Galathon's eyes flew open. The sunlight was shining in the window of his room, and the birds were singing in the trees outside, but these things didn't immediately enter his consciousness.

His heart was jumping in his chest. The words his mother had once spoken to him sounded in his ear:

Your father named your eldest brother Ôlion, but you, my son, might perhaps be more worthy of that name, for you will have the vision of Irmo.

What do you mean?

You shall be a lord of visions and of dreams; visions you shall see and visions you shall interpret. And yet, your father name you shall also fulfill, for you will bring increase to your family.

Galathon yanked back his covers and leapt out of bed. He barely paused long enough to throw on some leggings and a tunic and run a comb through his sleep-tangled locks. He raced out to the kitchen, where his brothers sat breaking their fast. Their father had not yet joined them at the table.

"It has finally happened!" he cried joyfully, "I have had a dream!"

There was silence for a moment, and then his brothers began to chuckle. "If you have never had a dream before now, brother," Hallon said dryly, "I believe there may be something wrong with you."

Galathon shook his head impatiently. "No, not like that!" he exclaimed. "A vision. A prophetic dream. That is what I have had!"

His brothers rolled their eyes, but Galathon didn't notice, being busy shoveling food onto his plate. His excitement had given him a hearty appetite.

"Well? Do not keep us in suspense," Lathron finally said when Galathon spent a few minutes filling his stomach. "What have you dreamed that has you so excited?"

Galathon swallowed his bite of bacon. "We were out in the forest, gathering bundles of sticks for firewood," he said, his eyes shining. "Each of us had made a bundle. And suddenly, my bundle of sticks rose upright and moved to the center of the clearing, and your bundles all formed a circle around it, and bowed down to it."

This pronouncement was met with dark looks all around the tables as his older brothers exchanged angered glances.

"Do you intend to reign over us?" Eglerion burst out, infuriated.

"Will you actually rule us?" Hallon added.

Galathon shrank backward in his chair. He had not thought of how his brothers might take it if he told them his dream. Their reactions made him nervous and embarrassed. Had his dream been wrong? He knew his brothers were not very fond of him. Now, perhaps, they would dislike him even more.

He pushed his plate away, and stood up. He could feel his brothers' eyes following him as he swiftly and silently left the kitchen.

After a moment, motion resumed in the room. None of the brothers looked at one another, too deep in thought. Yes, they hated Galathon even more now—partly because of the perceived arrogance of his claim, and partly of a real fear each of them had that his dream really was a true vision.

Galathon felt unshed tears choke his throat as he paced quickly down the corridor. His brothers' reaction saddened him. He recalled a time when he was younger when they would play with him and pick him up and toss him in the air until he shrieked with glee. But things had changed ever since their mother's death, and since the issue with the robe his father had given him. Galathon loved that symbol of his father's love and favor and wore it proudly, but there were times he wished his father had never given it to him—or that he had never said a word to their father about the doe. But he had just imagined how the fawn would feel when its mother was taken—bewildered, barely understanding the loss, just as he had been when Ôlion had woken him in the middle of the night to tell him their mother had died…

So deep in thought and memory was he that he nearly stumbled over a small figure in his path.

"Careful, Galathon!" a piping voice called out, "you'll step on me!"

Galathon smiled down at Fairion. The little one had the white-blond hair of all their kin, and the green eyes. But he (and Galathon himself, he had been told) had most of all their mother's face and her tender spirit. Their older brothers were more like their father, neri of action and of struggle.

"I would never step on you, Fairion," Galathon said, keeping his voice cheerful, "you are growing far too tall!" He measured his little brother's height on himself, bringing his hand up much higher than Fairion's head. "By the stars! You are nearly to my shoulder!"

Fairion giggled. "No, I'm not!" He stood on tiptoe and tried to reach Galathon's shoulder with his fingers. Galathon picked his brother up and swooped him into the air, as Ôlion had once done. Fairion shrieked with delight as his older brother swung him in a wide circle.

When he had managed to stop giggling, Fairion threw his arms around Galathon's neck. "Love you," he said, giving his brother a sticky kiss on the cheek.

Galathon kissed him back. "I love you, too," he said firmly, "and I always will."

TBC

AN: Gen 37:5-8

Father-name: "This is the manner in which the naming of children was achieved among the Noldor. Soon after birth the child was named. It was the right of the father to devise this first name, and he it was that announced it to the child's kindred upon either side. It was called, therefore, the father-name, and it stood first, if other names were afterwards added. It remained unaltered, for it lay not in the choice of the child… 'There was another source of the variety of names borne by any one of the Eldar, which in the reading of their histories may to us seem bewildering. This was found in the Anessi: the given (or added) names. Of these the most important were the so-called 'mother-names'. Mothers often gave to their children special names of their own choosing. The most notable of these were the 'names of insight', essi tercenye, or of 'foresight', apacenye. In the hour of birth, or on some other occasion of moment, the mother might give a name to her child, indicating some dominant feature of its nature as perceived by her, or some foresight of its special fate.' These names had authority, and were regarded as true names when solemnly given, and were public not private if placed (as was sometimes done) immediately after the father-name. "—Laws and Customs of the Eldar. Galathon's family is Silvan (that is, Nandorin), but the article implies that this rule of naming remains the same amongst all kindreds of the Eldar. So the family all go by their father-names, although Fairion's mother-name, given at birth, is Trestion ("son of trouble"), and Taulaes indicated that she might have given Galathon the mother-name Ôlion if it weren't already his brother's father-name. Seidiron's extra name, Maethon, is sort of a nickname.

neri: males. This is like saying, "men of action".

Galathon is 40, which would make him about the stature and maturity of a 17-year-old human. Fairion is 10, which is the equivalent, probably, of about five. Their older brothers are all adults, that is, all over 50 or 100 years old.

"Also the Eldar say that in the begetting, and still more in the bearing of children, greater share and strength of their being, in mind and in body, goes forth than in the making of mortal children… Yet it would seem to any of the Eldar a grievous thing if a wedded pair were sundered during the bearing of a child, or while the first years of its childhood lasted."—The Laws and Customs Among the Eldar