Thranduil / Reader (1) - REWRITE
A loud noise of glass shattering into thousand pieces echoed in the room that otherwise was very silent. You had been deep in your thoughts and as you had turned you had bumped into a small table and caused a glass vase to fall off. You felt your heart stopping when you turned and saw the mess on the floor; flowers, water and glass, all mixed together in a terrible disorder. You knelt quickly and started to clean the floor by collecting first the ruined flowers. These you picked up and moved aside one by one with shaky, ungraceful motions as your breathing turned into shallow, erratic gasps. You scolded yourself silently, sometimes even aloud while you kept taking glances at the door.
You were nearly done with the flowers when you suddenly felt slightly lightheaded and therefore lost your balance, still knelt on the floor by the pile of partially damaged flowers. You leaned forward to support yourself with your hand, slammed your palm carelessly against the floor to stop you from falling down into the pile of sharp glass and stayed there for a moment, just trying to catch your breath and going over and over in your mind what you had to do. You talked to yourself sometimes in difficult situations because it helped you to focus and you felt that going through the plan aloud and actually hearing it, gave it a form and weight; the plan became more than just random thoughts in your head… it became something real and it made you feel more in control.
- Gather the flowers, see if you can save any. you mumbled and inhaled deeply as you tried to calm down your breathing. This was not the time to either panic or break down, especially because it was not a long ago when you had been promoted to manage and maintain the king’s private chambers. “These are the king’s favorite flowers, he would hate to see them thrown away” you continued and nodded, trying to appear as assertive as you could, just to reassure yourself that you were still able to fix it… well, not really but at least you were able to clean the mess. “Then, the glass…” you sighed, inhaled and exhaled and then added “…collect the pieces and finally mop the floor.” You told yourself to calm down because it was going to be alright.
- Most likely the king will not even notice. you stated to yourself and chuckled a little. It wasn’t the end of the world.
It was a good plan and saying it aloud made you feel a little bit better instantly. You sighed and continued, now moving from flowers to the pieces of glass, collecting the biggest ones first and then wiping the rest of it with a brush. The glass was a menace to clean; when the vase had hit the floor, it had shattered from the impact and the pieces had spread all over the sitting area of the chamber. You kept finding new pieces that were mischievously hiding under the furniture and therefore you had to constantly get up and back on your knees again to collect them all. You knelt down and reached to grab one piece you had missed a moment ago. The piece was laying under that small table you had bumped into, so close but also so far… therefore you had to reach over the distance to get it. You were tired of getting up so you decided just to reach out for it. “It’s not that far” you thought.
You reached out to grab the piece, minding your balance to prevent you from falling on either of the two piles; the saved flowers or the gathered, big pieces of glass. You groaned when your fingertips touched the glass but instead of getting a hold of it, you only managed to push it away… just slightly… but still enough to make your position even more compromised. You leaned a bit further when you felt your balance go off again and you slammed your palm to the floor to support yourself once more. This time your task was interrupted by an incisive pain; you had accidentally leaned on the pile of collected glass pieces and your hand had been cut by them. You leaned back and took a look at your palm; three or four sharp pieces were sticking out from a cut that crossed your palm from your middle finger towards your wrist. Now your hand was rapidly turning red, few drops even falling to the floor made of stone.
You gasped for air as you tried to suppress a scream caused by the cut but still, despite your best efforts you couldn’t help whimpering and filling the silent room with desperate and helpless, pathetically muffled sounds. You felt tears building up behind your eyes; it was just too much combined with everything that had been going on in your life lately and now this… it was the last straw that broke you mentally. You knew that the king hated mess and chaos and you were quite certain that if the king saw his chamber, his home, in this condition, he would fire you instantly… perhaps something even worse. Fortunately he was not here and you knew that according to his daily schedule, he wasn’t going to retire to his private chambers for many hours, so you had plenty of time to clean everything and get yourself sorted.
