Glorfindel strode into the sitting room - or as Celebrian had taken to referring it, the playroom - in search of the Lord of Imladris. It was a fine day in spring, the air smelt fresh and the sun was streaming in through the windows. Birds were singing outside and the branches of the trees were thick with new leaves.

The room was empty, but looking from the windows he could see Celebrian out in the gardens, kneeling on a rug on the grass. Elrond was stretched out on the lawn beside her, propping his head up with one hand as he watched her. The work that he had taken from his desk to try and excuse his absence was lying forgotten in a flowerbed.

The reason for his happy preoccupation was obvious, for on the rug were two wriggling little bundles, the twin sons of Elrond. Glorfindel smiled to himself as he slipped out onto the terrace and made his way down to the gardens. His friends had been blessed with twins only a few months ago, but already they had brought more joy to the family than he could ever have imagined. And it had finally drawn the Lord of Imladris away from his work - his attention for anything other than his wife or children had been rather patchy of late. But Glorfindel was more than happy to take over the work, for they both needed to see the newness and innocence, and to believe that the sacrifice had been worthwhile.

"Glor! Come and join us!" Elrond called merrily as he saw the blond elf approaching. He looked back to the flowerbed hastily, wondering if there was any way to fetch the papers and make believe that he had been working all the time, before Glorfindel arrived.

Glorfindel caught his expression and laughed loudly. "Do not worry, Elrond. You have done no less than I expected of you."

Elrond frowned, looking slightly abashed, then smiled ruefully.

"Thank you, Glor."

The blond elf smiled at his friend, and dropped to his knees to crawl over to the rug where Celebrian was hiding her face behind a leafy branch.

"Peek-a-boo!" Celebrian's face lit up with laughter as she moved the branch aside and smiled at her sons. The twins gurgled and showed their pleasure with large open smiles. One of them drummed his tiny fists against the rug, and the other made a fumbling grasp at the leaves.

"Hello, Glorfindel." Celebrian smiled at him, simultaneously putting the branch out the babies' reach and taking a tiny hand in her own to remove a torn leaf before it could make its way into the baby's mouth.

"No Elladan, you cannot eat those." Celebrian gently took the leaf from the pudgy hand and threw it into the grass. "They taste nasty. Yeuch!"

She pulled a disgusted face and Elrohir laughed and copied her.

"Eeech!" Elrohir waggled his tongue in the air and then, seeing Glorfindel, teetered forward from his sitting position, onto his front, and crawled towards him with chirps of, "Or! Or!"

"Well hello, Master Elrohir." Glorfindel moved to sit cross-legged on the rug, and scooped Elrohir up onto his lap, "And how are you this morning?"

Elrohir gurgled and smiled up at Glorfindel's fair face, "Eglah ma."

"Really?" Glorfindel smiled, raising his eyebrows as Elrond over the tiny dark head.

"Ook ar." Elrohir turned his attention to the ever-absorbing golden braids and tried to crawl up Glorfindel's tunic to grasp one of them.

Glorfindel laughed and bent his head, allowing his golden hair to fall forward across his face. He had long learned that once either of the twins decided that they wanted to touch his golden tresses it was useless to object, and usually was less painful if he allowed them to play with it freely instead of having the precious strands ripped from his head.

"Or." Elrohir laughed and blew as hard as he could at the curtain of hair, clapping his hands when some of the strands moved.

Celebrian, busy comforting Elladan, who had turned quite pink and was waving his fists around angrily at the removal of his toy, smiled at the sight of her younger son playing under a golden waterfall.

"They are quite entranced by you." Celebrian commented, putting Elladan up against her shoulder, and rubbing his back soothingly.

Glorfindel smirked and ran a hand over his hair, raising his eyebrows at Elrond.

"But it will be quite some while until they can compete with you, Glor." Elrond drew back Glorfindel's hair and placed his large hand on Elrohir's head with its fuzz of dark hair. "You have some growing to do, my son."

"Ow." Elrohir's face lit up with happiness at his new word and he shoved a fistful of golden strands into his mouth.

