This story is the sequel to 'Hiding and Seeking' by Whitewolf1. It was written with the kind permission and help of Whitewolf1.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Hiding, Seeking, and Getting Your Own Back
Legolas looked at the knife stuck in the ground and the tracks leading away from it with a smug look on his face.
The Prince of Mirkwood, his Rivendell counterparts, the King and Steward of Gondor had all taken a day off to explore parts of the newly liberated Ithilien before Elladan and Elrohir departed for Rohan with Éomer King.
Apparently, though he was now King of Gondor, Aragorn still had a mischievous streak, and was still foolishly determined to outsmart the three arrogant elves. Thus, he had challenged them to their usual game of Hiding and Seeking, and had apparently roped poor Faramir into the decades old game.
"Elladan, Elrohir!" called Legolas in his melodic elven voice. "It appears that the King of Gondor has issued a Royal Challenge." The twin sons of Elrond looked at the trail left for them and quickly assessed the situation. Both wore similar smug expressions to Legolas'; Aragorn had never succeeded in outsmarting them in this game.
"Two humans are easier to find than one." said Elladan with the confident air of someone who knew he could not lose.
"And we have at least seven hours of sunlight left in which to find them." said Elrohir after a quick assessment of the position of the sun in the sky. Summer was nearly upon Middle-Earth, and though it was well past the noon hour, the elves knew that the lengthy daylight hours would give them sufficient time in which to find the two foolish humans.
"Lets go then; the sooner we set off, the sooner we find them, and the sooner we can get back to the White City," said Legolas confidently, starting off down the trail.
An hour later all three elves were flummoxed. The trail had very quickly become two, the two men obviously splitting up to try to confuse the elves, but it was not that that had baffled the elves. The two trails had gone in similar directions, obviously headed for the same place and often crossing. But all of a sudden the trails had converged again, and then disappeared altogether.
"They wouldn't have taken to the trees would they?" asked a confused Elladan.
"No," replied his twin "Éstel always wanted to defeat us on even terms; he wouldn't break the rules of the game"
"But how can two men simply have disappeared?" asked Elladan again, "Éstel grew up with elves and even he leaves some trace of his passing when he's in the wild."
Legolas meanwhile had been looking intently at the land surrounding the point where the trail had simply vanished, trying to discern which way the two human rangers had gone. The Prince of Mirkwood wanted to congratulate his human friend (even though he wouldn't; his elvish pride wouldn't allow it!) for Aragorn was using tricks he had never used before.
There were some rocks near where the trail left off, but the men couldn't have made that leap without leaving some trace of them having done so.
Legolas began searching for signs that the tracks had been wiped over, and it took him several minutes of straining even his acute elven eyesight to discern that that was indeed what they had done.
They're good, thought Legolas, but not as good as we are!
"They've been covering up their tracks as they go," called Legolas, breaking up the argument that had started up between the twins, "They make a formidable team, but we'll catch them yet!"
They started off following the trail with grins on their faces, once more confident that they could beat the two foolish humans. The trail was much easier to follow now that the elves knew what they were looking for; the barely perceptible signs of barely perceptible footprints being brushed away.
A short time later the elves came across a small stream. Usually this did not even remotely bother the elves; these three who had taught Aragorn every trick he knew about tracking in the wild, including how to hide your trail in water. However, this time they were uneasy, the man was using tricks he had learned elsewhere, and they were harder for them to comprehend.
"He's left footprints," said Elladan triumphantly, as he surveyed the streambed intently with his elven eyes.
"Yes, but so has Faramir," replied his twin "and thus the tracks lead both up and down stream."
"But Éstel has played that trick before; he always comes back down stream and only leaves a false trail," said Legolas, refusing to be beaten.
"But this time there are two of them, and it is conceivable that there will be two trails to follow," argued Elrohir.
His twin looked sulky that Éstel seemed to have outwitted them, momentarily.
The three elves stood a moment, pondering the next course of action. Elves are not known for their tendencies to rush into something, especially not when the desire to win is so great. In the end it was Legolas who came up with the answer, as usual, when dealing with Aragorn.
"Do we actually have to find both of them?" he asked his two friends. "I would settle for just finding our upstart human king, who seems to think he is so good." The identical grins on Elladan and Elrohir's faces told Legolas that they wholeheartedly agreed with him.
"All we need to do is discern which of the prints belongs to Éstel and then follow them!" said Elladan brightly.
"That's easy," said Elladan, drawing surprised looks from the other two "Éstel nearly always goes backwards upstream, and I'd bet Legolas' golden elven locks that Faramir isn't nearly as good as our boy at it."
All three stood for a moment suffused with an almost parental pride in their boy's remarkable skill in the wild before taking Elladan's advice and following the trail upstream.
As it turned out, the elves had wasted time deliberating which trail to follow as Aragorn and Faramir's trails converged some way from the stream.
The elves then spent the next two hours following the route left for them to follow, as it twisted and turned through the trees, both trails crossing so often that none of the elves were entirely sure who they were actually tracking. More than once the trail disappeared entirely, but it usually only took the elves a moment to pick out a covered up trail or slightly less perceptible footprints in long grass.
Once the trail disappeared completely, and the elves could not find any traces of the footprints being brushed away. They almost gave up then, until Elrohir discovered the trail continuing some way back; the men had doubled back over their own footprints and waded through thick mud (which left no trace of their passing) to start a new trail on the other side of the small swamp.
