Elrohir honestly didn't know when he realized that he was the only one in his family who liked the rain. His mother always preferred to sit in the sun for hours, and his father enjoyed brisk windy autumn afternoons, when the bite of winter already nipped in the cool breeze. But Elrohir loved nothing so much as to run outside and play in summer thunderstorms.

Even when he was very little, when lightning and thunder still sent Elladan running to their mother's bed in tears, he would sit for hours by the window, watching lightning flash across the sky.

That was how he discovered the only other inhabitant of Imladris who loved the rain.

---

He sat at the window, staring owlishly at the dark sky and listening closely to the howling wind, when movement down in the courtyard caught his eye. He looked down, and saw Erestor-solemn, quiet, serious Erestor-standing in the midst of the downpour, laughing out loud. His invariably immaculate hair was wind-blown and wild around his pale, narrow face, lit with joy for the first time that Elrohir had ever seen.

Impulsively, the elfling jumped up and raced down to the courtyard, smiling as the wind blew a sheet of water into his face. "Erestor!" he called.

The older elf turned, still laughing. "Hello, little one!" he shouted over the wind. "Have you come to dance in the rain?"

"Will you dance with me?"

In response, Erestor scooped the child up in his arms, still small enough to be lifted in such a fashion. As he was swung around playfully, Elrohir ventured, "I did not know you liked the rain."

"I have always loved the rain."

---

The next morning, Elrohir woke to his brother bouncing on his bed. "Wha?" he asked sleepily.

"Glorfindel is going to teach me to ride today!" Elladan exclaimed gleefully.

"Did Erestor excuse you from this afternoon's lessons?"

"Yes! I am going to learn to ride and I escape the history of the Noldor! This is the most wonderful day of my life!"

"I like history," Elrohir protested muzzily.

"Yes, foolish one, I know, but I do not, and I am leaving now, so I have come to bid you good-bye and good-day." "Good-bye," he muttered, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow. "Good night."

---

Elrohir managed to wake and stumble into his clothing before noon, and meandered down to the library, where Erestor usually gave lessons to him and his brother.

Erestor, predictably enough, was already seated, his nose buried in a book. His hair was neatly braided, the mad glint of laughter was gone from his eyes, and all in all Elrohir half-believed he had dreamed the previous night.

Then his tutor looked up, and grinned. "Good morning, little one." "'Tis afternoon," he pointed out.

"Ah, but you cannot be more than half a mark past waking, my little friend, and so 'tis morning to you."

"'Tis far too early for logic," Elrohir complained, and Erestor grinned wider, at the phrase which often escaped his own lips.

"Well, come here, child, and we shall see to your lesson for today. Since your brother has gone off for a lesson in horsemanship, I feel we may deviate slightly from your curriculum."

"What will you teach me?" Elrohir asked eagerly. He had always been the scholarly twin, happier with a book than a sword.

Erestor smiled in open affection, a rare expression for the reserved elf. "I thought you might enjoy a trip down to the Bruinen to examine the plants. I know your mother has taught you some of the uses for the herbs in our gardens, but there are wild plants growing on the river banks that you should be able to recognize."

Elrohir beamed at the thought of going down to the river. He loved the Bruinen, and his father was often too busy to take him and his brother. "Thank you, Erestor."

"'Tis not a hardship," his tutor told him, and got to his feet. "Come, elfling, there is much to learn and only the day to teach it."

---

A few weeks later, Erestor and his two pupils were once again in the library, the twins translating Quenya poetry as Erestor looked on. Rain fell softly outside the windows, drawing Elrohir's eyes, and Elladan was distracted by the prospect of his upcoming lesson in swordsmanship from Glorfindel.

Erestor suddenly caught Elrohir's eye and gave him a conspiratorial wink. "Elladan," he announced, "you are not concentrating."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I shall try harder."

"No, I really do not think that you will get any work done today, and you are disrupting your brother's efforts. Go find Glorfindel and tell him that you may begin your lesson a few hours early if he has the time. You may finish your translation later."

"Thank you, Erestor!" Elladan exclaimed, jumping out of his seat. "I will!" He bolted from the library as though demons followed on his heels, as Erestor shook his head in silent amusement and Elrohir stifled laughter.

"Well, come along, elfling," he said to Elrohir, causing the younger elf to blink up at him in surprise. "It would hardly be fair for you to slave away in the library when your brother runs off to his lesson in blade-work. I believe we have time to take a walk before lunch."

Elrohir's face lit. "I'm coming!" He followed the dark-haired, slender elf out of the library hurriedly, his strides lengthening and Erestor's shortening, until their steps fell in perfect unison.

