"Within our borders, the Wood is as it should be. It is the winter," his father had said. "Nothing more." Legolas did not think it was so. Nevertheless, he would not speak against his father. He did not wish more division.
Alone, a low work spoken to the gate warden, bow on his back, he went into the Wood.
The dark was soft, like a fog. And it lay more thickly the farther he went from his father's halls. The air was still, and heavy. He moved under the trees, the ground grey beneath his feet.
He remembered his mother. The fawn color of her eyes, her dark hair. Most of all, he remembered her voice. He heard it, of a time, in his dreaming, and she sang to him then as she had when he was young. Often she had walked beneath the trees, in the brighter days that had been. Soft under the trees, Legolas sang to himself, remembering her.
Laying his hand to the bark of a gnarled oak, Legolas could feel the thrum of something evil in its blood. Something old in its coming, and strong in its growth. It was coming over the Wood, and it was more than the winter. He wondered that his father should not feel it – or, that feeling it, he should lie.
By chance, he looked into the branches, and he saw something white.
Legolas climbed, the better to see.
They were berries, small and white, nestled in soft grey leaves growing from the crook of a branch. They were young, and white, and clean.
Legolas smiled.
Leaping down, he went on. Seeking the plant he had so luckily found, he discovered more. And a holly bushes beside, all dark green and jagged with their berries vibrant as wine.
He remembered that his mother had worn them in her hair, in the dark days of winter.
The Wood was sick, but not so sick. Not yet. Not while the holly grew red and the mistletoe white.