Princess of Mirkwood
WARNING: Ace is normal, every variant is normal with so much unacknowledged historical primary support that ace and ace romantic is, at least the scale of it, in my opinion, way more common than statistics show in the rainbow community.
I’m using Tolkien’s Catholic ideals of no love without partnership as one of the ways to make elves different from humans. Having grown up with humans, Luna has experienced bullying for being what appears to be ace or demi. That bullying and internalised reactions are not my view of what should be one of the most normal ways of being.
Anyone who is mad at someone else for not wanting things they think they should want is a level of stupidity that I can’t even fully vocalize my disdain for.
Chapter 11 - Princess of Mirkwood
Haldir arrived in Imladris beneath the moonlight. He dismounted and walked his horse to the stables once he passed the border, loosening her girth, which he pushed at a tasking pace.
Though he wanted to meet Lady Luna as soon as possible, he didn't expect her to be in the stables when he arrived.
He heard her voice first, his breath catching in his throat as he strained to listen to her voice.
"You shouldn't bite the elves, they are only trying to help you heal," she said, her tone filled with compassion and slight amusement.
Haldir couldn't hear any effects of age in her voice, it made his heart race as dared hope.
Forcing his feet to move forward into the stable.
He first noticed the menace seeping off of a number of black horses he would never have expected to be housed in elvish stables.
Then his gaze fell to Lady who was wholly unaware of the hold she had over his heart. Her back was turned to him, moonlight captured in her hair.
Her words paused as she heard him enter, but she didn't turn to greet him. She continued to whisper to the horse that seemed more phantom than a mortal animal. But the horse bowed its head, ears flicking in her direction, listening, not striking out despite how tense it seemed.
Haldir, content to listen, brought his own dune mare into an empty stall, quietly untacking.
He had her brushed down, with water and food before Luna acknowledged that she wasn't alone.
When she turned his gaze on him, every assumption he had made, every excuse he had given himself for not seeking her out in the world, fell apart before her feet.
Age had stolen nothing from her, in fact, her beauty had grown and he felt as if he could weep.
She was elven, she had elven blood, and though that was no guarantee she would return his feelings or accept him, it meant he could go on, knowing the world would not turn without her.
"Haldir?" she asked.
He blinked, then bowed low to her, "Lady Luna, I'm honoured you remember me."
She smiled, "Of course I remember you. You received my owl then?"
He nodded, "The owl was—"
"My friend, Hedwig."
"Ah," he said, words failing him. His brothers had been right, and he wasted decades denying the possibility of her returned feelings as well as bracing for a final farewell that now he was left unmoored.
"Will you be at Lord Elrond's Council tomorrow?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
She dipped into a curtsy, "Then I will see you tomorrow morning, Lord Haldir. Good night."
"Good night," he echoed awkwardly. And she swept away before he could say more.
Before he could refute being a lord.
oOo
The Council's tales of the Necromancer, Saruman's betrayal, and the long road the Ring had taken to be here were exhaustive but captivating. While many interrupted Gandalf, none interrupted Bilbo.
Lord Elrond stood, still annoyed by the words Gandalf had spoken in the Black Tongue and of the behaviour of those who argued over who would take the ring.
Elrond raised his voice, "There are two in our Council who have yet to speak."
All quieted at this, and every eye turned to the man whom the hobbits and dwarves had proclaimed a wizard.
Said 'wizard' smiled at them all, "What is it you would like to know? I am sorry to say, I know very little of the politics and history of your Middle Earth."
Gandalf, who no doubt had been eager to question the other man, asked, "Yet you claim to be a wizard?"
The man inclined his head, "I was born in the Lands of Exile, and upon my natural death, was reborn on the shores of this world. I do find it interesting that my arrival seems to match the time your Saruman the White fell from grace."
"And you claim to know magic?"
Harry the Black eased back in his seat, "Myself and my friend Luna were born in a world where humans had magic. When Luna came to Middle Earth, my own magic began to change. I become more powerful, a power that sings through this land in such a way that I understand why my world would be considered the Lands of Exile from these blessed lands."
