Folks, this story is in honor of Dragonfly. She had a Mommy Moment a couple of days ago, so I went searching through the chronicles to find a story that shows that even the Eldar have their days. May the Valar bless each and every Adar and Naneth, now and forever.
Beta Reader: Since this tale is meant to be a surprise for Dragonfly, I didn't send it to her to be beta'd. Happy hunting, Joee!
Vocabulary
Merilin—Nightingale
Elrond wandered through the Hall, feeling at a loss, a very odd feeling for the normally unflappable elf-lord. He paused at the door to the library. There was Erestor, bent over a manuscript. Elrond cleared his throat. Erestor looked up.
"Erestor, is there anything you need?"
"Need? I will need more ink shortly, but I have already set a servant to preparing some."
"I mean, do you need anything from me? Was there something I promised to do for you?"
"No, I don't believe so."
"My pardon for disturbing you then."
Elrond wandered on. He glanced into the Hall of Fire. There sat Gandalf, smoking his pipe before the fire.
"Mithrandir, is there something you want?"
"More pipe weed. This is the last of it."
Elrond smiled.
"I cannot help you there, my friend."
Elrond found his way to the Armory. Glorfindel was grumbling to himself as he surveyed the shields.
"What is the matter, Glorfindel?"
"Look at the scratches on these shields, Elrond. I suspect those scamps have again been using them to slide down the hill. If I catch them at it, I shall skin them!"
"I wonder," said Elrond, "if we ought to have the Carpenter make some boards for them to slide upon."
"Elrond! Do not encourage them! That pastime is naught but a waste of time that ought to be devoted to bettering themselves as warriors."
"I am not entirely convinced of that," said Elrond thoughtfully. "They certainly are developing their sense of balance, standing as they do upon shields as they hurtle down a slope. Anomen is particularly good at it."
"Elrond, as I have said before, the ability to stand upon a hurtling shield will be of no use to them in the midst of battle."
"Perhaps you are right, but they can't always be at their training, Glorfindel. What is it that Men say? 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'. In any event, at least we could keep them from damaging the shields if we supplied them with some sort of substitute."
"Oh, very well," Glorfindel conceded grudgingly. "I suppose they could be spending their time at something even worse."
Elrond was glad that he now had something to attend to. He went straight to the Carpenter and commanded that three balancing boards be devised, one each for Elrohir, Elladan, and Anomen. "They should be rather like shields," he told the Carpenter, "the length greater than the width. See that the bottoms are smoothed and waxed so that they will slide easily."
That errand having been completed, Elrond once again was at loose ends.
"There is something I ought to be doing," he murmured, "but I cannot tell what it is."
He wandered out to the garden.
"Have I given orders for the planting of trees on the far side of the fountain?" he asked the Gardener.
"Last month, my Lord," answered the Gardener.
"Oh. Well, carry on."
Next he stopped at the kitchen.
"Have you seen to the laying up of vegetables for the season to come?" he asked the Cook.
That personage raised his eyebrows after the fashion of Elrond himself.
"My Lord, I did so last month, as per your orders."
"Oh, yes. Of course. Very good, then."
Elrond wandered back outside. He heard a curious sound coming from a copse.
"Sproing sproing sproing."
'Good!' he thought to himself. 'Something for me to investigate and set right if need be!"
He hastened into the copse and was met by a most curious sight. Elladan, Elrohir, and Anomen had stretched a cowhide taut between the trunks of trees. The hide was several feet above the ground, and Anomen was bouncing upon its surface. As Elrond watched in consternation, Anomen performed a somersault. The elf-lord clamped his mouth shut.
'I suppose', he thought gloomily to himself, 'I ought to lay down as a safety rule that they not perform somersaults on that hide, but that would only be one more edict for them to cheerfully ignore'.
Now Elrohir climbed up on the hide and began to bounce alongside Anomen.
'That's not safe, either', Elrond sighed. 'They will crash against each other'.
