Work Text:
The River Camp, autumn, Third Age 2981
“So what, now I’m suspended too?”
“You better believe it, pal. Clear your calendar, I’m going to need a sidekick to survive this.”
The spawn visited. The door-warden saw them in and then stood by the wardrobe with mirth in her eyes as they scrambled up and burrowed down.
“Hey, you ratskins, who invited you lot in here?”
“We thought it was Grandpa in here sleeping, and he tells us stories.”
“He does, does he.”
“He told us a story about Grandma. How he saw her reclefted in the Mirrormere like a clear star and his heart sailed away like a ship.”
“That one!”
“He said she was kidnapped by dwarves! (I know not really, Elrohir, Grandpa was just embellishing) and he had to go into Moria and riddle her free with his silver tongue and after that she loved him forever, and then after the War you and Ada were born. But she married him first. Grandpa, I mean, not Ada.”
Kiernan said, “Did you have to rescue Laure before she would marry you?”
The very entity narrowed her eyes at him and curled up to sit upon the foot of the coverlet.
“I sure did. Wasn’t easy, but I did it. And I was almost eaten.”
The nephew said, with reverence, “Eaten?”
“Oh, yes. I rescued her from… an evil curse.”
This enraptured one and raised the suspicions of the other but arrested them both, and for a moment the bed stopped careening beneath their aerobics and his head could pound in one direction instead of eight or nine.
Kiernan said, pulling up a pillow to smother his belly against, “What kind of curse? You know people hardly ever get cursed these days, Elrohir.”
“Goes to show how much you know, pal. This was a horrible, terrible, awful curse that made Laurelandë unendurably… ugly.”
Elhadron cast her a dubious look where she lay propped up on one elbow looking like twelve notes of perfect melody played upon Yavannah's harp if such a thing could slip on gold-dusted skin and lay regarding him with his favorite wrinkle laid over the bridge of that ridiculous nose…
Lord of heaven and earth, You have been kind to me.
“Ugly,” Elrohir said again. “Teeth like this, and a snout like a mole, and hair growing out of her ears, her ears, Branyo. And a wart. And she slobbered.”
“Yuck.”
“It was disgusting, you are right. So first I had to find the tailfeathers of a basilisk…”
“Laurelandë. Verya. Anything I might say would turn to dust. I have no right to ask it of you. Forgive me, nonetheless?”
Her kiss was his answer and with it a battalion’s worth of buttressing fortitude and a covenant’s portion of enlivening love. He gasped a little when she leaned back minutes later, the cup of his spirit now full to the brim.
“…I’m supposed to be that for you, kiddo.”
“Not today. Elrohir, not always.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Hush, beloved. Scoot over, I am tired of sleeping down there like a hound.”
His sister brought him a ratty little paperback she’d scrounged from somewhere. She dropped it in his lap and nicked a boiled egg off the breakfast tray.
“About a sweeping hobbit courtship, or something,” she said with her mouth full. “Thought you could use it to while away some time.”
“Mmm,” he said, eyeing the inside cover and her in turn. She grimaced at the vanity mirror to scrape out a fleck of something left over from her snack, and he suspected the real delivery she had come to make was still nocked and waiting on the string.
He was not wrong. She licked her teeth and turned and said as she backed strategically out the door, “You know… while you’re grounded.”
It was a far cry from the sprawling, warm-lit kitchens of the Last Homely House, but she was singing the same merry song as always, nonetheless. When she disappeared humming down the cellar steps he dragged the stool over and pulled close the flour-bin and threw a puff against the countertop and upended the bowl. Nine quick strokes of the pin brought the dough to perfect thickness and by the time she returned he had them cut out and was flipping them onto the pan.
“You are far past the age of serving kitchen chores to atone for your transgressions.”
He brushed the tops off the biscuits with cream. “Not past the age of transgressions.”
“Elrohir.”
He found his mother’s eye and held it. “I am sorry for frightening you.”
