11. Thranduil's Lady

She sat on a low stool under the ancient trees, and the red leaves fell in her hair. The Elven-king knelt at her feet and kissed the hem of her garment. "Lady, do you not love me?"

She looked into his eyes. "More than my life."

"Then stay," he begged, humbling himself before another for the first, and last, time in all his long life. "There can still be light and joy in this world for us."

She turned away. "Not for me. Everywhere I look I see some place where a well-loved face should be, but is no more, and even in my dreams I hear their cries. I am weary and sick of the Shadow that devours our Greenwood. Will you not let me go to the Havens in peace?"

Thranduil said bitterly, "So be it. Depart then, but without my blessing, and without what you most value: Our son. I will not have all my treasures slip from my hands."

"And though it grieves me," she said, looking on him with pity, so proud, so cold, so wounded by time. "I leave him behind, for I foresee that he has much yet to do in Middle earth."

There was no more to say. Thranduil's Lady hummed a sad, wordless song as they sat together. The Elven-king heard in it the sighing of waves on a white shore, and gulls calling across a grey sky, and he wondered if it was his doom then, to part with all that he loved.

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The end

(but more ficlets to come...)