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The forest used to sing. There were birds, of course, whose cadences would rise into the sky as swiftly as their wings did, but the forest itself had a melody all its own. It would hum with energy, whisper with the wind, bubble with laughter with the brooks and streams. Its voice was its own chorus of green, beautiful life, and every morning had held the soft melody of the sunrise, even as the evening had been a muted harmony as the night had come on.
There was no song now. The sound was gone.
He could not truly say that either, however, for Legolas heard sound. And it was coming from his right, swiftly approaching as though it thought it could sneak up on him. He loosed his arrow and brought the spider down from its perch, and its screech left his ears burning with pain at its wrongness. It was dark and vile, and he was glad when Gimli’s axe ended it.
Another arrow shot past his ear, and Legolas remained still. The spider ahead of them dropped like a stone, and thankfully made no noise beyond crunching branches and leaves as it tumbled. “Good aim,” he said.
“Not as good as my betrothed, but I do all right,” Kili teased, and somehow, despite the darkness and the cold in the forest, Legolas could still feel warm. So long as Kili was there, Legolas thought he would always feel warm.
Gimli grunted. “If ye would’ve aimed a bit lower, I’d have brought it to its knees.”
“And if I’d shot it, it would have died in the tree,” Tauriel said tartly. “Well beyond your reach, Master Gimli.”
“Ha! We dwarves can scale stones: a tree’s no matter for us.”
“I believe your stones still make an upward incline that allows you to walk up stairs, not climb straight up.”
“Of course not! You’d have to fly, Tauriel, and not even an elf can do that.”
“And how would you know?”
Gimli went off into a sputtering fit that left Tauriel staring at him, as if completely unamused. However, the look in her eyes told another story, and she continued to tease the dwarf as they moved forward into the forest. There was an affection between the two, and Legolas thought it was a good one for them both. Gimli with his headstrong insistence had been curbed a bit by Tauriel’s patience, and Tauriel’s sternness faded day by day with Gimli’s far too optimistic attitude. Both had revised opinions of the other race as they had, and Legolas dared to even think of it, become friends.
And that, Legolas was grateful for. For to lose Tauriel would have been to lose his home and kin completely. His family, his forest, they both had seemingly left the world forever. Only Tauriel remained as a reminder of what had once been.
A hand slipped into his. Legolas blinked, almost startled at how lost he’d been in his thoughts. “You’re thinking too much,” Kili said, as if to further emphasize the point. “You should smile more. I happen to know someone who loves your smile.”
Always warm. “Do you?” Legolas asked. Kili’s smile was a bright and beautiful thing, a sharp grin that seemed to light up the world around him. He could not imagine his world without Kili’s light to fill it. “Your own smile, I think, is just as desired.”
It was one of Legolas’s favorite things to watch Kili’s cheeks turn pink. “Think that leaves us both even, then,” Kili finally said. Legolas reveled in the way Kili’s thumb brushed across his skin, leaving the area tingling at the sensation.
There was no one else who had ever made him feel this way. He had tried to compare it to kiss of the sun, or the embracing breeze, or the gentleness of the brooks, but none had come close to how Kili made him feel. Even his own kin had not left him feeling as wanted, as loved, as Kili did.
A quiet murmur made him glance around in confusion. Tauriel and Gimli were gone, already moving further down the path. So caught up in their friendly banter were they that neither noticed they had left Legolas and Kili behind. Alone. They had left Legolas and Kili alone.
The realization struck Kili nearly at the same time. “Did they just…?”
It was a rare treat, to be completely alone with his betrothed. With Tauriel and Gimli playing eager chaperones, even holding hands with Kili had been watched with eagle eyes. Though Legolas was certain that most days, Tauriel and Gimli did it merely to annoy them, but they were gone. They were gone.
Legolas was surprised to feel as giddy as he had as a child, the urge to laugh and run coursing through his veins. “Quick, quick!” Kili urged, feeling the same, if his pushing Legolas to the side was any indication. Legolas let out a quiet laugh even as he began to hide behind the trees with Kili.
Trees he recognized. Legolas paused. Were they so far in…?
“Legolas, move! Before they figure out we’re not with them and come back to scold us!”
“The other way,” Legolas said hurriedly, and Kili quickly pivot-turned to race after Legolas. They darted back over the path – Tauriel and Gimli still teasing each other – and took off in the other direction. Though the forest didn’t whisper in reply to his swift running, though it didn’t rustle a breeze to join him, Legolas still knew his way. Through the darkness, through the crowded trees, past the bushes he’d once known so well, under the overhanging cascade of leaves, and-
Legolas paused. Kili stopped beside him, gazing around the clearing.
