The Storm
Title: The Storm
Fandom: LotR
Author: SheBit
Rating: PG13, I guess.
Pairing(s): Aragorn/Legolas. It can be read as either romance or friendship.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Tolkien, and possible New Line. I just like to borrow them every so often to get them all depressed and then I return them to their book.
Warnings: Extreme angst
Notes: I didn't intend this to be quite so melancholy, but it came out rather dark. I like to think of it as a happy ending, though.
The ground was cool and moist where he touched it, bringing a handful to his nose, tasting the aroma. His quarry had past this way. He knelt in the small glade, and a harsh noise made him feel suddenly exposed. It was nothing; just a bird. He was alone in this grim wood. There was only he and his quarry; the slinking, pathetic creature which he was charged to find and capture.
The sudden noise had made him uneasy and his hand was at the hilt of his heavy sword as he rose and continued onward, deeper into the dark tangle of trees.
He had been travelling for perhaps an hour more, moving fast but pausing often to check the trail. He was catching up. The scent was stronger, but distant thunder warned of a coming storm, threatening to wash away all evidence of the creature's passing. Though he was loathe to go on in the rain, already tired and cold, he could not risk losing the trail which he had followed for almost a month now. Summer storm or no, he would continue in his task.
The storm came on quickly, almost without warning. One mighty crack of lightning rent the air, lighting the sky for a moment and then the rain began to fall. Within moments the ground was nothing but mud, all traces of soft footprints gone. The viscous muck groped at him, pulling at his feet. He tried to continue on, but the ground swallowed his foot, sending him tumbling into the ooze. Hands sank into the dark ground made liquid by the torrent and he rose clumsily, tossing lank hair from his face.
Staggering, beaten by the rain, he moved forward still. The creature was no longer what he sought. All he desired now was shelter. He had survived too much, fought too many battles, to die here now, drowned by a sudden storm in a dim forest.
Stumbling and tripping, pulled at by the mud, he came at last to a small rocky hill and launched himself into a small, dry crevice. Retreating into its darkness as far as he could he finally collapsed in relief and exhaustion. He was soaked through; his hair wet and tangled; his clothes black from his several falls onto the rain-drenched woodland floor.
He closed his eyes, listening to the rain tumble down outside. Soon he would make a light and try to build a fire o stave off the chill of his sodden clothes, but for now he was content to simply sit and listen.
Listen.
The soft breaths were barely audible beside his own ragged breathing. In the darkness he reached a practised hand for the hilt of his sword, but his movements were too slow, weighed down by the waterlogged clothes, and by tired muscles. The next sound was far more audible. The scrape of metal unsheathed. A flash of lightning outside illuminated the blade at his throat for a moment and he stilled, struggling to calm his breathing, and his nerve. His unseen attacker had every advantage.
"You are unwise. To stray into Thranduil's realm uninvited is death." The voice was soft and faintly musical. Aragorn's unease lessened when he realised that the other was of elven kind, but did not vanish. An elf could be more deadly than an orc when crossed.
"I followed my quarry into these woods from the south. My only thought was for that task. I meant no trespass." His breathing was even now, his training overcoming is exhaustion.
"Any task which brings you into these woods is a dangerous one, mortal. There are more fearful things than I in this land."
"I do not doubt it." He let a smile enter his words. The keen blade had moved further from his throat, not longer touching him damp skin, and the elf's words had been more chiding than angered. Aragorn was suddenly reminded of Elrond reproaching him as a boy: serious yet tender.
"Have you a light? I cannot see." He heard and felt the elf move further away, though he could not see him in the darkness of the small cave.
"I see you well enough." The tone was softer now, though still with a note of menace.
"I do not doubt that, either, but I have not your elven eyes. I see nothing."
"Ever was that the way of men, for often they do not see what lies before them. I followed you this past hour and you saw nothing." Mocking. The elf was mocking him. Even in the darkness he knew that the elf was smiling now, doubtless pleased at his own cleverness.
Aragorn wished to retort, but in truth he had seen nothing of this elf as he worked through the forest. The hunter was become the hunted, and the wood elf was, it seemed, a more stealthy tracker than even he.
