Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You cannot sit there,” Elrond tells his son’s cat, Laeglin (who is, incongruously, neither a bird nor green), as the feline plops down on the center of his desk. “I’m working, and that’s wet ink.”

Laeglin blinks at him slowly, unimpressed. Elrond sighs, and reaches out to move the cat. There’s a tug, subtle but impossible to ignore, on his fëa. Elrond frowns, half pulling up a wall and half reaching out to investigate, and then he’s pulled out of his seat and into darkness. Naturally, he screams.

Elrond lands hard on unforgiving stone, cursing up a storm. A line of fire lights up along his side and he rolls on instinct, dodging out of the way of a flailing ball of limbs, claws, and fur as it hurls itself past him.

Someone shouts something he can’t make out and Elrond fumbles out the boot knife he’s carried every day since his father gave it to him in the tail end of the first age. Jaws snap towards his face, and he stabs sideways through the huge, slavering werewolf’s ear and into its skull. It shudders, then goes limp, light winking out behind its eyes.

Elrond yanks his knife free as someone moans in pain. He can feel a long scratch along his ribs, but otherwise he’s unhurt.

“Felagund!” a Man chained to the wall of the room—cell, it’s a cell, evidently, because normal rooms don’t have chains on the walls or half-eaten bodies everywhere—cries. “The beast hath fallen on him!”

What. No. That’s not—

Elrond puts that aside for the moment and scrambles to his feet, shoving the wolf away to find that there is indeed a body underneath. The elf (who is so clearly Celebrían’s uncle it nearly hurts to look at him) appears to be choking on his own blood.

Elrond rolls up his sleeves and bends over Finrod without a second thought, especially not thoughts about how it’s Finrod he’s bending over.

His Song rests higher in his chest than is usually does as he calls for it, pulling aside the bloody rags clinging to his wife’s uncle’s skin. There’s a soft niggle of something in the back of his mind but Elrond ignores it, focused on salvaging what he can of this terrible situation.

He doesn’t have his tools, or even half of what he’d like to even work on Finrod, but the golden elf needs saving so he’ll do what he can. He feels… more invigorated, his power more alive as it flows through him.

He also feels—

Ada?

What.

Ada!

Elladan can’t be in his head, because Elladan can’t be in this time. Absolutely not. Elrond says so. It does not do anything to change the fact that he can hear his son calling for him still. Worse yet, Elladan isn’t here.

Adan, he responds, splitting his focus between his son and Finrod with the practice honed over many years of fatherhood. We’re in the past. First age, year four sixty-five, I believe. Where are you?

Yes, Elladan says. We got the first part, we’re—

We? Elrond’s heart drops. His must be making a fairly horrified expression, because the Man, Beren (his great-grandfather, Valar—) is giving him a strange look.

Uh, says Elladan, and Elrohir and Arwen are promptly also fully panicking in his head. Elrond gets a brief impression of deep darkness, blood and fire and oppressive, wicked power.

Elrond has done his best. His voice stutters. Finrod might be stable. He doesn’t know, and won’t find out soon, probably, because he takes the next moment to faint dead away.

:::

Arwen steps out from behind her tree-cover, lines up her shot at the hapless deer, and is promptly yanked out of Lothlorien and into darkness. Naturally, she screams.

She lands painfully, losing all her air as her chest collides with hard, unforgiving stone. Her body and soul ache like nothing she’s ever felt, though the sensation fades after a moment. Ears still ringing faintly, she clutches her bow to her chest and hauls herself up to her hands and knees.

Around her is darkness. It feels like pitch against her skin, cloying and sticky, and she shudders. In the distance, there’s torchlight. Arwen follows it cautiously, knocking the arrow she hadn’t shot but still held onto as she goes.

There’s torchlight ahead and—whimpering? Definitely whimpering, and a horrible oozing cackle that sends one thought ringing through her. Yrch.

Arwen moves faster, her soft hunting boots keeping her steps silent and guarded against the biting stone. Drawing the arrow back, she steps around the corner, bow up.

Indeed there is an orc, crawling on the floor with what looks like a wounded leg dragging behind it. it’s reaching for something hidden from Arwen’s view by its twisted body, crackling laughter echoing down the otherwise deserted hall.

Arwen doesn’t hesitate to shoot it in the back of the neck, and it collapses forward. Someone shrieks, and it sounds like a child.

Arwen hurries forward as the dying orc twitches and gurgles. Curled against the wall, a tiny shape in a tiny nightgown huddles away from the creature, watering grey eyes staring up at her from under a mop of dark hair.

“Estel?” Arwen breathes.

