I've been a fanfiction reader and writer since I was a child, dating back to at least 1994. Over the years many fandoms have crossed my path but my favourites are BBC Sherlock, Harry Potter, Star Wars (and several of its spin-offs like The Mandalorian), The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, The Sandman, and Loki. ๐
You can find my Masterlist here and how you can send me a fanfic request here
I'm happy to discuss and share headcanons about The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Hobbit. So far I have seen some really interesting posts written by my mutuals about their headcanons and it's lovely to see how inspiring books and films can be.
I'm a big fan of Tolkien's world, especially the Elves, their customs, life cycle, etc. My favourite Elves are Legolas, Thranduil and Haldir. ๐ I've also tried to teach myself a little Elvish and wrote a post about which sources are available online here
As of February 2026, I've been looking for a fanfiction beta reader who's a fan of Lord of the Rings. Please see my request here
Please note the following:
My blog is aimed at people who are over 18 years old. I don't write smut (yet) but the content of my blog is aimed at an adult audience so if you are a minor, please be aware of that. You might want to hang out at a different place. This information is to serve as my personal protection. I don't want minors messaging me that they're shocked about the adult content I share.
If you have an empty blog โ as in no profile picture, banner picture or/and content โ I will block you. I want to see some posts reblogged from whichever genre you like. Please make an effort to put up some info about you with a banner and picture. Bots are popping up everywhere, so if you have an empty blog, Iโm going to assume youโre a bot. Us creators need readers to reblog our work to get spread around on Tumblr. Please support us.
Posting this for my soul cat Kenzie (she passed a few years ago but I still think of her every single day) and for everyone else who has lost someone they love. โค๏ธ
Iโll try and reframe things this way. Maybe itโll help. It's been four months to the day since I had to say goodbye and it's still just as hard not having anyone to fall asleep grabbing my arm like a fat purring lemur. The grief just gets heavier and heavier as I find new things that used to be fun and aren't anymore now that he's gone. I don't know. I need to change something to make me start eating and interacting with the world again
Sorry to bother you, I like your works very much๐๐๐I want to know if you will continue to post thorinduil's works in the future.๐ฅน๐ฅน๐คฒ๐๐๐Thank you very much
Thank you for the message!
Iโve been busy with work lately and havenโt drawn any fan art at all. And itโs still unclear when I might draw again in the future. But I still love Thorinduil! Thank you๐๐
I guess posts have been made about where you can find references on Sindarin, Quenya, Nandorin, Old Elvish, and Noldorin among others on Tumblr but I wanted to make my own list (so I can come back to it when I need it). If you know a website you'd like me to consider for my list, please just mention it to me.
Ambar Eldaron โ Sindarin and Quenya dictionaries and courses
Ardalambion โ Website about the sounds of Tolkien's languages and their grammar
Automatic Quenya translator โ English to Quenya and back
Eldamo โ A lexicon of Tolkien's invented languages including fonts
Glรฆmscrafu โ This website explores the sounds of Tolkien's invented languages and includes several texts and poems
Gwaith-i-Phethdain, The Fellowship of the Word-Smiths โ Very detailed page by Ryszard Derdzinski. Many poems and calligraphies. Particularly noteworthy are the translations of the Elvish texts and songs from the film trilogy.
Hiswelokรซ's Sindarin Dictionary โ A Sindarin and Noldorin dictionary that was started in 1999 and then went on hiatus in 2008
I Lam Arth โ Aaron Shaw's site with a series of in-depth articles on Sindarin
Lalaith's Middle Earth Science Pages โ Website about Middle-earth's people, languages of the humans, and other things. This also includes Rohirric if you're into learning that.
Mellonath Daeron โ Some useful Elvish phrases
Parf Edhellen โ A Sindarin, Quenya, Primitive Elvish, and Noldorin dictionary. It's my favourite website because it also compares old and new translations.
Parma Tyelpelassiva โ Texts, songs, poems and grammar for Sindarin, Quenya, Andรปnaic, Noldorin, etc.
Quenya pronunciation guide
RealElvish โ Phrasebooks on Sindarin, Quenya, Andรปnaic, etc. including naming traditions and lists for Elves, Rohirrim, Hobbits, Dwarves (if you need it for a fanfiction)
Sindarin.de โ The first Sindarin website I frequented and where I learnt all the grammar. It's in German.
