Canon-related disclaimer: Obviously, this is AU.
Age-related disclaimer: I'm reasonably sure that I've made a total mess of the age difference between the twins and Arwen. AU.
Author's note: I originally posted this in 2003. In May of 2006, after careful consideration, I removed it from fanfiction dot net because the writing was no longer up to my quality standards. In January of 2007 I began to do a rewrite, the first part of which you now see here.
Lost in the dream world, Elrohir was flying. Waves – billowy, ever-changing waves of a substance like to starstuff, or perhaps moonbeams – tossed him, gently, as he floated in the great Void surrounding the world.
Void, Elrohir decided, was an apt name for it. As he ghosted, nearly weightless, past the moon and the sun and the brightly twinkling stars, he felt nearly nothing. Neither joy nor hope nor sorrow nor pain nor fear... nothing, save for one urgent question filling his mind.
Why?
Some impending sense of purpose tugged at him, as it always did, here in this place – he knew there had to be a reason for this, a reason for him being here, a reason for everything, as it were, but he could never figure out the answer. He never could figure it out, yet just as always, he got the feeling that it was close, very close, and that someday soon he would find it.
And then – there – he could feel it, could feel the answer to this question, the meaning to this endless dream rising somewhere in his mind, just barely out of the grasp of his consciousness. It was almost there, it was when -
The younger of the twin sons of Elrond awoke, turning onto his back as he blinked to clear his vision. Elladan always slept with his eyes open, but, though Elrohir also had that skill, he found it much more comfortable to sleep with them closed.
He sighed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying as he always did after waking from the dream to place some meaning to it, some answer to the question. He had been having that dream for as long as he could remember – granted, not a terribly long time as he was not even an adult yet, just an adolescent – and for as long as he could remember he had never been able to figure out the answer to the question. Why? The answer, was there, he knew it was there, but it still lingered as it always had, just out of his grasp.
He turned, facing the other side of the room where Elladan lay, eyes open and hands neatly folded. The twins had always shared a room, at first because it had been easier to keep an eye on them that way and then because no one could think of a good reason to separate the two of them and they seemed perfectly content with the arrangements.
As he lay in silence listening to the quiet, even breathing of his brother, Elrohir's mind continued to be plagued with the question and nonexistent answer. His thoughts circled round inside his head, their efforts fruitless. Finally, as he had done on other nights when he had also been hounded by the impossible question and unable to sleep, he decided to consult his twin. "Elladan!"
Propping himself up on an elbow, the elder of the two twins mumbled a bleary, "What?" in response as he shook his head to clear the sleepiness away.
"It happened again."
"What?" Elladan blinked at him, groggy.
"The dream. It happened again."
Elladan sighed, and barely managed to restrain himself from rolling his eyes as he laid back down. "We went over this last time, Elrohir. I already told you that I do not know what it means. Go back to sleep."
"But, Elladan, it-"
Elladan pulled a pillow over his head, effectively muting out the rest of his brother's sentence. Once he had determined that enough time had probably passed for Elrohir to have finished talking, he lifted the pillow slightly off his face to answer. "Go and talk to Ada, if it bothers you that much."
"But I cannot!"
Elladan's brow furrowed slightly in annoyance. "Why?"
"Because I have asked him before, and he does not know. And I do not want to wake him in the middle of the night!"
Elladan, sleep-deprived and now thoroughly annoyed, sat up and gave his twin as much of a glare as he could muster, under the circumstances. "Then why did you wake me?"
"I did not think you would mind..."
Mumbling darkly but inaudibly at this, Elladan reached to grab his pillow and throw it at his brother – and then stopped short, remembering that it was rather a nice pillow and that he would like to resume sleeping on it, preferably sometime soon. "Elrohir, go back to sleep! Why are you getting so worked up over this, anyways? Stars are not dangerous and dreams are always strange."
"It is not the stars that are important, brother! It has to have a deeper meaning, I know it does!"
"Good. You can think that over while I go back to sleep." Elladan laid down again and allowed the dream-state to take him.
