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Credit where credit was due, the idea had been Glorfindel’s. Of course, he’d said it as a throwaway jest at Tuor’s expense, and it was Ecthelion who had gone and made it a reality.
“What do you have there, Ecthel?” Glorfindel asked, trotting up in his wake as he strode towards the King’s Square.
This afternoon, now that he and Glaur were off duty, would be their third foray into the Royal Fountain at Tuor’s side. Feiredur had offered no complaints since Ecthelion’s rather pointed reprimand, and Turgon seemed--and seem was the keyword, because the king always knew more than he let on--to be cheerfully oblivious to the doings of his captains and his, face it, soon-to-be law-son.
“You’ll see,” Ecthel replied cheerfully, drawing the large bucket rather awkwardly closer to his chest.
Glorfindel finally caught up to him. “You’re up to something,” he accused.
Ecthelion hummed cheerfully in reply. “Hello Princess,” he greeted Idril cheerfully, and set his burden down beside her on the lip of the fountain.
“Ecthelion,” she acknowledged. Her feet were bare and already in the water. Tuor was dark streak along the bottom. He’d come a long way in just a few days, now that he was allowed to change his skin and be at his leisure some. “What did you bring us?”
Ecthelion shed his boots and rolled his pants up to his knees to sit beside her.
Glorfindel made a mournful noise, stripped out of his tunic already. He looked between Ecthelion and the water like a baffled puppy.
“You can get in,” Ecthelion told his friend, laughing at the doleful picture he made. “I’m just going to chat with the Princess a bit.”
As Glaur dove into the water, Idril eyed Ecthelion skeptically. “What’re you up to, Ecthel?” she asked.
He grinned. “Nothing much,” he drawled, and drew a squirming bream from the bucket beside him.
Idril stared at the fish in his hands for a moment, and then burst out laughing, eventually doubling over and leaning into his shoulder she was laughing so hard.
Ecthelion tossed the fish in the fountain, smirking. If she’d been anything but amused, he wouldn’t have done it, but he trusted her sense of Tuor.
Idril wiped her streaming eyes, chuckling. “Oh he’s going to love that,” she giggled.
Indeed, while the bream flickered and flashed in the light, the dark shape of Tuor honed in on it impressively quickly.
“Fish for dinner?” Ecthelion inquired dryly.
But Tuor popped up in front of them, the fish thrashing in his mouth as he held it actually quite carefully, in the scheme of things. He offered a low bark around his mouthful.
“I think he doesn’t want to get blood in the fountain,” Idril explained.
Ecthelion held up another fish from the bucket. “Trade you?” he offered.
Tuor came closer, and Ecthelion released the new fish--some kind of roach, he thought--into the water and took the bream carefully from Tuor. It seemed cruel to force the fish to flee from Tuor twice. While Tuor chased the new fish, Ecthelion killed the bream with a quick blow of his dagger, and set it in the lid of the bucket.
“How many did you bring?” Idril asked.
“Four,” Ecthelion answered. “I wasn’t sure how long he’d be interested in the game.”
Glorfindel hooked his elbows over the lip of the fountain near Ecthelion’s knees. “I was joking, you know,” he observed.
“I know,” Ecthelion said. “But Tuor looked intrigued. I figured it was worth the hassle of bribing Galdor the next time he went out to the plains, and hauling them up here.”
“What did you bribe Galdor with?” Idril asked.
“Baked fish,” Ecthelion answered. “So if no one minds, I’ll be taking at least one of these back with me.”
“How hard would it be to establish the whole fountain as a freshwater ecosystem?” Turgon asked from behind them.
Ecthelion started so hard he overbalanced, and Glorfindel gladly helped him fall into the fountain.
“Hi Papa,” Idril said sweetly while Ecthelion recovered himself.
“Sweet Eru, your majesty, make some bloody noise,” Ecthelion wheezed, spitting water.
Turgon smirked. “Good afternoon Idril,” he said. “Glaur, Ecthel.”
Glaur boosted Ecthelion back out so he could strip off his soaking wet surcoat and jerkin. “Good afternoon your majesty,” Glaur said cheerfully. “I think I’d have to go to the library to see about aquatic plants, but it’s already got the right kind of aeration for an aquarium. I might need Galdor’s help with the sourcing of plants, and probably Duilin’s for the fauna.”
“I’m terrified of what that might do to the plumbing,” Ecthelion admitted, wringing out his hair.
“Why?” Turgon asked curiously.
“Because this fountain drains into the next one down, and so on down the plaza until the last one drains into the grey-plumbing to eliminate waste. I’d hate to wash your ecosystem away, Glaur,” he added to his friend.
“You mean we’re constantly putting new water in them?” Idril asked. “I assumed it was recirculating the same water all the time.”
