Title: Of The Stars
Paring: Thranduil X Reader
Warnings: none! Just fluff
Spoilers: Yes, for The Hobbit and Return of The King (basically all the LOTR books/movies). But only minor. Just little details are scattered around here and there.
Sequel: Yes, for the two other parts from my other fanfic book, Various Array of 100 One Shots, with the parts titled, ' Of the Scribes' and ' Of the Flames'. This is the last part.
Author's Note: This was a request from AO3, but also, 30K reads? Thanks so much guys!!
______________________________________________________________________________
In the mornings, there is nothing but the noises of the forest and the birdsong to wake the royalty that lies tucked in their beds. It was only a few mere years later – a blind of the eye for King Thranduil – yet in these years, he has made more of himself than he has been for all of those which had wasted away after the death of his previous wife. He has aided in the Battle of the Five Armies, his own militia defeated the spiders, his son off to explore the world of man on a quest to rid Middle Earth of evil once more, and beside him, something much more precious than the rest of the goings on that happen around him.
Beside him, in the silk sheets of the royal bed, is the woman who happened upon him by accident, who rose into his closed off heart like there had been no gates, no guards, who had taken him by storm. Elves, by nature, were slow creatures; they had the rest of eternity for their longevity to keep them going. A cup of tea could take hours to finish, childhood span decades.
But Thranduil, gazing upon his wife, the first human Queen of Mirkwood, saw eternity within her breaths, saw a cup of tea that was finished before teatime ended, ferocity and sagacity that he'd never encountered in the wise elves who were sevenfold her age. He saw the lady who had the mind of a scholar, and the body of a goddess, the Valar forbid he be blasphemous for the comparison. He saw the Queen of Mirkwood who married him three years after he nursed her back to health, using the herbs and secrets of the elves to conceal the treacherous burns. They both had their wounds hidden, both touched by fire that could have consumed them. But Thranduil knew, somewhere deep inside, that they were stronger than fire, stronger than the light of the stars.
She stirred in the sheets. There was wailing from the room adjacent to theirs, something which Thranduil could not help but smile at the sound of. Slowly, reaching from the bed, he left his love, the warmth in his heart to depart the bed, to make way to where the noise was coming from.
Behind a curtain of hanging moss, decorated with the clear stones from the river, was a cot, wherein a little elven babe was red-faced in bouts of cries. Where his wife was the first human queen, his second child was the first royal half-blood of the races. His little Elbereth had his hair, and your eyes, and those little eyes he had fallen for in her mother stared at him with pleading and such a sadness that couldn't be denied. The little princess reached her hands up, asking without words to be closer to her father, to another beating heart.
With a smile, he gathered his daughter into his arms, placing her head upon his shoulder. The days when he had done this to his son, his firstborn was not lost to Thranduil, remembering well enough how to keep a baby still, sleeping and the mother the same. Instead of feeling saddened by these memories, he smiled, looking to the small child in his arms, thinking of how his years passed from the tragedy had led him to this moment, where he was the luckiest elven man in all the forest, and sat down in the chair by the window.
It had only been five months since he had aided his wife in the birth of their daughter, done his best to care for a human pregnancy (which, his own experiences did not prepare him for), for the child which attached herself to his heart like ________ had. Word had come that his son was returning home today, having aided the war against Sauron and the evil ring as nobly as he always attended to tasks. Thranduil gazed to his child, who, having been close to her father and soaking in his warmth and love, had fallen asleep on his chest, and could not fathom what his eldest would think of his new sibling.
"Thranduil?" His chest ached, hearing your voice in the morning. Your groggy, half-asleep lilt that sounded more like a spell than words. It was a side of you he was so happy to see, something he'd denied himself for, for so long before admitting his feelings, something the courts and all the elves in his domain had no chance to see. "Thranduil, where are you?"
He made a noise, low in his throat, and before long, he saw you barefoot, walking through the curtain, hair mussed from the tangling fingers of sleep, a small smile growing upon your face. "What are you doing awake so early, I tried to leave you well." He protested, going to stand as if to usher you back to the bed.
"I woke as you left," you whisper, so not to disturb your daughter as she lays in her father's arms. "It's not the same being without you. I'm not sure how I lived all the years without you," you muse, gently running a hand over the blonde hair upon your child's head. "I think I should ask you, why are you awake so early, my King?"
Thranduil raises his head to meet your gaze, to challenge the stare of your (e/c) eyes that bear justice in the courts and warmth into his very soul, and like all the times he has challenged you, he concedes your win. "The calls of a child never leave the ears of a father," he replies, moving as to truly get up this time. "I should say you are married to a very adeptly skilled man in these matters, my Queen."
You smile, holding your arms out to take Elbereth from his. "You have much to undergo for the welcoming of Legolas, and for court this morn, and the preparation of the ceremony of the stars, and –,"
Thranduil interrupted her with a quick kiss, passing their child between arms. "I shall be on my way, then, my love," he quirked a brow at her playfully, and at this, swept off to attend to his duties as she had reminded her.
It isn't until later when Thranduil has welcome his son and finished at the court when he walks into the gardens – call it a moment to spare, or a breath of air to take in – when he sees his wife, sitting on a stool, her fantastical dress covering the bump which had carried his daughter into the world of Middle Earth, watching his son at her side, playing with little Elbereth's fingers, tickling her beside her curved ears.
Curious, Thranduil approaches, his robes swaying behind him in motion, answering the song of the breeze and swirling around his feet. As he approaches, his family greet him with wide smiles; his _______ beaming like she has basked in the light of the gods in his presence, his son, as if he has seen the darkness incarnate, and his father is ridding the stench of it from his soul, and his daughter, cheerful as ever, loving her ada.
This was just that – his family. And he was the luckiest elven man in all the forest.