A/N: I've always wondered what exactly the future host of the Greenwood was doing during the First Age. This is my attempt to fill in the gaps. For now, I am intending to go just beyond the Second Kinslaying. We'll see if it grows beyond that. This story is part of a series. It can be read independently, but some important characters and dynamics were introduced in the two previous works, so I do recommend reading them first. You can find the reading order on my profile. I hope you enjoy 'And The Days Darken'!


Thranduil almost always has the dawn watch at the northern border - or the hour that dawn should usually be, even in the darkness of winter. He is roused from his rest, by a gentle touch on the shoulder from one of his fellow march-wardens. His eyes come to seeing without delay, but there is little to see. In this outpost of the rear guard, the forest is cloaked in heavy shadows, nowhere near the changing skies of dawn. Few stars are alive to illuminate the tops of the trees, and almost no light filters down through the branches under which they rest and wait for their turn at duty. Only the gift of elven eyes allows him to see what he's doing as he rolls up his sleeping skins and furs.

Suddenly, a clear set of three different birdcalls rings out. The whispered exchange of a password precedes the soft patter of feet and hands on the tree, heralding the arrival of the midnight watch. Thranduil and the six other wardens with him rise to greet them, as they pull themselves onto the camouflaged platform of the tree. None are physically weary, but all are begging rest for their long attentive eyes and minds. One of the last to come up is Thandir, and he greets Thranduil with his signature smile: as refined as his wisdom, as fixed as his loyalty, never quite reaching his eyes - and reserved only for those who can respect all of that.

"Gi suilon," says Thranduil, greeting his cousin warmly. "How was the watch?"

"Unpleasant," says Thandir, removing his bow and quiver and cloak, and sitting down upon the wooden platform. He holds a hand out to Thranduil, who looks at it with confusion, and then clasps it in his. He withdraws his hand almost instantly.

"It's cold," he says, apprehensively. He looks at his own hand, still rosy with warmth from being ensconced within warm furs, and then back at Thandir.

Thandir shrugs. "The days grow dark, and the clouds block the stars out. I didn't realise how cold that can be; otherwise I'd have brought a few extra furs with me. You should, on your watch."

Ordinarily, Thranduil would take this as an observation about the passage of the winter. But this is Thandir, who does not speak idly. His words are strange, and laced with an unclear foreboding. He is older than Thranduil by many hundreds of years, with eyes that hide all he has seen with only a thin veil. And that is why Thranduil feels so unsettled. When wisdom senses danger, it's unwise not to heed the warning.

As Thranduil looks among the other returned march-wardens, he notices how much more subdued they are, with the bounce gone from their step and their laughter mirthless. He looks back at Thandir. Something cold and dark has latched silent claws onto the returned wardens - and Thranduil doesn't like it. He doesn't like seeing light dimmed - there is so little of it in these dark months, anyway. And he feels his instinct to heed the warning slipping away.

"Of course the days grow dark," he says suddenly, speaking with unfounded conviction in his voice. "The year is waning." He doesn't know where the words come from, or from where he draws the surety in his voice. But he is looking at Thandir unflinchingly, affirmatively.

Thandir gazes at him a moment, a strange concern in his eyes - or perhaps it is surprise? Yet before he can say more, he nods slowly and simply says, "Yes."

"Thandir!" hails a voice from across the platform. Thranduil turns to see Galion, his sleeping skins in a messy heap in his arms.

"You took your time waking," calls Thandir, his expression wiped clean of anything abnormal. Thranduil takes it as a cue to put their strange exchange behind them.

He reaches for his own bow and quiver and knives, strapping them on deftly, habitually. He looks down at his sleeping furs, and - after a moment - picks one up and wraps it around his shoulders, covering it with his cloak. He does not acknowledge Thandir watching him. The other wardens have already begun to descend from the platform, and Thranduil hastens to the edge.

"If you don't hurry up, Galion," he says over his shoulder, "I shall stake out the cosy cleft in our post and you'll be forced to find a place for yourself in the nice, barren upper branches."

His friend scoffs, slipping his water skin onto his belt and pulling on his cloak. "Then you shall be closer to the danger."

Thranduil shrugs. "It's for the best I suppose." He holds up his empty bow and pulls on the bowstring, mockingly directing it towards Galion. "You'd never be able to dispatch an enemy in time."

Galion walks right up to him and puts the tip of his finger on the arrow rest. "Neither would you, if you're going to use a bow."

