January 6th, 2019

Hey guys! Yeah I still write, I mostly upload on AO3 now and also write my own stuff :) I thought I'd share this one with you here too tho, cause ppl on AO3 liked it and I have the feeling the LOTR Fandom is still pretty active here! So enjoy :*

Chapter 1 – Fatal Naiveté

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Very carefully, Estel's feet lifted over the next set of roots. Even though Imladris was long behind him, he was still afraid that the guard's elven hearing would pick up on his footsteps.

If they find out, they'll worry, a voice in his head chimed up. Quickly, Estel tried to wave it away. The little boy was determined that they would never find out in the first place.

It was them who didn't want to go with me, so it's their own fault!, he decided inwardly.

Indeed, his two brothers had refused to ride out with him to the forest today. Something about not wanting to leave their father alone on a day like this. At 8 years old, Estel barely understood the concept of grief, especially how it worked for elves, so he had moaned and complained about being bored all day yesterday, with no effect at all.

"Plus, we're awaiting guests. Really, we can go when Legolas is here, he'll enjoy the flowery glades as well.", Elrohir had reassured him and Elladan beside him had laughed.

"Last time we threw him in the nearby stream at the waterfall when he stood contemplating it, remember?", the other twin added with an amused and fond smile.

"I do! We all got a good chiding when we got back, all drenched right before the feast." Both of them giggled and obviously deemed the topic over. Estel didn't know who this Legolas person was, but he sure as hell hated him in that very moment. He had planned this as a day between his brothers and him and the stubborn streak steadily developing inside him had said that if they didn't want to go, he'd have to go find somebody else. He just wanted to see the glades! And pick some flowers that only grew in that area in these spring days, the bluebells. A crown of them would surely cheer his brothers up, maybe even his father. Estel distantly remembered Elrond telling him that their roots were good for wounds.

To his demise, his mother had also gone out on an errand and wasn't present to go with him either. His Ada was even more absent than his brothers in the last days, so he hadn't even dared to ask. Even Glorfindel and Erestor were busy, usually very open to entertaining the human child.

Seeing no other option, Estel had decided that it was time he did something on his own. And going into the wooden glades wasn't that dramatic anyway, normally they only rode for half an hour, so how far could it be?

Originally, he had planned to take his foal, but the stables had been occupied, so he couldn't risk sneaking around in there. With visitors arriving, everything was being readied for their horses to rest in.

Pretty upset about the whole situation, he had finally decided to sneak out right after bedtime so he could be at the flower fields in the morning and maybe make it back by dinner.

His plan went well…until he lost the path.

For his last journeys out of Imladris, his brothers had always been there to guide him along the winding paths of the forest and the mountains. They knew the way around the valley like the back of their hand after all. Estel however found it difficult to remember the way as it had been last year in late summer when he went there and it was now early spring…and colder than he had anticipated. Not even considering that a way by horseback was different than on foot anyway.

Rubbing his freezing hands together and blowing his breath into them, Estel suddenly stopped.

Was that a light up ahead?

Wow! He couldn't believe his luck. There were travelers around Imladris sometimes, it was rare but it happened, and they often traveled to the valley to bring goods to the elves or were rangers his brothers or mother knew. For his young age Estel did not meet many humans but those he did were often associated with the elves in some way so maybe now he'd get to meet new people! Oh, maybe they were the elven travelers on their way to Imladris! He could rest at their fire!

Oh Valar, he was freezing.

And hungry.

So with much more excitement than he was going to admit later, Estel hurried his steps towards the light dancing between the trees. The warm glow of a fire was clear cut in the eerie darkness around him. Another reason why he hurried was that the darkness had made him more scared than he anticipated, too. The moon was barely a small sliver today and didn't provide much light at all.

Considering this, him stumbling and cutting his clothes wasn't really a surprise now was it?

Still freezing, hungry and exhausted, Estel didn't even stop and listen or think before blindly stumbling into the clearing, right into the firelight.

He hadn't even heard the loud laughs and clashing of metal until he was already spotted.

The clearing was suddenly very quiet. Around ten human men stood or sat around the roaring fire, food cooking over it and bottles of mead in hand. They had stopped in whatever they were doing to look at the nicely dressed but torn little boy, who stared right back at them.

"Now what do we have here?" one of them asked, maybe their leader. He had a scruffy beard and his brown clothes looked well worn. His hand held a roughly smitten sword which he now lowered.

"I'm…" Estel was suddenly struggling for words. He realized that he should have stopped to look what awaited him. These people looked like hunters, judging by their weapons maybe not just tame ones.

"Are you lost, boy?" asked another one. His face was friendlier and he tilted his head in obvious sympathy. "Where are your parents?" something in Estel relaxed a little bit. He was still on edge, something in him urging him to turn and run away. But what would it gain? They could easily run after him, maybe knew these parts even better than him. In his confusion he had no idea where to run to, anyway.

So he just nodded quickly, then made a face as if to think what to say.

"I ran away." He just said honestly. "I wanted to get to the glades." His feet slowly took him closer to the fire, the warmth and smell of food drawing him as if on instinct. The hunters were silent for a second, clearly stunned by this.

"May I…rest here for a bit?" he asked politely. His Westron was passable enough he hoped, at least his Mother always spoke to him in this way.

"May you? Sure, boy, come over here, have a seat and some stew." Okay, maybe his speech was a little different? When these men talked, they had a drawl to their voice that he was unfamiliar with, a kind of rough way of pronouncing words. He still hesitated, but his growling stomach and aching …everything urged him forward slowly but surely.

Soon he had a bowl of stew and a spoon and was sitting by the fire, enjoying its warmth. He barely even noticed the glances the men threw at him or at each other, silently communicating or whispering among themselves.

