Harune hesitated before he put his solid hand on Oropher's shoulder and curled his fingers. Oropher bent over his knees, his hands covering his face.

"The Queen's body is not buried out by the summerhouse, my king," Harune said gently. "It is true we were forced to bury many unfortunate dead in ground not of their choosing, but I did not think it fitting to lay the Queen to rest so far from her ancestral home."

Oropher's back straightened. "What do you mean?"

"I brought the Queen's body back to the palace alongside Sapphire's," Harune said. A touch of creeping sorrow thickened his voice. "My wife I buried in her place of choosing. I laid the Queen to rest also in her desired ground, in the Mirkwood burial grove."

The room blurred around him. Oropher said, "You knew—where she wished—to be buried? How could you have known?"

Harune took his hand off Oropher's shoulder. "You forget, my king, I have inhabited this palace as long as Thranduil has drawn breath alongside you both."

"I must see her," Oropher came to his feet.

"I would be honored to act as your escort, my king. It is not a long walk from here. I am confident Avaron would not object."

Oropher jerked open the room door and stepped into the corridor. "I do not have time for permissions. Let us go."

Harune stepped out beside him and offered him a cloak. "In the event you do not wish to find yourself cold, my king."

Oropher swung the black cloth around him. "It is desperately hot outside, Harune, but I appreciate your foresight that I may be besieged if I am seen outside of the healing ward.

In the wide hall walking toward the double doors leading from the healing ward into the palace, Oropher and Harune passed Avaron, who eyed them keenly but said nothing as he opened the door to his office and went in. As they left the healing ward, Oropher pulled the hood of his cloak up, hiding his unmistakable blond hair and face in shadow.

Oropher and Harune came out on the front terrace of the palace. Oropher stopped at the top of the steps. Where once the royal gardens would have sprawled before him, the ground was clear. Pebbles from the many pathways mixed in the lawn and only one wide path had survived, winding its way from the bottom of the steps to where once the garden wall had stood.

Oropher's feet crunched in the stones. All that remained of the elegant garden beds and shaded bowers was a stone bench with a high wooden shade overhead. Behind it Oropher saw a honey-suckle covered wall of the kitchen gardens.

"I shall have to order new beds put in," Oropher said. "The destruction is impressive."

Harune clasped his hands behind his back as they walked. "To go back to what was is the preferred manner of moving forward."

Oropher glanced at him and narrowed his eyes. Harune's return look gave away nothing.

"Where . . . where is Sapphire buried?"

Harune tipped his head in the direction of the river. "Out on the riverbank. She—she enjoyed its healing company. She said it brought together the land, sea, spirit, and sky in one place."

"I wonder if it would be appropriate for me to visit her grave."

Harune's hands fell to his side. His voice softened. "If you desire it, my king."

"I consider it only right, in exchange for your willingness to visit Natelle's grave with me and . . . for your kindness in laying her to rest."

The smile returned to Harune's face, highlighted with a streak of sadness. "I would not say a word, my king, if you felt compelled to do something outside of the line of duty."

The elves left the main pathway and delved onto a sunny, wide south-facing side road running parallel to the river. Harune soon stepped off the wide lane onto a thin deer trail almost hidden by two laurel bushes. Oropher glanced around before tentatively following.

The air cooled and darkened greenly black. The narrow path widened enough for Oropher and Harune to walk side by side, though Harune lingered a step behind. Soft moss speckled with white flowers lined the parallel banks. The river roared over a waterfall in the distance and the main lane Oropher knew disappeared behind a thick corpse of oak trees.

A lifting wind blew the hood off Oropher's head. Sparrows and swallows and a brightly headed woodpecker swooped overhead. A hawk flying low, underbelly rippling, passed seconds later and banked higher into the overhead thick foliage.

In the quietude of privacy of the wood, Oropher left his hood down and breathed in the scent of the forest flowers.

Harune stepped onto the mossy bank and delved between two low spice bushes. He and Oropher skirted around a stand of three wide-trunked oak trees and emerged onto the warm grass at the edge of the river. Upstream, around a bend hiding the palace from view, Oropher knew a bridge crossed the water, but the mighty stand of trees along the opposite bank hid the continuing lane from view.

"To be so close to home and yet so . . . far away," Oropher mused.

Harune smiled a little and lifted a hand to hold his hair off his face as the wind lifted again and coasted little ripples and spray down the river. "It is easy to forget one's troubles in the assurances the forest offers of forever."

Oropher cleared his throat as he saw, at his left, the evidence of Sapphire's grave. The disturbed earth, ringed with a low wall of flat river stones grown over by moss and daises, was home to a young blue wisteria tree.

