At the front of the procession, Thranduil sat atop his elk, his face a mask of stone as he faced forward, eager to be home. However, his thoughts kept flitting back to the goodbye he had overheard between Tamuril and Elrond. Yes, he had eavesdropped, if only in an attempt to sate his own curiosity of what could have transpired to cause such a rift between the two. What he had gleaned from their parting exchange didn't make a lot of sense to him.
Elrond was not at fault for Haldir's misfortune in battle. Even the most skilled of warriors can fall at the smallest of hurdles. You only need but one thing to go wrong and all the skill in the world will not save you. Thranduil knew the bitterness of this better than many and he knew that Elrond did too. He wondered why Elrond had simply allowed her to speak to him the way she had but it was not his business to tell another how to take care of their own house.
Anyway, Tamuril would be an elf of the Woodland Realm soon enough, for however long she chose to stay (or could stick it out, he thought, still not entirely confident in her ability to 'pull herself together' as it were). Technically, she was no longer Elrond's concern but Thranduil was not fool enough to believe that Elrond would not take that burden upon his shoulders regardless.
The journey to Mirkwood - the Greenwood, he continued to remind himself - should take about four weeks if they were lucky and kept good time. They were all on horseback and the way was a lot safer than it had been in more recent days. Not fully, there was the odd enemy still to be picked off, but he was hopeful they wouldn't encounter anything that would cause too big of a delay.
"Stay on your guard." He said in a low voice to Feren at his left, though he had no doubt it didn't even need to be said. "Foul things still lurk beyond these lands. Keep the ladies to the centre."
Tamuril was quiet as they set out down the dirt path, Rivendell disappearing in the background, fading out of sight. Not that she looked back. If she did, she feared she might turn her horse around. She felt guilt pulling her in every direction and she sorely regretted her bitter parting from Elrond. She wished she had not said any of it but she knew she could not take it back.
A destructive part of her had seemed to think that severing all ties completely was the best way to take her leave. That making Elrond hate her once and for all was the only thing for it. That leaving in anger was better than leaving in sadness... though for Tamuril it seemed that anger tended to equal sadness these days. Her emotions, which had started as a state of numb all-consuming grief, had started to morph into a rage that she did not know what to do with. Tamuril had never felt this way before and she did not like it, nor did she know how to navigate it.
Nessa had tried to talk to her for the first leg of the journey but Tamuril was barely responsive and so her friend's attention had drifted elsewhere, to the Mirkwood elves around them. Nessa never had been shy so she launched into many easy conversations as the hours passed. Tamuril rode quietly amongst them, feeling quite invisible and not altogether hating that fact. She could see Thranduil at the front, high up on his elk.
By the time they were set to make their first camp, Tamuril was beginning to be plagued by serious doubts, having had too much time to drown in her own thoughts.
Thranduil had said that she would have to earn her place in his realm and, while she agreed and appreciated such a thing, what use could she be to him and his own? Tamuril had led an easy, rather sheltered life, especially of late. She could only marginally defend herself if it came to a fight. She spent most of her time reading or writing meager poetry. She was not strong, especially now, and she thought herself so foolish for having thrust herself upon this company without a second thought.
"Are you coming?" Nessa asked suddenly, causing Tamuril to look up. Dinner was over and elves were retiring to various tents or trees to meditate or keep a watch.
"Oh... in a little while." Tamuril nodded, forcing a smile. "I want to go and settle Willow first."
Nessa eyed her as if she didn't fully believe her but she let it go, giving her friend a soft smile in return. "Alright. Be quick about it."
Tamuril watched Nessa go and then she sat there for a while longer, waiting. After some time, when the silence had settled and stretched, Tamuril stood and moved over to where the horses had been left for the night. She found herself alone and relaxed somewhat, reaching up to pet Willow's snout with a soft smile. "What do you think about getting out of here, hm?" She wondered, moving her fingers to untie Willow from her place.
"Not even a day in our company and you already flee into the wilderness." The voice that came suddenly from behind Tamuril was unmistakably that of the Elvenking and she jumped, startled, not having heard anybody approach.
Spinning, Tamuril looked at him. He merely stood there, looking back as if completely uninterested.
"Where would you go?" He asked after a beat. "Into the wild? You would survive one week, if you were lucky. Have you ever needed to live off the land? Do you know where and how to make shelter? Find food? Water? Care for your horse? Defend yourself if some creature came across you?"
Tamuril's silence told him what he needed to know. "And what of me and my peace?" He continued. "When Lord Elrond comes thundering into my forest because he hears you did not even make it a few days past Rivendell and nobody knows where in Middle Earth your body rests?"
She frowned then, scowling up at him and turned back to her horse. "You conjure up such an intricate image as if, when placed in the scenario, he would actually care."
Thranduil stepped towards her and took her firmly by the arm, spinning her back round to face him. "You are a foolish girl." He told her, ignoring the look on her face. "If you truly believe this to be the truth." Where was the girl he had sat with in the garden? The peredhel standing before him certainly looked the same but there was something else. Something different. Something had shifted since those nights he had spent sitting quietly next to her in Rivendell's gardens beneath the stars.
