DISCLAIMER: I do not own any Tolkien related creations and writings. Only my OC Hallethril- which means 'seashell listener'(Half+lethril). Please offer to correct if you please because the name frame that helps me create the names with the correct prefix and suffix blended together froze up. If it fixes, I'll edit the name, but for now it's an original name.
Chapter 1: S.A. 3441
The sharp cold wind of the blistering winter cuts like a knife through the village. The wind hitting my face like a familiar wave I felt an age ago now. However people are still out and about either working or walking about like me. Everyone's faces are covered up by dark hoods as well as their bodies that are covered with thick pants, tunics, or gowns for ladies and young girls, and cloaks along with gloves. So many layers making them look like ashy smudges on a white canvas. Only voices can be heard and the footsteps across the snow; except mine are silent because they are as light as a feather walking above the white powder, and I wear but a cloak and no gloves!
I take a cold breath in and exhale a warm one making a cloud that quickly blows away. I clench the handle of the basket of fruit and bread tightly as I walk back home from the market. Luckily I live close by and don't have to be in this blizzard much longer even if it doesn't affect me... much.
I was wrong.
"My lady! You still haven't paid your-" the stern voice of the landlord starts before I cut him off with a sharp look.
"-I know I haven't, just keep reminding me. It's not like I keep forgetting!" I say in the language only the mortals know, walking into my shack and shutting the door behind me before the fussy landlord said anymore.
Sighing out of stress and contentment as I am now warm, I walk to my kitchen to set down the basket and pick up the bag of coins and head back to the door, open it, and stick my arm out to the landlord who takes the bag with a smile.
"I knew you'd pay up, you're not that ugly," he says making me huff.
"Shut it," I mutter as he barks out a laugh and I shut the door for good this time.
I have a pretty good life here. I have a job –hunting- which pays just enough for one person which is all I need. I garden and, obviously, the winter is harsh on me for that portion. No one needs a beautiful garden or lovely arrayed floral arrangement in a pot in the winter when the snow and cold will just destroy it. Other than that it's easy living here because I made friends with the whole little village, I have money, shelter, I'm hidden from the world, and safe. That's all that matters.
After making a couple more loaves of lembas bread that should last for a while and eating some, I go to bed that night thinking about a hundred of different things that are impossible to list. Most of it is usual worry and fear but over what I can't pin to. My mind has been worrying and fearing everyday I'm living here much to my displeasure.
Before my body calms and I'm about to fall asleep I feel the weight in my mind, which means I'm about to have a vision, making me wake up. Then a voice speaks to me inside my head, not before soothing me with reassuring words, and tells me what I must do.
I don't know where to go. Not only the voice never said, but the place is unknown to me.
No desire to leave this village, no desire, no! No adventures across Middle-earth to sight-see and begin anew elsewhere. Once was enough. My vision of vibrant and lush green woods, dense as I'd ever seen since the Year of Trees, and the voice inside my head stops abruptly as someone knocks on my door repeatedly.
I get up from my bed, praying that it's not the landlord who noticed that I never gave him the full amount, and go to the door with an annoyed face masked by a pleasant-enough look. Opening it, I see no one, of course. The wind knocking and howling loudly, the lantern upon the door blowing side to side. If only my senses were tuned into reality and not stuck in my visions and musings I could have stayed in bed and not waste this mere second in my pathetic immortal life.
But upon looking down on the doorstep where I figured maybe the mail courier left something there, there was. It wasn't wrapped up too discreetly, seeing the hilt and the blade peeking through the thin paper. I hurry and take it inside, to get out the cold, and I shudder as I hold the sword and think about my vision and the voice saying: "You must go." Where is this sword from anyways?
Make me go, I bite back in my head.
Then this time someone had knocked on the door. I heard their breathing and felt their body heat from behind the door.
"My lady it's me! 'Sorry to disturb at this time of night, but please open," the landlord calls with shaking breaths.
