A Pilgrim in the Woods by Rocky41_7

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A Pilgrim in the Woods

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            It was often the custom of the Woodland King to go wandering among the trees, listening to the whisper of their branches and drawing peace and respite from the embrace of the forest. The damp softness of the soil against the bare soles of his feet, the drip of rainwater off the branches onto his head, the smell of the flowers and the leaf mold—all were a kind of cleansing of the stress of leading a kingdom, and the senses of the forest, given time, crowded out the circular thoughts that at times plagued his mind.

            While he enjoyed to wander so with others, he preferred to have time still to walk alone, for the solitude was refreshing and cleared his mind, and it pleased him to have conversations shared with none but the creatures of Yavanna that populated this forest which had grown into his home.

            It was abroad under the dark canopy of the woods when he first encountered the wizard.

            It was not immediately apparent that he was a wizard; in fact, little about him was immediately apparent, except that he had taken some interest in the Greenwood.

            Being intimately familiar with the magics of the woods, Thranduil was aware when he felt something that was not at home there. (Since he had taken up his father’s crown, he felt his relationship with the forest had changed; there was more intimacy, for lack of a better word, as if the magics of the woods pulsed in time with his own heartbeat. He wondered if it had been so for Oropher. He wondered if it had been so for Thingol. He wished he had asked, but he had not know the question then.) He paused, contemplating the nature of this intrusion—he was inclined, now, to believe such things were likely to be hostile—when the voice first addressed him.

            “It is not many a king to wander alone through the woods so early in the morning.”

            The Elvenking stiffened at once, his good eye darting about (accompanied by the sightless left), his sharp ears seeking to pinpoint the source of the voice. The effort was unnecessary—a figure removed from the shadows, resolving into what appeared to be an aged Man. He was dressed in drab gray garb, the point of his broad-brimmed blue hat bowed and deflated. Keen, alert blue eyes watched the king from a deeply lined face, bristling with thin hair about the chin. He did not carry himself in the manner of a trespassing Man now faced unexpectedly with the king of the realm; his posture was relaxed, even indolent, as though he had expected to find Thranduil there.

            “It is not many a Man who ventures so deeply into my woods off the road,” Thranduil returned, cool green eyes narrowed against the newcomer. There was a blasé little smile on the old Man’s lips and he leaned lightly against staff as gnarled as his face. There was something not quite right about him, as though Thranduil were looking into a warped reflection in the face of a pond.

            “Yes…the forest has grown more dangerous of late, hasn’t it?” the Man said, the smile faltering. He tilted his head to the side, as if to emphasize there was no one with Thranduil either.

            “I extend myself to protect her as much as I can,” Thranduil said slowly, placing a hand against a tree trunk; the moss squished wetly beneath his fingers. He could not decide if this conversation was better ended or not—not without more information. He was reluctant to leave this stranger to wander in his realm. “I trust her to return the favor.” The Man merely smiled again. He did not respond to Thranduil’s expectant, even impatient stare.

            “Most who travel this way seek my leave to do it,” he said pointedly.

            “Most,” agreed the being amiably. “I am not most, however.” He gave Thranduil a look as if they were sharing some secret, which Thranduil ought to know. This also irritated the king.

            “There have been others who were not ‘most,’ either,” he said. “The bones of many of those have been food for the trees.” The being looked only amused, as if Thranduil were an Elfling challenging an elder to a fight.

            “You were a subject of Melian,” he remarked, and at once Thranduil’s back was rigid as an oak. Mortals barely knew the name of his long-vanished home, let alone the history of those who had ruled it, or whom among the ever-dwindling population of the Greenwood had once danced under tree there.

            “Someone who wore my name once was,” he replied, his toes curling into the dirt, reaching his fae out into the nearby plants, slowing his breathing to draw into sync with the trees.

            “Not unusual, I understand, for such things to feel as if they belonged to the life of another,” the being said, nodding slowly, yet without the stiffness of limited movement that came with the aging of mortal bodies.

