Anor and Ithil by Haeron

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Chapter 18

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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.