Woodland Prince

Chapter 10

Legolas

"Father, I will speak with you now," I shout from the bottom of his throne. He has done nothing but sit up there with a shocked look in his eye since the healers let him leave his chambers. He does not even acknowledge my words, not even with a glance in my direction. He continues to stare into nothingness, eyes glazed and the remnants of tears down his cheeks.

"Father?" I ask stepping closer now. His staff rests in his left hand, right hand gripping the throne. His legs are crossed at the knee, boots shaking slightly. I have never seen my father this dazed. It is like he has seen a ghost. "Father, what is wrong?" I ask him, gently touching his hand. He startles at the sensation.

"Legolas, my son, I had the strangest vision during the battle today," he begins, staring wide-eyed at me.

"What did you see?" I ask quietly, praying that no one hears my father talk about 'visions.' That would be a terrible image of the king.

"I thought I saw Arthon, all grown up and fighting beside you. Both my sons, fighting for our kingdom together. The sight of that cost my balance and nearly killed us both. What a vision, my lost son." He mused on about Arthon for another minute before I cut him off.

"Father, what exactly happened to my brother? How was he killed?" I ask bluntly. Thranduil has always told me that the two of them had been out in the forest and spiders attacked. Arthon was killed while Father fought the beasts away. I never thought it made much sense, but I was too young to question it and father did not want to relive it.

Thranduil blinks at me. "Arthon was lost after your mother died. We were out in the forest and spiders attacked. I could not keep him safe," he says with tears in his eyes again.

"Then the stranger who calls himself Arthon is not my brother, but another who shares the name?" I found myself doubting the truth of my father's story.

"Allow me to meet this prisoner and I shall confirm that he is not my son and your brother." My father still seems like he has seen a ghost. I wonder what I will learn when these two meet.

~~~~~~~

The twin blades I always keep on my belt have never felt as heavy as they do now. I noticed that they were very similar to those of the stranger. A guard had taken them from his tunic before locking the stranger in. I turned them over in my hands now. I remember when my mother gave me the silver daggers I carry with me at all times. She had helped train me with the ones in my hand. I'm almost certain of it. How could the elf in the cells have taken them? Mother had no family except her brother, who left Greenwood very soon after her death. Had he taken the blades with him?

"Open this door," my father ordered the guard closest to us. I return my mother's daggers to their covers and tie them onto my belt.

"Step out of the shadows, prisoner. Let me see your face," Thranduil demands of the elf claiming to be Arthon. I hear the faintest sound of shifting on the stone, damp as it may be. The prisoner shifts onto the small bench and all that I can see in the darkness is his body below the shoulders. He doesn't look like he has trained to fight, but he is in excellent condition, perhaps even better than some of the guards.

"So you have returned with the King of Mirkwood. Care to release me yet?" The stranger asked begrudgingly. Definitely not trained to be as disciplined as a soldier.

"Come into the light so that I might see your face and identify you as a liar," my father boomed in the voice he reserves for sounding kingly. I haven't heard it in a while, and even I step further into the light quietly, bowing to the demand meant for the prisoner. The stranger complies as well, leaning forward enough that his head becomes visible in the dim light of the cell. The curve of his cheek bones and nose are so similar to my father's. I can see it even better now that they are next to each other. This elf is my lost brother.

My father realizes this at the same time I do. He drops to his knees and I can see the tears fall to the slick floor. Arthon is taken aback by this and I know he is beyond confused.

"Arthon, it is truly a miracle to see you again. The last time I knew you were alive, you were not even walking yet," I mutter quietly. My brother still looks uncomfortable with my father kneeling before him.

"I do not understand who you think I am, I have no family. My father is dead. Along with my mother. War took them from me. All I have is my uncle," he replies quickly, shaking his head and slouching back against the wall. This must be the same shock for him as it is for us. Finding family believed dead cannot be easy for anyone.

"You are my son, and you are alive because your uncle took care of you, raised you away from this place, and thought you how to survive," my father whispers, finally looking up at the son he thought dead...

"You lied to me, ada. You told me he was dead, that you had lost him to the spiders that plague our forest. Why did you lie to me?!" I say, my anger increasing with every word. My father did not lose my brother to the spiders. He wouldn't have told me this atrocious lie if Uncle Harthor has stolen my baby brother, no... my father gave up his second son. Gave him to Harthor to raise.

"You knew he was alive this whole time, did you know where he was?!"

"I did not know that he was alive—-" my father begins to say, but I cannot let him finish.

"You sent him away from here! Away from me! How could you separate brothers? How could you abandon your own son, the son of the woman you lived so dearly? How could you—"

"That is enough!" Arthon shouts over me. I turn to face him fully. He isn't sitting anymore, but instead he is standing in a sturdy fighting stance, feet apart, knees slightly bent and one in front of the other, ready to move in a second.

"Both of my parents are dead. They were killed in battle. My father is not this poor excuse for a king! Now that that is sorted, I would like to return to Rivendell, where I should have stayed!" His voice had crescendoed into the final declaration, damning my father's last bit of resolve.

Thranduil looks as if he has been gutted, run through with his own sword. I have rarely seen such a vivid display of emotion a from him, even when he is wine-drunk and stumbling after the serving girls. I know he'd never touched them, he'd just wanted someone to talk to. Perhaps he was never out of his wits, maybe that was all a ploy to act whatever role he's trying to fill. Perhaps he feels that he's supposed to whore himself, that this is what a king does in grief, that someone who married twice would do. I'll have to resolve this with him later. Right now, I must figure out how to convince my brother of his true lineage.

"Regardless of your heritage, I no longer see a reason to keep you in a cell. You will, however be subjected to more questioning in a more... suitable setting. I shall see to it that you are returned to the rooms you had before the morning's antics," I say quickly, stepping aside to give Arthon a path out of the cell. I hear him mutter something about "indecisive bastards" and "locking me up in the first place," but choose to ignore it and help my father. He's still in complete shock.

"He despises me, my son cannot accept me as his flesh and blood," he mutters, eyes still wide and unblinking.

"I can hardly stand to be around you now that I know what you've done. But I want your reputation to survive the week, so we should keep this quiet until we can come up with an appropriate story as to why the Lost Prince is alive and returned to the realm.