Faerthurin was not always known as the sleeping elf. In her early youth she was known as Faerthurin, though occasionally referred to simply as Fae by those closest to her. She was once referred to as goeol tass, or terrible trouble, by King Oropher. To many elves she had been known as a wild woodland elf that did not conform to social custom. To one elf, she had been known as melethril. To Thranduil it had never mattered that his father did not approve of the rogue elf, and to Thranduil it was the most painful to refer to her as the sleeping elf though he would never speak of such a thing to another elf. He remembered her best when he stood in starlight, as that had been were he had first seen her, and how he would always remember her now.

It was not spoken of that more than two thousand years prior Thranduil had been a young prince in the woodland realm that had been as free roaming as the female elf that now slept. It was not mentioned that before ascending to the thrown upon the death of his father, that Thranduil had for a time abandoned what would become his legacy, forsaking his royal title to chase after an elf that he loved, but that was not beloved by his father. The people of Mirkwood nee Greenwood simply did not mention that until returning from the spirit journey he had taken with Faerthurin Thranduil had been warm, soft, full of risk taking and joy. Before he lay down in the wood, against the word of his father, to sleep and to journey through other lands and realms with the spirit of the girl he had called melethril, Thranduil had been kind.

But then Thranduil had awoke, and Faerthurin had not. They had journeyed in what could only be called Menel but they had felt trouble upon the connection between their physical bodies and their journeying spirits. So despite the fact that they might both be cast out, though Faerthurin surely would, the pair of them had agreed to return to Greenwood. They had agreed that they would awake, and that Thranduil would join his father for the Battle of Dagorlad despite the protest he had offered before running away with Faerthurin and that at the end of the battle they would beseech the king for approval of their love and they would marry.

It had been Faerthurin that had demanded the king's approval. For had she not, Thranduil would have taken her in the spirit realm and they would have returned to Middle Earth already married. She could not bring herself to splinter a family; not like hers had been splintered when her own mother had gone to the Undying Lands far too early at the brutal hand of an Orc and her father had followed soon after. She would not allow Thranduil to harm his father in such a way he might consider taking such a journey not matter how much she loved him.

But then Thranduil awoke and Fearthurin did not, and he could not remember how deep her love had run. She continued to sleep despite his pleas, and an anger began to grow in him that she would leave him so alone and in such a troubled time. He knew not why she remained in the spirit realm, and he found he was unable to cross the realms again to find her. So he took her behind the walls of his father's kingdom. Upon their return Oropher called her sleep fael, he thought it a just punishment for her trespasses. Thranduil thought it to be gwanath, surely he was dying.

The elves went off to war, and Faerthurin, now the sleeping elf, remained behind on her bed of moss beneath the tallest tree were Thranduil knew she would have liked to rest. She rested there, but did not appear to age or decay for many years. She slept long under that tree. She slept through the death of Oropher and the crowning of Thranduil. She slept through the changing of Greenwood to Mirkwood. She slept through the many visitors that came to Thranduil's kingdom as well as the many visitors that came to her place of rest as she came to be known as a symbol of luck and prosperity under the peaceful rule of the Elvenking who had brought her there to rest.

The people of Mirkwood knew her only as the sleeping elf. They did not know of her trials and tribulations in the realm in which she was trapped. They did not know of that dark magic of another plane that kept her locked out of her body and forced her to sleep on in her home world while she fought for her life in another. They did not know of how she pined for her melethron, or how she nearly returned to the Undying Lands in the same fashion as her mother had when a wild man in the realm she lived in tried to take what she was saving for Thranduil by force. They knew nothing of her troubles, and instead honored her as if she were a shrine. While she fought on, desperate to return home, they enacted an annual tradition in which the female elves came to her as one and washed her, and dressed her long blonde hair with the brightest blooming flowers of that spring season in an effort to bring good fortune to their kingdom.

