Hello. We're about to meet two new characters, so I thought I should go over the ones we have so far. Here are Tolkien's characters (though obviously I fleshed them out a little):

Thranduil: Son of Oropher, currently prince of Greenwood. Sindarin elf with silver-blond hair and pale blue eyes.

Oropher: Thranduil's dad, and the king of Greenwood. Looks pretty similar to Thranduil, but slightly taller. Sindarin.

Galion: Thranduil's butler; mortal enemy of all dirt. Silvan elf with brown hair and brown eyes.

Gil-Galad: High King of the Noldor, also known as Ereinion. Black hair, brown eyes; uses a spear as a weapon. Good friend of Eithryn; Oropher doesn't like him, but the feeling isn't mutual.

And these are my characters:

Eithryn (a.k.a. Skyfire): Silvan elf with no respect for rules. Married Thranduil, but doesn't get along too well with her father-in-law. Dark copperish hair and bright green eyes. Most Silvan elves call her Sky.

Coryn (a.k.a. Stormfire): Sky's brother, loves to tease; doesn't start as much trouble as his sister, but is always eager to join in her mischief. Green and brown eyes, with the colors more separated than in hazel; people often assume his copper hair is stained with charcoal because of the darker streaks in it. Most Silvan elves call him Storm.

Kilvara: Eithryn's best friend; Silvan elf with red hair and green eyes, but they aren't as bright as Eithryn's. Tries to stay on Oropher's good side, but is ultimately loyal to her friends.

Felrion: Another of Eithryn and Coryn's friends; Silvan elf with light brown hair and hazel eyes. A healer who has no skill whatsoever with weapons. Usually stays out of Oropher's way, but is happy to help his friends out if they underestimate the king.

Taensirion: One of Oropher's most trusted friends, fiercely loyal to the king, but not afraid to go against him if he believes Oropher is wrong. Sindarin elf with blond hair, no clue what color his eyes are.

"Oh, relax," Sky huffed at her husband, rubbing his arm soothingly despite her tone. "Amdir and your father are practically best friends. They're not going to attack us."

"It is not Amdir who concerns me," Thranduil said, directing his icy stare at a pair of male elves who were eyeing his wife a little too curiously (both of whom suddenly became very interested in telling each other about their days, even though the sun had only risen a few hours before).

Sky stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. "You're adorable."

Kilvara, the other member of their diplomatic party, poked Thranduil in the ribs. "Don't you try to keep Sky from having fun," she warned the prince. "It won't work, but it will earn you a good kick from one of us."

Thranduil chuckled. "So violent."

"It's a Silvan thing," Sky informed him. "Are we almost there?"

"Patience, love," he laughed. "Have you truly never been to Lórien? I was under the impression you had seen every corner of Middle-Earth."

She shrugged. "I never got the chance, especially because your father doesn't trust me with diplomatic missions."

"I wonder why," Thranduil said under his breath. Eithryn didn't hear him, but Kilvara smirked.

"Prince Thranduil?"

They turned to face the speaker, a young blond elf (but weren't all the elves here blond?) with the symbol of Lórien—a Mallorn leaf—on his collar. "Indeed," Thranduil replied. "And you? I do not remember encountering you on any of my previous visits."

The elf bowed. "You would not, as I am newly appointed to my station. I am Haldir, the youngest and—" He grinned. "—best captain of the Realm."

Thranduil glanced at his wife, correctly guessing that she would be wearing a look of approval at the young elf's humor. "Well met, Haldir of Lórien. I am, as you guessed, Prince Thranduil, and this is my wife, Eithryn."

"Not a princess," the stubborn she-elf added.

Haldir nodded as if he agreed completely and turned to Kilvara. "And who is this fair maiden?"

The red-haired elf blushed. "My name is Kilvara. My king sends me here often."

Sky raised an eyebrow at Thranduil as Haldir smiled. "I look forward to getting to know you, Lady Kilvara," the soldier told her—and winked. "But first, I believe you have an audience with my king," he added to the prince.

"Why is a captain running errands?" Thranduil asked as they turned for the hall where King Amdir always met Greenwood's emissaries.

"The king likes to keep his servants humble," was Haldir's reply.

Thranduil, who knew King Amdir well, had expected such an answer.

. . . . . .

"So this is Greenwood's new princess?" Lórien's king asked, leaning forward on his throne to scrutinize Eithryn with his deep blue eyes. "Pretty."

Sky wasn't impressed. "Get a sword, and we'll see how well 'pretty' describes me."