"You have no answer?"
"No. None. I am counted a fine tracker and hunter in the north, but you have bested me. What reward would you have?" Aragorn could play and mock as well as any Silvan. Was he not raised by the Sindar? In a battle of word and wit he could challenge this proud elf, even if he was little match in the forest.
"A reward? There are many rewards to be had as storms wail, and many gifts that we can bestow."
As the elf spoke he lit a spark from a small tinder box and the rocky shelter was filled with a soft glow. Aragorn barely contained a gasp at the sight of the golden creature before him.
Without, the storm continued to rage. Within, as the Dunadan fell to silence, he had been bested in both hunting and in words.
****************************************
The air smelled of lightning: sharp and metallic. It smelled of worse things, too.
The rain had begun five hours before, and never ceased. When the first spots had fallen, the sea of torches had begun to move across the valley floor, coming ever onward. So many pinpricks of light, filling the horizon.
Rain had made heavy armour heavier still. It sluiced down, cutting like blades, the world existing in flashes of light as the sky burned. The world existing in the battle cries of the oncoming horde and in the fear of the men upon the battlements and the women below, clutching their children to them.
The fighting was over now, but still the rain came. The ground was churned to mud, red with the blood of the fallen. Bodies sank into the foulness as those who lived tried to pile them.
The elf knelt upon the grey battlements, the rain carrying blood in eddies about him as he leaned upon his slender bow, his eyes blank and his body numb.
So much death.
The man approached slowly and rested a gentle hand upon his friend's shoulder. The pale archer looked up but his eyes were vacant. There was a question there. Why? How? For a moment, Aragorn beheld the eyes of a child. He remembered something of himself in those questioning eyes. As a small boy he had found a bird upon the steps at Imladris, still and cold. He had taken the little creature to his mother, begging her to heal it, but she would not; could not. On that day, Aragorn had first understood death. Now two shadowed eyes so much like his own gazed up at him with that same horror.
He wanted nothing more than to comfort his grieving friend; to explain; to tell him that this was the way of men. But men can teach the Eldar of death no more easily than the great eagles can teach men what it is to fly.
"So much death."
There were tears in the elf's words, though any that would have streaked his face were washed away by the chill rain.
"Why?"
Aragorn had no answers. All he could do was draw his friend into a tight embrace and whisper words of comfort, like a parent to a hurt child.
They stood upon the stone wall, wrapped together in grief and in friendship. The men who worked to gather the bodies and the weapons paid them no heed, working through the rain, cloaked in their own grief. They stumbled through the red mud and soon the fallen were piled high.
The elf still trembled against Aragorn, his body cold. The man pulled sodden locks from his friend's face, hanging like heavy golden chains, and kissed his smooth brow. In time the shaking ceased and he led the archer from the battlements, through the ranks of the dead, down into the keep and from there into the tunnels beneath, where the women had built strong fires.
Their clothes were black from the mud and rain. Women drew back from the two fearsome warriors, red stains upon their mail an unwanted sign of the battle that had raged above.
As careful as a mother bathing her child, Aragorn stripped the armour and cloth from his friend's damp skin and wrapped him in blankets.
"They fought bravely, Aragorn, and their only reward was death."
Legolas had not spoken in an hour. His words now echoed solemnly around the dim cave.
"Their reward was life. Life for those they love. That is why they fought."
"And why do we fight?"
He could not speak of love in this place. He could speak of the love held by others, but in this place of death his own love lurked in shadows and would not show itself. Instead he clasped the elf to himself, sharing what warmth he had to give, wrapping his weary arms about the golden creature who had fought and killed on this night - on many nights - but still looked on death as a child with a broken blackbird.
As the storm continued to rage outside, they warmed themselves by the fire, wrapped in a gentle embrace, and spoke in silence of love.
**************************************
Distant rumbles spoke of an approaching storm and the air was heavy and warm, but only the softest rain fell.
The grey horse cantered in long easy strides, bringing the White City ever closer, but Legolas yearned for the storm to break. Sleet might suit his mood and thick mud might slow his progress, pulling at the steed's hooves, delaying this meeting. The ground was firm and the flashes lit the sky several miles to the north.
