Oh, Sorrow
Residuum
"It is ever new, happening now, raw and real, and I can't forget the blood and the screaming. Plenty of both I've seen and heard before, but not like this. I thought the screaming was the worst until I saw the blood: standing pools of it dark and dank and too thick to soak into the ground, smears of it splashed over pale flesh, delicate red droplets sprayed upon every green leaf in sight."
"Who was screaming?"
"We've lived for vengeance these many long centuries now, you and I, and in all this time I've held silence to be the more dire, signifying death or its near approach. We've heard all manner of cries: of hatred and rage, derangement and defeat, rallying cries and shouts to flee, death rattles and the pleas of the cowardly bargaining for mercy with the lives of their own kin. We've heard and shouted war cries of all manner from primitive howls to challenges wrought in ancient speech echoing out of the far distant past when our people were in their ascendency. I say to you, never have I heard such screams as these and hope never to again."
The solemn vehemence of these words invoked an edgy quiet rendered more disturbing by the muted murmur of the well-mannered fire. They sat near the hearth in the dim and dancing incandescent gleam, features cast in shades of amber and vermilion, hunched close across the table, ignoring the finery and the comfort revealed by the undulating flames and their cavorting shadows, heads nearly touching, the speaker with his brow hid behind hands that shielded and supported his lowered face, his brother still and attentive, eyes anxious and bright. The seconds seeped away up the chimney with the smoke and no more was said, as though Elladan had withdrawn into the harrowing scene that disturbed his rest and needled his mind to distraction, and so he had.
The screams were horrific, unholy shrieks of dread terror, female, high pitched and continuous, the last sounds of life a soul extrudes from the body that houses it as the two are ripped asunder. Rumbling underneath the relentless howl came dark words from a Black Tongue and a multitude of cackling and hissing beasts emitting what passed for laughter among their foul kind. The noise chilled his very marrow and that single second of time elapsed as his mind shrugged off the shock and the instinctive fear, snapped into rage and cold, savage, inexorable hunger for vengeance. His sword was drawn before that second transpired, unsheathed in the echoing torment polluting the air, and no command was required to send the charger flying over the grassy plain and under the eaves of the forest. Abruptly the screaming ceased, cut off, no breath left to feed it, no soul extant to sustain it, and Elladan's fury expanded tenfold. Even as he opened his mouth to call down his doom upon these foes, another voice rose amid the silent woods.
A young voice, so lost, so bereft, so unhinged, beseeching forgiveness, crying incoherent accusations, abominable curses, promises of death and revenge. Within them rang the sweet clamour of finely made and deadly steel clashing with crude iron and dense bodies; he could hear the blade's sharpness, its keen edge and its flexible length slicing and stabbing, disembowelling and dismembering. He could feel the speed and skill of its owner, magnified by rabid grief and untempered madness into strength that knew no limit. New yammering welled up like sluggish blood from deep and mortal wounds: the beasts' astonishment to find their might abridged, themselves beaten and dying.
Elrohir shifted uneasily and reached out to lightly touch his brother's arm. "Who was screaming, Elladan?"
A deep, shuddering breath accompanied a startled motion as Elladan straightened and uncovered his eyes, rubbing his weary countenance with his hands before laying them flat upon the table top. He took a sip from a cup at his elbow and trained his sight into its depths as he set it down again.
"His mother was screaming, begging me to save her child from so hideous an end: 'To me, for the sake of my son! Save him, please!' That is what she shrieked to me as her gaze and mine locked. It was the last her voice was used to make words and thereafter all noise that issued from her mouth was that of an animal in the throes of death. I would do as she bade me and so I did, but the child got loose from me and was taken, too." Elladan fell silent, lost in contemplation of the abhorrent scene.
"He got loose?" Elrohir could hardly form the words, heart suddenly weighted with woe, unable to move the blood through him efficiently so that he felt chilled and shivered. What were you doing there? He wanted to scream the words, to grab Elladan and shake him hard, berate him for being there. He suppressed the mental query and the mad urges it provoked and shivered anew, detesting to hear the tale, morbidly determined to do so. "You proceeded to rescue the child, but lost him before delivering him to his kin? What happened?"
