Pairing: Elladan/Elrohir
Rating: PG                       Slash
Timeline: Modern times
Beware of Halloween, with ghoulies and ghosties, and elves that come in the night…

 

"Oh, wow! I got 'Snickers' *and* 'M&Ms' !"

The boy's delighted cry drew the attention of his brother as he held out his bag for inspection. The older child snorted derisively, looking miserably into his own.

"Huh! We got twice as much from them last year."

The younger boy's face fell, and he turned his tousled head back briefly to the closed door from which he had come.

"Well, yeah - that's Joey's home," he said sadly. "He's a pal from my class? His dad was in the army, and he got killed recently in that stupid war that they are fighting at the moment, over in that desert country. You know, that one they keep arguing over on the news? I don't think that Joey and his mom are really enjoying Halloween this year."

The brother looked suitably chastened for a moment, and they both thought about their loving parents and the sorrow they would feel if they lost them. Shaking himself, Ronan turned his attention away from the sadness of the world to more important matters - the tooth-rotting contents of his goodie bag.

"Come on, Danny, the Mitchell's house is next. Mrs Mitchell always has toffee apples!"

The two children ran along the narrow path, the bandages of Ronan the 'ghoul' flying behind him, mimicked by the black cape of Pirate Danny. They slowed as they neared the narrow path which would take them between the two separate roads of the estate, for it was flanked by the old woodland copse, sinister in the extreme when only lit by the moonlight. The wood was a place of pleasure for all the children of this small town during the summer months, and they practically haunted the place in their vacation time. Under the summer sun it was full of shouts of laughter and gambolling games; a home to pixies, elves, cowboys and combat soldiers in camouflage makeup snitched from their mothers' cosmetics boxes. Now, in the dark evenings of fall, and the shadow of All Hallows Eve, the wood was shunned.

Danny peered into the woods, seeing only blackness beyond the first ranks of bare-branched trees. "Ro, do you think that the wood is haunted? I heard some other kids say..."

Ronan looked down at his brother, two years younger in age and at least twenty in experience, in Ronan's eleven-year-old eyes. "What, Green Woods? Nah - I've never heard of anything, 'cept what silly little kids say. Anyway, we're always playing in there - there is nothing there except the trees, and nowhere for anything to hide."

Still, the younger boy halted, staring into the fringes. "I dunno, Ro. Sometimes, when I pass here on my way home from Joey's, I think that I see two lights shining in the wood, real deep inside. As if it were a shiny ghost car, maybe."

Ronan laughed. Sometimes his little brother's vivid imagination ran away with him. His dad had said that Danny had got it from his side of the family, because his parents and grandparent's had often told him that they were descended from the Little People. Of course, that was way back in the old country before his great granddad had come from Europe to the United States. Danny loved to read ghost stories, or fantasy tales of dragons and knights in shining armour. And Danny had been the one who had said that he had seen fairies at the bottom of their garden, when he was only three. Come to think of it, that had been at Halloween too.

"Aren't you boys a little far from home? You should not be too near the woods when night has fallen."

The two boys jumped, surprise and fear evident upon their faces. Automatically, as children do when they believe they are to be accused of a 'crime', they defended themselves.

"We're not doing anything wrong!" Ronan cried belligerently.

The tall man knelt down on one knee to the hard concrete of the path, holding out his slender hands to show that he meant no harm.

"I never said that you were," the dark-haired stranger said softly. "But I will wager that this is beyond where your parents would allow."

Ronan blushed hotly; angry at being discovered in the wrong, for this was true. They *were* always told not to use this path after dark. Still, he remained defiant.

"Well, we've been told not to talk to strangers either, mister! So go away and leave us alone!"

The kneeling stranger nodded his head in agreement as a second voice came out of the darkness behind him, and a figure stepped into the light cast by the moon and the faint haze of the lamps of the suburb.

"You were taught well, little one. You are right to obey your elders. But we have been friends of your family for longer than you could ever imagine."

Danny had been silent during this exchange, but his eyes had been constantly widening as he stared at the two adults. The two men were identical - long dark hair, sweeping down their backs to their waists; fine grey eyes reflected in the feeble light of the distant street lighting... and pointed ears that peeked sharply out through the dark tresses. Coupled with their dark grey pants, knee-high leather boots and tight-fitting tunics, Danny recognised their garb and, with the infallible logic of a nine-year-old boy, knew who they must be.

"You're elves!" he said accusingly. The kneeling man burst out laughing.

"We've been rumbled, 'Dan!" he chuckled, looking over his shoulder at his brother. "The little one has seen through our disguise."

