Going Through These Stages by Lyra

Two letters arrived from Númenor, and Elrond had opened the less official-looking one, bearing an unfamiliar seal, first. Now, the sheet of papyrus slipped from his fingers.

Vardamir Nólimon to Lord Elrond Eärendilion, greetings.
Most worthy and well-beloved Uncle, I am penning these lines in great sadness and beg you to forgive that my writing is less clear than you could normally expect. It is my painful duty to inform you that your brother, my beloved father, has taken the Gift of Ilúvatar this past week, laying down his life on the third day of Quellë. I know that these news are going to be as hard on you as the loss of our dear father is to myself and my siblings, and we debated long whether we should wait until one of us could speak to you in person, but we decided that the news would reach you long before that is possible, one way or another, and that it would be better if you were informed by family, not rumour. Uncle, the world is terribly empty without Father, but we take solace from the certain knowledge that his life was long and content, having brought hope, good fortune and security to many people, and that he may have been allowed to see his parents again. Surely he will now come into the presence of Eru Himself, being free of the trappings of his ageing body. I hope that you will find these thoughts comforting...

Elrond did not. Even if the letters had not blurred in front of his eyes, even if his hands hadn't begun to shake so badly that he could no longer hold the letter, he did not want to read any more of this. It could not be true. It must be some kind of mistake. Elros was alive, he was certain of it. He would have felt something when his own brother, half of his being, had died. The world was still turning; the sun was still shining. Vardamir must be wrong. Perhaps Elros had fallen ill - ill enough to make Vardamir fear the worst - but he must have recovered. He must have.

He did not pick up Vardamir's letter again, taking the second folded sheet in his hand instead. There, it bore Elros' familiar seal, a wave crowned with an eight-spiked star. Elros had written him this letter, explaining the mistake, not doubt. His heart beat faster as he broke the seal, only to constrict painfully at the first sentence:

Elros to Elrond, beloved brother, greetings. My dearest Elrond, I beg you do not be alarmed: But by the time that you will be reading these lines, I shall no longer be among the living...

Both letters lay crumpled on the floor beneath his desk. Visitors to Elrond's study had given them surprised looks - Elrond was known to be almost unnaturally orderly - but few had dared to ask. Those who had, had politely been told that Elrond did not wish to speak about it, or - later - been met with icy silence. Elrond had succesfully resisted the urge to yell at them, had not torn down the curtain that had somehow become wedged in his window, had not kicked chairs out of the way, had (just barely) not smashed a vase that had sat on its plinth in the hallway, offensively intact. Only the letters had felt how much he was boiling with anger inside, and he knew he would have to remove them.

His first instinct was to tear them up. Or to burn them: burn them and pretend that he had never received them. He had not wanted to know. He did not need to know. If the bond between himself and his brother had, somehow, not been strong enough to hurt as it was sundered forever, then he did not want letters to notify him of the fact, either. He could have pretended that Elros was alive and well, just far away on his Valar-given island, forever. That had been bad enough, but bearable. This was not. They should have kept it to themselves. He could have dismissed any information about his brother's death as unfounded gossip.

Yes, he would destroy these letters. He would purge their contents from his memory. Evil slander, none of it true. It must not be true. How could anything in his life have meaning again, if it were true? How could he enjoy any of life's pleasure, celebrate any victory, delight in the joys of love, if his brother were no longer alive? How could he continue to walk his road, do his work, speak to people, eat, sleep, bathe, breathe?

He would burn the letters, burn the pain from his heart; burn the cruelty of death from his consciousness, from existence. But when it came to it, he could not bring himself to burn the last words his brother penned down with his living hand, nor his nephew's heartbroken attempts at offering consolation to him, a stranger in all but blood. He leaves the letters on the floor for a long time, a constant reminder of his struggle with this reality, this world, the anger in his heart, the unhearing Valar.

His desk was littered with works on natural philosophy and his family's peculiar history. In his feverish daydreams, Elrond imagined that he might stand before Námo as did his great-grandmother - another relative whom he will never meet - and because his singing is not extraordinary enough to move the dread judge, he will instead convince him through argument, wearing down Mandos' reasoning with irresistible logic. But cleverly though his mind could normally put facts and ideas and arguments together, he could not make his case this time. It always came down to this: It simply must not be. It was unjust. Why Elros? Why his brother? Elrond had already lost so many people to the inscrutable laws of the Valar and the unforgiving fate of the world: his grandparents, his parents, the guardians that took his parents' place, all those friends who had been slain. His brother, at least, must be returned to him. They must make an exception, this once.

