In Earendil's Light

Part Three

Middle Earth, Third Age, Year 2,510

Elladan eyed the finery spread across his bed, and sighed.

He lazily fingered the leaves of gold woven into his wreath-crown, as he inspected the custom-made - and customary - ornaments before him: a tunic of near-diaphanous azure gauze, blue velvet leggings lined with gold embroidery, varnished warg-hide boots, a chain-link vest of stunning mithril ore, a basket of perfumes, lotions, flowers, hair clasps, all to refine his virile essence, all to mask his brute edain ancestry. He tossed the crown into the center, then crossed his arms over his broad chest.

“Come, gwanur, you must choose,” Elrohir beckoned from his seat on the window ledge. As soon as he had uttered the urging, he pursued his own by looking out, into the melancholy, yet temperate day.

Beyond the elliptical glass, on the paths below, Erestor strolled with Haldir. Between them hung a squirming, all-too-familiar flaxen-haired elfling. The lovers each clung to a gangly arm, lifting the little elf as they went, then swinging him back and forth. Legolas gamely gave himself up to them; the rapturous peals of his giggles sounding faintly through the thick glass. Before long, he’d mastered the rhythm of their movements, improvising a back-flip, a suspended summersault, a launch-and-roll. Again and again he returned to their arms, plying them with a gleeful smile to more challenging levels of agility. Elrohir was heartened to see others suitably plied by the young Mirkwood prince’s mercurial charms.

Elladan observed his engrossed twin a moment, smirked, then glaredn atn at the various textures of ribbon to be woven into his braids: silver, indigo, aquamarine, violet. Who was this elf that would be bound to the mighty Balrog-slayer? Surely not the one who had wooed and won him; an elf who’d rode five hundred years with the Rohirrim, who slept in the stables he’d daily scrubbed, had learned to smith the welts in his armor, and had once scaled the sheer face of the Mark with only the use of his hands. Wither this brave elf; unmatched in swordsmanship, patrol lieutenant, border-guard, archer of considerable skill, and noted for his fearsome tenacity? / I have never rested on my titles. Yet on this most precious day, I am named by them alone./

“I have a length of rawhide, from Tuor’s scabbard,” Elladan announced, with such a determination that Elrohir knew any protest would be futile. “An unexpected gift from Glorfindel, the day of our majority, by special courier.” He disregarded another sharp look from his twin, as he rifled through his chest of arms. “It will honor him.”

“If he can claim to notice black leather in one of raven hue,” Elrohir reproached him. “And there is but one length of it. What of the other side?”

“It will not look so ill, with double plaiting,” Elladan brusquely explained.

Elrohir exhaled longly, too weak still to mount any suitable defense against his mulish twin.

“Elladan, you are to be bound, not called to arms,” he chided, his gaze again wandering out of doors to the training fields beyond. “The traditional manner of braiding -“

“I am a warrior and a marksman, not a maid,” Elladan growled at him, the nervousness that underlay these brash commands readily exposed. “This luxury mocks outright the respect I bear him, as guard-captain, as guardian, as tutor, as warrior-“

“As lover?” Elrohir smirked from his perch. “These ‘luxuries’, as you say, are but a part of your duty as a prince to his subjects. They do not lessen; they enhance the beauty of what you are. And you are, gwanur-nin, an elf of rare allure, as Glorfindel himself will no doubt uncover, when these trappings are shed and you are bare before him. Is this, perhaps, what truly concerns you?”

“I would not brand it ‘concern’,” he offered, now grown bashful. “Longing, perhaps… anticipation… *desire*.” He absently wound the thin leather strap around his hand, lingering on the idea of their future intimacy. “Aye, he is desired. Hopelessly so…”

“Such skills, he must possess, in the ways of love,” the elf-knight teased, unable to resist. “Two lifetimes, a host of people from which he has studied well…” Elrohir considered this a moment, then judged Elladan luckier than he’d first suspected. He gestured towards the armchair before the mirror, as the time for preparations crept slowly away.

