Home's Tale by Haeron

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Chapter 4

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He had slopped his tea all over Celebrían’s settee when he saw Elrond and I entering into her modest cottage. I couldn’t judge the motive of such an impulse besides what was obvious; shock, but more than that I could not deduce though it might have been startlingly obvious if I hadn’t felt as though I were about to face down my doom. Had he deemed it so unlikely that he’d see me again after my disappearance from the ship? Had he not expected Elrond home (the word tasted wrong on all our tongues - were we to forget Rivendell at once?) so soon, and with his fraught councillor trundling behind him? Every possible explanation came and went and yet not once did I judge that he might have been happy to see me.

 

Maybe he’d simply burnt his tongue.

 

Elrond left me standing at the doorway to greet his own spouse and Celebrían met his embrace as they had done on the docks, days earlier. Elrond had spied her at the head of the dock and his steady walk turned into a loping run. He had fallen at her knees to weep into her chest and she bowed her head with a smile, wet with her tears, and held him to her to the delight of the crowd. It had been a beautiful sight, perhaps the only one I had been able to witness with any sense of joy but even so I still watched from the window of the ship’s cabins, very much alone and very much guilty. I was long since getting used to making decisions that shamed me, but adamant was I that mine and Glorfindel’s reunion would not be played out before the multitude of elves who had come to see the Lord of the Homely House made whole and one again with his silver lady. And so I broke his heart at the edge of both realms; Endor and Aman, but such is the scope of this tragedy.

 

I think I cringed when he stood to approach me and some hybrid of nausea and utter longing twisted my insides into knots I felt in my throat. His eyes were bright and blue and so full of life as I had imagined them and they met mine and stared. I stared back. He looked different already in Valinor, softer, maybe.

 

I wondered if I did, too.

 

He came to stand before me..

 

‘Erestor,’ he said and I winced again, unable to intuit the timbre of his voice. I bid myself stand as tall as my coward’s spine would allow me before I answered him, but he had ever been so much taller than I.

 

‘Glorfindel,’ I said, in way of reply, but my voice faltered and broke. It threatened to turn to a sob and I felt my throat run dry, an awful tingling in my gut and then suddenly - an embrace. He hugged me close and sighed something into my ear that might have been nothing more than a gentle shh. One arm of his was around my waist and the other securing my back and not for a minute longer could I mope in my own self loathing and disgust -- I wrapped myself around him with equal intensity; grasping at locks of golden hair that too long had been absent between my fingers.

 

And I cried, silently, but I cried and the tears were fed from the sea that had sundered us and an equal quantity to that vast ocean might have been shed, indeed. At some point I must have lost feeling and strength in my legs, the realisation of one’s most ardent hope will do that to a person, and Glorfindel helped us to the ground where still we clung close. He pulled me to him even more so, ‘till I was cradled in his arms as though an elfling, reborn on the white shores, and I felt his kiss upon my brow and his hand, as warm as the rest of him, over my heart.

 

I covered it with my own.

 

A cry came then from Celebrían and we turned in time to see her kneel beside us and gather us to her in embrace, she cooed and clucked and said much about our both being foolish and our both being in love and I remembered then, rather too late, that Celebrían had not lingered in Imladris long enough to see the beginning of mine and Glorfindel’s relationship. When she had sailed we had been little more than colleagues, of course, though that might not be the entire truth of it.

 

***

 

The four of us were happy and hale once again and so everything, for a time, was just as it should have been. I see the doubt in your expression and no, it is not misplaced, for as much as I would like to say that my story of woe ended here with my rejoining with Glorfindel, it only grew to become a more complex thing, made worse for the fact that now I must lie outright to him. I will not say that I longed for the sea, for nothing could be further from the truth and my feet will ever belong on the land -- but there had been a freedom upon the ship in which I could feel and emote at will. Why could I not confide in Glorfindel, the other half of my soul? Ah, well, such questions have no one answer, but in the end you might tell me.

