A Parting Of The Ways by Grundy

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Eve of Departure

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Elrond felt him approach long before he spoke.

“You still can’t sneak up on me, you know,” he said conversationally.

A snort from behind him greeted that pronouncement.

“It was worth a try,” Elros said cheerfully, plopping down to sit on the dock with all the gracelessness he’d shown as a boy falling out of trees. “Anyway, I figured you wanted to talk to me. Why else sit out here admiring my fleet?”

Elrond gave him a withering look from his own perch and carefully capped his ink pot before his brother could knock it over.

“I’m documenting the ships of the Edain preparing to depart for the new land of Elenna,” he said drily. “As you might have guessed. Gil-galad is fond of thorough record-keeping.”

“He’s also fond of trying to get you to stop being ridiculous,” Elros replied. “Hasn’t this gone on long enough?”

“He has spoken to you just as often,” Elrond muttered waspishly.

“I’m sailing with the morning tide, El,” Elros said quietly. “If we can’t set this right now, there may not be another chance.”

Elrond pointedly occupied himself with the record he was composing.

Elros sighed.

“I do not wish to leave with my brother angry with me, especially if I may never see you again.”

He paused, but as Elrond did not seem inclined to reply, he plowed doggedly on.

“I know that you are upset with my choice. But it’s too late to change it now. And if you have not already realized it, none of the elves are best pleased with me. For once, it seems the Noldor and the Sindar have found something they agree on.”

It was true. No elf had been happy with Elros’ decision to be reckoned among the Edain – though for their part, the Secondborn had been immensely excited.

“Are you truly surprised? With your choice, the Sindar lost their king, and the Noldor their Crown Prince.”

Elros blinked.

He hadn’t really expected an answer anymore. Elrond could easily match any of their forebears for stubbornness. The Noldor preferred to blame Thingol, while the Sindar murmured about Finwë and Turgon.

The pair of them have been at odds for the last thirty years, practically from the moment they made their choices.  No, that wasn’t quite right. From the moment they realized they had made different choices. It does not matter what comes after the Gift, Elros knew he would never be able to forget the stricken look on Elrond’s face when he had realized their sundering.

Cirdan, Galadriel, and Gil-galad have tried many times to get them to make peace with each other. In truth, they’ve mostly been working on Elrond. Elros would have happily called a truce after the first few years. As a Man, he doesn’t have nearly as many of them ahead of him to work with. But Elrond…

His twin had taken his choice as a betrayal, and Elros understood all too well it was the last such one Elrond could stand. Father, mother, foster fathers – all have left them, one way or another. Ironically, it was the sons of Fëanor who had been the most responsible about it. They’d at least made certain their charges would be safe before their last stand.

That the twins’ elven kin would have happily taken Elrond back to Valinor with them didn’t matter to him, for he was no more ready to quit Middle Earth than Oropher or Celeborn. In fact, he’d taken himself off with the Sindar for several months to ensure that wouldn’t happen, waiting it out east of the mountains until Arafinwë and Olwë had reluctantly departed without him.

“Is that what this is about? You’re angry that I’ve saddled you with being King?” Elros asked cautiously.

That particular aspect of his choice hadn’t really occurred to him.

“I’m not King,” Elrond replied quietly.

“What?” Elros spluttered. “But you’re the last of the line of Thingol! You can’t mean to tell me you passed the crown to Oropher!”

“I spoke with Oropher, and Celeborn, and Amdir. They agreed with me that Doriath is no more, and there is no one place where the folk who were once the Iathrim will wish to settle now that the lands that were once our home have sunk beneath the wave. Some look to the forests, others to the plains. Some wish to remain near the shore now that they have seen what the protection of Ulmo is worth, others to journey inland, to put a safer distance between them and the sea. Having one king when the people do not have one will makes little sense.”

“They would follow if you lead,” Elros protested, trying to shake off the queasy mix of disappointment and hurt that had settled into his chest at his brother’s words.

