June 1437
"Where's Fo?"
Mum shook her head sadly, putting out a steadying arm, and her eyes were too red. She didn't have the bottle of cod-liver oil in her apron-pocket, and that made Elanor's breath catch and her stomach go all funny.
"In the bedroom. He's been wanting to see you. He'd planned to ride out and meet you, but - "
She didn't hear the rest, fairly flying down the hall, curls flying as her hair came loose. She didn't care. All those letters. . .a whole year of letters from Fo, keeping her heart up when she felt so afraid, so alone in places so full of such big people, so far from home and messy little brothers and sisters and Daddy and Mum and Fo. . . .
And now she *knew*.
Knew as much as a body could know, at least. Hours with King Elessar and Queen Arwen, hearing about Arwen's Ada, as she called her Daddy, who'd sailed away over the sea when Elanor was just a baby, before the others were even born.
The one Fo would have sailed away with. . .but he stayed.
She'd thought Fo had taught her more history than she could bear to remember, and come to find he'd left more out of it than she could imagine.
You might know how cold it is outside, King Elessar had pointed out, and you might tell your children how cold it is, but you don't tell them that you're freezing to death.
Because you don't want to hurt them.
She stopped at the door, swallowing, trying to regain her breath to avoid startling him by hurtling in. When he was ill, anything that startled him hurt him, and sometimes it would take him an extra dose of medicine or Mum and Daddy rubbing his hands over and over and talking to him before he'd be all right enough for his breathing to slow back to its usual laboured pace. She didn't want to make him worse, not after so long. . . .
~