Disclaimer: I own Elisandra and the particular way the words in this story are put together. Everything else, I don't own.
Authors Note: OK. So, I didn't intend for this story to focus completely on Eli's childhood. I actually wanted to have the story focus on her when she's around 20 or so and Legolas shows up. But the way I started it out, it looks like the first several chapters will be about Eli's childhood...
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-No Eyes Needed-
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-Chapter III-
-A New Mum and Da-
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"You asked her mother to foster her here?" Aragorn asked in surprise, and Arwen nodded. "Isn't she a little young to be fostered?"
"She has an unusual gift, Estel. The fact that she gained it the day of my father's Council only adds to that. I would like her to be here, where I can easily watch her. And she's already fostered to Ranora - her mother is dead, and no one knows who her father is." Arwen replied. Aragorn sighed.
"Very well." he said, then added with a wry smile, "Though it's not like I have any say in it." Arwen laughed lightly before giving him a kiss on the cheek and heading towards the door. Once she reached said door, however, she stopped and turned around, as if suddenly remembering something.
"Oh, and Estel? Could you send a messenger to my father and Lady Galadriel asking if they could come see the child before they goes West?" Arwen asked, and Aragorn nodded.
"Of course." he said, and Arwen smiled again before leaving. Aragorn shook his head after she left, a small smile on his lips, before pulling out a piece of parchment to compose a note to Elrond and Galadriel explaining about the child and Arwen's wish for them to see her.
---
Elisandra arrived at the Palace, shy and nervous, six days later, in the late afternoon, accompanied by Ranora and her husband Faldor. The Queen met them in the courtyard with Mariwen and a few other handmaidens, and there Ranora said a tearful goodbye to her foster-daughter, while Faldor simply grunted out a few polite questions about where the child would be living and what she would be doing before being satisfied that she'd be safe and well cared for.
Elisandra didn't cry when her foster mother of the last three years walked away, but Arwen could sense the sadness in the child. And so she was very gratified when the child turned to her and raised her arms for a hug, which, with a smile, Arwen gave. She ended out carrying Elisandra back into the Palace, as the girl had latched on and refused to let go. Arwen found it quite disconcerting, but the handmaidens just smiled knowingly.
Elisandra remained latched onto Arwen until late that night, and occasionally while holding her, Arwen had felt a wetness against her neck, and knew Elisandra was crying. Then she had comforted the child as best she could, singing a lullaby in Elvish at one point when Elisandra's tears seemed to be particularly strong. Finally, though, the child slipped into sleep, and Arwen tucked her into her new bed in her large, sparsely furnished room. The room had been specially furnished with things that wouldn't hurt Elisandra if she ran into them, and had a sleeping couch in it for someone to sleep on at night, so that there would always be someone there and ready to guide Elisandra. The handmaidens were glancing at the couch now, seeming to have a silent discussion about who would stay there the first night, when Arwen spoke up.
"Mariwen, she knows you, so you shall stay in the room with her tonight. Tomorrow, introduce her to everyone she will need to know." Arwen ordered. "She shall have lunch with Elessar and I." Mariwen nodded, then curtseyed to the Queen as she left the room. Smiling lightly at Elisandra's sleeping face as the other handmaidens followed the Queen, Mariwen brushed a stray hair off the child's face before settling herself on the sleeping couch.
---
Over the next four months, Elisandra slowly fit into Palace life. She took just as much a liking to Aragorn as she had to Arwen, and within a month, she was calling them Mum and Da, and acting as if they were the only parents she'd ever known. She also gained quite the following among the other children in the Palace, especially the boys. They all delighted in leading her wherever she wanted to go, enjoying the feeling of responsibility and often pretending they were Gondorian Knights escorting a high-ranking Lady.
At first, Arwen had been leery about letting the children lead Elisandra about without adult supervision, fearing one of the children might take it into their head to lead Elisandra wrongly as a cruel joke. But it never happened, and the reason was discovered two months into Elisandra's stay at the Palace when she - unbeknownst to Aragorn and Arwen - followed the King and Queen as they went to give judgment on a recently captured supposed thief.
It was a small trial, with only the King, Queen, the prisoner, several of the guard, and those witnesses that would be needed in the room. Elisandra managed to remain unnoticed in the doorway, hiding in the shadows and out of sight of both Aragorn and Arwen, the only ones that could have spotted her. And she remained there as the trial progressed, until the very end, when Aragorn pronounced the man guilty of thievery. Then, to everyone's surprise, she hurtled out of the doorway and jumped into Aragorn's lap.
