The first thing Legolas noticed as he felt himself return to consciousness was the bright light surrounding him. He groggily blinked his eyes open and into focus. Golden morning sunlight was streaming in through the bank of windows that lined the side of the room to his left. The warm light washed over the bed and his body, making him feel very peaceful and content.

For a moment, he did not try to remember how he had gotten there. He felt so comfortable that he did not want to move and ruin the moment. But as he lay there, memories of the previous day came flooding back to him.

Elrond had said he had been in a coma for the last five years. His muscles were withered and practically useless from laying there unused for so long. He remembered his friends rushing in and how they had looked at him, disbelief and surprise written across their faces. He remembered Gimli being there and then there being a bright flash of light...

Legolas shook himself out of his thoughts. It all seemed so distant and strange, he didn’t want to try and remember it all just yet.

He slowly looked around and was startled to see almost all his friends sitting there in a circle around his bed. They all looked tired and extremely worn out, as if they had spent the entire night awake holding vigil there at his bedside. Gimli sat close to the bed on his left, slouched forward in his chair and staring at the floor with a distance, unreadable look in his eyes. Aragorn stood at the foot of the bed, leaning back against the footboard with his back to Legolas. Elrohir and Elladan sat in chairs beside their foster-brother. Arwen also sat with them, worriedly looking up at her husband. He thought he saw Elrond lurking somewhere beyond Aragorn on the other side of the room but was unsure. Faramir and Eowyn had also taken up posts beside Legolas’ bed. None of them seemed to have noticed the elf now laying awake in the bed. Legolas was somehow slightly amused by this.

He slowly turned his head to his right where the Lady Eowyn sat staring down into her lap tiredly. His eyes were again drawn to the round bulge of the shieldmaiden’s stomach. He lay for several moments of silence, trying to make his mind comprehend the undeniable, visible proof of the time he had lain there asleep.

"When are you expecting?" he asked softly.

The lady visible jumped in her seat and looked back at the blond prince laying awake against the pillows of the bed. Everyone else there also looked startled by the elf’s sudden awakening and looked up at him in surprise.

Legolas ignored the others and patiently waited for Eowyn to recover from her initial shock and regain her voice. "In about two months," she finally managed to reply after a time.

"Will this be your first?" he asked curiously.

"No, our second," she replied. She tried to pretend she did not see the look of momentary surprise and then succeeding shadow of despair pass of the elf’s face. "We already have a son, Theomir. He’s almost three years old now."

Legolas desperately tried to quell the storm of depression welling up inside him from showing. Gods... How much had he missed while unconscious? "I am sure he is beautiful," he said with a small, forced smile, trying to appear as if he was taking in all this new information in stride, "Perhaps sometime soon you might bring him around for me to see. I would greatly love to meet him." But try as the elf might, he could not keep a soft note of bitterness from creeping into his voice.

Eowyn felt her heart ache at the sight of her friend’s despair. She could not even begin to imagine how painful of a thing it was to wake up and suddenly find everything around you changed so dramatically. "We shall have to do that," she tried to smile reassuringly, "I am sure he would love to meet you."

Legolas nodded and smiled back wanly, but seemed to find no actual comfort Eowyn’s promise. All he could do was wonder how much the rest of his friends and everything else he had ever known and loved had changed.

It was then that the elf-lord, Elrond, appeared at Legolas’ bedside and leaned down over the younger elf. "How do you feel, Legolas?" he asked as he gently laid a hand across Legolas’ forehead as if feeling for a fever.

"Thirsty," he admitted softly in a raspy voice. "And perhaps still a little bit numb from shock..." he then added to himself almost as an after thought.

Elrond glanced over at the nightstand standing on the other side of Legolas’ bed and a pitcher of water sitting on it. Aragorn immediately caught the elf’s unspoken request and moved forward to pour a glass for his disabled friend. As his foster-son did this, the elf-lord slide a hand beneath Legolas’ shoulders and helped rise him up into a sitting position against the pillows.

"Here," he directed as he took the filled cup from Aragorn and held it to Legolas’ chapped lips. The elf immediately began to down the offered water, desperate to quench the burning dryness in his throat. "Easy there, Legolas," Elrond admonished lightly as he continued to hold the glass for the parched elf. Finally, the glass was drained and Legolas leaned back against the headboard, his thirst successfully sated.

