Chapter Text
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Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all
-Emily Dickinson
The ocean waters were clear as they rushed back and forth like a heartbeat. There was such life everywhere. The trees teemed with song and the animals frolicked in joy–all undoubtedly alive. And Oropher, with his bare feet dipped in the clear water and ears full of bird song, was dead. Not here, here he lived and he loved his also alive (dead) wife and alive (dead) children. It was over there, across the sea in the marred and broken land, where he–also marred and broken–had died. He had died and left the real living–his alive son and alive people.
Oropher views his life in parallels: then and now, here and there. It is who he loves here, and who he loved there, the children he has here and the child he has there, the father he is now and the father he was then. Oropher thinks of Arda where he died and Aman where he was reborn.
Oropher is changed in Aman and taken more to introspection than rash action. Death and rebirth can not be expected to not leave change.
“What deep things of the sea hold your thoughts, love?” a soft voice said.
Oropher looks towards his wife. Oh the joy he had felt upon being re-embodied and finding his wife and the children he had long ago lost waiting for him. He had felt a completion of the healing that had begun in Mandos Halls. He looked at his wife and the sting of their parting was near gone, and the memory of the blood running down her sliced throat not quite so vibrant.
He grabs her hand and says, “I am simply thinking of things far away.”
“Someday Thranduil will return to us and we will be complete,” she said gently.
Oropher hopes so. He hopes for a second chance with his last son on the far side of the sea–a chance to show him that he can be a good father.
“Come,” His wife tugged on his arm, “Your family is waiting for you.”
His family. All these years later and the thought still nearly choked him up with joy. Therion, his oldest who had long been lost while doing his duty of a March Warden–he had died even before the loss of Doriath. Sweet Gliriel, his only daughter and second child, who had fallen to dwarfish axes in the first sacking of Doriath. Oropher looked at his wife, his beautiful wife, he had lost Nedirien in the third Kinslaying.
All the losses had made him grow cold and it was all he could do to not fade. He knows he left his remaining son to manage his own heartbreak alone. Thranduil, just barely past his majority and his only remaining child had stayed strong while Oropher had been trying to decide whether to live or die. Once he came out of the fog, Oropher had been so proud (Why had he never said it?), yet he still found a new coldness in his fëa and it made the world around him cold. His son was left to his own coping, and Oropher, to his shame, never fully took up the mantle of father again. Thranduil adapted and did not ask him for what he knew Oropher could not give.
“Well we cannot keep them waiting. Will Legolas and Calassel be joining us?”
“That I do not know, love.”
Thranduil’s son and wife were also on this side of the sea now. Calassel had had her own bloody end only a few centuries after Oropher himself. And Legolas (who Oropher had only known about through Calassel) had sailed, bringing a few surprises and much sought for news.
Thranduil yet lingered, and from what Legolas said, he had learned well from Oropher and had set himself to doing everything differently–he was a good father.
He sat amongst his family and just stared at them.
Therion (a picture of his wife in male form) with gold hair and green laughing eyes spoke, “Come now father, what has brought on this introspective mood you seem to be in today? I believe it's been a few centuries since you were last like this.”
“Can I not think about all the wonderful things I have?” Oropher teased.
“Of course you can, ada,” said Gliriel–he’s own copy of silver hair and gray blue eyes. “The problem is when you think about all the wonderful things you do not have.”
Oropher laughed, “and what makes you think I am thinking of things I do not have?”
“Because you have longing in your eyes.”
“Do I now?” Oropher raised his eyebrow, “Perhaps what I need is my grandchildren. Where are you two hiding them?”
Therion laughed, “They all went to, and I quote, ‘galavant beneath the stars’.”
“That sounds like them,” Oropher said with a chuckle, “did Legolas go as well?”
“I believe,” his wife said as she sat beside him, “That it was all his idea.”
“That sounds about right,” a smile had set on Oropher's face.
“In all the centuries you have been here Adar, you have not spoken to us of his father–our brother.” Therion said thoughtfully.
The smile fell off of Oropher’s face, “I am sure we have spoken of him.”
“We have,” Gliriel nodded, “We shared our own personal memories of him, but of the three of us, mom is the only one that saw him reach his majority–and only barely. You listened, but did not join with your own memories.”
Oropher let out a heavy breath.
“Why does it bring you sorrow, adar?”
“Sorrow?” he responded after a long pause, “I suppose there is sorrow, but most of what I feel is shame.” He took a deep breath and looked each of his children in the eyes, “After…after I–we–lost you all, I was not a good father. In my sorrow I almost faded, and when at last I made the choice to live, the part of me that was warm was left without air for much too long and did not survive. I became cold and hollow, and such ingredients do not make a good father.” Oropher took a deep breath, it seemed to rake his insides as it filled him.
