Ongoing Efforts of the Healer by Rocky41_7

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Ongoing Efforts of the Healer

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The kingdoms of Elves did not go so quiet as those of Dwarves and Men when night fell, but a stillness did often draw over, with many of them resting, or partaking in quiet, less strenuous activities while the moon hung above them (provided, of course, that they were no parties to be had—and that was especially true in the kingdom of Greenwood, in which firelit festivities laden with drink and food were their preferred pastime). In the quiet hours after twilight, at last with time free to himself, Elrond made his way up to Thranduil’s chambers, where the king paced meanderingly around the moonlit room, Legolas asleep in one arm. He wore only a light, sleeveless robe, and looked as if he had been making that same circuit between the windows, the bathing pool, and the doorway for quite some time, with very little thought to its purpose.

              “You know, I genuinely doubt Prince Legolas will perish of not being held for five successive minutes,” Elrond remarked. Thranduil startled faintly and turned to his guest. “You look as though you haven’t slept in weeks, Thranduil.” There was a sluggishness, accompanied by a jerkiness to Thranduil’s movements that was not there when he was well-rested, and a fogginess in his eyes.

              He had been depriving himself of true-sleep.

              The king snorted and that bitter look, grown painfully familiar to Elrond, warped his face as he resumed his wandering.

              “Sleep for what?” he asked, turning away. “To dream of Gundabad? To dream of the things I should have done and didn’t do? Or worse: to forget? To forget and only on waking to be dragged back into this nightmare? To forget and have it come crashing down over me again and again and again, without cessation, without mercy? There is no relief in forgetting when the remembering is coming; there is no kindness in hope when it exists only to be taken. Sleep!”

              Elrond had known from the start Thranduil’s path of mourning would not be quickly or easily trod—he knew that from witnessing Thranduil’s grief for Oropher. Still, it dragged on, and Elrond fretted, although he believed the worst of it was past. He moved nearer, and Thranduil turned to look at him, digging his fingers into Legolas’ pale blond locks.

              “I am being tormented, Elrond.” It was a quiet, matter-of-fact statement, without adornment, without exaggeration, and it wrenched Elrond’s heart to see the pain in Thranduil’s eyes. Still waters and deep fathoms and an agony he could not heal, for all his talent, for all his experience. How frustrating, to see pain, and be helpless.

              “You must sleep,” Elrond insisted softly. “You need rest.” Thranduil shook his head, stubborn ox that he was.

              “Not yet. Not yet do I need it.” Legolas drooled on his father’s shoulder, and slept on peacefully. “Nor do I need you to monitor my sleep schedule,” Thranduil added waspishly. Elrond did not like to say he had grown used to his friend’s lashing out in grief, but he had learned in the course of this catastrophe how vicious Thranduil could be when wounded. This, by comparison, was tame.

              “There is no need to monitor it when it is written across your face.”

              Thranduil exited out the side door promptly, but left it ajar, and Elrond followed out, and up the wooden stairs to the circular landing higher in the tree. Thranduil sat on the edge and looked out over the muted kingdom.

              “Spare me your lecture,” he said the moment Elrond approached to seat himself beside Thranduil, crossing his legs to keep his feet from the edge of the landing.

              “I wasn’t—”

              “You were thinking about it,” Thranduil said. “You’re always thinking about it.” Elrond decided defending himself would be a useless endeavor, and a waste of his time, so he replied not, and they simply gazed up at the stars visible through the forest canopy. He did miss the clear skies of Rivendell, but Thranduil was ever at home among treetops and hidden in the brush, and cared little for the space yawning between the bare bottoms of his feet hanging off the platform and the forest floor somewhere in the blackness below.

              “I’m quite sure,” Elrond said at last, “that in all the time I’ve been here I have yet to see Legolas rest somewhere but on a lap or in a pair of arms. Your child is going to grow up believing he is the most beloved elf in all of Middle Earth.” He smiled in the dark and cast a fond look at the sleeping prince.

              “Greenwood has welcomed him warmly,” Thranduil agreed in a murmur. “I could not ask for more of them.” One hand moved up and down Legolas’ back, but Thranduil did not relax as Elrond had hoped with such an easy topic of conversation. Drawing Thranduil out of himself had not been such an arduous task before, but it seemed to become more so with each successive blow struck against the Greenwood.

              “Has he been sleeping long?”

              “Six hours?” Thranduil shrugged. Elrond did not doubt Thranduil had been holding him since before he fell asleep. It was an improvement from the months Thranduil had spent not rising from bed for weeks on end, and refusing anyone, even his child, entrance to his chambers. He was not healed, and Elrond doubted he ever would be entirely again—this grief, like the shadow of war and the loss of King Oropher, would mark his heart evermore—but things felt not so dire as they had been, and Elrond would have to take that as a victory. Thranduil lived still, and that was something for which to be grateful.

              “I’m sure we could bring his crib to your chambers, if you prefer him to sleep close by,” Elrond said. Thranduil moved to speak, then hesitated, and withdrew into silence. Again, they regarded the stars, and Elrond wondered why it was they all seemed destined for such tragedy. Was there anywhere in Arda where it was not so?

              The summer air was lukewarm against his face, and the night was still, so that the only rustle of leaves came from the movements of animals still awake at such an hour. If Elrond listened carefully, he could hear voices elsewhere in the forest—other Elves carousing or conversing or singing, and in the close darkness of the woods, the sounds were comforting.

