There are times that Elanor thinks longingly of home and being back among people her own, proper size. When she feels like that, she looks pleadingly at the Queen, who nods and dismisses her. Elanor runs to the gardens or the library, searching for things that remind her of her family in the strangeness of Gondor. Heedless of her dresses, she kneels in the garden, feeling the soil between her fingers and remembering how Sam-dad always smelled of growing things. Or she sits in the library, holding books of familiar Elvish stories that she can only pick out a word or two of, smelling the ink and dusty-paper scent that makes her think of Fo. If she could, she would sneak into the kitchens, but the warm spicy aromas of the food in there only reminds her how far she is from her mother's cooking.
She treasures each letter, the scrawled, almost indecipherable bits from the youngest of her siblings, the funny stories only partially untrue that the troublemakers get together and send her, the careful, precise words of Fo's letters, usually mixed in with places where her mother or father stole the pen for a few lines. They're slices of the Shire in crisp envelopes, and they keep Elanor grounded and whole.
Still, she can't wait to be home, to see the familiar faces and eat the proper foods. The little ones must have grown by now, she thinks wistfully, and wonders if she would recognize them.
But these moods pass, for Gondor is fascinating, and Queen Arwen is careful to make sure Elanor feels comfortable, if not precisely 'at home,' understanding her feelings due to being a stranger among men herself. So Elanor tells her own stories in her letters home, and tries not to say 'I miss you all so much,' too often.
After all, she will go home someday, and be among them, and wish herself away, as she had when she was young. It's the way things are, and Elanor can accept that.
~