The loving cup passed, each witness raising the chalice in turn, slim pointed fingers cradling the hemisphere of chased sliver, feeling the chill of scented wine within. The cup had no stand; it would pass and re-pass, pledge upon pledge, until all the wine had been shared.

Legolas accepted the cup in both hands, inhaling the artful blend of scents. He willed his heart to lift, his mind focused on his purpose as he looked toward the handfast couple beneath the glittering canopy.

“Be happy” his thoughts formed. “Never falter in your love”. He felt his heart turn within himself, and let the rest of the thought dissipate as the cool wine chilled his mouth.

He lowered the cup and passed it in the fortunate direction, into other reaching hands. It would take another circuit before it was empty and he could honourably leave the hall.

His father had understood. Other envoys from Mirkwood had been subtly paraded, available in his stead with no loss of face. Why then had he been so stubborn? Why had he ignored the unvoiced opinion that here at this Handfasting was only pain for him, not fruitful growth?

An envoy's skill animated his face, as though another stretched and played the muscles in his stead. He knew that his smile moved the same, and his glance and words were fleet as ever in the ageless dance of courts, yet within himself he felt a spreading darkness, his heart shrivelling to a dead seed that rattled within the husk he had become.

The cup passed again, and he drank the toast. “To Arwen and Aragorn the long gift: love unceasing.” His body made the motions, spoke the words for him. His throat, his head and breast, all save his heart resonated with the long-appointed harmonies, his voice blending with the voices about him as the great hall rang like a sounding stone.

--*--


He was alright. He had only to climb these stairs, beyond sight of the hall.

Now he could trail a discreet hand along the banister, no longer needing to pretend to perfect sight through his brimming eyes.

He wished he could say it was a triumph. Through the long weary day he’d held to his course. One of the last, as the acquaintances had dropped away and the friends’ pledges had warmed beyond formal courtesy, the melodies shifting down through the polyphonies into the last formal antiphony; the Song of Ärda recreated in miniature as the powers and shapers each left the hall. At last only the glowing starlit pair remained, sweet voices passing phrase and counter-phrase in the gathering dark, a mingling of melody and close harmonies that struck into his vitals like a poisoned knife.

--*--


He would be alright. The door to his chamber was solid against his back. Legolas brushed a fingertip across his cheek, reassuring himself that no wetness betrayed the smallness of his heart.

Dully he moved to the press, mechanically shedding the ceremonial silks, precisely folding and layering each within its embroidered travelling bag. Of themselves his fingers found his favourite robe, his skin welcoming the roughness and familiar weight of honest linen after his seeming courtier's garb. As his fingers worked each familiar hook in turn he moved away from the wide, mocking bed toward the window seat where he sank down, bare legs curled beneath him, staring out over the moonlit treescape of Rivendell.

“I’m fine,” he thought, wondering at himself. “Perhaps it was never so much, that I can let it go like this. A little distance between us, and it will be as though it never was.”

The wine had left a tender sweetness in his mouth; now he was conscious of thirst too. Legolas remembered the flagon brought by the page when he first arrived, and looked around. Yes, there it was, on a low side table, next to a pair of wine cups.

Two gleaming silver cups, and beyond them the bed. Like an enemy from ambush he felt his demon's claws rake down inside his chest, stabbing into his gut. He hunched forward, tasting bile in the back of his throat. The sob welled up, and he pressed his knuckles hard, hard against lips, desperately smothering the sound as he squeezed his eyelids together; as though sheer effort of will could hold it all within himself. He dragged in a breath that stabbed like ice-blades and swallowed, trying to keep from the indignity of sound.



A hand touched his arm, moved in a familiar caress and he struck out; pushing the other away, appalled at the violence he felt, angry that he should be seen like this, horrified for Arwen that she was so soon betrayed.

“You!…” Legolas shrank back into the window bay. “Don’t touch me. What are you doing here now? I can’t believe you’re doing this! Arwen…”

“Arwen has nothing to fear, as in your right mind you know.”

“Well, go to her now. Will your report be enough, or must you bring her here to witness my smallness?”

“Legolas, don't be afraid - ”

“Get out, Aragorn, get out!”

Aragorn’s face was grooved with misery. Legolas shrank away from his outstretched hand as from a snake.

“Legolas…”

“Get out of here you stupid man! I don't fear you. The only thing I have still is that Arwen has no reproach against me.”

He clenched his trembling hands one over the other and turned again to stare out of the window. To his keen sight the shapes of plants revealed themselves: belladonna, nightshade, hellebore. Blooming at Elrond's need, they could yet serve his own. Tomorrow the handfasting would be officially over and the celebrants disperse. He would need but the smallest pinch for his journey, a single cup.

