Of Elbereth's Bounty

Title: Of Elbereth’s Bounty
(third in my unofficial series, after In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen)
Author: Gloromeien
Email: swishbucklers@hotmail.com
Pairing: OMC/OMC, Legolas/Elrohir, references to Glorfindel/Elladan
Summary: Life in the new settlement.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.
Author’s Note: It helps to no end to have read both In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen before this, as otherwise you might not recognize any of the characters. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for keeping to the path thus far!!
Feedback: Would be delightful.
Dedication: To the moderators of Library of Moria, Melethryn, Adult Fan Fiction.Net, and other sites of their ilk for all their wonderful, tireless work and for keeping us up to our ears in fic.

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Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Part Twelve

Eight Years Later

A gull’s cry woke him, as oftentimes and as aught, but a blink before the break of dawn over the eastward peaks of the echoriath. As dusk swept over the kingdoms of Arda across the saltwater drift of the ocean, Arien’s gossamer rays wafted over the opalescent sands of the nearby shore and haloed the ash-blue crags around their hush valley. When the first peachy embers plumed in the high arc of his elliptical window, he would rise. Soon, the billows of mist would cascade like a pride of galloping, snow-white maerhas down the mountainside, the spire’s honey-orange crown would glow as the fabled aurora of the glacial northlands. None in the vale would willingly forgo this sight, least of all their founding architect, who had deliberately angled the balcony of his residence just so he might bestow regular worship. From his familiar perch on the brush-end of the strong bough that berthed their talan, he would greet his last morning on the blustery ederwood that had borne them for seven cycles of season, in the valley that had found the elf in him.

Along the river and into the westward fields were the raw beginnings of his vision; a colony of tradesmen, merchants, and artists, a community of cultural flourish kept by the battlement of mountains that surrounded the lush vale. In these titans of rich ore, in the bamboo thickets between, in the southward cotton fields, and in the fertile delta that spit the river into open sea were all the necessary resources to ply, barter, create, and dream. Elbereth’s only significant oversight in fashioning such a singular landscape was for the mighty timbre of the mallorn, the essential element to any elven construct, which they regularly imported from Telperion. Their cavern stores were now as plentiful as a forest itself might be; their homeland waited on the return of their fleet, their holds brimming with earned, exotic stock of vegetable, horticultural, and mineral nature.

The architect himself would be aboard, along with his adventuring company, none of whom had left their valley’s splendor since first traversing the treacherous north pass, eight years before.

As a rosy tongue of light lapped the oval pane in the wall behind their cozy bunk, Echoriath veered his thoughts from the impatient dawn to the golden elf curled around him. Tathren had slept fitfully the night before, as excitement rutted with anxiety within the nervous confines of his frontier-hardy frame. Both wondered at what their families would make of them, bronzed and bettered as they were by hard-won experience; their characters matured in the seaside coves as the savory wines of Forochel Bay. With the lately transport of timber, their elders had been soothed by spare correspondence, but could a hurriedly composed scroll properly impart the battles, bruises, cares that had impacted them, the pummeling waves of bleak and bleary circumstance that had refined them into warrior-pearls? For they were warriors, of a pilgrim kind unknown since the Helcaraxe of ages long past.

In their few remaining moments of quietude, before the balm of sunrise spread forth over the vale and the horn sounded from afar to rouse them, Echoriath recalled to himself the telltale events that had led to this somnambulant morning, to their bliss.

The first year, caught in the wind-tunnel northern pass, had been a brute awakening. The scorching summertime trek had sapped them of all but will; the stark, treeless winter had nearly broken them, unnatural as it was for an elf to pass endless, snowbound months without even the most barren bough’s consolation. The weather was so unfavorable that his surveying task was prolonged into another heatwave, which led his company to bickering, then to scrapping, then to outright snapping. Only Thorontir’s blunt example had kept some from abandoning their camp, only Tathren’s hawk-eyed vigilance had kept him from loosing all sense. By the following midsummer, they emerged withered and forlorn from the cruel pass into a valley of such splendor, they lurched onto the first patch of wild grass and veritably wept out their hearts. None, however, could linger on apologies, when there were fields to race through, vineyards to plunder, rivers to drench them giddy.

His groin tingled at the memory of that first, heady night, when Tathren stole him away from the others awhile. Bedded between two savage vine rows, another sprig of grapes bursting beneath him with every impassioned thrust, he’d been gleefully ravaged, then afterwards fed the mashed fruits of his thrashing. He could not count the tally of how many similarly saucy ruses they’d played upon each other through the years, each one shaded by the effort their party was presently undertaking. The feasting night – on every possible kind of flesh – when they’d finally erected their tent compound and had some genuine privacy. A fierce riding in the rapids, when the designs had been completed and the company had tossed him in, to celebrate. A tussle in the white sands of the newly discovered shoreline, a breaching concomitant with their breaking ground, the furtive gropes they’d barely thieved time for when reinforcements arrived in the form of an army of ready, ruddy builders, who knew naught of their relationship and therefore might question Echoriath’s authority, were he to be perceived as overly besotted by his cousin. The night they’d been outed by an ill-timed embrace in a mine shaft, only to later be chastised for their needless concealment.

