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~ ** THRANDUIL ** ~
He sits with Tauriel that night, the night before they bury the King That Was.
The dead are long recovered and tended whilst the wounds of the living continue to ache. After centuries of dragon smoke clouding the heavens, the sky that arches over the Lonely Mountain is clear this evening. Starlight is all the light they need, even in the ruins of Dale, where it casts sharp lines of shadow across those crooked corners unoccupied by souls.
“He thought it cold.” Tauriel whispers after their long silence together. “Us. He thought us cold.”
They stand atop what is left of Dale’s outer wall, looking over the lake that finally lays still and calm since Smaug’s final act of destruction. Pinpricks of light are reflected in its surface - as precious as any gem, and perhaps more valuable for its transience.
Thranduil ponders this, ponders his companion’s words.
“A notion of which he would have been disillusioned,” he replies, slowly, taking care of his words, “had the dwarf lived on.”
Perhaps this is not what Tauriel wishes to hear. Hurt crosses her countenance and in that hurt he glimpses a youth, an innocence that only the truly long-lived might discern.
He turns to her and lays a hand on her forearm.
“Do not linger here, Tauriel. You must be amongst others.”
He knows what it means to retreat into the solitude of grief - and in having watched Legolas take leave, Thranduil wonders if he ever emerged from such solitude.
Tauriel continues to look out across the lake, jaw taut and eyes wet, saying nothing. Understanding comes to him. His is not the company she desires, if any. None of her kind are. Indeed, why would they be? They who set themselves against her affections?
He draws away and leaves her to the scenery.
There are fires in Dale. Not for light but for warmth. As Thranduil descends from the wall and into the ruins, he enters a world of flickering shadows and singing men. Their voices mingle with the strumming of elven lutes. It is mourning music but there is a lightness to it as well, an undercurrent of relief.
The elvenking keeps to a dark path and remains unseen, passing at the edges of these gatherings. Life is being kindled in the ruins and he believes, though he may never say so, that it will thrive.
Two girls go running past him in the shadows, breathless, holding hands. Their footsteps are light as rain. He recognises them as the daughters of the Lord of Dale, slayer of Smaug. They are making for the wall, for Tauriel, and perhaps theirs is company she will keep.
To Thranduil’s surprise, and very little surprises him, the slayer himself is waiting in the tent.
Bard rises at his entrance, quite serious in the face. He has bathed and rested and dressed himself much as he was dressed before - except in materials far better woven and of a deep russet colour. His dark curls are pulled back, secured by ribbon.
A sweet red ribbon. Thranduil smiles faintly and thinks of those two girls running to Tauriel.
“You do not join your men, king of Dale?” he greets mildly, gesturing for his guest to sit. The slayer does not sit.
“I am not king of…” He trails off and they exchange a look, one in which Thranduil conveys quite simply: must we do this song and dance?
Bard sighs and rubs the back of his neck self-consciously.
“I notice you are not among your own either.”
The elvenking shrugs. He removes his cloak, draping it carelessly across a table of maps and war plans that now seem hardly worth examining.
“In my presence their eyes are trained upon me,” he sits upon what serves as his throne. “They cannot slacken. And I believe they well deserve to, don’t you?”
It is surely not lost on any man how Thranduil might guide his army with as little as a gesture, a glance, a nod of his kingly head.
Certainly it is not lost on this man, whose polite smile now turns somewhat sardonic.
“There you have my own answer as well.”
Thranduil laughs and tips his chin in concession. In this respect men are not so different from elves; whereas he doubts not that dwarf kings revel with their own.
Bard glances away, endearingly awkward, and then back at his host. He is here for a reason and Thranduil has already noticed the two fine coffers at his side. A gift from the new king of Dale. How touching and appropriate.
“I come presently from the Lonely Mountain,” he begins. “There was a matter of, uh. Well, not that it is of great personal value to me, but a matter of gems.”
The dragonslayer flexes his fingers anxiously and Thranduil tilts his head to one side, amused.
“There were also, I mean— oh, dammit to hell.” Bard lifts one of the coffers, approaching and talking all the while. “They made a request of me. I told them it isn't my place but they seemed… somehow, embarrassed? Yes. Embarrassed, in presenting these themselves.”
Thranduil knows, in the second before the lid is opened, what lays in the coffer.
