I wake in darkness, and for a long time I do not know where I am or what I am doing here. I do not know whether my understanding of the world is remembered or dreamed, I cannot separate the two, but as sleep sloughs away I begin to remember. I remember what has happened. I remember it all.

The Shadow is gone. It is over.

I close my eyes against the flicker of candle glow, muted and barely light enough to see by. I bring my hands to my face and I simply leave them there for a while, shaking, and I feel tears against my skin. It is all a bit too much… all so overwhelming.

"It is over, Gimli," comes a soft voice, and I knew that he was there. I think I will always know when he is there. His presence is a breath at the back of my mind all of the time, and I do not remove my hands for a while. Not for a long while.

"Should you not be sleeping?" I ask him, the words muffled through my hands, and after a moment I remove them and sit up. It is difficult – I feel as though I have been beaten by a Balrog – and I can feel the stitches in my shoulder and hip pulling terribly. I hurt with every breath and movement, but lying abed is not going to fix that. Only time will.

Time fixes most wounds.

"I slept a little," he murmurs. He is sat on the floor in the corner of the room, washed and clean and changed into a simple shirt that is far too big on him. His hair is loose and he has always looked so young and fragile to me when he is this way, but there is firelight in his eyes and a stubborn set to his jaw. He raises one knee, rests a splinted hand upon it and watches me closely. "I dreamed badly," he admits.

He glances away, his hand dancing and fidgeting. He picks at a plate that is sat on the floor next to him, gestures to one that is set near me, but although I am suddenly hungrier than I have ever been in my life I spend a moment just watching him eat. It has been a long time.

"The others are resting. I said that I would watch you."

"They allowed it?" I ask doubtfully, and shuffle slowly and painfully until I am on the edge of the bed. I eat slowly, but I do not think I have enjoyed simple bread and meat as thoroughly as I do now. The mug of water smells oddly, but I recognise it as nothing more than pain numbing herbs so I drink it.

"I dreamed badly," he repeats firmly, pointedly, and I nod.

"Do you wish to talk about it?"

"I do not."

I nod again, and we fall silent but it is strangely uncomfortable. Legolas and I have not shared an uncomfortable silence for a long time, but I know exactly why. It is strange, knowing someone so completely that you do not need words to understand their silences, but sometimes only words will do. Sometimes things must be spoken, and sometimes it is too hard. After everything we have been through, mere words have us both stumped, but in this – like in all things – Legolas will not allow it to go on for too long.

"I nearly killed you," he says, quite factually. "I wanted to, I remember it.

"But you did not," I point out.

"I would have, Gimli. I would have done it."

"But you did not," I repeat, and I can hear annoyance creeping into my tone. I do not hide it; he can feel it from me either way. "We knew it might happen, you and I both knew, and it did happen and we are both still here. Do not make an issue out of something we cannot change."

His agitation increases. He falls silent but I can see his unbroken hand tapping at his thigh, his gaze turns to the window and I can feel how much he wants to leave. I can feel how uncomfortable he is, how the urge to simply run away is screaming inside of him, but he ignores it and stays. A part of me wishes he would go.

Legolas remembers it. He remembers trying to kill me, truly trying… he had every intention of it, and he remembers. I had hoped he would not, but then I very rarely get the things that I wish for.

"It is something we will have to become accustomed to," I tell him, but my tone is softer this time. An apology.

"I will be staying in the Greenwood for a while after this," he says. "I do not think you should stay with me."

I am stunned into silence for a moment. I am horrified, stilled absolutely, and I am careful to put my plate down before I throw it at the wall.

"You are done?" I ask, and I put very real effort into keeping my tone neutral. "You do not wish to travel together any longer?"

He snaps his head around, his eyes widening in horror. He rolls forward onto his knees and reaches out to grab my hand, squeezing it painfully.

"No, Gimli… you misunderstand! Of course… of course I do, how could you think such a thing?"

And I release a breath I did not realise I had been holding, and I close my eyes. The relief flattens me. I am feeling every emotion, one after the other, and I am suddenly very tired again. I rub my eyes.

"We need time apart," I realise, and he nods firmly.

