To Live Again: In her Hands {Lord of the Rings / Thranduil fanfic}

19. Haunting

'They all need something to hold on to
They all mean well
Pay your respects to society
Giving me hell

You could never feel
My story
It's all you know...
*~*~*

Twelve years ago -
Halls of the King. SA
Greenwood the Great.

The shattered crystal lay in shards close to my feet.  The water from inside the once decadent jug splattered the whole length of the wall and half of my face. 

I tried not to tremble.

Kneeling down I let my shaking hands pick up the broken shards.  There were tears in my eyes but I was far too proud.  I blinked them back and swallowed the pain, though my chest convulsed with the effort. 

I heard footsteps from the wide open door to my chambers.  In a daze I ploughed across the room and closed it as carefully as I could, before turning back to the disaster before me.

She was angry with me...furious even.

Bregeth had wanted to try again, tonight, before the feast.  We had not conceived our desired elfling yet, or at least she was taking no chances. 

But...I couldn't do it.

Whether it was exhaustion from the border scourges I'd just returned from, only hours earlier, or whether my heart was growing too heavy to endure these loveless trysts, I just couldn't preform.  I tried, truly I did, but it wasn't enough for her, or maybe she thought I was lying.

It hurt to move my jaw.  I rubbed the swollen side of my mouth where her fist had caught my chin.  It was a superficial thing, the pain would ease in an hour or so.  But it was the damage to my ego that such a blow brought that caused me a deeper pain.

The door handle rattled and creaked open.

"Thranduil...it's me," Aradan's tentative whisper caught me off guard. "I heard a commotion, you don't have to tell me, I just came to see if you were okay?"

A bubble of hysterical laughter gets caught in my throat, as I lean down to pick up more shards of broken glass. He probably saw Bregeth blow out of my chambers with all the fury of a winter storm, but was kind enough to give me a few moments of composure. After all it wasn't unusual for she and I to have such scathing arguments.

"I am..." my voice chokes. I'm not fine. "It is okay Aradan, I will be along in a minute, tell the King to start without me."

"Yes..." Aradan seethes as he marches into the room and points to my cowering form by the destruction. "So you can hide another one of her disgraceful temper tantrums? This has to stop. What are you Mellon nin, a man or a mouse? She is making a fool out of you...out of us!"

"Aradan," I breathe in, ignoring the sharp pain in my face as I stand to level him with a commanding glare. "Be about your business, and inform my Adar I will be running late to the feast."

"Holy Elbereth...What in Mandos happened to you?" Aradan balks and points to my appearance.

I glance down, trying to hide the shame it causes me to see my ripped tunic and the scratch marks on my chest.

She is right. There must be something wrong with me? What ellon could turn away from laying with his wife? A beautiful wife. A perfect princess.

"Did she do this?" Aradan's lips turn into a thin white line. His expression livid as he catalogues the carnage.  "Thranduil...this is treason."