Throwing down the suspicious sword to the ground, I stride to the door and fling it open with full force.
"I don't have enough coins! There is not much left for me to pay—lembas bread? It can feed your family in one bite and can fill you all day."
"I'm sorry my lady," the man looks down, shivering underneath his cloak at my honest gaze. He still can't pronounce my name which is why he resorts to saying 'my lady.' His deceased father spoke it just fine, what, thirty years ago?
"The war has ended. I was hoping you'd have more to pay and tax for the returning soldiers to come any day now—everyone is being taxed by the town master to honor their service in defeating the threats of Mordor."
I shudder at the name of the place I've heard townspeople say not even twice. If any of my kin were around, not one would utter it. Darkness affects us greatly, though not driven mad so quickly like men. Mordor is the only place I am aware of that exists other than woods nearby where I hunt and my village.
"What was the outcome?" I ask.
"The Dark Lord was defeated," his weary green eyes hold relief. "So this was truly the last alliance as they say it was."
"I've heard that many a time," I claim dryly to myself. "I wish I had more to give, sir. No wonder that the butcher and skinner paid me little when they had to pay out of their own pocket. I have food. Lasting food. I'm afraid I don't have greater healing methods to offer either," I offer once more feeling guilt. My people were hardly ever injured and if we were, the salt of the ocean and the sun would heal.
"Do you have enough? For yourself?"
His care hit me square in the face. That's a first from him.
"Indeed."
"Then, yes, please. However much you may give," he holds his hands out but I wave him inside the warm place whilst I turned and gathered my freshly made lembas.
"That's a big loaf!"
"You may take it back to your home and have your wife cut it into the smallest pieces you deem, and they can be handed out to the soldiers," I turn around once more to reach in my bread box to give him one from my stash. "And take this for yourself and your family."
"Thank you, Hallethiel," his eyes were grateful but held fear of saying my name wrong, which he has.
"Hallethril," I correct with an amused smile.
"I'll get the hang of it one day!" he chuckles fleetingly. "But thank you. Stay well and warm."
"You too," I respond, following him to the door with the two loaves of lembas in his arms, and shutting it behind him, but not locking it just yet in case anyone else happens to show up… and the landlord would hear me lock it and think it rude.
Forgetting (perhaps ignoring) completely about the sword on the ground that was left on my doorstep, I make my way to the back of my home to my little reading nook with a book shelf housing but ten books, and familiarly pluck one of them up with my same right hand, and begin reading the first page in my mind's eye before I even open the book:
The sun has risen and set, the seas have ebbed and flowed, the winds have blown, hither and yon. Yet, still I stand, unmoving through all of it, for the pain of not having your large hand in mine has left me cold, battered by the waves and hardened by the sands carried upon the winds.
My eyes have withered from too many unhappy tears and nowhere near enough tears of joy, made all the more devastatingly painful by my inability to look upon your face as you run and play and sleep and dream.
I am sorry, my truest of Loves, my Only, that I have chosen to ignore these feelings of longingness for so long. I could touch the pen to paper a million times, writing odes to your face and sonnets to your smile, but the distance that I feel has forced me to lull my heart into oblivion. I have intentionally sealed my heart in an attempt to stop feeling (to stop all feeling), yet I cannot.
Greenwood the Great – Yule Tide
The elven realm of Greenwood the Great was in uproar, and for good reason. After long years of uncertainty and fear, a messenger from the South had brought long-awaited tidings, tidings both of joy and of woe: the foe in Mordor was defeated, the war over at last, but it was a dramatically decimated army that made its way back to Greenwood, and it was not the King who led the warriors home.
Oropher, the Sindarin King, would not be returning from the battlefield. It was his son who had commanded the troops in the final years of battle, his son who had been crowned and shall sit upon the throne that had been empty for so many years.
A crowd had gathered at the entrance to the palace to welcome the sons of Greenwood home: the Queen at the front, grave and pale in a black mourning dress like the night sky with embellishments silver as the stars—plucked from the sky itself. She is flanked by several ladies of the court, the King's steward and all members of the Council, ready to swear fealty to the new King and kiss his ring.
