Darkest Nights | Love of Royals: Book II

X: Lucky

We had just been getting used to some fair weather when another storm began to brew in the heavens yesterday. Today it unleashed its full power, the lightning ripping across the ominous wall of clouds and the thunder making its priority to interrupt every conversation I have. If there is any silver lining in this situation, it's that Thranduil is irate at something that isn't me. Or Legolas. Instead his vexation is directed towards the clouds, just like everyone else sealed in the kingdom by a seemingly infinite barrage of rain.

As I expected, Elena is on edge when the thunder has its fun, but her daughter is a different matter entirely. Princess Erainiel revels in the excitement of the storm, insisting Legolas and I sit either side of her while she simply listens to the ferocious roars set to their backdrop of pleasant clattering rain. Of all people, I seem to understand best her love of the storm. It's beautiful chaos. It's a Valar-damned inconvenience, but sitting back to appreciate it is in fact quite soothing.

Until, that is, a commander by the name of Feren appears at the door... and pours out a stream of Sindarin, which prompts Legolas to untangle himself from the cuddle with Erainiel at the centre.  She grumbles as her half-brother pulls me up as well, leaving the little Princess sat alone and annoyed in the folds of her parents' bed.

'There's a visitor making his way into the kingdom as we speak.  A friend of mine,' Legolas explains while Feren looks me over suspiciously.  He never had the misfortune of being placed outside my cell, yet he knows enough to mean he's somewhat tense when around me.

'You have friends?' I say jokingly, sauntering past a bemused Feren with Legolas in tow. 'Friends who would arrive in the middle of a raging storm?'

'I did that. You did that, Fíria.'

I find myself grinning wickedly, eager to see if Legolas's friend will be any fun. I'm literally imprisoned here, I figured I may as well enjoy myself. As I discovered after spending time with Tauriel, making more friends is actually rather nice.

The potential friend, who gallops through the halls on a steel grey mare, meets Legolas, Tauriel and I merely five minutes later. He shakes back his drenched hood and smiles broadly, elegantly dismounting his mare with the grace of an elf... for he may not be one. His soaked hair still bounces around his shoulders in a swirl of jet, next to which his dripping skin seems the colour of fresh snow. However it's his large, black eyes which say the most; a certain warmth is present among the years of memories, one which cannot be found in my father's eyes of the same hue. Rather like the difference between the sapphire irises of Legolas and Thranduil, the elder is the colder.

I exchange a glance with Tauriel. Short-haired elf, or clean-shaven man? The answer lies in the ears hidden beneath the thick mass of ebony.

'Ílren!' exclaims Legolas, striding over to his friend now undoing his heavy, waterlogged cloak to reveal the garb of the Dúnedain rangers.

'Legolas!' he responds with a grin. The two males tightly clasp each other's shoulders, before the one called Ílren steps back to toss his hair out of his eyes. For a split second, the pale point of an elven ear is visible among the matted locks.

'He... he's an elf...' I breathe.

'He looks like you,' says Tauriel. Her gaze is rooted on Ílren's face, on the sparkle in his eyes, on the shapes and contours that do seem oddly familiar. Although, there is a dark yet warm beauty in him, the kind found in the embers of a fire or the very end of a sunset. That's not what you see in me.

Ílren absentmindedly pats the neck of his mare. 'Good to see you, mellon nín.'

'Your hair's grown,' Legolas observes with a smirk.