Chapter Eighteen: The Meaning of Fellowship
“Wit is educated insolence” – Aristotle
Colin’s gut clenched as the taxi made its way along the lane, passing a sign which indicated that they were only about a mile from their destination. Aragorn was barely sitting on the seat next to him, leaning forward, thigh bouncing with excitement. Brilliant blue eyes glanced everywhere, taking in everything and nothing, longing for only one sight. Long fingers twisted in the folds of his coat, as if the garment were somehow to blame for the length of their trip. His breathing was quick and shallow.
“It had taken long for me,” Aragorn said aloud, probably more to himself than to the equally nervous London policeman.
“I’m amazed that you’ve found us at all,” Colin admitted. “America, you said?”
“Taos, lastly.”
“Uh, right,” Colin nodded, having no idea what he meant. They’d been communicating pretty well, although some of the things Aragorn had told him simply didn’t make enough sense to explore further. When he got too flustered Aragorn forgot more of his English, and started jamming alien words into his sentences. If Colin hadn’t known better he would think that he had a petty criminal on his hands, fleeing from something that had blown up in his face, unable to figure out where to turn for help. The night they’d spent in London had been very educational for both of them.
Colin forced himself to sit back, easing the tension from his own limbs with difficulty, concentrating on remembering Aragorn’s face in every tiny detail. The man was exceptionally handsome, by Colin’s way of reckoning, though he couldn’t hold a candle to the Elf they were going to meet. Then again, Legolas was one of a kind, no matter how you figured it.
Legolas – who had been waiting for nearly eight years now. Waiting, and hoping, and fighting the loneliness of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time...and probably just feeling wrong.
They arrived at the Professor’s house quite suddenly, as if the last mile had just vanished. Colin already had the fare ready for the cabbie, which was a good thing as Aragorn bolted from the car, pounding on the front door like an invading Visigoth with a modicum of manners. Tolkien himself opened the door, eyes locking onto Aragorn with a rapt gaze of utter astonishment. He spoke at last, granting a greeting in Elvish and offering his hand to Aragorn.
The Ranger’s smile flashed bright, and he answered in kind, then took the offered hand, clasping it to his chest, tears in his eyes. The professor nodded toward Colin and said something else in the lyrical language. Aragorn suddenly laughed, which broke the tension for all of them.
“Legolas has taught you speak, yes?” Aragorn asked. “He play with you also. He make pronounce ‘the stars above to...to look down, but not just look. He say they...they....” At a loss to explain the subtle difference, Aragorn made a big show of winking, with a clear hint of indulgent sexual innuendo. “The stars to look down and see what you up to doing.”
Professor Tolkien laughed heartily. “A saucy wink, eh? It won’t be the first time Legolas has had a joke at my expense, I’m sure! Come – come through to the grounds. I’ve been unable to lure him inside all morning. He’s been flitting around like a butterfly. Ate an entire jar of honey and some of my wife’s favorite flowers and got a bit sick, then tried to connive some jam out of the housekeeper. He knows you’re coming.”
“He knows I here now,” Aragorn assured them. “Elves know heart.”
The three of them moved through the house, pausing to introduce Aragorn to the Missus and young Christopher, who stared at the Ranger with all the suspicion he could muster. And then Aragorn could finally stand no more delay, and simply darted out the back door and ran onto the untidy but flourishing patch of grass where the family took their breakfasts in the huge garden. Colin saw Legolas appear under an Oak, head held high, gripping the bark for a moment before striding confidently forward. He stopped about a foot from Aragorn and clasped his shoulder. Then the two fell together, embracing, and Colin felt that he had to turn away out of respect for the Elf, and for the man who loved him.
Tears streaming down his face, Legolas pressed himself to Aragorn as if he could climb inside the Man’s clothes, inside his skin, inside his very heart, and never have to leave again. He didn’t even realize how tightly he was grasping the Ranger until he felt the shift of weight as Aragorn started to collapse. Pulling back and shifting to fully support him, Legolas looked at the other’s face and realized that he hadn’t crushed him – Aragorn was just too overcome to remain standing. The Man started sobbing openly, eyes clenched, hands gripping nearly as tight as Legolas’s. The blue eyes finally opened, swimming in joy, and their mouths crashed together. Fingers tangled in hair, lips seeking a familiar match, and their breath became as one.
They remained this way for some time, until Aragorn could again stand unaided, and Legolas was the first able to speak. “You are late...again,” he whispered, echoing the sentiment he’d shared before the Battle of the Hornburg. “This is becoming a habit with you, is it not?”
“It was not I who jumped through the Wizard’s mirror, rash Elf,” Aragorn reminded him. “Is it not sufficient that I followed?”
