The idea came to me years ago when I read the LOTR books, and I just wondered why the Queen of Eryn Galen was never talked about. I also wondered what made Thranduil so bitter and so harsh towards the world and towards everyone outside of Eryn Galen. I thought deep down he had a beautiful heart just from how much he cared for his people.

Such a person, such a being, could not have been alone and miserable all the time. And when the last Hobbit movie came out, despite the additions to the original passages of the book, when he spoke to Tauriel near the end of the movie I knew I had the right idea. At some point in his life, he must have loved someone. He must have loved someone deeply.

Author

Prologue

"In a great hall with pillars hewn out of the living stone sat the Elvenking on a chair of carven wood. On his head was a crown of berries and red leaves, for the autumn was come again. In the spring he wore a crown of woodland flowers, but always with red petals, just as his crown of autumn was always of red leaves."

"Go to the Dunedains, and there is a man among them, I knew his father. He was a good man, and his son will become a great man. She would hath had thee go and meet him if she could. She would hath said, tis thy fate to walk down the path with this man."

"Thy mother loved her son more than anything in the world, more than herself," Thranduil said softly in the broken stone halls to his only son who looked back at him in disbelief. This was the first time his father had spoken of her since that faithful day.

And suddenly the young prince knew, despite what he had thought, the elf-king had not forgotten about her. And that even now, the elf-king loved her, truly, madly, deeply, and it was years of loneliness and sorrow had turned him bitter and cold.

"If this is love, take him from me. I do not want it. Why does it hurt so much?" Tauriel cried upon the fallen body of her beloved, knowing that the cold distant ruler of her land would never be able to provide an answer.

Yet to her surprise he spoke; he spoke with such sorrow and tenderness that she knew he understood. She knew, once upon a time in the icy elf-king's life, he loved and loved deeper than anyone: "because t' was real."

"Mithrandir, thou ask for too much. Arda took my father, my people, and my Queen. I hath nothing left to give, wizard. Tis not our fight. I will shed my people's blood no more over thy war."

"Ah, the Queen of Eryn Galen. She fought the darkness, the evil. She would have wanted this, Thranduil."

"Well, she is not here to want this, is she? Thy fight, thy war, hath taken her away. I wish for no part of this. Leave, wizard, and never step on my land again."

Chapter 1

In the year 3434 of the Second Age, the army of the Last Alliance, led by Gil-galad and Elendil, fought a valiant battle against armies of orcs and other creatures loyal to Sauron on the plains of Dagorland outside of Mordor. The elves led by Oropher and Amdír charged prematurely at the enemies and were driven back. Eventually the Alliance was able to win the battle, but at the cost of many lives, including Oropher, the Sindarin King of the Silvan Elves of Greenwood the Great, and Amdír the King of Lórien. When the Last Alliance won the battle, they were able to attack the Black Gate and proceeded to Udûn. In 3441, Sauron's physical form was destroyed and the Barad-Dûr was razed to the ground. In the aftermath of the War, many Elves of Gil-galad's following depart to Valinor, ending the Noldorin realms in Middle-Earth, commencing the Third Age.

After Sauron was defeated, Thranduil, Oropher's son and heir, and the remnant of the formerly grand army of his people headed back north.

It was a sorrowful sight.

The golden army with its red capes of glory had left Eryn Galen with such magnificence and strength now trudged back with such weariness and grief. They only wanted to go home; it had been a long and bloody journey in their fight for Middle-Earth's freedom. And now they only wanted to go home to find peace and rest for their tired souls.

But in a time of turmoil after the war, despite the vanquishing of Sauron where there were still large remnants of orcs and creatures of Sauron running about, it was mere wishful thinking. As they passed through the Brown Lands, the pale-haired elf, who seemed to be the leader, raised his right hand into the air, and the army halted in unison despite of their weariness that bespoke of years of training and discipline.

Arin Calad held her breath as she hid among the long grasses; they couldn't have heard her, could they? Once she had seen the glint of their armors on the horizon she had immediately ducked down into the field of grass and stayed there, immobile. She had heard of the elves' superior senses before and she did not want to test them.

