#linwe

Lord Vehiron smiled, his warrior braids glittering with pearls, black opals, moonstones, and silver beads. “I thought you might be interested to know how many times you have swept your hand through your hair in the last twelve minutes.”

 “Does it make a difference to you if I am not?” Oropher asked.

 “Six times,” Vehiron promptly informed him. “That is excessive.”

 “You came into my private space uninvited. Do not then complain about the way I behave in here,” Oropher said irritably.

 “Not even Cousin Luthavar touches his hair that often,” Vehiron added.

 “Good for Cousin Luthavar,” Oropher retorted, raising his hands defensively. He picked up his quill and tried to return his attention to the requisition order the healers had asked him to authorise for none other than Elder Luthavar himself. He had been making good progress on his work before his younger brother had come in, but now the words swam on the page. Anger threatened to overtake mere annoyance, but then he made himself stop and think. For the briefest of moments, Vehiron had made him forget. He hadn’t been a weary warrior or a desperate father or a tired King. He had just been an elf annoyed with his little brother, and right then that was simpler than any other role he had to play. He looked up, and met the younger ellon’s beryl green eyes. “Thank you.”

 Vehiron just nodded, smiling slightly. He understood. “Go. See your son.”

 “Muindor,” Oropher sighed, feeling exasperated all over again. “I would spend every hour of every day with Thranduil if I thought it would make a difference, but it hasn’t and it won’t. The world hasn’t stopped turning just because he…” The words wouldn’t come. They stuck in Oropher’s throat, paining him. “I will see my son when I have time,” he finished quietly, when he had steadied himself. “At the moment, I do not. I still have to be Aran Oropher.” Even when all I want to be is Ada.

 “The world hasn’t stopped turning,” Vehiron agreed quietly. “But yours has.”

 Oropher looked down and organised his paperwork into a neat pile, for no reason other than he needed the distraction to hold tears at bay. He had shed enough of those over the last eleven days and fourteen hours, alone or with those few elves he trusted implicitly. Vehiron was one of them, but Oropher was tired of tears. They couldn’t save his son and so they served no purpose. He looked up again only when the papers were perfectly linear and to do anything more to them would just be excessive. “I might delegate this to you,” he said offhandedly.

 “You might,” Vehiron agreed.

 “Very well,” Oropher said, rising. “But do not work past midnight.”

 “I will work until the work is done, muindor,” Vehiron replied.

 “No, you will work until midnight and then you will stop and seek your rest, and I will deal with whatever is left in the morning,” Oropher said firmly. “It isn’t up for discussion, muindor-laes. I need you healthy.”

 “Then let us compromise, and say that I will stop when I reach a natural break,” Vehiron suggested. “Else you won’t make sense of your work when you return to it.”

 Oropher conceded the point with a sigh and a nod as he picked up his forest green cloak, but he made a mental note to have someone check on Vehiron after midnight. His brother was good at promising to take care of himself, but he wasn’t good at following through with it. Much like Oropher himself, and their father from whom they had inherited it, and Thranduil who was just the same. It was a family trait that the Queen of Greenwood had often despaired of along with stubbornness and recklessness. The King gave Vehiron’s shoulder a grateful squeeze on his way out of the royal pavilion, and the Captain of his guard fell into step behind him as he walked away, a steady yet reassuring presence at his back.

 The ground crackled lightly beneath their feet as they walked. So close to Mordor it was often sweltering and uncomfortable even for the elves when the sun was at her highest, but at night it wasn’t unusual for the temperatures to plummet so much that layers of frost formed. Most of Oropher’s elves who weren’t committed to patrol or other duties were already sheltering in their tents. Some yet remained around the campfires, and he paused to briefly speak with them. His heart was elsewhere, but he was still their King. He still had a duty to them. None of them kept him for longer than a minute though. That late at night, it was obvious where he was going. None wished to deprive him.

 His ears ringing with so many good wishes for his son, Oropher finally reached the healing tents. They were quiet but not truly silent. They never were, not even in the dead of night, and Oropher knew that because he had spent many an early hour there. If it wasn’t the footsteps of a healer making their rounds, it was a feverish warrior tossing and turning or a traumatised soldier waking from a nightmare with a shout of fear. It was impossible to escape the war even for a second. It was always there, an inescapable fact of thousands of lives.

