SA3434
The hosts of Silvan elves had shattered against the Black Gate; bodies piled higher than a man stood, and scattered across Dagorlad to where the last of them had been driven back, to mire and drown, falling in the Dead Marshes. The ground was dark and clung to the boots of soldiers marching into Mordor—wet with blood and thick with ash, a morass stewed of the foulest sort of death—the death of the immortal elves, who were meant to last as long as the world itself.
Their deaths here had been wrought twice-over by the darkness of Evil: the immediate darkness, that Sauron had stoked in the souls of the foul things and peoples of the world, and poisoned hearts and minds with fear and ignorance, had led to this slaughter; and the ancient darkness, which Sauron's master, Morgoth, had threaded into the fiber of Arda itself as it was sung forth into being, that primordial discord, that attempt at usurping Eru Ilúvatar's First Plans, that had brought the very concept if death to the world—for elves were never meant to die.
Now their numbers had been reduced by more than half. Thousands and thousands of perfect, immortal souls, filled with the light of the Flame Imperishable, had been ripped from their bodies. Fëa sundered from hröa until such a time as the Valar saw fit to reunite them. And worse, perhaps, was that the fallen elves had been disjoined from Middle Earth itself—never again to return to the forests and hills beneath the stars where they had long dwelt. It had been the land of Middle Earth itself that they had loved most dearly, and so deeply that they (or their ancestors) had turned away from the Great Journey as they reached the Vale of Anduin and the Misty Mountains, forsaking the light of The Two Trees to remain forever upon the starlit eastern shores. It had been for that land that they had joined the Army of the West to march on Mordor: to save the world they loved.
Once they were reborn, rehoused in flesh in that distant Far West, they would be unlike they had been before. Nevermore, until the unmaking and remaking of Arda, would those among the fallen see the lands and skies they had loved so well, and once that distant remaking came, even the light of the stars would be changed, muted by the radiance of Valinor, and Laurelin and Telperion, regrown to cast their glow to the ends of the world. It was as cruel a fate as could befall any elf not of the Calaquendi.
Oropher had been among the fallen. His King, his Commander.
His Father.
The Sindar Lord of the Silvan elves of Eryn Galen, Greenwood the Great; as brave and true a leader as they could have wished for...but foolish, Thranduil could see now. Oropher had been impatient, and chained to his principles, and worst of all, he had been emotional, and gave himself too quickly to the urge to let his heart guide his body down paths best trod with caution.
It had been Oropher's sense of honor that had balked to the command of the High King Gil-galad, and Oropher, along with Amdír, the King of Lothlórien, had set their peoples apart from the Host of the West as it marched for Mordor. Their honor, their pride, perhaps, or their wretched wounded hearts had made the Sindar lords restless, eager to repay the Enemy with blade and bow. Thranduil had seen his father's tears at the sight of what remained of the southern lands of Rhovanion—the desiccated earth and charred remnants of the Gardens of the Entwives, which Sauron and his forces had consumed in a blaze, purely to deny their enemies the resources to be found there. He had felt his own blood chill at the sight of beasts and birds, twisted by the dark corruption that leached into the hearts of all things too near to that black land, but had forced it down to the pit of his stomach, and his father had instead given a great cry of fury. Rage would serve none of them well unless it could be handled with cool precision. Would that his father had felt the same.
When the Silvan hosts had moved to strike before Gil-galad had given the signal, before the masses of men and elves under his command began their charge, because of Oropher's impatience, his principles, his heart, Thranduil had gone with them. What else could he do? He was a prince of his realm, and his father's right-hand. It was a brash decision, but Thranduil could not abandon him for it. He had seen his father plunge ahead, the gleaming tip of the spear of his people, shining and burning like a star in his righteous fury before the chaos of combat stole Thranduil's attention away utterly.
The Battle of Dagorlad, as it came to be known, was not over in an hour, nor in a day—not even that first, half-joined skirmish was over quickly. On and on the fighting raged, an unending torment of shrieking metal and the screams of the dead and dying. The main of Sauron's forces had amassed there on the plain outside the Black Gate, and they drove the Silvan hosts back, crushing into their smaller numbers with all the savage brutality their twisted souls called for. Even nature the Dark Lord had bent upon itself, and there among the enemy rank and file were some of nearly every sort of creature imaginable. Even birds and bats, their wings stained in black and red, swooped to peck and harry the elves, or drop stones from a height to stun or cripple. Only of the elves were there none among that enemy tide.