And yet still he rises to his feet, startled. Gems. Gems of starlight. Melmelya. He places his hand over the Bard’s and shuts the lid immediately. Grief rises within him like bile. His eyes are as Tauriel’s had been at the wall.
For a moment it is as if no time has passed since the wound was made, since he was cleaved asunder from the inside out. His hand is still upon Bard’s and he feels eyes on him.
“Thank you,” the elvenking whispers. “I… these…”
He is horrified by his wordlessness, by the weakness in his legs and the pain - pain, yes, the pain. What comfort are gems? What comfort is starlight, is anything at all of Middle-Earth? She is gone. Without return and without exception she is gone.
Thranduil does not protest when Bard grasps him by the forearm, gently guiding him back into his seat. He looks him in the face.
Bard, too, has tears in his eyes.
“It doesn’t get easier, does it?” he murmurs as he sets the coffer down and, blinking tears away, pours out a goblet of wine.
Those two girls, running in the dark. Motherless.
Thranduil finds his voice and he finds it frail, brittle. Under any other circumstance he would not liken his grief to that of a man - for men do not face eternity as elves do. Yet tonight he cannot rally the indignation.
“No,” he accepts the goblet. “It does not.”
The wine is sweet and he drinks deep of it. Its myriad of flavours, flashes of springtime colours, depths of Greenwood shadows, bitter time. His pain, initially sharp, eases into a familiar dull ache.
He considers the watching Bowman over the rim of his goblet.
“You will not allow me to drink alone, I think.”
Bard smiles a sad smile. “No, my lord. I will not.”
~** BARD THE BOWMAN **~
He has no idea what it is he is doing.
They have been drinking for well over an hour. Bard himself only on his second goblet, well on his way to being red in the face, and the elvenking on his fifth. Is this what kings do in one other’s company? It doesn’t seem very different from how anyone might while away an evening.
They speak of the battle of the five armies as they drink. Bard now recounts his adventure with the dwarves, sneaking them into Laketown. He has never seen an elf laugh so much as Thranduil when he describes Thorin’s company having to come up through the old latrine.
What a wonder, to hear an elf laugh - and an elvenking at that.
“Bells,” he remarks, watching Thranduil wipe tears of laughter from his eyes. “Your laugh. Like bells, the bells we hang off the eaves to listen for the wind.”
What words! Ah, he might already be red in the face. Tipsy.
The beautiful elf reclines on the day bed and his laughter is the only indication of drunkenness. He appears, otherwise, perfectly composed. Bard has hardly moved from his original seat but he suddenly wishes he were closer to Thranduil.
Closer to that bewitching, amused look that seems to be the birthright of all elves looking down upon mere men.
“And you, Bowman, you laugh like a beast of Mirkwood,” drawls Thranduil. “And with such fangs, it is no wonder.”
“Fangs?” Bard repeats and runs his tongue along his teeth before grinning. “Aye, yes, why not. We might as well be beasts to your kind.”
Elves watched a great number of men come and go in life. Thranduil even knew his ancestor, that last Lord of Dale. Their lives must mean so little to one who lived so long.
Something of this thought must show in Bard’s face for the elvenking’s smile becomes gentle and he shakes his head, causing his crown to shift ever so slightly, askew.
“You are men!” he declares softly. “I know beasts. Trust me, it is not their fangs that make them so.”
Silence falls, not unpleasant. Bard watches Thranduil finish his drink and is relieved when he does not summon his guard for another bottle. Now is maybe the time for it. He was going to give it whilst taking his leave but that was before he realised it could be pleasant to stay on.
Bard rises, going to the other chest of jewels he has brought from the Lonely Mountain.
“My lord Thranduil,” he glances over his shoulder in time to catch the elvenking stretching his arms into the air. “I, uh. I would like to gift you the Emeralds of Girion, if I may.”
This time he opens the chest and brings out the necklace, a golden collar from which is strung emeralds as green as Mirkwood of old. Even to his undiscerning eye, they are well cut and prepossessing. He knew upon first setting eyes on them that they would rest easier at Thranduil’s neck than his own.
Nor would they suit Sigrid or Tilda, whose mother had preferred other gems - pinkish pearls, rubies, yellow stones. No. This was for a ruler, one who need only lift his eyebrows to muster an army.
