C9
The suites that Elarinya followed her to were ones that she hadn't used since childhood. The minute she had made the royal guard Tauriel had moved herself from her luxuriously appointed suite in the part of the palace intended for the royal household and into the guard's barracks. She hadn't set foot in those rooms since. They hadn't changed, not the caramel sheen of the drapes or the dark green and gold embroidery on the ivory bedclothes or the well-crafted dark wood furniture.
Her travel pack had been put on the fainting couch at the end of the bed and a dark cerulean gown had been laid out on the bed. Clearly what she should wear to dinner had already been decided for her, probably by Uiron by request of the King. Thranduil had always known how uncomfortable she was at state dinners off duty and out of uniform. If her King wanted her to feel unbalanced and unsure of herself then he was going to get his wish.
She took an anchoring breath and almost jumped out of her skin as Elarinya touched her shoulder. She spun and looked at the other elleth wide-eyed; she was so off kilter that she hadn't even registered that she hadn't been left in the room. The blonde was smiling softly at her as she looked at her expectantly.
"It's good that you're home." Elarinya stated. "There is a bath prepared for you and I will be waiting to escort you to dinner when you're dressed."
"You mean, to make sure I can't run away." She muttered ungraciously under her breath but received only a smile in return.
"You can hardly blame our King for being cautious." There was no amusement in the guard's reply but there was compassion on her face. "You forget that I was there both when you pointed a weapon at our King in challenge and also when you turned your back on him and followed the healing party into the heart of Erebor. Your actions grieved the King deeply, you can't be surprised that he would insure that you would carry out his orders now."
"Do you know what it is that he has ordered me to do?" Her fingers caught the hem of one of the dress' long sleeves, letting the soft velvet play across her finger tips.
"Yes, and I have volunteered to take charge of security for your retinue." Elarinya nodded her confirmation. "The King has ordered a fine feast to honor his guests and your appointment as ambassador, bathe, dress and enjoy the welcome you shall receive. Just remember, there are those who don't believe that you deserve the King's continued favor."
"This is not showing favor, this is making sure that I am well and truly punished. When I left the city of Dale ten years ago, I was sure that I would never again set foot in the Kingdom of my childhood and I had hoped above all hope never to go near the shadow cast by the Lonely Mountain. It seems that fate is determined to be cruel." She dropped the sleeve and straightened, clenching her jaw and drawing her shoulders back. She would show weakness no longer and she would not let the dwarves know that what had happened a decade ago meant more to her than they already guessed.
"Friends will go with you and from what I understand you already have friends within the mountain." There was no pity for her in her old friend's voice for which she was grateful.
"If you speak of Lord Círon or anyone he would take as part of his staff when we both know that isn't true." Tauriel snorted but moved away from the dress and began to undo the laces of her vambraces.
"Would you like me to call someone to help you with the laces of your brigandine?" Elarinya said as she moved to the door and took up her post.
"I have not been out of uniform for so long that I have lost the ability to dress and undress myself." She shook her head and placed her vambraces on top of the tall dresser to the side of the vanity. "I will be ready soon, please send a runner to ask Lord Uiron if he needs help from me preparing the supplies for our journey or if he has things under control as I suspect."
"Uiron has things well in hand. Unless you have any special request, all you need to do is show up for dinner on time and to leave for Erebor morning after next."
Tauriel nodded with a smile on her face. That was Uiron, always anticipating and leaving little else for anyone to worry about. It was what had made him so valuable not only to the King but those in his Kingdom as well. She could insist on leaving at first light the next morning and because of the seneschal they would be provisioned and supplied as though they had been preparing for weeks. This was not the life that she was used to let alone had prepared for.
There was a loud knock on her door which Elarinya responded to before she could take more than a step in the direction of the door. Aranel swept into the room, barely casting a look over her shoulder at the elleth who had let her in. She looked around the room then back at her friend before raising an eyebrow at the guard who had taken up her station next to the door again.
"At least this is better than the cells." Aranel shrugged.
"This was my room as an adolescent, before I became a member of the King's Guard." Tauriel looked around her again trying to see the rooms through the eyes of one who had never been there before. They were far more opulent than the rooms that she had as a King's Guard and they were better appointed even than the rooms that she had been given by Lord Elrond but not nearly as grand as the apartments that she had been sequestered in, in the Kingdom of Lorien. There, the homes were carved into the great, golden Mallorn trees that made up the kingdom and that offered the comforts of the natural world in a way that no other place she had ever been had been able to duplicate. Already she could see her friend looking at her in a new light, reassessing the things that she had thought she had once known.