“Aye, and I must prove myself their better,” Elladan mused, as he sat. “Perhaps I am… somewhat concerned.” With ample fondness, Elrohir kissed the crown of his hair, then began to brush through the swaths of shimmering ebony.

“Then best allow yourself every confidence,” he concluded, snatching a length of black leather from his own pocket and draping it over his twin’s arm, beside the other. “This, I believe, will compliment Tuor’s scabbard-strap.”

Astonished, Elladan wonderingly fingered the leather strip, then met his brother’s mirthful look in the mirror. After a gentle, grateful smile, Elladan let the moment pass without comment. Some matters of import needed not be spoken of to be cherished.

Instead, he noted the elf-knight’s eyes straying yet again to the window.

“I marvel at your strength, gwanur, mere days after your fever,” he complimented archly.

“Over a week, now, Elladan,” Elrohir, distracted, informed him. “You were perhaps too embroiled in this matter of your binding to properly note the passage of time.”

“You mistake me, my dear one,” Elladan smirked rakishly. “Every hour was as an eternity. I tallied the minutes as orcs I’d slay in battle, every heartbeat as a blow to the chest.”

Elrohir snorted: “You are no poet, gwanur.”

“And you, no prince’s consort,” he underlined. “Yet nary a protest escaped from your lips when Ada informed you of your betrothal to a mere elfling.”

Elrohir considereds a s a moment, choosing his words with explicit care.

“I have never loved, as you, one above all others,” Elrohir explained, as he set about separating the lengths of his hair. “If by my binding I can better serve Imladris and our people, then a prince of Mirkwood is as fair as one of Lorien, or even Valinor. His manner pleases, he is uncommonly swift, and strong, and merry.”

“He will be beautiful,” Elladan further taunted.

“Aye, that is plain,” the elf-knight murmured, pensive.

“But an elfling, Elrohir,” Elladan protested, the matter still burning him.

“He will not long *be* an elfling,” he insisted. “I may guide him as we were guided by our betters, in ways of war, law, propriety, manner… love. Have you not considered, Elladan, that I may fashion him the lover of my choice?”

“And what of his will in loving?” Elladan grunted, irritated by his twin’s rather innocent ideas of the ways of love, and in particular the fashioning of an elfling’s desires. “And what do you know of love, nin bellas, if you have never felt it?”

“I have loved and been loved by the most valiant hearts among the Noldor,” he snarked, tugging roughly at the hair between his fingers. “You, Ada, Arwen, Nena, Erestor, Lindir, Glorfindel… and already I feel… a… a softness, towards him.”

Elladan retreated, having perhaps struck deeper than intended. He considered his own past loves, for he had loved afore, though none as intensely, as unwaveringly as Glorfindel. And what of the Balrog-slayer? Would their potential union have been as richly blessed, as true, without his prolonged absence; during which Elladan had been allowed to experiment, to err, to indulge himself? Would he have been successful in his proposal had it occurred centuries ago, before his travels and his training? Could he then have made a proper match for an elf of two lifetimes gone, when even now he questioned his worth, his ability to please such a hallowed spirit? He abandoned these musings as worthless; Glorfindel had gone, he had grown, and their union would be as it was.

He longed, suddenly, for the time to blink by, for the bliss of waking in Glorfindel’s arms tomorrow, safe and sated; the ceremony, the feasting, their first coupling passed and done. For the far more precious luxury of an eternity vowed and together hungered for.

His task complete, Elrohir tucked a tender finger beneath his brother’s chin, raised it to take in the striking sight of himself. He had fastened the elf-warrior’s braids with a lock of his stallion’s mane, as was tradition among the horsemen of the Riddermark. Elladan rose to be dressed, his twin selecting a tunic of rich violet, clean rider’s breeches, spit-polished black boots of the dwarf mines in Angmar, but fetched the stunning mithril vest from the bed, a gift from their mother. Elladan himself fastened his dagger behind his left calf and his grandfather Celeborn’s sword at his side. Lastly, Elrohir set his brother’s wreath-crown upon his bowed head, completing the bold look of a peredhel warrior-prince.

Elladan stood proudly before him, every inch his fearsome, gallant self.

