Another’s Guilt

Another’s Guilt by Númenora


An Aragorn/Legolas fiction

Disclaimers: Characters that you recognize are the domain of J. R. R. Tolkien and his estate and possibly others who are authorized to use them for profit (which does not include me). I am making no money from this and no infringement is intended. Any other characters that may appear are of my design and clearly pale in comparison although these characters may have the names of other Tolkien characters from the Appendences or from other Tolkien works.

Summary: On a diplomatic mission to Lothlórien, Legolas gets separated from his kin during an Orc attack. He wanders lost for several days until he comes upon a human, stabbed and left for dead by thieves. When the man’s relatives find the elf covered in his blood, the wood-elf is captured and accused of the crime. Will the injured man live long enough to clear him or will the Prince pay the price for the misdeed of unscrupulous men?

Rating: NC-17 eventually (PG for now)

Warnings: AU, M/M slash, Mpreg. Also major angst and for a several chapters, Aragorn will be OOC in regards to Legolas; although he will have a good reason for his behavior (part of which will not be revealed at first), it may be disconcerting to some readers. Legolas will also be a bit OOC due to his young age and very sheltered life up to the point that he is separated from his Elven brothers. Though he is skilled in the use of weapons, he lacks actual battle experience and he has never before gone beyond the borders of Mirkwood (Known as Greenwood the Great or Eryn Lasgalen for this fic). He is out of his element and he will have to face unfamiliar situations and unfamiliar and unfriendly people—namely humans.

Again, this is a slash (Mpreg) story; if you don’t like or approve of this type story, please do not read it. This is a simple work of fiction and is not meant to make you think, nor is it trying to be a great piece of literature. It is simply something I wanted to write and share; if you don’t like it, you are welcomed to give constructive criticism, but I would appreciate it if people refrain from flaming (they serve no purpose except to be mean and juvenile).

A/N: In a future chapter, the back-story or history will be explained—mainly the relationship between men and elves and the decline of the Old Alliance. In this story which is strictly AU, Aragorn is the Crowned Prince of Gondor, 20 years of age; Boromir is his cousin, 25 years and Faramir is Boromir’s younger brother, 19 years (both are still Denethor’s sons) and Éomer is a close friend to all three young men (same rank and a citizen of Rohan as in the LOTR), 25 years. Arathorn II is King and he is brother-in-law to Denethor (Steward) whose late wife Finduilas was Arathorn’s older sister and is married to Gilraen. Finally, Legolas is 700 years old (equivalent to 16-17 years old by Human standards for my fic) and is the youngest Prince of Mirkwood (his two older brothers are OC with Tolkien names). The blood of Númenor is not as diminished as spoken of in the LOTR movies and the life-span is equivalent to the time of Elros who was granted the life-span of 500 years¹


Thoughts and stressed words denoted by * *


Chapter One


“An Innocent Lost”


It was getting late and in a few short hours, night would fall for the third evening—and he was still alone. No one (none of his people at least) had found him. *They must think that you are dead; no being—not even one as resilient as an elf—would be expected to survive the fall from that cliff.* The Yrch beasts were very successful in separating the lesser skilled warrior. Although Legolas had participated in a number of patrols inside the Great Greenwood, he had considerably less practical experience in dealing with these fell creatures than his brothers and the other older elves that had been guarding his father’s realm for thousands of years.

In fact, King Thranduil had been very reluctant to allow his youngest son to leave the confines of his well-guarded kingdom. But, the Prince had pleaded—and not for the first time—to be given more freedom; to be allowed to accompany the delegation being sent to Lothlórien. His eldest brother Oropher would be leading the diplomatic group traveling to the Golden Wood to attend the celebration commemorating the Founding of Lothlórien. The King hated seeing his youngest so disappointed—once again being denied what elves younger than he were permitted to do, so he gave Legolas his permission, provided that his brothers (and the entire delegation of fifty elves) swore that he would be well protected. The journey had been very exciting—never had the beautiful blond seen such wonders; sights that he had only read about. Then it all had gone terribly wrong and they were attacked by band about seventy Orcs. The dark beings were no match for the highly-skilled wood-elves, but they managed to wound several (one mortally so) by dividing them from the larger group, forcing the lone elves to fight unaided in inferior positions. That is what happened to Legolas; his lack of battle experience and the menacing fiends surrounding him forced him to make a critical error—he failed to notice that he was being given no room to retreat and he had managed to lose sight of his siblings and they he. He had disobeyed Prince Arminas’ instruction to take to the trees and stay there. He had returned to the battle when he noticed one of the elves (the seriously wounded one) had been cut off and had become surrounded; the elf was his friend (newly so) and he thought to aid him. The young blond had fired off several shots from his bow (he is a very skilled archer) and killed about five Orcs who had moved to further separate the failing elf from the majority of the company; but Gelmir was in dire straits, so Legolas left the relative safety of the large tree and jumped to Gelmir’s defense, becoming trapped himself.