Elrond abandoned the copse and stopped again in the kitchen.
"What is for dinner?" he asked the Cook. That personage now assumed a most alarming expression. No one, not even the Lord of Imladris, meddled with the menu.
"Just curious, is all," said Elrond, hastily retreating as the Cook raised a ladle.
Next Elrond tried the stable.
"Have these horses been exercised today?" he asked the Head Ostler, who looked at him as if he were mad.
"My Lord, they are exercised morning and afternoon. I am sure you know that."
"Have they been fed then?"
"Of course."
"Watered?"
"My Lord!"
"Well, well, well—have their stalls been mucked out?"
"Yes," the Ostler exclaimed acerbically, "but there is a pitchfork against that wall if you want to have another go at it."
"No," said Elrond contritely, and he retreated from the stables as well.
Elrond walked sadly back toward the Hall. As he passed the Armory, he heard yet another strange sound.
"Clackety clackety clackety."
The elf-lord hurried in the direction of this new sound. As he rounded a corner, he saw that the elflings had abandoned bouncing upon the cowhide. The Carpenter had delivered the sliding boards to the young ones, and Anomen was trying his out—but not upon the hill! Indeed no! Instead he was sliding down a flight of steps that led down toward the river! As he reached the bottom, he kicked up the board and smoothly caught it. Watching him, Elrond was both impressed and terrified.
'I should insist that they wear helmets when they engage in such dangerous feats', he thought to himself. 'Aye, and pads for both their knees and their elbows. And wrist guards, too! But no', he continued, abandoning the idea. 'They would discard any protective gear as soon as I was out of sight. What is it that Men say: 'It is necessary that each child must eat a peck of dirt'. Apparently it is also necessary that each young one break a dozen bones as part of the process of growing up. I know Anomen is well on his way toward that tally!'
And so the day passed slowly, with Elrond convinced that there was something he was meant to do but quite unable to recollect what it was.
That night, as his household gathered for the evening meal, Elrond looked about the table and saw that little Arwen was not in her place.
"Anomen," he said, "please fetch your sister. No doubt she is playing in the garden as usual and has forgotten the hour."
The elflings looked at him strangely.
"Ada," said Elladan. "Have you forgotten? This morning you rode with Arwen to the cottage of her friend Merilin. You said that she might play there and that you would fetch her back again by sundown."
"I have forgotten my own daughter!" cried Elrond, horrified at his negligence. He leaped up and rushed from the table. Behind him Gandalf calmly spooned some potatoes onto his plate.
"I once forgot to return a horse to its owner," he said.
"For shame, Mithrandir," scolded Erestor. "That is not the equivalent of forgetting a young one."
"It was a Rohirrim horse," retorted Gandalf, "and you know how they feel about their horses."
The Elves were impressed. Yes, they did know how the Men of Rohan felt about their steeds. Gandalf was lucky to still have his beard. Indeed, he was lucky to still have the head to which the beard was attached.
Elrond, meanwhile, had raced to the stable and galloped off on the first horse he set eyes on. As it was Glorfindel's great stallion, he was lucky not to have been thrown, but the steed was in a benevolent mood. Besides, the breakneck pace Elrond was setting suited the beast. In an amazingly short time, Elrond pulled up before Merilin's cottage. The little elleth's parents came bustling out, beaming.
"My Lord Elrond," said the Naneth, "no doubt you have come to see how Arwen got on. You will be happy to know that she passed a most agreeable day. She has just now gone to sleep, and she did so without giving us a bit of trouble."
"No trouble," repeated Elrond stupidly.
"No indeed, my Lord. At first we did not realize that you meant her to spend the night, for when you said that Arwen might stay awhile, we assumed you meant for the day only. But when night fell and we understood that she was to remain, we asked her how she went about going to bed. She said that you always told her a story. Well, as that is our custom as well, things went on swimmingly. She was a little sad when we tucked her in, for she said that you always kissed her, but then she recollected that you had kissed her twice when you left her, and she reckoned that one of those kisses must have been meant for bedtime."
