A/N: So some of you may have noticed that I moved updates on The Singer Saga and its associated one-shots to Sunday. This means, for anyone who hasn't been following me for quite some time, that I am going to attempt a regular update schedule. As in, at the very least, once a month but hopefully it will be more like once a week. So please keep up with me and I can use all the encouragement I can get because The Singer Saga is planned to cover from The Silmarillion (sort of) to The Lord of The Rings. Amounting to something like four to five thousand years of time. Not even Tolkien did detailed coverage of the entire time period, he was a soldier (to put it as simply as possible) so he covered the wars. So I admit that it is daunting and I could use the encouragement.

(Repeat message) So time is getting a bit twisty. But don't worry it's not for long. To be clear, just before Hope there are TWO staggered timelines. But because the Valar tend to know things before they happen (see The Silmarillion) they are allowing Legolas and Thranduil to see/feel the pain of loss for a reason before it actually happens. So Thranduil is actually right, seeing Caelann is a gift.

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Much Love

JR

P.s. The Singer Saga has begun its writing. I'm in The Second Time which directly follows the fifteenth one-shot. It will be moving fairly quickly through The Hobbit as that book tends to move at a good clip. Not so much the movies. They were... The movies are longer combined than the entire audiobook is to listen to. Seriously? And it covers it so poorly in comparison. Come on Jackson! Well, let's see if I can do it justice shall we?

All I Can Do Is Pray

His wife was dying, somewhere far away that he couldn't get to if he left right this second and traveled for a thousand years on the fastest horse or boat in all the kingdoms of middle earth. The one last thing that kept him sane throughout all these years was the connection his fea shared with her not-quite-fea and, even had his son not told him of his recent dream he would have known, it was dying.

He felt it. Like being physically stabbed over and over, a sensation he knew far too well from experience, until his insides may as well have been lace. He felt her fight, for the second time in his life, refusing to fall into the darkness and peace of death like a self-respecting elf. Once again proving that she was something else entirely.

But he knew why she fought. She had warned him long ago that when her word was given, when she swore an oath or promised anything, her word was her bond. She would keep to her word at any cost and she expected others to hold to theirs. The Valar had given her a promise and she had in turn given him one. She was going to fight until she had nothing left to give to make sure they kept their word so that she could fulfill hers.

So Thranduil had made his way to a cold and dusty part of the royal family's private chambers after speaking with his son. One that echoed his steps softly as he crossed to the great stained glass window that pictured the glory of Eru Iluvatar directing the singing of the Valar and therein the world into existence. He had not been there since his wife's passing. Instead ordering the room shut and locked.

Now he glared up at the Valar pictured in the window, grinding his teeth as he paced back and forth before them. Fury rolled off of him in waves as he looked at the visage of first one, then the next, until all had would have been burned by his fury had they been alive.

He was so angry that he could not even speak. His lips moved but no sound came forth. There were no words that could suitably express his rage at them.

Finally picking up one of the long-abandoned candles and its holder where it stood on a table, ready for use, against one of the side walls he threw it with all his might against the opposite wall. Screaming his frustration and pain, he fell to his knees. Forehead to the dust-covered stone floor, he hammered his clenched fists against it in impotent rage. Roaring until the walls rang with it.

Falling silent after a time, when the rage left him like the waning tide, he sat back on his heels to once again look at the window.

There, on his knees before the picture of the very beings that he hated for taking her away, he prayed. He didn't know to whom. Maybe it was to Namo, or to Este, maybe to Manwe, or possibly Ulmo who had favored his wife so during her life. Or maybe it was Iluvatar himself that he petitioned. It didn't matter in the end, he thought, no one is listening to me anymore anyway.

On his knees, shaking from the volume of conflicting emotions that he had no hope of stemming, Thranduil spoke slowly in the silence to the glass visages.

"Long ago you sang us into existence and we were beloved." He started. "We made mistakes, believed the wrong being, and angered you so you abandoned us to this place." Not the entire truth, he knew, but at the moment it felt like it. "Is it that when we find the slightest bit of happiness you feel the need to punish us with it again and again? Is it that I, personally, have done something to anger you? You took her away from me for nearly two thousand years, promising her that she would return, and now you seek to take her even further away, is that it?" His voice rose as he spoke, faster and faster, until he was nearly screaming at them.

"She is mortal there!" He reminded, burying his face in his hands to keep from tearing at his hair in his ire. "If she dies there she has no hope to go to the west! She will not end up in your halls to be reborn!" He raged. Then his voice cracked. "She will be gone forever." He gasped.

"If she is never to return at least let her live." Scalding tears seeped from his eyes as the words poured out unceasingly. "I do not know why you let my tie to her remain when you took her the first time. Was it to let me bleed with no hope of healing? I do not care anymore. Just please," he swallowed back a sob, "please let her live. Even if I will never see her again, hold her again just please let her live the rest of her days happy and whole. I will not complain even if she were to find another as the children of men do."

"Let her live." He broke.

Far away, in a room that beeped, there was a small pot of daffodils sitting in the window looking out at the chilly February morning. The stalks had small buds but had shown no signs of blooming as yet. Then one by one, they swelled and burst. Their bright yellow flowers did not search for the sun beyond the window, but they moved and swayed as a golden-haired woman bustled about the room, her tulip red dress floating about her as the scent of heather filled her hair. Humming as she went, she kissed the forehead of the woman that lay in the hospital bed and tutted softly over the scars, but she smiled at them.

Then she walked away and vanished from sight before the cameras in the hall could see her.

Chuckling as she reappeared at her home, she gasped as her husband swept her into his arms.

"Got your job done I see." He smirked.

Smiling sweetly, she nodded. "I do hope Manwe will decide soon." Laying her head on his shoulder as he held her up, Vana sighed against his neck. "I do not know how much more of this either one can take."

"Their tasks are not over yet," he assured her. "They come closer and closer each day."

Nodding again, her head thumping on his shoulder, she admitted "I do not know when she will wake though. I have not worked on humans before. It could be moments or it could be weeks."

"But she will wake?"

"If Eru Iluvatar wills it, yes."

Orome nodded. "Then all we can do at the moment is wait."

"And all he can do is pray."