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Aragorn, son of Arathorn, had never felt jealousy before. Though he loved one who had lived for many centuries before he was born; though he knew Arwen had cared for others before she had come to care for him, he knew well that none had been loved as he was loved, for only to him had she given the light of the Evenstar and the whole of her heart. But there had been lips that touched hers before his had found the soft warmth that awaited him there, yet he had never thought of those others she had caressed and whose caresses she had enjoyed; he had only thought he was not worthy of her love, or her sacrifice, as he drank in the perfume of her long dark hair.
But this was jealousy; this stab in his heart, this flicker of anguish, this sudden heat of anger that made him want to snarl like the grey wolf whose den has been invaded. And it was absurd. So absurd he dismissed it at once; telling himself, as he stepped in front of Legolas to break that eye contact between him and Éomer, that he did it for the elf’s protection, not because he could not bear to see that sudden fire in the eyes of Théoden’s nephew as he beheld Aragorn’s best friend. He took a deep breath. There were pressing matters to attend to here; the horrors that could be awaiting the young hobbits a wound in his mind to match the other wound left by the death of Boromir. What failure had his leadership already brought that two lay dead, two were captive, and Frodo had been forced to flee away from the protection he should have received from Isildur’s heir.
He could feel his companions, like unbroken horses wanting to lash out, but – although he had expected Gimli to be defiant when tact would better serve their purpose – he always forgot how passionate Legolas could be. There was such a flame of loyalty burning in the elf’s breast that sometimes the natural calm of his race deserted him. So he had drawn on Éomer with the speed of a lightning strike, beautiful and terrible in Gimli’s defence. Aragorn had flashed him a brief look of disbelief, wondering if perhaps his companions suffered from some impediment to their vision that meant only he could see the fifty spears all pointing at their throats. But though he gently pushed down Legolas’s bow and spoke calmly to Éomer, a part of him loved the elf all the more for his ardent devotion to his friends. It had happened in the Council of Elrond when Boromir had dared to speak dismissively of one who was, after all, just as he had said, a ranger out of the wilds. Denethor’s bitterness had no doubt been passed onto his son and Aragorn would never have added such fuel to that fire when agreement needed to be reached; but Legolas had never been able to bear that his friends should be slighted. Always had the elf been passionate in his defence; always had he given Aragorn all the respect he would normally have accorded only another elf; following the commands of one who had walked Middle Earth for a fraction of the time that Legolas had dwelt upon it. Sometimes when he looked at Legolas and saw the youthful purity of his face, the extraordinary innocence of his blue eyes, even Aragorn would forget that the elf was older than most of the trees in Mirkwood, and that he, like Arwen, was ageless, deathless, and immortal, so long as battle or a broken heart did not claim his life.
Aragorn tried to keep his voice calm, this situation needing no further fire to fuel it: “We are not spies. We track a party of Uruk-hai westward across the plain. They have taken two of our friends captive.”
He saw the regret in Éomer’s eyes and felt the same grief that stabbed through him enter Gimli and Legolas as well as the young rider answered them. If the Uruks were slaughtered then it seemed the hobbits were as well. More failure. More loss. And this was worse even than the death of a brave warrior and good man, whose nobility and compassion had in the end overcome even the dark seduction of the ring; Pippin and Merry had deserved to be protected on this quest, and the warriors who should have kept them safe had failed them.
“We left none alive. We piled the carcasses and burned them…”
Pain flowed through him then, the loss of hope. Yet even in the midst of grief he noticed Éomer glance at Legolas again; the gaze of an honest man; frank and curious. The first elf he had ever seen close-up or the first elf, perhaps, whose beauty had caught him unawares. Aragorn wondered if Éomer would ever learn that even amongst the elven kind Legolas was considered unusually fair. His beauty was like the spring sunlight and the first birdsong after a dark winter; it made the heart lighter just to look upon it. Long had Aragorn known this, yet thought nothing of it. He had rejoiced in Legolas’s beauty as he had rejoiced in his swiftness and skill in battle; such were the things that made up the whole that was his friend. And long had he known this friend was dear to him; a comfort to him in dark days, his counsel one he looked for when his own mind was troubled. He had thought the pride he took in Legolas’s beauty was of the kind one feels to see a brother admired, or perhaps a sister of whose virtue one was jealous even as one longed to see her courted by another warrior worthy of her love. Now, for the first time, he realized it had always been the pride of possession. In some part of his heart, some corner of his mind, for too long now had he thought of Thranduil’s fairest son as somehow his….
Standing on the edge of the cliff, Legolas looked down at the river which swirled and coiled away with such savage speed, and tried to make sense of its voice. Though he tried not to hear it, the echo of the orc’s cruelty still resounded through his mind: He’s dead. Took a little tumble off the cliff.
Aragorn. Gone. Fallen. Dead.
With that he could not grapple; that he could not comprehend. Such a loss could not come to him, to Arwen, or to Middle-Earth. He had seen Aragorn crowned in his mind’s eye; seen him victorious, seen him wed to Arwen, seen him beloved and respected throughout all the land as he was beloved and respected by those friends who knew him best. Although he had not the gift of prophecy, for so long now had Legolas clung to that belief, that shining image, of Aragorn as King of Gondor. It had always been a bittersweet image yet he had cherished it fiercely. And, more even than that, Aragorn could not be lost, for if he were then Legolas was also lost. He would feel his heart tearing; a mortal wound. He was afraid of what this friend had come to mean to him. Afraid of a future in which Aragorn did not feature. He looked into the days beyond and they were wrapped in darkness; there was only shadow now. For the sake of the fellowship that remained, he would yet fight, but a part of him was dying now, a slow bleed of grief the like of which he had never known before. If he accepted this loss, he would be undone. He would not accept it. He would not accept that Aragorn, son of Arathorn, friend to Legolas of Mirkwood, was truly gone. Somehow he must live.
Legolas tightened his fingers around the fragile beauty of the Evenstar and prayed that somewhere Arwen was bringing all the grace of the Valar to bear upon Aragorn; that somehow her love would find their fallen friend and carry him to safety. All his strength he would lend to her if it would aid her; she could have the last drop of blood in his veins if it would bring Aragorn back from the churning waters safe and well.
Yet though he might yet cling to hope, the orc’s laughter still resounded through his mind. How could anyone survive such a fall? The dwarf’s warmth was the only comfort left to him; the rock of his friendship something he would have to cling to with all his strength in the coming days. He felt Gimli’s disbelief beside him as a tangible thing; their mutual grief was like a netted bird, struggling vainly against the coils of reality. Legolas felt his heart tear. Inside, he was certain he began to bleed.
