The coldest of hearts

Damnation

I saw cold fire burning in thine eyes

Unbound and untamed and true

I longed for love, was yearning

But I didn't know thy heart.

Your soul seemed frozen solid

No joy within to find

I tried to thaw thee, to save thee

I could not let you go

Today I know the truth love and that truth was hard to find

It wasn't you who needed saving

Because

The frozen soul was me.

He could not honestly remember the last time he had been this angry, he was practically seething with rage and only his great ability to control himself kept him from roaring and throwing some inanimate object at the palace walls. The servant who stood there in the doorway was as pale as a ghost and shivering, he looked as if he was about to piss himself and so did the two guards by the door. Their eyes were all that could be seen behind their masks but those eyes were wide and dark with fear.

He turned around, took two deep breaths and managed to avoid yelling at the poor messenger, it wasn't the poor ellon's fault after all. He put the goblet he held down onto a table, it was deformed and looked more like a massive piece of silver than a goblet, he had crushed it without knowing it. This was exactly what he didn't need right now but sometimes fate does what it wants without taking the wishes of the living into consideration. He stared at the messenger again, the poor elf was staring at the floor with shivering legs and Thranduil did regret his initial explosion. He sighed and tried to smile but his face felt terribly stiff and he knew that his anger still was visible in his eyes.

He hadn't faced a situation like this before, that was the main problem. He had no idea of what to do. He had been a king for millennia and he had faced both war and destruction but this was a problem he was unprepared for. Or perhaps not, he had feared that something like this would happen. It had started with the arrival of a whole group of elves of which nobody had been aware up to then. They had first been discovered by his son who for the moment resided in Ithilien and since the group was huge it had split up and half of them were sent to Greenwood.

These elves were the descendants of some which had strayed from the main groups back in the first age right after the first awakenings by the shores of Cuivienen and they had for some reason travelled east and southwards. Now they were travelling back towards the west and the whole group was consisting of at least two thousand elves which couldn't sail yet.

The reason was simple, they had to learn how to interact with other elves. If they arrived in Valinor in their current state they would cause an uproar. Thranduil had never met any elves who acted and lived so differently from their kin as them and they made even the Avari elves seem modest, civilized and highly cultured. When he first saw them the word savage was the first that came to his mind but soon he realized how wrong he was. These elves had lived in hiding for ages, nobody had known of their very existence and they had in fact a very advanced culture. It was just very alien in nature and it had taken some years for the group to be accepted by the more normal elves.

The group sent to Greenwood had consisted of the warrior tribes, there were still orcs and spiders around after the fall of Sauron and Thranduil had been grateful for the help they offered. He soon realized that these elves were the most lethal warriors he had ever encountered. They were fighting with a fury that was frightening and they were born and raised to fight. It was in their blood, in their psyche and culture and to them using violence was natural. It wasn't anything they would ever question.