The Trinity 2

By Claudio


When Legolas awoke, the room was full of the pink light of early morning which had filtered through the trees to cast patterns of curious shadows across the walls and floor. He smiled, closing his eyes to the soft brightness, and turned his face toward his pillow. The smooth, though somewhat tangled, texture of Elrond’s hair against his cheek produced a surge of warmth and contentment in his mind. He kissed the dark strands.

Beneath his hand, he could feel Elrond’s shoulder rising and falling with each slow breath. The rhythm was both calming, in that it made Legolas wish that he and Elrond might be forgotten by time and able to stay perfectly as they were in dreamy unreality, and exciting, as it in the same moment caused him to grow restless, tingling with inactivity, heated and tense and longing to allow his mouth and hands to wander the newfound curiosity that was Elrond’s body. He settled for something midway between the two impulses and feathered his hand from Elrond’s shoulder to bare chest, slowly tracing his fingers around each small detail of musculature hidden beneath the skin.

Elrond, drawing a deep breath, leaned his head backward toward Legolas. "You..." he said.

"Yes, me." Legolas grinned as he caught Elrond’s hand, which had come to meet his own. "Were you hoping for someone else?"
"No." He shifted around to face his lover, and a soft dreamy smile graced his lips. "Only you." He kissed Legolas- once on his closed eyelid, once on his cheek, and a third time on his mouth, though this kiss was very faint and halfway missed its mark, falling to the left and toward his jaw. And Elrond’s lips lingered in this position rather than pulling away, so that Legolas could feel the warm breath against his skin. He found these tiny movements of air perfect and maddening.

He moved his head so that his mouth met Elrond’s more completely and his body buzzed at the touch. Memories of every small desire from the previous night came back to him in a speeding flood, and these were passed into the kiss. He moved closer, eliminating the few torturous inches that separated them, until Elrond’s heated body was pressed against his own, and his knee slid between Elrond’s thighs.

Elrond hissed with a quick inhalation and tilted his head sharply back. Legolas trailed the broken kiss in a line from Elrond’s mouth to his ear, then down his neck to his shoulder, fingers preceding lips and tongue always by a small distance.

"I think..." Elrond said between quick breaths, "that we will be late... for breakfast..."

* * * * *

Legolas quietly shut the door behind him as he left, and took a few light steps backward. A foolish grin played across his face, though he tried to suppress its telling presence in case he chanced to meet any other member of the household on his way back to his own bedroom. He started toward the main corridor.

"That you are coming from his bedroom at this hour," spoke a voice from behind him, "makes me wonder what sort of business you have with my father."

Legolas’ body tensed as he turned around, his heart quickening. "Elladan."

"Yes." Elladan sat against the wall, his face a dark shadow as the sun shone brightly in through the window behind him. "I returned here last night shortly after I left you, to see if your business was finished and to consult my father regarding the quest with the Ring. But I found you still talking, and so I decided to wait for a while outside the door. Then the voices ceased and yet you still remained with him. I waited longer, and longer even, until the night had passed and dawn had come, and even then you remained within his bedroom. Until now." He stood, smirking. "And I am very anxious to hear your excuse as to why."

"We were talking," said Legolas, "about history. The Rings, the war of the Alliance, and..." He felt his ears grow hot. "My own father never speaks of such things. I found it interesting."

"Interesting?"

"Yes, he told me the story of how Gil-galad-"

"Gil-galad!" Elladan interrupted. That name spoken by Elrond had been a prayer of adoration, but it came as a hateful curse off the tongue of Elladan. "Then your situation is as I feared."

"How do you mean?"

Elladan smiled, a cruel taunt, and walked away toward the main corridor.

Legolas followed him. "Tell me what you mean!"

Elladan went up the three steps and continued in his quick pace toward the nearest terrace. When they were both outside, he said, "I don’t suppose you think me deaf enough not to have noticed what you were doing last night?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," said Legolas. His voice was unsteady.

"No, you wouldn’t, would you? You really have no idea what you’re doing."

Legolas said nothing in reply, but he felt strangely weakened by Elladan’s words. There was fear within his mind, the sort of fear that told him that whatever Elladan was about to say, no matter how terrible it was, would be entirely true.

"They were lovers, you know, during the Second Age."

"He told me."

"But it was more than that. It was not simply love on my father’s part, but adoration, infatuation, obsession. The world revolved around Gil-galad and nothing else. He was earth and air and fire and water and time and space. Everything. Whatever Gil-galad did was law, whatever he said was truth. He was higher and more brilliant than even Ilúvatar in my father’s eyes. And now you try foolishly to compete with that!"

"What?" Legolas whispered, and he choked on the word.

