A/N:

So anyone who follows me knows that I have had major computer problems that killed my writing groove. Then recently I found out that I need surgery that will cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 grand. Gotta love healthcare that is so prohibitively expensive that you keep putting it off forever until it's years later and you've been dealing with blinding pain for... longer than anyone wants to know. So my depression is spiraling. Yay. Hugs all around to anyone that needs one!

But I'm still writing, even if my brain is scattered and I'm currently writing 18 different stories. No, that is not a typo. So I guess all is not lost! But thank you, all ov you for your continued support and patience. I have actually finished part one of The Hobbit which covers the movie The Unexpected Journey which is a natural breaking point for Part 1 of Second Time. So I will be trying to finish Lightning Glass Part One and then clearing out the clutter in my mind before focusing hard on the Second Time again. Although I will not be abandoning it. Updates will be slow but hopefully regular (since I've also begun writing scenes from LoTR and the in-between story titled "The Other Way Now.") at least until I've gotten my feet back under me.

Like, Subscribe, Favorite, Follow, Kudos and Review, (and consider following or supporting on P-atreon and Ko-fi. Cause you know adulting.)

Much Love and Gratitude,

JR

P.s. P-atreon and Ko-fi update: Why aren't there tiers and goals yet on either? Mainly because I'm trying to get used to writing regularly on them. I don't want to promise my patrons something and not be able to deliver. So I'm working on building slowly and getting my routine down, then I will be doing some patron-only content like polls for story design and personalized thank-yous and inspiration videos or packages that contain some of the things that inspire each story and other various things. Maybe even some world-building polls. I dunno. I'm winging it. So hang in there with me, I'm still learning, and sign up to follow me so that when the tiers and goals go live you'd be the first to know. (There are 3 tiers up on P-atreon now and a goal up on Ko-fi. I'm working on others.)

Pps. I've caught up on posting on my older stories to Ao3. I am now free to post any deleted "scenes" and extras in conjunction with the older stories and the ones I am currently working on. They will only appear after a story is completed. And after Patrons get the first crack at them. Sorry. What do I delete? Mainly anything that needs to be edited out to meet the rating rules on this site. But also little interesting snippets that just slowed down the pacing. I will not be posting them here on this site. Apologies. But it has more "interesting" rules.

Supporter shoutout:

Thank you so much!

The ever wonderful and amazing - Nyx Thranduillion

Chapter 5 Escape Part 2

It was evening, finally, and all of the court issues had been dealt with. He could finally relax. Everyone but his son was under orders not to bother him unless the kingdom was on fire and someone was dying. He was going to sit in his favorite chair, in his study, with a glass of wine and one of Caelann's journals.

He hadn't read them in years but he couldn't possibly get rid of them. They were just too valuable for the medical information and her observations about the forest. But in reality? They were part of her mind, her heart, her thoughts and he just... couldn't.

He had tried, he truly had, to turn at least the relevant passages over to the healers and the guard captains. He went so far as to wrap the leather-bound books in oilcloth and put them in a wooden box. But when he went to take them out of the study, he couldn't make his feet pass the door. He had thought about asking someone else to take them but couldn't make the words come out of his mouth.

Other than Legolas? They were his last connection to her, he thought tracing the stitches on the spine that held the pages in place. The thick twine was discolored with age and oils from her skin that she had continually rubbed into her skin after washing them yet another time. Before and after each person that she treated, he remembered with a smile. If it wasn't strong soap it was the distilled alcohol that she kept for the purpose. But her books always smelled of the oil he bought for her that was perfumed with her favorite flowers. Sweet and spicy.

He had bought enough of that oil that there was an entire storeroom still full of it somewhere. And his steward and valet made sure to keep it stocked in his private bathing chamber for his more trialsome days.

Today he had caught a courtier wearing it. It made him sick whenever that happened during the early days so he had banned it from the court. He had very nearly threatened the female with exile before the steward realized what the problem was and hustled the poor ellith away. She would not be seen again but at least he wouldn't be responsible for doing something he would regret.