Sindarin phrasebook by slarmstrong โ There are 3 parts of this phrasebook
Sindanรณrie โ Site by Roman Rausch with articles on Telerin and word overlaps between the Elvish and real languages, poems, sound files, etc.
Tecendil โ If you want to see what your name or others look like in Elvish script
Tyalie Tyelellieva โ Website by Lisa Star but since geocities was taken down, it only exists in an archived form. It was last updated in 2004 but it also has a Khลซzdul or Dwarvish Wordlist.
Hellooo Iโm the one that sent the thandruil ask hehe. Sorry I didnโt include any details!! Umm Iโm not sure if you want match up details or just prompt details so Iโll do a little of both?
Iโm a relatively tall girl so maybe an elf or human reader whichever you like. And maybe you could do general headcanons of what you think heโd be like as a husband. You can throw in a few angst ones too but mostly fluff plssss..!!
Is that ok? I donโt know what Iโm doing.. thank you so much again ๐ฅบ๐ฅบ
Thranduil as a Husband
Thranduil x Reader
Fluff โกยด๏ฝฅแด๏ฝฅ`โก
Warnings: None!
A/N: Thank you for requesting Anon! Iโm sorry this took so long, I hope you see this. This is only my second time doing HCs so I hope itโs good!
Thranduil as a husband is *chefs kiss*
Absolute best husband ever, you canโt change my mind
His favorite time of the day are mornings!
Because he gets to wake up with you held tightly in his arms, sound asleep and content
Heโll have this soft, lopsided smile as he watches you sleep totally not in a creepy way
and press kisses to your forehead, cheeks, nose then your lips to wake you up
Thranduil adores the sleepy smile you grace him with when you do wake up
Depending on what duties the two of you have that day, your mornings will go two ways
Either super soft, taking your time getting dressed, basking in each otherโs warmth
Or spend the morning talking about what needs to be done for the day, sharing a kiss before splitting ways
He loves to spoil you so much with jewelry and clothes
And especially loves when you wear them! His heart really go ๐๐
His absolute favorite thing you wear would be diamond chokers, why? I donโt know- he just does
Itโs totally not because he loves to pull you in by it to give a passionate kiss Nah help Iโm simping
speAKING OF KISSES
Heโs the BEST at them like come on! It ainโt fair with how good he is
Each one is always so passionate and full of love no matter how soft or hard it is
They never fail to make your heart pound and cheeks heat up
Gets a shiz-eating grin on his face every. single. Time.
Like this Elf knows what heโs doing to you and loves every second of it
Everyday without fail he sends a bouquet of flowers to your office! And theyโre always perfect and smell amazing
But If you donโt like flowers then he would probably make a bouquet or food platter out of something you do like
Omg heโd definitely do something like this HAH
Babe is hella protective over you. Not in a overbearing, prevent you from ever doing stuff way
More of he knows the dangers of the world and lost his wife to it, so he wants to make sure youโre always safe
Because of this he also lowkey (highkey) gets jealous a lot
The kind of person to either glare down the elf flirting with you or go up and be very much obvious with his affections
Sometimes both! Not only is he protecting his lovely spouse but also gets you show you off
unless you hate PDA then heโll back off
Since being King is a very stressful job and thereโs not a lot of alone time, he prefers more relaxing dates
I mean sure he does love the extravagant fancy dates a lot but sometimes drinking a bottle of wine in a bubble bath while holding you is more ideal
It lets the two of you to de-stress after a long day and be as affectionate as you wish without worry of indecency
Youโll share stories and inside jokes about that one particular elf, talk about your day and just.. enjoy each otherโs presence
Man that sounds awesome :/
Anyways Thranduil is best husband with or without angst ๏ฟผwhich I totally did not include cause i will cry
10/10 recommend getting a Thranduil
Thank you @sunflower1000 and @little-miss-raven for proofreading and letting me know itโs good to post! โค๏ธโค๏ธ
Warnings โ ๏ธ: Canon typical violence, author attempts elvish, author attempts khuzdul, suggestive content, alcohol consumption, angst, blood, medical care, feelings of despair, themes of hope, found family, multiverse/time travel, cussing, angst, fluff, eventual smut, weapon use, realities of battle, tolkein monster encounters, fish out of water, injury to main characters, long fic, slowburn x reader.