"My mother could not, and that is why she left. It is true that he loved her, and that they were close, and that they cared very deeply for each other. But still their bond was not complete. There was always some strange small gap between them, blocking the last faraway recesses of my father's heart that she could not reach, no matter how she tried. And all because she was not Gil-galad, and could not hope to be." He paused. "After her ordeal with the orcs he seemed so concerned, so completely devoted and open, that she thought perhaps the grief had changed him. But within a week of her recovery he said something to her, something that she in her pain refused to repeat to me, though I am certain it was a story about his precious Gil-galad killing the orcs. And on that day she realised that no matter what the case, no matter what she did, she would always have to settle for the lesser share of his love. So she became distant from him. He tried, a few times, to comfort her after that; I don’t think he even knew what he had done. But she left within the year. So while I partially blame my father for her departure, but I am quicker to lay the blame on Gil-galad, who has poisoned my father’s life and mind and blinded him to everything that should be important in this world- his family, and his duty to the Elves."

"Duty?"

"He should be High King," said Elladan. There was a stinging bitterness in his voice. "He was the logical heir to the crown. Gil-galad had no son to take his place, and my father was the only one remaining of the descendants of Fingolfin. But he refused the crown because he himself could not live up to the image of the High King he had created. Nobody can! Not he, not my mother, not I, nor my brother and sister, and not you!"

Legolas had been taking slow steps backward throughout Elladan’s speech, and he now found himself pressed against a carven stone pillar, clutching the hem of his tunic violently in his fists. Everything was too hot, stifling. He could not stand being near or even looking at Elladan. "Why do you say these things to me?"

"Because you ought to know! Trust me when I say that it is better you find out now, from me, instead of on your own a year from now, when it is too late and you find it too hard to leave him. If you follow this path which you have started, it is certain that you will suffer for it! Could you live with constant failure and inadequacy, which would come through no fault of your own but rather because of his impossible expectations? I have lived with it all my life, and so I know very well how it feels. So many times I have gone to him with my accomplishments, but nothing is ever good enough. If I were to go in there right now and say that I had all on my own killed fifty thousand orcs, he would turn to me with his sad smile and tell me how Gil-galad once killed seventy thousand! Do you suppose you could take that? The shame of always disappointing him, and the pain of knowing that at every second, with each word, movement, breath and thought, you were being compared unfavourably to another? You are a mere messenger, Legolas! A lesser prince from a lesser kingdom, unknown outside of your little forest, sent to tell us that some creature has escaped from your father's guard. How valiant! And you endeavour to challenge a king for your lover's affections!"

A hand, Elladan's, was on his shoulder, Legolas felt. His eyes were shut too tightly to see, though he had no use for sight if all it would show was Elladan's bitter mocking smile.

"Go home, little Prince," Elladan continued. "Save yourself the sorrow and leave now. Leave him. Forget about your frivolous affair and go back to where it's safe. Think no more on my father, and go home."

Legolas could still taste Elrond's lips on his own, and still easily see in his eyes all the secret starlit actions of the previous night. Thoughts and memories of raw emotions flew throughout his body. He remembered the texture of Elrond's hair, the feeling of his skin, the sound of his breath, the heated scent of their two forms clinging together so close but somehow, still not close enough. One by one the senses knocked down Elladan's words and rendered them meaningless, unimportant, until finally Legolas had the courage to look on Elladan with contempt and pity and say, "No." He stepped away. "I don't think I will forget. I don't think I can."

"Very well." Elladan scowled. "You've been warned. Now if you'll excuse me, I must prepare to leave for Mordor with the Hobbit."

Legolas stood still for several seconds, watching Elladan go, waiting until he was well out of sight before leaving in the opposite direction to find Gandalf.

* * * * *

The setting sun shone brightly in Elrohir's eyes, causing him to squint and raise his hand against the light as he looked toward his father, who stood with his back to the window. He scarecely noticed Elladan step into the doorway, arriving late and looking sullen.

"You finally arrive," Elrond said. "Your brother and I have been waiting."

Elladan ignored the veiled reprimand. "I hope you do not keep us long," he said, "as we have much to do in preparation for our journey."

"That is why I have summoned you here," replied Elrond. Weariness was evident in his voice, and he could look neither of his sons in the eye. "I have thought on this a long while since this morning, and have decided it is best that you do not go."

"What?!" Elladan cried.

"Ada..." said Elrohir.

Elrond raised his hand to them. "It is not your place to dispute my call."

"But this is madness!" said Elladan. "We leave in a mere eight days and yet you still see fit to alter the plan! You would send the Hobbit off with the Ring and no guard?! You spoke earlier of nine companions, including delegates from the four Free Peoples of the world. If Elrohir and I leave the company, there will be only seven, and no Elves!"

