Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit, everything belongs to Tolkien and this story is not for profit.

A/N: Thank you everybody who favorited and followed the last chapter! Especially AislingSmith and jayjay0815 for reviewing!

Chapter 18

I woke up with the strangest feeling; I knew that something important had happened, but I had no idea what it was. My eyes were a little cloudy and it took me a few moments of blinking before I could make out my surroundings.

I was surrounded by dozens of smiling and chatting elves, and somewhere I could hear a baby crying.

Then I remembered.

My baby. It was my baby that was howling.

"The queen is awake!" I heard someone say, and then very quickly the chatter died down to whispers.

I could feel my hair sticking to my forehead with sweat, and I had a great pain in the area around my waist, which made sense in the situation. My whole lower half felt like melted butter; I knew it would be some time before I was able to get up out of bed.

"My baby," I said clearing my throat, which sounded quite hoarse, "could someone bring me my baby?"

"The queen wishes to see the prince!" The same voice shouted. It was Carfon who had spoken, I now saw. He was standing off to my right. As I glanced around I saw several elves I knew: Padhrion, Galessel, Sivurd, Rumon, Hatholben, and even old and grouchy Ellis. But the four people that I was closest to were nowhere to be found.

"Which one?" A quiet voice to my left suddenly answered.

On the other side of my bed, Legolas emerged holding a small bundle. He was smiling from ear to ear, and he came slowly closer until he was close enough to show me what it was he carried.

My son was sleeping quietly. He had a little button nose and fat chubby hands that were too precious for words, and a light brown dusting of fuzz covered his head. My throat closed up with emotion as I held out my hands for him.

Legolas handed him to me gently, whispering, "Do you have him?" when my arms wobbled a little with his weight. "Yes," I answered him. "I've always got you, baby." This time speaking to my son.

Entranced as I was, I still was able to wonder how this baby was sleeping so soundly, when somewhere in the room, that other baby was still howling. I suddenly registered Legolas' words when he had asked, "Which one?"

Looking up I saw two other figures on either side of him. Smiling almost as happily as Legolas had, Esteldes and Delia emerged on either side of him each carrying a bundle of their own.

Some of the elves that were standing closest to the bed joined me in giggling when I laughed at the sheer happiness and absurdity of it all. I remembered fully now. I had given birth to three sons. Triplets.

Wiping away the emotional tears that were streaming down my face, I sat up a little more in bed and made room for the other two tiny bundles that Esteldes and Delia placed in my arms beside the first bundle.

The other two boys did not share the first's soft brown fuzz, instead having, to my surprise and delight, the same black colored hair that I had, although there was just a little of it at the moment. The first baby was sleeping and the other two were crying so hard their eyes were closed so there was no way to tell what color their eyes were, although I had been told that a baby's eyes often change color later.

"Well, Auntie," Legolas said laughing, you've given Mirkwood enough princes to last until the end of time!"

"They will certainly be able to hear the brood even outside of Mirkwood." Esteldes said, rubbing her ears in pain.

It was true the children were crying very loudly. I took a minute and just rocked them; cooing and touching their soft little faces until they had stopped.

They were all so tiny at the moment I could hold all of them; A thought passed me that it would not be so forever. There would be a time one day when they were so big I would only be able to hold one of them. My sons.

People stepped forward to give me congratulations before taking their leave to give me some privacy. I was in for a bit of a surprise when Legolas' friend Tauriel stepped forward, and said, "Congratulations, your highness," and handed me three small little hand toys for the babies all carved from wood. I was so shocked I could scarcely mutter a thank you. I liked Tauriel, but I had not known yet how she felt about me. Seeing the little toys I realized she must have made these very quickly, for know one had known yet that I would have three sons.

Soon it was only Legolas, Esteldes, Delia, and Padhrion left in the room besides the children and me.

Now that it was just us left, I finally found the strength to voice a question that had been bothering me since I woke up, but which I only had the courage to voice now that

there weren't so many others around. "Where is the King?" I knew it was irrational, but I was suddenly worried. Was something wrong? Was he sick? Was he, heaven forbid, possibly upset with the triplets or their birth?

