Chapter 33: A Practiced Eye (Whole Family)
IMPORTANT: Repeat note in case you missed it. From here on out the chapters are all the whole reunited family. So if you've been following only one story line, please go back to chapter 32 so you don't miss anything. You'll want to read every chapter from here to see the conclusion come together.
(~***~)
Angharad woke up when the first of the pre-dawn light began to filter into the room. She was feeling much better for having been fully immersed in the family unit upon which her fёa still depended. She might have liked to stay snuggled against her mother behind her, but she had training to do. And that was good, too.
She moved about the room quietly, changing into her uniform. Her whole family got up anyway.
"So," Legolas said enthusiastically. "Are we going to this training you speak so highly of now?"
"Are you sure you are up for training today?" Lossrilleth asked with some concern. The girl had been falling apart just hours ago.
"Do not make me miss it, please nana," Angharad said. "It makes me feel better, too. Ada, you might want to skip this part. The first thing we do is run all the way around the temple complex to warm up. It will be boring to watch."
"What do you do when you are warmed up, then?" Legolas asked.
"Mmmm I think they said we would work on tumbling this morning," Angharad told him.
"I would like to see that," Thranduil commented. Legolas nodded as well. "Tell us when and where we should meet you after your warm up."
Angharad finally acquiesced. Her whole family followed her to their starting point and she spoke with the teacher. Another monk was called over to bring them back to the observation deck in about an hour.
When the children returned and began their exercise, the elves got to enjoy the culture of peer support the Brothers had carefully fostered. Angharad stood with the older children, who were all waiting their turn while the little ones went first. She kept glancing up at her parents, plagued by an edgy nervousness that she might look up and find that they'd disappeared.
The instructor called out the name of one of the boys next to her, sending one of the little ones to work with him off to the side.
"Anhe, help him again. You fixed his forward roll, see if you can help him fix a cartwheel," the instructor said. A six-year-old boy trundled over to her.
"Are those your parents?" he asked her curiously while they walked over to a practice mat together.
She nodded in confirmation. "And my grandfather."
"Is he the tall one? Do elves never stop growing no matter how long they live? Will you be a giant someday?" the boy asked her in awe.
Angharad let out a peal of laughter. "No, silly, he's just tall." She couldn't help but giggle again. She could only imagine how tall Thranduil would be if he'd never stopped growing. He really would be a giant.
"Alright, now let's see this cartwheel that needs fixing," she said, still grinning.
Lossrilleth was watching Angharad's face as she began tutoring the little boy. She appeared fully engaged and remarkably calm. Her daughter had always been high spirited to the point of being fidgety and impulsive. Plus, last night she'd been despondent.
Angharad started showing him how to kick off. He shook his head and looked nervous. Angharad kept talking to him – she looked encouraging. He backed up and leaped towards the mat, kicking off much harder than he had before. When his legs started to go over his head he got nervous and flailed, starting to fall towards the mat head-first. Angharad neatly caught him and broke his fall.
The boy got up and kicked a rock, saying something with a voice of utter frustration. Angharad got down on a knee so she could look him in the face and appeared to give him some kind of pep talk. Then she had him start over, focusing just on kicking off – she caught his ankles every time he managed to get into a handstand, until he started getting more comfortable.
"I think she has learned quite a lot," Lossrilleth commented to the elf-men. "She appears much more contained than she used to be in Valinor. She is being awfully patient with that boy."
"That is very true," Legolas agreed with a smile, his eyes still trained on the practice. He thought it looked like she was having fun. It made him feel better to see that she had had something to keep her spirits up here.
"She has grown up so much," Lossrilleth said. "And we missed it." Her voice cracked.
Legolas tore his eyes away from the training to look at his wife. Her eyes were looking a bit wet.
"We are here now," he told her, draping an arm across her shoulders. She leaned her head against him.
"Are you concerned about her behavior last night?" Thranduil asked them.
"I am not," Lossrilleth replied. "I will be if it continues on too long. If we can help her feel safe again, I expect she will bounce back."
"If Lossrilleth is not worried, then neither am I," Legolas added. "It would be strange if she had no reaction at all."
"Exactly," Lossrilleth said.
Thranduil was impressed with them. He thought they really were doing remarkably well for first time parents, and in such trying circumstances.
One of the instructors called the older children back while the little children were finishing up their attempts at basic tumbling skills. The big kids lined up and the instructor walked past them with a basket held up high over their heads. Each child reached in and took out a piece of paper, reading off what it said.
When Angharad saw what she'd pulled out, she read it aloud unenthusiastically. Bladed fans. She'd never stopped resenting the fans. They reminded her of having to perform in the menagerie and it made her start to get angry every time she practiced with them. She had explained this to her teacher before.
