A/N
I hope all are well and safe and still managing to find some peace and joy in these strange mad times.
This is getting too long again, so I'm cutting it into two chapters, I hope that doesnt make this chapter too unsatisfactory and pointless. I promise it does have a point (at least in my head).
To those who reviewed and to who I cannot reply in person, I thank you again for sticking with this, for writing such kind reviews, they are so very much appreciated, and bearing with my self indulgence (word count astonishes even me, but then my first ever fan fic ended up running to 3 parts and 700K words! I promise this one wont be that long, then again...)
As ever anything of any worth belongs to JRRT.
A delayed meeting
Legolas looked across the laden table to his father, already robed and crowned for his morning duties, and watched him for a moment as he heaped preserve upon his bread, unconcerned by the stream of bees that carefully visited the summer flowers of his crown. He smiled at the sight for occasionally one would pause to rest on the kings' hair or arm before resuming their forage, neither party disturbed by the other.
The table had been set out beneath the courtyard trees, the sun was warm, the birds sang and the king seemed to be at ease, his obvious grief of yesterdays' ceremony put aside, for the moment at least. His son hoped that serenity would survive the coming conversation but it had to be had, so he drew a deep breath and he turned his eyes down to the strawberries he was hulling.
"I have agreed to meet with Tauriel this morning. I promised that I would do so you recall, and I would not turn away from that undertaking." He was pleased that his voice sounded light and unconcerned and continued with more confidence. "I see no purpose in delaying it any longer. With Bards crowning tomorrow and all the celebrations that will follow the opportunity will be harder to find. I confess too that I would wish it done before I must play my princely part at all the entertainments to come."
The king smiled slightly at his words.
"I can understand that might be the case, and I agree that you must hold to your word to meet with her. I have no objections if that is what concerns you, as I said when we first discussed it. Be easy, I see no danger in you meeting with her here in my house and with my agreement."
He bit into the preserve laden bread, a frown appearing on his brow as he chewed it. Legolas caught the look and poured both of them more tea as he waited for what was to come.
The king swallowed and gestured with the remaining bread towards his waiting son.
"At least no danger in the thoughts of others." He sighed, "As for Tauriel herself of that I am less certain. I do not think her capacity to cause harm is yet spent, though whether she will mean any of the grief she may yet cause I cannot say."
Legolas frowned.
"You think of Mithrandir's' letter and his warning to you? You think she might seek to use my meeting with her to do you harm? If that is the case then I will forgo the meeting, though I cannot see how she could seek to achieve such an end."
The king took a sip of his tea.
'No my son you cannot', he thought as he saw the concern flare in the eyes that met his own, 'and therein lies the rub, but how can I explain without stirring your demons of guilt. Caged they might be but they are not yet banished, much though I wish they were. Yet I must try to warn you, for I doubt her sting is fully drawn where you are concerned.'
He smiled slightly.
"It is not for myself I have concern, but for you. Words can cut like a blade when the circumstances allow it. My fear is that she will seek to disturb the little peace you have managed to win for yourself since your return."
Legolas frowned.
"You think that her capable of such malice and that it would run in that direction?"
Thranduil bit into his bread again and considered his sons' words with tilted head wondering how best to answer. This was still a conversational path he trod with misgiving and considerable care for he knew that Legolas was still a way from being restored to himself. For that reason he would keep some of his suspicion to himself. Finally he swallowed and shook his head.
"Malice? No I would not accuse her of that. For that would require her to understand the harm she might be doing and to care nothing for it, or wish it even. More a wanton and ungoverned child, I think, who gives little thought to consequences when denied what they would have; and I fear that she remains wedded to her view of events, even though Mithrandir showed her another."
Legolas shrugged, his frown deepening.
"How would that harm me? Do you think me so in thrall to her still that I would be hurt or moved by her words? I assure you that you need have no such fear, my own view is much changed from those dark days, as I hoped you knew!"
Seeing the anxiety in his sons eyes Thranduil mentally cursed himself and hurried to reassure him.
"I know it well, be assured of that. She however does not know this, and may not believe it to be possible. My concern is that you will find yourself required to openly state it and with some force and that in doing so cause her anger and perhaps some fear and pain for which you will hold yourself to blame. For I doubt she will accept your change of view with grace."
Legolas sighed and inclined his head in acceptance of his fathers' words.
"What then do you think she will do? She cannot believe that I can change her fate, even if she thinks me willing to try."
Thranduil shook his head
"I doubt she thinks that and what she will seek to gain by this encounter I do not know. But it seems likely to me that whatever her object is she will seek, through guilt or sympathy, to return you to her view of things. I fear that she will be unable to bear your denial of the rightness of her actions with grace, nor accept your regret for what was done with equanimity. More than that I fear that she will be driven to instil a sense of guilt and betrayal in you for your change, most of which I expect her to seek to lay at my door. That too you may find painful."
