"You said you didn't want to go," Dís said, hands on her hips.
"Rivendell is not Mirkwood," Morwinyon replied, wondering why she was arguing. She did not want to go. She was going to go anyway, it seemed.
"They shouldn't ask."
"They hardly know why," Morwinyon pointed out. Tari and Angion sat at the small fire, exchanging looks. Morwinyon realized suddenly that she was not actually certain they knew they were half elven: she could not recall discussing the topic with them. Surely they did?
"Morwinyon will go if she decides to," Kíli said, stirring the pot. "Even you can't stop her, Mother."
Dís sniffed.
Morwinyon felt the need to assure her. "If you do not want me to go, you can tell me so. You usually have good reasons."
"You said you didn't want to see your father," Dís said. "It seems to me that seeing any of your kin would lead to seeing your father."
Dis, Morwinyon reflected, had taken to correcting her perceived wrongs with Kíli and Fíli by a near militant defense of her daughter-in-law's decisions, whatever those decisions might be and however unwise they might turn out to be. There had been plenty of unwise decisions over the years, but Dís still stood strongly behind her.
"Who is your father?" Tari asked. "You never mention him."
"He doesn't need mentioning," Dís snapped with such vehemence that Morwinyon frowned and examined her mother-in-law more closely. Kíli, too, sat back with a frown, and Tari blinked. Angion put an arm around his sister's shoulders.
"He never hurt me, Dis," Morwinyon said carefully, unsure where the vehemence had come from. "Never even thought to. It was the opposite. I do not like him, but he would have kept me safe to the end of all our days." She smiled a little, to reassure Tari and Angion. "That was the problem, really."
"So he kept you wrapped up in swaddling cloth and inside that forest," Dís said. "And you won't go back, because you're afraid he'll do it again, and what happens when he realizes he has grandchildren?"
Morwinyon realized all at once what Dís true worry was. She said, "Dis. My father is vain and overprotective and sometimes awful, but he could not keep me then and he cannot now, even if I see him. He cannot take me - or Tari, or Angion - from you."
Dís would not look her in the face. Morwinyon exchanged a quick glance with Kíli, who made a helpless gesture. Finally she leaned forward and laid two fingers on the back of Dis' hand, as she had so many years ago. "I promise," she said.
Alia came even later, when the stars were fully out. Morwinyon waited for her outside the tent: inside Dís and Kíli and the twins slept.
"I wouldn't ask it," Alia said. "We all know you're wary of elves, and whatever the circumstances might be, we try not to ask too much of our people."
Morwinyon's heart warmed at 'our people', so she smiled at Alia. "I know."
"But, Morwinyon…"
Alia sighed and looked up at the stars. She might be looking at Morwinyon's, but there was no way to tell. "You and I both know there are many reasons you are the best choice to go."
Alia knew for sure, then. Morinyon did not know why she was surprised.
"We do," Morwinyon agreed. "And I will, if you ask."
Morwinyon had seen Alia grow from ten to her now seventy years, and she had seen Alia give orders that she knew her people would not come back from and orders where they might, and even, on good days, orders where they definitely would. The look on Alia's face now, as she looked up at the stars, was achingly familiar, and Morwinyon could not give her the same promise she had given Dis.
"I do ask," Alia said finally.
Morwinyon bowed her head, and Alia, with one last long look at the stars, took her leave.
There was no question of her going without Kíli, but her children - or at least one of them - questioned her going at all.
"But why?" Angion demanded in Khuzdul, as they all usually did when they argued. "Surely there are other emissaries. Most elves don't even speak Quenya, that can't be your qualification-"
"Alia asked," Morwinyon said. "And it is probably past time I dealt with a few things anyway."
"Your father?" Angion asked. Behind him Tari pointedly did not turn around.
"Perhaps," Morwinyon replied. "But Angion-"
"He doesn't deserve it, Grandmother said so-"
Morwinyon stopped packing to catch hold of his hand, and reached out to Tari too, kneeling so she could look her children more easily in the eyes. "My father is not the most deserving of my care," she said. "But he is not undeserving, either. Listen, please, before you interrupt, and when I am done I will listen to what you have to say."
Angion bit his lip. Tari watched her somberly.
She took a deep breath. "It is not easy to hear these things about your mother, I know. But you should know… well, the truth, I suppose. I do not go to my father because I cannot face him, not because he will not accept me. I have left my people and my responsibilities twice over, and I did it only - well, mostly - for me. By most counts that makes me a coward, or at least irresponsible, and definitely selfish. I have tried very hard to be a good mother-"
Angion opened his mouth. Morwinyon raised an eyebrow at him. He closed it.
"I have tried to be a good mother," she repeated, "and a good sister, and a good daughter, and loyal, and I think I have managed to be all those things now. I did not manage them before. And, too, now I understand that it is possible to be a good person and a poor parent, and also the other way around. If you meet my father - well. Do not fear him. He would never hurt you. But be, perhaps, wary, for if he has learned to love in a less proprietary fashion it will be more than he learned when I was there."
Morwinyon smiled a little as Tari nodded and Angion frowned. "I am going," she continued. "I said I would, if Alia asked, and she did. I am the best one for the job. How can I say no, when her people have loved us so well?"
Neither had anything to say. She kissed them each on the brow, trying to remember that they were supposed to be adults now, and returned to packing. When she was finished Tari went back to the forge, and Angion went with her, and Morwinyon took herself off to Rinna and Rinna's horses. They were riding as far as the next clan, with a string of horses Rinna and Alia had promised for breeding stock.
Kíli was already there, making Rinna laugh as he accepted the reins of the pony she passed off to him.
"Only the best for you, Morwinyon," she said, still laughing but managing in between to whistle sharply.
A large roan mare, ears pricked forward, led a group of six others to Rinna, who she snuffled over as if expecting a treat.
"None today, greedyguts," Rinna admonished, slipping a bridle over the mare's head with ease. "I'll put the others on the line, if you'll tack this lady up, Morwinyon."
While Morwinyon obliged, Kíli said, "That was a good speech you gave the twins."
"I did not realize you were listening," she said, ending in a grunt as she tightened the girth. The mare took a quick nip at her. "None of that," she ordered, switching to Sindarin. The mare huffed, stamped, and subsided.
"I didn't think I should come in. But it was nice. Do you believe it?"
Morwinyon spent the rest of the two day ride considering it, and remembering.
"Look at the stars, Ada," Morwinyon said, tugging Thranduil's robe with one hand and pointing up with the other. "Show me mine?"
He knelt obligingly and leaned over so that his face was near hers, moving her finger so that it seemed to touch the correct star. "There you are," Thranduil said. "The brightest one."
"Eärendil's is brighter," she corrected him.
Laeriel snickered.
"I think the matter up for debate," he said, ignoring his wife. "And anyway, Eärendil is always moving. Who knows how bright he truly is."
"Very," Legolas said dryly.
Morwinyon laughed and turned to hold her arms up imperiously to her brother. He picked her up.
"You are becoming very heavy," he told her.
"Yes," she agreed. "I am growing."
"You are going to be taller than your father," Laeriel said matter-of-factly.
"Oh good," Thranduil said. "I shall be very intimidating when people walk into my hall, if I am surrounded by giants."