Skin white as snow, lips red as blood, hair black as ebony
-6-
"I have to tell you something."
"What is it, Bard?"
"I am not getting used to the idea that a part of your heart is beating inside my chest."
"You do not believe me, do you?"
Bard cracked a smile, shaking his head gently.
They were walking in one of the gardens that surrounded the palace of Greenwood the Great. The exercise was good for Bard, who had been bedridden far too long for his liking and yet less time than normal healing would have taken from such a serious injury. His skin was still very pale and the dark circles deep under his green and brown eyes.
"I do believe you, how could it be otherwise? I can feel that I am changed. I am still the same old me while being … sharper in many ways. Do you see what I mean?"
"Sharper seems to be the appropriate word, indeed."
The Elf part in Bard stood out in some of his attitudes. A lighter gait and gestures that were more precise.
"I guess that because I do not see it, I cannot conceive that it is not my heart beating anymore. What you have accomplished is beyond my imagination and I guess my mind, which cannot understand it, has decided to make it all… normal. Except that sharing a heart is nothing trivial, is it?"
Thranduil allowed himself a smile, even though Bard's uncertainty touched the depths of his soul, and he regarded the Lord of Dale with a look that he wanted to be reassuring.
"Your humanity is catching up with you, my dear Bard and for that I am grateful. Your mind is protecting you from these recent disruptions. It is a completely natural response."
Thranduil watched Bard as he focused his attention on details that had once eluded him: a tiny insect on the leaf of a shrub, the sparkle of raindrops left behind by the spring rain, the distant song of birds returning now that winter had gone.
There was something irresistibly naïve and innocent that lingered about him despite the sometimes darker aspects that emerged. It was as if two personalities were constantly fighting inside of him.
Was this a dramatic consequence of a gesture that Thranduil had thought altruistic?
Relegating this worrying thought to a corner of his mind, the Elf focused on the doubt that still seemed to inhabit his guest.
What he was about to do was risky, especially since he could never anticipate Bard's reactions. The man was a complete enigma.
"I would like to show you something, Aran Nín. Could you wait for me here, please?"
Bard looked curiously at Thranduil. Hard to believe that three weeks ago, this man had passed through the gates of death.
"All right. I will wait for you."
Thranduil slipped away, walking quickly back inside the palace.
According to him, Bard had explained everything to his eldest daughter – his death, half of Thranduil's heart beating inside his chest, his rapid healing, his supernatural abilities caused by the Elf part within him, Thranduil's blood pulsing and surging through his veins.
Sigrid had not seemed surprised, lulled since childhood by the frightening legends that surrounded the Elvenking of Greenwood the Great and his dangerous magic.
However, as they dined together now that Bard could get out of bed, Thranduil repeatedly caught the young woman's wary expression as she watched him furtively. She quickly lowered her head, her cheeks flushed, when Thranduil fixed his icy gaze on her, seeming to be waiting for a remark or a question from her.
Thranduil went to Bard's room, cast a spell to unlock the cupboard doors and grabbed the coffer from inside the cabinet. He then returned to the gardens and wasted no time in finding Bard, seated on a bench.
The bowman was enjoying with obvious interest the flowering trees planted in the distance, his eyes closed and the crinkle of his nose clearly indicating that he was easily inhaling the scent emanating from them.
He opened his eyes as Thranduil settled down beside him and took in the object that lay between the Elf's long marmoreal fingers.
"What is it?"
"A proof, if you need one, that it is indeed half of my heart beating inside your chest."
Thranduil handed the coffer to Bard and Bard took it in his hands, examining it in silence.
The Elf then removed a long, thin golden necklace, hitherto hidden under the countless layers of his clothing, and offered it to Bard. A small key dangled at the end of the jewel.
Bard gazed questioningly at Thranduil, the key between his thumb and his forefinger, the box resting on his lap.
"You may open it. Its contents belong to you."
Bard obeyed: he slipped the key into the lock and turned it to operate the opening mechanism. When he lifted the lid and saw the contents of the box, Thranduil could clearly see the breath catch in Bard's throat. His muscles stiffened and his gaze clouded.
"Is it really my heart?" he asked in a low, distant, almost fragile voice.
"It is."
Thranduil studied Bard without another word as the bowman brought a slightly trembling hand to the lifeless heart. He touched the organ with his fingertips and Thranduil had to admit that this peculiar scene enthralled him beyond reason.
"This is something I never thought I would ever experience," Bard said calmly, his voice nonetheless betraying the emotion that had invaded him. "Who can boast about being able to contemplate his own heart?"
Nobody, so to speak.
Thranduil smiled sadly. Bard was decidedly a curious and fascinating creature. Any other human would have jumped or succumbed to hysteria at the sight of his own heart. Bard caressed it as if touching a wild animal, hoping to tame it, his forest-colored eyes fixed on the contents of the box.
