Lindir adored pastries and like most pastry freaks, he adored freshly made pastries. He absolutely loved their aroma, their creamy softness, the way they flaked into crumbs under his hands. Most of all, their buttery taste and the way they melted in his mouth.
So every day, before dawn and without fail, he would climb - slippery-slide - down the drain pipe outside his bedroom window and creep into the kitchens on the ground floor below. Once there, he would wait until the cooks brought out the first batch of pastries for the day and laid them out ready to go to the breakfast halls. Then, as soon as their backs were turned and as quick as an arrow, he would dart out and seize the tray of pastries and run back to his rooms whereupon he would eat his catch quicker than even he could say "pastry".
Now one day, when he entered the kitchen, he saw that a pastry tray had already been brought out. On it, however, were not the usual breakfast pastries, but one very alone and very very plump cream pastry covered over and stuffed with berries and drizzled with golden honey. Oh, it looked scrumptious! Lindir's eyes widened on seeing it. He had to have it!
And so he did! He grabbed it off of its tray, tucked it under his arm, and sped back to his rooms. Within moments of his shutting the door behind him, the pastry was gone and Lindir was sitting sated on his bedroom floor, a wide smile of contentedness on his face.
Now unknown to Lindir, that pastry was one of a kind and had been specially made not for the breakfast halls, but for a private breakfast room that belonged to none other than Lord Elrond, the lord of the realm. And Elrond, on finding his specially ordered pastry missing when he sat down for breakfast that morning, was most put-out. He had been very much looking forward to eating the pastry. Very cross, he sent for the head cook.
"I turned my back on it for one moment and the next thing I knew, the pastry was gone from its tray," the cook explained to him. "I can only think that someone stole it for I certainly remember making it, my lord."
"Evidently there is a pastry thief in the house," Elrond said, folding his arms and glaring at the bare plate sitting at the centre of his breakfast table; the plate that, had there been no thief, would now be covered in the flakes and sauce remains of the pastry. "We shall have to catch him or her. Let us lay a trap! Tomorrow - you will make the same pastry for me and we shall hide in the kitchen and lie in wait for this criminal!"
And so they did! The next morning, well before dawn, Lord Elrond was out of bed and hiding crouched in a corner of the kitchen with three of his best guards. In their sight, a few feet away and in the centre of the kitchen, the pastry that Elrond had ordered sat prettily on a tray.
They did not have to wait long. Just before the sun touched the horizon and the cooks started to bring out the trays of breakfast pastries, the side door into the kitchen opened and the thief slipped inside, the elf's sharp eyes glancing shiftily from side to side. On spying the pastry sitting in the centre of the kitchen, Lindir's eyes brightened and with a delighted smile on his face, he tip-toed over to it and gleefully picked it up.
He had no sooner done so than Elrond and the three guards jumped out of their hiding places. "HALT!" Elrond shouted and his three guards hurried to seize Lindir. But Lindir was too quick for them as on seeing the first sign of movement, he had turned tail and fled from the kitchen.
But unfortunately for Lindir, Elrond had recognised his face and (unsurprisingly) he knew where Lindir lived. Determined not to let Lindir get away with his pastry on a second occasion, Elrond raced to Lindir's rooms and lay in wait just within the elf's door, a large violin in his hands. And no sooner had Lindir opened the door, breathing hard, the pastry under his arm, than Elrond leapt up and brought the violin down hard on Lindir's head. SMASH!
Lindir fell down, out cold, and the pastry rolled cheerfully to a halt in the middle of the room, oozing cream and honey onto the floorboards.
Elrond was tempted to eat the pastry first, but wary of Lindir waking and escaping him a second time, he firstly rolled Lindir onto his front and tied him up - wrists and ankles - with the broken strings of the violin. Then he picked up the pastry, sat down on Lindir's back, and started to eat it.
A few bites later, he noticed that Lindir was awake and watching him. Correction - watching the pastry. Elrond stopped eating and looked between Lindir's beady eyes and the pastry and then smiled broadly.
"Not this morning," he said cheerfully, and he turned his attention back to the pastry and took a large bite.
But as Elrond quickly discovered, eating a pastry while someone is intently watching you and your pastry is not a particularly enjoyable act. Soon the lord found himself glancing with increasing guilt down at the elf lying beneath him and mulishly watching him devour his breakfast.
Finally, his conscience gave in and he tore a bit off of the pastry and held it down to Lindir's lips. "Just one bite," he said. Lindir, his expression slightly surprised and very grateful, opened his mouth wide and Elrond poked in the piece. As Lindir's lips closed, however, they brushed Elrond's cream and honey smeared fingers and Elrond blinked. The touch had made him suddenly feel rather warm and fuzzy - tingly - a very nice feeling indeed. So nice, in fact, that unbelievably, it felt almost nicer than eating the pastry.
He ripped off another piece of the pastry and fed it to Lindir who eagerly swallowed it and licked Elrond's fingers clean. Then another piece, then another piece, and then another... and then Elrond looked down and there was only one piece of the pastry left. He looked between it and Lindir's eyes, which were starting to resemble that of a pleading puppy's, and then back at the pastry piece. And then he poked it into his own mouth and leaned down to kiss Lindir, feeding him the last bit of the pastry as he did so.
Afterwards, he untied Lindir and they both sat up and stared at one another for a long while.
Then, finally, Lindir cleared his throat and Elrond, coming back to his senses, stood up and amiably invited him to breakfast with him at dawn the following day.
"Will there be pastries?" Lindir asked. And then, after another pause, he added, "And will your wife be there?"
"There will always be pastries," Elrond replied with a glint in his eyes as he reached for the door. "And the wife is never there."