My Wildest Dream (A Middle Earth Fan-fiction)

The Encounter

Thranduil

It has taken me months, all that time spent having the Lady of Light breathing down my neck, attempting to help me perfect the glamour. Months with healers, applying different remedies, some painful, to try and help my body move on. Months to hide my scars, months to balance and fight and regain my strength. Months when the people were told that I was ill. Part of me hated the repeated lie, but I knew it was necessary. Dragon's weren't exactly a very popular topic among elves. Much better to say this was a simple illness, as opposed to what had actually happened.

My valet secures my robe and I watch him studying the bit of my face that he knows was injured. I raise an eyebrow at him and he quails, mumbling an apology, and I then sweep out of the room. Today I will return to Greenwood. And live the lie again.

I almost knock over some poor elleth scrambling past my doors straight away. Good start, Thranduil, really excellent.

She stops like a frightened deer and curtseys, and then cautiously looks up at me from beneath her lashes with sky-blue eyes. They're vaguely familiar, but I know not why.

"My apologies, my Lord."

"Yes, yes." I wave her off, expecting her to scramble away again. But she stays. She dares to stand, although her hands tremble, and she fists them in her clothing. I notice all at once that she's wearing a plain tunic and a leather corset that's seen better days over equally plain leggings. Not a dress. It's the outfit of a lowly guard, but she's far too flighty for that profession.

"Are you well, my Prince?"

I blink, realizing that she's addressed me.

"Perfectly so. Should you not be wearing a gown?"

"W-what d-do you mean?" she stammers.

"If you can't even stand up in my presence then you're not fit for the Guard. I'm hardly a threat." I snap bitterly. Yes, because I can barely raise a sword when I'm trying. "You'd best take off that silly uniform while you can."

Her blue eyes fill with tears and she looks down, and then turns on her heel and flees.

"Well, well, terrorizing the public, now, Thranduil? Not exactly an auspicious beginning to your reappearance."

"Shut up, Galion!" He's technically a butler, but he never learned his place and someone obviously forgot to teach him. He's been frustrating me with worryingly accurate assessments of my behavior for the last twelve hundred years, so by now I merely ignore him and keep on down the hall, telling myself that her tearful eyes aren't making me feel terribly guilty. After all, in this world of lies what's one more?