beta'd by Sarah AK
Tawar protected its own and, more than any other of its Elven inhabitants, Legolas belonged to Tawar.
The woods shared with him all the undercurrents of life and death within the constant ebb and surge of energy throughout Arda. He was aware of the great part in the Music of the Ainur the forests sang and accepted that he was a mere collection of notes within that flowing harmony. He could tell from subtle changes in tone and pitch when the mood shifted from life to survival, rejoicing to struggle. He recognized the shift in tempo that alerted him to dangers from the gathering Shadow in the south and east.
Thus, it was not remarkable that the Greenwood knew when Legolas was in distress or at ease. Such signals originated from contact with him, through the very soles of his feet and the palms of his hands, as he moved throughout the forest. Water he used to cleanse his hair and body returned to the streams and passed along a sense of his health to the earth and thus to the trees. Likewise wind and rain might bring even more ephemeral signs to the woods. All of this was as natural as breathing to Legolas.
A similar connection extended from the forests to the rest of the Sylvan folk, though in a reduced sense.
All the thriving life, flora and fauna, that comprised the extant woods of Middle Earth knew and loved the Wood Elves and celebrated their presence among them. Yet in the Third Age the elves had changed, abiding within them rather than belonging to them, residing in the woods but no longer vitally integral to the organic structure. Once they had been the voice for the heart and soul of Tawar, singing as no others could, praising the glorious majesty of the trees' essence and the rich diversity of life sheltered within its protecting embrace.
Now few elves spent the long hours lost in reverie and communion with Tawar they once had and fewer created were the songs of growing and life while the dirges of sorrow and strife accrued. In increasingly greater numbers the Wood Elves abandoned Tawar, forsaking their only home to go beyond the Great Sea into the West. And none of the other entities of the woods could go with them, not even the trees that were almost as ageless and certainly as wise.
For this reason the woods grieved and felt their time of sentience fading with the Quendi, for when all of the First Born withdrew then none would ever again know the spirit of Tawar or hear the Music of the forest. The woods had begged for a champion to be raised up among the elves to take on their cause, entreating Yavanna to heed their desperate desire for one that would cleave to them and drive back the Darkness that sought to sever the Wood Elves from Tawar forever. The trees had pleaded for this boon from the Vala ever since the Maia Sauron rose to power, but the voices of the Quendi cried out for their own deliverance apart from the woods, and now even the Silvan Elves accepted their fate of diminishing departure.
Still, Yavanna had great love for her creations, and had wrought them upon Middle Earth for all of the Children of Iluvatar, the First Born and the Second Born. Though she knew the mind of Tawar would be altered and only a variation of its voice would sing after the elves were but memories, she desired the woods to remain in the world during the Age of Men. The Vala answered the pleas of the trees and sent them one to be their own, a Tawarwaith true.
Tawar knew of him and exulted in his making even while Legolas was concealed in the body of his mother. With Manwë's breath sighing through their leafy limbs the forest whispered the thought of his name into Ningloriel's dreams until she believed it was her invention. As he grew, Legolas' intangible connection to bark and branch became more pronounced due to his parents' inability to draw him close to their hearts. With open animosity between them, what security could they offer to their child? The rest of his kind subtly held back from him wary of his royal status, the instability in his home-life, and the link developing with the most ancient life upon the lands. It was strange for an elf to be so set apart, as was Legolas. From his youngest years he belonged to the trees more than he would ever belong to the elves.
It never occurred to him that other Wood Elves did not share this deeper bond with the Greenwood until he was disgraced and banished. Utterly separated from his people, his sense of kinship to the trees had deepened and became a thoroughly conscious revelation.
As for the motives of other Elves, Men, or Dwarves, the forest could only judge these by Legolas' responses to them. Perhaps in Fangorn there were still trees that could be called to action and made to understand the complexities of strategy and manipulation on an individual by individual scale. In the Greenwood, no such entities existed. Tawar could not divulge what it could not comprehend, and plots and schemes of local political mien were too small to rise to its attention amid the overwhelming evil of Sauron.
Thus the Greenwood could sense the uneasiness within Legolas' heart regarding the Noldor interlopers, but perceived that he did not find any direct malice within them. As soon as it was clear they were under his protection, the trees assisted as best they could given the two elves' limited ability to respond to them.
When Legolas found comfort with them, then Greenwood delighted. When he recoiled from them in hurt and sorrow, the trees knew that the major part of these emotions derived from past injuries still unhealed in their champion's soul, and did not seek to hinder the Noldorin elves.
