Title:  The Space Between 
Author :  Fiona (mauvemalady@hotmail.com) 
Pairing(s):  Aragorn/Legolas 
Rating:  R 
Summary:  Aragorn and Legolas have wanted each other all through the 
ordeal of the Fellowship.  Now that the Dark Lord is vanquished and all is 
well with the world, things should be easy.  But that’s not always the 
case… 
Disclaimer:  I neither own these characters nor make money off them, nor 
do I think they’d stick around long if I did. 
Warning:  Rape
Chapter One

      Arien had not yet risen and Lothlorien lay quiet in the blue hues of 
predawn.  Weary and grief-stricken, the Fellowship of the Ring lay 
slumbering in the safety of the great trees’ vigil.  All save two.

      Aragorn strolled amongst the trunks of the trees, too tired to seek 
the bath he’d risen to find.  His eyes shone red and raw in the eerie half-
light that suffused the area; he’d spent the night up pondering his fate and 
that of his companions.  In his stupor he failed to catch sigh of Legolas the 
elf, dark-garbed as he was, until he nearly ran into him.
	
      “Legolas, it’s a long journey ahead.  Why aren’t you resting?”
	
      “I could ask the same of you,” Legolas replied, then smiled a little 
and shrugged.  “I just wanted to see the glory of Lothlorien while I could.  
Our stay is so brief.  Though,” and he chuckled, “if I’m tired enough for 
you to sneak up on me I ought to be getting some sleep, it’s true.”

	Exhaustion had eaten away Aragorn’s patience and a good deal of 
his common sense.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

	Legolas’ brows furrowed.  “Nothing, Aragorn.  I only know that 
Pippin told me Arwen got a blade under your nose unawares—“

	“And you’ll be holding that against me until I die, I suppose?”

	“Honestly, I meant no offense, and Pippin could’ve been telling 
yarns for all I know—"
      
      “So you’re saying I don’t make a good elf?”  Aragorn demanded.  
“I’m too short, then, or what?”
	
      “Um—“  Color climbed in the elf’s pale face.
	
      “And I suppose I’m too—too old, right, and hasty?”
	
      Legolas threw up his hands.  “Well, yes!  Every time we make a 
decision, it’s ‘No, we go this way’, and ‘That’s not how it will work!’”  
Emboldened by this outburst, Legolas went further.  “Hasty?  Yes you’re 
hasty, all the time, and showing your gray!”  
	
      Aragorn grew quiet.  “And that’s because of my ancestor, right?  
Isildur bred it into me?”

	“Yes!  It’s all because of—“ Legolas faltered and saw that he’d 
gone too far.  “I mean—“

	“Take it back!”  Aragorn swung a fist at him howling,  “Take it 
back, Legolas, take it back!”  

	“That’s not what I meant!  I’m sorry!  I didn’t mean—“  Legolas 
ducked behind a tree, and then another one, as Aragorn advanced 
ruthlessly upon him.

	“Take it back!”  Aragorn roared.  “Curse you, Legolas, take it 
back!”

	“I take it back, I take back, I take it—ah!”  The ground beneath the 
elf’s feet crumbled and he risked a glance behind him.  A dry creek bed 
carpeted in fall leaves gaped wide and steep at his back.  “Please Aragorn, 
please,” he whined, and would have continued in that fashion.  But 
Aragorn paused for no breath at Legolas’ dismay and threw yet another 
punch.  This time it connected, doubling Legolas over even as it toppled 
him backward over the lip of the hollow.  And because Aragorn followed 
through with such fury the motion overbalanced him and he tipped 
forward also, his eyes as round as Legolas’ in the instant before the ground 
rushed up to catch them.

	Over and over they tumbled, collecting scrapes and bruises along 
the way.  Legolas felt what breath remained leave him as Aragorn landed 
on top of him.  The punch and the fall, and a particularly painful twinge in 
his wrist, brought tears to Legolas’ eyes, along with shame at having lost a 
fight so completely, and to a human, too.  Aragorn’s eyes reopened more 
slowly and they were twin lamps of sorrow and remorse in the forest 
gloom. 
 
      And then he kissed Legolas, full on the lips.

	Both men froze.

	“I…er…”  Aragorn recovered first, pushing himself off Legolas as 
if burned.  Legolas stayed sprawled, fighting the blush that was rising in 
his cheeks.  Aragorn glanced in the direction of Legolas’ lower half and 
turned away, his own cheeks crimson in the muddled light of predawn.  

	“You…”  Legolas stood upright in a hurry, brushing the golden 
leaves of Lothlorien from his garb and hair.  “You, ah, have—well, you 
know.”  He thought of Arwen and cringed.  “Still,” he thought, “Aniron.”  
Aragorn whirled and regarded Legolas incredulously.  The elf paled as he 
realized he’d spoken aloud.  “I mean—“

	“I know what you mean,” Aragorn said slowly, taking a step 
forward.  “But…”  He shook his head and looked up in time to catch a 
smile on Legolas’ lips.  “What?”

	“Your hair,” Legolas laughed.  “When was the last time you 
washed it?”

	“Why I—“ Aragorn began, then burst out laughing.  The sound 
was full and rich, and came from deep in his chest, made all the fuller 
from months, years of toil and worry.  Legolas’ alarmed expression only 
made him laugh all the harder.  “What now?” he cried, when he finally got 
his voice under control, “Am I to discover that Green Elves don’t laugh, 
either?”

	“It’s not that,” Legolas blurted.  “It’s that I’m standing here 
watching you and—“  He turned away.  “It’s going to be very hard.”

	“Oh?  What is?” 

	“Going on with this quest and…keeping myself from you.”  
Legolas’ last words were a whisper.

	“What now?  Speak up, Legolas, son of Thranduil, for my ears are 
filled to bursting with all that hobbit chatter.”

	Legolas glanced sharply at him.  “The hobbits are full of good, 
Aragorn.”

	“Aye, I know it.  Full of food, too, the way they eat.  Now what 
was it you were saying?”

	“Nothing.”  Legolas topped the steep bank in a few graceful 
bounds and, framed by the morning light, gazed back down on Aragorn 
with blurred vision.  The Man slumped suddenly and Legolas was about to 
spring suddenly when Aragorn spoke in a voice worn raw with time.

	“I know what you want, Legolas.  I, too…”  He bent to pick up his 
fallen cloak and avoided Legolas’ eyes.  “Aniron,” he whispered, and 
Legolas being the elf he was heard it clear as a clarion call.  “But it was 
not to be.”  Stung, the elf hurried back into the milky shadows of 
Lothlorien, dreading the journey before them.


*    *    *    *



	The vast canopy of stars over Rohan had long since unfurled itself 
when Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas came to a panting halt.  “The elf may be 
able to run with the horses,” Gimli wheezed, “but we need sleep.”

	“But we can’t—“

	“He’s right, Legolas,” Aragorn spoke under cover of darkness and 
so didn’t feel the need to hide his admiring glance from the shadowy form 
of the elf.  “We’ll be of no use to Merry or Pippin half-dead from 
running.”

	“They’ll be half-dead at this rate,” Legolas muttered, then grew 
suddenly agreeable.  “You know, I’m actually quite tired.  Let’s just call it 
quits here, shall we?”

	“Sounds good.”  Gimli and Aragorn followed suit and sprawled in 
the tall, waving grasses of Rohan, well distant from each other.  When 
Gimli’s snoring reached its full, normal pitch, Legolas rose and saw 
Aragorn, as he’d hoped he would, stealthily creeping off in the direction of 
the trail they had been following.  Legolas recalled Aragorn’s look earlier 
that evening and wondered if the Man remembered about Elves seeing in 
the dark.

	“You can stop skulking around, Legolas,” Aragorn whispered.  
Legolas grinned in the starlight but made no move toward Aragorn.  

	“How did you know I was here?  Improving on your tracking?” 
Legolas joked, then, thinking of their previous argument, hastily switched 
gears.  “Where are you going?”

	“Still following the orcs, of course.”

	“We oughtn’t to be leaving Gimli—“

	“Oh, damn the dwarf!” Aragorn spun, catching Legolas by his 
shoulders.  “Legolas, don’t you understand, we’re out here to…I wanted 
to…”

	“I don’t think you know what you want,” Legolas said softly, and 
Aragorn’s hands on his shoulders were sharp in his mind.  A shock of hair 
hid Aragorn’s eyes and with the gentlest of gestures Legolas flicked it 
aside.  “Boromir,” he whispered, and to his sorrow (but not complete 
surprise) Aragorn’s hands withdrew.

	“Yes.  You know he…”  The Man’s voice caught.  “He pledged 
allegiance to me.  Right before he…died.  Him, to me.”

	“I know.  I was there.”

	“Oh.”  Aragorn laughed weakly.  “You Elves have such good ears.  
He was so angry with me!  Such a bitter man.  I know he struggled so hard 
and just as…just as…”  His voice could go no further and so his body 
carried him there, collapsing into Legolas’ arms.  He sobbed silently into 
Legolas’ garb, too grief-stricken to feel the tension in the arms that held 
him, too teary to catch the fierce feeling in the elf’s eyes.  “You know 
what he said to me?” Aragorn asked at last.  “Before the—before Amon 
Hen, we spoke of our country, Gondor.  He wanted to go to Minas Tirith, 
then to Mordor.  Do you know what he said?”

	“What,” Legolas mumbled, quaking with the effort of reigning 
himself in.  Even if he could just rest his lips in that tumbled head of hair 
in his arms…

	“He said I put the affairs of Elves before Men.  He said—he said I 
forsook my own people.”

	At this Legolas allowed himself the pleasure of cupping Aragorn’s 
tear-streaked beard in his hands.  “Never have I met or sung of a man so 
true as you,” Legolas whispered.  “And I have had thousands of years’ 
opportunity.  Aragorn son of Arathorn, I can think of no Man I would 
rather march with against the Dark Lord and see crowned as King.  And,” 
he added, even more softly, “Boromir was wrong for many reasons.  For 
one…the affairs of Men and Elves are entwined.”  

	Aragorn looked up then, through his guilt and sorrow to the starlit 
Elf above him, and saw the shining eyes, felt the palms damp against his 
face.  “You…”  He still leaned against Legolas the way he’d fallen, up 
against his chest, and turning his face to the fabric he snuck his tongue 
between the shirt buttons.  Legolas let out a cry and stroked Aragorn’s 
beard tenderly with both hands, the tears making his pale skin gleam.  He 
brought his caresses down the grizzled chin, down the neck, down.  A 
glint of silver caught at his tear-streaked hand, and he drew the pendant 
out where Aragorn could see it.

	“Is this what you want?”  Legolas shook as Aragorn withdrew his 
tongue and leaned slack against him.  “Only if you desire it…”  The elf 
trailed off.  Aragorn would know what he meant.  
      
      After a time Aragorn pulled slowly away and stood on his own two 
feet.

	“Forgive me,” he whispered, and Legolas saw that he meant it.  
“There are things…there are some things that could be done, and some 
that must.”  He winced as he turned away.  “I couldn’t even see your face 
in this cursed dark.” 
      
      Legolas reached out a hand—still sparkling with tears—to the 
departing Man but drew back, heavy with the sorrow he’d suspected 
would come.  “I’ll be there in the sun all morning,” he sighed sadly, and 
with a rueful smile caught Aragorn’s weak laugh from the swathe of 
shadows.

*    *    *    *

	Legolas watched the waves beating upon the shore in rhythmic 
bursts of blue and white.  Before him floated the pristine white carving 
and lofty sails of a ship of Cirdan, framed by the wide sea and wider sky.  
“Almost,” he thought, “as wide as the sky over Rohan.”  

	From the windswept bow an elf beckoned impatiently to him and 
Legolas rose to board the great ship.  Gimli was already aboard with 
special permission from the Elves, as were many others.  But not the one 
he’d have chosen over all.  With a sigh Legolas strapped his quiver to his 
back, more out of habit than need for protection, and strode forward, 
beautiful and reluctant, toward the ship and the pull of the sea.

	From behind rushed a thunder of hooves, checking his gait.  He 
turned and a mottle of silver and black caught the rising sun and blinded 
him for an instant.  Mud flew up around hooves still gleaming as the 
labored breathing of a horse reached his ears.  “Don’t!” came the familiar 
voice even as the elf recognized the Man, and strong arms threw 
themselves around Legolas.

	“Elessar…”  Legolas buried his face in Aragorn’s neck and wept 
freely.  “My Elessar,” he crooned again, and felt Aragorn’s arms tighten 
around him.  With a sinking heart he pulled away.  “But…what are you 
doing here?”

	“Keeping you from leaving,” Aragorn said, and felt Legolas slump 
in his arms.  “I know!  I know the pull of the sea is so great in you!  But, 
please Legolas, please now that everything is set—“

	Legolas raised a fair hand to the fiery green jewel at Aragorn’s 
neck.  “You are King, remember?  You have your duties.”  His voice was 
heavy.

	“That doesn’t matter now.”

	“How can you say that?  After all that’s been done, you would just 
abandon it to chance?”  It knifed Legolas to say it but say it he had to.  
“You are King and…everyone…loves you.  Needs you.  You…wanted it.”  
He paused.  “How can I stay here and watch?”

	“Everything is different.  Arwen…”  Aragorn looked away.  
“Arwen had a son.”  He caught Legolas’ face, smooth and ageless, in his 
callused hand as the elf tried to turn away.  The rising sun caught the tears 
in both their eyes.  “He will grow up strong and well.  I—I am free.”

	But Legolas remained bowed with remorse.  “They would not let 
you go even if you tried.  You have your duties and they would hunt you 
for forsaking all they held dear.  And for what…”

	Now Aragorn turned Legolas’ face toward him, for his hand had 
never left that fair face.  “For you,” he said firmly, and brought his lips to 
the elf’s.

	Legolas let him keep them there for a shining moment.  As the 
tongue he so remembered slipped in between his lips he spoke around it, 
and stayed Aragorn’s advance with a pale hand.  “They will hunt you,” he 
insisted, fearing the worst.

	“Then let us run.”  Grabbing Legolas’ hand he bounded onto 
Shadowfax, the gleaming silver steed who had by now quite recovered his 
breath.

	Legolas stared at the dark-clad man upon the brilliant horse, then 
glanced back to the ship that waited.  By now a crowd had assembled on 
deck and was watching intently.  “They have seen—“ he began, but even 
as he said it his hand tightened in Aragorn’s.

	“Let them see.  They will never catch us!”  Aragorn swung 
Legolas up behind him on Shadowfax and turned the horse north.  “We’ll 
follow the shore, so you will never be parted from the song of the sea.”  
He felt Legolas’ excitement behind him.

	“Or you,” the elf purred, wrapping his arms around Aragorn and 
squeezing as Shadowfax leaped into a surf-churning gallop.  Not once did 
he look back as the elven seacraft fell away behind them.  His lips were 
too busy with the back of Aragorn’s neck, his hands with the buttons on 
the Man’s shirt.


	As the sun which had risen on sorrow now kindled flames of pink 
and peach over the sea, it lent some of its light to the flesh of the two 
forms entangled in the sand, warming each to a burnished gold.  
Shadowfax nosed through the brush at a respectful distance as Legolas 
stroked Aragorn’s hair.

	“I always liked your hair,” the elf murmured, kissing the knob of 
bone at the base of Aragorn’s neck.  “Don’t ever change it.”

	“You see the gray, don’t you.”  There was shame in the Man’s 
words.

	“I see beauty.”  In Aragorn’s flattered silence Legolas brought his 
kisses down, down and no chains of duty stopped him this time.  When he 
reached the Man’s tailbone he paused, snaking a hand over to curl 
Aragorn’s chest hair into lazy little circlets.  “Does the King wish me to 
continue?” he intoned.

	Aragorn caught Legolas’ circling finger and brought it between his 
lips, sucking hungrily.  Behind him, Legolas hummed.

