A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Nineteenth Entry - Flames

"I heard somewhere," I tentatively began another day, "something about Tauriel being your foster daughter." When he didn't tell me I was wrong I continued. "May I ask why you took her in? Aren't kings very busy?"

"As king I am figuratively father to my people. All those without parents may come to me for shelter. They are all my children, in a sense."

I nodded. This made sense. He was sitting at his desk again, and I was sitting on the low wall not too far to his left. "Then what does that make me?" It was a question I had long been harboring, afraid to ask. I didn't know entirely how the elves regarded me, but it would help me to keep their opinions of me healthy if I understood.

Thranduil laid down his quill. He looked at me. "Then I suppose that would make you mine as well."

I didn't ask him to define 'mine'. I had about used up my bravery for the day. "I believe you would have made a much better father than mine did."

He inclined his head a fraction and returned to his documents. "I have done my very best."

I stood. "If the regard your people have for Legolas and Tauriel is any indication, you have done well."

I lightly touched one of the fine bones of his fingers that day, as gently as I possibly could. "You still don't seem entirely real to me," I admitted when he glanced at me. Some of his glances he permitted me to interpret. "There are no people in my world like you."

The next morning I came awake in starts and gasps. My entire body was filled with the remnants of the fire my father had thrown over me. My back had been splashed in flame. There was no dampening the agony of this injury, and as soon as I was fully awake I cringed against my mattress and howled.

Legolas—who had made a point since our quiet conversation to always be near when I woke in the mornings, was there within seconds. He threw open the door without hesitation and left the keys on the hook outside. He dropped to his knees beside me, saw the darkness seeping through the back of my tunic and without hesitation used one of his daggers to slice from the neckline of my borrowed tunic to the waist, so the livid injury spread across my back could breathe.

I heard the scuff of his boots on the stone as he flinched back and wondered if he had ever seen such an injury as this one. I couldn't see how he would have.

He leaped lightly over me to crouch in front of me and easily gathered me into his arms, avoiding touching my back at all. He sat me against him with my legs on either side of his waist, one of his arms supporting my weight beneath me and his other hand on the back of my neck to hold me to his chest so I wouldn't fall. He sprinted up the stairs, other elves who had heard me scream or hadn't pressing themselves to walls to make room as he passed. I couldn't decide if the cold breeze against my back was soothing or painful.

When we were nearing Nesetha's place of work I heard him shout her name ahead of himself so she would see us coming. As soon as she saw my back as he rushed toward her I heard her speaking rapidly, astonished and dismayed. I suppose they hadn't expected this level of damage. Legolas laid me on my side on the edge of a flat bed and the two of them eased me slowly so I was lying on my stomach. I was slightly propped up by my arms, which at the first touch of the injury had locked against my chest, hands fisted, as though the muscles to move them had been scorched too. In truth I was just afraid to move them in case I tore the skin that was already burned.

I was gasping, breath ragged, but I wasn't crying. I knew I was pale, and I felt nauseous as well. Nesetha took up a pair of shears and swiftly cut away all of the thick fabric near the sprawling wound and Legolas, who translated for her, took a place near my head and crouched where I could see him if I opened my eyes. "Mabyn, what can you tell Nesetha about your injury? What happened?"