“And then she kissed me,” Thranduil explained excitedly.
Celeborn bit into his slice of beef, held firmly between two thick slices of fresh bread. “And then what?” he mumbled with his mouth full.
Thranduil rolled his eyes. “Well, then we went to have dinner and we sat and father sang, but that is not the point!”
Shrugging, Celeborn continued to eat. “So? You kiss lots of girls.”
Thranduil shook Celeborn’s shoulder. “That is not the point! SHE kissed ME! She didn’t pout, or stomp off, or turn into a rabid stalker,” he said, shuddering at the thought of a previous incident. “She kissed me. And then we had dinner, and pleasant conversation- well, she didn’t converse, but she did smile at me. More than once!” Thranduil was beaming and his leg was fidgeting a little from his excitement. Celeborn pushed him away.
“Stop that, you’re going to cause me to make a mess.”
Thranduil looked down at the spots of gravy that had already landed on his friend’s pants. “No need for help from me,” he decided.
“So what if she kissed you?” Celeborn chomped away despite the fact the gravy was dripping from the bottom of his sandwich. “Sooner or later, one of them had to kiss you back.”
“She might be the one,” Thranduil said, nudging Celeborn, which only made the mess worse as the younger missed his mouth and splotched a gravy trail across his cheek. “She could be, you know, the other half of my soul.”
“Oh. That.” Celeborn snickered as he wiped his face with his sleeve. “You do not really believe in that, do you?”
Straightening up, Thranduil answered, “Of course I do! How can you not believe it?”
“I just do not think it is always accurate,” answered Celeborn, shoving the rest of his meal into his mouth. “That whole ‘oh, you feel like you are flying’ and all that. Rubbish,” he said, though it sounded more like ‘Russhish’ with his mouth full.
“Rubbish, is it? Well, I certainly think it could be true. Just because you have never experienced it-“
“Oh, I have. I did, once,” said Celeborn, licking his fingers clean. “And that is why I do not think it is true.”
“Oh?”
“Well, she was so OLD,” Celeborn continued, sucking the gravy from his thumb. “So, obviously, it was not true.”
Thranduil narrowed his eyes. “You do not believe it to be true, or you do not want to believe it to be true?”
“Same thing,” replied Celeborn.
“It is not the same thing,” Thranduil argued. “Most definitely not.” For a few moments they sat in silence. “So, who is she?”
“Hmm? Who?”
“You know.” Thranduil leaned toward Celeborn. “The one who made you feel ‘oh, like you were flying’.”
“Oh. I do not know.”
“You do not know?” Thranduil crossed his arms and stared at his cousin. “You do not know? How can you not know?”
Celeborn shrugged. “I was very young at the time.”
“And still are,” Thranduil reminded him. “What was her name?”
Celeborn shrugged again. “I do not know. I called her Alatariel, but I do not think that is really what her name is.”
Thranduil contemplated this as Celeborn swung his legs back and forth and watched some stray crickets hop around the corridor. Avisiel, tired by all of the excitement, was still asleep. Not wanting to wake her, but not wanting to be cooped inside, Thranduil had intercepted young Celeborn on his way to somewhere or another and convinced him to eat his lunch on the stoop that led into Oropher’s home. Thranduil had instructions to bring Avisiel to Erestor’s study, but hadn’t been given direction further than that.
“I know I have heard that name before,” muttered Thranduil.
“I am bored,” announced Celeborn. “Do you know where Finduilas is?”
“No. This elleth whose name you do not know, does she live here in Doriath?”
“I do not know,” shrugged Celeborn. “I met her in Valinor.”
“In Valinor...”
“Not too many years ago, a few dozen perhaps.”
“A few dozen...”
“She had really, really long silver and gold hair, and there this cheerful elf with her. I think his hair was even longer than hers, but after a while I did not see him with her.”
Thranduil cringed back with realization. “Oh... no...” He looked at Celeborn with wide eyes. “Not... her...”
“What?”
“Did she have a lot of brothers?”
“I do not know, she might have,” answered Celeborn. “Wait, yes, I think she had three or four, she would run races against them.”
“Uhhll...” Thranduil buried his face in his hands. “She is not nice, you know. If it is who I think it is.”
“Who do you think it is?”
“Artanis. Nerwen.”
Celeborn looked confused. “Well, which one is it?”
“Both.” Thranduil shook his head. “Once, when we were younger, she tried to...” Realizing his dignity was at stake, he said, “Well, she did a lot of bad things.”
“She did not seem bad to me,” said Celeborn.
“Oh, she is bad. Very bad,” warned Thranduil. “In fact, I do not think there is a worse elleth anyone could end up with.”
“Does not matter,” responded Celeborn. “It does not really work anyhow, I mean, it can not. She was way too old.”
Thranduil blinked. “She could not have been more than twenty years my elder!”
Celeborn blinked back. “So, you are pretty old then, too.”
Before he could come up with a rebuttal, the door behind them opened and a sleepy-eyed elleth peered out. “Next time, Celeborn, we are going to have a discussion on age and why it is irrelevant,” he said as he stood up and entered the house with Avisiel. He turned around and added, “You should go and ask Erestor about how bad Artanis is.”
