summer was come again (hobbit books | thranduil & mirkwood)

[fiachairecht]

summer was come again. the hobbit (books), thranduil & mirkwood. thranduil, and the things mirkwood crowns him in. 380w, rated t. for GriegPlants in chocolateboxcomm 2020.

Corruption seeps into the Greenwood slowly, and into Thranduil's bones at the same pace. It's small things — shadows that grow deeper earlier, spiders bigger and faster: each year the growth, each year the decay. The trees darken, black mold speckling across the bright green of the leaves that have a harder and harder time finding the sun. Nights, when Thranduil raises his hand to greet the elves spilling into his house under the lamplights, he sees the same flecks over his own fingernails.

It is winter, and time for dead things to sleep. Under the snow that should not be, Thranduil feels his woods creep towards death with open arms.

So this is what it is, to be a king for the forest. So this is the journey that his father underwent.

Ivy drips from his hair, his teeth are stained with holly berries. The pine needles are creeping under his fingernails.

Thranduil is tired. Mirkwood is not.

*

Spring, and time for life, and heat, and renewal. Spring in the Greenwood that is full of fresh water and new growth — and water that grows stagnant, and growth that is autumn-mulch before a day has passed. Blood stains the ground, the animals violent — and the guards, because the woodland realm needs them now. Guards who patrol with taut bowstrings, who come home in the evenings dripping with crimson ichor and carrying the legs of — the silk spun webs of — things he isn't even sure he should call spiders anymore.

His own blood moves more sluggishly, the revels are shorter, edged with desperation. Thranduil blinks and the lights die, blinks again and they rise again. Petals drift from his crown, their edges torn. His bones feel brittle.

He cannot hold enough of the poison to keep Lasgalen from changing. His body he may have given over to the woods but that changes not enough — it is more vast than he can carry. But he will not fail.

Yellow celandine sallows out his skin. He cannot name the brambles. It seems impossible there was ever a line between himself and his realm.

*

Summer, and the thing that is Mirkwood burns, and Thranduil's blood burns, and nothing is enough to drive back the shadows.

He loves. He is loved. It ought to be enough.