Home's Tale by Haeron

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Chapter 12

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Let’s talk.

 

Two words that had drained the colour from Glorfindel’s face and he regarded me fearfully, sat on the edge of the pretty settee in Ecthelion’s living room with hands clasped to one another. The chill still held me dreadfully calm even as we approached our final precipice. I held my head high and met Glorfindel’s eyes -- I owed him that small courtesy, at least. He was stood up on the other side of the room near the mirror and his reflection seemed grant him a golden halo.

 

And he did not look angry, no, only confused and full of dread. Could he not guess at what I might say next? I rather thought he could, I rather thought in that moment he realised the magnitude of my condition. But it was too late for both of us now. I inhaled deeply through my nose to wake myself and conjure up some final courage.

 

I ignored the pleas in my own head. Try, try again and make it work! Do not give up so easily, you can make the effort!

 

Once again, I ignored my own sound advice. No. No, I was quite resolute. And with six words I dealt as cruel a blow as has ever been struck.

 

‘I think I need to leave.’

 

Glorfindel blinked, gaped, half-laughed. He would not believe it then, ah, I had always known he would not make this easy. And what a selfish thought!

 

‘Why?’ he asked, barely.

 

‘I don’t feel at home here,’ said I, quite simply but it did not satisfy. Glorfindel’s expression shifted from horrified to knowingly exasperated. He frowned a little but his eyes still blazed with fear.

 

‘Erestor, no -- tell me the truth.’

 

It was my turn to gape a little but if he was asking for the truth, well, who was I to deny him? It would all need to come out in the end. The living room was silent before I spoke; it was evening time, just rolling into a clear night and Ecthelion was out, thankfully. It was quiet and still but I shattered it with venom untempered and unfairly spouted.

 

‘But that is the truth, I feel alone and quite separate. I need to go.’

 

‘Alone? Separate? From what exactly? From me, is that it? Erestor, I don’t...’ his words trailed off and he shook his head, looking from furniture to window and then back to my face. What answers could I provide him when I myself possessed them not? I shrugged, he made a noise of despair. I could not fault him for his disbelief, I could barely believe it myself.

 

He pushed his hair back and for saying we were separated only by a few metres of cushy tables and armchairs, I felt never more distant from him; he who once held me so often and freely in arms I had promised never to leave. Cherished memories barely seemed real at all, and glad I was for the adrenaline of the moment nourishing me so I might not collapse under the terrible weight of sadness.

 

Our love had been so beautiful, once.

 

‘You will live well and properly here, in New Gondolin, but the village could never be a home for me as it can, and will be, for you. You have your family here, and you have Ecthelion, of course.’

 

Glorfindel looked at me suddenly, dropping his hands to his sides and half-smiling again; pure disbelief, rejection of reality. Would he fight for us as I had not the courage to do? Ah, but what was left? I was but a husk of the elf he had chosen to bind with and I saw our separation as a kindness to him, you see? I believed I might put him out of his misery, or so that miserable saying goes.

 

‘Is that what this is about? Again? Erestor, please-’

 

‘I cannot,’ I interrupted him as he crossed the room to me, moving with purpose in his stride that conjured a last shuddering hope in my chest. Save me.

 

‘You must, must, put this all out of your head!’ he urged, kneeling at my side before the settee. ‘There is nothing between he and I, and you must surely see this!’

 

‘I have seen something, Glorfindel, I’ve seen it a fair few times since we arrived. Most recently upon the hilltop near the orchard, do you recall?’ Clearly he did not, he looked at me; bemused. ‘He is the other part of you, is he not?’

 

Glorfindel did not answer. But then of course he could not! For the question had stunned him in its preposterousness, and more’s the pity as I took his perfect silence as a blatant yes. You think me ridiculous! And I was, I was, but I was quite addled with the bitterness I had been churning and nurturing for so long that rationality was utterly bypassed. I thought what I wanted, heard what I wanted and saw what I wanted. Glorfindel stood no chance against my pride.

 

I rose to my feet, feeling quite ill again.

 

‘I need to go.’

 

Glorfindel caught my hand, he stood too and would not let go. It was a plea of his, the first of many that would rend my heart.

 

‘Erestor, you need to stop this. You need to listen to me and listen to what I have been trying to tell you for the past age! Erestor,’ I slipped my hand out of his as he spoke and turned my back to him, pottering around the living room as though we were having a simple conversation about what to make for supper that night.

 

In fact, I was gathering my belongings that were already packed. Glorfindel beseeched me listen as I went, checking zips and contents and ticking off a mental checklist despite knowing I had prepared immaculately. All that he said made sense, perfect sense, but sense was not compatible with me at that moment. It was too late, I was mad - there is truly no other word for it. I did not listen.

