Hello, dearest readers. I give you the start of what I hope will be an emotional roller coaster XD But truly, a heartfelt story with a touch of whimsy and a lot of plot blank fillers. Centered mainly around Legolas, but it will feature beloved friends like Elrond, his children, Bard and his children, Tauriel, Gimli, Aragorn, and of course a few enemies and a few lovers.

Note: THIS IS NOT A ROMANCE. GOSH NO. But you have to understand that it will have romance in it. It is hardly a dominant plot, but it may take over a chapter here and there. Pairings are Legolas/OC, Thranduil/OC, Elladan/OC, and Tauriel/OC. All are subplots. NO MARY-SUES! If you feel that I am edging towards that horrificness, TELL ME AT ONCE.

And of course...REVIEWS ARE MY LIFE!

_

Chapter One~A Void

He rounds the corner and looks right at me, but he keeps walking, acknowledging me and rejecting me at the same time.

"I cannot stay..." His three words resound in my head and stay there. Throbbing. Revolving. His face reminds me of one I see everyday, when I close my doors behind me at the end of the day and face myself in the mirror. The face that I wore for the first time when I searched for my wife and could not find her. I had never found her.

All these centuries later and still I seemed to be looking for her everywhere.

"Where will you go?" I say desperately, turning to look as he turns his back and strides away. He pauses. Thank heaven. And looks back at me. I know before he says anything that he doesn't know and doesn't really care.

"Go north." The words spill from my lips. I explain to him about Estel, Elrond's fascinating foster-son, but I am focused on his face. Hope begins to dawn behind the bitterness in his eyes and the grime on his skin, but there is nothing there for me. He seeks adventure and friendship and new lands.

Not a father.

And it comes to me that all the time I looked for my wife, my love, I never once looked back for my son.

...Perhaps I did. In the very beginning. But I soon left him behind. My wife had taken the heart of a husband with her into the fire, and I had taken upon the mantle of a king, somehow casting aside my father's heart as I did.

Ion-nín...

He is nodding, and again he goes to leave.

I cannot, I must not let him go like this. He has to understand...

But it is too much to explain in so little time. He will not forgive me if I lie or say it swiftly. And so I tell him the only sweet, comforting little truth I know.

"Legolas!"

He turns one last time to observe me, looking slightly angry and as cold as ever. Has it always been like this-Ai it hurts-between us?

"Your mother loved you. More than anything. More than life itself."

For the merest second, the tiniest fraction of time, the walls behind his eyes lift, revealing pain and hurt and hope and love and an agony and longing that match mine-and then they slam down again. Maybe I imagine the slight smile curling his lips? And he nods and turns his back on me for the last time.

I wonder if I will ever see his face again...and my last, most passionate wish rises up in me, erupting through the shell of ice I have let spread over my heart, up my chest and throat, touching my lips...and stops. It will not come out as spoken words, and hides inside me as a thought, a prayer.

...Come back to me, meleth-ion-nín. Saes...come back to me...

He's gone.

I blink hard and discover that I am on the verge of tears. It has been many years under green trees and black shadows since I allowed myself the luxury of tears.

I too turn my back and walk away, this time towards the only other person who has come close to touching my heart in all this time. Tauriel.

If times had been different...if I were different...I might have called her iel-nín, my daughter, but as it was I had taken her under my wing and given her the chance to be the first ranking elleth outside palace walls. Females had populated my fighting forces for time out of mind, but Tauriel had been the first to become a ranking member of the Guard. Mordilwen had been the first ranking elleth, but only as a palace guard. My patrols were different...fiercer...in more danger.

I quickened my pace and came out onto a flat ledge of stone.

The young dwarf. Thorin's youngest nephew...Kili?...was lying dead across the stones, eyes open, a violent wound through his abdomen. One hand was outstretched, and next to him sat my Captain of Guard. She was crying, and one slim hand covered her stomach. Wounded. Badly, but not fatally.

I felt pity rise up in me, and nearly writhed with it, for how long had it been since I felt pity? But when the elleth looked up at me, trembling, I felt my face soften. I breathed out, and she gasped out the question I knew the answer to...all too well.

"Why?" Her red hair flutters softly around her face, the grime against her pale skin making her green eyes glitter. "If this is love I do not want it. Take it away from me...please."

She was treading the same path I had. The disbelief, the rejection, the plea for nothingness...and then...

"Why does it hurt so much?" She gasps out.

And I give her the answer I had come to terms with slowly, and the one I had denied her earlier.

"Because it was real."

My wife was gone, my Captain and surrogate daughter destroyed, and my only son vanished into the North.

What was there to hope for?

What was left for me? Thranduil, King of Eryn-Lasgalen, Lord of Mirkwood, Son of Oropher, Husband of Melwen, Father of Legolas?

Elvish Translations:

Ion-nín ~ my son

Meleth~ n. Love adj. Beloved

Saes ~ Please

Eryn-Lasgalen ~ Kingdom of Green-leaves

Iel-nin ~ my daughter

Elleth ~ female elf (plural is ellyth)

PLEASE REVIEW. I can never bear to post another chapter if I think people are disgusted with my writing :)