A Parting of Ways
KEYNOTE: These are not new chapters, but my dyslexic self has gone through and edited them. The added chapters are to give scenes better breathing room.
P.S. Elven languages, don’t at me, I was inspired by some fanon, some others fanfiction, and just wanted to make different elven groups distinct from each other. This story isn’t trying to be canon compliant.
Chapter 14 - A Parting of Ways
Legolas was furious, "What have you done? What have you done!?"
Boromir's shoulders rounded, "I— I don't know."
"How can you not know?" Legolas pushed, knowing full well what evil had befallen but he was unsure what to do about it.
Legolas had many fine talents but his tracking capabilities were not equal to Estel or even some in the Mirkwood guard. Hours had passed and a storm was blowing in from the east.
Estel had given Frodo to Boromir, leaving the man with two halflings in his saddle. Legolas, who was more skilled in fighting and shooting on horseback, had played guard. He had trusted Haldir to catch up to Luna as they fled from the battle with the Ring Bearer.
But when they had stopped to water the horses, everything had gone wrong.
Or more wrong.
"Say it," Legolas said, voice dropping as he stepped into the man's space, this would be Steward of Gondor. "You have failed our mission, failed Middle Earth, do not compound your dishonour with cowardness."
Boromir looked up, tears in his eyes, "I…" he swallowed hard. "I would not have harmed him. But I reached for the Ring… It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing."
Legolas was not an elf of violence, still, had he not been the crowned prince of his realm, he would have struck the man. "What did Frodo do?"
Tears spilled down Boromir's cheeks, as sanity returned to him, "He put on the ring and ran, I could not follow."
But Samwise had managed, knowing Frodo better than any of them. Legolas suspected they had or would cross the river. He was glad, at least, for Estel and Luna's wisdom in making Frodo and Samwise learn and remember the maps and general geographics when they were still safe in Imladris.
Legolas bore responsibility, he had gone scouting and he had been the one to trust Boromir.
He wasn't sure what else there was to say when he heard approaching hooves. He knocked an arrow but almost dropped his bow when he saw who was racing toward them.
"Luna!"
Haldir dismounted, setting his sister down on her feet. She was drenched in blood and Legolas couldn't tell how much was hers but it couldn’t possibly all be hers. He was nearly as scared to know how others' blood had gotten on her. Her eyes were open, however, and she was aware of her surroundings.
Legolas began to approach them and froze when she shrunk back from him.
Haldir nearly snarled, but at Boromir as Luna shrunk behind Haldir.
Legolas spun on the man, "Go."
"What?" the man asked, startled at the hostility being directed at him. "I would never—"
"As you would never threaten the halflings?" Legolas spat. "Go find Estel, you can explain to Gandalf the Grey —and your king— your actions."
Boromir shook his head, but backed away, going toward one of the still saddled horses. He rode off without bidding them farewell.
Luna stood shaking but didn't back away from him now that the human was gone.
"Luna?" he asked gently.
She looked up at him, her voice was hoarse, almost unrecognisable, "Legolas." Hesitatingly, she reached out to him.
Legolas wasted no time in going to her, but he was careful to make his movements deliberate.
She let go of Haldir and without looking up, she said, "I need it off."
He understood without more explanation, taking her hands in his, leading her toward the river, there was a shallow out curve that bit into an outcropping. Still he wished he could have afforded her more privacy but he knew being clean was more important.
He called to Haldir in his own tongue, "There is a change of clothes in the pack."
They had two horses. The one Luna had been riding was clearly tired, but its strength remained —Elledan to prize that line— and the other horse was one of Luna's, black and white with a thick mane. Hers were work horses, in winter, perhaps even war horses.
Legolas decided that the latter would be the horse she should ride. Disturbed as she was, her own horses would protect her, while Elladan's horse might be more prone to spook at the fear it sensed in her.
