Conversation with Elrond by Glorified

The Gift

Elrond is in a melancholic mood.

Read The Gift

 

Conversation with Elrond!

Chapter 1

The Gift!

The afternoon shadows of a drab winter day at the tail end of autumn were beginning to fall, and outside his study doors Elrond, Lord of Imladris, heard the moan of the wind reaching down into his valley from the bitter heights above. There would be snow in the morning and a heavy fall given the yellow burdened cast of the sky earlier. As he sat at his desk he swirled a dark golden liquid around in his glass in contemplation. He was feeling particularly morose and taciturn and the cathartic effects of the alcohol were helping him sink into a place of deep introspection, he hoped that he would not feel too tender in the morning. He knew he was being maudlin yet tonight he wished to indulge himself and open himself up to something he seldom allowed himself to feel. For the moment he was not the benevolent Lord of Imladris always willing to help, support, mend, heal. Now all he wished was to be alone with his memories, memories that touched the nexus of all of his life’s, hurts, so many lost to him, some through misfortune, some by choice. Why? why? he asked himself as he sort to purge the self pitying doubts which drove their spears deep in to his heart. Was he all too consuming in his desire to be loved, perhaps too supplicating in his demeanour to win others favour so that they turned from him and sort easier, less difficult resolution. Whatever it was they needed it certainly had not been him they had come looking to it for. He thought of his wife as she had been before her abduction; an ethereal beauty that always made him catch his breath in his throat when he saw her. Suddenly a surge of sadness and longing filled him as he lay back in his chair and closed his eyes listening for the rustle of her gowns as she loosed her hair and her clothing, the smell of lilies permeating his senses. His memory strayed for the first time in years to the deep dark nights spent slumbering in their bed, spooned together in a complete fit. 

 

He opened his eyes again coming back to the present moment and sighed. Yet she had been let down in the end because of his inability, his lack, broken by his failure, their marriage voided, a sham for all to see; their marriage bed cold. Their children’s future far from secured or decided either. Vala! how he had let them down also, he had given them no clear path to steer by and now he saw too late that their choices would be coloured by their lives and desires here in Endore not some strange foreign place they had neither need or wish to go to. How could he ever face her again if he came empty handed without their family, she would not want him then. There would be no relished reunion a warm welcome hearth and home, no new beginning. He would be alone as he deserved to be for eternity. He imagined himself on some alien shore walking in rags forlorn, drifting through the tide. It was all he deserved really, some strange Peredhil who had come by chance and fortune down a long list of far more worthy and illustrious Lords to his position. She would find someone else far more worthy than he, perhaps she had already, someone with an unsullied linage from the great house of Finarfin, a near kinsman someone who had never been to Endore, unsullied by the decay and passage of time, someone she could bear the touch of, the kiss of. Suddenly a haunted look passed over Elrond’s features, his pearlecsent grey eyes full of pain with tears rimming at their edge. He saw before him the ghost of the small boy he had been, wide eyed and vulnerable crouched in a corner holding a blanket for security, two the heralds of death, tall and predatory standing over him and his sibling.

 

A soft knock at the door, startled him and he hurriedly tried to compose himself. Who could this be at this hour he wondered. The golden liquid before him slopped about untidily in its glass as he steadied it on the desk. He swallowed hard and blinked the tears away as he cleared his throat. He breathed deeply trying to regain a measure of control and then clasped his hands in front of him as he drew himself up in his chair.

“Yes” he said croakily.

The door pushed open slowly and as an unexpected his visitor stood hesitating in the door way.

Elrond’s eyebrows shot up and upon opening his mouth to speak to find himself merely gesturing towards a chair by his desk.

His guest tentatively walked in and sat down.

Elrond noticed the widening dilation of his guests pupils adjusting to the darkness of the room, as they scanned around them, their iris’s a bright amber that flashed in the candle light in a fixated stare.

“How may I help?” began Elrond warmly the haunting memories of a few seconds ago held firmly in check as he adopted a cordial demeanour.

His visitor said nothing but looking down at the floor.

