Going Through These Stages by Lyra

2.

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.