Look at that! A new chapter up within a reasonable amount of time! It's all thanks to katnor, of course, so direct your gratitude her way! Please note also that I have not one car-friendly bone in my body and Nairi's little scene with a car in this chapter is absolute nonsense made up by yours truly. (What can I say I spend my time learning Elvish instead) Tell me what you think?
Warnings: Language as usual, more in-depth drug references than seen previously, brief mention of suicide / self harm
Nairi knew something was wrong as soon as she crossed the threshold, Thranduil just behind her. She laid the sword down by the door with minimal care for where it landed, eyebrows furrowing at Legolas. "What happened?" She kicked her shoes off haphazardly, letting them thump onto the wood as she walked toward him.
The elf shook his head in agitation. "There are people talking in town, we don't know what's happening. They wouldn't speak to us."
"Well, what are they saying?" Nairi asked impatiently, crossing her dirt-smeared arms.
Tauriel walked out of the kitchen angrily, her face sharp and focused. "Deaths in Ireland. I know that's where-"
Nairi reached for the TV remote, facedown in the couch cushion, and flicked on the television, flipping through channels until she landed on one covering national news.
78 dead of unknown causes in Ireland, the bold black header read. She swallowed, watching as a brunette newscaster rehashed what was known so far about the breaking story.
"And that number is expected to rise. Authorities are investigating gas leaks and even the potential for an act of terrorism, but we have no conclusive cause of death as of right now. For those of you just joining us, Ireland is on high alert with 78 of its citizens found dead in their homes in the past two days, leaving medical examiners baffled as to a cause of death."
Nairi glanced between the elves, watching identical faces of anger and frustration. Tauriel hissed out a curse in Sindarin, shaking her head. "I thought we had more time."
"Time for what?" Nairi threw up one hand, the other firmly on her hip. "What do you know, Tauriel?"
She shook her head again. "Not enough. What I heard when I went looking for answers-I still do not know his name or what he truly wants, but I believe he is looking for the old gate back to Middle earth. And leaving death in his wake when innocent mortals cannot give him answers," she said bitterly, hands clenched into fists at her sides.
"Okay, well, can he get into Middle earth?" Nairi asked.
Legolas nodded grimly. "We don't know where the old gate is. But it exists, there is no reason he cannot find it."
Until now, Thranduil had been silent, staring at the TV screen still quietly talking in the background. "Nairi, do you have a map?" He said finally, quiet intensity in his voice.
She nodded and crossed to her computer, sitting on her ankles in the chair and opening an online map of Ireland. Nairi tensed slightly when his hands landed on the desk on either side of her, pinning her in while he leaned over her to stare at it. Some of his hair slipped onto her shoulders, silk-soft, and she resisted the sudden urge to reach up and feel it. Nairi mentally smacked herself for the train of thought, turning her attention back to the map.
"Okay, what am I looking at?" She asked after a moment, lost and now very bored with the silence. Her ankles, too, were beginning to complain from the position she was in, but moving didn't seem to be an option.
Thranduil didn't answer her. She twisted slightly in the chair to look at him, noting the way his face didn't even seem to register her. She shifted her ankles again, rocking forward to take the weight off of them, and her face brushed into that curtain of hair. Nairi sighed and moved away quickly, though still frustratingly caged by his arms, but unfortunately for her that split second had been all the time her brain needed to make note of the scent. Shut up, that's creepy, she snapped at herself, just as he moved suddenly, startling her.
Thranduil hit the screen with one finger. "There."
She zoomed in on where he'd indicated, her brow furrowing. "Wicklow Mountains? It's a national park. Only an hour out of Dublin, apparently. Why?"
Thranduil pushed off the desk and stood, leaving Nairi to hastily unwind her cramped ankles. "That is where the gate has to be. There is no other possible location in the country."
"You got all that off Google Maps?" Nairi raised a skeptical brow.
"It is the gateway to my realm," he replied with his own arched brow. "Trust me."
"Right," Nairi said sarcastically, shutting off the computer. "Deep, personal connection to your trees. Got it."
