Sirion by Grundy

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Heavy The Head

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“The party sent to treat with the Fëanorions has returned.”

Gil-galad nodded curtly. He knew better than to raise his hopes. Had the Fëanorions had been willing to return his baby cousins, there was no reason the twins could not have made the journey back to Balar with Gildor and his guards.
Erestor would have told him at once were that the case.

“Thank you. Please inform my council that I will be with them directly,” he replied.

He needed to compose himself before he faced them. Especially if the lords of the Sindar were present, as they were all but certain to be.

The influx of refugees from Sirion had swelled the population of Balar – not a bad thing in itself, but it made day to day life more tense. Sirion had been home to both Sindar and Noldor, composed as it was of survivors of Gondolin, Menegroth, and Nargothrond. But in Sirion, the Sindar had had the upper hand. Not only were they more numerous, their Queen was among them. Eärendil might have been styled Lord of Sirion by the Noldor, but the Sindar had looked to his wife.

The Noldor had technically had princes among them, but none they could call king or queen. Idril may have been a princess of Gondolin and the daughter of the High King, but she had been reluctant to claim royal authority after the city fell. First and foremost, she had feared for her son’s safety. Morgoth’s malice had already threatened his life as a mere child. That threat would only grow as he neared maturity. She would draw no attention to herself and her family by claiming royal authority.

There had also been the political considerations. Idril, had she insisted on maintaining the royal status she inherited from her father, would not have been claiming authority over the Noldor of Sirion alone. The Noldor had never before had a Queen ruling in her own right, let alone a High Queen. There were also those who would grumble about following a nis who had married one of the Aftercomers. So she had not pursued her claim, and the High Kingship had passed from the House of Fingolfin to the House of Finarfin. That left her son Eärendil a mere lord, though many Noldor continued to regard him as a prince.

At the moment, Gil-galad heartily wished Idril had chosen otherwise. He would have happily been just another lord loyally carrying out his Queen or King’s commands. Particularly since, as he was not yet officially of age, it would have meant he had remarkably few decisions to make. Galadriel would probably have been his guardian, and he could think of few people more competent to be in charge of… well, everything, really.

Instead, he found himself at least nominally in charge, stuck with the thankless task of keeping what was left of the Noldor and Sindar from tearing each other apart with their constant recriminations and airing of old grievances while simultaneously trying to find some way to make his Silmaril-obsessed Fëanorion cousins yield their hostages when everyone concerned knew perfectly well he didn’t have anything of like value to trade for them and could not pose any serious threat to their faraway hilltop stronghold.

The only bright side was that he probably had it a bit easier than Idril or Eärendil would have when it came to keeping the Sindar in line. He may be High King of the Noldor, but his mother had been a lady of Menegroth – one of those who had accompanied her brother Oropher and cousin Celeborn to meet the Noldor when they were newly arrived in Ennor.

It was not until he was older that he had realized that the pretty tale his father had told him as a child of falling in love with his mother at first sight was most likely just that – a pretty tale. At best, it was Artaresto’s truth, but Gil-Galad was fairly sure it had not been love on Merelin’s part. Not at first, at least, and perhaps not ever.

It would explain much about his parents’ marriage. It might also explain why his mother had not fought harder to remain with his father and sister when he had been sent to Cirdan for safety as a child.

In the end, it had been a fateful choice – Merelin’s presence had saved her son when the Falas had fallen in the wake of the Nirnaeth, though at the cost of her own life. He had been wracked by guilt after the destruction of his father’s kingdom, when he learned of Finduilas’ fate. Could their mother have saved her if she had stayed with her daughter rather than going with her son? He would much rather have burned than live with the knowledge that his beautiful, kind-hearted older sister had been speared to a tree for the sport of the glamhoth.

Finduilas would have made a good queen. His sister had been far better than he was at dealing with people. She would have had everyone on Balar dancing to her tune with a few well-placed smiles and cleverly chosen words.

For him, it was all a battle. The surviving Noldor lords thought him an untrained pup, at best a lesser scion of greater kings. He wears Ereinion as though the epessë were a badge of honor instead of an insult, holding his head up as proudly as Finwë himself so that they can all see he is above their mockery.

As for the Sindar… Well, it depended on which Sindar, what day of the week, how wind was blowing, and who else was in the room.

Here on Balar, the relative numbers of Sindar and Noldor were far more even than they had been on the mainland. But the Noldor had the advantage, for while a few Noldor had arrived among the refugees from Sirion, most on the island were warriors, either sent by Finrod’s command to aid in the fortification and defense of Eglarest and Brithombar, or those who had won through to Cirdan’s lands after battles elsewhere. And, of course, the Noldor were the ones with their King among them.

