Disclaimer: I don't own Tolkien's Hobbit nor Peter Jackson's Hobbit series. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Set post BOFA and revolves around the idea that come spring, amongst elves, if one's 'hearts mate' is close, they will be called to their side. It is not a common thing amongst elves due to circumstances and low birth rates, but it does happen. Only no one has ever seen it have any effect on a son of man before. But then again, Thranduil never really does anything the easy way, does he? *This story is told in the point of view of Bard and is Barduil (Thranduil/Bard) in terms of a pairing. This is my first time writing Bard as a main character, as well as this pairing, so I hugely appreciate any and all feedback/constructive criticism you have to offer.

Warnings: Contains movie spoilers, elements of soulmate-style universe, mating season (heat, animal mannerisms, scenting, rough sex, masturbation), set in an everyone lives au, naturally. Due to the nature of the story it could be considered dub-con.

Heart (like a harbour) there is only one ship for me

Chapter One

"Da?" Tilda asked, quick on the mark as he joined them in the main room for breakfast. He ran his hand through his hair, suppressing a yawn. Gifting all three of them with a smile as he adjusted his long coat over his shoulders, still not used to the feeling of fine material against his skin.

His youngest seemed quite excited indeed, upper lip ringed with goat's milk, as she set down her mug and fidgeted eagerly. "Is King Thrand-Thra-and-a-" trailing off as the unfamiliar name got the better of her.

"Thranduil," Sigrid supplied helpfully, summoning a napkin from the depths of her skirt and wiping her sister's mouth with a quick, practiced flick that ensured she'd come and gone before Tilda could fend her off - dark curls bouncing as Bain made a face at her from across the table.

"Yes, him," Tilda echoed, cleanly avoiding having to bother trying to say it again as he poured himself a generous measure of Oolong-root tea and sipped it gratefully, peering out the window and into the weak morning light as the city came awake around them. "Is he coming today, da?"

"Tomorrow, love," he replied, hiding a smile as he pressed a kiss into her hair, ignoring the soft hem-hem of disapproval from Fulthain when he did not wait for the fussy old man to pull back his chair. His man-servant – newly appointed and insisted upon by more people than he could count – was apparently under the impression that the King of Dale could do nothing without his aid. "Perhaps tonight, we shall have to see."

He blew on his tea habitually, finding his gaze straying to the window – the only one in the room that faced the great forest – more than once. He hadn't seen the Elven-King in months, not since the deep snows and bitter cold had rendered travel not just unwise but almost impossible.

Admitting to himself that he missed the temperamental elf was one thing. But coming to grips with the thrill of excitement that had been coursing through him ever since the snows had cleared and the first shoots of an early spring began to break ground was no small thing to deny.

They had been in each other's company often since the battle. Thranduil had pledged a measure of support – alongside Thorin and the dwarves of Erebor - in outfitting his people for the winter months and aiding in the rebuilding of the city. Trading confidences long into the evening as they poured over ancient scrolls, blue-prints from the original builders.

The elf had also been a great help in aiding him make the transition – however stubborn and unwilling he was – from bargeman to King. He valued the elf-king's council greatly and gained, he thought, a measure of respect in the other's eyes as he took to the role with more furor than he would've thought possible only a mere few months ago.

It had come to a point that messengers rode regularly between them. More so than had ever been between their two people. Their visits too had grown regular. With the elven-king eventually despairing of his fine tents and gilded things after he offered him a permanent residence in a private corner of his personal halls. It was a small thing, nothing but a boon offered by the King of a crumbling town – nowhere near as opulent as he knew the elf was accustomed - but the offer had apparently pleased the elf greatly, for he'd used them liberally ever since.

Even Thorin had seen fit to comment on their burgeoning friendship when he'd been to Erebor to dine one evening in late fall. Drinking liberally in an attempt to at least keep pace with the boisterous company, before the King Under the Mountain beckoned him aside, wondering aloud if there was something he'd done to lose the King of Dale's favor as he eyed the empty spot to his right with something close to longing.

But it was for that reason that he'd paid the comment little mind. Knowing that most of the dwarf-king's irritation was centered on the absence of his hobbit, who had returned to the Shire to greet the spring and tie up loose ends at his estate before returning to Erebor for the remainder of the year.

He was quite sure no one was looking forward to that happy day more than those who had suffered the brunt of Thorin's foul humor more than once during the intervening months, himself included.

Balin had merely twitched his beard in sympathy, making a point to refill his tankard when the two of them finally returned to the high table. "Pay him no mind, my lord," the white beard remarked, "Thorin is still a bit sore about Kili's – ahem. And with Bilbo on top of it, well, you understand."

