Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally...
It was a bright summer morning in Greenwood; there was not a cloud in the sky, and the sunlight that shone through the trees dappled the ground with green and gold. No sane elf would have predicted anything other than the clear skies that had thus far appeared all week. Granted, Thranduil thought, his brother-in-law hardly counted as a sane elf.
"There's going to be a thunderstorm later, I can feel it," Coryn insisted as he followed his sister and the prince along a wide branch that was fully bathed in sunlight.
Sky looked up at her namesake. "You're telling me it feels like a storm's coming? Thranduil, let go." She tried to pull her hand free of her husband's so that she could turn and face her brother.
Thranduil did not allow that. "Hmm... no, I think not."
She glared at him and offered him the other hand. "Switch?"
He thought about it, then let go of her hand as though to take the other, only to put his arm around her waist instead so that she could not turn at all. She sighed, having expected this behavior.
"Don't worry about it, sis," Storm said, and Thranduil and Sky both ducked instinctively as he vaulted over their heads and landed lightly in front of them. "As I was saying, yes, it feels like a storm's coming, are you kidding?"
The other two exchanged looks. "I have always said he needed his head checked," Thranduil noted.
"You used to say the same thing about me."
He shrugged. "Was I wrong?"
Sky considered smacking him and decided it wasn't worth it. "Maybe it's his name."
Thranduil raised an eyebrow.
"Stormfire," she reminded him.
"I know that," the offended prince said. "I merely do not see how his name could affect his skill at predicting the weather. What is 'stormfire', anyway?"
"Lightning," Storm said. "It's 'skyfire' we're not sure about."
Thranduil looked down at his wife curiously.
"The sun?" she guessed. "Meteors? The stars? Who knows?"
"Which do you prefer?"
"Meteors," she said immediately.
He chuckled. "Of course."
"And that's probably what it is," Storm added. "Mom wasn't one to name her children after anything peaceful."
Thranduil pointed at his wife. "Is that where...?"
"Oh, definitely." Storm's smile was just the slightest bit sad. "Same eyes, too. But yeah, she was a little crazy, our mother."
"Shocking," the prince observed, giving Eithryn an affectionate squeeze.
Storm grinned. "So it's not really my fault Sky turned out like this, you know."
Thranduil nodded thoughtfully.
"At least they've found something to agree on," Sky muttered under her breath.
"Who are you talking to, love?" Thranduil asked in a mock-concerned voice.
"My invisible friend," she informed him sarcastically. "He's a talking squirrel. A purple one."
Thranduil smirked at Coryn. "She seems normal."
Storm nodded.
. . . . . .
A few minutes later, Storm stopped them as they approached the feast hall and quickly glanced in the window, then winked and led them around the back. As they neared the corner, he put his finger to his lips and leaned around it. The other two quickly did the same.
"Aww," Sky said softly, because there, sitting in the spreading branches of a young tree, were their two best friends, looking just about as happy as she'd ever seen them. Felrion's eyes were closed and his face was tilted up toward the sun, and Kilvara had her head on his shoulder and was gazing up at him lovingly.
Storm pulled back behind the corner. "What should we do?"
"Be nice and let them have their moment?" Sky asked dryly.
Storm looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "Oh, come on, this opportunity is almost as good as the time I found you two by that blackberry patch—"
"Storm. No."
"We do not need to relive that," Thranduil agreed.
"Fine," he said reluctantly. "But come on, Sky. Don't be a Sindar."
Thranduil was less offended by the insult than by the fact that his wife took it as one. "Hey!" she protested.
Storm grinned. "You married one, you act like one, you—Oof!" Sky knocked the wind out of him as she tackled him. Within moments the two were yelling insults at each other as they rolled about on the ground.
Thranduil sighed and stepped around them—Eithryn seemed to be winning for the moment, so he saw no reason to separate them. "Good morning," he greeted the two startled Silvan elves in the tree.
Felrion and Kilvara looked at each other and rolled their eyes, because such were the risks of being friends with Sky and Storm. "Out of curiosity, how long have you been there?" Felrion asked as they hopped down to the ground.
"Not long," Thranduil told him, sidestepping the siblings as they tumbled past him. "We were discussing whether to disturb you and there was a disagreement."
"I know how it feels now," Sky explained. "A little help, please?"
Thranduil unceremoniously lifted his brother-in-law off of her and dumped him in the dirt.
