Of Elbereth's Bounty

Title: Of Elbereth’s Bounty – Prologue and Part 1
(third in my unofficial series, after In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen)
Author: Gloromeien
Emaiwishwishbucklers@hotmail.com
Pairing: OMC/OMC, Legolas/Elrohir, Glorfindel/Elladan
Summary: Third in the In Earendil’s Light series. In the dulcet wilds of Valinor, Elrond’s three rambunctious grandchildren come of age, finding love and adventure along the way.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.
Authorote:ote: Two houses, both alike in dignity, in fair Valinor, where we lay our scene. Yes, well, the whole thing’s gotten completely out of hand!! Cannon characters worked so well together, that they begot multiple OMCs, who then begged for their own proper tale. Think of it as Romeo and Juliet for Male Elves, with star-crossed lovers, a fair amount of quarrelling within the families, but, do not fear, there will be no life-taking of any kind. It does, however, help to no end to have read both In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen before this, as otherwise you might not recognize any of the characters. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for keeping to the path thus far!!
Feedback: Would be delightful.
Dedication: To the moderators of Library of Moria, Melethryn, Adult Fan Fiction.Net, and other sites of their ilk for all their wonderful, tireless work and for keeping us up to our ears in fic.

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Of Elbereth’s Bounty


Prologue

Of the Fourth Age of Men and of the reign of peace in the mortal land of Arda, there exists ample account.

A gust of wind spattered his scroll with thistle down, yet Erestor kept on his writing, heedless of the auburn sun. The ship bound for Arda would sail in the first breath of twilight, ten volumes of his own composition kept in its coffers. The author of such an esteemed history could surely scrawl off a letter before sunset.

The many tomes of mannish, halfling, and dwarven provenance have long gifted the Loremasters of your land with a proper record. Yet little is known of the fate of the Eldar, long sailed to Valinor, to their native soil. Those that sailed were numerous and noble born; they have forever alteree coe course of this dulcet shore with their precipitous return. Two colonies were settled therein: Telperion in the southern forests and Laurelin in the north wood, the mountains between bisecting but not severing their reunited peoples. This first is led by a High Council, chief among them Elrond, legendary Lord of Imladris. The northern realm is wilded still; none, as yet, claims its counsel, though Thranduil, King of Mirkwood now makes his berth there.

This keeper of records humbly offers your vaults a history of these times, to hearten the elven people still lurking in your hollows and to lesson the race of men, who has forgotten its heroes. Most compelling of all, in my learned estimation, is a song of love and longing which opens the third book. This gentle tale, more than any other, marks the resilient spirit of our present age.

Be blessed, mellon-nin, under bounteous Elbereth,

Erestor Cirdanion
Loremaster of Telperion

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

Part One

In the swell of a radiant afternoon, the elves strolled in itinerant pairs down to the riverbank. Thrushes trilled in the long grass by the water rush; a stone-ridge path across the lively river acted as a delta, sieving out the salt foam from the ocean far beyond. This region of Telperion wood was but a half-day’s hike from the sea shore, the raucous tides of which nourished the gigantic, silver-trunk mallorn trees. The mallorn height was such that evhe mhe most cunning interloper might rest a decade in the forest deep without discovering the elven colony that thrived far above.

Two of the highest and most becoming trees lay on either side of the river, their mighty bows entwined as the rapt fingers of long-bound lovers. Even the keenest elf had trouble discerning which branch belonged to which of the twin trees, as each had sprung from the same seed, bedded deep beneath the river. Though in the midst of Lord Elrond’s family compound, none in twenty years of occupancy had been able to tame the brother trees into hospitality; none, that was, until this very time.

Glorfindel lingered in the cooling shade of a nearby elm, as the High Council assembled in the glade beyond. Fluffs of down, from the nearby thatch of willows where Legolas and Elrohir made their home, wafted throughrrierried by the humid midsummer breeze. The glade and the elders were soon blanketed as if by a sun-kissed winter, one might mistake them for a gathering of snow-furred rabbits. The pique of his bemused smirk did not dull the monument of the occasion, the first council assembly away from the hearth-hall of Lord Elrond’s abode.