He'd simply smiled, good humor undampened as Bofur broke out into song somewhere on the other side of the hall. Taking a hearty pull of ale before he clapped the older dwarf on the shoulder companionably. Well aware that his were not the only eyes that slid curiously across the span of the table. Lingering on Kili and Tauriel as they bent heads, completely in their own world as they soaked in each other's presence with unmistakable joy. The growing love between them clear.

"You just want to see him because last time he brought you that stupid dress you haven't stopped talking about since-" Bain started, rolling his eyes when Tilda stuck out her tongue, clutching her spoon like she was seriously considering catapulting a dollop of jam as Fulthain fidgeted fastidiously on the sidelines.

"Last time I checked he brings all of you presents, quite regularly in fact," he pointed out mildly, shaking himself from his thoughts to nip the potential argument at the root with the ease of long practise. "Speaking of which-"

"I did him a bit of cross-stitch and wrote him a letter in Sindarin," Sigrid replied proudly, "I've been practising. I was going to head up to the mountain after tea and get Tauriel to look it over, make sure I didn't accidentally call him a-"

"I drew him a picture!" Tilda broke in, "I didn't have the right colors for the dress, but Master Ori told me he'd try and find some lavender to dye the paint the right color for next time."

"And you, Bain?" he asked, making short work of the stack of fried capers and soft boiled eggs Fulthain set in front of him. Eying the pile of scrolls on the side table, waiting for his perusal. Likely requests from the stone masons again – permission to purchase new stone and mortar.

"I wrote him a letter," his son returned, fiddling with a bit of leftover green on his plate. "Master Fasthelm says it is the finest bow he's ever seen. I am getting better with it, I think."

He smiled fondly, wiping his mouth with a napkin as he leaned back in his chair with an indulgent stretch, feeling the joints pop and shift as he tried to ease the strange skiff of tension that seemed to have taken up residence during the night. Perhaps he'd been working a bit too hard at the walls of late.

He cocked his head, joining his fingers and lifting them above his head as his son chattered excitedly about his lessons. Well aware that even then, the explanation didn't quite fit. He leaned back in his chair, blinking slowly. Something was different, off, he just didn't know what.

A soft hem-hem rousted him from his thoughts. He suffered through the half-bow before nodding for Fulthain to come forward – ever insistent on protocol – feeling more like the stuffy old man was slowly training him rather than the other way around as Fulthain smiled apologetically and turned to the children.

"I am afraid it is past time for young Master Bain to join Fasthelm in the training yard. The ladies as well, to their music lessons. We do not want to keep Master Gleothain and Mistress Gleobeam waiting."

He shoved the rest of his breakfast into his mouth before leaping to his feet as the three of them banged out the door in a flurry of scraping chairs and dancing cutlery. Making a grab for the scrolls as he breezed out the door in their wake.

No matter how many butlers, chamber maids, stone-masons, builders and gods knows who else had travelled fast to Dale to ply their trades and aid in the rebuilding of the city of his forefathers, there was never a shortage of things to do.

Especially with Thranduil likely on his way.

There was much to be done and not much time to do it in!

A day passed, then another with no sign of an approaching party. At first he thought nothing of it, thinking perhaps Thranduil had been held up by affairs of state or some other matter that needed his immediate attention. But when the third day closed without even a messenger he couldn't deny that even his usual goodwill was beginning to feel severely trodden upon.

Still, irritation or not, he couldn't deny he wasn't looking forward to the Elf-King's visit. In fact, he used the lull to prepare. He'd come to look forward to each visit more and more in the long months since the death of Smaug and the great battle. But this time he was stuck by the unrelenting need for everything to be perfect - as perfect as they could be in a crumbling city.

He gave orders for Thranduil's rooms to be aired out twice daily, seeded with sweet smelling rushes and bowls of fragrant oils. Lingering long in his rooms to pour over their stores, making sure they had enough wine. Placing orders with the lower farms for a fresh selection of fruits and vegetables to be brought up as soon as able, determined that his guest would have the best they could offer and more.

And if his housekeepers thought his single-minded fussing odd, thankfully they didn't bring it up where he could hear. Not that he would have noticed. For as the days passed, his obsession grew to a point where it would have probably taken another dragon falling out of the sky to wrench him from his tasks.

