(Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I make no money from this writing.)
(A.N. Thanks so much for reading and leaving a review – it's been tough getting going again but encouragement has been most welcome and is truly appeciated. As I write from Legolas' point of view, I think I have in mind Orlando's Legolas staring, bewildered, after Aragorn's tumble off the cliff in the Two Towers, as if he still can't quite understand what being human really means. I don't think he'll ever quite get it.)
Legolas
Elrond's woods are a pinprick on the maps compared to the vastness of my home. Yet these woods are light, and they sing of ancient truths while too much of Mirkwood is dark and, though we fight it, evil still creeps into the deep, silent places in our woods. Here in Rivendell, I know all will be safe, and I ride with joy in my heart through the new-leaved trees, my eyes filled with the blue of bell flowers, the white of wild herbs, the last fading yellows of spring as we move to the pinks and reds of summer. I am singing, and the elves who greet me from the dells and wooded slopes return the song. It is summer, and I am going to see if Estel is happy and well now.
I have brought no present this time, save my knowledge of archery. I shall begin to teach him this summer. Not that Master Elrond has no means of his own of teaching him, but it was in my hands to help him to make the bow and it will be in my hands to give him the use of that bow.
As I ride the steep road to the house, I hear a whistle and a greeting. There, in the lower branches of one of the largest trees, not far from the Last Homely House, Estel stands and waves. He is smiling his welcome.
"Your flet is made, then," I say, stilling my horse just by the platform.
Estel's expression changes. "Yes. Papa had it made, and I helped. But it had to have extra bits, just for me, and it's not very high off the ground. Look, I could just step onto your horse's back from here!"
"My horse is steady but I think he would find a human boy stepping onto his back a little distracting," I say, and Estel grins.
"Well, I just meant, it's like – it's like a baby's flet, not a boy's flet. I don't need this stuff to keep me safe."
He runs his hands over new-cut, undecorated railings, which do change the simple platform into a safer place for a boy. If the railings were carved, with ivy perhaps, they would be less troubling to the eye. For they seem to unbalance the flet, spoiling the nature of the wooden platform my people have used for so many years. They are meant to complement a tree but this platform does not. I believe I can understand Estel's clear disappointment.
"Not a baby's, surely. Master Elrond does this only to keep you safe. Here – may I ascend?"
"May you what?" he says. "Oh – you mean – yes, please. We could plan an adventure or something." His cheerfulness is gone, and he picks at a rough place in the wood with his forefinger.
I tether my horse and climb the rope ladder. It is not necessary for me but it is Estel's flet and it costs me nothing to be courteous.
"You can see a good way down the road from here," I say, leaning against the railing. "And I didn't see you until I was quite close."
"Really?" Estel says. "I did think carefully what to wear and I have been very still. But I thought you'd see me very easily."
"I cannot see through leaves and branches. I am but an elf, not a wizard. Now, tell me what you have seen today."
"Don't you want to go and see Papa? He told me to bring you straight to him."
"I believe we have a little time yet."
So he tells me of the hawk he watched, circling in the sky. And the young squirrels, chasing round the trunk of the next tree. Yet all the time, he picks at the wood of the railing, as if, given enough time, he could unmake them.
He falls silent. Then he sits down and dangles his feet over the edge of the platform.
"Are you going to teach me to pull a bow properly?" he asks. "I think I need to have more muscles." He holds up his arm and flexes it. "Elladan and Elrohir, they're all muscle in their arms. I'm just thin."
"Then we shall work this summer, while I am here. I shall set you a course to run, with targets set at intervals, and we will see if you can run a little faster each day, and hit each target from a little further away."
"That sounds fun," he says, brightening. "I've forgotten when Halbarad is coming, but he can do it too, when he does. Can he?"
"I shall handicap him," I say, thinking how this might be done. "He is a little older than you, and a little stronger, though I think you will grow to match him soon enough."