"Just through the winter. Just a few months. I must heal a while, and so must you, and my healing can only be done in the forest. I will run the old roads and sleep beneath the starlight, and perhaps when we meet in the spring I will be less likely to attack you with a blade."

"I make no similar promises," I crack one eye open, and it is a poor attempt at humour but he smiles in any case. He is still on his knees in front of me, and he simply flops down onto his rear again. It is one of the least graceful things I have ever seen him do.

"Does your hand pain you?" I ask carefully, because it has fallen very quiet again.

"Yes," he bites. "Do your wounds pain you?"

"Yes."

"Good," he huffs, but there is a hint of mischief in his face and a laugh escapes before I can stop it. He smiles, a tiny thing, but it eases my heart. I am a mess, a complete and utter mess, and I think I will be so for a long time to come, but when Legolas smiles like that I am calm. Just for a while I am calm, and these last months never happened at all.

"Go back to sleep, my friend," he says softly. "I will be here."

And I know that he will… that he always will, and so I climb back into the bed. It is warm and comfortable, and I am safe. The herbs in my water begin to numb my aches and pains so that I feel the tug of sleep begin to drag me under again, but then Legolas murmurs. It is a whisper of sound, but I hear him clearly through the fog of sleep.

"I would have done the same, you know," he tells me, and I smile into my pillow. I know exactly what he is speaking of.

"No," I disagree. "Had you been in your right mind you would have been quick enough to fight him, and not do anything as stupid as blocking a hatchet with your own spine."

"I am trying to say something meaningful here, Gimli," he breathes, exasperated, but I do not wish to speak about it. We do not need to.

"You are worth it, Legolas," I tell him.

I can feel the warm glow that my words kindle in him, the happiness and affection, the sense of peace and safety he feels right now. I feel it suffuse my entire being, and I do not try to block it out. It lulls me to sleep, and this time I do not dream badly. I do not dream at all.

~{O}~

A few days later and we are leaving, and I am glad of it. This place is stifling me – too sad; too quiet; too enclosed – but I think perhaps a lot of this is the elfling breaking through into my thoughts. The longer we remain here the more obvious it is that he is changed… he is a knife edge, a raw and exposed thing, and it is wearing me down to my last.

Legolas is noticeably different: more silent, more likely to stare, less likely to be around. He cannot abide being indoors, his moods are turbulent as the sea, he is making the men uncomfortable and I can feel the madness of him itching under my skin all of the time. He can barely stand still for a heartbeat at a time. Now that the Song is returned to him it is a deluge – blinding and deafening, maddening, and Almárean tries to reassure me that he is simply the Legolas he once was – a long time ago – but it aches inside me.

I feel as though I grieve, as though I have lost my Legolas and he has been replaced by a different one – the same, but not quite the same. Then there are the quiet moments… the ones where he is clear and calm. Then he is my friend. These moments are not very often, but they are enough to stop me from becoming accustomed to how he is now. I do not know whether it is worse to let go of the Legolas I knew, or to be constantly reminded of him.

"Where is he?" Idhren barges into my room – without knocking, I might add – and I look up with a scowl from where I am rearranging my pack for the hundredth time. I glare at him, but he merely glares back with his hands upon his hips and does not even blink. When I do not answer he waves one of them, prompting me. "I know that you know, it will make matters far quicker if you just tell me."

"I am not here," I grit through my teeth, "to steer you in the right direction whenever you lose him. You are supposed to be his guard, why do you never know where he is?"

"You know full well how he can be," Idhren dismisses my accusation, then squints his eyes at me. "If you were not so irritable you would tell me without a battle over – "

"The roof!" I interrupt him. "By the Valar, Idhren, he is on the roof. Go away!"

If Idhren is stung by my shouting he shows nothing of it at all, but merely offers a mock salute in thanks and is out of the window before I can react.

"Elves and windows!" I shout, although I am shouting at an empty room. I stomp over to the window and slam the shutters closed, perhaps a bit more forcefully than intended. One of them bounces and swings and then hangs sadly, its hinge snapped, and if I feel guilty that I am breaking bits of Marcus' inn it is swiftly buried. I return to stuffing my clothes into my pack – angry and agitated movements – and I am startled again by a voice at the door.

