A Promise by Rocky41_7

A Promise

“May I see him?”

            On Eärwen’s front step was a small blue-clad Elfling, a birthmark over her eye covering roughly a quarter of her face, a small bouquet of daisies clutched between her little hands. She wore her hair back in simple braids, but the ribbon on one had come loose and was clinging limply and tenaciously to a few strawberry blonde strands.

            “Of course,” Eärwen said, stepping aside. “For now he sleeps. He’s in the parlor.” As Amarië rushed by with her flowers, Eärwen snagged the dangling ribbon from her hair. “I will fetch a vase for your flowers.”

            It had been determined the parlor was a better place for Finrod to rest, with his foot propped up on a stack of pillows, fortified with books. Away from the softness of his mattress and with the backing of the sofa, it was harder for him to roll over and jostle the broken bone.

            As Eärwen came in with a blown glass vase for the flowers Amarië had brought, she thought to tell the child to be careful not to wake him. Finrod needed as much sleep as he could get so his body could heal. But when she saw how quietly Amarië knelt beside the sofa, and how gentle her fingers were as she touched his hair, she dismissed with the concern.

            “Here you are,” she said, setting the vase down on the end table by the sofa. Amarië reached over to drop in the flowers.

            “How did it happen?” Amarië asked.

            “Oh, as these things do,” said Eärwen. However, she seemed to realize this was ludicrously vague, even by her own standards. “He will tell us when he feels so moved.” Which was to say she and Finarfin had yet to get a straight answer out of him about it, and whatever Turgon knew—which she suspected was something—he wasn’t sharing.

            Amarië asked no more questions.

            Finrod’s soft golden cheeks had gone wan, as much as Eärwen tried to keep him occupied. The poor thing was both bored and in pain, a terrible combination. In an admirably generous effort, Fingon and Turgon had been by every day since, trying to amuse their cousin and make him forget his ill fortune. But for now he slept peacefully, his doe eyes firmly closed, his thick blond waves haloed out around the pillow.

            Trusting Amarië not to wake Finrod accidentally, Eärwen moved away, headed for the hall, but as she glanced back at them, she saw Amarië lean over to put her mouth by Finrod’s head.

            “Someday I’m going to marry you, Findaráto Ingoldo,” she said.

            With a smile tugging irrepressibly at her lips, Eärwen completed her exit and left the two children to their privacy.

            And in time, Amarië was right.

Chapter End Notes

Turgon ABSOLUTELY knows how Finrod broke his leg and was probably there when it happened but he's good at keeping secrets.

Amarie's little confession is inspired by that scene from It's a Wonderful Life where as children, George's future wife whispers in his deaf ear that she'll love him until the day she dies.

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