The tall 'elf' joined in the laughter. "Well, the make-up and prosthetics *were* done by an expert, 'Ro!"

Ronan started at hearing his nickname on the man's lips, then realised that the kneeling man was the one being addressed. He looked at them suspiciously. "Make-up? On men?"

The one called Dan grinned. "How do you think that the points stay on the ears? Spirit gum!"

"Yeah," said Ro. " We're going to a party. All our friends are film fans, so it's a Halloween costume party, right?"

Light dawned on their faces, and the boys nodded.

"So are you, like, supposed to be from that big film that won all the Oscars?" asked Ronan. Danny nodded vigorously in excitement, for it was his favourite film.

"Yeah - 'The Lord of the Rings'!" He had been too young to see it in the cinema because of its rating, but his mom and dad had bought the DVD's. The kneeling elf nodded again.

"Do you think that we would win any prizes?"

Danny pondered this, scrutinising the costumes of the two men in front of him. "Well... they are pretty good, I suppose, but you won't win if you are going as Legolas. He's blonde-haired!" he criticised.

The one called Dan guffawed at this. "Actually, Legolas was dark-haired," he began, then corrected himself when he saw his brother look sharply at him. "Well, in the book, I mean. No, we are not going as Legolas. Do you remember the bit in the film, the last one, where the two elves were re-forging the sword?"

Danny nodded his head slowly. He couldn't really remember that bit, but he didn't like to say so. "I think so," he lied.

"Well, that was us. The twins sons of Elrond. Elladan and Elrohir."

Danny shook his head. "I don't remember them from the film."

Ro nodded, somewhat sadly. "No, they didn't put us in. I don't think that we were really relevant to the story." He grimaced as Dan snorted, and shot him a firm glance. "But we are in the books, little one. Maybe when you are older, you can read them and find out all about us."

Ronan, not being the film buff his younger brother was, had become tired of the conversation. There were more important things to be doing tonight. He tugged at his brother's sleeve. "Come on, Danny. We have got to go home soon, and we haven't been to all the houses. All the best treats will be gone soon," he whined.

Danny looked at the two strangers, and ingenuously held out his Halloween treat bag. "We're 'Trick-or-Treating'," he said, shaking the bag obviously.

Ro chuckled again, as if he was remembering two young boys and their wily ways of long ago. He put his hand into a tunic pocket.

"Here you go, little one. We don't have much we can give you, but we would be honoured if you would keep these gifts, in memory of us."

Two leaf-shaped pins fell from his hand, one into each child's bag.

"Thanks!" said Ronan, starting to pull his brother along the path. "'Bye, mister!"

"May govnanon!" shouted Danny, enthusiastic if not precisely correct. He gave one last wave. "I hope that you win something!"

The two elves waved back as the little figures disappear around the next corner.

"Navaer, pin-nith," whispered Elladan. Elrohir stood and turned, pulling his brother into a light embrace.

"Well, gwaniaur, I think that this generation of our kin is growing well, eh?"

Elladan hugged his beloved Elrohir firmly. "Aye, little 'Ro. I think that Arwen and Aragorn would be proud of their long-distant children."

Elrohir turned his head to look in the direction in which the boys had run.

"When I see them, so young and innocent, I am so glad that we made the Choice that we did. The unexpected Choice. To retain our lives as Eldar, as elven-kind, yet to remain in Middle Earth to watch over the descendants of our sweet sister, and protect our human kin throughout the Ages."

Elladan nodded, kissing his brother's soft hair. "Aye, but come now with me 'Ro. Since the fate of the elves left in Middle Earth fell upon us, the opportunity to interact with the humans of this time has dwindled to this one night. Since we faded to our ghostly mien, tonight is the one time every year that we can regain a corporeal existence. Let us not waste the few precious hours that the darkness of Samhain has given to us. Where shall we go?"

Elrohir grinned in his renewed excitement of the night. "The local Gay Pride groups are having their annual Halloween Costume party. I think that we would fit right in now, wouldn't we?"

Elladan draped his arm over his lover's shoulder, and they start to walk along the path away from the wood that was their present spirit home in this world.

"Absolutely, melethron. Will they have Bushmills, do you think?"

Elrohir licked his lips. "Or Stella Artois..."

"I really can't understand why you like that stuff..."

"Well, if you'd done what I suggested and sold the recipe for miruvor to that brewer in Ireland, what was his name...?"

"Arthur Guinness..."

"Yes, well..."

The voices faded as the two sons of Elrond strolled away into the sacred, ghostly night....

Elvish:

Navaer - farewell (Sind)
pin-nith - little ones (pl)
gwaniaur - older twin
melethron - beloved (male)