“I will consider your plea,” Legolas allowed, unashamed as tears continued to wet his hollow cheeks. A smile haunted his kiss-bruised mouth, and his eyes captured every tiny change in Aragorn’s features. “I like your face shaven, but your beautiful hair is too short. What am I to grasp in fits of passion? Your ears are too small, and your shoulders too wide.”
“I think you will find ways to adapt,” Aragorn teased. And then he started kissing Legolas again, tenderly this time, rubbing his thumbs over the braids in the flaxen silk of the Elf’s hair. “I feared I would never find you again, Green-leaf, star in my heaven and light of my heart.”
“Flatterer,” Legolas whispered. “I knew you would find me.”
“Well, it wasn’t easy. Even for a tracker of my renown. Promise me that you will not wander so far afield again, Green-leaf. My heart could not bear the loss.”
“I promise it...for as long as you may follow.”
Colin found them in a quiet corner of the garden, sitting cross-legged in a patch of lavender, knees touching, talking. They held each other’s hands, and with the lyrical rise and flow of the Elvish language it was really one of the most surreal and beautiful scenes the policeman had ever seen. “I’ve brought you tea,” he said, knowing that Legolas had doubtless heard him coming as soon as he’d left the house.
“Coffee too? I’m thirsty.” Aragorn said, glancing up.
“Tea is the name for a meal,” Legolas told him in English, accepting the tray from Colin with a nod of thanks. “There are often cakes and sweet things too. There are some great advantages to being in Eng-land. Colin taught me about bananas. They have many meals here, at strange times.”
“Like Hobbits,” Aragorn laughed.
“’Ere now, I know what a Hobbit is, Yank,” Colin told him. “I’m no bleeding ‘obbit.”
Aragorn didn’t realize he was being toyed with, and quickly tried to lessen the offense. “Hobbits small body, big heart, bigger than troll. Brave too.”
Colin laughed. “See if you can get Las to eat, eh? He’s always too thin, and all he ever wants is sweets. There’re meat sandwiches on the tray. You two going to stay out here?”
“For now, please,” the Elf said, his eyes holding Aragorn’s. “Can we be alone?”
“Of course,” Colin agreed, finding a strange lump in his throat. He retreated through the wildly overgrown garden, leaving the two companions to grow reacquainted.
Evening fell, and with the food consumed and the most urgent of the news shared the Ranger lay back against a soft grassy mound which fit his back so perfectly that he imagined Legolas had constructed it just for that purpose. He tried to relax, letting his defenses down completely for the first time since he’d arrived on this earth. Several minutes of silence had passed, and he felt like he had moved beyond just speaking to his formerly-lost friend, and now their hearts were growing used to one another again. Legolas’ eyes were soft with a gaze of longing and compassion, yet it was Aragorn who felt that his time had come to give solace to the Elf, for once.
He reached to take the slender hand again, and lifted it to his lips, kissing the knuckles each in turn. A smile flickered across the Elf’s mobile face, and then suddenly he broke, turning his head away as tears flowed once again. Aragorn quickly gathered the lithe body into his arms, alarmed at how light it felt. It had been a long time since the Ranger had held this ethereal beauty...but it had been so very much longer for Legolas. The years of sadness and uncertainty had taken their toll, no matter how the Elf tried to hide it.
“I would give you comfort, my beloved companion,” he whispered into the shell of a delicately tipped ear.
Legolas shivered, and for a long time the ranger thought that he would not speak. Then the words came so softly that they could barely be heard. “I would take it. I would take all that you have to share with me.”
Aragorn rolled over to accommodate a new position, and soon he was uncovering the familiar body beneath the alien clothes. He kissed with hungry lips whatever the light of the stars touched, and more that only darkness caressed. He tasted the delicate hollows and the smooth expanses of muscle and bone. His fingers traced ancient words on warm flesh, and he relearned his friend’s secret places.
Legolas bared all for him and moved responsively – urgent whispers and gasped breaths. Straining and taut, panting with need, tears still dampening his pale cheeks. A choked cry in the dark, and he spilled bitter seed. Then the sobs came easier, and Aragorn rocked the Elf in his arms, kissing his soft hair and stroking his back.
The body in his embrace grew heavier, more substantial, and suddenly Legolas' passivity was at an end. He quickly took a more active role in the love-making, claiming his share as he divested the ranger of what clothes remained, and the two of them trembled in tandem as need became want. Aragorn tried to refrain from crying his pleasure aloud as Legolas sharpened his body like a whetstone to the blade, but the quiet was broken anyway as the Elf began to hum and purr. It was a sound that he’d last heard under the mallorns of Lórien, and had feared he might never hear again. Before he could spend his need yet again Legolas seated Aragorn’s passion deeply within his own, and they built as one.
