Disclaimer: Recognizable characters, places, and events are the property of the J.R.R. Tolkien estate.

Author's Notes: Again, there are no author's notes within or at the end of the chapter. All questions can be posted or emailed----I haven't bothered to include all my Tolkien references.

Rated for angst----this will not extend throughout the whole fic.

Thank you to Bean02 and Queen of Shadows for posting reviews, your comments are happily appreciated!

---Aranel

aranels@hotmail.com

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Chapter 2~*~Passing Light

Over the next year, Thilómë's abdomen grew along with her concerns. She lay in bed this morning, yet another spring morning, her hands resting on the bulge beneath her light cotton shift. Woken by the sun streaming in through a narrow window carved into the living stone of their cavernous palace, Thranduil lifted his head to look at his wife. Managing a smile, he took her hand in his own, placing them both flat on her stomach.

"Do you feel it?" Thilómë turned to him with a weak smile, her eyes wet.

Thranduil nodded, "Yes." The mild tremors from the baby's turning were quite distinct to his sensitive touch. Leaving his hand in place, he waited, concentrating. After a moment he detected a light, vibrating rhythm- their child's infant heart.

Thilómë was tiring. As the birth date drew nearer, her body and spirit felt more and more strained. The baby moved, but not as her first son had. She could feel this child shift and turn, but there were very few kicks. It seemed almost that the child was weary with her. She let Thranduil help her from the bed, then slowly dressed and made her way to one of the nearby halls for breakfast.

When his mother entered, the son of Thranduil and Thilómë looked up sharply. His mother seemed to be fading, shadowing as the baby's arrival drew closer. He thought back to when his brother had come...Linnin...Tearpool. Never had he seen something more heart wrenching. It was bad enough to see an adult elf, with many years behind him, dying from an unhealable battle wound. The sight of his weeping father, the limp bundle in his arms, had been too much. His mother had awoken, weak and tired, days later, only to soak too many cloths with her tears. Yes, Linnin. A sorrowful pool he was, and never full.

It worried him when his mother came to him, taking his hands and placing them on her belly. "I want you to feel it," she said, keeping his slender hands in place with her own. He knew why. If things happened as they had before, this would be the only life he ever felt from his sibling. His mother did not wish for him to miss it.

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It was that very afternoon that the pain started. The healers had helped Thilómë to a bed, and set a bowl of hot water and sweet herbs near her head. Over the next day, the pain came in slow surges, sweeping over her. She felt its ache through out her whole body, some times tensing, and other times dully dragging and throbbing. The healers wiped her face with cool clothes dipped in the water of the Forest River. Thranduil gazed at her tired form, wondering if he should have sent for the Lord Elrond. When he had contemplated it earlier, he had thought against it. Thilómë would have surely gotten upset. Lord Elrond had married Lady Celebrían, Celebrían who had borne him two sons, twins, without much of a problem. Celebrían, who bore her husband a daughter called Undómiel, said to be as beautiful as Lúthien Tinúviel.

Now he regretted his decision. Surely the Lord of Imladris would have at least dulled the birthing pains more effectively, if nothing else. Thranduil breathed deeply, dealing with the realization that he could very well not only lose another child, but his beloved wife and queen as well.

His thoughts were interrupted as Thilómë clenched her teeth through one of the first pangs of delivery. Unable to stay away, he smoothed another wet cloth over her forehead, whispering the only words of comfort he could find, "Shhh, beloved. All will be well soon, peace is coming." He watched as her eyes opened slowly, for they had closed for the pain. They winced shut again as another wave of pain overtook her.

Thranduil looked over to one of the healers in the room, "How is the baby?"

"It is coming," the healer, an elf-maid, dipped her hands in a basin of water. Her eyes looked grieved, "I feel though, that it is very weak. Has my queen much light to spare?"

"Only a little," Thranduil looked into the dully sparkling eyes of his wife.

Between pains, Thilómë took a labored breath and looked up at her husband, "I will give the rest of myself to this child, if I must. It is..."

"No!" Thranduil interrupted her, then calmed, "No, beloved. Keep enough of your spirit. You have not yet lived a full life, though it has been many years."

Thilómë felt not only the pain of her body, but the dwindling of her life force as she let the little bit that she had left to spare go into her child. She felt Thranduil's hand take her own, and the caress of his fingers on her face. As another deep wave went over her, she felt everything leave her and Thranduil's grip around her hand tighten.

A cry, not one of her own, pierced the pain in her head. She opened her aching eyes just as one of the healers announced, "A son, my King Thranduil." A son? How had there been enough light for a son? Thranduil slowly released his wife's hand and walked to the healer, taking the folds of green cloth from her. Stepping back to Thilómë, he pushed back the fabric over his son's face, half-expecting to see the same instant fading as before.

Thilómë gazed into the tiny face before her. The baby was a weak, pale color, and his eyes held only a faint sparkle. She closed her eyes, again too weak for tears, whispering, "I'm sorry...I had so little light left."

Thranduil stared into the eyes of this new son. They had not yet faded, but were tragically insipid. Wrapping the blankets closer around the body, he placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. "We will name him Legolas, Greenleaf, for though he will soon fade, he shall have life at least a little while."