The way to Gondor (Aragorn and Legolas fanfic)

The encounter with Gandalf the White

Aragorn POV

Carefully we emerged into the forest. It was very old, you could see it in the way the trees seemed to breathe, and the air smelt old and almost rotten. 

"This forest is old", Legolas said out of nowhere. "Very old. It is full of memory ... and anger."

Typical for Legolas to say something like that. I smirked to myself, while scanning the surroundings. We had to be careful. As Legolas had so rightfully stated, the forest was old, and it was angry. At what, I didn't know. But I hoped it wasn't at us. 

"Yeah yeah", Gimli grunted silently. "Because an elf can read their thoughts."

Legolas gave him an annoyed look, but then he stopped dead in his tracks. I wanted to ask him: what is it? But then I heard it too. We weren't alone. Someone, or something, was watching us, and we didn't know whether it was a good something or a bad one. I drew my sword the exact same second Legolas put an arrow on his bowstring. Gimli happily drew his axe, but he seemed to not know why we suddenly were so nervous. And he certainly wasn't.

"If it's orcs, let me fight them! Let me!", he whispered agitatedly. I gave him an irritated look. Now was not the time for a dwarf, hungry to fight. The danger was in the air, and would get even worse, if we gave it a reason to dislike us. 

Suddenly a great white light appeared in front of us, and in the middle of it stood a man in long white clothes and with a staff in his hand. Legolas gave me a horrified look. Saruman, it said. He shot his arrow, but before it had even reached close to the wizard, it dropped down on the ground, motionless. The sword in my hand suddenly burnt my fingers, and I was forced to drop it. We couldn't stand up against the force of the wizard. 

"Reveal yourself!", I shouted to the figure threatening us. We couldn't fight him, that was for sure, but we could distract him from his plans by keeping on talking.

The white wizard did so, and pulled down the hood from his head. Next to me, Gimli gasped.

"You!?!", Gimli screamed angrily. "We thought you were Saruman! And shouldn't you be dead?"

I was astonished too. Before us stood not Saruman, but Gandalf himself, fully alive.

"I am Saruman. Or, as he should have been", he said thoughtfully, then the light around him lost its brightness and it felt like Gandalf finally had come back to the world of living. "My task isn't finished, so I was told to come back. Before, I was Gandalf, and you can still call me that. But I was Gandalf the Grey, now I am Gandalf the White!"

I had always known, that Gandalf was a powerful wizard, but the amount of his power, I hadn't been able to grasp. Now he was showing us exactly how mighty he was, by coming back from the dead and pretending nothing had happened. Never would I forget this man, and just how much wiser and stronger he was than I would ever be. But I would also never forget, that he was one of the few people that I really loved, that I would follow everwhere, to good or bad, that I would die for. Such people were seldom found, and I knew just one other person, whom I felt the same for. 

"You were searching two hobbits", Gandalf continued. "They are being well taken care of, and you shouldn't worry about them. A few days ago they met a good friend, Treebeard the Ent, and he will take care of them better than any of us could. We must ride to Edoras, my friends. War has come over us, and we are needed there. Let us hope, we aren't too late."

With those words, he whistled, and our horses, that we had left outside the forest, came galloping through the undergrowth. Gandalf himself had also called his own horse, Shadowfax, and in one swift movement, he was on its back. I jumped onto Brego and spoke a few reassuring words to him, while Legolas pulled Gimli behind him on Arod. The dwarf was making a face that said: "I'll take Legolas deep into a cave and let him rot there! Maybe he'll then finally understand what I am going through on this bumping horseback!" I was confident, that he would some day do exactly that.

I let Brego ride next to Arod, so that I could talk to the elf. 

"Now that we leave this forest, I think it is time for you to take revenge for the race earlier, don't you think?", I whispered with a smirk on my face. Legolas was of course in on it right away and told me:

"Don't you ever think, you can win two times against an elf. One time is luck, the rest will be pure humiliation!", he said back to me.

"Oh, we'll see. Don't forget you have an extra weight behind you", I reprimanded him. But Legolas responded:

"The dwarf? If he gets too heavy I'll easily throw him off and pick him up again when I have won. It won't matter to him anyway, don't you think so Gimli, my friend?"

Gimli had his eyes wide open in shock about the realisation, that Legolas would leave him alone in the wide fields of Rohan, just to win a race against Aragorn. His beard was quivering slightly and the blood had left his face. 

"Don't worry, Gimli. I'm sure Gandalf will send you a horse when we've reached Edoras", I reassured him. He just stared at me in disbelief about our indifference. I laughed, making Legolas smile brightly. It was such a heartwarming sight, that I had to keep myself from reaching out to stroke his cheek. But now was not the time for that, because we had reached the edge of the forest. With a loud yell I sped up Brego and set after Gandalf, who was racing like a storm over the plain. Legolas set after me and I heard Arod pant just a few meters behind me. 

"No no, there are no stones here! I see no stones!", I heard Gimli exclaim in pain. I still didn't get the reference, it must be something between Legolas and him, and, to be thruthful, I was a bit envious of him, to have an insider joke with Legolas, because I had no such thing. 

I drove on my horse even more, and enjoyed the wind in my face. It drove all the worries of the last few days out of my head and I could just enjoy riding next to Legolas on our way to Edoras. 

Hi guys! Sorry that it took so long for me to publish the next chapter. I really have a lot to do at the moment, and won't be publishing that frequently anymore, but I'll try to have a new chapter out every week. Please stay tuned, and I hope you enjoyed this story so far!

PS: I've had this part done for some time, but I had troubles uploading, so please don't be too hard on me :)