hello everyone!

First off, thanks to everyone who has been supporting The Halls of My Home, and my most recent endeavor, The World is Changed(personalized responses will be sent soon, when I am able). These two collections, I think you will find, are brothers. The former being about Legolas in Mirkwood with Thranduil; and the latter being about Legolas Post-War outside of Mirkwood, mostly with Aragorn. They will have many parallels like - they will feature world-building culture where the country is a character (Mirkwood and Gondor); they will feature Kings and how their positions complicate their relations (Thranduil as a father to Legolas and Aragorn as a friend). I hope you give them both a chance :)

At any rate - personalized thanks and individual responses will be sent soon. I just thought I always thank best with a fic so here's one :) If you are able, please feed the writer and remind her she is not screaming in the dark, hahaha! Constructive c&cs are always welcome. If you are unable, that is fine too. I just hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it,

Without further ado:

"Away"
Legolas' P.O.V. – Some soldiers malinger at the healing wards to dodge duty. Elves from the Woodland, however... turn their Kingdom upside down in their efforts to return to the field.

An opportunity arises.

The head of the healing halls, the Elvenking's personal physician himself and the Realm's Health Minister, is away visiting with family in the north. Lord Maenor's departure thus leaves his just-as-skilled but... shall we say, more malleable or more reasonable?... apprentices in charge of clearing soldiers from the convalescent list and back into active duty.

I've been waiting for his departure for a week.

I've been preparing for his departure for a week, ever since I've heard it said that the Elvenking had forced a vacation upon the harried healer. It is a vacation I agree with wholeheartedly. First from a professional capacity, because anyone who has custody of our fighting soldiers at their worst states needs relief too, for his heart and for his hands. As long as he is in the bounds of the stronghold and there are soldiers who need him, the devoted Maenor could never just keep away. He needs some rest, so that he does not compromise his skills and his perceptions.

I also support his vacation on a more personal note.

This is because ever since I'd taken a particularly trying injury two months past, I think he'd gone and lost some of his nerve sending me back into the fray. I've been through three attempts to be released and each time had been soundly sent away.

"Rest," Maenor said earnestly. "Give your body time to recover, hir-nin. Do not rush it. Any warrior worth his salt knows – the more hurt you are going out, the less you can defend yourself and the more likely you are to get hurt more. See me again in a week..."

What I need are fresh eyes, I think. Someone not scarred by how I had looked being brought in like that. Someone who was not on the receiving end of my formidable father's demand that I. be. kept. alive. one. way. or. another.

Maenor's apprentices will see me and deem me fit, I know it. I am fit, I have been for weeks.

There is a demanding rap against my chamber doors. I know who it is by the power and careless imposition of it. Renior, a burly Silvan sergeant who I worked with in the southern borders and who had somehow bullied his way into my right-hand side as one of my personal guards, is at the door. I recognize how he knocks, though he does not always do it. That he exercises restraint rather than simply just barging in means he is in the company of another good friend, a peerless Silvan scout named Telion.

My guess is confirmed when the delicate scout speaks. "M'lord Captain, it is us, Telion and Re-"

"If you are going to do it, Legolas," the burly one cut in, "Now is the time!"

I scramble up from behind my desk, where the sheaf of paperwork my father has seen fit to bury me under during my convalescence are stacked neatly, the assigned work completed.

My healing wounds protest at the sudden movement. I'd taken an arrow on the left side of my chest near the shoulder, and when we resorted to close combat the injury prevented me from adequately protecting that side, resulting in a stab wound and a savage cut that sliced half my leg open from mid-thigh to the knee.

I bury the unsurprising pang in favor of hurrying. I am almost certain I will not be the only recovering soldier with this plan in mind, and I have to finish executing it quickly before the apprentice healers catch on to what we are all trying to do -

That is, to break out of Maenor's convalescent list and return to active duty in the field, without being subject to Maenor's particularly rigid inspection.

I open the door to my loyal friends, who look slightly apprehensive. I gave them explicit instructions to inform me once Maenor was headed out.

"What?" I ask.

"Now that we're at this juncture," Telion says carefully, "perhaps this is not such a good idea."