Part 2 | Part 3
Of Crowns & Mountains
C.1: What Falls From the Sky
The city moved around you the way cities always didโindifferent, relentless, and slightly too loud. You'd long since stopped noticing any of it. The pigeons on the window ledges, the bus that groaned past every twelve minutes, the particular smell of warmed pavement mixing with coffee cart exhaustโit was all furniture now, backdrop, the unremarkable texture of an average workday.
Your lunch break had gifted you exactly forty-five minutes of escape from your desk, and you were spending it the way you spent most things, slightly distracted by thoughts you couldn't quite pin down.
You had a paper bag folded under one arm sandwich, crisps, something chocolate and entirely one third meltedโyour handbag hitched up on your shoulder, and your eyes were fixed somewhere in the middle distance in that unfocused way you had when you were thinking without really meaning to, whether you'd remembered to reply to your manager's email, and whether it was worth stopping for coffee on the way back even though it would probably keep you up until two in the morning again.
You could always do decaf ? You thought idly before a full body shudder rolled through you, UghโDecafโwhat you really needed was a holiday.
The crosswalk signal counted down in red ahead of you. Around you, the pavement thrummed with the low vibration of underground trains and human footsteps, and the air tasted faintly of exhaust and the approaching edge of autumn.
The signal changed, you stepped off the kerb and the ground was simplyโnot there.
There was no real warning. No trembling, no dramatic crack of sound, no sensation that anything at all was wrong with the world until the world gave way entirely beneath your foot. One moment you were stepping forward with the easy confidence of someone who had never once considered that concrete might fail them, and the next the pavement split open in a lineโimpossibly clean, like a seam being unpicked from the insideโand your foot found nothing, and then your other foot found nothing, and then you wereโ
What theโ?
Falling.
The city vanished. Not faded, not blurred at the edges, simplyโgone. One half-second you were surrounded by glass and steel and the smell of someone's distinct lack of deodorant and the next you were falling through something that was neither manhole nor tunnel, something that had no colour and no logic whatsoever, and the only coherent thought you managed was a very sincere, very heartfelt
What the actualโ
Then there was sky again. Real sky, enormous and heartbreakingly wide, rushing up to meet you at a speed that made your stomach leave your body and hover somewhere three seconds behind you.
You hit the ground with a sound that scattered every bird within a hundred yards, you bouncedโsomehow, impossibly, grotesquelyโonce.
Then lay very, very still in the tall grass of a field that smelled of clover and cold earth and absolutely nothing like the city, while the world swam and went quietly dark around the edges and then darker still, and then dark all the way through.
The company heard it before they saw it. A sound like something dropped from a very great heightโwhich, as it turned out, was precisely what it wasโcoming from the scrubby field to their left, followed by a second impact, and then silence. Several ponies shied. Bofur's hat slid sideways. Dori, who had been in the middle of saying something to Nori, forgot entirely what it was.
They had just been caught up to by Bilbo, who had arrived breathless and clutching a contract and looking rather more determined than anyone had expected from a hobbit who'd fainted reading that same contract the evening before, and who now stood blinking at the treeline with the particular expression of someone wondering if perhaps he should have stayed in bed afterall?
"Was thatโ" he started.
"Something fell," said Fรญli.
"Out of the sky," said Kรญli, already twisting in his saddle with the barely-contained delight of someone for whom unexpected events were generally improvements on expected ones.
"Aye," said Glรณin flatly. "I have eyes."
Thorin said nothing. He had pulled his pony to a halt and was looking toward the disturbance with an expression that gave nothing away, which was, admittedly, most of his expressions. His eyes tracked the stillness in the grassโthere, the flattened circle where something had struck, and there the shape of it, visible even from here.
The shape of a person.
They dismounted in short order, hands moving to weapons with the automatic ease of long habit. Gandalf, who had said nothing yet, stepped forward at an unhurried pace that kept him ahead of everyone else regardless.
You lay on your back in the flattened grass. Your blazer had ridden up on one side. Your handbag strap was still looped over your shoulder with the dedication of a bag that had been through worse, which it hadn't. Your paper lunch bag was nowhere to be found, lost somewhere in whatever seam of the universe you'd fallen through. Your hair spread out around you in the grass, and you lookedโinexplicably, maddeninglyโlike you were simply asleep.
Gandalf looked down at you with one enormous eyebrow raised to a truly impressive altitude.
"Well," he said, after a long moment. "That is unusual."
"She fell," said Kรญli, arriving at his elbow with Fรญli half a step behind. "Out of literally nowhere. We all saw it. There was nothing there and then there wasโher."
