The seventeenth day of Nórui, in the year 2745 of the Third Age of the Sun. A warm summer's day when all the flowers were in bloom and all the trees were speaking. The day my father died. On that day, I heard my mother scream for the first time. After that day, I never heard her speak again in Arda.

I awoke early that morning to the smell of baking bread, flowers, and dewdrops. Biting my lip in concentration, I navigated the small stairs leading from my bedroom as best I could, freezing in place when my left foot landed on a creaking step. I poked my head inside the bedroom of my parents as I continued down; Ada had already left for the western borders, and Ama was nowhere in sight, the bed neatly made and covered with a soft green quilt. Outside, beyond the many arches and windows, I could hear the outskirts of Caras Galadhon slowly coming to life as the sun crept above the horizon.

As I passed Ama's sewing room, I stopped at the door, holding my breath as I carefully peered around the corner. Ama sat in a pool of weak morning sunlight, dappled in pale greens and silver as the sun filtered through the trees. Her silver needle flashed in the light and her moon-colored hair swung gently about her face as she bobbed her head to a soft song she hummed. Her needle dove in and out of the sparkling silver-blue fabric she held, stitching slender green leaves onto an impossibly tiny gown. Good…she didn't seem to know I was awake.

Retreating from the doorway to my mother's peaceful morning refuge, I padded cat-footed further down the stairs into the great room. Ah, there was my goal, sitting on a platter made of woven silver vines. The scent of lembas and honey beckoned me closer, and I edged towards the platter, hands cautiously outstretched. Freezing and chancing one last glance around the room, I grabbed one of the sweet biscuits, mouth watering in anticipation as I lifted it to my mouth and bit down into the sweet soft-blast. It was as hard as a rock!

I frowned as only an elfling of three hundred years could frown, my entire face wrinkled up in disgust, and reached for another biscuit. Perhaps this one merely came out wrong, though I had never dreamed my mother to be anything but the best baker in all of Lorien. Too late, I heard the soft padding of slippered feet, and I had only time to bite my lip and gasp before a sharp hand came down across my knuckles, and the point of my right ear was twisted twixt a slender thumb and index finger.

"And just what do you think you're doing, my little tree?" asked a voice above me, stern and yet trying (and failing) to hide the amusement in its depths as I was turned around, led by the hand still attached to my ear.

I stared up into a pair of soft, moss-silver eyes and bit my lip once more. Ama stood there, the tiny gown in one hand, the other hand on her hip, her needle clenched expertly between lips curving gently upwards in amusement. Blasted Morgoth's nose. I'd been caught. Squirming slightly to disguise my actions, I reached my left arm behind me, attempting to return the wafer of lembas to its tray before she figured out I had already helped myself. It worked. I snaked my arm back down to my side, brushing the remaining crumbs from my fingers against my sleep pants, and tried very hard to look innocent. "Umm…uhh…I woke up early to…uhh…" I bit my lip and rolled my eyes skyward as I thought. "I was going to make you breakfast, Ama? Because I love you?" I pasted a sweetly pleading smile across my face and gazed up at my mother adoringly.

Ama chuckled to herself as she released my ear, stabbed her needle through the little gown, and placed it onto the branch of a mellyrn tree that reached into our home, providing a convenient shelf. "With that, I imagine?" she laughed, raising her eyebrows at the platter of lembas behind me. "And you thought you'd taste-test it first, yes?"

I clasped my hands behind my back, fidgeting. "Well, you see, Ama, I uhh…well…I was going to…"

My mother's face grew stern in an instant. "Speak the truth plainly, Limbrethil. You know I don't tolerate falsehoods in my house. Were you trying to sneak those biscuits away for yourself? And don't lie to me, I can see tooth marks on the one you placed back on the tray."

I shuffled my feet in embarrassment, feeling a flush turning even the points of my ears pink. "Yes, Ama." Dropping my gaze to the floor, I studied the path of a tiny green beetle as it worked its way across my bare toes. Hot tears threatened to spill from my eyes, my childish humiliation complete. "I'm sorry I made you angry."

