Last Preparations

I was not allowed a long pause to catch my breath, because as soon as I returned to the room, there was a knock at the door. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes that had come, although I had sworn not to cry. Why should I? Because he had rejected me and I felt offended by it? That was ridiculous.

Resolutely, I turned around. My focus should be on other things, such as why Thranduil the bastard had spoken to his son in Westron. In my initial agitation and because of the stinging in my chest, I hadn't noticed, but now that I'd had a moment to myself, it had struck me as odd that an Elven king had spoken to his son in the common tongue of men. What were the odds that they always did that? Zero, if I was honest with myself. He had to have known or guessed that I would be there. And he had chosen me as a subject to unsettle his son, to find out more about me, because he suspected something was off. And that scared me, because Legolas… I bit my lip. After all, he hadn't said anything about the Silmaril shards. But I couldn't imagine that his father was satisfied with the end of the conversation. His tone had remained displeased - whether that was because of Legolas' plans for Ithilien, or the insinuation he had made to his son about me. Or both... it worried me. The night was going to be far worse than I had thought after the audience - what if Thranduil set more traps for me?

I ran my hands over my face. Perhaps it had been better that the Elf King had steered the conversation in that direction. Should he believe that his son had fallen for me. As long as that kept him away from the shards. I knew better.

A second knock, this time more urgent snapped me out of my thoughts. "Yes?"

The door opened and an Elven woman entered. Over her arm she had draped another dress, obviously intended for me to wear during the feast. It was far more splendid than the one that had been waiting for me after the bath. Was Thranduil trying to dress me up to make me look even more ridiculous than I already was? "The prince told me to bring you this dress." She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but didn't. Instead, her expression spoke volumes. I had to swallow, but stood up anyway and took it from her.

"Thank you," I said simply. A brief, awkward moment of silence sank over us before I added, "I'll put it on myself. You don't have to stay."

She bowed her head and left the room, obviously glad that I hadn't asked her to help me dress. That was a quirk of nobility I would never understand. I wanted to put on my own damn pants, where did they get the idea of letting someone else put them on? Especially since the Elven clothes didn't seem like they would be impossible to put on unaided.

With a sigh, I lowered the dress. In the process, a paper fell out and landed on the floor with a rustle. Frowning, I bent down and picked it up. Half expecting a note explaining why Legolas felt it was necessary to send me this dress, instead I found myself confronted with the dwarven language.

Which I did not speak.

What Legolas knew.

I quickly shook the dress, but with the exception of the note on which a message had been left for me in the runic alphabet of the dwarves, there was nothing inside.

That was strange. Why had he written a note in Khuzdul when he knew that I did not understand that language? And certainly not its characters? Or had that been intentional? Something slipped into place in my brain. Of course, why hadn't I thought of that before?

Hastily I hid the note in my dress, opened the door and looked out. There were still no guards positioned at the entrance, which reassured me, but I sensed that this did not mean I could feel unsupervised. After all, I wasn't planning anything that would cause a stir this time.

As relaxed as possible, I bridged the two meters to Gimli's room and knocked. The second time, the dwarf said, "Come in."

I opened the door and found Gimli sitting at a small desk which, as in my room, had been moved to the right corner. In fact, everything else looked the same: the bed on the left, next to the entrance, a dresser of dark brown wood at its end. On the right, a washstand and the tub in which I had taken the bath earlier in my room. Even the view of the waterfall was the same.

The dwarf laid down a quill with which he had been scratching on a piece of parchment until I had knocked. Seeing him without his helmet after all these weeks was weird. "What can I do for you, lass?" he asked, standing up. "We're getting picked up for the feast in just under thirty minutes."

"Did they bring you something to wear, too?"

He raised both eyebrows. "And if they did, I would gratefully decline."

I had to laugh. "Well," quietly I closed the door behind me. "Legolas sent me a dress."

"He did?" The dwarf looked surprised.

"I think mostly because he wanted to pass this to me," I pulled the note out of the folds of my dress and handed it to Gimli. "I guess he didn't want to risk being seen talking to me, so no one would get suspicious. And he didn't want the Elves to be able to read the message. However, I didn't realize he could speak and write your language."

The dwarf took the note from me, unfolded it, and quickly scanned it. He then nodded with an implied smirk. "He doesn't, not very well at least. However, he did pick up a few things in the months we spent together helping build up Minas Tirith."

"But you understand what it says?"

"Yes," he paused briefly, "And it is important that you know the contents, too. I assume that Legolas has spoken to Thranduil."

Yes, indeed he had, but I wouldn't tell the dwarf I overheard them. I didn't want him to ask questions - about the contents of the conversation. That wouldn't be unpleasant for me alone; I knew Gimli well enough for that by now. So I kept that information to myself. "What makes you think that?"

"The highborn Elven king seems to be less sympathetic to you than I assumed."

Gimli thought Thranduil was sympathetic to me? I guess I hadn't gotten that memo, remembering all too well the King's piercing gaze. So I replied, "I didn't think so."

Gimli acknowledged this with a nod. "If I understand the note correctly, Thranduil intends to question you more closely about your intentions in Esgaroth."

"What do you mean more closely?"

"Supply routes, your contacts - that sort of thing."

My mouth went dry. "That's bad. Why did Legolas have to come up with this particular story, anyways?"

Gimli looked up. "Because in Thranduil's eyes, it makes you less of a threat than if you were a chance find we picked up along the way. Placing you in Aragorn's service protects you. Thranduil values him, at least enough to not put his servants in one of his cells."

"As long as I do not give myself away."

"Indeed." The dwarf waved the paper. "Fortunately, Legolas has made sure that you won't have to worry about that."

"What do you mean?"

"He must have used the time since our arrival to gather some information regarding this. I will read it to you, remember it well."

Gimli began reading out names and addresses, even delivery times and volumes Legolas had written down. We quickly realized, however, that I would not be able to remember all of it, so I made myself a cheat sheet, which I wrote on the inside of my forearm. I hoped that neither Thranduil nor anyone else would notice it, but hopefully the long sleeves of my dress would take care of that. When we were done, I lowered the quill I had been using to write on my skin. A ballpoint pen would have been better.

"You should go back to your room and change, lass," the dwarf said. "We'll be picked up soon." The last sentence sounded as tense as if it was Gimli and not me who would have to lie to Thranduil about the truthfulness of our intentions.

"Tomorrow we'll leave," I tried to reassure him, even though I myself wasn't comfortable with the idea of attending the feast.

"That shall remain to be seen," Gimli replied. "My father already experienced the inside of the cells of Mirkwood - I have a feeling this could become a family tradition."