Amdirren Reniel sat upon the broad root of an ancient oak, her graceful hands carefully stitching a worn garment that lay across her lap. Beside her perched her naked son, watching as she flourished her sharp bone needle and broke off the thread.
'I said afore that when you were older I would share with you the skill of thought-sending.[1] Two years have since passed and now I deem the time is nigh,' she said, passing to him his mended breeches.
'Truly?' Legelion asked with bright eyes, gratefully tugging them up over his legs and tying the thin cord about his narrow waist. Indeed, he was now in his twelfth year and was well skilled in closing his mind against the will of others, but despite his many secret attempts he had yet to join mind to mind with any of his kin.
'Truly,' she replied, taking up his rent tunic and peeping at him through the slashed leaf-green cloth. 'For then next time you might perhaps call for aid sooner and thus spare me from such toil!' His mother smiled as the elf-child blushed at the memory of his morning's misadventure.
'How fares your hurt?' she asked.
Rubbing his backside he grinned, 'It is but a scratch and your salve is sweetly tingling as it heals. Alas, it is my pride that is sorely wounded!'
* * *
Wandering heedless, his mind bent upon the singing of the leaping stream and the whisper of the summer trees, the elf-child had chanced upon a Mirkwood bear unawares, and though such beasts commonly paid no heed to the woodland elves, she was startled and afeared for her two young cubs.
In wrath she had assailed him and he had swiftly scampered up a slender birch too thin to bear her bulk, so as to stand safely upon a low-lying branch. But deprived thus of her quarry she smote the tree-trunk a fierce blow and he had lost his footing, and when Glevroril the marchwarden came thither, drawn by the growls of the beast and the wails of the boy, she found him dangling therefrom by his hands and feet while the she-bear batted at his behind! With each swipe of her mighty paw, Legelion was forced to lift his haunches to avoid the blow, and seeing this desperate dance the elf-maiden had wept with laughter.
The sound of her mirth had for a moment distracted the young Green-elf and the bear had caught him with claws sharp as knives, rending the tunic on his back and the seat of his breeches. Then dropping to the ground he had tumbled between the she-bear's stout legs, and scurried to where Angeleg stood laughing. With soothing thoughts she swiftly calmed the ire of the mother and set her and her cubs on their way, much to Legelion's relief, but he knew that erelong every Wood-elf within a league of the Elvenking's Halls would hear his sorry tale!
* * *
'Alas,' he said to Amdirren as she sewed. 'Though I have yet to learn the art of speaking voiceless with other Elven-kin, I have the skill to comfort beasts. If I had but a moment more to gather my wits, I too would have allayed the she-bear's fears... but her wrath was swift and her blows swifter, and my thought was bent on evading her carving strokes! And now by the merry tongue of Glevroril the woodland folk will deem me naught but a witless child!'
'Ah, ionneg,' his mother said, looking up from her sewing, 'but you are yet in the spring of childhood, though I know your wit is keen! But does the thought of others truly bring to you a shadow of disquiet?'
'Nay... aye... O! I know not!' the boy laughed. 'Indeed I am a child, but the only one I know of in the Woodland Realm, and it seems that the eyes of the Tawarwaith are therefore ever upon me!'
'You well know wherefore we of the Laegrim forebear the begetting of children in these after-days... ' she said.
'Aye,' her son sighed. 'For the Shadow of the East grows ever longer across the Hither Lands and we yet hope to complete the Great Journey long forsaken,' he recited dully, 'and the elders deem it unwise to bring forth children ere we pass over the Sea into the Undying Lands.'
'But remember, many of the Silvan clans bear not this hope nor our forbearance, for it is their purpose to linger in Middle-earth till the world's ending;[2] and the Woodland Realm is vast,' Amdirren told him.
At these words light returned to his honey-hued face. 'Indeed!' he exclaimed. 'There may yet be elf-children to befriend! And even within the Halls of the Elvenking there are still many secret places unknown to me. But...'
His mother had no need to read his thought for his question was plainly written across his young features.
'And many eyes do follow you, but grudge it not, for they watch you not to pry but out of love; though your growing is indeed of great interest to all, for long has it been since their merry days of raising children.'[3]
'Aye,' grinned Legelion, 'and also they deem me strange: a Silvan elf who would read and write the elven-runes! This makes me unalike my kin and an object of curiosity and gossip.'
'But pay no heed and be not abashed.' she smiled. 'Forgo your pride and live your life for your own humble joy as is your wont.'
She draped the mended tunic over his slim shoulder and tucked a wayward strand of long, dark hair behind the boy's ear. 'But I beseech you, let not your joy bring such hurt to your raiment again!' And her son laughed merrily.
'Alas,' he said, 'that is a promise I doubt I can uphold!'
* * *
[1] Quenya: ósanwë or sanwë-latya
[2] "Elves were destined to be 'immortal', that is not to die within the unknown limits decreed by the One, which at the most could be until the end of the life of the Earth as a habitable realm."
- The Peoples of Middle-earth, "Last Writings"
[3] "The union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy, and the 'days of the children', as they call them, remain in their memory as the most merry in life..."
- Morgoth's Ring, 'The Laws and Customs Among the Eldar'
It should be noted that this tale is set in Summer of the 2978th year of the Third Age, when Legelion was but twelve years of age; also that these anecdotes are not in strict chronological order.
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