"Ada?"
He glanced over; Elladan stood in the doorway, dark hair unbraided and - porridge? - streaked on his robes, expression placid but a glint of sheepish amusement in his eyes. "Elladan? What is it?"
"Gilraen's son woke with the sun today and has been.. ah.. eating breakfast with Elrohir ever since."
"Ever since?" Elrond's eyebrows raised in mild confusion. "That's been at least two hours."
"Well - yes." A half-smile appeared on his face. "The child is hopeless with a spoon, ada. I fear that Elrohir wasn't as fortunate as I in staying clean while trying to feed the boy."
And it was at precisely that moment when Elrond heard something that either he had simply not noticed above the normal morning noise, or was just louder than it had been before. "Aii! Down, you goblin!" came a laughing cry from somewhere outside his room.
Elrond rose from his desk with an amused shake of his head, striding out the door and toward the dining hall, Elladan at his side. "Where is Gilraen?"
"She sleeps still."
Elrond nodded - he had expected no less from her, now both young mother and grieving widow. He stopped in his tracks upon entering the dining hall, looking on the scene within with a growing grin that matched Elladan's.
There, at the near end of the farthest table, young Aragorn sat on the tabletop with a bowl of porridge before him, bits of porridge in his mussed hair and all over his face, and yet more porridge speckling the front of his shirt. Dark eyes twinkling with patient humor, Elrohir was seated in a chair in front of the child, wearing almost as much breakfast as Aragorn with a porridge-covered spoon in hand. Neither looked ready to give in - Elrohir to the boy's refusal of breakfast, and Aragorn to the elf's offer thereof.
At the entrance of his father and brother, though, Elrohir buckled. "Ai, I give up! You, little one," he said pointedly to the gleeful Aragorn, "are n'estel. Hopeless. Ada, Elladan, are you come to save me from this horror?" The last was directed sportively at Elrond and Elladan, both still standing in the entranceway of the room.
"'Stel! 'Stel!"
"Yes, yes, n'estel," Elrohir replied to Aragorn, scooping the boy up with one arm as he deposited his spoon into the bowl and stood, shifting slightly so that both he and the boy faced Elrond and Elladan. "Brother, would you deny me some aid with this?"
"I would gladly deny you," Elladan replied mockingly, stepping forward to take the mostly-empty porridge bowl, still leaving Elrohir with an armful of toddler.
"'Rohir 'stel!"
Elladan let out a shout of laughter, reaching over to tousle the little one's dark hair lightly as he passed them to leave the bowl with the cooks. "He learns fast, brother! For you do look the more hopeless, being a grown elf and yet covered in breakfast."
Elrond could not hold back his quiet laughter then, one hand stretching out to pick at a larger clump of porridge from Aragorn's hair dislodged by Elladan's tousling. "Villains, the both of you, to be such influences on him," he chided laughingly before turning his focus on Aragorn, who was now quiet. The child had both hands firmly clenched around handfuls of Elrohir's hair. "I don't think you are so hopeless. Your father even had high hopes for you - Estel, you will be called, how does that sound?" The boy nodded fervently, sending bits of dried porridge flying. Elrohir winced slightly. "Estel, then. Would you like to take Elrohir and Elladan and go wash up before the day is over?" Another nod. "Go, then, and make sure that Elrohir especially gets all that porridge out of his hair."
Elrohir grinned again, keeping silent as he turned to leave the dining hall. He pressed his free hand to his heart in a teasing salute to his father before he left with Estel, passing Gilraen on the way in.
"Gilraen," Elrond greeted her pleasantly, watching the bemused expression on her face grow as she turned slightly to watch the porridge-covered Elrohir and Estel exit. "Will you join me for breakfast?"
----------------------------
"All right, Estel," Elrohir encouraged, "and this is.."
The sun was beginning to sink, casting the sky in wispy lavender-and-gold clouds, but the trees around them broke most of the wind. Estel was standing half-leaning on a silver birch's trunk with Elrohir crouched beside him, and after a moment of intense scrutiny of the tree he looked to Elrohir. "Orn?"
"Yes, it's a tree, but what kind?"
