Anor and Ithil by Haeron

TA2752

Small, white flowers floated upon a clear stream, moved by a current that was neither fast nor slow but resolute in its destination. The petals had become frail and translucent but the water threatened not enough to submerge them entirely. They floated as small vassals; Erestor watched and knew a disquiet in his chest, made lesser for watching their small journey, silent on calm waters.

There was an echo of something being wrong when it should have been so right. The nature of the malady was evasive and Erestor’s will to grip the problem with two hands and bring it to full attention even more so. Elrond had noticed his counsellor’s distraction and had pressed as both friend and Lord to divine its cause, but Erestor could give none beyond simple it is my own fault. Both elves had left the presence of the other feeling most discomfited and the issue was never raised again, openly, at least.

But this small corner of the valley, outside the walls and boundaries of the Homely House, cared not for the inner tumult of one unremarkable elf, and there was a peace in the thought that the branches that bent in the wind would cast no wary glance at him. Erestor stood on a bank of grass on an early morning risen with cold air that pushed the clouds across softening sky. Winter hastened towards them, but the grass was yet green under his feet.

Something was not right, nonetheless, and the brisk sweetness of the morning was marred by a lurking trepidation as a hand hovering over a bare arm, barely brushing the soft down of hairs to raise the gooseflesh. His heart was thudding an irregular drumbeat in the cavern of his chest and Erestor was spurred thus to movement lest he become as rooted as the oaks. When he began walking the edge of the bank, his steps fell without purpose or direction. He might have walked to the Sea itself had not Glorfindel called out for him not to stray too far away.

And his voice was not one Erestor could feign deafness to, nor disobey.

Glorfindel walked behind him and Erestor turned to meet his eyes for a single moment and no longer. Not enough time to discern the expression etched upon fair, ancient face and yet long enough to sense the tension rising, pressed to a profound chthonic pressure in the body. Glorfindel; slayer of demons, defender of the innocent, golden flower and gentle creature - there should have been no awkwardness between them.

Two ardent long-term friends they were: but therein was the problem. Erestor flinched at the thought and traced a delicate, thin path along the riverbank, one foot neatly placed in front of the other with much attention to exact placement. Sometimes the water would splash up and he would feel a drop of it on his hand; a mild kiss. Glorfindel followed.

Erestor knew the truth of his heart as well as he was sure Glorfindel knew. Theirs were not emotions nor motives they could conceal from one another and neither was the notion of insufficiency. Friendship was divine, more so when forged as theirs had been in strife and sorrow, but lacking. The time for spontaneous solution or declarations of unending affections had long since dwindled along with countless seasons that had risen and died and seen decades pass into centuries. The wounds they bore were identical and as yet untended for.

Blood spilled from them both from hands clasped over chest to stem the flow; and it was the blood of the heart.

What an absurd metaphor. It was all absurd, really. Erestor indulged the thought and felt Glorfindel’s approach. His steps were light over the grass and Erestor turned in the face of the wind to face a Lord of gold and light. Glorfindel’s face seemed sterner today and different from his usual chirpy countenance, but perhaps it was just the weather they found themselves suffering.

Glorfindel placed his hand on Erestor’s shoulder for a minute, unspeaking as words came to nought between them. His hand was large and warm and Erestor brooked not the touch he would have forbade of any other, save his peredhel companions. The air and wind and whirling magic of Manwë took away the possibility of empty silence and whipped hair over faces and rippled their robes. He could hear Glorfindel breathing, so close, and other sounds were made redundant.

‘Perhaps we need to talk?’

‘Perhaps?’ Glorfindel said, the word forcing a genial smile to his lips and just the barest raising of a brow. He let his thumb brush Erestor’s neck, a fleeting touch, before retracting his hand and walking a few paces past him to the river’s edge. Erestor did not turn to follow immediately, rather he exhaled a breath he seemed to have been withholding since the awakening of the Eldar.

And when he did move to follow, his heart was gladdened. Erestor watched his golden hair shimmer this way and that as he walked. At his side I was born to walk and lie, and one day it will be so. A thought overly romantic, overly optimistic and assuming - but it was hope, that rare thing that came only to the elves as herald of its own inevitable loss.

‘Talk we must,’ Glorfindel said, to the leaves on the trees, the songbirds and the petite Noldo following behind him. ‘but one must listen, too.’

TA3018

The procession laughed as they went through the wood, mounted on the backs of horses long since become old friends from mere mounts. Trees there were for miles and miles, towering and dense and silent, on either side of the wide forest path. But danger did not lurk between the boughs that bobbed in gentle breeze, there was peace in the land between valley and plains and the elves pushed on towards Lórien. It would be a slow journey and one of many days and nights astride the saddle, but it was a journey that each elf was happy to be making. Each elf followed Glorfindel, who led them atop Asfaloth down a path blanketed with pale green and yellow leaves; fresh, young things borne of an early spring eager to fall.

And Glorfindel was glad of the change of colour in the valley, glad to see the palette of life return to the petals of small flowers and the path-side brush. Life, light and love; the season in bloom would see him with an abundance of all three and thrice Glorfindel thanked the Valar in rapid oath under his breath. When he opened his eyes Erestor watched him with subtle curiosity, not an elf of much devoutness himself, he asked no questions but bowed his head. Glorfindel rode closer so their hands could twine together in the space between their mounts. Erestor’s hands were small and soft.

The looks that passed between them expressed what their voices could not in the presence of twenty of Glorfindel’s best troops; promises of love and joy, a fierce determination to face together all that happened or would ever happen. Erestor smiled when Asfaloth tossed his grand head and watched Glorfindel press a soothing hand to the stallion’s white neck.

Some leaves fell from the branches as they walked in formation. Some elves would catch them between their fingers and with a breath send them on their way again to land somewhere below. The afternoon was warming and Anor at her low zenith.

‘I cannot wait for our little holiday,’ Glorfindel said, again drawing close to Erestor and his bay gelding.

‘Wait you must, flower mine, for this is no holiday. It is a diplomatic-’

‘Entourage, aye, aye, so you and Elrond have reminded me several times over and seen my daydreams reduced to dust so adequately.’ Glorfindel laughed at Erestor’s retorting faux-pout, and continued with voice lowered wickedly. ‘But we will be abroad from Imladris together, yes?’

Erestor was humouring him. The smile twitching the pretty corners of his mouth and the brief glance heavenwards were sure signs. Glorfindel loved him for that, for his humility. ‘Yes,’ said Erestor, and Glorfindel beamed a smile of magnitude.

‘And we will be sharing a room in the treetops, yes?’

Erestor adjusted his hold on his reigns, smiling now more openly. ‘Yes,’

‘And will we not break fast in the morn together, sated in strange beds?’

‘Aye, and that is a promise indeed.’

‘A promise of such sweetness was never before made.’ Glorfindel said low, raising Erestor’s pale hand to his lips to press a butterfly kiss to his knuckles. The thin bones of his hand moved slightly under the touch; Glorfindel kissed them too and smiled against soft, smooth skin when from Erestor came a tinkling laugh. ‘And so it is a holiday!’ Glorfindel declared more loudly once their embrace had broken, for the ears of the elves who had inevitably harkened to their private exchange. Erestor rolled his eyes affectionately, and so resumed they their intended formation ahead of the troops.

Soon the song of Imladris was lifted to the eaves of the woods again and the birds hopped and fluttered from branch to branch to hear what strange musics came to their home, for the elves sang of maidens and heroes and no foul things at all. With mingled hoof-beats of two dozen horses as their only drumbeat, the song was base and primal.

The children of theHiddenValleysang songs that they alone of their kin had voice and hope for, having lived in safety beside waterfalls and Lords of old. The wood was livened by their tune and the burden of journey’s length lessened upon elfin shoulders.

So much so that it became folly. None saw the eyes in the distance, peeking behind trunks of slender trees, that belonged to no goodly forest creature. No elf who rode behind Glorfindel the Golden saw the first blackened arrow that pierced the heart of Erestor’s bay gelding.

TA2990

Glorfindel ran through the void and darkness pursued him with each faltered step, ever a cold horror at his back. He could not stop, he could not turn around; or he would be lost to somewhere worse than Mandos. Empty it was here, empty and dark.

The rain fell in an iron straight sheet. Glorfindel could not see more than a half-dozen paces before him, but he ran forwards though the grass turned to mud beneath his heels. Often he slipped, often he choked and thought never to rise again. It was a field, this forsaken place of nothingness, and an incline now he met. A hill.

And he knew he must conquer it, even though the hill seemed a meagre thing to the bare eye. Glorfindel’s muscles protested as though sundered and bruised in bloody battle and courage turned to bitterness - desperation was all that was left, threatening a metamorphosis into panic. Erestor was screaming terribly as though he might retch up his guts.

Glorfindel felt his heart seize in his chest but could not for all his strength combat the wind suddenly raised against him. He could not move himself to climb the hill, he could not return an answering yell to Erestor, for voice and breath were stolen from his lips by the gale.

He fell. The wind bit, clashed against his gilded armour as a blow from a blade and tangled his hair behind him. Glorfindel bowed his head and thought of the cold death awaiting Erestor here, in this place light had never known. He coughed. Everything was grey and fading swiftly to black and they were alone and sundered.

Run or fight? Sometimes both instincts grasp hold of a soul and moves them to weighty purpose. Doom driven, ill-fated. Glorfindel lifted his head for the wind to assault but saw then on the fringes of his perception a crumpled figure.

Screaming something awful.

He could no longer stand. Glorfindel clawed with hands and fingers and knees sore from exertion, dragging his body up the cruel hill an inch at a time. His fingers threatened to break. The mud came away in sods. Erestor was there, but he would not be able to reach him. Glorfindel would have screamed, the rain fell upon his face and there stained it with tears of some distant deity. Was it the One?

Glorfindel saw Erestor before Erestor saw him. He lay as a broken doll upon the hilltop, curled into a position of warmth and assuaged pain. But his own limbs gave way as Erestor rose to sit up. His eyes grew heavy, the rain dripped into his mouth.

Erestor met his eyes and they grew wide with fear. Erestor screamed his name with voice utterly broken.

TA2752

Erestor opened his eyes after exhaling a weighted breath. His chambers were aglow with firelight dancing in the grate and the oncoming winter was halted somewhat here. A glance out of the tall, arched window would unravel the illusion of warmth, however. The clouds, wreathed in night’s dark blanket, looked heavy enough to threaten snow. Erestor wondered if the combined ardent prayers of the elflings (and more than a few grown elves, no doubt) in Imladris would be enough to see it so.

He was wringing his hands and letting his thoughts wander, an old, shameful habit that his father had never managed to purge from him completely. Glorfindel didn’t seem to notice his fidgeting, or if he did he said nothing. They were talking, at last. Though it was a thing easier said than done.