Beyond their physical escapades, which had only further embroiled them in passion, their evolution had been effected by a host of trials and triumphs. The hallowed valley had not immediately succumbed to their elven charms. The mining of ore proved treacherous, in early days. The swift depletion of game had lead to quarrels over animal husbandry. Though the pass to the sea was but a gentle slope compared with the northern route, imperceptible bogs of quicksand lurked about. The lack of suitable wood had made that first ship an unsteady marvel; for months those that stayed feared for the drowning of their swordbrothers, hardly seafarers of any breadth of repute. Their decision to see the skeleton of a colony that existed after five years of toil into a flourishing compound had caused them entire seasons of weight, woes, and endless debate, but finally the green attitudes of the administrators the High Council sent along had resolved them to the extension of their adventure.

That, and the sense of overwhelming satisfaction Echoriath derived from merely strolling through the burgeoning riverside town; the halls, boroughs, farms, and endless fields of his dreams come to pulsating, breathtaking life. Each week, another party of immigrants were plunked onto the docks by the trade ships, ruddy-cheeked and ripe for the adventure of establishing a new colony: artisans from Valimar, miners from Taniquetil, craftworkers from Telperion, Lindon, and the isle of Otriton. His apprentice, Celevast, was by now prepared to replace him, a respectable council was in place, and his initial company grew restless anew. Despite his reluctance to leave a task unfinished, Echoriath had recognized that the premier adventure of his elfhood had come to a reasonable completion, and so had not countered his beloved, when once more he had been prompted with the need for their return.

His duties often encompassed him in such a cloying thrall, that he at times even forgot the worried fathers that awaited them.

The feathery light of dawn was by now a plumage of ambers across the clear window glass. Tathren had been tantalized into consciousness by pillow lips, far more plump and alluring than that which cradled his head. His reverent eyes sought out the twilight beauty of the face he loved so well, sadness and sweetness mingled in their aqua shine.

After almost a decade of togetherness, Echoriath could not imagine by what force or foe their bond might be severed; so officious were they in intent, that they had begun to wear their rings on the opposing hand to signify their betrothal. His love for Tathren had so thoroughly consumed his heart that its meat fed every other emotion, ever deepening their attachment, ever replenishing his spirit; their soulful affection was the constant that unified the disparate threads of their vagabond existence and wove him into a whole.

Echoriath would not be without his love, not for an instant.

“Dawn breaks,” Tathren rasped, fighting to unfurl them from their blankets. “Come, Echo, or we will miss it.”

“We must bid farewell to the bed,” the darkling elf groaned, suddenly reluctant to greet the day, and the long, abstinent weeks of their ocean journey, without some indulgence. “It will miss us more than the dawn, who is too haughty, too aloof. The bed is our familiar. He will understand.”

“She is warming, and beauteous,” Tathren reminded him of the dawn, though he had not yet moved to untwine their lazy limbs. In truth, he would be more than content to graze the plains of his beloved’s milky skin until mid-morn, but he knew Echoriath would later regret any such languor. “And intolerant of tardiness, besides.”

“If we switch ends, we may yet bask in her glorious renewal of our vale,” he noted, wicked-eyed. “While paying fair tribute to the neglected bed.” He laved the cleft of his throat to further entice him and shifted to demonstrate the compromising perspective, thus proffering his engorged member before the golden elf’s very nose, as if to emphasize his point.

“I fear few would characterize our bed as suffering from neglect,” Tathren smirked, seizing up the rather emphatic objection before him. “Though, on morns when I have been the lone occupant, the sheets have expressed some envy of the vineyards.”

“Rascals,” Echo chuckled, his amber eyes aglow with the beatific light of the dawn.

Sprightly, bedeviling fingers tickled over the golden elf’s taut thigh, then teased over his quick-sprouting erection. Compromise appeared inevitable, especially when those conniving fingers left off to worry his navel to distraction, refusing to palm him until their demands were met. The peredhil, however, had a few tricks of his own. He lavished his most thorough attentions on Echoriath’s feet, treating each toe as he would the spuming head of his shaft, until his lover writhed with need before him.

Echoriath was too smart to long suffer such delightful abuse. Taking one last glimpse at the by now entirely risen sun, he yanked the astonished elf up towards him by his flailing, fighting legs, then sucked back the entirety of his turgid member. Without much decorum but hotly committed to his devouring, his molten mouth set an unforgiving pace, such that Tathren was soon slicked and dripping. Not to be outdone, he played his pulpy tongue over the hard-swell of Echo’s own tumescence, with the blistering skill of one who could sculpt its every wrinkle and pucker, its every serpentine vein. Their concomitant completion was ferocious, abolishing, each lover’s climactic moan drenched by the other’s ecstatic eruption.

“I fear the sheets gained no satisfaction from that exercise,” Echoriath purred, as Tathren spooned him from behind. “They are as pristine.”

“The day is young,” the golden elf murmured against his sweaty neck. “We’ve time enough to suitably soil them. For pity’s sake, if naught else.”