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

For a brief moment, Glorfindel shut his eyes to the sober feast around him. He imagined himself back at Tuor’s court in Gondolin, at Tuor’s side, freshly arrived from his House of the Golden Flower for one of the King’s lavish repasts. There, as here, as now, the court reveled to stave off fear, off weeping, for each night that passed moved their people closer to war and none knew if, on the morrow, a red dawn would rise.

At present newly bound in love, Glorfindel might himself confess to a similar, soul-shroud dread.

As his scattershot mind rejoined the company, he gazed over to his side, at Elladan. His husband’s staid features proved similarly reflective, though archly so. Glorfindel could easily trace the journey of his placid gray eyes, from a thoroughly bored Thranduil, to impish Legolas on courtly Elrohir’s lap, from Elrond’s hush gravity to Arwen’s concern, over Erestor’s vain attempts to feign indifference to Haldir’s studied calm, echoed in Celeborn’s regal grace. Last, the mirthril orbs latched on to his, shimmering with unbound regard. Elladan gathered his lazy hand between his own, cradling the length of his arm as if to warm a fretful babe.

Though his smile faded, the argent forge of his eyes seared through the space between them, steaming through the length of the Noldor’s skin and broiling his blood to a viscous red lava. Red as the coming dawn; ravagement masked by nature’s cool beauty. Glorfindel knew, then, that this hallowed binding would forever keep him from indulging in its sweetest promises. He could not protect this rare pearl husband, this treasure of the heart entrusted to him, if he were slave to its passions. By knowing him, by opening himself to bliss and therefore blinding himself to danger, he would forsake the vow taken on Elladan’s first begetting-day: to guard him, without falter or fail, every day of his eternal life.

The vow renewed just hours before, in the glaring light of those keen, quicksilver eyes.

When the rapture that followed Elladan’s appearance beneath the southern balcony’s laurel-strewn buttresses had sunk comfortably in, Glorfindel had exhaled slowly. With this sweeping breath had passed the last clogs of impeding anxiety: it would be now, their joining. It would soon be done. The young peredhel would have seemed sleek and true as rapier’s steel, were it not for the faint blurring of his haloed silhouette beneath the amber skylight. When Glorfindel had clasped his slender hands in his, the prince passed on the tremors that betrayed him. The blonde Eldar had raised the quaking hands to his lips, three stealthy caresses had silenced them.

Later, at the final stitch of their binding, Elladan had cause to prove his mettle. Ever-caught in the swells of his molten silver eyes, Glorfindel willed himself to mark his tender mouth with his own, but the ferocity of his feelings had stayed him before such noble company as the Lords of Imladris, Mirkwood, and Lorien. Elladan, at this most cherished minute, had thought of nothing like fathers, brothers, lords, or assemblies, but only of the husband who now welcomed him.

He had kissed him such as longtime lovers do, with patience, with reverence, with coursing, blistering need. Glorfindel was too overcome, then, too felled by the dam of his resolve breaking to realize the implications of this unequivocal surrender to their shared destiny.

That kiss would be the last of its kind they could ever share.

Elladan blinked, once, and the spell was broken. The shrill tittering of the surrounding company assaulted Glorfindel’s gauzy senses, as his husband’s gaze once again arced across the low-lit hall. Satisfied, Elladan squeezed his hand near to breaking and leaned in to whisper to h

“I would bathe afore we tuck in, nin ind,” he rasped into the hollows of his ear, his voice ripe with insinuation. “Stay awhile longer, for my father. Then, fetch a carafe of miruvor from the kitchen, and follow to our bedchamber.”

“I will, meleth,” Glorfindel assured him, as the prince pecked an eager kiss onto the corner of his mouth.

“Well, then,” Elladan smirked, complicit. “Do not tarry.”

The elf-warrior rose as a general leading the charge, bowed deeply before the assembled company, and strode off down a torch-lit hall.

As Glorfindel watched his bold figure sink into the shadows, a sharp chill seized him.

