A Man Who Flies From His Fear May Find He Has Only Taken A Shortcut To Meet It by LadySternchen  

Being Touched/Being Looked At- Elwë

Ok, here again, I feel I have to explain things. This is not how I wanted to write this chapter, but Elwë’s mother (another one for whom I need a name) had an opinion here 🤣 And Enel again proved to be the utter a***. I’m so sorry, because obviously, he has done nothing at all to annoy me so, but I just don’t like him. 
As for background, I always pictured Elwë and Olwë to be rather shockingly close in age (for Elvish standards), so much so that they grew up almost like twins. So Elwë is probably a little over a year old here, by which time Elflings have usually mastered speech and song and dancing. So I guess it works out?

He runs to his mother, pressing his face against her side and silently willing her to pick him up und hold him tight, so that he need not see nor hear the others. But of course, she cannot, because of the new baby in her belly. Elwë wants to feel excited, knows that he must not resent his sibling, but right now, he does nonetheless. He needs his mother now, and the baby is in the way.

She does something comforting, though- stroking over his head, untangling his hair, and then letting her hand rest between his shoulder blades, securely pinning him to her side. In an instant, he feels his racing heart calm down a little. Only once it does, he can hear Lord Enel’s words more clearly.

“He is a prince of my house, and he will have to learn—”

“He is very nearly still a baby, Enel, moreover a baby who is going to be a big brother soon. And while you know that he is an heir to your line, to him, you and Enelyë are almost strangers. Can you not let him be for once? He will come to you when he is ready. Providing, of course, that you cease to make him uncomfortable by insisting he lets you touch him, and… and keep looking at him as though you were appraising the catch of the day.”

His mother’s tone startles Elwë out of his fear. He has never heard her -or anyone in fact- talk to Lord Enel like that. He chances a glance up at her, and sees her face contorted with fury. She looks even angrier than she did when Elwë broke the pot holding the nuts, because he wanted some to play with, and she was very, very angry then. So angry that Elwë hid at Nowë’s place for the rest of the day.

Lord Enel easily matches her anger, and turns to Elwë’s father now.

“Can you not talk some sense into your wife? You, who has known and profited from being raised as the prince you are?”

“Lord,” his father’s voice is gentler, more courteous, but his tone still firm “I am, and have ever been, grateful for the privileges I came to know through your grace. And yet every child is different. Elwë is clearly not ready for any sort of education. This is not his -or our- being ungrateful, there are but a handful of people he is comfortable with at the moment. He is still too little.”

“And how will he ever learn how to be a lord if you let him have his will and allow him to run wild, to shy away from people’s glances like a startled deer? You clearly put no effort into his upbringing, either, but are rather busy bringing more children into the world already. It is an outrage. You both are clearly too young yourselves to know how things are properly done.”

Elwë covers his ears again, tears starting in his eyes. He knows he is all wrong, knows what is expected of him, but he simply cannot comply. Whenever people look at him, he is overcome by the urge to hide, and a stranger’s touch, especially a touch he does not expect, he is mortally afraid of.

“That is because he is still a baby, Enel, as I have told you before. He is still nursed at night. What do you expect him to be able to do? He talks, he sings, he dances, he climbs every tree and boulder he can find, he can find his way already by looking at the stars. What else does education mean to you?”

“With all due respect,” his father injects, anger now discernible for the first time in his voice “The way in which we build our family is our business alone. I can assure you, we will make sure that all of our children will be well brought up.”

Elwë hears no more of the argument, finally managing to cover his ears in a more effective way. He does not want to listen to that. Nonetheless, he feel infinitely better than he has done before. It is good to know that his parents love him just the way he is.