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So, I just thought I would take a minute to explain feä and hroä.
Basically, Tolkien explains that the feä is like the soul or spirit, and the hroä is the physical body of the elf. Both are connected and codependent. It's why elves can die of grief or heartbreak. If their feä is damaged, then their hroä will start to die, or vice versa.
. . . . . . . .
Three Hundred Years Ago...
Thaliniel sat down next to her sister on the settee by the fire in their shared sitting room. She looked amusedly at what Narylfiel had in her lap. "Embroidery?" she asked curiously.
Narylfiel tried to stuff the design behind a cushion before her sister grabbed the corner and tugged it out.
"Oh, it's..." Thaliniel stared at the piece and then tried tilting her head to make-out the subject.
"It is supposed to be a Great Elk tea cozy," sighed Narylfiel, taking the offending piece of muslin from her sister's hand. "It's horrid, I know, but the king's name day is approaching..." She looked at it disgustedly and then wadded it up. "Hopeless."
"Well," Thaliniel paused, trying to think of something tactful to say, "it is a nice gesture. I think the king would like that you tried embroidery."
"You think so?" Narylfiel hopefully unwadded the fabric.
"No," remarked a voice from the door. "He'll hate it for sure."
Both sisters turned and glared at the intruder, and Narylfiel chucked the misshapen tea cozy at Legolas' head.
He gracefully dodged it and then grinned at her. "Narylfiel, your sister came in here to talk to you about something serious."
Thaliniel gave him a dark look. "I was getting to it."
"What are you, Legolas? The enforcer?" quipped Narylfiel and then stilled, her eyes going to Legolas in the doorway and then her sister, sitting primly by her side. "What kind of serious? Wait," Narylfiel said, her eyes widening. "Are you-are you...having a baby?"
Legolas blanched. "What? No!"
Thaliniel gave him another look. "No, this isn't about us, Narylfiel, and we are not having a baby!" Then she smiled softly at her husband in the doorway. "Legolas, would you care to explain?"
He straightened from his slouch. "No, I was just leaving to...finish some schedules. I'll see you at dinner?" The prince quickly shut the door behind him.
"What was all that about?" Narylfiel asked curiously.
Thaliniel reached across the settee, patted her sister's hand. "Legolas is worried about you. He thinks of you as his little sister, you know, and there is no easy way to say this, so..."
Narylfiel gripped her sister's hand. "Thaliniel, whatever it is you can just tell me," she said frankly.
Thaliniel's words came out in a rush: "Legolas heard some of the younger soldiers talking about you in the barracks, and some may have mentioned trying to get you to go to the next fire circle, and my husband just may have punched one or two of them in the face."
"What?" Narylfiel squeaked, her face feeling uncomfortably hot.
"So Legolas asked if I had ever talked to you about those sorts of things," Thaliniel continued, barely looking at her sister from the corner of her eye as she played with the ruffle on her skirt. "And I know that we have not, but now you have come of age, you might have questions." She paused and made herself meet her younger sister's gaze. "Do you?"
"Do I what?" Narylfiel asked, a growing sense of horror falling upon her. Her sister, sweet and lovely Thaliniel, wanted to talk about fire circles or worse-other things?
"Narylfiel, you are a lovely grown elleth now," Thaliniel reminded her. "You might not see it as I do or Legolas does, but you have come of age-and I would not wish for you to be taken advantage of." She looked at her sister and added frankly, "Life here in the palace moves much quicker and certainly less conservatively than on our father's old vineyard."
Narylfiel sputtered a little. She was certain-could feel it even-that her ears were bright red and her neck felt disagreeably hot. She glanced at her sister and then smirked. Apparently Thaliniel was just as uncomfortable as she was, if the pink flush to her cheeks was any indication.
Narylfiel cleared her throat, sipped some tea. "Thaliniel," she said carefully, staring at her hands in her lap. Her nails looked dreadful. Archer hands, to be sure. She kept her voice matter-of-fact: "We both grew up on a vineyard, a farm with animals. I know how mating works."
Her sister made a noise that sounded like a cross between a snort and a laugh. Her eyes were merry when she reached for Narylfiel's hands. "Oh, Narylfiel! It is much, much more, I promise you." She squeezed both her hands and then had the audacity to laugh out loud. "When you find the one, the right one, your heart will know it. Your body will know it, and his will too."
Narylfiel looked down, twisted a stray lock of hair hanging over her shoulder. "Was it like that for you and Legolas?"
