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The three hunters stopped for a rest for the first time in two days of pursuit, at the request of an exhausted Gimli. Aragorn and Legolas were one thing — one of them the most renowned ranger, and the other... the other simply an elf, whom neither heat nor cold nor ailment could touch. But Gimli on his poor legs could barely keep up with them and was wearing thin.
The friends set up a small camp among the mountains, beside a solitary tree. It must have been past midnight by now. The wind had died, and a ringing silence hung in the air, broken only by the snuffling of the sleeping dwarf and the distant howl of a wolf.
The archer sat utterly still, legs crossed upon a flat stone by the dimly flickering fire. In the firelight, his face seemed carved of ivory — beautiful and alien to the world of mortals.
He shifted his gaze to Aragorn. The man sat with his back leaning heavily against a rock, Andúril released from his grip and lying beside him. In these days of pursuit, he had barely slept. Legolas knew this — he had counted every moment, every faltering breath of his friend, every time he stumbled over a tussock invisible in the darkness, yet stubbornly kept running, despite Legolas's insistent suggestions to make camp. Exhausting weariness and bitter despair at the loss of the hobbits consumed him.
"Estel," the voice called to the ranger, sounding like the rustle of leaves in the night's stillness, "you need rest. You are a human, and it shows that you are spent. By morning you will collapse from weariness, and then there will be no one to save Merry and Pippin."
He rose in one fluid motion and crossed the space between them in a few strides, stopping directly before the ranger and looking down at him. In the light of the moon and the fire, his shadow completely engulfed Aragorn. The archer lowered himself onto the grass beside him, and without asking leave, with a gesture both commanding and tender, pulled Aragorn by the shoulder, making him shift and lay his head upon his lap.
"You will sleep," the elf said in a tone that brooked no argument. A slender palm settled upon Aragorn's brow, cool as spring water.
After a moment's hesitation, Legolas began to hum. It was an old lullaby of Mirkwood. His voice, made for battle cries and elven hymns, now sounded astonishingly soft.
"Sa dîr na luth pêd níl o velegol nûr
Ned e-gwenion, u-dham en chenedair..."¹ — His fingers began, of their own accord, to sift through Aragorn's tangled, dusty locks, loosening the knots left by the wind.
Aragorn wanted to protest. He was a ranger, trained to go without sleep for weeks and without food for just as long. His duty was to lead and to protect. But the moment Legolas's icy fingers touched his feverish brow, his body betrayed him. The muscles he had held taut over the last several days trembled and went slack.
"Ryn i hennaid nîn, êl lîr hen,
nîr a phönd, na i vána caurev."²
Legolas's song enveloped him like water. He ceased to fight the drowsiness. His consciousness shrank to a single point: there were only these knees, serving as a pillow, these slender fingers in his hair, and this voice promising peace.
Already sinking into sleep — heavy and dreamless — Aragorn whispered something he would never have said had he been awake. The word was spoken in Sindarin, indistinct, yet elven hearing would have caught it through rolls of thunder, through the hum of all living things:
"Melamin... Hannon le..."³
Legolas froze. His fingers, which had just been weaving the tender cadences of the lullaby, trembled and went still in Aragorn's hair. The word that slipped from the mortal's lips burned sharper than any orc-arrow — it pierced the armor of eternal calm he had worn for centuries. The elf watched, not breathing, as the ranger's stern face smoothed, surrendering to the grasp of the deep sleep that had at last overtaken him.
"Ci velethron nîn, a meleth nîn ú-'wannathon..."⁴
The elf spoke almost inaudibly, addressing himself, or the sky, or the Valar.
Legolas leaned lower, shielding the sleeper from the world. He brushed his lips against his temple — light, weightless — and whispered:
"...Man na vedui na vedui? Man ú-auta e? Man na melin e? E aníra fired hi sui i philinn nîn... bain, lanc, a ú-cuinar. A ú-iston cared i nad. Ú-iston cared ú-nad..."⁵
Legolas bowed his head, and the silver strands that had slipped free from behind his pointed ears fell down like a veil, shutting his face away from the world.
"Im meleth le..."⁶ — He addressed now not the heavens, but the mortal sleeping on his lap — the one who could not hear him, and for that reason, the words sounded all the more bitter and free.
And in the morning, neither of them would remind the other of this, for both knew everything without words and grand confessions.