Théoden had never cared for elves. They were too remote; too unknowable. And for all their reputed powers, they had done nothing that he could see to stop the rise of darkness across the land. His people were driven from their villages. His son…
Always that grief was with him, a black hollow of anguish in his heart. Theodred slept now under the white blooms of Simbelmyne when he should have been riding at his father’s side. So straight and strong and full of hope that evil yet could be defeated. His son’s future still glittered sometimes in his mind; the dreams and hopes he had cherished for him; like the tinkle of a crystal goblet lingering in the echoes even after it has smashed. How could it be that Theodred should never sit upon the throne of Edoras; that the banner of the white horse should never flutter in his name. Even as he tried to save his people from the anger of Isengard, a part of him was still numb with grief.
And what had the other peoples of Middle-Earth done to aid his kind? What had they done to avert the death of his son? For all the reputed powers of the first-born, the elves had proven themselves no allies of men at the last. They were leaving the land to Sauron and Saruman, to Uruk-Hai, Orc, and Warg; fleeing to a haven where they could live out their immortal lives in tranquillity, while his people floundered in the mud and blood of defeat. Slavery or death awaited them if this army could not be driven off, and the Men of Gondor were too busy defending their own boundaries to give any thought to the people of Rohan. The tall elven archers cared nothing for their plight, and the dwarves did as they had always done, and stayed in their darkness, like goblins, delving amongst shadows for their glitterings of gold. Except…
He looked at them again, these allies of Aragorn, and here was a dwarf; stout-hearted as any man; who had raised his axe in defence of Rohan, and every race of Middle-Earth. Warg blood still gleamed upon the blade. Blood shed that the blood of Théoden’s kind might be spared. In his mind’s eye he saw the elf waiting on the brow of the hill, impassive and fearless, unleashing arrow after arrow to slow the enemy’s advance. Then he had seemed everything ageless and deathless, an ally of worth indeed.
Théoden looked at the elf now and could see nothing of that warrior in him. The creature stood gazing into the river with such sorrow upon his face; he looked delicate as a birch before an oncoming storm. In the elf’s blue eyes Théoden saw the same anguish he felt in his heart whenever he thought of his son. A loss that could be endured but not, perhaps, long survived. Against his will and much to his surprise, his heart turned over in pity, for this could have been his own son standing there, slender and fair, undone by the cruelty of a world he had thought kinder than this until now.
With an effort Théoden recalled himself to his duties as a king, shouting to his men: “Get the wounded on horses. The wolves of Isengard will return. Leave the dead.”
The look the elf gave him then was full of disbelief. He wondered if the poor creature yet understood that the dead could feel no pain, their spirits already departed to the halls of their fathers. It did no hurt to Aragorn to leave this place; nor good to him to linger here, except his friends would join him in the afterworld the sooner. He was gone from all harm now. Théoden’s people were not. And the loss of Aragorn was a grave one for them as well as for these friends of his.
Yet he found himself speaking as gently to the elf as he would to Éowyn. There was something of the maid in this elf’s eyes; not in the strength and sinew of his arms, of that Théoden had seen evidence aplenty; but a purity and innocence that reminded him of his niece and of her mother before her. He suspected this elf had never known the comfort of the marriage bed, and that somehow made him seem not ageless at all, but younger than himself. He put a hand on the elf’s shoulder: “Come.”
But when he walked away, he left both elf and dwarf still gazing down into the river, still looking in vain for a comrade they would never see again.
With the image of those ten thousand Uruk-Hai branded into his mind, Aragorn had no thought for anything else; though he glimpsed in passing that his friends had suffered much in thinking him dead, he had no time now to greet even brave Gimli. He must carry this news to Théoden, must tell him of –
Legolas appeared like light out of shadow. He looked up and the elf was there. Aragorn stopped dead in his tracks and could only stare at him. So beautiful. It frightened him that this was his first thought. There was an army advancing. It was Arwen who had brought him back from near-death; her love, her kiss….
So beautiful.
The elf was like a draught of clear spring water to a thirsty man. Unstained, untouched. Aragorn became aware that he was filthy, bleeding, aching in every limb, and that he had smelt a great deal sweeter in his time.
“Le ab-dollen.”
You’re late. He stared at the tall elf in confusion. Did Legolas think he had been tarrying somewhere?
The elf looked him over, taking in his wounds. “You look terrible.”
Aragorn laughed. He could not stop himself. He was alive and Legolas was alive, and they could still share a joke together though ten thousand Uruk-Hai were marching towards Helm’s Deep. Elves were maddening things. Like snowflakes you could never grasp in your hand, they always melted away from you, elusive as dreams. Now he gripped the elf’s shoulder, feeling the flesh and bone of an elf who was more than a whisper in his mind, a yearning in his heart, his tangible, touchable, yet still elusive friend, bringing their faces close. He was alive. He could feel it in the pulse of his heart; and read it in the relief dancing in Legolas’s blue eyes.
Then suddenly Legolas was holding something out to him and he had no idea what it was. The expression in the elf’s eyes told him nothing. He felt the elf’s fingers in his and clasped them, unwilling to let them go, and only after Legolas had gently slipped his fingers free looked down to find the beauty of the Evenstar undimmed and glittering in his blood-stained palm. At once he felt chilled and warmed all at once. He had thought the Evenstar lost forever and even as he had mourned the dimming of that light in his life, he had wondered if this was a sign that he should let Arwen go; not just in the words he had spoken to her at Rivendell, but from his heart as well. Yet he could not pretend the bond between them was not as strong as ever when her kiss had coaxed him back from the dead and Legolas had given him back this symbol of her undying love.
“The light of the Evenstar does not wax and wane…. It is mine to give to whom I will. Like my heart.”
“Ae ú-esteliach nad...estelio han. Estelio ammen…” If you trust nothing else…trust this. Trust us….
And he did. He knew her love was an unbreakable bond. When she was before him and when she was far distant and her voice lingered only in his dreams, he knew he loved her. Yet when he looked into Legolas’s eyes….
There was happiness in those elf’s eyes now. So glad that he could give him back the Evenstar. Aragorn realized that he had been hoping for some regret. Was that what he wanted? That his true friend should suffer a bruised heart because of him? Had he become so selfish and so greedy that it was not enough he should keep one elf of whom he was by no means worthy from the peace of the Undying Lands, but he must now hope to capture the heart of another?
As Aragorn said “Hannon le” one half of his heart was full of gratitude to have this precious gift given back to him, and another of loss that Legolas could return to him this symbol of Arwen’s love and feel only happiness at being able to do so.
When he turned his head he saw Éowyn and on her lips was a smile of relief that he was alive and well, and of joy also, he thought, as she imagined the joy that he must feel to have back the Evenstar, and yet in her eyes he thought he saw a tear.
As he hurried to tell Théoden of the Uruk-Hai advancing on Helm’s Deep, he thought what a poor friend he was that he wished that it had been in Legolas’s eyes that he had seen some shadow of that tear.