It was only his pride that kept him from sending a messenger. Refusing to let himself cave and give the prickly bastard the satisfaction of knowing he'd come looking as the days lengthened into a week and spring wrapped itself firmly around the valley floor. Suffusing the air with the smell of freshness and growing things as he stewed in his bitterness. Struggling to shoulder the weight as the same tension that had plagued him since the first day, grew more crushing by the hour.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through the night.

Nor could he recall the feeling of contentment or joy.

He felt dismantled. Incomplete. As unfinished as the city taking shape around him.

He spent his nights staring at the ceiling. Courting the restless tension that crawled like insects underneath his skin.

He spent his days little better. Taking to riding long and hard into the evenings.

Pushing his charger at a punishing pace as he traced the borders of Mirkwood with hoof and sole. Trying to put a name to the strange feelings coursing within. But always his gaze would return to the trees. Staring from distant cliffs and far away cairns, cursing under his breath as the forest refused to give up its long kept secrets.

There was something wrong.

Different.

He felt almost as if-

By the weeks end he was as close to livid as he could get without ruining his kingly dignity and taking his foul temper out on those that did not deserve it. Even his children could bring him no respite. Instead, he instructed Fulthain to keep them well occupied and took to his offices to seethe in private. Sulky and brooding as to not put a damper on his people's excitement for the warmth and richness that spring hadn't given the people of the lake for more than an age.

The pleasure of it was a tangible thing. Free-floating and easy in the ripening air as the people's anticipation spread like ripples on an inlet pond. But again, it flowed over him like water meeting hot iron, dissolving into mist the moment it met with the harried tangle of his thoughts. Leaving him empty and lesser for it as he wrestled with the impossible nature of the problem he was facing. To know himself when the skin beneath the face twisted and corrupted itself with its own rot - yearning for something he could no sooner name than bring himself to face.

On the tenth day a messenger from Mirkwood arrived alone on horseback. He was in his study, discussing the upcoming planting season with the family heads from the outlying farms when Fulthain brought the unfamiliar elf in.

He raised a brow as his council disbanded, taking in the unfamiliar elf from his chestnut-red hair and elaborately looping braids, to the pristine leather of his boots. Uncertain if he was supposed to be irritated or impressed that the elf could have ridden through the spring muck without getting even so much as a single stain on him.

He decided to settle for irritated when he realized he was receiving the same treatment.

"Where is Veryamorcon?" he asked, as if by way of greeting, appearing to startle the elf out of his thoughts as he halted his scrutiny and met his gaze, inclining his head respectfully.

"Mae govannen, my lord. I am Abladon," the elf returned, giving no sign he was either aware or affected by the lack of greeting as the male waved off his silent offer of food and drink.

"I come with greetings and apologies from my King. For my Lord Thranduil regrets that he cannot attend to the matters of Dale at this time."

He took a measured sip of from his goblet, giving himself a moment to think. For while he'd expected as much, he couldn't deny the stab of disappointment that settled low in his belly. Nor the emergence of that same, queer sort of rage that had been smouldering within - like banked coals drowning its own ashes – for the better part of the week.

He looked up and caught the messenger staring again. He blinked, leaning back in his chair as the elf cocked his head, following the movement as he took another deliberate swallow from his glass. Slightly unnerved as the unnatural creature appeared to stare right through him and into the flesh that lay beyond. It was almost as if the elf was looking for something. A signal? A sign? Something that might tell him-

Suspicion rankled through him like something foul. It was something he wouldn't have entertained any other day than this. Something slippery and whispering that made him breathe deep, imagining he could smell the Elf-King on the messenger's clothes.

This time he didn't even try to deny it when jealousy sparked. Allowing his hand to clench around the delicate stem of his glass – one gift of many from the King in question – until the hand-forged crystal whinged in warning.

So the mighty lord had time to dictate a message more than a week late, but not come himself? He was no longer some lowly bargeman. Short-tempered or not, this was an outright offence! A personal slight!

"When can we expect him?"

"My King did not inform me as to when. Only that he could not attend here for the foreseeable future and requested me to return directly," Abladon replied blithely, smoothing a thatching of shining hair behind a curved ear with a fastidious blur of movement.

"I see," he retorted, sensing he was getting far from the truth of it as he rose. Intrigued by the sudden ghost of tension that passed across the elf's face before it was masked once more. It felt like he was playing with dragon fire. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to stop. Deliberately passing closer to vulnerable back of him than he had any reason to as he crossed to the decanter warming in the rays of the forest-facing window.

"And what business keeps him? We had the understanding he was expected more a week past," he countered, pouring himself a generous cup as the elf's steady gaze flickered fractionally. "He confirmed as much when he sent Veryamorcon with news from the other realms after the first melt."