"We must go," Thranduil said abruptly, snapping the two other elves into action with his words. Nairi, though, stayed still.
"What?"
The Elvenking was already in motion, tossing words back at her over his shoulder. "We are powerless so long as we stay here." He turned to look at her, and Nairi sucked in a breath. Hie eyes were molten silver-blue, his face cut from stone, and she was sharply reminded that he wasn't human.
"Your 'boot camp' is finished. Now we hunt."
She shivered at his word choice, but glared at him nonetheless. "You have no idea what you're asking." Nairi's hands went to her hair and she sighed, pulling it tight in agitation. "You're bloody elves, no passport, no visa-and you expect us to what, hop on a plane?"
"You can take us, can you not?"
Nairi huffed exasperatedly. "Doesn't work quite like that." Blowing out her breath, she sat back down at the computer and shook the mouse until the screen lit. "I suppose-we could drive into England and take a ferry from there...but as for money and-Jesus, you don't do things by half, do you?"
Again, Nairi sighed. Three pairs of eyes were staring at her, expecting her to come up with answers, answers she didn't know she could produce. "Alright, I'm not putting any'v us through airport security-hell, some of those poor fools'd arrest me on sight." At Legolas's quirked brow, she added quickly, "Getting on a plane with drugs is actually illegal."
"At any rate, assuming my old hell car still runs, and assuming I remember which is the gas and which is the brake, I can drive us to Liverpool. From there, there's a ferry into Dublin, but you absolutely cannot look like bloody elves while you're on it, and it takes fucking forever. If we get a car in Dublin, that's an hour's drive down to the park. And that is all if we pray to every god anybody's ever believed in for luck, and we don't fuck anything up." She looked up at Thranduil, standing. "When do you want to leave?"
"As soon as you can orchestrate this." he replied brusquely, and she rolled her eyes.
"How did I know you were going to say that? Okay. Alright, good. Fine. We can-oh, fuck." She swore softly, finding no other words to express her stress level. "Tauriel, get any and all clothing you know you can fit out of my closet and pack it. I should have a duffel bag somewhere in there. Uh, there are a handful of men's flannels, they'd probably-" She trailed off, critically eyeing the blond elves. "They could fit Legolas; he'll just have to accept looking like a slightly fucked up lumberjack. Thranduil-Jesus, are your shoulders even real?" Nairi rolled her eyes, as much as her own wording as his unreasonable size. "What you wore with Sorscha-wear that. You'll all need to conceal your weapons-there's no way we're getting anywhere with those in public. Cover your ears. Do as I tell you and keep your mouths shut."
Nairi crossed the floor with a quickly stifled wince, feeling the burn in her thighs from her earlier exertion. "I need to-" she trailed off. "Fuck."
Yes, Nairi had a car. Hypothetically, it would run. She hadn't driven it in years, though, and it would be a damn miracle if she could even find the keys.
The kitchen drawers yielded nothing, so she dragged over a slightly wobbly chair and climbed on it, rising on tiptoe to rifle through the chaos in the cabinet above the stove. She tossed a stack of papers down onto the counter, watching them slide sideways, and then reached for the glinting silver she could see in the back. Her fingers closed on the keyring, the chair rocked under her feet, and Nairi had a split second to squeal before she landed, flat on her back on the kitchen floor. "Son'v a bitch!"
She hauled herself to her feet with a stung pride that hurt worse than her bruises, but with the keys clutched in her triumphant fist. Maybe, just maybe, this insanity could actually be pulled off.
An hour later, Nairi was seriously considering punching in a couple windows on the old, piece of shit Crown Victoria. She'd bought it used simply to have a means of escape in emergencies, but after an eternity under its hood, she was seriously questioning that decision. Nairi aimed a swift kick at one of the tires, spewing insults at the car and trying to wipe some of the grease off of her hands.
"By the Valar, Nairi, what-"
She looked up, staring back at Legolas in the door of the open garage, who looked, if possible, more hopelessly confused than she felt. "Son'v-a-whore car won't start," she muttered, aiming a second kick at the undercarriage. The bang was incredibly satisfying.
