Book 3: Where It Ends [Legolas]

Chapter 35

All of Erebor were ecstatic to see their princess back. In true Dwarvish fashion they held a feast in the grand hall to welcome her home. And then in the days that followed the princess took up her duties once more. Unopened letters, requests for help from the people of the Mountain and Dale in the throne room, overseeing renovations to a section of the forges, and began to go over any issues that may plague their land with the Council. Every evening, Linnéa managed to drag herself to bed. Sometimes she possessed enough strength to change out of her day to day clothing. Some nights she passed out where she dropped. But this was nothing new to her when gone for an extended period of time. She always made the effort to catch up on anything that may have been missed.

One of those evenings, a servant found the princess walking to retire for the evening and stopped her.

"Princess Linnéa, the king has requested your presence in his private quarters," the Dwarf said.

She changed her path to head deeper into the Mountain for the king's quarters. Linnéa came to the desired door to knock, only for it to be opened before the knuckles hit the surface.

"Good evening, milady."

It was the king's personal doctor. Worry filled her at his presence inside the room.

"Is everything alright?" she wondered.

"Nothing that we haven't dealt with before," the Dwarf reassured. "But I suggest to not keep him up for too long. The king needs rest."

"Thank you."

Linnéa slipped inside the king quarters. King Dáin sat in front of a lit hearth in his favorite chair and with a thick blanket over his legs. He stared into the fire with a far off look on his features. And even from the angle the princess observed him, he looked exhausted.

"My king?"

King Dáin broke out of his daze and turned his attention to Linnéa with a smile.

"My apologies," he said. "It has been a tiring day, my dear."

She sat in another chair to join him. "Are you not in good health again?"

"It's something that comes with my old age, I'm afraid," King Dáin sighed. "I believe that the day for yah to assume the throne is coming quicker than we may have expected."

"Are you...?"

"No, not yet. It will take more than feeling under the weather to get rid of me. But I think I'd like to spend my remaining years in the comfort of the Mountain. More so as an advisor than a ruler. And I wish to see yah take the throne, marry, and have bairns of yer own. Be a doting grandfather figure myself."

Linnéa shook her head and grinned, "You think very far ahead."

"I don't think so. That lad of yers, Legolas Greenleaf, the two of yah seem to take one another seriously."

"It's a nice thought."

"Yah want a family with him."

"It crossed my mind."

"Then I do not understand what the holdup is."

"The fact that our two households have issues with one another. And I'm not certain our kin will accept him as a king."

"Yah will not know unless yah try."

"Would you accept him?"

"I would."