 

There was a sliver of moon rising outside the frosted window. I looked to it as Glorfindel paused his tirade, stopping just long enough to see the quantity of luggage I had secreted away behind one of the armchairs. A full suitcase, all that I had brought with me upon arrival to New Gondolin, to be precise.

 

There would be nothing left of me in the village.

 

‘How long are you planning to go for?’

 

I turned to him, just a little. A glance over my shoulder.

 

‘For as long as I need, I know not precisely.’

 

‘You’re leaving me,’ he said, flatly. ‘Erestor, you’re leaving me.’

 

Yes. I turned back to the window, to the crescent moon gathering the night about it. There was not a cloud in sight.

 

‘It is not the same anymore between us, is it? We left one another long ago, Glorfindel.’

 

‘No! No, but we... Erestor, please, I don’t understand!’

 

Neither do I, my love, neither do I. He approached me at the window, tentatively as one might approached a fanged beast but I let him come close and lay hands on me. A brush of his fingers against my cheek, his hands were warm where my skin was cold and his touch awoke feeling in me. The spell broke for a moment, he whispered his love into my ear. I dropped the luggage. I closed my eyes.

 

The kiss we shared then, I will never forget. Glorfindel has ever been a creature of gentility and even on that night where we both hovered on the brink of explosion, he brushed our lips together sweetly at first, cupping my face with a warm hand.

 

And when he knew I responded, he worked fire into the embrace and kissed me hard to save our joined life. He pulled me to him until I erred in my solidarity and stroked my hands up his chest and lay them there upon and over his heart, he caught my breath when he bit my lip; another plea, and easily I let him tease my lips apart.

 

I moaned, a shuddering expression of pleasure long sought.

 

He might have had me, I might have given myself to him completely then had not the spell (or the curse) of calm and cold cruelness claimed me first. I pulled away cruelly and quickly.

 

‘I have to go,’

 

‘You don’t, no you don’t.’

 

‘It’s not the same,’ said I and it was true enough. As I walked away he was left standing dumbfounded, blinking after me as I covered my mouth with a hand that shook, trying my best to trap the taste of him and his sweetness but it was a futile attempt.

 

‘And so... So you’ll just leave without proper explanation?’

 

‘You know full well what drives me to leave, Glorfindel.’

 

He shook his head and looked at me wildly, taking a step closer that I mirrored by taking an equal one backwards. The house was still, there was no wind to howl with us nor to move the gossamer curtains off their hooks. We would create our own tempest, ah, such was our passion!

 

‘No! I do not! All I know is what I feel since you neglect to talk to me! And what I feel each day is less and less than the previous one! This... jealousy cannot be the thing that moves you to run from me! Erestor, Erestor we can fix this if you only allow me to be your husband!’

 

‘As I have allowed you, as I have willed you to be on the nights where you deign to sleep elsewhere? This is beyond conversation, Glorfindel, I must go.’ I scoffed, unkindly and seized the handles of my luggage.

 

‘Mayhap in your mind it is clear and painfully obvious but will you not share with me what hurts you harbour alone? Erestor, I feel as though you wish too eagerly to leave out of the door without even allowing me to help!’

 

His desperation should have softened me and I should have harkened to his requests! No doubt you see the logic in them, of course, and he spoke truly enough. But to speak of my hurts would be to admit to the grotesque state of my being and I was not strong enough, not yet, to do so. What I was doing that night was running away.

 

Just as I had run on the Mithlond dock, ah, my cowardice was a grand, spanning thing. I met his eyes, though it had become suddenly much harder.

 

‘Let me leave, and I may yet return.’

 

‘May? You may return?’ Glorfindel laughed, a desperate sound, and raked back his hair and chanced a glance heavenwards out of the window. ‘My husband threatens to leave indefinitely and will not tell me why or even if he ever plans to come back to me!’

 

‘There is no other way!’

 

‘But there is! There are a thousand other ways only you will not even so much as consider them! Erestor, I care not how dark the inside of your mind might be, I’d rather see it and heal it than you run from me without word or parting kindness!’

 

My composure began to shatter, piece by piece, quicker and quicker the longer I remained under that roof. I bade myself reel in my anger, for it was unwarranted and Glorfindel had to right of it, but stronger was my urge to flee from the house and from the village and I knew I would trample over his kind heart if it meant I might run free!

 

‘How easily you speak this now! Where were these kind offers on the nights where I wept for us?! Let me leave, Glorfindel, and worry not - in the morning you may fall to Ecthelion as ever you do and I will seem of little consequence.’