"It is hot out here, isn't it!" Estel says. He does not know that I do not feel heat or cold as he does. But there is a heaviness in the air, and a stillness which tells of a storm to come. Perhaps late afternoon. There will be plenty of time to arrange the course before the rain.
"Then let us go in. Perhaps there will be something cool to drink?"
"Oh, yes!" he says, and he launches himself off the edge of the flet before I can warn him. He lands neatly, then looks back at me. "Don't tell Papa!" he says, and I know he means me to keep his secret. He does not need the rope ladder or the railings – but perhaps it is as well that Elrond did not place the flet any higher.
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I greet Master Elrond, and we talk while Estel refreshes himself with a cool drink. He has already fetched his bow and arrows, and sits pulling at the string until Elrond sends him to the kitchen with the glass.
"Tell me," he says. "What do you have planned for Estel?"
"I thought to set him a course," I say. I tell him the details of the training I have planned and wait for approval. I realise that I should not have told Estel. If Elrond tells me it is not a sound idea I shall abandon it but Estel will then be disappointed.
"And you will run this course with him, and guide him?"
I had not thought to do that but I readily agree. "I will, my lord. And it will be easy, but not so easy that he will tire of it quickly."
He looks at me thoughtfully for a moment, then asks after my father. We speak for a while, until Estel is there at the doorway, hanging onto the handle and asking if it is time to start yet.
"I have not had time to lay out the course for you yet," I say.
"But I can help you!" he says, and I hear Elrond's snort of laughter.
"You had best let him," he says. "I am not going to entertain him while he waits for you!"
Elrond stands, gathering his robes round him. Estel comes into the room properly.
"Now," Elrond says, and he is stern. "I do not wish to be drawn from my study by tales of you falling into rivers, climbing tall trees or fighting anything. Do you hear me? If there is any fighting to be done you will allow Legolas to do it. You will concentrate on running fast and hitting the targets. Do I make myself clear?"
Estel looks down at his feet. "Yes, Papa," he says solemnly. "I mean, no, Papa."
"Good. Now, I give him into your charge, Prince. You will return him to me safely at the end of the day."
I find myself tempted to look at my own feet but restrain myself. "Yes, my lord," I manage before I take Estel's hand and we go outside set a course worthy of a son of Elrond. A nine year old son. I must not forget that he is nine and not an elven child.
Yet it is hard to remember that, once we have started our task. I know these woods well, as does Estel, and the challenge is to make the course interesting yet not so difficult as to discourage him.
We begin by seeing how far he can run, not quite flat out, before he has to stop to catch his breath. Over-heated, he pulls off his jacket and then wonders what to do with it. In the end, he bundles it up, pushes it under a rock and tells me he'll come back for it later.
"It's too hot!" he complains, as if I hadn't guessed why he's removed it. "I wish there was a breeze."
"Let us go a little higher, then, and a little closer to the waterfall. Perhaps the air is stirring there."
It is uneven ground, tumbled rocks and rivulets and tree roots, so he has to watch his step. I keep pace, making sure that all is well, and when he stops, I mark the place. First, we pause by a rock larger than any we have come across so far. I look around, and there is a dead tree some twenty paces away.
"Here!" I call over the steady roar of water. The fall, off to our right, moves the air, yet Estel still wipes sweat from his forehead. It was a steep climb. "This will be your first target. Do not try it yet – we will run the course properly tomorrow."
"Not today?" he says. "Not even later?"
He is leaning against the rock, still panting a little. As soon as I notice his expression I feel I am beginning to learn the power of a boy's disappointment in shaping decisions.
"Perhaps later, if it does not rain," I concede. Yet I wish I had not. He will be tired, especially in this airless weather. Then he will make mistakes and the good work of teaching him resilience and building his stamina will have had a bad start. I will have to ensure that I find a way to delay the first run round the course until tomorrow.
So I take my time, ensuring he knows the way, picking suitable targets and then rejecting them, until he is sitting cross-legged on the ground waiting for me to make up my mind.