After leaving his companions upon the guard's old outpost, Legolas' wish for solitude was heeded; the trees did not extend a mental image to guide the Elf Lord to their Tawarwaith.
So, Legolas knew he could not be followed, for the Noldor were far too slow and unskilled among the branches to keep up with him and the trees would ensure he left no trail. His burst of anger and its accompanying adrenaline flux were short lived and did not carry him far, for the pain was too sharp both in his body and spirit. He merely doubled back after climbing higher into the canopy and returned to the narrow flet where the seneschal had spent the rain-scoured night.
Shaking in the aftermath of rage and exertion, Legolas removed his quiver and frantically searched through the compartments. He was beside himself to know that the elves had gone through his personal possessions. He had so few, and none could be of value to anyone save himself, yet they had rummaged through them anyway. He wondered darkly which one had been handling his things and then realized it did not matter since both had been present. Most likely each had satisfied their curiosity at the expense of his privacy. He breathed a relieved sigh as his fingers closed around the familiar texture of the parchment note and pulled it out.
Legolas settled with a rather uncomfortable shifting and bending of legs to a half-seated, half-reclining position supported by an elbow, and looked at the small square of paper in his hand. He had folded it such that it fit perfectly in the center of his palm and he could curl his fingers completely around it and hold it totally concealed. He did this now and tucked his fist snug against his chest as he rolled over onto his back and stared up into the foliage. He forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly for he was aching and lightheaded, voraciously hungry and thirsty, yet felt nauseated at the same time. His thoughts whirled in a confusion of anger, guilt, and despair.
He should not have lain with Erestor of Imladris. How could he have let this happen? Legolas berated himself, cringing at the memory of his complete debasement. He had warned himself not to stoop to their carnal lust just two days ago. Had he not been prepared to mutilate that low-minded Berenaur last night for his unwelcome groping? How could he have cast aside what little dignity he still possessed to give himself over to a lying Noldo spy?
Legolas shuddered as he remembered the things he had done and allowed to be done to him. He had not been hurt so much since his last joining with Malthen; he had not been desired so completely since the seduction by Malthen, and, if he must be truthful to himself, he had so much desired to be hurt this way since Malthen's rejection.
But I love Malthen; we love each other.
Their love made their savage coupling different. It was not just a base and brutal mating, for they shared a deep trust and connection of the soul, no matter the pain.
A memory of Malthen's eyes gleaming with licentious fervor took shape in his mind. He recognized with a jarring stab of anguish that it was identical to the expression on the Noldo's features when he had taken Legolas just hours ago. He scrunched his eyes shut, trying to force the two images from his thoughts, and moaned, rocking his body in his distress as he lay upon the talan.
Malthen loved me; he loves me still.
Then why had he given him away?
Why had he left for Valinor instead of carrying out the pact they had made all those years ago on the night after the Judgement?
Malthen had left him and Legolas would soon be in the Halls of Waiting, alone. Malthen did not want them to be together beyond death; how could he when he had been so quick to part from Legolas in life? Legolas now wondered how he had ever believed differently.
Malthen wants me to die. He even told me so: 'You must promise me to take the first opportunity for a clean death if it finds you.'
A desperate cry of repudiation pooled in his soul and gushed from his lips as he shook his head against the wooden boards, rejecting the inevitable conclusion. But that phrase kept repeating through his brain until there was no other interpretation possible. Malthen wanted him dead, forever severed from him.
Malthen does not love me; he never loved me at all.
What Legolas had just given to the Noldo spy was all the corpsman had ever wanted, and even that had soon become a bore. Once he allowed the idea to march through his consciousness, Legolas realized he must have known this for a long time, for he could not summon any arguments with which to counter the concept. It had the distinct weight of truth anchoring it firmly into his awareness, and now that he acknowledged it he could never pretend again that he did not both know and believe it.
His next thought was to wonder how long it would take to die from a broken heart, and why it must be such a horribly long, drawn-out process. So many years had passed since their affair ended.
His adoration of Malthen was an absolute in his life, and he could not remember a time he had not felt that way. He had just assumed the feelings were the same for his personal guard, though no such words had ever been spoken by either of them. His heart must have broken the very moment Malthen announced their affair was just a means of 'instruction in sexual relations' carried out under orders from his mother.
Naneth; she wants me dead, as well. She told me so; the very last words she ever spoke: 'You are an utterly selfish child, caring more for those dead warriors than your own mother! Stay, then! You wish to die for them, then stay and die!'
He loved Malthen; he loved his mother. Legolas loved them right now and would do anything to have either of them here this instant, yet neither of them loved him at all. Both of them had easily turned away and left him without a second thought.