"The two of you will have plenty of time to outwit one another once your watch starts," comes Thandir's voice from behind them. He steps forward to put his hands on their shoulders. "Borders are quiet today. I don't think that's going to change just yet." And he fixes Thranduil with a look of stern surety. Thranduil returns the stare, unblinking and unfazed.

He and Galion slip off the platform and down the tree along with the six other wardens taking the guard for this sector. The forest floor is soft with detritus and old slush. As the forest thins, Thranduil looks up. Now, he realises that the lack of stars stems from the onset of heavy, steel grey snow clouds. He brushes his fingers across the pelt draped over his shoulders, as they trek silently and swiftly through the dark, ancient forest.


"It looks gloomier than usual," says Galion, pointing ahead.

Thranduil swallows heavily, reluctantly following the direction of Galion's finger to see a part of the Girdle more confused and dark and unpleasant than he has ever seen. He suppresses a shiver. Heand shifts his position in the branches of the great beech tree in which the two of them sit. The rest of the patrol is fanned out across their sector of the forest. All are within calling range - and all are tense, this close to the edge. It seems strange, to feel uncertain despite being within the Girdle. Thranduil understand Thandir's concern more clearly now that he too can feel the weight of the gloaming.

"It's the last frontier before Nan Dungortheb," he says in quiet response, his fist tightening around one of the strong branches. "It's always gloomy. Winter just makes it darker."

"Darkness is consistent, though its strength wanes and waxes."

Before the voice can more than shift the air around them, Thranduil and Galion spin round with bows drawn and arrows nocked, a straight line down the shafts to each of the stranger's eyes. A second later Thranduil lowers his bow, his face hot with embarrassment. Perched in the branches next to them - and having arrived, beyond comprehension, with neither sight nor sound - is the Chief of all Doriath's march-wardens, Beleg Cuthalion. He regards them with great amusement in his eyes - eyes that look much older than his bright face.

"We may have shot you, my lord," says Thranduil, hesitant to meet his commander's eyes.

Beleg makes a disgusted noise and clambers deftly over to them. "Ai Valar, I beg you, desist from using such reverential titles." He sweeps his red hair over his shoulders and rolls his eyes at them. "Inordinate respect is reserved for stuffy courtrooms and council meetings. We're compatriots, not king and subject. Besides, Thranduil, to be to the point, your perception is as sharp as your senses. You recognised who I was as swiftly as you learned of my presence. You wouldn't have shot me."

Encouraged by his praise, Thranduil jokes, "But I can't vouch for Galion, sir."

His companion balks and seems about to rebuke the insinuation, but Beleg laughs brightly. "You see, this is why I come on rounds to visit you all. Nowhere in the court or the high offices of our defence would you hear such a thing. At least, not without an overinflated call to challenge blemished honour."

"Thranduil should count himself lucky we are not in the court, then," Galion scowls, and Thranduil rolls his eyes.

Beleg grins. "Allow me to sit with you a while."

They shift in their positions, resting against wide branches shooting off from the tree.

Galion is speaking as he draws forth his water-skin and offers it to Beleg. "What bring you to this furthest outpost in particular, sir?"

"A desire to bring a warm hand to a pair of cold wardens," he replies, taking the water skin with a grateful nod and partaking only of a delicate sip.

Galion laughs, but Thranduil is silent. Beleg's words hit all too close to his conversation with Thandir. Are any of their hands warm, this close to the Girdle? Thranduil absently brings his hand to touch his face, with the pretence of adjusting his hair, and feels the cold sweep of his fingertips on his cheek. The realisation jars the regular beat of his heart.

"This is certainly a bitter watch," comments Beleg, looking out at the waste between Doriath and Ered Gorgoroth, a broiling, murky tangle of unpleasant bramble and forest and treacherous, hidden marshland.

"It is well manageable," says Thranduil, attempting to reassure. Beleg? Or himself?

"Bitter may be the view," he continues, "but by the grace of Lady Melian, it doesn't enter our hearts."

Thranduil silently curses his tongue, and resolves to say something wiser the next time he speaks. Beleg is a great deal older, wiser and more skilful than either of them. Speaking to him sometimes bears the semblance of a test - but a pleasant one, a challenge of one's own already acknowledged wits. He makes Thranduil want to be a better version of himself. The thought draws him back to lessons held under sunny trees, close to Menegroth, in the years when he'd first dreamed of being a marchwarden.

