“Elladan? Would you and Elrohir like to make your presentation now?” Erestor tried not to smirk as he wondered exactly what the elflings would say.
Nodding in tandem, the twins hopped out of their seats and walked in step to the front of the room. Around the edges of the hall, which was the temporary classroom for the day, sat various proud parents and other members of the household who came to see the first year students give their very first oral reports.
Both brothers stepped up onto the stage from the left while the butcher’s daughter carefully stepped down on the right side. There were only two steps, but it still seemed a bit frightening to most of the students, despite the fact that they had run through the order three or four times earlier in the week. Erestor motioned that they should begin whenever they were ready now that the pair was side by side at the center of the stage.
“Good afternoon, family and friends,” began Elladan. Elrohir leaned over and whispered something, and Elladan added, “And classmates.” Another whisper and Elladan hissed back, “I can not say that, he’s the teacher!”
Erestor narrowed his eyes as Elrohir put a sweet look on his face and continued with, “Today, we would like to tell you about our Ada. Our Ada has a very important job.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Erestor settled back in his chair. Many of the other children had decided on the theme of one or the other of their parents and what they did; others chose to talk about a favorite pet or game. For some time, Erestor had been worrying about what the twins would decide to say, but it appeared – for the moment – that things were going well.
“Our Ada is in charge of the valley. He is a elf-lord. An Elf-lord,” Elladan corrected himself. “And our Nana is an Elf-princess. Which should make our Ada a prince, but it does not.”
“Actually, our Nana’s name means queen, but our bigger Nana’s actually a queen, but not really, so Nana has to be the princess. Besides, Ada’s not a king, so that would not work,” explained Elrohir.
Off to the side of the stage, Erestor suppressed a groan and covered his hand over his eyes, peeking out between his fingers to look past the rows of students sitting in chairs at the center to where the lord of the valley sat.
Grinning.
“It gets confusing,” Elladan admitted, “because if you have not noticed, we have another Elf-lord here.”
“Except he is not as big as our Ada,” Elrohir said, “just taller and wider.”
Even Glorfindel laughed at the description that was given of him. Erestor kept his smirk in check; logically, after discussing their parents and moving to Glorfindel, then tended to get to-
“The thing is,” Elladan said rather seriously, “even though Ada is in charge and owns the place-“
“He always says ‘This is my house’”, Elrohir interrupted, doing a fairly good imitation of his father, eyebrow of doom included, “ ‘And these are my rules. And if you do not like my rules, then someday you can build your own house, but until then, I am the one in charge’.”
Lady Celebrian snorted during a poor attempt to cover her mouth as she leaned over the side of her chair, away from her laughing husband.
“Even though Ada is in charge,” began Elladan again, “and owns the place, the person who makes sure everything stays in order is Master Erestor.”
“Erestor will not even let you move books different than how he puts them,” said Elrohir seriously. “Even though there are spaces on the shelf for more of them, he puts them in funny order instead of pushing them all together. If I were in the library, I would just squish them all onto shelves, and then we would have more shelves for more books.”
“He knows all the rules,” added Elladan. “Even the ones that get us in trouble.”
To this, Erestor could not help but chuckle. Elladan and Elrohir glanced at each other, trying to determine why everyone in the room was laughing at their presentation. Deciding it might be a good idea to end it now with everyone happy, Elladan said, “When we grow up, we think we might want to be like our Ada. Then, we would have someone to do all of our work-“
“Like Erestor,” piped up Elrohir, in case no one was aware of whom they were referring to.
“-and someone to make sure no one attacks our house that we built-“
“Like Glorfindel.”
“-and we would have the prettiest ladies in all of Arda as our wives.”
“Like Nana. Except, Nana is the prettiest lady in all of Arda, so we would have almost the prettiest ladies in all of Arda.”
The twins bowed just before stepping off of the stage. Daring to look across the room, Erestor found that now it was Elrond who was narrowing his eyes in the direction of the twins, but beside him, Celebrian was watching her children dotingly as they sat back down on their chairs, and then turned and blew kisses at their parents.
