V: Healing Me


'It's you, isn't it?  You're the Star the King brought back the other night, aren't you?' Avadhil drops me into the dirt beside the raging waterfalls thundering down one side of the gardens, muddying my nightdress and causing searing pain to shoot through my leg.  I cry out in agony, but Avadhil, Fëalos and Noredhon only laugh at me.

'How's he treating you?  Better than his old wife?' Fëalos aims a kick at my injured leg.

'Why are you doing this?' I squeal, fighting back the tears with all the strength I can muster, 'what do you gain from hurting people you deem weaker than yourselves?'

'We don't deem you weaker, you are weaker,' Avadhil sneers.

'Look at you!  You can't even walk by yourself!' Noredhon pushes me back down into the mud every time I sit back up, while the spray from the waterfalls spatters my skin.

'You're the weaker ones.' I put up a mental barrier against the relentless pain battering my body.  Laid on my side in the soft mud, dampened by the spray and completely immobile, escape seems utterly impossible, but I can irk the ellons to my heart's content.  Perhaps I can irritate them until they leave me alone, then call for help and hope another passing elf can take me back to my room.  It's my only option.  'Strong people don't hurt others to feel better about themselves.'

'I don't need to feel better about myself, I've already stolen the King's Star!  I wonder what he'll do when he finds out you're missing... or since he hasn't been kind to anyone since his precious wife died, perhaps he won't care?' Avadhil's boot makes contact with my stomach and holds me flat on my back, pressed against the sludgy ground.  When I don't answer, his wicked green eyes narrow and his lip curls.

I can't let him be right... but maybe he is.  That is why I'm here, after all.  Because Thranduil doesn't care.

'Your words mean nothing to me!' I snap, writhing in the mud as Avadhil's cronies leer at me.  'I belong to no one!'

Avadhil opens his mouth to respond, but something catches his attention.  All three ellons turn in the direction of a distant call, emanating from somewhere inside the nearest chambers.

'Elena?  Elena!  ELENA!'  Thranduil's voice booms out into the almost deserted gardens, and I can tell the ellons know it's him because fear flashes through their eyes.  They exchange glances, but before they can move, Thranduil has turned out of the corridor and spotted us over by the waterfalls.  Immediately his vivid blue eyes widen with shock, and he strides over to where the ellons are cowering fearfully and Avadhil has quickly removed his foot from on top of my stomach.

'K... King Thranduil...' Noredhon stutters, 'we didn't...'

Thranduil silences him by pushing him and his friends out of the way.  On reaching me, his expression softens, and he pulls me up out of the sludge without a moment's pause. Ignoring the fact that I am caked with dirt, Thranduil holds me in his arms and faces down the ellons.  He towers above them by several inches, and Avadhil in particular is practically trembling in the King's shadow.

'You are fools, all of you,' Thranduil says icily, 'your actions are disgraceful.  You will stay away from Elena.' 

I don't look any of ellons directly in the eye.  However, my head nestled against Thranduil's silky robes, I can see all three of them staring at the floor and shuffling their feet in my peripheral vision.  They are like guilty little elflings after being caught stealing biscuits.

'Get out of my sight.'  Thranduil waves them away dismissively and they scatter.  Remaining silent as I'm carried swiftly inside, I glance up at Thranduil's stony expression, gazing out into the corridor.  The mud on my clothes and hair has stained his robes, but he doesn't seem to have noticed.

'Wait...' I manage to say as we turn a corner I have never gone around before, 'where are we going?'

'My room.  It's closer than yours.'  He doesn't look at me as we cross a pleasantly sunlit corridor that slopes gently downward.

Soon we turn right and enter an appealing round bedroom with elegant natural decorations lining the walls and the ends of the incredibly large bed.  I'm placed carefully down on the duvet and sink some way down into its soft depths while Thranduil closes the door.  To my surprise, he hasn't reacted to how much dirt has rubbed off me and onto his pristine bedcovers.

