Collection of One-Shots

》old habits

"I like you better with a head, my prince," she stated whilst driving her dagger into the neck of the Uruk who had only just attempted to decapitate Thranduil. The Woodland Prince turned back, smiling as he wielded his dual swords with startling proficiency. Their faction had advanced early, against Gil-galad's command, and thus the soldiers of Greenwood had already suffered great losses by the time the others had charged to break the lines of Mordor.

The war beast had somehow managed to take her by surprise, with its club she was knocked down and breathless. Pulling free a spare dagger, she drove it into the beast's foot. Before it could fall on her and Thranduil had jumped up to relive the beast of its head. The heavy body fell backward with a resounding thud, the head rolled past her own. "I would prefer it if you were not flattened," the prince remarked with a broadening grin that faded as fast as it had appeared.

Oropher had fallen to his knees, the prongs of an orcish sword that had been thrust into his back poked from the front of his silver breastplate. Rivulets of red followed the intricate weaving of vines and leaves that had been pressed into the metal plate armor. The Uruks still marched forward in legions, too many for a dwindling army to face.

Thranduil slid to the muddy ground and caught his father before he could fall into the ranks of the dead. The elven prince pressed his cheek against his father's hair and wept, "Ada. Open your eyes, ada!" She had seen Thranduil upset before and had surely known what his anger was like, but the prince never shed a tear in her presence until now. She knelt carefully next to the fallen king, eyes still wide with shock. The prince glanced at her. "You're magic! Save him!" he pleaded.

"Thranduil," she reprimanded. He knew her magic could not heal, not after the life she had taken from so many. Each kill diminished her ability to heal. She needed herbs and poultices to even begin trying to heal the king, none of which could be found on a battlefield. The most she could do was ease his passing. "You must! I command it!" His voice cracked. "Ada."

She slipped her hand beneath Oropher's golden braids and pressed her fingertips against his throat. "I can't," she whispered upon feeling that there was no heartbeat, his skin was like ice, the Light of the Eldar had forsaken him and it was not within her power to bring it back. "I can't."

The battle had come to close and with great losses, the Last Alliance had emerged victorious. Sauron had been vanquished, never again to hold dominion over the Free People of Middle Earth.

Thranduil returned a king. She returned among the few that survived and slipped away into solitude. No one seemed to notice that she had been eschewing him. Not even her father, at first. It took a month, perhaps two until he truly noticed that his daughter had been neglecting her close friend, "Why have you been avoiding Thranduil?" he asked.

She looked down at her bare feet and tucked a strand of hair behind her pointed ear, "I fear that he may be angry with me." That had been the word that traveled throughout the Greenwood, that when the King had fallen in battle she had not been able to save him. Her father reached out and took her chin between his rough fingers. "There was nothing you could have done to save his father, he knows that."

There were tears welling up in her eyes at the memory. "You were not there, ada," she gritted out, turning away so quickly that her ankle twisted and she stumbled forward, catching herself on the stone counter that held her herbs and salves. "He has been with you since Doriath, now is not the time to allow this rift to come between you." The rift was already there, however, and it would take years to mend it. Thranduil had taken a wife during her absence and she shrank further away into the shadows.

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Within the year, the new queen had come to the healers and the kingdom rejoiced for her pregnancy. And in the late hours of the night, the King of the Woodland realm came to the infirmary. Thranduil found her sitting at a desk, writing reports of the supplies and receipts for new purchases. He asked after his wife with terse formality. "She came to me earlier. She is carrying well, I believe it to be a boy." Relief softened his features, but despite their years of separation, he knew there was still something amiss with his friend.