The Prince of Greenwood stood a lone figure in a field of the fallen. The blood of their enemies mingling with the pools of his kin and the Followers. What seemed to be leagues away, more figures picked through the fallen, shutting eyes and breathing final prayers over loved ones. There was only a single action left to do. One step...another...and yet another took him to the resting place of a pale, silvery blonde headed elf, eyes still open, staring off at some distant non-existent star. Kneeling, he gently closed the elf's eyes, allowing a tear to trickle down his own grim streaked cheek.
"Ada..." The one word barely whispered, to be heard above the soft breeze. He smoothed the wrinkled and bloodied fabric of the tunic over the large gash that gaped on the elf's chest.
A spear, an arrow, a sword...whatever it was...whatever caused his father to sink to his knees, graceful even in death throes. Whatever caused him to gaze up at his son with pain lidded eyes, usually cold and emotionless. Whatever abruptly made him, Thranduil son of Oropher, king of the Greenwood. Whatever it was...whoever did this, Thranduil hated them. He could still see it, the way his father had fallen to lie among the multitude of his already slain kin. The look of almost surprise written across the king's face as he beheld his only son who was supposed to have been safe in the West, not fighting for his very survival in the Last Alliance. The way he had looked at his only son with a dying smile, and had whispered his last word with his final breath. The way Oropher, King of Greenwood, had frozen, exhaling softly, a sound he heard even over the din of the warriors around him. And then he, Thranduil, had been whisked away into another dance with an enemy, leaving his father to be trampled underfoot of the battle.
It wasn't supposed to end like this...all this death and chaos. It was not meant to be like this...yet the Valar must have wished it to be so...and it had come true. Murmuring one last prayer over his father's body, Thranduil stood, wiping the moisture from beneath his eyes. Finally he allowed himself to fully observe the battle field surrounding him. There was not much to behold but death and pain. He gazed with half-awake eyes, suddenly weary from the battle as if all the strength had suddenly fled from his veins.
Before him a figure memorized from the mist that seemed to have sprung from nowhere. As it drew closer, he could discern the Lord of Imladris' grimy and resigned face. Ever so slightly, he bowed his head to the Lord. "Lord Elrond..." Thranduil said.
He returned the nod with a huff of a sigh. "Isildur would not do it." He said gruffly. "I could not persuade him to cast the Ring into the shadow."
Thranduil looked away. It was as he had feared in the deepest depths of his mind. All this death had been for naught. He turned slightly to see Isildur riding slowly out of the field and out of sight, yet even over a thousand yards away he could feel the malice of the Ring from where it rested against Isildur's chest. "He is a fool." He said finally, meeting Elrond's sharp gaze. "Death will follow." He swallowed, glancing down at his father's body at his feet.
Elrond Half-Elven followed his gaze, eyes glittering with more unshod tears and brimming with sorrow. "It will not be for naught." He said softer than the whispering breeze before nodding once in respect and walking slowly to where his kin stood waiting.
He watched him briefly before kneeling once more at his father's side. "I am truly sorry, Ada." He said with barely controlled emotion, tears once more slipping from his eyelids. "It will not be for naught. The Greenwood will survive through and through." He gulped slightly before pressing his lips to the now cold forehead of what was once the proud King of Greenwood. Sitting back on his hunches he gazed without seeing into the distance, letting the tears fall from his eyes unchecked in tiny rivulets down his checks. After what may have been an eternity or only a few seconds, he rose one last time, shedding his tears from his face.
Steeling his nerves he walked toward the pitifully small group of elves that was all that remained of the Greenwood army. As he grew closer, Thranduil heard the hushed whispers quiet and the company of elves slowly turned to him with bowed heads. His heart pounded mercilessly against his chest. He was their King now...no longer a Prince...
"Stop." He said suddenly, voice hoarse. "Please...not now." His voice broke slightly. He mounted an offered horse in silence. With gleaming eyes he looked upon the hundred or so elves left of his command. "Let us go." With a murmur he urged the horse slowly forward. Soon his father's...no...his two captains rode up beside him. They plodded and picked through the fields in silence. The only movement he made was a small tilt of his head in respect to Celeborn and the Lórien elves who were also lamenting their own great loss. And the path between the broken and mangled bodies continued ever on.