As the elders seated themselves, formal robes billowing regally through the long grass, Glorfindel looked around the trunk, into the shadow of the elm thicket, at the cause of such an esteemed collection of sages. There, clutching his rolled-up designs like a life-preserver and quaking with alacrity, loomed his youngest son. The architect, rather, of their entire compound, wooer of tempered trees, horticulturalist of bountiful touch and premier g-blo-blower of their colony, also, but not least, a builder of growing renown, as evidenced by the re-location of the High Council simply to accommodate his equally renown shyness. Which, to Glorfindel’s dismay, only appeared more acute since he’d last checked on him.

The Balrog-slayer glanced back at the ready assembly, then again into the shroud thicket. The truly genius, in his experience, were often of a solitary nature. Such were the master craftsmen in Gondolin of old, many of whom he had counted among his most trusted friends. The loyalty of these tender ones was often unparalleled; secrets confided to those that rarely spoke were never repeated and their unique, oft misunderstood perspectives bequeathed them a wealth of compassion for other troubled souls. Glorfindel, in those tempestuous times, had often sought out the peerless consolation of these lonely ones. Once lured from their self-involvement they had been, he reflected, the sweetest of lovers.

Yet Echoriath, though months before his second majority and blessed with a skill for every one of his hundred years, kept no company beyond that of his brother and cousin. With Tathren away adventuring for nearly a decade and Cuthalion’s own social group stealing the larger share of his time of late, this more than naught left the darkling elf alone with his orchard, his collection of rare plants, or his drawing easel. He had begged his fathers for reprieve from the rites of his first majority; now that his second was swiftly upcoming, Glorfindel didn’t doubt that it would precipitate a round of abject begging from his youngest son. Loathe as he and Elladan were to force rites on any elf, let alone their peach of a child, they had long discussed whether they should, perhaps, nudge him in the right direction. If his majority passed without even the barest effort on their part, then he would grow to full elfhood in solitude and so, they believed, he would stay for time immortal.

The very seam of Glorfindel’s re-fashioned soul would snap, if this gentleheart went his life untouched by a loving admirer.

At that moment, his own love-teacher and husband dear ambled into the shaded thicket, his knowing eye taking measure of his still-shuddering son’s temperance. Elladan had long been this blithe one’s confessor; as this, Echoriath soon hearkened to him, thirsty for reassurance.

“There are so many,” the young builder remarked in his usual breathless tone. “I had not thought…”

“The High Council wishes to oversee the development of this project,” Elladan explained. “From forest immaculate to tree-top sanctuary complete. Besides, you require their approval.”

“But grandsire-“

“Ada is Lord of Telperion,” Elladan reminded him softly. “But he is no King. The council members must see for themselves, if they are to properly weigh-“

“But this is our land,” Echoriath objected, with as much fervor as this quiet one ever mustered. “Where we make our home. As long as we do not harm the trees…” He left off when Cuthalion came to fetch him, knowing too well that his vivacious twin would broke no argument from him.

Dismayed, he pulled out of Elladan’s arms and retreated into himself.

“If you would not go to the mountain,” Cuthalion bellowed with his usual pomp, as he clapped his brother on the arms. “The mountain has come to you!! No other in Aman could assemble such an esteemed audience, I wager.”

“It is grandsire’s boasting that has brought them,” Echoriath mumbled, blushing as ever.

“If Tathren were here, you would not simper so,” Cuthalion reproached him, receiving, and deserving, a pointed look from Elladan.

“Yet he is not,” Echoriath sighed, a faint annoyance further coloring his cheeks. Ever shrewd, he knew, despite any continued protestation on his part, that there would be no escaping this sobering task. With characteristic benevolence, the darkling elf silently fortified himself, then slipped a trembling hand into his twin’s. “But you are here, as ever, to steady me, gwanur.”

At this hush compliment, the silver-haired elf shone like a mithril shield.

“Come,” he beckoned, taking firm hold of his brother’s arm. “I will stand with you before the Council.”