"Is he ever quiet?" Glorfindel joined Elrond in sitting on the stone edge of the flowerbed, and motioned towards Elrohir, who was happily gabbling nonsense at his delighted mother.

"Oh, yes." Elrond said seriously, then caught Glorfindel's mischievous look. "He sleeps occasionally."

Both warriors began laughing, earning an annoyed look from the proud mother.

"It is perfectly normal for a little one to talk so!" Celebrian said indignantly. "He is a bright little boy."

Elrond grinned, "Just like his father."

"Just like his mother." Celebrian said firmly, stroking the downy soft hair. "They must have inherited something from me, after all."

"Aye, Elrond." Glorfindel whispered wickedly. "They must have inherited something from the admirable Lord Celeborn too."

Elrond scowled at his friend. Most of the time he tried to ignore all thoughts of his sons' grandparents.

"They are the most perfect little boys I have ever seen." Celebrian said happily, lifting a wriggling Elladan back down onto the rug where he promptly struggled onto all fours and began crawling across the soft surface. "Do you not think so, Glorfindel?"

Caught in the gazes of two extremely proud and fiercely protective parents, there was not much doubt in Glorfindel's mind over what he should say. Not that he did not have to speak the truth. He shared the view with the majority of the inhabitants of Imladris, that the twins were the most wonderful baby elflings that had yet been seen in the valley.

"They take after their parents." Glorfindel's voice bubbled with amusement, and he picked a long stem of grass to chew on. "Although whether that is for good or bad, not even the wisest could tell."

Celebrian huffed and stuck her tongue out at the blond elf, and Elrond made a friendly swipe at the golden head.

"I fear that the Balrog may have fried your brains, my friend."

Glorfindel rolled his eyes and grinned, leaning back as he yawned and stretched in the warm sun.

"Da." He said lazily, screwing his eyes up in the sunlight and squinting at Elrond. Then he looked towards one little elfling and raised his voice. "Elrohir, where's your Ada?"

Elrohir paused in his banging together of sticks to smile broadly and wave at his father, "Da! Da!"

"And where is Ammë?"

Elrohir gurgled, and tugged at the embroidered border of his mother's dress. "Am !"

"Aye, you were right, Peredhil." Glorfindel said provocatively. "That boy has truly inherited his intellect from you."

Elrond ignored him momentarily to watch Elladan in his rather speedy progress towards the rosebushes with their apparently tasty looking blooms, but the baby paused to inspect a snail, and he returned his attention to his friend.

"I would not have thought it possible, Glor, but he appears to have inherited his incessant chatter from you."

"Me?" Glorfindel pretended to be astounded. "Me? Am I not a constant source of wisdom, anecdotes. . ."

"And senseless drivel?" Elrond teased. "Constant describes it admir. . ."

Elrond broke off mid sentence to rescue Elladan before he managed he crawl into the thorns, and removed several bright red petals from the child's mouth before returning to his seat and settling the tiny elfling in his lap.

"But you do not have much to say do you?" Elrond smiled to himself as looked down into Elladan's little round face. "Not much to say at all."

He lifted the little boy up above his head and pulled up the tiny cream tunic to blow raspberries on the child's stomach. Elladan giggled, jiggling up and down in his father's hands. He was not yet speaking and babbling as his brother did, instead preferring to make his feelings known by squeaks and wriggling.

"So you are the quiet one?" Glorfindel tickled the tiny chin with a large finger.

Elrond smiled and put his eldest son back down in his lap. "Not quite."

Elladan may not be speaking, but he could still fill the house with angry yells when the need arose.

Elladan looked at his father questioningly, his mouth open.

"I know, little one." Glorfindel bent to look the baby in the face. "That was most unfair."

Elrond chuckled, and his laughing only got louder as his son made a grab at some sparkling thing dangling around Glorfindel's neck, nearly choking the blond elf as he pulled at the pendant.

"No." Glorfindel prised the trinket free from the clenched fist and tucked it safely back inside the neck of his shirt. "No."

