THE SONGS OF SWORDS
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Rating: K+.
Summary: In King Thranduil's Halls, a minstrel in making witnesses a dance he did not expect to see; companionship between the King and the advisor.
This is NOT romance. It should not be taken as such. Kindly respect this viewpoint.
All of my stories are interconnected, but you do not need to read one to understand the other.
~S~
Thranduil's Halls,
Third Age,
The hall he had chosen for some solitude was one of the many dining halls that held the feast barely a few hours ago. The tables were cleaned, the floors swept, the decorations gone from their place such that there was no sign left that the hall was even used. The silence was welcoming, but for the apprentice training to be a minstrel, it brought him nothing.
He was supposed to come up with a melody, a simple one, for his mentor. But for the past few weeks he was unable to produce even a few melodious notes. His inspiration had left him. He had hoped the feast, the dancing, the singing and the laughter would jostle his thoughts a bit but it did nothing but frustrate him even more. with a sigh, he let the empty parchment fall from his lap and he moodily sat it aside with his quill and inkpot. He looked around him. The Elves had part just a few hours before dawn for sleep. The hall was dimly lit with scattered torches in their brackets. The chandeliers were unlit, leaving the centre of the hall mostly dark. The pillars were circular, widening at the top and the bottom, with alternating colours of dark green and brown. In the light, the colours gave homage to the forest they lived in, but in the dark, the colours gave the hall a sinister look… just like the forest they lived in.
He heard the door groan open and shut. Two pairs of footsteps echoed through the Hall. He raised his head slightly, wondering who could possibly be awake at this time in the night.
His jaw dropped slightly when he saw King Thranduil walk to the middle of the Hall. Thorontur followed him closely. It was often a running jest among the people that Thorontur followed the King like a shadow followed its owner, but the jest always had a tone of respect and awe mixed in it. These were two figures that, when standing side by side, cut an impressive portrait.
"Ready?" The King asked, turning to face his advisor. Thorontur only nodded once silently. It was then the apprentice realized they were both carrying swords- real swords. They drew out their swords in a single, united motion. The blades practically sang as they left their sheaths. Entranced, he watched them. They didn't seem to notice his presence; they looked too preoccupied to do so.
The King and the advisor took guard positions opposite to one another. In the beginning they only circled before Thorontur lunged. The King parried his sword easily and feinted to the advisor's left before moving to his right. Thorontur stepped back and swiped his sword for Thranduil's unprotected side. They were not dressed in the ceremonial clothing for the feast but in simple shirt and trousers. He noticed both of them were bare-footed, their feet moving soundlessly over the tiles as they mapped out the complex footwork. Both the King and the advisor had most of their hair tied back from their face, enabling them free and complete vision. Both of them had looks of concentration over their faces.
Where one moved, the other either blocked or stepped aside. It was a like a complex dance that was enthralling to watch. He was simply speechless. At times, he felt that they toyed with one another, trying to play the other for a fool before the swordplay became more heated. It alternated that most of the time, and from the looks of it, this wasn't the first time the pair had played with real swords in the dead of the night.
They had no clear boundaries of how much they would move. Often they came dangerously close to his hiding place to the point the apprentice half-feared he would be found out. The King was not stern but he did not want to test his temper for having found him in what evidently was a private moment, not to be shared with the public. The King and his advisor often stepped into the patches of torchlight before entering the darker parts of the hall. Their hair gleamed in the light, and their blades reflected the light to the dark spots of the hall from time to time. A painter could paint the wondrous spectacle and freeze the moment on a canvas.
At last they stopped when the King dislodged and stepped back, his free hand raised in a fist. He waited a moment until the message sunk into his advisor before dropping his guard and standing normally, his sword's tip touching the floor. Both were breathing heavily.
Thranduil re-sheathed his sword and after a while Thorontur did the same. The advisor wordlessly produced a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to the King. Thranduil lightly dabbed it over his forehead before returning it to the advisor.
"And people say you hate to dance," Thorontur said, one corner of his mouth pulled up in a wry grin. He pressed his hands on the handkerchief before returning it to his pocket. The King laughed merrily.
"Don't ruin my reputation." He commented. "I still hate dancing."
"Humph, I would not count too much on it. Now sleep. We have much to do." The voice faded away as they neared the door. He heard the door open.
"I could hardly hear you sometimes, Thorontur…"
Silence followed, but his head was humming.
oOo
His fingers played expertly over the harp, the nimble fingers quickly producing two different sets of notes, each changing like waves but very different from one another. They were playful at times, chasing one another, before turning the tides and becoming more melancholy. At times, he let them unite, before splitting apart and opposing one another again. In the beginning, he had noticed his master's frown of displeasure, but it slowly smoothed the more he played and the more his mentor understood what he had done. At last the final notes rang out before dying into a long, tense silence.
"It is certainly different," the mentor said at last. The air of their small room smelled of ink and parchment from the books around them. "What you have done is… unconventional, but the tunes mix together well. You have accomplished something I intended to teach you later, I admit, the way of two tunes played together by one set of hands. What inspired you?"
He flushed. Something niggled in his mind before his mouth opened, however. The army of Greenwood always kept their secrets to themselves, and somehow, he felt that the King and Lord Thorontur would not be pleased to have something that they obviously treasured amongst themselves as two comrades shared with others.
"A dance two nights ago," he said, still naming the feast after which he had witnessed the swordplay.
"Ah, yes." The mentor nodded. "Well, I do not know how you gleaned the tune from there, but it is well done. You could tweak it a little bit more to perfect it, which I will show you later. But for now, let us move on to your next set of lessons…"
Later, after he placed the parchment with his mentor's corrections of his tune, he had to admit that the newer, improved piece sounded better, but something about the older version was much more… natural. Like the swordplay, it toyed, feinted, blocked, and united before shifting apart.
He did not realize he had interpreted the King and his advisor's relationship in music.
~S~
Author's Note:
Edited and revised 7/2/2016.