Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I make no money from this writing.
(I don't think you'll have any trouble guessing who tells this!)
Papa says he is going to talk to the bad men. I don't want him to do that because I don't know if it is safe. I don't want him to fight them but I don't understand why he wants to try to stop them by talking to them.
I'm holding Spider's halter. He is pulling at me hard and I think he wants to get away. Elladan is standing right by and he has his bow in his hand but he is sort of standing behind his horse. I don't think the men can see that's what he's doing. He won't let me say anything.
I wish I could go and stand right next to Papa now. He is talking to the men and I don't know what he's saying. He is talking to the man who laughed at me. I think it's him. He had a blue shirt and he had a short sword in his belt.
"What is Papa saying?" I ask Elrohir. My brother is standing on the other side of me and he is pulling the strap on the saddle so it's tight.
"Hush," Elrohir says but I don't want to hush. I want to know what is happening.
"But you have to tell me! I need to learn," I say.
"Estel!" Elrohir says in that voice he has when he's cross with me. I don't care. I have to know.
I think I catch them a bit by surprise when I go to be by Papa. My brothers don't catch up with me for ages. I look around and there are a lot of men, all wearing different colours but they're all a bit muddy and I can smell them from here. I nearly reach Papa but Elrohir grabs me and he lifts me right up and goes to walk back up the hill with me, but I say I don't want to go. I think one of those men laughed at me.
I don't know whether I've done the wrong thing but Papa is saying something to me. Then, like before, I get lost a bit. I hate this feeling. I was trying to tell Papa about it all last week and I can't seem to say it right.
There's something wrong inside me. It feels like a black space. I hate it but I can't stop it. I know I stop talking and I can feel Elrohir holding on to me tight but he doesn't say anything either.
Then I am somewhere else. I am somewhere white and there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people there making a big noise. I am wearing something very heavy and old. It is too noisy for me. I want to go somewhere quiet and I want to be away from me. I don't want this to happen.
I am on the ground. I think I am on my back and the blue sky is above me. Someone is calling to me or shouting at me or something. I don't think it's Papa or my brothers. I don't know the voice one bit but it makes the dark place in me go away. Like when I do the drawings and the writing, and the thing I'm scared of goes away.
I don't think Papa understands me. There are noises all around me but all I can think suddenly is that he burned my picture, and I wanted to keep that picture because the lady in it is very beautiful and she spoke to me and I had to draw her and then I wrote something on that other bit of paper that Papa burned. I don't remember, no, wait, I do remember. I put the words Papa shouted at me when I was standing and trying to think if I could jump all that way down to him. And I remembered our tree climbing lessons and lessons in how to fall without being hurt too much.
I come back from the place where I was, and the noises in my head are real noises again. Elrohir is next to me and I thought he was lying next to me but he is kneeling now, and he has his sword in his hand.
"Stay still, brother," he says. "You must do as you're told this time!"
I thought about that and then I see an arrow and it is sticking into the ground right by my hand, and there is another one just a bit further away. Some little birds are flying round right over my head so I watch them and try to think about being still.
I can hear Papa shouting soon and he is telling Elladan to shoot his arrows back, and I have to watch this so I sort of sit up a little bit and I see a man coming close but he looks at me and then he looks surprised and then he looks nothing at all and I know that whatever was in him has gone. It is a strange thing to see. I still feel funny after that minute I had seeing other things and when an arrow digs into the ground really close to me I feel I have to get up and run somewhere else. But I can't. Elrohir is fighting this man right by him, and I see how the practice they do, the hours and hours my brothers spend practice fighting work out now, right there and it hurts him, this man, and he falls down and his coat is getting wet and there is red blood on it. He lies there like me, but I don't know if he is all right or if he is dead.
"Estel! Get on Spider and go! Now!" Papa says that but I can't move. I am worrying that if I move I will somehow make my brothers get hurt. I don't know why. Papa is close and his sword is moving, too, bright in the sun it is. Shining. It has red on it.
"I call truce!" Papa shouts. "Four of your men lie dead and we are untouched. Do you want to die over three horses, a pony and a boy?"
I know he means me but I don't understand what he is talking about at all. It is very quiet all of a sudden. I can hear Papa breathing hard and Elladan is holding his bow with an arrow ready and Elrohir is holding up his sword and they are both standing right in front of me so I can barely see what is going on though I do try to look round them. I stand up too but my head is hurting a bit from before. I go and stand right behind Elrohir and I feel safer there, with his sword to keep the bad men away. He is looking behind me as well and then he is shouting again and he turns round very quickly because there is a man standing a little way away. He must have crept up through the bushes by the waterfall and now he has an arrow in his bow too.
"We want the boy," he says. "He's your boy, isn't he? We want him. Wouldn't have left him if we'd known. No more fighting needed, Master Elrond. No more cutting with swords. You give us the boy and then if you want him back you'll bring some of that fortune to us, like they say you have in your house."
