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Legolas has not slept in a very long time.

Rather, he hasn’t rested in a very long time - properly rested, let his body sink into slumber like it so desperately craves to now. His few moments of reverie are the darkest hours of the night, the few times his fellow travellers take night watch.

His body is unaffected by the long stretches of consciousness. His arrows fly as true as always, and his movements never slow, but even Gimli has begun giving him strange looks.

Gimli!

He has resisted sleep before. His days at the southern outpost of North Mirkwood left little time for it, but at least then he could rest under the watchful gazes of his kin.

It is not that he doesn’t trust the others, in fact, he knows they would give their lives for his, the same way he would for his own for theirs, but…

There is an itch beneath his skin, a longing in his bones. He speaks with Aragorn in Sindarin, switching from formal palace talk to accented-slang for the humour of it, and feels his heart tug when the others can only stare in confusion.

He cannot expect them to know anything of his home, or his people, but the ache in him grows with every step he takes away from the dark forests of Mirkwood.

It is… childish to feel so. He chose to leave on this quest and he would not turn back for any reason beyond returning with good news of their success. He does not regret his decision, and he never will.

But he misses his home, as dour and dim as it has become, and he misses his father, despite the distance they have between them.

“Elf,” says a gruff voice, pulling him from his thoughts. 

Legolas turns, and smiles slyly at Gimli, simply because the gesture irks him a great deal. Predictably, Gimli’s expression scrunches up in suspicion, and he raises his chin.

“Sir Gimli,” Legolas greets with an incline of his head. 

Gimli only becomes further irritated. It is hilarious , to Legolas, who also finds Pippin’s willingness to eat worms rather amusing.

“Samwise has finished the evening meal and insists you join us,” Gimli grumbles. He tilts his head slightly as he takes in Legolas’ freshly braided hair, but says nothing about it. 

“I’ll be there in a moment, don’t fret, my dear dwarf friend,” Legolas sing-songs mockingly, and Gimli bristles in annoyance.

He pivots on his heel back towards camp, but something makes him pause. He glances over his shoulder, at Legolas, at his hair. 

“Elf,” he says again.

Legolas blinks, a tad confused and curious enough that there is no disdain or taunt in his voice when he questions, “Yes?”

Gimli’s eyebrows furrow, and it reminds Legolas somewhat of a particularly grumpy squirrel. His fingers curl around the hilt of his axe until they are white-knuckled, and Legolas has to suppress the urge to take a step back.

“It is nothing,” Gimli says finally, continuing his way to camp as if nothing had happened.

What a strange fellow, Legolas thinks to himself, watching his retreating back.

He does something he has never done before. He takes notice of Gimli’s hair, and the meticulous way it is braided down his back and the wires and trinkets interwoven between the fiery strands.

It is chaotic and somewhat cluttered… but it almost reminds Legolas of the flowers he used to put in his own hair. He’s too old for that now, having passed the age of majority a century or so ago, but it brings fond memories to mind.

He sighs as he climbs to his feet, sweeping his hair over his shoulders.

He had braided it out of impulse, something to keep his fingers busy as he listened to the trees and any messages they carried. That had quickly turned into stewing in his own thoughts, but no one had to know about that besides himself.

He walks back to camp in little hurry, feeling the breeze between his fingers and listening to the nearby songbird. It is a peaceful day, one of few in their journey.

Despite his sombre thoughts, it is a good day.

Legolas sits down beside Sam with a little less grace than usual, though the only ones that notice are Aragorn, because he knows him so well, and Gandalf.

Thankfully, neither of them point it out, a bit too busy digging into the delicious meal Sam has cooked for them yet again.

It is quite fortunate they have a good cook for their travels, considering how utterly miserable the other hobbits would be if they didn’t. It’s a thought that makes Legolas want to chuckle, but he resists because he knows if he does, someone will nag him until he explains why.

Though, he could probably just say something entirely nonsensical, and they’d believe him, since according to Gimli, his sense of humour is as skewed as his interactions with gravity, whatever that means. 

“ Legolas, ” Aragorn murmurs in low Sindarin. “ I feel as though Sam is about to burst into tears, seeing as you have not finished your fish.”

Legolas ignores the strange discomfort in his gut at hearing the language. Instead, he glances at Sam and sees that yes, indeed, he is on the verge of tears.

“I was merely savouring this simply delectable meal,” Legolas says aloud, much to Aragorn’s exasperation and Sam’s embarrassment.