"He's not!" she announced, loudly enough for the entire room to hear. There was a moment of stunned silence, during which everybody blinked several times, hardly believing that a small girl had just come and told the King he was wrong in his judgment. Arwen, not surprisingly, was the first to recover, quickly followed by Aragorn.
"Elisandra, what are you doing here?" the Queen scolded.
"Watching." Elisandra replied blithely. "And he's not guilty!"
"You mean the prisoner?" Aragorn asked as the rest of the room began to recover from it's shock. Elisandra nodded emphatically. Aragorn glanced at Arwen, who just raised an eyebrow.
"How do you know this?" Aragorn asked the Elisandra, and she bit her lip, glancing back at the man, then leaned forward to whisper in the King's ear.
"He looks it." she said, then sat back, watching Aragorn as he looked out at the prisoner. The man, in his patchy, run-down clothes and covered in dirt, didn't look innocent to Aragorn, but he knew first hand that looks could be deceiving. And Elisandra saw people's fëa's, not their actual looks. But all evidence pointed to the fact that the man was innocent. He couldn't change his pronouncement just because his five year old foster daughter announced that the man wasn't guilty.
Then, suddenly, Elisandra was out of Aragorn's lap and standing in front of the prisoner, moving fast for someone essentially blind. The guards instantly moved to block the prisoner from being able to get to the girl, but she dashed around them and stood right at the feet of the man, who looked down at her with surprise. His surprise soon softened into a smile as she stood grinning up at him impishly.
Then Elisandra made a motion for the prisoner to lean down, and he did, curious. The guards moved to stop the man, fearing for Elisandra's safety, but Aragorn waved them off. His instinct was telling him that Elisandra knew what she was doing, at least in part, and he had learned to trust his instinct.
So they watched as Elisandra went up on her tippy-toes and whispered something in the mans ear. His eyes went wide, and he whispered something back to her. Glancing over at Arwen, Aragorn saw that she was straining her ears to hear what was being said, but she shook her head after a moment and leaned back.
"She speaks to softly." Arwen said quietly to Aragorn. "I can only hear the prisoner's side, which is not much help." Aragorn nodded, and turned his attention back to Elisandra and the prisoner as they finished speaking. The man stood and watched thoughtfully as Elisandra dashed to the doorway, and then she turned and looked back at him pointedly.
"You promised! Tell them!" she said, then waved cheerily and slipped out the door. There was a moments silence, and then Aragorn cleared his throat.
"Tell us what?" he asked. The prisoner looked up, took a deep breath of air, and proceeded to explain that he had not broken into the victims home and stole their gold because he had been down in the lower circle of the city hiring a whore, very much the opposite of his previous story of staying at home. He gave the guards names of two people who could back up his story, and as the guards went off to find the two people, Arwen slipped out to find Elisandra. She found the child cautiously making her way down the hallway, running her hand along the wall while scuffing her feet to make sure she didn't trip over anything.
"Eli." Arwen said, striding over to the child quickly. Elisandra looked up and smiled lightly.
"Yes, Mum?" she asked.
"How did you know?" Arwen asked, holding out a hand to the girl.
"He looked it." Elisandra replied again, knowing instantly what Arwen meant as she took Arwen's hand and let herself be led down the hall.
"What do you mean by 'he looked it'?" Arwen asked, heading in the general direction of Elisandra's room.
"Well, he wasn't that good inside - not like you or Da - but he wasn't all bad, and he got really sad when Da said he was guilty." Elisandra frowned slightly as she answered, and then looked up at Arwen, suddenly wary. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, dear, you did something right." Arwen said reassuringly, giving Elisandra's hand a squeeze as she smiled down at her. "But tell me, how did you know he wasn't telling us the truth about where he'd been?" Elisandra thought for a moment, then shrugged.
"I just did." she replied. At that point, a rather frantic-looking Mariwen turned the corner into the hallway, and the conversation was abruptly ended as the handmaiden lightly scolded Elisandra for running off on her. With profuse apologies to Arwen, Mariwen explained that she'd looked away for a second and the child had disappeared. Arwen told the handmaiden it was alright, and then let Mariwen take charge of Elisandra again before heading off to her chambers to think over the newest piece of knowledge about her foster daughter. That evening, Aragorn asked Elisandra to promise not to follow them into a judgment again unless he or Arwen asked her to, and to both his and Arwen's surprise, she readily agreed.
