OoOoO
Following Andris through the path that had been dug out through the snowdrifts, all that Legolas could see was white all around and the back of the young Dunedain in front. He considered stopping at the herbalist Kailin's home on the way, but discarded the idea. According to Andris his grandmother was already being given the usual herbs for winter sickness to little avail. Anything beyond that Kailin would need to administer herself, and it was unlikely they would be able to get the aging woman out and about in this kind of cold.
Resigned to do whatever he could for Andris's ailing grandmother, the prince of the Greenwood stepped inside the small thatch home and out of the Fornost winter. The air was close and somewhat dim inside, probably because snow had drifted up against the shuttered windows and rendered them impossible to open. Small wonder sickness was traveling quickly within the village. Not for the first time that day Legolas thanked the Valar for elvish immunity to mortal illnesses.
The house was small, but cozy enough. Clearly women lived here. Sure enough, a short figure wrapped in a shawl straightened up from beside where she had been tending the ailing elder on the bed. The resemblance between the woman and Andris was strong enough to suggest this was the young ranger's mother.
"Strider is ill as well Mother, and cannot come." Andris said, putting down his fur-lined hood and stamping his boots. "Legolas said he would help Grandmother though."
The woman studied Legolas, looking him up and down. Even in the low light from the hearth and the candles set about the room, Legolas could see that she had once been a beauty. Laugh lines surrounded her eyes, eyes that were now rather tired and sad looking. Her brown hair shot with streaks of grey was escaping from the bun where it had been tied back, and she brushed them back carelessly.
"Very well. Thank you Master Legolas for coming." She turned and shook her head slowly over the figure who lay upon the bed. "I have tried herbs, compresses, salves, everything. Grandmother has only worsened since she first took ill though I'm afraid."
A fragile sounding cough rose from within the bundles of furs and blankets. "Hush Delia. You will make yourself ill from worry..." The voice was papery thin and rustled like dried leaves, but still undeniably steady.
Andris took Legolas by the wrist and brought him closer to the sick woman. "Grandmother, this is Legolas. You remember, he came across the mountains some weeks ago?" The young man spoke gently, as though to a spooked fawn.
"Of course I remember child." A coughing spell delayed the old woman's next words. "My breath may be spent but my eyes are not. I saw that head of gold through the trees before ever you entered our village, good elf."
Delia moved back to make way for the prince, and Legolas cautiously sat down in a chair next to the bed. This close up, he could see Grandmother's face in detail. He had never before met a human with so many wrinkles, or with hair so pure white. This woman was very old by mortal reckoning, very old indeed.
Her surprisingly clear blue eyes focusing on Andris, Grandmother make a sound in the back of her throat. "Could you brew me some tea, my boy? This cough does make the throat ever so dry."
Nodding, Andris stepped away from where he had been hovering over Legolas's shoulder, joining his mother at the hearth. Feeling that he ought to be doing something useful, Legolas reached out a slender white hand for the bony one that lay upon the furs.
"May I?" he asked. Even though he was easily seven times this woman's age, something about the depth of her eyes made him feel that deference as though to an elder was appropriate.
"Be my guest." Grandmother said, her voice fading and coming back within the space of three words. As Legolas picked up her wrist and felt gently for the beating of her heart there, she watched him with a serene expression. As he went to set the fragile arm back down, Grandmother beckoned him closer with a flicking of her gnarled fingers.
"It was good of you to come, but I am afraid Delia and Andris are avoiding what everyone here already knows." She whispered. "I am too old to weather another winter...It is my time."
Legolas frowned imperceptibly. "How do you know that?"
"Because I know. After eighty years of living, you get to know yourself well enough to recognize these things."
Glancing over his shoulder at where Andris and his mother were murmuring with their heads close together over the kettle, Legolas felt his lips press together. Not in annoyance, but in discomfort. It sounded like Fading, what Grandmother described. Although elves could not die by the passage of time or illness, they could certainly die of a broken heart or grief. He had heard tell of how Elladan and Elrohir's own mother had very nearly faded after the trauma she suffered at the hands of orcs. It had been only shortly after that that Lady Celebrian had taken ship from the Havens rather than pass into the Halls of Mandos.
Grandmother's rasping voice interrupted the elf's thoughts. "You are troubled?"