Elrond handed the emptied glass back to Aragorn and then looked back at the blond archer. At first, the elf-lord seemed at a loss for words as he stared at the younger elf. Finally, he seemed to just settle on straight-out asking the burning question that had been plaguing all their minds since the prince’s startling awakening the day before. "Legolas, what happened yesterday?" he asked, "How did you know there was a cave-in in the Glittering Caves?"

Legolas seemed to ponder this for a moment as the events of the previous day slowly came back to him piece by piece, as if he were trying to remember a dream. "I don’t know," he answered honestly after a moment, shaking his head in ignorance, "I remember Gimli touching me and then there being this bright flash in my mind. And then... I don’t know, I just... saw it happen..." he trailed off helplessly.

He saw his friends around him shift nervously in their seats and share concerned, surreptitious glances with one another. A disturbing sense of foreboding suddenly washed over Legolas. He looked to his left where Gimli still sat silently staring down at the floor. "Gimli," he called in a low, frightened voice, "What happened?"

The dwarf slowly raised his head and looked back at his friend. For several long moments of empty silence, he just sat there, staring back at the elf with dark, unreadable eyes. "You were right," he finally said in a voice so low it could have been a whisper. "You were right. It happened just like you said it did."

Legolas looked stunned. "But... how?" he stammered, as if suddenly realizing the magnitude of what he had done. "How could I have known such a thing?" he wondered out-loud as he looked down at the bedcovers in bewilderment. When he had first come out of his trance and tried to tell Gimli what he had seen, all he had been able to think about were those dwarves being buried alive under several dozen tons of falling rock. At the time, he had not even given a second thought to the implications of what he was doing or the impossibility what he had actually seen.

"Legolas, did you ever learn Khuzdul?" Elrond then asked with no warning.

"What?" Legolas said, his brows furrowing in confusion, "No. How would I know Khuzdul? Why do you ask such a thing?"

Those standing around him all shared guarded, unreadable glances with one another again.

"What?" the elf demanded. He was starting to hate how his friends seemed to continually be keeping something from him. "What?" he demanded again impatiently, scanning his friends’ faces for answers.

"Legolas, do you know that you were speaking in tongues while you were having this... vision so to speak?" Elrond finally spoke up and said, "More specifically Khuzdul."

"What!" Legolas exclaimed in surprise. "How could I do that? I’ve never learned the dwarfish language."

"That’s what Gimli already told us, but you were speaking it quite fluently," the older elf said, looking at Legolas with something of a mixture between amazement and analytical skepticism, "Are you sure Gimli never taught you any?"

"No," Legolas answered, shaking his head vehemently in negation, "I do not even remember talking." He looked around at his friends, a small stir of fear beginning to form in the pit of his stomach. "What did I say?"

Everyone’s attention immediately shifted to the silent dwarf sitting near Legolas’ bedside.

At first, it seemed as if Gimli was either not going to offer a translation or had not even realized he had entered the conversation. But then, with no introduction or preamble, he began to speak. "‘Help. The ceiling’s collapsing. We can’t get out,’" he said softly, in a distant voice as he slowly looked up from the ground and at Legolas. "And then you began to repeat the number seventeen over and over again..." he added, shaking his head numbly as if still unable to believe such an event had actually taken place. He did not offer an explanation when Legolas looked at him inquiringly as to the odd number he was said to have repeated. "I did not even realize what you had said until afterwards when Kim came to tell me of a message he just received saying there had been a cave-in in the Glittering Caves..."

"Wait... Are you saying that I predicted that cave-in?" Legolas stammered in disbelief.

"No," Elrond broke in, shaking his head, "The Glittering Caves are over a week away. There is no possible way a message could have reached Minas Tirith in that short a time for you to have actually predicted it. It would almost seem that you rather... saw into the past," he said, noticeably hesitating at his choice of words.

Legolas looked between Elrond and Gimli questioningly. "What are you trying to say...?"

"That you are clairvoyant!" Elrohir exclaimed almost excitedly from the foot of Legolas bed, "Gimli touched you and you were somehow able to actually see into the past!"

"What?" Legolas choked, his gaunt face visibly paling at the implications of such a claim.

