Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, places, ideas or anything else from Lord of the Rings. I do however lay claim on Elrond's twin daughters as Tolkien never wrote about any twin elven girls anywhere in his books. Everything else though, as much as I wish it, is not mine and belongs to the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien (a wonderful, wonderful man). Except for a 2-year-old toddler by the name of Estel (forever called tithen min by his siblings) who needs looking after.
~~~~OOOOO~~~~
"Ow!" Elrohir cried as the top of his head connected with the underneath of the bed. His brother barely caught himself before he laughed out loud.
Elrohir glared at him, but otherwise ignored his twin. "I give up," he said as he rose slowly to his feet.
The elves both turned to stare at their father who had adopted a slightly exasperated and concerned look.
"Rómë, please, won't you come out? Dúnë?" he asked cautiously.
Elrond and Celebrían had been startled awake less than ten minutes before, in the middle of the night, by the loud wailing of their twin daughters. They had all but run down the hallway to the elflings' room only to find their grown twin sons already trying to coax the children from under the bed. So far the girls were having none of it.
His sons had obviously given up; they were standing beside each other a few feet from the bed talking quietly and obviously waiting for their parents to do something.
Elrond sighed and turned to his wife. Celebrían smiled tiredly at him and knelt down beside the bed.
The two-year-olds were snuggled against each other in the far back corner, wrapped it a warm blanket against the winter chill and both crying. Celebrían's heart went out to them. "Come here tithen gwenyn nin," she held her hand out to them.
Her youngest looked at her cautiously and then turned to her sister. For a moment they stared at each other, and Celebrían was suddenly certain that even at the age of two they could communicate mentally. Elladan and Elrohir had been five before they showed such signs. The elf lady's daughters were indeed a marvel.
Andúnë reached her hand out to clasp her mother's and slowly edged herself out from under the bed, her sister following behind. The moment they stood up, Arómenë threw herself into her mother's arms and her father stepped forward to claim her twin and lift her up into his arms.
"It is alright now, sell nin. Everything will be alright," Celebrían hugged her child close as she exchanged a pointed look with her husband over the children's heads.
"Why do you not come to bed with us?" Elrond asked the crying child in his arms.
She said nothing, only looked up at him with large blue eyes that were red from her tears and nodded her head.
Elrond nodded to his sons. "Thank you for trying. Go back to your rest; we shall watch them tonight."
The twins looked gratefully at their parents before leaving the room; the soft thud of two doors nearby announced they had gone to their rest.
"Come iell nin, everything will be alright now." And he carried his still crying and trembling daughter back to his rooms; Celebrían following with their youngest.
It was the third time that week. Elrond desperately wished his children were old enough to tell him in understandable words what it was they dreamt of, but whenever the twins awoke screaming in fear they were always too upset to form any words recognizable as elvish, dwarvish or the common tongue. And by the time they awoke the next morning, they had conveniently forgotten all about it.
It was against his better judgment, not to mention his own rules on the matter, but he was beginning to think the only way of helping them might be to probe into their minds and see whatever it was that was causing them such fear. Although he wasn't sure what he could do even when he did discover what the problem was; at least he'd know what the reason was for being wakened in the middle of the night.
~~~~OOOOO~~~~
It had been three days since Lord Elrond had discovered the source of his daughters' nightmares, and he was still pondering on what exactly it meant. Were they seeing the future already or was this just something a childish mind had dreamed up in the darkness of night? He desperately hoped it was the latter for the reason that if it was the former, dark days were ahead and his two-year-old baby girls were already seeing things that even he hadn't foreseen.
But whichever it was he knew they were developing far too fast for his piece of mind. He'd probably be deeply worried had he not know that he had been very similar at their age, and had, at seven nearly caused Gil-Galad to fall out of his chair when he'd looked him straight in the eye and told him that a great war was coming. Fifty-one years later Morgoth was destroyed by an army sent by Manwë. At that occurrence, Elrond recalled with amusement, Ereinion really had fallen off his chair.
The Elf Lord shook himself back to the present and tried to concentrate on the work on his desk. He wasn't faring well. He put the quill and ink aside with a sigh.
Why were two-year-olds dreaming of death and blood and thousands lying on a ruined battlefield? Why had they been cursed with great foresight as he and their daernaneth had? Was it too much to ask for them to live their lives in peaceful innocence?
And what could he do about it? Certainly there were herbs that were ensure dreamless sleep, but they were infants still, and their bodies would not be able to handle them. He could block that part of their minds; shut the door against the seeing, but it was as much a part of them as they were of each other, and he did not feel right doing that. They would have to weather them; or at least that was what the rational part of his mind said, but it hurt him greatly to see his children in such pain and not be able to heal them.
How had he dealt with the elven foresight when he was young? He had had his brother there, his twin; to sit with him at night when the visions became to much; to comfort him when he dreamed of death and despair; and when the dreams overpowered him, to go and fetch the healers to put him into dreamless sleep.
But his daughters were only two, and neither of them could do much for the other except see the visions themselves. He would have to be the one to comfort them and tell them things would be alright and to not cry. He would have to make them understand, somehow, that what they saw was not real now, but would happened many years into the future when they were grown.
Sometime he wondered whether his elven blood was indeed a gift.