"Hey, Storm," Kilvara said before he and Sky could leap at each other again, "I'm supposed to tell you that the king wants to see you three hours before noon. Better get going."
Storm blinked and looked at Thranduil, who shrugged, not having heard anything from his father. "Me?"
"You," Kilvara confirmed.
Storm didn't bother to get off the ground as he thought for a minute. "I think I'm innocent this time." It was then that he noticed Kilvara's grin. "You know what this is about?"
She just smiled innocently. "I think the king would like to tell you himself."
"Right..." He got up and turned to leave, then snapped his fingers and turned back. "I've been meaning to ask—Have you two kissed yet?"
They both turned bright red. "None of your business," Kilvara said defensively.
"Ooooooh..." Storm was suddenly extremely interested.
"What was it like?" Sky wanted to know. All attempts at being nice went out the window when something like this came up.
"It wasn't like their kisses, was it?" Storm indicated his sister and her husband. "Because those are just—"
"Goodbye, Coryn." Thranduil gave him a not-so-gentle shove in the general direction of his father's new audience hall.
"But—"
"Goodbye, Storm," Sky agreed.
"Bye," Felrion and Kilvara both said at once.
"All right, all right." Storm took off into the trees. "And remember, there'll be a thunderstorm tonight!"
The remaining four exchanged looks. "Concussion?" Felrion asked Sky.
"Probably."
. . . . . .
Storm entertained himself on the way to see the king by wondering what the audience hall would look like; it couldn't be too bad if Sky hadn't mentioned it, but they'd come to expect a certain amount of showing off where Oropher was concerned. He was sort of disappointed when it turned out to be made almost entirely of wood; yes, it was elaborately carved, and they'd used a variety of different trees (fallen ones, of course), so it was colorful as well, but as far as buildings a king would be in for any length of time, it was remarkably humble. Even the throne was only a simple one, carved from wood.
"Ah, Coryn," the king said after dismissing a messenger he had been talking with.
"Oropher," Storm returned, pretending to forget he was supposed to bow, or kneel, or hop in circles, or whatever else he was expected to do in this setting.
Oropher did not miss it any more than he had the last thousand times, but he did not want to waste his time explaining to Coryn (again) why he had to bow to the king when his sister did not, or any of the other questions he would undoubtably come up with to convince the king that it simply was not worth arguing about. "I—Yes? What?" Coryn had opened his mouth at the same time as the king.
"Just wondering who designed the place," Storm said.
Oropher took a few moments to respond, searching as he was for any hidden sarcasm. "I did, with help from the Silvan architects, of course."
"Really? It's remarkably Silvan, as such things go."
Oropher eyed him, waiting for the punchline.
Storm chuckled, catching on. "I'm not insulting you," he promised. "Or threatening you, or trying to distract you—" Oropher did a scan of the room to check that statement. "—or even trying to trick you, believe it or not. I approve, for once."
"I did not ask for your approval," the Sindarin king reminded him.
Storm wanted to roll his eyes. "That doesn't have to make it meaningless." Knowing that this argument could go on forever if he'd somehow insulted the king's pride—honestly, wasn't it about time he got rid of that chip on his shoulder?—he waved away the thought even as he spoke it. "Never mind. What do you want from me today?"
"Ah, yes." Oropher, too, was ready to move on, mainly out of discomfort from being complimented by someone he seemed to disagree with in practically every way. "Coryn, there have been a total of eleven orc raids in the last five years that were on a large enough scale to cause lasting damage."
"I know." Storm had probably stopped at least five others just by himself.
"The servants of evil are far greater in number than there once were, and—"
"There's a war coming?" Storm asked dryly. "My sister's the princess, Oropher, and besides that, I'm not blind. I know what's going on in the world. Get to the point."
Oropher narrowed his eyes at him, and Storm held back a snicker as he realized they were each trying the other's patience, just in different ways. "The point I am getting to, Silvan, is that we are expanding our forces as quickly as we can, and it seemed a shame to me to leave out an experienced and, I am told, highly capable potential leader."
He had Storm's attention, as well as a decent amount of skepticism.
"Hear me out," Oropher insisted. "I am well aware that I have asked you to take command before, but that was many years ago, and both our positions have changed considerably. I ask you again now because I truly believe you could be of great use; your friend Kilvara informs me that you have been protecting the borders your entire life, and I am sure you have been of great use there, but you and your friends can only do so much alone."
"And you think I'd be more helpful if I were surrounded by a lot more elves?" Storm asked, but he was listening.
