Written for Acacea's birthday.

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“I am drawing a battle, Father. And Captain Beregond is helping.”  Elboron held a red stone clenched in his fist; all around them, the white paving stones were scrawled with dark pink lines.

“Merely as a councilor, my prince. The drawing is Elboron’s work.” The captain of the guard rose to his feet; he had been sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“Elboron drew the ratchets on that catapult?”

“Well, no. I did add a few touches here and there.”

A pink Oliphaunt smiled cheerfully at Faramir from the pavement. It reared above a troop of Rohirrim, dancing on its hind legs. “That is a fine likeness of an Oliphaunt, Elboron. And that must be your uncle Eomer.” One horseman towered above his comrades, nearly as tall as the smiling mûmak. 

Beregond shook his head. “I never deemed it wise to use Oliphaunts in battle. In the press of the fight, they cared not who they trampled.”

“Poor beasts. No doubt they thought only of fleeing the slaughter.  They were far from their home in the South.” Faramir reached down to stroke his son’s hair.

Elboron looked up, his eyes dark with worry. “Did they ever find their way home, Father?”

“I never heard what befell them, but wild creatures can find their path without the aid of a map.  So perhaps, in the end, the Oliphaunts returned to the land of their birth.”

Seeming content with this answer, his son bent over the pavement and sketched another happy, pink Oliphaunt.