"They are only elflings," comes a voice, far lighter and more amused than I feel is appropriate. Almárean is leaning against the door frame, his arms folded and completely at ease. He is watching me very carefully.

"They are not," I snap. "We should stop calling them that; they are adults. They have been adults for a very long time."

"They became adults too early," he corrects me, but this time there is a hint of steel in his tone. These are his elflings, after all, and this time I remain sensibly quiet. I give up on my pack and swing it across my shoulder, ready to storm out of the room but he stops me. Long fingers grip my arm, calm grey eyes strip me bare of all of my bluster and grumpiness and read everything beneath. It is intrusive, but it has been a long time since such things have bothered me. It is simply how they are.

"Do not, Almárean," I say, and it comes out strangely. It is not a warning, it is not a plea, but rather it comes out somewhere between the two. I do not meet his gaze, I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the wall, and after a moment he lets me go. I leave, and he does not follow me.

~{O}~

We leave the Standing to little fanfare. We do not creep out like thieves, but our arrival here has brought these people nothing but pain. It was not us that attacked the town, not our hands by which so many men fell, but the two incidences are too close together and so I think they are glad that we are leaving.

Marcus, Minara and Einan send us on our way. I wish that things were different – that we could help them to rebuild – but we have outstayed our welcome and we are anxious to be gone. I feel guilt or sorrow or sadness… something, I do not know what it is. It sits in my stomach, I feel as though we leave something unresolved somehow, but there is nothing for it. We must go.

Legolas is in one of his better minds – enough to act a prince for a moment. He stands with Marcus – pale and thin and worried – and tells him that he will send help from the Greenwood once he is home. There are still men in the mountains – those cowards who ran – and they cannot be left there. They are a threat, and the Standing cannot withstand another attack. He says that he will write to Aragorn, that he will press for their recognition and their protection under the crown, and Marcus thanks him with a still and serious face. Our farewells are staid, quiet, reserved, and Calder spends a while speaking quietly with Einan, although I do not know what passes between them.

We saved the Standing, or at least we helped, and for a short time we were a part of their story. But although I have seen one of my greatest victories in this place, I have no happy memories here. I am glad to go.

They give us a pack horse and provisions, we leave as allies, but I do not think that we are friends.

~{O}~

We travel north, because we aim for the forest path and it no longer matters how long it takes to get there. It feels strange; to travel without being chased, to go somewhere and not always have a constant knot of worry in my gut. We travel slowly and easily, and it feels so very, very strange to me now.

We find a way across the Anduin where the river runs wide and shallow, but once we are across it the two brothers in our group stop. We ride a while before we realise, we turn to see what is wrong, and as soon as I see Calder's face I know… I simply know.

They cannot remain with us. As much as I would give my very beard to keep Calder at my side for the rest of his days, I know that I would spend each one of them making sure Callen was not at my back. I am afraid of him, I do not trust him, and for all that he has done to redeem himself I do not think that I will ever stop hating him. Callen loves his brother – it is as clear and as plain as day – but that love does not extend any further than that. He is still cruel, still dangerous, and perhaps Calder can fix him… perhaps Calder can heal him, can make him a man again instead of a monster, but I do not think he will do such a thing trailing upon our heels. Our paths are no longer the same.

Calder has such a look of pain on his face – such a twisted look of indecision and grief – that I cannot help but go to him. I cannot stand to see that look on his face… cannot stand to see him sad or hurt. I dismount, and so does he, and he approaches me warily but I pull him into a tight embrace.

"Where will you go, laddie?" I ask, my voice muffled into his shoulder. He does not let go.

"To Bray," he says. "The new Bray, to Rowan and his valley. We will go there for a while; they need help, and I think it will do Callen much good to help people for a while. And I need it too."

I pull him away, and I spend a while just looking at him. He has grown larger, I think: taller, broader. He is confident and strong. He is a fine lad.

"Be well," I say, and it sounds like an order rather than a request. I shake him once just to be certain, and he laughs.

"I will miss you, Gimli," he says simply. "This winter has broken me, but it has also made me anew. You have made me a better man."

"You were a good man without me," I disagree. "Stay safe, laddie, and we will meet again."