“I do not know how Thranduil recovered,” he continued, “I never asked.” The bitter shame choked out his voice.
The soft hand of his wife gently grabbed his clenching fist, “Please love, do not let the sorrows of a past world darken your present. He will return and all will be made well.”
He looked at his beautiful unbroken wife and children, “It is not a past world for him. Even now, with all that he loves on this side of the sea he still remains.”
“Yes father, he does,” Therion said, “But it will not always be so. He will return to us.”
“Will he?” Oropher felt a spark of frustration. “Have you talked to those of his kingdom that have returned? He stays for his kingdom–for those that do not yet wish to depart. He stays for duty. It is what I taught him…all I taught him.” He stood up and began pacing. “I did not teach him how to strengthen a familial bond, or how to teach with patience.” He sat down with his face in his hands, “I did not teach him how to be a good father.”
Oropher tried to picture Thranduil's face. He tried to see his son smiling and relaxed, but all he could see was his son’s exhausted sweat-soaked face. He heard his own words harshly reverberate through the high ceilings of their stronghold:
“Again.”
It was late, so late that it was technically early. They both had duties to attend to in a mere few hours. But Oropher refused to stop. Without saying anything, Thranduil pushed the sweat-soaked hair out of his face and fell into position with dual swords–he began an intricate series of movements under the harsh watch of his father. He had just been cleared for active duty after a disastrous run in with a horde of spiders while on patrol. Oropher was making sure he was prepared–making sure long after all soldiers had been dismissed from the training arena. Thranduil finished the set perfectly. The last two had been perfect, but Oropheer knew that repetition was the key to perfection–and he demanded perfection.
“Again,” he said as he ignored the exhausted tremble that ran through his son's frame.
He had been terrified. His main goal had been to make sure Thranduil was prepared, that he could take on any creature that sought to once again rip his life from him. And selfishly, to make sure he never had to see his son again, covered in blood, being carried by his comrades.
Thranduil had said nothing as the night progressed and the training room cleared until it was just him and Oropher. He said nothing as his limbs trembled. He remained silent through every stern again. His look had been focused yet removed throughout the exhausting night. A look that was usually present when he stood in the face of Oropher’s rants and whatever punishment followed after some reckless actions.
A thought hit Oropher–Thranduil had thought it was a punishment. The whole night going through forms and sets had been seen as a punishment. And why wouldn't he think it was that? Oropher never shared his reasons or fears, and had only dismissed his son as the morning rays had filtered through the trees. Thranduil had returned to patrol and Oropher did not see him again for some time.
His son thought he was being punished for being hurt…the thought repeated itself in Oropher’s head, its echo a painful thing.
Thranduil had been unconscious when his patrol had brought him in, and thus he had not been aware that it was Oropher that fearfully cradled him as he was taken to the healers. And he had barely awoken when Oropher had gently tucked a golden strand of his son's hair away from his face and said softly, “don’t scare me like that again.” It was so contrasted to what happened after his healing that Thranduil probably thought it had been a delirious dream.
In retrospect, Oropher was only ever affectionate when his son was hurt. After Thranduil was released from his healing room, Oropher quickly returned to his kingly persona.
“Oropher?” A gentle call draws his focus, “where have you gone?”
Looking at his wife, he responds, “I was just remembering.”
“A good memory?” his sweet daughter asked, though her tone did not hold conviction in her statement.
A bittersweet smile drifted across Oropher’s lips, “No, sweetheart…a mistake.”
“Well then I think you should find a good one.”
He looked at his daughter, “You think that?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“Would this not be a better conversation for Legolas to head?”
“He has no problem talking about his father. It is you who need it.” His daughter would not back down.
“Do not hold your sorrow love,” his wife said, “It is not what you were reborn into.”
But it was what he was born into, what they were all born into. He looked at his family and he still remembered their deaths, their funerals, the way he could hardly carry on without them. The pain was deluded–its edges being softened in Mandos Hall. He also knew that if he saw his son again then he would not be softened through Mandos, but instead have sailed. Thranduil would come with all his sharp hurts, and Oropher wouldn’t know what to do with them. He would be a failure twice over.
“Come father,” his oldest son spoke, “surely there is one good memory?”
Taking a breath Oropher reached into the past and searched for the small bits of light that had lived in his world of darkness.
“He loved to dance. He would move throughout the people and dance all night. And I always knew where he was when he laughed.”
He usually stopped laughing when Oropher came up to him, Oropher silently added, and he only ever watched his son dance from a distance.