Grumbling about the uselessness of his twin, Elrohir resumed staring at the ceiling, pondering.
Six sleepless hours later, he rose. After giving the smallest of glances to his softly-snoring brother – and deciding that waking him again would probably be a bit much – he got dressed and went to go eat breakfast, the matter of 'why?' still bothering him.
The great hall where people commonly took their meals was nearly deserted at so early an hour, but Elrohir was unbothered by it. The quiet and the solitude allowed him to think with greater ease – if only his thoughts could inf him the answer.
He had just finished his breakfast and was beginning to contemplate where to go next when -
Dread.
It was a fantastically horrible feeling that swept through him, an oily almost-queasiness that he might have mistaken for nausea were it not accompanied by a deep sense of foreboding – something bad was about to happen, something very bad.
He looked about, trying to determine what had caused such a feeling, and when the room appeared as innocuous as always, he tried to shake it off, to no avail. Every bit of his mind told him that something was wrong here but he knew that nothing was.
Deeply unnerved, he rose to leave in the hopes that a change of scenery might help, and upon turning around found himself face-to-face with his twin.
"Good morning," Elladan began cheerfully, stopping short when he saw the expression on his brother's face. "Is everything all right? What happened?"
Elrohir shook his head. "Nothing happened, Elladan. Everything is fine."
"If everything is fine, how come you look absolutely miserable?"
Not wishing to be an alarmist – he knew he had already bothered his brother enough for one day, what with waking him in the middle of the night and all - Elrohir forced a smile. "Everything is fine." Everything that I know of, anyway.
He began heading toward the door, before his brother could say anything further. "You worry too much, Elladan."
Indeed, nothing was wrong in the Last Homely House at Imladris. Elrohir checked.
Yet, as the day wore on, the feeling of unease surrounding Elrohir grew progressively worse, despite his attempts at ignoring it. The only thing that seemed to do any good was concentrating wholeheartedly on whatever task was at hand, and thus it was that that afternoon found him and Arwen out on one of the archery fields.
Younger than her brothers, the child Arwen had been dying to learn the use of a bow, but it was currently the rainy season and, being as extreme thunderstorms were generally not considered proper weather for introducing people to archery, she had been unable to begin until today. Yesterday's weather had been mostly clear, but the storms had damaged a fair number of trees and many people in the household had been busy tending to the aftermath and were thus unable to direct their attention to teaching Arwen.
Elrohir, trying mightily to disregard the profound sense of anxiety that had been with him since breakfast, turned to face his sister. He held the weapon, the same one that he had used as a child, out to her, and explained, "This is a bow."
Arwen rolled her eyes. "I know that, brother." Elrohir gave her his best 'annoyed' look while Elladan snickered at them from where he was watching, underneath a nearby tree. There should have been a weaponsmaster teaching Arwen – she would not have been ruse with anyone other than her brothers – but a falling tree limb had damaged one of the guardhouses yesterday and the guards were all busy.
With a sigh – he did not need attitude from her, especially not with his day going like it had – Elrohir placed the bow in her hand, and positioned her fingers properly. "You hold it like this."
Elladan watched in amusement as Elrohir then held out an arrow, and proceeded to explain, "This is an-"
Arwen cut him off, rolling her eyes again. "An arrow, brother, I know!"
Elrohir barely even heard that last statement - the feeling of dread had suddenly grown, tightening its grip on him. He felt his skin crawl and his stomach churn, and immediately tried to focus more on what he was doing, to make the feeling go away. "Place the notched end of the arrow on the string. The bowstring faces-"
"I already know that!"
"If you do not like my teaching then you can wait until someone else has the time to teach you!"
That quieted her down. "Now, put the arrow to the string."
She did so. Elrohir corrected her. "You are holding it too high and your fingers should be like this."
She fixed her grip, concentrating fiercely and tongue protruding slightly from one corner of her mouth. "Good," Elrohir said. "Now, pull your arm back. No, farther than that. Farther than that, Arwen, the arrow will never reach the target that way-"
"I cannot pull it any farther back, brother!" she told him in exasperation, and Elrohir remembered how it had been when he had first learned to use a bow – difficult, on arm muscles that were unused to such things.