            “Who are you?” Thranduil asked at last, with no more patience for dancing around each other.

            “You might call me Mithrandir,” said the being. “Others of your kind have done so. I have come from the West.”

            The Elvenking’s lip curled without thought. Very little that had come out of the West had served a great good for him or his kin.

            “Perhaps you should like to return West,” he said.

            “In time,” Mithrandir said, and Thranduil gathered he was not enormously pleased to be spoken to with such dismissiveness. “But there is something in the woods that troubles you now, isn’t there?”

            Thranduil was not one accustomed to being easily read and he did not care for having his thoughts and feelings laid out by another in the slightest, any more than he might enjoyed being flayed alive. It was difficult not to take an immediate dislike to this being which wandered into his home and spoke to him of his own past and the contents of his own heart.

            The leaves overhead rustled in agitation.

            “You need no word of mine on that account,” Thranduil said, a chill frosting over his words. “Travel to Amon Lanc, the house of the throne of my father, if it pleases you to explore. It is better known as Dol Guldur of late. But haven’t you heard? The lord of Mordor is dead.”

            Mithrandir regarded him thoughtfully and Thranduil misliked it immensely.

            “So is the belief in other Elven realms,” he said.

            “Do you disagree?”

            “I cannot say as I have an opinion one way or the other,” Mithrandir answered, looking up into the branches of the trees, crisscrossing so thickly over the forest floor the sky was invisible. “I have been only a short time in this country. I would not be so hasty to base my own belief solely on the views of others.”

            “Did someone send you?” Thranduil asked.

            “Must someone have sent me? May I not come merely of my own accord?” replied old Mithrandir. “I had heard that here in the woods lay one of the last of the Elven realms of Middle-earth. I came to see for myself.”

            Thranduil responded with an arch look. Traveling off the roads without the knowledge of the Elves who lived there seemed an odd way to seek them out. Furthermore, most in Middle-earth were not looking to make tourist visits to the Woodland Realm. That was more a draw of Imladris.

            “It seems guests are not overly welcome here,” added Mithrandir with a pointedness that made the Elvenking bristle, though he relaxed his grip on the surrounding plants, his heartbeat returning to its usual pace.

            “Anyone may take pause with guests who skulk in the shadows and guard their intentions,” he said, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. They were perfectly welcoming to guests who were invited.

            “A rather suspicious sort aren’t you, Thranduil Oropherion?” said the being with an arched brow, arousing that suspicion further still. “I bear no ill towards you nor your people, nor the forest either.” He glanced around the surrounding wood and a faint smile tugged at the corners of his saggy mouth. “It is a fine piece of work, isn’t it? No, I would do no harm here.”

            Who was this Man who knew things no Man should know?

            “A long life in Middle-earth begets caution,” said the Elvenking, with a life’s effort at not sounding testy. “Or rather, the other way around.”

            “Mm…” Mithrandir gave a thoughtful, rumbling hum which did not seem to be a noise of disagreement. Just as Thranduil was about to speak again, he went on: “I hope to learn more about the people of Middle-earth. I may render some assistance, if it should be helpful to them. I do consider myself in possession of a rather helpful set of skills. But applicable here? That remains to be seen.”

            “What sort of assistance?”

            “That too, remains to be seen,” said Mithrandir. “For now I travel. There is a great deal to explore.”

            “A great deal less than there once was,” said Thranduil. “But much else remains.” He studied the aged face of the being, pondering what it meant, his arrival from the West and the sparse details he was willing to provide. He did not feel any malevolence here—he had no sense that Mithrandir deceived him. But he was also not willing to trust his own senses without more proof. “I cannot say I am comforted, if what you say is true,” he said at last.

            “Is it not a comfort to be not alone?” asked Mithrandir.

            “If I believed it, perhaps,” Thranduil answered. “But more a comfort to think I should not need the assistance.”

            Mithrandir adjusted his weight against his staff and looked over the Elvenking, again appraising.

