This one's going to be at least three parts, mayyyybe four.
Silana was the last to wake up in Lanthirel's house (and it was entirely hers for the week, thank you) the next morning, and she was greeted by a "Hey, sleepyhead," from her niece and a plate of ham and eggs that had been saved just for her. Everyone else was already in the process of brushing their teeth and hair and getting ready for the day, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Silana's hair ended up brushed and braided and flower-decorated before she finished eating.
Kilvara wandered in after a minute to talk to Lanthirel, who was cleaning up; the two of them were the unofficial co-leaders of the group. "Any plans yet? Caliel suggested a contest—Silvans versus Sindar—to see who can win the most games."
"What sort of games?"
"We were thinking things like tightrope-walking, long jumps, archery..."
"That sounds perfect; can you handle the planning?"
"Sure thing."
"Silvans against Sindar," Silana mused around a mouthful of eggs after Kilvara left. "That'll give us an advantage, four against five."
"Please do not talk with your mouth full, sweetheart. And I expect the Silvans can hold their own; besides, the point is to have fun, not to win."
Silana chewed and swallowed before muttering, "Maybe for you..."
Lanthirel chuckled.
. . . . . .
"What do you mean, there's not any food left?!"
"That's what you get for sleeping in," Feren said matter-of-factly as he finished the last bite of his pancake in front of Legolas's hungry eyes.
Galion seemed more guilty. "I'm sorry, Legolas, I didn't realize you hadn't eaten yet..."
"Oops," agreed Tathor, who'd eaten most of the sausages himself.
Legolas glared at them all.
"Sheesh, go find some berries or something," Ruscan remarked, causing the prince's not-all-that-scary ire to fall on him. "Elfling, you really didn't inherit your parents' intimidation skills, so don't even try."
"At least you slept," mumbled Tairen, who was lying with his face pressed into the grass. "Firith and Felrion's stupid story kept me up all night."
Heledir made a halfhearted attempt to muffle his laughter.
"Shut up, uncle," the sleep-deprived elf growled.
Feren rolled his eyes. "It wasn't even that scary!"
The other elves began to wander back over to the circle of logs until everyone was there (aside from Legolas, who, sensing a lack of sympathy, had rooted through Galion's mostly empty food stash and then gone off to search for nuts and berries).
"So what are we doing today?" Alagon demanded of Taensirion.
"We could go fishing," Heledir suggested.
The others suggested activities ranging from swimming to more sword fights.
"Wait a moment," said Galion. "Where are we going to get more food?"
Silence fell as the other elves comprehended that they couldn't go home to refill their food stores. "Fishing it is," Felrion decided.
Taensirion, meanwhile, had not said a word the entire time, not that this was a bad thing in his opinion.
. . . . . .
The she-elves didn't take long to set up their first game of the day—two narrow ropes (more like strings, really) stretched an elf-height above the ground, along which each team would send one elf at a time in a relay race until each of them had gone; in the spirit of either fairness or not embarrassing herself, Faena volunteered to sit this one out. Silana and Kilvara lined up, and, on Faena's signal, stepped up onto their ropes with the help of their teammates.
"You can do it, Kilvara!"
"Try not to look at them, Silana, it will mess up your balance—watch out, you are wobbling—"
Kilvara made it across first because Silana was too busy rolling her eyes at Milaera's "helpfulness".
"Kimbrel, you next—or Caliel, that works too..." Kilvara sighed.
"Quit the bossiness, sis."
"Oh, you're one to talk—"
Aleinia pulled the two sisters apart as Silana tagged Lanthirel, and Caliel fell off the rope and had to start over due to attempting a backflip.
"Seriously, Caliel?!"
The blond she-elf shrugged sheepishly at Kilvara before trying again.
Lanthirel took her last few steps cautiously but gracefully, and tagged Sheyni.
"I know you are young, but all the trees you've ever climbed have prepared you for this moment, Shey. Don't fail us."
"For the last time, Silana, I am older than you!"
"Still my niece."
By now, Caliel had finished her trip and tagged Kimbrel, who acted as though her balance was much more precarious and the drop much higher than they really were. Caliel's risky pace had almost caught the Silvans up, but now they were falling behind again.
"Kimbrel, hurry up!"
"All right, look, I'm doing the best I can, so—"
"You are not; you could've gone so much faster as an elfling!"
Sheyni was done, and Milaera was taking her turn, but all the Sindar were pretending not to listen to the Silvan sisters' arguing.
