#galardiel

But there was always time later for ‘someday’, so when the cry came up that big folk were approaching, he joined the mad dash for the closest shelter. Stuffing the raspberry into his mouth, he tumbled from the bough. He bounced off two of the orange mushrooms growing in a spiral around the tree before landing on the ground. 

He landed a little harder than he expected. He still hadn’t quite figured out how to estimate things like that and everyone else made it look so easy. Juice dribbled from between his lips, his mouth too full to close and the impact causing most of the fruit’s drupelets to burst. Shaking off the fall, he ran for the nearest unoccupied bell-shaped mushroom cap. His arms pumped furiously as he crossed the distance and he giggled a little with excitement.

He dove under cover. He had just enough time to twist around and peek under the frilly cap, the spore gills tickling his hair, before the big folk came into view. He caught his breath, choking down the berry so he wouldn’t be distracted by the sweet juice as he watched.

Huge horses came first, their hooves thudding into the ground so hard it made his teeth chatter and his head shake as they cleared hundreds of his own steps in just a single, elegant stride. Elves accompanied the horses, some riding and most walking by them, easily keeping pace. 

He gasped quietly in excitement, gripping the mushroom with his sticky hands. They stood so unbelievably tall, always graceful despite their height, with long hair pale like artemisia or dark as the inside of a rabbit’s den or bright as solidago in summer. Their voices rang clear and deep, though not nearly so deep as the men or dwarves he’d seen. He thought, if he were brave enough, he might like to sit out on a log or a sun-warmed stone and listen to such voices for hours on end. Of all the big folk, he loved seeing elves the most.

He watched them draw near, the ground vibrating as they came nearer and nearer, closer than they’d ever come before. This was too exciting, and he gave a little dance where he hid. 

Two horses passed and on them rode two elf-ladies. One had light hair held back from her face by a band of woven metal. Her eyes twinkled with light, like sunlight in the thousand droplets of dew on the spider’s web in the morning. She rode with a straight back, her head high, and she had an air of awe and might to her, unlike any creature he’d ever seen. A green stone glittered on her chest. When her gaze moved slightly in his direction, he trembled with fear, clutching the mushroom cap tighter and wishing he’d tucked himself away somewhere stronger, like the old woodpecker nest he’d found the other day.

Elrond might have looked away then, thinking tiny and invisible thoughts in hopes that she would not notice him, had he not seen her companion.

She did not ride so tall upon her horse, her back and shoulders loose and relaxed as though sitting atop the massive animal was as natural to her as breathing. Her hair tumbled down her back like running water, yet pale as ice crystals on the sides of the streams in winter. Her face reflected the soft light filtering down through the green leaves of the trees, and her smile glowed brightest of all. The sight of her made him forget his terror of the first.

“My mind is made up, mother. You shall not change it,” she said, and oh how her voice made the birds’ calls and the insects’ songs hollow and tuneless in comparison. Her voice alone might command his heart to beat and his lungs to fill with air. He flopped to the ground, falling out from under the mushroom’s cover, careless of if any elves took note of him, wishing only to see her more clearly, to be slightly closer to her as she passed.

“Your father is awaiting our arrival in Lórien. He will be deeply grieved at your absence after so many years apart,” the Great Lady murmured, her voice deep and rich like heavy loam at the start of a thunderstorm. “He misses you greatly.”

His Lady’s face fell, her mouth curving down and her eyes hooding. It made him ache, filled him with such grief that he desired to cry out for her but still dared not bring open attention upon himself. She breathed deeply and looked up again. “I know, and he will be welcomed in Imladris whenever he wishes to see me—all will be welcomed in Imladris,” she said with conviction that could make the very earth bow to her will and reshape itself to her need.

Her mother’s lips thinned and she said more to her, but he could not hear for they passed on and other elves took their place, murmuring in conversation loud enough to block the only voice he wanted to hear again. His Lady had gone away from his sight and the twisting of life was such that he might never hear her again.

Elrond collapsed against the ground, his face falling into the moist soil. He cared not now what the others might think of him revealing himself when he ought to have stayed safely hidden. He cared not if the elves took note of him and carried him away as a treasure like the storytellers said they might, nor even if some other of the big folk came along and spied him and trod on him or poked at him with pointy sticks. His entire life felt now shaded as by a malicious tree. Whither he went and whence he came, all he did now would be dampened and dulled by Her absence. Even the residue of the berry on his tongue tasted of decay and felt of stream silt. He lay there for some unknown time—what meant time now but the eternity stretching on without Her? 

“Elrond,” someone said as they poked at his side, exasperated. “They’re gone. You can stop playing dead.”

He lifted his tear-streaked face to look at the speaker, soil sticking to his wet skin. “Are you sure?” He asked, lower lip trembling and brows wrinkled together. Perhaps the elves would turn and come back. Perhaps the Great Lady forgot something she needed and she would turn the whole company around to retrieve it and he would see his Lady again.

The other crouched, reaching forward to wipe the dirt off his face. “Yes, Elrond,” she sighed. “It’s safe.”

He sat up slowly, sniffling and wiping his nose across his forearm, succeeding only in adding more soil to his face and smearing the snot from his weeping. “Okay.”

She shook her head, her poofy hair possessing the gall to bounce happily. She looked at him, eye-to-eye—how he desired now only to gaze up, up, up at the eyes of his Lady—then looked down at her hands and said, “If you get this scared about the big folk, you can always hide with me.”