Work Text:
Legolas, the Silmarillion, and Other Catastrophes
The thing about Elrond was that he did not do things by halves.
If one had to marry, he married Galadriel’s daughter. If one had to build a refuge for the Elves, he founded Rivendell, the most beautiful, flourishing, and discreet refuge in all Middle-earth. If one had to fight Sauron, he joined Gil-galad as his herald, helped defeat the Dark Lord, spoke to Isildur so that he might destroy the Ring and… well.
The thing about Elrond was that he did not usually do things by halves.
In any case, the library of Rivendell was the perfect proof of Elrond’s dedication and of the fact that Elrond took the Noldorin side of his blood very seriously. Far too seriously, if one asked Thranduil.
Imladris collected texts with the sort of lofty excess only the Noldor could make sound reasonable, as though a thing was not truly worth knowing unless it had first been written down at impossible length, copied twice, translated into three languages, and then burdened with enough commentary to ensure no one ever reached the end of it in good health.
Still. If Elrond wished to live inside a very elegant avalanche of parchment, that was Elrond’s business.
What was Thranduil’s business was the use a certain golden-haired little elf was making of that library. Not that Thranduil objected to Legolas reading. Quite the opposite. Ever since Legolas had learned -absurdly early, to the pride of everyone involved- Thranduil had done all he could to encourage the habit. After all, Legolas was meant to become the prince of his people, heir to the greatest Elven realm in Middle-earth, a leader among nations and a light in dark times. Someone like that ought to be properly educated.
Thranduil had also encouraged the habit for reasons rather less noble. If Legolas was reading, then Legolas was not out petting wild wargs, exploring caves that looked one bad thought away from collapse, climbing trees taller than the palace, or engaging in any of the other activities he liked to pass off as entertainment and everyone else liked to classify as attempted suicide.
In any case, when one combined Elrond’s apparent fear of not having, somewhere in his archives, a detailed record of the hair colour of Durin the First’s cook’s son, with the unstoppable zeal of a child who had once been told read and had evidently taken that as a lifelong calling, the result was -rather surprisingly- a week of extraordinary peace in Imladris.
Who would have thought.
To improve matters further, Enery, his wife, had been obliged to remain in Greenwood. Now, Thranduil adored his wife. Adored her. Missed her every waking second. But in the privacy of his own thoughts, no one could really blame him for appreciating, however briefly, a season in which he did not have to sleep beside what often felt suspiciously like Aulë’s forge in a silk nightgown. And anyone who insisted Elves could not feel heat or cold had clearly never shared a bed with Enery. Such people would be forced to reconsider several cherished beliefs at once.
The point was that Thranduil was feeling deeply, gloriously at ease.
The library of Imladris, with its elegant sitting room, was filled with old and new friends at that late hour of the afternoon, all of them waiting for dinner. Elrond sat at a table wearing his particular expression of either thinking very deeply or being completely asleep. In Elrond, the expression was identical. His lovely wife, Celebrían, Thranduil’s closest living kin, sat in a nearby chair, reading a book with grave attention, while her three children -the terrifying twins and the lovely Arwen- had adopted their mother’s attitude with the solemnity of the very well-born.
Glorfindel was dozing on a nearby sofa. Thranduil supposed killing a Balrog granted one an eternal right to nap whenever and wherever one pleased. And Erestor, wearing the particular frown reserved for scholars and no one else, was reading a book that Thranduil would have sworn Erestor himself had written.
Thranduil himself sat in an armchair, reviewing trade agreements so boring that they belonged, by definition, to the best possible kind. No fights, no alarms, no disputes about the price of red pigment or wickerwood, no one on the brink of war over shipping routes. Nothing but something quiet and simple. No catastrophes.
Speaking of catastrophes, Thranduil’s very own was also in the room. They had managed to persuade Legolas to sit in an armchair instead of on the highest ledge of the bookcase. Why he had wanted to sit on the highest ledge of the bookcase remained a mystery to all. In the end, it had taken Glorfindel to negotiate him down into a more civilized and significantly less fatal location, in exchange for an archery display later that promised to delight the young and old alike.
