Northern Skies by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 12

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In less than a season Elrohir grew restless. When he first arrived in Imladris, bone-weary and injured in body and spirit, he had been content to bask in the peace and plenty of the Last Homely House. Now that he began to recover the ordered rhythm of  life indoors became constraining.

His thoughts kept straying to Harad. Whenever the remembrance of violence and horror receded it was replaced with longing, sharp as a blade. It filled his heart with wide skies, the tender pink light of sunrise over the desert and the smell of woodsmoke and camels. Opening his eyes to ceilings where the stars should be, to find the sky framed by windows and courtyards, sparked a deep, wordless longing inside him. He knew well enough how sensitive the matter would be to his family, and held his silence.

It was Ardil who caught him in the family wing loggia, looking out across the valley at the snow-capped mountains beyond, his mind filled with longing for wild lands and freedom. No Wood-elf could abide a wild creature in a cage -- certainly not Ardil, who once roamed Beleriand under the stars.

“My Lady, your son needs to go out among the trees.”

Celebrían had no need to ask which one of her sons prompted Ardil’s unusual visit to her study on the day of spring’s first stirring in Imladris. Behind her, the casements had been opened wide to admit fresh, adstringent air and the frantic chirping of nesting sparrows. She bade Elrohir’s guardian sit in one of the elegant chairs flanking her worktable and called for wine.

Celebrían held Ardil and his advice regarding Elrohir in highest regard. The Sindarin warrior had faithfully served her since the day she left Lorien to ride to Imladris for her wedding. When Celeborn’s beloved daughter chose a Noldorin spouse, her concerned father sent Ardil to be her protection and his eyes and ears in the valley.

Celebrían eyed Ardil expectantly as she laid down her goose-feather quill and sanded the letter she had been drafting. She had grown used to the sight of him in the grey uniform of the guards of Imladris instead of Lórien’s green. He looked drawn and tired, as far as such things could show in an Elf his age. Ardil’s task had been a demanding one. He had barely let Elrohir out of his sight all winter, foregoing rest of his own. Ardil listened in to night after night of agony, ever at the ready to safeguard her son from the demons in his own mind. A bond had been forged by it, as she had hoped. When Ardil spoke of Elrohir something more than duty was behind his words.    

“He has hardly left the house for months. It is well to keep him close when he is so ill, but he needs light and open air or he will wilt like a potted flower. I have seen him long for the mountains.”

Celebrían balked at the mere thought of Elrohir leaving her sight.

“He is not well enough for the wilds. He is still far too thin, and he loses himself in his memory-spells almost daily.”

Ardil was matter of fact.

“His memories will hurt regardless of where he is. I respectfully suggest you allow him a measure of freedom before he starts perceiving his safety as a snare.” He smiled wryly. “I promise I will feed him.”

She shook her head, not ready to concede yet. “His studies should not be interrupted.”

It sounded weak to her own ears.

Ardil was serious once more. “From your own blood, oak and beech are your son’s birthright as much as the library is. Would you deny it to him?”

The unspoken accusation hung between them, that she had abandoned her father’s heritage to become Noldorin with her husband.     

“Do not presume to guilt me into this.” Celebrían’s tone had turned to steel. She had little patience left these days, all of it consumed by constant care for her children.

Ardil realised his mistake, and bowed his head, arms crossed before his chest in a warrior’s salute. “My lady, I presume nothing. My only concern is your son’s well being.”

He looked her straight in the eye, gaze open and exposed. ”He needs the song of Arda as much as he needs bread, and certainly more than letters.”

Celebrían softened at the realisation that this was the truth, and one that would avenge itself if buried underneath pretenses of keeping Elrohir safe when she would have him cooped up only for her own peace of mind.

She briefly withdrew into her own mind to reach out for Elrond’s thoughts on the matter.

“You see clearly, old friend. Take them both out for the day, tomorrow. Keep to the valley proper to begin with.” She gave Ardil a warm smile, covering her fear in jest. “And take care not to let him slip away.”

