In Earendil's Light

Part Two

Middle Earth, Third Age, Year 2,509

As he hurried through the ominous brimstone gables outside the armory, Glorfindel paused a brief moment to survey the much-altered landscape of Imladris. Mighty Earendil loomed above, his sallow beams trickling down as tears from the heavens to bemoan the trying times fallen upon his kin. The captain bowed somberly before the hungry moon, a tattered pearl in a midnight turned scarlet by the raging fires in the valley villages below.

The Lady Celebrian was beloved by all. Her people would have their vengeance, if Elrond dared not.

Though he had often met up with his Imladrian comrades elsewhere along his travels, often at White Council meetings in Lothlorien, he had not set foot in the Last Homely House for over two thousand years. With telltale severity, Glorfindel regretted that such a calamity as the gentle Celebrian’s abduction and near-fatal rescue by her valiant twins returned him to his now-intemperate home. A chill had descended on Rivendell such that he had never witnessed before. The tree-bows drooped over the shadowed eaves, lifeless yet seeming to tremble, the flowers gathered their petals in as if to swallow themselves whole; even the ardent flow of the Bruinen stilled to a dull trickle. Imladris faded with its Lady, nature her willing servant, slave to her whims.

As, he reflected, was her husband in his prolonged hermitage at her bedside.

Reluctant to linger too long, Glorfindel swooped up the winding staircase to the Lord’s study, a cloister beneath the eastern peak of the Hall of Fire. Erestor had ostensibly lured Elrond up to this safe-haven on the charge that Arwen need change her mother’s bed-clothes, her father’s presence at such times like a taunt to his wife’s continued desolation. That Elrond was fed this deceptionhouthout protest spoke volumes of his state of mind.

Before the vault-like hearthstone doors, hecovecovered the dutiful Loremaster.

“Mae govannen, mellon-nin,” Glorfindel sung out, before enveloping Erestor in his crushing arms.

“Glorfindel!” Erestor cried despite himself, his relief at the guard-captain’s presence almost palpable. The darkling elf returned the embrace with equal fervor; finally someone steady to lean on, after so many months of shouldering a household’s grief. “He has been asking for you, meldir. For weeks, he has begged nothing but your return, your guidance.” Erestor sighed heavily, then rested their foreheads together. “As, I confess, have I…”

“How fares my Lady?” Glorfindel quickly inquired, eager for any news that might aid his cause before Elrond.

Erestor shut his eyes, then silently retreated from the comfort of his friend’s arms. He could not bring himself to raise his head, such was the truth of the matter’s hold on him. The Loremaster had not yet admitted, even to himself, the defeat of his healing powers by the clinging remnants of Shadow over Celebrian’s blithe spirit.

“She is fading,” he somberly explained. “Only the light of Valinor can spare her an eternity in Mandos. She must sail West. She must… depart before winter, else she will…”

“But Elrond’s temperance, his wisdom is vital to our people’s survival,” Glorfindel protested vainly. “He cannot leave us!”

“He will not,” Erestor confirmed gravely.

Glorfindel nodded, once, and sighed as well. /Little wonder the valley grieves for him./

“And the children?” he asked dully.

At this, the Loremaster almost allowed himself a smile. “They are children no longer, meldir. Only his injuries keep Elrohir from this meeting, he sits on the Council with his father. Arwen is my storekeeper and scribe; Elladan is in the village as we speak, commanding patrols and keeping peace. He heads our defenses, though he cannot be named captain until you renounce the title.” Erestor examined his friend’s tense features, but found no sign of trouble at Elladan’s naming.

“He is… under my command?” the captain queried, with mounting, yet invisible, trepidation.

“Elladan’s mettle is of his own making,” Erestor smirked to himself. “He will be charged by none save Elrond, and even then… as you, no doubt, will soon enough discover.” On this lighter note, he gestured towards the doors. “Will you lead this charge, mellon-nin?”

“With…-” Glorfindel bit back the word ‘pleasure’, since the task before them would prove anything but pleasurable and perhaps nothing barely resembling successful.

They entered without warning.

The Lord of Imladris was not to be found at his desk, but gathered into the window seat, his slate gray robes sloppily tucked under him, his tangled braids askew. He resembled, Glorfindel noted almost mirthfully, the twins in their late infancy, disregarding their lessons with studied pouts, keeping relentless vigil at the library windows for their father’s return from Lorien, or Isengard, or simply the village. /Would that Elrond be preoccupied by such trifles now./

“I bring word, my Lord, from afar,” he announced himself without ceremony.

Elrond turned, as a ghost might turn, to face him.

“Ah, Glorfindel,” he muttered blankly, as if he’d spoken to the guard-captain but minutes before. t net news?”

“From Greenwood the Great, my Lord Elrond,” Glorfindel began, unsure if the half-elf was even listening, such was his regard for the light of his father’s star. “Now called the Mirkwood, plagued by Shadow as no other land in Arda. The forest is a blight on the land, a cancer that consumes even the fairest soul.”

“What care I for Thranduil’s lair?” Elrond mused, as if sedated.

Glorfindel shot a dark glance at Erestor, weary of continuing when Elrond was so bereft, so listless. The Loremaster urged him on.