Hands flying over tingling flesh, mouths and tongues giving vent to pleasure, grasping and stroking and pressing urgently. Aragorn felt his soul lifting up, as high as the cool stars above, and suddenly Legolas’ voice sang out in a glorious concert of love and fulfillment. There was no shame, no inhibition, no fear...and the Elf held nothing back as their joining reached completion.
The singing went on, and the song was one of joy.
Very late in the dark of the night Professor Tolkien heard the hallway floor creak. That would be Legolas leading Aragorn to the room they’d kept for the Elf ever since buying the country house. It was simply furnished, and housed only those minimal comforts which suited their guest. He rarely slept in it, preferring to stay outside most of the year round, regardless of weather. But Aragorn would probably be more comfortable in a bed. Tolkien had briefly considered offering them different accommodations, but after taking their tea to the garden Colin had assured them that the pair would be fine on their own.
After what the Oxford Don had heard that night, he had little doubt that there was a side to Elves that had not been properly shared with him in his research. The singing had been pure and beautiful beyond measure, and arousing as all hell. There couldn’t be an untouched heart – or libido – in all of Oxford.
“Do you think they’re done for the night?” asked the Missus, shifting against him, still cradling his manhood lovingly.
“I should hope so,” the Professor whispered back. “I don’t think I can take much more.”
“I can,” she giggled back, naughty as a schoolgirl. “You’re going to have to rewrite your books, darling. There is a whole level of, uhm, ‘fellowship’, that you seem to have missed out on.”
The Professor groaned.
Colin’s gut clenched as the taxi made its way along the lane, passing a sign which indicated that they were only about a mile from their destination. Aragorn was barely sitting on the seat next to him, leaning forward, thigh bouncing with excitement. Brilliant blue eyes glanced everywhere, taking in everything and nothing, longing for only one sight. Long fingers twisted in the folds of his coat, as if the garment were somehow to blame for the length of their trip. His breathing was quick and shallow.
“It had taken long for me,” Aragorn said aloud, probably more to himself than to the equally nervous London policeman.
“I’m amazed that you’ve found us at all,” Colin admitted. “America, you said?”
“Taos, lastly.”
“Uh, right,” Colin nodded, having no idea what he meant. They’d been communicating pretty well, although some of the things Aragorn had told him simply didn’t make enough sense to explore further. When he got too flustered Aragorn forgot more of his English, and started jamming alien words into his sentences. If Colin hadn’t known better he would think that he had a petty criminal on his hands, fleeing from something that had blown up in his face, unable to figure out where to turn for help. The night they’d spent in London had been very educational for both of them.
Colin forced himself to sit back, easing the tension from his own limbs with difficulty, concentrating on remembering Aragorn’s face in every tiny detail. The man was exceptionally handsome, by Colin’s way of reckoning, though he couldn’t hold a candle to the Elf they were going to meet. Then again, Legolas was one of a kind, no matter how you figured it.
Legolas – who had been waiting for nearly eight years now. Waiting, and hoping, and fighting the loneliness of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time...and probably just feeling wrong.
They arrived at the Professor’s house quite suddenly, as if the last mile had just vanished. Colin already had the fare ready for the cabbie, which was a good thing as Aragorn bolted from the car, pounding on the front door like an invading Visigoth with a modicum of manners. Tolkien himself opened the door, eyes locking onto Aragorn with a rapt gaze of utter astonishment. He spoke at last, granting a greeting in Elvish and offering his hand to Aragorn.
The Ranger’s smile flashed bright, and he answered in kind, then took the offered hand, clasping it to his chest, tears in his eyes. The professor nodded toward Colin and said something else in the lyrical language. Aragorn suddenly laughed, which broke the tension for all of them.
“Legolas has taught you speak, yes?” Aragorn asked. “He play with you also. He make pronounce ‘the stars above to...to look down, but not just look. He say they...they....” At a loss to explain the subtle difference, Aragorn made a big show of winking, with a clear hint of indulgent sexual innuendo. “The stars to look down and see what you up to doing.”
Professor Tolkien laughed heartily. “A saucy wink, eh? It won’t be the first time Legolas has had a joke at my expense, I’m sure! Come – come through to the grounds. I’ve been unable to lure him inside all morning. He’s been flitting around like a butterfly. Ate an entire jar of honey and some of my wife’s favorite flowers and got a bit sick, then tried to connive some jam out of the housekeeper. He knows you’re coming.”
“He knows I here now,” Aragorn assured them. “Elves know heart.”
