Double-Edged
By Kitsune
Disclaimer: The Lord of the Rings, and all of its characters clearly do not belong to me. They belong to the amazing J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm merely playing with their minds…(evil grin).
WARNING: This is a hint of SLASH. While there is no explicit homosexual action, this story involves a man (male elf, really) in love with a man. If this bothers you, I am certainly not going to make you read it, and indeed kindly request that you take yourself elsewhere and read some of the lovely het works on ffnet. If you read the fic in spite of my warning, then don't complain to me!
Feedback: Please, please, please…yes, I am begging! I would like to know what you think of it – love it, hate it, don't get it- whatever! Just keep in mind that flames will be used to heat my very cold dorm room.
Note: This is a psuedo-vignette from Legolas' POV. It can stand on it's own, but if enough people R&R I may do a couple of follow-ups that involve actual character interaction! So, let me know!
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A dream. A whisper of hope slipping across my muddled mind. A knife in my heart.
Oh Stars above, oh Earth below – take this night, this pain from my soul. I am weak. I cannot withstand such a trial. Give it to another. Any other – only be it not I! No. I will not blame this on fate, nor will I seek to burden another with the weight of my pain. I refuse to be so selfish. Yet … for another perhaps this knowledge, this silken knife sensation would bring no such suffering. For any other in the Fellowship, the trial could mean nothing more than, at the most, a broken heart. What are a few years of sorrow to the potential death of a soul?
No! Again I demonstrate my weakness! This shall not be. My pain is of my own making, born of my twisted, and clearly masochistic soul, of my twice damned irrational sensibilities. If I were in any way other than I am, this sorrow, this bone-deep ache – this stupidity – would not be. It is because of who I was, what I have seen, what I have done, and most certainly whom I have become, that I find myself in such a treacherous position. I am in a hell of my own construction. To suffer all the slings and arrows of love – who could tell in this case which would be worse; rejection, or (oh Horrors!) acceptance? Yet neither does recourse lie on the other side of the path. To never know love, whether I be fated to experience the exquisite agony of an unrequited heart, or blessed to cradle the twofold return deep in the recesses of my heart – for either of these, I would suffer a thousand injuries. But, would I die a thousand deaths?
It is not love itself that I fear. No, indeed, I believe love to be the most noble aspiration of any being. It is the nature of rational beings to love – without experiencing this twofaced emotion, how is one to ever become all that one may possibly be? How else could any person soar to the highest reaches of their soul? I must love to fully live.
Moreover, love is a beautiful thing. It is the closest that created beings can come to creating. A love born from two hearts is the perfect entity – it takes what the two can separately be and raises them beyond anything that they could have been alone. A true love is as much a living thing as a child. More, for it will never die.
So how can it be that something so precious could hurt so much? I wish that I could lie to my soul, assure it that certainly it does not love. I wish that I could convince my heart that it twists only because of infatuation…or affection – yes. Simple, chaste…brotherly affection. Surely, if I told it so, my body would believe that it shivers and throbs because of indigestion, or too little sleep…or perhaps some unknown poison on an enemy's sword. Oh, how I wish that I could thus deceive myself. But alas, a curse of my kind- if we once learn the working of our souls, if I at any time truly know myself – so it shall forever be. I know that I love.
Love is a beautiful thing. Certainly something to which all beings should aspire. Love creates perfection. To truly live, one must truly love. But, to truly love I must truly die. My death would not be as the quick, fatal stroke of a lucky sword. Mine would be an agonizing, painstakingly slow death that would nevertheless cause the rest of my live to dissolve into a brief departing mist.
I have always sought love. Always have I known that one day I would find it. And I rejoiced. I sang of my love that was to be to the trees, to the stars, to the blades of grass beneath my feet. And they rejoiced for me. But now that love has hunted me down, I shrink in terror. I wish to run and hide from it. I beg it to find another in my stead. For I am weak. I cannot bear the burden that this love will bring to me. I never thought that this would be so. I never knew that my love would require such strength, such sacrifice, and such pain.
Oh, Trees, oh Moon! I call to you in my anguish! Save me from myself! Or, since you cannot, tell me at the least, why must he be mortal?
End