(Present)
Eluriel paced in her rooms waiting for Fenrir to bring her her clothes. She was almost ready to attack when a knock came on the door. Ella wrapped the robe around herself and went to open the door. The old man smiled at her before curtsying.
"My queen."
"My friend. Do not lower yourself before me."
Fenrir rose and Ella lead him in, taking the new clothes from him. She took the clothes behind the partition to change.
"You knew who I was back in Arendale."
"I did, indeed."
"And you didn't find it necessary to tell me?"
"Well, naturally, people don't come back from death. I couldn't know for sure, or what effect it might have on your head, to tell you."
"So you were looking out for me?"
"As always and till forever."
Eluriel stepped out from behind the curtains, dressed fit for a queen. She smiled at Fenrir for his last comment and finally hugged him now that she was dressed.
"I have missed you, my daughter. We all have. His majesty has become a changed man since you left. And Prince-"
"Legolas? Tell me about him, Fen. My mother's heart cries for not getting to watch him grow."
"Well, Thranduil tried what he thought was the best way to keep Legolas sane. After your memorial, his majesty sent the prince to live in Rivendell. Thranduil was a raging mess after losing you. He couldn't let Legolas see him become so unraveled."
"My poor boys." Eluriel whispered to herself.
"After the first anniversary, Thranduil had all your mementos locked away. He put everything that reminded him of you in your ancestral rooms and had the hallway sealed."
"How dare he take me away from my son?!" Ellie yelled at the injustice.
"Prince Legolas held on to you for as long as he could remember you. Thranduil never told him of what happened in the north. Every day Legolas asked for you; where you had gone and when you would come back. Thranduil never answered him. The king spoke to no one those days. Lord Elrond stayed as long as he could, and when he went back to Rivendell, he took Legolas with him."
"Leggy always loved that place. To play with Elladan and Elrohir."
"And he stayed there practically forever. The king never called him back home. It was always Elrond who would make the initiative, bringing Legolas back for important events. But lord Elrond saw that Thranduil was too depressed to care for a child, so he took in your son as a ward. He only brought Legolas back often enough to remind Thranduil he had something to live for. It took his majesty years to recompose himself, but by then he'd already lost his son."
Eluriel cried, listening to the devastating affect of her death on her family. Oh why couldn't she have risen earlier? Kept them together?
"Where is Legolas now, Fenrir?" Ella asked desperately, dying to meet her son.
"He is in court with the king. Legolas captured one of the orcs who was chasing the dwarves."
Fenrir gave her a recount of what had happened, and her heart feared for her friends. This war was escalating quickly, and she had to get the elves involved.
Thanking her old captain, Ella ran out the door, running to her son. She had almost reached the court when instead she heard a door close from Legolas's hallways.
"What of Tauriel?" The guard told him and Legolas feared the worst.
The king had ordered the doors closed and once they shut, they wouldn't open until Thranduil himself came down and opened them.
Legolas stormed to his rooms, his mind aflame with indecision. He had more loyalty to Tauriel than he did to his own father, but being a subject of the king was something else entirely. Going against the king's orders was treason.
Legolas had made friends with Tauriel all the way back when he waited for his nana to come back. She had been waiting for her ada to come back as well. The two bonded over their loss, and were often found in each other's company whenever Legolas came back from Rivendell. Once he stayed for good, their friendship strengthened, and for him, it even developed into something more.
"How does our happiness endure?" He asked himself aloud as he paced the floor.
His voice had been barely above a whisper, but any nearby elf could have heard it.
And she did.
"How does a moment last forever?
How does our happiness endure?"
A singing voice hits the prince's elf ears and his heart stops. It was only his song. His and his... mother's.
Legolas froze, listening to the song, and just as he decided to run out the door, he turned to see the prisoner girl walk in; now tall and her hair blonde, a picture of his mother. But she couldn't be! It wasn't possible!
Legolas denied to accept that the woman in front of him could be his naneth, but she continued to defy him and kept singing their song.
"Love pays no mind to desolation
It flows like a river through the soul."
The elleth drew her fingers gently over his cheeks, cupping his face, and Legolas closed his eyes, damming the flood of tears welling behind his eyes.
"Protects, persists, and perseveres
And makes us whole"
Tears fell down his face and on to her fingers and Legolas cried for his mother.
"Nana..." he whispered and Ellie's voice cracked.
"My little leaf!"
Legolas opened his eyes, the tears fled down his cheeks in waterfalls, and he saw his nana in front of him, crying and smiling.
"Naneth! How... how are you here!? You're here?!" He searched for words and wrapped her in a hug, not planning to let go.
Eluriel put her hand on his head, pressing his face into her neck. By the gods! The last time she hugged him, he was barely above her waist, and now here he was almost a head taller. She wished that holding her son would return to her her lost time, but when he finally pulled himself away, he was still tall.
"How are you here?" Legolas sniffled, trying to compose himself.
"I'm not sure," she said truthfully as she went to sit on the bed. "I'm afraid it's not something good that brings me back."