As they waded into the water, Luna's gaze went evermore distant. Legolas rubbed the blood off her hands first. Then her face, the slash at her temple, was already scabbed over. She sank deeper into the water, allowing him to wash the gore from her hands.
Legolas was glad that it was she who began taking off her clothes and that she allowed him to help. By the way the blood had splattered her underclothes, Legolas knew the worst had not happened, just as he knew that Luna had killed to protect herself.
She was a healer, a Speaker, and her hands were not meant to bear death upon the world.
Getting her boots off proved the most difficult of their tasks, he tossed them to the shore along with the other clothing.
Legolas bent his legs, sinking shoulder-deep in the water, allowing his sister to soak in the running water in his arms so she didn't have to fight the current.
He began singing to her softly, not wanting to call anyone to them but needing to do something more active than worrying over a threat that may or may not be approaching. An hour or more passed before Luna stirred, actively leaning into his arms. The water was not too cold for either of them, though that did not mean warmth did not bring comfort.
Legolas rested his cheek on top of her head.
"Is there something wrong with me?"
"No," he said automatically, then repeated himself when he realized he had spoken in elvish.
"I have never fallen in love," she said, pressing into his chest. "I've never desired to touch a person in such a way."
Legolas cursed internally, men being raised by elves happened, Estel was proof of that, but for an elfling to be raised by humans was near unheard of.
There was so much unknown to her about their people, and yet more she did not understand about herself.
"No, Luna, that is the way of elves."
"Then how do you and I exist?" she asked, clarity returning to her eyes that were not unlike their father's.
Not unlike his own, if a few shades paler blue.
It took him a moment to discern her meaning. He huffed and might have laughed if he wasn't wound so tight with the need to protect her. He laid a gentle kiss on her temple, "Elves wed for life, and it may be many centuries or even thousands of years until they find their love. For we marry only for love, and often only the other half of our souls. Sometimes, perhaps even often, that does not happen in this life but the next. Even then, the need for physical intimacy of that nature cools in time. There is nothing wrong to be unattached to anyone who is not your true love, and even then, it is not wholly abnormal to wed and never…" He searched for the Common Speech word for it.
"Consummate," he finished. "Oftentimes, just to be near each other, to take joy in each other's company, is more than enough to sustain them."
She stared at him, and he wished dearly to have known her better to understand her expression.
He wondered if she had felt anything for Haldir. When elfings were more numerous, elves would often fall in love before they reached their maturity, though it was not surprising when considering the decrease in their numbers that it wasn't until now had Haldir perhaps found his match.
Rebirth could only happen if there were actual births.
Legolas knew with little doubt that they were a match, for Luna would have never let him touch her when so freshly traumatised, or at least she wouldn't have clung to him when feeling threatened by Boromir.
He had also seen that Haldir was enamoured with her, which was obvious for all to see. But the Marsh Warden of Lothlórien was honourable, and Legolas had no fear he would push his sister before she was ready.
In fact, Legolas knew for a fact that Haldir would have waited forever, especially if she allowed him to remain by her side.
"Have you?" she asked him.
He shook his head, "No. I have never fallen in love, nor touched another. I have never felt want in that way."
Perhaps he had wished for love, but after seeing how broken his father had been after his wife's death, he was hesitant to even the dream of it aside.
Love would come, or it was not, there was plenty else in this world to rejoice in.
"Has Haldir?" she asked.
"No," Legolas said, not needing to ask. Haldir did not carry the same sorrow that those who waited for the rebirth of their fallen spouses. Between elves, it was not something possible to hide.
But that her next thought would be of the marchwarden, made Legolas hopeful that she would both recover from today's horror and harbour returning feelings for the high elf.
Atar, their father, wasn't going to be wholly pleased by this, especially, if it kept her from returning to Mirkwood.
No, he imagined their father wouldn't care for that at all.
Luna hugged him, suddenly and fiercely, "I wish we had never been separated."
He held her tight, "As do I, Nésa."
