Thranduil's Last Breath

A/N: This chapter was re-write... hope you'll not going to kill me though.

A/N2: For those of you who read or not"A-da?" - Spoilers inside...

Title: Thranduil’s Last Breath 9 (Sad End) -
Part 1 of 2

Author: Sivan Shemesh sivan325@walla.com

Beta: nautika - Hannon-le. All the remain mistakes are mine.

Rating: PG-13

Warning: Angst, violence, character death. Tissues are needed…

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Tolkien. I just borrowed them.

Spoiler: Total AU.

Summary: Legolas is called home to Mirkwood when he receives word that his father is dying. Aragorn follows.

Warning Note: A bit of Non-Canon, and OOC stuff, please don’t kill me for it – in case if I exceeding.

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9.

Outside the palace…

Lord Gimli walked back and forth, as he waited for Lord Elrond and the guards.

Gimli drifted by his deepest thoughts.

He knew how bad he took it, when his mother told him, that his father died in Mirkwood’s dungeon. He remembered the reaction, how he had wanted to avenge his father’s death.

But his mother stopped him from doing something rash. Now, he kept saying ‘thank you’, as he was happy with his friendship with Legolas.

Gimli could hear shouts. Someone was calling for him and waking him from his thoughts.

He lifted his head, and saw Elrond and the guards calling for him, saying something to him.

Soon, they came near him. Elrond observed the dwarf; stared at his eyes, noticed the wariness in his eyes and his long face.

“Gimli, how is Legolas?” Elrond asked, looking worried already, knowing that any minute he could lose Legolas

“I do not know, my lord, I am here to wait for you, as your sons asked me to do… as they wait for you.” Gimli answered, seeking relief in Elrond’s eyes.

“Lead the way, Gimli, I need to heal a friend…” Elrond said softly as he could, not wanting to hurt the dwarf, knowing that he had done nothing, but also knowing that he was growing more anxious for his best friend, as all were.

Gimli nodded at the elf, and lead the way as they entered the palace, leading them through empty corridors past the gathering of the guards and worried elves that stood near the door, singing prayers for their beloved prince, wishing that the Valar would save him.

Elrond could see the misery, as he prayer too for Legolas, feared for the unknown, as what if, he could not heal him, he knew that could happen, as it happened before as he tried to Thranduil, as it not successes, as he lost him.

Gimli opened the door, allowing the lord to enter, and see what had been done by Mirkwood’s healer and Aragorn’s hands as the twins tried to help as much as they could.

Elrond came forward and stood over the bed, where he could see Legolas’s pale form lying, with his eyes closed. He noticed the bruises, the cuts in his face.

As he moved his hands over Legolas’s chest he could see the white bandages and the fresh leaves set on the wounds trying desperately to stop it from bleeding.

He could see the sheets that Legolas lie on, now covered with blood. He knew what they should do.

“Elrohir, bring me a new sheet, we need to change it, not let his body soak in it. Elladan, I need you to change the sheets and the bandages until your twin comes back, while you, Estel, I need you, Gimli and the healer to help me lift Legolas’s body, as Elrohir changes the sheet, alright?” Elrond issued orders.

Soon they changed the sheets, and while Legolas lay on the clean, white sheet, they tried to stop the bleeding. But the bleeding continued.

Elrond moved his hands softly over Legolas’s face, and he could see and feel the bruises on his face.

Then his hands moved over Legolas’s wounded chest, as he checked each bandages and changed it as he could see that the blood continued dripping from the wounds.

“This is over…” Suddenly Gimli said, snapped in his thought, as he worried about his friend, seeking some hope to cling to.

“This is not over yet, my dear friend,” Elrond tried to comfort the dwarf, “This is not over, until I say that this over, and I want you to know, that I am not going to give him up, I am not going to break my promise to Thranduil, to break his will…”

Gimli stared over the elf’s lord, and nodded as he swallowed the tears that fell down his cheeks.

“He will be alright, Gimli, he has to be alright, as I pray the Valar…” Elrond mumbled his eyes laid upon Legolas’s pale form.

“Then you need to do something beside praying, you have to save him.” Gimli said to the lord, as he wished to see his friend standing in front of him and smiling, like nothing had happened.

“Gimli,” Elrond said as he knelt beside the dwarf, and continued, “Believe me, we all want to save him. He is one of us, part of our family… we will do our best, mellon-nin.”

“I know,” Gimli said, his eyes were still locked with Elrond’s eyes as he added, “I only fear that I might lose him, lose the friendship that we have.”


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King Elessar, Aragorn, heard everything of the conversation between his father and Gimli.

