Kingsfoil [Thranduil] LOTR

Alone

This is a BIG chapter you guys.... Enjoy!

Two hundred and fifty years ago:

It was one of those rare Spring days when the Elvenking did not don his crown or even the circlet befitting his station; nor did he dress in his usual fine tunic or long ornamental robes. On this day, Thranduil instead chose a simple shirt, a bit worn and soft at the elbows, and a pair of plain brown leggings with his old broken-in boots.

Now he stretched out across a soft carpet of new grass atop the wide dome of his halls, breathed in the fresh Spring air and studied the slow sway of the trees, and the Song of his woods thrummed deep in his heart.

This was home, and he loved these woods and his people fiercely. Days like this reminded him of that fact, days like this when the Song was so bright, so effortless.

Now, in truth, Narylfiel had cajoled him to skip his morning meeting with the Elder Council and to forego his usual routine of lurking in the study after breakfast so that he might join her for, in her words, "a secret picnic."

She was leaving for her next patrol shift with the Forest Guard tomorrow and would be gone for two weeks. She had cornered him after dinner last night, extolling the virtues of an early lunch outside—she heard the coria bloomed atop the dome, and she believed the Elvenking would greatly benefit from a little sunshine. Rarely could Thranduil say no to her big brown eyes...a truth she knew and often used to great effect, he thought wryly as he listened to birdsong drift merrily over the trees.

Still, she was right about this—just the pair of them and the wide crest of the blue sky, the sun warm on his hair.

He didn't speak, neither did she, and wasn't that enough? To have a friend by his side who let him be?

Thranduil regarded her beside him, lying contentedly on her stomach, her head resting on a folded arm. He wanted to tell her then, that he did not know what the future held, but this moment would be one he would remember, one he would hold on to if the darkness returned. Thranduil only smiled at her instead for fear of spoiling the perfect companionable silence between them.

Just the pair of them and the wide crest of the blue sky.

.  -  .  -  .

March 10th, 3019:

Light filtered through the myriad branches casting uneven shadows across the forest path, and the elven bridge stretching toward the enormous doors of the Elvenking's halls seemed impossibly long. The forest was quiet. Although Dori and Bofur would never admit to feeling even slightly afraid—especially of woodelves, mind you!—nevertheless, they both slowed their ponies when they reached the foot of the bridge. Far on the other side, four elven sentries stood guard, their golden armor glinting in the occasional ray of sun burnished it.

Those guards, of course, were the sentries Bofur could see, but what slowed the dwarves' pace was the thought of the other guards, the ones hidden. For surely there were numerous guards posted among the treetops, probably each with an arrow nocked in aim to shoot a trespasser if the need arose.

Bofur's eyes drifted overhead, and as if on cue, a dark-winged starling swooped down from one of the tallest beeches. The dwarf exchanged a look with his companion and cleared his throat.

"We mean no harm," he called, pulling his hat off to wave it in what he hoped was a nonthreatening manner. "We are two of the dwarves that left with your king, but now we return with a message for the queen."

The branches rustled slightly over the dwarves' heads as if the tall beech trees whispered about their arrival, and then a sleek elven guard dressed in forest colors dropped down from a limb that surely must have been twenty feet in the air.