The great wooden gates opened before him, the guards saluting, though they did not smile. Steel hooves struck sparks from the cobbled streets as he passed, like small storms about the horse's feet.
Up he rose, through the great city, though his heart willed him to wheel the horse and return whence he had come. This day had whispered to him in his dreams. He had thought himself ready, but now he feared it more than any army of Mordor.
The rain was still light when he reached the seventh level and rode out onto the vast courtyard. Cool drops lightly caressed his skin. Though it barely rained, the drizzle had soaked into his clothes, chilling him. Perhaps that which waited within the citadel chilled him more.
The marble echoed dully as he walked slowly through the grey halls toward his inevitable destination.
The king lay upon blood red cushions, the velvet rich and warm. His hair, once dark and thick, was silvered, and his regal face bore the lines of age. A servant went to close the window shutters, but Legolas motioned for her to depart and moved to the window himself. The storm was breaking. The first flash illuminated the dim room, casting stark shadows.
In his quiet slumber Aragorn had seemed almost dead, but now he stirred. Legolas began to close the shutters, locking out the weather, when a voice halted his hand.
"Leave them, Deriel. I wish to watch the storm. I do not fear it."
"As you wish."
The mortal startled for a moment at the unexpected voice and then smiled.
"Though I see less of it than you, for I have not your elven eyes."
"Ever was that the way of men, for often they do not see what lies before them."
"The storm is behind me now, my friend. There is little that now lies before me."
Tears were in the elf's pale eyes as he knelt beside the king and took a thin hand in his own. The flesh was cool. Aragorn touched the soft skin of his friend's face and wiped away a tear with his thumb. Legolas thought that he felt some of the Dunadan's old strength in that touch. The contact was like lightning, but it was as fleeting as the sparks that burn the air.
"What will I do, Aragorn, when you are gone?"
"You will do as you did before me. Long were your days before a Dunadan strayed in to the realm of Thranduil."
"I was as one who was dead in those times. There was no joy for me."
"And there will be no death for you, my immortal one."
Tears flowed more easily now, staining ageless cheeks, and outside the open window the rain strengthened it's attack on the city. Raindrops fell upon Aragorn's hand, but they were salty.
"This is my death." The whisper was barely audible, as the elf's breathing had been in the rocky storm shelter so many years before.
"No. This is your reward."
Memory stirred in the grief stricken Sinda.
"This is not the reward I asked of you."
"It is. You asked me once why we die. On that day men died in blood and horror. All the death you had seen was violence and pain. But this is death, too." The old man smiled and stroked his friend's damp face. "I am ready to die. For more than two hundred years I have walked this world. Now I am ready to join my fathers and walk in the next. That is why we die."
"You die that you may stand with those who went before you?"
"Yes.
"But if you did not die, then neither would your fathers, and you would stand beside them in this world." Though they had spoken in whispers, Legolas' voice rose now as he tried to make his friend understand; tried to make him fight to live.
"Then we die because it it Eru's will."
He had no argument. Iluvatar's will must be done.
"I understand."
Aragorn's smile was gentle and knowing as his friend kissed his brow.
"Then your reward is paid in full. I am free to go."
"Yes."
"The storm has passed."
Legolas looked to the window. The rain had indeed ceased and the storm had continued south, the thunder once again nothing more than a distant rumble.
"It will be a clear day to-" The elf fell silent as he turned his gaze back to his friend. He looked as he had when first the elf had entered, but this was no slumber. The pale hand lay still within his own, unmoving, the skin like paper. There were no soft breaths, save his own. As he placed the hand upon the dark coverlet and kissed the man's brow his lips were touched with a soft smile.
"The storm has passed, my friend."
He rose slowly and moved to the window to gaze out upon the broad plains beyond the city. The rain had watered the fertile land and it grew lush and green.
Far to the south and west, beyond the grey storm, sunlight glittered on open water. A cool breeze caressed the elf's face, smoothing away his grief. It carried with it the sent of the sea, calling him home, to walk with those who went before him.
