Ransom of the Fairy Twins by Rocky41_7

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Part 1

A fill for a prompt on the Silmarillion Kink Meme.

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I.

           When Elrond and Elros were six, the Havens of Sirion went up in smoke. Their mother kissed their foreheads and sent them upstairs with Evranin their nurse, who had been her nurse before, and promised to see them soon. It was the last thing she ever said to them.

           Instead of Mother, a pair of flame-eyed, blood-streaked Elves threw down the bodies of the guard stationed outside the room, and one held Evranin captive while the other ransacked Mother’s room. These invaders took nothing, but threw the screaming nurse aside, and left with the children.

           The last time they heard from mother was inside the house, but the last time they saw her was on the cliff-side, where those towering men of ash and blood tried to make a deal with her. When Elrond and Elros were six, a man held a blade to their throats, and promised to spare them in exchange for something else.

           It had been a long time since they had heard mother say the names of her brothers aloud, those uncles they had never met—who had died younger than they were then: Eluréd. Elurín. 

           The last time they saw mother, she was there: and then she was gone.

           She didn’t scream, but their captors did. The leaders, and the ones who followed them, all howling and wailing and cursing and running to the edge of that cliff, to burn their stares into the frothing salt water as it battered itself against the rocks. They nearly missed the seabird that went wheeling overhead, out towards the water, out west. 

           The boys were loaded up onto a horse in front of the dark-haired second son of Fëanor, and so they could not look back and see the ruins of the Havens still smoking. For nearly an hour they rode in complete silence, and then one of the boys tilted his head back, looking up wide-eyed and trembling at the man behind them and asked: “Where are we going?”

           “Home,” replied the killer.

II.

           When Elrond and Elros were twelve, the sons of Fëanor finally succeeded in making a deal. Gil-galad had come into a Silmaril—and the methods of which do not pertain to this tale—and, by suggestion of his councilors, was willing to offer it to the Fëanorians, in exchange for the lives of Eärendil and Elwing’s two children. 

           The parchment nearly smoked of how fast they accepted this offer.

           Gil-galad sent a small core of trusted advisors to transport the holy jewel, but being unwilling to enter the fortress of Amon Ereb, they left it some two miles out. The land was flat enough the two parties could still see each other. Once it had been deposited, Gil-galad’s men retreated to a safe distance. They watched the sons of Fëanor, the only two left, ride out and examine the jewel. When they had presumably satisfied themselves, they departed, and when Gil-galad’s men returned to the spot, the boys were there waiting. 

           Each was supplied by Gil-galad’s men with a pony and provisions, and a message was sent ahead to the king. They anticipated the need to travel slower with the children in tow, but the king should be made aware as soon as possible that the plan had succeeded. 

           “His Grace King Gil-galad offers welcome to the sons of Eärendil,” announced the deputy. The two boys stared dully up at their new compatriots. They each bore some makeshift luggage, ragged sacks and bits of things hanging from their tunic belts.

           “Where are we going?” one of them asked at last, almost wearily, as if it were a necessity.

           “To the isle of Balar, in Lindon,” said the deputy. “To your new home, we hope.” 

           “We hope?” echoed the other boy. “What do you mean by that?”

           “His Grace offers you a place in his home: you may refuse it, if you wish,” said the deputy.

           “You mean we may leave?” said the first boy, narrowing his eyes. The Elf blinked at him, as though they were having a discussion about pink skies and cows with wings. 

           “You may,” she said. “King Gil-galad does not take prisoners.” The boys exchanged a long look.

           “Very well,” they said at last, together. “We would like to meet him.”

III.

           The capitol of Lindon was now, for all intents and purposes, the isle of Balar, whose separation from the mainland gave it some minor additional protection from the forces of Morgoth. It was unlike anywhere Elrond and Elros had been before, but for the comforting wash of the waves on the shore, which seemed to reach back into hazy, half-remembered recollections of their childhood, stirring something they couldn’t quite grasp. Balar was an established Elven city, with stone walls and towers and glinting glass windows, and people. Anyone who could get to the island from the nearby lands had, and they were piled on top of each other trying to eke out some measure of safety in an increasingly terrifying world. The twins gawked as they rode through the streets, and were gawked at in return by Elves who had never seen a Peredhel before, only heard tales of those rulers of the Iathrim, but who had heard of the cruel capture of the boys at the sack of Sirion, and of Gil-galad’s plan for rescue. 

