Seven Years Since by Gwanath Dagnir

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

 

It is the seventh year since returning home to Rivendell after a seven-year siege upon Barad-dûr.
Home but no longer Homely, as Ereinion once hailed it. Now the place I dwell, where before we had thrived.

On the seventh and final day of mourning this anniversary of his fall, I am half of two last to depart the Hall of Fire.

Celeborn towers beside the brazier, hand outstretched towards me.
"Come, Elrond. Let us retire our grief here and attend to matters of the living."

He is well-meaning but chose poor words.
For Círdan said similarly when he approached where I knelt upon the wasteland of Sauron's making, clung to what remained of our High King's smoldering corpse.

"I shall abide, until the embers are cool."

Celeborn hesitates, then relents. "As you wish." His shadow crawls after him off into the night.

My hands lay empty and helpless as memory releases me not, and thus seized, I bear witness as the last flicker of glowing light goes lifeless, and the stars fade to dawn.

 

It is the seventh hour of a new day, and I have not slept in seven nights. I ache for slumber from the doorway of my chambers, a spectator to their vacancy.

Celebrían had stood here upon my return from long strife afar, finding me lost within.

"I hope the renovations please you," she regarded these quarters that I had relinquished to Ereinion while he resided here, re-furnished with my things and bereft of his.

We toiled more often together than apart throughout those years of preparation for war, King and I, sometimes counseling until sleep overtook us, be it in office or lounge or wherever.

This house became as much his own as mine, and these walls echo his presence still. It brings me no comfort -too fresh is the cleaving- and I leave to find freer air.

Securing the borders of this safehold has ever been my duty, giving Gil-galad rare cause to interact with the Vale beyond its facilities and its inhabitants. The fields and woods and falls and hills and streams and cliff-paths did not know him, they do not remind me of his absence, so I oft look there for peace.

In the seventh room of the primary edifice, a council is later to commence. From its seventh balcony, Galadriel addresses me crossing the yard below, newly carpeted with fallen leaves.

"There is work to be done." She nods but does not beckon.

During those years without its usual rulership present, household business perfectly harmonized with those who remained behind - the Lady of Light chief among them.
It may be considered one small gift of war, that where it wages not, mundanity finds the will to carry on.

"I shall return in time."

She must know my unslept state, as Galadriel knows most things. I feel her gaze follow me far as possible into the green, as I go out to scavenge any measure of rest before daily affairs consume me.

Finally, I approach my most favoured precipice, which is seven tiers above the main level of commerce, which is seven tiers above the throat of the Bruinen.

One last ledge to surmount - it is higher than I am tall, and at the end of a steep inclining path that is long and narrow and choked on each side by bush and rock and branch.
I take a running leap as I must do, to catch the only foothold -a root jutting out from the dirt wall- then the only handhold -a branch stretched across the path above- and make to hoist myself up.

But there is a bleak sound like charred bones snapping in chorus, and I am suddenly emptyhanded then footless.
The horizon flips over itself as I flail backward in freefall with nothing to grasp but air before ground.

The first strike is brutal, the whole of my weight delivering the base of my skull onto stone.
Five lesser blows follow, despite inelegant efforts to stop myself from tumbling down that steep path I had never thought of as perilous before.
The seventh and final impact mirrors the first in opposite and I slide to a halt, face-down and limbs askew, breathless, dizzy, and such an unlucky fool.

There is work to be done

I try seven times to rise before unconsciousness claims me.

 

---

 

"Mother!" Celebrían burst out of the wood at a full sprint unstopping. "Mother!"

Galadriel met her in the courtyard, but would not be pulled away.

"Come at once! He is sore wounded, the ground was ruined with blood where he lay, you must give aid, they are carrying him hence, come, come!"

"Then carry him they must, but two are enough for that unhappy labour."

Glorfindel had gone out first to search that evening, concerned once Elrond had not returned under his father's star.
When the golden Elf's piercing whistle rang out in the distance thereafter, Celeborn made swift pursuit, his daughter following behind.

Now Galadriel grasped Celebrían’s heaving shoulders to steady her.
"Go you to fetch Elrond's best disciples of the healing arts and send them to me in his abode. There I will make preparations to receive him. Go now!"

