Chapter Text
“Legolas, my son, come, sit by me. Take a cup of wine, for today you come of age, and I would speak with you of the history of our Kingdom.”
Today you come of age. Have I really been alone here so long? I never meant it to be this way. I always thought one of your brothers would be fit to rule by now.
“You have been taught, no doubt, that my Kingdom was founded by my father, your Grandfather, Oropher. Early in the Second Age of the Sun, he came East, seeking a land where as Sindarin elves we could be free of the interference of the Noldor, or of any other people.”
Drink your wine, my son. I know you are not listening – you never listen, but, when I do not look straight at you, when I allow my gaze to wander, for all that they say you look like me, your way of holding yourself, your movements, are so like hers that for a short while I feel not so alone.
“For the glory that was Thingol’s Doriath had been destroyed. Sacked twice in evil circumstance, first by the grasping greed of the Naugrim, and second by the treacherous sons of Feanor.”
“Ah, Doriath, Doriath. Most wondrous land in Beleriand. There Thingol rightly kept aloof from the troubles brought back from Arda by Morgoth and the Noldor. There was my father born in the days before the sun, and I too, although this was later. Doriath was long protected by the girdle of Melian, most fair of Queens, and the caves of Menegroth were fabulous to behold. Our own great palaces here are but a pale shadow of a memory of the wonders of Menegroth, for Thingol hired the Dwarves of Nogord and Belegost to aid in the building, before they betrayed and murdered him, and I would not trust any Naug with the secrets of my fortress and treasury.”
Are you listening to any of this? I have heard you have a worrying tendency to listen to news of other lands. To ask of other races.
“Never trust any who are not of our own people. Never, my son.”
“So, Oropher, after the fall of Morgoth and the remaking of the world, desired not to leave Middle Earth, nor to stay in Lindon, for even though Cirdan the kinsman of Thingol was rebuilding there the Havens and shipyards that had been lost in Falas, he acknowledged the overlordship of Gil-Galad, high king of the Noldor exiles.”
“I was young and foolish, though it must be said not as young and foolish as you, Legolas, even though you are now of age; and I desired to stay in Lindon, for there was much learning that the Noldor exiles could teach.”
Listen to me. Listen to your Ada. I know of other races. I know their faults and I will tell you. You need not make my errors, live through my pain. The world will find you pain of your own, do not doubt it, but I would not watch you needlessly suffer.
“But Oropher my father, and my brothers also, and their followers, came East. Over the Blue Mountains and over the Misty Mountains, and across the wide river Anduin, and found here in Greenwood many Silvan elves, living simply without princes. Glad they were to meet your grandfather, and make him their king, for they knew naught of how best to arrange their lands.”
“Remember, my son, no Silvan can lead, no Silvan can command, no Silvan can rule. They cannot.”
For all your faults, you are my son. Your brothers – both lack the trust of our Silvans. You must accept the way things are. One day, you may be king.
If I die, my people will need you.
Valar help them.
“So Oropher became king of Greenwood, and ordered things as they should be. A Sindarin kingdom as had been Doriath, free of interference and keeping ourselves apart from the troubles of others.”
“Yes, indeed it is best to have little to do with any outsiders. Apart of course to trade for what we cannot make or grow ourselves. Such as this excellent wine of Dorwinion – Sogo gwin, Legolas!”
Yes, drink your wine Legolas, you never listen to me anyway. Drink your wine that you love like the wood-elf you are, abandoned to my people you have grown too like them. You are truly a simple elf, wine, song, fighting, hunting, dancing and combing are all you care for.
Lucky you.
Perhaps in my neglect, I did well by you. I gave you the upbringing your grandfather would have wished for all my sons. Nay, say rather, I ordered you that upbringing – long it is since I held you. Long since your mother left us, and I found I could not bear to hold her likeness in you.
You needed me not. You had tutors, guards, brothers. I was busy. I was always busy. There was always something more important than facing my pain.
And look at you. So fair. So well-mannered. Hardly giving a sign of how much you resent this time wasted with me. So self-contained, so self-possessed. So cold. So well-hidden behind your mask.
So like me.
Yet you look so much like her.
For a short while, I can lose myself in the past, for a short while I can almost imagine the two of us together again. As we could be, had I the courage to follow, had I one to leave this burden of kingship to.
Would I then go over the Sea, over the Sea to find my love? I do not know. I always thought I would, always I thought I would learn to live with Noldor again if that was the price to pay for my love’s contented heart. But – there has always been so much to do, none to leave to care for my people – and perhaps that answers the question. If I loved her more, loved my people less, resented the ease of the elves of Valinor less – perhaps I would have gone long ago.