#goldengreenleaf

I’ve missed you all.

                                           “Mae Govannen, Mellon.”

Elrond feels the touch on his ears and hums in approval, catching the prince's fingers to kiss briefly before guiding them back to his tingling ears.

"Those ears... could it be... are you an elf?"

  One by one, his senses failed him. His whole body joining in quickly. His knees grew feeble and gravity pulled him down towards the earth, where they met with the cold, hard ground. A wet squelch sounded as they pushed into ground drenched with blood, the sound mixing with the clash of steel behind him. His sword slipped through his fingers easily and landed in a buzz of metal that he couldn't hear. His tongue tasted like metal in his mouth and was heavy as such. He had not bled in so many centuries, he had almost forgotten taste and feeling.        His head bowed forward, the world went black, as his eyes fluttered shut and his body turned while he fell towards the ground completely. He didn't feel how his back connected with the earth, only felt the pain in his head that reminded him of an old, almost ancient, agony; the feeling of dragonfire on skin.     He remembered it then, as he lay, breath labored and eyes closed, the world lost to him as he began slipping from it in retaliation. By now, he thought, he would have a hundred regrets piling up to come and haunt him if his time would ever dare run out on him.    But it was not regret that began haunting him, as his blood mixed with the earth beneath him and the blood of the wretched horrors they had already wounded and slain. It was the face of his wife, who had met her fate on the battlefield a thousand years before. The voice of his son, who he had parted with in bad spirit and who had gone to follow someone other than him.       It was so clear, he could have believed him close and nearby,       had he not known it was impossible. But who would rush after his son and make sure he had not met a fate such as the one the Elvenking was facing now, if he died? Desperately trying to hold on, his mouth opened in an attempt to call out to Feren for one last order. The elf had to be near. Someone was.      "Ion nín," his meek voice whispered, mouth opening and closing over additional words he couldn't utter anymore. Would his guard know what he was sending him out to do or would he mistake him for hallucinating in the face of death? A long exhale of air was punctuated by the lack of a following intake.

"Lord Legolas?           ....       Happy New Year to you as well I guess..."

He asked more brutally than he had wished,the growl almost audible in his tone.