Years had gone by since she last saw Thranduil, years since they last embraced and made each other tearful promises. The day he rode to war with his father she knew she would never smile again. Her life had been on hold since then, the idle pursuits that filled her days providing poor distraction from her heartache and fear. She had prepared herself for the likelihood of never seeing him again, but today he returned a victor, with years of battle, violence and despair under his belt. Had he changed? Did he love her, still? Did he even remember those promises he had made her?
As Oropher's only son, Thranduil was the sole heir to the throne, a fate he had accepted very reluctantly. While Oropher had been a stern but just leader, respected by the people, Thranduil had the reputation of being a rebel, and so benevolent he was blinded, unfit for kingship. There were many who doubted him even now- she had heard the whispers in the halls.
He was headstrong, did not appreciate being told what to do, and had spent many years challenging his father's will in every way he knew how. Their relationship had always been strained because of it, and Oropher had regularly chastised his son for his wrongdoings, both in private and in public. Many of these quarrels revolved around Thranduil's instilled despise for the notion he'd have to wed one day like his father. Because he will have to wed even when he is crowned king, liking it or not, but the fact he has felt no love for any elleth in this wood, or elsewhere, has him sore. He left for battle—with small thoughts that he'd be the one to return alone and find love with any decent-enough elleth fit enough to be his wife moreso than his queen.
..
Currently, Thranduil swirls yet another glass of Dorwinion in his hand as he looks over the merry sea of his feasting people not as sorrowful as they were not even a month ago for his crowning ceremony. At least they are happy to have a king once more. This is the first Yule of his reign and it is going 'swimmingly' as his butler Galion has said prior to being dismissed to go drink a bottle of his own, but the grief (though residing more) from the War of the Last Alliance weighs heavily on the shoulders of his elves. It is visible in their eyes plain as day, but they smile on and glow with the fire, snow flocked trees and stars. They are a simple folk who care more for the beauty of the trees and the peace of their own forest than for the politics and alliances of greater kingdoms.
But here he was. The last Elven King in Middle Earth. Alone, in a forest of rather drunk wood elves who dance merrily around the flames of the Yule fire. He used to be one of them, with his father where he is sitting on his outdoor oak-throne looking on in laughter, his wife beside him holding his hand and laughing with him—only making his father appear contented even more. Now he is enjoying this short break before he continues to rule as serious as his father had, with his mother and the council tutoring him where need be.
He took another swallow of wine. His father had to go and stubbornly refuse to collaborate with Gil-galad, a decision which resulted in Thranduil having to wear the rather heavy berry crown and take up the oaken staff. Yes, it was his Ada's fault entirely that he was in this situation to begin with.
"Adar, we must wait. We cannot charge ahead so recklessly."
"Thranduil, I refuse, refuse to let these Noldor up-starts think that we of the Greenwood cannot fight as well as they and are not of the same mettle as them! High elves, indeed. Our woodland people have every right to fight just as bravely as their snobbish kin, and they will do so. We do not need Gil-galad's blessing. Did you not train these warriors yourself, ion nin?"
"Yes, adar, but they are not as disciplined as Gil-galad's troops and you know this…."
"They are strong and well-enough disciplined to hold their own amongst this orc rabble. We will lead an assault on the morrow."
The assault had cost them a King, and one-third of the Woodland army, and Thranduil had found himself before the High King of the Elves to save the rest of his people from sure slaughter. But even his saving wasn't enough, only a third came back with him to the wood where they weren't as disciplined.
"We will submit to your leadership, my lord, but do not expect us to fight like Noldor."
"Are we not all elves, penneth?" Gil-galad was put out by the young King's distinction of Elven races. In his mind, it had been Oropher's pride in the Sylvan race that had blinded the Woodland King to the need to work together. He had thought Thranduil would understand the situation better, but glancing at the young elf before him, who carried himself with all the dignity and stubbornness of a ruler, now, perhaps Gil-galad was mistaken.