Glorfindel was sat in the armchair Erestor favoured on a night, reclining in it as though a King, bathed in the firelight that lit and loved his face. Candlelight and fire glow always revealed Glorfindel for what he was; an old, old elf, of heritage noble and ancient blood. Sometimes he would look up at Erestor and Erestor would look back. Their gaze was strong. Erestor always was the first to look away.

He wished it were not so. He diverted his attention to the glum scene beyond the windowpanes and revelled in the broodiness of the skies and young night, it was as though his most confidential conscience had spilled out there. It was not beautiful, but macabre.

‘You turn from me and force distance between us,’ Glorfindel said to the fireplace. ‘do you fear I will visit harm upon you?’ The question was obviously painful to put to voice, just as it was painful for Erestor to receive. A tentative step towards the armchair and reclining Lord he took, and shook his head.

‘You would never do so. I do not fear that.’

‘And you would have most of the House believing that there is nothing indeed that you fear.’ Glorfindel said, evidently much relieved. Erestor was not. ‘But for all of us there is a fear that we are paired with.’

‘Even you?’

‘Especially me.’ Glorfindel said with a gentle smile. ‘Storms and lightning and bad weather, I cannot abide.’

‘Storms? But you have died.’

‘I have.’

The chamber fell silent absent reason to speak further. Erestor waited. Glorfindel’s smile faded and he looked to somewhere seen only in his mind’s eye. His chest rose and fell in time with his breaths, unlaboured, comfortable, Erestor watched in silent marvel and half began to match his own breathing to Glorfindel’s rhythm.

‘But now I fear darkness more than death.’ he said, after long pause. He smiled not and looked ahead though his eyes appeared unfocused.

‘What is the difference?’ Erestor asked and was stunned suddenly by the wry smile come to bloom on Glorfindel’s face. A world of wonders that elf had seen, surely, and the things he might have learned in Mandos...

Erestor concealed a shiver. It had always been hard to comprehend the legendary fate of the Golden Lord of Gondolin. Glorfindel was so very alive, sat in his armchair breathing lightly in and out and in.

‘Light, Erestor. That is the difference between death and the dark.’

How cryptic. Erestor almost smiled. ‘Life, light and love.’ he recited, as though a stanza of poetry he had committed to heart’s memory. He knew nothing of any such things, truth be told, and in that moment would rather have had strong wine than any abundance of light.

‘You bring me all three.’ Glorfindel said, quietly.

Erestor turned to him. He was sat with his fingers laced together in his lap looking suddenly so tired. And radiant, always. There was a vulnerability about the elf, lifting his eyes to meet Erestor’s as warily as one might face a cornered warg. Painted, dancing shadows on his face, borne of amber firelight, made him a thing of art and his words were intimate. Erestor knew he had long since lost his heart to Glorfindel, and it would have been so sweet to let his voice intoxicate them both further.

Life, light and love. Erestor knew not why he denied them both these things, only that he must to avoid some terrible crescendo that hovered overhead perpetually, a knife hanging on a frayed string.

‘And I know you suffer, too.’ Glorfindel added, blinking. ‘Quietly, never speaking a word of it even to receptive ears.’

Truly spoken. The clouds had merged outside, to create a new sky of soft tumult and foreboding herald.

‘I am alone in this,’ Erestor began, lifting a hand to still Glorfindel’s tongue when he made to interrupt. ‘and this is my choice. It is the wrong choice, for us, but the only one not swathed in some sorrow I cannot fully perceive. I have grown out of touch with the very substance of life, Glorfindel, and I know not what I am anymore.’

‘Such philosophical questions, sunshine.’

Erestor did smile that time, an impulse of affection he could not restrain. Did such troubles never assail Glorfindel? Erestor was sure that they did, the airy smiles and jubilant laughter could only do so much to persuade otherwise. But Glorfindel had family and love to balm any similar ill natured thoughts, of course.

Had family? Had, has, will have. Erestor raked back his dark hair and knew Glorfindel’s eyes watched, appreciative. Had the time come to give voice to what other oddities swirled about in the bowels of his mind? Erestor took breath, ceased his pacing and shook his head.

‘A shade I have become, too involved with the intangible that the tangible begins to slip from my grasp too. I have ruined all along the way somewhere, and the pieces do not seem to fit together though I might seek to restore them to wholeness. Does this make sense to you? No, nor to me either. There are arms to catch me, were I to fall to my freedom, but I second guess myself.’

Glorfindel had listened and sat back now in the armchair, letting the silence blossom and licking his lips. Erestor stood, chest heaving with verbal exertion, and found himself captivated by the play of light and shadow on Glorfindel’s neck as he reclined; pondering.

And Erestor could only think of running a tongue up it.

‘We might heal one another.’

They both believed the words, spoken earnestly. A tidal pull tugged at Erestor’s heart and feet. He could give himself into such promises, right now, and sate the yearning that seized ever larger territories of his soul. He walked a few steps and dragged his fingers over the tops of the upholstery.

Why did he not give in?  Erestor held his eyes closed a moment. He did not know.

‘Erestor, Erestor come to me.’

Erestor’s legs threatened to fail beneath him. His soul cried.

‘If I do,’ he said, praying his voice would not waver. ‘I will destroy you with my melancholy.’

‘I will ease it, only.’ Glorfindel said with a smile more heartbreak than joy. ‘I can help.’

‘I will break your heart.’

‘You do so already, Erestor. Each day.’

‘Glorfindel,’ Erestor said. A warning and a plea.

‘Erestor,’ Glorfindel said. An echo, a jest, almost.

It sparked something irritable in Erestor’s gut, he turned on his heel and resumed pacing the chamber, quicker now than before. Glorfindel stayed seated but watched with expression absent mirth.

‘The love I bear for you brings me life, Erestor. It has healed many hurts despite its never being returned openly. It has given me cause to live and laugh again and I would see your own spirits lifted so too, you have only to let yourse-’

Erestor could not stop the implosion.

‘Say not so! It is an illusion!’ he snapped, with venomous tongue. Glorfindel sat stricken in shock before rising from the chair. He began to approach Erestor, carefully, but Erestor took a step back for every step Glorfindel took forward. Distance was key, in all things.

There was an anger rising in him he could not dampen. It was a grotesque thing, burning a hatred and disgust that only ever should have been applied inwards. Glorfindel was not deserving of the fire, Glorfindel was not deserving of the barbs Erestor spat; but it was happening.

Glorfindel was extending a hand. Erestor knew he should take it but he did not and fresh ire spewed forth as result of another decision made in cowardice. Erestor could not bring himself to place the burden of himself in those broad hands, it was too much of a burden for any one elf to bear.

And Erestor felt suddenly keen to claw at his own skin.

Glorfindel stepped forward.

‘Do not.’ Erestor said.

Glorfindel did.

‘Do not!’

He heard the hitch of Glorfindel’s breath as he swept past him to the windowside, burying his hands in the heavy velvet of the burgundy curtains as though the touch of something thus would ground him to reality again. His fingers clenched into a fist around the fabric. Glorfindel approached.

‘Come sit down a while Erestor and gather yourself, there is no feeling so terrible we cannot see it turned to memory.’

‘But there is! There are many! And I hold them all within my breast! You would tangle yourself in this, in me? Then you are a fool, truly!’

‘Fool? Aye, in most matters but not in loving you!’

‘YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND!’

The curtains and curtain pole came down with one heavy tug and a grand, dull crash. Erestor held still a tattered length in his hands as he bore his teeth at Glorfindel who had turned to stone at the wreck and outburst. His hands hurt. His heart hurt.

‘I am a fiend.’ Erestor whispered. ‘And you are a God. I would ruin you and ruin that kind heart.’

Glorfindel said nothing but shifted his weight and stared. The room grew dark for Erestor as his field of vision retreated to nothing. He could barely stand, the nausea roiled from somewhere acidic in his gut and he knew he would fall and crumple to lie amid the ruins of the curtain and pole should even Glorfindel but breathe on him.

Everything was wrong. He did not have the strength to make it right.

‘Leave,’ Erestor said.

Glorfindel balked.

‘Why push me away now? Let me help you!’

‘Leave.’

‘Erestor!’

‘LEAVE! Leave before I ruin all and...’ Erestor’s voice broke and turned to a sob of agony. He clapped his hand over his mouth and pressed shut his eyes and prayed for silence. Glorfindel’s footfalls were all he heard. The creaking of a door and its subsequent rough closing. Glorfindel had left, once again by his instruction.

‘You are a fool.’ Erestor whispered, and fell atop the curtain poles.

TA2752

The feathery fibres of Erestor’s quill had become infinitely interesting to him and he concentrated on them most intently. The other elves at the Council paid little attention their dark counsellor so forlornly distracted, and none tried rousing conversation. Erestor was glad of this. Sometimes a reputation of coldness proved its worth. Sometimes.

Did they know the depth of his disturbance? Yes and no, perhaps. He favoured neither option over the other. Erestor stroked the tip of his finger along the edge of the feather quill, softly as so not to part any fibres. It would be soon time to leave for Lórien, he had just to live out the remaining two days and retain whatever fractions of himself that he could.

Elrond wished to visit his celebrated mother-in-law and Erestor was keen to follow, Galadriel always had a balm of some sort to soothe his tenuousness. Sometimes there was aged wine, too; a favourite Noldorin cure.

He lifted the quill to better examine it, keeping one ear fixed on the conversation at hand. It was a beautiful thing; a hawk feather of marbled brown and black pattern. And yet he was using it to write trade agreements with. Erestor smiled bitterly, was no facet of his life how it should be? Was he doomed to live out a life of twisted substitutes of righteousness?

‘Erestor, have you signed these papers?’

Glorfindel was not smiling today. Erestor nodded and said aye, and Glorfindel took the papers to add his own signature, a large, looping thing. He avoided his gaze, which was unusual in itself, even as Erestor sought to meet it. But the ardour of the night previous and the clattering curtain pole was too fresh a memory for them both, and more so the cruel words bandied wrongly.

I have ruined him, thought Erestor.

Then heal him.

Glorfindel placed his hands on the table and joined them together, brushing his thumbs across the smoothness of his own skin. He did not look at Erestor, he watched Elrond orate though the Lord’s words of future prosperity and peace seemed not to move the Seneschal to any great joy as the other elves around the circular table.

Erestor wished he would look at him.

‘Master Counsellor, might we have your opinion regarding the wildmen of the forest? Your tongue has been remarkably still on the matter this morning.’ Elrond’s brows were furrowed slightly and his chin inclined. Erestor tore his eyes from Glorfindel’s dourness and cleared his throat.

‘Your original plan for removal seems most agreeable to me, as it always has, provided it be conducted with a measure of gentility and tact lest we call the wrath of Men upon us.’

‘Fairly spoken, and quite true.’