It was no longer as green as it had once been. The moss no longer felt as soft beneath his feet, and the sun barely came through the branches above. The brook was nearly silent, flowing so slowly across the rocks that it barely looked to be moving at all.
But it was still here, at least. His favorite grove, his sanctuary. The small part of the forest that he had claimed as his, when his father had offered him any part he had wanted. His father had laughed when Legolas had insisted this be his, despite a multitude of acres being up for the taking. The pure joy in his father’s crystal clear eyes as he’d announced to all that this belonged to the prince-
“Legolas?”
Legolas pulled in a deep breath. “This was my favorite place in all the forest,” he said softly. “This was my grove.”
Kili still frowned, however, his eyes not on the small sanctuary around them, but on Legolas. He reached out, fingers gentle on Legolas’s face, and Legolas stared in almost disbelief when they came away wet. “You’re crying,” Kili said in stunned wonder. “I’ve never seen you cry before.”
“It’s gone,” Legolas tried to explain. They were paltry words for something that had meant so much. This place had once been so beautiful, so peaceful, so full of a vibrancy that had called to him as he had hearkened to it. And now it, like his father, was long gone. “It used to sing, to speak words of its own. The brook used to babble such inane but joyful things that I could listen and laugh for days. The wind spoke so sweetly, so gently, and the trees-“
Kili’s arms were around him before he realized it, and Legolas wrapped his around his betrothed in return. He took a deep breath and let Kili’s energy, his life, hum around him. The area felt less cold than it had before, and Legolas clung to the warmth his dwarf offered.
When Kili pulled away, it was to offer Legolas a smile. “No wonder you and Uncle Bilbo speak of green things so much, if it was that special. I grew up where the mountains themselves seemed to offer morning greetings with the sun. I had never thought that trees and springs could say the same.”
“I have not heard the mountains as you have,” Legolas admitted. “But Erebor has a low voice all its own, now that I have been there. Bilbo’s Shire, for its age, seems to have a young and playful tune to sing.”
Kili grinned. “I liked the Shire. I wouldn’t mind going back.”
“Neither would I.” The Shire had been kind and nearly vibrating with life. The fields, the sun, the river: all of it had been as playful and celebratory as the hobbits themselves had been. If Legolas had been a hobbit, he would have understood their never wanting to leave such happiness.
For the sake of Middle-Earth, however, he was grateful that one certain hobbit had dared to venture beyond its borders.
“Have you spoken with Bilbo lately?” Legolas said. He felt almost desperate to speak of anything else except for the lonely woods around him. Once, Erebor had been the Lonely Mountain. Perhaps what had once been Greenwood, now Mirkwood, would become the Lonely Forest. It was a despairing thought.
“Doing well. Focused on helping Fili and Dernwyn with their wedding. I suppose he’ll probably do the same with us, now that he’s married.” Kili pursed his lips. “Of course, I’m hoping we don’t have a honeymoon like my uncles did.”
It had made the first part of the journey home difficult, Legolas would agree with that. They had not even made it to Rivendell before Bilbo had blurted out the last of his heart’s sickness as one would remove a poison from their stomach. Their company had left Thorin and Bilbo alone for the evening, though Legolas’s ears had heard much of the heartache from both. Tauriel, too, had heard it, and even Dwalin had tried to pull the obviously distraught elf from her sudden melancholy. It had been hard, in the face of such sorrow, such pain from Bilbo. Legolas had feared for Thorin, for the dwarf king’s own heart, hearing such terrible truths.
The sunrise had dawned on a beautiful new day, however, and the smiles on both Bilbo’s and Thorin’s faces had been genuine, if a little tired. Whatever had been spoken of between them had helped heal the wound in Bilbo’s soul, and Thorin had seemed more at peace than Legolas had ever seen him before. It had made their staying in Rivendell a happy one.
“I don’t believe we share the same heartache they did,” Legolas said. He cherished the weight of Kili’s hands in his and clasped them tightly with his own. “And I hope we never will.”
“I think that can be arranged,” Kili said, and how his dwarf could always stay so cheerful, even in the darkness of the forest, Legolas did not know. But he was grateful for it, and when Kili pressed a kiss to his lips, he leaned in, almost greedy for the pure love that Kili poured out for him.
