Ransom of the Fairy Twins by Rocky41_7

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Part 3

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XI.

           One day in mid spring, they celebrated the birthday of a woman so old Elros could hardly fathom how she hadn’t withered up entirely yet.

           “How old are you?” he asked in astonishment when she beckoned him over to refill her drink.

           “Eighty-five,” she said with a cackle.

           Eighty-five. Oropher, Elros knew, had seen Cuivienien. Oropher was thousands of years old, in all likelihood, though he himself could not put a number to his age. Among Men, Madelyn was remarkable for her age—hence the scale of her party.

           “Are you not grieved?” Elros blurted out, setting the pitcher of cider back on the table. They had dragged a good number of them outside, as the birthday girl wanted to make the most of the lovely weather. 

           “Grieved?” she said. “What about?”

           “You’re so old now,” Elros said uneasily.

           “And you think I shall die soon, is that it?” Elros blushed, feeling the rudeness of his inquiry. “So perhaps I will,” she said with a shrug. “Why should I be grieved about it now? It hasn’t happened yet!” 

           “Are you not afraid?” he asked wondrously. 

           “Come here, let me tell you something, Peredhel,” Madelyn said, crooking her finger at him. Elros leaned in towards her wrinkled face. “A great many things have I feared and grieved in my life,” she said more quietly. “A great many. Many of them were silly to fear. Many warranted every bit of it. Some I probably should have feared more. Here is the secret: if you get old enough, death loses its shadow. I have watched men and women cut down in the prime of life; I have watched babes perish in the cradle, some of them my own. That was something to fear. Now? When death comes for me, I imagine it will feel just like laying down and taking a nap, and just as easy.

           “If you spend your life always looking over your shoulder for death, you let it rob you of your chance to live,” she said. “There’s your birthday wisdom. Now, go and bring me one of those honey-cakes, like a good lad.”

XII.

           Elros insisted they stay a full year and a half with the Edain, as it was only fair given how long they had stayed in Balar, and Elrond could not dispute with that. But as the eighteenth month drew near, both brothers became increasingly aware that they had made no plans beyond this deadline. Their only thought when they left the Greenwood had been to learn more about where their families came from, with the idea that it might help them understand their own places in the world. 

           Furthermore, it was apparent that Elrond was eager to be on, while it was Elros’ turn to drag his feet about leaving. 

           “Elrond,” said Elros to him one day in early fall. “We need to talk.”

           “I’m busy,” said Elrond, who was at the butter churn and definitely not so mentally occupied with this task he could not bear to converse.

           “Are you really?”

           “I am,” said Elrond. “Certainly this talk can wait.”

           “It really cannot,” said Elros sharply.

           “Well I’m busy,” snapped Elrond, pumping the butter churn viciously. 

           “This is important,” said Elros. When Elrond said nothing, Elros went on: “We need to talk about what we are going to do after our last month here is over.” 

           “I told you I do not have time for this now.”

“You’re being a child!” Elros shot back, which earned him a furious glare.

           “You’re the one who’s not listening!”

           “Well, if you don’t want to talk about it,” said Elros, aware even as the words were bubbling up in his throat that he was saying something he didn’t mean, “perhaps I should just be off! You can find someone else to walk you back to Balar! Since Elrond always gets what he wants in the end, doesn’t he?”

           Elrond tore off his apron and threw it on the ground, storming out the back door and leaving Elros with the half-churned butter. For a long moment, Elros watched the door, but in the end, he did not follow Elrond out. Instead, he picked up the apron, tied it on, and silently took Elrond’s place at the churn.

           “Ah, thank you, Elrond,” said Rusbes, who was hosting them in her home, when she passed through the kitchen. “I shall sorely miss having you to help out when you and your brother are gone!” 

           “Of course,” said Elros with a small smile. 

           When he had finished, and his back and underarms were beaded with sweat from the vigor of his churning, he went out into the front yard to draw in the fresh air. 

           “Hello, Elros,” called a familiar voice from the street. Elros opened his eyes and turned his face from the sky to smile at Madelyn. Immediately he crossed over to the fence.

           “How did you know it was me?” he asked.

