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[kingsdaughter]

[Sigrid is looking fairly haggard and pale. Behind her is the rugged green wilderness surrounding the Station, though the Station itself is not in sight.]

I'm in the middle of nowhere at all and I've got a bad leg. I couldn't find my locket and I had to ask a thrush to find it for me. A thrush. I'm talking to thrushes and they answer me. Anyway I need help. The thrush said he'd go and find someone, but I don't know who he meant. Does anyone know if thrushes are wise birds or silly birds? If he brings back a bear or something, I've got to hide now.

Comments

Don't do that.

[kingsdaughter]

[She circles her arms around his neck. It's at once strange and familiar, this embrace, and it makes her overwhelmingly comforted yet horrifically homesick. Even if the Elvenking is not her father, he's a father, and that recalls her own. She would give anything to be in his arms right now instead. But in his absence, her angel has come to carry her to safety.]

Ready.

[firith]

[ He lifts her as easily as a babe, each pace back to the Station quicker than a mortal's but smoother too, without jostling her unnecessarily. Gelefn follows at his leisure, the big stallion nibbling at plants here and there as he brings up the rear. ]

Let me know if your leg aches more than it has been.

[kingsdaughter]

[She nods, her face half-buried against his chest. She's a strong girl; the roundness of her arms is all muscle, and she holds to him as though it is her strength and not his keeping her aloft. But slowly she relaxes and peers out from her refuge, tucking the top of her head beneath his chin. She is tall, five foot and seven inches, but he is taller still, so she feels very much like a little girl again.]

How's your son? [she asks in a small voice, after some time has passed.] I was rubbish at trying to cheer him up.

[firith]

[ He could have carried Bard himself like this, so his old friend's daughter is no challenge. Her grip is noted, moreover when it begins to relax, and any silences are not felt to be awkward on his part. ]

He will be fine. [ Which is to say, without saying it, that she did screw up rather badly. ] Legolas is stronger than he knows.

[kingsdaughter]

[She doesn't want to ask him what she said that made him take off like that, not while she's in his arms with no escape. She's usually good at comforting people, but she has been so ill-prepared for her last two attempts it's been like going into battle blindfolded. Her only conclusion from it all has been that nobody here really wants comfort; they're either beyond comfort, which isn't her fault, or they really just want to be pitied and/or persecuted, which she has no intention of indulging.]

So's everyone.

[She means Thranduil, but it's hard to tell. Nobody gives pats on the back for strength where she comes from. On the Lake, strength is a default, not a virtue. It's the only thing that explains why you're still alive, most of the time. She got to hear a number of peoples' opinions on how sad it was that her mother wasn't strong enough to survive a third birth.]