A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Thirteen - Visiting Thranduil

The Elvenking was alone on his platform-shocker-and pacing as he thought, hands ever tucked into the small of his back. I sprinted up the steps because I could and only gained speed as I hit the flat surface of his platform. I ran to him and leaped, having missed him far more than I'd either expected or realized. He watched my hasty approach with a small smile and caught me at the last moment, very nearly grinning. Wrapping me firmly into his arms he kissed the hair on the right side of my head and murmured something. I squirmed. "Still deaf on that side, Thranduil," I said, exasperated.

He compliantly adjusted. "We have missed you of late."

I sat back, supported by his arm. "Well you ought to be missing me every day, what's wrong with you?"

In a lesser man the sound he made would have been considered a snort. "I apologize for no longer living up to your standards of what one of your many admirers ought to be." He returned me to the ground. "How were your escapades with the dwarves?"

"Bilbo introduced me to tea."

One dark eyebrow lifted. "That is the most notable occurrence from your travels?"

"I also brought home a pet rabbit named Greenly."

Thranduil gently rolled his eyes. "Clearly we must instruct you in report-giving before permitting you to leave the region again." He strode up the twisted steps to his throne and took a seat, drawing out a tightly wound scroll from a basket beside the contorted seat to read it.

I followed him up and sat on the ground next to him, pulling a loop of yarn out of my bright green apron-the frock underneath it was an equally bright yellow and I loved it. "Permit me to leave? Pardon me but I thought I was a free woman."

"A free child perhaps," he drawled. "Am I excluded from having a say in your welfare, just as your dwarvish protector is?"

"My dwarvish protector considered coming in to say hello today but he didn't think he'd be welcome, considering the last time we entered your realm together."

Thranduil had the decency not to verbally refresh his displeasure that the dwarves he'd once imprisoned had so flawlessly escaped, instead asking, "Have they converted you to their dresses, then, or have you simply tired of trousers?"

"Well they are-between the two races we are discussing-the ones more likely to make a fuss if I don't wear what they think of as proper garb for a female. I was opposed to it at first but Freda-that's Gloin's wife-sent ahead for a number of dresses to be made in my size before we returned to Erebor and I found they weren't as awful as I feared they'd be. My legs don't get all tangled up in the fabric like I'd thought, and I never get wedgies."

"Is that a term specific to your people?"

"You don't know what a wedgie is?"

"It sounds unpleasant."

"It's when the fabric of your pants gets stuck in your butt when you stand up. It's highly unpleasant. And I rather like having an apron. Mostly because most aprons have pockets and I like pockets."

It took all of my strength not to collapse into giggles and roll down the steps at imagining whether or not the Elvenking ever got wedgies. But I managed. It was lucky we weren't quite looking at each other, because I was sure my face was a lovely fuchsia color from all the effort I was putting in. Once I'd controlled myself I cleared my face and gazed up at him, glad to be able to bask in the glory of his pretty face again after a year of beardy dwarves. Not that I didn't love my dwarves. But they certainly weren't as pretty as elves.

Thranduil noticed my observation and I watched one of his eyebrows rise again. It was a favorite gesture of his, I believe, the raising of a single imposing eyebrow.