House of the Golden Flower

I woke at dawn, as was my long habit, and lay very still, surrounded by new sights, smells, and sounds, fearful for a moment. Then Turgon moved beside me in his sleep and I remembered the previous day's events. I looked at him contentedly, smiling at how his hair flowed about him in his sleep, how his fingers and lips twitched.

I bent down to press my lips to his neck just below his ear a moment, then rose and went to look out the window. It was day now, the sun just rising over the mountains. This valley was far larger than my own, and a veritable fortress of rock and sky. Among the strange tree-like things people moved, going about their daily occupations, singing and talking and laughing.

Curious, I halfway longed to join them. Behind me, I heard the change in breathing that signaled Turgon was awake, and when I turned around to look at him, he was searching the bed desperately. He met my eyes and sighed in relief to see me there. I gave him a small secretive smile and turned back to the window, admiring the busy life below as much as the sun on my bare skin that I was currently basking in.

He came to stand behind me, looking out, seeing what I saw and trying to see it through my eyes. Considerately, he pointed things out to me and named them. I learned more words. House, elves, men, women, maidens, horses, market, singing, laughter, speech, talking, pigs, cattle, rooster. With a soft smile he turned me away from the window at last and pulled out pants, tunics and robes, and laid them on the unmade bed. He then pointed to them with a long thin finger.

"Clothes." He said, and there was a note of determination in his voice. I didn't quite understand, so he began to dress in another set of them, explaining items of clothing as I put them on. I learned pants, shirt, boots and robe. We then set out of the room together, hand in hand by way of encouragement. We were not five strides from the door before I grew tired of the hindering robe and took it off, throwing it back into the room.

Turgon seemed to be hiding a smile and I glare him him, fighting the high and tight collar on the shirt. His clothes were too big for me in some places, others not. The shirt was drawn tightly over my chest and shoulder and arms, but the waist of it fell loose and too long. The pants were a bit small in the thighs and buttocks, seeing how I was more muscular than he, if slightly shorter.

He led me to a large room where several people were gathered, apparently waiting for us to eat. They rose when he entered ancowecowered behind him at the sudden movements, not understand honoratives yet. He motioned for everyone to be seated and dragged me, resisting mildly to the table, seating me beside a woman at his right hand. Everyone was staring at me, and feeling a defensive urge to bare my teeth and growl at them, I resisted it because I somehow got the feeling that Turgon would not appreciate it. These people talked to one another and to Turgon, and I dared glance up and met the silver eyes of an elf who smiled at me kindly before looking away.

The woman beside me was very beautiful and graceful, and openly curious about me, and thus I took care not to look at her directly. Midway through the rather simple midmorning meal of fruit and light meats and breads by choice Turgon noticed my shyness and how I kept my eyes averted and my body in a defiantly defensive stance.

He reached over and nudged my hand so that I looked at him, and pointed with his chin at the er-her-haired elf across the table from me. "Ecthelion." He said. I dared look at the other elf then, repeating the name. "Ecthel" H" He smiled on one side of his mouth at me, and Turgon nudged me again. I refrained from using my hands to point as I said my own name, the name Turgon had given me and called me. "Glorfindel." I said, careful to reproduce the word just as I had heard it.

The woman beside me turned halfway in her chair to look at me and despite myself my eyes darted up to hers. "Idril." She introduced herself, and then pointed gracefully at Turgon over her shoulder. "My Adar, Turgon." I remembered 'my', from the times that Turgon saidsaid the word, and realized it claimed ownership. I did not understand her other word, but Turgon was mine, he had saved me long ago, the first time I saw him and he had brought to me the knowledge that other creatures like myself existed in the world.

I narrowed my eyes at her, and repeated the word with defiance and ownership lacing my voice. "My Turgon." It was childish and immature, but uneducated as I was; I was not stupid or childish. I truly believe, even to this day, that I was the first to recognize what we had.

Ecthelion, Turgon and Idril all laughed at that, a light cheery sound. I would have joined them had the circumstances been different, but I sat silent and still until they had finished their laughter. Idril turned to speak to me again and I rose and fled like the wild thing I was, unable to understand anything and very afraid of all the risky unknowing I felt around them all, the entire situation smacking of danger to me.

I fled to where the outside called strongest and found myself in a high-walled garden, and scrambled up an oak tree. No one came after me for quite a while, an hour I judged by the sun, and Ecthelion crept upon me so silently that I was sitting alone in the tree one moment, and the next looking into a gentle, noble pair of silver eyes.

Startled, I jumped up and swung my leg out at him with bone-crunching force, but he caught my ankle easily and hung me upside down and flailing from the tree. When I finally gave up fighting him and hung still, he lifted me back up and set me on the branch. I glared at him. He gazed coolly at me. "You're angry because you don't understand them, and because they don't understand you." He said flatly, stating the obvious.

I did not understand his words, but I knew his tone, even on that unfamiliar voice I picked out the honesty and understanding that he showed in the depths of his shining eyes. I nodded, the only sign of agreement I could give at all. He laid an arm over my shoulders and said no more, for I wouldn't have understood it. He was pleasant company, and I sat with him until the heat of the day reminded me of my hunger and that the tree was a very uncomfortable place to sit for so long.

I climbed down, and he followed me. I wandered the halls for hours, Ecthelion simply shadowing me, making sure I was left alone. By night I had mapped out the entire lower floor of the palace tower, and I turned to Ecthelion, tired. "Turgon." I said softly to the silver-haired one and he took my hand and led me back up the halls to Turgon's rooms, allowing me to see where we were going and to memorize the way.

When we reached the rooms, he knocked, and getting no answer, entered. Turgon was there, already in bed asleep. He woke when Ecthelion cleared his throat, standing at the foot of the bed. "Have you found him?" he asked, worried. I stepped into the light from the window and he breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank the Valar for you, Ecthelion." Ecthelion nodded and I released his hand and took off the shirt and toed off my boots, crawling into bed beside Turgon with no hesitation whatsoever.

I lay there and listened to them speak, interested by the pitch and tone of their voices as much as the words, which I swiftly committed to memory, recognizing their tense and use from Turgon's having aided me already.

"Isn't he a little young for you, Turgon?" Ecthelion asked.

"He is of age, I'm sure of it. Thorondor's sons sighted him in that valley more than thirty years ago. Besides, I'm only teaching him to live on his own." Turgon defended himself.

"But he is as naïve and innocent as a child of ten. And he does not understand or speak, neither the forbidden launguage nor Sindarin. It is folly, Turgon."

"I will teach him. And I will not touch him until he comes to me as the man he is."

"Have I your promise?"

"You have it, and my word of honor is as good as your own."

With that Ecthelion left the room, closing the door behind him and Turgon looked over at me. I smiled sleepily at him and burrowed into the pillow. The whole bed smelled like him, and I found it most pleasant. He lay down after a moment and was asleep at nearly the same time as I was. This day had brought me Ecthelion, a man who was concerned for my honor as well as my emotional well-being.