She came around the counter then and took his face in her hands and kissed him straight between the eyes. “So frightened.”
“Bring me some potatoes to peel, then, the biscuits aren’t sufficient.”
“I will bring you some tea, and you can sit and drink it and tell me what you’ve been working on, and then we will be even.”
“Coffee would be better.”
“Sorry, my son. Dad said not until you’re off the opiate.”
The next morning he diagnosed his own head recovered enough to forego the hydrocodone and enjoyed a particularly pleasant cup of coffee beneath the arbor in the squash patch next to their cottage, his wife curled up under his arm. The single bench was screened-in thickly by the trellised cucumbers and the sun coming down through the bower painted them both in shadowed bands.
She had his shirt on and her hair down.
They did not stay there long.
“Hey, fellas, what are you two doing melted all over the porch.”
Kiernan had no shirt on, it was too hot. Elrohir poked him in the ribs but he had only the energy to arch halfheartedly away, instead of the usual sniggering writhe. Elhadron was upside down in the rocking chair, his knees hooked over the top, his bare feet black and filthy, and Elrohir pretended he hadn’t seen him and started to sit down, which made him slither to the portico floor and lie flat. Elrohir assumed the rocking chair and propped a heel on Elhadron’s chest.
“We’re bored,” said Kiernan.
“Don’t let your naneth hear you say that.”
“She’s probably bored, too.”
“Probably not.”
Elhadron said, trying without success to tickle the side of Elrohir’s foot through the boot he was wearing, “We need a treehouse.”
“Really.”
“A big one, like at home, with a tower and a climbing wall.”
“You better get to work, then.”
“We can’t, we’re too little.”
“So are the dwarves, and look at them.”
“Maybe they could help us build one,” said Kiernan thoughtfully. He had been sunburned to a crisp the day before but already the skin on his back and shoulders had gone from pink to golden.
“Nah,” said Elrohir. “If you wanted a cave, sure. But a treehouse… you know who’s best at those.”
“Grandpa,” said Elhadron immediately.
“Eh, he’s okay.”
“Ada?”
“Amateur.”
“Glorfindel!”
“He’s scared of trees.”
“Bren, then. Except she wouldn’t like when you have to nail the boards in. She says trees feel things like people.”
“They do,” said Kiernan wisely, rolling over to drape along the deck railing like a cat, his arm hanging down.
“You’re going to get sunburned again,” Elrohir warned.
“Soon I’ll be dark as an Uruk.”
“Or peeling like an onion. I’m the best at treehouses,” he said, rocking forward to peer at Elhadron, still pinned beneath his boot.
“You?” said the little creature skeptically.
“Me. But I’ll need my apprentice.”
“Laure’s over at the solar,” said Kiernan with a yawn.
Elrohir poked him again. “You look like just the man to fetch her.”
“No, I’m too hot.”
The poking finger dug between two ribs. “Get.”
“Get her yourself!”
Elrohir tickled him right off the railing. He landed crouched amongst the violets and glared up through the banisters. “Can’t you just think her over here or something? Nana does that.”
“What does Nana do?” said Nana, coming around the corner of the house. She set a flat hand against Kiernan’s bare shoulder. “You’re going to peel, you know.”
Elrohir raised a knowing eyebrow at him.
“You beckon Adar with your mind,” said Kiernan, ignoring it.
“Ah.”
“Here’s your apprentice,” said Elhadron, wriggling out from under the pinioning boot at last. The apprentice likewise appeared from around the corner. She had a smudge of dirt on the bridge of her nose.
“I’m who’s apprentice?” said Laurelandë.
“You’re the apprentice treehouse architect,” said Kiernan. Overcome by heat again, he lay flat back on the grass to roast his anterior side for a while.
“Who’s the architect?” she asked, glancing over at the rocking chair and its occupant.
Elrohir wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“Ooh, he’s a cruel master,” said Laurelandë. “Starves his apprentices. Beats them, even.”
“Only when they smart off,” said Elrohir.
