First Word
"Ada! Ada!" Elrond cried in his sleep, face creased in disappointment and fear as he reached out for something that wasn't there. Maglor moved to comfort the little boy, but in another moment he was calm again, lost in a serene dream.
"That was his first word." Elros said quietly from where he was lying by the fire next to his brother.
Maglor glanced up, surprised that the little boy had been awake all this time.
"Did he love his adar very much?" the poet asked, poking the fire idly with a stick.
"He left before we were born." Elros replied, a certain bitterness in his voice Maglor had not heard before.
"Maybe someday he will come back for you."
"He won't. He can never come back, nana told us." Elros sighed, gazing longingly in the direction of the sea.
There was a long silence, and Maglor thought Elros was finally asleep when the boy spoke softly again.
"Naneth cried when he said that, his first word. That was the first time we ever saw her cry. I can never forgive him for that."
Maglor remembered watching in horror as Elwing threw herself from the cliff, silmaril clutched desperately to her breast.
"I am sure they are both still out there, somewhere." Maglor lied, ruffling the boy's dark hair half-heartedly.
Elros gazed up at the lonely stars, and did not say anything more.