Ch. 14
"How is he?" Aldeon asked anxiously as Kala carefully inspected the exposed wounds.
"He is healing well, ," Kala answered, sounding pleased. He pressed gentle fingers on the healing tissues and Legolas drew in a sharp breath and clamped down on his lip.
"You are hurting him!" Aldeon protested, his own hand tightening on that of his brother.
Kala cast him a patient look and continued with his examination. "I am merely ensuring that there are no further signs of swelling. And now if you would move aside, Aldeon, I will rewrap the bandage."
Aldeon reluctantly moved from his brother’s side though his eyes scrutinized every move that the healer was making. Kala ignored the other’s hovering, smiling a little to himself. The entire royal family would not be breathing with ease until this young one was up and about in full recovery. He tied the last of the bandages snugly and relaced Legolas’ sleep tunic.
"Have you been eating?" he asked his young patient.

"Yes," Legolas said quietly.
"No!" His older brother cut in at the same time.
The healer looked from one brother to the other, raising his brow questioningly. "Which one of you should I believe?"
There was a brief silence. In the end, it was Legolas who answered. "I spend all my time drinking that foul tea that you keep brewing for me. There is no space left in me for food." He regarded the healer’s face and had the grace to add, "Besides, I have not been hungry."
"You must eat if you wish to regain your strength, not to mention that your body needs nourishment to heal properly," Kala said as he began to put things back in his pack.
"That is what I have been telling him also," Aldeon spoke up.
Legolas stared down morosely at his own hands, pale and idle atop of the pristine sheets. "I feel no hunger."

"Eat a little at a time. Your body needs to get familiar with food again as you have gone without for so many days while you slept. But you need to take in more nourishment." He turned to the older prince. "Have prepared for him several times a day light meals of broth, fruit and bread. I need not to tell you that taking in sufficient nourishment is a very important part of the healing process."
Aldeon nodded. "I will ensure that he eats."
Kala patted his patiently gently on the shoulder. "If you do as you are told, we may be able to get you out of this bed before the week is over."
Kala had expected a rush of impatient expectancy from his patient in response to his words, but was favoured only with a wan smile on the still too pale face. The healer signed inwardly. There was still too much grief in the youngling, for which he had no ready cure.
"I shall come back to see you tomorrow."
As he was turning to leave, the door opened and Tavaro hobbled in on crutches. He stopped short at the sight of the healer and grimaced.
"Oh, caught in the act again" He worked hard to put on his most winsome smile.
Kala nodded. "Right. I believe it was this morning that I told you that you were to stay off that leg for at least another day. Sit down and let me take a look at it."
"You checked it this morning," Tavaro reminded him.
"That was before you decided to put it through some undue exercise. Sit down."
Aldeon helped his brother to the nearest chair and pressed him gently onto it. "Do as you are told, Tavaro. He is the healer." He pulled up another chair and carefully lifted the bandaged leg atop of it.
"Ow!" Tavaro cried out rather dramatically. "Can you not be more gentle, brother?"
"I am sorry," Aldeon said quickly, gripping the other’s shoulder briefly in apology.
"Precisely," Kala said in his calm voice. "That is precisely why I have warned against using that leg too soon. Let me see if you have done any damage to it." He gently unraveled the bandages as Tavaro hissed and grumbled steadily under his breath. Kala paused in his ministrations and regarded the disgruntled prince with a raised brow. "For an accomplished warrior that you claim to be, you certainly are quite vocal when it comes to discomfort."
"I am an accomplished warrior. I have probably killed more orcs than you have healed elves," Tavaro protested. Then seeing the look on the healer’s face, he quickly added. "Well, perhaps we are even on that score. But just because I am a warrior on the battlefield does not mean that I have to be one in the sick room. Warriors feel pain too and have as much right as anyone else to express such pain." He glanced over at Legolas, who was watching him in wide-eyed silence from his bed. "Right, bratling?" He gave his brother a conspiratorial wink and was rewarded with a small smile.