	“I’ll take that as a yes,” he whispered as he bridged the space 
between them.  The scruffy head he loved so dearly arched back into the 
cradle of his arm in a perfect fit as they moved, and Aragorn took 
advantage of the closeness and seized the elf’s lips in a wet kiss.

	“Legolas,” the Man smiled, and reaching behind pulled the elf ever 
closer.  He felt the hard, beautiful nipples flanking his spine as the two of 
them rose, higher and higher until cries of joy tore from their throats as 
one.

	The sun sank smiling into the sea, its last rays licking the pair on 
the beach.


************************************************************

Aniron = “I desire.”


Chapter Two

"Maybe we should send Shadowfax on his way," Legolas said, from his 
seat by the fire.  "They're probably missing him in Rohan."

"Hmm?"  Aragorn looked up from his sword, which shone in the firelight 
as he honed its edge.  He glanced at the glossy-coated animal browsing a 
few dunes away and shrugged.  "I expect he'll go when he feels like it."

"How did you get him to carry you after—to the Grey Havens?"

Aragorn grinned.  "Carry me after you, you mean.  I, er…well, remember 
what Gandalf said about Shadowfax being an especially wise horse?"  
Legolas gave him a blank look.  "Well, he did!  And so I kind of, um, 
explained the situation…"

Legolas burst out laughing.  "You laid your love troubles on a horse?"

"Well it worked, didn't it?"  Aragorn shot forward suddenly and pecked 
Legolas on the cheek.  "And it was well worth it, if I do say so myself."

Legolas smiled and was about to return the kiss when something rustled in 
the brush.  He whirled.  "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

The Elf reached for his knives and rose on silent feet.  "There," he 
whispered, jerking his head in the direction of a clump of brambleberry 
bushes.  In an instant Aragorn was beside Legolas, sword cold and 
gleaming out before him.

"Let me handle it," the Man whispered.

Legolas smirked.  "Save me, oh knight," he chuckled, and darted forward 
into the undergrowth.  A flustered Aragorn followed on his heels.

All was quiet in the tangle of shrub and shadow.  Legolas raised his hand 
for a halt and then threw himself sideways, hauling Aragorn along with 
him.  A bolt of silver shot past their heads, imbedding itself in the trunk of 
a brambleberry plant.  Aragorn leapt over Legolas, wielding his sword like 
an extension of his body, and let fly into the thicket.  

"Wait, Elessar!" cried Legolas.

At his words a yell rose from the impenetrable dark.  "Gwanno, gur o 
dagnir o Undomiel!  Gwanno!"  A second silver bolt parted Aragorn's hair 
as he ducked.

"Legolas!  What do you see?" he shouted, but Legolas, even with his elven 
eyes, could see nothing but foliage.

"Let us get back into the open—I can't see anything!"  As the two charged 
out of the undergrowth silence fell again.  Aragorn nursed a sick feeling in 
his stomach but fought it back in case of battle.  "They're gone?" Legolas 
questioned, more to himself than to Aragorn.

"Gur o dagnir o Undomiel," Aragorn said quietly.  "Evenstar's heartbane. 
Elf against elf…what have I done."

At once Legolas was at his side, gripping Aragorn's arm as if for life.  
"Don't,
don't you dare, Aragorn.  You are so quick to blame yourself, always—
don't 
think this is
your fault!"

Aragorn seemed not to have heard.  " 'They will hunt you', you said…but 
they are hunting you, too!  Why didn't I see it?  How could I have brought 
this on you?  If I'd only stopped to think!  Now the Elves are avenging my 
abandonment of Arwen Evenstar, and what better way to do it than go 
after the one I abandoned her for—"

"No!"  Legolas pushed Aragorn to the ground and fell atop him, their faces 
nearly touching.  "No, Aragorn, you brought nothing on me!  Wasn't it my 
choice to accept your gift in Lothlorien?  Wasn't it my choice to hold you 
under the stars in Rohan?"  He threw a hand in the direction of the dark 
sea behind its dunes.  "Wasn't it my choice to turn away from Cirdan's 
ship and the sea that's always calling?"

"You mean…the call…you're suffering because of—"

"No!"  Legolas thrust his face into the crook of Aragorn's neck, letting his 
tears pool in the hollow there.  "I am with you.  Nothing would make me 
suffer more than to part from you."  Not caring whether elves, Gondormen 
or Arwen herself walked out of the bushes, Legolas thrust his lips against 
Aragorn's and waited for the flesh beneath to kindle.  Aragorn's eyes 
remained heavy with sorrow.

"Legolas—"

"Shh."  Legolas ensured silence with his tongue and smoothed Aragorn's 
brows.

"My dear king," he crooned.  "My poor, dear king."  He held the Aragorn 
until long after the last dying embers floated away on the breeze.

*    *    *    *

In the morning Shadowfax was gone.  "Do you think they took him?" 
Legolas asked, hand hovering over his knives as he glanced around.

Aragorn snorted.  "That horse?  He wouldn't let them.  I suppose he 
decided he had better things to do."  But he, too, gave the sandscrub a 
wary look.  "At any rate we'd better get moving.  Scuff out the fire, would 
you?"

When Legolas turned back from the task he caught Aragorn slipping 
something silver back into his pack.  "What's that?"

The Man's face fell.  "Daggers."  He drew the slim blades out for Legolas 
to see. "Of ancient Elven design.  They wanted to be sure we knew who 
they were."  He moved to slip them back into his belt, but Legolas stayed 
his hand.

"Look," he said, pointing to a circlet of gold leaves on the pommels of the 
knives. "I haven't seen the like of those since the ones the Lady Galadriel 
gave Merry and Pippin, back in Lothlorien."  He took a knife and turned it 
over in his pale hands.  "You don't think…"

"No."  Aragorn turned to face the wind, which had picked up overnight.  
"There were many weapons made in those days.  You can't assume these 
are the same ones."

"But they are of Elven make and we give our gifts sparingly, holding the 
past close!  You know that."

Aragorn looked back at him and his eyes were creased with pain.  "Please, 
Legolas. Don't have me believe they would betray us so.  There is only so 
much in this world you can forsake."

Legolas thought of the oath Pippin took in Minas Tirith and said nothing. 
As the sun lent color to sky and sea the two lovers set out on foot, 
following the line of the dunes north along the coast.  To the east the Blue 
Mountains loomed, crowned in foliage of a green to belie the mountains 
their name.  Legolas focused hard on the trees, at first searching for sign of 
pursuit but then focusing on the woodlands for themselves, trying to keep 
them foremost in his mind and to ignore the sound of the sea on his left.  
When they crossed a trickle of a stream he realized with a start just how 
light his pack was, and that they were down to one skin of fresh water.  
Aragorn proposed they trek further inland to where the salty backwash of 
the tides failed to penetrate the stream and Legolas accepted this with 
relief, hoping that distance from the waves would ease their pull.

"Let me carry that awhile," Aragorn said as Legolas hefted the pack on his 
shoulder.  "You look strained."

"I'm fine!" the Elf insisted, but handed the pack over gladly.  He feared the 
sea's reflection in his eyes and to conceal it bent quickly to the stream.  
"Water's fresh," he proclaimed, and took a long draught.

"Here's as good a place to rest as any."  Aragorn knelt beside Legolas and, 
when both their heads hovered over the water, sent an arm's-length of 
water splashing over Legolas' head.

"Hey!" the Elf spluttered.  "What was that for?"  He splashed Aragorn, and 
the Man splashed back, and soon the two of them were leaping through the 
knee-deep stream, yelling and sending gouts of water onto each other and 
the shore.

"Now look what you've done.  Our food is soaked!"  Legolas cried, 
pushing Aragorn playfully into a deep spot.

The Man came up yelping.  "It bit me!  Something's in there and it zapped 
me!" Even as Aragorn waded ashore for his sword Legolas' eyes lit up.  
"Zapped you? Was it an eel?"

"How should I know?  I wasn't exactly sticking around to find out its life 
story."

"Freshwater eels are good fried," Legolas said, adding dryly, "Particularly 
when the rest of your rations are soaked to mush."

"I wasn't the only one splashing, you know."  Aragorn smiled fondly as he 
leaned on his sword on shore, watching Legolas with keen interest.  "Just 
how do you go about catching eel, anyway?"

"There are several ways."  Legolas shot a wicked grin over his shoulder as 
he rolled up his sleeves.  "I prefer my bare hands."

Aragorn watched raptly as Legolas advanced into the deeper portion of the 
stream, stuck dumb by the transformation in the Elf as he went from joker 
to hunter.  The blue eyes sharpened; the slender frame coiled tight as a 
spring; and the hands, those pale, long-boned hands Aragorn knew so well 
and cherished for their grace, became weapons in and of themselves, 
poised for attack at a moment's notice.  He watched as Legolas' hands 
plunged into the depths and back, sending a glittering arc of spray with 
them as he showed off a writhing fish.

"Got it!" he crowed, resplendent in sunstruck water droplets as Aragorn 
watched, beaming.  He was still watching when the arrow sprouted from 
the Elf's chest.

"Legolaaas!"

The Elf's eyes lost their hunting gleam, his lips their triumphant smirk.  
Instead his brows drew together in the deepest puzzlement as he fell 
forward, blue eyes hunting no longer.  The eel slid by Aragorn as he 
churned through the water to the floating green-clad form.

"Legolas!"  He jerked the Elf from the water, slamming the slim back with 
his fist.  "Cough, Legolas!  Oh for—"

Thwock!

An arrow whooshed by Aragorn's ear as he ducked, drawing blood.  His 
eyes darted along the sparsely forested shore even as his hands clung to 
the Elf in his arms. Hunching low over the unmoving Legolas, Aragorn 
eased them both toward the shore and his sword.  He had almost reached it 
when movement caught his eye and he ducked as another arrow hissed 
over his head.  The tide, which had been rising in him since those dear 
blue eyes clouded in confusion, broke in a storm of red.

"Curse you!" he roared as he launched himself from the shallows.  
Grabbing his sword he shot toward the spot in the undergrowth from 
whence he'd seen the arrow come.  "I'll kill you!  I'll kill you all!"  Two 
more arrows sprung forth; he swung his sword in an arc and cleaved them 
in half.

"You'll find that difficult, traitor."

"Gwanno!" Aragorn cried, and hacked savagely to his left.

A derisive snort reached his ears.  "The Dunadan and the thief make 
enough noise for even a Man to track them.  Or do they remember the 
people they fought for?"

The snap of a twig alerted Aragorn and he whirled, bearing the shining 
edge of his sword as tidings.  A tall, pale Elf in vaguely familiar gray and 
black stood before him and stopped the cut of Aragorn's sword with a 
curved blade.  "He did nothing!"  Aragorn roared, striking again and again 
coming up against the silver strength of the Elf's blade. "He stole nothing!  
How dare you accuse him!"

"Oh, I beg to differ."  Out darted the Elf's blade, in and out again like a 
serpent's tongue.  Aragorn through his red rage somehow managed to 
block each attack.  "After all," the unnamed Elf shrugged carelessly, 
cutting in with a vicious sideswipe that left Aragorn's sword hand numb, 
"He stole you, didn't he?"

With that both swordsmen let loose.  Right, left, up, down, they danced 
around the glade in a flurry of flashing metal.  At every clang of steel 
Legolas' puzzled blue eyes leapt before Aragorn and he slashed all the 
harder.  When it came time that Man and Elf stood locked blade to blade, 
the formerly implacable visage of the strangely familiar Elf twisted into a 
sneer.

"Undomiel weeps."

Aragorn ducked out of the lock and prepared to swing.  "I don't care!" he 
screamed as the muscles along his arm tensed for the jar of hitting flesh.  
But in an instant, teeth of stone bit into his neck from behind.

"I brought company," the Elf smiled, and motioned over his shoulder.  Out 
of the shadows five elves appeared, identically attired in the gray and 
black garb of their seeming leader.  Every one had an arrow drawn and 
fixed on Aragorn.  "Sweet are the voices on the Lost Isle calling…" the 
Elf sang softly, invidiously, and Aragorn howled.

"His song!  Curse your lips that sing it!"  And even as his sword darted 
forward and the arrows of the encircling Elves left their bows, a glimmer 
of silver shone through the trees.  "Legolaaas!" he wailed, the blue eyes 
more piercing now, near his death, than at any other time.  But he plunged 
his sword into air, and felt not the gouge of arrows in his flesh.

He hit the ground in time to see mighty hooves strike within a hairsbreadth 
of the ducking elf's jaw.  "Run!  Run, you fools!" cried the Elf even as two 
of his band crashed to the ground under the rearing horse.  Screams and 
wild neighing filled the glen as the Elves fled in twos and threes, the odd 
one stopping now and then to fire an arrow back at the torrent of silver 
mane and flecks of sweat.  These fell shrieking under flying hooves.

All this was as nothing to Aragorn, who had torn from the forest as soon 
as the horse arrived.  He flung himself beside Legolas in the water where 
he'd left him, tears blurring the beautiful vision of the fallen Elf.  "Legolas, 
Legolas," he moaned, cradling the blonde head in his grimy fingers.  "I…I 
killed you!  If I hadn't…if I'd paid attention…"  His eyes caught on the 
grey-feathered shaft protruding from his lover's chest, and he struck at it in 
fury.  The shaft snapped off into the water, where it spun around once or 
twice before being carried off downstream.  A faint moan reached 
Aragorn's ears.  He stared at the still lips and pale face in his arms.  
"Legolas…?"  He pressed an ear to those lips.  The barest of breaths came 
forth.  "Oh please, oh help me, hang on, Legolas!  Hang on, just…just…"  
He laid Legolas gently on the shore and leapt to his feet.  "Just let me find 
some athelas, my dear sweet Legolas, just hang on and let me find it…"

Aragorn lurched into the underbrush like a man taken with madness, 
tearing leaf and limb aside in search of a few white flowers.  Thunder 
crackled overhead but he did not hear it.  "It worked before, didn't it, 
Legolas?  Countless times.  Rarely known fact, now all over the world.  
Everyone thought it was a weed but we know better, don't we, Legolas?  
Legolas?  Legolas!"  This last was a shriek that sent the surrounding forest 
into spiraling quiet.  The athelas plant, or kingsfoil as it was more 
commonly known, was nowhere to be found.  

"Curse these woods!" Aragorn shouted, shredding the greenery before 
him.  A cold wind winnowed its way through the trees and chilled him to 
the bone. He shivered.

"We're too far north!"  He looked around at the tough hardwoods and stiff 
pines with condemnation.  The epiphany sent him rocking on his heels, 
then dashing back toward the stream.  "Shadowfax!" he roared, and the 
silver horse appearing snorting and leaf-strewn at his side, but limber.  
"Legolas, he, he…"  Aragorn lifted his Elf from the water as if he were 
made of glass, cursing himself for exposing the poor thing to the chill 
mountain current for so long.  Legolas' breathing, when he bent an ear, 
was fainter thanbefore.

"Ride!" Aragorn hissed as he leapt astride Shadowfax, Elf and all.  The 
mighty horse turned instinctively south as thunder crashed overhead, 
flinching neither at the slicing rain that began to fall or the slapping of 
branches as they plowed through the thin band of woods.  "Ride, damn 
you!" Aragorn howled as they broke cover onto the naked dunes, the wind 
hurling rain full into his face.  He brought his cloak around Legolas to 
shield him partly and covered the rest of the Elf with his own body, 
continually blinking out tears.  They spattered onto the cloth of Legolas' 
garb with the rhythm of hoofbeats.

"Don't mind a little rain, do you Legolas?  Of course not, of course not.  
Just hold on until we get a little ways south, just far enough for athelas to 
grow again and…and…"

He choked on his words and opened his mouth again, but knew not what 
to say.  Behind and before him the storm gathered its forces, and to his 
right the sea frothed and foamed. Pressing his face to Legolas' own he 
sang:

"To the Sea, to the Sea!  The white gulls are crying, 
The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying…

"You see, Legolas?  It's your song.  I remember it after all this time and—
oh Legolas, please hold on and listen; see, I remember!

