Pieces of the Stars by Nibeneth

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Chapter 7

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A rocky cliff face stretched up before him, and at the top, stone walls were stark black against a smoky red sky. It all smelled of dirty fires and death, like the high plains and rolling hills around it. They should not have come.

“There! On the wall! It's... oh, Allfather...”

He looked up, focusing on the bright spot above the gates. Features materialized: silver mail, long pale hair like a tattered banner, the remnants of a silver-white surcoat streaked with soot and dried blood. Skin darkened and cracked with decomposition. Cruel spikes of iron driven through the body, pinning it to the wall at the shoulders, chest, stomach.

Numbness spread through his body and down his limbs. Light and sound dropped out of the world. He could not look away from the body on the wall. The numbness transformed slowly, like a flame gathering strength, into a sweeping rage that blocked out everyone and everything but the agony in his heart and spilled out into a scream that burned his throat—

Elrond woke with a jolt, disoriented. It took him a moment to remember where he was: in a bed in the infirmary, and to his disgust, his tangled nightshirt and sheets were both moist with cold sweat. Dawn light seeped through the crack in the shutters, but the ward was still dark. He shuddered and flung his bedding aside. There would be no more sleep after such a dream, even though his eyes still prickled with fatigue. No, not fatigue: when he rubbed his face, he found it wet with hot, angry tears.

He reached for the pitcher of water on the side table, but it wasn’t there. Beyond the foot of his bed, clay shards stood like islands in a large puddle that glistened darkly on the floor.

Cursing under his breath, he pulled the sheets off his cot and began sopping up the water and broken pitcher before Osgardir could see the damage. He’d have to explain what happened, but that was better than anyone seeing it for themselves and drawing their own conclusions about his madness.

The door to the front room creaked open. “Elrond? I heard a crash, is everything all right?”

“I’m fine, I just...” Elrond gritted his teeth and tossed a fallen braid back over his shoulder. “Ugh, I just woke up. I must have thrown the water jug in my sleep. Sorry. I’m cleaning it up now.”

Osgardir opened the door wider, pale light lifting the shadows around him. “It’s only a jug. No harm done.” He crossed the room to prop the shutters open, and then came back to help Elrond with the mess.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, tracking down and disposing of all the splinters of clay and mopping up the last of the water. The dream still stuck in Elrond’s mind, sharp and angry and enduring like a memory. Had he seen it before? No, he hadn’t seen anything like it, and he suspected that it truly belonged to someone else. “I was having a nightmare. I think it might have been another vision.”

“Oh? How are you able to tell?”

“It felt like I had seen it before, but I haven’t.” Elrond twisted a corner of the sheet around his finger. “I haven’t ever seen anything so... depraved.”

Osgardir paused. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I saw high stone walls. A fortress, like the kind people say we used to live in. The sky was so smoky that it looked red. And there was... an elf. Pinned to the wall with spikes.”

Another pause, and Elrond began to wonder if he had done something wrong by bringing it up. Osgardir gathered up the bundle of wet sheets and stood to take them to the hamper. “You assumed correctly,” he said. “That took place long before you were born. You couldn’t have known the details without knowing the context.”

“What happened?”

“You shouldn’t concern yourself with it.”

“It concerns me if I have to see it, even if I wasn't there when it happened,” Elrond said shortly. He was too tired and unsettled to be polite.

Osgardir turned back and fixed him with a level stare. “You saw a white-haired elf hanging from the wall of a fortress, correct? Against a red sky?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “You saw Himring after it fell. Maedhros hoped to retake it from the enemy. The elf you saw was Raemben, my spouse, who was kin to Maedhros and the regent of Himring in his absence.”

“Oh.” Words caught in Elrond’s throat. Questions, sympathies—none of them seemed right, but he couldn’t just leave it at that. “I’m sorry.”

“I survived it then, and I’ll survive the reminder of it now.” Osgardir gave him a crooked smile.

Elrond considered his next question carefully. “Were you thinking about her?”

“Them,” Osgardir corrected gently, and Elrond nodded his understanding. “Not a day goes by that I do not. But I was concentrating on something else just now, if that answers your question.”

Elrond just kept nodding. It did answer his question, but left him with others: he remembered the sluggish misery and the illusion of High King Fingon’s presence which, in retrospect, had been one of the first noticeable intrusions of his curse. Would he have to relive the grief of every single widower in the compound? Why him?

Once they finished cleaning up the mess, Osgardir returned to his work in the front room where he usually consulted with visitors while Elrond washed his face and dressed for the day. He felt fine, or at least not any worse than usual. Now that he had some idea of what was happening to him, he figured it was time to return to normal life.

“I think I’ll try to return to the longhouse today,” Elrond said once he had gathered his things and went out into the front room. “I’ll have to figure this out as I go. Even if I don’t know where to start.”

“Come back to the infirmary if it becomes too difficult,” Osgardir said. “I can give you some valerian. That helped you before.”

“It made me groggy.” Elrond shrugged. “It was better than nothing, I guess.”

“Take care of yourself. This will not happen overnight.”

Elrond nodded, shrugged again, and turned to leave. He still had the image of Raemben in his mind, and it made words difficult, even if Osgardir did not outwardly react to Elrond intruding upon his grief. That was what it felt like, even if he had not meant to do it. He reached for the door handle, but instead the door burst open from the outside and knocked him off his feet.

“Careful!” Osgardir admonished the newcomer, but she was already talking.

It was Serecthel. She carried her wife Midhien in her arms. “She needs help—it was out by the mill, no one saw it coming—”

“More slowly now,” Osgardir said, coming forward to help Midhien onto a chair. “What happened?”

“She dropped a hammer and had to go into the long grass to get it,” Serecthel said, hovering as Osgardir gently examined her swollen leg. “I heard her scream, but by the time I got there the adder had already bitten her. It slithered away before I could kill it!”

“It was only defending itself. I should have stepped more carefully,” Midhien said, but her voice was tight with panic.