“I have witnessed their defenses firsthand,” Glorfindel explained. “They will not hold another thousand year, without support. The Greenwood will fall to Shadow, and with it the Sindar tribe.” The golden elf moved steadily forward, closing bodily in as his argument encroached upon his morose Lord. “It has begun here as well, in Rivendell. If the villagers are not tempered… they’ll soon welcome Sauron into their hearts. Thus it began, in Mirkwood. The race of men are weak…”

“And what must I do to preserve the fiendish race of *men*?!” Elrond seethed, snapping his head around quick as a whip. “Come, Glorfindel, ply me with your words, entreat Thranduil’s favor in this time of my weakness and come to distract me from my purpose with his inflated schemes…”

“Be silent, Elrond!” Erestor reproached him in a tone Glorfindel never thought possible from one so docile. “You will hear reason, else I will ship her off at dawn’s first light. Do you hear?!”

At this, the Lord of Imladris seemed to visibly shrink into the pillows beneath him.

“What can I do, my captain,” he whispered. “What service may I offer them, when I cannot even keep my own… my own…” Elrond swallowed a coarse lump of shame, both at his outburst and at his vulnerability, but he pushed on. “They have ruined her. She will not touch me, nor anyone save Arwen... How can I rule, evenly, wisely, when my heart has been defeated…?”

With near-feral resolution, Glorfindel knelt beside his Lord.

“Elrond, in these treacherous times even Thranduil has pushed beyond the wounds of old,” the guard-captain hastened to insist. “He, too, lost his Queen to fading. She was abducted from the very tent they rested in, raped and held ransom for weeks. He could not spare her from Mandos… His Greenwood is spoilt, festering with Shadow, his sons hunted for sport.” He paused to allow this grim news to sink in, then played the last of his terrible hand. “Thranduil proposes an alliance of elves, between Lorien, Mirkwood, and Imladris. He journeys here as we speak to court you. I have heard his proposal. I believe it vital for our survival, for the protection of the children. *All* our dearest elflings, whether grown or newly born.”

At this, Elrond scoffed, but Glorfindel knew he had struck him. “No elfling has been born to Rivel fol for two thousand years.”

“No,” the golden elf admitted. “But one was born to Mirkwood.”

Even Erestor struggled to absorb this announcement.

“The Queen bore another child?” Elrond gasped openly. “But she is seven hundred years my senior!” Glorfindel nodded softly, allowing the rarity of this event to humble them.

“A son, five years ago,” he continued with considerable reverence. “Legolas.”

“’Greenleaf’, in the ancient tongue,” Erestor softly commented, the import of the moment weighing on him. “A clear portent, my Lord.”

“Aye,” Elrond stated firmly, rising for the first time. “Fear not, my brave captain. I commend you your foresight in this matter. I will welcome Thranduil as a brother, and open myself to his regard.”

Briefly, he turned back to the window, his gaze stretching up to again meet Earendil’s light.

“Hannon le, Ada.”

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

After a brief discussion of the necessities and preparations for the Mirkwood King’s impending arrival, both Erestor and Elrond retired to Celebrian’s chamber, the former to check on her condition and the latter to fret over it. Glorfindel regretted the lost opportunity of another debriefing with the raptly observant Loremaster, but the hour was late, his day’s journey arduous, and the famed Imladrian mineral baths beckoned his weary limbs.

First, however, he must tend to an old friend.

Even as the first echoes of his footsteps sounded on the path, Asfaloth readied the look of a horse forsaken in the name of diplomacy; hastily tied to a tree far from the trough, the hay bales, amidst riotous calls and the fumes of vengeance from the valley beyond. Thus, summarily abandoned by her preoccupied master. When finally his precious steed came into view, Asfaloth’s pout was so miserably rendered as to immediately draw tenderness and sympathy from the gracious Noldor.

“There, now, my soft one,” he cooed, stroking the bristled hide of her cheek and nuzzling her nose. “Did I not swear I would be quick? Hardly an hour gone and I am done, say nothing of the bold colors of the view to distract and amaze you.”

The horse snorted, reared, and settled back down when Glorfindel pulled a handful of pilfered carrots from his pouch. While Asfaloth chomped noisily on the contraband treats, her master unlaced her reins and gently guided her towards the stable. As they made their rather fatigued way across the yard, two kohl-black Warmbloods galloped past, their ebony flanks rippling like sails in the moonlight over well-muscled flesh. On the fearsome steeds rode equally imposing horsemen, elves of feral might, their braids woven in the manner of the Rohirrim and their armor just as frugally wrought. Only on second glance did Glorfindel note that the further rider was indeed a man of Edoras, no elf at all. When the first dismounted, however, the captain held little care for the second, who took charge of unbridling both battle horses.

The first rider wore the colors of patrol captain.

After whispered thanks to his Warmblood, Elladan swiftly threw off his weapons, no doubt anxious to report back to his father of the riots in the village. Glorfindel soon realized he would not have known him but for his armor colors, so changed was he from his minority.

