Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings or any characters and/or places
thereof
Author's note: Ai! I've only just realized. . .I thought Amroth was lost to sea in the Second Age, but it was the Third Age! Please forgive me this. I'll not be making that mistake again.
*****
What is the name. . .? I never can recall. A tree grows pods which, in the autumn, are hard and brittle. A blowing wind may rattle these pods, shaking them that they touch one another and cause a great noise, as an unrestful spirit wandering the world that should be retired to the Halls of Mandos, but for no known reason is not. The clatter of one pod 'gainst another is made especially frightening when one hides beneath the tree, a hard-learned lesson of mine.
One autumn, when the sky had clouded and the weather was cold, I rested my chin on my fist and daydreamed, staring out the window. I was ten years old. Where had summer gone? In what seemed a snap of a finger, the long, hot days had passed, and no more did the sun climb higher and higher into the sky but wandered listlessly in a prison of clouds, unable to do its natural job of brining light and heat and happiness. Had I been more perceptive, I might have noted the chill creeping into the nighttime air, or the hint of crispness in the evenings. But what child bothers with perception when there are trees to climb, fish to catch and duties to shirk? No, autumn had crept upon me, and I was indignant.
". . .of Numenor, at this time was whom? Arwen!"
"What?" I asked, snapping out of my trance and shaking my head. Glorfindel, who had been attempting to tutor me in the history of my world--a valiant and vain effort from a valiant and vain Elf (some time I must recount why I thought of him in this manner, 'tis a humourous tale indeed)--sighed and informed me, "No matter how I teach, Arwen, if you are not present in your mind you will not learn it. Shall we try this once more?"
I toyed with answering him honestly "No", for I had no intention of paying attention, not on possibly one of the last dry days of what looked to be a rather wet season. "Yes, Glorfindel, I will try harder, truly," I lied, faking an innocent look. After all, listening to Glorfindel drone on would be considerably easier than listening to my father "talk to me" about the value of knowledge. I loved my father, but his idea of "to" really meant "at", and who could focus on such a day? Childhood is more important than knowledge, for, at least in my opinion, wisdom and memory serve one better than knowledge. Or so I thought at the time, and still mostly believe: but then, I am a woman. Power is given unequally to me as to a man.
The question of whether or not women should have as equal power as men at one time was much simpler. As a child, including but not limited to the day when Glorfindel failed to teach me history, it seemed that things simply were this way, and there must be a reason, and who was I to question tradition? My grandmother Galadriel would teach me to think otherwise, she would lead me to make disturbing conclusions about leaders and women throughout history (more successfully than Glorfindel) and indeed my own family. But as those days had yet to come, I had yet to concern myself with such matters. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. It is a pleasure of childhood, when we may regret learning and knowledge: as I grow, I come to accept knowledge over ignorance.
But on that day, the sudden interruption of my brother Elrohir was more than welcome. "Elrohir!" I cried, having turned upon hearing the door open. "Elrohir, you are home!" I shot from my chair and hugged my brother fiercely. "Are you here to stay for the winter?" Elladan and Elrohir spent much time out of Imladris. I often missed then and once tried to follow them. That was funny, looking back.
"We will see," Elrohir replied absently, moving me aside. I was slightly offended by this, but his words to Glorfindel changed that. "Glorfindel, my father asks for you. It is very important, there are many wounded--"
In moments Glorfindel and my brother were out the door, and I was torn. Here was my chance, a chance not too far past noon to break from my lessons and play out of doors, enjoy momentary freedom at the expense of tomorrow's bondage, or follow my brother and Glorfindel, learn what mystery begs Elrohir home and Glorfindel from the agony of teaching. One awaited, the other would not. I forsook a few hours' freedom and let my curiosity rule. I followed Elrohir and Glorfindel.
Unnoticed I entered the Halls of Healing, and at once experienced a sensory assault. What could have happened? There must have been fifteen people, all of them wounded, some dying. Blood spilled from bodies onto the floor. This is why Glorfindel had been sent for: though a warrior, he knew something of the healing arts. The four of them, Glorfindel, Elrohir, Elladan and Ada were working as quickly as they could, but they were too few and the wounds too dire. I wanted to be sick. Blood splattered them; the room was spinning. . .I fled.