She watched with her heart pounding so loud that she was afraid the elves might hear it, and crossed her fingers as the tall pale-haired elf that commanded the elven army glanced around with narrowed eyes. His gaze and scrutiny halted on the eastern horizon just behind her. For a second Arin Calad was not sure if he was looking at her or at the horizon. She felt those silver eyes could pierce through the grasses and the elves standing between them. But when she felt the ground trembled beneath her body, she knew the elf was not looking at her. There was something coming from the east, and she was stuck right in the middle.

Cold sweat covered her free hand that were against the hard dirt floor; she had avoided a full on battle for so long. She did not want to be in one now, because she was certain she would not be able to survive a full on battle with anyone. Arin Calad was already surprised she had survived this long out there in the wild by herself, and she did not want to tempt fate.

But she didn't have a choice. She watched as the pale-haired elf spoke something in a lyrical foreign language and the elves turned to as one to face the east and held out their sword, readied for battle.

If she stood up now, the adrenaline-filled elves would slash her down without any question. She had to stay down, but if she stayed down, whoever was coming from the east would trample over her and she would die anyways. It was Catch-22, and like the soldiers during the war, she could find no way out.

Arin Calad was scared; she wanted to cry and curl up into a ball, asking herself why she decided to leave the snowy plains north of Iron Hills. She knew why; if she didn't leave, she would starve to death during the coming winter, just as she nearly had the winter before when she first arrived. She could venture out towards the dwarves settlement in the Iron Hills and ask for their help instead of just stealing clothes, weapons and food from them. But she chose not to because if she let slip about something, it might destroy everything, and she could not have that on her conscience.

She couldn't.

So she decided to move south, to somewhere that's warmer where she could scavenge for food and survive alone.

So here she was, stuck in the middle of an impending battle, simply because she did not want to starve.

Arin Calad glanced back at the pale-haired elf; she could see his hands loosely holding his twin swords, his demeanor calm and fearless despite of the situation, despite of the weariness of his elves, despite the injuries some sustained.

How could he be so calm?

How could he not be afraid?

How could he sit there so straight and so tall as if nothing was wrong?

The vibration coming through the ground grew stronger; whoever or whatever was coming, was coming soon. Sure enough, within minutes she heard the growling of orcs behind her. Her hands begin to shake so much so that she had to release her hold on the bow she had been holding in fear that the elves would hear it clacking against the ground.

Arin Calad closed her eyes; she couldn't do this. She needed to run, to hide, to get as far away from here as possible. As thoughts swirled wildly in her mind, the orcs came upon the elves. She heard the pale-haired elf shouted something and heard the sound of arrows flying through the air before landing in their targets with loud thuds.

The elves did not miss, but there were a lot of orcs, and not even the elves could get them all at once. And so the orcs came rushing at the elves, and perhaps it was because of the dull brown and dark green colors of Arin Calad's clothes that blended her perfectly into the grasses and the ground, but they did not seem to see her at all; instead, they run past her, their blackened armors clanging loudly and their bloodied weapon slashing wildly.

By the time Arin Calad raised her head and opened her eyes, the orcs had passed her and were attacking the elves viciously. The elves were faster and more skilled, but the orcs were more brutal and there were more of them than there were elves, and soon the orcs were gaining grounds.

Arin Calad breathed in sharply; god, no, this wasn't fair. Her heart shuddered painfully as an elf fell to the ground, a crudely made spear perforating his body. She watched as the light left his eyes leaving it dull and blank, and his pale body crashed into the dirt, sending up a spray of dust and bloody.

She slowly got up from the ground and onto her knees, staring around her in what seemed to be hell on earth as bloody dyed the brown dirt black and bodies littered the ground like broken toys. Her eyes stung as tears swirled around the rims.

They didn't deserve this.

No one deserved this…this bloodbath.

Her eyes caught sight of the pale-haired elf, his swords weaving in and out among the orcs in a graceful yet deadly dance.

It was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

And he was good, no, he was beyond good; he was magnificent. There were no spaces for any attacks to reach him as he wielded the twin silver swords with lethal accuracy. He alone took down a whole group of orcs even as the other elves fell prey to the orcs around them.