"I am hardly a child, High King."
"Yes, true, you are now a king… and pride does not become you. You see where it led your father."
"My father did what he thought was right." Thranduil grew taller and more imposing with these words. He would defend his father publicly, even if inwardly he was cursing him for the same reason as the High King.
"At the cost of so many lives…"
Gil-galad was correct of course: Oropher had led a third of his elves to their deaths, but they had followed their king willingly and had fought and died bravely. Then Thranduil was left to pick up the pieces and, after Sauron's defeat, he led his diminished troops home to the Greenwood–brothers, fathers, cousins, dead and gone, and the elves of the Woodland Realm disheartened and grieving in their wake.
Thranduil's mother had surprisingly remained in Middle Earth after his father's death. Though she was but a shadow of her former self, she had piece by piece, day by day helped her son to pick up the pieces of a broken kingdom, and will continue to do so until he tells her to quit, or when he in fact finds a wife to heal and secure for sure bliss. Now that the wood elves were once again merry.. enough, she had retreated into herself and began to distance herself from her son other than the said tutorage where needed. Indeed, she had not joined in the revelry of the evening.
"Are we not all elves?" Gil-galad had asked him.
True, but his people were simpler than their Noldor kin. From their experiences during the battle of the Last Alliance, the Sylvan elves had become wary of strangers and foreign alliances, even distrustful of the other elves that still lingered in Middle Earth. And Thranduil did nothing to discourage such prejudiced attitudes.
True, Oropher had acted against the orders of Gil-galad, but Gil-galad had sent no reinforcements to help thwart the slaughter of his people and Thranduil had been forced to retreat.
He snorts softly into his wine. Gil-galad had berated him for making distinctions between the elven races, when it was the High King himself who left his woodland brothers to die.
"Melancholy much, my king? Surely, not tonight of all nights? We always have tomorrow when ruling begins once more.." During the king's despondent musings, his butler had silently come back to stand by his side. The pale blonde ruler turned a haughty gaze towards the newcomer.
"Now you question your king's mood, Galion. I have no idea why I am putting up with you."
"Because someone needs to wash your robes, sire." Galion retorted flippantly.
"Ai, I should get a wife."
"Yes, you should."
Thranduil chuckles softly at the comment. Galion had been by his side since he had been but a small elfling in Doriath. He had not even been a prince at that time, much less a king, yet Galion had saved him from a rather nasty archery mishap and since that time, he had even served as his father's friend, butler and now Thranduil's friend, butler… but common sense this time included. He would never retire, even if the king did find himself a mate.
"But I fear I have been assigned to you for life. You have the freedom to choose a wife, at least," Galion sighs lastly in attempts to get his majesty's hopes up.
".. until spring," Thranduil adds. "At least winter has just begun, and stirring is soon after. That is what least is left. One-hundred and twenty days or less til spring, a mere blink! Spring itself is an added fifty-four days if I am given til the end of spring at least!"
Galion said nothing further, knowing not what to say. He had told Thranduil before the festivities begun alongside the queen that he should be eyeing out potential wives, but he had none of it and stormed out.
"And where would you go?" Thranduil changed the subject back to what they were talking previous. "If you did not have to work for me?"
Galion closes his eyes as if picturing his own little Valinor. "Somewhere where there are no haughty, moody Elven Kings with such ornate, silken robes…" He opens one eye to find Thranduil glaring at him, though there is a faint glint of amusement in his ice-blue eyes. "I would hardly know where to go, Thranduil, and you well know that." The butler says honestly opening both eyes as he glanced back out towards the dancers.
"Perhaps your wife would let me do the cleaning up every other day."
"Perhaps. But I shall have to find one first. My perfect one," The king voices once again, his twinkling eyes growing more somber. "I do believe Naneth means to sail by spring—knowing I won't find anyone in this sea of leaves, and I will be alone, Galion." His mother had talked about leaving these shores-subtle hints here and there.