              “I see him die,” Thranduil said, unprompted, into the night. Elrond turned his head to the king. “A thousand times a day I see it in my head. I see him falling from a tree branch to the ground below; I see him cocooned in spider silk, drained of life; I see his little head crushed in the fist of an orc. I see him grown and cut down at Gundabad, at Angband. I see him pierced with the arrows of Men, hewn by the axes of Dwarves; I see him ride against the last of the dragons and go up in smoke and ash. I see Morgoth or his ilk rise again and chain Legolas at his feet, and rend our kingdom to ruin.

“Every day, every hour, I think of his death. He is only a babe, and so delicate. I think of him, and the only thought to which my mind can cling is what if something happens? There are times I…” Thranduil’s words were spilling out like a confession, but there his throat constricted and he fell quiet, tightening his grip on Legolas. “There are times I can’t breathe,” he whispered. “The weight of mountains is on my chest and if I don’t touch him, if I don’t hold him, if I don’t see for myself that he still breathes and laughs and moves I think I would perish.” Thranduil turned then to face Elrond.

“If anything should happen to him, Elrond, I…” Apparently, he did not have the words for this strength of feeling, and simply shook his head, but it was remarkable that he had even attempted to express himself so directly.

“All parents have such worries, Thranduil,” Elrond told him gently. “But you know this obsessive fear is born of your grief for Niwë. She did not come home, and now you fear Legolas, one day, will do the same. If it comforts you,” he added after a pause, “I have seen nothing in his future to suggest such an untimely demise.” 

“It was my job to protect her.”

“No,” Elrond disagreed at once, his tone bordering on stern, even to his elder. “It was, and is, your job to protect the Greenwood. Yours and hers. And she did exactly what you would have done: she protected those under her command. She knew the mantle she was taking up the day she became the princess.”

“Then it would have been better for her never to have met me,” Thranduil said. “I wrought this curse on her.”

“I think she would disagree, even knowing the end.” It was progress, he thought, that Thranduil did not argue with him, but lapsed again into silence, gazing up at the sky. Perhaps an hour or two passed in this companionable quiet, and then Elrond said: “You should rest, though, Thranduil.”

“I cannot.”

“If you will not sleep, at least lie down,” Elrond said. “Or come and keep me company a while longer. I find myself weary, and I think I overindulged at dinner.” He rose to his feet and stretched his back, only partially lying about his need for sleep. He would not say that his worry for Thranduil and Legolas weighed on him.

“And how many glasses of wine would that be?” Thranduil asked. “Two?” Elrond cast a sharp look at the king.

“How proud must be Greenwood the Great when their king boasts about his capacity for the consumption of alcohol,” he said.

“I must rest my laurels somewhere, Elrond.” Elrond huffed quietly, and could not be annoyed, for the pleasure of hearing Thranduil speak so lightly. Thranduil was getting to his feet, making even Elrond anxious as he rose so near to the edge of the platform that his toes hung off the edge, still cradling Legolas in one arm. But it was his place among these heights, and he never lost balance. He followed Elrond back down into his chambers and closed the door behind them.

“Have something to eat, first,” Elrond said then, casting a look at the replenished bowl of fruit on the table by the window. He reached for Legolas, and let out a silent breath of relief when Thranduil relinquished the child and helped himself to a pear off the table, flexing his arm as if only now, without the weight, he realized he had grown sore.

It was hard to resist smiling as Elrond settled Legolas against his chest. It had been a long time since his own children were so small, and the sight of their peaceful, slumbering faces had always calmed him.

“Aren’t you a sweet thing?” he murmured to the babe, unable to help himself. Neither could most of the Greenwood, if the number of gifted toys in Legolas’ nursery was anything by which to judge.

A quick glance over at the table showed Thranduil giving him an almost sly look, as though amused by his old friend’s weakness for children, and the perpetual fawning that followed his child around. Elrond feigned with some exaggeration that he did not notice this, and resumed Thranduil’s pacing, as though it might soothe a child already lost in true-sleep.

“Now will you lie down for a few minutes?” Elrond asked as Thranduil scraped a pear seed out of his mouth.

“If it will keep you from insisting,” the king sighed. He wandered over to the bed and threw himself down on it, staring expectantly at Elrond. Elrond settled Legolas down beside his father, then removed his outer robes and joined them on the bed, the little prince nestled between the adults.

“Perhaps tonight you will not dream,” Elrond said quietly.

“Perhaps I will not.” Thranduil’s voice was heavy, and Elrond could hear that even this obstinate Sindar was losing energy to fight. A whisper of a breeze susurrated through the windows, stirring the gauzy curtains that adorned the four bed posts, shattering the dim light of the room.

“Goodnight, Thranduil.”

“Goodnight,” he replied, and when Elrond looked, Thranduil had shut his eyes. “Armae is meant to be by in the morning,” he murmured. “In case Legolas should wake before we do.”

“I had not planned to true-sleep,” Elrond said. “If he wakes, I can handle him.”

“Mm.” There was a slowing of Thranduil’s breathing, and Elrond knew he had judged rightly how tired Thranduil was by how quickly he was losing the fight against sleep.

“Sleep well,” he whispered. “There are those here who still need you.” When Thranduil had lapsed into sleep, Elrond let himself follow lightly, keeping an eye on the sleeping child, and for a few hours at least, Greenwood’s royal family was at peace.