“You pity the sheets?” Echoriath could not help but trill with laughter, as his face grew even more luminous with afterglow.

“Aye, for you will not be here to warm them,” Tathren obliged him mirthfully. “I know not how I would weather such an anguished time, so I give them the full credit of my compassion.”

Echoriath digested this rather pregnant jest, then whispered: “But you, melethron, need not fear to ever require such compassion from the sheets, nor the pillows, nor even the coverlet. You are my inspiration, my fuel, the only inhabitant of my dreamscape colonies. I cannot envision a tower without placing you atop it, a bridge that you would not cross, a hall that does not have you seated by its hearth, awaiting me. I would spin draperies from you flaxen hair, carpets from your silken skin, varnish the floor of a banquet hall the color of your eyes. You are my one, tathrelasse, my only one. No future task will take me from you, I swear upon the very colony we have founded together.” He twisted in his lover’s arms and took his mouth after a sigh, fusing both his heart and his vow to those sultry lips.

“Speak further troths, lirimaer” Tathren urged him, stroking eager hands over his undulating chest. An enlivened erection was pressed between Echoriath’s tight buttocks, even more insistent than earlier. “You enflame me.”

“But are you heartened, meleth?” the darkling elf moaned despite himself, his nipples being mercilessly pinched.

Despite the now ravenous need that fired him, Tathren murmured poignantly: “I am yours, Echo-nin, astride, abroad, or away. No distance could be far enough to quit you from my heart, no country vast enough to keep me from coming to you. If fate chooses to separate us for a time, you need not fear my fading. I will forever be full of you, overflowing with such a rush of love that you will be swept up, near or far, by its tide.”

With that, Tathren stabbed into him, as the foretold waves of peerless emotion crashed around him, swirled fervently about, and dragged him under, just as the horn sounded in the distance.

**********************************

Three weeks later, another roseate dawn washed the refined coral path to his family home in its reverent tones, as if to edify the idyllic landscape of their willow-veiled glade. The spectral mist hung low amidst the lavender patches, which took on a phosphorescence not quite blue, not quite violet. The stained-glass domes and hand-crafted archways of the somnambulant talan gave the gothic structure a magical air, or so Tathren had always believed.

His life there, with his two kindhearted fathers, had been almost preternaturally spirited; not a day had passed, until that fateful night eight years gone, that he had not felt utterly at peace there. That he should now return, a seasoned adventurer and a constant betrothed, only amplified the quiet splendor of this elegant sunrise. Though his journeying had had its share of scrapes and celebrations, he had come to feel that he had needlessly wronged his parents in departing so swiftly. That he had stayed those added years had possibly soured them, though he had to trust in their hard-won hearts, in their ever-understanding example. He suddenly longed to creep into their hush bedchamber and covet their sleep-headed attentions, as when he was small; their affections peerless, their regard uninhibited by remembrance, by regret. While he did not likewise regret the manner of his leave-taking – for he would not forgo Echoriath’s love for a thousand mines of dwarven mithril – as the coral dust scattered in his wake, he wished for a glorious reunion that was perhaps not to be.

He vowed, then, to do everything in his power to entirely heal their bruised relationship and to have again their blithe regard.

There was but one price he would not pay them.

Echoriath himself lingered at his side, reluctant, as ever, to part from his beloved. Caught between the pull of his own benevolent family and the need to support his future mate, he would not dare release Tathren’s trembling hand until the peredhil was thoroughly resolved. Crunching the coral beneath his ragged boots, the builder could not help but note, despite the golden hour, how the talan would soon require some well-planned refurbishment.

The house was kept well enough - though houses of such craftsmanship were slow to age and Elrohir did have an eye for such things - but the garden was a veritable wreck. The fine grain of the path had spilled over the edges and yellowed the grass, which did not even account for the other, strangely sparse patches. The flower beds were randomly seeded, as if a blind elf had done the handiwork; the tree trunks scored raw in places. The only possible answer to such neglect was that his uncles had acquired a new, untamed pet, but Echoriath thought this, as well, uncharacteristic of them.

Tathren, however, only had eyes for the terrace to their bedchamber above, beyond which the curtains were drawn.

“Perhaps you should not wake them,” Echoriath suggested. “Come home with me awhile. Have some glad-tidings and let them sleep. Cuthalion will, no doubt, have a week’s worth of tales to regale us with, and my Adar will feast us. Then may we return, hearty and hale, to…”

“To further condemnation?” Tathren mused, his anxiety palpable. “I would rather take my whipping worn and be later cheered by my uncles.”

“How could your fathers fail to welcome you home?” Echoriath attempted to reassure him. “You are their only son, eight years away.”

“Aye, I am their son,” Tathren dismissed his reassurance with a sigh. “I have become your betrothed, your mate and future husband.” He snatched a last, lonely kiss from the darkling’s elf’s lips, but was clearly decided. “I *am* your lover.”

With a gentle nod, Echoriath released his hand and began to amble away. “Have faith, meleth. You are not newly forsaken. Merely… worrisome, at times.”

“So you have oft repeated, these last years away,” Tathren taunted him, with a wink.

