A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Thirty-Six - Pieces

           

A broken jaw, four ribs, right leg, left arm, three fingers, a minor concussion, many abrasions and countless bruises were the price of Thranduil's peace of mind, which he'd obtained after killing the men instigating maledictions against him, and if I knew him, a few who might only have had a sidelong hand in it. Some of the bones had had to be rebroken by the time Tauriel and Visilyen were able to deliver me to Nesetha.

Thranduil came to sit with me for hours every day, reading to me from his many books when I was awake, and doing his work when I wasn't. Every day Nesetha brought me a bland tea that helped with the pain in my abdomen, and she did everything she could to ease all of the many other pains I now dealt with. I was neither permitted to nor interested in attempting to move on my own, and for the most part remained prone on my back for each one of those crackling hours.

Thranduil glanced up one afternoon when he smelled the tea Nesetha for once couldn't avoid giving to me when he was around, as she usually did. "I do not recognize this brew of yours."

Uncharacteristically, Nesetha didn't offer an answer. I could only guess at the question Thranduil had asked of course, but sometimes I knew him well enough. I guessed his statement based on the few words I recognized and the places his eyes touched upon.

"Because I'm female," I sighed, able by then to create proper sentences with work. "And nothing more."

"Hm."

"Tell me." I paused to breathe. Whatever Nesetha gave me against the pain and against infection and to encourage bone regrowth left me consistently exhausted. "About the first elves."

He immediately complied. At least I could trust him to be prompt as well as knowledgeable.

"You may have....your ring back," I murmured several hours later. "If it still exists." I couldn't tell.

Thranduil gazed down at me for long moments. "You are too close to our family to not carry the protection of our name. The timing was merely convenient."

"Are you only." I swallowed. "Taking the responsibility. With the benefits?"

"The dissonance did occur to me."

" 'M sorry."

"What for, my dear?"

Well of that I wasn't entirely certain, but there was certainly a great deal of sorriness built up within me, and I didn't know where it came from or how to protect myself from it. "Disappointment," I finally decided, voice always flexing with the effort it took to clearly speak. Nesetha always tried to hush me when I was speaking to her through Tauriel or someone else, as did most of the someone elses, but Thranduil never did. "Complications. Strange foster daughter."

"Your peculiarities—as numerous as they may be—do not diminish your worth, Mabyn," he gently assured me. "They simply make it harder for you to see it."

I drifted my head back and forth, agitated by his dismissal. "No. No. I know you. Not what you wanted."

Thranduil laid one long hand against my cheek to prevent me from hurting myself in my distress. As though someone might overhear him, he quietly said, "Neither one of us knows me as well as they thought they did."

We did a great deal of talking.

"Why would you ever take this job knowing you were pregnant?" Tauriel whispered one evening as she sat with me, helping me slowly through a plate of supper Thranduil sent since he was unable to be here himself.

I briefly closed my eyes. "Thranduil doesn't know what he's done for me. He has no idea." But....in truth I had been afraid to say no. I know he would have released me if he had known of my condition, but telling him had felt like manipulation. This had been our agreement, ages ago. I had not wanted to renege on it.