A shelter for winter? by Aprilertuile

They’ve been walking for a solid week, taking it easy, resting, taking the time to eat and just enjoying each other’s presence, appreciating the scenery and the discovery of the new plant species they managed to find. Neither of them ever went to Eriador before. The war had taken all their attention, sadly enough.

Not to say the vegetation was entirely foreign, because it clearly wasn’t entirely foreign to them, but here and there they found plants that they never saw or noticed in Beleriand.

Elrond was working on preparing a couple of fishes for cooking, and while working, he was starting to consider drawing a map of this region, but really the way they were traveling couldn’t be called scouting by any stretch of the imagination, and it wasn’t like they had the material to draw maps on them in any case. If he really wanted to try, he’d have to try and barter for the necessary parchment and ink at the very least.

And barter with whom or with what…?

Besides, Maglor and he both had need for a map, but no real need to actually create one: they both had good memories and if they wanted to visit again some place they had seen, they’d be able to do so easily enough. So far at least.

“What are you thinking about?" Maglor asked, coming to him with a harmful of dead branches… And a few apples in his hands.

"Maps. I’m thinking of maps. And of how easily an accident could happen to you right about now with your balancing act."

"Your confidence in my abilities warmth my heart, Little Star." Maglor chuckled, and let the dead branches fall on the floor at his feet.

"Atto, I saw you fall into a pound not two days ago." Elrond noted with a small smile.

"And of course I fell in mysteriously on my own.”

Elrond smiled the most innocently ever at that.

“I have no idea what you mean. Surely no one here would have any way to bring up the water’s edge to make unsuspecting elves fall in."

"Uhu. And the fact I taught you that kind of things in the event you needed to defend yourself while you were too young to use a sword…?"

"Detail."

"Important detail, I would think. Here, brat, eat an apple, instead of making me want to throw you into a pound of your own.”

Elrond giggled at that, and took one of the fruits Maglor offered him, washing both his hands and the apple in the nearby river.

“The area looks nice." Elrond noted finally as Maglor worked on trying to light a fire.

"There’s trees aplenty, animals to hunt if necessary, the weather is strangely nice for the season, and there’s no human, elf or dwarf anywhere around that we could see, so indeed, the area looks nice."

"Hm… There are few chances of that changing before winter."

"Ah, indeed yes. Do you mean you want to stay around here?"

"Want, not specifically, but we could. At least we’d have time to build a shelter, and the area looks rich in resources.”

Maglor nodded at that.

“We can stay then. At least for a couple of seasons. We’ll need to look for a place where we can build a shelter easily, and where it can be both hidden and somewhat defendable, just in case. Also if possible a place that’s around a good amount of resources. Dead wood mainly if we want heat. I can get away with hunting far away, but I’m certainly not transporting wood for heat or building over kilometers over however many hills, thank you very much.”

Elrond nodded at that. He rather agreed with Maglor’s estimation there.

Seeing the fire take, Maglor sat next to it, and picked up an apple from the 3 left on the grass near their campfire. When the fire would be more stable, they’d put the fish over it to cook.

“Shall we stay here tonight and try to find a nice place to build starting tomorrow?"

"Yes. I rather like this area to be honest."

"Oh?"

"Hm… I hope we won’t have to walk too far away to find something."

"We’ll see. But there’s no reason why we’d need to go far.”

They sat together next to the fire, watching in peaceful silence the sun setting in the horizon. Elrond took first watch. Something they set in place since Maglor didn’t wake Elrond up the first time they did it the other way around. 

They both had their weapons at hand, though neither of them really felt any danger in the area they were in. However no one ever died from over-cautiousness. Over confidence on the other hand…

Half the night had passed, when Elrond woke Maglor up for his watch.

When morning came, it’s the sun rising that awoke Elrond. There were already a few apples on the floor next to him. He knew the apple tree was within sight. He was more surprised to have slept through Maglor moving away from him.

“I had to sing you back to sleep." Maglor noted between bites of his own apple.