Cirdan’s Falathrim held themselves neutral in most quarrels between the two groups, and for that small mercy Gil-galad was sincerely grateful.

After the destruction of Sirion, the death of Queen Elwing, and little King Elros the hostage of the Kinslayers, the Sindar were exhausted, heartsick, angry, and prone to take any slight by a Noldo – real or perceived – in the worst light possible. Any command from the mouth of the Noldaran was challenged as a matter of form. At least Oropher and Celeborn could be counted on to ensure that Sindarin insolence did not get too out of hand. Noldaran or not, he was still their kinsman.

His first impression of his uncle had been that Oropher was surprised to see it was his nephew who ruled on Balar. Thankfully, with a stern look from Erestor to aid him, Gil-galad had remembered that sarcasm to one’s elder kinsman was neither polite nor kingly and bit back his first impulse – had Oropher not listened to anything Celeborn or Galadriel had told him?

It was only later, in private, without the eyes of the refugees and the court on them, that Oropher had embraced him like a lost child and told him how much he resembled his mother.

Since then, he has tried extra hard to live up to what a good king should be. He did not want Oropher to think his beloved little sister had sacrificed her life to save a weakling or a coward. Unfortunately, with the Sindar and Noldor constantly butting heads and the matter of Elwing’s twins hanging over everything, he wasn’t sure even Finwë or Thingol could have acquitted themselves very well.

With so little in the way of kin, and few advisors he trusted fully other than Cirdan and Galadriel, he leaned on the ‘brothers’ he’d grown up with – Erestor and Gildor. Raised together first at the Falas and then on Balar, none of them have kin to call their own and lacking what all other elflings around them had, formed their own little family.

He’s relieved to hear that Gildor has come back alive – he hadn’t wanted to let him go, but Gildor had insisted, asking who else he would task with such an errand. He’d won with that, and he knew it, for precious few of the Noldor and virtually none of the Sindar could be relied on to keep their cool in the face of provocation by the Kinslayers. Except for Galadriel, of course, but he knew perfectly well that Celeborn didn’t want her to go. He hadn’t wanted her to go, either.

Gil-galad wondered idly how best to handle his council this time. It’s a certainty that both the Sindar and Noldor will be outraged by Maedhros’ refusal to hand over the children. That at least they would agree on, if nothing else.

He sighed, and scooped his circlet up from the desk where he’d tossed it earlier. Erestor wouldn’t breathe a word about how unregal the King often looked in private, but every vulture in his court would gossip for a week if he showed himself in public with so much as a hair out of place.

Crown set, hair in order, royal robes properly draped about his body (and damnably heavy – how in Arda had the Noldor managed to move in Tirion, where he knew perfectly well their clothing had been even more elaborate and formal than it was here in Ennor?) he set his face in a practiced neutral expression and made his way to the council room.

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The Council went even worse than he had expected.

It had started on a surprisingly positive note, for Gildor and his guard not only caught a glimpse of Elrond on their reception – dressed like a miniature Maedhros, the indignant guards had reported – but had also been invited to dine with the Fëanorions in the main hall of Amon Ereb, and so laid eyes on both twins at the high table. (Gil-galad was apparently the only one who found it reassuring that Elrond nearly fell asleep on Maglor’s lap and that Elros’ table manners sounded much improved.)

Everything had pretty much gone straight to Angband as soon as the answer to his demand for the twins had been read out.

The sole bright point in the letter was that it spoke of three children, not two – Elwing’s young handmaiden Glinwen, thought to have perished with the queen, was also at Amon Ereb. But the Fëanorions had no more intention of surrendering her than they had of returning the twins.

Maedhros had ever so politely declined to deliver ‘his young kinsmen, so cruelly abandoned’ to any but their own father, helpfully listing a good many reasons why the twins remaining in his care was the most sensible course of action.

That one phrase alone had been enough to set off the Sindarin lords, even without the explosive allegation that Elwing had taken her own life rather than surrender her Silmaril. Gil-Galad wondered if his Fëanorion cousin had known just how inflammatory the wording of his letter had been. He could almost picture the man with an evil smirk on his face as he committed the words to paper.

Nor did it help that the Kinslayers had seen fit to point out that the boys were princes of the Noldor. Gil-Galad suspected that the only thing restraining the eldest son of Fëanor from openly doubting they would be raised properly on Balar was that he had no wish to insult Galadriel – who, though she had refrained from speaking so far, looked rather angry.

The pointedly polite sniping between the Noldor and Sindar segments of his Council was reaching fever pitch. Even Erestor – who, though an orphan, was most likely a child of mixed heritage just as the king he had always looked on as a younger brother – was beginning to look strained.