Her father’s ward launches off of the wall as he recognizes her, hurtling into her legs with a warbling cry.

Arwen crouches to wrap the sobbing boy in her arms and the three-year-old holds onto her tightly, choking on breaths through his tears.

“It’s alright, it’s alright, I’m here,” Arwen soothes, though she has no idea where ‘here’ is, nor why either of them are there. And she knows from both her brothers’ expertise and her own; where there’s one orc, there’s a pack soon to follow.

Keeping a wary eye on their surroundings, Arwen gently disengages Estel from her many-pleated hunting skirt.

“Can you let go for just a moment, dear one?” she coaxes when it looks like he’s likely to start crying again. “I promise I’ll pick you up in a moment.”

Estel nods bravely, wiping his eyes as he sits, and Arwen praises him accordingly.

Setting her bow on the floor for one hateful moment, she draws her knife from her belt and shears through the bottom foot and a half of her skirt. It’s not perfect, but the fabric will serve as an adequate wrap to keep Estel bound to her with his bare feet up off the ground.

In the interest of still being able to shoot, Arwen bundles Estel up against her back with his legs hanging beside her hips, wrapping the fabric tightly to keep him in place and tying it off in front of her waist. Though it means she has to move her quiver to her belt, which is inconvenient, she feels better about the situation already with her young charge secured.

The boy himself is helpful and quiet, and Arwen continues to praise him softly as she rips the arrow out of the orc corpse and cleans it on what’s left of her skirt before knocking it to her bow again.

The next step in her hastily constructed plan is reconnaissance, and finding someplace safe enough to retreat to.

The hallway, now that her eyes have adjusted a bit, is dark but lofty, with alcoves and recesses cut inelegantly into the stone here and there; it is no elven design. Arwen pads down the hall slowly, keeping her ears and eye pricked. Estel makes soft sounds every now and then, but is otherwise quiet.

Arwen hears the thudding rush of footsteps down the corridor and tucks herself into an alcove, back to the wall. She murmurs a low song of concealment under her breath as what seems to be a patrol of orcs march past, and they don’t stop, even for the body of the orc she left on the floor, which they must see as they turn to corner.

Estel whimpers and Arwen releases her arrow with one hand to pat his hip. “Are you well, Estel?” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he breathes, and buried his face in her hair.

“All will be well,” she says encouragingly, though she doesn’t feel so hopeful herself.

The orcs have reminded her, however—like orcs are often followed by their own kind, to tend to attract other hangers on as well. Though it’s unlikely… well, it’s as realistic as anything might be in their situation, considering Arwen hasn’t seen Estel in months and yet found herself suddenly trapped with him in what appears to be serious danger.

Adan? she calls out in her mind, projecting her own powerful osanwe to search for that of her brothers. Rohir?

She feels what might be them for a moment, then her mental attention is drawn some something much weightier, sucking her in like a whirlpool. Arwen feels her body stagger as her mind is wrenched helplessly into the darkness.

Cold cold cold pain cold death death HATE cold pain PAIN—

There’s a bright spark and she reaches for it, for anything, desperate. And it burns burns bright UNWORTHY evil bright burns burns burns BURNS—

Arwen screams, though the sound—or what she can hear, distorted and warped outside of her mind—is more like choking.

Arwen, “Arwen!”

Something yanks her back from the fiery, freezing abyss. It’s soothingly warm and soft, and wraps around her like a blanket. It’s also very real. Arms? Estel? No, not at all.

She opens her eyes and her older brother stares back at her, his face pale and drawn with concern.

“El,” she breathes, and collapses into her arms. Elrohir catches her easily, sliding himself into the alcove and reaching over her shoulder to grasp Estel’s little hand as well. “What?” she asks plaintively. “How?”

He brother only shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he murmurs. “Adan is here too, finding us some high ground to retreat to.”

Arwen nods shakily.

“Nethen,” he whispers, “I believe we are in Angband. I saw the throne. Morgoth is here.”

Arwen loses all the breath in her lungs, and is vaguely aware of his hand coming over her mouth as a horrible keening noise is dragged from the back of her throat.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Elrohir repeats into her hair as she clutches at him, holding her back. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

Arwen shakes her head helplessly. This can’t be happening. It cannot. She’d just been having lunch with her grandmother, waving Haldir laughingly away to go hunt on her own, safe in the golden wood. She can’t be in Angband. She can’t be in the past!

She reaches out again, though more carefully this time, and manages to latch onto Elladan’s mind before the abyss pulls her in, now that she’s looking for him more determinedly.

