Chapter Text
“Ada, I have a question.” Thranduil said, voice surprisingly authoritative for one still learning to read and write.
“You often do,” Oropher picked a few more ripe fruits from the tree, placing three of the four into the basket as his feet and handing the last to his son. “What is your question?”
Thranduil bit happily into the fruit, licking the juice off his hand before it could drip down his arm, “How do things have names?”
“I imagine that Eru or the Valar gifted names to each creation when they were made.” Oropher accepted an offered bite of Thranduils snack, before handing it back. “The same way that parents choose a name for their child.”
“That makes sense.”
“I’m glad.” Oropher resumed his work of dutifully ridding the overburned branches of their fruit.
“How do we know what their names are, though?”
Oropher’s head was still hidden among the thick foliage, “What do you mean?”
“If Eru and the Valar gave everything names when they were created, how do we know that they named things since they were already here when you, Nana, and Uncle Thingol woke up? Did they come and teach you the names of things?”
Accepting that Thranduil had significantly more than ‘a’ question, Oropher abandoned his chore temporarily to sit on the grass, patting a spot next in front of him lightly. Thranduil sat in the indicated spot, legs crossed and fingertips stained a light shade of pink from the juice of the now finished fruit.
“Lord Oromë taught us some of the names for things. Some colors, some plants, animals, things like that. But the world is large and full of many different and wondrous things. He could not teach us the names for everything.”
Thranduil nodded eagerly, already large blue eyes seeming even larger than normal. “Many things we had to name ourselves, building off of the words and names that Oromë had taught to us.”
“But how do you know that it's the same names that Eru gave to things?”
“We do not,” Oropher shrugged, “If it bothers Eru that we call his creations by different names, he has yet to inform us of this.”
“Who gets to pick the names for things? What if somebody doesn't like it?”
“At first, when there still were not great in number as we are now, most of the names we agreed on as a group. So that everybody could understand what the other was saying. Usually one or two elves would have an idea, and the rest of us would choose which we liked best from the suggestions.”
“As we grew in number, and it became less common, we needed a new name for things, often whoever discovered a new ‘thing’ choose the name and used it when introducing it to others. As far as I’m aware, nobody has ever disliked a name enough to cause a fuss over it.”
Thranduil looked at the world around him again with new layer of amazement and wonder, “So elves like me have names almost everything that I can see right now?”
“Yes, that is correct.” Oropher answered, chest swelling with pride and warmth.
“Woah.” Thranduil looked down at a small yellow flower at his feet, “Do you know who named that flower?”
Oropher could not help but laugh, “I do not. However, I do know that they keep records of that sort of thing in the library somewhere. Yet another reason to persevere through your reading lessons.”
Thranduil frowned deeply at the mention of his dreaded reading lessons, but did not outright voice his distaste. He looked around himself again, likely trying to see if he knew the name for everything that he saw. “Does everything have names now?”
“Probably not.”
“So if I find something new, do I get to name it?”
“Probably, as long as it isn’t something too ridiculous.”
“Have you every named anything, Ada?”
“I named you, did I not?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
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Now that I think about it, this might be the only ‘little’ Thranduil fic I’ve ever written which is crazy.
Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts and what your favorite part was!