AN: Last chapter. Thanks so much for reading, and a big thanks to those who reviewed to let me know that they were enjoying this story!

He shouldn't have let this frustrate him, but Legolas could not keep himself from becoming angry that his legs were already shaking in exhaustion.I have only walked from the hall of healing to the courtyard, and now I am not even halfway across the courtyard yet!

The Prince had been in Imladris for almost two months, but had yet to see any of it save for what he could view by the balcony of his sickroom – until today.

Today he had finally convinced Estel to use the mischievousness for which he was always getting himself into trouble by helping Legolas escape the motherly attentions of the attendant healers and help him out of the Last Homely House and into the out of doors. They had yet to be noticed by any who would know that Legolas was not supposed to be outside, and the Prince took this as a sign that perhaps he could avoid getting Estel into trouble over the matter, if they could sneak back into the house without being caught.

I have seen nothing like Imladris, he told himself, walking slower than even his injuries necessitated so that he could view the cascading waterfall into the distance, the river in the gorge below, and the housing built into the rock of the valley between the tall mountains overhead. Even from outside Elrond's massive home, the view of the house itself was magnificent.

There was a bustle of activity in all of the Last Homely House. The preparations for the banquet and celebration that were to have been made upon Legolas' coming had been postponed. Now that Legolas' eldest brother came to the valley, his arrival to occur today or tomorrow, there was a bigger feast planned to celebrate both the Princes' arrivals, but also to serve as a belated feast for Estel's return and for Legolas' recovery.

"When you are better, you will go to the archery field with me, won't you?" the Adan asked with undisguised hope, diligently keeping pace with Legolas to help the Silvan should his legs fail him.

Earlier that day, Legolas had found his sword, bow, and what was left of his quiver in the armoire of his room. How they had come to be in the closet, he had not known, until Elladan and Elrohir had come to visit him a short time later, and explained that they had saved his weapons for him from the campsite. They had placed them in the armoire for safekeeping, but had not thought of them afterward. And since seeing them, the young Adan had been hounding Legolas about teaching him his techniques in archery.

"I will," he told the young human. "Although your brothers might be angry that I am teaching you when they have already shown you how to use a bow."

Estel shook his head and snorted, "They will not care: they will likely be glad for it. They say I am hopeless with a bow!"

Laughing, Legolas replied, "Then you offer me a challenge. It may take some time to teach you, I see."

The human's smile broadened at the mention of Legolas spending more time in the valley, and they continued their walk at a slightly faster pace, Estel pulling Legolas along as if speeding their tempo would speed the Prince's recovery, and thus their making it to the archery range.

With the coming of Legolas' brother and fellow Wood-Elves, Estel seemed to ask for more promises from the Silvan. He did not want Legolas to leave for Eryn Galen just yet, this much was clear. Legolas did not intend to leave until he was entirely better, and so the Prince promised to do with Estel everything he asked, as long as the Silvan's brother did not mind remaining in the valley with him.

"And will you wait to depart until my mother returns? She would wish to meet you," the human said, using propriety now to obtain the Elf's acquiescence to his desire to keep Legolas in Rivendell. "You cannot leave before she has the chance to thank you for helping me!"

Again, the Elda promised, "I will have to stay until she arrives, of course, Estel. I will need to be here to convince her to allow you to come visit me in Eryn Galen in the near future," he offered.

The Adan nodded with much enthusiasm. "You will need to convince my Ada, more than my mother, but we will try. I very much wish to see the Great Forest."

They ambled for a while longer, moving further from the gardens where the celebration would take place and towards the quieter areas of the courtyard. Legolas looked to his human friend. The child was still haunted by his encounter and captivity with the Orcs, as was Legolas. Estel did not like talking about the encounter; he refused to mention it, and still suffered nightmares concerning it. The Wood-Elf had nightmares of his own, and spoke of them to assure the human that this anguish was not his alone.