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

As blithely as his grandmother Elwing before him, Elladan’s lissome arms parted his bathwaters and he rose from the steaming depths, the length of his taut skin as brilliant as the silmaril above. He’d seasoned the bath with coral grinds from the shores of Belfalas, in Gondor, whicorecored the last of the grime from his pores, leaving the sweeps and slopes of his muscular frame soft, lustrous. He ably toweled his tight-strung body off, resolutely avoiding the thought of his new husband’s justly curious fingers roving the clefts, bends, and hollows long-familiar to the half-elf, soon to be equally well-known by his love.

Elladan swallowed hard, struggled for some brief control. *Glorfindel*. /By Elbereth, I never dared hope this day would come./

The young prince was never less than battle-ready; as such, he’d quietly, and rightly, hunted out Erestor’s aid. The Loremaster had prepared him a spray of cascade mist for his hair, a yasbrinth musk to balm his skin, and a more glutinous salve for their coupling. The amber blooms of yasbrinth had adorned the banners and shields of the House of the Golden Flower, its creeping vines had lined the rail of its Lord’s balcony and Glorfindel had always favored its rich, enveloping scent; or so the prince had sussed from Erestor’s Haldir-plied tongue one evening.

With lust-heavy hands, he worked the fragrant cream over his chest, legs, arms, meticulously anointing himself for Glorfindel to take his pleasure. As he loosed the obsidian wash of his hair, he chewed a sprig of balemint to refresh his breath. He gulped a cup of spring water, swished, then spat the leaf-strewn mush into the bath. Lastly, he wove a sheet of violet silk around his waist, expertly knotting the fabric at his side and pushing the edge down over the hip-bones, perilously close to exposing him. Wisps of dark hair pooled around his nipples, snaked down the center of his chest to thicken, then dip, at his navel, as if guiding the careful lover to his body’s treasures.

Still far too eager to be purposeful in seduction, Elladan tarried at the baths awhile. His mind lingered over thoughts of Glorfindel, that first glimpse of him down the aisle, the look in his eyes at the moment of their binding, afterwards at the table, at his side. He wondered if his husband would be wanting, or modest, or both in good measure? Would he similarly prepare himself with supple oils, or remain coarse, dressed in finery or stripped bare, his hair left in plaits to be sensuously unraveled or hanging, loose and wanton? Elladan couldn’t decide which he longed for more.

In the distance, the sentry at the watch called curfew with his burly horn. A wickedly delicious smile twisting the edges of his lips, Elladan took one last drink of water, then slipped through the entrance to their bedchamber.

There, Glorfindel waited.

Elladan had no eyes for the candle-lit room, for the petal curls scattered over the top sheet, or for the crystal flask of miruvor waiting on the way-table. Glorfindel was still clothed in his finery; Elladan would most gladly unburden him. As he walked through the pools of flickering glow towards his radiant husband, his gaze was fixed on him alone. His breath came in short, hungry pants as he neared, his muscles tense, primed. With precariously held restraint, he brushed his hands up Glorfindel’s broad chest and unfastened the first clasp of his vest, teasing.

The Noldor chucked softly, lowered his eyes, flush with arousal.

“Here we are, at last,” Elladan smiled, taming down his own roused senses. He flicked his index finger over the tip of Glorfindel’s ears, then smoothed along their downy edge. “How would you have me, melethron?”

To his surprise, Glorfindel’s back stiffened to a formal stance. He broke their embrace, backing carefully away. Elladan raised an eyebrow, could the Balrog-slayer himself be nervous?

“If you would indulge me a moment,” Glorfindel requested. “I have… a gift.”

“A gift?” Elladan twinkled, now ravenously curious. Glorfindel was even more cunning than he had imagined.

Presently, the golden elf swept over to the outer door, peered outside, then beckoned someone enter. Elladan, still intrigued, crossed his arms over his chest to cover himself and waited, already growing restless. To his astonishment, a young horseman – surely of Rohan – padded carefully into the chamber, then stood before him, as if for his approval. Elladan would have thought him the bearer of his gift, were it not for the fact that he was glazed with lavender oil like an oxtail roasted for feasting and wore little other than a loin-cloth.

The prince of dignity forced his gaping mouth shut; the warrior of honor readied himself for truth’s cruel charge against him.