He fought his thoughts as he attended to caring for Legolas’s wounds, not wanting to hear a single word of losing faith in him seeing the light again.

“Legolas, mellon-nin…” Aragorn whispered over his friend, as he softly moved his hand to stroke his face as he moved the blond hair from his blue eyes.

“He will be alright, little brother,” Elladan said over Aragorn, as he tried to eased the pain of seeing his best friend laying on the bed, as it rather reminded Elladan of Wraiths, like a ghost.

“But what if he does not make it?” Aragorn asked in sad voice as he fought to keep the tears from falling down.

“He will, you and Ada, you are skilled with the healer’s power, you can save him, ‘Elrohir and I know.” Elladan tried to cheer his brother, letting him know that this was not over yet.


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Gimli left the room, unable to bear looking at his wounded friend, as he still grew paler in front of his eyes. He walked out of the palace, toward the clearing to clear his head from all the troublesome thoughts that bothered him. Gimli knelt on the ground; on the green and gray leaves. He closed his eyes for seconds, hearing the nature that surrounding him, he prayed to the Valar as tears streamed down from his eyes, falling into the grass.

‘Please Valar, save him from this that has befallen him. He already lost his father, why take him too? He is my friend, my best friend… Please Valar, hear my prayer…’

After several minutes, Gimli was on his feet as he wiped his eyes.

He sighed, he really did hope that the Valar heard his call, his prayer over his friend.

He stayed in the forest with his eyes still cast on the palace as guards guarded him as they were aware of the presence of orcs nearby.


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While inside the palace…

Lord Elrond worked hard on Legolas, his eyes and hands never leaving the prince, as he tried to staunch the blood, and yet the blood still dropped from his stab wounds. The elf was dying in front of him, as he tried it all, all that he had.

He could see the frown that Aragorn gave him as suddenly Legolas’s chest stop moving, he could see Aragorn move his hands over the prince’s neck trying to find a trace of pulse, but there was none.

How could Elrond tell to the elves that their prince is dead? Where would they go?


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Back to the forest…

Gimli wiped the new tears off his face as he rose to his feet. He walked back to the palace, with a glimmer of hope. He really did wish to see his friend alive and well, or at least having regain some color on his face.

The guards were around him, keeping him safe until he got to the palace, and then they left him on his own, as they hoped to hear that their prince was all right.

Gimli stepped inside the palace, and through the elves that stood outside the healer’s room. As he walked inside the room, he noticed the frown that marred their faces; their faces were stretched as they were crying and mourning.

“No…” Gimli mumbled and hurried to the bed where Legolas was.

He noticed that the elf was not moving; his chest was still, and he looked like a ghost, and his eyes, his eyes were still open. The dwarf looked into Legolas’s blue eyes, he swore that he could see the emptiness.

In front of him lie, Prince Legolas son of the Late King Thranduil, dead.

“No… I cannot believe it… no…” Gimli cried in grief.

‘Why Valar did not hear to my prayer?’ he thought in anger.

Aragorn walked over Gimli. Then he moved his hand over the dwarf’s shoulder, and squeezed it lightly, and said, “We tried everything we could… you have to let him go… as he needs to buried properly, and I want him buried in Ithilien. But before we need to burn Thranduil’s body here.”

Elrond called, “Galdor! Saelbeth!”

The two guards entered the room. They noticed the sad and mournful looks of the elves, man and dwarf.

“What is it?” Galdor asked, anxious as he was, he kept staring on his prince’s form.

Elrond sighed heavily and walked over to them. He took a deep breath before he spoke, “Legolas, your prince, died in my hands…”

The two guards were staring at each other, apparently not knowing how to face their cruel fate. To lose both their beloved King and Prince in the same day.

“No…” Galdor cried.

“Where will we go? We have no king! Where will we go?” Saelbeth asked.

Aragorn walked to the guards, and they could see rays of hope that shone from his eyes.

“I will give you Ithilien, and you will be near by. Though I want to burn Thranduil here, in properly burial, and Legolas in Ithilien. Long I watch him and hearing amazedby this place, and I thought that would be a great honor to burn him there.” Aragorn suggested.

“Hannon-le. About our king, we wish he would be burned next to his father’s tree.”

Saelbeth suggested and thanked the human for the his advice.

Galdor added, as he remembered from the past, “Thranduil loved the tree, as his father raised it for him before he left to fight in the last alliance, and then, this is the place that Thranduil named his son, after his wife died from the birth.”

“So be it.” Aragorn said, and wiped the tears from his eyes.