The plan struck Erestor with unease despite his endorsement, however, and he listened to the preparations and tactical planning with a leaden weight accruing in his gut. A bird sang a trilled note beyond the arches and stone of the Council chamber. The sky was not as dark as it had been previously and to Erestor it was the ache of stark sobriety after the storm.

Glorfindel still avoided his gaze. Erestor rubbed his eyes and prayed his thoughts would be swayed from the image of blood upon forest floor and leaves, ordered by his word. Erestor prayed, but not to the Valar.

***

Upon its completion, the elves of the Council stood. Elrond took his leave first after a warm farewell, as was customary, and in groups of two or three the others followed suit and filtered from the Council chamber in hushed conversation. Erestor made to leave, following silken trail of robes of dark wine and jewel tones (winter beckoned), but Glorfindel, still seated, called out.

Erestor stopped. He let the remaining elves file past him.

‘Glorfindel?’

Glorfindel blinked and turned his attention to the parchment held in his hand.

‘I would have words, please, stay a while longer.’

‘Words? They are not my strong suit today, as you may well have noticed.’

‘They are always your strong suit, Erestor.’ Glorfindel said with a gentle touch of smile turning his lips. There was guilt in his voice which in turn seized Erestor equally, for the guilt of the previous night should have been his alone. There was no cause for the Golden Lord to suffer for his inadequacies of both heart and manners.

Erestor returned to the table to stand beside Glorfindel, who read the parchment decree that was to be posted a day hence at the marketplace and other places where frequented both elves and men. It had been written by his own hand.

‘You’ve beautiful cursive.’ Glorfindel said, fondly if a little absent.

‘To my great regret I have never been able to master it.’

The birdsong came again. Erestor was suddenly very aware of his standing up, of their aloneness save for one another. Foreboding cancelled out the hope that struggled for breath in his chest and Erestor’s breath faltered as he inhaled deep and long.

He turned his head.

‘Glorfindel, I must return to my chambers. Time runs short and there is as yet still much I must-’

‘Pack, yes?’

‘Yes. Pack.’

Glorfindel set the parchment down upon the Council table. He looked up to Erestor who returned the stare. He might fall into Glorfindel’s arms now, he knew, and be loved by gentle touch and soul and eyes blue as spring skies. He did not, and so was borne another regret.

‘Don’t go.’ Glorfindel said, simply.

‘I must. You need time away from my destruction and I need time to think.’

‘Do you?’ Glorfindel asked with a smile Erestor could not discern.

Silence claimed the room and the two souls within, drawing breath only hesitantly for fear of spooking the other. A truth unspoken lay between them, a knowledge undeniable but still yet not voiced.

‘I love you.’ said Glorfindel.

Erestor loved him, too. He turned, and walked away to leave.

‘I am sorry.’ he said, and he was.

TA3018

The day of the Council returned to Erestor as he crawled through the thorny underbrush and over warm bodies of wildmen felled by Imladrian weapons. His hands were cut to ribbons scrambling over rocks and thorns and his feet were snatched at by cruel roots. The elves were shouting. The wildmen returned the call, chanting their own barbaric language. Blood and death. And he was to blame.

He should not have lent his voice to Elrond’s plan. His kin fell now as a result of ambush borne of intent of vengeance. All was lost. Erestor despaired.

But despair dissipated briefly as he crawled free from the undergrowth of the forest and into the clearing where elf fell upon man with violence and anger. Erestor barely managed to fumble for his own blade and set it against that of a lurking wildman, seeking to plunge sword into his back. With a cry of desperation the wildman’s stomach was cleaved, even as Erestor was upon his knees.

Erestor willed himself to his feet with help of a nearby tree to steady his shaking legs. Had he been this weak in theBattleof the Last Alliance? The trees towered impossibly high over his head. Where was the sun? Erestor’s palms were slick with sweat. The ruined braids of his dark hair stuck to his neck and forehead. He watched, for a moment, the decimation.

They were losing.

There was such death. Erestor tasted it in his mouth like a fruit turned bad and he retched, suddenly clutching his stomach. And then again. It seemed as though he would fall to his knees, cursing himself for his weakness; for he stood retching as his kin, friends and comrades, fought and died. The sword was heavy in his left hand, heavier still when rang out a cry of rage behind him.

The wildman fell upon Erestor with a clumsy swing and gnarled axe. His technique was laughable but his strength far more daunting, each blow of his, deflected by blade of elvish sword, threatened to sunder a shoulder bone or shatter a wrist. Erestor pressed his advantage of superior speed and reflex, but the exertion and despair weakened him.

Still the wildman fell by combined effort of bitter blade and archer support. Erestor ignored the ache in his forearms and suspected bruised rib to rejoin his kith. The ground was slick with blood and mud and fouler things and the faces of the elves were warped with sorrow. Shock lingered there, too, and would for some long time to come.

The wildmen fell but not quickly enough. More came forth from the dark places between the trees with ample energy and hatred enough to spur an army, heralded by the crowing of big, dark birds and shining eyes laying beyond reach of arrow or throwing knife. They were utterly surrounded, absent hope.

Erestor assisted the repelling attack upon a pocket of Men seeking foothold in the larger fray. The sword was heavy in his left hand, weighted with the lives struck asunder with haste and no grace. His father had often told him it would always be so, that it would be too much of a weight for his arm to bare. When the clutch of wildmen fell, so did Erestor with gasp. The grass was red beneath his hands and when he lifted his palm it was coated with lifeblood.

‘Counsellor!’ called a voice, crouching beside him and pushing back his hair with cool hands that shook. Erestor could not focus on the youthful face before him, though the voice was clear and piping. One of the young soldiers only yesterday practising manoeuvres outside his office. They had laughed, yesterday.

The wildmen cried out their victories. There were already fair elven heads severed from bodies.

‘Counsellor, can you hear me?’

Erestor’s stomach suddenly lurched.

He whispered Glorfindel’s name and something in the eyes of the young elf changed.

‘FIND THE SLAYER!’

TA2990

Outside, the bell tolled. Glorfindel looked up from the storybook, worn and small in his hands; a relic from more youthful years that seemed not so dire. The bell sound stilled the breath in his chest. Arwen too looked up at the sound but looked not to the window as Glorfindel did, but rather to the face of the Lord himself.

‘Silver bells.’ she said, her voice touched with small prophecy. Glorfindel met her stare and she blinked, calmly. A Lady grown, she was the vision of her mother, wreathed in autumnal red and brown rather than the silver and greens Celebrían favoured.

The bells rang on, low and resounding, and the chimes roused the morning.

‘Erestor,’

Arwen laughed. A silken sound to set a glow in the chest. Glorfindel looked to her again and his heart began to beat with rapid fervour, hope and fear combined to a juxtaposed harmony, familiar, but never in such magnitude. Fate it was that gripped him thus, and it was a touch well-known to the slayer of balrogs.

‘Indeed, Erestor!’ Arwen said, joyfully. ‘And all of Erestor. The whole of him.’

Glorfindel understood and answered with a smile of his own, but he was nervous. More so than if he were upon the edge of battle with a thousand men pledged behind him and a thousand more enemies in front. But Glorfindel knew, as others did not, that battles came in form more varied than war. Here in this private room, where came only the inner circle of Elrond, was the scent of bath soaps and sweet drink, not blood and sweat and steel.

Erestor often came here, too. To speak with Arwen, blossomed to womanhood, of such matters of heart that she could trust to no other. And he would talk with his hands overmuch when not bound by Council niceties, and when he smiled his teeth were white and perfect.

Arwen lent forward and pulled Glorfindel from beloved daydream. Her hair was curled and loose bound to frame her face.

‘Go to him.’ she said, taking the tone of her father’s authority into her husked voice.

Glorfindel was not about to ignore a direct order from the Evenstar. He rose and Arwen did too, to see him off to his heart. He kissed her brow and gave promise that one day she would understand his haste.

‘I already do!’ she replied, with bright smile. ‘Go!’

Glorfindel laughed as he sped out of the room and down long corridors doused in lamplight despite the early hour. Anor shunned the season, awaking as late as the elves to whom majority approached. Outside some of the trees still had leaves, some brightness still clung to the frosted branches. Glorfindel ran through the house, smiling at those few he passed but slowing not to answer their questions or summons.

He gave heed to a greater call and ran to honour a promise. Joy swelled in Glorfindel’s chest so that he smiled as he ran, clutching for breath. It was a promise that had been kept.

‘I will return. Wait for me.’

TA2990

The snow fell thick and fast and theHiddenValleyreceived it as a rare marvel. Glorfindel saw flakes falling before his eyes like fragile wishes from Taniquetil, and each one of the hundreds of thousands could have been his own. Winter had made the morning quiet for the birds came not out to sing in such weather when no flowers were bloomed to hear their song.

Glorfindel’s first crunching steps into the snow startled him. It had been a lifetime since he had walked in snow. The world was changed. He went on.

His feet protested the sudden cold and depth of snow but his heart bade him move ever more swiftly lest he be late and opportunity fall through his fingers like so many grains of sand (or flakes of snow). Erestor was there, ahead, at the stables unburdening his horse of his travel bags and luggage. He was garbed in rich furs of red-brown with hair bound messily for ease of travel’s sake.

He stood a vision, surrounded by barren paleness he was the fire within. As dark as bitter chocolate and just as honest upon the tongue. Glorfindel could not help himself, he called out the name of Erestor and his voice might have sounded utterly desperate; but Erestor heard and turned to see an Elf-lord striding towards him with fated purpose.

Erestor looked surprised. Glorfindel slowed to a walk though the snow could not bear his heaviness and seeped into his casual boots (no good for anything besides dancing, especially not winter forays). His feet protested.

They stood but three paces away and yet Erestor said no word nor made any expression that would indicate his joy, or repulsion, for that matter. Glorfindel grew anxious. The snowflakes falling only to melt instantly upon the heat of his face soothed him not.

Did he stand awaking in a cold nightmare? Had Erestor returned from Lórien changed beyond the elf he had known? They were old fears, as real as the scars he carried upon his body and would fade with as much difficultly. Everything changed, in this mutable world, and Glorfindel was ever catching up to the changes as an elf left behind - cast adrift from time and death.

Life, light and love.

Glorfindel dared not break more words. He held Erestor’s gaze and saw him alone, surrounded by snow and furs.

His fears would not come to pass, no. They could not, not after all that they had shared. Not when Glorfindel could yet remember so clearly the feel of Erestor’s body against his own and the love they had made; the memory of the flesh was as ardent as that of the heart.

‘Erestor,’ Glorfindel said, with ragged breath.

Erestor considered the word that was his name. He looked heavenward for a moment but the falling snow bade him avert his gaze.

Glorfindel stood still and prayed. His chest heaved with expending breath that came forth as vaporous cloud as the soul of love from his body. He prayed to whatever held true; the snowfall that had claimed Imladris, the moon that lingered still distant in the morning sky, the elf before him, mute and divine.