"My lord did not give me leave to say," Abladon returned, careful this time and perhaps even a measure more respectful as he returned to his seat, glass swirling with the rich dry red that Thranduil himself favored.

A sudden thought pricked, rising meekly from underneath the sea of anger and resentment he'd been swimming in. Startling him with a thought he hadn't considered until the need to know was almost overwhelming.

"Is he well?"

He knew he wasn't imagining it this time when the messenger's lips twitched. Hiding a smile or perhaps even a smirk as he laced his fingers in front of him, the picture of lazy patience as the watch called out the hour on the inner wall. "My King is in good health, my lord."

His brow furrowed once more, not at all appeased as a measure of consequential awareness made itself known. Petty politics aside, one of the first lessons Thranduil had taught him as King was that relations between realms followed a pattern, an unspoken code of behavior and timing that neither side was oft to break lightly.

It was a slight he found hard to stomach. Especially from the Elven-King.

While Thranduil was certainly not the most approachable of people, he was remarkably perceptive and in fact cared about the wants and desires of those around him, especially his people. And of late – or at least until now – he had counted himself and his family among that number. Which is what made this entire affair all the more suspect in his mind.

For there was a reason he brought up Veryamorcon. He knew for a fact that Thranduil had noticed the forest-ranger's fondness for Dale. Or more specifically for Sigrid's sweet berry rolls and his tendency to find his way to Erebor to seek out Prince Fili. Letting himself be pestered into dicing and dagger throwing long into the evening whenever his King had no need of him.

What was more, was that while Thranduil's friendship had been extended freely, they had both taken pains to cultivate the understanding between them during the battle into something more than just a simple alliance between neighboring Kings. They had spent long in each other's company, even after all talk of trade and politics had been exhausted. Finding the thinnest of excuses to call on one another for counsel and idle banter.

For the Valar's sake! The damned creature spoiled his children to a degree even he was growing uncomfortable with! Something was amiss here. Something beyond his ability to sense, but close enough that the inability to do so simmered within like a festering sore.

He mulled over the messenger's words with a sense of resolve. Trying not to let his anger and disappointment show as he attempted to discern if there was any hidden meanings. Not that it mattered. He was halfway certain the elf Thranduil had sent was at least a couple hundred years older than him and had probably already deduced his mood from the slight tick in his right cheek or whatever it was that had given him away this time.

Blasted elves!

He jerked a hand, dismissive and curt. "Go then and tell your King his presence has been missed. Visit the kitchens if you are in want of anything before you set out."

"Vanya sulie, my lord Bard," the elf replied, inclining his head before turning smartly, long braids glinting with a modest tail of polished silver that caught the light as he moved. Following Fulthain who had been lingering on the other side of the door, down the stairs and out of sight.

He waited until the elf had gone, until the telltale clatter of hooves clip-clopping against the cobblestone reached him before he backhanded his glass of wine from the table with an uncharacteristic snarl.

But rather than watching it fall, he was up and moving before the stray red could settle amongst the shards. Letting the echoes chase him out the door as he shed his fine clothes and flung them to the side. Almost shaking with the force of an emotion he didn't understand as he thundered down the steps and headed for the wall.

Figuring he best put his anger into something useful as he threw his back into the task. Churning the mortar with a thick iron paddle until there was not a single part of him that wasn't sweat-drenched and streaked with mud. The fierce expression on his face forcing those who might have stopped him to give him a wide birth – while heartening those that worked alongside. Rubbing shoulders with their chosen King as he labored beside them.

A/N #1: Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – There will be three more chapters, so stay tuned.

Reference:

Fulthain: Male name of Rohan descent, meaning: "servant."

Fasthelm: Male name of Rohan descent, meaning: "firm protector."

Sindarin: one of the most common Elvish languages.

Gleothain: Male name of Rohan descent, meaning: "music servant."

Gleobeam: Female name of Rohan descent, meaning: "harp."

Veryamorcon: a male elvish name meaning: "bold bear." – This is a reference to my Kiliel fic: "New Growth (adorns an old tree)" where I named the elf that was seen interacting with Fili in the forest during "Desolation of Smaug" – getting all pissy because he kept having to pull daggers off of Fili, seemingly out of nowhere.

Mae govannen: Elvish greeting, meaning: "Well met."

Abladon: Male name of Mirkwood/Wood elf descent, meaning: refusal/prohibition.

Vanya sulie: Elvish farewell, meaning: "fair winds."