Northern Stars by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 5

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Glorfindel was born and raised at grander courts than Elrond’s, at ease amidst pomp and power the way a fish never notices the water around it. Only now does he realise that to Elrohir it must feel like drowning. 

It is too late to avert the disaster. He can only watch it unfold. 

In the dim hallway behind Elrond’s back, the first Imladrian face Glorfindel sees is Ardil. Before Elrohir disappeared, Celeborn’s man was already the prime candidate to be named as his personal guard. Celebrían must now have granted him the position, and Ardil clearly means to begin his task without delay. At once his eyes alight on Elrohir, and widen at the state of him. Next his gaze meets Glorfindel’s. A quick salute, then Ardil takes hold of the door and deftly closes it behind Elrond, shielding his lords from prying eyes. Doubtless he is taking a guard’s stance before the door. 

Elrond and Elrohir are oblivious. 

Elrond steps forward with open arms. “Elrohir…” Such hope, such profound longing lies within that name. 

‘My lord.” Elrohir folds in half as if struck. His knees thump against the floorboards as he kneels, head bowed and eyes lowered as if his own father is a tyrant of Black Númenor. 

Such stunned sorrow in Elrond’s eyes. 

For a single heartbeat the cabin is silent, and the pair stand still as graven marble: the towering lord, the kneeling boy. 

The next, Elrond sinks to his knees so they are level once more. 

“You need not kneel before me, my son,” despite everything, Elrond’s voice is gentle. “Will you not look at me?” 

There is no power beneath the words, no force or binding in their weave, but Elrohir’s chin whips up as if Elrond has commanded him in Valarin. His eyes are guarded. 

Elrond no longer presumes to embrace, but offers his hand, which Elrohir takes with caution, as if Elrond might strike him. 

Elrond rises and pulls him to his feet. “You need not kneel,” he says once more as he leads Elrohir to a chair at the table, and motions for him to sit. Elrohir drops into it at once. Slowly as were he soothing a frightened animal, Elrond pulls out the chair beside him, and sits. 

With his son seated, Elrond takes a moment to look him over with a healer’s sharp-eyed gaze. 

Glorfindel sees him note Elrohir’s illness, mark his fading for the enemy against which Elrond must now do battle.   

“Do not be afraid,” Elrond says, smiling, though he looks like he has not slept in a month. “I have searched for you all this time, and longed to have you home, and now you have come back to me at last. You will receive nothing but good from me.”  

Now that Glorfindel sees them side by side for the first time he notes the resemblance, the familiar lines of Elrond’s face returning in Elrohir’s. He has Celebrían’s eyes, but the shape of his bones is all Elrond. 

Elrohir looks stunned, adrift. Lost for words, he makes another half-bow, lays his open hand against his chest in a Númenórean gesture of deference. He does not smile.

Elrond manages to do so, calm and kind. He rises, turns to the sideboard, where he fills two of Galdor’s mother-of-pearl cups from a decanter of Gondorian red. His hands do not shake. 

Elrohir remains at the table, watching his father with his body turned sideways as if he is trying to present a smaller target, or is about to dash for the door. Elrond hands him the wine with an inviting gesture. 

Elrohir takes it from him with both hands and another half-bow, as Númenórean court protocol dictates. Elrond suffers the obeisance without flinching, pours for himself, then sits down beside him. 

Glorfindel draws back until his back is against the wall, and waits. He is intruding on a private moment, but someone must be here to step in if Elrohir should make a run for it.

Only then does Elrond utter the words that must have burned on his lips ever since he set foot in this cabin. “I want you to know that we never stopped searching for you.” 

Glorfindel breathes a sigh of relief. It is vital that Elrohir knows this, that he understands that whatever horrors he has suffered, Elrond never abandoned him to them. Somehow, that should matter. 

“Please …” Elrond’s voice nearly breaks, but he soldiers on, “do not be afraid.”

Only when Elrond is finished does Glorfindel realise that he is speaking Haradi. Haltingly and with a strange accent, but perfectly understandable. For a moment he is utterly baffled at how Elrond might have acquired so exotic a language. Then he understands: Ruhiren of Arnor. Elrond must have taken the poor wretch under his wing. 

Elrohir’s eyes widen at hearing familiar words fall from the mouth of one so strange to him. He sits stunned into silence, panic fluttering behind his eyes as he grapples for the right answer to give this Elf-lord begging him for the one thing he cannot manage.

Elrond knows it. “You and I know so little about each other,” he says, switching back to Sindarin. “Shall we talk? You may ask me any question, and I shall answer.”

Silence descends, and for a single terrifying moment Glorfindel is convinced Elrohir will back away from his own father as if Elrond is a rearing snake. He does not think Elrond could bear it.

Elrohir seems moved to pity, because he will not take his eyes off Elrond, but he does uncoil himself and sits straight-backed. His hands unfold from their clutch on the undrunk cup, and rest on his legs, as if he is about to bow once more. 

“My lord …” he begins, in painstaking Sindarin, his voice hoarse with nerves. He dares not look Elrond in the eye. 

Elrond leans forward, listening intently.

