Many thanks to Nilmandra for beta reading this for me.

*******

2. Dreams

Thranduil stared up into the darkness. With irritating perverseness, his mind refused to go to sleep now that he had actually gotten into bed. This is pointless, he thought wearily, and sat up and lit the lamp next to his bed. Then he thrust his long legs out from under the covers and went to take a book from the shelves on the opposite wall. He chose randomly, and when he had gotten back into bed, he found that he had a book of poetry in his hands, not his usual reading.

For a brief time, he resolutely tried to read, but his attention kept wandering. Finally, he gave up and leaned his head back against the padded headboard. He would get up were it not for the fact that he had promised Ithilden he would go to bed.

He gave a twisted smile. Life had been simpler when he had been the one telling his sons what to do. And again, as in the sitting room, he thought of how easy life with his sons had been when they were all small.

~*~*~

Thump. Thump.

Thranduil found that he was having a hard time concentrating on the details of the petition he was supposed to be reading. He glanced at the small figure on the floor of his office. His son lay on his stomach, with his feet in the air, thumping them together as he laboriously formed the letters of the essay he was writing.

The child was supposed to have written the essay earlier, when his tutor was with him, but he had apparently had trouble settling down to work and thus the tutor had left instructions that he was to finish it on his own. Thranduil knew very well that the only way that would happen was if the child was kept inside and supervised until he completed his task. Hence, his son’s presence in his office.

As if feeling his eyes upon him, the elfling looked up. “I think I am done now, Ada,” he said hopefully.

As was often the case with this child, Thranduil had to suppress a smile. “Let me see,” he said and held out his hand. The child rose and handed over the paper. Thranduil squinted slightly and gradually made out the wobbly letters. With a shock, he recognized the name at the head of the page.

Elu Thingol

Elu Thingol was a king. He had no nana or ada. He lived in a cave just like I do. He was married to a Maia and his daughter was Luthien. She was pretty. She got married and he did not like her husband. Some dwarves came. There was a fight and Elu Thingol died. I wish I had been there. If I had been there, I would have had a sword and I would have saved him because he was the king, like my ada. My ada is strong. No one could kill him.

For a moment, Thranduil’s breath stopped, and he was once again in the caves of Menegroth. He had been no older than the child in front of him when Thingol died and doom descended inexorably on his people, but he still remembered the confusion and the haste and the blood. Oh yes, he remembered the blood. He had never seen a dead person before.

“Ada?”

He looked up into his son’s concerned face. “Is it enough, Ada? Do I have to write more?”

Thranduil drew a long, shaky breath. “This is enough,” he said soberly.

“Ada?” His son had drawn near and was leaning against Thranduil’s knees. He sounded excited, now that his lesson was finished. “Ada, did you know Elu Thingol?”  To his delight, the child had learned that his father knew or had at least seen many of the people he studied in his lessons.

Thranduil grimaced. “Yes, I knew Elu Thingol.”

“Were you there when the Dwarves came?” the child asked eagerly.

“Was I where? I was in Menegroth when Thingol died, but not in the treasury, of course.”

“But when the Dwarves came back, were you there then? Did you have a sword? Did you fight them?”

Thranduil’s mouth twisted in a smile. “I was about your size, sweetling. My parents hurried me to safety as quickly as they could.” But not quickly enough to keep me from seeing things I hope you never see, he added to himself.

His son’s eyes grew huge. “You were little?” The fact that his parents had once been small had only recently dawned on this child. He seemed to find it particularly hard to picture Thranduil as an elfling. “But Ada, if you were little, what would have happened if a Dwarf had come where you were?”

Thranduil looked again at the essay he still held in his hand, and this time, he focused on the last two sentences. My ada is strong. No one could kill him. He remembered feeling that way. He also remembered Dagorlad. He looked up again into his son’s face and hesitated. Then he reached out and drew his son onto his lap.

“If a Dwarf had come where I was, one of the adults who took care of me would have protected me, just as one of the guards or I would protect you.”

The child looked at him soberly for a moment and then seemed to relax. He leaned against Thranduil’s chest. “When I grow up, I am going to have a sword and be a warrior, like Ithilden,” he said with deep satisfaction. “I will ride my horse fast, and exciting things will happen all the time.”

