Chapter 2: Presence of the Shadow

Third Age

King Thranduil sat in a flet at the edge of the forest, aware that he was frustrating several of his subjects. This flet was set in the tallest tree in the capital near the top of its crown, built simply for the pleasure of enjoying the view it provided. Every morning he watched the sun rise from it. Tonight was watching the stars and trying to find peace.

It had been a yén since his father’s death. On this night, one yén ago, Thranduil had stood next to his father in battle and he felt the arrow that pierced his father’s chest as if it had pierced his own. A ghost of that pain haunted him tonight. A ghost of that pain had haunted him every day for the last yén and Thranduil suspected that one event would mold his life for ages to come. Tonight, he took to this tree for solace. To try to escape it.

For seven years after he watched his father die, Thranduil had fought the enemy in the siege of Barad-dur. When he returned from Mordor with the rest of the elven host, he knew theirs had been an empty victory. No victory at all. Barad-dur had not been destroyed and because of that, Thranduil doubted Sauron was wholly defeated. His father and so many of their people had fallen in vain and he had been left to rule their kingdom, a task he had never wanted given that ruling this kingdom implied he no longer shared it with Oropher. 

For three millennia before that war, Thranduil had helped his father manage Greenwood and he thought he knew it well. Since Oropher’s death, he realized exactly how poorly he knew it. The vastness of it sometimes came close to overwhelming him. Greenwood the Great was the largest forest in Middle Earth--over four hundred miles long and two hundred miles across. Under the ancient trees south of the Emyn Duir, dwelt scattered villagers, all with a wide variety of assets and needs. Now they looked to their new king to see how he would handle very trying times.

Forces outside Greenwood the Great looked to Thranduil as well. Whereas Oropher left Lindon to abandon the political quagmire of Noldorin lords and Sindarin exiles to seek better life in the beauty of the forest, Thranduil found himself in a vastly different political arena. The Noldorin High King, Gil-galad, fell in the war against the Evil One. To Thranduil’s surprise, Elrond rejected his right to claim the title of High King and remained in Imladris as its lord. Lindon was now ruled by Cirdan, a Telari and Thranduil’s distant kin—a vast improvement over Gil-galad from Thranduil’s point of view. Lothlorien’s King Amdir also died in Mordor. Thranduil’s nearest neighbor was now ruled by Amroth, Amdir’s son. Not a great change, for Thranduil knew Amroth well personally. But politically speaking, Amroth did not even know himself as a king, so Thranduil knew him not at all. In this new age, these young leaders eyed each other cautiously and hopefully. Since Oropher had rejected foreign influences in his realm, Thranduil had little knowledge of managing foreign relations. The majority of his experience came from the war against Sauron and those were bitter lessons indeed.

Shaking his head, Thranduil tried to turn his thoughts from past tragedy and current burdens to focus on the stars. He laughed bitterly when he heard his guard at the foot of the tree turning others away from it. The guards knew their king wanted privacy. And Thranduil knew why these elves wanted into this flet. In addition to being an excellent vantage point from which to watch sunrises and stars, it was a favorite place to tryst in the evenings. He was ruining the plans of many an elf by lingering so long in this tree tonight.

Too bad. He needed solace too. And there were precious few ways the king could find that.

Staring at the constellation Menelvalgor and the Ever-star, Borgil, Thranduil lost himself listening to the twilight songs of the tree and the sound of his own steady breathing.

When he registered the sound of another’s breath, he spun around alarmed. How could someone get into the flet, much less approach him so closely and at unawares? He relaxed slightly when he saw it was an elleth.

He recognized her as one of the ellyth that had moved into the capital after the war had ended. Many such families had done so, seeking the feeling of security Thranduil was aware they gathered from his presence. This elleth he had noticed before. Many times he had crossed her path as he walked to dinner or meetings and she sat on the benches in the courtyard. She always stood as he passed and curtsied politely. He remembered her because she was so different in appearance from the other Silvan elves in the capital. She had raven black hair--so black it almost shone blue with the glint of the moon light.

He looked at her, still with wide eyes. “However did you get up here, my lady? The guards should have instructed you that I was here.”

She smiled at him. “I knew you were here, my lord,” she whispered in a melodious voice. “But I did not speak to your guards. I climbed over from another tree. I knew your guards would not let me come up, but I wanted to come despite that.”

Thranduil blinked at that. Naturally suspicious after all the events he had been forced to endure, he tensed. “That could be taken as a threat, my lady.”

