On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 25: Comfort

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In Harad, Elrohir always left when his thoughts ran away with him. Alone, he turned to the clear open skies, the bright stars and solemn silence of the desert. Aboard ship there is no solitude to be had, save here in this dark hold away from the light, where he sickens further. 

Glorfindel finds him dry-eyed, but he looks so terribly faded, his spirit shining out from his form like a lamp through misted glass. That blank stare goes straight through the dim hold and its stacked rows of crates, fixed on matters beyond this world.

Glorfindel takes the circlet that dangles from Elrohir’s hand and puts it away out of sight. He runs gentle fingers through Elrohir’s hair until it lies smooth once more, then coaxes him up and onto the ladder. 

On deck, night covers the great sea, and the sails stand pale against the starlit sky. High up in the rigging, a lone voice is singing in the silver-grey tongue of the Falas, and despite everything the song lifts his heart.

He leads Elrohir up onto the aftercastle and sits down beside him, their backs against the mizzenmast. The water is dark beyond the banner of spilled moonlight, and the stars span bright above the sea. 

They watch for a time as the Shakhalzôr grows smaller and her lights disappear behind the dark bulk of Tolfalas, on her way to the Mouths of Anduin and Pelargir beyond. 

When the stern lantern at last is lost to sight, Elrohir’s breath hitches. In his face is a sharp, sorrowful longing. 

Glorfindel speaks the words out loud, to lessen the pain in them. “You would rather have sailed to Gondor with those Men.” It is not a question.

“Not Gondor,” Elrohir looks straight ahead, to where the waves foam silver-white in the Nemir’s wake. He is shaken enough to lower his guard. “I would have gone on, back to Harad.”

Elrohir has no clue of the diplomatic chaos that would unfold when the Lost Elf-Prince, Elros Tar-Minyatur’s own brother-son, Scion of the House of Eärendil, were to step onto the quay in Pelargir; of how breathless tales of how he slew the Emperor of Umbar and was raised from the Sea by Ossë’s own hand would leap before him like wildfire, all through the city’s marble avenues and up into the royal citadel. 

Instead of quietly joining a caravan to Harad, as he now imagines, Elrohir would find himself whisked off to court and fêted as King Cemendur’s guest of honour. Glorfindel imagines him standing amidst the gilded splendour of the royal reception hall, dressed in his simple grey sailor’s tunic, looking stunned and harrowed among the circling crowd of silk-clad courtiers. It would not end well, that much is certain.

Glorfindel thinks for a moment, desperate to spare Elrohir, but honesty alone will do, and so he speaks plainly. “You cannot return to Harad, Elrohir.”

Elrohir does not deny it. He is no fool. The veil of anonymity was slipping before Glorfindel ever laid eyes on him, and he knows it. 

At forty-eight years old, to Mortal eyes Elrohir still looks like a slender lad of twenty summers. His father may have Mortal kin, but his mother is an Elf, and her blood shows in him. Some among the Haradrim were already giving him strange looks. Only the shield of war protected him from their scrutiny, for a time.  

Another fifty years will see the lean lines of Elrohir’s bones broaden into the fullness of manhood. By then he will be almost a hundred. The Haradrim will cry sorcery long before that.

Glorfindel has seen that people’s wariness, their bitter hatred of the Enemy’s artifices. Elrohir’s death would not be a kind one. 

If Sauron does not take him first. 

Glorfindel could not kill the Ringwraith, only drive it away, maimed and wailing, but well aware of what and who Elrohir is. No doubt it carried word of Elrond’s desert-dwelling son into dark places. If Elrohir returns to Harad, he will be hunted. 

Elrohir knows all these things well indeed, and so he says, “you are right, Glorfindel.” 

The dull despair in his voice makes Glorfindel’s heart contract in his chest. 

“Elrohir … I never meant to cause you pain.” Glorfindel pleads, desperately. “There truly was no other way.”

No other way. For good or ill. 

Glorfindel recalls the jumble of Ot’s tack lying forlorn in the corner of his cabin, and he is afraid. They share but the most distant of kinships by blood, but a far tighter thread has been spun between them. Even now he feels the bond between their spirits, tied when Glorfindel poured his own strength into Elrohir. Could he bear it if Elrohir severed it; if he should come to despise Glorfindel for ripping him from the life he knew? 

Elrohir says only, “I know,” but his voice is not unkind. Then, after some thought, “would you stop me, if I tried to leave?”