Ama dropped into a half-crouch in front of me, gently pressing her hands to my flaming cheeks. Her thumbs brushed at my downcast eyes, freeing the tears and wiping them away. "Oh, little tree," she breathed. "I'm not angry with you, I could never be angry with you. But you mustn't take that which is not yours, do you understand? I worked very hard to make those. You do not take food unless it is offered to you, elfling. It is rude and ungracious."

I nodded slowly, scuffing my feet against the sun-warmed floor. "I'm sorry, Ama," I muttered to the floorboards. "I won't do it again. Besides," I stared at her with the wide-eyed, innocent accusation of a child who was given something other than he expected, "they're hard as rocks, the lot of them! You make good food, Ama, why are they so hard?"

Ama threw back her head and laughed, the delicate peals soothing my injured pride. "Those are for your cousin Helediriel, dear child. I made them with extra honey for sweetness so she's bound to eat them, and I baked them twice so they are hard enough for her. She's teething, little tree. Do you remember when your teeth were growing in?" She stroked my hair gently, rubbing at the points of my ears in passing, enough to wash away the remainder of my embarrassment.

I nodded, all wide-eyed confusion. "You gave me hard lembas and cold carrots. But Ama…why?"

Ama grinned, taking my hand and guiding me to a large clear mirror that hung from another mellyrn branch. Taking my face gently in her hands again, she brushed at my lower lip until I opened my mouth. "Do you see where your tooth grows into your jaw?" I nodded eagerly. "That is where your teeth live until they're ready to grow into your mouth. They sleep under your skin and bone until they're old enough to grace the rest of your pretty face, and they have to push and pull very hard to wake up and grow. Do you remember how your poor mouth ached, and you cried for hours on end? The hardness of the foods rubs your mouth and tells your teeth it's all right to come out, that you're old enough to use them. The cold numbs the pain."

"Ohhhh." I bobbed my head agreeably, not quite understanding how teeth could grow, but content to accept that there were some things the grown-ups knew that I would have to figure out when I was a grown-up. "Ama, does that mean that Aunt Laeroneth is bringing her over today?" My mind wandered as I contemplated the thought of a teething, crying, young elfling, and a female one at that. I began to calculate how long it would take me to reach Ada and my uncles out by the western training grounds.

Ama pursed her lips disapprovingly, surely seeing the wheels turning in my mind. "Yes. And don't think you're getting out of this, little tree. I caught you sneaking food that wasn't yours. I may not be angry, but there are still consequences for your actions. While…" She trailed off into silence, the color slowly seeping from her face as she stared off into the distance.

I twisted around in her arms, grabbing her hands and leading her to a nearby chair. "…Ama?" I gently toyed with a strand of her hair as she sank into the seat and cupped her chin in her hands. "Ama, what is it?"

Ama shook her head slowly as if coming out of a deep sleep. "I don't know, little tree. I…I don't know." She pulled me close, burying her nose in my hair and breathing in deeply, as if she had been away for a long, long time without sight of her son. Pulling back, she brushed her hands along my face and offered a weak smile. "A distant grief, something that may not even come to pass. Something grown-ups worry about." She stood and offered me her hand. "Now come, we're meeting your aunt at the waters I tend. Let's get you dressed."

Ten minutes later, I was scratching uncomfortably under the band Ama had tied around my hair. "Ama, I hate having my hair in a tail! Can't I wear the warrior braids like Ada?"

Ama merely ran a finger under the collar of my tunic and shook her head, smiling softly. "I told you there would be consequences for trying to pilfer your cousin's teething biscuits, little tree, amusing though it certainly was. While your aunt and I are tending to matters, you will be minding little Helediriel."

I groaned in protest, inwardly shuddering at the thought of the tiny girl squawking and tugging on my ears. "But Ama…!"

"No "but's", my little sapling," Ama chided softly. "You did a wrong and now you will atone for it." She licked a finger and passed it over the very tip of my nose. "Besides, babies can be quite wonderful company if you know how to treat them. They do not judge or argue, they do not mock or scorn. They love you and you are their entire world, that is enough for them."