Legolas makes a show of eating the rest of his fish, and debates swallowing the head for the hell of it, before deciding the bones would be too painful to choke down. He grins and pats his stomach, something that his father would certainly frown at. 

“It’s- really nothing Mister Legolas,” Sam says, as Merry nudges Pippin and they snicker together.

“Do not undermine yourself, Samwise, you prove to be a vital member amongst us yet,” Gandalf remarks cryptically, puffing rings of smoke from his pipe.  

The fellowship takes a moment to stare at him, then return to their separate conversations they were having beforehand without missing a beat. Legolas eases into a conversation with Sam about the edible herbs and mushrooms they may be able to find on their journey, but his mind wanders.

Frodo knows Sindarin, though his vocabulary is just as formal and stiff as Legolas’ father’s. The other hobbits probably don’t have the slightest clue about it - since in the early days of their travelling Legolas had complained about them to Aragorn and they hadn’t batted an eye. 

Gandalf definitely knows Sindarin, considering he said that Legolas’ constant switching between diplomatic speak and casual tone was a disgrace to the language, but he refuses to speak it until Legolas ceases his ‘butchering’ of the language. 

Which Legolas also refuses to comply to, so neither of them speak Sindarin to each other. 

Boromir knows about as much Sindarin as Gimli does, and that is to say none at all. Any and all Sindarin conversations are met with sighs and pleas to speak Westron like the rest of them. 

Legolas wonders if anyone else is feeling the same longing for home as he is, though he greatly doubts it. Aragorn is a strong man, a leader, and has been on many quests and travels. Gandalf doesn’t seem able to stay in one place longer than a few years, the hobbits are as merry as ever, and everyone seems to know their place in the fellowship. 

Legolas subconsciously clenches his fingers into fists at the notion - he volunteered on the quest because he could, not because he had something to prove. He’s doing it for the greater good, they all are, but he doesn’t feel very noble, when in this very moment he could be home in Mirkwood and helping at the southern outpost. 

“I will take the first watch,” Legolas volunteers as they begin cleaning up their evening meal. 

Aragorn frowns at him, helping to add to the campfire. They had agreed they could risk one, just for tonight, before they moved into more dangerous territories. “You took the first watch the night before.”

“And the night before that, and the night before that,” Gimli points out, sounding strangely smug about something. It is revealed a moment later, when he continues, “I begin to think that our elf does not trust us not to gut him in his sleep.”

“Why, dear dwarf, why does it sound like you intend to do exactly that?” Legolas taunts, grinning at the disapproving grimace Aragorn wears. 

“Ack! I meant nothing by it,” Gimli grumbles, dragging his bedroll as far as he can from Legolas while remaining in the vicinity of the campfire’s warmth. “If you wish to exhaust yourself, you’re free to do so!”

“You must be tired ,” Aragorn says in Sindarin, offering some privacy in a group where there has been very little. 

Legolas hopes to dismiss his worries as best as he can, but isn’t very convincing because Aragorn’s words are true. “I just wish to watch the stars, Estel, you would not take that away from me, would you?”

Aragorn’s frown deepens. It seems the only emotion he is alright with showing on his face is his disapproval or concern. He glances around camp, where everyone is settling in for the night. Since he took the night watch after Legolas on the way here, he can’t very well volunteer himself.

He isn’t like Legolas. 

He can’t last on nothing for so long. 

“Rest if you must,” Aragorn tells him softly, and bids him goodnight for the evening.

Legolas can feel another pair of eyes on him. When he turns, it is surprisingly - or unsurprisingly - Gimli staring at him. 

“Wake me at moonpeak,” is all Gimli says, voice rough, as he lies down on the ground. 

“I will,” Legolas answers, slightly caught off-guard by his offer. Gimli takes night watch as often as anyone else, but he refuses to do it before or after Legolas. It is a bit funny. 

Legolas sits back as everyone’s breathing slowly evens out in the quiet of the night. Merry is the first to fall asleep, then Pippin, followed swiftly by Frodo and Sam. Gimli is next, and it takes a few more minutes for Boromir and Aragorn to slip into slumber - a warrior’s instincts, he supposes. 

Gandalf is unconscious at some point too, his eyes wide open and staring into the night, but Legolas cannot pinpoint the exact moment it happens, unlike with the others. It’s… disconcerting, to say the least, but Gandalf means none of them any harm, and he’s a cryptic entity himself.