“And you, my stubborn elf, have yet to mark my wisdom, in this,” Echoriath countered, with a wry smile. “Be well, melethron.”

As Echoriath wandered back into the forest deep, Tathren trod up the last of the walk, his vow of temperance re-sworn with every following step. The entrance was, to his astonishment, unlocked and unguarded. Stealing surreptitiously through the halls, his focus was such that he failed to note the varnish stripes on the low walls, the removal of all decorative weapons, and the rampant untidiness of the common room. Indeed, until he loomed in the open archway to his Adar’s bedchamber, he had heard nothing but the cacophony of his cyclonic thoughts and felt nothing but his batter-ram heart.

Then, of a sudden, they were there before him; legs, arms, and lengths of hair entwined as the cinch of a sailor’s knot, Elrohir’s placid face buried in the slope of Legolas’ neck, Legolas’ nose dug into thatches of ebony hair. His fathers, as ever, slept as if in the womb, embracing, embroiled, and relentless. Tathren clamped a hand over his mouth so as not to cry out, so needful was he of their affection. He retreated a spell, mindful of waking them, but slunk back into position at a strange trill.

In the grip of emotion, he had thought the bellies of sheets at their sides to be… well just that. As, however, one of the bunches jiggled mirthfully and from another sounded a peal of giggles, he drew further into the quiescent chamber. From behind Legolas’ broad back, a groggy elfling grappled over the two slumbering elves, then rolled over Elrohir, onto the open bed. One of the bellies there squeaked in protest, as an ellon of exacting similarity popped out, scowling cutely at his wild-haired attacker. Seeing that this one was bunk-less, he squirmed over to accommodate his twin. The first swiftly burrowed in beside him; they were as two raven-silked pods on a white cornstalk. Tathren, agape with shock, reeled further at the emergence of a third elfling, again from the far side, who Legolas promptly scooped up by the scruff of the neck and dumped between the other two.

“Hush, pyn-neth,” he muttered, without bothering to open his eyes. “Ada-Hir is weary.” In unconscious agreement, Elrohir wedged his face between Legolas and the pillow, tightening their embrace. The archer, however, reached out to pet his closest son’s tousled crown. The three little ones were by now bright-eyed with the balmy morning. “If you are restless, ioneth, you may fetch a cup of water…”

Though Legolas drifted off again, three glinting pairs of eyes were now fixed on the statue-still interloper in the doorway. They neither cowered nor charged the tattered elf-warrior, but rather gaped in bedazzlement at this odd creature, as the ‘creature’ in question was awed by the sight of them. Their age could not have been counted a day over four years - which would have left Tathren wondering if they were, indeed, all siblings - if they were not so obviously, impossibly identical. Their ebony hair was sheer as a star-lit night and their gemstone eyes black as onyx. Unlike the brethren’s opalline pallor, their skin was buttercream fresh. Their features were possessed by a wolfine comeliness, dusk-shroud, yet soft as cubs.

Tathren was immediately caught in their rapture.

The children, however, were not long impressed by his sudden appearance.

“Ellon!” the boldest one accused him, with a tiny but abject finger. “Ellon *here*, Ada-Las!”

“Aye, pen-neth,” Legolas mumbled, his groggy mind thinking itself party to a long-familiar game. “You are an ellon. What is Ciryon?”

“*Ellon*, Ada-Las,” Ciryon himself replied, his lilting voice anxious and his manner clenched. “No pen-neth. Big like Cufalon!”

“One day, ion-nin,” the listless archer grumbled good-naturedly, having finally come to the realization that his little ones would not stand for their further rest. “But, thank Eru, not for some time yet.”

He bent his face to Elrohir’s and kissed him into wakefulness, the two fathers stealing a moment of vital caresses. The children, seeing that their Adar would be of no use, decided to question the intruding elf themselves. The bravest one scampered forth to the edge of the bed, then peered resolutely up at him. At the sight of those obsidian eyes, the elfling obviously battling some raucous fear, Tathren came back to himself. He wisely lowered to his knees, then offered a patient hand.

“Mae govannen, pen-gwanur,” he murmured to the little one, who reared at his endearment. After his initial greeting, he realized he had no idea what else to say. How does one begin to know the brother he never thought he had?

With considerable trepidation, the child took the lissome, though calloused, hand in his own. He examined his long fingers as a medic might, then pointed to a nub on the knuckle of his index.

“I am a bowsman, yes,” he acknowledged the unspoken question. “And do you know who taught me?” The little one shook his head. With a smirk, Tathren pointed to their golden-haired father. The elfling gasped aloud, then paused to consider this news. “What is your name, dear one?”

“Rorif,” he told him, squeezing his hand. The young master turned with considerable poise and introduced his siblings. He pointed to one twin, then the other. “Ciron. Brifor.”

“Valiant names, all,” Tathren remarked, with considerable reverence. Any flickering doubt, however, as to their twinness was soon smote by the raising of three smart fingers.

“We three,” Rohrith declared, as a bleat sounded behind him.

