Legolas rested his battle wearied flesh and his uncertainty plagued mind for the remainder of the day, interrupting his wakeful dreams only to take food, and to receive a visit from his father. Shortly after sunset Glorfindel returned to change his dressing and bring him bittersweet news.
"I am leaving for Rivendell in the morning. You father's healers are well prepared to see to your wound's progress. My companions are eager to return home, as am I. I hope you do not feel we insult your father's offer of continued hospitality."
Shifting his weight to help Glorfindel adjust him back into the pillows, Legolas smiled sadly. "No, Glorfindel. I understand, more than you know. I only wish I were well enough to travel with you."
Such regret in those words, such longing. Glorfindel snugged the blankets around the prince's legs as would a doting parent. "As I have said, you will be, in time to see the spring return to Imladris," he promised sincerely.
With a purse of his lips, Legolas stared off into the distance, a great veil of sadness curtaining across his face. "It seems so distant now."
"Rivendell, or the spring?"
"Both." Mirkwood's young prince seemed lost in a private daydream, sweetness and sorrow both reflected in his eyes at the very same time.
Sensing Legolas required privacy and silence to enjoy his memories of Imladris' delights, Glorfindel affectionately patted the prince's shoulder and stepped back toward the doorway. "Can I do any more for you this evening?"
Legolas suddenly returned to the present, a hopeful smile unfurling across his lips. "On my dressing table, there is a small chest. Bring it to me."
The elder elf turned around and walked over to the mirrored table, carefully picked up a miniature chest and returned to the bed with it in hand. "It is heavy -- do you have some of your father's famed hoard of treasure in here?" he teased, hefting the box in an exaggerated manner.
Shrugging, Legolas accepted the box into his lap. "A few trinkets and baubles he believed I would appreciate, as well as some remembrances of my mother and sister."
"I did not know you had a sister. Your father and brother have not spoken of her in my presence."
"My father forbids it," Legolas sadly whispered, laying his hands protectively over the top of the jewel encrusted chest. "His pain runs too deep, even after nearly two centuries."
"I feel your sorrow, Legolas," Glorfindel softly replied. "Losing one's family is among the greatest pains fate can decree."
The prince trained his eyes firmly upon the domed lid of the chest, as if either trying to burn a memory into the box, or extract a memory from its interior. "I do not remember either of them well -- a few fleeting moments, or sometimes slightly more in my dreams."
Glorfindel flashed a sympathetic smile of understanding. "You feel the need to remember them more clearly this night?"
"Perhaps." Lost in his own thoughts, Legolas stared into space once more, beyond his bed, beyond the confining, cold stone walls of the cavern carved palace. "You will return to say farewell in the morning, will you not?"
"Of course."
Legolas slowly nodded, a haunted smile interlacing longing and expectation upon his lips. "Good. I will have a message for you to take back to Lord Elrond."
"Then I will see to it that he receives it."
With a slight hint of a bow, Glorfindel turned to leave, Legolas watching his departure with doubt-darkened eyes. "Now I must decide what exactly my message will be," he softly muttered under his breath.
Closing his eyes, Legolas swallowed the stone of memories from his throat and carefully unlatched the chest. Opening the lid, he gazed upon the collected tangibles of his younger years for the first time in almost a century. He first took out a gold fillet, which claimed far too much space, decorated with copper leaves purposefully tarnished to give them the hue of the forest greenery. It had been a gift from his father upon coming of age, and he had worn it only a handful of times in all the years since. It somehow confined him, bound him to an office he did not feel comfortable holding. His much elder brother was the heir to the throne, and took great relish in that role. Legolas had always been the free spirited one, truly a child of the forest. "This one is too much like his sister," he had heard his father's ministers whisper when they thought he could not hear. He had never understood why it sounded like an insult to his ears.
With a weighty sigh of lost innocence, he returned his attention to the task at hand, carefully digging through the contents of the long neglected box. The totems and tokens of childish delights and pride came to light, each bringing a smile of remembrance to his lips. Smooth, multicolored stones found at the bottom of the great river, a perfect acorn he had insisted be coated in gold to preserve it for all time, and the tail from his very first arrow shot in an orc hunt, its head still buried somewhere in the tallest oak in the forest. He smiled at the thought that both his aim and his confidence had mightily improved since those tender years. Mind the confidence, unless you wish to have more holes pierced into you.
Cursing his current state of infirmity, he rummaged on through the contents, vainly looking for something which could even hope to come close to conveying his deep affection for Elrond, and pay respect to the exalted gift he had received by the return of one in kind.
There, finally, at the very bottom of the chest, carefully hidden under items no one but a child would think of importance, Legolas found the answer to his quest. With an awed, silent parting of his lips, he reverently extricated the delicate silver object. Cradling it in one hand, he hesitantly turned it over to examine more closely, a smile born of the piercing clarity of a memory time could not rob from him blessing his face. It had belonged to his mother -- a small thing, of little intrinsic value. Legolas seemed to recall that she had not shared the idle pleasures of gold and gems with his father, instead delighting in the simple pleasures of the forest and the stars. She had taught him his first lessons in their stories, as well as the names of all the birds of the forest, encouraging him to mimic their calls, much to the unimpressed grumbling of his father.
Curling his fingers around the treasured bit of silver, he raised his hand to his chest and held it to his heart. He had guilty stolen this from his mother's dressing table the day she had died, sneaking into his parents' chambers while the adults occupied themselves with funeral preparations. In his childish innocence he had believed if he held on to such a personal and much loved object, that she would eventually return for it, even from the Houses of Mandos, themselves. He was merely keeping it safe, until she returned to claim it. He didn't remember when exactly he had given up that vain hope -- perhaps part of him never had. It had once been his most cherished possession. Now, that honor had strangely changed in an instant of time to the book still laying beside him, now hidden beneath his covers where he had hurriedly stashed the volume during his father's unannounced audience.
Legolas opened his hand and stared down at his purloined prize. It was the most dear thing he had to offer, yet it would seem so little, so insignificant, without the proper explanation. Hesitating, he realized there was no way he could convey its true value other than in person, but that would mean Glorfindel would return to Imladris bearing nothing but his woefully inadequate words. A flash of inspired connectivity seared away his doubts and returned the smile to his face. He remembered a conversation he had shared with Elrond, precipitated by Arwen's sound teasing of them both the morning after they had enjoyed each other's flesh for the very first time. "Yes, he will make some meaning of this," he happily whispered, returning the other miscellaneous contents to the chest before closing and securing it. The full meaning can await my return to his arms. Quickly tucking his intended gift safely beneath the blankets, he called out for the aide patiently stationed just outside his quarters. His gift required a proper wrapping, and an introduction....
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