When I was first introduced to this website, I discovered a character that I had hardly paid attention to when I first read The Hobbit, and I quickly fell in love with him. My friends, I would like to introduce you to... Galion.

"This will not go well," Thranduil informed his father. They were in Oropher's study.

"You told me you wanted a butler."

"That was before I married Eithryn. She will hate this."

Oropher frowned. "Thranduil, I have already gone to the trouble of choosing someone, and I have promised him a job. Would you have me send him home now?"

Thranduil groaned. "Father, what are you trying to do here? I know you are not so foolish as to think this is wise."

Oropher smirked.

Thranduil wondered if his father simply wanted to cause trouble between him and his wife. He was sure Oropher and Eithryn would get along spectacularly if only they would try, given their mutual love of mischief. The only difference was that Oropher could not stand it if that mischief was directed at him. "Fine. We will try it." He sighed. "The poor boy."

The king chuckled and walked to the door. "Come in, Galion."

The elf who entered was brown-haired and clearly Silvan, and his mannerisms confirmed what Oropher had said when he first described him to Thranduil—he was fairly young. He seemed more than a bit nervous as he approached Thranduil, but also determined to make a good first impression. "Good morning, Sir," he said in perfect Sindarin.

"Good morning." Just to test him, Thranduil circled him slowly, making "hmm" sounds every so often. "He will not last long," Thranduil told his father when he completed his circuit. He looked down at Galion. "Though it will not be his fault."

"You will not know until you introduce them," Oropher reminded him.

Thranduil was quite sure Eithryn would not surprise him this time, but he also knew Oropher would not give in until he had tried. "Very well. Come, Galion." The Silvan elf followed him out of the room.

. . . . . .

Sky cocked her head curiously at the Silvan elf standing next to her husband. "We've met, haven't we? But I don't remember your name."

Thranduil cleared his throat, making her give him a curious look. "This is Galion," he said.

"Right." She looked back and forth between the two of them. "Okay, what's going on?"

Best to just tell her. "Galion is going to be our butler."

Her mouth fell open. "WHAT?"

Galion shifted nervously. Thranduil turned to him. "Would you give us a moment?"

Galion obediently went outside.

Judging by Eithryn's expression, Thranduil knew he needed to speak quickly. "Please give him a chance." While Eithryn usually needed things explained to her, he did not think mentioning his father would help.

"No."

"Spitfire. He will only be here during the day, six days a week. He does not need to do anything for you, but he will be very helpful for me."

She threw her hands up in the air. "You need someone to... what? Clean and get you stuff? I could do that!"

"You would hate it," he pointed out. "And you are my wife now. I would not make you do such things."

"You could do it, too."

"And then I would have even less time to spend with you. Eithryn, I know you are not used to this way of life, but I am. Please?" He held his breath as she frowned at him. He had been half tempted to let her throw Galion out just to show his father he had been right, but he felt sorry for the poor elf, and he really would appreciate some help. He did not enjoy doing the cleaning, and neither did Eithryn.

"He won't last a week," she said finally.

Thranduil sighed in relief and kissed her on the cheek. "He might surprise you. Galion!" he called.

The young elf came back in. "Yes, my lord?"

"When can you begin?"

Galion worked to keep what he'd been told was a very unprofessional grin off his face. "Anytime, my lord. Today, even." He turned to Eithryn. "I promise I will not disappoint you, my lady." Galion wasn't stupid; he knew which of the two he had to convince.

She stiffened. "You will NEVER call me that again."

Galion made an "Eep" noise. "Sorry! Sorry. It won't happen again." He bowed several times. Thranduil groaned.

Eithryn reacted like someone had ordered her to chop down a tree. "Stop that!" She grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to force him to stand upright. "I'm not a Sindar! What have they done to your dignity?!" He tried to bow again, and she slapped him across the face.

Thranduil decided it was time to separate them. "Easy there, Spitfire," he said, gently restraining her with his arms. "You are scaring him. She does not like to be treated as anyone's superior," he attempted to explain to the butler.

Galion was staring at Eithryn with wide eyes. "Got it."

. . . . . .

The first task Thranduil gave Galion the next day was dusting—something that had not been done since Eithryn had moved into his house eight months before. Anyway, he did not need anything brought to him, and he felt the boy should do something on his first day. Galion visibly relaxed when Eithryn gave him a friendly grin, but as soon as he left the room, she vanished out the window. Thranduil wondered what he could possibly give poor Galion to make up for the emotional scars he was likely to end up with.

