Mellow Soulmate AU. Cheat Arc. As the final years of the Third Age begin,
the ghost of an old enemy begins to rise from the dead and stretch its
influence across the world. Features my
OMC Valthoron. This is, however, mostly
centered on Thranduil. I blame The
Hobbit movies. They’ve got me thinking
in an entirely different time period than I usually would. Takes place in Mirkwood shortly before the
events of The Hobbit. The first warning
signs of the Necromancer appear.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the Silmarillion or The Hobbit
Pairings: none
Characters: Valthoron, Thranduil (alludes to others but never
explicitly states names)
Warning: non-canon compliant, slash and m!preg implied, OMC POV,
mental instability, alcohol abuse, non-graphic death by spider
Words: 1,304
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decadent (adjective): marked by decay or decline;
characterized by or appealing to self-indulgence
The forest was growing darker.
And with its darkening, the king’s eyes were haunted.
Oh, Thranduil was very good at hiding his secrets. The pain and the fear that riddled his
thoughts. The encroaching dread that
overshadowed his heart. The doubt and
the despair that wormed their way deep inside his core. If one dared look, they would not see their
lord and leader faltering, but merely colder and more bitter than he had been
in the long years of peace.
Valthoron was not fooled for a moment.
Days were becoming shorter even when spring’s warmth was meant to
turn green the boughs of their trees, even when summer’s heat came up from the
south and tried to coax forth the flowering of buds and the liveliness of the
forest creatures gone quiet. No one
could deny that sunlight no longer broke through those canopies overhead, no
longer dappled the clearings with radiance and welcome.
Dark and dangerous was the home Valthoron had grown to love
through his many long years. And it hurt
him as well.
It hurt to hear the sobbing wails of the trees echoing in his ears
as their suffering overcame their ancient resilience. Their towering bodies became gnarled and
twisted, riddled with filth and parasites, rotting into putrid destruction as
leaves burned red and fell to the floor to cover the softness of the moss and
the grass. They were dying, more and
more every day, as the taint spread northward, crawling into the realm of the
Elvenking with slow but inexorable force.
Unstoppable and powerful and evil.
But worse still were the spiders.
Creatures of wickedness and greed, they slaughtered the animals that
once frequented the forest and wove their webs above the pathways through the
trees older than time. Long, sickening
gangly legs and an array of black, gleaming eyes that followed passerby,
stalking them through the dimness of a once radiant land…
So many deaths. Not only of
unwary travelers, but of those unlucky enough to lose themselves in the
once-familiar labyrinth of trees. All it
took was a sip of enchanted water or a trip over a jagged rock or the slice of
a hand upon broken and splintered bark.
The sickness would infest itself into flesh and down to bone, drag them
down and down into the darkness from which none would ever awaken…
It brought waves of nausea forth, remembrance of those bodies
found, bloodless and shriveled husks, emptied of their organs, left face down
to poison the pools of water that once were pure or to sit upon the forest
floor and blacken the soil until naught would there grow. These bodies, Valthoron would not allow his
men to touch for fear of the toxin. They
would be burned into charred ashes, and the acrid smoke would choke his lungs
as it swirled up and up through the tangled of webs and trees into the sky
beyond.
It was horrible. But he
could not imagine how horrible it must be for his father.
For Thranduil, who wallowed in his responsibility for his people,
his duty to keep them safe in these times of encroaching evil. For his father, who now sat upon that throne
and brooded with distant eyes in the chilly silence of winter’s first kiss
killing off the last leaves of autumn’s reign.
For the Elvenking, who was frightened at the age-old threat of shadow
falling down over their eyes to blind them and lead them away to their doom
should he falter for but a moment…
Truly, the oldest prince understood the failings of his beloved king,
his father. He understood why Thranduil’s
mind darkened in the long, decadent days.
Days spent cutting their people off from the world outside to keep them
safe as prisoners. Days spent lounging
upon that throne and thinking and thinking until the dark cloud strangled any
bright rays of joy from that mind. Days
and days and days spent trying to
ignore the signs and the warnings in vain hope that they were false.
The alcohol was a ruse.
Wine flowed into his father’s cup thrice and tenfold faster than did
water. It took more liquor to make Thranduil
tipsy and woozy and smiley than it did to make Valthoron pass out in
drunkenness. A vice to try and drown
away the troubles that burdened the king.
But it did not serve its purpose.
No matter how many parties were thrown in delight for the stars—the stars they could no longer see, for the
forest blocked their sight from the wanderer’s eyes like a net woven of the
finest, blackest of spider’s silk—and no matter how much revelry was
indulged—such frivolity, an attempt to
make light of the falling glory of their home as it crumbled at the foundations—there
was nothing that could hide the truth.
Not for long.
The drinking turned in a more dangerous and obsessive direction.
It was in those days which followed that Valthoron beheld the fey
gleam of madness beneath stillness and turquoise calm. Fingers would clench upon the thick armrests
of that throne, going white and then red beneath the weight of stress and the
adornment of rich, useless jewels. For
hours and hours—hours that drew into long days and wary nights—those eyes would
stare and stare as if all the answers to all the great mysteries of the world
rested upon his fingers.
Thranduil would gaze upon them, drawn to white and adamant the
most. No starlight could they find in
the skies, and so he sought salvation elsewhere.
Never had Valthoron seen an obsession like this. But he heard of it—knew of it—and dreaded it
with all his heart. For it was such
greed—such all-consuming lust and fiery need and pitiful longing—that had
brought his wretched life into this world through pain and blood.
He could have sworn he saw the light of the Silmarilli reflected in
those eyes.
“White gems” his father desired, sighed blissfully in
the imagining of holding them in his palms, of their star shine overflowing
through his fingers like crystalline water. “White
gems of starlight threaded upon the silver of the moon’s frail whispers. Something to bring light…”
To bring light…
It hung in the air, untouched and unfinished. To bring light…
To bring light when their hope was as decadent as their forest and
their king and their people. It was an
empty hope, a useless and childish hope, but when one could grasp at nothing
but that final flimsy thread dangling before their desperate, maddened gaze…
In the end, Valthoron could not blame his father for this
descent. He could not blame Thranduil
for feeling useless in the face of such a burden of command and defense. Nor could he blame his father for growing
desperate as that nightmare closed in around them, broke through the walls of
the fortress of the mind and ate away at the strength underlying.
Thranduil was lonely. He was
so, so alone. Without a mate. Without a confident. Without support. Without a single drop of understanding in the
universe.
And he was unraveling, the threads once forming his seams tangled
around Valthoron’s fingers, falling and falling through into the depths of
flame and death. Those eyes, so bright,
were darkening. That compassion, so strong,
was slipping into apathy and coldness.
There was no kindness.
There was no compromise. There
was nothing but desperation and eyes drawn to the south.
Nothing but empty prayers.
Nothing that Valthoron could do to help. To ease this burden. To bring back even a glimmer of that light.
Nothing but watch. Nothing
but wait.
Nothing but stand still and watch everything fall to pieces.
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