“I must mistake you, husband,” he stated, weighing each word as he would a silver coin. “He bears no gift.”

“He *is* my gift to you, my brave one,” Glorfindel murmured, struggling to bury his rising disgust at this he must do. “For your pleasure, in my stead.”

When the truth struck, Elladan found himself - despite his best intentions - ill-prepared. He had firstly thought Glorfindel of such colorful palette as to desire them both to enjoy the youth, but not… this perversion. *Never* this. The blood in his veins ran to ice, his bones hardened to brittle, weighty stone. Bile threatened to choke him, but he swallowed it down, along with the torrents of acid-burn sorrow flooding his now-leaden chest. His head throbbed, as if an axe had severed his skull in two, the gory strings of gray matter nested in his hair like a crown of his own entrails. /It cannot be. He consented, we are bound… it cannot be!!/

Though every flint of his soul-fire raged within, Elladan, ever tenacious in the face of adversity, rallied. His titles rarely inspired pride in him, but in this moment he was every inch a Prince of Imladris. He bowed, steady in his grace, and met his husband’s eyes with steel affront.

“My deepest thanks, most hallowed Glorfind he he almost cooed. “But I must abstain. The day has been…” He clasped his hands behind his back, the knuckles of their clawed fingers bit by pain. “…unforeseeably trying. I would promptly retire.”

“He does not please you?” Glorfindel asked, his voice nearly abandoning him, unsure whether the darkling elf’s acquiescence or abeyance would hearten him more.

“He is fair,” Elladan dully appraised, unable to bear the sight of the Rohirrim a second longer than necessary. “Please, kind sir, my apologies. You are most…” He could not finish. He turned on his heel, cursing himself, and deliberately ambled over to the wardrobe. He heard the door shut behind him.

“Erestor has n ton told tales of your exploits among the men of the Riddermark,” Glorfindel explained. “I thought he would suit you.”

“Perhaps another…” Elladan rested his forehead against the cherrywood door, unable to continue. He felt Glorfindel approach behind him, tensed for his touch. There was none.

“*Elladan*,” his husband whispered. “You must not mistake… I am your sworn guardian, I was this long before I became your husband. I have taught you, trainou, ou, known you since you were an elfling… I must protect you at *all* costs. I cannot…”

At this, Elladan began to rifle through the wardrobe, extricating his riding tunic, leggings, boots. He dressed swiftly, willfully ignoring Glorfindel as he bleat on with his notions of propriety and of service. Elladan knew something of service to his kin; he knew of devotion, and loyalty, and loss.

No fallen compatriot would come close to equaling this loss, in his heart.

When at last Glorfindel reached out to him, he reared, eyes blazing, and unceremoniously fled the room, no longer able to take another breath in the stench of his presence.

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

The horns of curfew long blown, Elrohir was more than a bit surprised to look up from the library gamestable and observe, through the fine-crafted stone gabless tws twin charging across the guardsmen’s yard to the stables. At first, he though his mind warped by the three decadent goblets of his father’s special vintage of Forochel ice-wine he’d consumed, but Erestor soon raised chin and eyebrow, as well. Although their Battle Game had donetle tle to distract the Loremaster’s thoughts from the ever-so-vital conversation between Haldir, Celeborn, and Elrond currently surpassing its second hour, this latest wrinkle in the day’s supposed bliss caught Erestor’s full attention.

Elrohir knew well that his faulting mind could not stand another stress; he raised a hand to stay him.

“You are still weak,” Erestor protested.

“Physically, I concur,” the elf-knight admitted. “But mentally, dear guardian, I have bested you five times in the last hour. The night is unseasonably fair. Pour yourself another glass, and await the happy news of your own imminent betrothal.”

With a wink, Elrohir sauntered off, hardly a twinge fouling his graceful steps. Indeed, between his brother’s nightly séances and days spent chasing after Legolas, he would shortly be right as rain. / If only I had no sense of the coming storm/, Elrohir reflected heavily, as he circled round the stables and slipped through the guard’s entry. The stables were eerily black. Not a lick of moonlight beamed through the roof-peak skylight, pools of forming cloud would soon completely blanket the heavens. As he crept up the back stairwell to the watchmaster’s quarters, not a stallion stirred, not an owl cawed, not a light shone from the loft above; but a windless, scraping chill slowly permeated the air, alerting Elrohir to his brother’s presence.