Boromir huffed, "Surely, you can't think of us so blessed now that you've learned of this fowl evil?"
The would-be wizard raised his brows, and gestured to the ring, "This is not the first horcrux I have come across. I would venture to guess the Dark Lord of my youth was not as powerful as he was only human. Certainly, not as smart as he didn't put his soul shards in a nearly indestructible object nor was his curse able to corrupt so easily."
"What is your Council on the Ring?" Boromir asked.
"Destroy it," Harry the Black said simply. "There is no question, you must destroy it. It is evil in its making, in its purpose, and in its ability. I have seen what lesser versions of it can do. I have seen it turn friend against friend, turn good people into hopeless and angry shells of themselves. There is no other course we can take but to destroy it."
"And we should trust you, why?" Boromir asked.
"Because he is Harry the Black," Glóin said.
"And Beardless," Bilbo added with a fond smile.
"And what has he done for Middle Earth?" Glorfindel asked without hostility, only curiosity. "Of the Lady Luna I have heard, but not of you."
Glóin spoke once more, "He accompanied a party of my people to Moria, without him, our people would not have survived."
Glorfindel raised a brow, "How many orcs and goblins have the mountain sheltered?"
"Not as many as those who gather in Dol Guldur," Harry the Black said. "It was more the giant fire demon thing that was problematic. The good news is the enemy is scared of it too, however, I am afraid, the bad news is that it is an elemental too great to best. I think to kill it you may have to bring the mountain on top of it. Even then, no promises."
"A Balrog?" Gandalf asked, horror in his voice.
Glóin spoke, "That's what Thorin believed it to be."
Gandalf sighed, "Then the ring cannot pass through Moria."
"We still have not determined who will take the Ring," Haldir said, though he himself looked like he wanted no part of it.
Haldir was old enough to remember its history, as his parents had been killed in that war.
"I will take it," Frodo said. "Though I know not the way."
Lady Luna smiled, unsurprised, "And you shall not find your way alone."
Frodo turned to her, as if the mightiest of warriors had offered him aid, "You'll come with me?"
"Of course I will," she said with fondness.
"Who even are you?" Boromir asked.
"I am Luna, Dragonoligist of the West and friend to King Thorin Oakenshield."
"Yes, but what are you?" Boromir persisted. "I would have thought you an elf, but you aren't dressed like one, and you would be the first elf maid I've ever heard of who would name themselves in the same breath as a dwarf. The animosity between dwarves and elves is well known."
Her jaw tightened, but she did not answer him.
Gimli spoke, "I will go with Frodo and the Lady Luna."
"And I," Prince Legolas said.
"By either my life or death, I will protect you," Estel said to Frodo who flashed him a worried smile.
"As will I," Gandalf and Harry said in unison, the two exchanging an amused look.
"I shall go," Haldir said, his eyes only for the Lady.
"As will I but I would like to know what the maid can offer," Boromir said.
"Careful," Glóin warned. "Best not disrespect the Lady who was befriending dragons before ye were even born."
"So you are an elf?" Boromir insisted.
Elrond watched Estel catch Luna's gaze.
Harry spoke, raising her hand as if he would catch her hand in his, "Luna, you cannot keep your secrets forever. Too many here remember you."
She let out a harsh breath, "Fine. Yes, I'm an elf. That changes nothing."
Elrond frowned and he caught Gandalf's gaze, he had not been told that. The other elves present exchanged equally unsettled looks.
It was not their custom to allow maids to travel unchaperoned, much less with dwarves, much less with dwarves who planned to confront dragons.
She would also be the first elf Elrond had ever heard of to have been to the Land of Exiles.
"Were both your parents elves or merely an ancestor of yours?" Gandalf asked the delicate question.
Luna brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, and it was as if some glamour fell away. She had been fair and lovely before, but some pretence, some taint of man that had veiled her, fell away from her in that breath. She shone like moonlight, the light in her eyes stolen starlight, and her beauty was that of the dusk to that of the beauty of dawn that belonged to the prince who sat beside her.