"Aye," he beams, and it is a promise. There is a stone in my heart, a pain in the very depths of me, but this is not a sad parting. It is bittersweet and it hurts, but sometimes friends part ways, and so it must be. I know that I will see Calder again, and I know that each time I see him he will be stronger and better and finer. I am proud of him, and I am glad to be his friend.

He says goodbye to the elves, who have always been far too casual about such things. Elves see the passage of time very differently than we do – a goodbye to them might be for an hour or a hundred years, with little difference between the two – and something about that makes me sad. They might say goodbye to Calder and think nothing of it, but the next time they meet the boy he could well be an old man, and so much time could be wasted.

They do not understand the urgency of time, the loss of it, when we have so little. I wish that I could grab them, shake them… shout until they understand. I wish that I could make them swear upon their hearts that they will seek him out – just once – before it is too late: before they forget, before the years pass by them unnoticed, and our friend ends his years without sight of them again. I wish that they truly understood, but I know that they never will. It is down to me to ensure that they see Calder again, and I smile to myself unbidden.

They are hopeless, my elves; they truly are, and in truth? I would have them no other way.

Legolas and Calder talk for a while, just the two of them, and although their voices are murmured and their counsel secret, there is little that Legolas can hide from me. I cannot hear his words, but I feel the intent behind them. I feel fondness, pride, worry, hope. I feel all of these things from him, but I am quite sure that he is making a hash of his words and so I tug at his sleeve in the end and pull him away. Legolas looks bewildered and lost, Calder winks at me, and I know that he understands.

Legolas cares, he is just not very good at saying it sometimes.

There is a moment then when Legolas and I become entangled in one another's thoughts, and it is because both of us wish nothing more than to threaten Callen in some way. We wish to tell him what we will do if he hurts his brother: what will happen if he betrays this chance he has been given, if he fails him in even the smallest way. We both wish to say something, to impress upon him that it is a promise rather than a threat. For a long time our thoughts run in perfect tandem, and I realise that we have both been staring at him the whole time.

I have never seen Callen look cowed or uncomfortable, but I see it now. It seems that our combined regard has put across everything that we meant to say, everything that we mean, every part of our promise and so we do not need to say it. Legolas and I have proven that we are a formidable pair, and whilst I do not have the years behind my gaze, I have seen enough and been through enough for it to have some weight. Perhaps just the novelty of a silent dwarf has frightened him, but either way he ducks his head and looks away from us, and nods his own promise.

He will look after his brother, he tells us, and I know that he will.

When the brothers turn and leave, I watch them for only a moment before Legolas tugs at my arm. I look at him, and there is sympathy there in his gaze. It hurts me to watch Calder go, it hurts somewhere deep and important, and the elfling understands. He grips my arm, smiles a small smile just for me, pulls me gently back toward Naurwen and I let him.

We will see the lad again. I will make sure that we do.

~{O}~

We are a day from the Greenwood and Legolas can smell the wood. I can feel it in him – excitement and joy, anticipation but also a strange ache that sits in my chest. It is not something I have ever felt before, and I spend a while trying to unravel it. Grief perhaps? It does not feel entirely like grief, but it is similar. It is sadness and love and the sense of something always missed, absent, never to be found again. I puzzle over it for a long time and finally I ask Legolas about it.

We are lying upon the ground, sprawled on our backs in the snow. Where my head ends there is only a hand's breadth before his begins, and I can feel his hair tickling at my forehead when the wind blows. I spread my arms wide and we lie like that, staring up at the sky and the stars. The others leave us alone, because I think they are still finding it difficult to understand how we are at the moment. We are too silent, we speak without words, we are shutting them out and I know that we are. It is good that we are to spend time apart; we need it.

Legolas does not reply for a long time, but I can feel him trying to form his thoughts into words. He need not try so hard, I could likely understand him without them, but we must get out of this habit. I stare up at the glittering and endless black, I try not to feel tiny and insignificant and frightened, and I try not to read Legolas' words before he has even spoken them.

"I think perhaps it is similar to how you feel when you look at me, now. Or at least some of the time."

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, and it is not a sigh because I have tried very hard for it not to be a sigh. It is only natural that he has picked up on such a thing.

