Thranduil Part 4
Thranduil felt as if he was standing guard, as if his staying up late into the night despite all the stresses a soak and nap would relieve him of was actually helping somebody.
Or maybe it was.
Legolas had stayed with Tauriel for near on three weeks now, hardly getting much sleep and food himself. As her date approached, Tauriel became more and more anxious and nervous. Not to mention scared.
Thranduil's son was out, bathing and shoving his face with food. Tauriel napped on a rug in front of one of the very few hearths that existed, a blanket up around her shoulders. She was shivering wildly, and the fire was turning to ashes.
Thranduil strode down to the fire and put a few more dead logs from the burned trees to invoke the flame.
The princess murmured softly and rubbed her eye, getting up on the opposite elbow. "Legolas?"
Thranduil noticed her voice was faint and soft instead of powerful and commanding. "No." He replied sadly. She didn't look to good.
"Where is he?" Tauriel asked, sitting and trying to stand up and nearly falling, if Thranduil hadn't been there to catch her.
"He just went to bathe and feast. He will be back." Thranduil whispered, laying her back down and covering her with the blanket. She was shaking and trembling, but wisps of red hair that fell from a messy, off-hand braid clung to her brow and neck, plastered down with sweat. Her eyes were wide and her pupils had mostly taken over the green.
Tauriel fought to sit up, but looked about ready to loose dinner. Thranduil sat down and put an arm around her shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Tauriel shook her head. "No." Her jaw was set firm, as if to hide a nervous clacking. "I'm not okay. I'm scared."
Thranduil nodded. "I know. If it makes you feel any better, I'm scared too. I was scared when Legolas was born."
"You were?" Tauriel asked, childlike in her need to be comforted. Thranduil could imagine Arwen was like that in her last days.
"Yeah. I can't imagine what my wife was going through."
Tauriel snorted. Thranduil himself fought back a snort of his own at her snort. She was so endearing. It was easy to see how Legolas had fallen in love. "One quick question."
"Hmm?" Tauriel looked at him, her large eyes a little terrifying in the partial darkness.
"How old are you?"
Tauriel stared into the flames, considering the answer carefully. "I'm not sure."
Thranduil felt a pang of sadness for her. She was young enough that she shouldn't have forgotten, or so it seemed. The king knew all about forgetting. All about how much it hurt. He was sure Legolas did too.
Thranduil stood and went to look out the door to check for Legolas when the boy appeared. Tauriel seemed glad at his returning.
The prince sat down next to his princess, and she nuzzled up against him gently, and Legolas opened his arms for her, accepting her into his chest.
It was easy for Thranduil to lose time, and lose it he did. It felt as if one moment he had been watching them in the dark, Legolas holding his lover to his chest, the next moment the late morning light was filtering through many trees.
The day went by quickly, and the first half of the night as well.
The moon was high in the sky, the time must have been around high night, when Legolas ran for a healer.
Tauriel was panting and shivering and sweating at the same time, a groan escaping from her lips now and again.
Legolas had her head in his lap, holding one of her hands and holding a comforting hand on one shoulder.
Tears of pain ran down her cheeks, whimpers escaping through clenched teeth unbidden. Thranduil remembered the birth of Legolas. That was the one day he'd counted the hours. There had been eight, full of blood and whimpering and crying, ending in the screaming of both his wife and the new born. But when the deed had been done, he'd pulled her up to sit against him instead of lay, and she laughed and smiled at the babe that squalled.
Legolas had been a beautiful child, strong and nearly always hungry, so it seemed. His large eyes seemed to look into his father's soul even then. His tiny hands had reached up and poked him in the eye. Elerrian had thought that was the funniest thing ever. Thranduil had laughed as he rubbed the pain out of his eye.
Elerrian had done well. Birthing and raising Legolas, before she'd died. Something inside Thranduil told him Tauriel would do well where Elerrian had sadly failed. She wouldn't just ride off for revenge and leave a young child behind without so much as longing in her heart. Tauriel would lend everything to her child, and the kid would grow up big and strong, just like Legolas did.
Not even the soon-to-be mothers' shrieks could drown out his thoughts about the future. The future he wouldn't see, couldn't see.
He would hold the newborn babe, Thranduil decided. He would wait for three days, and like his wife, ride off to his death in the dark, where no one could stop him or question him. Or beg him. Because if someone begged him to stay, just like he'd begged Elerrian, he'd stay. His wife sure didn't.
Legolas was singing to Tauriel gently in elvish, trying to get her to calm down. For once, it didn't work very well.
