I close my eyes.

Because I cannot handle seeing all the life leave my father's eyes the same second I feel his soul leave my arms.

I open them.

That was hours ago, I think. There's still so many Orc's, there's so much chaos. The kind of chaos that can only be unleashed by a specific kind of hatred. That's fine. That's all I have left inside of me anyways.

I close my eyes.

Because I can kill in my sleep as well as awake. So help me Eru, I will slit the throat of Mandos himself if he tries to take this victory from me. He can take me afterward, I don't care. But I will live to see the end of this battle.

I open my eyes.

"It's over," somebody says to me. I turn away and back to my task, finding my people. My warriors. My friends. Anybody else who might need me. It wasn't over until all that could be saved were saved, and that that couldn't are dead.

I close my eyes.

I stand on a hill overlooking the devastation that lays before me. My father amongst them, somewhere. I thought I felt hollow the day I looked upon the ruins of Menegoth with so many of my friends still inside, but dully I realized I knew nothing then. At least I could be there for my father like I never could have been with my mother at her end.

I open my eyes.

Next thing I know three years have passed and the siege of the tower is over. I don't care to remember what I have forgotten, except the ones that were lost coming on this death-filled war. A third of my people are left standing, or at the very least, breathing.

I close my eyes.

"I don't care," I say to Galion, who remains silent. "I don't care who invited me to what. I don't care who took charge of what. Nobody cares, because everybody that cares is somewhere dead miles away. All I care about is going home, we need to go home."

I open my eyes.

They told me that everybody survived the journey home from those cursed lands that I left with. I took their word for it. All I remember was seeing Merenth's face when I crossed through the gates of our city. I never want to close my eyes again, because it is the only sight that might have made the last years of my life worth it.

I close my eyes.

.0

I close my eyes.

They told me that after I died my husband managed to find our son and return him to safety. That they were both safe, somehow, together. How I wished I could have been with them, but how glad I was that I had not taken our little Legolas with me to the halls.

I open my eyes.

Somebody had come to tell me information, current information about my Thranduil and Legolas. Lady Yavanna: 'Legolas is good and kind, beloved by his people and his father alike. They find strength in one another, comfort and laughter. They will be alright, you can close your eyes.

I close my eyes.

Years or centuries or days pass by and I catch whispers of my husband and son's voice in the air as they talk to me. Whisper prayers and longing love for me. As they cry out for me in pain or in freat deep in the night. My poor things.

I open my eyes.

They tell me that they have survived some great war, they tell me that my son has gone on some great and dangerous journey that has something to do with the same war that had brought my Thranuild back to me so broken from Mordor. How many years have they seen since I left them, I wonder?

I close my eyes.

I don't know how long I waited in those halls. I just remember asking them not to release me too soon before my husband got to the shores of these lands. Because I didn't know how to start doing this again without him. Be alive. Be a family.

I open my eyes.

The ground is fresh, and my skin is new. The scars on my soul and my skin are healed from the end of my old body. I am ready. I am ready to meet my family, I am ready to join them. Do right by them.

I close my eyes.

Because it took me longer than I thought it would find my son, for he had hidden so perfectly and peacefully amongst those he stayed with. He looked soo much like Thranduil I dared not to open my eyes, for fear my heart might shatter at the sight. He seemed to understand.

I open my eyes.

I thought I had learned the feeling of longing when I had waited for Thranduil to come home from Mordor, but it didn't come close to the feeling of waiting for his ship on the shoreline. Even the sight of the fleet alone was enough to make me cry, but the sight of his face when he jumped off the ship sent me to my knees in the sand.

I closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, his arms were around me and his lips were pressing kiss after kiss to my face. I had not felt love and security than that last time I had closed my eyes on life beneath the canopy of our trees so long ago. I never wanted to forget the sight that went along with this feeling.

I opened my eyes.

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