How long has it been, a year? Two years? This time I'll stay for longer though, because this is going to be a long-runner!

I wanted to write wood-elves because I love wood-elves, and I have a very specific picture of them. That was the original idea. Then plot happened, and mystery, and the War of the Ring, and family drama and adventure and lots and lots of characters demanding their own agendas... this is the result.

I

An unexpected visitor

Legolas woke by the storm.

He lay under the bear fur, curled up on the side like a badger in its den, and listened to the rain rattling on window and the shutters tearing at their latches. A howling wind shook the Mountain. The bear fur was damp - nothing is ever dry in a stone palace in autumn - and everything smelled of rain and earth and wet wood. The embers spread their dying light over the hearth rug.

This will be the last of the autumn storms, mother had said that evening, when the clouds began to gather over the forest. The next will mark the start of winter.

Legolas was too old to be afraid of storms, but he wished she had been closer.

He nestled down deeper under the bear fur and pretended he was an adventurer on the way to someplace exciting - no, he was hunted, and wounded, and his pursuers were approaching. Legolas shut his eyes and lay very still, breathing shallowly, listening for...

Footsteps.

He opened his eyes again.

Two people were walking in the tunnel outside his bedroom. One of them was Galion, easily recognizable - Legolas had known the hurried and somewhat grumpy falls of Galion's feet since he was very very small - but the other one he could not place. It was not the foot-steps of an elf, and since it could not be a dwarf in the Mountain it must be a Man - but what was a Man doing in the royal chambers, in the middle of the night, and why did not Galion tell it to wait till the morning?

"The King and Queen will be asleep, my lord, but if you wait here I will..."

"We are awake, Galion, thank you. The Queen will be down in a moment."

It was father's voice, soft and kingly as always, coming from the parlour with the hearth and the armchairs. Legolas sat up.

Strange things had been happening in Greenwood this past year, though everyone had refused to tell Legolas anything about it. Mother and father had recieved many messages sealed with strange sigils, and they had sent some of their own on swift-winged birds that would not tell anyone where they flew. There was Tuiw, never returning from Rivendell, and Laeros, who did return at last from the south, but not in the way anyone had hoped. Even Tinuhen had not been told all secrets, though he was too angry about it to admit it.

Legolas wondered if this unexpected visitor had something to do with all this. Something about the secretive way they spoke told him that it might.

"My dear friend", father said now and sounded happier than usual. "What a weather to journey in! Galion, will you light the fire - are you tired?"

"Tired of trees", another voice replied, and Legolas' eyes widened with surprise. Gandalf! Gandalf with his hat and his staff and his stories and his fireworks (the wood-elves only like the quiet ones, but he always had plenty of them too).

"Of trees?" father asked.

"Yes", Gandalf said, "of trees - and elves laughing in them! Why do they not come down when I ask? Every time I found myself lost I heard them laughing, but they would not come down and tell me where I was."

"But they are wood-elves, Mithrandir, what did you expect? Now sit down, let me take your staff. Do you want wine? It's from the south somewhere, not elven standard of course - to think Dorwinion would get so hard to come by..."

There voices died to a low murmur. Legolas heard the door to his parent's bedroom open and close on top of the stair, and mother greeting Gandalf warmly, but then he could no longer discern any words. The silence, broken only by the wind, felt secret and a bit dangerous - like a book you are not supposed to open, or a story you are too young to hear.

Legolas shifted beneath the bear fur and set his bare feet on the cold stone floor. As quiet as only a wood-elf can move he crossed the room and pulled the heavy oak-wood door open. Now he could hear their voices again.

"...what do you mean plenty of time?" Gandalf was saying. "There is hardly any time at all - I told Tuiw to say..."

"Tuiw never returned from Rivendell", mother said softly. "Whatever message you sent with him never reached us."

"Indeed? That explains many things. I sent a very important message with the boy. The council..."

Thunder crashed and drowned his last words. Legolas pushed the bedroom door closed behind him, easing it slowly past the place where it creaked; then he crept down the darkened hallway to the light of fire at the end of it. There was no light behind Tinuhen's door, and behind Merilin's all was quiet. When he saw his father's hair glowing pale in the fire-light, and Gandalf's hat drooping with rainwaiter sticking up above the back of an armchair, and mother leaning to the mantel in her nightgown, Legolas crouched down in the shadows to listen.

