Lessons by ohboromir

Lessons

“Keep up, Papa!”

Andvír raced ahead of him, the bright yellow of his tunic making him hard to miss against the melting spring snow. His mother always worried when he went out with Andróg – too wild, she called him, too reckless, too irresponsible. He wouldn’t argue, but in that tunic, he doubted even he could lose the boy. She worried too much.

He grunted, shifting the weight of the equipment on his shoulder. Still… he shouldn’t let Andvír get out of his sight.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming. Don’t run off!”

His son was really too small for archery, having only just passed his fourth spring, but Andvír had begged and begged. He had promised not to cry if it was too hard, he had offered to do extra chores (that had not mattered to Andróg, who did not live with the boy) and even had tried getting his mother to intercede on his behalf.

So Andróg had given in and he had retrieved his own childhood bow, dulled the heads of a few arrows, and here they were, trudging up the hill to a makeshift target.

Andvír was sitting on a boulder and swinging his legs as Andróg came over the hill. For a moment, his heart swelled, to see that little grinning face – he had never expected to be a father, really, not when he was only twenty-one winters himself, and he didn’t think he was particularly given to it. He would rather have been spending the afternoon with his friends, getting drunk and daring each other to increasingly dangerous stunts. Andvír had been the result of one such afternoon, though the only danger he had been in on that night had been from the girl’s parents.

He remembered when she had told him. He had not taken it well; he had laughed at her, thinking it was a joke, and then he had been struck silent with shock. It had all worked out in the end, but at the time it had felt world-ending and he remembered the fear of being a father so keenly.

But maybe… maybe it was not so bad, when Andvír looked up so adoringly at him, like he was the best thing in his entire world. Had he looked at his own father like that, when he was young? He couldn’t imagine it swaying his father’s heart. It surprised him that it even worked on him – he was not moved by pity or softness, and he never had been. But Andvir was his boy and he could not deny him anything.

“Alright, kid, up you get. Stand in front of me.”

For the next few hours, he guided Andvír through the motions of archery, though the boy struggled with holding his arm straight, and the draw was a bit too heavy. But Andvír squealed in delight when he saw his arrows hit the edge of the target, even if they fell to the ground a moment later.

“You’ll be a great archer one day, son.” Andróg declared, ruffling the golden curls of his son’s hair.

“Will I have a bow like yours, Papa?”

“Of course.” He laughed, thrilled by how much Andvír looked up to him. He swept the giggling child up onto his shoulders as they headed back down the hill. “I’ll make you one for your next birthday, one you can keep on your wall until you are big enough to use it.”

He was not Dor-Lómin for Andvír’s next birthday, nor any birthday after.

But twelve years later, when Andvír came to him out in the wilds, fleeing a life of thraldom in Dor-Lómin, Andróg made him a bow of his own.

And though the winters were harsh and wilds unforgiving, in their own way, they were happy.