The storm had passed.
Fandom: LotR
Author: SheBit
Rating: PG13, I guess.
Pairing(s): Aragorn/Legolas. It can be read as either romance or friendship.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Tolkien, and possible New Line. I just like to borrow them every so often to get them all depressed and then I return them to their book.
Warnings: Extreme angst
Notes: I didn't intend this to be quite so melancholy, but it came out rather dark. I like to think of it as a happy ending, though.
The ground was cool and moist where he touched it, bringing a handful to his nose, tasting the aroma. His quarry had past this way. He knelt in the small glade, and a harsh noise made him feel suddenly exposed. It was nothing; just a bird. He was alone in this grim wood. There was only he and his quarry; the slinking, pathetic creature which he was charged to find and capture.
The sudden noise had made him uneasy and his hand was at the hilt of his heavy sword as he rose and continued onward, deeper into the dark tangle of trees.
He had been travelling for perhaps an hour more, moving fast but pausing often to check the trail. He was catching up. The scent was stronger, but distant thunder warned of a coming storm, threatening to wash away all evidence of the creature's passing. Though he was loathe to go on in the rain, already tired and cold, he could not risk losing the trail which he had followed for almost a month now. Summer storm or no, he would continue in his task.
The storm came on quickly, almost without warning. One mighty crack of lightning rent the air, lighting the sky for a moment and then the rain began to fall. Within moments the ground was nothing but mud, all traces of soft footprints gone. The viscous muck groped at him, pulling at his feet. He tried to continue on, but the ground swallowed his foot, sending him tumbling into the ooze. Hands sank into the dark ground made liquid by the torrent and he rose clumsily, tossing lank hair from his face.
Staggering, beaten by the rain, he moved forward still. The creature was no longer what he sought. All he desired now was shelter. He had survived too much, fought too many battles, to die here now, drowned by a sudden storm in a dim forest.
Stumbling and tripping, pulled at by the mud, he came at last to a small rocky hill and launched himself into a small, dry crevice. Retreating into its darkness as far as he could he finally collapsed in relief and exhaustion. He was soaked through; his hair wet and tangled; his clothes black from his several falls onto the rain-drenched woodland floor.
He closed his eyes, listening to the rain tumble down outside. Soon he would make a light and try to build a fire o stave off the chill of his sodden clothes, but for now he was content to simply sit and listen.
Listen.
The soft breaths were barely audible beside his own ragged breathing. In the darkness he reached a practised hand for the hilt of his sword, but his movements were too slow, weighed down by the waterlogged clothes, and by tired muscles. The next sound was far more audible. The scrape of metal unsheathed. A flash of lightning outside illuminated the blade at his throat for a moment and he stilled, struggling to calm his breathing, and his nerve. His unseen attacker had every advantage.
"You are unwise. To stray into Thranduil's realm uninvited is death." The voice was soft and faintly musical. Aragorn's unease lessened when he realised that the other was of elven kind, but did not vanish. An elf could be more deadly than an orc when crossed.
"I followed my quarry into these woods from the south. My only thought was for that task. I meant no trespass." His breathing was even now, his training overcoming is exhaustion.
"Any task which brings you into these woods is a dangerous one, mortal. There are more fearful things than I in this land."
"I do not doubt it." He let a smile enter his words. The keen blade had moved further from his throat, not longer touching him damp skin, and the elf's words had been more chiding than angered. Aragorn was suddenly reminded of Elrond reproaching him as a boy: serious yet tender.
"Have you a light? I cannot see." He heard and felt the elf move further away, though he could not see him in the darkness of the small cave.
"I see you well enough." The tone was softer now, though still with a note of menace.
"I do not doubt that, either, but I have not your elven eyes. I see nothing."
"Ever was that the way of men, for often they do not see what lies before them. I followed you this past hour and you saw nothing." Mocking. The elf was mocking him. Even in the darkness he knew that the elf was smiling now, doubtless pleased at his own cleverness.
Aragorn wished to retort, but in truth he had seen nothing of this elf as he worked through the forest. The hunter was become the hunted, and the wood elf was, it seemed, a more stealthy tracker than even he.
