all three brothers do, in their own ways, come around. Each way is very different. Each is a valid way of self-examining and overcoming internalised prejudice. I am! SO! Happy that you liked that!!! SO HAPPY!
NOPE GIMIZH DOESN’T KNOW – but then, most of the Mirkwood Elves don’t sail at all 😉
Ooooh, this may be a convoluted answer. Here we go!
Here’s my Aelir tag, so you can get a handle on who she was. I’ll separate this answer out into each of the princes, so you can get the gist of their relationships.
Laindawar When he was born, Aelir often bundled her eldest child onto her back as she raced through her beloved woods. Laindawar grew to toddlerhood sitting under green eaves beside his mother, or strapped to her as she clambered and danced and leaped through the trees.
Aelir was an odd sort of duck. She was tall, dishevelled, nearly squirrelish in her manner, not very talkative at all. Her eyes spoke more than she did. She was more at home with her trees than in the company of other elves, and Laindawar most definitely absorbed this tendency. He too is a loner more content under the branches. This is not only due to his own natural tendencies, but to those early formative years spent with his mother, alone but for the wind in the leaves and the soft puff of their breath.
As he grew, Laindawar was brought forward into the world of his father: the court, the business of being a crown prince and a political figure. He would retreat to his mother as an escape, for the peace and rest her presence brought.
(Thranduil did likewise, funnily enough. Aelir was a calm, wild haven for them both.)
As Aelir sickened, Laindawar’s resolve to kill all the evil in the forests hardened into something diamond-plated and implacable. He has never given up.
Laerophen Our awkward giraffe was born several years after his brother, and he was at one glance obviously Thranduil’s child. He had the hair, the eyes, the height! Yet he was in spirit a retiring soul, and preferred the quiet and his own company.
Also, it appeared that he was made mostly of elbows and knees.
It was for Laerophen’s sake that Aelir began to stay longer and more frequently in the palace. It was Thranduil who taught him to read, but it was Aelir who sat with him and listened as he devoured all the books around him and told her about what he had learned in excited piping tones.
She often brought him out of his rooms, just the two of them (three, if Laindawar were willing to take time away from his hunting). Unlike Laindawar and Legolas, Laerophen would walk through the trees by his mother’s side. He would not leap from bough to bough. She would hold his hand.
She taught him the bow, though he did not show any especial gift for it. But he loved the time with his mother, and so he worked diligently at it.
When she left, Laerophen’s world contracted to his rooms once again. The only one who could coax him out was Legolas.
Legolas Their little green leaf was such a shock. SUCH A SHOCK. Aelir had been sickening for centuries – how was she to know that this was any different? But there it was, she was due another child. Weakened as she was due to the poisoning of the forests, she worried. God, did she worry.
She needn’t have worried, not for him. Legolas was walking before he was crawling, desperate to stand and do everything right now!! NOW!!! He wanted to see everything, know everything, touch everything. He was, unlike her quiet eldest children, noisy. He cried loudly, sang loudly, laughed loudly.
He was effusively affectionate.
Everything in him bubbled over with curiosity and joy.
Aelir brought him into her forests as much as she was able, and strapped him to her back as she had for Laindawar. Unlike his brother, Legolas did not enjoy being confined to such safety. As soon as he was able, he wriggled free to dangle and clamber and run just as his mother did. “Look Naneth! Look at me! Look what I can do!”
He made her laugh helplessly and happily, even as the shadows under her eyes deepened.
Though – Laindawar isn’t awkward, heh – he is a small, graceful, deadly little package. He won’t get blurty or clumsy when he is wrong-footed. He’s more like ‘stares at you like a falcon stares at a mouse.’
Hey Nonnie! *dives on you and smooches and hugs you back* Thank you, dear!
ohboy, not really – not heaps, anyway. I have a name for Thrandy’s mum – Haedirn, which means ‘Silent Watcher’, and I have done a sort of stream-of-consciousness headcanon on the spot about Oropher before… but I haven’t really fleshed anything out.
