It is clear that Tauriel is uncomfortable.
Thranduil watches the elleth tense as she feels the ground move beneath her boots, and out of pure instinct her arms grope desperately for something to hold as the water below them sloshes the boat around. Her hand hits his chest plate as he shifts to stand nearer, and he is quick to gather her close.
"Steady," he murmurs, taking her arm as she wobbles a bit. Tauriel turns to wrap around him almost instantly, clinging tight to his wrist and upper arm as she tries to balance herself. Not trusting her to retain her balance for much longer, Thranduil leads her over to one of the benches. He settles himself on the carefully carved wood before drawing her to sit at his side and resting an arm around her shoulders as she trembles.
"It will be all right. I will be right at your side," he soothes. "The seas are calm, there is no risk of us turning over."
"With my luck when it comes to water?" Tauriel asks incredulously, and Thranduil cannot help a snort of amusement.
"Even with your luck. The boat maker is the most skilled in Middle Earth, and I will make sure you do not fall overboard."
She lets out a breath, pressing herself closer to him nonetheless.
Thranduil holds the red-haired elleth close as he watches the rest of his subjects file onboard and find seats for themselves, their expressions a giddy mix of excitement and apprehension as they prepare to leave the only home that most of them have ever known.
Galion flits about, tallying up all of those present as he makes sure for what must be the tenth time that they are each accounted for before they cast off.
Trusting his advisor to have things handled, Thranduil turns his gaze to Tauriel.
One of her hands is still locked in a death grip around his wrist, her fingers white with how tense they are, and her other hand is stuffed deep into her tunic pocket where he knows she has an equally tight grasp on her dwarven runestone.
He smiles down at her fondly, stroking a hand gently over her head.
"There is nothing to fear, Tauriel," he reiterates. "You are safe with me."
"It is more the rest of you that I fear for, being in my proximity," she murmurs softly, and he taps a finger on her nose in reprimand.
"I'll hear no more of your misfortune-bringing nonsense," he scolds her gently. "You are not a curse. We will all be fine."
He can only hope that his words are the truth.
Their belongings are all aboard the ship already - having been loaded the night before, along with a couple weeks worth of rations. They are not entirely sure how long the journey will be, after all, so it is best to be cautious.
They had made their final preparations early in the morning, before the sun rose, and are set to cast off with the first light of dawn as the sun slowly peeks over the horizon.
It's a journey that has been nearly two centuries in the making.
"Ready to set sail, My Lord," Gallion reports, pacing to a stop in front of him and offering a quick bob of his head in place of a bow. "Everyone is on board and accounted for."
"Very well," Thranduil nods. "Let us be off."
Thranduil watches as Gallion makes his way to the bow of the ship, signalling for the ropes to be untied before settling himself in a seat, the elf almost trembling with excitement.
The thick ropes fall loose all along the side of the boat, splashing heavily into the water and leaving the current to begin drawing them away from the shore. A moment later the sails of the boat are dropped with a flutter and snap as the wind fills them.
And then, they are off.
The sun is shining bright off of the rippling waves, the slight spray kicked up by the front of their ship glistening in the air as they pick up speed, slowly leaving Middle Earth behind.
For someone who can see, the view is a beautiful, if bittersweet, distraction.
But for Tauriel, who has nothing but darkness to distract her from the sound of the waves beating into the sides of the boat, leaving the shore is a far more daunting prospect.
Thranduil feels her grow more and more tense with every minute that they drift away from their home, her grip on him tightening accordingly.
He does his best to soothe her, but his actions do very little to calm her anxiety. She remains tense and jumpy in his arms, flinching at every sound and sudden rock of motion.
After a while Thranduil simply bids her to rest her head in his lap, stroking a hand slowly through her hair as he tries to soothe her to sleep. He figures that the trip will be far easier on her if she is not awake and fretting for it.
She is already trusting his word that there is land waiting to welcome them on the other end of this journey, he will not put her any more out of her comfort zone than he has to.
Tauriel obeys him with a wavering huff of breath, curling herself tight against his side and threading her lithe fingers in between his when he takes her hand.
"It is all right, little one," he soothes her. "The sea is calm, and the sky is clear. Rest your head a while. I am here, and I will protect you."
His words do a slightly better job at soothing the girl, and a moment later Tauriel relaxes against him for real, letting her eyes close over.
Once she is settled, Thranduil lets his eyes wander out over the horizon.
Not long after the rings were destroyed, there had been a shift in Middle Earth. A pressing, dragging weariness that had soaked into his bones like a sickness.
For the first time in ages, Thranduil had actually felt the passage of time.
And it was a feeling that made him long for the sea.