"You have no answer?"
"No. None. I am counted a fine tracker and hunter in the north, but you have bested me. What reward would you have?" Aragorn could play and mock as well as any Silvan. Was he not raised by the Sindar? In a battle of word and wit he could challenge this proud elf, even if he was little match in the forest.
"A reward? There are many rewards to be had as storms wail, and many gifts that we can bestow."
As the elf spoke he lit a spark from a small tinder box and the rocky shelter was filled with a soft glow. Aragorn barely contained a gasp at the sight of the golden creature before him.
Without, the storm continued to rage. Within, as the Dunadan fell to silence, he had been bested in both hunting and in words.
****************************************
The air smelled of lightning: sharp and metallic. It smelled of worse things, too.
The rain had begun five hours before, and never ceased. When the first spots had fallen, the sea of torches had begun to move across the valley floor, coming ever onward. So many pinpricks of light, filling the horizon.
Rain had made heavy armour heavier still. It sluiced down, cutting like blades, the world existing in flashes of light as the sky burned. The world existing in the battle cries of the oncoming horde and in the fear of the men upon the battlements and the women below, clutching their children to them.
The fighting was over now, but still the rain came. The ground was churned to mud, red with the blood of the fallen. Bodies sank into the foulness as those who lived tried to pile them.
The elf knelt upon the grey battlements, the rain carrying blood in eddies about him as he leaned upon his slender bow, his eyes blank and his body numb.
So much death.
The man approached slowly and rested a gentle hand upon his friend's shoulder. The pale archer looked up but his eyes were vacant. There was a question there. Why? How? For a moment, Aragorn beheld the eyes of a child. He remembered something of himself in those questioning eyes. As a small boy he had found a bird upon the steps at Imladris, still and cold. He had taken the little creature to his mother, begging her to heal it, but she would not; could not. On that day, Aragorn had first understood death. Now two shadowed eyes so much like his own gazed up at him with that same horror.
He wanted nothing more than to comfort his grieving friend; to explain; to tell him that this was the way of men. But men can teach the Eldar of death no more easily than the great eagles can teach men what it is to fly.
"So much death."
There were tears in the elf's words, though any that would have streaked his face were washed away by the chill rain.
"Why?"
Aragorn had no answers. All he could do was draw his friend into a tight embrace and whisper words of comfort, like a parent to a hurt child.
They stood upon the stone wall, wrapped together in grief and in friendship. The men who worked to gather the bodies and the weapons paid them no heed, working through the rain, cloaked in their own grief. They stumbled through the red mud and soon the fallen were piled high.
The elf still trembled against Aragorn, his body cold. The man pulled sodden locks from his friend's face, hanging like heavy golden chains, and kissed his smooth brow. In time the shaking ceased and he led the archer from the battlements, through the ranks of the dead, down into the keep and from there into the tunnels beneath, where the women had built strong fires.
Their clothes were black from the mud and rain. Women drew back from the two fearsome warriors, red stains upon their mail an unwanted sign of the battle that had raged above.
As careful as a mother bathing her child, Aragorn stripped the armour and cloth from his friend's damp skin and wrapped him in blankets.
"They fought bravely, Aragorn, and their only reward was death."
Legolas had not spoken in an hour. His words now echoed solemnly around the dim cave.
"Their reward was life. Life for those they love. That is why they fought."
"And why do we fight?"
He could not speak of love in this place. He could speak of the love held by others, but in this place of death his own love lurked in shadows and would not show itself. Instead he clasped the elf to himself, sharing what warmth he had to give, wrapping his weary arms about the golden creature who had fought and killed on this night - on many nights - but still looked on death as a child with a broken blackbird.
As the storm continued to rage outside, they warmed themselves by the fire, wrapped in a gentle embrace, and spoke in silence of love.
**************************************
Distant rumbles spoke of an approaching storm and the air was heavy and warm, but only the softest rain fell.
The grey horse cantered in long easy strides, bringing the White City ever closer, but Legolas yearned for the storm to break. Sleet might suit his mood and thick mud might slow his progress, pulling at the steed's hooves, delaying this meeting. The ground was firm and the flashes lit the sky several miles to the north.