Thranduil had not recalled wondering why Gil-galad had kept his men at bay, as he battled orc after orc, Fallen Men and wargs, trolls, goblins, and things far more fell. He did not think to ask why the greater part of the Last Alliance stood by and watched as his father's people were crushed and rent and trampled, and nearly half of their blood spilled before, at last, the High King of the Elves saw fit to bring his might to bear upon the Enemy's minions. No, Thranduil had wondered very little about anything beyond the next sweep of his sword, dodging the next jab of his enemy's blade, the next whistle of arrows falling like rain to pierce friend and foe alike as he fought and fought and fought, day passing into night and then day again unnoticed.
Four thousand years of life had not left him unskilled, but such a battle as this and against such foul odds left little time nor space for wayward thoughts. To let the mind wander was to invite death, and he refused to fall. He carved a path of ruin with all the strength and vigor native to his kind, his focus extended to those immediately around himself, and little more. Each time he felt the cold prick of a knife's point, or the flash of heat from an arrow's tip, he strove to fight all the harder, and those small pains warned him when his attention began to slip, and he was able to steel himself and fight on.
When at last the remaining forces of the Alliance joined the battle, the tide began to turn. Despite the heavy losses of the Silvan people, to say which side now numbered the greater would be impossible. Once the elves of Gil-galad, and the men of Numenor, and even those dwarves of Durin's people who'd come from the halls of Khazad-dûm to stand against the might of Mordor, added their bolts and blades and shields to stand against the army of evil, then at last did the End begin for Sauron.
It would be a bloody victory, hard won from the jagged teeth of their foe, but when it came to pass that the orcs at last fell back, the Black Gate was cracked open and left unguarded behind them—and passage into the land of Darkness at last wrested from Sauron's grip.
When the fighting was at last over, Thranduil sought out his father. He found him where last he'd seen him: his shining King, first among those to reach the Black Gate, his blade clenched in his hand and a silvered crown upon his brow, though now his long blond hair had been stained to rust with blood, and what starlight had lived within his eyes had been hidden forever behind closed lids. Through a strange haze, a sort of choking feel of static that filled his mind, Thranduil realized that Oropher had looked almost surprised when he'd fallen. As if he couldn't imagine, hadn't believed that an elf really could die.
In stories it seemed that such moments were always fraught with a sort of miserable hope. That the fallen were only sleeping, and not really gone. That once their loved ones drew near and spoke their name, they would rise, bloodied but whole, to embrace them. They would go on, laughing about how they had been laid low not by sword or steel, but by something like a crack on the head from a wayward hilt or slung stone.
Thranduil fell under no such illusions as he looked then upon Oropher's form.
His father had perished in that first charge, and Thranduil had been King of his people for near to a month without knowing it. There was little left of the fallen lord to bury, and no time to bury it as the combined host of men and elves pushed forward, through the Black Gate and towards Barad-dûr. They set the bodies to the flame as they marched, those of man, dwarf, elf, and orc alike, for there was no way to tell the remains apart, so horrid had been the wounds dealt to either side. The remnants of the shattered Silvan forces fell in alongside their High elf counterparts, both halves—for King Amdír had fallen as well, run down into the chilling depths of the Marshes—committed to the end of the war. There was nothing else but to press on, or else retreat to their far-off forests. The price their peoples had paid was too great already to allow such sacrifice to be in vain.
There would be time for grief and mourning later, Thranduil vowed silently to himself as he took his place at the head of the host (his host—and none would see him pause for just a moment before stepping, not into his previous place, but into his father's place there at the head of it). Time to face that grasping, straining sadness that he could not now bear to look upon within his heart, time once the war was done. Should he let it consume him as he wished, when the battered remnants of the once-proud Army of the Greenwood still looked to him, still put their hope and faith and trust that their king would guide them through to the other side upon his shoulders… Allowing himself to break would undo what strength they had mustered, and condemn them all.
And so he smothered his anguish in its infancy, froze his unshed tears into ice to clad his heart. A bitter, biting armor that would inure him to those losses he had faced, and those he had yet to face, until the day that he could cast it down among the rubble of the Dark Lord's fallen black tower, when the light of goodness at last came to thaw that blasted land and purge the grief of all within it and upon Middle Earth.