Kimbrel ran the last few steps and jumped down, smacking Aleinia's raised hand as an afterthought. "It's been a while, okay?"
Kilvara muttered something under her breath and gave an impressive eye-roll, causing Kimbrel to let out an offended gasp and turn away. Meanwhile, Milaera and Aleinia were almost even as they passed the halfway point.
"COME ON, MILAERA!"
Caliel matched Lanthirel's cheering. "ALEIN-IA! ALEIN-IA!"
"Go Aleinia!"
"Excuse me, Sheyni?"
"What? She's sort of my grandmother, too."
"Well, I am your grandmother MORE, so cheer for your aunt if you know what is good for you."
Silana was getting a bit over-excited, judging by the way she was bouncing up and down. "You can do it, Milaera, you're so close... be careful... almost there... oh, no...!"
Milaera had fallen off the rope at the last moment, giving the victory to the Silvans.
. . . . . .
"Psst. Tathor."
"What?"
"Isn't this boring?"
"Kind of. There aren't any fish over here, I guess."
Thranduil and Galion could very much hear the whispering their offspring were engaging in, but neither commented, partly because they (and Alagon) were no happier than the boys.
"It's not fair," Legolas muttered under his breath.
Thranduil reached over and pinched his son's ear.
"OW!"
Several of the other elves jumped, then went back to fishing.
"You may do whatever you wish," Thranduil began, ignoring his elfling's narrowed eyes.
Legolas wasted no time in beginning to reel in his fishing pole.
"But if you do not catch anything, you do not eat."
The young prince (whose breakfast had consisted of a few nuts and berries along with a single slice of bread), groaned and stomped off. "Fine, but I'll fish over there." Tathor followed despite not being sure he should.
"Quite a phase that one is in, Thranduil," Taensirion sympathized as he walked past with a good-sized trout. Ruscan was actually the one who had caught it, but since he was on a streak, he wasn't about to leave his pole unattended.
"Oh, you noticed?" Thranduil muttered. "I suppose you never had to deal with anything along those lines."
"On the contrary," said Taensirion, settling down between his king and their butler friend and skewering a worm on his hook, "my younger two children more than made up for the older two, if you know what I mean."
Thranduil's skepticism was clear on his face.
"Your father would be most amused to see you dealing with a child so much like yourself," the advisor remarked.
"Is it me he takes after?" When Thranduil looked at his son, it was not himself he saw.
Taensirion smirked. "I suppose I do not know how... how much of it he gets from you," he admitted, editing his sentence to omit any mention of the queen, "but if you remember..."
. . . . . .
"WHAT did you just say to me?" Oropher caught his son's wrist and gripped it hard enough to leave a mark.
"I said it is none of your business where I was, father." Thranduil's pale eyes flashed proudly. "So do not ask."
Oropher slapped his nearly-grown son across the face, and not gently, either.
From the look Thranduil had, one might have thought it was the first time something like this had happened, which it most certainly was not. "Nana! Ada hit me!"
"Oh no," Aradael deadpanned, not even bothering to turn around.
Oropher matched Thranduil's sneer with a smile that was anything but friendly. "Aradael, love, what do you think we ought to do with this one?"
"Whatever should have been done with you at his age," Aradael sighed, shaking her head and still not looking at them.
Oropher took a moment to look offended before physically dragging his (thankfully still somewhat small) son outside, to the sound of numerous insults and complaints.
Meanwhile, Taensirion and Lanthirel were exchanging mortified glances across the table where they were playing a card game with Aradael.
"He will learn someday," remarked the unconcerned she-elf before drawing a card.
. . . . . .
"And you did," finished Taensirion, laughing at Thranduil's embarrassment and Galion's rapt interest. "As will Legolas, I promise."
Thranduil's troubles were properly put in perspective, and he frowned at his fishing pole. "I suppose I will manage."
"Er, Ada? King Thranduil? Do you see what they're doing over there?" Firith was pointing to a fallen tree stretched out over the lake a short distance away, where Legolas and Tathor appeared to be shooting arrows into the water. As the adults watched, the prince cried out in victory and began pulling on a string, which turned out to be tied to the back end of an arrow, on which was skewered a fat fish.
Thranduil and Galion blinked at each other, then shrugged. "Whatever works," remarked the king.
. . . . . .
The she-elves had resorted to hanging their archery targets from trees and swinging them back and forth to achieve a reasonable level of difficulty.
