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“Why are you in such a peachy mood?”

“I’m fine,” growled Celegorm.

“Something’s got your panties in a twist for you to be this pissy.”

“I’m not pissy.”

“Oh look, the park!” said Maglor brightly, stepping between his brothers as they rounded the corner.

A small group was gathered between two spreading oaks. Aredhel was stringing a slackline between the two trees while Turgon hauled several enormous bags of food and set them up by the blanket Finrod was spreading over the ground. Fingon, who had stripped to his shirtsleeves and knotted his tie around his head in a rogueish fashion, was unfastening the clasps of a guitar case. There was another, much smaller instrument case on the ground next to him.

“God,” said Caranthir, wrinkling his nose, “has Findekáno joined an emo band or something?”

“Well, you’d know,” said Celegorm snidely. “O ye king of emo.”

“Suck my dick, asshole.”

Maglor pulled up short, cutting off what would have been an undoubtedly filthy rejoinder from Celegorm. “They brought instruments!”

“So what?” Caranthir and Celegorm kept walking, leaving Maglor behind on the sidewalk.

“No one told me! If I’d known, I would have brought my own.”

“Oh, well.” Caranthir shrugged, and Celegorm rolled his eyes.

“I’m going back for my violin.” Maglor turned on his heel and took off back down the street while his brothers ignored him and headed over to the picnic blanket.

Aredhel had finished hanging her slackline and turned to greet Celegorm, ruffling his hair and narrowing her eyes questioningly at his grim expression.

“What’s up?” she mouthed at him, but he just shook his head.

“I’ll tell you later,” he muttered. “But hey, you got – ?” His voice went too low to overhear, and Aredhel passed him something from her back pocket that he quickly slipped into his own.

With a last sideways glance at him, Aredhel turned to the others and said, “Ironically we’re missing half our actual students for the back to school thing, because Arko has rehearsal and Curvo has homework and whatever, but close enough, right?”

Celegorm was still looking restless, fingers drumming against his thigh. “I’m not really interested in the sitting on my ass and chatting thing, I think I’m gonna go down to the creek.”

“That’s cool.” Aredhel eyed him again, then adjusted the webbing she’d wound around the tree trunk. “Don’t fall in.” As Celegorm vanished towards the thicket of trees growing around the ravine where the creek flowed, Aredhel stepped back and examined the slackline. She lifted a leg and delicately tested the tension with a toe. “Hmm.”

Her audience, who had broken open some of the bags of food and were munching on watermelon and cold chicken, offered up advice.

“Hang it higher.”

“Do a dance on it.”

“Do a backflip on it.”

“I think you guys are not understanding the zen of slacklining,” said Aredhel, not looking at her cousins and brothers, and sprang onto the line.

“String it between two buildings and I’ll be interested,” said Caranthir, and yawned. He lay back on the picnic blanket, taking up most of it, and both Fingon and Finrod made peeved noises at him.

“Greedy little bastard, that blanket is for all of our butts.”

“And your feet are in my face,” said Finrod, wrinkling his nose.

Caranthir waggled his toes, unperturbed. “You two weirdos can play your music not on a blanket. I wanna nap, okay, I just survived a full week of school and I deserve rest.”

Finrod plucked his ukulele threateningly. “I just completed a full week of school too, as you know, seeing as I was the one to hand you your assigned reading.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to get read.” Caranthir dropped an arm over his eyes and appeared to settle in.

“Early in the semester to get on my bad side,” said Finrod, but he gave up on moving Caranthir’s feet and settled back against the tree, shoulder to shoulder with Fingon, who already had his guitar out.

“What first?”

“What are our choices?”

“Lessee.” Fingon squinted at the sky. “I got ‘Wagon Wheel’ and ‘Strong Enough’ on lock.”

“Oooh, Sheryl Crow? Finno, you tempting minx, let’s do that.”

They were halfway through the second verse when Maglor reappeared, violin in hand, and Fingon gestured him over with a broad smile.

Quite a bit of time passed before Celegorm re-emerged from the tangle of trees at the back of the park, his jeans rolled up to the knee, his feet muddy and his hair tangled. He was carrying a bucket.

“Did you have a bucket with you when you left?” Fingon looked both intrigued and disconcerted.

“I foraged it. I’m a masterful hunter and gatherer, remember.”

“What have you been up to?” asked Turgon, eyeing him warily.

“Crawdad hunting, pumpkin.” Celegorm shook the bucket and grinned, looking in far better spirits than he had when they first got to the park. “Want some?” He let the bucket slip a little, accidentally on purpose letting a live crayfish drop out and land on Finrod’s shoulder.

