Pieces of the Stars by Nibeneth

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Chapter 5

Never had the forest been as silent as it was under this cold sunrise. Golden leaves on white boughs turned brown and fell, crisp and fragile, to the green grass sparkling with early frost. It was spring, but the trees seemed to sag with great age and weariness. Their bark withered and their branches drooped under their own weight. Instead of blooming to meet the sun, they knelt in defeat, an inevitable surrender, for their age had caught up with their great strength at last.

Among the falling leaves, a rustle. Not a bird or an animal—they had all moved on. Nothing had truly lived here for some time. A footstep. Not coming here to live, no. Coming here to die, just like the trees bowing and shedding their last foliage, untended and forgotten.

Fingers dug into Elrond’s shoulder. Unaccountable rage swelled within him and he rounded on the interloper with morning frost burning in his throat.

“What ?” His voice echoed back through the longhouse rafters, harsh and jagged. A long silence followed it, and Elros’ eyes darkened with resentment.

“Why would you scream at me?” he asked bluntly.

Elrond opened his mouth. No words formed on his tongue. His hands were balled into fists. The early springtime chill still prickled at his ears, though coals smoldered on the hearth and the air inside the main hall was warm. It was autumn. He had come inside to escape the spitting rain that had started the previous evening.

“I…” he swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“You are being weird,” Elros said. His frown shifted into a concerned wrinkle. “Still. And weirder. Something is wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Elrond muttered. He rubbed the back of his neck. A frosty tingle remained, but his skin was warm.

“What were you doing just now?”

Elrond’s mouth tightened. This was beginning to feel like an interrogation. He looked down at the wolf’s winter pelt, white and gold and brown, which lay beside the hearth with an indentation in the middle where he had lain. “Napping,” he said at last.

“You didn’t respond when I said your name.”

“I was tired!”

“Of course you were tired! You don’t sleep at night either, you just rustle around!” Elros grabbed him by the shoulders. Elrond tried to fight him off, but Elros’ hands were like steel. “Something isn’t right! You’re ill, or, or something, and you need to tell me what it is!”

“It’s nothing!” Elrond finally struggled free. “ Thank you for waking me up!” He stormed off, ignoring Elros calling after him. He could still hear raindrops pitter-pattering outside, but he left the longhouse anyway and paid no heed to the puddles on the ground that soaked his shoes when he sloshed through them.

He had not been sleeping. He had not been dreaming. It was happening more often.

Thunder, muffled by the clouds, rumbled in the distance. Elrond watched his feet instead of the path in front of him. He could see his reflection in the puddles before he stepped in them and disturbed the image with ripples. Every time his face stared back at him, he splashed it away. Reflections lied.

His list of safe places was growing thin. With streams of rainwater running down his face, he let himself into the stables, where at least the earthy smells of hay and manure matched his surroundings.

“Elrond, is that you?” Elhadron, one of the hostlers. “Rochal has been out in the pasture already this morning. Keep that in mind if she’s grumpy when you take her out.”

“I’m not,” Elrond said absently. “I’m just… saying hello… I suppose.”

“All right. Shout if you need me.”

Elrond found Rochael rubbing noses with Peguiel over their partition. Rochael, as usual, came over to inspect Elrond for treats, and snorted when she found him empty-handed. Still, she let him stroke her mane a bit before going back to gossip some more with Peguiel. Elrond watched them a while and wondered if they ever kept secrets from one another. What would mules even keep secrets about? Carrots?

He went to the ladder and pulled himself up into the hayloft.

Warm, heavy wind flowed across his face and through his hair, carrying with it the scent of bruised grass and a clear sky free of smoke. White clouds in a brilliant blue sky crowned a green valley that rippled like water, ringed all around with trees and cut through with a shimmering serpent of a river. It was a rich land, a living land, young and wild and strange, full of a boundless energy and a thousand stories unfurling without words.

He breathed in deep. Vitality coursed through his body, water and light in his veins making him as free as the wind itself.

A change in the air, a sudden sharpness to the light, and then the summer warmth turned to a blistering heat. Choking smoke, withering grass, trees burning where they stood and sap flowing like tears where black axes pierced their bark. Fruit turned to ash before it even had a chance to be planted. The river boiled. All poisoned, all murdered, driven from the peaceful valley into the waiting trap of iron and pitch and lifeless machines fueled by the old and the young and the unborn.

Skin and bark and hair and leaves and cones and muscles and nerves and roots all burning, hacked to pieces, no blood or sap or pleading or screaming could stop the torture of their saws—

The last nuts, the last hope trampled under iron feet while saplings were torn apart like they were nothing —

“Elrond, for the stars’ sake, what is the matter?”

He was breathing. He was in one piece. His skin was intact and without blisters, but when he looked down at his hands, he saw crescent-shaped pits where his nails had pressed into his palms. Agitated hooves trampled the dirt floor under the hayloft and Rochael made a rusty whimper in her throat. Booted feet were coming closer. Elrond scrambled against the hay-strewn planks beneath him, trying to get his bearings.

“I’m—uh—” he looked around and spotted a large cobweb in a corner. “There was a spider on me!”

