Master of My Blood by Cheeky

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Chapter 9

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Belfalas

My Aunt watches me. 

 

Everywhere I go her eyes are on me. She lectures, she cajoles, occasionally she attempts to order me. None of it works. 

 

I have discovered it is possible to exist within nothingness, to drift, day to day, putting one foot after the other, eating, drinking, talking as if you are alive and yet not be alive at all. I am a ghost. 

 

Galadriel does not wish me to remain as one. She pokes, she prods, she pressurises, but all to no avail. 

 

She bans me from the boats and I am furious. 

 

“I came here to the sea because it helps me!” I cry, but she is unmoved. 

 

“It can help you from the shore.” 

 

“I am not a child you can restrain. You have no right to do this.” 

 

“If you cease behaving as a child, Gildor,” she sighs, “Then I will cease treating you as one. If you wish to sail we will take you to Círdan and he will arrange it . . . Properly. No one will hold it against you. It would be understandable. But I will not have you taking a fishing boat, sensing a whiff of Valinor on the breeze and disappearing forever. There are too many people I must answer to for your care to allow that, least of all, myself.” 

 

Secretly I am relieved. I do wish to ride upon the waves. I wish it with every single part of me, but my memories of sailing are a tangle of Gil-galad and our weekly fishing in Lindon. I have been to the boats and the thought of setting foot on one terrifies me. But I will not tell her that. I will show her my fury instead, and I have plenty of it for I am angry at the world. 

 

“Instead of raging,” she says. “You could try talking.” 

 

Galadriel, of course, has no need to talk. She can reach inside my mind and help herself. I have seen her do it to others. She often has no qualms. But if she has done this to me—ever—I have not felt it. She is either surreptitious or she restrains herself. At the moment I would rather she walk across my mind and discover it’s secrets herself than drag them out of me with conversation and I tell her so. 

 

“Help yourself!” I say. “I know you can. You have my permission. Take whatever it is you want to know, just do not make me speak on it.” 

 

“Then that would not be helpful.” Her calmness infuriates me. 

 

“I do not know what it is you want to know!” 

 

“Why are you so angry, Gildor?” she asks gently as if we simply discuss the weather. 

 

“Because you will not leave me alone.” 

 

She ignores me.

 

“Could it be that you have lost yet another you care for and it seems unfair, because it is unfair.” 

 

“Do not start that.” She hits a nerve. “Not you, as well as Elrond, and Thranduil of all people. Do not make Gil-galad and I out to be something we were not. I am sick of hearing it.” 

 

“What were you then? For I said only that you cared for him and your reaction seems somewhat . . . Overstated.” 

 

She is right. I have overreacted to a simple statement. Why is she always right?

 

“We were nothing.” I tell her. “At the last we argued and parted with harsh words lying between us. He thought me foolish and a coward. It just took him all those years to confess it to me.” 

 

Still she does not take the bait. 

 

“I know exactly how Ereinion saw you for he has spoken to me of you often. Neither of those words describe it.” 

 

I know my Aunt, almost as well as I know anybody. I know her weak points better than anyone save Celeborn. I want to end this conversation and I want to hurt, and so I do. I pick her vulnerablity and I attack. 

 

“Do you know what he thought of Finrod?” I ask. “I am sure he has not told you that, but he did me, the night before he died. Finrod was no king at all, he said. Finrod abandoned his people to destruction for his own foolish ends. Finrod did not know how to be a King.” 

 

I land my blow. I see the hurt flit across her face. If you want to attack Galadriel, use Finrod. I remember that glimpse of her grief I saw all those years ago in Lindon. The instant the words are out of my mouth, the moment I see that flash of hurt,  I regret them. Why did I do that? 

 

But still she does not react. I have failed.

 

“So,” she says, “he wished to make you angry. Why was that?” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

And despite myself I find I am speaking about the one thing I did not wish to. 

 

“Does that strike you as being in character?” she asks. “To criticise your father like that when he knew his own was not without fault. Have you not asked yourself why he did that?”

 

I have. I have asked myself over and over why. 

 

“Because he believed it.” 

 

“Or . . . Because he wished to separate the two of you. He wished to push you away. What better way to do it?” 