Now it was Elladan's turn to shift about in discomfort, for there were some things he had never told anyone and was not sure he wished even his twin to know. Elrohir was angry and frightened, hide it though he would, and prodded for the truth in resentful dread. Yet that truth was not something to place between them like a prize to be shared. It was sacred to him, the pact betwixt him and the traumatised child to hold hidden in his heart forever the debasement and the unnatural depravity unleashed that day.
"Sîdh," soothed Elladan, staring into glaring red-shot eyes, into a hollowed and harrowed and riven soul. He raised his empty hand, open and entreating, but his sword hand remained at the ready. "It is over; you have prevailed, penneth, and I am not your enemy."
Brittle respiration filled the space around them and Elladan dared not move, refused to break from that anguished glare, held the raw, brutalised gaze in heart-broken impotence as it transformed, rage melting away, implacable reality crystallising into unbearable sorrow and despair. The shining knife glinted, darting noiselessly into the pliable flesh of a naked belly, and Elladan shouted in dismay as he leaped forward and caught the killing hand, drew out the blade, cradled the crumpling, bloody youth before he collapsed atop the corpse of one of the orcs he'd just slain. He lay unmoving in Elladan's embrace and the shock of this slight weight filling his arms jolted him into action. Sheathing his sword still smeared with gore, he shouldered the battered body and mounted the horse in almost one motion.
They burst into a gallop, tracking back over the wreckage left by the retreat of the orcs, but almost at once the stallion stalled, dancing sideways and neighing a short bugle of distress. There upon the trampled ground lay the murdered elleth, naked and cruelly dismembered, head from torso, legs and arms hacked innumerable times, breasts reduced to bloody pulp, internal organs spilling through the gash that split her from navel to vagina.
Elladan hadn't any curse vile enough to express his horror to see this and the next instant he knew the child had seen, had seen it all and lived long enough to exact his revenge. He wanted to get down and gather her remains, bury them or burn them, but the child was lax in his arms. Death was imminent, trickling out of him in vitally precious burgundy fluid and pale, visible tendrils of shimmery light. At once he jerked free the cloak upon his shoulders and wrapped him tight, pulled him close against him and bent lips to a pointed ear.
"Stay with me; this is not your fate but theirs, and you must defy them. You can survive; you must survive. She would want you to live. Hear? You must live for her or the victory is theirs." He whispered the words fiercely, passionately, filling them with the overwhelming realisation that he did not want this child to die in his arms. "You must live for me; I cannot bear to lose you to such an end." The testament slipped past his lips before his mind knew he wanted to speak it and he wondered at the depth of emotion behind it.
Elrohir touched his arm again and Elladan smiled sadly at the mixture of anxious compassion and apprehensive jealousy contained in the brief connection. That was sacred, too, their unique relationship, and in the end he found it to be the stronger axiom. He only hoped Elrohir would understand why he'd held back. He needed his brother's comfort unconditionally, not his possessive, oppressive need to control and protect.
"Elladan." Elrohir seized his wrist and squeezed reassurance, feeling all this pass through his brother's heart, a surge of guilty shame supplanting his underlying rancour. "Tell me what happened." For a time Elladan only stared into his soul, lost in the searing visions of the past, and finally bowed his head in assent, looked again to the flames languidly dancing over the incandescent coals.
"It was already happening before I came upon them, for the battle was far advanced. The clamour of fighting drew me there, but those screams nearly drove me back. That and the dreadful pall of terror that gripped my heart as I galloped beneath the trees. It was familiar to me, yet the impact was magnified a thousand fold. I think my mind knew my spirit wouldn't bear the weight of it. I was assailed by a physical sensation of heavy dread, palpable like a burden upon my body as though I were being buried under a fall of stones, buried alive. Nonetheless, I resisted the urge to turn tail and flee.