He'd made a habit of hardly paying attention when Daeron had tried to teach him the use of words, where to place them, how and when to say them. At the time, he'd thought such lessons foolish, unnecessary for a profession that rested on one's ability to nock an arrow in the blink of an eye, or place the sharp edge of a knife exactly where it would do the most damage. Now, in an almost ironic turn of inspiration, he wishes he'd paid more attention. Oropher would probably give one of his rare smirks of amusement, if he could hear these thoughts plaguing his son's mind. Followed by a rebuke, of course, insisting that 'I-told-you-so'

"You said earlier that the darkness waxes and wanes," says Galion, drawing Thranduil out of his musings. "What did you mean by that?"

"I generally perceive evil in the manner of the moon," says Beleg, leaning back in repose, "rather than a day, subject to a wind more or less blustering than the day before, and unpredictable. No, as far as evil is concerned, the changes in its strength are cyclical, and it can hide, but never leave altogether. If it's waxing, then it will not wane until it has breached a new peak. So has it always been. You would do well to heed the bitter watch."

Thranduil meets Beleg's eyes with sudden focus. "So is this a learning experience, or a briefing before a battle?"

Beleg's gaze is clear and unwavering. "I don't see why it can't be both. What do you think?"

"I think you foresee something," he says. He's surprised by the firmness and boldness of his own words. He would never speak like this to his other superiors - people like his father, or Ferion, his chief. Beleg is different.

"I don't see anything for certain," says Beleg, not seeming to have thought anything of Thranduil's bluntness. "But the fortunes of the world have risen for too long. The siege of Angband cannot last." He cocks his head to one side. "You are worried."

"No, sir," he says instantly, affirmatively, forgetting to omit formality. Beleg fixes him with a firm stare, and Thranduil knows he cannot hide the truth. He knew, even before he denied Beleg's assertion. Transparency of his thoughts has only ever been granted to Galion and Thandir, but his respect for his commander - and not least, his piercing stare - loosens the restraint on Thranduil's tongue.

"Well, I do harbour some unease," he confesses. "My mother once told me that evil only ever sleeps. I didn't think it would wake so soon."

"So brief, the idyll of youth," says Beleg, with a fair, sad smile. "Caladwen is wise, and she counsels well. But take heart, young ones. Rather be a march-warden that can hold his own in a fight than an elfling with nothing but a name, when the hordes of Morgoth finally rear their foul heads."

The words are dark, but Beleg's tongue is not idle, and soon the conversation shifts. They sit for a while as he turns the talk to choice gossip of the goings-on in high command, of Thingol's orders filtered down to the marchwarden units with Mablung's wry tongue, of the marches in the West and the Men who dwell near them, and Thranduil begins to hide the worry he has absorbed from both Beleg and Thandir beneath layers of an unfounded surety and a mask of levity.

"It's time I regale some of the other souls on this watch with such tales," says Beleg at last, standing. "I will return to Menegroth in day's time, to report. Have you any messages for your kin?"

"Just greetings to my mother," says Thranduil. "She knows that watches last at least a month, but she still frets."

"And to my father," says Galion. He smiles at Thranduil. "He's the one setting the watches, and he frets."

"Consider it done," says Beleg. His mouth twists in a wry smile. "Nothing for a lucky elleth?"

Galion grins. "Not unless you're headed to the eastern border. There's an elleth there by the name of Avornel who Thranduil here -"

"Oh hush, we're not even courting," he mutters, kicking his friend's boot and trying to hide his blush.

"Yet," Galion emphasises. "You're not courting yet."

"Well, as fate would have it, I am actually heading east next," Beleg says, raising his eyebrows.

Thranduil's mouth drops open and Galion cackles.

"There's really no need," Thranduil insists, kicking his friend again - harder, this time. "He's just playing the fool."

"I'm sure he is," Beleg soothes, his eyes twinkling mirthfully nonetheless.

He begins to descend the tree, then pauses and looks up at them once more. "You're good marchwardens. I'm proud to be serving with you both."

With those words, Thranduil's heart swells with happiness. Beleg is proud of them. He barely registers his commander's parting words as he looks out to the Girdle beyond them.

"This watch may be cold and idle," says Beleg, "but be sure to lose neither heart, nor your wits. Na lû e-govaned vîn," he grins, and slips down through the branches as noiselessly as he came.

After several silent minutes, Galion speaks. "His words are so weighted."

His voice comes like a needle through the shroud of contentedness surrounding Thranduil, and he feels a strange spark of defensiveness.