As they finally entered the sheltered arms of trees, Thranduil turned his horse around slightly and looked back into the fields of the dead. His once large army marched in still silence past him as he stared at what would be the grave for so many of their own. He blinked once, then again, turned the horse to face the forest and slowly rode after his people, the bitter taste of grief still strong in his mouth and the smell of sorrow hung around him like a heavy cloud of mist.
The Greenwood has turned to ash,
Poison spreads, rot from the gash.
It wilts, withers, barely survives,
The Darkness, it spreads and thrives.
They tinge the air; Grief, Pain, Sorrow, Fear,
Joy, Peace, Hope; they dwell not Here.
Thranduil carefully shaped the last letter of the word there, before dropping his quill and tossing the parchment into the fire, watching the flame consume the paper in a crackle of orange and yellow. He drew a tired hand over his face. Years had passed since the Last Alliance...since he became King. And an eternity had passed since he known what peace felt like. His kin were depleted. Fighting an endless, never relenting battle from all sides, shrinking away from ever growing threats. Soon they would retreat deep into the halls of the mountain; to what was possibly the last safe place.
The fire popped and crackled, as he gently placed another log in its hot blaze. There was a quiet rap on his door. "Enter." Thranduil said quietly, already knowing who it was and what he wanted. The door opened with a soft click, and then the barely audible sound of leather brushing over stone.
"My King..." came a voice. He did not turn or speak, staying utterly silent, staring into the flickering flame. "It is time."
Those three quiet words. It is time. They held so much power...so little hope. Yet, Thranduil knew he must go, leave again. Flee like a coward to the northern-most reaches of his kingdom, to the last safe place in his realm; deep within the forest to the Hall of Stone. Light from the fire danced across his face in the pale morning light. Wind stirred the air, snuffing out the flame, leaving only a few embers that glowed with their own light. He looked blankly at the gray ash scattered about the coals.
"Thranduil..." The voice again.
He swallowed. "How did it come to this?" He said more to himself then to the other in the room with him and already knowing the answer deep within his heart. It was the Shadow, the Necromancer in the palace of Dol-Guldur. The one that was poisoning the Greenwood...turning it dark and black; rotting it from the inside, turning it into a haunted place of orcs and spiders. And his force was too small and depleted to hold the boarders of his realm, too small and weak. So they must flee.
"Thranduil." Firmer this time.
"I am coming." He said, finally looking up into the grey-green eyes of his general, Gaelûr. "I have no choice." The King turned and with silent tread exited the room, his Captain close behind.
The halls were silent and empty now, their inhabitants gone. The flowers in the courtyards wilted, trees turned gray, leaves falling to cloak the ground. Moss bled darkness, birds no longer sang. Thranduil looked back once, watching as Shadows seemed to seep over the fortress in his absence, darkening the walls, winking out the last lights. Then suddenly he was propelled into a haunted memory that he had lived through hundreds of years ago.
He stood alone, a huge bog dappled with lights stretching before him. Behind him, his horse shifted and snorted anxiously. Thranduil shared the horse's unease, something here in this bog was not right, unsettling. And he knew what exactly what it was, this wasn't called the Dead Marshes for no reason. He knew what haunted their waters, the very vision of his nightmares. Then why had he come here? Part of him wanted leap upon his horse and gallop away from this place forever, try to leave its dark waters behind. But he knew his dreams would not quiet. No. He had come on a strange, wild whim, that if he did indeed come, his mind would find peace once more.
Thranduil stepped forward, the spongy grass and moss sinking below his foot. Looking up he looked at the lights, beckoning to him. 'Come closer, Thranduil, King of the Greenwood.' They seemed to sing. 'Peace you shall find with us…'
His mind fogged slightly and he took another, this time involuntary, step forward, then another. Next thing he knew, Thranduil was standing next to a rush-light and staring into the deep black water, where an elf lay visible, arms crossed peacefully over his chest, blond hair flowing gently in the water. He reached down toward him, fingers splayed and outstretched…and a horse neighed loudly behind him. Thranduil jerked his hand back suddenly at the noise, but still fixed his eyes on the elf in the water. Slowly he stood and made to turn around, but right before he did so, the elf's eyes flew open. Instantly, Thranduil was rigid, staring into the white lifeless and captivating eyes of the elf. On step forward he took once more, toes touching the water, wetness seeping into his boot. He moved as one does in a trance, slow and dreamlike, unaware. Then he had been falling, gracefully as only elves can be.