"West, west away, the round sun is falling.
Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling,
The voices of my people that have gone before me?
I will leave, I will leave—"

On these words a lump seized Aragorn's throat that would not let go, and 
so he clutched the Elf to his chest and thought the words, thought them 
loud against the pounding of Shadowfax's hooves and the shriek of the 
wind.  A gust sent Legolas' fair hair flying and Aragorn yelped, patting the 
golden strand back with the hand that didn't cling to the horse's mane.

"The wind's mussing your hair, you don't want it all tangled you know."  
His voice was strangled.  He stroked the pale cheek and shed tears onto it, 
peering through the rain always for the change in greenery that would 
foretell the habitation of the much-needed athelas plant.

************************************************************

Gwanno, gur o dagnir o Undomiel! = Die, wretched traitor of Evenstar!
Gwanno! = Die!




Chapter Three

	Legolas woke to the sound of singing.
	“Shh,” came a warm voice when he tried to speak.  “Save your 
strength.”
	The Elf cracked an eye open and then opened both eyes joyfully, 
for it was a damp Aragorn that hovered temptingly near over him.  He 
moved to brush a dripping strand of hair from Aragorn’s face and gasped 
with the pain.
	“Save your strength, I said, you’re hurting yourself!”  The pain in 
Aragorn’s voice belied his content countenance.  “I’m sorry.  I just…you 
were…”
	Legolas smiled.
	“I thought I’d lost you,” Aragorn finished in a hoarse whisper, and 
bent down to kiss the elf, letting his lips linger.
	A muffled roll of thunder reached their ears.  “What—“ Legolas 
began, but Aragorn enforced a kiss to keep him quiet.
	“You were shot,” he said at last.  “When you were hunting the eel, 
you remember?  In the little stream.”
	“It was a fine eel, too,” Legolas croaked, and was rewarded with a 
teary smile and a kiss from Aragorn.
	“So you do remember.  But after that there were…elves…clad in 
gray and black.  One in particular fought very well.  The others had bows 
but he said…are you feeling better?  Do you need me to change the 
poultice?”  He gestured to a clump of green plants at his side.  “I’ve got 
plenty of athelas now.  Had to drive Shadowfax nearly into the ground to 
get here—yes, Shadowfax is back.  He’s outside.”  Another roll of thunder 
sounded stuffily as if capped by cotton.  “We’re in a cave a ways south of 
where we were—almost back to the Grey Havens, I think.”  
	“What did the elves—“ Legolas began in a voice he tried to make 
tender.  But it was too weak for anything but croaking.
	“We’re out of food, too—I, er, left it behind—but I can solve that 
quickly enough.  What matters now is you.”  At Aragorn’s body-length 
glance Legolas jumped at the realization that he was completely naked.  
Aragorn saw his face and defended himself.  “You were wet!  Soaked 
through to the bone.  You’d have caught a chill if you sat around in those 
clothes.  So I just…ah…removed them…they’re drying by the fire.”  He 
nodded toward a crackling fire tucked into a niche in the limestone.  
“They’ll be ready…sometime…”  He trailed off as he cast another long 
look at Legolas.  “You’re very beautiful, you know,” he said in a very 
different voice.  Then, even softer, “Aniron.”
	“Likewise,” Legolas replied.  As if he needed to.
	Aragorn shook himself and brought his gaze back firmly to 
Legolas’ eyes alone.  “But you’re very ill and need to rest.  As soon as 
your clothes dry I’ll cover you up, use them as blankets—“
	“I bet yours would dry faster.”  Legolas laughed at the look on 
Aragorn’s face, then grimaced as the action sent pain lancing through his 
chest.
	“What have I been telling you?  Hush!”  But Aragorn unbuckled 
his cloak and spread it out by the fire.  “I’m only doing this to keep you 
warm,” he mock-grumbled, and shed the rest of his clothes.  When he had 
the desire was plain on both their faces and other places.
	“If you could just—ah!” Legolas yelped as he tried to shift his 
position and sweat broke out on his forehead with the agony. 
	Aragorn dabbed it away with a gentle hand.  “I’m sorry, I’m so 
sorry—“  He raised a finger to Legolas’ lips as the elf tried to protest.  
“No, I am blaming myself.  Because it was my fault.  You are one thing, 
but to be snuck up on unawares by the likes of him…”  His teeth shown in 
a snarl.  “That elf looked familiar the moment I saw him,  now I 
remember.”  The snarl left his face as he ran his fingers lightly down 
Legolas’ smooth chest, being careful to stay well away from the poulticed 
wound.  “When Undomiel came to Minas Tirith, her father brought a 
sizable company of elves with him.  Bodyguards, I suppose you’d call 
them.  Then we he and Galadriel went away to the west, they were 
supposed to go to.  He scowled.  “But not all of them went.”
	Legolas laid a weak hand on Aragorn’s knee, as much as he could 
reach.  “What—“
	“Shh.”  Aragorn caressed the long, delicate fingers.  “That’s 
another thing—your hands, do you know how they change when you’re 
hunting?  You wouldn’t think that these,“ and he lifted the hand to his lips, 
inhaling rapturously, “would be able to touch anything but goodness and 
light itself.”
	“Guess that bodes well for you,” Legolas managed, his voice 
barely a whisper now.  He eased his hand from Aragorn’s hold and let it 
fall, down to where he clutched the Man’s member.  Aragorn made a 
startled sound.
	“The…ah…athelas…” he panted between the work of the long 
fingers.
	“Is working just fine.”  The firelight caught Legolas’ hair and 
turned it to flame, and that was the last thing Aragorn rightly perceived as 
skillful elven hands sent pleasure washing over everything.

*    *    *    *

	“You never told me who that elf was,” Legolas murmured sleepily 
from where his head lay in Aragorn’s lap.  Sunlight caught the golden 
mane as Aragorn braided it with tender fingers.  “The one who stayed after 
Elrond left?”
	“Not just one,” Aragorn spat.  “A whole company.  They thought 
of themselves as Arwen’s personal bodyguards.  They were with 
her…constantly…”  The shining braid slipped from his hands as he stared 
out the cave entrance and beyond.  “They claimed to be strengthening the 
bonds between Elves and Men.”
	Legolas was silent.
	“His name is Glorfindel.  I don’t know if Elrond actually instructed 
him to hover around Minas Tirith, but I doubt it.  We never got along.  He 
was a prince in the house of Elrond and I think…”  He picked up the braid 
again, frowning at it.  “For all that rain your hair needs washing, mereth.”
	“Kept me too dry for my own good, hmm?” smiled Legolas.  He 
prodded the subject of Glorfindel no further, instead reaching up a pale 
hand to Aragorn’s cheek.  “You should get some more rest yourself.  You 
don’t always have to be hunting all about, you know.”
	“I don’t just hunt.”  Aragorn looked out of the cave again, this time 
wearily.  Suddenly he clutched Legolas’ hand to his chest, crying, “They’ll 
be back!  I know they’ll be back and what if I miss them again?  They’ll 
hurt you Legolas, my dear Legolas, and all for what?  My ‘abandonment’ 
of Arwen Evenstar?  As if she—“  
      Legolas sat up and placed an arm around Aragorn.  “You oughtn’t 
to—“
	“Where will we go?” Aragorn barreled on.  “Is this how we will 
manage, beating around the bush, trying to avoid supposed ‘avengers’ 
from one day to the next?  That’s not what I wanted for you, mereth!  Not 
ever!”  The Man’s grey eyes gleamed.  “I had such hopes, I—I waited so 
long.  And now…”
	“Your hopes are far from crushed.”  Legolas voice was gentle, his 
hand soothing as it rubbed Aragorn’s back in little circles.  “What is it 
you’re worried about?  Us being alone out here?  Why not go back to 
civilization, then?”  With his head bowed Aragorn did not see the strain in 
Legolas’ eyes as he said this.  “Well?”
	“They would spurn and hunt us, same as Glorfindel.”
	“Then let us return to our friends.”  Legolas rose without 
grimacing.  “Come on, the Shire can’t be that far off, can it?  Two, three 
days perhaps, if we don’t push poor Shadowfax.”
	“The hobbits?”
	“Why not?”
	Aragorn smiled faintly as he remembered Boromir trying to teach 
the hobbits to fight.  That had been before he became king, before Moria, 
before…everything.  “I suppose they wouldn’t mind seeing us.”
	“Of course not.  They’d be delighted.”
	Aragorn peered curiously at his lover, shuffling among their few 
belongings now with elven grace.  “You’re not worried about Pippin and 
his oath, then?  To Gondor?”
	“Aragorn,” Legolas began, ceasing preparations to face him.  “Do 
you remember that night in Rohan?”  He grinned at the Man’s expression.  
“So you do.  Do you remember what you told me, then?  ‘There are some 
things that could be done, and some that must.’  You are worried about us 
staying out here in the wilderness—no, let me finish.  You are.  You’re a 
wreck.  We could continue gallivanting around these fair blue mountains 
while you lose your mind to panic, but I won’t have it.  We will go east,” 
he said, turning abruptly away to tend to the clasp on a waterskin, “and 
take the chance with Pippin.”
	In a moment Aragorn’s arms were around Legolas, his beard 
tickling the back of the elf’s neck.  “So decisive, my beautiful Green Elf.”  
Even as the teasing mew escaped his throat at Aragorn’s doings behind 
him, Legolas thanked Elbereth he wasn’t facing west.  West toward the 
endless sky, the sun’s bed and the sea.

*    *    *    *

	At midday Aragorn called a halt at the feet of Ered Luin.  “I’m not 
looking forward to skirting the Grey Havens,” he sighed as he gazed south 
toward the Gulf.  “But these mountains are impassable.”
	“They ought to be,” said Legolas, as he swung the day’s catch off 
his shoulder. “They kept a great many elves in the dark about the eastern 
lands, back ages ago.”
	“I know.”  Aragorn surveyed the stretch of unforested slope they 
rested on with sharp eyes.  Summer flowers and thigh-high grass as thick 
as Legolas’ mane clothed the mountain between rock and trees, north and 
south.  “The sooner we get to the Shire, the better.”
	“Mmm.”  Legolas held the distant blue waters in his eyes for as 
long as he could bear, then plucked a yellow flower from its stem and 
twirled it idly between thumb and forefinger.  “The wind is blowing, and 
the white foam is flying…”
	“What?”  Aragorn turned to face the elf by the skewered meat.
	“Nothing,” Legolas flashed a smile and hastily piled more pine 
needles onto the infant flame.  “Just humming is all.”
	“Tell me, Legolas.”  Aragorn knelt in front of him, placing a hand 
on either of Legolas’ shoulders.  “I know your people and the sea that 
beckons them.  Are you—do you feel it?”
	Legolas avoided the Man’s eyes.  “I was just humming a tune, I 
didn’t mean anything by it—“
	“Legolas.”  Aragorn cupped the elf’s chin in his hand and turned 
the pale, sun-blazed face up to his own.  The elf’s eyes were pleading.  
“Have I—“
	“Oh don’t, Aragorn, please don’t!”  With a cry Legolas whirled 
away, grabbing Aragorn at the last moment and drawing him down into 
the long grass with him.  “You’ve done nothing,” he whispered, hoarse 
and raw, and yanked viciously at the Man’s belt buckle.
	“What—but I—“  Legolas fixed Aragorn with a look that stopped 
him cold, then hot.  He lay still as deft fingers robbed him of his clothing, 
raising a hand only when the last gauntlet was flung aside.  “What about 
you,” he said softly, and with slightly clumsier yet no less needful hands 
offered the green garb of the elf up to the mountain winds.  
	“You’ve done nothing,” Legolas hissed again, punctuating his 
words with glittering tears and then a kiss that ricocheted down to 
Aragorn’s toes.  As the elf moved down Aragorn grasped his milky 
forearm.
	“Wait.”  They kissed, then Aragorn continued, “You’re always 
giving—and I’m always taking.  Sit back.”
	Legolas’ eyes gaped wide and blue, but he did not protest as 
Aragorn traced his collarbone with his tongue.  Instead he giggled.
	“What?” Aragorn murmured into flesh.
	“Your beard.  It tickles.”
	“Shall I shave it?”
	“Oh no, I like it.  I’ve always liked it.  It’s—ahh!”  Aragorn 
allowed himself a small smile of triumph as the slim body of Legolas 
surged up against his.  Above them the tops of the summer grasses danced, 
throwing prancing shadows down onto lip and leg and nipple.  “My king, 
my king, you’re—“  Legolas lost his words in a gasp; Aragorn was licking 
figure eights around his navel.  
	“Hmm?  Lower you say?”  Aragorn slid panther-like down the 
length of the elf’s body, reveling in every goosebump, every golden hair.  
“I thought elves were impervious to cold,” he purred as he reached his 
destination.  Legolas flung his legs around the man’s neck, buried his long 
fingers in Aragorn’s hair.  “Although really I don’t see the necessity of 
clothing if it doesn’t bother—“
	“Shut up,” Legolas moaned.  A shudder rippled through him as 
Aragorn did just that.

*    *    *    *

	“It was worth it,” Aragorn thought from the warm, glowing place 
in which he floated—probably, some part of him recognized, somewhere 
within the golden regions of Legolas.  “The war, the pomp, the duty…it 
was worth it, for this.”  He hummed deep in his throat and nuzzled 
forward, more complete than he had even been in his life.  “He’s a 
beautiful creature, a thing of…godliness.”  He opened his eyes to tell 
Legolas so, if he were awake, letting his eyelids flutter before opening for 
a moment in anticipation of the shining form of his lover.
	But what he saw upon opening his eyes was not Legolas.  Instead 
he was looking down the cold stone point and long shaft of an arrow.

************************************************************

Note:

Mereth=love, or my loved one


Chapter Four

	“Wh-what—Legolas!”  Aragorn lurched toward the limp form a 
few feet away but went flying back when a boot connected with his chest.  
	“Save your breath, Oh King,” sneered a voice from above.  
Coughing for breath, Aragorn lashed out with his feet only to be kicked 
again; this time in his exposed back.  “Mereth,” he whimpered, clawing 
the ground toward his lover.  The by-now familiar boot came down on his 
fingers.
	“I said, save your breath.”  Long hands caught Aragorn by his 
beard, held his face up to a pair of smirking eyes.  “You’ll need it, I assure 
you.”  The teeth below the eyes were small and glinted harshly in the 
dying light.
	“Glorfindel!”  Aragorn jerked his head out of the elf’s grasp and 
reached for his sword.  But it wasn’t there.
	“How stupid do you think I am?” the elf laughed before motioning 
to the circle of archers.  “You two, take care of the usurper.  The king is 
my responsibility.”  His laughter hung foul in the air as he kicked Aragorn 
in the ribs.
	“Why?” gasped Aragorn.  “Why him?  Leave him be!  He did 
nothing—“
	“Now now, Dunadan, we’ve been through this.  Thranduil’s son 
stole you.”  Glorfindel thrust his fair face into Aragorn’s.  “And that, my 
dear king, is a very serious offense.”
	“Gwanno,” Aragorn snarled, and brought a kick of his own up 
between the elf’s legs.
Glorfindel dodged it.  Just barely.  “Take him,” he snapped.  “He 
won’t go
easily.”  
      Three of the encircling elves moved to unstring their bows, and in 
that moment Aragorn saw his chance.  He was rolling up off the balls of 
his feet before Glorfindel had turned back again; was raising fists to strike 
the two black-clad elves over Legolas when hot breath hissed into his ear.
      “I don’t think so, Elessar.”  In a rage Aragorn whirled, or meant to.  
But a blunt object in the elf’s hand hit the back of his head with a crack, 
and the last thing he saw before darkness closed in was the slim, beautiful 
body of Legolas, innocent and inert beneath the two tall elves in their 
cloaks of ebon.
      