Where once the potential for beauty lay waiting, beauty now reigned. His face was crisp, aquiline, but betrayed a softness in the arc of his temples, the dulled joint of his jaw, the cream cast of his skin and his voluptuous lips. If his profile was blessed with a noble, elven grace, his body, though markedly fluid in movement, was forged by his Numenorian ancestry. Easily a half-foot taller than Elrond, Elladan was as trim, sinuous, and trained as a prize thoroughbred. Swaths of taut muscle slithered beneath his battle-smeared skin; his rough yet nimble fingers alone seemed capable of crushing an Orc skull with one bare hand.

Mouth perilously dry, Glorfindel struggled to quell the titanic, near-incessant waves of feeling flooding through him.

His person suitably unbridled, Elladan strode briskly out into the yard, then stopped cold. He stood, caught, confounded by the sight before him for a long moment, then, repossessing himself, bowed in deference.

“My Captain,” the new, velvet-thick voice addressed him, causing the blonde elf to barely restrain himself from a jolting shudder. “The guard is honored by your presence, and heartened by your safe return.”

Touched by his dedication – by everything about this gallant, implacable young warrior, Glorfindel bowed his head in formal acknowledgement, then raised it with an ample smile.

“Elladan,” he culled. “It is I. There is no need for…” Glorfindel sighed as the Prince approached him, his effortless attraction giving way to a tutor’s pride. “My, but you are glorious.”

Elladan flushed deeply at the remark, unsure of how best to welcome him, how close he wished to get. He remained aloft, uncertain, even somewhat bashful now that formality was dismissed.

“My scouts reported a sojourn in the Mirkwood,” he ventured. “Is there news?”

“Your *scouts*? “ Glorfindel inquired with bemusement, to mask his growing admiration.

“Aye, my guard,” Elladan reproached, chafing under the duress of his unchecked feelings. “Those under my command.” His quicksilver eyes bore into his long-lost tutor, a deep-seeded frustration surfacing. Glorfindel was taken aback. “It was I who tracked the pack that held my Nena, and I who slew the orc that bound her. Elrohir carried her for miles after the cave and scared off the pack of Nazgul hunting her. You’ll find him much altered as well. Best prepare yourself.” With another curt bow, as well as a hint of a smirk, he made his departure. “Captain.”

Before Glorfindel could fathom the first glimmer of a response, he’d cleared the path behind.

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

First came the eyes. The blue of a flame’s cool center, of glaciers melting to spring-water under Arien’s lapping rays, twinkling from behind the indigo folds of his father’s riding cloak; then his fingers, like shards from a shattered moonstone, already with a telltale callous at the lower joint of his left index. Last, when he shyly tucked back a thatch of cornsilk from his close-cropped hair, came the delicate teardrop ear, tuning itself to the hush of the Rivendell valley, so unlike the seething quiet of the perilous Mirkwood.

Elrond relaxed his lips, his now perpetually furrowed brow, and opened his hands towards the weary company. Thranduil performed a deep, accomplished bow, but said nothing, waiting for the wood-nymph gathered against him to abandon his tree-tall legs and escape into view. Glorfindel and Erestor, at Elrond’s side, both took a step back, fearing their combined presence intimidated the little one.

At last, the elfling sprung out, his speed astonishing his elders. Before they could adjust their agile eyes, he waited, below, for their acknowledgement, his own twin pools absorbing every gesture, every twitch. The petals of his lips curled mirthfully, secretively, as if holding some particularly savory observation captive.

“Suilad, Laiqalsse,” Elrond greeted him with immediate fondness. “Nai tiruvantel ar varyuvantel i Valar tielyanna nu vilya.”

The tiny elf’s eyes grew wide with wonder at the strange tongue, then whipped back to meet his father’s, though he dared not retreat. Thranduil nodded softly, urging him on.

“Mae govannen,” he lilted, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“We are indeed well-met, pen-neth,” Elrond replied encouragingly, switching to the more familiar Sindarin. “I have longed to make your acquaintance.”

The easily comprehended words seemed to shock the elfling all the more. He fixed his quivering gaze on Elrond, as if puzzling out the strange duality of his existence, then bit back a rising smirk. Just as suddenly, he threw himself onto the peredhil and fiercely hugged his legs. For the first time in many weeks, Elrond’s rich laugh boomed through the courtyard.

Glorfindel and Erestor exchanged a pointed look of relief, then sighed in unison.

Meanwhile, Elrond had scooped the mercurial Prince of Mirkwood up into his arms. Little Legolas wasted no time in reaching out to the gentle Lord, smoothing an opalline fingertip along the edge of his regal ear. The Half-Elven blinked one, twice, thrice, the meager touch reaching to the core of him, but resisted the crutch of indulgent sorrow. With this simple gesture, the spindly, golden elfling unwittingly mended the tares in Elrond’s heart, as well as the fraying blanket of peace over lush Imladris.

He was, indeed, an uncounted blessing.

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

At one with the night’s stillness, Elladan brushed a tender hand over his twin’s damp forehead, then knelt to kiss hiow. ow. He gathered himself into a seat nearby, tucking Elrohir’s flushed arm between his own. This new, most potent fever had assaulted him the previous morning, most likely the result of over-exertion and, Elladan noted sourly, his brother’s determination to sit at their father’s council with Thranduil.

