Northern Skies by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 19

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Elrohir rested his head against the rough bark of the tree trunk behind him, eyes on the narrow swathe of stars left visible by the steep valley walls. Above, silver birch leaves bloomed into gold where leaping firelight touched them in their ceaseless fluttering. The mild summer air was alive with bracing scents of woodsmoke and resin.  

Elrond had let Glorfindel preside over the grand fireside revels that traditionally followed a hunting day. Instead he chose this small clearing amidst the birch forest on the banks of the Bruinen for a more intimate gathering of family only. Elrohir knew he was being spared the curious eyes of both the household and Celeborn’s company, and counted his blessings. 

He felt ill at ease with the bright eyes of the Sindar of Lórien resting on him. Celeborn’s people were utterly strange. They somehow seemed more present than the wizened Elves of Imladris, wilder with a fierceness that, to Elrohir’s concerned eyes, carried a hint of danger. Few among them spoke any language other than their distinct Doriathrim dialect, terse and monosyllabic compared to the flowing Sindarin of Imladris, and their well-intentioned attempts to engage him in conversation suffered a great deal for it. Celeborn himself was among a small few capable of speaking with Elrohir in the Sindarin he knew, and he made a point of doing so at every opportunity. Despite his best intentions the ancient lord’s sheer Elvishness made deciding what to say - and more importantly, what not to say - a daunting task.   

This evening Elrohir could lean back against the trunk of the silver birch behind him and ground himself in the moment without such concerns. Elladan was singing some Wood-elf ballad, all mirth and cheerful mockery, accompanying himself on his lute with a deceptive ease that betrayed a fine tutor and decades of practice. Elrohir could not make anything of the Silvan words beyond a disjointed root or phrase here and there, but Celeborn proved well-acquainted with the song when he joined his warm, rounded baritone to the counterpoint. 

Elrohir let his eyes rest on Celebrían. Her smile from where she sat cross-legged on a spread blanket across their small fire could have melted glaciers, her cheeks rosy with more than the fine Gondorian wine. She had been in high spirits all day, but night under the stars had her absolutely radiant with joy. A wave of warmth washed over Elrohir at the sight, even though his own contribution to the day’s excitement had consisted of little more than spearing a wild pig and quietly nodding along with whomever was talking to him at the time. These, at least, were tasks Elrohir felt he could be counted upon to reliably handle. 

Elrond laid an arm around Celebrían’s shoulders to pull her against him as if he was a village lad in love instead of the formidable Lord of Imladris. The unexpected glimpse of humanity was what brought Elrohir to finally relax, folding his hands around his silver wine cup and settling himself more easily on the blanket beneath him. For a fleeting moment Celeborn’s song wrapped itself around him to carry him into an Elvish memory where the smooth black expanse of some long-vanished forest lake reflected a bejewelled filigree of leaves and stars. 

Celebrían must have read Elrohir’s gentled mood, because she immediately pressed her advantage. When Elladan and Celeborn’s song wound to a close she keenly leant forward.

“Well sung! But I do think Elrohir and I can do better.”

Not for the first time Elrohir cursed his mother’s inability to grasp that only one of her children shared her outgoing nature. His answer sounded, if not smooth then at least polite to his own ears. 

“I know no songs myself, but Elladan will gladly perform any of your choosing.” 

Celeborn’s posture stiffened, poised between horror and deep compassion, and for a fleeting moment he reached for Elrohir as if to embrace him. He could not have been more dismayed if Elrohir had informed him he had lost both his hands.

“Ai, child … when you were little you would hardly stop singing long enough to draw breath! Surely some of that joy is left to you? To hear your voice would lift all our spirits, yours not in the least. How can sorrow ever heal without being sung?”

Thanks to Lindir’s teachings Elrohir understood some of his grandfather’s shock. The Sindar held Song as dear as crafts were to the Noldor, as essential as breathing. Elf-children sang before they learned to speak, and would do so every day of their long lives, in either joy or sorrow. 