“Sometimes in the late of night,” he continued, “We would both work in the study, or occasionally, we would play chess. The silence was tension free. I enjoyed those nights.”
He looked at his family. Their gazes held sorrow–sorrow for him. But he was not the one that deserved it. “It has been lovely as always, and I look forward to our next gathering. Hopefully with my grandchildren as well,” he said with a small smile and giving his wife a kiss on the cheek he left.
The seasons changed and Oropher once again sunk into the joy of his family and a world filled with no threats of death around every tree. At times he still stared into the sea and wondered, but he kept his thoughts and shame to himself and his family no longer asked for them.
It started as rumbling among the sea elves; a boat was coming. Oropher didn’t question the Teleri, he believed a boat was coming, but he quenched any speculation as to who it might be. Many boats had arrived since he was reborn. Ages had come and gone and still he stared at the sea.
It was during a family dinner that everything changed. Oropher was mid-bite when Legolas burst in yelling, “It’s him! It’s him!” and then ran out again.
Calassel was the first to react. She got up so fast her chair skidded backwards as she followed her son out.
“Thranduil?” Nederien gasped as she too got up.
Thranduil? Oropher found himself choked. Could it be? He didn’t remember getting up or following his wife and children to the sea’s edge. The boat that was coming was not one of the great boats of the Teleri, but it was sturdy. At the helm he could make out a tall figure with silver hair twisting about his face. It had to be Celeborn. The thought filled him with both joy at seeing his cousin again and a fear that it meant Thranduil had not returned.
The boat stopped. The first one out was Celeborn–his feet barely splashed down before his arms were filled with an overjoyed hug from his daughter.
Oropher held his breath as an unrecognizable elf jumped down next, and then another, and another. Amid the strangers, Oropher saw a few familiar faces, but there would be time enough later for greetings. Thranduil was not among them and Oropher felt his heart drop with the hope of seeing his son again. Then just as it seemed as the boat had fully cleared one last elf appeared at the bow and smoothly swung himself down.
Thranduil–Oropher’s heart stuttered. Of course he would have made sure that all his people disembarked first. Oropher only had a moment to take in his son before Legolas rushed forward and threw himself at his father.
Thranduil staggered back as his son jumped and wrapped both arms and legs around him, it was a mere breath before Calassel joined the greeting, also bodily throwing herself at the two, causing all three to topple over into a laughing pile. Oropher’s breath stuttered as he heard the old familiar laugh of his son coming from the bottom of the pile. A moment later they disentangle themselves and Oropher couldn’t place the smiling, half wet, and sand covered Thranduil in his memories.
Still sitting on the sand Thranduil looked up and saw the rest of his family–his smile turned into a shadow of its former self and his joyfully glistening eyes became unreadable. This was the son Oropher remembered, a son currently shoring himself up to meet all the ghosts that had haunted him.
Nederien, being unable to contain herself any longer, ran forward. She dropped down before Thranduil and grabbing his face she whispered “My son” through her tears.
“Hello Naneth,” he responded softly, as if if he spoke too loud she would vanish.
Her hands dropped from his face and she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. She wept. She wept for the losing and the finding, the breaking and the mending of her family. She wept for a son long sundered and all the lost lifetimes come and gone.
“It's been so long,” she said in a stuttering breath.
“It has,” he whispered softly, “but it’s over now.”
Thranduil looked up over his mother’s head and his eyes connected with Oropher. The look in his son's eyes was the same focused yet removed look that Oropher remembered from his regret filled memories. Not knowing what to expect, his son was doing all he could to protect himself–family beyond his own son and wife were not seen as a safe place.
Gathering herself, Nederien pulled back and grabbing Thranduil's hands, stood up–pulling him with her.
Oropher had stood before battlefields and hordes that wanted nothing but his blood. He had stood and never trembled, but now he felt himself wanting to tremble as he watched his wife pull his son toward him.
But that was the problem, Thranduil had not been Oropher’s son for a long time, even before Oropher’s death. He had been Oropher’s prince, his strategist, and his commander and he didn’t know what to do with the son. The son that now stood before him with a raising hand, as if to greet a stranger. This was the moment that would form the foundation for their new lives together, and it was going to be different. Oropher was going to be different.
Grabbing his son’s formally outstretched hand, Oropher pulled him into a bone crushing hug. He felt the stiffness in Thranduil's war-formed body. And although Thranduil slowly reciprocated the hug, the stiffness remained.
Though he wished he could keep his lost son in his hold indefinitely, the continued stiffness in Thranduil's frame never melted away, and the discomfort of his son hurt. He slowly let go, until only his hands rested on his son’s shoulders.
“It is good to see you,” Oropher said through a closing throat.
