Memories of sorrows past by Elwing

Chapter 1

They had come to Rivendell, but Elrond was uncertain about the reasons behind this. Both Celeborn and Galadriel were kin to him, though distant, so he could not turn them away. He wouldn’t have done so, even had they been strangers, but still he didn’t know why they had come here. Imladris was after all barely more than a temporary refuge at this time. He wasn’t sure how to ask.
And though they were family both of them were strange. Gil-Galad, his king, he could understand. They had grown up at the same place, among the same people who had come as refugees from all those different places, who in their fear had forgotten how strange they thought each other. And he had known Maglor who had lived a life of bitter remorse and pain, bound by an oath he had stopped believing in soon after it was spoken. And Maedhros maimed in more than his body, devoured by the oath, forgetting slowly all the kindness he had known. But they had abandoned him too. He remembered his parents but vaguely. They were long gone. And while the Eldar might sing of their deeds their children were raised by their murderers and grew to love them. Family wasn’t easy and it didn’t seem to count much or mean much to anyone. Elros had left as well. Elrond had always been on his own. Gil-Galad’s trust in him, he sometimes thought, was based on that shared lack of a real place in the world. Both of them had grown up in Middle Earth in a generation that was left behind while the others either went west or remained to remember past defeats, losses and past discords. Things that had happened long before Elrond was born. What were they to him. And those two, they were all that. A prince of the Sindar, known for still holding a grudge against most Noldor, all dwarves and a deep distrust of men, thus living up to his kinsman Elu Thingol’s reputation for xenophobia without effort, but with a reluctance to take power, pride and humbleness combined, that made him difficult to figure out. In any case someone who lived in the memory of a great realm long gone.
And his wife. A princess of the Noldor married to the prince of Doriath! And then she was so much more than that. The Noldor had returned to Valinor after the defeat of Morgoth but Galadriel had not. Why? She had never been a supporter of Feanor, so why did she stay? Just to defy the Valar, for the adventure, for Celeborn? She was still dreaming of the glories of the Noldor of old, she who had seen the light of the trees. She was uncanny, more so than Celeborn, Elrond thought. He didn’t understand Celeborn, he was like a hero from days long past, whose world is gone, trying to make a life for himself and what was left of his people. Galadriel, though, was set to conquer the world, whatever it was like.
Elrond shook his head. There was after all nothing to be done, but go on. He was after all a warrior. Memory was not his purview.
And there he was. One half of his momentary worries. Celeborn looked in the direction of the forest, not moving. When Elrond stopped beside him, he turned half way towards him.

„This valley“, he started, „you chose well. It would be hard to find even were it not protected.“

Elrond wondered whether an answer was expected. But when he looked at Celeborn, he saw that once again, Celeborn saw another forest. 

„Menegroth was well protected, too.“ Celeborn continued. 

Elrond was about to get angry. Why did he have to see defeat in everything? Why was everything Elrond did doomed in Celeborn’s view before it had even begun?
But then he saw the sadness in the older elf’s eyes. And suddenly Celeborn seemed very aged, though his face was young. Elrond suddenly saw something he had missed before. When he looked into Celeborn’s eyes, he saw the eyes of his mother and through her eyes an entire family lost and gone, before their time. Celeborn had lost his parents early, too, and all he had loved, the people, the places were gone, maybe forever. And he thought of Galadriel, most of her family dead in a hopeless war against an enemy too strong. The rest away across an endless sea.

And Elrond thought, maybe he knew why they had come after all.