I followed Mithrandir in subdued silence, feeling nothing so much like a child who has been chastised for doing something extremely foolish. Mithrandir was wisest among all the Wise, and never had I doubted his judgment before. But we had never come to an agreement on the merit of race. I could not help feeling that an heir of Isildur, a son of Aragorn, would have a far greater chance of uniting the race of Men than any other. Noble though our ranks had been, the Men did not know the wisdom of the Eldalië as did Aragorn. He could not fulfil the prophecies of prosperity among Men. Only Aragorn could conceive the children that would become the hope of the East.
But will he go on to conceive those children after you have gone? Mithrandir's voice seemed to question, though he spoke not. I had no answer. Perhaps he would, after all. Aragorn was a man who accepted duty readily, and did not quail in the face of tasks that were unpleasant yet necessary. Perhaps he understood already why I had left, and that it was my unfortunate duty to do so.
We had had no plan. The lords of Gondor—those who had survived the siege—had made it clear that they would, against their better judgment, allow King Elessar to wed me. But there were uneasy murmurings among the people in the White City that implied that this decision left them displeased. "Hear them not," Aragorn would whisper in my ear when we walked, hand in hand, through the streets, trying to ignore the confused glances and anxious mutterings. "The fools will learn soon enough that I will wed him whom I see fit to love, and that they have no choice in the matter."
Yet I was not at all certain that the people were treating us foolishly or unkindly. I was greeted with the utmost of courtesy by all the folk of Minas Tirith, even when Aragorn was not at my side. The gossip was not vicious; it was, as I have said, only anxiety that I heard in the hushed voices. I could not blame them. Against all the odds, they had lived to see the Fourth Age, after countless years of prayers for freedom from all troubles and doubts. With my coming, I had cast a new shadow upon them.
"Legolas," Mithrandir said, a note of irritation in his wearied voice, "have I not instructed you to think on it no more?"
I smiled inwardly. This was not the first time that Mithrandir had given me the distinct impression that he could sense my thoughts. "I must think on it," I said. "I must make a decision by morning."
"You will make your best decision without any careful thought whatsoever. Truthfully, my dear Legolas, I cannot recall a time when your head has chosen wisely. It is your heart, always, that has prevailed, to the best of my memory."
"So you say I should return to Gondor," I said carefully, not trusting myself to speak Aragorn's name aloud.
"I say nothing," Mithrandir muttered. "It is you who must say, and I have told you this already. I have brought you to something fairer still than what you have left, something which may give better advice than I can hope to give. But until we reach this point, you should think of other things, of brighter things."
But the comfort that memories of Aragorn had brought me earlier, I found, had turned to bitter grief and despair. I felt my face contort in pain. Mithrandir placed a steady, comforting hand on my shoulder for a few moments until I managed to put the thoughts out of mind again. "You may find it more pleasant to live in the present moment," he said quietly. "I have brought you to a place that you know and love well."
The light that I had seen faintly emanating from a point in the distance had now taken shape. I caught my breath, hardly believing my fair fortune, for if it was she—and I was certain it was—then Shadowfax had led me to two of the wisest figures in either Arda or Aman to assist me in this most difficult time. I was so troubled with my own worries and doubts that I had completely disregarded my surroundings up until that moment, but now that the Lady appeared to me, it was clear. Mithrandir had summoned me to Lórien. It was hardly recognisable in the wake of the destruction the Orcs had wrought upon parts of that bright land. But time still meant nothing there, in that wood where the most burdened of hearts could rest easily, if only they came in peace. I understood not why Mithrandir had taken refuge here, but I knew that it would be the best place for me to spend the long night that lay ahead of me.
"I believed she would have passed on by now," I murmured as the Lady Galadriel's tall, thin shape became clearer to me.
"It is not yet her time," Mithrandir replied. "She will remain until Lothlórien has been purged of the shadow that fell upon it during the War of the Ring. Not all of Sauron's forces remained in the East. Curunír, as well, following orders from the Dark Lord before he turned against him, sent many legions of Orcs to trouble the Elves. They fought bravely, but the soldiers sullied the land by their very presence before their defeat, and much work is needed to cleanse this place of their fell spirits. This is work that only the Lady can undertake with any certainty of success."
"Then some of the Elves of Lothlórien will remain?"
"Even I cannot tell that," Mithrandir said gravely. "For a time, yes. Whether or not their presence will remain indefinitely, I do not know. Many of them will leave these shores shortly. Many will depart with the Lady when her travails are ended. The folk of Arda may well remember the Fourth Age as the age of the Elves' departure, for few, if any, will remain to see it through."
"And supposing I do?"
Mithrandir's voice was gentle as he answered. "You will not remain, for you will fade with the passing of King Elessar, should you choose East. But I have asked you not to think on these things, Legolas, for I am certain that they have already crossed your mind many a time. It grieves me to see you weighed down with these cares and troubles. I cannot grant you further counsel. I have brought you to one who can."