Legolas's lips quirked upward, reminiscent of his father but more easily forthcoming. "It is a...a mode of transportation, is it not?"
At her nod, he went on. "This...car...does not live, Nairi, therefore I fail to see how it could have had any naneth, let alone a whore."
Nairi took the two short steps to where he stood and smacked his chest, a laugh escaping her. The sound of her merriment was foreign to her ears, a ringing, clear sound that still caught her by surprise. "Oh, shut up." Nairi turned back to the car in question, squatting down beside the driver's door and tilting her head to peer underneath it.
"One thing you should know about us Scots-" she grunted, easing herself to the concrete and wriggling her head under the car. "We've got an insult for everything. An' I'm Irish too, so there's no hope at all for me to be any kind of civil."
Staring up at the underside of her rustbucket car, Nairi chewed thoughtfully on her lip. What was she supposed to be seeing here? There were all sorts of various metal parts, but she didn't for the life of her know what any of them did. Giving up, she squirmed back out and sat up, half heartedly brushing grit from her hair. What did it matter, she was already filthy.
Legolas was peering inquisitively into the open hood, and she waved at the engine. "Be my guest, I certainly don't know what the fuck's wrong with it."
She watched him cautiously unscrew a cap and lift out a thin metal stick, examining it curiously. Nairi started, curses flying from her lips as she turned in a useless circle around her garage. "For the love'v God, I forgot the oil! Bloody elf knows more about cars than me."
It took her another hour of curses and near misses with the heavy metal hood, but finally, Nairi climbed in the driver's seat and turned the key, hearing a horrible croak and then, at last, the purr of the engine. "Halle-fuckin'-lujah," she muttered, resting her head on the steering wheel in exhaustion.
After a moment, she pulled the car out onto the street and left it, unlocked with the trunk open, to return to the house. "Alright, how many things'v you fools managed to set on fire?" She called, letting the door slam behind her.
"Fewer than you, I think," Legolas returned easily, a smirk on his lips. He was standing rather helplessly in her living room, examining an armful of crumpled flannels Tauriel must have dug out of her horror-show closet.
"Fuck you," she returned with a snort, walking up to examine the clothes in his arms. One by one, Nairi shook out and held up the shirts, eventually offering him a decently sized gray one. "Leave your pants and throw that on. You won't look...terrible. And remember to cover your ears. And—"
"Yes, Naneth," he sighed, and Nairi tilted her head.
"That's twice I've heard you say that. What's it mean?"
Legolas smirked. "Naneth is the Sindarin word for mother."
Nairi shoved him as she walked by, scanning the rooms for Tauriel. "You bastard. Where's your girlfriend?"
Legolas's laughter turned into a sputtering noise that brought a wicked grin to Nairi's lips, and she continued her search, sticking her head around every corner and yelling for the elf.
"I don't even live in a big house," Nairi muttered grumpily, pushing open the bathroom door. "Tauri—sweet Christ on a fucking tricycle!"
"Are you entirely undeterred by closed doors?" Thranduil raised an eyebrow lazily, turning to face her.
"I, uh—I was just… um… fuck." She stammered out, face flushed crimson. Me. Fuck me. Goddamn. "I mean, no, I, uh—" Nairi shut up, her brain hissed desperately.
His eyes glinted, thoroughly amused by her predicament. "Yes?"
"Oh, for Christ sakes, put a goddamn shirt on!" She finally spat out, trying and failing miserably in an attempt to look casual. Normally Nairi wasn't the type to be fazed in any sort of way by a little skin, but holy mother of Mary how were his abs even real. She cleared her throat, frozen to the spot while he, mercifully, threw some loose silk shirt over his head. Nairi swallowed, her throat dry, as she watched muscles ripple in the split second before fabric covered them, though, to her simultaneous delight and dismay, not as entirely as one might hope. Jesus fucking Christ.
"I believe Tauriel is in your bedroom," he told her smoothly, breezing by with a little smirk on his lips. It took her a full minute before she peeled herself off of the wall, fanning her face, and walked into her bedroom, noting a familiar redhead still kneeling in her closet.
