Before I start, I must thank TolkienScribe for being such a great supporter in the writing and editing of this fic. The character names Fion and Thorontur is TolkienScribe's, but the characters themselves are different.

This is story is also beta-ed by TolkienScribe. Go ahead and check out TolkienScribe's writing; they're all canonical and superb. I highly recommend them.

Also, everything except for the following characters are Professor Tolkien's (The names Thorontur and Fion are TolkienScribe's as mentioned above):

Irien, all council members, Serindir, Avorsel, and Linneth.

Alright. Without further ado, let us begin.

Thranduil sat beside the body of his father, Oropher. He took his father's hand, tried to wake him.

"Adar?" he whispered. "Adar?" Thranduil tucked a golden lock behind his father's ear, a strangely childish gesture. "Will you wake, Adar?" The tears had not come. Thranduil wondered why, somewhere at the back of his mind. His entire body went numb, the minutes galloping past in hours, the hours crawling along like the infirm it was. The pain was deadened. It would come soon. But now, he was shut down and cold. Cold beyond belief, slowly gripping him like a vice.

He had been there. When his father fell. When Oropher's light, his fire, was snuffed out in an instant, before the doors of Barad-Dur. The orcs, the yellow-eyed atrocities, had swarmed like a group of flies on a carcass. Thranduil had known nothing in that instant but for his orders: kill the orcs. And he did, with frightening competence. But not enough. Never enough. That minute, that second he saw his father fall, that heart-stopping moment. Thranduil let loose a strangled yell, tried, tried to cut through the swarms, the walls of orcs that divided him and his father. But, again, it was never enough.

When he had finally reached his father, what seemed like hours but was probably less than a minute, the pools of blood were at a point of no return. Thranduil ran to his father's side.

Oropher smiled a sad smile. "Thranduil," he whispered, coughing. Coughing up blood. All that blood. There was so much of it, watering the dust on the ground, caking his armor. "Thranduil." There was no time to say anything. Oropher took a shuddering breath, struggling for every moment. The piercing blue eyes of father and son met. "Don't mourn me," Oropher breathed, barely making a sound. But Thranduil heard. Oh, he heard.

He should have been happy. Happy that Sauron was decimated, that his forces were beaten back, that the Black Usurper would never do evil again. So why was there a blank hole, a dread, a freezing pit in his heart? His father. Thranduil closed his eyes, letting the chills crawl down his spine. His father had told him, told him not to mourn. He was not going to wither and die, not curl up and give up the sky. He had a promise to uphold. But Thranduil could feel the walls crumbling and tumbling down already. How was he to govern his people? What kind of leader was he, to still be lamenting when he should be squaring his shoulders and putting it behind him?

He was broken out of his reverie at the sound of the tent flap opening. He caught a hint of the smell of metallic blood and smoke before the flap closed. At the doorway was Elrond.

"Mae govannen," Elrond said, extending his arm to Thranduil in the gesture of greeting.

"Mae govannen," Thranduil replied, taken aback at how weak his voice sounded.

"I am…." Elrond trailed off, "sorry about your father." He knew exactly how pathetic he sounded.

Thranduil did not have the strength to reply.

"He was a good king, your father," Elrond offered, almost desperate for something to say.

"He was," Thranduil said, his voice foreign to him.

There was a deafening silence. Every second shamed Elrond, who knew not how to comfort the young king.

In the end, he decided to tell the truth. "I never knew my father well," Elrond started sheepishly. "He sailed for the Valar when I was very young."

"Eärendil," Thranduil murmured, recognizing Elrond's lineage.

"Yes. Maglor raised me. He wasn't much of a father; more like a guardian." Elrond continued. He paused. "Come, Thranduil. Walk with me."

With a raised eyebrow, Thranduil stood slowly. His muscles and joints creaked in protest, a show of exactly the length of time Thranduil had sat by his father's body. Elrond led the way out of the tent, and Thranduil followed, casting a look at Oropher, still lying peacefully. He could have been sleeping. But Thranduil knew better.

Thranduil breathed the open air for the first time in what seemed like ages. He was surprised to find it was night time, the stars out, shining in their white brilliance. All around the camp, Elves and Men mingled, laughing and talking by their campfires, no longer afraid of the menace of the East. It was gone.

Elrond pointed up at the sky at the brightest star in the sky. "That's my father," he said, smiling. He turned to Thranduil. "Every time I look up there, I see him. Yet I don't know how he would say my name, how he would smile. I don't know what stories he would have told me as a child, nor what he would tell me right now." Elrond looked Thranduil right in the eye. "But you know how he would say your name, how he would embrace you after coming home. And that is worth more than anything, that chance to be with your father. Remember these memories well. Don't let them go, just because of a simple thing like death."

Thranduil looked up at the mighty Elf lord, who suddenly seemed so small and vulnerable. He tried to think of all the times he and his father went to the lake, or when he taught him to use his sword. But the image of Oropher, lying dead on the battlefield always came back to haunt Thranduil. He couldn't see how this would help.

Elrond cast a look at the son of Oropher. He was young, far too young for all of this. He sighed inwardly. He was never particularly good at comforting others. "Don't forget," he said one last time, before bowing and taking his leave into the depths of the night.

Thranduil stayed there, watching the Peredhil disappear. Oropher had been everything to him, the one he turned to for advice and council, the one whose shoulder he would lean on. And it was all gone. In an instant, it was gone.