"An astute summary," Gandalf agreed, in a tone that indicated he was already thinking six things simultaneously and sharing approximately none of them.
Balin pushed through to the front, took one look at you, and felt something in his chest shift with the instinctive concern of a person constitutionally incapable of being unmoved by someone clearly in distress. "Barely a scratch on her." he said, relieved, watching the visible rise and fall of your breathing. "How she survived that fall I cannotโ" He shook his head. "She should not have survived that fall."
"She bounced," said Kรญli.
"People don't bounce, Kรญli," said Fรญli, though he looked rather uncertain about this as a universal law.
"This one did."
Thorin had not spoken again. He stood slightly behind the cluster of his company, one hand loose at his side, and looked at you the way he looked at things he did not yet have a category forโwith a long, measuring sort of attention that he would not have called interest and therefore did not have to examine.
You were tall, he noted. Taller than he'd have expected this close to the Shire. Taller than he was, certainly. Not a Dwarven woman. Not a Elf. Thorin took in the improbable situation and the softness of your face in its unconsciousness, from the race of Man then he concluded.
"Where did she come from?" he said. Not to anyone in particular.
"I rather think that is the question," Gandalf replied.
"Could be a trap," Dwalin said, not moving his hand from his axe.
"Trap," repeated Bofur, pushing his hat back on his head and squinting at your crumpled form in the grass. "Set by what, exactly? I've not heard of Orcs usingโwhatever that wasโas bait."
Fรญli and Kรญli, satisfied that you were breathing and therefore not immediately a tragedy, had found a stick.
Long enough to be useful, thin enough to be precise. Kรญli crouched beside you with the focused expression of a person conducting a scientific inquiry of the highest order and prodded your shoulder gently.
You didn't move.
He prodded again.
"Kรญli," said Balin, from behind him.
"Just checking," Kรญli said, without looking up. He lifted your arm a small way and dropped it. Your hand shifted slightly in the grass and then went still. Fรญli crouched beside him and they exchanged a glance of the specific, wordless variety that only worked between people who'd grown up sleeping in the same delving.
"She fell from the sky," said Ori, in a very small voice from somewhere near the back. "She justโfell. From nowhere."
"I have eyes, Ori," said Dori, though his own voice wasn't entirely steady.
Fรญli and Kรญli had exchanged a single glanceโthat rapid, wordless communication unique to brothers โand within approximately four seconds had returned to proding you with the same stick applying it with purpose.
"Oi!, don't," said Balin.
"We're just checking if sheโ" Kรญli began.
"She's breathing, leave her beโ"
"Aye, but is sheโ" Fรญli poked you lightly with the stick. Nothing happened.
"I said leave the poor lass alone," Balin said firmly, in the tone that had on occasion made even Thorin reconsider his decisions.
Fรญli took a few moments to consider this and poked your boot once more, before Balin yanked the stick from his grasp and threw it across the field.
"You're not helping," said Bilbo, who was looking at you with an expression caught exactly halfway between worry and bewilderment. He'd barely signed himself up for one unexpected addition to this journey, and now there wereโimplications of two. "And where did she come from? People don't justโfall out of the sky. Do they?"
"Not as a rule," Balin agreed.
"Thenโ"
"Master Baggins." Gandalf's voice was mild. "I think we may set aside the question of how for the moment, in favour of the rather more pressing question of what is to be done."
That, as it turned out, took somewhat longer to resolve. They stood in a rough half-circle around you while the ponies shifted and the afternoon light moved through the pale sky overhead, and the debate ran its course with the particular energy of thirteen dwarves, one hobbit, and one wizard who already knew what was going to happen but was waiting for everyone else to arrive there themselves.
"We can't leave her," Balin said, for the second time, with the patient firmness of a dwarf who was prepared to say it a third. "She's unconscious in an open field. Whereverโshe is from, she's no threat to us, and to leave her here is to leave her to the wilds. Literally."
"She'll slow us down," said Dwalin. He said it without particular cruelty, the way he said most thingsโas a plain fact, presented for consideration. He was looking at you with the calculating assessment of a man who thought in terms of march-pace and supply weight. "We don't know who she is."
"She's a person," Bilbo said, and then looked slightly surprised at himself for having said it with that much force.
"She's an unknown," Thorin said. His voice was level. Not unkind, precisely, butโmeasured. He was still watching you with that flat, unreadable look. "We know nothing of her origin, her allegiances, herโ"
"She fell out of the air, Thorin," Gandalf said, very gently. "I suspect her allegiances are currently the least of her concerns."
