"Your name is known to me, though I have seen you only once," said Thranduil to the wild girl. "Until this moment, none other in this realm knew you, I swear it. I know you for I see your parents in you, and they were as dear to me as my own family. Your mother told me your name ere she died, but we never found you. I begged them not to remove themselves from this place, but they would not listen."
Thranduil's brow creased and his eyes seemed to look through the walls of the cavern and through the centuries to the fateful day when the elf child had been orphaned.
"You do not remember the centuries that have passed. Yes! Centuries! Though you seem as one who has not yet come of age, you have lived a long life already. The years have been ripples merging together under the wicked enchantment that fell upon you. Little able have you been to remember the days since your accursed childhood, and have lived each day with little memory of the day before."
Sauche listened with eyes staring wider and wider. The words of the King came to her in waves, each one pushing back the chaos and rage of her thoughts until she clearly remembered what had gone before.
It seemed to the elves in the cavernous chamber that Sauche stood taller and that calm smoothed her countenance and that reason found lodging in her eye. Even so, she still looked at the woodland sovereign with a hard regard.
But the King had more to say.
"In those days, our numbers were fewer, and the Shadow was strong. Strong indeed before the great war long ago when marched Elves of the Noldor and the Men of Gondor against the Dark Lord. This realm became a fortress for our people and little more. We dared not extend our dwellings beyond the immediate reach of our soldiery. But you have much of your father in you and you are your mother's child to be sure. For they were ever the foremost among us in the care of this wood. Perhaps you do not know, you have wandered so long, but they chose to live in the very preserve where you were captured. When the orcs came, we could not reach them in time to save them, and you were gone. Your mother lived long enough to speak your name to me with her dying breath. I have ordered their lands a preserve against the use of the two legged from that day until this. We are now numerous enough to protect it, and so it was that you were apprehended."
The woodland king stood again to his feet, and his voice rang with the formal tones of judgment.
"Release her," he said, and she was set free and the elves stepped away from her, to give her space. Thranduil continued speaking.
"Sauche Woodsprite. I find you guilty of trespass in the Royal Preserve of Greenland the Great. However, by right of inheritance, in as much as it can be said that any truly own the land, the Royal Preserve is yours, the land of your father and your mother, kept in its natural order until you should return or be found. You are free to make a home there, if you will, to continue the work of your parents, guarding and tending that vale, taking from it what you need, and giving to it your love and your care. Whatever you require will be granted to you, if it is within my power. If you would take also from me my advice, then I will say that if you would not slide back into a wild enchantment, you will seek out the healer standing there behind you, and find more permanent ease for your troubled mind. You will ever be welcome here, as often as you will visit. My only command is this, that you will never harbor enemies of the Woodland Realm and that you will pledge to tell the guards at the borders of your valley if you learn of any threat.
"What say you, Sauche of the Guarded Vale?"
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