He is holding a tray of cakes. I've all but been living off of them in a bid to gain some weight, and Telion (who is sweet on one of kitchen workers) always brings me some. Earning muscle will have to come later when I am allowed more strenuous work; the current priority is to look less like a wraith and fit back in my clothes. I am succeeding, I think, but I stuff three pastries in quick succession into my mouth, for good measure.

"Why not?" I ask around a mouthful of icing.

"Well, my lord Maenor knows how skilled you are," Telion replies, "and his wisdom and experience as a healer is said to be second to none, perhaps only to that of Lord Elrond of Rivendell. These mean that first, he would not deprive our Kingdom of your services any longer than he needs to; and second, his expert eye must really find it necessary to waylay you."

"I am sure he has successfully shared that exemplary healing wisdom and experience with his apprentices," I say with a grin. "They will examine me and find me fit, I know it. I feel good, mellon-nin. I feel strong. I am ready. You see me regularly, you should know."

Telion fidgets. "Sometimes I wonder if I know only what I want to know, my lord, if you get my meaning. I want you well. I need you well. You do not know how you looked when we brought you home."

I know how it felt, though. It felt like dying, but that was months ago and something I keep only to myself.

I wiggle my brows at him to get him out of this mood. "Well I certainly look better now, don't I?"

"Only in the sense that anything is an improvement from that," Telion sighs.

I reach for a scone.

"Hey, don't make yourself sick," Renior says. "That's what happened to that other archer."

"Which one?"

"Bastion," he replies. "The baker's son. Thought he could look hale stuffing bread in his body and fool the healers into releasing him early. His adar's house is of course crawling with the stuff, and so he was at it day and night. Made himself sick, bought himself indigestion and more days off the field that way."

"That sounds inaccurate," Telion says. "How much bread could an elf possibly consume so as to-"

"True story!" insists the gigantic Silvan.

I chew carefully at his food just in case, and forego the last piece on the tray. Renior partakes of it gladly and perhaps even by design.

"You headed to the healing halls now, my lord?" Telion asks.

"I have one more stop," I say as I maneuver around them, "but I thank you for the valuable information."

"Where are you going?" Renior calls out from behind me.

"Somewhere you cannot follow!" I reply, "I will see you later, my friends – and we shall toast to my clean bill of health and return to work!"

I meet an old friend in one of the long, winding hallways of the stronghold. Harnon is a Sindar noble I had grown up with. He is beloved by many an elleth for his easy charm and good looks, though I must say he is looking as wraith-like as myself today. Recovering from an injury too apparently - everyone seems to be in some fashion, lately.

"Hir-nin Legolas," he says, favoring me with a wide smile. He looks slightly uneasy at the sight of me. "You are looking much improved!"

"Yourself as well," I say, forcing a similar smile upon my own face. I do not have very much time for pleasantries, and hope he would veer away from my path soon. The more we walk though, the more we both begin to realize we are headed to the same place.

"Where are you off to today, Legolas?" he asks with forced cheer.

"To see an old friend," I reply easily. "And you?"

"Same."

We walk quietly side by side for awhile. His pace picks up slightly, and I match it. I think I know what this is about.

"You're headed to Lady Mallossel's chambers aren't you?" he asks me, sounding resigned.

"Yes," I reply, speeding up my walking a little bit more. He matches it easily. In my proper fighting form I'd have left him in the dust, I always have. But already my healing wounds are smarting and my breath is shorter.

"And then you mean to subject yourself to her uh, ministrations?" Harnon asks.

"We are of a like mind it seems," I say through grit teeth.

"You know she won't do it for everyone," Harnon says.

"I know," I say tersely.

"I am sorry Legolas," he says quickly, "but I'm afraid I will have to take advantage where I can."

He went off running down the hall ahead of me. I jogged for a little bit after him, but ended up having to brace an arm against the walls and catch my breath. I am unaccustomed to losing and I am annoyed by it, profoundly. But I am trying to get a healer's clearance to return to work; I refuse to kill myself on some irrelevant exercise. I rub at my healing leg wound and take a steadier pace forward. I just need clearance from the healers, and then I can work on getting better. I can restore myself to proper fitness.

I pass a soldier going in the opposite direction as me, and though he bows at his prince, I spot the slightly pinked, put-upon healthy-glow of his cheeks. Harnon, though he will beat me to Lady Mallossel's door, will not be the Sindarin elleth's first "customer" today.