The elf-warrior himself cared little for the minutiae of negotiation, but Elrohir thrived in such instances, especially those of such historic significance for their kind. Indeed, in a private moment, his brother had confided ample misgivings about this alliance to him; that their fates, their own personal freedoms might somehow be a subject for debate, for obligation. They were, after all, the heirs to Imladris, as well as her chief guardians. This trenchant anxiety had no doubt spiked the lingering strains of his long sickness into the white hot surge of fever, thus bedding him before the meeting had even begun.

Now, as the two elven Lords thrashed out their desperate pact in the Halls of Fire, the twins haunted the Halls of Healing: Elladan cast as troubled sp and and Elrohir as shell of himself.

Elladan sighed, shut his eyes. As in weeks past, he sunk down into himself, stretched the sinuous weave of his soul’s eternal flame out through his soothing touch, and linked the slinky tendrils to the ephemeral center of their twinness. With learned calm, he poured the balming heat of his wellness into the heady flow between them, filtering out the dense clots of fever, until the stream ran liquid pure. Elrohir’s eyes fluttered, once, then settled into a heavy, healing sleep. Elladan slipped carefully out of their shared core, regaining consciousness, but allowed a soft fugue to linger over them, stalling his retreat.

His spirit’s touch may have dispelled the fever, yet Elladan feared his twin might never fully recover from the scratch of the Nazgul’s claw, the three blood-flecked scars of which were branded across his left eye. Though spared from blindness, the elf-knight had lain comatose for well over a month, only regaining consciousness, and a glimmer of strength, the week before. Erestor and Arwed dud dug out the most arcane volumes in their library in search of an undiscovered treatment, though not a one, no matter how obscure or questionable, had been refused him. Elladan himself felt only time would prove the difference between tolerable and intolerable difficulties once recovery had set in, despite the cloying fear of never again being able to ride with Elrohir at his side. Erestor was solid, determined, but terribly cautious, a point of contention between Loremaster and apprentice, who ceaselessly muttered under her breath about an ‘alternative’ Erestor would swiftly deem ‘unthinkable’ and then dismiss.

Elladan, with little enough patience for this ridiculous indecision, had literally taken matters into his own hands, returning nightly to Elrohir’s bedside for a course of remedial soul-linking. The results, he proudly noted, proved increasingly favorable.

As his thoughts turned inward, the elf-warrior swallowed a tight knot of frustration. If only the same could be said of the loneliness that plagued him. With Glorfindel returned, the fog of indecision had enveloped anew, along with torrents of unchecked affections, which he had repressed for two entire millennia. The shadow of his great regard for his tutor had been cast over every last one of his lovers, no tenderness was as sweet as one the guard-captain might bestow, no gift as knowing, no sacrifice as selfless. Ever since their awkward reunion by the stables, he’d thought of little else but the blonde Noldor, their every subsequent interaction bubbling with promise. Should he reveal himself? Dismiss him for his prolonged, insulting absence? Pledge allegiance, and fight not with him, but against the tide of doubt and singeing desire that daily threatened to overwhelm the garrison-strong emotional defenses of a sworn soldier? At the least, Elladan acknowledged, he no longer believed him beloved of Erestor, who presently tread a romantic minefield far more treacherous than his own.

This, however, was poor consolation.

His keen mind resolutely overcome by the matters of his timid heart, Elladan replaced his sleeping brr’s r’s hand, slipped out the back of the Healing Hall, and wandered out, into the solace of the trees. He ambled along the starlit track without notice of his way, all paths at Rivendell leading to somewhere familiar and beloved. In some small fashion, Elladan was grateful to calamity, not for the harm it dealt his dear family, but for the chance to return home. Their journeying through the lands of men, though a vital schooling in the skills of warriors, diplomats, and - if he was honest - lovers, had kept him from these kindly hills, the sanctuary of their valley and their parent’s home, for too long. Elladan knew well that, if a time of peace should return, so would his restlessness.

Perhaps the time had come for a bond that resisted all forms of severance: distance, duty… even, in death, the waiting at Mandos.

As if Elbereth herself had guided him through the ederwood bows, Elladan came upon his father, shroud in a haze of deep thought by the riverside. The prince was somewhat taken aback to find the Lord of Imladris alone, not busy attending his guests, but Elladan also well knew how Elrond valued reflection in times of indecision. He wagered Thranduil had given him much to reflect upon. Careful to tread loudly enough to announce himself, Elladan perched on a nearby stone and waited, drinking in the cool, settled night. His gaze floated up into the star-pricked firmament; soon near-bedazzled by Earendil’s soothing luminescence. As long as his grandfather watched over them, Imladris would be safe.

To his own surprise, Elladan found himself speaking first. “Was your Ada as brilliant in life as he is in the heavens, Ada?”

Elrond blinked thoughtfully, coming out of his own contemplation. “Even more so, some might well say.”

“I wish I had known him,” Elladan remarked, oblivious to the effect this might have.

