Oh, sweet stars above.

Yes. Yes, I have. I remember it vividly, because I did in fact walk directly into the Bruinen, fully clothed, and remained there for at least an hour while Eredin brought me a towel and Elihal asked if I had finally lost the will to live (rude).

It was a calm evening. Estel, perhaps ten or eleven at the time, had managed to evade his lessons again, and we were sat in the Hall of Fire while Glorfindel regaled us with tales of woe and valor. Estel was pretending to be enraptured. I should’ve known something was coming. There was a gleam in his eye.

Mischief.

Madness.

The kind of look one sees right before someone sets off fireworks indoors.

Glorfindel was halfway through describing the tragic last stand of an elven captain—swords clashing, honor ablaze, etc etc—and Estel, without breaking eye contact, leaned toward me and whispered:

“Do you think if I died dramatically enough in battle, Elrond would finally let me have a pet manticore?”

…

A pet.

Manticore.

I turned. I blinked.

I stared at this child of Men—this boy who could not be trusted with garden shears, let alone a mythical beast with venomous spikes and a lion’s face—and all I could say was, “Excuse me?”

He simply nodded solemnly, as though he’d stated a truth universally acknowledged. “I think if I make it noble enough, it cancels out the ethical issues.”

Reader. I stood. I left. I walked to the river. I walked into the river. Fully cloaked. Sat on a rock. The current moved around me, as if to say, “You poor, poor creature.”

Glorfindel found me there much later and said, and I quote, “Ah. He’s reached the Manticore Phase. It passes, usually around age twelve.”

After the river incident, I thought the worst had passed.

I hoped—naïvely—that he would be distracted by swordplay, or mud pies, or anything else in the realm of normal childhood.

I was wrong. So profoundly wrong.

It began again two days later when I found him sprawled across the library floor, surrounded by parchment, rulers, inkpots, and a singularly unhinged glint in his eye. He had been drawing. Blueprints. Not for Rivendell. Not for a treehouse.

No.

He was meticulously designing what he called “The Sanctum of Spikes and Cuddles.”

“Estel,” I said gently, stepping over a discarded schematic labeled ‘secret snuggling nook’, “what… is this?”

He blinked up at me with the calm assurance of someone who has never been told no. “It’s the manticore enclosure, Lindir. It needs a waterfall, obviously, and I’ve accounted for enrichment. This wheel spins when he roars.”

Reader, there was a roar-powered hamster wheel.

But it didn’t stop there.

Later that very week, I heard commotion in the kitchens. Now, normally I try to mind my own business—truly I do—but curiosity dragged me in like a riptide.

Estel was in the pantry. Holding a sack of flour. Covered in jam. “Elrond’s bones,” I breathed, “What are you doing now?”

He turned, beaming. “Making manticore treats! Glorfindel said beasts respond well to food rewards. I’m experimenting with textures.”

He had experimented all over the counter. There were roughly seven half-finished “treats” in various states of horror, including what I can only describe as a charred scone filled with sardines.

“Where is Glorfindel?” I demanded.

“Helping me find a name for the bakery we’ll open once Sir Nibbles retires from war,” he replied cheerfully.

I left the kitchen.

I left my body.