 

Realisation washes over me and it is ice cold. 

 

“He argued with me on purpose.” 

 

I am not sure if that makes it better or worse but I know she is right. He did not want me to go with them. He knew, he knew, I would walk away and if he did not chase after me I would be too late coming back. 

 

“He is not wrong,” she says quietly, “Finrod made errors. But Ereinion is not the kind of man to throw those errors in your face .. . Unless he felt he had to.” 

 

I feel manipulated and it is awful. 

 

“This is not helping,” I tell her. “I feel worse, not better.” 

 

“You need to look this in the eye, Gildor. You need to ask yourself why he did that. You need to ask why Elrond, and Thranduil, who barely knows you, say the things they do. The answers may not be the ones you want to hear.” 

 

But I do not want to. 

 

There is one thing in Belfalas that brings me joy. One thing that cuts through the grey that surrounds me to light the sky. 

 

She is Celebrian. 

 

It is impossible to spend time with my small cousin and not feel joyful.  She is light itself. 

 

I barely knew her when I arrived. Time and distance have separated us since she was born, yet I adored her from the first moment. I want to protect her always for she is so precious, so lovely. I would like to cup her light in my hands and keep her safe like a firefly behind glass. I will be her champion and her defender. I wish I had known her when she was small, for now? She is all grown up and ready for the outside world. 

 

At least she thinks so. 

 

When Galadriel and Celebrimbor decide it is time to return to Imladris and I resolutely refuse, it is Celebrian they send to fight that battle for them. 

 

She seeks me out, finds me and sits next to me, sweet, soft and kind. 

 

“Gildor, Mother says you will not come to Imladris with us.” Those beautiful eyes are sad. 

 

“No. Imladris is not somewhere I can go right now.” 

 

“But I have only just discovered you.” She rests her head upon my shoulder. “Would you abandon me so soon? I have no brother or sister. It has been good to have a cousin.” 

 

“I would go if I could, Celebrían. I do not abandon you. I will still be here.” 

 

“Here alone though?” Her forehead creases in a frown. “That will not do. I will worry.” 

 

She makes me laugh. In the midst of all this pain she alone can make me laugh. 

 

“You do not need to worry about me.” 

 

“Will you not come. Is there truly nothing I can do to change your mind?” 

 

I still cannot bear it, the thought of going back there. But she is not good at taking no for an answer. People wonder at how different she is from Galadriel but they do not know her. She is strong and she is stubborn. 

 

“Elrond wants to see you,” she says next. “ He is hoping we will bring you.” 

 

“Well Elrond—” suddenly I turn to look at her. “How do you know what Elrond wants?” 

 

“From his letters.” But she ducks her head so I cannot see her eyes. 

 

“Elrond writes to you?” 

 

She lifts her head again and looks me in the eye as if laying down a challenge when she answers.

 

“Does he not write to you?” 

 

“Well yes, of course, but we have been friends for centuries, whereas you . . . ” 

 

“We are friends also.” 

 

“Friends?”

 

“Yes friends.” But she blushes and I know . . . There is more to this. Why has Elrond not told me? 

 

I take a gamble.

 

“Celebrian,” I tell her, “you are as transparent as a piece of glass. I can see right through you.” 

 

And her blush deepens. 

 

“What?” She cries dismissing me with a wave of her hand. “I do not know what you mean. You are most odd today, Gildor.” 

 

“So I am odd and you are coy and so obviously in love. This is no secret if you blush as rosy as a winter apple.” 

 

And she gives up. Her resistance, that which it was, collapses. 

 

“Do not tell my parents!” she says.

 

“So they do not know? Do they know he writes to you?” 

 

Wordlessly she shakes her head.

 

“The messenger brings me my letters first.” 

 

“Such duplicity,” I smile. “And why? Does Elrond not feel the same? Is this not reciprocated? What objections could they have?” 

 

“Nothing was certain when we left. It was just . . . A small thing. A possibility. Then he went to war and I was terrified. His letters . . . Things have changed between us . . . It has grown into something I should tell them, but I do not know where to begin.” 

 

“Well you will have to tell them before you get to Imladris if your acting skills are this poor or it will be completely obvious!”