Deciding that this was one argument I would be unable to win, I rolled my eyes and scuffed my boots the entire way down the winding staircase that encircled our tree, Ama close behind bearing the tiny gown and platter of hard lembas.

We made our way across the soft, mossy ground, and I fought the urge to kick off my boots and try to see how many of the tiny niphredil and elanor I could pick with my toes. The sound of gently falling water grew louder as we made our way deeper into the forest, until we came to a small lake among the trees, fed by a softly rushing waterfall. I immediately kicked off my boots, rolled up the legs of my pants, and planted my feet in the soft, almost muddy earth at the very edge of the water. I leaned towards the edge, mesmerized by the water which reflected all the stars of the night sky, even under the light of the morning sun. I dipped my hands into the water, letting it trickle back into the lake through my fingers. Like the water of many of the other pools and fountains throughout Lothlorien, this water was never meant to be drunk; it held the magic of the stars and the water itself, and drinking it was a peril most dared not test. Unlike some of the other waters, this was safe to touch.

A tiny hand grabbed my ankle with typical unrestrained infant strength and the unshakable iron grip mastered only by the very young. I was suddenly very glad Ama had tied my hair in a tail. Turning half around, I finally saw the tiny, slender infant crouched on all fours and clinging to my foot as if she and I were the last creatures alive in all of Arda. Kingfisher blue eyes with a hint of silvery green stared up at me in amazement, framed by hair the color of a pale summer sun. The tiny girl cooed and buzzed her lips, a tiny dribble of saliva somehow ending up on her nose. I blinked several times. Helediriel. Lovely. So this was my punishment: toting around a barely sentient spit-shop. I closed my eyes and groaned, thinking of the tranquil discipline of the training grounds and how much I would rather be there, watching my father and uncles training the older boys.

"Right, then," I muttered, eying the tiny elfling suspiciously as she tried to bite my ankle. "If you can't get at my ankles, you can't cause me any trouble. Into the flet you go, then." I scooped the girl up in my arms and stalked over to a fairly young mellyrn tree whose branches still grew close to the ground. A small children's flet rested slightly above the level of my head, accessible only by tiny steps notched into a log resting up against the side of the platform. Switching my tiny cousin to the crook of one arm, I used the other arm to aid the short climb into the flet.

Setting Helediriel down and fishing a hardened lembas wafer from my pocket for her to gum on, I reached behind my back and pulled a small book from the waistband of my pants. At least I'd have something to do besides lend myself as a chew toy. I glanced down over the edge as Ama and Aunt Laeroneth hugged and chattered together down below, and rolled my eyes. Grown-ups. They never had time for anything fun. Paying mind to keep Helediriel from wandering straight off the edge of the flet, I stuck out my tongue at my mother's back, and settled in to read.

As the day wore on, my eyes grew heavy. A member of an immortal race who needed little sleep, I surely was, but as any young boy, I grew easily tired and distracted when confronted with monotony…or a drooling baby. Setting my book aside, I gathered my little cousin back into my arms, sighing in resignation as she worked a thick strand of hair free from its tail and started chewing on it. I gave one last glance over the edge of the flet, then curled myself up around the tiny girl, hoping that I would drift off into sleep, or at least fall into a heavy stupor where my daydreams could take form in my mind without distraction.

The sound of crackling twigs made me blink rapidly, and I opened my eyes fully. Something was…different. I no longer cradled the strangely comforting weight of an infant in my arms, and there was no book spread open along its spine next to my head. In fact, I was no longer laying down at all. I felt different. I felt…older. Taller. Bigger. An ache that was not my own ran down my right leg, throbbing fiercely in time with my suddenly racing heart. Chancing a glance down at the odd sensation, I saw blood flowing freely down my thigh. I gripped a long, sharp knife in each hand, and I shook my head with a snort of air expelled from my nose, shaking long silvery braids out of my eyes.

