Ereinion was still fast asleep when Cirdan looked in on him the next morning. He had clearly not slept easily, for he was tangled up in the crumpled sheets and his pale cheeks were stained with tears, but he seemed peaceful enough now with his cheek resting on Arassë’s soft fur, and it did not seem fair to disturb him.

Slipping from the room as silently as he had come, Cirdan hurried downstairs and in due course out onto the beach. A long walk would do him good, especially in the peace of the early hours of the morning. It would be a fine day later, for the sky was blue without even a wisp of cloud, but for now the sunlight was pale and cool. The first of the fishing boats had come in from the bay, and the gulls were circling over the harbour, their shrill calls sounding clear over the calm water.

Singing softly to himself, Cirdan strode along the barren shore, stopping here and there to pick up the shaft of an arrow or a rough fragment of iron. He did his best to keep the evidence of the conflict that was upon the elves of Middle-earth from these shores. Even those weapons that had been cleansed by the sea might still bear some trace of poison.

It did not seem apt that this day should seem so fresh and bright, when the shadows on one family’s life were so long and dark. Fingon had yet been young when they had last met – foolhardy and rash, perhaps – but brave and strong. He had wed since then, a Sindarian girl, and by all accounts as coolly determined as her husband. It hardly seemed fair that they should be deprived of so much in what should have been the most joyful years of their marriage. Even in the brightest future, Ereinion would not return home until he was a young elf close to his majority. At the worst, the child would never see his parents again.

He had watched parents with elflings many a time, and it had not taken considered thought to realise that he was not ideally suited for the task of bringing up a child. For a start he did not like children, especially those of the small and wriggly variety. Nor did he like playing with toy boats, helping squealing infants dangle bits of bacon off the quayside, or picking books of few words and many pictures from the library. He had no patience for those that would hop, skip or balance when he wished to hurry, little desire to show sticky little fingers how to reel in a fish or carve a whistle, and a long history of lack of ability at calming tears and tantrums.

And as for caring for such little souls – until last night he had not realised how utterly useless elflings were. He had never been married, never had children – never even had been a child. He did not even know how to help a child with buttons, shoelaces and whatever else small fingers could not manage. The struggles of helping an infant prince grow into a King capable of leading his people against the mightiest of enemies, for the moment would have to be left. Even the everyday matters would present challenge enough.

Sighing, Cirdan looked out across the smooth grey-blue of the sea to the very edge of the horizon. The shipwright had always had an instinct for brewing storms, and bright day although it was, he did not doubt that there would be dark clouds by nightfall.

~*~

Living in the shipwright’s home was, Ereinion decided, a lot like being very small again. Everything needed jumping or scrambling for and he had had to drag the chair in from the bedroom in order to reach the basin. Even so, the pitcher of warm water that someone had left ready for him was rather too heavy to lift, and instead of pouring it neatly as his nanny had always managed, he had spilt most of it all over himself, the dresser and the floor. Deciding that this was as much washing as anyone needed, especially since the water had long become rather cold, Ereinion had splashed his face and braided his hair before dragging the damp chair back to the shelves where his clothes were kept.

Back at home, he had always thought that being small meant having a pony not a horse like his Adar, going to bed before you wanted to, and wearing tunics and leggings rather than formal gowns. Now he understood that being an elfling was all about pushing chairs around and balancing on tiptoes.

In his room – his old room – back at home, there had been a bed that was the exact right size for an elfling, and a table and chairs that meant that he could sit down and colour in comfortably both at once. His Naneth had once told him, that during the special year when he was growing inside her, his Adar and grandfather had kept disappearing into an old abandoned stable and coming back covered in sawdust and grinning ear to ear. After he had been born they had filled his room with all the things they had made for him, and even then, if he could not reach anything or if something had been just too big there had always been someone to help.

He could remember sitting on his Naneth’s lap and being shown how to pluck the strings on her harp, and his Adar looking on and clapping. Fingolfin had often taken him into the stables and let him feed apples to Rochallor, his great horse, and if he was especially good he had sometimes been allowed to sit in the saddle if he held on tightly to Rochallor’s mane. On one very special begetting day, his grandfather had even sat up there with him and let him hold the reins as they had ridden a little way through the forests.

Even when he really had been too little to do something, they had found a way. Once, when he had wanted to ride a horse so badly, even though he had not even been so very good at running around himself yet, his father had got down onto his hands and knees and crawled around the palace hallway neighing loudly whenever his son had kicked his feet against his ribs. Privately Ereinion had thought that Fingolfin might have made a better pony, for his hair was rather longer and more mane like, but there had been other people there. When there were other people there his grandfather had always pretended to be a proper King rather than someone’s grandfather.

