Roswehn of Mirkwood

Autumn in Eryn Galen

Summer passed.

At the end of October, Roswehn was preparing to enter the fifth month of gestation.
Without nightmares nor ghosts that haunted her, everything proceeded in relative calm.

The Elves watched in amazement as her belly grew more and more. Elven women never grew that big: their pregnancies, however long, were always more discrete, and their newborns were tiny and fragile.

Nim asked her questions all day.
"What do you feel inside you? I mean ... does it move?" the Elf-girl said, while they were walking in the woods, in a safe area.

After having heard of her encounter with the spider, Thranduil had literally gone out of his mind: he had sent Legolas and an entire garrison to hunt down every giant insect in his wood, and eliminate it.

He had given them the order to go as far as Dol Guldúr, a fortress beyond their borders, and from which those creatures came, to set on fire every nest, every cave, every ravine where spiders could hide.

Roswehn was safe in the realm, thanks to the magic of Radagast; the Wizard had indeed surrounded Eryn Galen with a sort of invisible magical barrier, which functioned brilliantly despite the King's indestructible skepticism. On the other hand, to convince Thranduil that Wizards weren't just crazy vagabonds was more complicated than going to Mordor on foot .

"Every now and then, yes. I feel like small strokes, that's all. The creature inside me is still very small , Nim." Roswehn explained.

"You've been sleeping alone in that room for three months. Don't you miss our King?" asked Nim.

"Yes, very much." she admitted. "... but this is the right thing to do. I need tranquility in this period, and unfortunately with Thranduil I can't have any. We love each other, but we manage to fight over all sorts of stupid things, and I don't want to get upset."

"Can I ask you something?" Nim, said, sitting on a rock.

"Sure." Roswehn answered.

"... how ... how is our King in private? I mean, we subjects consider him so stern and authoritarian ... But ... with you, in intimacy, how does he behave?" asked the Elf. "Is he always so cold?"

Roswehn laughed.
A squirrel was frightened by the sound of her laughter and ran to the top of a tree.
"If he was always as you see him, I would have already left your territory long time ago, and I would have returned to Dale."
She answered. "No. He is very loving, and ... passionate. Obviously, if something does not put him in a bad mood, which often happens."

"So is he a good lover?" Nim continued. Roswehn did not understand why she suddenly was asking those indiscreet questions. Her friend had never expressed an interest in gossip like that.

Then she guessed.

Nim had a crush on Legolas.
Perhaps, the Elf maid imagined that he and his father were similar in the way they lived love, and with that trick she tried to steal tasty information about the prince.

"He is an extraordinary lover. He can really take me to the stars when we're together. Maybe it's a family quality." She winked at her. "There is only one thing that makes me think."

"Which?" asked the Elf.

"Sometimes he gets sad. I mean, since we started our love story, I often hear him laughing, because of some stupid thing that I say or because something else amuses him. But it is as if a shadow remained in him, a melancholy that does not pass. " Roswehn explained, sitting on a moss-covered boulder. "Too many painful experiences have hurt him. I would have liked to know him when he was still a boy ... that is ... a young Elf. Before the death of his wife, that of his father ... before life hardened his heart. Can you understand me? "