In the hallway outside, pacing footsteps echoed on the solid stone floors as they walked back and forth up to the doors at each end of the long passage. One door led to the family quarters and the other led to more public areas. Only maids, the guards, his steward or advisor, and Legolas would be in the hallway. Only they would have a reason to be.

Ignoring the noise, Thranduil turned back to the page with a heavy breath, fighting the urge to roll his eyes and sipped at his wine.

"Prince!" The king's advisor gasped, catching sight of Legolas as he passed the door into the hallway.

Grimacing, the prince shut the door quietly behind him. All he wanted, literally, all he wanted was to go into his study, make notes in his records about the new wardens on their training and then go take a long hot soak in the bathing rooms. He had already avoided the courtiers who seemed to grow bolder each year that both he and his adar remained single.

"Yes?" He asked, stiffly untying his padded leather training tunic while trying not to drop his quiver and bow.

The advisor all but ran forward with his robes fluttering around behind him, waving a scroll. "A message arrived for the king but he has ordered that he not be disturbed."

Normally royal advisors were very calm, but his father tended to go through advisors every decade or so when they attempted to find him a mate. Either way, all of them seemed to be nervous for the first few years. It was when they began feeling secure in their position that they grew too bold. They tended to think that because he hadn't faded like most elves did when they lost their mates, that it hadn't been a true match and so he should remarry. And he had to admit, that he had been guilty of the same assumption until his naneth had shown up in his dreams and spoken to him.

His adar hadn't faded simply because his mother hadn't truly died. She had sort of, but unlike other matches whose bonds had snapped by the passage into Mandos' halls, theirs had not because she was not truly dead. Just in a different place.

It was complicated to think about and normally made his brain hurt each time he tried to puzzle it out so he genuinely tried not to.

"Where is the message from?" Slinging the quiver over his shoulder, he rested his weary head against the wall.

"Imladris." The advisor answered holding out the scroll. "I had thought that it was from Lord Elrond again but the seal is that of The House of the Golden Flower."

"Lord Glorfindel?" Legolas asked taking the surprisingly heavy roll of parchment. "How did it arrive? Is the messenger still here?" Turning it over to see the seal, he swallowed when the black wax was revealed. Black wax holding a black cord around a scroll the size of his wrist. All of it was black except for the very center where the flower of the sigil lay in scarlet red wax. The meaning was clear. Grave business was in the message.

"It came by an eagle, my lord."

Eyes widening, Legolas straightened and sprinted for the door to his adar's study, pushing it open only to slam it shut before the advisor could follow. If the message was important enough to be carried by an eagle, and the wax and the cord that it held proclaimed it to be quite possibly dire, then the advisor was the latest in a long line of idiots for not taking it immediately to the king. Orders or no orders.

"Ada!" He called, eyes darting about the room. "Are you here?"

His father raised a hand above the back of the chair he sprawled in. "Here, ion nin."

"Lord Glorfindel sent an urgent message." Making his way to the reclining couch, he handed it to his father on the way. "And you need to appoint a new advisor. This one doesn't know important correspondence from idle reports." Sinking into the plush couch with a restrained groan, he tried to look unconcerned with the scroll as his adar ran his own fingertips over the seal.

"Unfortunately, the only one that I know will not overstep his bounds will not serve the court without your naneth on the throne beside me." He murmured distractedly, finally breaking the seal with a slice from one of the blades hidden in his robes. "And all the others…" He trailed off as the scroll unrolled, dropping a second into his lap.

No wonder the message was so thick, Legolas thought as he watched from carefully hooded eyes. All of him wanted to see the second scroll. He could see the cord on it was different, green twisted with red this time, but that was all and he found that he desperately wanted to see the seal. Was it from Glorfindel as well? Was it from Elrond? Or Mithrandir?