"Would a little organization kill you, Nairi?" Tauriel lamented with the sigh. "What were you yelling about out there?"
Nairi let herself fall face-first onto the bed. "Absolutely nothing," she mumbled into the sheets, face still burning.
"Not very convincing," Tauriel mused. She stood gracefully and set a stack of neatly folded clothes on the end of the bed, next to Nairi's prostrate form.
Nairi mumbled something unintelligible, then raised her head with a half-dazed, half-haunted expression. "Nothing," she ground out. "Move on."
Tauriel gave her a disbelieving look, but mercifully let it go. She lifted something on the floor, revealing a crumpled duffel bag, and began to neatly slide in the stacked clothes. "There is room for weapons here also."
"Right, well, go throw it in the trunk, I left it open. I'll just be a second."
Puzzlement crossed Tauriel's face, and Nairi elaborated, "The back of it...with the, uh, vertically raised door?"
When the elven woman had gone, Nairi stood and peered into her closet. After a moment of consideration, she quickly changed into her black corset top for the sake of wearing anything nicer than a three-year-old tank top, grabbed her gun to add to the duffel bag. Then, she surveyed herself in the mirror with a soft sigh.
She didn't look like herself. She didn't look like the woman she'd always known, but that wasn't what hurt. This woman staring back at her had a leather corset that fit snugly, and breasts to push up, thighs to fill out her jeans. She had hair that still ran wild around her shoulders and face, but it was softer, cleaner, no longer an uncared for rat's nest. This woman was bruised up and she had new scars, but she had new muscle to match them, and these bruises weren't from street fights and filthy, drunk men. This woman had color in her cheeks, little tan lines on her arms, enough that the blue tattoo sleeve no longer had such a haunted quality against white skin. And this woman had a light in her eyes, a foreign, bizarre glint that spoke of laughter and companionship, of energy and willpower and desire. It spoke of her new successes with blades, of jokes shared with Legolas and Tauriel, of life.
It wasn't the way she looked now that stung at Nairi, but rather the fact that she'd never looked like this before. Oh, yes, she'd been a lively child, but at just fifteen it had all ended, and now, for the first time, she truly saw herself in a woman's body, no longer a living ghost.
But was she ready to handle the rest of the world? Her entire journey had been within the borders of this little, off-the-map town, with the same thousand or so people. Until she'd arrived here, she'd been a lawbreaker, a wreck and an addict. It had been Ean who shouted at her to snap out of it and Ean who'd held her hair back while she vomited her way through detoxing. Sorscha had been her only source of light, and there'd been the same, every day stability keeping her from going off the rails.
Could she do it outside these walls? With elves as her companions, with terrifying magic in her fingertips? Nairi's hands absently slid over the metal of the gun she still held, her eyes unfocused in the mirror.
"Nairi! Are you coming?"
She swallowed, snapping out of it at the sound of Legolas's insistent call. "Yeah," she called in return, her voice shakier than she would have liked. "Yeah," she repeated, stronger. "I'll be right there."
Nairi passed through the bathroom for a hairbrush and toothbrush, and grabbed her beat-up faux leather purse from its semi-permanent home on the kitchen counter. Not bothering to lock the door in a place where everybody knew everyone anyway, she let it simply fall shut behind her. It felt a little like she was locking away her past, turning away from every time she'd gotten drunk in that house, every time she'd cried, every time she'd nearly raided the knife drawer or smashed the mirror for something to slit her wrists with. She squared her shoulders and crossed the lawn to where the elves were waiting. Like it or not, Nairi, you're going on an adventure.
None of them seemed to know quite what to do with the car, so she pointed at it with a roll of her eyes. "Get in, eejits."
Thranduil reached for the driver's side, and Nairi held out a hand quickly. "Oh-oh no, not that one. Unless you think you can handle driving this car from hell."
Tauriel cautiously climbed into the backseat, Legolas following. Nairi watched Thranduil gracefully slink around to the passenger's side and, satisfied, went briefly to the trunk to throw her collected items in and slam it shut. In the backseat, Tauriel started at the noise.