And now here’s some off-the-top-of-my-head ideas on Haedirn: She was a Sinda, from Doriath. I sorta want her to be an historian and a scholar??? (that’s where Laerophen gets it from, perhaps) Also sarcastic af. Shithouse at archery, but great with boats and water, basically half-fish when you get her into a river. Terrifying with a spear or a quarterstaff. Not so great at following instructions – tends to ignore, improvise and ‘improve’, a bit of a know-it-all. Loves willows and reeds and mangroves and other water-dwelling trees and plants. Warm low contralto singing voice, smooth and rich as honey.
(Thranduil’s name means ‘Vigorous Spring’ – in the sense of a fast-flowing river best guess, there’s some etymological argument. I like to think she gave it to him, singing in that low sweet voice, the sound of the wind in the river-rushes.)
This is my fanart of the wonderful Merilin from Determamfidd’s wonderful Tolkienverse fanfiction Sansukh.
*SCREECHES LIKE A COCKATOO*
OH MY GOD THAT IS STUPENDOUS – look at her amazing hair!!! the line of it is just *swoons* so gorgeous! OH MY GOD I LOVE HER CLOTHES and heck that pose is fab! Love the art nouveau grass too, SO elvish!
zlksadhgfljahsgdflaj aaaaaaaaaah thank you thank you so so much! Thank you SO much!!! *hugs*
Here’s a thing for you. With all that is happening in the world rn, some sweet lil fluff is definitely called for.
…
Both his elder sons had been quiet children: wide-eyed and close-mouthed. Laindawar’s silence had been a watchful one: he assessed, made conclusions, planned ahead, his eyes too wide in his tiny face. His mind was never restful, but his lips remained sealed. His fierce hunting falcon, his free forest child, with his hunter’s heart and his piercing stare.
Thranduil had never told Laindawar how closely he resembled Oropher.
Laerophen’s silence had been one of half-born words, tripping upon his clumsy tongue, embarrassment crammed behind his teeth. Laerophen had been gauche and awkward – was still gauche and awkward, Thranduil amended with a sigh. Then, however, he had been a skinny twig of a child, limbs too long for his little body, smile too large for his face, brain spilling over with ideas and facts. Now he hid behind a stiff demeanour as often as not.
It grieved Thranduil to see it sometimes, as he knew it was modelled upon his own. Both his firstborn and his secondborn followed him too closely at times.
It was not so with his unexpected youngest.
“Ada, what’s that?”
“A beech, ionneg.”
“And that?”
“A squirrel. You have seen them before, Legolas.”
“I know, but it’s a different one! Do you know its name?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I am unsure whether this squirrel has a name at all to learn.”
“Shouldn’t we ask?”
“You may certainly try… but do keep your feet upon the ground this time, if you please.”
“Why?”
“To spare your poor Ada’s heart.”
“Is there something wrong with your heart?”
“You regularly stop it from beating, but otherwise no,” Thranduil replied as dryly as he was able.
“Oh, that’s good.” The elfling on his lap beamed, and leaned back. “Your stag is really tall.”
“Do not leap from his back.”
“Why?”
“Because, as you observed, he is extremely tall. It is a long way to fall.”
“I bet I could jump that far.”
“No doubt you could.” Thranduil stroked the soft golden hair, and smiled against the back of Legolas’ head. His youngest, his ever-curious little leaf, with his sparkling eyes and neverending questions – and his fearless, boldfaced adoration of the world. “But do recall what I said about my heart, ionneg.”
“Do squirrels ever fall?”
“It is extremely rare.”
“I will leap like the squirrel, then, and never fall!”
“That would be a thing to see.” And he would, Thranduil was sure of it. Once Legolas took an idea into his head, it was impossible to dislodge. One day, he would see his son scampering through the branches like a squirrel. “Wait a time before you try. At least until you are able to reach the lowest branches of the trees.”
“Must I wait?” Legolas tipped his head back, looking upside-down at his father with great blue eyes.
“You must,” Thranduil answered, and tugged the wispy little braid at the elfling’s nape.
“I suppose it’s because of your heart,” Legolas muttered, and heaved a great sigh. “Must be very dull for you, having such an ornery heart.”
“On the contrary, my child,” Thranduil said, and smiled to himself at the small vision of sullen stubbornness before him. “There is nothing dull about it at all.”
I just checked through everything from the past couple of weeks, and I can’t find your ask! I searched my emails as well, and it hasn’t arrived there either. I would love to chat about the dancing ideas, if you’re interested 🙂
Aw Yiss 