Thranduil is often seen as a cold, hard, uncaring elf who is incapable of feeling love. In reality, he is broken inside from the loss of his wife, and never learned to deal with it properly, burying his emotions deep within himself and not allowing...
She looked up at him in horror, that single word seeming to echo through her mind. Had she really just said that? And, of all the things he could have noticed, it had to be that. She could feel her face going hard, impenetrable even to his scrutinizing gaze. That was one memory that she was going to take with her to her deathbed, and not even the Valar themselves were going to make her tell it to him.
"That, my Lord Thranduil, is above your paygrade." She stood and stalked away, her emotions locked down behind a mental wall of steel, and not seeming to realize that despite her stone-faced appearance, she still had tears streaming down her cheeks. Everyone she passed gave her an odd look, until she finally reached her room and slammed the door, locking it, shutting herself in and everyone else out, both literally and metaphorically.
Thranduil, meanwhile, was still standing stunned beside the lake, staring blankly straight ahead until a thud startled him from his revere.
"My Lord?" The guard who had talked to him earlier was looking at him with concern. Thranduil glared at him, his once famous anger rising for the first time in a long time.
"LEAVE!" He thundered, turning to the guard menacingly. The poor ellon took to his heels and fled in fear. As soon as he was gone, Thranduil seemed to shrink into himself, collapsing to his knees and looking around himself, letting the memories of all the happy times he had spent there, with his beautiful wife, come flooding back to him in an overwhelming wave. His eyes glazed over, watching the memories as they appeared and growing more and more withdrawn with each one.
Finally they slowed down and stopped, which in and of itself depressed him, as it showed how few happy memories he had.
He came out his head and looked around, seeing how empty the place looked, how lonely it was. A single tear slipped from his eye, and then anger flooded through him, at the Valar, at Mandos, at Legolas, at Sauron, at everyone and everything he could think of.
And Vera, he thought. How dare she come in here, as if she owned the place!?
As he was thinking all of this, he was pacing in his fury. He felt his foot knock against something, and when he looked down his anger abated a little. It was her swords, laying where she had left them the night before. He bent, unsheathing one of them and examining it carefully.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
(a/n the above sword, but picture elvish writing along the blade)
He balanced it in his hand, swinging around a few times. It was a masterfully made sword, beautiful in a deadly kind of way, which he liked. He looked closer, spotting elvish runes but they spelled a language that was foreign to him. However, he spotted one word he recognized. 'Vera'.
Why does she have her name on her sword? It honestly confused him. He placed the sword down and grabbed her other one, checking to see if it had the same thing written on it. It didn't. It had a slightly different phrase on it, with the word 'Kira' where 'Vera' had been. This didn't surprise him as much as the sword itself did. Although it looked almost exactly identical, upon close inspection it was slightly heavier, with a different balance to it and a minutely different pommel, made for a slightly larger hand. That shocked him. Why would she have a sword that doesn't fit her properly?