Nairi went around to the driver's side and climbed in, turning around to address her passengers. "Okay. Seat belts, these things-" she waggled hers. "Put them on and fasten them. Helps you not die. You've sat in boats and carriages and things, right? It's just like that except a whole hell of a lot faster. Just relax."
Nairi fastened her own belt quickly and shoved the key in, sparing one more glance for her home in the rearview before turning devilishly to Thranduil. "Oh, and one more thing? Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."
With that, she threw the car into drive and hit a button on the stereo, wondering what CD she'd even left in the car from the last time she'd been in it. Within seconds, the sounds of classic rock filled the car and her lips turned up in a grin as she pulled away from the curb. The elves flinched, both at the motion and at the music, and Nairi snorted and turned up AC/DC.
The drive down to Liverpool was a nearly eight hour one, and everything on Nairi hurt. Being cramped in the driver's seat made her back ache, her legs and feet hurt for some inexplicable reason, and the unconscious tenseness of driving for the first time in years had her shoulders and biceps screaming out in pain. The cross into England had gone smoothly, thank the heavens, and no one had even looked twice at Nairi or her pointy-eared passengers. Even so, the simple signs marking her cross into England felt more like she was trying to drive into North Korea with a car full of elves and medieval, but no less deadly, weapons.
They'd taken a break at a Shell station, refuelling the car and buying cheap convenience store food, and miraculously, no one had died and no one had come up to Nairi to ask why she had elves with her. She'd gone through three of her rock CDs and then thoroughly terrified Thranduil and Tauriel by digging out the Metallica black album from her glove compartment while tearing down the freeway at a solid 130 kilometers per hour.
"Valar, Nairi, the road!" Tauriel yelped out. Nairi raised her head lazily from where her line of vision was below the dash, jerking the wheel to avoid crossing onto the wrong side of the road. With one stretch of her fingers, she seized the album and sat back up, triumphant.
"If you kill my son and my captain in the name of that headache-inducing noise," Thranduil began, but she cut in over him.
"Actually if I crash, you're the one that's going through the windshield. They're probably safer." Nairi shrugged. "There's really no one to crash into either."
It was true, night had fallen while they'd been in the car and the roads were now mostly empty, save for the handful of other night drivers. As was her habit, Nairi was avoiding some of the major motorways, further decreasing the traffic. There was no other car in her sight line anywhere on the road, and Nairi found herself entirely unconcerned. Lonely night drives were her specialty. Not to mention, of course, that she was infinitely less likely to be stopped for her blatant speeding.
A glance in her rearview a little while later showed that Legolas and Tauriel had fallen asleep on one another, blonde and red hair mingling on shoulders while their elven eyes stared blankly. Nairi had learned a little while ago that this didn't mean they were dead—rather, elves had to be bloody creepy and sleep with their eyes open.
Thranduil was stone silent, staring ahead and occasionally at her, his face haughty and expressionless with his hands tensed slightly on his knees. Nairi, for her part, was doing her best not to make eye contact, at least not until she somehow managed to delete the image of him shirtless from her brain.
Nairi was on autopilot, cruise control engaged and Metallica playing low in the background. She blinked lazily, and somehow between blinks it was right in front of her.
She slammed on the brakes with a litany of curses, watching Thranduil fly forward in her peripheral and slam his hand on the dash. Still alone on the road, they skidded to a stop just meters in front of the deer, staring at them inquisitively and entirely unbothered.
"Fuck! Bloody motherfucking son of a—" she cut herself off, pushing hair out of her face and turning, foot still clamped on the brake. "All alive back there?"
Tauriel and Legolas looked vaguely green but nodded resolutely. Thranduil glared at her but said nothing. Nairi sighed, repositioning herself in her seat. "Right. Is the damn deer going to move sometime this century?"
She laid on the horn with abandon, shooting a furious glare at the animal through the windshield. It didn't move, but rather the buck turned to meet her gaze, and Nairi's breath caught.
