Jewel In The Palace(Lord Of The Rings Fanfiction)

Worries

~~O~~

The tasks that the Prince left behind has been given to the Queen. Assigning elves for patrolling at night, reshuffling of the guards for the Watch, and dealing with merchants seeking to pass the Old Forest Road were some of them. Thranduil did not hear any complain from his captains so he let her lead them.

However, things had a distressing habit of going missing lately, most of the time these instances occurred when no one was paying attention or if they had been paying attention, these instances occurred were quickly forgotten in the crush of other events.

A plate of tarts during a marriage feast, for instance, got lost from the table in a mere blink. Well, reflected the Chief Guard Calen, disappearing plates of freshly baked tarts were minor events, and he knew exactly who took it... Calemir, his mischievous elfling.

Mirien, the daughter of the Queen, had not been seen or heard from in days, although in the course of her solitary ramblings did have a distressing of slipping by without her guardians being aware of it.

Calen had already gone to see Nauriel and Nemiriel, engaged as always in their endless duties and asked around for the whereabouts of the missing Princess. With no luck there, he had gone to see the smiths, hoping they know where she is but to no avail. The smoke coming from their huts wafting on the evening breeze directly to where he stood with one hand wrapped around the bridle of his horse, made his eyes water. The Chief Guard decided he would go directly to the source.

If anyone could help find Mirien, it would most likely be her mother.

In fact, he reflected further once more mounted and clip clopping down the road. she might even be out looking for her.

~~O~~

At that very same moment, her hands tightly gripping the handkerchief, the skirts of her dress fluttering around her in the wind of her passage over the landscape of the forest, the Queen was indeed searching for the missing Mirien.

Upon discovering that her daughter was missing, at first Mirialia had not been overly worried. She often disappeared for stretches at a time, usually playing hide and seek with her nannies and guardians, or climbing trees, or finding somewhere out of the way to day-dream. Most often Mirien would then return hours later, dress torn, face dirty and hands and feet bare, but perfectly unharmed.

The Queen knew that she herself had a propensity to be a bit scatter-brained and it was entirely within the realm of possibility that her new tasks this time had been the root cause of her daughter's disappearance. Still, she will do anything to see her happy. But for now, the first thing she would do was to find her. In the back of her mind she thought,

I do hope the poor dear is all right. Although I do not believe that anything would harm her, she is still far too young to be out roaming by herself.

No sooner than that thought had crossed her quicksilver mind, the Queen caught a glimpse of something rather large and rapidly approaching her position along the road.

The figure was in fact Calen, and being able to reduce the speed of his horse or correct his course immediately stopped in front of her, making Mirialia fall down into the dust of the road.

"Calen!" exclaimed the Queen as she rose to her feet with all the dignity that she could manage under the circumstances. "I was on a very important mission!"

"My Queen," the elf muttered, mounting off from his horse. "I am sorry, but I do have urgent business with you."

"Indeed," Mirialia remarked, "well then, please make it quick as I have little time to spare."