She looked so very much like Prince Legolas and Elrond wondered how he had not seen this before, hadn't spotted the pointed tips of her ears.
Estel did not look surprised, nor the dwarves, nor the hobbits.
Elrond realised that they had all seen her clearly while the rest of them had not. The Lord of Imladris nor Gandalf the Grey, it would appear by the wizard's wide eyes, were used to being the ones slow to see.
"My parents were elves, but I was raised by humans in the Lands of Exile," she said, her voice hard.
"Who were your people?" Glorfindal asked, his own voice hard.
No elven child should have been abandoned by their parents. In most cases, it was not even a possibility. Elven pregnancies were neither unplanned nor short affairs.
Luna sat back, her face a cold mask, and she pointed her chin toward the prince beside her, "Same as his."
"You're a wood-elf?" one of Legolas's companions squeaked.
Elrond frowned at the fear in his voice and the look on the Prince's face looked equally disturbed.
"Who were your parents?" Elrond asked.
Luna grimaced before sighing, then tilted her head again in Prince Legolas's direction, "Same as his."
Legolas turned to her fully, "Luna?"
She didn't look at him.
Slow horror crept into Elrond's heart at the implication, "King Thranduil of Mirkwood is your father?"
Luna glared at him, "Only by blood."
Every elf present went rigid.
Legolas raised a hand to his mouth in mute horror.
Elrond rose, "You are Princess of Mirkwood? Child of King Thranduil and Queen Êlúriel?"
And I let you travel with dwarves to face a dragon, he thought mortified.
Luna spoke with the pride of her forefathers, "I do not claim them as mine, Êlúriel gave me to the Lands of Exile and Thranduil has no love for me."
Elrond was horrified that she could think that but it wasn't Legolas who defended his father, no indeed, Legolas shut his eyes in mourning.
This did not inspire confidence.
Glorfindel spoke more gently than he had before, "If King Thranduil but knew of your existence, he would welcome you with open arms."
Glóin snorted a laugh.
"You think that's funny, dwarf?" Galdor asked sharply.
"Hilarious, in fact," the dwarf retorted.
Luna shook her head, her smile rye, "Oh, we've met, and Thranduil's welcome was a prison cell."
Legolas finally dropped his hand, turning to his sister, "Luna, I am so sorry-"
Luna shook her head, "It was not you who wronged me, Brother."
Glorfindel's voice was dark, "King Thranduil imprisoned his own daughter? Queen Êlúriel travelled pregnant and abandoned her child to the Lands of Exile?"
Luna inclined her head.
Another ripple went through the elves present.
"Is our mother alive?" Legolas asked.
Luna looked at him, her expression softening, "She lives."
Elrond was both sorrowed by this news and relieved. Thranduil had been tormented these long decades by his wife's disappearance and fate.
Of the fate of his unborn child.
"In the Lands of Exile?" Glorfindel asked.
"No, the Undying Lands," Luna said. "I had no wish to stay there as I passed through, I had no wish to stay with her."
"You did not feel its pull?" Elrond asked.
She shook her head, "I had been without home or kin for so long. I did not know who or what I was and all I knew of my birth mother was that she chose to give me away to a foreign world."
"When you met your father, did you not try to tell him this?" Elrond asked, trying to keep his anger toward the King from his voice.
This child had been through so much, and Thranduil should have been able to see through his own wife's spell.
Legolas answered, "She tried, but he was not willing to listen."
From the king's own son, those words were a damnation.
Every elf present save for the Mirkwood elves rose to their feet and began shouting over one another in their own tongue.
Elrond was trying to process the ramifications of this, so it took him longer than it should have to regain control of the situation.
The others all watched in fascination as the elves lost their famed calm.
Finally, Elrond raised his voice, and asked in elvish, "How old are you, Princess?"
Luna shook her head, "Sorry, but I've only learned a bit elvish from Bilbo and Frodo."
Which set everyone off again.
Elrond raised his hand, "How old are you?"
He hoped that her age did not match the disappearance of Thranduil's wife.
