"Did Legolas always beat you at cards?"

Spring was beginning to creep upon them, but Tauriel was still grateful for the candles flickering on the table as she shuffled. She'd always preferred the daytime to night.

Six out of the last eight hands had been hers and, and, as she laid the cards out for the ninth time, she had the sense that she would keep on winning. Thranduil was looking at her blankly, and she realised neither of them had spoken of Legolas for several weeks. They worked, and every evening they played cards until Thranduil decided he could sleep, and that had been the sum of their interaction. Tauriel was so often on patrol, curbing the spiders, which still bred faster than ever, that she had little time to think. But the evenings were different; with Thranduil so close, and his hair the same colour as Legolas's, it was almost impossible not to have the subject on her mind.

"Sometimes he let me win." Thranduil's tone was measured; his hands weren't quite trembling, but they didn't look steady either. "You do not. I can always tell."

Tauriel shrugged. "I see no point in it. You are not playing because you want to win."

Thranduil inclined his head, and laid a card on the table. "Was it painful for him, in the end?"

Tauriel blinked; though she knew exactly what he was asking, she wasn't sure she should answer. She had not allowed herself to dwell on that night for a long time, and she was far from sure whether it was a good idea to tell Thranduil what she'd seen.

Then again, she did not know how much he had already heard. Surely, he would be more at ease knowing the plain truth, rather than whispers and rumours.

"It was sudden," she said. "He rescued someone from the town, and it delayed him. By the time he reached the dock, the town was already ablaze, and when he got ready to jump into the lake…" She felt her stomach flex with panic, but forced the sensation away. "He'd been hurt; he stumbled. It was only a moment, but…it was enough for the dragon. I was not expecting it. I do not think he was either."

"It is never expected." Thranduil's mouth was pressed very small, and his hands were definitely shaking now, but his eyes were dry and he kept playing his cards with feverish vigour as he spoke. "When…when she…when she…I was so certain she was close behind. That I would be able to catch her." He snorted, and the sound chilled Tauriel to the bone. "You always, always, think that you can do something."

Tauriel reached out and adjusted the candle, casting the light further and resisting the urge to slam something over Thranduil's hands, to stop the awful trembling. "I know." Her breaths came lightly, but the candle still flickered. She wanted to tell him that he was not the only soldier; that she had seen Legolas, and others die. But he already knew that. She did not need to remind him. "I know."


Elrond had been right; Thranduil worked. And worked. And worked, until Tauriel was convinced that he could not possibly continue functioning. He always proved her wrong. He never stopped, except for their card games, and they were always late at night. He attended every council, used up quills and ink like there was a dangerous excess of them, and took his meals in his room.

Tauriel made an effort to play cards as long as possible, but she had her own duties to attend to, and sometimes she was away, or in no state to join him. Those nights, she was certain he stayed up all night.

"You need to rest," she ventured one day when she reported to him in the throne room. "You are working too hard."

"I am the king," Thranduil murmured, picking up yet another sheaf of messages. "It is expected."

"Not to this extent."

Something flashed in his eyes, and she didn't push the matter further until the same evening, when she knocked on his chamber doors to find him with his fingertips pressed to the bridge of his nose and papers beginning to creep from the desk to the floor and the bed. There was a flask of wine at his left hand, but no sign of a meal, and she was sure he had not eaten.

"Is it urgent?" he murmured, shuffling papers and pressing his fingertips deeper into his skin. He looked very pale.

Tauriel blinked. "It is late. I thought…"

Thranduil's eyes flicked to the cards. "Not tonight." He scratched something out with his quill and reached for the wine, wincing as he swallowed. "I am busy."

So far, she had let the amount of work he was doing slide, because he had put aside the hour or so every evening they played together. Even if he did not sleep – and she knew there was no way of forcing that – he allowed his mind to rest, even for a short time.

"I must insist."

Thranduil snorted. "You insist?" He didn't even look up from the papers, drinking again as he wrote. "I am sure you have better things to do with your time."

Tauriel sighed, wondering if she should get angry, but decided there would be no benefit to it. "Please. You must rest."

"I cannot." At last, he raised his head. There was a red imprint on his cheek where his hand had been leaning against it.

"You can, if only you would let yourself."

She had not expected him to get angry, and was unprepared when he kicked the chair back with a clatter and got to his feet, unsteady and shaking – she wondered just how much he'd had to drink.

"Do not presume you know my mind, Tauriel, simply because we have spent time together. The only ones who truly knew me are both dead."

He was trying to intimidate her, trying to infuriate her so that she would leave him, but she wouldn't be tricked into it. Not when it was so against his own interests.

