My king Thranduil was… flustered. I felt a little strange saying that, of course, but it was truth, even if… unprecedented. Rather than sitting calmly in his throne room as he normally did, he was pacing constantly, glaring at anyone who happened to come across him, his expression dark and dangerous.
I'd never seen him act that way before, and even Prince Legolas seemed faintly fearful for his father's state, something I'd seen happen only very rarely since his youth. I'd even caught him spending days inside, near the throne room, when he could've been out hunting with the girl Tauriel, and that truly was something I'd never imagined occurring. Eventually it grew so awful that he couldn't even bring himself to sit, instead spending his days lurking near the dungeon door, suffering and anger blatant on his face where before I'd only ever seen blank indifference.
"My Lord Thranduil?" I finally asked him, and he hummed in response, gaze fixed on the door to the dungeons as if it held the secret to his madness. "You are not… acting like yourself. Many of your guard, myself included, are worried over you; your son is as well, I'm certain. May I enquire as to what is bothering you so?" He actually laughed, low and faint, still not looking at me. I'd never heard him laugh before, and if it always sounded such, I wasn't entirely sure that I even wanted to hear it more often.
"Can you not tell? You are wedded, are you not?" Oh, dear; I could very well understand his distress, then, if what I thought he was implying was correct. When an elf is near the being they are meant to spend their lives with, they grow… bothered, I suppose is the least offensive word. Some men have even said that we lose our elfishness in such cases, most especially when the other being is not an elf. For Thranduil's One to be a dwarf… the mere idea could set any elf to gagging in disgust.
"One of them, King?" He tightened his lips, crossing his arms harshly.
"You think I am pleased about that? Yet there is no mistaking it. I feel as I did when, so many years ago, I met my wife. I had thought I would never feel this way again, yet it seems I was given another name to bear, this one a torment rather than a blessing." I coughed, quiet, not quite able to look him in the face.
"So you plan to… to confront them? To see which one it is?" He nodded.
"Yes. You must know I cannot ignore it." I did, but I could see on his face that he wouldn't relish in me saying so, just then. I bowed instead, slowly moving away and hoping I could find anything else to do, yet he caught me by the arm, jaw clenched, and shook his head. "No. You come with me, to make sure I do not slay them for this." As if any of them would be pleased about it either, especially given that dwarves suffered from a similar ailment when their One was near; whoever was to belong to my king would be feeling this fiercely as well. I supposed I could only hope, for both the sake of the dwarves and my king, that his One was not found to be their king Thorin. I could tell that Thranduil was hoping the same as he threw open the dungeon door and marched down the long, narrow stairs with me at his back, nervous over the outcome of the upcoming conversations.
Thranduil walked slowly, eyes lidded and glinting like coins in the darkness. I could hear the dwarves even from near the top of the stairwell, a large cluster of them apparently joining together in some lively tune to keep their spirits up. Thranduil looked around as we neared the first of the occupied cells, though if the tales I had heard were true, he saw little, being blinded in one eye from some prior battle I hadn't been alive to see. I assumed he was letting his heart lead him, tug him to whichever of the dwarves it was that had been tied to him by fate's fickle hands.
I half expected him to pause by the cells of the two younglings of Durin's blood, the brothers who had desperately refused to be parted from one another. I had been surprised, a little, by the kindness of the guards in heeding their whims and letting them share a cell, but I supposed they'd felt pity. The two were, after all, scarcely more than children. They jeered at us like adults, though, like they were the rulers and not the prisoners when we passed, leaving cell after cell full of dwarves in our wake as he strode deeper into the dungeons. My worry mounted the nearer we drew to Thorin Oakenshield's separate cell, and I could see my king growing steadily more edgy as well, his expression growing ever more taut, eyes half-pained. When we passed the last occupied cell before Oakenshield's I almost thought I saw him suppress a scream.
"I felt nothing when he was brought here," he said, "nothing but disgust at what he would do, at the devastation that would be wrought if the things I know he plans were done." I said nothing because I knew he would know the only answer I could give; the effect was not always, or even often, immediate. His hand twitched towards his chest, towards his heart, where I knew he would be aching, as we grew ever closer to Thorin's cell.
Voices sounded whisperingly down the hall, one obviously Thorin's, low and gravely and likely desperate for water, and the other quieter, unfamiliar. My king's eyes went narrow and he strode forward faster, myself actually struggling to keep up. I almost felt my own heart stop at what we found, though; Thorin was alone, leaning against the wall of his cell and staring blankly at the opposite wall. His eyes flashed to us as soon as we were in sight, though, and he wiped his mouth with his sleeve, standing as if to greet us.
My king stood before him stiffly, mouth turned down in a harsh frown, and Oakenshield only raised one thick brow. They were not acting like two who were destined for one another, to be certain. I stood slightly away and prayed only that they did not try to fight through the bars.
"Who was here, Oakenshield?" Thranduil questioned, voice flat, and I heard something like footsteps going down a nearby hall. I and Thranduil both turned to face the noise and saw nothing but empty air. Thorin's lips actually turned upwards for a split second, a smug smirk he had no right to don.
"I am alone, elf, just as you desired me to be. Who could reach me in the depths of your dungeon?" His voice sounded clearer than it had before; whoever had been here had brought him water. Thranduil stepped forward, curling his fist in the dwarf's coat, expression darkening even further with rage. Oh, no; knowledge hit me suddenly, unwelcome and worrying. Thranduil's One was not a dwarf, or at least not a dwarf we'd caught; it was whoever had been here with Thorin.