And...
Then he had woken up in Imladris. No recollection of ever leaving the swamp, being pulled from their bowels Left with only a memory of the icy waters and strong fingers wrapped around his wri-
"King Thranduil?" Gaelûr's uncertain voice sounded by his side, pulling Thranduil from his memory. "We must go if we wish to meet the other's before darkness completely falls."
"Yes, Gaelûr, yes." Murmured the King. "I know." He sent one last glance at the now dark castle, at the pools of inky blackness that almost seeped evil. Just like the Dead Marshes had swallowed his kin and his father, the Darkness would swallow their homeland, only now there would be no lights lit by the Dead, only Darkness. With a soft sigh, Thranduil tore his eyes away from the palace and urged his mount after Gaelûr, tears that he refused to let fall stinging sharply at his eyes.
Gaelûr stayed wisely silent, eyes peering straight ahead into the gathering darkness, sitting straight upon his own horse, moving with the body of the beast beneath him. But it was not a welcomed silence. It was awkward and tense, wary, waiting. The two started at any rustle of a bush or the rare caw of a bird. Any noise was a potential ambush of orcs or spiders. The horses were, too, skittish beneath them, feeling their masters' unease.
"How did it come to this?" Gaelûr asked softly, echoing Thranduil's whispered question, voice still incredibly loud in the quiet, tense forest. "How could the forest go from a place of security and homeliness, to our greatest enemy and fear? What happened?!"
Thranduil let his captain's disrespect go past him, he did not care about that in the moment. Words...that's all they were, no meaning. Nor did he seek to answer his captain's question. He knew that Gaelûr knew the answer as well, he was there hundreds of years ago in the Last Alliance. He knew as well as him, the one reason for this darkness, this suffering.
The Ring, the One Ring of Power. That is what the catalyst to all this sorrow and pain was. Closing his eyes, Thranduil could still see the Lord of Imladris' resigned, grimy face with shining eyes as he gave the news that the ring had not been cast away, the way Elrond had looked at him after glancing down on the dead body of his father, the same sad, hopeless, empty look that he gave when he awoke in Imladris after almost drowning in the Dead Marshes.
His thoughts were again broken by Gaelûr's quiet voice. "As your Kingship began in sorrow, so sorrow remains. Alas, the noose slips ever tighter around us, from around and from within. The Wildmen in the East are ever restless, rumors of Dragons stir the air in the North-lands, the message that the Dwarves in Moria delve too deep and greedily and awoke a Balrog. And the ever lengthening Shadow of Dol-Guldur in the South that stretches ever Northward, forcing us to flee, with depleted forces. Your Kingship is indeed dark, my lord."
Again...words, meager and meaningless, echoing what he already knew in his heart. Thranduil swallowed. "Not all hope is lost." He said hoarsely.
Gaelûr looked sharply at him. "The Queen," he muttered, "is with child, of course." Thranduil did not respond, only looked into the forest ahead, eyes searching for the last company of his to flee to the Stone Halls. Gaelûr, too remained silent, eyes flicking from side to side.
No trouble bothered them that day, nor the next, nor the one after that. It was not until the fifth day for constant rising that the Shadow deepened it hold and cast an uneasy feeling over the two elves.
With worry filled faces, they mounted their horses after a brief half hour rest, and set off on the last leg of their journey. "Only a day's journey to the Halls." Said Gaelûr with a rare smile. Thranduil nodded absentmindedly, still unnerved by the darkness haunting the edge of his mind. His hand gripped his sheathed sword at his side. He searched the forest for unrest and strained ears sought to hear the slightest warning of danger.
There was a skittering noise behind them, instantly Thranduil was more on guard, if that was even possible, hand tightening around the hilt of his sword. Gaelûr readied his bow at his side. The horses pranced beneath them uneasily, snorting loudly. Tension grew even denser as they slowly plodded down the wandering trail, each crackle of leaves or snap of twigs a loud boom of thunder in the silent tension. He looked uneasily around as the trail lead through a rare open spot in the Greenwood. They were uncomfortably exposed here. He urged his horse forward quickly.
