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Room For Improvement >> Thranduil X Reader

Title: Room For Improvement

Paring: Thranduil X Reader

Warnings: swords, play-fighting, arranged marriages, reader is elven.

Spoilers: None! I mention things from both Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit, but this is set before both of those books/movies happen. 

Requested By: Alice9157 

Author's Note: So, you all know that I'm terrible at writing fight scenes + writing kissy stuff, and here I've attempted to do both of those things here in this fic. Also, note, I'm only 19 years old, never seen an actual sword fight, have never been in LOTR (as much as I'd wish), and did my best. So please, please be gentle with me. 

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Unlike most people who dreamed stories and were doomed never to live amongst the fancies and ploys on the paper, you had the pleasure. As a noble elf from Rivendell, the elder cousin of Arwen, daughter of Lord Elrond, you were destined to become something of yourself. But while your mind was reading stories of adventure to faraway lands and cultures, the story your life had turned into something more...traditional, for your gender. Marriage. The news came to no shock to you, as you were always to be married off, but to whom? Your heart had almost stopped upon hearing the news.

"You are to marry King Thranduil, son of the late King Orophor," the message-elf of your father had told you. Perhaps it was for the better your own father did not break the news himself, or he would have had a slipper thrown at him.

You had nodded, and thanked the messenger, and moved to the balcony to ruminate over the news. You could almost hear the people you called friends gossiping when they heard the news of your arranged marriage. The King? Of Mirkwood? How inane a match for ________! As if they doubted a scholarly-minded Elf such as yourself could soar that high, to be considered for the man who had lost his father so recently on the battlefield.

Slowly, you moved to the balcony balustrade, and sinking your head upon your hands on the railing, looked out upon the citadel of Rivendell where you lived, lost in the myriad of thoughts that followed the word passed to you. But lost in your thoughts, you did not notice that your cousin, and confidant, the Lady of Rivendell. But to you, she would always be Arwen, whom you had shared the splash pools of the forest with as children.

"What plagues your mind, ________?" Arwen's voice came to you, and turning, you saw your cousin. Her brush in hand, she worked on her hair, slowly uncoiling the tangles that followed horseback riding. "You look troubled."

You nod, agreeing with her wording, "I have just been told I am to wed," you confess, moving to sit beside her on the chaise. She hands you her brush, and taking it in your hands, you take it upon yourself to detangle your cousin's hair, and the judgements in your mind.

"Is it the news itself that troubles you, or the match made for you?" Arwen asks. She's always so eloquent, and wise beyond the years she has spent on this world.

You shrug. "I have always known I was to be married off, Arwen," you remind her softly, your fingers working around a particularly hard knot on her dark mane.

You think back of when you were children, playing in the halls of the palace. While you had stayed focused on your books, sharpening your mind, she had caught sight of Aragorn, and pledged her love and allegiance before your parents had ever thought their children could fall in love, or fall into a tactical place for love to come later. Perhaps because Arwen was promised, the elite who hid away in their council hall had decided you were the next best noble-blooded She-Elf to be wed away to strengthen allies.