Queen of the Woodland Realm [Thranduil]

Epilogue: Song of the Heart

Author's Note: This is it! After over a year, Anona's journey has come to a close. Thank you so, so SO much to all of you, who have voted and read and given this story your support and love. It means more than I can say. I never expected this many people to read my work, and for it, I am so incredibly grateful :) 

I hope you enjoy this last chapter of Anona's story.

xoxoxo skatersav

~~~

"So how did it end?"

Anona Arvellas smiles at her husband, seated next to her in a great throne of oak that greatly resembles her own. Laughter and music float around them, and Thranduil has to raise his voice to make himself heard.

"He asked many, many questions of me," she says. "After answering them, I let him go on his way. And you know the rest."

He did indeed. After a thousand years of being confined to the infirmary, Anona was healed, just after the Hobbit's visit so many years ago. No one knew how it had happened, but they did not question the sudden decision of fate all too much. The Woodland Realm once more had a queen beside their king, and Thranduil's cold and stony face had softened into the expression she had known and fallen in love with over the years.

The War of the Ring had come and gone, and with it, Legolas's brushes with death. Anona could not have been more grateful to the gods the day her son returned home from his journey with the Fellowship of the Ring. She knew it had changed him—she saw it in his eyes everyday, the newfound strength and quiet confidence of a future king. And in her own eyes, staring at her from every mirror, she heard a song of the heart that called her to the sea.

Thranduil's touch pulls her away from her thoughts of the past. He takes her hand in his own, gently brushing her knuckles with his thumb. His eyes fall to her wedding ring, the very ring he wore for all the years she was ill. "He was a special Hobbit."

"For his audacity to steal the keys to the dungeons from under the nose of our guards?" Anona teases, squeezing his hand.

"No." Thranduil looks up with smiling eyes. "For his endless belief in good."

She is about to respond when a voice stops her. "I believe it is time for the son and his mother to share a dance."

Legolas and his bride watch them from beneath the dais, his hand in hers. Their son is positively beaming as he extends a hand to her. "Mother, may I have this dance?"

Beside her, she hears her husband asking the same thing of Tauriel. A grin spreads across her face. "It would be my pleasure."

Legolas and she glide across the floor effortlessly, his eyes on hers. "Thank you."

Her eyes widen. "Whatever for?"

He smiles almost sadly. In the candlelight, his eyes are full of brilliant flecks of gold within the pools of icy blue. "For everything. For believing in me when no one else would. You were the first to believe that your clumsy, overly sensitive son would make a good prince. You were the first to support my sudden decision to travel to Rivendell and join the Fellowship. You were the first to approve of my decision to marry Tauriel. You never doubted me, even when you had every reason to do so, and for that, I thank you."

Anona feels a tear slide down her cheek. She reaches up and cradles her son's cheek—her son, who is so different and yet so alike the prince she was taken from all those years ago. "My little leaf, you will always have me."

He covers her hand with his own. "Even when you have sailed away?"

Her hand drops abruptly. "How did you hear of this?"