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.
Chapter Five: Disguises
Thranduil saw his friend collapse backwards through the door, roll like a prone tortoise and then rise and stumble away clutching his head between wine-soaked hands.
What fortune. What luck! With Celeborn gone he could pass undetected and their wager would be preserved.
This was not,he assured himself, duplicitous. He adjusted the collar of his crimson tunic, worrying the soft fabric into place. Neither was it dishonest that he had secretly watched his friend as he dressed for the feast and then conjured a near identical outfit.
Practicing Celeborn's manner and expressions until he was convincing, admittedly, might have been one step beyond the pale.
But after the fright he's taken in the storage cellar the feast was his restorative balm. And really, he thought as he pulled an ornate white mask from his belt, if he passed undetected had he, Lord Thranduil, even attended the party at all?
He hummed, waiting until the shadow of his friend had vanished from the corridor. He then slipped to the back of a group of revelers, each sporting a mask more fanciful ornate than the one before, gathering before the immense doors.
At the moment he felt a pang of conscience the doors were swept wide, showering the partygoers in waves of light and sound. Conscience, that damned nuisance would say no more to him this night. Adjusting the mask over his eyes and nose Thranduil chased the dancers into the great hall, losing himself in their whoops and hollers.
Inside the room they were greeted with cheers. The king himself waved them on as they raced past under a cascade of sparks and silver smoke as torches blazed to life. The musicians struck up a thunderous beat. The notes twirled together, up and down they fell, thrilling cries beckoned the heart and so the feet went too. Dance partners were snatched up in a frenzy. He spied the king's daughter, her midnight curls bursting from behind a fox-face mask. She seized the arm of a be-horned young lord. Had he not stumbled after her his arm would have been all she held in her determined grasp.
Thranduil laughed, this was his element. A hand slipped into his and without hesitation he grasped it, pulling its owner closer. A doe's face observed him through a woman's' eyes. No innocent hart but rather a hunter, poised within reach of her prey. She was elemental, clad in flames with strands of ribbon twisting upwards from her bodice to wrap around her neck.
This was to be a trial by fire, he decided as he preceded Lady Bregien onto the dance floor, then here was an inferno.
Securing an arm around her waist he steered them both into the vortex of dancers. His hand was steady and his shoulders set. There was nothing else but for him to succeed.
"I thought you'd left,"
She spun in front of him, his nose filled with the vapours of ancient pine, red earth and dark honey.
Remembering to pitch his voice lower he kept his replies short. "Your thought was false."
"That's rare." Bregien's hand slid down his arm and when she returned to face him he noticed her hand lingered on his wrist, right above the line of his pulse. Could she feel his heart racing with the thrill of the game?
"You changed."
"Obviously."
Quick step right, then left, kick, spin and she was back in his arms.
"I was over-hot."
"We noticed" raising her hands above her head ribbons falling like willow tendrils over her arms.
"Leaving is the best way to make an entrance."
They traded partners, first to the right and then to the left. Whenever he returned he found her hand reaching for his.
He caught it and pressed her palm to his chest, pleased that his ruse was working.
"You're full of surprises these past weeks. I'm beginning to believe that you don't despise us."
Thranduil was overjoyed. He wondered if it was the extra height he'd added to his boots or the unfamiliar cut of his tunic which made his shoulders more broad than wiry. He wished he could ask but it would destroy the entire effect.
The dance ended and he clapped, slowing his hands when he saw her watching him sideways through the eyeholes of her mask. Did Celeborn ever noticed that she looked at him this way?
Immediately he spied four others approaching to take her hand next. Inflating her chest with a long-drawn breath she mouthed "peacocks" before sweeping away to lead them on a merry chase, laughter bubbling like a stream from her lips.
"Naught but feathers and fancy," was his answer to her retreating back. He tipped a whole goblet of wine down his throat and set it back on the tray before it had passed him by. It burned; that one ought to have been sipped.
Giddy with an early success he jumped into the next dervish, trading places down a long line of dancers until - at the far end - he was forced to circle behind a table of still seated guests. As he dashed around to return to the dance line he did not see the chair sliding back until he was doubled across it.
A steady hand righted him and he sprung backwards, coughing and pressing the sore spot in his gut.
"Forgive me," said the mountain who owned the hand.
Do you span rivers with those shoulders? Thranduil reigned in his manners and adjusted his mask before it fell.
"It's nothing," he grinned even as others stood and gathered around him. He experienced instant sympathy for the fieldmouse caught out in the grass during a harvest. He hated looking up and why the coordinated dress? Blue was a spring colour.
