Birthday Gifts

March 22

“My birthday is in three more days.”

Legolas looked down from his high perch in the tree on the top of Bag End. There stood a little golden-haired hobbit child- Elanor. He smiled. “I know. That’s one of the reasons I came to the Shire for a visit.” He leapt down and sat in the grass to be at eye level with her.

“What would you like?” she asked.

“What would I like?”

“Yes, what would you like? I need to know so I can do something for you.”

“But why?”

Elanor nearly sighed aloud at the ignorance of the Elf, but held it back at the last moment and settled for twining her hair about her fingers in annoyance instead. “Because my birthday in three days!”

“You want to give me something?” Legolas vaguely remembered Pippin mentioning something about hobbits giving gifts on their birthday, and was touched that Elanor would want to give him something after knowing him for merely a week or so. “You don’t have to do that.”

“But I want to!” she persisted. “If you need some time to think, that’s all right.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I do need a moment.” Elanor nodded and wandered a ways away to allow him to think, sniffing at the flowers in her father’s garden and humming softly. Legolas frowned as he pondered what to tell Elanor he wanted. He didn’t want to tell her he wanted something hard to obtain. It had to be something easy… He thought for no more than five minutes when he was interrupted.

“When’s your birthday?”

Legolas looked up from his thoughts to see Elanor standing before him, tucking a flower into her hair, obviously bored from waiting.

“Daddy says that Elves are many millenniennia old. I don’t know what that means,” she said thoughtfully, sitting down beside him and toying with a blade of grass, “but it must mean that you had a birthday. When is it?”

“I do not remember which day it was,” Legolas admitted. The Elves did not celebrate birthdays, so the date had been forgotten to him, although he knew that his father would know. “I do remember it was around this time, though- when winter turns to spring.”

Elanor looked at him pensively before standing up. “I know what I’m going to give you, so never mind.” She went inside, leaving Legolas curious as to what she had in mind.

“Today’s my birthday,” Elanor told Legolas, her face alight with a grin.

Legolas smiled back. “I know.”

“Here.” She handed him a paper folded into quarters. Legolas opened it and read what was inside, scrawled in a childish hand.

I, Elanor Gardner, on this dae of march 25, giv Legoles Greenleef my birth-dae to shar with me, my birth-dae being the dae of march 25.

Beneath this were six signatures in red ink and one red scribble. He read the names carefully: Samwise Gardner, Rosie Gardner, Jolly Cotton, Nibs Cotton, Tom Cotton, and an ‘X’. At the very bottom of the page was a long scrawling scribble that trailed and looked like someone had began to draw a picture of a person with stick-limbs and hadn’t finished.

“It’s official- I got seven signatures in red ink!” Elanor said proudly. “I got Dad and Mum, and my uncles from when they visited yesterday, and my Dad’s Gaffer, that’s the ‘X’ there, ‘cause he can’t read, and then I gave the pen to Frodo, but I forgot that he couldn’t write yet and he started to draw before I could stop him. But,” she said, taking a breath, “his mark is on there, and one and one and one and one and one and one and one is,” she paused for a moment, counting on her fingers, “-seven! So now you share my birthday,” she finished breathlessly, beaming happily.

Legolas ran his fingers over the letters, a slow smile creeping over his face. He picked up Elanor and hugged her. “This is not only the first gift someone has given me for their birthday,” he said, setting her down, “but it is also the best.” Elanor smiled shyly. “There is only one thing left to do,” he said solemnly, kneeling and looking her in the eye.

“What is that?”

“What would you like for my birthday?”