This chapter assumes you have seen the second and third Hobbit movies at least twice.

"Will it never end with these dwarves?" Alagon muttered to his wife as soon as he returned to his quarters.

"What happened now?"

"The prince and Captain Tauriel found thirteen of them while hunting spiders. They claimed to be lost, but that strikes both myself and the king as unlikely." Alagon frowned at the ceiling. "It has been little more than a century and a half since they were driven out."

Kimbrel approached, and he automatically folded her into his arms. It had been a chore at first, to hug her when he came home, but it had long since become natural. He had suggested they stop this ritual once Taensirion stopped bothering them about it, but Kimbrel claimed she liked it very much. And so, it had become habit.

"Was your day bad?" she inquired.

"Irritating. The dwarves were thrown into the dungeons despite my advice, and Taensirion's." It irked him when he agreed with Taensirion, especially when Thranduil still went against their advice.

"But I thought you did not like dwarves."

"What are we to do with them, let them rot? That is what the king said. I do not care if they are dwarves or not, I do not like the idea of leaving them there for the extent of their natural lives."

"But… do you mean you feel sorry for them?"

"No, of course not," he said quickly. "It is merely inefficient."

"Taen says I should encourage you to talk about your feelings," Kimbrel reminded him.

"Why would I feel…" He sighed, annoyed. "I hate Taensirion."

"Don't say that, it's not true."

Alagon grumbled under his breath.

. . . . . .

"OUT," snapped the guard.

"But," began Tathor.

"Out, or I shall tell the king."

"Come on," Silana told Tathor, towing him away by the arm. "I can't believe this," she whispered to him as soon as they turned a corner. "Sky could've snuck down there, yet we've been caught every time."

"There isn't much to hide behind in the dungeons," Tathor pointed out with a sigh.

"Yeah, well, she still could've done it. There must be something… Ah, during the Feast, the guard will be greatly reduced!"

But Tathor was already shaking his head. "They'll notice if we leave."

"We can come up with an excuse, right? Sky always found a way for everything."

"I wish she was here with us… King Thranduil wouldn't lock up the dwarves then." Tathor sighed. "Sil? Is it going to help at all to talk to them? If we even can?"

"Well… we might be able to give them some advice for dealing with Thranduil… If we can convince them to negotiate more nicely next time, or even to make some concessions…" She trailed off.

"He's not really going to leave them down there forever, is he?"

"…Surely not, right?"

. . . . . .

The feast hall in the underground palace was truly fantastic in every way. Space, acoustics, proximity to the wine cellars, everything. Oropher would have loved it. Yet, today the mood was dampened. The forest was sick, and the spiders were spreading even faster than the orcs. Beyond the shrinking bubbles of elf-inhabited forest, Greenwood was decaying. The humans called it Mirkwood now.

And the king was… different. Not that this was anything new, but there was something worse about his behavior now. Like a spoiled taste in an already-bitter dish.

Once, Taensirion mused, this kind of feasting would have been done outside. They had recently tried that again, for an earlier feast this year, around when those dwarves were captured. But the already-drained merriment was tainted by the subtle wrongness around them.

Taensirion looked longingly toward his family, who were halfway across the hall. He himself had to stay with the king; Thranduil preferred to eat at a high table with his advisors and other close confidants. Even Galion got a place.

Normally Taensirion did not mind, but tonight, he was just… tired. Tired of hearing about how the forest was rotting, tired of watching Thranduil's slow, directionless spiral. Tired of the endless cycle of pain and death in the world. He had never felt so old.

Tonight's biggest worry was Tauriel. She was missing from the Feast; she had never even given an excuse. Normally Taensirion or Lanthirel would have tracked her down—or sent Silana—but the king was in such a foul mood lately that Taensirion had been afraid to arrive late. And Tauriel had been distant lately. Taensirion had been told she was spending a lot of time in the dungeons… was she speaking with the dwarves? Perhaps that would not be such a bad thing. She had a revolutionary streak, a drive to stand up for the weak, like Silana. Like Kilvara, too.

A hand on his shoulder snapped his attention back to the present. "Alagon?"

"Did you see?" His fellow advisor leaned down, eyeing the distracted king. "The prince slipped away."