The three of them moved through the house, pausing to introduce Aragorn to the Missus and young Christopher, who stared at the Ranger with all the suspicion he could muster. And then Aragorn could finally stand no more delay, and simply darted out the back door and ran onto the untidy but flourishing patch of grass where the family took their breakfasts in the huge garden. Colin saw Legolas appear under an Oak, head held high, gripping the bark for a moment before striding confidently forward. He stopped about a foot from Aragorn and clasped his shoulder. Then the two fell together, embracing, and Colin felt that he had to turn away out of respect for the Elf, and for the man who loved him.
Tears streaming down his face, Legolas pressed himself to Aragorn as if he could climb inside the Man’s clothes, inside his skin, inside his very heart, and never have to leave again. He didn’t even realize how tightly he was grasping the Ranger until he felt the shift of weight as Aragorn started to collapse. Pulling back and shifting to fully support him, Legolas looked at the other’s face and realized that he hadn’t crushed him – Aragorn was just too overcome to remain standing. The Man started sobbing openly, eyes clenched, hands gripping nearly as tight as Legolas’s. The blue eyes finally opened, swimming in joy, and their mouths crashed together. Fingers tangled in hair, lips seeking a familiar match, and their breath became as one.
They remained this way for some time, until Aragorn could again stand unaided, and Legolas was the first able to speak. “You are late...again,” he whispered, echoing the sentiment he’d shared before the Battle of the Hornburg. “This is becoming a habit with you, is it not?”
“It was not I who jumped through the Wizard’s mirror, rash Elf,” Aragorn reminded him. “Is it not sufficient that I followed?”
“I will consider your plea,” Legolas allowed, unashamed as tears continued to wet his hollow cheeks. A smile haunted his kiss-bruised mouth, and his eyes captured every tiny change in Aragorn’s features. “I like your face shaven, but your beautiful hair is too short. What am I to grasp in fits of passion? Your ears are too small, and your shoulders too wide.”
“I think you will find ways to adapt,” Aragorn teased. And then he started kissing Legolas again, tenderly this time, rubbing his thumbs over the braids in the flaxen silk of the Elf’s hair. “I feared I would never find you again, Green-leaf, star in my heaven and light of my heart.”
“Flatterer,” Legolas whispered. “I knew you would find me.”
“Well, it wasn’t easy. Even for a tracker of my renown. Promise me that you will not wander so far afield again, Green-leaf. My heart could not bear the loss.”
“I promise it...for as long as you may follow.”
Colin found them in a quiet corner of the garden, sitting cross-legged in a patch of lavender, knees touching, talking. They held each other’s hands, and with the lyrical rise and flow of the Elvish language it was really one of the most surreal and beautiful scenes the policeman had ever seen. “I’ve brought you tea,” he said, knowing that Legolas had doubtless heard him coming as soon as he’d left the house.
“Coffee too? I’m thirsty.” Aragorn said, glancing up.
“Tea is the name for a meal,” Legolas told him in English, accepting the tray from Colin with a nod of thanks. “There are often cakes and sweet things too. There are some great advantages to being in Eng-land. Colin taught me about bananas. They have many meals here, at strange times.”
“Like Hobbits,” Aragorn laughed.
“’Ere now, I know what a Hobbit is, Yank,” Colin told him. “I’m no bleeding ‘obbit.”
Aragorn didn’t realize he was being toyed with, and quickly tried to lessen the offense. “Hobbits small body, big heart, bigger than troll. Brave too.”
Colin laughed. “See if you can get Las to eat, eh? He’s always too thin, and all he ever wants is sweets. There’re meat sandwiches on the tray. You two going to stay out here?”
“For now, please,” the Elf said, his eyes holding Aragorn’s. “Can we be alone?”
“Of course,” Colin agreed, finding a strange lump in his throat. He retreated through the wildly overgrown garden, leaving the two companions to grow reacquainted.
Evening fell, and with the food consumed and the most urgent of the news shared the Ranger lay back against a soft grassy mound which fit his back so perfectly that he imagined Legolas had constructed it just for that purpose. He tried to relax, letting his defenses down completely for the first time since he’d arrived on this earth. Several minutes of silence had passed, and he felt like he had moved beyond just speaking to his formerly-lost friend, and now their hearts were growing used to one another again. Legolas’ eyes were soft with a gaze of longing and compassion, yet it was Aragorn who felt that his time had come to give solace to the Elf, for once.
