Fic - At the Foot of the Mountain - 1/1

[evandar]

Title: At the Foot of the Mountain
Author: Evandar
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Pairing: Bard/Thranduil
Genre: Gen
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The Elvenking helps Bard prepare for the start of a war and reminds him that there is more to the Kings of Men and Elves than merely their titles.
Author's Notes: This was written for lynndyre as part of rarepairfest 2014. It's a rare pair that's really, really caught my eye so there may be more further down the line. I really enjoyed writing this.

The Elvenking enters his tent with only a faint, surprised murmur from a guard to herald him. The guard is new. Bard is new enough himself to share that surprise: the Elvenking is resplendent in black and silver armour, his hair flowing down his back in a river of starlight. He is tall, powerful, and entirely out of place in the best of Laketown's remaining tents.

"My King," Bard says when the shock has passed enough for him to speak. He bows awkwardly, unused to such an action. He never bowed to the Master, though the man would undoubtedly have liked it, and while he knows enough to know who the Elenking is, he has never seen him before.

He has been thrust into the role of leader, but he has a sense that he's going to be terrible at it. At the very least, his diplomacy is lacking.

But the Elvenking bows his head in return and approaches. His hands skim over the shoulders of Bard's jerkin and a faint frown line materialises between his thick brows. Bard holds his breath. It's the closest he's ever been to an Elf, and the stories of their beauty are highly understated. The Elvenking is at once impossibly lovely, like a character from a story told to children, and incredibly real. He's breathing, Bard can feel it against his cheek. His hands are warm and strong, deceptively so, given how cold the King looks in his pallor.

"The Lord of Men in the North will ride to battle in better armour than this," he says.

Bard swallows. His voice is as deep as the lake and just, he thinks, as dangerous. "I am an oarsman," he says, "and a smuggler. I am no Lord. The people follow me because they know not what else to do."

The Elvenking looks at him, head cocked to one side like a bird. His eyes are so very blue - the exact shade, Bard does not know, but one he suspects is not for such common creatures as Men - and they are so very old. The weight of their gaze upon him is heavy. But slowly, the Elvenking smiles, and he makes a noise low in his throat that could well be either approval or amusement.

"I am a healer," he says. "I studied sorcery at the feet of a great queen, long ago, and turned my hand to the aid of others." His hand squeezes Bard's shoulder lightly. "When her kingdom fell through treachery and greed, some remains of her people followed my father over the mountains to the Greenwood as it was then, and this healer became first a prince and then a king. So we are neither of us lords, Bard of Laketown, but nor do we have a choice but to lead those who chose us."

He doesn't know what to say - if there is anything he can say. His mind catches on the way his name sounded on the Elvenking's lips; he made it sound as fair and fey as any Elvish name; like a name that could be respected.

"Thank you," he says, because he has an overwhelming sense that this is an uncommon occurrence and that the Elvenking rarely speaks of his life before he was such. He knows that it is strange to him that the Elvenking could have come from anywhere else; he has been a part of Mirkwood for as far back as the stories of Dale reach. That he was ever anywhere else, that he was ever a child...

The Elvenking smiles, somehow managing to make it look solemn, and lowers his hands. Within two strides he is at the flap of the tent, commanding whoever waits for him outside in what must be Elvish. It sounds like music flowing from the King’s tongue, rising and falling like a song, and sensuous. Bard stares at his back, at the silver woven into his hair; he cannot see him as anything other than a King, no matter what his origins, and that – perhaps – is the point.

Elves enter the tent. Unlike their King, they are brown and russet haired, and they are clad in forest greens and browns; bronze-coloured armour covering their chests and their forearms. They are bearing armour richer than their own in their arms. He knows by looking at it that it is steel, though its scrolling decorations seem to be embossed in a pale silver – the same starlit shade of silver as the Elvenking’s hair. They lay it on the table and depart with a wave of their King’s hand.

They are, quite suddenly, alone again.

“What is this?” Bard asks.

“It is armour fit for a leader of Men,” the Elvenking replies. “Battles are different from dragons.”

He sounds like someone who knows. Bard wants desperately to ask, but he holds his tongue. He has spent too long training his children in the art of discretion to disobey his own rules, no matter how great the temptation. Besides, the Elvenking is by his side once more, close enough for Bard to feel his breath again. He looks up into those ancient eyes and feels his breath catch once more as long fingers brush his cheek, stroking over lines and stubble. They’re so soft against his weather-roughened skin that were it not for the movement in the corner of his eye, he would think he was dreaming it.

“You have been luckier than you know, Bard of Laketown,” the Elvenking murmurs. “But though you may pray for it, you cannot trust your luck to hold. Especially when there are those who need you to survive.”

It’s not the townspeople he thinks of, then. Not the ones who have decided that his lineage is enough to overcome a lifetime of poverty and make a Lord of him. He thinks of his children. Of Sigrid, Bain, and Tilda, who are without a home now; who are camped in the eaves of the forest with those of the Elvenking’s people who remained to guard them, and those of Laketown too young, old or sick to fight.

He stands still as the Elvenking moves around him. The weight of the armour the Elvenking straps to his body is the weight of responsibility – it is familiar, in a way that he thought it could never be – and he finds himself standing straighter under it. But his hands still tremble when the Elvenking tightens the leather straps of his new gauntlets about his arms. He clenches his fingers to try and hide it, even though he knows that the movement has already have been seen.

Finally, the Elvenking steps back. His task is done and Bard is clad in protective steel, and he thinks he catches a smile on the King’s face as he tilts his head to the side once more.

But it is a sad smile, one that Bard thinks is contemplating things from long ago; tragedies long passed into myths of Men.

“Tell me,” he says. “What was he called? The healer who lived before the Elvenking.”

The smile is definitely there this time, and the difference it makes is astonishing. So much so that Bard wonders how he could ever have thought the Elvenking looked cold. He is light itself; dazzling.

“I am Thranduil Oropherion,” is the reply.

Thranduil. It suits him, Bard thinks. Strong and strange all at once. He bows his head. He could speak of the honour he feels, or the gratitude, but instead he remains silent. There are final negotiations to make and a war to wage should they – when they – fail, and he suspects that all things he could say are things that Thranduil already knows. So instead he swears an oath of friendship in his heart, and follows Thranduil out of his tent and into the light.

He emerges, blinking, the Lord of Dale.