This was the cold dawn of realization when he understood the elf was free, as Aragorn, son of Arathorn was not, free in body, heart, and soul to take wife or lover as he chose. He buried his reaction, impatient with such emotion at such a time. There were other matters to attend to; lives dependent upon his sword and his decisions. As Frodo was forced to bear the terrible burden of the ring, so he must accept the burden of his kingship. The men of Rohan, like the men of Gondor, looked to him for help. Though Théoden might disdain advice of his, still he should have the sword of Aragorn son of Arathorn at his side through the dark night of Isengard’s army. Yet still a new seed of sadness had been planted in his heart and as he fought and fought though the odds were hopeless and the battle surely all but lost, he felt the seed flower into a new sorrow, a permanent ache in a hidden corner of his captive heart.
Sitting on the narrow bed provided for him, Legolas ached from battle and from grief at the loss of so many of his fellow elves. The loss of Haldir had wounded him deep in his heart. The fear was still raw also; so many times Aragorn could have died; a death he was not sure that he could bear. He had been singed, like a wild hawk by the sun, a foreshadowing of the grief he would endure if Aragorn were ever lost for good. All these things he thought of as he disarmed himself slowly in the chamber to which Éowyn had shown him. She had a kind heart indeed to match her fair face, and he felt for her, that unrequited love for Aragorn one with which he could all too readily empathize. Some, love made small and narrow, envious and bitter, yet he hoped her heart was too pure and too good for it to work such a weakening upon her. Her love for Aragorn had brought her close to despair, he knew, yet still it could make her stronger, as a storm upon a growing oak. He wondered that her menfolk should keep her from battle when such a light of courage shone in her eyes, and he hoped her love for Aragorn should not undo her at the end; that she could understand, as Legolas understood, that it was not that her own light was weak or unworthy of love, but that it had come too late. That she would realize in time for how long had his love for Arwen blazed in Aragorn’s heart.
She had never seen Aragorn light up as if a candle had been shone upon his face when Arwen spoke to him; the way he looked when he saw her after absence – be that absence a month, an hour, or a year. With the dark light of the Evenstar few could compete, nor would want to compete if they knew the depth of love that Arwen bore for Aragorn. Yet deep as her love was, Legolas did not think his own was shallow. Éowyn he hoped, might still be able to make it to the shore, but he had seen at once her heart was passionate, and he knew himself how hard it was to retreat from a flame that promised such warmth, even though one knew that, like the wings of some poor moth, shrivelling to a blackened cinder must inevitably follow. Aragorn burned too brightly, that was the problem; Legolas knew he was not the first to be singed by him, and no doubt he would not be the last. Legolas sighed as he unbuckled his quiver and tossed it onto the bed. It was too light and he must collect more arrows, but he was too weary and he could not bear once more to walk amongst the fallen.
There were so many dead elves out there in the pitiless daylight; some of them with their heads pillowed on the breasts of slaughtered orc; eyes open but unseeing. As he thought of Haldir he had to close his own eyes or else he might have wept. He ached within and without, for the dead, and for his own bruised heart. Gimli knew; he was sure of it. The dwarf had been too gentle with him after that quarrel with Aragorn that had seared him to the soul. Though he knew their stalwart companion to be kind-hearted, fearless, and loyal, he did not expect soft words from him, yet Gimli had been as gentle with him as if he were some maiden encountering first rejection. He must thank the dwarf later, he thought. He need not name what he thanked him for; but they would both know that Gimli’s consideration had been noticed and appreciated. Though the way ahead was still dark indeed, and perilous, in their companions they had been most fortunate. Elrond had chosen well when he had named them the fellowship of the ring.
He remembered Aragorn pressing his lips to Boromir’s dead brow; remembered too that brave warrior at sport with the hobbits, teaching Pippin and Merry to wield a sword, and laughing at their ferocity. The man had sacrificed himself for those two merry-hearted souls in the end and it grieved Legolas greatly not only that it should have happened but that they should have been witnesses to it. That race was not meant to see dark things; they were the happy uncomplicated heart of this land for which the rest of them should make sacrifice that the hobbits’ lives should roll on undisturbed. The failure of warriors had begun when the Nine had made their way to the Shire, and it had been a sad day indeed when such light-hearted creatures as those should witness the death of such a man as Boromir of Gondor and should be forced to see with their own eyes the light go out of his.
He bowed his head and murmured a brief hope that Boromir had found the peace in death that had eluded him in life. For such a warrior he hoped there had been many trumpets sounded on the other side, and feasting in his honour, for he imagined it a robust place where such souls as his found their final rest; one where heroes could still fight and win and leave all their weaknesses far behind.
When such a fellowship was formed it should not lightly be sundered; thin threads sent out to bind all of them together which, when severed, bled. And certainly he felt as if parts of himself were in disarray; one limb dead; others scattered. His heart was bruised. What was he if not a protector of those not gifted with elven senses, yet he had done nothing to save Frodo and Sam, who now must be struggling on towards Mordor alone, and though he had run until he had thought his heart would burst, Pippin and Merry had been saved through no efforts of his. He felt too restless to sleep although he knew he should take what rest he could. He told himself it was because he needed to see that the two hobbits were as safe as Mithrandir had told them; because they knew not what the fate of the ringbearer might be; and yet in his heart he knew this restlessness was because Aragorn was in another chamber like this one, also heartsore and weary, and had Legolas not foolishly come to love him too well, he would have taken him some mead and made him rest and reassured him that he had done all that could be done and far more. In allowing Aragorn to become more than a friend to him, he had become less than a friend himself. He thought of the pure-spirited loyalty that Sam showed Frodo and felt ashamed that he, one of the first born, should have so much to learn about true friendship from a gentle hobbit out of the Shire who thought himself no hero; who had killed no orc in his time; nor understood the language of birds; yet what stouter heart beat in Middle Earth than his, and what greater loyalty and friendship had anyone shown another than that gardener of the Shire to his dearest friend?
I am ashamed of what I have become, Legolas thought to himself. I am not only unworthy of Aragorn’s love; I am unworthy of my blood and kin. So the man cannot love you as you wish to be loved; you are alive, as is he, and the fate of Middle-Earth tilts upon the blade of a knife while you sigh in your bedchamber like a maiden counting flower petals whose rhyme has come out wrong….
“May I speak with you?”
Legolas turned to find Éomer standing in the doorway of his chamber, looking at him intently. The fellow was taller than he remembered, and his long hair reminded the elf of a horse’s mane; it had the same coarse vigour, the same unexpected beauty when the firelight turned its golden strands to bronze. Éomer’s skin was ruddy, his eyes clear and free of doubt. A handsome man, certainly, broad-shouldered and well made, confident and direct. A man much better as an ally than an enemy and one who had shown himself a true warrior in battle. He was spattered in blood and stank of sweat and death. Nor did Legolas think one would have needed to be an elf to know at once that the young warrior had ridden hard and fast to come to the relief of his uncle’s people.
Although Legolas was weary he acknowledged that the son of King Théoden’s dead sister deserved his respect. Without the Riders of Rohan none of them would have survived and if strategy were to be spoken of, or battles planned then certainly his weariness must be put off and the man given all his attention. He inclined his head. “Of course.”