Elhadron went to her and laid beseeching hands on the front of her skirt and gazed up at her with wondrously piteous eyes. “Please, Laurelandë? We are desperate.”
Even from up on the porch Elrohir could see the little urchin’s powers take effect. Laurelandë practically shimmied under the influence of that much concentrated cute. “My goodness. Well in that case. Let’s go, architect, they’re desperate.”
“Nails. Yay long, thereabouts, about five pounds of them should do it. And the lumber and the bolts and braces. You can stick it on the Master’s account.”
Pines were the main selection. The nice thing about them, they grew straight and close together and it was easy to find four or five in a stand.
The apprentice said at one point, standing on a big box to hold up the first set of support joists, “Are you sure it should be so high off the ground?”
“Hey boys!” Elrohir called down. “How high should this thing be, anyway?”
“Higher!” said Kiernan, who had been remanded to the ground until the first beams were firmly fixed.
“Higher, he says.” Elrohir shrugged.
“He’s coming to stay at your house when he falls and breaks both his legs, then.”
Kiernan drew up in supreme offense. He did not fall.
“I do not fall.”
“We can always make the turrets higher,” said Elhadron with pragmatism.
Laurelandë grinned up at her husband, who scratched a pine beetle bemusedly out of his hair.
It was written in the old code, which made him chuckle—they had thought themselves very clever at the time. All of twenty-something years old and in need of a private correspondence. Meet me at the Spire Trail at noon. Bring rations. Don’t be seen. They hadn’t been permitted to commandeer a carrier pigeon but the old hound had been an acceptable alternative.
This one wasn’t long. Paper for casual missives something of a commodity; Elladan had employed a fine print on the back of a ripped-off ketamine label and sent it along with the official dispatch. He was curious, of course. Any other adverse reactions besides the headache? Was he writing any of it down for future reference?
And in conclusion: Don’t let him get after you too much about it. I have it on good authority he did it to himself a time or two, back in the old days.
He went in the side door closest to the office, and early, before the girls came in for work and things really started hopping. Not even light out yet. Even so there was an oddly large crowd huddled around the firebarrels. Had there been a wreck somewhere? That many people waiting…
A word to drop the door-wards (he’d left his staff token home to allay any suspicions of him returning to work before the sentence had been fully served) and he ducked into the hall listening hard for the ruckus. But it was pretty quiet through the compound.
Quiet until he rounded the corner and bumped into Bowman, already at it with his bucket and mop.
“Morning, Bow.”
“M’lord.” Bowman Butterbur tugged his forelock like he always did, in spite of being told repeatedly to knock it off already. Then his eyes bugged out and he said in a stage whisper, “Beggin’ your pardon, Captain, but you ain’t supposed to be here!”
“Just getting my book, Bow.” Someone had locked his office door for him and did he have the key? Not a chance. He glanced back at Bowman who was looking nervously up and down the hall like they’d busted into a dragon vault, or something. “What about you, bud, you’re here early.”
“Just moppin’.”
That lip was busted open again. Pretty good shiner, too, not even all the way purpled up yet. This door wasn’t warded, just plain locked, and he didn’t have a word for that. Elrohir said, considering it, “Dad came home kinda rough last night?”
Bowman sniffed. “Not as bad as sometimes.”
Tamantamë would have the key, and she was undoubtedly In On the Suspension. He said to his companion, “You don’t happen to have a hairpin on you, do you?”
Pause. “No, m’lord.”
Kicking it down would cause a commotion. “Any idea why there’s so many people outside?”
Another pause, this one long enough Elrohir glanced back to see Bowman watching him doubtfully.
“What.”
“They… they been hangin’ around for days, m’lord.”
Would his knife fit between the jamb to pry the bolt back? It rode on a spring. “Yeah?”
“Waiting to see if you’re going to come out and do any more miracles.”