 

“Oh tell me you will come with us Gildor!” She clasps my hands between hers and implores me. “I need your help.” 

 

“You mean you need me there to distract your mother so she is more worried about my welfare than your love life!” 

 

She smiles her bright sun filled smile and she does not deny it. 

 

Still, I want to keep her safe. And while I know Elrond is honourable I want to know how he feels for myself. He has said nothing to me. It is obvious I will not find that out sitting alone in Belfalas. I remember Thranduil’s words . . . That I would not turn away if someone actually asked for my help. 

 

I write Elrond a letter that evening, sending the messenger off at the crack of dawn so it is bound to reach him before we do.

 

I know all, it says, and I will expect your detailed  explanation as to why you have not told me if you wish for help with Galadriel. I know deep down he is terrified of her. 

And then I grit my teeth, search for strength, and prepare to travel. 

 

Imladris is a sea of pain. 

 

We paused here for a long time on our way to battle and Náro is everywhere. Even though we were tense and not at our best while we were here, because the hated Elendil came between us, he haunts each and every corner for me. By the time we arrive in the main square and Elrond strides out to greet us I am a tangled mess of nerves. How will I ever survive here?

 

Still it is lucky for Celebrían and Elrond I am here for the both of them wear bright and dazzling smiles, Elrond’s so unlike him, and their foolishness would be spotted a mile off except for the fact my Aunt watches me like a hawk, her eyes burning into the back of my neck, so perhaps they slide past her usual astute watchfulness. 

 

“Try not to look so utterly joyful,” I whisper to Celebrían beside me and she flashes me the most unimpressed of scowls. “Yes , that is better,” I grin despite myself and she rolls her eyes, but still perhaps her smile is the slightest bit less intense when it reappears. 

 

Elrond dances around me like a frightened deer. If I was not so strained by the attack of memories I would laugh. 

 

“I am so pleased you are here,” he says as he greets us. 

 

“Oh I am certain you are.” I slide my eyes across to my aunt who looks, at the moment, at her most intense and imposing. 

 

“No,” he stumbles under her gaze. To my eyes he looks so guilty. “I mean, to return here. I know it is difficult for you. It will be healing, Gildor, I promise.”

 

That stifles my burgeoning amusement. 

 

“I do not need healing, Elrond! I need leaving alone.” And he sighs. 

 

“Well I have missed your friendship in any case, healing or no healing, and I am pleased to see you because of that.” I get sick of those sighs, from him, Galadriel, Celeborn, heartfelt sighs when they deem I am obstructive and not submitting myself to the care they attempt to lavish me with. The only one who never sighs in frustration when she sees me is Celebrían.

 

Dinner is a nightmare. 

 

I sit, ensuring Celebrían is as far away from Elrond as I can possibly get her for they fall over themselves to be discovered. 

 

“You really must speak to Celeborn and Galadriel tonight,” I hiss at her. “The pair of you are lovesick fools and they will spot it a mile away. It will not go well for you then. They will be hurt.” 

 

She knows I am right. 

 

“Elrond is terrified by my mother,” she says, eyes downcast. 

 

“Well I know that. He will have to get over it. He has led men into battle and Galadriel is just one elf, after all.” 

 

At least I make her laugh.

 

“Galadriel? Just one elf? What a fool you are Gildor!”

 

“Yes, she is, and she is no more fearsome than you can be when you wish it. How is he ever going to cope with you? He must pull himself together.” 

 

“I am not my mother,” she sighs heavily. 

 

“You know that is not true.” We have spoken about this before, she and I. “We both suffer from appearing somewhat ordinary to others in the face of our most glorious parents but I know the real Celebrían remember!  She is strong and determined and can light up the world with her smile. She is light itself, and Elrond had better not be relying on any of those mad Fëanorion lessons he may have been taught to control her!” 

 

It always feels good when I make her smile. 

 

During dinner I am accosted by memory everywhere I look. Evenings spent with Gil-galad in this hall, at this table, laughing, making all at ease as he did . . . A King. He would sit where Elrond is now and the attention of all would be on him. He commanded a room simply by  being in it. If I close my eyes I can almost imagine when I open them I will find him there, and he will catch my eye across the table and smile. 

