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The chamber was dimly lit, the heavy drapes drawn to soften the evening’s glow. A hush lay over the room, thick and inescapable, as though the very walls knew of the grief that approached.
Aragorn lay upon the great bed, his once-strong form now frail with the passing of years. His breath was shallow, but his eyes, those wise and weathered eyes, held warmth as they rested upon his beloved. Legolas sat beside him, his slender fingers entwined with Aragorn’s calloused hand, his golden hair spilling over his shoulder as he bent low, pressing his forehead to the king’s chest. The rhythmic beat beneath his ear was slow now, weaker than it had ever been.
“I can hear it still,” Legolas whispered, voice trembling. “As I always have.”
Aragorn’s lips curved in the faintest of smiles. “Then I am still yours.”
A sharp breath left Legolas, pained and shuddering. “You have ever been mine,” he murmured, lifting his head just enough to meet Aragorn’s gaze. “And I yours.”
The king traced his thumb over Legolas’s knuckles, his strength barely enough to complete the motion. “I would stay,” he murmured, regret flickering across his aged face. “If I could.”
Legolas shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “You have given all, melethron. Your people thrive, your son is strong. Your time is yours to choose.”
“And yet, still, I linger,” Aragorn said with a soft chuckle, though it faded quickly into a sigh. “For you.”
Tears slipped past Legolas’s lashes, silent as they fell onto their joined hands. He did not wipe them away. “Then linger no longer, Estel.” His voice was raw. “I will wait for you where the stars are brightest.”
Aragorn exhaled, a sound both heavy and light, sorrow and peace mingled as one. “Do not wait too soon,” he murmured. “Lírin needs you.”
Legolas did not answer. He only bent once more, pressing a lingering kiss to Aragorn’s lips, then to his brow. “Sleep,” he whispered. “I will not leave you.”
And with one last breath, one last whisper of the world’s embrace, Aragorn was still.
A silence unlike any other filled the chamber. A silence of things ending, of things changing. Legolas did not move, did not weep aloud. He merely rested there, his head upon his beloved’s chest, though no heartbeat reached his ear.
It was there that Lírin found him.
The prince, grown into the man his father had raised him to be, stepped into the room, his heart lurching at the sight. The stillness, the unnatural hush—it told him all he needed to know before his eyes even confirmed it.
Legolas had not stirred at his entry. His slender form was poised in quiet mourning, his hands still curled around Aragorn’s own, his golden hair spilling across the king’s chest like strands of woven sunlight. Lírin swallowed hard, his throat thick with sorrow.
“Nana,” he said softly, moving closer.
Legolas did not lift his head, did not shift from his place. But his fingers tightened, just barely, around Aragorn’s cooling hand.
Lírin knelt beside the bed, resting a hand upon his mother’s shoulder. “Nana,” he said again, quieter now, as though afraid to break the fragile stillness between them.
At last, Legolas stirred, turning his face slightly towards his son. Lírin saw then the glimmer of tears trailing down his mother’s face, silent but endless.
“He is gone,” Legolas murmured, voice scarcely more than a breath.
Lírin’s own eyes burned, but he did not shed his grief yet. Not now. He shifted, wrapping an arm around Legolas’s shoulders, drawing him close. “I know.”
A long silence passed before Legolas finally turned fully, pressing his face to his son’s shoulder, a shuddering breath leaving him as he finally allowed himself to lean into the only embrace left to him.
And Lírin held him, as Aragorn once had, knowing that though his father was gone, his mother remained. And he would not let go.