"All three of us on the gift and invitation committee – how great is that?" Orophin dropped down onto the couch between his brothers. "Look at what a wonderful job the two of you have ahead of you! Not only will you get to plan a most important part of the ceremony, but you will have the opportunity to work with marvelous, magnificent... me.”
The elves on either side of Orophin rolled their eyes. Upon trying to get up, they were both forced to sit back down, as Orophin placed a hand on the shoulder of each of them and pushed them into the couch again. “Truly, I know not how you are able to bask in such magnificence. Equal only to my own wife, I am practically unworthy of your glances. But, please, tis the season of sharing, look upon me as you will.” He spread his arms out, one at either side and up a little. “I am... magnificent.”
“You are... incredible, that I’ll give you,” said Haldir, successfully escaping. Orophin was leaning on Rumil, his arms firmly around him in a bear hug now. “So, what are we going to do for the gifts?”
“Shouldn’t we have another person in our group?” asked Orophin. “Shouldn’t we wait for them?”
“Uhm...” Haldir sheepishly regarded his brothers. “Ah, we do... but, um, I have a feeling he may be a little, er, lost…”
“Huh?” Rumil questioned, but Orophin was grinning.
“Legolas pulled our group, too, didn’t he, and you told him the wrong place to meet so that we could plot without him, and make a few executive decisions without his arguing things,” guessed Orophin.
“That’s, yes, well, fairly accurate,” admitted Haldir.
“Great!” Orophin leaped off of the couch. “Huddle!” He ran to the center of the room with his back bent and shoulders hunched. “Come on, come on, no time to waste!” he scolded, motioning them into the circle. Reluctantly, Haldir and then Rumil joined him, the three of them huddled together. “Alright. Last year, those little popcorn ball snowmen that nana made were absolute rubbish.”
“I fed mine to the goats,” Rumil revealed, shrugging his shoulders.
Haldir snorted, but when pressed, he nodded. “They were vile. I think she made them a month ahead.”
“I think she made them out of wood shavings, but enough on that. We need something really, really, really great this year as the little gifts for everyone’s stocking,” he said, nodding to the various colored and sized boot-shaped items that hung over the fireplace and around the room. “We need something that screams ‘we kick nana’s butt’.”
“Maybe just something that screams, ‘this is wonderful’,” suggested Rumil.
Orophin shrugged. “One elf’s nana-butt-kicker is another elf’s wonderful. What I mean is, it can’t be suckyass.”
“So, no popcorn balls,” assumed Haldir.
“Goodness, no! What are we, first age elves? That is just SOOO Beleriand,” complained Orophin. “What we need is chocolate.”
“Finally! That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said,” announced Rumil.
“Had to happen sometime. Now, what to do?” asked Orophin.
Haldir raised one hand slightly. “We should have taffy, too. Those little peppermint taffies that Beineilien makes.”
“Does anyone know how she makes them?” Orophin frown when neither brother answered. “We should ask her if she can make some for us.” He gave Rumil a look, and nodded towards the kitchen.
“What, me?” Rumil huffed and dropped out of the huddle. “Why should I ask?”
“She’s your daughter-in-law. Now, go go go,” shooed Orophin quickly, rushing Rumil out the door.
Rumil sighed and walked out of the parlor, entering the kitchen just a few steps away. Beineilien, Glorfindel, and Samwise were all busily making cookies and mixing dough while Erestor seemed to have been confined well away from the table and ovens and was hunched over the counter, either doing something that required no cooking skills, or just doing something to keep him busy and out of the way. Smiling at the group as he entered, Rumil asked, “Beinie, could I trouble you for a favor?”
“Of course!” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “What do you need?”
Although he was speaking to Beineilien, Rumil couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of the frilly pink apron Glorfindel was wearing. “I... I… I, uh, I was wondering if you would be able to make a batch or two of peppermint taffies, for the yule celebration. We thought they would be nice to have in the stockings.”
“I can make you as many batches as you like,” she told him. “Do you know, my father was the one who taught me how to make them. They are actually part of a Southron yuletide tradition.”
“Are they really?” Rumil’s eyes still did not stray from the pink frills. Glorfindel appeared not to notice.
Beinie nodded. “In the South of Middle-earth, they have big, hollow toy animals they make of paper pulps and glue on a frame of twigs. When the animals dry, they fill them with small treats, hang them from a tree, and let children try to hit them with a stick when they are blindfolded. It is great fun to watch, and the candy rains down when the animal is broken open.”
“Really? How interesting.”
“My father called it a piņata,” she said. “Es is muy fantastico- if you decide you would like to have one for the celebration, I could show you how to make one. There are other candies I can make for it, too. Caramels and sugar candies- and sometimes there would be toys in them, too, but I suppose we are all a little too old for that, except for Elladan’s son maybe. Oh, but he will love it! And everyone else, too. If you decide to, that is.”
Rumil nodded, finally tearing his eyes from Glorfindel to look at Beinie. “Thank you. Perhaps we will.” He was about to leave when he noted a tray of odd shaped cookies. “What are those?” he asked.