*    *    *    *

	“Unnh…”  Legolas fought the waves of blackness that wrapped his 
mind in sticky webs.  “Aragorn?  What…happened…?”
	“Quiet back there,” came a voice, melodious and uncertain.  “We 
want this to go as smoothly as possible.”
	Legolas tried to speak again but his mouth would not work.  
Neither would his hands, his feet…all seemed sluggish, as if connected by 
only the barest of threads to his mind.  “Aragorn!” he thought in panic, 
“What’s going on?  Where are—“
	“I said quiet!” Pain lanced through Legolas’ shoulder, then shot 
again through his chest and the arrow-wound.  He yelped.  
      “Elrohir, what did you do to him?”
	“I didn’t—all I did was poke him—“  Through waves of pain 
Legolas felt something twitch aside over his wound.  “Where did he get 
that?  Sweet Elbereth, they haven’t been shooting at him have they?”
	“Elladan!” Legolas blurted suddenly, for the sticky wrappings 
around his brain were slowly loosening and he recalled the voice.  He 
fought for control of his limbs, even just his eyes.  “What is this?  Where’s 
Aragorn?  Help me—“
	“I’m afraid we can’t do that, Legolas, son of Thranduil.  You’ll 
make it gentler for yourself if you just go along with us.”
	“But—why—ai!”  The elf moved weak hands up to protect the tear 
in his chest.
	“Elrohir, be easy!  Look at him.  It’s not as if he can hurt us.”
	“I don’t want to listen to his babbling the whole way.”
	“Please, he was our friend once.  He—“
	Legolas finally cracked an eye open, for all the good it did him.  
Darkness still dominated to the point that he wondered if he’d fallen back 
into a dream, until he managed to tilt his head upward to a sky full of stars.  
They comforted him, and their presence gave him strength enough to beat 
back the lethargy that lorded over his tongue.  “Was?  When did things 
change, sons of Elrond?  Why—“
	“When did things change?” a voice, which Legolas recognized as 
Elrohir’s, cut through the night like a scythe.  “Things changed, Legolas, 
when you lured our sister’s husband away from her.  Things changed 
when you robbed a country of its king.  Things—argh!”  Out of the night a 
pale face loomed, dark-haired and condemning.  “We were going West, 
did you know that?  There’s nothing left for us here.  It’s the twilight of 
the elves, Legolas!  Our father left, and we were right behind him.”  The 
face twisted into a hiss.  “And then you had to run off with Arwen’s fancy 
of a Man.”  
	“Come on, Elrohir.  Let’s just ride, all right?”  Legolas’ vision 
returned enough to catch a restraining hand on Elrohir’s shoulder above 
him.  
	“Where is he?” Legolas demanded, voice soft.  “Where is 
Aragorn?”
	The recently-subdued Elrohir swiveled around in his seat and 
struck Legolas hard across the chest, his weakness clear now.  A cry of 
agony ripped from Legolas’ throat.  “How dare you ask about him?” 
Elrohir roared into the stillness.  “After all you’ve done you still have the 
nerve to treat him as your…your…”  The elf threw up his hands in disgust 
and returned to the reins, or so Legolas guessed by the renewed jingle of 
harness in the night.  That and the muffled thud of a horses’ hooves on 
loam failed to fill the vast canopy of earth and sky; even in his pain-
blurred condition Legolas felt the yawning emptiness stretching around 
them as if they were but a few leaves in a lake.  He felt small.  And weak.
	“Did they really shoot you?” Elladan asked after a long while, 
during which Legolas had clung longingly to memories of the previous 
day—or was it the day before that?—with Aragorn.  He answered the 
question with stony silence.  “Legolas, did they—“
	“Oh, give it up, Elladan.  What do we care?”  There was a little 
swish, and the horse picked up its pace.
	“They had no cause to do that.  They could have just come up to 
them calmly and—“
	“No cause?  No cause?  Do you forsake your sister, Elladan?  Our 
sister?  This—prince—of Mirkwood yanked Undomiel’s Aragorn from 
her, and his duties as king besides.  And you say there’s no cause to take 
them by force?”
	“But do we know if Glorfindel and them even tried to discuss—“
	“Discuss?” Elrohir exploded.  “What’s to discuss?  Would you 
rather we be sitting, munching lembas, chatting about the weather and the 
horses while Legolas paws over our sister’s husband like a…a…”  He 
slammed his fist into the wood of what Legolas guessed to be a cart or 
carriage.  “What’s to discuss?”
	“He’s not hers.”  
	“What?” Elrohir roared, raising a fist.  Elladan stayed it.
	“He’s not hers,” Legolas repeated, his voice gathering strength 
from the undrugged parts of his body.  “Once he might have been, because 
he willed it, but Undomiel gave herself away long ago.”  He braced 
himself for another blow and added, “To Glorfindel.”
	“I don’t believe it!” cried Elrohir, leering over the back of the cart.  
“And I’ve had enough of your muttering on this trip!  One more word and 
you’ll feel a worse pain then any Glorfindel ever gave you, understand?”
	“Elrohir!” his brother admonished but said no more after that.  
Legolas stilled his tongue and focused on rest, gathering his strength.  
Whatever they’d done to him still impaired his night vision and he could 
make out no more than vague shapes against the blackness, but dawn 
would come eventually.  And with it, knowledge.  
      Legolas settled his battered self as best he could on the hard wood 
slats of the cart, and wondered if they had hurt Aragorn or blamed him—if 
they blamed him he’d only soak it up.  What if they had killed him? 
No, he couldn’t be dead.  Legolas would have felt it, he was sure.
	“Wherever you are, mereth,” Legolas thought, as sleep bore him 
away from the hard wood and the ache in his chest, “I love you.”  His 
hands gripped each other in the cold he didn’t feel.

*    *    *    *

	Rough hands jarred Legolas from sleep.  
	“I hate to do this, Thranduil’s son,” came Elladan’s apology.  
Legolas struggled to sort out the elf’s face from the blessed blue of dawn 
and dark canopy of trees.
	“Then don’t,” he managed to croak, confused.
	Elladan advanced upon him with a soiled cloth in hand.  “It’s for 
your own good, though—whatever happens.” 
	Legolas lashed out with bare feet, knowing only that that cloth 
should not come near him.  Then he yelped as a stick jabbed from above 
came down on his wound.  Elladan stepped lightly forward, grimacing, 
and smothered Legolas’ face with the cloth. 
	“Noo!” Legolas cried.  “Nnnnuh…”  He felt his body slackening, 
felt the sticky webs weaving themselves over his mind, and he panicked.  
His flung-out arm caught Elladan’s cloak as he pulled away, and Elrond’s 
unwilling son was forced to bend close to the pained face of his friend.  
“Why?” Legolas whimpered.  His blue eyes, clouding over already, leaked 
tears.  Elladan untangled the limp hand from his cloak and replaced it on 
Legolas’ breast, over his wound.
	Out of pity or hesitance or plain nervousness, whatever Elladan 
had put on the cloth hadn’t been applied strongly enough.  When against 
this weakness Legolas’ fear rose and lent power, he was able to fight off 
the sticky sleep the drug tried to induce, although the effort left him 
incapable of moving or speaking or even hearing very well.  He kept his 
eyes shut, believing with his muddled mind that seeing things would 
overpower him altogether, and strained through the sticky whips and cords 
to catch snatches of blurry conversation.  He wanted to hear, felt the need 
to grasp at least this much of his situation.  He wanted Aragorn, too, and 
his labored train of thought frequently tore away from the conversation he 
was trying to hear to fuss over memories.
	“…don’t think we should do this, Elrohir.”
	“But he…husband!”
	Legolas would have smiled if his mouth worked.  He was 
remembering Aragorn’s face in the cave, those touching worry-lines 
deepened by the firelight’s play, vanishing in an instant when Legolas had 
held him.  He giggled, or tried to.  His throat wouldn’t work for some 
reason.  Why was that?  Oh, the elves.  The ones Aragorn fought for him, 
the sweetie.  Where was Aragorn, anyway?  The cart beneath him ceased 
its squeak and squeal, and Legolas hovered on the brink of sleep in the 
sudden peace.
	“I know they told us…but look at him.”
	“So we might as well…”
	“But we don’t have to!  …no loyalty?”
	“Loyalty!  In his presence!  Why…”
	“…said they had contacts there, didn’t they?  He was once our…”
	“Fine…leave him to them.”  
	Leave him to them.  What did that mean?  Who was even talking?  
With a vague sense annoyance Legolas sensed the cart resume its forward 
motion.  So much for sleep.  But, wasn’t sleep what he was trying to 
avoid?  Why?  Sleep was nice.  Sleep was—“
	“…awake!”
	“But I…”
	“Fool!  …not strong enough!”
	“Does it really…”
	“No.  I’ll…”  The bonds around Legolas’ mind convulsed as pain 
sliced through them.  In the moment of clarity his panic came back, and 
his fierce desire to stay awake, but it was too much for him.  The pain had 
cut too deep and now he was helpless, falling down, down into a black 
void.  He could not even give voice to his misery with lips that refused to 
move.
	“There.  He’s out cold now.”  Those were the words Legolas took 
with him into darkness.  He tried to summon a vision of Aragorn or even 
just his voice, soft and gentle for so tough an individual, but they would 
not come.  The elf felt utterly alone as consciousness fled him.

*    *    *    *

	He woke alone.  This time he didn’t linger in the dreamy lethargy 
the drug left on him but fought it back ferociously, forcing thick eyelids 
open before moving anything else.  Neither stars nor wood slats greeted 
his eyes as he would have expected.  Instead a stuffy darkness pervaded, 
interspersed with bulky shadows the elf’s impaired night vision couldn’t 
identify.  The steady throb in his chest increased to a stinging sensation as 
he gathered strength and hurled himself sideways beneath his wool 
blanket, intending to surprise those nearest him and attack.  He hit a wall.
	“Aragorn!” he yelled, and the sound surprised him.  But not for 
long.  Lost and aching, and partially drugged at the hand of a former 
friend, it seemed the natural thing to do.  “Aragorn!” he cried again, and 
again.  “Aragorn!  Aragorn!  Aragorn!”
	“Will you hush?” called a voice.  Legolas’ jaw shut with a clack as 
footsteps, still far off, drew nearer.  “Honestly, you’ll wake the whole 
place, yelling bloody murder like that.  Though I can’t say I blame you for 
screaming for anyone at all, not the way that Elrohir was going on.”  The 
footsteps paused and the sound of metal on metal reached Legolas’ 
sharpening hearing.  “Boy, I don’t know what you did, but you sure got 
him in a temper.  Poor Elladan—he’ll have to catch it the whole way back 
wherever they’re going.  Stupid key…”  A thin line of light pierced the 
gloom and traced itself into a rectangle as Legolas watched, too weak to 
rise.  
      “There we go.  Now don’t try anything funny, I’ll have you know 
I’m fully armed over here, and gash or blackthorn juice or anything else—
terrible stuff, that.  I tell you I just couldn’t believe it when Elladan said 
he’d used it—I’ve a good many years experience under my belt and I’ll 
knock the stuffing out of you if you so much as cough at me.  Now just a 
minute…”
	The line of light broadened and silhouetted a stooping figure 
carrying a lantern and something that glinted in the shadows.  “I’ve got 
your dinner right here, see, and if you want to eat it you’d better be on 
your best behavior.”  The figure advanced with the lantern and held it up, 
casting its globe of light over Legolas, who drew back under the blanket at 
its glare.  “A little light shy now, are we?  A regular Gollum I’ve got 
here.”  The glittering object, which turned out to be a sword and a very 
fine one, bobbed as the arm that held it shook off a basket.  
      “All right, so that was uncalled for.  I apologize.  Anyway you 
might as well eat up.”  Something about the voice sparked something in 
Legolas, and he peeked blearily out from under the hood of the blanket, 
trying to adjust to even the dim glow of the lantern.  “I’m the one what 
carried you in here and let me tell you, I could’ve carried ten of you.  I 
don’t suppose Elrohir let Elladan give you even a crust of bread—or did 
they keep you under the blackthorn the whole time?  Nasty stuff, like I 
said.  It isn’t every day you see an elf who’ll touch the blackthorn…”
      “Pippin?” Legolas blurted incredulously.
      The tip of the gleaming sword darted out and flicked away the 
blanket.  “Ho now, who are you to—”  The voice ground to a halt, and the 
basket of food fell to the floor with a thump.  “L-Legolas?”
      In the thin light given off by the lantern, it was hard to tell who 
was more surprised.


Chapter Five

	“Do wake up,” came a solicitous croon.  “You need your 
sustenance.”
	Aragorn moaned as varying curtains of black shifted behind his 
eyes.  The curtains were all he knew.
	“Come on, now.  King.”  The voice twisted the word into 
something vile.  “Get up and eat.”
	With a jolt memory came back to the Man and he hurled himself in 
the direction of the voice, only to be yanked back at hand and foot.  
“Curse you, what have you done to him!” he spat into the pale, placid face 
before him.  Glorfindel only smiled.
	“Who, your little elven concubine?  He’s hardly any of your 
concern now.”  Glorfindel nudged a pile of chains with a black-booted toe.  
“You have bigger problems.”  
	Again Aragorn threw himself at the elf, blind to reason and the 
pain that still pulsed at the back of his head.  Again iron bands held him 
back.  “Where is he?” he roared, breathing heavily.  “I’ll kill you, I swear I 
will!  Where is Legolas?”
	“I can hardly tell you if you kill me.”  Glorfindel laughed at the 
fresh fury on Aragorn’s face.  “Eat up and I might get around to talking 
about your dear, slutty little elf.”  Once more he nudged with his black 
velvet boot, this time a tin full of steaming meat and potatoes.  “I hope you 
enjoy that.  We don’t usually supply meat, but you were an exception.”
	Aragorn spat on the food.  “Curse you and your exceptions!  What 
have you done—“
	“I gave you an ultimatum, and you are free to take it or leave it.  
Though, in your situation,” the elf added, grinning wickedly from behind a 
half-raised hand, “I wouldn’t think there would be much of a choice.”  His 
teeth gleamed as Aragorn, shaking with rage, drew the tin to him and ate 
with manacled hands.  He watched until the last scraps were wiped clean 
of the tin with the Man’s fingers.
	“Well?” Aragorn demanded.
	“What’s that?  Do I hear someone calling me?”  Glorfindel cocked 
a hand to his ear expectantly.  “Oh dear me, it appears I’m needed on 
deck.  I hate to—my, aren’t we feisty?”  In one fluid movement the elf 
dodged the viciously thrown tin plate.  His laughter seeped over Aragorn’s 
hoarse cries of outrage.  “Don’t you worry, I’ll be back.  Wouldn’t want 
you to get lonely down here.”  With a last flash of teeth he disappeared 
through a wooden doorway and up some stairs, his tread too soft to be 
heard.
	“Curse you!” Aragorn shouted again, his voice cracking on the last 
word before he broke into sobs.  “I’m sorry!  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m 
sorry!”  He slammed his fist into the planks beneath him, but it could not 
beat out the image of Legolas’ crystalline blue eyes laughing, sparkling in 
the sun and wind.  “I’m sorry,” Aragorn choked.  “I let this happen to 
you.”  His hands were bleeding when he finally ceased his hammering and 
lay down naked amidst his chains.  But he did not sleep.  There could be 
no sleep with those beautiful blue eyes hovering right behind his own.