He managed to evade the attacking fiends, but he backed himself into an area that had no point of retreat—that is where he fell from the cliff, just missing the craggy out-cropping and then landed hard into the dense canopy of an ancient Live Oak. Legolas crashed through, hitting several limbs, but the thickness of the leaves slowed his momentum and kept him from doing fatal damage to himself. Somehow, he managed to grab one limb that was slender enough for his hand to hold onto and young and strong enough to support the lightweight of the falling youth. Only an elf could have accomplished this feat; a man or any other larger-framed being would have perished. But the Prince came away with only a sprained wrist; three sprained fingers of his right hand; and some cracked ribs and, unbeknownst to him, a minor concussion. He attempted to climb up, hoping that he’d be able to scale the rock-face and return to his big brothers; but the task was impossible—even if he had not been injured. There was no way that he could get from the tree over to the side of the crag; and the sides had no hand-holds—it was a virtual piece of solid up and down rock.

The King’s youngest decided his best bet was to reach the ground, move in the direction that they had been heading when the attack happened and try to find a way out of the gorge, thereby hopefully meeting up with his kin. It should have been a good plan, but the reality proved near impossible as the young Elda got lost when he had to flee a wild boar that had caught his sweet Elven scent. He had no weapons save for one of his twin blades—the other one as well as his arrows were lost some time during his fall, landing somewhere out of sight and his bow was damaged beyond repair. He was nearly defenseless. He wanted to cry. He nearly cried that first night alone, but he reminded himself that he was the ion of the Great Elvenking and he would not behave like some elfling. By the second night, he gave in to his despair; although his fingers and wrist were starting to heal, his damaged ribs were hurting and he had a headache. The only comfort that he found was in the company of the surrounding trees who spoke to him as he rested among them. But the lovely elf realized that he would have to leave the safety of the dense area and venture out into the opening so that he could get an idea where he was in relationship to the cliff he tumbled off, and try hard to find the way back to his family who were no doubt searching for him.

“Searching for your dead body, you mean. Why didn’t you stay where you were—they could have found you by now,” Legolas berated, that second night. He knew that his decisions had not been well-thought out and running for his life from the boar seriously turned him around and the pain from his injuries (and concussion) kept him from thinking clearly.

So here it was the third day and he finally faced the truth of his situation; he had no idea where he was. Since he had not found any place that looked familiar to him, he deduced that he hadn’t been going around in circles, for he could no longer see the mound of rock which meant that he had more than likely gone in the opposite direction of where he’d intended to go.

The Prince had decided to make camp for the evening when he heard sounds coming from somewhere before him. “Oropher,” he whispered in delighted hope that the Crowned Prince had come for him. Running as fast as he could with his still-injured ribs, he hastened towards the noises in a small copse of trees. What he saw there made his blood freeze. *Men.* The young wood-elf had never seen men before. His adar had long ago forbade any to come into the inner realm of Greenwood the Great several centuries ago; long before Legolas had been born. His relationship had lasted a bit longer with the dwarves, so Legolas was old enough to recall seeing them at Thranduil’s halls. But those times were over as well.

Legolas stood rooted to the spot as he witness a very well-dressed young man fighting off two rougher-looking ones; he was holding his own against them until he noticed the green-clad beautiful elf staring wide-eyed at him and his assailants. The distraction gave the thieves the break they needed and one of the ruffians lunged forwards, stabbing the red-haired young adan below his ribs, thereby causing his sword arm to dip, giving the other larger thug an advantage and he clobbered the nobleman on the back of his head. After the injured man fell unconscious to the ground, they pounced, stripping him of his valuables until a loud yell brought them up short.

The fascinated pair just stared as wide-eyed as the elf had been just moments before, neither having seen an elf before. They quickly recovered when the fair being ran towards them, shiny Elven blade raised in an attack mode. Having gotten what they were after, the two ran, leaping onto the nobleman’s horse and rode off into the distance.

Legolas reached the man’s side, at first fearful of touching him; whether he was afraid of further injuring the bleeding male or just afraid of someone unfamiliar, he was unsure. But the pitiful moans coming from the prone form spurred the Prince into action. Pale hands carefully turned the mortal over and the Princeling was mindful of the wound that was leaking copious amounts of blood as he did so. He was unsure as to what should be done to save this human’s life. The only experience that he had of the healing arts was only the most basic of first aid—the kind that were needed for injuries incurred during skirmishes on the practice fields. *Well there was that time that Galdor was wounded on his shoulder after he failed to properly parry during a sparring match.* The healer that was present had applied pressure to the elf’s shoulder to staunch the bleeding before dressing the wound. Armed with this knowledge, but far from confident, the elf picked up the knife that he’d dropped when he fell to his knees next the fallen man. His thought was to quickly fashion some kind of bandage from his undershirt to dress the wound and then he would apply the necessary pressure to keep as much of the life’s blood inside of the weak mortal body.

