The passing of King Elfgyfan

by TMI Fairy

This cheerful ficlet – thoughts of King Elfgyfan the Liftskirt on his deathbed - is the continuation of the AU presented in "The Lay of Eowyn". There the White Lady of the Mark falls for the charms of a certain blond elfish Prince - with fatal consequences for said Prince due to unfortunate incident with the Lion of Rohan. Another consequence was her son, cunningly named Elf-Gift.

Elfgyfan knew it was only a matter of days for him to occupy the second barrow in the third row. The row which began with his mother, the Queen-King Eowyn Wraithbane. Since he had smelled the rot, and the healers confirmed it, he had ordered the raising of his barrow.

He would not make it to two hundred years, after all. He will die at 197. The latest odds had been 3:2 that he would not live that long, although optimists bet on him reaching two hundred and ten. The pessimists had been loosing money on him since he had outlived Elessar, some seventy years back. And odds had been steadily against him since the eldest of his grandchildren began dying of old age.

He had outlived six wives which had given him nineteen sons and seventeen daughters. A seeress from the Wold with crazed heliotrope eyes – scrying from the scum on a pot of boiling horse urine – had prophesised that he will have six wives. As not to tempt fate he had not remarried after Earcongota's passing.

He had long lost track of his descendants. His children he did know and remember, even those now dead for over a century. But grandchildren, appearing at what seemed to be a rate of several a year, had been too much for him to keep track off. When they came to him to show their children he took them to the chart occupying one wall of the Golden Hall for him to add to it. The format had been changed several times already, when they ran out of wall space.

It was also messy to have children in their teens and great-great-grand-children at the same time. Was Eomeric – his Heir – his three or four times grand son? He never could remember.

What mattered was that line of the House of Eorl was secure. For his one hundred and ninetieth birthday his living male descendants were close to fielding a full eored.

The rot which was killing him was his own fault. The guard at the inn had heard his activities in the stable with the wench and – mistaking said activities for foul play – had plunged a pitchfork into his back. Pig shit was the least offensive of substances on the implement's teeth, so infection had set in instantly. To keep the man from being lynched he had the Royal Guard escort him – with a pouch of gold - to Gondor.

He closed his eyes, letting the fever take him. He smiled at the memory of the pretty face of the girl which had been his last.