"Can't I at least try these two targets out?" he says. "Then perhaps you can choose which is the better one?"
I pause, then come to sit next to him. "In a moment. Let us rest. This beech tree is one of the youngest in the wood. Did you know beech trees are called the queen of the woods?"
"No. This particular tree, or all beech trees?" Estel picks up some of last year's mast and turns the sharp-edged seed case round in his fingers.
"All beech trees. Though I suppose your grandmother in Lothlorien would say it is some other tree. She has charge of the most ancient trees."
"She does? Do you mean Gala – Galadriel? I want to visit her but Papa says it is too far. Is she really my grandmother? Or is she a foster grandmother? Can you have foster grandmothers?"
"Perhaps, one day, you and I will go there together," I say, a little troubled that I have stepped into a subject Elrond does not wish Estel to know too much about. "Come now – let us run back to the house, for that circle of grass there will be the last target."
"Then can we run the course?" Estel says, jumping to his feet. "I want to do it now!"
On the eastern horizon, a bank of clouds has been building. The first, far-distant rumble of thunder makes the boy turn his head.
"There's going to be a thunderstorm, isn't there?" His face has changed. There is a tension there now, an apprehension I have not seen before.
"Yes, but it will not be here yet. Let us go to the house, and you can prepare yourself. If the rain has reached us by the time you are ready we will have a game indoors. If not, and the storm is still far away – look, it may slip down into the plain without coming near here – then we will run the course once today."
"All right," he says, though he doesn't look at me but stares off into the distance, where another deep, shaking roll of thunder comes to us through the still woodland.
"But I don't like thunder. Or lightning. I'm not afraid of them," he says quickly, now glancing at me. "But it is not safe in these woods in a thunderstorm, Papa said."
"There is nothing to be afraid of," I say. "But you are right. If the storm comes, we will be safe in your father's house, and we will watch it together from there."
He nods and we walk back to the house, passing by his tree and admiring its growth, now nearly half as a tall again as he is. Then inside, where he goes to the kitchen for some food and I go to my room, to waste a little time.
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The storm approaches only slowly, and Estel and I watch it from his balcony. He is impatient to begin yet the storm troubles him, each rumble of thunder new cause for him to watch, and frown. It is not long before he asks for the third time if we should not start, before the storm.
"Take your bow and your arrows," I tell him, unable to think of another way to distract him. Perhaps it will start to rain if I find a way to delay just a little more. "Do not begin without me!"
"Yes," he says, and runs off. I go to find Lord Elrond and we speak for a little while of Estel's progress, then he asks where he is.
"I am hoping it will rain," I say. "He should not be in the woods in a thunderstorm."
"No, indeed," says Elrond. "He has been afraid of thunderstorms since he was a very small boy. He has tried to conquer that fear but we have always been there to give him comfort. You have not allowed him outside, I hope."
I hear thunder again, much closer.
"I told him to go to the start of the course, but I am sure I told him not to start without me. I thought to spend a few moments with you and by then, it would have started to rain and we would have to return to the house."
"Then you had best go and fetch him, before he decides that you truly meant him to begin the course. He has little patience. He is an obedient child but he has no sense of time, and he does not always hear the 'no' in a command."
"I was most firm," I say, hoping I had said the right words and wishing now that I had made him promise to wait.
"Go, Legolas. Bring him back to the house before it begins to rain. He is tough but the task of drying boys who look like drowned rats is not a pleasant one."
I do not doubt that Elrond is speaking from experience and that I will be the one delegated to dry Estel should he get wet, so I turn on my heel and run as quickly as I can to the starting point. Stay there, I am sure I said that.
Yet, as I run to the start of the course, with the sky purple above me and the thunder close, and large, heavy drops of water falling, darkening the ground, I begin to doubt that I found the right words to keep an impatient boy from starting out on his own.
Estel is not there. All I can see are new, small footprints heading away into the woods.
