Droplets by Dawn Felagund

Chapter 4

IV.
The rain falling from the poisoned clouds over Mordor scalded his flesh and hissed against his armor, but still, it washed clean many things.

It washed the filth from Elrond’s face and Gil-Galad’s blood from his hands. It took the place of tears on his wearied, upturned face.

He was too tired—tired by the endless battle, by the very thought of War—to grieve, with so many lost after too few years: They passed by him, brushing him with a ghostly whisper of memory, moving on a road opposite his own. Ada. Nana. Maedhros then Maglor. Elros. Now Gil-Galad. And what of my road? he wondered. For what am I destined?

The rain washed away many things, carrying away the filth of battle in tiny rivulets to the pit that was Mordor, washing the sweat-grimed skin of the battle-weary, anointing the faces of the dead. But there were many things that it could not wash away, and they seethed inside Elrond in a bitter maelstrom. Why is it so easy to let the rain carry away the last of my greatest friend—but it cannot carry away my grief for him?

As though in answer, the rain fell harder.