 

---

 

I am propped upright and mostly carried between two strong Elves, both taller than I and in far better repair.
I must seem to them as a tender babe taking its first steps, unsteady and timid, and thus they hold me well as we make our careful way along.
Though I drift in and out of awareness, Eärendil’s star ever lights our path, and leading the way, I barely discern Gil-galad's shining helm trading places amongst the trees.

He did find me hither, once, and together we shared the joy of surveying this fair realm.

"Have you come all this way to lose a footrace, my lord?"

Gil-galad smiled but took my ring-hand firm.

"Show me the work you have done here.”

 

Deft hands are upon me, taking my clothes, washing my skin, treating my wounds.

We are in Ereinion's old room filled with things of mine: incantations in familiar voices, and smoking herbs that give some small comfort.

But my head, my head, O my reckless and burdensome head - the throbbing is uncanny and eludes all remedy.
It drives a sickness to my core akin to the dread of impending doom, a feeling haunted by too-recent memories.
Crude drums beat amid a sea of battle, and flame rings my vision.
Ash and Orcish bloodspray defile my tongue.
His ragged final breaths echo in my ears.
He can no longer hear my voice.

"Elrond, what happened?"

He was burned by the unholy heat of Sauron's hand. Burned alive till there was naught but a flicker of life left within him. Just precisely too little life to be saved.
Sauron made no accident in this. The dark one delights in torture of body, mind, and heart.

"Do not rouse him, do not interfere. Let the lady Galadriel guide our work."

This is Glorfindel's voice again, and he commands answer. "Elrond, tell me what happened."

Grief seizes my heart, and the words almost choke me. "You were there..." I cannot say more. We all saw his terrible fate, all of us captains of Gil-galad's great host.

There is a commotion of unsinging voices and shuffling feet as the pain lures me into another dizzying spell, and I am entranced by darkness once more.

 

---

 

Celebrían bounced to her feet when the door to Elrond's chambers opened. Her father emerged from within and put on a comforting smile. 

"Do not fret, daughter. Elrond Half-elven did not survive three great battles of Arda over two Ages, only to succumb to a knock on the head in his own land."
Though his voice was calm and his hands washed clean, blood stains on his sleeves told a different tale.

Glorfindel exited next, closing the door behind himself. His look was troubled and better matched his own soiled clothes.
"Two knocks on the head, and several other knocks besides. I am doubly convinced this was an attack."

"He fell." Celeborn grew stern. "It was an accident."

Celebrían recognized this as a reunion of some previous disagreement between them.

Glorfindel was undeterred. "Did you not hear what Elrond said? Someone was there."

"No - he said you were there, and yet you were not. This is not the time for interrogation. He hit his head. He is confused."

"Precisely. Elrond was confused as to whom he spoke just now. This is a clue. Whomever was there with him bears my likeness in some way."

Celeborn massaged his temples and drew deep breath. Celebrían was no stranger to the look of her sire mustering patience. He spoke on with a father's care, "Alas, I have known that the struggles and the failings of our long campaign waged on in Elrond's frequent thought these past years, tormenting him. I trusted him to his own methods of self-care and hoped healing would come in time, but perhaps such is not a path to be taken alone, although that has been his wont.”
He crossed the room to put both hands upon Glorfindel's shoulders.
"Perhaps you too are battle stricken, my friend, imagining enemies in every shadow even in times of peace. For a Balrog-slayer, it may seem more natural to find some foe to challenge, than to withstand sad misfortune."

The soft words did not soften Glorfindel.

"If I am stricken as you say, it is only by the sight of Eärendil’s son, bloodied and battered by some evil means. And yet, we may both be right. If indeed he fell, but also was not alone, perhaps he was pushed."

Celebrían interrupted before her father could rejoin the contest, knowing by now his patience had surely expired. "Glorfindel, pray you take council with your trusted commanders, and also with Elrond's closest confidants. Be discrete, but try to discern if anyone has cause to suspect an enemy in our midst, or as unlikely as it should seem, some grievance with Elrond himself."

Glorfindel bowed deep and departed at once.

"I share your mind in this matter, father," she said to his doubtful look. "But without a job to go do, Glorfindel will wear a hole through this floor with his pacing. Let him collect more good advice from the other Wise among this house and abate his own fears that way."
She looked to the door that muffled her mother's song rising up, imagining Elrond's suffering within. "Or if he discovers a betrayer after all, then Valar save them."