The wild trees had killed many of the departing Uruk-Hai who had fled from the Riders of Rohan but still they knew Gondor was in need of their help. He presumed Éomer would want to speak of this. But instead the tall warrior put his head upon one side and said, most unexpectedly, “May I kiss you?”
“What?” Legolas stared at him in disbelief. He knew very well that his hearing was excellent and his comprehension of human speech better than that of many humans, yet still he questioned his own ears.
Éomer came into the room and shut the door. Legolas realized now that he had that strange scent about him humans got after battle; not just blood and sweat, but arousal; a jut of defiance between their legs because they had survived to see another sunrise. It followed the red mist that came down across their eyes as they strode into battle, sword held valiantly aloft. He had never found a tactful way to ask Aragorn about it; this need humans had to go from grasping one sweaty weapon to another. But he had never seen that need so unguarded as it was in Éomer now. The young warrior looked at him intently, eyes dark with want, lowering his voice to say with an open frankness that was almost disarming: “I never kissed an elf before.”
“You will not feel the lack then when I refuse,” Legolas retorted. Had Aragorn been nearby he would have been gesturing to Éomer to take a step back, for the fire in the elf’s eyes was fierce as the setting sun.
“Do you refuse?” Éomer did not hide his disappointment. “I hoped you would be as curious as I.”
Full of wrath now, Legolas rose to his feet, the tall elf a little irritated to find Éomer his match for height and far broader in the shoulders. “Do you know who and what I am, son of Eomund? I am an elven archer of Mirkwood and son of King Thranduil of that realm. I was walking this world when the timbers from which Edoras is fashioned were not yet acorns waiting to sprout. And in all those centuries I have never yet felt any need for the embrace of a human who smells like his horse!” Even as the words left his lips, Legolas realized they were a lie. There was a chill curl of regret inside him and its name was ‘Aragorn’. And dearly though he loved the heir to Gondor, it could not be denied that at present the man did indeed smell greatly like his horse.
A smile played at Éomer’s lips; clearly finding the elf’s anger amusing. “I could bathe.”
Legolas opened the door to his chamber and looked pointedly into the corridor beyond. “You may leave now.”
As he turned to go, Éomer caught Legolas’s cloak and pulled him close, whispering into his ear, “You are the fairest sight I ever saw, prince of Mirkwood, and my body is a pillar of flame for your embrace.” Then he kissed Legolas, most chastely, on the lips, and then was gone, before Legolas could decide if putting an arrow in Théoden’s heir could be justified to Mithrandir later on the grounds of gross provocation.
Although he would never have dared to tell him so aloud, Aragorn could not help thinking that an angry Legolas was a more beautiful sight than even the fairest sunrise. The elf had erupted into his chamber a moment since, ranting about the insolence of the heirs of Rohan, blue eyes aflame with indignation, yet Aragorn, weary and battered as he was, could hardly bring his mind to comprehend what the elf complained of, so awestruck was he by the elf’s slender beauty as he strode around the room. Even before Legolas’s arrival, his body had been thrumming with that strange energy that always followed battle; a power unleashed that could find no rest though the enemy was dead or fled and his sword wiped clean again. The elf bursting into his room, strangely vulnerable without quiver and bow, did nothing to soothe that restless pulse inside him.
Legolas turned on his heel, graceful and silent as a cat, and fixed Aragorn with his gaze. “How dare he suggest such a thing to me?”
Realizing he was gazing at the elf in blind rapture, Aragorn blinked to clear his thoughts and vision. “Who?”
“Éomer.”
At once that flame of jealousy was back, and this time it was a forest fire. He was on his feet in an instant, voice terrible with fury: “What did he suggest?”
In the face of Aragorn’s anger, Legolas took a step back. “It may have been a jest.”
Aragorn strode to where the elf was standing. “Did he lay an unclean hand upon you?”
Legolas looked into the man’s eyes in confusion and a little awe. “He is our ally, Aragorn. Nephew of Théoden. Brother to Éowyn. Without his Riders, we were dead.”
The ranger caught him by the shoulders and almost shook him. “Did he touch you?”
Legolas looked from Aragorn’s stormy gaze to the filthy fingers bruising his fair skin and his own eyes widened in confusion. “He kissed me, but – ”
Aragorn swore an oath so savage the elf flinched. As Aragorn drew his sword, a pulse beating in his brain and in his heart that felt as if some part of him must snap if he did not this very night taste Éomer’s blood, the elf put cool fingers across the man’s mouth. “Say not so. My own indignation was childish enough.” A smile played at the elf’s lips. “And is most unseemly in a man who would be king.”
Aragorn made to argue with him, then realizing what a foolish figure he cut and seeing the wry amusement in the elf’s blue eyes at both of their posturing, found a smile twitching at his mouth. As he sheathed his sword, he said mock-defensively, “I’m full of rage.”
“He said he’d never kissed an elf before. Apparently these Rohirrim are always eager for new experiences.”
“He nearly had the new experience of my sword jammed where he sits.”
The elf winced. “Poor Éomer.”
“If you pity him I will have no choice but to kill him this very night.” Aragorn reached out and stroked a strand of the elf’s fair hair back from his face; wondering as he did it how he had found the courage, and hoping and fearing all at once the gesture might pass for yet another touch of friendship between them.
But the humour had gone from the elf’s eyes now and he looked at Aragorn closely. “You speak like a jealous suitor.”
Only then did Aragorn dare to raise his eyes to meet the elf’s unflinchingly. “Perhaps because that is how I feel.”
He saw an agonizing flare of hope in the elf’s eyes and then Legolas sighed and lowered his long lashes to hide his gaze. “But you have kissed an elf before, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir to the throne of Gondor, betrothed of Arwen Evenstar, my distant kin, my loving friend, my sister under the skin.”
Aragorn realized in that instant that there was no difference between the way he felt for Arwen and the way he felt for Legolas. His heart was full of love for both; for Arwen he felt more awe and himself less worthy; with Legolas he felt more equal and less tentative; but for both there was passion and friendship and although he could give up either one that they may live the longer amongst their own kind, neither one could he give up without a regret as savage as a sword wound to the heart.
He spoke intently: “And I do love her. Enough to give her up that she may pass from this land to the Grey Havens and be with her people if that is what her heart wills; or enough to spend my own short life with her and feel my heart lighter every day for her love.” Aragorn put his hands gently to Legolas’s face, very aware of how dirty and marked his fingers looked against the fair skin; speaking with soft passion as he gazed into the elf’s eyes: “But can a man not love the evening and the morning? Can he not love the starlight and the sunrise? Can he not love his wife and his friend?”
Legolas looked into his eyes for a long moment, his gaze a mixture of sorrow, want, and hope, and then he smiled a little sadly. “He can, Aragorn. But it makes for a crowded marriage bed.”
Aragorn said: “May I kiss you?”