"I see you are still under guard." The younger elleth looked over her shoulder at Elarinya.
"Yes, but at least now the guard is my friend. Elarinya has long been a part of the guard, it was her brother Ruidor who was hunting with the Prince when they came across the Orc party who had slain my family and on later inspection found me." She responded. "I told you that this place was not like you are used to in Imladris. King Thranduil likes to make a statement with everything that he has and does."
"True but I can't say that I am much put off. In fact I shall be journeying on with you to Erebor at invitation from both your King and the Princess." Aranel moved her bag and helped herself to the fainting couch as Tauriel continued to remove pieces of light leather armor and then the outer layer of her traveling clothes.
"If your goal is to see as much of the world as is possible before going back to Imladris I can write your letter of invitation that will gain you access to the great hall of Meduseld in Edoras once you've had enough of Erebor" She shook her head at her friend's eagerness. It was a feeling that she remembered from before the Battle of the Five Armies, when she was more ignorant of the world and what it held.
"Only if you can guarantee me a horse like yours." Aranel responded and Tauriel paused then looked sharply over her shoulder at her guard. Thranduil's announcement had her thoughts in such a tangle that she had forgotten to inquire about her horse.
"She is safely in the King's stables, has been bathed, brushed, fed and bedded down in a stall filled with straw. She is being treated as one with her bloodline deserves." Was the answer to the unasked question. "How did you get a horse like that one?" There was envy as well as curiosity behind the question.
"First I had to leave the Great Wood." She quirked an eyebrow at her old friend.
"King Thranduil has sent you a missive." Balin walked into the King's study the parchment message he had just received from an elvish messenger who had ridden quickly to Erebor clutched in his hand. The messanger was now reporting to the elven ambassador before taking a quick supper and heading directly back to the woodland realm. Both the King Under The Mountain and the crown Prince looked sharply up at the old advisor. No one had expected word from within King Thranduil's palace let alone from the King himself. Since Lord Círon had taken up residence in The Mountain all communications had come through him much to everyone chagrin.
"Ma may have sent word again; she said that she and Sada were close to King Thranduil's palace." Fili asked his uncle as inwardly he shuddered, even now as an ally to the elven kingdom he felt uneasy in that place and he would never forget what it was like bobbing along in the empty but sour smelling wine barrels. If he thought about it too hard he could still remember the seasickness and the smell and feel of the fish that was later dumped upon their heads.
Thorin didn't reply, just took the parchment from his adviser and broke the royal seal. He read in silence for a few moments, carefully turning the page to read the whole message before pulling out quill, ink and parchment of his own. The minutes seemed to tick by slowly as the King wrote his message back to the other ruler, the only sound in the room the crackle of the fresh log in the fireplace and the scratching of Thorin's quill as he wrote. When he folded the letter Balin handed him a candle, lit and ready, which he used to drip wax onto the edge and then pressed the official seal of the King Under the Mountain in the blood red wax. He took another smaller strip of much finer paper, wrote a few small words on it before rolling it into a tiny roll and putting it in a small intricately carved pewter tube, smaller than the length of the tip of his thumb to the first knuckle.
"Give this letter to the King's messenger and send this by raven to my sister." Thorin held out first the sealed letter and then the tube which would be affixed to a raven's leg by the head of the Raven Keepers.
"Yes your majesty." Balin stuck to titles even as his aging body wouldn't allow him to bow the way that he would have in the past.
"Have another runner sent to fetch Dwalin and Kili." He gave a second set of commands. The older dwarrow nodded his head in acknowledgement before heading back out the door, sealing it carefully behind him the way that Thorin liked it.
"Sada?" Fili couldn't stop himself from asking as he sat up in his chair, alert once more where he had previously been bored close to tears.
Before Balin had come into the room they had been discussing the beginning of the preparations for the Durin's Day celebrations and the memorial that was held every year afterward for those who had lost their life in the battle of the five armies. Duties that usually fell to his mother but with her absence had somehow fallen on the Crown Prince and made him wonder if he was being punished for Sada's actions. Durin's day was still two months away and then if all went to plan and his betrothed showed up and didn't run away again then his wedding would take place just after the winter solstice. Unfortunately, Thorin was already questioning whether he would allow the wedding to go forward or if he should make them wait and see what Sada would do next.