Divine.

Erestor turned his eyes to Glorfindel, and upon his lips there came a smile of true divinity.

‘Glorfindel, my flower,’

TA3018

They were trying to pull him to the ground like a wild bull but he would not be tethered. There were six of them, assailing him clumsily and pressing with force rather than attempting to best with skill, forming a rough circle around the Golden Lord. But Glorfindel smiled with each parried blow. He fought, for what were six brigands to the slayer of shadow and flame?

But Erestor knew he must reach him or else die in vain attempt. The grass was matted with the blood of mortal and immortal and the hue was the same. His knees cried as though shattered and he felt Glorfindel’s every frenzied heartbeat as if his own. Erestor cut a desperate path through the forest with a sword almost slipping from bloodied grasp, he stooped to aid the elves who had flagged behind in the assault but fell too as he reached them. The ground was slick and again Erestor found himself upon his knees.

The sunlight did not reach them here. The trees towered too loftily and thick.

There was to be no honour in this conflict. Erestor bore his teeth as he fought with unfaithful tactics, clambering to plunge a blade into the back of a wildman engaged with a younger elven lass. She met his eyes momentarily as the corpse fell between them. There was a perfect scratch on her cheek, weeping blood. Her eyes darted this way and that with each sound of clanging steel upon steel, each terrible cry of death or victory.

And when she swallowed her shout of alarm, Erestor barely managed to turn in time. The wildman charged with sword bared and struck Erestor with its ugly pommel. He felt not the pain of the blow, numbed to all but survival (not his, never his) but the force sent him sprawling to the damp floor. The leaves were sodden. It would have bliss to lie thus, unseeing the carnage. Unfeeling.

Erestor brooked the thought and poised himself to wait until the wildman had come to stand over his body, seeking to plunge cruel blade into the softness of his stomach; claiming his victory. But his victory would be forever denied him.

The elves lass smiled as the wildman’s thighs were slashed. He fell as a rag doll let loose from grasp of child and Erestor rolled away from the falling body and propped himself to a seated position. The world swam before his eyes and gentle tug of something forlorn bade him lie again and wait for sundering, wait for oblivion - he was no true bringer of death, only an embracer of it. It was a dismal thought, Erestor blinked it away. The elves lass had realised who he was. She was calling his name, his title.

Erestor tasted blood in his mouth. His lip was split but the taste was like home; ashen and fatal; the blood of the Noldor indeed, stirred once again to desperate battle. It was in his eyes, in his hair - and slathered to staining upon his hands.

He looked to his kin and their number had dwindled but so too had the wildmen. Did a flicker of hope remain? To say so would be impossible. The elven lass helped Erestor to his feet and pointed out the severity of the wound upon his lip but he would take no concern for himself, and she bowed her head.

She said his name, Glorfindel’s name, and Erestor remembered what it was he must do. He would have run if not for the weakness of his body. His was a shambling march towards the besieged Golden Lord.

And it was cut short.

Erestor was seized by the scruff of his neck and a handful of his tangled hair. The miscreant held power over his fellows, evidently, for at his barked word the assault slowed and the eyes of enemy and friend alike turned all to him and his stricken captive. The six that had been attacking Glorfindel paused now too, but kept their blades pointed at his chest.

Their eyes met, Seneschal and Counsellor.

‘Look here at our good fortune! A rutting couple, boys!’

The vulgarity saw the wildmen troops to raucous cheers. Glorfindel’s smile had slipped and he looked not away from Erestor for even the barest second. His tense expression masked only vaguely the sudden and terrible dread. Erestor saw his grip upon his blade tighten, and wondered if some hazy plan began to take shape.

‘Kill the big one. This one’ll die too. Two birds, one stone.’

‘NO!’

Erestor received a knee in the stomach for his outburst and was flung to the floor.

‘Leave him there to watch, don’t you worry. He won’t try and escape.’

Truly, will he not? The thought came in anger. Erestor grit his teeth against the agony in his ribs but brought himself to his feet for what seemed the hundredth time within the hour. If I fall again, thought he as time stretched dangerously, neither of us may yet rise to greet another dawn. But what choice did he have? He must get to Glorfindel, he must...

Perhaps the wildmen allowed him a moment of hope. A dozen shambling steps towards a soulmate barred behind blade and cruel malice; fate and doom inescapable. A look of despair passed between them both, close enough to spy the flash of something desperate held in the other’s eyes.

Erestor was dizzy, there was blood in his mouth again and his steps seemed to take him astray. He felt sick.

The wildmen ended their fun as the cheers died and turned to bestial chants. The words were impossible to discern in their ugliness, but the message was clear. Through the shoulder Erestor was skewered. He gasped, fell awkwardly a few dozen paces away from Glorfindel. And Glorfindel screamed his agony.

One hand on the floor, bedded in leaves, the other covering the wound in his shoulder; Erestor remembered how Elrond had warned him once, a lifetime ago, of how the men of the forest and surrounding dwellings did not like to be proven wrong. It’d been a jest. One Erestor had answered with a jest (“Then that makes them more alike to us than most would care to admit, does it not?”). He could have smiled but instead he wept. Glorfindel’s voice, calling for him, cut.

From so low the trees were strange and cold. Would they have been kinder in the spring when in full bloom, when life was still in this place? Some of the elves gasped. Some fell too to their knees. Had the earth forgotten them? Had the Valar forgotten them? Erestor’s tears came though his remained composed with shock, each tear falling not for himself but for Glorfindel; his brave soul.

He wanted him near.

But Glorfindel was telling him to go. To flee whilst he held the greater attention of the wildmen away from him.

Save yourself!

Had he said it? Or had it been a thought, privately shared.

‘Wise words,’ said a wildman. Erestor lifted his head but there was no sunlight to warm his face, no warm hands to take his own and promise safety. The wildman made a gesture, a singal, that echoed in Erestor’s gut. He whispered his horror but only the fallen leaves heard it.

The six men surrounding Glorfindel nodded their assent and one plunged blade to hilt through gilded armour and stomach. Glorfindel dropped his sword and the sound was louder somehow than the cries of the elves who watched. He fell, slowly, and when he called Erestor’s name his voice was weak and broken to cleave Erestor’s heart equally ruined.

The very stars might have cried. Everything had receded to the grit under his nails and the fire under his skin and soul. Glorfindel was coughing, covering his mouth. His eyes grew wide and searched for Erestor’s. The look they shared was regret and death and love. Six men who once stood in a circle around the fading Lord walked in a straight line to rejoin their commander, leaving him to gingerly touch the wound in his stomach, the one upon his neck, the dozens of others he had sustained but perhaps only now felt the bite of. Erestor saw how his hands came away coated thickly in dark blood, once again spilled for the protection of another.

Glorfindel. Everything else faded out of concern. Glorfindel looked to him and smiled sweetly despite the flashes of pain. There was a caress somewhere in Erestor’s mind, weak but stronger than words. But he could not smile back.

Tears mingled with blood upon his lips.

‘Put him out of his misery,’ said a wildman.

A boot connected with Erestor skull and in the flash of light before darkness, Erestor saw only blue skies.

TA2990

Glorfindel held Erestor close around the waist. He was a slender thing even wrapped up thickly with war furs and fabrics dense enough to last the long journey from Lórien. Other riders were arriving now in groups with eyes misted in joy to see again the Last Homely House, but Glorfindel paid them little heed. Erestor had made an almost orgasmic sound when they embraced at last, a sound he could not have held in. It was warm.

Erestor’s delicate hands had pushed into his hair, he reached up to brush their noses together with simple affection, pure and long missed. Glorfindel returned the gesture, and Erestor smiled. ‘You are cold,’ said the counsellor.

‘No longer.’

Erestor lifted a brow, there was a smirk upon his lip.

He unhooked the clasp of his travel cloak with a thin hand, pale and soft even after years wielding both sword and quill with equal ferocity. To cover them in his own, to place them over his heart - Glorfindel was consumed with no other thoughts but these. Erestor pulled his fur cloak about both their shoulders.

And there was warmth of their own making. Glorfindel sighed his appreciation into wanting lips that parted to receive his kiss. Erestor’s hand found its way back to his hair, to the soft golden down at the back of his neck. They smiled and came together again, slowly, with eyes closed and bodies close, wrapped in warm shawl.

Glorfindel remembered Erestor’s small mewls of pleasure, the way his breath hitched when he bit his lip gently, the softness of the body pressed to his. They fit together as though made to embrace thus; they should have been lovers for centuries.

They had lost so much time.

‘But still have so much time left,’ Erestor whispered, low and divine, and drew Glorfindel down to him for another lingering kiss. It was sweet but cut short as Erestor withdrew with lowered eyes. ‘Yet I am the bigger fool. I understand all of what you said now, I understood it the moment I left your chamber, but too late, I deem it.’

Glorfindel shook his head, and lifted Erestor’s eyes by placing a finger under his chin and giving gentle urged instruction to lift it. There were small flakes of snow resting in his dark eyelashes, but they vanished when he blinked - only to settle again.

Strange, that winter should bring to them so much life.

‘Erestor,’ Glorfindel said, closing his eyes when hot breath ghosted his lips.  He smoothed his hands down Erestor’s hips, and the warmth increased. ‘I understand it too.’

TA2752

The windows would be lit to sudden full whiteness with each crack of lightning and then fade again to deepest black, the black of a night of storm and rain where no stars nor the moon could peek through the deluge. The thunder sounded far off within the House, Erestor thought absently, not really thinking at all.

His breaths were louder in his ears than the storm which had seen his midnight wanderings come to a pause. He had meant only to look out the window for a moment to spy perhaps a wicked fork of lightning, but had ended up striding from the window to stand in the centre of the corridor; pensive. Erestor saw nothing but lamplight and shadow before him. His mind was utterly restless, there was a conflict therein.

Go to Glorfindel. Large part of Erestor begged him thus and his heart wholly too attempted to sway his leaden feet. Go, if not for love then for the friendship there is too. Erestor swallowed, his mouth was very dry.

Sometimes a shadow could be seen out of the window. A tree bowing under the force of the wind. There would be many severed branches strew across the lawns in the morning and many more new flowers to bloom in the coming weeks. Imladris loved the rain and water, and her trees had long grown to withstand such weather.

Erestor scolded himself for his wilful distraction from the pressing issue at hand (or at heart), the rain and the sound of it presented a most convenient distraction to prevent deeper thought; a strange blessing from Manwë and Ulmo he could not accept tonight.

How romantic and sad it would be to leave Glorfindel, to leave for Lórien with nary a private word shared between them. Without explanation of... many things. He could leave Glorfindel with nought but the thought that they both weathered this storm; but apart, drifted apart, as flotsam on the dewstreams.

