Orchard
The mellryn thin and rows of smaller trees are revealed, heavily laden with fruit of all kind. Scents of apple, cherry and plum waft through the air and the pleasant humming of bees can be heard. There are also several rows of nut trees, laden with tempting varieties such as almonds, walnuts, and pecans. Grass grows thick and long under the welcoming shade of the trees, and small white wildflowers flourish. Several woven baskets are scattered among the trees, some empty, others containing ripe fruit and nuts just waiting to be eaten. A wooden ladder rests against the trunk of a particularly large apple tree.
The morning sunshine slides higher towards noon even as it slants lower and lower in the south as the year heads into autumn. On the trees here in the orchard, fruits of many varieties abound. But Lothdaimoth seems most interested in the apples, stopping beneath several trees to examine their crop before finding one that merits his approval. One, red streaking across its green skin, is twisted from a twig and held out towards Caelwen. Another makes it no further than his own mouth. And soon a trickle of clear thin juice joins a smear of mud on his chin as he chews.
Caelwen grips her own apple, and grins at the smear of mud but says nothing of it. "I love seeing you in your craft," she speaks instead, and turns her face to look between two rows of trees, a fine leaf-topped hall. "I understand the pleasure you find in it." She slips a glance to him from the corner of her eye, grinning, and takes a jaunty, swinging step forward.
The counsel and apprentice vintner leans idly against the trunk of the tree he has just robbed and takes another bite. "I suppose it is much the same for you?" he asks after a few minutes have passed in companionable silence, broken only by the faint sounds of chewing. "Only.. the clay is not living. I have trouble imagining it, for much of the joy I find is.." his voice trails off, eyes growing distant while he ponders how to explain. But at last, he only shrugs helplessly and nibbles a little more from his prize. "..Is that they live."
Caelwen licks another drip of juice from her lips as she swallows a bite. "But it is!" She steps closer, then stalls, studying the white flesh exposed along one side of her fruit before looking back at him. "Well... I suppose it isn't, really. But fresh clay is sturdy and..." Her voice trails off as her fingers shape a sculpture in the air, her mouth finding no words to fit it. She giggles once, and creeps the least bit closer to Lothdaimoth as she steals a bite from the apple. She looks contemplatingly at him as she chews. A swallow, "Well, I saw that you feel as I do, so it must be near the same thing."
A sleeve is dragged across Lothdaimoth's mouth and chin, roughly drying the trickle of juice but mostly succeeding in smearing dirt and stickiness further. "It must be," he agrees. "In some ways at least. Perhaps it is more a thing within one's fae rather than otherwise?" He cocks an inquiring eyebrow at her and slides down the tree until he is sitting at its base. A sudden grin and he pats the ground with his apple-free hand. "Here. Sit with me. Then I won't be continually wondering if you are sneaking up on me with nefarious intentions."
A quick step forward and Caelwen slides down to sit beside him, her shoulder against his and her skirts thick on one side. "Of course I have nefarious intentions. I don't ever have any other sort." She laughs, spinning her apple in her hand to expose an uneaten side, juice trickling down her fingers. She looks to him, a brow arched with a serious expression, marred only by the mirth hiding behind her eyes. "What do you suppose they were this time?"
Lothdaimoth laughs and scootches over the tiniest fraction to share his trunk-backrest. Schooling his expression to one of mournful certainty, he says, "I have no idea. But it would most likely involve something terrible for me. Like raining shoes..."
Caelwen sighs, letting her mostly-eaten apple rest in her lap with a hand. She rests her head against Lothdaimoth's shoulder. "It probably is," she concedes cheerfully. "Alas for poor Caranteil, always suffering with nary a complaint." She chuckles to herself, obviously pleased with her own joke.
Lothdaimoth's own apple has metamorphosed into a core and he eyes it carefully, taking one last nibble before drawing back his arm and hurling it end over end through the air to land with a soft plop far off in the brush. "I will complain," he says darkly. "Bitterly." Unseen, his hand creeps up to poke at her ribs. "Always I am the attacked and never allowed to defend myself. Or it is, 'Lothdaimoth! You are a thief! Lothdaimoth! Stop teasing me! ..' A sideways glance sparkles with mischief.
Caelwen squeaks and clutches at her ribs, unfortunately with the apple hand, spreading grainy bits of fruit across the fine gold cloth. "I know. You /always/ complain, even when you are attacking me. And then always twisting it to be my fault." She tosses her apple aside, even though it was not fully eaten. "Poking fun at my nice dress. And getting apple and mud all across it." She rearranges her face into a more wounded set, peering at him with soulful green eyes.
