Disappointment

Part 1

Legolas was sick and tired of this; his long life and his eminent father had – of course – taught him patience and frugality in all things, but, in love at least, he would have thought that too much was never enough.

He remembered well how much Thranduil had loved his mother and he wanted that kind of relationship for himself; only, after starting to develop feelings for a childhood friend who then promptly had taken off with a dwarf of all things, he had felt rather discouraged.

And then he met you and – in the secret hours of his nights – he had hoped that he would win you over for himself; unfortunately, he soon found out that you were already in a committed relationship with another Elf.

In a fit of petty envy, he couldn't ward off the bitter, stinging awareness that his title surpassed the one of your partner by far; moreover, he had thought that he was a rather decent-looking fellow as well for all the good that had done him so far.

At the same time, he knew very well how stubborn an organ and a conscience the heart could grow to be, and he decided not to press you and risk making you miserable in the process.

Loneliness gnawed at his evergreen soul like rot ate away at an otherwise perfectly healthy tree until it was hollowed out and dead inside; patience tasted like ashes in his mouth and love – the thing he desired most – turned into a spectre haunting him at every turn.

It seemed to him that every whisper in the trees, every sigh of the stream, and every ray of light spoke of the things that had been denied to him through no fault of his own.

Legolas, who had increasingly the feeling that he had been born too late and into a time where all the great heroic deeds had long been accomplished, was miserable.

Nonetheless, he put on a brave face and smiled at you whenever you crossed paths at court; he would not bring shame and disrepute to his house and his family name by acting like the petulant child he knew himself to be in his innermost core.

"Son," Thranduil – compared to whom he was but a tender sapling growing its very first leaves – called him softly as he sat on a windowsill and looked out onto a world that glistened listlessly in the evening light.

"What troubles you?" the king went on, letting his hand – so light in tenderness and so heavy in battle – fall onto his youngest son's shoulder, "You seem despondent lately and it is not like you to lack the merry twinkling of youth."

"Worry not, father," Legolas replied, "this too shall pass."

Thranduil sighed and kept his peace; loss, grief, and the vast emptiness of time were experiences every member of his race had to make sooner or later and it was for Legolas himself to find a way through the thickets and roots that sought to entangle him to drag him into the void of indifference.

"It shall," he agreed finally, turning away – his heart seized with a sadness that was as old as time and still always piercing and new – for he could not help his darling son.

You too were miserable, but your pain was quite unlike the dull, tugging ache your friend was experiencing.

The agony crashing through and over you like a rockslide or an avalanche was sharp-edged and searing hot; it was urgent, violent, and devastating.

While Legolas was withering like a plant deprived of sun, you were torn asunder by flame and blade.

The man you had given your most earnest and precious promise – the vow of love – had betrayed you; he had accepted that crystalline pure light of your affection to put it on a shelve and bathe in the rays of another sun.