“Forgive me if this hurts you,” said the heavily accented voice in the Common Tongue. The almost violet blue eyes of the unknown young man briefly stared at Legolas before fluttering close again. Blood squirted from beneath the elegant fingers, staining the green tunic of the would-be healer as well as the knife that was lying across the shapely hips of the blond. Legolas was concentrating so hard on his task—a task that he was unsure of—that his normally sharp elven hearing nearly failed to warn him of approaching horse hooves coming from just behind the Prince’s position. Thinking that the thieves were returning to kill them both, Legolas retrieved his long knife and struck an attack posture, ready to defend himself and his worsening patient.

From the sound of the hooves, there were several riders approaching; but they didn’t seem to be in any hurry. The hooligans must have brought reinforcements to finish what they started and take care of the Elven warrior, too. He refused to get his hopes up that these were his brothers coming for him. He knew the sound of Elven mounts and these had the sound of ones with shod hooves. “I will try to save us both, Hir-nin (My Lord), but I am injured as well and I am no match for so many. I pray to the Valar that these Men are friendly and mean us no harm.” Legolas was truly afraid; he didn’t realize that if the unconscious mortal could hear him, it was unlikely he would have been able to understand the wood-elf for he had lapsed into Sindarin in his nervousness.

These Edain weren’t visible through the tree’s foliage, but they were close. The terrified immortal closed his eyes briefly, sending up the promised prayer to Eru and one silent plea to his beloved father—Adar, please forgive me for the grief my death will cause...I am sorry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Come now, Your Highness; surely you jest? Boromir, what say you to all this?” The 3rd Marshall of the Riddermark was nonplussed. His handsome face alight with mirth.

Boromir raised his hands up in a gesture that seemed to beg off contradicting his Prince and cousin. “I stand by my Lord’s assessment; I was not there—at least not consciously,” said the green-eyed blond.

“He was in his cups, and had long been passed out from the freely flowing ail. I on the other hand was quite sober as was the dwarf relaying the tale. Lord Gimli swore to me the truth of it; dwarf women do exist and those old tales that dwarven babies are mined out of the mountains along with their gems and mithril are all lies and falsehoods.” The extremely handsome Crowned Prince asserted. “The reason no one other than dwarves recalls seeing these elusive females is because they have the same features as their male counterparts.”

“Beards and all?” Éomer asked incredulously.

“Beards and all! Perhaps we should plan a trip to visit Gimli and he can introduce us to his relatives and I will be exonerated and can once again enjoy the privilege of having your undying faith in me!”

Éomer laughed at the ‘hurt and insulted’ look on his friend Aragorn’s face.

The attractive trio continued their fun until the guards riding ahead of them called a halt as the clearing before them came into view. With a cry of despair, Lord Boromir jumped from the back of his mount and ran straight for the two beings positioned on the worn path. “Faramir!”

“Boromir, no! Take care,” Aragorn was only seconds behind his cousin and managed to catch him, placing his body between the distraught noble and the blood-covered elf hovering above his unconscious cousin threateningly.

The humans hadn’t been close enough for the young elf to hear their words clearly, but they seemed to be speaking in a jovial, animated way. Their tone led him to conclude that they were civilized and not like the coarse men who had robbed his young ‘friend’ beside him. His first glimpse of the uniformed men leading the still concealed majority put the Elven Prince somewhat at ease—he was used to dealing with guardsmen.

However, Legolas’ brief relief at seeing these Men and not the thieves he expected quickly fled as the furious dark-haired adan with the hate-filled blue-green eyes plunged towards him, knocking him to the ground hard, jarring and re-injuring his already damaged ribcage, causing the air to swoosh out of him along with an anguished groan. When his sight cleared, the blond wood-elf tried to escape his attacker, but he was unable to; the larger male had his full weight pressed against him and one of his strong hands had worked its way into the Prince’s thick silver-blond mane, pulling his head back to an uncomfortable angle and the other had wrenched the sharp knife out of his pain-loosened grip. That knife was now pressed menacingly against Legolas’ vulnerable, pale throat and an equally menacing voice spoke to him in perfect Sindarin, “Move, *Elf-filth* and I’ll cut your murdering throat!”

TBC

Please review and tell me what you think so far.


¹ Elros’ age as stated in the book Tolkien’s World from A to Z, The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, Robert Foster, pg. 145.