Yes, I know it's been a month. I was distracted by the Marvel fandom. Anyone else excited for the new Loki series?
Now stop glaring at me and read about cute elflings.
"Throw the ball, Tathor!"
"Throw it to me, Tathor!"
"No, me!"
Tathor shoved the rubber ball into his mouth.
"Ahh, no, Tathor, throw! Throw the ball! Don't eat!"
Tathor listened attentively to his older brother's pleas as he gnawed on his toy, which was wonderfully chewy.
"Well, he is teething," Felrion pointed out, kneeling next to the older two elflings. "Hey Tathor, can I have the ball?"
"Nmm," Tathor refused, still chewing.
"Should we take it out of his mouth?" Firith wondered anxiously.
Felrion patted the overprotective elder brother on the back. "It's much too big for him to choke on, and that thing's indestructible—Legolas never managed to eat it."
The young prince wrinkled his little nose. "I did that?"
"Sure did."
"You also tried to eat your parents' hair," Kilvara added.
Legolas considered his own hair, which reached almost to his shoulders. "Why?"
"Because babies explore the world by putting things in their mouths," Felrion explained matter-of-factly.
Legolas looked at the healer like he must surely be joking, because that made no sense.
"No, really," Felrion chuckled, standing and lifting Tathor. "What should we make for lunch?"
"Pancakes!" yelled Legolas.
The three older elves all looked at each other. "Pancakes for lunch?" Firith repeated uncertainly.
"Why not?" Felrion shrugged. "Who wants pancakes?"
Kilvara and Legolas raised their hands, and Tathor, desiring to act like the bigger elves, thrust his pudgy little hand into the air as well.
"Three to one!" Kilvara announced. "Good job, Tathor!"
Tathor clapped. "Ba Bab!"
"That's right, we won, didn't we? Yay us!"
"Aah AY!"
"Pancakes for lunch," Firith muttered under his breath as the elves crowded into Felrion and Kilvara's small kitchen. "Are we allowed to do that?"
"All right, pancakes," said Felrion, opening a cupboard with his free hand. "Tathor, I'm going to put you down so I can help, okay?"
Tathor shook his head vigorously. "Fwif!" he requested, pointing to his older sibling.
Firith quickly took his little brother. "Someone might step on him otherwise."
"We'd be careful," said Felrion, smiling at the affection Galion's sons had for each other; Tathor knew only one word so far, and that was his brother's name.
"I want a brother," Legolas said enviously.
Felrion and Kilvara winced, because hadn't Sky wanted more children?
. . . . . .
"Kilvara?" Legolas asked as dinner came to an end. "Tell a story about my Nana, please?"
"As soon as you finish your pancake," Kilvara agreed, wracking her brain for a story Legolas hadn't heard yet; the elfling's memories of his mother were already fading, and since Thranduil couldn't talk about her, the little prince turned to the other elves he knew.
Legolas stuffed the entire quarter of a pancake he had left into his mouth, which was stained blue from the blueberries Felrion had put in. "Mm' done!"
"Swallow," Felrion told him, taking the plates from all three elflings (Tathor had gotten some guidance on eating from his brother).
Legolas looked remarkably like a chipmunk as he tried to chew his oversized mouthful.
Kilvara waited until the pancake was under control, then asked, "How about a story from when your Nana and I were little, Legolas?"
"Is Storm in it?"
Ah, Storm. She hoped he would come back soon, before Legolas could forget him. "Yes, he is. Let me see..."
. . . . . .
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SKY!"
"Huh?" The copper-haired elfling peeked out at the two older elves from her sleeping bag. "Am I sixteen now?"
"I don't think so," said Storm. "You're much too small to be sixteen; humans are way bigger."
Sky was going to roll her eyes at her brother, but she was distracted by the human reference. "Are we going to—" she gasped.
"After breakfast," Storm promised. "There's bacon."
She was up in an instant. "Bacon!"
"What age would a human her size be?" Kilvara asked Storm, trying to get a feel for the growth rate of mortals.
"About ten, I think."
. . . . . .
The young human girl jumped as high as she could, but the ball her friend threw went right over her head, landing on the roof of the girl's house and rolling down to land in the gutter. "Rats!"
"I've got it!"
Both humans stared as the strangest-looking girl they'd ever seen climbed right up onto the roof without even a running start—she had long, straight, shiny hair and funny clothes, and—oh!—pointed ears!
