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Something had been bothering Thranduil for a while, about a month, Bard reckoned. It had been around a month since Thranduil had shown Bard his scars. It wasn’t anything obvious, at least not a first. Bard had only noticed recently, but in hindsight he could see it had been happening for a little while, slowly getting worse.
Thranduil was melancholy in a way he had never been before, at least with him. He took less delight in the things that they did. Last week Bard had taken him to a little pool he had found in the trees at the bottom of the mountain, it was beautiful, but Thranduil had seemed almost absent.
Thranduil’s smiles to him and his family had become almost sad. He still braided Tilda’s hair whenever she asked and gave Bain lessons in how to rule (far better than any Bard could supply) and he still helped Sigrid in learning the art of healing as well as was possible for a mortal. And yet, he seemed low and increasingly detached from what he was doing.
Bard was trying everything to make Thranduil happy, doing all of the things he knew Thranduil loved, all the things that made him laugh, taking him to the places that were theirs. But nothing worked, if anything it was just making Thranduil sadder. His laugh was broken and small, not musical and loud as it once was. He looked at their places ruefully and Bard could see he was filled with sorrow.
Bard didn’t know what was wrong.
He didn’t know how to fix it.
He desperately needed to fix it.
Thranduil was spending slightly less time with him as well, he would say he had duties to attend to, but Bard knew that he had no more than he had had months ago. And Thranduil’s voice had been hollow as he said it.
Bard was terrified, he didn’t know what was wrong with Thranduil. And he was just so sad. Sigrid had noticed the change in Thranduil.
“Da, is Thranduil okay? He seems, I don’t know, sad? Is he alright, are you two aright?” She had asked him one night, after Tilda and Bain were in bed.
Bard had meant to reassure her, but he couldn’t.
“I don’t know darlin’. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Is what had fallen out of his mouth instead, he wasn’t surprised at how broken his voice sounded.
“Oh, da.” Sigrid had replied at the sound of his voice, gathering him up in her arms; that should’ve been his job with her. Sigrid ignored the tears that fell as he held onto her.
Bard was terrified Thranduil was pulling away because he is losing interest in him. How long could he have hoped to hold the attention of such an ancient and beautiful being really?
He had hoped forever. For his whole life.
He had forgotten how to be alone, without the kind of companionship and comfort that came from being with your love. He didn’t know how he could go back.
But if Thranduil was pulling away, growing bored; why did he seem so sad all of the time.
Bard didn’t understand.
They were in the forest a few days after Sigrid had asked him what was wrong. Thranduil was showing him parts of the forest he had never seen before, there was so much of it. Before, whenever he walked through the trees with Thranduil, it had been like walking through the Greenwood of old, Thranduil’s presence lifting the shadow.
Today the shadow almost darkened. Like the dark circles under Thranduil’s eyes.
“Thranduil.” Bard blurted as he noticed the dark circles, taking the Elvenking’s bicep in his large had to stop him from walking.
“Yes, Meleth nín?” Thranduil asked with another of those broken smiles that were breaking Bard’s heart slowly.
“What is wrong? Please tell me. You seem so sad and I cannot bear it. I would give anything to make you smile as you once did, to make you laugh again. Please, my love, what is it?” Thranduil did not answer, he just looked at the floor, sorrow colouring his face as it did so often these days. Bard started to take his hand away
“If you have grown tired of me, wish me to leave, I ca–”
“No!” Thranduil almost shouted, grabbing Bard’s hand and whipping his head up from where it was tilted towards the ground, now fixing his gaze on Bard. “Never think that. I could never grow tired of you. I will never.” Thranduil said with such a force of conviction that Bard was helpless but to believe it.
“Then why do you pull away? What troubles you, why are you so sad?” Bard pleaded Thranduil, searching his face desperately for an answer.
“Because of that exact reason, Meleth nín, I will never stop loving you. And I find it impossible to forget, even for a second, that your death looms over us, pressing ever closer. Melithon le anuir, meleth nín, guren min gaim lín. And though you will not mean to, you will break it, you will break me.