"One! Two! Three! Four... All five! Take that!" Kilvara punched her fist into the air in victory.
"Drat," muttered Silana, who'd only hit four.
Kimbrel, meanwhile, sniffed disapprovingly. "You hold your bow sideways," she informed her sister.
"Oh, did your dear, infallible husband tell you not to do that?"
"Now, now, friends." Lanthirel used her greater height to her advantage as she separated the two. "Faena, I believe it is your turn?"
The blond she-elf handed the scorekeeping paper to her middle sister and took up her bow.
"The current score," read Milaera, "is as follows:"
Faena hit her first target.
"Silana, four; Nana—I mean Lanthirel—three; myself, two, oh well; and Sheyni is sitting out. That makes a total of nine points for the Silvans."
Faena hit the second and third targets, but missed the fourth.
"For the Silvans: Caliel, four; Aleinia, two; and Kilvara, five, for a total of eleven points."
Faena hit the fifth target as well, to the excitement of her family. "That was pure chance," she insisted, blushing.
"That's thirteen points," said Silana, straining to see the tally over her taller sister's shoulder.
Meanwhile, Kimbrel was reluctantly taking up her bow; Kilvara's sister was failing to muster much enthusiasm for the competition so far.
"You've got this," Caliel assured the other Silvan from where she was swinging the target-bearing ropes back and forth. "You just need to hit three!"
"Or two to tie," added Aleinia with a shrug. The brown-haired elf wasn't a warrior either, so she was happy with her own score of two out of five.
"Can she shoot?" Lanthirel inquired of Kilvara, who was still glaring at her sister.
"Sky and Storm and I taught her, but she probably hasn't practiced in centuries. Alagon prefers blades."
"Does she spar with Alagon?" Lanthirel winced, recalling the purple-and-black bruises her own husband always acquired from fighting the fierce Silvan advisor.
Kilvara nodded, and then cleared her throat loudly enough to be heard by her stalling sister. "The arrows are fine, Kim!"
"Don't call me Kim!" Kimbrel was digging in her brain, trying to remember the long-ago archery lessons. She very deliberately held her bow straight up and down as she drew it—at least she was strong enough to do that—and tried to focus on the swinging target.
Twang.
"Lucky shot," muttered Kilvara, and indeed, the arrow was just barely stuck in the edge of the wooden circle.
Lanthirel leaned down to murmur in her friend's ear. "I would be disappointed if my own daughters acted as you are doing."
That shut Kilvara's mouth.
Kimbrel growled under her breath and drew back another arrow, reviewing the memories that were beginning to come back now; she found, to her surprise, that she missed Storm and especially Sky's playful optimism more than she'd realized, but she wasn't going to let that distract her.
Twang. This shot hit closer to the center; she was beginning to remember now.
"Tied!" cried Caliel victoriously.
Twang.
"Yes!" Even Kilvara had to cheer; they'd caught up in the competition!
But Kimbrel wasn't done, and she hit the last two targets dead-center. "Five!" she announced, sending a meaningful stare at Kilvara; luckily, her sister was more interested in the score chart. (Aleinia and Caliel congratulated their teammate before joining them.)
"So we've won balancing, archery, and long jump," Kilvara counted, "and you've won swimming, blade-fighting, and baking."
"I still say the baking competition doesn't fit in," Aleinia remarked.
Lanthirel chuckled. "What's our tie-breaker?"
There was a moment of silence as the she-elves thought. "Capture the banner?" Silana suggested.
"Yes!" agreed Caliel and Kilvara at the same time.
"No," grumbled Kimbrel, but she was ignored.
"Perfect," Lanthirel decided. "Tomorrow, though? I am tired, and after all, we have lots of cookies and cinnamon rolls to eat."
"Tomorrow," the others agreed.
. . . . . .
"Now what?" wondered Galion when the male elves were back at their camp, the fish cooking on an improvised stove consisting of a frying pan held up by two forked sticks and some twine. Lunchtime was long past, but they'd scavenged enough food from the forest (and Taensirion and Firith's secret snack stashes, discovered by Legolas) to make do.
"Now we spar again," replied Alagon, as though it were obvious. He already had his swords out and was practicing dangerously close to the others, who were standing or sitting near the campfire. "Thranduil?"
"No," said the king, who was still limping from the previous day.
"I'll fight him!" Legolas announced, jumping up eagerly.