Why can I not just die, then? Why must it take so long?
But he knew he would not die until the Tasks were done, no matter the agony it cost him to live. It hurt so terribly much more now that he had to accept the truth: they all wanted him dead. Just as the Noldo had said.
The Noldo Lord flickering through Legolas' troubled thoughts was at that moment hesitantly shuffling along the limbs of beeches and oaks in search of the wild elf. He moved slowly away from the old guard's outpost in the general direction his new lover had gone, yet was completely in the dark as to the actual trail. Under the lush density of the summer verdure, it did not take long to lose sight of the talan and his friend upon it. Soon, every tree to which he sent his questing eyes looked identical, and he realized he might quickly become lost in the canopy. He wondered in amazement that Legolas could steer any coherent course through such a maze of branches and leaves.
With a frustrated sigh Elrond twisted around and climbed higher, hoping the increased altitude would give him a clue as to which way to go. Without the sun as a marker, he had no idea what direction he had even come from, much less the one he was currently facing. He paused, hoping to feel the tingling sensation on his skin that would signal a return of the internal connection to the woods, but no image filled his mind. He hesitated, unwilling to turn back and concede defeat.
The woods sought to hide his lover away, keeping Legolas for itself alone. Elrond knew a dare when it was issued, whether plainly spoken or couched in clandestine silence, and had never backed down from one in all his long years. He frowned as he considered the circumstances from the Wood Elf's point of view.
Legolas had not been leading them in this direction without cause; it was very unlikely he would turn back or leave them at this stage. He was also tired and hungry. The wild elf had yet to eat anything more than two small apples and two pieces of lembas in over seven days' passing, if the days he had followed them unseen were counted. These had been his most substantial meals in many a week, Elrond suspected. He would be suffering dehydration, having only drunk a few mouthfuls of water. Beyond all this, Legolas was also hurt and moving even a little had obviously been painful to him. He could not have gone very far in such condition, Elrond reasoned. Where, then, could he be hiding, so close and yet invisible?
Elrond smiled; it was almost too obvious and he wondered why he had not figured this out immediately. Hah! That was Erestor's fault, confusing him with all that nonsense about Tawar watching over Legolas and granting some sort of permission to bed its pet. The Elf Lord re-evaluated his location and moved back into the branches, heading for the guard's outpost again.
Erestor looked up in surprise to see Elrond returning to the talan and stood to meet him, reaching out a hand to pull him from the branches as he stepped near.
"What happened? Where is he? You have scarcely been gone two hours," he demanded almost instantly.
Elrond held up a hand and sent his seneschal a chilling glower that demanded silence. The Lord of Imladris briskly went to his pack, checking inside to make sure he had the remaining apples and a few packages of lembas. He hoisted this over his shoulder and picked up the waterskin, shaking it to hear the comforting slosh of a one-third-full portion remaining. He gave a small self-satisfied smirk to his old friend and set off from the talan again, heading in the opposite direction from which he had just arrived.
Erestor could only watch in bewilderment at this turn of events, surmising that his Lord knew where their feral companion was. He sat back down with a sigh of boredom to wait.
With care to be quiet, Elrond worked his way back to the narrow flet where his instincts told him Legolas must be. Thus, without the help or consent of the trees, he spied the wild elf stretched out upon the platform as though asleep.
A soft and bereft sounding exhalation halted him a moment; Legolas was not resting. He sharpened his gaze and watched, and could see the elf trembling as he intermittently rocked himself back and forth against the floor. This seemed to him an extreme reaction to such a simple slight, and his healing senses awoke instantly as the despair and grief flowed out into the canopy from Legolas' body.
Elrond no longer wished to remain unknown, for he did not want Legolas to feel greater distress in learning he had been tracked so easily. In fact, the Elf Lord began to hum a tune as he progressed forward, as though wandering about in treetops was an everyday practice, and was rewarded with the uplifting of the archer's head in response.
"Legolas, I have been searching for you! Please, do not leave; I wish to speak with you," he said, lifting his hand in both greeting and entreaty as he called out.
Legolas stayed where he was, leaning up on his elbows to watch his lover approach, curious in spite of his anger to learn how he had been found. He let himself drop onto his back again when Elrond reached the flet, watching silently as the healer removed the pack and seated himself by Legolas' side. He allowed his eyes to meet the Noldo's for only seconds, closing them quickly and turning away when he felt the healer's probing scrutiny assessing him.
Elrond let his cognizance sweep across the elf's entire being in that few second's worth of eye contact and settled down to digest the impressions he had gleaned. He lowered his lashes and concentrated on what he was feeling from Legolas and unconsciously stiffened as he encountered a surge of recognition within his own soul.