Outside, I sprinted around to the back wall of the building where no one would see me and leaned against it, panting. Hands on my knees, and gasped in air. That had been frightening! So absorbed was I in my fear, it took me a moment to notice the quite sobbing sounds from nearby. When I heard, I turned to look. There sat a rather dirty girl, stringy clumps of greasy blond hair hanging around her face. She wore breeches and a tunic like a boy ought, with patched knees. "Excuse me," I said to get her attention. "Excuse me, do you belong to somebody I might help you find?"
"No," she replied, looking up at me. She swiped angrily at tears obscuring her blue eyes. Her skin was tan and freckled, and her features were small in a delicate way, though her overall appearance was harsh. "All those I belong to are in there, dying." She jerked her head towards the Halls of Healing. Then, as though none of that had happened, she pushed her palms against the ground to raise herself, then wiped the dirt on her breeches. No wonder they were so tattered. Standing, she was only a little smaller than me. "I am Nevsew, of the Dunedain. A number of my people are here for healing. I am here because they took my parents."
"They?" I asked, curious, rudely not offering my name.
"The dark-haired ones, they are two that look alike," she explained vaguely.
"Oh, you mean my brothers!" I exclaimed, and she narrowed her eyes. Sensing it was best not to continue on this topic, I ask, "Are you hurt?"
"No," she replied. I came because my people were brought, not because I was brought."
"I'm Arwen," I offered, dropping into a curtsy. It might have been the wrong thing to do: this hardly mattered. Though Nevsew was strange to me in her mannerisms, she was also a child, not much older than I, and it was a rare event that I should encounter such a person. She laughed and bowed to me, one hand over her heart. As she rose, I caught sight of her ears.
"What is it?" she asked, seeing my shocked expression.
"You-your ears! Can you hear?" I asked.
"Of course I can." Pushing back her dirty locks, she offered, "They're real. You can touch them if you want to." Nervously, I ran a finger over her round ear. It was so strange! Yet she could hear, or so she said. Then, as we stood facing each other uncertain of what to say next, thunder rumbled distantly. "Iluvatar sounds just like my little baby brother," she commented, "making those noises!"
For a moment I was confused, then I realized that she was joking about the thunder. "Oh! Well, I think it sounds more like my stomach when it is hungry!" I replied. For a moment Nevsew looked at me, then she laughed. She had a full laugh, not a giggle or a chuckle but a bold, unafraid burst. "Come on," I said, "I will show you my favourite place by the river." I offered my hand.
Nevsew faltered and took a step back. Guessing her thoughts, I added, "We will not go far. Your parents will be safe."
"With those butchers?" she asked me skeptically.
"With my Ada!" I replied. She did not know the word. "My father!"
After that, we went down to the river. She agreed that it was beautiful. The sun slipped out from behind a bank of clouds, and we were warmed by it. I taught Nevsew how to make a chain of those flowers, the delicate purple blossom which, if plucked in just the right place, are sticky near the bottom and will stay if slid properly, one within the other. I wove a circlet this way and placed it atop her head, and wove a similar dress for myself. We gazed upon our reflections in the water and knew we were both beauties, though she a dirty prettiness and I a pristine gem. "You are a doll, Arwen," she said to me.
"What are you then, Nevsew?" I asked her.
"I?" She regarded herself contemplatively. Indeed, what was she? Certainly not one of my letter-stones nor a doll, though a drop-spindle I did think of, but discarded it for her form: straight, neither of us curved. "A bear," she said at last, "like my baby brother had."
"A bear?" I asked.
"Not a true bear, but a cloth likeness. He slept with it in his arms night after night; after a time, the bear, though intact, showed well signs of oft usage. I am like the bear."
I wanted to argue, tell her no, she was not like the bear but like. . .what? She was the bear, I realized, to my doll, for I was used only for prettiness and for gazing upon, while she served a function without being blatantly productive: Nevsew's place, she had explained to me, though this was a tacit law, was the comforter and supporter. When her father or mother felt despairingly she smiled sweetly, her cheeks dimpled and their hearts lifted. "Not that I mind," she added. "We function well as a unit."
