Title: A Stranger Comes Home

Summary: He had sent Imladris his finest bowman, his best warrior - his son. After the War, he's not sure what he's about to get back. Thranduil ponders the imminent homecoming of Legolas

Hello everyone! So ten years after my last post for LOTR ("For Every Evil 3"), Lee Pace and Orlando Bloom's take on two beloved characters in The Hobbit films draw me back with a one-shot (whether for just this one fic or a few others, I am not yet sure). It crawled into my mind and wouldn't depart until pen was put to paper. Hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it:

A Stranger Comes Home

He's been gone awhile, but had recently written he is last on the long road home.

He'd gone to Imladris a messenger and fine bowman, my best warrior (not quite the best soldier, however – too much initiative). I know who he was when he left, but I find myself uncertain who I am about to get in return.

The length of time we have been apart is negligible to the Undying, but I wonder if the War has still somehow crafted us into strangers, fighting as we have been in dramatically different fronts.

My son's legend has grown great amongst the varied people of Middle Earth amidst all this, and word of his daring reach me often. My subjects speak to me of what they hear on the road, in some misplaced belief the tales of Legolas' feats would please me. I listen and confess to some pride rising in my heart, but this is quickly eclipsed by doubt and terror.

Doubt because I cannot parcel fact from the fantastic- surely the tale of single-handedly felling mumakil is fabrication, at the very least – and terror because if these tales prove true, what risks he's taken. What dangers he's seen, and mostly without his kin behind him.

The tales must be false. They must be false because the very thought of him standing before the worst ills of the world either alone or with his paltry band of miscellaneous fellows brings a hollow sensation in my stomach.

I am not the only one displeased with my son's legend.

The diplomats, soldiers and traders of my kin get the occasional complaint from foreign lands. Not everyone is grateful for what they perceive as the barest of the elves' assistance in the War. They do not thank us for sending Legolas. They ask why we did not send in more of him.

How the War could have ended sooner, they said, How the losses could have been much less…

What they cannot grasp is the changed nature of how to win that particular War. They also fail to see that they overestimate elves. There are far fewer of us now and amongst these, even fewer warriors. These warriors, in turn, are already worked to the ground and spread thin in defense of our own lands and peoples. Most importantly, of these few, there is no one quite like the elf I'd sent to Elrond's house.

Singularly creative, his trainers had told me when he was younger, a statement that would only be echoed by those who commanded him and worked with him and eventually for him, as he rose up in rank hungrily, as if it were not his birthright to rule. Singularly creative… it was always said with awe and dispassion.

He was one of our most skilled warriors - adept at arrows, knives, swords and hand combat – and he had a strategic mind built for command. But these were the barest of his gifts. He could turn anything into a tool of war and this I've seen for myself or have heard reported with accuracy – a barrel, the head of a dwarf, a shield, a rope, a strand of spider's web, a crumbling tower…

Elbereth, I realize now there must be some truth to that mumakil story after all. I feel that pit in my stomach again, and it is with some resigned annoyance that I know it will ease only when I see snatches of my son's golden head amidst the lush leaves of my verdant trees again.

I sigh impatiently, and I feel the guards and advisors around me stiffen in anticipation of my rising temper.

"He is expected any moment now, King Thranduil," they tell me, and I ignore their assurances in favor of glowering at the narrow walkway Legolas would soon traverse to return to me.

"Perhaps the King might want to retire to chambers, and the Prince may then be sent for—" attempted another. I raise my hand to silence him, and the rest of his unwelcome suggestions fade into nothingness.

I feel my subjects' collective relief when Legolas suddenly comes into view, as if the forest simply opened up for him. He walks at the head of a column, flanked by our soldiers. I hold my ground and wait as they stalk forward soundlessly, eating away at our distance.

Before I could speak to welcome him home, Legolas bows before me formally, and by habit I return the gesture. When he lifts his head to look me in the eye, I see a softness there I've never seen before.

I do not recognize him.

His strangeness bothers me.

I carry the unease through the formalities of his return – reports, debriefings, an exchange of gifts and messages from dignitaries of territories he'd passed on the way home, a small celebratory meal – and the rest of my own mountainous work for the day. It is not until I retire for the night that I have the opportunity to see him alone and therefore delve into what this could mean.

I push open the doors to his suite of rooms, and I catch him doing yet another unexpected thing.

Legolas sits upon a bench by raging firelight, back to me. He is down to boots and breeches, stooped over some preoccupation I cannot yet see. His long, beautiful golden hair is gathered in an unseemly knot behind his head, barely held together by a ragged string.

I am distracted from this unconventional, un-Elvish, un-royal, displeasing style only by how it shows off my son's arresting physique. His shoulders are broader than I remembered, and the thick, hard muscles of his lightly glistening back and arms coil with even the smallest movement.

