The Littlest Warrior

Chapter 2 –Preparations to Ride



Estel struggled to open the bottom drawer of his chiffonier (chest of drawers). Elrond had agreed that he should have access to his clothes so that he could at least attempt to dress himself on occasion, and had placed his every day under things, leggings, and tunics in the bottom two drawers so that the tyke could get to them on his own. Although the drawers were low enough, they were still somewhat heavy and Estel often had to use all his little strength and ingenuity to pull them open. The very bottom drawer was particularly stubborn and Estel often had to sit on the floor, placing his little feet on the bottom skirt of the chest as leverage, and with his fingers curled around the ornate carvings on the edge of the draw, pull as hard as he could muster to get the sometimes-sticking drawer open. It was times like this when he was really glad that his brothers were close by. They could always be depended upon to give a little fella a hand. But this morning his brothers were still asleep, and Estel was in a hurry; no time to wake Dan or Ro…Asfaloth was waiting.

After several minutes of tugging, he managed to get the drawer open just a crack; but a crack was all he needed. Slipping his tiny hand through the opening, he pulled out a pair of brown leggings and a light colored tunic. Hurriedly he pulled on the leggings, despairing of both his chausses and his braies and not bothering with the fact that the lacings were in the back. The breeches did not want to stay up, and for the life of him Estel could not figure out why. Determined that he would not be delayed any further by sagging breeches, he bundled up the edges of the nightshirt he was still wearing and stuffed them into the waistband. Mission accomplished. The extra fabric had the effect of making his tiny body seem bigger and the leggings stayed in place. But that created a new problem for him, if he left the nightshirt on he could not wear his tunic, and he knew his Ada would never allow him to go out half-dressed. Estel solved this minor inconvenience by deciding to wear the tunic as if it were a long sleeved vest, open in the front.

Grabbing the tunic from the bed he carefully positioned it on the floor, on its back with the arms spread to the side, just as Dan had shown him. He kneeled down and carefully smoothed it out making sure all the fastenings were undone and the front lay open. Once satisfied that everything was just as his brother had demonstrated, he carefully circled the tunic and approached it from the ‘collared’ edge. Carefully, so as not to mess it up, Estel bent over and placed his hands in the armholes, collar touching his feet and the back hem of the tunic near his head. Wiggling his hands into the armholes he then stood up raising his hands over his head, and the tunic slid down over his arms smooth as silk.

It worked! Estel fairly jumped with enthusiasm. It was his first time doing this on his own. Before, Dan had always arranged the tunic for him; he would have to remember to show his brother what he had done all by himself later. He tried fastening the tunic and it was just as he thought, it would not fasten near his waist, not with all that nightshirt bunched up under it.

'No matter,' the tiny boy thought, 'I just do dis one', and he proceeded to fasten one of the clasps near his chest.

Unfortunately, he did not line them up properly, and wound up with tab number three attached to clasp number 2 leaving a very uneven hemline.

“Almost done,” the little one said, “just havta find my moccasins.”

The first one was easily located near the edge of the bed, but the second one was more elusive. Estel searched and searched and eventually found it almost dead center under the middle of his bed, he had to crawl under to get it. When he emerged, he was fairly covered in dust, but that did not matter, he was almost dressed. Sitting on the floor, he pulled on his moccasins and jumped up racing for the door. He stopped halfway there, “Oh, almost forgot,” he said aloud, and dashed back to his bed. Using the side bedrail as a step stool he climbed atop the bed and searched through his covers until he found what he was looking for. There, under the covers he could just make out the tip of the tattered off-white ear of his favorite stuffed animal, his bunny Niphredil.

“Come on Nif, nows no time to be s’eepin, we goin’ riding with Glorfy.” With that the little one eased off the bed and raced to and thru the door, heading, at 5:30 in the morning, straight for the bedchamber of the Balrog slayer.