Summary: A wager being idly struck between two young elven lords in Doriath, the wheels of romance are set in motion. Here presented is the courtship of Celeborn of Doriath and the Lady Galadriel as it was never meant to be told. Expect intrigue, lies, infatuation and possibly a disguise. Barely canonical and many O/Cs.
Disclaimer: This is a work of derivative fiction based on the collective works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The author gains nothing but pleasure from it's creation and distribution. All recognizable characters, settings and events belong to the original author.
A Likely Bargain
Chapter One: The Bargain is Struck
Lost in reverie, a young lord wandered through the twisting paths of a garden. Music reached his ears across some distance and his step shifted unconsciously to match the rhythm. He was tall and unremarkable, his pensive expression was often mistaken for melancholy.
His brow was furrowed in response to a particularly challenging thought and he turned the page of a thin volume he carried in one hand. He did not see the stick until he nearly tumbled over it and flailed an arm to regain his balance. He glared at the offending owner of the stick.
"Can't you just say 'hello' like a normal person?"
The owner of the stick swung it around in an elegant arc and then tapped the end on the ground twice before placing it neatly against a topiary bush someone spent too much time pruning into the shape of a goose.
"Normal people only exist in those books of yours,' he slid over until he was a hand's breadth away from the young lord.
The young lord cast an annoyed glance at the newcomer, and noted the exquisite details of his garb. For one so rough in manners his friend could dress an old broomstick and pass it off as a fine lady. His shallow collar was set with tiny white gems falling in swirls like vine scrolls about his shoulders. The same details was present at the cuffs of his fitted sleeves. These very same sleeves which were at the moment wrapping themselves around his person in a fierce embrace.
"Promise me," pleaded the newcomer, grasping the lord's face between his hands, "promise me that you will slay me on the spot if I ever show the slightest hint of normality!"
The lord placed his book carefully in a pocket and firmly lowered the other's hands from his face.
"I might not even wait until then."
His friend swept aside with a dramatic flourish of his long coat. "You're too serious, Celeborn."
"So I'm often told."
"You might take the hint."
What might have been a smile reached Celeborn's lips. "Then what would the rest of Doriath have to talk about behind my back?"
"Ah-" the other lord faltered but then crossed his arms across his chest and stuck out his chin. "I'll have you know I am always first to defend your character."
"I'm sure you are," Celeborn began to walk down the path, his companion looped an arm around his and fell easily into step.
"Aren't you going to ask me where I've been?" inquired his companion.
"I didn't even know you were gone."
The other sniffed. "It wasn't for that long anyway." He kicked a pebble and it skipped into an arrangement of rosebushes.
"I don't concern myself with the activities of minor lordlings."
"I could take offence at that."
"Will you?"
"I might," reaching out a hand his friend plucked a delicate yellow bloom from a branch and made a show of trying it on against his hair. "I haven't decided whether I'm going to hate you today."
"You talk too much."
"And you not enough."
It was the same old argument, held in a hundred different locations over hundreds of years. They walked in silence for a time, making the rounds of the gardens before turning into the glades leading to the bridge. The trees were in full summer splendour, sunlight filtering down through the bows to glimmer on the low grasses, turning their edges a pale silver.
"So are you going to ask me?"
"You were bound to tell me on your own."
The other released a gusty sigh, swaying his head from side to side like a child trying to make a decision between two equally tempting sweets.
"I was playing escort to some curious travellers from the north. There was only a few of them when I arrived but they said there were more behind them."
Celeborn blinked in surprise, "and you left them to find their way here on their own?"
"What must you think of me?" There was a look of mock offence. He waved a hand vaguely, "there were others with them, I was sent to bring word of their coming."
"And instead you came here to find me?"
The other lord stopped walking with a stomp of a booted foot. His eyes gazed heaven-ward and his mouth moved as if he was reciting a prayer. Celeborn caught the words 'Valar' and 'dismember' before his friend spun around to face him.
He spoke slowly, as if addressing a very small child, though even children were spoken to with more intelligence than this. "I went to the king. I told him all about the travellers. The king said thank you. He looked very concerned which is big people talk for 'Oh that's not good'. Then I found you."
The corner of his mouth were turned downwards and in all appearances he was livid. But Celeborn had known him too long to be affected by the moods and mannerisms of Thranduil Oropherion.
"Are you finished?" Celeborn kept is expression bland, much to Thranduil's frustration.
"Are you going to keep insulting my intelligence?"
"Only until you stop making it so easy."
Thranduil returned to walking beside him, childishly repeating his words in a high-pitched voice, scrunching his face around his straight nose. As they neared the gates of King Thingol's cavernous halls they saw a great number of people were hurrying about.
"Your news has excited a great number of people in seems," remarked Celeborn.
Thranduil made a noise in his throat, examining some new flower he had gathered along their walk. Celeborn gave him a side-long look, watching as he deftly wove the flower's delicate stem into a lock of hair braided above his ear. Such adornments were too showy for Celeborn's tastes but they suited the other lord perfectly. Thranduil could fall into a bog and come out looking like each glob of slime was deliberately placed to some stunning effect.
"Are you not the least bit interested in word of the newcomers?"
"Whatever for?" chirped the other lord, looking at him curiously. "Bit of a rough journey, something about a curse, honestly I would find frost patterns more interesting and I know for a fact that you do."
Celeborn shrugged, he quite enjoyed reading on even the most obscure topic. It added layers of wonder to the world which was already teeming with brilliance from the delicate curl at the end of a new fern plant to the forces which shaped the great craggy mountains which lay to three sides of their land. He couldn't explain such fascinations to Thranduil who preferred the practical approach of climbing something to see if it was too tall or sticking his hand in a hole to find out what was at the bottom. There were merits to that, he supposed.