Thranduil reflected on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of asking his father to let him bring Eithryn along. He thought he could trust Amdir—Lórien's king was not hotheaded like Oropher, but he was proud, and Thranduil wondered how he would react to Eithryn's irreverent manner. Perhaps they should not have left Kilvara outside... Not that he expected a fight, of course; the she-elf could just be surprisingly diplomatic. And, of course, if the worst somehow happened, he would be glad to have her there.

He should not have worried; Amdir barked a laugh and rocked back into his seat. "And you say Oropher does not like her?" he asked Thranduil incredulously. "They seem very much alike to me."

The prince shrugged. "My father does not get along with himself at times."

"True."

"Did you just compare me to Oropher?" Sky demanded indignantly.

"I did." Amdir only grinned at Sky's furious glare. "Peace, little Silvan elf, I meant no insult. I like Oropher, despite his flaws."

"Flaws which you just said I had," she pointed out.

"You misunderstand me," the king corrected. "I admire Oropher's fire. The flaws I refer to are his distrust of other races and—" He winked. "—that he cannot take a joke."

That brought a grin to Sky's face, but then she frowned and looked at her husband. "I feel manipulated."

"You should," he informed her.

Amdir chuckled.

. . . . . .

"To put it simply, he plays with people," Thranduil explained to his wife a few minutes later as they went to find their friend. "It is his favorite way to entertain himself."

"I noticed," Eithryn said. At one point, the king had told his guards that the first one to run around the hall a hundred times would get a promotion, and all sixteen of them had immediately taken off. "Not that I can blame him." She whistled, and her falcon—which was a decade older now—swooped down to settle on her arm.

Thranduil snickered, thinking that his wife's "suggestions" whenever Galion was foolish enough to ask her if she needed anything were often more interesting than anything he had seen Amdir come up with. "All the same, he is brilliant. He invented several of the maneuvers used by our army, you know."

"In that case, I may have to slap him," the Silvan elf decided. She would never understand why her poor husband was occasionally forced to watch hundreds of elves marching in formation for hours at a time. The falcon, whose name was Aduial—the Sindarin word for twilight—puffed out her feathers as though she agreed.

"A Silvan thing, indeed," Thranduil muttered to himself. He needed to find the two she-elves something non-living to shoot at.

The two elves came around a tree, and Thranduil almost ran into his wife as she stopped dead. "What—?"

"Shh!" she hissed, yanking him back behind the tree's trunk (the size of which—twenty elves could have stood with their backs to the trunk and stretched out their arms without touching—would have been only slightly below average in the oldest parts of Greenwood). "Look!"

Thranduil looked. "Kilvara is talking with... Haldir, is it not?"

"She's laughing," Eithryn moaned, as if that fact had some significance. "They're both laughing."

Thranduil waited patiently; being confused hardly surprised him anymore.

"And she's leaning toward him," Eithryn added. "And blushing."

Ah. "And that is unacceptable, is it?"

"It's not right," Eithryn grumbled. "She's not supposed to fall in love with a... a..."

"Silvan elf?" Thranduil asked dryly. "And a reasonably skilled soldier, by the look of him."

The she-elf snapped her fingers. "That's it. He's a soldier. She's not supposed to marry a soldier."

Thranduil sighed and put his hand around his wife's shoulders to guide her away from the elves in question. "I do not believe that is for us to decide, my love."

Eithryn huffed, but let him pull her along. "But it's not right!" she repeated.

"Then what is?"

She didn't answer, but Thranduil thought he knew what she had in mind. "If they had any interest in each other, I am sure it would have been clear long ago," he pointed out.

"Except that Kilvara's waiting for him to do something, and he's waiting for her. And she can't marry an elf from another kingdom."

"It has happened before," Thranduil reminded her, rather shocked that Eithryn, who was often open-minded to a fault, would hold such a belief in regard to Greenwood and Lórien.

She shook her head. "Not involving anyone who was really important. Haldir's a captain, remember, and your father practically made up a position just for Kilvara."

Thranduil chuckled at that comment. "We needed a Captain of the Guard anyway," he corrected. "Our friend was simply the best choice."

"What does she do, anyway?" Eithryn wondered.

"She protects the king and the realm," Thranduil answered without a moment's hesitation. He had spoken that phrase to a great many curious Silvan elves recently.

"And we don't? Also, where are we going?" she asked, seeming to suddenly realize that they were moving away from the part of the forest that was occupied.

In answer, Thranduil pointed into the trees.

"Yes, I can see tha—Oh." Somehow she had missed the elk standing not five trees away. The bull—no less magnificent than it had been ten years before—lifted its head to regard them as it chewed a juicy mouthful of grass and then wandered over to nudge Thranduil with its heavy head.