"I do not like this place." He muttered to Gaelûr who nodded slightly in agreement. Neither of their hands strayed from their weapons. They again entered the closed in surrounding of trees, but that brought little comfort to Thranduil. Gaelûr was right; the forest was no longer a place of security for them. It had become their enemy. Thranduil tried to relax slightly, loosening his grip on the hilt of his sword. But then, almost as if on cue, the woods exploded with orcs around them.
Thranduil cursed and drew his sword with a ring of metal. He stuck an orc nearest to him through the chest all the while murmuring elvish words to calm his anxious steed. Beside him Gaelûr's bow was swift in loosing arrows into the nearest orcs. The pack was thankfully small, only around a dozen orcs swarmed around them, but they were heavily armed and in their exhausted state, Thranduil and Gaelûr were not in top notch battle condition. Instead they parried blows and tried to create enough damage to gallop away. His people did not need to lose their King again so soon.
The horses reared, neighing like crazy, no amount of elvish magic could calm them. He jumped down off the back of his horse, landing lightly before springing up and landing a fatal blow. The horses pranced off into the forest. He cleaved the head of an orc off in front of him, and used the momentum to turn him and thrust the sword into the heart of the creature behind him. An orc to his side fell to its side, an arrow sprouting from its ear.
The skirmish continued on.
Only five remained...five of the cleverer species of uruk-hai. He could feel his breaths coming in shorter and shorter pants, his limbs weighed down by his sword. Gaelûr had long past ran out of arrows and had drawn his own set of twin knives, beating down three uruks before him, but Thranduil could see the tiredness in the elf's eyes and the forehead creased in worry. He tore his own gaze away and focused on defeating the two uruks on either side of him. His elvish blade clanged loudly with the crude weapons the uruks wielded. Clang, clang, clang... He sloppily blocked another blow. Thranduil winced slightly as a blade cut deep into his left arm.
The skirmish continued on.
Gaelûr had finally killed two of the uruks attacking him with a swift stab to a leg and a fatal blow on the head. But Thranduil could see the other was not going to be weakening any time soon. The wound in his arm bleed heavily making his head feel light, and softening his blows. He slowly maneuvered so that he was back to back with Gaelûr, the final three uruk surrounding them. He suddenly lunged forward plunging the weapon into the uruks head, yanking it out viciously. He swayed slightly with the loss of blood, but staggered back and sloppily slashed at the uruk who was pressing upon Gaelûr, who looked worse for wear with blood running down his face and a gash in his leg. Working together they forced the uruk back against a tree and severed his head off.
Thranduil let out a sigh of relief, but Gaelûr suddenly gasped with wide eyes. "THRANDUIL!" He roared, jumping the few feet between them and pushing the elf to his right. Thranduil barely had time to breathe before the metal blade embedded itself in Gaelûr's stomach. For an agonizing few seconds he could not think, then with a low growl his lunged at the uruk chopping his arm off and then landing a blow on his head. The uruk crumbled to the ground.
He quickly knelt over Gaelûr, taking one pale hand in his own. "Gaelûr..." he breathed. He knew without looking at the wound that there would be no recovery. "Why?" He whispered, a stinging in his eyes. "Why did you take that blow?" He knew the answer already.
Gaelûr coughed, a line of red dribbling from his mouth. "They...need...a...King..." He said faintly. Thranduil wiped the blood off Gaelûr's face with the edge of his tunic, unshod tears glinting at the corners of his eyes. "Don't...ever...loose...hope..." Gaelûr said furiously. With one last movement, Gaelûr heavily placed his knives in Thranduil's hands. "Hope..." he whispered one last time, before letting out a long breath and staring eternally off into the distance.
Thranduil simply keeled at his side in shocked. Gaelûr was gone...GONE! He had been there from the beginning of the Alliance...through the troubles of the Greenwood and just like that...one blow, one mistake and he was gone. And the biggest thing...it was all his fault. If he hadn't forgotten about the last , forgotten to look behind him...then Gaelûr wouldn't have needed to take the blade for him. He bowed his head over the still form and for the second time in a millennium, Thranduil cried.
Elves stared as the King entered solemnly into the hall, covered in blood, holding a wrapped cloth around on arm and a masked face, clear of any emotion. Whispers echoed of the smooth rock walls, several bowed their heads as brief signs of respect. But Thranduil was oblivious to everything, not thinking, not knowing anything...just knowing he had to keep his sorrow and pain locked up inside and throw away the key. They need a King, Gaelûr had said, and a King he must be.
