That Terrifying Joy
A/N: Brief mention of midwife birthing practices. Don't worry, it isn't given in detail, you wouldn't like it if it were. Also, takes place at the very beginning of the Third Age, after the survivors of the War of the Last Alliance return home. Rate K+ to be safe.
Summary: Birth, at times, is paid by death. Even the Eldar must face this. Near the beginning of the Third Age, Thranduil loses his wife after the birth of his younger son…One-shot.
Uncertainty thick as fog fills the air. His first born had not taken this long, yet the nursemaid had assured Thranduil that he ought not to worry. Not all babes are as easy to birth as Celunen was, she promised, this child would soon be born.
She had given him these assurances hours ago.
The moon has awoken since the queen's water broke hours before; Thranduil, will not take this waiting any longer. He rams the doors open to the healing ward, his senses not ready for the scene before him.
It smells like battle; of blood and sweat. The cries of a newly born child reach his sensitive ears. His wife's forehead, covered in sweet, as she stands upon a brick, midwives surrounding her. They're frantic, panicked, worried. One says she is bleeding too much. Another says to lay the queen down. A third elleth notices him.
"King Thranduil," She says, "We sent young Morfinnel…"
He is shaken, unable to quite comprehend what has happened. What this elleth is saying. She touches his shoulder, a look of pity in her kind brown eyes. "Come, you should be beside her in her last moments…"
It does not occur to Thranduil that this Elf-maid, probably younger than him and definitely of lower rank, spoke to him, her king, as though he is her own child. He does not consider her disregard, he only sees his wife; drenched in sweat and bleeding, another healer giving her something for the pain. Worry can change the most prideful of beings: for this moment, he throws off his kingly robes and is simply husband, lover, Thranduil. He takes the stool beside her, replacing the healer that sat there moments before. She smiles, faint and shallow; not her bright smile she has, for centuries, given him alone.
He takes her thin, cold hand. "I am here, Eirien. You need not worry."
"Thranduil…I…"
"You cannot leave now," says Thranduil, his hand brushing her chestnut hair, he tells her gently: "I still need you."
"I wish to stay, Thranduil, I wish for it more than anything...but I fear I do not have the strength." Tears glisten in her eyes. Life is fading from her, why can't those healers hurry? Don't they see? He squeezes her hand.
"Eirien…he needs a mother. I cannot be both mother and father to him." Thranduil says, but there is more he is unwilling to say even here and now. He is not certain he can hold on to life without her. Without the one woman—this beautiful, small, frail elf-maiden—who held his heart and might take it with her if he lets her go. As if it's in your hands, Thranduil. When have you had power over life and death? You could not save your father on the field of Dagorlad…
You did not get there in time. How can you save her?
He fiercely ignores his doubts. He has to. "What should we call him?"
She closes her eyes, "Legolas..."
"Leafs and rivers." He muses.
"It is springtime." She gives him a feeble smile. "Please, Thranduil, give him my love."
"We will…together." It is a lie, he knows this now. Even the best healers cannot cure death by childbirth—that terrifying joy—which oft takes both the lives of woman and elf-maid alike. He lays a gentle kiss on her forehead; "Goodnight, nin meleth."
There is no reply. No breath drawn. Nothing. Eirien, his wife, is gone; Thranduil weeps. Three weeks pass ere his people see or hear from him, three weeks before the kingdom learns the prince's name, and three weeks before they send the body of their queen on the river towards the sea, towards Elven Home. For it is three weeks before Eirien's wet nurse, Thoniel, brings him a small bundle held against her breasts. She has been insistent in the midst of these three weeks since the queen's death. Resolutely leaving foodstuffs and such, but he hasn't eaten in days. Do they not understand he will not eat? He will not partake of this.
Wine had done better. At least it had made him forget for a little while that she would not return to him… That she was not in Imladris or Lindon or only somewhere far away. Not gone, not dead. When he drank, he forgot the truth that made his nights restless and his days, nightmares.
"Your majesty…" He need not look to see whom has come.