"She was screaming; the child was screaming, too, pleading help for his mother. They were in the very centre of the battle, why I still do not know. He was defending her against a ring of orcs, who in turn were harried by the warriors attempting to break through and reach their kin, so that the child was alternately beset and uncontested. In the tranquil seconds he struggled futilely to to get her up; she could not rise for the horse lay atop her leg and its weight held her trapped. He was…" Elladan paused, unable to continue, and shut his eyes tight against the image.
"He lives," Elladan announced quickly. "The mother is dead."
"Dead!" the low lament rippled through the warriors and up into the limbs and Elladan looked up sharply to find many more archers perched around them. He steadied his quickening pulse; their bows were not armed. From above, someone called orders for a company to go back and gather her remains, and Elladan was glad for it, not wanting to tend this duty himself. He had no need to point the way for it was obvious and at any rate he was soon distracted by the distraught ellon approaching on horseback.
"Give him to me!" he demanded, inching closer, arms outstretched. "He is my son; give him to me!"
Without a word Elladan transferred the fallen child to his father's arms and watched the quick inspection, winced at the sharply indrawn air and frantic cry as the injuries were hastily catalogued. Then he turned his charger about and raced away beneath the trees in desperate hope to save the child, all that remained of the embattled warriors following. Elladan joined them, unwilling to depart without knowing the fate of the youth or the history of this disastrous skirmish. Suddenly one of the archers dropped from the heights onto his horse, settling behind him firmly, and the charger made no objection beyond a toss of his noble head. Elladan met the warrior's eye over his shoulder.
"Are you in need of assistance?" he asked warily.
"I am," replied the ellon. "Can this steed go no faster?" Even as he spoke he touched his heel to the charger's flank and elicited an increase in velocity.
Elladan smiled despite the dire situation. "Gladly I will share my mount if you will safeguard me to the place where your kin are carrying that young one."
"You need no protection now or ever, even beyond the changing of the world," declared the archer. "I am Giliach and that young one is my cousin, Legolas. Which one are you?"
"Elladan." The question, though generally expected, nonetheless startled him a bit, never having imagined the Wood Elves knew anything of him and his twin, but he answered evenly enough and asked a question of his own. "What happened here?"
"We are at war," Giliach stated, his tone exasperated as though every fool breathing air must know this. "What brought you hither? We never see the folk from over Hithaeglir near our borders."
"I was in Lothlorien and thought to come this way, for talk of the troubles here reaches the Golden Wood." Elladan did not really have an answer to give; he had no clear understanding of why he'd travelled through Nan Anduin past Dol Guldur when he never had before. This was not lost on Giliach, who gave a quiet snort.
"Whatever the cause, I am grateful. Not only I, but all of Greenwood owes you a debt that can never be remitted."
That seemed an unnecessary exaggeration and Elladan gave his companion an incredulous glance. The ellon studied this mild bewilderment and then suddenly gave a harsh laugh.
"You do not know!"
"Know what?"
"Of course you do not know; the exalted Noldor of Imladris take no notice of the humble sylvans of Greenwood."
"What is it I should know?" Elladan snapped, irritated by this barbed taunt in light of the effort just rendered on his part.
"That Thranduil is his father; Legolas is the only child remaining to him now." GIliach paused and registered the slight start signifying Elladan's surprise. "So you do know who Thranduil is, then."
Elladan refused to acknowledge that, saying instead, "Verily, having lost the mother, no father could countenance the child be destroyed, too. I only wish I had arrived sooner to prevent what was done to her, and to him."
"He saw all, then," the grim archer mourned and sealed his lips tightly, unable to say more.
"Elladan? Please, continue." Elrohir's gentle but impatient tug upon his arm brought Elladan out of the past and he resumed speaking.
"He was desperate to the point of hacking off her leg at the hip to get her free, but he couldn't. I saw the blade rise up, but he couldn't. He wanted me to do it, for he knew even as I did, as she did, that the horse could not be moved by one or even by two in the midst of the onslaught. Our eyes met as I charged toward him, his went to the sword in my hand and back to mine. He saw the truth in them: I could not do it either, would not do it. The next instant I snatched him up and he cursed me most foully, fighting against my hold. He sliced his bloody knife across my arm and thus slipped my grasp. He went back for her, but she wasn't there." He faltered again and covered his eyes, sickened by the memory. "Once I secured the boy, the other warriors abandoned her to her fate, forming a rearguard to protect us. The orcs were thus free to shift the dead horse and take her alive."
