Fathers and Sons

Chapter 16

Thranduil... my love, you have forgotten me...

Thranduil heard her voice, somewhere far in the distance, across the void. He denied it. He tried to turn away.

Help me...

Thranduil woke with a gasp and a jolt so violent, it frightened the servant who hovered over him. She jumped at his sudden movement, but hurried to his bedside, moving to push him back down.

"Please, milord, you must rest," she bade him. He blinked, trying to focus on her face. She glanced off to her side and the sound of feet pattering across the floor seemed louder than it should. But when the servant's blurry image was replaced with something more familiar, Thranduil had to blink again.

Finally, his vision cleared, and he felt comforted to find Legolas peering down at him as he lay prone in bed. "Legolas..." he gasped softly, his hand weakly grasping out to his side. "My son..."

Legolas grasped his father's hand, squeezing it in his hands, his brow creasing with emotion and with need.

Thranduil forgot who he was, but only momentarily. As his senses cleared, his expression hardened as he pulled his hand away, his usual dour, disapproving expression returning.

"Where am I?" he demanded sternly, as he turned his head away from his son to gaze around the healing room.

"You are in Caras Galadhon," Legolas responded, wincing when that brought a harsh look of disapproval from his father.

"Then you went against my wishes," Thranduil scolded, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized his son. "How many elves did you sacrifice to bring me here?"

Legolas sat back from the bed, his shoulders slumping. "You were dying," he protested, running a hand through the length of his silky blonde hair. It hung loose at the moment, rather than pulled back in a tight ponytail like it usually was, and Thranduil saw her so clearly in his son. "Lady Galadriel could save you. Was I to do nothing?"

"You were to keep our people behind the safety of our halls at all costs," Thranduil berated. He saw Legolas flinch, saw the emotion behind his son's eyes.

Those eyes looked so much like so many Thranduil had lost. Not just his beloved wife, but his own father. The father he had lost so many thousands of years ago in the dead marshes. It was that loss that taught Thranduil that Middle Earth was simply too dangerous.

He knew his words stung Legolas. The way his son glanced away as he continued to berate him, it would have hurt Thranduil if he hadn't learned to keep his emotions so carefully behind that wall of dour and stoicism.

"You talk of costs," Legolas spoke up, turning to narrow his gaze at his father. "Yet you shut yourself off, just as you shut your people from the world. You think you are protecting them from the dangers of this world, yet you are content to watch the world burn around you."

If Legolas only knew how true those words were. And somewhere, deep inside the king, those words hit home. They struck upon the deepest recesses of that buried emotion. Legolas stood up from his chair, stepping backwards.

"I do not regret my actions," his son proclaimed, not bothering to hide the bite from his voice. "And those who died, they died for you, for their king. Maybe one day you will remember what that means."

With that, Legolas stormed out of the room, leaving the king alone. The sting of the heated words exchanged sank in. Even as he lay on his sickbed, watching as his son turned his back and retreated, Thranduil fought his inner struggle, trying to keep that wall around his heart from falling under the weight of hurtful words.