"I?!? Twisting it to be your fault??" Lothdaimoth nods, world-weariness drawing
his face down into a huge sigh. "Like I got apple on your dress when my apple
is long gone..." Dropping his injured pose then, he twists to look at her dress
intently and then his own (alas, muddy) hands. "Did I dirty you? I'm sorry. I
didn't notice." He goes to brush at her sleeve then remembers mid-air that his
hands are still dirty and stops. A rueful smile crosses his face. "I can't even
mend my errors, it seems. What shall I do by way of apology?"
Words pop out of her mouth immediately. "You should k--" Caelwen coughs,
cutting herself off, and proceeds to dissolve into laughter. She leans her
forehead against his shoulder, her face flushing deeply, as she is consumed by
her own mirth. She covers her eyes with a hand.
Taken utterly aback, Lothdaimoth simply stares at the top of Caelwen's shaking
head where it rests against his arm. "Do what?" he asks at last, blankly. "Kill
someone??" No reason in this is there for such mirth and he goes back to
staring perplexedly.
Caelwen's mirth had finally begun to subside to the point where she could
breathe again, gasping a little. Her head lifts, and she lets loose more peals
of laughter after he speaks, eyes watering from the corners. "Kill someone?"
she manages to choke out. "Have you gone mad??"
"I hope not," replies her cousin. "But I had begun to wonder if you had. Who
could you possibly want me to kill? I wouldn't do it, anyways," he adds as an
afterthought. Caelwen's unrestrained (and unending) laughter is beginning to
have an effect: though dark eyes yet regard her, mystified, his lips start to
quirk as of their own accord.
Caelwen attempts to school her features into something more sombre as green
eyes linger on a dark pair, her mouth tight-lipped with a smile restrained and
giggles sneaking out her nose every once in a while. "You wouldn't?" she
chortles, then forces her mouth into a slight pout. "You never do anything I
ask for!"
"Never?" Lothdaimoth begins to laugh as well, though his eyes still are
perplexed as they rest on her face. And grinning widely, he begins to number
off his fingers. "Who let you tag along and hold his bow and didn't tell whose
parents about which escapades and ..." he seems capable of going on through 300
years worth of begging and this is only finger 3.
Caelwen sighs though his speech, her glittering eyes rolling a little. A
pleased smile is on her face, and she rests her head against Lothdaimoth's
shoulder again as she wriggles the least bit closer to him, leaning against his
side. She interrupts him. "See how you always turn things around?" But her
smile grows yet wider, her eyes now watching some of the memories his words
recall.
"I?" repeats the counsel, but laughter robs his voice of indignation and fills
it with indulgence instead. Folding over a fourth finger, he seems about to
continue, but a sudden thought grows behind his eyes and brings him to a halt.
A pause, and then, quietly, he asks, "Does it still bother you? The journey
north? And.. the wolves?"
"Well, no, not really," Caelwen says, her smile waning a little. "I mostly
worry about you, when I think of it. Why?" Her eyes flick aside and up toward
his face.
Lothdaimoth shrugs a little, a motion more felt than seen. "I only wondered,"
he says. "You did not wish for me to leave you and.. " but he stops here and
leaves his thought unvoiced. "Why do you worry about me? We are both home
safely."
"The worst part was watching your sorrow," Caelwen answers after a moment, her
voice dropping low as her body tenses a little. A long pause, and she whispers
now, eyes gone distant. "Thank you for keeping your promise. I couldn't have
borne it if you hadn't returned. I love you very much, cousin."
Memories, distant and closer, crowd into Lothdaimoth's face darkening his eyes.
Wordless, he slides his arm about her shoulders and squeezes. "And I you," he
says at last. "Always as a little sister have you been to me. And now," he
turns his head, looking down at her face and attempting to lighten his tone.
"You grow into a woman." In his eyes is something new - a recognition of some
bit of maturity she has gained by age and experience. "I am proud of you,
little one."
Caelwen lifts her head up, eyes hopeful and searching Lothdaimoth's face for a
long while in silence, as her teeth catch at her lip. "Thank you," she says in
a very small voice. "Well, you know," she admits, face flushing a little, "I
didn't mean it as a sister, to be honest." Her eyes flick away.
"Aiya! Lothdaimoth!" The call rings from the north and soon a hurrying figure
appears between the trees. "Iaurhanc wishes to speak with you."
Still the vintner seems disposed to linger, a small vertical crease appearing
between his eyebrows. "Caelwen..." he begins, when the cry is repeated and he
gets to his feet. "I am coming!" Long strides carry him away, now and then a
glance cast back over his shoulder at the seated figure of his most perplexing
young cousin.
Caelwen's eyes widen in panic when a Vintner calls Lothdaimoth away, then fly
fretfully to him. She stays where she is, her wide eyes meeting every backwards
glance, then still lingers, drawing her knees up toward her chest, finally resting
her forehead there. Her arms embrace her legs, the fine cloth of her skirts
billowing about her, and there she remains, shivering in the kindly Lorien air.