The elves brought the men, bound once again, into the Great Hall where Thranduil sat upon his throne, writing upon parchments on an ornate tray that lay across his lap. This was taken away by an elf lass as the elves approached the throne. The king of the woodland realm looked hard at the men and they quailed before his gaze.
Thranduil was taller than most of the elves of his realm, taller certainly than the Eastern men that stood bound before him. He wore rustic clothes like the other wood elves, but was crowned with a circlet of green leaves upon his brow. On any other occassion, his royal countenance might have been merry, but not so today.
He bent his gaze upon the prisoners as if by sheer force of will he could read the thoughts of the Easterners. When he finally spoke, they felt as if their very lives depended upon truthful and complete answers to his questions.
"You know how you were captured," Thranduil said. "And we know that you were making for the forest mountains. It may go well with you if you tell me why. Otherwise, you will surely die, for trespass is forbidden in my realm. What did you seek in the mountains?"
The men looked at one another, as if they would speak, but feared the other two. Finally, the largest of the Easterners said, "Like as not you'll put us to death all the same. So why should we talk?"
"It is not our way to torture our prisoners," answered Thranduil. "But it is within my power to release you, either to death, or to return from whence you came. If you guess that I am not inclined to let you live, then you guess rightly. You violated the borders of our realm on a military mission. Do you owe so much to your lieutenant, or to who ever sent you, that it is worth your lives? You may think on that in your cells. Take them away to separate cells so that they may think alone and each for himself on the value of his life!"
Lhunaglar smiled as he delivered his prisoner to a new cell, just as the other two were taken to two other cells. He could tell that the weaker two would break soon, away from the larger man. The elf smiled because it meant he was free from guard duty and his time was his own for a while. After locking the man in a darksome cell, the wood elf paused, seeing that girl with the long dark hair, almost the purple of distant mountains, was near the cell of the wild elf captured in the king's preserve.
"What is she doing here?" he thought. Lhunaglar was about to ask her just that when a clatter of dishes down the corridor announced that it was time for the prisoners to be fed.
"You'd think the prison had become the Great Hall," he muttered to himself. The pretty elf with the long hair looked up at that moment with a start, for she did not realize she was being observed.
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