Epilogue: The Memory of the Trees.

“We seldom did this, back then,” Legolas observed conversationally.

“Why would we? This is a great waste of time and effort...Something neither you nor I could easily afford back then. A well-aimed spear thrust or a wicker trap are the proper, the effective ways for catching fish,” Thranduil said dismissively, retrieving the line and rearranging the bait on the hook.

“You took some effort, though,” Legolas retorted merrily, studying the skilfully finished fishing-poles, carefully softened to avoid scrapes and with their knots on the right places to enhance a strong hand grip when hauling the fish. “As if this was not such a contemptible and boring activity for you, after all,” he pointed out, fighting to keep a straight face.

Thranduil had shown up at Legolas and Laerinîel's talan early that morning, carrying two fishing-poles with rawhide fish lines, bone hooks and even differently coloured sinking stones, and had tempted him into a fishing day. Now they stood almost knee-high on the water in a pool formed by a bent of the river, under the dappled shade of tall oaks.

“If we are going to catch fish, I can see no reason why we should also offend them by using inappropriate or carelessly crafted tools,” Thranduil explained, trying -and failing- to mask the well-known delight he always found in that peaceful, unhurried entertainment. “I think they are hiding behind those boulders,” he added in a whisper, wading soundlessly deeper into the water and casting again his line.

Legolas shook his head in amusement, watching his progress with a fond smile. Since his arrival, Thranduil looked more relaxed than he had ever seen him. He smiled and laughed frequently, and he had lost the brooding, weary look on his eyes that Legolas had come to consider a part of him. He no longer looked hurried, or tense, or worried, and Legolas was deeply grateful to the powers that had granted such well-deserved respite to the once burdened king. But he was curious.

“Do you miss Lasgalen?” he ventured after some time in which no fish showed in the vicinity of their tempting baits.

“Miss?” An amused chortle startled a couple of finches that had apparently mistaken them for extraorinarily tall reeds. “Does the beech miss her leaves after narbeleth, Legolas? She may dream of them during her winter sleep, but she will have forgotten her loss by spring...”

“Because she will be busy growing new ones then?”

“Exactly. And there are enough trees around us here, that we can drown in their voices to our hearts’ content… Why would I miss Lasgalen?”

“But we are not beeches, Adar, that we can so easily forget well-known trees and exchange them thoughtlessly for others... we sang them into growth, and nurtured them with our voices…”

“And praised them in their old age and at their passing,” his adar added. “Do you miss all the trees that you saw come to their death? That must be a heavy burden, my son.”

“No, of course I do not, but still…surely they must miss us?” Legolas looked now totally confused by his adar’s apparent casualness. The age gap between father and son was more apparent now that it had ever felt to Thranduil. He shuffled his feet to dig a firmer position in the pebbled river bed and cast a considering look at his mystified-looking son.

“Have you ever listened to the memories of a tree, Legolas?” he asked.

“Why yes, I have, most certainly...”

“Its thoughts, not its voices,” Thranduil insisted. That gave Legolas pause.

“You mean like the meandering speech of the Onodrim?” he finally asked tentatively. Thranduil smiled, remembering his own first encounter with one of such creatures, deep in the woods of Ossiriand.

“Something like that,” he agreed. “The memory of the trees is long like that of the Quendi, son, though it is threaded deep in their core, so it is slow to come out.” He paused to shift his grip on the pole; then continued speaking. “I met trees around Mithlond that still remembered our presence there two ages ago…I would wake up in the night convinced that I had heard my adar’s voice…Until I understood that it was the memories of the trees that sheltered our rest what I had been hearing,” he said with a soft, wistful smile. “Of course, those weren’t the same tees,” he explained with a brief chuckle at Legolas’ puzzled expression, “but the memory was still there.”

“But that…How did they do it? I mean, how would they know which memories to share with you?” At this point Legolas was gaping openly. Those were things he had never thought about before.

“They *did* nothing.” Thranduil seemed amused. “Those memories are there, buried in wood and root and passed on from grown tree into sapling. And I heard them because they had meaning to me. What else do you think it is the Forest-song? We usually just pick up what we need to know from their endless music, which tends to be closer to the surface of their daily tune. But if you listened intently and for long, and mostly in winter when they are deep in slumber, you could learn to share their memories of times long past. Even the echo of the first tree that Yavanna dreamt of when the Music was first made, our Silvan kin claim,” he added with an incredulous grin.

“I… I never knew that,” Legolas admitted thoughtfully. “I knew that the trees had long memories, but had never thought that they passed them on down to the next generation...Yet I think I felt something like that when we crossed Fangorn Forest!”

“Well, the tree-herders are actually as ancient as their most ancient memories, my son," Thranduil nodded in agreement. "But the rest of the trees feed on the music of the living things, and treasure it as nourishment for the long winter spell. They work ours voices and teachings into wood, fruit and seed that will be shared come Spring, so the memories live on. The trees in Lasgalen will still dream of our voices and will awake refreshed and renewed every spring long after the last Elf has sailed away -or faded," he added soberly. "And we shall always keep their song around," he continued with a reassuring smile, "because these trees will learn it from us and thread it within theirs, so it will never fade nor be forgotten.” The mighty oaks shook their branches above them in acquiescence at the king's kind but yet commanding voice.

“So the memory of the forest is immortal like the Elves, and the trees will not miss us because they will still hear our voices within them?”

“In a sense,” Thranduil nodded, "much as we carry their song within us," he added in a lowered voice, raising a hand to silence him. “I think I have spotted a big one," he whispered, pointing at a quick flash on the water to their left.  Legolas sighed and bit back another question.