But how could it be otherwise?
It would also explain Thranduil's recceeding from the happenings of a wider Middle Earth and his paranoia and why he had never given up on his wife.
Because he hadn't just lost his equal, his other half; he had lost a daughter.
"A hundred and seventy years old," Luna answered.
Elrond's voice lowered, "So eighty years ago when you went with the dwarves to the Lonely Mountain you were only ninety?"
She raised her chin, "Eighty-nine when I first passed these halls and ninety when I returned with Bilbo."
Every elf save for Elrond, Haldir, Legolas, and Luna herself began to exclaim, their voices raised in outrage.
Their non-elvish company looked on with wide eyes. Elves were not known for their anger.
Galdor finally said in elvish to the Princess, "You should not put yourself in such danger, you are a child."
Elrond winced.
Luna raised a brow.
Galdor glared at her waiting for an answer, until he remembered she didn't speak their language.
Another crime to add to the list that had been done to her.
Galdor repeated himself, "You cannot go with the Ring Bearer."
Luna smiled, "And what authority do you think you have over me?"
"You are a child."
She laughed, "I have never been a child in Middle Earth. My childhood died in Exhile, where my mother left me."
Elrond winced.
"It is too dangerous," Galdor insisted.
Luna crossed her arms, "Did you miss the part where I'm a dragonologist? I went with Thorin's company to the Lonely Mountain."
"This is different," Glorfindel said. "This is war and such horrors as you could never imagine."
Luna stood to her feet, and suddenly, Elrond saw that she was indeed her father's daughter. Her face was alight with fury and an air of regalness that not even Legolas had yet the talent for.
"I have seen war. I have seen my friends and innocents die."
Her words were heartbreaking because no elven child should have been exposed to such horrors. No elven couple had chosen to have children in the last two hundred years due to the growing darkness of these times and the threat of war.
Legolas had been the last.
Or so they had been led to believe.
An elfling born without her father and cast away by her mother.
It was criminal in a way that Elrond had not the words for.
Yet here they sat, the two youngest elves in existence whose mother had left them, left them both.
Whatever he thought of King Thranduil, it was not comparable to what he now knew of Mirkwood's lost queen.
"You have seen war," Galdor said. "But witnessing is not the same as-"
Luna rose to her feet with the grace of their people. She did not raise her voice, she did not need to.
"You know nothing. I have fought in war, and I have killed."
Galdor clearly hadn't expected that response, "You were protected."
"I was not. I endured capture, I was tortured and starved. I have been interrogated, but I never broke. I never betrayed my friends, and I know precisely the dangers that may befall us on this journey. I will not falter now."
Galdor looked pained but continued to attempt to protest, "Your father–"
Luna cut him off, "King Thranduil lost all rights as my kin, he has no say in my life. I do not–"
Oddly, Harry the Black who rose from his seat to protest. He towered over Luna though she was only a head shorter than him.
"No, Luna. You can turn away your father but not your people. You cannot judge a whole race based on a few."
"I think she can," Gimli said, amused at the chaos that Elrond's home had fallen into.
Many of the elves in residence had been called by the raised elven voices, gathering in the halls that led to the Council's pavilion.
Luna shook her head, "I don't want–"
"You are dying, Luna!" the wizard shouted and everyone went still.
Luna's expression fell and her compassion softened her features, "I'm not, Harry. I am not dying."
"But you wish you were," Harry the Black said. "The years pass as they always have, moving on without you. Everyone you have ever loved is dead or dying. Not even the dwarves with their longevity can spare you from this dismal eternity."
"I have you," she said.
Harry's face softened but he did not relent, "Aye, and you always will, but I have lived my life, Luna. I have loved and I have died. In this life, I am more magic than man.
“You cannot continue indefinitely as you have been; you must learn to be what you are before you can enjoy being who you are. The dwarves have known and loved you for a century, they will not turn on you for associating with your kin."
And wasn't that another damnation? This elven princess, the youngest elf in Middle Earth, cared more for the opinion and company of dwarves than her own kin?