A sudden, irrational anger washed over Elrohir at finding himself pitied like an invalid instead of a grown man at liberty to decline when he did not fancy performing. Elrohir had not once felt like singing since setting foot in the North. Celebrían had remarked on it before tonight, but unlike her father she had never pressed him. 

Elrohir kept a mulish silence. His eyes met Celebrían’s, wide with shock, and the stark contrast between the Man Elrohir had become and the Elfling he had once been struck them both like a blow. He could tell she already regretted the unsubtle request. Unfortunately the matter was out of her hands. 

“Do the Men of the South not sing?” Celeborn enquired softly, sadness colouring his voice.

“They do.”

“Then will you not sing us a song of theirs?”

Elrohir knew many. Epic lays and ballads, songs of grief and glory, rebellious and devout and plain funny ones. In hindsight his fair voice had always betrayed his Elvish blood. When Elrohir sang people stopped what they were doing to listen, and there had been a time when he joyfully obliged. 

No longer, and even if he somehow forced himself to indulge Celeborn it would gain him little. Elrohir’s shaky grasp of even the simplest Sindarin words and melodies could only fall flat after Elladan’s effortless mastery, and the music of Harad would sound alien to Northern ears.  In the early days of the Desert War -- before the Ringwraith -- when the sheer number of dead among the Haradrim had not yet grown too great for burial rites, Elrohir had sung himself hoarse on lamentations. He had since watched a fellow singer die of the Black Breath, screaming at hallucinations. The image of their flutist’s battered corpse vividly stood before his mind's eye, an accusing stare in her open eyes as they had to leave her body behind for the jackals to find. 

All things considered Elrohir would rather wrestle another boar barehanded than sing as much as a ditty, every note a betrayal of those for whom he still mourned, dead or left behind in a different world. He shook his head, eyes fixed on empty air somewhere over Celeborn’s breastbone.

“I regret that I cannot. Please ask another. None here would refuse you.”

The harmony of merry voices drifting up from a great bonfire on the greensward beside the house, where Glorfindel and the household hosted the guests from Lórien with roast boar, music and good Dorwinion, only served to deepen the awkward silence that descended over this small clearing. 

In Celeborn’s ancient eyes stood pain and bafflement rather than anger. Elrond, Celebrían and Elladan bore matching expressions of dismay at what had to be breathtakingly offensive, from an Elvish perspective. Elrohir’s courage fled him at the sight, a tight knot of fear settling low in his throat where his heart frantically hammered against it. For a torturous moment he was convinced he had stretched Elrond’s patience beyond its breaking point and called down some terrible Elvish punishment on himself. Elrohir was reasonably certain his father would not cause him lasting harm, but Elrond might make his life highly unpleasant nonetheless. 

Never in his life had Elrohir been so deeply grateful as when Elladan lunged sideways to retrieve the lute he had laid aside and struck up “The Return of Elwë”. 

Elladan’s choice of song was clever. Under any other circumstances Celeborn would have been well pleased by this triumphant celebration of the love of Elu and Melian and the glory of Doriath’s founding. Now the reception was lukewarm at best, but Celeborn’s respect for both the art and the ballad’s subject matter kept him from bluntly interrupting Elladan to further question Elrohir. Relief washed over both twins when their grandfather settled back down on his blanket in frustrated silence. 

As the last note rung, Elrond rose and motioned for his sons to do the same. For a terrifying instant Elrohir feared it was in preparation for his upbraiding. His body tensed like a bowstring of its own accord, poised as if about to be struck, but Elrond’s voice was gentle. He understood Elladan’s intentions well enough. 

Elrohir’s Mannish need for nigh-incredible amounts of sleep, several hours each and every night, had been explained at length to a bemused Celeborn, and Elrond now took advantage to grant him an escape.   

“The day has been long, and you seem in need of rest. Tomorrow we will talk. Goodnight, my children.”    

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Elladan kept his anger on a tight rein of silence as they walked the riverside path back to the house. It fermented further with Elrohir’s every quiet step, his lack of an explanation for yet another kindness rebuked.