"I am not trying to be Legolas. Or your wife."

"Then do not tell me what to do as if you know what is best for me."

"You must allow yourself time to breathe, or the grief will catch up with you as soon as you cannot carry on."

Thranduil let out a hollow laugh. "I have carried on before, and I will do it again." He swept a hand across the room. "Leave me."

"No." There was no hesitation in her voice.

Thranduil's face turned to thunder, and he swept the inkpot to the floor with a crash, shattering it. "I said-"

"And I say, I will not!"

He advanced on her, but she did not flinch – even incensed, he had no heart in him to injure her, and they both knew it. When she made no sign of retreat, the knowledge seemed to hit him, and he span on his heel instead, seizing a quill and crushing it between his fingers until his knuckles were white.

"Why will you not leave?" he murmured, feverish and trembling. "Just…leave."

"I cannot."

"Why not?"
"Because you are not the only one who has lost someone!"

It hit her, then, how little she had allowed herself to grieve for Legolas, and even less for Kili and the others; it had moved too fast, she had been too focused on waking Thranduil, and since then she had had her duties to the soldiers and to him, to try and stop him doing exactly what he was doing right now, and it wasn't fair, none of it was fair. She had tried so hard, and it was all coming to naught in her hands.

She was crying. She hadn't cried since the first night in Greenwood, after the battle.

"I have lost my son." Thranduil sank back into the chair, shoulders shaking and face grey, and stared at the tears rolling down her cheeks – she was sure his own were not far away, but he pressed a hand to his eyes, obscuring them. "I have lost my son."

"I am not trying to tell you that I can understand." Tauriel straightened, trying to ignore the ink speckled on her ankles. "But I lost a friend. And Greenwood lost a prince." She knew the comparisons were uneven, but she made them all the same, because he had to hear her out. "You are not alone."

"I told him that I would let no evil come to him after his mother died – that I would protect him."

"But you were not there." She hesitated a moment. "I was the one who led him to Laketown. I blame…I blamed myself." She breathed. "But I had to make peace with it, or I would have gone mad. If Legolas had lived, he would have been so angry, to see us fault ourselves. You especially. He loved you very much."

Thranduil raised his head; his palm was wet with tears. "I wanted to blame you, when you first gave me the news. I wanted to…I could have killed you, but I could not make myself believe he would have gone if he did not truly want to."

Tauriel found another chair and fell into it. "If you cannot blame me, then for all purposes you should not be able to blame yourself." She put a hand on his shoulder, surprised when he made no attempt to shrug her off. "You have not lost everyone who cares about you. The whole of Greenwood cares for you, even if you do not let them see how much you need them. There is Elrond, though you pushed him away. And myself."

Thranduil smirked. "You are as stubborn as he was."

"Yes," she said quietly, letting out a low laugh that she knew sounded false. It was the best she could do. Gently, she pulled the pile of paper and the wine well out of Thranduil's reach. "This will wait until tomorrow."

They sat in silence for a long while, breathing softly, until the dawn began to creep through the windows.


Thranduil had put off going to the tree because he had forced himself to believe that his work was more important, but once Tauriel had put an end to that, the thought weighed on his mind. He should have gone a long time ago.

He'd been sitting in a chair for at least three hours since darkness had fallen. Tauriel had not come to see him yet; most likely, she was still on patrol.

Perhaps going would give him some peace. Perhaps it would make things worse than ever.

He would go anyway. He owed Legolas that much.

Thranduil pulled on his robes over his sleepwear and made for the door, passing the guards without speaking; the last thing he wanted was for them to insist on accompanying him. He had his sword, and the trees had been quieter of late. On the path, he had little to fear.

The spring breeze played around his hair as he walked carefully down a set of carven steps, lifting his robe a little to avoid tripping and sending grey moths flapping into the air like puffs of smoke. Their wings and the wind were the only sounds. It was very peaceful.

Legolas had only been small the first time they'd gone this way, and had clung to Thranduil's robes as they walked, asking questions by the dozen and leaving no time for answers before he was talking about something else, asking about the moths and the branches and the leaves and the sunlight shining onto the path. Thranduil could hear the old conversations layered over each other, carried in the breeze. The path shivered and blurred, and he forced himself to come to a halt for a moment, breathing tightly.

The tree was not far. He composed himself, lifting his head and pressing the heel of his hand to his eye, sniffing. His nose and throat were stinging, but he moved on a few paces all the same, turning his head left to right as he sought out the right place.

He couldn't find it. He walked a few metres more until he knew he had gone too far, then retraced his steps. Nothing.