“Please” Elrond coaxed, “you have obviously come for a reason.”

His visitor suddenly stood up.

“I’m sorry I should not have come I have intruded forgive me?”

“Please”, began Elrond again at little perplexed and put out at his visitors abrupt behaviour.

“I shall only seek you out in the morrow to find out what could have brought you to my study so late in the day when all my house hold is hibernating from this winter chill finding solace beside their fires, conversation and books.”

His guest dropped their shoulders and half turned hesitating, vacillating in that moment between staying or going they seemed to be debating something and then with a sigh and seeming reluctance turned and sat down again.

The silence deepened.

“Are you well lady?” broached Elrond.

“Yes, yes all is well, thank you.”

“Tell me what is it I can do for you?”,

Elrond drew his brows together quizzically waiting.

Always so reticent and awkward with me? thought Elrond, he saw her in his minds eye walking through the main corridors, clumsily tumbling back whenever he approached her, full of down ward glances, and stuttering mumblings. Was he so taciturn and foreboding? Perhaps that’s why he had asked the favour from his seneschal; amiable and well liked as he was. He saw them together on the balcony of her rooms, her arms animatedly, swooping the air, her face alight his seneschal avidly looking on.

His guest broke through his reverie.

“I saw you you know, that first time when you were singing up on the higher terraces, your eyes were closed and your arms outstretched. I don’t usually come as close but I could feel the magic, the power in your song, the air, it seemed to hum with it. When you finished you suddenly looked up and saw me and bowed to me. It was a strange gesture why did you do it?”,

“I...I acknowledge, reverence to all the creatures of Arda.”

“But I felt you call to me, me in particular.”

“If I did I was unaware of it, perhaps what you felt was the after affects of the song of power?”

“Perhaps?” said his his guest unconvinced.

“Come lady let us speak clearly, why are you here?”, said Elrond bringing the subject around.

“I…… I….. wish to offer you a gift……. openly, freely, with no hidden agenda……. but…...but I am not sure you will accept it?”

“I see”, began Elrond, “that is kind of you but no recompense is ever expected for the comforts of the homely house.”

His guest cut through as if not hearing him they eyes unfocused and hazy. “No one has ever, ever been able to before, my experience was always my own, but….but …..when I felt … when I was able to share, I saw, it was as if ….. as if I saw all anew because I saw it through another’s eyes.”

“A memory is a fair thing to share, it gives us…… began Elrond”

“Oh but it is no memory, I speak of”, his guest cut through again Elrond’s comforting homily, “it is real I knew it, I felt it”

Elrond gathered together all his urbane civility and began again, “memories can and do give us comfort…..”

“Why do you persist in misunderstanding me?” his guest interrupted.

Elrond’s eyebrows shot up in consternation somewhat affronted at this outburst.

“Then tell me lady plainly, what is it you speak of?”,

His guest sat back thoughtfully, tracing guest traced the whorls in the arms of the polished chair before she began, “You know I’ve always thought……...that a hidden pleasure is, is…….. is all the more intense because of its concealed nature.”

Elrond felt his heart beats gathering momentum into a thud, thud, thud in his chest. His guest fixed him with their eyes now hard and alien. Is this how the rabbit feels, he thought, is this the last thing they see, that cruel, merciless stare, in those last few seconds before the hawks talons swift and cruel bear down upon it?

“How long have you known?” he said evenly?

“Since the first” his guest replied.

“Why did you not disclose this to me?”

“I really did not mind” his guest said, “I knew you would not take any unfair advantage or abuse me.”

“Believe me, on my honour, you have my assurances that I have allowed myself no indulgences in that direction for several weeks now”, said Elrond firmly.

“I would have known if you had replied his guest. That is why I am here. I wish you to take my offer, please openly without need for any subterfuge..”

“How can I? I have transgressed and done what I knew to be wrong. Indeed I have broken all bounds of protocol and decorum, yet now you would freely give me what I so covertly took from you. That does not make my disgrace any less nor my crime less dishonourable”.

