Oropher finds the bodies in a clearing well away from the main halls of Menegroth. The shorter boy and the nurse have been gutted and burned. The taller child has terrible blisters on his face and throat and shoulder, but there was life enough left in him to roll the rest of himself away from the flames. He is barely breathing: his throat rattles and catches with each inhale, and the blood in the snow around him continues to spread each time he gasps.
There is no help for him in the caves. Smoke rises steadily from the entrance to the sacked halls, and those who might have aided them have been slaughtered or driven away. The Fëanorian raiders have already tried to kill the boy, and any appeal to them will only help them to finish the job.
Oropher’s own wounds are still open and aching, but he has a warm cloak and a sharp sword, and he knows the woods of Doriath like the back of his hand. He drags the boy as gently as he can out of the circle of destruction and covers the burns with snow – if he cannot heal him, at least he can try to stop the bleeding. He rips a strip of cloth from his tunic and ties it over the worst of the child’s wounds, to keep out the air.
The child moans and calls for his mother. Oropher hushes him, stroking his long silver hair away from the ruined side of his face. He sings the one small song of mending that he knows over and over again, holding the boy’s cold hand in his own. When night falls fully, he hoists the child over his shoulder and sets off into the falling snow.
***
The Laegrim want nothing to do with their distant cousins’ wars. Oropher must promise not to return to Doriath before they will help him, but there is nothing left there for him, anyway. He has the child, and his sword, and that is all. To be warm and hidden and healed means everything. He would promise whatever they asked, for those small gifts.
The child will always bear the marks of the fire: his left eye is glazed and useless, his left arm and neck are scarred with heavy plates of twisted skin. He cries for his brother – Eluréd, Eluréd! – as the green elves coat his scorched skin with a paste of bitter herbs, but once the burns have healed he never speaks that name again. Winter passes, and as the young leaves unfold, he bolts back to life, full of a reckless energy and a fierce and fiery temper. Thranduil, they call him now, for the season when he returned to himself: the vigorous spring.
***
Beleriand’s death throes drive the Laiquendi east, into the great woods where their clans have met and mingled for thousands of years. Oropher and Thranduil roam with them, collecting the scattered remains of the Iathrim as they go. None of the newcomers outrank Oropher, whose status as a distant cousin of Thingol seems an ancient and superfluous estate. Thranduil calls him Father now; he will not gainsay the others when they call him Lord.
Thranduil himself has no use for princes or for kings, seeking rather the company of his age-mates among the Laegrim. But for his height and his silvery hair, he might be one of them, swift and silent and skilled in the ways of the wood. Melian’s blood eases his way: the small magics come naturally, and he can feel a greater power pulsing, waiting, below. He has chosen the Wood, and it has chosen him. He pushes himself, stretches his senses and his strength, until his unbalanced vision is no impediment and he can climb and hunt and disappear as well as the bright-eyed, laughing maiden whose respect he craves. When they wed, Oropher holds them both against his heart: his brilliant children, his great and unexpected joys.
***
The Noldor kingdom in Lindon does as the Noldor do, in Oropher’s experience: it grows, and thrives, and sends out tendrils of interest and greed to the north and east and south. The Laegrim of the Greenwood want nothing of that Western pride and fall. They have no kings of their own, having no need of centralized authority, but in dealing with the Noldor it is clear that such a system will not do. Gil-galad must have a counterpart, if the Wood is to remain unclaimed.
The Laiquendi elders come to Oropher with the request, and the Sindar, who call him Lord already, echo the call. For the kindness they have shown his people, for the long years of safety, and sweetness, and joy, he takes the crown, takes on the burden. The antique manners of court feel alien to him now, but he does what he must, with the bitter practicality that saved his life on that snowy night in Doriath. He rides to Lindon as the King, with Thranduil – his son, his heir, his comfort – at his side.
***
Elrond knows, almost immediately: Maia calls to Maia, it seems, and a twin heart knows a twin. Thranduil pushes silence at his mind with such strength that Elrond falls back, wide-eyed, and gives him an unsteady bow. Later, he comes to Thranduil in the suite of rooms decorated with the remains of Doriath’s elegance; they speak privately, long into the night, of lost brothers, absent parents, and Doom. Elrond teaches his uncle to mask the burns with a Maia’s glamour; Thranduil holds his nephew as the younger Elf weeps for all the might-have-beens. Theirs will be an odd friendship, of publicly unacknowledged blood and competing cultures, but it will endure.
Gil-galad takes Oropher and Thranduil as they come to him. He is bluff and brave and honest, this last King of the Noldor: his great mind masked by physical vigor, his subtlety hidden by strength. He trusts on instinct, and has no reason to question their claims. It is difficult not to like him, and Thranduil will grieve his death as he would any true cousin and friend.
It is perhaps fortunate that Galadriel and Celeborn are not in the king’s circle when they arrive in Lindon: the awkward questions that might arise are muted by the time they meet. Oropher and Celeborn share a wry appreciation of the twists of fate that have led them, both minor princes, to their current high estate. Galadriel finds Thranduil uneasily familiar, but the tension between them cannot safely be explained. Theirs will be long lives of dodging and probing, mind to mind. Never a friendship, but not an unfriendship. Uncertain, skating the surface, brittle and proud.
Celebrimbor, however, knows without knowing: Thranduil needs no Ring. After Oropher passes to Mandos, Melian’s blood keeps the Greenwood safe. There are nightingales in the deep woods and the tangled paths lead visitors astray. Luthien’s grandson shields both Elves and Men within his orbit; Dale and Esgaroth and the great forest all fall under his sway. He is Elurín, bound to the Wood, bound to the World. It will take more than Sauron to drive him away.