“Please go,” he whispered.

--*--



She saw Aragorn lean against the door to Legolas's room. Saw the carven wood quiver as the bolts were driven home. Saw the pain in his face and his tight clenched hands.

"Foolish to think that words alone could assuage his pain." Arwen spoke softly, yet still he jumped. She smiled and moved, letting the faint radiance from a high window show her to his poor Man's eyes.

"My lady -"

"Today, before and hereafter, your lady indeed."

"My lady Arwen, you should not be here. Tonight, of all nights is a night for - "

"Love?" She smiled, pitching her voice for his ears alone. "Oh, I agree. But were you and I to retire to our place knowing that one in our care lies burning his heart, would that be love, or selfishness?

"Aragorn, beloved, how many green days did you and I have while our regard deepened and our hearts grew together like a close-planted bower? Can you tell the hours we have paced the garden together in discourse, recall all the songs we have shared? How many snatched moments does that love-starveling hoard in memory, and what are their kind? Huddled together on lumpy ground against a bitter east wind; the jolt of cold fingers in a fumbling caress; love-making interrupted by the sting and slap of midges?"

Aragorn closed his eyes and stood still for a moment. When he looked at her again, his face seemed curiously blank. Like shadows beneath his skin, she saw the pain and guilt in him.

"No. Don't accuse yourself. The hunt for that gangrel creature was wearisome and long. Only at the urging of Mithrandir was it attempted, in defiance of all reason. You could not in honour have taken time from such a task. Had you been such a man to give that which is not his, think you would have his love? Or mine?

She shrugged. "Yet it remains. He gave too much, received too little and now is alone and in pain. Should I not give of my bounty?"

The goblet had sat chill in her hand the while, yet as she raised it she felt the shock of his recognition. She stood, and drank, and the charmed wine was sweet in her mouth.

The night was quiet, a deep pool of darkness. Yet as Elrond's gift worked in her it seemed the day's turn echoed still to the chant at her handfasting as a long-struck bell may shiver below sound. Shapings she had only glimpsed before now shone whole within her grasp. The unrest she had felt in the hall sharpened to dread, the flaw in the handfasting galled like glass splinters in her fingertips.

Her father's household spread about her, a banner of light, woven bright points bound by love and duty, shaped by habit and need. In a single place she saw the design distorted by the shape of Angmar and the Enemy, albeit his lesser shadow at Dol Guldur. As she watched, the light glistened like the sheen on rotting meat, tender with distress.

Arwen carried the cup to Aragorn and put it into his hand. "Drink now the loving cup with me, my love." She looked deep into his eyes across the silver rim of the chalice, feeling her heart lift as the ancient charm embraced him. She could have laughed out loud at the Enemy's folly, who grading all by power and avarice could think only that love shared was love diminished. If in her new understanding she pitied even the great enemy, how could she not succour a heartsick boy? Arwen stroked her lover's fingers where they curled about the cup, admiring their war forged strength. "Take our cup within," she said, "and drink the draught with Legolas also."

Responsive to her will, the door at his back slid its bolts and swung soundlessly open onto darkness.

--*--


Harsh moonlight shone down upon the elf in the window seat, a bitter glare that edged all his shadows blue and cast the rest of the room into darkness. At his elbow a pitcher gleamed on the wide windowsill. As Aragorn watched, moonlight flashed on a silver goblet as the figure gulped its contents. Metal gonged as he filled it again.

He must have made a sound, for Legolas turned his head toward him. The dead light bleached his face to nothing; bone, dark eyes and a mouth like a fresh wound.

"I shut him out and turned the bolts against him, Shade, and now you wear his face. I knew you had no kindness in you, but must you do this?" Legolas's cheek twitched and he blinked slowly, squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them wide again. "Of course, it does no good. You're here. Here." He touched the centre of his pale robe and swayed slightly, wine slopping over the edge of his cup.

To Aragorn the room felt strange, as though the end of the room were near and far at once. Something here was twisted and he found it hard to walk. It seemed a gale blew that froze and scoured only him,  nothing else moved as he gasped and struggled toward the distant silver figure. Legolas raised the goblet and drank again.

"Shall I tell you about love, Shade? What it's like to walk always in golden summertime? To be lonely no more, whether together or apart? But of course you couldn't know Shade. I called you, so we're never apart." He shrugged, and the wine slopped again.

"D'you know I can walk blindfold into a crowd and find him by the scent of his hair? I could close my eyes and draw him now, and you'd marvel. Say it was him. But of course, you know that. Drew you."

Aragorn willed himself to speak, but the volition drained from his tongue, drunk by the mad dark eyes of the boy who shook his head and leaned forward unsteadily.