Ardil was dead serious when he answered. “I would be proud if he manages to elude me one day, but there is no chance of it before he spends at least a long-year learning woodcraft on the marches of Lórien.”

Celebrían could almost hear her father’s voice behind the words.  

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A cold, clear day had just dawned, painting red the snowy crests of the surrounding mountains while the valley floor and the house still lay in shadow. Elrohir shouldered the rucksack he had been given. It fit snugly over the layers of wool and leather he was wearing against the chill. Ardil and Elladan were similarly equipped. Ardil was the only one to carry weapons, his pair of Sindarin long-knives.

It was an strange errand they went on, Elrohir mused. The outing was first brought up in Elrond’s study the night before, while Elrond taught his sons Quenya. Together they read classical Valinorean literature while Elladan wrote essays on the contents and Elrohir battled the inflections. The language bore no resemblance to anything Elrohir had ever heard or spoken before, but Elrond seemed to possess the patience of a Vala. Elrohir had begun to suspect that those evenings were as much for him to enjoy their company as for actual teaching.

Elrond had smiled when he saw out his sons. “Tomorrow Ardil will take you to meet the trees. He has much to teach you.”

He abruptly grew serious, addressing Elrohir. “Please stay close to him, and follow his directions. He is a good man, and your safety is all his honour.”

Elrohir was quick to reassure him. It seemed he would not hear the end of his stealthy escape from Glorfindel anytime soon. Elrond brushed against his mind, joyful and teasing.

“In a few long-years perhaps, when we have recovered from the scare.”

In the light of morning the purpose of their outing seemed even more bizarre, but Elrohir was far too grateful for the opportunity to leave the house to ask questions. Instead of following the main road from the house into the valley, meandering through fields of winter wheat and apple orchards, Ardil led the twins up a steep and narrow path into the forest that began just beyond the gardens. With one step they crossed the threshold into a different world, leaving the crispness of the sunlit meadow glittering with late hoarfrost for the ever-shifting grey-green shades of the bare branches of ancient oak and beech. The very air was alive with the spicy smell of decaying leaves.

Ardil took a deep breath, clearly relieved. Elrohir felt a pang of guilt at being the cause of his winter of confinement to the house.

Keeping up with Ardil and Elladan was a challenge. They soon left the path behind to pick their way up the valley’s slope through the forest itself. Ardil’s passage was absolutely silent, his movements blending with the shifting shadows. His grey tunic appeared to change color with the light. Elrohir had to keep his eyes fixed on the bright mass of his flaxen hair to keep track of him. Elladan seemed to possess some skill of eyesight that allowed him to follow without effort.

It was a joy to be running again after months spent indoors, to feel the muscles of his arms and legs pumping and breath rush through his lungs. Just when the first pull of tiredness began to weigh, Ardil stopped at the foot of a large oak. With what little he knew of trees, Elrohir could tell it had to be ancient. It would take at least three people to ring its massive bronze-coloured trunk. High above their heads the bare branches quivered in softly whistling mountain winds.

Ardil beckoned him closer. “Come Elrohir, meet the Old Man of the Valley.”   

Ardil laid his palm flat against the trunk and briefly closed his eyes. Elrohir looked at him with an expression carefully balanced between incredulity and politeness, unsure whether he was about to become the butt of some strange Elvish joke. Such cruelty would be very unlike Ardil, though, and neither would Elladan stand for it.

Ardil turned around, took Elrohir’s hand and laid it against the tree beside his own. “See his mind as you would that of an Elf. He is rooted deep and his thoughts are slow, but he knows all things that pass through his forest, soil to sky.”

Elrohir felt a strange chill down his spine at the contact with the trunk. “How old is he?”

“He was old already when your father laid the foundations of the House, during the Siege of Imladris. He may have stood here since the Elves first came over the mountains, though I have never heard him sing of that.”  

