Two new chapters posted today.
I know my father loves Elrohir and Elrohir loves him back. I have always known it. I know that is why he leaves us behind to go visit him. It is one of those things that has always been, as I know Mother loves Erynion.
It is what we do. It is how everyone is at home for we are Silvan. It is why Father gets so frustrated with the foolish Lords in Tirion who want him to line everyone up in boxes.
Silvans do not fit in boxes.
I know the Noldor are different. I know they love in straight lines and follow the rules.
I wonder why Elrohir does not? Because he is a half-Elf?
As I watch he and my father now I cannot understand the Noldor. Elrohir makes Father shine like the sun. He plaits his hair while Father rests his head in his lap and they are both happy. Why would you choose not to love someone if they could make you happy? Why would you love only one person when another would just mean you had twice as much love?
It makes no sense to me.
"I have been surrounded by dark clouds," my father says now as he looks up at Elrohir, "but your light has cut through them and driven them away so I can breathe again."
"I am glad," Elrohir replies. "You deserve to be free of them. Too long have we been apart this time and I know you have been suffering." He bends his head so his dark hair brushes across Father's face.
Father hesitates then as if he pauses to think upon what it is he should say next.
"You heal me." He says in the end, "You are a healer, Elrohir."
But Elrohir only laughs.
"Not this again, Legolas. You know I cannot heal even so much as a scratch."
"You heal souls."
Elrohir shakes his head.
"I know it feels that way to you but it is love you are feeling, pure and simple."
"Maewen loves me, I love her. She makes every day brighter, but she cannot scatter the clouds as you can. She could not burn away the sea."
"I am not a healer, Legolas."
"If you would only speak to Elrond. Tell him what I feel from you. Have him look at you." My father is insistent. He will not give up this topic of conversation and Elrohir is becoming annoyed.
"I am not going to bother my Father with this. Elbereth knows he has spent enough time already trying to find some kind of healing power within me."
"Then he has not been looking in the right place!" Father lifts his head and props himself up on his elbow to meet Elrohir's gaze. "Olórin agrees with me. He says it should be investigated further."
And Elrohir is horrified.
"You have spoken to Olórin about this? About me?"
"Of course. It is important, Elrohir. There are others here besides me you could help, and he agrees with me. You have power. You had it in Arda and you have it here." My father, when he has something on his mind, can be very stubborn and he is stubborn now.
But Elrohir sighs heavily. He is not listening.
"I have power for you, Legolas because I love you, you and only you. It is nothing special, no mystery. I wish you would stop this." They have both completely forgotten me, sitting where I am, behind my book, so involved they are in this conversation.
"And Elladan," Father says quickly. "It is not just me. You eased the sealonging for Elladan too, remember!"
"He is my twin. That hardly counts."
Father pulls himself up to sit, so he looks Elrohir in the eyes, and I remember as he does, that smile Elrohir gave me when we arrived. The one which undid all my knots. Is Father right?
"What about your mother?" Father's question hangs in the air and I do not understand what he is asking.
Neither, it seems, does Elrohir.
"What about my mother?" He frowns and something about the way he asks seems dangerous.
"Olórin said when she was first found, you were the only one whose presence she could bear. Even Elrond she turned from. It was just you, Elrohir, who could reach her."
"Why is he talking to you about that? About her?"
They have wandered in to something I do not understand. I have met Elrohir's mother and nothing was wrong with her. I liked her.
"Because he thinks it is an example of your power."
Elrohir is on his feet now. Fists clenched by his side and I am nervous. Those knots his smile undid within me begin to tie themselves up again.
"Olórin spent too much of his time on Arda playing games with our lives. He would do well to stay out of mine now, and he is wrong! I did not heal my mother. I could not help her. Finarfin did that. Finarfin and Finrod; here, far away from me!"
"Because you are untrained, Elrohir, but if you were—" Father is standing too now and he matches Elrohir's raised voice with one of his own.
I feel sick. My stomach churns. I wish I could run and hide but I do not know where to go. There is too much anger, one too many arguments for me. I need it to stop so I can breathe.
I know how to stop them. It works with my mother and father at home. It will work here too. I clasp my book tight to my chest for I do not want it damaged then I jump to my feet as well . . . Kicking the jug full of lemonade over as I do so.
It spills across the ground and I cry out in distress at my clumsiness,
"Oh!"
And Father is distracted. Thank goodness he is distracted.