"Elrohir, don't push him so. The poor child is only two, and you're trying to teach him our language whilst Gilraen is still teaching hers." Elladan was stretched out on a branch overhead, watching the lesson lazily. "It's like as not that you're doing more harm than good."
"No law in Imladris forbids the learning of two languages," Elrohir shot back, looking up. "Just because you could only speak Sindarin until you were half a century grown--"
"Brethil," Estel piped up suddenly.
"Brethil! Silver birch. Very good, Estel. You see, Elladan, he's perfectly capable of learning both." Elrohir swept up the toddler in one arm, settling him against one shoulder as he peered up at Elladan. "Will you come down? Or shall I leave you here and return the boy to his mother without you?"
"And what, tell ada that you were so vigilant over our brilliant Estel that you lost me instead?" He dropped down, landing lightly on his feet with a rustling flurry of autumn leaves following him.
"Nay, I would tell him that you bravely sacrificed yourself to save Estel when a clump of mushrooms in the pine-woods suddenly turned into Orcs and attacked us."
"Yrch?"
Elladan raised both eyebrows, peering gravely down at Estel. "Indeed, yrch. Brother, I fear we may have a genius on our hands."
"A genius, compared to who? You?"
"Oh, most surely compared to me. After all, in the last hour you've managed to prove that he can speak all of six words in Sindarin, including his name and the four others you told him last night."
"He's but two years old!"
"I didn't mean it unkindly, Elrohir. But he's only a human." Elladan lapsed into Sindarin, gaze appraising upon Estel. "You needn't have such high hopes for him."
"And you needn't have such low ones," Elrohir retorted, still defiantly speaking in the common tongue -- though still in a conscientiously quiet tone. "Just because you're still bitter about anything that lies outside of Rivendell--"
"This has nothing to do with that," Elladan said in a dangerously even tone.
"Doesn't it?"
"Nothing."
"Then why do you stand there and act as if I were teaching a troll to shoot?" his brother demanded. "He's trying!"
"What does it matter if he tries?" Elladan said harshly. His gaze flickered down to Estel, who was still cradled in Elrohir's easy grasp, and he automatically lowered his voice. "Brother, do you ever think? Estel will be dead before the Age reaches its end. 'Twill not matter to anyone if he can speak Sindarin or Dwarvish or the black tongue of Mordor after he is gone. He is not of our kind."
"Elendil himself was only a Man," Elrohir countered.
"Estel is not Elendil."
"Said I that he was? I ask no great favor of you, to let me teach him what he may yet learn!"
"All I ask is that you not put all of your hopes in him."
"Then give the boy a chance!"
"Think you that he would still be in Rivendell if anyone here had decided not to give him a chance?"
"He is Arathorn's son," Elrohir said quietly, "and he deserves more than your father's hospitality."
Silence fell after he spoke, broken only by the hushed whisper of grounded leaves turning in the wind. Distantly, birdsong chimed and faded, and at length Elladan's hands flexed at his sides in exasperation.
"Fine. I will," he said abruptly. Elrohir blinked at his sudden assent. "I am."
"You-- you'll give him a real chance."
"Yes."
"You will." There was almost a question in Elrohir's voice, an undercurrent of doubt echoed in the disbelief of his expression.
Elladan sighed. "Yes, Elrohir. I've already said I will. What more must I do, swear to you that I'll dedicate the next century to raising him to become the king of Men?"
Elrohir raised one eyebrow, but the skeptical twist of his mouth faded to be replaced by a tentative half-smile. "That would be amusing, to say the least."
"Traumatic."
"For Estel, that is."
"After he's woken up, perhaps. I do believe that your prodigy is drooling on your shoulder, brother."
Elrohir looked down at Estel, who had apparently fallen asleep and was, as Elladan had stated, leaving a wet mark on his shoulder. He sighed but didn't move the child, only shrugging mildly. "There are things worse that could come out of his mouth at this age."
"Yes, well. At least he's two. Any younger and we might have had to refuse him safety here after all." Elladan broke into a rare grin, reaching over to brush Estel's hair away from his face. "Arwen was such a terror when she was teething."
"Just don't tell her that." And Elrohir turned, nodding toward the house. "Shall we go?"
"We shall." Elladan chuckled, setting off beside Elrohir. "If only to save you from the indignity of being seen with spit soaking your arm."