The Prince's Pretend Mother

First Entry - Aught We Cherish

We vainly wrestle with the blind belief

That aught we cherish

Can ever quite pass out of utter grief

And wholly perish.

*

I had little choice in the matter when it came to my appointment as the prince's caregiver. His mother had only died weeks before, so all of us in the Greenwood were still bowed with the deepest shadows of black that we could find to wear. Even those who had not known her were dampened in their grief, that such a vital member of our home could be so ruined. She should have lived forever. She should have lived. Being safely here in Thranduil's mountain there was no reason she should have been in the path of harm. But fate, it seems, often has different perceptions on such flimsy things as 'should haves'.

Thranduil's wife had stayed home at first when the army they had nurtured together went to wage war on Guntabad. Two days after their passing Nelide had learned of a coming attack from Dol Guldur, one which she knew we did not have the strength to repel without our army. She left alone to bring them home.

Thranduil had returned, victorious, only to have lost one of the two most precious to him. Nobody spoke of what had happened in Guntabad, and why not even her body could come home.

I understood his pain. With death so uncommon to elves few of us did. But I had lost my husband to another war some hundred years previous, so in imagining his pain I felt my own echo from where I had buried it deep inside me.

I, as a metalsmith for fine jewelry, had been barely visible in the back of my workshop, ensconced in black and noted only for my smudged leather apron. My family had the status denoted by thick, fine fabrics and gauzy, gossamer gowns, and as fond as I was of our fine things I did prefer not to mar them when it could be prevented. Thranduil's messenger called for me at the entrance of my shop but I, not knowing who he was and suffering from my own echoes, had ignored him. He entered the shop more fully then, found me, and stood straight-backed at the side of my worktable until I had smoothed the last of the molten threads in the pendant I was fashioning, removed my fine leather gloves, and greeted him.

"King Thranduil awaits you, milady" he said, and my eyes had widened. I stood, untying my leather apron and draping it over my chair.

"Do you know in what regards?"

"I do not, milady."

I nodded. "Very well."

"I will take you to him," the messenger politely said, for which I was grateful, because our king tended to wander. If he was not on his throne you had a winter violet's chance of finding him.

"Thank you, sir."

The messenger led me briskly through the many serpentine halls and pathways of our woodland haven and I followed, baffled at why the king would have called for me. I was not aware we even knew each other.

The king was standing on one of his balconies, one almost entirely enclosed but for the wide, naturally occurring window that looked out over the last fingers of the forest, Long Lake, and the Lonely Mountain beyond. He held his sleeping, red-eyed child in his arms and while the messenger announced my presence did not turn to face us. The messenger bowed to his king's back and left.

I curtseyed. "You called for me, milord."

There came a long silence. Nearly a minute passed before King Thranduil replied. "I did. I am unable to properly attend to my son during the day and require a dedicated caregiver to do so. I remember observing you with your son, and believe you will do the job adequately."