Home's Tale by Haeron

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Chapter 3

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Elrond did not know what to say to me. We might look at one another from the opposite side of the ship and I would meet his eyes keenly, eager to meet my consequences, all the while knowing it was not Elrond I should be grovelling to. He would shake his head, deny me my absolution and shoot me a look reserved for his sons after their misadventures or the more petulant of his charges. I had not received such a glance since our days in the army, and in the strangest way it made me feel young. The levity of it all was striking in its absence, of course. The ship was dour when it was just we two.

 

The hobbits provided a welcome distraction and my brains were picked over by Bilbo as though we had never left the grand old library in Imladris. I would feel Elrond’s eyes on me as I answered each query, and if Bilbo heard the thinness of my voice or saw the darkness around my eyes -- he did not say. Young Frodo spent the journey much as I wished I might; in quiet contemplation, and I saw the mystery of our destination was just as profound in his mind. We swapped many an empathetic look, he and I. I can ever respect a man who keeps his secrets.

 

Largely, I spent the journey below deck and ventured only to the surface to wake myself from the snatches of sleep I was able to steal. The waters looked very strange under the keel and I wondered if I were to dip my hand into them, would my fingers plunge into water at all? It was a crystalline substance and I felt the call now to travel over it and beyond to the waters of legend, thought I still felt equally bound to Middle-earth. I ever will be, I am afraid.

 

I would never see it again, Endor, and my memories had already started to become ancient and aged in my own head. The horizon behind us grew flat one day; and my visits above deck grew less frequent.

 

Glorfindel came to my thoughts often, and such thoughts were usually accompanied by a stab of pain in my gut and somewhere above my heart. He would have passed over the same stretches of ocean, who would he be thinking of as he stood where I might stand? Dare I think that he thought of me? And would there still be any love, any fondness in such a thought? Hope swelled in me but I began to prepare myself for the eventuality that I had lost him. A few elves looked to me when I suddenly gripped the side of the boat.

 

On one non-specific day of the voyage (time lost its meaning on the ship, we counted on the soul of the sun and the moon we held in our own bodies to guide us) Elrond found me in one of the lower deck cabins. He lingered in the doorway and asked if I had a moment to spare and had his face not been so grave I might have thought he were jesting.

 

Glorfindel had been the energy in my life; but Glorfindel was on another ship. As a result I fell into a kind of wasting lethargy and spent my time writing letters that would never be read by another pair of eyes and pouring over maps in the backs of the books Bilbo had insisted be taken aboard. They were not academic pursuits, you understand, no, they were merely modes of distraction. The sailing was a slow process and nothing like the treacherous crossings of the sea one might read about. Instead our voyage was plain and smooth yet somehow this only served to worsen the churning in my gut. I motioned that Elrond might take the opposing seat, he shut the door with a neat click and sat himself down squarely before me. I lifted my chin, a subconscious, stubborn reaction when faced with impending punishment.

 

‘Shall we talk about this?’ Elrond said, gesturing with both hands.

 

‘There are no words I could say that might explain to you what happened, or why it happened.’ said I. Elrond considered my words as though they were a fine wine on his palate, and one that he did not care for the taste of.

 

‘Why it happened? Old friend, I believe we both already know the truth of that.’ the Lord said, I nodded, vaguely, I detested thinking about the topic even privately and so naturally my desire to speak of it was even less abundant. Elrond leant forward, I held my ground and did not recline. ‘It is this fear of separation, is it not? Most ironic then that you have become the cause of the thing you fear most.’

 

‘The irony does not escape me, Elrond.’

 

‘Good! I cannot fathom it but then you have always been a mystery in your own right, haven’t you? I fear you may be your own worst enemy, Erestor. You cannot bring whatever ill is in your heart to Valinor, you must spill it to the sea.’