"My King?" A voice to his left, Saerthor. He looked at the soldier who would now become his general. "Where is Gaelûr?" He swallowed slightly, still remembering the fierce look in his eyes as Gaelûr had pushed him out of the range of the crude metal... "Thranduil?"
"He has sailed on to the Valar." He said finally in a hoarse voice, looking into his dark green eyes. He watched as Saerthor processed the information, his own face an eerie mask of calm.
Surprise, horror, shock flitted quickly across Saerthor's face. "Then...I..." He didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't have to.
Thranduil gave one sharp nod. "Yes." The new captain fell silent, falling in step next his King as they continued deeper into the Halls of Stone.
Thranduil made to go to his chambers, but Saerthor held up a hand slightly, looking worried. "We must get you to the healers." He looked pointedly at Thranduil's arm, a large visible bloodstain now seeping through the makeshift bandage. Thranduil sighed, knowing he was right. He turned and walked the other direction, following paths he had not trod on for more than a few thousand years.
"When did you arrive?" He asked, breaking the silence.
"Four days past, my King."
"Did you encounter much trouble on the journey here?"
Saerthor nodded. "A little, my King. We were ambushed by a couple giant spiders. A few were wounded, the Queen escaped unscathed." Thranduil heaved a small sigh of relief, before the two feel silent again, walking deeper into the Halls. Soft leather scuffled with quiet noises against the smooth stone of the hallways, not so different from the sound of Gaelûr's footsteps as he came to fetch him when it was time to go.
Grey-green eyes as the light faded from them...
Blood, red as the morning sun, that spilled from the wound...
The heavily press of Gaelûr's treasured knives in his hand...
The fragile skin of eyelids as he had closed the elf's eyes...
The silver tears that had skidded down his own face...
"King Thranduil." Not for the first time, Thranduil was jerked from the path of memories to roughly face the present. A wooden door with a silver knob was in front of him, the healer's quarters. He reached for the handle, but before he could do so, the door banged open. A young elleth ran out and collided hard with the bloody Thranduil.
"Goheno-nin, forgive me, si-" she started to say before looking up. Letting out a gasp at the sight of her King she bowed her head. "King Thranduil, my deepest apologies." She muttered. "I was just sent to retrieve you, what impeccable timing."
"Why?" Asked Thranduil, confused and shifting his grip on his blood soaked bandage.
"It's Queen Rínel, she's started to go into labor." Stammered the elleth, still staring at her words were barely out of her mouth when Thranduil pushed roughly past her and into the room beyond. Several elves looked up in surprise from tending the few elves that sat scattered around the room. One holding a tray of food and drink, placed it in front of a young elf that nursed a bulky bandage around his leg and scars on one cheek, and then approached the King.
"Thranduil, here come, come sit." She said motioning to a bed in the corner and pulling cloths from her apron. "Let me look at that arm."
Thranduil didn't move. "Let me see her." He said firmly. "Let me see her!" He yelled when the healer made no move.
"Thranduil, maybe yo-" started Saerthor from behind him.
But he cut across him. "Let me the see the queen." He said, low and threatening.
The healer swallowed then nodded and turned. "Follow me, Thranduil." She mumbled. Saerthor followed the two shaking his head. That King was more stubborn than a dwarf.
The trio entered a small room only lit by one torch in the corner. Another young elleth sat beside a bed, gently wiping the queen's face with a white cloth and murmuring gently in elvish. The healer made sure she didn't need anything before nodding once at the King and leaving the room. Saerthor shifted anxiously in the doorway. Queen Rínel lay, eyes closed, gasping for breath against the pillows, her silvery black hair that seemed to glow in the pale torchlight was damp with sweat as beads of perspiration ran down her neck. Thranduil forgot the pain in his arm as he ran to kneel at his wife's side. The elleth retreated from the bedside giving them a little space, but her eyes still watching the Queen carefully.
"Rínel." He said, taking a limp pale hand. "Breath."
Her eyes opened, revealing deep grey eyes solid starlight. "Thranduil," she gasped, "You're here." Her eyes flicking down to his arm. "You're hurt."
"Shhh...don't worry about me, melleth-nin. I am fine." Murmured Thranduil, not noticing his blood dripping onto the stone floor. "Worry only about you. Only you." He pulled stray hairs off her face, taking the cloth from the elleth, and tenderly wiping her face. "You hold the hope for all of us." He whispered, kissing her temple and backing away a few steps to sit on the floor against the wall.
