House of the Golden Flower

For Aduial, bait for her to add more to her fic inspired by this one, The Flower and the Fountain. More, please, Aduial!


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By the time the first snows fell, it was I who was reading the book aloud and leaning on Ecthelion’s shins, while he braided my hair and helped me when I got stuck on some of the words. Even as I was learning to speak and to read from Ecthelion, as well as the virtues of friendship and honor; from Turgon I was learning statesmanship and horsemanship - the latter of which was much to my dislike.

When I had the words to tell them that I disliked horses because they reminded me of both men and wargs, Turgon seemed amazed that I had killed five of the beasts myself the year before he came for me. Ecthelion had his doubts, but I assured them it was true, and having learned honesty and truth from these two, they believed me in time.

Turgon also queried me endlessly over my oldest memories, those of my family. Beyond the hideous memory of burned buildings and dead silver eyes, there was enough quality memory left for him to determine that I may have been born in Gondolin during the time it was being built, or possibly in Dorthonion. He made guesses at my age, none of which I ever took to heart, saying ‘Turgon thinks me to be one hundred, so one hundred I am’. Thus I still consider myself as ageless, having grown up in a valley where there was no time or others.

Beyond the fact that he knew me to be an adult by how long ago I had been spotted by eagles less bold than the one who had borne him to my valley, we never pursued finding out anything solid of my past. It was enough that I was here, that I was alive, and that I was not alone.

I befriended Idril that fall, taking her out for walks and talking with her, and she allowed me to pursue her to get over my shyness. When the first frosts came we were the closest of friends, and it was with she that I shared my secret heart, and she shared hers with me. We were close friends, different from Ecthelion and I, for Ecthelion was Turgon’s friend before mine. It was she who taught me to understand familial relationships again, and without her kind patience I would never have understood. Somehow she knew how to tap into the long forgotten memories and call up the proper reactions and answers from me.

At the beginning of winter Turgon gave me my own set of rooms near Ecthelion’s, but I slept in his more often than not, despite his encouragements for me to get out and live on my own. At midwinter things came to a head when he stormed into the study where I was sitting alone, reading.

"Glorfindel."
"Yes?" I looked up from my book.

"You are to sleep in your own rooms from now on. People are beginning to talk. You are very beautiful, and it’s altogether too easy for rumors to spread that you are my consort."

I snorted softly, incredulous. "Mellon-nin, people would believe that? Of you?"
"Yes. I am not just a King, Glorfindel; I am a man as well. It would be entirely too easy to believe."

I hung my head. "I’m sorry." I apologized.

"Don’t be." He said, sitting next to me on another chair. "Perhaps it would help if you chose a lovely young man or maiden for company this winter? There are not many who would refuse you."

I just looked at him, confused.
"You don’t mean that...by the Valar Glorfindel, you really have no clue, do you?"
I kept up my steady gaze and raised a brow at his latest manifestation of odd behavior, genuinely ignorant.

He wrung his hands and got up. 'I’ll ask Ecthelion to...explain to you about...attractions and desires...all right?"

I stood as well. "What in Arda are you talking about, Turgon? I have no idea what you are referring to."

"Yes, well, um, ah, I know you don’t. That’s why Ecthelion is going to explain to you. As soon as I can find him." He replied, strangely edgy, and darted out the door before I could stop him. Shaking my head, I returned to my book and couch, concluding that Turgon was a genuinely strange man.

Ecthelion arrived within the hour, looking as dodgy as Turgon had. I felt like smacking him when he stuttered for the fifth time in a single sentence. I grabbed his arm and hauled him to Idril. If anyone could figure this out and explain it to me, she could. After patiently listening to Ecthelion’s stuttering version of what Turgon had asked, demanded and later ordered of him, she laughed.

Ecthelion fled and I was left in the capable hands of my closest friend to learn about the complexities of life. Needless to say, her explanation was thorough, brief and required no anatomical studies or demonstrations, and at the end of the hour I sat tied to a chair to keep from fleeing just as Turgon and Ecthelion had, quivering like a traumatized elfling.

"Why? Why?" I asked, near-sobbing. "That’s disgusting, why do they do it? Who would want to do such a thing?" Again she laughed, and gave me a discreet explanation of the pleasure involved in the act of reproduction, using my assumed self-releases as an example. Her explanation of same sex couplings was just as brief, and when she untied me from the chair to distract me with a brisk ride on horseback, I all but fled down to the stable, preferring my dreaded four-legged foes to ideas about simpering maidens.

By dinnertime I had forgotten most of the trauma of the afternoon, but at the meal both Turgon and Ecthelion avoided my eyes, embarrassed. Idril chattered to me about something mundane, like weaving or some such, but I was too busy picking at my food and trying not to think about the fact that Ecthelion and Turgon seemed as traumatized as I about the whole ordeal. I wondered briefly if Turgon minded his daughter having been the one to...explain things, but the look of relief on both their faces suggested otherwise.

As soon as the last course was done, I fled, as did the other two. Idril’s giggles chased us up the stairs, where we three fled in opposite directions, far less than dignified.

For a while the issue was carefully avoided, but Turgon was the one who brought it up again. We were out riding in the foothills when he said out of the blue "You know, if you get too lonely this winter you can always find yourself a companion." At my glare he said quickly "I’m just saying that because I want to be sure you know I have no claim over you."

I pulled even with him and looked at him out of the corner of my eyes as I said "What if I didn’t mind a claim over me by you?" He made no sign of having heard me, but I knew he had. He had been a good friend to me for a long time, and riding in the winter snow with him that day, I realized what I had meant in jest was really true. I wouldn’t mind in the least, anymore than that, I realized, I would like it. Probably too much.

I wondered vaguely if he returned my affections.
That winter I took no companion, and nor did he. It was as if we were testing one another, trying to guess at each other’s hearts without revealing our own. I spoke to Idril about it. As ever, she was full of good advice, which I took to h. Wh. When the first buds appeared in spring, she suggested that I break the impasse.

I agreed, although it was against my better judgment, and for Idril’s sake I came to her on the day of the First of Spring and let her dress me for the feast. She trimmed my hair at the top of my hips; brushed and braided it out, then selected clothes for me of the extensive wardrobe her father had seen to that I owned. I asked her teasingly if she thought it was a bit strange that she was dressing up an elf much younger than herself to court her father. She hit me with the hairbrush and so I held my tongue.

I felt effeminate, having her dress me, but when she drug me in front of the mirror, I have to admit I looked good. My formal robe hung and fell just right, and I had finally gotten my new boots broken in. My hair shone in a long fall over my arms, and there was no trace of the wild clout-clad elfling left in the tall nobleman standing there in the mirror. I moved, and it was something of a shock to see myself as such a different person than I knew myself to be tucking his hair behind his ears, my habit even in wild years.

Idril appeared behind me, leaning on my shoulder. "You look wonderful. How can he not like you as you like him? Smile, Glorfindel, and you’ll have him." I looked uncertainly at her blue gray eyes in the mirror, apprehensive. She grinned. I worried.