The sun rose in the morning. Thranduil bounded into the family room, eager for breakfast, and found Harune sitting with a somber face. The sight startled him.

"Are you alright, ada?" Thranduil cried.

Harune waved him toward the open balcony doors. "Look outside."

Thranduil cast a curious look at his father before he walked out onto the balcony. The air was still cool with nightly dew. He could not see fully to the front gate of the royal gardens, but he had no need to because of the noise.

Elves were gathered outside the garden wall clustered together and shouting. Thranduil gripped the balcony railing. "How much did they drink last night? Who are all these people?"

Harune came to his side. "I warned you strikes can easily grow out of hand. If you are not careful, it is a riot you will be responsible for. News spreads quickly, Thranduil, when someone has the courage to speak out. Nimrethil told me it is bustling in the kitchens when she brought up breakfast."

Thranduil sat down at the table weakly. "What do I do?"

Harune handed him a plate of toast and eggs and a cup of tea. "Eat. Then I advise you to address the crowds."

"I never thought it would grow this big."

"Perhaps we underestimated the people who need change," Harune said simply.

"I should talk to them now." Thranduil made move to rise.

Harune put a hand on his arm. "Rushing off on an empty stomach will only lead to poorly thought-out actions."

Thranduil finished his breakfast. He and Harune piled the dishes onto a tray and walked downwards into the kitchens.

The servants' passages were eerily quiet save a few maids hurrying between parlors. Used to the bustle of servants serving and taking away breakfast platters from various dining rooms, Thranduil found it strange to hear his own breath.

The kitchens were alive as never before. Thranduil and Harune stepped off the stairs to laughing cooks and maids bantering with each other as they mixed dough. The tables often roll cookies were filled with crusty loaves of bread and platters of fresh fruit. Huge plates of scrambled eggs lay beside bowls stuffed with muffins, one of which Thranduil snitched. Even the girls at the dish sinks did not look grim today as they cheerily took the tray from Harune.

Thranduil found Nimrethil swiping golden pastries with melted butter and smile. "It is lovely, Thranduil," she declared. "We have cooked only breakfast for ourselves this morning and not one hoity-toity has bucked up the courage to come down and demand food."

"Surely someone came down," Thranduil said.

Nimrethil grinned. "Oh, their lordships sent down servants, but we soon sent the ones who refused to join the strike packing." She licked her buttery fingers. "If you look outside, you may observe the many hundred able-bodied, futuristic elves who have unpacked themselves from their jars and come to strike. We have not let them in yet, but we are feeding them this morning instead of the palace."

Nimrethil surveyed her work with her hands on her hips. "Now, if I were you, I would advise addressing your troops. I advertised heavily that you man the helm of this ship."

Thranduil's blue eyes twinkled. "I see you have appointed yourself my campaign manager."

Nimrethil flung out her hands, offended. "Can you think of anyone else better suited to the job?"

"No," Thranduil said thoughtfully. He left her to her work and discovered Hyrondal, Jailil, and Ailunai clustered around a plate of muffins. As Harune joined them, he remarked, "Spoiling your lunches, I see."

"It takes a surprising lot of energy to strike," Hyrondal answered.

Thranduil kissed Ailunai good morning. "Are you ready to step outside and see what we have started?"

"Not particularly," Hyrondal said jocularly. "But it never pays to be ready."

Thranduil took Ailunai's hand and walked out of the kitchens into the garden. It seemed the gardens were busier than usual as maids bustled in the early morning cool to finish weeding and pick baskets of vegetables before the noontime heat descended. Thranduil knew by the noise most of the strikers were gathered on the narrow strip between the garden wall and the forest line.

"You may need a pedestal to be heard and seen, judging by the racket," Hyrondal joked.

Ailunai turned to touch a pear tree growing against the stone wall. At her touch it bent, lowering its upper branches and interlocking its twigs to offer Thranduil a place to step. Thranduil stepped into the tree and grasped a limb to keep his balance. The tree unbent and Thranduil's blond hair flew out behind him and he rose into the view of the elves gathered beyond the garden wall.

Thranduil stepped onto the top of the broad wall, careful to place his feet between the iron spikes. The pear tree bounced Ailunai, Hyrondal, Nimrethil, Jailil, and Harune up beside him.

"I give you!" Nimrethil shrieked. "Prince Thranduil!"

As Thranduil surveyed the elves, all dressed alike in plain garb, some cloth faded, dresses patched, he heard his breathing in the silence and his heart banged at the sheer number of gaunt faces lit by a sliver of hope turned toward him.