Saerthor finally spoke. "Thranduil, you should come and let someone look at your wound." He said hesitantly.
Thranduil looked up with tired eyes. "I'm not leaving, Saerthor." He said, suddenly weary, but still putting a hint of steel into his voice. "I am staying here."
Saerthor looked like he was about to object, but he took one last look at the King wearily leaning against the wall and decided against it. Instead he nodded and turned to fetch a healer. Thranduil watched him leave with tired eyes, before focusing once more on the figure on the bed. His vision blurred at the edges, black spots suddenly dancing in his vision. In a sudden bout of drowsiness, he leaned his head back against the wall, shutting his eyes. Only for a moment. He told himself. Rest for a minute. But measurable time faded from his mind, leaving the impression of nothing.
Sometimes the impression of things arose, but they were but mere dreams to him. A prickle of pain in his arm. Damp cold feeling of water on his skin. Nothing but the shadow of a dream.
The King slept soundly for the first time in over a thousand years, hundreds of years of weariness, pain, and living finally catching up to him. His eyes blinked open, unsure how much time had passed. He was no longer on the floor of the room, but on a thin mattress of leaves and a thick wool blanket covered him. The torch had grown dim and the elleth sat with her head lolled back in a graceful sleep. There was a clean white cloth around his forearm and the gentle pull of stiches as he flexed his hand. The Queen had too fallen asleep, sweat still dampening her forehead. All seemed calm and Thranduil returned to a drowsy state of waking dreams.
Rínel suddenly screamed a bloodcurdling scream that awoke both the dosing elleth and Thranduil from their dreams. The piercing sound bounced off the smooth cave walls, amplifying with each reverberation. Thranduil nearly dived to the Queen's side. She panted heavily, clutching his hand like a lifeline. "It...has...begun." She managed to get out. The elleth ran out of the room, yelling for the healers, while Thranduil kept up a stream of constant calming elvish words like a never ending song.
Three healers rushed into the small room. "My King, we're going have to ask you to leave." One said hesitantly. "We cannot work with all of us in here."
Thranduil met the pleading eyes of the healer, than Rínel's pain filled ones. "Go..." she hissed. "I'm...fine..."
He hesitated. Finally he nodded, to the healers' relief. "Gi melin." I love you. He whispered in her ear, before pressing his lips gently to hers. With a small smile he left go her hand, and turned to leave. "Verya." Brave. He said over his shoulder. "Melleth-nin." My love.
He paced the floor outside the door, hands clenched, ignoring the fresh pangs of pain in his arm. Eternity passed. He sent glances at the closed door, flinching at every scream that pierced his ears. Blood ran down his arm as his hands clenched tightly and then unclenched only to return to fists a second later. Healers tried to make him sit, let them tend to him. After a few heated moments he obliged, sitting on an offered chair. One of them cleaned the wound with a stinging liquid before smearing a brown-red paste over the stitches and rewrapping the cloth around it. His eyes never left the closed door that he knew Rínel was behind. Thranduil stood once again, pacing the length of the room.
He was offered new robes, in replace of his bloodied ones, still having his weapons belted at his waist. How he slept with them on, he had no clue. But he paid no heed to the offerings, instead standing a silent vigil alone at the door. He stood as still as a statue, a part of the rock wall itself, undistinguished. Thranduil could have been standing there for a hundred years or only a few minutes...he could not tell the time that passed, only that it felt like the ages of eternity.
Finally, the door opened. A young elleth with a bloodied apron stepped outside. She inclined her head with a tiny smile to the King. "King Thranduil, you have a son..." but something was wrong...Thranduil knew. Her smile did not reach her eyes that shined with wetness, and a heavy sadness tinged her voice.
"What happened?" Demanded Thranduil. "What went wrong?"
She swallowed. "The Queen was very weak, my King...the healing herbs we gave her did not work as they should have." She blinked, a few tears running down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Thranduil...forgive me." She whispered in a choked voice. "I'm sorry!" She fell against the wall, sliding to the floor, head buried in her hands as her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Was...as in the past...something that once was. The truth hit him like a violent gust of wind. He had lost someone he had loved...again. His father, Gaelûr, now Rínel. Was there no end to this suffering? Thranduil silently trailed a comforting hand over the crying elleth's shoulder before taking a deep calming breath and pushing the door open.