Romantic and sad, intangibly so. Erestor held a breath in his chest and released it with a hushed sigh. But could he not make it tangible - would his company not provide that for them both? There was much that needed still to be broached between them, and it was not a hurdle to overcome alone as all others had been. A joint effort was required.

A last night before all was changed, for Lórien had the power to change those who asked for it; though in strange ways. She showed them what they might not see. Told them what they might not hear. Erestor longed for it and for the clarity of mind, but longed for other things more strongly.

He turned on his heel swiftly before his penchant for over-thinking set in. The hairs prickled up on the back of his neck, roused by thunder and something else just as energising. Erestor walked down the corridor and along several others, tracing a path made known well to him but only ever travelled upon thus far in daylight hours. The route to Glorfindel’s chambers was different in the dark.

Erestor went by as a shade, riddled with some emotion he could not place.

***

Glorfindel opened the door after Erestor knocked briskly on it. He had only been made to wait a few moments; had Glorfindel been awake still? Had the storm stolen away his peace in the small hours? Erestor felt badly.

Glorfindel looked tired, but pleasantly surprised. He had opened the door and Erestor stepped into the lofty chambers of Imladris’ Seneschal. They smelt of good soap and flowers; and him. They looked at one another.

‘Erestor, it is awfully late to be dancing through the corridors, is it not? But jest aside, your day tomorrow will be busy and you should be abed.’

Time slowed and Erestor saw Glorfindel’s face, blessed in the candlelight that was aglow a soft yellow. His voice was low and soft. The smile of his jest still lingered, though his eyes betrayed a muted distress that the depth of blue could not withhold. Everything pulled away from Erestor. A shiver teased the skin of his hands and arms.

‘Aye, I should.’ said he, and rose to kiss the Golden Lord.

It was a soft touch, a glancing kiss to wake the senses and speak with words as yet unbroken and Erestor felt his chest fill with warmth. Glorfindel held his eyes closed a moment longer than Erestor after he pulled away, and whispered his name.

‘It is me,’ Erestor whispered. ‘I am here.’

A heartbeat barely passed. Glorfindel kissed him again and came close to hold him tightly with sudden, awakened, love. Erestor smiled and fell eagerly into the embrace letting Glorfindel lead where he would. He kissed gently for a balrog slayer but passion was upon his lips and Erestor would have shared the taste.

And other things.

Pausing their kisses, Erestor brushed his nose against Glorfindel’s and pressed a chaste kiss to his parted lips when urge overwhelmed. He was rewarded with a bright smile, slightly dazed, slightly lusted.

‘Take us to your bed,’

Glorfindel lowered his eyes and returned the sweet gesture. He took Erestor’s hands with a glance to his eyes to ascertain if the action was appreciated. Receiving a demure smile, just as overcome as his own, he led Erestor through the comfortable lowlight of his chamber. Erestor followed; his feet unleaden at last.

followed Glorfindel through the main chamber and over rugs of woven gold and white and past many, many trinkets and oddities atop the handsome furnishings. The curtains were drawn, tall and bottle green. They walked past them to another door, the bedchamber door. It opened at Glorfindel’s touch and swung in. It was a modest room of considerable dark for which Glorfindel apologised, letting go Erestor’s hand with a promise to strike flame to some candles for both their eyes. He fell away into the dark and Erestor heard drawers opening, some many drawers, and then the sound of a match on the rough.

Light. Glorfindel walked slowly, dabbing light to the wicks of the candles in his room; and there were many, of all shape and size, atop the dressers and desks and drawers, the bedside table too. The bed was grand, as a Lord’s bed must be, with pristine white sheets. There was a painting on the wall of some vista visage of Middle-earth, but Glorfindel called Erestor’s name again and he forgot it.

Glorfindel put out the match with wetted forefinger and thumb. A shiver coursed along spine, anticipation marbled with excitement. There was a tinge of sadness too, but Erestor bade it dwell at the back of his mind. There would be no place for it here between them tonight, not when so often before it had been the wedge between them.

Erestor, with Glorfindel’s eyes upon him, shrugged out of his outer robe and the crimson garment fell to the floor. He untucked the white, tighter undershirt and pulled it over his dark head with what he hoped was grace. Glorfindel watched. Erestor put a hand on the flat of his stomach and felt the bass thud of his heart. Whence before had it beaten thus? Never, in truth. Never. He slid his hand down his body, and heard Glorfindel’s hitched breath.

He heeled himself out of the light shoes he wore and with his hands, delving themselves to low places to whet the apatite of the one who stood agape, pushed down the waistband of his leggings until he could step out of them easily. Nude, he stood for Glorfindel’s appreciation and Glorfindel came to him fast and wanting for fresh embrace.

They were slower now, the kisses, seeking depth. Glorfindel perhaps felt reassured enough that Erestor was not likely to bolt from the room upon sudden change of heart, he held his dark elf close and his hands wandered the smoothness of the pale body pressed intimately to his. His hands  pressed down Erestor’s back, barely scratching but hard enough to wake whispers of pleasure in Erestor’s throat.

And after a millennia of night-time daydreams alone upon empty bed, Erestor wanted to turn them to a thing of reality. He drew his hands down Glorfindel’s chest to feel the line of the muscle that was as marble, brushed his fingers over nipples that hardened at his clever touch. Erestor wished to ply tongue, to roughly push up Glorfindel’s night shirt and taste the body of one who had become legend; but Glorfindel seized him again in smouldering kiss and Erestor moaned; his desire burned hot but his hands were not yet sated.

Lower they delved. Glorfindel’s own were bound up in his raven hair, combing and stroking and pulling ever so slightly. It was worship of the most physical kind and Erestor sought to use his own hands for equal purpose. Either side of Glorfindel’s waist he lay them but they did not stay there. Down into his nightpants he went to smooth his palms over the firmness of muscled buttocks. Again he wished to ply tongue, again Glorfindel sighed hotly into his mouth.

Erestor applied his nails. Glorfindel gasped. He could feel the erection pressing high against his thigh, pushing himself as close to Glorfindel’s body as he might (and using his hold on ass as leverage), Erestor shuddered his own arousal.

There was more thorough exploring to be done and Erestor bit Glorfindel’s lip to inform him of his new motive. Erestor withdrew his hands from pants (with only a slight growl of erect disproval from a roused balrog slayer) and guided them both towards the bed with the slightest push against Glorfindel’s chest. He fell first, moving to sit at the headboard and extending a hand to Erestor. A request of surprising gentility.

It was moot. Erestor’s decision no longer weighed on him. He went to the bed. He climbed atop Glorfindel and they fit together perfectly. Glorfindel smiled when Erestor bore down upon him for another kiss of slow lust acted out by soft lips. Erestor stroked his tongue across Glorfindel’s and slid, up his carven body, his nightshirt. Tonight, Erestor pledged to himself silently, he would bring a sweat to them both. He would have been content to splay his fingers across Glorfindel’s lower stomach and ride the bucking of his hips as he delved deeply with tongue into wanting mouth, mewling his own pleasure ever louder. Glorfindel had other ideas however, and broke the kiss to pull the nightshirt over his head.

He whispered Erestor’s name. A wave of fondness over swept Erestor for a moment. The haze of lust cleared from his eyes and he bowed to press sweet kiss to golden brow and then Glorfindel had him again, had wound a hand into his hair and he smiled; Glorfindel’s touch was divine.

Butterfly kisses were trailed from Erestor’s pointed ear down his throat and he saw Glorfindel’s eyes close in a flutter of golden lashes. Lust was reawakened in the deep places of Erestor’s body. Glorfindel moved where urge and longing took him, plying kisses to the underside of his chin, once more down the line of his throat. They brushed noses when Glorfindel lifted his head for breath, and Erestor decided he wanted to resume his adventure of Glorfindel’s body, too. Firstly from soft neck he came to pronounced collarbones that he bit at gently, swiping tongue across the skin. Glorfindel bucked under him. Erestor pushed down and felt heat and hardness strangely clothed against his own nakedness.

That would have to change.

Fingers went before lips and Erestor gradually worked down Glorfindel’s body with an ultimate aim and occasional spry glance into the eyes of one watching astounded and well pleased. To Glorfindel’s stomach Erestor came and each line of muscle he traced with delicate finger and hot breath, until an urge came to him to lay his head upon his stomach; and be.

For a time Erestor did so and Glorfindel stroked his hair with boundless affection. Erestor marvelled at how wonderful it would be to fall asleep thus in arms that would hold him so beloved. I have been a fool to deny us. Glorfindel’s fingers brushed over the ridge of his ear. Erestor closed his eyes and held them closed; sleep was a dream for later; there were waking dreams to attend to before the night fled from their grasp.

Excitement bubbled up again in Erestor’s body.

With a final kiss above Glorfindel’s naval, Erestor turned his attention further south.

Glorfindel lifted his hips, driven by instinct and simple desire in equal part perhaps, when Erestor ghosted his palm across the concealed stiffness in his ill-fitting night garments. He let Glorfindel rub himself up against his palm, his breath almost faltered to feel the solid length of him against his hand, a slow grind and plea for more. Erestor applied more pressure, curled his fingers to a loose grip. Glorfindel pushed, sighed carnally with each, and Erestor burned just as hot. He shifted his position behind and between Glorfindel’s thighs, on his knees.

And applied his tongue over cloth, over firm cock.

Glorfindel swore an oath under his breath and valiant smile marbled with baser joy blossomed on his face, lapped by candlelight that seemed to blaze for them. Erestor continued until Glorfindel’s leggings were quite damp by effort of them both, until Glorfindel had propped up a leg to heighten the sensation. Erestor’s smile was one of deviance; for better was to come. He undid the ties of the pants. Glorfindel moaned with longing. The laces fell through Erestor’s fingers. Down he pushed the leggings, with wicked gaze affixed to Glorfindel’s, down he pushed them until he could cast them away beside the bed to lay forgotten.

He was hard for him and aching for touch; such was quite plain to Erestor who felt an answering hardness, an answering plea in his own groin. But they had the whole night and he had the whole of Glorfindel’s fair body laid out before him. Ever an elf of opportunity; Erestor bowed his head and applied wet tongue and silken kisses to the soft inner underside of Glorfindel’s thighs. A lifetime he could have spent lavishing him thus, using palms to push from under kneecap down raised thighs and then around to cradle hips that moved to seek further pleasures. A lifetime he could have spent touching the muscle of Glorfindel’s body, of his legs, feeling him move for him.

But his hands came now to somewhere else. Erestor trailed tongue from soft thigh to hollow of groin and teased with warm breath the thick erection gone unheeded too long. He took Glorfindel lightly in hand and hummed his approval, lowering his eyes and further dusting with bated breath the head of Glorfindel’s arousal. Glorfindel’s breath caught in his chest, he lifted his hips, and Erestor needed not wait for anymore signs of readiness. Erestor took Glorfindel’s sex in his mouth and the taste was sublime.