"Ai, Muindor," Elrohir sighed. This was too much like their mother's doom and to hear that Elladan was exposed to this crisis without anyone he loved near at hand made his spirit sick with grief and remorse. Why was I not there with you? He withheld this from his brother, too, knowing the answer was not complimentary to him. Elladan had parted from him to heal and renew himself in Lorien, parted because he had sated his hunger for destruction and death while Elrohir had not. "You went after them."
"Aye." Elladan sat back and inhaled deeply, released the air in slow measures, shook his head in self-reproof. "By the time I reached them, she was dead and he soon to follow her. I staunched the wounds and dressed them with haste, carried him back to his people. He was alive when I left Greenwood, but there has been no word all these many days and I am forbidden to return there. My inquiries go unanswered. I need to know he survived."
"Forbidden? How so if you were the cause of the child's rescue?" Elrohir waited for details, but his brother was closed off again, hiding the horror of it inside, his expression detached, his mind entranced by the shadow dance of memory.
Soon they reached a set of high gates set between the trunks of two mighty trees soaring skyward so high it was dizzying for sight to follow them to the canopy. These abutted other bolls, ancient and mighty, standing side by side by side so closely that they made an impenetrable, living wall that stretched beyond the limit of elven sight. The barrier was standing open but a multitude of warriors milled within and without, all hoping to catch sight of the unexpected outlander, and a paroxysm of misery and agitation swept through them as the bitter outcome of the ambush preceded its survivors. Once beyond this landmark, the galloping horses slowed and swerved aside into a fair, green dell ringed by the giant oaks and watered by a clear brook. There were people there waiting; it was obviously an encampment with provisions and medical attendants. One of these came quickly to receive the wounded child as all followed close behind. They gathered near the stream where the healer laid the patient down for treatment.
Now Elladan hung back a few paces yet near enough to observe what manner of lore the healers owned, unwilling to impose yet likewise unwilling to leave the young one in any but the most capable hands. That he knew much of healing from his father he did not announce, though it cost much to bite his tongue, and he paced to and fro as the wounds were cleansed and stitched and bandaged, hoping for some indication that the prognosis was positive. It took time, as he'd known it must. After some time, a soldier came and brought him water to drink and bade him clean away the stains of battle a ways further downstream. Elladan sensed this was not an offer but a demand and he complied, accepting the garments provided and donning them after his hasty toilet. He returned to the glen and found a place had been made for him to keep vigil with the rest: a blanket lain upon the turf and over it was cast a cloak of royal richness. He rested there, tense and troubled as a soft murmur of chanting voices met his ears. Not only the healers, but all of the people gathered were voicing their prayers and charms, and Elladan added his own.
The bright, warm sunlight and the twitter of birdsong stood out, incongruously juxtaposed against the sombre mood, for the glade was filling with the sylvan folk, not merely warriors but citizens of all kinds, all ringing the little knot of kinfolk and medics poised near the fallen child, keeping a respectful distance, most on their knees. Giliach had hurried to join his uncle and cousin and no one seemed to take note of the stranger among them for a time. Yet, as the minutes fled by Elladan felt the influence of potent energy coalescing in the clearing, beneficent and clean like the soul of the forest or some sweet susurrus of the divine. Uncertain if this was really a manifestation of the deity the sylvans worshiped or a collective outpouring of their own essential light, Elladan decided it didn't matter, for here was that cogent sylvan magic fabled throughout elvendom, and he was pleased to believe Legolas would recover.
Suddenly a hoarse cry resounded, both jubilant and stricken, as Thranduil fell upon his nephew, the two weeping and laughing together, for Legolas had stirred and regained his mind almost the exact instant Elladan acknowledged the power at work, as though he'd been awaiting Elladan's implicit determination, the seal of certainty to bind his earlier demand upon the child to live. The whole crowd gave voice to praises for their forest god and broke into song, but their jubilation was interrupted by the wounded prince's broken discontent that took the form of a diatribe so raw, so honest, so repudiating that none could bear it and down on their knees they dropped anew, hands covering offended ears as eyes wept and throats groaned.
