Kili's curiosity got the better of his manners, "So, how old are you?"
"I am forty-eight." Rhavaniel replied.
Kili nodded, and Rhavaniel added, "You have no idea what that means, do you?"
"No." he confessed.
"Well, we Elves essentially stop growing by age fifty, so I still have nearly two years for a miracle."
"I noticed you were short..."
"I am still taller than you." she was quick to point out.
"Barely."
Yes," Rhavaniel replied. "I know. I am Avari by birth, and we are a bit shorter and darker than Silvans, though that does not completely explain me. I am supposed to receive a letter when I am one hundred, left by my second parents. I used to beg to see that letter early. I thought it might answer my questions about my first parents. It didn't."
"Wait. What?"
"Oh," Rhavaniel replied, "I stole the letter and read it already. As if you could call that stealing - the letter was mine after all."
Kili snickered. That was something a Dwarf would do and say.
"My second parents could not tell me anything because they did not know what happened to my first parents." She explained, "A couple they met while visiting an Avari settlement said they needed to go on a quest, to seek answers to the Great Darkening of Mirkwood, and needed to leave their baby with someone for not more than three months. Fifteen months later, no one had heard from my first parents. My second parents delayed their planned exodus to the Undying Lands for yet another year for my sake alone, but no one came for me, and no one in the Avari settlement would speak a word about them. My second parents were so upset at the Avari tribe for not helping, they thought it best that I be raised Silvan.
All of their children and grandchildren agreed to raise me as if I had been born to them. They have been very good to me. I have no complaints. But I am glad that I read the letter, because there should be a limit on how many years a soul should carry false hope, don't you agree?"
"I do agree." said Kili, thinking of the one hundred and seventy-one years his own people had been hoping for a return to Lonely Mountain. Their hopes would not be false any longer, if the Company of Thorin could all just reach the Mountain in time.
"Now, on my one hundredth birthday, I shall have to feign a look of surprise when I pretend to read it for the first time." Rhavaniel practiced several facial expressions in rapid succession for him.
Kili laughed at her, then asked, "Why one hundred?"
"An Elf is not considered a true adult until they are one hundred years old. That is when we are allowed to marry, join the Guard, or learn the greater mysteries of our people. I will be done with school when I am one hundred, for I already know I will be a blacksmith and arms maker and not a scribe or a healer. I could make you a decent sword now with the skills I have, but it would not be a true Elvin sword, that glowed in the presence of Orcs and Goblins. I will start to learn those skills, and earn a wage rather than my keep. I am looking forward to turning one hundred."
Kili smirked, "I think that was a long about way of saying you are still a baby Elf."
"And how old are you?" she quizzed him.
"I am seventy-seven." Kili replied
"And that means...?"
"It means I am grown up and done with school, for a start. Dwarves also do not marry before they are one hundred, if they marry at all. We live to be about two hundred and fifty if not taken by sickness or war. Uncle Thorin is ...hmm... one hundred and ninety-five now. A very good age. He is still a warrior in his prime and mature enough to be King."
Rhavaniel smiled, "You are very proud of your Uncle."
"Yes." Kili admitted, "I am proud to call him Uncle, and proud to call him my future King - something I am sure is rarely said of your King Thranduil."
"I am truly sorry that you and your Company were imprisoned in Mirkwood, but even a 'baby Elf' knows that a King must act in the best interests of his own people - which may be counter to the interests of others." Rhavaniel stated.
"A King's responsibility is to carry the honor of his tribe on his shoulders. When vows are broken and allies abandoned, the King diminishes himself and his people." Kili retorted.
"Have you thought of how diminished both of our tribes would have been if King Thranduil had led his entire Guard into a slaughter and Erebor was still lost?" she asked.
"We would not have lost Erebor if the Elves had kept their vows!" Kili shot back.
"How can you profess to know potential outcomes of events one hundred and seventy-one years past? Neither of us was there." Rhavaniel was becoming less apologetic and more defensive with Kili.
"My Uncle Thorin was there, and Balin, and my mother. They know what happened. Every Dwarf of the Longbeards knows what happened. We grow up hearing it at home. We learn our history in school. What do they teach Elves in school - that King Thranduil was the voice of reason rather than the fleeing shadow of cowardice?"
"I have no idea! The Desolation of Smaug is not in my history book!" Rhavaniel fumed.
"It is only the most important event in the history of Dwarves - once a sworn ally - during the reign of your current King, and they do not even bother to teach of it in Elf school?" Kili yelled at her now.
"I told you, I skip a lot of school!" Rhavaniel yelled back at him.
"It is pointless to even converse with you on this subject! All Elves are willfully ignorant of their own transgressions! At least you come by your ignorance honestly!" Kili spat.
He pulled his hood up over his head and turned away from her. He picked up his pace, and he could tell that Rhavaniel had slowed hers, putting some distance between them. He wished that he had better control of his temper, because Rhavaniel had not earned his ire the way the rest of the Elves had. Kili believed what he said about King Thranduil and Elves in general but instantly regretted what he said about her personally. Those words were unkind, and unfair.