Chapter Text
“I have the files here now, Mr. Thranduil—“
“Please, just Thranduil,” says the white-blond haired man draped in the chair across from your desk.
“—And I can find no records of gems that you describe in our vaults,” you finish, hoping that he’ll take your professional hint to leave. He’s a tall handsome man, with hair longer than even yours and held out of his face by a pair of aviator sunglasses, but you have much to do this afternoon. You are Mr. Smaug’s second-in-command at Erebor Bank and it’s a busy job.
“I placed those gems here when it was under the management of Thror & Son. I have gone through every conceivable channel to get those gems back from them—took them to court—“
“Yes, it was in the papers,” you say, tucking the files away in your mahogany desk. Smaug has made sure everything in your’s and his offices is nothing less than grand and monumentally expensive. The walls are champagne coloured, hung with cubist art in heavy gilded frames, except for the wall opposite your desk behind Thranduil which is completely glass and overlooks the city. Your offices are on the top floor.
“They belonged to my wife. Family heirloom. I’ve done everything, all the paperwork, seen every secretary. I’ll take you to court too if it comes to that.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” you say in alarm, making a mental note to consult Smaug on this one.
“I’d like to speak directly with Mr Smaug, please.”
“I can make you an appointment for—let’s see—“
“No. I will speak to him now.” His tone is authoritative, but you know you are the boss here. You are about to tell him firmly that he has to book a meeting at least three weeks in advance when Smaug himself strides in.
Your boss is smoking a cigar, as he constantly is. He makes it look elegant: he is a very elegant man. He is dressed in a burgundy suit with a gold watch chain and red snakeskin shoes. You have never been sure whether his hair is dyed red so dark that it is almost black, or whether that is a natural colour: it is always slicked back from his beautiful lizard-like face. His eyes are his most striking feature. They are a peculiar shade of brown as to be almost golden-yellow.
Thranduil has completely stiffened at the sight of Smaug, as if the fire alarm had gone off and he was waiting to find out whether or not it was the real thing. You know from long friendship and longer professional acquaintance that Smaug makes everyone feel unsettled around him, but alarm has never been this instant.
“Smaug, this is Mr Thranduil. He wants to speak to you about some diamonds he placed here when it was under the management of Thror & Son, and has somehow never been able to retrieve,” you tell him.
“Ah yes, the White Gems of Lasgalen. Do they appear on our records?” He blows out a breath of smoke, well away from you, his voice the deep gravelly tone of a smoker. The fire alarms in your office and his adjoining one have long since been removed.
“No sir,” you reply, bringing up the records on your Apple.
“Then I’m afraid, Mr Thranduil, that they are not in our vaults.” Smaug’s smile does not reach his eyes.
“Then how are you familiar with the name of my family heirloom?” Thranduil lifted his chin in challenge.
Smaug leaned against the doorway that adjoined his office with yours. “You’ve been filing rather a lot of demands for them recently.”
Thranduil’s shoulders slumped.
Smaug turns to you. “Y/n, it’s lunch time. Are you ready to come down and get some? Perhaps Thranduil could join us. I always have lunch an hour later to avoid the crowds in the cafeteria,” he explains to Thranduil.
“I would be honoured,” Thranduil says formally.
The three of you head out and down the massive curving gold lit staircase to the open-plan lobby. Chandeliers hang overhead. In the corner the cafeteria has more the feel of a five star restaurant: There are white tablecloths on the tables and the plates and cutlery, though plain, are elegant. It’s nearly deserted at this hour of the afternoon.
Smaug had special service: as the Boss, he insists on being waited on rather than collecting his food like his employees. This also extends to you and to guests. Today you have beef and potato pie in thick gravy with pomegranate and beetroot salad. When the plates of food arrive, you help yourself to Smaug’s salad and he forks most of the meat off your plate without breaking small talk with Thranduil. You pour round a bottle of red wine for all of you.
“So you have lost your wife’s heirlooms.” Smaug said.
“I have not lost them: they are here,” Thranduil said angrily. “I have the papers to prove it.”
“Are you sure your wife hasn’t withdrawn them at some point?” You ask, sipping your wine.
Thranduil paused, his dark brows knitted. “She could not have. She… is no longer with us.”
“I’m sorry,” you say softly.
“I placed those gems here after she passed away.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Smaug says. “Another drop of wine? Mr Thranduil, I think you know perfectly well that we do not have the diamonds.”
“What are you suggesting?” Thranduil asks, his voice freezing.
“You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who come to me claiming that I owe them money.”
“Perhaps that is because you do!”
“Perhaps it is because they think they can con me out of money. I know how to deal with these people. They never bother me more than once.” Smaug smiles. This is why you never can quite bring yourself to trust him: there is always the sense that he will threaten to kill you in the same breath and tone as he would offer you champagne, which is of course absurd.
“Thank you for lunch. I have an appointment to get to,” Thranduil says abruptly, getting up and putting on the long silver coat he’d hung over the back of his chair.
“I’ll show him out,” you tell Smaug. You and Thranduil walk side by side towards the huge glass doors.