“I humbly beg a boon, lord.” Elrohir takes courage. “The crew call you the world’s greatest healer. Among them is a man named Calear. He was wounded while protecting me.” He launches into his final plea with the courage of the desperate. “Will you not heal him, for my sake? I shall give you in return whatever you desire.”

“Elrohir …” Elrond pauses, swallows, takes Elrohir’s hand once more. Elrohir lets him. “You need not humble yourself, nor barter or beg for my help. I will aid you in all ways, whenever I can.” Elrond manages a smile. “Calear I have known for many years, and I shall gladly tend to him and any other wounded. For his part in your return, I will reward him and name him a friend of our House forever.”

“I thank you,” Elrohir says, relief open in his face. Elrond’s words have melted something.

Glorfindel looks at Elrond, and sees the father’s pride bloom. 

“You are a faithful friend,” Elrond says, “I will see Calear soon. May I look at you first? I would like to know that you are well.”

----

Elrohir dares to let his eyes dart up for a glance at Elrond’s face. Thus far, he has kept his gaze fixed on the Elf-lord’s silver cloak-pin.

He is Elven-fair indeed. Handsome as an antique Númenórean marble, and wholly ageless. Save for the depth of that inhuman gaze, this man might be twenty-five, or forty. By now Elrohir understands well enough that Elrond is nowhere near forty. 

He is Elrond’s kinsman, without a trace of doubt. His face shares that same fine-cut delicacy, those same sea-grey eyes that stared back at him from Glorfindel’s mirror. 

He does not know yet if there are any other resemblances. 

Elrond raises a hand to cup Elrohir’s face, and for a moment Elrohir battles an insane urge to wrench his head back like a head shy horse. He sits very still instead, and lets Elrond’s mind touch his. 

Like Glorfindel’s golden presence, but not at all the same. With Glorfindel, touching their minds took some effort on Elrohir’s part. Elrond’s flows into his own smooth as a sheet of water, their closeness the most natural thing. The touch eases a yearning he had not consciously perceived. 

Elrond has but to look at Elrohir to see most of what he truly is. Those strange eyes pierce him down to his very core, deeper than even the Demon, but Elrohir feels none of that horrid loathing, the urge to hide and shutter and scour himself clean of that lingering touch. 

Somehow he does not mind sitting here in this quiet cabin with Elrond, and letting himself be seen.

Elrond looks, hums a few sad and soft notes, words in a language Elrohir does not know. 

And then, he gives . 

Strength like liquid light pours forth from Elrond’s spirit, moulding itself to Elrohir, filling him like water fills a cup, if water were made of living warmth, sweet and bright and thrumming with joy all at once. It quells some ravenous thirst within him. 

Elrohir gasps, but it seems he has lost even the capacity for fear. If this is White-fiend sorcery, he is lost. He can no more refuse than he can stop himself from drawing his next breath. 

At once, his breathing eases, the scar in his palm and the many old injuries all over his body cease their relentless drone of ever-present pain. The sunlight falling through the portholes seems more radiant, the scent of the wine in his cup sweeter and more appealing, the song of wind and waves more joyful. 

“What are you doing!?” he manages, when he has steadied himself against the sheer brightness of it all.

----

Elrond cannot answer him at first. Flickers of light dart before his eyes as he steadies himself against a wave of vertigo.  

A swift motion, and Glorfindel is at his elbow, holding him up. Elrohir would take fright indeed if Elrond were to fall down at his feet. He breathes deeply until the cabin no longer spins and the haze fades from his sight. He withheld nothing as he poured his own strength into Elrohir’s wounds, and now he pays. 

A small price, for the way Elrohir’s breathing calms, his lungs eased from some old hurt, and for the colour that sits brighter on his hollow cheeks.

He still looks as bad as Elrond feared, from Ruhiren’s grim tales of Harad. Scarred, battered, his body in pain even now. Old war wounds. Elrond might heal them, if only he could touch Elrohir without terrifying him. Grief and loss have cut a gaping rift to his spirit, and that hurt was taken not long ago. 

And beneath it all lurks something darker. Elrohir did not learn the rigours of Númenórean court etiquette from the Haradrim. Something lies half-buried there, some unspoken horror he desperately tries to forget. Chained monsters rattle their shackles in locked rooms beneath the surface of his mind. They will not stay bound forever.

Oh, child.

Elrond has to let go of him, and the moment he lowers his hand he misses the touch. His son’s skin warm and solid against his palm made it easier to grasp that he is truly here.

“I poured my spirit into yours,” he manages by way of explanation, “so it grows stronger and more tethered to your body.” 

As I should have done every day of the past forty years.

Elrohir is keen-eyed. He will know a lie, even by omission, and so Elrond gives him nothing but the unvarnished truth. “You are ill. Enough so that I fear you may die without such healing.” 

“I am not ill,” says the wounded child before him, and Elrond can almost see the thinning tethers that keep his spirit from winging to Námo’s hand like a homing hawk.

“Men do not die of grief,” he says, kindly, “but Elves do. I am a healer, and I know fading when I see it. Believe me, you are close.” 