Legolas sighed again.
"You think she considers me so weak then?"
The king smiled a wry smile.
"Weak no, for if she still thinks what she did to be justified then she would consider it nothing more than you breaking free of filial duty to once again take a proper view of matters. A proper view being one that is aligned to her own view you understand."
His eyes slipped past Legolas and he seemed to become lost in the past again and his voice took on a soft yet sombre tone.
"I well recall the night after the funeral rites for Oakenshield and his kin, she had haunted the gate waiting for our return much pained that she had not been included in the ceremony I think. But Dain had already made his views on that matter clear."
He looked back towards his son.
"As I have told you he had accused me of setting her to bewitch his youthful relative, a dwarf barely grown, for my own purposes, and though he retreated from that claim under pressure from both Mithrandir and Bard his anger against her continued bitter and bottomless. He would have had me barred from the rites too had a previous conversation not made that act…unwise."
His gaze slipped back to the past again.
"Later that night I had Tauriel brought to my tent to inform her of her fate, for I would not leave her in fear as well as grief, and I knew she must be afraid for her future. She was quiet, submissive even, and yet I sensed no true regret for her actions in her, no wish for things to have been done differently, no repudiation of her accusations. It was clear to me that all she wished to do was justify what she had done, to force me to accept her greater virtue and honour; and, while she accepted her fate, there was no insight into the magnitude of the deeds that had had brought her to it that I could see. I make allowance for her loss at that time but now, as then, I feel that there was as much, if not more, resentment in her as regret."
"Much as Mithrandir remarked then. So you were not surprised by what he observed."
Thranduil nodded.
"I was not surprised."
He sighed.
"Later my guard told me that when they escorted her to my tent all they sensed or saw in her was surprise at the reactions of others to what she had done, as if she had expected them to laud her rather than condemn. It was clear to them that she did not expect to be treated as villain but a hero."
His voice dropped almost to a whisper.
"That expectation perhaps explains some of her conduct. Indeed I hope that it does."
Legolas waited to see if his father would say more, but he did not instead reaching out again for his dish of tea.
After a moment he took up the strands of their earlier remarks.
"Then you are content that I meet with her today? Do you wish to be present?"
The king shook his head with an emphatic air.
"No, though I may look in for a moment to make it clear I was aware of the meeting," a thoughtful look crossed his face, "or perhaps it would be better if I send you a message by another. If you tell me which room you will be in I can ensure they find you."
"I have agreed with the guard commander that his office will be available, it seemed best to chose somewhere where we are unlikely to be interrupted but that carries no hint of hiding. We meet at the tenth bell."
"Then I will have a message sent to you on the half bell after that. I cannot see that your discussion will be over before then. I expect she will find much to say."
He shot Legolas a sympathetic look.
"Do not think I will require a report on the matter of you. If you wish to discuss it with me later I will listen willingly but I make no request to do so, the matter is your own to manage as you see fit. All I ask is that you remember my words of caution and do not allow your sympathy for her fate to draw you into any unwise act."
Legolas smiled and reached for cream.
"Be assured that I will not. I put aside the feelings of others to serve her wishes then and did not understand what I did. Now I understand and I will not err in that manner again."
He loaded his spoon with cream drenched strawberry.
"Now, this evenings' feast remind me one more time who you would have me dance with, and in what order."
xx
The sun had set and the lamps in the garden were all lit, the night air perfumed by the scent of burning oils and night flowers. Tables had been laid out beneath the trees and in the courtyard, the seats strewn with soft pillows, the covering cloths white in the lamp light. Tonight for the first time since the rebirth of the City of Dale the Elvenking was entertaining.
In his rooms above the courtyard Legolas watched as Galion moved between the tables overseeing the last of the preparations. A faint smile lingered on his mouth as he recalled feasts in the forest and the many evening the kings' butler had ended sleepy with pilfered wine in some shadowed nook. None seeing him now would believe it, for he appeared the epitome of the perfect retainer.
The smile was replaced by a frown. But many things were not as they first seemed; this he had learned to his cost. With a sigh he turned away from the window and picked up his cup of wine from the table, seating himself in the chair beside it and stretching is legs out before him. It wanted half a bell to the assembly time and he had finished dressing for the evening, giving him an opportunity then to think again on his words with Tauriel; for he was still not sure what to make of it.
He had given their meeting much thought in the hours since they had parted and he was still unsure of the purpose of her request for it.
Quite what he had expected he had not been sure, nor had he known how he would feel at facing her again, and so he had gone to the meeting with some trepidation. His fathers' words of the early morning had put him on his guard, for which he had been grateful at times during their conversation. Yet in the end the deep hurt he had feared he might feel had not been there.