I reach the door to her chambers just as Harnon steps out of them. Like the soldier I passed earlier, he has just enough rouge on his cheeks to look natural, but impart a healthier glow upon his face. He grins at me cheekily, bows, and walks away.

Mallossel sees me standing at her door and she groans, most unbecomingly, most uncharacteristically. She almost shuts the door on my face. "Oh Thranduilion, not you too," she says in profound displeasure. But she sighs, composes herself quickly, and returns to the icy, fetching Sindar noblewoman she is most known to be.

Her lively expression softens to a frigid, impeccable mask. She is a work of art in the flesh with her naturally beautiful bones and perfectly symmetrical features. But more than her god-given beauty, she has poise and carriage, and she is always well turned out in manner, dress and yes – the subtle colors she applies upon her face to accentuate her lovely angles. For so many years of my life admiring her when I was younger – all the Sindar nobles did, both ellon and elleth alike – I thought that high, lively coloring was natural too.

She remembers herself and bows. She steps aside and keeps her head low, making way for me to enter her chambers without invitation, in accordance with the protocol she grew up following.

As the King's son, technically all of the stronghold is my home and any door and room is at my disposal to enter or leave. Mallossel's mother is one of my adar's ministers and as such, their family is given a suite of chambers in the stronghold as an office and residence. They keep a larger homestead, a village in the west, but they spend most of their time in the Elvenking's service and thus, most of their time here in Thranduil's halls. She serves as secretary to her naneth and is a courtier I often see around the stronghold. We know each other fairly well, though neither of us are in each other's most intimate circles.

I close the door behind me. "Is the Lady Galliel here?"

"She is away doing inspections of the schools," she replies. "My mother is not expected back for some time, hir-nin."

"This is most ideal then," I say excitedly. "As I came to see you, and not her. I am in need of your aid, Lady Mallossel."

She sighs. "I suppose you have come here for the same reason everyone else has. You've come for some of my rouge."

"I heard it has the most miraculous effect," I joke.

She shares a bit of my dark humor. "It heals soldiers, apparently."

"I wish it did," I offer wryly. "But alas, it only gives us just enough of a flush upon our complexions to pass the healers' eye and return to duties."

"I saw how you looked when they brought you in, my lord," she says hesitantly. "I do not wish to be complicit in sending you back out before you are properly recovered."

"You do it for others who have asked," I point out.

"Not everyone is Thranduilion," she argues. "and even if you weren't, I reiterate – I saw how you fared when you were brought in. You were much worse off than anyone else who uh, lived. Harnon says he outran you here, for instance – that is certainly a first."

Damn that braggart...

"I am recovering," I concede, "And yes, I am not yet at my best. But I am getting there, and I think we can both honestly say that even at this state, I am a better fighter than most. Plus – I did not take the race too seriously. Harnon was perhaps exaggerating his prowess in trying to impress you."

"You take any race seriously," she points out.

"My lady," I say, and my patience is strained because my time is running out. "I am fit, I am ready. I am only wasting away here. I already know the healers will approve of my request to be released to duty."

"Then you have no need of me, now do you?"

"I only want to help them feel more confident about their impending decision."

She laughs. "Aran-nin must indeed have his hands full with you."

I fidget. I like her laugh. In my all too distant adolescence, I once entertained dreams of making the Lady Mallossel laugh, we all did. It is a little different when you are in a rush, older, and the joke is turned on yourself.

"So in fighting form, are we?" she asks, more seriously now.

"Absolutely."

"Prove it," she says. "I want to see your archer's stance."

I accommodate her request with little to no effort, and position my body accordingly. This is all rote to me, like breathing –

She rolls her eyes. "Don't play me for a fool, Thranduilion." She vanishes for a moment into her bedroom and returns with a mighty bow. It is of older make and style, well-used, well-weathered, well-loved. I know this weapon. I recognize it as the one that belonged to her late father, and it is notorious for being a heavy draw. She squeezes it affectionately before handing the weapon to me.

"Prove it with this."

The weapon on its own is heavy, and its draw will be more so. It will be unkind to me in my current state, will expose weaknesses I would rather hide.

"Why?" I ask her, feeling some irritation. "Are you a healer now, qualified to ascertain my fitness for duty?"