SA3441
Thranduil stood in his father's place (it was still his father's place in his mind, even after so much time had passed, and would so be until he was formally crowned king) at the head of the host of Silvan elves, before the broad base of the tower of Barad-dûr. For seven long years following the Battle of Dagorlad the Last Alliance had laid siege to the fortress, penning Sauron and his remaining forces in. Seven years of waiting and watching and dying as the Dark Lord sent sorties to harry the men and elves, and had his army sling bolts and stones, arrows and fire in an unending rain of death to carve away at the forces of Light in constant ones and twos. How many among them had begun to forget the sound of wind through the leaves, the smell of fresh rain, forget anything good about the world they had come to this forsaken place to defend?
It was there before the tower that he left his forces, as watchful and ready as the scarred and soiled elves could be, to make for a low rise where stood several figures in still-gleaming armor. There Gil-galad had called the commanders to his side, at last tired of the wasteful lingering. They would ready for a final assault that was long overdue, though so too was it one their forces had no joy to know was upon them. Gondor had sent men to reinforce their ranks, only to lose Anárion, Elendil's son and Isildur's brother, to a crushing boulder thrown with damning accuracy from above. It had struck him on the head, crushing helmet and skull in one moment. Perhaps it was that loss that had spurred Elendil to begin to seek resolution of the unending siege, enough to press Gil-galad to decisive action.
"To wait any longer will bleed our men dry. We lose a number every day, and Sauron will cull us by attrition if we dither further," Elendil insisted to the gathered lords (though none but the High King's decision mattered to the Army of the West).
"More and more frequently come the waves of orcs from the tower," Gil-galad admitted. "Surely it is a sign that Sauron grows desperate. If we could only breach Barad-dûr, we would be able to end at last the efforts of Darkness to corrupt our world." And so he laid plans for the effort, and sent the commanders to make their men ready. Having been asked nothing and invited to share or contribute nothing, as had been the way of things for every one of those last seven years, Thranduil returned in stone-like silence to join his people, to stand as the strong bulwark against their fears as well as his own.
The attempt to breach the tower never came to pass. In a final desperate act, Sauron flung wide the doors of the fortress to let his forces flow forth like a black river against the Last Alliance. And then, to the horrible dread of all who looked to see it, the Dark Lord himself stepped onto the battlefield; tall and terrible, with a burning golden band wrapped around a finger of the hand that clutched his foul weapon.
Not one could stand against the fury of Evil as he carved a path through the forces of Light. Each cleaving swing of mace or sword left three, five, eight fallen in its wake, a bloody path that curved and grew as he stalked the figures of Gil-galad and Elendil where they fought to push back the wretched tide of filth. All those who stepped forth to challenge him were swiftly broken, or slain if they were lucky, for the wounds his weapons left burned with a ceaseless and unholy fire, though that did little to stop men and dwarves and elves from challenging his might. Even Thranduil felt himself drawn to battle his way closer—the tiny, tightly-clutched flame of his fury and bitter anguish over Oropher's death fanned into an inferno at the thought that now, now was their chance to end it all.
But Sauron joined in combat with Gil-galad before Thranduil could close the distance, and the two swept away in a vicious dance of death. The elf's spear, Aeglos, sang as it struck and slid against the black armor of the Dark One, a counterpoint to the sharp and jagged screech of his fell blade as it rent flesh and metal and stone wherever it touched. A moment or an hour later Elendil joined the High Elf King, and their combined might at last seemed to match—or at least slow—Sauron's fury, and Thranduil felt a thrill of desperation. To his eyes it was not enough, and his frenzied pace increased as he sought to cut his way free of the ranks of evil, and add his blade to theirs.
And so he chased them, one small clash at a time and ever hoping that if not him, someone, anyone, would reach them in time; he charged after the trio as their duel moved towards the slopes of Mount Doom, though the sheer numbers of the enemy's forces kept him from joining and aiding them. At one point he realized that he was not alone in the attempt to reach their sides: Isildur, Elendil's remaining son, and Elrond and Círdan, Gil-galad's herald and lieutenant, were likewise striving forward, fighting with near-reckless intent, though neither they nor Thranduil could pull free of the battle of the greater hosts.
It was Elrond's cry that made Thranduil look up in time to see Sauron lift Gil-galad's body from his feet, one massive gauntleted hand clutching the High King by the skull. Aeglos lay, dropped or snapped, beneath one of the Dark Lord's boots. Before Elendil could bring Narsil to bear, a great roar filled the air—and Gil-galad's writhing form was consumed in flame from the heat of Sauron's hand.
