Why? by elvntari

Why?

“Did you-- did you ever actually ask why?” Elros lay flat on the roof, some flask of something strong tipped over at his side, spilling the murky liquid onto the stones, seeping into the cracks between them. Elrond wondered if, given long enough, it would drip through to the floor below (Eru help them if it should.)

“You’re not making any sense.” He sat down next to his brother. “And it took me at least forty minutes to find you, so this better be worthwhile.”

“Why he didn’t leave us at that village-- why we’re still here.”

“Still not making sense.”

“Do you not remember? When they found us, they said their plan was to escort us to the nearest village and leave us there, but they didn’t-- they took us there, then we asked them not to, and they listened. Why? I never asked why.”

Elrond sighed, he could smell the scent of alcohol from where he sat-- whiskey, probably, he was less of a stranger to the wonders of their father’s alcohol cupboard than he cared to admit, though only because he sought it out in the hope that he would finally be able to bring himself to enjoy the taste. It never worked. It seemed it worked a little better for his brother.

“I didn’t ask why, either,” he admitted, “but it’s not like we can’t still.”

“No, we’re beyond that now--” he heaved himself up-- “I doubt he even remembers why.”

“That’s not--”

“And it’s such a fundamental question--”

“Oh no--”

“Oh, piss off, I’m serious! It’s such an important thing: why are we here? Who decided that we were worth existing? Who decided that we were worth keeping? And why?”

“Is this your adolescent crisis?” Elrond nudged him in the arm-- their father had warned them that, no matter how sure of themselves they though they were, they would question something at some point to the degree that it would, as he remembered, ‘momentarily cripple’ them with ‘the weight of all of the truths that will forever remain untold’. Their father was one for the dramatic, needless to say.

Elros rolled his eyes, because he wasn’t enough of an adolescent stereotype already, obviously. “This is serious, Elrond, we’re here for a reason.”

“Are you pulling the theatrics on me? Leading me into some philosophical discussion with ‘I wonder why dad cares about us’ as if it isn’t obvious.”

“It’s obvious?”

“Because that’s what parents do!”

He paused for a second, looking like he was trying to think of some good rebuttal, but they both knew that there wasn’t one unless if he claimed that Maglor wasn’t their father, and they both knew that was untrue.

“Then let’s skip straight to the philosophy: why do you think we’re here? Are you satisfied with just existing? Never doing anything meaningful? We shouldn’t be lying about all day playing happy family and ignoring the literal war going on around us. We should be acting-- and not just over that-- just in general, too. Even if there wasn’t a war, we shouldn’t be wasting our time.”

“What’s the rush? We have all of eternity to do important things.”

“If you keep telling yourself that, you’ll never do anything.” He stood up, watching the sky. “If you want to do something, to follow some dream, complete some world-changing motion, then why wait? Why hesitate?”

Elrond could tell exactly where he was was looking, and exactly who he was directing his questions at. He didn’t like it-- “you wait because you have other obligations.”

“What if he did it for us?” His voice was barely a whisper.

Elrond bit his lip. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

Elros slumped back down. “Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, because we never knew him well--”

“Or at all--”

“Maybe he’d understand-- this feeling, I mean, of needing to do something.”

“I’m going inside.”

“Ask him for me someday, will you, Elrond?” But he was already too far across the roof to hear. “Because I won’t be able to.”