*    *    *    *

	After an indeterminate time during which Aragorn had recognized 
the rocking under him as that of the sea, and after what light filtered down 
the stairs and through the door had long since faded, a faint glow appeared 
in that direction and grew stronger.  Aragorn was ready.  As the light grew 
warmer he balled his fists around his chains, sat back on haunches coiled 
like springs.  The ache at the base of his skull he ignored like he ignored 
the gnawing in the pit of his stomach.  Only the eyes would not leave him, 
and he did not want them to.  He wanted them there to see this.
	The light lingered for a moment outside the doorway before 
spilling in, outlining a dark figure.  Aragorn waited, waited for the tread of 
soft feet to come closer, closer… “Gwanno!”  He lunged up, not forwards, 
and wielding his chain like a balrog’s whip ensnared the figure in bands of 
iron.  The lantern hit the floor with a crash and a small flame spread, but 
Aragorn ignored it.  In an instant the very chains that held him went 
around the elven neck—he could see it now, ghostly pale in the light of 
the fire—tighter and tighter.  He pulled the chains until his hands bled, the 
splinters grinding back and forth, further into his flesh, and he pulled 
harder.  In time the kicking of the soft boots upon the floor ceased; the 
arms in their black velvet stopped their spasms.  Aragorn sat back, 
panting, and was wondering what to do next when a torrent of cold water 
washed over him.
	“Bravo!”  Aragorn whirled in the direction of the doorway, but his 
sight was blurred by seawater.  “I’m afraid Thalion there wouldn’t agree 
with me, but then we don’t have to worry about his opinion now, do we?”  
A tinkling laugh filled the room as a black-caped figure came into the 
almost-dead glow of the flame, dripping bucket held distastefully away 
from the fine embroidery.  “I really must thank you.  The pull of the sea 
was getting a bit too strong for our dear Thalion.  He was all for changing 
course and heading West to Valinor, Man and all.  But you were kind 
enough to save me the trouble of setting him straight.”  The laugh came 
again but Aragorn barely heard it over the rasp of his own breathing.
	“I’ll kill you,” he snarled.  Tears of wrath joined the seawater in 
his eyes.
	“Oh, do get angry,” Glorfindel purred, coming into the light of the 
nearly quenched flames.  They cast his eyes into shadows from which two 
tiny pricks of light burned.  “You’re so…amusing, when you’re angry.”  
Deftly he ducked the chains Aragorn hurled at him, catching them when 
they fell and yanking with a strength the Man hadn’t counted on.  Iron bit 
into wrists and ankles as Glorfindel pulled him to the utmost reach of his 
chains, smiling that small-toothed smiled of his.  “Oh yes,” the elf crooned 
softly, something changing in the pinpoints of eyes, “most amusing.”
	Aragorn spat into the pale face so close to his, and the gob of 
spittle slid slowly down the elf’s cheek.  “What have you done to him?” 
Aragorn grated, barely able to get the words out between lips twisted in 
revulsion.
	Glorfindel ignored the question, instead pulling a long slim dagger 
from the depths of his cloak.  “I can see,” he murmured, wiping the spittle 
off his face with the blade, then tracing its tip along Aragorn’s cheekbone, 
“that you and Undomiel will have much to say to each other.”  He laughed 
at the change in the face under the knife.  “What, you thought I would just 
kill you?  Oh, but that would be so swift!  Though I don’t doubt you’d 
want it, given your ‘faithful’ slut’s abandonment of you for the glories of 
Elvenhome…”
	“You lie!”  Aragorn jerked at the end of his chains, to no avail but 
the pricking of Glorfindel’s knife into his skin.  “You killed him!  Never.  
He would never—“
	“Believe me if you want,” the elf shrugged, hurling chains and 
Man to the floor in sudden disinterest.  “I don’t really care.  But isn’t it a 
little self-serving to presume that Legolas would choose death over eternal 
light in the halls of the Valar?  Life without you?”  Glorfindel sauntered 
across the floor, toeing out the last lick of flame on his way by.  He paused 
in the doorway, a shadow within a shadow.  “We gave him a choice, 
Aragorn son of Arathorn.  He is an elf, after all.”  He laughed, and it was 
neither tinkling nor delighted.  “Even if he does have poor taste in flesh.”  
The soft discordance of splinters against velvet was the only sound made 
as he left.
	Aragorn slumped to the floor, exhausted by the fight and the bite 
of the seawater in all his wounds.  He did not believe Glorfindel.  Legolas’ 
eyes had never left him, never even faded before his sight once since he’d 
come to consciousness, and in them he saw all the reassurance he needed 
and more.  Legolas would not abandon him.  And yet there was the 
question of just what had happened to the elf, and did they hurt him, and 
why all this had to happen in the first place, why they couldn’t have just 
lived happily—
	The Man bowed his head.  He knew why.  He had failed in his 
vigilance, failed Legolas.  He was getting old, softening as the elf had not 
and would not for all eternity.  Had Legolas not pointed out the silver 
glinting in his hair that first day on the beach after the Grey Havens?  
Beauty, he had called it then.  “But is this beauty?” Aragorn asked the cold 
hold of the ship.  “Is whatever they’ve done to you, wherever they’ve 
taken you—is that beauty?”  The groaning of the ship in the hands of the 
sea was all the answer given to him, and in the turgid silence he lay his 
head in his bleeding hands and wept.  There were no words, Elven or 
otherwise, to express his sorrow.

*    *    *    *

	Days passed.  Aragorn was aware of them only in the reappearance 
of food—which never seemed to fill him—and of Glorfindel, who never 
seemed to get close enough for Aragorn to kill him.  The Man doubted he 
had the strength to, anyway, though he wore his wrists and ankles raw in 
effort to free himself for just that purpose.  Glorfindel laughed.
	At last, after they had been on the Anduin for several days with the 
wind against them, cries filtered down from above deck.  “Minas Tirith!  
You can see the fair city from here!”  Glorfindel’s pale face craned around 
the doorway set with a lurid grin.
	“Is your heart quickening, oh King?  Are you quaking at the 
thought of return your beloved city—to your wife?”  He laughed as usual, 
but there was a chill in it that Aragorn noticed but failed to care about.  
The elf had never let slip Legolas’ true whereabouts; never dropped the 
ruse—Aragorn was sure it was a ruse—that he had taken the ship to 
Erresea.  The Man had spent the days in the dark, alternately mourning 
over and pining after Legolas.  Now, as the moment of confrontation with 
Arwen Evenstar drew near, he felt only empty and longing for his lost 
lover.
	Glorfindel returned with a host of similarly-attired elves in full 
accouterment.  “Take him, and watch his chains,” Glorfindel ordered, 
swirling his black cape and adopting a look of concern.  “You know what 
happened to poor Thalion.”
	In instant the elves were upon Aragorn, grinding him down into the 
rough floor, holding him there as they undid the rusty iron around his 
joints.  He bucked when he felt the shackles fall away; heaved and strained 
against the immaculate hands that held him, but somebody grabbed a 
fistful of his hair and snapped a heavy iron collar around his neck   “A 
collar for the wild beast,” a tinkling voice breathed into his ear, and the 
Man let loose a howl.  “My point exactly,” Glorfindel giggled, clapping 
delightedly as Aragorn lunged.  An elf behind him jerked on a chain 
attached the collar and he flew back, his head jarring with the whiplash.  
“You’ll present in fine form to the Queen, I’m sure.”
	Aragorn regarded him with silent loathing as he led the procession 
of black-clad elves out of the stinking hold, five chains in total coming 
from the collar with the fifth in Glorfindel’s hand, and out into the 
sunlight.  The Man squinted his eyes to slits in the face of the well-lit 
onslaught but did not close them; real light felt so wonderful.  In the sun’s 
warmth he felt capable of giving things thought again.
	“Oh dear, we can’t have you parading through the streets like 
that,” Glorfindel sighed, shooting Aragorn’s naked body a glance.  They 
had left him as they’d taken him.  “I guess we’ll just have to arrange for 
other transportation.  Down the ramp, and don’t let him jump!”
	Aragorn allowed himself a snort as they picked their way down the 
gangplank.  Don’t let him jump?  As if he would commit suicide when 
there was still a chance that somewhere, somehow Legolas still 
lived…still…wanted him for all his faults…
	“Something amuses you, King Aragorn?” Glorfindel purred from 
the back of a carriage waiting by the quay.  “I hardly think this a laughing 
matter.  Perhaps the sun is addling your mind after so much time away 
from it?  I’ll be happy to fix that for you.”  At an imperious gesture from 
Glorfindel, the elves around Aragorn picked him up and hurled him into 
the back of the carriage, whose bolt he heard slam into the grooves before 
he’d even risen.
	“What?” he yelled, loud enough for even his hoarse voice to 
penetrate the heavy wood.  “Too frightened to ride back here with me?”
	A chilling laughed echoed from above.
	Aragorn settled himself in a corner of the windowless carriage to 
wait, feeling grateful that the floor had been worn smooth with care—or 
with use.  The smell was less than kindly to the nose but no worse than 
that of the hold, and he pondered his situation with the strength even that 
brief glimpse of the sun had given him.  He wondered what he should say 
to Arwen—what he would say to Arwen.  Certainly he would not try to 
conceal the truth—Legolas was his as Arwen was not and hadn’t been for 
a long time.  He might even bring that up, those lonely nights after their 
wedding, when—
	His musings scattered as the sounds of the city reached him.  
Music, hawkers, life!  The white flags flapping, the seven walls gleaming 
with the dwarves’ repairs…Minas Tirith!  Eagerly he stood amidst his 
chains, searching the cell-like walls for a crack, a knothole, anything with 
which to behold his beloved city.  Oh, if only the others hadn’t been 
around after the Field of Cormallen, if only it had just been Aragorn and 
Legolas!  Then the Man would have shown off his city in even its injured 
splendor; he would have borrowed poor Boromir’s words to describe it, 
the ancient beauty…
	With a noise of grinding gravel the carriage came to a halt.  
Aragorn waited impatiently, longing for the ride to be open and the doors 
to open, be it Elrond himself who awaited him.  For the sound and feel, if 
not sight, of his birthright filled him with hope anew—he would escape or 
receive pardon, he knew he would, and after that he would find Legolas 
and be with him to the end of his days, if the elf would have him.  And 
even this doubt, and the weight of all his failures, was lifted a little within 
the white walls.
	Aragorn waited impatiently for the carriage to resume its motion, 
but it did not.  What were they doing?  Had a wheel mired itself in mud, 
an axel snapped?  No, he would have felt it.  His curiosity piqued as 
hurried voices babbled outside, too soft or far away to hear.  They couldn’t 
have reached the palace yet; it stood at the top of the towering city, in the 
very last set of walls.  Why, they’d barely made it past the first gate 
judging by the time, they couldn’t possibly be further than—
	Golden sunlight blinded him as the doors to the cell-carriage were 
thrown open.  The chains pooled around his feet disappeared suddenly, 
balled into a tangled of iron and were hauled forward, forcing Aragorn to 
stumble along behind.  The pace increased to an elven run and the Man 
panted to keep up, his long days of hunger and confinement weighing 
heavily on his movements.  
      “Move, keep moving!” came a hiss in his ear as he crashed over 
chiseled stone—what felt to be a doorframe.  He opened his eyes and 
could make out stairs and fine furniture, frescoes and lush décor.
      “Maybe we made it to the palace after all,” he thought, “and I 
dozed off along the way.  Maybe my brain really is addled.  Where else 
would you find this wealth…?”
      “Down the stairs!  Now!” a voice snapped.
      Aragorn barely kept his balance down the steep winding stairwell.  
He hadn’t occupied the palace long, but he didn’t remember any spiral 
staircases descending from the ground floor.  This had to be a wine cellar 
or cooler.  It didn’t make any sense.  
“Is it all right?  Did anyone see us?”
      “No, my lord.  We’re too early for it to be very busy.”
      “Good, good, put that—no, not there!  There!”  Aragorn’s eyes had 
to adjust anew to fresh darkness and were still trying to make the 
transition when manacles of shining silver, and not iron, clacked suddenly 
shut over his wrists, yanking his arms out above him.  Glorfindel’s face 
loomed out of the pervading darkness like that of a ghost.  “I hope you 
enjoy our hospitality,” Glorfindel purred softly.  A wild light was in his 
eyes.
      “ ‘Our’,” Aragorn thought.  “So he’s being open about it.”  Then 
he said outright, because he could think of nothing else, “Are you sure 
Undomiel would hearken so readily to your reference to the two of you?”
      Glorfindel laughed, and it no longer tinkled but hiccoughed up and 
down the lilting scale of elven chords.  “Undomiel?” he sputtered between 
guffaws. “Who said anything about Undomiel?  When I said ‘our’ I meant 
our,” he said with a smile, extending his hands outward to the ten or so 
black-clad elves that ranged about the room.  He turned the all-
encompassing gesture into an imperious one and the chains that whipped 
around Aragorn’s legs flew out to either side, snaring him that way.  A 
cold wisp of presentiment licked at the base of his spine.
      “Where is—“ he began, but broke off as Glorfindel skipped 
suddenly close, his pinpoints of eyes dancing with mild mirth. 
      “You didn’t really think I’d give you to her, did you?” the elf 
whispered.  “Such faith you have.”  He laughed graciously through small, 
glinting teeth.  “But honestly, that would be such a waste.  Arwen fails to 
see…your charms.”  Glorfindel smiled as Aragorn ducked his head 
frantically out of the elf’s kiss.  “The collar,” he commanded to a cohort 
behind the Man, and Aragorn felt his neck anchor into the position he’d 
twisted it; arched back out of the reach of Glorfindel’s mouth.  The elf 
compensated for the gap with a small step forward.  “Try and escape it 
now,” he chuckled, and seized Aragorn’s mouth in a savage kiss.  Aragorn 
bit down, as hard as he knew how, and was rewarded with a squeal.  
      “Curse you and—“ Glorfindel stopped, smiling a bloody smile.  
“Ah, but I should be praising such energy.  I am an elf, after all, am I 
not?”  His smile deepened.  “Like him?”
      “No!” Aragorn howled as Glorfindel slipped out of view.  Behind 
him.  “No no no, sweet Elbereth—help me!” he cried to the shadowy 
figures looking on.  “One of you, somebody help me!  You’ve got to—
you’ll never be Legolas!” he shrieked, changing targets to the closer and 
much more dangerous one at his back.  “Never!  You stinking, filthy—
help me!  Help me!”
      “You’re so enchanting when you’re like this,” Glorfindel giggled 
at Aragorn’s ear.  A horrific shudder shook the Man.  
      “Get away from me!  Elbereth, Gilthoniel, help me!  Oh, for the 
love of—Legolas!” he screamed, and there was neither lust nor longing 
but blind panic in the sound that bounced off stone, deep underground.  
      “That’s right,” Glorfindel chanted softly amidst the sound of 
rustling fabric, “say his name.  Remind yourself of him.  Oh,” he assured, 
running a hand over the hysterically jerking head of hair, “I know I can’t 
be Legolas Greenleaf to you.  I know that quite well.  No, what I aim to 
do—“  He took Aragorn’s head in both hands and grinned down into the 
gray eyes with glee, “is to best him.”
      Aragorn heaved at his bonds, slicing the polished metal deep into 
his flesh, pulling harder, feeling the old iron collar saw at his neck.  Metal 
clanked on metal as he struggled fruitlessly, encouraging the collar at his 
neck in its sawing, praying for it to behead him.  
      Glorfindel saw this and grabbed the Man’s head roughly by the 
ears, tut-tutting as he did so.  “My my, we’ll have to get you a better 
collar.  I meant to have one made, you know.  But without you to measure 
I knew I’d get it the wrong size.  I knew I’d underestimate your…girth.”  
He brought his face within a hairsbreadth of Aragorn’s; breathed in 
deeply.  “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this?”
      Aragorn’s howls blurred together until they lost all meaning save 
that of torment.  His wrists and ankles bled freely but he did not feel them 
any more than he heard his own screams or smelled the perfume 
Glorfindel had applied.  Terror swept through the man, terror and a pain so 
great it blotted out Legolas’ dear blue eyes from their familiar post at the 
front of the Man’s consciousness.  And when they were gone, those last 
remnants of goodness and light …that was the most terrifying thing of all.