In the beginning Thranduil had demanded that all of the flowers in her hair be in shades of purple, so they might match the distinctive hue her eyes had held when they had once been open. He had always come after the ceremony to look upon the sleeping elf in a possessive and protective way before leaving her to rest for another year. Only once did a young elf girl who had lingered long after the ceremony here him say the word melethril to the sleeping woman.

It was oft wondered by the older elves that watched Thranduil turn his back on the female elf if more damage had been done to him by the Serpents of the North than he realized. His burned visage had long ago healed, and yet he was not the same. One elder female elf had the audacity to say aloud, though only to the sleeping elf, that she remembered what Thranduil had been like with her and she believed that he would not be the king with the hidden dragon burns if she were here now.

But as time passed, the king no longer visited the sleeping elf. He no longer attended any part of the ceremony, nor did he indeed even sanction it. There were stubborn elves of course, they stole flowers and enacted their ritual of renewal as if it were an act of rebellion against the king who slowly grew colder. In the thousands of years that passed between the time that the sleeping elf was brought to rest beneath the tallest tree and the time in which much of the kingdom of Mirkwood had forgotten that she even existed Thranduil changed from the man that Faerthurin had known in her youth to someone she could never truly know. Much as she had changed while trapped in the spirit realm.

It seemed nothing would ever be the same, and then the dark magic that held Faerthurin in place was broken. On the cusp of daybreak, with no one to see, the sleeping elf opened her eyes and for a moment just took in the simple joy of staring at the tallest tree in the woodland realm, but then she reached for Thranduil. She had gone to sleep with him at her side, and she hoped that time had passed differently for their bodies and the hundreds of years she had spent in the darkest of worlds had been but the blink of an eye here in Middle Earth.

Alas her hands brushed empty grass and she rolled onto her side to observe that she was alone. Surrounded by mounds of flowers, some growing wild, and some strewn about her artistically by someone who had clearly plucked them in their prime. She found that she was wearing a gauzy white gown, very much unlike the handmade clothes from her mother than she had worn when she ran with Thranduil. Her perfectly made and broken in leather boots were gone and instead her bare feet rested in the grass and flowers when she stood. She reached up a shaking hand to feel a crown of flowers woven intricately into her hair and she felt dizzy with her confusion and her curiosity. There were a jumble of thoughts in her mind but they all spiraled around to her most basic need to find her melethron. Where was Thranduil?

And so while the elfish community was just beginning to wake, the sleeping elf began to wander familiar lands that were the same and yet had changed greatly. She noticed that trees that had been in their youth when she went to sleep had grown tall and strong and it made her heart beat faster. How long had she slept? Just as she crested a particularly steep slope within the forests of the kingdom she caught sight of a lithe elf moving swiftly through the trees with a bow strapped to his back and his long blonde hair flying free in the wind as he ran. Faerthurin knew this must be Thranduil. He still had the free and happy gait that he had kept when they ran together so many days ago. A happy giggle bubbled up in her throat as she began to run after her lover.

It was not a long chase. The elf clearly knew he was being chased, and led her directly to the palace. Despite her fear of Oropher she followed because she had made a promise to Thranduil, but she came up short with her air trapped inside her lungs when the elf turned on her with bow in hand and an arrow knocked for attack. The two elves froze in place, and Faerthurin was heartsick at the realization that this was not her Thranduil.

"The sleeping elf awakes," the young elf gasped, stowing his arrow and returning his bow to it's previous home. "You must see the king immediately."

Faerthurin could not speak. The sleeping elf? Was that his name for her? She was confused by his words, and enraptured by his long blonde hair and his piercing blue eyes. He looked so much like her Thranduil that it pained her. She found herself nodding that yes she would like to be taken to the king, because where the king was so likely would his son be.

This young elf was suddenly mae with her; taking her hand gently in his and walking her toward where she knew the throne room would lay. His softness both soothed and worried her, but she did not speak of it. Instead she simply put one foot in front of the other and followed this elf that she intrinsically knew to be not much more than a child to where he said the king would be.