Thorin's jaw shifted slightly.
"She is not a threat," Balin pressed. "And we are not the sort of company that leaves injured souls to die in fields because they are inconvenient. Are we?"
Silence. The sort of silence that had a particular shapeโThorin's silence, which meant he was weighing something he had already, privately, decided.
"Make a stretcher," he said finally, his tone conveying with considerable precision that he would not be discussing this further. "We move before the light goes."
They were efficient. Whatever else the company of Thorin Oakenshield wasโloud, stubborn, occasionally catastrophicโthey were efficient. A stretcher appeared from lashed packs and spare rope inside minutes, and you were lifted onto it with a care that surprised Bilbo, who was watching from a slight distance with his hands in his pockets and his brow furrowed with the specific anxiety of someone who'd already agreed to one impossible adventure and now appeared to be in the middle of a second one without being consulted.
They slung the stretcher between four of the ponies, adjusted until you lay stable and level, and the company moved on.
You swayed gently with the motion of the walk, still deeply, undisturbedly unconscious, your hands softly folded over your middle by Balin with a peacefulness entirely at odds with the manner of your arrival.
Kรญli kept glancing back at you.
"Stop that," said Fรญli.
"I'm not doing anything."
"You're staring."
"I'm watching. There's a difference." Kรญli paused. "Do you think she'll wake up screaming?"
"...Why would she wake up screaming?"
"Well," Kรญli said, reasonably, "if I'd fallen out of the sky I think I'd wake up screaming."
Fรญli considered this. "Fair point," he conceded.
It was Nori who noticed the bag first or ratherโit was Nori who acted on noticing it first, which was a different thing, and far more characteristic. He'd spent the better part of an hour watching it sway from where it had been carefully transferred to a hook on the stretcher frame, and the watching had turned into wondering, and the wondering had turned into the irresistible conclusion that it would be doing everyone a favour, really, to know what was in it. Information-gathering. Practical, even.
He'd barely gotten the clasp open before Bofur appeared at his elbow.
"What've you got?"
"Don't know yet," Nori said, and upended the bag.
The contents of your handbag landed in an arrangement on the grass beside the path as the company paused for a brief rest, and several dwarves drifted over with the unconcealed curiosity of people who had excellent reasons not to do what they were doing and were doing it anyway.
There was a small wallet, soft leather, which Bofur opened and peered into with great interest before deciding the flat, laminated cards inside were probably currency of some kind even if they looked like nothing he'd ever seen. There was a set of keys on a small ring with a little disc of metal on it that had an embossed designโรin picked this up and turned it over in his fingers with a medic's assessing eye.
There was a folded piece of paper, which turned out to be a receipt for something called a 'meal deal'. There was a small mirror, which caused a brief stir. There was a tube of somethingโBofur opened it, sniffed it, and passed it to Dori with an expression of profound uncertainty.
There were several soft-wrapped packages. It was these last items that proved the most interesting.
They were individually wrapped in thin, crinkly material, flat and rectangular, with a sort of adhesive tab along one side that released when tugged. The contents were soft, absorbent, wings that folded neatly. รin, who had seen field dressings of every variety across his many years of campaigning, picked one up and turned it over in his hands with the slow, thoughtful nod of a professional assessment.
"Bandaging of some kind," he said.
"Good quality," Glรณin agreed, fingering the material. "Very fine weave. Look at that padding."
"Aye." รin was already applying it to a shallow cut on his forearm that had been annoying him since the previous evening, pressing the adhesive wings down with the satisfied precision of a man who appreciated good medical supplies. "Whoever she is, she travels well-prepared."
Bifur said something in Khuzdul.
"Yes it's remarkable," Bofur replied, abandoning the tube to crouch and examine the application more closely. "Doesn't even need a bandage over it."
"What," a voice hissed from behind them, "are you doing with that."
Bilbo had come back to see why the back half of the company had slowed. He stood now, looking at the arrangement of your belongings spread across the grass, at รin's arm, at the remaining unopened packages, and then back at รin's arm, and something in his expression twitched.
"Look bandages, Master Burglar," รin said, with enthusiasm.
Bilbo opened his mouth. Closed it. Seemed to make a private decision that this particular battle was not one he had the vocabulary to win in it's entirety. "Has anyone thought," he said instead, with admirable composure, "that perhaps we shouldn't be rifling through the belongings of an unconscious woman?"