 The sight of the two ellyn standing guard outside the private bell tent where Thranduil lay sent both fondness and exasperation rushing through Oropher. Not three days before, a serious conversation had taken place between the three of them in which he had made it abundantly clear to Linwë Carandirion and Veassen Taldurion that he expected at least a few hours of their free time to be spent in bed. He didn’t expect it every day, for sometimes the requirements of war prohibited rest. He also didn’t expect them to sleep every time they sought their beds, for sometimes the nightmares of war made it impossible, and he knew that all too well. He had, however, expected some measure of obedience from them, especially the generally sensible and well-behaved Veassen, but it seemed they had both developed selective hearing. It was almost a relief to Oropher that his wife’s little cousin Fileg Halmirion had fractured his ankle the week before and, confined to bed, was one less young elf for him to worry about.

 “I find myself surprised by your presence, my young warriors,” he remarked. Linwë stood a little straighter but steadily met his eyes, while Veassen dropped his chocolate brown gaze to the floor. The King thought that was less to do with him and more to do with Veassen’s grandfather standing just off to the side. He had heard the slight creak of leather armguards as Captain Rhoven folded his arms, and he knew that wasn’t usually a good sign. “I seem to recall discussing this with you both very recently.”

 “You did, your Majesty, and we listened,” Linwë said. “But when we left from visiting Thranduil this evening, we offered to relieve his guards so they could get dinner.”

 “That offer was well made,” Oropher acknowledged. “When are you expecting them to return from dinner?”

 “They…they returned already, your Majesty,” Veassen said nervously, looking up.

 “Ah. And where are they now?” Oropher asked calmly. “Having dessert?”

 Nearby torches illuminated the rosy blush that coloured Veassen’s cheeks. “Perhaps they are, sir.”

 “Enough of that, elfling,” Captain Rhoven snapped from behind Oropher.

 “Lieutenant Carthalon and Lieutenant Angtheldir came back from dinner two hours ago, and we told them – or rather, I told them – to leave again,” Linwë said, taking pity on Veassen. “They didn’t want to, but I didn’t give them much of a choice, so you can’t blame them.”

 Oropher put one hand on Linwë’s shoulder and the other on Veassen’s, and he drew the young elves in closer to him. “I know,” he said quietly. “You miss him. You want to be near him. Believe me, I know. Your dedication to my son, your heart-brother, is something that I have always treasured but I need you to take care of yourselves as well. The two of you are doing too much, especially now that you are both looking after Fileg as well. If Thranduil wakes and finds you both exhausted…”

 If. It was just a turn of phrase, but it stopped Oropher dead as he realised what he had said. Linwë was suddenly as stiff as a statue, his expression stony, and Veassen looked in dismay between the two of them. “With your permission, sire, I’ll escort our young warriors back to their pavilion myself,” Captain Rhoven interjected. He clapped a hand on Veassen’s shoulder, making his grandson squirm unhappily. “I’ll see to it that they get their rest. And that we don’t have any more of this nonsense.”

 “Very good, Captain,” Oropher agreed distantly.

 He didn’t watch Rhoven leave with the lieutenants, or pay attention to their receding footsteps or the quiet scolding his captain was delivering. His eyes were fixed on the canvas door to the tent. He had lost count of how many times he had stepped through it over the last couple of weeks, but it never got any easier. The fear of what he might find on the other side never changed. Taking a deep breath, the King of Greenwood put his hand out and swept the flap aside. He stepped into the tent only to immediately stop, caught off guard. The raised bed that his son had been in since that fateful day was still there, and Thranduil still occupied it, deathly pale as if Mandos was only just out of reach. A healer was present, as always, but tonight he wasn’t making observations or administering medicine or whatever else he and his fellows did to keep Oropher’s child alive. Tonight, the healer was asleep.

 Oropher felt as though he had stepped into a private and intimate scene as he gazed at his son’s fingers entwined with the healer’s, but he didn’t begrudge Nestorion those close and quiet moments alone. Six yéni of standing in for Oropher when he couldn’t be Ada because he had to be King had earned Nestorion the right to them. He had loved Thranduil, taught him, disciplined him, laughed with him and wiped his tears, healed his hurts, and taken as much pride in him and his accomplishments as Oropher and Felith had. He belonged at Thranduil’s side. Feeling like an intruder, Oropher hesitantly took a step back. He wasn’t used to being the one to leave. Still, Thranduil would be there tomorrow. Unless he dies before then, said a nasty little voice somewhere in his head that made him catch his breath.

