In Our Hearts We Know the Truth by Saelind

Chapter 1

Prompt: fragrant, bustle, refused, hastened. 

Elrond in Lindon at the dawn of the Second Age. 

Fish were plentiful in Lindon, and the smell of Círdan’s kitchens reminded Elrond of his mother’s house in Sirion, trout roasting in fragrant herbs and salt and their own fat. The maids bustled through the cavernous room, shouting back and forth to one another, and gently refused his help when he offered it. “You are a guest,” they said, and the words cut through in a way they did not mean. A choice lay before him and Elros, and though they could not make it in haste it pressed on him each day. Until then, what could he call home?