"There will be nine," Elrond said calmly. "It seems to me that all four Hobbits will end up going, rather than the two or three intended. Gandalf has often alluded to it, and indeed whenever I speak with any of them they have their minds on nothing else. Of course Gandalf will go, and Aragorn, and also Boromir of Gondor, as discussed, and the Dwarf Gloin's son Gimli. Then as for Elves, Prince Legolas of Mirkwood has volunteered to take your place."

Elladan hissed quietly between furiously clenched teeth, but said nothing. Elrohir, beside him, marred his brow with worry and spoke his concern. "If I may say it, I believe Elladan and myself to be the better choice in this matter. Have you any assurance of this prince's capabilities?"

"He is a highly skilled bowman, I am told. And while he has not the experience of you two, I believe he shall prove just as competent in battle, should it come to that."

"Are we to then sit idly here?"

"You and Elladan both will have your role in this history," said Elrond. His voice grew softer in contrast to Elrohir's rising passion. "But it is not with the Ring. If the situation worsens, if Saruman launches an offensive from Isengard to advance on the valley, then you will be needed here."

"But if not-"

"If not," Elrond interrupted, "then we will all thank Elbereth for the good fortune. But now my mind is set, and you will stay in Imladris." He turned his back to his sons, and looked off out the window.

Elladan reached and took his brother's hand, squeezing it with such terrible rage that Elrohir tensed his body and clenched his teeth against the pain. The two, one fanatic and one confused, left the room quickly.

"But why would he do this?" Elrohir asked once they stood beyond the door to Elrond's office. "Why would he volunteer to be part of such a risk? What reason does he have? And why would Ada allow it? It makes no sense."

Elladan’s raging eyes met his brother’s, but as he was about to speak he caught sight of a figure standing further down the corridor among the shadows and shifted slightly to focus on this new interest. Elrohir too turned to see, and his gaze fell upon Legolas.

A slow hiss of hatred escaped Elladan’s lips. "Well done, little prince. I hope you are pleased with your disruption."

Legolas remained silent, and Elladan stepped toward him. "It is a clever plan- that much I will admit. Take the short road to greatness and glory. Become with one deed a hero to be remembered in songs of future ages. But it is also a foolish plan, for you will surely get yourself killed." He stopped less than an arm’s length from Legolas, who still had neither moved nor spoken. "Do you really think that this one act will balance you with Gil-galad in my father’s mind?"

"Do you think it would balance you?" asked Legolas.

Elladan’s statement stiffened. "I would go to defeat the evil that governed my mother’s torment, not to impress my father."

"Just as I go to avenge my forefather, who died during the Last Alliance. That is what we tell ourselves and others. But I think we both know the true reason for our desire to fight in Mordor." He placed a hand on Elladan’s shoulder. "You and I are much the same, Elladan, and it grieves me to think that under different circumstances we might have been dear friends instead of bitter rivals."

"You flatter yourself to entertain such thoughts." Drawing back away from the touch, he refined his gaze upon the prince from anger to unfiltered hatred. Legolas was very much like him, too much, and this thought kindled the rancor. To go to Mordor and live to tell of his victory over the Dark Lord was the one thing Elladan could do to prove himself higher than Gil-galad, as it was the one thing at which Gil-galad had failed. And now to have Legolas step in for the same reasons, fighting for a different facet of the same prize, was unbearable. His passions shot wildly between fury and wretchedness; he had trouble knowing whether he desired more to draw his sword and kill Legolas as he stood, or simply to break down in miserable sobs of defeat. But he stoned his features in order to maintain a visage of composure in front his enemy.

Elrohir advanced and took his brother gently by the arm, leading Elladan away with little protest. He paid neither word nor gaze to Legolas as they retreated, but fixed his attentions on Elladan and murmured, "This is not a point worthy to argue. We will find some other way."

Elladan clasped his hand again, this time with less ferocity. They left quickly.

* * * * *

"They will forgive you. Today they are willful children, but tomorrow the anger should pass. They have grown too sure of having their way, I fear, and they are quick to act without thought; it comes from too long following naught but their own command. Yet they mean well. This grudge against you will not be overly harsh." Elrond tightened his grip on Legolas’ wrist, trying to provoke some, any response.

Legolas smiled weakly but would not look to meet Elrond’s gaze. "Perhaps," was all he said.

"Legolas..." Hesitantly, Elrond reached up and placed his free hand on Legola’s cheek, coaxing him to turn until the two sat face to face. But still the prince would not lift his eyes. "Do you regret what happened between us last night?" Elrond asked.

"No," said Legolas. He kissed the hand that half covered his mouth. "Of all that has transpired since I left Mirkwood, it is the one thing I would not want to change."