A hiss, and Elrond’s breath caught in his threat when his eyes landed on sinuous coils near his foot, scales glistening in the light from the window, a tongue flickering in and out—

Not now! He squeezed his eyes shut. She was bitten by the mill. The snake is not here. Stay in this room. Stay.

Cautiously, he opened his eyes a crack. It was all wrong: he was too low to the ground, looking up at the two punctures in Midhien’s leg and the swelling around them. He could smell blood, he could smell heat, he was frightened and angry and he would do it again, it was all he had—

No! No! Stay here! You are Elrond, you know what you are!

He had a thread, and he held to it. It was all that tethered him to the surface, but he had it, and as long as he did, he had a way back. A screaming rush of noise and feeling filled his ears and nose and pulled at his lips and eyelids. Something was drawing it all in and he couldn’t stop it from collecting in every gap and taking over everything he knew to be real, but still he held to the single gossamer strand that separated meaning from madness.

Breathe. Feel it in your bones. There, see your hands on the floor, hear your heart beating. I am alive, I am substance, I am Elrond. I am choosing to be Elrond. Breathe. Calm. I am here.

“Midhien, I need you to calm down,” came Osgardir’s voice, as cool as spring. “You are not going to die. Breathe slowly. We don’t want the venom to spread any further.”

Elrond held tight. He would not go under. The world jittered and warped around him, images catching behind his eyelids when he blinked. Long grass and smooth scales under his fingers. No, it was wood. It kept fighting him, but the thread had become a rope, and he braced himself against the thrashing as he reeled it in. You are not my master.

His teeth slid over the pitted skin of his forearm and he faltered just for a moment, enough to slip, but he pulled his head back and closed his lips. Not again. I don’t need it anymore.

“No, no, you aren’t dying, you’re only panicking. The swelling hasn’t spread far, do you see?”

“Midhien, love, it’s all right!”

I am in control. Elrond closed his eyes again. His heart pounded in his ears and everything else faded to a dull buzz, irrelevant, only a background to the rush of blood in his body around tense muscles and trembling nerves. He went deeper, to his bones, and anchored himself there. My mind is mine. My body is mine. I am Elrond of three kindreds. I am not anyone else . He breathed in. Energy filled his belly and flowed out along the lines of his body, bones and nerves and muscles and veins, and it was his . He breathed. He lived.

I am in control. I am. Me.

When he looked again, the room was as real as he was, from the plank floor to the light coming in the open window. Another breath. Slow and strong, like looping the rope around his wrist. It would not be tugged away from him now. I move. I breathe. I live. This is reality. I am real.

Breathe. Control. I am real.

A tremble in time. Elrond gritted his teeth as he pushed himself up onto his knees. No. Stay here. I am not going to let you take over again. Not this time.

One last shiver. Everything slipped into place and was still.

“Good, Midhien. Just keep breathing. Would you like a heavy blanket? Serecthel, could you get—yes, in that cupboard, thank you. How long ago did the bite happen?”

Elrond got to his feet. He took stock of his body as Osgardir continued to interview Midhien and assess the extent of the swelling. He hadn’t lost control at any point. He hadn’t bitten himself or destroyed anything. He felt weightless, but not unpleasantly so: after struggling to keep himself anchored to what he knew to be real, the strange absence of the cruel force ripping it away left him floating with the currents of time as it happened. He was free.

With Midhien calming down, Osgardir looked over at Elrond at last. “Are you all right? That door looked like it hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Elrond muttered. “I just had... an episode. It’s over. I’ll go now.”

Serecthel was holding Midhien and stroking her back as Elrond reached for the door handle again. “What happened just now was so strange,” Midhien said softly. “It was like I wasn’t struggling alone. Like someone had taken over for me. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

The words tingled in Elrond’s ears and he stopped in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder to see Osgardir looking back at him, brow furrowed in concentration and one hand raised slightly as if asking him to stop. “How could you tell?” he asked Midhien.

“There was a... sense of control. Like I was coming back into my body and centering myself from the bones up. It almost felt like someone was talking me through it. It wasn’t my own voice.”

A startled pause. Osgardir opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“I’m so sorry,” Elrond blurted out. “I didn’t mean to—I would never try to… manipulate your mind without your permission. I didn’t realize that I was doing it at all. I promise, I—”

“You helped me stop panicking?” Midhien looked up at him, smiling but confused. “How is that possible?”

Elrond nervously ran his hands over his braids. “It’s, um, hard to explain. I’ve been ill, and it turns out that I’m somehow perceiving the minds of people around me.”

“That makes sense, after what I saw at the pig slaughter,” Serecthel said. She kept one arm curled protectively around her wife’s shoulders.

“Yes! That’s what happened, even though I didn’t know it at the time,” Elrond said, relieved. “I was perceiving the pigs’ minds. Just now I was trying to shake off a, another vision, and I suppose it must have… affected you too, if you felt it. I didn’t know I was doing it,” he said again.

“No harm done. Not like this snakebite,” Midhien said, grimacing. “Even if you didn’t mean to do it, I appreciate it, Elrond.”

Elrond tried to respond, but he only managed to produce a semi-coherent babble before fleeing the infirmary.

---

Word spread quickly of Elrond’s intervention in Midhien’s panic. Praise and encouragement poured in from all sides, especially from those who had only witnessed his breakdown from the periphery, but Elrond hated it.

Why him? Why not Elros, or both of them? Why could no one help him?

“It was a lucky accident, and I don’t intend to do it again,” he said every time someone brought it up.

He knew what it felt like to lose control of his own mind, and he would not inflict that on others, even if it was to their benefit, and even if doing so would help him. He just wanted it to stop. He wanted it to go back to the way it was before, when he didn’t have to worry about other minds spilling into his and his mind spilling into others’.

You have been given a great gift, he heard more than once.

How would they know? Was it really a gift when it had spent the better part of a year trying to kill him or drive him insane? Did only its potential benefit to others make it a gift? Did they care what it took from him in exchange?

“Ohhh, Elrooond!” The bedroom door swinging open made a harmony under Elros’ singsong call. “The sun is shining! Let’s go for a ride!”