Faerthurin had seen the throne room once before, when king Oropher had called upon her to visit so he might berate her for her distractions to the prince. It had looked very different then. There were still the many stone steps leading up the where the throne lay, but it was no longer a simple chair covered in many pelts of animals. No the throne was something grand now, adorned with the horns of a great animal, she suspected elk, and the pelts were no more. Instead it was covered with the orange silken cape of the king. A king who was standing on the edge of the dais his throne sat upon, staring off into the distance as if lost in thought.

Faerthurin's steps faltered at the sight of the long blonde hair that was broken only by a crown of the berries and leaves of autumn. Even with a crown upon the head as she had never seen, she knew who she was looking upon. She understood her mistake with the elf at her side, it could never have been Thranduil, but this could be no one other than he. As the pair of them stepped off of the last step and until the same platform as the king he turned, and though she recognized all of the separate features on his face she did not recognize the hard expression they were arranged in.

"Ada, the sleeping elf has woken," the young elf spoke quietly. "I brought her as soon as I discovered her."

"Leave us Legolas," Thranduil said with a dismissive wave, though his blue eyes, once so full or mirth but now frozen like the thickest ice never left hers.

Faerthurin could hardly stand to hold his gaze as the words of the young elf washed over her however. Nothing had been spoken of it, and yet one little world had made so much of the time she had been away clear to her and she was devastated. Her mind sought to find the word and yet she did not know if it existed hun ruin came to mind as it felt like her heart might actually be burning.

"Thranduil," she choked, her voice barely louder than a gentle breeze in the trees.

"Faerthurin," he said in a deep voice that had gained such grace as it had aged and yet it pained her so to hear it. "I did not believe you would ever wake."

"That much is terribly clear," she whispered, painfully aware of the way her body began to tremble. "That young elf… he was your son?"

"Yes," he said succinctly, his eyes showing no emotion, least of all the pain she would have liked to see upon his admittance that he had left her so completely. "The kingdom of Mirkwood should have need of a king should I ever die. It was my responsibility to provide an heir."

"Mirkwood," she said with a question in her voice though she did not give it words. "Yes that is a well given name for a land that feels as dark as this one."

Thranduil said nothing, but took one graceful step closer to Faerthurin which caused a convulsion of sorts to run through her body as the shaking overtook her so greatly. She was forced to step down onto the first step at the base of the dais to put a safe distance between the two of them that would allow her to stop trembling altogether.

"I have misunderstood many things," she whispered. "I was a fool to believe you would wait for me simply because I spoke the word melethron."

For the first time she saw emotion on his face. For a moment there was anger, then a deep pain, and then before her eyes his face began to change. The pristine and icy features gave way to a face that had been warped by injury. One of his beautiful blue eyes turned white and scars bloomed before her eyes. She understood that she had upset him so deeply that he had let his pain show to her in a physical way and it stunned her. She wanted to trace her fingers over what she believed must surely be what remained of burns and ask him how he had been hurt, but she could not move. She could not touch him knowing the way it would destroy what was left of her heart all too quickly. So she stayed on the stair and slowly his face returned to what it had been before and he held her in place with a painful sneer on his face.

"I waited for you for thousands of years Faethurin," he spoke with a smooth voice that felt like a dagger in her stomach. "I waited beyond the death of my father, and the rebirth of my kingdom. I waited beyond the spring for so many years I find myself unable to count them, but you never came back to me. I stood in the starlight calling out to anyone who would listen for you to wake but you would never do so. And so after three thousand years of waiting I took a wife so I might produce an heir, and because of the way you have cursed me she died in childbirth. That, rather than the night I laid with her to provide for my kingdom, was the last day that I waited for you!"

"I tried to come to you for so many years Thranduil," Fearthurin said, looking down at the ground rather than meet his icy glare. "I fought through two different wars in the accursed land I became trapped in due to dark magics when we tried to come home, and every day my thoughts were only ever of you. I prayed to every star to bring me back to you, and though it seems time passed differently for each of us, those hundreds of years may as well have been thousands for me for how long they were without you."