A gentle hum caught Legolas’s attention, and both he and Kili looked up when a breeze pulled the leaves away, letting in the sun. The humming was a gentle and low sound, but he had heard it. There was sound still to be found in the forest, perhaps. “They’re overgrown,” Kili said, nodding to the tree branches above. “That’s why the sun can’t get in.”
The forest had maintained itself, once, before the sickness had come. Now it grew in wild abandon. “It never used to be this way,” Legolas said softly. “It never grew this way. The woods are ill, now.” Perhaps cleansing the forest of the spiders and orcs that remained would not be enough.
But Kili held the look on his face that Legolas had long learned meant an idea was brewing. “Now who thinks too much?” he teased, and Kili gave a quick grin.
“Just enough thinking. Want to see if a dwarf can really climb a tree?”
Before Legolas could say anything, Kili hurried over to a nearby tree and began to climb. Bewildered, Legolas could only watch as his betrothed soon scaled nearly to the top, disappearing into the darkness above. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Didn’t bring a lantern,” Kili huffed. “Want some light.” A metallic sound, like a blade being unsheathed, came from above. Legolas fought to make out Kili’s shape, but the darkness in the forest was too much, even for him. A sudden fear struck his heart, and he ran to the base of the tree. A dull buzzing followed him, the humming gone.
“Kili?” he called. “Kili, where are you?”
That terrible silence in the forest was the only thing he could hear. His heart began to race: had the forest claimed his betrothed’s warmth? Had the darkness taken the last bit of light in his life?
The buzzing suddenly grew louder, and a loud crack was all the warning he received before a heavy branch fell. Light flooded the grove, such warm light that Legolas nearly stumbled under its welcome rays. It illuminated everything, and the grass was green and brilliant once more.
And up in the tree above him, grinning triumphantly around the leather sheath in his mouth, was Kili. He spat it out and down to the ground, clinging to the tree branch with both legs and arms. “Sorry, had to keep my grip as best I could,” he said. In one hand he held a long dagger Legolas knew well. Fili’s gift to Kili, before Kili had left with Gandalf for Gondor. “Best blade I had on me to start trimming. It looks better, though, right?”
No other sight had been more welcome than the one of Kili high above him, so warm and alive. “It does,” Legolas said, swallowing back the sudden lump in his throat. “Come down to see it yourself.”
He was quick to descend, and somewhere in there was a comment to Tauriel and Gimli about a dwarf’s capability to climb, but Legolas was too relieved to have Kili back on solid ground to come up with the words. The dwarf landed solidly on both feet, then glanced up at the sunlight pouring in. “Better, right?” he asked. “It’s not a pretty saw-through, but it was just this huge branch that was blocking the light.”
The relief that flooded him was no comparison to the love that rushed through him so suddenly that Legolas nearly lost his footing. Through the darkness, Kili had come through, climbing trees and fighting with thick branches just to bring the light in. Just to bring back Legolas’s sanctuary.
He took Kili’s hand in his. “I would marry you, if you would permit it,” he said, feeling dizzy, almost unable to comprehend the words coming from his own mouth.
Kili grinned. “I do permit it; once Fili and Dernwyn are married-“
“No, you misunderstand me,” Legolas said. “I would marry you now.”
He received a few bewildered blinks before Kili finally spoke again. “Now? How can we be wed now? We’ve no one to officiate, and no one to witness.”
“Elves only require the two to be wed for a marriage to be considered valid,” Legolas explained. His skin felt as if it were on fire, Kili’s warmth mixed with the sun making his nerves blaze. “We make oaths to one another and share tokens as a physical reminder of those promises.”
Kili bit his lip. “I don’t, I don’t have your beads finished. Well, one is, but the other one’s not. I can’t marry you without those-“
“You brought light back to my sanctuary,” Legolas said, cutting Kili’s despair off. “You climbed a tree and disappeared into the darkness where even I could not follow you with my eyes, and you emerged triumphant.” He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent that was Kili: the wood from his bow and arrows, the burnt cinnamon from the biscuits he must have stolen that morning when he’d ducked into the kitchens, and the bark of the tree he’d climbed. And beneath it all, the scent that Legolas could only call Kili. “That is all the token I need.”
Kili shivered despite the warm sun now cascading down his back. “Well. I’m still finishing those beads. I want to see my mithril in your hair.”
