No Home Here

Chapter Fourteen: Engle the She-Bear

After what seemed to be but a moment, Estel found himself awake, still lying underneath a mass of quilts and blankets. The room was getting a bit stuffy, and the young man’s stomach rolled as an overpowering odor of hot herbs flooded his senses.

Trying to determine what had woken him, Estel cracked open one slightly crusty eyelid. Elladan had one knee on the bed and an arm hovering slightly above his youngest brother’s head, poised to gently shake the sick man awake

Estel noticed with a twinge of worry that his elven brother’s face was easily betraying his emotions, and currently there was annoyance and disbelief written all over his face. When he saw that the boy was awake, the elf lowered his hand so that it rested gently on the side of Estel’s head.

“Come tithen gwador, we must be going.” He said with a sigh. The young man was now starting to be seriously concerned that something was amiss.

“Dan, what is wrong?” He asked hesitantly. His older brother gazed at him with a wistful look in his eyes.

“Nothing that could be prevented, Estel.” He said softly. “But now we need to leave this place. You will have to change trousers, but Elrohir has retrieved some from your pack. It took him a while to track down your horse and convince the innkeeper that we were not simply stealing your belongings, but eventually and with the help of the old gatekeeper we were able to bring the bag back and calm poor Sadron down”.

Elladan made a jerking gesture with his thumb towards the floor by the bed, and Estel slowly sat up and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. Elladan was already on the other side of the room, clearing up the jumble of bowls and mugs that littered the hearth and paying no attention to his little brother.

Estel spotted his pack immediately, easily distinguishing it from Elladan’s by the fact that it was much newer and not yet splitting at the seams. Getting up and padding over to where the bag lay, Estel flipped the top up and fished out a new tunic and breeches from the depths of the pack.

Slipping them on, the boy realized that his brother was making far too much noise. Glancing over at where Elladan was throwing things violently into a bag with a frown evident on his fair face, Estel couldn’t stand the uncertainty of the whole situation.

“Dan?” He asked quietly, not trusting that his voice would hold steady if he pushed it too hard after just waking up. The elf looked up immediately, concern flashing across his features, and he stopped clearing up the mess that had been made of the room.

“What is it, Estel, is something the matter?” He asked.

“Ǘ-chenion.” Estel whispered. //I do not understand.// Elladan sighed, shaking his head slowly.

“Iston.” //I know// He murmured. “Avo ‘osto, Estel.” //Do not worry, Estel.// The young man, however, would not let the subject go as easily as that.

“Why are we leaving so soon?” He asked uncertainly. “Have I done something wrong?” At this Elladan caught his lower lip between his teeth and chewed it absently.

“Well…” He paused, as if torn between telling his brother what he knew or shielding him from the information. Estel hurriedly sent his elven brother as stun of a look as he could manage, imploring the older being to tell him exactly what was going on and how.

Elladan sighed, but seeing the young man’s face knew that he wouldn’t cooperate with anyone or anything until he was filled in on the details of the situation.

“We have been asked to leave…” He said, letting his voice trail off. Seeing that Estel obviously didn’t understand, the oldest of Elrond’s sons sat on the far end of the bed from where Estel stood. His youngest brother did the same, and the two faced each other.

“Estel, you weren’t with the two edain boys any time today, were you?” At this Estel froze, eyes wide and jaw clenched tightly shut. This was immediately picked up on by Elladan, and the young man watched as his brother’s face paled.

“Sweet Eru Estel! Surely you didn’t actually do it! Elrohir and I were so firm in insisting that you had been nowhere near those twins that we were harsh with the housekeeper’s wife! And now it turns out that you did do the deed? Ai! So much for the honor of the sons of Elrond!”

With this outburst the elf threw up his hands and jumped off the bed, storming into the adjacent room. Estel could hear him shouting something at his twin, who yelled something indistinguishable back.

With a racing heart the boy tried to think of what he could have done that would upset Engle so much that she would ask the brothers to leave. All that his fuzzy mind could remember was his confiscating the knives from the boys, and then slicing his foot open.

With that he suddenly remembered his foot, and it seemed that as soon as his thoughts turned to the offending appendage, it began to throb with a renewed vigor.

Taking the opportunity to examine the cut while his brothers were both absent, he adjusted his seat on the bed and brought the sole of his foot up so that he could see it. Much to Estel’s dismay, he found that the socks had become quite disturbingly saturated with blood.

The young man shook his head in frustration; causing his untidy dark locks to swish around his head. Biting his lip, Estel peeled away the soiled articles of clothing. Leaving the socks halfway on his foot, he gingerly proved the dark, scabbing wound with trepidation.