“Aye,” Elrond nodded briefly, but could not say more. “I, too, wish… but my wishes are for naught. The time is as now, and my choices…”

“Thranduil has provoked you,” Elladan snorted, displease. “I thought as much.”

“I am provoked by his arguments,” Elrond admitted. “But it is the rightness of them that stirs me.” He unwound his legs from beneath him, letting his slender feet dip into the Bruinen. “The time has come to clean the slate, Elladan, in hopes that past wrongs can in some manner be employed as the foundation for a new alliance. A new generation of elves will reign before long, unburdened by our dark history. Your brother Elrohir, of such momentous heart, will be well-sung for his foresight, long after I have departed these shores and my part in this joining is long forgotten…”

“Ada, are you well?” Elladan asked, the melancholy timbre of his father’s voice alerting him to deeper sorrows. “What has been decided? Why do you speak so of Elrohir?”

Elrond inwardly reproached himself such candor, gripping a solid hand over the prince’s.

“There will be an alliance, between Imladris and Mirkwood,” he elaborated. “Your brother… the last elfling has been born to Arda, my brave one. The signs surround us even now; Thranduil, Galadriel, and I are agreed. The time of the elves is fading as your mother fades, there are no young maids in the royal houses to provide future heirs. Alliances must be forged with purer metal, strengthened through the binding of male with male.”

Elladan gasped, guessing his father’s folly.

“He is betrothed,” Elladan barked, as his mind raced towards some alternative. “You have promised him to Mithbrethil!”

“Mithbrethil is longtime bound, as is Luinaelin,” Elrond explained, with ample patience for the ever-more tempestuous twin.

Elladan’s face dropped. “The elfling.”

“Aye,” Elrond all but whispered.

“Ada, why have you done this?!” the elf-warrior exclaimed, fighting to contain his hurt and merely voice his anger.

“On the morrow, it will be done,” Elrond clarified, but did not yield to his temper. “It will strengthen him. He will recover quickly, because of it.”

Elladan fisted his hands, battling against the ferocity of his objections. Elrond valued calm, reasoned thoughts, would not entertain any other, especially from one so well-instructed in the art of debate. Quaking with tightly bound frustration, Elladan failed to see any logical rn hin his beloved twin need be betrothed to an elf not a decade in years, and thus could fashion no argument to unravel this lapse in his father’s judgment. This wrongheaded choice, added to the frailty of his emotional state… Elladan sunk his head into his now open hands, defeated.

Then, a solution.

“I will do it, if it is to be done, Ada,” he implored. “I will guide the young one, and learn him well. Perhaps, when he is older… He may prove of some interest…” Elladan could not go on, so distasteful was the thought.

Elrond, his senses frayed after a long day of debating these same issues, sighed deeply. He searched vainly for some reserves of compassion, then discovered a vital, ever-valid point. He considered this intrusion a moment - as it tread on terrain who’s existence Elladan rarely admitted to even himself, but decided this was the only course to convince him.

“But I cannot allow you, nin bellas, to stifle the silent, constant song of your own heart’s longing,” he ventured with unnerving calm. Elladan stared at his father, struck dumb. “Your love for him has been mislaid these long years of his journeying, but his return… You reproach me for binding Elrohir to an elfling, but you yourself were one so young, so green to the world and yet afflicted by a passion so fierce that it has yet to abate.”

Elladan fell to stillness, as if willing himself to evaporate.

Elrond paused a moment; then, with a glance at the heavens, pressed on. “It would hearten me to know that both my sons were well-matched. Guarded from the Shadow’s claw and ever-steadied by the bonds of love. Have you given no thought to… declaring yourself?”

Still unable to meet his father’s eyes, Elladan rasped tightly: “I have thought of nothing else since his arrival. Since his departure, before my majority…”

“As long as that?” Elrond gasped, unaware.

“Longer, still,” he confessed, seeing no reason to hide the rest, as his father had thoroughly discovered him. “I recall a time when I knew not the naming of such a feeling…but not a time when I bore no love for him.”

Impressed by the enormity of Elladan’s admission, Elrond felt his blood surge with the promise of this union.

“Then you also should be betrothed,” he concluded confidently, even if Elladan betrayed no such confidence in the matter. “I will see to it.”

“No, Ada,” Elladan halted him, far more urgently than he intended. How would he confront Glorfindel, if he could not maintain his composure before his own kin? “It is my charge. I will speak with him.”

“These affairs, Elladan, are best conducted formally,” Elrond advised him.

“But I would not have a ‘formal’ union, Ada,” Elladan insisted, with such sincerity as Elrond had never afore witnessed in him. “I would… Forgive my impertinence, but I have no wish of another who mistakes himself my father.” As his silver eyes took on the glint of starlight, the darkling elf retreated into the familiarity of their bond. “That I have suits me well enough, indeed.”

His meaninsilysily accepted, Elrond slapped him playfully on the back. “Very well, then. May Elbereth guide you on a fair path in this, for it is no little thing to ask another’s hand in love.”

With a halting sigh, Elladan nodded softly, feeling the cloak of his burden drape over him anew.

