The night before we leave I cannot sleep.
We are to leave early, before the sun is in the sky and I am terrified I will miss it, so all night long I wake and find it is still dark, and still all is quiet. Wake, sleep, wake, sleep, the entire night is an agony.
When finally my father shakes me gently awake and the lamps are lit I cannot believe morning has arrived at last.
When it comes to the leaving though it is not as easy as I thought.
Travelling to see the Noldor has been all I have thought about for days but now the moment has come and my Mother stands before me, my sleepy sister in her arms, I am not sure I want to go.
"Be good little one," she smiles as she ruffles my hair and I wrap my arms around her in a last desperation to soak up the feel of her. I have never been anywhere without my mother; nowhere. "Listen to your Father."
"I will," I mumble it into her side where I bury my head. "I will, Mother."
"Come, Estel," my Father's hands fall upon my shoulders as he peels me off her. "We must be off so we get to your Grandfather's in good time."
"Will you just have the one night there?" My mother asks him. "There is no rush. You can take your time getting to Elrohir."
"One night." He is curt when he answers, "There is no need for any more."
"Your Father—" Gently Mother lays a hand upon his arm, "Time with your father is need enough surely."
"And then there are the others." He shrugs her hand off him, and it hurts me when he does that . . . For some reason it frightens me, deep down. "One night only, Maewen."
"How long must you punish her, Legolas?" Mother asks softly. "It has been years."
"You do not understand, you do not—"
"I do!" She cuts him off even as his voice begins to rise. " I do understand. You forget, Legolas that I was there when you were not."
They talk in riddles and it makes no sense to me. All I know is things are no longer calm and loving as they were before. Their voices ring with dangerous tension and things unsaid and I do not like it. I do not want them to argue now, not before we go.
Perhaps my mother does not want them to either for suddenly she softens and smiles at my Father banishing away her frown,
"It is a selective memory you have my love," she says sweetly, touching his cheek. "First Erebor and now this? What else have you forgotten? My part in chasing Golem?"
"Never." He is solemn when he answers. "I will never forget that." He reaches out and grasps her hand in his, "when I feared I had lost you."
I wish I understood them.
Still, the moment when it all could end with fighting has slipped past and they are in love again.
I can breathe.
And as we turn to leave my fathers hand lingers in my mothers, his fingers brushing hers right until the last minute when they can barely touch. It is as if he cannot bring himself to let go.
My Grandfather lives in a forest bigger than our wood. It is more majestic too, as he is more majestic than any of us. The trees are taller, the green is greener. I am pleased when we reach the outskirts. I always love coming here . . . But I have never been here without Mother.
A gold head greets us down the path as we enter and I know as soon as I see that glimpse of gold through the leaves who it is.
"Laerion!" I cry, "Laerion has come to meet us. Father!"
"So it seems," he replies, but I do not think he is as pleased as I.
Laerion is my uncle, my fathers brother. He is older than my father and yet younger, for Laerion was dead and now he is alive. He has been to the Halls of Mandos and come back to us. I try not to think of it . . .what happened to Laerion. It hurts my head.
He looks like my Grandfather, almost exactly like him, just not as commanding. People think Father and I look like Grandfather, because we do look alike. They say that all the time, but only until they meet Laerion. When you see Father and Laerion side by side you realise suddenly; Father does not look like Grandfather at all.
"Legolas," my uncle cries, "Back so soon? Twice in a month? What have we done to deserve this?"
"What indeed," Father mutters under his breath, but I know Laerion hears him.
"Mother will be pleased." He says next, staring at my father as he says it, as if it is a challenge, as if he dares him to do something.
"She will not see much of us." Father snaps back. " We are on our way to Elrohir. I have no intention of staying a day longer than necessary."
Laerion looks to me then, his eyes wide and he leans towards Father to whisper bringing his horse close to ours.
"You take the boy? On your jaunts with the Noldor? Is that wise?"
"Speak up Laerion, whatever you might have to say. Why should I not take Estel with me wherever I go?" I feel Fathers arms tighten around me as I sit in front of him.
"It is not our way, Legolas," Laerion sighs.
"It is not your way, Laerion, but it is completely and utterly mine." Father digs his heels in and spurs our horse away—faster—leaving Laerion behind.
They are always like this, Father and Laerion. They fight and bicker and squabble. They always find things to disagree about. Usually my mother smooths their jagged edges, she will calm the muddy waters between them, but she is not here, and I do not think I can do that on my own.