Luckily Legolas did not seem to be worried about it. "He stayed with you for a while after you fell asleep and then he said he had some business to take care of. Don't worry, Auntie, I told someone that you are awake now. He will surely be coming to see the children soon."

"Who could not want to see such perfect little sweetings?" Esteldes said, taking one of the boys from me so she could rock him back and forth himself.

Delia nodded her head in agreement, and I started to say something when the door opened and the King himself glided into the room in one of his long robes.

I sat up quickly, and he came over taking my hand. Since he entered the room our eyes had never left each other's, and he said my name with such emotion in his voice that the others, and even the servants, all left the room until it was only my husband and my children left.

"Thranduil," I said, reaching up to touch his face. He closed his eyes when I did so, and wrapped his hand around my wrist, keeping my hand there for a few moments until I whispered, "Look."

He looked down at our three sons, the third of which Esteldes had returned to me.

"I know." He said, looking down at them.

"Aren't they beautiful?" I whispered.

"Yes. Almost as beautiful as their mother."

I had been married to Thranduil for some time, I was the queen of Mirkwood and now I had given birth to his children, but when he spoke those words I blushed as red as if I were a young girl still.

He leaned down to kiss the top of my head, and then take a baby, one of the dark haired ones. The baby looked so small in his father's much larger body, but Thranduil seemed to be a natural, holding the child even more skillfully than I had, and rocking him gently back and forth.

"You do that so well!" I said.

"Well, you forget I'm not new to this as you are."

That's right, I thought, he's been through this all before once. Legolas, and especially Coruven, had always seemed to me to be two such as they had never been young. It was ridiculous, I knew, but I had always thought of them as they were now, two grown elves, fighters and warriors the both of them. It was strange for me to consider the thought that once they had been as small as my sons were now, and their father had held them like he was right now, and their own mother had probably laid on this very bed and watched him as I was doing now…

"Are you alright?"

I cleared my throat, my gaze leaving my husband and returning to the two babies in my arms. "Of course. I was just thinking for a minute."

We held the children for a bit in silence, neither of us needing to say anything.

After a while he finally spoke. "Do you have any ideas for names? I've been thinking about it a little myself…"

"I've already decided." I said so quickly that he stopped rocking the baby and looked at me.

"You've already decided? You didn't think to ask me for my opinion?" He said somewhat annoyed.

"Well as you said, you've already done this before, so I think that I should be the one to name the boys."

"Their mother named them, actually." He said, wiggling the baby's hand, which was wrapped around his forefinger.

The rare mention of his first wife would have shocked me into silence, but he went on and asked what I had decided to call them, still sounded put out. Well, that was just fine. I pushed them out of my body, so I think I deserved to name them. Unfortunately I had not actually thought about names at all, and I was only lying when I said that I had names already chosen. I just didn't want him to name them first.

I hesitated for a second, before an answer came into my head. "Wrane and Klirion. For the dark haired ones."

He raised an eyebrow. "Strange sounding names. Are they of Gondor?" From the way he phrased the question he made it obvious that was not necessarily a good thing.

"Yes." I whispered. "Those were the names of my younger brothers."

He went quiet at that. We both remembered the stressful time when my younger brothers had been in my cousin's custody and I had went to trade myself for their lives. I had gone but realized it was too late for my brothers, and Thranduil had thankfully rescued me in time.

"Wrane and Klirion they shall be. And the other one?" He nodded to the brown haired one in my arms sleeping next to who was now Wrane.

I had an idea for this child as well, but I hesitated even more to voice it. I had no idea what elvish customs were about naming, and if they even shared our way of naming children after someone who had died. "For this child…I was thinking Oriphar, for your father." Thranduil's father, Oropher, had been King of Mirkwood before him, and had died in battle fighting for his people, a true hero. He was said to have been a very great elf, and Legolas told me once that it was said that Thranduil had been very close with Oropher. Oriphar was the name just changed enough that I hoped it would not upset Thranduil…

"Oriphar, then. A great name for him to live up to. I know all the princes will honor the brave men who died and whose names they have now taken."