Legolas grabbed his mother's arms and turned her around, fearing she would leave him again.
"But you are back now, aren't you!? You won't leave again?!" Legolas pleaded.
Ellie chuckled and caressed her son.
"Not even death could keep me from you, my heartbeat."
Legolas let go of Ellie and flopped down on the bed.
Ellie sat down next to him and strummed her fingers through his scalp, soothing him.
"Maybe some moments weren't so perfect.
Maybe some memories not so sweet
But we have to know some bad times"
"Or our lives are incomplete" Legolas began to sing along.
"Then when the shadows overtake us
Just when we fee all hope is gone!
We'll hear our song and know once more
Our loves live on!"
Legolas cuddled his head into his mother's neck as if he were a child once more.
"What's her name?" Eluriel asked him as she felt his tension still lingering.
Legolas thought to lie, but considered it not worth it.
"Tauriel."
"The captain of the guards!"
"Yes." He lift his head remembering where Tauriel possibly was this moment.
"Nana, she is out there somewhere. Fighting their fight!" He accusingly thrust a finger in the direction of the door.
"Does it have to matter for you to be by her side?" Ellie calmly asked him as she stroked his cheek. "If you loved her, then it would matter not if she were fighting for Dol Guldur."
Legolas jumped off the bed, his mind racing with his father's lectures on what evils scoured past their realm.
Ellie sighed and stood up with her son.
"This is not their fight. It is the same fight that took me from my family. The only us and them are the good and the evil. And the only evil in this world is... Sauron."
Legolas's eyes flashed in fear. It was a name his parents used to tell to scare him. The master of all evil. But as a soldier, and one of the best that Greenwood had ever seen, his soul burned for adventure.
"Go to her, Legolas. The war is yet to come. She will need her partner by her side."
"But Ada..."
"I will bring Thranduil will the full force of the Greenwood army. Now go! Represent the elves!" Ellie cupped her son's face and Legolas took her hand and kissed it, then hugged her and ran out.
As Legolas went to his armory, Eluriel returned to her room, where Thranduil was waiting.
"I imagine you've met Legolas?" He asked as he sat pouring a wine for breakfast.
"I have. I can't stand that I missed his childhood!" Eluriel motherly complained.
Thranduil looked away from her, her words hitting him. Ellie had death take her son away from her, but he? He drove his own son away.
"I'll send for him, he can join us for breakfast here. We'll dine like a family once more."
The king nodded to a guard in the room to go fetch the prince, but the queen stopped him.
"You won't find him. He's gone after Tauriel."
All joy left Thranduil.
"You will bring him back," he ordered the guard, but the ellon didn't budge, looking between the king and queen.
"No, we will join him. He will need your armies behind him."
"The kingdom is under quarantine!" Thranduil slammed off his chair. "Nothing enters, and nothing leaves."
"Well your son's already gone! He is your son after all. He will not settle for anything less than adventure. And if the world is as dangerous as you say it is, will you leave your son out there alone? He will join the battle whether you like it or not."
"This war is not ours to fight!" Thranduil argued.
"Not ours to fight?!" Ellie went around him to look him in the eye. "It is ALL our fight! It is the same fight that took me from you! You will not attack the spider's nests just because it's outside your realm!"
"The last time I fought outside of Greenwood!" Thranduil yelled, but softened when he remembered why he never left his realm, "The last time I fought outside of Greenwood, I lost you."
"It's not Greenwood anymore!" Eluriel fanned her arms around to show him which place she meant. "Nobody calls it Greenwood anymore! It is Mirkwood. Your homeland is dying! And you will not defend it?" She screamed at him, trying to change his mind.
"Will you not follow your son?" Ellie asked softly, reminding him of their son out there.
When Thranduil didn't move, she left him.
"If you will not, I will."
"Not a step out of this room, Eluriel." Thranduil said in a commanding tone, and the guard listened better than the queen did.
With an apologetic look on his face, the young elf blocked her way.
"Thranduil, let me out." She turned back to face him.
"You convinced me once, and I lost you. It won't happen again." Thranduil marched forward and past her, ordering the guard to keep her inside as he left the room himself.
Almost a day later, and Thranduil sat in his office, half listening to his war lords suggesting plans. He was thinking of his wife, locked in their room. And his son, a chip off the old block, out there in the world fighting someone else's battle. Thranduil cursed himself.
Once he was the best soldier of the biggest army on Arda. He'd fought in the last alliance, won where his father had lost. He'd fought dragons and other evil creatures in the north. And here he sat cocooned up in his kingdom. When had he become a coward?
"Prepare the army. Ready my elk. We leave at dawn." Thranduil rose off his seat and ordered his generals.
Everyone around him scrambled to ready for war. He grabbed a guard and sent him to his rooms.
"Tell the queen to get ready for battle. We leave at first light."
The guard came back as Thranduil was putting on his armor.
"She's already gone, my lord."
Thranduil smiled to himself.
That's my girl.