"It is so cold and so hard," Bard said aloud, without even thinking about it as he seemed a thousand leagues away.
"It is dead, Bard. It stopped beating after fighting a long battle to keep you alive."
"How can it be like this? It looks like it is going to start pulsing again all of a sudden..."
"I enchanted it so it would never deteriorate," Thranduil replied, choosing his words carefully. "I was hoping… I was considering giving it back to you if you survived the ritual."
Thranduil was utterly taken aback when Bard turned his attention away from the carefully arranged heart in the casket to give him a look that sparkled with some mischief.
"What should we say in this kind of situation? Thanks?" he said, a playful smile already forming on his lips.
Thranduil himself felt on the point of laughing at the incongruity of this scene.
"It is the first time I have given someone his heart back, Bard. I do not know."
Then Bard burst out laughing. A frank laugh, sonorous and warm but tinged with a slight nervousness that did not escape Thranduil. It was probably his way of accepting the oddness of what he was going through so as not to lose his mind.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, Bard stopped laughing and looked at the motionless organ again, frowning.
"Who can tell that this is truly my heart?"
Thranduil furrowed his eyebrows in turn, bewildered. Bard's mind must have been swarming with doubts, questions and everything must have been confused in a massive nameless chaos since he had learned the truth about his condition.
"What interest would I have in making you believe such a thing?" Thranduil asked in response to this astonishing question.
"I do not know... None, I imagine. It is just... It is silly, sorry."
"Tell me."
"All this reminded me of a tale in which a queen condemns a princess to death because she is jealous of the beauty of the young girl. The man responsible for killing the princess and bringing her heart back to the queen cannot bring himself to do so, so he kills a deer instead and it is the heart of the animal that is given to the queen."
"Your parents used to tell you terrifying stories."
A wistful smile tugged at Bard's lips.
"In fact, it was my wife who liked to tell these stories to our children in the evening."
Thranduil raised an eyebrow.
"Before going to sleep?"
His voice betrayed his annoyance.
Bard glanced at the Elf and smirked.
"Tales are very useful. They teach us a lot, Your Highness. Do not underestimate their power."
"Certainly. However, no, Bard, I did not lie to you and I did not kill an innocent animal to deceive you. Besides, if you do not trust me..."
Delicately, Thranduil closed the coffer and turned the key in the lock. He grabbed the box and put it on the other side of the bench to avoid accidentally knocking it over. He handed the golden chain to Bard who pocketed it without saying a word, his puzzled gaze fixed on the Elf.
Thranduil then undid the bonds of his cloak, then the first buttons of his tunic. He shot a quick glance at Bard and this time he repeated the gesture on the Lord of Dale's clothes.
Not without some hesitation, he took the bowman's hands in his (and was startled for a second to feel Bard's skin so cold). He placed Bard's right hand upon his chest, the palm against the first half of his heart and the man's left hand upon his own chest, the palm over the second half of his heart.
"You may trust this," he said simply. "Close your eyes and listen."
If the Elf's reaction surprised him, Bard did not let it show. He just obeyed and Thranduil saw him close his eyes, breathing softly, concentrating on the beating of their hearts. A minute passed, then another as Bard listened and Thranduil watched Bard listen to his heart pounding in two different chests.
"They beat in the same rhythm, without the slightest dissonance," Bard finally muttered, his eyes still closed, a smile that Thranduil could not quite fathom like a shadow on his lips.
"Precisely," Thranduil confirmed.
Now was the time to reveal to Bard one of the more problematic consequences for sharing the same heart. He had postponed this moment for far too long and he knew there was no subtle way to announce such information.
"It is because we share the same heart that the ritual I performed requires, in return, that we be united by the bonds of marriage."
Thranduil saw an amused smile play on Bard's lips.
"So that was your dark design," he joked, eyelids lowered, each of his palms over the heart pounding into two chests. "Know that this is the most original marriage proposal I have ever heard, Your Highness."
Without thinking, Thranduil placed his hand on Bard's, the one that was on his own chest.
His voice grew deeper, devoid of the sweetness he had been careful to use until then.
"It is no joke on my part, unfortunately, Bard. Calling on such powerful magic comes at a cost, and the price to pay is the union of the two of us."
Bard's fingers tensed upon his chest and his fingernails inadvertently scratched Thranduil's bare skin. His smile was only a memory on his lips and his eyelids opened on two eyes in which the Elvenking could discover all the anger he promised to bring down on him.
Amid the storm, Thranduil discerned a hint of revulsion.
His voice was as cold as his skin when he spoke.
"Tell me it is a misunderstanding and that you are not planning to marry me, King Thranduil."