 

---

 

Though the glow of first dawn bathes the room, I cannot feel its warmth, nor relish the light. A chill sweat covers my skin, and my eyes burn to stay open.

My own pupils in this craft resume the ritual of tending my wounds and examining my body anew. They seek the parent of this strange fever born in me.

"This wrist is bruised but not broken."
"This ankle is sprained but not broken."
"This knee is swollen but not cracked."
"The shoulder put back into socket remains thus."
"The ribs are firm, and the abdomen is level."
"These stiches are clean, there is no infection."
"Pulse is strong, most lost blood has been replenished."

Galadriel sits by my side, studying the effects of their labour on me before taking her turn. The exact spot she touches is the very sorest.
It angers the memory of that first awful strike upon stone, and a pitiful noise escapes me.

"This place took hard damage, and I fear the swelling spreads inward. Bring me athelas, my tincture, and that balm he designed."

Consciousness ebbs in and out of my control like a rough tide while she toils.
A crushing pressure behind my ears reminds me of the surf upon crag where Elwing my mother fell at Sirion.
I taste bitter salt and stare into the mist, yearning to hear the beat of wings to break this torment, to ease this dread loss.

"Come back, Elrond."

Her voice leads me to Ereinion's room where my body's pain guides the focus of her care.

"This must be released." Her fingers are kneading a tangle of muscle behind my neck. "Breathe deeply."
Come standing, Galadriel folds over me, engulfs me, making a joined fist at the top of my spine.
My weight is no match for her strength, and she heaves me up so that the force of my body returning sets something askew back into place.
She had replaced my shoulder to its socket similarly the night before, and it hurt as much at first, then being soothed to tingling relief by her touch.

It recalls the tingling in my fingers as they healed from the scorching of Gil-galad's remains that I had handled.
Never would he take my ring-hand again, nor behold the work it has wrought.

"Come back, Elrond."

A smaller hand fills mine now, wrapping up and around my wrist to squeeze. Instinctively, I measure the pulse under my fingers, a healers' wont. This is Celebrían whom I love in secret.
Her pulse explains worry and fondness and something else. There has always been something else.
She braids her fingers between those of my ring-hand, and the Vale sighs through us.

She had stood on the seventh balcony of the main edifice the day we marched off to war, wind dancing in her hair.
Come back to me, Peredhel

Smoking herbs fill the air, familiar voices sing in the distance.
I can feel the Bruinen -faintly for the water is low- as sunlight dances upon its skin.
The breeze is a rustle of fallen leaves and swinging wood-chimes.
It is seven hours until my father's star makes seen, and I open my eyes into hers.

The fever is vanquished. I am home.

 

---

 

"Behold, he does live!" Celeborn comes to stand at the foot of my bed and leans forward, peering at me deliberately.
"So they reattached the head after all. Wonderful. We should go back up that hill and find the rest of your sense."

"I deserved that."

"Ha! You did not, but one must laugh." Though smiling, something concerns him. "While I have your attention, I must report you have become the subject of a ridiculous controversy, and I envy you for sleeping through so much of it."

"Gladly would I trade your place navigating whatever drama, in exchange for this ache in my poor reattached head."
My pupils help me up to half-sit against pillows that I must sink into at once, dizzy after even that small feat.

This sobers Celeborn. "I see you are better but not your best, and should have more rest. Yet Elrond, truly you are the only one who can solve this riddle and put your household at ease. Please spare the strength to tell me in your own words at last - what happened?"

"It was an accident. I fell."

Celeborn sighs and claps his hands. "Good! Well no, not good - but better indeed than what some have feared. Now I leave you to your recovery and go to relieve Glorfindel of his plight."

"Where is he?"

"Presumably assembling a party to hunt the Balrog that assailed you in his imagining." He taps the foot of my one leg that somehow evaded injury. "Take care of my ladies, Half-elven."

On one side, Celebrían dresses the stiches on my temple with fresh balm.
On the other, Galadriel regards me intently.

"How did you fall?"