            “The future of Middle-earth concerns everyone,” he said. “I shall travel to Amon Lanc and see what you have seen. When I return, we may speak more on this matter.”

            Thranduil, until then immediately ready to dismiss this figment of a far-off land he had never seen and for which he had no care, hesitated.

            “There are not many I would propose make such a visit,” he said reluctantly. “There is danger there, more than in the rest of the forest. It is a place of ill feeling. It is likely best if you stay at a distance.” There was, after all, a reason the Elves of the Greenwood had abandoned their old hilltop capitol.

            “And here I thought you did not care for my safety,” said Mithrandir, sounding, if anything, amused.

            “I should not care to send any to an unnecessary death,” said the Elvenking with a frown. “Certainly not for the crime of disturbing my walk.” Mithrandir gave his slow nod.

            “I see. Perhaps you and I would disagree on that,” he said and chuckled to himself. “But now! I have tasks at hand, and you have your walk. We will meet again. Take care of yourself.” With the shambling gait of the old Man he appeared to be, Mithrandir shuffled off into the trees, and Thranduil had the sense he ought to call out, to lead this being who seemed so feeble out of the woods, or at least back onto a cleared road, but he held back, and then Mithrandir was gone.

            Meet again? he wondered.

            On that day, his walk filled his mind only with more questions and concerns.

***

            It was not overlong, by Elven standards, that Mithrandir came again, and this time, made his way to the palace proper. It had not been his intention to intrude on celebrations of the Wood-elves, but it was quickly apparent he had come at a particularly raucous time. Still, it had been a long journey not without its perils (and in the heat of summer nonetheless), and he hoped still to speak with the Elvenking again, and with the queen as well, to gather more information about the area. The Wood-elves with whom he had visited already had told him much that the tight-lipped Elvenking had not, but one in his position tended to have a holistic view Mithrandir considered a useful augmentation of his present knowledge. Furthermore, the trust of more realms of Middle-earth could only help his efforts. So he forded on through the shouting and drinking and merrymaking.

When he finally managed to grab one of the cavorting Elves to inquire about the Elvenking, he was led into the underground halls and quickly lost his guide in the joyous throng. Determining to seek out the king himself, Mithrandir pressed deeper into the palace, and was at length rewarded with the wine-flushed countenance of Thranduil Oropherion, barefoot, a heavy crown of flowers askew on his head.

            “Mithrandir!” he exclaimed, apparently more willing to welcome his undesired guest with a few cups down his throat. “What timing! You must join us!” He grabbed a goblet of wine from a passing tray and thrust it into Mithrandir’s hands.

            “I seem to have come at a…well, I did not expect so much activity.” He nearly had to shout, despite Thranduil standing right in front of him.

            “We are celebrating!” the Elvenking announced, as if there was a need for clarification on that front. He attempted to offer Mithrandir another cup of wine, realized he had given him one already, and passed the second off on someone else. “I have a child!” Thranduil’s typically remote, impassive face split into a look of rapture that illuminated his mien such that the years of the world fell away from his shoulders and he moved and spoke as one of the spritely, carefree creatures whom the other races of the world saw in Elvenkind.

            As he said this, the Elves nearby who heard erupted into fresh cheers, shouting their good wishes for the prince of the Greenwood up to the carven ceilings. Some acquaintance of the Elvenking’s appeared, slung an arm around his shoulders, and planted a kiss on his cheek, making Thranduil laugh. They exchanged words in what sounded like some archaic form of Sindarin, which if Mithrandir had to guess, was the old Doriathrin dialect, and the newcomer pressed a honeycake into Thranduil’s hand. (Later, he knew that it had been, and also that it was exceedingly rare to hear that speech from the king’s mouth.)