"No." Thranduil yanked Legolas back down; Alagon was not the sort to be any gentler with elflings.
Alagon turned to the other side of the fire. "Galion, come on. You clearly have far more potential than I ever realized."
"I don't know..."
"You are not even working on the food; grab your blades and get over here."
"Oh, leave him alone," Taensirion protested, but Galion obeyed the other advisor anyway.
"Ready... go!" Alagon leapt at the poor butler, blades already slashing; the padding on them wasn't going to do Galion much good, and the butler, being averse to pain, instinctively ducked. He was too slow, though, and was hit soundly on the hip.
Tathor and Firith both winced, and Thranduil cried out a warning to Galion. If his friend didn't recover quickly, he was in for a sound beating, and sure enough, while Galion kept his feet under him and dodged the next few strikes, the thumps and yelps of pain soon resumed. Galion's sons squirmed but stayed where they were, while Taensirion growled something under his breath and left, evidently not wanting to watch his friend get beaten up. Thranduil reflected that if anything good had come from—was coming from—his long depression, perhaps it was the friendship that had developed between his two closest friends as they took care of him. And they were his friends, he had to admit... perhaps the only two he really had left. The only ones he ever spoke to when he did not need to, anyway.
Maybe he ought to do something about Galion's current predicament.
At exactly that moment, the king's thoughts were interrupted by a pair of swords—his—landing in his lap, still padded from yesterday's tournament. The source of their sudden appearance, who happened to be Taensirion, did not stop to wait; he strode over before Alagon could see him coming and, in between Galion's yelps, gave his fellow advisor a sound thwack on the rump.
Alagon flushed scarlet and turned on Taensirion as the other elves erupted into laughter, and Taensirion had to block a few hits of his own before Thranduil joined him.
"Hey!" protested Alagon, but the two alternated smacks until he gave up and ran; still, they chased him until he dropped his swords and scrambled up a tree to safety. "What was that for?!"
"Now you know what it feels like!" Thranduil shouted, rubbing his still-aching leg, on which a bright purple bruise was visible.
Alagon stayed in his tree and refused to speak to them or any of the others until Heledir threatened to eat the red-haired elf's dinner for him.
. . . . . .
"How do you think our husbands are doing?" Kilvara wondered as the she-elves relaxed in Lanthirel's living room after dinner that night.
"And my son," Aleinia added.
"Who is my brother," said Silana.
Kilvara made a face at them. "You know what I meant."
"I expect Taensirion is beginning to miss us around now, but he has been gone for far longer than a week before," was Lanthirel's remark. "Do you think Galion will be all right?" she asked Caliel.
The blond she-elf shrugged. "Oh, it might be rough, but he'll manage." She hesitated, then said, "I do worry about Tathor, though. Not Firith—he's old enough to take care of himself—but..."
Faena hummed sympathetically. "And he is more sensitive than Legolas."
"Ah, Tathor's tougher than he looks," Silana remarked. "Plus, Galion and my Ada and Felrion are all there; he pretty much has three Adas."
Sheyni chuckled. "And two brothers."
"True," agreed Caliel with a grin.
They all laughed.
"I miss Felrion already," Kilvara confided.
"I miss Heledir," said Faena.
Kimbrel didn't say anything, but her fingers picked at a loose string on the couch.
Milaera winked at her mother. "I will be glad when they get back, but for now, I am having fun."
"Same," Caliel put in.
"I don't have—"
Several of the she-elves interrupted Silana at the same moment. "We know!"
. . . . . .
"Felrion, someone didn't really die out here, did they?" Legolas sat up straight, trying to look brave in the weak firelight.
"They did. Not long before Feren was born, actually; we tried to keep it quiet, for their families' sakes."
"I believe I looked over the paperwork," Taensirion added.
The prince shrank a little, but still declared, "Ghosts are not real, right, Ada?"
"I truly hope not," the king said distantly, feeling a painful squeeze in his chest at the idea that there might still be something left of... no, do not think about that. Too much pain down that route.
"I was just joking about their anger staying and all that," Firith assured them, fidgeting nervously. "I don't really think that could happen."
Felrion chuckled. "I admit you spooked me with your lucky guess last night, but no, I don't think we need to keep an eye out for angry spirits; they were good elves, from what I heard."
"So were the first orcs, I imagine," Alagon muttered. The bruised advisor was sulking in the darkness on the exact opposite side of the fire from Thranduil and Taensirion, and his voice startled the others, who had all but forgotten he was there.