Ah. There it was. Anger.
She had had flashes of frustration within her before, of course, but true anger? Real rage? Thranduil had not seen that in her... though it had taken her longer to get there than it had for him, he thought idly.
Quickly, he banished such thoughts. Continuing to liken himself to her and her situation would only cause him to think of her. His wife. And he would not.
"You made a commitment, little one, and if I must then I will drag you all the way to the Greenwood myself."
Tamuril narrowed her eyes, staring back at him, searching his face for any sign of a bluff. She found none and her scowl deepened. "You would not dare." She challenged.
The corners of Thranduil's mouth began to pull into a smirk as he looked back at her. "Would I not?"
Tamuril stared back at him and it was not until she decided he was lying and tilted her chin at him defiantly that Thranduil pounced. He released his grip on her arm, immediately stepping foward and grabbing hold of her, swinging her up into his arms.
She yelped in surprise and tried to scramble away but Thranduil held her too firmly and she could go nowhere. "I can do this with one hand and, luckily, I do not even need any to ride my elk, for he will go where he is needed with no tug of the reins." He told her, his voice low and slightly threatening.
Tamuril went quiet, not meeting his eyes for a long time. The silence stretched out between them, long and heavy, and when she finally lifted her gaze she found that he was still looking at her and his gaze had softened. He sighed, the fight having gone out of him as quickly as it had come, and moved to set her back on her feet. He took a small step towards her and she half-flinched away. He hesitated, wondering if he should apologise, for he did not fully know what had come over him.
"Tamuril." He said her name, relieved when she looked up at him. She no longer looked ready to flee, at least. "I am sorry if I frightened you."
"I am not frightened." Tamuril muttered, turning away again to tend to her horse, but she did not move to untie the animal.
Thranduil watched her for a moment before he spoke again. "You will still come with us?"
Tamuril shrugged. "It would appear that I have no choice, your majesty."
He sighed. "I said I was sorry."
"I do not care either way." Came the reply.
Thranduil rolled his eyes at her, his irritation rising once more. He took a deep breath in, doing his best to stay calm. There was another silence. He looked up at the sky, watching the stars, before he turned his attention back to the woman in front of him.
"Where were you going to go?" He asked curiously.
Tamuril looked at him, surprised, and then she shrugged. "I don't know."
Thranduil had assumed as much. Some part of him found it amusing. Her naive defiance. Her utter lack of... well, anything, really. Tamuril was spoiled. Still, he was pretty sure that, somewhere under all this, there was something else there too. He couldn't explain it but he just knew it to be true and he felt a strange sort of curiosity about it. About her.
Or perhaps it was just some sick joke his psyche was playing on him. Gravitate to the girl whose grief kept holding a mirror up to him and showing him snippets of his own.
"Why is it that you are so eager to disappear?" He asked her then, and for a moment Tamuril thought he meant it more generally, until he continued. "You, who was so insistent on coming in the first place."
Tamuril's cheeks turned slightly pink and she looked back at Willow as she remembered the way she had practically forced herself into the company of the wood elves in the first place. She thought about lying to him but found herself telling the truth before she could really settle on it. "I just... I had a few doubts, that's all."
"Doubts?" Thranduil echoed, tilting his head just slightly as he regarded her. "Such as?"
"I... do not know how useful I am going to be, my lord." She admitted, still not looking at him. "In your realm." Tamuril shrugged. "To earn my place."
Thranduil mulled that over in his mind for a moment or so, gaze following the movements of her hand as she stroked the horse. While true that he had told her she would not be having some free ride within the walls of his realm - and he had been thinking she could crumble at the first hurdle - there were many, many ways one could be of use. She would find a place, he was fairly certain, as there was always something for even the most incompetent of elves.
"That is of no worry." He told her, waving his hand. "You must be good at something." She looked ready to argue and he continued before she could get a word in. "And if you do not know what that something is, you shall find out, by trying your hand at many things until something sticks."
He left no room for arguments and Tamuril had the good grace to shut her mouth and simply nod in response. She supposed that he was right and she wondered if she could have avoided her panicked near departure if she had simply said something.
"Elrond is not at fault, you know." He said quietly, after observing her for a few moments more.
Tamuril blinked back at him then, frowning as she tried to figure out what he meant. "Not at fault for what?"
"Haldir."
Just that one word - one mention of his name - and her eyes turned cold again. "Do not presume to talk to me, your majesty, as if we are so familiar." She warned, looking at him with daggers in her eyes. "I will come to your beloved forest and I will help if I can but you would do well not to push me."
To her credit, she did pause to bob a curtsy before him, and then she stepped around him and was gone, her angry footsteps receding into the darkness.
Thranduil stood there a while longer, silently wondering why he had not gone after her and told her to leave if that is what she so desperately wanted. To get out of his sight once and for all.
Instead, he attended to the animals, and then turned and disappeared away into his own tent for the night.