CHAPTER 35:  THE HEART OF THE ELF

Clutching a handful of athelas, Aragorn made his way to Legolas’ room in the citadel, his step lighter than it had been a few hours ago. He had just reached a satisfying agreement with his councilors on a minor but persistent problem, which did much to lift his spirits.

His earlier fears of Legolas leaving Middle-earth because of his wounds still nettled him, but with each step he took, he began to hope that he could heal the elf and remove the Shadow so that his friend would suffer no longer – and perhaps then he would not have to sail as Frodo did.

For his sake, and for mine, he thought honestly.

Whatever power the Valar had blessed his hands with – it had, during the Quest, driven the darkness from Eowyn and Merry when they fell victim to the Black Breath of an even more terrible servant of Mordor: the Witchking, chief of the Nazgûl. The memory made Aragorn hope that the shadow of Sarambaq – a much lesser minion – would be easier to dispel.

When he reached Legolas’ room, he found the outer door a little ajar. Instructing his guards to stay outside, he walked in and called quietly in case the elf was resting, or with his father. But the bedchamber within was empty. The only movement came from the thin curtains billowing in the breeze that blew into the chamber through the open balcony doors. Aragorn could see beyond them the gardens and woods that the elf loved – the same scene that could be viewed from one side of his own chambers.

Aragorn was about to turn back when he heard voices wafting in with the breeze. He would have continued his exit from the room if he had not heard one word carried in on the wind: his own name.

Curiously, he moved towards the balcony, lightening his step as only one with elvish blood could. When he reached it, he stood there for long minutes, transfixed by what he heard.

Legolas Greenleaf long under tree

In joy thou hast lived. Beware of the Sea!

If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore,

Thy heart shall then rest in the forest no more!

Legolas and Thranduil sat on a stone bench beneath the balcony of Legolas’ room, their fair faces caressed by the breeze that sighed around them. The long golden hair of father and son lifted and mingled behind and around them so that whoever laid their eyes upon them now would see a breathtaking picture of soft radiance framing elven faces too fair to be measured by the words of Men.

They spoke in serious tones, but did not bother to hush their voices, for none save the elves and Aragorn would understand Sindarin.

“Is your sea-longing known to Elessar, ion nin?” was what Aragorn heard from the balcony above, the query phrased by the sonorous voice of the elf king.

Legolas paused to consider his answer. Over and over in the past few days, as it had many times before, his mind echoed with the warning that the Lady Galadriel had sent him about what would happen if he ever heard the cry of the gulls. What she prophesied had held true for the past ten years, and the words resounded in his head again when he replied.

“Aragorn heard the message of the Lady when Gandalf spoke it… but he cannot fathom the sentiment, Adar. No Man can, for they are not subject to the same call.”

“I must confess I cannot either, Legolas, for I have not heard it,” his father said. “Yet I know many who had, and they told me of the torment of denying it for too long.” The king looked at his son meaningfully and stated: “They have all since sailed.”

Thranduil waited patiently while Legolas pondered the unstated meaning of his father’s words. Then the younger elf spoke.

“It is not always a torment, Adar,” he began. “Most of the time, it is more of… an aching… a restlessness within me that needs to be quelled. I feel drawn towards… something… and it calls to me to seek it and surrender to it.”

Thranduil noted how the features on his son’s fair face knotted as he struggled to describe the affliction. “Is it so terrible to bear?” the elf king asked softly.

Unknown to Thranduil, he was not the only king awaiting his son’s answer.

Legolas sighed. “It is, sometimes,” he answered honestly, unaware that a human heart above him tightened upon hearing this confession. “When the call is strong – I find no peace and no rest no matter where I turn. But at other times, I find solace in unlikely places.”

“Where?”

“In the woods of Ithilien. Although the Lady spoke true – that I would no longer find lasting peace under the trees – they offer me more comfort than stone walls,” said Legolas. “And solace, too, I find in the company of those who are dear to me.”