Authors Note: OK. So, I didn't intend for this story to focus completely on Eli's childhood. I actually wanted to have the story focus on her when she's around 20 or so and Legolas shows up. But the way I started it out, it looks like the first several chapters will be about Eli's childhood...
------------------------------
-No Eyes Needed-
------------------------------
-Chapter III-
-A New Mum and Da-
------------------------------
"You asked her mother to foster her here?" Aragorn asked in surprise, and Arwen nodded. "Isn't she a little young to be fostered?"
"She has an unusual gift, Estel. The fact that she gained it the day of my father's Council only adds to that. I would like her to be here, where I can easily watch her. And she's already fostered to Ranora - her mother is dead, and no one knows who her father is." Arwen replied. Aragorn sighed.
"Very well." he said, then added with a wry smile, "Though it's not like I have any say in it." Arwen laughed lightly before giving him a kiss on the cheek and heading towards the door. Once she reached said door, however, she stopped and turned around, as if suddenly remembering something.
"Oh, and Estel? Could you send a messenger to my father and Lady Galadriel asking if they could come see the child before they goes West?" Arwen asked, and Aragorn nodded.
"Of course." he said, and Arwen smiled again before leaving. Aragorn shook his head after she left, a small smile on his lips, before pulling out a piece of parchment to compose a note to Elrond and Galadriel explaining about the child and Arwen's wish for them to see her.
---
Elisandra arrived at the Palace, shy and nervous, six days later, in the late afternoon, accompanied by Ranora and her husband Faldor. The Queen met them in the courtyard with Mariwen and a few other handmaidens, and there Ranora said a tearful goodbye to her foster-daughter, while Faldor simply grunted out a few polite questions about where the child would be living and what she would be doing before being satisfied that she'd be safe and well cared for.
Elisandra didn't cry when her foster mother of the last three years walked away, but Arwen could sense the sadness in the child. And so she was very gratified when the child turned to her and raised her arms for a hug, which, with a smile, Arwen gave. She ended out carrying Elisandra back into the Palace, as the girl had latched on and refused to let go. Arwen found it quite disconcerting, but the handmaidens just smiled knowingly.
Elisandra remained latched onto Arwen until late that night, and occasionally while holding her, Arwen had felt a wetness against her neck, and knew Elisandra was crying. Then she had comforted the child as best she could, singing a lullaby in Elvish at one point when Elisandra's tears seemed to be particularly strong. Finally, though, the child slipped into sleep, and Arwen tucked her into her new bed in her large, sparsely furnished room. The room had been specially furnished with things that wouldn't hurt Elisandra if she ran into them, and had a sleeping couch in it for someone to sleep on at night, so that there would always be someone there and ready to guide Elisandra. The handmaidens were glancing at the couch now, seeming to have a silent discussion about who would stay there the first night, when Arwen spoke up.
"Mariwen, she knows you, so you shall stay in the room with her tonight. Tomorrow, introduce her to everyone she will need to know." Arwen ordered. "She shall have lunch with Elessar and I." Mariwen nodded, then curtseyed to the Queen as she left the room. Smiling lightly at Elisandra's sleeping face as the other handmaidens followed the Queen, Mariwen brushed a stray hair off the child's face before settling herself on the sleeping couch.
---
Over the next four months, Elisandra slowly fit into Palace life. She took just as much a liking to Aragorn as she had to Arwen, and within a month, she was calling them Mum and Da, and acting as if they were the only parents she'd ever known. She also gained quite the following among the other children in the Palace, especially the boys. They all delighted in leading her wherever she wanted to go, enjoying the feeling of responsibility and often pretending they were Gondorian Knights escorting a high-ranking Lady.
At first, Arwen had been leery about letting the children lead Elisandra about without adult supervision, fearing one of the children might take it into their head to lead Elisandra wrongly as a cruel joke. But it never happened, and the reason was discovered two months into Elisandra's stay at the Palace when she - unbeknownst to Aragorn and Arwen - followed the King and Queen as they went to give judgment on a recently captured supposed thief.
It was a small trial, with only the King, Queen, the prisoner, several of the guard, and those witnesses that would be needed in the room. Elisandra managed to remain unnoticed in the doorway, hiding in the shadows and out of sight of both Aragorn and Arwen, the only ones that could have spotted her. And she remained there as the trial progressed, until the very end, when Aragorn pronounced the man guilty of thievery. Then, to everyone's surprise, she hurtled out of the doorway and jumped into Aragorn's lap.