Thranduil seemed caught off guard and took a beat to respond, until at last he said, “Yes Adar, it is good to see you as well.”
Then he was pulled out of Oropher’s arms.
“This can’t be that little sprite that used to follow at my heels!” Therion said as he ruffled Thranduil's taller head after having pulled him into a hug.
“Leave him be, Therion!” Gliriel said through a laugh as she claimed her own hug, “We are so glad you’re here little brother.”
“I too am glad to be here,” Thranduil said through a gentle smile.
He was still too stiff and formal–so unsure. It was as if the fact that he was no longer the last of his family unbalanced him.
“Thranduil!” the shouted name rang throughout the beach. All eyes in the greeting group searched for the shouter. Oropher’s eyes immediately went to the two familiar elves running towards them.
“Aglor? Sador?” Thranduil's tone was joyous.
“Thranduil!” the oncoming elves called out again. And then Thranduil was once again enveloped and his joyous laugh rang out. The hug he gave the two elves was not stiff, but held all the joy of reuniting.
Oropher was pulled back in time to watching three elves grow up together. He remembers how he would hear their laughs resounding throughout his halls, until the laughing turned to battle cries.
Oropher’s observation of his son was interrupted when he was pulled from behind and turned into a strong hug.
“Oropher! You made it through Mandos Hall!”
“Yes Celeborn,” Oropher said through the tough squeeze of his cousin's strong embrace.
Celeborn laughed and gave him a strong pat on the back, “It is good to see you!”
Oropher couldn’t help matching the laugh, “It is good to see you as well Cousin—we had thought you’d never sail!”
Celeborn's bright smile slightly dimmed as he turned to look across to the sea he just crossed, “I was not sure myself,” he said before turning back to Oropher, “But I had many things that called my fëa on this side of the sea.” His eyes moved from the sea to alight on the form of his daughter. A daughter that was now joined by her husband.
Oropher watched Celebrian and Elrond as they also had warm greetings with Thranduil and he once again heard the joyous sound of his son’s laughter and knew that it was not due to him.
Seeming to have waited as long as he could as his father greeted others that had once been dearly departed friends. Legolas pushed his way to his fathers side and there he remained.
Calassel soon also pushed her way into the joyous fray and began pulling Thranduil out, all the while shouting that they could come see him once he was settled.
As he’s pulled towards them, Oropher can see Thranduil once again shoring himself up. Oropher cannot blame him; it is not easy to meet the dead.
Seeming once again unable to wait for her son to reach her, Nedirien moved forward to grab Thranduil’s free hand and did her own part in pulling their son towards his waiting family.
Celeborn, whom Oropher had practically forgotten stood beside, let out a chuckle and walking up to Thranduil laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “I will leave you to your loved ones cousin, and may your joy be abundant from now on out.”
Thranduil's answering smile was warm and not as guarded as the one he offered Oropher. “The same goes for you, cousin.” An understanding look passed between the two newly returned elves, and Oropher tried to curb any sorrow that he might feel. He could sense the bond between the two elves, and though it gave him joy to know that his son had not been all alone, there was still a part of him that yearned for such a bond with Thranduil.
Legolas, with the exuberance of a much younger elf jumped onto his fathers back, causing Thranduil to stagger a step forward.
Belting out a laugh, Celeborn said, “I will leave you all to your reunion!” With a parting hug to Oropher, he left to his own joyful reunion.
“You’re going to love our home, Adar,” Legolas said, showing no sign of hopping down.
“Will I?” Thranduil said through a soft smile.
“Yes!” said Calassel, who had never let go of her newly returned husband's hand, “It’s in the woods and the trees are very lively. We’ve talked about you so much that they're very excited to meet you!”
Thranduil gave his wife a gentle smile, “Well I do hope I do not disappoint them.”
She returned his gentle smile, “You could never.”
Oropher wishes such gentle assurances came easily to him, then mayhapse his son would not be so tense in meeting him anew.
“None of us will ever make it home if we just stand around here,” Therion said with a laugh.
“Therion is right,” His Nedirien said in a tone of someone who knows exactly what needs to happen next. “Our own home is not far from yours, so let's all be on our way. We will part when the time comes and let you settle in. But you must return to us for a feast tonight!” She finished by weaving her arm through Thranduil’s free one and pulling him to start walking.
Oropher fell a bit behind as he watched his family. It had been many ages since he had seen such a sight. They had made it through death and rebirth and at last they had a life ahead of them not shadowed by darkness. Yet darkness had held on to them so strongly that he worried that a part of them would always be marred–would always be looking for death in shadows.
He saw his son walking amongst his family at last, and hoped that the shadow of the land they had been born in did not cling to him too strongly.