"I can manage alone, Galion, but somehow the thought terrifies me not having someone there to tell me when I am wrong, to keep me on the straight path, to temper my judgment so I do not end up like my father. Finding love isn't such a bad idea now as to what I used to believe."
"You are not your father, my king. You should not worry so," Galion nodded towards the drinkers, adding cheekily: "You should be out among the pretty maidens of your kingdom, there are many, if you hope to find a wife. You cannot change the past, sire. If you want to live in the present, then you must seize the moment."
Thranduil glares again at his friend and servant. "You are too cheerful, Galion."
Galion laughed merrily. "Because I am the servant and you are the king. If I were king, I would not be the depressing bump-on-the-log you are currently. Maybe your future wife will be sweet and doting as I."
Thranduil sighs humorlessly once more, though his hand holding his goblet of wine twitched in amusement . "I fear I am depressed because I am remembering the past, yet also because I am thinking of the future. I fear I will not find a suitable match among my people; these ellyth are far too young and rather frivolous, and most now are widowed- even the keenest- and cannot love again. They shouldn't, at least, and sail alongside my mother. I do not see any of them as a good candidate for a queen. And a queen must not just know how to dance, Galion."
Despite Thranduil's persistent gloominess, Galion could not be hindered in his attempt to cheer his king. Tonight was Yule—after the War of the Last Alliance or not— and he was determined to see his friend and master laugh.
"So, are we to seek far and wide elsewhere and bring her forth to you?" He asked bemusedly. While Thranduil thought where they'd search, He was on decent terms with Celeborn, he was rather distant with Galadriel to say the least. "I hear your cousin's daughter is quite lovely."
"And currently courting the peredhel, Elrond." The Elven King shot down the suggestion and slightly shudders at the thought of having the Lady of Light as a mother-in-law. "Gil-galad's herald… You remember him?"
"Yes, he was quite kind in his condolences of your father's death…"
"True, as sincere as one could be given the circumstances. Perhaps I will join mother when she travels west and accompany her to the Havens and I will pay him a visit, that is when spring comes around and no stimulating elleth has been brought before me and we find love with one another.."
"Any elleth?"
"I said stimulating had I?" Thranduil laughs whole heartedly. "And what you had said, sweet and doting. The perfect one. Whatever hope is left in me has faith there is someone out there to fit my other half that is indeed missing."
Galion laughs with him, "Sire, you should have nothing but hope, always. Especially on this lovely night."
"I'm not speaking to any ellyth from here tonight or tomorrow or days ahead, Galion! I'm familiar with them all. Go away now," the king's head tilts back in satisfaction having said the final word, but also in satisfaction as the last gulps of wine fill down his throat and passes his heart beginning to feel alight with more hope—just as his butler said he should have—then feeling the Dorwinion nectar coat his stomach filling him whole. He had just enough for tonight.
Thranduil continues to sit back however, finding a foreign peace begin to fill him in his body, and begins to ponder about something he has never done before, but it has come up of late.
Envisioning his perfect wife should she be real. His kin chorusing in harmony the Hymn to Elbereth presently was most fitting to his imaginations and it cleared his glum mood completely but only for the night as everything affiliated with stars and all other nature elements seen simple to others eased him and his people.
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O Light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
In a far land beyond the Sea.
O stars that in the Sunless Year
With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see your silver blossom blown!
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western Seas…
The young king was reclined back in his large, oak chair—the thrown for parties outdoors—staring up at the night sky getting accustomed to the weight of the twigged crown on his brow, with his hands folded in his lap, ceasing his imaginations entirely because the elleth of his dreams-of his heart's desire- does not exist. She couldn't. Celebrian yes, close enough to the stars, but she is Elrond's… Well he could stir things up if he wanted since they are but courting… But like his mother, she must rival her, Celebrian and the stars themselves.
Good luck, search men!