HOORAY! This story is a winner of the Mellon Chronicles website's "What's the Story?" contest! To see the photo that this story is based on and read other winners go to Mellon Chronicles URL: http://www.aragorn-legolas.5u.com/contestresults.html But be sure to use the 'back' button in your browser!
DISCLAIMER: Based on Lord of the Rings, created by J.R.R. Tolkien, copyright the Tolkien estate and under license to New Line Productions. This is a non-commercial work.
A Moment of Choice
by Lizardbeth Johnson
(No, not the photo that inspired the story. I just like it!
Gimli was in the original image, poor guy.)
Legolas twined the chain around his fingers and held the Evenstar jewel in his hand tightly.
Fallen. Aragorn had plunged from the cliff and fallen into the river below. As keen as Legolas' eyes were, he could see no sign of the human on the rocks below. The lack of sign gave him some small hope that Aragorn had landed in the water, but from this height there was little difference between landing on rock or the water, especially if Aragorn's fall had been uncontrolled.
The edges of the pendant pressed sharply into his hand, but he could not loosen his grip.
It should have been me, not him. So much depends on the Heir of Isildur in this dark time. He cannot die, not now.
He yearned to start down the bank of the river and look for Aragorn's body. If the human still lived at all, surely Legolas had power enough to call even the merest flicker back to its usual bright flame. He had done so in the past to save Aragorn's life after one bad injury or another, and such was the connection between them and Legolas' own belief in Aragorn's destiny, that he was willing to give all the strength he possessed.
But this time, he could not. The warg riders were only the forward scouts for Saruman's army, sent to harry the refugees and pick off their strongest fighters. Behind them would come the uruk-hai, in numbers like the stars. The people of Rohan needed all the skilled fighters they could find to defend them.
Aragorn would want him to aid Rohan, not follow the river in a dubious rescue attempt. Legolas knew this, because it was what he would want if the situation were reversed. But he could not move away from the cliff edge, even when Theoden lightly squeezed his shoulder in commiseration. The king of Rohan walked away to gather his men, and still Legolas stayed, uselessly watching the river as if Aragorn would break the surface and suddenly appear.
"Come on, lad," Gimli said heavily. "There's nothing more we can do. He's gone."
"No. He cannot be ... gone." He could barely force himself to say the word. The Evenstar in his hand was less painful than the sharp edges that cut at his heart. "He cannot."
He felt Gimli's kind dark eyes glance upward at him and settle in concern. With a gruff, yet gentle tone, he said, "I don't think anyone could have survived that fall, Legolas. Maybe an elf, but no mortal man."
"I would know, Gimli," Legolas whispered. In his other hand he held the bow of Lothlórien across his chest, cradling it as a new mother cradled her child to her heart. "I am sure I would know."
Gimli nodded slightly and let out a soft sigh. "Perhaps you would. But there's no use in staying here, you know that too."
With the hand that held the jewel, Legolas gestured dismissively. "One bow will make little difference at Helm's Deep. But Aragorn can make all the difference. They will be a people under siege. They are his people. He can give them heart -- I cannot."
He had taken two steps downstream, when Gimli's voice made him grow still. "Your bow can make a difference, elf. And without Aragorn, they will need that bow all the more."
Gimli was right. Legolas glanced down at the Evenstar in his left hand, brow knitted in agony of indecision.
If Aragorn were dead, it was pointless to follow the river to find his body. Even if Aragorn were badly hurt, there was no time to find him and heal him before the battle to come. Legolas had a duty to give aid to Rohan.
But his heart quailed at the thought of abandoning Aragorn, possibly hurt or dying, when Legolas could save him. They had a bond of friendship that, no matter how odd their fathers' thought it, was true and real. He could not leave his friend behind to death, when he might do something to prevent it.
He opened his hand and the Evenstar glittered in the sun, reminding him that it was not only his own grief he had to consider. Arwen loved Aragorn, and though it gave Legolas no end of sorrow to imagine her barred from Valinor forever, he knew she had made her choice. To have the choice of love then cruelly stolen away seemed the worst heart-break imaginable. Could he ever face her again, knowing that he had abandoned her beloved without a search?
He could not decide. His heart pulled one direction and his mind another. Helm's Deep or follow the river? Search for his friend or aid the beleaguered Rohirrim?
He looked up to the sky, up to the blue veil drawn over the stars, hiding their light. He needed something to tell him which path to take. He closed his eyes and held out his arms high at his sides, imploring the Valar to give him a sign.
Elbereth Gilthoniel, please, Lady, hear me. You who gave my people light in a time of darkness, guide me. My path has grown shadowed and tangled, and I no longer know where to walk. My friend and brother is lost. Estel has fallen. He may need me, but the people of Rohan need me too. I must abandon one. Duty suggests that I help the Rohirrim, but a victory against Saruman will avail us little if Aragorn is not with us to face Sauron. Help me, queen of the Valier.
He stood there, in stillness, listening with all his being. The sun was warm on his face and bright through his eyelids, but he ignored it. He held in his mind the image of the clear night sky as it appeared in winter above the snow-silent forest of the north. Those stars glimmered like ice in an endless velvety black.
Help me choose, Elbereth. What should I do?
The dwarf's voice shattered the silence. "Legolas, what are you doing? You look like you're trying to fly."
Legolas lowered his arms and opened his eyes to glare down at Gimli. "No. I am not. I am attempting to learn Aragorn's fate."
Gimli shifted his feet and wouldn't meet his gaze. "Have you?"
After a moment, Legolas had to answer, "No."
The dwarf shook his mane of reddish hair and long beard in sorrow. After a moment of silence, he suggested, "We should go."
Again, Legolas hesitated and glanced once more down to the river and to the Evenstar in his hand.
The call was distant but clear and sweet, and drew his attention as nothing else might have. It was an eagle, crying out from the sky.
"What is it?" Gimli asked in confusion, hearing nothing. He hefted his axe, ready for an attack.
Legolas ignored him, turning to peer upward eagerly. Not since the Battle of the Five Armies had he seen one of the noble race of Thorondor.
There. High up, a bronze glimmer in the sunlight flew toward him out of the east. The eagle darted among the clouds and passed overhead, its thirty paces wide wingspan sailing the air with poetic grace.
Legolas turned to follow it with his gaze until it disappeared into the west, above the heights of the Grey Mountains. He realized that the eagle had flown toward Helm's Deep. Elbereth had given him his sign. Either Aragorn was dead and beyond aid, or he would have to make his own way. There was nothing more that Legolas could do for him.
He glanced down at the water one last time. I pray that we will meet again, my friend. I will keep your token until you return to reclaim it. But, Aragorn, try not to take too long. Middle-Earth needs you.
He put the chain of the Evenstar over his head and tucked the pendant beneath his tunics, out of sight. Then he turned away from the cliff and started down the slope after Gimli and Theoden. He would bring his skills to defend the people of Helm's Deep and many orcs would fall beneath his arrows and blades to avenge his missing friend.
Yet for the first time, the breeze was cold on his face and the lands about him seemed vast and empty. He felt very alone.
fin.
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