Elhadron laughed. “Nessa’s tits, boy, you don’t need to howl like you’re being murdered!”

The stables were no longer safe. Elrond waited for Elhadron to leave, and then he fled.

Food was a chore. He feared sleep. A flood of darkness spread over the world around him until it lapped at his toes, but no one else seemed to notice it. They wouldn’t believe him if he told them. He was alone.

He had never felt the need to keep secrets before.

Elros, of course, did not take long to realize something was wrong, and when Elrond did not tell him, he became even more suspicious. Elrond resented the attention, and he resented the guilt that nibbled at him because of it, but all of that faded into the background of days spent anticipating the next break into worlds beyond his reach. He never knew when it would be. He rarely realized he was having an episode until something snapped him out of it. Perhaps he was going mad—that was the only explanation, and knowing that it was happening more and more frequently only made him fear the time when he wouldn’t come back to the surface, trapped forever within an experience that only he could see.

Maglor had been watching him. Elrond knew he wouldn’t be able to keep the secret from him forever, but still he tried, until Maglor pulled him aside to talk.

“Elrond. I think it’s time you spoke to Osgardir about this,” he said. He did not need to explain “this,” but they both knew what he meant, even if Maglor did not know what he was describing.

Elrond twitched. “I’m fine. There is nothing I need to talk to Osgardir about.”

“Pretending only makes everything worse,” Maglor said, crossing his arms. “Your moods have been unstable. You are losing a lot of weight. Elros says you hardly sleep. I say this not because I want to spy on you or control you, but because I know what melancholy illnesses look like, and I know what suffering accompanies them.” He smiled, but it was half-hearted.

Yes, melancholy illnesses, of course. Elrond also knew what they looked like—half the compound had one at any given time, whether it was the kind that made them weep and waste away or withdraw and eat or drink themselves sick or anything in between. He knew of none that transported a person into… places, and times, and feelings completely separate from his own, leaving him fearful of what the next episode would show him. Glawar the carpenter sometimes heard the voices of the dead accusing him of murdering or abandoning them. Idhren the engineer went through periods of believing she was already dead, and no one could convince her otherwise. But this… whatever it was? Elrond was certainly not as educated as many others, but he did not think his affliction was anything like that.

“I’m not suffering,” he lied.

Maglor gave him a long, serious look. He clearly knew that Elrond was lying, but after a moment, he nodded once. “I respect your experience,” he said carefully. If you ever do feel like you are feeling down or unwell, please do visit Osgardir. I promise he won’t stick you with any needles.”

Maglor couldn’t promise that. He didn’t even know what was wrong. But Elrond only nodded in turn, agreed to keep that option open, and did not mean a word of it.

It was dinnertime. Elrond knew he should eat, but he couldn’t seem to remember what was on his plate from one moment to the next. He looked down, picked up his fork, and then a sound somewhere behind him made him forget. Someone was hammering something. The bitter tang of hot metal scratched his nose—a forge.

He bit the inside of his cheek. It was impossible to smell the forge all the way from the longhouse, and when they could hear the hammers, the noise was faint. This was just… another illusion. Not real. Right now it was dinnertime, and that was what he needed to focus on.

“Elrond, I know you’re not fond of kale, but it’s in season,” Maglor said from across the table. “It will be much worse if you let it get cold.”

Kale, right, they were having kale. Elrond picked up his fork, but there was no kale on his plate, just a sort of flat waybread and a thick, featureless stew. He poked at it. Was that meat? What kind?

“At least there’s bacon in the kale this time,” Elros said next to him as if persuading him to take a bite, but where was the kale? Elrond looked up at the rest of the dishes on the table. Had he forgotten to dish up a helping altogether? No, he remembered, or thought he remembered. There was no kale on the table either, only dinner kits that looked like they were meant for traveling, and in the center lay a large map dotted with different-colored flags.

He didn’t recognize the land depicted on the map. It was circled about with jagged mountains, and there were a handful of black flags clustered around a drawing of a tower in the northwest corner. What was it? It seemed so familiar, but Elrond could not remember ever seeing it before.

“Stop staring at the chicken, you already have some,” Hestedis said bluntly.

Chicken? Where? He just had this weird stew, which clung to his fork when he tried to shake it off.

“Come now, don’t play with it,” Maglor said. “You are not a child any longer!”

This was wrong. This was all wrong.

“Need to use the outhouse,” Elrond muttered. He pushed the food away and stumbled back from the table.

“Don’t think that you’ll just have cake later,” Maglor advised him, but Elrond was already wandering outside. The hot metal smell grew stronger and thicker as if ash and soot coated the inside of his throat. All around him the dense, unmoving air pressed down and suffocated him a little more with each breath in as the hammering grew louder, sharper, heavier.

The soil was dead, nothing more than a gray powder over sharp rocks. Why was he here? What was the point? It was all just a lifeless crater…

This is a vision! A corner of his mind cried out in desperation. Elrond blinked hard, trying to clear it out, trying to hold onto that last splinter of truth.