Then I glanced around. An elf stood on either side of me, one with a round, solid face and silvery hair, the other with a softly pointed chin and hair the color of new yellow roses. Their eyes burned with a fierce determination that frightened me.

Then I glanced around again. Orcs. Dozens of them. Brass rings glittered in their ruined, mutilated ears, and filed fangs dripping with gore and rotting meat gleamed wetly beneath broken, crooked noses.

The round-faced elf on my left shook his head fiercely and tossed a glance in my direction. "Orophin, are you going to make a move, or are we going to dance these steps all night?"

Orophin? Ada? Was I…was I in Ada's mind? I knew that grown-ups could do that, but I was just a young boy…this was all so strange. And if this was Ada, then the others must be Uncle Haldir and Uncle Rúmil, for the three were practically inseparable.

As I tried to understand this strange new event, I nodded curtly. "Might as well get this over with, brothers, these things are putting me off my lunch." I lunged forward in a blur of motion, driving my knives deep into the throat of an orc, and pausing just long enough to tear my blades free before plunging the one in my left hand through the eye of another. Uncle Haldir was a swirling cloud of mossy silver cloak and silvery hair as his sword efficiently plowed through the bodies of three orcs in rapid succession. Uncle Rúmil had his back pressed up against a large old oak tree, jabbing and stabbing arrows through the necks of orcs as he fought to regain a moment to draw his blades.

Seeing a crudely-fashioned axe heading for Uncle Rúmil's side, I lunged wildly to decapitate the orc swinging at him, tumbling to the ground with the force of my momentum and coming up to my feet in a smooth, fluid roll…into a blur of blackened metal. Cold, hard steel slid around my throat, feeling almost like the caress of a necklace as it danced across my skin.

An annoying pain sliced across my skin in its wake, and I swatted at it with one hand, knives falling to the ground, forgotten. Hot, metallic liquid flowed down over my hand, and my child's mind quailed in confusion as I tasted blood. Did I bite my lip? Did I lose a tooth? Then the questions faded as I sank to my knees, the world going dark. Uncle Haldir roared in anger, dispatching the last five orcs in half as many seconds. The world went still as I was rolled onto my back. I stared up into Uncle Rúmil's stricken face as my hand was shoved away from my throat and a stronger hand clamped down over the irritating pain.

"Valar, no. No. Come on, 'Phin, hold on. We'll get you to the Lady, she'll be able to help you. Just stay awake." Huge, hot tears slid down Uncle Rúmil's face, and I stared up at him in confusion. Awake? But…I was so very tired. Surely just a few seconds couldn't hurt, could it? And there was a strange tingling throughout my body, not quite numbness, but something else. Was I…cold?

I reached an impossibly heavy hand up to brush Uncle Rúmil's cheek, coughing as though I had breathed in a lungful of smoke from a campfire. I tasted blood again. I felt my lips curving into a sad smile as my fingers traced my uncle's nose and lips, fingers strangely covered in hot, sticky blood. "You'd better get that looked at, Rú," I remarked quietly as my hand brushed over a nasty cut in his cheek. "Wouldn't want…to mark up your…pretty face." I sighed. I was so unspeakably tired…why wouldn't they just let me rest? Ama would be angry if I didn't get enough rest. "Where I go…you'd better never…follow," I whispered. Morgoth's crooked nose, but I wanted to rest. "I'd have to…do….something…irritating…" It wouldn't hurt if I just took a brief nap, would it? The world was darkening again…and this time I gave in to it. Sleep would fix everything.

A blood-curdling scream split the air, and I snapped awake, tumbling off the edge of the flet. Instinctively, I curled my body tightly around Helediriel's tiny frame, absorbing the impact of the ground with my back. My throat burned and I could still taste blood. The air knocked from my lungs, I probed my cheeks with my tongue. Ah, there it was. I'd bitten a small bit out of my cheek.