It had not been his lost one, the soul mate who had chosen another, who sat before him, but someone much cared for yet more separate. More the sister and comrade he had once thought of her. Either he had changed more than he had thought in his time on the road or she had, or he had been strangely blind in the time before the coming of the dwarfs. What ever the reason he found he felt more distant from her than he had expected to do and yet he did not know why, for there was nothing he could point to that would explain it. Not that there hadn't been moments of pain and loss as they spoke, yet somehow even those had lacked the raw anguish he had thought he would feel.
Legolas took another sip of wine and let the memories replay again.
He had been seated in the guard captains' office when the tenth bell rang, and barely had the sound died away when there was a knock upon the door. A sudden feeling of uncertainty about the wisdom of this meeting shook him, but it was too late for he had given his word and so he pushed it away.
"Enter."
The door opened and there she stood, dressed as if she had just come from duty, wide eyed and with a smile hovering around her mouth. At first glance she looked just as she had that day when he found her beside the river, yet something he could not explain had changed, either in her look or in how he perceived it. He had pushed that thought away smiling at her as he rose and moved around the desk, extending his hand towards the chairs beside the empty hearth.
"Come, sit. There is tea upon the table there and I will send for food if you wish for it."
For a moment she just looked a him with that faint smile he knew of old and then it faded and she cast down her eyes and his sense of strangeness increased.
"My Lord, there is no need." Her voice was low and hesitant.
He had felt suddenly uncomfortable, as if he had been rebuked, but continued as he had planned.
"Then be seated and help yourself to tea, I see no reason why we should not be comfortable. We should not be disturbed, for some time at least. Whatever you wish to say to me can be said without hesitation and certain of our privacy."
At that she looked up again.
"You are kind my Lord."
His discomfort increased, not at her use of the title, for she had used it many times in the past, but at the tone in which she spoke it. In the past it had been nothing more than a simple recognition of his rank, a matter of form, but now she spoke it with an inflexion that gave it a weight that had not been there before. It occurred to him that she was seeking to draw his notice to the difference between them and he pushed away a sudden spurt of irritation, for it had barely mattered to her in the past.
He smiled at her again.
"Legolas, there is no need for formality here. Come, sit."
She gave him another small smile as she moved towards the chair.
"I do not think your noble father would approve of such informality."
It was spoken mildly enough but there was something in her tone carried a bitter note and that caused him a momentary surge of anger; he had not expected comment on his father to come so quickly.
But he had ignored it, telling himself that she must feel as ill at ease as he, so he had replied gently as he seated himself and indicated that she should also sit.
"For himself and in public perhaps not, but then he is our king and therefore such things can be important, as much for others feelings as his own. For you and I and in this room, I doubt he would be much concerned."
She gave him a depreciating look, as she seated herself in the other chair.
"Perhaps that would have been true once," she said softly, "but even before the dwarf Oakenshield came he had come to view any friendship between us with disfavour. He had told me as much, though not in those words."
The frisson of anger swept through him again that she said so much so easily now when she had nothing before, but he did not think he betrayed the feeling and spoke kindly enough.
"I think you mistook his meaning, he was only concerned, feared, that perhaps I saw more in it than you. Given what followed we must grant his wisdom in that. Had I ever been anything more than a brother in arms, or had any chance of being so, the dwarf would not have stolen your heart so quickly and easily."
A look of unease had swept across her face then, and he had seen her swallow, tears springing to her eyes.
"My Lord, Legolas. You mean much to me, and always have." Her voice was quiet and sad. "I cannot explain to you how it happened for I do not understand it myself. I did not think to love him, or even consider that I might. When he spoke of the mountains beneath the moon and stars, of his love of his mother and yet his desire to wander, it pulled at something in my heart. Why it took me where it did I still cannot say. But I would have you know that I did not value your friendship any the less for it, nor was my care for you in anyway changed or diminished."
Legolas halted the stream of memory abruptly; he shifted in his chair and took another deep swallow of his wine as he remembered the feeling of loss that had swept through him as she said that. The memories had risen up before him, of the nights they had sat side by side in the tree tops and watched the stars, of the stories of far away lands and perilous journeys his father had told them beside the fire on winters nights as she had sat curled beneath his arm, of the feasts at which they had laughed and danced and sung songs of the birth of the sun and moon. Memories that had meant a great deal to him but little to her if a few stories shared through a wooden door in furtive whispers could sway her in such a way. Yet she could say that her care for him was not diminished, perhaps that told him all he had needed to know of her feelings. His fathers concern had been more than justified it seemed.
He shook himself slightly as that same feeling stirred again; the past would not haunt him he had promised himself that. He no longer cared for her as he had once wished to and now his sense of regret and guilt at her losses replaced any other longing. That also told him much about the truth of his own feelings of that time and he wished he had been so clear sighted then.
