Work Text:
You’re used to the looks.
You’ve lived with them your entire life. Though, admittedly, you grew up among your Noldorin relatives and they were much better at relegating their judgement to the lift of an eyebrow, a stare that lingered just too long, or –if they were feeling especially rude– a snide comment or two. But your Silvan and Sindarin cousins have no such subtlety.
At first, their outright jokes and laughter had shocked you, but you’re getting used to that now. At least it’s more or less died down now that King Thranduil (of all people!) has declared his interest.
Of course, that came with its own issues.
The laughter was now replaced with nasty glares.
You can’t blame anyone for it. What Elf–anu or inu– didn’t fantasize about the king of the Woodland Realm? Thranduil is breathtaking: seven feet tall, silver-haired, and built like a Vala. You’re still not sure what he sees in you.
Neither is anyone else.
And they make that known as loudly as they dare. But, of course, never in front of their king.
Usually you can more or less ignore the scowls and pretend the laughter isn’t about you. But today Thranduil is out on a hunt and, as the saying goes, while the cat’s away…
…the mice are downright malicious.
The tailor sticks you with another pin and you have to suck in a sharp breath at the sting of pain. He shoots you a smile that’s more cheshire than apologetic, almost daring you to accuse him of doing it on purpose.
“Forgive me. I am unused to working with someone of your…shape.”
You stare at him, in half a mind to just walk out on the fitting, as you feel your face heat in a mixture of shame and anger. You clench your fists at your side but you keep your expression as neutral as you can. You’re under enough scrutiny as it is. The last thing you need is to add “hot-tempered shrew” to your list of faults.
“No harm done,” you say, trying to sound as magnanimous as you can. As a queen would be. You’re going to be one after all.
He flashes another façade of a friendly smile and returns to draping the mockup over you. There’s a party coming up and Thranduil has commissioned a new gown for you: something befitting of his Intended.
The tailor only gets halfway through pinning it up when he stops and starts taking it all off of you again, muttering: no, no, no– it’s all wrong!
You frown at him. He calls for his assistant to start remeasuring, and you have to roll your eyes as the brown-haired ellon comes over with the tape and draws it around your too-wide hips.
“Master tailor, you’ve already taken a thousand measurements!” you complain.
“Yes,” he snaps, “And I shall have to take a thousand more. I cannot finish the fitting today, I fear. The mockup hangs all wrong on all of those…” he drags his eyes up and down your body and vaguely gestures to all of you, and despite yourself you shrink a little on the pedestal. He means your hips. Your breasts. Your thighs. Everything about you that’s too much. It’s all too much. It always has been.
And it hurts.
You hate that it hurts. It shouldn’t hurt. You shouldn’t let it hurt you, but it does. As soon as you reached your half-majority, you started growing differently to your other Elvish peers. Clothes have always been a struggle as every single tailor tried to squash you into a silhouette that you just don’t have.
You can’t decide if it would be better if Thranduil was here or not. The tailor wouldn’t dream of insulting you like this if he was here, but you hadn’t wanted to keep Thranduil from his hunt and you also aren’t sure that you could bear to be poked and prodded and measured with him watching.
They were talking about you now –the tailor and his assistant– complaining about you and making all the jokes you’ve heard before. You try not to listen and stand still, fingers still balled up into fists, tears brimming in your eyes that you don’t dare try and wipe away. You don’t want to give them the satisfaction.
“I just don’t know what he expects me to do,” the tailor grumbled.
His assistant chuckles around the pins he has in his mouth as he kneels to adjust the new hem to accommodate your legs –which are far shorter than the average elleth’s.
“I am not a worker of miracles, you have to understand,” the tailor goes on. “But I am doing my best.”
Numbly, you nod, hoping that the stiller you stand and the quieter you stay, the faster this whole humiliating experience can be over.
The assistant takes the last pin out of his mouth and finishes the hem. He stands and steps back, studying their work side-by-side with the tailor and mutters with a helpless shrug:
“There is not much you can do. I am not certain even lady Vaire herself could make one of the Naugrim look like one of the Eldar.”
The tailor claps a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
Don’t you dare cry.
“Half- naugrim,” the tailor corrects– as if he’s being charitable. “Even so, I would never in a thousand years think our king would deign to take a half-naugrim for a concubine.”
He says it so casually. Like you aren’t even there. You can’t even see through your tears. Shaking, you climb down from the pedestal with the mockup fabric bunched around you, ready to bolt out of the room. You don’t even care that you’re not properly dressed. You just want out of here.