Closer to the main house, garlands of evergreens and primrose festooned the alders on the riverbank. A colourful crowd of Elves of Imladris and Lórien feasted there with great merriment and uproar, on grass studded with niphredil. The golden light of their great bonfire blended with the silver of Fëanorian lamps strung between the trees like as many fallen Silmarils, and for a moment Elladan set aside his vexation to wonder if the sight of the Two Trees at their mingling might have been anything like this.    

Glorfindel’s tall shape, radiant in gold and cornflower blue, spun past among a ring of dancers silhouetted against the man-high fire. The Lady Aglarebeth was in his arms, all quicksilver and elegance sharp as blades. As they turned and leapt to the pulse-quickening whirl of pipes and drums the pair lit up the clearing, a tale of wonder from the Elder Days come to life.

Elladan noted Ardil at one of the long trestle tables laden with heaping bowls and carafes of wine. Elrohir’s guardian wore an easy smile. The cheerful  wreath of marigolds crowning his flaxen braids was tipping slightly askew as he laughed heartily at some jest from Haldir. By the unsteady grandness of their gesturing, both father and son were deep in their cups of Dorwinion. 

Elrohir did not slow his pace towards the house, but his eyes lingered on the feasting Elves with more than passing interest. 

Once they had entered the cavernous twilight of the deserted entrance hall, Elladan fell out of step with Elrohir to turn towards the library. A solitary night of diverting his pent-up rage towards the intricacies of Númenórean commercial law seemed a wiser course of action than to unchain the first blazing row of their renewed brotherhood.  

Elrohir’s hand moved lighting-fast, holding him by the sleeve. 

“We need to talk, for our ears alone. Where can we go?”

His face was strange and ominous, a pale oval amidst the darker shadows of the hall. A shudder of foresight ran down Elladan’s spine. 

Elladan had never shared in Imladris’ general dislike of the dilapidated Great Forge. He was a child of peace, born well after the age-ending cataclysm that was the Last Alliance. Few others in Elrond’s household could look upon the empty husk of the greatest weapons’ forge that ever stood in Middle-earth without being assailed by loss and grief and remembered horror. 

The Elves had left these smithies and the barracks that once housed Elendil’s army of Men to fall into ruin, and they now gently crumbled back into the valley’s eternal spruce forests. 

When Elladan was a boy his solitary explorations there had been grand adventures, sweetened by the thrill of trespassing on forbidden ground. Once he outgrew the childish pleasure it remained his place of quiet and contemplation. Even on those days when the main house became an anthill, bustling and busy with guests of every possible stripe, Elladan had not once met another soul out here. 

Neither living nor houseless, for such were the fireside whispers on autumn nights, when the mists blanketing the valley swirled eerily through these gaping doorways. Elladan payed them little heed. Mordor was far away, and surely the fallen warriors knew more riveting places to haunt than these empty rooms filled with dessicated leaves and old voles' nests. 

His own confidence and familiarity must have been palpable, because Elrohir followed him there without question. Elladan did not turn around until they stood in what was once a smithing hall. A long-year ago it must have rang with the hammer strikes of the finest Noldorin bladesmiths. This night young oaks grew in the fertile ashes of the great hearth, and the twins’ rustling footsteps on their leaves of autumns past disturbed a family of wood pigeons who cooed dreamily from their nests in the rafters. 

Elrohir craned his neck in astonishment, and for a moment Elladan beheld the faded might of the Noldor through his brother’s eyes. Rusted chains dangled from great roofbeams that were lost in the darkness overhead, interspersed with jagged slices of summer stars through the gaping holes where roof-trusses had collapsed. A line of abandoned anvils like great crouching animals was slowly being overgrown by brambles, their tiny flowers a cloud of white stars in the twilight. The air smelled fresh and sharp, of thriving green things.

 

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Mortal eyes would have found the space pitch black, and even to an Elf the dusk was heavy. Elrohir caught Elladan’s eyes, and in that instant a familiar line reappeared, separating two opposing sides. Elf and Mortal eyed one another across the divide. Elrohir stood firm under Elladan’s searching gaze, arms crossed and feet planted slightly apart like a swordsman grounding himself.   

