All characters seen in this chapter were first written about by me. The world and greater situations were first written down by J. R. R. Tolkien to whom I am truly grateful.

This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.

The body hunched in the darkness over the elf's jerked and went still. Lathwinn leapt at it. Celuant grabbed for her, but only snatched air. So, he jumped after her and gave chase. She sprinted for the body. As she slid to a stop beside the warg, Celuant caught up.

He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away. She spun in his grip, breaking it, and shoved him knocking the breath from his body. Then turned back to push the side of the warg.

Ranthalion had run over to its other side and was pulling from that direction. The body moved. Celuant stood by and watched. A living warg would have fought them off or at least made a sound by now.

As the body slid aside, a sucked-in breath wafted through the air. A form crept out into the starlight from beneath it. Lathwinn fell to her knees beside its head. "Lastannan! Oh Lastannan!"

Her eldest brother rose to his knees just as her arms encircled his waist. She pulled him against her and buried her face in the back of his head. Ranthalion stepped up to and then bent over them. His voice was a husky whisper. "Are you well?"

Lastannan attempted a shrug. He failed. Being locked in his sister's embrace, pinning his arms in place, did not allow him enough freedom of movement to carry it out. So, he replied in a breathless voice instead. "I feel slightly crushed, like a berry stepped upon, only for the foot to pull back up at the sound of the squish."

Lathwinn murmured into his hair. "I feel only slight fissures in his ribs. They should heal along with the bruises soon."

Lastannan grinned. He tried to turn and look back at his sister. "I am alright little-one as you have said. So, you can let go of me now."

Lathwinn only mumbled against the back of his head again, "I'm not little anymore."

Celuant sagged in relief. Then a voice spoke from behind him.

"What did you do?"

The Noldo turned around. Behind him stood three figures. Sarnin stood back farthest her forehead creased and eyes crinkled in concern and perhaps consternation. The youngest brother stared on in shock at them all, but Melarbeth glared at the Noldo. His eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed, and hand seemed to grip his bow too tight.

Lathwinn turned her head away from her brother's finally. "Celuant enjoyed the hunt too much and the warg noticed somehow I think. That is all. He did nothing else though it was enough. We needn't let him do so again if we take him not on any other hunt."

"We lost our parents to such a warg as this and now we nearly lost Lastannan too, because of him?!"

Ranthalion turned his own gaze toward the Noldo and glared at him as well. The High elf stepped back from them.

Sarnin stepped out from behind her nephews, placed herself between them and Celuant, turned back and spread her arms out in protection. "Your mother died in compassion and your father in love, Melarbeth, Ranthalion. They both lamented such times had come to Middle Earth as these that we must slay any beast without mercy to keep ourselves and home safe. Now you wish to add elves, not orcs, but true, fellow elves to the list of what we must so kill as well? Perhaps needlessly?"

Ranthalion stepped up toward he older elleth glaring still. He glanced over her head at the Noldo. "Just how much of an orc is he, though aunty?"

Lathwinn stood up releasing her eldest brother and stepping over to stand at the side of her next-eldest. "Celuant is angry, like you, for all the sufferings orcs and wargs have caused enough to feel pleasure at the expectation of the death of one of them. That is true. I will never hunt with him behind me again, because of this. But he also felt concern for me, and for you, and for Lastannan. That is why he threw my knife at what hunted us."

She paused and pointed to the blade buried hilt-deep in the warg's shoulder. Every other elf looked with her, save for Celuant himself who stood with closed eyes turned toward the ground at his right. Lathwinn then looked back to meet Ranthalion's gaze before glancing over his shoulder at Melarbeth. "Celuant even irritated his shoulder, injured by the things he was put through in the dens and hallways of creatures like these, where they were twisted by even more horrible things over an even longer period of time. He has suffered like and with them for a time, but is not one of them yet. Give him time to heal."

Three of her brothers bowed their heads slightly with their eyes half-open studying their sister's words. Lastannan himself, however, stood to his feet and began to brush his hands together. "I, for one, want scrub away the blood and hair from my hands. I am far more interested in that than the fate of the Noldo, though if he endangers my sister, brothers, or aunt that will change. I will then skewer him myself as surely as I skewered this warg."

The Noldo looked up, opened his mouth, and then caught sight of Lastannan's empty hands. His eyes crinkled and he pointed at the elf's blood-stained palms. "Where is your knife warrior?"

All the green elves turned and stared at the Noldo blankly. Only Lastannan replied. "It's hardly worth fetching from out of this hairy flesh now. Though, I will miss it. The handle had some nice carvings Aunt Sarnin made herself."

"I can make you another," Sarnin replied.

All this talk of knives reminded Lathwinn to walk to the shoulder of the lifeless warg herself and draw out her own blade with a jerk. Then she looked over her shoulder at the Noldo eyes widening in sudden comprehension. She glanced at her knife, looked back up to meet his gaze, and laughed. "Oh! You think my brother's blade was like mine?"

Now all the other green elves smiled. Sarnin looked down and away from the Noldo to hide hers. The brothers covered their grins with their fists. Lathwinn laughed openly again, and then paused to continue. "Without forges, how could any of us make such things as these?"

Ranthalion spoke, arms folded over his chest, but voice level. "Our sister keeps the only one of metal we have, a gift to her from friends far away during her wandering days."

"Ours are like this one." Manpalan drew out his knife and held it up to the starlight.

Celuant's eyes widened as they stared at it. "What 'is' that formed from?"

"Stag-antler."

Celuant looked up open-mouthed first at Manpalan, then his brothers, sisters, and aunt in turn. They all stared calmly back.

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ScribeofHeroes