Finrod dropped his fingers from the strings of his ukulele and raised them to his shoulder, interested, to take the small crustacean into his hand. “Did you intend this as a biological specimen, Tyelko, or as a snack?” He turned the crayfish over, inspecting its underbelly as it waved its claws threateningly.

“How ‘bout a new romantic companion?” Celegorm smiled wolfishly at him, then set down his bucket and headed over to Aredhel, who was still pacing back and forth on her slackline. She paused midstride to talk to him, placing her hands on his head as she balanced on the line and asked something too quiet for the others to hear. He slid something back into her back pocket, then rested his hands on her hips, looking up at her as he responded, equally quiet.

“Ukulele isn’t the instrument I would have guessed for you,” said Maglor, who had settled down next to Fingon and was finally looking over at Finrod. “Not totally your style.”

“I can’t bring a piano to the park,” said Finrod mildly, and strummed the strings. “And this was a gift from Bëor.”

Fingon chuckled. “He thought you were the uke type, eh?”

“He brought it to college with him,” said Finrod, “and made the observation that I had the ah, habit, of borrowing it from him every weekend. So when he left after our first year, he left me the ukulele, as a gift. He said I played it better than he did, anyway.” He looked down at his hands, smiling, as if remembering something.

Fingon opened his mouth, about to ask a question, when a long shadow fell across the picnic blanket and Caranthir’s snoring form, and he looked up, delighted. “Mae! How was your first day teaching solo?”

“Lord.” Maedhros folded his long legs under him and sank down on the ground. “It was long. I mean, it was as good as could be expected, I suppose, but I am exhausted. How on earth am I going to make it through a year of this?”

“More like thirty years of it,” said Caranthir, not opening his eyes. “If this is your career or whatever.”

“Thanks, Moryo.”

Fingon leaned forward and kissed Maedhros over his guitar. “Ignore him, baby, you’ll get into a rhythm with this. It’ll get easier.”

Finrod, who had fallen quiet when Maedhros approached, was looking at him with interest. “New hairstyle, Maitimo?”

Fingon beamed as Maedhros reached up to touch his hair, which had grown long and was tied back in a knot at the back of his head. “I’m overdue for a haircut…”

“No, he’s not,” said Fingon firmly. “It’s part of your new teacher look, Mae. Glasses and a manbun and you hit like two out of three of my major kinks.”

“What’s the third?” Celegorm appeared over Fingon’s shoulder from nowhere, and Fingon leaned away from him.

“Something you will never learn, Tyelko. God, what’s that smell?”

“Crawfish.”

“I bet his kink is crustaceans,” murmured Caranthir, still sprawled cross the blanket, and Finrod looked thoughtful.

“Would that be a sexual attraction to crustacea or sex acts involving crustacea as props?”

“Bet it’s dirty talk,” said Maglor.

“Bet it’s that leather shit I found when I moved in,” said Aredhel, hopping off the slackline. “But this is where my speculation ends.” Her face lit up as she spotted two figures cutting across the park. “Oh my god, it’s my favorite cousin!”

“Hey.”

“Ouch.”

“And she brought my favorite person!”

“Hey.”

“Ouch.”

“Way to twist the knife.”

Aredhel ignored the commentary and held out her arms to scoop Elenwë off her feet as she and Galadriel approached the picnic blanket.

“Hi, you,” said Elenwë, when Aredhel finally set her down. “Sorry to gate crash the family reunion, but Galadriel and I were on campus saying hello to our old advisor and she invited me to come along. I hope that’s okay?”

“No complaints here,” said Aredhel happily, and Turgon gave Elenwë a friendly nod.

“How’s Idril settling back in?”

As Elenwë sat down on the grass, tucked against Aredhel’s side, and chatted with Turgon, Galadriel crossed over to her brother and leaned over his shoulder to see what he was holding.

“Interesting combination,” she said, resting her chin on his head and propping her elbows on his shoulders. “A ukulele and a crayfish. Is it some sort of visual pun?”

“No,” said Finrod, letting her examine the tiny creature. “It’s a gift from Tyelkormo.”

“Hm.” Galadriel picked up the crayfish and let it crawl across her hand, claws waving. “Is it intended as a biological specimen – ”

“Hah,” said Finrod.

“ – or merely your latest romantic companion?”

“Hah,” said Celegorm.

“Aiko’s on his way over, too,” said Galadriel imperturbably, as Finrod pulled her braid and Maglor rummaged in one of the bags.

“Are there any vegetarian options here?” he asked, lifting out several more tinfoil-wrapped packets of chicken.

“There’s watermelon,” said Fingon, “last of the season. And vegetarian? Hah. You talk a big game for someone I saw eat a bratwurst last weekend.”

“That doesn’t count,” said Maglor loftily, “I was totally faced at the time.”

