She walked amongst the ruins of Dale.
Dried Orc blood caked on the hem of her simple dress, it would never come off, but Sigrid was glad. Her lips were chapped and she could still feel the glaring pain of a deep gash on her cheek where a blade had struck, it would fester and leave a scar, but Sigrid was glad.
Da and Tilda and Bain were safe and fine now, and for this she was grateful. She had lost her house but not her home, she still had her family, and Sigrid knew she was luckier than most.
An air of emptiness lingered about the somber remains of the battlefield, and she heard the horn of Dale honouring the plain with its mournful hum, bidding its farewell to lives lost over a handful of gold. Of course Sigrid had not the faintest idea how much riches there were in the halls of Erebor. There could be the running rivers of gold the people had sung of in the old tales, or but a handful of rocks, and she could not find it in her heart to care. Now before her eyes, the Desolation was laid to waste beneath by the grieving sky, as shadows of death hovered solemnly over the Lonely Mountain.
They said he had fallen, the King Under the Mountain. Him and his heirs, too.
Sigrid side-stepped the crumbling stones just in time. Her eyes trailed the white dust particles that rose up into the air, one moment lost in a reverie and she would have been crushed underneath it. It mattered not though, for she had lived.
The young maiden recalled upon the faces of the dwarven princes. One lay entrapped in a feverish curse in her home with his life at the mercy of a cruel fate, and another suffered in silence, burnt alive from within by a scorching flame of anguish for fear of losing his brother.
The Valar had been kind, she thought, to not separate the sons of Durin even in death. The ember had burned out, and the forges would hold naught but cold ashes. There was much lost, and much to grieve for, but with time the trees will grow and the rivers will flow through these lands again.
Time.
Sigrid pondered as she hopped up the stone steps, her breaths coming out as white mists in the icy cold air.
Some folks had it in abundance, and yet the luxury of time was no salve for their wounds. The hearts that had been torn open would remain dripping red with agony, she had seen it more than once. In Da's eyes, yes. He loved her true, but Da was human and one day he would perish like any mortal would, and along with him his grief for Ma.
No, it was in the eyes of the fair folks that she had seen the reflections of hearts torn asunder by lost. While her kind buried those dead and gone and forgot them when they themselves died, the elves watched on. She knew those eyes had seen countless of souls sailed across the Sundering Seas to the Halls, and today, tomorrow, once year hence, a hundred years from now they would continue to watch. For not all were granted the blessing of mortality.
A gossamer of snowflakes veiled the icy ground which she now tread. Sigrid pulled a worn, old shawl about her frail shoulders and gingerly stepped over the frozen waterfall of Raven Hill. The place was bleak, shadowed almost, and its ruins were wreathed in a fine mist. She placed a pale hand on a fallen stone and could feel music thrumming within its deep sleep; songs of days long lost, of love unforgotten, and of the pain of time.
It was not until she turned the last corner of the spiral staircase at the top of the tower did she see him, he was golden and beautiful, looking out over the battlements, draped in his gown the colour of of winter frost. Grand and regal as ever the Lord of the Woodland Realm was, and as fierce and strong as a King should have been.
But Sigrid saw also the thousands of years of sadness, of defeat, of burden of lost lives that weighed down on his strong shoulders. She could see burning pain etched deep into his elfin features, and when he turned around, she looked deep into his eyes and saw a new spirit of a memory swimming fresh and clear amongst the pools of old ones which were yet shed.
Those were the eyes of a King who lost his beloved, a commander who lost his soldiers, and a father who had just lost a son.
"Why then did you let him go?" she asked.
"Should I have held on to that which was lost?" His rich voice echoed in return, and Sigrid's heart held no answer. She walked over to stand by him and peered out the window hole. It was long until she spoke again.
"It shall be Spring soon."
"No rain would suffice to wash away the blood of my people."
"But should not they hate to see you suffer for their sacrifice?"
"What would a mortal know of the sentiment of elves?"
They stood by in each other's company and silence, watching the horizon beginning to tint with the sweet glow of an approaching dawn, a new day, a new beginning.
"A red sun rises," Thranduil murmured, "Blood has been spilled this night."
"Truly, my Lord," Sigrid sighed, "I see but a golden orb rising in the east, like an ember to light up new hope in an ice-cold heart."
She turned to look up at him.
"Would a forge remain stone cold forevermore, denying that it had been bathed with dragon fire?"
And it was those words that finally struck a cord in the Elven-King's soul. It was Sigrid's soft voice that reawakened the embers buried deep beneath the years of his stone-cold heart. Thranduil let a hint of smile grace his lips as he looked into the eyes of the maiden who stood before him. Yet another insignificant mortal in the eye of fate, true, but also a warm ray of sunlight on the first morning of Spring that melted away the Winter frost.
His heart did not fill with gladness, nor did his being glow with a new hope, but in that moment the Lord of the fair folks realised he would grieve no more. No, he would not grieve for a love long lost for she was blessed now in the land of his forefathers, he would not grieve for the lives of the protectors of the realm for they had pledged their service and fulfilled it, and he would not grieve for his son who was never to return, for fate had drawn a path for him in a grand tale, and Thranduil would not deny it from him.
So the King gently reached out to caress her face and leant down and place his lips upon hers beneath the watchful gaze of a new rising sun. His fingers lifted up her chin as he looked upon this mortal girl and drank in her sweetness, thanking her for the pain she went through to make him finally see.
But most of all, though Thranduil did not believe a new day would wash away the grieve, he kissed Sigrid of Esgaroth because she was that one golden sun now risen up in the sky...