            Mithrandir was pulled apart from his quarry by the crowd, and subsumed into the festivities. King Thranduil and Queen Niwë spared no expense for the month-long celebration that followed the long-awaited birth of their first child. After the first few days during which she rested, the queen appeared among the crowd as well, accepting the well-wishes of the people and dispensing with gifts of her own left and right. Both of the new parents were aglow with joy, not even surpassed by the elation of their people when the newborn prince was presented to the revelers. It had been, Mithrandir gathered, quite a long time since a baby had been born in the Greenwood. Mithrandir himself, though unprepared with a gift for the babe, entertained the Elves with a few magic tricks which they seemed to find more enrapturing the more wine they had consumed.

            He had meant to speak with Thranduil and Niwë about the condition of the wood, but he found he could not impose on this unrestrained joy (and furthermore, it was rather difficult to track them down or maintain their attention for more than a few moments at a time in all the ruckus). Rather, he ended up staying two weeks into the party, enjoying some of the finest music in Middle-earth, before managing to extract himself, with one benefit at least: the king and queen had invited him to visit again.

***

            The infant prince had blossomed into a plump-cheeked toddler when Mithrandir paid his next visit to Greenwood—or Mirkwood, as some had taken to calling it. The information about the child he gathered only by word-of-mouth (everyone who had seen the new prince was quite eager to talk of it; Elves seemed to rather lose their heads about children)—while he had hoped to see Legolas himself, simply out of an interest in the everyday lives of the peoples of Middle-earth, it did not happen. The Elves, perhaps owing to the fact that they reproduced so infrequently, were more protective of their young than any species Mithrandir had yet encountered and even though he was the invited guest of the king and queen, they had no intention of allowing him to see the baby. It was disappointing, but not unreasonable—he was still a stranger, and not an Elf.

            The king and queen met him in a small, open-air garden. It was not theirs—no garden anywhere in Mirkwood belonged to anyone—but no one disturbed them there while he was present. They reclined in the grass under the spotted light filtering through the towering trees and seemed to speak in that way of familiar Elves, through silent looks and flickers of the eye, turning their attention to him only when he had drawn within conversational distance. The queen gestured for Mithrandir to sit, and they served him a bitter, bracing black tea at the low table established for his visit.

            “Thranduil tells me he found you in the woods,” said Queen Niwë, her bracelets rattling as she rearranged herself, folding her legs while Thranduil poured the tea. A pair of fat bees circled idly around the queen’s head.

            “I should say rather that I found him, for he was not looking for me!” Mithrandir said. “I happened across him traveling through your realm some time ago. Not a terribly gregarious fellow, is he?”

            “He says you claim to be of the West,” she said.

            “I do.”

            “I have never met one such as yourself.” Her dark eyes flickered studiously over his face; she bore a measure of Thranduil’s tendency to distrust, but the natural curiosity of the Elves was stirred in her over the unknown.

            “You would not have,” Mithrandir said. “Unless I mistake you.” Niwë looked at Thranduil, who returned her gaze with an expression that seemed to hold some measure of see, didn’t I tell you? “You are of the Silvan Elves, aren’t you?” Mithrandir said.

            “I am,” the queen replied cautiously, inclining her head. Again, she exchanged a look with Thranduil. The sunlight gleamed off her sleek black hair and the gold-accented wooden jewelry at her ears and her throat. She wore her hair in simple braids, while the king’s pale gold locks were pinned back from his face with delicately carved bone clasps, accentuated with tender young fern leaves.

            “And you did not see Beleriand?”

            “I did not. Although Thranduil has told me much of it,” she said, glancing to her husband, who this time, was busy allowing a spindly-legged spider to crawl out of the grass onto his fingers. He turned his hand over, watching its progress. “But why have you come now?” she asked. “Why now, and not before?”

            “My coming was not deemed necessary before,” he said.

            “Not necessary!” The shift in the queen’s tone was abrupt. Her eyes flashed and her brown cheeks flushed. “Not necessary!” Thranduil turned to her, placing the spider gently back in the grass, and they shared a long look before the queen glanced away, exhaling slowly.

            “We trust you are familiar with the War of the Last Alliance,” said Thranduil.

            “Indeed I am,” said Mithrandir. “I did not arrive in total ignorance,” he added with some annoyance.