The great wooden gates opened before him, the guards saluting, though they did not smile. Steel hooves struck sparks from the cobbled streets as he passed, like small storms about the horse's feet.
Up he rose, through the great city, though his heart willed him to wheel the horse and return whence he had come. This day had whispered to him in his dreams. He had thought himself ready, but now he feared it more than any army of Mordor.
The rain was still light when he reached the seventh level and rode out onto the vast courtyard. Cool drops lightly caressed his skin. Though it barely rained, the drizzle had soaked into his clothes, chilling him. Perhaps that which waited within the citadel chilled him more.
The marble echoed dully as he walked slowly through the grey halls toward his inevitable destination.
The king lay upon blood red cushions, the velvet rich and warm. His hair, once dark and thick, was silvered, and his regal face bore the lines of age. A servant went to close the window shutters, but Legolas motioned for her to depart and moved to the window himself. The storm was breaking. The first flash illuminated the dim room, casting stark shadows.
In his quiet slumber Aragorn had seemed almost dead, but now he stirred. Legolas began to close the shutters, locking out the weather, when a voice halted his hand.
"Leave them, Deriel. I wish to watch the storm. I do not fear it."
"As you wish."
The mortal startled for a moment at the unexpected voice and then smiled.
"Though I see less of it than you, for I have not your elven eyes."
"Ever was that the way of men, for often they do not see what lies before them."
"The storm is behind me now, my friend. There is little that now lies before me."
Tears were in the elf's pale eyes as he knelt beside the king and took a thin hand in his own. The flesh was cool. Aragorn touched the soft skin of his friend's face and wiped away a tear with his thumb. Legolas thought that he felt some of the Dunadan's old strength in that touch. The contact was like lightning, but it was as fleeting as the sparks that burn the air.
"What will I do, Aragorn, when you are gone?"
"You will do as you did before me. Long were your days before a Dunadan strayed in to the realm of Thranduil."
"I was as one who was dead in those times. There was no joy for me."
"And there will be no death for you, my immortal one."
Tears flowed more easily now, staining ageless cheeks, and outside the open window the rain strengthened it's attack on the city. Raindrops fell upon Aragorn's hand, but they were salty.
"This is my death." The whisper was barely audible, as the elf's breathing had been in the rocky storm shelter so many years before.
"No. This is your reward."
Memory stirred in the grief stricken Sinda.
"This is not the reward I asked of you."
"It is. You asked me once why we die. On that day men died in blood and horror. All the death you had seen was violence and pain. But this is death, too." The old man smiled and stroked his friend's damp face. "I am ready to die. For more than two hundred years I have walked this world. Now I am ready to join my fathers and walk in the next. That is why we die."
"You die that you may stand with those who went before you?"
"Yes.
"But if you did not die, then neither would your fathers, and you would stand beside them in this world." Though they had spoken in whispers, Legolas' voice rose now as he tried to make his friend understand; tried to make him fight to live.
"Then we die because it it Eru's will."
He had no argument. Iluvatar's will must be done.
"I understand."
Aragorn's smile was gentle and knowing as his friend kissed his brow.
"Then your reward is paid in full. I am free to go."
"Yes."
"The storm has passed."
Legolas looked to the window. The rain had indeed ceased and the storm had continued south, the thunder once again nothing more than a distant rumble.
"It will be a clear day to-" The elf fell silent as he turned his gaze back to his friend. He looked as he had when first the elf had entered, but this was no slumber. The pale hand lay still within his own, unmoving, the skin like paper. There were no soft breaths, save his own. As he placed the hand upon the dark coverlet and kissed the man's brow his lips were touched with a soft smile.
"The storm has passed, my friend."
He rose slowly and moved to the window to gaze out upon the broad plains beyond the city. The rain had watered the fertile land and it grew lush and green.
Far to the south and west, beyond the grey storm, sunlight glittered on open water. A cool breeze caressed the elf's face, smoothing away his grief. It carried with it the sent of the sea, calling him home, to walk with those who went before him.
The storm had passed.