The Lady Galadriel remained just as she was, at least in appearance, when last I had visited Lothlórien with the Fellowship. Though I knew well that Elves rarely change, and that any alteration in either their faces or their spirits takes ages before it becomes noticeable, I had expected the War to have left some physical mark or blemish upon her beauty. But her ethereal smile remained as bright as it had always been. She held herself with a grace that no other Elf had yet been known to match. It was only when I peered deep into her eyes that I saw a new sadness within them. The light around her seemed to fade slightly as soon as I had marked that small difference. I bowed my head to her in deep respect. "I greet you, O Lady," I whispered in the tongue of the Elves.
She responded in kind, and I heard the fair lilting accent of Lórien in her words. "I did not expect you to venture West again, Legolas son of Thranduil."
"Does it displease you that I have done so?"
Her calm expression was impenetrable. "It is a heavy weight that has been placed upon you," she said simply. "I have made my own choice since the end of the War, but I do not pretend that it was comparable to what lies before you now. For I gave up only a lesser love for a greater light, and I have sacrificed nothing in doing so."
I did not fully understand what she meant. I looked to Mithrandir for some sort of clarity, but he had vanished, disappearing with Shadowfax into the wood. The Lady laughed softly, but there was no joy in the sound. "It does pain him to see you in such deep despair. Did not you know? And his grief grows greater still when he allows himself to think on Aragorn."
The words fell as a blow that neither shield nor mail could deflect. "I pray you not to say such things," I said weakly.
"Yes, it is rather a poor use of our time. It is time that could be better spent in thought, and decision." She extended her hand to me. "Come with me, Legolas."
"Mithrandir told me to put it out of mind."
"Did he? Yet have you any idea of what you plan to do when the Sun shows her face in the morning? The delaying of action, the drawing out of a great hurt: these are things you have learned from our people, are they not? For it is because of these characteristics of the Elves that we are still here today. We mourn what has passed, and yet we cannot quite bring ourselves to leave the place where once it existed."
The Lady Galadriel's voice grew distant, and regretful. "The Elves move so slowly to the western shores, Legolas. They sing the songs of a place that no longer is. They dwell in memory."
I could not keep myself from speaking, for her words reminded me of the solace I had found in memory that day. "There are worse places to reside. For you know that to Men, dreams and memories are just that, and nothing more. We have been blessed with the ability to live in dreams as fully as we live in the waking world."
"Is it a blessing, then?"
"It can be." I paused for a minute to consider if I meant it before nodding slowly. "Yes. Yes, it can be."
Galadriel closed her eyes briefly. "Then I wish you to come with me. I wish you to accompany me one last time, that I may spare you some of what you are to face tomorrow, and ever after, whichever way you might go. I wish you to look into my mirror one last time, Legolas son of Thranduil. For I have a dream to give to you."
As she led me through the quiet wood, it was my turn to close my eyes, for my feet knew the paths well enough to travel them without my guidance, and I did not wish to see the damage that the Orcs had done. Talk of memory enabled me to call to mind, quite clearly, the visits I had paid to Lórien in lighter times and fairer conditions. I had walked with Aragorn here as well. We had, I realised in surprise, grieved for Mithrandir together here, not knowing that his time in Arda had not yet ended. We had listened to the Elves as they lifted their haunting voices in sombre song, lamenting for that wanderer whom they loved so well.
When we arrived at the small grove, I was greatly pleased to see that the land around the Lady's mirror had seen no changes at all. It could have been that the Orcs, despite all their brute strength, could not penetrate the inner core of this most powerful place. When Galadriel motioned me forward, I approached with not a few misgivings in my heart. It was only the thought of Frodo and Samwise before this mirror only a few months back, with the unpleasant task of witnessing much worse things than I could possibly have ahead of me, that strengthened my resolve to see what I needed to see.
"Will you show me what is certain, or only what is possible?" I inquired.
The Lady's laugh did hold a note of amusement this time. "You know as well as I that I can say nothing of what you will see!" she cried. "Do not deign to believe in these ridiculous notions of Men, these rumours of what I can and cannot do! I show you nothing, Legolas. I have only an idea of what it is that you may see, and I certainly will not share that with you as yet – for as it happens, I may be wrong." She gestured for me to come still closer. "Look, Legolas, and look beyond the water and stars, I pray you. See."
The Sun rises over the White City. Morning has come to Gondor.
I wake beside Aragorn, nestled in his arms. He watches me as I open my eyes. He twists the ring on my finger that he has given me, very gently. My lips curve in a sleepy smile at the sight of him before he leans forward to kiss me.
One morning he wakes me with a kiss. Another, he wakes me without even intending to do so, for he is forever singing those songs of his. He sings while wandering over hill, he sings under his breath on the way to his throne room.
We walk together in the gardens; we sit peacefully near the White Tree, my head against his shoulder, his fingers running absently through my hair.
Aragorn is a treasure with which the people of Gondor have entrusted me. They bow and curtsy as deeply before me as they do before the King Elessar, and they look at me in such reverence and awe when I pay them only small courtesies, when I smile in their direction. And I smile often in Minas Tirith. I feel joy such as I have never known before.
Yet a shadow hangs over Gondor.