---

Erestor looked out the window wistfully. It was raining, pouring really, but it was also bitterly cold, too cold to take Elrohir out for a walk in the garden. Elrohir was still recovering from a very stubborn cold, and was fidgety from his long confinement indoors, but Erestor knew enough of healing and medicine to not take the little elf out into the frigid rain. "Erestor?" He glanced up and blinked at Elrond's anxious face.

"Yes?" he asked, carefully modulating his voice so that it lacked all emotion.

"Have you seen Elrohir?"

"No; I thought that he was confined to his bed until his cold disappears entirely."

"He is, but he is not in his room and I cannot find him anywhere."

"How long has he been missing?"

"I do not know... three hours perhaps?"

Since the rain began in earnest, then, Erestor mused to himself. "He is probably outside. He likes the rain."

"He will get sicker!" exclaimed the elf-lord.

"Yes, I imagine he will," he agreed absently. He rose, putting his book aside. "Do you wish for me to find him?"

"Do you know where he is?" "I am fairly certain he is in the gardens."

"Then exert yourself for half a moment and go retrieve him!" Elrond snapped. Erestor's continual impassive expression frequently irritated other members of his household, especially in situations where he would be expected to show some form of emotion.

"As you request," he replied serenely. He swept past Elrond, frowning inwardly. Although he would rather face down a troop of orcs than admit it, he was rather worried about the little elfling.

---

Elrohir was sitting under a tree, gazing up at the sheets of water pouring off the branches. He had finally escaped his confinement, and delighted in the howling storm around him, despite the fact that he was feeling sicker by the moment.

"Elrohir?" Erestor peered through the leaves at his young charge. "Elrohir, come back inside."

"I want to stay out!" he protested.

Erestor sighed and settled beside him, folding his long legs up to fit under the tree. "Little one, your father is very worried. You are too sick to go out in the rain."

"I don't like staying inside," he sulked. "It's raining."

"Yes," he agreed patiently. "It is. And-" He broke off as Elrohir began coughing. "Elfling, please go back to bed?"

"I don't want to!" Erestor rested his hand against Elrohir's forehead, and winced. The child was burning with fever. "Little one..."

"I don't feel well," he remarked suddenly, swaying ever so slightly. Erestor frowned to himself and picked up the elfling. "You need to go to bed," he informed Elrohir sternly. "Otherwise you may get too sick to go out in the rain for a very long time."

"Oh," he murmured dizzily. "All right."

Erestor hurried back inside, cradling his lightweight burden closely. Elrond met him at the door, immediately taking his son from the soaked elf. "Where was he?"

"In the gardens." Erestor attempted to wipe some water from his face, and frowned as his dripping wet sleeve failed to absorb any more liquid. "I think he has a fever."

Elrond nodded curtly and carried Elrohir up the stairs to his room. "Go fetch my healer's bag, and then change into dry clothing."

Erestor half-bowed and left, pools of water forming wherever his feet touched the floor. He returned a few minutes later, holding a leather bag gingerly, so as not to get it wet. "Will he be all right?" he asked Elrond worriedly.

"I don't know," the older elf snapped. "And you are certainly not improving the situation. Why in the name of Elbereth was Elrohir out in the rain?"

"He likes the rain," Erestor replied quietly. "He likes to play in it." "Well, he is not to do so again, and you are most certainly not to encourage him!"

"I see no reason to stop him so long as he does not make himself sick again." His voice was still soft, but Elrond stared at him, infuriated by his apparent lack of repentance.

"When I want your opinion, Erestor, I will ask for it. You are clearly a poor influence on my son, and your contact with him will be restricted from now on. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly, my lord," he murmured, and backed away, his face completely expressionless.

---

"Ada?" Elrohir looked at his father sleepily. "Can I see Erestor?"

"No," he replied, gently but firmly. "Erestor is going away for a while."

"But I want to see him!" the child protested. "Why can't I see him?"

"You're sick," his father evaded. "Go to sleep. Your brother will want to see you in the morning."

---

Elrohir stared blindly at his hands. Over one thousand years of training and practice as a warrior, and now-

Now his mother was dying, all because she had not wanted to wait a few days, until he and his brother returned from their travels to accompany her to her parents' home.

Mother...

Elladan was off somewhere - probably sobbing into Glorfindel's shoulder, he thought impersonally, without the resentment he had once felt over his twin's attachment to the blond. Elladan and Glorfindel had always been close, sometimes closer than Elladan was to Elrohir. Perhaps it was only that Elladan and Elrohir, for all that they were identical in appearance, had almost nothing in the way of common interests. Glorfindel and Elladan could have been twins in personality, if not in looks.