Canvas peaks and valleys, once white, now stained with ash. Sweat, filth. Animals. Cookpots. Old blood and rusted iron. Not a breath of fresh air to clean it all out, only layers upon layers of dirt and hopelessness. Not a tree, not a stream, not even the evening star shining through the haze. Only death, only negation, only a nightmare that repeated the same images night after night. It might have been the end of days.

Why was he here? What was the point? The sky, the earth, his bones—it was all ash. Whether there was a place the dead earth ended and his body began, it made no difference, all would crumble and fade and become indistinguishable from the remnants of all the others. Just coal, iron, air, soil, water, all mixed and polluted and left to decay in this prison of universal mortality. No judge, no Creator, only the detritus of ages gone by, no escape but death.

White-hot, tearing, clamping pain—blood welled up between his teeth, trickling down his throat and over his chin. He gagged, drooled, gagged again, and then forced his jaw open. Blood dripped onto the plank floor beneath Elrond’s knees. Warm trickles coursed down his forearm.

Wool, sweet herbs, food and smoke. The longhouse. Pain. Reality. Fuck, there was so much blood.

In the dim light, Elrond could not make out the full extent of the damage. His arm throbbed without relief. A rough, ring-shaped wound glistened darkly against his skin. A small whimper escaped him as he pressed the bite against his chest and looked around for something to use as a bandage. Warm blood quickly soaked through to his skin. He hadn’t… hadn’t even tried to bite himself it just happened, and the vision had ended but now it hurt .

Baskets, sacks, hanging herbs. He was in the larder. The sounds of dinner conversation and utensils on plates continued just outside. He could not bring himself to ask for help. Just the idea filled him with a sense of shame so acute that even his lacerated skin did not seem as bad in comparison.

I have to clean it, he realized, remembering an old lesson on what to do if a cat or dog bit him. Their mouths could make him very sick, he knew, and he didn’t want to risk it and end up having to explain everything else. He could rinse the wound with spirits; Osgardir had done that when Elrond split his chin open as a child. Maglor did not allow any spirits to be stored in the larder, however. Maedhros would just make a mess of the whole room while trying to find a full jug.

Spirits and bandages. Elrond clenched his jaw and pressed his bleeding arm closer to his chest. His heart hammered in his throat and the wound as he slipped out of the back door to the larder, which led to the kitchen garden and chicken coop. He slunk along the wall and around the rear of the house to the back door of the scullery—yes! Lines of shirts and drawers hung to dry, just as he had hoped. He snatched up one of his own shirts and let himself inside the scullery. Almost there, I just need spirits… He did not wait long enough to talk himself out of it. Holding his breath, he crept out into the hall and padded as quickly and quietly through the shadows as he could before pausing at Maedhros’ bedroom door. Jugs of liquor went in and rarely came out. Surely he wouldn’t miss one. The door was slightly ajar. Elrond pushed it open just enough to squeeze through, silently begging the hinges not to squeak. Once inside, he was relieved to discover an abundance of liquor jugs scattered all over the place, but with a creeping horror he realized a crucial obstacle: Maedhros himself.

At first glance, Maedhros was indistinguishable from any of the other piles of rumpled clothing and linens that littered the room, but then Elrond noticed a tangle of long red hair hanging over the opposite side of the bed and the shape of his body curled underneath a blanket and some unwashed clothes. He was asleep. Elrond seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. He lifted the nearest jug, sniffed it to be sure of its contents, and fled the room without looking back.

There. He had everything. Instead of risking discovery by going back to the larder or his own bedroom, Elrond went back out through the scullery and retreated behind the woodshed. With the adrenaline wearing off, pain was returning with a vengeance to his arm, and he did not especially want to look at it in the clear twilight.

He sat on the ground, steeled himself, and peeled his arm away from his tunic. It was starting to go sticky, but fresh blood welled up when separated from the cloth. It was even more revolting in the light. A ring of bruising had formed all around the open bite marks. They were ragged and inflamed and dark with clotted blood. The salty iron taste of blood lingered in Elrond’s mouth—he gagged again.

You can do this. Take care of it, or they will find out.

He took off his tunic and shirt and tore the sleeves off the clean shirt with his teeth to use as bandages. After taking in another deep breath and squeezing his eyes shut, he splashed some liquor on the bite. It burned like he’d sunk his teeth into his own flesh again and he could barely keep from crying out loud as he mopped up the blood and spirits with a clean patch of his bloody shirt. It looked a little better afterward: not as gory, at least. He folded one clean sleeve into a bandage and tied the other around his arm to hold it in place.

That was it. Out of sight.

 

The bloodied shirt was a total loss. Elrond stashed it away until he could burn it without being noticed. His tunic would be harder to explain, so he strategically left it where one of the cats—a very pregnant female—would find it. Sure enough, she soon presented the longhouse with a beautiful litter of three on Elrond’s donated tunic, and as he had planned, the fluids from their delivery masked the blood from his wound.

No one suspected anything. They still watched him and fussed over him and asked him what was wrong, but no more than normal.

He went four days without an episode. It was the longest interval in many weeks. He nearly wept in frustration and helplessness when the images returned. A bite mark on his other arm, not enough to break the skin but enough to sting, was the first thing he saw when he returned to the physical world.