Chapter Six

	“How did—why are—what happened?” Pippin stammered, staring 
at the grimy pile of rags on the floor.  
	“Pippin,” Legolas cried joyfully, weakly, tears forging tracks 
through the dirt on his face.  “Oh Pippin, Pippin, Pippin!”  His labored 
crawl forward brought the hobbit out of his shock and he stopped Legolas’ 
advance with a steady hand.
	“Don’t move an inch.  Here,” he ordered, retrieving the fallen 
basket from the floor and thrusting it at the elf.  “I don’t want another 
word out of you until you’ve eaten everything in there.”  He waved aside 
Legolas’ tearful protest.  “Not.  One.  Word.”
	“Where’s Aragorn?” the elf persisted.  “What have they done to 
him, Pippin?”
	The hobbit frowned.  “Aragorn?  What has he got to do with 
anything?  Eat up, you’re wilting as you—good heavens, you’re injured!”
	Legolas struck at Pippin’s anxious hand with a viciousness the 
hobbit wouldn’t have thought possible of one in such poor condition.  
“Tell—me—where—he—is.”  The elf held Pippin’s arm in a grip that 
hurt.  “Don’t lie to me, Pippin.  I know of your oath to Gondor.  What 
have they done with Elessar?”
	“I know nothing!  Honest!  Legolas, you’ve got to believe me.  All 
I know is that Elrohir and Elladan showed up on my doorstep in the 
raiment of the Queen’s Guards and told me to keep their—“  
Understanding dawned like a cloud in Pippin’s face and he sank to the 
ground.
	“What!  What is it?” hissed Legolas.
	“I don’t know.  It’s just that…”  He looked at the battered, 
bleeding elf before him.  “They called you a traitor.  ‘Look after this 
traitor to the throne of Gondor until you are contacted,’ they said, and 
I…I…I can’t be here!”  He jerked himself from Legolas’ grief-slackened 
grip and dashed toward the door.  “I’ll get Merry!  Eat the food, Legolas, 
you need it!  I was never here!”  He ignored Legolas’ anguished yell and 
backed out the door bowing apologetically, adding once more, “I was 
never here!”  The door slammed shut behind him.
	Alone, but with the light of the lamp to combat the gloom, 
Legolas’s hunger mastered his frustration and he threw himself on the 
basket prepared with hobbit fare.  It did not disappoint him.  Vegetable 
pasties, hot bread, and cheese the color of leaves in Lothlorien filled the 
stuffy little room with the smells of good baking and sweet, sweet 
sustenance.  Legolas quaffed one filled skin after the other, not even 
noticing what was in it, so great was his thirst.  But by far the most 
splendid of the hobbits’ generous prison victuals were the apples, sharp 
and crisp in his mouth, for they reminded him of Aragorn and the Man’s 
patent fondness for the fruit.  Legolas couldn’t count the number of times, 
before the breaking of the Fellowship and after, when he’d turned and 
caught Aragorn’s brilliant teeth just piercing the gleaming hide of another 
apple, or his gauntleted hands just tossing away a core.  Such thoughts lent 
power to the sorrow in Legolas over his now-pacified stomach, and the 
tears that had sprung in joy at the discovery of his old friend returned, this 
time in remorse.  It was in this woeful state that Merry found the elf when 
he burst in panting through the door.
	“It is you!”  Merry ran to Legolas’ side, grimacing at the glistening 
wound the lamp shone upon.  “We have to get you up and out of this hole.  
Don’t mind Pippin, he’ll get himself sorted out.  Oh Legolas, what 
happened?”
	“She had a son,” Legolas said softly, seeming not to hear Merry.  
“It should have been all right.  She had a son.”
	“Who?  Who had a—oh Legolas, look at you!  Come on, get up 
before you make me carry you.  Or—wait, can you get up?”  At the elf’s 
silence, Merry mumbled an apology and scooped the elf up into his arms, 
which had grown longer than most hobbits’ with the aid of Treebeard’s 
special concoction.  Still, the long pale legs trailed across the floor as 
Merry hefted him out, begging forgiveness for the confounded low 
ceilings and narrow doorways all.  Legolas suffered the journey without 
grunt or complaint, though Merry’s shoulder dug rendingly into his chest 
wound.
	“We can’t keep you here,” the hobbit winced as Legolas’ foot hit a 
table.  “Not right now, anyway.  Pippin’s terrified they’ll come back and 
start asking for you and—oof!  I sent him over to Sam’s to—“
	“You live together?” Legolas spoke suddenly.  His voice was 
tender and brought a smile to Merry’s lips as he replied.
	“Well, yes, Pippin and I do.  Sam couldn’t stand to see some 
stranger take over Bag End and took it up himself, but that left the 
Crickhollow place and we, ah…”
	“It must be nice,” Legolas whispered dreamily.  In his mind he was 
already broadening the doorways, lengthening the windows; touching and 
tweaking the cozy home around him into the vision of the house he would 
share with Aragorn.  There would be an apple orchard in the back, of 
course, and an ample cellar to stow its bounty away into the winter months 
to please the Man.  And there’d be a fireplace in nearly every room to 
chase away the cold, but perhaps not in the bedroom where they would 
provide their own warmth.  Ah yes, there’d be a great bed, plumped with 
pillows and thick blankets and—
	“You okay there, Legolas?”  Merry set him gently down in front of 
a dying fire.  “Sit just a minute there while I stoke it up and then—
gracious, your wound, I forgot!”  Pinkening, the hobbit hurried from the 
room, then back, with an armful of towels and a pile of garments.  “I, er, 
thought you might want to dress before…well, Sam’s got little ones 
running around, you see, and well…”
	Legolas’ lips cracked as they smiled.  “Thank you, Merry.  Those 
windows over there, you know—they could stand to be a little wider.”
	Merry’s face puckered in a frown.  “How much of that wine did 
you drink, Legolas?  Are you sure you’re—oh, here’s Sam!”  With a 
grateful grimace Merry gestured to the back door, through which a stout 
hobbit panting for breath stumbled.  
	“Merry, Pippin said to—oh.”  Sam stared.  “We ought to—can 
you—Merry, look at him!  Look at that cut!  Don’t just stand there, get me 
something to clean it with!”
	Merry pointed eagerly to the pile on the table.
	“Well then, what about water?  Needle?  Thread?  We can’t do 
anything without—Legolas?  Legolas!”
	The room had been getting pleasantly warm for a while, for all that 
the fire at Legolas’ side remained dead.  Now it seemed to Legolas that 
Sam and Merry, and all the quaint hobbity décor, began to spin, slowly 
and lullingly, as if part of some great thrumming song before a child’s 
bedtime.  Legolas leaned forward into it, letting himself fall, and instead 
of falling it felt as though he were being lifted up in arms strong and sure.  
Yes, and if he thought about it they felt rather like Aragorn’s arms, and he 
could see Aragorn’s smile over him, disarming him, hear his startlingly 
soft voice urging him to rest, to sleep, he would feel so much better 
afterward.  For a moment the elf fought, desiring to look upon the face of 
his Elessar longer, feel the strong arms around him for all eternity, but the 
warmth and safety of his surroundings and the exhaustion of his own body 
forced him into deep, peaceful slumber.

*    *    *    *

	“Aragorn?”
	“Aragorn’s not here, Legolas.  I’m sorry.”
	Pale light framing a curly head greeted Legolas upon waking.  The 
elf let his eyes slide closed.  “I thought…”
	“I know.”  Sam coughed awkwardly.  “You talk in your sleep.”
	Legolas sat bolt upright and yelped.  “Sleep?  How long have I 
been sleeping?  I have to go after—“
	“Shh.  You can’t go after anyone until you’re healed.  Which will 
be sooner rather than later, I think.  Your wound looks remarkably better 
already.”
	“How long has it been?”
	“Only a day.  No, no, don’t get upset—that’s a record.  Usually 
two wineskins of Pippin’s brew lay them cold for a week.  Does your head 
hurt?”
	“Only my—only where the arrow went in.”  Legolas noted the 
cozy fire, the semicircle windows, the bed from which his legs stuck out 
from the knees.  “Do they know anything?” he asked softly.
	Sam shook his head.  “Pippin only knows what comes to his door 
and anyway he hasn’t been…he’s still worried.  But give him time.”  He 
turned.  “Rosie, he’s up now.  If it wouldn’t be too much trouble—“
	“Out of the way, Samwise Gamgee, or do you plan on eating 
Master Greenleaf’s breakfast all by yourself?”  A smiling hobbit, wide of 
girth and bright of face, entered bearing a large tray heaped with steaming 
fare.  A pair of wide staring eyes under a mop of dark hair clung to her 
skirts.  “Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been badgering the poor thing when he’s 
only just gotten up, and without a decent breakfast in him, either?  Out, 
out!”  Despite her words Rosie smiled as Sam shuffled out of the room, 
pink as a posy.  “A fine time you’d be having if you’d stayed at Merry and 
Pippin’s place.  What with all the parties they throw over there you’d be 
lucky if—Elanor, do you mind?”
	The tiny hobbit-child parted from her mother’s skirts for an instant, 
beheld Legolas with jaw dropped in wonder, then reattached her pudgy fist 
to the apron.  Rosie sighed.  “Don’t mind her, she’s just a little shy is all.  
Anyway, Master Greenleaf—“  At Legolas’ wince Rosie tossed her head.  
“Now don’t even start.  After all you’ve been through you deserve a little 
extra respect, even if only in title.  As I was saying, you’ve got your basic 
nutbread over here, straight from the oven, with some bayberry jam and 
then there are the oat farls…”
	Legolas stopped paying attention to the scrupulous housewife.  
Instead his eyes followed the antics of little Elanor, who alternately 
opened her mouth as if to say something then shut it abruptly and buried 
her face.  At last when Rosie had gone through the naming of all the 
generous produce on the tray her glance followed Legolas’ to the child at 
her side, whose mouth clacked audibly shut in the sudden silence.
	“Goodness, Elanor, if you want to say something, go ahead and say 
it.”  She shot a measuring glance at Legolas and continued, “Come to 
think of it, Master Greenleaf might want something and I have to go finish 
the baking.  If you’d keep an eye on him for me I’m sure I could cook up a 
suitable reward for you.”
	“Tarts?” squeaked Elanor.  
	Rosie nodded.
	“Okay!”
	With a last smile at Legolas, the hobbit matron left the room, 
words already rising to her lips to stem Sam’s protest.
	“It’ll be good for him,” she whispered outside the door.
	“But—“
	“Have you looked at him, really?  Man or Elf, no one can stand 
that kind of heart-strain for long without something to take his mind off it.  
Leave him to Elanor.”
	Sam sighed and followed his wife away from the little room.
	Meanwhile, Elanor was watching with wonder as Legolas reached 
for a slice of bread.  “So…” she said at last, voice barely above a whisper.  
“You’re really an elf?”
	Legolas conjured up a grin.  “The genuine article.”
	“Genuine?  What’s genuine?”	
	“It means ‘real’.  Say, how old are you, anyway?”
	“Three.  How old are you?”
	“Two thousands nine hundred and thirty four.”  At the girl’s face 
Legolas chuckled through his scone, sending crumbs spraying out across 
the bed.  “Can you even count that high?”
	“I can too!” Elanor asserted haughtily, all trace of wonder gone.  
Then she changed again.  “But, um…”  She batted her eyes at him and he 
laughed again.
	“What?”
	“Could I braid your hair, Mr. Elf?”
	Legolas’ throat caught mid-swallow and he had to cough.  It stung.  
“Sure…” he managed finally, looking away.  “Sure.  Go ahead.”  
	“Yay!  I’ve been practicing on the ponies.  It’s just that Mommy 
keeps her hair all short and so does Daddy and…”  The child’s babble 
faded to Legolas’ ears as she clambered up the slats at the head of the bed 
and perched there, gathering his long blonde hair into her plump little 
fingers.  He said nothing as she prattled on about different ways to braid 
the hair, how nice it was, all straight and flat and not like everyone’s hair 
around here, all curly and everything.  He said nothing when she asked 
him to lean forward a minute, he was lying on some of his hair; merely 
obeyed then sank back down onto the pillow, staring straight at the ceiling.
	Rosie said nothing when, from the doorway, she caught the glint of 
tears from the guestroom.  Silently she looked on as her daughter braided 
the fine golden mane of the elf, who remembered another’s hands, 
another’s voice behind him.  One by one the gleaming strands twined 
together, tomorrow and forever.

*    *    *    *

	After three days, and against the arguments of Sam and Rosie both, 
Legolas insisted he was ready to set out after Aragorn and his captors.  
Ruefully Rosie prepared him clothing that she nevertheless put much care 
into, even taking the time to develop a shade of green Sam deemed closest 
to the garb he remembered Legolas in before Amon Hen.  When all was 
ready Merry, who throughout the elf’s convalescence had come to visit 
frequently, and Pippin—who’d been a less recurrent visitor at Bag End—
came over and begged Legolas to stay one more night.  “You’ll be 
wanting to start out early in the morning, won’t you, Legolas?” Pippin 
insisted.
	“I’ve been away from the stars far too long anyway—for all that 
the hospitality was the best,” Legolas hastily added.  He was restless, and 
wanted Aragorn badly.
	“But doncha think it’d be better to—“
	“I’m going, Pippin,” Legolas asserted, firm but kind.  He turned to 
face the assembled hobbits before Bag End—his old friends and their 
loved ones.  “Thank you all.  You’ve no idea what it meant—to be 
restored by people who knew you.”
	“Who still do,” Merry butted in, smiling.
	“Good luck, Mr. Elf!” little Elanor blurted, and Legolas gave up 
attempting speech.  A lump was forming in his throat, anyway.
	“Yes, good luck!” chorused the onlookers.
	All but Pippin.  “I wish you’d stay just a little longer,” the hobbit 
mumbled, until Merry gave him a sharp look and his jaw clanked shut.  
	The sun had passed its zenith when Legolas set out, and by the 
time he reached the Threefarthing stone it was well near to setting.  The 
elf was about to leave the road and head cross country south—meaning to 
start from the Grey Havens in the search for Aragorn and proceed from 
there—when frantic hoofbeats reached his keen ears.  In an instant he was 
behind the stone, arrow drawn and ready in the bow he’d fashioned while 
bedridden.  A cloud of dust rose furiously over the road he’d just been on 
and he grit his teeth, glaring.  Nothing was going to stop his hunt for 
Aragorn, and if the same black-outfitted folks who attacked before tried it 
again, he’d slay them all.
	Soon shouting drifted above the hoofbeats.  “Wait!  Wait, 
Legolas—where are you?  Wait!”
	Legolas waited until the sweating, heaving pony with its hobbit 
burden had ground to a halt in front of the stone, its rider turning first one 
way, then the other.  Then Legolas stepped out from behind the stone, 
quiet as light.
	“What is it, Merry?”
	The hobbit yelped.  “There you are!  You’ve got to—he—turn 
back, turn back now!  There’s plenty of places to hide in the Shire and I’m 
not beholden to—“
	Legolas’ blue eyes sparked in the remaining light.  “What is it?  
What happened?”
	“He—“  Merry’s face screwed up in a grimace.  “He sold you out, 
Legolas!  Pippin, he—they came asking and…and…”
	“Who?  Where?”  Even as he spoke Legolas melded back into the 
shadows around the stone, arrow once again cocked.  
	“The same folk who attacked you back near the Grey Havens.  
Elves in the garb of Gondor, though not Elrohir or Elladan.  I didn’t know 
them.  You—“
	“Did they say anything about Aragorn?”  Legolas’ voice was a hiss 
in the steeping darkness.
	“I…um…”
	“Well?  Merry!” 
	“I’m trying to—yes, they said they’d taken him to Gondor.  But 
Legolas, they—“
	“Who?  Did they have a name?”
	“Yes, Glorfindel, but—“
	“Glorfindel!”  A thousand and one memories of Glorfindel leaped 
to Legolas’ mind, each one now tainted with malice.  “That vile, reeking 
scum—“
	“Legolas!”  Following Merry’s stricken gaze the elf whirled.  The 
barest shadows were making there way up out of a dip of land to the south 
of the road, and at Merry’s shout they increased speed, throwing back their 
cloaks to reveal glittering blades.  “I tried to tell you—Pippin told them 
where you were—he said he had to,” the hobbit moaned.
	Legolas seemed not to notice.  “Hear me!” he called to the 
shadows, which ceased their advance.  “I am Legolas, son of Thranduil, 
and I do not forget when I am wronged.”  His voice shook with rage.  
“You attacked me in the northern lands and that was a wrong.  You 
wounded me, and that was a wrong.  And you kidnapped Aragorn of the 
Dunadain, and for that I will fight until the blood of every last one of you 
drips from my hands!”  He let out a howl then the likes of which hadn’t 
been heard in the Shire, even in Frodo’s vision in Galadriel’s mirror, and 
the shadows hesitated.
	“And I, Meriadoc Brandybuck, will fight with him!” cried Merry, 
leaping of his frightened pony with sword drawn.  
	The two friends stood against the Threefarthing Stone in the last of 
the day’s light, sword bared and arrows drawn, a revival of the 
Fellowship.  But one of the figures bearing toward them stopped suddenly, 
and the five or six cohorts froze after it.  “Then know whom it is you 
fight,” the figure spoke, voice ringing like dark music in the air.  “For I am 
Arwen Evenstar.”


