I don't know where this came from.  I don't know where it's going if anywhere.  I know I don't own any characters.  Enjoy.

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A Memory

            Elrond watched the wood elves dance through their camp with disgust.  "Simple minds require simple pleasures," he muttered.  "How can they be enjoying themselves at a time like this?  War looms on the horizon!"  Gil-galad had always taught him that wood elves, unlike most other elves, were not renowned for their wisdom.  Wood elves wrote some of the best songs in Middle-earth, cooked some of the best food, and created some of the best dances.  They did not bother thinking about anything other than their own pleasure.  Gil-galad had not been pleased with the idea of temporarily camping in Mirkwood, formerly known as Greenwood the Great until recently, when shadows overtook it.  Wood elves were everywhere, always singing and dancing.  Among them the somber grey elves stuck out like sore thumbs, all wearing thick armors and carrying heavy weapons.  They sat around in groups of twos or threes, cleaning weapons and discussing strategies.  The wood elves laughed and dashed about, wearing only thin hunting leathers and carrying flimsy looking bows and knives.  Elrond shook his head in disgust and headed off in search of firewood.

            "The grey elves are YAAH!"

            Elrond looked up as he heard the voice of another young elf and then that elf's cry as he fell from the tree he was sitting in.  Just before landing on Elrond, however, a branch whipped around and caught the elf, holding him up.  Elrond stared at the smaller elf in shock.  "You fell from a tree."

            "Seems that way!" the other elf replied perkily, wriggling out of the tree's grasp and sitting on the branch.  "I'm sure it was an accident though.  You startled Taertelch though.  She's never met a grey elf before."  He cocked his head, letting his blond hair fall forward over his shoulders.  "You are a grey elf, right?"

            Elrond nodded.  "I assume you're a wood elf," he sneered.  "Imagine that, a wood elf falling from a tree."

            "I didn't fall, I slipped.  Taertelch jumped when you came up and pulled the branch I was sitting on out from under me.  She already apologized, and she caught me.  It's over, it's done with."  He frowned thoughtfully.  "You know, for a grey elf, you're awfully pitiful."

            "Excuse me!?"

            The wood elf jumped lightly out of the tree and paced around Elrond, studying him thouroughly.  "Yes, pitiful.  See, my father always told me that grey elves were nasty, evil, frightening creatures who could never be trusted.  You don't seem nasty, evil, or frightening.  You seem a bit upset, but that's understandable.  After all, I did nearly fall on your head."

            "You didn't fall, you slipped," Elrond said sarcastically, wondering what the little wood elf was trying to do.

            He stopped in front of Elrond and nodded.  "Yes, I slipped, but after that, I was falling.  Therefore I almost fell on your head.  I didn't almost slip on your head."  He held out his hand.  "My name's Thranduil by the way.  What's yours?"

            "Elrond."  Elrond refused Thranduil's hand.  Thranduil?  So this is the prince of Mirkwood?  Well, if it is, he's older than he appears.  Maybe he just hasn't hit his growth spurt yet.

            Thranduil lowered his hand, looking hurt.  "Why do you hate me so much?  Is it because your father told you I would be mean and nasty and evil?  I'm not!  I swear I'm not!"  Elrond raised an eyebrow as Thranduil paced in front of him.  "I'm not judging you, not really, even though my father told me you'd be mean.  I'm trying to like you, but you make it so hard!  You're so cold!  I thought it might be fun to meet a grey elf, but none of them like to talk to me!  They all just glare at me and ask if I didn't have anything better to do then to make their lives miserable.  I'm not making you miserable, am I?  Oh, I know!  Let's start again!  Hi, I'm Thranduil!  What's your name?"

            "Elrond."  This time Elrond did shake the proffered hand, bringing a glowing smile to Thranduil's face.

            "It's great to meet you, Elrond!  What brings you out here in the forest?"

            "I was searching for firewood for dinner."  Elrond couldn't help but play along with Thranduil.  The smaller elf's enthusiasm was contagious.

            "You eat firewood?  How peculiar!  I was out asking around for staves.  Fresh ones are always best when fighting long battles.  They don't break as easily."

            "Asking for staves?"  Elrond looked around.  They were alone.  "Asking who?"

            "The trees!"  Thranduil pointed up into the tree he had fallen from.  "See that branch there?  The one without any leaves?"  Elrond studied the tree before nodding, finding the correct branch.  "Watch!"  Thranduil placed his hands on the tree and closed his eyes.  Moments later the branch twitched and straightened, it's bark peeling away.  With a twist, it broke free of the tree and dropped to the ground.  Thranduil stepped away from the tree and picked it up.  "Smell it, it still smells like hickory!  It will millenia, if it's not drenched in blood."

            Elrond took the staff and studied it, amazed at how finely crafted it was.  If he hadn't watched it fall from the tree moments earlier, he would have assumed it came from the hands of a master carpenter.  It was pale and straight, with sides too smooth to have any threat of splinters.  At one end it was twisted slightly into a knot of hard wood where it had broken from the tree.  "How did you do that?"

            "I just asked Taertelch to make it for me.  Most Greenwood, um, Mirkwood trees will make you staves, if you ask nicely, and don't ask for too many from the same tree.  Don't you ever talk to trees?"

            "No."

            "You don't know what you're missing then."  Thranduil flopped back onto the ground and stared up at the canopy of leaves above him.  "Here, lay down and watch the stars with me!"

            Elrond glanced up.  "What are you talking about?  It's still the middle of the day!  No stars are out.  Besides, even if it was night, the trees would block the stars."

            Thranduil patted the ground next to him.  "Trust me."  Elrond reluctantly laid down and stared up at the tree branches above him.  He still didn't see any stars.  "Look," Thranduil whispered, gesturing up at the leafy canopy.  "Blue stars in a green sky.  Can't you see them?  Sometimes it helps to squint."