"I did not expect my careless words to be so detrimental! You must know there is no truth in them?" the Elf Lord began softly and his speech yielded a horrific scowl of incredulous outrage from the fallen archer's upturned face.
"I cannot believe . . .You are a healer, yet you use the knowledge this gives you like a sword!" Legolas' words twisted off in a choked swallow at the end of this exclamation and shutting his eyes turned away quickly.
The depth of desolation this response expressed startled Elrond. He thought back on his impressions of the fallen prince and understood there was a kernel of verity in the accusation. Legolas believed himself the object of such dire wishes, and for valid reasons, and Elrond had needlessly emphasized the point.
"Will you accept my apology, Legolas? I had not the intention to be so cruel. I did not mean to do you such injury," he said sincerely, and referred not only to his hasty comments. Elrond reached out and gently grazed his fingers along Legolas' shoulder and slowly caressed down his arm and up again.
"I do not care! Please go back to your friend now!" Legolas had great difficulty forming the sounds needed to convey this request as he struggled to subdue the shriek clamoring for release from his lungs.
But Elrond scarcely heard the words as his sensitive physician's touch gathered information from his lover. His brows drew down in consternation. The sense of familiarity deepened and he sighed, absently smoothing his hand over the archer's golden head. Legolas did not pull back from the touch but merely lay still as though he did not even feel it.
"When I was younger, though still older than you are now, I had the only one I have ever loved ripped from me," Elrond's voice was low and deep with restrained sorrow as he spoke and Legolas quailed on hearing the raw agony in those words. "How long have you been enduring this pain, Legolas? How has this happened to you? Was it one of the warriors lost in the Battle of Erebor?"
"No," Legolas whispered and did not open his eyes as he spoke. "I have had no one taken from me that way. He has only gone to Valinor; he is well."
Elrond continued to frown, for this statement sounded like truth yet was filled with more lamentation than such a temporary parting should create. Something more was amiss in this tale than just a separation. When meeting Legolas and observing the level of stress he was under and the signs of grief he had noted, Elrond had at first assumed it was due to his mother's departure and the isolation from his own kind. But Legolas' despondency cut deeper even than Elrond's own despair in losing his heart's desire to Mandos so long ago.
"What is it, then? If he is well, why is your soul shattered?" he asked softly and let his hand stroke back across the feral elf's brow, trying to coax the eyes to open up.
Legolas completely ignored the inquiry and kept his eyes sealed and his head turned aside.
Why was he asking all these questions? Did he really expect answers to something so personal? How could he even answer when he had only just come to understand all this moments ago? He clutched the note hidden in his hand closer to his body, as though the contact with the paper might steady him somehow. It did not work, only serving to remind him why he could not let go and end this horrendous agony.
Elrond saw the movement and noted how tense Legolas' hand was, pressed down securely against his breast in a fist so tight the whole arm trembled slightly. He stilled himself and again let his healing insight observe what his eyes and ears could not.
What did he know about this elf; surely there must be some useful knowledge he had picked up over the years through Ningloriel. This thought gave Elrond a jolt, for he could not recall anything Ningloriel had ever said about Legolas. And he knew what Thranduil thought since he had encouraged this rumor to spread himself. With crystalline lucidity he discerned how empty the fallen prince's life must have been as he grew up.
Elrond discovered that he had never thought of Legolas as real. He had been a concept to manipulate, a method used to twist the emotions of his lover and his enemy, and apparently had been little more than that to his own parents.
"I lost both my parents when I was just an elfling," the Elven Lord softly mused, as though thinking to himself. But I knew they loved me and still do, watching over my family and me from afar. This last he did not speak aloud. It occurred to him that it must be more painful to have one's parents near yet be unwelcome in their lives than to have lost them to Mandos or the Undying Lands.
Still, he sensed that this was not the only source for the utter desolation of Legolas' spirit. His ruminations were interrupted when Legolas stirred, turning towards him and staring with a haunted yet somehow concerned expression.
"What happened to them? How did you grow up; who took care of you?" he asked. The archer had recognized the dolorous tones of an elfling's bewildered dismay in the Elven Lord's remark. Knowing this sense of loss himself, Legolas hated to hear it in another's voice.
"It was war; what else?" Elrond answered, caught off-guard by the genuine feeling contained in the questions. "Those were times when Morgoth was still at large upon Arda. My brother and I were fostered to the care of those who had once been enemies of my House. In time, I grew to love my foster-father almost as much as my true one," he responded as his memories made him smile. He watched as Legolas' countenance faintly mirrored his.