“Only swallow sausage when you’re wasted?” muttered Celegorm. “Sounds kinda like Moryo’s experiments with – ”

Not opening his eyes, Caranthir reached out and swung a fist into Celegorm’s stomach, and he subsided, wheezing. Finrod busied himself with tucking a leaf into the end of Galadriel’s braid, and Maedhros leaned back against Fingon’s knees.

“I agree with Finno, ‘vegetarian only while sober’ is somewhat less than inspiring.”

Maglor looked aggrieved. “I can’t help what my unconscious mind wants.”

“It’s not as enlightened as your conscious one?”

“Maybe it hasn’t watched Food, Inc as many times,” mused Galadriel, setting the crayfish on Finrod’s head.

“Maybe someone should just eat the gawdamn crayfish I caught.” Celegorm seemed to be settling back into a dark mood as he watched a pickup football game start up across the park. “Or at least put that one back in the bucket so it doesn’t get parched.”

“No one is eating those bugs, Tyelko, go put ‘em back in the stream.”

“Bugs? And to think I’m the one who nearly flunked bio. They ain’t bugs, you moron, they’re – ”

Elenwë cleared her throat. “I actually brought some snacks, to pay my way since I am not a cousin.” She opened her bag and pulled out a Tupperware. “Would veggies and hummus do the trick, Maglor?”

-

The sun was setting. Aegnor had showed up with a Frisbee in his hand and a hickey on his neck, the latter of which had drawn intense speculation until Aegnor had flipped them all off and urged Celegorm to his feet. The two of them were now tossing the Frisbee around and arguing about baseball. Finrod, Fingon, and Maglor had picked up where they’d left off with their music, and Maedhros was drowsing next to them, his head on Fingon’s thigh. Caranthir and Turgon were locked in a debate about universal healthcare, and Galadriel had shed her shoes and was stretched out full-length on the slackline, lying as comfortably as if it were a hammock instead of inch and a half inch thick webbing.

A little way away from all this, Aredhel was sitting cross-legged in the shade of a Japanese maple, her legs crossed and Elenwë’s head settled comfortably on her lap. She stroked Elenwë’s soft, wavy hair and whistled a happy little tune, feeling the most content she had since May.

In the time since Elenwë had gotten home, they had intended to spend hours talking and telling stories, but what they had ended up prioritizing took far fewer words. And when they had finally dragged themselves out of bed, they had tromped around town, revisiting all their favorite spots together.

“We missed our anniversary,” Elenwë had said. “We can do what we would have done if I’d been here! We should go to one of our favorite places.”

But when Aredhel had met her that day, she’d turned up with a list of all their favorite places from the past year.

“I couldn’t decide,” she’d explained, and so for their belated anniversary they had gone to no fewer than three restaurants, two coffee shops, a taco stand, and one ice cream parlor.

“Did we actually have to eat at all of them?” asked Elenwë, unable to move after they’d hit up café number two.

“Yes,” said Aredhel, even as she stared helplessly at her sandwich. “They’re our favorites for a reason, right?”

“How about we just buy some antacids and go nap for three hours instead?”

Once they’d recovered, they had headed over to Turgon’s to pick up Idril. Idril had expressed her joy at Elenwë’s return by biting her sharply on the hand and then curling up in the pocket of the oversized hoodie of Aredhel’s she’d been wearing.

“Everything’s back to normal,” Aredhel had exclaimed happily, and it certainly felt true.

“I’m glad you’re back for the prettiest time of year,” said Aredhel now, picking a leaf off Elenwë’s sweater. “You skipped the horrible humid summer, and are back in time for the gorgeous, crisp – ”

“Fall means winter’s coming, though,” said Elenwë, and shuddered. “I hate winter.”

Aredhel poked her. “Oh, come on, it’ll be fun! We can go ice skating and skiing and sledding…”

Elenwë poked her tongue out. “Gross. How about just staying inside on the couch, wrapped in five sweaters, drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows and a sprinkle of cayenne?”

“How about doing that after the ice skating and skiing and sledding?”

“How ‘bout if instead of five sweaters I’m wearing nothing, and instead of the couch, I’m in the bed, and – ”

“ – and instead of cayenne, there’s BAILEY’S in the cocoa? Okay, I’m in.”

“You are very predictable.” Elenwë smiled and reached up to undo a couple of the buttons on Aredhel’s flannel shirt. “Did you steal this from one of your brothers?”

“Yes. Shh, don’t tell.”

Elenwë carefully wrapped her fingers into the collar of the shirt and pulled Aredhel down until their lips could meet. “I missed you,” she whispered, when they broke apart.

Aredhel grinned to cover the frantic surge of emotion in her chest, and leaned down to bite Elenwë’s ear. “I missed you too.”