           “I can tell,” said Madelyn confidently, waving a hand as if to scoff at the notion she might confuse the two of them. 

           “Are you going to the butcher or the baker? I can carry something for you,” Elros offered. 

           “Oh no, I’ve just promised to meet Arn for tea this afternoon,” she said. “A fool thing of me to promise, now I’ll have to finish that embroidery tomorrow.” But she didn’t sound too terribly put-out by her own social engagements.

           “Ah, well, have a lovely time,” said Elros. “And take a good helping of honey!”

           “You know I will,” she said with a mischievous grin, and then she carried on, slow, but not unsteady. 

           When she was gone, Elros let out a sigh, and went back inside to hang up the apron. He said little at dinner that night, picking over his food in relative silence. When Rusbes’ husband and the two younger children retired to the hearth to play dice and sticks, Elrond joined them half-heartedly, but Elros merely sat on one of the chairs and watched with disinterest. He and Elrond said nothing as they prepared for bed. It was only when they were tucked into their bed with the candles out and the curtains drawn that Elros spoke.

           “Elrond?” 

           Elrond pretended to be asleep.

           “I know you’re awake!” Elros did not know, but he felt quite sure. Still, Elrond did not respond. So Elros said nothing more, and waited until Elrond might truly be asleep before he slid out of bed and pressed his feet into his shoes. 

           In just his nightshift he went out into the cool autumn air, passing through the rear yard until he was beyond the shed. He leaned back against the far wall of it, out of sight of the house and out of earshot, too, and then he cried. He wasn’t even sure he could name what he was crying for, or perhaps it was that it seemed too frightening to give it a name, or outline in his thoughts that he might understand the true shape of it. 

           When he had begun to weary of his crying—when his throat ached and his eyes and nose felt raw—he heard a rustling in the grass too strident to be an animal. He wiped his nose on his forearm and swiped the heels of his hands over his eyes, so that he might look a bit less pathetic when Elrond rounded the corner of the shed in the silver moonlight. He stopped when he saw Elros there, and for a moment they just looked at each other.

           At last, Elrond said: “I’m sorry. I acted a fool today.” Elros nodded somewhat stiffly. The sight of his brother made the lump in his throat return instantly. “We do need to talk,” Elrond agreed, quieter. 

           “Where are we going after this?” asked Elros, his voice not quite as steady as he had hoped it would be. 

           “I…suppose I thought…back to the Greenwood,” said Elrond. “Or I suppose we could return to Balar. Gil-galad wouldn’t turn us away.” But Elros was already shaking his head.

           “I’m not ready to leave the Edain,” he said. Elrond said nothing. “Come on, Elrond,” he urged. “Our whole lives we have spent with Elves. Do you not wish to see something else? Are you not curious about them?”

           “I think we’ve gotten to know them relatively well,” said Elrond with a shrug. The truth was, of course, that he missed the Elves. He missed their philosophic conversation, and the beauty which imbued seemingly everything they did, and the libraries, and the way their thinking stretched so far into the future.

           “I am not ready to go back,” Elros repeated. 

           “We could stay another month,” Elrond proposed generously. Again, Elros was shaking his head.

           “That is not enough,” he said. 

           “Well, how long do you want to stay?”

           “I don’t know. I don’t know how long will feel like enough to me.” 

           The twins stared at each other. 

           “Elrond,” said Elros very softly. “Do we not both know where this is going?” Elrond looked away, fisting his hands in his nightdress. “We won’t be apart forever,” he insisted. “Just a little while. Until we both have what we want.” 

           “What do you want?” Elrond cried, looking back at his brother. Elros tensed and scratched the back of his head.

           “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I…feel like I’m looking for something, and I have not found it yet. But I’m close.” 

           “How can you do this?” Elrond whispered, his eyes welling up. “Just leave? Just break us apart?”

           “I don’t wish for it!” Elros exclaimed. “But I see no another answer, do you? You will be unhappy if I make you stay here indefinitely, and I will be unhappy if you make me leave. Is that what you want? For us to end up like them, hating each other?” 

           “I would never hate you,” said Elrond furiously, hands balling up. “How can you even say that? That we could be that way?” 

