The Prince's Pretend Mother

Ninth Entry - Not Yet a Breach

(It took me a while to find a chapter that wasn't dedicated yet to someone--thank you for all the attention, marvelInsaneeee!)

—Our two souls therefore, which are one,   

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,   

Like gold to airy thinness beat.  

If they be two, they are two so         

As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show   

To move, but doth if th' other do.  

And though it in the centre sit,   

Yet when the other far doth roam,        

It leans and hearkens after it,   

And grows erect as that comes home.

*

"You have been careless."

I woke to Thranduil's voice. "I cannot control my sleep."

"You should have asked for help."

"I am tired of accepting help."

"That does not mean you have not needed it."

I closed my eyes again, raising a hand to rub my eyes, then sat up in my bed with a wince.

"Legolas feared you had died when he found you on the parlor floor last night. We heard you fall."

"His hearing is good enough to know better."

"Yes," Thranduil drawled from where he paced at the foot of the bed, hands clasped in the small of his back. "Because we always take note of our surroundings when confronting something that horrifies us."

"I am sorry for the strife I caused Legolas."

"Not to mention the melancholy seeing your diminishment has consistently caused him."

I closed my eyes again and leaned back into the headboard. "My lord Thranduil, if you have come to offer me a solution to mourning please make it. If you have come to add to my guilt with observations I have already made please leave."

"No."

"To which option are you refusing?"

"Both, I suppose." I felt the mattress dip as he took a seat at the end. "I am sensing far more wrath and bitterness from you than anguish. That suggests that a solution to mourning alone would not suffice."

"Neither will a detailed analysis of my character."

"But since the emotional states of sentient creatures are not one of my many areas of expertise I can only remind you of a previous conversation we had on a closely related topic." He waited until I looked at him to continue. "I care far more for my son than I can ever care about another, and if another is causing him strife I will separate them. You are swiftly losing what remaining time you will have to spend your days at service to my son. If you love him, you will not waste them."

Thranduil left. As I curled in on myself and wished I could tear out the parts that hurt I had to repeatedly remind myself that he had always been a king first, and his real family would always come before any friend. When I finally opened my eyes again I saw that he had left the cane I'd once used leaned against the wall before me, and my lips flickered. I had no idea where he'd found it. I had lost track of it perhaps two weeks after obtaining the injury I had needed it for. I had no longer needed it, and then it had disappeared.