My bear and I spent over an hour more by the water, adorning ourselves with flowers and falsifying luxuries. The differences in our cultures became obvious. At last she shivered, and I asked her why. She was cold, she told me, and I asked her how that felt. Elves are unaffected by the weather. "It feels like. . ." she paused. Cold must be difficult to explain. "When it snows, and you come nearer the fire? Suddenly you are more comfortable, are you not?" I did not understand. Here a gap we could not bridge, try as we might.
"It is very cold," she said at last, rubbing her arms. "We should go back now."
"Of course." Such had been our gaity that I had forgotten all about her parents, lying injured in the Halls of Healing. From the look on her face, so had she. "Come, we will be swift."
I took her hand and helped her to her feet, and together we began to run across the water by way of a fallen tree, and up the incline that would lead back to my home. I say 'began', for as we were part-way there a clap of thunder sounded, and the skies burst. Rain fell, wind blew, and we were caught a good run away from home. We hid beneath the first tree we found, throwing ourselves at the ground beside the trunk to keep as dry as possible. "Thank you Yavanna," I muttered, catching my breath.
We huddled together for a bit, unwilling to risk the rain for eventual warmth and dryness. "Your hands are strange," I said, "not unlike the feel of my brothers'."
"Yours are also strange," she said, "much like my brother's!" We laughed and opened our palms side by side. Hers were well callused, with a scar on her left. Mine were, as the rest of me, pink and white and soft. "Well," she said, "that does explain it."
Just then thunder crashed, and we sprang together. As a wind sped through the valley, a terrible clattering sound arose. "What is that?" asked Nevsew, frightened.
"I-I do not know," I replied, shivering. As the temperature dropped the noise rose, and we held together and shook. "Do you think we are safe here?" I asked, a ridiculous question: if safety was anywhere, it was in Imladris, besides which, I knew the land better than she.
"We ought to make a run for it," she replied. "We will leave here, then run to your home as fast as we can. All right?"
"All right."
We went together to the edge of the covered area and grasped hands, leaning forward in preparation to run. "One. . .two. . ." Neither of us awaited three. We tore out of there as though a fire spread at our heels. The next morning, we would feel ourselves quite the silly geese when we discovered that the noise which had frightened us so was only the clack-clack-clacking of one shell against another.
But it is another autumn of which I long to speak. This autumn was neither very wet nor very dry, very warm nor very cold. In fact, one might even say it was average, or even normal, if such a thing there be. A general blanket of immaculate nothingness had descended upon the valley of Imladris, bringing with it no particular feeling, nothing special. The season may well have proved quite boring: but Imladris had created, this season, an apprehension of its own.
In the corridor outside of the bedchamber he shared with his wife, one Elf Lord paced anxiously. His chief advisor attempted to calm him down. "My lord, my friend, you have been through this before, you know it will all turn out for the best," Glorfindel reminded Elrond, slightly worried by his friend's condition. Elrond glanced at his friend, then shook his head and began to chew on his left thumbnail. "Stop that!" Glorfindel told him, grabbing his friend by the hand.
Luckily, just at that moment, three familiar voices carried down the corridor. From their conversation, it sounded as though their recent adventures had been somewhat memorable, exciting and, much to Lord Elrond's dismay, life-threatening. "Where have you been?" he demanded, as the three rounded the corner. Legolas, who stood behind the now-frozen Elladan and Elrohir, tried to slink away. "Come here, you three. Where have you been? Each season turned twice since you left!"
"We sent a letter," Elladan stammered, surprised. What had gotten into his father? The boys were often late; once they sent a letter with a new date of arrival everything was fine.
"Boys," Glorfindel said to the twins, sensing that he ought to intervene before something awful occurred, "over the two years you were gone, your adar and naneth decided to. . .extend the boundaries of your family."
"We are going to have a brother?" Elrohir asked.
"Or a sister, yes," Glorfindel replied calmly.
"And part of the plan had been telling you, you two knowing and being here when the time came--" Elrond ranted, but was interrupted by Elladan's excited question, "You mean he is already with us?"
This question was punctuated by a high-pitched wail from within the bedchamber. Elrond at once rushed to the door, only to find it locked. "The midwife," Glorfindel explained to the newcomers, "locked the door when she felt your adar was worrying your naneth too much."
