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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"Some truths, over time, can learn to play nice Some truths are sharper than knives." (Sleeping At Last: South)
Anna. One word, a single word had stirred up a whirlwind of emotions inside her. She did have a name after all, wasn't a no-one, and the hazy fragments of her past lay finally within her reach. For a moment she didn't quite know what to do with all the excitement bubbling inside her, so she stared at the closed door through which Gandalf had disappeared, pondering if she should go after him to ask him all he seemed to know and still hide about her. She was quite sure that her name was not the only thing, but then she decided against it, assuming that he would now want to speak to Thranduil and she did not want to interfere in what would hopefully lead to the lifting of her spell.
Instead she sprinted towards her desk, making Aradan jump in surprise, sat down and pulled the blue book, Thranduil's gift, towards her. The elk calf staggered backwards, but caught himself to quickly teeter behind her. Anna opened the book on an empty page, dipped the quill into the ink-pot and with a pounding heart she began scribbling down her name over and over again, not once nor twice, but dozens of times until the entire page was crowded from top to bottom with narrow letters, huddled closely in each other's company. Her quill flew over the parchment like a nimble bird. It was as if she couldn't stop writing, as if she were afraid that at any moment she would forget it again and she had to make sure that it would be written down for her to remember. When she was finally done, she dropped the quill, wiping her ink stained fingers on a handkerchief she always kept in reach on her desk.
Much to Thranduil's amusement she still had not yet managed to keep her fingers clean when writing, and while she did enjoy his teasing, it irked her that something so simple should prove to be so difficult to accomplish. She threw the handkerchief back on the table, her fingertips now sporting only a slightly greyish hue. It was good enough for now. She would scrub them later, or maybe she would ask Thranduil to do that for her. He had the gift of transforming even such an innocent thing as washing her hands into a sensual act that set her every nerve on fire. With a satisfied smile she admired her work and then held the book up to show it to Aradan, who was dozing beside her on the floor and was now curiously raising his head.
"This is me," she said, waving her finger excitedly at the page crammed with her name, "Anna, that's my name."
Aradan angled his head with mild interest. Obviously to him it did not make any difference if she had a name or not. For him, her presence was the only thing that mattered, name or no name, memory or none.
"Aradan." With a flourish gesture of her hand she pointed first at him and then at herself. "Anna."
The elk calf rose to his feet and began sniffing the book with that typical curiosity of small animals, something that could still get him into trouble if she ever applied the strict rules Thranduil had urged her to establish. Before Aradan's teeth would get a hold of the page she snapped the book shut and placed it back on the desk. She strolled over to the breakfast table and picked at the food rather aimlessly, searching for something, anything, to keep herself occupied and her mind busy, but to no avail. There was only one thing she really wanted to do right now, something that could not wait any longer, lest her heart would burst in her chest. She needed to see Thranduil, tell him that he finally could call her by her name.
