EP - baby!elrond - age 8 (almost)

[starrydome]

Fall means mushrooms and berries and meat, even in the cold Keep where the remaining Sons of Fëanor have made their home.

So while the child that slips through the door is still pale and thin, his first thought isn't to sneak up to the magical lady (who looks like just an only shaped table of sorts) and ask for food.

Instead he makes his way over to the soft seating in front of the fireplace where the magical fish live.

They're still there.

He smiles at them. A small, soft smile.

If fish can live in fire, so can the Peredhil live with the Kinslayers a while.

He is dressed in a tunic that is clearly meant for a bigger person and leggins that are a little too short in the legs. His wrists and face bear faded bruises (food gathering and sparring will get you those) but his hands are clean and his hair is neatly braided.


He looks around, his eyes big and bright and cautious.

Comments

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max nods, quiet. "You'll know what's right for you when you know it. Sometimes the heart knows what it wants a long time before we can ever put it in words."

For a given value of a 'long time.'

"I knew I wanted to be a photographer for years before I even considered it might be a real possibility."

(ooc: Sorry for the delay. Covid booster side effects have been kicking my ass.)

[starrydome]

He hopes she is right.

"I don't know what a photographer is, " he replies, because that is easier to talk about.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"A photographer is someone who... someone who makes photographs," she chuckles, wry. "And photographs are i-images, like you might see in a painting, mural or tapestry... only made much more quickly, using a device called a camera. Photographic images tend to be much more true to life than paintings.

[starrydome]

"So - the device makes them?" he asks, a little uncertainly.

He can't really make that idea make sense.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"I point the device at the image I want it to take, and press a button, which... actually, hang on," she says, moving to dig in her bag and pull out the camera itself. "This is my camera. I look in this side - see the tiny lens of glass - and line up the camera to 'see' the image I want to make."

She holds up the camera so the young elf could look through the view-finder, if he wished to.

"Then I push this button on the top here. Pushing the button lets light into the device through these front lenses for a split-second. The light reacts with the photo-paper inside. The device then spits out the photo, and the image of what was in front of the camera when I hit the button shows up on the paper."

[starrydome]

He follows along, all huge eyes, and when she tells of the view finder, he leans forward to look through it.

His older self would be wary of magical lenses and such, but this child is still untouched by some horrors at least.

When he looks back at her, his eyes are lit with wonder.

"Did Men make this?"
The Men of her world are clever indeed, if so.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"Ah, yes," she says, after a moment of confusion. "Mankind."

Practice, Max. He is young, and does not know photography. It should not be so anxiety-inducing. It is, but the anxiety doesn't stop her reaching into her bag to pull out her little stack of Milliways photos, each capturing a moment in time.

A lion cub lying on its back on the couch, looking up at the camera with curiosity. Two figures and easels silhouetted against the autumnal forest in golds and oranges and reds, the figures' backs to the camera, their own attention on painting the array of autumn colors before them. Contented cats tumbled in a nap pile in the sunlight. A focused young man with arm outstretched, tossing a ring at a carnival ring-toss. Small children laughing upon painted figures of rabbits upon a lit and spinning carousel.

"By my time, this level of technology is considered old and outdated," she murmurs, considering the images. "Replaced by faster and better cameras that let you make a lot of images very quickly, and choose the best from among them to print. This... I can't do that with my camera. My camera forces me to slow down, to focus and aim and time my shot. Every image requires film to make, and film is expensive, so every shot must count."

[starrydome]

He looks the photos over with a look of complete concentration.
And awe.

"They are like windows into the past," he murmurs. "It looks as if you could step through and be right there. When it happened."

[little_pieces_of_time]

"Like little pieces of time," Max nods, her gaze lingering for a moment on the children laughing, almost believing she can half-hear the carnival music and the laughter of their delight.

She brings out another, recently-taken, of a young woman with blue-dyed hair wreathed in golden light. She sits upon a bench perched on a high headland overlooking a wide expanse of water, the waves turned to molten gold by the sun setting into the western ocean.

"I've only ever wanted to be a photographer," Max murmurs at the photo. "To travel the world making photographs, and sharing those moments."

[starrydome]

"Oh."

It's a soft sound, full of awe.

He wants to ask if her hair is truly that colour, but he doesn't.

Instead, he says,"Do people do that? Travel to find images to share?"

[little_pieces_of_time]

"Some do," she nods, smiling. "Not everyone who wants to can manage it, but some do... Like my teacher, Mark Jefferson. His photos are famous, and he could still get his images in any art gallery he could want. And despite all that, he chose to come back to Oregon and teach."

[starrydome]

"Maglor says that teaching art is one of the greatest things -" Elrond starts saying before he stops abruptly.

Maglor is their captor.
But he also teaches them music.
And writing.
Braids their hair.

Sometimes, he wants to hug then.
Sometimes, they let him.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"Maglor's-" Max begins to completely agree with the sentiment, but belatedly catches the child's look, and pauses.

"Maglor is... the one holding you and your brother captive," she guesses.

[starrydome]

He nods, glancing away.

"... yes. He's- he teaches us as well. Music and history."

He shifts, from one foot to the other.

"And - he tries to be -"
Parental?
"Kind."

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max looks troubled by this - it's not just him.

"Maglor isnt... wrong, about art," she guardedly amends what she had been going to say. "And I'm g-glad you have music in your lives."

She hasn't forgotten the bruises he wears.

"But I would think kindness... would have been choosing not to take you and your brother in the first place. Or, barring that, freeing you and returning you both to where you belong. Do... Do you know why he took you captive?"

[starrydome]

"Because his brother wanted to kill us."

He says it dispassionately. Almost flatly.

"Our parents had a jewel that had belonged to their father. He had them take an oath that they would do anything to get the jewels back. And they did."

Kinslayers.

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max looks stricken. "That's..."

It's inconceivable to her that a gem, a thing, could be worth more to someone than people's lives.

"That's terrible. That's..." Her throat moves, but the words won't work, and she shakes her head. It's evil, she means. And Maglor is trying to... soften that evil, by teaching them art, and music, and not letting his brother kill them.

On one hand, yes, he isn't as terrible as he could be. Elrond and his brother are alive. But they are still captive, and their parents...

Feeling at a loss for answer, she asks, "Is there anything I can do? To help?"

[starrydome]

He looks at her, surprised.

"You would?"
There is nothing she can do. Nothing anyone can do.

But the notion that others wod want to warms him in places that the warmth from the fireplace cannot reach.

"We will be saved. Someday. Or we will flee. When we are older. "

Just a little.


{ooc: sorry about the delay. Was in Berlin}

[little_pieces_of_time]

"I-if there is anything I can do to help, I'll do it," she assures him, earnest. "Even if it's... even if it's just to help pack supplies when you plan to escape. Or... whatever it might be."

[starrydome]

"Thank you."

He has to blink a couple of times and then he impulsively hugs her.

"Thank you."

It's half-whispered. To keep the tears from flowing.