It shouldn’t matter. He was not an elf anymore, the Sindar were no longer his people, their affairs no longer his to order. But the idea that the folk who had survived all that Morgoth could throw at them since before the rise of moon or sun should splinter and scatter sat wrong all the same.

“They might,” Elrond replied. “But if there is one thing I have learned from the history of Beleriand, it is that it would not be wise to concentrate my people all in one place. And we have grown so few that I cannot muster much of an army to defend them. You know as well as I do a king who cannot hold his own claims an empty title.”

“You talk as though you expect another War,” Elros frowned.

It was not so easy now as it used to be, gleaning his brother’s thoughts. Their fëar were still closely linked, but Elrond had studied with more than just Galadriel since they had left Amon Ereb. Protecting his mind was second nature to him now. Even, or perhaps especially, from his brother.

But sundered or not, they were still twins, and Elros could winkle his way in where a Vala might not have.

Sauron is still out there someplace. I mistrust his submission. Nor am I the only one. If he was dissembling as we suspect, another war is inevitable.

Elrond looked over at him almost apologetically.

“I do not think you need to trouble yourself about it,” he said.

Elros blinked.

“That is a delicate way of saying it will be in your lifetime, not mine, isn’t it?” he guessed.

Elrond flushed.

“I would not have put it so, but yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “Sauron is no fool. He will not try our strength until he is confident he can overpower us. It will be many lifetimes of Men before he has sufficient force for that contest.”

“You can say it plainly, you know,” Elros snapped, irritated by the tip-toing about. It really wasn’t necessary. “I know perfectly well that I am going to die. ‘You will be dust by the time Gorthaur has rebuilt his armies.’ It is not so hard to hear.”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Elrond had gone pale, and there was a tightness to his jaw that betrayed how hard he was working to conceal his distress.

Elros smacked his forehead in exasperation. He was supposed to be mending fences, not smashing what little remained to bits.

“I’m sorry, El,” he whispered, reaching for his twin on instinct.

The nauseating swirl of hurt, and loneliness, and outright terror at the rapidly approaching loss – one with no hope of healing on the other side of the Sea – nearly made him retch. If this was what Elrond has been carrying with him for the last thirty years, maybe Great-uncle Arafinwë had the right idea after all. They have more kin in Aman than Ennor now, and Elrond needed that support, even if he’s too hardheaded to admit it.

For the first time in years, Elrond didn’t push him away, clinging as tightly as they once had in a cave that was no now longer by the sea but under it.

I wouldn’t say there’s no hope, though.

He couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or a sob he felt from Elrond.

“Makalaurë told me what you said about your reasons,” he gulped. “That you thought if you weren’t bound to the circles of the world, you could find his brothers. You still wanted to save Maedhros.”

Elros felt as if some indefinable weight had suddenly lifted from him. He hadn’t ever tried to explain his decision in the face of his twin’s uncomprehending pain, knowing Elrond was unlikely to hear his reasoning, much less agree with it.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I thought if I had to die- and Uncle Arafinwë and Uncle Olwë notwithstanding, most kings do sooner or later- I wanted it to mean something. If Men are free to go beyond the circles of the world, I can at least make certain Maedhros is not lost in the Everlasting Darkness.”

Elrond straightened up to look him in the eye.

“You,” he said sternly, “never think things through! That is the worst excuse for a plan I have ever heard.”

“That’s pretty strong coming from someone who’s heard what passes for strategy in Thranduil’s brain,” Elros retorted, somewhat nettled.

“Which is why no one lets him make the plans,” Elrond sniffed. “Yet the Valar listened to your pie in the sky idea and let that count as your choice!”

“I suppose after Grandmother Luthien, they didn’t want to risk another disgruntled peredhel making trouble in Mandos,” Elros mused. “Oropher has mentioned once or twice that we resemble her.”

“Once or twice a year,” Elrond muttered.

“It was your idea to spend so much time with him,” Elros couldn’t resist pointing out. “I’ve been using my time more wisely!”

“With your new people, yes,” Elrond agreed. “Though I find it hard to believe they put such trust in you at our age.”

