Chapter 1
Disclaimer: All of the following characters are Tolkien's, and I can legally lay claim to none of them. Varda knows I wish I could.
The summer breeze was refreshingly cool as Lord Elrond of Imladris abandoned all lordly dignity whatsoever and ran about the vast grounds of his realm with the same reckless abandon that his young twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir, displayed, dancing about only a few paces out of his reach. In a few long strides, though, he had swept them up and spun them around in a manner that made their mother, passing through the garden on her way to the weavers' shops, call out anxiously, "Do be careful with the children, Elrond, or I swear to Elbereth you will be the one tending their broken bones and cracked heads tonight!"
Paying no attention to his wife, Elrond pulled Elladan up by his arms and began to spin, laughing along with his son's enthusiastic screams and giggles. Sitting low on the ground, Elrohir waited with visible glee for his turn to come as his brother flew about in a circle several feet above the ground. However, as Elrond slowed and lowered a still-shrieking Elladan to the ground, a young Noldorin soldier, newly back from patrol with one of the rare scouting parties that went on expeditions in the wilderness surrounding Imladris, hurried up to them. "Lord Glorfindel has returned and wishes to deliver his report," he reported with a clipped bow.
Elrohir seemed about to protest, but his father was ahead of him. "I will be sure to spin you tonight, Elrohir, just as soon as Glorfindel and I have finished with the report," he promised his young son as he followed the scout. Elrohir nodded, clearly disappointed, but soon forgot in his excitement to join his brother in a frenzied game of tag over the lawns of Imladris. Elrohir eventually managed to catch his brother, after Elladan stopped running to marvel at a strange new beetle crawling over a fallen tree branch. The twins were occupied with observing it for several minutes, and in the course of following its wanderings, Elrohir fell into a puddle, Elladan decided to join him for fun, Elrohir managed to lose the beetle in a thicket, Elladan got his hair caught in said thicket trying to find it, and both decided to give up the search after the thicket broke from both of them leaning on it and they fell into another mud puddle. Much more wet, dirty, and hungry than when they had begun, the sons of Elrond made their way back to their home in the fading light, barely in time to be washed and given a hurried supper.
Later that evening, Elrond was concluding the final paragraphs of a letter to Thranduil requesting, in the most polite language possible, that said Sindarin king stop chasing his spiders west to Imladris for the Noldor to handle, since spider bites were becoming an unfortunately common source of injury for the elves of that house. Suddenly he heard the sound of pattering feet along the hallway, and a small figure pushed its way into his room. Looking up through eyes exhausted from composing and destroying multiple drafts that, try as he might to remain civil, expressed his massive amount of frustration with his neighbor's extermination policies, he saw the dark head of one of his sons standing at his desk. "Ada, ada," Elrohir squealed up at him. At least Elrond was fairly sure it was Elrohir. When he was too tired, he sometimes had difficulties telling his twins apart. This time, though, he was sure it was Elrohir, since he had gotten into the habit of tying different colored strings around his sons' wrists after the unfortunate time he had given Elladan a bath twice and Elrohir not at all. Elrohir's blue string was tied neatly around his wrist, though.
"Yes, little one?" he asked, wondering what Elrohir could possibly need at this hour of the night. Usually he was engaging in his nightly pillow fight with his brother before being tucked in by one or more parents concerned for the seams of the pillows.
"Spin me?" the young elf asked pleadingly, and Elrond suddenly remembered his promise of the afternoon.
"Of course," he replied, scooping his son up with a wide smile. "Just as long as your naneth never hears of this, understand?" he whispered with a conspiratorial wink, and Elrohir nodded firmly. "Ready? One…two…three!" In no time at all, Elrohir was flying around in circles by his arms, his squeals valiantly suppressed "lest naneth hear." Soon, though, Elrond slowed his circles and let Elrohir float gently down to the ground, but the small elf reached up again.
"Carry me back to bed?" he begged, still swaying dizzily from his spin, and Elrond obligingly picked his small son up once again, letting Elrohir clasp his arms around his neck and hang on tightly from there as he walked the short distance between his room and the one that the twins shared.
However, as he tucked Elrohir into his bed, he noticed that his son was, for seemingly no reason, laughing. He was giggling as though he had just discovered the funniest joke in the history of Arda, although there seemed to be nothing to cause the onslaught of laughter. "Elrohir, penneth, what is so funny?" he asked.
"Because you spun me twice, and Elrohir not at all!" Elladan squealed in his excitement. With a groan which only writing diplomatic letters and confusing your twin sons can produce, Elrond took another, more careful look at his bouncing progeny. Yes, this time he was sure it was Elladan, and, now that he noticed it, the intricately woven blue cord that was meant to tell the Elrohir apart from his red-stringed brother was in reality only a small bit of blue yarn stolen from some elleth's yarn basket. Elrohir, who had been dozing off, woke up suddenly.
"Spin me, Ada?" he asked, causing Elladan to burst into further giggles. Elrond looked pleadingly to the heavens for inspiration. Suddenly struck by an idea, he returned his gaze to his young sons.
"Instead of spinning you, would you like me to tell you a story?" he asked, and both twins nodded enthusiastically. Their father's stories were seldom delivered, but were always magnificent, better even than Glorfindel's tales of fierce fights in the Elder Days, when monsters roamed the lands freely and elves and men were stronger and hardier than they were in the present days. "I am about to tell you a story from when I was little, and I was growing up in the house of the Fëanorians," he told them with impressive gravity, causing his sons to settle quietly and give him their full attention. "By the way, Elrohir, you should probably know that Elladan stole your spin from me," he remarked, pausing in his introduction, and watched in satisfaction as Elrohir proceeded to tackle his twin brother and sit on his head briefly before letting him up and resuming his attentive air. "Once, long, long ago, your uncle and I went out for a walk with your Grandfather Maglor…" Elrond began, even losing himself in the memory of the time long ago when he and Elros were young, even the age of his own sons now.
A/N: My sincerest apologies to anyone who has been waiting for an update to Many Meetings, and is disappointed to get some wacky twin-fic instead. The only excuse that I can give is that I have completely and utterly run out of inspiration for Many Meetings. If I ever manage to think up something remotely amusing for it, I will certainly update, but until then I can only say that I'm sorry for making you wait.
Note on the classification of this fic: Although this chapter is set in the Third Age, it's so far removed from the events of the Lord of the Rings that I feel justified in putting it in the Silmarillion archive. Also, the following two chapters will be set firmly in the timeline of the Silmarillion, so putting it in the LotR archive would make almost no logical sense.