"So." The leader said after a few minutes they let him eat in silence. He crouched next to him and also tilted his head now, eyes slightly narrowed. "Little rebel. What's your name?"

"Estel." The boy said without much hesitation.

"Estel? What kind of name's that? Never heard it before." The leader mused. His stomach now a little more filled and feeling more secure about the situation he was in, Estel decided he might as well enlighten them. Maybe they knew the elves and had just never heard much of their language. It was quite common with some rangers as far as he knew.

"It's Sindarin for 'Hope'. My father said it was very befitting of me." Stunned faces filled the round of men who had now gathered around the firelight more tightly. Clearly the little lost boy was more interesting than whatever they had previously done. Estel smiled a little, maybe they were stunned he knew Sindarin.

"Did he now. And where does your father live? I've never heard of anybody speaking that language in the nearby villages." It seemed he was just curious, now sitting on the floor next to Estel and exchanging a short glance with a few of his men. Estel, still kind of focused on his stew, did not notice some of them grasping their weapons more tightly. The boy hesitated for a second and looked up from his bowl.

"He's from Imladris. Oh wait, you may know it as Rivendell. Why do you ask?" he put down his spoon, realizing with a jolt that he was indeed fully surrounded now. Had it been this many men before? By the Valar why did they look so imposing from down here? And why had he decided to trust them again?

"I see." The leader just said.

Then, from one second to the next, everything got much, much worse.

The lead hunter nodded at one of his men behind Estel, that one grabbed him and pulled him up, his bowl of stew flying to the ground and spilling the food in the trampled grass. Estel gasped, then screamed, when one of the other men proceeded to bind his hands.

"W-what are you doing?" he asked, clear tremble in his voice. He didn't want to seem scared though and struggled. "Let me go!"

"No we won't, little brat. I imagine with your fancy clothes and speak that your so called 'father' isn't poor. And If he's dealing with elves he's maybe even loaded. And if you ran away I bet he'd still pay a hefty amount to get you back. Don't you think so?"

Estel stared for a few seconds, shocked. The fire suddenly did nothing to warm him and a heavy chill ran down his spine. The wind going through the trees seemed fearful itself as the realization dawned on him that somehow, he had walked right into a clearing of humans that were up and ready to kidnap him for Elrond's gold. They didn't even know that when he said father he meant the lord of Rivendell himself, they just assumed it was a rich human having dealings in the valley. What would they do if they found out? How could he be so naïve to think them simply curious?

His bound hands were balled to fists but he had to fight the strong urge not to cry out of anger and frustration and maybe fear. Crying would only make them pity him and he couldn't use their pity.

He just wanted to be home.

"No, I ran away. They're not going to give you anything." He protested and tried to twist free. This only earned a hollow laugh from some of his captors while they dragged him to a nearby tree that surrounded the clearing. Oh how he wished he could climb that tree right now like he did with so many in Imladris.

"NO! Let me GO! ADAAA! ELLADAN! ELROHIR! Help!" he screamed their names on the top of his lungs, hoping he had somehow wandered in circles and their elven hearing would pick it up. They always heard when he didn't want them to hear, why not now? In his panic he switched to Sindarin, confusing his captors, but not enough to deter them from binding him to that tree.

"Somebody, please! Somebody help m-" he was interrupted when one of the men roughly shoved a piece of stinking cloth in his mouth to silence him.

"Shut up, brat. Don't want anything to happen to you do we now?" He threatened and lifted a knife to his neck to prove his point. "We still need you for leverage after all." Then he was gone again, leaving Estel to stare around the group desperately for someone, anyone, who showed more sympathy, more compassion.

He had never known such cruelty, at least not by humans. The one encounter with Orcs that his mother told him about he did not remember, he had been too young.

None of the hunters –bandits?- however showed such compassion, not even the one who had greeted him with a friendlier tone, he pointedly turned away from his gaze. One of them stayed by his side to guard him while the others went back to their food or to practicing their combat. Their moves were so very different to what Estel always watched his brothers accomplish and it only fueled his frustration that they were not here to show these idiots just what kind of fools they were.

The clearing wasn't quiet anymore now but nobody was paying attention to him either. The guard next to him attacked some piece of wood with his knife and the others were busy in some other way.

"Who has the prettiest handwriting, boys? We're gonna write a letter to that boys father" the leader then screamed into the clearing and earned a round of laughs.

Estel tried to not imagine what Elrond's face would look like when he received that letter. Maybe they didn't even know he was gone yet and when they woke up in the morning they received a ransom notice? His Ada had already been so sad…

In the relative privacy of being ignored while tied to a tree, he felt the tears creep down his face. He didn't know if they had been there before he allowed them to be or not, but now they were conscious and now he wanted to curl into himself and weep, but the tied hands only allowed him to draw his legs close to his body to rest his head a little bit.

A rustle above his head drew his attention and made him pause mid sob.

Wearily, he gazed up into the canopy of the trees. Maybe someone had heard him and they were approaching through the trees to not alarm the men? Though he had never seen his brothers tree walk, he knew that they were able to. They had once mumbled something about Noldor elves not being made for trees but he hadn't really heard them or received an answer as to why.

Who stared back at him though, was not one of his brothers.

There in the tree above him sat an elf. If not for his golden-blond hair he would have blended with the canopy perfectly as his clothing was in shades of green and brown, unlike anything Estel had ever seen his brothers or any elf in Rivendell wear. They seemed to be hunting clothes and the boy vaguely made out a bow and quiver on his back.

When he saw Estel return his gaze, he winked and smiled.

Then he was gone.

Hope you liked it! I already uploaded this on AO3 but I thought some ppl here would enjoy it too :)