Gil-Galad sighed.

Perhaps it was time to point out, as tactfully as he could, that Elros wasn’t just the King of the Sindar, but the High Prince of the Noldor as well.

Gil-galad had no children, nor did he particularly want to bring any into the world even assuming he found a willing partner once he came of age. Not with Morgoth ready to assault what remained of the elves at any moment.

As long as he remained childless, Elwing’s and Eärendil’s twins were not only his young cousins, they were his heirs – the last descendants of Finwë on the Hither Shores. (Aside from Celebrimbor, who would probably either die of horror on the spot or decamp to Ossiriand posthaste if anyone asked him to take the crown. He could rarely even be persuaded to attend Council meetings. Though given how this was going, that was probably a sign of intelligence on his part. Gil-galad would be only too happy to trade places with him right now.)

So no matter what the Fëanorions thought, he had a strong interest in seeing the boys – both the one who might be so unlucky as to follow him as High King as well as his brother – raised as befit their station, and educated to lead their people. Both of them.

When the Council finally finished venting their outrage, Gil-galad dismissed them with relief. Erestor stood by the door, silently encouraging stragglers to take their leave.

Gildor, unsurprisingly, hung back.

Unfortunately, he was not the only one. Galadriel, Celeborn, and Oropher lingered as well, though Gil-galad heartily wished them all elsewhere – he’d already had enough for one day of hearing what he should do, ought to have done, or how best to proceed from here. Gildor and his companions were back alive and unharmed, and the children sounded well, was that not enough for one evening?

The sideways glance Gildor gave their audience suggested he too had hoped they would leave.

“Well, nephew?” Galadriel asked, her mood shifting from irritated to amused, as though she had caught the pair of them in some elfling mischief.

Gildor did sigh at that.

“I was charged by the twins to give a letter to you,” he told Gil-galad.

“Why did you not mention this sooner?” demanded Oropher, some heat in his voice. “The Council should have been informed.”

“Because I was told expressly it was a letter to their cousin, not to the king,” Gildor replied, eyes twinkling.

With his silver hair and grey eyes, it was impossible to tell whether Gildor was Noldor, Sindarin, or mixed. All the same, Gil-galad knew Finrod’s adopted son did not have nearly as much patience for the surviving princes of Doriath as he himself was expected to show.

Gildor handed him the letter with a flourish, and a look that said there was more which he would tell privately, when the others finally left them alone.

Gil-galad made swift work of the envelope and opened the folded sheet within. It was a fair enough letter for a pair of not quite seven year olds – though he could not make out most of the part Elros had written. Some guesswork based on the few readable words gave him the information that Elros was learning to ride and had a horse – or more likely, at his size, a pony.

Elrond’s far more legible section was actually surprisingly polished for one so young, and Gil-galad hated himself for wondering if it had been dictated to the little boy.

“How came you by this, Gildor?” he asked.

“The children asked me if I would bring you a letter – after dinner, just before they were sent to bed, as a special favor, and I do believe they planned out when best to ask, the little rascals.”

“They were told to write?” Celeborn broke in.

“Maglor would have it that it was the twins’ own idea, and made much of the fact that Elros voluntarily gave up his playtime to write. Though he did admit to having spelled out a good many words for Elrond.”

“Both boys are writing?” Galadriel said in some surprise, scanning the paper over his shoulder. “That is quite new. They had done no more than begin learning tinco parma calma quessë with Lalwen.”

It was as well that Gil-galad was a quick reader, for the older elves all wanted to peruse the letter for themselves, and it was taken from his hands despite his somewhat cranky reminder that it had been sent to him.

Gildor waited until the ‘grownups’ had departed, and it was just him, Gil-galad, and Erestor left before he grinned.

“I was not about to do this in front of them,” he said with a grin, “but the letter was not the only thing I was asked to bring you from the twins.”

“Oh?”

Gildor gave his royal brother a bone-cracking hug.

“You shall have to imagine it times two,” he said merrily, “for there is only one of me.”

“Are they happy?”

The question slipped out before he could stop it, but the twins had been such cheerful little things the one time he had visited Sirion that he doesn’t like to think of them unhappy. If they were, he didn’t care how impractical it was, he would get them back somehow.

Gildor paused.

“They will not like to hear it,” he said pensively, and Gil-galad understood that he meant not only his Council in general, but the kinfolk who have made off with his letter in particular, “but yes, I think they are.”

Gil-galad sighed. This would cause no end of trouble, he knew, particularly with the Sindar. But unless they intended to raise an army of their own…

“Then they stay where they are,” he said softly.