"What is brother?" she asked.
"Onóro. And atar is father in Quenya, in the Silvan speech. For we are the Silvan elves, the woodland elves, and we once called ourselves the Nondor, those who returned from the West and remained. Though Sindarin is still the primary language of this age."
But among the royal family, they still used Quenya.
She nodded then shivered a bit as the wind breathed across her wet hair.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
Again she nodded resting her head on his chest as he rose from the water. He whistled the tune of a morning jay.
One of his dried shirts was tossed to him by Haldir who kept his back turned to them. Luna seemed comforted by Haldir's consideration and stood solidly on her own two feet when Legolas set her down. Haldir had been keeping watch while tending to the horses when they had been in the river.
Legolas used the shirt as a towel, squeezing the water from her hair. He gave her the shirt to finish drying off as he unfolded the tightly bundled set of extra clothes. They weren't particularly fitting for a warrior or a princess, but they were dry and clean, smelling of horses and sweetgrass, not blood. The boots were still wet and he attached them to the saddle to dry, certain Luna wouldn't mind being barefoot.
Legolas, as a general rule, hadn't routinely begun wearing shoes until his hundred and fiftieth birthday. And indeed, Luna made no protest.
"Frodo and Samwise took the road ahead Mordor, though I know not precisely when nor where," he said to them both. "Without Estel, I have not the ability to track halflings."
Luna looked over the horizon, twilight had come and clouds had overtaken the stars. "We can't catch up to them, and perhaps this was as it was meant to be. Elrond predicted this would happen from the beginning, he said as much, in his way. The hobbits are brave, and their nobility far exceeds their station."
That much was certainly true.
Sadness encroached on him as he realized he wouldn't be able to deter her from rejoining Estel and the other wizards.
If the halflings could be brave, she could do no less.
Still, he had to try.
"Luna," he began carefully. "In order to get back to Isengard…"
But she shook her head, "I can't…"
Relief swamped him. He put a hand on her shoulder, "There is nothing to be asham-"
She stepped back from him, "It doesn't matter what I feel, what matters is that I don't trust myself to not be a burden."
Legolas wanted to argue, but he also didn't want to change her mind. "Where do you wish to go?"
She grimaced, "I've had my fill of men."
Legolas nodded, "The dwarves of Erebor march south to protect the river trade and Dale. Rohan and Gondar are also on the frontlines. However, we could go around Fangor Forest and cross the mountain back toward the Shire."
She didn't look enthused by that idea and what she said next surprised him, "I am not ready to return to Mirkwood."
His eyes widened a bit, "You would like to be among elves?"
She didn't answer immediately, and only after a few steadying breaths did she say, "Harry was right. I do not know how long I can watch the world die around me before I begin hoping to join it."
Legolas's heart seized at her words, she was too young, far too young to feel that way. Only the oldest of elves ever voiced such fatalism. The desire to flee West to the Undying Lands and the light of the Valar were common enough, but desiring true death was something else altogether.
Suddenly, the idea that Haldir might be her heart's song seemed right.
Luna was too young, but she knew greater hardship than many elves had ever managed to survive. Haldir in his wisdom, likely knew her better than Legolas could have, for he was, in the eyes of the First Born, young himself.
"Lothlórien is the closest to us," Haldir said gently.
Luna sighed but nodded her consent.
Legolas realized then how afraid she was, how lost. He began to speak only to be cut off again, "Then we leave—"
"No," she said flatly.
He raised a brow at her.
She swallowed, "I— I must go. Making you worry about, distracting Harry, putting my life above Merry and Pippin's… I have become a hindrance. I must go."
"You will not travel alone," Legolas stated. Over his dead body would he allow it.
"But all three of us don't have to go," she argued.
Legolas looked over her shoulder, meeting Haldir's gaze.
He saw stark fear there, fear of separation, fear that he would die in battle before he learned of her fate.