"Anhe, pay attention to your breath. Calm yourself. Do not feed your anger. You are exceptionally skilled with the fans because of the dancing you were taught by the Emperor's musicians. Even if it hurt to learn, you get to keep the knowledge. It is yours now. I know you resent it, but it is one of your best weapons. I'll give you a good sequence with them, alright? So you can show off for your parents a little? What do we think students, should our best tumbler show her family just what she can do with these fans?" her teacher coached her.
The other children hooted in encouragement. Angharad couldn't help herself from smiling.
"Oh alright," she said, trying to play it cool.
"Oh alright," one of her best training buddies said sarcastically, giving her the kind of friendly push that was common in their group. He crossed his eyes at her. "It's not like I'm good at it or anything."
"Shut up!" she said, giggling and giving him a little shove.
The instructor went back down the line, giving each student a slip of paper with a few notes on it. He read them aloud as he went. When he read Angharad's a collective 'Ooooooooh' went through the group.
"She'll do it, too," her buddy said, punching her lightly in the back of the shoulder. She turned around and put him in a head lock. The rest of the children snickered.
The instructor refused to give them attention for it.
"Everyone go warm up with the weapons you picked. You – figure out how to get out of that headlock first," he said to the boy twisting to get free of Angharad's iron grip. He tried grabbing at her thumb to pull it the wrong way – she circled behind him, keeping him occupied. He came up with an idea – he snuck his foot behind her ankle and tripped her backwards. She had to let go to catch herself from falling flat on the back of her head.
"Are you alright?" she asked as they picked themselves up off the ground, patting dust out of their uniforms.
"Me? You couldn't hurt me if you tried," the boy wheedled her. He looked her over, though – she seemed fine, too. She'd passed the safe falling test ages ago.
"Get your weapons and warm up!" the instructor called at them.
Legolas was so heartened by what he was seeing. "Truly, I think she has been in good hands here, mell nin," he said quietly into Lossrilleth's ear. "Look, she has friends."
Lossrilleth couldn't find words. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes and her grin threatened to split her face in half. Her daughter looked like any other kid at a Saturday karate class.
Below them Angharad was warming up with a pair of fans that appeared to be made of some kind of metal. She circled them around at either side a few times, tossed them in the air and caught them, opening them in a flawlessly smooth transition on their downswing.
The instructor rung a bell and the older children lined up next to the long tumbling runway, while the little kids sat down to rest. As each child lined up with a staff, sword, or spear they had to practice moving with, their peers would clap for them, calling out what appeared to be encouragement.
Angharad was finally at the front of the line. The teacher read out the sequence he'd asked her to complete. The line of children hooted at her again, clapping loudly. Their teacher had designed this set to show off some of her special talents. This was going to be cool to watch.
Angharad was grinning back at them until she stood back a few paces from the tumbling mat. She gathered herself inward and waited for the bell. She took a few bounds to get started right and then flipped forward over the mat without putting her hands down, letting the fans open at her sides before she landed on both feet, bent her knees and propelled herself into a round off with the fans fully closed beneath her hands…
Lossrilleth had a hand lightly over her mouth, which was hanging open in astonishment. She'd seen routines like this… in the women's gymnastic world championships. Except they weren't also manipulating two heavy metal fans. Her daughter landed the last move neatly on two feet, the fans spread in her hands to make a perfect circle covering her face.
The other students were shouting and making appreciative noises. Her buddy pretended to faint in shock, causing the other students to laugh and pretend to catch him. Angharad retracted the fans, feeling like her grin would split her face in two. She was pretty sure she'd nailed that. She looked up at the balcony where her parents were standing.
Legolas and Thranduil were clapping along with the other children. Her mother had a stunned half-smile on her face.
"That was unbelievable. What am I looking at?" Lossrilleth said in disbelief.
"It was a decently challenging routine. She did pretty well, I would say," Legolas replied. Lossrilleth looked at him like he was out of his mind. Pretty well? Decently challenging? Good Lord, these elves.
Thranduil made sure his granddaughter got a full look of appreciation from him. To the side he commented to his son, "They are letting her get away with things we never would. They are small, but they will add up."
"Oh, give her some credit, ada," Legolas said. "At most she has been learning for what, a year and a half? She is twenty-six!"
"Twenty-seven," Lossrilleth corrected him.
"I am giving her credit. I respect her enough to assume if she wants to learn she wants to learn well. She is training in foundations, now is the time to correct these things, not later. Besides, she will hurt herself. We are strong, not unbreakable," Thranduil insisted.
The teacher was giving Angharad a few notes, but mostly praise.
Thranduil leaned over the railing and said loudly, "You are arching your back far too much, Angharad. And open up your shoulders when you land on your hands."
