The Forest of Shadows

The refection of his elevated silhhouette, once more caught his mind's eye - delicately rippled in effect by the water's touch. Like the fingerprints of the River were laid upon him in a masterful aquarelle. The stream was new to these regions which is not to say it was fresh. How could anything stay fresh all the way down in here Mirkwood? But yet, it had not flowed by him before, so it knew nothing of his Secret. And beneath the murmur of its languid flux, not really flowing, no - rather crawling like a venomous old slug...yes beneath all that he could hear the soul of the River. It was pure. It was crying. She wept that the blurred and soiled panel of her surface sullied the Elvenking's unflawed face. That the reflection brought back to his Majesty’s mesmerizing eyes came out ever so distorted. Ashamed and crying she was, but he soothed her in the transcending silence of his thoughts. Hush now. Hush, for you know not the Truth. Oh, Dark Truth of mine. Forsooth, he pondered. If only the River did not lose her memory as she flowed on, did not have to be shown over and over again. If only she knew the skewed reflection of Thranduil that she so mournfully produced, was far smoother & milder in appearance. Much less of a nightmare as compared to - the Truth that lay beneath. And he tasted a sort of sadistic delight tickling the curls of his lips, every time. He felt the River to be his only lover and he delighted himself in surprising her - every time. Thranduil reached up & decrowned himself, gently setting his gleaming ringlet down on the mossy ground. Like most elven crafts, his casual crown was featherlight, lighter than the legendary Mithril itself & yet once he took it off with a sigh of relief... Thranduil felt WORLDS lighter! But it was not for this sole purpose that he took it off. One could equate this gesture to the offing of gloves right before battle so as not to obsruct the properly firm grip upon weaponery... Or the sarcastic would say he was about to do something not so Kingly at all, off the royal record. He could always be Elvenking in an instant, but right now... His flesh became so sensitive...even a robe spun of the finest spidersilk would feel heavy & suffocating upon it. It ached to breathe... Thranduil got the sudden craving to be completely naked. It washed over him in such an impulse that he didn't think about it...he just couldn't get rid of his fancy garments fast enough! He twisted & turned restlessly - undid latches, untied strings, ribbons & laces... In moments like this he cursed the complexity of his high-fashion attire with all his might! Finally... he shed his clothes & took a deep breath, the shadows slithering upon his open flesh... But he wasn't done removing all of his facades...
The next thing Thranduil seized upon, was not of solid material but rather immaterial... He seized upon the curtains of a glamour, one eerily enveloping his lovely visage. "Here, let me show you. How you cry in vain." he said more to himself than to the River. Familiar pins and needles seething a flurry into his skin with the prickling of a million tarantula bites. They stung with a vengeance to foreshadow the magic curtain was alift. Caving in, dissolving, melting, twisting, perverting, disintegrating, scorching, rotting, wriggling shreds of skin like carrion maggots set afire. Utterly self-abominating into the horror of its true form. Thranduil finally allowed himself the depraved Ecstasy of letting go... of Everything. He set himself free. No crown, no clothes, no mask... Completely exposed! In his true Demonic form...


The ancient elf sighed a breath from the embers of inextinguishable Dragonfire broiling beneath his skin. What is touched by dragonfire can never be untouched. And what could be seen in the River, upon this moment, girdled steeply by the sable arch of guardian shadows, oh...Thranduil wished it could forever be unseen. But alas, never could he unsee himself. He remained prisoner to the sharp sight of his own elven eyes and the inerasable memory that they burdained.  Endlessly perceptive elven eyes were – a distinct feature of theirs, yet as perceptive in light so blind were most in Darkness. But this particular pair, that glowed secretly in the twilight, was in it‘s stygian, rayless reaches at its most sentient. They could see where most of their kind grew blind. For it was the poisoned mind they reflected on that never failed to mark a grim fancy…as it was gravid with far, far too grim a fancy of it‘s own. The dark Art, Thranduil knew in the privacy of his haunted heart, was still an art. A different kind of art - is all. And just because it haled of that harrowing Void, made it no less artful and robed the craftsman nothing of his mastery. Therefore, that Lordragon of old North was quite the craftsman - a fiery Demiurge that forged Thranduil's flawless face into a sordid masterpiece. A halved, gaping crater of demoniac decay, a glorious tragedy. A balefire of Blackmagic that bewitched it's own bearer into becoming the true King of Shadows. The Necromancer, that distant shade of Dol Guldur, could only behold him, and bewail. For Thranduil's shadows were deeper & more deeply suffered, interlaced into a Sacrament of their own. Together they merged into a dark puzzle of dysphemistic Perfection. Thranduil's scar was as sacred as the forge of his soul. Full of pride & glory, yet accursed by the Shadow of Death. Like one heroic mission to shield his father from dragonflames, thus branding himself for all Eternity instead. "Thangail" Oropher had called him, everafter...That was a sacrifice his son did not regret. He only regretted the immortality that bound him to the everlasting consequences. Prince Thranduil had been so aloof and misunderstood, to begin with, by the lesser woodland elves...with all that intimidating pure-blooded grace that he carried as an inseparable part of his high Sindarin bloodline. But this scar of battles by-gone... It alienated him so fully from the Nature of Eldar, in its entirety. Even his precious son, he had to elude... That was the hard price for keeping his mutilation completely out of sight, out of mind, beyond the knowledge of any living creature, as well as the more talkative dead. He detested that Acar, yet he celebrated it. He hid it away behind sheets of dark Magic from everyone else, even Legolas, yet wore it in his Secret heart like a medal of Honor. He knew not what to do with himself. All he knew now was what he felt - the exotic, inexorable pulse of arousal stirring in his veins when he finally revealed himself. Let the frightened soul of the River shiver and shrink after consuming his terrible little Secret.

