Evergreens.
There were few in the Greenwood.
On an outcropping overlooking his forest in the coming dusk of a winter night, Thranduil looked out.
There had been pines in Doriath. Great trees that towered to the sky in high pinnacles of living strength. They had littered the hills and valleys around Menegroth with their silent groves.
That had been before Nargothrond had fallen to the dragon. Before the Dwarves had come and the Thousand Caves had been destroyed. Before the Battle of the Dagorlad, where this people had become his to protect.
Evergreen, indeed.
There were few trees of that kind in the Greenwood. The winter came, and the leaves clung, darker by the year, sticking on the ends of branches like a scab that refused to fall. The Wood was green no more. There was little of light within it. But what little of light there was he would keep. His halls would be filled.
Where the Wood had failed its oath, he would keep it.