            “Then you understand that what you see here now…” He glanced around them, “…is but a fraction of what Greenwood was before the war. So you see, for us, it was quite necessary to have aid—and yet it came not. Not for us.” Mithrandir had been warned that the hands-off attitude of the Valar in centuries past might make the current inhabitants of Middle-earth wary of intervention now, even resentful that it had not come earlier. Still, it was difficult to have one’s own good intentions misbelieved. He recalled that Mirkwood’s last king, Thranduil’s sire Oropher, had perished on the battlefield during that war, after a four thousand-year reign of the Woodland Realm.

            “Why now, and not before?” Niwë demanded again.

            “The events of the last Age showed that it was necessary, I believe,” Mithrandir said. “The damage done to Middle-earth was…considerable. It is the hope of the West it should not come to this again.”

            “And you will stop it?” she asked.

            “I will try to aid you however I can, should it be necessary,” he said carefully. If indeed there remained evil in Middle-earth, it was not Mithrandir’s freedom to wield his powers unrestrained. Yet he could offer aid to the peoples of Middle-earth in their fight, and this he would do to the fullest extent possible. He had only just begun to explore this world, but he had seen much beauty in it, beyond even what he expected, and the thought of its destruction now grieved him beyond an abstract sense of loss.

            “Clearly it will be, if someone has seen fit to send you,” said the Elvenqueen, still ruffled. “Have you come alone?”

            “I have not,” said Mithrandir. “There were four others who came before me. Have you seen them?”

            “Not to our knowledge,” Thranduil replied.

            “Few strangers come here,” Niwë added. Neither of them seemed to view this as a problem.

            They allowed the conversation to lapse, giving Mithrandir a chance to sip at his unsweetened tea. (As all three were immortal, none felt any sense of rush regarding the progression of a conversation.) Few breezes reached so deep into the woods, but in the still air one could ear the sounds of birds and small animals, and of running water in the distance. The forest felt calm that day, unlike the vibrant energy Mithrandir had felt on his last visit. He watched an ant scout pass over his foot and disappear under the low table.

            “I have something for the prince,” he announced after some minutes. “Just a little gift…” Another quick exchange between the king and queen. Mithrandir withdrew from his bag a set of marvelously detailed carved woodland creatures, and a few Elves. Thranduil, a hobbyist carver himself, reached at once for them with fascination, turning over a smooth wooden deer with a full rack, little splits in its hooves, and texture on the underside of the tail.

            “As if he needs more gifts,” sighed Niwë, but she leaned over to her husband to examine the toy as well. She glanced up at Mithrandir. “A kind gesture, all the same.” Mithrandir gave them a blithe smile and Thranduil set the deer back on the table.

            “You wish something from us,” Thranduil said.

            “Friendship, little more,” said Mithrandir.   

            “You are a Maia of Avon,” Thranduil said. Mithrandir said nothing. “For what would you need our friendship? We have gone below notice for quite some time.”

            “As I have explained, my arrival means to be the end of that,” said Mithrandir. “But I cannot aid people whose needs I do not know; nor can I determine how best to formulate that aid if I know nothing of the customs and practices of the land.” A frankly suspicious look between the rulers.

            “You mean for us to explain Elves to you?” said Niwë.

            “In a sense,” said Mithrandir. “You, and the others. Lady Galadriel, Lord Elrond, Lord Círdan. You are the only Elves now called king and queen in Middle-earth.”

            “A Maia came amongst the Eldar in the past,” said Niwë. “He called himself a friend of Elves and explained how his knowledge and his abilities could benefit Elvenkind. He was fair and spoke fairer, and this land has been bleeding from his poison ever since.”

            “I am not Gorthaur,” said Mithrandir with a flash of anger not directed precisely at the Elves in front of him. “Surely you can feel that much!” They seemed to draw nearer to each other, wariness suffusing their manner, and Mithrandir reminded himself that they were both old for their kind—old enough to have seen death and bloodshed enough for many, many lifetimes. The birds seemed quieter, more distant.