“I find it hard to enjoy what we have now, because even if you lived the longest lifespan possible for a man, you will still die. You will still leave me here all alone, doomed to remember you for eternity but never to see you again. Forced to see ghosts of you all around these halls, the forest, even Dale; but never to actually be allowed to set eyes on you ever again. It will be unendurable. One hundred years is nothing to an elf, and you will not even live that long.
“I do not know how I will survive losing you. I don’t know if I care to either.” Thranduil finished quietly, Bard took Thranduil’s face in his hands at his words.
“Don’t you dare talk like that. Do you hear me.” Bard demanded, unable to hear Thranduil allude to ending his own life just because of Bard, he would not allow it. But Thranduil just tilted his face away. Bard could see the wateriness of his own eyes reflected in Thranduil’s.
“You lost your wife, and you have carried on, you were able to love again. It may not seem like it now or when it happens, but you will be alright again, you will be able to let me go.” Bard continued, squeezing Thranduil’s slender hand in his own.
“But I will not! Not ever. Loving you is not a choice, it was never a choice. Do you think I would have allowed my heart to give itself to a mortal man doomed to die if I had anything to say about it. I loved my wife, I truly did, but it is nothing to this. It was expected of us to marry, and we loved in the reserved way elves do.
“But you, you are a force of nature that I am helpless against, I have never experienced anything like it and I never will again. You are the person I want an eternity with but I will. Not. Get. It. You will die and shadows of you will haunt me forever. I will linger on with only sadness to face until the end of days. I cannot lose you. I can’t.”
Tears were slipping from Thranduil’s eyes no matter how hard he was clearly trying to stop them running down his face as he despaired about their future. Bard felt as though there was a knife twisting in his heart as he heard Thranduil’s devastating words.
He pulled his love into his chest and held him tightly in his arms. Thranduil buried his face in Bard’s neck and he could feel the wetness of tears slipping onto his skin though he was silent in his grief.
“You haven’t, not yet. But I know that you will and I cannot imagine facing that prospect, how hard it must be. Truly I cannot. The thought of losing you, you getting brought down in battle, is one I will not think about because it causes me so much pain. I cannot imagine what it would feel like for it to be inevitable.
“But it makes it even more important that you cherish and enjoy the time that we do have, what little of it there is. I wish with all my heart that I could give you more, I would stay with you forever, I would never leave you alone, but I can’t. So you must live in the now, not fifty years in the future, please I beg of you; don’t waste this.” Bard begged desperately, pressing kisses into Thranduil’s platinum hair
“I– ”
“Please don’t push me away. Don’t make me lose you as well.” Bard interrupted, practically sobbing into Thranduil’s hair, terrified that he was going to be asked to leave.
It was selfish of him. If Thranduil wanted him to go then he should. He should leave his love to deal with his mortality however he saw best. He was not the one that would be forced to go on. But he could not stomach the idea. The thought of never seeing him again had bile rising up in his throat and tears streaming freely down his face. The thought alone was breaking him.
“I could never leave you. Even if I should. Even if it will kill me not to. I could never. I will be here always, until you are forced to leave me, and then after that, I will still be here.” Thranduil sighed into the embrace and placing a light kiss on Bard’s neck, where his head was buried.
“Promise me something.”” Bard whispered into the quiet, both unwilling to let go.
“Anything, Meleth nín.”
“Promise me you will enjoy the time we have. That you will not spend our days dreading what is to come. I cannot bear it when you are sad as you have been. Promise me that you will let yourself enjoy what we have, while I have it.”
“I promise.” Thranduil answered, lifting his head but staying firmly in the circle of Bard’s arms, pressing kiss to his lips gently.
“And promise me that when I am gone. You will carry on, you will let me go and you will learn to smile again. For the world is a little less bright without it.”
“I cannot make a promise I do not know if I will be able to keep.”
“Please, dar–” Bard began to plead.
“But I promise that I shall try.” Thranduil finished.
Bard brushed some of his long hair back and buried his hand in it to bring him in for a long, slow kiss. It was deep and sweet, allowing themselves to lose themselves in it, in each other. It was an unhurried drag of lips and tongues, it was a future.
It was a promise.