Thranduil's Shadow // Thranduil x OC

Rebirth

A couple of years back the suspicion that he may have harboured warmer feelings towards the princess would have made Aerneth jealous, but now she realised she actually did not care. Not many things about her husband affected her anymore, not even his foul moods and tendency to stay away from home until late. Even his bad dreams and nightly crying which had worried her so much before had become merely a nuisance that disturbed her sleep. Did she even love him anymore?

She wanted to believe she did, that deep down, her feelings were the same. That not only desire remained between them. But with every passing day it was harder to remember the ellon he had been.

Thranduil must have felt her eyes on him for his gaze met hers. Calm, unblinking eyes, all emotions locked behind their clear surface. It angered her, and unlike him, she knew she showed it in her face.

He looked away.

Around the supper table a while later, Oropher made it clear that he did not think highly of the late princess.

"I am sure she was doing it on purpose – refusing to eat, moping every day, of course it led to her death. I do not hold with it. Thingol should have seen it coming and put a stop to it before it was too late."

Thranduil did not reply, but Aerneth noticed his knuckles paling around his spoon. Strange.

"And all this for the sake of a human that she will not even meet in the afterlife! Where he goes, she cannot follow." Oropher shook his head. "That she would rather be dead than live without him is a sign of weakness, of feebleness of mind."

"I would not call Lúthien weak," Aerneth protested. "Quite the opposite."

"Of course you would not. You ellith always hold each other's backs," he sneered.

"That is not true. I hardly knew her." Aerneth tried to restrain her annoyance at her father-in-law's scorn.

He did not notice. "I wonder if she will be held accountable for killing herself, when she comes to the Halls of Mandos? Will the Valar disapprove? I think they might."

Thranduil hastily rose, turning to Aerneth. "Thank you, the soup was lovely. I have to... be somewhere." He left the table and soon they heard the door close.

Something about all this obviously disturbed him, but by now Aerneth knew he would not share whatever it was with her.

oOo

The commercial part of Menegroth was busy as usual in the morning. Aerneth stood at the fish stall, examining a few striped tails critically. She had come too late for trout again and only a heap of sad looking perch remained. The problem was, she hated perch. They tasted mud and smelled like sewer, and in addition they were so full of bones they were a bother to eat. In her opinion, the only acceptable freshwater fish were trout or salmon, which tasted more like the saltwater species she had been used to back home. Those were fished upstream of Menegroth, where the Esgalduin was still clean, whereas perch, carp and pike were fished in a dam the beavers had built some miles downstream. All the city's wastewater ended up there, and in consequence the water was coloured a sickly, greenish brown. But there was no helping it, it was winter and the food stores were almost empty, this time of year one had to settle with what food one could get.

She had just paid for the fish and put the package into her shopping basket when a commotion from the city gates caught her attention. Two familiar looking persons had entered Menegroth.

She blinked. Was that... But no, they were long gone. Surely it could not be them...?

Aerneth walked fast towards the newcomers, hardly noticing where she placed her feet. Among the shops and stalls around her, others were staring too, murmuring in disbelief, a roar of bewildered voices filling the air.