Thranduil put his arms around his son and pulled him close. “Not too exciting, I hope,” he said. Surely he was allowed to hope that. They were at peace now, after all. He understood Eilian well enough to know that he would find excitement wherever he went, but perhaps he would not find it with a sword in his hand.

***

“Ada, look! I am a pony!” His son pawed the ground and then, with a whinny and a toss of his head, he galloped in a circle around Thranduil. The other two elflings followed him, making similar noises.

Thranduil laughed. “What a fine herd of ponies!”

“My name is Carrot because pony-me likes them. And this is Oats and Apple.” He pointed to the other two elflings.

“Are you ponies enjoying yourselves among the trees?” Thranduil asked, as he strode along the path to where he was to meet the forester. He had offered to take the three elflings with him when he saw how busy Lorellin was with the preparations for the feast that was to be held that night, and the children had leapt at the chance to be outdoors.

“We are frisky,” said Carrot, obviously trying out a word he had heard the stable master use the day before when Thranduil had taken him for a ride with him.

“I can see that,” Thranduil agreed. Carrot gave a little snort and trotted ahead to where Apple was jumping over a log. Oats climbed onto it and walked its length.

“Ponies cannot walk on logs,” Apple reprimanded him.

“Yes, they can, if you train them,” protested Oats. He jumped down, and the three of them trailed after the king.

They rounded a curve in the path, and the forester stepped out from among the maple grove. Thranduil eyed the trees, whose leaves were already dropping, far sooner than they should have been, and his heart misgave him. Surely these trees were too close to his stronghold to be damaged like those in the southern reaches of his realm. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked.

The forester handed him a leaf with blotches running along the veins. “I think it is just the spot disease, my lord.”

Thranduil let out a quick breath of relief. Spot disease was bad enough, but it was natural and his foresters had dealt with it before. “What do you want to do about it?” he asked briskly, and the forester laid out a plan for managing the disease and lessening its damage.

“I do not think it is anything to worry about, my lord,” he finished, stroking the trunk of the maple tree. “The spring was cool and wet, and the spot disease thrives in that weather. We will clear out the affected leaves as much as we can. These are good strong trees. They will survive.”

“Good.” Thranduil fingered the blotchy leaf. “Let me know if you need more help. We can probably get some of the Elves in the area to assist you for a few days if you need them. No one wants these trees to suffer.”

Suddenly, he became aware of how quiet it was. He turned his head sharply and found that the children were nowhere to be seen. “Did you see where the children went?” he asked the forester hastily.

The forester looked around. “No, my lord. I am sorry. I did not even realize they had left.”

Even as he assured himself that the elflings could not possibly be far enough away to be in any danger, Thranduil could feel his heart speeding up. “You go back down the path and see if you spot them,” he ordered the forester. “I will go ahead.” He and the forester were both in motion before he had finished speaking.

With sudden visions of spiders, deep streams, and unexpected chasms in his head, Thranduil half ran down the path, calling the children’s names. He was just hurrying past a deep thicket when a small giggle caught his attention, and he spun to narrow his eyes at the underbrush. There amid the dense branches, he caught a sudden glimpse of movement.

Nearly limp with relief, he jumped toward the bushes and pulled the branches apart. Three small faces looked up at him. “Come out of there,” he ordered, sharply enough to make their eyes widen. The three of them crawled out of the thicket by means of a tunnel too small for Thranduil ever to have used. “Why did you not answer me?” he demanded when they all stood in front of him.

“You did not use the right names, Ada,” his son protested. “I told you my name is Carrot now.”

Thranduil bit back the too harsh words that trembled on his lips. The elflings had only been thoughtless. “You know better than to wander away like that, Carrot,” he said, glad the forester was out of earshot.

“Apple wanted to look for a place where deer had slept. Ponies like deer.”

Thranduil frowned at Apple, who looked back with serene innocence. Then he turned to Carrot again. “You have seen the ponies in the near pasture. They do not stray very far from their nanas, because if they do, their nanas become frightened and go after them. Nana is not here, so you need to stay by me when we are in the forest.”

Carrot’s face became solemn. “Were you frightened, Ada?”

