The Prince's Pretend Mother

Another (updated 11/7)

(Set a few decades to a century following the epilogue.)

Inladris sat with her chin propped in her hand, head angled toward the green and gold pouring in through the window, a furrow in her brow deep enough to plant flowers.

Thranduil's eyes flicked toward her, from his desk to hers, and noted the stack of papers at her elbow from which she'd withdrawn her attention. Something out the window which didn't exist seemed to have absorbed a great deal of her focus, but he couldn't imagine what. At last he said, "What in particular occupies the depths of your mind today?"

She inhaled to answer, paused, then the crease in her brow deepened. One of her fingers tapped the corner of her lips.

"It's long since you," he remarked, still sorting papers of his own, "have been shy with me."

She softly chuckled. "Indeed." She sighed.

"And?"

Her lips pursed as she thought. "I want another child."

Thranduil's eyebrows rose. "Ah." 

He sat back, hands stilling as they folded over his stomach, considering. The window offered him no insights further than those he could glean from his bookshelves. Another glance to Inladris gave him surprise, though. Clearly she had been ruminating over this desire for some time—or he presumed she had—and her fervent cogitation now was, he suspected, more over how to share this desire with him than in an effort to satisfy her own wishes.

What surprised him most was that this eventuality hadn't occurred to him earlier. Inladris was not prone to veiling either her thoughts or her feelings. So why, then, had she neglected to share this feeling in particular?

Momentarily, he worried that she had been afraid of what he would say on the matter. But then he closed his eyes, amused, because he knew it was no such thing. Inladris had been concerned not about his opinions on her having more children, but on his having them, since this was, these days, equally her house as his, and he would be committing just as many years to an additional child's upbringing as would she, if not nearly so many hours.

The corner of his mouth twitched up. Thranduil lifted his pencil again and returned to his work. "When will they arrive?"

She started, her chin lifting from her palm as she looked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

He inhaled. "Nelide's intention was to have numerous children. I prepared for and welcomed that eventuality. We have plentiful resources here, in space and money and you."

His gaze flicked up and he noted the warming of her eyes.

"I come last, do I?" she teased.

"I wanted to be sure you heard the rest. At any rate, it would be a shame for those resources to go to waste."

Inladris blinked, wiping her eyes on her fingers. "But what about my work with you."

Thranduil made a dismissive sound, flipping a hand. "I survived before your assistance. Do what you can, and expend no worry on the rest."

Inladris sniffed. "But what about you?"

The side of his mouth drew up again. Minimally, but present. He knew exactly what he meant, and exactly why she'd never mentioned this before. "I have grown."

Inladris wiped her eyes again. "Tauriel told me about that—what you said about loss. I thought it a very apt way to describe the phenomenon."

"I'd had a great deal of time to consider it. And a lot has changed in the last thousand years."