Elrond had taken to lying in bed instead of going out where people could offer their opinions about his affliction. He rolled over to see Elros standing in the doorway, already dressed for riding. How long had it been since they last went for a ride? Months? A long time, and he regretted it, but for so long he had been too beset with visions to imagine going with Elros to the stables.

The thought of stroking Rochael’s velvet nose and giving her a carrot eventually roused him. Poor Rochael knew even less about this whole mess than he did.

Under the mules’ steady footsteps and leather creaking as the boys adjusted their seats, Elrond listened to the birds singing and a nearby creek babbling in the distance. The forest seemed quieter than he remembered. Subdued, almost. A small animal rustled through the bushes, but Elrond did not feel its urgency to find food or its fear of pursuit, and he realized that the forest wasn’t quiet at all. He simply did not have every creature’s instincts crowding in on him, from birds feeding their babies to wolves roaming their territory. He was, for once, seeing the world through his own eyes.

A grumble, a flicker of annoyance, a sudden craving—that wasn’t usual. Elrond blinked hard several times. The impression cleared with Rochael shaking out her mane. She wanted another carrot!

“Not until we get back,” Elrond said. He clucked at her and she trotted to catch up to Elros and Peguiel ahead of them on the trail.

Maybe he needed to learn to understand the visions, not try to be rid of them. So far, trying to force them under his control had not worked. Maybe they were stronger than he was, and he had to learn to bend with them like a willow in the wind instead of breaking under the strain.

He was flesh and spirit. They would not be parted from each other. As sure as his flesh was made of fluids and fibers, his spirit had the visions interwoven with it, and as long as he lived, the spirit and all its mysteries were as much a part of him as his viscera.

Like an untested muscle, he had to learn to use it.

 

He ruminated on that for some time after returning to the compound and giving Rochael her carrot. He had tried to control the visions already to no avail, but deep down he knew that he would need more practice than trying to break into Elros’ mind over a single day. He needed guidance, he needed discipline... there was no one in the compound who could help him, or he would have known about it by now. Still, there had to be a way.

The idea came to him almost immediately. That evening, Elrond returned to the infirmary and asked his question.

“Will you take me as an apprentice?”

A pause. Osgardir looked him in the eye. “I will not,” he said simply.

“Why?”

“Why do you want to be a healer?”

Elrond wished he had practiced a better speech than the one he had in mind. “When Midhien was bitten by the adder and I used my… gift to help her,” he said, stumbling slightly over the word gift . “It was clumsy, and I didn’t have much control over what I was doing, but… I could learn. To use it more. For different people, as long as they agree to it.”

“I can’t teach you anything about it,” Osgardir said with a shrug.

“Maybe not, but you can teach me to be a healer.” Elrond knew he would have to learn the rest on his own.

“You do not know the first thing about being a healer.”

“That’s why I want you to teach me!”

“It isn’t that. Being a healer is more than just a set of skills that one can teach to another.” Elrond opened his mouth to ask how he was supposed to know the craft without being taught, but Osgardir raised his hand to stop him. “A healer sees people at their worst and does not turn away,” he continued. “You see people crying, bleeding, shitting, covered in burns, spilling their guts into your hands, begging you to help them even when you know you cannot. Can you honestly tell me that you are prepared to face that?”

Elrond could not respond to that. I’m prepared to try seemed like the right answer, but even that would not be the whole truth. In the end he only managed to leave his mouth open for a heartbeat too long, and Osgardir sighed.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Almost eighteen,” Elrond said, standing up as tall as he could, but Osgardir had the light of centuries in his eyes and was not impressed.

“That’s much too young. I wouldn’t take any elven boy as an apprentice until he was thirty, at the very least.” He paused, thoughtful. “But then… you aren’t an elven boy, are you.”

Elrond frowned. “Am I more or less than an elven boy?”

“Neither. You’re merely different.” Osgardir crossed his arms and gave Elrond a long look. Elrond wanted to fidget under the scrutiny, but he held firm. “I’ll offer you a period of instruction as a student before you commit yourself to a formal apprenticeship,” Osgardir said at last. “That way we can both be assured that you understand what you are taking on.”

“How long will this probation last?”

“As long as necessary. You’ll report for instruction Elenya through Menelya, and you’ll do as you wish on Valanya. You will live at the longhouse as usual. Is that acceptable to you?”

Elrond set his jaw. If this was his path, then he would take it. “It is.”

“Then you will ask Maglor’s permission before you begin. I’ll not go against his wishes.”

 

Elrond had planned to ask Maglor when he returned to the longhouse for dinner, but instead he found himself trying to find a way to avoid eating what had once been a favorite meal.

“You need to eat,” Maglor said, a note of desperation in his voice. “You love lamb with garlic! And you are so thin!”

He was always anxious when it came to Elrond’s appetite, and Elrond was used to it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to wave the scrutiny away forever. “I…” Elrond bit his lip and looked down at his dinner. Out of the corner of his eye, Elros was looking right at him and chewing enthusiastically. It was true, at another time he would have eaten as much as he could get, but now he couldn’t bring himself to take a bite. “I can’t.”

Maglor’s brow wrinkled. “What’s wrong?”

“Meat,” Elrond said, and he found that admitting it seemed to take a heavy pack off his shoulders. He took a deep breath. “Ever since the pig slaughter. I can’t eat meat. Even just the smell makes me feel ill.”

“What? I thought you had been clearing your plate!”

“I fed it to the dogs,” Elrond confessed, miserable with guilt, thinking of all the times he had tried not to notice Maglor giving him the largest portions and the choicest cuts. He sank down in his chair.

“You shouldn’t feed them table scraps,” Alagostor spoke up, frowning.

Elrond knew he deserved to be scolded for that, and he sank even lower. “I know. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want... to...” He couldn’t continue. What hadn’t he wanted? For anyone to worry? It was much too late for that, and it seemed like a flimsy explanation anyway.

Maglor reached forward slightly. “I would have understood,” he said.