"Apparently we all are," she says mildly, taking no offense at my harsh tone. "You decree your own self well and ready and in no need of the opinions of the experts of our healing halls after all-"

I raise a hand to silence her – admittedly – sound reasoning. The gesture again makes her laugh.

"You look like your adar, our king, when you do that."

My brows rise in surprise. I would have to be more conscientious of this in the future –

No more dallying. I draw upon the weapon as requested and hold the position.

It is torturous.

But I hold it. I can hold it as long as I need to for her inspection. I can hold it as long as I need to, to get what I want. Corollary to this – I can hold it as long as I need to, to fight.

To win.

"Do I see you sweating a little there, my lord archer?" she teases, but her eyes are serious as she walks in circles around my form, her gaze devouring me. She stands close – to intimidate me, I think - and I feel her breath kissing at the strands of my hair. "This would have been nothing for you before."

"You underestimate your father's skill if you think this would have been easy for me, even at my strongest."

Her lips tremble in memory, and she teases to cover it up. She is a courtier in an elven Kingdom, after all, well-equipped at disguising feelings. "Resorting to flattery for my beloved adar is well-played, ernil-nin." She sighs. "You can stand down now."

I do so and steel my expression so she does not see my relief. I am amused by her casual use of our soldierly language, but our non-combatants are fighters all on their own too.

I think I am about to get what I want, what I came here for. But then something in her gaze shifts, and I feel a change in the air. She covers her vulnerability over the mention of her father by blinking at me coquettishly.

"I can help you of course, my prince," she says, "but I would be so sorry for further loss of my rouge."

I raise an eyebrow at the play. She can pretend to be a shallow courtier at the drop of a hat and has been at it for a long time, but so can I and so have I.

"If you help me get clearance from the healers, my lady," I say coldly, "They are likely to send me to the south. This assignment is likely to relieve Captain Melchanar, who has long been holding the valiant duty."

Her eyes flash dangerously, and I wonder if I've gone too far. The blue-blooded Sindarin noble Mallossel has long been in love with the oblivious Silvan Captain, a farmer's son rising in the ranks on his own merits and military prowess. Everyone knows Mallossel holds a tenderness for him, everyone except the Captain himself.

"Oh you do play to win, Thranduilion," she hisses.

"But my appeal to you is not unreasonable," I tell her earnestly, in a bid to win back her charitable side. "Whether it is Melchanar I relieve from duty or some other soldier... I have been out of the front lines for two months. I am healing, well-rested and eager. Surely at my current condition I am already more capable of facing our enemies than a weary warrior who has been at post, fighting day in and day out, all these weeks."

She shakes her head at me in dismay. "I could very well be sending you to your death. Do you understand the weight of that action?"

"I do. I understand your conflict, and it is in a sense a defiance of aran-nin-"

"No," she insists. "No, I do not think you do understand. I do not do this lightly, my lord, do you know why? It is not because your father is the King and I fear the consequences of defying him. I am wary because the day my father went out into the field that last time, that time when he died? That very day – my naneth did this for him.

"He had just come home injured and was on a healer's holding list," she shares, "when a skirmish escalated and reinforcements were urgently called for. He knew his skills were needed, even slightly diminished as they were by his injury. So he asked my naneth to help him look well, the way she always had. Where else do you think I learned this, after all...

"He got his clearance to leave for duty and he left," she continues. "And my last sight of my adar was a soldier standing tall upon his warhorse, cheeks pleasantly rouged to hide the lingering gray of illness, and he died and never came back."

"I am sorry," I say after a long moment, and I mean it with all my heart. "But you do understand, and I hope your naneth the Lady Galliel, does as well – your father's death was through no fault of hers. He was a soldier to his bones and would have found some other way. Her assistance only made things easier for him, and saved more of his energy for his real work. Many died that day in any case – no matter their health coming in, no matter their skill.

"I remember that day because so many fell," I tell her. "And the south was under such a barrage that even the King had gone out. I remember because I was still young, the wounds of my mother's loss still fresh, and I quaked at the thought of being an orphan.

"But my father came home," I go on, "My father came home to me, because soldiers like your father gave everything they could to fight. Your adar, in particular, perished heroically saving many lives – including that of my own adar. The whole Kingdom mourned his passing.

"My lady," I implore her, "let me do for others that which your father had done for mine. That which he did for me, so that I would not be an orphan."