“Thank you for rescuing me.”

Elladan was not mollified in the slightest. 

“You could have done her a kindness. After all Mother went through while you were gone … you could have sung her a stanza or two of Harad’s coarsest drinking song and she would have been delighted. But no. Nothing is ever that simple with you.”

Elrohir held his tongue. Elladan’s anger was like a desert storm: long in building, fierce, and soon blown over. Nothing would be achieved by arguing with him in this state. Better to let the tempest pass unopposed.

“What in Varda’s blessed name possessed you?! Are you this self-absorbed by nature, or is there some Mortal logic to your behaviour?”

Elladan fell quiet, seething. Elrohir was pleasantly surprised by how measured and even his own voice came out.

“I cannot sing merry songs just to wile away an evening. I simply cannot.”

The images in Elrohir’s mind needed no words. The sheer horror of it made Elladan take a step towards his brother and gently lay an arm around his shoulders to draw him back to the present. 

“Mother and Grandfather would never have asked you, had they known. Why did you not tell them, or me? You never tell me anything!”

“I did not expect to be asked to sing.”

This finally turned Elladan’s wrath to exasperation. 

“Elrohir, have you ever met an Elf!?”

Elrohir gave a wordless shrug. In hindsight he might have handled the night’s events more elegantly. He once possessed an uncanny knack for foresight, planning, strategy. It fuelled his swift rise through the ranks of Harad’s rebel militias, where the lives of the unwary tended to be short. The ability had wholly and completely deserted him upon setting foot in Imladris. He no longer sought to shape his circumstances or plan for contingencies. Life merely happened, and Elrohir watched it stream past with uncaring detachment. 

The realization made uttering his next words easier. In no language of Men or Elves could he conceive of a proper introduction to this, or a way to make it palatable.

“Elladan, I need your help.”

Elladan’s bright eagerness made his stomach sink.   

“I need to leave Imladris, and it must be tonight. Another opportunity like this will be a long time coming.”

 

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The world Elladan knew, the stars and the forest and the balmy night wind carrying distant sounds of merriment and the murmurs of the Bruinen to his old childhood haunt, contracted violently, splintering to jagged pieces. This fey stranger who somehow was Elrohir did not relent.

“Both Glorfindel and Ardil are completely absorbed in the feast. No one has remembered to warn them that I have left. By the time either of them sobers up enough to notice the oversight I will be long gone.”  

There were no words for the enormity of this, and Elladan could only embrace Elrohir tightly, as if he could physically keep his brother with him, his fingernails making little white half-moons in the bare skin of Elrohir’s upper arms.

“Have you lost your mind?! Why?” 

It did seem an act of great will for Elrohir to step back from their embrace, and launch into a what appeared to be a long-considered talk.

“I never intended to stay in Imladris indefinitely, even if our parents thought that idea self-evident. I came north for you, to see with my own eyes if you were well. And you are. You are wise and strong and deeply beloved by all who surround you, the worthy heir to a great lordship. That certainty has lifted a weight off my shoulders. Now I should see to my own affairs.” 

Elladan shook his head in angry denial.

“Any affair of yours is mine. This is your place. Can you not at least try to grow into it?”

Elrohir shrugged in his hard, Mortal way.

“I do not fit in here any more than you would among Mortals. To keep trying will only bring more pain, for both of us.”

Elladan knew he was crying, but he made no attempt to hide his sorrow. In a tear-streaked voice he pleaded.

“Elrohir, what has gotten into you!?”

Elrohir took one of the fine mithril clips holding his braids between his fingers and held it in front of his face. Faint starlight filtering in through the broken roof caught it like a gem. The ornament was identical to Elladan’s own, part of a feast-day set they had since childhood.  

“No gift is ever truly free. Imladris is a wealthy house, and I was received well indeed. The price of all this generosity proves even higher than I feared: a mere lifetime of obedience will not satisfy our father. Eternity is what he wants.”