 

Celebrían’s quaint little cottage was a serene, quiet place secreted away from the larger settlements, both old and new, dotted around Valinor. It served us well and Celebrían has always, to me at least, been synonymous with safety and peace; traits on which she thrives to share with those she holds close to her heart. She would beam at Glorfindel and I whenever we sat hand in hand upon the window seat that the sunshine adored, talking of not much at all beyond all the simple things that were the pleasure of those who had found peace, as I dared think I had. It was folly, naturally, for we could not dwell forever with Elrond and Celebrían but the thought had not entered into my mind what with the excitement of our reunion. I concerned myself only with Glorfindel; his voice, his aura and those kisses he freely offered to me.

 

When I closed my eyes I would tell myself I could fix everything.

 

I should have believed my own voice, but there was a waver to it that did not convince me.

 

The flower garden that Celebrían had cultivated there was similar to the one that had grown in Imladris (tended by her hand for the years she dwelt amongst us), and Elrond and I found ourselves glad of it. My thoughts turned to the Home across the sea and the flowers that might be wilting and bowing their heavy heads, forgotten by kindly folk of elvish blood, but then thought I of Arwen in much the same way and had to grasp my teacup tightly.

 

Celebrían offered me sugar for my tea and I accepted gladly. Glorfindel accepted too and made an airy jest about the three of us turning him into a proper civilised non-combatant now the threat of war was forever purged. Laughter filled the flower garden and lilted on the breeze. And just as I had remembered how indeed to laugh, it all came crashing about my ankles over tea and sugar cakes in the garden.

 

The conversation, to begin, was fine and easy and I gleaned from Elrond’s glances that he had not yet told Celebrían the full tale of what had happened in the Grey Havens, but then such a thing would be rather low on his list of current priorities, I imagined. The tea was full and rich and I sipped it with relief hot on my tongue.

 

She would be so disappointed in me and I felt the shadow of it upon my heart. At least it would not be I who would have to tell her. But Glorfindel, yes, I knew the time would come to talk and bear all. The thought moved me only to a brief shiver. The afternoon was too tranquil for me to much care about anything besides the birdsong and pleasant company; another error on my part.

 

But then Celebrían asked us where we intend to go, and I did not understand the question until Glorfindel chipped in merrily and explained, on behalf of us both, that we would find a place to settle down after a few visits.

 

A few visits. Oh, if only I could explain to you my dread upon hearing those words.

 

‘To New Gondolin?’ Elrond asked, in a conversational sort of way, stirring his cup with a silver spoon.

 

‘To New Gondolin.’ Glorfindel confirmed, plainly excited.

 

I tried to smile as though the plan enticed me equally but Elrond met my eyes and knew my terror. He looked at me with sympathy where I had expected something more stringent and urging but then Celebrían had always softened his harsher edges. What I might have conveyed back to him with my own eyes, I cannot say.

 

‘I could not stay away, already I have heard such stories that I know we must go and see for ourselves.’ Glorfindel was saying, Celebrían was nodding her head.

 

‘They will welcome you there as a favoured son,’ she said, her voice softer than her mother’s but more colourful than her daughter’s. ‘And you too, Erestor, for taming the beast with a marriage ring!’

 

They laughed, all of them, and my hand felt small in Glorfindel’s. He sensed the trepidation in my touch, heard that I laughed not and gave my hand a squeeze; the connection between us was mended, if nothing else.

 

I had sighed nonetheless as the conversation continued around me, anything I might input would be marred and untruthful and it was easier to let Glorfindel speak, to let him rub circles on the palm of my hand. It was easier to lift my attentions above their heads and muse skywards. How many of us had dreamed of these days in Valinor?

 

Rose gardens and secluded bliss shared with the one whom I shared my soul, these had been my dreams. Would New Gondolin afford me either of those things? The rose gardens, perhaps, perhaps...

 

But what else?

 

Elrond offered me more tea, and I accepted far too quickly.