"I'll say this for them," said Elladan when the trails disappeared again and they tried to establish which method of confusion they had used this time, "they are good, for humans."
"They certainly are formidable when they are working together. If Éstel had been alone we would have found him before now," said Legolas, his eyes never once leaving the abruptly ending trail.
"Do you think Éstel and Faramir have actually found a hiding place, or do you think the brat is following us again?" asked Elrohir, who was getting more than slightly annoyed that his little brother was outsmarting them.
"No," replied Legolas, smiling at the memory of that particular game, "We would have realized by now if he was doing that. Last time I knew what he was doing fairly early on, it was just a matter of allowing him to get cocky and make a mistake so that we would find him."
"And anyway," added Elladan, "he wouldn't try that again, not after the teasing we gave him about that one!"
"You'd think they would both have gotten bored of this by now," mused Elrohir. "After all, they were both rangers for a living."
"Which is how they got good enough to confuse us for so long!" snapped his twin. "Anyway, they have responsibilities now; they need some excitement," he said, starting to grin a little.
Legolas glanced up at the sky; they only had three hours left in which to find the two wayward humans. After all, the people of Gondor would want their King and Steward back sometime.
"Come on," said Legolas "We haven't got much time left."
"You've found the trail." Legolas nodded wearily; even he was starting to think that Aragorn might actually have beaten them this time, although he hadn't managed it alone.
"This way," said Legolas, pointing to the barely visible marks that either Aragorn or Faramir had left slightly to the side of the existing trail.
A short time later the trails began their confusing dance once more, weaving ever more complicated patterns through the Garden of Gondor, and yet there was still no trace of the two men the elves were supposed to be following. All three Hunters imagined they could hear the laughter of the two men ringing in their ears.
All three elves sat down as one, needing a rest as the two rangers had once more set them a tricky problem to sort out. Exhaustion was evident on each of their faces, not so much from being led a merry dance around Ithilien all afternoon, but rather from the intellectual strain of the course Aragorn and Faramir had chosen; the elves were used to beating Éstel much more easily than this.
"Two hours of daylight left," lamented Elladan, as he glanced at the westering sun, "Éstel has us utterly confused for the umpteenth time today, and I am quite sure that we are lost."
"We are not lost!" snapped a frustrated Legolas, before doggedly pursuing their quarry once more.
The twins glanced at each other, neither of them wanted to admit that Éstel had finally outsmarted them, but they were not as hell bent on victory as the normally placid Prince of Mirkwood seemed to be.
"Come on," said Elrohir, "We still have two hours of sun left before Legolas has to admit defeat."
The elves set back towards the place Aragorn had left his knife as a challenge as the sun dipped down below the horizon beyond the Mindolluin. The twins would have noticed how beautiful Ithilien was at this hour if they were not travelling with Legolas, who was still glowering about the fact Éstel had actually won their little game of hide and seek.
Elladan and Elrohir had put their pride behind them, when they had realised two hours ago that they were, at last, beaten.
Legolas however, seemed to be having difficulty letting go.
"Don't you think that Éstel deserves this victory, after all the times that we beat him and taunted him about it?" asked Elladan wearily, ever so slightly annoyed at Legolas' continued sulking.
Legolas merely shrugged but seemed to calm down somewhat.
A little way ahead they picked up the laughter of two victorious men, and all six highly sensitive ears began to burn red with embarrassment at the mockery they were about to endure.
"What took you so long?" called Aragorn cheerfully, as the elves entered the clearing.
Faramir seemed to be having difficulty keeping his features straight.
"Alright Éstel, you win," said Elladan as good naturedly as he could; pride was not such an easy thing to let go of now that he was facing the man that after decades of failure had finally beaten three arrogant elves at their own game.
"Now you know what it feels like to lose," said Éstel, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes we know what it feels like to lose," admitted Legolas irritably. "How in the blazes did you manage it after all this time?"
"Patience. Learning from all the mistakes I have made in the past and knowing not to make them again. And by knowing your weaknesses."
All three elves looked incredulous that they could have any weaknesses at all.
"Arrogance," laughed Faramir. "You believed that you were unbeatable, and you underestimated the skill of two human rangers. After all, we are only men." he said mockingly.
"Also it doesn't hurt that myself and Faramir have spent most of our lives escaping various enemies, which means this game is a matter of life and death. Nor that I was helped by a man who has spent most of his time in these woods since he was a mere teenager!"
The two men laughed, and the elves could see that slight revenge for Éstel was not the only outcome of the day; the bond forged between their boy and the Gondorian would prove useful to them in the future, and to Legolas' mind, it was finally worth the price of his pride.
"Come on," said the blonde in the most cheery tone he had used for the past hour, I'm sure it will be dinner time soon, and the city gates close at sunset, which it is now."
"Not without their King and Steward they won't," said Faramir confidently.
So they set off back to the White City, the elves' pride slightly bruised but having learned a valuable lesson.
"Next time we hide, and Éstel can find us," said Elladan.
"You will have to pry him away from councils and paperwork, he's a King now," replied his twin.
Aragorn smiled almost ruefully; true he was glad to have won the game of hiding and seeking at last, but it would likely be the last game he would play with his brothers and old friend. That was the price he had paid for Peace.
"Hah," scoffed Legolas "You think Aragorn will be able to find us?"
Aragorn raised an eyebrow, "That sounds like a challenge…"