They were quiet for a few minutes after that, all listening for unusual sounds in the trees.
"I suppose I should go to bed," Taensirion ventured finally.
"But what about the ghosts?" Tathor yelped; the elfling was rather fond of Taensirion and didn't want him to be violently murdered.
Firith reasonably added his own objection. "Don't you want a torch?"
"Ghosts are not real," the Sinda insisted, squaring his shoulders. "And no, we did not have the sun to light our way when I was an elfling, so I can find my tree just fine in the dark." He bid goodnight to them and went on his way; a moment later, Feren winked at them and melted into the darkness as well.
"This should be funny," remarked Ruscan.
Sure enough, they soon heard a startled yell, followed by Feren dashing madly into the firelight shortly thereafter and reclaiming his previous spot next to Heledir. Taensirion reappeared a few seconds later, breathing hard and casting a suspicious glare on his son. His hair was down now, unbraided as most of the others hadn't seen it since Feren and Silana were young, and this drew curious stares from Galion's sons and the prince. "I know it was you," Taensirion accused, eyeing Feren.
The Silvan elf blinked innocently. "What? I haven't moved, Ada."
"None of us have," Heledir lied without a hint of a smile. "We heard you yell, but thought you must have tripped in the darkness."
Ruscan, Legolas, Felrion, Tairen, and even Galion nodded in agreement, while Thranduil and Alagon exchanged looks. Tathor and Firith almost protested, but were threatened into silence by the prince.
"None of you left?" Taensirion repeated, unsure now. He looked to Thranduil for help, and when the king only shrugged—Thranduil was not in the mood for games right now—the advisor scratched his head, glanced nervously behind him, and sat down between Feren and Galion. Though he tried not to show it, he was clearly a bit unnerved.
The others tried not to snicker.
. . . . . .
"Think we should wake him up?"
"I doubt he'll sleep much longer. Were you the one who brought down the pillow, Galion?"
"No, I wouldn't have left him down here if I'd been the last one to bed..."
Felrion snorted. "Looks like the elflings got to him."
Feren joined the conversation. "Don't tell him when he wakes up."
The elf lying on the grass with only a pillow and his cloak to keep him comfortable finally stirred. "Do not tell who what?"
The elves eating their breakfast around the campfire—Galion, Felrion, Feren, and Alagon—all struggled to keep a straight face, some more successfully than others. Taensirion blinked at them, then at his surroundings, finally realizing where he was.
"You fell asleep down here," Feren explained cheerfully.
"On me," added Galion, "and your family wouldn't let me wake you up. Want breakfast?"
"Um... yes, please." Taensirion sat up, rubbing the kinks out of his muscles and trying halfheartedly to comb through his tangled hair. "I suppose I have had friends do much worse to me."
Felrion coughed.
The Sinda frowned at him, then at Feren, who was definitely giggling. "...What?"
"Nothing," said Feren. "Good morning, King Thranduil."
"Good morning, Fer—" Thranduil caught sight of Taensirion and stopped in his tracks.
"What?" Taensirion repeated, becoming even more concerned when the corner of the king's mouth quirked upward just a bit; these days, that was equivalent to a fit of laughter where his friend was concerned.
Galion handed Taensirion a plate of food and a hairbrush, though strangely, the butler couldn't seem to look his friend in the eye.
"What did you do?" wondered Taensirion, laughing nervously as he bit into one of the carrotlike roots they'd dug up the day before. "Galion? Something happened, I can tell."
The butler looked plaintively at the others. "May I tell him?"
"No," Feren replied, still snickering.
Taensirion looked back and forth between Galion and Thranduil. "Please?"
The king said nothing, and despite looking guilty, neither did Galion.
"I suppose I will figure it out eventually," sighed Taensirion, running a hand over his face. "But as long as—" He paused, noticing that his palm was oddly blackened.
Even Alagon and Thranduil chuckled a bit at the look on the Sinda's face, and the other three burst into loud laughter, Galion very much included.
"Oh," said Taensirion. "Well. That explains it, I suppose. Legolas and Tathor did it, you said?" He heard giggling above him and looked up. "Good morning, you two; I take it you have been having fun..."
"You should've seen it before you smeared it," Legolas sighed, dropping lightly onto one of the logs.
"I am not sure I want to know," Taensirion chuckled, taking his torture in stride. "Thank you, Galion." The butler had taken pity on him and was wiping the charcoal off his face with a wet cloth.