Though the tremors that shook his lithe frame did not abate, Echoriath humbly followed a trumpet-tongued Cuthalion into the glade of lazy-eyed elders. After turning his ponderous eyes towards their presentation, Glorfindel was surreptitiously enveloped by the welcome arms of his husband. He glanced aside; Elladan’s argent eyes regarded their youngest with such anxious pride, with almost disbelieving admiration, that Glorfindel would have embraced him were the audience not settled and the speakers to begin. As Echoriath outlined his plans for the calamitous site in a near-whisper, the gathering stilled, so that not a sound or reverberation of his low, rather voluptuous voice was missed. Glorfindel marveled, as he often did, that the elves of this region were so witless as to let such a heart go without champion, such a blithe spirit go unspoken for.

Once acclimated, if not comfortable, with the spotlight, Echoriath could not mask his nurturing nature, nor his keen mind, nor his affinity for the task. As he bashfully related how he patiently wooed the permission of the implacable twin trees - for no elf could build in a tree’s bows without its affection, he made note of various innovations to talanign ign that were necessary to accommodate their wishes. That these difficulties were rendered into an edifice of such incredible beauty, eliciting a gasp from the assembly, was no small tribute to his son’s craft. Two separate talans, one in each tree, were joined by a bridge of unprecedented height and girth, as its two stories housed a garden-lined pathway above and a glass-bottomed bath below. Indeed, the whole structure was made of entirely natural material, only such accoutrements as faucets, mirrors, and utensils were made of metal. The flooring of the bottom tier, including the pool, was translucent, so that one appeared to walk over the coursing river below. The effect, if realized, would be edifying, as would be the star-plucking and branch-stroking walkway above.

The bachelor apartments, though of Echoriath’s design, were a present from Glorfindel and Elladan to their sons upon their coming adulthood. After their second majority, they were no longer required to reside with their fathers, but the compound had no other housing for them. Ambitious despite his reticence in social matters, Echoriath had wanted to develop his savvy as master of a company of builders. Though he was yet without said company, the family was confident that the intricacies of his designs would soon draw volunteers, with the Council’s linchpin approval.

By the end of his explanation, not an elven soul in the glade was any less than awestruck; Lord Elrond included and Cuthalion, perhaps, most of all. Their bedazzling apartments may have been conceived by Echoriath, but their intention wasn’t merely to further his career. They were, above all else, a acknowledgment of their unbreakable bond, a gift, from the deep of his heart, to his beloved brother. As the Council swarmed together for an immediate decision, buzzing like a smoked-out hive, Cuthalion wove an arm around his weak-kneed twin, as Echoriath swooned with relief.

The silvery elf was, for once, near voiceless. “I… I am unworthy of such an honor, gwanur-nin. Surely our betters must reside here, and we… we will take another home.”

Echoriath visibly withered at his words, mistaking them for disapproval. “The design… has not pleased you.”

“Nay, it is *too* beautiful for one such as I,” Cuthalion was quick to counter, knowing how dreadfully his twin had anticipated his dislike. “Not in Arda’s majesty nor in Aman’s divine splendor have I seen such a place… it is fit for kings, not a simple horse-breeder. You, Echoriath, are stately enough for its fine halls, but I…”

“If you would not reside here, with me,” Echoriath put the matter plain, hugging warmly to his brother. “Then I have no heart to build it. It is for us alone that I envisioned these apartments, that I gentled the trees. I will have no other neighbor but you, gwanur.”

Speechless, Cuthalion could naught but nod his acquiescence. Rare were his brother’s public displays of affection; he would not dishearten him now for all the gold in Thranduil’s coffers.

The Council broke to admire the designs up-close, clucking their approval like guinea hens. Glorfindel and Elladan soon joined with their cheery sons, both fathers taking a moment with Echoriath. Glorfindel remarked, as he whispered his astonishment, the calm that had descended upon his youngest child. A glimmer, though faint, of self-satisfaction shone in the gold wash of his eyes; Glorfindel had not afore realized how dearly he’d wanted this chance before the Council, for all his bashful objections. There was, though closely kindled, some temerity waiting to fire within him.

Yet who, he wondered, might ignite it?

A shout from Cuthalion broke the spell. The spritely elf blazed a streak through the long grass, then, in the roar of his excitement, tackled his rather ragged looking cousin to the ground. Tathren threw the giddy elf off, only to embrace him fully upon their rising. In the years since their advent in Valinor, Tathren had taken to adventuring. His latest absence, from which he’d just this moment returned, had stretched on for eight years, though he sent frequent word back home. From the look of his tattered tunic, he’d not yet even breached the willow thatch and greeted his fathers.

