Fall 2063:

The door slapped shut, and soft thumps of paints and canvas clattering to the ground awoke Unede with a start. She let out a little moan as the elleths pulled back the curtains, and light flooded the room. The door opened and closed again, and she heard Miriels sweet voice talking quietly to the healer, and felt new hands come to her hair to untangle it.

"Leave me be." She said groggily, lifting a heavy arm and waving it towards the ladies behind her.

"Stop fussing." Amarie sister said.

"It's been half a fortnight, she is well enough for a short walk. I know not what words Mithrander lay on her but she has slept and slept, and her cut has healed faster than before." The healers soft voice drifted across the room to Unede's ears. Had she been asleep for that long? Her rest had been long and dreamless and she felt solemn and sad, but no longer wished for death.

"She needs to get out of this room." Miriel professed.

"We are taking her to the garden's to paint." Anaire said

"The tree's miss her, they will be asleep for winter soon, let her at least come to say goodwinter." Amarie protested

"Yes, we shant let her bleed all over the palace like last time." Miriel snorted.

But the healer watched her patient nervously, as she lay unmoving on the bed with her arms thrown over her face to shield her from the sun.

"It could be good for her." Elenwe said quietly to the trio. "To get out and move and see the trees."

"Of course it will be." Miriel said and walked to the bed. She pulled back the covers and her cousin moaned and rolled to her side as Miriel shook her gently. "Come on Unede, we are all going out together. The trees miss you. It shall be good for your spirit. Up up." She said and pulled her cousin to a sitting position and forced a fresh tunic over her tangled hair. Unede looked to the healer who gave her an encouraging nod. She frowned and nodded but stood up and slipped on her cloth shoes, and looked silently at her friends.

"All right then." She said hoarsely. The sister's giggled and Miriel took her hands and led her out of the door and towards the gardens where the trees and flowers awaited.

She hadn't spoken much as she sat on the stone bench. The trio had chattered around her, and the birds tweeted in the morning sun, and before she knew it a brush and palette had been put in her hands, and a blank canvas sat in front of her. She painted silently trying to lose herself in the whispering of the leaves in the winds, and the bowing of branches to tickle her neck with their twigs. Try as she might to be sad, the tree's teasing got the better of her, and a soft smile found its way to her lips.

"There you are my friend, looking a little better already." Anaire said as she joined Unede on the bench. "A little sunlight always does the heart good." Unede squeezed her friends hand did not speak, and added a bit of color to her canvas.

The sun set, and rose and set again, and for four days the trio fetched Unede from the healing halls, and brought her to the gardens, and let her sit silently in the amber light of fall, hoping that it would bring some joy to her spirit. But Miriel knew better, she knew her cousin could hold her tongue and suffer in quiet solitude. She had always been stubborn in such things, to a fault sometimes, she never wanted her warriors to see her nervous or fearful. In battle she was told that Unede was cold and calm and fearsome, a different elf to the jolly baker she knew back home. But such were the complicated lives of the woodland folk. Miriel knew the duality of her being had always plagued her cousin. So Miriel decided that the best way to help her cousins fea heal was to make her speak, a little at least, until she would do so without protest. Then perhaps her heart could feel a little lighter. But what to say, what curl to twist to wring loose Unedes tongue? Then it came to her and Miriel smiled.

"The Prince is furious you know." She said giving Unede a sly s mile. The sister's looked over their canvas's at Miriel with wide worried eyes. But Unede did not stir.

"I know it is so." She said solemnly.

"Oh." Miriel looking at the sisters across from her, and silently begging them to prod her a little more. Anaire and Amarie looked desperately at each other and bit their lips and begged the tree's for an answer. But Unede sat silently in her despair, unfazed by her companies provocations. Finally Anaire's eyes lit up and she smiled at her sister.

"Honestly, we all thought that cob would have you courting, even if it was lumpy and stale the first time you gave it to him." She winked at Miriel, as Unede moved uncomfortable on her bench.

"Well alas, your plans were thwarted by many ill fortunes." She muttered and dabbed her brush a little to forcefully into the green on her palette.

"I do not think the fortune as been so ill, for at least now that peace has come the Kingdom has a wedding to delight in." Amarie said and smiled mischievously behind her canvas.

Unede sighed and said calmly "If he is as furious as Miriel says, then he will never see me again, so perhaps you should use your bread and tarts to look elsewhere for a wedding."

"Oh for the sake of the valar." Miriel said throwing her hands in the air. "Are you not the one who turns him away? Of course he is mad, mad with worry! We laid a perfect plan at your feet for happiness, and all you have done is kick a cob about, and sneak kisses after the fire circles. Oh and do not think we don't know about those nights you spend together on watch. My brother tells us everything."

"Aye he does." Anaire spoke up quickly. "And we know that you wear the Queens jewel."

"We even know you put in a request for the same leave schedule. We have spies Unede, you can sneak about all you want but we know you love him."