Stunned by the cruel death of his ally, perhaps, Elendil failed to dodge the mighty blow from Sauron's mace, and the King of Men crumpled where he landed, body broken and sword flung away by fingers that could no longer grasp.
Thranduil could only watch, grim-faced as Isildur at last broke free of the battle with a strength born of his fury, charging towards where his father lay at the feet of the Dark Lord. Orcs swarmed into the gap he had left behind, and the line of men there swiftly buckled. Sensing weakness, those foul foes that harried Elrond and Círdan turned to find easier prey, and they too sped towards what little remained of their fallen commander. For just a moment Thranduil pressed forward to follow after them...but then the cries of his people joined those of the high elves and the men now suffering the brunt of the attacks. If their lines failed, his would fall next, and he forced himself instead to fight to where the hosts had begun to crumble, shoring them up even as he watched Isildur be cast down, as his father had been before him.
And then… He had not seen exactly what had happened. His sword dipped to intercept a jagged orcish dagger aimed for the flank of a man, and then they all of them were thrown from their feet as a shockwave rippled out like thunder from higher up the slope. The raging cries of troll and orc and goblin grew higher, panicked, and before Thranduil even found his bearing, he knew.
Somehow, at last, Sauron had fallen. Thranduil alone happened to rise, and knowing where Sauron had last stood, turn in time to look and see Isildur lift a dark severed finger—ringed with gold—from the pile of ash that was all that remained of the Dark Lord. So too did he see Círdan and Elrond lean close, and guide the Heir of Man into the gaping maw of Mount Doom, at last to be rid of the final tether of Sauron's soul, and the final vestiges of his power.
A terror took the dark hordes then, and what had been pitched combat became a harvest. The orcs and goblins and fallen men that had joined Sauron scattered, seeking desperate escape, and were cut down in numbers as they went. The wholesale slaughter was a grim business, but one that Thranduil took up with some small pleasure. Every orc dead was one less threat to his people, but with their master broken, those that escaped would surely wither into little more than faint memories, powerless and forgotten by the world of light.
When at last he spied Elrond and Círdan striding out of the mountain, Thranduil let himself cease his reaping. Slowly he coaxed his fingers to slacken around the hilt of his sword, and the icy numbness he had worn like a cloak around his heart began to thaw. They had paid a dear price for this final victory, but it had somehow been worth it in the end. In time their people would heal, and the uncrowned Sindar King thought, perhaps he would no longer seek to keep his nation isolated as his father had done. It had been by working together that the forces of good of Middle Earth had won, after all—now they would stride forward together, united into the next Age, stronger for their—...
His keen eyes narrowed as Isildur stepped out of the shadow of the tunnels, and in the light of the sun, which had at last pierced through the veil of clouds over Mordor, he saw the glint of gold (he would never forget that unnaturally perfect warm glint) clutched tight in the man's hand. So too saw he the way Elrond and Círdan did not move to bar his path, as he thought they surely must, but instead clasped his shoulders as he tucked it out of sight with the words "were-gild" and "owed to me" upon his lips, and moved together to recover the bodies of their fallen kings.
Unknown to them, Thranduil alone among those present saw not only the will of Men fail, but the spirit of the Ñoldor submit as well. His fist, once slack, clenched around his sword's hilt, tighter, tighter, until his metal gauntlet creaked, and he felt winter come anew to freeze his heart from all thoughts of offering alliance, to kill the hope for a reunified elvish people; to solidify his distrust of any other race of men or elves but those he called his own.
He took a step towards them. Why had Elrond not forced Isildur's hand? Two steps. Why had Círdan, who had seen the ravages of the War of Wrath, not demanded it be destroyed once and for all? Three steps, four, five. But already a number of their own men rushed to join them, to hail them heroes, and bear them away before his very eyes and out of sight.
And so was evil allowed to remain in Middle Earth; to grow and fester, and in that moment Thranduil knew: in time, all dark things would again come forth.
TA2941, June 20th
The thrust of his sword met no resistance from the spider's carapace as the slender tip slid deep between its bulging eyes, at last stilling the hideous arachnid's twisting and writhing. Its chittering cries faded, silenced, and with a sharp tug Thranduil freed his blade, scattering ichor across the dirt with a deft flick. It had been a small nesting—barely had the spiders begun to wind their webs before his keen-eyed scouts had found them, and it was no more effort to clear them out than to weed a flower garden.