And now he was fighting against two orcs in front of him, but there was a third orc coming up behind him, one he didn't seem to see.

No…

Please, god, no…

But there didn't seem to be any god here; there were no one else here other than the elves, the orcs, and her. And none of the elves seemed to realize their leader was in danger, because they were all fighting for their life.

No one was there to help him.

No one…except for her…she could do something, and she knew she could, without any worries of future implications, because she knew he was supposed to live. This battle was not supposed to take away his life. He was not fated to die here in this godforsaken land of brown dirt and dying grass.

She could do this.

She could help.

Arin Calad reached out a trembling hand and grabbed hold of the compound bow; she reached back in one fluid motion and notched an arrow with well-practiced ease. She drew the bow back to her ear; she let out a slow measured breath and then allowed the arrow to fly. And flew it did, slicing straight through the air, piercing through the orc's head, and slammed into another orc behind it. But even as the arrow hit its first intended target, the pale-haired elf had already turned around, sensing the change of the air behind him. His silvery-blue eyes widened in faint surprise at the fallen orcs; and then he turned and stared straight at her.

The intensity of his gaze frightened her and she turned quickly away, focusing her attention on getting out of the battle alive. Just as her arrow had caught the attention of the elf, it had also caught the attention of the orcs. Several turned to her, licking their lips and growling hungrily. If her stomach could fall straight down and out of her, it definitely did at that moment. She swallowed and did her best to calm her palpating heart as she faced the horde of orcs. Her hand flew to the quiver on her back and within second she had another arrow strung and then fired. It went through two more orcs before she fired another one. However, that was the last arrow she fired, because by the time she fired that one, the next orc was too close for her to restring and shoot again. She moved automatically, trying to temper down her panic, as she hook the bow back onto the quiver before she slammed her fist into an incoming orc's face. She let out a whimper as she ducked a sword that threatened to decapitate her. She straightened and slammed her leg into another orc's side. She turned and as a tear fell down her cheeks she caught the silvery-blue eyes again. The silver glint in his eyes, the light in them, showed so much strength. And he was so close, just feet away from her now; his swords danced through the orc throngs with such elegance that it seemed closer to an art form than warfare.

But right now she was just too frightened to have any admiration for it as she tried to fight off the flood of orcs that seemed to all be heading her way. Another tear fell down her cheeks as she flung herself to the side to avoid being skewered by a spear. She fell down to the ground hard on her sides; her hands scrabbled against the dirt as she struggled to prop herself up. She couldn't do this. She wasn't a soldier. She never had any sort of battle training.

She just couldn't.

She couldn't…

Arin Calad glanced around her; it was still a rather hard fight, but the elves were losing. Their bodies were worn-out and their souls exhausted, and their wills were giving away. At this rate, the elves from Eryn Galen would be annihilated. She looked back at the pale-haired elf; he fought with such spirit, his eyes blazing brightly and his hair forming a shiny halo around his form under the brilliant sunlight.

He was so beautiful, like an angel, a vengeful angel, but an angel nevertheless. And he was fighting so hard for his people. With every elf that dropped in his sight, she could see the pain and anguish he felt from the way his blue eyes would flash silver.

He was fighting so hard to protect his people.

She couldn't let him die like this; this couldn't be the end for him; she couldn't let them, his people, just die like this.

She had to at least try.

Her hand reached into the pouch around her waist. She had never tested it before; it would have drawn too much attention, and it was also quite dangerous. If she didn't calibrate correctly; any test runs would likely take off her limbs. She was a lab tech and she was damn good at her job, but if she didn't need to, she didn't want to tempt fate. Distilling phosphorus from guano, and then making her own charcoal and finding sulfur in the wild were no easy tasks, but she had time and determination on her side.

From her innumerable chemistry classes, she learned patience, and from her job, she learned that not everything needed to be done in a lab. Mother Natures was the best chemical superstore a girl can hope for when stranded in the middle of nowhere with no money.