The rough bark under his palm felt strangely alive. As Elrohir waited, dreaded lacking the senses needed to detect what Ardil and Elladan felt so easily.

In the next instant something touched him. The tree was utterly strange, its consciousness slow and unmovable, seemingly welling up from the wet and fragrant soil under his feet. It wrapped around his mind like tendrils of green shoots, feeling him as he stood rooted to the spot. After a while it seemed to laugh, if such a thing could be said of a tree, a flash of golden summer sun on green leaves, before withdrawing.

Ardil smiled, his fair face lighting up like cloudbreak. “See, he is glad to see you. He will tell his brethren, through soil and sap. Before the day is through the whole valley will know you are back.”

“Do they know every Elf in Imladris?” Elrohir asked, astonished.

“Of course, though many of the Noldor hardly ever come out here. The trees mean us well. They are part of our defences as much  as the guards.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“Not to us.” Ardil’s grey eyes blazed. “But they do not suffer Orcs or crude Mortals with axes. Be warned never to take living wood from these forests, for any reason!”

Elrohir was shocked. “Where does our firewood come from, then?”

“From the skill and negotiation of the foresters. One day, when this Old Man dies he will give himself up for oak beams to lay a new roof on the Hall of Fire.”

Elrohir laid his hand on the tree once more, saddened by the thought of such an ancient, joyful creature dying. Ardil looked at him with approval.

“Come, we will break fast up in the branches, with our eyes on the mountains!” With that he grabbed a branch over his head and lightly swung himself onto it, seemingly effortless.

Elrohir knew he could not replicate that graceful leap. Instead he pulled himself up from a lower branch, walking his feet up against the trunk until he could heave his body onto the bough. It was hardly a display of Elvish elegance. Mercifully neither of his companions commented on it. Higher up the branches were closer together, making for easier climbing. It still took time and careful consideration of where to put his hands and feet to reach Elladan and Ardil. They were each seated on a branch, backs against the oak’s trunk and legs dangling on either side, superbly comfortable in their precarious positions. Sure and nimble as if he were walking on solid ground Ardil rose to lend Elrohir a hand and point out a branch for him to sit. Elrohir gingerly maneuvered onto it, making a conscious effort not to look down to where the forest floor had grown concerningly distant.

There was plenty of distraction. From this high up the valley’s western slope they had an unobstructed view of the Misty Mountains clad in their winter white, brightly silhouetted against a cloudless sky of cornflower blue.

Then Ardil was softly singing, and Elrohir could not help but feel his heart soar. The words were the Sindarin of Doriath, unknown to him, but the lilting tones recalled the first coming of spring to ancient forests, clear sunlight and cool days with the soft, light green of new leaves unfurling. The tree itself rejoiced. Elrohir could feel it extend its delight in the singing Elf sheltered in its boughs throughout the valley to all living things within it, a pulsing web of light seen sharply with a sense that was not sight. For a time that living radiance was all the world.

A thought struck Elrohir, that this would be what Elves perceived all their long lives, how they came to be at the same time so superior in their mastery of Arda, and inextricably bound to it.

I am turning into an Elf, he realized, distantly amused by the fact that mere months ago the very idea would have terrified him.

Today he was not unsettled in the slightest when Elladan picked the thought from his mind and replied out loud, the voice of reason. “Don’t be daft. You were Peredhel all along.”

Ardil laughed, ringing and musical. “Get out of each other’s heads, you two, and eat. Especially you, Elrohir, or your mother will have my hide.”

Their packs held fresh bread, cheese and the last apples from the storage-barrels, wrinkled and sweet, and for a while they were quiet.

If anyone would have told Elrohir a year ago that he was to spend a whole day up in a tree he would have laughed, hard. Yet it was exactly what they did, and it was heavy work. After setting Elladan to more advanced exercises, Ardil made Elrohir climb up and down the old oak, pointing out the growth patterns of the branches, so he would know where the next one would be found without need to look at it. Those basic shapes differed among different kinds of trees, Ardil explained. Elrohir would need to practice again and again with beech, pine, birch, and so many others. By then the trees would bear leaves, and training to keep from rustling and betraying his presence would be in order, followed by exercises jumping from one tree to the next.