After much worry from without and much howling from within, the five anxious Elves were admitted into the bedchamber. CelebrÃan, leaning on a sea of pillows, looked upon them and smiled radiantly, holding a blanketed child in her arms. Everything ill, the worry and anger which had been mounting in the corridor, dissolved at the sight of the woman, and every one smiled without knowing it. The family convened on the bed, where they observed their new arrival with appreciative commentary. "Is it a boy?"
CelebrÃan smiled. "A girl," she replied, jostling the tiny baby me in her arms.
"Valar be praised," Ada replied, smiling at the twins.
"Yes, and where have you been?" Nana asked, mocking anger with her two eldest.
"Everywhere, Nana, just wait until we tell you," Elrohir replied.
"Not today!" Ada amended quickly, so quickly that Nana smiled and assured him that she was absolutely not in need of such protection. "I know, my love," Ada assured her.
"I doubt that," Nana replied, and leaned over to kiss him, resulting in the first thing my eldest brother ever said in my presence: "You two ought to set a better example for my little sister! And to name her, also!" This was met again with laughter.
Legolas spoke to me of this moment, when I asked him to. He told me, the family looked so happy together, so loving, that he believed no matter what happened, no matter how bad and evil the world became, we would always have each other, and that would be enough. Love, he said, bound us to one another, held us together. He had known love to come between the boys and their parents with much difficulty, had known the boys to fight and beat each other up, but in that moment he knew that there was love between them. He knew that they, and we, were a single entity when we allowed ourselves to love.
He never said that he envied me. I later realized that he did.
In response to Elladan's question, Nana said, "She already has a name. Elladan, Elrohir, this is Arwen. Your sister."
*****
To be continued
Author's note: I know that Elves plan on the date on which they will conceive and give birth to their children, but it seems that it would be a nervous ordeal nevertheless--for a father, that is. Also, I do not think they know in advance the sex of the child. If they do, just let me know and I will change this chapter accordingly.
Steph-h: Thanks! Well, Arwen jumped out of a window. That's pretty much the plain text, Cliffnotes version of it. Arwen jumped and Galadriel stopped her.
Kobe Grace: Have a care with this term of "crazy", it is not as clear-cut nor simple as most think.
I know you all want an explanation. . .in time, all in good time. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, I love hearing from you!
Author's note: Ai! I've only just realized. . .I thought Amroth was lost to sea in the Second Age, but it was the Third Age! Please forgive me this. I'll not be making that mistake again.
*****
What is the name. . .? I never can recall. A tree grows pods which, in the autumn, are hard and brittle. A blowing wind may rattle these pods, shaking them that they touch one another and cause a great noise, as an unrestful spirit wandering the world that should be retired to the Halls of Mandos, but for no known reason is not. The clatter of one pod 'gainst another is made especially frightening when one hides beneath the tree, a hard-learned lesson of mine.
One autumn, when the sky had clouded and the weather was cold, I rested my chin on my fist and daydreamed, staring out the window. I was ten years old. Where had summer gone? In what seemed a snap of a finger, the long, hot days had passed, and no more did the sun climb higher and higher into the sky but wandered listlessly in a prison of clouds, unable to do its natural job of brining light and heat and happiness. Had I been more perceptive, I might have noted the chill creeping into the nighttime air, or the hint of crispness in the evenings. But what child bothers with perception when there are trees to climb, fish to catch and duties to shirk? No, autumn had crept upon me, and I was indignant.
". . .of Numenor, at this time was whom? Arwen!"
"What?" I asked, snapping out of my trance and shaking my head. Glorfindel, who had been attempting to tutor me in the history of my world--a valiant and vain effort from a valiant and vain Elf (some time I must recount why I thought of him in this manner, 'tis a humourous tale indeed)--sighed and informed me, "No matter how I teach, Arwen, if you are not present in your mind you will not learn it. Shall we try this once more?"
I toyed with answering him honestly "No", for I had no intention of paying attention, not on possibly one of the last dry days of what looked to be a rather wet season. "Yes, Glorfindel, I will try harder, truly," I lied, faking an innocent look. After all, listening to Glorfindel drone on would be considerably easier than listening to my father "talk to me" about the value of knowledge. I loved my father, but his idea of "to" really meant "at", and who could focus on such a day? Childhood is more important than knowledge, for, at least in my opinion, wisdom and memory serve one better than knowledge. Or so I thought at the time, and still mostly believe: but then, I am a woman. Power is given unequally to me as to a man.