"We're cataloguing," said Nori, who had moved on toโa flat, dark-screened rectangle that he was turning over and over with the intense interest of a man who had found the most puzzling thing he'd ever held in all his years of handling puzzling things. "There's glass on the front. Very thin. Very smooth. And it'sโheavy, for its size. And there are buttons on the side but they don't seem toโ" He pressed one.
The screen lit up, several dwarves jumped.
Nori dropped it.
It landed screen-up in the grass, luminous and improbable and cycling through a sequence of coloured images.
"Sorcery," Dori breathed.
"I'll take that Dori," said a deep, calm voice from behind them all, and Gandalf stepped over Nori's outstretched hand and picked up the rectangle from the grass with the practiced ease of someone retrieving an object they'd been waiting to examine. He turned it over in his fingers.
Pressed the side button. Watched the screen with his eyebrows elevated to an altitude that suggested considerable interest carefully disguised as mild curiosity. Gandalf then began to mutter something the dwarves could not hear and causing the rectangle to emit a rather pathetic whine before collapsing in on itself and simply disappearing.
He took the bag from Nori without looking at him. Examined the wallet. The keys. The little mirror. The receipt. He had retrieved and reviewed approximately two-thirds of the contents with the methodical attention of a man reading a rather absorbing letter when a small, firm hand closed over the bag and pulled.
Bilbo looked up at him with an expression of patient reproach.
Gandalf looked down at him with an expression of a wizard considering whether he had, technically, been caught doing anything.
"She's unconscious," Bilbo said.
"Yes," Gandalf agreed. He relinquished the bag. His expression was perfectly composed, giving away nothing except, perhaps, to someone who knew him well enoughโand Bilbo was beginning toโa faint shimmer of something that was not quite suppressed wonder.
He straightened, and looked ahead to where you still swayed in your stretcher between the ponies, peaceful and unaware of any of it.
"Keep that safe would you please, Master Baggins," he said, at last.
"I intend to," Bilbo said, holding the bag close with the firmness of someone who had found a principle and intended to stand on it.
They moved on. The sun slipped lower. The field gave way to a path, and the path to the first suggestion of hills in the distance.
You slept on, carried between four patient ponies, in a world whose name you didn't know, dreaming whatever it is people dream when they fall through the seams of everything they've ever known.
The company walked on. And somewhere ahead of them, the road curved east toward Erebor, toward danger and wonder and things not yet dreamed of.
I wish I could have left a comment but I think a reblog is better. I have only seen a dark-haired Legolas once and, @emmathefanficgal, I knew you'd reblog this one! The art is amazing!
Summary: a moment before the battle of Helm's Deep and one after it reveal your mutual feelings
Warnings: sfw, no use of y/n, gender neutral reader, reader has long(ish) hair, author has no idea how chainmail armour works, there's a slightly suggestive scene (very mild I promise), 1.2k words
Author's note: this is my first time posting a lotr fic, so I'm a bit nervous... I hope I did Aragorn justice... also a BIG thank you to my beta reader @entishramblings (check out her fics they're SO good). I might write a part 2 where things won't be as sfw as in this one...
Fic under the cut!
The moment of the battle was getting closer with each passing hour. The fortress of Helm's Deep was swarming with preparations for the fight, You could hear orders being shouted and swords being sharpened. You, too, were busy with getting ready, but not without problems. Sparring with a sword or a dagger and shooting with a bow weren't skills unknown to you, but participating in actual warfare was new. This led to your current dispute with the fastening of the chain mail you were supposed to be wearing. Was this thing even the right way around? The string of curses you muttered under your breath covered the noise of footsteps entering the room.
"Would you like any assistance with that?"
You flinch in surprise, turning around to see Aragorn leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
You sigh, defeated, and hand him the chain mail, trusting his experienced hands to fix whatever mess you had created with the piece of armor.
While he works on that, you turn your back to him and discard your old shirt, quickly putting on a tunic instead, to better shield your skin from the rough metal rings.
Aragorn averts his gaze, feeling somewhat embarrassed despite having lived similar scenarios before with you throughout all the time you two have traveled together He had never particularly cared before.
You reach behind your back to fasten the laces that would close the back of the tunic. A recent injury to your shoulder made you clench your teeth, the dull pain undermining your mobility. Aragorn notices as he always does, for his eyes having trained themselves to follow your every movement when possible, to assure him you're alright.