Elrohir did not protest, but his opinion that this was an unreasonable amount of effort to be expended merely on climbing trees was clearly read. Ardil shot him a sharp look, then took Elrohir’s hand to pull him down to sitting on the branch they were sharing.

“Come here. See.”

A memory was thrust into Elrohir’s mind.

Starlight on a wood in high summer, the sleepy hum of insects the only sound above the canopy. Elrohir felt a light breeze caress Ardil’s face, carrying the scent of juniper and pine resin. The stars were a river of light spread across the sky, seeming closer and larger than they should be. There was no moon.

Ardil’s mind reached out to other Elves. A company of warriors was hiding in the branches, armed as he was with long knives and bows.

Elrohir could feel Ardil’s watchfulness, the way he tapped into the weaving pattern of forest sounds as he scouted. The jangling dissonance of loud, crude footsteps and ragged breathing was impossible to miss. Through Ardil’s eyes Elrohir saw the hideousness of his first Orcs. Their faces were a pasty grey colour, with slanted yellow eyes and mouths too small for the crooked mass of decaying teeth they were meant to contain. The ragged clothes on them were filthier than Elrohir had seen any Mortal wear, even in Harad’s most abject poverty. Even their gear was a pain to look upon, all of it ill-made and ugly without even the pleasure that can be derived from an unadorned but well-crafted piece. The smell that wafted up, unwashed bodies, excrement and the sweetish odor of infected wounds, would have been enough to bring a lesser man to terror. Not Ardil, who lowered himself a few branches in complete, cat-like silence, to take a closer look.

The party below consisted of more than just Orcs, Elrohir realised with a sick feeling. Bound Elves were driven forward between them. As Ardil watched a woman stumbled and was roughly pulled to her feet by the nearest Orc. The creature cruelly pawed her to jibes and cheers from its comrades. Ardil hastened back through the canopy, expert leaps from branch to branch without disruption, the only movement of the leaves aligning with that of the summer wind itself. High up in the boughs of a mighty beech he found his captain.

Here was another familiar face, Elrohir realised. Silver hair braided back from a face that strongly reminded of Celebrían, with deep grey eyes. With a start he realised this had to be his grandfather, Celeborn. Almost like a vengeful spirit of the forest he seemed, his shape dissolving into the dense summer foliage in his shimmering tunic of green and grey. Ardil could perceive his captain’s anger, sharp and cold as his blades.

Celeborn reached into the open minds of his warriors, directing them above and around the Orcs. In absolute silence they moved, disturbing neither leaf nor twig until the creatures were fully surrounded. Another signal came to Ardil’s mind. He nocked an arrow with fletching green as summer leaves, choosing his mark. All the world became that one Orc, its beady right eye roving under an ugly boiled leather helmet for a few heartbeats of breathless waiting for a blackbird’s warbling. When the signal rung out Ardil loosened his arrow, and the creature died without ever knowing from where death came. In the blink of an eye the only ones left alive on the forest floor were Elves.    

Elrohir emerged from the memory slightly dazed. He clung to the branch for a moment to let it pass, Ardil’s hands firm and solid on his shoulders and the coarse bark a grounding support beneath his palms.

Ardil waited patiently for Elrohir regain enough stability to turn and look at him.

“How would that have ended, had we rustled any leaves for the Orcs to notice before we were ready for the kill?”

Elrohir had seen enough slaughter of that very kind not to harbour any illusions.

“Very badly, for the prisoners at least. Consider your point well made.”

He hesitated. Surely Ardil understood that Elrohir could never hope to match the level of deadly skill he had just witnessed.