Glorfindel waited on his youngest son’s less fervent, though equally feeling, remonstrance at the sight of his cousin - as Tathren was second only in his heart to Cuthalion - but, to his surprise, Echoriath stilled. His golden eyes, full as harvest moons, beamed wonderingly on the adventurer’s fair countenance, as if disbelieving the sight of him. They remained locked on the approaching elf, until Tathren stood before him, still fighting off Cuthalion’s incessant, playful shoves.

“Echoriath,” he greeted him with a resplendent smile. “How have you fared these long years, nin bellas?”

Without a breath in reply, Echoriath leapt into his arms. He hugged his cousin with such force that Tathren bit his lip to keep from crying out, though he gladly bore this charge, his eyes moist with feeling. For some time, neither seemed willing to release the other, until his family, in deference, turned away. Glorfindel, however, kept a sharp eye on his timid son, as Tathren staggered around to maintain his balance.

“Tathren,” he at last heard Echoriath whisper, as his golden eyes slid shut.

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

The fluidity of the motion, to those with eyes to discern its machinations, remained the gold standard even in lofty Valinor, the form as eloquent as the archer himself. Even his lover-teacher - once his better, now his husband - could not match him for speed, precision, or distance.

Though the carvings that adorned his leather quiver told of a title he no longer claimed and some of his arrow fletches were feathered with colors to which he no longer bore allegiance, the knowing archer never gave up the first bow he’d broke in nor the weaponry bequeathed to him on his second majority. The leather strap had been fitted to his very shoulder; the stave engravings heralded the sharp-shooter’s name, more than a few still embedded in the corpses he’d felled. The blood of a thousand battles was seeped into their tanned hide, some porous fletches were still grimed with mumakil gut.

Yet this hallowed archer among the woodland elves and first among elfkind this day faced a challenge unlike any he’d met before. How to lose to his son without appearing to do so.

Like his shining crown of hair, though of a deeper hue, his iridescent blue eyes, though of warmer tone, and his mercurial disposition, though without such earth-shattering cares, Tathren’s back had been measured by his father’s hand, which had also crafted the quiver he bore. Together, they had strung the stunning silver bow he now held - gift of Gimli - and smithed the arrowheads. Through years of patient tutelage, the master archer had passed on every trick, feint, and form in his arsenal; Tathren had thuslme tme to know Legolas’ technique better than his own, which only added to the stress in playing-out their current, *unofficial* wager. For Legolas could guide his son in every secret of this, his finest art, except one: he could do nothing to circumvent the limitations of his heritage.

No peredhil, not even one trained by a master archer, could ever best one of purely elven skill. Once grown, Legolas had easily matched Elrohir, soon to best him. Despite his every effort, his son would eventually be out-struck, as Tathren was, like his grandsire, equally halved between elf and man, while Elrohir gave only a quarter of his making to mankind and gained some spark from the Maiar in his distant ancestry. Thus, their casual contest was swiftly provoking Tathren’s fairly indefatigable will, though the young adventurer knew well he’d never likely best his Adar.

One was, after all, not lightly heralded the finest archer of this age and the last.

There was, however, more to archery than steel and skill alone. Stealth, as his bold Ada-Las had oft reminded him, gave advantage to the vital element of surprise. With this in mind, Tathren’s angular face turned pensive, as Legolas’ hawkish eyes surveyed his mark. Patient as a chess-master, he considered each ring of the target in turn: the angle in which the arrow had entered, the depth of the strike, the effects of its fletches on his own shot’s velocity. Decided, he stretched his bow into stance, then took aim.

“Ada,” Tathren cleared the path for his coming question with studied nonchalance. “May I inquire after… a matter that is perhaps not my affair, but… to which my thoughts have lately turned?”

“Surely, ioneth,” Legolas allowed him, as his first strike hit true. “Has your mind gleaned towards more country matters, now that you are come home?” He beckoned his son’s confidence with a soft smile, then refocused on the waiting target.