"I am fostered, also," he said, surprised that they shared this status.
"Oh?" Elrond's brows lifted inquisitively; this was news indeed. "When were you fostered and by whom? I had not heard any Mirkwood nobility believed in those Noldorin customs!"
"No, they do not!" Legolas almost sneered, imagining this idea. No one in the Woodland Realm was willing to part with their own offspring and there was no need to bolster alliances between families. Their lives were too imperiled by Darkness to do anything but rely upon each other completely
"It is just recently this occurred, and is quite unprecedented!" he continued. He lifted his hand from his chest, sliding the note into his fingers to look at it with a disturbing display of warm melancholy before sighing and returning it to its hidden domain. "I am fostered to Fearfaron as replacement for his son, Annaldír. He was one of the lost warriors, but I have earned his Release."
Elrond waited but Legolas offered no further information on this intriguing statement. He appeared less distraught, however, so the Elf Lord decided to try and prompt more revelations.
"That is a letter from your foster-father?" he asked, motioning with elegant fingers towards the clenched fist, but Legolas only nodded. "You are his son's replacement?" another brief and silent nod gave assent.
Mentally the Noldo sighed, thinking that getting Legolas to talk was rather like convincing dwarves to share mithril: little profit for much work.
"You must treasure it dearly to keep the note out here in this wilderness." Another nod and a slight smile followed this, and now Elrond sighed audibly. "Will you not tell me what it says?" he demanded irritably.
Legolas looked over, surprised and apologetic. He had assumed his lover had already read the note.
Thinking of Fearfaron made him relax a bit and he shifted the small square of paper in his palm. Legolas did not have to unfold it to see the words for he had all the lines committed to memory. He opened his hand and pressed the battered parchment down against the old scar, which was throbbing again, and took a steadying breath before reciting.
"'Legolas,
I do not approve of this venture Mithrandir would have you undertake. You know the southern regions are rife with danger, and you have responsibilities. I forbid you to die. It is your duty to me as your foster-father to protect my wounded soul. It is too late to change this for I already love you. You can not go off into your Tawar and leave me here to grieve for another child. I expect you home every six months, in one piece!
With love, Fearfaron.'"
In the silence that followed these simple sentences Elrond found himself terribly moved not only by the sentiments of the brief missive but also by Legolas' willingness to share so personal a communication with him. Beyond that, the words suggested more mysteries than answers, but before he could decide on his next question, Legolas took control of the conversation.
"What happened to your love? How did you survive the loss?" he asked tentatively and Elrond could hear the desperation there. He understood; Legolas' grief was new and he was struggling to hold on, hoping for some advice that would sustain him.
"He died fighting in the Last Alliance. I stay because of a promise I made to him as his spirit fled. Otherwise I would have gone West long years ago, or more likely joined him in Mandos' Halls," his words were heavy with bitter gloom and thousands of years of draining misery and loneliness.
Legolas could not suppress a shudder of commiseration as this response was uttered. He looked at Elrond and was agonized as though struck by a physical blow to see how diminished his noble lover seemed at that moment.
He thrust aside his own troubles and sat up, reaching over and gathering the Elf Lord close into his arms so that his head rested against Legolas' shoulder. The younger elf gently caressed his lover's glossy hair and stroked his back in a soothing rhythm.
"I am sorry! I did not know your heart was broken, too," Legolas said quietly.
Every muscle in Elrond's body had become rigid the instant he felt Legolas wrap his arms around his shoulders, but the next second he found himself dissolving into the embrace, allowing himself to be held. He was stupefied by his own reaction as he burrowed his head into his lover's neck and encircled Legolas' waist in a fierce grasp that pulled them closer together.
Elrond could not recall the last time anyone had taken a moment to try and comfort him. He was the Lord of Imladris and was expected to be strong and supply for the needs of others while keeping his own concerns carefully shut away from observation. It would not do for personal matters to interfere with the welfare of his family or his people. They required a leader untouched by cares and worries of the heart.
Even Celebrian had been unwilling to share this tragedy that had kept him from ever being more than her friend. She had demanded that Elrond behave as though none of it had happened, as though he was not dead inside.
Ningloriel had simply removed herself from his vicinity at the first indication that she might be expected to recognize his needs and feelings. Elrond doubted if even Gil-Galad would have sympathized with what he had suffered through all these years.
But Legolas understood. Legolas saw his very soul and knew what torment was there. He did not turn away from it or expect him to cover it up. And Elrond did not question this; he simply laid his head upon his lover's shoulder and wept.
Tbc