Just playing with everyone.
"Thranduil, can you help us?" Thráin asked, placing his goblet of wine on the table.
There was panic and worry in Thráin's voice, two emotions that Thranduil was not used to hearing in his long-time friend's voice. The Elvenking looked around at the odd little dwarven party currently seated at his dining table. It was not an uncommon sight to see dwarves from Erebor in Mirkwood especially in the last 200 years or so, but it was very unusual to see this many of the royal family all at once in Mirkwood, and this many of the direct line to the throne. Usually it was just one or two of them, or in the case of the Princess and her sons, three of them. Here there were three princes, including the crown prince, a lord, and some of the cousins who were part of the guard.
Thranduil was a king surrounded by princes and lords, including his own son and prince, Legolas. One of those princes, the second in line to the throne of Erebor looked surly, depressed, and guilty. Thranduil had never seen Thórin like that before and to put it frankly he did not like it. It was wrong. He had known him when he was just a blink in his mother's eye, he had always been lively and happy, yet he knew his duties. He knew when to be stern and mature and when to be carefree. Thranduil could still see the bright smile on his dwarven friend's face when he came to him one day nearly 21 years ago to announce that his sister was expecting the next in line to the Erebor crown. That was the true Thórin, not this one. This one was wrong; this entire situation was wrong, including how the dwarves came to be at his dining table.
Thranduil was out hunting with his son and a few of the royal guards, including Tauriel. It was rare that he as the king went out hunting but for some reason something told him to go. They had gotten no more than an hour outside of the palace when he heard a familiar voice saying something that he never wanted to hear.
"…but we have to find Fíli first, and for that we need to work together."
He gave the signal for the hunting party to draw, but not shoot more for protecting against any unwanted creatures of the forest; a war between elves and dwarves was not needed nor wanted. Thranduil knew that voice but he did not like what the voice said. The voice stopped talking and instead gasped, among what sounded like 20 other gasps.
"Thráin, Thórin, Frérin, Víli, what are you all doing here?" Legolas asked before Thranduil even had the chance to give the signal for his party to reveal themselves.
Before any of the dwarves could answer, Thranduil made his presence known, shocking his friends. He most certainly was not known for hunting, that much was certain.
All of the dwarves looked towards the crown prince of Erebor to make the first move as their current leader, and grandfather of the missing dwarfling. In response, Thráin did something that shocked everyone, for it was practically unheard of among royalty of allied kingdoms. He got down to his knees and bowed to the Woodland King. "My Lord Thranduil, I beg of you for your help. My grandson, Fíli is missing."
Thranduil could feel his heart break at the emotion in the words. It was a very scary thought, a young child missing in the big world that was Arda, especially a young child that was loved as much as he knew Fíli was. He responded by helping Thráin
"We need to talk. What happened?" was all the Elvenking responded as he led the dwarves and his hunting party back towards the palace.
"And that brings us here." Thráin ended the story.
As one of Erebor's closest allies, Thranduil regardless was forced to help. There would have been a time before the founding of Erebor that Thranduil would have laughed the dwarves right out of Mirkwood. Since Thrór and the others built a kingdom in Erebor after Moira, and the two kingdoms began to trade with one another, over time the two races became allies and now close friends.
Thranduil could honestly say that he has watched every single dwarf currently around his table grow up from the littlest of babies to their own children as seen in the newest generation of dwarves, the young princes of Erebor, Fíli and Kíli. Thranduil could honestly say he has a friend in the crown prince of Erebor as well as his own children. He could see a blossoming friendship between his son and Tauriel and the youngest princes, if they could find the oldest one. If was not an option here. When. When was the option, not if. Never if. The Elvenking mentally corrected himself.
Looking around the table he saw that everyone had finished eating and drinking, and Thráin and Víli were looking in his direction with a begging look on their faces. He was surprised to a similar look on Frérin's face. Thórin refused to look up.
"Legolas, Tauriel," Thranduil said addressing his son and his captain of the guard, "go with the royal family in the morning and join the search party. Your eyes and skills with the bow will protect them from any unwanted company. I will take a small party and search in another area."
He was certain he shocked everyone, including his own guards at his taking of a second party to look for the missing prince. All he got in response were smiles from Thráin, Víli, and surprisingly Frérin. The only emotion Thórin showed was guilt, and from what he was told from his friends, all of this was his fault.
Thórin was responsible for all of this and he was fuming at his obvious irresponsibility, stupidity, and unthinkingness. All he could do now was order the guards to give the dwarves a room to get a few hours of sleep, since it was night.
Thranduil could not change what happened in the past, but he was determined to help set right the future.
Fíli awoke with a gasp. Something had woken him up from the greatest dream, his uncle, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and brother were holding hands and spinning around like a ring. All of them were laughing and having a great time, he wished he could have finished the dream, alas that was not meant to be with the noise that he had just heard again. What was it? The wind? A warg? A wolf? Whatever it was, he was certain he did not want to know.
He yawned; he did not get enough sleep before being rudely awoken. He snuggled closed into his soft Bombur pillow, which in turn raised an arm and pulled him closer. Fíli smiled, this really could work, and he would never have to go back to where he was not wanted again. His eyes began to droop as sleep began to come to him again.
"Bombur, Bifur we have to get out of here now!" a loud voice cried waking up Fíli fully as well as Bifur and Bombur.
It was Bofur who had run back into camp (he was gone?) arms flailing around him. Bifur asked Bofur something in Khuzdûl that Fíli interrupted to be what was going on? He was just starting to learn Khuzdûl, when he ran away, and had always been able to pick up a word here and there from hearing it spoken around him by his family.
"Wargs! Orcs! A whole bunch of them and heading our way. We need to get back to the caravan, and fast! Staying here isn't a good idea! " Bofur yelled as he began to throw pots, pans, instruments and any other belongings into his pack.
In the predawn sky, Bombur and Bifur shared a nod and before Fíli could say anything, he was placed on his own two feet and found himself helping Bombur throw anything they could find into Bomburs pack. If in answer to Bofur's statement the unmistakenable sound of a warg echoed throughout the Gap of Rohan.
Fíli shuttered, as a once loved voice said in his head, "If you hear a warg, head up into a tree, you will be safe there". Fíli smiled at the memory as small as it was, a memory of a life he could no longer have. But there were no trees around them. What were they going to do?
Before he could even ask about it, he felt a tug on his arm. It was Bombur, hurrying him along. The four of them began to run in the opposite direction of the sound of the wargs. Towards what was that Bofur had said, a caravan? What is that? It was an unfamiliar word to the one time prince. For the first time in five days, Fíli felt small and very scared. He wanted to go home to the safety of the mountain, not to an unwanted family. Another scream from a warg caused them to run faster; they had to keep moving. It was the only way to stay alive.
"Kíli!" a voice cried in the darkness, bringing a very young dwarfling back to awareness for the first time in days.
"Wake up, Sweetie," an obviously female voice said.
Who was talking? Where was he? Why was everything so dark? Who was talking?
"Kíli, Great-grandson, please wake up." An older male voice cut in through the darkness.
He did not want to wake up, his head hurt and his insides hurt. He felt safe and comfortable in the darkness, where he could stay without anything hurting him. It was not time for him to wake up yet. So, he did not.
However, something was keeping him alert. Who was this Kíli all the voices were talking too?
Thank you to my wonderful beta reader, paytonrich!