Sorry it took so long to update! I got sick and then I had writer's block :)
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After the interaction with Eirien, Thranduil had made his way directly to the healing halls. He was irritated with himself for the way he had snapped at her... and for the way he had let his glamour slip. He knew Eirien had seen it, he'd noticed the look in her eye, the way she had shifted, the flash of... fear? Was she afraid of him? Was she disgusted? Did she think he was a monster?
Thranduil was frustrated at the fact he had let her see it and he was frustrated at the fact that she had asked him what he'd been about to ask her a week ago. He had felt backed into a corner as she simply did not let it go and he had just started to feel hot and uncomfortable. He knew that it was not her fault and he was not actually angry at her, but at himself, though she might not have realised it. She couldn't know asking him such an innocent question would cause him... what? Upset? Embarrassment? He was a King! Grow up, he told himself... but he was embarrassed. He was embarrassed he had even thought to ask the question. He was embarrassed at how close it came to slipping out. He was embarrassed that he had hoped. He was embarrassed that he loved her when she did not love him - could not, would not. She had been clear when she explained her feelings about romance and love and sex to him. Very clear.
Thranduil still held that belief because she had not said anything to the contrary. He believed that all their little... slip ups... the fact she'd participated in them, was simply because he had shown her something new, taught her the pleasures of the flesh that she had never felt before, and that she'd liked it, and her body reacted, perhaps even missed it. That was all. The little kisses she had initiated, well, he saw them as seeking comfort and, with him, how else was she to seek comfort? He thought it was just... a reaction.
The second Thranduil strode into the room, Siofra knew immediately that he was not in a good mood. She eyed him as he walked wordlessly to the chair beside her desk and sat down, crossing one long leg over the other. He folded his arms and he sat there, silent, staring at the wall like a sulking child.
But Siofra could see he was in pain.
She stood and she quietly moved away to collect the medicines she always used on the king. She prepared some more of the spelled tonic that would do the majority of the work keeping his scarring concealed and she moved back towards him, taking her seat once more.
Thranduil's gaze slid from the wall and fell on her face. His eyes were unhappy and Siofra got the distinct impression that it was more than just his face that was bothering him... but she did not ask.
The room stayed quiet as Siofra worked on the king. She gently put some salve on his skin and soon the prickling, itching, burning sensation began to fade once more. Thranduil breathed a sigh of relief and then he took the tonic she offered and he drank it down, placing the empty cup back on the desk. His hard expression relaxed and some of the tension left him.
He had not been this severely worked up over it until the interaction with Eirien. Before he'd stepped into Laurina's home to help her, it had just been an itching sort of feeling. Now he was frustrated and unhappy with himself and it was making it feel worse.
Siofra watched him very carefully as she filled up vials with the rest of the tonic for him to take away. The tonic was special and the recipe was complicated, it had taken many years after the accident to get it right. Thranduil would take it for the rest of his life. The King had his own magic within him, certainly, but he was no wizard and he was not strong enough for something like that. He had found a way to create the glamour but to keep it in place all day, every day, for the entirety of his life would expend so much energy he would get nothing else done. The tonic did most of the work for him in that respect so he did not have to be so hyper-aware and uncomfortable. He still had the ability to drop the illusion at will, which he had once done in a flash of anger when Thorin Oakenshield had been brought before him, before the Battle of Five Armies. However, in moments of extreme stress, the illusion could disappear by itself as if he had no control at all.
The tonic was something Thranduil would only ever usually need to take once every six months because it was so strong... but since the attack in the forest, he had needed more than was normal. This was the second time in two weeks. Siofra did not like this but she certainly knew why it was happening. The King was letting his mind take control and the emotional pressure and stress was simply becoming too much. The mind was a powerful tool, after all, but it could rule you if you let it. His guilt and his anger over the attack in the forest, as well as his grief and his (in his eyes) unrequited love... was causing him to feel weak and this was eating away at him... and Siofra knew that he was drinking. Too much. He had always liked wine, this was no secret, but too much of it would be overriding the effects of the tonic, therefore making it more difficult for him and perhaps causing him to use the majority of his energy to keep the illusion in place, which would render him quite useless for other tasks.
"You should have come in sooner." She told him, not saying any of this for now. If he came in for more tonic too soon, she would say something then, but she hoped he would find a way to calm himself... the sleep tonics she had already given him would help with that - he needed rest - and she trusted him to take them. Siofra handed the vials to him and watched him tuck them away deep inside his robes.
"I have been busy." Was all Thranduil said in response.
Siofra went quiet and simply blinked at him.
Thranduil pointedly ignored her gaze but then he sighed heavily. "What?"
"My lord," Siofra said with a small sigh of her own. "You must take better care of yourself. That is all I shall say."
There was another silence. "I have many people to care for, Siofra. A whole realm if you had not noticed." Thranduil stood up.
