Morning Hath Broken by Kaylee Arafinwiel

In Doriath

Emma and I place Oropher’s birth during YT 1499, at what would be 14,364 solar years – six “years” and less than one Valian year before the rising of the Moon and Sun. This would make him a little more than two and a half in human maturity.

Celepharn (mentioned in Oropher's patronymic) is our OC, the father of Oropher and the first cousin of Celeborn.

Oropher Celepharnion had been very young when he first saw them – not even a year of the Belain, as Elu and Melian accounted it. In fact, he had been younger than his son was now, he realised – six, in years of the Sun, he supposed.

Ithil and Anor. These had not been things he had been equipped to understand at such a tender age. He was only just beginning to learn the names of this star or that one as his mother, Neldiel Brandiriel, or his nurse Ivoniel sang them to him. He had learned already to mark the hours by the Edegil as the great Sickle of the Belain swung round the Over-heaven. But young as he was, he had not begun formal lessons with his daeradar yet.

So it was when he was outside with Ivoniel, wrapped up against the chill, that he had first seen it. A glow, far off on the horizon, like a hundred thousand torches – he had not known what to think of it.

The orb had risen slowly in the western sky, pale white against the blackness of the heavens, and washed the world in silver light.

“W-what is it, Ivy?” he had whispered to her, frozen in fear…

***

“It was Ithil, Ada?” Thranduil interrupted the flow of his father’s story as Oropher recalled the memory to life.

“Yes, Ithil,” Oropher confirmed. “Though we did not call him so at first. My daeradar, Lord Brandir, suggested Elfaron, that is Star-hunter, for indeed he seemed to blot out the stars in his path.”

“Helvui says that’s very sad,” Thranduil reflected. “He doesn’t want Ithil to hunt the stars. That’s mean.”

“Ithil only plays hide-and-find with the stars, laes-nin,” Oropher comforted his elfling – and the evidently very concerned rabbit. “He does not hurt them. I promise. Now, would you like me to continue, Master Helvui?” he asked.

Helvui still didn’t think that was very funny. Still, a story was a story.

“Helvui says yes, please,” Thranduil said. Oropher took a breath and let it out slowly.

“Very well. Now, where was I…”