"He's not!" she announced, loudly enough for the entire room to hear. There was a moment of stunned silence, during which everybody blinked several times, hardly believing that a small girl had just come and told the King he was wrong in his judgment. Arwen, not surprisingly, was the first to recover, quickly followed by Aragorn.
"Elisandra, what are you doing here?" the Queen scolded.
"Watching." Elisandra replied blithely. "And he's not guilty!"
"You mean the prisoner?" Aragorn asked as the rest of the room began to recover from it's shock. Elisandra nodded emphatically. Aragorn glanced at Arwen, who just raised an eyebrow.
"How do you know this?" Aragorn asked the Elisandra, and she bit her lip, glancing back at the man, then leaned forward to whisper in the King's ear.
"He looks it." she said, then sat back, watching Aragorn as he looked out at the prisoner. The man, in his patchy, run-down clothes and covered in dirt, didn't look innocent to Aragorn, but he knew first hand that looks could be deceiving. And Elisandra saw people's fëa's, not their actual looks. But all evidence pointed to the fact that the man was innocent. He couldn't change his pronouncement just because his five year old foster daughter announced that the man wasn't guilty.
Then, suddenly, Elisandra was out of Aragorn's lap and standing in front of the prisoner, moving fast for someone essentially blind. The guards instantly moved to block the prisoner from being able to get to the girl, but she dashed around them and stood right at the feet of the man, who looked down at her with surprise. His surprise soon softened into a smile as she stood grinning up at him impishly.
Then Elisandra made a motion for the prisoner to lean down, and he did, curious. The guards moved to stop the man, fearing for Elisandra's safety, but Aragorn waved them off. His instinct was telling him that Elisandra knew what she was doing, at least in part, and he had learned to trust his instinct.
So they watched as Elisandra went up on her tippy-toes and whispered something in the mans ear. His eyes went wide, and he whispered something back to her. Glancing over at Arwen, Aragorn saw that she was straining her ears to hear what was being said, but she shook her head after a moment and leaned back.
"She speaks to softly." Arwen said quietly to Aragorn. "I can only hear the prisoner's side, which is not much help." Aragorn nodded, and turned his attention back to Elisandra and the prisoner as they finished speaking. The man stood and watched thoughtfully as Elisandra dashed to the doorway, and then she turned and looked back at him pointedly.
"You promised! Tell them!" she said, then waved cheerily and slipped out the door. There was a moments silence, and then Aragorn cleared his throat.
"Tell us what?" he asked. The prisoner looked up, took a deep breath of air, and proceeded to explain that he had not broken into the victims home and stole their gold because he had been down in the lower circle of the city hiring a whore, very much the opposite of his previous story of staying at home. He gave the guards names of two people who could back up his story, and as the guards went off to find the two people, Arwen slipped out to find Elisandra. She found the child cautiously making her way down the hallway, running her hand along the wall while scuffing her feet to make sure she didn't trip over anything.
"Eli." Arwen said, striding over to the child quickly. Elisandra looked up and smiled lightly.
"Yes, Mum?" she asked.
"How did you know?" Arwen asked, holding out a hand to the girl.
"He looked it." Elisandra replied again, knowing instantly what Arwen meant as she took Arwen's hand and let herself be led down the hall.
"What do you mean by 'he looked it'?" Arwen asked, heading in the general direction of Elisandra's room.
"Well, he wasn't that good inside - not like you or Da - but he wasn't all bad, and he got really sad when Da said he was guilty." Elisandra frowned slightly as she answered, and then looked up at Arwen, suddenly wary. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, dear, you did something right." Arwen said reassuringly, giving Elisandra's hand a squeeze as she smiled down at her. "But tell me, how did you know he wasn't telling us the truth about where he'd been?" Elisandra thought for a moment, then shrugged.
"I just did." she replied. At that point, a rather frantic-looking Mariwen turned the corner into the hallway, and the conversation was abruptly ended as the handmaiden lightly scolded Elisandra for running off on her. With profuse apologies to Arwen, Mariwen explained that she'd looked away for a second and the child had disappeared. Arwen told the handmaiden it was alright, and then let Mariwen take charge of Elisandra again before heading off to her chambers to think over the newest piece of knowledge about her foster daughter. That evening, Aragorn asked Elisandra to promise not to follow them into a judgment again unless he or Arwen asked her to, and to both his and Arwen's surprise, she readily agreed.