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

The crisp breeze of an overcast sky swooped through hig high-set windows of the Hall of Healing, along the bulbous slope of the arches, and into the stagnant, invisible fumes of fever evaporating from Elrohir’s cooling skin. When the pin-prick wind brushed across his cheek, he snortled, as if roused by the touch of a phantom admirer. The sharp intake of air caught in his constricted throat, forcing him awake in a fit of thick, razing coughs.

Wheezing, he grappled for the pitcher on the nightstand and sloppily poured himself a cup of water; spitting up almost as much as he managed to gulp down when another cough would rip through. After several clumsy attempts, he succeeded in drinking enough to settle himself, then eased his spinning head back onto the now-soaked pillow. The damp of the fabric proved soothing. Elrohir nestled an aching temple into the sweat-ripe folds, anxious to steady his swooning and focus on his surroundings.

Finally, his wooziness lessened to mere light-headedness. His breathing suitably recovered, his gaze traveled across the still, gray room. The realization that he was indeed home slowly penetrated, as his heavy eyes gleaned over the curtained doorway, the armoire of curatives and herbal potions, the dormant hearth, the other, empty cots, and the visitor’s stools collected in the far corner. Only when he turned on his side did he nearly jump back, at the first, unfathomable sight of axen-xen-hairlflilfling curled against the backboard of the bed to his right.

Elrohir had never seen an elfling before, let alone a child of wholly elven descent, though there was no doubt in his mind that this precious creature was, indeed, that. /But how can that... – *he* – be?/

Impossibly clear blue eyes peered over clenched kneecaps, his barricade of legs secured mid-calf by two white-knuckled hands. The peaks of his nimble ears took on a hummingbird’s blurred quiver, the only trace of fear in his contained, self-armored stance. The fitful stirrings of the formerly comatose must have startled him, the darkling elf reasoned, only further adding to his abandonment in what must be an unfamiliar environment. Small wonder the little one hadn’t climbed into the chimney to hide, Elrohir reflected, also noting the preternatural poise in the elfling’s position. He was equally protected and ready to pounce.

/A fighter, then./

“Havo dad, pen-neth,” Elrohir cooed, slowly rising up on his elbows so as not to further intimidate him. “I mean you no harm.” Fiercely blues eyes never wavering, the elfling loosened his grip on his legs. “I am Elrohir, son of Lord Elrond and prince of Imladris.”

Elrohir hoped these titles were familiar to him. He dared not press him, preferring that the little golden-hair calm sufentlently to present himself. Suddenly, an indecipherable mix of nausea and hunger bit deep, squeezing the delicate lining of his empty stomach. He sunk back down into the covers, his own arms protectively encircling his abdomen.

The elfling’s questioning gaze turned instantly sympathetic; he scampered to the edge of his bed.

“Sick?” he squeaked out.

“My wound,” the elf-knight explained, despite his discomfort. “It curdles my hunger, to keep me from taking nourishment.” Only then did he consider the effect this revelation might have on one so young.

“Yrch?” the elfling queried excitedly, his trepidation forgotten in an instant.

“Nazgul,” Elrohir corrected. He lifted pained eyes in time to see the little one’s widen with rapt admiration.

“You have fought the black riders?” the elfling breathed in a rush, as if to utter their very name would curse him.

“I had no choice,” he mused. “They had my Nena.”

At that, the little elf’s face softened, a similar regret echoed in his fine features. He momentarily drew into himself, a shockingly mature desolation seeming to overtake him. Elrohir, content with that, slumped onto his back and begged sleep for his weary bones. Moments before his surrender to the blackness, a dull patter sounded at his side.

He looked up to see the elfling above him, now somehow on his bed, curiously examining his battered torso, his sallow face. He at once noticed the scarlet slit on the plum of the child’s upper arm, mended and bound with the usual wraithseed compress. Only then, when the young one laid a warm hand over his stomach, did the unfamiliar scar on his own wrist begin to singe.

“From where do you hail, pen-neth?” he posed calmly, though the blood sung within him at the elfling’s balming touch. “What is your name?”

“Legolas,” he replied, his lips curling into a pensive smile. “I am of Mirkwood.”

As the elfling laid his head onto the elf-knight’s undulating chest, Elrohir wondered at this strange occurrence. Had Thranduil invaded the Rivendell valley? Were his kindred slain? Had he been taken captive? Drugged? Ransomed? Or was some greater mischief unleashed on the Last Homely House by the wolves of Mordor?

As he contemplated the repercussions of these bleak scenarios, Elrohir absently stroked a finger along the downy rim of the little elfling’s ear.

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

Setting himself an even, leisurely pace, Glorfindel followed Erestor’s earth-toned Loremaster’s robes through the mist-shroud paths of the forest, their patient strides masking the thunderous reasoning of both their minds, the inner struggle to make some sense out of the unrepentant events of the past few hours. After the brief ceremony of betrothal, Elrond had retreated to Celebrian’s chambers, once again abandoning his two chieftains to the uneasy contemplation of their part in the archaic ritual.

Erestor, ever fretful, was the first to give voice on the matter.

“The air is sharp,” he murmured. “Out of season.”

“As is the time,” Glorfindel chimed in. “It weighs on me, meldir. Why couldn’t the ritual wait on his recovery?”