“There is no crimes done here really, really” his guest pleaded. “I have not come here to admonish you or, or….accuse that was never, no that was never…... my intention”

Elrond sat resolute, brooding with his hands drawn up together tapping his pouting lips.

The first time it had happened he had been strolling across the lawn outside his study, he had dropped the papers in his hand as an intense feeling of weightless and vertigo came over him. The world spun and the grass under him whooshed up before him as he stumbled and fell. The next time and the times after that he had purposely sought out the experience.

“But how is even it possible?” he said speaking his thoughts out loud “Oswane? but this”, he splayed his hands out in bewilderment, “I...I ..admit I felt, inside of the experience not just a witness looking on to another’s memory or catching their thoughts. As if I were in the moment… erhm….. Elrond cleared his throat…. with you, experiencing what you felt… It is not usual within the Elder unless through the bounds of marriage.”

“I don’t understand what do you mean?”

Elrond looked slightly uncomfortable.

“It is erhm , it is through ...the….”

“Through the?”…. His visitor prompted.

“It is …..it is…. Thought the act of love which binds.”

“The act?”

“Surely you understand? Forgive me lady for speaking so frankly, sex!”

“Oh I see!” His guest coloured slightly, then seemed to be pondering something their expression quizzical.

“But, the act of love for you, I mean for your kind you believe is holy, inviolate, pure, do you not?

Elrond nodded tentatively unsure where this line of reasoning was going.

“Then surely the same reasoning applies to this, …....between us….. does it not then speak of its importance and reason to value it?….”

His guest’s voice trailed away.

Elrond sat back in his chair his eyes closed reflecting, recalling.

He opened his eyes his expression grave and frank.

“If I agree to this, If we do this, if I feel you are frightened or disturbed in any way we will stop immediately, do you agree?”,

His visitor nodded affirmatively.

“How is it best to proceed?”

“Well perhaps we should stand.”

They stood facing one another pensively

“If I turn my back to you and you place your hands either side of my head and close your eyes I think that will be enough”, his guest suggested.

Elrond did as requested.

The clock struck the quarter hour, how long they had stood like that Elrond was not sure but at least for fifteen minutes he had been transported into azure blue emptiness, blending with the airs of Arda, the landscape of middle earth pieced and plotted into rivers, mountains and forests many thousands of feet below. He could feel currents of air buffeting him from above and below, his body was gone, and in its place he pivoted on the angled plane of sinew, bone, and feathers. Is this how the Vala and Aniur felt he wondered, with their ability to change form and become art of the elements of Arda itself. Hanging on to nothingness he felt a terrifying freedom that that demanded an absolute relinquishment of control to the breath of the heavens around him. He felt in the ebb and flow of a huge tide of air currents he needed to both surrender to but hold mastery of. Such was his concentration it carried him away from all thought or memory and he found himself relishing the accomplishment of flight, stretching himself more, as he tilted a wing feather or arching a tail fin to see how discrete a movement was needed to alter his trajectory.

 

Elrond broke the contact first and gently placing his hands on his visitors shoulders leant forward and whispered, “thank you for your gift” against their ear.

His guest leant back and turning their head, softly whispered back “It was my gift to give”.

In that second as she turned her head Elrond caught her lips brushing them lightly in a tender supplicating kiss.

“Forgive me” said Elrond softly, “I should not have done that.”

She stood silent her with eyes closed, her face glowing with a soft luminescence and without thinking turned her around drawing her into his embrace.

 

“Thank you”, he said quietly, as he withdrew and pulled her hands to him kissing the knuckles.

Her eyes were dark now the pupils large and voluminous. A ghost of a smile touched her lips but in her eyes he saw a benevolence tinged with a poignant melancholy. She turned and left without word.

 

Later that evening long after the door softly clicked shut, long after the evening shadows deepened upon the green sward outside and the first flakes of snow began to fall, the elf Lord sat alone and wept unashamedly, and unabashedly, from joy, from sorrow he could not say, yet even as these emotions intertwined within him, he felt a strange peace to his soul.