The Prince's Pretend Mother

Fifteenth Entry - A Cause Lost Too Long

{CaNt_SiNk_Me, thank you kindly for your attention these last few weeks!}

Was there ever a cause too lost,

Ever a cause that was lost too long,

Or that showed with the lapse of time too vain

For the generous tears of youth and song?

*

Some two hundred years after Smaug took Erebor and some sixty years since last we had seen him Thranduil swept into his study where I was working from one of the armchairs—I had multiple times refused his offer of a desk of my own—and sank into his own chair. “You may or may not believe whom Legolas has just had the honor of apprehending in our forest.”

“Shock me,” I invited absently, paging through my many documents in search of a particular figure.

“Thorin Oakenshield and a tattered band of fiends,” he drawled, sitting back and lacing his fingers over his stomach.

This did indeed snag my interest, but only marginally. “I am sure you will elaborate momentarily to explain just why a dwarf passing on an old dwarf road is such intriguing news.”

“The dwarves of the Iron Hills keep to themselves these days—dwarves have not walked our road in decades. They claim to be visiting kin.”

“And why should that be such a remarkable occurrence? I visited my aunt in Lothlorien three years ago and was not apprehended for doing so.”

“A band of thirteen dwarves, all related at least marginally, unexpectedly visiting family in the Iron Hills so soon before the dwarven new year,” he mused, “when they have never done such before. Dain and Thorin may be cousins but Dain is far longer removed from all the rest of them. Why then should Thorin bring them along?”

“It is as Gandalf has said himself—your realm is no longer as green as it once was. I know you too have heard what they call it now. That road is no longer safe even for us.”  

“Do you know of the prophecy that was made several decades ago, Inladris?”

“Do educate me, my dear king. I still fail to see why imprisoning a clutch of dwarves should fascinate you so much. Do you mean to keep them as pets?”

“Goodness no, they are far too intractable for that.”

I groaned, dropping the documents into my lap and rubbing my temples, giving him my full attention just as he had wanted me to all along. “Speak plainly, Thranduil. I have far too many things on my mind to unearth all the useful things out of yours as well.”

He smirked, but then his expression dropped into a graver contemplation. “They mean to retake the mountain, not that any of them will own to it.”

I sank backward into my chair much as Thranduil had. “What does that implicate for us?”

“There are but thirteen of them, I cannot imagine they will make much headway. Particularly not from my dungeons.”

I sighed. “And just what is it you are imprisoning them for, Thranduil?”

“To negotiate their release of my father’s diamonds, of course. They may have their dragon—they may even have their mountain—but I will permit them nothing while they withhold my own from me.”

I rubbed my forehead wearily. “Very well. Enjoy yourself then.”

“Oh I shall,” he breathed. “It vexes Thorin most wretchedly.”

My eyes flicked up at his and I raised one wry brow. “You have your touches of wretchedness yourself.”

He only faintly smirked again.