But it was still too much to handle and therefore your silent tears grew into helpless sobs, loud whimpers and inconsolable cries. You cried so violently that you couldn’t breathe; your inhales turning into pathetic, shallow and erratic gasps as your whole body shook from the overwhelming emotions that were crushing you, like a huge screw in a vise that was tightened constantly and mercilessly despite it was cracking bones and piercing your skin like the sharp pieces of glass. This vise, however, was an invisible one. It wasn’t really there, yet it was real. It was in your mind and therefore it was impossible to escape from.
The truth was that the invisible vise was always there no matter whether you were upset or not. It had been there ever since your parents had been killed by spiders, but usually you were able to ignore it by distracting yourself from the grief and pain by submerging yourself into your duties. It was not the healthiest coping mechanism but it was the best you could do for now. However, today your limit had been reached and therefore you couldn’t stop yourself, besides it had been only few years since the unfortunate event and therefore the grief was still very near. The elves were immortal beings after all, you were nearly two thousand years old and therefore a period of few years was… nothing. Just a blink of an eye, really.
All your life you had been living in a small elven village and you had never traveled outside the borders of Mirkwood. Your mother had been a merchant, a very good one, witty and friendly, liked by all and your father had been a skilled healer, one of the most trusted elves in the village. You had been born rather quickly after your parents’ wedding and this had caused rumors concerning the real reasons of getting married after a fairly short courting period. Your childhood had not been the easiest because some of the elven children had bullied you due to the unclear circumstances of the timing of your birth but you had grown up to be a lighthearted and joyful lady despite it. That was most definitely due to the fact that your parents had loved you very deeply and unlike many elves, they had been warm and open about it even though it made them look weird and mortal-like in the eyes of the other elves.
The village was located in the middle of the Mirkwood forest, a two-hour walk away from the Mirkwood palace. You had been living with your parents in a medium sized cottage, on the outskirts of the village, which was more like a cluster of cottages in the middle of the forest, until you had become an adult and moved to live in a small cabin next to your parents’ house. You had moved out because you had wanted to become more independent but because you had been helping your mother in her small shop at the time, it had made sense to stay close. Besides, you had had very close and warm relationship with your parents and therefore you had not minded at all to be so closely in contact with them. However, you had loved the fact that you had your own place, a home, where you were free to live as you wished.
Your life had been very calm and pleasant, until one day the guards had brought ill news; your parents had been gathering firewood and medicinal herbs a bit further away from the settlements, like they always did, but this time they had been ambushed and killed by spiders before anyone had noticed anything – the spiders had learned to be sneaky and cunning, especially now that the Mirkwood forest had started to fill with shadows and evil was lurking from every corner. When the guards had received the word, it had been too late and your parents had already died. The spiders had been slain, their nests destroyed but obviously it had not changed the fact that you had to bury your parents… something you had never even thought about doing.
After that things had started to move very quickly; you had received a note from the palace that you had been requested, not specified by who exactly, to move to the palace and become a maid since it was quite obvious that you were not capable of taking care of the shop, the houses and yourself since you had neither a husband nor other family to lean on. The note had even hinted that there was someone in the court interested in courting as well as eventually marrying you. However you had declined the offer at first and tried to continue living your life like nothing had happened but then, after few months, the unthinkable had happened; one stormy night a lightning had hit a tall tree just next to the cottage and caused a fire that had ended up burning the shop, your parents’ cottage as well as your home, leaving you with no other choice than to accept the offer and move to the palace.
You still remembered that night very well; the sound of fire humming and windows breaking from the intense heat, the distant cries of the horrified neighbors and the smell of smoke, burning your lungs and making it impossible to breathe. You had been asleep in your tiny cottage when you had been woken up by the sound of a tree falling over the roof, setting it ablaze immediately due to the long, dry summer. You had ran out in your nightgown and stared in shock as the flames had swallowed as well as consumed every bit of your parents’ legacy… and your future.