"With your Ma in Thranduil's palace. Safe and well and resting before they begin the journey back to Erebor. Thranduil described her as delightful so I can only imagine that she is on her best behavior or the King is lying to us and she is in fact deathly ill." Thorin replied with little humor.
"When?" He was on his feet and pacing before he could stop himself. His uncle hated when he paced, said that it was unseemly for a monarch or future monarch to appear restless but Fili had seen his uncle at the forges late at night when the majority of the mountain was asleep or in their homes, shaping metal, making blades and pounding out his frustration where only a trusted few could see it. He made no comment on his uncle's remarks about Sada already knowing his lack of patience where Sada's faults were concerned.
"They will leave tomorrow morning, we should be able to expect them early the morning after." Was the response that was made over the sound of the scratching of a quill on parchment as Thorin wrote. "I will send out a patrol to meet them at the edge of Mirkwood and help insure that they will be brought home safely."
"You're going to have Dwalin put together a guard?" He stilled, turning toward his uncle sharply. If anyone was going to lead that party he was going to make sure that it was him.
"No!" Thorin snapped immediately as though sensing his thoughts.
"But Uncle," He tried again but Thorin cut him off.
"I said no!" With a slicing motion from one hand he stopped further discussion. "Neither you nor Kili will step foot outside this mountain tomorrow. You shall continue your duties and wait like the rest of us for Sada and your Ma. I will not hear another word about it from you and I will tell your brother the same thing. Far too much time, effort and attention has been given to the disappearance of your bride and the search for an elf-maid whose only significance is the way she kept saving your brother's life over a decade ago."
"He would have died without her three times Uncle." Fili shook his head exasperated with his uncle's inability to understand or come to terms with his brother's desperation to find the she-elf who had not only imprisoned him but saved him.
"She's coming here with them." The King steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him as he took a deep breath and confided in his heir. "She is to take up the ambassadorship from Lord Círon."
"Thank the Valor! We get rid of Lord Círon and in the same stroke the rest of us might get some peace and he can moon over her instead and we won't have to listen to him moan and complain about the way she was treated and her continued absence." He laughed, relief bubbling up in him knowing that Sada was almost home and would soon be surrounded by dwarrow handpicked and trusted by the hardened warrior that had protected and trained him and his brother in their youth. He was sure that he would be able to make a few suggestions and maybe insert an old friend or two to make sure that he was well represented.
"There can be no mooning. Kili cannot be allowed to continue this infatuation. I will not allow that she-elf to stay in this mountain if he cannot control himself and comport his behavior as one in the royal family is expected to." Thorin thumped his fist into his desktop making the glass ink bottles rattle against each other and the parchment crinkle. Fili looked at his uncle wide-eyed. "There can be no romance allowed between them and beyond this room today no such thing will ever be discussed again. Kili is a son of Durin's line and a member of the royal household. He does not have the luxury of looking outside of his own kind for a bride nor will extramarital affairs be supported by members of the royal family."
"You're going to tell him that?" His surprise was palpable, he, like the rest of the company and the very few close friends who had some inclination that Kili felt more than friendship for the she-elf he had been looking for, always thought that when she was found it wouldn't take long for him to realize the differences between the two of them and his infatuation would fade as quickly as it started. Personally he had grown to believe he would love her no matter what but he was sure that if his uncle forbade his brother outright then there would be no hope that his brother would ever see sense again and set his hat to the elf even if it meant exile.
"I am. You are going to help Dwalin get a guard ready and work out what it was that you are going to say to your betrothed so that I don't have to give her a dressing down about her own behavior. It must be made clear to her that such a stunt will not be tolerated again, not before your wedding and certainly not again afterward. Have I made myself clear?" Thorin's face was set and serious.
"Very." Fili answered, his own back stiffening. His uncle meant business and it seemed that even his long standing engagement was under threat now because of Sada's willful and headstrong nature, a part of her that he wouldn't recognize her without and didn't want to curb for fear of it changing her in ways that would cause a rift between them in the future.
There was a knock on the door and then the study door opened. Both Dwalin and Kili walked into the room smiles on their faces from something that had been said between them before they had entered the room but after looking between the King and the crown Prince both of their smiles faded.
"What's amiss?" Dwalin asked, the serious nature of the dwarrow taking over and turning him from friend to warrior and commander of the King's Armies in the blink of an eye.
"Nothing, greatly." Fili responded dryly casting his brother a look that he hoped convey that he should tread carefully where his uncle was concerned. "With your permission I will take my leave of you all and will be available in my own study should anyone need me." He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, looking to his Uncle for leave even as he spoke.