But now his Adar was the High King, and he had been sent away to stay with someone who liked turnip. And despite his best efforts to ignore it, a little voice in Ereinion’s mind kept whispering that perhaps Adar had decided that it was easier to be High King without an elfling around.

~*~

Ereinion padded through the hallway a little nervously. Thatharien had told him to hurry downstairs and that breakfast was on the table, but although he knew that it would be getting cold he did not feel like being quick. It was difficult to feel welcome when you could not even remember which stairs to go down, or where the dining room was.

The house was cool this morning, and since someone had taken away his boots for cleaning whilst he had been sleeping, he could feel the wooden floorboards cold through his socks. The door that they had used yesterday to come in from the beach was open, letting in a cold salty draft, and a pretty young maiden was outside pegging clothes from a basket onto a long bit of string between two trees. It was not too windy out there, but the blanket of marram grass that covered the dunes was rippling as if it wanted to be the sea too, and before long Ereinion began to feel quite chill.

“Run along with you!” The maiden turned, and on seeing Ereinion standing in the doorway raised her voice. “You cannot play without a good breakfast inside you.”

The maiden had a funny accent, and her voice was gently chiding, but Ereinion decided that he liked her so smiled widely before scampering off to find his breakfast. Maybe later he would go exploring. There had been a tree behind the washing line that had looked just right for climbing.

~*~ “Good morning, Lord Cirdan.” Ereinion said dutifully, the rhythm to his words suggesting that it had been rehearsed in his mind far too many times, then in response to a raised eyebrow corrected himself. “Good morning, Cirdan.”

It had not taken long to find the dining room once he had retraced his steps, and before long he had been hovering in the doorway. The shipwright had been sitting at the breakfast table, shuffling through a sheaf of papers and occasionally taking a long draught from a thick mug filled with some hot liquid. If had taken Ereinion a while to pluck up the courage to disturb him, but once he had spoken the shipwright had looked up and his expression had not been unkind.

Cirdan grunted a response, but as the child scurried to his place and sat down with an unmistakable air of apprehension, he reluctantly added, “Did you sleep well?”

Ereinion sat down, folded his napkin into a perfect triangle and then a perfect square, and fiddled with his spoon.

“Yes thank you, Lord Cir...”

“Cirdan.” The silvery brows quirked slightly with either frustration or amusement, Ereinion could not tell.

“Yes thank you, Cirdan.” Ereinion squirmed in his seat, eyeing the bowls and dishes on the table greedily. There was a bowl of bread rolls, and a pat of creamy butter, and sitting in the middle of the table, smelling so good that he could barely sit still was a big dish of hot buttery scrambled egg. There was milk as well, but it was warm, so Ereinion carefully set it aside. Only babies liked their milk warm.

“Very good.” Cirdan glanced at the child and almost smiled as he saw the edge of a pink tongue just brush along the child’s lips.

It would have been polite to enquire as to the pleasantness of the shipwright’s dreams, and Ereinion truly meant too, but by the time the words had come out of his mouth they sounded more like, “Can I have some eggs?”

Cirdan frowned, outwardly annoyed, but secretly relieved that for this morning at least the child intended to eat.

“Please. After you. May I.” Ereinion gabbled, not taking his eyes from the dish. He knew that he was being rude, and probably would be scolded, but he was so very hungry. He was sure that he could eat eggs at least as fast as Cirdan too, so nobody could take his second helpings this time.

The shipwright grunted, but at long last did pick up the two large silver serving spoons and excruciatingly slowly dished up a bowl of eggs from himself before eventually turning to Ereinion.

“Here,” Ereinion stopped jiggling and nudging his bowl and thrust it across the table. Then, in case the shipwright had missed out on this important fact added solemnly, “I am very hungry, Cirdan.”

“Aye,” Cirdan dished out as large a portion as he thought the child would manage, and then at Ereinion’s disappointed look added an extra spoonful or two.

“Thank you!” Ereinion gifted Cirdan with a large smile and reached eagerly for the bowl, doing his best not to grab. Even the Falathrim could not manage to put bones in their eggs, and it had been so long since he had had something so hot and tasty to eat. His spoon was difficult to balance and a little large to fit into his mouth comfortably, but that did little to stop him shovelling down his breakfast as fast as he could manage. There had sometimes been eggs at home of course, but they had never tasted as delicious as this.

Rather bemused by his young guest’s sudden transformation from picky eater to starving waif, Cirdan buttered himself a bread roll and nudged a hand towards a large wooden bowl filled with warm freshly baked bread.

“If you are still hungry...”