Her smiled broadened and her eyes scanned his body in a way that left no doubt in his mind that the only thing that would be endangered tonight would be his virtue.

Thranduil blinked again, trying to shake the off-balance feeling her scrutiny imposed on him. “My lady,” he said coolly. “I came up here to be alone. That is why there is a guard.”

Thranduil did not want company and certainly not female company. He did not know this elleth and even if he had, youthful exuberance and light dalliances with females were three millennia behind him.  He had long ago learned that, in his station, he could ill afford to misuse maidens’ affections in such a way.

He frowned slightly when his words did not seem to give the maiden before him the least pause.

“My lord, this is a secluded spot…no one will see us,” she cooed as she stepped closer to him. “Only spend a moment with me. You would enjoy it, I assure you. Take your mind off what troubles you.” She had come to stand fully in front of him now, sliding her hand up the front of his tunic to his chest, where he still felt the stab of the arrow that claimed his father’s life. 

He stared at her. For many millennia he had been prince of Eryn Galen. Untouchable and unapproachable save by invitation. Now he was king, an even lonelier post he was discovering. This elleth’s boldness caught him completely unprepared. He looked down at her, stunned to immobility as if stung by one of the spiders he had occasionally seen in the southern forest near Amon Lanc.

“And I would certainly enjoy it," she whispered as her other hand slid up his arm firmly to the nape of his neck. "You are the most attractive elf I have ever laid eyes on.”

His breath caught in his throat as her fingers tangled in his hair. She was now whispering to him the things she found attractive about him as she pulled his lips down to hers. 

With a feral growl, millennia of hardship and self denial were rewarded as he closed the last distance between them and claimed her lips in a bruising kiss. It would never have occurred to Thranduil to kiss an elleth in this fashion, much less one whose name he barely knew. Something about this elleth awoke in him a fire—a dark fire.

She definitely was not offended by the brutality of the kiss. On the contrary, she matched it, pulling his upper lip into her mouth as she drew him flush against her with her hands about his waist. Pressed against her, he growled again and his hands, until now unoccupied, found employment tangling first in her hair and then traveling aggressively down her slender body to her waist to finally stop at the small of her back.

There Thranduil’s own actions already began to shock him back to his senses. This had already gone well beyond the limits of respectable behavior. He had never raked his hands across an elleth’s body in such a way nor kissed one so wantonly. He was about to push her away when she tiptoed and leaned against him more fully, pinning his back against the trunk of the tree. As she stood on her toes, Thranduil’s hands, frozen in the tenseness of his stance, slid to the swell of her bottom. He tore his lips from hers and sucked in a breath. Ignoring his reaction, or perhaps responding to it, her tongue traveled to his ears, tracing over the sensitive tip. She took one of his hands in hers and moved it just under her breast; with the other hand on his hip, she pulled him closer.

He tensed and pulled fully away from her.

For a moment, they stared at one another--her face filled with lust, his with utter shock.

“Eru, forgive me. I lost myself in the shadow,” he whispered, still staring at her. His thoughts had been dark when this elleth appeared in the flet. That might explain his actions. But as he studied her, he wondered if the shadow was not much closer to him than the ghost of the one from Dagorlad.

Finally he dropped his gaze, his faced flushed with a heat that he hoped his guards would not see once he descended from the flet—it was shame and she mistook it for desire. Thranduil bowed slightly to the elleth before him, who still regarded him lustfully.

“And you, my lady, I beg your forgiveness as well. I am not myself tonight. That is why I sought comfort in the trees. I pray you can pardon my disgraceful behavior.”

She smiled at him. The smile he had seen when he first noticed her in the flet, but somehow now it seemed different. Wicked. Beguiling. Dark. As dark as she was. “There is nothing to forgive, my lord. I wanted this as you did. I was more than willing.”

His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to tell her he had wanted no such thing. Normally a very direct person, something stopped him from speaking. It would be cruel to say such a thing after using her so badly. Best to remain silent, he decided.

“Excuse me, my lady,” he whispered and moved past her to the rope ladder. He quickly descended from the flet. Without acknowledging his guards, he marched to the flets that housed the royal household, praying to avoid his mother.

****

yén--an elven measurement of time, 144 solar years. Elves like to measure in twelves.

Emyn Duir--Dark Mountains (the Elvish name of the Mountains of Mirkwood when the forest was still called Greenwood)

elleth--female elf
Ernil--prince