"Monster! Beast! You let them take her! She was alive! Alive!"
His voice shrilled, hysterical and accusing, distorted with wearing pain and bleak hatred; Elladan could perceive the frantic efforts he made to invoke his vengeance physically by the awful struggle the healers made to hold him fast, to prevent him undoing the hard work just enjoined to haul him back from the door-step of Mandos.
"Nay, Legolas!" Horrified and consumed in remorse, Thranduil denied the charge.
"You let them take my mother and they killed her! They killed her, but not quickly, no." The child had regained his feet somehow and looked tall standing amid the kneeling populace. His arm was raised and his hand accused the King. "They picked at her wounds with their filthy claws and they stripped her of her clothes and cut off her hair. They chased her stumbling about the trees for sport, and when she fell they leaped atop her and rutted in foul and brutish delight. You let them do that to my mother! Fiend! Worse than Orc, foul demon heart! They raped my mother as she lay bleeding to death. And where were you?"
"I could not reach her! I could not!" Ragged and frantic the excuse rang out, but was ignored.
"When they were done and her blood all but spent, they gave her to the Necromancer and he consumed her light…"
"No!" A horrified exclamation arose from the multitude and many rose to their feet and ran from the dell.
"…drew the spirit out of her and fed his heartless, soul-less void with it, filled his black void with my mother's light and grew strong on it."
The sound that escaped Thranduil's soul was incoherent and agonised, a stricken howl as he fell upon his face and clutched a grassy wad of earth in either fist, groaning and keening.
"When there was nothing left but her body, the orcs hacked it to pieces with her own long knife. Then they handed it over to me red with her blood and sullied with the meat of her organs. They handed that to me, thinking mayhap I would plunge it into my heart, but I killed them with it. It is not now in my hands, or I would kill you with it, too."
Dense stillness settled on every heart at the conclusion of this speech, heightened by the muted and tearful prayers of the stricken people. The gentle, puissant, healing spirit retreated from the glade and left it cold despite the brilliance of the sun streaming down. Elladan found he was on his feet, mouth ajar and eyes staring at the scene as son indicted father and rendered judgement and sentence in the same breath. The stunned paralytic silence gave way under the sound of Thranduil's torment, an unbearable noise as he pleaded brokenly with his son to understand, to listen, to forgive. Legolas had no room in his blasted soul for mercy and repeated his father's doom.
"If I had it still, I would kill you with it."
"Elladan!" Elrohir raised his voice, more disturbed than ever as his brother failed to heed his voice. He relaxed somewhat as Elladan registered his efforts with a flood of colour that as quickly drained. "Answer, Muindor, for you alarm me. How came you to be barred from Greenwood? It cannot be true that you did some crime against them after saving the child."
"Aye, you think so, but you cannot know and I would not like to say. I am forbidden because I…I could not leave him there and he would not there stay." Elladan twitched as he mouthed this incoherent half-lie, shooting a quick glance at his brother to see if it would pass. I did not.
Elrohir frowned in irritation. "Nay, Elladan, you must say it all." He again grasped his brother's arm and this time held it. "I am sorry, but you must speak of it. Do not reduce it to mere summation. What is it that you cannot share with me?" Elladan's jaw tightened and he turned his face away, remained silent. "I have forborne to press you until now, but I will hear from you the reason for your misery. Speak, Elladan." Still his brother refused, eyes averted and body rigidly tense, and Elrohir tried another tactic. "It seems to me the rearguard should have been able to catch up to him more quickly. How is it you came upon mother and child first?"