Tavaro then turned to his older brother and said, "Aldeon, since you are standing there doing precisely nothing, why not make yourself useful and bring some food from the kitchen? It has been some time since the midday meal and neither Legolas nor I are sufficiently mobile to sneak by those grumpy cooks."
Aldeon was watching the slowly widening smile that was now gracing his youngest brother’s face and could barely suppress his own grin as Tavaro continued with his cheerful bantering. He clasped Tavaro’s shoulder briefly before heading out of the room. "I shall bring back a feast."
"Kala, is his wound serious?" Legolas suddenly asked, surprising both the healer and his brother.
Kala finished retying the bandages. "It was, but it is mending nicely. So long as he refrains from putting undue strain on it, it will be good as new within a week." He looked down at the older prince with a slight smile. "And I am certain your brother will not do anything foolish to jeopardize the healing of that leg. Am I not right, Tavaro?"
"Kala, you know you are always right. We all bow to your infinite wisdom, including Adar himself," Tavaro said rather dryly.
The healer dipped his head slightly, acknowledging the compliment. "Only in the art of healing dare I claim superiority. As for the governing and defence of our woodland realm, I gladly defer to the King and his sons. I take my leave now as I have other patients to attend to."
"Thank you, Kala, as always" Tavaro called out to the departing healer. Once they were alone, he turned his attention to his brother, taking note of the pallor and the small grimaces of pain that Legolas could not easily hide. He reached down and picked up the crutches with a grunt.
"Tavaro, Kala said you should not move," Legolas cautioned.
"He did not say that I should not move. He merely warned me to take care, which I am doing right now. I am only moving closer to you so that we need not to shout to each other across the room." He eased himself down onto the chair by the bed and grinned at his anxious brother. "There, I made it in one piece. You may breathe now, bratling." He reached out and ruffled Legolas’ hair playfully. "And how are you feeling?"
"Everyone asks me that," his brother replied rather sullenly. "It gets very tiresome."
"I am merely carrying on the tradition for I too have been asked that question far too many times in the past days. I have promised myself that I would throttle the next person who asks me that, and since I do not wish it to be you, I thought I had better beat you to the question," Tavaro explained and was pleased that his words elicited another smile from his younger brother.
"I do not suppose you have heard as you have been cocooned in your room for many days now," Tavaro said rather casually.
"Heard about what?" asked Legolas.
"Oh, there is ample talk among our people about how a certain princeling, with unprecedented courage and valour, had saved Mirkwood from certain annihilation. It would seem, bratling, that you have become quite the hero."
Legolas stared at his brother with eyes round as saucers. "They do not mean me, surely?"
Tavaro looked around him. "I do not see another princeling; your brothers and I grew out of that title millennia ago. Yes, Legolas, I believe they will be singing songs about your heroics soon, and tales will be retold to other wee elflings through the ages of how the young prince rode days without food or drink, and battling evil spiders along the way, to get that all important missive to the troops who were happily marching to battle in the wrong direction," Tavaro finished with a grin.
"You exaggerate," Legolas said after a moment of stunned silence, though his eyes glinted with renewed light.
"Only a little. Your name has been bantered about so frequently in recent days that I am becoming a mite jealous. I thought Feren and I were supposed to be the accomplished warriors in the family, a distinction, I should remind you, that took more years than you can imagine to build up. And now, little brother, your reputation is eclipsing ours. The injustice of it all appalls me."
There was no mistake about the sparkle that shone so brilliantly from Legolas’ eyes now, nor could one be immune to the spreading smile that was slowly pushing away the shadows of pain and guilt that had blighted the young face for so many days.
"I do not know what to say," Legolas stammered.
"Well, you had better start thinking of appropriate responses because once you leave the confines of this room, you will no doubt be faced with people groveling before you in complete awe."
Legolas could not help but chuckle at the thought, only to stop short at the sharp pain that emanated from his side the slight movement caused.
Tavaro watched his brother with amused eyes, gladdened that his words had brought a measure of reprieve, however temporary, to Legolas’ darkened mood. Awkwardly, he leaned forward and embraced his younger brother, brushing his lips over the fair hair. "I, too, want to thank you, bratling."