Taensirion shook away his moroseness. "That is not so unusual, is it?" Certain elves, very much including Legolas, lost interest in the festivities around the time everyone became thoroughly intoxicated—which would be about now. Though he himself had not had much, having long ago learned that too much alcohol led to rather embarrassing stories being told about him.

Alagon raised his head, frowning for some reason toward the table where some of the healers were clustered. Silana, Taensirion noted, was with them, whispering with Tathor. "Your ward is not here, either."

"So? …Do you think she is meeting with Legolas? That could be a good thing."

Alagon eyed him. "You have not noticed."

"…noticed?" He had not had time for much of anything, aside from speaking with the king about the dwarves, and keeping an ear on the events of the wider world and within the forest. So no, he would likely not notice if Lanthirel dyed her hair blue.

Alagon shook his head. "Keep watch over your children. They are… passionate."

Taensirion thought of Tauriel, and could not disagree.

. . . . . .

"Are you all right? Both of you?"

"Taensirion," Thranduil growled. "I believe I requested you and Alagon consider our next actions.

"We are fine," Legolas assured the worried advisor with a smile, ignoring his father. He and Tauriel were holding a captured, snarling orc between them.

"Alright," Taensirion said sheepishly. Barely had he stepped back before Alagon caught him by the arm and towed him away.

"Rumor says the dwarves planned to return to the mountain," his fellow advisor hissed.

"That does indeed seem likely," Taensirion agreed, still with half an eye on the king, the prince, and Tauriel as they retreated up the steps, dragging the orc.

"There is a dragon in there, Taensirion. A large one." Alagon, though not yet a general at that time, had still been a survivor of Greenwood's only previous dragon encounter.

"I am aware."

"What are we to do, if they awaken it?"

But Taensirion only shook his head. Their home was… flammable, and both Sky and Storm were gone. He could not bear to think of Legolas, or anyone else he knew, facing such a monstrosity. What good had an army done last time?

"If this rumor is true… perhaps it was for the best that the king locked up the dwarves. Perhaps we should wish they had stayed there." Alagon rubbed his forehead. "What I cannot understand is, how did they escape? Your daughter and the healer were nowhere near…"

. . . . . .

Tauriel was gone. The dragon was dead. And Thranduil, after pronouncing the former banished, sending Feren to deliver the news, had now announced his intention to march to the Mountain.

In other words, Alagon's niece was no longer of Greenwood, and his biggest concern was now that his king was about to cause an enormous fuss over a few gemstones.

"You will stay behind in my place," Thranduil informed Taensirion, who had yet to regain his power of speech after being told—several days late—that he might never again see the orphan he had taken in. "And you," he added, turning to Alagon, "will accompany me."

"No," Alagon announced impulsively.

The king froze. "What?"

Alagon had always had an infamous temper. True, that temper had never before been aroused by his arch-rival Taensirion slipping closer and closer to tears, though it did sometimes rise in defense of his wife—who had recently lost her eldest sister, for goodness' sake! And in a few minutes he would have to tell her that her sister's daughter was banished.

Now, that temper left him two choices: shout at the king, likely getting a blade drawn on him again, or drive his knife point-first into the table and storm out of the room. He did the latter.

. . . . . .

Several days later

"You're leaving?"

Tathor had gotten plenty of opportunity to use his skills since leaving Greenwood. First he helped patch up the Lakemen who had escaped the dragon attack, then he had gotten his first experience coordinating the healers during a real battle. He had considered temporarily giving up his position of head healer—inherited from Felrion—in order to let an older healer run the show, but his fellows had rightly assured him he'd do just fine. They were right, although he was still busy as the day crept into twilight. Though Greenwood had many healers, he might not get to sleep for a while.

Now Legolas had showed up, and just finished explaining what had happened while he assembled a travel-worthy first aid kit from the stuff the healers could spare. (He was smart enough to grab some weapons and supplies before he walked halfway across the world. How'd he lose all his arrows and both knives and that sword, though?) Tathor was thrilled to hear he and Tauriel had helped the dwarves, but saddened that the one Tauriel liked had died. Poor Tauriel, she was still only six hundred… Tathor had a lot of crushes at that age, but none of them were ever killed! And it sounded like she'd really cared about this Kili. He really, really hoped the king wasn't actually going to keep her banished.

