Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, places, events, and concepts are the property of the J.R.R. Tolkien Estate.

Chapter 4

Galathil walked towards the small dining hall where he normally took his meals, his speed somewhat hindered by the two children walking alongside him. Upon being assured by their mother that he was indeed a good person, particularly a person who was going to find them something to eat, the boys had slipped their little hands into his large ones. The child on his right gripped three of his fingers in a warm, fierce little hand as though he might never let go, his small body repeatedly brushing against his grandfather’s leg. The boy on the left was content to wander along, his tiny fingers occasionally dropping away in order to rub at his nose or to pull at a strand of dark hair.

“Where does that go?” the boy on his right – the clingy one - pointed towards a wide passageway. Though none of the many lamps on the walls were lit, Galathil could still make out the heavy tapestries on the walls and a statue further down the hall that had been tipped over, but never righted.

“Nowhere important,” Galathil responded vaguely, continuing towards the dining hall, “Look, here we are.”

Eluréd pushed himself up onto the cushion already placed on one of the large wooden chairs, looking down at the china plate in front of him. Someone had painted a green city of trees and a little bridge over a brook on it, and if he looked hard enough, he could see a deer peeping out from behind one of the trees, and birds sailing in front of a cloud.

“There you are,” someone spooned a helping of dressing onto the child’s plate, and Eluréd jerked back in surprise, the little green landscape now obscured with bits of bread and green onion.

Elurín gazed around the room, noting the two large sideboards that housed more painted china behind their glass-plated cupboard doors and the painted mural that covered one wall. It looked like a scene from his window at home: groves of leafy trees, lush grass, a bright blue pond where a small group of deer were lapping water. One of the deer was looking up, startled, ears standing out at the sides of its head and its eyes wide.

“Look!” Eluréd suddenly exclaimed, lifting up his spoon, “It says ‘Elu’!”

“It does?” Elurín scrambled to kneel on his chair, small bony knees digging into the green cushion as he leaned over to take the spoon from his brother.

“It’s mine!” Eluréd grasped the spoon protectively, holding it out just far enough for his twin to see the tiny runes and twining flowers on the handle. He sat up straighter in his chair, staring at his grandfather, “May I have this one? Please? It has my name on it.”

Elurín grabbed for the spoon again, “It’s my name too. I want to see it.”

“No! You won’t give it back. Whenever you take things you never give them back,” Eluréd pulled the spoon as far out of his brother’s reach as possible.

“I just want to see it!” Elurín grated, moving to get out of his chair.

“Sit down now,” Galathil’s voice suddenly interrupted them, sounding much more disapproving – an almost guilt-inspiring disapproval - than angry, “All of the silverware in this set bears the mark of Elu Thingol, your great-grandfather. You need not argue over it.” He watched as the boys planted themselves in their chairs, startled at the interruption of their argument, then picked up his own fork, “So, you both like to be called ‘Elu’ then?” The name felt odd on his tongue, as though he should not be saying it here, especially in reference to these two small children.

“No,” the child who had wanted the spoon so badly wrinkled his nose, “Eluréd is called Eluréd all of the time, and sometimes I am called Rín.” He grabbed for his own spoon, checking to be sure that the little runes decorated it as well.

“I call him Rín,” the other boy – Eluréd – put in. He was tentatively pushing his food towards the edges of the plate, apparently trying to see the marred picture underneath.

“Ah,” Galathil nodded, spearing the carrots on his plate, “And what sorts of things do you like? What are your favorite things?”

Elurín glanced up at his grandfather excitedly, eager to talk about himself, “Oh! My favorite animal is a bear, and my favorite color is yellow, and my favorite food is honey on toast…”

“I don’t have a favorite animal,” Eluréd managed, still busy scraping food off of the green painted picture on his plate.

“…and I like to play outside, and go swimming…” Elurín continued, absently picking up small bits of meat from his plate and popping them into his mouth.

“I can keep my head under the water a whole minute…and I like blue,” Eluréd gave up on trying to see the picture, instead peering up to see his grandfather smiling at him a little. It was a rather nice smile, so he smiled back.

“…and color, play…” Elurín trailed off, obviously in thought, “And other things, but I don’t remember.”