"For what?" Legolas asked, puzzled.
"For saving Feren’s life. Though Feren can be as exciting as a bowl of day old porridge at most times, I know I would surely miss his bossing me around on the battlefield, as would, I am sure, the rest of the troops. As for your method of saving him from death, that is another matter to consider. Do you know how foolish it was to jump into the path of that arrow?" He regarded his brother’s downcast eyes for a long moment, before adding, "But I probably would have done the very same thing myself."
Legolas looked up, smiling. "That was what Aldeon said too."
Tavaro nodded. "And I am sure Feren would have done no differently, for all his talk of discipline." He once again ruffled his brother’s already disheveled hair and grinned. "I guess we are all definitely Thranduil’s sons, no doubts about that."
At that moment, the door opened and Aldeon entered, balancing with care a tray laden with food.
Tavaro eyed the tray with open admiration. "You cannot tell me that you were able to sneak by the cooks with a tray like that."
Aldeon set the food down onto a table and pulled it close to the bed. "No, of course not. The cooks themselves helped me prepare this tray."
His brother looked at him with disbelief. "But how can that be? They have never catered to me like that before."
"Perhaps you are there too often for their liking?’ Aldeon offered innocently.
Tavaro laughed good-naturedly. "That is entirely too possible." He reached out and helped himself to the cold meat.
"Legolas, I brought you some broth. Shall I help you with it?" Aldeon asked, taking note of the renewed light in his little brother’s eyes and the hint of a still lingering smile. He wondered what miracles Tavaro had accomplished in the short while that he was gone.
To his surprise and gratification, Legolas nodded at the offer of food. "I can feed myself." He reached out shakily for the bowl in Aldeon’s hand, but was stopped by the sharp pain shooting from his side. He gasped and his hand involuntarily grabbed at the thick bandaging that covered his healing wounds.
Aldeon eased himself down onto the bed. "I think you best let me help you."
With a resigned look on his face, Legolas nodded and suffered the indignity of being fed like an elfling as his brother proceeded to spoon the broth into him. Some heroic picture this must paint, he thought glumly to himself.
"Brings back memories, does it not, Legolas?" Tavaro asked between mouthfuls. "You recall, how I used to smuggle food into your room and we would have ourselves a midnight feast while everyone else slept?"
Legolas smiled and nodded, remembering with fondness the countless times that Tavaro endeavoured to bring adventure and excitement to the otherwise boring and uneventful life of a royal elfling confined behind the palace walls.
"You did what?" Aldeon asked, debating whether he should be frowning or grinning.
"Oh, I would keep the elfling up half the night with food and tales of battles fought. Adar must wondered endlessly as to why his little elfling tended to nod off to sleep at the most unlikely times on certain days." Tavaro was grinning with satisfaction.
Aldeon finally opted for grinning. "I used to wonder why Legolas would get so excited each time you come back on leave from patrol. So it is you who have been corrupting our little brother all this time."
"I would hardly label it as corrupting. I consider it a widening of the elfling’s horizon," Tavaro corrected.
Aldeon regarded both of his brothers dubiously. "I am sure Adar would beg to differ." He set down the half-emptied bowl and helped to ease Legolas back onto the bed. "I believe our elfling tires and should sleep. And you, Tavaro, should also head back to your own chamber before Adar sees you up and about, before you should be up and about."
"Where is Adar? I have not seen him today," Legolas asked sleepily as his brother tucked the blankets around him.
Aldeon hesitated before replying, "He has been visiting the families of our fallen warriors."
There was an uncomfortable pause. Legolas closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "Too many have died."
The eyes of his older brothers met and each read in the other the sense of loss that Legolas’ words brought to their hearts. The previous jovial atmosphere of the room suddenly sobered. More than lives had been lost in this battle. Such was the thought that crossed the minds of both Aldeon and Feren as they looked down at the youthful face of their now sleeping brother.
"He is no longer an elfling," Tavaro said quietly, half to himself.
"No, he is not," Aldeon agreed, not quite able to keep the sadness from his voice.
TBC