"Oh no," Lossrilleth muttered under her breath.
"There is no stopping him now," Legolas whispered back to her. "She has asked for it. She is about to get it."
Angharad looked up at her grandfather in surprise. Her teacher bowed at Thranduil and then gestured that he should come down to the training level.
He strode down and he, Angharad, and her instructor spoke in a huddle for a few minutes. She walked towards the back of the line looking bewildered. She'd hardly ever got actual constructive feedback in tumbling since she started this training. Usually people were just amazed. She could figure out most tricks she was shown within a couple of tries. Her buddy made a low noise at her when she passed him, clearly teasing her. She punched him in the arm and kept going to the back.
One of the monks brought out a floor cushion for their guest. Thranduil somehow made folding himself down onto it look graceful. From the back of the line, Angharad looked up at Legolas, wide eyed. He gave her a sympathetic shrug as if to say 'I could have warned you.'
As the line moved forward, Angharad was getting closer to her grandfather. His comments were worming their way into her brain. She told the kids around her to save her place and jogged over to Thranduil.
"What do you mean straighten my back out?" she asked. "It feels straight."
"It is not. Remember that you will be tall. Much taller than these Eastern people appear to grow. The curve you have right now does not matter so much while you are small, but if you do not unlearn it now, you will hurt yourself when you grow," he said matter of factly.
Angharad was about to make an annoyed sound and thought better of it. His face was calm but quite serious. He usually gave her so much praise, what was this?
"Do you not wish to learn these things correctly?" Thranduil said quietly to her, giving her an appraising look.
It finally hit her. He wasn't treating her like a baby anymore. She hadn't wanted him to think she was weak and silly all through Fahai's assessment of her. And he was showing her that he didn't. She caught his eye and finally nodded.
"So how do I fix it?" she asked.
(~***~)
By the end of practice, Angharad could say she'd certainly had one of the most challenging but also one of the most fruitful practice sessions in quite some time. Her abdominal muscles were burning.
The teachers had been wonderfully open to Thranduil's participation. There were a few areas – tumbling being one of them – where they had not been entirely sure how to best teach the spirit girl. She didn't move through the air the way human children did. If her grandfather was willing to be directly involved in the last few months of her training, they were happy to have input from one of her own kind.
It had clearly been worthwhile. By the end of the session, she was hitting all the same skills, but you could tell by watching that much more power was going into them. The instructors whispered to each other curiously. What did these adults look like in action?
The teacher suddenly smiled. There was that one old practice... He approached the girl where she was speaking with her family beside the training court, explaining the daily schedule as he'd asked her to. He bowed politely and gently informed his student about this time-honored tradition.
Angharad turned to her family with a slightly alarmed look on her face.
"What did he say?" Legolas insisted.
"He said when parents visit who are also skilled fighters it is traditional that the student should spar with them to show what they have learned. He has invited one of you to join us this afternoon," Angharad explained, looking pink around the ears.
She'd been getting a little cocky lately in certain exercises, despite the teachers' continued attempts to keep her humble. She knew she was about to eat her words if she had to fight Thranduil in front of her peers. She gave her grandfather a nervous look out of the corner of her eye.
"I believe I will let your father have that honor this time," the old king said smoothly, glancing over at Legolas. Angharad bit her lip. That wasn't any better for her, she was well aware.
Legolas raised an eyebrow at his daughter in a friendly challenge. He hadn't thought much about sparring with her one day. Valinor was so safe these days. But it occurred to him all of this was something they could share. If she liked it so much, he could keep teaching her at home. You could never tell when you might need it, as Lossrilleth's ill preparation had taught him somewhat painfully.
"At least I will not have to fight you," the girl tried joking to her mother as she started leading her family to breakfast. She found she was feeling a little awkward discussing this. It was very strange to her to imagine fighting members of her own family. She'd never practiced like that before.
"Do not count your mother out too quickly," Thranduil told her. "She in fact saved my life on this venture, quite bravely, and to her own injury. You should ask to see her battle scar."
"Nana!" Angharad cried as the elves followed their guide out of the dining room. "Are you alright? What did you do?"
Lossrilleth chuckled at her, giving Thranduil an appreciative glance. She thought it had been sweet of him to throw her a little credit.
"I am fine, my dear. You can look at the scar later if you really wish to. I am sure the tale is nothing as exciting as yours has been," she cajoled the girl.
Thranduil gave Angharad a conspiratorial look when she glanced back at him, gesturing to the place above Lossrilleth's arm where the bullet had hit her before glancing off. The girl put a hand on her mother and let out a dramatic gasp when she felt the deep divot under her sleeve. She started peppering Lossrilleth with questions. Thranduil smirked as he followed them down the corridor. He rather liked being a grandparent.
(~***~)