You remembered very vividly how an elf with long, golden hair had ran to you, shouting instructions to the guards who were desperately trying to put off the fire, while dragging you into safety and keeping you company until the healers arrived from the palace. You had been in deep shock and unable to sleep even though you had been encouraged by the healers to do so but every time you had closed your eyes, you had only seen the flames and heard the low humming –sound. The next day you had been taken to the palace. You had asked the blonde elf if you could see your home one last time but he had not allowed it. “There is no need for that, my Lady” he had said with a warm, friendly tone and smiled. Later you had learned that it had been Legolas, the son of King Thranduil, who had helped you. Most likely you had already known but had been too deep in the state of shock to realize it, either way, the decision had been made for you by a higher authority and this time you had no other option than to comply.
You had been brought to the palace and presented to the king and for your surprise you had been told that actually your parents had been quite closely acquainted with the king. Sure you had visited the palace many times due to the business matters but you had never realized that Thranduil had known your parents personally. The king had expressed his sincerest condolences and given you a beautiful chamber in the palace as well as a position as a maid. It had been a rather long meeting but the truth was that you had been quite absent during it; you had not heard even half of the things that had been said due to your mind being hazy and the profound, unbearable exhaustion making it impossible to pay attention to the king and his long monologues. It was possible, no… it was most likely that he had asked you something but you had just stared back at him with a blank expression on your face… for some reason, he had let it slide. Afterwards you had gotten vivid flashbacks of you hearing the king calling your name repeatedly after asking various questions, his tone quite assertive but still concerned and compassionate. However in those flashbacks you were always unable to react in any other way but by nodding as a sign that you were listening… or… more like “listening”.
After this you had concentrated on your new position. You had shut your eyes from everything and anything else and refused completely to listen to any rumors and to take part in any kind of scheming in the court. You didn’t know the etiquette and that made you feel like an outsider, the vise silently turning the screws, and therefore you had decided to keep your distance and to do your job as well as you could. In the beginning it seemed like you couldn’t help running unintentionally into the king almost every day but as the months passed you had learned his schedule and knew how to avoid those awkward and more importantly unprofessional encounters.
The seasons passed by and the entire Middle Earth plunged into war. You did not know much about it but you knew that Legolas, the king’s son, had left Mirkwood one autumn morning and he had not come back which had made the king anxious. At the same time you had gotten your promotion and were transferred to maintain and manage the king’s private chamber, the part of the palace that he considered as his home. You had been deeply flattered by the promotion of course; it was a great honor to be trusted with the king’s chamber, a true testament of your high work ethics and moral that had been acknowledged by the highest of the authorities… the king himself… which made your current situation even worse. The king would see that he had made a terrible mistake and he would banish you from the court for sure. Maybe he would banish you from the entire realm! This realization made you cry even harder.
Suddenly you heard the door opening and the sound of assertive footsteps filled the room. The person was in the other room, walking slowly closer to the sitting room where you were, knelt on the floor in the middle of the mess. You managed to stop crying instantly, mostly due to your heart skipping a beat or two and leaving you both breathless and paralyzed but this eerie calmness soon changed into a panic because you knew that it could not be anyone else than the king himself. You knew that you were not supposed to be seen or heard and being in the chambers at the same time with him was just unacceptable. It was commonly thought that the servants did their job well when they were nowhere to be seen.
You stood up, tried to hide the cut on your palm and bowed your head as you dropped a curtsy, not daring to meet the king’s gaze, still somewhat paralyzed from shock and fear. If you had not been in panic you would have been confused because Thranduil, for some unknown reason, was not following his normal schedule. Indeed, the king had had a headache because he had not slept very well during last night and therefore he had decided to retire to his chamber after lunch and take the afternoon off; the war had been won not more than two weeks ago and it meant that the king allowed himself to take it a bit easier. However due to being so used to not running into you anymore he had not expected anyone to be in his chamber and therefore his first reaction was to let out an annoyed sigh mixed with an irritated groan. He looked at the floor and noticed the mess. Then his eyes shifted into you.
- What is happening here? the king asked assertively, his tone cold and unforgiving. He sounded bothered and annoyed. You were unable to answer at first so you just continued staring at the floor in silence, breathing as silently as you could and trying to hide the fact that you were emotionally in turmoil and physically injured. The king repeated his question and demanded you to answer.