Mother says it is just because they are brothers. That it is what brothers do. I only have a sister, not a brother so I do not know but I cannot imagine Calithil and I ever fighting as they do.
Laerion catches us up and he says no more about Elrohir, or whether I should visit, instead we ride shoulder to shoulder for awhile, in silence. Neither of them say anything. We are nearly at Grandfathers house when Father speaks again.
"My Father has chosen a wood so like the Greenwood to live in. Can you see the difference, Estel, between our wood and his? If I close my eyes I can almost imagine we are in the Greenwood now. This is as close to my home as you will ever see here."
"That is the past, Legolas," Laerion chimes in before I can tell Father I do feel the difference, I really do. "Teach him to look forward, not back. Our home is gone. This is home now. It does you no good to spend all this time wallowing in the past."
"I will teach him what I want to teach him, for he is my son. Not yours! And I will let my thoughts travel to where I wish them too!"
"You make no effort to settle here. Open your eyes. See the good there is here. This is nothing like the Greenwood with it's twisted darkness creeping ever closer."
"I have seen the healed Greenwood, Laerion and this is exactly it. Do not tell me Father chose this place to live without purpose. Just because you never saw it does not mean it doesn't exist."
"And who's fault was that?" Laerion's words are cutting but the instant he says it he looks shocked and contrite. As if those words jumped out of his mouth on their own accord and Father? He is white, chalk white. The colour drains from his face.
"I did not mean that!" Laerion is apologising before Father can even reply. "I did not mean that, Legolas. It was anger and frustration only. I do not think that, believe me."
"But you would be within your rights if you did." Fathers reply is soft and sad. "We all know it."
We have reached the courtyard. The grooms stand waiting for us and Father pulls our horse to a halt before dismounting, and I slide into his arms. He does not acknowledge Laerion's spluttered denials. He takes my hand instead and strides away into Grandfather's Palace.
All I know is, I am sick of Grown-ups and their angry conversations that I do not understand, today.
Usually when we come to Grandfathers I share a room with Calithil and Mother and Father are next door. This time I have that room all to myself. It is an exciting prospect. I have always wished for a room all my own, suddenly this whole space is my domain . . . And only mine. I unpack my small amount of things carefully agonising over the correct place for everything. I can put them anywhere and not worry about Calithil touching them! It is foolish to unpack them at all, I know, for we leave again tomorrow and so I will just have to pack them all up again before bed, but still, I cannot resist.
Eventually however, even with all this space to myself I get bored. I do not have that many things to unpack and there are only so many places to put them. I decide to go in search of my father.
I love visiting my grandfather but there is only one problem with being here. His people treat me strangely. They call me Lord, they bow to me in the corridors, they will not listen when I say I am not a Lord at all, I am just Estel. Our people —my fathers people—do not do this. To them I am just a boy who runs through the woods . . . But here? Here they drive me crazy being so polite. Mother says I must not argue for it will hurt their feelings. Just smile Estel, she says, be nice and courteous and allow them to do what they wish. I do what she says but I hate it. They do it now, as I walk through the corridor to Grandfathers study, for I am sure Father will be there, and it is so annoying.
Father is not in the study at all. The door is open and when I peer through it only Grandfather is there, sitting at his desk. He sees me before I can withdraw but I do not mind. I love my grandfather.
"Estel!" He holds out his arms and calls me near, "Come in boy. You have got tall since I last saw you." I run across the room for it has been so long since I last saw him, and throw myself at him, catapulting into his lap. He is taller than my father, bigger, and his lap still fits me where Fathers no longer does, not properly.
Father has been here already however. I was not so wrong when I thought this would be where I would find him. Piled upon Grandfather's desk I see our papers, the ones I wrote for him.
Grandfather sees me looking.
"I am proud of this." He says, picking up one of the pages. "You have done well here Estel, helping your father. I will be sending these to Tirion."
"Will the High King see them?" I cannot resist asking him that and he smiles.
"Perhaps. You never know," he says. He turns the page over in his hands as if thinking on something. When he speaks again it is as if it is something not important at all . . . And yet very important, all at the same time.
"How are things at home Estel?"
"Home is good." I smile at him, because he looks serious now, as if something bothers him. I want to make sure it is not me.
"You father tells me you gave your dragon to your sister. He has asked me to make you another."
So that is it! He is unhappy I gave away his carving when he made it especially for me.
"I am sorry, Grandfather!" I cry. "I loved Smaug but Calithil was crying—"
He does not let me finish my apology but lightly covers my mouth with his hand to stop my words.