Thranduil smiled, looking over at Legolas, who was lost in a book. Despite his age, the child had somehow succeeded in conquering the entire Noldorin nobility, which made it exceedingly difficult for the King of Greenwood to instill so much as the suggestion of discipline in him. After all, how was Legolas expected to obey anyone when the slightest sparkle in his eyes reduced every elf in the vicinity to a useless puddle of praise, comfort, and sweets produced from thin air?
I ought to make use of that, thought Thranduil. Perhaps if I take him to Lórien, I could annex the territory while no one is loo-
Thranduil frowned.
Even half-lost in his own thoughts, one part of him was always watching Legolas. After all, Legolas had been born entirely without a survival instinct, which meant the service had had to be outsourced. To his father. And at present, every alarm in Thranduil’s mind had begun to ring.
Thranduil watched as Legolas’ eyes widened gradually, and then alarmingly, until they reached dimensions that were frankly concerning. His mouth was beginning to fall open too.
Thranduil caught Celebrían looking at him. Celebrían, being Celebrían, had noticed the change as well. He gave the faintest shrug, and she smiled before both of them returned their attention to the child.
Legolas was nearing the end of a rather thick book. Thranduil could not see the title, but it looked difficult. Perhaps Legolas had come across an unfamiliar word and, being Legolas, had taken personal offence.
Thranduil forced himself to look away. Legolas caused him enough concern already without Thranduil also attempting to master whatever wild and lawless kingdom existed inside that indomitable head. No. Thranduil would concern himself with ensuring that Legolas remained physically intact, with all ten fingers and all ten toes, for at least another couple of centuries. It was unreasonable, Thranduil felt, to expect him to govern logic as well in the mind of someone who adored wild wargs that could remove his head with one bite, yet fled in horror from pigeons. A father could only do so much.
A small gasp pulled his attention back at once.
Legolas was still reading, and still reacting with increasing astonishment to whatever he was finding on the page. The sound had drawn more notice this time. Glorfindel cracked open one eye to confirm that there were neither ancient beings of fire and terror nor distressed elflings in the room, and Elrond seemed to have returned from whichever distant philosophical province he habitually inhabited. Even the twins were now glancing sideways toward the small prince.
Completely unaware that he had acquired an audience, Legolas turned the final page.
He shut the book.
Stared ahead.
His lower lip trembled.
And then he opened his mouth and unleashed the most piercing, sustained scream that had rung through the noble house of Imladris in a very long time.
Thranduil was on his feet in an instant, crossing the room so quickly that the trade agreement he had been holding slipped forgotten into the armchair behind him.
“Legolas!” he said, already reaching for him. “What is wrong?”
By then the scream had collapsed into full, devastated sobbing, the kind that takes over a small body entirely and turns every sensible adult in the room into a creature of immediate alarm. Around them, books were lowered, spines forgotten, pages abandoned mid-thought. Glorfindel was awake now. Elrond had risen. Even Erestor looked concerned.
Legolas launched himself out of the armchair. The book that had been resting in his lap hit the carpet with a heavy thud, unheeded. He ran straight to his father and clung to both of Thranduil’s legs.
“ARE YOU GOING TO TURN INTO A STAR TOO!?” he wailed.
Thranduil looked down at him.
There was a pause.
Then, because even Kings were mere elves in the face of certain questions, he said, “What?”
Legolas tipped his head back, green eyes brimming, tears pouring down his cheeks in such abundance that Thranduil thought the boy could be the answer to every draught in Middle Earth.
“AND IS NANETH GOING TO BECOME A… BIRD!?”
The room went very still, and Thranduil saw every head turn towards Elrond.
Thranduil crouched at once and gathered Legolas in against his side with one arm, smoothing a hand over his hair in a motion practiced enough to be instinct.
“What,” he asked, with dangerous calm, “have you been reading?”
With his free hand, he reached for the fallen book. It had landed face-down. Thranduil turned it over.
He looked at the cover.
And closed his eyes.
“Ai, Valar,” he muttered.
The title, embossed in stern and joyless lettering across the front, read:
Quenta Silmarillion.
"Would someone care to explain," said Thranduil, his gaze moving slowly around the room, "who gave my son this book?"
Every elf in it looked at every other elf, and no one admitted to the crime.