- King… Thranduil. My… Lord… you stammered and tried to swallow your tears but it was getting harder by every passing moment. Soon it would be impossible entirely.
- Speak! he ordered, not even trying to mask his growing state of irritation. The king was not having a good day and he had not expected this; his favorite flowers ruined and you standing in front of him looking as pale as a ghost.
- An a-accident, m-my king. you sobbed and covered your mouth with the hand that was not injured. However the action made the king pay more attention on you as a whole and therefore he noticed that a cleaning cloth that you were squeezing tightly in your injured hand was now turning deep red. So much for your attempt of hiding it.
- Your hand. the king stated and shifted his gaze from your hand to the floor. He noticed the drops of blood as well as few blood-stained pieces of glass on the floor.
- Uhm… just a small cut. you replied and hid the hand behind your back as an involuntary reaction. You were embarrassed and the entire situation was just too awkward to handle and therefore it was simply easier to pretend that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. The king, however, disagreed.
Thranduil walked towards you and extended his hand towards you as a request or more like as an subtle order. You did not react, actually his actions caused you to reach the opposite way so you squeezed the cloth even tighter in your hand, making the sharp pieces cut the delicate flesh of your palm even deeper, which made you whimper audibly. You noticed that the king had heard it so you took a step backwards to maintain a comfortable as well as safe distance. Thranduil took a step closer, monitoring you with his beautiful eyes that penetrated your seemingly calm exterior and stared straight into your soul. He motioned you to extend your injured hand to him with a delicate gesture but you did not comply. The king said something about a direct order and after hesitating for a moment more, you removed your hand from its hiding place and extended it towards the king who quickly grabbed it, careful not to hurt you, though. Your hand however was still clenched into a tight fist, holding the cloth so the king couldn’t actually see the injury.
Now here was the thing; you had developed a crush on the king after moving to the palace and therefore it was even more awkward and embarrassing to be fairly close to him like this, in this very situation. You wanted to runaway, to escape this moment or erase it completely… but then again, despite the embarrassment and awkwardness, there was a part of you that did not want to run away. You wanted to stay and see what would happen; would the king be gentle if he removed the cloth or would he start scolding and mocking you as soon as he saw the injury. At least he was being very gentle now even though he was holding your hand quite firmly. The feeling was… both… terrifying and… intriguing. It made you want to lean your head against the king’s strong chest, close your eyes and take a deep breath.
You had dreamed about it many times, your fantasy being always the same; you running into the king accidently and then you would charm him somehow, not sure how, though. The king would look deep into your eyes and smile as he tilted his head and then he would open his arms and welcome you into a warm, safe and tight embrace. In your fantasies you always smiled back and wrapped your arms around him as you pressed your cheek against his chest. However this definitely was not how you had imagined it and therefore, even though it was comforting to have him hold your hand in such gentle yet firm way, you couldn’t handle the humiliation and mockery right now.
- Open it. the king ordered and removed the cloth from your hand immediately when you did. His eyes widened when he saw the cut; it was quite deep and wide, bigger than he had expected and there were still shards of glass cutting the wound as you had pressed them further when you had clenched your fist. He called the guard and ordered him to get the healer. “Now!” he shouted because he could feel your aura cracking and shattering into pieces. He did not need the healer to take care of the wound because that he was able to heal with elvish magic himself but because you were now shaking and crying uncontrollably. Thranduil had tried reciting a couple of calming spells to calm you down but they had had no impact on you and therefore he had made a decision to get the healer involved.
The king held your hand and put his other hand behind your back as he walked you to the bathroom while you still sobbed, whimpered and gasped for air like a fish that had been taken out from its natural element. He poured water from a large jug into a ceramic washing plate and submerged your hand into cool water, which turned red immediately. You squeaked slightly and bit your lip so your thoughts would shift from the pain that you could not control to the pain that you could; your teeth sinking into the delicate flesh of your lower lip. You bit your lip so hard in fact that you left it slightly yet visibly bruised when Thranduil pulled the pieces of glass out from the wound, slowly one by one, careful not to do any further damage. Then he submerged your hand into the water once more and felt the cut with his fingertips just to make sure that there were no hidden shards anymore.