Legolas wasn’t lying when he told Aragorn he wanted to watch the stars. 

As soon as he knows that the coast is clear for the night, is told so by the trees and the grass that no orcs run amok among them, he tilts his head up. The sky is vast and glittering above them, beautiful, even obscured by the spiralling campfire smoke. 

Legolas breathes out a sigh. 

He does not dare let himself rest during night watch, even as secure as they may be, but he lets himself relax, somewhat. The day’s tension runs from his shoulders like the stream of a river down a rocky cliff, jaggedly but relieving all the same. 

Legolas stares up at the night sky, and he remembers faint memories of a pale, soft hand holding his own. Somehow, the world around him was gentler with his mother by his side, and now…

Perhaps Thranduil is watching the same night sky - internally, Legolas wonders how his father took the news of his abrupt departure from normality into the Fellowship of the Ring. He wonders how Lord Elrond had scripted that particular message, but that’s far less serious. 

…Legolas really hopes he’ll be able to see his home, at least once, in the likely case that this trip leads to his demise. The thought makes him uneasy. Not once had he doubted the group’s strength, but the prospect of never being in the peace and comfort of his kin again is like a gut punch. 

He has to blink back tears, which he only realises are collecting in his eyes because the gleaming lights of the stars become blurry. 

It is a horrifying thought.

It makes his skin crawl - it is like hearing the incessant clicking of a spider’s mandibles, or the swish of an orc’s blade. He has faced death before, but one so far away from the people he cares about, from the place he grew up in-

Is this how his mother felt?

“-Legolas!”

The snapping voice wrenches him out of his thoughts. He jolts, berating himself for his carelessness, and whips around, eyes meeting with Gimli’s beneath furrowed brows. He spends a split-second glancing at the sky, and realises it's almost an hour past moon-peak.

But, instead of the expected anger or annoyance, Gimli just looks… worried. Concerned. Over… Legolas?

“My apologies, Gimli,” Legolas mutters without snark or scorn. His head aches, a pounding by his temple, though bruises only coat the skin beneath his clothes. “I was simply lost in my thoughts.”

Gimli is frowning immensely, squinting at Legolas like he’s just said something in Sindarin that may or may not have been an insult. “What’s troubling you, lad?” he asks, expression twisted in a way Legolas has never seen before. 

Legolas wonders why Gimli is bothering - they have done nothing but antagonise each other this entire time, as light-hearted as it is, shouldn’t the dwarf despise his existence by now?

“It is nothing,” Legolas replies. He rises from his place and steps silently over to where the forest is thickest, where very few will be able to reach his back without him noticing. “I will take my rest now.”

Gimli makes a dubious, noncommittal noise at the back of his throat but relents. Legolas doesn’t quite fall asleep, as is becoming commonplace. He stares at the tree trunk a few paces away, trying to listen to its song, a lacklustre attempt at soothing the ache in his heart. 

He should take the time to rest as much as he can. There will be danger and more trouble as they travel further, and less time to recuperate. 

But it is hard.

Legolas grits his teeth, and despite it being unnecessary, screws his eyes shut. It is indescribably strange not looking at the stars on a night as clear as this one, but he hopes the darkness will do something for his troubled mind. 

Someone begins humming quietly to themselves. 

It can only be Gimli, but the melody is gentle and as soft as velvet, nothing he would have expected from such a gruff dwarf. 

Legolas feels his anxieties dim, ever so slightly, but he keeps his eyes shut. He is ordinarily the last to fall asleep of the group, and he’s never heard Gimli sing so reverently before. 

Gimli and Legolas are of the two within the group who find it entirely acceptable to burst into song at any given moment. Legolas might sing a brief - and brief as in thirty minute long - interlude about the sun hanging the clouds in the sky for decoration, and Gimli may drown out his song with a ballad of the cave systems beneath their feet. 

Legolas is known for his woven tales of grandeur and whimsy, sensuous and lilting. 

Gimli’s are more like shanties, just as fun but more jaunty and less polished. 

This song… is almost like a lullaby. 

Legolas has not heard one in millenia - a product of his mother’s death, and his father’s grief. He does not blame either of them, because you cannot blame someone for dying just as you cannot blame someone for their grief.

He remembers, faintly, memories tinged yellow with age, a song his mother and father used to sing as a duet while he slept.

So faintly, that if he tries his hardest, he can almost convince himself that Gimli’s song is the same as theirs.

Aragorn wakes him the next morning by stepping on a twig nearby. When Legolas blinks his eyes open and sits up, he receives a slight frown.

