EP - Elrond Peredhil (age 6)

[starrydome]

Before this (oom)


The door slams open and a small figure darts across the floor, skidding to a halt just before colliding with a table. He turns quickly, the way you do when there is danger of someone sneaking up behind you. And stares.

It's a child, pale and pointy-faced, dressed in grey and black. The arms are a little too skinny, the skin beneath the eyes is a little too dark. The eyes are far, far too cautious. His age is hard to gauge, in part due to those eyes.

The Bar is clearly not what he expected, judging from the look of confusion and mounting concern on his face. Concern that is slowly edging its way towards panic. 

His hands move across the tabletop behind him and one hand closes on the handle of a used butter knife. 

Come what may - he will be ready for it.



(occ: I was a bit feverish last night and this is the result. This Elrond is a child of six (and although elven children mature faster than human ones, he is still very much a small child in some respects), who has already spent some time in Feanorian captivity.) ETA: open forever!

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

There's a red-headed girl of about nine sitting at the bar, swinging her heels as she catches up on her math homework (long division is clearly evil). She's wearing jeans with tears on the knees and a somewhat faded blue t-shirt, swinging her heels in impatience with the subject.

It doesn't take much to distract her from it - the opening of the door and the ingress of the distressed child is more than enough. She is startled, but curious. The homework is set aside and the girl gets down from her stool.

"Are you all right?" she asks, approaching with caution. "What's wrong?"

[starrydome]

He stares at her strange get-up. He's never seen anyone dressed like that.
That his own long braid and leather shoes might look equally strange to her doesn't occur to him.

"What is this place?" he asks, mostly managing to keep his voice from trembling.

And then, as an afterthought, "Who are you?"
Why would an Edain girl be here?

[sunbaked_baker]

"This is Milliways," she answers, peering at him but not approaching too close. He looks scared, however oddly he's dressed, and she doesn't want to frighten him any more than he already is. "It's a good place. Safe. Just kinda surprising when it shows up."

But a welcome surprise, when math homework is dragging on. "I'm Rae. Who are you?"

[starrydome]

He tries to take a step back, despite the fact that she hasn't moved toward him, but can't on account of the table.

Instead he moves his hand, so she can see the knife. It's dull and useless, but it is all he's got.

She seems nice, despite the way she looks and the odd way she speaks - but he's learned his lesson.

"I have no name," he says - and this time his voice does break. A little.

[sunbaked_baker]

What keeps her from approaching any closer isn't that he has a knife - she is unafraid of the butter knife - but that he obviously doesn't want her to come any closer, shown by how he holds himself, and his makeshift weapon.

The lack of name doesn't really compute, for her. It shows on her face, concern and confusion. "How can you have no name?"

[gondolin_noble]

There is someone here who is well-versed in the care and feeding of Peredhils. He is, or at least was, lounging on the (indecently comfortable) couch, reading.

But he spent time in Imladris. Where small streaks of dark hair were something you both learned to watch out for and pay attention to.

...

And right now, as he stares at the tiny elfling, he blames the Valar. They're usually at the back of things somehow anyway.

[starrydome]

He sees the stranger but he doesn't move.

Two or three years ago he would have approached him, safe in the assumption that all of elvenkind would fawn over him and his brother. Now, he has learned to distrust strangers.

His fingers tighten on the handle of the butter knife.

[gondolin_noble]

That is not Elrohir or Elladan. So really, he is left with two options (because he has no intention of abandoning any of his king's line until they all sail, and no elfling in his care will have cause to look like that) - that can be Elros, or Elrond.

Considering his luck, he's fairly sure who it is out of the two.

Now for the other problem - he's fairly sure, given the child's lineage, that he speaks Sindarian primarily. But he cannot remember when the Noldorians as a whole switched, seeing as it never really was any problem of his.

...

"You are quite fierce, with that knife." He attempts in Sindarian, purposefully relaxing, resting his chin on his hands, on the back of the couch.

[starrydome]

The child blinks and then blurts out, "Why do you speak in the grey tongue?"in what is very clearly old-fashioned East Sindarin. As spoken by the Sons of Feanor.

Completely forgetting his trepidation, when presented with a mystery. The mystery of a bright, blond being not speaking Quenya.

He has spent much time with genealogy and the languages already. There is little else to do.

And Maglor praises him when he works hard at his lessons.

[ostro_goth]

Something about the child does look worrying, so Teja approaches, gently.

Did he look that lost when he was in the hands of the monks, after his parents' death?