Ecthelion shook his head. “It pumps up from the river at a fairly low rate of speed, using the same water wheel that powers the mill. It’s not actually that much water over time. We needed the weight from that volume of water being up this high to pressurize the waste system in the lower levels,” he explained. “I just stuck the fountains in so the space wouldn’t be wasted.”
“Are all the fountains part of the waste system?” Idril asked,
Ecthelion shook his head. “Only the six in the King’s Square,” he replied. “The rest really are recirculating. Also why these six don’t have jets.”
Idril nodded.
Turgon and Glorfindel were looking at each other in that strange way of reading each other’s mind (without actually reading each other’s mind) they had when planning some new architectural feat. Turgon had the head for architecture, but Glorfindel’s background in horticulture gave him somewhat creative insights that Turgon often found stimulating.
Tuor very carefully handed him the roach. Ecthelion killed it, stuck it in the lid, and offered up another bream with a tilt of his head.
Tuor barked eagerly, so Ecthelion tossed in the fish, and Tuor streaked off.
Ecthelion tuned back in to the alarmingly fast-paced discussion happening.
“If we-” Idril said.
“And perhaps two layers-” Turgon agreed.
“Sand is an excellent filter and we’d need to layer the bottom anyway,” Glorfindel said, the first full sentence Ecthelion had heard.
Ecthelion cleared his throat. It took a moment, but all three of them turned to look at him. “Fascinating intellectual challenge aside,” he drawled. “Why?”
Turgon looked sheepish. “He looks happy,” the king said quietly. “And it’s a pain for Galdor to catch them and bring them up here all the time.”
Idril’s face went soft, her eyes widening. “Papa,” she murmured.
Turgon shuffled awkwardly.
Ecthelion rolled his eyes. “You’re allowed to like him, your majesty,” he drawled. “But this seems an inefficient token of your regard. He’d kill the fish faster than they could replenish themselves in a system this small, unless he just chased them around a lot, which seems rude.”
“It does,” Turgon agreed. He hummed. “But you and Galdor can’t just keep hauling them up from the river.”
“Why not?” Ecthelion asked. “It was part of his usual catch-- I just asked him not to kill them first.”
Turgon sighed in exasperation, like he couldn’t believe Ecthelion didn’t get it. “You’ve been swimming three times this week. You can’t haul fish up here that often.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Ecthelion protested.
Idril was laughing at them. “Tuor is having a fabulous time,” she said. “But he doesn’t need it.”
“Of course not,” Turgon said. “But if we could-”
Tuor offered Ecthelion the bream.
Ecthelion repeated his careful retrieval and quick killing blow. Then he looked into his bucket with a questioning head tilt.
Tuor barked and nodded vigorously.
“Last one,” Ecthelion warned, before tossing him the last-- a particularly lovely trout Galdor had moaned and complained about giving him. Ecthelion had asked him why he had, then, since Ecthelion didn’t care what type of fish, and he doubted Tuor did either.
Galdor had ducked his head and muttered, “He might like it,” and then shuffled off without another word.
“Ecthelion’s cooking the fish,” Idril said.
Ecthelion had missed where the conversation had gone while he talked to Tuor. Everyone was looking at him. “That… was the plan?” he agreed slowly. “My bribe for Galdor to get him to help me.”
“We can talk then. Tuor should get some, since he caught them,” she added.
Ecthelion opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He couldn’t decide whether to argue about them coming over or about Tuor’s role in catching these fish, and elected not to voice neither. He looked helplessly at Glorfindel.
Glorfindel was laughing at him.
Ecthelion pushed him off the lip of the fountain and watched him flail to right himself.
Glorfindel pouted at him when he surfaced.
Ecthelion looked at Idril and Turgon, at Glaur, and at the streak of Tuor, still chasing the fish. All four fish Galdor had given him were hefty--he could feed the six of them with them. “Yes, fine, I will cook,” he sighed.
Idril clapped gleefully like she was a little girl again.
Glorfindel dragged Ecthelion into the fountain.
They tussled, wrestling and playing, until Tuor pushed them apart, just as he always did when he got worried they might accidentally drown each other.
Idril had killed the trout, Ecthelion saw when they swam back to the edge. She was settling her skirts and had her shoes back on.
Tuor changed skins and climbed out of the fountain, grinning.
And Turgon was frowning at them with his best ‘I am the king and I am above this’ face.
Ecthelion looked at Glorfindel.
Glorfindel looked at Ecthelion.
As one, they lunged up out of the fountain, seized Turgon’s wrists, and hauled him into the fountain. It was his fountain, after all, Ecthelion thought. Then he started swimming, because if Turgon caught him and not Glaur, Ecthelion was in trouble.