Ardil sensed it. “It seems impossible to all young ones, at first. Every warrior you saw spent a few mortal lifetimes training and making embarrassing falls before they were ready for the marches. We have time, more of it than you can possibly imagine. Your brother is learning and so will you. You only need to put in the work.”

Elrohir was intrigued by the strange world he had just witnessed, as deeply Elvish as Imladris, yet with an entirely different, wilder spirit.

“When was this, and where? And was that mother’s father?”

Ardil sat on the branch beside him, joined by a flustered Elladan who felt he, too, had earned a break from his exertions. Shadows were lengthening and the light turned golden around them as the sun approached the western valley rim. It was getting cold again. The night would bring frost and their breaths swirled in the strange little wisps of steam that could still amuse Elrohir after his first winter in the North.

Ardil’s voice took on a meditative air. “This was Doriath, the Fenced Land. Nothing now equals the beauty of its brooks and dells as it lay beneath the stars — alas for the land of my birth! Your grandfather defended her once, one of Elu Thingol’s commanders in the years before the Moon. He learned the skills of war from Beleg Cúthalion himself, the unbegotten one. Long before the first Noldo ever set foot in Ennor they withstood Orc and Warg and Flame.”

Ardil spoke with fire in his voice, of long-lost forests, the dance and music of the Grey-elves and the marvel that was Menegroth. Elrohir had heard some of these stories before. Celebrían had filled entire winter nights with them whenever she needed to take his mind off the darkness in his dreams. Told by one who witnessed them firsthand, and in their proper place they took on a different and far more realistic character, as if the pages of a storybook were suddenly turned into windows of clear glass through which their living tales could be seen.

When Ardil finished his telling the sun had set and the stars came out, bright and sharp on one of winter’s last cloudless nights of frost as they climbed down to walk back to the house.

Ardil fell into step beside Elrohir. The Elf became a sleek, half-perceived shape, barely silhouetted against the grey pillars and shades of shifting indigo of the forest at nightfall. Elrohir was grateful for his company. Darkness saw the woods, already a foreign territory to him by day, transformed into an entirely new and alien realm of moving shadows and suspicions. Even the northern stars seemed caught in its net of tree branches like a strange, living lacework stitched with jewels.     

Ardil sensed Elrohir’s apprehension and tried to ease it in a most Elvish way. His fair voice lifted once more in a soft, lilting song that flowed like water among stones. Elrohir had to keep himself from elbowing the Elf to quiet him, lest he betray their whereabouts to what unknown threats might lurk amidst the shadowed trees. Ardil’s soothing touch to his mind was instantaneous and the compulsion passed. The song must have been a well-known one because Elladan fell in with Ardil, his voice less Elven-smooth and all the more comforting for it.    

They had almost reached the path to the house, a grey ribbon winding downhill among brambles under the pale spring half-moon, when the hairs on the back of Elrohir’s neck stood up. His every battle instinct screamed in alarm, heart hammering against his ribs as he spun around and dropped to a defensive crouch. Once again he cursed Elrond to Mordor and back for leaving him with only his fists and feet against whatever slid soundlessly towards them through the undergrowth. Some Elf-sorcery was at work, confusing his eyes. Even as he felt an unknown gaze nearby nothing stirred in the solid darkness beneath the spruce trees towering over them like silent sentinels.

Elrohir was eased only a little when Ardil did not reach for his knives. Neither did he raise his voice, but in the leaden silence it nonetheless rang like a bellstrike. He spoke, not in Sindarin but a far stranger language, soft and unobtrusive as the rustling of leaves. It held an edge of recognition, but its meaning remained maddeningly beyond Elrohir’s grasp. Elladan stepped to the fore, his back suddenly ramrod-straight. His tone in the foreign tongue was the most lordly and commanding Elrohir had ever heard from him.

The forest’s shifting shadows of ash and pewter drew together into new and wholly different shapes. Terrifyingly close by, three concealed Elves willingly exposed themselves to Elrohir’s alarmed gaze.

