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Leaves of Gold	By : ladyelina Category: -Multi-Age > Slash - Male/Male Views: 1377 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings (and associated) book series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Rating for this
chapter: R.

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Chapter 2: Leaves of Gold There Grew

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Look: I feel how I'm
moving away,

how I'm shedding my old life, leaf by leaf.

Only your smile spreads like sheer stars

over you and, soon now, over me.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Sacrifice

Translated by Edward Snow
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Lothl�rien, February
3019 of therd Ard Age

Arwen vanimelda, nam�ri�!>

Thus I bade my
farewell to a memory in sunlight by Cerin Amroth. On that hill I once stood, the hand of Evenstar folded inside my own, and chose my path. Long
years have passed and I am divided in two: a foster child of the Elven-folk and an heir to the kingdoms of Men, two who
belong to different places and times. When I step out of this realm, I will
leave behind Estel, the foster son of Rivendell; despite what darkness the road ahead may hold,
he shall ever linger on that green hill with his Evenstar,
in the fairest of moments he has known. The fate of Aragorn son of Arathorn I will take upon me for good and bear it until my
death, be the end of the road one short stab of sword away, or beyond long
years of peace. For all is changed, and I can no longer turn back.

Lessened by one was the
Fellowship when it entered the Golden Wood. And although he was but one, he was
more: he knew earth and wind and meaning behind all things as only few know.
With him our road may have twisted and wound, but everever strayed from its
course. Without him the way is hidden, and I know it is my part to take the
first steps.

I do not know yet
what will guide them.

I must spend my grief
away until it wears thin and leave here the burden of mourning, for the strain is
heavy already, and strange mists cover our path. I must grieve deeply in
solitude, I must grieve openly in the company of those who know the same
sorrow, and then I must leave behind what has been and look towards what is yet
to come. For the days of my life are growing shorter, and in
the flow of time they fly by ever swifter. Even if I will be granted to
walk the full span of my forefathers' kin on this earth, stone will be consumed
but little and not many springs will run dry within the cycle of the years I
will see. My bond to the Elf-kindred makes my time look a brighter and more
fleeting flash by their slowly diminishing life. This bond is both a gift and a
burden, true yet incomplete; I may never be one of them, but were it not for
them, I would not be what I am today.

I am divided in two
and see my own steps falter, I see them tarry.

Lady Galadriel placed
a riddle into my heart as she put us through the trial of her gaze. She
awakened a memory in me that had worn thin and faded, like a banner that had
been waving under the sun for too many summers. She coloured it anew and wove
the threads into their rightful places until the vision was clear before me, as
if I had woken up to it this very morning. I saw in my mind the most familiar
and beloved tree of my youth. It was no taller or fairer than other Rivendell trees, but I knew by heart the very shade of red
that hued its top in the springtime, I could tell in the midsummer already what
day of the year it would shed its first autumn-coloured leaf, and I could see
the black and green web of its branches against the sky even with my eyes
closed. Slender and straight rose the tree from the
ground, calm and still while the world was changing.

Under the tree I saw
myself, taller and stronger than my fifteen years of age, although not an ounce
wiser. I pressed my hand to the smooth-white tree bark that was both cool and
warm. Life wavered powerful below it, burning my hand like sunlight, whirring
against my fingertips like insects' wings. I wrapped my arms around the tree
and pressed my cheek against the trunk. I imagined what the tree would have
told me, had I been given the gift of hearing possessed by the Elven-folk.

I have grown here
before your time, and here I will still be, when you are gone.

The strength of the
tree flowed into me and cast a shimmering shelter around my heart, making me
courageous and omnipotent.

Thus ended the memory
and it was folded away, frail and colourless. I wondered and wanted to ask the
Lady of her meaning, but the elven-light of her eyes
was already turned away. She was having a silent conversation with Legolas of Mirkwood in a manner
that only another Elf could understand. Legolas's lips were
softly parted and a rare glow burned his cheeks. He seemed to be breathing in the
words of the Lady, but I could not read their secret in him.
/p>

With that I left the
Lady's halls, but the riddle lingered, gnawing at me. If the trial was meant to
tempt us, why should she have shown me what was no longer in my reach? To
abstain from it was easy, and I needed not lower my head under her gaze. How
did she believe she would lure my heart with images of the past? For while the
place was dearer to me than any other on earth and my hope was bound there,
there is no magic known to Elves, Men or any other creatures that could reverse
the flow of time.