Siofra had her eyes on the paperwork on her desk once more. She was used to Thranduil's way of speaking and she no longer took offence to anything really that came out of the king's mouth. In fact, a quarter of the time, she paid no attention to what he said, or the tone in which he said it, at all.
Satisfied he had gotten the last word, Thranduil turned to leave the room the same way he'd entered it, with a long stride so he could shut himself back in his office and drink away his stress and now his guilt over snapping at Eirien.
"A realm that needs their king in good health to do so." Siofra's voice sounded again, just as he had stepped over the threshold of the door.
Thranduil stopped moving and he stood there, still and silent. His shoulders slumped downwards just the tiniest fraction and his eyes showed something close to despair for the briefest second.
Siofra did not look up, though she could see him from the corner of her eye.
Then he was gone.
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Eirien and Rindir took the next four days to empty Laurina's home, all of her belongings packed away. They had started out by trying to do everything all at once, just to get it over and done with in the quickest amount of time possible, but they found that that only made things worse. They argued a lot more when they tried to rush it and so eventually Callon had stepped in and practically ordered the pair to take it more slowly, take it easy, be kind to themselves. So they did as he recommended and the dreadful task did become a little easier to bear.
When it was all finally done, Eirien probably cried much more than she had in the previous days. Just to see it sitting empty like it now was, while she remembered Laurina's incredible excitement to have moved out and into her own little living space... it was devastating.
For the next week, Eirien stayed with Rindir and Callon in their home, finally admitting that she did not actually want to be all alone right now and, truthfully, she wanted a little break from her dwelling because she was constantly dancing around ghosts in there. Memories. It had been the home the three of them had grown up in, they had never relocated in all these long years. It was suffocating.
Callon was more than happy to have Eirien stay and he took it upon himself to wait on the two siblings hand and foot, though Eirien protested a great deal because she did not want to put him out but Callon simply waved her off. He did not mind. Truthfully, he relished it. Callon was a caregiver type, for sure. He always enjoyed looking after others and, in times of grief and stress, he liked to keep busy and feel helpful. Eirien eventually stopped protesting and just accepted it. She appreciated him, of course she did, and she knew that he missed Laurina (and Herenya) too.
"Where are you going?" Rindir asked, after that next week had passed, as he walked through from the kitchen and found Eirien by the front door.
Eirien looked up, her fingers on the door handle. "Oh, I wanted to go and... maybe get some fresh flowers."
Rindir looked at her with surprise in his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching with just the tiniest of smiles. "Really?" Eirien had not shown any interest in such a thing since finding Laurina dead. There was no time limit, of course, and grief had made them all rather uninterested in the tasks and hobbies and work they normally engaged in. Rindir found he was pleased, though, because surely this was a good sign.
Eirien nodded. "Yes, I..." She paused, sighing slightly. She actually felt a little bit guilty for it... as if doing things would make it seem like she was not sad anymore when it was the furthest thing from the truth. "Do you think I should wait?"
Rindir was quick to shake his head, stepping towards her. "No! No, no. Of course not. It's good, Eirien. Do it. It will make you feel better."
Eirien looked up at him as he placed his hands on her upper arms and gave her a reassuring little nod. She sighed but she nodded back and forced a smile. "All right." She leaned up and she kissed him on the cheek. "I won't be long."
"Be as long as you want." Rindir shrugged, taking hold of the door when she opened it and watching her walk off down the corridor. He could practically see the grief clinging to her and he felt it in himself too. Sighing, he closed the door and retreated back into the other room.
Laurina would not want them to be so sad that they no longer found joy in the things they loved, he knew that.
She would never want them to become like her mother.
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The days had passed but Thranduil could find little relief. It was his own fault, for he had neglected to take the sleep tonics Siofra had given him, and he had still been drinking quite heavily. His face ached and sometimes it burned a little. The fact it did not settle only caused him more frustration as he struggled to keep his composure. Siofra had given him more of the salve that would stop the pain, of course, but at this point a lot of it was mostly a psychological condition, not a physical one. He was well aware of this deep down.
The majority of his actual wounds had healed long ago, enough to not actually be painful at all. There were only some sections that were still overly sensitive and this was because it had taken so long to work on him that some parts of the wounds were simply too far gone to fully fix by the time the healers reached them. The damage had been too extensive. These were the parts that itched or burned but the salve should have rid him of the sensation altogether. However, in times of extreme emotional distress, often his mind would conjure back up the sensation as if he had never put the salve on at all... which led to more frustration... which led to the feeling lasting longer. Thranduil was often quick to anger, that was no secret, but it was more than just getting angry or upset. This did not happen with every single emotion he felt, it had to become quite extreme and was often coupled with neglect of himself in some way. It had only really happened once before... when his wife died. However, what he was feeling now was not as extreme as it had been then. He did not like to think of that time.
