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Sons of Fellowship  by Conquistadora

After he had seen Gimli satisfactorily provided for, and after making some other assorted arrangements, Legolas had a hot bath of his own.  Besides rendering him infinitely more presentable and soothing his nerves, it further delayed his second confrontation with his father, which he was now silently dreading.  Here he was returned to his element, but he regretted that a quarrel should be their first order of business after a year of separation. 


He walked the echoing corridors now, dressed as a prince of the Wood-elves was expected to be on celebratory occasions.  It was a relief to wear a change of his own clothes again, an ensemble he had chosen in a deliberate effort to please his father, woodland robes of dark evergreen and golden yellow with sparse embroidery in thread of both gold and silver.  Even then, the regalia of Lasgalen was strictly utilitarian, cut in such a way that he still retained complete freedom of movement.  Thranduil's rule of fashion was simple and ruthless: if you could not wield sword in it, it was not worth wearing.


After taking the last hour to breathe and think, Legolas now felt more up to facing this challenge, though his initial courage began to turn languid on him.  The air about the others amid the hallways was no longer hostile now that the Dwarf in question was not to be seen, but they knew where he was headed, and he earned several apprehensive glances along the way.  It was not often that the Aran and the Ernil locked horns this way; often the prince would be expected to be the first to make concessions and mollify the conflict, but all knew he had a will of his own when he thought himself to be in the right.  It could be a frightening prospect.


Legolas neared the door of his father's study on cat feet, and immediately knew it was as he feared.  The whole atmosphere was charged with rampant energy, and there were raised voices within.  The door was ajar, but the heavy crimson curtain was still drawn, muffling but little the heated exchange inside.


Steeling himself for the encounter, Legolas rapped intrusively on the door.


Inside, the swelling argument abruptly died.  “Come in,” came the terse reply, more like a bark than an invitation.  Legolas slipped warily around the curtain.


Thranduil rose from his desk, looming like a summer thundercloud.  “You may go,” he dismissed Linhir snappishly.  “And you,” waving Galadhmir out as well, dissolving their militant triad formation.  The two lords obeyed without a word, looking askance at their prince as they passed, though not without obvious sympathy.  Galadhmir paused a moment to lay a kindred hand on Legolas' shoulder before he left his nephew to his fate.  They closed the door behind them as they slipped beyond the drape.


“First of all, Legolas,” Thranduil demanded when they had gone, standing ominously at the center of the room before the desk, “how did this happen?”


Legolas flinched imperceptibly as though stricken, but nonetheless he felt the blow was deliberately softened for his sake.  As he had told Gimli, he was cuffed now but with a velveted paw.  “Father,” he returned, somewhat testily, “how does any friendship happen?”


“You have set me in a most awkward position,” his father continued, disregarding the question.  “I saw he was an Elf-friend and so I dared not refuse him, something rare enough among his kind.”  He turned on his heel, his fearsome eyes cast upon the floor as he rode the waves of his own agitation, making an obvious effort to calm himself.  As he paced there came a rushing beat of wings, one of his falcons alighting regally on his shoulder.  “I do believe there is such a thing as beating a dead horse, Legolas,” Thranduil continued, seeming to take no notice of the grip of grim talons on him, “but you know I do not trust them.  I cannot.”


“You will not,” Legolas boldly corrected him.  “Have you ever opened your heart to one of them?”


Thranduil curled his lip as though the very idea was repulsive.


“I have,” Legolas asserted, seeing that although his father was severe he was also willing to understand, determined to exploit that single chink in his armor.  “I know him, and he knows me.  The faith of many realms from Eriador to Ithilien will be shattered the day Gimli son of Glóin is given to treachery or falsehood.  Already he has won the regard of all Lothlórien, and especially of the Lady Galadriel, who granted him three strands of her hair in token of her favor.”


Now his father turned, the falcon spreading his great wings for balance.  Thranduil was no stranger to Galadriel's legendary untouchable tresses, and it did not fail to impress him that she should grant to a Dwarf what she had often refused the highest Princes of the Eldar.  But nor did he greatly esteem Galadriel and her whims.


“I ask that Gimli be granted the full rights of an allied lord,” Legolas demanded then, respectfully but firmly, though Thranduil recoiled in abject horror.  “Aran Éomer Éomundion granted him claim to the Halls of Aglarond in Rohan to rule in his own right, so in this he may be independent of Erebor.  I deem he has earned our goodwill at the very least.”  They stared steadily at one another.  “I was not alone when I stood upon the land that claimed the blood of your father.”


Thranduil was sullen, his indignant fire still burning but with smaller and smaller excuse, though Legolas had deliberately inflicted a glancing wound by that last remark.  By this point the King seemed indeed to have begun to consider condoning the Dwarf's presence within his halls, but never had he imagined the reaches of Legolas' extraordinary proposal.  The full rights of an allied lord implied a near-sacred kinship with the ruling king which amounted to a kind of voluntary brotherhood, which would in turn make any breach of faith all the blacker.  It carried also the benefit of unquestioning trust – at least officially – and thereby the freedom to go whither he would throughout the entirety of their domain as one of their own.  Never before had such an honor been extended to a Dwarf in any of Greenwood's principalities.  


“You know you ask much of me,” Thranduil said darkly, his eyes turning a more vivid green.  “Have I no say now in choosing my own allies?  Or do the misgivings of your father mean nothing to you?”


Legolas said nothing for a moment, mindful of his subordinate position.  "I would not ask if I did not already have every faith in him," he said at last.


Thranduil looked at him earnestly, and his manner seemed to soften into reluctant resignation.  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the desk, the brooding falcon on his shoulder only adding to his predatory demeanor.  “Gimli aside, what of his father?" he asked.  "I know Glóin does not love me.  Is it wise to bare our weaknesses to the kin of a festering foe?”


