Sirion by Grundy

---

Lessons In Diplomacy

---

Elros tried not to be too out of sorts as his tutor Varilon herded him toward the baths.

True, he had gotten to make cake for the first time this afternoon, which neither he or his brother had never done before, and Elrond had not. But he would very much have liked to go with Elrond and Maedhros to learn diplomacy, whatever that was. And meet whoever was coming, which sounded interesting even if diplomacy turned out to be boring.

It wasn’t that he’d meant to dump flour all over himself, the countertop, the floor, and everything in between. He just hadn’t expected the flour sack to be so heavy, was all. It looked so light when Lerien lifted it, and she was smaller and wispier than the nissi who worked in the forges or with the draft horses. He would have been more cautious approaching something they lifted, for he well knew they could lift more than he could.

He was probably lucky he’d gotten to learn about cakes. That had sounded like the cooks trying to console him about missing out on what Elrond was getting to do.

At least he’d learned something this afternoon. That seemed to be quite important to Maedhros, that both he and his brother learned something new in the schoolroom and out of it every day. They were usually asked at dinner what they’d learned that day – and not always by their cousins, either.

Their days here were very different from what they’d been in Sirion. Life at Amon Ereb was busy.

Makalaurë had helped them to make their beds the first morning, but the next morning he had shown them how they would be expected to do it from then on. They had help from the grownups only on days when the bedding was changed – mostly because they were too small to change the duvet covers on their own. (Elros had tried. He’d gotten himself hopelessly tangled. Maedhros had asked him in bemusement how he’d ended up inside the cover instead of the duvet.)

Either Makalaurë or Maedhros supervised their dressing, though aside from telling them if it would be an indoor or outdoor day, they generally left the choice of what to wear to the twins. Some days Elros and Elrond agreed on what they would wear, and matched all day long. Other days there was no agreement and each wore a different outfit. Their cousins never seemed to mind either way.

The twins had quickly learned that when it came to ‘getting dressed’ tasks they needed help with, Maedhros could do boot laces with only one hand, but brushing and braiding their hair was always Makalaurë’s responsibility. Elrond had attempted his own braids one morning while Makalaurë was still working on Elros, but discovered that even with two hands, it was not as easy as his cousin made it look. It was rare for Elrond to have such trouble with something, so Elros was in no particular hurry to try braiding if it was so complicated that Elrond found it a challenge.

They ate breakfast with their cousins in the small hall unless it was a special day like Midwinter, when everything had been festive and all meals were served in the great hall.

Then Glinwen would join them for lessons in the library or the schoolroom for several hours – in the library if it was a day Maedhros or Makalaurë was teaching them, the schoolroom if it was a Varilon day. (At first, they had lessons in their sitting room for those days. But the view from the windows, not to mention the nearby toy chests, offered too many distractions, so Varilon had gotten permission to turn an unused room into a proper schoolroom. Elros had not liked the change until he discovered Varilon could do things that might be messy in the schoolroom, like when he showed them how crystals formed.)

Lunch varied – sometimes in the small hall, sometimes in the great hall, occasionally even in their own sitting room. Then in the afternoon there would be lessons of the non-schoolroom sort, riding or archery or how to take proper care of animals or any number of things. With spring approaching, Maedhros had promised that once the weather improved, some days they would also get to go outside the fortress, to visit the village and begin learning more about the land around Amon Ereb.

Once the afternoon lessons concluded, they usually had a few hours of playtime before dinner. Their cousins had brought their toys from home for them, but quite a few had been added, particularly once Maedhros discovered they liked building things. Their block set had more than doubled in size, and the woodworkers frequently passed them new pieces to add to it. They could build much finer and more detailed cities now, and if they wanted to, had all the pieces they needed to recreate Amon Ereb itself in miniature. Even better, it was generally easy to persuade Makalaurë and Maedhros to join them in the construction!

On clear days they were allowed to play outside in the courtyard, but on wet or snowy days, they had to stay inside – not as much of a hardship here as it had been in Sirion, for they had free run of the main fortress so long as they stayed off the walls and observed proper courtesies like not entering private rooms, disturbing adults at their tasks, or touching things that did not belong to them. Most of what was in the storerooms, for example. No matter how fascinating the many chests were…

They’d only poked into the storerooms the once, because Maedhros had given them a scolding – Elrond in particular, making Maedhros the first person in the twins’ experience to correctly determine when it had been Elrond at fault – and told them that when they were older, they could have responsibility for all those chests if they liked, but right now their contents would do better without sticky fingerprints from elflings who didn’t remember to wash their hands after the snack the kitchens should not have let them have.