           “We won’t,” Elros said. “But I do not know what else to do. Do you?”

           Elrond said nothing.

           “It shall not be forever,” Elros repeated quietly. Elrond still said nothing, for he could think of nothing to say, no way around the conclusion Elros had drawn. Instead, he only came nearer, and the two embraced tightly, both tight in the throat. 

           “Not forever,” Elrond echoed, holding Elros as tightly as he could.

           “Not forever.”

XIII.

           The roads had grown ever more dangerous since Elrond and Elros’ youth. Morgoth’s hand now stretched effectively over the whole of the continent, and among most villages, there was a gloomy sense of when not if his forces would ravage their homes. Nevertheless, life went on, if more warily than before, and a small merchant wagon accompanied Elrond back to Lindon, hoping to trade some of the village’s wares with the Elves. 

           Elrond and Elros hugged another goodbye, but Elrond looked back many times at the village as he departed, and before it was out of sight, hurried back.

           “I forgot,” he said—Elrond hardly ever forgot anything— “I wanted you to take this. I don’t wear it anymore.” He handed off a cloak clasp to Elros, whose lips were twitching slightly. 

           “Very well,” he said. 

           “I shall want it back later, so keep track of it.”

           “Very well.” Elros was outright smiling by then. 

           This time, he really left. They camped within sight of the road that night, and Elrond had little to say, leaning back against the trunk of a tree and watching the flames dance in the firepit. He had been looking forward to returning to Lindon someday, to seeing Gil-galad again, but it felt now overborne by his grief. It seemed to him that some line had been crossed, to which he and Elros could never return. They had broken the heretofore impenetrable barrier of their togetherness—and now that they had parted once, who was to say they wouldn’t part again? If they could part, then what was keeping them together? Only the presence of the merchants kept him from breaking down in tears.

           He barely slept the whole journey back, and abruptly left the Mannish traders as soon as they had arrived in the city. He made straight for Gil-galad’s castle, and the sentries must have seen him coming and announced his coming, for Gil-galad was in the front courtyard when he arrived.

           “Elrond!” the king greeted him warmly as Elrond dismounted his horse. Gil-galad tilted his head and looked past his guest. “Where’s Elros?” 

           Elrond’s throat was aching at once. He said nothing, only came nearer, and Gil-galad opened his arms in invitation. Elrond nearly collapsed into this embrace, and could not stop himself from weeping, even if it seemed childish.

           “He stayed,” he managed to get out, lest Gil-galad think the worst, but no more could he say after that. 

           “Ah,” said the king softly, his arms light around the young man. “I see.”

XIV.

           There had been a time he had not believed the world could keep turning if he and Elros were parted, a time he would have sooner died than let go of his brother’s hand, but alone in Balar without Elros, he found that life did, in fact, continue. 

           It soothed the pain that Gil-galad was so genuinely pleased to have him there. Were he less pressed by the loss of Elros, Elrond might have been less willing to impose his company on Gil-galad, but as it stood, the loneliness that threatened him was immense, and he would cling to whatever could alleviate it. He asked to accompany Gil-galad on the hunt, and invited him to play games of chess and go, and took seats nearby him without being asked, and through all, Gil-galad seemed to have infinite patience. It reminded Elrond of all the reasons he had been reluctant to part with the king in the first place.

           He picked up a correspondence too, with Thranduil: He wrote to let the prince of the Greenwood know what he and Elros had been doing, and that he had made it safely back to Balar. Thranduil sent him a response, and Elrond was happy to continue it. Parchment was in increasingly short supply in Balar, as was everything else—the more entrenched Morgoth became in Middle-earth, the less trade went on, and Balar being an island was a boon to its security, but a terrible detriment to its import/export industry. As a result, Elrond and Thranduil were often obligated to re-use the same paper for a reply as they had gotten from the other, writing crossways between the other man’s lines. Occasionally, Thranduil included a greeting from Oropher, and Elrond found it warmed him, to think somewhere beyond his sight were people wishing him well.