Galion found a feather duster—which was itself in need of dusting—and got to work, starting in the living room. He dusted the bookshelf, the table, the back of the couch, the tops of a few paintings Thranduil had acquired somewhere, the chandelier (the likes of which he had never seen outside of the king's house, where he had been summoned when the king was looking for a butler for his son)—even the tops of the candles on the chandelier were dusty—the chair by the window, the fireplace—not the inside, that he would need something stronger for—the outsides of several pots holding various live plants, the plants themselves, the top of the door, and not the windowsill, which was oddly spotless. Then he went into the small connected kitchen to dust everything in there. When he was done, he went to do the same in Thranduil's study, only to pause in confusion. He had dusted the living room, hadn't he? He wiped a finger along the windowsill, leaving a visible trail in the—hold on, that wasn't house dust; it was ground dust. More like dirt, really.

Hmm.

Well, he would not give in yet. He brandished the feather duster, then jumped a foot in the air as the chair next to him suddenly jerked all by itself. He assumed someone must have been pulling on it, but could see no rope. He stood back and scratched his chin, then suddenly shoved his head out the window. Nothing. Nor was there anything under the chair when he moved it to check, except for a lot of spilled dust.

He had worked hard for this opportunity. He did not entirely understand what he had done to offend the princess, but he had seen enough to confirm that Prince Thranduil needed him, and so did his wife, though she did not know it yet.

Now, for most elves, being a butler—even the prince's butler—would not seem like an ideal career. Galion, however, had never quite been normal. While the other elflings climbed trees, he had carefully groomed the dead needles from the pines and washed the bird droppings from the broadleaves; while his friends had snowball fights, he got a fire going and made hot drinks for them; and when his friend's parents talked about the things they had to do to get their elflings to clean their rooms, his own looked at each other and remembered a time when they had been allowed to make their own beds and wash their own dishes, and wondered what in the world they had done wrong, or right—whichever it was.

The point was, Galion wanted this job, so much so that he started over on the dusting and only flinched a little when the chair slammed back against the wall.

Thranduil heard the thud, but decided he did not want to know. Eithryn came in the window a few minutes later, rolling up a transparent and very thin, but surprisingly strong wire that she kept for occasions where it needed to look like things were moving by themselves. She saw Thranduil's disapproving frown and said, "Oh, come on, I'm sure there are plenty of Sindar who would take a butler." When that didn't do it, she vanished out the window again, saying, "Like you're nice all the time."

Thranduil did think she had looked a little guilty.

. . . . . .

"Galion?" Thranduil called.

The butler was at the door in an instant. "What can I get you, my lord?"

"Some tea, please. Look in the top cabinet to the right of the sink."

Galion nodded and went through the (finally fully dusted) living room and into the kitchen. He found and made the tea without incident, other than some slight trouble (and the acquisition of a minor burn or two) figuring out how to use the miniature fire contraption (Oropher had called his a stove), then picked up the kettle and a cup and turned for the door, only to stop and stare open-mouthed at the... the catastrophe that the living room had become. There were wires everywhere, and the floor was covered with marbles, and there were buckets holding who knew what suspended from the ceiling so the slightest brush against any one of the tripwires would send something raining down on him. He hadn't even caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye.

He was going to get fired. They'd told him he would—"they" being everyone he'd mentioned his new job to, whether they had personally met Eithryn or not—and they were right. He was doomed.

But...

But if he couldn't do it, who could? He alone could figure out exactly how an elf liked their tea in ten cups or less by examining their reaction to their first sip from each, he alone could instantly spot a muddy footprint in a twenty-foot-square section of carpet, and could anyone else babysit four elflings of various ages who had been stuck inside for six days because it was raining, give in to their pleas to let them go out and play in the mud, and still return them to their parents without a speck on them or their clothing? No, they could not. (And if he could not convince them to do something that would not get them dirty, no one else could, either.) Only he had the skills to do this job.

He was Galion, and he would not let marbles or wire stop him... or even mysterious gloop-filled buckets.

He took a deep breath and started to step forward, then stopped just in time, put the tea down, and grabbed a knife instead. Quickly, he sliced through the string in front of the door, catching the attached bucket as it fell—a bit of slime sloshed out—and gently setting it down. Then he grabbed the tea again and plunged in.

He quickly devised a system of pushing the marbles aside with his foot with each step so that he had a stable surface to stand on, but the wires were harder. The first was knee-high and he stepped over it easily, but he had to duck under the next and then slip between two more, and so on. Then, without warning, he stepped on a marble and slipped, and barely caught himself in time, but the tea did not spill, and he went on.