Even in his presumed misery, Elladan reasoned as a soldier would. The Lord of Imladris having doubled the patrols, not a soul would return to the quarters until well after dawn. Yet if his absence went undetected, none would search for him here; save Elrohir himself, knowing well the reliable sense of comfort the barracks always brought him. Still, the elf-knight surmised that Elladan had little thought of being discovered before morn, hardly expecting Glorfindel to sound the alarm. /But what has passed between them to send him fleeing into the night, like a maid married to a miser?/

When Elrohir soundlessly stepped into the doorway, the cold bruised him raw as the hilt of a broadsword. Though he could not yet see Elladan in the rabid darkness, he felt his way to him, forcing his frost-bitten limbs further and further into the glacial room. Never had his twin’s sorrow been so viscerally affecting; indeed, Elrohir could not recall a time when the elf-warrior had felt anything near such crippling misery, not even when they’d discovered their mother, in the orc’s cave. He clamped his jaw shut to halt his clattering teeth, then shoved his rigid legs through the entrance to the small armory.

He was certain his awkward, stomping progress had long announced his presence, but when he finally managed to light the wall candle, he perceived only Elladan’s startled look. Elrohir’s face soon dully echoed the sentiment: his valiant brother was crouched among the shield-stands in the far corner, his legs tucked into his chest, silently weeping. Elrohir had never seen Elladan weep before; had not, until that very minute, believed him capable of weeping, such was his self-possession. Elladan did not weep. He seethed, or stabbed, or wreaked bloody vengeance, but rare was the day he indulged his own sadness. Even when Glorfindel had left, before their majority, he had simply bid him farewell and retreated to the training fields, his ferocious dedication to his betterment tripled in intensity.

Elrohir’s own sword-hand clenched restlessly, even their cherished guardian was not immune from the brunt of his battle-axe, should his abuse of his brother prove blameworthy. Still, Elladan would not be settled by his rancor. He inhaled deeply, then crouched before his trembling brother.

“Aiya, gwanur,” he began, settling down in the corner, but knowing well enough not to touch him unless beckoned. “What is this sadness, on this most hallowed of nights?”

“I am betrayed, Elrohir,” he whispered forlornly. Shamed by even this slight confession, he seemed to retreat into himself. “I cannot say more.”

“Elladan,” he cooed, risking a steady grip on his brother’s knee. “It is I. The sorrow will not pass if you do not unburden yourself. I have long kept your secrets. I will keep this one, as well.” Elladan dug his chin into his chest, another wave of searing desolation overtaking him.

“And if I cannot keep it?” he berated himself. “If I myself dishonor the one to which I was so enthusiastically bound?” This last was bleated out with braising self-abasement, so fierce, so hateful, that Elladan abandoned his defenses, allowing his twin to crawl into the corner of the shield-stands and to wrap his steady arms around him. The elf-warrior clamped his eyes shut to dam another surge of tears, but the salty streams broke through, undaunted. /What has become of me?! Reduced to simpering like maimed Shadowspawn!/

“Confound it, Elladan!!” Elrohir suddenly spat, his blood bittered at seeing his gallant twin so cruelly undone. “You must tell the toll of it, else I’ll grab that hunting spike and stake a confession from Glorfindel himself!” At that ridiculous pronouncement – his twin ha bee been long ago proved barely useful wielding other than a bow and arrows – Elladan managed to ebb his flowing eyes, but could not loosen the grip of shame that seized him. Still, best confess it, before Elrohir too felt its sting.

“When I entered our bedchamber from my bath, ready for… for…” Elladan swallowed hard, his throat, unlike his eyes, parched dry.

“Aye,” Elrohir encouraged him. “A sight you must have been.”

