Lumpy Dumplings by Rocky41_7

Lumpy Dumplings

            Flour falls like powdery, early winter snow over the counter. Elwing’s hands are gentle kneading the dough. When she gathers it into a lump in the center of the workspace, Elros’ hands splat into the center of the wad. He tips his head back to grin up at his mother, flour on his nose, all around his fingers, up his brown forearms, dusting the fringe of his hair. She’s not quite sure how that happened.

            “Help me break it up?” she says. She shows Elros what size to make the pieces and they divvy up half the loaf of dough that way. It takes much longer with her “help” participating.

            “Nana, what if we made one big one?” Elros says, showing her a chunk of dough the size of his small fist.

            “Then we shall have to give that one more time to cook than the others,” says Elwing, but she doesn’t make him divide it up to match the size of the others. He takes very well to smashing the balls of dough to flatten them out, though she has to warn him more than once not to make them too thin. Even so, he tears several and Elwing patiently rolls them back into balls so he can flatten them out anew.

            As they work, another sleek black head pops up at her elbow, hands grasping at the tray of dough circles.

            “Nana, Elrond wants to help also,” says Elros as his brother wordlessly reaches for the dough.

            “Does Elrond want to use his words?” Elwing asks. When she looks down at her other son, Elrond gazes back with wide gray eyes framed in thick dark lashes; such serious expressions for one so small! It makes her smile inwardly. Neither she nor her father had grandmother Lúthien’s gray eyes, but Elrond and Elros both have them. She doesn’t remember what color Elured and Elurin’s eyes were.

            “Well, give him some room then, little minnow,” says Elwing, nudging Elros. He scoots aside duly to allow Elrond to join him on the step stool, and promptly begins to repeat the instructions Elwing had just given him, showing Elrond how to flatten out the dough circles and even how to re-roll them when they were flattened too thin. Golden sunlight beams through the window onto their glossy heads, illuminating the dust drifting through the air—of which a significant portion was flour, she’s sure.

            “No, no, like this,” Elros says, taking one from Elrond’s hands to demonstrate. Elrond simply picks up another and goes about his own way, though in the end both dough circles look the same. Elwing leaves the rest to the boys. Elrond leans back against her as he works, occasionally tilting his head to look up at her, a smear of flour appearing on the end of his nose. Elwing bends over to kiss the top of his head and brings a smile to his face. When they have finished flattening the dough, they both turn to her in sync, saying nothing. They’ll need a thorough scrubbing before bed she thinks to herself. They look as if they’ve been rolling about in fine, white sand.

            “Now, the filling,” says Elwing. She picks up the big bowl she had filled earlier in the day and sets it nearby, handing each of them a small spoon. “Only a little now,” she says, scraping a bit of cabbage and mushroom out of the bowl and laying it in the center of one of the circles. “Then I will fold them over like this…” She presses the edges together with a fork, leaving a trail of ridges on the lip of the dumpling. “But you must only use a little filling, or they won’t close properly.” She hears in her mind the echo of Idril Celebrindal’s voice and the floral smell clinging to her as she directs Elwing’s little hands, the guiding instructions of Elwing’s old nurse as she imparted old Doriathrin recipes on all of them. She remembers the sight of Eärendil sitting on the counter, nudging spilled chunks of onion back into the dough.

            Elros immediately goes to fill his overlarge dumpling skin with as much as he can manage, squeezing it out the sides when he tries to close it. They aren’t quite coordinated enough yet to spoon the filling out without making a great mess, and Elwing should stop them; they’re wasting food and she’ll have to clean it all up later, but Eärendil is out to sea and the boys are happy to be helping, so she says nothing.

            They work quietly, making little noises or gestures that must mean something to each other, and only once devolving into a wordless squabble of hand slaps that they resolve before she intervenes. They are very focused on their task.

            She wonders if Elured and Elurin were the same, working in silent tandem with each other at their chores, speaking in ways no one else could see or understand.

            When they’ve filled each piece of dough, she reaches around them to begin pressing them shut, while both boys point as soon as one hasn’t been closed properly or has leaked out some filling. Elrond tugs at her tunic to point out the unsatisfactory dumplings and she’s fairly sure Elros is trying to wipe dough off his hands on her. She pinches a bit of spilled cabbage off the tray and holds it up to Elrond’s lips; he nibbles it off her fingers and smiles, showing a flash of teeth.

            “They’re lumpy,” Elros says with a frown.

            “They’re a little full,” says Elwing. “But they’ll taste the same once we’ve cooked them.” Elros is still frowning. Elwing cards a hand back through his fine hair. “Aren’t you pleased, little minnow?” she asks. “Look how many you made.”

            “They’re lumpy,” Elros insists. They aren’t lumpy when Elwing makes them.

            “So?” she says. Elros frowns up at her, his dark brows furrowed. “Not everything has to look perfect,” she tells him. “Wait and see how they look when they’re finished.”

            She sends them off because they are too young yet to be fishing dumplings out of a pot of boiling water or a pan of hot butter, but when the dumplings are cooked and sightly cooled she calls them both back in.

            “Here you are, chipmunk,” she says to Elrond, handing him one which he bites into immediately, licking the warm butter off his lips. “Will you take one as well, or are they still too lumpy for you?” she asks Elros. He makes a moue at her, as if he knows he’s being teased, and sullenly holds his hand out for a dumpling. Very seriously, Elwing places one in his hand.

            “What do you think?” she asks after he’s taken two bites. “Is it terrible? Shall I throw it out for the goats?”

            “No!” the twins say together. Elrond grabs Elros’ wrist with his oily hand and pulls him towards the doorway, and they vanish off to make a tent out of their bed blankets, or collect seed pods, or concoct one of their elaborate pretend games together, leaving Elwing to clean the dishes and prepare the rest of dinner. As she gathers the basket of over-stuffed, lumpy dumplings, she thinks of little hands pressing out the dough and smiles to herself.

Chapter End Notes

Every year for Christmas (eve) dinner, my family makes pierogies based on my great-grandmother's recipe (she passed this February at 105, may she rest in peace). It hurts me to think Elrond and Elros lost among a whole lot else, the cultural memories of Doriath--all the things Elwing grew up eating that Elrond and Elros will never learn to make because there's no one left to show them. But not because no one cared to or tried--they just had the chance taken from them.

That got heavy for a pure fluff piece. This family deserved more time together TT_TT

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