The Last Elf Queen of Arda

Chapter 24 - Golden Child

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A short while later, Thranduil sat upon the edge of a small river bank, becoming acquainted with his newborn son. Despite all her protests, Anthelísse had been utterly exhausted by the birth. It had taken endless cajoling, coaxing and reassuring to get her to finally relinquish the infant. Thranduil had left her already drifting off into a deep reverie, their son swaddled in his arms.

Now as he held up the tiny elfling, Thranduil marvelled at the wonder of this new life he and Anthelísse had created. The sunlight through the autumn treetops of the Greenwood cast the babe's face in a warm glow. Inch by tender inch Thranduil studied every detail of the child.

A tiny hand peeked out over the edge of his swaddling blankets, five little white fingernail crescents tucked into a half-curled fist. The little tuft of white-gold hair atop the elfling's head was as pale and fine as spun silk. Thranduil fingered that downy curl with a gentle caress, almost afraid to touch the baby's skin too firmly. His son smelled like earth after a rain and something else, the scent that was solely that of a newborn.

Thranduil's touch elicited a stir from the baby, who gave a little snuffle as he squirmed inside his blanket. Carefully, ever so carefully, Thranduil lowered his son onto his knees and cradled the elfling's shoulders.

"Mae go'vannen, ion-nin." (Well met, my son.) Thranduil murmured, testing out the words on his tongue. He had a son, and he was a father. That was an entirely new role, the likes of which he had never before worn. Thranduil had been many things throughout his nearly three thousand years; a son, a prince, a husband, a king. To be a father was his newest and greatest title, one which Thranduil could not imagine ever being any less of a wonder to him than it was now.

"May I join you?"

Taking care not to disturb the baby, Thranduil turned to look over his shoulder. Nellas was standing nearby, having approached with almost unearthly silence. The sleeves of her gown were still rolled to the elbows and her long brown hair was pulled back. At this time they were no longer a king and a dowager queen, but simply a new father and his mother.

"Of course, Naneth." Thranduil nodded to a patch of moss on the riverbank beside him. A pair of black squirrels raced up a tree trunk across the stream, their nails making tsch tsch sounds in the gnarled wood. The sound reached the elfling's tender pointed ears, and he opened his eyes. Nellas folded her knees and sat cross-legged, as Thranduil often remembered her doing when he himself was a very small ellon.

"May I?" Nellas opened her arms and reached for her grandson. Thranduil gingerly passed the baby over, tucking in a loose end of the swaddling blanket as he did. "Hello, little one." Nellas crooned, settling her precious bundle into the crook of her arm. "Welcome to the world."

The baby blinked, watching Nellas through half-lidded eyes. She lightly stroked him along his velvety cheek, and he yawned.

"Anthelísse and I have decided on his name." Thranduil said, watching his mother and son together with a full heart. When Nellas looked up at him he smiled. "We took your advice about a name that reflected the nature of all three elvish peoples; Sindarin, Noldo and Silvan. His name is Legolas, or Greenleaf." Thranduil pronounced the name very deliberately, taking care to enunciate the Silvan inflections to the otherwise Sindarin words.

"From the word 'laeg' for 'green'?" Nellas asked, surprised. "That is a very ancient, very rare form of the word. I have not heard of its use besides with regards to the Green elves of the First Age. They were the ancestors of our modern Silvan elves, yes?"

"Exactly." Thranduil nodded, pleased that Nellas had caught onto the meaning.

"And where do the Noldor come in?"