“But of course you may.” Thranduil interrupts the rumination, amused once more. “Come. I will wear them.”
Bard turns around, nonplussed, holding the necklace. The elvenking reaches out an arm to beckon him, outrageously regal. He snorts softly in response.
Well. Why not? Doesn’t he also harbour a desire to see Thranduil adorned?
“Please, take them as a token of good will between our peoples.” Bard approaches - with wine for lubrication, it is easier to find the words he means. “We who fought, suffered and broke bread together.”
He holds out the necklace with both hands as Thranduil sits up, elegant, eyeing him with a look Bard cannot place. It’s a vaguely… playful, look. As if he were entertaining an unlikely idea.
Without a word, the elvenking removes his outer robe, with its fine embroidery and high collar, revealing a finely knit shirt beneath. He sweeps his silken hair to one side as he turns around so that Bard is staring at the back of a pale, smooth neck. Right.
He leans in to slip the necklace around Thranduil’s neck. Another man might be wary of touching so highborn an elf but Bard has good wine in him and it seems a silly thing to be wary of, in the wake of bloodshed.
His hands brush against skin, finding the elvenking warmer than expected. Of course. He huffs a laugh as he secures the back of the collar.
“Something amuses you, Bowman?” Thranduil turns his head, bringing their faces close.
Bard does not pull back.
“You do,” he replies as he adjusts the necklace, running his fingers beneath the collar. “If you believe it.”
Thranduil’s eyebrows go up in exactly the opposite, in disbelief, and Bard laughs again, stepping away. The elvenking stares - emeralds spilling from his neck, glittering in the glow of firelight.
He is beautiful and dangerous, thinks Bard.
~** THRANDUIL **~
The impudence.
Thranduil has imbibed only enough to soften sharp edges and dampen the memory of war. He senses a surge of indignation, pride - for it is true, this mortal man laughs at him. There is no great arrogance in it but a teasing tenor, as one might tease a child. Absurd.
One wonders if there is great wisdom in the transience of man, unknown to elven folk. Like the reflection of stars in the lake - winking and shimmering with secret knowledge.
“Don’t stop there,” he enunciates icily and yet Bard’s warmth does not falter.
His laugh, hot breath at the back of Thranduil’s neck, had stirred a sensation that has slept for as long as the Dragon in the mountain. Despite his annoyance, this sensation endures.
“You don’t fool me with your haughtiness,” his guest speaks frankly. “I know what it is to act out of love.”
The elvenking does not move. Perhaps he does not breathe.
He wishes for an interruption, desperately. That a guard might enter bearing news - that the music in Dale, which fell silent some time ago, would return so that he is not so very alone with this truth teller.
“You came to the Lonely Mountain not for gems but out of love, did you not?” Bard continues earnestly. “And called back your army out of love for them as well.”
Thranduil drops his gaze, caught out. To be caught out by a mortal is galling indeed. Naturally Bard could hardly know everything he has done for love, and not all of it good or sane. In fact, many of his actions have repelled his son and saddened his folk.
The once happy elven folk of Greenwood the Great.
He feels a weight join him on the chaise-longue, one king sitting next to another. Crowned and uncrowned.
“I beg forgiveness.” Bard murmurs diffidently. “I asked you once if you would go to war over mere gems. I did not know.”
Thranduil has not forgotten those words and cannot deny it pleases him greatly to have their sting thus soothed. How childish, really. Wine did rather have that effect on him.
He looks around at his visitor and remembers how it is the inexperience of men makes them brave. If Bard had slain a dragon before, would he have so eagerly shot the black arrow into Smaug’s chest? Would he not have cowered?
And to think he had done it without so much as being grazed by dragonfire.
Thranduil touches Bard’s cheek, where his own is burned away beneath the glamour. There is no vanity here.
“You are better than Dale deserves,” he muses, running his fingers over skin chapped by winter winds. “Slayer of Smaug.”
His gaze settles on Bard’s lips as they part, allowing Thranduil to slide a thumb past them. The elvenking feels past his teeth, until his thumb presses into the sharp point of a canine. Not as sharp as they look. He wonders how they might feel under other circumstances…
Bard bites down without warning and Thranduil breathes in sharply, surprised. He retrieves his hand, studies the sharp imprint in his thumb.