Legolas and Tathor, both on the ground now, grinned at each other.
. . . . . .
"Caliel! Caliel, over here!"
The pinkish-haired elf ducked past Milaera to tag Kilvara.
"Thanks! Now go, hurry! Kimbrel, help us!" Kilvara leapt into one of the trees that was "Silvan territory" and then backflipped to land right where she'd been tagged, barely avoiding Milaera this time.
"I CAN'T BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE, KILVARA!" Kimbrel and Aleinia had their own problems to deal with, what with Lanthirel and Sheyni trying to snatch the Silvan's flag.
Silana swung up from a lower branch to block Kilvara and Caliel. "Sisters, am I right?"
"I don't know," Caliel responded, taking a daring leap over Silana's head. "I only have brothers!"
"Makes sense," Silana mused. "Faena!"
"I've got her!" The blond Sinda was already in place to block the Silvan she-elf.
Kilvara tried to duck past her slightly taller friend, almost getting herself tagged in the process. "Nice one."
"Thanks. You are not so bad yourself."
Kilvara hopped sideways onto a different branch, a move which was mirrored by her opponent. "Sky taught you more than I'd realized."
"She was a good teacher, and I got a lot from Storm, too. We ought to spar sometime." Silana somersaulted to catch up with Kilvara, who'd bought herself some space with a backflip.
"We should! This afternoon?"
"Perfect. Gotcha—oh, so close."
"Missed," Kilvara agreed, wondering if she could slip past the Sinda if she jumped to that branch...
"Silana! Kilvara!"
They both stopped and turned toward the speaker.
"We won!" Lanthirel announced, waving the Silvans' stolen banner.
"RATS!"
Silana laughed. "Only the first game actually counted for the competition, Kilvara."
"And your point is...?"
. . . . . .
"We ought to do something."
Heledir opened one eye to regard his wife's sister's husband, with whom he was enjoying the sun and the warm summer grass. "Why? We finally get a day all to ourselves."
"Like your wife's so hard to deal with," Ruscan snorted.
"Is yours?"
"No, and that's exactly my point. A day off without them isn't that different, really."
"I would say it is different, but perhaps not less tiring."
"Fair enough. Anyway, we have plenty of days to take naps in the sun."
Heledir yawned. "I suppose. So, are you going to go do something?"
"Nah. You?"
"No."
A dark-haired elf wandered by them. "Hello, Ada; hello, uncle Heledir."
"Hi, Tairen." Ruscan's eyes drifted shut. "What are you up to?"
"Oh, observing elven behavior, as usual." Tairen laughed to himself and made a note on his clipboard. "Have you seen Felrion? Ah, there he is. Have fun."
"You too," Ruscan mumbled before falling asleep.
Tairen drifted over to Felrion, who was sitting halfway up a scrawny pine, back against the trunk and a book in his lap. "What are you reading, healer?"
"A story Silana suggested, written by humans," Felrion called down. "And I'm supervising a scavenger hunt." Just then, Tathor landed on a branch next to him with a hawk feather. "Nicely done, apprentice. Next is—" Felrion consulted his bookmark, on the back of which Tairen's sharp eyes saw a list of plants, animals, and objects commonly found in forests, with the initials T, L, and F marked next to each. "—a fox, or fox tracks."
Tathor raced off on his new mission.
"Clever," Tairen commented to Felrion, and the half-Sinda continued on his way, circling back to the fire pit. "Good afternoon, King Thranduil. Everything all right?"
Thranduil hardly seemed to notice him, absorbed as he was in his own thoughts. Tairen noticed a subtle tensing of the monarch's jaw as he nodded curtly. The younger elf went on, pausing to murmur, "The king needs a distraction," as he passed his grandfather and Galion, who were talking after cleaning up the dishes from lunch. They immediately hurried off to check on their friend.
The final member of the group had his chin in his hands, watching a bird peck at the crumbs left from the elves' last meal. Tairen sat down next to him. "Bored, Alagon?"
"I suppose this is what I get for hitting the butler so hard," Alagon admitted grudgingly.
"Maybe. Elves tend to prefer games that don't hurt."
"It is not a game, elfling."
"Watch it, I am older than you, too."
"And yet you have hardly done anything with your life," the red-haired elf scoffed.