 

Elrond talks to Celeborn. They are in deep discussion and he taps his fingers on the table to underline some point or other. And on one of those fingers is Vilya. It sparkles blue in the lamplight. 

 

Gil-galad wore that ring. 

 

I was angry with him when he gave it away. 

 

“You need that!” 

 

“Elrond needs it more,” he said. “We have Círdan’s here in Lindon.” 

 

But what would have happened had he been wearing it when he faced Sauron? Would it have made a difference? 

 

Seeing it, in that place, where he sat, where I can almost feel him, is too much. 

 

All heads turn towards me as I push back my chair and stand. 

 

“Is something wrong?” Elrond asks and I am suddenly drowning beneath a wave that threatens to choke me. Of course something is wrong. Náro is not here and will never be here. Never . . . It stretches out interminably. 

 

“I need some air.” I say, and I do not even know how I get the words out. I will not collapse and crumple here. “A walk under the stars. I will see you later.”

 

“Stay,” Elrond replies. “You have hardly eaten.” I do not wish to argue with him and it is Celeborn who comes to my aid, placing a restraining hand on Elrond’s arm with a shake of the head. Always he has been there,  Celeborn, quietly fighting on my side when I have needed it, since I was a boy.

 

I do what I have told them I will do. I get out of there. Out into the crisp night air where I can breathe, taking deep gulps of it as if it will wash it all away. It does not. 

 

Even the stars do not help me. It is too raw, too near, too soon. There is a weight in the pit of my stomach that will not ease, a heavy lump of loss. I find a tree, I sit beneath it, I bury my head in my knees so I cannot see the stars that fail me, and I weep. 

 

It is first time I have done this but it only reminds me of Náro. Of the day he discovered me, a mess, in the midst of my own destruction, when I had fled from Annatar, who killed him in the end. He will not be coming to find me today. 

 

Someone does though. 

 

“May I join you?” I do not know why he bothers to ask. He throws himself down on the ground beside me anyway, even as he says it. 

So I do not answer him. 

 

“Memory is a painful thing,” he says. “What was it that did you in?” 

 

I lift my head then to stare at him. 

 

“Why would I tell you that?” 

 

“Because I asked. Because it would be helpful for you if you spoke of it.” 

 

I consider simply getting up and walking away, leaving him sitting there, but somehow I am not brave enough for that. You do not give the cold shoulder to Glorfindel. In the end I feel I have no choice but to tell him. 

 

“The ring.”

 

“Ah, Vilya. Sitting upon Elrond’s finger. Yes I see how that would be painful. Still it was a wise move from Ereinion to give it to him.” 

 

“Was it though?” I ask him what I have just been thinking. “It may have saved him on the battlefield.” 

 

“Tell me about that,” he says, “the battle.”  He really is quite frustrating. Powerful, confident, logical, it is quite impossible to deny him. 

 

“You were there. I have no need to tell you.” 

 

“But I was not there where it counted.” 

 

“Well neither was I!” I cry. 

 

“Ah, yes. Elrond told me.” He drums his fingers on his knee. “I am most unhappy with Ereinion about that.”

 

“What?” That response was not what I expected. “Not happy with him, why?” 

 

“Because he treated you badly.” He replies, as if it was obvious. “The ends do not justify the means. He gave no thought to the burden you have been left with. Believe me, Gildor, I will be having words with him about this when we meet again in Valinor.” 

 

He leaves me almost speechless. 

 

“You will have words with him on my behalf?” I am not sure I want that. 

 

“However right he may have been to keep you well away from Sauron—for several reasons, engineering an argument was not the way to go about it.”

 

“So you believe he did that?”

 

“Do you not?” he snaps right back at me. 

 

“I am not sure. Galadriel thinks so. But I started it, Glorfindel. I was so worn down with foresight. I had to warn him and he refused to listen.” 

 

“You may have started it, but he continued it and he finished it—”

 

“No I finished it,” I cut in. Those words . . . I am done  . . . Will echo around my mind for the rest of my life. 

 

“He finished it, with words of Finrod he knew would rile you. And then you left, as he intended. It was cruel and I shall tell him so.”

 

He is a rather intimidating person to have as a champion. 

