The moral is, it hardly need be shown,
All those who try to go it sole alone,
Too proud to be beholden for relief,
Are absolutely sure to come to grief.
*
My rooms had been restored to their former neatness, so I did not need to avoid any more glass fragments as I let myself in and sagged into the middle of my mattress without bothering to remove my clothes. Linwea was quietly overjoyed to see me returned as well, but when I asked her the next morning to find me something black to wear she hesitated.
I went to my wardrobe myself to look. There was nothing. The chests had been picked over too. My lips pursed, finally I allowed her to lace me into a deep blue gown and marched as gracefully as I could to Thranduil's rooms and did as I had never done before and let myself into his rooms, fully intending to steal him from his sleep since I had risen hours before I usually did.
Thranduil touched each of his eyes, having fallen asleep in his clothes as well, and didn't bother sitting up. "Inladris. To what do I owe your ire?"
"You have taken my mourning clothes."
"Yes I have."
"Give them back to me at once."
"Black is not your color."
"And how shall I mourn for my brother if I cannot wear it?" I demanded.
He sat up, finally portraying an interest in our debate. "By wearing vibrant colors. Your brother did not approve of despair, and would not like to see you wallowing in it."
"I cannot simply put away my grief for losing the last member of my family!" I shouted at him.
"Last night you seemed to be doing fairly well."
"Last night-"
Thranduil stood. "Last night you seemed to have come to a conclusion that upon waking this morning you seem to have lost. Your brother's greatest fear was that he would leave you the last member of your house but he also knew you would mourn for him while he was still alive if he gave up the work that he loved. Do not realize his fears by contaminating the rest of your hopefully very long life with grief." His eyes flicked back and forth between mine. "Let Firven live through you by living with the vitality he so praised you for. Let him watch from the Halls of Mandos and see that his sister has not died with him."
I blinked, watching him through eyes that had blurred. Thranduil could turn the meaning of anything, adjust any situation to fit his needs or to convince who he must. My lips trembled around a smile I wasn't sure my face could hold and my voice broke as I said, "You are in the right profession, Thranduil."
Thranduil gave a condescending smile that I knew the truths of, and placed a hand on my shoulder to pull me into an embrace, stroking my now-smoothed hair. "I do the best that I can."
"Mmhm. If black isn't my color than what would you say is?"
"Hmm. Blue. Not this dark one you're wearing today, a few shades lighter."
"Cobalt then."
"Fine, give it a name. And that strange pink you wore a few weeks ago."
"The one I wore when Firven died."
"Yes that one."
"I burned that one."
"I'll have another one made," he drawled.
"You will not."
"Tell me why."
I eased out of his arms and stuck my nose in the air. "Because my compliance with your enforced dress code will not be bought. I can commission my own dresses."
He narrowed his eyes in a theatrically shrewd manner. "What and you think I cannot?"
I narrowed my eyes too. "I think you will have questionable taste." I huffed. "I also think I am going back to my rooms to eat. I haven't eaten in weeks."
The moment Legolas saw me when I returned a few hours later his chair skidded back as he stood from the dining room table and came to me. I extended my arms and we wrapped each other in, neither one of us pleased that the other was unhappy. Firven had been showing Legolas his many collected weapons for years, and each year the bird's nest that fell apart and was rebuilt on his windowsill. He had trained with Legolas when he was old enough and given him advice and informal instruction even before that. Although old enough now not to seek my comfort as he once had when something upset him, neither of us was opposed to giving it to the other.
"I am sorry for your loss," he murmured.
"I am sorry for yours as well. He doesn't belong just to me."
"Most to you."
"Yes but since when has that mattered?" I stood back and cupped his face in one of my hands, smiling fondly. "Everything I have I've always shared with you."
"Even some things I did not necessarily want."
I released him. "I never actually made you wear the dress! I only threatened."
He gave me an expression to show that the threat had stuck and returned to the table. I followed, helping myself to a slice of the fruit on his plate he hadn't eaten, my hand on his shoulder as I leaned over him to see what he was working on.
My days with Legolas proceeded much as they had before. Legolas took in and worked around unhappiness better than I did, but he remembered my preferences from the last time I had been dragged into grief and was careful not to treat me too gingerly. I loved him all the more for it, and was very careful myself in how I acted around him.
But my nights had become even worse. Elves could go for days without resting if needs must but I was struggling with more than a lack of sleep. Either Thranduil or Legolas invited me to their supper every night and we always lingered over the meal but as soon as I entered my cool home I was confined to my own solitude for the next several hours, until it was time to attend to Legolas again. I usually sank into one of my armchairs and stayed there until morning. Occasionally I found things to occupy myself with-stitching or reading or drawing something jewelry-related-but as often as not doing things with my hands didn't interest me. I went to my workshop and forge a couple of times, but for the most part that was just so I wouldn't have to sit in my house again.
"Your maid says you are not sleeping," Thranduil said one day while I was estimating a series of figures before he found their exact balances.
"My maid ought to know better," I mused, not truly caring if Thranduil had asked Linwea a question and she had answered.
"She does. I was only inferring."
I lifted my gaze and handed him the sheet of parchment with the majority of my estimates on it. "From what and for what?"
