Chapter Text
Chapter 6
It was very early the next morning that Gollum was returned to their custody for they wished to make all speed in the last part of their journey through Mirkwood Forest to the Halls of Thranduil.
Gollum seemed to sense that something had changed with his captors, for he was even more rambunctious at the end of his leash, constantly needing their attention to ensure he did not escape. “Why do you not speak?” asked Legolas impatiently. The halfling opened his mouth as if to reply, but snapped it shut again. “Fissshhh,” was all he would say, and was all that they would hear, over and over again, until their three days crossing Mirkwood, stopping at what seemed every river and stream for Gollum, were almost done.
“But why will you not bring Gollum in with me?” asked Aragorn. “The credit of this capture is as much yours as mine.”
“You know why,” replied Legolas.
“I know you have quarreled with your father…”
“We have quarrelled, but we are not estranged. And that is how I wish it to remain. Have you met Thranduil?”
Aragorn had met him once, as a much younger man. “Yes, he is gracious but he does not esteem other races than his own. Only Gandalf.”
“Yes, Mithrandir is an exception to all. But I should warn you that even though you have done great service, he will greet you with honeyed words and a sneer upon his face.”
Aragorn shrugged. “So long as he takes custody of Smeagol there, for Gandalf’s interrogation, I do not care much about how I am greeted.”
There was silence.
“What you are telling me,” Aragorn went on, “is that Thranduil will not want to see you in my company.”
“My father believes me to be still on the northern borders of Mirkwood, defending our realm.”
Aragorn shot him a look of slightly exasperated understanding. “Then you must disappear before we arrive, and reappear from the North,” he said. “Will I see you again?”
“I believe so, yes. I am a Prince of the Realm, and I have ceremonial duties. But…”
“But … the idyll is over before it has begun, and you and I will be separated. We are likely to be sent on different paths, for we serve different masters.”
“Aye, but we will meet again, I am sure of it. Surely, with your Dunadan gift of prophecy, you know the same.”
“Alas, I am very sure, for my dreams of war have increased, and I know within me that there is a great struggle ahead of all of us. Let us hope that we will be able to be allies again – and more.”
Legolas smiled at this. “We can never be strangers again,” he replied.
And so it proved, Legolas returning to the North, and Aragorn being sent West to the Shire by Gandalf to investigate troubling reports of dark horsemen. But Strider the Ranger and Legolas the Warrior Prince were destined to meet again many times, and every time on a more familiar, and firmer, footing.
finis