If he bit himself as soon as he sensed that something was off, the pain would occupy him enough to keep him where he should be. Sometimes it was enough to press his teeth against his skin just hard enough to leave a temporary dent. Sometimes it wasn’t. He began carrying bandages and a flask of spirits on his person, just in case.

Part of him knew that he could not keep this up forever and hoped that someone would notice. The greater part could not bear the idea. He had no other way to hold off the visions. He could not keep living like that.

The circular wounds bled, scabbed over, and diminished into tender pink scars. He hid his arms under long sleeves. He tried to eat and smile and do everything that normal people did, but underneath it all the visions threatened to break through, and when they did, Elrond broke them with his own skin between his teeth.

Fearing the nightmares, he did not sleep well. When his bedroom seemed to close in on him, he took to wandering the longhouse until the sun came up.

Dim firelight cast the main hall into deep shadows one night when Elrond slipped out to walk his usual path. Two voices in low conversation lingered near the hearth, along with the clinging scent of the cannabis that Maglor often smoked after the boys were in bed. Elrond crouched low and quiet under one of the tables where they would not see him. He listened hard to make out their near-whispers and understand the old-fashioned Quenya that they spoke to each other.

“…was foolish to think that this would never happen.” That was Maglor. Already Elrond could hear regret weighing down his voice.

“Did you think that it would never happen, or merely that it would happen later, and that it would be someone else’s problem to solve?” Maedhros, half-drunk. “Either way, yes, you were foolish.”

“I hoped,” Maglor said, “that I had done enough to spare them.”

“Even more foolish. The perpetrator of suffering cannot heal it.”

Elrond smelled sea air. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit the inside of his lip. There was no sea here, and he had to keep the sensation from sticking and pulling him down into another episode. He focused on the smell of wood, and Maglor’s pipe, and the sharpness of his teeth digging into his skin. That was real, the sea was not.

“What else could I do but try?” Annoyance sharpened Maglor’s words. “Who here is not a perpetrator? Shall I give up and regale them with tales of all our deeds against their family? Shall I remind them every day that all of their life here was an accident and the sooner they are out of my house, the better for all of us?”

A chill ran down Elrond’s spine when he realized that Maglor was talking about him and Elros. This was not meant for his ears… but he kept listening. He could not help it.

“If it would make it easier for them—and for you—when the time comes,” Maedhros said. “You’re as attached as they are.”

“You were the first to take pity on them.”

“You know why.”

They both fell silent at that. It was both an accusation and a raw bitterness turned inward, but neither Maedhros nor Maglor said anything else about it.

Elrond remembered Sirion, sort of. He remembered confusion, desperation, and fear. He remembered his mother’s tears wet on his face when she kissed him goodbye. The linen closet. The hours of waiting. Mancala, which he never wanted to play again. He knew the facts: the Silmarils, the Oath, five hundred years of war, and the tragedies at Alqualonde, Menegroth, and Sirion. He knew that Maedhros and Maglor and all their dead brothers had killed other elves in pursuit of their father’s Jewel. He knew that rather than surrender the Silmaril, his mother had cast herself into the sea, where Ulmo gave her the form of a white seabird. Five hundred years of loss and regret. Maglor did not need to explain that; Elrond could see it in him and all who followed him. For his part, Elrond kept it all in a box in the back of his mind until he was ready to look at it without flinching. Maybe someday, but not now, when he had more than enough to think about.

Cold water splashed his face. A wave dragged him under the surface. He clawed upward toward the light, seawater filling his eyes and ears and throat, but the undertow sucked him into the depths and he flailed, helpless—

A deep, desperate breath, and he was back in the longhouse, hands clutching at at his own throat as he tried to remember how to breathe.

Maglor and Maedhros both heard him and jumped to their feet. When Elrond finally got his lungs back to their usual rhythm, he looked up to see the two brothers staring down at him over the edge of the table. Maglor was gray-faced and wide-eyed, and Maedhros just looked like he was in pain.

“Elrond,” Maglor said, but nothing else followed even though his mouth stayed open as if he had expected to keep talking.

“You were not meant to hear this conversation,” Maedhros said flatly.

“I know.” Elrond’s voice felt like it was trapped in his head.

Another pause. Maglor still said nothing. Maedhros beckoned to Elrond with a jerk of his hand. “Come on out.” He sounded gruff but not unkind. Elrond slid out from under the table. His legs trembled when he stood. He still felt as if he was desperately treading water in a cruel sea, but he stayed upright. The three of them looked at one another for a long moment, each unsure of what to say.

Finally, Maedhros gripped Elrond’s shoulder in a rare physical display of awkward affection. “Listen to me,” he said. His fingers were firm on Elrond’s shoulder almost to the point of discomfort. “If you believe me on only one thing I ever tell you, let it be this: none of this was your fault. None of it. You were born into a world that was already broken, and you and your brother are innocent.” He squeezed Elrond’s shoulder even tighter for just a moment. “Do you understand?”

He nodded. Maedhros released him.