"For bedtime," repeated Elrond, dazed.
"Oh ho! so she was right! Clever little thing—and brave, too! Some younglings cry the first night they spend away from their parents."
"Clever and brave," echoed Elrond.
"Yes! She said that she was glad for the chance to be away from home but in a familiar setting. 'Someday', she said, 'I will be sent to live with my Grandnana Galadriel. I am glad to be able to spend a night away from the Hall and yet know that my Ada is really not so far away after all. After I have done that several times, perhaps I will not find it so hard to go away to Lothlórien'. Brilliant thought, really, for such a young child."
"Yes," agreed Elrond, beginning to recover somewhat. "Yes, she is clever and brave—although no thanks to her father!"
"Oh no, Lord Elrond—much thanks to her father. A young one made to feel safe in her early years will always turn out to be enterprising and brave when she is older. And who is it has made her feel so safe—why, you, of course!"
"Hannon le," said Elrond gratefully. "Well, as I have satisfied myself as to Arwen's well-being, I shall return to the Hall. When should I return tomorrow to bring her home?"
"If it would be agreeable to you, we could send word when she seems ready to go back to the Hall. Perhaps she might stay another night?"
"Of course, if it would be no trouble. Pity that she doesn't have a change of clothes with her. I beg pardon for not thinking of that."
"Oh, such an oversight must be forgiven. After all, it isn't as if you have had a lot of practice in this sort of thing. In any event, as Arwen is of a size with Merilin, it matters not. She is wearing one of Merilin's shifts now as a nightdress, and we will find her something suitable for daywear in the morning."
"Thank you," Elrond said again. "Well, then, as everything is all settled, I will be off now."
He reined Glorfindel's horse about and rode back to the Hall at a pace considerably slower than his former one. When he arrived at the Hall and went to his chamber, he found Gandalf already there, warming himself before the fire and sipping a glass of Dorwinion wine. Elrond wearily collapsed into a chair and waved off Gandalf's offer to pour him a glass.
"My brains are addled enough, Mithrandir."
"Don't be too hard on yourself," said the wizard. "The older your children grow, the further away they shall move from the center of your universe."
"But she is so little!"
"Yes, but I'll wager she was playing happily enough when you rode up."
"Indeed she was not, Mithrandir! She had gone to bed."
"Even better, then. She wouldn't have done so if she hadn't felt secure, and she wouldn't have felt secure unless she lived in a world that someone had made secure—and that someone is her father."
"Merilin's Naneth said something similar," Elrond said thoughtfully. "I suppose in a way a child's happiness is best safeguarded if she does not altogether depend upon her parent for her happiness. It seems a paradox."
"Wisdom often does," said Gandalf. "Wisdom often does." He arose. "I'm off tomorrow, Elrond. Do you think," he added teasingly, "you can keep track of your children in my absence?"
Elrond shook his head.
"Not at all times, but I don't think I will worry about it quite as much as formerly."
"Bravo! I have heard it said that you can't teach an old Elf new tricks, but perhaps you will prove the saying wrong. Do give Arwen a kiss for me when you see her next."
"Very well, but your kiss will have to wait its turn. I may have several of my own stocked up before she returns to the Hall."
"Oh, it will keep," Gandalf said airily.
In fact, five kisses awaited Arwen when she arrived back at the Hall: one for the next morning, one for the next evening, one each for the morning and the evening after that, and, of course, Gandalf's kiss. I have it on good authority, however, that Elrond bestowed much more than those five upon her. Of course, that is the way of parents. In the end they cannot keep track of their children—but then neither do they keep track of their kisses. There are, after all, some things in this world that are immeasurable, which is why, of course, a parent's mistakes will always be outweighed by a parent's love. The one can be easily counted up; the other exceeds any measure ever devised.
Sleep well, my friend. Sleep well.