Bodies are built according to use. It is why the general figure of warriors differ from those who do not fight, and why the bodies of swordsmen and archers and all other types of soldiers differ from each other. My son, it seems, have acquired a touch of brawler in him. He is literally disarmed, but I have never seen him look so formidable. It is such a stark contrast from the softness I earlier spotted in his eyes.

I step forward, and if he knows I am here he still does not bother to acknowledge me.

"Perhaps I should have knocked," I open, as I come up beside him. I still cannot see what occupies him so, with his head and the now-considerable bulk of his right arm obscuring my view.

He lifts his head to me then, and there is gentle laughter in his eyes when he says, "Thranduil need not knock before any door in Thanduil's Halls."

I feel a corner of my lip turn up in a tight smile, but the expression diminishes quickly when I finally catch sight of what he's been doing, and why there is a slight sheen to his pale skin.

His chest is a mottled mess of cuts and bruises set in shades of purple, pink and red. They startle me, but what makes me catch my breath is the sight of two crossed wounds over the side of his heart, and a long gash stretching from one side of his belly to beneath his shoulder. It is deep at the stomach and shallower near the top, and I imagine my son struck and still dodging away. I imagine my son struck. I imagine my son struck. I imagine my son barely on his feet in a field of battle far, far away from me.

Those who hurt him offend me. His wounds are an affront. They are unacceptable. I stiffen and feel my chest rising up in gathered anger, quelled only when he raises a regal hand up to calm me.

"The enemy is long dead and I am healing," he assures me confidently.

My anger redirects itself. "Which incompetent healers let you travel thus? And why would you force it? You know better than this, Legolas. I am gravely disappointed. You should have said something. Why would you hide this from me?"

"I've not been careless and I wasn't hiding," Legolas said evenly. His artless calm is making me inexplicably twice as mad. "It is well tended, you see?"

I glare at him, and he looks at me pointedly while motioning vaguely at the miscellany of things laid beside him, things I did not notice until that moment. There was a bowl of steaming, clear water, a collection of herbs and salves, and tools including small, gleaming blades and pincers. My eyes rake back over the wounds, and see that they not puckered or red with fresh bleeding or infection and they are just as he says – healing.

"I sought help when I needed it," he said carefully, "I've rested and traveled only when I was able. I did not hide from you, I did not even attempt to conceal myself when I heard you come in."

I scowled at him. "There is still no excuse for failing to speak of this. You are no healer to be able to continue tending it on your own."

He grins at that. "I've learned a few things while away, Father. Some trifles the overburdened healers of a large battle have no time to handle, after all." He points to a fading, barely noticeable scar on his collarbone, and at the crossed scars over his heart. "These for instance, I've done myself. You barely see anything, do you, Father?"

He says this with pride, and the sense of achievement heavy in his eyes stay my anger only by a hair. There had been a knife against my son's neck, close enough to cut him. There had been a knife against my son's neck. There had been a knife against my son's neck.

"There is no reason why you should not have gone to the healers immediately upon your arrival here," I snap. "There is peace upon the realm and nothing occupies their attention, not that it should have ever been an issue even when all that ails the Prince is a pinprick."

He smiles at me beatifically as if I were a beloved but recalcitrant child, and I would shake that calm condescension out of him if only I can be guaranteed of not harming him further.

"I happily welcome a healer if it eases the mind of the King," my son says easily as he turns away from me and back to his task, "but they can do nothing for me that I am not already doing for myself."

I set my jaws in displeasure but narrow my eyes in thought. I realize the uncertainties of our reunion was put behind us in favor of my displeasure and the consequent scolding. The antagonism by which we sometimes regard each other can be so unhealthily convenient. But at least the ice has been broken.

I walk a wide berth around him and stop at an angle where nothing can escape my notice. I watch him work. His hands are steady and sure as they begin to snip away at the stitches for removal, though I suspect some discomfort from how his brows glisten in sweat. I bite my tongue and watch where he wants to take this and how far.

"You are right about one thing," he says in a conciliatory tone. He does not lift his head at me from his work. "There is no good reason why I should not have gone to the healers upon arriving here, even for a cursory check. In truth, I had meant to."

"What kept you from doing so?"

He shakes his head, and I am unsure what it means. At first I believe it is to deny me an answer, but his fuller response indicates it is more due to displeasure in himself.

"I confess I was uncertain about my welcome here." He hesitates with me for the first time since his return. "I left my home when it was besieged. I was not here to fight for my King. I was not here to fight alongside my people."

"They hold with pride your place in the larger War, Legolas," I promise him, "They do not fault you for your absence in smaller battles. You can hardly be expected everywhere."

"Nevertheless," he goes on, "I arrived and instead of wary unwelcome, everyone seemed pleased and happy and victorious and I felt no desire to, to change the celebratory mood. I did not want to disappoint anyone."

I frown in confusion. "The reports and the meetings and celebrations could have waited, my son. It would hardly have been a bother, much less a disappointment."

"It wasn't for the schedule, Father," Legolas said. "I… I cannot explain it well. I feel as if… hm. I cannot explain it well."