Thranduil nodded. “I was, my heart. You are more precious to me than any pony ever was to its sire and dam.”

Carrot flung himself at Thranduil, who caught him up in his arms. “I will stay with you always, Ada,” the child pledged, hugging Thranduil fiercely around the neck. “I will not frighten you by wandering far away.”

Thranduil sighed slightly. Ithilden and Eilian were both much farther away than their father would ever have chosen to send them if the choice were purely his. Legolas was only too likely to join them one day. But perhaps not. Perhaps the world would change in time for him to keep this precious little one at home, where he belonged.

***

Thranduil raised his hand to silence his advisor. “Did you hear a knock?” he asked.

“No, my lord.” The advisor was plainly impatient. He had been trying to gain Thranduil’s attention for days to talk about the problems of the Men of Gondor, but the king had been absorbed in the Woodland Realm’s own troubles and had been unavailable before now.

The unmistakable sound of a light knock came again. “Come,” Thranduil commanded. The guards would not have admitted anyone to this hallway in the royal family’s quarters unless their business was important. But when the door opened, the figure that slid through the narrow opening was that of Thranduil’s small son.

Thranduil frowned. “What is it, iôn-nín? You know you are not supposed to disturb me while I am with an advisor.”

The child stood arrow straight under the mild scolding, but his lower lip began to tremble. “Ada, I have something important I must tell you.” Thranduil opened his mouth to send the child on his way, but something in the woebegone figure made him hesitate.

“Can it wait?” he asked.

The child hesitated and then shook his head. “I do not think so,” he said in a voice so low that Thranduil had to strain to hear.

Thranduil looked at the advisor. “Was there much more?”

The advisor sighed resignedly. “No. I do not suppose you wish to take any action or, indeed, that there is any action we can take, but I thought you should be informed.”

Thranduil nodded. “Thank you.”

The advisor rose and gave a small bow. “By your leave, my lord.” Thranduil nodded his permission, and the Elf took his departure, closing the office door behind him.

Thranduil beckoned his son closer. He was tempted to take the child on his lap, but this had all the earmarks of a confession, and he decided that he would do better to wait until it had been made before he decided if sympathy was in order. “Now, what is so important that it cannot wait?”

His son drew a deep breath. “It is First Snow,” he offered. Thranduil nodded. The first snow of the winter had fallen around his stronghold that day, and in the evening, the Elves would feast in celebration. Even now, people were busy decorating the Great Hall and cooking the delicacies that would be served there. “We went sledding,” his son continued, and Thranduil nodded again. Elflings always went sledding on the day of First Snow, if only as a means to keep them out of the way of their elders, who were busy preparing for the evening’s feast.

His son drew a deep breath. “We sledded, and then I said we should pile the snow up to make a hill. And then we did that, and we tried to jump our sleds the farthest, and then I said we should stand up on our sleds, and some of us did that. And I jumped my sled the farthest, but then Celedë tried to beat me and she fell, and she hurt her wrist. I think it might be broken, Ada.” The words came out in a single gush, and then the child paused and regarded Thranduil as if to see how he would react.

Thranduil sorted through what he had just been told and picked out what seemed most important. “How is Celedë?”

“I put her on my sled and took her home, and the healer came.” His son bit his lip. “Her adar was angry,” he continued in a small voice. “He said he was going to come to talk to you.”

“Ah!” Thranduil suddenly saw the point of this conversation. This child liked to please adults and was accustomed to receiving their approval. “Was he angry at you?”

The child nodded. “He said I was a bad influence.” His voice trembled, and suddenly a tear ran down his cheek.

Thranduil’s heart twisted, and he reached out and drew his son onto his lap, where the elfling buried his face in Thranduil’s chest and began to cry in earnest. Thranduil rocked slightly, making soothing sounds. “Celedë’s ada is just frightened for his daughter, sweetling.”

The child pulled away from Thranduil’s chest and turned his tear-streaked face up. “But Ada, it really was my fault. I was the one who said we should stand up on our sleds.” He dragged the sleeve of his tunic across his runny nose.

“But you were also the one who took Celedë home.” Thranduil brushed a strand of hair out of his son’s face.

“I am not going to do that again,” he son vowed, leaning back against Thranduil’s chest.

