Tag: laerophen

Hey ^^ If you have time and wish to, could you talk about Thranduil and Legolas relationship? About Legolas and his brothers? I would really love to know more/see more about their interactions ^^ Thank you for writing and sharing. Thank you.

Hey there, Nonnie!

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.”

It’s fine! I can’t remember word for word what I said (which is a bit sad, because I phrased it better), but I wondered if the elves’ dancing in Midwinter would be considered interpretive dance, like Isadora Duncan performed? And I also was curious why, if Thranduil trained Laerophen and Laindawar, did Laerophen end up being the one to teach Legolas? Was it just coincidence, or is there a more angsty reason? Sorry, it sounded a lot better the first time :( But I’m always up for dancing convos :)

Hey Nonnie – sorry I took so long to get to this. Been taking a little break. 

Yes, interpretive dance! Isadora Duncan was part of the inspiration behind the idea – in particular, her Water Study. It feels amazingly Elvish, to me. 

Thranduil will train Legolas to dance the seasons, most certainly… but our green leaf is just a tiny tiny wee Elfling at the time of ‘Midwinter’, and so Thranduil hasn’t gotten around to it yet! Legolas is impatient and doesn’t feel like waiting until he is ‘ready’, and is bothering his big brother about it, basically. 

*hugs* 

Laerophen and his small posse of curious dwarflings. He’s very patient, and more than a little freaked out about being (even nominally) in charge of the smols.

‘who in the hell thought it was a good idea to leave me in charge, i have no idea what i am dooooooing, dear Elbereth they are STICKY urgh, Legolas was never sticky, perhaps if i sit very still and don’t make any sudden movements maybe then they’ll amuse themselves, oh god is one eating my hair…?’

How does Laerophen react to Gimizh stealing his clothes? (And how did Frerinith end up with so many pairs of elf undergarments??!!??!!?)

At first, he is both confused and frustrated. He knows he put that jacket right there. Only yesterday!

Secondly, he is outraged. How dare  – that little sneak-thief! How incredibly RUDE!

But Laerophen is, remember, not very confrontational. He gets stiff and awkward and super formal when he has to front up to anything. So every time he tries to draw himself up and speak out about his annoyance, Gimizh does something innocently charming (gives him a cookie, grabbing his hands to swing him into a dance, folds him into his latest imagination-game) and the momentum for his outrage is lost. 

Eventually he’s a little helplessly confused. It’s not as bad as he first imagined – he gets his things back, after all – but how in Elbereth’s name can he broach the topic? It’s been weeks!

Gimris shakes her head when she sees his predicament. “It’s all right, everyone’s in the same cart,” she says, resigned. “And he’s been spoken to about this, more times than anyone can ever imagine. He simply doesn’t see anything wrong with it yet. He’ll get there as he gets older. And don’t worry, Mum and I make sure everything’s laundered before he goes creeping back.”

Upon that last sentence, Laerophen’s face is a picture.

(Frerinith is at the stage where he… isn’t actually all that enamoured of clothes. The challenge is keeping them ON HIM. It’s not uncommon to have a toddler doing a nuddy-run down the public corridors of Erebor!)

Laerophen is so ??? about how his Dwarf clothes work? Like, all these buttons? Toggles? Unknown fasteners???? The first few times he tries to put them on, it doesn’t work – there are weird bulges and tight spots and unfastened bitsies. Merillin tries to help, to no avail. Eventually Dori has to give him a tutorial. Dori did not need to see so much nearly-nekkid elf.

Oh god poor poor Dori. Poor Merilin. Poor LAEROPHEN. He is much too Awkwardtm for this… THISNESS. 

Gimizh and Laerophen have at least one matching outfit. Gimris isn’t sure whether she wants to laugh or cry, Gloin goes and yells in a corner for a minute, then pointedly complements Laerophen on his outfit. Bofur is just losing it. Watching the tiny dorf and the gangly elf hanging out, being all matchy matchy.

OH MY GOD MATCHY MATCHY ELF AND BABY DORF. 

my fave part of this is Gloin, tbh. Imagining him going into a corner to screech between his teeth for a solid five seconds. Then coming back calmly and saying, “you’re wearin’ the belt upside-down. But… y’ look… decent. Well done.”

Laerophen has acquired some dwarf-style clothing because Somehow (Gimizh) some of Laero’s clothes got ruined. Dori does his best to make sure Larophen looks fabulous, and the result is surprisingly effective. Some of Bilbo’s Shire patterns are used. Thranduil sees some of the new clothes and is somewhat displeased. He is only mollified by the fact that dwarf clothes are better than no clothes or ruined clothes. And Gimizh did a hell of a job ruining elf-clothes. That takes /work./

OH YIKES AHAHAHAHA

In the same vein as the oropher anon, do you have any head canons about Thranduil before he was king?

Ooooh crumbs. Yes? Thank you for asking, Nonnie 🙂

Okay, so we know that Thranduil was present when Doriath fell, and that he fled with his father to Lindon and thence to the Greenwood.

So, he saw that massacre when he was still young. 

I feel that young!Thranduil would have been full of a red-hot rage, a fire. He would have been passionate about the wrongs he saw that were done to his people, and to the world. 

Then he meets Aelir, and she brings out the gentleness and curiosity in him. Her influence calms him, makes him breathe without tasting the injustice of it all at the back of his mouth. They are given two beautiful children, and Thranduil’s grief and anger are briefly allayed by the joy in his life.

Thranduil names the first child ‘Free Forest’, or Laindawar. A wish for the future, a prayer for things to come, a promise to this little soul. He will be free. They will stay free.

Aelir names the second ‘Tree Song’, or Laerophen. Her ears were forever full of their music, her body swaying with their branches, half-wild dryadlike thing that she is. 

So. They’re happy. But it doesn’t last.

Then: Dagorlad. Another massacre, one full of monsters and horror and loss. In Thranduil’s case, the loss is deep and personal. He loses his father, and the grief and the rage inside him begin to crystallise.

The darkness builds, the Second Age turns into the Third. Aelir grows worried: the song of the trees is sickening, twisting itself into new and gruesome sounds. It twists her inside as it does so.

They are given a last, late gift long after their other children: a Green Leaf, Legolas, a small bright dancing spark amidst the gathering gloom. Aelir names him, her child, so small and hopeful, a green shoot in a forest of dark and blackened things. 

Thranduil is grim. He fights against the encroaching darkness with an ever-more-stony countenance. His determination is clad in ice. His home will not die, not again. No more massacres of his people. Not again. Laindawar is of his mind, and fights at his side. Laerophen is more timid, and shrinks away to surround himself with books of the past.

They fight and fight as the years roll on, bringing the rotting trees back to health, rooting out and destroying the nests of spiders, singing away the mists that cling like slime to the southern forests. The years roll on, and Thranduil misses the signs of sickness in his wild woodland wife.

Until he can’t miss it, not anymore. She has always been close to the trees, nearly part-tree herself. And now she is sickening and failing for want of sunlight, and the clashing songs of the forest are an agony to her. She must go.

Thranduil fights this, as he has fought everything else. They try everything that can be done, to no avail. The healing has begun too late: not even the arts of Elrond can halt Aelir’s illness. The only hope is to go to the West. 

She does. Weeping, but her chin held high. She will see them again, she breathes into the hair of her family. Her voice is feeble, and she must be carried onto the ship.

Watching, Thranduil holds onto his youngest child, his green leaf, and his heart turns to diamond inside him. 

This world will take no more from him.