“You would become Kingslayer too?” he chides, meeting him in the eye. “I have imprisoned greater men for far less.”
The Lord of Dale shakes his head, affects an unimpressed moue as he brushes away Thranduil’s curtain of hair to caress the side of his neck.
“But you will not imprison me,” he observes quietly, leaning in, as if to admire the emeralds.
No. No, he will not imprison him. Only a fool would try.
They are on the cusp of ardour. He no longer wishes for an interruption. He would be most put out, actually, by an interruption.
Rough, blistered fingers prying at the circle of gold around his neck.
“Take if off,” the elvenking breathes.
And when Bard moves to unclasp Girion’s treasure, Thranduil quickly interjects, louder: “All of it.”
Bard stops, eyes meeting and then flicking to the curtains that close the tent off from the rest of the realm. Thranduil calls out in his tongue. There is a shuffling past the curtains. They will not be disturbed.
May the Valar allow him this - at such an hour, in such a place, through such a man who bears no likeness to any with whom he has lain before.
“All of it,” he repeats, softer. “Please.”
Bard’s hands move to oblige. His lips kiss away that imploring word, old and dusty in Thranduil’s unyielding mouth.
~** BARD THE BOWMAN **~
The events of these past few days have towered over him one after the other. Bard was a bargeman, a father. A widower. Poor in coin, rich in love. And then he was things he had not been for a long time. Bowman, prisoner, descendent of the last Lord of Dale. He found himself in the company of characters who peopled stories far greater than his own.
Dwarf princes out to reclaim a kingdom, ancient wizards, ethereal elves. A Hobbit, of all things.
Every step of the way he felt like he was guessing as to what he ought to do, with only a moral compass to guide him. But this is different. This, he knows well from his time as a young man, a husband, a loner stealing intimacy with those few who passed through Laketown.
Though none were quite anything like Thranduil, sprawled out beneath him against the rugs and cushions of the tent floor.
From around this neck, which he now laves with biting kisses, he had removed the Emeralds of Girion. From the bare shoulders he now grasps, he had peeled off rich fabrics. And this head, this head now flung back, hair splayed out like a silken fan… from this head, Bard had taken off the burden of a crown.
That is a heady thing. Headier than any wine, elven or not.
Perhaps Thranduil knows. Oh, yes, he must - for his mouth, bitten red, making sweet sounds, is it not smiling smugly? Does it not know what it does to mortal man with every gasp, every sigh, every whimper?
They say little.
“Have you oil?”
“Roughly, I do not break.”
An elegant, insistent leg hooks around Bard’s hip and they slow down, breathing harsh. He breaks away from marking up Thranduil’s neck so that he might watch his face as he enters. The elvenking turns his head and Bard turns it back, relishes the high colour of his cheeks. He can scarcely account for his own daring.
Thranduil keens, cries out, nails digging into his back. So wanton and so helpless a sound it shocks them both.
“W-we will be heard.” Bard stammers out through his own desire, tight.
“Yes,” the elf laughs breathy, shakily. “I will be.”
The sheer shamelessness burns through him, lusty. Bard bows his head, captures the insolent mouth in a kiss - a searching kiss, swallowing Thranduil’s moans.
They are heard.
When the hour grows even later, encroaching on the peace that comes before dawn, they lay together underneath a quilted blanket of down.
~** THRANDUIL **~
Mirkwood calls to him. He has been away too long.
They dress in silence - not a cold silence nor a solitary one. He lets the ruler of Dale comb out his hair, lets him mouth at bare skin before it is covered by layer upon layer of lordly clothing. Thranduil ties the red ribbon in Bard’s dark curls out of care for those two little girls cavorting through the ruins.
He wears his crown and sees himself in Bard’s eyes. They smile at one another, wryly, like sharing in a joke understood only by they who have the right to wear such a crown.
Nothing you nor I would recognise.
Sunlight will soon break the horizon and he knows that Bard must return to his own nest. They will bury the King that Was. Thranduil will return to Mirkwood and clear the webs tangled in its hallowed canopies.
He stands very still as Girion’s treasure rests against his collar bones once again. Bard presses a warm kiss to the back of his neck. The kiss is fleeting. Stars in the lake, swift lives of men, embers of dying fire.
There are some things eternity will never know. But Thranduil has tasted of them, and he is better for it.