Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight
*
Some time after my brother had left I realized Thranduil was sitting in an armchair at the foot of the bed, his legs crossed, either doing paperwork or reading. I heard paper rustling. I went between consciousness and sleep for more than a day before resurfacing entirely, and experiencing again the wounds my body had let me forget about while I was asleep. I sucked in my breath, wincing, and heard Thranduil close whatever he had been reading.
"I am pleased you will recover," he said by way of a greeting.
Tightly I replied, "The feeling is mutual. What have the healers said?" Digging my hands into the mattress on either side of me I managed to heave myself against the headboard so I could at least see him.
"How well you heal now is no longer under their control. I had this brought from Dale—" He reached behind himself and hooked his hand around a smooth, ebony cane with a silver handle embedded with blue-violet sapphires and twirled it through his fingers, "—as it appears you will be needing it until you have fully recovered."
I cracked a dry smile. "How many threats did you have to extend to have such a fine tool crafted so quickly?"
Our king carelessly shrugged. "No more than the usual."
I nodded sagely. I had seen some of the letters he sometimes sent to the budding city across the lake from us. While never rude—yet—Thranduil still cut an intimidating figure, even only in writing. "I shall try it then. You have probably ordered the wrong size." I began pushing myself up, glad my midsection at least felt whole, though I sensed a lingering stinging from the shallow cut I'd had there.
"Never." Thranduil smoothly stood, tossing the book onto the end of my bed, and stepped to where he could easily offer assistance if it appeared I was about to plunge back into the ground. I got myself onto my feet easily enough, but I could put less than a goblet's weight of pressure on my right leg. Thranduil had to catch me by the elbow when I tried, and slipped the handle of the cane under my hand. My fingers curled around the cool metal and I took a tentative step, Thranduil's hand resting midway up my back when I rocked.
"Well," I said, breathless since I'd been holding my breath. "I stand corrected."
Thranduil gave a theatrically generous smile. "My dear all we ask is that you stand." He attended me solicitously as I eased around the end of the bed and toward the window, where I dropped heavily into the armchair there. My maid teased me about all the chairs in my house, but I hated to have to drag them around if I wanted to sit somewhere else.
With a sigh I turned to stare out the window as Thranduil opened it and sat in the sill. "I suppose I will have to content myself to my sitting for a while. How is Legolas?"
"Legolas is in a frenzy of his own concern. Now that you are capable of receiving him I will have to send for him to relieve his anxiety."
"Please do, you know how he worries."
Thranduil swept to his feet and opened the door, passing through. He spoke to someone who must have been waiting outside my suite and returned. He settled himself fluidly back onto the windowsill, spreading his robe—lined with a deep russet underneath—gracefully around himself and I chuckled to myself. Thranduil lifted an inquisitive brow down at me.
I propped my temple against my fingers and my elbow against the curled hazelnut arm of the chair. "I do believe you are more concerned with your appearance than I am."
"And I do believe my son stole your ability to hold onto your vanity."
I laughed. "Yes I do believe he did. Having one's hair watered and kneeling in unswept corridors will do that to a woman."
"Inladris!" I heard Legolas's voice echoing through my house and leaned toward the door even before he ran through it. He saw me reaching toward him from the armchair. "Inladris!"
"Legolas, come here!" I cried, trying to stand and collapsing again. Thranduil stood but I caught myself with my hand against the floor and Legolas tumbled to his knees against me, my arms wrapped tightly around him. "Legolas, oh Legolas. Are you all right?" I grasped him by the waist and set him back a few inches so I could look him over, teasing him by turning him and lifting the edges of his tunic as though to check.
"I'm fine," he laughed, and threw himself into me again.
I ran my hand up and down his back, wiping underneath my eyes and sniffing. "I'm so glad you're all right. I'm so happy."
"I'm glad you're happy," he murmured into my ear. "Are you going to be all right? Father wouldn't tell me."
"I'm not going to be able to look after you for a little while, but yes, I'll be all right."
"What's wrong?"
I sat back and Legolas separated our hair where it had run together. Thranduil nodded his permission when I looked over my shoulder at him. To Legolas I calmly explained, "Most of my trouble is that I can't walk very well. Do you remember the arrow?"
"No, Father sent me away."
I nodded. "I remember. Well, until recently there was an arrow in the back of my knee, and despite the fact that it's no longer there it's still giving me trouble. I won't be able to chase you around for another week at least."
"I can walk slowly."
I smiled, stroking his cheek. "Cabbage leaf, it hurts to stand. If I were to go with you you would have to carry me."
His hopeful face fell.
"Oh come now, who is it that's looking out for you now? She can't be too terrible."
"One of Father's maids, and she's not. She's just....too careful. She worries too much."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "And you do not?"