He reached to take the slender hand again, and lifted it to his lips, kissing the knuckles each in turn. A smile flickered across the Elf’s mobile face, and then suddenly he broke, turning his head away as tears flowed once again. Aragorn quickly gathered the lithe body into his arms, alarmed at how light it felt. It had been a long time since the Ranger had held this ethereal beauty...but it had been so very much longer for Legolas. The years of sadness and uncertainty had taken their toll, no matter how the Elf tried to hide it.
“I would give you comfort, my beloved companion,” he whispered into the shell of a delicately tipped ear.
Legolas shivered, and for a long time the ranger thought that he would not speak. Then the words came so softly that they could barely be heard. “I would take it. I would take all that you have to share with me.”
Aragorn rolled over to accommodate a new position, and soon he was uncovering the familiar body beneath the alien clothes. He kissed with hungry lips whatever the light of the stars touched, and more that only darkness caressed. He tasted the delicate hollows and the smooth expanses of muscle and bone. His fingers traced ancient words on warm flesh, and he relearned his friend’s secret places.
Legolas bared all for him and moved responsively – urgent whispers and gasped breaths. Straining and taut, panting with need, tears still dampening his pale cheeks. A choked cry in the dark, and he spilled bitter seed. Then the sobs came easier, and Aragorn rocked the Elf in his arms, kissing his soft hair and stroking his back.
The body in his embrace grew heavier, more substantial, and suddenly Legolas' passivity was at an end. He quickly took a more active role in the love-making, claiming his share as he divested the ranger of what clothes remained, and the two of them trembled in tandem as need became want. Aragorn tried to refrain from crying his pleasure aloud as Legolas sharpened his body like a whetstone to the blade, but the quiet was broken anyway as the Elf began to hum and purr. It was a sound that he’d last heard under the mallorns of Lórien, and had feared he might never hear again. Before he could spend his need yet again Legolas seated Aragorn’s passion deeply within his own, and they built as one.
Hands flying over tingling flesh, mouths and tongues giving vent to pleasure, grasping and stroking and pressing urgently. Aragorn felt his soul lifting up, as high as the cool stars above, and suddenly Legolas’ voice sang out in a glorious concert of love and fulfillment. There was no shame, no inhibition, no fear...and the Elf held nothing back as their joining reached completion.
The singing went on, and the song was one of joy.
Very late in the dark of the night Professor Tolkien heard the hallway floor creak. That would be Legolas leading Aragorn to the room they’d kept for the Elf ever since buying the country house. It was simply furnished, and housed only those minimal comforts which suited their guest. He rarely slept in it, preferring to stay outside most of the year round, regardless of weather. But Aragorn would probably be more comfortable in a bed. Tolkien had briefly considered offering them different accommodations, but after taking their tea to the garden Colin had assured them that the pair would be fine on their own.
After what the Oxford Don had heard that night, he had little doubt that there was a side to Elves that had not been properly shared with him in his research. The singing had been pure and beautiful beyond measure, and arousing as all hell. There couldn’t be an untouched heart – or libido – in all of Oxford.
“Do you think they’re done for the night?” asked the Missus, shifting against him, still cradling his manhood lovingly.
“I should hope so,” the Professor whispered back. “I don’t think I can take much more.”
“I can,” she giggled back, naughty as a schoolgirl. “You’re going to have to rewrite your books, darling. There is a whole level of, uhm, ‘fellowship’, that you seem to have missed out on.”
The Professor groaned.
Subtitles
- Chapter One: The Leap
- Chapter Two: Landing on your Feet
- Chapter Three: All the wild Things
- Chapter Four: Funny Paper Heroes
- Chapter Five: Caught
- Chapter Six: Blitz
- Chapter Seven: Hitting the Road
- Chapter Eight: Being Wrong
- Chapter Nine: Assumptions
- Chapter Ten: Coffee and Hot Cross Buns
- Chapter Eleven: Fate of the Brave
- Chapter Twelve: The Forest for the Brave
- Chapter Thirteen: Arrow in the Dark
- Chapter Fourteen: Little Brown Birds
- Chapter Fifteen: Popcorn and Prize-winning Pumpkins
- Chapter Sixteen: The Distance Breeched
- Chapter Seventeen: A Song to Light the Dark
- Chapter Eighteen: The Meaning of Fellowship
- Chapter Nineteen: Meanings Behind Words.
- Chapter Twenty: If Elves were meant to fly
- Chapter Twenty-one: Across the Western Sea
- Chapter Twenty-two: Atcheson Topeka and the Santa Fe
- Chapter Twenty-three: Strange Feathers
- Chapter Twenty-four: A Bitter Fruit
- Chapter Twenty-five: Looking for the Exit
- Chapter Twenty-six: Tainted
- Chapter Twenty-seven: The Killing Blow
- Chapter 28: Epilogue