A pause. Elrond had nothing else to say, but Maglor looked like he was trying to find the right words to continue. Elros peered over at Elrond’s plate. “Can I have yours if you don’t want it?”

“Yes! Please, take it.” Elrond pushed his plate over and only took it back once Elros had taken all the meat and sopped up the juices with his bread.

More silence. Elrond stuffed his mouth with salad and bread and chewed vigorously to fill his ears with something else. Dinner continued as usual, though he could see Maglor watching him out of the corner of his eye.

Now that he had brought his meat aversion into the light, it seemed as good a time as any to bring up the other matter. “There’s something else,” Elrond said once he had swallowed his bite. “I asked Osgardir to take me as an apprentice.”

“What? You’re much too young. He would never agree,” Maglor said. He put down the bite of food that had been halfway to his mouth.

“That’s what Osgardir said,” Elrond muttered. “I think I’m old enough. I’m not a child.”

“Barely!”

“Anyway, he said he wouldn’t take me as an apprentice yet , but he could take me as a student for a while if you agreed to it,” Elrond said a little louder, trying to talk over any coddling before it happened. “It would be a probation to see if I was ready for an apprenticeship.”

“It is mere days since you ran off into the forest to die!”

That stark description made Elrond’s skin crawl, but he found he did not have words to challenge it. “I know! I know! ” Elrond threw up his hands in frustration. “I need to learn to control it--I have no choice! I was able to help Midhien by accident, but that isn’t good enough, and I refuse to win my sanity by, by siphoning it off other people! I know I can help people, and I know that I can help myself, but I’m going to do it purposefully and with the consent of everyone whose minds I touch! This is the only right way!”

A startled silence followed his speech. Maglor leaned forward in his chair. “Elrond, I think—”

“I have a thread of understanding,” Elrond interrupted him, pressing his thumb and forefinger together for emphasis. “That’s enough to tell me that there is more I can learn, but it isn’t enough for me to be satisfied. You can’t tell me I’m too young to learn what I can about whatever it is that I’ve been given.”

Maglor smiled, but it was weary. “No, I cannot.” He steepled his fingers on the tabletop. “What if you decide you aren’t cut out for the healer’s craft?”

“I’ll figure it out another way,” Elrond said. “No matter how long it takes.”

“The boy certainly thinks like a Noldo,” Hestedis remarked.

Maglor sighed. He was quiet for a moment, staring at a spot just past Elrond’s ear, and then he met his eyes again. “I’ll agree to Osgardir’s probation. I only ask that you make no hard promises about it to yourself or anyone else. Please allow yourself to be wrong , if it comes to it.”

I won’t need to, Elrond opened his mouth to say, but he closed it when he realized what was behind Maglor’s request. “Yes. I’ll try.”

“Then you have my blessing.”

“Thank you,” Elrond said. He felt himself smiling, and for once it took no conscious effort.

 

Elrond was nearly asleep when Elros’ voice, still wide-awake, broke the silence in their dark bedroom.

“Are you still going to come to sword practice?”

Elrond opened one eye a crack. Across the room, Elros lay on top of his covers with his hands behind his head.

“I haven’t gone in a while,” Elrond mumbled. “I haven’t been well enough.”

“Right. Once you’re well, though.”

“I guess it depends.” Right now the thought of going back to sword training seemed exhausting. He hadn’t practiced in so long, and he’d lost so much of his physical condition. It would be a long road back to where he had left off. “You would just tan my hide after having Maedhros to yourself for this long.”

“You’re not wrong,” Elros said, sounding smug. “I can best Amrúnith and Idhren about half the time now.” He paused, and his voice was softer when he spoke again. “I guess it’ll probably never be as simple as it was before.”

“Probably not.”

They both fell silent. Elros sighed and rolled onto his side just as Elrond was about to drift off again. “Sleep well.”

“You too.”

---

Elrond woke with the sun the next morning after a night spent sleeping lightly and waking often to see if it was time to get up yet. He washed, dressed, made his expected greetings to the household, and was about to run outside when Maglor stopped him and made him take some lunch wrapped in a napkin.

“There isn’t any meat in it,” he said, and then paused. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“It won’t be easy, but I do hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“So do I.”

Filled with purpose, he left the longhouse and started down the path that took him to the infirmary. Approaching it as a student instead of an invalid gave him a new perspective, and he noticed all of its component parts instead of the whole, determined to learn as much as he could about its inner workings. It was a long building, though not quite as large as the longhouse, with double doors at the front and a thatched roof instead of the shingles that marked the structures built after the earthquake. There was a fenced herb garden along one side and clotheslines along the other, and a small porch at the front with a bristly doormat.

Elrond had no sooner set foot on the porch when the doors clattered open from the inside. Osgardir stood in the doorway, hands on his hips. “Do you have Maglor’s permission?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Well, let’s not waste any daylight. Come upstairs and we’ll get you outfitted.”

Elrond followed Osgardir inside and up the stairs. He had spent significant time in the comfortable front room and the overnight ward that each occupied half the ground floor, but he had not yet seen the loft. It was full of mismatched crates and baskets, some of which looked quite old, but everything was well-organized and free of dust.

“I’ve spent the last hundred years scavenging up a decent infirmary,” Osgardir said, indicating the hoard with a wave of his hand. “I squirrel it all away here, just in case.”

Elrond spotted a cot near the opposite end of the loft, complete with bedding and a pair of slippers on the floor next to it. “Do you live up here?”

“Of course not, I have a house.”

“Oh.” For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to Elrond that Osgardir might have a life outside the infirmary.

“I rest here if I’m staying up with a patient. Here’s a basket for you,” he said, pulling one out of a stack. “You can keep your things in it during the day so you don’t get them dirty. There will be much more cleaning than you probably anticipated. The foundation of healing is cleanliness.” Osgardir passed Elrond a stack of short-sleeved linen tunics from another stash. He wore a similar one, though his was made to fit him and had a silk moth block-printed on each sleeve. “You’ll change your tunic when you arrive and you’ll leave your outdoor shoes in your basket until you leave.” He placed a pair of undyed hemp slippers on top of the tunics. “When we see patients, we don’t wear anything that can’t be washed in hot water and soap. You’ll also need to do something about your hair.”