I am renowned as a hero, as a leader, and as the wisest of Gondor; never before have they lived under the rule of an Elf, they whose thoughts dwell mostly on present, and future. I can give them their past. I spend days singing them the old tales and songs that they have long forgotten.
I am teaching the youngest ones the things that their parents never learned. I tell them much of Númenor, and the glory and light that is the West, that is the Blessed Realm. They know, too, of my people. They know me as the great love of their King, and anything I have to say, anything I have to give them, is treated as though it were wiser than the words of the Valar, more glorious than the triumph of Gondor over Mordor, more precious than the lost wealth of all the Dwarves.
Aragorn's years are drawing to an end.
I am losing him. We am losing him, and a shadow is fast approaching. It has no name as yet. It has no face. The people look toward me. I know not what to do. I know that I will fade when he is gone.
The people are singing their songs, are telling their tales, but old lore will not hold off what is coming to them.
What is coming? I looked deeper, trying desperately to see, wondering if we had any chance against it.
Aragorn throws his arms around me after I ride back to Minas Tirith. The people are glad for my return.
The strength of the people is fading. I am fading.
There was no coherence, no transition between events; there was nothing to explain what was happening and when. I began to see things from the past year. I watched Mithrandir fall in Moria; I saw myself putting an arrow to my bowstring at Helm's Deep. Then it would flash forward again, and I was back in the East. I am slipping away from them. I cannot take command. I am diminishing, losing myself to the grief that is Aragorn.
I am renowned as a hero and a ruler, as the love of the King, I feel joy such as I have never known—
I am fading, now. I have gone.
I trembled as I raised my eyes to meet those of Galadriel, but she was not looking up in my direction, nor down at the newly clear surface of the water between us. Her eyes were shut tightly, yet I had a feeling that she knew of everything I had seen. She seemed to be waiting for something; we stood there for such a long time.
The aura of Lórien, wounded yet unbroken, brushed its gentle winds against my face as I stood; the very air stirred with possibilities.
"Legolas of Thranduil," the Lady whispered at last.
"Yes."
I said it in the same manner that I had said it to Mithrandir, as though I were awaiting instructions, but I did not believe that Galadriel was about to advise me. She had not looked up; it was as though some tragedy were playing itself out before her eyes, and though she knew every bit of what was taking place, she could not bear to see it for herself. "Legolas of Thranduil, what did you see?"
"You know," I replied bluntly, wishing to experience neither the blissful scenes nor the darker ones all over again in front of her. I was terribly afraid of breaking down in front of the Lady Galadriel. To weep in front of Mithrandir was one thing; in spite of his high stature he was still a member of the Fellowship, and we had seen much together. But to weep in front of the Lady was unthinkable. I could not display to her any more of my weaknesses than she had already seen.
"You know that these are the things that may come to pass. Is it not so?"
"It is."
"Are these the things you wish for?"
"I wish only to love him," I heard myself saying, as though the words were not coming from me. "I do not wish for another shadow."
Galadriel's eyes snapped open suddenly. My heart skipped a beat at the sudden, livid flash of blue. "This is why I asked you to tell me what you saw, Legolas Greenleaf. I see much, but I do not see all. I am perfectly aware of all the good that you saw, and if you gathered anything about any sort of return of the shadow in all of these wretched prophecies standing before us, it is news to me."
"I saw only an appearance of the reasons I must not stay in Minas Tirith," I told her, attempting to speak around the hard anger forming in my mouth. "It was brief, but I have seen it. I have seen it and that is enough."
"You would do well to recall that these are only the things that may be." Galadriel chose her words very carefully, attempting to keep her own impatience out of her voice. "They may come to pass quite soon, or they may never come. I am not a seeress, Legolas, whatever the folk outside Lórien—and some of the folk inside as well—may tell you. I cannot tell you anything with any great certainty. I am afraid that this mirror is really unable to aid you in your decision, other than to give you visions of what may be. And, possibly, memories?"
Her last questioning word was spoken nonchalantly, but the suggestion still reached me.
"Is that why you brought me here?" I said with great effort. Words seemed to be growing more and more difficult to find and use correctly.
"Would it not be of comfort to you to look back on your life together?"
"It is a life we have not yet had."
"Did it not feel real to you?"
"It is a lie."
Galadriel's tone was soft and soothing. "The present time and the past, the memories and the wishes. Truth can be what you make of it, good Legolas."
"And a lie that eases your pain upon making a noble decision?" The shadows I had seen in the mirror seemed to beckon to me, inviting me to believe in them. "Is that such a bad thing?"
"So you say it. You say I should leave these shores."
Her eyes shut again. Her face became masklike, and without any trace of an expression. "I say nothing."
"You imply it, then."
"I say nothing," Galadriel replied. Her voice rose sharply at these words, and I was shocked to see her hands shaking. "I have implied nothing. It is your choice. I would remind you, though, that despite Mithrandir's words and wisdom, he has great personal stake in this matter, for he loves you both as sons, and cannot be expected to make a fair decision. Mine is a different point of view. And I would also remind you that if you think on Lúthien carefully, as Mithrandir has made you do, you will remember that much less hinged upon her decision. You hold the lives of thousands in your hands and in your heart, Legolas. Treat them well."
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