A liaison in the Great Greenwood

Chapter 65

"The winters grow ever colder..." Legolas began as he stared out of one of the windows of his father's reception rooms.

Thranduil's eyes trailed to where his son's gazed. "They do..." He agreed, silently.

"Perhaps due to the darkness that creeps back into this world." The prince continued. "The same darkness that has perhaps already taken you into its clutches, causing you to taint my wife with its poison."

"Do you believe that to be the truth?" Thranduil looked back to his son. Legolas' eyes were sunken and had lost their usual vibrancy. His skin too was now sallowed for he had not eaten in many days.

"It is the only explanation I can conceive as to how you, my own father, could have done this to me," Legolas replied bitterly. "Do you wish to tell me otherwise?"

Thranduil's eyes stung painfully as he looked away once more in shame. "It was by my own doing Legolas, nothing more."

Though Legolas knew that to be the truth, the words wounded no less. "Through your own lust and greed." He reiterated hotly.

"Yes..."

"So tell me why you did it." The prince then pushed, fighting back the onslaught of angry tears that threatened to overwhelm him.

"You deserve to know the truth, Legolas, but I fear it would only bring you more grief."

"We are a little beyond caring now, are we not?" The prince's eyes narrowed on his father.

"Tell me the truth. I cannot be at peace unless I know why you both deceived me..."

Covering his mouth briefly with his sleeve, the Elvenking took in a draught of air to clear himself enough to answer. Yet, his voice almost shook as he spoke. "When I was young, younger than you are now, and well before your mother and I was together, I had loved another."

Legolas looked at him incredulously but remained silent.

"I will not delve into details Legolas, but it had been Celebrian, Adlanniel's naneth, well before even she had known Elrond."

Legolas' eyes narrowed further. "You speak the truth..." And yet he did not wish to believe it. "Why have you never told me this? First, you did not tell me that naneth had been with child when she died, and now this?"

"Your naneth and I did not deem it relevant enough to tell you. It happened in the past and was over, and we wanted you to only focus on our love and the love we had for you."

Legolas bit his tongue to prevent himself from saying more, but Thranduil could see it written on his face.

"I have betrayed that love, I know that. Adlanniel had reminded me so much of the fierce love I had once held for Celebrian. She reminded me of all the mischief that Celebrian and I had gotten into during our youth. She reminded me of how much I missed those days of old; of how much I almost desperately wanted to return to something... anything that resembled then. Your naneth and Celebrian had also been the closest of friends. That is how I had actually become acquainted with your naneth; through Celebrian. Obviously, Celebrian and I were not to be... even though neither of us was to know for quite a while after, her mother, the Lady Galadriel, had seen her death if she had stayed with me. Perhaps it had actually been the death of your naneth... I do not know." Thranduil sighed deeply as he looked back to the shadows cast on the floor. "And so Galadriel had been adamant to separate us, much to our own grief at the time. Yet, it was through such grief that we became partnered with those we were to eventually marry. Your naneth taught me to love again. I loved her with a ferocity that could have turned the furnaces of Aulë to ash. Being friends with Celebrian, your naneth and she were similar in many ways as well. That is perhaps what sparked the eventual attraction between your naneth and I. Adlanniel, being so similar to her own naneth and also to yours, encompassed everything about them. Including the love I so desperately missed. After you left here, Adlanniel relied on me for friendship as she missed you desperately."