"So you have, after all, decided not to follow my counsel?" came Gandalf's voice. "A fine pair of stubborn fools you are! Lord Elrond..."

"Elrond!" father snorted. "What does he know of forests? What does he care?"

"He knows and cares more than you want to admit. And if not about forests, then about healing. It is just possible he could do something for Laeros..."

"He could do nothing for lady Celebrían."

Gandalf stood up with a frustrated growl and began to pace to and fro in front of the fire.

Legolas wondered what lady Celebrían had in common with Laeros. The news that she was captured had come to Greenwood a year and a half ago, and then they had heard that she was freed but sick, and then finally that she had sailed - but Legolas had never understood exactly why. About Laeros he knew very little. Hardly anyone had seen him since he returned from the south, the only one of the seven scouts that had been sent out that spring.

"If Laeros was healed", Gandalf said suddenly, jerking Legolas from his thoughts, "then perhaps he could tell us what he found in the south. The others would not have died in vain, nor would Laeros have gone through so much pain and suffering for naught. Laeros is not lady Celebrían, and before we have tried all we can to heal him..."

Now mother spoke, and she sounded almost angry. "So you want us to send Laeros to Rivendell, away from the forest he nearly died to protect? All that pain and suffering only to be sent away like a - like a lunatic we cannot take care of ourselves - "

"But if he could save that forest? If he could be healed?"

Mother turned her back on him and folded her arms across her chest.

Another lightning lit the room in harsch black and white, but the thunder was more distant this time. The wind no longer howled so loudly in the chimney, and the rain did not drum as heavily on the windows. The storm would be over come morning.

Galion returned to ask if anyone wanted something.

"Find a draught of Reason for your king and queen", said Gandalf half seriously. "Or maybe an antidote for stubbornness."

"And a whet stone for Mithrandir", mother said. "His tongue is not as sharp as it once was."

"Bashing a sword against a shield has a tendency of making it blunt, my dear Queen. My tongue has been battling your thick-headedness for far too long."

"Then keep quiet", mother said.

"I will leave you to your negotiations", Galion said with a certain edge to his words. There was a long silence after he left.

Then father sighed. "If I believed lord Elrond could heal Laeros I would send him to Rivendell - but I doubt anything can be done. He is too far gone. For his sake, perhaps it would be better if he never had to remember what he has seen. For the rest of us... you know what I think."

"I do, old friend", Gandalf said with sudden pity in his voice. "But I do not believe you. Saruman..."

"Saruman! Saruman is wise, but he has not seen what I have seen, he would not know..." Father trailed off. The silence that fell was so heavy the fire-light seemed diminished.

Legolas didn't want to hear anything more. He knew what they were talking about, even though they never said it out loud. He had heard enough of rumours and whispers this fall to know what was always on the grown elves' minds. But the wind had stilled and it was too quiet for him to sneak back to his room.

"I am afraid, Mithrandir", father said slowly. He turned his head and the fire-light fell on his face, and suddenly he did look afraid - old and scared and sad, like one who has seen too many winters and too few summers. "I fear for Greenwood. I fear for my people. I fear for Middle Earth - you know why. And though it shames me, I fear for myself."

"There is not shame in fear, Thranduil, as long as you do not cower from it."

"But I do cower, and I will keep cowering for as long as reason tells me to do it. You see, I - we have not the strength or the numbers to fight. All we can do is draw back in safety here and endure. And endure we will. That is my plan, Mithrandir. To lock the doors and bar the windows until the storm is over. And in that plan there is no place for your secret councils."

"Does the Queen agree with this plan?" Gandalf asked, looking at mother.

Mother shifted uncomfortably. She was not one who endured; she was one who fought. But now she nodded. "For the time being."

There was a last blast of wind trembling in the windows, and they all looked out as if expecting the Mountain to fall. In the wind, Legolas imagined he felt something more - a being that watching them from the darkness. He knew what it was. It was here in the room too; in the flickers of fire-light on the walls, in every word the adults spoke and in every secret they did not say aloud.