"Dwalin will meet you there when we're done here." Thorin nodded his approval and Fili nodded in return, clapped his brother on the shoulder before he left the room and headed toward his own study to pace in peace and try to work out a way to convince Dwalin to help him get on the patrol that would pick up Sada and his Ma.
He shook his head as his personal guard fell in behind him and followed him along the halls of Erebor. Dwarrow nodded their heads to him and moved out of his way, some with words of greeting on their tongues, some with none but he ignored them all. He was trying to work out what it was that he was going to say to Sada when he first saw her. Was he going to wring her neck and give her the dressing down that his uncle believed that he should or would he just embrace her and be glad that she was home and with him?
Part of his wanted nothing more than to shout at her, demand promises that she would never leave his side again, take out all the worry, anger and frustration that he had been feeling since she left but he also knew that Sada had always been a little wild and that likely even the crown wouldn't entirely tame her. Nor would any words that he said on the matter have any other affect on her than to turn her sulky and irritable or at the farthest extreme cancel the engagement entirely just to spite them both. He wasn't sure that he would have fallen in love with her without that wild streak or if he wanted to change her.
He waved his guard off when he got to his door. The heavily armored dwarrow nodded once in acknowledgement before taking a post by the door. It was going to be a rough couple of days especially if he was made to stay behind in Erebor. He rushed to his desk and pulled out his own parchment and ink, it didn't take him long to write a quick note, seal it and rush it to the door. His guard looked over at him sharply as he thrust the note out to him.
"There should be a messenger from the Woodland realm with Ambassador Círon, please ask him to take this message back with him when he departs." He gave him the note. The guard looked sharply at him.
"I'm not supposed to leave my post your highness." He responded but the note was already in his gauntleted hand.
"I won't be leaving this room unless I'm with Commander Dwalin, go now!" He ordered, only turning back into his study when the bewildered guard trotted off on his new assignment. He could only hope that his message would reach her before she left.
Excitement went to war with dread within him.
He had waited, bided his time and now his master was calling upon him. He would easily be able to insert himself into the patrol going out to retrieve the wayward members of the royal family and there he could complete his mission. The only question now was how to go about it. He would be able to get close enough to take care of the problem in a number of ways but he had enough respect and care for the betrothed of his prince to wish a painless death on her.
There were poisons that were tasteless and odorless, that would cause near to instantaneous death if the doses were right when eat or drank. Others that could coat a blade but that would cause fever and painful convulsions. A blade would do the job quickly but would cause more of a mess than he would like and there was always a possibility that weapons would be easier to intercept.
In reality he was going to have to wait and see what opportunities he would have. Prepare for all eventualities and bide his time while reminding himself that no matter how unpleasant the job at hand was, it was imperative that it was carried out. On his shoulders the integrity of the line of Durin rested along with the strength and continued pride of his people as a whole.
His master had been clear. There were only two operatives left that would be able to stop the degradation of his people. His job was to go out and stop them from arriving, the other operative, whoever he was, was to wait and follow another plan encase he was unable to play his part or stopped before he could carry it out.
He could not fail.
He could not burden another with the path that he must walk and walk it he must no matter how painful it would prove to be. This was about the future and making sure that his people would thrive once more under the line of Kings that would rule under the mountain and history would be kind to him eventually when it was acknowledged that he had made sure that the line of Durin remained untainted and strong.
He packed two poisons into a small box that he quickly sealed and stuffed into the middle of his traveling pack, one vial of poison to coat a blade and a package of powder to mix into food or liquid. He put his spare wool padded shirt on top of the box before a knock on the door made him hastily stuff his personal dagger down the side making a lump in the pack that he could only hope wouldn't be noticed.
"Come!" He called and buckled the closure of his pack's straps as his door opened.
"I'm glad you agreed to go." Prince Kili's voice made him jump slightly and his visitor laughed at his expense.
"Of course." He nodded, gripping the strap of his pack.
"The new elven ambassador will be traveling with Mam and Sada, will you give her this message for me?" The prince held out a carefully folded letter.
"Me?" He looked at him unsure as he reached out and took the letter.
"I can trust you to be discreet." The Prince nodded and he tucked the letter that he knew he would never deliver in his wool jerkin that covered his mail shirt. "Take care of them for me." Kili added before he turned for the door.
"Everything I do is for the crown." He answered softly, almost to himself as guilt gnawed on his innards once more.