“You should be in bed,” Maglor said at last. “Never mind this. Maedhros is right.”

Elrond went, but what he had heard stayed with him like a stone in his shoe.

Winter was on the horizon, but Elros seemed to have made it his mission to drag Elrond out to explore the forest with him as long as the autumn warmth and light lasted. Elrond went reluctantly at first, but soon the smells and sounds of crispy leaves and damp earth welcomed him, and for a while he almost felt like his old self. Elrond and Elros balanced on fallen logs and poked at weird fungi with sticks and overturned rocks to see pale grubs writhing underneath, traversing the gentle hills and twisting game tracks that surrounded the compound in search of new things to discover. In those moments, the outside world seemed unimportant. Their forest was full of whole worlds large and small, from the trees themselves to the tiny creatures suspended in drops of rainwater, and there was no lack of things to see and touch and ponder.

They went out every day, wrapped in cloaks and scarves when the sun rose over a world of sparkling frost. The ice brought a new, alien dimension to familiar things, one that was as ancient as it was fleeting and as delicate as it was sharp. The harvest was in and all the elves of the compound were making their final preparations before settling in for winter. On a pale morning, Elrond and Elros climbed a tall hill on the edge of the barley fields to look down at the valley below.

“Oh, look! They’re bringing the pigs in!” Elros pointed down. Elrond looked up from studying an ice-laced cobweb in a bush and joined him at the crest of the hill. Down below, the swineherds whistled and prodded a line of pigs out of the woods where they had spent the last months fattening on acorns. Some of the sows had babies with them, and Elrond’s mouth watered at the thought of having suckling pig in celebration of the harvest, as they often did in good years.

“I wonder how many they’ll slaughter this year,” he said. “They look very fat!”

“Come on, let’s go watch,” Elros said. He followed a winding track down through the trees, jumping over rocks and swatting low-hanging branches along the way.

“Hello there!” one of the swineherds called when Elrond and Elros approached the pig barns and the yard where they would be slaughtered. “Come to help out?”

“Hello, Caedor!” Elros waved. “We’d be glad to help!”

“You can fetch and carry,” Serecthel the bear hunter said once they had offered their assistance, dampening their excitement somewhat. “I’ll not answer to Maglor if you cut off a finger!”

She and her apron-clad associates stood ready with pans to collect blood, chains and hooks to hang carcasses, a steaming tub of water, and an impressive collection of knives. The pigs to be slaughtered were separated into a pen while the rest went into the barn. Serecthel gave her knife a few more strokes against the whetstone. Elrond and Elros stashed their baskets and inched closer.

“You can catch the blood if you are wearing clothes you don’t mind staining,” Serecthel said. They both leaped at the opportunity to help and took up posts next to her and Gwedhon, who would perform the slaughter. Amrúnith and Lenthir stood ready to scald and scrape the bristles from the carcasses, Orelion and Damben would remove the insides, and the swineherds would control the pigs and lend an extra hand where they were needed.

“Shall we start with the little ones first?” Caedor suggested.

“Aye. The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll have pork.”

The first piglet squealed when Caedor picked it out of the pen. Elrond didn’t love this part, but he knew it only hurt for a moment, and it was the price they paid for having pork. Caedor whispered a few words in the piglet’s ear as he carried it to Serecthel. It stopped squirming and only snorted a little, calmed, when he held it still before her.

“All right, little piggie, let’s get it over with,” Serecthel said a little ruefully, and then she plunged her knife deep into the piglet’s neck.

Elrond knew it was coming, but he still flinched when it squealed one last time.

Gwedhon snapped his fingers. “Catch the blood, Elrond!” Elrond shook himself and maneuvered his pan under the piglet’s open throat. It was already over and he’d missed most of it.

“Let’s not waste any,” Serecthel reminded him while Amrúnith took the carcass to the scalding tub. “You don’t need to do it if you can’t watch them die. There’s no shame in it.”

“I’m all right,” Elrond said defensively.

“If you’re sure.”

It was a good year indeed. There were a dozen piglets to slaughter for the autumn feasting at the compound. Serecthel and Gwedhon took a piglet each to make the process faster before they would need to work together on the big ones. Calmed by the swineherds’ arts, the piglets went quietly until the swift strike of steel and the spurt of blood. Elrond didn’t flinch after the first one.

“Bring up the one on the end,” Serecthel said once all the piglets were dead and they were ready to start on the grown pigs. Elrond looked up at the pen to see which one she meant, but as soon as he took his eyes off her he felt her strong, cold fingers clamp around the back of his neck.

“What are you doing!” he scrabbled behind him, trying to get free, but Gwedhon hoisted him up by his legs and they both stretched him over the block. He shouted and struggled and then Caedor thrust a chain between his teeth, pulling his head back—Serecthel’s knee in his lower back as she put the blade to his throat—Elros waiting in front of him, obediently holding the pan to catch his blood as Serecthel plunged the blade all the way from his left earlobe to his right.

He screamed, thrashing, even though he could feel the life flowing out of him with his blood. The chain kept his head back, Gwedhon held his hands out of the way, Serecthel just waited and Elros didn’t even flinch—

“Elrond! Elrond!”

