The last cries of the day’s bloodshed drifted on the charnel wind. Sunset stained the battlefield in hues of old wine and dying roses, and the silence that followed the scream was more terrible than the noise itself. It clung to the bones of the fallen, to arrow-studded shields and cleft helms. It wandered among the living like a ghost.
Faramir looked for him, and found him. Grief poured from the Elf, love and pain streaming from him in unending fountains. A beautiful, terrible sight. Sea-glass eyes shimmered not with tears, but something colder – something fathomless, lunar.
The captain approached him, each step a thread drawn taut between caution and desire. Faramir, a man whose seams were sewn with sorrow, recognised the shape of hurt. An Elf of distant woods and jewelled canopies, of mossy thresholds and birdsong – what courage it took to walk among the dying, to witness ruin, and not turn away.
Legolas did not rise, not until the shadow of the captain spilled over his fair, immortal face. Then, slowly, he lifted his chin. Oh, but what a gaze it was. Crystalline, devastating – devastated. Still beautiful, though grief had dulled its brilliance. The world of Men had marred his grace, dragging it through mire, through heartbreak, until not even an elven prince could find refuge in his own elegance and immortality.
Faramir’s breath caught. This closeness ached so deeply, the silence louder than any horn of war. Legolas had haunted him for weeks. A trailing shadow in the periphery, a presence at his back – where trust lived and death came quickest.
He did not ask permission.
A kiss was all he could offer. A reminder of something still good, still unbroken. He hoped it helped. He hoped that the gesture might draw out some part of the grief, as venom from a wound. If it were possible, he would take it into himself, without hesitation. Lips brushed the Elf’s brow, where silver-blonde hair parted. Not seduction, but solace. His mouth tasted of salt, of ash, of the air before snow.
When he drew back, Legolas was watching his lips, as though they were a wound yet to close.
That elven voice – thin and delicate as spider-silk – made the dusk itself grow heavier around them. Words etched themselves into twilight, immutable. Faramir felt the world contract. The war, the smoke, the weeping, all fell away as the touch of elven fingers ghosted over the metal clasp at his knee. Then came the softest motion – the brush of a nose against the edge of his beard, tender as a lover’s breath in the dark.
A confession in gesture, in speech.
Above them, crows wheeled on dark wings, and the last light of the sun painted Legolas’ cheek in gold.
Faramir removed a glove. Tenderly, with a bare hand, he cradled that fair head to him, face to throat.
