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His steps are light, treading upon the flagstones with care and weaving through the maze of fallen bodies that now cover the ground with the grace only one of the Eldar could possess. The dead stare up at him, taunting him as he passes. The gold of their armor glints in the weak sunlight and their dull eyes reflect the sky above. So many, so many died this day. So many who would not go home to their families, who would never see their beloved kingdom return to the light all because of this war for gold.
Amidst the golden armor reflecting into the Elvenking’s eyes, he searches for another gold. A gold that matches the hair of his long passed away wife, one that he prays he will not find among the dead.
He passes body after body, stepping around the soldiers that died on his orders, that died for him. There is an ache in his heart that grows as the numbers of his dead kin seem to multiply around him. Just how many warriors will have lived to return to Mirkwood?
With each step the king takes, his anxiety grows. Where is that other gold? Is it buried amongst the bodies and where he cannot see? Has it been covered in falling rubble, not to be unearthed for days? Is it here at all? Or is it at the bottom of a tall ravine, waiting to be found decades later by some unwary traveler?
There is a flash of golden hair upon the ground and for a moment his heart stops before he takes in the armour of the fallen golden-haired elf. It is the golden armour of his army, not the green tunic and mithril that he is searching for. It is yet another warrior that would not be returning home, but it is not his son.
Hope is beginning to fade now. With each elf he passes, the living ferrying away the wounded and the dead upon the ground, the Elvenking begins to wonder whether he will ever find his son, whether his son will become like the his mother, lost upon the battlefield with not even a body to bury. The king is almost certain that he would never be able to recover from that grief.
Footsteps behind him interrupt his search. He knows immediately that they belong to an elf as they are too soft to be that of a human or, Valar forbid, a dwarf. He turns, expecting Galion has come to drag him back to their camp and berate him for disappearing after the battle ended.
“Adar.”
He feels all of the worry rush out of his body as he takes in the sight of his son. Not a body upon the ground for the snowflakes to frost or among the rows of the dead, but living, breathing. The world seems to have righted itself suddenly. He takes a step forward, the first in a move to embrace his son, to let the joy of finding his only child alive and well after the battle supersede the cold demeanor that formality presents.
“I cannot stay here.”
It is with those four words that the world wobbles and tips on its side again. The Elvenking falters.
Part of him is screaming at himself, screaming to say no and refuse the decision, to order his son to stay in the woodland realm. He can’t simply let his son go, not now right after a battle. He cannot just let him leave with no knowledge of when he will return. For Valar’s sake, with no sword or arrows he barely even has a weapon on him.
Yet he finds himself nodding. “Go north. Find the Dunedain. There is one among them that is believed to become a great man some day, for he is the son of Arathorn.” He knows that this will be a good course for his son. It is one that is free of most dangers, or at least as free as the Elvenking can make it. He tries to console himself with the knowledge that his son will more likely than not end up in Rivendell where he knows that he will be safe.
His heart tells him to take back his permission, but one look into his son’s eyes tells him that he should not rescind it. He needs this right now. After losing countless friends to this battle and being back in his mother’s graveyard, he needs to leave the darkness of Mirkwood behind for a few years. He will return when he is ready, be it in a year or a decade, he will return and the Elvenking knows this.
So he bids his son farewell with a hand to his breast and a short bow, and watches him depart. It will be the last time the Elvenking sees him for quite some time. The king will worry day in and day out whether his son is still alive, whether he has made a grave mistake in letting him go, but he will return. When he does, he will be older, though a few years is nothing to an elf, but his eyes will be brighter from the time spent in a lighter part of the world without the responsibilities of being the prince of a falling kingdom. He will bring back with him a human whom the Elvenking will despise even though he is constantly reminded that it is he who nudged the two together.
There is the beginning of a new tale afoot, one that his son will play a great part in. The Elvenking may not have the foresight of Elrond or Galadriel, but he knows this all too well. In order for this tale to come to pass, his son must leave him and venture out into the rest of Arda. One day, when Mirkwood becomes Eryn Lasgalen, they may return to some semblance of peace, but until then he must wait in his darkening woods until the shadow lifts.