The question of whether or not women should have as equal power as men at one time was much simpler. As a child, including but not limited to the day when Glorfindel failed to teach me history, it seemed that things simply were this way, and there must be a reason, and who was I to question tradition? My grandmother Galadriel would teach me to think otherwise, she would lead me to make disturbing conclusions about leaders and women throughout history (more successfully than Glorfindel) and indeed my own family. But as those days had yet to come, I had yet to concern myself with such matters. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. It is a pleasure of childhood, when we may regret learning and knowledge: as I grow, I come to accept knowledge over ignorance.
But on that day, the sudden interruption of my brother Elrohir was more than welcome. "Elrohir!" I cried, having turned upon hearing the door open. "Elrohir, you are home!" I shot from my chair and hugged my brother fiercely. "Are you here to stay for the winter?" Elladan and Elrohir spent much time out of Imladris. I often missed then and once tried to follow them. That was funny, looking back.
"We will see," Elrohir replied absently, moving me aside. I was slightly offended by this, but his words to Glorfindel changed that. "Glorfindel, my father asks for you. It is very important, there are many wounded--"
In moments Glorfindel and my brother were out the door, and I was torn. Here was my chance, a chance not too far past noon to break from my lessons and play out of doors, enjoy momentary freedom at the expense of tomorrow's bondage, or follow my brother and Glorfindel, learn what mystery begs Elrohir home and Glorfindel from the agony of teaching. One awaited, the other would not. I forsook a few hours' freedom and let my curiosity rule. I followed Elrohir and Glorfindel.
Unnoticed I entered the Halls of Healing, and at once experienced a sensory assault. What could have happened? There must have been fifteen people, all of them wounded, some dying. Blood spilled from bodies onto the floor. This is why Glorfindel had been sent for: though a warrior, he knew something of the healing arts. The four of them, Glorfindel, Elrohir, Elladan and Ada were working as quickly as they could, but they were too few and the wounds too dire. I wanted to be sick. Blood splattered them; the room was spinning. . .I fled.
Outside, I sprinted around to the back wall of the building where no one would see me and leaned against it, panting. Hands on my knees, and gasped in air. That had been frightening! So absorbed was I in my fear, it took me a moment to notice the quite sobbing sounds from nearby. When I heard, I turned to look. There sat a rather dirty girl, stringy clumps of greasy blond hair hanging around her face. She wore breeches and a tunic like a boy ought, with patched knees. "Excuse me," I said to get her attention. "Excuse me, do you belong to somebody I might help you find?"
"No," she replied, looking up at me. She swiped angrily at tears obscuring her blue eyes. Her skin was tan and freckled, and her features were small in a delicate way, though her overall appearance was harsh. "All those I belong to are in there, dying." She jerked her head towards the Halls of Healing. Then, as though none of that had happened, she pushed her palms against the ground to raise herself, then wiped the dirt on her breeches. No wonder they were so tattered. Standing, she was only a little smaller than me. "I am Nevsew, of the Dunedain. A number of my people are here for healing. I am here because they took my parents."
"They?" I asked, curious, rudely not offering my name.
"The dark-haired ones, they are two that look alike," she explained vaguely.
"Oh, you mean my brothers!" I exclaimed, and she narrowed her eyes. Sensing it was best not to continue on this topic, I ask, "Are you hurt?"
"No," she replied. I came because my people were brought, not because I was brought."
"I'm Arwen," I offered, dropping into a curtsy. It might have been the wrong thing to do: this hardly mattered. Though Nevsew was strange to me in her mannerisms, she was also a child, not much older than I, and it was a rare event that I should encounter such a person. She laughed and bowed to me, one hand over her heart. As she rose, I caught sight of her ears.
"What is it?" she asked, seeing my shocked expression.
"You-your ears! Can you hear?" I asked.
"Of course I can." Pushing back her dirty locks, she offered, "They're real. You can touch them if you want to." Nervously, I ran a finger over her round ear. It was so strange! Yet she could hear, or so she said. Then, as we stood facing each other uncertain of what to say next, thunder rumbled distantly. "Iluvatar sounds just like my little baby brother," she commented, "making those noises!"
