarf from his thoughts, and the normality of his frank remark came to him as a thing foreign and strange. "Thank you."
A small flask bumped his shoulder. "Take a swig of this, clear your head."
He knew what was in that flask. Alcohol was the last thing he wanted to encounter: his head still thundered, the sickness in his stomach by no means banished. Now that Legolas slept in his arms, the void left from worrying over Legolas' pain was starting to refill with the gripes of Aragorn's own body. The very idea of drinking Gravlatt was utterly repugnant to him, and he had to quell the sudden surge of irrational irritation that it was being offered to him at all. "I really don't want any…"
The flask gave an impatient shake, refusing his resistance. "You sound like him. Get it down."
Traitorously, he lowered Legolas' hand into the elf's lap to accept the forced offering. There was no power in the attempted withering glare he threw Gimli's way as he took a quick mouthful to shut him up.
In the astonishing moments that followed, he could have sworn that his chest was melting. The brandy jumped right into his head and gave him a sharp mental slap, and it was all he could do to not spit what little remained in his mouth into the carpet of leaves. If he had done, he would likely have started a forest fire. Gravlatt was not new to him, he had suffered for days in his youth after 'testing' some of Glorfindel's supply … but this was very different.
"Have you added something to that?" His voice was a hoarse ghost of its usual self, choking on fire.
Gimli glowed like a proud father. "Ninety years matured."
There was something peculiar about drinking alcohol older than he was, but he could not deny that the affect was profound. It snapped the edge off his tiredness. The ranger's head felt sharper, more together, and he had to appreciate Gimli's pushy insistence, even if the stuff was vile.
The dwarven warrior brought himself round to the fireside, removing his axe and plonking himself gracelessly into the leaf mould so that he could better look on his two companions. His analysing stare was long and unblinking, his beetling eyes black and bronze in the firelight. Aragorn would not return the look, feeling his temper spiking as his own ragged appearance was left no room for privacy. Aragorn found a guilty sense of relief when Gimli's harsh scrutiny fell to the sleeping elf in his hold.
"I thought they didn't sleep with their eyes closed?"
Aragorn could have done without the observation. "They don't." Being so forcefully reminded of Legolas' unnatural state brought the coldness of his hands back to the fore of his attention, and he realised he had stopped trying to warm them. Feeling utterly heartsick, he resumed his efforts.
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know, Gimli!"
The sharp snap was undeserved and it left him raw and open, but he had not the strength to acknowledge the immediate stir of remorse it incited lest he shatter completely. He worked Legolas' long fingers against his palms all the harder, finding the contrast he had not known existed between soft elven skin and an archer's callouses, the thrum of knowing pain that he likely fought for something beyond saving settling deep in his heart. It set a lump in his throat that he could neither swallow nor wish away.
"I don't know..." Aragorn shook his head and leaned it back against the iron-cold tree trunk. His hair snagged on the rough bark, little teasing tugs-
Legolas' body gave way to a brief riot of tremors, little more than the shadowed memories of what he had experienced when he was awake, but there all the same. Aragorn froze, alarmed that this should happen during the archer's induced sleep … but the run of spasms was brief, and Legolas did not otherwise stir. Aragorn breathed out through his nose, trying to loosen the tension setting a persistent ache in his shoulders. This, right now, was quite possibly the very limit of his endurance. He saw no way beyond the night, the morning a distant and impossible dream that he had no right to view as certainty.
"I don't know."
TRANSLATIONS
Sedho, hodo, Legolas – Be still, lie still, Legolas