'Come, now.  Tell me what happened,' he says kindly, sitting down beside me and beckoning for me to come closer.  Reluctantly—considering how dirty I am—I shuffle across until our legs are touching and I can rest my bedraggled head on his shoulder.  He immediately puts his arm around me and rubs my shoulder gently with his fingers, which brings a rush of warmth into my chest. 

Trying to recount the events of the past few hours, though, only stabs at me from the inside.  Pangs of guilt and bites of remorse are eating at me as I struggle to get my words out.  My eyes become wet, my throat is burning and even though I held them back in front of the ellons, the tears are soon flowing like waterfalls now I'm alone with Thranduil.

'Shh...' he whispers as I sob mournfully into his chest, 'it's alright.  You're safe now.  You can tell me anything.' Both of his arms now envelope me in a strong embrace.  He waits patiently for me to get all my tears out—to my annoyance, leaving a damp patch on his robes where I cried.

'I'm sorry... they took me outside... I couldn't get away from them...' I sniffle feebly, feeling even more of a wreck than I did earlier in my room.

'Don't apologise.  It wasn't your fault,' Thranduil assures me in a soft, hushed voice, stroking my mud-soaked back.

'But it was!  They wouldn't have found me if I didn't fall when I tried to walk, and I wouldn't have tried to walk if I wasn't being so self-absorbed and stupid...'

'Stupid?  It's not stupid to overestimate yourself.  You just weren't quite ready.'

'That's not it... I tried to walk because you didn't come to see me this morning.  I thought that... you didn't want to see me after you...' I tail off, feeling the colour rise in my cheeks.  I look up at him despondently, my eyes beginning to swim again.

'Kissed your hand...' he says slowly, a smirk creeping onto his face, 'would you rather I kissed somewhere else?'

My heart suddenly skips a beat.  'Why would you do that?  There's no reason why you should want to,' I say quickly, pretending to find interest in a painting of some flowers on the wall.

The smirk vanishes, and a strange sadness replaces it as Thranduil reaches under my chin and turns my head to face him.  'But I do.  That's what's hurting me.  I want to kiss you anywhere my mouth can reach, yet I have to stop myself every second I'm with you.  So I stayed away this morning.  This is all my fault.'

Without realising, I let out a little gasp.  'You... you want me?'

'Yes.' Thranduil nods solemnly.

I'm struck with a sudden wave of mixed emotions; so many things are stacked against what I want, but what I want is to stay here in his arms forever.  I can't.  He surely loved his wife, didn't he?  I couldn't possibly be a match for the late Queen Ellerian, could I?  This isn't love.  That isn't within reason.  Thranduil was struck in the heart by her death, and now he is too frozen inside to ever feel the flame of love again. 

Desperately awaiting my answer, Thranduil locks his eyes on mine.  They are so immensely deep, I fear I may fall in and never resurface.  I'm drowning in the space between two choices: do what I know is right, or do what is driving my heart, igniting my soul and heating me to the core. 

'This isn't right... this cannot be...' I whisper, my mind battling itself over my words.

'I know,' he whispers back, 'I need to heal you, protect you, not force you into things you don't want.  And I'm already doing that, by keeping you here.'

'No!  You need to keep me here so I can recover.  And remember last night?  Remember how happy we were?  I loved it.  I want to be with you.  As much as I can.  You're healing me just by being here.'  I try and smile weakly at the King, and to my relief, he smiles back, just slightly.

'And you are healing me.'  He brushes a strand of dirty hair out of my face.  'They should not have hurt you today.  Let me kiss it better.'

Only in my wildest dreams could this be happening, but Thranduil is really leaning forward and cupping my face in his hands; with lips softer than velvet he kisses my forehead slowly.  Then, in the blink of an eye, our lips meet.  It's small and hesitant, but the kiss sends butterflies racing through me nonetheless.

What in the name of Varda have I done...

***

Hmm, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on the possibility of Thrandlena (please ignore my terrible ship name :P )

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