I wait quietly for him to try, and with an exasperated sigh he finds words.

"During the War," he shared as he pulled at the short, thin strands of cut stitches on his wounds, "Elven injury seemed - that is to say, the people…" He growls at himself part in dissatisfaction, and part in pain. He reaches for a salve and wipes it over his wound with a clean cloth.

"Why do these things sting more with stitches coming off than going in, eh?" he asks with some humor. I do not find it funny, because I know the answer. The pain of acquiring stitches must have paled in comparison to the traumatic injury that had necessitated it. My son was probably either in shock, in deep, unimaginable pain, unconscious, or drugged to the gills shortly after he was struck. No picture amongst these can offer a father any hint of comfort or humor.

Legolas continues with freeing himself from the threads, and more or less continues where he left off too. "I had the impression it disappointed them. When I took hurt, I mean. I saw it in their eyes."

My hand drifts to my cheek, at the scars real and carried in the heart, carefully concealed there.

"It is the converse of," he continues with a small grunt as he readjusts his grip and posture, "it is the exact converse of how they looked when elves came in large numbers to aid Rohan at Helm's Deep. As if they could win. Seeing elves in weakness… well, it must be very disappointing indeed. But I suppose if anyone can understand that, it would be you."

I let my hand fall from my face, and am relieved he didn't catch me touching the old wound. Yes, I know quite a bit about hiding weakness. I know quite a bit about the necessity of putting up a strong, winning front to protect the hopes of a people flailing in the mess of war, caught in a shrinking territory slowly encroached upon by a nearly-invincible enemy.

I've just never been on the other end of the show – an audience to my own son's pretenses, his carefully-constructed tableau of strength and victory.

I sigh in resignation. "Well you've certainly accomplished what you set out to do. Your people hold their Prince in high esteem, and your triumphant, apparently unscathed return after tousling with mumakil must mean you are invincible indeed."

He winces in either embarrassment or another stinging pain or both, but he laughs quietly. He puts down his tools and wipes a different set of salves and herbs on his wounds before reaching for a fresh set of bandages. He slaps one almost dispassionately on his injury, and angles to wrap them in a long strip of slim, binding cloth.

"I will help with that," I tell him, booking no argument. I reach forward but he shies away.

"Wash your hands first, my King."

It is both tease and honest instruction – he really has acquired a healer's habits - and I click my tongue at him but do as I am told. After I wipe my hands dry, I kneel in front of him and wind the binding cloths about his chest and back. He lifts his arms with a grunt and a grimace – his ribs have taken injury too, I realize – but he manages to keep them raised as I pass the cloths across his chest, around his back, and again and again several times.

I feel the weight of my anger and worry lessen as I do the repetitive task. I repair my son and repair myself. But as my ease grows, my son's physical discomfort increases. We stand close together, and I can see the sweat beading on his brow and over his lips. I can see fine tremors occasionally coming over him. He hangs his head low, but with his hair out of the way I can see his eyes are closed and his lips pressed together. His leg is shaking in repressed energy. He is near spent from travel, our long day and the discomfort of lingering injury.

"I have my own confession to make," I murmur, and as his leg stills and he puts his body under better control, I believe I have his attention.

"I wasn't sure how it would be between us upon your return," I tell him. "But I will tell you from the eyes of a father – you get to know your child in bits and pieces, and they will always surprise you."

"I don't understand," Legolas says quietly.

"It was a delight watching you grow," I say. "When you bring a child into the world you do not know what kind of a person they would become. Life happens and it changes and builds them, little by little. As your child makes his way in the world, you will meet them again and again.

"I've met different iterations of you so many times, Legolas," I say, "I've met you as an innocent child. I've met you without your mother. I've met you after your first grievous wound. I've met you as a hungry, eager young soldier training for war. I've met you after your first patrols, your first lethal enemy encounters, the times you realized the gravity of our situation. I've met you as a competent leader, and I've met you in victories and defeat. I've met you when you've learned to be casually ruthless and cold to your enemies. I've met you compassionate and heartbroken.

"When you left," I go on into my son's silence, "I thought we've both grown old enough that you will cease changing. But I've heard so many things about you that I knew you would return a different elf yet again."

I finish binding his wounds, and he exhales in relief when he lowers his arms. He looks up at me with his impossibly clear, blue eyes.

"So what do you think?" he asks, and again it is part-tease and part something else. It was an earnest question.

I marvel at him anew. At his body, which has become a veritable specimen for war. At his easy humor. At the vulnerability in his tone and in his gaze. At his calm, open honesty.

"It is always a wonder to meet you, ion-nin."

THE END

23 January 2018

Thank you for reading! As always, an Afterword follows the fic which discusses the method behind the madness, plus a long, reasonably stand-alone preview of a work-in-progress that may one day be posted too. The contents will be as follows:

AFTERWORD

I. On the Plot, and Themes of Returning and Parenting

II. On Thranduil

III. On Legolas

IV. Preview: Walking Wounded