"I am… truly sorry, Tathor. I feel I need this, but I feel also that I should go alone. I know we always planned to go on adventures together…"

Tathor shrugged and grinned at him, nodding to his current patient to say she could go. "Don't worry, 'Las. We knew this would come someday."

"We did?"

"Silana and I. We thought someday you'd need to go travel and see the wider world. See some of the things we saw, y'know, when we went to help Rivendell?"

Legolas nodded slowly.

"Don't worry about me, I have Firith and Silana and Feren. Good luck, though! Be careful, but not too careful, huh?"

His friend cocked his head at him. "When did you get so wise?"

"Slowly, from lots and lots of experiences." Tathor wiped off his hands on a rag, then gave Legolas a bear hug. "Go! Go learn things!"

Legolas sniffled a bit.

"You've got this, 'Las. Go find that 'Strider' guy."

. . . . . .

Thranduil was… shaken.

Rattled.

Rebroken.

There is no love in you.

He had slashed her bow in half. Because—because she was wrong. There was too much love in him, and it was smothering him. So… why could he not find it recently?

If you harm her, you will have to kill me.

His son. His son had said that to him.

And in that moment—something about the bow, Legolas's defiant expression—he had switched places. He had been the prince, slapping his sword over his father's, ready to die if the king was truly ready to kill… to kill…

…Eithryn.

Because… she would have been in the same place. Furious, aiming her bow at a king, ordering him to help. She loved the dwarves—not one, like Tauriel, but all. They fascinated her, and she cared for them. She would have fought for them as eagerly as for her own people.

He had been in Legolas's place, for an instant. And then, when he finally came to his senses and followed them up the hill—too late—and after he said goodbye to Legolas—gave permission, more or less, for his only child to go so far away—he found himself in Tauriel's place too.

Because he had sobbed over someone's body like that, even as Taensirion pulled him away. Because… she had lost her love, as he had lost Eithryn. She had known the dwarf so, so briefly, and yet he saw himself in her pain. In her silence as he led her down the mountain, after the dwarves reclaimed their kinsman's body. Her love, young and naïve as it was, was real.

He had caused this.

He had… he had been about to kill Eithryn. He had caused her death, and made someone mourn for her.

And he wondered… how had he become like this?

He had been like Legolas once. Like Tauriel, too, as she was only days ago. He had known love, and hope, and interest in the wider world. Even before Eithryn.

He still loved, did he not? He loved Legolas.

And everyone could see how he showed it, he thought sarcastically.

What have I become? he wondered.

He stalled in his return, camping the army in the hills of Greenwood overnight. He walked, alone, to the tip of one of them and looked out over the forest. Though autumn was over, the frost which had hit the mountain had not yet reached Greenwood; it was still golden, probably only for days, as the trees kept their leaves late into the year. Yet there was rot beneath those shining leaves.

Mirkwood. They called his home Mirkwood.

What have we become?

He had thrown away so much. Let so many years fade, and friendships wilt away.

Eithryn would never have allowed that.

He realized it so abruptly as he stood on that quiet hilltop. It came like a rush of winter wind around him. Eithryn would not have asked him to mourn her until he was no more alive than she. She had been a part of the world, living fully in it, dashing from moment to moment like a leaf in the wind. She would have wished him to remember how to love—and love those who lived, not only the dead.

We must change as the seasons do. For like the world, we endure through the millennia, and if we never move on, how shall we survive? Could the land persist through endless winter?

He did not imagine it in Eithryn's voice, because she had not been much of a philosopher, but rather his father's. Oropher had been prone to occasional philosophical moments, generally when drunk. In fact, Thranduil half-thought he remembered his father speaking those very words one night, a long, long time ago.

Thranduil had always envied Oropher his strength. His mother had died, but his father had not crumpled as Thranduil did. Thranduil never understood how Oropher went on after that, but he did. He had thought, sometimes, that Oropher did not grieve anymore, but that was not true. Somehow Oropher kept his grief, yet still remained a part of the world.

"How did you do it?" he wondered aloud. Yet he thought he knew. It was not so much an inner strength as he always assumed; though that could be a part, still. It was more a mindset. Eithryn rarely let anything bother her, because she simply charged headfirst into the consequences. Life would go on, she said. She wanted to be there to meet it.