He could not help but rejoice a little at the defeat in the elf’s eyes. Though the elf had the strength of will to overcome a hundred Uruk-Hai, clearly he had not the strength to resist this ranger.
Legolas sighed. “You may kiss me, but I swear, Aragorn, you are more deadly to elven hearts than an orc arrow.”
Legolas found it strange to feel the bristle of a man’s moustache and beard against his own smooth skin, yet though that hair was coarse he loved its feel because this was a part of Aragorn, and a part of their first kiss, this ticklish prickling against his skin. He felt a furry cheek brush his and then there were lips touching his lips, soft and warm and dry. His lips parted as he sighed, closed his eyes, and felt his body melt against Aragorn’s, inhaling the scent of him, sweat and gore, orc blood, and the blood of Haldir spilled against his cloth, and Aragorn’s blood from wounds old and new, bitter salt and iron and earth and horse, and all of it Aragorn, and so he drank it in deeply, the scent of the man he loved.
The man’s tongue was inside his mouth now, a gentle coaxing of lips against his lips, a flexing of that faintly metallic tasting movement within his mouth, wrapping itself around his own tongue, encouraging it to flex itself in response. He felt Aragorn’s hands against his cheek, a gentle stroking of fingers and thumbs against his skin, small circling motions, encouraging his mouth to open wider, accept him deeper. He did. Eyes closed, he opened his throat to Aragorn, opened his body to him, was walked backwards to be pushed against the unwieldy wall, Aragorn’s body pressing against his, more urgent now, and breathless. He felt the man’s hardness press against his body and at once Aragorn’s excitement transferred itself to him. He was overwhelmed by the scent of the man’s arousal, the hot pulse of his blood, the rapid thunder of his heartbeat. He had thought of love as something exchanged quietly under a full moon, like a gift given and accepted. He had never thought of sweat and hunger and this thrumming need, but this was the crush of a mouth bruising his, gashed knuckles heedlessly breaking open healing scabs in the hunger of fingers to find his skin. His body bucked in response, the flame of Aragorn’s passion lighting a fire in his own blood, more intoxicating than any wine. The man kissed him hard and harder still and he gasped and opened his mouth wider, sucking Aragorn’s tongue hungrily into his mouth, his own long fingers furrowing the ranger’s dark hair.
A warm hand tugged at his tunic and he reached blindly for Aragorn’s clothes, fumbling with lacings, yanking back half-rent cloth only to find himself dismayed by the unwieldy chill of chain mail. He opened his eyes as he felt the cool links then cast a quizzical look at the ranger.
Aragorn gave him a wincing apology. “I dressed for conflict, not courtship.” As he pulled the chain mail over his head, he pressed his mouth against Legolas’s again and murmured, “Yet it is your arrows who have found my heart tonight, Legolas, and from this wound I fear there will be no recovery.”
Legolas could feel himself trembling with reaction as the man kissed him, then touched him, a hand sliding down his body to stroke the inside of his thigh through his breeches. He could feel the passion building as he had felt the excitement build before a battle; the same outer stillness while inside everything prickled with tension. All thoughts of chaste gift-giving were forgotten now. He wanted their bodies to thrash like the stubborn salmon throwing themselves wildly into the sun-kissed foam above the thunder of the falls; wanted the echoing clash of antlers in the rut. As Aragorn yanked off his breeches and he realized he had no memory of removing his boots, although his feet were now undoubtedly bare, he realized he wanted to be crushed like fallen leaves and bruised like fallen fruit, and touched as lightly as the velvet nap of a butterfly’s wings. To be taken and wooed and won and overthrown; for Aragorn to be tyrant and petitioner in one. He could not tell if that was the romance in his first-born soul or only an avoidance of responsibility so that later he could tell himself he had not helped the man be unfaithful to one who loved him, but had been overwhelmed by the force of the ranger’s passion, as was the land by a river that broke its banks.
“Yes.” Aragorn said it breathlessly and Legolas knew it was in answer to no question he had asked; the man following his own thoughts, and his own thoughts clearly causing his heart to run faster than a millrace after a flood; just as it caused his loins to harden to an eager jut against the slender hollow of Legolas’s belly. The man kissed him again, passionate and tender at once, catching up a handful of pale hair and brushing the ends across his mouth before he swooped to claim Legolas’s mouth once more, fierce and certain then soft and sweet. So is a scurrying mouse taken by a screech owl, Legolas thought, so is a new leaf caressed by the dew.
Their tongues flexed, eager and clumsy, and fingers that had never slipped on bow or sword, groped and tugged at knotted laces that they then heedlessly ripped. They stumbled and cursed, yanked and pulled, and boots were thrown and clothing cast off in all directions. Aragorn was either the stronger or the more determined for Legolas’s clothes were shed first, while the ranger still clung to a white fall of undershirt from beneath which his ardour jutted eagerly. The elf saw Aragorn look at him, from nape to toes, a gaze so heated it passed across his bare skin like the flame of a torch, and then the man breathed something which Legolas could only presume was a strange mangling of Elvish and Dwarvish that made no sense in either tongue. Yet he thought he would take such incoherence as a compliment. Although he was naked, Legolas felt strong within his own bare skin, but Aragorn’s semi-exposure excited him, its touch a sweet burn against his flesh, the warmth of sun-weathered skin, the heat of bruises, the pink rawness around a healing cut, the power of the man’s erect column arising out of the softness of those delicate curls of dark hair. Such vulnerability and such strength. Muscle and sinew and bone and skin. He hungered to taste all of it. Legolas found himself seizing fistfuls of undershirt and hauling the man against the wall to be kissed with breathless passion, his skin prickling in ecstatic discomfort at the scrape of that furred lip and chin. “Don’t you ever shave…?” he demanded as he reluctantly untwined his tongue from Aragorn’s.
The man touched his cheek with fingers gentler than first snow on a new flower, gazing at him with a kind of awe and want combined that made a strange heat pool in Legolas’s groin. He ached, he realized suddenly, with wanton lust; harder than he had been for many a year; seeping with anticipation.
“Don’t you ever bruise or stain?” Aragorn claimed his mouth again, tugging at his lower lip with white teeth, before dropping his head to suck at Legolas’s neck, marking him with kiss and bite.
Legolas gasped. “Both if you continue with such a manner of courtship.”
A hand between his legs made him moan and arch; then Aragorn’s fingers were wrapped around his own hard member, and he was stroked deftly and sweetly while teeth worried at his throat. Aragorn growled like a wolf on its prey as he pinned the elf against the wall of his chamber once more and the low mumble of sound thrilled through Legolas’s body like another touch. Cloth tore as he clawed at the ranger, his shoulder was nipped hard enough to bruise, then his throat worried again, sucked and bitten. He gasped and heard a soft whimpering noise start up that it took a moment for him to realize originated in his own marked throat. That was no sound for an immortal to make. Collecting himself and determined that the man should be the one to lose himself in pleasure while this elf should cling, however barely, to his dignity, he reached for Aragorn’s manhood. Deft fingers that in their time had plucked death for many orc from the strung sinew of a deer, now stroked up the thick shaft, enjoying the feel of its length and weight. Legolas cupped the velvet vulnerability of testicles in his hand, Aragorn’s mouth at his throat the only thing preventing him from bending to tease and caress them with his tongue. Yet the man’s teeth closing on his throat made him jolt and tremble in a way more befitting a maid than a warrior and he strove hard to hang on to his control.
