Wildest Storms | Love of Royals: Book III

I: The Realm

War is on the horizon. That's what they have been saying recently.  According to my parents, King Thranduil and Queen Elena of the Woodland Realm and Erthelin, all the signs are pointing to it.  Our court is what stands watch over this vast forest, and we are the last line of defence between the enemy and his having dominion over the region of Rhovanion. 

They're in court meetings every day, all the older ones. All the elves with centuries of experience, with battle scars and meaningful titles and a hardened look behind their eyes to prove it. I've had none of that. I'm not even permitted at most meetings. I'm just a figurehead—that's all my titles mean. Born of a Star and sired by a King; raised as a child of the forest, of the trees and rivers and deer; gifted with the white fire of the cosmos at my fingertips, the starlit flames that adorn my crown.

Erainiel Thranduiliel. Princess of one of the last elven kingdoms in Middle Earth, the first half-Star, and the offspring of two very powerful royals. Royals who have made a name for themselves across the land, and who look to me as a symbol of their union.

But no one ever speaks to me of war. While I'm here craving a taste of battle, of excitement, they think I'm too young to deal with the matters they discuss.  So I make my own excitement. 

My two best friends, who are somehow related to me along this court's complicated bloodlines, get dragged with me.  Well, Telamír doesn't get dragged.  He's always up for doing something that might threaten his life—or at least get him severely told off.  The son of King Fírion and Queen Tauriel certainly knows he's not behaving within the expected parameters for a royal, but I don't think he cares. Alëaren, however, often has a thing or two to say when she finds herself bending rules.

'Where are we going?' she asks today, poking her head over my shoulder.

I gently push her back behind me.  We cannot be seen.  The three royal adolescents crouched in an alcove on their way to sneak out of the front gates would attract a lot of unwanted attention.  And if we get caught when we're actually outside of the kingdom's walls... that would cause nothing short of an uproar.

'We're going to hunt some spiders,' I whisper back to her, 'you don't have to come, but I'd prefer some other company besides Tel.'

'So kind, Raini,' says Telamír from my other side. He inherited his father Fírion's mane of thick black hair, and he shakes it back out of his eyes as he peers around the corner.

Alëaren leans forward again.  'It's not our job to hunt spiders.  That duty falls to the Guard.  Isn't there some other wild activity you two can concoct that doesn't involve having to slip out of the kingdom from under the guards' noses?'

'Come on, Lëa,' I assure her, 'it'll be fun.'

'Will it really?  It won't be fun when we get told off for sneaking out.'

'Our parents have all sneaked out themselves before, I've heard stories.  It's just our turn.'

Alëaren sighs, and I can feel her rolling her brown doe eyes without having to look.  'If they catch us, it'll be my father who comes after us, and I'll get lectured even though it was your idea.'

Her father is Legolas—and she's not wrong, he will be the one sent if they notice we're gone. I'm not sure why exactly this is his duty, and not Fíria's, or anyone else's. Although I shouldn't be contemplating this when I have roughly an hour to get all three of us past the guards, out of the kingdom, all the way into spider territory so we can kill a pack of them, and then back into here safely before anyone notices we're gone. It's not an impossible feat. We've done things of this nature before, so I don't doubt we'll make it.