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Mirkwood

King Elessar, the Peredhil’s and Gimli followed the elves, as they moved Thranduil’s lifeless form through the forest, as the guards were full alert, ready to attack if any of their enemies would appear.

The leaves on Oropher’s tree seem to have lost their color… as the leaves were not green but gray.

It seemed that Oropher’s soul felt that the last of his family had died, both his son and his grandchild.

One gray leaf fell upon Thranduil’s chest, as it seemed welcoming him next to it.

The elves of Mirkwood readied the ground for the burning for their beloved king, but neither of them seemed ready to take a lead and to burn him, as his loss was still fresh in their minds and hearts.

“Before I burn his body,” Elrond spoke with care, and suggested, “Does anyone want to say anything…”

Silence seemed to cover the forest, and yet neither of Thranduil’s guards spoke.

“So, I will start.” Elrond said, trying by his words to slice the silence.

Elrond stepped forward near his old friend, and spoke as his voice trembled with emotion as he spoke to his best friend, “Thranduil,” he said, and then he knelt next to his body, and added, “I hope that you forgiven me for when your father and I went to join the last alliance. When I came back alone, I know how furious you became, as you thought I left your father to die, and yet years passed by and you welcomed me back into your home and introduced me to your future wife. Yet, you did not ever say to me that you forgiven me, even in your death…”

Elrond swallowed the tears, wiped them from his face as he continued, “I came as soon as I heard that your wife was giving birth. I knew that I came too late, as your royals guards inform me that she died. I cannot imagine the horrible pain you were feeling, but I know and remember the son that brought a smile to your face, I know that he eased the pain of losing your wife. And you took it one step at a time.”

Elrond cried upon Thranduil’s body, after all losing his friend like this, the loss was horrible for the elf lord.

Aragorn, the twins and Gimli wiped tears away, as they cried too for the loss. Aragorn watched the dwarf closely, not sure if the dwarf cried for the king or for Legolas.

Aragorn stepped over his father and moved his hand over his shoulder, and said, “Father… we need to burn him…”

Elrond gave one last glance over his friend's dead body, and then he raised to his feet and spoke, “Does anyone else want to add anything before we will burn him?”

Galdor stared at his king, and with courage, he stepped over his late king and spoke, “It was my honor to defend you from any enemies. I was honored to served you, your father, and your son. You were kind, caring to us, more than yourselves, worried for us…”

Elrond could see the elves bow their head over Thranduil’s lifeless form, and then knelt together.

Then he himself, knelt too, for respect of his friend.

Aragorn, Gimli and the twins saw and did the same.

Then Elrond raised to his feet still crying, he took torch and aimed it over to sun to light it up, and then as the fire built slowly in the torch he walked closed over Thranduil’s body, and burnt it.

Then he stepped backwards, and stared as his friend’s body was touched by the flames.


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Gondor

Minas Tirith

Two months later…

The expedition from Mirkwood came with Gimli, Peredhil’s and the King Elessar himself, as they carried the body of Legolas.

As the gates were opened, the King could see his wife, standing by the gates and crying for the loss of her friend.

The king hurried over her side, and hugged her, embracing her.

“Ho… how did he die?” Arwen asked as she swallowed the tears, but it didn’t help much, as new tears fell over her cheeks.

“Orcs… he was stabbed and beaten…” King Elessar answered, as he lowered his face, unable to face his wife, feeling that he failed his friend.

“Elessar…” Arwen called him softly. Her voice was like a soft touch of the wind on his face.

“Legolas will be burn in Ithilien, and we already commited Thranduil's body to the flames while in Mirkwood…” King Elessar said to his wife, as he moved his hand to wipe the tears away from her cheeks, and then he leaned closer and placed a light kiss on her cheek.

Gimli at that point walked over the human king, and suggested with heavy heart, as his eyes as he spoken were locked on the guards and Legolas’s body, “Aragorn… they just lost their king and prince… you just can left them like this…”

Aragorn turned his eyes from his wife over the guards, and then he saw his father and his brothers, and he could sense something from their mask of their faces, they seemed worried as well.

Aragorn walked over to the guards, and knelt beside them, and softly suggested, “Come, my friends, you too need to rest… come… we will guard you…”

Galdor and Saelbeth were amongst the guards. They stared at the human king, and then turned their attention to the body, and then back to the human. They rose on their feet, and followed him.

King Elessar called to his guards and gave them a direct orders to make sure that those guardian elves would get the rest and food that they are needing, as tomorrow is the hard day for all of them, including the king.


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Only one part to go – in my Sad End Version… remember only one chapter to go… and then Happy will come… evil grin…

Do you still love me?