Harune cast no shadow over the grave as he stood next to it. "In time the tree will bloom with the essence of her being. She loved blue."

"You selected the tree from the palace nursery?"

"Indeed not, my king. Ailunai thought to save seeds from the dying plants in the royal gardens before the ruins were cleared away. She offered the seeds to me."

Oropher stared again at the wisteria. Its slender tops reached to his knee. "You planted this as a seed? But surely it has only been here a short time."

"That is so. When I visited it last, it had not yet sprouted. However, it is incredible what the nourishment of a tree oracle can do to a plant."

"Despite the loveliness of this memorial to your wife, I regret your loss. You have my deepest sympathies."

"And you mine, my king. I am grateful for your compassion."

The elves left the sunny spot and reconnected with the deer trail. Strolling, they came into view of the Mirkwood burial grove. It was a three-quarter circle of tall and stately trees, each ringed with a circle of stones or low bushes. With thin and thick trunks present, each tree bore a carved inscription marking the name of the royal-blooded elf buried beneath.

Standing beside Natelle's grave, marked only by the disturbed earth, Oropher said, "I shall have to visit the nursery and pick out—a tree—for her." Then he sank to his knees and his hands clenched on the short grass around him.

Harune quietly stepped away, having not entered the burial grove, and hearing Ailunai's faint laughter and Thranduil's voice nearing, hurried away to intercept them.

The shadows grew closer to Oropher as he knelt, unable to move, and felt chill creep into his blood. The emptiness settled inside him and twisted, forcing cold tears down his cheeks. He grieved, hands pressed to the settling earth shrouding Natelle, until a sudden warmth pervaded him, and he felt her presence under his palms.

He sat with her life force and, in sorrowful and silent communication, found a sliver of peace to plant with her tree.

With the tears having cleansed his cheeks, Oropher welcomed the sound of presence behind him. He stood and turned around.

Thranduil, holding Ailunai's hand, searched his face with apprehensive eyes before speaking. "We—I have come to honor the passing of she who bore me, abar."

"What have you in your hand, my king?" Ailunai asked gently.

Oropher looked down. Unaware he held anything; his hand uncurled to reveal a small, cone-shaped seed. "I . . . do not know."

Ailunai stepped closer and examined it. "It is a silver birch tree seed, my king. Do you intend to plant it over the Queen?"

Oropher frowned. "Certainly not. A young tree from the royal nursery will be more suitable."

Ailunai glanced about the burial grove. "It is curious, my king. There are no silver birches in this grove, yet you found this seed."

Oropher thrust the seed at her. "Take it. I have no wish to dishonor Natelle with this—this untamed and uncultivated plant."

The seed left his palm. The cold returned and made Oropher gasp. Thranduil's hand pressed around his arm and steadied him.

Ailunai did not close her hand around the seed. "I feel, my king, that the Queen is attempting to communicate with you in the only way she is now able. Mirkwood is an intelligent forest, my king, and offers subtle bridges between the living and its dead."

Oropher's fingertips brushed the seed. It was not Ailunai's skin that brought a rush of warmth back to him. It was her. In the seed.

"I would be glad to help you plant it, abar," Thranduil offered.

Oropher struggled against the suggestion, fighting to understand Natelle's unexpected desire to be commemorated in a wild seed, before he closed his fingers around the silver birch cone and nodded.

He felt Natelle settle around him as he and Thranduil buried the seed at the center of her grave. The dirt was cool and moist and comforted Oropher's hands. Finishing the planting, Oropher closed his eyes and felt his beloved's spirit find its place among their ancestors.

"I wonder—if you could . . . do for Natelle as you did for Sapphire," Oropher asked haltingly, turning to Ailunai.

Ailunai said, "Thranduil and I visited Sapphire's grave only earlier today and her spirit asked to grow. I am proud to inquire if the Queen's spirit also wishes to sprout."

Thranduil and Oropher stepped back to join Harune a few paces away. Ailunai approached Natelle's grave. On her knees, she sank her fingers into the earth. Her neck and shoulders rolled back and settled. Her arms pulsed and her eyes closed. Her blonde hair fell forth to shield her face. She wavered with the air and flattened with the grass.

Oropher caught his breath as a small white stem burst from the earth and uncurled tiny, delicate branches upwards. In every curve, it was Natelle, from the pretty shade of the young white bark to the small, graceful buds.

Tears gathered in his eyes. Warm tears, alive with joy. His fingers tightened on Thranduil's slender hand. "Thank you."

Thank you all so much for reading! Food for thought is one of my favorite edibles.

Dreamplane: Thanks kindly for reading! Love knowing you are enjoying the story.

Next Chapter: A party in celebration of Oropher's return to the throne.