Elros rolled his eyes.

“El, we’re nearly ninety. That may be underage for the eldar, but for most of the edain, ninety is a venerable greybeard – if they manage to live that long!”

He shot a cautious glance at his twin, just to make sure that the mention of mortality and the short years of the Secondborn hadn’t brought on a fresh round of distress, but he seemed to be holding up.

“Besides,” Elros continued, “they’re thrilled to have a king that all three houses can agree on. Did you realize we are kin to all three of them?”

Elrond shook his head. To him, the divisions among the Edain were pertinent only in so far as it explained their politics. It had always been academic, never personal. His father’s edain father and his mother’s edain grandfather, neither of whom he had ever met, were little more than names to him.

“They are most excited that I am a grandson of Tuor,” Elros continued. “I haven’t the heart to tell them that Tuor and Idril sailed before we were born, so I know no more about him than I do about Beren Erchamion. I don’t even know what he looked like.”

“Galadriel says he looked very much like Atar,” Elrond offered uncertainly.

“That would help if I could remember what Eärendil looked like,” Elros snorted. “Do you?”

Elrond shook his head.

“He had golden hair, I think,” he offered. “Not unlike the Vanyar. But I do not know if that is something I remember or something I have been told.”

Elros nodded, understanding him perfectly.

Elwing had not left their lives until they were six, old enough to recall her face, though Elros was no longer sure that the memory he thought was the sound of her voice was not merely wishful thinking. But their father had been gone so often even before the Kinslaying at Sirion that they knew him mainly through others. He might be the hero of the Battle of the Dragons, but neither of his sons could have picked him out from any other crewman on Vingilot that day.

“I have heard from the Edain that the house of Hador are noted for their sunny hair,” he said. “In fact, I think it came as something of a disappointment to the folk of that house that my hair is so unrelentingly dark. The Haladin, on the other hand, are pleased by it. In their eyes, it is an inheritance from Tuor’s grandmother Hareth, who was of their people.”

 “You had best not tell them of Luthien,” Elrond said drolly.

“She doesn’t even get a look in among the Secondborn,” Elros sighed. “The Bëorions would have it that my hair, and my looks in general, are most certainly from Beren and Rían!”

“I shall make certain not to mention that the Iathrim insist we look like our mother while the Noldor generally speak of Turgon,” Elrond assured him.

Elros could no longer help himself, and burst out laughing.

“The way everyone talks about us, you’d think we were little more than one of Eilwen’s patchwork quilts!”

Elrond smiled.

“Let everyone see what they want to see, so long as they let us be what we want to be,” he said quietly.

“That sounds suspiciously like Makaläure,” Elros mused.

“It does sound as if it should be part of a song, but it’s nothing he said,” Elrond replied. “At least not that I know of. I haven’t seen him. Not since…”

Not since he had disappeared.

Several days after the theft of the Silmarils, the frantic twins had found him in a daze on the shore far south of the main camp, his hands a mess of burnt and charred flesh, and an expression of something broken beyond repair in his eyes.

The Silmarils had been nowhere to be seen. It had taken most of a week before he had spoken, and even then it had taken some time to decipher his garbled words enough to understand that he had cast his jewel into the sea.

They found nothing of Maedhros, but between the lack of Silmarils and the state of Makaläure, Elros had known the man who had raised him was dead.

They had stayed for several days more, only to waken one morning to discover Makalaurë gone. There were footprints leading away from the sea, so they were reasonably confident he hadn’t thrown himself into the water as well, but search as they might, there had been no further trace of him.

It had only been several months later that Elros found out that Elrond had been unable to fend off the onslaught of memories from the foster father he’d been closest to – unable to avoid seeing what had happened to Maedhros.

He had been furious that Elrond hadn’t told him at the time. When they were asked to make their Choice shortly thereafter, Elrond had been angry that Elros had chosen the fate of Men.

And there things had stood between them. Until today.

“I’m glad you’re at least talking to me again, El,” he said. “I was starting to think I was going to go onto the ship tonight and never hear from you again.”

