Ciri travelled through time and space, and landed on a pile of gold. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realised that she was surrounded by similar piles of gold. Gold was strewn all over the floors.
She was wary to take any of it as it may have been cursed. However, something else caught her attention. Among the glittering piles of gold shone a necklace set with white gems.
Against her better judgement, she put it on.
"Ah!" Ciri gasped, her mind filled with memories which were not her own. She fell to her knees but then Ciri rose again. This time she had a desire to go somewhere and meet a particular person.
A flash of light and Ciri was gone.
...
The king of Mirkwood, Thranduil, was restless. Tonight felt different, he had the urge to see the night sky. Thranduil was not sure why, but it drove him to leave his underground chamber to the surface.
He waited. A foolhardy spider dared approach and his elven retinue of bodyguards quickly handed it certain death. There was yet another spider, however, which had advanced behind the first while they were preoccupied.
"Raaargh!" Ciri said. She swung her sword and dealt the killing blow. Ciri collapsed at the foot of the elven king.
...
She was beautiful. The way she fought with the spider, her sword glinting in the moonlight, was like a dance. Thranduil touched her hair, it was white blond just like his, just like the Sindarin elves.
Her hair fell away to reveal her ears. They were rounded, not pointed. She was human, not an elf. He felt extremely disappointed. Thranduil was about to move away when he noticed the necklace around her neck.
Gems of pure starlight. The White Gems of Lasgalen. The Arkenstone had been found and now lay buried with Thorin, but the whereabouts of the White Gems had been taken to the grave with Thorin, or so Thranduil thought.
Somehow, this human woman had managed to find it. She had stolen the gems from right under the dwarves' noses, a highly skilled thief indeed.
Thranduil tried to take the necklace off but he gasped in pain as it burned him. He was unworthy, the necklace refused him of possession. How could it be when he was neither evil nor unclean, when it was him who had held it before in his hands?
What then did that say about the human woman, what made her worthy?
"Tell me when our prisoner is awake," Thranduil said disgustedly.
He had had enough of thieves, whether they be dwarf, human or elf.
...
"Thranduil," Ciri said. "Where is he?"
"How dare you address our king with such familiarity, prisoner," the guard spat.
She fell silent. Ciri stepped - through the bars - reappearing on the other side.
The guards shouted an alarm and they swung their weapons at her. But she was gone, only air remained.
...
Thranduil was on his throne when his guards came rushing to tell him of the prisoner's escape. Shockingly, she reappeared in front of him out of thin air. He had never seen such power.
"Thranduil, it's me. Don't you remember?" Ciri said.
He motioned to the guards to leave them be.
"These gems, they were mine. You gave them to me, said you were making it into a necklace," she said.
Thranduil knew then that whoever was speaking now, speaking through the human, it was his dead wife or something pretending to be her. But how could the dead be alive? This must be the work of a necromancer.
"How do I address you?" He asked.
Ciri stood there, dazed. She had regained control of herself but now the elf in front of her was asking for her name.
"I... I am Ciri," she said uncertainly. Ciri could not remember who she was, a thick fog clouded her memory, but at the very least Ciri remembered her name.
Thranduil tried desperately but he himself could not remember his wife's name. Thranduil had forbidden any and all writing, engraving or mentioning of it; personally striking out her name and having gone so far to punish those who broke his rules.
The pain of being reminded drove him to such extreme lengths but never could he have forseen that he would one day forget his wife's name. It was as if she had never existed and it caused him great anguish, filling him with regret.
So when the woman replied that her name was Ciri, Thranduil had no idea if it was the name of his wife or the name of the human herself. He remembered then the unnatural circumstance of the reanimation of his dead wife.
"Who is your master?" Thranduil asked.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said.
"Ciri, who is your master? Is it Sauron, the necromancer of Dol Guldur? Where do you come from? Who are you?" He said.
"Stop asking me so many questions, I don't know," she said. "I don't know who Sauron is, I don't even know who I am."
"Lies!" Thranduil said.
"Thranduil, I love you," Ciri said, kissing him.
He was caught by surprise. Before he could react, she had already broken the kiss and staggered away. Ciri's head hurt. Thranduil caught her in his arms to steady her.
"Where's our son, where's Legolas?" She said, fainting afterwards.
...
There was no use keeping her in prison. The iron bars of a prison cell were nothing to her. Thranduil had taken pity on Ciri, it seemed she was in pain whenever he confronted her about her past.
He just needed to play along, act as if she really was his dead wife. However, as time passed, it was becoming more difficult for him to think that he was just acting. Ciri now sat beside him in his royal hall on a throne of her own.
Thranduil missed his wife. With Ciri's hair draped around her shoulders, he could easily imagine it to be her.