"You cannot go on this quest," Galdor said stubbornly. "You are too young."
Luna gave the lord a haughty look of disdain.
Definitely Thranduil's daughter.
"How old would fourteen human years be for an elf?" Harry the Black asked suddenly.
Elrond hesitated, a flash of his children at such a fragile age flashing through his mind in a moment of clarity that nearly pulled him back through the ages.
Those years had been the best of his existence, the memories nearly as dear to him as his children were to him now.
Finally, he said, "Elven children grow, comparatively, faster than that of man, hobbit, or dwarf. We have greater language capabilities, but our childhoods are longer. An elven child at fourteen years of standard age would be very intelligent, but innocent.
“Perhaps, among hobbits their behavioural differences could be excused, but among humans or dwarves? They would not be able to keep up with the small pettinesses that mimic the social structures of adults.
“Men especially, as their lives are so comparatively short, have harsher behaviours for their future survival. For elves, the first hundred years of our lives are dictated by curiosity and wonder. Our people go to war, we have fights among our own, but it is not a given and we take care of our own."
Legolas spoke then, "They are cherished and loved."
Luna looked into his eyes and said airily, "I was hated. Even with the glamour Êlúriel placed on me, I could not pass for human."
Legolas looked broken, "I am sorrier than words have the ability to express."
She shook her head, "My childhood has passed, I must go. Middle Earth is my home, and I will fight for it."
"You are afraid," Galdor insisted.
Undeterred, she merely nodded her head, "Only a fool would not be. But I was friends with Bilbo before you knew his name, I did not see the Ring for the evil it was and I will not let Frodo face that burden without me."
"Or me!" Samwise, Frodo's dearest companion said coming out from the bushes.
Elrond found it hard to worry for the halflings, even as two more joined, slipping past the guards. Hard to worry when he felt shame for his people… and something else, something he had not expected.
He felt a renewed investment in Middle Earth.
A place two elfings had been denied the true glory of.
In these late years, the elves had been waning, more were lost, more set sailed, and then were born or made different in the world. Many elves had chosen to stay in Middle Earth to see the new generation of Ent and Entwives. But the elves had retreated from the world.
In a moment of grounding, brought Elrond found that to be unacceptable.
"So shall it be," Elrond said. "Twelve shall travel with the Ring Bearer. Three of Frodo's own people. Gimli son of Glóin as representative of the dwarves, Boromir son of Denethor and Aragorn son of Arathorn of men, Legolas and Luna of Mirkwood, Haldir of Lothlórien, and two wizards, Gandalf the Grey and Harry the Black."
"And Beardless," Meriadoc, Peregrin, and Bilbo said.
Frodo rolled his eyes.
Elrond continued, "Many dangers await you and there may come a fork in the road when a smaller number is needed. On the Ring bearer alone is any charge laid: neither to cast away the Ring, nor to deliver it to any servant of the Enemy nor indeed to let any handle it, save members of the Company and the Council, and only then in gravest need."
Frodo nodded.
Bilbo rose to his feet, "Ah, now best we all break for supper. Our stories have dragged til sunset and I imagine the elves will soon be engrossed in their own gossip. What with a long lost elven princess turning out to be a dragon rider."
Galdor frowned, "Those tales were exaggerated for your poems, surely."
Haldir sighed, "No, they were not. I saw her with her dragon."
Luna spared him a smile, dipped him a curtsy before dismissing herself.
Legolas rose, bowed to Elrond and followed after his sister.
Harry the Black sighed, taking off his glasses to wipe the lenses on his sleeve, his staff resting on his chest. "A word to the wise, whatever it is that disturbed you so greatly–"
The young wizard put his rounded glasses back on before saying, "Address it among yourselves. She needs other elves, but she will have no patience for a culture she was excluded from."
Elrond sighed.
He was not looking forward to contacting Thranduil and Galadriel.
oOo
UPDATES: This one is slow. But What We Lost is fully back up.
When All the World's Against You has also been finished :D
oOo
AN: Thoughts, sea lions, or feedback, pretty please?