Elladan's lip began to wobble, but then he made a fresh grab at Glorfindel's hair, and was soon happily tangling the braids and chewing on the leather strips that were used to fasten their ends.

"I shall just get a drink for the boys." Celebrian stood up at last and settled Elrohir onto her hip.

It was a sunny day, and when little elflings were doing as much crawling, giggling and tasting as the twins were apt to pack into a morning, they soon got thirsty. Once Elrohir began whimpering it was a warning to be prepared, for once Elladan realised that anything was wanting he lost no time in informing the entire valley of his troubles.

Elrond nodded, and grabbed Elladan around the waist to prevent him tumbling over the edge of the flowerbed and falling to the ground.

"Do not worry, we shall look after this one."

Celebrian looked doubtful for a moment, wondering if she could trust the leaders of Imladris with her precious little boy, but he was happy and would not get tired of chewing Glorfindel's fingers any time soon.

"Keep both eyes on him." Celebrian warned. Elladan was a handful at the best of times, and once Glorfindel and Elrond got talking, she had doubts about how closely Elladan would be watched. She had once returned to the sitting room to find Elrond absorbed in a book, Elrohir chewing on a quill and Elladan bawling loudly with his head firmly stuck in the railings of the terrace.

"I shall." Elrond blew her a kiss and transferred Elladan to his own lap. Glorfindel was beginning to show signs of grumpiness at the amount of tugging and mauling his hair was subjected to, and he needed rescuing from time to time. Luckily, instead of protesting at this change, Elladan seemed to find the embroidered leaves on the neck of his father's shirt equally absorbing and considerably more appetising than Glorfindel's hair.

"Ah," Glorfindel grinned, "He seems to have inherited your taste in clothes at least, Peredhil!"

Elrond laughed in spite of himself, then set to removing damp fabric from the baby's mouth.

"No Elladan, that is not good to eat."

Elladan reluctantly spat out his mouthful of silk, but still clung to his father's clothing, neck craning round as he looked around the garden. Eventually he looked up at his father, mouth slightly open with an unmistakable expression of anxiety.

"What is it?" Elrond asked gently, adjusting his son to what he hoped would be a more comfortable position, but the child's expression did not change. "What is wrong?"

Elladan made a small plaintive whine and pointed at the blanket.

"You want to go down? Down?" Elrond carried the child over to the rug and gently placed him down.

Looking cross now, Elladan bounced up and down, and held out his arms to be picked up. Sighing and rolling his eyes at Glorfindel, Elrond obliged.

"What is the matter, Elladan?" Elrond sat down again and inspected the soft skin of his son's arms and legs for any stings, cuts or bites.

Elladan whimpered and pointed again at the rug.

"Has he left his toys there?" Elrond asked Glorfindel with a tired expression.

The blond elf obligingly got up and poked around on the rug and in the grass with the toe of his boot. He soon returned holding a soft red ball made of fluffy wool.

"Only this?" He held the ball out to the miserable little boy. Elladan took it, and the two elf-lords exchanged triumphant looks, only to have them disappear as Elladan flung the ball away with all his strength.

"Not the ball then." Elrond observed. Judging by his expression Elladan was getting upset, which meant that he was getting ready to start screaming. He stroked the child's back soothingly. "There, there. Ada's here."

Elladan's forehead crinkled up and he looked down at the ground broodingly. Clenching his fists determinedly he opened and shut his mouth a few times.

"'Ro." He said firmly, then beaming with joy at his achievement repeated himself several times, bouncing up and down on his father's knee. "'Ro. 'Ro. 'Ro!"

Each repetition grew in volume until Elrond no longer had to worry that his wife would miss out on her son's first word.

"'Ro is with Ammë." Elrond said, beaming proudly at his son. "He will come back soon."

Elladan quietened and looked thoughtful for a moment before bouncing harder and yelling, "'Ro! 'Ro!"

Elrond gave Glorfindel a proud and delighted grin, nodding down at his son with a satisfied expression.

Glorfindel chuckled and slapped the proud father on the shoulder.

"It would appear that I spoke too soon."