One healer sat on the thin mattress, gently rocking a small babe in her arms. The other smoothed a sheet over the Queen's body. Both looked up as he entered. They started to speak, but Thranduil held up a silencing hand. He quietly walked over to the bed, staring at the covered figure for a few moments before gently folding back the sheet. Rínel looked graceful and beautiful in death as she had in life. He hesitantly covered one of her still warm hands, crossed over her chest, with his own.
"Last words?" He asked roughly, feeling the all too familiar press of tears in his eyes. "What did she say?"
The healer holding the babe spoke up gently. "She told us that she..." the healer's voice broke suddenly.
"She loved you like no other and...and your son is the new leaf on a dead tree." Finished the other through his own clogged voice.
"A new leaf." echoed Thranduil blankly, still looking intently at Rínel's peaceful face, a single tear meandering down his own face. He suddenly looked up. "She didn't name him?" The two shook their heads.
"No, my King."
"New leaf, Green leaf," mused Thranduil, as a second tear joined the first. "Laeg and golas, Green Leaves. Legolas." He muttered absent mindedly.
He blinked again quickly, more tears escaping from his eyes, his gaze returning to Rínel's still face. "Guren níniatha n'i lû n'i a-govenitham." My heart shall weep until I see you again. He whispered. Thranduil stood a bit longer, oblivious to the others around him. He allowed himself to freely weep, before drying his face on his already bloody sleeve, then looking up tears still glistening in his eyes. The room was dead silent. The healer looking awkwardly away, trying to hide his own tears. The elleth held Legolas, his son, gently, who was calmly lying with his eyes closed. Thranduil choked back more tears, holding Rínel's now cold hand. Sighing in reluctance, he withdrew his hand and gently covered her with the sheet again. Bowing with a hand over his heart. "Novaer, Melleth-nin." Farewell, my love.
He turned to leave, but something, some magnetic pull, made him turn back and look. His gaze strayed to Legolas, his newborn son, who suddenly opened his eyes and stared solemnly back at Thranduil. His breath caught. He would know those eyes anywhere, silver like solid starlight, gray like the fog that wrapped the Mirkwood at night, haunted yet kind, Rínel's eyes. Thranduil turned, unnerved, and walked slowly from the room, all the time feeling the gaze of those all-too-familiar eyes at his back.
Thranduil entered his chambers, half expecting to see Rínel lounging on the bed with a seductive smile gracing her lips. Ready to take his hand, mindless of the blood on clothes and the smell of sweat on his skin. Her nimble fingers caressing his face, threading through his hair...Thranduil shook his head of the fantasy and faced his chambers now cold and alone. He knelt at the grate of the fireplace, where a weak flame danced. He piled more wood on the flame, coxing it to dance a little higher and sing a little brighter. Tendrils of warmth enveloped him as he stood. The belt with weapons clattered to the stone floor, Gaelûr's twin blades spinning across the slick surface. Thranduil didn't stoop to pick them up. His fingers worked at the ties of his tunic, the leather stained with a mixture of Gaelûr's and Rínel's blood. The soft leather fell to heap at his feet. Anger overwhelmed his senses, abruptly, as he bit back a scream and kicked the lifeless piece of clothing aside. His gaze lit upon a plate of food set on the low table beside the bed, or rather his eyes drew a line to the glass bottle next to the tray.
Wine.
The amber liquid inside sloshed loudly as he grabbed it from its place. It wasn't good, it wasn't healthy, it wasn't rational; but then nothing was rational in Thranduil's mind as the cork came off the bottle and the lip of the bottle brought to his mouth. The liquid seared down his throat, burning a path down through his chest and pooling in his stomach. The bottle tipped back again; another searing mouthful of liquor making its way through his body.
The bottle was emptied far too soon. Thranduil's numb fingers loosened around the glass neck and the bottle smashed into fragments as it collided with the ground. The noise seemed a million miles away to him as he gazed around the room, seeing only blurred objects. Then he was falling, the walls titling around him. Then pain as his body crashed into something...then nothing, blank nothingness.