There are many things
I do not yet understand.

The weariness and
wounds of my body have been washed away by gentle rainfalls and light winds,
but the black scar of loss remains. Among the shadows of the woods my grief
seeks the company of the one whose heart I know to be closest to my own in this
matter. While death is different to Elves than Men, the sorrow wrought by it is
no less, and of all my companions it was he who knew Gandalf as I did. We had
walked with him on his journeys over many years, and countless were the tales
he told us and kept from others. Memories have beeninedined dark by the loss,
but if we can help each other brighten them into jewels on the band of days and
nights, then the road may yet hold hope for us and our steps will be lighter.

I find Legolas on the flet where he has
made his resting place. He is sitting near the edge of the narrow wooden
platform, his knees bent, his body a stripe of light against the shadows
rippling in the stream of air. The greenness of spring is long gone from the
thick leaf-curtains fringing the flet; only the thin
light of winter is reflected on r gor gold-veined surfaces. Legolas's fingers are
fondling the worn wooden floor absently, and I can tell his mind is wandering
in the Northern forests. I cloak my voice in light tones as I address him.

"I am surprised
not to find master Gimli in your company."

He smiles and looks
at me.

"Master Dwarf expressed
his wish to get some rest after the tedious trials of the lunch. I do not
believe we will see him before dinner."

"It is good our
companions know how to gather their strength."

His smile shrivels
away. He stands up and steps towards me, his gaze alert, then stops to examine
my face.

"Aragorn, you
mourn still."

"As
do you. A farewell left
unsaid is the hardest to bear." My voice is suddenly unfamiliar and
broken. "Gandalf was gone too swiftly."

"In times of war
and peril there is seldom time for a farewell," Legolas
says quietly.

"It could have
been prevented," I say, and bitterness rolls in me heavy and crushing.
"I foresaw the danger, yet did not warn him well enough."

Legolas's eyes flash like light through the thick ceiling of the forest.

"Few things can
be truly foreseen," he replies. "Time is a story that changes by the moment, and none of us may understand their part in it until
it has been written through to the end."

"So may it seem
to Elves, but to mankind time is an ever-narrowing path, the end of which is
brought closer by every step," I say, my voice rising. "Many is the moment when a mortal wonders if his choices have gone
astray. And if he will learn to choose any wiser, before the path comes
irrevocably to the end."

"Have we not at
each fork of our road chosen the direction that seemed to hold most hope for us
at the time? Some choices are not made lightly, but under constraint."

"If something is
done under constraint, how does it deserve the name of a choice anymore?"

The rawness in my
voice surprises even me as I cry out the words. Legolas
freezes, and nothing is moving on his face. Black and
blue shadows are smouldering deep in his eyes.

"Because we
could have given up and turned around, yet we carried on," he says very quietly.

And then he pulls me
into his arms. My sigh vents out heavily into his hair. His chest is rising,
his muscles tensing and relaxing under his skin. His frame is
firm and warm and yet cool, his touch light and steady. My furrowed
forehead rests against the arch of his smooth neck. His fingers move in my hair
slowly, soothingly, and his voice falls in bright droplets among the branches
that surround us.

"Grieve not for
what is out of reach. Every deed will lead to others; water will run endlessly from
within stone where it has once been unleashed from earth's captivity and break
an ever wider passage to rush through. We cannot change the past, and the
future remains veiled always. Perhaps the only meaning is written in this very
moment."

I sink weakly against
him and let him cradle me. His breathing follows mine in the steady rhythm of
nights and days. He is the earth and I am a tide that comes and goes. He is the
air and I am an insect that flies in it for a moment. Together we are the
mourning that will pass because it must, but not vanish; it will grow to be a
part of us, a step on our path.

He turns his head,
moving it hardly for the width of a stalk of grass, but my lips hit
unintentionally the skin below his ear. His hand starts in the folds of my
tunic.

Desire stabs me deep
and unexpected.

I hear Legolas gasp sharply and realise he has felt the stirring
in my body. Instinctively I draw apart from him; my first thought is to turn
around and walk away without looking back. Yet I do not take a step. I stand
still, looking at him. I listen to my own heart that is hammering like hard
rain on the surface of a flooding river. A narrow crack flickers on Legolas's
face, but it seals up immediately and leaves behind a smooth, inscrutable
expression.