           When Elrond had left Lindon last, he had still been quite young. A year and a half made no difference at all to an Elf, and yet Elrond was changed when he returned, and so too was his relationship with the king. Gil-galad looked more on him as an equal now, a fellow adult, and not a wayward child for which he felt some responsibility. Gil-galad even honored him with an official position at court: the king’s herald. 

           “This way, you have a reason to stay,” he said with a smile, pinning a little ribbon of office onto Elrond’s robe. 

           Elrond wanted to sweep him off his feet. 

           He so wholeheartedly threw himself into any task that Gil-galad gave him that the king had to laughingly insist he take more rest, and on this account, Elrond was only too happy to accompany Gil-galad on slow walks around the garden, or down to the market to browse aimlessly, or to watch Gil-galad at play with some of the other Elves in the games they enjoyed in Lindon. (Any of these were preferrable to watching the far more common instances of Gil-galad rubbing his temples or wringing his hands over the state of Middle-earth and his fear for the future of the continent.)

           Still, he watched for correspondence from Elros. Letters took a good long while these days, as there were fewer travelers, and they were less likely to make it to their destinations than during the Long Peace, a time Elrond and Elros had never known. It took five months for the first of Elros’ letters to arrive, announcing he had gone south to a larger village—a real town, he said—and that he was staying with the lord there. Pages and pages he wrote about everything he had seen and everyone he had met, and he waxed rapturously about the Edain and their mythology and philosophy, and this he followed up with a full page of questions about what Elrond was doing and an exhortation to give Gil-galad his best.

           Elros sounded happy, and this made Elrond cry over the letter, because his brother was happy, and because his brother was happy without him. It felt right, and wrong, and he was too tangled up to sort out what was the most sensible thing to feel. 

           When he raised the letter with Gil-galad later, he knew everything was different. When Gil-galad touched his cheek in comfort, he knew that the hammering in his heart was not his imagination running away with him again. Yet he demurred, accepting the nominal comfort without acknowledging what lay beneath it, and so he demurred onwards. He drew near to Gil-galad, only to pull back at reciprocity; he invited Gil-galad’s familiarity, then turned away from him seemingly on a whim; he let them dance endlessly around each other, both feinting towards crossing a line that Elrond was keenly aware of, and pretending he did not see. 

           It was during one of their many late nights on the balcony of Gil-galad’s personal study that Elrond felt he needed to give the king an unwelcome reminder. He felt that he needed to do this because of how deeply Gil-galad was looking into his eyes, and how, over the course of the last few hours, they had been shifting nearer and nearer together, until they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder.

           “Gil-galad,” he said softly, then glanced out at the horizon, behind which the sun had disappeared and from which, to Elrond’s eyes, the last of the light had faded. “Ereinion,” he said, turning his gaze back to Gil-galad’s eyes. The king was certainly listening now. Elrond forced himself to hold Gil-galad’s stare and keep his face neutral when he said: “I am mortal.” 

           “I know,” Gil-galad replied, too quickly. 

           “Sometimes I think you need to be reminded,” said Elrond. 

           “Perhaps there are more important things to remember of you,” Gil-galad replied. Elrond said nothing, but averted his eyes again, and Gil-galad straightened up, shifting slightly away. “If I have misunderstood…” he said. “If I have done anything to put you ill at ease, Elrond, then you have my sincerest and most profuse apologies. It was not my intention to do anything unwelcome.”

           “You did not…misunderstand,” said Elrond very quietly. “I simply feel I must warn you. You are immortal. I am not.”

           “Neither was Dior Eluchil,” pointed out Gil-galad, and Elrond’s eyes snapped up to his. “Yet still Nimloth wed him.” It seemed to Elrond he could hear the beat of his heart in his ears. “Neither was Tuor, who wed Idril. For that matter, neither was Beren, though Lúthien was still counted among immortal Elves when first they pledged themselves to one another.” And Elrond was silent, searching for some irrefutable point on how this was different. “As I said,” Gil-galad concluded cautiously. “If I have overstepped…then I will withdraw, and say no more of it. But if your only concern is for some future pain of mine…I would beg you trust that I know what I am doing. That I understand what I desire. At any rate, it may not matter much one way or the other,” he added, casting a gloomy look out at the invisible coast of the mainland in the dark distance. “Mortal or immortal may make no difference within a few years.” 