He glanced down to see that Thranduil was watching him intently.
"You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Making charts and lists in your head. You do it every time. You put me on one side and you on the other and show exactly how we shouldn't even be friends."
"I do no such thing!"
Thranduil's expression did not change. "You think I'm brash and thoughtless."
"To be fair, I'm not the only one," Celeborn replied raising a finger in the air.
Thranduil slumped dramatically, head tilting back with a great exclamation of frustration. Then he was moving, dancing across the ground in front of Celeborn, arms flailing out in all directions.
"I live, Celeborn! I don't hide is musty pages and build a world in my head where everything is neat and tidy and boring!."
The young lord shrugged his shoulders, unperturbed by his friend's speeches. He'd heard them many times over shared bottles of wine. Thranduil was vibrant and personable; a little prickly at times but he could make people follow him with the merest effort.
"We have much to learn of the world beyond what we see before us."
"Oh yes?" Thranduil cocked his head to one side, standing wide-legged with his hands on his hips. "What sort of things?"
Celeborn made to step around his friend and enter the city but Thranduil jumped in front of him, first to one side, then the other and then stayed Celeborn's movements with a hand on his chest.
"You think I could benefit from those books?"
"You know I do."
And then a queer look came over Thranduil's face, one that his friend had not seen before and is worried him instantly. The flower had shaken loose from Thranduil's hair and was dangling by his ear about to fall. It gave him the appearance of one about to commit an atrocity when a pair of garden clippers.
What are you doing?" Celeborn asked tentatively, his voice breaking over the words.
"Thinking," replied his friend, the light in his eyes growing in intensity.
"Could you not? It's unsettling."
Now Thranduil was grinning, showing entirely too many teeth. "How about a challenge?"
"Can I refuse?"
"Why? I thought you liked to explore new avenues of thought."
"Not with you." Celeborn tried to step around his friend again but was held fast. Both of Thranduil's hands were on his chest now, pressing rather forcefully.
"Hear me, I propose that for one year, one -whole- year I spend all my time in those books you love. I do nothing but study, I do not concern myself with the comings and goings of daily life, frivolities as you so often say. I will not pursue adventures and I most certainly will not get entangled in social intrigues."
Despite his most reasoned instincts Celeborn was listening. Reason told him that this was all some trick that would make him look ridiculous but a smaller part of him, one he kept pushed to the back of his mind, wanted to jump at the chance to show his friend the world he loved to inhabit. How many times had he wanted to tell Thranduil about a discovery he made in some chapter of a long-neglected tome only to be made to feel embarrassed by his interest.
"I'm guessing there's a trade involved?"
Thranduil's eyes went wide in excitement and he nodded."Exactly! You spend the next year outside the library. You don't even smell it through the door. Instead you go oute, you attend feasts and ride out with the hunts."
Something nagged at Celeborn and he gave it voice. "What is the point of this?"
Thranduil stuck his lower lip out in a thoughtful pout. He narrowed his eyes slowly, giving his options careful consideration.
"Popular opinion," he said finally. In response to his friend's confused expression he elaborated.
"The aim is gossip?" said Celeborn after he had finished.
"That's not it! We both know what is said of us, but I want to see which one of experiences the greater praise, if any for a possible change in demeanour."
Celeborn snorted in disbelief. "You think a year of reading will change your character to that extent?"
Thranduil dropped his shoulders in a playful shrug and draped his long arm across Celeborn's lean shoulders, leading him anew towards the gate. "The way I see it, it can't possibly hurt. At worst I spend a year reading and you get a bit dirty for once."
"I've been dirty!" exclaimed Celeborn, drawing curious looks from a group of warriors passing by on their way to a hunt.
Thranduil grinned devilishly. "Then what have you to fear?"
"What is the prize?"
This gave Thranduil a moment's pause though he did not break stride. "You know that delightful little piece you keep in a box on your desk?"
"The blue one?"
"There's a blue one too?" Thranduil shook his head, regaining hold of his previous point. "No, the green and silver thing, I so admire it."
"A trinket? How can that be all you desire?"
Thranduil made a sound with his lips like bubbles popping on the surface of thermal pool. "It's as good a prize as any."
"In that case, I would like that book, you know the one."
"My mother did love that one," remarked Thranduil wistfully.
"And yet she gave it to you for safekeeping. She must not have loved it that much." This remark earned him a cuff upside the head.
"Wouldn't you rather have a knife or something?"
"I have enough of those."
"Very well," cried Thranduil as they reached the steps leading to the great hall. He stuck out a hand and Celeborn took it; his friend's enthusiasm was very easily caught.
"A bargain well struck," said Celeborn, squeezing Thranduil's hand before releasing it.
"Agreed," said his friend, "let us go drink to seal it."
Celeborn laughed, a sound so rare that passersby stopped to gape at its occurrence. "Any excuse works for you, doesn't it?"
Thranduil pushed open the carved wood doors and executed a sweeping bow, indicating that Celeborn should enter before him. "How well you know me."
As they passed into the great hall those who had borne witness to the strange encounter traded perplexed looks. Whatever had just occurred between the two elf lords was cause for much gossip in the following days although by that time, something would occur which would prove much more interesting.
End of Chapter One.
An author's note regarding Canon: This humourous work of romance is loosely set in the First Age of Middle Earth in the kingdom of Doriath. While I have read the Silmarillion and gone over timelines and notes again and again I am bound to stumble over some fact or characterisation. For instance, very little is known and much is speculated about the dates of birth and dwelling places of both Thranduil and his father, Oropher. Some sources will suggest that he did live in Doriath for a time but then left to Lindon around SA1000. Taking this with a heaping does of creative license I've places Thranduil into this work as an instigator of mischief. This is meant to be a work of light humour so I hope it can be taken as such.