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Elrohir
I do not like Finrod. I have to keep telling myself that again and again because he is difficult to dislike and when I am with him I find myself forgetting. Finrod is easier to despise from a distance.
This evening, under starlight, he has baffled me with talk of power and admiration which I know is just Legolas' nonsense.
But Finrod is Finrod, King of Nargothrond. He does not speak nonsense.
But he does have eccentric ideas of the world, some of them often ridiculed by those in Valinor who say his death and rapid return to life damaged him.
But here we stand in Arda made anew, next to the Men returned, proving he was right all this time.
Is he right about me?
Back and forth my head spins.
"I will leave the pair of you," he says, "I think you have much to speak on and do not need me cluttering up your glade. I will come looking for you tomorrow, Elrohir. Count on it. We will start at the beginning."
If he means to try and train me he is in for a crushing disappointment.
He spins on his heels and walks away, vanishing, like a candle snuffed out between thumb and fore-finger, before he reaches the trees. It makes me blink.
"Disconcerting, isn't it," Legolas says beside me, "when he does that. He likes to remind us who he is every so often."
He likes to remind us who he is.
He is Finrod who dueled with Sauron himself. Finrod who was able to cloak the entirety of his travelling party in disguise. Disappearing under starlight is nothing to him.
Legolas, beside me, is a sprite. The stars have turned him giddy. Bathed in their silver light he is at his most bewitching. Finrod was right, he looks wild. He was meant for this place.
He dances with a euphoria I struggle to understand.
"You are happy." I tell him.
"Are you not? I feel as light as air," he laughs. "All that wrongness between us has vanished as suddenly as Finrod did just now. Why did you not tell me I had it wrong, Elrohir? Why did you not tell me what you did for me?"
"All I did was try to lift your burden and make things better for you, as I always do. What was there to tell? I tried to tell you I would never abandon you. I am sorry that I did."
"Drowning yourself in my own fear to try save me does not count as abandonment, Elrohir. It counts as sacrifice."
He sits himself upon the ground, cross legged, face shining up at me, looking so young, so beautiful.
"Join me," he smiles patting the grass beside him.
So I sit, because he asks me to. The grass is soft like a cushion, the stars' silvery light adorns Legolas like the sparkling of jewellery, and he leans himself against me. The warmth and the weight of his body steadies me.
"I do not know what to think," I tell him. "I can make sense of nothing."
"Are you not excited?" He tilts his head to one side with a frown. "Tomorrow Finrod begins to show you how to channel this power of yours. I would be."
"It makes me sick to my stomach, the thought of that," I admit. "Likely he will soon realise there is nothing to channel—"
Quick as a flash a silvan hand darts out covering my mouth as I speak.
"No!" He cries. "No more, Elrohir. I will not allow it. No more telling us what little skill you have. More concentrating on the wonder that is Elrohir! The man that has put himself at risk for me again and again. The only reason I am am here in one piece to see these stars."
"Finrod is the only reason you are here."
He scoffs at that.
"I think not! You are the one reason I ever made it to Valinor to meet Finrod."
"If you say so." I cannot help but smile at his earnest declaration. But I also wish to change the subject. Legolas' assertions about my supposed brilliance make me uncomfortable.
"So, tell me," I think it will take a veritable minefield to turn his head from the subject of me tonight and so I choose one. "Now it is just you and I here beneath the stars, tell me your thoughts on Estel and Eldarion."
If I thought it would distract, to deflate this bubble of well-being he floats on, I was wrong. Instead he leans himself back, hands behind his head, face tilted to the night sky and he smiles.
"Tonight," he says, "I am in the mood to let them do whatever they may wish to."
"Legolas! That was a serious question!"
He turns himself towards me propping himself up on one hand.
"It is a serious answer."
"Do you not have any concerns?"
"I have many concerns. It is not what I would have wanted but I do not get to control Estel's life. Not any more. Do you not think my Father had plenty of concerns when I produced you, Elrond's son?"
"He and Elrond were not friends as you and Aragorn are!"
"No they just barely spoke, nursing age old grudges. So much better." He rolls his eyes and I have to admit, I do see his point.
"But you were producing me. As you said before I am a wonder! Whereas Estel only brings you our ordinary little Eldarion."
He laughs out loud. A bright, unexpected shower of pure happiness. I love it when I make him laugh.
"Eldarion is not remotely ordinary, but you are indeed a wonder. I am glad you are seeing it my way at last, Elrohir Elrondion." He reaches up to wind a lock of my hair around his finger. "Have I told you I love you," he says.
"Once or twice."