Elrond grabbed one of his braids protectively. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing, but it’ll be in the way. Don’t look at me like that, I won’t make you cut it. Just make sure it’s tied securely back or bundled up under a cap.” Osgardir added a few caps and cloth masks to the pile. “Do you know where infections come from?”

Elrond scratched his ear. “Um… sadness?”

“That’s a fair assumption, but no. Our world is full of creatures too small to see. Each has its natural purpose, but some can make us sick.”

“How can you know they exist if you can’t see them?”

Osgardir grinned. “I have seen them. In Aman, we had devices to magnify things that would otherwise be too small to study. I saw them through this device, like tiny seeds or worms that thrive on a plane we can hardly imagine. I would show you if I could, but in Beleriand we’ve lost the technology.”

A connection lit up in Elrond’s mind. “Is that why you have to wash the wound if an animal bites you?”

“Yes. Elves are not vulnerable to these creatures under normal circumstances. However, if we sustain a wound or become malnourished or otherwise weakened, we can become vulnerable to infection. Mortals by their nature are vulnerable to it even when healthy. In order to reduce the risk of my patients becoming ill, my infirmary must be clean.” He stood up straight and put his hands on his hips. “All right, we have work to do. Change your clothes and then meet me downstairs.”

 

Osgardir had not been joking about how much cleaning there was. Maglor expected the boys to keep their room tidy and help wash dishes sometimes, but that did not come anywhere near Osgardir’s expectations.

Elrond swept the floor and was instructed to do it again when Osgardir noticed dust around the corners, and afterward he scrubbed it with a hard brush. He washed linens, wincing when he touched the hot water. Beside him Osgardir plunged both arms into the same steaming washtub without hesitation. “You’ll toughen up eventually,” he said. Elrond couldn’t tell if it was an encouragement or a threat.

The only things he wasn’t allowed to clean were Osgardir’s instruments. The healer made this very clear from the start, calling Elrond’s attention to a squat steel cylinder near the hearth: “This the steam-kettle, which cleans all my instruments,” he said. “You won’t touch it until I train you. It’s practically worth more than you are.” Elrond made sure to give it a wide berth.

As the weeks wore on, he began to wonder if Osgardir intended for the work to make him give up and abandon his foolishness, but not before he got enough work out of him. He swept, he scrubbed, he washed linens, and he dusted away cobwebs day after day. If Osgardir really kept up this backbreaking labor on his own, why wouldn’t he take in a volunteer as long as he was willing to stay?

No. It couldn’t be. Osgardir worked alongside him, teaching him things and readily answering his questions while they obliterated every suggestion of dirt in the infirmary. He began with the systems of the body, gradually breaking them down to smaller and smaller components until he explained the cells that coalesced to form every living tissue.

“Part of me still thinks you’re making this up,” Elrond said helplessly, unable to wrap his mind around the idea that he was actually just a vast network of particles no bigger than the tiny creatures that caused infection, which in itself was another concept that left him deeply skeptical.

“I believe that you’ll see it for yourself in better times,” Osgardir replied. “Right now you’ll need to take my word for it.”

 

Osgardir didn’t have patients every day. Occasionally someone would come in with a finger broken while building a cabinet or a hand sliced open while breaking down a game animal and he would patch it up while Elrond continued cleaning whatever was on the schedule for that day. Osgardir was still firm on his refusal to teach him anything practical about the healer’s craft, and Elrond still bristled against his restrictions, but he did what he was told. If this was his path, then he would take it.

Glawar’s friends brought him in after an accident felling trees. The infirmary was full of loud, frightened people and high emotions as Osgardir examined him for broken bones and signs of concussion or internal injury, and Elrond sensed the deepening shadow of the visions before they were upon him.

Voices flooded into his mind, angry, scared, tense, ashamed, all talking at once until they blended into incoherence, and Elrond nearly buckled under their weight.

Not now, he thought. The thread held fast. I see you. I hear you. Not now, please .

The tree snapped and creaked and loomed over him, already falling, sunshine flaring through the canopy as the last birds and squirrels vacated the branches before it was too late. It tilted, slow before the point of collapse, and then rushed down toward him with decades of crushing mass behind it.

You can’t trick me , Elrond thought. It was as the clear blow of an axe ringing out on a winter morning. He looked up to face the tree, holding tight to the strong rope that was his way back to the surface. This is not reality. Not here, not now .

Fear and pain. A leg trapped—not fast enough.

I see you. Elrond took a deep breath in, held it, and released the tension in his shoulders when he let it out. I understand you.

The tree faded from his sight with a shiver and a lingering echo like the fluttering of its leaves.

Glawar would be fine. He’d broken his arm in two places, and it would be a long and frustrating recovery, but Osgardir declared him free of any other injury besides some bumps and bruises. Elrond, flush with his freedom from the vision, fetched and carried while Osgardir tended to Glawar. He’d banished most of the crowd, keeping only the strongest around to help him while he reduced the fractures and applied splints.

Later, when the sun went down and Glawar rested under the haze of poppy-spirits, Osgardir pulled Elrond aside.

“I noticed you struggling earlier,” he said. “Was it a vision?”

“Yes.” Elrond squared his shoulders. “I was able to get control. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that every time.”

“But you’re getting better at it.”

“Usually.” The dreams were still a problem he didn’t know how to solve, but hard work during the day seemed to sweeten his sleep.

“Do you know what changed?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m just getting used to the way it happens.”

Osgardir nodded, thoughtful. “Good work, in any case. It’s starting to get late. You should run home.”

 

Elrond returned the next morning as usual and began the day’s chores while Osgardir checked on Glawar.

“Could you cook some porridge while I finish up here?” he called to Elrond, who was peering over at the proceedings and trying to look busy cataloguing the medicine storage behind the compounding table.