Legolas had never held a fascination with metals as the dwarves did, but the thought of bearing the heavy weight of Kili’s handiwork nearly made him shudder in anticipation. The wooden bead that Kili had carved him still hung in his back braid of intention. To know that it would be joined by others, all of them symbols of Kili’s love…
It left him all the more sure of his choice. “Will you join your heart to mine, today? Now?” he asked.
The slow glide of a smile continued to spread until it seemed to cover all of Kili’s face. “Yes,” Kili said, and it felt like a blessing and the greatest gift Legolas had ever received all at once. “Yes, I will.”
Then Kili wrinkled his face and made Legolas want to kiss his furrowed brow. “Now how do we do that?”
Legolas chuckled. “Come, and I will show you.”
The grass was soft beneath their feet as Legolas led them to the brook. While it did not babble as it once had, it almost seemed to whisper, hopeful messages of glee and life. Legolas settled down next to it on his knees, Kili doing the same across from him. Together their hands joined between them, Kili’s gloves coming off after a quick moment of thought from the dwarf. His hands held callouses, but were still strikingly soft.
If Legolas had been asked, he would have said that Kili almost looked nervous. “Ready,” the dwarf said, and he appeared to be bracing for a plunge into an icy river.
Legolas grinned. “The whole point of an Elven wedding ceremony is to not be so nervous. There is no one to impress, no one to cater to. It is simply the two of us. And while I enjoyed your kin on our journey, my favorite moments, even through the worst of times, were when it was only you and I.”
“I just don’t want to mess it up,” Kili confessed, though he had relaxed a great deal with every word Legolas spoke. “You mean everything to me. I don’t want to get it wrong.”
The expectations of a prince were high, no matter whether you were an elf or a dwarf. Though Thorin loved his nephews and considered them his sons, there was no doubt that he had been forced to place responsibilities on both Fili and Kili. Pressures Legolas knew too well. “If you are here, then everything is right,” Legolas assured him. “I’ll start.”
He let the feeling of Kili’s hands keep him steady as he spoke. “I vow to you my heart that will never age, my soul that will never die, and my love that will never waver or go out. You are my light in the darkness, Kili. And I will tend to you as my flame forever.”
There would never be another. Though time would shift onward and Legolas would be forced to follow it, if battle did not see his life cut short, Kili’s smile and heart would always be his to keep. There could never be another like his dwarf.
His whole soul and being seemed to be jolted forward with that gentle acceptance, the world suddenly spinning with colors and leaving nothing but Kili as a solid focus, and Legolas wondered if this was how Arwen had felt, when she had pledged her hand to a mortal. He sucked in a deep breath and felt the flying feeling subside. The world went back to being green and warm around him.
Kili shuffled on his knees, apparently having missed Legolas’s world changing moment. “I vow to you my heart that…um, will age, but will still remain yours until it stops beating, my soul that will never die, no matter where it rests forever, and my love that will always be yours. You’re part of my soul, my very being. You’re my strength, a greater strength than I ever knew I could have. And I’ll never let you go.”
The simple admission, as amusing as it was at key points, was still so fervently said that Legolas felt the breath stolen from his lungs. The love that shone from Kili’s eyes was so bright and true that he suddenly felt unworthy of it, of that pure devotion and awe that Kili directed only to him. It was humbling, and Legolas felt as tall as a tree and as vulnerable as a seedling all at once.
Kili’s hands fidgeted in his. “Was that all right?” he asked.
Legolas surged forward and pressed his lips to Kili’s. It was quick and almost chaste, compared to how most of their kisses usually went, but when Legolas parted, he found breathing difficult. Kili looked as if he were trying to remember how to speak. “Yes?” he finally managed.
“Yes,” Legolas confirmed.
“Were we supposed to kiss just then?”
“Not traditionally. I just…couldn’t help it.”
“Oh. That’s fine, I’m all right with not being traditional.”
Legolas chuckled. “You have given me your token; I will give you mine.”
His wedding gift was still not yet ready: he hadn’t truly been intending to marry Kili today. But this would be a simple alternative that would express much of the same emotion. He reached behind him and felt along the feather tips until he found the oldest one he had. With a quick pull he slipped the arrow free of the quiver and held it out before Kili.
“It is one of my first arrows I ever crafted, and one of my sturdiest,” Legolas told him. “I have kept it for many years. I want you to have it, so that if ever an impossible time comes, when I am not there with you, I will still be able to protect you.”
Kili lunged forward and tackled him to the soft moss, arms wrapped around him tightly. Legolas managed to set the arrow beside them to hold on just as much. “I love it,” Kili murmured, and Legolas dared the sun to shine any more brightly than his smile. “Thank you.”