“You were not the only one,” Elrond admitted grudgingly. “Several of our elders have had strong words on the matter.”

“So you’re only talking to me because Cirdan threatened to keelhaul you?” Elros asked in disappointment.

The shipwright was the only elf who had succeeded in cowing either twin since they’d declared themselves old enough to join the fighting.

He was also the one who had pointed out after their first battle that while Elrond could certainly play the warrior well enough at need, he was a much more talented healer, of far greater value in the camp than on the battlefield. Cirdan had then spent several weeks maneuvering Elrond into admitting that to be true, rather than merely a clever ruse to keep one of the twins in a position of relative safety.

“No, I’m talking to you because Galadriel pointed out to me that only a fool would waste what time we have left to us, and she was correct.”

Elros beamed.

That was Elrond for ‘I am still angry at you, but mostly because I am going to miss you’.

“You can visit, you know. Or can’t you?”

He suddenly realized nothing had been said about the elves of Ennor visiting this new island the Edain had been promised. They had been told that the Eldar of Aman, provided they had not been barred from mortal lands, would be permitted to visit, and many were curious and eager to do so. (Elros couldn’t help feeling it unfair that his parents were among the very few who were expressly forbidden.)

Elrond shrugged.

“No one has said I cannot, so I assume that I can. Though I suspect my presence would not be welcome on this initial voyage.”

Elros snickered.

“Indeed, it’s difficult to say who would be most upset. The Edain, with an elf reminding them that I’m not quite one of them, or the Eldar, furious that you might be getting ideas.”

“The Eldar need not worry,” Elrond sniffed. “My choice was as binding as yours.”

Elros frowned despite himself. Something was amiss, and Elrond was trying rather hard not to let it show…

Give, El. Especially since whatever it is, you haven’t told anyone else.

Not even Galadriel, he realized – and for all Elrond’s training, keeping anything from her was still something of an accomplishment.

“My choice was binding, but only for me,” Elrond said haltingly.

Elros was confused.

“I don’t follow,” he said. “Who else should it bind?”

“Your children,” Elrond said softly, “will not be offered any choice. They will be mortals born of mortals.”

Elros felt the same sense of sudden unease he’d felt when they had walked out of the pavilion of the Valar after their choice and he’d turned to face his brother.

“And your children will be elves born of elves,” he said, feeling even as he spoke that he was stating a hope, not a fact.

Elrond shook his head.

“My children, should they be born in Ennor, will be considered peredhel as we are, and offered the same choice we were given – to choose their kindred.”

Elros was startled by how furious he suddenly was with the Valar.

“Is that a punishment?” he demanded. “Because you wouldn’t go to Aman with the others, they leave a threat that your children might follow me hanging over your head?”

Elrond shook his head helplessly.

“I don’t know. I thought that at first, but they said naught to any of the elves who never completed the journey – none of the evair or laegrim or tawarwaith have reported any pressure to leave, only that they were invited. If this was meant as punishment, shouldn’t they also be feeling consequences for not accepting their invitation?”

“And now?” Elros asked, still unconvinced.

His twin shrugged.

“I do not know. But I think the Valar do not really understand us – any of the Children of Eru, not just you and I. I had some conversations with Eonwë and Uinen and concluded that even those of the ainur who are fond of us do not think as we do. It is possible they thought they were giving us a gift by allowing us to choose.”

Elros snorted.

“You are more charitable than I am. I thought it sounded as if they could not decide what to do with us and as a last resort asked us to make up their minds for them. They also were the only ones who seemed in any way happy that we chose different kindreds. The neatness of the balance pleased them.”

Elrond tilted his head to the side, considering that notion.

“Also possible, I suppose. Then again, why should we expect to understand them if they do not understand us?”

Elros shook his head.

“Don’t start philosophizing. I have a ship to board tonight, I can’t sit here for days while you ponder all potential aspects of the problem. Besides, you’re the one who said there’s going to be another war with Sauron at some point. I don’t see a cautious fellow like you begetting children with the threat of war hanging over you. Wait to have your children in Aman – after Sauron is defeated.”

