“Why did my mama hate me?” Aeln asks, holding your hand as he picks flowers for you to make into a little crown. You make the best flower crowns. Actually, you’re the best at everything. He’s never had anyone take care of him the way you do. “The other children said she didn’t want a mutt like me.”
Aeln doesn’t understand why he’s so hated for being a half-elf. You’ve never hated him; you love him, and you’re an elf. So why do the other elves glare at him? He’s too young to understand how the Human-Elf war affected the way half-elves are seen. He just knows the other children call him names and avoid him. It hurts, but it makes his heart hurt less now that he has you.
Sometimes he wishes you were his parent. Then he could call you that without feeling guilty. Instead he refers to you by your name.
“Do I look strange?” he asks. Aeln watches the flowers droop in his hand as he picks them. “My ears don’t look like the other elves.”
He’d rearrange himself to fit in. He doesn’t like standing out, he doesn’t like the stares. Once an elf had spit on him and called his ‘blood’ polluted. He doesn’t understand what that elf meant. His blood looks the same as everyone else, he’s seen himself bleed.