The sun seemed to take his challenge and warm even more. That, or the moss beneath them had grown warm from the sun’s fresh rays. It made for a bed of decadence either way, soft and cushioned better than any bed Legolas had lain in. Kili rolled to rest on Legolas’s side, his eyes filled with joy. “What do we do next?” he whispered.
“We’ve sworn oaths and offered tokens,” Legolas whispered in return. “As far as Elven customs are concerned, we are wed.” A few traditional phrases in Sindarin would not be necessary, given that he was marrying a dwarf prince. The shared drink and flowers could not compare to the greenery around them, and were optional all the same.
“Now we can kiss?” Kili asked hopefully, and Legolas gave a laugh even as Kili pulled him in. Kili’s lips were always so soft, and it was like drinking from his favorite fount: Legolas could never get enough. He gently licked his husband’s bottom lip and was gratified to hear a moan as a response. He did it again, and was rewarded with Kili’s mouth parting with a soft sigh.
He did not know how long they kissed for, or how many breaths they shared. But when he awoke, it was because the sun had suddenly gone dim. Kili murmured in his sleep beside him but did not wake until Legolas nudged him.
Tauriel and Gimli stood above them, blocking the sun. Both had their arms crossed, and neither looked pleased. “You disappeared,” Tauriel said flatly, when it was clear they were both awake.
“You left us,” Kili retorted sleepily, before letting out a loud yawn. Legolas yearned to kiss his lips again, but Gimli immediately pulled him to his feet. The dwarf was strong, stronger than he looked, but Legolas managed to not trip.
“Ye didn’t say anythin’! Just took off! Know how long it took us to find ye?”
“Long enough for a comfortable nap in the sun,” Legolas couldn’t help but say, and Tauriel snorted, glaring at him.
“We’re supposed to protect you both: you make that difficult when you vanish.”
“Spiders don’t come into the sunlight,” Kili told her. “We were perfectly safe.”
Tauriel paused at his words, then glanced behind her, where the sun was beating down. It was already drifting past the tree line, moving to rest for the afternoon, but its light was still clear. It was obviously much brighter here than in all the rest of the forest. “I have not seen such sun in the forests for a time,” she admitted. “How…?”
“Cut a few branches,” Kili told her. “They needed help remembering how to let the sun in, that’s all.”
Sometimes, his dwarf was ridiculous and young. But sometimes, Kili showed such wisdom that Legolas couldn’t help but smile in pride.
“We’ve to get back out of the woods before night falls,” Gimli said. He hauled Kili to his feet in a way that almost left the other dwarf tumbling forward. Tauriel and Gimli began to walk away again, but both of them waited at the edge of the grove until Legolas and Kili began to move. Kili found his gloves and carefully placed his arrow in his quiver, his face giving nothing away, and Legolas managed to hide his smile. Tauriel gave them both narrowed gazes, then finally turned away, saying nothing.
They followed the two out of the forests, hands clasped together. When Gimli finally caught them, Kili just rolled his eyes. “C’mon, we’re not doing anything wrong. Give us this, will you?”
Gimli huffed but left them alone. Kili seemed pleased at his win, and Legolas chuckled. If only Gimli and Tauriel knew that they were married, that Legolas was holding his husband’s hand.
His husband. Bilbo was right: it was a heady thing to think of.
And several months later, when they stood before all of Erebor and pledged hands once more, per Dwarven rites, only the royal family and company knew why they grinned through their vows, spoken easily and without hesitation. Why change an oath when it held true a second time? It was worth it to see Tauriel glare at them both for deceiving her and Gimli mutter about why they’d needed chaperones in the first place.
But in the end, they were married, again, and Thorin and Bilbo smiled at them with joy in their hearts, Dis embraced Legolas as if he were her own, and Fili and Dernwyn cheered the loudest of them all.
In their chambers, later that evening, Kili gave Legolas all the beads he had crafted for him, beyond the one woven into the wedding braid, and Legolas gave Kili the necklace he had fashioned, shaped like an arrowhead and touched with Legolas’s grace. It glistened against Kili’s skin, catching the light like a star. And every time Legolas shifted his head, the weight of the mithril beads reminded him of the bond he shared with the one he called his Light, his Hope.
The sunlight that streamed through their window the next morning did not dare to shine brighter than Legolas’s smile, and it only seemed to make Kili’s sleepy smile radiant.
END