Elrohir shudders. He has seen that grey road through the shadowed vale, down to the Doomsman’s doors. How far did he walk it, before Glorfindel called him back? 

“What will you do?” Elrohir asks, afraid even now. 

Hold you, if I may. Make you feel safe. Heal your spirit and your body. Turn you around on this dark road you walk, the one that leads to Mandos, so that your face is to life and light once more. 

“I will bring you home,” Elrond says instead. “To Elladan.”

At that, a fleeting spark of joy crosses Elrohir’s face. There is hope, still. 

Elrond watches his wounded son. Healing him will be a long work. Love and gentle care, safety enough for many nights of restful sleep. And food to nourish both spirit and body.

He will begin at once.

“Your mother gave me this. She baked it for you.” 

From the folds of his tunic he retrieves Celebrían’s gift. She wrapped the lembas for Elrohir in silver mallorn leaves, bound with hand-spun hithlain, and the knots bear her seal pressed into snow-white wax.  

Elrond handles the bundle with reverent care when he breaks the seals, releasing the scent of a sun-warmed field of waving grain. The wafers inside are golden and fragrant. The hallowed art of their making, from the ear to the wafer, was handed down to Celebrían by Galadriel, and through her by Melian Herself. Within lies Her blessing. Elrond can only hope that it will be enough.

He spreads the package open on the table. “She would be glad if you ate some. It will give you strength.” He smiles, and presses a wafer into Elrohir’s hand. 

----

Elrohir has no memory of his mother. 

Not even her face. Nothing beyond the barest recollection of the safety of her arms. He used to cry for her long ago, but even then he knew well enough that she would not come. He has not dwelled on her for many years. 

Her returned ghost has hovered over him ever since he boarded the Nemir, set free by the tales from Glorfindel and the crew. 

Her unseen hand is in the very clothes on his back. Elrohir knows little of needle-arts, only enough to mend his own things when the seams give out, but even he can tell that every last piece inside the Elvish sea-chest is a labour of love.  

Many hours of work must have gone into the weaving of such cloth, soft as down-feathers but sturdy as wool, and yet more into the garments’ making: every collar embroidered in flawless geometries of leaves and stars, each seam perfectly felled so that even next to the skin there is not a single raw edge to be found. 

Celebrían has laboured at her loom thinking of him, and meanwhile he could not bring her face to his mind if someone ordered him with a blade to his throat. 

Elrohir says none of that when he accepts the offered bread with a polite bow, but Elrond knows. His mind’s touch is gentler now, less desperate. He does not look, but only offers a memory, a much-cherished image.

Two people sit by a campfire, washed by the golden light of a setting sun, the sky spanning wide and bright above the white-capped mountains at their back. Elladan turns a spitted hare over a bed of coals. His companion is a silver-haired Elf-woman, her face turned away to listen to something Elladan said. Then Celebrían turns to look at him, and smiles. 

Elrohir’s heart aches inside his chest, torn by a harsh and sudden longing. He never wanted anything so desperately as he now wants to be wherever that little camp may lie. He would not impose - he can hunt his own meat, if need be. He only wants to sit beside them and listen to their voices as they talk.

“This was last spring, when we went hunting in the high meadows.” Elrond smiles, but something of sadness lingers in his eyes. “I will take you to them soon.”

----

“How was this done?”

Elrond asks because he must know, even if the question itself brings his patient more pain. 

Calear’s broken hands lie bare before him on the table. There is no possible chance that these injuries were taken in battle. Torture wounds both body and spirit, and its marks are clear on Calear. 

Calear does not need to speak. The memory overwhelms him, and Elrond sees. 

Falver’s hands close around Calear’s shoulders, her singing gentle as rainfall. Even now, Elrond admires his old teacher’s skill with Song. Elrohir, too, bears the signs of her art. 

“Can you heal me?” Calear asks when he surfaces, his gaze on the sickbay’s starred ceiling overhead. 

Galdor and Círdan sit on either side of him, and to their credit neither averts their eyes from the ruin of his unwrapped hands. 

Elrond remembers subtle arts he has not plied for half an age, shattered bones held together with cunning scaffolds of mithril wrought by the Mírdain. The skill of making such devices may have died with Celebrimbor. 

Unless another smith can be found. 

Even then it will require much from both healer and patient. And he must husband his strength for Elrohir. 

But Elrond has taken Estë’s oath, and his debt to Calear is great indeed. That, and he remembers his son’s eyes wide with fear of him, which he braved to request only this.

“I will try,” Elrond says, and sees all in the room breathe with relief. “I will need supplies, and craftspeople to work them to my designs.”

“All that can be found in Lindon is yours.” Círdan says. “And what we lack, the Nemir will fetch from the ends of the earth.”

Elrond nods, his eyes still on Calear. “You are wounded in spirit, as well as body. You may not be able to withstand the procedure. You may die…” he lets his voice falter for a moment. “The safer choice is to amputate both hands. The surgery is far less arduous, and you will heal quickly.”

He sees the blood drain from Círdan’s face. 

Calear is not at all surprised. “I appreciate the offer, lord healer,” he says with a rictus grin, “but I choose the hard way.”