Looking once again at that wrinkled face, both unbeautiful and yet strangely beautiful in its inner wisdom, Legolas shook his head. "And you are not?"
With a toothless smile, Grandmother narrowed her bright blue eyes kindly at Legolas. "Why should I be? It's been some years since I went on an adventure, and I think my spirit is as ready as it will ever be to set out." The old woman shifted her shoulders, clearly uncomfortable for having been abed so long. "Besides, my husband has been waiting for me quite long enough by now I should think!"
Thinking of Andris's cheerful smile and Delia's laugh lines, it was hard to imagine grief on their two faces. "What about your family? Will they not mourn your passing?"
Now Grandmother did frown, but it was more a frown of kind exasperation rather than distaste. "I taught Delia all she need know to care for this household. These old bones are tired, and if they begrudge me my rest then I have words for my family!" Again, coughing nearly shook the bed frame, and Legolas rushed to put an arm under Grandmother's narrow shoulders to help her upright until the fit subsided.
Death was not a thing unheard of to the elves; Legolas himself had experienced it firsthand with the death of his mother so many years ago. But always it was a time of great tragedy and sorrow whenever an elf passed from Arda except by the Havens. Either they died on the battlefield, watering the ground with their crimson red blood, or they died slowly and perhaps more painfully as their very soul wilted within them from grief or despair. The latter had very nearly befallen Thranduil, following the death of the queen.
Legolas remembered the long days and nights following that terrible loss. Thranduil had been like one caught in a waking dream. He walked the palace halls without eating or drinking, and Legolas remembered the terrible helplessness he had felt to help his father. The prince had been but an adolescent at the time, and the thought of Thranduil fading so soon after the loss of the queen had terrified him.
One night it had been too much to bear; Legolas had sought out his father where he sat slack-faced and silent beside the pool of calm water within the palace. Taking Thranduil by the hands, he had cried and pleaded with his father to return. He didn't care in what form, Legolas had begged, just so long as he did not fade and leave his child to grieve both parents.
As if stirred from a trance, Thranduil's gaze had finally come into focus. Looking Legolas in the eye, the elvenking had risen and brushed the tangled silver-blond hair from his face. When Thranduil at last spoke, it had been in a different tone than what Legolas had heard from his father before. No longer quick-humored and tender, Thranduil had seemingly overnight adopted a veneer of polished steel. It was as though the only way to preserve his broken heart had been to freeze it in a solid block of ice. Legolas never complained at his father's new demeanor of distance though. His father was all he'd asked for, and he would take him in whatever form Thranduil assumed.
The memories of death and pain came unbidden to the surface in a rush, sitting there in the dark cottage beside Grandmother's bed. The corners of his eyes stung, and he had to blink hard to keep his composure. Legolas had never wept since that day when he had begged Thranduil to stay with him. By the Valar if he was going to now in front of strangers.
A hand, twisted with age but somehow softer than silk found its way to rest on Legolas's. Grandmother was looking at him with an expression that seemed to understand more than could ever have been said.
"What saddens you, child?"
Placing his other hand on top of Grandmother's on the bed, Legolas had to take a deep breath to compose himself before he trusted his voice enough to speak. "I do not understand...and wish I did, how you can be so peaceful and full of grace on the threshold of death itself. I have always thought death to be a terrible thing, and worse so for mortals who know not what lies beyond!"
Grandmother squeezed his hand, and smiled at Legolas the way he had not been smiled at since last he saw his mother.
"Death is not so terrible for those who are undertaking the journey. It is those who remain behind that must remember how to live."
Bowing his head, Legolas wished he could tell this remarkable woman just how right she was. He was an elf, and he was forever bound to this world whether that be here on the shores of Middle-Earth or beyond in the Blessed Realm. For one single moment in time, the prince of the Greenwood envied the freedom of mortals to pass beyond the world. Now he understood why death was called The Gift of Man.
A finger reached up to stroke his cheek, and Legolas realized that a single tear had in fact escaped him. Rather than feel ashamed, as he had always told himself that he might, it was only calm that settled over him like a warm cloak. Grandmother slowly lowered her hand and cupped his chin like one would a small child.
"Remember how to live. That is the hardest thing to do, but the very best thing as well."
oOo