“Uh, all right.” Elrond put his tablet down and went to the hearth, confident that he could cook porridge despite never having done so before. It was just like any of the other things he’d learned so far, wasn’t it? He added a few more sticks to the fire and poured a scoop of cracked grain into a clean pot. Or did the water go in first? Now that he was doing it, he couldn’t remember ever noticing the way any of the adults in his life made porridge.

His task quickly went from confusing to ghastly. He kept adding water, but as the porridge heated it only absorbed all the liquid into a glutinous mass, and soon it started belching wisps of smoke every time it bubbled. Elrond stirred harder.

Osgardir, now finished checking on Glawar, came to check on Elrond. He sniffed the air and waved a hand in front of his face. “What on earth have you got there?”

Elrond lifted the spoon. Bits of porridge clung to it. “Um...”

“You don’t know how to cook. Oh, that ridiculous minstrel,” Osgardir said, rolling his eyes. “Of course he would get it in his head that teaching you to cook and clean would make your Sindarin family think he’d pressed you into servitude.”

“He taught us how to tidy up and mend clothes,” Elrond said, defensive. It had taken a lot of practice to get his stitches as small and even as they were. So what if they hadn’t gotten around to cooking yet?

“Never mind the porridge, everyone burns their first pot. Just take it outside and scrub it clean.”

 

Elrond was busy enough to forget the incident until Maglor called Elrond and Elros into the main hall just before lunchtime on Elrond’s free day.

“I’ve neglected some important parts of your education,” Maglor said, obviously embarrassed. “I apologize.”

The boys looked at each other and back at him, and then they both shrugged. “Osgardir says I have a good grasp of languages and history,” Elrond said. “You can’t have neglected those.”

“No, it’s not that. In fact, it was Osgardir who brought it to my attention.” He gestured at the griddle on the hearth and the assortment of cooking utensils on the table. “He was correct that I didn’t want to give your Sindarin family the impression that I exploited your labor, or that I wanted to mold you into old-fashioned Noldor like my brother and myself. But… it’s a shame for a Noldorin man to be unable to cook, and I regret that I never taught you. The shame is therefore mine.”

“Well, it looks like you’re about to teach us,” Elros said.

“Yes, that is true. If you want to learn.”

“Yes!”

“Good.” The wrinkle in Maglor’s brow softened a little. He beckoned them closer. “This isn’t something I can teach you all at once, but we’ll start with pancakes. They’re easy, you can eat them for any meal, and they encompass a few important skills. Now, find a bowl and a fork so you can beat eggs.”

Elrond and Elros each selected their tools and looked to Maglor for further instructions. Elrond’s hands were clumsy and he couldn’t manage to incorporate a large mass of egg white into the rest until Maglor adjusted his grip on the fork and urged him to keep going. “That’s it, you have the right idea. It takes a bit of practice.”

Between the three of them, the eggs eventually got beaten and blended with milk, a drizzle of oil, and a pinch of salt. Maglor tipped a small handful of flour into each bowl and instructed them to stir it all together. “Knowing how much of anything to use also takes practice,” he said. “Sometimes you have to adjust. If the batter is too thick, you add a little more milk. Too thin, and you add a little more flour. Hold up your fork, Elros. Yes, see how the batter makes ribbons? This is perfect. Elrond, yours has some flour lumps. Just mix it a little longer and they should disappear.”

Elrond stirred his batter more vigorously until he had a cramp in his hand and Maglor judged the mixture free of lumps. “Are we going to cook them now?”

“Yes. First we set up the griddle,” Maglor said. He raked out some glowing coals and placed the short-legged griddle over them. “It needs a few minutes to reach the right temperature. While we’re waiting, we can get the toppings ready.”

He had them cut up fruit and cured ham, shred cheese, crack nuts, and chop herbs, correcting their knifework occasionally: “Tuck your fingers in, Elros—don’t cut yourself! Elrond, don’t rush. Good. It doesn’t have to look perfect.” He took a step back and held one hand flat over the griddle. “This is hot enough. When you can feel the heat radiating off the griddle, it’s ready to cook your pancakes. Come and see.” He dribbled some oil on the griddle, and when it started to shimmer, he instructed Elros to ladle one pancake’s worth of batter onto the hot surface.

“Oh, whoops,” Elros said when the sizzling batter expanded to the edge of the griddle and dripped over the side. The coals hissed, and a wisp of burned-pancake smoke curled upward.

“That’s all right. Just use a little less batter next time.” Maglor indicated the empty spot to the right of Elros’ pancake. “Your turn, Elrond.”

Elrond poured a ladle of batter onto the oiled griddle. It spread neatly to the edges, and he watched it intently while Maglor showed Elros how to flip his pancake over with a spatula. Soon both pancakes sat steaming and golden on plates and Elrond and Elros took a moment to admire their work.

“There you go, your first pancakes,” Maglor said, obviously pleased.

Elros tore off the edge of his and popped it into his mouth. “That wasn’t too difficult.”

“Certainly not! Let’s have you fry up the rest of them.”

Elrond and Elros set about frying another pancake each under Maglor’s supervision. “Among the elves of the Blessed Realm, it is the task and pleasure of men to cook for their families,” Maglor said while Elrond and Elros watched the griddle. “My brothers and I learned from our father, as he learned from his, from the time we were tall enough to see over the kitchen table.”

“Some of us were better at it than others,” came Maedhros’ voice from the doorway. He ambled into the kitchen, drink in hand, and peered over the top of Elros’ head at the proceedings. “Amras just skinned and spitted whatever he killed and ate it plain.”

“Between that and Curufin’s eight-tiered, hand-sculpted marzipan palace, you actually have something sensible,” Maglor laughed. “These pancakes look done. Let’s get another two on. Curufin was trying to impress a woman, of course. Women like it when you cook for them.”

Elros perked up slightly. “Really?”

“Yes. They like to see what you might be able to do every day if you were their husband. If you ask a girl what she likes to eat, she knows you’re interested in seeing her again.”