"They were engaged anew and cut off; it was a slaughter, a holocaust, horrible and hopeless. The Wood Elves had been ambushed or entrapped and were grossly outnumbered, their forces splintered and each clot of warriors surrounded." The account poured out rapidly, frantically, as though Elladan hoped to appease his brother's curiosity and distress by describing the gory battle scenes. "The boy vaulted onto a loose charger running near us and they went racing away. Most of the horses had fallen, dead or dying, and many had taken their riders down to their doom, crushed or pinned, helpless against the onslaught of the orcs. There was no one else who could follow. Frantic yelling came at me now from the warriors to whom I'd tried to bring the child.
"They were hemmed in by their foes yet still fighting desperately to save themselves, to break through and save him, but an expanse of roiling fury separated me from them and they from his disappearing form as the horse bore him away. Archers with no more arrows to fire flung themselves from the limbs, confronting the orcs with knives and daggers, beating at them with their unstrung bows, all struggling hand to hand. One of the warriors shouted at me to go, his roaring voice filled with the arrogance of long command and the anguished terror of a father. 'Get him, Peredhel fool! Bring him back! Save my son!' I spared only a second to stare at his enraged and frightened and pleading eyes, for it stung to be so ill-used as though I had caused this tragedy, and then I did as my own heart bade me do.
"The time seemed so short between the losing and the finding, but it must have been long. Vaguely I recall resistance as I pursued him; I was nicked here and there, but my determination was great and they were in retreat having got not one prize but two. By the time I came upon the captives, all had transpired as I wrote save that I saw them hand him the blade, saw that they had cruelly stabbed him in the shoulder and the thigh to weaken him, saw that they meant to do with him as they had with her." Here Elladan faltered again and lowered his face into his hands, desperate to hold back the agony that threatened his heart. "I do not want to say more."
"Nay, but you must," Elrohir soothed. "Do not confine within your heart alone."
An exhausted sigh heaved at Elladan's chest and his hands fell away listlessly. "You should not make this demand; it is not only my story. He would not want me to tell."
"It is necessary," countered Elrohir. "Adar agrees, and I do not believe the child would wish for you to suffer so for the help you gave him." That made his brother flinch and it stung his heart to see it, but he must know the truth.
"You do not know what you ask," Elladan began speaking again, his voice low and morose. "Yet I wanted to speak to you, Elrohir, and share this with you; this which has become the centre of my existence, both in despair and hope."
"Then do so; I am here, ready to listen!"
The eagerness in his brother's voice did not please Elladan and he felt more certain than ever that there were limits upon what he could reveal. He sighed again and met the shining grey eyes identical to his own, wondering not for the first time how it was that they were such mirrors of one another in all things, for did not the reflection upon the glass reveal the inverse of that which faced it?
"Elladan, do not drift off again," Elrohir entreated, squeezing his wrist anew. "Speak!" But it was some minutes more before his brother would do so and Elrohir had the impression he was weighing things in his heart carefully. Just when he was prepared to accuse him of seeking a means to circumvent the truth, Elladan resumed his account.
"He accepted the knife calmly, face blank, the shock of what he'd seen too much to encompass, but then as he held it his eyes came alive and he raised it, watched cruor streak its length and drip onto his fist. He turned and looked upon what was left of her, and everything in him broke, Elrohir: mind, heart, and spirit. What he did then… I have never seen anything like it before and hope never to again. The kin-slayers must have been like that: mad, soul-shattered wretches. So much hate, so much pain was pouring from him that my own suddenly seemed superficial and trifling, for at that moment his hatred encompassed everything. Everything. His heart's crushing thoughts were plain: if she must die such a death, then nothing else should persist; all must perish, good and ill alike. Everything must end then and there.
"The menacing pall of Shadow that had nearly stopped my arrival withdrew before the fury of his mindless, ravening rage. The orcs who had been his captors and her murderers were cut down by that silver blade; cut down with terribly efficient skill utilised in utter savagery. Stunned a moment by what I was witnessing, I raised sword at last and helped him finish them. I reached him in time to take the knife even as he thrust it into his stomach.
"The stab was deep and I wasn't sure if he would survive; plainly he did not want to and even now I am not certain whether I was cruel to stop his hand. I didn't want to fail her, or the distraught elven king, or myself. I wanted him to live. It was a selfish decision, for the brutality he'd endured must mar him, change him, but in that moment I saw him as he was before: young and fair and pure. Such an end ought not come to such as he."