After the wound had been washed and the bleeding stopped with the help of ancient elvish spells Thranduil held your hand in his, palm up and ran softly the fingerstips of his other hand around the wound and sometimes across it too. It was very pleasant, not painful at all but you were too distracted by your broken spirit to notice this. You kept gasping and sobbing, crying helplessly and shaking violently as the grief as well as the exhaustion and loneliness started to unravel. You were indeed too distracted as well as troubled ro notice that the cut was not bleeding anymore and on top of that it had started to heal slowly… until it was completely gone and the skin of your palm was as good as new. After a moment the healer entered the room carrying a small basket of different kinds of medicine bottles. She had not known what kind of potion was necessary, the guard had not said, so she had grabbed many different kinds of remedies.
Thranduil let go of your hand, washed his with clean water and then asked the healer to give him the sleeping medicine. The healer went through few labels and then found a small glass bottle, the label stating “Sleep and relaxation”, written in a delicate handwriting. The healer gave the bottle to the king with simple instructions, left the chamber and once more you were alone with the king. Thranduil poured a couple of drops of the medicine into a glass and filled it with wine halfway; it was the right amount because if he had filled the glass entirely, there was a chance that you wouldn’t drink it all and then again, if he had filled only a quarter of the space, the drink would be too bitter to consume. The king stirred the wine with a long spoon and brought the glass to you. You shook your head defiantly because you did not want to fall asleep. No, you wanted to leave this chamber and possibly hide for the rest of your life.
- Drink this. Thranduil ordered, his tone assertive and calm, perhaps soft even. You shook your head and stepped one step backwards. The king however stepped two steps closer as a result and repeated his order “Lady (Y/N), drink this. Now!” he said and kept offering the glass to you.
- No, please… you sobbed and shook your head with a desperate and brokenhearted expression on your face. You did not dare to look at the king, especially into his beautiful ice blue eyes that saw everything and surely were able to read you like an open book even when you tried your best to hide from him, like now.
- You shall drink this yourself… he said and then added firmly “…Or I will make you drink it.” His expression was turning from calm to upset and it was quite obvious that the king was getting annoyed and frustrated.
He told you once more to empty the glass and this time you did not fight back; you took the glass from his hand, brought it shakily on your lips and took a sip. Thranduil told you to finish it all so you did even though there was a fine undertone of bitterness from the medicine that couldn’t be masked by the sweet wine. You handed the glass to Thranduil and dropped your head, just waiting for the medicine to kick in. You nodded as a sign of acceptance, dropped a curtsy but just as you were about to leave the chamber, you felt your body getting numb and feet soon giving in. Oh no! This was bad! You had not wanted this, oh no, not at all! It had been bad enough to cry in front of the king but now you were going to pass out as well!
But there was nothing you could do about it. You took few steps and then grabbed a back of the nearest chair because you felt your balance failing you… the room was spinning… and you couldn’t feel the floor under your feet because it felt like you had been… floating few inches above it. You took a confused glance at your toes but it was affecting your eyes as well – you couldn’t see well and everything, the room, the king… even your feet were covered in haze… or perhaps you were seeing everything in double. You heard the king speaking to you, telling you not to fight it but his voice sounded distorted and distant, also like he had been talking very slowly.
A terribly strong feeling of tiredness and physical exhaustion washed over you, starting from your stomach and quickly spreading all over your body… torso, arms, feet, neck… Finally time seemed to slow down as the world went black, the sounds getting muffled in your head, but still your own inhales, exhales as well as the sound of your first racing but now slowing heartbeat echoed in your mind, a proof that you were alive even though you felt dead tired. The last thing you felt was a pair of strong arms grabbing you before you hit the floor and a sound of the king’s robe swishing next to your ear. “Don’t fight it, my dearest, sleep now” the king said with a deep, soft and kind voice, the reality was clearly getting mixed with the fantasy… or was it?