He couldn’t stop screaming. The world was falling away under him, but terror and betrayal clung like the taste of rust on his tongue.

“Elrond!” Rough hands on his face. He flinched and lashed out. Cold fingers trapped his wrist.

“We’re here, Elrond! It’s Serecthel!”

He heard the words, but understanding eluded him. He was chained and bled, dying on the block, watching through dimming eyes as the murderers surrounded him with sharp knives, waiting to carve him up and devour him. No more strength to fight, but he fought anyway, though his arms were like lead and he couldn’t breathe and his heart was going fast and erratic and he couldn’t see or hear or feel anything, just fear and shame and betrayal and fruitless, wasted anger—he had trusted them—

Elrond kicked and screamed and bit, visions and feelings and wordless fear and anger coming in flashes and fading out to frustration as he tried to break free. He needed to get out, he needed to escape...

“Elrond!” A rough pat on his cheek that was almost a slap. “Can you hear me?”

They killed the babies. They killed mothers upon mothers upon mothers. Murderers. Flesh-eaters.

He was being half-marched, half-dragged away. He kept struggling, but Serecthel's grip on his upper arm would not be broken. Elros clung to his other arm with both hands. He was pale and wide-eyed, but his mouth was a determined line.

Murderers, flesh-eaters...

He shook his head. Alien terrors still stuck between his ears like a language he could not understand except when it screamed in universal horror.

The further Elros and Serecthel carried him, the fainter it became. Familiar trees and rocks lined the road. His body felt like a heavy, ill-fitting set of clothes. He looked around, blinking. When had the light become so bright ?

Boots on dirt and gravel. The squeak of a hinge and the creak of planks. Mingled voices. Elrond squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before trying to look around again—he had somehow lost the link between seeing and hearing and understanding. He heard his name as if through water. They caught him. They knew. He couldn't stop it or hide it that time. They saw him lose control, they saw him lash out... why? What had gotten into him? They would tell Maglor everything, and... what would Maglor do? All roads were dark, and Elrond was without a light.

 

Snapping fingers. Cool hands on his face. “Elrond?”

Suddenly his environment was so sharp and clear that it was almost painful to look at. Was this normal?

“There you are.” The familiar figure before him became Osgardir when Elrond blinked again. One hand held Elrond's chin still and the other hand help up a brightly shining stone the size of a grain of barley. Serecthel and Elros hovered behind the healer on either side. “It isn't a concussion,” Osgardir said after a moment, but there was more doubt in his voice than the statement seemed to warrant. “You boys didn't eat anything you found in the woods, did you? Did you pick any flowers or mushrooms?”

“No, we were just walking and exploring,” Elros said. He looked like he was trying not to cry.

“Did you burn any plants? Eat anything without washing your hands?”

“No,” Elros said again.

“Do you know if Elrond tried anything without you?”

“No,” Elros said a third time, but Elrond, Serecthel, and Osgardir all heard the hesitation that followed, and they looked at him expectantly. Elros looked at Elrond. His lips made a shape almost like he was about to apologize. “He's been... acting strangely,” he confessed instead, turning back to Osgardir. “We normally tell each other everything, but he's been secretive. He sometimes sits and stares at nothing for hours. Sometimes he asks me if I saw something that wasn't there. I'm worried.” His voice cracked. “I keep asking him to tell me what's wrong, but he won't.”

Osgardir was silent for a moment. “Elrond, are you with us?” he asked quietly, placing the shining stone into a small pouch.

Elrond nodded though the twinge of betrayal at Elros' explanation. “I am.”

“Thank you both for bringing him in,” Osgardir continued. “Elros, will you find Maglor for us? Thank you. Serecthel, I appreciate what you were able to tell me. I don't want to keep you from your work.”

Serecthel folded her muscular arms. “If you do not need anything else from me.”

“I'll send word if I do.”

Serecthel smiled uneasily at Elrond as she took her leave. Elros lingered a moment, but Osgardir gave him a friendly wave that nevertheless told him to go . With that, Elrond was alone with the healer, and he knew that he could hide no longer. Elros and Serecthel had brought him inside the infirmary, where he now sat on the edge of a cot behind a dark curtain printed with star shapes. Osgardir pulled up a stool and sat so that he and Elrond were eye-to-eye.

“Elrond,” he said. “Let's have a conversation.”

Deep down, Elrond had known it would all end up here. He would have to be stupid to think otherwise. Even so, he was not any happier to tell Osgardir anything than he had been to tell Elros or Maglor when they started noticing things. He said nothing.

“How long has this been going on?”

Elrond could not think of an answer to that. When had it started? The scent? Had he just not noticed anything that might have come before? Had it always been a backdrop to his thoughts? Had he ever been without these visions and sensations? He struggled to remember what it had been like to be free of this, this curse . How could he explain it to a healer when he did not even have the words to describe it to himself?

“A long time,” he said at last. “At least... months. Years? I don't know. I can't remember.”

“Can you tell me what happened today?”

“I'll try.”

He started with that morning. Elros had whisked him into the forest. They explored as they always did. He had not had any visions until they approached the pig slaughter.