“In time, perhaps,” Tathren answered, swallowing a smile of his own. His features turned painfully sober and he fought to keep his manner so. “I fear you will be cross with me, if I intrude upon…”

“I cannot think of a matter between Ada-Hir and myself,” Legolas guessed ruefully, as his second shot bisected his son’s stave. “That I would not speak on with you, tathrelasse. Fear not.”

“Very well,” he agreed, as Legolas set sights on his crowning blow. The young adventurer’s eyes, despite his best efforts to contain himself, were tinged with delighted mercury. “Why have you and Ada-Hir never begot another child?”

For the first time since elflinghood, Legolas shot wild. Precipitously cast under a baleful glare, Tathren bit his tongue through to contain his mirth. Though he at once both admired and reviled his son’s tactics, Legolas was relieved somewhat by his cunning. Yet he did not for a moment doubt the sincerity of Tathren’s question. He and Elrohir had not deceived their son about the manner of his begetting, but they had tempered the tale considerably. Even forty years into his majority, Tathren was unaware of the more unsavory details of Legolas’ manipulation, though he knew Thranduil was to blame and had come to understand his father’s estrangement from the Mirkwood King.

“May *I* ask, ioneth,” Legolas ventured cautiously. “On what occasion your thoughts wandered down this path of inquiry?”

“In truth, I have often wondered of this,” he admitted. “In younger years, I envied Echoriath and Cuthalion their shipship. It seemed everyone had a twin or a brother but I! My cousins, Ada-Hir and Ada-Dan, Grandfather - though his is lost - speaks often to me of Elros, Luinaelin was your chief counsel in Ithilien and Mithbrethil is now, though he lives in the north. I cherish my cousins as my own brethren, but I… I always hoped. Seeing them in the glade the other afternoon, how Cuthalion supported his brother and the magnificent apartments Echoriath had imagined them… I was reminded.”

“Are you truly so lonesome, nin ind?” Legolas inquired in hush tones, somewhat abashed by his son’s revelation.

“Nay, I am luckier in some aspects,” Tathren noted, with a diplomacy worthy of the elf-knight himself. “I have the singular regard of two hallowed fathers.”

“That you do, my brave one,” Legolas beamed, but did not forget his solemnity. He sighed, as only a longtime parent might, in face of this daunting explanation. How to relate a husband’s cares and vows to one who has never been bound, nor even found love? “I will give an honest answer, though it may not be the one desired. The betrayal of your most beloved is… I would not wish this task on my most hated foe, not the wolves of Mordor nor the snakes of Isengard. Your Ada-Hir is… is of fea so generous, so immaculately rendered that he found, in his boundless spirit, a way to forgive my accidental transgression. I know not, to this minute, how he accomplished this. I fear I myself could not.”

“Truly, Ada?” Tathren countered, shocked by his father’s severity. “Even for a child of his siring? If you agreed to its begetting, would a night’s anxiety truly be so steep a price to pay for…? I think not to unsettle you, Ada, I know this is no affair of mine. Yet I often think on Echoriath and wish that… that I might have a brother or sister blessed with Ada-Hir’s gracious disposition, to temper me. I esteem him so, I esteem you both *so*. You have been such… such fathers…”

Despite his best efforts to internally dismiss the matter, Legolas was piqued by Tathren’s reasoning. As he embraced his dearest son for his rare, and heartening, compliment, his curiosity soon amplified in intensity. A child of Elrohir’s twilight seed, whether ellon or ellyth, proved too-worthy fodder for his distraction. Unlike Tathren’s calamitous first years, this promised one would be raised under their full, dual attentions, no wars, colonies, or titles to encumber the joys of their parenthood. Glorfindel had reason not to beget another child for Elladan, but why should Elrohir never know the precious bond between sire and sireling? Why, for that matter, should Legolas’ misbegotten jealousy deprive both of them of the company of such a tenderheart, of a babe of his Elrohir’s making? If Glorfindel could put aside his compunctions for a lonely night, surely Legolas could, as well.

There certainly was no question of their bond’s sundering, as Elrohir was by far the most doting creature known to Aman…

Legolas slowly became aware of Tathren’s befuddled examination of the shadings of his reasoning face. He colored some, another rarity, though the young adventurer took this, as everything, in easy strides.

“You think not on my proposition,” he winningly teased his elder. “Merely on begetting-practice with my other father. I know well your fever has not waned in nearly five hundred years.”

