Sons of Destiny [CURRENTLY EDITING AND REWRITING]

Foster-Fatherhood 2

It took a few seconds for Maglor to break up the play-fighting, but he finally managed to get the twins into the washroom.

"Whadder we gonna do today?" Elrond asked his brother.

"Dunno. But look!" Elros made a beard out of the foamy soap bubbles. "I'm Uncle Cirdain!"

"Who's that?" Maglor smiled, reaching for the shampoo.

"He's an elf who knew Nana," Elrond explained.

"Oh," Maglor looked down. He had known who Cirdain was all along, but he had known him as an enemy. The son of Fëanor was both pained and charmed by the innocent description the boys gave.

When he finally paraded the twins out of the washroom and into his personal study for breakfast, Maglor looked into the mirror. Horrified, he realized that bathing small children has its side effects on fine leather.

"You're wet," Elrond commented the obvious.

"It's your fault for making me take a swim," Maglor raised his eyebrow.

He felt something tugging at his pant leg.

"I'm hungry," Elros stated flatly.

"Oh, that!" Maglor laughed and snapped his fingers.

He promptly rummaged his little pantry, which he he hadn't refilled in a few weeks. All he found inside was a basket of pastries and a wad of aged cheese.

"You two aren't picky, are you?" Maglor asked, pulling out the food.

"I'm hungry," Elros simply repeated.

"Got any jam for that?" Elrond asked, his head lowered.

"Sorry, little one. My brother and I don't really pay attention to how our food tastes. Or if it's even food," he added the last bit under his breath.

"Awww!" the boys groaned collectively. Even without sugar (which to them was a core force of nature) the twins eagerly wolfed down anything Maglor handed them.

Just as they finished eating, a nagging realization struck Maglor: "I haven't had to entertain children for millennia!"

True to Maglor's fears, Elrond asked his brother, "Hey, Ros, what we gonna do now?"

"Dunno. This place is just boring rock, an' Maglor—" Elros paused to glance at the elf, "he don't let us go outside," the little one finished in a whisper.

"I have an idea!" Maglor tried to get the children's hopes up. "I may have something lying around—Neylo's kept a few of our toys."

"He plays?!" Elrond said amazed.

Maglor blushed, embarrassed for his older brother. "No—he just likes keeping some of our memories. Don't tell him I told you," he warned with a wink.

"Why not?" growled Elros, who kept secrets as well as a net holds water.

"It's embarrassin' Like that one time I caught you puttin' Nana's ribbons in your hair," Elrond shot him a look.

Elros went fuming red, but swallowed his urge to smash his younger twin into the wall.

"Follow me. And stay away from the kitchen," Maglor said.

The curious boys pattered after him, staring wide-eyed at every new corridor of ancient stone he led them down. Once they had descended enough steps to make the boys believe it was a dungeon, Maglor stopped before a tiny storage closet. He cracked open the crumbling door, flinging dust all over the dimly lit nook of the palace. While the boys tried to shield their eyes from the tiny sandstorm, Maglor rummaged around the hole until he found a simple box with nothing covering it except a moth-bitten blue cloth.

"Here it is!" he proudly showed the box to the unimpressed little half-elves. A little offended by their blank stares, he set the tiny crate down. "Look, I know it's not much, but it's what I have. My brother would probably kill me just for telling you this exists. Try it. If you don't like them, it's back to your bedroom."

Elrond knelt down and crawled towards the box, eyes fixed on Maglor the whole time. He cautiously approached it and looked it over a few times, in case the box was booby trapped. He tentatively lifted a corner of the linen, peeked inside, and immediately dropped it.

"Elros, there's a tiny dragin in there!" he squeaked, scrambling to hide behind his brother.

"Scared?" Elros sneered, stepping up to the box to see for himself. He bent down, looked inside as Elrond had done, and pulled out a small wooden dragon of excellent make, but in dire need of a paint refreshment. It was deep blue with red-amber eyes. Its wings, jaw and tail were jointed. The little boy knew at once that this dragon wasn't leaving his sight, even if the world was unmade.

"You were right, Ron! It's a tiny dragin! And it's mine!" Elros showed it to his brother proudly.

"K-keep it," Elrond peeped. When his brother unveiled the dragon, the cloth had completely fallen off, revealing everything else. The thing that most caught Elrond's attention was a porcelain horse, with gilded hooves and actual horse hair for the mane and tail.

"So you like Nahar," Maglor mused.

"Na-who?" Elrond turned to him questioningly.

"Nahar. Oromë the Hunter's horse. You haven't heard of him?"

"No," both boys said at once, since Elros had become interested.

Forgetting himself, Maglor sat on the dusty floor of the storage hall and pulled the toy box toward him. He first picked a bearded warrior, tall and strong, with a great golden horn carved on his belt.

"This," Maglor held up the figure, "is Oromë, Lord of the Hunt, and the very first Being we elves first saw and heard—other than our fellow Elda," he explained.

"Who's they?" Elros excitedly grabbed three figures at once. One was a grim looking man, painted light blue and carved with a long, foamy beard. Another was a lady with deep blue tresses, a calm expression etched on her face. The last had wild teal hair and jagged grey robes.

Maglor smiled. "The first is Ulmo, Lord of the Waters. The other two are his servants—Uinen, Lady of the Calms, and Ossë, Master of Storms."

"She's pretty," Elrond spied a figure of a dark-haired lady dressed in flowing lavender robes accented with silver. She was one of the few figures who seemed mostly unused.

"She is Este, Lady of Healing. And I'm surprised that out of all the Valar, you picked her first," Maglor smiled.

"What's a Valar?" Elros asked.

"Don't tell me you don't—Eru, these two are in dire need of history lessons!" Maglor huffed to himself.

For the rest of the morning, and well into the early part od the afternoon, Maglor spoke to the twins about the Dawn of Time. The story would be constantly interrupted by Elros and Elrond's endearing impressions of each Vala they held in their hands, since there were figures for all fourteen plus a few of the Maia, their servants.

One figure only was nowhere to be found neither in the toy box nor in Maglor's stories—Melkor, maker of snow and master of evil, now known as Morgoth, the Dark Lord. For now, Maglor decided he would let the children live with as little fear on their small hearts as possible.

Near the end of the story, before Maglor told of the Cycles of the Trees, Elrond piped up, "Can we have lunch now?"

Maglor ran up the stairs to the nearest window and scanned the sun's position worriedly. "Of course, small one. My stomach feels it now! We spent too much time playing!" he burst out laughing.