Not even the horses managed to cheer Itheal that day, he had not dared try to get her on the back of one of them, in her mood he feared that the horse would lash out angrily and hurt someone or itself. Possibly worse yet it might harm Itheal and that was the last thing that the young woman needed, to be stuck in with the healers. They were kind enough but sometimes they did not understand what it was that Itheal had gone through and that just doing things frightened her.
She had not even wanted to overly pat the horses he had sat stroking the nose of her favourite mare in the stable while trying to get her to join in from where she sat on a bench looking down at the straw on the ground. She had joined him for only a few seconds before she had stopped even that despite the fact the mare tried her best to get more scratches behind the ear out of her. Instead she wandered away, the elves of Lothlorien all knew to look out for her by now, and Haldir soon followed her until she reached the small talen that she had been given near his. It was well away from most people and because of its size few people bothered to visit her ever. Mostly himself and his brothers, though occasionally the healers that she had come to know well enough came to visit her and make sure that she was doing well and gaining more and more strength.
That she was but Haldir worried that what had happened in the garden earlier would hamper her healing, she had gained enough weight now that she was no longer skin and bones but she was still very close to that, and needed to eat more and needed to be active yet she had remained listless for the entire after noon, and not even apple slices had appealed to her. He watched as she climbed to her talon and pulled the ladder to it up making it impossible to check on her and coax her into doing anything. Haldir shook his head and headed off to see what he could learn from Galadriel since he had needed to take Itheal away from the garden before he had learned anything.
When he found Galadriel who was pacing worry etched upon her face, he stood patiently watching her until she stopped and looked at him
"King Thranduil will be here in a week." To that Haldir nodded everyone knew this they had been preparing for the visit for a few weeks now to make sure that he and his son Legolas would be comfortable, as well they had been sending out scouts further and further north the entire time making it a safer rod. "It was his dungeon she was taken from not Morgoth's."
Haldir stood for several moments trying to think of some response to this. "What madness took King Thranduil?" At that even the Lady Galadriel was at a loss. "We live in dark times it seems when a King would do such a thing to a child. I have not seen this sort of cruelty towards kin since the Sons of Feanor sacked Doriath." Haldir knew of this story but he was born well after Doriath had been abandoned by the elves.
Thranduil would be here, Itheal would likely spend that entire time cowering fearfully in her talen and only the grace of the Valar themselves would likely drag her from there if she knew that King Thranduil was coming to Lothlorien.
"We cannot hide this from her; she needs to know that he is coming and that we will protect her, my Lady." To this Galadriel gave a nod, Celeborn was already trying to find a way to make sure that there was always one guard warden near the young woman in case the elves from Mirkwood recognized her. The fact that she would be under guard would probably be enough to upset her.
"If I could my Lady I would prefer to guard her than watch over the safety of Thranduil and his son. She knows me and trusts me. The other soldiers she does not trust as much. She fears them; perhaps because it was soldiers of Thranduil that helped to get her to the state she was in when we discovered her."
"All right, I will try to find the word to comfort her and inform her that Thranduil will be near her, you go and find my Lord and let him know that you will need to be assigned to her at all times so that whichever wardens he sets to watch her with you may be lower ranked." To that Haldir nodded and went off the shock of what he had just been told was still fresh in his system; he felt that he should be angry that such a thing would happen. He was angry of course but he wasn't sure he was angry enough. After all she had been starved, and broken and terrified when he had found her under the dead horse. He had always thought she had hidden under it wisely or the elf that had been slain by the orcs had tucked her under but that did not seem likely, if it was Thranduil that had imprisoned her. Since Doriath no kin slaying had taken place again, the Sons of Feanor had been stripped of their Princedoms and with the death of all save two of them the Elven races had all but united themselves. Yet Morgoth's power kept growing, and new wyrms and dragons ravaged the lands regularly most were killed but at great cost and the relation between elves and men had diminished as well. Haldir wondered if he would ever live to see peace something that the world had not known since the murder of Finwe ages ago now.