 

It was another romantic notion, but not one I took particularly seriously. I could no more easily remove my own leg and cast it overboard than purge myself of the ill in my heart, but that did not mean that I did not wish it could be so. I pictured arriving in Valinor whole and clean and finding Glorfindel there with a smile and a hand outstretched to me, offering his endless affection. The dream vanished with a few heavy blinks and the ship creaked as though to mourn my happiness. That was not the future to which I was sailing.

 

Elrond spoke more of my shortcomings and self-destruction, I listened as the words bit into me with cold teeth and the stark truth of each one was added salt to the wound. I bade myself take his advice, to listen to him truly, but I knew he did not understand the problem at its core. I did not doubt that if I had deigned to tell him all, his words would be wholly different; irritation turned to disgust, surely. So I did not tell him, I did not tell anyone.

 

My fingers fidgeted with the wedding band on my left hand. In times of stress or restlessness I found myself brushing my fingertips over the cool metal, a wonderful balm it had proven to me over the years. I wonder now at how I was not constantly turning the band around my finger. Restlessness and stress, thought I to myself and swallowed the bitter laughter that itched at my throat. I felt the promise etched into the metal, beautiful script that echoed our vows and kissed them to our skin; much I had promised him, in voice and body, and never until then had I broken a single vow. Never until then had I broken his heart so boldly.

 

‘You begin to feel the weight of this decision you’ve made.’ Elrond said, flaunting his little conversational trick. I frowned a little, but I was long since used to being read like an open book from time to time.

 

But even as Elrond spoke, a crisp chill struck me anew. I looked to the Lord’s eyes and he narrowed them for a moment before he leant back a fraction, bringing the tips of his fingers together in his lap. He understood. I could not feel Glorfindel; I could not feel the connection that bound us.

 

I was afraid and suddenly weak as one lost in the dark. Elrond’s harshness peaked and he balked. ‘You’ve yourself to blame Erestor, Elbereth.’ As truthful as the statement might have been, I did not want to hear it spoken so bluntly -- but truth is often a bludgeon of benefit. I covered my mouth with a hand to still any barbs I might spew forth or errant sobs, pressing my lips to my ring finger. Our connection had always been strong, so strong indeed that at first it had frightened me.

 

Yet now I felt nothing of he who had been the centre of my existence and the only precedent I had to compare to was Elrond’s own severed connection with Celebrían. The thought did not settle me, naturally. I thought of the sea, perhaps the sea had something to do with it. Maybe the breech was only temporary -- these were no ordinary waters after all.

 

I did not need to see Elrond’s pitying expression to know I was fooling myself. He’d softened, his frustration turned to sympathy that I did not desire, and watched me, slumped in the seat with eyes darting here and there. I assumed he’d seen each feral thought flit through my mind and had not the strength to hide them from him; he would only ask me to divulge them verbally, otherwise. He leant forward to put a hand on my knee. His grip was firm, absolute and I knew his words would be too.

 

‘Pray that you can reconnect.’ was all Elrond said, and nothing else could have frightened me more. Was the situation so out of my hands that it could no longer be resolved by any means I possessed? Did it now require the attention of the divines to set straight? The magnitude of the problem was such that blind faith in miracles was the only viable solution, well, I felt the last of my hope drain away from me in that chair in the ship cabin.

 

Elrond clapped his hands together then, effectively dismissing the topic (for himself, at least). He declared he was pouring himself a drink and one for me; double the size of his. As delighted as I was that the mood had been lifted in his personal sphere, the thought of imbibing anything that was not a sleeping draught made my stomach uneasy. I politely declined the drink.

 

The Lord raised a brow and questioned me without voice. My throat was dry, my hands sweating and clinging the arms of the chair as though I were bound to it with chain and rope. Things could not have been worse but my imagination is vast, and worse things I could indeed picture...

 

I found myself thinking: this is not what we had been promised. This was not what I had promised; to myself, to him...

 

‘A small drink then, Elrond. Just the one.’

 

‘Just the one,’ he echoed, taking the stopper from the bottle. ‘Just the one.’