“I was all right at first,” he explained. It got easier with every word. “They killed the suckling piglets for the autumn feasting. And then... I felt like Serecthel and Gwedhon were bringing me up to the block to kill me instead of one of the grown pigs. Gwedhon held me down and Serecthel cut my throat like she would on a pig.” He unconsciously placed a hand over his neck. “It was so real. I felt like they were... murderers. I was being killed. I felt the knife, I felt Caedor put a chain in my mouth like they do to the pigs when they kill them. I saw Elros catching my blood in a pan. I... wasn't... myself.”

Osgardir frowned slightly. “Have Serecthel or Gwedhon or any of the others been cruel or violent to you before?”

“No! There's no sense to it, I just...” Elrond ran his hands over his braids. “I felt like I was a pig. I don't know why.”

“Is that a usual experience for you?”

“No, not really. I usually find myself outside my own surroundings. It's difficult to explain.” The words now tumbled out without prompting. “Places I have never been before. Things I recognize, but don't remember seeing. One time I heard a scream that no one else could. It makes no sense. I feel as if I am going mad. Am I? Is this madness?”

“Shh, we'll figure it out. When do these episodes end?”

“I--” The words stuck in Elrond's throat. “Sometimes I snap out of it when people call my name or touch me. Not always. Sometimes I...” he trailed off. Osgardir leaned forward a little when Elrond fumbled with his right sleeve. His fingers were tied in knots. This was it, an exposure more complete than stripping completely naked. Bracing himself against whatever reaction he would get, he pushed his sleeve above his elbow.

“Allfather,” Osgardir said softly. His fingers closed around Elrond's hand and he examined the bites, some of them healed and some still scabby and bruised. “You do this to yourself?”

Elrond nodded, miserable.

He heard the front door swing open and hurried to pull his sleeve back down before anyone saw. Osgardir looked up when Elros’ and Maglor’s voices reached their ears. “They’re here,” he said, and turned back to Elrond. “Do you want me to tell them what’s been happening, or do you want to do it? I will not tell if you don’t want me to, but the time has come to bring it into the light.”

“You can tell them. I don’t want to do it again.”

“Very well. I will bring them back. And you can correct me if I misrepresent anything.”

If Elrond could voluntarily remove himself from reality, he would have done it while Osgardir explained his condition to Elros and Maglor. They heard all of it: the hallucinations, the pigs, the biting. They listened in horrified silence while Elrond’s shoulders sunk lower and lower.

“Just tell me what can be done,” he burst out when he could stand to hear no more.

“Well,” Osgardir said slowly. “I'm afraid I don't know what to do for you.”

“But you're a healer,” Elrond protested.

“I am, but there is only one of me, and my knowledge is limited.” Osgardir's lips twitched. “Bring me a difficult labor and I'll show you happy parents and a healthy baby, but without access to my colleagues, there is much I cannot name or treat.”

“So I'm doomed to madness?” Elrond could not help but shout. In his gut he was ashamed, but all the fear and helplessness bubbled out of him in the form of anger. “What am I supposed to do? Just live like this? Keep tearing my arms open to make it stop? Do I just accept the nightmares and visions? What kind of life is this?”

Osgardir held up a placating hand. “No. First, you are not 'mad.' There is no disease of the mind or body called 'madness.' Second, we will do what we have always done when facing a problem without a known solution: we will solve it ourselves. If you are willing to work with me and let your brother and Maglor support you, it will be easier.”

Of course it was easy for Osgardir to be this logical when he was not the one with the affliction. In another season, Elrond might have been curious and interested in finding the answer, but now he was exhausted. It was hopeless. He was bound to this madness, and it was madness, this constant intrusion of sensations and thoughts that were neither his own nor anything he recognized. He said nothing. His eyes burned and a painful stone caught in his throat. When the tears came, there was nothing in his power to stop them.

Maglor broke his silence at last. “How confident are you that you will be able to relieve his suffering?” he asked.

“I cannot say. In any case, hope does not require certainty.” Osgardir offered Elrond a clean handkerchief. Elros took it when Elrond made no move. “I want you to stay in the infirmary tonight for observation. The more information I have, the more likely it is that I will be able to help you.”

“All right.”

“I'll bring your nightshirt so you don't have to wear a smock,” Elros added.

Elrond just nodded, but he could not find it in him to feel much of anything besides shame. He was an experiment, a specimen, an inconvenience, a liability, anything but the individual person he used to be.

 

A distant sound of someone sobbing kept him up all night, but when Elrond crept through the darkened infirmary, he found no one but Osgardir reading a book of worn, mismatched parchments. He wore his dark hair shorn so close that Elrond could make out his pale scalp shining in the lamplight beneath it.

“Is something the matter?” the healer asked kindly. Elrond shrugged.

“Can you hear someone crying?”

“I'm afraid not.”

At that, Elrond went back to bed and lay silently awake, unable to block out the sound even though it wasn't truly there. With dawn came another vision: shapes and sounds too strange to explain, and he resurfaced to the sensation of a folded towel in his mouth instead of his arm. “Bite that if you must bite something,” Osgardir advised him.