"He must have taken it himself, Thranduil," said Elrond. "It is not very high up, it is in that section, over there."
Thranduil looked toward the spot Elrond was indicating. There was, indeed, an accusatory gap on the shelf. And it was, indeed, a section Legolas could have reached without a great deal of difficulty.
Thranduil set the book aside on the nearest table, sighing.
“No, Legolas” he said. He cupped Legolas’s wet face in both hands, brushing away tears with his thumbs even as more immediately replaced them. “No, ion-nin. Listen to me. I am not going to turn into a star.”
Legolas made a sound that was half-sob, half-wail, and deeply unconvinced.
“And your naneth,” Thranduil continued, pulling him closer against his chest, “is not going to become a bird.”
Legolas clutched fistfuls of his father’s tunic and cried harder, shoulders shaking. Thranduil, who could face armies with admirable composure, looked briefly as though he might prefer the armies.
“It is all right,” he said, smoothing a hand over the bright tumble of hair pressed under his chin. “Nothing is happening. No one is becoming anything. You may calm yourself.”
“NO, ADA, I DO NOT THINK I MAY,” Legolas sobbed into the silk with immediate sincerity. “HIS PARENTS TURNED INTO THINGS AND LEFT HIM ALONE!” he said, pointing at the Lord of Imladris.
Across the room, Elrond -who had until now been waiting to see whether the situation would right itself or catch fire- grimaced. “Well,” he said, “when one puts it that way…”
“Oh, hush,” said Celebrían.
Elrond shook his head and walked towards Thranduil.
“Legolas,” he said gently, lowering himself into a crouch beside them. “It only happened because my parents, Elwing and Eärendil, were grieving, and they made… admittedly, rather dramatic decisions.”
Elladan leaned over the back of the sofa and said, with great helpfulness, “Yes, Legolas. They thought Elrond and Elros were dead and then-”
The scream that tore out of Legolas surely reached Valinor.
“ADA!” he shrieked, turning with renewed horror and latching onto Thranduil with such force that the King had to widen his stance to avoid being taken to the floor. “IF ANYONE EVER SAYS I AM DEAD YOU MUST NOT BECOME A STAR!”
There was a beat.
“And NANETH MUST NOT BECOME A BIRD!”
“Ada was not-” Elrond began.
“YOU HAVE TO CHECK FIRST WHETHER I AM ACTUALLY DEAD,” Legolas cried, and buried his face back into his father’s tunic. “Oh, ADA!”
As the little elf dissolved once more into tears in his father’s arms, Arwen leaned over and smacked Elladan on the back of the head.
“Ow!” Elladan yelped, spinning toward her in wounded outrage. “What was that for?”
“For being an idiot,” Arwen said.
“I was explaining!”
“You were traumatizing him.”
“I was adding context!”
“No one asked for context, Elladan! He has quite enough context already!”
Across from them, Celebrían was making the sort of stern faces that promised meaningful consequences later to Glorfindel and Erestor, both of whom were fighting -bravely, and with absolutely no success at all- against laughter.
Thranduil, meanwhile, had given up any hope of restoring order to the room at large and was concentrating instead on the far more urgent matter of preventing the complete emotional collapse of his household in miniature.
“Legolas,” he said, taking his son gently by the shoulders and drawing him back just far enough that their eyes met. “Look at me.”
Legolas did, though apparently only because he was too distressed to disobey a direct royal command.
“I am not turning into a star,” Thranduil said. “And your mother is not turning into a bird.”
“Do you promise?” Legolas whispered.
“I promise.” Thranduil smoothed damp hair back from the child’s forehead. “Would you like to go for a walk in the forest and look for squirr-”
He had only offered the walk because Legolas loved the forest. Loved it with a devotion usually reserved for religion and certain desserts. Which was precisely why no one in the room was prepared for the reaction that followed, it had seemed like a perfectly reasonable offer!
“NO!” Legolas screamed, recoiling as though Thranduil had suggested they take up residence in a spider nest. “ADA, NOT THE FOREST! NOT THE FOREST!”
Everyone jumped.
Thranduil tightened his hold on him at once. “What is wrong with the forest?” he asked, bewildered. “Why not the forest, Legolas?”