The voice from the doorway stops you dead.
“Even if I did, it would be no concern of yours, master tailor.”
It rings through the room like a lightning strike. Thranduil stands in the door, filling it, wearing his hunting gear and an expression that could freeze a balrog solid.
“ How dare you,” Thranduil thunders, striding into the room to step between you and them, gathering you up underneath his arm. He still smells like the forest he’s been out in: like green growing things and rich loam. He wipes at your tears with the leather-gloved pad of his thumb and murmurs in your ear: “ You’re perfect.”
“– We– we did not mean to insult you, sire,” the tailor tries. He’s gone as white as the mockup muslin.
“No. Indeed you did not. You meant to insult my Intended. But,” he tisks, “In the end you only succeeded in insulting yourself.” His voice is icy; his arm around you is tight. He stands tall as an oak, towering over the two of them and they seem to shrink in his shadow. “I had thought you were a skilled enough tailor to create something worthy of my Beloved. Clearly I was mistaken. Fear not: I never make the same mistake twice.”
“–Sire–”
He holds up one gloved hand. The tailor shuts his mouth and squirms beneath his glare.
“You’re relieved of your position,” Thranduil snaps. “You have three hours to pack your things and head for the borders of Greenwood. I suggest you make haste before I decide to have my soldiers drag you there by your ears. Get out.”
The tailor flees. His assistant, however, hovers nervously and Thranduil’s predatory glower turns on him.
“Have you lost your hearing?”
“Please, my king. I am just his assistant–”
“–Oh. Good. Then you may assist him with his luggage on your journey out of Greenwood.”
The assistant actually bursts into tears. Thranduil’s face remains impassive– even vaguely disgusted. The ellon runs out and you almost feel sorry for him.
“You didn’t need to banish them,” you whisper once they’re both gone.
“I will suffer no one to abide in my kingdom who sees fit to mock my queen,” Thranduil replies, voice knife-sharp, turning to face you.
“Then you’d have to banish half your subjects, and that’s hardly practical.”
You hate the way your voice shakes just as much as you hate the way his whole body goes stiff.
“Why did you not tell me of this, mîr nín ?” He sounds both horrified and furious.
“Are you that blind?” you scoff. “ Look at me!”
A heavy silence passes between you two. Your eyes, the treacherous things, are still leaking water and you hate yourself for it.
Thranduil’s gaze is a weight pressing on top of you. It sears you to your core. He peels off his riding gloves and tosses them carelessly onto the tailor’s table, then presses the crook of his finger beneath your chin.
When you meet his glittering blue eyes, the expression in them is so intense it knocks all the air out of you.
“I am,” he says, voice suddenly impossibly soft. “I am looking at you.”
Habitually, you avert your eyes. It’s too much. You’re still flushed red with shame.
He grips your chin and commands: “Look at me.”
You do. His gaze is no less intense. He winds an arm around your waist, dipping until your noses brush together and you can feel his warm breath ghosting across your lips.
“I burn for you,” he hisses. “You enchant me. You undo me utterly, gil-mîr. I do not concern myself with the opinions of others, least of all that fool of a tailor.”
Your mouth trembles. He brushes his thumb over it and then presses a kiss to your lips. Usually his kisses are fire, possessive, consuming, passionate, leaving you breathless. This one is gentle, almost chaste, and dripping with pure adoration.
“You will be no concubine. You will be my wife. Their queen. I would have them all see you as such.”
You close your eyes and rest your head on his shoulder, and he winds his other arm around you and cards his hand through your hair. He’s so much taller. So strong. Pure power bound up in every inch of him. He makes you feel so safe.
“I don’t want to go to that party,” you mumble.
“And deny yourself the pleasure of making them all sick with envy? Please.”
You smile into his shoulder. “And how, dear Beloved, am I to do that without a gown?”
“You shall have a gown,” he growls back. “A gown such that no one as ever seen, laden with so many white gems they shall think Elbereth herself has come down from the heavens to Greenwood. You shall have it even if I must hold a hundred thousand tailors at swordpoint to get it.”
It’s so dramatic. So very him.
It makes you warm in the very best of ways. You take his face in your hands and stand on your toes to press a kiss to his forehead.
“Do not. I fear we would run out of tailors.”
Thranduil looks entirely unbothered when he replies:
“For you, that is a price I am willing to pay.”