She looks at me long and hard, before her gaze softens and she attempts a joke – "Well if you can vex me so, perhaps you are well enough."

She motions for me to sit upon an armchair, and she vanishes into her boudoir before returning with a lidded pot. She kneels in front of me and considers the planes of my face, before removing the lid and reaching with two long, delicate fingers into the bowl. The digits come out red stained.

"With the prince's permission?" she asks – ever appropriately – before touching my face. I nod, and feel her cool fingers particularly because my cheeks are suddenly warming.

"Now you're embarrassed?" she says with a small laugh. "See? Now you have a healthy coloring you could have come by more honestly."

I shake my head at her in amusement and for a while, let her work. She takes it very seriously. Her brows furrow in concentration, and once in a while her gaze is abstract with her secret deliberations. And then I wonder, unable to keep myself from asking aloud -

"So why do you still do it? Even as it weighs upon you so."

"Because none of you will take 'no' for an answer," she says pointedly. More seriously she says – "Because it is all I can do. Because we need our fighters fighting out there – not expending so much energy on shenanigans here, trying to be released. Because it feels right. Because... because when my father died, so many more others did not have to."

She shakes off her maudlin and resorts to her haughty, teasing, icy courtier persona. It was second skin, as rote to her as archery is to me. "But I still meant what I said about my diminishing stocks of rouge. Ellyn do not, do not! know what it takes to make these."

She continues working on my skin, backs away to observe the effects of her ministrations, then works again.

"So what is in this?" I ask.

"Blood."

"What?!"

"Red ocher," she murmurs with a smile at my genuine alarm. "Carmine. Beeswax, a few other things. I add perfume for my own pleasure. I do not waste those upon you dregs, you will only take it for granted."

I grin unapologetically.

"Stop moving," she commands.

In moments we are done, and she shows me my reflection upon a mirror. I do not look as I did before taking grievous injury, but I at least do not look as is I've been cooped up and coddled for the last two months. It did not look strange, or forced upon.

"I can go bolder," she says as she watches my reaction. "But you want some subtlety so as not to arouse suspicion."

I beam at her. "You are an artist."

"And you, a troublemaker," she says fondly. "But I do have skill, by the Valar. It is certainly more effective at showing your - shall we say improving? - health than the other things you and your friends have been up to."

"What have we been up to?"

"There is an infamous and much displeasing sweet cake shortage in the stronghold at the moment," she teases, in reference to my efforts at gaining weight.

"But watch yourself with those, my lord. Did you hear about the baker's son, who'd gone and broken his own stomach gorging on bread in a bid to look better recovered himself? There is a lesson in that."

"One would think," I concede with a chuckle. "We are done, yes?"

"Yes," she affirms. "But please, hir-nin, watch yourself out there. And I do not know how you may have heard about what I do here, but please speak of this to no one else-"

We are disturbed by a knock in the door. She looks at me miserably.

"My naneth is beginning to wonder about my many gentleman callers," she says. "She once told me rouge and subtle paints upon the face are attractive to ellyn, but I do not think this is what she had in mind!"

When I reach the healing halls, there is already a row of elven soldiers waiting to be seen by a healer who can approve releases back into proper duty.

Harnon is here, and he beams at me. The one I ran into on his way out of Mallossel's chambers is here as well. The three of us are looking healthily flushed and well-placed for release, indeed.

In our company are two soldiers whose cheeks are too ruddy. One of them has fingers still red-stained by a mixture perhaps similar to that of the Lady Mallossel's but not quite as well applied. The other's coloring on the other hand, makes me wince for I think he tried to use blood. They apparently had the same idea as Harnon and myself, but were not subject to Mallossel's expertise, or perhaps even the expertise of any elleth.

The infamous indigestion soldier is in our company too, still looking slightly green from his overzealousness. There are several others of our ilk, and I see padded uniforms and hidden bandages. All and all a hardy crew, more eager than well, but ready for work nonetheless.

An attendant at the healing halls sees me and bows before motioning me forward to come first. It was a concession to my birthright and military rank I do not often invoke or actively seek, but I accept at this time so that I can sooner return to proper fitness and at least some measure of work.

But as I step toward her, the head of the healing halls, Lord Maenor himself, suddenly comes bounding down the corridor.