"No. No. That is not what we are saying, Legolas," Elrond hurriedly broke in and soothed before panic could take hold of the fragile prince. The elf-lord immediately sent Elrohir a menacing glare out of the corner of his eye for his youngest son’s inappropriate and ill-timed out-burst. Elrohir sank down into his seat, cringing under his father’s baleful gaze. "No, Legolas. I am reluctant to actually believe what we all thought happened," he continued as he looked back at the blond prince.

"What are you talking about, father?" Aragorn exclaimed in disbelief, "We were all here and saw what happened. How could you not believe what you saw?"

"Aragorn, I am merely suggesting that there is a plausible explanation for what happened," Elrond said firmly. "Is it not possible, Legolas," he said, turning his attention back once again to the frightened elf, "that you might have subconsciously known of the cavern because of Gimli once telling you about it while he was visiting you while you were still in your coma? Just because you were sleeping does not mean that some small part of you might not still have been aware of what was going on and being said around you." Elrond then quietly leaned back and stared at Legolas expectantly, as if waiting for him to agree that such a logical deduction was the only possible explanation for such a ludicrous and improbable thing like clairvoyancy.

"I– I..." Legolas floundered helplessly. Such reasoning did make some sense to him. After all, Elves always remained somewhat aware of their surroundings when they slept, unlike humans who practically sealed themselves away from the rest of the world when they laid down to rest. But Legolas had to wonder if such an explanation was actually applicable in his situation. For he had not just been merely sleeping, but rather lost in a deep coma that had lasted over five years! And it had all seemed so real... Such a vision did not just seem like the product of some implied subliminal message, as Elrond so suggested it to be. "I... I don’t..." he stuttered, not knowing what to say.

Luckily though, Gimli seemed to finally break out of his trace to come to the aid of his friend. "No. That’s not possible," he said, "This is the first time I have been to Minas Tirith in over a year, and we found the cavern little less than a month ago. There is no possible way Legolas could have known it existed."

"True, Master Dwarf," Elrond agreed, "But is it not possible that you might have unknowingly spoken of it to someone in the hallway before coming into Legolas’ room where he could have overheard you?" he persisted relentlessly.

"No," Elladan interrupted from the foot of Legolas’ bed, "Elrohir and I were the last ones to meet Gimli before he came into Legolas’ room, and he said nothing of the Glittering Caves, let alone was anywhere near enough for Legolas to have overheard the conversation."

"And what about Náin?" Gimli then pointed out, looking at the elf-lord expectantly as if waiting to see what kind of explanation Elrond would have to try and explain that, "How did Legolas know about him?"

"Who?" Legolas interrupted before Elrond could reply. His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. He knew many of the dwarves Gimli worked and associated with, but he did not recognize this particular dwarf’s name.

Gimli slowly looked at the blond haired elf. His eyes grew distant and sorrowful as he held Legolas’ gaze for several long seconds of silence. "He was the younger dwarf you said you saw in your vision..." he finally said in a low voice laden with grief. "He was the son of a close friend of mine. He just had his coming of age right before I left for Minas Tirith and was finally old enough to officially join a mining crew..." Gimli trailed off slightly and abruptly shifted his eyes away from Legolas. "I was the one that assigned him to work in that cavern that collapsed..." he said softly as a watery shine came into his eyes, "The message I received yesterday said they found his body somewhere near the back of the cavern where the cave-in was suppose to have started."

"Oh gods..." Legolas murmured as he brought a shaking hand to the side of his head and stared down at the bedcover in horrified shock.

"Gimli, my heart goes out to you and the family of this boy, but Legolas never actually gave a description or name of who he thought he saw," Elrond said, "All he said was that he saw a younger dwarf. That could have meant almost anyone. It’s too general of a description to carry so much weight in arguing the authenticity of Legolas’ vision."

"Then what about the death toll?" Gimli shot back angrily, "Out of all the numbers Legolas could have said, how did he know the exact number of those killed?"

Elrond seemed to momentarily run out of any plausible explanations he could have offered to explain such a phenomenon, but the sight of his set jaw and the sharpened glint of his eyes clearly said he was no where near admitting defeat just yet.

"Father, why can you not just accept the possibility that Legolas might have the gift of second-sight?" Arwen questioned from beside her husband.