Legolas felt much the same, but although he already loved his sister greatly, she was not the other half of his soul. He could survive their parting, there was a real change that Haldir would not.
Still…
"Haldir is the better leader between us," Legolas said, King Thranduil would not forgive him for not even attempting to protest this.
Luna touched his arm, and he looked down into his sister's eyes that were too much like their father's.
Again, she was too young, she shouldn't know the king's grief.
"You are the better archer," she said. "And you are a dearer friend to Gimli. For my sake, Gimli will have your back and it will do both Mirkwood and dwarves of Erebor good to be on friendlier terms. Especially as the ents have inadvertently extended the Greenwood to the Iron Hills."
Legolas blinked at her.
Politics?
She was thinking about politics.
She had been forced to kill and nearly violated, and she was thinking about the inter nuances of dwarven and elvish politics?
Luna was entirely their father's daughter and every bit of her was an elven princess.
And just because he wanted to know what she would say, Legolas responded with, "If I die, those relations could worsen."
"If you die, Thranduil will blame Elrond and your sacrifice would be honoured in dwarven legends for centuries to come."
Haldir snorted.
Legolas touched her cheek, unable to hide a smile that softened his words, "It almost sounds like you would hope for the latter."
She laid her hand over the back of his, "No, Onóro, no. I would never wish for that, but for goodness to prevail, a thousand steps must be taken to counter a single kick of ill intent. Destruction will always be easier. Elrond chose you to travel with the Fellowship for a reason."
"Lord Elrond didn't choose me," he protested.
"He did, for you are a prince —and as I have come to understand— nearly as young as I am, yet no one protested your joining the quest. You are needed. I only wanted to help, and because I know I can no longer do that effectively, I will go. Haldir is from Lothlórien, he knows this region better than you do." She turned to look at the elf in question, "Don't you?"
Haldir nodded, and Legolas couldn't even attempt to refute the point. Haldir had seen an age pass, and Lothlórien had once been much larger than it was now.
Legolas pulled her into a hug, their time together had been too short. She hugged him hard and said in his ear as he bent down to hold her, "Do not die."
He pulled back with a laugh and laid a kiss on top of her head, "I would request the same, Nésa."
It was a bittersweet parting. His heart mourned their separation, but he also rejoiced that she would be riding toward safety, that their father would not lose her before he could know her.
In all honesty, Legolas would have followed them if it had been anyone but Haldir with her. Both because Haldir was a great warrior and because he knew the region, but most of all because Luna was his heart. For love of her, Haldir would have walked to the pits of Mordor without hesitation.
Legolas rode Elledan's horse, despite how hard the beast had worked today, if given a night of rest, he would make it to Isengard soon enough. Luna's horse bore the weight of two riders with ease.
They said their final goodbyes, but no sooner had Legolas turned back to the West did Luna call, "Legolas!"
He whipped around, coming back to them.
Cheeks flushed, Luna said a tad gruffly, "I have a magic owl. I will write to Thranduil, he will know within the week, or perhaps two, where we are and that I am safe."
Legolas laid a hand over his heart, "Hanta-idë."
Thank you.
She offered him a half smile, "It was never my intent to hurt you."
He shook his head, "Some pains, bring healing and harken happiness." He glanced up at Haldir who remained silent through most of their exchange.
The marchwarden tipped his head in acknowledgement.
Legolas continued, "Find happiness, Nésa, yours is far overdue. There will always be suffering in the world, but life goes on, and joy is never as far from reach as we fear it to be."
The smile she offered him this time reached her eyes, "My heart rejoices that you are my onóro, Prince Legolas."
Legolas did not attempt to stem the tears that spilled from his eyes at her acceptance of him and all that he was; elf, prince, son of Thranduil, and her brother.
oOo
AN: Apologies for the false updates, I should be posting a new chapter when my health improves. If you’re still interested in this story, feedback really does help me get inspired as well as through some rough days. Thank you all who’ve stuck with me on this one!