Still, the implications were grim. The filth of Ungoliant's bloodline had been slowly spreading from Dol Guldur for nearly 500 years, growing larger and more bold. Never had they dared so near to his lands before, however, and the Elvenking knew that this incursion would not be the last.
The darkness the spiders had brought to the once-peaceful glade they had been found and killed in stood sharply against the lush tones of gold and green Thranduil stepped back into as he left the delicate task of burning away the webs to the hunters he had brought with him. Once more bathed in light, he felt a weight he had not known he'd carried lift—and he clamped down upon the urge to shudder at its passing.
For fifty years, ever since the night he'd felt his heart renewed, the lands around his capital had flourished with the vigor of a second spring. Much of the old growth had given way to new: rotted portions sloughing off to let light and cleansing rain fall once more to the forest floor—and in some places that forest floor had been lost in darkness for hundreds of years—to coax lush and healthy growth to replace the old. Trees that had lingered in a near-autumnal state for centuries had been found with leaves of brilliant summer green, and wild berries that had long gone sour now grew sweet and plump. Even the animals of the forest seemed more lively, more numerous and active.
The effects had been quite noticeable, and the joy and life that the strange revitalization had brought to his people had cheered Thranduil deeply. He had not wanted to accept that it had been his own heart's weakness, and the gray pain of his mourning that had cast such a pall over his lands. In truth he knew that he was not the sole culprit to be blamed, but he did have a share in it. The darkness circled always closer—the spiders were proof enough of that, daring to spread further from their dank and wretched nests—as ever it had done, as ever it would do.
He snapped his blade into the slim hanger at his belt (no sheath had ever been made to match the blade, and the sight of bare elven steel, glittering and deadly at his side had been a useful threat against his foes more than once before) and swung with an effortlessness born of innate strength and eons of practice to the back of his mount. The rest of the hunting party followed a moment later, the faint scent of smoke and char lingering about them, though soon it would fade into the wind between the trees.
"They're growing larger, my king, and more bold." That was Tauriel, his Captain of the Guard, ever at his elbow with her keen and watchful eye. Young, barely a thousand years old, she had done much to distinguish herself. Her devotion to the realm had been one of the primary reasons that he had elevated her—and she had not misplaced his trust, had been ever vigilant, every trespass into his realm she saw and relayed to him. "They continue to come crawling from the south. We cut them down, and a month later more have appeared, spinning their foul webs and turning the trees to slow rot once more."
In truth Thranduil was well aware of where the spiders came from; his heart thudded faster by shades as he recalled the place that had once been Amon Lanc, and now was Dol Guldur. Many times had Tauriel pressed him to array a force to clear the dark and ancient hill, and each time he had refused. When again she asked, now, "If we could destroy them at the source, it would put an end to the need for such hunts, and save our people the worry of them. My king, can we not—"
"No. That fortress lies beyond our borders. Keep our lands clear of those foul creatures, that is your task." But that tower had not always been outside their kingdom. Once it had been the very heart of his home, his people. To deny Tauriel's request came at the cost of pain—his own, and the future pain of his realm, for he knew the spiders would continue to seek to return the now-green lands surrounding his halls to the darkened mire they had been not a half-century ago. But unlike Tauriel, so brave and young, her soul unburdened by the horrors that could creep in true darkness, Thranduil knew (or at least suspected, as Oropher had an Age before) what lay at the heart of that black and jagged tower. Better a long and watchful series of battles they could win than to expose his people—who even now, three thousand years later, had not the strength or numbers they had counted in the Second Age—again to the horrors of Evil.
But Tauriel frowned, as he knew she would, and pressed him further once they had returned to his halls, his guard falling away to leave only the two of them beneath the spiraling and graceful carven stone. "If we do nothing, what then? Will they not spread to other lands?" Sometimes he forgot how very young she was. How light her soul, having grown to adulthood in the safety of their well-guarded dominion. Though it meant he would ever suffer to endure her challenging of his decrees, the Elvenking found that he could not quite wish the pain that came with knowledge of the wider world upon her.