Thranduil nodded slowly, having expected the latter part of his answer, and his question came without reserve. “Is it because of the Lord Elessar that you have not given in to it and sailed these past years? Is your love for him so great that you would bear the painful call of the Sea to stay till his passing?”

A faraway look glazed Legolas’ eyes as he pondered the question. It was not the gardens and sounds of Minas Tirith that he saw and heard now, but a distant scene and dialogue:

He was seated with Gimli, Merry and Pippin outside the Houses of Healing during the Quest, and the dwarf was recounting to the hobbits the terrible fear he had felt as the Grey Company traversed the chilly and dreadful Paths of the Dead.

“I was held to the road only by the will of Aragorn,” the dwarf confessed.

Legolas nodded in agreement and added his own sentiments: “And by the love of him also, for all those who come to know him come to love him after their own fashion.”

“For my part… I wish that the war was now over,” Gimli lamented a little later. “Yet whatever is still to do, I hope to have a part in it, for the honour of the folk of the LonelyMountain.”

“And I for the folk of the Great Wood,” Legolas declared, “and for the love of the Lord of the White Tree.”

Legolas’ thoughts returned to the present, to the question his father had posed: was he staying because of Aragorn?

“It is not the only reason, Adar, but it is perhaps the strongest,” Legolas admitted at last. “I do not fear leaving you, for I know that you too will sail in time and I will see you again. But my mortal friends… Estel…”

Legolas shook his head, and his father waited.

“He has always been dear to me, Adar, even before the Quest – but it was during those months when our lives and deaths were in each other’s hands that the bonds of trust and friendship became unbreakable. His nobility grew before my eyes, and I saw then the great man he was destined to become even before he was crowned. He commanded my loyalty then as no other has, save you.”

A wistful smile graced the face of the elf prince.

“But in the last ten years of his reign, I have also seen in this great king the vulnerabilities that make him the remarkable person he is. He is a stern ruler, but he has much compassion. He is strong, but he can be weakened. His patience goes to great lengths, but his fury can burst forth at a touch.

“He has all of Gondor and the Northern Lands at his command, yet he seeks the help of a dwarf in rebuilding his City, and he begs a group of elves – a fading race – to make his forests live and breathe again. The Lord of the White Tree, Adar, is a human king who can rule tens of thousands, but needs the company of two or three who truly love him. He can strike fear into the fiercest of armies… yet his heart would break at the loss of the two or three he holds closest.”

Thranduil was silenced by this picture of the Lord Elessar that his son painted as no other had ever done: a great king, and a very sensitive Man.

“That is why he has had my love and my loyalty, Adar. Since the Quest, I told myself that I would not leave him unless my life were torn from me.”

Tears streamed down the face of the man who stood unmoving on the balcony above. He felt a pang of guilt for listening to the conversation, but his feet were rooted to the spot.

“But what of yourself, Legolas?” Thranduil asked gently. “Elessar is a worthy friend, of that I have no doubt, and I am grateful that he treasures your companionship so deeply. Yet, you are my son, and it is your well-being that claims my first concern: how long will you let yourself suffer this sea-longing?”

“Aragorn’s life is but one drop in the vast ocean of my lifespan, Adar, as is Gimli’s – but that drop is precious, and I would drink of it ere it dried up, as it will all too soon.”

At the look of consternation on his father’s face, Legolas hastened to say more.

“Perhaps it is because of the brevity of the time I have with Aragorn, with all of them, that makes my appreciation of them so intense. Would you not do the same for someone whom you knew would be taken from you tomorrow? Would you not savor whatever time was left, Adar?”

The elf king pondered these words and nodded reluctantly. “Yes, if I had known your naneth would be taken from me, I would have. So I understand your commitment to him, ion nin.”

Legolas smiled, but his father was not finished.