"I am just reluctant to believe that such a phenomenon could have actually occurred without first analyzing every other possible explanation," he retorted defensively.

"But there are many elves who are known to possess second-sight," Elrohir said, "What about Grandmother? She possessed unimaginable powers of foresight."

Elrond shook his head stubbornly. "It is true that Galadriel had the ability of foresight, but her powers were greatly influenced by the magic of her elven ring of power, and she also used a mirror to see her visions through. Legolas here, on the other hand, has possession of no known magical powers and used no such instrument of divination to channel his vision."

"Is it not possible" Faramir spoke up timidly, "that Legolas perhaps possessed latent powers of foresight all along, and that his accident and head injury just awakened them?"

Elrond seemed to consider this for a moment. A thoughtful silence fell over the room as everyone there digested this new hypothesis. "That is possible..." Elrond admitted softly to himself as he scrutinized the blond haired elf beside him skeptically.

While the others had continued to argue about him as if he was not even there, Legolas had fallen into himself. He didn’t care about second-sight or trying to prove the authenticity of his vision. All he could think of was that young dwarf, the one he had seen practically die right in front of him while he had stood there, helpless to do anything to stop it from happening. And now that face that would haunt him forever had a name. Náin.

He had seen it. He had seen that dwarf die as if he had actually been there. He had seen that wall begin to crack, and had felt the floor begin to shake and felt the terror well up inside him as rocks began to fall from the ceiling. He had seen it. And now his friends say he had actually predicted the number of casualties.

"Gods, what’s happening to me?" he moaned frightenedly, dragging his hands though his hair in distress. He didn’t want this power. He didn’t want this responsibility. He didn’t want to see innocent people die right in front of him and there be nothing for him to do to stop it. This power of second-sight was not a gift, it was a curse.

"Legolas, we will figure this out. If you do possess second-sight, we will help you through this," Elrond tried to soothe as he reached out a hand and placed it on the trembling elf’s thin, boney shoulder in a gesture of comfort. But Legolas felt no true sympathy come from the ancient elf-lord. Through that touch he felt a twinge of lingering skepticism and doubt form in the back of his mind, as if Elrond’s own disbelief had actually transferred over into his own brain by that simple, careless touch.

"I know you don’t believe me, but I saw it happen," he said softly without raising his eyes from the bedcover to look at Elrond. "I know deep down you still don’t believe I actually saw that cave-in..."

Elrond slowly drew his hand away from Legolas’ shoulder and looked at the elf cautiously as if he were analyzing a potentially dangerous animal. "That is not true, Legolas," he protested in a guarded, wary voice, "Like Faramir said, there is always the possibility your vision was the result of latent powers of foresight brought to life by your accident and coma."

"I know you don’t believe me," Legolas repeated firmly, somehow hurt by the knowledge that Elrond did not actually believe him. "I can feel it inside you. I know." He slowly looked up at Elrond and stared straight into his eyes, knowing the truth that lay hidden deep within the elf-lord’s heart.

As Elrond stared back into the elf’s sapphire blue eyes, he suddenly felt as if Legolas was staring into him, staring into his soul. That he could actually see the truth that lay hidden deep inside him. As he watched, the inner circles of Legolas’ eyes seemed to darken and become sharp like blades of obsidian blue. Without a word, Elrond slowly got to his feet and took an unconscious step backwards away from Legolas’ bed as if suddenly afraid of the frail elf sitting there against the headboard.

Left to only observe this silent exchange, the others looked on in bewilderment. A tense silence filled the room, stinging their ears.

Then, as if coming out of a trance, Legolas suddenly blinked and seemed to return to himself. He sat there for a moment, as if confused by what just happened. As he shakingly raised a hand to the left side of his head where a streak of pure white hair originated from, he looked around at his friends, searching for an explanation.

But he received no answers, only stares from all those he held dear to him. And as he looked questioningly around at his friends, he was suddenly struck with realization – one that was even more painful and startling than awakening to find he had been in a coma for the last five years.

For in his friends’ eyes shined emotion so plain and clear he did not have to touch any of them to identify it. And it was in that one moment of painful realization, Legolas realized that his friends were actually frightened of him and his strange new powers.

******

To Be Continued...

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