The Prince's Pretend Mother

Nineteenth Entry - Still to Dread

We have, as I suppose, ahead

The darkest of it still to dread.

Despite my joy darkness began to grow, as we had once thought it could not grow again. Clear water we took from the springs had the touch of shadows when it swirled into our goblets. The edges of our forest darkened, and soon we could not protect even half of what we once had. We could not drive the spiders off for more than a week. Orcs passed through our borders as though we had never lived here at all. The dragon was gone, but still our numbers dwindled. Still no children grew here. Many spoke of leaving. Many already had.

But I stayed. A number of my friends had already gone. Entire human towns were being consumed by the orcs; I could well understand their fear.

"Is there nothing we will do?" I whispered to Thranduil, night after night as we prayed the sun would still rise, even if we were the only people left in the world to see it. Even if our people had to be alone in this world. Perhaps it would even be better that way-we would be better able to defend ourselves, instead of being spread so thin already.

The humans considered us untouchable. Perfect. It was true we were nigh invulnerable. But evil harms us in ways that it does not touch mortals. In us it spreads as a sickness, a rot, and even we struggle to free ourselves of its poison. We are weaker to it than any other race.

"I will not give our eternity to spare them of an earlier death than they will already someday suffer."

"They will come for us someday."

"We will repel them. We always have."

"Will we leave all others with whom we share this world to descend into the shadows? Does the light now only belong to us?"

Thranduil bent a snowy gaze down upon me. "Those who cannot protect their own cannot be defended."

For all my efforts I could not sway him. And I, who had known him for millennia, knew best how to try. I had one final argument for him, but I begged he would not make me use it. If I had to destroy our friendship its death would best serve the salvation of entire other races, but I would prefer that we too should live if I could save us as well. I might yet live with myself if I sundered myself from one of my last remaining loves, if I did it to save a great enough number of others. But please, Eru, I beg of you. Do not make me give him up, when already you have taken so much from me.

I did not know if Thranduil would-or could-forgive me if I used her against him.

"Thranduil, please."

I lost count of the times I begged him. The gods created us to share this world so we could share its burdens and share its joys.

But Thranduil, too, had lost more than he had been willing to give. He would give no more to the world that had not been kind to him.

I feared for what harm I would have to cause him to ignite him to prevent further harm to the people who shared this world with us. He could not pretend we were not affected.

"Thranduil."

"Do not ask this of me again, Inladris."

Distant gods, I beg of you. If I must be ruined then so be it.

So be it.

In saving them, might we not also save ourselves? We share this world. We share its water, we share its soil, we share its sky. Let humans be water, let dwarves be soil; we shall be the sky. A sky that reigns over an empty world is nothing but air. It must be looked upon to exist.

We will lose everything.

"Thranduil."

He was saved, this time, from my quiet insistence, when the doors toward which we were slowly walking swung open and settled with a loud reverberation against their hinges. The reason for their hasty entrance became clear when Legolas trotted through the wide gap they had created. "Father. Aragorn has come. He brings a prisoner."