Glorfindel’s heart tears in two. “I will not lay a hand on you in violence,” he manages to utter. “But neither will I leave you alone. Wherever you go I will follow, and protect you from danger.” He turns to look at Elrohir, but the boy’s eyes are fixed on the starlit waves. Glorfindel asks the question nonetheless. “Do you truly wish me to row you out to some deserted beach in Gondor and abandon you there, like unwanted cargo?”

Elrohir swallows, and shakes his head.

“What is it you want?” Glorfindel pleads. “I will grant it, if possible.”

“I want to see Elladan,” Elrohir says, slowly. “After that … I do not know.”

“Sorrow is heavy on you. You cannot see past it now.” Glorfindel wishes he could reach Elrohir’s hands, balled in his lap. “Let me bring you home to Elladan. You will find many reasons to remain, and I hope …” he hesitates, his voice rough. “I hope they can sway you.” 

Glorfindel desperately needs him to understand. “I am not leading you into darkness. Your father is an honourable man, and he is kind as summer. Your life with us will be a good one. I promise.”

“At what price!?” Elrohir draws himself up, his voice a snarl of rage. “Do you think me blind? Those freedmen, the crew, even Galdor and Falver - they all look at me wide-eyed with expectation. Now out with it, Glorfindel! What are they seeing?”

Glorfindel considers Elrohir, and sees him cling to his anger like a drowning man to a buoy. 

A deep well of grief is feeding this rage. Tears would drain it before it festers into cruelty, but Elrohir will not cry - not unless he is on Mandos’ very doorstep, drugged out of his wits. One more thing he must learn anew.  

Honesty alone will do, but Glorfindel’s voice is gentle when he answers. “A son of the House of Eärendil, who shall one day lead the battle to bring down the Dark Lord.”

Elrohir shakes his head. His body coils like a spring, and for a moment it seems he will leap to his feet and storm off. 

“You are all mad,” he mutters, as if to himself alone, but then he folds in upon himself, his head resting on his knees. 

“Elrohir…” Glorfindel says softly, and now he does raise a hand to stroke Elrohir’s shock of night-dark hair, still so pitifully short. The pale column of his neck is bare and vulnerable above his collar. 

Elrohir does not move, but neither does he shake off Glorfindel’s hand as he would have but a few days ago. 

“All these things are true,” Glorfindel whispers. “By Ulmo’s will you were saved. As was your grandmother Elwing, and Eärendil your grandfather, and his father Tuor, and Turgon before him. This is the blessing of your House, and its doom.”

“This is why you are here.” Elrohir’s head shoots up with the abrupt insight. His eyes are wide and bright. 

“It is how I first came to serve your House,” Glorfindel replies with more blunt honesty. “I have remained out of loyalty, and love.”

Elrohir is not buying it. “Why!?” he demands. “Why attempt this madness? What keeps you from your golden land in the West? The crew sings of little else. Why linger here in darkness, picking fights with foes too great for you?”

Glorfindel cannot help but smile. “Elvendom in Ennor in a nutshell.” He grows serious, “because we love this world, and we will not abandon it to Sauron. One day we must depart, but first we will end him so the Men who come after us shall have clean earth to till.”

“Selfless of you,” sneers Elrohir. 

It hurts, seeing the shield of cynicism wielded by one so young. 

“And for vengeance.” Glorfindel says, plainly. “A sentiment I believe you are familiar with?”

He hesitates for a moment, but dares not mention the Haradrim woman they laid in her desert cairn. There is something there, the shape of which he can barely make out. Elrohir is unwed, that much is plain to see in his eyes. And yet he mourns her so deeply that he cannot even speak her name. 

“Indeed.” Elrohir says nothing else, but there is dogged determination behind the word.

“I have my own scores to settle with him,” Glorfindel offers, cautiously. None of them are fitting subjects just now. “We all do. Whatever our differences, we battle a common enemy.”

“Eru above!” with a bitter laugh, Elrohir raises his eyes to the stars. “Kill the Dark Lord? An actual God!?” He hesitates, and now his fear stands plain in his eyes. “I am a simple soldier. My father will find me quite useless at his God-slaying business. You had to rescue me from a mere Ringwraith.”  

“Nothing ‘mere’ about the Captain of the Nazgûl.” Glorfindel replies at once. “He is a terrible foe. You were brave to face him as you did.”

Elrohir shudders. “It made no difference. They all died. I would be dead, too, if not for you.”

“It mattered,” Glorfindel says, and layers the strength of his own conviction beneath the words. “I have seen great lords flee before his face, and yet you rode to meet him, spear in hand. You are young, but a child to our eyes. You will grow into your strength. But first you must be hale and whole once more.” 