Thranduil had been incredibly lucky to survive with such minimal damage, he knew that. Not speaking to the look of the wound itself, of course, because obviously he had sustained incredible physical damage and had lost a lot of his actual skin and muscle on the left side of his face and neck. He remembered when he had awoken, after he'd been worked on for some time, his father had tried not to let him see the extent of the damage because he'd known it would only cause his son anguish. Thranduil had always been a rather vain being, but most especially in his youth. Keeping it covered up nowadays was less so for vanity and more about his rule. He could not walk around or go into battle or hold meetings with other realms or foreign representatives while he was missing chunks of his face and sporting a very visibly blind eye. It would not do. It would make people less inclined to speak with or trust him. It would, in short, terrify people. Not only that but he had gone to great lengths to keep this from spreading because the enemy might get hold of the information and use it to their advantage.
Thranduil heaved a sigh as he pushed the map away from him, irritated. He could not entirely prevent these evil forces from entering the forest! There were too many areas that they could not guard because they were well beyond their borders. He had posted extra soldiers in certain places, just beyond the boundary, but even this he could not be sure would do anything major to help. Plus, Thranduil was terrified that they were too vulnerable out there in the forest, alone in scattered groups. Herenya and the other guards had just been taking Gollum for a walk, near enough, and they had been ambushed and slaughtered and nobody had been able to do a damn thing about it. Thranduil was angry but he was only stressing himself out further by becoming so fixated upon this.
He stood from behind his desk and he moved to the decanter in the corner and poured himself another glass of wine. As he did this, the door opened and he turned his head sharply, eyes narrowed because whoever it was did not knock.
When his son stepped into the room, Thranduil's gaze softened, his shoulders relaxing.
Legolas eyed the wine in his father's hand with a raised eyebrow. Thranduil looked him right in the eye as he took a drink. Legolas almost rolled his eyes.
"Do you need something?" Despite his apparent mood, Thranduil's voice was soft as he spoke to his beloved son.
Legolas shook his head. Truthfully, he was quite unbothered by Thranduil's moods. Not in the sense that he did not care but in the sense that he did not take offence to the way it sometimes came out. The little acts of defiance or sharp words. He knew his father well enough to know that it was a cover. Anger was often a cover for unhappiness or even pain. Anger was easier than feeling something else. Legolas knew, obviously, that his father was angry about the attack in the forest, of course, but it was too many weeks out from it now and he should not be this angry. So angry that it clouded his judgement and caused him to neglect himself. No, there was something else underneath all of that.
"Not really," he said as he took a step into the room. "I just wanted to see how you were."
"See how I was?" Thranduil shook his head, sighing as he had another drink from his cup. "I am fine, Legolas, do not waste your worry on me."
Legolas watched his father move over to the desk and begin shuffling through papers as if he was looking for something. His eyes stayed on him and Legolas felt sad. He had not seen him so restless in a long time. He did not seem to have rested in a while and he had been fixated on that same map every single time Legolas came into the room. In fact, he didn't think he'd seen his father out of this office other than to walk to the healing halls and back again in the last week and a half. "Do you need help?"
Thranduil's fingers stilled and he looked up again. Do you need help? He knew that his son meant with the maps or the papers... but for a moment he took the question in a different way altogether. Yes, his mind said... but then he pushed it away. "No, do not worry. It is all handled." He said, frowning back down at the desk. "Although... I will need to send somebody to Rivendell."
Legolas tilted his head a little curiously. "Rivendell?"
Thranduil nodded, placing his wine down as he lifted a half written letter that he had intended to send to Elrond after Gollum escaped. He had forgotten it. Thranduil's attention had quickly turned and fixated upon the map and he had been obsessed with the thing ever since the attack in the forest, since Laurina and Herenya and all those others were slaughtered for nothing. He'd been marking it over and over, writing notes in the corner or over a specific area. He'd added new symbols to represent soldiers and weak spots and potential hiding areas for orcs... Gollum's escape had become an afterthought and he suddenly felt a little guilty. Gandalf had left him in his care. They needed to know.
"Yes." He said, looking back up and moving to the window. Legolas watched him, pleased that he left the wine where it was. "To inform Elrond of the escape of the creature..." Thranduil had sounded as if he wished to say more but his voice trailed off as he looked outside and he suddenly looked so distracted that Legolas walked over and peered curiously over his shoulder.
Thranduil turned immediately and walked over to the bookcase. Legolas followed his movements but not before he caught a glimpse of Eirien down there in the garden.
He smothered a smirk as he turned his attention back to his father, who looked like he was trying very hard to seem entirely unbothered, which only made him seem more bothered.
"I will go to Rivendell." He said then, shocking his father so much that Thranduil almost felt dizzy at the speed with which he snapped his head back up to look at him.