"I grieve for you," I admit, but only because he will know if I tell falsehoods. He does not say anything but I feel no hurt from him, no umbrage or annoyance. "You are not going to tell me that it is wrong? That you are not dead?"

"I am changed," he replies simply. "I would grieve too, if it were you instead."

"It will not last," I murmur. "You are not so different, not all of the time. I will become accustomed to it."

He makes a soft sound: understanding, acceptance – the sort of sound a friend might make when words are not needed. He holds his hands up toward the sky, reaching toward the stars in a lazy gesture and I try not to look at the one still splinted and broken.

"The Greenwood makes me feel sadness because there are many memories there," he explains. "A lot that is good, a lot that is very bad indeed. I remember every moment of it just as clearly as it was yesterday – every lost friend, every horror, every single time I expected to die. I remember how it was, before the darkness came to the wood. I watched it sicken and die – year after year, unstoppable – and it broke my heart with every league we lost. That is how I grew up, and so I have very mixed feelings toward the Greenwood."

I make a sound myself, very similar to the one he made. Understanding and acceptance. He speaks so simply, but his words make me very sad.

"But it is home," I finish for him.

"Aye," he says warmly. "It is home, Gimli."

We are quiet again for a while, and Legolas is humming to himself. This time it does not make me sad, because Legolas' heart is light and free tonight. It is a difficult thing to put into words or images, but when he is like this it is like standing in a spring glade. It is pillars of golden sun spilling past ancient trees, new flowers and a blackbird singing. It is newness and growth and the smell of woods after the rain. Being near to such a thing is like being washed clean.

"I must ask you," I say, quietly but I know he is listening. "After… after the Shadow… you said that I hurt you – that I knew how to hurt you better than anyone, and that I used it to betray you. I do not deny it for a second, but then you quite literally told me how to hurt you all over again; told me I should, if I had to. I am still trying to puzzle that out; you are sending very mixed messages."

Legolas huffs a laugh at that, because this should be a serious matter but there is no seriousness between us. Not right now. He waves his hand in the darkness again, but this time he is looking at his broken hand. He starts to pick at the bindings and I reach back to slap him on the forehead, and he stops.

"There was a time," he starts carefully, "a long time ago… there would have been no chance – none at all – that I would have allowed anyone to hurt me as badly as you did. I have changed, although not all that much, but I do not think very clearly when it comes to you, Gimli. I cannot forget what you did, and I do not think I have entirely forgiven you, but I still trust you just the same as I ever have. Perhaps it is a part of this new madness. Perhaps it will fade in time, and some sense will grow in its place."

"Perhaps," I grit through clenched teeth, but my annoyance is only a part of the act… it is only to make him laugh. I smile when he does and I tilt my head back as far as it will go. He does the same, and we are nearly eye to eye although we are both upside down.

"For what worth it might be," I tell him, "I have never thought very clearly where you are involved either. I never claimed to be all that bright"

"I have been saying that since we met," he mutters. I ignore him and return my head to a more comfortable position. I continue to watch the stars.

"I think we are hazardous to each other's health. It would have been safer if we had both stayed at home." He makes a strangled noise at that, and I correct myself. "Perhaps not for you, obviously."

And he huffs a laugh again, and I grin up at the sky, and for a while we fall silent. It is just the elfling and I then, just the two of us, upon the ground and beneath the stars. Arda stretches out beneath me, wide and huge and open, and above me all is brightly lit. I can almost hear it; almost hear the singing of the starlight. It is a whisper and a calling, and it is infuriating to be so denied when I am so close… so very close to being able to hear it. I do not know that I will ever get a chance again.

It is well though… it is well. I have Legolas back – my fine friend Legolas – and we are finally safe now.

"Gimli," he begins, tentative and careful. He tilts his head back again and I do the same, extending my neck until my head is ready to snap off entirely. He reaches his hand back, and automatically I take it. I grip his wrist and he grips mine – awkward at such an angle – and then we let our hands drop so that they lie in the snow. Connected, our bond instantly strengthened a thousand-fold. "I wish to try something," he tells me, and after a moment I nod. I trust him, and through our link he can feel it.