The new girl fished the ball out of the gutter and tossed it down, then followed right behind it like a squirrel. "May I play?"
"Are you an elf?" the human boy gasped, not even noticing her question.
"Yeah, and my name's Sky. Can I touch your ears? They're so weird..." The elf came right up to the boy to carefully stroke his rounded ears. "I've never met a human before. Why is your hair so short? And why does it curl like that? Oh yeah, and what are your names?"
"I'm Kiven," he said, "and my hair's short because... um... because I'm a boy, I guess. Can I touch your ears?"
"Sure. But my brother's a boy, and his hair isn't short. Why do human boys have short hair?"
He shrugged, mystified.
"I'm Jenna," said the girl. "Are you from the forest?"
Sky nodded. "My brother brought me to meet you for my birthday! I'm sixteen now," she announced proudly.
"Sixteen?" the two humans asked at the same time.
"Yeah." It took Sky a moment to remember that humans aged faster than elves. "How old are you?"
"I'm nine, and he's eleven," Jenna said.
"Huh," said Sky. "How do you grow so fast?"
The humans looked at each other.
. . . . . .
"What do you mean, you don't know how to shoot a bow?" Sky was mystified as to how this essential part of her new friends' education had been neglected. "Storm!"
"Well, humans don't get as long to be children," her brother mused from his tree; he was watching in amusement as Sky and Kilvara got to know the mortals.
"That's sad," Kilvara decided as Sky explained the basics of archery to her fellow children, who looked unsure.
Kiven tried and failed to pull back the string of Sky's bow, grunting as he heaved on it. "How do you do this?!"
"You have to press your shoulder blades together," Sky explained, demonstrating the technique. "I guess it took me a long time to learn."
The human boy made a face at the uncooperative weapon.
. . . . . .
"This is my dog," Jenna announced proudly. "Her name's Princess."
Sky wanted to ask why anyone would ever give their pet such a snobby name, but she stretched out her hand toward the friendly-looking black and white canine. "Hi, Princess."
Princess cocked her head at the strange-smelling creature, but her humans seemed to like it, so she wagged her tail and panted.
Sky ruffled the dog's curly fur. "How come you have your own dog?"
"Well, she's my family's dog too," Jenna said sheepishly. "But don't elves have dogs?"
"Only to hunt, usually."
Storm came over from where he was talking with Jenna's (understandably surprised) parents. "Dogs don't live very long compared to elves, so we don't usually keep them as pets, but for a human, it's like they live... I don't know, five hundred years."
Sky cocked her head, thinking that maybe there was something good about being human; she would've loved a dog, if only they were longer-lived.
. . . . . .
"Aren't you coming?"
The humans hesitated under the tree. "I... I don't think we can do that," Kiven admitted, blinking in amazement as the elf girl hung upside-down like a bat.
"What? Sure you can. It's not that hard."
"Well... okay, I'll try."
Luckily, Storm was in place to catch the inevitable falling humans.
. . . . . .
"Do you have to go already?"
Sky gave Jenna a bear hug, and then Kiven. "We can come back soon, right, Storm?"
The older elf hesitated a moment, recognizing the risks of letting Sky get attached to the shorter-lived mortals... but it would be good for her to learn to value a shorter life. "Sure. This time next year, maybe?"
"Next year?!" Jenna wailed.
Storm chuckled. "Well, we do have elf things to do. Come on, Sky."
The elfling waved goodbye to her friends.
. . . . . .
"Can we go visit Kiven and Jenna?" Legolas asked eagerly.
Kilvara bit her lip and glanced over at her husband. "They died a long time ago, Legolas. They got very old, just like horses and wild animals do." She didn't add that she and Sky had been there when each human passed away.
"...Oh. Okay then." Legolas didn't really understand how people could die, but Kilvara knew more than he did. And after all, his Nana had died, hadn't she?
Tathor, meanwhile, was making a valiant attempt to climb the table leg; he made it halfway up before losing his grip, but Firith was there to catch him, of course. "Be careful, Tathor!" the older elfling scolded as he set the toddler safely on the floor.
"Mrp?" inquired Tathor, who wanted to know why his brother was upset.
Legolas sighed, remembering what he'd decided earlier. "I really wish I had a brother."
Firith sat next to him, grinning. "But you do, Legolas. You have us."
"'Las!" Tathor agreed, patting Legolas's leg.
Legolas gasped and threw his little arms around both of them. "Thank you!" he yelled over Firith's exclamations about Tathor's new word.