"Shh, Do not apologise for caring for your sister." He says quietly, "I am proud of you, Estel. It was a good thing you did."
"You are not angry?"
"I am not angry. I will make you another . . . Perhaps not a dragon . . . Something special."
What could possibly be more special than a dragon? While I contemplate that he has not finished speaking.
"Does Calithil often cry?" He asks. And I almost fall in to his trap.
I almost answer him. I almost tell him that yes, she does while Mother and Father argue and I am left to try and make her happy. It is on the tip of my tongue but I do not say it. He wants me to speak ill of my parents and I will not do it. I will not tell him anything he may think is not good enough, I will not!
"She cries a lot," I say in the end, " When Mother gives me more strawberries than her, when she must go to bed first, when I play with my friends and she is too small to join us. All the time she cries." It is the truth, for I would never lie to Grandfather, but it is not the answer he wants and he knows I know it.
"Are you often looking after her?" He tries again but I am stubborn. A part of me wants to tell him it all. That I am often worried and tied in knots while my Mother and Father speak with words like ice. That my Father is unhappy and I do not understand it. I want to tell him it all, but I do not.
"She is my sister. I look after her when mother is busy."
"Estel," he sighs and turns me to face him so I cannot look away, brushing my hair from where it has fallen across my forehead in my wild rush to greet him. "It is my job to watch out for you. For you, your sister and your father and I cannot do that if I do not know what happens. Will you tell me?"
He gives me a look that cuts straight through to my heart but I cannot . . . I cannot. In the end I tell him that.
"I cannot, Grandfather. I cannot tell you."
He looks at me a long, long time after that.
"Very well," he says at last, "We shall try something different. If there were something I could do, something I could change . . . Anything . . . To make things better for you what would it be? Anything Estel."
This is an easy question. I do not have to think on it for even a minute.
"I want Father to teach me how to listen to the trees."
His hand—which has been stroking my forehead—stops suddenly.
"Has he not done that?" He seems startled. As if I have surprised him, as if it upsets him.
"It does not matter Grandfather." I have been thinking about this often since our picnic in the woods and I have come up with a solution myself. I do not even need his help! I am eager to tell someone my plan. "He has no time. The foolish Lords in Tirion send him so much to write and it takes him so long, there is no time for the trees. But now I can write for him! It will be alright, I will do the writing and Father will have the time to teach me about the trees."
When I look up to see if he agrees it is a fine plan he is smiling, a wide smile. A smile that is about to turn into a laugh.
"It is not funny, Grandfather!"
"Oh, I know it is not, Estel, of course, but why do you call them that? The Lords in Tirion."
"Foolish?"
"Foolish, it is not a . . . Usual description."
"Father calls them that. He says they are the foolish Noldar Lords who should find better things to do."
And Grandfather does laugh at that.
"A word of advice," he says, "Do not call them that while you visit Elrohir Elrondion for some of those foolish Lords are his very own family." He looks back to the paper covered in my own neat writing he still holds in his hand. "So your father spends much of his time on paperwork?"
"They always want reports from him, Grandfather, on every little thing and it takes him a long time to write them. Mother has Calithil; she cannot always help. Father says they will want him to detail our toileting next. He thinks they must line their walls with his reports so many do they need, that it is a hundred times more than Aragorn the King ever needed from him and anyway that didn't matter because he could write whatever he liked to Aragorn."
"Does Erynion not help?"
"Oh yes!" Now I have started to talk I cannot stop. "Erynion helps, but Father will sometimes send him away. He does not always want help . . .at least not from Erynion, and sometimes they fight . . ." I trail off as I remember I did not want to talk about the fighting, "They disagree on things, that is all."
"The demands from Tirion are steep." Grandfather mutters to himself as he puts our papers back on the desk. "Why did I not think on how long it was taking him to fulfil them? Perhaps it is I who is the foolish one?"
"Oh no!" I am horrified at that. My Grandfather is not foolish! "You are not."
He holds me tight then, lifts me up on to his lap so I can lean in close.
"I will fix this, Estel," he says and he is determined. "For you and your father, I will get you your time in the trees. You are so like him. Even when he could write, the woods were all he thought of. Laerion was the only one who could get Legolas to focus on his studies and I have no idea what he did to achieve that."
It is a relief. Even though I have told him nothing of Father and Mother, even though I have not spoken about the knots in my stomach, he will still fix it for me . . And for Father. Being in the woods will make Father happy, I know it will.
My Grandfather will keep us both safe.