He coaxes me to let him in, to relax the boundaries I have started to build between us, and once more we are sharing a heart the way we did once before. It will not last – it is already starting to weaken – but I grant him access to everything. He is uncertain and doubtful, but he is also excited and joyful. He wishes to show me something, and he is like an elfling with a gift to present. His mind is a leaf on the wind, and I am learning how to navigate such a precarious and frightening thing… starting to become accustomed to it; to enjoy it, in some small way.

I feel him bolster himself, feel how he gently touches our bond; testing it for weakness and for strength. Once he is satisfied, I have just a moment of peace before my entire world changes.

It is a song, but it is also a story. I hear the stars and it is not as loud as I had expected, but I understand now why the elves are so enchanted by them. It is the lullaby of a mother, whispered secrets of an old friend, it is returning home and sitting before a fire to the tales of a father. It is a single note – clear as crystal – but at the same time it is a thousand voices… it is a hundred thousand of them. It is every voice that has ever spoken, and each voice sings the story of its life. Every tale, everything that has ever happened, it is all up there in the firmament. It takes concentration to pull them apart, to separate each voice, but the glory of it… the unbridled wonder… it is too much!

I cannot hold onto myself through this storm, I can only let go and allow myself to be dragged along in its wake. It is frightening, but I trust Legolas entirely and I hear myself gasp. I am gone, I forget myself, I forget Gimli entirely because Ai… how can I ever be Gimli again? How can I go back? How can I ever be the dwarf I once was after this?

I let myself go, I forget myself. I am lost to the tales in the sky and just as he has always promised he would, Legolas shows me the stars through his eyes.

~{O}~

Thranduil seems so much taller when Legolas is not here.

It is a strange observation, and quite factually incorrect, but it still feels true when the king is in full ire and the elfling not here to calm him. Thranduil summoned us all, but we have not all come… there is a very obvious gap in the room that we are trying very hard not to acknowledge.

Thranduil is a frightening elf lord, I will never stop seeing him as such. He is very tall and very slender, his face barely moves at all and his eyes see everything. When he looks at you, it is as though he sees everything you have ever done or thought or could possibly be… indeed it is as though he is looking into your mind, although I know it is not possible. He moves as though everything he does is thought out days in advance: elegant and graceful, predatory… astoundingly unpleasant.

Thranduil is my friend. I try to remember this.

"Hir nin," Idhren chokes, affronted. "You make it sound as though we have spent the last months throwing Legolas flagrantly in the path of the Shadow to save ourselves!"

"He is our prince!" Faelwen joins in, although it is the same argument – the same voice. "We do not tell him what to do, we can only try to dissuade him, and your idiot son is not often one to listen."

"My idiot son," Thranduil cuts through their debate like a blade of ice, "is currently unable to hold an entire conversation without his mind wandering off into the wood. Every time you bring him back, he is more broken. Every single time he leaves the Greenwood I must put him back together again, and you are all complicit in this."

"We are victims!" Idhren cries, perhaps a little dramatically. "We follow in his wake, and these things…" he loses his steam in the crushing weight of his king's glare. "They just sort of… happen. My King."

He deflates. He looks for help toward Almárean, who gives him the briefest look of disappointment but takes over.

"The elflings conducted themselves well, my lord," he says softly. "There is no possible way this could have gone any more favourably, and your son is significantly more whole now than he might have been. This could have ended far differently."

Thranduil is silent, still, uncomfortably so, but Almárean bears the scrutiny as though he feels none of it. He has no concern for what Thranduil thinks of him; he has raised his son for endless years and is trusted the way that no elf ever has been. The calm eyed Sindar meets his king's gaze without concern, and eventually Thranduil relaxes. It is a breath, a moment, barely noticeable, but I know him far better than I used to. I see it.

He deflates, but it is not in the same way as I might have, or the other elves. His shoulders barely slump, his eyes barely flicker, his bearing hardly changes at all, but it does change. He finds a chair and sits in it, far too carefully, and gathers his robes about his feet as though he is simply looking for something to do with his hands.