The elleth stops when he sighs. He does not bother to rise, his gaze still focused on the roaring fire set by the servants in this chamber. They had taken him here; away from her. From those bloodied sheets that marked her last resting place. All he wished was to stay with her: to follow where she went; to fade as most lovers are wont to do. Your people will need your strength, my son, his father's final words resound from his grave reminding Thranduil of his duty. They and I love you, do not forget that.
But I have lost too much. He argues while the foolish maid stiffens. He smiles grimly. Perhaps if he shows them he has lost his wits they will allow him to leave these lands. A king who speaks to the specters of the dead cannot be trusted. "You, mother, and now, her; what do I have left?"
"Ada…" This time, Thranduil turns. His son stands beside the nurse, blue eyes shining in the firelight from unshed tears.
He hasn't called me that in over five centuries…
"Celunen."
"Ada," he says again. Gently, even timidly, Celunen takes the bundle from the elleth. When had his son last been unsure of anything? The young elf had often ran headfirst into danger to "safe" someone or something; Thranduil often wondered where he got his foolish "heroic" streak from. Those herbs he used to blacken his hair when he attempted to sneak off to join the Last Alliance may have worked had he not brought along that fine stallion (and had Thranduil not seen him). If it had…Thranduil would have lost him too. He could not stand to lose another…
What if he lost you, Thranduil? You're a fool. That too had been Oropher, long ago, it seems, whence Thranduil had risked his life for his son, diving into the rushing waters of the Anduin to save the drowning elfling.
Thranduil had returned his father's aloof gaze with his heated glare, If it is my life for his, then…I would rather be that fool than permit him drown. Adan, you only think of yourself, your kingdom, and your people. Celunen is my son, if I lost him…
I must consider them first, Thranduil. Oropher had said as cold and stern as Thranduil remembered. Only in his last moments, dying on the field of Dagorlad, had Oropher revealed the father that Thranduil recalled from before the destruction of Doriath, before they had ever come to Greenwood the Great after an Age barely remembered by many whom dwelled in these Lands. He and his father had lost his mother in that bloodbath; they had lost their king and their homeland. Everything; yet "chance" had led them here to start anew; a chance that had saved Oropher from himself.
Yet, Oropher turned bitter, cold, stern. He became their king, Thranduil sighs, and he cared in his own way. Perhaps I had not understood him... All that bitterness…that resentment…
He had been mistaken, yet…
Either die or turn bitter? Thranduil lifts himself from his chair. His legs are unsteady beneath him. He meets his son's reddened eyes. Then he glances at the nursemaid's tear-stained face. "Why have you come, Thoniel? Celunen?"
She nods then looks at the bundle in his son's arms.
It squirms, for the first time he comprehends it. Swaddling blue blankets cover the babe; Thranduil's golden hair, Eirien's eyes. He takes the child from his son and holds him against his chest. A soft tune, sung, he realizes, by his own mother to him as a lullaby in days long past. The king rocks the babe as he once more falls asleep. Perhaps, he considers, there is another option.
It was not only leafs Eirien had spoken of when she named their son, or, perhaps, it was a leaf; a new, green leaf who brings hope.
A leaf that means another choice, a third choice, could be made. Thranduil smiles: still uncertain, still in mourning, still not whole, but for these people and his sons…
"He is called Legolas."
He would be their father and his people's king. He would bring them hope.
A/N: This isn't in my usual style or tense. And admittedly, I'm rather uncertain about it for several reasons, one of which is the rather usual portrayal of Legolas' mother dying in childbirth and also my choice in choosing a more…sympathetic version of Thranduil. He still doesn't like dwarves and he still has some of the less savory characteristics, but I feel that writers sometimes forget that he does care about his people and most likely loves his family. Stubborn, ill-tempered, arrogant, mischievous, racist, bigoted, snarky, loving, and a skilled leader that, when you think about it, must have gone through a lot of crap. They needed a strong king…and while he was trained as king, I doubt he really expected that Oropher would die (being immortal) or would be completely…sane after the event shown in this story…And yes, super long nervous author note at the end…_ Later.