“Tathren!!” Elrohir cried, his voice shred by shock. Without a second thought, he pushed through the clinging covers, his argent eyes reflecting nothing but tenderness and woe. Before the adventuring elf could stand again, he was in his father’s arms. “Oh, my brave one, how we have wanted for you!”

“As I for you, Ada,” he whispered, overcome by this heartfelt welcome. His father’s embrace loosened some, but only to accommodate Legolas, who’s aqua eyes, to Tathren’s never-ending astonishment, brimmed with tears.

“You are emboldened by your adventuring to steal into our bedchambers so,” Legolas teased him, with implicit fondness. “How do you fare, our dearest one?”

“I am… content. Gladly of my return. Hale…” he essayed, but could not keep his eyes from darting over to the bed. “In truth, I am astounded! I have brought gifts for you, Adar, but none will compare to… to these treasures you have begot…”

“You approve, then?” Elrohir chuckled, but could not yet come to entirely release his golden son, nor could he steal his eyes away from sight of his stately visage, nor could he aught but admire his regal countenance. “I thought but to sire one brother to hearten you, but Elbereth had other designs upon our home.”

“Elbereth, my horse’s nethers,” Legolas winked at his now blushing mate, reaching a warm touch across his son’s back. “It appears no Son of Earendil can sire aught but a bushel of babes.”

“They are magnificent,” Tathren sighed, still reeling from the unforeseen events of this incredible homecoming. “Equal in wonder to the sight of you, Adar.” Overcome himself by emotion, by the simple feeling of standing between his fathers, locked in their arms, Tathren hugged them to him anew.

“How did Echoriath weather the journey?” Elrohir inquired, not a whiff of scorn in his caring tone.
”How did you, nin bellas?”

“Come and be readied,” Tathren instantly beamed. “You shall see for yourselves what mettle my betrothed wears so becomingly.” Slackening their hold but loathe to release him, Legolas and Elrohir both chuckled at this eager beckoning.

“This rather rambunctious company is not so swiftly readied, maltaren-nin,” Elrohir advised him with bemusement. “As you will soon discover.” He turned to his new brood of infants, who were in turns fascinated and befuddled by the display before them.

Rohrith, as ever, was the first to speak. “This Tafren… *gwanur*?”

“Ioneth!” Legolas chided playfully. “Have we not often spoke of Tathren your brother?”

“Aye, Ada-Las,” Ciryon assented ponderously.

“This is he before you, pyn-neth,” Elrohir underlined, as Tathren cautiously perched himself on the edge of the bed. The elflings stared some more, obsidian eyes veiled with rapt consideration of this blonde immaculate, but did not move.

“*This* Tafren-brother?” Brithor chirped, his first utterance of the day.

“Aye, nin ind,” Tathren smiled, stroking the back of his fingers across his plump cheek. “Though your very being comes as the most heartening of surprises, I can already declare with no little confidence that we will soon come to cherish one another.”

“Gwanur!” he suddenly shrieked. The three elflings pounced on him, until he was wrapped tight in a bundle of sibling joy.

Elrohir and Legolas looked on with unabashed pride, but exchanged a knowing, rueful glance.

The day’s most astounding surprise had yet to even awake.

**********************************

No quill scratch nor scrape of charcoal was spared in the rendering, as evidenced by the book of exacting and magnificent drawings before them. If the settlement itself proved but a distant cousin to the grandeur of the valley town in these sketches, then the nameless vale amidst the echoriath was indeed a sight to behold.

Beyond the fertile river banks stood stately guildhalls with domed ceilings of intricately cut glass, thatched-roof trade mills, a marketplace of multicolored tents around a wading pool, an endless row of oblong studios where artisans might craft their wares. A cylindrical alehouse, like the famed coliseum in the mountains overtop ancient Brithombar, a well located at the epicenter of the governmental gardens to assure each inhabitant read the daily debate record, a wharf as lively as any in Valimar; these were but a few of the constructions, awesome in their own handsome way, that graced the waterfront. Not to overlook the innovative structure of the mines, the resplendent orchards, the teardrop talans that did not overly tax the lithe trees of the one, relatively sparse forest.

That each of these architectural wonders had sprung from the mind of his youngest son chastened Elladan, as each successive sheet of parchment was revealed to him.

When, but an hour before, a fit, formidable elf had wandered into their garden unannounced, both he and Glorfindel had leapt up, immediately on their guard. The colony from Laurelin yet sheltered a rogue element of pride-jaundiced youths, who had set their adamant sights on Elrond and his extended family. Though the trouble had not yet amounted to much more than a few despoiled flower beds, neither warrior took kindly to intruders. Their sword-arms laxed at the sight of his Noldor dark hair, but the unfamiliar color of his formal tunic kept them standing. Until, of course, the elf’s regal features came into full view. After a jolting start, the two fathers could naught but gawk at the sage intensity of their long-away son.

Without a shred of his former awkwardness, Echoriath had exhibited himself to their disbelieving eyes as a solider to his captain after a grueling battle, his sweat, scars, and grime as proudly displayed as his rock-digger’s chest, his axe-wielder’s arms, the calves of one who has conquered an entire circle of enclosing mountains. Yet that familiar blush of self-consciousness had soon apple-toasted his cheeks, when he had felt the impact of their reverent regard.