"I had a most distressing dream last night," he told the Adan, slowing their walk so that he could concentrate more on what he spoke, rather than keeping himself upright. "I dreamt that we did not make it free of the Orcs. I dreamt that they carved me where I hung, but luckily I woke before much else could happen."

Remaining quiet, the human child halted their progress and searched around them, and then began to lead Legolas towards a stone bench under a great oak tree. "But it did not happen," the human said decisively in an attempt to close the subject. "You are here, and we are safe."

"I have never been as close to an Orc as I was in the cave, Estel, and I want never to be that close again. I have not been as frightened as I was then, either." Continuing although he knew that Estel did not wish to hear it, Legolas hoped that he could gain the child's trust to speak to him about their ordeal. It was not healthy that Estel retained his fear to himself.

"But surely you have fought in battles before? You did not seem frightened," the child finally answered. "Not in the cavern, and not at the campsite, not even with a Warg sitting atop you, licking its claws clean of your blood did you seem afraid!"

He sat on the bench beside the Adan, glad to settle his weight somewhere other than his weak legs, which were still not as strong as they should be. "I have fought in battles before, yes. I have killed spiders and Orcs and Wargs, but never have I stopped being afraid of them. Fear keeps us mindful, we must just be careful not to let it control us."

Estel nodded, seeming to ponder over this without accepting it immediately as truth. The unquestioning recognition of authority, something that Estel had displayed time and time again while following Legolas home from the forest, was missing from the Adan now. Estel was still talkative, full of questions, and curious, but his questioning was more pointed now, was less childlike wonder than a thirst for truly learning when he asked his questions. The human was thinking for himself, it seemed to Legolas.

He was barely older than when first Legolas had met him: and yet, the child was grown, not by age, but by experience. The Prince said as much to the Adan, telling him, "You are older, Estel."

"I am no older," the human replied as if speaking to a daft Elfling, for he could tell that Legolas was speaking of more than his age. The Adan's nose curled into mendacious disgust, smelling the oncoming lecture, it seemed. He complained, "I have just come from my lessons, Legolas! Do not tell me that you intend to lecture me this afternoon."

He could not help but laugh at the child's precocious statement. "I do not mean to lecture you, Estel, only to tell you what I have learned myself over the years: it is best to take what one can from any situation, even if it is painful to think about or not easy to forget. One never knows when what he has lived through in the past will help him survive or aid others in the future."

Astute, Estel gleaned from this vague statement of what Legolas meant, and remembered what he had told the Adan shortly after finding him in the woods. "You speak of the tall tree in your forest?" the child asked, twisting to face the Silvan fully. "You speak of the time when you were too young to climb down the tree? When your father had to fetch you from the upper branches?"

"You misremember my story. I was not too young to climb down, but too inexperienced." He leant back into the bench's seat, though it was hard and he almost wished to be back in his sickroom's soft bed. "I was very frightened up there, Estel, clinging to the thinnest branches at the top of that tree. But that day I learnt something that I needed to know," he told the Adan. He had intimated much the same to Elrond and his twin sons days earlier, but wanted now for Estel to hear this, "A lesson, whether it comes from a teacher, from luck, from some terrible dilemma or occurrence, or from ourselves, is still a lesson."

"I would much rather learn from Lord Erestor than a cavern of Orcs," the human chided Legolas with a snide smile, but the Prince could tell that the Adan understood what the Silvan told him. "It seems more that we were being tested before we had been given our lesson!"

"It is not fair, I know, but life is often the test that teaches us a lesson," the Silvan amended, laughing his amusement. "Well, Estel, you have learnt something from this whole encounter with the Orcs and Wargs, and having to lead a febrile Prince through the woods, that Lord Erestor could never have taught you – you have learnt how to be friend to a Wood-Elf."

The human child smiled widely.

