Anor and Ithil by Haeron

Chapter 7

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.’