“I am home, Adar,” Echoriath had announced himself, waking them anew to the reality of his presence. “Will you not embrace me?”

They had, indeed, and with a fervor formerly unknown to their panoply of brighter emotions. They had barked a hasty word to summon Cuthalion, then had wrapped this reinvention of their timid Echoriath into a clutch of such intensity, such poignancy, that each had in turn broke off teary-eyed. Elladan had found he could not but for a moment’s bashfulness lure his incredulous stare away from this fierce, florid creature that had at last returned to them, nor could he loose his arm from around his supple waist.

Upon this closer contact, there had been some evidence of his weariness. After the ardor of their reunion, the golden eyes had become burnished with faint fatigue, the steps he had followed up to their talan had been more leaden than sprightly. Elladan had discovered his child again while they awaited his silver brother, as Echoriath had not shied from lolling onto his father’s shoulder, curling his lazy hold all the tighter. The billows of wild laughter that had burst from him, when Cuthalion had tumbled his twin to the floor and had wrestled him gleefully, could have sounded from no other than his most precious one.

Elladan had known him, then, for the one he had so dotingly reared, and had been hearted to find him anew.

As his gaze glided from the sketches to their overly modest creator, the thoroughly impressed father could not help but note how even the settlement’s majesty paled in comparison to the elf of which its raising had made his son. Unlike his reactions from earlier years in this silent courtship of their approval, he graciously awaited their judgment, sipping his cordial and settled languidly in his chair. His amber eyes stealthily recorded the minutiae of their reactions, but did not fail to appreciate the subtle changes to their dwelling, nor the familiar sounds, smells, and tastes of old. The scrape of the wind against the shutters, the gurgling stream of moisture against the skylight glass, the savory taste of the homemade soup, and the crisp crunch of lembas slats all conspired to welcome him home. Such elegant behavior from his willowy son was so uncommon to Elladan, that he had, between admiring the buildings and their regal architect, almost overlooked the hollow disquiet that suddenly loomed about his mate. Theirs, however, was an elemental union, so the chill that had hushed his husband now skittered across his shoulders, making him too acutely aware of the golden elf’s distress.

The Balrog-slayer hid his despondency with the implacable mettle of a warrior of two lifetimes. None but the shrewdest stare, the most intimate of hearts to his might guess at the mounting tension in his calmly folded limbs, the lump that stopped his throat. Were he compelled to speak, the action might unravel him, yet rare was the day Elladan would bet against his husband’s containment. No longer able to keep his tongue, Cuthalion besot his brother with a flurry of much deserved praise, which took the teeth out of Glorfindel’s eventual, subtle rising from the table and retreat over to the carafe of water on the far table.

Not wishing to interrupt the lively twins in order to draw attention to his struggling mate, Elladan remained at table, but sought within to link through their cherished bond, to warm him through the ether, if not in the sanctuary of his arms. In truth, the peredhil had never seen his husband so viciously struck by a mere series of pictures – architectural drawings, verily - nor any emotion since their own tumultuous courtship, an age ago.

When Glorfindel continued to remain aloft for nearly a quarter hour, Elladan found he could neither keep Echoriath’s hawkish eyes from darting over to his missing father, nor his own worries from overtaking him. Yet to his ongoing surprise, the youngling was the first to rise in the Balrog-slayer’s wake, patting his brother on the shoulder as he passed to shush him.

“Ada,” he murmured, but inches away. “Have I brutally troubled you?” He placed a tentative hand at the apex of his father’s back, locked them in an intimate circle. “I thought but to please you, Ada, to… to pay tribute...”

Glorfindel nodded softly, but did not speak. With respectful tenderness, Echoriath turned the golden elf around and lead him back to the table. The stare that fell upon the sketches betrayed a palpable grief, such that Elladan hurried to his feet and vigilantly flanked his despairing husband. The sallow blue eyes that searched so warily for his own were nothing short of haunted. His words, however, were soaked with love for his brave son.

“By Elbereth, your craft is keen,” he whispered with a thick throat. “I know not by what power you came to such an exact rendering, ioneth, but you have… you have verily improved upon perfection.”

Echoriath could not but blush at the generous compliment. His guarded tongue quietly dismissed the praise within seconds of it being uttered; he turned instead to elaboration on some of the more notable details, hoping this might assuage his rattled elder. Elladan, for his part, only wanted some illumination as to what, by the Valar, had so beset his husband.

“I modeled the riverside after some images in memoirs Erestor procured from his library,” Echoriath gently explained. “You yourself, Ada, have so oft described the fountain, that my imagination could not help but sculpt her true, along with the docks, the gardens, the guildhalls...” Glorfindel swallowed roughly at this mention, but further demurred from comment. “I thought the palace too vulgar, such manly architecture not fitting for a place of peace.”

“Indeed,” Glorfindel assented, ignorant of the crushing grip with which he now held to his mate. “But the spires… they bear the mantles. The Great Houses live again.”