He could certainly see the wisdom in the Elf's words now. His meager experience in treating wounds and his few skills in swordsmanship and archery had helped to keep him and the Wood-Elf alive during their ordeal. And, of course, he now knew more than before of very vital matters for surviving in the forest, and likewise, he realized that the things the twins taught him of the woods, his Ada taught him of medicines, and the Wood-Elf had taught him of friendship were important to his well-being.

The sudden clang of bells resounded from atop the gate leading into the courtyard, signaling that the expected convoy for which the guard was watching had finally arrived. Moments later, as the Elf and human watched in companionable silence, riders came through the gates, stopping by the fountain in the courtyard. From the looks of them, the Silvan warriors had ridden with much haste. Their clothes were covered in dirt and dust, their hair had been pulled from its braids by the wind, and their horses' nostrils were wide and flaring as the beasts pulled in air. Being too tired from his walk, Legolas did not stand or otherwise make his way to the arrivers, but shouted fondly to them as they dismounted from their horses, "Muindor! Brethren! Look no further!"

All the Silvan turned to the familiar sound of their youngest Prince's voice, some called their greetings, but it was one Wood-Elf in particular who made his way across the courtyard, leaving his horse in the care of his servants, as he called back to the Silvan Elf beside Estel, "Greenleaf! Brother!"

The Wood-Elf, another of Eryn Galen's Princes, finally approached them, which caused Legolas to stand. Estel stood with his Silvan friend, intending to offer his own respects to the older Prince, who had similar features as Legolas, except that his braids were auburn rather than citrine, as was Legolas' hair, and his ageless face was set into a morose frown that would have been out of place on Legolas' always-smiling visage. This new Elf didn't even wait for a proper introduction to the human, but nodded warmly at him, saying, "Master Human, please excuse us," before grabbing the younger Silvan by his arm and leading him away to chastise him in private. "You are a troublemaker, muindor," the elder Wood-Elf hissed in annoyance at his younger sibling. "Ada has been worried sick about you, as have we all!"

Legolas hobbled beside his brother for a moment more, ere he turned slightly to wink one blue eye at Estel, which called Estel's attention to Legolas' demeanor in being railed at so thoroughly by his brother. The Elf was not at all worried that his brother's anger meant anything more than that his brother loved him.

Who would have thought that it would be Legolas and not I who was in for a long lecture this morning!

In that moment, watching Legolas' brother fuss over him in the same way that the twins had always fussed over Estel, Estel understood something that had always bothered him about his own brothers, another thing in common that he and Legolas shared: His family has been as worried for him as mine has been for me. He worries not because he does not trust Legolas, but because he loves him.

He watched with amusement as the elder Silvan led his younger brother to a somewhat secluded area of the busy gardens, which turned out to be the only space unoccupied by servants stringing lanterns in the trees, so that he could continue his rant with more privacy. Although Estel could no longer hear what was said, he watched with unabashed curiosity as Legolas took the lecture graciously, nodding and assuring his brother of whatever his elder asked him.

Estel's own brothers and father would likely always coddle him, worry for him, and no matter how much he proved himself a man or a warrior, or how old he became in years, his family would never stop caring for him. When they worried, they did it because they cared for him, not because he was human or they thought him inferior. This simple revelation cheered the Adan, and he knew it to be true, for he could see in Legolas the same frustration that Estel often felt to be the object of his brothers' worry, although Legolas, by his many years of experience in this matter, had already learnt what Estel had only just discovered. And so when Legolas' brother finally hugged the younger Wood-Elf, his lecture finished, Estel laughed in merriment at the scene, glad again that it was not he being harangued.

He scratched at the healing wound on his belly in absent but careful digs of his fingernails through his tunic. The tear of his belly's skin was healed into a dark pink line of scarring, his bruises had faded weeks ago, and the gash on his head was nothing but another, even lighter mar upon his person. He was healed – physically.