“Are you quite alright, Legolas?” Aragorn asks, looking fatigued from the third watch. 

“I’m fine,” Legolas reassures, pulling himself to his feet and stretching his limbs. He doesn’t exactly feel rested - a symptom of not properly dreaming, he supposes - but he feels… lighter. 

His heart still longs for home, but there doesn’t seem much he can do about that. He tries to remember how he moved on from his mother’s death… except he can’t say he did.

“I’ll go hunting,” Legolas tells the slowly waking group. Frodo hums in affirmative, but judging by the bleary way he looks around the camp, he isn’t fully awake yet.

Aragorn nods in acknowledgement and sets to restarting the fire again, hauling some nearby sticks into the space and finding kindling. Since it’s the last time they’ll have warm food in a while, Legolas sets out to bring back as many rabbits as he can. 

He ends up with four, which isn’t many when it comes to the appetite of hobbits, alongside a pouch of edible berries, mushrooms, and some wild potatoes and carrots he managed to dig up. 

…His mother taught him how to find edible berries. Rather, she would take him out in the gardens and point out all the poisonous ones, teaching him to see, smell and feel the danger lurking within them.

Legolas had been young when she had disappeared from his and his father’s lives - disappearing being a vague, hollow way to put it. 

But that’s irrelevant. Legolas should focus on the more important, or brighter things, like how she’s aiding him so many years after her passing. 

Sam is ecstatic at the additions to their breakfast, and lets the others know it. Legolas just laughs, because something as mundane as making arrows for his quiver has Sam in awe. 

Speaking of, while he tries to retrieve and reuse as many arrows as he can, being constantly chased by orcs doesn’t make that easy. So while Sam instructs Merry and Pippin on how to skin the rabbits - “No, we’re not using the pelts as hats.” - Legolas seats himself and begins attaching flintstones to the straighter sticks he’s managed to whittle down. 

It is calming and almost meditative. Legolas would wish to slip into dream while his muscle memory does all the work, but it seems Boromir has taken his leave at some point, Aragorn is scouting the road ahead of them and Gimli is resting from his late watch. 

So he should stay alert until one or the other returns. 

“Legolas, I’ve always wondered,” Frodo begins, crouching down beside him. “Who taught you how to make arrows? Yours always come out better than anyone I've ever seen.”

Legolas’ lips curve with a gentle smile, as he finishes attaching a flintstone. He balances its weight on his finger - perfect - and considers the question. “My father, Elvenking Thranduil of the Woodland Realm did, though I’m sure you already knew about my lineage.”

Frodo bobs his head in confirmation, peering curiously at the completed arrow. Legolas relinquishes it to him, starting on another. He’s dragged from his peace when he hears a yelp beside him. 

Frodo is sucking on his index finger, looking distinctly guilty, the arrowhead tinged red. 

“I was trying to see how sharp it was,” he explains sheepishly, setting the arrow down. 

“Do not harm yourself for such insignificant things,” Legolas tuts, though light-heartedly and with an understanding smile. He remembers being an elfling and messing with the sharp blades his father insisted he be trained with. “You should trust that I will protect you.”

“Of course,” Frodo says with an assured smile playing on his lips. He excuses himself to help Sam wrangle Pippin away from the worms in the ground. It is - unfortunately, for the rest of the fellowship - a common sight. 

Legolas fills his bow with quivers and watches the hobbits. They are, according to Aragorn, already past the age of majority, but Merry insists that his name is Pippin and Pippin’s is Merry, and Frodo has that bright-eyed youth to him. 

“You are not so old yourself, Legolas Greenleaf,” Gandalf remarks, standing as tall as a birch tree, his head circled by the glowing sun. 

Legolas feels himself smirk despite himself. “Ah, you only say that because you are a wizened entity yourself.”

“Perhaps,” Gandalf chuckles, smoking his pipe. “I have roamed this lands for a great many years, but never have I come across an elf such as you.”

“You jest,” Legolas huffs, thinking of his father, and his mother, and his grandfather, and the long line of revolutionaries that came before him. 

Gandalf gazes down at him, eyes wrinkled and half-lidded but carrying the weight of millenia in them and a gleam that makes Legolas feel known in an intrinsically mortifying way. 

“Perhaps,” he repeats. 

Later, after everyone is huffing and panting and trying to catch their breath after outrunning an honestly ridiculous horde of orcs, Legolas does not remember Gandalf’s words. 

