Title: Mellon Challenges

Summary: These are a series of drabbles written for the Mellon Fic 100 Challenge on the mellon chronicles group.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, sue me and find yourself poor as well.

A/N: The majority if not all of these drabbles will be AU.

Chapter 49 (Storm)

Legolas listened as the thunder and lightening told of the coming storm. He was only two hundred summers and he did not like storms at all. He sat huddled in his room, wishing his Ada would come in and ask him to go with him, but alas the door did not open and the storm was growing closer.

King Thranduil was in his study when the first clap of thunder sounded, and the lightening lit up the dark sky. He hated storms, feared them even. Thranduil tried to refocus on the paperwork in front of him, but the wind picking up outside told him the storm would be upon them soon.

Thranduil stood from his desk, and went over to the chaise by the fire. This is where he felt safest, near some form of light that even the storm outside could not dampen. It was not that he was a coward, but King Thranduil cowered on the chaise as the next round of thunder rumbled.

His childhood his own father had been gone most of the time, a busy King in a time of building a elven realm to what it was today. During his adulthood is when the storms really made him frightened. It had been storming the day they had marched on Sauron's forces, thunder rumbling across the sky. Thranduil had watched as one after another of his kin fell, until he was standing but a few feet from his father.

Lightening highlighted his father's face, and then it happened. Just as the thunder rumbled, his father fell to the orcish blade. There was no time to collect him, as Thranduil had to fight for his life to stay alive. He had wanted to run to his father, to scream to Sauron and his creatures, but the rumble of the storm had drowned out his cries of anguish.

Slowly Thranduil had fought through rain, and the elements of the storm and when next the lightening lit up the battlefield, it showed him the horrific sight of thousands of dead elves lying next to his feet. He stumbled across the battlefield, but everywhere he stepped there had been the cold dead eyes of one of his kin.

Over and over through the years, he had nightmares of it, and then he had met his wife. She seemed to brighten any storm, holding onto him till it passed, and he loves her even more as she witnessed his weakness.

It had been the day that she went into labor with Legolas. The labor had been long, and during it the storm had come. She couldn't comfort Thranduil during it as she was busy bringing her son into the world, and Thranduil was too busy helping her to notice. That day he forgot his fear of storms as a new life was brought into his life, and for the next hundred years he was happy.

A storm to outlast all storms came one night, and Thranduil watched he lightening streak across the sky. He went in search of his wife, and found her outside, rain soaked, and muttering about nonsense. He had watched as she lay dying, a spider bite to her thigh.

Her face was void of the reassuring smile he had grown to love, and now it was ashen, deathlike. He pulled her close, hoping to give her some of his warmth, but she trembled in his hands. Thranduil watched that dark night as his wife's life slipped from her, the storm raging outside.

Thranduil sat there huddled in his thoughts of the past, when the door to his study swung open and Legolas ran in. "Ada, I am scared," Legolas whispered, after launching himself into his father's lap. Thranduil snapped out of his reverie and stared down at his son, who was trembling in his arms. "Ada, why are you shaking?"

Thranduil looked down into crystal blue eyes, the eyes of his father, the eyes of his wife, Legolas' eyes. He realized that though he feared the storms, that they had come when his life was crushed by the death of those he loved, that there was still someone who needed him.

"I was merely thinking. Come tell me a story, and together we will wait out this storm."

Legolas told his father a story about an elf, and how he slayed the hugest spider in the forest. The story took Legolas' mind off the storm, and Thranduil's as well. By the time the story was over the storm had passed, and a few stars came out. Thranduil picked up Legolas and carried him out to the gardens.

"I have learned a lesson as well as you my son. Though storms are scary, though they frighten us in the night, come morning the rains that they bring will make the flowers bloom and the crops grow. Also come tomorrow I will still see your smiling face across from mine at the table."

Thranduil and Legolas sat in the gardens for a few more minutes before going up to bed. Thranduil would still remember those who were gone, but he knew he had to live for those who were still here.