“Yet you must remember, Legolas: this world is no longer ours. The age of the Firstborn is over; it has long been over. Men now rule, and not all Men welcome us. What happened with Sarambaq is just one example of what may happen to us should we dwell longer. More and more, Men will find us strange as our presence becomes less common, for our kin diminish. Men will fear us because we are strange to them, and fear can breed contempt. Fear can lead Men to take up arms against us, Legolas, if our deeds should one day run counter to their expectations.”

The note of sadness in the elf king’s voice grew stronger as he continued.

“The fear of Men poses a danger to all who are different – it is the way of the world. The longer you stay in Arda, the greater the risk that you will not see Valinor as you desire. My fear is that all the sacrifices you make for Elessar will be for naught.”

Legolas opened his mouth to voice an argument, but Thranduil would not be daunted.  

“And now this, Legolas…” the elf king went on, “…this mark of Mordor left on you assails you with a darkness that I cannot comprehend, but which I can sense and loathe. It is no longer just the sea-longing that haunts you. The Shadow may grow to cloak you in its power, and the Undying Lands are the only place where you will find healing from it.

“Legolas – this darkness shadows you, your wounds pain you, the world of Men threatens you, and the sea-longing afflicts you. If there was ever a time that you should sail, my son – it is now! Surely – with all that has happened, you can fathom my concern, and consider what I hope for you.”

“I have thought about it, Adar,” Legolas countered gently, “but whether I act on it – and when – remains to be seen.”

“I do not think Aragorn would hold you to your word to stay here after all this,” the elf king pressed on. “He would be too noble to impose such a selfish demand on you.”

Legolas winced at the words, recalling again his conversation with Gimli and the hobbits outside the Houses of Healing after Mordor’s assault on Minas Tirith:

The four companions of the Fellowship looked out over the river Anduin on which Legolas and Gimli had sailed up in the ships of the Black Fleet.

“Look! Gulls!” Legolas cried. “A wonder they are to me and a trouble to my heart. Never in all my life had I met them, until I came to Pelargir and there we heard them crying in the air... Then I stood still, forgetting war in Middle-earth; for their wailing voices spoke to me of the Sea. The Sea! Alas! I have not beheld it. But deep in the hearts of all my kindred lies the sea-longing which is perilous to stir. Alas! for the gulls. No peace shall I have again under beech or elm.”

“Say not so!” begged Gimli. “If all the fair folk take to the Havens, it will be a duller place for those doomed to stay.”

“Dull and dreary indeed!” Merry added. “You must not go to the Havens, Legolas. There will always be some folk, big or little, and even a few wise dwarves like Gimli, who will need you.”

Do not go to the Havens, Legolas. Do not leave Middle-earth.

Legolas smiled fondly at the recollection and shook his head in response to his father’s question.

“No, Adar, Aragorn would not demand that I remain in Middle-earth; he would wish that I did so freely,” Legolas said with confidence. “But even if he did ask it of me, it would not be because he was selfish, it would be because he is a Man.” Or dwarf, or hobbit, he thought, smiling ruefully. “None of our people would beg it of us, Adar, for they know we will meet again in the West. But our parting with mortals is forever. If they asked, I would not hold it against them. They have a right to try and hold on to the ones they love.”

“Still, ion nin, I ask that you think about this, and reconsider your stand,” the father argued. “I may not leave for a long time, for the Sea calls not to me, yet I know I too will sail when our people have grown tired of a world that no longer welcomes us. But you, Legolas – should not wait, for all the reasons I have given. Saes, please – will you not open your heart again to the West? Will you not consider this seriously?”

The silence after the request seemed deafening to both kings listening. Then the soft reply, riding on the wave of a sigh of sadness, came from the elf prince.

“Very well, Adar. I will.”

On the balcony above them, Aragorn had stopped breathing. The athelas in his hands fell to the floor, strewn about his feet like the pieces of his shattered hopes.

*Note: The lines in italics are from Tolkien's Return of the King.   In case you were not aware: the title of this story is also a direct quote from this episode in the book.