They were unlike any Elf Elrohir had encountered before. Their long locks were braided, not with silver or pearls as he had come to expect, but with feathers and pierced pebbles. As he looked on he realised that what at first sight appeared to be patterned tunics was in fact the bare skin of their chests and faces tattooed with clever leaf-shapes, so that they could disappear from sight amidst their forests. They wore simple breeches and cloaks of cloth of nettles dyed the mossy grey-green of winter’s bare boughs. Their moccasins were made of bark. They appeared both ancient -- far older than the trees or even the valley itself -- and wilder than the polished inhabitants of Elrond’s house.

One among them, a short, lithe man with the willowy figure of a dancer stepped forward, appraising Elrohir with unveiled curiosity. His Sindarin was halting, as if he bore the language little love and spoke it only grudgingly.

“I am Serdir, son of Saeros. And you are the one the Golodh have searched for under every leaf for the past forty summers. You are an unexpected find, Star-knight. A stranger to the trees, and the mark of the Aftercomers heavy upon you. Your mother is kin to Aran Thingol. She carries leaf and branch and the Lindar in her heart. In yours, Serdir sees only the shadows of a darkness unknown.”

With that he stepped back, and in a single fluid motion he and his companions vanished once more. Mere moments later even the perception of their presence had faded. Elrohir, Ardil and Elladan were alone in the forest once more.

Ardil turned to Elrohir with fierce protectiveness on the fore of his mind.

“Pay Serdir no heed. He bears you no more ill will than he does anyone whom he perceives as either Mortal or Golodh. This is but his usual gloom and insularity. I had hoped to spare you his acquaintance for a while yet, but even I cannot move in these forests without him knowing. I felt him observing us earlier and hoped that would be all, but it seems he wanted a closer look at you.”

“Are there many Elves like him?”

“Seen from Elrond’s house it may not look that way, but most inhabitants of this valley are Nandorin Elves. They are a mingled people, the survivors of many wars who placed themselves under the protection of your house. Only a few choose to live as Serdir does, the old way of the Laegrim of Ossiriand who did not hunt and wore no skins. You will meet them but rarely. They keep to themselves, refusing to walk under roofs of stone or even contribute warriors to the very guard that keeps their forests safe.”       

Dismissive as he was of the strange Elf, their meeting with Serdir dislodged some deep unease in Ardil. He hastily led his charges back to the house and unexpectedly asked for Glorfindel to step in for his night’s watch over Elrohir. Whatever urgent and secretive business Ardil might have had elsewhere in the house, neither twin managed to catch wind of it.

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The great library was unlit, shadows lying deep between the honeycombed shelves with  scrolls reaching all the way up to the gallery, where they were lost in darkness. There was no sound but his own breathing and the soft rustle of his robes as Elrond gently closed the door to the main house behind him.  

Despite his Mannish blood he needed little sleep, and with each passing long-year the need diminished further. Whenever the Lord of Imladris was given to nightly wanderings he found himself gravitating to the one loremaster’s study adjoining the library proper that was still lit. Elrond soundlessly opened the door, and Erestor looked up from the document before him, Tree-lit eyes locking into his lord’s without a hint of surprise. Two crystal glasses and a decanter with good Gondorian wine stood ready on the Chief Counsellor’s worktable.

Depending on who one asked, Erestor was either Elrond’s best asset or his greatest lapse in judgement. Being wise, the Lord of Imladris had realised he was unsuitably placed to judge the merits of his former tutor. He had deferred to Ereinion’s opinion on the Elf who once stood as Chief Counsellor to Fëanor himself. The High King’s judgement was to allow Erestor to remain at court, a central figure in Elrond’s retinue for the better part of two ages.

A wise decision, certainly from a Noldorin viewpoint. Erestor had already been a shrewd politician and renowned loremaster before he ever set foot in Beleriand. He had served first High Kings Fëanor and Maedhros, then the remnants of the dwindling House of Fëanor, as advisor, spymaster and diplomat. There was no Elf alive in Ennor, and probably beyond the Sea, with a more profound understanding and broader scope of knowledge about the Morgoth and his artifices. When the true nature of Annatar was finally revealed and the fate of Eregion hung in the balance, Celebrimbor in his panicked dismay sent for none other than Erestor.  