“This is an overflow from the heat of battle,” he gasped, grasping Aragorn’s shaft all the same, and stroking it between the funnel of his fingers and palm until it began to leak with passion.
“It is far more than that,” the man growled into his neck. “Do you not know how long I have looked on you with longing and with love?”
“Your body is always restless for pleasure after too close a dance with death.”
Aragorn claimed his mouth again, desire and exasperation in his eyes. The kiss bruised lips and sucked hungrily at his tongue before the man drew back to snatch a panted breath. “Why are elves such maddening things?” he demanded.
Legolas could not help a smile twitching at his mouth despite the pool of fire in his groin as he looked into Aragorn’s green eyes. “We have centuries in which to practise.”
The man kissed him again, a gentle kiss that barely brushed his lips, then a trail of kisses led along jaw and cheekbone before there was tantalizing warmth only a fraction from his sensitive ear. “For all the advantage of your years, I will undo you,” Aragorn whispered, and the gust of warm breath against his pointed lobe made the elf shiver with pleasure. He had often thought that all Aragorn lacked to be a true king was confidence, but how typical it was that the man should choose now as the time to overcome all doubts. Then a deft tongue was licking at his ear in a way far too practised. Legolas moaned as Aragorn mercilessly flicked wet warmth around the edge of his sensitive ear. That was a weak spot for elves; the right touch and they dissolved with pleasure, yet that was a well-guarded secret he had certainly not intended to share. The man was already too much the master of his heart and body; he had never meant to give him the key also to his innermost desires. But he could not stop his whimper of pleasure and felt Aragorn smile and lick his ear again. This pleasure was like the distant sting of a thousand tiny bees; almost unbearable to experience; he felt his body began to shiver and tremble; trying to cling to his self-control as Aragorn applied himself in earnest to that ear, and gently stroked his shaft at the same time.
“Be not afraid of pleasure, Legolas,” he whispered in his ear as he mouthed its tip gently. He kissed the elf’s left ear again, then kissed a gentle trail down his cheekbone, licking and nipping, till he reached his mouth and claimed it with a deep and tender kiss. “There are worse things to which even an elf can surrender than his own desires.”
Legolas could not stop his body arching as the man’s callused palm caressed his aching shaft. So delicate a touch from hands that had wielded a sword with such savage skill a few hours since. His thumb was rough from battle yet it caressed the swollen head of Legolas’s member as gently as rain upon the petal of a flower.
“You undo me…” the elf breathed, eyes closed as he pleaded for mercy he doubted he would receive.
“Then we are even.” Aragorn kissed him again, then brushed his eyelids gently with his mouth, coaxing the elf to open his eyes. “For by you I am most certainly undone.” A gentle thrust of his hips into the elf’s hand gave the proof of his arousal; his manhood straining with want, yet no kiss could have been gentler than the one that so tenderly tugged at Legolas’s lower lip.
Unwillingly, the elf opened his eyes and, as he feared, the sight of the man made his body arch and yearn with even greater intensity. He reached up and stroked dark hair back from skin streaked with the soot of battle. He could not help but rub his face against the rough nap of that unshaven jaw, revelling in the friction of those familiar bristles against his skin. At last he knew why a cat purred when it was stroked.
Their mouths fumbled together sweetly as Aragorn’s fingers stroked deftly between the elf’s legs. Even the warmth of the man’s rough palm along the inside of his thighs made Legolas tremble. He reached for the ranger’s manhood but Aragorn laced his fingers between the elf’s and held him off, whispering in his ear, “May I…?”
Legolas felt his heart began to quicken its pace still further; only a hunted hart could have matched its rhythm now. He turned his head away and whispered “Yes” as quietly as if his stern father stood in the corridor outside and could overhear them. Better not to think of what his father’s reaction would be if he had heard his son make such an answer to such a question. However many centuries rolled past with the regularity of thunderstorms in summer, to Thranduil, Legolas was always his youngest son.
Aragorn smiled, still holding Legolas’s left hand and turning his head to trap the elf’s mouth. He nuzzled at his ear gently. “I didn’t hear you.”
Though his back arched at that heated breath against his lobe, Legolas narrowed his eyes. “I think you heard me well enough.”
The ranger was definitely smiling now, green eyes alight with mockery and fondness. “I would not wish to overstep the boundaries of our friendship, Legolas.”
Abruptly the elf reached out with his free hand and seized the man’s tender testicles, grasping them firmly. “Will you act or shall I twist?”
Aragorn laughed, and, as he gazed at the man, Legolas could not help thinking he never smiled enough. It did his heart good to see the man’s eyes crinkle with mirth, the flash of his white teeth. “You elves are such passionate creatures.”
Legolas leant in close to claim a kiss. “We are impatient also.” He stroked Aragorn’s testicles gently, then ran his hand up the length of the man’s shaft, holding the man’s gaze. “Your sword should be sheathed in the bedchamber, Aragorn. Who knows what wounds it could inflict like this.”
Aragorn’s eyes pooled black then, only a thin circle of green left undarkened by desire. He claimed the elf’s mouth roughly, biting at his lip, while his fingers pressed between his legs. Breathing hard into Legolas’s ear he said, “I would inflict no wounds on you, my maddening elf, but I do confess I would give much to sheath myself within you.”
Breathless with wanting, Legolas gasped out, “Some things are better done than too much discussed.”
Then Aragorn’s body was pressed against his, their tongues entwined, his fingers carding through the man’s dark hair while Aragorn thrust his tongue as deep into the elf’s mouth as he so clearly longed to thrust his hardness into his body. Legolas wrapped his long legs around the man’s waist and they staggered together against the wall, the ranger’s arousal hard against the elf’s, Aragorn groping blindly for something in his saddlebag yet unwilling to unlock his gaze from the elf’s. “Hurry…” Legolas breathed.
As the man turned away with an oath to look into the saddlebag, the elf arched against the wall, rubbing his erect member against the man’s, the delicious friction sending a tingling of pleasure through them both. Moaning, Aragorn snatched a phial of oil from his saddlebag in triumph.
“Is that for soothing wounds or cooking meat?” Legolas enquired, arching his body against the man’s in fast upward strokes.
“Does it matter?” the ranger demanded.
Legolas gave him his most brilliant smile. “Not at all.”
He barely stifled a yelp as the man thrust a warm oiled finger into his opening. He glared at him, not amused by the smile twitching at the man’s kiss-swollen lips. “Remember, yours is not the only offer I have received today.”