           “Why do they all look at us so?” whispered Elros loudly to the deputy. In their days of travel, the boys had relaxed somewhat around their guards, apparently determining it was unlikely they intended any immediate harm.

           “They have heard tales of the last queen of the Iathrim, and of the lord of the Havens at Sirion, and its destruction,” replied the deputy. “All of Lindon hoped that we would be able to bring you out of Amon Ereb.”

           “But why?” Elros asked. “We are strangers to them.”

           “One’s heart may still bleed for a stranger, yes?” said the deputy. Elros frowned thoughtfully and sat back on his pony. Elrond rode alongside him, and they kept so close together as they wound up to Gil-galad’s castle that their knees were bruised by the end of the day from bumping together. 

           When they reached the castle, their ponies were led off (they needed no help dismounting) and the deputy gestured for them to follow her inside. The twins shuffled after her, clutching each in one arm his belongings, and with the free hand clasping his brother’s hand.

           The architecture of Amon Ereb had been Elven too, finely wrought and carefully planned, but gone to ruination. It had been decades since anyone had properly cared for it, and its present occupants seemed to take joy in spoiling it further. Rarely did anyone of its sparse staff have time to clean, and when they did, the effort was half-hearted at best. Occasionally the boys were set to it, but with no skill or enthusiasm.

           Gil-galad’s castle was at the prime of its life, and kept clean to boot. 

           The twins expected to be led to the throne room—for they had heard such things existed—but Gil-galad met them in a small salon, dressed not in his royal regalia, but something less formal, with only a simple circlet to indicate his office. There was food laid out on a table, which both boys looked to immediately, before turning their attention back to their new lord.

           “It is wonderful to finally meet you,” said Gil-galad with a smile. He was fair of face, with oak-brown hair drawn back into a knotted braid, and eyes that seemed both green and brown. Heavy earrings weighed down his earlobes and polished jewels winked at his fingers and his breast. Like all the Elves they had seen thus far in Lindon, outside the soldiers, his dress was splendidly bright, as if Yavanna herself had painted on the colors. “Please, eat.” He gestured to the table, and the young boys decided further introductions could wait: they fell upon the food. 

           It was hearty and rich, if a less extensive spread than might have been there in years gone by, though this the twins did not know. They dipped soft, white bread in bowls of soup shining with fatty oils and snatched fistfuls of fresh vegetables. They had grown unaccustomed to the taste of seafood, but now they happily scarfed down baked fish, fried oysters, and strips of raw tuna on beds of greens, barely pausing to evaluate whether they liked one dish better than another. 

           “We were nearly short on supplies,” the deputy remarked to Gil-galad, who responded with faint surprise. 

           “A miscalculation,” he said. “I trust all else went well…?”

           “Indeed, my lord. Easier than anyone expected, truthfully. No fight at all.” 

           “Are you Gil-galad?” Elrond demanded as soon as his plate was clean, his small shoulders hunched as he spoke. His mouth and chin shone with grease.

           “Indeed I am,” replied the king. “Are you Elrond, or Elros?” 

           “Elrond,” they both replied. 

           “Then you must be Elros,” said Gil-galad to Elros, who glanced around as if it was possible there was someone else the king might take for Elros. 

           “What are you going to do with us?” Elrond asked. Gil-galad blinked a moment, but quickly selected his answer.

           “Feed you, I think,” he said with a smile. “It seems there needs to be more of that!” The twins continued to stare soberly at him, and the smile disappeared from his face. “I mean to offer you my home,” he said, gesturing with a hand around him. “It seems to me more suited to childhood than Amon Ereb. You shall have teachers too, and there is someone in Balar who can teach you nearly anything you might like to know. And when you are grown, perhaps you will decide to stay.” 

           “Did you know our parents?” Elros asked after a long silence. Gil-glad again considered before answering.

           “I did not,” he said. “I did not have occasion to visit the Havens at Sirion before…before its end.” The twins looked down at the table. “But there are some who did,” Gil-galad added, studying them. They looked up. “You may not have been aware—” He could see that they had not been, “—but there were survivors of that event.” Immediately the twins were sitting up ramrod straight, their eyes alight, and Gil-galad realized he had spoken carelessly. “I do not mean your mother and father,” he said gently, and their disappointment was visible. “But others. They have settled in a place called Greenwood forest, and they are led by a man called Oropher. Do you remember him?”