"Then why do you act this way?"

"I was speaking earlier with Elladan, and his words trouble me still. I know that he spoke carelessly and without thought of consequence, and that not all he said can be taken as entirely true, but..."

"What did he say?" Elrond slipped his arm about Legolas’ shoulders, pulling him closer and pressing a kiss onto his smooth pale hair. "I will listen, if you wish to tell."

"I do not wish for you to hear."

"Then I will not press you. But sometimes it helps to talk with another."

Elrond's body was warm, and the smooth fabric of his clothing comforting to Legolas' cheek. He sat still, listening to the sound of his lover's heartbeat and breath, willing to return to the innocent bliss of that morning though Elladan's poisoned speech lived vibrantly on the surface of his mind, marring his thoughts with the name of Gil-galad. He became terribly aware of each movement of Elrond's, no matter how small. Every tensing of muscle and slight shifting of position was magnified. Were these conjured by some ancient memory? Were Elrond's hands, sliding down and around Legolas' back to catch him in a tighter embrace, persuaded by thoughts of Gil-galad? And were the words the lord softly spoke, sweet foreign sounds in the old tongue of the Calaquendi, vestiges of another time and another love?

"Nammë eleni lúmemmassë; vanyuvammë sinnomello..."

"What is that?"

"It is a line from a verse which was written for me at the time of the Last Alliance, by Gil-galad."

So Elladan had spoken more truth than Legolas had cared to believe. He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth, working to contain the fire that surged through him, and pulled away from Elrond. "Gil-galad said that to you?"

"Yes," said Elrond, "why?" His eyes questioned Legolas' action, and he tried to pull Legolas back toward him, though Legolas would not allow himself to be held.

A heavy quietness lay between the two, rendering the air thick with uncertainty, until Legolas asked, "When you met, what was the first thing Gil-galad ever said to you?"

Elrond smiled fainly at the remembrance. "The first thing... It was long ago, in the First Age, and I was very young. I had just come by boat to the Isle of Balar, with Maglor, and he took me inside a great hall. There were so many Elves there... I tried to cling to Maglor's hand, but he had to leave me, to speak to Círdan, and I was alone in this busy, frightening place. Then Gil-galad came. He was tall and strange, but he sat nest to me and smiled kindly, and told me his name was Ereinion. He asked me if I was hungry. I told him yes, so he handed me a piece of fruit, and took my hand so I would not feel so alone. I remember it very well..."

"I suppose you would. Do you remember Elladan's first words?"

Elrond's smile died and his voice grew darker. "His first words were to Celebrían. I was not there to hear."

"Were you there to see him ride off to his first hunt, or welcome him home from his first victory over the orcs?"

"I... I don’t know, I don’t remember."

"And were you listening as he told you of his first night spent away from home, sleeping under the stars? Did you ever notice the pride in his voice as he spoke of his own deeds and his brother's? Have you ever given him reassurance when it was needed, or praise?"

"I do not know where you mean to lead with this questioning-"

"Or," Legolas interrupted, "were you too busy reflecting on the loss of your dear Gil-galad?"

Narrowing his eyes and thinning his lips, Elrond leaned back. A dreadful silence hovered in the air. Cold resentment was most evident in his face, then suffering but intact pride. His breath, though louder than usual, was evenly calm. He easily kept up the appearance of unshakable grace save for in his eyes, which cried aloud his inner torment with accents of shock and pain.

Legolas feared to look too long at that pain. He cast his glance down upon Elrond’s hand, resting beside him, and moved slowly to take it in his own. But as he himself had done seconds earlier, Elrond pulled roughly away and turned a shoulder to his concern.

"I now know that what I first dreaded to say must be spoken," Legolas said quietly. "I feared that your son was voicing mere petty jealousy, but alas it seems that he knows the truth, while your mind is clouded. But what I just told you were his sentiments, not mine, so do not scorn me for bringing them to your knowledge. Please..."

With a still voice that matched his air of dignity, Elrond replied, "I am hard pressed to believe that one who spoke with such fervour was simply reciting the thoughts of another."

"Perhaps you are right." Standing, Legolas took a few hesitant steps away from the divan, smoothing his tunic over his body in an effort to appear calm, or to calm himself, though his hands were shaking. "Perhaps I do side with your son now, and take his viewpoint as my own. But if I do, it is out of concern for you, and care. Your emotions are anchored in the past at the expense of the present.  Do you truly wish to live this way, looking always backward and lamenting things that cannot be undone?"

He stopped in the doorway as he made his way from the room. "What I told you," he said, "about not regretting what happened last night, is the truth. And I hope it is still the truth for you, if ever you care to think on and remember the near past as dearly as you do the far."


Continued in Part 3
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