As decorum required, though, Eleina was awake to see Legolas and Gimli off in the morning. She patted their horses, wished them fair winds and stable paths, and felt nothing as they disappeared down the road.

The wreath had turned out wonderfully, she thought, and she had insisted it be hung in the main hall. It was rare that she insisted on anything from anyone, usually politely making her request and humbly accepting the answer. Save with Thranduil. She had never felt the least bit hesitant around the moody elven lord, not even as a child when the great elven king had towered over her and demanded to know what the floor of the throne room was doing buried beneath gold and blood-red leaves.

That had been the first time she had gotten in trouble with him, and she supposed he had expected her to cower and whimper like every other insignificant citizen of Mirkwood. Instead she had pressed her hands on her hips, looked up at him, and insisted that she wasn’t the one that had built her palace underground and she was just trying to bring the outdoors back.

“See, my king, when you walk, do you hear how the leaves crunch?” No, he did not, for he was a born and bred elven thoroughbred, so to speak, and so from childhood had learned how to walk without making a sound. “Well you’re really missing out. It’s a beautiful sound. Trying digging your heels into them when you walk around here. It’s the sound of autumn!” It had already been late at night by this point, and Thranduil, confused by her lack of propriety, had ordered her off to her home –

Legolas had stood by, horrified and yet transfixed by Eleina talking back so to his father. And that she received no more reprimand was truly astounding; he would have been locked up for the night with no supper, most likely! But the king gave his order that the leaves were to be cleaned before breakfast and stomped off to bed himself. The servants opted to wait until the morning to clean them up, muttering amongst themselves that Eleina should be the one to have to sweep the piles and lug them back outside. Needless to say, no one was very pleased with this foolishness of Eleina’s, but she remained blissfully unaware of their annoyance as she fluttered off to bed.

Everyone was asleep or locked away in candlelit chambers before Thranduil returned to dig his heels into the piles of leaves scattered around the throne-room and learn with utter disappointment that he could not, no matter how hard he tried, make the leaves crunch the way she did.

Perhaps that right there was the defining moment between Thranduil and Eleina. He couldn’t make the leaves crunch, but she could, and so he kept her around and secretly humored her silliness. Secretly he had been sad when, still an adolescent, she had returned to her home in the north. Secretly he had been thrilled when news reached him that she was being sent away again and could he again harbor her in his halls? Secretly he had pushed for the marriage between Legolas and Eleina harder than anyone else – for he made it appear, through his beautiful talent of twisting words, that his advisors and her guardian were the true masters of the plot. And perhaps deepest of all the secrets, he had been glad when Legolas and Eleina did not fall in love. He liked her even better miserable, enjoyed having someone else as snarky and witty as he. Of course, she was not quite so dark as he, but Thranduil appreciated her for everything she was. She was his pet, his plaything, his little sister to annoy, his little daughter-in-law that he secretly thought of more simply as a daughter. He lived to taunt her; the stronger she stood, the harder he pushed.

Of course, none of this Eleina ever cared to put much thought to. She simply knew that his bark had always been worse than his bite towards her, and since she had never had a father-in-law, or even a father, really, she assumed this was just how these things went. So she made her wreath despite his taunts and hung it in the hall and was happy about it.

“Lovely, Eleina, simply lovely,” he mused, approaching from behind her and looking up at the wreath. “I’m sure Mordor will be quite happy to learn that their fashions have leaked into the décor of the palace of Mirkwood.”

Eleina glared and stomped off.

Whatever Thranduil or Eleina might have thought about Legolas’ quick departure, he remained true to his word. Four days later, in the early afternoon, Legolas and his friend Gimli returned to the palace, unheralded this time. Legolas’ heart was light as they ducked beneath the familiar tree boughs and smiled at the familiar faces. Gimli’s people had been generous, of course – or at least as generous as their pride demanded. He could see that extending their brotherly hand took great effort, and at times things had been a bit strained. But once Gimli spun the visit in a new light, the dwarves of Erebor seemed delighted to show off to the elven representative all the wonders of the dwarven world.