The healer suggested another day and night of supervision when Maglor came to the infirmary to check on Elrond. Outside, the compound carried on with their autumn feasting as planned. Elrond did not want to join them, and at the same time he did not like missing out. Elros brought him a plate of food, including a large portion of roast suckling pig. Nauseated, Elrond pushed the plate away without taking a single bite.

Still without answers, Osgardir released Elrond back to the longhouse the next day. Elros was aggressively cheerful and Maglor was even more attentive than usual. Elrond smiled and laughed when he was supposed to, but inside he felt more and more that he was slipping away from himself and the others and from reality altogether.

If pressed, Elrond would describe it as the darkest winter of his life, but at the time he did not have words for it.

The episodes sometimes lasted for days on end. He went weeks without remembering his own name. He occasionally went missing, only for someone to discover him curled up with the dogs or crouched in the chicken coop, unable to speak when spoken to. He split his nights between the longhouse and the infirmary, where Osgardir sometimes had him try different medicinal extracts, but nothing seemed to change. As much as everyone tried to intervene, new bites appeared on his arms. He barely felt them anymore.

As the days lengthened and the forest woke with new life, Maglor started making preparations for a journey. Elrond asked him what he was doing, but in his heart he already knew.

“You need care I cannot provide,” Maglor said. His voice was stiff. “I've been able to keep you safe until now, but you need a community with greater knowledge. I will personally find the High King's people and ensure that you arrive to him safely.”

“You are throwing me away in my madness,” Elrond spat.

“No!” Maglor, wide-eyed, turned and grasped Elrond's shoulders. “I would never throw you away, and you are not mad!”

“That's what you are doing!” Elrond no longer cared enough to keep himself from shouting. “I am too sick to be helped! You are just passing me off to someone else so you don't have to put up with me!”

“Elrond, that is not true!”

“Isn't it? Isn't that what you told Maedhros that night when you found me listening?” Angry tears coursed down Elrond's face. He did not wipe them away. “That it'll be better when we're gone? That you were just waiting for a good reason to get rid of us?”

“No! That is not what I--” Maglor tried to give Elrond's shoulders a friendly squeeze, but Elrond broke away. He left without looking back even though Maglor called after him with explanations and excuses, but Elrond only blocked him out and kept walking until he could no longer hear his voice.

 

The snow had turned to rain by the time Maglor and his hand-picked party left, but the mornings were still sharp with overnight frost. Elrond stood by while they made their final preparations, checking the horses' tack and wrapping scarves around their noses and mouths against the chill.

“Elrond, I promise that this is for your sake,” Maglor said to him. “There are surely healers and wise folk among the king's people who can help you. I wish— dearly— that I had the resources you need, but I do not.”

Elrond said nothing.

“Listen, I...” Maglor raised his gloved hand as if to touch Elrond's cheek, but he only paused and let his hand drop to his side. “I will return as soon as I can,” he said simply. “I want you to take care of yourself until then. Listen to Osgardir and make sure you eat something every day. Will you do that?”

His doting rankled in the face of what he was doing. Elrond refused to respond. He turned and went back inside the longhouse without saying a word.

 

“Maglor's party just left,” Elros reported a short time later. Elrond was not sure how long he had been staring at the fire, but his eyes blurred and he had to blink several times to clear them.

“Did he say anything?” he asked.

“Just to watch out for you,” Elros said. He glanced away. “I'm still here. I'll always be here, no matter what happens.”

Elrond would have found comfort in those words after Sirion or the earthquake or any other situation but this. He was being abandoned. That was the only explanation for Maglor's decision. They could all lie to him, but he knew. I will not abandon him in his madness, Maglor had said of Maedhros, but the same did not apply to Elrond, else he would still be here.

Meals, work, sleep, and conversation slipped out of Elrond's consciousness after that. Food happened. Sometimes he lay next to the fire, and sometimes he stood outside. People asked him questions, and he felt himself supplying answers. It must have been a few days.

“I'm going to the infirmary,” he told Elros one evening. “I'm not feeling well.”

“Oh. Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, I know where it is.” He pulled his cloak on an departed the longhouse. He did go to the infirmary, but just briefly.

“Oh, hello Elrond,” Osgardir said, looking up from his work when Elrond opened the door. “Are you staying here tonight?”

“No, I'm feeling a little better today,” Elrond replied. “I'm staying up at the longhouse.”

“Thank you for checking in. Sleep well!”

Elrond did not go back to the longhouse. The elves on duty at the gates did not stop him when he left. “It will be dark soon,” the elf in the lookout tower called down to him. “Don't stay out too late!”

“I won't!”

The guard would be changing soon. Maybe she would tell her replacement to watch for him, maybe she wouldn't. Either way, it would be too late for them to track him down by the time they realized he was gone.

Once he was free of the palisade, Elrond turned off the road and into the forest. The moon shone bright overhead, but soon the trees became so thick that they blocked out its silver light and enveloped Elrond in shadows. He continued walking and did not slow down.

They were throwing him away. They wanted him to disappear, so he would.

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