For quite a while he had ignored it, thinking it to be the toll of the recent wars on his fea, but as years had turned into decades and the feeling only intensified, he began to suspect that something more was going on.
And it seemed that he wasn't the only one who felt it, either.
Galion had been the first to mention something to him, his advisor just as wary and confused as he was about the sudden urge to seek out the ocean, but neither of them any more relieved for finding out that the other shared the feeling.
After that he'd heard whispers of the same longing among the older elves in his kingdom - the Sindar and their descendants who had come to the forest with his father back in the Second Age - discussions that he caught in passing about an odd longing to head to the western sea...or perhaps beyond it.
However, it seemed that the feeling was not strong enough for any of the Sindar to wish to act upon it, and from what he could gather, his wild-blooded Silvan subjects did not even notice its call at all.
When Legolas returned briefly after the War of the Ring to ask his permission to bring some of their number to aid Aragorn's people in Ithilien, the two of them had discussed the idea of sailing.
At the time, his son had not felt the pull of the ocean as he had, so Thranduil had waved the feeling off once more.
Elrond and Galadriel, however, apparently had not followed suit.
Word came that most of the Sindar were heading to Mithlond - the Grey Havens, as the children of men called it - to speak with Cirdan, and eventually set sail for Valinor.
Over the next century or so, he heard word of many elves leaving Middle Earth.
But life in his woodland kingdom had continued as normal.
His people - the wood-elves - were far distanced from the Valar, and their ties to them were the weakest of all the elves. They were far more rustic, more natural. "More dangerous and less wise" than the high elves, as he had heard it rumored.
But they were also far more free.
And it was that freedom that had drawn his father to the woodland realm to escape Noldor rule, back when Thranduil was still young.
His father, enamored by the wild-spirited Silvan folk, had gladly cut off most ties with the other high elves and adopted the wood-elf culture as his own.
Thranduil himself, while he was Sindar in blood, had spent the vast majority of his life among the Silvan. Over the millennia, Thranduil's heart had grown more like those of his people - feral and dangerous and free - but in the end his heart could not change his blood, and the thought of sailing to Valinor still called to him.
A couple centuries passed for him in that manner, with Thranduil feeling a slight longing for the sea but pushing the nagging desire to the back of his mind in favor of continuing life as usual.
The few other Sindar among his people, however, left for the western coast, one by one.
Until Thranduil was the only one left.
He tried not to let the pull of the ocean bother him, but after almost two hundred years of the feeling growing incrementally stronger, it was ultimately too much for even him to resist.
Eventually it became all that he could think of, and many of his Silvan subjects finally began to feel the same longing for the sea that he'd been fighting off for the past couple centuries.
Even someone as young as Tauriel spoke to him of the sudden, odd desire for vast open waters and fresh salt air. But when the red-head mentioned hearing the cry of seagulls in her dreams - a creature that the sheltered Silvan elleth had never before crossed in person - it was then that he knew.
Their time on Middle Earth was at an end...the Valar were calling them home.
All of them.
And so, over the next few years, they had prepared to take this final journey.
The one that would bring them back to the beginning of it all.
Thranduil shifts slightly, better settling Tauriel's weight against him as she sleeps fitfully, and wonders vaguely to himself if his mind has truly been wandering for long enough that she's fallen asleep without his notice.
Time has always been a rather strange thing for elven kind - the endless turn of seasons that never seems to bring any true change, the centuries flitting by as they carry on their lives, unconcerned.
A thing like a day could pass by as if merely a blink to an elf of his age.
But here on the open water, in their hallowed elven ship heading for Valinor, time...isn't.
Time both seems to freeze, and fly away. It could have been a few hours, or a few days, but Thranduil honestly cannot tell.
His world consists of spraying water and rocking waves and salt air. The sun does not seem to move in the sky, a constant brightness directly overhead that reflects almost blindingly off of the sea around them as they sail.
He does not remember the sun rising up into the sky in the time since they'd left the port.
The soft chatter of his subjects caries back to him in volume but not words, all of them radiating nerves as they look around.
It would appear that he is not the only one wondering at the odd passage of time.
As best he can tell, the sun does not move for a good few hours. Although, it might be days. He isn't certain at this point.
But he does notice when the clouds begin to close in.
Slowly, creeping in from all sides in an otherwise clear sky, is a dark cloud bank. Over the next endless while, Thranduil watches as the clouds slink up the length of the sky, slowly dropping the air temperature as they edge toward the sun, cinching tighter and tighter around the blaze of light...
Until they completely snuff it out.
They hit a patch of rough water not long after the sun vanishes behind the cloud bank, and Tauriel jerks awake with a gasp as the boat rocks sharply beneath them. Thranduil catches her in his arms, drawing her back against his chest before she can move as the other elves aboard cry out in surprise and fright.