“Forgive me,” Aragorn kissed him tenderly as he slid the finger in a little deeper, his body pressing hard against the elf’s. “There is something about the insufferable calm of elves that makes one long to disturb it.”
Legolas swallowed as the finger probed deeper still, trying to think of some response that was not the breathless gasping of the ranger’s name. He could not help his eyes closing as the finger brushed lightly against a pleasure point buried so deep inside him he had thought it safe from all discovery. He felt a flicker of panic then, for he had envisaged things very differently between them; a brief jolting of warriors taking pleasure where they found it; he finding his own climax within the act while the ranger moaned ecstatically at his labours. When the man had undone himself and spilled his hot seed over them both, Legolas would have kissed him on the brow and whispered to him sweet words of reassurance. Was that not how it was meant to be between men and elves? Yet no one seemed to have told this truth to Aragorn. Indeed, the ranger seemed to think it was the work of men to reduce elves to moaning incoherence with the skilful passion of his touch. As that finger moved far too deftly within him and Aragorn nuzzled so gently at his mouth, then kissed his eyelids, Legolas felt naked for the first time. Now there was nothing about him the man did not know.
As Aragorn slipped two fingers inside him, the man whispered: “Trust me.”
“Do you see a want of trust?” the elf demanded breathlessly.
“Let go.” The man brushed Legolas’s lips with his; the two fingers twisting deep, caressing that place inside him where such intense pleasure dwelt he was almost afraid to have it touched. As the fingers brushed across that hidden place he felt like a strummed lyre, such sweet music conjured from his inner strings. Though he bit his lip, a low moan escaped. Aragorn helped matters not at all by twisting his fingers yet deeper inside him while at the same time licking the lobe of the elf’s pointed ear; the whisper of his warm breath an unbearable tease to already too-sensitive skin: “Be not afraid to fall, Legolas.”
“I must not,” the elf gasped. “Aragorn, please….” Yet even as he gasped the man’s name in such distress he knew not if he begged him to stop or to continue.
“I will catch you.” The man kissed him on the mouth with such tenderness that Legolas felt his bones melt within his skin. “I will catch you.”
Three fingers burrowed their way inside him, caressing and stretching, finding too many of his deepest points of pleasure. Legolas realized that as soon as the man’s shaft entered him he would be utterly undone, for his body was traitorous, thrumming in anticipation, all its focus upon Aragorn and none at all on him. As he opened his mouth to tell Aragorn that he must stop now, at once; that Legolas would give him pleasure with a light heart but could accept none in return, it was too late. Aragorn kissed him deeply and tenderly, the man’s tongue invading his mouth and claiming it for his own, and as his body weakened and opened in helpless response to that sweet kiss, the man drove himself deep inside him. Legolas moaned, his back arched, and as the shaft slid into him, filling him and opening him to all the man’s passion, felt his body give up its last resistance. His innermost points of desire were impaled on the end of Aragorn’s sword. He cried out in ecstasy, and the first unbearable wave of pleasure, like pollen from a flower, burst free deep within him in a shower of golden dust.
Never had Aragorn known such pleasure as when he sheathed himself within the velvet tightness of Legolas’s beautiful body; it trembled through him like a lit flame, and yet he strove to overcome the pulsing of his own desires. Always the warrior, the elf had battled him to the end. Clearly, to elves, love-making between humans and themselves involved the humans groaning in a passion-dazed loss of self-control while the elves looked on benignly and presumably counted star patterns to pass the time. But he had not waited so long for this day to have Legolas give him pleasure as a child is given gifts then patted on the head and sent upon his way. He wanted the elf to give himself to Aragorn as Aragorn gave himself to him. Wanted something brittle in the elf to shatter – his father’s teaching perhaps – and the sweet core of the true Legolas to run rich and free like wild honey licked from the comb. So though the elf moaned and arched and gave him reproachful looks from ecstasy-darkened eyes that begged for mercy, he was ruthless with his friend. He drove into him deep and slow, finding that place inside him he suspected the elf had always intended to keep hidden. But a ranger of a mere seven and eighty years could sometimes have learnt more in that brief span than an elf of many centuries. Especially when that elf had been born in Mirkwood and had never travelled far from his own boundaries.
Legolas gasped as Aragorn drove into him again, another wave of pleasure coursing through both their bodies with each deep thrust. Breathlessly he said, “My father always said the elves of Lorièn were full of bad habits.”
“The elves of Rivendell also. In my upbringing I was doubly blessed.” As he thrust into him again, Aragorn bit the elf’s neck and felt Legolas tremble ecstatically at the double assault upon his screaming senses.
“Oh, Aragorn…too much…too much…” Legolas struggled to claw back his self-control, snatching a breath from the heated air. “I will complain to Elrond that his foster-son is full of vice.”
“Do so.” Aragorn smiled and kissed the elf again, twisting his hips with the next thrust so that the elf’s sweet spot should receive a new thrill of sensation. “Long has he maintained the elves of Mirkwood should stray beyond their own boundaries a little more often, in body, heart, and mind.” He thrust again, another twist of his hips battering the elf’s pleasure point from a different angle.
Legolas moaned helplessly, arching his back, his fair hair falling like a waterfall with the sunlight upon it to caress his heated skin. Aragorn thought how pale and slender the elf looked beside his own darker skin, how beautiful. Yet the body could not have been more masculine despite the slenderness of the waist and impossibly long legs. As well as the eager jutting of the elf’s arousal, now strained and weeping as it clamoured to be touched, Legolas’s shoulders and chest were certainly broad enough to please the eye as well as to string and draw a bow. Aragorn bent his head and licked approvingly at one pink nipple. As he thrust deep within him again, Legolas moaned again, mumbling incoherently in Sindarin that Aragorn was a torturer crueller than Sauron. Aragorn only smiled and licked at his other nipple until that was as hard and aching as its fellow. When he increased his thrusts, the elf moaned louder, a warm flush of shame suffusing his body that made him look absurdly young. Aragorn had to bite his own lip lest he mentioned the elf was blushing like a girl, and he kissed the elf very tenderly to hide his amusement, nuzzling at his ear and whispering sweet words to him of how he was as supple as a birch and as strong. When the elf still looked woebegone at every moan that escaped him, the man kissed him over and over, breathing into his ear of how for so many days now had Aragorn’s life been saved by the swift accuracy of the elf’s arrows, so now it was only fitting that the ranger should pay his debt by finding his own target with equal skill.
The elf kissed him back in gratitude for the compliment, furrowing his fingers through Aragorn’s hair; his body pulsing to the ranger’s rhythm, legs wrapped around the man’s back, hips working now to meet each forward motion. Aragorn increased his pace, thrusting faster now and harder. Yet though he moaned and arched at each new deep thrust, Legolas raised no objection. Aragorn had no thought of his own pleasure, for all of his love, friendship, and true affection for the elf, determined that this once Legolas should reach his climax first and Aragorn have the pleasure of seeing the elf give up his self-control. After so many centuries of Legolas clinging to his father’s rigid instructions like a drowning man clinging to a raft upon the rapids, Aragorn thought it high time the elf let go and simply drifted where the current took him.