Even all of Legolas' injuries were healed or healing quickly. The marks upon his back made by the Warg's claws and slices into his skin induced by the Orc's blades were deeper, uglier scars than was Estel's stomach wound, but they no longer pained the Silvan. His aching arm and the bruises caused by the Orcs' beatings had faded before the Adan's contusions had left him. Indeed, other than the weakness that still plagued the Elf, the remnants of the poison leaving his body and the atrophy of his muscles the toxin had created, there was nothing that would be evident upon seeing the Prince that he had suffered at all.

But I know better, the human told himself, now rubbing his belly. These deeper wounds, too, will heal in time, as will my own. His father had earned the twins' and Elrond's respect for his prowess in battle, his mother held their respect for her wisdom and her own part in keeping her son safe that fateful day eleven years ago – Estel doubted he had earned anything but scars and new nightmares from his journey into the woods. Legolas is right, though, he argued with himself, watching the dark haired Silvan looking over his younger brother and hugging him often, which Legolas endured without complaint but many a smile. This is a lesson.

After the elder Prince had aided his younger brother back to the center of the courtyard where the other Silvan were waiting, presumably to now make his necessary greetings to Lord Elrond and perform the diplomatic rites that his position required, Estel sat on the bench in the courtyard, watching the activity of the newly arrived Silvan being greeted and their horses led away, until a call from behind him drew his attention.

"Estel! We have been searching everywhere for you! You were not in Legolas' room as you were supposed to be."

Slowly, he turned in his seat on the stone to see who had called his name, only to find that his twin brothers were walking towards him. His welcome never made it past his lips, for in Elrohir's hand was a length of Elven rope. They have come to tie me to the pillar, he thought. He was sitting rather close to a pillar, in fact. Standing in a hurry, Estel considered running into the woods close by, but rejected that thought at once. The last thing I need is to get lost in the woods again, even if the twins will be right behind me this time. He could run into the Last Homely House to evade his adopted siblings, but looking over his shoulder at where Legolas stood with his brother and brethren Silvan in the middle of the courtyard by the house's front steps, he thought, Legolas has taken his lecture. I suppose I should take mine. The twins walked closer, their grinning never lessening at their approach. They will tie me to this pillar sooner or later.

"Estel," the younger twin repeated, coming to stand right before the human, "you –"

"I am ready," he interrupted, holding out his wrists to the Noldo, prepared to have them tied. "But if you must tie me to a pillar, please pick one in the shade. The day is already warm."

Both Noldor stared at their human brother with amused confusion at the human's winsome statement, and then looked to each other for some clue as to what would make the human believe they would tie him to one of the great pillars of the archways in the courtyard. It only took a moment for Elrohir to remember he carried rope in his hand, however, and he shook it at the Adan in mock threat. Still laughing, Elrohir explained, "Nay, muindor! We desire your help in the yards with the new foals."

"Unless you prefer to be tied to a pillar with this rope," Elladan added with another hearty cachinnation, "though I would rather have you holding it as a tether to help bring the foals into the stables."

He had always doubted that his brothers were his friends, not because they didn't treat him as such, but they were his brothers – they were somewhat obligated by these adoptive familial connections to be nice to him. This is the first time they have ever asked for my help with the newborn horses. He forsook his suspicion; letting his own doubts pollute this time with his brothers would only ruin his enjoyment of it. If they sometimes treated him like a child, he would only need to remember that he was still a child. Legolas has chosen to be my friend, he thought, his adolescent mind supplying him with this logic, even though I am human and younger than he is, and not a warrior yet; he still wishes to know me. Perhaps my brothers feel the same.

"Estel?" the elder twin prompted.

"I will help you," he agreed happily, and then let his brothers lead him to the backfields where the young horses were allowed to roam while not in their stables.

As they walked, Elladan placed his arm around the young human's shoulder, walking in pace with him, while Elrohir strode before them, singing a song that Estel had not heard before. He would learn this song, though – and much more from the twins, his Ada, and Legolas – to grow, to become a great warrior, as was his father, to roam the woods with the Rangers, as was his desire, and to become the King he would one day need to be.