“Thranduil would return to his kingdom,” Erestor mused. “His presence here targets Rivendell, and calamity has so recently struck…”

“Then why come at all, when my message would suffice?” Glorfindel grumbled. “I feel I have been a pawn in this, Loremaster. I never heard talk of betrothal when in Mirkwood, this mischief was planned en route, if at all. I like it not.”

“Nor I, mellon-nin,” the comely elf agreed, his lips soured into a moue. “But it is done.”

“Aye,” the guard-captain near-snarled. “Elrohir is now plagued as I have been. The elfling I once coddled now betrothed to one as dear and innocent as he was, when I held him… It burns me, Erestor!!” Glorfindel turned his head to spit, so thick was his mouth with disgust. “I have spent my energies protecting Elladan’s virtue, when all this time I knew not the risk to Elrohir. I have failed him, meldir. I have failed them all…”

Erestor inhaled deeply, then rushed out his collected breath. The guilt seared to his very core, spurred by Glorfindel’s brash admission. The Loremaster could find no words to comfort him, as his own shame singed the edges of every potential argument.

All, save one.

“Take heart,” Erestor counseled, attempting to convince himself as he strived to convince the captain. “Perhaps now… you may be free to indulge your own heart’s longings.”

“How can that be?” Glorfindel demanded, incensed. “Elladan assented to his twin’s binding to an elfling, he will no doubt give audience to any green suitor Elrond may chose for him, ignorant of his own heart’s pining: Orthilor of Cirdan’s blood, or Lintharos the frail, or that brash Haldir of the Galadhrim.”

“H-Haldir,” Erestor blanched, then swallowed hard. “He is promised to Arwen.”

“Is he?!” Glorfindel snarked with further outrage. “Then perhaps before long they will beget a husband for Elrond’s younger son!”

“Perhaps,” Erestor echoed, unthinking. “Mellon-nin, I must inform you of -“

Before the Loremaster could bleat out his confession, a rather spry Elladan was upon them.

“Mae govannen, Lambengolmor,” the elf-warrior smirked archly, his quicksilver eyes brimming. “Such gloomy faces, on this day of such… promise.”

“You are mirthful, Elladan,” Erestor immediately commented, to allow his friend time to recover himself from the shock of this sudden appearance. The guard-captain’s temper was immediately chastened; in its stead a dreadful stillness came over him, a palpable, perilously brittle restraint. Little wonder, with Elladan so cheerful and mysteriously out of character.

“A convoy, from Lorien, will shortly arrive,” he appraised them. “Lord Celeborn, attended by Galadhrim… the fair Haldir among them.” He arched a potent eyebrow, anticipating the Loremaster’s befuddled reaction.

Erestor did not disappoint, though Glorfindel shot the preoccupied elf a look of burnished triumph.

“When… are they… expected?” the now-shuddering Loremaster managed, clamping his jaw shut to silence his chattering teeth.

“Presently,” Elladan ambiguously added, delighting in his Lore-tutor’s ample fidgets. “Best you return home to… prepare yourself, aye, Erestor?”

“Well judged, my brave one,” he quickly acknowledged, then beat an astoundingly rapid retreat from the still forest.

Even Glorfindel could not help but mark this transformation. “Has Erestor some grudge with Celeborn, pen-neth?”

Swallowing the urge to reproach him for the condescension, Elladan focused on the matter at hand and instead remarked: “Has your company been so sparse these long years as to not recognize the pangs of early love, Captain?”

“Love?!” Glorfindel exclaimed, the trappings inherent in the discussion unnerving him. He steadied his galloping breaths with iron resolve. “Erestor is in love with Lord Celeborn?” /He’s been nothing but comfort to me, and all these years his heart’s suffered…/

Elladan laughed outright, relishing his power to unmoor both his elders.

“Celeborn?” he chuckled, in studied amazement. “A treacherous climb that would be. But our dear Loremaster has envisioned an even more perilous peak to conquer.” Elladan paused to savor the moment, Glorfindel waiting on his every word. “The beauteous Haldir, son of Fearolin.”

“The reputed guard-captain of Lorien,” Glorfindel alighted on the reason for Erestor’s anxiety. “Who does not in any case favor the binding of male to male spirit.”

“The very same,” Elladan frowned, the weight of the matter finally sinking down. “Ada has bravely taken up their cause by promising Arwen to Haldir, so that he may come to visit Imladris at times when the Shadow’s threat on Lorien abates. But with Celeborn’s accompaniment… perhaps they will at last be bound, and their love revealed.” Elladan smiled sweetly at the thought, turning inward.

Leaning back on a birchwood trunk, Glorfindel contemplated this welcome news, as well as the manner in which it was related to him. With Elladan fallen quiet, he allowed his gaze to linger over his hush, regal features, their secrets tightly held. Too long had he let his own closely-checked feelings rule his every action towards the young prince, as witnessed in his reactions just moments before. If he was to truly protect Elladan from this knowledge, then he must regain his favor. This strategy would prove costly to Glorfindel himself, but would no doubt aid his former charge.