“Because there are strange ladies there who enchant you and then you forget who you are!”
A pause followed.
Then Thranduil said, cautiously, “Are you talking about Thingol and Melian?”
Legolas nodded with grave misery.
“Yes,” he said through hiccupping sobs. “And then we would look for you and never find you again.”
“No, no, little leaf,” Thranduil said, trying for reason. “You see, that was not a bad thing. Melian was simply very beautiful, and Thingol became rather… distracted.”
Legolas sniffed.
“Like you with mom?”
Thranduil felt heat rise straight to his face. Around the room, laughter began to stir again in dangerous little tremors.
“Yes,” he said, with as much dignity as could still be salvaged. “Something like that. But there is no one in the forest now who does such things anymore, Legolas.”
Legolas blinked up at him, still damp with tears.
“So people are normal now?”
That did it.
The room finally broke.
Glorfindel bent over laughing, one hand braced on his knee and the other wiping tears from his eyes. Erestor actually dropped his book. The twins were in ruins. Even Thranduil, who had been making a heroic effort to remain a pillar of paternal stability, let out a laugh.
“Well,” he said, once he could speak again, “that depends rather heavily on whom you ask.”
“Oh, Thranduil,” Elrond said warmly. “This child is absolutely delightful. You must bring him to Lórien. Galadriel will adore him. She used to enjoy her grandchildren immensely -especially Elladan- but Legolas will be even better.” He turned towards Celebrían. “Won’t your mother absolutely love him?”
Legolas’ eyes widened at once.
“Galadriel...” he repeated cautiously, turning toward the twins and Arwen. “Is your grandmother?”
Celebrían made a small sound of horror.
“No, no, Legolas, wait-”
Too late.
Legolas let out another scream.
“NO, ADA, NOT GALADRIEL!”
Fresh tears spilled down his face with renewed conviction.
“SHE BURNS SHIPS.”
He broke off with a horrified gasp and turned very slowly toward the Noldor in the room, as if noticing for the first time that he might, in fact, be surrounded.
“Ada,” he said in a tiny, urgent voice. “We have to go home.”
That wiped the smiles away at once.
The room tightened with the swift, unmistakable shift of people realizing that the joke had wandered a step too close to something real. This would not do. They could not have the child developing a principled fear of all Noldor before supper.
At once, every Noldo in the room began patting at robes, sleeves, and pockets with the furtive urgency of people hoping to produce forgotten sweets before Legolas decided their entire bloodline was unsafe
“Well,” Thranduil said, “in fairness, on that particular point I have very little with which to argue.”
“Oh, Thranduil, really?” Celebrían said, crouching in front of Legolas, and then wincing when he flinched away from her on instinct. Her face softened at once. “Legolas, those were choices made in a time of terrible strain.”
“I mean,” said Thranduil, “it was not your people’s finest hour.”
“You may kindly leave me out of it,” Celebrían said, lifting her chin. “I was not even born.”
“No,” Thranduil agreed, rising to his feet with Legolas in his arms, “but your mother -wise beyond measure, according to herself- might have attempted to calm matters. Instead, she appears to have done the opposite.”
Celebrían drew herself up with offended elegance.
“And she has paid for that more than enough, do you not think?”
Thranduil considered this.
“Hmm,” he said. “I’m not entirely convinced.”
“Oh, come now,” said Celebrían. “Even you, on rare and blessed occasions, can scrape together a fragment of reason, Thranduil. I am invoking it now.”
“And where, precisely, was your mother’s reason at Alqualondë? Enlighten me.”
Celebrían put a hand to her chest. “Will you just leave my mother out of this?”
“I would be delighted to,” said Thranduil. “Truly. It would bring me peace. But your family has never shown the slightest gift for staying out of anything.”
Celebrían spun at once toward Elrond, who had, until that moment, been engaged in a retreat so cautious and incremental it might have passed for natural drift. “And where, exactly, do you think you are going?”
Elrond, caught, arranged his face into the expression of an elf who had never once in his long and honorable life attempted to flee a conversation. “Nowhere.”
“You have nothing to say in defense of your own mother-in-law?” Celebrían demanded. “Very well. I shall tell her.”