Dinner might be just them and their cousins, ‘family dinner’, but it might also be in the great hall, where they would be expected to sit at the high table and use their good manners. Elros quite liked great hall nights, except for the rare occasions Makalaurë decided that formal dress was necessary. The fancy tunics and shiny boots he did not mind, but he privately thought the circlet might have been an invention of the Enemy.

He knew better than to protest it, though, after Elrond had gotten nowhere with that tack. He had also given up on hiding his. Elros had been amazed to discover that their cousins were quite good at finding hidden circlets. They didn’t even comment on what he thought were very creative hiding places, just plopped the stupid thing right back on his head and clipped it into place.

After dinner was bathtime (assuming it hadn’t been necessary before dinner, which for Elros it often was) and then storytime. While the twins sometimes asked for stories from books, most often whichever cousin put them to bed simply told them a tale from his own head with no need for it to be written out.

Remembering what Maedhros had said earlier, Elros did not give Varilon trouble about the bath. Well, not much – it would have been awfully boring to take a bath as quickly as Varilon thought was possible. But he did get out the second time he was asked, and got dressed immediately, and didn’t fuss when Varilon pulled when brushing his hair. (Varilon was not nearly as good as Makalaurë at hair.)

He was somewhat disappointed to discover that it was family dinner tonight, for he’d been looking forward to telling people in the great hall that he’d helped make the cakes. He got to tell Makalaurë, but it was not quite the same – especially since he suspected Makalaurë already knew.

“Cheer up, young one, it is not the last time you will get to make the cakes,” Maedhros told him as he dished out a more generous portion of baked leek and less ham than Elros would have liked. “Next time you do, we will dine at the high table and you can tell the entire hall if you like. Now, what did you learn from Varilon today?”

“We learned about the Noldor coming to Beleriand from Aman,” Elrond answered, looking entirely too pleased about the leeks. The cheese it’s baked with is really good, Elros.

“Elros?” Makalaurë prompted. Their cousins had decided that letting Elrond talk for both of them was not enough – they wanted to hear each of them say what they learned.

“Burning ships is a bad idea,” Elros answered at once.

Makalaurë coughed, as if the wine he’d been drinking hadn’t agreed with him.

Don’t say the thing about checking the ships first, Elrond reminded him urgently, while apparently focused entirely on eating his dinner. Varilon said you shouldn’t.

I know, I didn’t forget! Elros retorted, making sure to shove a heaping forkful of cheesy leeks into his mouth to cover that he wasn’t speaking out loud.

“Indeed,” Maedhros agreed. “Sadly, Atar thought otherwise. Slightly smaller bites, please, Elros. I shouldn’t like to see you choke.”

Elrond looked up from his own plate, interested at their cousins’ reactions.

“You thought burning the ships was a bad idea, too?” Elros asked, before Elrond could finish chewing.

“I thought it would be wiser to bring all our forces across at once,” Maedhros said. “To do that, we needed ships.”

“Why didn’t everyone do what you said?” Elros demanded.

“Maedhros was not in charge at the time,” Makalaurë answered. “And our father was not inclined to listen to his counsel.”

Both twins exchanged doubtful looks. They knew their cousins’ father was dead, but they hadn’t gotten to the part of the history of the Noldor where that happened yet. (Elros was rather looking forward to it. Uncle Fëanaro didn’t sound very nice even before the burning of the ships.)

“What did you learn this afternoon, besides how to make a large mess?” Maedhros asked, before either of the twins could ask about their uncle and why he hadn’t listened.

“How to make cakes, of course!” Elros replied at once. “And that flour is heavier than you’d think for something so light.”

He was slightly annoyed that both his cousins looked like they were trying not to laugh. Flour looked fluffy and snowy, but when you put a lot of it in one place…

“I learned about diplomacy,” said Elrond, sounding as though he wasn’t entirely sure exactly what he had learned.

“Do I get to learn about diplomacy?” Elros asked, looking to Maedhros hopefully.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” his cousin answered thoughtfully, with a look at Makalaurë that Elros didn’t understand. “But only if you first show me you can keep yourself out of mischief.”

With that potential reward, Elros managed to go to bed without protest, listen patiently to the bedtime story even though it was more an Elrond sort of story, with not much happening – something about trees and light, but as usual, it had no happy ending when Elros asked what happened next after Makalaurë finished.

