To Live Again: Waiting Between Worlds {Lord of the Rings Fanfiction}

26. Deception, Distrust, & Discord

The maps and papers lay open - open and revealing - a taunting reminder that I trust too much. A reminder that sometimes I forget to stand on my own two feet, that I have a mind and eyes to see, and ears to hear, and that for so long I have not trusted them. My very instincts had been right, they have always been right, and the proof was here...it was always here.

I thought it would be difficult to find the reasons behind Thranduil's arrival in the woods today. I thought I would need to work hard at drawing his thoughts from him, to help him confide his fears in me, but the truth was it was almost too easy.

I left him while he and his council members enjoyed supper, a festivity that I am usually present for because it is usually just a social affair. Celairiel was entertaining us with her beautiful songs, and Legolas had been arguing with his father about being denied to avail of a further training excursion...Thranduil wanted him to stay at home a little while longer with me. It all sounded very plausible, very caring, and almost too wholesome to trust. With my doubts I excused myself, feigning a weariness and insisting on putting an already slumbering Ferion to bed. I wanted to know why Thranduil was putting a prolonged block on Legolas from leaving the city, I worried that something imminently dangerous was in the shadows, that Thranduil was not wanting to risk Legolas' over confident attitude against difficult foes. I wanted to believe he was just being an overly cautious father, as he always tended to be, but I was only partly right.

The only place that I knew I would find tactical information was in Thranduil's private study. I had went there because it is not somewhere off limits, Thranduil had never stopped me from accessing and using his studies, but I guess I had never really used them.

First I found maps, tagged over areas of concern. I followed the patterns and the places and knew that these tags meant orc pack sightings or skirmishes, nothing about them seemed organised and there was no pattern or particular reasoning, besides that maybe they favoured the south western eaves of the forest. I had always known this though, it was in those eaves that I had been taken hostage and quite literally met my maker. This made some sense, and I was about ready to forgive and move on when I found letters...letters with the seal of Imladris...letters that dated back further than two decades?

I opened them...and I read them.

I discovered that since the end of the war these lands had not been as safe as I had been led to believe. I learned that both Elrond and Celeborn feared for the North, they feared that the evil spectres of Sauron would have fled there and would return again from those barren wastelands. I knew what they warned in their pleading words, they warned that evil could slip through our lands, that Thranduil was vulnerable in his position and that he needed to not ignore this. He still had allies, he still had friendship from his kin - if he would only remember it. I happened across private journals after I read the worrying contents of the letters, and I was not ashamed to read my husband's private thoughts, in some vain attempt at understanding why he felt he needed to hide this from me...and that is when I found the truth.

Carefully, I eased into my husband's chair, holding the letters in my hand. Letters from his own desk, in his own study, a place I frequented often and not once did I think to look here? Not once did I think he would keep this from me. How far did his fear run?

Far enough that he would leave me blind, and deaf, and so damn naive!

If I could hate him I would, but unfortunately the complexities of love are too fiercely difficult to ignore. I wanted to understand why he would leave me in the dark? I wanted to rationalise every single one of his actions and give him all the excuses to free him, but maybe I do that far too much? Maybe this time I am to blame?

The door clicks.

The quiet rustle of silk on stone floor has my jaw clench tightly in agitation, I do not look up lest I betray myself.