Of course; they had changed the paths since Legolas had been young – had it really been so long? – and the tree now lay further back, amongst the darker branches. He looked up, but could see no cobwebs. It did not smell bad, and there was no rotting bark. It was most likely secure. He knew the spot, and he would not be far from the path. He had no light to attract danger, and he was not planning on speaking, so there would be no sound.

No twigs cracked under his feet as he walked, though his robes made a soft rustle against the undergrowth. Ferns snagged at his fingertips, and he paused a moment, allowing drops of water to run into his palm and curve down his wrist. The moon cast little light, but the raindrop still reflected a small glow. He smiled.

The tree became visible a few feet ahead, still crooked, still with low hanging boughs – try that one, Legolas, it is low enough to climb. The branches had remained thick and sturdy through the years, and the new buds were already beginning to open, like green butterflies perched on every limb.

As Thranduil made his way forwards, something changed in the air.

Since he had lost the use of one eye Thranduil had become a good listener; he made up for his blind side by training his ears to pick up the smallest of sounds. It was simply a matter of continuing to pay attention on a less conscious level. Even if his mind was occupied with other things, he always knew when someone had entered a room, no matter how quietly they tried to do it.

There was no-one entering a room now, but there was a soft clicking from someway above him. Thranduil froze, reaching for his sword.

If he had not heard it coming, the spider would have dropped directly on top of him. As it was, he had time to throw himself forwards, ducking and rolling and coming up again, robes twisted around his legs, sword drawn. The spider hissed. Thranduil feinted left, then spun to the right and sliced neatly through two of its legs. Before it could rise and shriek at him, he'd stabbed it through the eye. It died quickly, and he did not waste time looking around to check if there were more – he listened.

Clicking to the left. Thranduil twisted, hindered by his robes, and stabbed three times in rapid succession before he'd even seen the spider. He pierced an eye, but not deeply enough to do anything more than anger the creature, which attempted to rise up and trap him between its legs. He dodged backwards, yanking his hair out of the range of its sticky bristles just in time to avoid having his neck broken. The spider was screaming, obscuring the other sounds, but he was certain he heard something shudder and thud behind him as he drove forward, gritting his teeth as he forced the sword back into its eye and further, until he was up to his elbow in black blood and the spider finally, finally, dropped dead. Thranduil jerked his sword free, breathing heavily, and turned to the source of the noise he knew he'd heard before, ready to go back into battle.

There was another dead spider a few feet away, but he had not killed it.

"Tauriel?"

He knew it was her because he recognised the knife buried to the hilt in the spider's eye, but he would have been able to guess even without that – if anyone were to follow him, it would be her, because she had no respect and he had not yet told her to get some.

She came out from the trees with her hair sloppily pushed into the collar of her tunic. "Some of the guards told me you had left as I was getting back. I said I would follow; I thought you would not want an entire procession."

"I would have managed." Thranduil knew it was most likely not a lie; the spider had still been some feet from him when it had died, and he had made sure not to irreversibly tangle his sword in the body of the other. Had he been attacked, he would have had time to redirect his assault.

"I know." There was a cut on Tauriel's cheek, thin but fresh, probably a nick from a branch. It was tiny, but it made him sad; in many ways she reminded him of Legolas, and now Legolas was gone, he could not bear to see her hurt.

"Thank you."

Tauriel inclined her head. "The tree?"

"Yes."

"Legolas brought me here, once, after patrol. He said you stood beneath him, in case he fell."

Thranduil had forgotten that until she'd told him, but the words brought the memory scurrying back. "I need not have worried; he did not fall."

"He never did."

Except once, Thranduil thought, glancing down at his dripping clothes and pulling a face. It only needs to be once.

Tauriel drew back into the trees a little – Thranduil knew she would not leave him, but he did not resent her for it. If he were to have anyone watch him, it would be her. She would not interfere.

It felt wrong to go to the tree covered in blood, so he carefully peeled off the robe and approached in his simple brown tunic and trousers. The breeze was mild, and dawn beginning to creep through the branches as he sat at the foot of the tree.

There were a hundred things he wanted to say, and thousands more running through his mind, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out. The need to apologise welled in his chest, stretching into his veins until his breathing was ragged and uneven, and the water soaking into his trousers felt terribly cold, but every time he tried to speak, he stopped himself.

He could hear Legolas in the tree above him, legs wrapped around a branch as he strained to reach a moth that had settled on the edge of a leaf. He could see himself standing below, ready to catch Legolas if he fell, head tipped back, smiling as he realised his son was going to grow up a wonderful climber.

In the end, he did not apologise. He only remembered.


Thanks for reading, feedback welcome!

To be continued.