"No," the king corrected. "I think you would be more helpful leading more elves." He paused to assess Coryn's reaction. "Kilvara says you have great leadership potential."
Storm shrugged.
"You disagree?"
"I wouldn't know," the Silvan elf admitted. "I've spent most of my life following my sister around."
"I have noticed," Oropher grumbled. "No matter. We will start you off gently. As a captain, perhaps, like your friend?"
Storm made a face. "That's 'gently'? Also, since when do you trust me with anything remotely important?"
"Let us call it an experiment. We will start you on patrols, and see if you are suited for more difficult work."
Wait... "Better not let your son hear you say patrols are easy."
Oropher raised an eyebrow. "Are they not?"
Storm thought about all the decisions and strategies and quick thinking that he had seen in any of the patrols he'd been on, and he could only make one conclusion. "You've never been on a patrol, have you?"
"On the contrary, I went on hundreds—perhaps thousands—in my youth," the king replied indignantly.
"In Doriath."
"Surely the basic principles are the same."
Storm's expression showed what he thought of that.
Oropher processed that look and its implications and raised an eyebrow before saying, "You will lead a single-day patrol tomorrow," and waving to dismiss him.
"Not going to give me a choice?"
Oropher frowned.
"You didn't ask if I accepted."
The king breathed in, held the breath for a moment, and breathed out slowly. "Do you accept?"
"Sure."
"Wonderful." Oropher jerked his head toward the exit.
"One more thing, if I may, oh great king. Don't Sky and Thranduil have a patrol tonight, in the same area as I'll be in tomorrow?"
Oropher tried to remember the patrol schedule he had approved at some point. "I believe that is correct."
Storm winked meaningfully, gave a mock bow, and trotted off, probably earning the distinction of being the first creature to ever run in the newly-built hall.
. . . . . .
The evening after Storm's talk with the king, Sky and Thranduil were getting ready for their patrol, which in this case meant sparring as their group slowly filtered into the little clearing where nearly all patrols in the area began and ended... or that was how they started out, anyway.
"Where are you?" Thranduil wondered out loud as he checked in a clump of leaves, although he hardly expected a response. There was no Eithryn in there, so he hopped over to another slender branch where he had a better view of the ground below, because while it was most likely that he would find her in a tree, you never knew.
A soft click got his attention, and the Silvan she-elf who had made the sound nodded her head toward a particular tree and winked. Thranduil smiled in thanks and crept along that way, scanning the tree for any signs of his wife, but it was not until a copper-haired head peeked around the trunk about two-thirds of the way up that he spotted her. The prince sidestepped behind the trunk of his current tree and waited for a sign from the Silvan elves who were having fun watching their prince and princess play. When he got it—nods from the elves he was fairly sure were on his side—he leaned around the trunk to double-check that it was safe, then silently stepped over to the next branch and leapt to the next, and so on until he landed on the opposite side of Eithryn's tree, a few branches above where she crouched. Then he slowly circled around, one branch at a time...
Sky couldn't hear anything—Thranduil had, as she'd told him more than once, gotten stealthier—but she had her own informants.
He was counting on that.
On a tip from the elves loyal to her, Sky lunged around the trunk without warning... but the branches were empty, and just as she was processing that, someone grabbed her from behind. She shrieked and kicked out, unbalancing both of them, but luckily Thranduil knew his wife's typical reaction to being grabbed without warning and was positioned so that their fall was cushioned (well, sort of) by numerous branches, and their tree was (relatively) small to begin with. They landed in a laughing heap, not minding that they were a bit scratched up, and hardly noticing the surrounding elves' winces and chuckles. They did catch the sound of a throat clearing, though, and flushed with embarrassment when they discovered Thranduil's father trying to hide his amusement only a few steps away. "Is this how my soldiers act on patrols, then?"
"Who're you calling a soldier?" Eithryn protested, not unexpectedly.
"My son," Oropher replied. "I gather from your behavior that you are not expecting trouble today."
"On the contrary, it is likely we will encounter orcs, but—" Thranduil lost his train of thought as he took a closer look at his father. "You are wearing Silvan clothing." This had never happened before, and Thranduil found it worrying.
"Of course," Oropher said. "It would be unwise to go on a patrol in robes, after all." He smirked.
Thranduil waited for him to say he was joking, and when no such thing happened, he glanced over at his wife, who looked just as... ahem... unsure as he did. "Father...?"