Elladan fell silent and rose from his seat, paced the circumference of the room before stopping by the radiant hearth. He stared into the orange embers and Elrohir watched him, troubled and still ignorant of what had happened in the aftermath of this tragedy. He joined his brother and for a time they merely remained side by side gazing into the decaying fire as he mulled over the narration thus far. Too many gaps remained. What could be so damning that Elladan would hide it even from him? Hidden it he had, carefully and jealously. The word shocked Elrohir even as it gelled in his mind, and he almost turned away from the investigation, fearing what unconscious assessment had produced it, but there were those six months of absence for which he would have an account. Six months. His brother had completely disappeared, physically and from Elrohir's thoughts, their mental link wholly severed for the first time since their conception.
"I searched, Elladan," he softly rebuked, unable to conceal his umbrage, and saw his brother cringe.
"I am sorry for any grief my actions visited upon you or Adar," Elladan hastily apologised and lifted his face to his brother's. "You must understand by that very necessity to which you were forced how serious this is to me."
"I do, but you say nothing!" Elrohir chided. "What of this banishment?"
"Some things do not belong to me alone. I will not speak of those."
"Nothing in which you are involved has ever been kept secret from me before." Elrohir's good heart was bruised; he felt betrayed and abruptly the reason burst upon his mind: Elladan had created a bond with this traumatised woodland child, a bond apart from that which the brothers had shared even in the womb.
"Come, do not take me to task for it," Elladan pleaded, tired and miserable, for he saw that Elrohir now understood the essential truth. This would not end well. "I am sure there are some things you would shield from me, Muindoren." He raised a hand only to have it dashed away.
"You speak as though of minor trivialities whilst you have been missing for half a coronar? For the sake of this child? You made a bond with him to salvage his life. Ah! You cannot deny it! Am I untrustworthy to share your burdens now?"
"Nay, Elrohir, do not be angry," Elladan entreated, but Elrohir turned away and resumed his seat in sullen silence. "You would have done the same," but Elladan was not so sure about that. He had hoped no bitterness would result from their brief estrangement and his sudden decision. How could he explain that it was no burden at all, but the most natural course to take? He stood studying his brother, at a loss as to how to mend things. "I had not time to consider; I had to choose, to act, else Legolas would die."
"Your action was extreme and your decision now cannot be changed."
"It was, but I would have chosen the same no matter the time or place of the choosing." He could see that shocked Elrohir and guilt crept into his heart. "I know you were - are - considering the Gift of Men, but I have never entertained it since the passing of …for a very long time."
"What do you say?" Elrohir rose, livid and trembling, fists curled into hard knots. "Since whose passing?"
"It does not matter, Elrohir. I tried to remain uncommitted for your sake, for fear to influence you against your heart's needs."
"How noble and good!" Elrohir was furious. "How could such deceit be beneficial to me? You would wait until I made up my mind and then reveal that you never considered any but the life of the Eldar? What if I chose otherwise; we would be parted forever!"
"Aye, yet it is not my right to insist you choose against your true wishes for my sake, nor for you to demand such of me, either," Elladan shot back, distressed to have this argument come up now when he needed most for them to be in accord. They were like children again, he mused, Elrohir sulking until he got his way. He frowned; he had grown far removed from such games. "I am sorry to have angered you, but I am not going to speak more, especially when you are in this petulant mood."
"Petulant!" Elrohir jumped from the chair, countenance livid to receive this insult.
"Aye! I have need of the comfort of an understanding heart and yours instead is absorbed in your petty distress and …"
"Petty! I searched for you, wandering this earth from end to end, yet no sign could I discover. You locked me out, sealed your mind and heart away from me! I thought you dead! This you call petty and my just concerns petulance!"
"Well, you are thoroughly riled now, brother, so then I will leave you to it," Elladan sneered and stalked out of the room.