"It's all right," he soothes her, his voice loud enough to carry to his subjects over the rush of the ocean. "You're safe, I've got you. We've hit some waves is all. Nothing to worry about."
The other elves are quick to calm once more, a few of them still looking nervous, but ultimately trusting their King's word that they will be safe.
Tauriel slowly settles herself as well, her head once again resting in his lap, but her muscles remain tensed. She reaches a hand up, weaving her fingers through his to keep his arm trapped where it encircles her.
He strokes her hair with his free hand as the boat continues to rock sharply, murmuring soft reassurances to her. In truth, the rough waters are making him nervous as well, although he refuses to show it.
He takes a deep, calming breath to ensure that Tauriel does not feel him waver in the slightest.
At times, she is almost too perceptive for her own good.
In the end it is Tauriel's trust in him that wins out, the elleth slowly relaxing in his hold despite the choppy waters. He knows that she can feel the slight tension in his frame, but she is willing to believe him when he tells her that everything will be all right, and that warms his heart immensely.
Thankfully, aside from some sharp rocking and splashing, the boat seems to be sailing steady. More promising than that, however, is the little sliver that he can just barely make out along the far, distant horizon.
"I can see the shore, Tauriel," he whispers to her, stroking a hand through her blaze of hair. "It is yet a long way off, but it is there."
"Just like you promised."
"Just as I promised. Now try to sleep, dear one. We have a long ways yet, and the seas do not look to be overly calm."
"It would be rather unsporting of the Valar to see us safely this far only to dump us in the water when our destination is in sight."
Thranduil chuckles, running a hand through her hair once more.
"I suppose it would be."
He holds Tauriel close as their boat forges its way through the choppy waves and the little sliver of land grows ever nearer, watching their ever-approaching destination unwaveringly and hoping that Tauriel's statement is true.
Hoping that the Valar intend to see them safely through to the other side of this journey.
It appears to be dusk when they finally reach the shore, the sun casting a golden glow across the beach from just beneath the cloud cover, and lighting the forest in an orange undertone.
He is still not certain how long they were truly at sea.
The slight nudge and grate of their boat bottoming out on the sand bar is enough to startle Tauriel from her sleep, and Thranduil has to lean back quickly as she bolts upright, nearly ramming her head into his jaw with the motion.
"What has happened?" she asks, turning her head as she tries to better catch the strange new sounds around them.
"We're here, little one," he smiles, looking up at the trees in wonder as the other elves begin to rise around him, one or two hopping out into the ocean to catch tow lines and help moor the boat. "We have arrived in Valinor."
Although she cannot see, Tauriel is wide-eyed in wonder, her head turning sharply at each new bird cry or frog croak or insect buzz that she hears, and her hand clinging tightly to his arm.
A shout and a wave from the elves on shore let him know that the boat is secure on the beach, and he guides Tauriel to the front of the ship as the closest elves begin to leap to the sand.
"Here we go," Thranduil mutters, catching Tauriel by the hips and lifting her to stand on the shore of their final destination, holding her until he is sure she has her footing on the sand. Tauriel edges further inland as Thranduil gets off of the boat behind her, her movements slow and hesitant as she feels her way into unfamiliar territory.
Satisfied that she is safely out of the way, Thranduil turns to offer a hand as others climb from the boat.
Poor Galion is looking more than a little seasick, and Meludir is all but soaked with ocean spray. Feren almost trips over himself in his rush to get ashore and look around, while poor Alassé is almost afraid to get off the boat.
The others are haggard and tired and weary and hesitant, but they are here. They are here, and they are safe, and that is all he can ask for.
They have all made it to their final home.
Once his people are all safely on shore, he turns to look for Tauriel, finding her standing at the edge of the woods as she stares blindly up into the trees, her chest heaving and her eyes wide.
"Tauriel?" he asks softly, pacing to stand behind her.
"I can smell a forest. It's like the one from home but...not quite. Something's different about it. Although...not in a bad way."
He smiles, resting a hand on the top of her head as he looks around at the trees.
"It is verymuch like the forest of home. The restored forest, that is," he adds with a touch of humor. "The trees tower into the air far above us, and are lush with greenery. They go on for as far as I can see."
"Is this where we will stay?" Tauriel asks, turning her white eyes to him as her head tilts a fraction in question. Thranduil smiles down at her, cupping one of her cheeks in his hand.
"Yes, little one. This will be our home."
Author's Note: So as a couple of you pointed out, the last chapter was basically set up to be the ending of the story. However, I'd planned a bit of an epilogue, and it covered a biiiiiiiiiiiit too much material to really be condensed down into one chapter. So here's the start of your multi-part epilogue. Sorry-not-sorry.