"As you all doubtless know," Thranduil said, "Today King Oropher intends to sign the new servant's right rite. This rite is not an act of bettering our society, but a bill of slavery and I am heartened to see so many of you have come to make it known we will not settle for less, but demand everything you have been slighted of since our ancestors founded Mirkwood!"

"Yes!" screamed the crowd. "We will raze the palace to the ground!"

The cry carried far and shook birds from the trees. Though it was one voice, Thranduil's voice carried further. "NO!"

The crowd fell silent before Thranduil's blazing eyes and the youth's figure seemed to swell to command attention.

"I notice many of you have brought your families," Thranduil continued, "And destruction is no example to set for the people you fight for. I would not dare stand before you now and hold forth the light of change if my father had taught me violence is acceptable. It is not right in any form.

"When I speak of my father, I do not speak of the King. Blood is all that ties me and Oropher together, but there is memory and life between me and my father, Harune. Oropher called him a nanny, but I call him ada."

"The forest grieves with you," Ailunai said. "As a tree oracle, I tell you the trees wish for your happiness as much as you do. But it will do no good if you water this earthly forest that is your home with hate."

"Besides!" Nimrethil cried. "I would be ashamed of my freedom if it was built off despicable deeds. I will be better than the blood-spillers who built Mirkwood!" She nodded her head.

"I feel your anger," Thranduil said. "But I have trust in our ability to demand change by way of voice."

"After we have won," Nimrethil waggled her eyebrows, "There is a celebratory feast with your names on it."

Oropher took up the scroll placed in front of him and stuck his pen into his inkpot. The council chamber sat as Oropher read the rite and smiled, sipping wine.

"With the court as witness," Oropher said. "I will—"

A roar outside the window startled the gathered elves and, at Oropher's gesture, one elf rose to peer out the window. "Kragim merciful! I fear the palace is under attack, my king."

"What?" Oropher growled. He swept to the small window overlooking the palace gardens, his wide sleeves billowing. At a glance his lips pinched. He spat at the nearest guard, "Summon forth the royal guard! This meeting is postponed."

As Oropher thundered forth from the council chamber, his shiny black robe fluttering around him like hair in a windstorm, an elf dared whisper, "I do believe I glimpsed the Prince at the head of the riot."

Thranduil faced the front doors of the palace. Behind him and throughout the palace gardens elves clustered on the pebble pathways and crowded on the grass. Servants who had only glimpsed the green and red rosebushes and gardeners who started their days before dawn so the ladies of the court might go for a morning stroll now sniffed and picked the flowers.

The chant created by the elves' voices was the only sound as the birds quieted until the front doors of the palace swung open and the royal guard streamed forth.

The chant of "equal rights" wavered at the sudden appearance of the golden shield wall formed by the royal guard on the steps leading up to the palace entrance. Thranduil's heart sank as he saw Yuai and Hyrondal at the head of the elves, standing to one side. The cry rose up again, angrier than before, as Oropher and Natelle stepped onto the balcony above the front gate.

Oropher swept his hand in a wide arc. "This betrayal will be punished! I advise you to think twice before following the unfortunate whims of a mere child."

"We follow each other!" an elf cried. "You are the one who betrays us, my king, by signing a rite that brews only hate among your own kind."

Natelle lifted her eyebrows. "Ah, but you are not our kind. You have no right to call yourself wood elves for you came with our ancestors to Mirkwood as a mercy. Your rightful place below us has long been unacknowledged."

Heat rushed to Thranduil's face and, beside him, he heard Harune's breath deepen. The crowd screamed in fury.

"If anyone is below anyone else, it is you!" the elves returned. "It is all of us who keep Mirkwood thriving. Without us there would be no food on your tables or clothes on your backs! You cannot be management without labor, but now the labor tires of your management. We will do nothing for you until life is worth living for!"

Oropher gestured to the royal guard as archers joined the ranks on the palace steps. "Drive these traitors to the throne to the prisons. Do what you must in the face of resistance."

"We will not budge until our needs are realized! The threats and malice, the lack of justice you afford us is coming to an end."

"The regrettable ways you chose to live your lives is not my concern," Natelle retorted. She nodded to the gold-clad warriors.

The armored elves advanced down the fleet of front steps until their shield wall stopped inches from Thranduil's chest at the head of the elves. Thranduil met the antagonized eyes of the elves behind the helms and realized they did not know what to do.

"Let us not taint today with blood spilled among us," Harune said. "It is your choice to follow the command of the throne, but it is your sense that tells you if it is right. Do not follow so blindly as to live with regret."

