Green Cloaks || Legolas

Fifty two

The night had fallen and the city was quiet but still Luin could not sleep. He lay in the room he had been given, the white walls and a soft breeze burning through the open balcony doors behind him. The mattress was expensive feathers, as fit Minas Tirith, and the blankets were warm and soft. Next to him, features relaxed in sleep, Legolas breathed. The moon was high and it made the blonde hair gleam like mithril. The silver light highlighting the curves of the sleeping Elf's face. Luin lay close enough to feel the heat of his lover's body but even that did not lull him into slumber. 

He shifted slightly closer. The blonde was on his back, hair spread out under him and head tilted towards Luin, eyelashes gracing high cheekbones and soft exhales a light sound in the dark. On it's position against pale collarbones, the blue jewel, exposed but the wide neck of the nightshirt, glowed in time with Luin's heartbeat. Small pulses of light that would settle into a rhythm whenever the wizard was within a foot of distance. He watched it dully, attention in his head as he thought. On his right side, the arrow wound throbbed as it healed. 

He was thinking of the last months of his life. It had been almost a year since he had attended Bilbo's birthday party and everything was set in motion. The spring was giving way into summer again despite the interfering darkness. In some ways it felt like it had hardly been any time at all, in others, Luin let like it had been a lifetime. The quest had been much more than any of them had anticipated. It had cost more than he had wanted to give, both to the fellowship and to him personally. It had taken his feeling of power. It had brought back old fears and it had cost people he was fond of. It had taken his looks and it had taken his dignity. The short strands of his hair still tickled his neck in reminder. The cut along the skin now scarred and just another line to match the dozens of marks littering his body. Each one a painful story. 

Yet as he watched Legolas sleep, he was glad that it had not cost more. He was grateful that he still breathed and that the elf beside him was still with him. In some dark moments that he had never said aloud, when he was being carried by those orcs and rended powerless by spiritual binding cable; he had thought for a few seconds that no one would come. In fact, he had wished for brief moments that Legolas didn't follow and see the mess he had ben reduced to. It may have been hair and non-threatening injuries combined with dehydration and malnutrition, but the whole experience still woke him with nightmares. 

Hands forcing his head down as a blade carved his neck. Unable to move, unable to call upon any drop of his Qi. And that eye. The eye in flames watching him and burning just like it had from the Palanthir. Sometimes there were people dying. Gimli overrun by orcs, disappearing from sight. Merry and Pippin stuck down next to Boromir, chests full of black arrows and all their eyes open and unseeing. Aragorn torn apart by wargs in a bloody mess, Gandalf being pulled into the deep black by the Balrog. Frodo and Sam never returning, their bodies lost to Mordor. Yet the one image that never failed to wake him with a cold sweat, thudding heart and heaving breaths as a scream lodged in his throat, was that of Legolas lying with the dead elves in the rubble of Helm's deep. No visible wound on his body but the limbs bent and the head lolling to the side, hair filthy with mud and blood spattering those cheeks. Blue eyes dim and the bow broken, quiver empty and skin as cold as ice. All the glow of life gone, leaving nothing more than an empty shell. 

It was that nightmare that had woken him this night. He could not remember how long it had left him awake fore, but the exhaustion from battle was warring with the fear still lingering in his blood. So he lay there and watched the elf sleep. Legolas whole and beautiful and breathing. Body warm and relaxed in slumber in the safety of their room. Luin was quiet as he gazed. His own breathing haven fallen back to it's regular flow but yet he couldn't sleep. With silent, gentle movements he pushed his corners of the sheets back while being careful not to let the cold hit his lover, and slipped from the bed. His borrowed nightshirt fell down to his knees, much too large for him and the neck too wide. Without the warmth of layers, he shivered in the night air but didn't reach for a cloak as he slipped out onto the balcony.