“Headless reindeer,” replied Glorfindel without batting an eye. Rumil looked around, trying to get more information from the others, but neither Sam or Beinie said anything more, and Erestor it seemed, was blushing. Rumil thanked Beinie again, and then left the room to inform his brothers of Beineilien’s offer, including the information on the piņata.
“I like it,” declared Orophin. “Do it.”
“That settles that part, then,” said Haldir, but he was interrupted by Orophin.
“I said do it. Pinata, now, chop chop, Rumil.” Orophin clapped his hands together and awaited as if the piņata would materialize before him. “Rumil, I haven’t got all day.”
Shaking his head, Haldir tugged Rumil off to the other side of the room. “So, what will be put in this piņata?”
“Beinie said she can make taffy, caramels, and sugar candy. Is there anything else you can think of?” asked Rumil.
“Mushrooms,” announced Orophin.
“What? No, Oro, be quiet. You’ve run out of good ideas, don’t bother us with the silly ones,” scolded Haldir.
“Musssshhhrooooooms,” Orophin said again, and then added, “The hobbits... will love them. And us for putting them in the piņatas. We will be...loved,” he said, wiping away an imaginary tear.
Rumil crossed his arms over his chest. “She said candy and toys. No mushrooms.”
“Mushrooms are candy to some. And, they could be toys,” decided Orophin. “Score on both points.”
“Oro, just because you play with your food doesn’t mean everyone does,” Haldir said, and was met with a waggling tongue. “We are not using mushrooms.”
“Mushrooms,” announced Orophin again.
“No mushrooms,” Haldir firmly replied.
“Rumil, go ask her if we can use mushrooms,” Orophin directed.
“Me? Why me? You go ask, you want to use them,” reasoned Rumil.
With a shake of his head, Orophin told Rumil, “You must go. I must stay here and...hypnotize Haldir to agree with me.” Immediately, Orophin took up an intense pose before Haldir, who looked anything but hypnotized. “Go, now, Rumil, before I have him in my power to do my bidding, or else I shall command him to yank your underpants up and cause much discomfort.” Haldir raised one brow, and Orophin shouted, “A-ha! Already he follows the commands I give with my mind!”
Rumil gave an irritated sigh and went back to the kitchen to ask Orophin’s question, which he was very careful to explain was Oro’s and not his. Upon his return, he found Haldir sitting on the couch with his head in his hands and Orophin sitting on the rocker. “Great. What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened at all,” said Orophin. He paused, and then, lifted up his legs so that they were parallel to the floor. “Look! My feet are huge! Huge I say!”
Indeed, Rumil did look. On each of Orophin’s feet was one of the colorful stockings that had been hanging in the room. “Oro, I do not believe you are to wear those.”
“I told him that,” came Haldir’s voice. “But did he listen? No.”
“Of course not!” shouted Orophin, swinging his stocking covered feet back and forth. “Little brothers never do!”
“I do,” spoke Rumil, but he was not heard over Orophin’s, “Fine, fine, I’ll take them off.”
Orophin reached down and grasped the toe and yanked. Frowning, he tilted his head and tugged again. Lifting his foot closer to himself, he observed the stocking carefully, gritting his teeth and he tried to yank again. Both Haldir and Rumil were approaching, and neither of them looked all too happy.
“Now you’ve gone and done it,” Rumil said, shaking his head.
“Try rolling them down,” suggested Haldir. “Perhaps they will come off that way.”
Orophin struggled, first on his own and then with his brothers’ help. A few times it appeared he had nearly gotten it off, but his foot did not quite want to be removed. “Oops,” he said with a chuckle as he wiggled his toes. “Looks like Elrond and Celebdreth are getting a stocking full of foot this Yule.”
Rumil turned to Haldir. “So, is that worse or better than a lump of coal.”
“You’ve smelled his feet,” reminded Haldir. “Tis much, much worse than coal.”
“Smelly feet... the gift that keeps on giving,” Orophin said with a happy sort of sigh.
- - -
“That explains a LOT of things,” declared Legolas. “A LOT of things,” he added, looking to the walls and mantle, where numerous misshapen stockings were hung.
“I understand why mine was mutilated,” announced Elrond, “but why the others?”
Orophin bounced happily in his chair. “I thought, perhaps, if I tried them all on, it would be like that nursery tale, the one where the girl magically has the pumpkin coach and the mice who are the horses and all of that. I had to try them all on.”
“Your logic is... simply astounding,” said Erestor.
Orophin shrugged. “A magnificent genius such as myself does what he can to give the simple folk as yourselves a brief glimpse into my mind.”
“And a brief glimpse is all there is to be had,” said Elrond, not covering his smirk.
Laughing at the joke made on him, Orophin said, “I must compliment you and the other musicians this evening, Elrond. You performed flawlessly.”
“Thank you,” said Elrond, “But it was nearly not the case...”
Yuletide 495 by Zhie