Beauty and the Beast | Thranduil x Reader

Chapter 25

Vermund had made short work of fetching the village healer, practically dragging him to the tavern with a story of how worried for your father's mental wellbeing he was. The healer had taken one look at him and had one listen to his nonsensical ramblings before he had immediately agreed and, with the help of the townsfolk, your father had been taken to the local infirmary and locked up in one of the locked rooms where they kept the patients who were a danger to themselves and other or were a flight risk. It was not much better than the cell you had traded yourself to free him from in Mirkwood. Still, Vermund walked around as though he had saved the day, head held high and a satisfied smirk on his face.

Two days passed...

...but you still did not return.

Nobody had seen hide nor hair of you and he couldn't understand where you would have gone for this long, especially with no one knowing your whereabouts. Usually, the village was so on top of everyone else's personal business that nothing went secret or unknown for long. It struck Vermund as strange indeed and it concerned him.

It did not worry him. It concerned him.

He was concerned that if you did not show back up soon, he would be forced to end up looking elsewhere. Taking another woman in the village as his wife and nobody else in this place was up to his standards... but he would not be wifeless for the rest of his life. Who would cook his meals? Who would do his laundry? Who would keep his home clean? Who would tend to his needs whenever the fancy so took him?

On the morning of the third day, Vermund had had enough. He hadn't believed for one minute that you were with the King of the Elves but the more time that passed, the more he was willing to entertain the idea. After all, elves were known to kidnap pretty human maidens, were they not?

"Oeric." Vermund mused, after he had dragged his friend down an alleyway to dodge a trio of irritating sisters who were constantly vying for his attentions. "Do you suppose that the old man might not be... entirely insane, after all?"

Oeric gave Vermund a look, shaking his head. "He's utterly mad. You saw him."

"Yes, but..." Vermund hummed, thoughtfully plucking an apple from a nearby tree and then promptly throwing it over his shoulder as though it were trash. "...where else could she be? She would not have left the old man here alone. She always was rather..." He waved a hand in the air, making a face. "...protective of the crazy bastard." Vermund shrugged, stopping and folding his arms across his broad chest as he looked down his nose at Oeric. "I think it is worth a try. I have looked everywhere."

"Why not simply take Thora as your wife." Oeric shrugged, acting as if it were of no consequence.

He wilted under the horrified stare Vermund gave him in return. "Are you as mad as the old man?!" He all but cried. "Have you seen that woman's nose?! She looks like one of my horses."

The two men guffawed as they started moving once more, falling in step beside each other as they moved off to hunt in the fields again. "No, I think that we should round up the others and leave for the Elf King's castle in two days." Vermund said, nodding very decisively. That was that. Vermund had decided what he wanted to do and everybody else would fall in line.... they always did.

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Two days after the queen's begetting day, the start of Mereth Di a Rhîw Menel - Feast Beneath a Winter Sky - had come, and Myleth roused you early as she had the whole morning planned. She had been flitting around you like a little bird, determined to dress you up like a doll for the event.