Chapter 32 : Elfwine and Elboron
Elfwine was riding with his mother on her stallion, and he stared about him in wonder as they approached the gates of Dol Amroth. The gate was majestic, tall, and a beautiful pure white. In fact, the whole city seemed to be of the purest white. Elfwine had never seen anything like this before. "This is Dol Amroth?" he whispered to his mother.
Lothíriel smiled at the awe in her son's voice. "Yes, Elfwine. This is Dol Amroth," she said. "And this is where I was born, and where I lived before I met your father."
Elfwine had never thought about that before. The thought that his parents hadn't been together the whole time had never occurred to him before, but he said nothing about that. His attention had been drawn to the gates, which were opening slowly. His father and uncles were riding in front of them, and Éomer turned to wave at him as they rode into the city. Elfwine waved back, now excited. The boys back in Edoras would be so envious of his adventure!
People gathered to see them riding in, and murmurs ran through the crowd when they saw Lothíriel and her son.
"Is that our Princess Lothíriel?" a girl of about fifteen asked her mother.
Her mother nodded. "Yes, that is Lothíriel, but she's the Queen of Rohan now. And that must be her little son, Prince Elfwine!"
Elfwine overheard that, and gave the two a friendly grin. "Mother, they know about me!"
"Of course they do," Lothíriel replied. "You have family here; a family that is very proud of you."
Elfwine looked ahead, and his jaw dropped to see the Prince's hall. It was the tallest building in the city, and like everything else, was a pearly white, and that included the stairs. Before the stairs stood quite a few people. Elfwine recognised his grandfather, and his uncle Elphir. There was a couple there that looked somewhat familiar to him, but he could not recall who they were. Holding on to the woman's hand was a little boy who looked to be about three years old.
Elfwine waited as his mother dismounted, and then she lifted him out of the saddle, setting him on the ground. He took her hand as they approached the others.
Lothíriel gave Imrahil a hug, and then he knelt down to kiss Elfwine's forehead. "You've grown so much in a year!" he said admiringly, and Elfwine grinned with pride.
Elphir swept him up in his arms, and Elfwine frowned. "Uncle Elphir, I still don't understand why you want to marry a girl," he said reprovingly.
Elphir laughed. "I'm afraid it will be something you will not understand for many years. I'm sorry I can't explain it to you."
Lothíriel was talking to the familiar-looking couple, and now she waved to her son. "Come, Elfwine! Come and meet your aunt and uncle from Ithilien."
Elphir put Elfwine down, and he went over obediently to his mother. "This is your uncle Faramir, and your aunt Éowyn. You've met them before, three years ago, but I don't suppose you remember now," she said.
Elfwine looked up at the smiling couple, and smiled back. "I remember a little, Mother," he said.
"He looks like his father," Faramir said with a laugh. He winked at Lothíriel. "You have to be careful; soon there'll be plenty of girls chasing after him!"
"Yeuch!" Elfwine exclaimed, and the little boy standing next to Éowyn did the same. They eyed each other, and finally Elfwine gave him a friendly smile. At least there would be someone here to play with.
"You haven't met before, but this is your cousin, Elboron," Éowyn said. "Say hello to your cousin, Elboron."
Elboron stepped forward confidently, now that he knew that his cousin was friendly, and stuck out his hand. The two children shook hands solemnly, bringing a smile to the faces of all the adults around.
Elboron and Elfwine sat on the cliff, looking out at the sea. Both had never seen the sea before. Lothíriel had told Elfwine about it during their journey, and now he could see that his mother was right. He liked the sea too; it was very different from the plains in Rohan. Elfwine glanced at Elboron. For a little boy, he's all right to spend time with, he reflected. (Elfwine, like many other children, felt that he was very old and wise, and to him, two years was a huge difference.)
"Are you excited for the wedding?" Elboron finally asked. "My mother said that it would be a lovely occasion."
"The adults seem happy about it, so I suppose it must be fun," Elfwine replied. "I haven't been to a wedding before."
"Neither have I," Elboron said, and the two lapsed into silence again. They had been asked to keep out of trouble, and were trying their very best to do so. But just sitting around wasn't much fun. In fact, both boys were finding it very, very boring.
Elfwine decided to raise a subject. "Do you like fighting?"
Elboron nodded enthusiastically. "I'm not allowed to touch a sword yet, but I like to watch my father fight. My mother can fight too!"
"My father told me that Mother learned to fight, but she hardly ever touches a sword. I haven't seen her fighting before. But Father is the best," Elfwine said proudly.
Elboron was silent for awhile, then said, "My father is the best. I'm sure he can beat yours."
"He cannot!" Elfwine retorted indignantly, insulted that someone even had the audacity to think that.
"He can!" Elboron insisted. "I've never seen anyone better than my father."
"My father is the best!"
"No!"
"YES!"
And that was the beginning of their first fistfight.
"Elfwine!"
"Elboron!"
Both mothers were horrified. Their sons stood before them, dirty and messy, despite all warnings to keep themselves clean and out of trouble. The bright smiles on the two boys' faces turned into sheepish grins.
"What in the name of the Valar happened to the both of you?" Lothíriel demanded.
Both Elfwine and Elboron stumbled over each other trying to explain themselves. "We were just…"
"We had an argument…"
"There was a fight…"
"But it's all right now…"
The door at the side of the hall opened, and the men came striding out, coming to a complete halt when they saw the two boys.
"What's happened?" Faramir asked, eyeing the two very embarrassed children with mild amusement.
Éowyn turned to her husband, hands on her hips. "These two little princes have been fighting," she stated disapprovingly.
"Oh… well, who won…" Éomer caught his wife's glare and changed his statement swiftly. "I mean, that's not right, boys. Not right at all." But it was clear to Elfwine that his father was not really angry.
"Apologise to each other, the two of you," Imrahil said sternly. Clearly, his greater experience at parenting enabled him to do the right thing without a wife's reproach.
"We already did, sir," Elboron said meekly.
"We're all right now," Elfwine added.
Amrothos cut in before anyone could reply. "Well, I think it's very good to see that their lives as princes haven't made them soft. Fighting is something every boy needs in his childhood, that's what I think." He grinned at the two little ones. "These two can still stand without help, which is…"
"Which is more than you can say, that time when you fought with me when you were five," Erchirion cut in.
"I wasn't going to say that," Amrothos said, frowning at his brother. "I was saying that since the two of them can stand without help, it means that they aren't really hurt, and so all they need is some cleaning up, and they'll be fine again. Don't you agree?"
"All right," Lothíriel said grudgingly. "But no more fighting!"
"Don't let me catch the two of you up to such business again!" Éowyn added. "Freda is waiting for the both of you in your room. Don't keep her waiting too long. Off you go, then."
Elfwine and Elboron nodded obediently, and hurried off to the room they were sharing.
Freda, good-tempered as always, accepted two dirty boys, even though she had been expecting two clean ones.
However, she wasn't as good-tempered when she realised that the patch of dirt on Elfwine's left arm wasn't a patch of dirt at all, but a bruise, and that the blue tinge under Elboron's right eye couldn't be removed.
Whether Faramir or Éomer is a better fighter is a very debatable topic with no clear ending, and so I shall leave the result of the fistfight to your own speculation.
I, for one, like to think that they eventually allowed it to be a draw when they both got tired of fighting.