The question sends me back to that final obstacle before my once-favoured precipice.
"I climbed a tall embankment with only one branch and one foothold within reach. Both supports failed at once. I fell backward."

"Why did you fall?"

I told you
Unyielding, Galadriel holds me in her gaze until the precise moment returns. To appease her, I invite the scene to play out in the eye of my memory as she observes.
"The branch, broader than my forearm, it snapped asunder in my hand, the pieces brittle as plaster. And the root, though thick as my calf, it crumbled underfoot, sapless and frail."

Why did you fall

She sees something obscure to me, so keen is her mind. We observe again, from the beginning of my search for solace that morning to the end of my humiliating, punishing decent down that narrow path, when darkness overcame me.
Again and again, I fail and I fall, until the legacy of that dark ending lures me to slumber, to surrender, even now.

"Elrond..."

Celebrían takes my ring-hand. As if under a flash of lightening, the whole of the Vale is revealed.
I feel the depleted Bruinen, hear the wind-rustled chorus of fallen leaves, taste the bitterness of loss hard held.
One last time, the brittle branch breaks in my hand, the sapless root crumbles underfoot.
None of these things should be true.
Rivendell -once a bastion of perseverance and bursting with growth, with life, and fervent devices of survival- is growing derelict, wanting. Faded. Under my idle watch.

Finally, I understand.

There is work to be done.
Work well learned yet easier to do during the centuries of peace and prosperity come before.
Work bestowed upon me and none other, for the power is in my hand alone, put there by fate and foresight and the clever designs of good and evil contending.
This is my appointment - and the burden, the privilege, again shall be my honour. It must be, lest we diminish before our time.

Galadriel is smiling now and stands as she passes a hand over my brow. "Be relieved and heal in peace, Lord of Imladris."

 

---

 

On the seventh and final day of my recovery, Celebrían sits watching as I wake.
In her mother's styling, her hair is braided and wound about the top of her head like a silver crown, hearkening her namesake.
So still and so perfectly she sits, held so delicately by the golden radiance of morning light, that she could be mistaken for a portrait.

I am staring, and she smiles.

"Do you walk the dreamscape of Men when you sleep in their fashion, with closed eyes?"

She is not the first to be fascinated by this novelty of my mixed heritage.

"I can sleepwalk paths across the slumbering realms of all races within me. But this should come as no surprise. Have you not seen me in your own Elven dreams?"

Her eyes widen. "How- how did you know?" Suddenly she laughs. "Oh, you jest - never mind. Here, mother left this tonic for you to drink upon waking."

She offers me a cup and twice our fingers touch when passing it forth and back.

"You look very fair. Hale, I mean - well recovered. Your household will be glad to see you so. We were worried."

As she spoke, her hand found its way into mine like a vine eager to grow, wrapping up around my wrist, and I sense her pulse once more.
Relief, fondness, and something else as ever.

What is it

After many moments, she speaks quietly, "I know something of the power you wield - of the duty upon you. I understand its import, and the cost. You and my mother are alike in this way; preoccupied but enriched, taxed but redoubled, and endlessly vigilant. In her, I saw a changing occur even before Eregion fell, before we came to Rivendell, while you Elrond have had this bearing since we first met."
She pauses, considering our connection. "But I sensed a different manner of changing in you, since returned from war. I thought-" Her pulse flutters. "I even thought you might depart these shores and go West, as many of Gil-galad's folk have decided. Such has been the distance of your mind, the closure in your heart."

"Forgive me." Our four hands have collected one between the next, as if we could form a ladder to reach each other this way.
"I have indulged in my own grief at the expense of indifference to the needs and the travails surrounding me. Not since the passing of Elros my brother beyond the Circles of this World have I felt a more grievous severance. Yet through that greatest hardship stood Ereinion by my side. And now..."

Now there is only us

From across the bridge of our union, her eyes brim with unshed emotion. "I dread to imagine the toll of your loss, sharing a bond so strong as it was."
Her eyes cinch shut, sending tears down both cheeks. "And I am sorry for how little resilience I can muster, though I yearn to. For I too miss him so."

"Then mourn we must. But not forever, maybe."