Maedhros sat on the bench and stretched his legs out in front of him. “At least that’s how it was done when we were young, and that was long ago.” He took a sip of his drink. “You probably shouldn’t take our advice. I wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if I somehow managed to attract one by accident, and Maglor is no good at keeping them around once he’s attracted them.”

Elrond winced and stifled a laugh at the same time. Maglor just shrugged. “I’ll own that. Swear no foolish oaths, and perhaps your wife won’t leave you.”

“You’re married?” Elrond blurted out.

“Of course I’m married.”

“She left him,” Maedhros said unnecessarily.

A crack finally showed in Maglor’s demeanor. “They’re clever lads, I think they figured that out.”

Elros spun his spatula between his fingers and raised one analytical eyebrow. “Perhaps I want to keep my options open. If girls like it when you cook for them, what do boys like?”

“I never knew a man who didn’t like food as much as women do. Anyway, the trick to it is that there are no tricks.” Maedhros leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, as if letting Elros in on a conspiracy. Elros pursed his lips, listening intently. “Superficial gestures, no matter how grand, will not work for long,” Maedhros continued. “Man, woman or otherwise: if you want them to return your affection, you must learn what appeals to them as an individual. Cooking. Hunting. Talking late into the night. And discovering the best ways to show your love is a process of discovery that never ends as long as love lasts.”

“Music, songs, poetry...” Maglor mused, though Elrond felt he’d ruined the mood without even realizing there had been a mood.

Maedhros huffed at that. “Right, she might realize you love her if you write one poem for her, but if you write her a hundred poems, all she’ll realize is that you love poetry.”

“I only wrote seven! One for each of the Constellations, and the last enshrining her beauty among them!”

“Nessa’s tits, Káno,” Maedhros muttered, rolling his eyes as he tipped back the last of his drink. “It’s something that everyone learns as they grow up,” he said to the boys. “Romance requires practice like any other skill, but unlike other skills there is no canon of techniques to master. You will see what I mean eventually.”

Elrond tucked that away and turned back to the griddle.

---

The days took on a difficult but satisfying rhythm, and Elrond took on each task like a bird to song. Every taste of new information only fueled his appetite for more. He wanted everything, even if there was so much that he could barely absorb all of it. Every piece of new knowledge left him with a dozen more questions: how do we know this? Why is this important? What happens when this stops working? Osgardir was happy to answer him, but every answer only made him aware of another hole in his understanding.

“Osgardir?”

“Hmm?”

“Am I a mortal or an elf?”

Osgardir looked up from the bubbling alembic on his compounding table, eyebrows raised. “I’m not sure it’s up to me to decide that.”

“You don’t have to decide. When you look at me, what do you think I am?”

Osgardir surveyed his face. His dark eyes flicked to his ears, his hands, and then the healer blinked and smiled a little. “If you told me you were a Man, I would see a Man. Likewise I would see an elf if that was how you introduced yourself to me.”

“Is it normally easy to tell elves and Men apart just by looking at them?”

“Most of the time.”

“Why not all of the time?”

“The differences are subtle. The elven jaw is a bit narrower and the cranium is a little taller, but not as wide as that of Men--I actually have some skulls, would you like to see?”

“Yes!”

Elrond leaned on the table while Osgardir crouched and rummaged in the back of a cabinet. He resurfaced with a skull in each hand. “All right, one of these belonged to an elf, the other to a Man. Can you guess which is which?”

Fascinated, Elrond peered at both skulls, examining every detail and thinking back to the differences Osgardir had mentioned. “Is the one in your right hand the elven skull?”

“It is. Good eye.”

Elrond smiled. “What other differences are there?”

“The the fingers and toes are a little longer. We build muscle differently. Our ears are pointed and our eyes are larger, but some elven ears are just a little more rounded and some Men have very large eyes, and all things considered, Men and elves have more in common than not. We’re similar enough to reproduce, after all.”

“But you can usually tell the difference.”

“Usually.”

There was a pause. Elrond aimlessly rearranged some jars. He caught his reflection in the side of the alembic: light, freckled skin, almond-shaped gray eyes, black hair in two braids and ears that came to delicate points. “Do elves and Men find each other beautiful?”

“My boy, you are living proof that they do.” Osgardir rested his elbows on the tabletop. “Their lives are fleeting, and they burn brighter for it. They are curious and diverse and open to change. It isn’t so effortless for us. And they are interesting to look at. Their stories are written into their faces and bodies as they age, and there is such a fascinating difference between their males and females.”

“How so?”

“Sexual dimorphism—there’s your word of the day. That is when the males and females of the species exhibit different characteristics. Among the children of Iluvatar, females have wider hips to aid in carrying babies and breasts to nurse them when they are born, and males tend to be taller and stronger in order to protect their mates and children. These were traits the One gave to our ancestors before we learned to speak.”

Elrond held to that thread like he did when keeping himself tied to reality in the face of falling into a vision. “If all children of Iluvatar have these differences, how are Men different from elves?”

“The differences are more pronounced. Most elves have smooth faces, but the males of the Secondborn have beards. The females tend to be shorter and have curvier bodies.” Osgardir shrugged. “There are always exceptions. Even ‘male’ and ‘female’ are not as sharply divided as I’m making it sound. The One created men like myself who can carry babies and people like my spouse who stand outside the categories of male and female altogether. He delights in our infinite variation, otherwise we would not be as we are.” He paused again. “That is my answer to you. You are a child of Iluvatar.”

Elrond tore his eyes away from the alembic. His reflection only annoyed him, like his own skin was an itchy, ill-fitting coat. “That doesn’t answer how long I’ll live, or what will happen to me if I die, or how I relate to every other person in the world.”

“I’d think that last one is up to you, whether you’re an elf or a Man or a tuft of grass.”

“But what about the rest?” Elrond gestured at nothing, frustrated. “Where do I fit?”

“Elrond.” Osgardir sounded a little exasperated, but his voice was kind. “I can set a broken bone, but I don’t claim to know anything about the nature of anyone’s existence.”