"If you would step back, my lords, we will have no cause to harm you."

Harune sadly shook his head. "Do not unload the burden of your indecision on me for I have already found my peace."

The ranks of the royal guard shifted. Natelle clenched the balcony railing and cried, "Do not stand there! The garden is overrun with vermin; expel them, I say!"

Yuai stepped forward and the shield wall briefly parted to make room for their Captain. Yuai drew his sword and looked Thranduil in the eyes.

"I am glad to see you, at least, know where your loyalties lie!" Natelle snapped.

Yuai plunged his sword into the ground and knelt. "My prince, I am proud to stand with you."

"As I am," Hyrondal declared.

"Treachery!" Natelle screamed.

"You cannot lead people where they do not wish to go, my queen," Thranduil said simply. "If you chose to rule by fear, you earn no respect and you will find that courage overwhelms fear. You have nothing today. We choose not to follow you."

The royal guard made no move to advance, yet neither did they sheath their weapons. An archer released an arrow into the crowd and, though it thudded into the ground, elves screamed. Their screams were catching.

Thranduil's heart shot into his throat and he clenched down on Harune's hand.

"You will not be harmed," the archer said, "If you cooperate."

"Stand down!" Yuai snapped.

Another arrow whistled into the dirt and elflings began to cry. Thranduil felt the courage of the crowd shift and morph into anger.

"You would rather side with these dirt elves than stand with your own kind?" the archer sneered. "I think not! Learn your place, Yuai, stand with us of clean birth."

"Clean birth?" Yuai roared. "I have seen your way of life! Nothing about it is clean. Dirt elves indeed!"

The doors to the palace swung open. Avaron stepped out onto the front terrace, his hair blacker against his ashen skin. He challenged the armored elves and the archer with his angry eyes. "I make it known that the healing ward will not condone injuries made elf to elf. Spill the blood of your kin, but you will spill it long after your wicked battle ends without us to stitch back together your pride! Get out of my way."

The guard parted as if Avaron was a ship plowing through water as the Head Healer strode down the front steps and joined Jailil standing near Thranduil. He gave a small smile.

"Ha!" Nimrethil exclaimed. "You may drive us out, but you will just have to starve without us to harvest your crops and plate your meals! You cannot eat gold when you discover you cannot scramble an egg. Sit here and rot! We can fend for ourselves."

"I speak for the trees," Ailunai said, as the ones closest behind her bowed and rustled. "The forest itself despises you."

Thranduil challenged the guard. "How long do you think it will be before you stand in our place? The way the King sees it, if you have no title and if your ancestors came here 'as a mercy', you might as well be of a different race. I will not stand to see us segregated! You are all cowards if you would defend your homes from orcs yet turn your backs on the chance to make your homes worth fighting for."

"I have put down my sword," Yuai said. "It is my choice. Recognize the choice before you."

"Equal rights!" shrieked Nimrethil.

"I demand change!" Hyrondal yelled.

"The forest demands freedom!" Ailunai cried.

The shield wall began to crumble as warriors turned on warriors, threatening, "If you hurt them, you will answer to me."

Through the garnering confusion, the protestors turned to rioters and made a charge for the palace doors. They were brought short by Oropher's thundering voice.

"Halt! The Crown of Mirkwood recognizes your right and will comply with your terms. The council will draft a new agreement immediately."

"I beg pardon, my king," Thranduil said, "But the general consensus is you will not approve a fair agreement. We have, therefor, taken the liberty of drawing up the Equal Rights Bill ourselves. We wait only for your signature."

"How dare you," Oropher spat, "Undermine my authority?"

"We will storm the palace!" sang the crowd. "We will drive you out!"

"I am sure the King hears the voice of reason!" Thranduil shouted, fighting to calm the blossoming riot.

"The council will review the bill you have drawn up," Oropher said flatly.

"Immediately," Thranduil said firmly.

Oropher gritted his teeth. "Immediately."

"I will present the Bill to the King," Thranduil said. "Allow me, I beg of you, to be your voice and we will see equality justified by the time the sun sets."

The elves cheered as Thranduil took the scroll Harune handed him. One scroll, for equality does not take many words. With it in hand, Thranduil passed through the defending royal guard and plunged into the cool halls of the palace he could not bring himself to call home.

An extra long chapter to make up for my unfortunate neglect to post this Thursday. My apologies, you can be assured, are both eloquent and regretful.

Dream Plane: I deeply appreciate you sharing your thoughts! Thank you.

Next Chapter: At what price will Oropher sign?