Thranduil kissed the top of his head. “I think that Nana is probably waiting for you. She will want you to bathe before the feast tonight.”

His son slid obediently from his lap. “I told Celedë I was sorry,” he said. And then suddenly he smiled slightly. “She should not have tried to beat me though.”

Thranduil suppressed a smile of his own and raised an eyebrow. “Arrogance is unbecoming, iôn-nín.”

“Yes, Ada,” said the child, not looking particularly chastised.

“You may go.”

The child skipped from the room looking much more cheerful than he had when he arrived. Thranduil had to wait for only a very few minutes before Celedë’s father arrived with no cheer in his face at all. Thranduil smiled at the Elf.

“If you would wait for one moment, I will send for my wife,” Thranduil said. “I am sure she will want to be part of this discussion of our son.” He summoned the servant to send a message to Lorellin, thinking with satisfaction of how she would respond to anyone else criticizing Ithilden.

***

Thranduil entered the nursery to find a scene that reminded him of one from long ago. Already dressed in his night clothes, his son crouched on the floor playing. He seemed to be arranging pine cones in some pattern known only to himself, but when he saw Thranduil, he jumped to his feet, grabbing the blanket that lay on the floor next to where he played.

“Ada! You came!” He ran toward his father to be picked up, and Thranduil swung him up onto his hip.

“Of course I came. I told you I would put you to bed every night while Nana was gone.” He had made this pledge two weeks ago and carried it out ever since, but each night, the child responded with delight to his appearance. Thranduil had to admit that, while he was proud of his older sons, he missed that enthusiasm for his very existence.

He looked at Nimloth. “Thank you, Nimloth. Only one more day of this, you will be glad to hear.”

She smiled. “I do not mind, my lord. He is easy enough.” She kissed the top of Legolas’s head. “By your leave.”

Thranduil nodded and she left the room. He carried his son to his bed, laid him in the spot where the blankets were already turned down, and then tucked them all around Legolas. “How is that?”

“Comfy cozy,” Legolas chirped, echoing his mother.

Thranduil laughed. “Would you like a story tonight?”

“Yes, please.”

Thranduil went to the shelf over the chest to get the book of tales about the forest creatures that he had been reading to Legolas since Lorellin had gone to visit her family. He came back and seated himself on the bed, his back against the headboard. Legolas snuggled against him, with his blanket in his fist, and his thumb suspiciously near his mouth.

“Tell me again when Nana will be home, Ada.”

“Tomorrow, my heart. Ithilden is going to send the guards for her at first light, and she will be home by nightfall.”

“Good,” said Legolas. “I miss Nana.”

“So do I,” said Thranduil. He opened the book and began to read.

~*~*~

Thranduil started, the book slid from his hands, and he realized that he must have been asleep again. But almost simultaneously, he also realized what had awakened him: Legolas was crying and calling for him. He leapt from the bed, pulling on a night-robe as he went.

He crossed the sitting room, and as he entered the hallway on his way to his small son’s room, he saw Eilian just coming out of his room, having obviously heard the same thing Thranduil had. Ithilden’s door opened too. “I will take care of him,” Thranduil said. “You go back to bed.”

Eilian stared at him for a moment. He was fully clothed, Thranduil suddenly realized, and had probably not been to bed. Then Eilian nodded silently and retreated to his room. Ithilden stood in his own doorway for a moment and then crossed to Eilian’s, knocked once, and entered, closing the door behind him.

“Ada! Ada!” Legolas’s cries were becoming more frantic, and Thranduil had no time for his older sons now. He entered Legolas’s room to find the elfling sitting up in bed, with tears streaming down his face. He put out his arms when he saw Thranduil, and Thranduil picked him up and drew him close.

“Shh. Shh, my heart.” He retrieved Legolas’s blanket, handed it to him, and carried him to sit in the rocking chair near the hearth.

Legolas buried his face in Thranduil’s chest. “I want Nana,” he hiccupped. “I do not want her to be dead. I want things to be the same as they were.”

“I know. I know,” Thranduil murmured soothingly, rocking his child and wishing for the same things he did, all the while knowing with his sad millennia of knowledge that things would never be the same as they were.