"I inquired after when might be an appropriate time to visit without disturbing you and she said she suspected any time would work."
I sighed. He wasn't taking the paper so I dropped it on top of the figures he was working on and went to one of the bookshelves across from his desk and pulled down one of the more historical tomes, documenting averages and charting their changes. "Dale's economy is strengthening."
"Well they've been there a couple decades-it should be."
"I would recommend not adjusting prices for our service agreements for another few decades-give them the chance to make sure their town will survive first."
"You may always stay here."
"I beg your pardon?"
"When you cannot sleep. We have the rooms, many of which are unoccupied."
"I have my own home."
"Which you have begun avoiding."
I sent him a gentle glare and returned the book to its shelf. "It is no concern of yours."
Thranduil stood and emerged from behind his desk. "It is of every concern to me. Your welfare is of distinct interest to my family."
"Legolas will be a hundred in less than twenty years-he does not need me to stay so close."
"It is not Legolas's needs I am trying to account for. You do not take excellent care of yourself when you are grieving, Inladris. It is for that reason I would bring you here to ensure that you or someone else is doing it properly."
"I do not need coddling!" I insisted, stepping away from him when he took a step forward.
His frown deepened. "No but apparently you do need protecting from your own family's luck."
"And moving out of my home and into yours will keep me safe?"
"It will keep you occupied for longer and allow you to sleep longer."
"You cannot make me sleep."
"No but we can keep you from being alone."
"What will that solve?"
He shrugged. "That we shall not know until you accept."
I glowered at him and left without saying goodbye.
I didn't stay for supper that night and went directly to my workshop instead. I still had some of Thranduil's silver left since I didn't always use the same varieties and smelted some of it and began drawing it into wires. Legolas came to visit me there, which surprised me. As much as we spoke of my craft he hadn't visited me here before on his own, just followed me here.
Since I was doing something that couldn't be paused at any given moment he sat at my scorched worktable-or one of them-and turned over a few of the tools there while waiting for me to finish with the wire I was on.
"Legolas," I greeted at last, "I thought I just saw you."
He ignored my light ribbing and turned in his chair, putting his elbows on his knees, fingers lacing together. They unlaced and rewound. I tried not to face him too directly, not wanting to startle his uncomfortable thoughts away. After several minutes, while I tended my blue-fringed coals, wiped soot off my wires, and checked my tools for nicks Legolas spoke. "Father says he has offered you a place in our home."
"I appreciate that you didn't say 'household'," I said with a smile. "He did. How do you feel about it?"
"I believe you would be happy there."
"What I don't understand is why he offered in the first place."
Legolas's lips pursed-he hadn't expected this response. "You and my father are very close. He only wants you to be taken care of."
"I am taken care of."
"After supper with us you spend all your nights alone. You used to spend them with Milir, Firven, or your friends. And you spend so much time with us already, you might as well be family."
"I have my own home."
"I saw what you did with that home before you left," he swiftly returned. "And you've also mourned five deaths in its rooms. To the best of our knowledge you haven't suffered any similar unhappiness in our home. Why not come? You spend so much time with us already."
"Yes but-"
"Your brother lived with a friend of his. So does a friend of mine. Most of us do not live alone. You are already uncommon."
"Most fathers and sons do not live with a family friend."
Legolas shrugged. "We are royal; we may do as we please."
This prompted a small laugh out of me. "Thankfully I am not."
"You are close."
"It would not be appropriate."
"Family doesn't stand for definitions, Inladris," he calmly told me, and for a moment I saw him at his hundredth birthday already, as fine an adult as he could be. "I would like to have a mother living in our house. Then I do not have to wait for you to arrive in the morning to ask you my questions."
My lips lifted tentatively toward a smile. "You hardly ever have questions anymore that you need me to answer, or that I can answer for you."
"I have a lot," he contradicted. "I simply do not have the time to ask you."
"Oh really." I began gently wrapping my wire into rings. "Such as what?"
"What I should do after my birthday. What to do about the people who seem to want me in their life only for my position. What to do about the women of that persuasion. How to tell genuine friends from those who only look at my title. How to help members of other races without being seen as controlling or power-seeking. To start."
I sighed heavily. "If I had known you had so many questions I would have sat you down sooner to talk about them."
"I sat myself down of my own accord."
"Oh yes." I rolled my eyes. "I apologize for forgetting."
"Stay with us, Inladris. You do not have to be alone. You are not the last of your family."
I sighed again. "Why?" I leveled a steady gaze on him, wanting to hear again his reasons, to see if they had changed.
Legolas's own gaze did not waver. "Because I want you to."
Warmth sparked in my eyes and my lips trembled together. I stepped forward so I could lay my hand against his smooth cheek. I couldn't fit his face into my palm anymore. "Oh Legolas. You cannot convince me that you are selfish."
He laid his hand over mine and smiled. "Will that alter your decision? Or shall I play the 'mother' card again?"
My lips cracked upward. "No, you have sufficiently guilted me into it even though I am well aware of what you are doing. I can't say no to those gorgeous blue eyes of yours."
"You said no to them quite habitually several years ago."