"You didn’t have to you know.”

The vague humming from Maglor was all the answer he needed. Elrond shook his head and rose, stretching, before taking an apple from the pile.

“So, today we’ll try to find a nice place to build a shelter for winter?"

"That’s the plan."

"You look grim."

"I… No, I apologize. I guess I was wandering in the various realms of the what-if we don’t find a suitable shelter, with your human ancestors, there’s no telling how you’ll tolerate the cold. I’m… Worried. You didn’t do too well in Winter as a child, even if you chose to be counted as an elf now..." Maglor answered clearly concerned.

"It’ll be fine."

"You can’t know that."

"Yes atto. I can."

"How could you?"

"The land is welcoming. I can bet that we’ll find a suitable place to build a shelter before the end of the day.”

Maglor was going to answer, but took a good look at Elrond and snorted.

“Alright. You can lead me to wherever you felt that perfect place.”

Elrond smiled at that and as soon as they were ready, he took Maglor’s hand and pulled him in a vague eastward direction.

They walked all morning and part of the afternoon, and ended up at a large welcoming tree perched on a hill, above a river. The tree had strong lower branches that’d be easy to use to build a shelter using the tree as support.

“Nice discovery, but what about when we wish for warmth? And I beg you, don’t tell me you think I’m warm enough to actually keep you warm this winter”

Elrond looked amused at that and bite back his first answer.

“No. But if we find rocks, we could build a semi-permanent fireplace and avoid the risk of the tree catching fire and hating us on principle. Also there’s a river just down the hill, plenty of edible resources around. And animals to hunt when necessary."

"It won’t be efficient at all to keep warmth inside you realize, whatever we actually manage to build, even if everything else sounds perfect."

"We wouldn’t have time to build an actual house with all amenities. All we need really is a shelter. Something to keep the rain, wind and snow outside and safe enough for us to keep a fire lit.”

Maglor was going to offer another idea but winced. Elrond wasn’t wrong. Even if he wanted to, he’d have no glass for windows, no metal nails to keep things in place, and no stone carver to cut actual bricks. He also noticed no actual cavern around, which would have helped tremendously, admittedly.

“Alright, let’s try this way. But know that I will not be your living heater if your plan appears to be faulty, Elrond."

"Of course not atto." Elrond answered with a most innocent look.

"I stopped believing that face when you were 8.”

Elrond chuckled, but strategically didn’t answer. There are battles he knew he wouldn’t win and sometimes careful retreat was the best option. Maglor knew him far too well.  

They went to walk around to check for immediately available resources. They came back with stones to secure a place for a campfire and with fire wood for that evening. Fire could be a nice deterrent to creatures willing to attack them during the night. They then started to plan for what they wanted to do exactly.

The following morning they set to work, gathering wood to start building.

Elrond worked on preparing the branches and gathering more wood for the actual building while Maglor worked on raising a frame for their winter shelter, using the longest branches they had. The frame fell twice before they managed to find out how to block the frame in place solidly enough despite their lack of handy resources and tools.

The frame and first layer were wood, and then came a layer of mud and dried herbs and then a layer of moss over the mud of the shelter. Not that they hoped that the shelter would last long beyond winter but they really wanted it to last all winter.

They then worked on isolating a sleeping space from the ground using dried leaves, dried grass and the furs they had collected. The floor might become cold when frost came, if it came this year. It would be unwise then to sleep straight on it. Isolating a place to sleep was basic safety. Perhaps exaggerated, the place was clearly far warmer than Himring or the Gap but still.

Maglor may have said he wouldn’t serve as a living blanket and yet he only planned for one single large sleeping space, which made Elrond smile when he noticed.

It took them a good couple of days to finish building the shelter so they were both happy with it. And the first time they lit a fire, the shelter was fast to warm up. With the fire turning to ember, the shelter stayed very warm a good part of the night.

It had been a test on their part and it was successful, much to their relief.

“How is your hand after all the manual labor?"

"It’s fine, don’t worry."