A hand appeared in my vision and I accepted it; Thranduil pulled me to my feet and returned me gently to my armchair. Legolas climbed into my lap and I winced, and Thranduil saw it, but thankfully he trusted me to know what I could and could not do—he always had—so he left it to me to tell Legolas if he was hurting me. "What did you do today?" I asked him, adjusting him so he sat more on my left leg. "I hope you were kind to your maid."
"He abandoned her in a sector she was unfamiliar with and it took her two hours to find her way back," Thranduil smoothly replied.
"Legolas! Why on earth would you do that?" He flushed, tucking his chin into his chest. I jostled him lightly. "Legolas, you realize she didn't know what she was doing, right? This isn't something she's done before, she was worried she might upset you, and she knew you didn't want her there."
He crossed his arms and leaned back into me. "I felt bad as soon as I'd done it, I just didn't remember where I'd put her. I looked for her!" he insisted, plaintive.
"Hmmm."
"I did!"
I blew hair from in front of his ear into his face. "When are you going to apologize?"
"Tomorrow morning?"
"How about after your archery lesson."
He heaved a sigh. "That will do as well." He snuck a glance up at me. "If your knee can heal in a week why isn't this healed?" He lightly touched the line that still ran from the middle of my nose through the outside of my eyebrow.
"I was too tired to look after it when I woke up, and it does not stop me from walking," I answered. "Why, am I not pretty enough for you with lines on my face?"
Legolas knew I was teasing him and chuckled, and I blew his hair in his face again just to watch him swipe it back.
At last Legolas had to return to his lessons and my lap was growing numb. Thranduil sent him off with a smile and, to my surprise, did not say goodbye to me. Instead the king remained seated at the window. I thumped my cane on the rug a couple of times. "You may pull up a chair," I told him.
"Oh no, that requires too much effort, and I have an excellent view from here."
"My mother objected to my taking of this suite until she saw what I could see. I came from a large house with multiple maids and she couldn't understand why I would want to downsize to only one maid and four rooms. But without my husband, and with Milir no longer living with me, I needed nothing else. I spend most of my time out of the house anyway."
"Then I suppose we shall expect to find you absent if we come calling to check on your progress?"
I gave him a smile. "I will leave word with Linwea, and if she is in she will tell you where I've gone. Or where I started. I can't imagine I will get far for a while."
"Probably not," he allowed. "I am sorry you will take so long to recover."
"I am sure I can survive a week of tediousness."
"I shall have to send Legolas so the pair of you do not go into withdrawal from lack of time with one another."
"Well I have been spending every day with him for the last several decades, Thranduil, you can't tell me you are surprised to find he is attached."
"Oh no," he agreed, "I am not surprised. He needed a mother figure and that is certainly what you are to him. If you do not tell me over supper what the two of you did during the day he does."
"He misses you."
My quiet words had breached the light joviality of our conversation and brought it to something more solemn. Thranduil did not look at me, continuing to look out over the rocky, moss-covered and leaf-strewn shoulder of the mountain sprawling underneath my window.
"Spending time with him is not enough, Thranduil," I whispered. "He needs you, too. Perhaps not your hands to help him anymore, but he needs to know he has your interest, your attention. Don't just let him tell you about his day, ask him about it. It is remarkable how much a small conversation can matter."
Thranduil drew in a breath and released it without answering. But I was accustomed to that. Besides, half of what I said didn't require an answer; it only needed to be heard. At last he stood and said, "Thank you for your service to my son. I understand the trauma you have withstood."
I looked up at him. "It could have been far worse." One side of my mouth lifted. "You knew I would love him. You knew exactly what I would do if ever there was a threat."
Thranduil's gaze returned momentarily to the window. I wondered if there was something that interested him out there, or if he looked to avoid something else instead. "One can never truly know until the time has come."
I hummed my agreement and Thranduil strode to the door. "He hardly needs me anymore," I said.
Thranduil looked back at me, a line forming between his brows. He knew I wasn't talking of the same kind of needing as I had been before, but one slightly different.
"He is strong, considerate, brave. I have taught him all I can to make him everything he could possibly be."
"He does need you," Thranduil contradicted.
"Not to teach him who he is."
"For companionship," Thranduil said. "For warmth."
I glanced over my shoulder at him, intrigued, and surprised by the insight I suspected he was granting me.
"I chose you not because you were the most competent, or devoted, or instructive. But because you have the most warmth, the most joy." Having returned to my side he lifted one hand to touch my face. "I wanted to give him what most he needed and what most he lacked at home." His voice dropped, his eyes flickering away and back, deciding on what he wanted to finish with. "He needed a mother. He still does." He glided to the door.
"Thranduil," I called after him. "If I have been a mother to Legolas, what have I been to you?"
The king's hand was already on the handle of the door. He paused. "You have always been and I hope shall always be one of my truest of friends."
I nodded, accepting this responsibility, and waited until he looked at me again to reply. "Always."
His lips touched toward a smile, and he left. I smiled as well.
(pg43)
> from Carpe Diem - Robert Frost