            “There was another,” Mithrandir said, his eyes flicking to Thranduil. “A Maia who called herself a friend of the Elves, who protected you for many centuries and grew your realm fair and prosperous.”

            “And then she left us,” said Thranduil. “And many died for it.” And that wound still stung, five thousand years later. As Lady Nienna had warned him—the memory of the Elves was their great joy, and their great sorrow, for neither faded with time in their hearts.

            “I will build no girdles for you here,” said Mithrandir. He did not have the power to do it even if he wished. Melian had done ill, he thought, to make the Doriathrim so reliant on her for safety. It was no kindness to them once she was gone and her protection with her. “So you need not worry it will ever fall. But I may offer you such wisdom as I have, which you will doubtlessly find useful.” Thranduil glanced at Niwë from the corners of his eyes, a skeptical gesture Mithrandir did not greatly appreciate.

            “I chose to pay a visit to Dol Guldur,” he announced. That got the king’s attention. “There is indeed some ill there, though I am not prepared to say what at this time.”

            “Then what will you do?” Niwë asked.

            “I will continue to gather information,” said Mithrandir. “Which is not, as you might think, nothing,” he said sharply to the two Elves, sensing their coming response. Neither of them showed a flicker of expression. “One should not be hasty with such things.” He set down his tea cup. “I mean to help you,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster. “I do. But you must give me time. If something is indeed amiss, it will be dealt with in the best way possible.”

            If Elrond Eärendilion had written, as Mithrandir had hoped he would after departing Imladris, Thranduil and Niwë would have his judgement to back up their own opinions, which would hopefully make them more inclined to listen.

            “If you would help us,” said Thranduil slowly, “what is it you require of us?”

            “For now, nothing,” he said. “My time here is still new. I will travel and explore. Allow me to visit you again.” The pair looked at each other and then the queen once more inclined her head. Mithrandir nudged his empty teacup forward with a pointed look until Thranduil leaned over to refill it. “Ah, there.” Pleased, he took it back. “No sugar, is there? I understand it is not the custom of the Elves to permit a stranger to see a child, but I hear from your people the prince is doing quite well…”

            This brought an irrepressible lightness to both their expressions and Mithrandir could feel the pride humming in them, dizzy with delight about their only child. They both demurred almost coquettishly, declining to offer any information, but did not contradict anything he had been told and relayed to them.

            “We will pass on your gift,” Niwë promised graciously.

            The rest of the visit passed without any further discussion of “business” and Mithrandir felt useful progress had been made. The Elves were not a forthcoming people, here nor in Lothlorien, nor in the Havens, nor Imladris, though Elrond was perhaps the most forthright of them—possibly owing to his mortal blood. Wariness remained in both the king and queen—Mithrandir could sense their tension between desire for his aid and reluctance to trust a powerful stranger.

            The business of Dol Guldur disturbed him. He was not yet ready to put a name to it—though he feared it could be one of Sauron’s Nazgul sustaining itself autonomously—but he could feel the way the mire there was spreading its foul energy through the rest of the forest. It was small wonder the Wood-elves were beginning to feel on edge. Their retreat to the underground palace was the move of a people bracing themselves for a fight.

            Well, he thought as he made his unhurried way out of the forest, hopefully it would not come to that.

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Chapter End Notes

I struggled a lot on how much Gandalf would have revealed about his true nature, but I think it would have been harder for him to deceive Elves--particularly Elves of the First Age--about what he was, so he was probably slightly more inclined to honesty with them, particularly if he thought it might make them trust him. These Elves in particular are not feeling very trusting, so consider it part of his effort to win them over.

You KNOW Thranduil and Niwe were having a whole separate osanwe conversation the entire time Gandalf was there. You know it.

Also this was my first time ever writing Gandalf so uhhhh hope it was okay? He's not quite as assured in Middle-earth as he will become since he just got here but here's to hoping he's still believable.

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