“I noticed that your logo and monogram is a dragon,” Thranduil says.
It’s an odd thing for him to pick up on, but you are too polite to say so. “Yes, Smaug had a hand in the design. He likes the aesthetic and we thought it would make a smart brand image.”
Thranduil nods thoughtfully. You suppose you shouldn’t have been surprised by his next words. “Are you free next weekend? We could have dinner.”
“I don’t usually accept dates with clients,” you say. But then you look at him again, notice the softness of his mouth that contrasts with the proud glitter of his blue eyes. There’s something otherworldly about him. A grace from older times when magic still ran in the water. Mentally you shake yourself. You are a serious assistant bank manager—these fantasies are not for work time—but there is too little magic in your life. Perhaps he will bring some. You smile into his eyes. “But for you I’ll make an exception. Saturday?”
Outside the building, you put your name and number into his phone contacts, you say your goodbyes, and he drives away in a silver Rolls Royce, leaving you feeling strangely empty standing on the pavement.
Saturday evening comes chill. It is September, and the weather is turning windy and colder. You have had a particularly tiring week but you have spent the day relaxing and walking in the park and you are ready and energised for this date. You slip in to a satin cocktail dress of your favourite colour and put full makeup on, trying to strike that frustratingly delicate balance between smoky eye and feeling like a panda bear. You aren’t nervous: you enjoy dressing up and eating at restaurants, and as a highly-paid singleton in the financial sector, you never lack dates. That in itself is the problem. Mostly men date you for your money, and the ones who don’t need your money are rich assholes. “Don’t be so bloody cynical,” you tell your reflection, “maybe he won’t be one of those.” As if in disagreement your eyeliner brush painfully pokes into your eye, making you swear. You have given up looking for true sparks and at this point you are just hoping for a genuine person to be friends with, maybe someone a little bit magical.
You show up fashionably five minutes late at the Ritz for your date and spot him waiting for you at a table. “Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s alright, Miss (L/n).” He gets up to shake hands and gives you a genuine, admiring smile. He is crisply dressed with far less showiness than you are used to in Smaug, his only ornament an expensive black watch and a large silver ring of peculiar design.
“Please, call me Y/n.” You smile, happy at the double green flags of respectfulness and not trying to outdress your boss. It’s become a running joke with you that anyone who meets you with your boss tries to imitate his style to various degrees of epic failure. No one can wear Smaug’s style like Smaug. This man has a certain presence of his own.
Thranduil begins by asking about your week and the kind of work you do. You enjoy your work but you don’t enjoy talking about it on a date, so when Thranduil asks whether Smaug is an easy man to work for you latch on to that question with a little more enthusiasm. “Yes, he’s a pleasure to work with, as long as you have the same goals as him. Trying to make him do something different is almost impossible. I tried to make him donate to cancer charity once—that didn’t go down well at all!” You half laugh, half shiver at the memory.
“So he’s a bit of a hoarder—a miser, I guess then?” Thranduil chuckles along with you, pouring out the white wine.
“I suppose you could say he is, but then he is a banker. It’s his job to protect people’s money,” you say defensively. “Though he won’t turn down a pretty gift.”
“So if I wanted to get on his good side I should just buy him a thing, right?”
You wrinkle your nose and Thranduil’s ice-blue eyes twinkle at your funny face. “I got him a little gold dragon paperweight for Christmas the first year of my employment. I’ve been his favourite person ever since.”
Thranduil interrupts you with, “He’s fond of dragons, isn’t he?”
“Why yes. I told you it was our company logo.”
“Why though?” He asks.
“Why not? Dragons protect valuables. Why are you so interested in Smaug anyway? I hope you didn’t ask me on a date just to talk about him.”
“Of course not!” He exclaims a little too quickly. “What would you prefer to talk about?”
Internally, you sigh. Maybe this is just another date to get on the good side of the bigwigs of Erebor Bank. “Tell me about what you do.”
“Me?” Thranduil looked thrown for a second. “Well… I like to sit on my throne in my house in the New Forest (which is not new at all) and contemplate time and immortality and humans. And when I get bored of that I ride around on my elk scaring all the mortal dog-walkers and generally making myself a local nuisance.”
You laugh disbelievingly, wondering whether he is making fun of you.But it’s a new way to be made fun of if it is.
“I really rather enjoy that part of it now. Once I was out riding my moose late in the evening in full regalia, and I heard an ice cream man in a nearby car park. There wasn’t anyone else around and I quite fancied a strawberry ice-cream just then so I rode up and bought one off him. It was worth the whole two pound forty just for the look on the poor man’s face.”
You almost choke on your mouthful of pork and go into a coughing fit. “No I’m alright, really I am… go on, what else do you like to do?”
“Well, I also quite enjoyed fighting off spiders, back in the day. They don’t come so enormous these days, but any day I find a little beastie in the bath is a good day. I have a beautiful sword just for killing spiders. The drawback is that when I’m done with the spider usually I have to get a new bathtub as well.” Thranduil is obviously loving the look on your face as he laughs and carries on. “And aeroplanes! I often go on flights just for the thrill. It’s amazing. It’s a miracle every time I look down to see the earth below. That Manwë allows such a thing too! Of course, I found out pretty quickly that I can’t go on any kind of long-haul flight.”