‘Well, at least it isn’t bleeding any more.’ He thought to himself. Looking around the room, his eyes fell upon his pack, but he quickly dismissed this idea. He hadn’t packed many extra socks for this trip, and they were all dirty.

Malicious logic kicked in, and Estel’s gaze fell upon Elladan’s bag. With a slight smile as he pushed himself off the bed, the young edain shuffled over to his elven brother’s pack, and with a sigh he lowered himself into a squatting position.

Digging through the canvas bag that seemed to have no end, he finally stopped with a smile as his fingertips brushed his quarry. Holding aloft a pair of his brother’s socks, he inspected them carefully before unrolling them.

Estel wanted to be sure that the large socks hadn’t been worn by Elladan this trip: if they had then the stench emanating from the young man’s feet would surely give away the fact that he wasn’t wearing his own socks.

Frowning slightly, the boy decided that he had nowhere to hide the bloody socks that were on his feet, so he simply pulled another sock onto both feet overtop the others. Quickly, he pulled on his boots and straightened up.

He was just in time, for two rather surly elves entered the room shortly thereafter. Elladan’s face was dark with badly suppressed fury, and the younger twin didn’t look to be much happier.

“Ready?” Elrohir asked in an icy tone of voice that suggested that it was really a rhetorical question. Estel nodded slightly anyways, and with that Elladan scooped up his pack and motioned for Estel to follow them.

The brothers exited the room, an uncomfortable silence surrounding them. The young man wondered, not for the first time, what on Arda could have made his siblings so mad. Surely something had not happened to the edain twins that he could be blamed for.

All he had done was preventing them from being the victims of the famed fury of the peredhil twins. For sure, the two would not have survived the night if Estel’s brothers had discovered them sparring with their own knives.

Who would have though that what the man had assumed would be a good deed would turn out to be so… difficult. Estel hardly noticed as they descended the stairs and headed out down the hallway.

In a dining room several people looked groggily as they passed, and several waved at the twins. The elves, however, kept their eyes straight ahead as they traveled noiselessly down the hall.

When they reached the front door, Estel could have sworn he saw two dark heads withdraw back around a corner, but when he looked a second time they had gone. Shaking his head, Estel followed his brothers out the now-open doors and out onto the street.

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Elrohir was mad. Correction: Elrohir was seething. He had been just about asleep, walking the fine line between consciousness and the dream world, when he and his twin had heard loud, thumping footsteps coming down the hallway.

‘Please go past our door, please go past our door, please go past our door…” The younger elf repeated to himself. Of all things on Arda that he wanted to do right now, getting up to answer the door was not one of them.

He let out a disgusted snort when the footsteps stopped at their door, and he rolled onto his side so that he could see his brother. Elladan obviously had no plans that included getting up to deal with whoever it was, but the younger twin wasn’t so easily dissuaded.

He flashed a smug smile in Elladan’s direction, obviously implying that, as the oldest, he was going to have to get up and deal with their unwelcome visitor. A loud knock reverberated throughout the small room, short taps on the wooden door echoing eerily.

‘He had better hurry up and get that,’ Elrohir thought grumpily. ‘Or it will wake Estel in the next room.’ With a frustrated sigh, Elladan heaved himself off the bed, rubbing his eyes in a most un-elven manner.

The older twin shuffled lightly to the door, fiddling with the latch for a moment before turning the knob and pulling the door inwards. Elrohir burrowed back under the bed sheets, silently willing his brother to hurry up so that he could go back to sleep.

An angry female voice, distorted by the blankets but nevertheless discernable with elven hearing, came to Elrohir’s attention, and he curiously poked his head back out into the stuffy air of the room.

A very disgruntled looking Elladan stood with his back to his twin, his silhouette all that Elrohir could see of him. That was still enough, however, for the younger twin to see that his brother was very angry about something.

‘Surely he is not still mad about me not answering the door, is he?’ Elrohir thought to himself. But when he looked past the dark shadow of the elf to the person that he was talking to, the younger brother saw Engle in her dressing gown, obviously giving Elladan a lecture about something or other.

“…Reckless and unprovoked!” She was saying, hands on he hips and a scowl on her face. “The boy had absolutely no reason to attack my sons, and it shall not happen again!” She practically shouted. Elladan’s confused voice piped up.

“Surely, good lady, you seriously cannot expect that our brother attacked your sons! He is quite unwell, I can hardly imagine that he could lift a weapon, nonetheless actually assault someone with one!” Engle’s face darkened even more so at these words.

“Are you suggesting, Master elf, that my sons’ words are to be doubted? They do not tell untruths, not now and not ever before! If they say that Estel attacked them then by the One they did! And I will hardly harbor someone so violent under my roof. You have an hour to pack your things and leave this house!”

And with that she turned on her heels and stormed off, leaving two very confused elves and a looming problem.