"Estel!" He cries, "Child, what are you doing?"
"I am sorry, I did not see it there." I bend down to pick it up but he stops me and does it for me.
"Sometimes I wonder how one elfling can be so clumsy." He brushes the hair from my face and smiles. He is not angry, nothing was broken, I kept my book safe and he has forgotten all about Elrohir.
Elrohir; who looks at me now through narrowed eyes as if he can read my mind, as if he knows this was no accident.
But he does not say it.
"You are tired," he says instead, "Both of you. I should have thought more carefully, Legolas. We have kept the boy up too late after a long ride. Maewen would have a fit if she knew."
And he bends down to pick up our things from the ground.
"You need bed, Estel, hmm?"
Father puts his arm around me as we walk back to our rooms and I am glad of it. But I am even more glad when I see Elrohir, on his other side throw his arm across Fathers shoulder, and whisper in his ear with a smile.
They have forgiven each other. It was worth a little spilt lemonade.
Father puts me to bed in my little room with a hug and a kiss. He tucks me in to bed and strokes my hair.
"Sleep well, Monkey." He says before he leaves me to go next door.
Elrohir is right. I am tired, but now, alone in the dark I cannot sleep.
Father has left a lamp lit in the corner and it throws a soft light across the shadows of my room; the room Elrohir has made for me that is so much like my own. But it is not my own. If it were mine Mother would be outside that door, humming as she cleaned away the dishes and tidied up at the end of the day. She would have kissed me goodnight with a smile before Father tucked me in to bed.
I have never been away from my mother, apart from last night at my Grandparents. She has been there every night and now I miss her. I miss her with an ache that brings tears to my eyes.
She is so far away and I want her.
I want Calithil too. When I am at home and unhappy she will wrap her chubby arms around me and try to make it better. She will crawl into my bed, and snuggle her warmth in to my back so I fall asleep to the rhythmic sound of her thumb sucking.
The ache spills over into tears. I feel them spilling down my face. When the door to my father's room opens a crack and the shadow of him appears in the light, I am sobbing and I cannot stop.
"Monkey!" He is across the room in an instant and wraps me in his arms. "What is wrong, little one?"
"I want Mother!" The words come out between choking sobs. "I miss her. I love you but I miss her."
He holds me tight against his chest and rocks me, murmuring how much he loves me into my hair.
Eventually my crying stops but the ache remains.
"I miss Calithil as well," I tell him.
"I miss them too," he tells me as he wipes the tearstains from my cheeks. "Is there room for me in this bed? I am bigger than Calithil but will I do for now?"
"Yes," I want him to stay, I do.
And so he snuggles next to me and I lean against him in his arms. The ache retreats just a little bit.
"Thank you for coming with me, Estel," he says. "It is easier to be away from home when you are here."
"But you are happy, Father. Elrohir makes you happy!"
"Your mother makes me happy too, just in a different way. I miss you all when I am here."
I think then, on what he said about Elrohir and how he heals him. I remember that smile of Elrohir's that sent my worries fleeing.
"I was worried when we arrived here," I tell Father, "and Elrohir smiled at me. He smiled as if he liked me, as if he liked my heart, and I was worried no longer. It disappeared."
"You felt it too!" He is triumphant. "He has a talent for healing our spirits but he will not see it. For so long he has thought of himself as only a warrior. I will talk to Elrond myself next time I see him."
That makes me anxious.
"But Elrohir does not want that! You will make him angry."
"He will forgive me . . . Eventually." Father, it seems, is not worried about that. "He will be angry but he needs me to do this. He needs it for himself, he just does not know it."
It is warm, lying next to him as he hugs me, and I feel safe. The ache within me for my mother subsides. It is still there but I can breathe through it. Sleep creeps about the edges of my mind.
"What were you worried about?" Father whispers to me, "What worries did Elrohir chase away for you? You are safe here with me."
"It is different here," I tell him and it is true, "and scary. People sound different, the food tastes different. What if I do the wrong thing?"
And he laughs softly,
"You know, Estel," he says, "I worried about those very same things myself when I first went to Imladris."
"Did Elrohir make it better for you?"
He laughs harder then.
"No, Elrohir and I did not like each other much back then. I can not say he made it better at all!"
I can not imagine that!
But he is happy with my answer and does not ask me about my worries any more, instead he sings me a song from home that banishes the last of my aching and leads me in to sleep.
And I have not had to tell him, most of all, I worry about him.