It was the Shadow, the sickness that spread over Greenwood, the darkness that came from the south. Since summer ended the rumours had been going - faint at first, later growing - that the Shadow was spreading again, that it was nearing the Forest Road. Legolas had felt it. He had felt it in the earth, heard it in the haunted voices the wind brought from the border-trees.

He did not want to hear more. He wanted to pretend the Shadow was not there. Very slowly he began to creep back to his room.

"And what about the elves by the Forest Road?" Gandalf asked. "I talked to a few of them on my way here, though they were very shy. What will they do, while you endure in here?"

"They will do what they chose to do", father said. "They chose to stay on the border of the Shadow, and we cannot persuade them to - " He cut himself off. Legolas could no longer see him, but he heard the deep sigh of exasperation.

"Legolas! Is that you?"

Like a deer startled by a snapped twig, Legolas froze. How could father always know he was there?

"Come here. You need not hide anymore."

Legolas stumbled to his feet. He considered staying where he was and being so quiet they would eventually think they had imagined it, but mother was not that easily fooled. Wrapping his arms around him, Legolas walked to the edge of the fire-light and stood there, hesitating. Mother and father and Gandalf were all looking at him.

Before anyone could say anything, Gandalf began to laugh.

"Legolas, my dear boy! Have your mother taught you nothing about eavesdropping?"

"She has, but I need to practise more." Seeing as the wizard was not angry, Legolas beamed at him. "Gandalf, I've missed you! Where have you been all this time?"

"Practise?" father asked and turned to mother. She laughed and shook her head.

"Ive been to the moon and back and everywhere in between", Gandalf said - a typical wizard-answer. "I will tell you the interesting parts, but not now. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"I was", Legolas said, "but the storm woke me." He bit his lip. "You're not angry, are you?"

"Of course not! That storm would have woken a dragon. Come here, let me look at you. I believe you have grown!"

Legolas grinned and left the hallway so he could hug the wizard. Mother did not look angry either, but with father it was hard to tell, because he rarely showed what he thought. He stood beside mother with his hands clasped behind his back and did not seem to know what to say.

"And you look strong", Gandalf said, letting Legolas go so he could look at him. "Have you been training - on other things than eavesdropping?"

Legolas nodded eagerly. "I'm training with the archers."

"Indeed?"

"I can show you if you want!"

"I'd love to, my child", Gandalf said. "But tomorrow. The storm is going away, and an elf your age needs sleep to grow."

"And you have important things to talk about."

"And we have important things to talk about", Gandalf agreed. "There's no fooling you."

Legolas shook his head.

"But there's not more fooling us either", mother said, "and this time you won't eavesdrop, promise?"

Legolas supposed he would never know more about Tuiw or Laeros or mysterious councils, but he was not sure he wanted to either. "I promise."

"Sleep well", Gandalf said. Father smiled but said nothing - but then he rarely did.

Back in his room, Legolas climbed onto the bed but he did not lay down to sleep. He sat under the bear fur and looked at the moon and stars that Tinuhen had painted on the window shutters - long ago, when Legolas was little and Tinuhen still nice to him - and he felt as if he had stumbled into a story that was many times bigger than he was.

He wondered if it was going to go on without him, or if there was a chance he might be a part of it. He was not sure he wanted to be part of it. If the Shadow was in it, it must be a scary story, and Legolas was not very brave.

Eventually he did fall asleep, and he had a very strange dream. First there was father's silver crown, but it was dented and black with soot, and the hands lifting it up from the snowy ground were too small to be father's. Then he dreamt of a cave, a very dark cave, but he could see the opening - and just inside it someone lay huddling under a cloak, but Legolas could not tell who it was.

Last he dreamt of a door at the end of a dark hallway. Light fell on the threshold, and he could see people moving behind it, but their faces were unclear. Legolas had a strange feeling he had come too far; but from what or to what, he could not tell.

When he woke on the morrow, he had all but forgotten the dream.

The plan is to update once a week, but although the draft is finished I'm still editing. Any input to characters, pacing and such is greatly appreciated.
English isn't my native language and in the end I didn't have the patience to find a beta, so please bear with me!

Thank you for reading u w u