 

“Do not get me wrong, Gildor. I think very highly of Ereinion, as a leader and as a man. He has seldom put a foot wrong. But in this he has erred . . . Badly.” 

 

I stare at my hands, avoiding his eyes for I really, really, do not want this to be true, but he is so certain, as my aunt was certain. 

 

“I feel manipulated.” It is a whisper for I am almost ashamed to say it. 

 

“You were manipulated. Gildor—” he hesitates. Pinning me with the longest of looks as if he tosses something about in his mind, “I feel you should know this, if you do not already. I feel it may help you, but I break a confidence and that sits badly with me. However . . . Ereinion has some wrongs to right and this may go partway to helping. He has spoken to me about you.” 

 

“What?” I do not want to hear this but he gives me no option. 

 

“No matter what he said to you, no matter what insults he hurled at you at the last, he believed none of it and you should hold on to that. He loved you, deeply, and that was why he argued so hard with Círdan that you should not even be there with us. We discussed it at length, he and I.” 

 

“Why did he discuss anything about me with you!” 

 

“Because even a King needs a confidante and he did not feel you would be open to speaking on it.” 

 

“I . . .” I do not know what to say. I do not even know where to start with this. 

 

“You need to look this in the eye, Gildor,” he says firmly. “I know others have told you this.” 

 

“Is all you people do here indulge in gossip about me?” 

“That is enough!” It is a tone not to be disobeyed and I flinch. For a moment in time we are caught in each other’s stare, but he is resolute and unblinking and I will never match him. 

I look away. 

 

“Child,” he says gently then, and it is a long time since anyone has called me thus, “I know this is not what you wish to hear and I know you are hurting and Ereinion is partly to blame for that, but he is gone, and he will pass through Mandos’ halls and come out the other side healed and new. Believe me, I know. You, on the other hand have the harder struggle, and you will have to find your own healing. So when you find him again you are more prepared. It will be a disaster otherwise. You have time now . . . Possibly a long time, to think on what myself and others have told you and decide what it is you wish to do with that knowledge.” 

 

“I do not want to know it at all” I wish he had not told me this. 

 

“And that,” he says, “is part of the problem. Perhaps I should send you to Finrod instead.” 

 

Send me? He cannot do that surely.

 

“You can try to send me but I will not go.”

 

“Because that is another reunion you run from I think.” 

 

I am sick of him being right, but even I know he is in this. I yearn for my father and yet the idea of meeting him ties me in knots when I think on it. 

 

“What is it you are afraid of?” He asks me. “He waits for you there, desperate to see you. Ereinion is no longer holding you here.” 

 

“Gil-galad never held me here!” Finally something he is wrong about. I will forget about that day Náro hauled me from the sea crying abandonment for those were his issues, not mine. “I stay for my Aunt who helped raise me and I stay for myself! This is my home. He has no right to expect me to leave it on his behalf.” 

 

“And he does not expect it. But still, he waits, somewhat impatiently at times.”

 

“I do not know what it is he waits for,” I mutter. “Likely we will not know each other anyway.” 

 

“Is that what you fear?” He frowns. “Boy, he is still Finrod. He is still the same, though the Valar may not think so. They simply did not look carefully enough before.” 

 

“But am I still Gildor? The one he waits for?” 

 

“Oh yes, you are that! I say it without hesitation for he has described you to me in exact and accurate detail. I have uncovered nothing he has wrong yet. He knows your heart, Gildor and though you are older and wiser and more disillusioned perhaps,  that is still the same.”

 

He rises to his feet then, suddenly, unexpectedly, reaching down towards me with his hand to pull me up also. 

 

“Enough of this. I have given you enough to think on for one night. Come, Elrond has need of you I think, for he has been enchanted by this cousin of yours and the thought of discussing it with Galadriel quite undoes him.”

 

“You know?” I say in surprise as I take his hand. Of course he does. It seems he knows everything. 

 

“Elrond thinks he hides it from me but the boy is so transparent it makes me laugh. I have heard you can wind Artanis around your little finger. Or is your father wrong in that?” 

 

He said that? I am taken aback.

 

“He is not wrong.” 

 

“Good. Come work your magic, child of Finderáto, or at least teach Elrond some tactics.” 

 

That is not going to be easy.