Her sister closed her eyes just for a moment, her lips curving up at an obviously good memory. "Yes," she said, cutting her eyes to Narylfiel. "Yes, it was. It will be for you too."
Narylfiel nodded like she agreed. Inside, she was not so sure. She worried that her defiant little heart had settled on someone who could never love her like that, and not for the first time, Narylfiel secretly wished she could be just a little more like her older sister.
. . . . . . .
November, 3018:
Thranduil stretched out next to her in bed, his long frame and wide shoulders eating up all the extra space between them. "Let's see about getting you warmed up first," he told her, extending a dangerously chiseled arm across the pillows toward her. Narylfiel slid into his embrace, flushing at how warm he was; she could feel the radiant heat of his skin through her nightgown.
The nightdress was a source of amusement for her king. He grinned a little as he studied the double layer of lace around the yoke and ran a curious finger down the high collar and little pearl buttons trailing down the neck. "I would wager that a whole entire family of sheets gave their lives to make this confection," Thranduil teased, and then with her watching him, he popped open the top tiny pearl button on the high collar.
With a mischievous gleam in his eyes, he leaned over and placed a feather-light kiss on the tiny sliver of newly exposed skin, and her breath caught.
"Feeling a little warmer?" His voice was pure silk.
Actually, Narylfiel imagined that if she were to crawl into the fireplace, it could not possibly be hotter than she felt right now, but instead she pitifully shook her head. "It's pretty drafty in this room, my king."
Her answer elicited a slow smile from him, and he inched a little closer, close enough to slant his mouth over her slightly parted lips, softly at first, tasting her mouth against his, feeling her sharp intake of breath as he pressed her down against the pillows, his hand finding her hand, the hard planes of his chest against the softness of hers, while his other hand busily ticked the rest of the tiny pearl buttons open down past her collar bone. Thranduil paused then, admiring his handy work before meeting her eyes, soft and trusting, watching him.
"Lovely," he breathed as he trailed a lazy finger down from the opening of the first button at the top of her neck, past the hollow of her throat to the end of the pearls, a lacy edge gleaming against the soft rise of her chest.
She looked down and bit her lip, but then reached for him, running an unsteady hand from the strong line of his jaw down past the curve of his neck to rest against his chest. "I never thought..." Narylfiel paused and made herself meet his eyes, "that it could be like this for us." She pushed herself up on her elbow while keeping her hand warm against his skin and stopped right before her lips touched his. "I want you to touch me," she whispered against his mouth and pressed her lips to his, her body to his, her hand sliding around his back.
Her gentle ministrations lasted only a minute while Thranduil got over the shock of his little naurenniel issuing such commands of his person. His nonexistent bond with her, the very one he had convinced himself he had destroyed, flared up through his heart like a brilliant flame in the darkness. He was staggered and overcome by the realization, but his body was not, had never been. Similar to the scene in Narylfiel's dream-memory, Thranduil felt his control slip, feeling his hands go for her hips, exulting in how easily he was able to push her back into the blankets, cover her body with his own. His mouth found the generous expanse of her skin bared by those open buttons, and his hands quested down her body pulling her tightly against him.
A soft little moan escaped her lips, and Thranduil's heart rolled over at the sound. With the greatest reluctance, he broke away from her and leaned back against the headboard with a sigh.
"Valar," he swore, looking very boyish and more adorably tousled than any king had a right to look.
Narylfiel propped herself up on her elbow and watched him with through long lashes, her nightdress still very open at the neck, the skin there looking deliciously pink where he had just been extremely attentive.
"Why did you stop?" she asked, a little anxious. "Was it something I did?"
"Was it something..." Thranduil's voice trailed away, and he took a deep breath like he was trying to steady himself. "Narylfiel- it was everything you did."
Her eyes drifted down. "I see," she mumbled, but Thranduil lifted her chin to look at him.
"I did not mean that it was poorly done, dear one," he explained, "but I needed to stop." He threaded his fingers through her hair. "I would not have this rickety bed in Dale be our marriage bed." His eyes glinted wickedly. "Although we might have to bring along that nightgown."
"Then you had better be the one planning on wearing it," Narylfiel retorted. She sat up but did not bother to refasten her buttons. She rather liked the naughty feeling of the air against her neck, the memory of the king's mouth there. Thranduil lifted an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his chest.
"Warm enough now?" he asked as he reached for the candle beside her bed.
She nodded against his shoulder, and he blew out the candle, leaving the room in darkness, save for the remaining coals flickering in her fireplace. The king tugged the coverlet up around them, taking great care to cover her with it.
