A Lasting Legacy [ Thranduil X OC ]

Chapter 12

Later that night when Arden awoke again, Thranduil was there.
He had to admit that he was fighting odd feelings in all of this.
She was causing feelings and emotions to rise up in him that he didn't even know he had.
Or hadn't had at least since his wife had died.
He was also suspicious.
With all the time he had recieved in waiting for Arden to wake, he couldn't quite get the questions surrounding Lord Rowan and his circumstances out of his head.
It didn't add up, the things Rowan said.
Sure he could be just a greedy, fortunistic and lucky bastard who happened upon the right time to come back, but Thranduil thought otherwise.
Correction; he now knew otherwise.
Something had to have signaled Rowan to enter the picture again and it could not have been the war, Eowyn's marriage or the inheritance of Rohan.
Rohan was not an overly prosperous kingdom to begin with, if one could in fact call it that rather than a large village.
And the amount of land holdings and interest a place like that had in a relatively wild and fruitless piece of land like Ardor had Thranduil searching for answers.
Luckily, those answers were not hard to come by, in fact they were right under his nose.
Recalling the early days in which Arden and her parents were practically family, some of Thranduils' first memories were of him walking into his fathers' study and happening upon both his father and Arden's father scouring over books.
Books that he now found out were ancient topography and biological journals that went over Ardor and it's holdings intricately.
The journals far outdated the founding of Mirkwood, in fact they seemed to date all the way back to the second age.
He found them right were he remembered his father had stored his informational books on various parts of Middle Earth, his desk.
Looking through the books quickly, he got a feel for what he was dealing with.
If Ardor wasn't the most wealthy piece of land stretching Middle Earth now, it soon would be.
To his utter astonishment, the journals listed the land's mineral rights and there were a lot of elements listed in/on the property.
Some he hadn't even heard of and thought them to be a myth.
Even Erebor and it's mountain of gold was minuscule compared to what these ledgers promised was inside that land.
One thing was for sure, Arden knew nothing of this.
She was always terrible at keeping secrets and hiding lies when they were younger, and something would have slipped by now.
Leave it to her to want the most unwanted piece of land for her people and it end up being loaded in wealth.
In that moment Thranduil decided not to tell her.
At least not yet.
This could get dangerous fast.
He had witnessed the death and murder over the lonely mountain himself and would not wish it upon his worst enemy.
That meant Arden.
If any other kingdoms got word of this, there was no telling who would stay loyal to Arden and who would do anything to get their hands on that land.
He didn't need to worry about Rowan, he definitely would be telling no one.
As she began to rouse, he pushed thoughts of Ardor out his mind.
He needed to tell her what happened with the orc sword and then figure out the next step from there.
Smiling to himself, Thranduil stared at the beauty awakening.
She was not invincible anymore.

The next few days, Arden took it slow.
Not voluntarily, but because Thranduil nearly threatened to harm her himself if he found out she had over done it again.
Waking up as she did a few days ago was like waking up in a weird heaven and she was scared to blink and let it disappear.
Seemingly overnight, Thranduil went from hating her very existence to being kind and protective.
Something major besides the whole sick incident must have happened.
That or this all reminded him of his wife's death.
Shaking her head, she watched as Tauriel trained various groups of men.
After a few hours of over-watching, Arden began to stroll the surrounding forest as usual.
These last few days, her and Thranduil had entered a tentative friendship, one she was hoping would strengthen and blossom into something more.
Whereas she had been waiting a couple centuries for this, it was all new to him and she wanted Thranduil to make the moves that he was comfortable with.
As her side began to throb, she slowed down.
After Thranduil went over in detail on what had happened, she couldn't help but laugh.
Her whole life she had thought she was invincible and was quite reckless with her body when it came to mortal injuries, but now she saw how truly fragile she could be.
She learned that the blade the orc had used was laced with poison and much of it had coated the insides of the wound that it internally left.
This only made it harder to diagnose her because they couldn't outwardly see or find any flaws.
She was surprised he called for Aemma, her people's healer, but was grateful as in no time at all she had apparently found what was wrong.
After receiving some Athelas or Kings' foil, her infection and fever went back down to a manageable level.
Aemma had also told her of how her break-neck work schedule only added to her health and bodies' deterioration.
In stating this quite loudly, Thranduil had actually entered the chamber and overheard the healers' accusing tone.
Arden never thought she would see the day when Thranduil would look sheepish or even blush but she suspected guilt had been the one to gift her with such a rare sight.
As she continued walking, she heard someone fast approaching far back.
She remembered she needed to get back to Rowan.
The man was insistent that they go over details of Ardor and it's holdings but she didn't know why.
If anything he would most likely know more than her and she didn't feel like bothering over it right now.
As the noise got louder, Arden surmised it was a rider on an animal and stopped to wait for whoever it was.
When Thranduil came into view, she smiled.
He did not.
Coming to a halt beside her, he stared down with a glare.

Fun fact;
Radagast The Brown's (one of the 5 Istari/wizards) name is most thought to have been inspired by the Slavic God of hospitality; Radegast.