Laer o Faen

I Lant o Doriath

First Age of Middle Earth – 506

Sen pân gwesta: gurth hon annatham nan i-vent aur, naeg tenna i-vent i-amar.

He could feel his mother's eyes on him as he hurried to ready himself.

Ever more frequent, since the message came that sent his father and others of the older warriors out upon long hours of patrol in the woodlands of Neldoreth, Nivrim and Region; even more often since Dior had answered the missive with rejection, did he feel her hovering in his doorway.

Slowly he and turned to her, holding out his hand.

He said softly, "When will you tell me what troubles you?"

She came to him then, slipping her hand onto his arm, and holding tightly as she looked up at him, and shook her head.

"I have no need to speak of it, Thranduil," she answered, "for it is already upon us, and soon we will be swept in its tide toward all that will come after."

"More riddles, Naneth?" he sighed softly. "Ada is right. You have spent too much time in worry."

"And yet your Adar is arrayed for war," she answered, "And you also, Ionen."

He lifted her hand from his arm, holding her trembling fingers in his hand, and gesturing toward the hallway, beyond his rooms, that led out from Menegroth, said, "Oath, curse or otherwise, Naneth, these are our people and I cannot, I will not allow them to come to harm undefended. There are children here."

"You are barely more than a child yourself," she said. "Battle now, and you will spend your life in conflict and war. Will you not spare yourself?"

He shook his head.

"I will spare those who cannot save themselves. Naneth, you know this is right." He pushed her gently toward the door, feeling the chill of foresight surrounding her words, and his own. "You must go to safety, and I must face this oncoming darkness."

"If we part now, I will never see you again," she said. "Thranduil, please!"

"No," he said firmly. "You must forgive me, but it is my duty." Briefly he embraced her, slipping out of her arms when he thought she would have tried to hold him back. "Find safety, and help the others if you can."

Then with no further word, he snatched sword from sheath, and hurried down the winding stone stair, and into a tide of war from which he and his kin had, for so long, been protected.

** ** **

For the second time in less than the passing of even half a decade, the forests and pathways of Doriath ran with the blood of Elves. The steps underfoot were slick, and the iron scent filled his every breath, leaving him weakened with nausea, his eyes hot and sore from the smoke of the burning, and unshed tears for the loss so many lives.

At the scuff of a foot at his back he spun, tired arms aching with the effort of raising twin blades in defence against the descending Elven steel, growling denial; every sensibility railing in silent, horrified protest at crossing blades with another Elf.

"This need not be!" he ground out, pushing against the other's blades as he locked his own against them, but even then, he knew his words, his persuasive wisdom came too late to reach the other, as he saw the darkness of hatred in his eyes, as glancing down he caught sight of the red-black stain of blood beneath his feet.

Heaving hard to force the other back far enough to free his steel to move, and with the cries of the hurt and dying around him; the cries of children slain without mercy, Thranduil pushed away the righteous reservations of his youth, and embraced the cold of the truth. The only defence left to Doriath was to attack, to fight.