The crash of thunder stirred him from his reverie, and he looked out the window to see raindrops striking the glass. A summer thunderstorm, he thought, smiling a little to himself. I have not been out in the rain for an age...

Rising to his feet, he walked down the stairs with a practiced grace. As soon as he exited the building, he tilted his head up to the sky, letting the rain wash over his face. For the first time in a month, he felt clean.

Heading down the garden path winding towards his favorite tree, Elrohir caught sight of an old, old friend, one he had barely seen, let alone spoken to, since his childhood.

Erestor sat on a stone bench, his face tipped upward and his eyes shut, his lips parted to catch the raindrops on his tongue. He did not stir as his former pupil sat beside him, but neither did he start when Elrohir spoke.

"Do you still come out to dance in the rain?"

Erestor's voice was still soft as velvet, smooth as cream. "My heart is heavier of late, little one, and I find I have little cause to dance. But I still come here, for if the rain cannot wash away my cares, it can at least ease them for a while." He turned his ageless face toward Elrohir, some of his compassion showing in his usually blank, bland expression. "But you, little one, what calls you out into the rain?"

"It has been many a long year since last we sat here," he said after a long pause, choosing to ignore the question. "Many a long year since last we danced in the rain."

"Too many years," Erestor agreed quietly. "But then you were still a child, and I-I was still light-spirited enough to play like a child, without a care or thought to responsibility."

"And are you so heavy-spirited now?"

Erestor looked away, so that the other elf would not see the tears of frustration and sorrow glistening in his eyes. "Whatever the rest of this household may think, I am not so heartless as I appear, and... these times could break the heart of a stone."

"You have never been so heartless as you seem, and any who could claim that you lack emotion is blinder than any of the Firstborn have a right to be." He reached out and tentatively covered the older elf's hand with his own, feeling somewhat braver when Erestor did not instantly jerk out of his grasp.

"And you, elfling, have always been kinder and gentler than even the Firstborn should rightly be."

Elrohir smiled a little, and if it was a bitter smile, Erestor would never dream of commenting on it, as the others in Elrohir's family might. "And much good it has done me." "A sweet nature rarely benefits its possessor; only those around him reap the reward."

"And even less good has it done them," he snapped, instantly regretting his harsh tone as Erestor's face closed off even the small hint of emotion that had shown before. "I am sorry," he said a moment later. "What angers me is none of your doing."

"I know."

They sat in silence for a while, before Elrohir spoke again. "Why does everyone I love leave me?"

Erestor moved his shoulders slightly. "Nothing can last forever, little one."

"Nana will either die or leave us for Valinor, Elladan is more Glorfindel's twin than mine, and even you left me. Why did you never say goodbye?" he demanded, half angry and half sad. "Why did you never visit me or say goodbye before you went to Mirkwood?"

"Oh, elfling," he sighed. "I couldn't. Your father ordered me away from you, to go as ambassador to Mirkwood. He thought it was my fault that you caught sick. I asked him to give you my farewells."

"He never told me," Elrohir replied quietly. "He only said that you were gone."

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault." Elrohir made a sudden decision, and rose to his feet. "Come on."

Erestor blinked at the slender hand extended to him. "Come where?" "Take my hand," the younger elf requested softly. "Please." Bewildered, Erestor accepted the hand, and the yank that pulled him to his feet. "Now come on!" Elrohir dragged his puzzled friend along as he ran through the soaked garden, out onto an equally drenched plot of grass. He seized Erestor's other hand tightly and began to spin him around, watching his face as the rest of the waterlogged world blurred into a grey-green wall enclosing them in their own rainy reality.

Slowly, slowly, the baffled look bled out of Erestor's eyes, replaced with a simple joy in the rain. He suddenly smiled and began to pull back on Elrohir's hands. Faster and faster they spun around, until they inevitably slipped on the sodden grass.

They sat on the soaking ground, water seeping through their clothing until they were as wet as a pair of drowned rats, and they laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Elrohir climbed to his feet first, leaning down to offer a hand up to his friend, and was mightily surprised when Erestor instead gave a sharp yank, sending him once again tumbling down, this time on top of the formerly dignified advisor.

Erestor grinned unrepentantly, and Elrohir wrapped his arms around his neck, chuckling softly. He was still smiling when Elrohir pressed his lips to Erestor's own.

---

Lady Celebrian looked out her window down onto the rainy ground, and smiled her pale half-smile. She had fretted about her younger son, and his reaction to her departure, knowing that he had no one to love in her place. Now she had no cause to worry, and no cause to delay.

On the wet lawn, Elrohir stood in Erestor's tight embrace with his face buried in the sodden silk of Erestor's hair, scented with the clean sweet smell of the rain, and he was, at long last, at peace.