Chapter Eight

	Blades flashed under the new moon and soon Merry lay snarling in 
a ring of black cloaks, clutching one arm to the bleeding other.
	Legolas, meanwhile, was deeply immersed in a duel of swords 
with Arwen.  No one intervened.
	“Why?” Legolas shouted, parrying a hack to his right that left his 
sword arm tingling.  Sweat streaked his pale hair glistening dark.  “You 
have your son!  What more do you want of him?”
	Arwen’s shining falchion snaked its way past Legolas’ guard, 
nearly to his throat before he raised his sword and locked the two of them 
in a test of strength.
	“Nothing,” the dark elf hissed, her breath clouding the metal 
between them.  When Legolas’ eyebrows knit in confusion she whirled, 
letting her sword arc out away form her.  “I want nothing from his but his 
happiness.”
	“But then why—“
	Arwen raised pale fingers to her lips and whistled, and from the 
forest south of the Threefarthing Stone came a rustle and then a glimmer.  
Forehead still damp from combat, Legolas watched as a shimmering 
figure all in white glided out of the woods, through the grasses toward 
them.  As it approached the elf discerned that it was not one but two 
figures, a horse and a human, and a woman at that.  What light there was 
in the sky seemed to pulse in the coat and mane of the horse, and in the 
fair face of the lady.  When they stopped before him she smiled, and he 
knew her.
	“Lady of Rohan?”
	Eowyn smirked.  “You look surprised.”
	“But I thought—“
	“You thought a great many things, Legolas, son of Thranduil.”  
Arwen spoke, coming to stand beside the Shieldmaiden on her shining 
mount.  “All of which turned out to be wrong.”
	Seeing them standing there, it hit Legolas like a shaft in the heart, 
and his blue eyes popped.  The two women laughed.
	“We’ve been following your boat for quite a while,” Eowyn 
chuckled, swinging easily down from her horse.  “Although he’s the only 
one who ever caught up to you,” she added, nodding toward the animal.
	“Shadowfax!”  Legolas stroked the long equine nose.  “So that’s 
where he kept running off to.”  He turned beseechingly from one woman 
to the other.  “But, please!  If you were following us—why?—you must 
know where Aragorn is!  Is he all right?”
	“First let’s attend to your loyal hobbit friend there.”  Arwen moved 
toward the grimacing Merry in his ring of blades.
	Legolas grabbed her arm.  “No, Undomiel, tell me now!  What has 
Glorfindel done to my King?  Tell me!”
	Arwen saw something in the blue eyes that made her turn away 
and Eowyn, whose hand had shot to her sword at Legolas’s accosting of 
her lover, relaxed.  “I left as soon as Glorfindel did,” the dark elf intoned, 
looking off into the darkness.  “He said he was out to redress wrongs done 
to me, and before I could stop him he went off with that hateful company 
of his.  I wanted to find Elessar first, to grant him royal pardon and set him 
free.  To tell him…”  She looked toward the white glow of Eowyn in the 
night and smiled.  “I wouldn’t have come close if the Lady hadn’t found 
me.  Since Gandalf left, Shadowfax seems to have given himself over to 
her.”
	“Somewhat, anyway,” Eowyn cut in.  “He kept running off, 
presumably to you.  He’d be gone for days at a time and we’d just keep 
on—“
	“He carried Aragorn to me.”  Legolas’ voice was soft.  “I was at 
the Gray Havens, on the docks even, and Shadowfax brought him to me in 
time.”  He regarded the steed standing off to one side with a mixture of 
gratitude and wistfulness.  “No other beast could have done it.”
	Eowyn nodded.  “I believe he senses when he’s needed.”
	“So when Shadowfax wasn’t there, and that was often, we tracked 
you,” Arwen continued.  “Or—Aragorn.  I was sure we’d catch up to you 
before Glorfindel did, and warn you.  Tell you that you didn’t have to 
run.”
	“You could’ve borrowed other horses,” Legolas muttered darkly.
	“It wasn’t that.”  Eowyn laid a restraining hand on his arm.  “We 
didn’t want to get too close to the sea.”
	Legolas looked from pale eyes to dark without speaking.  Behind 
him he heard Merry’s grumbling as the cloaked attendants bound his 
wound.
	“Do you feel it?” Arwen whispered after a time.  Even as the 
words left her lips she looked away.
	Legolas was slow in replying.  In truth, since they’d been attacked, 
he had been too fraught with grief and worry to think of the sea or its pull 
on him.  But now that Arwen brought it up, the old tug rose to his 
consciousness, ceaselessly yet fainter now with the distance between him 
and the lapping waves.
	“Yes,” he said at last.  His words were simple and without 
condemnation.  “I feel it.  It’s not as strong now, with the mountains 
between us, but I feel it.”
	“Don’t you—“  Arwen’s face twisted into tragedy.
	“I will not leave Aragorn.”
	Eowyn gave a cry.  “We had no choice!”  Her eyes glittered in 
defense even as she asserted that there was none necessary.  “We aren’t 
like you.  We don’t have time.  Since—Aragorn—she is mortal!”
	“So am I.”
	Two sets of eyes gaped at him.
	Arwen recovered first.  “You mean—with a mortal woman—“
	“No, never!”  Legolas frowned.  “With Aragorn.  Who else?”
	“But I thought you only lost your immortality when your lover 
was…condoned,” Eowyn murmured, as baffled as her lover.
	“You mean you didn’t know—but Arwen!” Legolas insisted, 
“What about Maedhros and Fingon?  Don’t you remember them?”
	“No.”
	“Didn’t your father ever—“
	“I was raised in the trees of Lothlorien, Legolas.”
	“All the more reason, then!  Galadriel would know, she was 
there!”
	“Tell us,” Eowyn snapped.  Her tone struck sparks and Legolas 
sensed that these women wouldn’t like to hear what he was about to say.  
He didn’t care.
	“Maedhros and Fingon were friends when they left the Blessed 
Realm, and when both came east Maedhros saved Fingon from where 
Morgoth had chained him—“
	“I know that,”  Arwen fixed him with a look of urgency, along 
with a certain unwillingness to believe that prompted Legolas to be all the 
more frank.
	“They were lovers,” he stated.  “They died, and came to the halls 
of Mandos separately, mourning their separation in life.  They begged 
Mandos to give them hands with which to hold each other once more.  
Mandos went to Manwe and he granted their request and more, calling 
their love sacred.  He restored to them life, if mortal, and granted them the 
chance to live short, beautiful lives before departing on the paths of Men.”
	“How do you know this?”
	“My father Thranduil told me, and Elros told him—Elros knew 
about it when he chose life as a man.  He was your uncle.  I can’t 
believe—“
	“My father would never tell me such a thing,” Arwen whimpered, 
just as Eowyn let out a yell.
	“All these years!  All these years wasted, wasted trying to lure 
Aragorn into loving you so you could—could become mortal and now—“  
She howled into the night, prompting abrupt silence from Merry and his 
circle of swordsmen.  “So much wasted!”
	“You and Aragorn must have been so happy,” Arwen murmured 
sadly, half to herself.
	But her words caused a change in Legolas’ face that Eowyn failed 
to miss.
	“You did tell him, didn’t you?”
	Legolas looked to the stars.
	“You didn’t tell him?!”  Eowyn exploded.  “You knew all this and 
you didn’t tell him?  Do you have any idea what a burden that is for him?  
Knowing you will die when the one you love goes on and…and…”  Her 
voice caught.
	Arwen, too, choked up as she threw her arms around the 
Shieldmaiden and Legolas casually stepped off to one side, thoughts 
whirling.  
      Burden?  He had never meant to put any burden on his dear 
Aragorn’s shoulders, never!  Neither had he stopped to think what the lack 
of knowledge, and Maedhros and Fingon, would do to one in the Man’s 
position.  Knowing you will die when the one you love goes on…
      He had meant to tell Aragorn, meant even to use it as a subtle lead-
in one day to topics best left to hands and not mouths.  He’d meant to 
remind him, just in case the Man had forgotten the story.  But he’d never 
found the right place or time, and now they were running out of it, just as 
Eowyn said.  So much wasted…
      “I thought he knew,” the elf whispered.  He thought of Aragorn’s 
gray eyes clouded with guilt and grief.  The Man was always so quick to 
find fault in himself.  “I thought…he…knew.”  Then, more softly still, 
“What have I done?”
      Warm breath snorted down his neck and Legolas turned to see 
Shadowfax pawing the ground impatiently.  “You’ll let me—“ he elf 
asked, but in answer the horse snorted again and stamped the ground.  
“Thank you.”  Legolas leapt atop the silver back, glanced back toward the 
embracing women and thought better of it.  Just as Shadowfax turned 
south he heard a shout.
      “Good luck, Legolas!” Merry called.  His good arm waved from a 
tangle of Arwen’s band.  “Give my best to Aragorn!”
      “I’ll do that, Merry!” Legolas called, choking up and urging 
Shadowfax forward under the low-slung moon.  “We’re coming,” he 
whispered past the lump in his throat.  “We’re coming, Aragorn.”

*    *    *    *

	Never before had Legolas ridden so hard.  Mile after mile 
drummed by underhoof without a pause, and long after even his elven 
muscles had developed a steady throb he and Shadowfax were still 
speeding southward.  The Brandywine flashed by in a splash of moonlight, 
as did barren land between it and the Greyflood.  This second river would 
have posed a problem for a lesser animal than Shadowfax, but under the 
horse’s hooves, and Legolas’ fervent prayers, the current seemed to 
slacken for them, making the crossing last all of a minute. 
	When the sun tinged the horizon the elf spared it the barest of 
glances.  All his concentration focused upon the blotched, summer-seared 
land to the south.  To the east, he knew, lay the spot where the Fellowship 
had been attacked by wargs so long ago, and the memory bit at him.  
Aragorn had seemed the bravest of them all; he always had.  You’d never 
have guessed the burdens he fashioned for himself, and here Legolas had 
gone and piled on more.
	“I’m coming,” he cried into the howl of wind, raising it to a shout 
when he words fell away.  “I’m coming!”  He could have sworn 
Shadowfax picked up the pace.
	The Misty Mountains had always hovered watchfully to the west, 
but as the sun sank Legolas thought he saw the first rumple on the horizon 
to the south.  At his exultant yell Shadowfax slowed to a canter, then a 
trot. 
       “But we’re so close!  Please, just a little further!  Please!” Legolas 
begged, but the horse only came to a stop.  For the first time Legolas 
noticed the sweat soaking the animal from ears to hooves, the chuffing 
gasps of breath that streamed from flared nostrils.  He apologized.  “I’m 
sorry.  We’ve come a long way.”  He gazed at the tiny wrinkle to the twilit 
south in wonder.  “Two hundred miles, at least.”  Silence reigned from 
then on and he bid the great horse goodnight, though he himself did not 
sleep.  He kept thinking of Aragorn in the grasses at the feet of Ered Luin, 
bronzed and shimmering with sunlight’s kisses and Legolas’ own.  How 
long had it been?  The elf searched the oft-sung-of stars, but found no 
answer.  He would have given a whole sky of the celebrated jewels of his 
people for Aragorn’s safety.
      In the morning the hint of mountain to the south was gone, and 
Legolas assumed with a heavy heart that he had invented it out of 
desperation.  Around noon, though, the wrinkle reappeared and grew, and 
his excitement outgrew it threefold when the silver thread of the river Isen 
glimmered in the distance.
	Legolas hadn’t ascertained from Arwen and Eowyn exactly where 
Glorfindel had taken or would take Aragorn, and at first the elf cursed 
himself for the discrepancy.  But he soon decided that, had either of them 
known, they would have told him sooner, revelation about mortality or no, 
and with that in mind he had Shadowfax bear him straight south toward 
the White Mountains.  He had neither the time nor the patience to go 
around them, either through the Gap of Rohan or west to a series of 
gentler heights, so he vowed to find a way through them when he came to 
them.  After that he would head to Minas Tirith, and if Aragorn wasn’t 
there…well, he’d worry about it when it got there.
	They crossed the Adorn at mid-afternoon and by nightfall the 
snowy front of the White Mountains had anchored itself securely into their 
vision.  Legolas waited with veiled misery for Shadowfax to check his 
gallop and call a halt for the night but he didn’t, and before long they were 
mounting the steppes to the stone monoliths.  
	“I don’t know how long you plan to stay with me,” the elf spoke, 
patting the sweaty neck affectionately, “but I thank you for taking me this 
far.”  Shadowfax snorted but tossed his head, and Legolas sensed the 
horse’s pleasure.  They were picking their way up a rocky slope by dawn, 
and when they halted at the mouth of a frigid stream Legolas finally fell 
into a troubled sleep, borne there by nerves too tired to do anything else.

*    *    *    *

	“I’ll be right back, Shadowfax.  Wait here.”
	Legolas would have stalked if he had the energy.  He hated doing 
this, gallivanting off to hunt while Aragorn could be Elbereth knew where, 
bruised and beaten and all manner of things not pleasant to dwell upon.  
But the elf had to eat.  He’d been putting it off for the ten days they’d been 
in the mountains, inching laboriously east along dire precipices and under 
towering peaks, always at the mercy of the wrathful mountain storms 
prone to spring up at a moment’s notice.  His plan had been to make a 
quick and easy crossing south into the flatter lands of Gondor, but to the 
south the cliff faces lost even their goat trails, and all was rigid planes and 
impassable angles.  They had been forced to meander east, wasting time 
and energy, and now with spots swimming before his eyes Legolas had to 
take even more time to hunt enough food to keep him going.  Exhaustion 
and fury gnawed at his nerves and he made his taut way along a snow-
dotted swale, smoldering eyes alert for any sign of edibles.
	The sun was fading fast.  “If only I had some lembas,” he 
muttered, then bit back a yip.  Tucked up into a crevice at the end of the 
field, a dull green plant bowed low with berries.  Legolas staggered over 
to it and began plucking the dark fruit in handfuls, cramming them into his 
mouth in a very un-elflike fashion.  He hadn’t eaten since the meeting with 
Arwen and Eowyn—he’d left his pack there in his haste to head south—
and now the stringy, slightly-wizened cloudberries felt ambrosial to his 
shrunken stomach.  When he’d picked the plant clean he sighed and 
leaned against the rock it sprouted from, wondering if its seeds had spread 
nearby.  His gut still cried out for food.
	In the peace of falling night he heard, or thought he heard, the 
rushing of water.  Visions of spring-fed cloudberries filling his head, 
Legolas scaled the brief cliff face and came out onto a wandering ledge 
overlooking an arm of forest that transcended the treeline.  “There!”  His 
eyes lit up as the flash and flicker of whitewater filtered through the trees.  
Deft as any mountain goat, the elf whirled down the rock-strewn path that 
could only have been but a few feet wide at its best points, leaping the 
gaps when he came to them.  With triumph he rounded a last awkward 
bend onto a knob of rock overlooking a magnificent waterfall.  His years 
of growing up under sky and tree overwhelmed his hunger and for a 
moment he just stood there, taking in the explosion from the rocks, the 
frothing leap into space and the spray-lashed trees at the bottom.  Grief 
and worry had robbed him of his faculties for the whole of his journey; for 
the first time he took in the scene around him for the splendor it truly 
offered.
	Then, as he turned away to scout for berries, something caught his 
eye.  The sun was behind the peak and cast a shadow on already dark 
forest, blurring colors even to his infra-vision, and without thinking 
Legolas drew his homemade bow from his quiver and notched an arrow to 
it. No sense in not being ready.  With a wary eye out for spray-slick rocks 
and traitorous scree he advanced toward the edge of the knob, all traces of 
fatigue gone pushed from his limbs with the first jolt of adrenaline.  When 
the rock ended he found himself facing a forty-foot drop onto a lesser tier 
of the mountain, muddled with scraggly pines and the rushing stream.  He 
froze for a moment, hoping for a repeat of the motion that had drawn his 
attention, but the place seemed deserted.  He turned away.
	 “You could not kill him!”
	Immediately Legolas flattened to the contours of the rock and 
raised his bow, sighting along it to the tumbled shadows below.  There—
there, atop a rock half-hidden by a wind-ragged pine, a pale head shone 
bright.  A figure it was, garbed all in black, gesticulating wildly to the 
night.  Legolas tightened his hold on his bow.
	Until, below the figure, what Legolas had judged to be a rock 
whirled around with a clatter of iron.  The elf’s breath died in his throat.  
Forty feet below him in the last light of a dying day, Aragorn, son of 
Arathorn, stood proud and naked in his chains.