Instead, he is about to pitch a fit, because one of the orcs had managed to get close enough to almost pull his arm out of its socket and he can’t move it without a spark of pain so sharp it makes his teeth grit against each other. 

This is relevant, because he can’t redo his braid with an injured shoulder, and the aforementioned braid is most definitely falling apart down his back.

It all comes to a head as they set up camp in a cave of all things. Legolas agrees that the hobbits, at the very least, deserve rest after the hard journey, but a cave? His skin crawls just at the thought of spending the night in it, but Gimli insists the deeper they are in the cavern the safer they are, and Aragorn agrees, despite the worried looks he sends Legolas. 

A cave.

Legolas is going to scream. 

He excuses himself from the group before he lashes out at Sam, who keeps asking him about his home - which he might never see again - or Aragorn, who asks if he’s alright - he is a Sindar elf in a cave does it appear that he is alright-

Legolas stands near the entrance of the cave, not quite able to see the stars, but at least he isn’t suffocated in darkness. He subconsciously reaches up to sweep a strand of hair behind his ear, but the pain that laces around his shoulder and up the side of his neck stops him. 

He sucks in a breath through clenched teeth.

And hears heavy footsteps behind him, so distinct they can only belong to one person.

“Sir Dwarf,” Legolas greets caustically. 

Gimli frowns right back at him. “Elf,” he says, begrudgingly, “Samwise was wondering if you were alright. He said that it’s possible elves can die of a broken heart, so he’s afraid that you may have left us to die in peace.”

Legolas feels his eye twitch. “Please inform our dear Samwise that I am not going to leave the mortal plane if I can help it.” He wonders why they sent Gimli of all people, but can’t find himself to care

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Legolas says coolly and quickly. “I am merely seeing if the orcs have caught up to us yet.”

“And?”

“They aren’t.” Legolas’ eyes narrow of their own accord. “Why do you care?”

Gimli shrugs, a dismissive gesture, though his eyes are tracking each of Legolas’ miniscule movements. “You are in a foul mood, and everyone can sense it. It is better to tell someone what ails you before you do something you may come to regret.”

“Such wisdom ,” Legolas hisses, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, ignoring the twinge of pain by his shoulder. He restrains from telling Gimli of the reasons for his foul mood, hoping the dwarf will take the hint and leave him alone . 

“Dwarfs are known for our intelligence,” Gimli answers without missing a beat. 

“Are they now?”

“Indeed.” 

Gimli walks forward until he is side by side with Legolas, staring out into the night. His eyes flit briefly on the dark bruise that stains the side of his neck, and lingers a few moments too long for curiosity. 

Seeing Gimli’s calm in the face of his frustration, an immovable force like a mountain in the eye of a storm, Legolas eases out a sigh. Without the spitting anger and the insidious irritation, he is simply tired. 

Tired, and in pain. 

“What’s troubling you, lad?” Gimli asks, voice soft in the night. 

Legolas chews the inside of his cheek, something his father would have reprimanded him for. “It is… a childish thing. You should not be bothered by it.”

Gimli raises a bushy eyebrow. “And yet you are. Tell me, so the rest of us are not hindered by your pouting.”

“I have not been pouting !” Legolas protests indignantly. 

“It seemed that way to me,” Gimli answers, shrugging, though his eyes are serious when they meet Legolas. 

“I cannot braid my hair,” Legolas says, instead of all the troubles he has piled on his tongue - and the ones he’s had since he was an elfling. “My shoulder is injured, and it limits my movements.” 

“ That is the reason for your troubled mind?” Gimli questions, and Legolas can already hear the taunts and mocking that will follow.

“I warned you that it was childish,” Legolas mutters, curling his hands into tight fists.

There is a pause, and surely Gimli is finding the right insult that will cut Legolas down to his bone marrow-

“If you allow it, I could braid your hair,” Gimli says quietly.

Legolas blinks and tries to parse his words for mockery, but there is none, only simply sincerity. He glances sideways at the dwarf, noting the serious lines of his face and the intricate braids his fiery hair and beard have been twisted into.

“Why… Do you care?” Legolas asks, unable to help it. His chest twists at the expression Gimli makes - regretful, confused, a little irritated.

“Simply because I do, lad,” Gimli replies gruffly. “If you elves have some rule about not letting other creatures touch your hair then tell me and so be it.”

“…There is no such rule,” Legolas says, faltering. “But among my kind… We do not share physical contact as easily as other races.”