"Several years ago you thought being your father's son meant you could drink as well as he did and still live to tell of it."
"I still think I could."
"No."
"That is a yes, then?" he asked, looking up at me hopefully. "Please?"
I pressed a hand to my brow, wondering what madness I was letting myself be talked into, and nodded. "Yes, I will stay."
I came slightly hesitantly around the corner into Thranduil's office when Legolas brought me back to tell his father of his success. Thranduil's smile had a triumphant underside to it. I crossed my arms. "You already expected me to say yes eventually."
"Legolas has his father's persuasion," he said in explanation, and laid his quill in its empty well to drain. He stood. "I will organize the servants."
My brow furrowed. The corner of Legolas's mouth pulled up. "Excuse me?"
Brushing past me, laying a brief hand over mine as though in reassurance, Thranduil declared, "If you spend another sleepless night you will no longer be of any use to us. Even elves need to sleep on occasion, if not for the sheer pleasure of it." He lifted a hand to beckon for a servant passing through to another room. When the servant reached him he ducked his head to speak to him. "See to it that my lady Inladris's belongings are brought here and arranged in the southeast rooms. Today you need only bring enough for her pleasure for tonight and tomorrow. See to it that you inform her maid before taking her belongings. She may object."
"Wait," I called out as the servant turned to briskly depart. "Wait for me. There are some things that must be very particularly packed."
"Must they be packed tonight?" Thranduil inquired. "I was thinking more along the lines of a change of clothes for the morning."
I glanced at him over my shoulder. Something in my expression caught Legolas's expression and he frowned. "No. They needn't be packed tonight. But even you do not possess the power to give me enough to do to allow me to sleep."
"Shall I come with you?" Legolas asked.
"No, honeycomb, but thank you."
"Has she ever called you by the same endearment twice?" Thranduil lightly asked as I turned away.
"Not that I can recall."
"How creative."
I spent the next several hours carrying fragile items back and forth between our two homes, one of which would soon no longer be mine, and the other soon newly would be. When the servants' other duties were finished, as well as their required time, a few stayed to help me a little longer, expecting me to soon cease my work as well. They dismissed themselves personally when each went home to his or her own friends or families. I continued walking back and forth between the two residences, my most precious valuables cradled in my arms, until well into the night. At last Thranduil met me outside the door wearing a scowl.
"The purpose of extending you a place in our home was to give you a place to rest peacefully."
"Trading one bed for another will not solve my problems, Thranduil," I reminded him, letting him open the door for me.
"You have not felt our beds, you cannot possibly know."
"Offering me a place to stay with fewer cold memories does not take the memories away," I pressed. Thranduil opened the door to my rooms and I passed him to settle the silver, bejeweled peacock I had made myself on top of the dresser. It carried a small mirror in its beak.
"Have you tried?"
I adjusted the stance of the peacock a few times, my throat tightening before my hands did. "One cannot clear a flood that has already arrived."
He nodded. "We will do anything we can to prevent you from drowning."
I swallowed, and looked up at him, voice constricted. "Don't worry. There are two men here I still must look after. Not all of my love is lost yet." I reached up and laid my hand against his cheek, just as I had done earlier with his son. "Do not ever let me lose you too. Either of you. There is a limit just off my toes of what I can lose before falling myself."
Thranduil's gaze, so often aloof, was comprehending and concerned as he looked down at me. His thumb lightly brushed away a spot of dampness underneath my eye. "We will do all we can."
I shouldn't have been surprised when the dizziness set in. For three months I rested fewer than four hours a night and continued working just as hard as I always had, making jewelry when I felt the inspiration for it and cleaning all of Thranduil's copious silver when I could find nothing else to do. The inspiration for jewelry did not often come anymore. Thankfully before cleaning silver I could still reorganize Thranduil's many tall bookcases, and when I found books that had aged poorly or begun to fade I pulled them down and did what I could for them. I restitched and pasted covers back on or pages back in as well as rewriting pages with ink that had begun to fade.
My eyes began to ache from the strain of sitting up in low light for long hours. Elves could see in the dark but after a while even we succumbed to physical pains. Immortal we were intended to be, but invulnerable we were not. Thranduil was the first to glower at the darkening skin underneath my eyes, but I glowered back and glowered darker, and even though I was the first to look away he didn't make audible his disapprovals and concerns. I knew what they were. I just didn't want to hear them. He knew all of this. We both knew each others' sides; we had already argued them more than once. Eventually we stopped arguing. I promised him I would be fine.
All I needed was time. Since there was no expiration date on my body I had as much as I could need.
A day came when my insides had darkened to match the ripples beneath my eyes. I could feel my bones turning gray. I only had a few seconds of warning but I didn't realize what the warning was for. I stood from finishing stitching a worn out cover and my mind stayed behind in the chair. The walls swirled around me and the floor dipped. My knees were suddenly bruised and then my hands and shoulders almost simultaneously. And then all I saw was the ceiling.
(pg77)
> from Moral - Robert Frost
Last Edit: 2 January 2014
(Bre2333 has made my phone buzz six times in the last hour. So thank you very much! Now that I figured out why my phone is buzzing.)