inkstranger:

Legolas’s friends beg him to
leave for Valinor early on. They know that he is fading, they know that he
thinks of their deaths more than anything else, and that it kills him. They are
terrified that he’ll die before he sails, and that he will remain in the Halls
of Mandos for a very long time. They’re afraid he’ll choose the void.

It’s an unspoken rule that
Legolas can never be left alone, that
someone must always be with him. They
don’t want him wandering somewhere to fade and never return (he nearly did it
once).

And before he dies, Estel makes
Gimli promise that he’ll see to it that Legolas will sail, and jokingly says, “Even
if you have to go with him”.

(i hope you don’t mind, but I ficletted 🙂

Frodo was first, and Gandalf with him, gone for so long now. Then Imrahil is dead – old age – and then Sam leaves one day, with little fanfare and less notice. Gone into the west.

Then Merry and Pippin make their last journey, and they are sleeping in the tombs of the great Kings of Gondor, two small hobbits lying in state. Eomer dies that same year. 

Then Faramir is lost to them. Gone into the earth, and Aragorn will not be far behind them now. 

Gimli eases himself into his chair, and holds his friend’s hand. 

“I can choose my time,” Aragorn says, and Gimli nods. It was a gift granted to those of the ruling line of Numenor, that they might pass in the fullness of their prime and not suffer the dwindling of old age. “And it nears. Eldarion is full ready for this throne, and I am weary.”

“You’ll be making us the Two Hunters, then,” Gimli says, and clamps his teeth shut around his next words. His voice will fail him.

Aragorn studies the old Dwarf’s hand. Still powerful and strong, but as an ancient, gnarled tree-root is powerful and strong. He would wield his axe no longer, with hands such as these.

“You must make him sail,” he says, and he does not need to say who he is. “Merry and Pippin’s passing nearly finished him. I cannot be the loss that takes more than myself from him. He cannot hold, not with our number falling around him like mayflies! His eyes are already dimmed and he sings no more. Gimli, you must promise me. You must promise me: you must make him sail. You are the last of our number. The task falls to you.” 

Gimli is silent for a long moment, and then he looks up at Aragorn with eyes that despite their age, are clear and bright with a proud warrior’s determination. “Aragorn, lad. I’ve followed him into golden wood and stinking fen, through mines and up mountains and down rivers. I’ve  said it before, and I’ll say it again: where Legolas goes, I will follow. If I cannot make him sail without me, then I’m getting on the damned boat with him.”

Aragorn holds the gaze, and then closes his eyes. “Good,” he says, and sighs. the relief settles into his bones. His last friends shall be together after his death: Legolas will not fade, Gimli will not be forced to mourn them both. “Thank you, Gimli.”

There is a soft snort, and Gimli’s great gnarled hand squeezes Aragorn’s with surprising gentleness. “You daft Man. As though you needed to ask.”