Arwen, his thoughts cradle hers in love and comfort, and he sends the impression of leaping between high, arching rafters, cloaked in darkness.

Adan, Arwen nearly sobs. At least she’s not alone. She’s not alone.

“Come on,” Elrohir says. “We shouldn’t stay on the ground. We can make a better plan once we’re higher up.”

Trees have always meant more safety for the grandchildren of Celeborn and Elwing than anywhere else, and while there are none in this haunted pit of stone, they can still take to the more comfortable heights for a better vantage point over whatever may be thrown at them. Arwen nods.

Elladan has picked a spot far from where Elrohir says the throne room is, but not far enough that the rumbling, snarling, and screeching of various creatures moving through the corridors is very far away. While it means they can make more noise and not be heard, it also means if they are heard, they could be in real trouble.

Arwen hugs both of her brothers as hard as she can—she hasn’t seen them for as long as she hasn’t seen Estel, having been long away from Imladris—after Elladan welcomes her up into the rafters.

The little nook the elder twin had found lies as curve in the tunnels, a hollow between three massive, branching arches, like perfectly symmetrical tree boughs, only the trunk is half buried in the wall, and the stone just above the juncture has crumbled away to leave a sort of nest. Arwen settles in it not unlike a weary bird after a long flight.

Elladan helps her unsling Estel and tucks the boy into his own arms, cooing softly in fluffy dark hair. “I’ll take him if we move,” he says lowly. It makes sense—he prefers the sword, while both Arwen and Elrohir carry bows. They need to be able to shoot to cover him, and have their arrows more readily available.

How lucky, Arwen thinks, that they were all armed when they were thrown through time. The twins had been hunting much like herself, but where her prey had four cloven hooves and was prone to spooking and flight, their preferred quarry tended to be armed with poisoned steal and less than half as likely to flee. Though there are worse people to be trapped in an orc pit with than accomplished orc-hunters, at least.

Helpfully, while Elladan had not been wearing his pack, Elrohir’s had come with, which means they have provisions to feed one person for nearly a month, as long as the lembas stays dry. They don’t have to debate setting the lion’s share aside for Estel.

“If we are truly in the first age,” says Elrohir eventually, “and the Enemy has three Silmarils upon his foul brow—"

“You saw them?” Arwen asks. Her brother nods silently, with a bitter look on his face. She reaches over and pulls him into an embrace.

“I know not what has passed yet,” he says. “I didn’t look long enough to see any injuries. But Luthien—”

“It could be decades to centuries before she comes,” Elladan cuts in. “We don’t have that kind of time.”

Elrohir nods. “We cannot rely on it, no,” he agrees. “But we might at least try and find out what all goes on beyond these dark walls.”

Arwen nods too, at that. But, “When I called out for you,” she says softly, “I must have been pulled in by Morgoth’s power and proximity, and you were close to me! I cannot say how much luck we may have reaching outside Angband itself.”

The twins’ expressions are firm, and she knows that hers mirrors theirs, though she likes none of it.

She sighs. “Blood relation might help,” she says, “powerful blood.”

Her brothers nod, and Elladan says, “I will do it, you two bolster me.”

Elladan has always had the most control, while his siblings are similar in having more power, for all that Elrohir is his twin, not Arwen. All they really need is trust, though, and Arwen and Elrohir take his hands in theirs as his eyes begin to glaze over. Estel curls up in the eldest elf’s lap and shivers.

Arwen reaches for her Song and twines it with her brothers’. Their music is two halves, but each half is a full person. It is powerful, in a way that those without any sort of paired soul bond—marriage, twinship, lifedebt—could never achieve. Arwen lets it drag her in and consume her, rather than being pulled towards the black, painful sucking pit that reaches for her in malice not so far away.

Elladan tries for Luthien, Fingolfin, Fingon, or Melian, but he doesn’t know what they feel like, having never met them. When that fails he tries Galadriel, Celeborn. Nothing.

But there is something—

Familiar and aching, Arwen feels her brothers suck in their breaths in the same moment she does. Ada.

Elladan reaches out, connects, and Arwen and Elrohir wrap themselves around the thready strand of that connection before it can be blown away by the vicious abyss.

Year four sixty-five, says Elrond, and the number strikes a chord in Arwen.

Beren’s quest, she hisses through their minds.

Oh good, says Elrohir, sounding tired and wan as his twin’s effort to keep the bond stable by drawing on his power taxes his Song, she’s on the way then.

Then their father notices them both behind Elladan. Arwen feels the sharp bite of panic and terror from his end, and then it cuts out. Not gone, or even farther away, just silent.

