Aralas Oneshots

One moment

"Why have you called me, Ada?", Legolas asked his father, the king of the Woodland Realm, lord Thranduil. 

"You are my son and the prince of Mirkwood. You must stand by my side when I greet our guest", the elf spoke with his cold voice. Thranduil was not known to be very friendly, neither to his servants, than to his family. You could call yourself lucky, if he greeted you. It was his highest form of respect.

"We have a guest coming?", the young prince spoke surprised. "I didn't know we expected anyone."

"You don't need to know everything", his father said coldly and made a show of turning around and swinging his hair elegantly over his shoulders. His long iceblue cloak was draped around his legs. "Now follow me to the balcony!"

---

A loud horn sounded, and immediately it got silent on the courtyard, where hundreds of elves were gathered. They were almost all dressed in green or brown, the colours of the place they lived in, Mirkwood forest, and every second of them had a bow and arrows on their backs. As like many times before, the men and women had been interrupted in their work and summoned to the king's balcony. Just a few of them stayed in the woods to protect the kingdom from danger, but every free elf, every woman, every child, every man, was obliged to come. 

The king was very proud, and most of all, proud of himself, and he took every possibility to show it to his people. Curious voices whispered, what it was about today.

"My dear elves!", the king started with outstretched hands and a huge smile on his face, that looked so painful that some laughters were heard. "Thank you for coming in such large numbers. Even though most of you should be working right now, I allow you to stay and continue with everything later. I know, I'm generous, right?" The last sentence was directed only to Legolas, who was standing behind him and looked like he had eaten a lemon. "When you're old, you'll have to be as generous as me, even though it hurts, knowing that my borders are neglected." He turned towards the crowd again. 

"I have good news for you! Tonight, there will be a party in these halls, and everyone of you is invited to come, for we have a special guest tonight!"

He waited patiently, until the crowd understood that it was time to cheer.

"Thank you. Now let me welcome Bard, our neighbor, king of Dale!"

Bard, what Bard? silent whispers ran around amongst the elves. Their interest in mankind was so small, that they didn't know that after the reclaim of Erebor by Thorin Oakenshield and the death of the dragon, Bard the Bowman had become king of Dale. 

On the balcony, a strong young man with a grim face stepped forward and looked out over the crowd. You could see he wasn't interested in a cheering crowd, and was only here because he was told to. His clothes were simple too, not the kind one would expect for a king, but brown trousers and a very dark blue tunic. Legolas watched the man, and was amazed at how different he was from his father, both were kings, but they were not at all alike. He wondered, why Thranduil had summoned Bard, because nobody entered his kingdom without being summoned by the king himself.

Suddenly he noticed a man standing in the background, almost blending in with the scenery. He wore brown well-used clothes, strong leather boot and a dark-green hooded cloak. Around his waist was a belt with a sword sheat, and his long brown hair hung messily in his face, so Legolas couldn't see his eyes. It was, he assumed, one of king Bard's companion's, that had followed him on his trip to the elf king's forest. But he didn't look like a servant, Legolas thought. The man held head too high, his back to straight, and his shoulders too confidently to be a servant. He found him rather intriguing, and he just noticed after a few minutes that he was staring.