Disclaimer: Don't own it. Just some poor sixteen year old. A penniless writer. *smiles sweetly* yeah I don't own that either probably.

Greenwood the Great died. Greenwood the Great died slowly but surely in a battle no man, elf, dwarf, creature of Middle Earth could have foreseen. The trees tall and proud as they now stood bent and curved from exertion. The leaves weak and thin were blown away from their friends, their companions, the branches of the trees that now could no longer bear the weight of the darkness. The mirk neither heavy nor light merely suffocating. Foreboding as a constant reminder. The forest once so great now gave a sickly cough of wind. Wheezing and panting life with a shaken heartbeat that remained in the thickest part of the bark and the richest part of soil.

It was in this forest a kingdom stood. And in this kingdom stood a stoic elven king. He was tall and majestic. He was handsome with a smooth sculpted youthful face and defined eyes. They were as gray as a sea stone in the deepest depths of great water and they held in them the storm that was at a constant distance from the coast of his long lashes. Around his head was a crown of gold hair that shown even in the moonlight as if a halo to his majesty and pulled back in tight plaits beyond the points of his ears. Regal in every aspect as a royal should be.

Yet the glow of the elf king was not as bright as it once was. Like the overwhelmed wood, Thranduil was soon finding that his resolve was wearing down. Many times he had watched an acorn grow to hearty tree, been through many summers and winters. He had seen his father fall under the sword of darkness of Sauron. Friends, brothers, kin, falling under the same sword. For what? Peace that was but short lived in a life of eternity. Only to rush back to regain control of the forest that was slowly slipping from his own control. He had lost the one that had truly taken his wounded heart and healed it back into love. His beloved. She was dead. She was dead like the trees of forest. Gone from his life of immortal breath.

He did not feel like the noble king he had been praised to be. His heart should have stopped beating many springs ago. Patrols after patrols he had sent out to fight the darkness that crept into the forest like a venomous poison stretching from one blade of grass to another.

He had almost given in.

Desperate times, he had ridden out himself to battle the horrific darkness to aid his elven kin. The attacks were coming one after another and the darkness wrapped around you like a starched blanket ripping into an elf's soul with no other intent but to extinguish the light that burned longer than time itself. During an attack he had lost the valiant persona the wood elves had pictured him in. During an attack he had almost surrendered. Growing weary from fight, dispute, and conflict. His body had given in and his mind had enough. He was tired of the exchanged blows and the struggle to remain strong. Greenwood was now becoming Mirkwood and he had failed.

It was the child in his arms that brought out the solid resilience. Gone to a world of sweet ignorant sleep the child was held close to the stoic elf king's breast, small head resting against the thumping beat of his adar's heart, vigilant he was in fulfilling his duty to make sure that it continued on. Long stranded plait of a golden hair held tightly in his fist and mouth locking one of the elf king's long fingers in his mouth the child was at full advantage stealing the king for himself completely uncaring that the king was still in his torn dirty tunic and the king held him as a willing prisoner. It was this elfling that had sparked the defiance back into the king. It was this elfling that kept his heart beating day by day and it was this elfling sleeping soundly that caused the king to take up his sword and rip that blanket of suffocating darkness from his soul and his warriors' souls returning their freedom and giving back the fire to those it rightfully belonged. Stubborn against the evil that still lingered this child slept completely ignoring it as if it were not in existence and sending a insubordinate flag of rebellion to the evil that still lingered.

"I promise you my little greenleaf," Thranduil spoke clutching the child closer to him. The wind let out a breath that wasn't as pained as it normally was but of contentment. A moment of reassuring bliss. "You will forever remain green even in a leave less wood of mirk."

a/n: Whohooo my first Lord of the Rings dabble! Let me know what you think!