It confused him greatly, because he’d heard some of the stories the atani who visited Sirion to trade told their children, and people in those stories always lived happily ever after. The stories the elves told almost never ended with everyone living happily ever after, even though you would think they should, since elves weren’t meant to die like atani did. (There was one story that ended with the king and queen living happily ever after, but Elros could tell that even Makalaurë thought the Vanyar were a bit boring and had only told it so Elros wouldn’t think the elves had no stories that didn’t end with someone dying or going away for a very long time.)

It was no comfort that Maedhros had been just as puzzled when he asked about the stories.

“I suppose the atani tell stories of the way they want the world to be,” he had said with a shrug. “Elves tell stories about the way the world is.”

Elros waited until the lights were out and their cousins had left, believing them well on the way to sleep, before he tried his brother. They had quickly discovered that Maedhros couldn’t tell if they talked to each other in their heads once the lights were out!

Well? he asked. What was diplomacy like? And what is it?

I am not entirely sure, Elrond replied, sounding a bit confused. Maedhros had me stand with him when he greeted the messengers cousin Gil-galad sent, and I got to say 'welcome' as well. Oh, and before they were in the room he told me to observe them. They looked like normal folk to me, except the one who actually carried the letter – he was dressed fancier than the others. I suppose he must be the one Pelendur called a court official.

So what happened? Elros prompted, expecting something dramatic.

The court official returned our greeting and then handed over the letter from Gil-galad. Maedhros told our guards to prepare rooms for Gil-galad’s messenger and guards – except he had a fancy word for them, ret-in-you - in the guardhouse and make them comfortable, and said they would have his reply on the morrow. Then they bowed and the guards took them to wherever they’ll stay, I guess. We rode back up, and Maedhros asked me questions about what I’d observed. He wanted to know if I recognized any of the guards or the messenger, and if we’d been to Balar before, and what I thought about the messenger’s manners.

Elros snickered.

It wasn’t as odd a question as you think, Elrond added. Their manners weren’t very good. Their greeting was… not what it should have been. They were not polite as people were to Naneth when she was being Queen. Maedhros is a prince, and the lord of Amon Ereb, so they should treat him as politely, I would have thought, since he is the one in charge here.

Queen is more important than prince, Elros pointed out.

Yes, I know, but prince is not nothing. And don’t our cousins tell us it is important to be polite to everyone?

That was true, and Elros had been scolded often enough for being surly when he was out of sorts about baths or not getting to run outside to play during lessons that he knew their cousins sincerely meant it. They expected the twins to treat everyone at Amon Ereb courteously, and being out of sorts or tired was not an acceptable excuse for bad manners.

It would have been nicer if Gil-galad had sent someone we knew, he told Elrond. Then maybe Maedhros would let us send a message of our own back. But he probably will say that we don’t write well enough to show people we don’t know our letters yet.

Elrond’s tengwar were not as neat and elegant as Varilon or Makalaurë’s, but they generally found his progress praiseworthy. (Maedhros had told them his handwriting was not a good example for them to follow, since he had to learn to write again as an adult, for the hand he didn’t have had been his writing hand. Elros was so horrified at the thought of having to go through all this bother a second time that he had firmly resolved that should he ever have to lose a hand, he’d make sure it wasn’t the one he wrote with.) Elros’ tengwar were still so sloppy that the adults often pronounced themselves unable to tell the difference between many of them.

You would write much better if you would not let yourself be distracted so often, Elrond said encouragingly. Anyway, I might be able to write a letter good enough to send, if someone will help me spell out words. You could sign your name at the end. You do that well enough, I think. It is the one word no one ever complains about on your slate.

What would you write? Elros asked. Do you really think Maedhros would let us? I thought he would say we can’t ask for special favors from elves we don’t know.

I don’t see why he would say no, Elrond replied. After all, they rode all this way to bring a letter, and they’re going to take a reply back. They can carry two letters as easily as one. Ours wouldn’t be a very big letter, or heavy enough to be a bother. We should at least tell Gil-galad hello, Nana always wrote something in her letters for us, but I do not think Maedhros would know that.

If I am very careful and practice tomorrow without complaining, Elros decided, then Maedhros might be more likely to say yes.

There was no reply from Elrond, so Elros repeated himself.

Don’t you think? he added.

It is worth trying, Elrond agreed, sounding sleepy.

What diplomacy do you think Maedhros will let us try tomorrow? Elros asked, wondering if it would be more standing and observing, or if diplomacy got more exciting.

There was no reply.

Elros sighed, and tried to settle down enough to sleep. No matter how curious he was, he wouldn’t find out anything else until the morning at least. And he’d already learned that morning didn’t come any faster if you stayed awake.