"I want Estel to have this."
"But is Eldarion the right one to give him it?"
"Were you the right one for me? Nobody else thought so."
He did that before, asked me to think about those who gave us a chance early on when commonsense told them we would be a disaster together. Elladan, Gimli, Aragorn, they all thought us dangerous . . . Maewen . . .The thought of Maewen suddenly jolts me from my musings.
"We should be getting back." I flick his hand out of my hair. "Legolas . . . Maewen will wonder where on earth you are."
"Maewen knows exactly where I am. Finrod will have told her."
"Then that is even more reason for us to return if she knows you are here with me."
"Elrohir," he sighs, so deep and heartfelt, it feels truly sorrowful, "it has been centuries. Can you still not believe she is happy to share me? Can we not bend that stern Noldor heart just a little? Maewen will be with Erynion. If she thinks of us at all it will be to hope all is well with us. She will not mind this. She will not." He takes my hand, entwining his fingers through mine. "Maewen wishes you were here more often, that we would see more of you. That is what she wants."
He may say that but how can he be sure?
If I wanted a subject to distract him this is it. Suddenly he is deadly serious. The joyous lightness he has shone with melts away. Instantly I miss it.
"Elrohir," he says. "I know this is not your way. I know it goes against everything you are and I love the Elrohir you are. But if I were able to change one thing about us this would be it. It hurts that I must always go to you, that you are never able to see me here, in my world, where I am at my best.
I know you have your own people, your own responsibilities. I do not mean you move here and take to climbing trees and living in a flet. Just a visit, a few times a year? Once? Twice, perhaps, if that is all you can manage. Maewen would be happier. Erynion would be happier."
"Erynion would not be happier. I know that for a fact. He has not forgiven me the Dagor Dagorath. You do not know how angry he was with me there."
"Erynion is my problem." Legolas flicks his hand dismissively as if it is no problem at all. "I will talk to him about that. But I tell you he would be happier because it would mean more time with Maewen. It would bring the three of us, he, Maewen and I, more balance. And because the wild little hellion that is Rhawion could do with some of your steadying influence. We have discussed that, he and I. Taking Rhawion from the woods so he can know you and be with you as he should be. If he could do that and still be here, near his father, then all the better for he is still small. Erynion will agree."
The fact Erynion would welcome more time with Maewen I can understand. The rest of it is nonsense.
"There is no need for Rhawion to know me." I protest. "I am nothing to him."
"You are one of his edhryn, his fathers. Rhawion is yours, mine and Erynion's to raise, as Estel was."
"No, Estel was mine to help you raise because he is yours and you gave me that gift."
"No, you are part of our family and it is expected. Rhawion will have the same parents his brother has. You have much to offer him. Why would we not want that for him?"
You are part of our family.
He has never before said that to me. Part of his family, yes, he and I. But part of this wild collection of silvan free spirits he loves and lives with?
"I am part of your family?" I must repeat it in case I heard it wrongly.
"Of course." He smiles broadly. "You, me, Maewen, Erynion, Estel, Calithil, Rhawion . . . All family."
It leaves me breathless, the idea of that.
"We love you," he smiles.
"You love me."
"We love you. I know you have a family all of your own and it is a fine Noldor family indeed, but you have also acquired the motley group that is us. There is no getting rid of us now."
I think of Rhawion, that small bundle of energy. I barely know him for he dwells in the woods and I rarely go there. Truly it has only been since we set off for this new land that I have seen him at all, a pair of large brown eyes staring at me with blatant curiousity over his fathers shoulder.
"What does Rhawion need from me?" I ask Legolas now. "Tell me and I will give it."
But he simply laughs.
"You are so funny, Elrohir. Take the chance to know him and you will discover it yourself."
"Does Erynion truly want my interference or do you just say this to soothe my feelings?"
"That is not fair! I should be insulted at that. Yes he wants it. He looks on our Estel with pride. He sees the knowledge you have given him, the strength of character he has inherited from you, and he wants it for his own son. Why would he not?"
"I am not sure . . . "
"Elrohir, you are not Elrond, or Elros, or even Elladan. Yes you have parts of you which are like all three of them but you are not them. Perhaps this is you too . . . A silvan Elrohir? The Elrohir we know. The one that belongs with us. An Elrohir who can come to his family in the woods when he needs it and allow them to replenish him.
Because we want you here."
I have a family in the woods. It is a strange thought indeed.
"I do not know where to start, Legolas."
And he lifts my hand to his lips, our fingers still entwined and kisses it.
"Start here. Start tonight.
Start with me."