Thranduil did love to force himself upon it, expose himself, lewdly aware that for a mere moment... someone shared in his grief. And his scorching burden was not his alone to bear. One single witness, who could not speak, therefore could not gossip, either. What harm could it do? Ah...how bittersweet is Freedom. Thranduil whispered - for the first time with his own voice - the empty, misguided echoes chasing each other right back to him, like a scattered army of ghosts rallying to their leader, post mortem. He gulped down on a sip of malady - his own saliva, to stop it from slavering beyond the margin of his lips which he had now pursed into a narrowed slit. He bated his breath. The palm of his hand glided across his abdomen... & lower still, down his hips...to where - he chose not to tell himself. But whatever unmentionable place it had deviated to - there were no more strings & latches to be undone. And the moment they had come undone, the hot, succulent flesh of something even more unmentionable had arisen, impatiently, free from its prison cell. A throbbing shaft, that even the most continent celibate, virgin, or frigid creature... or even a frigid virgin celibate would be ready for. And die to the penetrated by. A longsword of royal flesh that the most battle-seasoned of warriors was not worthy of wielding. Perhaps it was a shocking sight... ironic even. But perhaps all too befitting... For whose hands were worthy of touching upon the Elvenking's Majestic cock? Why of course, non other than his own! Lonely - they say it is - at the top. But at the soaring ridge of martyred beauty that Thranduil erected upon, it was not simply lonely. It was desolate! And far, far too high up wn into the Shadows for anyone to dare reach and worship. And so the King gave pleasure to himself - slowly, meticulously. But it was a stifled sort of pleasure...painfully sere… simply wrong. He let his stare linger obliquely into the uncharted distance in a haze, then looked away, batting his lashes in a subtle tremor, the way he did. The way he alone could. And oh, how they fluttered…ephemeral, effortless. Otherworldly, like silver-laced silk moths flirting with the light of Ithil, amid layers of dense nightly air. Not a single beamling of light was anywhere to be seen, yet Ithil was there, behind the eyelids of the Elvenking, glowing with his dim luminescence of noctilucent Ecstasy. He was the Moon. And in this most delicate moment Thranduil had the strangest of feelings. Two deep, velvet eyes - rusty red like the chains Suaron bound his slaves in, opened right in front of his darkling fantasy. Such brightsome little eyes - taking in his every movement with the curiosity of a child. Thirsty to pry into his soul. Wa…was he being watched? One sudden jolt of pleasure cut into him with a redhot dagger, then spilled over his body like warm mother's milk fresh from the teat, then stung like blackthorn needles would sting your softest of places. It caressed, and it scraped and blew hotness in his entire essence. How new, how exciting! Was he really being observed? Being admired… He could sense his climax brewing up right below his stomach in a rolling fireball. It promised to come and wash away the quicksands of swampy stagnation he kept sinking into. It tempted to crash over him like a cleansing ocean tide and make him forget himself in the bliss of sweet submersion. It vowed to shipwreck the vast armada of his sorrows, that would otherwise sail to Valinor with him, in case he tried to escape. It even swore to bring him back to Life...

And yet - just empty teasing, empty like the Shadow's eyes. The only ones left after those newlings had gone out like a light. Just as mysteriously as they had appeared - like vigil candles blown away by a gust of wind. The truth was he was hopeless in everything. Despite this vivid new dream he was still too unalive to reach an orgasm. That was a blessing meant only for the living Souls. For all the dragonfire burning up inside him, it was enough for him to lust...but never to finish. Oh how he needed to rupture himself with rapture. One sacred release is all. And yet dragonfire only teased and the cruel shadows simply denied. And how would he even begin to pray to the Valar for something like this? No...It was meant to remain his own, personal shame. Tears stung his eyes, pierced through and finally glistened in crystalline spheres atop his trembling eyelids. He touched himself harder, more violently still. He drew out his hand, lathered it with the ambrosial fluid now dripping from his mouth and handled himself thus slicked and lubricated. He persevered in a despondent struggle and yet to no avail...no, he could not exact a thrill from his unfulfilled soul. He was hopeless. He was all alone.