“Is that what you told Laerîniel?” he asked when it was clear that the fish would not indulge the former King of Lasgalen.  “She told me that you convinced her to sail,” he elaborated, at his adar’s questioning glance. “And for that I am most grateful to you, my lord,” he added with an uncertain smile.

“She just...learned what she needed to know,” Thranduil said simply after a long pause. “She convinced herself. And I would not have been convinced to sail  myself but for you, Legolas, so it is I who is deeply indebted with you,” he smiled back a bit ruefully.

“How can that be?” Legolas sounded curious now. “Why would you choose not to sail if you knew you would not miss the forest?”

“It was pride,” Thranduil admitted finally. “I was terribly angered at the Powers when you came home wounded by the sea-longing… I thought we had won over our fate, and I firmly believed that we would finally be granted to live forever free and happy in Middle-earth as we once were, according to the accounts of our past. To see that you were rewarded for all your toils with the loss of all that you held dear...I found that most unfair."

“I knew there was a price, and even if I did not welcome it, I knew it had to be paid...” 

“I am proud of you for it, my son, and too high a price it was, of that I am well aware. And I was not so willing to pay it. Yet at some point I began to admit that it could be even worse, were you doomed to lose your family and friends because of my obstinacy…”

“I…I feared you would cling to the forest…” Legolas admitted in a voice that quivered so slightly.

“It was not easy,” Thranduil acknowledged finally with a brief scowl. “To accept that the age and the land belonged to Men, after our long ages of struggle and loss...Yet knowing that you had departed before us somehow made it easier to accept… And thus many who would have otherwise remained were in the end less reluctant to sail as well...” Only the voice of the singing waters broke the dense silence that followed Thranduil’s admission.

“I know it does not help you much now, to know that in choosing to accept such harsh fate for yourself you were also serving your people,” he continued after clearing his throat. “But that may have been the point of what back then seemed a cruel reward for such a great service…At least, it worked that way to me. Look, there it is!”

A sudden, strong tug on the line distracted them from other deep pondering. The pole was bending and Thranduil tightened his hold on it. A dark scaled shadow tried unsuccessfully to go down and then suddenly leapt out of the water and twisted in mid air, its white belly glistening in the morning sun as it struggled wildly to free itself. It splashed loudly and then tried to swam away.

“Did it get free?” Legolas searched frantically around, as the fish was nowhere to be seen. “Did you see it, it is huge!”

Thranduil lowered the pole to give the fish more line. “No, I still have it.. I am going to lead it ashore,“ he warned Legolas, taking a couple of steps forward.

“Slowly, slowly now, Adar!” The fish had reached the end of the line and now Thranduil was bringing it in bit by bit, while at the same time turning it in a wide circle and forcing it to swim towards the river bank. The fish surfaced again and for a brief moment it seemed it would get loose, but Thranduil lifted the pole and took a step back to the shore, then another, placing hand over hand along the pole until he reached the tip.

“You got it, there it is…” Legolas had walked onto land and waited eagerly to finish off the catch. The fish was definitely weakened, close to the surface, still tugging at irregular intervals

“You fought well,” Thranduil commended it in a soft voice. The fish trashed madly one more time, but it was almost spent. “The river be praised for such a catch,” he added, taking hold of the line and pulling it up with a forceful tug.

“Amazing!” Legolas exclaimed, admiring the almost arm-long glistening creature that wobbled weakly on the grass. He finished it off with a quick turn of his knife.  “Naneth would not be happy if we got back home empty-handed,” he grinned.

“Ah, but that is *my* catch, young Legolas,” Thranduil informed him with a mischievous smile. “Now that I have taught you the secret art of pole fishing, you will have to do it yourself, to keep *your* wife contented,“ he added in an admonishing voice. “See? a patient wait is always rewarded, and everything comes at its appointed time. I will be watching from here, in case you need some advice,” he joked good-naturedly. He sounded so proud of himself that Legolas could not hold back an exasperated growl, as he picked up his pole and walked cautiously back into the river.

“I think we must find you something in which to occupy yourself; too  much spare time does not suit you;” Legolas grunted quite loudly. “What do you plan on doing for the next ages, Adar?” he asked not too kindly, casting a brief glance over his shoulder.

“Me?” Thranduil had finished wrapping up the great fish in big oak leaves and had placed it in a bag of threaded bark. Now he sat comfortably under the shade of the oldest oak tree in the clearing, looking completely at ease. “I am the former King of a besieged realm who no longer carries the burdens of rule and defence…” he informed his son seriously. “And I plan to keep myself like that for the rest of my immortal life,” he announced with a pleased smile and an amused laugh.

Legolas lifted his pole and cast his line on the sun-dappled waters, watching as it danced lazily in the smooth current. Let the river flow away, never to return; for the trees know not of the water’s doom. That was the advice that Thranduil had received from the first Ent he had ever met, when he was a young sapling in the forests of Ossiriand. Let those who are gone be gone: The sea is full, yet not a drop is lost to the One, the tree-herder had also said. Legolas shook his head thoughtfully. He had not thought of that well-known family tale for a long time, but after his adar's admission, his toil and grief suddenly gained a new  meaning.

I never hoped any good could come from my sea-longing, he realized, and yet what had seemed an unbearable loss to him at the time had turned out to be, in hindsight, one of the the last knots in a fate greater than his own; another stitch in a tapestry whose pattern he could not have descried except from a great height and distance. A wide smile spread across his face, as it all suddenly made sense to him, and he let escape a satisfied sigh. The trees still shivered in pleasure at the deep joy that had resonated in Thranduil’s clear voice when suddenly the line tensed in Legolas’ hands and the pole bent with a strong tug.

“Adar! I think I have a big one!”

The End

A/N. At last. Thank you all for following through this insanely long tale. Thranduil's encounter with the Ent is told in "Advice from a tree" in Droplets.