Elladan pulls them out, and Elrohir falls over sideways. Arwen catches him and steadies him against her shoulder.

“’s he, good?” the younger twin slurs and Arwen frowns at her own heavy arms. It must have taken more out of them than she’d thought to reach their father, and hit him the hardest as Elladan’s twin.

Elladan himself is carefully regulating his breathing; Arwen begins to count repetitively in her head as she follows suit. She can still feel her father resting lightly in the back of her mind. Reaching him will be easier now that the connection has been made, for all the effort it took to do it.

“I think he fainted,” her brother says, an almost-smile in his voice, though his expression remains tense and weary.

“Great,” Arwen says, “let’s hold off a while before we do that again.”

“S’cond’d,” Elrohir says, then wraps his arms around her and drags her down with him to lie on the floor of their hollow.

“Take a nap,” Elladan tells them quietly, “I’ll keep watch with Estel.”

Food would probably be more efficient, but any rest helps to restore lost power, and Arwen doesn’t need to be told twice.

:::

Elrond wakes to a massive dog slobbering all over his face and chest. “Ack!” he cries, attempting to push its nose away futilely. “Cease! These robes are really hard to get stains out of!”

Huan—because it can be no other hound—boofs and keeps licking him.

“I shall place my trust in him if thou dost, faithful Huan,” says a voice, as silver as a moonbeam and sharper than a blade. Elrond wipes slobber off of his face as the dog pulls back, and looks up.

He’s lying on his back on bristly yellow grass and he can see the sky, which is nice. To his left is a great pile of rubble; he really hopes they managed to drag Finrod out of Tol Sirion’s basement as well before collapsing the place.

Luthien Tinuviel leans around Huan’s furry shoulder, peering down at him curiously.

She’s absolutely gorgeous, but Elrond is not surprised. She looks perhaps as expected, because he’s seen his own daughter. There’s a bit more curve to Luthien’s cheeks, her skin quite a few shades paler, but he’s hardly stunned by her beauty—though a great beauty she is!

“Hello,” he says, and rather expects her to understand, in the way Mithrandir rarely needs more than a moment to grasp whatever insanity has been cooked up in Imladris or otherwise. “My name is Elrond Peredhil. You are my great-grandmother.”

Luthien blinks. Then she nods like that’s entirely normal, and offers him her hand.

As soon as Elrond is standing, Luthien grasps him by the shoulders and turns him this way and that, examining. Elrond spots Beren crouched next to a body laid out behind Huan, golden hair gleaming in the dull grass.

“Well met, grandson. Thou hast my look indeed.”

“Grandson!” Beren cuts in, looking up. “I had thought him perhaps thy younger brother, Tinuviel!”

Luthien tilts her head curiously, bird-like. “It is so,” she agrees. “How come ye to be here in this time and in this tower?”

Elrond shrugs. “I cannot truly say, actually. I was minding my work in my home when I felt a strange tugging at my fëa, and then I was here. It’s possible that you may have pulled me through time by some odd twist of your power.”

“Hm,” says Luthien, dropping her hands. “Probable, I think. I had need of a Silmaril, and pled none stop me from achieving it—indeed, I asked that I gain all assistance.”

“Ah,” says Elrond, trying to pretend that his sanity doesn’t rest on the answer to his next question. “Do you know if you could send me back to my time, or is it one way?”

Luthien examines him with fever-bright eyes. “Perhaps,” she says eventually. “But as of now I have a quest to keep my time and power for. Seek me out upon the conclusion of it, and we shall make our best attempt.”

“Right,” says Elrond, shaking himself. “Alright then. Well, in any event I am a healer. I am afraid I was distracted earlier from my work on your cousin Finrod. Might I attend to him once more?”

“Certainly, thou mayst,” Luthien agrees. Huan bounds cheerfully out of the way and Elrond takes to his uncle-in-law’s side again. His robes are now more of a wet, sticky mess than in the dirt and grime of the dungeon and only serve to get in his way, so he shucks them on the grass and lays his hands on Finrod’s chest again.

“And here,” she says, and leans down to pick up the edge of her already-muddied dress and rip a few cleaner shreds from it. “I have no supplies to offer thee, but these may serve as bandages for his wounds.”

Elrond nods his thanks and takes them, tucking the majority into one of the pouches at his belt of his outer pants until he can properly clean Finrod’s body.

The king’s condition is stable, at least for the moment—were Elrond not present he certainly would’ve bled out already, but the Song of a descendant of Luthien’s alone, bolstered by the power and presence of ancient Beleriand, had been able to cleanse and close a few of the more pressing wounds.

