Through Wind and Fire (LOTR)

XXXII

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.

- Romans 12:15

A perfect faith would lift us absolutely above fear.

- George MacDonald

If God be our God, He will give us peace in trouble. When there is a storm without, He will make peace within. The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble.

- Thomas Watson

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An elfling lay in his bed, wide awake and humming softly. The sun was only just beginning to break through the forest's grand canopy, moonlight still dabbling here and there in the grand expanse of the sky. He should have been sleeping still, yet he was awoken by his dreams and was unable to return to them. So he clutched to his chest the small stuffed elk with wide eyes that he had come love so dearly, refusing to go to his bed without it. Around him was wrapped a blanket, such a soft thing that his mother often found him nuzzling his cheek against it.

Yet the prince detested being all swaddled up when he wished not to be in that position. When it was cold and he was tired, he would willingly allow either his mother or father to wrap him in a blanket. But now he was neither cold or tired, and so desperately he kicked about his legs until the blanket was unwrapped and free. The prince was more than pleased with himself, giggling and bouncing around on his bed. First, he draped the blanket on his head like the head coverings of the Easterlings, finding that wrapping one's head in such a manner made it difficult to both move and breathe. He concluded that it was not ideal to have a 'head-wrapping', and instead, pulled the blanket about himself like his father's heavy outer cloak. Strutting, or attempting to strut, across his bed, he found himself wondering how his father walked with a garment similar to his blanket on. His strut he continued, but immediately as he was about to reach the other end of his bed, he tripped on the blanket and fell.

It was not something he minded one bit.

The bed was soft and comfortable, and he reached for his stuffed elk and snuggled with both the elk and blanket. Gently he patted the stuffed animal's head, wondering what his friends called him. Of course, he thought, he did not have his friends anymore, for they had to take him from other stuffed animal friends in order that he could have him.

As the prince mulled over names by which to call his animal, he thought of the day he received the small brown elk.

•••

It was a dreary day, the day he got the little stuffed elk. 'Twas a day when all energy and life seemed to be sucked out of one's mind, weariness a rampant thing. All in the village and palace seemed to be in foul moods, and Prince Legolas wandered the halls desperately searching for a playmate. But he found none. So he sighed in distress and marched up to his father's throne room with all the courage and determination he could muster.

Not even thinking to knock, he pushed the door open before a guard warned him that he should knock. It was a mercy that no one had requested audience with his father at this time that day.

"Ada, Ada!" Legolas cried, bounding with energy up the steps to his father's seat that rose above everything else.

"Yes, ion nin?"

The elfling thought for a bit, forgetting what he meant to say, then yelped aloud when he recalled it.

"May I have an elk?"

Thranduil was taken aback and asked, "May you have a–would you repeat that, Legolas?"

"An elk. Like yours. Please?" he begged. When the expression his father gave him seemed to say 'no', the prince conjured up another plan. "Can I at least have antlers? Could I play with them?"