Reynion stood at the door of his family’s home, debating whether to knock or just to enter. He probably would have stood there for a very long time if his mother had not chosen that moment to open the door.
“Reyn! How wonderful to see you again. You really ought to come home more often,” she scolded merrily, her grey eyes sparkling.
He smiled a little. “Is Father here?”
His mother nodded. “But he won’t want to see you. You know that.”
“Mother, I’m going with the scouting party, to see if we can discover what’s happened to the scouts who have disappeared. I want to see if I can make it up to Father before I go.”
Lashella frowned, but ushered him inside. She left him in the entryway as she went to get Eldarion, shaking her head at her son’s folly.
****
“So, have you decided to give up your nonsense?” was Eldarion’s only greeting. He was at least a head taller than his son, and Reyn had to look up at him, which had always seemed to the son as quite an unfair disadvantage. Eldarion had years and height on his son, which made it rather difficult to argue with him.
“No. I came to tell you goodbye.”
His father frowned. “Goodbye? You bid me farewell a long time ago when you left my roof for the forest. If that’s all, I bid you farewell and I don’t want to see you darken my doorway again if you can’t think of anything better to say to me.”
Reynion smiled, curling his lip a little. “Then you won’t wish to hear that I’m going towards the area where the scouts have disappeared. Good day, sir.” He turned on his heel, and strode out.
Well, that went well, he thought, a grimace on his face. I might as well have saved myself the trouble.
****
Reynion hefted his light pack to his shoulders and joined the other elves who were going on this journey. The others were all ready and he was the last one to arrive. He greeted them, then took a place some distance away from the others, wondering if he’d have done better to stay in the woods. Too many people, and all of them would expect him to be polite. Oh, well. What was done could not be undone, and this mission proved to be interesting at least.
He smiled at the other elves a little self-consciously. He was beginning to wonder if joining this expedition might not have been so smart after all. It had not escaped his notice that most of the others were very much younger than he. Half his age at best, and at worst—well, he wondered that some of these elves had even been allowed to the council, much less on the mission.
He stood alone, slightly separated from the rest of the group, and watched. It seemed that the youngest elves thought of this almost as a game. They were laughing and joking with each other as if they had already gone, discovered the missing elves, and triumphed over whatever had taken them. Reyn was not so confident. The spiders were growing more numerous and strange noises had pervaded his sleep until he’d come back to the area around Thranduil’s halls. It seemed almost certain to him that some of them would suffer the same fate as the missing scouts.
[ July 14, 2003: Message edited by: Tinuviel of Denton ]
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