Elladan leapt to defend Elrond. 

“That you have the life of the Eldar is not by Father’s will. You are simply not Mortal.”   

“Death is not hard to come by, beyond these borders. It will find me eventually. Meanwhile I will choose my own path.”

Their raised voices had frightened the wood pigeons from their high nests. A dusty cloud of flapping wings and drifting feathers accompanied Elladan’s retort. 

“Our father is kind. He has no desire to go against your will in any matter.”

Elrohir turned towards what had once been the smithy’s great double doors, now a gaping hole in its crumbling wall. He stood silhouetted against the starlight outside, looking out to where the massive grey bulk of the Misty Mountains, snow-clad even at the height of summer, blotted out the sky.

“True. Nonetheless he expects me to follow where he leads.”

Elladan could not refute his words. Elrohir would receive great forbearance from his family and all in Imladris for many years, but that time was not infinite. Certain expectations existed, some unspoken, others less so. He closed the distance to where Elrohir stood in the doorway and spun his brother around to face him.  

“I cannot bear to be parted from you again. Take me with you, to the Harad or wherever you mean to go!”

Elrohir grasped both his hands, and at the sight of tears in his brother’s eyes Elladan felt a gaping abyss of sorrow open under his feet to swallow him whole.

“I could not steal you away from the only home you ever knew. It would rob our parents of the light in their lives. Stay where you belong, and live the life that was meant for you. I will go and seek mine. Now that we have found each other our minds will never be wholly separated, no matter how great the distance between us.”

Elladan shook his head, and suddenly they were both crying.

Elrohir’s mind was a well of agony, and finally he muttered in a small, tear-streaked voice. 

“Ask me to stay and I will, for you.”

Insight struck Elladan like a blow. 

“You would. Until love is no more, slowly replaced by loathing, and I would lose you completely.” 

"Aye. You would."

Even with Elrohir this close his mind was already distancing itself, running along open roads and wind-swept hillsides under strange stars. 

“Would you not prefer me to leave while I can still think of Imladris with love in my heart, the memory of it untainted, instead of like a prisoner despising his gaoler? You and I, we are two halves of the same fëa. I want to remember you with love for the rest of my life. How can I be myself if I feel any other way about you ?”   

Elladan gave a small sigh, almost a sob.

“One condition. Swear it.”

“Anything.”

“Do not choose Mortal death before we meet again. Neither by risking yourself in battle, nor by calling upon the Valar to make the Choice, or any other way. Stay alive until you return to me, or I come find you.”

Elrohir knelt before Elladan in the deep leaf litter among scattered clumps of iron ore, his hands in his brother’s and his words slow and solemn. 

The instant he finished Elladan pulled him up and into his arms. They stood motionless, entwined in fëa and hröa, for a long time before Elladan disentangled himself. 

“Your weapons are in a locked chest in father’s study. I know where he keeps the key. I will bring them, and lembas from the House of Healing.”

Elrohir beheld him with a reverence bordering on awe. 

“Thank …”

To hear him finish those words would somehow make this unbearable, and Elladan cut him off sharply.       

“Do not thank me before you see what you are about to unleash. You underestimate Erestor’s long arm, and Glorfindel’s trackers. Remember how they caught up with you on the way north!”

Grim determination flooded Elrohir’s mind.

“You forget that I was travelling towards them at the time. Eru knows I have many failings, but being easy to catch is not among them.”

 

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Chapter End Notes

Fanfic writers thrive on feedback, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! Please consider leaving me a comment if you're enjoying the story.

Summer's here, and yours truly will be spending some time in wifi-less places. This means I won't be able to update on Mondays 15th and 22nd of July.

Instead I will add some bonus content to the series sometime this week, including the story that was inspired by your suggestions. Keep an eye out, or subscribe to my author profile to get a heads-up when it's posted!

The normal posting schedule will resume Monday July 29th, after which weekly updates will continue to the end without interruptions (save RL emergencies).

Thank you for reading and commenting, and see you then!

Idrils Scribe