For a moment I was confused, then I realized that she was joking about the thunder. "Oh! Well, I think it sounds more like my stomach when it is hungry!" I replied. For a moment Nevsew looked at me, then she laughed. She had a full laugh, not a giggle or a chuckle but a bold, unafraid burst. "Come on," I said, "I will show you my favourite place by the river." I offered my hand.
Nevsew faltered and took a step back. Guessing her thoughts, I added, "We will not go far. Your parents will be safe."
"With those butchers?" she asked me skeptically.
"With my Ada!" I replied. She did not know the word. "My father!"
After that, we went down to the river. She agreed that it was beautiful. The sun slipped out from behind a bank of clouds, and we were warmed by it. I taught Nevsew how to make a chain of those flowers, the delicate purple blossom which, if plucked in just the right place, are sticky near the bottom and will stay if slid properly, one within the other. I wove a circlet this way and placed it atop her head, and wove a similar dress for myself. We gazed upon our reflections in the water and knew we were both beauties, though she a dirty prettiness and I a pristine gem. "You are a doll, Arwen," she said to me.
"What are you then, Nevsew?" I asked her.
"I?" She regarded herself contemplatively. Indeed, what was she? Certainly not one of my letter-stones nor a doll, though a drop-spindle I did think of, but discarded it for her form: straight, neither of us curved. "A bear," she said at last, "like my baby brother had."
"A bear?" I asked.
"Not a true bear, but a cloth likeness. He slept with it in his arms night after night; after a time, the bear, though intact, showed well signs of oft usage. I am like the bear."
I wanted to argue, tell her no, she was not like the bear but like. . .what? She was the bear, I realized, to my doll, for I was used only for prettiness and for gazing upon, while she served a function without being blatantly productive: Nevsew's place, she had explained to me, though this was a tacit law, was the comforter and supporter. When her father or mother felt despairingly she smiled sweetly, her cheeks dimpled and their hearts lifted. "Not that I mind," she added. "We function well as a unit."
My bear and I spent over an hour more by the water, adorning ourselves with flowers and falsifying luxuries. The differences in our cultures became obvious. At last she shivered, and I asked her why. She was cold, she told me, and I asked her how that felt. Elves are unaffected by the weather. "It feels like. . ." she paused. Cold must be difficult to explain. "When it snows, and you come nearer the fire? Suddenly you are more comfortable, are you not?" I did not understand. Here a gap we could not bridge, try as we might.
"It is very cold," she said at last, rubbing her arms. "We should go back now."
"Of course." Such had been our gaity that I had forgotten all about her parents, lying injured in the Halls of Healing. From the look on her face, so had she. "Come, we will be swift."
I took her hand and helped her to her feet, and together we began to run across the water by way of a fallen tree, and up the incline that would lead back to my home. I say 'began', for as we were part-way there a clap of thunder sounded, and the skies burst. Rain fell, wind blew, and we were caught a good run away from home. We hid beneath the first tree we found, throwing ourselves at the ground beside the trunk to keep as dry as possible. "Thank you Yavanna," I muttered, catching my breath.
We huddled together for a bit, unwilling to risk the rain for eventual warmth and dryness. "Your hands are strange," I said, "not unlike the feel of my brothers'."
"Yours are also strange," she said, "much like my brother's!" We laughed and opened our palms side by side. Hers were well callused, with a scar on her left. Mine were, as the rest of me, pink and white and soft. "Well," she said, "that does explain it."
Just then thunder crashed, and we sprang together. As a wind sped through the valley, a terrible clattering sound arose. "What is that?" asked Nevsew, frightened.
"I-I do not know," I replied, shivering. As the temperature dropped the noise rose, and we held together and shook. "Do you think we are safe here?" I asked, a ridiculous question: if safety was anywhere, it was in Imladris, besides which, I knew the land better than she.
"We ought to make a run for it," she replied. "We will leave here, then run to your home as fast as we can. All right?"
"All right."
We went together to the edge of the covered area and grasped hands, leaning forward in preparation to run. "One. . .two. . ." Neither of us awaited three. We tore out of there as though a fire spread at our heels. The next morning, we would feel ourselves quite the silly geese when we discovered that the noise which had frightened us so was only the clack-clack-clacking of one shell against another.