“No,” said Elrond at once, abandoning all pretense and coming back. “Do not tell her.”
Then, turning to Thranduil, and not looking very convinced, he added, “It was an error of judgment, Thranduil.”
“An error of judgment?” Thranduil repeated, scandalized anew. He bent to set a squirming Legolas on the floor. “And what is next? Shall we declare that Fëanor was merely having a bad day?”
Legolas landed lightly and wandered off in the general direction of Arwen, who was standing nearby completely engulfed in her elders dispute.
He tugged twice on her gown.
Arwen looked down at once, the severity inherited from both parents dissolving on sight. “Well, hello, little one.”
Legolas looked up at her solemnly. “Are you going to fall in love with a mortal and die?”
Arwen blinked.
Then she laughed. “No, Legolas. That is not currently among my plans.”
He nodded, satisfied. His gaze dropped to the ring on her finger.
“Did you pay for that?”
“No,” Arwen said, frowning and glancing at the ring. “It was a gift.”
Legolas considered this.
“Can I borrow it?”
Still listening to the argument behind her, Arwen slipped off the ring and handed it to him without looking.
Legolas received it with grave courtesy and drifted toward the nearest low table.
There was a bracelet there, abandoned beside a half-finished goblet. He picked it up. Then a brooch. Then, from the arm of a chair, something jeweled and expensive-looking. He moved with total silence and alarming purpose, returning every so often to deposit his findings beside the hearth in a neat little pile.
Arwen noticed none of this.
No one did.
“For the record,” Glorfindel was saying, “the true problem was not only the oath. It was that no one involved ever once paused, took a breath, and reconsidered literally anything.”
“The true problem,” Thranduil said, “is that every time a bright jewel appeared in Beleriand, half a continent burst into flame.” He turned, as if only just reminded of something. “And while we are on the subject of jewels, I still do not entirely understand why you did not simply force Isildur to destroy the Ring.”
Elrond looked at him with weary disbelief.
“I spoke to him at length, Thranduil,” he said. “I have told you a thousand times. He woulnd't listen to my counsel. I could not prevent him from keeping it.”
Thranduil stared.
“You could not prevent him,” he repeated. “You. One of the greatest warriors of the Age.”
Elrond’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you suggesting I ought to have killed him?”
“Killed him?” said Thranduil, scandalized. “I said nothing about killing him. Have the Noldor truly never heard of maiming?”
By the hearth, Legolas crouched with Arwen’s ring in one hand and a jeweled collar in the other, studying the flames.
Then he began feeding the jewels into the fire one by one.
The pearls went first.
Then the bracelet.
Then the brooch.
Then, after a moment’s hesitation because it was especially bright, and he was, after all, his father’s son, the ring.
At last Thranduil, in the tiny pause between one ancient accusation and the next, frowned.
“By the by,” he said, “where is Legolas?”
Everyone turned.
Legolas was kneeling by the hearth, calmly pushing a brooch the size of a plum into the grate with one finger.
For one second, the room went still.
Then everyone moved at once.
Celebrían gasped. Elrond lunged for the fire with all the speed of a lord who had suddenly realized he was about to have to explain this to several people. Arwen gave a cry of horror and dropped to her knees, reaching into the ashes for what remained of her ring. Glorfindel seized the poker. Erestor snatched up a heavy water jug and emptied it over the grate.
Steam billowed.
Thranduil crossed the room in two strides and scooped Legolas bodily away from the hearth just as the child reached for a ruby clasp.
“Legolas,” he said. “What in Arda are you doing?”
Secure in his father’s arms and entirely unrepentant, Legolas pointed toward the steaming ruin of the jewels.
“It’s in case the Dwarves come.”
Thranduil closed his eyes for a moment and lowered his head.
On the one hand, his son had just attempted to recreate, in miniature and with available resources, the whole of the tragedies of Beleriand in Elrond's sitting room. On the other, the child had screamed, cried and burned jewels because he had read about the history of elves and had taken the decision that this was not going to happen again in his presence. It was, Thranduil thought, with a despair that edged dangerously close to pride, the most reasonable thing anyone had ever done after reading the Quenta Silmarillion.