 

‘You must stay and restrain yourself, Erestor, you speak without thinking and I fear in the morning you will regret such words.’ Glorfindel’s voice was low and dangerous and served only to ignite a bitter, mocking ire long repressed somewhere in my roiling, turbulent body. I laughed, scathingly.

 

‘Tomorrow morning I will be upon the road. You must let me go, or else we will ruin everything tonight, don’t you see? Glorfindel, I must leave if we are to ever survive as one.’

 

I made to pull my bag towards the hallway door, Glorfindel stopped me.

 

‘No, Erestor I still do not understand!’

 

‘Neither do I!’ I cried, quite wildly and Glorfindel flinched. ‘Neither do I, and I must go that I might understand! Do you not see the very state of me? Do you not see how my hands shake and hear the poison in my voice? Let me through.’

 

‘If that is true then you must think me mad if you believe I’d let you travel in such condition! Stay, stay with me the night and the morning will be brighter for us both or else wait until we can... arrange an escort wherever you might be headed.’ he choked the words as though they had gotten wedged in his throat and he gripped me by the elbow, begging me with vivid eyes.

 

Even without firelight, even without joy he was a vision to steal the breath. I bowed my head in a moment of weakness and he pressed a kiss to my dark crown, whispering my name as if he wished me to suddenly remember myself and the elf I had been not months ago.

 

I wished that, too.

 

‘I must go, and I must be alone.’

 

‘No,’

 

‘Glorfindel,’

 

‘No! I cannot let you!’

 

‘Why?’ I snapped, I shouted. ‘Why will you not release me to find my salvation alone? I cannot heal in this place, Glorfindel, surrounded by these people and their smiles and levity and festivals! I have become detached from... near everything, can you not understand?! This village is bleeding me dry and I will not stay to hurt myself or you any longer. Let me go!’

 

‘Do not blame Gondolin for your own incredulities!’

 

‘Incredulities,’ I echoed, testing the word. I narrowed my eyes, Glorfindel let go my elbow and drew himself up to full height. We might have been two wild things snarling at one another.

 

‘What? Is that not what they are? Hallucinations, false suspicions?’

 

‘You understand nothing,’ I sneered.

 

‘No! No, I don’t! Because you will not talk to me!’

 

‘How on earth am I meant to talk to you when I cannot remove you from Ecthelion’s side long enough to even greet you never mind talk with you?’

 

‘You must stay, we must talk of this and we can start tonight, whilst I am not attached to Ecthelion’s side, as it were.’

 

I huffed and made some noise of indignation and tried my best to force my way past, but you can imagine how fruitless my attempts at barging past the balrog-slayer were, naturally. My heart thumped in my chest and how alive and horrible I felt!

 

‘No. If I return, then we may talk. I will not talk to you in this state.’ I tried to squeeze past him, but once again he caught my elbow.

 

‘Erestor,’

 

‘Glorfindel!’ I shouted back, mockingly. He tightened his grip, not to hurt me, no, but rather to try and quash the temper that no doubt burned behind my eyes. But being restrained has only ever inflamed my oncoming tantrums and I grasped for the nearest object that was not him or the bag of luggage in my left hand, and so I found I was holding aloft a glittering glass vase.

 

Time, my old friend, slowed then as things reached their end and I recall the following events in perfect, dreadful clarity. The room was still; save only for us, two blazing, stubborn fools barking circles around one another. Glorfindel tried to stare me down, he bade me, in a low voice, put the vase back down on the wooden side-table and then sit myself down. I told him, most churlishly, that I was not going to be ordered around like a impudent child, and the glass vase shattered to crystalline rain about our feet as I lobbed it at the carpet.

 

In the split second Glorfindel jumped back from the flying shards, I saw my chance and stormed past and towards the hall door with no other priority in sight. I cared not for the cuts and scrapes that ached and made themselves known about my feet and legs, I cared not for Glorfindel’s sudden cry of No!

 

The door swung open at my touch and just as I went to close it, time reverted to natural speed and Glorfindel thrust himself at it, not allowing me to slam the damn thing closed and exit in most dramatic fashion.

 

‘Erestor, Erestor, please you cannot leave me!’

 

Something in his voice stripped me of my anger and left me cold. Cold and determined to follow this dire path to the very end, I closed my eyes as he spoke; his plea, the sob in his voice could not break me now. I was a committed monster.

 

‘I have to!’ I called back, ‘I have to and in the morning you will realise and your sorrow will be lesser! You will not miss me.’

 

Glorfindel cried out that he would.

 

My heart broke. But I had made it too hard and cruel, and so I walked on and on through the hall. I did not weep and forced myself think only of how I was about to step out into that still night and be received by the long road. I was getting what I wanted, was I not?

 

I walked away from him, from Glorfindel my poor husband, and I did not weep even as I heard his body slump against the door.