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Morning.
The burnt orange sunlight spilled and flowed across the rolling hills of Arda. Legolas sat in the waking peace of the morning, his hair sparkling golden in the emerging sunlight. He took a long breath of the cool air around him, sucking it deep into his lungs, noting that the others with him were still dozing soundly around the low embers of their campfire.
Legolas liked mornings best. He enjoyed the way it felt to know that the world was sleeping, and that he was likely the only person to watch the sunrise. The colours shifted with every minute of the sun’s journey. It was such a routine for Legolas that he could almost predict the exact colour changes from pinks to oranges and yellows, and finally the way the sky would alight in a pale blue, the very colour of his eyes which seemed to stare back at him. The animals would awake first, and then his companions. But for now – in the restful silence of the morning – Legolas was alone.
Well… that may not have been strictly true. His whole heart ached to think that someone else may have been watching that very same sunrise. He knew another who loved mornings just as much as he did, and who would have spent the morning with him if he had the chance. Somewhere, leagues away from where Legolas now sat on the thick woollen material of his dark green travelling cloak, he knew that he was not completely alone. Thranduil would be watching this too.
When Legolas felt so alone, so far from home, he looked to the sun and thought of a memory he had almost completely forgotten about.
*-*-*
“Ada! Ada, wake up and see!”
The loud pattering of feet was all the prior warning that Thranduil received before his agile elfling climbed upon his enormous bed, and began to jump up and down in excitement. Groggily, tired from his late night session with an injured troop and the death of a warrior, Thranduil pulled himself reluctantly from his sleep. When he did, he was rewarded with Legolas’ glowing face uncomfortably close to his own, painted in the joy only small elflings could experience. His blue eyes, identical to Thranduil’s own, held an innocence that Thranduil had not held within his own eyes for millennia. His golden hair was ruffled, half-braided, and one of his small hands was gripped to Thranduil’s shoulder and in the other he carried his stuffed oliphaunt toy.
“What is it, my leaf?” Thranduil heard his deep voice command of his son.
Undeterred by his father’s disinterest, Legolas grinned at his father’s response.
“The sky,” he simply said, one small hand leaving Thranduil’s shoulder to point at a window covered by a thick burgundy curtain. “The sky is orange, Ada!”
Of all the things he had expected his son to say, it had not been this. Thranduil felt slightly annoyed that he had been awoken so early, for if the sky was orange he knew that it was still too early for anyone to rise, let alone the King of Mirkwood. He deserved some perks to the job, and remaining in bed for a small lie-in was one of them. However, the sheer joy and curiosity upon Legolas’ face, the way his eyes appeared to shine in excitement, patiently awaiting the answer for why the sky was orange from the only elf in his life who knew everything he did not.
Suddenly Thranduil was no longer a King. He was simply a father. And knowing how it had felt when he had asked Oropher similar questions about the world, and knowing that his father had taught him everything he knew far better than any tutor had, was enough to get Thranduil up from his bed. He scooped his son up easily from the bedsheets of his luxurious bed, resting him gently upon his hip, taking a moment to enjoy the way the small hands of his son clutched to his bare chest, the stuffed oliphaunt forgotten upon the bed.
Thranduil pulled back the heavy curtain. The sky was orange – a coral colour that was heading fast towards to a lighter yellowing-orange. Soon the sun would rise. Looking from the sun, and glancing at his son, Thranduil had never seen such wonder upon any being’s face as was upon Legolas’. He felt his heart swell with pride.
“You are correct, little one,” he murmured. “The sky is orange.”
“Will it go back to blue, or will it always be like this?” Legolas asked him, resting his head dreamily upon his father’s shoulder.
“It will return to blue eventually,” Thranduil told him honestly. “It never stays orange for too long. The sun is rising, and it is a new day.”
The heavy weight on Thranduil’s shoulder felt comforting. He sometimes felt as though he did not spend enough time with Legolas, but he tried to take as many moments away from his job as he could. Oropher had told him that he wished that Thranduil would never become King, and part of him wondered if it was to do with the moments like this that Thranduil often missed. Eventually Legolas would grow, and when he did, Thranduil was desperate for them to have a relationship that was closer than the one between Thranduil and his own father. The kingship his father had taken had awarded Thranduil with many privileges that he wouldn’t have otherwise had, but equally it had stolen his father from all those important life moments, and he was determined not to have the same occurrence with Legolas.
“Whenever I see the sunrise I will think of you now, Leaf,” Thranduil mumbled, landing a soft kiss on his son’s golden head. “I will watch it every day.”
“I love you, Ada.”
*-*-*
The blue was beginning to emerge in the sky, and the companions that Legolas was travelling with were starting to stir from their slumber. The memory felt like it was so far away, as though it had happened in a different life. When had he last told his Ada he loved him? When had he stopped from endless travelling to spend two minutes with the man he admired more than any other? Perhaps the sunrise was being watched elsewhere, just as Legolas sat there observing it too. Hopefully his Ada would know that they could still be connected, even if they were so far apart. Sometimes the distance felt unbearable.
“I am thinking of you,” Legolas whispered to himself, the wind carrying away his confession.
For a moment, the shuffling of his companions made Legolas wonder if they had heard him, and whether they were already awake, for he hadn’t taken his eyes away from the way the colours reflected across the land. The loud snore of Gimli suggested otherwise.