“Your scorn, though merely in jest, betrays your innocence, nin ind,” Legolas remarked pointedly. “You best pray to Elbereth you are one day so bountiful as we in binding love.”

With that, Legolas tapped the tip of his bow and gestured towards the waiting target. No longer so fearful of besting his precocious son, he was, if anything, eager to show his mastery.

In this, at least.

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

The orchid vine was sickly. Even the most obtuse of elemental elfkind would note the wrinkles in her spade-shaped leaves, her jaundiced petals, the dry droop of her scarlet tongue. The patient, however, had every chance of making a full recovery from her withering, if her medic had his way.

After he padded into the flickering pool of torchlight under the far arch of their glass-domed greenhouse, a fine-balanced tray of oxtail stew and lembas crackers wedged beneath his sword-arm, Elladan observed, with no little wonderment, as Echoriath meticulously slid a bamboo stand behind the listless stem. Two sets of pincers – one prick-pointed, one blunt – adjusted each leaf stalk ts sus supportive bamboo branch as minutely as an archer improves his aim, his bow tautly strung. The blooms themselves were reinforced with egret feathers, so as not to chafe their delicate silk.

In the hot, hazy hall around them, the pulp-enriched soil was bedded with dozens of rare plants, shrubs, and flower vines, the most varied collection of chronically beset vegetable species known to both Arda and Aman. The dome itself was lined with specially layered glass, designed to focus Arien’s most potent rays on the most needful buds and shield others in perpetual gloaming. The ground itself was portioned out into distinct mixtures, separated by thick, slated paths: the red soil of the heartland fields to the east, coarse, volcanic earth to the north, to the west the alabaster shale of the seashore, in the center, fertile forest mulch.

In the southward arch of the dome was stationed a small alcove of tools, charts, books, a water hole and a humble cot, where Echoriath could oft be discovered, after a late night of caretaking. The gardener’s devotion to his fragile charges was such that he was known to spend easily four nights a week in the greenhouse, when not collapsed against the drawing-board in his bedchamber, candle still fuming beside. Glorfindel and Elladan, in more aggravated moments, had often threatened to remove this cot so as to increase their son’s share of rest, but had never carried this out; reminded, time and again, that he would simply sleep on the floor where he fell. Nor were their attempts to properly nourish him altogether successful, as many a dinnertime was forgotten in the rapt examination of some new root, the sowing of an exotic seed, or the weeding of one of the more shaded beds.

Indeed, Elladan was presently on just such a mission with his tray of stew, bread, mead, and berries. While Echoriath ministered to the orchid vine, his father reflected that the return of Tathren’s jovial society had added some actual fleshiness to his painfully slender form, as his cousin’s presence was enough to lure him back to their regular evening meal with Elrohir and Legolas. This night, however, Celebrian’s poorly orchid would overtake his entire night, as Echoriath would not have his grandmother suffer a moment’s despair over the withering of her prize plant, one he himself had gifted her. That such tenderness underlay each of Echoriath’s preoccupations and activities – the replenishment of the forest that caused him to collect rare blooms, the sanctity of their people that pushed him to tend orchards and gardens, the importance of balance between elf and nature that made him a builder of environmentally-sound habitations – deeply heartened Elladan, as well as forgave some of his son’s more obsessive tendencies, though his warrior’s spirit often struggled to understand how he could find solace in such seemingly rote tasks. Echoriath, however, heard the call of the land like a clarion bell; he felt that not a moment of his time was wasted in even the most menial chore. Before long, his son’s dedication forced even Elladan’s unruliness to see the heart in every mended stem, every fat orchard fruit, and every log of a willow-shroud cottage.

If only Echoriath could open such a heart to another’s fateful song, Elladan little doubted what a pure harmony might ring forth.