“Why ever not?”
“Well the first time I ever tried to go to America… you see, for me the Earth is flat.”
“No it’s not!”
“Yes it is. It’s complicated. So we took off from Heathrow flying west. I was flying first class near the front, so I overheard some of the cockpit conversation. Apparently my presence completely altered where America was for everybody, messed up all the instruments and the GPS and generally caused mass confusion for the pilots. And then as soon as we were over the sea, America sort of morphed into this place the GPS called Valinor. And I really didn’t want to go there because it’s like death, can’t ever come back from it and I’ve become attached to this place. So the pilots gave up and turned around and I’ve never tried to fly long-distance since.”
At this point you are just staring at him in a kind of brain-frozen stupefaction. You wanted something different and damn had you got it. What kind of a story was that? Bad sense of humour? It had to be. Or was it—something else…
“Sorry,” Thranduil says. “I’ve not really dated anyone since my wife passed away. I don’t know how to behave. Shall we talk about politics? Films? What films do you like?”
The conversation carried on a lot more normally after that. You find out that you have similar taste in film and music and many other things, and as the evening goes on Thranduil becomes more relaxed around you, joking normally and even flirting with you. You both have an interest in politics and strong ideas about how the world should be run, and though you mostly agree you differ on points that make for an entertaining argument. He has a liking for using elaborate fantasy metaphors and has a much better knowledge of history than you which he uses to counter your more theoretical arguments, to your chagrin.
You are surprised to find that it is late in the evening when you finish your meal and Thranduil pays the bill. Thranduil is strange and thinks a lot of himself, but he is intelligent and he has not once mentioned money. Usually they all mentioned money at some point, or lack thereof. However you’re finding it difficult to tell what he thinks of you. You allow him to walk you home: you’re not sure if you really want to take him home but it’s late and you’re too smart to risk going home alone.
“So why did you invite me for a date?” You ask as you walk down Picadilly together. Your tone is teasing but you are looking him dead in the eye with a look that says, “you’d better respect me enough not to lie to me.”
He meets your eye. “At first it was because I wanted to learn more about Smaug.”
“I knew it!” You exclaim in annoyance.
“But I stayed because I enjoy your company, because you are an intelligent and beautiful person. You must believe me.” Instead of turning in to the train station immediately, he leads you in to the Green Park right behind the station.
“I don’t know what to believe about you. All that stuff about America…” You can’t be annoyed at him for long but you are puzzled in the extreme.
“I’m sorry I told you that. It is true though. I forget that other people don’t even believe these things exist… but those things don’t stop existing just because nobody believes in them any more. That’s what being immortal means.” His voice has dropped low, and he slips his hand into yours and squeezes it. There’s nothing to suggest that he’s making fun of you.
“What things?” You whisper. The the dusk park fades away, replaced by the fantasy lands of your imagination. Great forests, wizards, dwarves, fair elves, giant spiders, dragons, this—this being who is walking by your side, riding an elk with a woodland crown on his head.
“Beware of Smaug,” he says. “He may not be what he seems. If you are in trouble, call me, or come to this address.” Thranduil hands you a note that you slip into your bag. “It doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is, I promise I will help you.”
“Who are you? What are you?”
“Haven’t you guessed?”
“But—but it’s absurd!” That’s the small part of your brain that calls itself reasonable talking.
“Say it anyway, y/n.”
“Are you… Are you an elf?” You tense, expecting him to mock you.
He doesn’t. He gives you a small, special smile and bows. “King Thranduil, son of Oropher.”
You stop walking. Your brain won’t give you the words to form the thousand exclamations and questions jumbled in you.
“Please, tell no one. Let it be our secret,” he says, stepping closer to you and bringing your hand to his lips. They are warm and soft and lingering on your knuckles, making you catch your breath.
“Why me?” You whisper.
“Because of who you are, my lo… my lady.” You are very close to him now. He slides his free arm around your waist. His gaze holds yours: his eyes are glacial blue and immortal, not human. Real ancient magic swims in their depths. You look into them, willing him to close the distance between you, to let you taste something of him and his world.
As if reading your thought, he dips his head and lets his lips brush yours. He’s a tall man… elf… His smell is good, wrapping you in his warmth and sweetness. His long gold hair falls soft against your cheek as he kisses you. The first kiss is gentle and sweet, sending tingles radiating down your spine and making your blood rush.
Thranduil rubs his hand all the way down and up your back, up to the nape of your neck where he rests it, gently rubbing his thumb in circles as he kisses you again more heatedly. Your lips part under his. It’s the adrenaline of charging in to battle on horseback, elven blade upraised, the intoxicating joy of forest revelries and elven feasts, the tender pleasure of walking hand in hand under the starlight that is the memory of heaven.
The heartbeats stretch into a small eternity as neither of you can part from kissing each other under the stars.