"I heard you speaking to someone, dwarf. Who was it? Who did my hunters not find? Who have you collected so competent as to live through the Mirkwood alone and break into my dungeons?" Oakenshield actually smiled, almost teasing and not even bothering to react to the tight hold Thranduil had on him.
"Who indeed? You know who can enter and leave your dungeons better than I, elf lord." My king flashed teeth, anger like I'd never seen darkening his gaze as he shoved the dwarf away.
"I will find him, dwarf, and when I do, you will regret not telling me where he hides and who he is." Oakenshield only laughed, cracked lips splitting into a wild grin.
"I know not of who you speak, elf lord; I am alone."
"Yet your voice is new with water and your belly sated when I have sent no one yet to bring you food or drink today."
"I am of hardier stock than your folk, elf, and I have practice going without." Thranduil didn't believe him, but then he didn't seem to really be making any attempt to be believed; he knew well enough that we'd heard a voice not his own. My lord turned, suddenly, sweeping down the hallway where we'd heard the steps, and I followed as best as I could manage, hoping against hope that I could manage to hold him back if Thorin's mad laughter incited him to turn back around and kill the caged dwarf where he stood.
It seemed like my worry was unfounded, though; I should've suspected. Even like this, suffering from the knowledge of his One being so close, Thranduil had more self-control than most. Still, he marched down the hallway like a man possessed, moving through the dark halls with practiced ease not even the most seasoned dungeon guards possessed. Always I felt as if we were moving towards something or someone, and periodically I even thought I heard breathing, desperate pattering footsteps too light to belong to a dwarf and just a little too stumbling to be an elf.
"Thranduil, my lord?" I eventually had to ask, and he hushed me immediately, still frowning.
"I feel you here, little thing; you hide well in your shadows, but you cannot hide from one who needs no sight to see. Show yourself, and I will not harm you." Quick breath; I could hear it now that I was really paying attention, though it was faint and I could've easily mistaken it for Thranduil's if not for how panicked it sounded. I heard clothing rustle a few feet beside me and my hand shot out reflexively, closing around something solid that felt like hair. My king gave me a smile, almost kind, and settled his hand beside mine, brushing my own hold away. The breath grew quicker and Thranduil crouched as if looking into the creature's face.
"What is this?" I asked, almost to myself, and as such I received no answer.
"Still you refuse to show yourself, even when you are so undoubtedly here?" There was an uncommon fondness to Thranduil's voice, one I'd only heard before when he spoke to his son. Yes, whatever this thing was, it was certainly my lord's one. "Fine; I do not demand you show yourself to me yet, alright? If you would only speak, I would be pleased." A deep breath from the empty place on which Thranduil had settled his hand, and then… then a voice, the voice we'd heard by Thorin's cell, a kind, soft, proper voice, and certainly not a dwarven one.
"What… what would you have me say?" Fear tinged the voice; I could understand that. Periodically, Thranduil frightened me as well. He was… a deadly foe, to be sure, and sometimes even a deadly ally. My king chuckled, faint, his face taking on a distinctly pleased cast.
"Your name, for a start. What you are, why you travelled here with dwarves, how you survived the forest, how you entered my dungeons, how you hide yourself so."
"I am… my name is Bilbo. I am a hobbit, from the Shire. The rest… that isn't so simple to explain, and I would rather not when my friends are being held captive here." Very brave, especially for a hobbit, if that was truly what it was. I'd never seen one myself, and I'd been told that they never left their pleasant Shire. If this one had, and had done so with knowledge of where it was going and what it was doing, it was a special thing indeed. Thranduil smiled kindly, comfortingly, seeming to stroke the creature's invisible hair, and nodded.
"I cannot set them free, but I can give better accommodations, at least for a time, until I am given a real answer as to your reasons for being in my forest. Will you show yourself to me now, with that promise?" Silence, for a moment, and still no sign of the hidden creature who called itself Bilbo and who already had my lord wrapped tight around its little finger. I wondered if hobbits had Ones, if it could feel the same draw towards my king that my king felt towards him.
"How do I believe you? You have no… no love for dwarves." He shrugged.
"I do not, and yet you interest me. I am willing to do much for those things that I find interesting after so many years of knowing so much and seeing so little new. Besides, I am a king and I am an elf; I do not break my word once I have given it. Show yourself to me and talk to me and I will give them a better place to rest their heads and good food to eat and wine to drink. They will stay here as my guests rather than my prisoners, only as guests who cannot yet leave." Another quick period of silence, and then it appeared, the hobbit, as if it had always been there.
Truly, it was very… pretty, I supposed, if in a sort of homely way. It had honey colored hair, curled but travel-dirty, and a fair, soft-featured face with delicately pointed ears that were reminiscent of those of my own people. Its clothes were once fine, surely, but now were torn and tattered and just as filthy as the dwarves' things. My king's fingers slid down to its jaw and lifted its face to look at him, then smiled again, sweet as I'd ever seen him.
"My king, surely-," I tried, but he only hushed me again, gaze fixed on the little creature before him.
"Come, little one. Let us set your dwarves free, and then you and I shall go to my throne room and speak, yes? I think we have much to discuss." Oh, but that was certainly the truth. I swallowed, unsure of how the day had come to this, unsure of what any of this would mean for the coming months and years. Yet there was little I could do, in any case; I was but a guard, and Thranduil my king. If this was to be his One, I could do nothing but support it and bow as I always had before.