Glorfindel looks him in the eye. “Now is not the time to fight anymore. Now is the time to heal.”

Elrohir holds up his hand to show the pink line of raised scar crossing his palm. “I am healed.”

“In body, perhaps, though getting your lungs full of saltwater did you no favours. In spirit you are torn and poisoned. Your father can help, if you let him.”

“I am not ill,” says the hollow-eyed child beside him, and Glorfindel can almost see the edges of him blurring into light.

”Like a wound will fester if it is not tended, so does grief without healing sicken the spirit.”

Elrohir gives no reply. In his hand he holds a small, red stone, which he turns over between his fingers, watching it intently.

Glorfindel understands at once. Elrohir must have taken the pebble from the beach and kept it. A memento, a piece of Harad’s red desert.

Glorfindel took a plain grey stone once, in Araman, from a wind-blasted rock needle sticking from the frozen crust of snow. He clenched his gloved hand around it and pocketed the tiny piece of Valinor before stepping onto the Grinding Ice. 

He carried his homeland with him, a comfort and an accusation all at once - onto the ice floes that groaned and creaked underfoot, to the encampment in Mithrim, to Vinyamar, to Gondolin. He wore the stone sewn into his shirt beneath his armour at the Nirnaeth, and when he died on the Eagles’ Cleft it was there, against his skin.

Where is it now? Somewhere in his first body’s grave, buried beneath the seafloor, never to be found again until Arda is unmade.

Elrohir’s face twists with helpless rage and he raises his hand as if to cast his pebble away, over the railing and into the waves. Glorfindel is faster, and with a quick grab he stays Elrohir’s hand.

Elrohir looks sideways, astonished. Glorfindel looks at the stone on Elrohir’s palm, then gently folds Elrohir’s fingers around it.

“Keep it. The past should not be thrown away.” He releases Elrohir’s hand, and says, his eyes still on the pebble, “when we come to the Havens, I will ask a jewelsmith to set this in a pendant so you can wear it. It will remain with you, always.”

There will be a strange, rugged beauty in the red unpolished sandstone caught in a fine Elvish filigree. A fitting welcome gift.

“Thank you.” Elrohir’s voice is strange and hoarse. “You are kind, Glorfindel.”

Glorfindel pulls him closer, an arm around his shoulders. Elrohir’s breath hitches, but he lets him. When their minds touch once more Glorfindel pours in warmth like a good fire, light, song and joy. An endless well of strength, gladly given.

“The Havens are fair in summer,” he says very softly. “The sea sings with the west wind, and the meadows are in flower. Can you imagine a land without shadow? Lindon is such a place.” He smiles. “When you are rested we will ride to Imladris. It is a fair road through the green hills of Arnor. We will be home before the leaves turn. Elladan will be so glad to see you. Will you not come with me?”

“I will,” Elrohir breathes, the barest of whispers. His voice cracks, his shoulders shake, but he draws a ragged breath and says once more, “I will.”

It is a victory, of sorts, but Glorfindel can take little pride in it. Elrohir’s pain is sharp and present, and Glorfindel finds it just as painful. He utters no empty words of appeasement, but only holds Elrohir while he composes himself, mindful of his stoic Haradrim dignity.

Night deepens over the lapping waves, but now it holds no danger. This darkness shelters, profound as a blessing. For a long time they are silent as the stars wheel overhead. The lookout up in the rigging sings on.

Elrohir’s head tips onto Glorfindel’s shoulder and his breathing slows into the steady rhythm of sleep, exhausted from the day’s emotion.

Glorfindel sits with him, until out over the Great Sea, the Morning Star rises against the dawn. 

 

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Chapter End Notes

We’ve reached the end of this adventure! 

First of all I owe many thanks to Grundy, my wonderful beta and brainstorming partner, for her clever contributions and eagle eyes for plot holes. 

OtSS is the first time I’ve ever “pantsed” a story. All of my other works were written following outlines, and they were complete, or very nearly so, by the time the first chapter was posted. Having a tale grow as it is told turns out to be fun!

 Of course Elrohir’s odyssey is nowhere near finished. There will be more adventures, both on the way and at home. The first chapter of the sequel is taking shape, and will be posted soon, so keep an eye out.

And, of course, thank all of you for reading and for letting me know that you enjoyed what you read. Support from readers is a fic writer’s greatest reward. Your kind, clever and enthusiastic comments have kept me going through the rough patches. Now that the story is complete I’d love to hear from you one more time: what do you think of the tale as a whole? And what’s next for our heroes?

See you soon for the next one,

IS