Added 5-12-22.
It took Sky a moment to figure out what had woken her up. She was a very light sleeper, so there was no end to the list of possibilities, but after lying there for a second—she was curled up against Thranduil's chest—she realized what it was. Thranduil was squeezing her much too hard; he'd had a nightmare.
She hadn't thought the prince, of all people, would be prone to nightmares, but apparently he was—how had he ever survived without her? It seemed like every other week he woke up in a cold sweat.
Sky rolled over and put her arms around his neck. "Hi."
"Hello," he whispered.
"If you tell me where the sleep demons went, I'll go stab them," she said. She wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that, but she supposed she was serious. It was hard to tell sometimes.
He laughed. "I shall let you know if I see any."
She put her head on his shoulder and looked up at him thoughtfully. "Those nightmares need to leave you alone. This isn't okay."
"I am not sure what to do about it, love."
"I am."
"Stabbing?" he asked sleepily.
"No, shooting. They fly away too fast for stabbing."
Thranduil chuckled, amused by his wife's strange thought processes as always. "And how do you know that?"
"Logic."
Thranduil barely held back his snort. "I see," he said as seriously as he could manage.
Sky wasn't fooled, but she didn't make sense to herself, either. "Time to sleep?"
"Yes, I think so." He kissed her hair. "Thank you for being here for me, Eithryn. I love you."
"Where else would I be?" she asked, rolling her eyes, not that he could see it in the dark.
"You could have been anywhere in the forest right now." He went silent, but Sky sensed he was waiting for something.
"What?"
"You know what I want."
"I do?"
He heaved a rather dramatic sigh. "I love you, Eithryn," he repeated.
She kissed him.
"Thank you, but that does not count."
"I thought actions spoke louder than words? ...Fine. I love you, Thranduil."
He smiled in the darkness. "If only you knew how happy it makes me feel to hear that."
"If only you knew how much I like throwing snowballs at you."
"Hmm," he chuckled. "You make a fair point." He brushed his lips against her pointed ear.
She tickled his ribs.
Thranduil yelped and dumped her off the bed, cursing his father for putting their differences aside long enough to tell her he was ticklish... though she would have quickly figured it out, anyway. It was really too bad Thranduil had inherited that trait from his mother, or else he could have gotten revenge on Oropher.
Eithryn was back up in an instant, giggling as she snuggled against him again.
"Spitfire," he called her, a nickname that he had given her for her tendency to end up in shouting matches with his father (and him, on occasion), but which he had since diversified for use anytime she did something he thought had not been called for.
"Oh, come on," she complained, "isn't tickling romantic?"
"You are confusing 'romantic' with 'torturous', I believe," was his comeback.
Her huff was interrupted by a huge yawn, and Thranduil decided, as he often did, that she was utterly adorable in that moment. He lifted her back onto his chest, where she resumed her normal sleeping position, which was to say she curled up in a ball directly on top of him. It was impossible for him to get up in the middle of the night without waking her, not that she ever seemed to mind.
"Good night, Eithryn," he said softly. "I love you."
"That's the third time you've said that," she observed. "Do you think I don't believe you?"
He poked her.
"You know I love you, too."
"That is all I wanted to hear."
. . . . . .
"Thranduil?"
Perhaps it was the frightened note in her voice, or perhaps it was the death grip she had on his arm, but the prince was already standing up and lifting his wife in his arms before he was awake enough to realize he was doing so, and they were out on the balcony before his eyes were completely open. He had this ritual memorized. "What was it?"
"I don't know," she sighed tiredly, looping her arms around his neck. "It was dark and something was chasing me, but you probably knew that."
Yes, he could have guessed the general idea of her dream. The ones that woke her up always involved something hunting her, which he often wondered about; why would Eithryn, who loved to sneak around in the dark when she was awake, ever have nightmares about the things that might haunt the night? But then, had he not once accidentally startled her so badly that she burst into tears? He had rarely felt so bad. And did she not sometimes jump at sounds he barely heard, or lie awake at night wondering what that noise outside the window was? She was almost unnaturally alert; curiosity was part of the reason she tried to watch and listen to everything at once, but so was a need to know exactly what was going on in her environment. It was so difficult to startle her, but if someone did, she reacted so strongly.
It was so strange. Why would this fearless creature be so easily... well, frightened? It fascinated and worried him at the same time.
Just then, a branch scraped against the railing, and sure enough, Eithryn tightened her grip around his neck, trying at the same time to wriggle to a position where she could see the source of the noise. Thranduil adjusted his grip so she was in a more upright position. "Just a branch," he promised.
"Maybe..."
He was about to tease her when he heard a soft thud behind him. Eithryn scrambled out of his arms and bolted—not back inside, but into the forest. Thranduil glanced at the culprit as it rolled off the balcony, then looked out into the darkness, trying to figure out how far his wife had gone. "You can come back now; the pinecone is gone..." Something moved in the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head, nothing was there, and he told himself he was imagining things. "Eithryn!" He waited, trying not to think about monsters in the shadows...
He almost fainted when a dark shape appeared on the railing next to him, until the branches scraped again and it shrieked and jumped into his arms.
Perhaps next time they should stay inside if it was windy.