“Leave Glóin and his like to me.”  Legolas' attitude was grim, determined to cross that bridge himself when he should come to it.  Despite his mother's kind and gentle nature, there was indeed a strain of Thranduil’s steel running through him.  But then he melted in the face of his implacable father, having exhausted all his reason and appealing now to the heart.  “Please, father?  Will you not trust me?”


Thranduil sighed discontentedly, his shoulders slackening a bit as though his resistance had been stricken its death blow.  It had been many, many years since Legolas had last given him fawn eyes.  He was still so very like his mother when he did that.  


Legolas recognized that it would be a downhill battle from here.


Thranduil dismissed the falcon as though he just noticed him, the bird taking a graceful though somewhat affronted flight back to his perch.  “I suppose he smokes?” he asked bluntly.


“Yes, I am afraid he does,” Legolas admitted.


Thranduil grunted.  “I thought so.”  He considered a moment, his gaze distant and downcast.  At last he heaved a final sigh of reluctant but admitted defeat.  “Very well,” he said, as though the concession had been wrung from him.  “I shall grant him my safe-conduct.”


Legolas beamed.  “Thank you, father!”  He would have embraced him, but Thranduil stopped him firmly at arm's length, one final reservation asserting itself.  The King looked over his son critically, suspiciously, seeming relieved that he had bathed so promptly.


“You are certain he is not . . . ah . . . pest-ridden?”


Legolas drew back at the very idea.  “I sincerely hope not!”


“I, too.”  Thranduil gave a wry hint of a smile.  “Those Dúnedain are bad enough.  Belain, you never know what they have got.”


“No,” Legolas agreed absently.  For a moment they simply looked at each other; the war had changed them both, though the changes Legolas knew his father saw in him were less than subtle.  Thranduil would have changed more had he not merely exchanged one burden for another, worry for worry.  


“Safe-conduct does not mean full rights,” the King insisted.  “Let him prove himself ere he goes without guard.  And I trust you to know which places will be too sensitive yet for foreign eyes.”  He paused a moment, as if just realizing the obvious.  “You left him alone?”


Legolas smirked, a wicked glint in his eye strangely reminiscent of Oropher.  “I assure you, father, he will go nowhere before I return.”




Overall, Gimli was satisfied with the amenities Lasgalen offered.  The soap was not scented, nor were the towels richly embroidered, both unlike Rivendell.  Everything he had seen so far seemed to affirm what he had recognized of Thranduil's natural practicality.


As he sat in his steaming bath, Gimli considered his first impressions of the Elvenking.  Hostile, but seemingly with admirable self-discipline, thank the Powers.  He had not seen the parsimonious despot his father had suggested to his mind, the petty tyrant, but instead had recognized an admirable and formidable Lord.


Ha -- formidable.  That was to state it delicately.  Fair as all the ruling High Elves were fair, which was to say frighteningly so.  He must be a mean one if he had outlasted the wiles of Mirkwood.


There was a volatile air about him that was a trifle unnerving, to be sure, as he was restrained by nothing but his own will, and his uninvited guest went free only at his forbearance.  He considered the name, the way the Elves rolled their r's over their tongues: Ar-r-ran Thr-r-randuil.  It was itself almost a majestic growl.


The journey had been too long and the water was too warm.  Take your time, Legolas had said, and he was actually learning to enjoy this, much though he was loath to admit it.  The Elves had served him without a word and then gladly left him, as though they cared not to see him for a long while yet.  He slipped into a doze, abandoning his original plan to finish quickly and be done with it.


He might have managed to drown himself had he been sleeping very deeply.  But he woke some time later, sputtering in a tub of tepid water.  Blah.  Wrapped in a towel, he wrung out his thick beard and hair.  But upon leaving the bath chamber, he stopped short.


His clothes were gone.


After a mere moment of initial confusion there came again a veritable litany of flaming Dwarvish curses within walls that had never heard their like before, casting aspersions upon the ancestry of both their masters!  So here at last was the treachery of the Elves!  Treachery, treachery, treachery!  


As he paused to take a breath, he caught a rap at the door.  “Gimli?”


“Legolas!” he roared back, upon which his companion opened the door a cautious crack and peered inside with a wary smile, as though he had expected such a reaction and watched for flying projectiles.  “Where are my clothes, you . . . you . . . Elf!”


“Oh,” he said, with a maddeningly nonchalant air, fair and regal in his own robes.  Irreproachable.  “They were somewhat worn and soiled from the journey, so whilst you were occupied I took the liberty of . . . disposing of them.”


“What?”


“Oh, you shall have them back,” Legolas assured him, laughter in his eyes, “once they have been washed.  But for now I should like you to come with me.”


“Like THIS?”


“No,” Legolas laughed.  “In these.”  He dropped a bundle of clothes onto the divan near the door, folded still, but in tell-tale shades of forest green and grey.  Very Elvish.  “I hope I have not kept you waiting, but we had little enough time to throw these together.”


Gimli was momentarily aghast, his bedraggled beard still dripping.  “If you think you will dress me up like some pointy-eared dryad, you are mistaken!”


Legolas seemed not to hear.  “Oh, and my father has more or less accepted you,” he said, by the way.  “Yes, I had to beg, but apparently in my weakness is my strength.”  He smiled cryptically, then moved to leave.  “You are expected tonight at the feast,” he mentioned as he closed the door after him.  “It would be a shame if you should miss it.”


“Legolas!” Gimli shouted after him, but to no avail.  “No!  I won't wear 'em!  Do you hear me?  LEGOLAS!”







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