Diplomacy by Fernstrike

Diplomacy

Read Diplomacy

His boots were filled with water. It was seeping in through the soles of his boots as it rushed beneath his feet, and began to climb up his ankles in icy flurries of foam. Salty drops rained into his open mouth as he stared up at the wall of water, tall as the sky, wide as the sea. It was coming for him. It was coming for all of them. The water began to pour in over the tops of his boots, rooting him to the flagstones of the main square at Rómenna. Lightning flashed across the iron sky, pulsing bright like sunlight through the impossibly blue wave, and he saw towers already engulfed and suspended dark within its heart, like a glimpse into some strange underground realm. And then the ground cracked with a sound that filled his ears, and it buckled, and he was half falling, half sinking into the blackness beneath, his gaze sliding in an arc until he was upside down, staring at the Meneltarma inverted in his vision, with a figure stood atop it defying the laws of nature, and saltwater filling his lungs until he couldn’t even scream -

Elendur’s whole body jolted into awareness. He could feel his woollen field blanket clinging to his skin. Brightness glowed beyond his eyelids, and he slowly, cautiously opened them onto the early grey shreds of dawn. The dawn, and Aratan’s face beaming down at him from where he stood beside his cot.

“Morning, brother,” he said, thumbs hooked in his sword belt. "Lovely day for it.”

Elendur forced himself to rise without groaning, or complaining, or yawning with too much abandon. He felt as though he hadn’t slept a wink. Damn the dreams. “By ‘it’, I take it you mean marching.”

“I meant for the last proper meal we’re going to have for Illúvatar knows how long,” he said, voice sharp and vigorous as ever. "But yes. Eventually the marching. No-one wants to march under burning sun nor pouring rain, and today we’ve a good breeze going and a healthy scattering of clouds. Make no mistake, I’m glad of it, and so will the men be, too, once they’re awake enough to notice it.”

“Just…help me gather my dress uniform,” Elendur interjected before his brother could continue. He rose and washed his face and chest from the basin inside his small tent. A tent for his own and a basin of water to wash. Luxuries he’d have to make the most of before the siege began. “When did the other elves arrive?”

“Some time in the night, I think, but I was sleeping already,” Aratan said, bringing him a fresh undershirt and pants, a shirt of thin mail, and his specially embroidered military tunic - something he always wore at audiences and mealtimes, to save the heavy carrying of his actual armour for the road. Elendur always had a bittersweet feeling wearing it. The design was similar to that which naval officers had donned back home at grand dinners and ceremonies, made both for elegance and functionality, embroidered with the designs of their houses and their region and inlaid with light metal pieces that mimicked cuirass, shoulder plates, and vambraces.

Back home. His dream began to seep in darkly on the edges of his vision, but Elendur blinked it away. It was an imagined thing. He hadn’t been there. He’d been on a ship, sailing away, caught in the storm whipped up by the chaos, blinded by the driving rain and the harrowing winds. There was some truth of that in the sensations of drowning, but somehow he never envisaged the storm in his mind's eye. He supposed it made sense. Storms happened. All the time, everywhere. Drowning islands did not.

“…and happy to march by noon, never mind evening as we planned,” Aratan was saying, holding up the mail shirt.

“Of course they are,” Elendur said blankly, only half aware of what he was affirming as he tugged it down over his clothes, the weight settling on his body like steadying hands.

"Interesting lot,” his brother went on. "Nothing like the ones we’re used to. Neither grand nor jolly. Sort of dangerous-feeling, actually, strange as that sounds. I wouldn’t put it past them to knife me without a thought if I said a wrong word. Don’t think they’re the sort to play dice with.”

Elendur allowed himself to smile as he pulled on the tunic and his brother helped him with the sash and sword belt. “A day may come when you learn that elves don’t gamble, but it is not this day."

“I’ve not given up the hope that some might," Aratan said with wide eyes, attaching a long, featherlight cape to the metal pieces on the shoulders of Elendur’s tunic. “The hunt makes it all the more exciting. Those fellows back in Imladris, you remember the ones always perching in trees and eaves and singing silly songs to us?”

“Who could forget?”

“If we hadn’t been spending our days organising a siege I guarantee I’d have brought them round to it, sooner or later.”

“I’d bet on later.”

Aratan gave him a look and blithely handed him his circlet. Elendur took it and set it on his brow himself, tying his hair back with no fuss for design.

“We’ve been invited by Gil-Galad to eat with everyone after introductions are made,” his brother said.

“High King Gil-Galad,” Elendur corrected. “Grandfather won’t thank you for ignoring propriety. Especially not in front of the newcomers. Remember King Oropher’s reply to the summons - we mustn’t give him another excuse to err even more on the side of irreverence.”

“Thank you oh wise eventually-kingly-one, you’re an inspiration to us all.”

“Aratan," he said, an edge to his voice. "Please be cautious today. We need this alliance to work.”

“I know. I’ve already heard they’re much more touchy when it comes to manners, too. Which is of course why we need you at the breakfast, so don’t go wolfing down your food and running off to boost morale around your captains straight after we’ve eaten, alright? We need you to break the ice. And stop me running my mouth.”

“Grandfather isn’t enough of an elf-friend to pull us through this time, I see.”

"Not nearly. He'll be at the head of the table with the three other kings. It'll be up to father and us to get through to the Sindar kings' sons and the rest of their retinue. Trying to get us to get them to like our alliance is, well..."

“I suppose we must pull our weight the same as grandfather."

“I’m sorry you’re the one who’s got to reel everyone in, but, you know. One wrong word and I’ll be skewered on some Greenwood banner, I swear it. Ciryon won’t be much better; in fact he’d probably get there first.”

“He’s his father’s son.”

“Exactly. And if these elves are as irreverent and edgy as they appear then even father's temper might not survive the whole meal. And there's nothing like drama at the table, especially when you're planning to invade Mordor. So please don’t leave poor Lord Elrond to deal with all three of us and them.”

“Your self-awareness does you credit, brother. Don't worry. I assume Ciryon is already at the tent.”

“Always diving in head first. I think he’s already started on the captains.”

“Then we’d better get a move on. Don’t want any frosty glares to freeze over the ice again."

“Oh, they won’t,” Aratan said, holding aside the flap of the tent. "You’ve always been the best of us three at saying ‘at your service, Sir Elf Lord, shall we begin?’”

"You make me sound like one of the dwarves.”

“Goodness. You’re right. Lets avoid that.”

He clapped a hand on Aratan’s shoulder as they made for the cluster of bright circlets and fine clothing buzzing in front of the command tent. “We’ll make a diplomat of you yet, brother.”

 

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Chapter End Notes

(And now the next textual ghost to tackle - the tra-la-la-lally elves...)