Tairen shrugged, noting that Alagon had always thought in terms of rank and results. "I play to my strengths. By the way, how goes the transition to older recruits? I have not heard much on that topic for a while."
Alagon surprised him by groaning. "Having taken Kilvara's advice and tried to train a group myself, I am amazed we take them as young as fifty. I thought they were supposed to be mature..."
"It is good for them. Certainly you needed it, or have you forgotten?"
Alagon's forehead wrinkled. "Pardon?"
"You should pay more attention to people; that was the decade I helped teach the recruits. You were, what, seventy? Someone broke your nose the second day, if I remember."
Alagon cleared his throat.
"I did worse, don't worry. But we could tell which elves had not grown up around other youngsters, and who was here because their parents had finally kicked them out of the house."
"I moved out when I was forty-three," the advisor corrected indignantly.
"Really? Somehow that does not surprise me. My point still stands, though; you got out of a disciplined environment when you were... a year younger than Legolas, wow."
Alagon blinked hard at the prince, who was talking with Felrion in the healer's chosen tree. "The prince is forty-four already? But—he is—"
"Taller than you and most of the other Silvans," said Tairen, waving his hand dismissively. "Most half-Sindar such as the prince and myself end up right between Silvan and Sindarin height, but I digress."
Alagon was not listening. "If he is forty-four, he does not act like it."
"Alagon, my friend, if you could see your forty-four-year-old self now, I think you would be very disappointed."
The Silvan elf had no answer to that, so he huffed and turned away.
"But elflings are elflings," Tairen chuckled. "Especially boys; aside from dear Silana—and the late queen, who I hear was a handful—most of the girls I have known have been relatively well-behaved as elflings."
Alagon didn't think the "late queen" had ever grown up, but he wasn't about to say so out loud.
"I won't tell the king or anyone else about your past, don't worry," Tairen promised. "But don't be too hard on the elflings; they'll grow up soon enough. You did." He patted Alagon on the shoulder and stood up.
Alagon was left wondering why Eru had created such troublesome creatures as children.
. . . . . .
"I miss my husband," Faena remarked, forlornly propping her chin in her hands as she watched the various board games her fellow females were playing.
The others sighed sympathetically.
"I hope they're having fun out there," Kilvara said, drawing a card from the stack between her and Caliel.
Lanthirel raised an eyebrow at her friend. "You and Felrion started this whole thing with your argument, you remember? I, for one, hope this experience reminds them how much they need us."
"Not likely." Faena shrugged. "They always do all right when they go off on long trips; some of them miss us a lot, but even so, that is after months, not a single week."
"I'll bet Felrion misses me," Kilvara insisted.
Caliel spoke up. "Poor Galion, stuck out there with all those savages. They'll probably all come back bruised up."
"It would not surprise me if the first thing they did was hit each other with swords," Milaera mused, and her mother and sisters agreed. "Has anyone seen Kimbrel?"
"She went home, I think," Sheyni said. "Poor thing, she does not seem to know what to do without Alagon."
"No kidding," grumbled Kilvara.
Lanthirel smiled disarmingly. "Come now, we all miss our husbands."
"Except me and Aleinia and Sheyni," Silana felt the need to remind them.
Lanthirel flicked a chess piece at her daughter. "As a matter of fact, I believe we should all try to include Kimbrel as much as possible; it strikes me that she does not seem to have many friends."
"She is a bit prickly," Aleinia pointed out, but not without sympathy.
"I'll try to spend more time with her." Caliel winked. "I'm immune to prickles."
Kilvara raised her eyebrows. "Are you immune to Alagon?"
"Eh, I'll just chatter about elflings to scare him off. He's a bit like Firith underneath all the armor and fighting talk."
"You're amazing," Kilvara remarked. "But back to our previous topic... I don't know, Faena, I haven't gone on any really long trips since I got married, and when I do, Felrion usually visits his parents or something. Now all he's got are... what, Alagon? Thranduil?"
"Galion and Taensirion," Lanthirel reminded her.
"Right! What if he and Taen get in a fight again, and we aren't there to keep them apart?!"
"Ouch." Lanthirel rubbed her chin, realizing her friend had a point.
"I'll bet Tathor's homesick," Caliel worried. "Maybe Firith and Legolas, too."
Silana's comment didn't help. "Ada has King Thranduil and all the elflings to keep an eye on, and I bet Feren's getting in all kinds of trouble without me. Oof, and Tathor told me he really missed home the last time he and Legolas and Firith went camping."