Oropher raised an eyebrow, ready to dismiss whatever excuse his son would come up with for leaving him behind. "Yes?"
Eithryn, for once, offered the king no insults. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of taking Oropher with them and seeing how much, if any, he had learned about the forest in his sheltered meeting halls and along his tame paths.
Thranduil held back his numerous objections, knowing they would be totally ignored anyway. "I suppose we should move out, then."
Oropher smiled and patted his son on the back.
. . . . . .
The orc scouts thought they were being quiet as they stalked through the undergrowth, but the elves could hear every thump of their boots on the soft ground, and their trail, marked by bootprints and snapped branches, was visible even in the dark. The Silvan patrol, on the other hand, was utterly silent, communicating entirely through hand gestures as they surrounded the enemy, perfectly coordinated to an elf; most of these elves had been working together under the prince and princess for more than five hundred years, after all. Oropher understood now how this group had gotten their reputation.
Now if only he could understand what they were saying.
As they reached their ambush spot a good distance in front of the orcs, Sky waved to get her husband's attention, then pointed her herself and signed Around—she would lead her group to the other side of where the enemy would be.
He nodded and added, Block path. He did not explain that he meant the fastest path to the edge of the forest.
Obviously. She actually signed "yes", but he got the idea. Then she indicated his father. Watch.
Obviously.
As she disappeared, Thranduil turned to his father and started to sign the plan, then caught himself and whispered instead. "They are scouts, and therefore they will try to run, not fight, so we need to cut off their escape routes before we attack."
"You cannot simply chase them down afterward?"
Thranduil sighed. "That would take a while, father. You would not believe how well an orc can hide in such thick cover. You do want to return before dawn, yes?"
Oropher was not impressed. "Are you telling me you cannot track a few orcs?" He pointed down at the mess the scouts were leaving in their wake.
Thranduil did not want to waste time explaining that a lone, hunted orc would be more careful, or that they would not leave such obvious tracks through the thick brush they would dive into at the first opportunity, or that it was dark. "Father, which of us is more experienced in this area?"
The king raised an eyebrow. "Are you calling me incompetent?"
Thranduil ground his teeth and reminded himself how much he loved his father. "No. May we attend to our task now?"
Oropher signaled for the attack to begin—at least he could handle that—but everyone just looked at him funny.
"Father, the orcs are not yet—"
Oh, please, the orcs were well within shooting distance. There was no way their twenty elves could fail to hit three dozen orcs before the vile creatures escaped into the forest, even at night. He signaled again, with a look in his eyes that reminded the elves that they had best obey him, and they reluctantly raised their bows and fired.
The orcs scattered as arrows rained down on them from the side, but the elves reloaded almost immediately, and Eithryn's group realized what was going on and began to fire as well. Half the orcs were down before they could duck behind the trees, and Oropher turned to give Thranduil a superior look, but the prince was busy ordering everyone toward the ground. Oropher was rather offended by the exasperated look his son sent him; he failed to see how exactly he had ruined the situation.
Both halves of the patrol reached the ground seconds later and did their best to surround the orcs; Thranduil and Eithryn quickly found their way to each other and leapt into the path of four of the remaining enemies, and Oropher (who was still trying to climb down from the trees) stopped climbing to watch. They started out back-to-back, but then, just as the orcs were about to strike, Thranduil ducked and spun, finishing off Eithryn's orcs in two strokes as she backflipped over his head and took out his, and the king blinked as he realized the orcs were dead, just like that. All of them were, in fact, and the Silvan elves were sheathing their blades and starting to count the corpses. He scrambled down the tree as gracefully as he could and went to join them, but he had not been expecting every last one of them to look irritated when they say him coming. "What?"
Eithryn signed something to Thranduil, who shrugged helplessly. "We're missing two orcs," the Silvan elf said dryly. "That's two hours of hunting, at least."
"Then why are you not chasing them?"
The two seemed to be arguing through eye contact about who had to deal with him. "Because I saw these two run the instant we started shooting," Eithryn said eventually. "And because we don't know which way they went after that, and because they'll probably find holes to hide in and stay there until they think we're gone, and because we need to decide who has to go after them."
Oropher did not see how this would have gone any better had they been closer to the orcs, except that the Silvans might have had more shots at the escaping orcs if—oh. Yes, that was probably it. Now that he thought about it, if he had waited, the orcs would have been directly under them with no cover close enough to save them. Perhaps he had made a mistake. One thing was for sure; the entire patrol was frustrated with him because he had created extra work for a few of them, and he knew that to leave his mess for the others to clean up would not reflect well on him. "I will help hunt them down," he volunteered reluctantly.