He opened his eyes remorsefully, admitting that he had defeated himself in yet another battle. It did not help to clear his heavy conscience that he had been thinking of Legolas again. Actually, his son had been the original daydream... no rather faedream in his mind, as per usual, but then Thranduil remembered something. Those other eyes. Who did they belong to? A foreign fantasy intruding upon his solitary dark world, at a time like this?! NO! A new fear was born to make matters worse! Thranduil seemed to choke on his own breath. The Yawning Abyss on the left side of his face contracted to the crack of the whip of anguish. A blurry tear cloak, no longer upheld by his eyelids pooled into his eyes then ran freely down the right side into the River. The poor, unfortunate droplings that rolled down the left - vanished into the Blackhole, never to be seen again. Thranduil tried to do wisely and shun the parasitic panic away from his mind. Before it drove him madder than he already was. No, it was an impossibility for anyone else to be here, watching. Just him and Forest River, and Shadows all around. No one else could ever thrive in this Netherworld, black like a raven’s wing in nightflight. End of story.

Little by little, Thranduil put his nightmarish doubts to sleep. He would try to forget the stranger's eyes. They were just a new figment of his imagination. Yes, that was it! Thranduil's own sick imagination, and the even sicker way his body had throbbed in reciprocation. Why did it even feel so good to imagine he was really being watched? He kicked himself for enjoying this obscene fetish fantasy the way he did... although in reality it would be the death of him... There, he murmured to the River with a gentle croon. There, there...if I cannot feed you with my seed, drink my tears. Drink them instead; they are more poisonous than you, my dear. But suddenly the shadows bustled in unforeseen disarray. Branches broke and twigs cracked and the thicket rustled…and the deathly standstill within his haven of despair was completely ruined at the blink of an eye. A rusty red eye. A ball of something very, very much alive and therefore very much unwelcome here - rolled, like a horsenut kicked astray, right at Thranduil's feet. He smothered his own petrified gasp, that seemed to inflate his soul so much, he thought it might implode. If elves could at least have a heart-attack he would have been writhing on the ground from one right this now. Once more he cursed the bloody roots of his immortality. Then by the flash of instinct and a flying sleight of hand he brushed away the dead leaves from the unidentified ball of Life. A furry, little head arose in clumsy confusion. BY ALL THE VALAR AND SAURON ON HIS DARK THRONE! Thranduil cried - weather to himself or out loud...he knew not. CHILD! A HUMAN CHILD! The Elvenking he had been just moments ago vanished into thin air and for the first time in millennia Thranduil simply shrank back, feeling like a helpless child himself. Such fierce fear came over him that the dimness of his dilated pupils spilled like black flickering ink over his lucid irises reaching to the dark frames of his limbal rings. His eyes went into blackout - perfectly eclipsed yet brilliant still like fading stars… Two human eyes blazed into his bewildered elven eyes and therein their reflection he saw...oh the horror. He had not put himself back into his garments after the deed had been done... 

But his little Mayfly grew up into a blooming floret! & in a blink of his immortal eye...she was a child no more


He saw Mayfly & she was so beautiful in red... Thranduil fell in immortal Love!

& for every red dress he stripped off her...upon his silken sheets at Night...

He gave her a red rose in the morning thereafter...
& a tender white flower in the Bluehour thereafter...
to make up for deflowering her so young & green.

He did not order his servants to do it. If you want something done right, do it yourElf! He went aforest to pick the herbs, leaves & flowers closest to his heart & easiest on his eye. Upon the brand new bed he'd ordered to the finest silvan carpenters made out of living wood he went & set them & he wrought wreathes not for a deathbed but... For a Lifebed instead! He adorned the whole chamber with his beloved gems of white starlight then put a circle of soil around the bed, from his most potent land & sprincked it from the Forest River's purest waters with his fingertips... For both the empyreal & the earthly mattered equally in Nature. Breathed his breath of loving warmth into the fine silken sheets to create a warm Welcome! Took his sword & cut where his immortal heart lept wildly underneath. Thence he stained the bedside with his Sacred heartsBlood, tracing a crimson Lemniscate in the center  - for the Blood is the Life! He even lit up candles with essential oils for the flame of Passion to burn forever bright and brewed potions from magical extracts. Nothing was a mere trifle! Every single detail, he believed, was of the Essence... & so, upon transition Night at the fall of the Blue Hour I came to him, I breathed my first breath here - deep & clear, my heart pulsed to the melody of Mirkwood for the first time & Thranduil REJOICED! He planted the kiss of a father upon my brow, the kiss of a lover upon my lips & the kiss of True, Eternal Love - Meleth Marthannen upon my Heart & Soul! Thence He said unto me:  
"Shut your eyes in the old life. NOW open them ANEW. All your lives I have been waiting - for You..."

But no words could outspeak The EMBRACE...


- Once Thranduil had a thought  -  he thought of all the things he was & all that he wasn't but wanted to be...could be! & this thought was the birth of a Soul!

We interrupt your regular story programme to present to you - A game of Shadows by Meliell Thranduiliel