Between Erestor and a thriving career at the heart of Elvish political power stood the not insignificant matter of the Kinslayings. Erestor had conducted the doomed negotiations that preceded all three, and the Sindar did not forget. The image of him standing before Dior in the Great Hall of Menegroth, a smooth black crow before the King of Doriath in his radiance was the stuff of song among the surviving Eluwaith. Erestor had knelt like a supplicant before Dior’s throne, while behind him Celegorm’s mail-clad warriors were already trooping the hall like a rising tide of steel.

Erestor might have Elrond’s ear, but for many long-years he had to whisper into it from a place in the shadows, anathema to half the Elves remaining in Ennor. The loremaster’s fortunes had seen a complete and unexpected reversal upon Elrond’s marriage to Celebrían. Instead of demanding the dismissal of her husband’s controversial Chief Counsellor, Celeborn’s marvel of a daughter had embraced Erestor before all the gathering, declaring with great authority that in her new home, she would have peace.

Celebrían’s motives had not been entirely selfless, Elrond mused as he watched Erestor’s dark-haired head bent over a weighty tome of lore. She had brought one of the most skilled and powerful Elves in Ennor deep into her debt, an obligation from which her son was about to benefit once more.

Soon they were comfortably seated, and the wine drew some of the tension from Elrond’s shoulders. Several wax tapers, ensconced in glass tubes for safety, cast a flickering golden light over frescoed seascapes on the walls. Outside the door Imladris was quiet. The lord and his advisor were at ease for the night. Elrond briefly wondered what, exactly, Erestor had been researching. Spread over the polished mahogany was a priceless collection of ancient scrolls and books. None of them were dusty, the librarians of Imladris were far too diligent to allow such a sacrilege, but yellowing and cracked bindings betrayed both age and so little use that no one had deemed it necessary to copy or rebind them.

For four ages of the world Erestor’s apprentices had called him ‘Master Crow’ behind his back, in whatever language was in use or permitted at the time. The nickname was older than the Silmarils, and it had outlasted the very earth of Beleriand itself. It had stuck because it was apt, Elrond mused as he watched his oldest counsellor tilt his head to contemplate him with avian cleverness.

“What has befallen Elrohir, to make you haunt the library in such a state? Another member of the household provoked into a flashback to the First Age?”

Erestor did not even consider the possibility that his lord’s unease might be about anything but Elrohir. Elrond knew his attention rarely lingered elsewhere, these days.

“Serdir sought him out today. Ardil came to Celebrían urgently with word of how he was … less than friendly. It seems Serdir has trouble deciding whether he resents Elrohir for being too Noldorin or too Mannish. To settle the matter he all but called him a traitor.”

Erestor smiled sourly. “Ah. Serdir’s usual charming delivery of a logic all his own.”

At the sight of Elrond’s pained expression he grew serious once more. Erestor had not come to hold his current position by underestimating potential threats.

“You have been generous to a fault, Elrond, in receiving the fealty of the son of Saeros.  After two ages Serdir has neither forgotten nor forgiven his father’s death at the hands of a Mortal.”

Elrond shook his head. “Need I remind you that Túrin was my kinsman? Some might argue a blood-debt, long unpaid. How could I refuse Serdir and his folk a haven in this valley when they fled Ossiriand? It would have been ungracious, to say the least.”

Erestor was entirely unconvinced. “Serdir has unfortunately inherited his father’s worst attributes: a mercurial temperament and a long memory for grudges. What is worse, he is a perilously rigid thinker, incapable of compromise in any way. The Nandor know this, and they are no fools. Very few among them accept him for their chieftain. Still, he is the staunchest preserver of their ancestral way of life, and it grants him a certain moral authority. Your concerns about Elrohir’s reputation among the Wood-elves are well-founded, with Serdir’s disapproval upon him.”     