The Silvan elves held back their groans; no one wanted to babysit the king. Sky nudged her husband. "Maybe we should..."
"Yes, I think so." He gave the patrol instructions for the rest of the route while his wife accepted the snacks offered by the elves who had thought to bring them in case they ended up with this job, and then both set off without warning into the darkness, following the orcs' tracks as well as they could in the limited light that found its way through the leaves. Oropher had to run to catch up.
. . . . . .
"There it is," Thranduil whispered.
"Do you want to try?"
He gave his wife a look. "Will you laugh if I miss?"
"Only if it's by a lot."
He poked her in the ribs, then nocked an arrow on his bow and, with only a moment's hesitation, sent it shooting toward the orc—
—and right into its heart.
"You hit it!" Eithryn exclaimed.
"Must you sound so surprised?"
"It was a hard shot!"
He raised an eyebrow.
"No, not for me, but for everyone else." Then she thought about it and frowned. "Except Kilvara... and Storm... and a lot of other Silvans..."
"You are making me feel so good about my archery skills."
"...You've made progress, okay?"
"Indeed he has," Oropher agreed.
They both glanced over briefly as though remembering he was there, then kept talking. "I will never be good enough for close combat," Thranduil said.
"Neither will Taen, but he still uses his bow all the time, and, you know, a lot of Silvans don't fight like that, either. It takes too much practice."
Oropher rolled his eyes. They had been this way all night, pretending he was not there as they tracked down and killed first one orc and then the other. At least they had not run off and abandoned him. "Shall we finally be going home, then?"
Thranduil nodded without looking at him and tried to take Eithryn's hand, but Oropher decided he had had enough and stepped between them. "Do you have something to say to me?" he asked his son, wrapping his arm around Thranduil's shoulders as he often had whenever he thought there was a chance his youngster would try to avoid a conversation.
Thranduil shook his head as Eithryn bounced over to his other side. "No." If he started that discussion again, they could be out there all night.
Oropher did not move an inch. "Really? Nothing at all?"
"You're a terrible orc-hunter," Sky put in.
He glared at her, but bit back his reply. "At least your wife is honest," he told his son.
Thranduil realized the older Sindar was not going to let this go easily. "Father," he said, "You have not spent time in the forest as we have. Fighting," he specified before Oropher could disagree. "You do not know the strategies needed for this terrain. You know this; you are not a fool. So why did you try to take command?"
Oropher had no answer to that, so he did as he always did in such situations. "Why did your soldiers hesitate?"
Thranduil groaned.
Oropher narrowed his eyes. "Would you like to put that into words?"
Sky was starting to think this would be a good time to explore.
"My elves did nothing wrong. You gave a flawed order and they were right to question it."
"Did I, now?"
"Yes," Sky said bluntly. "And you're just making it worse by not admitting it."
Oropher's icy eyes snapped to her. "Did I ask for your opinion?"
"Oh, you don't want it? That's new."
"Eithryn," Thranduil muttered, feeling his position change from opponent to peacekeeper.
"This discussion is between my son and I."
"Then why—"
Oh, no. "Eithryn, please..."
"You agree with your father?" she asked, rolling her eyes.
"No..." He pulled free of Oropher so he could cup his hand against her cheek and make her look into his eyes. "But Eithryn, I am trying to defuse the situation."
"You're not doing a very good job of it."
"Even so..." He held her gaze for a second, then moved so he was facing both of them. "I love you both very much," he told them seriously. "And I want to spend as much time as I can with each of you... And that is very difficult when you cannot be in the same room without going at each other like a pair of bad-tempered hounds."
They eyed each other, each wanting to get along for Thranduil's sake, but both too stubborn to put any effort into it.
"And you are so much alike."
They both stared at him in disgust.
He sighed.
"As I was saying," Oropher began, but a deep rumbling cut him off. The three elves' heads tipped up toward the sky just in time for the first drops of water to hit their faces.
Thranduil's eyes met Eithryn's. "How did he...?"
She was wondering the same thing.
"What are you doing?!" Oropher snapped at them, searching frantically for something that would shield him from the rain. A flash of lightning helped him in his hunt. "Find shelter!"
Sky snickered. "Don't tell me you're scared of water, too."