But he was older then. This child is so small, and so lost...

"Greetings," he says, looking at the small scared face.



[[OOC: Perhaps it is good I no longer have Maglor...]]

[starrydome]

Elrond starts and looks up at the - Man?

He presses his smalls lips together to keep them from trembling.

Don't show fear. That's important too.






(ooc: ... maybe. On the other hand, baby!Elrond tells me that he feels sorry for Maglor because his brothers are dead and he would be very sad too if his brother had died ...)

[ostro_goth]

"You have not been here before, have you?" Teja says. "I shall not harm you. I do not harm children -- and this place has the rule that none may be hurt here, in any case. None that followed you may catch you, either. Are you hungry or thirsty?"

[starrydome]

Elrond shakes his head, even if the Man's turn of phrase unsettles him.

We do not wage war on children, Brother.

Then he shakes his head again, but a little more hesitantly than the first time. He's always hungry. They do not go without food, but winter is hard and there is not much food to go around.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Easy."

Firm as the words may be, they're spoken by a sweet and gentle voice. Soft, as a summer breeze, meant to console rather than scold.

Moments later, a woman drops into view. Her hands are held in front of her, palms facing the boy, movements slow and precise. As if she's dealing with a startled colt.

"You're all right, sweetheart."

[starrydome]

She sounds just like Mother.
Or perhaps it is just that he has grown unused to hearing female voices.

He blinks a couple of times. It's best if he doesn't think too much about Mother. It makes him want to cry and you're not supposed to cry.

[ikissdhimbck]

She chances a glance away from his eyes — deep, peerless, familiar — looking at that butter knife and the fingers that grasp it. He's skinny, and from the way he's moving she figures he's come in from some not-so-great conditions.

"You're safe."

It seems like the most important thing she could think to say.

"You're safe here, sugar. Don't you worry none."

[starrydome]

He wants to believe her. He really, really does.

And she looks kind. And she sounds kind. But anybody can sound kind, anybody can be kind - until they're not.

His indecision is plain on his face and in the way his body moves, strung out between fighting and fleeing.

[onceholyknight]

"Easy, son." The voice comes from an older man, at a table some little distance away, a cane propped against the chair he's sitting on. "No one's going to hurt you. Not here."

[starrydome]

Elrond looks at the Man, wide-eyed and fearful.

He looks very, very young.

[onceholyknight]

He does, and it tugs at Michael's heart.

"What's your name?" he asks gently.

[starrydome]

He hesitates and then he says, "Peredhil. No, Peredhel. Peredhil is when it is my brother and I."

So not really a proper name.

Revanped comment

[not_sinister]

Oh gods.

A child. An... obviously ill-fed elven child with dark hair.
Pale skin.. Wary, as a dark elven child might be, at a similar age.

Naitachal and Eliathanis straighten up. The former puts the harp he was playing away, and unobtrusively hand-signals Zaknafein,'incoming, civilian, child, disarm.'

The latter puts his own sheathed blade on the table, away from him in a slow gesture, disarming himself visibly so the child will not be alarmed, before he raises his hands to look harmless and says, "Calm down." in as soft and gentle a voice as he can manage. "You will be safe here. Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

(ooc: Tagging you with my elves if you don't mind.)

Revanped answer :)

[starrydome]

(occ: not at all)

He starts and stares first at the sword, then at the three strangers looking at him.

It reminds him a little to much of their capture. Still, a sword on the table is better than a sword in the hand.

He still shakes his head though. No, not hungry. Not thirsty. Not safe.

Re: Revanped answer :)

[whipped_weapon]

The taller dark skinned elf who had arrived after the signals were given also disarms, carefully laying his own sword and whip on the table.

"No harm will come to you." Zaknafein volunteered, trying to look as harmless as possible, which is far more difficult for him than it is for Naitachal or Eliathanis. After all, he is taller, and, while not armored, is also more clearly a career warrior. Perhaps a mercenary? Some smaller scars would suggest so.

He searches for the words and then says carefully. "Great magic guards this place. Any who would offer violence would be taken away and imprisoned. You are as safe here as any god could possibly offer you."

Particularly since there are gods here, after all. He'd run into one or two, and so had the others, Eliathanis most recently.

[starrydome]

He is still staring at them. Dark skin. But they don't look like Men. He is not sure he understands what the speaker is saying, so he latches on to the concept he does understand: "Magic? Like the Girdle?"

His voice is high and clear.


(ooc: And I must warn for slowtime as I am practically home alone today with a sick 3yo)