"You are not injured,"
"With your assurances I am not." A strained laugh, upon whose distraction Thranduil endeavored to creep sideways and be gone. But the Noldorim were the unparting sea.
They exchanged remarks unintelligible to himself before turning their eyes back to him as one. He retreated leaving room for one lady to drift forward. Instantly he was disassembled and rearranged without so much as a by your leave. He could feel the muscles around his spine stiffen, bracing him.
"It appears the wind was knocked in rather than out," she clarified when his only reply was a inelegantly gaping mouth. "You've found your voice, Lord Celeborn."
Regrouping, Thranduil slid forward on his heel, "your pardon, my lady. My voice?" She stared without blinking and words tumbled from his lips before he could catch them.
"I meant no ill will, if you were slighted. An unfortunate imbalance. It causes me to think too long before I speak." Still she stared but a few of her companions traded uncertain glances including their brawny leader whose hand was finally gone from Thranduil's shoulder.
With considerable effort he regained control of his tongue, if only by planting his feet and looking up at the ceiling until the imprint of her fathom-deep eyes had faded from his sight. Slipping his borrowed persona back into place he swept down in a half bow,
"No matter, all's mended that's easily forgotten."
"Quite," murmured Finrod somewhere above him.
Faced with a wall of impenetrable stares Thranduil sought the only action he could get away with, which happened to coincide perfectly with the final chords from the musicians.
"Can I offer a dance, in recompense?" his smile beguiling.
Finrod tilted his head towards the frosty beauty at his side and Thranduil feared for a moment that she might be his wife. But the elf-lord's expression was blandly polite.
"Sister?"
Better, though he was not yet out of the proverbial woods.
"I think not," she replied. There was more to their exchange that passed outside hearing and Thranduil pouted at being talked over but quickly reverted to a smile when she looked back at him. "Though, I thank you," for a precious instant the icy veil was lifted and he realized that she was amused. But the moment was short lived and she looked over her shoulder. "Perhaps my companion might be tempted."
The curtain of her white dress swept aside. Had there been less need for decorum Thranduil would have slapped his thigh with laughter. Luckily for the lady, her dolorous "my lord," was met by a perfectly formal bow and smile that concealed his surprise.
Lady Venom, I presume. He noted how she looked much much subdued clad in a loose gown of pale blue, not two shades from the white of her mistress. Though it was cinched so far up her neck that it must be chocking her. It would explain the puckering of her lips. His hand was still floating between them unacknowledged.
"Lady Necelië," pressed her liege, "what do you say to Lord Celeborn's offer."
So the mistress of thorns has a name. He'd seen recognition briefly on her face but would she say anything of their encounter in the cellars. "My Lord, we have only just met."
"And I see no better way to make further acquaintance," he challenged.
"There's no need to alter first impressions," this garnered her a curious look from both her lady and her liege. Lady Necelië gaze was unwavering, the final word hissing through her lips.
Thranduil opened his mouth to retaliate but before he found the words he caught sight of his King and Queen ambling towards their group through the shoulders of the Noldor company.
Snapping his hand to his side he tilted his head, pretending at regret, though he imagined he did so poorly. "Some other time then," he bowed crisply from the waist and, his gesture being returned by the most polite of their number, swung his body around so that he was now shielded from the King's view. "I think you'll find, my lords and ladies, that second impressions are often truer," he sidestepped a pair caught up in a reel and vanished.
"Perhaps even a third if you can lower yourself that far," he muttered, smoothing his hair back behind his ear. Vowing to steer clear of that end of the Hall he hopped and ducked through the dancers. Even in retreat his eyes were drawn back to the Lady in white, who had passed beyond introduction. No one should be able to give him such shivers. The raw power of her, the sureness of her posture, such things would be intimidating without those relentless eyes. But was that loneliness he saw in the moment her facade had slipped?
His distraction was short lived, for he found his hand clamped in one much smaller than his own.
"What-"
"You promised," the king's daughter, Luthien swung their joined hands between them.
I did not ask for this, Thranduil thought as he was hauled bodily to the centre of the dance floor that he had only just escaped. Let it be known, he pleaded to whichever higher power was listening,"the message is received."
"What message, cousin?"
Curse her ears.
End of Chapter Five
A Word:
Thank you so much to those who've left me a review. I'm glad you're enjoying the story and I love hearing from you. I'm always in a mood to chat about writing, elves, the finer points of Strip-The-Willow, all sorts.
And should anyone be interested, I'm looking for a beta-reader. Someone to keep the tendrils of this plotline intact and talk shop and style with. You're brave souls who venture into Silmarillion-fic-land and I commend you.
Let the good times roll.