Whatever changeable winds might steal through Imladris’ sheep sheds and across its high spruce forests, murmuring beside winter’s bonfires dotting the valley, Erestor heard of them. Now that he deemed Elrond’s concerns valid, they grew all the heavier.  

With unseeing eyes Elrond leafed through the book lying closest to him, simply to give his fingers something to do.

“Celebrían might ride into the woods and seek him out. If any of us can hope to reason with Serdir, it is her. She is of a mind to do it”

Erestor shook his head.

“Do not seek to reason with fools. A visit from the lady herself will only serve to validate Serdir, strengthen his position. You need to prove him wrong. Or, to be precise, Elrohir does.”

A wave of despair threatened to drown Elrond. Erestor sensed it, and laid a strong hand on his shoulder. The gesture carried them both back to a war camp under the eaves of ancient forests, now long sunk beneath the waves. Erestor was one of few in Imladris who still ventured such a gesture with the formidable lord Elrond had become, and the comfort was just as great now as it had been when he was still a forlorn elfling, orphaned in all but name. Elrond’s voice almost wavered.

“Consider Elrohir incapable of conducting any kind of public life for the foreseeable future. The Black Breath is heavy on him. I have applied all my skill, but he remains haunted by spells of memory.”

Erestor nodded knowingly.

“Lindir described one to me in great detail. Apparently it happens even during lessons. But surely this is nothing you have not treated before, Elrond? I distinctly remember you pulling Elendil back from the very brink of death in Mordor, after the Nine attempted to break our siege.”

Elrond shook his head dejectedly.

“For all my care he is sinking further into it. When the terror becomes too great he tolerates my interference, at best, but there is little trust between us. Instead he leans on Elladan so heavily that I am growing concerned for him as well.”

Erestor sat up straight, his expression both compassionate and determined.

“If your current approach proves fruitless, I suggest you try an entirely different one. A return to duty and responsibility can be a blessing in times of sorrow, both distraction and a scaffold for the grieving mind to right itself against. Elrohir has been cloistered in the family apartments for long enough. Perhaps a more complete understanding of Imladris and its workings will prove beneficial.”

Elrond regarded his counsellor with disbelief. “I can hardly seat him on the council and ask him to take minutes for us.”

Erestor laughed, and this time there was genuine mirth in it.

“Lindir tells me he will soon be capable of it, if you are not overly particular about the penmanship. But I suggest you start him on a less clerical task. Have Elrohir attend Yestarë, and swear him in with as much pomp and circumstance as you think he can withstand. Serdir will of course decline the invitation, as he does with every gathering that takes place indoors, but the heads of all other Nandorin houses will be at the feast. We will seat them where they can get a good look in. Let the Wood-elves see with their own eyes that Elrohir is neither Morgoth’s thrall nor an axe-wielding Mortal, and that he is as devoted to Imladris as his brother or any other member of your household. There is an element of risk, but if he impresses the Nandor favourably, their esteem for Serdir will be further diminished. This would serve our interests well, in the long run.”   

Intrigue had become Erestor’s second nature after four ages as a courtier. Serdir’s  isolationism and defiance had been an irritation to Elrond for many long-years. The Laiquendi chieftain had been tolerated this far, but this night’s harsh treatment of Elrohir might provoke his final undoing at Erestor’s hands. Elrond could only be grateful for having an Elf so dangerous firmly on his side.

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Chapter End Notes

This unruly mammoth of a chapter refused to be broken up, so here's another long one!

Elrohir meets the local vegetation, some strange and disconcerting Elves, and his grandfather - be it by proxy, and we meet Erestor in all his Fëanorian complexity.

Remember that fanfic writers thrive on feedback. I'd love to hear what you think of the chapter. Please consider leaving me a comment!

See you next week, when we'll watch Erestor's plan unfold.

Idrils Scribe