Legolas hadn’t been home for long, yet some considered the war to be over long ago, for they spoke of weeks and months. But for the prince it was fresh in memory. You could see it in his eyes. The light that had been so bright almost seemed clouded now. He was more silent. More precise. And even more did he keep to himself during the hours he spent awake.
He didn’t want to spend time in the company of those who smiled, not yet. Not when he had such a fresh memory of the loss and bloodshed. Something which came to him every night. That took away his kin and friends over and over again every night. Some in the ways he had seen, some in ways he had only seen the result which his mind twisted and made to a nightmare he couldn’t forget.
Not even when Tauriel first penetrated his dreams with her voice did his mind let up. He even heard himself scream before one of her hands came too close to a wound in his shoulder. The pain being enough to jolt him through his sleep to wide awake, only a face of despair and pain left behind, not even a sound made over his pain. His grey eyes stared up at his friend and it took him a long time before he even took a deep breath, and finally also tried to relax.
“I… I’m okay,” he wasn’t.
Panged Iris’s looked to the warrior who conquered the world, won the war, vanquished evil and returned home; all of this he had done, and at what cost? What self sacrifices did this ellon, This prince who took the role of a suicide mission when all thought he had died, give? War was never a victory; pyrrhic at best to those who fought in them, to those who survived and tried so desperately to feign living once more.
She could only fathom what he had seen. A small fellowship formed, trekking beyond the woodlands and into the world – Tauriel had no concept of what was beyond the invasion of Mirkwood, the constant orc raids, the spiders, trolls, the shadow that nearly swallowed all and the flames that scorched the woodlands. What she knew, perished, and who she had been perished with the ones who did not make it. The count of death of her Kin beyond what she wished to acknowledge, recognizing only the silent absence of familiar faces and friendships.
Had the Galadhrim never moved from the south, the promise of death to the Silvans would have been certain, and though her gratitude to the Silvans of Lorien was immense, it still burdened her heart with grief to know that they never truly stood a chance on their own.
“I know.”
Restrained words lingered in her gaze as she looked to the broken face of Legolas; written in his eyes as she stared at her own reflection. Few words were shared with him upon his return, voiding herself from the feasts and celebrations - she did not welcome anyones company, not when she felt so dismantled.
Tauriel sat upon the edge of his bed, her hands falling into her lap. She was doing what she used to do; Guarding her Prince, though she could not slay his nightmares.