He worked him leisurely, caressing with tongue and fingers firmly gripping base. All thought receded that was not Glorfindel’s pleasure, that was not their own fragile, temporary intimacy. Thoughts of the morrow and the dawn were far away. Erestor’s eyes closed, Glorfindel’s scent was heady and his length considerable but in mouth he took him, as deeply as he might into the sweet wetness of his mouth.

It was clear Glorfindel’s assisting thrusts were much restrained. Erestor felt his own carnal, guttural twinge that was anticipation too, but the moment was not to be rushed. He voiced his pleasure around Glorfindel’s cock and pushed his spare hand into curls of pubic hair. When he needed break for breath Erestor lifted eyes to Glorfindel and found him smiling with arm draped over his forehead, awash in pleasure. Erestor smiled too.

Applying a clever, lapping tongue to the tip of Glorfindel’s length, Erestor took the head in mouth most lavishly. Glorfindel reached down with a grasping hand to twine fingers in raven hair and it was Erestor’s moan that saw his thrusts grow bolder and press deeper. Erestor took it, took him, until he could no longer keep himself so passive.

With a last, languid lick from base to tip, Erestor looked again to Glorfindel whose eyes cleared after a moment of ecstasy induced bewilderment.

Erestor whispered his desire. To be taken deeply, to be as one. Glorfindel saw it reciprocated, his voice was husky and gorgeous and Erestor had not the patience to wait a moment longer when they had both waited so long already, in truth, for this very moment. He moved himself up Glorfindel’s body, bowing to take a nipple between his teeth as Glorfindel reapplied his hands with firm palms, pushing down Erestor’s rear to position them properly.

He felt him. He could push down on him and they’d be joined. Glorfindel had wide eyes; beautiful and blue and so close. Erestor put a hand on Glorfindel’s chest and brushed again their noses together; they smiled.

‘Have me,’ Erestor whispered.

‘And you me,’ Glorfindel whispered back.

His hands were around his hips with his thumbs pressed in the soft alcoves between thigh and groin. Erestor inhaled. Glorfindel kissed him and bade him take his time, take it slow as he might. They were words holding sense; but Erestor needed.

Erestor lowered himself. Glorfindel pushed into him with a heady sigh, lost almost to absolute joy but it was Erestor’s discomfort that saw him still tethered to caution. Erestor held his eyes shut when the pain came white hot, he held his breath, bit his lip and moved not. Glorfindel was rubbing soothing circles on his inner thighs with his thumbs and whispering sweet words that were heard but not comprehended.

Glorfindel’s voice, the touch of his hands around his hips, he length within him; Erestor stilled the frenzy within his gut. The pain reduced and only an ebbing ache remained. An ache that was good.

Erestor started moving his hips atop Glorfindel, pushing down as Glorfindel pushed up. He could not contain the mewls of pleasure that came from somewhere deep, he could not stop their transformation into raw moans as their pace began to grow. The feel of Glorfindel within him completely was too grand, too good; he was full and would be fuller still. Glorfindel set his head back into the pillow in bliss as Erestor rode him, slow and deep and their bodies knew the rhythm of intimacy.

They fit together perfectly. Erestor pushed down hard.

As he grew bolder and desire tightened its iron fingers about him, Erestor moved his hands down the hardness of Glorfindel’s body; lightly doused with sweat and moving under his for his pleasure. Erestor laughed but it turned to a moan; what daydream had he stumbled into? Would he yet awaken in the Council chamber, flushed and embarrassed?

Had Glorfindel heard his thoughts as they were so intimately entwined? He covered Erestor’s hands with his own and pressed them to his body, lacing their fingers. The gesture was delicate. Erestor knew he would lose himself to it but their sex was to grow yet wilder before they’d turn back to fond domestic romance. He returned the embrace of fingers, larger and smaller woven, and thrust Glorfindel’s hands either side of his head along with his own and conjured as wicked a smile as he could. Glorfindel’s pleasure was apparent. He laughed and gave a low, deep thrust into Erestor as reward. The raven elf gasped and took it into him, tightening his fingers about Glorfindel’s.

Then suddenly Glorfindel had pushed him to his back. Suddenly it was Glorfindel above him biting gently at his lips and seeking deeper kisses with a honey smile still on his lips. They rejoined thus, Erestor spread his legs easily for Glorfindel’s comfort and it was a sight to make the slayer groan. Erestor stroked pale fingers up into golden hair, wound a leg around Glorfindel to bind them close, parted his lips to allow a sweet tongue entrance.

And Glorfindel’s pushed his tongue as deeply as he thrust his cock.

He made love as a Vala. The pace of their sex was unhurried, lingering as though they prayed the night would stretch on beyond its time. Erestor clawed and scratched at Glorfindel’s back, pressing them skin to skin, fevered brow and smooth chest, scratching as with desire to carry Glorfindel under his nails, under his skin. And his moans of glory made Glorfindel smile into their warm kisses.

He whispered his name sometimes and sometimes he shouted it, but it was never far from his lips either way, and paired always with a hot desire. The force of Glorfindel’s movements was considerable, as was his size, and Erestor did all he could to tease closer the completion that loomed for the both of them. They balanced on the edge, poised to plunge together. It would be a bonding, Erestor knew, but knew also that it was fated.

They had been lovers for centuries - but never together.

And were they not already bound by sorrow? Was it not better to love, whilst at least they could? Erestor felt the silk of golden locks between his fingers in one hand and the other, upon Glorfindel’s back, felt his sweat and muscle. His laughter, sweet and utterly joyous, turned to a shaking moan to wake the neighbours.

Love, life and light.

He said the words, breathless. Glorfindel said that he brought him all three, his voice was low. Erestor smiled, and bade him move deeper.

He bit at the soft ridge of Glorfindel’s ear when he had bowed to kiss and nip at Erestor’s throat. Erestor pressed tongue to pointed tip and felt the marble body shiver atop him and within him. And when Glorfindel reached his orgasm Erestor followed quickly, Glorfindel was warm and hot within him. The pleasure had not entirely left his body (for neither had Glorfindel) when Glorfindel sighed his joy into Erestor’s neck, breathing as though exhausted.

Glorfindel groaned as he lifted himself from crook of neck.

And laughed.

And said Erestor’s name as he stroked damp raven hair from glistening brow.

Erestor had his eyes shut, savouring their togetherness, when Glorfindel told him he loved him. Erestor had his eyes shut when he returned the words for the first time with spoken voice - but for the millionth time with truer heart and soul.

TA2752

Some of the candles had burned low. The flames dancing on the wick cast fading shows on the wall and Erestor still could not discern the painting that hung there, but whether because of the gloaming light or tears unshed in his eyes - he knew not. He lay against Glorfindel’s chest who was sat at the headboard, stroking his hair and pressing chaste kisses to his raven crown.

He made noises of happiness; light sighs and gentle words of affection. It made Erestor’s heart glad and yet broke it, too. Would that they had found one another’s arms in happier times, if such times had ever existed. Erestor was warm under the covers of Glorfindel’s lordly bed. He was warm lying against his strong, broad chest. He was warm hearing the soft song he sung, under his breath with husked voice.

‘In old city bless’d, a silent sweet choir.

A place for deep rest beneath a white spire.’

A song of Gondolin. Erestor wondered what voice had first sung it to Glorfindel that he remembered it so keenly.

‘Two arms for a cot and so fall soft away,

where sorrow comes not, o, long live it they say.’

A silent tear rolled down his cheek but Glorfindel saw not for his eyes were closed. It was the sweetness of doom, hope found amidst war - the life of the Eldar was no longer strewn with peace but with blood of body and heart and soul. It weighed on Erestor, the concerns of the world and the concerns of his own small heart. But though his regrets were many and varied, he regretted not the warmth they had shared tonight.

Even if it would dissipate on the morn.

‘Weep not, my heart’ said Glorfindel, quietly, with eyes open and saddened. Erestor returned the small smile. There were few words to exchange now, now that there were only long days for them to endure apart.

‘Do you not desire sleep?’ Erestor asked. He wished to sleep on Glorfindel’s chest or if he could not, at least to simply rest there. The room was a place of peace and light; Mandos had ever put the distrust of the dark into Glorfindel but Erestor liked the candles. They made lights behind his eyes. They were life imperishable.

‘My dreams have become dark as of late, and horribly twisted. I fear they will only grow worse on nights of storm and rain.’

And parting? Erestor understood and nodded. He joined his hand to Glorfindel’s and watched as their fingers laced. Was it wrong of him to kindle such hope between them on the very morn of his departure? Was it all entirely false?

Glorfindel was kissing his temple, breathing him in and something profound within Erestor told him that no hope, no matter its origin, could be entirely false. He believed it. He needed to believe it.

Hope was alive.

And a thing of gold.

‘I will return. Wait for me.’

TA3018

A dull and shrill and terrible incongruous noise filled the aching space of Erestor’s head. He was crawling again through the leaves but this time it was taking him so much longer, and he knew not if it was because he were injured or it time itself had fallen to the same ruin. The leaves stuck to his palm. His heartbeats slowed. He put one hand in front of the other and willed his body to follow, but he was tired.

Erestor dreaded to think how long he had lain unconscious. The forest was desolate now and the dusk peeped through the thin spaces between the trees. A lot of bodies there were on the floor, staring outwards with eyes glassy and bright still. The wildmen had moved on, no doubt picking clean the corpses for any treasures first. The elves that survived had moved on too. Erestor was alone. He and Glorfindel were the only ones living; it was a fragile thought. Erestor’s sob was a dry choke. He pulled himself through the foliage to Glorfindel’s body and prayed that the slight movement he saw was indeed the rising and falling of a breathing chest.

Where were their kin? Had they returned to Rivendell? Would they bring aid, or would they avoid this deathly place forever more? They were questions for a scholar, and most basic indeed were always the questions that burned most intently for want of an answer that did not always exist. Yet there were questions Erestor did not dare ask, not even to himself; what was going to happen next?

His elbows screamed their reluctance to move. His shoulder screamed where it had been pierced. Erestor wanted to scream, but knew his throat would not be able to make the sound; there did not seem to be enough life in him to give voice to such.

As he drew nigh to Glorfindel, Erestor saw that he was not awake, or that if he was he was barely aware of ought going on. Both possibilities were cruel blessings, come too late to be appreciated. Erestor both prayed to and cursed the Valar and positioned himself uncomfortably to loom over the crumpled golden figure. A drop of blood dripped of Erestor’s nose and landed upon Glorfindel’s cheek.

He quickly wiped it away.

Erestor touched his cold face, stroked his jawline; wished for blue eyes to meet his again. He kissed Glorfindel, his lips were cold, and the kiss turned to a sob. Erestor lifted himself with heavy heart. He brushed the back of his fingers across an icy cheek.