"Show me."

"It’s really fine, you know, you don’t need to…"

"Atto."

"Fine. But you’re aware that you can’t do anything about that burn right?”

Maglor realized just then that he may have made a slight strategic mistake as Elrond got that glimmer of stubbornness in his eyes.

Maglor sighed, but gave him his hand and let the younger elf do whatever he wanted. The bandage was peeled away, and Elrond took the occasion to clean the burn and try to encourage it to heal.

It was hard, as Maglor’s own fëa rebelled against the healing, for some reason that Elrond would call guilt, but Elrond was stubborn, and he had time in abundance. It’s not a small burn that would see him fail!

While Elrond saw to Maglor’s hand, night fell, and when Elrond was done, both looked rather dejectedly at the two and a half apples, handful of berries and 3 figs they had left.

Fruits are all well and good, but both were starting to crave something more filling than those fruits now.

Some root vegetable would be more than welcome. Or even fish or meat. Something. A few days of the same fruits was a bit much after they spent all their waking moments working hard on building a shelter that hadn’t quite cooperated with them at first.

Strangely enough, building a shelter from scratch without tools hadn’t been in their skill set before. Maglor was usually on the management side of it, or had fine tools to use to make the act of building far easier. Elrond had never had anything to do with building that wasn’t setting a camp somewhere, and even then, he had a tent and appropriate tools so it was nothing similar.

Thankfully they had some notions of what they could do and vague ideas of how they could do it. But putting those notions to practice was harder than they had imagined.

Not impossible however, as proven by their success. Both of them hoped that it wouldn’t be a temporary success.

With some luck the shelter wouldn’t fall on them during the night at some point during the winter.

“Tomorrow I’m going to go hunting. Do you think we could manage to prepare meat to keep it for a while if I catch something a bit bigger than the average rabbit?"

"Here and now… We can smoke the meat we won’t immediately eat I guess? It’d keep it for a couple weeks at least, and we can use the river when we prepare the meat for smoking?"

"That’ll do. If I hunt, can you prepare the meat?"

"Of course. I’d offer to do it the other way around but…"

"I’ve seen you go on a hunt, and you know my patience for cooking. No thank you.”

Elrond chuckled.

“I’m not that bad."

"You’re not that bad at finding or attracting animals. You’re terrible at actually convincing yourself to kill them. I want to eat something else than figs, berries or apples sometimes this century. And if I do eat meat, I want to eat it without having the life story of the animal in question."

"Fair enough. Then I offer to go foraging while you go hunting. And when you come back, I can take over preparing the meat while you take care of your hand and start a fire, and then I’ll do the cooking."

"Fine by me."

"And tonight fruits?"

"… I think I hate you.”

Elrond chuckled and gave Maglor an apple, making the other sigh tiredly. Well the meal would be light, but at least they had something. Maglor had seen far more dire times after all. The next day they would get more filling food. Hopefully.

The few fruits they had left were finished that evening, and when morning came, it’s a slightly grumpy Maglor who left to hunt, while Elrond picked up his backpack to go foraging. He spent the morning picking up more fruits, root vegetables, acorns and other nuts.

Of course, the acorns would need to be boiled first, but Elrond quite liked them anyway.

He rinsed everything in the river, and put it to dry in the sun on a wood piece they had set at the entrance of their shelter.

It was the beginning of the afternoon when Maglor came back with a large turkey.

“We’re going to have meat for days with this one." Elrond noted.

"Better food for days than no food at all."

"I’ll grant you that one.”

Maglor picked up a fruit and a couple of nuts to snack on, while Elrond took the bird, each going to their own task.

Even distracted by preparing the bird for cooking, Elrond kept an eye on Maglor as he took care of his hand after hunting.

Maglor wasn’t blind to it, but preferred to not comment on the matter. He knew Elrond was a healer, and he had always been naturally attuned to his family. Granted, he was more used to seeing it happen than of being on the receiving end of it, but still, he knew his adopted child too well to be surprised now.