He sets the chainmail on a table before stepping closer to you. "Allow me" he says, his voice soft.โ
"Thank you. This injury is more annoying than the orc who caused it," you reply, moving your hair away from your back to allow him to work on the fastening of the tunic.
He stands behind you, hesitating.
"Are you certain you don't wish to join the women and children in the caves?"
Your head turns to glance at him. "I'm sure. I want to do what I can to defend this place," you affirm determinately.
He nods, but his heart weeps at the thought of sending you into battle, despite knowing that you can hold your own. The very same determination he admires you for is now troubling him. His fingers start to fasten the lacing of the tunic. The air seems to get heavier with each delicate brush of his fingers against your skin. He slows down, stopping about halfway. His eyes fix on the skin between your neck and shoulder. The warmth of your body tempts him, the smoothness of your skin seems to be awaiting the touch of his lips. Slowly, giving you plenty of time to pull away or stop him, should you wish to do so, he leans down. His lips brush tentatively against your shoulder, not heavier than the flutter of a butterfly's wings.
Your breath hitches but you don't move. Instead, your neck cranes slightly, giving him more room. As if in a trance, he trails his lips until they're pressing against the side of your neck, his stubble tickling your skin.
Suddenly, the noises of approaching footsteps reaches his ears: a warning from someone who knows exactly how to walk without making a single noise.
He pulls back as if burned by an incandescent object and goes back to fastening your tunic just in time before Legolas enters the room.
His eyes meet Aragorn's while you put your chainmail on The future King of Gondor can clearly make out an amused glint in his friend's eyes.
"The orcs are quickly approaching," the elf announces.
The three of you leave the room and join Gimli and Theoden's men on the walls that hug Helm's Deep, ready for the battle.
Men and Orcs clash for a long time, each of them fighting strenuously, but in the end humankind is granted victory.
The aftermath of the fight is just as tiring as the fight itself: there is rubble to remove, wounded to tend to, everyone who has fought is hungry (and tired). It's not until late noon that you get a moment to rest. You manage to sleep for a couple of hours before a hand on your shoulder wakes you up. Legolas is asking you to help him look for Aragorn, because the king wants to speak with him. He tells you more details, but you keep dozing off, and he has to wake you up every time. In the end he manages to get you up and asks you to check the upper floors of the building while he searches in the stables.
You're too tired to protest or voice that Aragorn has no reason of being in the stables right now. So you drag yourself up the stairs and begin your search.
It's not long before you find him, asleep, laying on a chaise. You catch yourself staring at his sleeping face, your eyes taking in his peaceful expression, the straight line of his jaw and the curve of his nose. Sitting on the edge of the chaise, you call his name. You wait for a moment, but he doesn't wake up. You guess he must be really tired. You've seen him wake up to the bare rustling of leaves before.
You put your hand on his shoulder and shake him gently while calling his name again.
He slowly opens his eyes, clearly still exhausted from the battle.
As he comes back to his senses he hears you talking. "Legolas is looking for you. He said something about Theoden, but I'm afraid I wasn't really listening..." the sentence fades out as your gaze meets his. You feel like you're drowning in his irises, the same colour of the sky during a stormy dawn. You can't deny to yourself that it's been long since you stopped seeing Aragorn as a mere friend and, in this moment, the air is so charged that you feel like it might be the same for him, the sheer intensity of his gaze revealing his own feelings.
As if following a silent order from both of your hearts, you slowly lean down over him.Your hand caresses the side of his face while your lips brush against his. You pull back quickly, as if realising your impulsive action.
Aragorn, not giving you a chance to regret what you've done, moved his hand to cup the back of your head and pull you down again.
Surprised, but definitely not about to complain, you follow his lead and your lips meet again in another gentle touch. One of your hands moves to rest on his chest, giving you some stability and allowing you to feel the slightly accelerated beat of his heart under your palm.
His lips chase after yours, one kiss after the other, his hand moving from the back of your head to the side of your face.
When you finally pull back, both of your breaths are heavy, the love that passes through your meeting gazes could warm even Mordor's cold lands and its cruel inhabitants.
In a silent agreement, you decide to ignore the fact that Legolas is looking for Aragorn (and weirdly enough, he doesn't show up to ask you if you've found him...). You spend the rest of the evening together, with you cuddled up against his side, his fingers carding through your hair as you exchange soft words often spoken between lovers, words that both of you have been wanting to say to the other for a while.