           Elrond and Elros shook their heads. 

           “If you wish it, I will write to him,” said the king. “He may agree to come and visit, and you may ask him any questions you have about your parents or Sirion.” He could not tell that the boys had any reaction to this. 

           After food and introductions, the twins were given rooms, one for each of them. They chose between them one room, and fated the other to merely gather dust. They were bathed, and measured for new, properly-fitted clothes (although they were permitted to keep what they had brought), and directed to a few adults they might seek out if they had need, then they were left alone. 

           “Do you think we could ever find him again in here, if we wanted to?” Elros asked with idle curiosity as he lay stretched sideways over the soft bed. “There’s so many rooms.”

           Elrond, seated at the window, arms wrapped around his knees, shrugged.

           “There’s so many people,” he said with a faint shudder. Elros made an uneasy noise of agreement.

           “There…used to be people,” he said uncertainly after a few moments. “In Sirion. I remember that. There were other children, do you remember? There were Men children. We used to play. We used to play a game with little round stones.” 

           “That was a long time ago,” said Elrond. 

           “Perhaps it will feel normal again,” Elros suggested. Elrond shrugged again. They went silent. Elros stared up at the ceiling, which had been painted to look like a summer sky, edged with rolling sea waves. Elrond watched the city beyond the window, and the horizon further out behind the shimmer of the mainland.

           “What do you think they shall do now?” Elros asked at last, lowly, voicing the question neither of them had been able to ask while still amid company. 

           “I would not know,” said Elrond tightly. “Go away, hopefully.” 

           “There remains still one Silmaril, isn’t that right?” said Elros.

           “I don’t care,” Elrond snapped. “They shall probably do something stupid trying to get that one back and get themselves killed in the effort.” 

           “Probably,” Elros agreed with a shrug. He stretched his arms out over his head. “At least we needn’t trouble ourselves with it anymore.”

           “Indeed,” Elrond muttered, hugging his knees a bit tighter. 

           Gil-galad had expected to see the boys explore the castle, but they remained in the space that was given them until they were called for dinner.

IV.

           Gil-galad had not intended for Celebrimbor to still be on the island when the twins arrived. In fact, he had done everything to conceal it from them. The jewel smith had been supposed to be gone more than a week ago, but a broken wagon axel and a squall had kept him around, and it was yet another thing for Gil-galad to wring his hands about. Nevertheless, in the interest of politeness, as Celebrimbor had come at his behest, Gil-galad paid him a last visit after the twins were settled in their beds.

           “How are they?” Celebrimbor asked as soon as he had let Gil-galad into his room, twisting his thick-fingered hands together. Celebrimbor was not a small man, and it might have been comical to see him so physically express his anxieties, if Gil-galad didn’t know that he was genuine. 

           In response, Gil-galad sank into one of the chairs at the hearth and pressed a hand over his eyes. His head tipped back against the chair.

           “I do not know how I shall manage this,” he said. He dragged his hand down his face. He rested an elbow against the arm of the chair and cradled his head. “I know not what I’m doing.” 

           “Surely…anything here is better than there, Your Grace,” Celebrimbor said, settling on the edge of the other seat. “Are they…are they hurt?”

           “Physically?” said Gil-galad. “No, I don’t believe so. Can you tell me anything else?” Gil-galad asked, raising his head. 

           “Everything I can tell you, I have told,” answered Celebrimbor, shaking his head. “As I said, I never spent much time with Maedhros and Maglor. They did not much like children, especially Maglor, in Aman. They were adults; they had not time for me.” He pulled at one of his earrings. “But here in Middle-earth, I have seen…Maedhros brings out the worst in them. He is the most determined of all of them, perhaps even more than my father. He will not allow Maglor to wander off this path they are on.” 

           “Stars.” Gil-galad rubbed his eyes again. 

           Celebrimbor, a step away from actually wringing his hands, got up and went to the nearby table to pour two goblets of wine. More, Gil-galad suspected, to have something to do with his hands than any desire to drink. Gil-galad took the proffered goblet and set it down undrunk. 

           “Have you had any word from the survivors?” he asked. Celebrimbor gave a bleak laugh.

           “Me, heard from the Iathrim?” he asked, bitter rue tinging his tone. “I would not reach out to them even if I knew how; they ought to have some peace. I have heard nothing of them since you left for Sirion, except that I understand they have moved into the Greenwood?” He sipped at his wine and his shaking hand dribbled it down his chin; hastily he swiped it away. 