With a sigh he took another swallow of wine and forced his mind back to his review of their talk.
She must have seen the sorrow in his eyes for she sat forward slightly and reached out a hand, halting just before she touched him.
"I cannot explain it, indeed I cannot, have I not admitted that. But I would have you know this had I not been beside myself with grief and guilt at Killi's death, I would not have let you leave without a word as I did. It has tortured me that you left that place of battle with no word of thanks or comfort."
He would have liked to believe that, yet he found that somehow he could not. A feeling that even her regard for the dwarf was not as simple as he had thought took hold of him, that and a sudden certainty that she had given him no thought until she realised he would not be there to plead her case with his father. Or maybe even later, until Mithrandir challenged her. Another thought he had pushed away unexplored.
He had shaken his head.
"Concern yourself no more on that matter for there were words of comfort for me before I left, my father was most kind and generous in his care, even after my earlier acts. More than kind for despite his own hurt he thought mainly of mine and sought to give me a distraction that would give me new purpose. Just as I believe he was kind to you."
She had sat back at that, a wary look entering her eyes.
"Kind? Perhaps? He admitted to the reality of my love if that is what you refer to. But it can have meant nothing to him when Killi lay dead, though if he truly intended it as a comfort then it was indeed kind."
He had paused for a moment, disconcerted by her words and her tone, both of which were grudging and graceless. It was clear that Mithrandir had been correct in detecting that her underlying anger and resentment remained.
He smiled at her gently.
"He told me that he meant to be, despite your repudiation of him, and I believe him. He could not save you from the consequences of your actions but he had no desire to be cruel, either then or since. Yet he knew that you would see your fate as being so."
She frowned.
"Should I not see it as so? Or his refusal to help Kili as being so? What would it have taken for him to send them warning?"
He recalled how the feeling of guilt stirred in him at that moment and the effort it had taken to keep it from his voice.
"Much, it would have involved the spilling of yet more elven blood, and in a hopeless cause."
That turned her frown to a bitter smile.
"Elven blood mattered more, your father made that clear enough. He thought the dwarfs of no consequence."
Legolas sighed.
"No", he said gently, "not of no consequence, but the action you demanded he knew to be something that would gain nothing. Had he sent soldiers he would have had to bear the responsibility for the loss of more immortal lives in an action that was not of their choice and without purpose."
She put her tea down with a snap that echoed through the room and would have shattered a more delicate voice took on the edge of a dagger.
"No purpose! Something that might have saved their lives, was that not worth the risk?"
He suppressed another sigh and wondered if she had learned anything in her words with Mithrandir.
"But probably would not, and the risking of their lives was by their own choice. Like it or no your dwarf and his brother made a choice, no one sent them for they chose to follow their uncle to Ravenhill. Our soldiers however, your comrades, friends perhaps, would have died because my father commanded them; and he would have sent them knowing of their fate and that there was no hope of success. Think Tauriel! Had it been men on that watchtower what would you have thought had my Father sent elves to certain death for no benefit to any, would you not be condemning him for thoughtless and recklessness?"
Her anger turned to sadness in a moment and tears filled her voice fell soft and low again.
"Yet Kili might have lived."
It was then that there was a knock upon the door and he rose to answer it glad of the chance to turn away from her anger. The keeper of the robes was waiting, his eyes alight with curiosity, and, mindful of his fathers warning, he was careful to ensure that he did not shield Tauriel from his sight. The other elf bowed with a slight smile.
"My Lord, the king sent me to you, he would ask what dress you would wear this evening so that he might have the right jewels brought from the strong room."
Legolas suppressed a smile, trust his father to find a way to involve one of the greatest gossips in the Realm in the matter. By the noon bell all points of the garrison would know that he had met with Tauriel and that his father knew of it.
He inclined his head.
"I confess that I have not given much thought to it, for it matters little to me other than it is suitable, does our Realm honour and complements the kings' attire. I will be advised by you, my only plea is that you avoid any thing I might trip upon, for I lack my fathers' skill in managing such hazards in the dance, and it seems that I must dance. The circlet too I would ask you chose with care, for it would be most unbecoming in me to bow or turn and see it roll across the room, or worse still beneath the table."
The other elf smiled a sympathetic smile, for the kings son was known to lack his fathers' skill in managing the most formal attire.
"As you wish my Lord, have you any preference as to rings or fastenings?"
Legolas had waved the thought away.
"None."
"Then I will confer with your fathers attendants and leave you to your current business."
With one more measuring look at Tauriel he turned and left.
Legolas watched the door close behind him with a sudden desire toend this meeting and follow him through it. But he had given his word, and he was sure she had not said she wished to as yet so instead he drew a deep breath and returned to the matter in hand.