Headstrong or not, she was still one of his people, after all, and her care and safety fell to him above all other concerns. As did that of his son, that of his gaoler, his guard, his cellar-master; as did that of every single elf that lived and breathed within his forest, from the very young to the very old. "Other lands are not my concern." They had been once, and the memory of what the lives of tens of thousands of his people, the life of his father, had bought for their concerns rose up like bile in the back of his throat. "The fortunes of the world will rise and fall, but here in this kingdom, we will endure." His graceful posture belied none of the tension that had strung through him like a bow, taut and set to spring forth. He'd become very good at hiding his emotions in the last thousands of years, and there only had ever been one who had been able to see through his cool mask of indifference, and she was not the elf who stood before him now, hands balled at her sides in frustration.
But as he raised a hand to dismiss her, he felt that anger, that tension he had thought he'd felt at her stubborn nature, give way to a strange sadness. A sort of distant melancholy that escaped the iron grip of his own control, and it took the stunned elf just a moment to realize that it was because the grief was not his own, but rather had come singing in somber notes through that barely-there, faintly-recognized bond that linked his soul to some distant fate, that it had affected him so. It drew the breath from him, grief and a deep and open compassion he had not let himself feel since his early days come to press at his chest and throat, pooling behind his eyes.
With sudden haste he finished the half-aborted motion to dismiss Tauriel, turning his back and striding off in a swirl of his robes before she had even finished sketching a displeased but dutiful bow. His steps were clipped, sharp and harried as if something was chasing him, nipping at his heels, though he refused to run. He drew heavily now on the reputation he had built among his people: a good king, but stern and aloof, remote in his regard, and he drew that cloak of unapproachability around him like a shield. Those who saw their king striding across their path fell back into side rooms and darted to take alternate paths—immediately sensing that their company, even for a moment, was not desired. He stopped for none of them, but continued on until at last he left the stone halls of his dwelling behind.
Only then did he allow his pace to slow, his feet to stop, leaving him standing within one of the last rays of the setting sun where it collected, striking through the trees. A warmth he hadn't realized had fled from him began to bloom again within his bones, and the faint rustling of the trees soothed his soul; the twang of heartache that had flowed into it from elsewhere slowly muting, fading—replaced by quiet resolve, and the smallest hint of hope before he lost all but the faintest awareness of that secondary spirit linked to his once more.
With a sigh he raised a hand to massage at his breast, as if he could knead away the echo of the sadness that had passed briefly over his heart. Such moments where he felt the soul now matched to his begin to chime and glow with emotion were rare, and always somewhat jarring. Distantly and impersonally he had felt the reflections of the great joys and vast sorrows of that foreign spirit, though he had done what he could to resist the urge to inspect them more deeply, to let them fully wash over him. He had remained firm in his resolve against seeking out whom or whatever lay at the other end of that inconsiderably thin thread, and at times had even managed to push his perpetual awareness of it from his mind, to focus as he felt he should upon his realm and his people.
But that strange bond now wound about his spirit had been growing stronger of late. The barely-there string of it more notable, and the emotions he felt through it more often and with greater depth. Eyes shut tight against the fleeting remnants of their connection, he let himself retreat until his back pressed flush against the cold stone of his halls' outer wall. "I do not wish this connection, but nor can I bear to wish it gone from me." His words were softer than a whisper, meant to be kept for himself and none other, though none were near to hear them.
In truth the strength and lightness he had felt in the past years had contributed much to the well-being of his people. The forest flourished, at least where it was far enough from the touch of darkness to be swayed by his power alone, and the elves rejoiced to see their king grow less isolated, the winter of his despair thawing into a late spring. But that did not change his guilt for daring to let his heart turn towards this new bond's invigorating glow, away from the withering cold and dark that had come with the end of his previous love. How many among his people had lost their loved ones—husbands and wives stolen by war or battle. What right had he to find his spirit renewed, to find a chance to have what was meant to be a singular bliss a second time ?
And so he hid away when he felt the strings lashed to his soul begin to swell and sing. He hid his hope and greedy desire, he clutched it close and then he buried it so deeply that—he hoped—not even the Valar could find it. He was least among those worthy of this gift he had been given, but he could no less reject it than he could cut off his own arm. What he could do was restrain himself from letting it divert him from his course, from consuming his attention and distracting him from his duty more than it already did. His heart might yearn to fill its emptied canyons and valleys where love once lay, but he had made a promise to himself to provide for and protect his people above all else.
