A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Twenty-Seven - Attempted Survival

The taste was certainly interesting. I doubt I liked the strange combination in quite the way Legolas apparently did, but grapes tasted good until they rotted, so I salted another. "You don't warm to people quickly, do you?"

"I suppose I do not."

"It struck me as slightly....well I didn't understand it. Thranduil is the sharper of the two of you but he is the one I am more familiar with."

He smiled. "I can understand your bafflement. Thranduil reminds me in some ways of you. He makes some associations based upon what they can grant him, which as I understand it is precisely what you did when becoming familiar with him. He too had a distinct purpose in developing a certain friendship with you."

"Are you just as reserved with your friends as you are when I see you?"

"I do have a reserved nature, if that is what you ask."

I laid my head back on the table, careful to keep it out of the salt. "You've been a good brother to me and I appreciate it. Dain tried to foster me with Gloin because Gloin is married and has children and Bofur didn't until I lived with him. But I was afraid I wouldn't get along with any siblings, particularly if we were close in age. I think we're far enough apart in age to get along well though."

He smiled again, more warmly this time. "Most likely."

"And anyway I wanted to say that I very much like you and appreciate you despite your eternal reservedness."

"I am glad to have earned your good regard."

"You don't have to be an expressive person to be liked. People just need to learn to see what the smaller expressions mean. You're a far more subtle person than I am."

"Mabyn, if you ever learn subtlety my father may well develop gray hair."

"Such a shame it would be. I shall have to avoid this at all costs."

"Nothing ever seems to touch or perturb you," I softly said to Thranduil the next day, tucked under his chin again while he worked. I had spent my morning sitting with my many guard friends and had hardly said a word, and finally their frequently visible worry had begun to sting me too much so I'd gotten quietly up and left to sit with Thranduil, who so rarely allowed his emotions—whatever they may be—to touch me. They rarely touched anyone. I'd hardly said a word to my friends, and before now hadn't said a word to Thranduil since shuffling up to see him. "I think of how long you've lived and what you must have seen and survived and I'm so intimidated by that that I forget my own fears."

His chin moved as he shifted. "You need fear for nothing while you are here."

"I know. I've never been safer than the times when I've been here with you."

"I am glad you are so comforted."

"As strange as you are, and as questionable as you may sometimes be, you are one of the best people I know."

He laid his cheek against the scruffly top of my head. "You know you may stay here as long as you wish."

"I know. I will be safe in Erebor too though. As safe as a bird in an egg. Just not as safe as a bird in an egg in a vault in a mountain guarded by elves."

Thranduil faintly smiled. "Safe enough, perhaps, for one as small as you."

Bofur arrived as quickly as he could, which was three days after I woke in Mirkwood. I was with Thranduil when the king lifted his chin and said, "I believe someone has come to see you."

I looked up, saw Bofur trotting over the last of the stairs—I'd had my right ear out and hadn't heard him—and barely waited for Thranduil's help to slide off his lap and run down the stairs to the platform, into Bofur's firm, warm arms. He kissed the roughened top of my head as I leaned into him, one hand stroking what hair I had left, while he apologized for not having been here sooner.