‘We have to go,’ his voice cracked, but Glorfindel awakened at the sound, slowly.

It was getting cold. The night was drawing in fast around them and they would both be so cold ere midnight fell.

‘Erestor, I’m...’

Glorfindel could not finish his sentence. His eyes blinked to focus. What was he exactly? Erestor forced a smiled that wounded more than the blade through his shoulder.

‘You’re fine.’ He wasn’t. ‘We need to go,’

Glorfindel closed his eyes again, as often he did when they had lain in their bed together and the dawn came too early for his liking. They would doze for hours, closely woven in limb and heart. He looked peaceful, and dread was rife in Erestor for he knew what it meant. Glorfindel swallowed. Did he not want to leave? Could he leave if he wished to?

Erestor lifted his head but saw only treetops, darkening. He would have begged for the sight of a star, a lone point of light to warm the skin and heart.

We are dying, and the Valar watch unseen.

TA3018

They found the hill that the scouts called the “skewed hill”. Erestor had never wanted to see it though the stories told in the Hall of Fire were beautiful in their melancholy. It was a grim place that seemed desolate somehow, out of the forest but barely. He and Glorfindel had stumbled arm in arm and left a bloodied trail to reach it.

And now that they had, there seemed to be nowhere else to go. In which direction did home lie? In which direction was safety? Where was life to be found?

There was nothing to see below but miles of grassland and the flat horizon of Eregion. Dusk bruised the sky and blanketed with gentle shadows, the precursor to a dreaded night. Glorfindel met Erestor’s eyes before he collapsed at the foremost point of the hill, a warrior broken. He bowed his head. The wind, only little more than ghosted breath, caused his hair to ripple as a veil before his face.

Glorfindel would not rise again.

Erestor knew it. Glorfindel looked up to him and so confirmed the thought without words. Even in the unlight of dusk Erestor saw plainly he was a horror of blood and paleness and many evil wounds marring flesh and spirit, not least of all the cruel cut through stomach. Erestor felt them too, each one. Tears began to fall silently from Erestor’s lashes, but Glorfindel did not weep.

And Erestor reckoned he looked still so full of life even for his injuries, so beautiful, so able to claim joy as his own again if such was his wish. But it was a dream. It was a folly; one to cling to and pray that it becomes truth. Stranger things have happened in the history of Arda than one broken solider surviving his injuries, Erestor thought.

The wind seemed to whisper of fate in his ear, and he turned away.

His back was chilled by the breeze that blew cold against his neck and face and nagged the cuts and bruises there. Yet it was all growing numb and the pain barely felt. It hurt to hold in breath overlong, but Erestor sighed and it was added to the wind.

The skewed hill was a strange companion. He did not want to be here. He had never wanted to come here.

‘Then come, come here to me.’ Glorfindel’s voice rose out into the air of the hill with authority and love more grand and sad than Erestor had ever heard.

And his voice was not one Erestor could feign deafness to, nor disobey.

Erestor came to rest beside him on the crest of the skewed hill and he pressed his brow the side of Glorfindel’s chilled face, slightly turned towards his own. His breaths were laboured though he attempted to hide it. His hands and fingers were weak though he raised them to push back a wayward raven lock from forehead to behind a pointed ear.

He kissed Erestor.

‘One more night. I will see one more night and before the dawn I will know death again.’

TA2990

It was cold outside and Glorfindel had heard the complaints of his fellows, lamenting the loss of green and blue in favour of white and grey. But there was a crispness, a freshness, to the winter weather and palette that Glorfindel appreciated for it was the herald of hope and new life to come; he understood. And so he did not mind draping himself in fur cloak and pushing on fur lined boots. He did not mind stepping out and walking through the frosted ground of Imladris, glittering underfoot.

Celebrían’s gardens had been transformed, beautifully. A few brave heads of foxglove flowers poked through the soft blanket of snow that rested precariously upon the lithe branches of the bare trees, stretching out to the sky as though to pierce the cloud and make way for Anor’s shine. Glorfindel walked through the gardens bowing his head in subtle greeting to those who too braved the cold breeze to bear witness to such a glorious morning. The small stream that ran from the back of Celebrían’s garden to wind down the valley and join the Bruinen was not frozen, to Glorfindel’s surprise. In the pale light of the clouded morning the waters looked as the light from Teleperion indeed.

Erestor walked through the stream barefoot, dressed in silver flowing robe.

Glorfindel walked towards the vision of Irmo come to Endor, the master of dream and desire, but in fact it was his small counsellor; and Erestor was master of much more though perhaps he believed it not.

‘Can you find no rest this morning? It is early.’ Erestor asked as Glorfindel approached, without turning. The stream rippled about his feet and he held a clutch of his robes in his right hand to spare them getting sodden.

‘There’s none to be had absent you from our bed.’

Erestor looked at him and Glorfindel saw the white flash of a smile. He watched Glorfindel shuck off his heavy fur cloak and boots and watched in silence with only a slightly quirked brow. Glorfindel smiled. Erestor smiled back; fond, as was his slight roll of the eyes.

There was a vulnerability to walking through the cold water without boots or out garb to counter the brittle chill that fled up spine and neck. But it was sharp and not completely unpleasant; Glorfindel knew Erestor’s attraction to the stream, to the sense of such vulnerability in placing oneself thus. And sweeter it was made for knowing that one was protected, cared for.

As they walked the stream together Erestor’s hand slipped easily into Glorfindel’s. He led the slayer not too far at all but into a quiet corner of the garden where came Celebrían to plant those flowers she had laboured long to cultivate. There was only a patch of raised snow to be seen now, surrounded by twiggy bushes and trees, but life lay beneath; slumbering. Glorfindel squeezed Erestor’s hand. Erestor rested his head upon his shoulder.

And when Glorfindel closed his eyes there was the whispering of a heartbeat not his own yet it was. There was the warmth of something unseen, unheard, but felt as deeply as the soul might feel. A sigh came then, that was more earthly, and a tinkle of laughter so sweet Glorfindel wished to bottle the sound for darkest hour in deepest patrol.

‘Glorfindel,’ said Erestor, softly in low tone of voice to set shivers in the Seneschal. ‘my flower,’

Glorfindel opened his eyes, struck suddenly by a question he had long wanted to put to voice. The water lapped at their ankles and each breath was an intake of freshness and dew and Glorfindel half wanted to bow and cup the water in hand to drink, but remained upright to press a chaste kiss to Erestor’s dark brow.

‘If,’ he began, warily. ‘I asked you to marry me, Erestor, would you consider my offer?’

It was a bold request but Erestor blinked and seemed to think it over as one might sample a rich wine. He inclined his head to view shrouded horizon where land blended with sky and became neither. Did he know how he made Glorfindel’s heart fear with every second his kept his silence? In later years Glorfindel, with wry smile and hindsight, would suspect he did.

‘I am yours,’ Erestor said, at long last, putting his small hand over Glorfindel’s heart to still its trepidation. ‘with or without wedding vows and ceremony, but aye I think if you were to ask I would consider it.’

Erestor’s laughter was a silvery thing, gorgeous and rare and fleeting. Sweet it was upon his lips as Glorfindel bowed with beaming smile to kiss him, sweet was the laughter upon his tongue.

‘From where come these weighted thoughts?’ Erestor said with honey voice, pausing to deepen their kiss but a little before pulling away; a tease. ‘Shall we return to the Hall of Fire and see them lifted in warmth and closeness?’

Glorfindel sighed his pleasure.

‘From there I’ve just come.’ he said and their breath intermingled, life and life.

‘And conversation held you not? An idiosyncrasy in itself.’

‘My troops are resting up after their excursion and Elrond and his kith were abed. Others there were but they speak to me and I see they think only that they speak to the slayer of shadow and flame. Not Glorfindel who stands before them.’

Erestor pulled back a fraction and Glorfindel saw silver eyes, alight.

‘Slayer you are but lover are you more. Shall I tell them, tell you, how I know you?’ said Erestor, emblazoned.

Glorfindel kissed him.

‘Tell me,’ he breathed. ‘Show me,’ 

TA2752

Glorfindel looked over the rim of a wine glass at the merriment in the Hall of Fire. He could not remember the last time he had been seated as everyone else danced and sang and wove their happiness about one another. Times had changed and with them; everything else. It was a strange thing he wished he did not have to weather alone, for adrift in Arda’s Third Age he already felt without losing too the small foothold he had gained.

But where is Erestor now? Where rides my heart? The fires that Glorfindel sat by did not warm his skin, only the wine he held in his mouth for long moments before swallowing. The fires did not warm him as much as the mere thought of Erestor’s body in closeness, of the warmth that they had made together.

He crossed his legs. He held his eyes closed a moment and saw the dancing flames behind his eyelids. The song was indistinguishable from all the others that had been played. The voices in the crowd had blended into one, one merry mass of elves who would fall to bed tonight with one whom they loved and wake again in loving arms.

What blessings they had, each of them, to be bound so tightly.

And then Glorfindel could have laughed at himself, thinking up such absurd wisdom in his moping solitude. The wine was potent tonight and heady, he would have more and more and more...

‘Glorfindel.’

Elrond. There was no mistaking the voice.

‘Elrond.’

Glorfindel received a look from the Lord who rounded his chair to stare before him, a look rather like being analysed. It was clear that it was sympathy that held Elrond back from remarking harshly upon his state and Glorfindel almost wished that it was not so.

Elrond smiled vaguely, and produced a small bound book from robe sleeve.

‘Avail yourself of this, found this afternoon by fortune’s favour in a saddle bag left forgotten in my counsellor’s chamber.’

Glorfindel met Elrond’s eyes; grey and dark and always shining with some distant emotion that could not be placed. Elrond’s eyes narrowed a little. Glorfindel looked away, wondering what secrets he might have given away in such a brief exchange of glances.

‘He came to you last night?’ Elrond asked.

Oh.

‘He did.’

‘Ah.’ Ah, indeed. ‘Take the book, Glorfindel.’

Glorfindel took it. It was a delicate thing, made for Erestor’s slim hands to carry hither and thither and well used by the look of the worn spine. An ache of fondness seized Glorfindel’s heart of such passionate pain he could not help but stoke; for if the heart bled did it not mean that it lived, if only for fleeting moment? He would marvel at Erestor’s cartography beside the fire tonight, and Glorfindel wondered if perhaps he held a book of Council notes.

And he would have read every word even if they had been, even if they spoke of matters foreign to him. Glorfindel, however, found it was not so when he opened the small book. It fell open easily at a certain page, and he read it with widening eyes.

‘What is it? Elrond asked, quietly, kneeling beside his old friend who ached for his other. He did not look down upon the pages of the book.

‘Poetry,’ said Glorfindel, reading his heart’s words. ‘That he wrote of me.’

Glorfindel’s smile faltered.

‘And some we wrote together.’