That turned him in earnest. Good grief, but the kid’s old man had worked him over this time. His ear was bloodied up too; he’d stuck a piece of gauze to it like a shaving nick and it rode stuck there still, all rust-colored. Elrohir didn’t think about it but reached out and tipped Bowman’s chin over to see better that black eye. He said, “You know you can sleep here whenever you need to, yeah?”
“I know.”
“I don’t do miracles.”
“Not what folks are saying.”
“Well, they need to knock that off.”
“They ain’t usually too good at that, Captain.”
Someone was coming down the hall and would round the corner soon; Elrohir could hear them. Nineth, from the way the steps scuffed; she was rarely in a hurry. She’d sound the alarm though, no two ways about it. Bowman said, “I’ll go nick it for you, if you wanna hide in the linen closet.”
“Nah, I’d hate to drag you in on my deviance.” He’d send Laure for it later; she could sweet-talk the ol’ battleax better than he. He said as he began his strategic retreat, “Why don’t you go ice that eye.”
“Yessir. When I’m done with the floors.”
Elrohir took the back way home. That headache was still skulking around and he thought gawkers would probably make it flare up again. Walking through the tents and hovels he paid closer attention, though, and did not miss the way folks watched him, the way some smiled, the way some pointed him out to their friends, and the way some hurried to the other side of the street so they would not have to pass him by.
Contrary to common belief one did not have to request a formal audience but could walk right up and knock on the door. Halbarad’s wife did, Tuesday morning, and looked appalled at her own daring when he answered it himself, in stocking feet, buttoning the cuff of his shirt.
“My lord.”
“Madam. I’m sorry, I know missed your last call.”
“You were… yes. No need to apologize, m’lord.”
“You’ve been doing well? Hal’s up for leave in what, three weeks?”
“Ten days, m’lord.”
“He’ll be glad to see you, he speaks of little else. Everyone’s doing good?”
She looked at him then with such an expression of—well, like he’d said something outrageous and she was trying to decide whether to slap him or turn tail and run. Except he knew that he hadn’t, and that she wasn’t, and so he tipped his head and said very gently, “Thárien…”
“No! Don’t you dare say it! I know what you will say, that it’s nothing, or not to mention it, but you’re wrong, sire, you must not say it. My life is yours, and all my husband’s household, and even that is a sorry return. Oh, dammit…” she tugged her sleeve up over her palm to scrub her eyes with. “I should have brought the damn chickens again…”
If he laughed she might be gone forever. Instead he stepped and caught her hand and bowed over it with all the solemn courtesy at his considerable disposal and said, “My lady. Thárien.” Then he abandoned such formality in favor of tugging her in and folding her close, because she had begun to tremble against her free hand. “Come, on pal, you’re gonna get me started too and then we’ll both stand here sobbing and looking silly.” He kissed her swiftly on her dark head and stepped back and pushed wide the door. “Will you please stop talking about chickens and come in? Laurelandë was about to put the kettle on and she’ll kick me if I let you leave without meeting her first.”
“I…” She glanced behind like she was about to shoplift something, but then squared her shoulders and raised her chin and said, “Thank you, Captain. I would like that very much. Let me just go make sure Halamath—”
“Is he with you? Ki’s around here somewhere too, there’s not much they can get into right here in the yard.”
Her eyes turned to great hollow holes for a second, her face to wraithly white. She pressed her palm to her forehead and said, shakily, with an unconvincing attempt at a cheerful tone, “I can’t even switch him anymore, the little heathen, I’m afraid he’ll fall apart.”
Finally he let himself laugh, just a huff of one. “I reckon he’s happy to let you keep thinking that.”
She bored a hole in his eyes with hers, and said like an oath, “I would have died with him.”
“I’m glad you didn’t have to.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“See that you are. Coffee’ll be hot.”
She was, and it was, and Laurelandë made her laugh and look her age again, which couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight or so. After an acceptably polite span of time Elrohir wandered out the garden door and found three little boys using a hollow log for a pirate ship, and for a while he joined them, and they pretended the scar across Halamath’s throat had been given to him by a corsair prince.