            Elrond squinted up above him and gasped in surprise.  Thranduil was right!  The sky shining through the leaves here and there produced tiny specks of light, little stars, against the dark canopy.  "It's beautiful."

            Thranduil smiled as he watched the stars.  "They always change.  No matter how many times you look at them, you'll never see the same stars twice.  My mother used to take me outside and make up constellations among them.  She'd tell me stories about the world of the tree stars, as she called them.  Now, no matter where I am, as long as I can look up and see the tree stars, I feel warm and fuzzy, like she's holding me again.  I feel safe."

            Elrond rolled over to study Thranduil.  "How old are you?"

            "Past my majority, same as you."

            "And you still care about your mother so?"

            "Don't you?"  Thranduil rolled to face Elrond.  "My mother died when I was young, I don't remember much about her.  I do remember her stories of the tree stars though, and that comforts me."

            "My mother abandoned me when I was young," Elrond said.  "She left my brother and me to raiders and fled to find my father."

            "Elrond Half-elven," Thranduil whispered.  "That's why your name was familiar!  You're a half-elf!"

            "Sure, rub it in," Elrond sighed.  "Everyone else did."

            Thranduil sat up quickly, shaking his head so hard that his thin braids slapped his face.  "No, no, no!  I don't mean to rub it in!  I've just always wanted to meet you!  I've heard so much about you!  Most of it was bad stuff, from my father, but that only made me want to meet you more!"

            "Your logic makes no sense.  You heard bad things about me from your father and that made you want to meet me?"

            "Yes!  You see, if my father hates someone, I generally like them.  The worse they are to him, the better they are to me.  Usually people he hates are really nice and caring.  He actually likes the Dark Lord more than he likes you or High-King Gil-galad!  That's why I don't shy away from grey elves, even though he says they're really nasty.  I know they can't be, not if he hates them."

            "Your father is strange, you're stranger."

            Thranduil grinned.  "Thanks, I try."

            "Why are you like this?  So . . . I don't know, optimistic.  Cheerful."

            "As opposed to what?  You want me to be pessimistic?  Grumbling about how the sky's going to fall on my head and we're all going to die?  I look for the bright side of things and try to enjoy life.  What's so bad about that?"

            "We may be killed any minute now!"

            "What better time to realize how good life is?"  Elrond opened his mouth to make a comeback but couldn't find the words.  Thranduil did have a point.  "Why go into battle loathing life?  That just guarantees your death.  If you love life, you'll do everything in your power to stay alive and protect the lives of others."

            The lives of others.  Gil-galad always said wood elves only cared about themselves. . . "You're nothing like I thought you'd be."

            "How did you think I'd be?"

            Elrond hesitated, but the sincerity in Thranduil's eyes told him that Thranduil would not be offended by whatever he said.  "Uncivilized, I guess.  Uncouth.  After all, you live in . . ."

            "Live in caves?" Thranduil finished with a grin.  "But what is a cave if not a house made by nature?  Walls, a roof, a floor, a door, separate rooms if it's big enough . . . what do you think your houses are modeled after?  Caves came first.  We never saw a need to destroy trees for housing when nature provided for us."

            "Elrond!  Where are you?"  Gil-galad's voice reached the two elves.

            Elrond started guiltily.  "I shouldn't have tarried here with you.  Gil-galad will be mad if I am late."

            Thranduil laughed and rose to all fours like a dog.  "Silly grey elves, worried about being late with firewood.  However, if it is so important to you, I can help."  The smaller elf crawled around on the forest floor, quickly scooping up dead branches and throwing them at Elrond.  Before too long, both Elrond and Thranduil's arms were full.  "Now we can return.  Oh, wait, almost forgot my staff."  Thranduil nudged his toe under it and managed to flip it into his pile of wood.

            "Show off!"

            "Don't I know it!"

            Elrond laughed with Thranduil and raced him back to the camp.  Gil-galad was waiting with his arms crossed.  When he saw Thranduil with Elrond, his frown only deepened.  He grabbed the wood harshly from Thranduil and shoved him towards the other side of camp where the imposing figure of King Oropher waited.  Thranduil gulped and ran towards his father without a farewell to Elrond.

            "What did you do that for?" Elrond asked as he set his wood next to the fire with Gil-galad's.  "Thranduil's not bad."

            "He's a wood elf," Gil-galad replied curtly.  "He'll be trouble.  He already delayed you in a simple task such as gathering firewood.  Imagine what disasters could befall you if he distracted you during a battle.  Stay clear of him."

            "But he's my friend!"

            Gil-galad looked at Elrond fondly.  "You are my second-in-command and as dear to me as my own son.  He is the only child of Oropher, a powerful leader who has shown more than once that he would love to see me dead.  What better way to get to me then through you?  What better way to get to you then through someone who appears as innocent as Thranduil?  The prince appeals to your healer side.  You are kind and sensitive under your warrior's exterior.  Your heart is that of a healer.  It searches out people who seem as soft as Thranduil.  You must always be aware of that and wary of any who may try to manipulate you for their own benefit."

            Elrond didn't answer, but when Gil-galad's back was turned, he slipped Thranduil's staff out of the wood pile.  Thranduil's not bad.  Someday, I'll prove it to you.

            Elrond ran his hands over a staff too smooth to cause splinters.  One hand curled around a knob of wood at the end.  A question entered his mind and he raised the ancient staff to his nose, breathing in the faint smell of hickory.  Memories of a happy afternoon spent in the woods with a cheerful prince washed over him, bringing him a much needed smile.  I think it's time I return this.

FIN

~Crawler