A shadow lies on Thranduil and his forest, and only a power stronger than the darkness of old can save them.
Grief and loss have turned him into a king with a heart of ice, and if he is ever to find redemption, the chains of guilt and remorse holdin...
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Days stretched into weeks and late summer turned into autumn when something like normality in within the absurdity of Anna's situation was beginning to settle in. A myriad of new impressions had descended upon her, forcing her to keep her head in the present and giving her mind less chances to stray back to the mystery of her arrival in Thranduil's forest. Eventually she decided to assign it a small locked up area in the back of her head. Maybe when the moment was right, she would bring it out and dare to ask someone she could trust about it, but for now she would simply try to focus on her daily life in the palace.
Brethilwen had kept her promise and shown her around more than once, through the twisting and echoing paths, the living quarters, ample halls for celebrations, even to the kitchens and down to the wine cellar she led her. It seemed that she had taken a liking to Anna and she proved to be a useful guide in many matters concerning the most basic things she needed to know for the time of her stay, to which as of now no limit had been put. Anna had wandered the hallways of the king's palace with Brethilwen numerous times, while Brethilwen would keep her entertained with stories of the older ages and tales of the times when the forest was young and was still called Eryn Galen, Greenwood the Great, before the darkness had found its way into the realm of the Elves and the woods were thereafter named Taur e-Ndaedelos, or Mirkwood. Anna turned out to be an avid listener and was eager for more, so one day with an auspicious smile on her face Brethilwen took her to a special place. An area that was usually off limits for everyone but select elves: the royal library.
She could not have found a more valuable treasure chamber! Among the countless volumes of thick leather-bound books and ancient scrolls it offered her answers to so many questions she had. At first Brethilwen had accompanied her the her visits to the library, but as they gradually extended, she eventually allowed her to go on her own. Anna knew her way through the palace, and maybe, well Brethilwen had better things to do than to watch a strange human being bent over books for hours on end.
At first her biggest obstacle was the language barrier. She had gotten used to the soft spoken Sindarin, actually she really enjoyed the pleasant sound of it, but still she only understood simple words or phrases and everyone tended to switch to Westron as soon as she was involved. After all, she was not one of them. When she found herself presented with the possibility of actually uncovering the secrets of this foreign but beautiful language she dived head in. She also spent countless hours working herself through annals and chronicles, together with collections about herb-lore and essays on Dorwinion wine until her head was spinning with tales about dragons, orcs, dwarves and countless other more or less bizarre creatures and her eyes wouldn't focus any more. Still, one thing she could not find amongst all the books was a single mention of the queen. It proved to be an ever elusive subject. She did read though about a fateful battle where Thranduil had fought alongside his father King Oropher, witnessing his father's tragic death and making Thranduil himself the next king of the Wood-Elves. It was the Battle of Dagorlad, a fight where Elves and Men had joined their forces in the War of the Last Alliance against an ever recurring foe named Sauron. And she concluded that the impending doom of the darkness that everyone feared must be somehow connected to him.