But it is another autumn of which I long to speak. This autumn was neither very wet nor very dry, very warm nor very cold. In fact, one might even say it was average, or even normal, if such a thing there be. A general blanket of immaculate nothingness had descended upon the valley of Imladris, bringing with it no particular feeling, nothing special. The season may well have proved quite boring: but Imladris had created, this season, an apprehension of its own.
In the corridor outside of the bedchamber he shared with his wife, one Elf Lord paced anxiously. His chief advisor attempted to calm him down. "My lord, my friend, you have been through this before, you know it will all turn out for the best," Glorfindel reminded Elrond, slightly worried by his friend's condition. Elrond glanced at his friend, then shook his head and began to chew on his left thumbnail. "Stop that!" Glorfindel told him, grabbing his friend by the hand.
Luckily, just at that moment, three familiar voices carried down the corridor. From their conversation, it sounded as though their recent adventures had been somewhat memorable, exciting and, much to Lord Elrond's dismay, life-threatening. "Where have you been?" he demanded, as the three rounded the corner. Legolas, who stood behind the now-frozen Elladan and Elrohir, tried to slink away. "Come here, you three. Where have you been? Each season turned twice since you left!"
"We sent a letter," Elladan stammered, surprised. What had gotten into his father? The boys were often late; once they sent a letter with a new date of arrival everything was fine.
"Boys," Glorfindel said to the twins, sensing that he ought to intervene before something awful occurred, "over the two years you were gone, your adar and naneth decided to. . .extend the boundaries of your family."
"We are going to have a brother?" Elrohir asked.
"Or a sister, yes," Glorfindel replied calmly.
"And part of the plan had been telling you, you two knowing and being here when the time came--" Elrond ranted, but was interrupted by Elladan's excited question, "You mean he is already with us?"
This question was punctuated by a high-pitched wail from within the bedchamber. Elrond at once rushed to the door, only to find it locked. "The midwife," Glorfindel explained to the newcomers, "locked the door when she felt your adar was worrying your naneth too much."
After much worry from without and much howling from within, the five anxious Elves were admitted into the bedchamber. CelebrÃan, leaning on a sea of pillows, looked upon them and smiled radiantly, holding a blanketed child in her arms. Everything ill, the worry and anger which had been mounting in the corridor, dissolved at the sight of the woman, and every one smiled without knowing it. The family convened on the bed, where they observed their new arrival with appreciative commentary. "Is it a boy?"
CelebrÃan smiled. "A girl," she replied, jostling the tiny baby me in her arms.
"Valar be praised," Ada replied, smiling at the twins.
"Yes, and where have you been?" Nana asked, mocking anger with her two eldest.
"Everywhere, Nana, just wait until we tell you," Elrohir replied.
"Not today!" Ada amended quickly, so quickly that Nana smiled and assured him that she was absolutely not in need of such protection. "I know, my love," Ada assured her.
"I doubt that," Nana replied, and leaned over to kiss him, resulting in the first thing my eldest brother ever said in my presence: "You two ought to set a better example for my little sister! And to name her, also!" This was met again with laughter.
Legolas spoke to me of this moment, when I asked him to. He told me, the family looked so happy together, so loving, that he believed no matter what happened, no matter how bad and evil the world became, we would always have each other, and that would be enough. Love, he said, bound us to one another, held us together. He had known love to come between the boys and their parents with much difficulty, had known the boys to fight and beat each other up, but in that moment he knew that there was love between them. He knew that they, and we, were a single entity when we allowed ourselves to love.
He never said that he envied me. I later realized that he did.
In response to Elladan's question, Nana said, "She already has a name. Elladan, Elrohir, this is Arwen. Your sister."
*****
To be continued
Author's note: I know that Elves plan on the date on which they will conceive and give birth to their children, but it seems that it would be a nervous ordeal nevertheless--for a father, that is. Also, I do not think they know in advance the sex of the child. If they do, just let me know and I will change this chapter accordingly.
Steph-h: Thanks! Well, Arwen jumped out of a window. That's pretty much the plain text, Cliffnotes version of it. Arwen jumped and Galadriel stopped her.
Kobe Grace: Have a care with this term of "crazy", it is not as clear-cut nor simple as most think.
I know you all want an explanation. . .in time, all in good time. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, I love hearing from you!