“And what of your heart, pen-neth?” he ventured. “Is there not some blithe elf-maid that entrances you? Or perhaps, no doubt to Fearolin’s regret, one of the bracing Galadhrim that’s won you with his steel and strength?”

The stony eyes that met him hit hard, choke-deep. Then, to the guard-captain’s shock, they moistened.

“There is one I favor,” Elladan confessed, his voice shred raw. “Though I am unmannered in these gentle ways, and know not how to…how to express…” He bit into his bottom lip, as if to restrain some untamed truth.

Glorfindel pushed off the birchwood and approached him with practiced vigilance, he himself not entirely suited to such gentility. He rested a strong, comforting hand between his charge’s tense shoulder-blades, leaning in to encourage intimacy. Such proximity urged him further on, but he grit his teeth and bested it.

“Ada has made it known that he wishes me soon betrothed,” Elladan confided.

“Has he suggested other suitors?” the guard-captain inquired. “Does he not approve of your choice?”

Elladan shook his head. “He approves it well. I did not think my… my will in this could be granted, yet he himself suggested him, unprovoked.”

“Then what stays your happiness, pen-neth?” Glorfindel asked, readying himself for the blow.

With halted breaths, Elladan opened his mouth to speak, but found his voice momentarily absent. As a warrior, he had stared down legions of orcs, a host of the Shadow’s minions, the deadly Nazgul themselves, but one look into Glorfindel’tientient, compassionate eyes and his heart was cleft in twain. After two thousand years of searching, he had yet to uncover the compound argument, the eloquent turn of phrase that might victoriously woo the hallowed favor of the Balrog-slayer. Glorfindel had known two lifetimes worth of lovers, what quality could his own troublesome tenacity possess that would trounce their cherished charms?

Elladan clung tight to his one indisputable strength of character – his stubbornness – and trod the path of righteousness.

“I await but your reply, my Captain,” he murmured to him. “To the question that has yet to challenge you. Would you consent to… to…”

Caught by Glorfindel’s wondering stare, unable to longer bear this shaming torment, Elladan pushed into his guardian’s arms and brushed a timorous, unwaveringly tender kiss over his soft mouth. As quietly as he’d come on, Elladan sprung back, his spine instantly sparked with tension, his nerves alight. In his astonishment, Glorfindel unwittingly leaned further into him, reeling from the far, far too brief contact, his senses in a tail-spin, overcome by momentous feeling.

“And… and Elrond…?” he mumbled, felled by Elladan’s continued proximity.

“He consents,” the prince assured him.

“And… when…?”

“A fortnight,” Elladan bleated, the significance of the moment near roasting him through. “That is, if… no other journey…”

“There is none,” he confirmed.

His mind, his reason now entirely engulfed by the surge of his eternal flame, Glorfindel rested his head on Elladan’s stiff shoulder; this tenuous contact enough to sear his cheek with the heat pouring from him. Never, the Noldor swore to himself, would he know of the bond forged in his infancy, of the link that now swells his heart to bursting, such is its command, its sway.

Glorfindel, rallying, rose to meet those molten mithril eyes, this last requirement vital to their proposed union. “And you, Elladan… you choose… freely?”

“Aye,” he breathed voicelessly, stunned silent.

“Then… *Aye*, pen-neth,” Glorfindel finally consented, holding fast to his trembling charge.

“Aye?” Elladan gasped, his flush face draining fast. “You… you would…?”

Elladan’s resulting sigh gusted more mightily than all the winds of Arda melded into one. He stood up, straight, proud, and enveloped Glorfindel in a look of such intense regard that the Noldor blushed a fierce crimson. Once again, he met his waiting mouth, but this time as a lover would, with passion, with promise; and, like a true connoisseur of such delicacies, he did not linger.

“A fortnight, then,” he concluded, catching Glorfindel’s hand in his own and sweetly caressing the palm. “I will presently announce us to my Lord and father.”

With a final, glorious smile, Elladan bowed in deference, then strode off into the mist; leaving Glorfindel amidst the clouds, to ponder whether the prince had been, somehow, a vision, or a waking dream.


End of Part Two

A/N: Significance of the names of Legolas’ brother (and you thought I just pulled them out of my head):

Mithbrethil – mith = gray, brethil = silver birches, therefore the ‘gray/silver birches’ (of
which I’m told there are plenty in Mirkwood).

Luinaelin – luin = blue, aelin = lake, therefore the ‘blue lake’

Mostly, others who’ve named them pick names that I don’t find lyrical enough. Legolas is such a sweeping, beautifully fashioned name. Why wouldn’t his brothers have similar names, also associated with nature? Exactly.

Elvish Translations:

Quenya:

/Suilad, Laiqalasse/ = Greetings, Legolas

/Nai tiruvantel ar varyuvantel i Valar tielyanna nu vilya./ = May the Valar protect you on your path under the sky.

/Lambengolmor/ = Loremaster

Sindarin:

/mellon-nin/ or /meldir/ = my friend

/pen-neth/ = little one

/nin bellas/ = my strength

/Mavannvannen/ = well met, or welcome

/gwanur/ = brother

/Nena/ = mother

/Ada/ = father