"I'll tellya secret, Shade. First time saw you in the wood, I did. Followed you a morning, went on ahead. I was gon' have fun, I was, oh yes." Legolas nodded solemnly. "Swam in the pool, perfumed myself an' put on all my best stuff. Was gon' have fun, knock your eyes out'n make you want me. Funny manling, play the game 'n' get me. Worked, too." He tilted the cup and watched the dark drops run down his wrist.

Aragorn watched the drops fall, the stain widening from the elf's ribs to his groin. The horror spread in him, and he struggled to speak, but could only manage a wordless groan as he forced his dead-meat legs to move. The cup felt like iron, heavier than a prisoner's shackle, and his muscles burned from wrist to shoulder with the weight.

"Ah, you're good, Shade. Even got his voice 'n moves." Legolas's body weaved slightly and he tried to smile, to horrible effect. "Gon' be with you, Shade. Been try'ng cry." He nodded like a marionette. "Should cry at funer'ls, 's important, but can't, see?" He rubbed and pulled at his cheeks. "Can't. C'n you cry for me, Shade?"

The icy pain Aragorn felt made it difficult to breathe. Once, surprised by a creature of the Enemy, his horse had reared and fallen on him, bursting its heart in its terror. Easier to lift that horse than to heave air out of his lungs, now.

"Here." Aragorn's voice was a painful croak, and his arm shook like a palsied beggar's as he lifted the goblet. "For you."

Legolas swayed forward to stare at the cup and leaned against him, almost slipping off the seat. "Know that cup. That's awfu' cruel, Shade. Couldn't wait 'n' called you with th' potion to help me, yes. But din't think you'd be so cruel," he mumbled, his fingers stroking the age smoothed silver.

The pain grew less, and Aragorn felt his strength in him again. "Here, darling, drink."

" 'N you too. Though won't hurt you, 'f course."

"Yes, yes." Aragorn took a gulp and then pressed the cold silver into Legolas's hands. "Drink now." He was half afraid more wine would make Legolas sick, but more afraid of trying to catch him one handed.

"Dring' wi' me, the true cup," Legolas mumbled. He laughed, swigged it back like medicine and fell, a dead weight, into Aragorn's arms.

--*--


The bed was broad and comfortable. Legolas slept curled on his side, hunched like a wounded animal. Once in the night Aragorn had moved to get out of bed to adjust the hangings, for the moonlight seemed to trouble his friend, but checked at the sudden lonely terror he felt. He moved closer again, holding his hand to shield the elf's eyes from the light and felt him settle again at the reassurance of skin contact, his anguished breathing slowing once more into the rhythm of sleep.

The white corpse light gleamed everywhere in the room, and Aragorn drew the covers up over them both. Legolas seemed cold, stiff clay and he would have feared the boy dead but for that regular hoarse breath and the faint pulse beneath the pale skin. He distrusted the way the sickly moonlight limned the elf's features. Feeling foolish and superstitious, Aragorn stroked his fingers lightly across his lover's pale skin. Legolas moaned but seemed to relax a little, perhaps gentled by his touch, so he continued stroking first the high cheekbones, the long jaw, the beautiful neck. At first it seemed to the man he brushed chill cobwebs away and his fingers tingled and smarted as he traced his moonlit lover's curves, but he grew more absorbed, his fingers remembering beauty as he traced collarbone and silvered nipple, taut muscle and fine hair.

The kiss came so naturally that he couldn't remember its beginning; he had been forever like this, his lips parted above his lover's heartbeat. The skin seemed warmer than before and he pressed his cheek there before kissing the delicate lines of ribs as they rose, paused, and relaxed again.

The room seemed warmer. Dark, now that the moon had set, yet it seemed he knew Legolas better so. His hands and lips felt the warm pulse of blood beneath the skin, a rhythmic rush like the sea upon a pebbled beach. He felt the tides move and repeat, branch and enfold, fill and define. The still form before him was full of movement, intricate, beautiful and miraculous. He took his lover back into his arms and held him, breathing with him and conscious only of his nearness in the dark.

--*--


Aragorn felt Legolas stir, and woke to find rich sunlight warming the room. His lover felt live and vital against him and he fought against an absurd desire to sing and turn cartwheels. He kissed Legolas's shoulder instead.

"Aragorn?" Legolas's voice was very quiet. "Am I a thief?"

"By no means. What is it that troubles you?"

Legolas turned over in the bed to face him. "This," he said, opening his hand to reveal the silver cup he had clutched all night. "This, and you."

Aragorn reached out and pressed the elf's fingers against the worn silver, covering them with his own.

"This is the gift of Arwen, who drinks with us," he said.

At last, Legolas cried.