"Hello, Brethil," Thranduil said absentmindedly, rubbing the elk's neck—the beast had earned its name by shredding an innocent birch tree while removing the velvet from its antlers the first year after it befriended the elven prince. The falcon, deciding she didn't want to be left out, pecked Eithryn's shoulder until the she-elf reached up to stroke her feathers.

"And why is everyone acting like 'The Guard' is new when we've had guards around since the first time I snuck into your father's house?" Eithryn complained.

Thranduil smirked, thinking to himself that his wife would probably spontaneously combust if she heard about all the titles they had possessed in Doriath.

"Anyway," Eithryn continued, "we've got to do something about it, because Kilvara can't fall in love with Haldir."

Thranduil was afraid to get swept up in this one. "Hmm."

. . . . . .

"—and in the meantime, we were all cleaning up as fast as we could in case they couldn't distract Oropher," Kilvara finished, grinning in the moonlight.

Haldir laughed as Thranduil wrinkled his nose at the memory of their first misadventure. "Someday I really must tell my father what happened," the prince mused.

"He'd probably kill all four of us," Eithryn pointed out without looking up from the game she was playing with Amdir—the king had called it "chess". The Silvan elf had picked up the rules with her usual speed, and now Thranduil was certain both were cheating whenever the other looked away; thus, his wife was focused for once in her life.

"No, he would spare you for my sake, and Kilvara because he trusts her," the prince disagreed. "Only your brother and I would be executed. Kilvara, my father has a title, remember?"

"Amdir?" Eithryn asked, making Thranduil put his head in his hands, though the king was too busy watching her move her piece to notice. "Checkmate."

"What?" The king stared at the pieces disbelievingly. "How did...? You moved your knight while I was not looking!"

"You moved my knight. I only put it back."

"I would have won had you not cheated."

"If we hadn't cheated, I would have won faster!"

"I would have slaughtered you, silly little tree-lover, and you know it!"

"That's quite a claim coming from someone whose army couldn't even drive trolls out of their forest without our help!"

"I let your people remove those trolls!"

"Ha! Right!"

"How DARE you insult me, you green-eyed pixie?"

Here Thranduil decided to separate the two elves before weapons could be drawn, but Eithryn jumped up on the table so that she could still taunt Amdir. "What are you going to do about it?" She snickered and added, "Orc-lover."

Thranduil reflected on how peaceful and quiet Lórien had been until only a few minutes ago. "King Amdir, please—"

"ORC-LOVER? YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT, YOU SLIMY, GNAT-BRAINED, GOBLIN-KISSING—"

. . . . . .

"And then you did what?" Oropher asked in the tone he normally reserved for his daughter-in-law.

Thranduil cleared his throat. "I punched him."

"You punched King Amdir."

The prince swallowed and nodded. "Yes."

Oropher stared at him for what seemed like several minutes. "I see."

"He insulted Eithryn," Thranduil said defensively.

"They weren't even good insults," his wife sighed, shaking her head.

"Hush," he snapped.

"Quiet, both of you!" Oropher barked, making Thranduil cower. "You are lucky Amdir saw the humor in the situation. You understand, of course, that you could have started a war?"

"Yes, father," Thranduil said meekly.

"Need I remind you that your behavior was extremely unbefitting of a prince?"

"No, father."

"Good. Now go home and..." Oropher pinched the bridge of his nose. "...think about your behavior. Do not speak to me again until you are ready to act like an adult. And do not even think about visiting Lórien for the next century!"

"Yes, father." Thranduil practically ran out of the room. His wife started to follow him, holding her hand over her mouth to muffle her snickering.

"And Eithryn?" Oropher added.

She froze.

"If you value your life, you should pray that my son outlives me."

. . . . . .

"I'm not apologizing for this one," Sky told her husband when she caught up with him in the forest. "I was enjoying the name-calling."

He ignored her.

Sky rolled her eyes and smiled to herself. "So what are we going to do about Kilvara?" Haldir, unfazed by Thranduil's attack on his king, had practically made the she-elf promise to return to Lórien soon.

Thranduil groaned. "Can I not have a few days to recover my dignity?"

"This is urgent, prince. We have to make her realize that she and Felrion are meant for each other before she falls in love with Haldir."

"Surely you can do that without me."

Sky probably could have, but it wouldn't be the same without her husband involved. She waited for him to look back to see why she hadn't answered, then looked at him hopefully, making sure her eyes were as big as possible.

Thranduil didn't have a chance. "When do we start?"

"Tomorrow," Sky said smugly.

Thranduil sighed, as he often seemed to do around his wife.

"You know," the Silvan elf observed a few minutes later, "It was probably smart of Amdir not to mention in his letter that he hit you back."

I'll bet this made a fun story to tell Legolas.