“They are full of cheer, of creation,” Echoriath assured him. “You would most heartily approve, Ada. In each there is a seat dedicated to their absent Lord, a shrine to his achievements. They await but the freeing of those kept by Mandos’ and-“ The young builder caught himself, his enthusiasm had got the better of him.

Glorfindel’s glorious countenance went fearfully wan, though he fought willfully to cage his sorrow.

“Enough,” Elladan ordered of his penitent son, as he enclosed his downcast husband in a daunting embrace. “What madness is this you have wrought, ioneth, however unintentionally?”

“Aye, Echo,” Cuthalion seconded, himself troubled by the scene before him. “What place have your designs so vividly recaptured as to… as to so provoke Ada?”

“I have yet to officiate a name for the settlement,” Echoriath replied in lieu of a direct response. “Though, if Ada-Fin approves, I would my humble vale bear the name of the place of its inspiration. I would name the town… Gondolen.”

At the sounding of the name, the company gasped. They examined the sketches with new eyes, awed at Echoriath’s daring, but concerned that his coup had overshot its mark. Glofindel sobbed but once, then with the strength that fought the fiery Balrog itself, he lifted his head from his husband’s consoling shoulder and nodded his mighty approval.

“The site is blessed in being so named,” he decided, in a rasp. “A valley as fruitful and golden as the ancient glade herself. I hope… I hope to journey there, someday.”

“You are ever welcome, Ada-Fin, Ada-Dan,” Echoriath insisted, unable to further counsel himself from beaming, nor could he refrain from a swipe at his twin. “Even one such as you, Talion, may be heralded there.”

With a bold laugh, Cuthalion worked himself into the family knot, all four happy to be woven close again, to be so suddenly reunited. When last they eased apart, Elladan folded both he and Glorfindel into their usual armchair, too kindly a mate to so harshly abandon his still unsteady spouse. Cuthalion avidly took his seat, anxious to hear the tales that accompanied these skilled drawings. Elladan’s argent eyes found his gifted son’s glazed over for a long moment, when he too sought the telling of these adventures. Yet the amber eyes, though absent, glowed hot by a preternatural flame, one both unfamiliar and extremely unnerving to the already unmoored father.

He prayed no further, fateful mischief was afoot.

When the golden eyes cleared and focused anew on the assembled family, it was Echoriath’s face that shined.

“Adar!” his luminous son smiled, with delight and with no little astonishment. “Why did you not write to us of the little ones?!”

Elladan could not at present fathom a reply, so startled was he by this outright display of clairvoyance. He wondered anew if he would ever truly recognize this strange elf that had returned to them.

*****************************

With a sigh of such contentment that it bordered on intoxication, Tathren eased himself out of the embrace of his lover’s mind and came into the lively scene before him.

The second of three ebullient elflings – Brithor, he believed – was fished from their bubble-frothed bath and wrapped in a downy towel, lank legs kicking first in protest, then in glee. He was plunked on the window seat beside his owlish brother – possibly Ciryon – who tugged his own towel around him and squashed in his neck, as if a bird ruffling his feathers against a gale. Judging from the sprightly sunlight that streaked across the room, the day would be of springtime temperance despite the current quenching of summer, perfect for his first outing with these rabbit-footed wonders.

Before Elrohir’s arms could net themselves the last of the triplets – Rohrith by default – Brithor sprung down from the ledge and darted over to Tathren’s seat, nevertheless holding his damp towel tight around him. Without even the most innocuous request, he grappled onto his older brother’s legs and settled himself in his lap, even going so far as to jerk at his sleeves until both arms were twined protectively around him. Elrohir watched this too-little-stealthy action with bemusement; Rohrith, now in his father’s arms, with outright contempt.

“Ada!” he wailed in protest. “Ada-Hir, *me* sit on Tafren legs!”

“Tathren only has two legs, ioneth,” Elrohir patiently explained to him. “If you also sit with Tathren, who will sit with Ciryon?”

His agile mind struck by this able reasoning, the young upstart drew his envious eyes from one cunning twin to the more bashful of the three, balled up forlornly on the window seat. Tathren was heartened to note how immediately the instinct to shield his quieter brother evidenced itself in the bolder Rohrith, who waved a tiny, disappointed hand at Tathren and allowed himself to be placed on the ledge. He then tickled Ciryon’s tummy to force him to smile, his ruse so effective that the two were soon wrestling with abandon, while Brithor essayed a jealous stare of his own.

All three, however, stopped cold when Legolas entered the chamber.

Before reporting his news, the archer surveyed his sons’ eager faces – Tathren’s included – and winked with such charm, that all three elflings were instantly under his spell. Tathren recalled that, in his earliest years, he’d felt that a similar aura of mystery surrounded his golden sire, his abilities incredible and his thoughts enigmatic to one so green of the world. Though Legolas had clearly improved on the aloofness that had plagued their relationship, he was too contained an elf to entirely reveal himself, especially to the gamely mind of an elfling, which was only too content to conjure up motives, machinations, and wild legends to qualify the secret dealings they also imagined for him. The Mirkwood elf’s inherent suaveness thusly compelled his triplets, who waited on his opening gambit with an awe usually reserved for lords and godheads.

