The Prince's Pretend Mother

Fourth Entry - Promises to Keep

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

*

Thranduil was right in saying that one does not grow over their losses, but learn to live around them. I did learn, with the occasional nudge from Firven and frequent embraces of my growing charge, who went a long way toward the growth that helped return me from a diminished thing. Legolas was taller than the height of my elbow now, nearly fifty-six years old, and already carrying his young self with much of the reserved grace of an adult. Already my part in his raising was beginning to feel redundant, but Thranduil insisted that I was not yet useless, and I would never argue for my own departure; I loved this boy too much.

“Are you sure this is where you found it?” he asked one fall, before the orange, red and violet leaves had begun tumbling down, as we strode through one of the narrower roads out of the Greenwood, our small contingent of guards around us, and each of us with a gardening trowel in hand. “You said you were my age when you found it.”

“More or less. I was about your height at least.”

“And your mother let you run around in your fancy dresses digging up springs?”

I laughed. “Oh of course not. We didn’t always wear such fine dresses as I own now, and why do you think I’ve got an apron on today? It isn’t for the style, I assure you. Let’s try here.” I marked a spot with my toe, glancing about at the trees surrounding us, and wondering if this was the configuration I only distantly remembered. My childhood had been a far span away ago.

Legolas and I crouched to begin digging, which we had already done three times before, but we had a bet going on whether or not I could find the spring again.

“When are you going to let me show you how to braid your hair?” I asked him as we dug, scooping the soft, cool soil away and setting it aside.

Legolas sighed. “Father doesn’t braid his.”

“Your father doesn’t frequently engage in activities that cause his hair to get in his face,” I pointed out as Legolas swiped some of his behind his ear again. We’d already been having this argument for a decade. “Besides, your father often wears his circlet or his crown, which you—” I lightly flicked his forehead, “—don’t. That helps keep his hair out of his eyes.”

“I don’t want to fuss with it,” he grumbled. “It’s enough trouble just getting up and brushing it.”

“Well you could always cut it,” I suggested. “Then you might look like a man though.”

Legolas heaved another sigh. “You’ll braid it like a girl’s hair!”

“I will not,” I lightly disagreed. “There are plenty of ways to braid one’s hair without looking like a girl. Captain, don’t you braid your hair?”

One of Legolas’s guards stepped forth and removed his helm, straightening the nearly auburn hair beneath it and crouching with his head turned where we could see. “That I do. Not too terribly feminine, do you think?”

I clucked my tongue. “Oh I don’t know, Legolas. Two braids is fairly wild and ladylike, don’t you think?”

The captain laughed, slid his helm back over his head and returned to where he’d been standing before, eyes out into the forest to search for threats.

“Ah see!” I cried out, as chilled, faint blue water began bubbling out of the side of the uneven hole we’d created. I tickled my fingers through it. “I told you we could find it. I used to come out here with Firven and a few of our friends and we would create entire castles and moats and towns in the mud. I suppose we were a bit younger than you are, then. I suspect playing in the mud has somewhat left your field of interests.”