I run at the man with the bow. I have my knife in front of me and I can hear my brothers shouting at me but I won't let this man speak to Papa like that. The man's hands jerk and an arrow comes right at me but I duck out of the way somehow and then I think I take the man by surprise enough and he falls right over with me on top of him. I hit him once and then I am being pulled back and Elrohir is there and I cover my eyes after his sword swings. I have seen enough blood. It makes me feel a bit sickly.
There's some more talking. Papa is standing in the middle of the glade now and the men who were fighting him slink off like told-off dogs and they go on up the track and they don't look back.
Now I'm going to be in real trouble. I think I did two really brave things today but I don't think Papa is going to think I did the right thing. I know that because he is looking at me in a strange way.
"Are you all well?" he asks, watching the last man leave the scene. "We cannot stay here but I do not judge it wise to return the way we came. They may decide the fortune we are reputed to have is worth an ambush."
I wait for my turn to speak. My brothers and Papa talk about what to do next but I know what I want to do. I think it is the best plan. But I dig my toe into the soft earth and wait, then I start to talk to Spider to pass the time.
"When we get to Halbarad's place," I say, rubbing his bristly forehead. "I'll brush you down properly. They might have some oats for you."
He nods his head. I don't think he can understand me but maybe he does know the word for oats.
"You were very brave," I tell him, to make him feel better about running away. "I am glad you didn't get hurt. When we get to Halbarad, I'll tell him all about what we did together and how you didn't leave my side till you had to."
I am trying to pull some of the knots from his mane while I talk to him. I work on a tough one and don't notice that Papa is standing behind me.
"Estel," he says, and it's not the angry voice he is using, it's his kind voice. I am a bit surprised. I was sure he would be angry with me.
"Yes, Papa?" I say, hoping it is my turn to speak now.
"Do you truly wish to visit Halbarad and meet your own people?"
My heart speeds up and I feel so excited that it makes me giddy. "Do you really mean it, Papa? Can we go and live with them?"
Papa smiles, then he goes down on one knee. It is easier for him to talk to me then, because he is very tall and old, and it must be hard leaning over me all the time. "You must understand, child. We cannot just leave Imladris and go and impose ourselves on the Ranger people. They have their own lives to lead. But I see no reason why you and I should not visit them. We will go on my horse, and your brothers will take Spider back with them."
I think about this. It is such a mixture of good and bad things I don't know where to start. It doesn't seem a good idea to protest. I like riding with Papa because we can go fast but I don't want poor Spider to go back on his own.
"Come, boy – you must make up your mind. Either we go now, or we all return to Imladris and you will miss your chance."
"Yes," I say quickly. Papa means what he says. "I want that very much. I think Spider might find it too far and he couldn't keep up with your horse, could he?"
"No, Estel, he could not. Now, take up your saddlebags and be ready to ride in five minutes." He looks at the bushes and I know what he means. He won't be pleased if he has to stop for me in a little while all because I forgot to take care of myself.
While I am away, my brothers pack up all the gear, and everyone is mounted when I run back. I take up my water bottle and go to stand by Papa. He lets me have his stirrup and then pulls me up and I wriggle around until I am sitting in front of him. It's not as comfortable as it used to be but we manage.
My brothers take Spider between them and they ride off back the way they came. Elladan waves to me but Elrohir is looking around and doesn't look back at me.
"Now, Estel, we will go and find the Rangers. And as we ride, I am going to talk to you and you can ask me questions, about anything you want, all the way."
"All the way?" I ask. I wriggle around some more to get myself more comfortable. "About anything?"
"Yes," he says as we start off. I am a bit surprised because we are going right after the men but he soon turns off towards the waterfall. Before I can say anything about how dangerous that might be we have splashed through a couple of pools with Papa's big horse hardly taking any notice, and then we are off, through the woods on the other side, the horse moving quickly and Papa holding on to me tightly.
I am so full of questions about everything and I don't know where to begin for so long that Papa asks a question to get me started.
"Did you have another vision, Estel? I thought you were lost to me for a little while."
I nod, then I have to say yes because Papa can't see me nod. "Why were you crying, Papa? When I told you I'd come back down the hill?"
I feel him squeeze me tighter for a minute. "You don't know?" he says.
I think but I can't see what he means. "No, I don't know."
We turn onto another pathway, slightly wider this time, and Papa moves the horse on a little faster. "You were coming back, Estel. That was a good thing to do. I thought you had run away for good and then you said you had chosen to come home."
"I did, Papa. I only didn't get home because of the bad men. Did you defeat them?" I ask. I remember Papa standing in the clearing and I want him to be the winner. I imagine him standing holding his sword up high and shouting at all the men until they went away.
"We called a truce, Estel. It is not good to kill just to defeat people. I had to think of your safety too."
"A truce?" I was going to ask what that was but I had too many other questions, about the things I can see in this place where I have never been before, and about the men we met, and then I remember another questions I had about the halflings, and why they were only halflings even though they were whole, and then Papa laughs. It is so good to hear him laugh that I laugh too, and hold on to the pommel and feel how good it is to be right there, in the saddle, with the horse moving fast over the land and Papa taking me where I want to be.
I haven't told him yet why I want so much to go there, but I will.