"We are not scared of water," Thranduil informed her, yanking his hood over his head as the rain started to fall harder. "We merely dislike getting wet."
"Given the fuss you make when I put snow down your back, I'd say 'dislike' is an understatement." Sky had tried many times to cure Thranduil of his hatred of all things wet.
By now Thranduil was dashing back and forth between the trees, trying to find a spot where the rain would not reach them, which was more difficult than it sounded given that the rain ran down branches and poured off leaves to reach them even under the thickest limbs of the mighty plants. The wind was beginning to toss the branches, too, so that a spot that was safe one moment might have buckets of water dumped on it the next. "Here," he called finally. "This spot is quite dry."
"About time," Oropher groaned, appearing out of nowhere and ducking into the natural shelter under the roots of a great tree to get out of the downpour. His son quickly followed, but Sky hesitated, and Thranduil held his hand out to her. "Come on, it is not as small as it looks. I can fit easily enough, see?"
She started to join him, but then shook her head. "I think I'd rather get wet."
Thranduil frowned, not liking that plan. "Perhaps we can find a better shelter," he suggested, raising his voice so it would carry over the boom of thunder that sounded as he spoke.
"I don't mind," she said, while Oropher gave his opinion by smacking his son on the back of the head. All three of them had been soaked to the skin after mere seconds in the rain, after all, and Sky was right—Oropher hated getting wet. Normally Thranduil would have agreed with him, but the prince was willing to sacrifice his happiness for the sake of his wife if need be.
"Small spaces bother her," he explained to his father, though his words fell on deaf ears. "She cannot join us in here."
Oropher raised an eyebrow as though asking why he should care.
"I will not leave her out in the rain!" Thranduil protested over the sound of the storm.
"I notice you are not offering her your spot."
That quieted the prince for a moment, until Eithryn said she wouldn't go in even if they both got out. "I don't really mind the rain, anyway."
Thranduil still was not happy, but he was considering giving in until he stopped dripping. But did his wife mean what she said, or was she only pretending she was fine like she always did?
Actually, Sky was kind of enjoying being drenched, but Thranduil wasn't going to want to leave her out there even if she told him so. Of course, Oropher would probably—
BOOM.
The thunderous explosion and the blinding flash that accompanied it sent Sky diving with a shriek into the shelter, where she burrowed into Thranduil's side for protection.
The lightning strike stunned the Sindarin elves, too, but Thranduil quickly recovered enough to realize what it was that had slammed into him. "Hello, Eithryn," he said, trying not to laugh. "I see you decided to join us, after all."
She pulled back to watch the two smoking halves of the struck tree split apart and fall, then grinned sheepishly. "Yes, well... Oh." She shrank back against him as she realized where she now was.
"There is room for you, I promise," Thranduil assured her, pushing himself back against the wall to give her as much space as possible. He started to ask his father to do the same, but Oropher had already done so and was watching his daughter-in-law with a mixture of amusement and concern—the latter was not an expression often seen on the king's face, Thranduil noted. Actually, he himself was becoming increasingly afraid that they were going to have a repeat of when he had first taken her into a cave; her breathing was accelerating, and he could feel her heart racing as he held her.
But then he breathed a relieved sigh as she calmed and snuggled closer to him. Maybe it was his presence, or maybe the space was just big enough, but it looked like she would be all right. He could not resist saying, "Do not fear, my love; I will not let the lightning frighten you again."
"Oh, shush," she sighed, knowing she wasn't going to hear the end of that one for a while, especially since Oropher's chuckle could be heard over the sound of the rain.
. . . . . .
The storm was over by the time the sun rose the next morning, and Thranduil carried Eithryn out of their shelter as she slept so she would not wake up in the cramped space. Oropher soon followed, grumbling (of course) about how his muscles ached now, and how wet it was, and anything else he could come up with; this eventually woke Eithryn up, though Thranduil was the only one who actually minded this. The three had just started the long walk home when they heard a whistle, and a moment later, another patrol appeared from the trees, clad in much more waterproof clothing, and with a familiar leader.
"My first time leading a patrol, and I rescue the lost royals," Storm chuckled.
Thranduil knew better than to say anything out loud, but as Oropher grumbled about how they were not lost, thank you very much, and Sky looked around for a good projectile, the prince caught his brother-in-law's eye and winked. Storm grinned, understanding perfectly.
There would be a story later.
Oropher isn't really the nature type.