 It made Nestorion wake, and he sat up slowly. “Forgive me, aran-nín,” he murmured, brushing strands of pale chestnut hair out of his eyes. “I did not know you were there.”

 “No, I was at fault. It was not my intention to disturb you. I…” Oropher’s eyes went back to his son. He couldn’t deal with niceties and pleasantries when he had to know. “How is he?”

 “I wish I could tell you something new,” Nestorion said quietly. He tucked Thranduil in more securely, and gently passed a hand across his patient’s pale brow. “There is no change.”

 Oropher hadn’t considered it before, but now he reflected that it seemed cruel to make the Master Healer say out loud every day that there were no signs of Thranduil waking. It must pain Nestorion to say it as much as it pained him to hear it. “But he has still been breathing by himself?” the King asked.

 “Yes, and that is more than we had expected,” Nestorion replied.

 The poison on the edge of the blade that had sliced through a gap in Thranduil’s armour had succeeded. He had died in his father’s arms on the battlefield. Oropher had felt it. He’d felt that spark go out, the breaking of the bond that had tied them together as father and son for just short of a thousand years. For a minute that had felt like an immortal lifetime, there had been nothing. But Thranduil had come back. By the grace of the Valar, and his father’s love and rage, and the skills of the healers, he had defied the odds and returned to life – if life it could be called, when he lay there as if he had remained dead. It had to be better than nothing. That was what Oropher told himself. If he let Thranduil go, that was it. Over. Finished. But if Thranduil was breathing – and he was, and there hadn’t been any breathing complications for nearly a full week now – then that meant there was hope.

 “I will leave the two of you alone,” Nestorion said softly, as he got to his feet.

 “Don’t go,” Oropher replied. “Please. Stay with me. With him. You have every right.”

 Nestorion paused for just a moment before resuming his seat at Thranduil’s bedside with a quiet nod of gratitude to Oropher. King and healer sat opposite each other, both holding a pale hand in theirs. “I remember the first time I ever met him,” Nestorion murmured, breaking the silence. “It was twelve days before your coronation. You came to the palace with Thranduil and the Queen. Your brother was there, and his son, and Lord Herdir and Ivoniel. Elder Faelind and Elder Aermanis were showing you around and introducing you to your new staff. Elder Serellon and Elder Thavron were there to point out interesting facts about the structure of the palace, and Elder Luthavar…why was he there, again?”

 “To this day I don’t know,” Oropher admitted, with a small and reluctant smile. “He took great joy in showing us all the hidden doors and passageways, and planting all sorts of mischievous thoughts into Thranduil’s mind. Poor Faelind was trying his best not to show us how vexed he was, when all he really wanted was to haul Luthavar across his knee.”

 “A sentiment felt by all of us to varying degrees of regularity.” Nestorion’s eyes gleamed with amusement, but he stopped short of laughing. It was hard to laugh when Thranduil lay like a marble statue between them. “Anyway…you didn’t make it to the healing wing until the afternoon. Thranduil stood between you and the Queen, with his hand in hers. He was so little. Not even waist-height. And he’d met so many new people and heard so many new names, and he had behaved so well all day, that he was too tired to even look at me. I was afraid that you would scold him for it but you didn’t. You just put your hand on his head. That was all it took. He stood straighter, as if he had drawn strength from you, and he met my eyes and gave me the sweetest smile. I knelt before him, and promised him that he could always come to me for help when he needed it.”

 “And you have been keeping him alive for me ever since,” Oropher said quietly.

 Nestorion nodded, his gaze going to Thranduil’s snow-white face. “Yes,” he agreed after a pause. “But you know, he took my words quite literally. He didn’t need healing the first few times he came to me for help.”

 “He didn’t?” Oropher repeated, his voice heavy with longing to hear more of the son he could never know enough about.

 “The first time he came to me it was because he had got lost trying to find his way to your study,” Nestorion recalled. “The second time, he wanted someone to help him finish a jigsaw puzzle. And the third time, he asked me to hide him because he was in trouble with Bereth Felith for inadvertently frightening one of her ladies with a mouse he wasn’t supposed to have. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was a healer and not an all-round helper in all things. It was only on our fourth meeting, when he came to me with a splinter in his finger, that I had cause to actually heal him.”

 “Times were much easier then,” Oropher said, stroking his son’s cheek with the back of his finger. “He was easier to protect. I wish splinters and trouble were all he had to fear, and that I could still strengthen him with the touch of my hand.”