"What are you doing here?" we ask each other in surprise. I say nothing, but his quick thinking gives him the answer anyway. His eyes widen with a rage I've never seen on him before.

"With my time away, you lot have decided to descend like vultures upon my apprentices?" he demands. "Have you no decency? No proper judgment? No sound thinking? As if we - as if I – do not send enough strong, healthy elves out to slaughter every single day, you come here with your lofty claims of recovery, try to fool my people, and throw yourselves out to the wolves? You try to go over my head with this foolishness?"

He is met by a barrage of soldierly protestations, but I hold my tongue. I know he, as a healer, has every right and qualification to hold us back. But then – Mallossel and my friends Renior and Telion, are also right to help us go around him. And we soldiers are right too, in doing everything in our power to return to the battlefields to fight. To fight for our people, to fight for our Woodland, to relieve our struggling soldier-brothers and take their place so that they too, can find rest.

We are all in the right.

The only thing wrong in this situation is that we are all compelled into these roles in an unforgiving, relentless war.

But Maenor is still seething.

"Elves are already getting skewered, sliced and killed even at their strongest. How do you think you miserable lot will fare, huh?" He is so incensed as he rakes his gaze over each of us that he does not even bother calling us by our names. He calls us by our damage.

"You want to fight with that broken arm?" he asks one. "And you – stabbed thrice! How about you, cracked ribs with lung bruising? Are you going to cough at the orc and spurt blood at them? Because if you are not, you had better just sit back. Oh and you, you miserable bastard, poisoned arrow with self-inflicted indigestion! What hopes we harbor for you." He saves a special look of disdain for me. "And do not even get me started on you – exsanguination! You died in my hall!"

I wince, for that I did not know until now.

I hold my tongue, heroically I think!, at a clever retort: But you got me back, did you not?

We all fall to deathly silence. He has made his case and though we all have one to counter him, none of us are ready to make it when Maenor is like this. I've never seen him in this mood before, and I understand now why adar had insisted he leave for a short reprieve. He is wearing thin on his thankless job – saving lives, only for soldiers to return broken again, only for him to release them out again, only for them to return to his halls again, in a cycle that will only end when someone dies.

Or when we finally win.

Which brings me to wondering why he is here and not away, as he had originally intended to be. Something must have happened and sure enough, I hear a commotion outside.

"And now you've made such nuisances of yourselves that I forgot why I was here!" Maenor exclaims. He calls for his healers and gives them rapid-fire instructions. "I was headed out when I heard from a forward party that mass casualties are coming in from an ambushed outpost."

All the soldiers in the room instantly stand taller and more alert, at this troubling news.

"Was the outpost lost?" I ask.

"No," Maenor replies. "They are still fighting to keep it. But we here in the halls must prepare to receive the ailing." He winces as he adds, "The injuries are many, and severe. There will be a call for reinforcements."

I look at him expectantly and know it is an expression shared by my brother soldiers here. Let us go, let us go, let us go...

Let us help.

Let us fight.

Inextricably, we also ask – If the gods will it, let us die.

It is a wordless plea, and I think Maenor hears the last one loudest. But I think the healer knows, just like we all do, that none of us have any real choice in the matter.

"Go," he mutters at us, but there is no more heat to it.

Everyone scrambles – soldiers to report to their commanders, the healers to prepare their wares. But I linger beside Maenor for a moment, for I always thought we were good friends. He is one of my father's peers and considerably much older than me, but no one knows me quite as deeply and intimately, lately. He's heard my ranting fever dreams and secret fears, held me while I shook in pain and misery (or sometimes, grieving loss), joked with me into ease when I was hurting and disheartened. He always put me back together again, and perhaps more importantly, he always knows how to keep my father together whenever I am in his care. He is funny and compassionate but pragmatic and straightforward, all underlined with hope for improvement, hope for better things, hope in our future.

I cannot leave having him angry at me. I contritely help remove his travel cloak as he struggles out of it so that he can work better. He grudgingly accepts my aid, but not quite yet – my wordless apology.

"What are you still doing here, Thranduilion?" he asks wearily, "Did you not already get what you came here for? My permission for you to try once more and kill yourself?"