Blue eyes blinked at her while she leaned, lightheaded, against one of the wide, old trees. Her head spun and her vision seemed to spark at the edges, but those eyes stared her down, staying in perfect focus, vivid against brown fur and the deep, dark green of the foliage around them. "Wake up, Nairi," she heard the elegant animal whisper.
"Nairi," Thranduil said sharply, and she started. The deer was gone, and she'd been spacing out, staring into the darkness with as blank a gaze as a sleeping elf's.
She shivered despite the warm car, but took her foot off the brake with a deep sigh and continued on down the road, saying nothing in spite of Thranduil's curious gaze. She didn't look, but she could feel his eyes burning into her. Blue, blue eyes.
"Do you find yourself frequently so distracted by deer?" he inquired coldly.
"Drop it," Nairi bit back, her tone leaving no room for argument.
"I'm sure we can make time to revisit this later," Thranduil went on smoothly anyway, and Nairi hissed.
"I said, drop it." Nairi could feel his blue gaze burning into her. She kept her gaze on the road.
They pulled into the city in the vague, dark hours around midnight, and Nairi negotiated a cheap room at some 24 hour, dingy motel. It was hours yet before they could get on the next ferry into Ireland, and she was too exhausted to even entertain the thought of trying to sleep cramped up in the car.
Nairi flipped the lock behind her on their single, two-bed room, and swallowed. It had been in a room just like this one where some filthy man twice her age had first offered her a syringe of heroin, where she'd fallen in with crowd after crowd of teenage drug users, and fallen right back out again after a few weeks. She rubbed her hand along her forearm absently, her fingertips resting on the little, shameful scars of her years as an addict. In the dim light, she couldn't see them, but Nairi knew exactly where each one was-faded, nearly invisible track marks from long ago, white lines from where her shaking hands had stabbed a needle in all wrong, the inch-long silver line when she'd glanced the needle off and instead the sharp tip scraped across skin. Later, high on god knows what, she'd picked at the wound, worsening it enough to scar, to become her permanent reminder.
She shook herself out of the daze, watching the elves move around the room. "I'll take the bathtub," she announced quickly, "and you three can sort out the bed situation."
Tauriel's brows furrowed. "You don't need to sleep in the bathtub, Nairi,"
"I'd rather," Nairi said flatly. What's my alternative, sharing with one of you? She wouldn't mind so terribly much if she trusted herself. But she didn't, so into the bathtub she would go, regardless of what they said to her.
She sat on the floor, back to one of the walls, while her unlikely companions took turns in the bathroom and settled in for the night. Nairi noted occasional vague looks of confusion or wonder, but, for the most part, she had to admit she was impressed. She'd taken them down a highway, through a filling station, and now into a modern, low-end motel, and they hadn't flinched. Well, except for the deer incident, but she couldn't really blame them there. She had, after all, nearly hit a large animal, and she was flinching too. If Nairi was honest, though, her reasons may have been a bit different than theirs. But like this dingy motel and the scars on her arm, it was better not to dwell on them.
She had set an alarm on the cheap bedside table clock while they were cleaning up, and as the elves moved to the beds, Nairi stood silently and slipped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her and leaning against it, her head falling back against the wood. She blew out her breath, turning to meet her own gaze in the mirror. "Jesus."
Quietly, she splashed some water across her face and then turned around in the small space. Honestly, the bathtub seemed like a decidedly unpleasant place to be, so Nairi let herself sink onto the thin floor rug instead. She pillowed her hands under her head, fighting a shiver on the chilly floor, and let her eyes close. At first, memories of other, miserable nights spent in motel bathrooms swam through her mind, and Nairi turned to her other side crossly, trying to drive them away with the physical gesture. Enough, she snapped at herself. Enough.
It was the alarm's harsh chirp that woke her, and Nairi reached out on autopilot to slam it off before her tired, fuzzy brain caught up. She was lying on soft sheets, her head up on a pillow, and the alarm clock was within her reach. As she lifted her hand off the clock, she opened her eyes with a wince, noting a dull ache in her left hand, mirrored less intensely all over her body. She rubbed her other one over her face, sitting up on one elbow in confusion. Did I get drunk last night? The usual hangover headache, though, was conspicuously absent, and she blinked, taking in her surroundings in bewilderment. The hell?