She prayed to all the gods and goddesses she knew from this land, and then crossed her fingers. She stood up, pushed back the heavy hood that covered her face, and flung back the cloak from her arms. And then with as much strength as she could muster she threw the bottle across the field into a pack of orcs, but not before she rubbed her thumb and index fingers together, creating a spark that inflamed the cloth corking the bottle.

What happened next became the stuff of legends for the Silvan elves of Eryn Galen.

Contrary to what Arin Calad thought, some of the elves did notice the orc making its way to their leader, unseen to the latter, but they were unable to do anything because just as Arin Calad thought, they were either not in range or trying to fight for their lives. And just as all seemed to be lost, a dark figure, heavily hooded and cloaked appeared out of nowhere, shot an arrow, black as the night, straight through that orc and the orc behind it seemingly without an ounce of effort.

The shot drew the attention of elves and orcs. The elves' new king followed the direction of the arrow and found the hooded figure. He did not know if the newcomer was a foe or a friend even if it had saved his life. Although Sauron had just been defeated, the dark times were not yet over. There were still pockets of evil lurking about, seeking to destroy members of the Free Alliance wherever it could.

The Elvenking narrowed his eyes and started to fight his way towards the figure.

With the ease and speed that only elves could hope to match, the figure shot off two more arrows before the orcs drew too close, forcing it to hang up its bow. However, instead of pulling out a close-range weapon, the figure punched and kicked its way through the throng. Each punch and kick was well placed and forceful, but mere body contacts were not enough to stop any full grown orc, and it wasn't long before the figure fell to the ground.

It lay there on the ground for roughly half a minute, a long time in the middle of the battle, but finally it got up. It flung back the heavy cloak and its large hood, revealing a human woman around her mid-twenties, but what was astonishing was not even the fact that she was a human woman, alone, and nowhere near a human settlement, or even her skills with a bow.

Her features were nothing extraordinary compared with the beauty of the elves. Her eyes were green, but overshadowed by the dark purple stains beneath them from fatigue and stress. Her skin was unnaturally pale, and her face gaunt, almost sickly so. Life has not been kind to the young woman.

But her hair, her hair was a vibrant shade of red, crimson red, like the fallen leaves in autumn. Strands of it escaped from her braid, fluttering wildly in the plains' wind like a wild prairie fire. And as she stood up, there was a fire in her eyes that made the ordinary green eyes shone as if someone had set fire within two emeralds.

And what she did next was unforgettable.

A bottle flew out from her hand, and less than a second later, a loud explosion reverberated through the grassland; the orcs, or rather parts of the orcs, splattered across the grasses, and when the smoke cleared there was a black crater surrounded by burnt or half burnt body parts of orcs.

A whole band of orcs had been destroyed in mere seconds.

Both sides, the elves and the orcs, turned and stared at the woman in disbelief as she slowly got up from the ground where she had been thrown by the force of the blast. The explosion had blown her hair free from the restraint of her braid, and the long wavy strands flew about her in a bright scarlet tempest.

To the elves she looked like fire personified.

But what were out of place were the trails of tears down her pale cheeks.

The other elves did not see her tears, but their leader did. The pale-haired elf was close enough to see the tears of fright and the shadows of terror in her eyes. His eyes, now shining bright silver, caught hold of those green orbs, as dark and deep as the leaves of Eryn Galen that he had grown up with, but before he could do anything, the woman took out her bow. She took an arrow and hooked something onto it before firing it into one the orcs who had just picked up a fallen axe from the ground.

The arrow slammed into it, lighting it up like a funeral pyre. Another arrow slammed into a different orc, lighting it on fire as well. The orcs shrieked and screamed in agony as the fire consumed them alive. They flailed and crashed into other orcs, setting them on fire as well. Smoke and the acrid smell of burnt flesh filled the grasslands.

The explosion and the subsequent fire took out the majority of the orc forces and their will to continue the battle. The tide turned, and the orcs fell back against the renewed spirits of the elves. Soon, the orcs fled, or at least the ones that had not been taken down by the elves.

The pale-haired elf searched the brutal battlefield where his kin lain like leaves scattered haphazardly by the wind across the plains, but there were no sign of the woman. The woman disappeared, vanished into the thin air as if she had never been there.