           And he had been on such a romantic bent up until then.

           “I would not wish to cause you pain,” said Elrond carefully. 

           “You would not,” said Gil-galad.

           “I do not wish to play with semantics,” Elrond replied a bit sharply. “But perhaps none of it matters, if we are doomed to see the end of a free Middle-earth.” 

           Both men lapsed into silence, studying the orange glow of the city below, which from on high felt so achingly small relative to the great darkness of the night. 

           “If we are to see an end,” said Gil-galad at last, very quietly, “I would rather have what joy we may, first.” Elrond looked over to see Gil-galad looking at him. 

           “So would I,” Elrond agreed, his voice barely above a whisper. A slow smile spread over Gil-galad’s face.

           “Then, at last, we agree,” he said. Elrond nodded mutely, and, in lieu of words, took Gil-galad’s hand tentatively in his, and they went back to watching the city.

XV.

           Two years after they had said goodbye, Elros returned to Balar. He had written ahead to suggest he might be in the area sometime in the future, but not to say specifically that he was coming, so when the message from the guard came, Elrond was caught entirely by surprise. Gil-galad was meeting with some of his advisors, so Elrond alone rushed out to the courtyard in time to see Elros returning from leaving his horse at the stables.

           “Elrond!” he cried, waving. “I brought you—”

           Elrond said nothing, but charged at his brother, a run that Elros met until they crashed somewhat painfully together, immediately wrapped up in a hug. For a few moments, they stood silently holding each other, and then Elrond said: “Your hair!”

           Elros drew back with a grin and raked his hand back through his short black hair.

           “Do you like it? The Men down south wear it like this. You wouldn’t believe how much easier it is to care for! It dries so quickly now!” 

           “I suppose people will stop confusing us now,” said Elrond, and he felt curiously sad about it.

           “One solution to that, brother,” said Elros, grinning again and raising his eyebrows.

           “No.”

           Elros said nothing else then, just stood grinning at him, then grabbed his shoulders, then let go again.

           “Ah! I brought you something.” He handed over a leaf-wrapped sweet bun.

           “This is…is this from the market here?” Elrond asked, taking it.

           “I didn’t say it was an exotic gift. I stopped through on my way up here.” Elrond looked at the pastry again, then carefully split it in half and gave one side to Elros. “I already had one,” said Elros, but Elrond just waved the pastry half at him, and he took it with another grin. He threw an arm over Elrond’s shoulder and steered him towards the castle.

           “Now, you must tell me everything you left out of your letters,” he insisted.

           “I didn’t leave things out!” said Elrond. Elros just looked at him skeptically, and Elrond sighed and looked askance. “Very well, I left some things out. Some things are better discussed in person!”

           “Agreed,” said Elros. 

           Elrond was relieved to see much about them was still the same. They were still the same height, and there were no great changes to Elros’ face. Neither of them had ever much come into growing facial hair the way Men did, and that hadn’t changed. Elros seemed to have put on more muscle since Elrond had seen him last, and he’d obviously spent a lot of time outside, but their builds still largely matched, and somehow, Elrond was relieved. 

           Very soon, it felt as if no time had passed at all. Elros was sitting cross-legged on Elrond’s sofa, telling him about a party he had attended recently, when Gil-galad announced himself, and then let himself in, as was his custom by then.

           “Elros!” he exclaimed, glancing between the twins. And then: “Your hair!” Elros grinned, but rose to his feet and offered a bow to the king. 

           “My lord Gil-galad,” he said. “Forgive me for not writing to announce myself. I wanted to be something of a surprise.” Gil-galad smiled.

           “No apologies needed,” he said. “As I have always said, you are both always welcome here. And of course, Elrond is permitted whatever guests he likes.” Elros looked over at Elrond, who glanced away from both of them, slightly flustered, but not displeased. 

           “Come and sit with us,” he said to Gil-galad. “Elros has some very entertaining stories of his travels.”

           “Oh, don’t let me do all the talking,” said Elros, noting that Elrond had not risen when Gil-galad entered. Elros took his seat again once the king had done so also. “I’m sure you have things to share also.”