A Thaw Long In Coming - by Aeärwen
If he hadn't been there, he would hardly have believed it.
Thranduil stared at once had been the abhorred tower from which so much evil had been loosed on his corner of Middle-earth, knowing himself to be standing slack-jawed like a simpleton at the enormity of what he had just seen. The very ground itself had opened up and swallowed every one of the black stones that had fallen from on high, closing over them as if they had never existed. The walls of the tower had shaken apart like a child's set of building blocks and fallen in on itself. Of the Enemy's stronghold, only the blasted and seared ground remained.
As the dust settled in the distance, he and Celeborn waited as Galadriel, daughter of Kinslayers (and, if rumors were to be believed, a Kinslayer herself) walked slowly towards them down the side of the hillock from which she had sung the ruin of Dol Guldur. Her steps were slow, leaden, each on looking as if it cost her nearly all her strength to make. Her shoulders were stooped, as if having borne too much weight for far too long.
And for the first time, Thranduil found himself considering the many reasons why he had always detested her. For one thing, he had never appreciated her attitude; it reminded him a bit too much of the attitude demonstrated by her uncles, just before they had sacked Menegroth. When he had looked at or thought of her, he always thought of the blood on the stones, and the sense of near hysteria that had filled each and every one of those who had followed Oropher, a mere Counselor, over the mountains and into the east. Ever since, to him, she had merely been another Kinslayer.
But if her kin hadn't come, would the original Dark Lord have triumphed over all, and set the entire land to ruin? They had been fighting a Dark Lord who was, according to all who were old enough to know such things, far diminished from his previous Master. Yes, the Kinslayers had been primarily after the Silmarilli, but they had been after Morgoth as well. It had been the intention of that first Dark Lord to do with Arda as he wished, to remake it in his design; and it had been the actions of the Kinslayers themselves - or the survivors of those atrocities committed by the Kinslayers - which had eventually freed Middle-earth from both him and his successor.
In the moment that Galadriel finally stepped close enough that their gazes could touch, Thranduil decided that he would despise her no more. She had protected her lands with Golodhren magic, yes, but at what cost? In her eyes shimmered a sorrow and an emptiness the like of which he had rarely seen in anyone not on the verge of sailing. She will sail, and soon, he realized suddenly. And, with a glance at Celeborn at his side, he felt his stomach lurch with the knowledge that she would sail alone. She would, as the Doom had promised, lose everything she had ever held dear, even her husband.
But Thranduil knew better than to offer her pity. She would never accept it, and it would be unfair, after everything he'd seen her do this day, to even attempt it. No. He would no longer despise her, and he refused to pity her; instead, he would offer her his respect. With a song the like of which he'd never heard before – and hoped never again to hear in his life – she had leveled an evil beyond understanding, and had more than earned it.
He pressed his hand to his heart and bowed deeply to her. "Lady."
And when he rose, he could see the surprise and wariness in her gaze, she whom he had long made a habit of disparaging, even to her face. It took a moment for her to understand his gesture to be entirely sincere, and then she inclined her head gracefully to accept his offering before Celeborn had his arm about her shoulder and was leading her away.
They would never be friends, but they no longer had need to be enemies.