It was as they were leaving Erebor that Legolas realized his mistake. They were gathering their things, and Gimli had disappeared momentarily to say good-bye to his father. “Good- bye” because Legolas and Gimli had left Gondor only to visit their homes; they had already promised Aragorn to return with elves and dwarves in order to rebuild the fallen city of Minis Tirith. Gimli had met with surprisingly little resistance and difficulty in finding thirteen strong-minded dwarves willing to strike out for their own adventures among the men of Gondor. However, they did not wish for their adventures to include Mirkwood, and so would wait a few days to set out, then meet up with Gimli, Legolas, and any elves he found willing to join the party.

Here was the dilemma. Legolas realized with a stabbing guilt that it had completely slipped his mind to mention to Thranduil and Eleina that, even though he would return from Erebor in only a few days, he had already dedicated the next period of his life to helping Aragorn. He hadn’t intentionally failed to mention it. The festivities of his homecoming and then his trip to Erebor had distracted him and the rather important announcement had truly slipped his mind.

He had the entire trek home to mull over his guilt at not mentioning it before, and to try and decipher what the best way to share was. In leaving, he had made it sound as though he would return from Erebor to stay for good. That wasn’t the case at all. And furthermore . . . he realized with alarm that Thranduil wasn’t going to be the problem, Eleina was. He had shirked his duties as her husband in order to partake in the War, and theoretically, one could say that rebuilding Minis Tirith was simply an extension of these responsibilities he had taken on. However, this rebuilding also had some fundamental differences. The first being that this was certainly not a matter of life and death, a command handed over from Lord Elrond and the council. This was something he had volunteered for because it was a passion of his, and he wished to be of further service to his good friend the king. Aragorn was a higher priority than Eleina, his wife; Legolas simply had to be the shame of marriage itself.

Gimli had, of course, noticed that Legolas wasn’t speaking, and listened as Legolas detailed all this for him, ending with the question, “What do I tell her, though?”

“Why, that you’ve made a promise to a friend and it is your responsibility to uphold that. There’ll be no danger this time, at least, and yeh can come home whenever yeh want.”

“But then what is my argument for going at all?” Legolas pressed. “If we are speaking of responsibilities, then my responsibility is to Eleina as her husband, yes? A responsibility that I have never fulfilled. We were just recently married when I left her, and now that I am free to be there with her, I am leaving again?”

“Well why don’t ya just bring her with ya?”

Legolas frowned and felt his jaw tighten. The suggestion was . . . it was absurd. Truly ridiculous! First of all, it would be preposterous to ask Eleina to leave everything she had come to call home to resettle among the men of Gondor where she would be completely out of place and lonely. Even if he did ask it, and even if she did comply . . . it would be simply out of a sense of duty to him, no doubt, and that wouldn’t do them any good either, if she was making herself miserable, which would in turn just make him miserable and be a distraction to his work. Which was what it was going to be: work. He would be busy, not just resting on his laurels, and that begged the question of whether she would feel inclined to help the efforts, and what exactly she would do.

But no, it was absurd. She had her life here with Thranduil and the other elves in Mirkwood. She had already been ripped away from homes, what, three times? It would be unfair for him to even ask it of her, and he really had no right. He was the one that had left; it was his duty to her, not vice versa. But he had also made a promise to Aragorn that he both wanted to and felt obligated to fulfill. Besides, rebuilding the city wouldn’t take forever, but he had forever to be a husband to Eleina. He had argued against the marriage at the time, making the argument that if he was to live forever, what was the rush to marry? This was simply physical occurrence of that, but it was unfair that Eleina was the one being punished for it . . .

Besides, truthfully, Minis Tirith needed him more than Eleina ever did, either as a child or now.

Back Main Next