And Thranduil, the Elvenking of Mirkwood, had the strength of will to see his promise through. More than any other in Middle Earth, he would not fail in this decree. He would not fail again.
Notes:
So fun thing. Almost all the info about the Battle of Dagorlad and the Siege of Barad-dûr is, as far's I know, lore-compliant. Oropher really did lead an early charge against the Black Gate alongside Amdír because they and their people refused to follow Gil-galad's command, and both kings really did die. There's no real record about how long they fought unaided by Gil-galad, but I can't imagine it was only for a few moments, seeing as Amdír's forces were driven all the way back to the Dead Marshes, and the sheer numbers the Silvan elf forces lost in the process. They really did siege the tower for seven years too, and by the time it was all done, Thranduil was left with barely a third of his people to lead home.
The Great Journey mentioned in the first few paragraphs was the summoning of the elves to Valinor long long ago, before the Ages, back in the Years of the Trees. Some elves opted not to go at all, and others stopped, gave up, or changed their minds along the way. That's what differentiates Silvan elves (stopped on the east side of the Misty Mountains) from the Sindar (made it to Beleriand and then stopped) and so on, and is also known as the Sundering of the Elves. Those that stopped on the Journey had lots of reasons for doing so, but it's mentioned for many that they "fell in love with Middle Earth", so I felt that to be forever parted from it by death—as even reincarnated elves remain in Valinor—would be upsetting. Probably those that were reborn didn't mind, as they lived in paradise, but it probably felt like a terrible thing to those still in Middle Earth, that separation.
In the books, no one but Elrond, Círdan, and Isildur saw Gil-galad and Elendil fight Sauron, or what happened with the ring, but the movie has them literally dueling in the middle of the armies, and it seems bananas to me that the hosts would let their kings and leaders just go over to some mountainside, out of sight of their men, and fight, and then wander off into an active volcano when there's still a bunch of orcs and baddies around. So in that way, that bit's been left closer to movie-canon than book-canon.
Isildur also just straight up was like "No, this is mine because my father and brother died" in the book. And Elrond just...let that be the end of it? Like hundreds of thousands of fathers and brothers and sisters and mothers of other people hadn't also just died for this cause? "...Isildur would not surrender it to Elrond and Cirdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin nigh at hand...But Isildur refused this counsel, saying: This I will have as were-gild for my father's death, and my brothers. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?'".—The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power"
As for the spiders coming from Dol Guldur being a particularly painful thing for Thranduil, it's because Dol Guldur was built atop the ruins of Amon Lanc, which was the original capital of Mirkwood—expect to see talk of it or flashbacks to it come up down the line.
I snipped small bits of Thranduil's conversation with Tauriel about rooting out the spiders from the script of the movie, as well.
Aeglos - Gil-galad's spear, "snow-point/icicle"; it was well known to orcs because it brought "the chill of death".
Amdír - The king of Lothlórien, followed by Amroth, and later Galadriel and Celeborn, though they ruled as Lord and Lady, not King and Queen.
Anárion - The younger son of Elendil, the rule of Gondor passed to his line. He is the many-great nephew of Elrond.
Círdan - "Ship builder"; he is so old that he may have been one of the original to awaken in Arda and thus not have parents. He had an amazing and long history, which won't fit here, but he rules the Grey Havens, and makes the ships the elves sail West on.
Elendil - The first High King of Gondor and Arnor and first King of all the Dúnedain.
Gil-galad - "Star of radiance"; he was the last High King of the Ñoldor in Middle Earth, and great grandson of Finwë, the only canon elf to remarry. He led the Last Alliance, but not the Silvan Hosts.
Isildur - The elder son of Elendil, who cut the ring from Sauron's hand and failed to destroy it. Rule of Arnor passed to his line. He is the many-great nephew of Elrond, and the many-great grandfather of Aragorn.
Narsil - Elendil's sword, it was of dwarf-make. "Red and white flame", it represented the sun and moon, the chief heavenly lights, as enemies of darkness. Later to be reforged into Andúril for Aragorn.
Tauriel - "Forest maiden"; PJ gave her three ages in different interviews: 600, 1000, and 1347. I went with the middle one, though 600 is canon, I think. 1000 is a nice medium.
Ungoliant - "Dark spider"; a primordial taking the shape of a gigantic spider. She was originally an ally of Melkor (before she tried to eat him), and is the mother of all Great Spiders on Arda, like those in Mirkwood, and Shelob.