TA2990

The Peredhel twin had been waiting in Erestor’s office, waiting for the Counsellor to return from a romantic lunch-break sojourn with the one who newly held his heart. Erestor had been surprised to find Elrohir perched upon the edge of his desk with all the distress of a small bird debating flight. He was troubled, clearly. Erestor shut the door behind him and bade himself return to professionalism though the touch of Glorfindel’s kisses upon his cheek and parted lips was a fresh memory to stir the blood.

Erestor gave himself a shake and quashed the smile that threatened. He apologised to Elrohir, for his having to wait, and came over to the desk to grasp his shoulder, kneel before the son of Elrond and look into grey eyes. Elrohir sighed and evidently words failed him that might describe his affliction. His eyes lifted to Erestor’s hair, where still there were woven small flowers amid the locks. Erestor noticed his stare.

‘Glorfindel,’ he said, in way of explanation.

Elrohir smiled, small and tired; his visage was clear, as was his mother’s, gentle and sweet and ever youthful. But he had his father’s sorrow. The very sorrow Elrond would have had all in his Home believe he did not have nor suffer from.

Yet here was its most ardent proof, staring back at Erestor; so young.

‘Elladan,’ said Elrohir.

And they spoke of him, he who was the other half of Elrohir, and of his not being by his side - and of his being by his side. Confliction was rife in Elrohir’s voice and Erestor listened with eyes narrowed just a touch. As the twins grew older more there seemed to be that would drive a wedge between them.

‘But children of a shared soul are not so easily parted, not by fate nor intervening hands. The blood of the stars is in you, you are a child of the sky and the light that comes from it.’ said Erestor. Elrohir met ardent gaze and chewed over the words. He nodded, slowly, and turned his head a fraction.

Erestor stood and knew that in the fullness of time Elrohir would come to understand much of what he said. The wind chime that hung outside his window sang a simple song of high pitch and trilling note. The winter brought thorough chill to the air of a kind the birds were reluctant to take wing upon and so their songs came not as often in the colder months. New songs had to be sung. Chimes and bells were abundant, and Erestor favoured them.

Elrohir sat still pensive and Erestor knew other thoughts plagued him more deeply and stuck nearer to heart, but he would not delve thus into issues so tender. Elrohir, moved by cue of fate, searched for Erestor’s gaze and found it resolute.

‘A son you are to me, Elrohir, and I would not have you so upset. It breaks the heart in my chest to see your spirit lessened by what should bring you only joy!’

Elrohir smiled and seemed an elfling again for but a fleeting second.

‘A lesson you have learned yourself, perhaps?’ he said, with wry tone.

Erestor nodded, sombre.

‘And too late indeed.’

Elrohir hopped off the edge of the desk and landed lightly. He came to Erestor (whom he was beginning to tower over more and more as years went by) with open arms and found his embrace tentatively accepted.

‘Love is never late.’ said Elrohir.

And Erestor hugged his not-quite-son.

TA3018

‘Once I am gone you must live, Erestor. You must promise me that you will live.’

Erestor had been looking towards the heavens that were dark and vacant overhead, save for cold pinpricks of light that availed them no sense of hope. Only distance. Unreachable light that might have been salvation. Erestor’s heart seized at the premonition and he looked down to Glorfindel.

And Glorfindel was about to leave him. He lay still upon the hill with Erestor’s rolled up ragged cloak for a pillow and his own larger one as a blanket. Glorfindel smiled to see Erestor meet his eyes, at last. The smile was small and peaceful though his breathing had become terribly laboured. Erestor put a hand over Glorfindel’s chest, as though his small presence might do something to still the frenzy of heart and lungs and burning wounds.

‘Promise me, Erestor...’

It was a cruel promise.

‘Erestor,’

He was so tired. He wanted to sleep next to Glorfindel and wake there, too. He wanted to eat and swim and submerge himself in warm water until his body ached for breath. Glorfindel looked to him, as fiercely as he could, and Erestor knew time was upon them both. If in the face of death Glorfindel had the strength to be brave, again, then Erestor could too. For him. For his soul.

‘I promise.’ he whispered. Glorfindel sighed his relief and shut his eyes.

Skewed hill. Erestor hated the place and there burned terribly in his gut a restlessness to leave, for Glorfindel to rise again the legend and walk with him home. They were the daydreams of an elfling, of course, but Erestor still clung to them; to Glorfindel. And Glorfindel was calm, quite astoundingly so, and held Erestor’s hand weakly upon the grass with barest flex of finger to return to Erestor’s ardent squeezing.

It was a labour for Glorfindel to open his eyes once more and Erestor knew he should not look away again lest...

A keening wrench of agony writhed beneath his stomach. His heart was breaking slowly, wasting to nothing as Glorfindel did, too. His heart was breaking and the blood, heartsblood, might have poured from his mouth.

‘Erestor,’ Glorfindel whispered, with the ghost of his old, easy smile that brought a fresh sob to Erestor’s throat.

Glorfindel was soothing him! And he lay not breathing his last upon a foreign hill, broken by a thousand wounds! It was ridiculous, all of it. But Erestor let him, let Glorfindel’s quiet voice balm what it could.

The star of Eärendil was abroad in the dark, riding high to the north where lay the flatlands of Eregion away from the menace of the forest. Did he point towards home? Did he try and guide the one who had saved him once so long ago towards home?

Or towards stranger places?

Home. It would not mean what it had after tonight, Erestor knew. From sitting he lay himself down at Glorfindel’s side, close, with only their joined hands in the space between them. The grass was cold and damp with the dew of the morning yet to rise.

If Erestor closed his eyes and leaned on desperate imaginations, they might be in their bed in the safety of their chambers. They might be dozing away the small hours of the morning entwined before the first light of Anor.

But they were not.

The stars twinkled, they were so far away.

‘Will our souls know one another in the next life?’ Erestor whispered.

Glorfindel inhaled but coughed, violently, as breath began to fail.

‘I knew you before you were born, for you are the other half of me, Erestor. Death has not changed it. Death cannot change it. We have been made as one for all of time.’

Glorfindel was smiling sweetly and Erestor had naught else to say; there was naught else to do. He came close to kiss Glorfindel, a slow, gentle kiss into which Erestor poured all his will to live and ardour of survival and what little he knew of healing. Glorfindel laughed upon realisation of what Erestor attempted, a breathy sound not holding the vibrancy it once had, and bade Erestor shhh and attempt not to sway the hand of Mandos.

It was folly. Erestor brushed his nose against Glorfindel’s with heart’s affection and relished in the sound of his name being called gently. Had ever before a voice so sweetly sounded his name? And after today no other would name him so proudly, nor with such love, understanding...

Erestor sat up too suddenly.

He clapped a hand over his mouth as he cried and cried truly. The tears were hot, his chest contracted. He was afraid. He did not want to be alone, to return to the state of loneliness unbearable before rays of Glorfindel’s warmth had ever touched upon him. Erestor was doomed to the cold, and he thrashed against the fate that would condemn him so with all he had left; tears.

And he knew he must blink them away, or at least try his best.

Try.

To Glorfindel he turned again close and held himself slightly aloft to look fully into the face of the one whom alone held his love. Glorfindel looked back though his eyes were heavy with the sleep of the Eldar.

‘I will miss you,’ Erestor whispered through shaking tears he could not stem. He lifted a hand to cradle a side of Glorfindel’s face, and Glorfindel rested his cheek against it.

‘I... You carry me with you. I am where you are.’ Glorfindel said and his voice was barely more than breath upon the wind.

It wasn’t enough and Erestor wanted to scream it to the night, to the Valar who would hear his voice surely sundering the sky of Endor in its wrath and desperation, love and fright. Memory would not be enough, not when he had known the body and soul of love. It would not be enough. Glorfindel turned his head to kiss Erestor’s palm.

And suddenly Erestor knew what was happening.

Frenzy turned to despair.

Glorfindel gave a shuddering breath and clutched suddenly with his other hand that still held Erestor’s. The time was upon them. Erestor cried aloud, one small elf against the tide of fate, and held Glorfindel’s hand tightly.

Take me with him.

Glorfindel’s eyes were wide and blue. They looked not away from Erestor’s even as his breathing caused his body to shiver terribly its last fight. He coughed thrice and whispered Erestor’s name. Erestor whispered his back.

And with one final lurch, one final heavy sigh - he was departed.

All was still upon the Skewed hill. All was silent. Nothing dared move nor draw breath. Erestor felt no hand clutching his own, felt no warm billow of breath upon his cheek answering his own. Everything was perfectly still. Everything was silent.

Erestor dared not believe it had happened.

‘Don’t,’ he whispered, tapping his nose gently against Glorfindel’s. ‘Don’t go, don’t leave,’

But Erestor’s voice was as one voice, his head contained only his own thoughts and feelings. He was one half again. One alone. Unjoined. His cry was choked in his throat and came to sound out in the night shaken and gasping.

He slumped beside Glorfindel’s body and pressed himself close. The night was cold and dark and lonely. Erestor buried his face in the crook between Glorfindel’s neck and shoulder and only the small creatures of the earth heard his whispers; for Glorfindel did not.

Erestor wished for sleep.

And the Valar watched.

*

Erestor woke as the dawn rose and the innocence of sleep’s reprieve bade him wake Glorfindel to set upon the path home in the wake of a new day. But Glorfindel would not wake for all the kisses placed to brow and pointy ears nor all the prods and pokes applied to his most ticklish spots. And Erestor remembered what he would never again forget.

Death. He was alone.

He kissed the top of Glorfindel’s nose. He remembered. The morning woke steel resolve in him to keep the promise he had made. To live whatever life remained. But could one live without a heart beating in their chest? Erestor would try. For him.

He rose and covered Glorfindel with both cloaks, so that the star and flower were upon him in rest. Erestor could not move his body nor had the strength to bury him without the help of the Eagles or the host of Gondolin; but Skewed hill had been raised for a reason. Erestor knelt to push back golden locks from smooth skin.

Tears fell on Glorfindel’s face like rain. He was beautiful in his sleep, appeased at last of grief. Middle-earth would no longer beg him to shoulder its sorrows, no longer would Glorfindel of the Golden Flower be the tool of the sad destiny of Endor.

Sorrow. The birds woke from their nests to sing the word in Erestor’s ear like the chimes of small silver bells. He favoured them. His eyes ached and still he wished for sleep; but not yet. Not until his time too, was done.

Erestor kissed Glorfindel, but his lips were cold.

‘Farewell, slayer,’ he said, brushing his fingers across a pale cheek. ‘But that is not what you are.’

The sun was rising.

‘Goodnight, my flower.’

Erestor covered Glorfindel’s face after lingering to kiss its sweetness a final time, and rose to his feet; barely. The stars neglected sleep, perhaps to will Erestor to the same determination, and he began his long walk under them.

He followed the light of Eärendil home, along a path lit with the tears of stars.