"I would not press this upon you or any of your apprentices if I did not feel ready," I tell him quietly. "I am certain I would not be a hindrance to our objectives in my current state, and I swear to you I will keep to reasonable limits. I cannot apologize for my convictions. I thought defiance was necessary and my mind still has not changed about that. I am needed and I know I am sufficiently ready. But for my casual disregard of your authority – I am truly sorry."

Maenor glares at me for a long moment, before he deflates with a sigh. "I intend to reuse that statement when I face your adar and he realizes I have defied his orders to be away from here for awhile." He adopts a mocking version of my words – "I will not apologize for my convictions, but for my casual disregard of your authority, I am truly sorry. My mind has not changed – I am needed, and I am sufficiently ready."

I smile at him fondly, but study his face, lined by exhaustion and worry. "Are you, really?"

"Sorry?" he kids, avoiding the question, "No, I am not sorry."

I roll my eyes at him in consternation and wave away his attempts at levity.

"You look like Thranduil when you do that," he observes.

"Are you ready?" I press.

"I simply have to be nowadays, it seems," he admits. "Are you? Truly? For I meant what I said – you did die in my halls for a short while."

It is my turn to evade. "I do not even know what exsanguination means. I thought you were telling me the name of my real father."

It is an awful joke, but he sneers for all of its vileness, because that is somehow the kind of thing he tends to find funny.

"Legolas – are you really ready?"

"I simply have to be nowadays, it seems," I echo his words. It is true enough. I am not yet at my best, and I would have to be wary. But when a soldier is needed, he goes. That is all.

He sighs. "Well. Just... do not push it. Take care of yourself, for crying out loud, if not for me, then for your father the King. Take care of yourself and thus, guard his sanity for all the rest of us. And you can tell all those other fools I've just let loose on the world – if any of them die, getting released from the injured list will be thrice as hard for everyone else in the future. Is that understood, soldier?"

"Yes, my lord," I tell him with a grin. "Understood. I will take my leave now. Have a care for yourself."

He sends me off with a small bow, and we both turn away from each other to return to our respective work.

There is more to do before I can leave.

I seek out our War Minister Brenion, to whom I directly report so that I can formally receive his instructions, though I already know where I will be sent. He is of course, beside the Elvenking and other ministers in counsel about the recent brazen attack that has sent our vacation-bound chief healer scurrying back to work.

All of them are clustered along the entrance to the healing halls, which is expected to be the first stop of the soldiers returning from the fighting.

They stand with a bedraggled scout, who had gone ahead of the retreating party to inform the king and his ministers of the situation, request for reinforcements, and tell the healers to be ready for incoming injured. His information however, is limited because he was sent away earlier than the others, and the small group await more updated information from the new arrivals.

I catch my father's eye, and he starts a little at the sight of me here. He tilts his head in the direction of a curtained, private alcove usually reserved for the treatment and monitoring of royals in the healing ward. I was its most recent occupant, and though I cannot remember most of it, Maenor's recent outburst tells me my last stay here had been particularly difficult. This is probably not the best place to tell my father I will be off to war again.

I follow him inside, and his personal guards trail us until the entrance, which they guard with the most forbidding expressions.

"I was cleared to return to duty," I tell him, a little more quickly and more breathlessly than ideal, but I just want it over with.

He glances at the commotion beyond the entrance, past the guards. "Some would say – it couldn't have come at a better time. We have a sudden, urgent need for warriors of your caliber."

"And what does the Elvenking say?" I ask.

I speak to fill the lengthy silence that follows.

"I am ready," I tell him, and I make an effort to stand taller and stronger. "And I must go at once." I look him in the eye. I need him to take me seriously. For with a single word of a single syllable – No – he can make me stay. It is not only the healer's approval that I, in particular, need to get after all.

"I can command you to stay," he murmurs contemplatively.

"You can," I concede nervously. "But that is not in you."

It is not in my father to be less than the Elvenking, to show preferential treatment, to deprive his kingdom of a good fighter, to keep me safe while he sends others out to danger. It is not in him.

"It wasn't," he says with a wince. "But I've acquired wicked habits since... since you became a soldier."

"You've always had wicked habits," I tease him, to coax us both out of this line if thought.

He ignores me. His eyes drift to the empty bed, which I occupied last. He places a hand to the crisp white edge of the stiff, clean mattress.

