An Unexpected Love

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The Prince snuck slowly through the grounds of the Greenwood palace that were bathed in moonlight peaking through the tall trees above, trying his best to remain quiet and unseen by the patrols periodically walking around the paths surrounding the palace. Once He had successfully avoided the patrols and made it to the path that led out the back of the castle, he took a moment to hide in the bushes a few meters away from the path. He didn't need to catch his breath, he was very in shape, and being light on his feet was easy since he was an elf with warrior training. He crouched in the darkness, in front of a tree and behind a burly set of bushes as he contemplated his thoughts. What was he doing? He had snuck out of his own palace, his own home, without telling anyone, just to have the chance to see the one elleth that he couldn't stop thinking about.

His heart squeezed as he thought about Navaheya for about the one-hundredth time that day. The possibility that she could be having to handle her mother's health and her own health at the same time, or an even worse scenario, grieve and mourn her mother all by herself made him want to punch the tree directly behind him.

Before the blonde royal could fall deeper into his thoughts while crouching alone in the darkness, his pointed ear twitched slightly as he could barely make out the sound of light but rushed footsteps heading out of the palace grounds and towards the path he was hiding only a few meters from. His train of thought immediately switched from worry about Navaheya to worry for his own safety. He had no weapons, and if it was an attacker approached him, he had nothing to defend himself with other than his own body, which would be inherently more painful to use as a weapon.

The footsteps suddenly stopped, the person was on the path and looking directly into the trees where he was hiding. Thranduil peeked through the bushes and sighed as he recognized the cloaked figure by the hair peeking out from the dark maroon hood. Before he moved from his spot in the bushes, he heard Lady Gaylia speak as she turned to look back down the path, so she was not directly facing him.

"Go to her home, I will meet you there. I took these to assist you in getting there undetected. I have an inclination that, even with my cover, your absence will be noticed," Her voice was soft and quiet, he could hear her clearly, however, none of the guards down the path in which she had just come could hear what she was saying.

Suddenly, Lady Gaylia quickly threw a bundle of fabric into the bushes only a few feet in front of him before she turned again and continued making her way down the path, away from the palace and into the darkness of the Greenwood forest.

Thranduil remained crouching as he grabbed the fabric and quickly unbundled it, once it was fully unwrapped, a solid material fell from the center. There laying between his legs as he kneeled on the forest floor, a sharp hunting knife that he had left in his closet and forgotten to put back in his boot after getting redressed. The fabric itself was one of his many cloaks. Lady Gaylia had grabbed a very dark green cloak that had a large hood that would make it easier to hide his face and bright blonde hair. The prince quickly wrapped himself in the cloak and pulled the hood over his head and down his face. He took the knife and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers as he slowly crouched through the brush to get further into the darkness before moving to the path.

~

Prince Thranduil's barely audible footsteps on the forest floor came to a halt as he reached the maroon-cloaked she-elf that stood waiting for him. Once he stood next to her, she tilted her head up to the house in the trees, almost invisible with the lack of lights on inside the home and the trees hiding the moonlight.