“Oooh,” looking up at long last from his eggs, Ereinion eyed the bread and turned large eyes on Cirdan, “Can I have two?”

“Aye,” Cirdan agreed, equally solemnly.

But as Ereinion reached across the table to the plate of bread rolls his arm caught on his glass of milk, and before the young prince could even stop breathing it had toppled over, sending a deluge of warm milk over the tabletop. As Ereinion watched, his eyes growing wider and wider, milk poured over the edge of the table, dripping into a puddle in Cirdan’s lap.

“I...”

Barely daring to meet the shipwright’s eyes, Ereinion suddenly found that all the words that he might have had had dried up into a sour taste. He was beginning to shiver although he was not cold, and he thought his heart might have stopped beating.

Without a word, Cirdan got to his feet, mopped up the milk as best be could with his napkin, and left the room leaving the door to creak shut behind him.

~*~

Now that he thought about it, Ereinion realised that the shipwright’s house was full of echoes and hollow noises. He could hear the shipwright’s footsteps hurrying upstairs, and then after a few endless minutes of breathless quiet the rustle of Thatharien’s apron.

“Ereinion, what...”

The housekeeper had merely meant to clean up the spill before the shipwright could return, but on finding the cause of the trouble deathly pale and shuddering in his seat, Thatharien put down her cloth and hurried to lift the child into her arms.

“Shh,” Thatharien was rocking him up and down in her arms, just as Naneth had done when he had been small and woken up from a nightmare, but it did not make Ereinion feel better as it had done then. “Was Cirdan cross with you?”

Ereinion hiccuped, unsure of what to say. He had not been scolded or punished, but people did not just walk off if they were not angry with you. When his Adar was very angry and frustrated, he would storm off and sit on one of the windy towers and just think. He had said that it was to let him stop being angry before he shouted at someone.

Taking this as an affirmative, Thatharien sent a gaze of steel in the direction of the shipwright’s chamber. “It was but an accident, Ereinion. He had no right...”

As the housekeeper’s chest heaved with a self-righteous huff, Ereinion burst into tears. Now he had told a lie that he had not even meant to tell, and everything was going wrong faster than he could make things better.

~*~

Coming downstairs, once again in dry clothing, Cirdan heard the elfling’s wails and groaned. It was not as if he had even shown any of his displeasure or annoyance to the child, something that had taken quite considerable effort. And if merely the sight of spilt milk was enough to cause tears, the chance of incident free days in the far or near future seemed small to say the least.

Grimacing, the shipwright tentatively peered into his dining room, and providently took a few steps back as Thatharien shot him a look of sheer fury. The young prince was blubbering something indecipherable, and it seemed evident that once again all would end in upset.

“Ereinion,” Seeing no other option other than enduring the inevitable scolding now, in full view of the child, Cirdan swiftly moved to Thatharien’s side and awkwardly let the palm of his hand rest against Ereinion’s back. On contact, the child had managed to turn into a very small elf indeed, so small in fact that the shipwright could not help but wonder if it were possible to curl up so tightly without creasing. “I am not angry, child.”

Ereinion looked up from a moment, blinking his damp lashes rapidly before breaking into a fresh stream of tears. Tutting loudly, Thatharien stroked the prince’s hair.

“He is upset.”

Her tone left no doubt in Cirdan’s mind that this was to be attributed to him.

“He has no cause to be,” Cirdan said solidly, then turned back to the boy. “Come, let us finish our breakfast.”

Ereinion did not feel too sure about this, but it had sounded more like an order than a request, so he unhooked his arms from around Thatharien’s neck and grappled for a handhold on the shipwright’s shoulder instead.

A little taken aback at suddenly finding himself with an armful of tearful elfling, Cirdan gave Thatharien an uncertain smile and made his way back to the breakfast table. He had never soothed a child before, and now that the housekeeper had left with a last warning glare, he was entirely alone.

“There is no reason to cry,” to Cirdan’s frustration his words sounded more pleading than he would have liked, and when he tried to mimic the housekeeper by stroking the child’s hair his work-roughened fingers became entangled in the black strands. “No harm was done.”

The prince made a brave effort at reducing his tears into hiccups. Although the shipwright obviously meant to be nice, he was pulling too hard at his hair and making knots and it hurt. “I did not mean to.”

“I know you did not.” Cirdan’s brow furrowed at the child’s woebegone voice. “It was an accident.”

Ereinion nodded earnestly then asked in a worried little voice, “Are you not cross with me?”

“No...” Cirdan paused, inwardly cursing his complete lack of ability in translating his words into something comprehensible for a small and frightened child. “No matter what happens, if you did not mean to do it, and it can been cleaned or mended, then I will have no cause to be angry with you.”

~*~