New Year, New 'Teitho Challenge'...

So, the New Year has started and today, on Blue Monday, I'm posting a story.

It placed second in the December 'Teitho Challenge', finishing behind the story I voted for first place and ahead of another I voted for, so I was in good company...

The topic for the challenge was 'Endings', and it sparked a riot of stories about death and dying...

Not me, though, and I think that might have helped.

Bookverse rather than movieverse, and non- LOTR fans might not get some of the references, sorry, but it Teitho is for LOTR writings...

The End of the World as We Know It…

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, an homage to the Lord of the Rings.  I acknowledge I have no rights of ownership to the characters or the settings and that I only own my original content and interpretations. Intended for entertainment only, I will earn no monies for this work.

Summary: On the eve of the elven New Year, just days after the War of the Ring, Thranduil and Celeborn meet in the Greenwood… and far away, on the Field of Cormallen Legolas marks the passing of more than just the old year…

They met in the midst of the forest, surrounded by the trees of Mirkwood.

‘Mae Govannen, Thranduil Oropherion.'

Thranduil inclined his head in the slightest of acknowledgements.

‘Celeborn. I suppose we’d better get the business over with.’ He swung down from the back of his elk, scratching its neck as he murmured to the creature to go with the warrior waiting nearby to lead it away.  ‘Remember, Erthor: He is fond of dried blackberries, if you need to coerce him.’

Celeborn waited for the King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood to stop giving instructions for the care of his steed, shaking his head.

‘What in the name of all the Valar are those things on its antlers?’

‘The bells? A tradition started in the days of one of my previous mounts.  They seem to enjoy the sound, to find it soothing…’ Thranduil watched his elk being led away before turning back to the husband of the Queen of the Golden Wood. ‘How is your wife?’

‘Fine, fine.  Starting to get agitated.  She feels she must be involved in all the plans for the wedding.’

‘Wedding…? Ah. Your granddaughter and this king person. Yes, I remember now.’

Celeborn’s mouth worked in a smile he failed to hide.

‘Just because the most eligible alliance remaining to our mutual kindreds failed at the first hurdle when Arwen saw Estel on Cerin Amroth long before you had chance to suggest to your son…’

‘Oh, Arwen is far too old for Legolas,’ Thranduil said hurriedly.  ‘I never really considered her as a possible daughter-in-law.  Indeed, I wish her well with her mortal betrothed.  I am not certain her father is entirely delighted, however.’

‘Or her grandparents, for that matter. Galadriel is trying to make the best of it, but…’ Celeborn sighed. ‘Come, then, Thranduil.  There is wine waiting in the pavilion.’

‘Is it that pale golden stuff you pass off for wine or is it a proper vintage?’

‘You remember some decades before all this fuss began, you were good enough to send a couple of cases of the good Dorwinion? I managed to keep a bottle or two aside…’

‘Lead on, then.’

***

‘The wine of home drunk far from home… is there ever anything sweeter and yet more bitter?’ Thranduil asked reflectively, setting down his empty goblet. 

By now he and Celeborn had long breached the second bottle and were beginning to relax in each other’s company. The business was still to attend to, of course, the reason behind this formal meeting, but the day was not yet turning towards evening.  There was plenty of time.

‘Seeing one’s granddaughter happy, and know her happiness is fleeting...’ Celeborn offered. 

‘Knowing one’s wife has achieved her life’s work in glory… and that she has decided to retire across the seas…’

‘At least you still have a wife.’

Celeborn laughed abruptly.

‘Yes, but history will always have me down as Galadriel’s husband.  Well. We’ve come a long road, she and I…’ The silver-haired Lord of Lothlórien raised his goblet in salute. ‘Perhaps I need some time alone.’

‘I cannot see Celeborn of Lórien being alone unless he wanted to be,’ Thranduil said.

‘Mayhap that’s been our problem. You need time apart to appreciate the time you have together. And now all the time is running out. It’s not simply the end of the year, mellon-nin, it is the end of the world as we know it… even so, I will not simply attach myself to Galadriel’s train again, and follow in her wake while she pretends to defer to me…’

‘The humans have a word for it,’ Thranduil said. ‘Emasculation.’

‘You enjoyed saying that far too much,’ Celeborn said.  ‘Besides, it matters not; humans seem to like having their men lead and their women follow.  It is very unelven.’

‘True. But so are humans.’ Thranduil shared out the last of the second bottle of Dorwinion red into their two goblets, making sure Celeborn got the dregs. The fellow wouldn’t know a decent wine if it jumped up and down and kicked him in the head.  ‘However, that is how the world will be, now. Unelven.  Human.’

‘What shall we drink to, then, mellon-nin? The future? Or the past?’

‘To friendship,’ Thranduil said.  ‘It is much less contentious.’