When Elladan cleared his throat, Echoriath perked up. Despite his self-imposed seclusion, his eyes went wide at the sight of the stew; Elladan’s keen elven ears marked his stomach’s anticipatory whine of deprivation. He quickly wrapped-up his preliminary work on the orchid, then skipped off to his alcove, where he was surprised to find Elladan waiting on him. His father, though always attentive to him, had little patience for horticultural talk; after awhile, his bow-stringing fingers would unconsciously begin to twitch and Echoriath would switch to more engaging remarks about architecture. When Elladan motioned to the seat beside him, the young elf was immediately on his guard. His day had been long: showering the rain-starved gardens at dawn, a morning of tallying the supplies needed to begin the apartments, an afternoon of sacrificing the first of the ederwood trees – always a heartbreaking task for him - and fumigating the orchard against parasites; lastly, the drama with his grandmother’s beloved vine.

With the routine checking on all of her plants thusly added to his already overburdened schedule, Echoriath prayed the topic of conversation his Ada quite obviously wished to broach was not the one he had been studiously ignoring for nigh on a week: the coming of his second majority and his ongoing virginity. However, as he wolfed down the too-delicious meal – Serabeth had blended in his most preferred melding of spices - his Ada-Dan remained so copiously silent and unblinkingly poised that Echoriath knew there would be no escaping the stealth of this most cunning of swordsmen. Not that his father’s counsel was ever unheeded. Indeed, while his Ada-Fin’s strengths lay in matters of honor, education, and work-related troubles, in his experience his Ada-Dan was deceptively wise in matters of more private concern. In the past, his darkling father had long-suffered his own tempestuous affections, this made him a kindhearted and too-knowing advisor.

For Echoriath was perhaps unready to map the outlay of all the chambers of his too-vast heart.

“Is that a gray birch I spy, in the north patch?” Elladan asked suddenly, sparking his ponderous son’s attention. “I thought there were but silver and white in Valinor.”

“There are, indeed,” Echoriath gladly answered. “I thieved a root from Imladris, afore we departed. The tallest gray, by the deep forest path, towards the training fields. Do you recall it, Ada?”

“Too well,” Elladan smiled inwardly, as Echoriath tucked in beside him. Despite his cloying shyness, the young elf was fearlessly affectionate with his family, often thriving on their touches and embraces in more fractious situations. While Cuthalion had grown too proud, with age, to huddle up to his fathers, Echoriath had no compunctions about laying a weary head on Elladan’s shoulder, as he did now. “It was beneath that same gorgeous gray that I first kissed your Ada-Fin.”

“Truly, Ada?” Echoriath queried, pleasantly surprised by this revelation.

“Aye, to seal our betrothal,” he replied, wondering that he had never mentioned the anecdote before. “He had been strolling with Erestor, whom I craftily dispatched of by noting Haldir’s impending arrival in the va. Wh. When we were alone, I… I had never before felt such… such dread!! Had he refused me, I may have done something rash.”

“W-was it…?” Echoriath began, then thought better. Yet his Ada-Dan had never confessed such intimacies to him, nor perhaps would again. Seizing the moment, he ventured: “Was it… a… a sweet kiss, Ada?”

“The most blithe and thrilling I had ever known,” Elladan admitted. “Soon to be bested by the kiss that sealed our binding, but this first will always hold a special place, as it was the result of over two thousand years of longing.”

“Two *thousand* years?!” Echoriath gasped. “Merely for Ada-Fin’s kiss?”

“Your Ada-Fin’s kiss is no mere thing to me, ioneth,” Elladan explained, turning nostalgic. “We were longly parted, since just before my first majority. Your Ada-Fin was… concerned… by the feelings I roused in him. I was of such a tender age and he was, after all, my tutor and sworn guardian. I was merely forty years old and already there was… heat, between us.”

“What stayed him so long?” Echoriath wondered. “If I may ask…”

“Before our kiss?” Elladan considered. “A mixture of wartime duty and… well, a guardian’s fears. Shame, over esteeming someone so young, so… fragile. My heart was desperately tender, like one of Nana’s lovely orchids. Though, to his credit, he was unaware of my own caring for him, so he cannot be wholly blamed for his absence. He thought to keep his own heart, as well as mine, from hurting.”

“But you won him in the end,” Echoriath reminded him, pensive. “You knew your heart, even so young.”

“Aye, I did indeed,” Elladan noted, vowing never to recount to him the full, tortuous tale. “Though knowing your heart is at times more painful that the fancyfree fumblings of youth. Before our reunion, even the moment before that after-altering kiss… I never believed he would regard me with such favor. Mine was a sober minor As As you, ioneth, I chose to forgo rites upon my first majority.”