Childbirth was the one pain no elf ever managed to escape. Eternity was a long time to stay a maid. The girls usually found someone, had a child, and found other things to do with their lives. Eternity was a long time to stay pure of love and drink and pleasure. Thranduil knew that's what cracked Elerrian eventually.
'Life is too long to deprive oneself of pleasure, Thranduil. I'm surprised you didn't know this already.' She'd told him once, before smothering herself against him, and both elves had tumbled into passion and nothingness together.
Even the memories made Thranduil blush, because every time he would realize she was so right, but also gone. Each memory burned like fire when he remembered the body he could no longer hold tight in joy or passion or sorrow.
Her cloak and body- what few scraps of skin and muscle that managed to still cling to the bones- had been burned and buried long ago.
Moisture came unwanted to his eyes, but Thranduil quickly brushed the water away before it could fall and betray him.
This was supposed to be a happy occasion. Though now it was just screams and blood, it would soon become another child, another prince or princess.
"Almost there." The words floated to Thranduil's ears through the fray of the dim room. Tauriel's panting lessened slowly, her hands unclenched a little more every moment, and her eyes began to clear. Tears stop streaming from her eyes. Her screams had been reduced to whimpers, then quickly became naught but distressed murmurs.
It was not a long wait before the healer whispered, "Good. It's over. Good."
Tauriel's breathing deepened, and the squalling of a newborn being shoved into the harsh world and breathing a first breath of air in a sudden rush burst forth.
Legolas scooted back against the wall at a more direct angle, and helped drag Tauriel to a sitting position.
Red swaddling clothes told Thranduil the child was a girl, and the king smiled despite himself. It had been since his grandmother that Mirkwood had had a queen.
Legolas wrapped his arms around his lover, his hands clasping underneath her own arms on her stomach.
The babe was experiencing its first pain; the first breath and realization of hunger. Thranduil couldn't help but wonder what the child's last pain would be.
Her mother looked down at her with love and relief and joy in her eyes as the babe stopped squalling for the ability to feed. Legolas kissed the side of Tauriel's face, and she smiled, turning slightly to meet him.
"I think Sólia." Legolas whispered, pulling back the red hair that had fallen from her braid. Thranduil remembered naming Legolas.
Tauriel smiled down at the child, and giggled when she stopped feasting to hiccup. "Sólia. I like that." The new mother shifted and Legolas bent over, kissing his daughter's head gently.
It was so sweet it almost burned Thranduil. Sólia. The king watched as his granddaughter feasted and eventually fell asleep, Tauriel in turn, and Legolas himself eventually drifting away.
The next day was filled with laughter as Legolas held his babe for the first time, swearing in dwarvish when the little girl pulled out some hairs.
Thranduil watched as the new parents cradled Sólia gently, Tauriel when the babe fed and slept, Legolas near every other moment. Those moments were sparse, but Legolas didn't seem to mind. The prince seemed to like watching Tauriel care for the child more.
"She is so fearsome on the battlefield, sometimes even in the training hall. She is fearsome and beautiful." Legolas said. "She is so aggressive in everything she does, talking, eating, fighting, loving. It is sometimes hard to see her gentle. But gentle she is, though she swears she isn't. Sólia brings out the mother Tauriel sometimes forgets that lives inside of her."
Thranduil nodded. It was nice. She held her child so gently, smiled down so lovingly, laughed so loudly. Sólia was like a sweet, but this one would never be left behind and forgotten.
The day before Thranduil had promised to go, Tauriel called him up. Legolas was off bathing after having gone hours holding Sólia whilst Tauriel had been away.
"I think it's time Sólia sees her grandfather's face." Tauriel smiled. The king sat down awkwardly next to her, and took the child gingerly.
"It's been thousands of years since I held my own child. He was so little, just like you." Thranduil told Sólia. The king knew the babe couldn't understand, but right then it didn't matter. Huge green eyes looked up at him. "My own child was more interested in crying then feeding. I must say, I am glad you feed more, but your mother might feel differently." Thranduil smiled.
Sólia's small hands wavered in the air, her small fingers reached up and found his eye. Thranduil shut the eye, feigning bitterness, and the little girl laughed heartily. "Not you too!" Thranduil gasped in a faked shocked voice. Sólia liked nothing more.
The mindset of new babes would always baffle Thranduil, who was so old himself. Sometimes, you didn't need to understand to love, and that's how Thranduil felt at that moment. "You're so beautiful."
Thranduil held the babe until she squirmed, clearly hungry. Thranduil felt his face become wet as he handed Sólia back. He held his grandchild for a fleeting ten minutes. That would be all he would get. Forever.
"Goodbye, Sólia."