The final obstacle was actually two wires—one waist-high and one low. He stopped and looked around, but there was no other way—he would have to jump, and quickly, before the prince came to see what was going on.

This was it, then—the final test. If he failed now, all would be lost. If only he had spent more of his childhood leaping through the trees... but it was too late for that. He jumped.

. . . . . .

Thranduil hid his surprise well when Galion walked into his study with the tea; he had been sure he had heard something rolling, but the butler just poured the drink and handed it to him with a bow, then left.

. . . . . .

Impossible.

He'd gotten past the marbles and the wires, even the last one. He hadn't even been supposed to notice the first trap, but he'd made it through the whole thing with the tea. Sky wasn't sure Thranduil could have done that; this elf should have been a fighter. And now he'd cleaned the whole thing up in the span of only a few minutes—he could untie her knots!—and was reading by the fireplace, patiently waiting for his next job. She was impressed... but she had one more test for him.

. . . . . .

Thranduil put the last touches on his report and sighed deeply as he placed it in its designated envelope. He was done with his work for today, which meant it was time to face the mess that was undoubtedly in his living room and to see if Galion would be staying another day. He opened the door and went out, past the bedroom and the closet, afraid of what he would find, and making sure to watch for tripwires. He did not see any, though, and neither did he find a mess, or a traumatized butler weeping or huddled in a corner. Indeed, had he not seen his wife several times that day, he would have thought someone had called her away, because there was Galion, getting a fire going to ward off the evening chill and looking incredibly calm.

He smiled serenely at Thranduil. "Good evening, my lord."

"Good evening," Thranduil stammered, so surprised was he to find the boy in one piece.

Galion scanned the prince's expression intently. "Is everything all right?"

"I did not expect you to be this resilient," Thranduil replied bluntly.

Galion stepped back to study his handiwork and laughed. "Neither did I. I believe I found something within myself today—a strength I didn't know I had. Your wife is..."

"Unpredictable?" Thranduil suggested. "Violent? Territorial?"

"Talented and persistent," Galion said carefully.

"Ah, yes, she is that too." Thranduil smirked. "I do hope she learns to tolerate you. She hates it when anyone suggests she needs to be taken care of, you see."

"I know the type." Galion seemed like a totally different elf now that he had faced his fears. "Perhaps I can change her mind. Eventually," he added in response to Thranduil's snort. "I do not expect it to happen overnight."

"I would be amazed if you succeeded. I myself tried to change her once, before I realized I loved her the way she is... Irrational independence and all."

"Aww." Only Galion jumped upon noticing Eithryn sitting on the windowsill. "You love me even though I'm irrational. That's sweet."

Thranduil's laughter cut off suddenly as Galion gasped, and he pondered first the butler's look of horror, and then his wife's innocent smile. "You will not," Galion told her, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"I won't what?"

Galion narrowed his eyes at her disapprovingly. "You will not track mud into this house. Not while I'm here." Only then did Thranduil realize that Eithryn's boots were covered in mud almost to the top.

"Oh, really?"

This was the final confrontation, Thranduil sensed. No matter how much he wanted to save Galion, he had to step back and give the boy a chance.

"Really." Galion looked her straight in the bright green eyes. She stared back. Their glares intensified to the point that Thranduil half expected them to attack each other.

Then a miracle happened. First Galion, then Eithryn cracked a smile. Eithryn giggled, Galion snickered a little, and then Eithryn slipped off her boots and placed them outside. "If you really feel that way..." she said, sliding to the floor. "You're wasted as a butler, though. He's staying, in case you missed that," she told Thranduil as she trotted past him. He gave Galion an amazed look and followed her out of the living room.

Galion heaved a massive sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. He'd done it. He worked for the prince and the princess now.

He just hoped that not every day would be this exciting. He was only a butler, after all.

As some of you may know, it can be hard as a writer to stick to just one story at a time. I, however, would NEVER betray you by starting a new story, even if it was going to be shorter, about two (or maybe four) characters who truly deserve their own story, and of a type where I could continue to work on this story, only adding to that story on occasion, as there would be few or no cliffhangers. Even if I did have two fascinating and seemingly mismatched characters, one from Rohan and the other living in Rivendell, I would never write a story about them. Never. You definitely will not find another story on my profile page should you decide to check it out a week or so from now, and you definitely should not give it a try, as it will definitely not be interesting since it definitely will not exist.