"Yes you can. It will make you stronger. Just a little farther. Good. Now, aim it as best you can at the center of the target and -"
Crack!
A loud noise snapped from behind them, and Elrohir whirled around to see that a limb had fallen from the tree that Elladan had been standing under, and for a moment he feared for his twin but then he saw that Elladan was all right and -
-he had forgotten that Arwen was with him, and what they were doing -
-and the next thing he saw was an arrow, protruding from Elladan's right shoulder. Oh no!
Elrohir ran to him, a sick feeling twisting his stomach, with Arwen trailing close behind. He stopped, at Elladan's side – Elladan was kneeling now, hand wrapped tightly around the arrow-shaft – and Arwen nearly crashed into him, panicky tears blinding her eyes. "Ai!" Elrohir exclaimed, "Go and get Ada!"
She did not follow his directions but rather stood there, frozen still and sniffling.
He gave her a shove in the general direction of the house. "Go and get Ada!"
After a moment she ran – still crying – to do as he instructed, and Elrohir knelt down next to his twin. He put a hand to the injured shoulder, trying to move Elladan so he could get a better look, and Elladan let out a small moan. " 'S going to be good at this someday," he said through tightly clenched teeth. "Killer shot, she has..."
Elrohir had no idea what to say to that, and turned anxiously towards the house, wondering how much longer it would take his father to get to them. After a minute he saw Elrond come hurrying towards them. Arwen was right behind him, lugging a satchel of medical supplies.
The Elf-lord knelt down next to his sons. "What happened?" he asked, face grave. Arwen had been less than coherent; all he had caught were the words "tree," "Elladan," and "shot."
"Arwen shot him."
"I did not mean to!" She turned away. "It was an accident!"
"Still-"
"Enough, both of you," said Elrond. When Arwen and Elrohir were both silent, he turned back to Elladan. "Elladan, move your hand away, please." He did, and once Elrond caught sight of the wound he sighed with relief. It was nowhere near as bad as he had originally feared – Arwen's bow, after all, was far from powerful, and the arrow had not hit anything important.
"This is going to be just fine," he said, cutting Elladan's tunic away from the area surrounding the wound. "But the arrow has to come out. Hold still." He gripped the shaft of the arrow and in one swift movement pulled it out. Elladan gave a brief cry – of shock as much as pain – and his father quickly bandaged his injured shoulder. It would heal in about a day.
"There. You should rest now, Elladan." Elrond helped him up, and all four of them walked back to the house.
As they headed inside, Elrohir realized something strange. The feeling of dread that had been with him all day, was gone. He was concerned over his twin, yes, but nothing on the scale of what he had felt before – none of the horrible anticipation. It was really gone, not merely suppressed like when he had been trying to push it away. What is going on
He pondered deeply on that, barely even noticing as Elrond led Elladan and Arwen to their rooms, with Elrohir following behind.
"Elrohir, are you listening to me?" Elrond had turned to him, somewhat annoyed.
He shook himself out of it. "Sorry, what?"
"What happened?"
He sighed. "I was teaching Arwen to shoot. Elladan was standing under the tree, watching, when a damaged branch broke off. We were startled and turned around, and Arwen forgot that she was holding a drawn bow. She let go and the arrow hit Elladan. It was an accident, Ada! She did not mean to-"
"I know it was an accident," Elrond said, "I highly doubt that Arwen would intentionally shoot her brother. However, please remember to be careful – Arwen is not as old as you are and you cannot expect her to think as far ahead."
"Yes, Ada."
"Good." Elrond turned, then, and began walking away. Celebrían was currently staying in Lórien; he had a letter to write her.
Elrohir, meanwhile, was left alone. He thought again on what the feeling of dread could have meant, and finally decided it had just been a gut feeling. That was all. That was all for that feeling of dread, and any other subsequent gut feelings. It was not until centuries later that something more began to happen – Elrohir began to see things.