           Gil-galad stared brooding into the fire, drumming his fingers slowly on the arm of the chair. Then, abruptly, he brought his fist down on the table between the seats.

           “We should have been there sooner!” he raged. He squeezed his eyes shut. “We should have been there sooner. We could have had the twins then, and spared them the last six years.” His muscles were a knot at the corner of his jaw. 

           “You did what you could,” Celebrimbor said softly. “And believe me! You have done the right thing bringing them here. No child deserves to live in Amon Ereb as it is now. Not with them.” He shuddered. 

           Gil-galad said nothing, but lapsed into stillness, gazing into the flickering firelight. Celebrimbor shifted uneasily in his seat, debating, and then said:

           “Will you be alright, having them here, when they have grown?” Gil-galad looked questioningly over at him. “I only mean…as direct descendants of Turgon and therefore of Fingolfin…do they not technically have a better claim to the crown of the Noldor than you, Your Grace?” Gil-galad exhaled and rubbed his eyes again.

           “Yes, I suppose they do.” 

           “And…do you think they might…want it?”

           “They are mortal,” Gil-galad emphasized. 

           “Yes, but…so was Dior.” 

           “We are not the Iathrim. What is your point, Celebrimbor?” Gil-galad snapped, his nerves worn thin.

           “If they chose to challenge you for the crown, what would you do?”

           “Give to them and wait,” said Gil-galad flatly. Celebrimbor was quiet, but evidently not satisfied with this answer, and Gil-galad went on: “We do not have time for these squabbles among Elfinesse. How can we think of coups and usurpations at a time like this?” His hand curled up on the arm of the chair, and then he drummed his fingers again, and then crossed and uncrossed his legs, finally sinking once more into stillness under the thrall of the fire. At length, he said, very quietly, almost as if he feared breathing a curse into the world: “We are losing this war.” 

           The fire popped and crackled in the hearth.

           “I know,” Celebrimbor replied, equally soft. 

           “Círdan still has seen no sign of Elwing, nor of the return of Vingilot.” In response to Celebrimbor’s silence, he added: “If they cannot succeed at bringing help from Valinor, I think we are only waiting for the end.” 

           “They cannot,” said Celebrimbor gently, as one might speak to a dying pet. “They are mortal, Your Grace. That path is closed to them.” 

           “They must,” Gil-galad replied. “If they do not…if no aid comes to us…then this war is already lost. If there was a time when the free peoples of Middle-earth had the strength to unite and overthrow the Enemy, it is gone. Without the Calaquendi…without the Valar…I fear the continent will soon go dark. And soon.”

           Celebrimbor said nothing.

Gil-galad sighed, and nodded to himself, and rose to his feet.

           “Thank you for coming, Celebrimbor,” he said.

           “Of course, Your Grace,” said Celebrimbor, rising with the king. “Anything I can tell you which may be of help I am glad to do.” 

           “I pray we may recover some of the damage,” said Gil-galad, shaking his head. “But only time will tell.”

           The next day, Gil-galad’s men hustled Celebrimbor and his small retinue out of the city and no more was said of his visit. It was the last time Celebrimbor came to Balar.

V.

           The Iathrim survivors of the sack of Sirion had not been seen since. It was known their small band had traveled east, and settled in the Greenwood, but they had gone quiet after their relocation, and no one had sought them out. It seemed best to let them be; by the measure of Elves, it had been a mere blink of an eye since that terrible day, six years only. 

           But when Gil-galad wrote, the answer came promptly, and Oropher came forth from the wood. 

           He would not enter the city, but established a camp on the shore of the mainland, along with the retinue he had brought. In concession to his guest’s understandable wariness, Gil-galad did not summon him to the castle, but brought the twins out to Wood-elves’ camp to meet with Oropher there. The effect on the assembled when they entered the tent was immediate.

           One man began weeping openly. Several others covered their mouths and looked away; some others appeared to visibly restrain themselves from more overt reactions. The twins walked forward, pressed together at the shoulder. 

           In the seat at the back of the tent was Oropher, newly-crowned king of the surviving Iathrim, though he did not title himself as such, preferring to attach his kingship to the Greenwood. He made no claim to be any heir to the kingdom of Elwing. He was perhaps slightly taller than average for the Sindar, with golden hair and blue eyes, and he bore no crown the children could see but a thin wreath of wood and leaf. He held himself placidly, but there was a shadow on his mien, something unspoken, but imminently present. Facing him, Elrond and Elros clasped hands. 