Oropher had missed his wife terribly. Yet, he prepared for the next dawn. He dreamed of a kingdom, and of his son's future. He saw a life ahead as well as behind.

And Taensirion. Taensirion, who had been through so many things—his father's death, the destruction of Doriath, Oropher's loss, and so much more. Once, Thranduil heard someone—young Tathor, who was always so curious—ask him how he kept from fading.

When my father died, he told my sister and I that he believed elves were never meant to live forever—only longer than any other creature. He said loss makes the rest of life sweeter, and that our lives would not be over without him, only changed. He told us to miss him, but to keep on living.

Taensirion's father had been one of the very first elves, the ones created directly by Eru himself. Thranduil did not know if any of them still lived. It meant something special for such an ancient elf, one who had lived before any person died, to speak of death in such a way.

Eithryn would have said something similar, if she had time. As would Oropher. As would Taensirion, if he were ever killed.

A bird fluttered past. Only an ordinary thrush, and yet…

. . . . . .

"Look at it! Isn't it pretty?"

"It is only a thrush, Eithryn."

"But look!" She had coaxed the little bird to sit on her finger, and was now following him around the house with it. "Look at its feathers! Eru designed these himself, y'know. You're not allowed to insult them."

Thranduil sighed, but he had to turn and look at her bird. "They are indeed intricate," he had to agree.

"Do you think Eru and the Valar made birds for us?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why else would they make them? They could've just made the whole world into rocks."

"Perhaps they also love beauty."

"Maybe. Still though. If I were making a world for my children, I'd make it beautiful for them. I bet that's why He gave us other people, too, so we would have friends."

For some reason, Thranduil felt tears pricking his eyes.

She turned to him. "The world's so beautiful, Thranduil, don't you see? All the trees and birds and all the different people. I want you to see that."

"I see, Eithryn."

He did.

. . . . . .

Taensirion was the first to the king when he stepped through the great doors into the palace. He had even pressed Alagon into staying back, not to mention all the servants, healers, armorers, family members, and so forth waiting for the returning elves. Lanthirel stood beside him, but she said she suspected she would not be needed very much.

Thranduil tried to go straight past him, but Taensirion blocked him. "Thranduil. My lord."

Valar, he was trembling. He had never been so furious with Thranduil, but he controlled himself with an effort. He was not going to punch his king.

Thranduil looked up at him. There was an odd spark in his eyes, something Taensirion had not seen there for a very long time. But that was not important right now.

"You will rescind that command immediately," he told Thranduil firmly. This was no time for gentleness.

But Thranduil only raised an eyebrow.

Taensirion took a deep breath, and then another. And then he exploded. "How DARE you exile her for something like THAT? Do you realize that you have done worse things in your life? YOU PUNCHED AN ALLIED KING, FOR GOODNESS' SAKE! You—you—directly disobeyed your father—multiple times! I—Thranduil—I have done things worse than what Tauriel did! MUCH worse! You have no idea! She was not the one who released the dwarves, you realize, I have witnesses, and all she did was go to help them and—and that was the right thing! So there! You cannot banish her! I will—rip up all the documents or something! I will quit both my jobs, and you can find another advisor/general. I will FIGHT you if I have to! SO THERE!"

Thranduil considered him. Then… cracked a grin?

Then began to laugh uproariously.

Taensirion stopped in the middle of forming a new sentence, staring slack-jawed. Thranduil… was… laughing? A… a real laugh?

"It—it is not—funny?" he stammered finally.

"Ah," corrected the king, "but it is. You should see yourself. I believe the last time you were so angry, Eithryn and I had nearly gotten ourselves killed."

The king… had just said the queen's name. After three thousand years. It was the first time.

Taensirion could have been knocked over with a feather. No, a breath.

"She is here, Taensirion, my friend," the king said, more seriously now. "I saw the error of my ways." He gestured, and sure enough, Tauriel squeezed her way inside, between messy rows of soldiers.

"Oh," said Taensirion weakly. Then he realized Tauriel was crying, and entirely forgot Thranduil's bizarre behavior.

Almost entirely. Somewhere deep inside, he still marveled at the idea that Oropher's son might be starting to heal.

After all this time.