Sightless, she makes her way into my embrace, and seven years overdue, I hold her as she weeps.
Her sorrow swells and bursts and depletes like a storm on high.
I cannot shelter her from the heart's pain - I can only understand it.
I cannot return what is lost to this world - I can only remember it.
I can only endure with her this torrent and suffer in kind.
Eventually the storm passes, but only to the edge of fleeting reprieve where it brews, waiting to strike again. Such is the dance of raw bereavement.
Until then, her breathing calms against my chest.
No more can I do, except to remain.
Together we sigh, relieved for now.

"Will you go thither, lord? Will you leave these lands and take with you the grace that sustains us here?"

"Nay, lady, nay. Not during this new Age shall I depart, and neither in despair nor even for my own aid besides. There is yet work to do that I must see done. There is purpose and joy and learning and peace to be had here."

She raises her head to meet my eyes.

I see clear morning sky and dewdrops quenching young grass.
I see her vitality and her unborn children and her wanderlust and her lone footprints on the shore.
I see this room from the doorway, vacant once again.
I see her portrait aglow by candlelight.

"And healing." Celebrían smiles, breaking the spell. "I see it too." She returns to rest against the chamber of my heart, and we hold fast as long as we may.

 

---

 

"Aulë 's beard, what a menace...!"

Glorfindel disentangled himself from the thick green where he was forced to submerge and scramble hand over foot to surmount the precipice.
Brushing debris from his clothes, he arched to peer over the ledge facing the path, almost two fathoms below.

"How did you get up here, little one?"

Elrond sat cross-legged in the middle of the plateau, facing the Vale but seeing far further.
"Late rain will come to the Mountains, and gale winds to follow, so the first freeze does not capture rot. The Bruinen will be replenished ere winter."
Blinking, he looked over at his companion.
"What did you say?"

"How did you get up here, without making a mess of yourself?"

"I flew."

Glorfindel pulled another twig from his golden hair. "I am glad bouncing your head down this trail did not damage your humour."
It occurred to him that his own were the only set of footprints near the ledge - curious.

Elrond stood, using his cloak to wipe dust from his hands and from Vilya that he openly wore.
"You needn't have come all this way just to apologize, my friend. But respecting what a mess you have made of yourself in the effort, I will not stop you."

Glorfindel sighed. "I wish I could enjoy your levity, but my heart is heavy."

"I know." Elrond closed their distance and spoke fondly, "But mine is not. So unburden yourself, and together let us leave what ails you behind after this moment, if we can."

Glorfindel looked back down the pathway with its grim history.
"When I found you yonder, to my eye, only some sneaking attack could explain the manner of your lying there and the injuries upon you. I plead my fears to your household, and the more I was naysaid, the more I suspected an evildoer in our midst. I thought your benevolence betrayed out of envy or spite, and even our very safety here put at risk by their treachery."

Elrond placed a hand on the tall Elf's shoulder, bringing him back, keeping him present. "That sounds familiar."

"Aye, loremaster, well do I know. And I am not surprised, to be read by you like a book! But a book cannot so easily read itself, and there was my failing. Wise Celeborn said I am battle stricken, but I would not heed his insight." A small smile came to him. "How does it go - when all one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail? But Elrond, do forgive me for bringing turmoil into your house when it needed healing most of all. Verily that is your talent."

"You never earned my wrath, but you may have my forgiveness." They came together in a strong embrace. "Moreover, you have my thanks."

"For hauling you down this wretched slope like a slurring drunkard?"

Elrond laughed hard. "Yes, if you must! Also for your vigilance, and protection, and care. Do not change! There may come another day for you to see the unseen and unveil foes unexpected or dire. As is your talent."

"Well... I live to serve."

They came to meditate brow to brow until breathing as one.

"I have not heard your laughter in seven years."

"Mm. Longer than that, probably. Seems some healing has come into my house after all."

"Oh?" Glorfindel tilted to look his friend in the eyes, keeping one hand clasped behind the back of the other's neck.
"Will you take to the Elvish customs of peacetime at last, and appease your heart's long desire? Or in your foresight do you spy some new doom on the horizon of the next Age to brace for?"

Elrond did not flinch at the hint towards his not-so secret affection while considering his response. "Perhaps both."

Glorfindel frowned. "You are impossible. Is this spot still tender?" His fingers probed the area under his hand.

"Somewhat."

"Good. Be more careful."

 

~fin~