He thrust fast and deep into the elf until Legolas could barely snatch some air between one breathless moan and the next. He was all aflame with pleasure now; a burning brightness in Aragorn’s arms; that pale skin heated with desire; body flexing in time to the ranger’s thrusts; as they beat a rapid percussion against the chamber wall, the elf threw back his head and finally let go, gasping ‘yes’ to the man at last. Then Aragorn was almost undone and his rhythm became as ragged as it was rapid, driving hard and deep and shallow and swift, body shaking as they kissed breathlessly, tongues barely able to caress before more air had to be snatched into starving lungs. “Let go, Legolas,” Aragorn panted breathlessly as he thrust into the heart of the elf’s pleasure point. “Let go….”
And then the elf arched in his arms and Aragorn barely got his right hand between the elf’s skull and the chamber wall in time; Aragorn supporting him with his hips alone even as his body shook with its own need for release. Then as climax bent Legolas like a drawn bow, Aragorn clasped his left hand across the elf’s mouth so that no one else should hear him scream his name. Then kissed his throat and cheek and ear repeatedly, whispering words of love to him as the elf spilled himself over and over in bursts of hot pleasure, body convulsing like a tree shaken by a storm. The elf arched once more and Aragorn stroked tangled fair hair back from his face and kissed him again, soothing him now; the strength of the elf’s passion almost frightening them both. Long eyelashes fluttered as his gaze began to focus once more, and, with his heart beating rapidly as he slowly came back to himself, Legolas darted Aragorn a look of reproach. “What if Gimli had heard…?”
“From him we may fear no mockery.” The ranger kissed him tenderly. “For I have a secret of his he doesn’t want shared with you.”
The elf’s eyes widened and then he flashed the man a brilliant smile. “I will winkle it from one of you before too long.”
“No doubt you will.” Aragorn grinned and kissed him again, tucking a braid back behind a pointed ear.
The elf kissed him in return, stroking long fingers through the man’s dark hair. “You are still harder than an oak branch within me, Aragorn,” he breathed. “Are you afraid to lose control?”
“I would gladly lose it on the bed, if you’ve no objection.” The ranger slipped his hands beneath the elf’s buttocks to hold him against his body. “I worry for your skull if my passion overruns me here.” As Legolas nodded his consent, Aragorn carried him to the bed, still sheathed within the slender elf, those long bare legs still wrapped around him; the elf’s head hanging back, limbs as heavy as his bones were light as the aftermath of pleasure left him drowsy and receptive. Aragorn was envious of the elf’s quiescent state yet unwilling to join him yet; so pleasurable was his current condition; yet he knew he could not last much longer. His body tingled on the brink of climax from his testes to the weeping tip of his arousal, his member straining like a hound to the hunt. Glowing warmth suffused his thighs, and even his spine prickled with pleasure; everything afire with arousal and the need for release. He laid the elf gently on the coverlet and kissed him again, Legolas’s black lashes fluttering closed upon a cheek still a little less pale than usual. Aragorn smiled to see that rosy glow upon the elf’s high cheekbones and kissed him again gently as he once more began to thrust.
His dark hair trailed across Legolas’s skin as he drove tenderly into the velvet tightness of the elf’s body. Long fingers caught a handful of his unwashed locks and tangled in them, pulling him lower for another kiss. As he obediently locked tongues with an elf whose heartbeat was almost returned to normal, Aragorn realized this was the way elves preferred their passion; the elf sated and calm while he still laboured in the throes of passion.
“How is it you get your own way in the end?” he gasped, as he thrust harder now, the pleasure building in a way that could not long be denied.
Legolas smiled, drowsy and feline upon the white pillows. “Centuries of practise.”
“I did undo you,” Aragorn reminded him breathlessly, the thrumming a flame within him now, pleasure licking up his spine with every thrust. He could not hold on any longer. One more thrust and –
Legolas pushed his hips to meet Aragorn’s ragged thrust then tightened his muscles around the ranger’s member. As his body clasped itself around Aragorn’s with ecstatic precision he pulled him into a kiss, whispering: “And now it is you who are undone….”
A cool hand was clamped across the ranger’s mouth as he cried out the elf’s name; spilling himself deep inside that delicious warmth. Then he collapsed, heaving, on the archer’s slender form. Legolas pulled him closer; Aragorn having no strength left for aught except to be dragged up like a sack of meal to meet the elf’s lips.
They kissed breathlessly, Legolas stroking sweat dampened hair back from Aragorn’s face before their tongues entwined again. Then the elf sighed and stroked a finger down the ranger’s mouth. “You had better rest. Humans are easily tired by such exertions.”
Aragorn gave him a look of exasperation, but could not deny his body was now utterly strengthless; near-death; the rush of rage and fear that made up the midst of battle; so many hours of fighting in the cold and wet against those impossible odds; and now this last exertion had turned his veins to water and his bones to mud. With an effort he managed to pull out from the elf, his member, although limp once more, seeming reluctant to leave the comfort of that place. Then he collapsed upon the bed, very aware that these sheets some kind soul had procured for him were far cleaner than he was. Legolas tugged at him until he was under the coverlet and with his head more or less upon the pillow, then lay next to him.
Dazedly, Aragorn reached out and stroked his fingers through the elf’s golden hair. “Are you well, my friend?” he asked gently. He thought it too unseemly to the archer’s dignity to ask if he had left him sore, but he would have liked some reassurance he had not been too brutal in his passion.
The elf rolled onto his side to look at him and sighed. “I’m not sure, Aragorn. I did something today I have never done before. It weighs upon my conscience.”
Aragorn blinked in confusion. “In so many centuries you have never before…?”
“No.” The elf shook his head. “Never before have I told a lie.”
The ranger with an effort propped his head upon his hand. “A lie…?”
“To Éomer.” A maddening smile played around the elf’s mouth and his nose wrinkled delicately. “I told him I had no desire to sleep with a man who smelt like his horse.” Then, before the ranger could voice his indignation, Legolas turned over with deft grace so that his back was to Aragorn.
Indignantly, Aragorn peered over at the elf’s face. But although he knew very well elves slept with their eyes open, Aragorn saw that Legolas had his closed fast and was most successfully feigning sleep. The ranger opened his mouth to tell the elf that he had heard no objections earlier to the way he smelt, but the elf was breathing in a deep even rhythm, his sleeping face a mask of perfect calm.
Aragorn rolled onto his back and hit his head on the pillow in exasperation. “Elves are such maddening creatures!” he said aloud and beside him, Legolas’s mouth curved into a smile. But still he raised no objection when the ranger rolled back onto his side to press close against him, nor when long legs were tangled around his own, a warm arm was wrapped around his chest, and a last kiss placed upon his ear before they both drifted into peaceful sleep.