The Prince's Pretend Mother

Eighteenth Entry - Disused and Forgotten Road

I listened to him breathe for a minute, and at last he said, without a trace of bitterness, “She will have it.”

I smiled. “Thank you, love.” I stood and placed my hand on his shoulder, looking down over it to survey his paperwork. “What are you working on?”

Thranduil laid his hand over mine. “The worst kinds of numbers.”

I slid them from underneath his other hand and his quill. “Give them to me. You may write to Legolas.”

Thranduil looked at me for the first time in the last ten years. His brief expression was exasperated. “I see you are no less determined than you have always been.”

“People often don’t realize how stubborn I can be,” I murmured as I gazed down at the many columned figures. “On account of my unavoidable charm.”

“That and you present yourself with such a gentle predisposition.”

“It is my secret weapon. Even you are clearly not fully defendable against it.”

“Sometimes I am even glad of that fact.” He gave me a sardonic expression this time and I smiled, squeezing his shoulder. I had missed this king. His attention returned to his quill and I watched as the ink began to twirl across the page. “Do you intend to read my correspondence as well as force yourself into my home?” he inquired. “Again.”

I rolled my eyes and returned to my seat, ostentatiously lifting his tedious sheet of figures so it was between my eyes and his hands. I listened in silence to the scratching of his quill against the parchment, the clink of the metal tip against the emerald inkwell, and the occasional thump of the plain goblet of wine as it came back to the desk after one of us had taken a sip. Thranduil stood an hour later to refill our wineglass. He called from the kitchen to ask if I wanted one of my own.

“Oh no, I’m not that thirsty, thank you,” I called back, absent as I used the edge of his desk to balance the figures I had appropriated.

But ten minutes after he returned I reached for his glass again and he sighed. “Not thirsty, I see.”

“I said not ‘that’ thirsty, there’s a difference.”

“Remind me not to share with you in the future.”

“Never. It conveniences me too much to forcibly share with you.”

“I have noticed a distinct swell in my available finances since you departed.”

“Of course you did, you were feeding two fewer people.”

“I rather enjoyed having additional money to allocate to other interests.”

“Do I need to seek out your records from the last decade to make sure you haven’t developed any harmful habits since I’ve been away?”

His eyes flashed up and his mouth touched toward something distantly related to amusement. “You would be astonished.”

“That is not always promising.”

“It promises something.”

“Not something positive.”

“Oh, why must you be so particular.”

“Keep stressing me so early in the reuniting of our delightful selves and I will require far more of your wine than you are willing to tolerate.”

Thranduil stood with a number of small scrolls tucked under one arm. “I shall find you a glass large enough to suffice. We have restorations to make.” As he left he dropped a sheaf of paper in my lap.