Gimli frowns deeply, coloured with bemusement. “You are always touching Aragorn’s arm in reassurance, and placing your hand on others’ shoulders,” he points out. 

“I am considered frivolous , even amongst my kind,” Legolas explains wryly, feeling warmth creep up on his face. 

“Frivolous? Then I suppose not all elves are fools,” Gimli remarks, and Legolas does not resist his ensuing eyeroll. “So, what about it lad? Are you going to spend the rest of our travels sulking, or will you let me braid your hair?”

Legolas considers the offer, and it definitely seems enticing. He has not had much physical contact in his life, baring Aragorn, who is not a touch-oriented person himself. It would feel nice, he can admit to himself, to have his hair out of his face, at least for the time being. 

“I suppose if you are so insistent about it,” he mutters, and Gimli laughs. 

“Well, you should sit down lad! I barely reach your shoulder here,” Gimli grumbles, tugging on his shoulder until he obliges and sits cross-legged on the ground. “Though I must admit, this is somewhat outside of my expertise. Your hair is so fine and fair, it is a wonder it is only so dishevelled.”

“Do you wish to braid my hair or do you wish to insult me?” Legolas asks, though there’s no malice to his voice. 

“You are supposed to be the most patient amongst us, and yet you are rushing art,” Gimli mutters, taking the end of Legolas’ braid in his hands. He carefully undoes the ribbon there and begins gently pulling the strands apart. 

It doesn’t take much effort, and soon he is carding his fingers through Legolas’ hair. Legolas allows the anxiety to run out of him - Gimli was genuine in his offer, he means no harm. It is strange to have another’s fingers in his hair, twisting the strands, but not unpleasant.

Legolas would have asked Aragorn to do this for him, perhaps, but Aragorn isn’t exactly well-versed in braiding hair. One could argue that he is terrible at it, but one also shouldn’t let Aragorn hear that. 

“Your hair,” Gimli says after a while. Legolas makes a noncommittal hum and the back of his throat. “It is like silk, and nothing I’ve seen before. How is that so?”

“I suppose it is simply because of my lineage,” Legolas answers, a tired sigh accompanying his words. “Though I warn you that it’s unattainable beyond being born of royal blood, so any further questions may be unuseful.”

Gimlie chuckles, a low and rumbling noise, fingers unfaltering. Legolas isn’t sure what sort of braid his hair is being pulled into, but it feels far more intricate than what he is able to do himself.

Legolas isn’t sure how long it takes, but he finds himself not caring. Gimli lifts his hair off his neck at some point, and somehow manages to pin it up on the back of his head without any sort of hair stick. 

“Alright, I’m all done,” Gimli says after a moment, a note of admiration in his voice. 

Legolas raises his uninjured arm and brushes his fingers over his done up hair. It seems Gimli has manoeuvred his hair into a bun around the middle of the back of his head, and coiled a row of braids around the base of it. 

“Thank you,” Legolas murmurs, swallowing down a strange emotion.

“Think nothing of it, lad. Let us join the others before they begin to worry about our whereabouts,” Gimli replies, offering his hand. Legolas takes it, feeling significantly lighter and almost sleepy as they walk back to the camp.

Though, he glances over his shoulder one last time, mourning the starlight.

“They will be there when you wake,” Gimli tells him softly, gently touching his wrist. 

Legolas nods and lets out a quiet breath. “Of course.”

They walk until they reach the camp. Sam opens his mouth at the sight of Legolas, but Frodo shushes him. Boromir volunteers for the first night shift, and Aragorn and Gimli volunteer for the other two, even though they are deep within the cave. 

“Rest well,” Boromir tells the group.

Aragorn gives Legolas a look at his words. 

“Rest well,” Legolas replies to Boromir, suppressing the urge to swat at Aragorn’s face. He lies down on his side, and realises that Gimli is not as far as he usually would be. 

He tries to sink into dream, but the absence of the stars and the trees and the grass are frigid on his nerves. His body loses the day’s tension but he does not rest. 

Until.

He hears a song, soft and sweet, like the songbird of day, but the voice that sings it is rough and deep. Gimli’s. Legolas listens to the song, foreign words but familiar tunes, and lets the melody ripple over his pain and fears. 

He remembers Gimli’s words - They will be there when you wake - thinking of the stars, and his father, and his home, and all the little things he cares about. 

And finally, after far too long, eases into a peaceful slumber.