Chapter Nine

	Even as Glorfindel’s whisper died in Aragorn’s ears, even through 
his own revulsion the man thought he heard a whistling in the air.  The 
sudden bite of nails deeper into his shoulders was the only warning he had 
as Glorfindel let out a yowl behind him.  But he forgot his pain when the 
shout came from above:
	“Aragorn!”
	Detesting his name in Glorfindel’s mouth, Aragorn whirled, chain 
preceding him.  He relished the thought of iron wrapping around that pale, 
fragile neck before him; relished the snap of blonde hair turned blue with 
shadow that would follow.
	And then he saw the eyes, so lost and quizzical.
	“Noo!”  Aragorn hauled on the chain to no avail—but when it 
reached the point where it was supposed to wrap and break, the air was 
empty.  Instead, the Man felt cool hands thrust up against his naked skin, 
hot tears spilling down into his welts and stinging.  “L-Lego…las…”  No.  
No, he didn’t believe it.  Wouldn’t believe it—it was just another one of 
Glorfindel’s tricks, or a hallucination.  “Don’t touch me,” he snarled, 
bringing his chain back for the final blow.
	“Aragorn.”  Long, familiar fingers turned toward the sky in 
supplication.  Wood clattered on stone as a bow dropped to the ground, 
echoing in the chill air.
	A shudder wracked through Aragorn from his lacerated feet to the 
hand that clenched the chain high in the air.  He let loose a sound, not a 
howl and not a sob but somewhere in between, such that any stranger 
hearing it would have glanced nervously to the side for fear of attack by a 
wild animal.  He fell.  And in that moment Legolas was there, no cruel 
trick or floating memory but real, grasping Legolas, catching the Man as 
he pitched forward and holding him as great wrenching tears poured forth 
from his eyes.
	“I thought—for so long—“
	“Shh,” the elf soothed, holding the Man close but lightly, sensing 
the harm raw want could bring.
	“I almost—oh please forgive me, Legolas, I—“ 
	“There is nothing to forgive.”  Legolas smiled as recognition 
dawned through the tears in Aragorn’s eyes.  “You remember that?  I’m 
returning the favor.”
	Fresh sobs wrung Aragorn and this time it was his turn to cling.  
Legolas tightened his grip only a little and Aragorn drew his face from the 
crook of the elf’s neck in worry.  “Don’t you—but—“
	“I don’t want to hurt you,” Legolas breathed.  His voice barely 
registered above a whisper.
	“You can’t.  Not you.  Not ever.”  Aragorn moaned as Legolas’ 
arms circled him fully.  
	“I wish that were true.”  The elf touched the collar around 
Aragorn’s neck as if afraid of being burned.
	Aragorn saw his lover’s grimace and fought back a sob long 
enough to hiss, “It wasn’t your fault, Legolas.  Don’t even think it.”
	“It is.  I didn’t tell you…”  Legolas frowned.
	“Tell me what?”
	“Where’s Glorfindel?”
	The name twisted Aragorn’s face into a snarl so vicious it stayed 
Legolas’ treeward glance. 
	“What…did he do…to you?” the elf asked, his voice tender.  
	Aragorn whirled up off the ground, brandishing his chain.  “Kill 
him.  Kill him—I was sure you shot him!  He screamed, I was there!  I 
was there…”  Tilting, swirling trees and nameless shadows spun before 
him.  Dimly Aragorn heard Legolas’ cry, felt strong hands cupping his 
elbows, brushing old scabs.  His attempt to grimace rendered little as the 
trees were whirling faster and Legolas’ voice was getting farther and 
farther away.  
	“It’s all right…all…right…”
	But it wasn’t all right, Aragorn tried to protest.  Where was 
Glorfindel?  The arrow hit home; Aragorn heard it.  He was there…
	The trees finally blurred into their own shadows and settled into 
his mind’s black night.

*    *    *    *

	“Leg--!”
	“Shh.  I’m right here.”
	Aragorn’s eyes flew open and yes, there was Legolas, his blue eyes 
bright in the darkness.  “How long have I been out?  Oh, Legolas, I’m 
so—“
	“Absolutely not,” the elf cut in, bringing a finger to Aragorn’s lips.  
“You’ve only been unconscious a few hours and you are not to be a bit 
sorry.  I didn’t even think of the  condition you’re in, and now that I look 
at those wounds…”  He shook his head in marvel.  “You truly are a 
wonder, Elessar.  This—“ Legolas brought Aragorn’s red-ringed wrist to 
his mouth and brushed his lips across it; the Man hadn’t realized his hand 
was in Legolas’—“ this alone nearly cut to the bone.  And your feet, your 
poor feet—don’t you even think of apologizing.”
	“Where is Glorfindel?”
	“There isn’t any athelas up here—it’s even rarer at these heights 
than it is up north of the Grey Havens—so I did what I could.  There are 
poultices at your ankles so be careful not to—“
	“Legolas—“
	“And eat.  You’re skin and bones.  What have they been feeding 
you?”
	“Pain,” Aragorn blurted.  He winced at the look on Legolas’ face, 
but he had to do this.  “Legolas.  Where.  Is.  Glorfindel?”
	The elf looked away to the star-strewn sky, or tried to.  Aragorn 
caught the smooth chin in his hand, forcing eye contact.  “I thought I shot 
him,” Legolas whispered.  It came out as more of a whimper.  “I was sure 
I did.”
	“You did shoot him.  I heard him scream.”
	“Then it wasn’t fatal.”  At the hardening of the Man’s face, 
Legolas threw back his head in a soundless wail.  “I tried, Aragorn!  There 
was no trail, no nothing!  Some blood on the rocks, and then…”  He 
picked up Aragorn’s mutilated hand and clutched it to his chest.  “I didn’t 
know.  I didn’t know what he did to you.  But after you fainted, to make 
sure you were all right I checked all over and…and…”  
	“Don’t.”
	“I’m sorry.”
	“Don’t!  Don’t say it, Legolas!”  Aragorn tightened a fist around 
Legolas’ grasping fingers.  His voice was hoarse.  “It is not your fault.  It 
never was.  What’s done is done, so it doesn’t matter now, anyway.”
	“Doesn’t it?  Doesn’t this—“ Legolas touched the now glistening 
shackle-marks so lightly Aragorn could hardly feel it— “Doesn’t this 
matter?”
	“I don’t want it to.”
	A bitter wind cut across the mountains to where they sat, and 
Aragorn shivered beneath Legolas’ cloak.  “You’re cold.  Here.”  The elf 
reached for his hobbit-fashioned belt buckle and looked up with a grimace 
when Aragorn’s hand stopped him.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean—I only 
want you to be warm.  I promise I won’t do anything else.”
	“Is that what you think?”  There were tears in the man’s eyes; they 
shone hard and piercing in the silver streaks at his temples.  He took one 
of Legolas’ hands in both of his and tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t 
come.
	Legolas’ face was in shadow cast by the rind of moon, and he was 
glad.  “I don’t…want…to hurt you, Aragorn.” 
	“Mereth.”  Aragorn forced Legolas to meet his eyes, blurred 
though they were.  “I said I didn’t want it to matter.  I meant it.  What 
he—what Glorfindel did,” and he fought to keep his voice level at the 
name, “is gone now.  Over with.  You are here and…did you know that 
the first day I saw the sky after all that time, I thought of you?”
	Legolas shook his head.
	“I did.  It was the blue of it, I think.  Just like your eyes.  Oh, 
Legolas, you have no idea how much I missed you.”
	Not wanting to correct him or hurt him, and unsure whether he 
could avoid either, Legolas sat still as the rocks they sheltered in.
	“Please, Legolas.  Don’t—don’t hold back.”  A skirl of dead pine 
needles whisked over their heads before he added, in the barest of 
whispers, “Not for me, anyway.”
	“There is no other reason!” Legolas cried, scooping the Man up 
into a fierce embrace and kiss that left both their lips pulsing.  “There is no 
other reason I’d hold back, Elessar.  None,” the elf panted into Aragorn’s 
ear.  Then, softer, silkier, “Are you still cold?”
	“Very,” Aragorn replied, cracking a smile he knew Legolas could 
see even in the dark.  It was the first time Legolas had seen that smile 
since their parting.
	Assurances or no, the elf was gentle.  Hands first, stroking 
Aragorn’s face as his lips flitted across it, then down to his neck and 
shoulders, feeling bone where there should have been muscle.  Sensing 
Aragorn’s distress as his hands slid lower, he kept them tangled in his 
chest hair as his tongue followed up.  When he reached the first cut he 
licked it tentatively and Aragorn whimpered.  “Did I—“
	“No!” the Man gasped, groping for Legolas’ golden mane and 
burying his fingers there.  “Go on.”
	Legolas moved from wound to wound, never pressing, only 
bathing, taking care to slip his hands a fraction of an inch lower each time.  
Finally when he moved to hold Aragorn the Man yelped, and instantly 
Legolas was cupping Aragorn’s face in his hands.  “It’s all right, it’s all 
right, we don’t have to—“
	“No!” Aragorn hissed, though tears leaked from his eyes.  “I want 
you to.  He won’t have that power over me.  He won’t!”  
	Legolas kissed the tears away and stroked Aragorn’s head where it 
lay in his lap.  “Of course he won’t,” he murmured, “but there’s such a 
thing as rushing it, my—“
	“Legolas.”
	“Yes?”
	Aragorn shuddered.  “Please…please don’t call me king.  Don’t 
apologize, just—please.”
	“All right.”  Legolas’ hand never faltered in its tender caressing, 
despite the mist in his eyes.  “It’s cold and getting late.  Shall I just keep 
you warm, then?”
	Aragorn nodded in Legolas’ grip and the elf divested himself of 
the rest of his clothing, draping it over the two of them as an extra barrier 
against the mountains’ chill.  Legolas lay as close as he dared under the 
blankets, fearing to upset what fragile balance was left to his lover, and 
when Aragorn made the move to pull and hold him close, closing the 
space between them, he could have wept for joy.
	Instead he returned the embrace, wordless, and in such a sleepy, 
rapturous state of mind he forgot Eowyn’s order.

*    *    *    *

	The sun dawned pale and cold on the mountaintops, and on the two 
tiny figures making their way amidst boulders and sudden drops.  The 
remains of a campfire lay behind them, freshly stubbed out and kicked 
askew, but not even a core of the wizened crabapples cooked there rolled 
in the ashes.
	“You should have eaten some, Legolas,” Aragorn admonished for 
the tenth time that morning.  “You look famished.”
	“Your eyes are still bleary from sleep, then.  I’m fine.”  The elf had 
to look hard at the rock wall in front of them to bring it into focus.  
“Besides, Shadowfax and I fished a stream a little before I found you.  
There—is that one too steep, as well?”
	“Let me try.”  Aragorn, garbed in Legolas’ cloak and tunic at the 
elf’s insistence, approached the sheer face and found a handhold.  Putting 
his weight on it sent the paper-thin scabs on his wrists cracking.  He bit 
back a bark of pain.  “No, still too steep.  Listen, Legolas, why don’t you 
scale this then go back and get Shadowfax—“
	Legolas was at Aragorn’s side, his pale hand gripping the Man’s 
shoulder, before the tiniest tumbling pebble betrayed him.  “No, Aragorn.  
If we never see Shadowfax again, I’m not leaving you.”
	Tears of frustration and love both blurred Aragorn’s eyesight and 
he had to stand still for a moment to wrestle them away.  No use giving in 
now; they’d never get out of the mountains if they fell into raptures every 
ten minutes.  “Well then,” he coughed at last, turning toward what passed 
as a rocky path.  “Let’s find a way out of here.”
	Noon had passed, as well as many worried looks toward the storm 
clouds brewing in the west, when Aragorn let out a shout and went 
running.
	“Wait!  Aragorn, it’s not safe!”  Legolas yelled, barely keeping his 
balance as he stumbled after his lover.
	“We’re here!  We’re here!”  Undeterred, Aragorn vaulted over 
twisted scrub and glacial chunks of boulders, bounding ahead with the 
exuberance of a small boy.  “We made it, Legolas, we made it!”
	“To where?” cried the elf, though he found he didn’t need to.  
When he had stood still long enough for his vision to quit its reeling, great 
stone walls, smoother than was natural, rose before him, emblazoned with 
a white tree higher than three men.  “The Citadel,” he breathed.  “Minas 
Tirith isn’t far off…” Then, summoning air for the long jaunt, panted after 
Aragorn.  “Wait, Aragorn!  You’ve got to be still—“
	But Aragorn never heard Legolas’ call.  Nor did he see the half-
shadow that flew from the great tree’s carved branches, hurtling with 
speed unknown to man to where he leaped and frolicked through the 
rockfield.  He was still leap-limping toward the Citadel, iron chain 
banging off the rocks behind him, when the shadow fell.
	“Aragorn!”  Legolas saw.  In fits and bursts between trips, and 
stumbles, and near-blackouts when spurs of rock caught him in the face, 
he saw the shadow take Aragorn from the ground; saw it rise again like a 
remade beast, flitting away only a hairsbreadth less quickly than it arrived.  
	Legolas tried to call Aragorn’s name again and again, but a sticky 
substance was welling his mouth and darkness was bubbling in his eyes; 
he felt woozy and the precious word would not come.
	“Missing something?”
	Legolas pitched forward, screaming, “Gwanno lle!  Gwanno—“
	“How sweet.  After a month of failing to kill me, you’re taking up 
your lover’s sword.”  A laugh that only elven ears could catch carried on 
the wind.  “So to speak.”
	“I’ll—“ Legolas fought his way to unsteady feet, crying blindly, 
“I’ll kill you!  All the curses of Elbereth on you, Glorfindel, I’ll kill you!”
	“That’s what he said, too!”  A cackle.
	Legolas lurched forward again, throwing out cut and bleeding 
hands where his elven grace failed him.  Where was the wretched 
creature?  Gradually his sight returned through a haze of stars and 
nauseous ebon waves.  The tree spread its branches before him, stark 
white against the sheer cliff face and as inviting.  “Glorfindel!” he howled.  
The rock field lay empty.	
	A smattering of sound to his left brought his bow up in an instant, 
arrow notched and drawn.  There; he could