He was alone. Everything was white and sterile. Then the floor beneath his feet shifted and he was high above Greenwood; still pure and light and alive. Then as he watched, a dark shadow seeped from the south, eating its way up the forest until it was rendered black, like pitch. Then he was falling again, the black forest rushing up to meet him in a swirl of dark colors. With a dull thud he landed atop something soft and warm. Thranduil stood, something squelching beneath his feet. With dreading eyes, he looked down. An elf lay under his foot, bleeding profusely, still alive. With a cry, he nimbly jumped off the body, only to realize he stood atop a huge heap of bodies, some still alive others mangled beyond death. The Greenwood army lay slain before and around him, armor melted, bodies burned. Not one was going to live. He knew that in his heart.
Where was he? Thranduil weaved through the maze of elfin bodies, eerily similar to the Last Alliance made between elves and men. The battlefield had been like this. Hopeless, carnage, despair. He turned full circle again, at last facing the doors of a mighty mountain kingdom. The doors were smashed, statues ruined; smoke rose from the mangled entrance, idly curling in the wind. Damage that could have only been wrought by a mighty dragon.
Erebor. The name of the mighty dwarf kingdom to the North fell from his lips. Erebor.
Thranduil jolted awake to his cold chambers, alone. He was lying on his bed, the glass shatters on the floor cleaned up. The tunic and belt hung upon a chair. A faint pounding in the back of his mind reminded him of the liquor he drank a while ago. Tears prickled at his eyes at the remembrance of his drunken dream. All that carnage, in addition to the fresh deaths of Rínel and Gaelûr and the death of his father, Oropher. As he lay there, Thranduil sighed softly suddenly coming to a conclusion that had been dwelling in the back of his mind. Suffering. This suffering had to stop, for his own people at least. Their race would not come to such a bitter end that he had seen in his dream. They were already depleted in army warriors, they alone were barely and in some cases not enough to hold their now tiny territory...
Thranduil shook his head suddenly, he was being foolish; influenced by such a simple and small dream he had when he was drunk. He swung himself off the bed and donned a clean tunic and cinched a belt tight around his waist. He stepped out of his chambers; leaving the nightmare of a dream far behind. It was not until nearly a hundred years later that this drunken dream came to mean anything to him.
Thranduil blinked in shocked surprise, hold his hand up to halt the still depleted Mirkwood army. His eyes gazed upon the destroyed entrance to Erebor, the dwarves streaming from the ruined gate. The smoke that curled in lazy wisps from the fragmented stone triggered the memory afresh. The carnage. The blood. The death. No matter how much Thranduil had tried, that nightmare had returned, replacing the one of the Dead Marshes. And now it was about to be real...or would it. Thranduil looked torn at the flood of dwarves finally settling his gaze on one, Thorin the grandson of the King under the mountain.
Thorin waved his arm in despair at the Elvenking atop his elk. "Help us! Thranduil, help us!"
The King stared, with an emotionless face, but underneath this blank face was a turmoil of thoughts. He knew what the outcome of this battle would be. If he led the elves in a mighty torrent down the hill and into Erebor. The pain and suffering that would ensue...the death that would lay upon his shoulders. He took one last look into the faraway eyes of Thorin and steeled his resolve. He could not protect his father, nor his Captain, not even his wife from death. But he could protect his people. They were all he had left and he would not risk needless lives in an un-victorious battle. One sigh, then a turn of his head, and the army turned as one, flooding back across the fields like water seeping back into the parched earth.
Thranduil did not look back, but he knew if he did he would see Thorin's fallen face and the suffering he had turned his back upon. But he too had faced the suffering of the Dwarves. He knew what it was like to be driven from your homeland...to watch it be poisoned while watching with our own eyes. And he would have no more of it.
The King would have no more suffering.
Name Meanings
Thranduil = vigorous spring
Gaelûr = glimmering fire
Saerthor = bitter forest
Rínel = Crowned Star
Legolas = Green leaf
elleth = an elf-maid in Sindarin Elvish
Wow…that's finally done. I've wanted to do that for a while now…and yes I did draw inspiration off a similar story, A King's Troubles. I'm truly sorry if it sounds like I'm copying them. It wasn't supposed to turn out that way. Also, those of you who have read the book (like me!), please don't ridicule or make some smart comment about Thranduil helping in the Battle of the Five armies because he wasn't really helping the DWARVES during that.
But please, if you have a moment to spare, drop a review. It would mean the world to me!