“I doubt he took notice,” Elladan snarked sourly, his misery slowly giving way to deadly rage. “He had procured another, for my… amusement.”

“Another?” Elrohir gasped. “For your bedding?!”

Elladan nodded, once, then rasped: “In his stead. He would not consent to our… coupling, so he bought me the favors he presumed I would enjoy… a *man*, Elrohir, a man of Rohan, not even an elf! And a soldier, to quicken my shame and make meat of these years of proving my worth to the tiresome Dunedain!!”

Elrohir stared dully at his brother, so blindsided by this turn of events he could not form words to comfort him. The confession, however, seemed to center Elladan, a bleak, resigned vengeance dawning in his stone gray eyes.

“I have been careless, gwanur, I see it now,” he rallied. “Diverted from our path by trifles and politicking. The intent of my binding was an alliance, a strength to bear the coming woes, and by our vows it has been forged, not by any presumed coupling. We have lived apart before and survived, we will again.” He rose to a seated position, fixing his still befuddled twin with a razor-keen stare. “Yet our mother sails for Valinor in a fortnight, and her troubles lurk, unavenged, waiting to pounce.”

Guessing his brother’s intent, Elrohir selected his next words with a diplomat’s care. “Ada requires the strength of all his children for the bearing of such loss, Elladan. Surely you above all understand that we cannot aon hon him to heartache.”

“We will not abandon him,” Elladan insisted. “We will rage in his stead, immolating the Shadow’s lairs with the fire of our fury, with the mighty blaze of retribution.” His breath now came in fierce, halting pants, so ready was he to gouge, to burn. “He will know our will is true. He will know it in his heart.”

“By Elbereth, gwanur,” Elrohir urged, with feeble patience. “No matter how basely Glorfindel has behaved, you must attempt even the most fragile mending before taking such a… a lethal charge. Even if you only make your grievance known to him… you must strike a truce both parties agree on.”

“Aiya, save your diplomacy for the White Council,” he bellowed, then again fell prey to misery. The guard-captain’s wound had struck him gut-deep; Elrohir had not afore realized just how perilously.

With a cutting desperation, Elladan pleaded to him: “Elrohir… I must away. I must! Gwanur-nin, you have never known such a… it was a lie! I thought it true, he *made* me trust, he made me believe…two thousand years I waited, hoped, and it was all a lie…”

“We will go, shortly after dawn,” Elrohir conceded somberly. A winter-bleak realization come over him; no elf, man, or other thing in the entirety of Arda could ever comfort his wronged brother. “I will prepare Ada. I will say nothing of your sorrow, merely that we wanted to spare him the knowing until after the ceremony. Do you think Glorfindel might…?”

“He will not protest,” Elladan replied morosely. “He would not dare oppose me, after… I will wait the dawn with Nena. She will require our comfng, ng, and will wish to bless us.”

“I will join you there, my brave one,” Elrohir agreed, as he helped his weary brother to his feet. Once there, he hugged his beleaguered twin tightly to his chest. “You are the dearest soul I have known, Elladan. He does not for the briefest of instants deserve the love you have so carefully borne for him. I hope, in time, he will come to know a lover’s pain, as you have known and suffered it, for so many years. But you, nin bellas, you do not bear it alone. You will never be alone, my dearest one.”

Elladan rested his throbbing head on his twin’s solid shoulder, praying to Elbereth for the strength to bear through this.

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

The callous haze of a blood-red dawn hung above the violet-dark Bruinen, as the Lords, Kings, and masters of elfdom gathered in the courtyard to send off the valorous twin sons of Elrond. Erestor coolly eyed the crimson cloud-line, his prim features contorted with bitter resignation.

The curtains of his chamber flushed with a rose glow upon his waking just hours before. He had curled himself into Haldir’s silken backside and judged their betrothal favorable to the Valar. Haldir himself did not believe in omens, had indeed promptly declared so, but Erestor had been Loremaster too long to dismiss any gentle glimpse of Elbereth’s favor.

Then Elrond’s clarion knock had struck the chamber door; their blessing smote to cinder by the revelation of his ashen face.