Milaera realized she had a son out there as well. "I hope Tairen is okay."
"I bet Tairen's having the time of his life," remarked Sheyni, who knew her cousin better than almost anyone else, but no one seemed to hear her.
"Do you think they'd give up and come back if one of them got hurt? Say, if someone broke his arm?" That was Faena.
The games were all but abandoned now, and all the she-elves clustered around the head of the table, where Lanthirel was tapping the wood unhappily. "It is a shame we cannot check on them without losing the competition."
"What if they don't know we're there?"
They all looked at Kilvara.
. . . . . .
"And he crept closer... and closer... and... RAAGHHH!" Ruscan jumped at the elflings, one of whom squeaked and fell backwards off the log, while the other jumped but quickly recovered, straightening his shoulders and casting his best superior look on his friend.
"Tathor," Firith sighed exasperatedly, brushing dirt and leaves off his brother's clothes and sitting him down in front of the campfire again. "Ruscan, don't scare them too much, all right? They ended up in my tree last night because Tathor thought he saw a ghost."
"I told Tathor it was a bat," Legolas informed Ruscan and the other elves who were listening, "but he did not believe me."
"I did believe you!"
"Did not! You ran to Firith!"
"You said we should go see if Firith saw anything!"
"Now, now, children," Galion scolded, nudging them apart so he could sit in between.
Legolas sniffed (to the amusement of all the older elves) and looked away, while Tathor merely folded his arms and glared for a few seconds before turning to his mentor. "Felrion, do you think ghosts are real?"
"I really can't say," replied the healer, sipping some tea he'd acquired the ingredients for during the scavenger hunt earlier. "If they were, I think my house would be haunted by now, with all the elves who've died there."
That quieted Tathor for a moment.
Soon Legolas spoke up. "I saw something when I put the dishes back in the tree for Galion."
"Did you?" muttered Alagon skeptically. He liked to think himself above all this ghost drama.
The prince puffed out his chest. "I did! It was way up in the trees, and kind of elf-shaped."
Thranduil ruffled his son's hair, which the young elf had decided to keep in the traditional male Silvan braid. "I suspect Feren or perhaps Ruscan have been playing tricks on you again."
"It looked like a she-elf!" Legolas protested, while the aforementioned elves declared their innocence in the matter.
"In that case, your mind may be playing tricks on you," Taensirion remarked with a chuckle, looking around at their all-male group.
Felrion, however, had a feeling he knew what was going on, and a few minutes later, he excused himself and went to his chosen tree, only to continue upward beyond the young oak's branches until he reached the upper canopy. There he whistled a short four-note call, waited, then sat down on a branch and whistled again.
Just when he was beginning to think he'd been wrong, he caught a flicker of movement behind him, and a voice whispered, "How'd you know?"
"Legolas saw you," he replied, turning to help his wife climb up beside him. "He thought you were a ghost, but I figured it out."
"You won't tell, will you? It's just that Caliel was worried about Tathor, and..."
He winked. "I won't tell, as long as you'll stay for a minute."
"Thanks, love." She kissed his cheek, then demanded, "So, how are you all doing?"
"Not too bad; we had a fighting tournament the first day and some minor bruises, then fished yesterday, and mostly relaxed today. We'll have to think of something new for tomorrow. Tathor seems fine; he was asking me questions all afternoon."
"That's good. And you?"
"Fine." He remembered the conversation that had started this whole business and sat up a little straighter. "I've almost made it through that book Silana gave me."
"The one about the human orphan?"
"Right. It's very interesting; you might like it... You know, you are spying on us."
"You said you wouldn't tell."
"Hmm..."
"Felrion." She gave him her best pout. "You won't tell them I was here, will you? All the other girls would be angry with me."
"We could win after only three days..."
"You wouldn't." She trailed her fingers along the sensitive tip of his ear, making him shiver. "Right?"
"Are you trying to guilt-trip me, or seduce me into silence?"
Kilvara blushed. "Both, maybe. Is it working?"
"Yes. I won't tell anyone."
"Thank you." She hopped up.
"You're not leaving already?"
"Legolas is still around, and he'll definitely tell." When he stood too, she gave him a good, long kiss, then pulled back. "Remember, not a word about this to your friends."
"Mmm."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Yes, yes, I already promised. Love you, Kilvara."
"Love you too. See you in four days." She vanished.
Felrion sighed to himself, feeling manipulated.