Galathil settled down into a chair in the boys’ nursery, watching the two play some sort of game while sprawled out on the rug before the hearth. They had wriggled out of the jackets they’d worn while watching their father, and had helped each other finger out the tight twists in their hair. They lay flopped out on the rug now, sleepy after taking a meal, making little houses out of blocks of varying size and shape. They were peculiar children, Galathil decided – Eluréd, who had seemed so bold at Dior’s appearance, had gone quiet later on, while Elurín had abandoned all cares once removed from the crowds.

“These blocks are better than the ones at home,” Elurín commented, rolling onto his stomach and running his finger over the intricate designs carved into the wood. Galathil had marked the child by his bare feet – both small blue and white stockings were balled up with the discarded silk jacket, while Eluréd’s were still on his feet.

“Let’s build our house,” Eluréd suggested, beginning the foundation.

“Menegroth might be a bit complicated,” Galathil smiled down at the child, “Do you plan to construct the entire palace, or just your family’s suites?”

“I’m not building this place,” Eluréd looked up at his grandfather, his small forehead wrinkling in confusion, “I’m building my house, at home.”

“Dior is having a house built for us, Adar. He says that it stands next to a waterfall – Lanthir Lamath – and there is to be a balcony where we can feel the spray. It sounds so wonderful, does it not?”

“Lanthir Lamath? Nimloth, it is so far from here. Why do you not stay here? Menegroth is vast, and Dior is its heir.”

“I want to live in a real house, all my own. Dior says there are to be windows, Adar, where we may look out and see deer at the ponds and the stars in the night sky. My children are going to have windows, Adar.”

“You have got fountains and courtyards here, Nimloth! Trees with leaves of gold and silver, a pool in the west court where children can dabble their toes even in the winter. You played there as a child yourself.”

“I want my children to have windows.”

“Can you tell us a story?” one of the boys pulled Galathil out of the memory, both little hands on one of his knees. The child’s bare feet bounced on the woven rug, the toes of one small foot digging under a wrinkle.

“You like stories?” Galathil raised an eyebrow, nearly hauling the child onto his lap but deciding to refrain. He had startled them enough times for today, and could not be certain if they were used to being twirled and bounced and jostled – Dior for certain had always been rather skittish as a child,  too used to the quiet of Tol Galen.

“We love stories,” Elurín responded emphatically, resting both elbows on his grandfather’s knees while Eluréd nodded in firm agreement from the floor, “Our Daerada Beren and Daernana Lúthien have got the best, best stories, and they tell them when we go and visit. My favorite ones are with the dog – his name is Huan! He belonged to an elf named…” the child turned to his twin, “What was the elf’s name?”

“Celegorm,” Eluréd supplied.

“A mean elf named Celegorm,” Elurín babbled on, “And he was going to catch my poor Daernana Lúthien and marry her! And I think the dog was supposed to catch her, but he didn’t because he liked her, because he was a really good dog and could even talk sometimes. And the mean elf…Celegorm…he was really mad when his dog ran away.”

“Ah,” Galathil nodded, chewing the inside of his lip, “I do not believe I have any stories about hounds.”

“But what about dogs?” Elurín stared up at him, grey eyes wide and waiting.

Galathil choked back an amused chuckle, sighing instead, “None about dogs either, I am afraid. Actually, I should be leaving now, as I have already missed part of your father’s reception. No one will be very happy with me if I come late to his banquet.”

As he rose from his chair he noticed one of the boys – Eluréd, yes, Eluréd – scramble for one of the discarded blue jackets, hurrying to shove his arms into the sleeves, “Wait for me!”

“Yes, wait! I want to go!” Elurín was leaning on his knees, forcing him to support the child with a hand or stumble back into his chair, “We won’t take very long, and you can tell us a story on the way there.”

“It is only for adults, I believe,” Galathil managed to get closer to the doorway when Elurín rushed away to pull on his stockings, “I am sure you will have a much, much better time here with your nurse.” He glanced pointedly at Glassell, who had taken the relatively quiet break to organize the twins’ hastily unpacked clothing in the tall wardrobe in their bedroom. To his disappointment, neither of the boys followed his gaze, though the nurse hurried over.