           “Elrond,” said the king of the Wood-elves. “Elros. My name is Oropher. I have come because Gil-galad—” He glanced past the boys to the king of the Noldor behind them, “—has said you wished to speak with me.” 

           “King Gil-galad says…” The boy trailed off.

           “…you knew our parents,” the other finished for him.

           Oropher tilted his head from side-to-side, saying neither yes nor no. It was a gesture that suddenly and aggressively reminded Gil-galad of the Sindar Wood-elves who had joined them in Nargothrond, but he had to push that memory aside.

           “I served the house of the Greymantle,” he said. “But my personal acquaintance with Queen Elwing was little, and less still with Lord Eärendil.” The twins shuffled, and squeezed hands, and looked at the floor, then back at Oropher.

           “Do you…”

           “…know where they are?” the boys finished together, gray eyes turned hopefully on this new king, though the tension of their shoulders suggested they were braced for disappointment. The shadow on Oropher’s face deepened, and he cast his eyes askance, and shook his head at last.

           “I do not,” he said softly. 

           Elros bit his lower lip, and Elrond swallowed hard. 

           “I cannot answer this question for you,” Oropher said, leaning forward. “But others, I may. And I shall. Anything of Sirion or Doriath is your right to know. I do not imagine your…previous guardians knew much of it.” The effort with which Oropher restrained himself from snarling was immense. He looked up at Gil-galad. “Perhaps we might speak privately.” 

           Gil-galad hesitated only a moment, before he determined no harm could come to them there, and nodded. He departed with his guard, and might have gone off to other kingly affairs, but he chose to wait until Elrond and Elros emerged with Oropher from the tent. They filed obediently back to Gil-galad’s side, like a dog returning to its master. 

           “I will leave some individuals here, though we cannot spare more than one or two,” said Oropher, “that they may act as tutors, to teach you things the residents of Balar are not likely to know.”

           “Yes, that would be ideal,” said Gil-galad, choosing not to take offense that Oropher did not ask the king’s permission to add to his staff. It would be good for the boys to have teachers that knew the Iathrim traditions and history; certainly Gil-galad knew little enough of it, and he imagined Maedhros and Maglor had known less still. Gil-galad at the least had had a Sindarin mother (though she had been of the Falas, and not the woods). “We would be most grateful.” Oropher nodded.

           Gil-galad never knew what Oropher said to the twins in the tent, but they were quiet the rest of the day, speaking only between themselves, and quickly hushing up the moment someone else appeared within earshot. If their hearing was weaker than Elves, they must have learned already the approximate distance at which an Elf could hear them whispering.

           At dinner, they were still silent, until one of them—Oropher believed it was Elros, though he could not say why—announced: “We wish to go with Oropher.”

           “We were told we might leave,” Elrond added, his small body tensed as if for a blow.

           “We were told you take no prisoners,” said Elros. 

           Gil-galad, taken aback, stared for a moment, and then said, slowly: “If you wish to depart with Oropher, and he would welcome you, you are of course, free to go. It is not my intention to keep you here against your will.” 

           “He said we were welcome to accompany him—”

“—if we wished it.”

           “Very well,” said Gil-galad. “We will prepare supplies for you to take with you.” The twins exchanged a look, then stared back at Gil-galad, but when he said nothing else, they spoke again.

           “You really mean—”

           “—to let us go?”

           “Just like that?” They finished together. 

           “As you heard,” said Gil-galad, slicing a bit of pork loin, “I do not keep prisoners, and certainly not children. It was my desire to ransom you away from the sons of Fëanor for your own sake, not that I might keep you in their stead. I spoke truthfully when I said you are welcome to stay in my home, but you are welcome also to leave, if that suits you better. I trust Oropher and his people will take great care in looking after you.” 

           “Oh.” Some fight seemed to ease out of them, and they began to share more frequent looks, and jab at each other under the table, though they remained quiet, and quickly stilled if Gil-galad looked directly at them. 

           After dinner, he sent a runner out to the camp of the Wood-elves. Not that he did not trust the twins’ report—but it would not hurt to verify with his fellow monarch that this was agreed upon, before he simply sent two children off with them.

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Chapter End Notes

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