The Last Elf Queen of Arda

'After Credits' Scene

A long-time reader on FanFiction.net who has faithfully followed GreenScholarTales for years requested this scene time and time again. I wasn't sure if I was going to ever write it at first, because I thought I might leave Thranduil's final fate open to interpretation. However, I think there is a certain poignant beauty in tying off all loose ends.

And so, this is for you thrndlwood.

OoOoO

Thranduil stood alone upon the shores of the sea, trembling in every limb.

For many moons this stretch of sand and trees had been his home. Working by moonlight and secreting himself away from the curious eyes of Men during the day, Thranduil had built himself a boat. It was a modest little craft, little more than a hull of grey ash, a mast and a hand-woven sail. It had taken him nearly six months to finish, and that largely due in part to Thranduil's lack of experience as a shipwright. Still, it was finished, and would serve to keep him from drowning in the crossing. That much Thranduil knew, having tested the boat twice before in the shallows off the shore.

It was not the perils of the sea that kept him frozen there upon the beach though. It was what lay beyond. Somewhere, far beyond the misty curtains of the world, lay Valinor.

Valinor...

The salty ocean breeze seemed to sigh that blessed name, and a single gull flew overhead, crying. No sun shone today; Arien hid her golden lamp behind a veil of cloud. The waves lapped iron-grey and cold upon the shore. Soon it would be winter, and the lands that had once been Fornost not far to the east would sleep beneath a mantle of snow. Thranduil would not even have the star of Eärendil to guide him as he sailed, and that frightened him. He had delayed in this final journey for nearly a thousand years though, and now he could bear it no longer. He would discover the doom which the Valar held for him, whether that be death at the hand of Ulmo and imprisonment in the Halls of Mandos, or eternal exile from the ones he loved. The thought of the Sea-Lord tearing asunder his vessel and drowning him beneath the waves almost relieved Thranduil when weighed against the latter. If he were to set sail and simply follow the bending of the world, unable to break free and follow the voyage of his ancestors to those blessed waters...trapped forever in this world which he no longer recognized and in which he had no place....

A shudder coursed through Thranduil. He would die. The last ten centuries had been some of the longest and emptiest years that he could have ever imagined. Without Anthelísse's golden smile, without Legolas' gentle laughter, there was nothing. He knew every stone in the Halls of the Woodland Realm - now little more than an abandoned hollow - as intimately as he knew his own hands. The few remaining Silvan elves that remained in the world had retreated away, melting further and further into the heart of the forest, into the very trees themselves. The children of Men told stories of them - of fey voices echoing in the hidden reaches of the forest and strange faces in the whorls of tree bark - but elves were less than a memory now. They were myth, and Thranduil was tired of being alone. Come what may, it was time.

The cool, damp sand beneath his shoe was the last that Thranduil ever set foot upon the shores of Middle-Earth. Pushing off into the surf, he worked to let out his sail and outrun the breaking waves. Salty sea-spray wet his face and hands as the prow of his little boat cut straight and true. Unencumbered by the silken robes which he had long ago left behind upon his empty throne, Thranduil was soon chilled. The life of the Eldar was still his, even after so many years spent in silent melancholy, but he was diminished and he knew it. Clad in simple garb and his once-smooth hands laden with splinters, even a child of Men would not be so foolish as to mistake Thranduil for the elf-king he had once been. He was a lone elf, the last of his kind in a world that had long forgotten him. His heart was sick and afraid, but nonetheless a brief throb of hope seized him as he departed the western shores into the unknown. With every moment that the coast faded behind him, he drew closer to Anthelísse than he had been in more than three thousand years.