“Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I have already answered that.”

“Please?”

“I do not recall it being in my job description.”

“Do you still want to continue having a job?”

Erestor slowly looked up at the grown peredhel standing on the other side of the desk, grinning hopefully at him. Of course, Elrond was teasing – firing Erestor would be the absolute worst decision the elf-lord could make. “Let me think on it.” Erestor set his quill down and folded his hands. He twisted his face into a contemplative look and then said:

“No.”

“Erestor, please!” Elrond glanced around, then lowered his voice in case someone in the hallway would happen to hear. “Erestor, it is only a few hours.”

“...of my sanity-“

“Celebrian is throwing a royal fit. She has been unable to get a thing done these last few days. Besides, he actually likes you for some reason...” trailed off Elrond as Erestor shifted his eyes up from his papers to glare appropriately. “A few hours with a small child – what harm is there in it?”

“This is no ordinary small child!” argued Erestor. “He spills my ink, he pulls my braids, he tears my robes, he calls me weird names, and... and I have work to do,” finished the seneschal pointedly.

Elrond sat down on the edge of Erestor’s desk, and picked up the jar of ink, causing Erestor to let out a sigh of frustration. “One day he is going to recall all of his old memories. How is he going to feel when he realizes that you were so cold to him the second time around?”

Erestor contemplated snatching back the glass bottle instead of answering the question. “This time is different. We are not two children in the same house in Gondolin.”

“Two children, who, from the stories you told me before he returned, ended up as two adults in the same house in Gondolin who were very much in love with one another.” Elrond set the ink back down on the desk. “He really adores you, not knowing the past. Or, perhaps somewhere deep down he does. But, I will tell him you are too busy... I hate to think of how sad he will look when I tell him the news,” continued Elrond as he slowly walked from the desk. “How he gets teary-eyed and his lip trembles and-“

“Do you know how hard it is for me?” Erestor swallowed the lump in his throat as Elrond turned back. “Do you know how much I fear that I may say or do something that makes him not like me in this life?”

“Well, if that is the case, then I would stop turning him away if I were you,” suggested Elrond.

Erestor bowed his head. “It is difficult for me to see him.”

“I know,” nodded Elrond. “But, I think you both need this... and I think the reason he was returned as he was, in a way, was to give both of you time to readjust.”

Erestor shifted in his seat. “I suppose... I could watch him for... an hour or so.”

“Good.” Elrond smiled. “Just a moment; he is just down the hall.” Elrond swiftly went to his office before Erestor would have a chance to change his mind. Upon entering his office, he found Glorfindel perched on the arm of his high back leather chair, swinging his little legs forward and back against the chair, scuffing the side. Elrond tried not to cringe as he approached, but whatever face he did make must have warned the little warrior that something was wrong.

“Eressor does not want to play with me,” he pouted, looking at the ground.

“Oh, no, no, he most certainly does!” announced Elrond, crouching down so that he was eyelevel with Glorfindel. Had he been addressing any of his own children when they were this age, he would have added that they had best stop their pouting, and that he would thank them not to sit on the arm of his chair ever again. But, this was Glorfindel – and ever since Mithrandir had showed up on the doorstep with the cooing bundle direct from Valinor, Elrond found he had a difficult time scolding the young one. True he was a child – but he HAD been, and still technically was, a balrog slayer. Something about that made Elrond pat Glorfindel on the head and say, “Shall we go and see Master Erestor?”

Nodding hopefully, Glorfindel hopped down and took hold of Elrond’s hand, and together they walked back down the hallway to Erestor’s study. Already, the advisor had begun to clear things away from his desktop, where several jars of fingerpaints that he kept in his desk for such occasions were now sitting. He was currently trying to cap the jars of ink while holding out a drying document with one hand and shuffling through a stack of papers with the other.

“I can help!” offered Glorfindel, immediately seeing the solution. Before he could be stopped, he ran to the desk and reached for the jar. Unfortunately, Erestor did not have the reflexes to move out of the way in time, and as they both knocked their hands into the jar, it toppled over and spilled across the desk. Gritting his teeth apologetically, Glorfindel stepped back, lost his balance, caught his foot on the hem of Erestor’s robe and ripped it just before reaching out to steady himself using one of Erestor’s long, dark braids for balance.

As Erestor ended up on the floor in a heap, drops of black ink dripping down onto his (thankfully) black robes, Glorfindel frowned deeply and whispered, “I’m sorry, Eressor, I always mess things up.”

The young elf turned to make a hasty retreat, but Erestor managed to capture him before he could. “No, you do not. I am just as much of a clumsy, bumbly elf as you are.”

Glorfindel shook his head, golden curls bouncing back and forth. “I messed up your desk. I should go sit in the corner.”

Elrond could not help but smirk from the doorway as Erestor shook his head and lead Glorfindel back to the desk, lifting him up onto his lap, and tickling him until he giggled.

“It matters very little that you made the desk messy,” replied Erestor, sopping up the ink with his sleeve (considering, it wasn’t as if it would stain his robes), “for I had plans we would make the desk messy anyhow.” He took a large sheet of paper, and placed it over the desk. What little ink was left bleed into the page as another was placed atop of that. “Look – we have orange and violet now,” remarked Erestor as he pried the lids from the jars. Glorfindel scrambled up onto the top of the desk, for it was where he preferred to sit while finger painting.

Elrond gave a little wave to Erestor from the doorway before heading down the hall to his office again. Every now and then through the afternoon, he heard the laughter and giggles from his seneschal’s office, and knew that someday, everything would be right again.