But they had made that exception already, Elrond realised in a confusing dream full of shifting lights and moving walls. They had made an exception in letting both of them choose their fate, and it had been Elros' choice to be mortal. It had not been thrust upon him; he had chosen it of his own free will. There would be no contending with Námo on the matter. Even if Elrond had offered his own life for Elros - and he was tempted to give up his life, which felt empty and held no more hope for joy - it would not have brought back his brother, nor could they be reunited even after death. That was what their choices truly meant, Elrond now understood. Back in the day, with everybody reeling from the shock of the War of Wrath, he had thought to himself that anyone, whether Elf or Man, could be killed in the upheavals of the world. As a result, it had not felt like such a big difference. Yes, Elros would be far away, on his island, but he would be there, just as Elrond would be in Lindon, helping Ereinion to pick up the remnant of the Noldor in Middle-earth.

But it had never just been about here or there, one people or another; the choice went much deeper than that. And it could not be reversed; however much Elrond tried to assemble an infallible argument, whatever he thought he could trade for his brother's life, it was not going to happen. He could not move Mandos. Indeed, as the brightness of the dream faded and he awoke in the shadows of his study, Elrond began to realise that Mandos could not have indulged him even if he wanted to. Elros' fate and his own were well and truly sundered, and there was only One who could change it. For all Elrond's love, he knew that there was no point in contending with Eru.

His tears had dried up, and so had his prayers. Life, somehow, went on. The rain continued to fall, the wind continued to blow, the seasons kept on turning: Fall to winter, winter to spring. Elrond went about his work mechanically, ate without pleasure, limited his conversations to the bare minimum. Young shoots began to spring from the thawing ground, and he felt no joy at their beauty. Daylight returned, flooding the woods and the passages of the Elven city as if to mock Elrond's pain.

The time for spring cleaning came, and he finally picked up the letters, smoothing the crumpled papyrus on his desk. He fully intended to read them, but he could not focus on the words; the writing blurred in front of his eyes. He stared through them for the rest of the afternoon before he finally put them into an empty document box. He wondered why he was even bothering to clean, since he had no intention of letting anybody inside his study. It was something to do, but it served no purpose.

Indeed, he felt that he no longer had a purpose. He had his duties, of course. No matter how taciturn and sullen he had become, Ereinion still insisted on his counsel. Ereinion insisted on involving him in the preparations for the New Year's celebrations*, which were approaching quickly as the days lengthened and the first flowers began to blossom. Perhaps Ereinion was hoping that by spending a great deal of thought on festive matters, on light and joy, on the return of life, Elrond himself would rediscover light and joy in his heart. He did not. It only wore him out. When he was not needed, he lay on his bed, pulling the curtains shut against the young leaves dancing in the sunlight. There was one life that would not return with spring, and it was the only life that mattered to him.

On Mettarë, as all of Imladris gathered to bid the old year farewell and welcome the new, Elrond locked his door and buried his head under his pillow; he did not want to hear the singing and the revelling. Nonetheless, he could not avoid hearing the knock on his door. It was an imperious, rather persistent knock, and when he did not answer it at first, he could hear Ereinion's voice, "I command you to open that door, Elrond!"

He opened the door a crack, just wide enough to glower at his king, who unceremoniously pushed the door all the way open.
"There's a visitor for you," he declared, jerking his head back at a gaunt, hooded figure waiting quietly behind him. From Ereinion's tense posture and angry speech, Elrond got the impression that Ereinion did not much like the visitor. He decided that he did not like him either.
"I do not wish to see anyone," Elrond said.

"You will see him," Ereinion retorted sharply. "I have searched for him and smuggled him into this place for your sake only, and you will at the very least speak with him."
Elrond glared at the visitor, who in his turn held out his open hands in a gesture of peace and invitation, and Elrond would not have cared one bit for it. Except that the palms of those hands were marked by horrid, strangely angular burn scars that recalled the facets of a masterfully cut jewel.
With a half-strangled moan, Elrond rushed forward to sob against Maglor's shoulder.

Chapter End Notes

* The Reckoning of Imladris places the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year close to the vernal equinox, towards the end of March by our calendar - unlike the King's Reckoning used by the Dúnedain, where the old year ends with the winter solstice.