@seraphicae sent: "you are not your father," - a COMPLIMENT from tau to lego😕
I love that this had to be defined as "A Compliment," lol!
Despite clearly hearing Tauriel's approach of the armory, Legolas doesn't immediately look up from where he's applying oil to the curving blade-edges of his Sindar dual knives. Silent and scowling, the Prince works a scrap of cloth over the metal in quick, violent strokes, his grip on the knife's haft so tight that it blanches his knuckles white. For all that Tauriel says he is not his father, the Greenleaf certainly bears an inheritance of the King's volatile temper, for good or ill.
Finishing with the side of one blade, Legolas lifts the knife and twists his wrist in a quick imitation of a moulinet, cutting a clean arc through the air before setting the weapon down with perhaps too much force. He finally lifts pale eyes to the younger elf, his gaze unable to hold hers for long before skittering away.
"....If I am not him, then what am I, Tauriel?" Legolas replies, his tone biting with an ire turned inward. "... the would-be Prince of Mirkwood? A weak imitation of Sindar Royalty, too ineffective to hold back the encroaching hordes from Dol Guldur?"
Greenleaf looks down at the weapons spread before him, heirlooms that have driven back the forces of darkness in better hands than his, when the age of Elves was still new and full of promise. He grips the edge of the table and swallows past his indignity, speaking quietly, "...I follow the King's every order. I have made it my life's mission to preserve the sanctity of the Great Wood. And still he will not accept my council..."