“Oh, yes,” Glassell managed to pick up both sets of tiny blue court slippers before either of the twins could grab for them, tucking the light shoes under an arm as she attempted to help Eluréd back out of his jacket, which he’d pulled on rather crookedly, “You can change into nice, comfortable clothes, and then we can have some warm tea and a cookie, and I will tell you both some stories, and you can tell me some…”

“I want to go!” Elurín tried to pull at the slippers under Glassell’s arm while trying to inch towards his grandfather at the same time, “I want to go see my ada!”

“Wait, wait,” Eluréd struggled with the nurse to get the jacket off, and then against her to put it on correctly instead of leaving it off. He caught his grandfather stepping closer to the door that led out into the hall, straining his voice, “Wait for me!”

“Neither of you are going,” Galathil stepped back into the play area, his voice firm but reasonable. He knew that the children had seen precious little of their parents recently, and he would have liked to spend more time getting to know his own grandchildren. However, he also knew that the his grandsons were already tired from a stressful day, that they would not appreciate more pats and gushing over their presence at a banquet that might very well last far into the night.  He looked first at one boy, and then the other, “Today has been very busy for you already, and there will be more people like the ones this morning. You will have a nice evening here with your nurse instead, and I am sure your father will come to say goodnight when the banquet is over. Be good.”

Glassell sat on the floor with the twins, watching as Galathil left, then letting out a sigh of relief when neither boy bolted after him. She rose, moving into the bedroom to put both pairs of court shoes on a shelf in the wardrobe, glancing over her shoulder, “Why don’t you each pick out a storybook now? Elurín, I think there is one about a fox family.”

“I don’t want you to read me a story, I want my ada to!” Elurín rose from where he had slumped onto the rug, storming past Glassell and purposefully whacking at her skirt with a book he had randomly pulled from the shelf. He sat down on his bed, angrily dragging the top sheet out from under the smoothed covers so that he could pull it over his head. He had seen Glassell moving towards him, and yelled in her direction, “I don’t like you! Go away!”

Eluréd had pulled a few other picture books from the shelf before his brother stalked off, and now he gave the nursemaid a wide-eyed look before scrambling to his feet to join Elurín. Glassell watched as one bump under the sheet became two, then with a sigh sat down on Eluréd’s bed.

She was still there a few minutes later when one of the boys pushed aside his part of the sheet, trying to hold out a cumbersome book for her, “I can’t read this word.”

“Let me see,” Glassell took the book, pulling it onto her lap as the child slid out from under the tangle of bed linen, leaning against the side of the bed to look down at the page. The other boy pushed his way through the sheet, peering out as Glassell raised her eyebrows. “There are a lot of big words in this story. Perhaps you could read the little words, and I could read the bigger ones.”

It both did and did not surprise her when both children joined her on the bed, Elurín wrapping his arms around a yellow blanket and two stuffed animals while Eluréd halfheartedly tried to sound out another word. He absently began fingering the edging on his pillowcase, his eyes resting more often on the illustration than the words next to it, “Maybe you could just read them all.”

Author’s Notes

I’ve seen the terms Daernana/Daernaneth (Grandma/Grandmother) and Daerada/Daeradar (Grandpa/Grandfather) used by a few other fanfiction authors – I am not sure who arranged the titles originally, so if you have and would like credit, please let me know.

The full account of Elurín’s tale of Huan can be found in Chapter 19, Of Beren and Lúthien, in the Silmarillion.

Responses to Reviews

*Querida: Hardly written OCs are such fun to write, since you get to decide on their personalities without ruining anyone else’s stories – so Galathil naturally had to be included!

*Itarille: I’m glad you’re enjoying this little glimpse at Eluréd and Elurín – I enjoy writing children, and these two and their sister gave me a chance to try my hand at Silmfic.

*Dragon-of-the-North: I am glad you are enjoying the somewhat eerie hints every here and there – I think in many ways Doriath probably felt much less safe and very vulnerable after Thingol’s death and Melian’s departure.

And yes – I think Dior and Nimloth are rather distant parents, though perhaps not intentionally. Personally, I imagine them both fairly young and inexperienced with trying to balance children, marriage, and now an entire kingdom all at once.

Last – poor Glassell. She knows the children (and she herself!) need structure, but I think she’s getting stretched a bit thin now. She needs a large piece of cake, perhaps. Thank you for the great review, mellon nin!