"Do not presume to compare our experiences," he spat, and for the first time she recognized the boy she had known in his voice, it was present in the pain that broke loose and ran free.

"I can never know of the pain you have experienced," she whispered. "I do not know of what was done to your face. I do not know how you grieved the loss of your father, as surely it was different than mine. But I think I might understand of the pain you experienced when you lost your wife."

"You cannot begin to understand," he hissed. "You do not know what I have endured for my kingdom while you frolicked about in the spirit realm."

"I did not frolic Thranduil," she said, her voice never loosing the softness that made it nearly impossible to hear in the vast throne room that swallowed sound whole. "I fell from Menel when I tried to follow you home and I was trapped by dark magic in a land torn by war. I was hunted and injured many times, I was persecuted for simply being alive, a-and I was very nearly torn asunder in the same way as my mother, but I fought on everyday with thoughts of you in my heart. Despite the hate you might feel for me now, it will remain so until my last breath Aran Nin."

Thranduil looked as it he would like to have said more to her, or perhaps yelled it at her, but Faerthurin could take no more. She felt it keenly as each individual chamber of her heart died from the great pain she was experiencing. She had no desire to even wait for the starlight of this land that she had also craved for many years. No she had no want for anything other than to return to the tallest tree at which she had awoken.

She did not know of this new world in her own home. She did not know of this cold man that had replaced the carefree boy she had once run through the trees with. She knew of nothing other than that she was suddenly filled with perfect understanding of why her father had faded. Somehow she thought this might be worse, because she knew she would fade too as if her soul mate had died, but he still lived. Somehow that was more painful still.

As she made her way back out into the woods she passed the elf she now knew to be named Legolas and it was like a lance through her heart. Of course that beautiful elf had looked like Thranduil to her, he was his son. She tore her eyes from him when she felt the tears begin to burn in them, and she turned her back on him when it seemed he might speak.

She was aware of the gentle sound of his footfalls following her back to the tallest tree, but he did not disturb her with speech. He seemed content to be a silent witness as she returned to her place in the center of the mound of vibrant flowers. Despite the overwhelming pain that was overtaking her, that was surely visible to him or anyone else who might be watching, she managed to produce one last act with her dying magic and she changed the flowers around her to be shades of purple while she lay amongst them. It seemed to her that this was the way it should be when she left for good. She was not aware of how this struck a chord with the young elf named Legolas and sent him running to fetch his father. She was not aware of anything other than the feeling of the flowers under her fingers as she came to rest on the ground once more, the view of the brightening sky filtering down through the aged branches above her, and the horrible pain that was surely the sensation of her fae splintering into smaller and smaller pieces.

The sleeping elf closed her eyes one final time, not at all aware of the sound of two pairs of feet running toward her. She let go of the tight hold she had on the hot dagger in her chest that tethered her to the living realm and she gave herself over to the Undying Lands with a deep sadness being slowly traded for the desire to join her parents again.

Faerthurin faded out of existence just as Thranduil returned to the tree he had not set eyes on in over three thousand years. Those hard blue eyes that had looked at her with such malice softened into something much more vulnerable as he came to kneel amongst the purple flowers and run a shaking hand over the white gauzy dress that was no longer suspended over a body. Legolas was the only witness to the great tears that overtook the king who never seemed to show emotion.

"Who was she?" Legolas asked his weeping father as he came to kneel beside him, and placed his hand upon his back in a soothing gesture than had never been shared between the two elves.

"Melethrin nin," the Elvenking choked through his tears as he lay forward to press his face against the empty white gown, inexplicably reminded of the gems of white stone he had tried to claim from the king under the mountain the last time he had allowed himself to think of Faerthurin with longing. "Ilma elda nin."

Melethril, melethron: lover (female and male versions)

Menel: Heaven

fael:just

Gwanath: death

mae: soft

Ada: father

hun ruin:heart fire

aran nin: my king

Melethrin nin: My love

Ilma elda nin: my starlight elf