"I cannot keep him here," he says softly, almost too softly for me to hear. "I would be a fool if I did not know that. But perhaps…"

He trails off, looks us each in the eye, and this time all that I see is a father. All that I see is sadness and worry and weariness. He looks at us all – the most trusted circle, those he has most faith in when it comes to his only child – and this time it is not as difficult to meet. This time I wish nothing more than to alleviate the weight that he carries, this time he looks like an exhausted father with a broken son.

"Perhaps next time…"

And I have nothing to say to that. None of us do.

I come to his side and I put my hand to his shoulder, the way that Legolas does for me. I hope that he finds the weight of that hand as comforting as I do, and I hope that he understands that he is not alone in this. I hope that he knows that I care for him as well, not just his son, and I will do all that I can for both of them. It is an awful lot to carry across in just the weight of a hand, but he reaches back and pats it just once. I hope that he understands.

Perhaps next time.

~{O}~

I remain in the Greenwood only a week – long enough for Thranduil to convince himself that I am abandoning his son in his hour of need, and long enough to realise I am making the right decision. Legolas is worse since he has come home, or perhaps better, I am unsure. He has lost himself almost entirely, and I can feel every moment that the wood calls to him.

Every thrill of the Song, every painful moment through which he forces himself to remain, every second that he denies the urge to run and run until he cannot run any longer. I feel it all, every breath of it and every beat of his heart, and I am endlessly grateful that he has fought it as long as he can. Not for my sake, but rather because he has been able to fight it at all.

I track him down, and I admit that I cheat a little bit. If Legolas wished to be found then I would have found him easily enough, but instead I am forced to rely on the bond between us – the one that means I always know where he is, all of the time. I follow the green and gold glimmer in my mind, tracking him through the palace grounds, and when I find him I must stand and stare for a while.

We are in ruins, just a stone's throw from the more populated parts of Thranduil's home, but it feels as though we are leagues distant. There are stone buildings here that are naught but rubble now, sections of wall that are alive with scrub and thorn and bramble. Courtyards are pitted and broken, skittering with leaves, and an ancient tree grows out of a crumbled well. It is a whole compound, sprawling and large. In some places I can stand between four staggered walls with empty windows, staring up at the stormy sky where a roof once was. Stairs lead to down to choked seas of knotted weeds, broken statuary stand mournfully without arms or faces. It is empty and sad, and I stand in silence for a while as grief passes over me like a tide.

It is not my grief, not all of it, but the elfling has not shown himself to me and so I stand in the most open place I can find. It is windy today, a storm brewing, and the wind has the trees heaving… roaring like the ocean. For a while I simply let it wash over me – it is cold and huge and I feel small and brief, but although it has my emotions in utter turbulence it is a strangely liberating feeling. I feel wild and connected to the land, alone and yet not alone. I close my eyes.

"I used to live here," he speaks, and I knew that he would come to find me. I knew that he would speak eventually.

I turn and I see him sat upon the edge of a wall, not too high but enough that I have to tilt my head. He has his hands tucked beneath his knees, his shoulders hunched, and I feel the sadness in him as though it is my own.

I look at the ruins, I really look, and once again I am touched by the passage of time. These crumbled walls and tattered buildings fell ages ago, endless years, and Legolas knew them before… before time did this. Before the forest swallowed them. Before they were forgotten.

"This was the old garrison," he continues, his voice faint and gossamer upon the wind. "I learned how to use a blade here, how to shoot a bow, how to fight. I was here a long time."

"How did it come to ruin?" I ask, staring around myself again. I still cannot quite resolve the thought of it; that Legolas once lived here. That it was new and clean and whole, alive with voices and laughter and the sound of steel upon steel. I hear it like ghosts in my heart, echoes and whispers, trailing memories. Legolas jumps down from the wall, silent and soft, and stands before me.

"There used to be a lot more of us, once."

It hits me like a blow, and I avert my eyes. Because of course these garrisons were abandoned… of course they were, because the elves are fading. The elves have been fading for a long time. The laegrim and Sindar of the Greenwood have been fighting for centuries, and Legolas was the last child born to this forest. Of course there are less of them. There must be many ruins like this, abandoned throughout the forest. So many more places haunted by the echoes of elves lost and gone.

I feel my throat tighten, my eyes sting, but Legolas grips my elbow tightly and it grounds me. He smiles kindly, if a little sadly.

"We never really die, Gimli."