Barely breathing, Thranduil scanned the lines. He had received a message from Elrond some time ago by messenger. A singer was in Arda again. But this one was not his wife. She went by the name of Sherilynn. And he had dismissed the rest, thinking it unimportant. He still had the parchment somewhere on his desk, but he hadn't bothered to read it thoroughly. Now he wished he had.

Glorfindel, having never been an elon given to long speeches or long letters when they were unnecessary, had written him the equivalent of a saga. And that, more than the seal or its cord, told him he needed to read every word.

Caelann was alive but barely. She was stuck in the Unseen Realm and everything she did was weakening her. Sherilynn, the one he had been told of before, was her friend and was sent in her stead to make sure that the dwarves that would be headed to Erebor retook it. Sherilynn could see Caelann, as could anyone else who was able to see into the Unseen Realm.

But there was more that Glorfindel had plainly told him Caelann and Sherilynn had withheld from Elrond and Mithrandir, even from the white council. Caelann no longer trusted Saruman, and as long as he held a council seat, she had no intention of telling them anything in his hearing that they would repeat back to him. Sherilynn appeared to share her opinion and it would be wise if he trusted his wife in this.

He snorted at that. Caelann had always kept her own counsel, but when she shared it he had learned to listen.

Caelann said, according to the lord who wrote for her, that the company who were headed to Erebor would pass through Greenwood although they had no intention to. The company was led by Thorin son of Thrain. Growling at the very idea of that dwarf breathing in his woods, he read on. It seemed his wife anticipated him and his thoughts of just locking him in the dungeons until the deadline of Durin's day passed and warned him against it.

Why? Well, orcs, wargs, and bats of course. Apparently, the city of Lake Town would burn, the dragon would die at the hands of a human named Bard who his wife claimed was a good, reasonable, and honorable man, Esgaroth would be attacked by an army of orcs, the humans who had taken refuge there would be slaughtered and the mountain taken by the orcs.

Even without the rest of the letter, he knew how bad that could be for his own kingdom. The dwarves needed to retake the Lonely Mountain and Erebor and hold it, he decided. His own feelings aside, he would much rather the Dwarves have that mountain than the Orcs.

"Tell the captains of the army to begin preparing for war." He mused, turning to the next page. "And the healers will be needed by the humans of Esgaroth."

"What?" Legolas sat up, brow furrowing. "How do you know?"

"Your naneth." Thranduil answered unfolding the next page which was a rather detailed map of the battlefield. Between his wife and Glorfindel, they had worked out defense positions and weak spots, places of attack and advantage. It wasn't a guarantee by any means. His wife, although knowing the outcome, had not told him that they would win. But she had given him a distinct advantage.

He pulled out the map from the pages and spread it to its full size on the table before him. "How are the newest recruits turning out?" Tracing the river with a fingertip, Thranduil barely registered his son's heavy exhale.

"Not as well as I would like." He finally admitted, leaning over the map. Though carefully drawn in black ink, it had red markings on it to denote things like the direction of attack and lines of defense. It looked like some of the maps that his father had kept from the war of the last alliance. But open war? This close to their home? His mind rebelled at the very idea. "Most, though wary of the spiders, do not take the threat as strongly as they should."

"They have not seen the dangers outside of the city walls." His father replied, moving to stand and walk to his desk for paper, quill, and inkwell. "Assign them to pair with more experienced wardens as you see they become capable enough not to get themselves killed." He knelt at the small table that held the map and began making his own notes. "We will need the wardens as strong as possible to guard the city while the army is on the move."

"You truly believe there will be a battle?"

With a heavy breath of his own, Thranduil lay down his quill and sat back on his heels to look at his son. After a long moment, he removed the crown and lay its twisting branches of copper-colored fall leaves on the table beside the map. Then he slid his heavy robes off his shoulders and lay them in his chair, leaving him only clothed in the simple tunic and trousers of a warrior. "Yes." Was his simple reply. "Much sooner than I would like."