Unede watched the ground, and did not stir at their words. She knew they meant to spring her tongue free and make her speak from frustration. Miriel had always been good at knowing just what to say to get her to talk. Perhaps though some words could silence her friends, but how could she find them, what would she say to those who only wanted to see her happy? And what did they mean the Queens jewel? Her hands froze in her lap, and she nearly broke the brush she was holding, surely it was only a mere trinket she wore around her neck, a brown plain stone, worthless save for the silver. She had always thought Legolas gave it to her as a token of affection, for she had no love for bright gems and complex crowns.

"Legolas is the crown Prince. The only heir to our great kingdom." Unede said quietly, repeating the excuse she had burned into her mind, a mantra she repeated over and over. So often, in fact, that she had nearly convinced herself it was true even after the watchful peace had come, even after she had survived the only excuse that had kept them apart for two thousand years. "If I fell in battle surely he would fade, it would be gravely irresponsible of me to put our kingdom in such danger. To leave us heirless." Her hand came to her breast where the necklace lay, and it seemed to burn her skin, despite how the cold that had set into her fingers.

"Oh." Miriel said slowly. But she watched her cousin, watched her fingers trace the spun silver that sat on her neck. "Oh you did not think we knew about the necklace."

"Tis but a trinket." She whispered to her friends. "A…" she started again. Then recalled the Princes words 'I am but a leaf on its mighty branches'.

"Unede…" Amarie whispered taking her friends hand. "All of Mirkwood knows that stone. His Majesty gave it to the Queen when Legolas was born."

"Aye."Anaire said. "And Legolas was the first leaf on her great and mighty tree. The Oak Queen His Majesty called her, for she was steadfast and strong. She was the roots that kept us all grounded, kept us from withering and blowing away in the wind, during the great war."

Unede felt a cold run through her, all this time she had worn the jewel, and she did not know its meaning. How could she have been so naive? She had seen paintings and carvings of the Queens likeness, seen her plain jewels strung with silver acorns and dotted with clear brown stones. She had always thought the crown resembled the flourishing oak tree. She had heard the tales of the Queen before she sailed. Yes, she thought, The Oak Queen, strong and steadfast, and flourishing. She gave I curse, and pursed her lips, and took her hand back from Amarie.

She lost her breath, and her hands ran cold. Surely Legolas did not think she was of the same ilk. She was but the vessel the valar worked through, the hand that held the sword. She was not a great tree that nourished the forest, her roots did not give life to others, and sustain their being. Her duty was only to nourish that great tree, not to be it.

"Miriel, some things are not about love." She pressed her brush to the canvas in short strokes as clouds drifted lazily over the sun, and the tree's shuttered in frustration around them. Unede began again with anger in her voice. "I have to think about the consequences of my actions, and the consequences that an alliance of my house and his. You have never had to worry about more than your garden and your weaving. You haven't the slightest idea what the burden of a crown feels like, you have not toiled as I have. Nor have you seen Legolas worry and fret into the long hours of the night! You think I want that burden? You think I would gladly take it? Already Thranduil asks me to speak with the white council, and burdens me with duty when I am not yet healed! There are wolves all around me and I am called a traitor. How much more would you have me carry, when already I am bent."

"Oh the white council does not head our words, we needn't toil ourselves with them anyhow." Miriel said competitively.

"That is exactly why we should toil ourselves with them, because how else will we know the news they bear. We have enemies, and I shan't make more of them for love."

"Listen to her! By all that is good, she speaks so much sense I think she has lost her mind! Did you not come here out of duty and devotion? Well I say stop it Unede, you are being utterly ridiculous." Amarie whispered in awe of the stubborn wisdom before her. "You did not give up anything. Step away from your self pitty and despair, for we all tire of it! There is but one who says usurper and traitor in these woods, and you needn't bother with him anyhow."

"Aye throw him in the dungeons!" Anaire said with more enthusiasm than she meant.

"So stop acting as though you are not the strength that supports Mirkwood." Amarie continued "We all look to you, and celebrate you. What a pitty it is that you would deny our celebrations. A shame really, for your exactly the kind of Princess the elves need, Noldor or otherwise."

Unede looked at her, and her cheeks flushed, and the tree's tickled her excitedly with their twigs. Am I really meant to be High Queen, she thought. What kind of Queen would she be when the time came? What kind of Princess did she want to be now? The King had reminded her only two weeks before that Imladris offered no aide, and Lothlorien answered their calls with only silence. Mithrandir brought word of the white council to them in secret, and the council Thranduil gave them was only in letters.

She wondered if all her fears of seclusion had come true while she bore a sword and shield in the forest. She wondered if she could sooth Legolas on those long nights when his heart was stricken with worry, and his neck bent over scrolls for the seasons trade. Then she remembered the wizards words and wondered if she had been a fool all along. Perhaps she deserved a little happiness during this watchful peace. It was with the quiet fall winds, that she began to feel her heart change a little bit, and she remembered the warmth her heart felt when he would come to meet her in on a flet under a canvas for tea and bread, even on the coldest nights, when there was no hope for dawn.

Those short hours of warmth and joy unburdened by the chaos that lay round them gave her strength for the days that came. She knew then that in her heart she carried grief. Grief that she would not forget. Then she found herself at a crossroads; would she let the grief darken her heart, or would she let teach her wisdom. Wisdom to care for her people, wisdom to care for her Prince. Yes, she had been a fool she realized, but perhaps now she could be a fool in love.