The Prince's Pretend Mother

Fourteenth Entry - No Least Desire

{A very heartfelt thank you to KariTS for picking up my story and following it this month. Thank you!}

I have no will to weep or sing,
No least desire to pray or curse;
The loss of love is a terrible thing;
They lie who say that death is worse

*

Time began to pass again.

"There are days when I do not know what to do with myself," I confessed to a friend of mine over tea one morning. There were some mornings when I slipped out of Thranduil's house far earlier than I usually rose and just walked. Nowhere in particular. Sometimes through dusty and forgotten halls, sometimes through the shadows that were growing in the forest. We had been watching them grow, and had felt their chill creeping into our homes and our hearts, and not one of us was able to live as mildly as we had before. "There is not a single child left in the Woodland Realm. There has not been in three hundred years."

"I suppose our irascible king does not require caretaking."

"Not often." But he too had suffered from the shadows encroaching on us. Most people saw little to no change in our king's demeanor, but most people did not see him as or as much as I did, so of course they would not know the difference. "Though he has his days as well."

Most people saw no differences. Most people hardly saw him. But I noticed. Where on occasion, if he were in a pleasant mood, he used to lay his hand over mine on his shoulder, in the last fifty years he had not. I sorely missed the occasional contentment I would see in his face. I often feared, now, that I would never see it again.

But it was nearly impossible to look after someone who neither wanted to be looked after nor, I believed, would allow it.

"You are distracted today," my companion, Ceris, informed me, her brows lightly puckering in concern. She knew my habits concerning worry or discord.

I sucked in a breath as I looked back to her. "I am sorry. You are right."

"Perhaps you ought to look into gardening. It would give you something to nourish."

"I already look after Thranduil's courtyard a bit, but admittedly I'm not skilled with anything more complex than pruning or detecting insects."

Ceris smiled. "What is it you do not do for our king? He ought to give you a medal."

"Oh no that would never work. I would not accept it."

"That does not mean-"

"I know but you don't understand." I turned my rose-colored teacup slowly in hand as we observed the forest below and the skies beyond. "People ought to be given rewards for doing things that are outside their nature, that contradict their usual instincts or intentions for a greater cause or for someone else's benefit. I have done nothing out of my ordinary instinct. There was no hesitation in me for anything I have done in regards to his family."

"Some would call taking an arrow worthy of recognition."

"And I was recognized. Thranduil was very grateful for it. But you would have taken the arrow for your own son, would you not?"

She shook her head at me. "Legolas is not your son."

"I love him as much and have had as much a part in his life; he might as well be. What one does for love needs not be recognized. Rewarding someone for something they ought to be doing anyway turns it into a job, a competition. Love is not a competition. Love is not a job. It does not require a prize."

"Hm." Ceris sighed, sinking back into her wrought-iron chair as comfortably as though it were silken sheets and down pillows. "Why are you so distracted today?"