Gasping for air, I ran my hands over my infant cousin's body as she set up a loud wail. Seeing no easily apparent harm, I propped her against the base of the tree as another scream tore apart the tranquil silence of the forest. I raced across the damp, springy earth as fast as my small legs could carry me, until I rounded a corner and saw my mother. She leaned against an old, venerable mellyrn tree, clinging to it as if she were drowning and it were the only other floating thing left to save her. Her fingernails cut deep into the tree, and I could feel it wincing in pain…and screaming with her. All the trees were screaming.

After a final heaving, sobbing cry, Ama collapsed to the ground, senseless.

Aunt Laeroneth stood nearby, hugging herself and moaning softly as tears streamed freely down her cheeks.

I raced over to my mother's fallen form, shaking her desperately. "Ama? Ama! Ama, wake up! Ama, what happened? What's wrong? Ama!" I screeched, understanding in my small mind only two things: my world had just inexplicably changed, and I didn't like it at all.

Aunt Laeroneth grasped me by both arms, tugging me to my feet. "Come away, Limbrethil," she murmured, tears shaking her voice to shattered pieces.

I pulled away, not liking being told what to do. "I saw Ada," I declared hotly. "Go get Ada, he'll know what to do! I saw him! He's taking a nap on watch, go find him, he'll help Ama!"

This sent my aunt into a fresh spasm of weeping. She said nothing more as a small crowd of panicked neighbors gathered around us, hearing the commotion of the weeping trees and my unconscious mother. Aunt Laeroneth gathered Helediriel into the crook of her left arm, and, looping her right arm about my shoulders, guided me back home as a few neighbors bore my mother between them.

It was hours later, with the setting of the sun, that Uncle Haldir and Uncle Rúmil returned, walking slowly up the path with a bier of pine branches between them. Setting the bier gently onto the ground, Uncle Rúmil flung himself into my aunt's arms and buried his head in her shoulder. They both sank to the ground, sobs shaking their entire bodies. Uncle Haldir stood a few steps away, his face stony and unreadable, a deep cut over his eye sending slowly drying blood to mingle with his silent tears.

Spotting the person on the bier, I rushed madly for it, dropping to my knees. I shook my father frantically, pushing at his arms. "Ada? Ada, wake up! Ama is in trouble, I think she's hurt! Ada? Ada?" I wailed, to no avail. My father lay silent and still, his face paler than I'd ever seen, his skin cold.

Uncle Haldir took me by the shoulders, guiding me away towards the staircase of my home. "Your Ada….he….he isn't here any longer, little sapling." Tears threatened to spill from his eyes once more as he gazed down at me.

I stared at him wide-eyed, not understanding. "Where did he go?"

Uncle Haldir looked stricken as he blinked slowly, not heeding the bloody tears racing down his face. "He's gone to Mandos, little tree. Like Fingon of old."I still stared, sickeningly fascinated by the red tears sliding down my uncle's cheeks. "Will he be back soon, Uncle? Ama is ever so worried."

My uncle dropped to one knee in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulders once more. "Your father…isn't coming back, Limbrethil. There are some places that one does not come back from." He choked back a sob and pulled me into his arms, tears and blood slipping down to run into my hair as he burrowed his face against my head.

I stood there, frozen, as I began to comprehend. Then, the world went black and I hit the ground.

We buried my father that night beneath the oldest of all the mellyrn trees this side of the Sea. Ama washed him and cleaned his wounds, and wrapped a band of black silk around his throat. Uncle Haldir combed Ada's hair and braided it back into the four braids of the march wardens, and the four-strand round braid of our family. He was laid in a deep furrow in the rich black earth, and covered with thousands of flowers.

Ama never spoke again after that night. She lay in her bed, silent, staring at the sky, growing thinner and paler every day, not eating, not drinking, not sleeping…simply existing. A month later, she was gone. I woke one morning to find her bed empty, save for two letters: one for my aunt, and one for me. She had left in the night, and by dawn had joined a small group heading ever westwards for the Sea…and Valinor.

That week, everything left in our house was slowly taken, piece by piece, to the house of my uncle Rúmil and aunt Laeroneth. A spare bedroom that looked out onto a rushing fountain far below became my new home.

And so the years passed by. I was now, effectively, an orphan.