I stare at him a while longer, and then I simply shake my head and throw my hands into the air.

"Elves!" I huff. "You are a depressing folk, you realise that?"

And he laughs, soft but real, and it lightens my heart despite that I am stood in a windy and tragic ruin, surrounded by the whispers of the dead. He tilts his head to the wind, it tugs his hair away from his face and he closes his eyes for a heartbeat. I feel the Song – calling, calling – and I shut it out. He does as well, although it is more difficult for him.

"You are leaving?" he asks, although I know it is not a question. He knows that I am.

"Aye," I nod. "Naurwen is saddled, Ionwë has bullied a number of elves into seeing me to Erebor. They are Sindar, Legolas. Sindar!"

Legolas laughs once more, and I repeat it again and again in my mind. I memorise it, because it will be a long time before I hear it again.

"He thinks you are troublesome," the elfling confides. "He thinks perhaps a Sindar guard is less likely to fall into calamity."

"No," I disagree. "He thinks the laegrim need to stay with you. I also think they need to stay with you."

He hisses softly, an annoyed sound, but it lacks heat. He does not tell me that he needs no mothering, that he is fine, that he will manage perfectly well on his own. He says nothing of the kind, because he knows I will not believe it. He scowls instead at his hands, then up at the sky, then at the trees.

"You will come back?" he asks, and it sounds like a demand. He will not meet my eyes, and I can feel his heart hammering feverish and bright. He is agitated and on the edge of the Song, distant and lost. I reach out and grab his wrist, squeeze it tightly, and he looks at me. Stills and quiets.

"I will come back Legolas," I promise. He nods.

We need this. We need this separation, although it hurts. We need some time apart, but it is not an end… it is not a goodbye. I have been given my future, given it when I had thought it ended. I have been given back all of the days before me and all of the sights I might see, all of the things I can do and the roads I could walk. I have been given a lifetime, and I do not think that I could appreciate it had it never been held in question.

Had I stayed in the Lonely Mountain I might have married… I might have spent my days in blissful happiness with a wife and strong children, and I might have become the Lord of the Mountain eventually. Perhaps. It might have been my path once. But the day I left for Rivendell all of that changed, and now it is different. I am different. And any life I have now is different to anything I could have imagined.

It is far grander, far greater.

Legolas and I have been together through it all; through grief and triumph and battles that we never thought to survive. I will return, because this the life that I have chosen. We walked side by side during the Quest for the Ring, and again when the child found the Darkness. We were side by side along all of the paths that we have walked, and we gave peace to the silence that was in the Song.

Legolas and I can defeat anything.

END.

The Silence in the Song became very cathartic, in a way, because 2015 was not a good year for me. It gave me an outlet for some very bad things, and although it turned the tale a lot darker than I had originally intended, it helped me to process and to give voice to a lot of feelings that I wasn't able to resolve in my normal, day to day life.

The Silence in the Song has been a burden, a weight, a joy, a distraction and a release for me. I have very mixed feelings that it has ended, but it is quite fitting that I finished writing it just before the festive period. It is a new year in all ways, and although I've never believed that the ticking over of a clock can change anything at all, it's more of a mind-set really, isn't it.

To Cheekybeak, Zardi, Riverunderhill, Brightpath2, wenduo, Honor Reid, moonagedaydreaming, SparkyTAS, Vanillawood… you have stuck with me from angst to angst, and always given me a review. I bow to you all, respectfully, and I thank you wholeheartedly.

To my more casual reviewers, I adore you no less, and I thank you for your time and patience. I hope that I have managed to distract you for an hour or two here and there, and your reviews have meant the absolute world to me.

To Lindir's Ghost and Vanimalion, I raise a bag of mini eggs to you both. My compadres in fanfic, my good friends.

I know it sounds like I'm dying, but I'm not! (huzzah)

There's actually a new fic already being written – nowhere near as long as this one, but it's multi chapter – and it's far more light-hearted and fun and you'll love it, but it's going to be a while before you see it. I'm not going anywhere, but the next season is still in production. Let's put it that way.

Come on guys; give me a review. Let's send The Silence in the Song off with the send-off it deserves.

Have a great weekend :)

MyselfOnly