The wine finished, the spouse of the Queen of the Golden Wood and the Elvenking both set down their goblets.

‘You did remember to bring a map?’ Celeborn asked.

‘In spite of everything else I had to attend to on the way, yes, Celeborn, I brought a map.’ Thranduil removed a roll of parchment from inside his formal outer robe and spread it on the low table between them, placing the empty wine bottles and goblets at each corner.  ‘We have had losses, of course.  And, as you so rightly observed, the world is changing.  Perhaps it will have less impact for me, for I have never had the questionable support of an Elven-ring, and so now do not feel the loss of its power.  But I would only hold as much as I can properly care for…’

He drew a sweeping line across the northern sector of Mirkwood.

‘I do not know if my son will rule after me; I do not know whether or not I will sail, ever.  My Silvans largely do not seem to wish to, themselves, so I must be able to keep them safe and help them to live as traditional a life as possible, still, as was the intention when first was founded the Realm of the Greenwood… oh, such hopes my father had…’

‘And so much he achieved, and you after him, Thranduil.  Whereas we withdrew behind our borders and some of us dared to criticise you for openly taking care of your own first... but Elrond has admitted he can no longer field an army out of Rivendell, and our Galadhrim too have become insular, withdrawn. Is this really all the land you would keep?’

‘This much I can heal and hold.  This much is enough, to the northern mountains which rise within the forest. Eryn Lasgalen, the Wood of Greenleaves it shall be, a haven for the Silvans while they last.’

‘We cannot allow the rest to simply lie unclaimed… permit me, and I will take the southern regions, below the Narrows, and remake it as part of Lórien…’  Celeborn marked the new boundary on the map.  ‘East Lórien, if you will.’

‘Good.  And the rest men will take, sooner or later. So we had better make them a gift of it, to the Beornings and the woodsmen; that way, they may feel beholden, or at least think kindly of us. The Beornings, at least, are more than men, even if they are not elves.’

‘I will have one of my notaries in to properly record this,’ Celeborn said.

‘My people prepare a feast this evening. Would you and your company care to join us? Sing the songs to the old year’s end and usher in the new?’

‘Thank you. I feel I will find it easier to sing out the old…’

***

Far away, on the Field of Cormallen, Legolas withdrew from the company after supper and sought a quiet area of the camp. There were no other elves amongst the veterans of the Battle of the Morannon, and he did not expect Aragorn to remember it was the eve of the New Year in the elven calendar. Even if he had, there were many matters that required his attention, and so, once again, Legolas must be alone in his observances.  He found a quiet spot and climbed up into the branches of a culumalda tree to sit looking up at the stars, and drew comfort from knowing that all over Middle Earth, other elves were also turning their eyes to the sky. Perhaps even his father, had he survived the war far away in Mirkwood, would be gazing up at the bright jewels of the heavens and humming the old songs.

Legolas lifted back his head, closed his eyes and opened his heart, singing the Refrain of the Years’ Turning in a clear, sweet voice that swept the camp with preternatural clarity and stirred the hearts of all who heard its melancholy keening.

‘What’s that?’ one of the warriors asked. ‘It sounds… not human…’

‘It is not human,’ Aragorn said, happening to pass at the right moment and feeling his heart stirred by the song.  ‘It is elven.  An observance for the passing of the year.’

He continued on his way, his steps taking him away from the camp now and not towards his pavilion as he’d preciously intended, drawn by the eldritch song from the trees lining the field.

He had not forgotten, of course.  Not as such.  It was simply that, for all he had been raised amongst the elves of Rivendell, for all he knew and respected the elven ways, his humanity had been brought home to him more of late, as he had striven to fulfil his destiny and save the world.  But he had not done it alone.

Drawing near to the foot of the tree whence issued the clear, musical voice, he joined in the refrain, adding the harmony he had learned long ago from Lindir in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, continuing to weave his voice with Legolas’ until the song, and the old year, was ended.

After a moment, a soft rustle and Legolas jumped down from the tree, landing beside him with barely a thump on the sweet spring grass.

‘Happy New Year, Legolas. I hope you do not mind my joining your song.’

‘Thank you.  No, I do not mind… I have had my time alone with the stars, so to share them is also good. And yet I cannot shake the sense that something is ending, rather than beginning. The fading of the time of the elves and the start of the Age of Men.’

‘Yes, indeed. And triumph is mingled with loss.’

‘Indeed.  The end of the world, as we know it.’

Aragorn clasped Legolas on the shoulder.

‘And how do you feel about that, mellon-nin?’

‘Me? Considering how it might have ended?’ Legolas tilted his head to one side, considering.  ‘All things told…  I feel fine.’

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Translations:

Mae govannen: well met

Mellon-nin: my friend