She was installed quite comfortably on one of the beds, and Thranduil was sitting on the end of hers while Legolas was spread-eagle on the other. Tauriel, presumably, was in the bathroom, judging from the sounds of running water.
"The fuck am I doing here?" she yawned out. "Bloody hell, which one'v you clotheads decided to pick me up and move me?"
"Do you not remember?" Thranduil queried softly. Nairi sat up more fully, alarmed now.
"Am I supposed to?"
"You…" he hesitated uncharacteristically. "You were having a nightmare. After you hit your hand, I thought it best to put you somewhere softer."
Nairi fell back against the mattress heavily, and lifted her hand out in front of her face. Fuck. The back of it was mottled black and blue, almost as if she'd thrown a very bad punch. "Did I...hit you?"
He shook his head, hair rippling. "The edge of the bathtub, I think. We investigated the noise, we did not see it."
Nairi's jaw tightened, and she threw the blankets off her legs roughly and stood. "I'm sorry," she said shortly, crossing her arms and moving to stare resolutely out the dirty window. There was no view to speak of, but it was infinitely better than facing down Thranduil. His old words ran circles in her head, taunting. Unstable. He'd apparently carried her to the bed, and if she knew anything about herself, she would have been fighting him the whole way. He was lucky she hadn't lost control of her damned power and strangled him to death with it.
She tensed when Thranduil came to stand beside her at the window, joining her in staring at a dreary, empty carpark. He turned over his shoulder briefly, looking equal parts amused and chagrined at the sight of his son, still unwilling to move from the bed.
"I think you've spoiled him," he murmured, looking at her.
A nervous laugh escaped her lips. "What?"
"He has had no reason to wake up so early since we arrived at your home. He may have forgotten how."
"Not deaf, Ada," Legolas mumbled, not bothering to look at them. At that, Nairi smirked, but turned again to the window after a moment, the light conversation not enough to drag her from the guilt and stress of what she'd done in her sleep.
Thranduil's eyes flicked over her, calculating, and when she turned to meet his gaze, they looked to be a darker blue than she was used to. Fighting to break the tension, she asked self-deprecatingly, "So, how long did I keep you awake?"
He gave a swift shake of his head, and Nairi got the sense that he was debating with himself, choosing words carefully. "You didn't," he finally told her softly, staring her down, and she couldn't quite tell if she'd imagined a heavier emphasis on you.
Nairi stood frozen, watching, as he reached out to and pushed a tangle of hair out of her face, his fingers just barely grazing her cheek. In the window's reflection, the back of his hand was just as scarred and ruined as she knew his face was under the glamour. "You are not alone, aglarwen," he whispered, and a shiver darted over her skin in spite of herself.
And for some inexplicable reason, Nairi was struck by an utterly bizarre desire for his embrace. She didn't want to trust anyone, let alone him, and she didn't want to get close to anyone. But somehow she got the sense that she'd feel safe in his arms, and she wanted to remember what feeling safe was like.
"Nairi, what time does the ferry-" Tauriel cut herself off, staring at them from the bathroom doorway. "We'll talk later," she said briskly after a pregnant pause.
Nairi, though, had already taken a swift step backward from the Elvenking and was turning away. "Oh, hell, I forgot. We've got to go." She slapped her hand down on the mattress, a few feet from Legolas's head. "Up. Now."
"Nairi," Thranduil began, and rationally she knew he was probably about to ask something legitimate, something about travel arrangements or the human world or god knew what.
Her chest felt tight, though, and she panicked, some part of her afraid he would make her confront what the fuck had just happened in front of the window, and she whirled on him, extending a warning finger in his direction. "Don't you even start," she snapped out, and lifted the duffel bag. "Let's go."
She didn't look back to see his face.
*The next time you find yourself in a car, please be smarter than Nairi and do not speed. Or dig around for CD cases while driving.
Aglarwen - wouldn't you like to know? (if you do, shh!)
tumblr: girlgonnafly
Nairi's instagram: nairi . ocallahan