"Are you really going to walk away?" Elrohir followed him to the door, watched as he opened it and went through, pausing long enough to shoot a hurt and accusing glare over his shoulder. Seeing him vanish round a corner was frightening, and Elrohir sped after him, caught him at the top of the stairs, caught him at the arm and held. "You are not leaving the valley, are you? Do not go, Elladan. I am sorry for my harsh reaction."
The real love and genuine anguish reverberating through those syllables cleared the fury from Elladan's brow and he smiled, clasped the arm that prevented his progress. "Nay, I am not leaving. Let me go off and sulk a time, then we shall talk again. Yet I must ask that you keep this news between us for now. Will you agree to that much for me? I am not ready to discuss this with Adar, or anyone else."
"Indeed, you did not want to discuss it with me," Elrohir rejoined sadly, but he was through with his wrath and wanted peace. "I will do as you ask and hold your secret safe." He gave Elladan's arm another firm squeeze and released him, watching him go, cursing himself for giving way to his anger. I was petulant. He of all people knew this was not the way to breech Elladan's formidable defences. Thinking over their talk, he recalled the allusion to a written account and took himself to the seneschal's office to find it, entering in without knocking.
"What news?" Erestor asked, rising from the desk to come close and embrace Elrohir.
The younger twin returned the clasp with more feeling than he was wont to reveal and failed to suppress a disgruntled sigh. "Nothing. He's alive and well, but as taciturn and stubborn as ever. He'll say nothing about where he was or what he was doing, save to reference that awful event in Greenwood. Where was he after that, Erestor, and why won't he tell me?"
"Elbereth, it is a bad fate he has stumbled into," groused Erestor, not pleased to have his family sucked into Mirkwood's darkness. Yet, he could not deny that Elladan had gone there of his own volition. "Rather, he did not just accidentally encounter it; his noble heart drove him to give aid to those in desperate need. That he should be punished for it is galling."
"It is that which I need to understand," Elrohir met his kinsman's glowering gaze. "I need to read that report, Erestor."
"So be it," Erestor shrugged and moved to a cabinet, rifled among the papers and scrolls, withdrew one and brought it to Elrohir. "You will not find anything extraordinary in it. Elladan was truthful to a fault, as he ever is, and the details are beyond graphic, but there is no explanation of why he defied Thranduil. All of that was to be forgotten, you see, once Celeborn decreed the King should have his child and Thranduil took him away back home."
Elrohir frowned as he accepted the scroll, unconvinced. "There must be something." Erestor was shaking his head, arms folding across his chest, and his attitude annoyed Elrohir immensely. "There must be something everyone has overlooked."
"Read and you will see," advised the councillor quietly. He set a kindly hand on Elrohir's shoulder. "I do not mean to be discouraging, but there is little revealed beyond the bald facts. Admittedly, those are harrowing enough. What more that your brother kept in his heart, only to you is he likely to reveal it, and if not to you then none shall ever know it."
He led Elrohir to a comfortable chair and sat him down in it, took the one beside it himself and yanked it closer. Whatever was going to happen, he did not want Elrohir to face it alone. They shared a quiet look and then the scroll was spread open across their knees. Elladan's precise hand neatly filled the available space, the tale strangely told in third person as though he'd only watched it transpire, or heard of it second-hand.
Oh, Soul, poisoned and tortured and beaten bloody, reeved and riven
from this flesh, my slowly decaying corpse which houses now only this
disconnected and broken mind. Soul-shattered seeing that feels and knows and weeps yet has no voice.
Lost, long ago lost, so many Ages full of choice words spoken and meaning taken, meaning less,
and the howling is a silent storm that rages only in my empty breast.
To Selena Rose: Thank you so much for your review here and for Folly/Fate. I did see it but this site gives me no means to reply except like this, so I hope you see this. I am trying to work on Folly/Fate and also finish this one. I have had that one on hold a long time and you are right, it should be finished. Please be patien a little bit longer; I am trying to work out something that is not so trite and over-done in fanfiction fr these two. I will finish it, but it may take a little while. Sorry it has been a struggle lately to get any writing done at all, and this story was a means to break me loose a little and get back into it. Thank you again for your wonderful compliments and so many kind words of encouragement :)