His arm stirs and I
quiver to yield. For one moment I imagine he is going to strike me. There are
desires and deeds which must go unnamed and unspoken of between two men, and
between a man and Elf they would be considered no less than unnatural. Once in the
past the curtain of friendship fell from between us and borders were crossed
that should not have been. We replaced it and never spoke of what had passed. I
thought I had banished the weakness from me far into distant shadows. It would
be but justified if heisheished me for my failure, for betraying our friendship
again.

But Legolas does not strike. He takes my hand, raises it and
presses it onto his chest, upon his heart. The beat is steady and stable under
his flesh and bones. Slowly he moves my hand lower along his body, towards his
waist and ever downwards. I follow the movement with my eyes, until he stops
it. I can feel him through the grey elven-fabric of
his trousers. He is emanating a surprising heat, like a fiercely breathing,
tense animal preparing for an attack inside its fur.

He hardens against my
hand, and his desire cuts into me as deep as my own.

Water will ever run
from within stone where it has once been unleashed from earth's captivity.

I raise my eyes and
look into his, where the elven-light burns dark and
serious. Legolas's
face is serene, but I see thoughts swarm in him restlessly. I draw my hand
away. A shadow touches his brow before he speaks.

"Forgive me. I
was too bold. I would not have you turn your eyes from the light that shines at
the end of your path."

I feel another
stirring inside me, this time about my heart.

"When even the
wisest fall, there is naught but darkness on the path,
and the very next step may meet an abyss," I reply. "Small is the
comfort of memories and dreams in such times."

I raise my hand on Legolas's
face. I run my fingertips over his cheekbone, along the graceful arch of the
jaw. My thumb brushes his lips and my hand continues onto his neck. A low sound
emerges from his throat and he clutches my wrist, stopping my touch.

"Yet I would not
have you stray on a whim."

"It is no whim
to me," I say, and know I have spoken the truth.

"Neither is it
to me," he whispers.

And that is the end
of words.

We stand still at the
face of this understanding, both of us waiting for the other one to move first.
Slowly his fingers tighten around my wrist. I hear my breathing stumble and
break, mingle with his breathing as my face brushes his. His lips are there,
moist and warm, and he kisses me deeply.

Everything in me is
directed towards him, every thought, every touch, every
rush of blood inside my veins.

Finally he breaks the
kiss and looks at me examining, searching. I press my forehead against his,
resting in the moment. His voice is not stable nor
certain as he asks,

"What will this
change?"

I remain quiet for a
moment before answering.

"Everything. And yet nothing."

I draw back and
another rift visits his face before hiding swiftly away.

"So be it,
then."

I am divided in two.

I touch him. It is a
mortal man's touch: impatient, hasty. It tries to grasp time and restrain it.
His body is calm, nearly motionless against the fire of my hands. Life wavers
powerful below his skin. He has grown here before my time, and here he will
still be, when I am gone.

I taste moist woods
and earth in him, living flesh and the spirit that inhabits it.

Slowly we remove
every parting item of clothing from between us. We open the tight laces of tunics
and rigid buckles of belts, arduous fastenings of trousers, uncomfortable knots
of underwear. I know the clothes will be heavier to bear and their stains more
difficult to wash away once I put them all on again. But Legolas
touches me where I am both soft and hard, and I grow towards his light like a
stalk. We intertwine as one as he guides my hands and mouth on his familiar,
yet strange body. Wind blows quietly through the cage of branches above us. Leaves of gold move against each other.

When sleep crouches
into me, Legolas's
hand is upon my heart. He is awake beside me, the warmth of his skin on mine.
His gaze lingers upon me spell-like. His arms will only loosen their hold of me
when I know it no longer.

When sleep takes me,
he remainsp>

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Notes:

Arwen vanimelda,
nam�ri�! = Beautiful Arwen,
farewell!

Frodo hears Aragorn speak these words at the foot of the
hill of Cerin Amroth, when
the Fellowship enters Lothl�rien. Cerin
Amroth was where Aragorn gave Arwen
the ring of Barahir in 2980 T.A.: 'And there upon
that hill they looked east to the Shadow and west to the Twilight, and they
plighted their troth and were glad.' (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A:
'The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen'. See also Appendix B:
'The Tale of Years'.)

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Leaves of Gold