Morwinyon considered putting the whole thing off, but part of being an adult was taking responsibility and sometimes doing things you did not want to do because those things were for the best.

She considered that as she swept down the halls and into the throne room, and considered also that none of that meant she could not be pett: rightfully she should have waited outside the throne room for her father if she forced a formal audience. She was in the most technical sense a diplomat for another kingdom, after all - another two? Did Thranduil believe she had abandoned him for Erebor or for the Dunedain?

Did he even know about the Dunedain?

Either way she discarded the idea of waiting outside like a child waiting for a scolding. She was not a child, and she was not here to be scolded even if Thranduil had the right to scold her, which she did not think he did. She waited in the throne room itself, though she did stop short of taking the throne.

The doors all but flew open moments later, and Thranduil halted at the sight of her again, as if the shock of her existence was the same for all he had seen her moments before.

He could not be too shocked, she thought. His glamor still held, though as she thought it the illusion of whole skin and undamaged eye faded to leave his scarred and pitted blind side visible. It was opposite her own.

"Adar," Morwinyon said, and something in his expression changed, though she could not say what.

"Morwinyon," he replied, and took a shaky step forward before he closed the doors in the faces of the elves behind him.

Morwinyon watched him, and he watched her, though he still leaned against the doors as if he needed their support.

Finally she said, "If you feel that you must chastise me, I would like you to get it over with so we can discuss important matters."

Thranduil relaxed, laughing a little under his breath. "So your mother would have said."

"Then my mother was sensible, and perhaps also did not wish to hear you speak of disapproval she did not care about."

It was more than a little cruel to say it, Morwinyon knew, but Thranduil did not snap back at her, only looked away a moment and back.

"And so?" he asked.

"I bring news of an army to the north," she told him.

"What brought you north?"

"I saw it in Galadriel's mirror," Morwinyon replied. "I have not ventured near Gundabad. Yet."

"You have been in Lothlorien," Thranduil said, sounding relieved, and Morwinyon realized he really did not have any idea where she had been.

"Only the once," she said. "Most often I have ridden with the Dunedain, on whose behalf I first travelled."

A thought struck her, and she added, "I heard Legolas declared the heir of Isildur at Rivendell. Do you know anything of him?"

"Do I know of - I met him once," Thranduil said. "He delivered - that does not matter. I met him once."

"What did you think?"

"I thought him grave and tall and well-mannered," Thranduil said slowly, watching her. "But he is your mother's cousin through Elros, so I would have expected nothing less."

"You expected well-mannered of my mother's cousins?" Morwinyon asked.

Thranduil's lips quirked. "Only in that line, I assure you."

"Any road," Morwinyon said, for the quirk had reminded her that she was here for business and not frivolity, "a force sets forth from Gundabad. It is not large, but it is not small either, and at its head is a captain of the enemy."

"Which?"

"No one called a name," Morwinyon said, instead of 'oh, my mother, your beloved wife, tortured into servitude.'

"Sometimes Galadriel and her mirror are frustratingly vague," Thranduil acknowledged, and with a tinge of bitterness added, "She never could see you or your mother."

"So she said."

They stood looking at each other again, and finally Thranduil said, "Am I supposed to pretend I have not thought you dead for sixty years?"

"It could not have changed your routine a great deal," she said lightly.

Another expression flitted across his face - anger this time, easily identifiable - but he said only, "Why did you not come home?"

"I was angry," Morwinyon said. "I am still angry. You did not seem to know what I needed, or listen when I tried to tell you, and you meant to keep me here no matter what like I was some thing, but I am not a thing, Adar, and I am not a copy of my mother to be kept safe at home because you might lose her again. I am your daughter. I am sorry Naneth is gone, I am sorry I am a poor copy, but it is not as if I have not accomplished anything or - you know Alia of the Dunedain calls me for council, and I teach the children Quenya? I ride out with them and defend the humans from goblins and orcs and whatever else. My children are grown, I am who the clan asks to see if their king is suitable - Adar, I blinded a dragon. You would have kept me here, and I would not have done those things, and that is -"

She cut herself off, breathing more harshly than she had since, probably, the mountain. She had run out of breath.

"Unconscionable?" Thranduil suggested.

"Unimaginable," she retorted. "You let Legolas do as he would, you always did."

"I suppose I thought, if you really wanted to do something," Thranduil said slowly, "you would simply… do it. You mother-"

He cut himself off, which Morwinyon was grateful for.

"I did simply do it," she said. "How did you enjoy the doing?"

"Not at all," he said.

She nodded.

"I missed you," he said. "I have no excuse for not listening, or for letting you think I did not care..."

Morwinyon realized suddenly that she had not heard the forest come to her defense, or react at all, and realized too that her father kept likening her to her mother, but her mother would not have argued with Thranduil. Her mother would have left, or stabbed someone probably, or just let Thranduil shout until he was tired of it and then did what she wanted anyway. She had used her father's voice and her father's training and now used her father's petty anger, and Mirkwood did not know whose side to take. She was not only like her mother.

"No sorrow great enough, and no excuse either, do I have for allowing that thought to grow beyond a shadow," he said finally. "Only that I was afraid. My children are ever in my mind."

He smiled. Morwinyon understood suddenly why sometimes people looked away when she smiled: the expression left strange folds in the skin and more strangely stretched gaps, and she could see more of his teeth than she should have.

He said, "I am always afraid, now. I am trying to do better. Please let me try."

Morwinyon considered, but he had asked.

"I want you to tell me something about me," she said. She did not say, I do not want it to be about my mother, but she thought he heard it anyway.

"When you were born," he said slowly, "I named you first, and then I held you. When I held your brother the first time he smiled at me and fell asleep, you know. You opened your eyes and looked into mine, and you would not look away."

She met his eyes now - well, they met each other's gazes now, anyway, neither of them could see from both eyes - and held his gaze.

He said, "I looked away instead, and I should not have."

Morwinyon's first thought was that it could not have been helped: someone would have had to look away eventually. She managed not to say so, though, and she thought she understood his meaning.

"You can try," she said.

He nodded. "And I am sorry, about your husband."

Morwinyon raised an eyebrow.

"Fili," Thranduil said, which meant he had gone to at least the minimum effort. "I am sorry. You do seem to be handling it better than me, and you said - I have grandchildren?"

"Twins," she said, a little unnecessarily. What would she have done, remarry? "Tauriel and Angion, they usually go by Tari and Nion."

"Tari?" Thranduil asked, laughter clear in his voice. He was not fluent in Quenya, but he knew enough.

"Not my fault," Morwinyon said, "though Dis said it was appropriate once she learned."

"She is particularly queenly?"

"Dis? Magnificently." She relented. "Let us give orders to prepare for the two armies coming our way, Adar, and then we can sit somewhere more comfortable and talk."

Thranduil nodded, and put his hand on the doors, and hesitated. "Do you leave, after this news?"

Morwinyon thought apologies at Arwen and Alia with a sigh. She had promised to watch out for Aragorn and to study him, but this, surely, came first, and there was Laeriel to contend with still.

"I will stay for a while, Adar," she promised.