You move almost silently through the forest - until Elrohir ambushes you with a shower of red, gold and brown leaves. Then you squeal and shout threats of vengeances as you pursue him up into the tree. Ro stays a few feet ahead of you but is careful to take no routes where you cannot follow and I need watch only for a moment to know that you are safe. Still listening to the laughter floating down from the trees, I go to collect the baskets left abandoned on the leaf-strewn ground. Ro’s collection is nearly as tumbled as yours. Nearby is a fallen beech, moss-covered and starred with orange fungi, and I sit there and begin to sort out our gathering of herbs and plants. Some I tie into neat bundles for drying while other leaves are placed loose into thin muslin bags brought for the purpose. There’s athelas and the soft grey leaves of mithrenlass – you call it rabbit ears – and the dried pods of hirelêg and gilsalab and alfirin and the bitter tasting leaves of elwalab. Many of the leaves bruise as I handle them and the aromatic scents surround me. There’s singing in the trees now and I stop in my work and look up while I listen to the two of you.

Elrohir’s deeper voice, more full of laughter than song, rings out from an oak a dozen ells down the track.

“O! What are you doing,
And where are you going?
Your hair needs brushing!
The river is rushing!
O! tra-la-la-lally
Here down in the valley!”

And you reply from somewhere almost above me:

“O! What are you doing,
And where are you going?
You cannot see me!
You might as well flee!
O! tra-la-la-lally
Here down in the valley!”

I look up through the tattered glory of the beech’s golden crown to where you crouch in a fork, face ablaze with excitement. At six, your face is losing its baby roundness as you rush to maturity in the way your people do and suddenly I see your father in you - not the child we helped to raise but the man your father became. Just so have I seen him glow as he stalked prey on a hunt or sought for an opening in my guard as we practised with swords. I haven’t spoken, barely moved, but something about me catches your attention because you glance down and wave. I wave back with a smile that suddenly hurts and then watch as you skim down the tree as swift and silent as a squirrel and vanish into the undergrowth while Ro pretends not to notice.

It’s not long before Elven curses – followed by a crashing in the undergrowth as Elrohir leaps down to chase you – announce that you have found your target with a handful of acorns. I smile and turn back to my work.

Your basket is nearly empty now, with the contents neatly stacked with ours in one of the larger baskets. Both your botany tutor and the healers will be pleased with our day’s work. Carefully, I take out some oak leaves in a cascade of colours, which you have picked up for their beauty, and underneath discover nienoraran, King’s Sorrow as Men call it. In the days when Men walked in sunshine and glory they anointed their kings with it at birth and death and crowning. I didn’t even know that it grew here in Rivendell and I wonder if you actually recognised it or simply picked for its shiny, almost oblong, leaves. I pick up and crush one of its dark green leaves and as its sharp bitter scent fills the air I am no longer in this wood of oak and beech.

It is cooler and here and there ragged patches of snow hide in the shadows of the rocks. Pine needles cover the ground in a smooth orange-brown carpet and their resinous smell is strong where we kneel holding our brother. We no longer smell them though, our senses filled with the bitterness of nienoraran. Elrohir is singing but I hear even that but dimly through the fumes as I stroke the green paste onto our brother’s forehead, closed eyes and chest. I taste it too, a bitterness that stings and burns, as I kiss him.

When the anointing is finished I still hold him, this old little brother. I stroke his face – the lines and the roughened skin that show how quickly time fleets past for mortals such as him… such as you. All in an instant he has grown from the babe who took uncertain steps clinging to our hands to the boy who raced us through the woods and crowed with delight when an arrow brought down his first deer to the serious-eyed young man who left to lead his people in their guardianship of the north to the man who joyfully brought us his bride with swelling belly and finally to this fallen warrior. At best he would have lived such a mere handful of years but now he is dead before the leaves have fallen half a hundred times… dead and gone beyond the circles of the world.

I kiss him again and welcome the burn of the nienoraran… such a little pain. The blood is gone now, cleaned away by Elrohir while I searched for herbs. I went to seek athelas or any of the other plants that would help to stop the pain that contorted his body and dragged breathless screams from his lips - but when I heard my twin’s song change, I sought instead for herbs of mourning and burial. I found a small clump of nienoraran almost hidden on a rock ledge halfway up a waterfall, damp from the spray.

Our brother – your father - was a chieftain among his people but he was the heir to the kings of Men, just as you are, and we buried him with the honours of his kind. We mourned him with Elven song, he who was reared among the Elves, and anointed him with the bitter honour of nienoraran, he who belonged to Men. And we mourned him as brothers, we who belong entirely to no people, no race.

A sudden noise brings me back to this wood of dark soil and gold and red leaves. You – my twin, my youngest brother – are coming back through the woods, holding hands. You look happy, tired and scratched but Ro’s face is dark with concern and I know he has felt my distress. You announce proudly, “I won!” as soon as you are within speaking distance, whilst Elrohir’s eyes go from the crushed leaves that still flavour the air to my face. I look away and reach for the baskets but Elrohir is before me. He scoops them up and, letting go of your hand, says,

“Elladan will give you a ride back.”

You use my fallen beech-seat to scramble up onto my back, and then clasp your arms around me. Gladly do I hold you, my new little brother. As I follow Elrohir along the darkening path, he softly begins to sing more of his ridiculous song.

“O! What are you seeking,
And where are you making?
The faggots are reeking,
The bannocks are baking!
O! tril-lil-lil-lolly
The valley is jolly,
Ha! ha!”

Sleepily you join in as you cuddle warm against my back and softly I whisper it too.

“O! Will you be staying,
Or will you be flying?
The moonlight is rising!
The daylight is dying!
To fly would be folly,
To stay would be jolly
And listen and hark
Till the end of the dark
to our tune
Ha! ha.”

*****************************

Author’s Notes:

*Happy birthday, Chris!

*Feedback of all sorts is much appreciated – but my particular concerns:
- The slightly unusual style (1st person but addressing you) – did it work?
- The ending – it just sort of happened – is more needed?
- The even more non-existent than usual plot – could you see any point to it? If I was going to expand it would you suggest: more in the flashback/more in the beginning/a more solid ending
- Twin characterisation?

*Sindarin words – except for athelas and alfirin, which is the Sindarin for simbelmynë, were made up by me by combining and mashing together a little appropriate Sindarin words found on http://www.ardalambion.com . Roughly, their meanings are as follows:

mithrenlass  – grey leaf

hirelêg – lady thorn

gilsalab – golden herb

elwalab – pale blue [flowering] herb

*Thanks to the lovely people – Nilmandra, Chevy, Lisa and Orophin’s Dottir – who answered my queries about muslin/gauze. I have, at least for now, gone with muslin because it sounds better ;-) Maybe it can go into the mystery file with potatoes, buttons and pipeweed. Thanks also to Daw, Liz and Ariel who reassured me about the colour of my autumn leaves.

*The song is, of course, borrowed almost direct from Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’. I have made some changes. In my copy of ‘The Hobbit’ (Allen and Unwin, 1983) it is found on pages 55 and 56 and is sung to Bilbo, Gandalf and the Dwarves as they arrive in Rivendell. I’ve used the first verse twice – for Elrohir and Estel’s answering songs – changing in each case the third and fourth lines, the second verse with no alteration as my third verse and the fourth verse as my last verse, with one alteration. I’m envisioning it as a traditional song that the Elves play around with to make it fit the situation.