At their quick breakfast, Glorfindel had suddenly appeared. At least, the ghost of the mighty Balrog-slayer had loomed at the table-end, the spirit that once blazed there so vaporous as to be completely imperceptible to the naked eye. Only Erestor’s keen memory held any lasting image, as none other acknowledged the guard-captain’s presence through some strange common consensus. Celeborn ate steadily, with learned reserve. Elrond himself bore no sign of the mirth he had rediscovered but the day before, though his staunch, resolute fortitude had re-emerged. Thranduil was typically self-involved, but even the perpetually-merry Legolas simply nibbled on his grain-wafer and sipped his oarberry juice, eyes studiously down. Were it not for the roving fingers Haldir kept sneaking between his thighs, Erestor would have found no pleasure in the impressive gathering.

Now, as the same gloomy party - Arwen curiously excluded – watched the twins dismount beneath the glaring scarlet sky, Erestor could not refrain from weaving grateful fingers through Haldir’s own ever-steady hand. The blonde Galadhrim turned to wink at him, promising a lazy afternoon of anxiety-relief and of his most doting ministrations.

Heartened, Erestor marked the twins. Only Elrohir betrayed the barest hint of desolation at their parting. Elladan stood straight, unbending and immalleable as pure mithril ore, his clever eyes almost relishing the discomfort they caused hollow Glorfindel. Something wicked had passed between them; Erestor was baffled by this behavior, but he would not allow the guard-captain to sleep tonight without some indication of what. Elrond, for his part, seemed wholly ignorant, perhaps willfully so, as he tenderly hugged both his brave sons. In this, Elladan betrayed some emotion, whispering a pledge into his father’s ear. Elrond held fast to the elder twin for a moment, his legs failing him. With typically measured strength, he soon righted himself, as the twins made their way down the receiving line.

Elrohir saved his last words for Legolas, scooping the tiny elf up into his arms.

“Weep if you must, pen-neth, for sorrow is righteous,” he murmured. “But do not mourn what you have not lost. We will, in the coming years, often journey to Mirkwood, to check on your progress and perhaps teach you some tricks of the Noldor. But you must swear meoathoath, maltaren-nin.”

Legolas nodded intently, waiting on the elf-knight’s every word.

“Learn your lessons well,” he counseled. “In lore, weaponry, strategy, diplomacy, and the like. Learn of all the peoples of this land, travel when you can, and defend your bounty well from the Shadow’s claw. Do this not for destiny, but for your own betterment. Do it with joy in your heart, even in trying times, for only through the grief of learning can you reap Arda’s ample blessings. Above all, be safe, nin bellas.” Legolas studiously drank in his wisdoms with furrowed brow, then, when he finished, hugged him fiercely. He, too, whispered something se for for the prince alone, at which Elrohir smiled softly.

While this dulcet scene played out, and the elders’ attention was caught on it, Elladan faced down Glorfindel. His bold stare near-devoured the golden elf, whose stony reserve seemed to chip with every passing second.

“We are well-joined, and well-matched, husband,” Elladan hissed to his ears alone, though Erestor did not fail to remark his tone. “I trust I have your blessing.”

“You have it tenfold,” Glorfindel forcefully acknowledged, his voice mysteriously weakened. “I wish you nothing but glory, Elladan, the rewards of battle well won. I have never wanted other than your happiness.”

“But our binding, husband, saw the fulfillment of my longest-held desires,” Elladan snipped, curdling the compliment – and veiled truth - with a serpent’s venom. “What glory could vengeance bring, when you are already won?”

Glorfindel blanched, stunned silent, but nothing could have prepared him for Elladan’s next move. The elf-warrior gripped a fierce hand onto the back of his head, yanked him close, and summarily planted a thick-tongued kiss - ugly, salacious, and desperately wanton – on him. Elladan tossed him back, teeth clenched as if he’d just ripped the meat off a bone, and unleashed a glare of such ravaged heartache that Glorfindel’s eyes instinctively swelled. Sneering at his husband’s weakness, Elladan staggered back, mounted his waiting steed.

The twins bowed solemnly, then raced off into the bleeding dawn.


End of Part Three