Aralas Oneshots

The end of all things

It was a peaceful day in the beginning of summer, when the flowers just had started to unfold their leaves into full bloom and the birds chirped over the city of Minas Tirith. Legolas sat on a bench in the garden of the palace and simply enjoyed the wind that rustled through his hair and the sun that warmed his face. The days of war were over and now he finally had time to be in the nature again and breathe its calming air. 

Suddenly the wind brought a tune to his ear. It was simple and yet quiet, and he didn't know where it came from, but he could detect it was a fiddle being played. The melody grew slowly, taking him with it on its musical journey and leaving him floating high in the sky, before it fell and gently settled him down on earth again. Then it changed to darker notes, but it became faster too, almost running against the trouble that it produced, and it was so heartpiercingly beautiful, that Legolas had to look around himself to see where the music came from.

And then he spotted the source of it. A long way from him, on the other end of the garden, stood a tall figure, shoulderlong hair and a wide brown tunic on. In his hands he held a fiddle, the bow caressing the strings, and the man's head was bent over the strings as if he himself was consumed by the music. Legolas could only see his silhuette in the sun, but he didn't have to think twice at who this person was. 

How often had he secretly watched Aragorn from behind, how he swung his sword against assaulting orcs. How often had he listened to his soft whispers into the ear of his horse Brego? How often had he chuckled at how messy his hair was and how he never seemed to have clean clothes? How often had he watched him sleep at night, when the longing for him made Legolas uneasy and sleepless?

Smoothly he stood up and approached Aragorn from behind. The melody had turned bright again, and it was almost majestetic, celebrating, by the time he reached the man. Just a few seconds more he would be undetected, and he used the time, to observe Aragorn's fingers, as they played the right notes. The muscles in his arms tensed and untensed as he stroked the bow. Through the thin fabric of the tunic, he could see the man's shoulder blades, and it took him a great effort to direct his eyes somewhere else. 

He waited until the music ended in a passionate final cadenza and a fiercefull last chord. It resonated in the whole garden, and the birds tuned their song to the right pitch.

"I did not know, that you played the fiddle", said Legolas with a smile upon his face, as Aragorn put down his violin and turned around to his unexpected listener. 

"It is an inheritage from my mother", he told the elf. "I only now found it again, and I thought I should start playing again."

He put the fiddle on a nearby bench and the bow right next to it. 

"It was very beautiful", the elf now said, and Aragorn smiled.

"I thank you, Legolas", he said. "Though I should practice more. Now that I have the time."

"I do not believe that you need to practice", Legolas responded. "What was it you played?"

With an unconscious movement, Aragorn stroked the hair out of his face, and Legolas was reminded of the thin, silver ring on the man's finger.

"It is a song I composed myself", the man replied. "It describes a love story, from its wonderful beginning with nothing to worry about. Then come the times of trouble, of fear of losing one another. And at last the hopeful ending, when everything falls into place and they find each other for all eternity."

Suddenly Legolas felt the pain again. The pain in his heart he always wanted to ignore, but which nevertheless always was there. Of course Aragorn would make his love story into music. But he was not involved in that story.