Elrond understood his reluctance, but it was still frustrating to have no answers from people who had seen and studied the world for hundreds or thousands of years before he was born. He was a living creature like any of them, so how could he be too unusual to even know his own nature?

---

The visions were always with him. It got easier, though progress came so slowly that Elrond barely noticed it.

Flashes of emotion, alien memories, unexplained sorrows. I see you, he said to them all, and released them with his breath. Whether they were impressions of his own future or the echoes of the past age, he held them for a moment, breathed, and pulled himself away. I understand, he said, even when he didn’t.

Sometimes he woke trembling and cold with sweat. Sometimes he fled before the visions, vainly trying to hide before he managed to get his footing again and break the surface. As long as he held to the thread, he had a way back.

Over the summer and into autumn, Osgardir took Elrond out to the garden where the two of them spent long hours pulling weeds. It almost seemed as if they did nothing else, and Elrond’s skin became very brown and freckled as the long, bright days went by.

“I could definitely use the skills of an experienced herbalist,” Osgardir said as he took clippings of herbs for extracts and Elrond contended with dandelions that were sprouting up in the wrong places. “Many plants can ease the symptoms of melancholy illnesses, but I am only comfortable making a few formulations. Many of our people suffer needlessly as a result.”

“I remember Maedhros taking valerian and skullcap oils the last time he was very ill,” Elrond said.

“Oh, he’s still very ill, but he is not currently in crisis.” Osgardir moved to the cage of wire netting that covered his poppy patch. He guarded the flowers jealously, and grumbled when he noticed an insect on one of the leaves. “But yes, valerian and skullcap are useful for panic and agitation. Depending on the symptoms, we can also use elanor, saffron, cannabis, and a few others. I don’t have anything close to the variety I need. Of course, some cases don’t seem to respond to any of the usual treatments.”

“What can you do then?”

“Listen to them and support them. Talking soothes many aches.” He picked another insect off a poppy plant. “But not all. That is what the poppies are for, and it’s the best thing we have after the dream-vapor ran out.”

 

It was nearly winter before Osgardir showed Elrond how to use the steam-kettle.

“Like I said, this thing is practically worth more than you are,” Osgardir said, affectionately stroking its steel lid. “None of the smiths here would be able to make me a new one, and my patients’ health depends on its ability to clean my instruments. Are we clear?”

Elrond nodded nervously. He came closer when Osgardir beckoned him over, and the healer explained how to fill the bottom of the steam-kettle with water, arrange the instruments on a steel rack above the water’s surface, and seal the lid on with four clamps around its edges.

“Do not put it directly in the fire,” he said as he lugged the steam-kettle over to the hearth. “Put it on top of the grate and make sure you maintain a good, steady heat. Not too hot, but hot enough to boil the water. Once steam starts coming out of the valve, place the weight over the valve to increase the pressure inside the chamber. Do not touch anything else. After about a quarter of an hour, shovel the coals out from under the grate, and wait for the steam-kettle to cool. Do not try to open it until it is. That’s how you get a hot steel lid embedded in your skull.”

Elrond grimaced. “I’ll keep that image in mind.”

“Good, I hoped you might.”

Under Osgardir’s close supervision, he began practicing. He placed blades, clamps, and needles into the rack, filled the bottom of the steam-kettle with water, and began heating it as instructed. He watched it the entire time, counting minutes while escaping steam rattled the weight on top of the valve, until it was time to shovel the coals out from underneath the steam-kettle. Once it was cool, he still held his breath as he released the lid. He’d done it.

“Good,” Osgardir said, peering down at the instruments in the rack. “Do it again.”

---

In time, cleaning instruments became just another item on the schedule. Elrond learned to do it without fear or error, and Osgardir soon stopped checking his work.

“I have an errand for you,” the healer said to him when he arrived one morning, handing him a wax tablet with a list of items on it. “We’re running low on some supplies. Take the wagon from out back and visit these workshops to get more. They should have some set aside for me, so you can take my sigil to let them know I sent you.” He tucked a linen swatch, embroidered with the image of a silk moth, into the back of Elrond’s belt. “Step lively, now.”

Elrond had retrieved the wagon and made it halfway down the street before he realized that he was on an official errand, wearing Osgardir’s sigil so that everyone would know the healer trusted him to handle everything safely, and he was as particular about his supplies as he was about everything else. An extra spring entered his step at that, followed by an irrational fear that he would end up dumping the wagon into a ditch.

He needed to go to the brewers’ for vinegar, next door to the distillery for clear spirits, down to the mill for flaxseed and hemp oils, to Caedor’s house for soap, and to the weavers’ for linen, hemp cloth, twine, and an assortment of thread. Sparks and flutters of outside minds prickled behind his ears as he pulled the wagon along his route. He picked each out from the rest, acknowledging them and then letting them go, one by one.

I see you. I hear you.

“Are you here for Osgardir’s vinegar?” Treneril said before Elrond could even open his mouth at the brewers’.

“Uh, yes. He gave me his sigil if you want to see...”

“Never mind that, he talked you up the last time he was here.” She grinned and took the empty jugs from his wagon to exchange them for full ones.

The sensation of pride blossoming in Elrond’s chest was an unusual one, and he ruminated over it for several minutes before he realized it was his own and not, for once, an impression of someone else’s thoughts.

With the vinegar taken care of, he went down the rest of the list. No one questioned his errands.

The wagon was very heavy by the time it was full, and he realized he wouldn’t have been able to pull it very far at the start of his studies. After months of scrubbing and laundry, he was as strong as he had been before he became ill. He had not noticed until that moment.

“Good work,” Osgardir said when Elrond returned with the full wagon. “Did you have trouble gathering anything?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think you would. Everyone probably expected you.”

Everything since his visit to Treneril had collected in Elrond’s mind, and that statement sent it flowing over onto his tongue, reawakening a question he had not asked in a long time.

“Will you take me as your apprentice?”

Osgardir looked up at Elrond, and the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “I will.”