"Weighted? With what, being realistic?" he counters.

"No, being as dark and heavy as a storm about to break," shoots back Galion, casting a glance up to the snow clouds still converging above them. "I've lived long enough without the evil suddenly spilling over. I'd rather not believe it will."

"He's not the only one. Thandir is worried too.

"Is he?" Galion doesn't say it like a question, and Thranduil frowns.

"Yes. He knows something is wrong, and he's just telling himself nothing is about to happen. Rather like you, actually, except you don't even want to admit the former."

"You know you sound like your father now."

"Don't," Thranduil snaps tersely.

"Sorry."

"With no intent to slight you," Thranduil says, throwing the slight into his tone if not his words, "Both of them have lived much longer. If you want, Galion, take it as nothing more than caution, and not a doom."

"These old ones make every wise word sound like doom," says Galion, his expression slipping into one of annoyance. "Doesn't matter what I think."

Thranduil crosses his arms. "Do you suppose, then, that war isn't coming soon?"

"Who knows, Thranduil? The world is bigger than us and spins faster than either of us can run. Anything can happen."

"Even bad things borne on dark and heavy storm clouds."

"Fine," Galion snaps. "So, if we trust the doom-counsel of Beleg, we can cast lots and a prediction. Say it comes with the turn of the moon."

"Oh stop this," Thranduil sighs, exasperated. Why are they quarrelling? Is it the fear, the barely suppressed anxiety, pushed onto them by the darkness dwelling idle in the plains before them?

"I trust Beleg," he mutters.

Galion glances at him. "I know you do."

Thranduil senses the underlying tone in his friend's voice, and his face slides into a frown. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Galion looks genuinely surprised. "Only that I know you obviously respect him, and you listen to what he says. That's it."

"He's earned my respect. Others haven't."

"I know that too. But I'd advise you to be cautious."

"Why? Do you bear gifts of foresight too?"

"Why are you getting so defensive?"

Thranduil stills for a moment, and then looks down in shame. He can't abide being so exposed, but there's no point hiding now. "Because you're the only one who ever perceives this much. Even Thandir for all his wisdom cannot understand it."

"I know, he has that effect," says Galion slowly, treading carefully. "But I would advise much thought before action."

Thranduil looks at him, confused. "You would have me be cautious? Around Beleg? Why?"

Galion looks uncomfortable, but overcome by an obligation to both honesty and responsibility - responsibility to one who still has much use for a mediating hand.

"I have neither the foresight of Beleg," he says at last, "nor the wisdom of Thandir, but I have intuition enough to know that people like Beleg - they're bigger than us. They're always ensnared by some doom or another. And it appeases nothing, Thranduil, to love the doomed."

Thranduil does not get a chance to respond. At that very moment, a deep rumble and a tremor arise from the borderlands, and a breathless cry speeds across the wind from the North. Thranduil snaps his hands over his ears. Beside him Galion lets out a gasp of pain and casts his gaze around. The outcry is ugly, agonising, and unknown. Thranduil feels his balance slipping and clutches at the tree, scrunching up his face against the lingering echoes of the terrible noise.

"What in the world…?" gasps Galion after a few moments. Without waiting for a response, he begins clambering up the tree.

A shout goes up in the trees to either side of them. Thranduil's eyes pick through the branches to seek out the next post. In the distance, almost obscured by the gloaming, the pair of wardens in the tree are clambering up and pointing frantically to the North.

"Oh my goodness," breathes Galion from above him.

Thranduil looks up, surprised to see that suddenly, the sky is brighter - That Galion's face is slightly illuminated by a soft glow, shadows finding their way into the hollows of bone as they flee from the sudden light.

"What is it?" he calls.

"Get up here."

Thranduil clambers up next to his friend, and goes very still. For the second time that day, he reluctantly looks towards where Galion's finger points. A strange orange cloud hovers above the peaks at the farthest edge of Nan Dungortheb, spilling out into the wasteland - a red, deadly sulphurous cloud, illuminating the horizon in a horrible, untrue, forced breaking of the dawn.

"What can it be?" asks Galion, his voice barely above a stunned whisper.

"It looks like fire," Thranduil says, and drops off into silence.


A/N:

gi suilon - greetings (familiar)

na lû e-govaned vîn - until our next meeting

As always, any corrections on lore or language are welcome. I expect the next chapter to be up in a week's time. Thanks for reading!