"Of course," he said, in the voice of someone who has surrendered to the laws of the inevitable and of his own bloodline. "In case the Dwarves come."
"Exactly," said Legolas, deeply satisfied. "So there will be no more wars over jewels."
Elrond, still kneeling before the hearth with his sleeve dripping, opened his mouth as though he wished to point out that wars over jewels had not, historically speaking, been resolved by a child incinerating other people's brooches, and then closed it again. He appeared to reconsider, and decided that he was not, in fact, in a position to lecture anyone.
Celebrían sank into an armchair with a sigh, regarding the smoking ruin beside the hearth.
Arwen, still on her knees in the ashes, lifted what remained of her ring.
Thranduil held his son a little tighter.
I will apologize later, he thought. In about a century or so.
Elrond, sleeve still dripping, crouched down until he was level with Legolas.
"Legolas," he said, with all the solemnity he could muster. "I give you my word that no one in this room is going to turn into a star or a bird, and no one is going to vanish into a forest or burn anything. Those things happened a very long time ago. You have nothing to worry about."
Legolas, still not entirely convinced, considered this for a moment and then gave a single slow nod.
After a moment, the child frowned with focused gravity.
"Ada," he said, tugging once on a strand of his father's hair to ensure full attention.
Thranduil braced himself.
"Yes, ion-nin."
"Elwing," said Legolas, very carefully, as though testing the name. "Lord Elrond's… his nana. What kind of bird did she turn into?" Legolas asked.
A small silence followed.
Elrond looked at Thranduil, who returned the look with the expression of a relative who has no intention of rescuing him but intends to enjoy every second of it. Elrond sighed.
"A seabird," he said at last. "More or less."
Legolas nodded slowly, settling his forehead against his father's collarbone. He stayed there a moment, quiet, his weight warm and securely anchored, his heart somewhat steadier but his mind very far away -on other shores, and other children left behind.
Thranduil was about to change the subject on pure survival instinct when Legolas took a slow breath and looked up at him again.
"Ada," he added, with the implacable precision of someone following a line of reasoning all the way to its end, "if it ever turns out to be completely unavoidable that she becomes a bird-"
"It is not going to be unavoidable," Thranduil said, though he already knew it was useless.
"-you have to make sure she doesn't become a pigeon."
A beat of pure, crystalline silence followed.
Then, somewhere behind them, Glorfindel made a strangled noise. Celebrían brought a hand to her mouth. Arwen, still holding her ruined ring, let out a disbelieving laugh. Erestor muttered something deeply disrespectful in a low voice that probably contained the word library and the word banned.
Thranduil looked at his son. At the very small, entirely serious face. At the green eyes that still shone with the remnants of tears and the brightness of absolute conviction.
"Not a pigeon," Legolas repeated, with solemnity. "Pigeons are horrible. And besides, they always chase you, Ada."
A particularly undignified memory involving white birds in the market square of Esgaroth rose in Thranduil's mind with perfect clarity. There had been witnesses. There had been feathers. There had been, regrettably, sounds.
Ah, he thought. So that’s why he hates them.
He took a measured breath.
"Very well," he said, with the dignity of a king signing a very unusual treaty. "In the highly unlikely event that it becomes completely unavoidable for your mother to turn into a bird, I will ensure she does not become a pigeon."
Legolas nodded, profoundly relieved.
"Thank you," he whispered, and settled his head against his father's chest with the absolute trust of someone who has decided, at last, that the world is in reasonable hands.
Thranduil looked up.
He found Elrond watching him from across the hearth -hands black with ash, his library in disarray and a child from Greenwood half-asleep against a king's shoulder.
"He never does things by halves, does he," said Elrond quietly, looking at the hearth.
Thranduil considered this.
"No," he said. "Apparently not."
He looked down at Legolas, who was blinking slowly now, undone at last by the Silmarillion and ancestral tragedy and imaginary Dwarves and very real pigeons, his breathing evening out into something that was almost sleep.
Thranduil adjusted his hold and said nothing more.
Outside, the evening light of Imladris was gold and very still, and the library smelled of old parchment and steam and the faint, lingering scent of someone else's melted jewelry.
It had, all things considered, been a perfectly average afternoon.
.........