“You did?!” Echoriath started, springing up in his seat.

“I had, rather foolishly, thought to have Glorfindel as my lover,” Elladan confessed to his wide-eyed child. Shrewd as he was, he did not fail to mark the tenor of his son’s resulting compassion. /So there is one whom he desired, and could not attain./ Elladan had to swallow back the question pressing his too-nimble lips, needing the name of the sordid elf so that his blade might slice him through. “Upon my second majority, I saw the fruitlessness of my pining, and decided that, if I was to win the Balrog-slayer’s heart, I might learn a thing or two about loving.”

Echoriath sighed heavily, the timely occasion of this particular conversation becoming painfully apparent. He collapsed anew onto his father’s shoulder, groaning even as he rolled his eyes back.

“*Ada*,” he mused, as Elladan chuckled at his theatrics. “I would not lie with a… a stranger for experience’s sake!”

“I have not, nor would I ever, suggest you lie with a stranger, ion-nin,” Elladan amended. “Ada-Fin and I are merely… We are concerned that you are not acquainted with the other young elves of the community and therefore… they are as strangers to you. How are you to know love, even the brief, playful affections of youth, if you keep council only with your family?”

Though he could not counter this reasoning, Echoriath chose a different tact. “I know my own heart, Ada.”

Despite his best efforts at gentility, Echoriath began to tremble against him. Though he knew the subject to be excruciating at best for his youngest son, Elladan and Glorfindel were decided that they could not let his majority pass without at least some soft push towards increased sociability. If Echoriath were allowed to hide himself away into his adulthood, he would potentially be lost to the world forever. Immortality was too long a time, and too high an emotional price, to seclude your heart from loving.

Elladan drew a fortifying breath, then pressed on. “And has this well-examined heart been humbled by soft regard for another?”

Echoriath stilled, then retreated from his father’s warmth. “Perhaps.”

“Could it not, then, for the sake of foreknowledge,” Elladan quietly suggested. “Consider exploring other avenues of desire, in order to properly welcome he or she to whom it cleaves so tenuously?”

“He,” Echoriath whispered, but would give no more to his father’s fantasies of vengeance.

“A maid, then, might interest you, without dishonoring your pledged love,” he continued. “My one regret, upon your begetting, was that I never knew a maid until that fateful night.”

“Nay, I could not,” Echoriath dismissed, visibly trying to temper his sharpness. Though he could not voice his displeasure at this near-examination, and thus disrespect his father, he was despite himself growing rather irate. “I care not for maids. They hold no… They are pretty, in their way, but they… They are too… pliant.”

“You would have some conviction,” Elladan teased him, to temper the mood. “Some… force, perhaps? Sinew, not supple. Sensuous, but brusquely so. Grace, but no fluttery, no swooping, unless it be rapacious and… sundering.”

Echoriath flushed as scarlet as the orchid’s tongue.

“Aye,” he rasped, avoiding his father’s bemused, hawkish eyes.

“The explorers are newly returned,” Elladan pointed out, with a casualness that was almost insulting. The seed planted, he rose. “There are some hale and hearty sons among them. Fine-boned, muscle-strewn… handsome youths, on the whole.”

“Ada!!” Echoriath yelped, despite himself. The images his father so disturbingly conjured were not new to him nor his recent daydreams.

“I will leave you, then, to ponder their… potential,” he laughed outright, then grew solemn. He knelt before the youngling’s clenched frame, then laid penitent hands on his knees. “Know this, my lovely one. Ada-Fin and I only wish the finest and truest mate for your careful heart. Indeed, as fathers we are comforted by its cautions and its considerations, but let it not deliberate too long on choosing its course. At times, the only way to brave the rapids is to give in to the current’s flow, mindful of the rocks ahead.”

Consoled by this last wisdom, Echoriath’s amber eyes met with his father’s placid grays. “I am grateful, as always, for your counsel, Ada.”

“And I, as always, admire your prudence, ioneth,” Elladan murmured to him. “Yet love, as I myself learnt quite terrifically some years ago, is oft beholden to risk.”

With that, Elladan slipped away, leaving Echoriath to his garden’s solitude.


End of Part One