"This is new," he mutters. "You had ruined the last one beyond saving. There was so much blood on you I did not even know where I could touch you without hurting you. I ended up placing a hand on your ankle, Legolas. The one place I could touch my own son, to remind him he was being cared for and awaited, to tether him to life, was his ankle."

I do not remember any of it.

"I have great ankles," I say quietly, with a small smile. "Seems as good a place as any." I need to get us out of this dark place. I need to get us away, so that we can both do our work.

"It was ice cold."

I sigh. "I need to leave, aran-nin," I tell him. I mean to evoke his sense of duty in calling him this and it usually works. But like he said, perhaps he has acquired 'wicked habits.'

He sets his jaw, and it is a look I, like all of the Elvenking's many subjects, am intimately familiar with. But unlike the rest of our people, I do not have the luxury of giving in to his display of displeasure.

"I need to leave, adar," I say again, for it is true whether he is a father or a king or both. He needs to release me to my duties both as his servant and as his son.

He tilts his head at me contemplatively. "Do you know, Legolas, that you are perhaps the greatest source of my political capital in our Realm? That our People never question my judgment and fairness because as long as you go out into danger, as long as I send my own son away - I have the cachet and credibility to send away the children of others. What this means is – I send you off into battle not only because you are a soldier skilled, but precisely because you are my son. Your lineage, instead of exempting you from harm, requires more of it for you.

"Even half as skilled as you are," he continues, "by incident of your birthright, I would still feel compelled to send you away somewhere. Even when you are hurting, as you still are now."

"I understand, adar," I tell him, "I always have. I am glad to serve you in any way. And I am not hurting, not anymore."

He presses his lips together and nods grimly.

"I thank the Valar everyday that you are as hardy as you are," he says. "But do not push your luck, ion-nin. And do not push..."

His voice quakes, uncharacteristically, and he has no word for it, this secret line, this sacred barrier I must not break. The limit that my death will cross. On the one side of it is his sanity, on the other side of it, his brokenness.

And I am reminded that it is not only I and soldiers like myself, who are compelled to fight while hurting. It is not only Maenor who needs to push through when he is heart-weary. When children become soldiers, their mothers and fathers fight a constant battle too. When wives and husbands leave for war, they leave behind family and friends.

And all of those left behind, they battle self-interest and collective gains. Every one of them wishes someone else is sent to war before those they love are sent. Every one of them wishes, when there are casualties, that it is someone else/s child, someone else's spouse, and not their own. There is always that little relief when someone else is dead. There is always that little jealousy when someone else is alive.

We are all standing at the edges of our physical limits, at the edges of our frayed nerves, at the edges of hope and despair, at the edges of being willing to pay for victory with the lives of those we love – or letting others do it. And until this thrice-damned war ends, none of us are exempt.

Adar does not extract from me, the cruel promise that I would return alive. He knows I think, that I would have damned us both and lied, if only so I could get out of these doors as a soldier, and finally fight again as one.

"Look after yourself, Legolas," he says.

"And you, adar." I give him a bow, which he returns gravely.

He taps at the new mattress in the royal quarters, and his gaze shifts, and the thoughts lodged in them are as clear to me as if he had taken a physical step on that highline again, that edge we all traverse. He trembles toward hope, shakes toward despair, rebalances and readjusts his weight. He straddles the line between needing to set me free and needing to keep me close, stands between cold calculation and warm affection.

"Next one of these you ruin is docked from your soldier's pay."

I laugh at him. "I wasn't aware I actually got paid."

THE END
February 1, 2019

QUICK NOTE: I am a big believer in the power of makeup in politics and war, and this can be traced all over our human history. Ancient Egyptians used it thousands of years ago (the ingredients list above is actually from them) for beauty and propaganda, just as Queen Elizabeth found merit in them for her political imagery hundreds of years ago. In World War II, internees in concentration camps used precious precious stocks of rouge to appear healthier during sessions of 'selection' - the consequence of not looking healthy was extermination. Also in World War II, conquered cities sometimes used charcoal on the faces of women to make them appear less attractive and prevent rape. I find Mirkwood culture to be amenable to a kind of militaristic depiction in fanfiction, so I did not think it too out there to use makeup in this setting on a wartime context. I've used appearance-related war culture elements in one more story in this collection of fics, actually; "Great Lengths" was about hair :) I hope it worked out!