"I worry about disappointing you," she confessed quietly to the darkness. She never could keep anything from him.
Thranduil stilled. "What?" His question came out sharper sounding that he meant for it to, but he had heard what she said and did not want her to repeat it. He slid a little further down the pillow to look her evenly in the eyes. "Do not think that," he commanded her and then softened his request. "Narylfiel, please do not think that way."
She nodded, but then stared past him toward the fire.
Still unsure, Thranduil watched her for a moment. "No," he said after a long pause, leaning his head against hers. "Perhaps that feeling is only natural when..." He thought for a minute. "When you love someone, you want them to love you in the same way." He grew quiet then, but tightened his arm around her.
He held her that way and watched her until he was sure she had fallen asleep, and his mind lingered on her words.
"I worry about disappointing you too," he whispered to the dark.
. . . . . . .
A series of three sharp knocks sounded on her door an hour or so later, and a voice whispered from the hall, "King Thranduil, you are needed. There has been a development."
Flushed, Narylfiel sat up pulling the covers to her chest, and Thranduil was up immediately, his eyes grim as he slipped on his boots.
"How did Elfir know to look in my room for you? I did not hear him bothering with knocking on your door," she pointed out and frowned, as she struggled to fasten up the annoying little pearl buttons up the top of her nightgown.
Thranduil glanced over his shoulder, before he pulled his tunic back over his head. "I selected him as the head of the Royal Guard for a reason. I never deluded myself that Elfir would not know of our attachment; it was only a matter of how soon," he said. Turning, he glanced down at her and his eyes softened. "If you do all those buttons back up, I might take it as a challenge."
She pushed another pearl through the buttonhole with him watching and arched an eyebrow. "Challenge issued, my lord."
His only answer on his way out the door was to flash her a knowing smile.
Elfir knew better than to comment on his king's choice of sleeping arrangements. Instead, he bowed and immediately began to fill his leader in on the most recent development.
Since Dwalin's unassuming remark that Maubûrz might try to acquire more poison for his buyer, Elfir and Dorwil had arranged, with King Brand's permission, to supplement his night watch with the rest of King Thranduil's guards. Perhaps he or one of his henchmen would try to return to the city to buy more supplies from the apothecary's shop. Both Thranduil and his guards suspected that perhaps Maubûrz had help from inside the city, although none of them had voiced those suspicions to Dale's king.
A half hour ago, Dorwil spotted a lone figure emerge from the distant foothills and begin to travel on foot toward the southern walls of the city.
"It will be some time before he reaches the walls, your highness. King Brand and a few others have assembled to discuss his capture," Elfir concluded.
Thranduil nodded. "Take me to them," he said, and Elfir led the way. Neither said more about the possible intruder, and neither elf mentioned anything about Narylfiel. The king's mind, however, was full of both of these subjects, particularly the latter. Her health concerned him, and the feeling of his bond with her, the one that he thought he had painstakingly severed, which apparently still lingered, concerned him. Elfir, and probably Dorwil too, needed to be taken aside and talked to about his changing relationship with her. And when they returned to his kingdom, he needed to devise an extremely clever approach to arrange and announce their engagement.
The Elvenking quickly stowed those thoughts away when he saw the group gathered in a semi-circle in the main hall to discuss the possible intruder. King Brand, Prince Bard, a few of the marshals or captains of the city, those few he could tolerate, but errantly, King Brand had also sent for the dwarves, much to Thranduil's displeasure.
"Catching up on your beauty rest, King Thranduil?" Prince Thorin wryly asked as the elves joined the group. "Or more likely, catching up on resting with a beauty?" he whispered loudly in an aside to Dwalin behind his hand.
The Elvenking eyed them disdainfully before turning his attention to King Brand.
"Ah, King Thranduil. I am sure Lord Elfir told you the news. I would, of course, appreciate your wisdom in this matter," the King of Dale said, his son standing to his right, already dressed and armed.
"If this person is Maubûrz, then he is dangerous," Thranduil said. "He will not be easily apprehended, and he has both skill and training with the sword. I suggest that my guards watch him enter the city and track his movements, so we might understand his motives."
"It's possible that he and his men are responsible for selling the poison that made my warriors ill," Prince Thorin interjected, scowling at the Elvenking. "I demand his capture before he can wreak any more evil upon our people.'
Elfir quickly spoke up, "And he will be captured, I assure you, for did his poison not also harm one beloved to us? One that many of my people see as a daughter?" His grim eyes briefly met the Elvenking's, and Thranduil felt the full meaning of his guard's words to the dwarves. "Like shadows, we will follow him until the full meaning of his game has been laid bare; Dorwil and I will both take on this task, if our Majesty allows it."