“Elladan has sent a messenger,” he announced to all. “There will be revels, noontime, at the Hall of Fire and in her gardens. Celebrian is at this moment preparing the luncheon. Elrond would keep the party spare, other than Elladan and Glorfindel’s family only Erestor’s clan has been invited, perhaps Rumil and his children, as well. I have sent word to Nenuial, though I do not doubt her attendance.”

“Tis wondrous, maltaren-nin,” Elrohir beamed, as he welcomed Legolas into his embrace. “Our family will be whole, at last.” A volley of titters sounded about, when they stole a moment for a too-brief kiss.

“Nenuial?” Tathren queried conspiratorially of his brothers, while their fathers took a chance to admire them all assembled.

“*Nana*,” Brithor whispered to him, his little body already wriggling with excitement.

As Legolas and Elrohir herded the other two into their bedchamber, Tathren scooped his impish brother into his arms, even as he considered this latest revelation. He was ashamed to admit to himself that he had not even thought to inquire of the elf-maid who was mother to these miraculous three. After snatching a comb from the nightstand and setting to the straightening of Brithor’s silky black hair, he pondered the matter further, searching his memory for a clue as to her identity. Nothing particularly relevant was forthcoming, though his chest did sink some at the thought of his own, long deceased mother. He missed her most in such blissful times, as she was not waiting, as some, in Mandos, but forever lost to the death of men-kind.

No turn of fate nor prophecy would ever restore her to him.

Sage, somber argent eyes soon lured his own, his doting father knowing implicitly what dark thoughts troubled his eldest son. The mere recognition of his melancholy soothed him, then the chirpy chatter around him broke into his muted senses, causing his ears to perk up at the mention of another unfamiliar name.

“Tinuviel come too, Ada-Las?” Ciryon asked hesitantly, then winced at a particularly sharp poke from his nearby brother.

“Ti-nu-vi-el!!” Rohrith trilled mercurially. The other two lent their lilting voices to the impromptu chorale, though Tathren was unsure whether the creature in question was of elfkind, a cherished pet, or an actual nightingale.

“Hush, pyn-neth,” Legolas admonished them. “Tathren does not yet know of our sweet lady.”

“You must not spoil the surprise,” Elrohir insisted, barely stifling a smirk of his own. Their taunting, of course, only further spiked Tathren’s curiosity, such that he resorted to rather underhanded measures.

“Brith-neth,” he cooed to the little one before him. “Will you not tell me of this hallowed one? If you are so very kind, I will…” He remembered a beloved treat from his own elflinghood and cunningly fashioned his bribe. “I will take you for a swim in the river.”

In the resulting cacophony, Tathren could unfortunately not make out a word. Legolas laughed merrily at his ruse, but a hiss from Elrohir silenced them all.

“Pyn-neth, I warn you, your brother is more mischievous than you three combined,” Elrohir informed them, with studious gravity. “None has yet been born to Aman who match him for wiles. He may promise you a swim in the river, a pony, a bow, even a sword…” Rohrith, bedazzled by the idea of a sword of his own, opened his blossom-mouth, but Legolas quickly clamped a hand over. “…but do reflect on his too-twinkling promises awhile, and remember by who’s indulgence you will be allowed to swim, ride, or train in the fields.”

“You invulgens, Ada-Hir,” Ciryon calmly impressed on his bristling brothers, who despite this tender chastisement, were wrought with anticipation.

“Swim, swim, swim!” Brithor finally burst out, closest to the source and so the most affected. “Ada-Las, we go swim ‘day?!

“If you are courteous at the feast,” Legolas approved. “And play nicely with the others, then perhaps Tathren and his meleth can be persuaded to take you for a swim, *later*. I do not doubt Cuthalion will attend you, as well.”

“Cufalon!!” Rohrith exclaimed, at the naming of his favorite, and to his mind only, cousin.

“Tafren have melef?” Ciryon asked of his brother, too cutely inquisitive for words.

“Aye, I am betrothed,” Tathren explained carefully, wondering at how much to divulge, what might be comprehended. “To Cuthalion’s twin brother, Echoriath. I shall be most proud to introduce you at the feast, pen-gwanur.”

Too revved up to mark any delicacies of attachment, the three twittered cheerfully at this further news.

“I fear they are yet too young to appreciate the full intricacies of love relations, ioneth,” Elrohir elucidated. “Though we elders are not!! Have you and Echoriath given thought to when you might bind?”

Encouraged by both his fathers’ emphatic interest in this topic, Tathren confessed: “We are not yet resolved to any course of action, except that we would be bound within the year.”

“We will speak on the matter with Elladan and Glofrindel,” Legolas cautiously suggested. “If you would allow some tradition to secret into the arrangements?”

“Most gladly,” Tathren grinned, with irrepressible elation. “Most happily, indeed!”

Lowering his brimming eyes to the task at hand – the intricate braiding of his brother’s lovely raven hair – Tathren found himself shivering with as much excitement as the triplets, in anticipation of the impending feast.


End of Part Twelve