By Dawn's Early Light by Grundy

All His Children

Elrond watched his children with a heart full nearly to bursting. His children – all his children – home in Imladris. It was a sight he had thought never to see again.

The twins were loathe to let Arwen pry either of their baby sisters away from them. If Anariel did not mind parceling her time out to her older siblings equally to keep the peace, his youngest daughter felt no such compunction . Tindomiel blatantly favored her brothers, and was currently firmly ensconced next to Elladan watching Arwen fuss over Elrohir and Anariel, who had just returned from an expedition to the furthest reach of the valley that had left the pair a wet, muddy – but remarkably cheerful – mess.

He felt Celebrian’s approach as much as he heard it.

“The novelty hasn’t worn off yet, has it?” she asked, her voice full of fond amusement as she wrapped her arms around him.

“I don’t know that it will,” he replied softly.

Miracles, in his long experience, happened to other elves. Luthien. Idril. Eärendil and Elwing. The kin he has loved and lost have never returned to him. Until now.

His sunshine child may be a young woman rather than the baby who had disappeared, and she may answer to a name he finds odd. (He has reluctantly mastered the correct pronunciation of “Buffy”.) But she lived, and on this side of the Sea. She was turning cartwheels on the grass right now, much to Arwen’s frustration.

Celebrian kissed him – not a kiss of passion, but of reassurance.

I am here now. We will not be parted again.

He drew her closer, as thankful to have his beloved wife back as the daughter he’d lost and the unexpected daughter he’d gained with their return.

He’d been meaning to speak with her about that…

“My love,” he began tentatively, “have you given any thought to the matter of our youngest daughter?”

He could feel his wife’s confusion.

“Do you mean her name?” she asked. “I had not remembered that you had a niece of that name until you reminded me. And I think Tinu would object to being renamed. If you think Anariel is being difficult...”

Elrond smiled.

Tindomiel had been named in the California tongue first, but as her name was for the morning twilight, the time of the rising of the sun, it was natural for his wife to have translated it Tindomiel without further thought. Moreover, it had a pleasing relationship to her sister’s names. But it had been used before to name a granddaughter of Eärendil and Elwing.

It was an understandable oversight on Celebrian's part. She had been begotten too late to know Elros, or even his children. She had met some of the grandchildren, but only near the end of their lives. While the elves might find it worthy of remark, Elrond did not view the name as a problem. The Edain often reused names within families. He suspected his long-dead niece would view the shared name as a honor.

“No, not her name,” he reassured his wife. “More what we will tell others of her. You are newly returned, yet we have a daughter not yet past her first begetting day who looks to elvish eyes to be in her mid-twenties.”

Indeed, if one did not look at both girls’ eyes, most elves would take Tindomiel for the elder sister, and Anariel for the younger. The confusion was likely to increase with the years, for while Tindomiel’s height was beyond what it should be for her age, Anariel would be considered short even for an adaneth. By elven standards, she was child-sized, and would likely remain so her entire life, or at the very least until she reached the West, where there might be help beyond his power for her. (After hearing from both Anariel and Celebrian, not to mention Willow and Tara, about “the Slayer”, he had no confidence her growth would resume naturally.)

If you looked at their eyes, though, Tindomiel’s age was little more than a baby, while Anariel was frighteningly beyond the twenty years Celebrian said she had lived. Well, frightening to other elves. Elrond Peredhel had seen plenty of death and darkness by his twentieth birthday, and while he would not have wanted that for his daughter, it did not horrify him. He understood it. (He was certain Maedhros would have understood it better.)

Celebrian frowned, and he could feel her frustration.

He was privately amused at her reaction. The beings that had created their daughter and slotted her so seamlessly into the lives of her mother and sister had done their work well, to the point that even knowing the origins of her youngest child, Celebrian could easily overlook the newness of her, and the incongruence of her appearance and her age.

“I suppose we should count her begetting as the date when she came into being in Sunnydale,” she said thoughtfully. “Which would be toward the end of Iavas… forty-seventh Iavas, by my reckoning. She'll be very put out to find she's the last one to celebrate a begetting day.”

His youngest daughter had been fascinated by Anariel’s begetting day celebration, which had been a few weeks after their arrival in Rivendell. They would have to make sure her first begetting day celebration was memorable.

“The folk of Imladris will not spread tales of her beyond the Valley,” Elrond mused. “Nor will the Galadhrim whenever she visits.”

The visit would have to be made soon, as soon as he was sure his youngest could travel safely beyond the protected boundaries of the valley. Galadriel could not absent herself from Lothlorien without leaving it vulnerable, but her patience would not hold very long in the face of a new granddaughter.

“Arwen will surely wish to write to our kin beyond the Sea…” Elrond murmured.

“She can be vague about certain details, like the baby’s age,” Celebrian replied firmly. “I will speak with her. Her excitement at a new sister will be plain enough no matter what else she writes. By the time anyone beyond the Sea meets Tindomiel, she will be full grown. Once she sails, her origins will be of little matter beyond curiosity. And Arwen is no less protective of her little sister than Anariel or the boys.”

In the West, their daughter will be safe – as she will not be here in Middle Earth, if tales of Elrond’s remarkable child who was apparently born already half grown should reach the wrong ears.