"No one could be more suited to such a task," the Elvenking told the group of men and dwarves.
"I will go with them," Prince Bard volunteered, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Elfir hesitated and shared a glance with his lord before speaking. "I do not doubt your heart, nor your skill, Prince Bard, but you may be hard-pressed to keep up with our pace," Elfir warned. He did not mean to offer insult but merely intended to state a fact.
King Brand shook his head. "He goes. Then it is settled, and when you have captured this miscreant, you will bring him here for judgment."
Elfir saluted his king. "Dorwil and I will see it done, your highness," he vowed and then made ready to leave when one more voice rang out.
"I will go as well! This is a matter that also concerns Erebor," Prince Thorin declared, bypassing the Elvenking to follow the elf and the young man out the tall door into the dark courtyard.
Dwalin fiercely glared at the Elvenking as the door swung shut. "Don't even say it!" he barked.
Thranduil did not dignify this command with a response. Instead, he looked to King Brand, and assured him, "Your son could not be with two finer warriors from my guard. I have trusted the pair of them with my own life many times over."
King Brand nodded tiredly. "I cannot help but notice that this decision leaves you without security, your highness. May I offer a pair of my own guards to watch your and Lady Narylfiel's doors?"
"My thanks to you, but that will not be necessary," Thranduil said knowingly. "I am sure that Elfir has already arranged for another pair of guards to take their place."
Brand pulled out a chair from the table and sank down, clearly exhausted in the late hour. Thranduil wagered that the poor man had not slept at all since the arrival of the prisoners and the decision to increase the night's watch patrol for spies trying to enter the city.
"It may be some time before they return," the Elvenking advised, looking neither weary nor exhausted. In fact, he looked just as radiant as he had hours ago at dinner.
The dwarf Dwalin folded his arms and said nothing.
"I will find no rest while Bard is gone off on this mission," King Brand admitted. "I know that he is a grown man now, but a father's heart is hard to change."
"You could have asked him to stay in the citadel with you," Thranduil reasoned. "My two guards are more than capable on their own."
King Brand chuckled at the Elvenking's words. "You have a son, Prince Legolas, and does he stay back when you ask?" He shook his head. "No, I wager he does not."
The man's words struck a chord with the elf, and Thranduil pulled out a chair beside him and gracefully sat down. "No, you are right. He does not," he commiserated. "Much to my unending worry."
"Where is he now?" King Brand asked. "I am surprised the prince would not be here with you, if you do not mind my saying so."
The Elvenking sighed, his eyes briefly going to the dwarf beside him. Dwalin still had not budged, his eyes trained on the door from whence Prince Thorin left. "My son traveled to Rivendell, another elven realm and home of Lord Elrond, to attend a council there. Now he has taken it upon himself to volunteer for some foolish scheme of Elrond's, and probably Mithrandir's idea too," Thranduil frowned at the thought of the meddlesome wizard, always stirring up trouble. "No, Prince Legolas will not be returning for some time."
Not feeling the slightest bit chummy, Dwalin remained standing- he would not voluntarily sit by such a creature!- but he did finally turn and stonily glance at the pair of kings behind him. "We got word that one of ours is going on some quest too," he said gruffly. "Gimli, Gloin's son-didn't say much, but it didn't sound good."
King Brand nodded and leaned back in his chair, appraising the two very different men beside him, well, elf and dwarf. Fair and dark, graceful and burly. Brand rather thought they had much in common but would never say so out loud. Instead he steepled his hands and observed, "Seems like this Lord Elrond is a rather conniving fellow. Why would he not send his own men on this mission?"
"My thoughts exactly!" exclaimed King Thranduil.
"I agree completely," growled Dwalin at the exact same time.
Both the Elvenking and the dwarf peered at each other from the corner of their eyes.
Then Dwalin folded his arms again with a harrumph, and Thranduil crossed his legs and stared at a tapestry on the opposite wall.
Nobody else said anything for a good long while, but King Brand sat back with a pleased and more than a little smug expression on his face.
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Author's note: Please Comment, Vote, and Follow. If you haven't noticed, I decided to enter Kingsfoil AND Wanderlust in the Wattys 2015. Eeep! Thank you for all your support and votes! :D. #teamSmirkwood
Thranduil may be going into shock over inadvertently agreeing with a dwarf.
Thranduil: #FeelingFaint #NeverAgain
Dwalin: #DenyEverything