"You seem disturbed," Ailunai remarked as she and Thranduil swung in circles on the dance floor.

"Hmm?" Thranduil said.

"You are usually not so clumsy," Ailunai replied.

"I apologize," Thranduil said. "I slept poorly last night."

"Who would?" Ailunai said. "I was rudely awakened by catchers who insisted they must search my room."

"I heard the catchers," Thranduil said. "But they did not come into my room."

"Perks of being a prince, I suppose," Ailunai said and smiled.

"Do you think it is right?" Thranduil asked. "Ada said orphanages are dark places."

"You can buy orphans," Ailunai said.

"You cannot sell people!" Thranduil cried. Ailunai opened her mouth but the music changed, a signal to switch partners, and Thranduil found himself paired with a pale, thin young lady who simpered at him. Unable to dance with Ailunai again until the lesson ended, he caught up with her at the door.

"What do you mean you can buy orphans?" he panted.

"My family own vineyards," Ailunai explained. "But we do most of the work ourselves and it is hard at times to keep up with pruning and harvest. So, after hearing about it from a fellow merchant, my father went to an orphanage and bought two boys. It is free labor."

Thranduil gazed at her with wide eyes. "Is it—is it allowed?"

"Not really," Ailunai answered. "It is really a matter of gold changing hands. The orphans my father bought were so bony and bruised, they could not even lift an empty barrel."

Thranduil winced.

"He—my father—thought about sending them back," Ailunai said. "But instead he gave them a warm place to sleep and fed them."

Thranduil thought of Harune. "Not everyone would be as kind as your father."

"I know," Ailunai said. "I saw it in the orphans' eyes. They were used to being beaten."

The bluntness in her voice made Thranduil wince again. "I do not think it fair such bad orphanages exist."

"I learned long ago," Ailunai answered, "Life is not fair."

She and Thranduil parted. Thranduil changed into a plain tunic and joined Ivy in the hot sunshine. By the time he finished weeding, his shoulders burned and the dry soil on his hands made his fingers itched.

"Wear a hat tomorrow," Ivy told him. "We will be watering so be prepared to get sweaty." She collected her trowels and walked away.

Thranduil washed his dry hands in the garden spring before he hurried to the kitchens. Nimrethil handed him a basket for Hyrondal and pressed a cold pie into his hands. "I made it," she whispered.

Thranduil nibbled the cold pastry stuffed with cheese. "Valar above, it tastes horrible!"

Nimrethil wacked his arm. "A dozen maids do not agree." She tossed her head and sauntered away.

Thranduil grinned. He finished his pastry and swung the basket as he walked toward Hyrondal's hideaway. Instead of taking up his sword when Hyrondal sat down to eat, Thranduil asked, "Are you an orphan?"

Hyrondal narrowed his yellow eyes. "Why?"

"Catchers were in the palace last night," Thranduil answered. "And I realized there is a lot I do not know."

Hyrondal threw away his apple core. "I am a runaway."

"Why?" Thranduil demanded.

Hyrondal tasted one of Nimrethil's pastries next. He pointed to Thranduil's sword. "Show me what Yuai taught you this morning and maybe I will be moved to share my story."

Thranduil caught up his sword and launched into the first steps of his morning's lesson with Yuai.

"Now," Hyrondal said. "You look like a clumsy fool! You must adapt that sickly routine to hear the forest's song."

Thranduil grunted. As he shut his eyes and heard the wind in the trees, he allowed himself to slow down. He stretched his arms and knees and allowed his sword to flow.

"Better," Hyrondal said. "Like Nimrethil, you are learning. Tell her the pastries are good."

Thranduil nodded as he turned with the ground, feeling its hardness as his other senses made up for what his closed eyes could not see. He heard Hyrondal jump up and join him and soon Hyrondal's feet moved in the shadow of his own.

"I ran away from home because my family have been cartographers practically since Mirkwood began," Hyrondal said. "But I do not want to map and when I found my family leaves no room for dreams, I left."

"Did you—did you try to make it work?"

"Yes," Hyrondal answered. "But, like now, there is only one way left to reach my dream."

For several minutes the elves worked in silence until Hyrondal called a pause and opened the first leather-bound tome Thranduil had brought him from the palace library. Titled A Warrior's Way, he leaned it against a tree and propped the first page open with a rock.

Thranduil studied the diagram on the page as Hyrondal joined him. "Ready to try something new?" Hyrondal demanded.

Thranduil winked. "Always." He mimicked the steps on the page, stamping one foot and then the other and turning around on his heel and finished by observing, "It seems a bit silly."

Hyrondal snorted. "Oh, have no worry, each step builds into something new. This move is actually designed as a balance to hop rolling logs in a river."

Thranduil blinked. "Really!"

As he and Hyrondal stamped their feet together, Hyrondal said, "They send catchers after runaways."

"I will never tell anyone you are here," Thranduil answered. "Come on, turn the page; this is too easy!"

Six pages later, Thranduil took the empty basket and walked homeward, his thighs aching from crouching on logs and his ribs bruised from falling when he tried to hope between tree trunks. He took the long way home, walking past the shortcut through the kitchen gardens and instead approached the palace's front gate. At his approach, a horn sounded, and the gates creaked open but shouting distracted Thranduil toward the road peeking through the trees at his far left.

A dirt track, it led out of the dungeon mouth into the forest. As Thranduil stood beside the palace's stone wall, his heart deflated at the sight of the skinny orphan boy with his hands tied behind him, stretching at the gag in his mouth. Two elves in black tunics shoved him toward twin horses tethered to trees further down the road.

Catchers, Thranduil thought, as the elves nodded to him. Their eyes were cold. As the orphan staggered past him, Thranduil saw his red wrists bound so tight, his fingers were purple. He scowled and saw the butterfly of his dreams crushed again.

Thranduil walked on with clenched hands.

There is only so long a body can do nothing, and Thranduil is reaching the point of being stretched into two pieces . . . as always, I love hearing your thoughts on the current chapter and your guesses for what is next!

Next Chapter: Thranduil meets the orphan boy and discovers he has a name.