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[wishmadeinfire]

You know... it suddenly struck me this afternoon that in exactly one week, I will be a year closer to my three hundredth birthday. Three whole centuries, even if I am not quite there yet. Just over twenty years left to go...  

It also struck me that, being here, I might actually live to see it. 

[And with that wistful little moment, he goes back to sitting in the gardens at a small little table with four chairs, sipping his tea in the evening warmth with some little sweets before him, watching some fireflies dance for the last time before it becomes to cold.]

Comments

[inafadingcrown]

Perhaps it is a hazard of having kings for fathers.

[wishmadeinfire]

Haha, probably something like that. Always having to keep up appearances.

[inafadingcrown]

And well-schooled in sternness.

[wishmadeinfire]

Oh quiet.

_{[He paused, swirling his tea a bit.]}

I miss him. We had this little night time ritual, before we went to battle. He did it every night with me, without fail, no matter what. He once left a war meeting to do it.

[inafadingcrown]

And what was that, if it is not too bold to ask?

[wishmadeinfire]

He would come in to my bed chamber, and we would recite the warrior's oath of my people together. Then we would say a blessing - a small, tiny one, simple, you know - for each other, and he would sit with me for just a bit before leaving.

[inafadingcrown]

He sounds a good man.

[wishmadeinfire]

He was, to me and my mother. I near threatened to slice off the balls of several lords that might have said different.

[inafadingcrown]

[A startled little laugh] I will not say that there was no discord in my father's court, but the majority of it involved his brothers. I would have been soundly punished had I made any such threats.

[wishmadeinfire]

Well, many of my threats came after his death and since I was king, one really could not punish me.

[inafadingcrown]

Oh, I see. You were crowned quite young, were you not? I seem to recall you saying something of the sort.

[wishmadeinfire]

Yes. When I was sixteen, which was little more than a child to my world's way of thinking.

[inafadingcrown]

And also to mine. A throne is not an easy place to come of age.

[wishmadeinfire]

No, it is not, but it was necessary. At least I was spared the field for a time.

[inafadingcrown]

It is a small blessing, but a blessing nonetheless, I suppose.

[wishmadeinfire]

_{[He nodded, going quiet, sipping his tea slowly.]}

I buried my mother, not long after. She loved my father so. It is like two love birds. Without the other, the one left behind just withers...

[inafadingcrown]

[She falls silent herself, looking down at her wedding band. "The one left behind..." The words sting, thinking about her own desire to leave Middle-Earth and the partings, both temporary and permanent, that it will entail.]

Must it always be so, I wonder? [Elrond has done well enough without Celebrían. He has been lonely, of course. But he has endured. And they will be reunited someday. So she has hope.]

[wishmadeinfire]

No, perhaps not.

<sub>[Though, sometimes he had to wonder if he to was withering, being parted from Yasha, though not so permanently as his mother from his father. Was that a driving force behind his need to end it? All of it?

He shook his head, taking a sweet and munching.]</sub>

Here I have turned the day dour. My apologies, Galadriel.

[inafadingcrown]

[She shakes her head.] The fault is not your own; my thoughts turn melancholy too readily.

[wishmadeinfire]

What reason have you to be melancholy? Is not your husband here?

_{[He smiled mischievously.]}

[inafadingcrown]

[Ashura! jlkagja You are going to make her blush. But it does manage to bring a smile back to her face.]

Mayhaps it does not yet seem real.

[wishmadeinfire]

_{[He would call it a rare victory.]}

Well, I think it is safe to assume you are enjoying time with him?

[wishmadeinfire]

No, and... not without a role model. My father had taught me what he could at that point, but I had to learn quickly and on my own.

[inafadingcrown]

A trial by fire in more sense than one.

[wishmadeinfire]

My entire early childhood was a trial by fire for half the palace.