Daughter of Starlight

Chapter Thirty Five: The King and the Wizard

Another chapter with Thranduil and Gandalf! Take warning, this chapter is being posted during the early hours of the morning, so if you see mistakes, I promise they will be fixed at a less ungodly hour. I was just so excited to get this out for you guys! I hope you like it!

Night had fallen, cloaking the city of Dale in shadows, but no man or elf settled themselves down for sleep. Every one of them was preparing for what would come once the sun rose again. In a tent near the edge of the ruins of the city, the elven king and the Wandering Wizard were locked in an argument.

"Since when has my counsel counted for so little?" Gandalf demanded of Thranduil in disbelief. "What do you think I'm trying to do?"

"I think you're trying to save your dwarfish friends, and I admire your loyalty, but it does not dissuade me from my course," the king said from where he sat in front of a small wooden table, parchment maps and documents scattered across the surface. He was completely intolerant towards everything the wizard said. He had waited sixty years for the White Gems of Lasgalen to be returned to him, and he had decided that the wait was over. He was going to reclaim them, no matter what it took.

Thranduil stood from where he sat, approaching Gandalf with an angry look. He was the one who had decided to meddle in affairs that were not his, and he was going to suffer the consequences.

"You started this, Mithrandir," he told the gray wizard angrily. "You will forgive me if I finish it."

With that he turned to Feren, who had replaced Tauriel as captain of the guard.

"Are the archers in position?" he asked the Silvan elf.

"Yes, My Lord," Feren replied.

"Give the order," Thranduil commanded the captain. "If anything moves on that mountain, kill it."

Feren nodded and left to inform the soldiers of the king's wishes, leaving Thranduil and Gandalf alone in the tent once again. Gandalf looked on in horror as Thranduil coldly said, "The dwarves are out of time."

The king had been about to leave the wizard and go prepare for the dawn himself when Gandalf suddenly said to him, "Your daughter is in that mountain!"

Thranduil froze where he stood upon hearing those words. This was the second time he had been confronted with the notion that his daughter was among Oakenshield's company, hidden away in the Lonely Mountain and awaiting the same fate as the rest of the dwarves.

Thranduil didn't turn to face Gandalf, his back to him as he said, "You clearly are under the same mistaken impression as the Dragon Slayer." As he continued to speak, he finally faced the wizard. "Pray tell, what reason would there be for her to be inside that mountain, and what right have you to question it?"

"I have every right that you relinquished the day you banished Laerornien," Gandalf told him, revealing how equally capable he was of being cold and unforgiving towards someone. "You have no idea where she has been all these years, do you?"

Thranduil's face expressed growing anger as he said, "And where did you find the audacity to make such a claim?"

"I found it sixty years ago," Gandalf told him. "When I came across her walking alongside the road to a town of men."

Thranduil stood silently fuming as Gandalf continued, fighting to keep his composure as the wizard verbally humiliated him.

"Judging from the condition of her clothes, I had guessed that she had been wandering for days," he told Thranduil. "She was lost and alone, robbed of love and dignity, so I stopped to offer my help." A ghost of a smile lingered on Gandalf's lips as he reminisced the memory of the day he met the princess. "I at once knew she needed guidance, someone to care for her, but not I. No, she needed to be among her fellow elves. She could not return home, though, so I took her to Rivendell."

Gandalf stepped away from Thranduil, the elven king's icy glare following him as Gandalf looked upon the view of Erebor outside the tent. "Lord Elrond has been a friend of mine for a long time. I knew I could trust him to take care of her, to give her a home as long as it was needed. She remained in his care for sixty years, until I returned with Thorin's company."

Gandalf sighed and turned his suddenly sad gaze to the ground. "It was I who convinced her that joining in the company's quest was best, that it was her chance to earn back her place in the Woodland Realm and win back your love."

Gandalf turned back to Thranduil, looking upon the Woodland King with an odd mixture of disgust and pity.

"But I can see that there is no place left in your heart for forgiveness. I now realize that it would have been best for her to remain among Elrond's court," he told Thranduil, his voice softening as he looked back to the mountain and said, "I have failed her."

With that he left the tent in search of Bard, hoping that if Thranduil wouldn't listen to reason, then the Lakeman would. He left the elven King to his thoughts, which had gone from indignant and angry to ones verging on guilt as he looked to the mountain. If every word Gandalf had said was true, then the wizard could not be so selfish to take all the blame in Laerornien's situation. Much of the blame, Thranduil realized, should go to him.

But it was too late to change anything, he told himself. They both had made choices, and Thranduil had spent decades convincing himself that those he had made were the right ones. Why, when the chance to reclaim what he cherished most, should he begin to question them? Little did he know, the reason for his doubt was about to enter his tent with a hobbit who had the means to prevent the war to be waged at daybreak.