He didn't say so, but I knew he was pleased with me naming his son after his father. And it pleased me to hear him acknowledge and approve of the bravery of my own dead brothers.

He discussed coronations and training, school and languages. I listened to him go on about all the things our children would learn to do until my breasts began to ache.

I insisted on feeding them all myself, even though Thranduil said three was a lot for one woman and that I should perhaps give at least one of them to another mother to be fed.

"What mother?" I said. "I'm the only female to have given birth in Mirkwood in three years."

"I can have a human nursemaid fetched from Laketown."

"No thank you," I said, "I don't want some stranger feeding my sons."

"Have it your way."

"Are you pleased, my King?" I said suddenly.

"I am." The corners of his mouth lifted a bit, but the smile did not exactly reach his eyes.

"Is there something wrong?" I said.

"No, of course not." He said, but I could tell that he was thinking about something.

When I goaded him further, he finally admitted, "Well, it's just that I had hoped that we would have a girl."

Feeling my face starting to flush with anger, I took a deep breath to calm myself down before I spoke. "You're upset because our children are boys?"

Apparently I wasn't able to conceal my irritation as much as I had wished to.

"Well, yes. A little. After all, I already have two sons, Laurwen. And now I have five."

I bit back calling him a rude word that Aeiliel had taught me once. "Well, you might as well make the best of it." I said instead. Because that's the last child you're ever going to have. The words were unspoken, said only in my mind, but I think he must have understood, as I did, that we would not have any more children. We would have our hands full for the next twenty years until they were fully-grown, and there would be no time or place for any more children.

He looked somber for a moment as he let that sink in, and then abruptly his eyes lit up for a moment. "On the other hand," he said, "I can't wait to send Lord Elrond news of their birth."

"Oh?" I liked Lord Elrond very much, but was well known that there was a bit of unspoken rivalry and resentment between the two rulers who didn't see eye to eye on most things. I was surprised that he would be so eager to tell Lord Elrond of all people about the triplets.

"Oh, yes." He said, "He and everyone else have always gone on and on about those twin boys of his. Everyone thought that was so special. I can't wait to tell him that I have, not two boys born at once, but three!"

I rolled my eyes at this absurdity, but he didn't notice in his own gleeful malice. "Would you mind to put the children in their crib?" I pointed to an oak bed for the babies that someone had made and placed beside the bed in the days I had spent before labor. Luckily they had made it far too big since it was built for a prince, so all three of them fit in just fine. "I really need to rest for a bit more."

"Of course," he said, putting the babies away, "but before you do that, there's something I want to give you."

Wondering if this perhaps had anything to do with the 'business' that he had been seeing to as I had slept earlier, I sat up in bed, curious.

I looked at my dark curls that were completely unbound from the birth. They looked thick and tangled, and I hoped that I would be well enough soon to make it back to our chambers to be bathed.

A servant came in and handed something on a pillow to Thranduil before he went back out. Placing the pillow on the table, Thranduil took the object off of it and came over to the bed where I could see it.

It was a crown.

A beautiful crown.

Much like his own, it did not circle around the whole head but only the sides and the back. It had spikes like his own, but they were not as tall and instead of leaves coiled around them I saw that glass roses were threaded through them. White roses, with purple and blue spots. The winter roses that he had shown me growing on top of the trees that night that seemed so long ago now, when we had climbed the tree, just the two of us…Inlet all over were designs gilded in gold, the color of my eyes.

"It's beautiful, my King."

"We married so suddenly I did not have time to have a crown made for you. And now that you have born my children, no one will ever be able to say that you are anything other than my wife and queen."

I bowed my head a little as he placed the crown on my head, and I lifted it up afterwards as he met my eyes, the eyes of a woman and the queen of Mirkwood.