“Your children will not know war. I should like my children to see Ennor at peace,” Elrond murmured wistfully.

“Oh?” Elros said expectantly, raising an eyebrow. “And who is the lucky elleth?”

Elrond glared at him.

“There isn’t one, as you well know. And I know not how I should ever bring up the subject should I find a lady who might consent to be my wife. ‘By the way, my love, I should warn you our children might decide to be counted among the Secondborn as my brother did. I do hope you can manage to overlook that danger and marry me anyway.’”

Elros couldn’t help the laugh.

“I would definitely not recommend phrasing it that way,” he said, clapping a once again morose Elrond on the shoulder. “Besides, if you would actually tell people about that wrinkle, I imagine that Galadriel will take it on herself to be certain any elleth contemplating a union with you knows before you can raise the matter.”

Elrond looked at him in some surprise.

“If it has entirely escaped your notice, o Wise One,” Elros said drily, “she keeps a very careful eye on those she considers hers, and will not allow anyone to hurt them if it can be prevented. So far as I can make out, aside from Celeborn, you, I, Gildor, Gil-Galad, Celebrimbor, and Erestor all get that treatment, though I cannot rightly make out how Erestor comes in for his share of the honor.”

Elrond shrugged.

“He, Gil-galad, and Gildor look on each other as brothers,” he offered. “Galadriel has lived long enough among the Sindar to know that family is what the people involved decide it is, even if that doesn’t match birth or blood. She is not nearly as Noldor as most of the Sindar seem to believe.”

Elros accepted that. He had not spent as much time among his mother’s people during the War – or elves in general since the end of it – as Elrond had. He had not known that arrangements like he and his brother’s unorthodox ‘family’ were common among them until Elrond told him.

“Oh, they’re not quite so accepting of our situation,” Elrond said, picking up on his thoughts easily. “Most orphans, after all, have the common courtesy not to choose Kinslayers for foster parents. It seems the popular notion is that we were hostages, lucky to survive a captivity only somewhat less harsh than Angband would have been.”

Elros chucked a stray bit of stone someone had left on the dock into the water somewhat harder than he’d meant to, and heads turned all around the harbor at the unexpectedly loud plunk and sizable splash.

Elrond chuckled.

“And now everyone has noticed we’re on speaking terms again. Clever of you.”

Elros rolled his eyes.

“They really think we were treated poorly?”

Elrond sighed.

“Don’t dwell on it,” he advised. “You won’t change anyone’s mind about them. You might as well try to bring the mountains down.”

“What’s left of them, you mean,” Elros muttered sullenly. “It’s not impossible.”

“The Ered Luin are mostly still there,” Elrond shrugged. “They’re just missing a chunk.”

A Novrod sized chunk, to be specific, and the dwarves that had been Maedhros’ last allies were planning to move eastward, speaking of joining with another dwarf clan, while the Broadbeams who had survived the ruin of Belegost were delving a new dwelling further north where the mountains were more stable.

“Yes, well, my point is, bringing mountains down can be done.”

“Not by elves or men, though.”

Elros glared at his brother.

“You know, I rather hope you do have children. I can’t think of any other way you’re going to be cured of your pedantic tendencies. And you deserve to have at least one as troublesome and stubborn as you are.”

“I rather think you’ll have children before I will,” Elrond said contemplatively, “and when you do, I shall take great glee in reminding you of what you just said. Though probably not the bit about pedantic tendencies. Stubbornness, though…”

 “Insufferable prat,” Elros sighed, though with more affection than irritation.

“Come,” Elrond said, standing up and brushing himself off. “Let’s go have dinner somewhere quiet. Just the two of us. We aren’t likely to have many more chances for that.”

Elros let his brother haul him to his feet.

“So long as you make sure I don’t miss my boat,” he warned. “Do you know how embarrassing it would be to have to chase after them?”

Elrond laughed.

“I have it on good authority that important ventures can’t start without the King. It’s simply not done. The ships will wait if need be.”