“I need to find fresh water,” Elrond says. The Sirion here must be tainted beyond all belief, so he’ll likely have to trek a good ways up or down it, and take Finrod with him.

Beren points downriver. “If thou takest him southwest,” he says, “the great river is fed by a tributary flowing out of Ered Werthrin, and the water may well be cleaner there.”

Elrond nods. “Help me get him up,” he says, shuffling a bit to position Finrod’s unresponsive body to best lift it.

Beren does so, pulling Finrod into a sitting position, then mirroring Elrond’s crouch with a flopping arm over his shoulder. Together they stand, then the Man helps situate the king to lean fully on Elrond.

Then Elrond is hit with a sudden thought, and nearly drops Finrod. “Oh,” he says, “but wait.”

“Wait?” Luthien asks, reaching out to steady her unconscious cousin.

“It is not only I who has been pulled into this past era,” Elrond says, frowning. “My children have reached out to me as well—they are in Angband, for reasons I don’t know, but I can’t help but think they must be in great danger.”

“Oops,” quoth Luthien, “sorry about that. But thou art mine own blood, and thou shalt heed my command. Return to Nargothrond, great-grandson.”

Elrond, with an insensate Finrod draped over his shoulder, glares. “Well I’m certainly not taking him to Angband!”

Beren pats his reassuringly on the shoulder that’s not supporting Finrod. “We shall avail them then to escape that place, as it is our own destination as well.”

“Of course,” says Elrond, abruptly remembering why exactly the Man was in Tol-in-Gaurhoth in the first place. “The Silmaril quest.”

Luthien gives him a shrewd look, but doesn’t ask whatever’s on her mind. Elrond suspects he knows what it is, but he’s busy enough already not thinking about every aspect of history that he’s likely already changed inadvertently with his presence, and doesn’t need more to worry about.

“It is impressive that thou canst reach them across such distance,” she says. “Thy bond must be powerful indeed. Now, tell them to prepare for our coming, and alert them when thou reach Nargothrond that I may know my cousin is safe.”

Elrond nods. “I shall, grandmother,” he agrees. “Now make haste! There are three of mine waiting for you!”

Luthien steps forward, taller than expected, though he doesn’t know why he’s always thought of her as short, and kisses him on the brow. “Fare thee well, grandson,” she says. “Our kin shall be safe with me.”

She presses her forehead to Huan’s for a moment, murmuring something low and soft, and Elrond is reminded of certain important bits of history.

“Huan,” he says, “you’ll want to go with them, I think. I don’t know that you’ll have another chance to if I can keep Finrod alive.”

The first time, if his memory serves, Curufin and Celegorm were cast out of Nargothrond only after the city got word of the king’s death and were stirred enough to actually heed Orodreth’s orders. Now—he doesn’t know.

The great hound seems undecided, boofing softly into Luthien’s hand.

Elrond frowns. “Celegorm won’t have a chance to disappoint you again,” he says, half guessing at motivations he doesn’t know of people he’s never met, “if you don’t see him before making for Angband.”

“Truth,” Luthien says. Huan dips his great head in acquiescence then turns, tail flicking, and pads off into the twisted woods around them.

“He shall return to me, fear not,” says Luthien. “Now off with you, truly, and many thanks for all your help.”

:::

It’s impossible to tell how many days have passed in the dark halls. The noises of orcs and other foul creatures from below are consistent, and no sunlight is to be found at all, even where the twins manage to ferret out windows.

Arwen’s internal clock and the rate of Estel’s hunger suggests it must be days, though, before there’s a rumbling of commotion from the direction of the great hall where Morgoth sits.

Both twins’ grey eyes are burning bright when they clamber back into the dark nest upon returning from their scouting expedition.

“No,” says Arwen. “You cannot be serious.”

“Sauron is here,” Elrohir says. It sounds like begging, though the tone is more flat than anything.

“Do you want to get us all killed?” Arwen asks. “Because that’s what you’ll do! There will be no quiet assassination here, if you can even kill an umaia.”

“But he—” Elladan starts.

“Silence,” Arwen knows her own maia heritage is showing as she snatches her brother by his braid at the base of his neck, drawing him close. “We will make no move against him, for all that it pains us.”

Her brother glares furiously at her, snapping his teeth on empty air.

“I too lost my mother,” Arwen hisses, curling her fingers tighter in Elladan’s braid and shaking him slightly. “And I refuse to lose also my brothers! You cannot attack Sauron, in Angband, in the height of his power, and expect to come away unscathed!”

“He is weakened,” Elrohir pleads with her, “he’s just had his throat ripped out—“

“And his towers cast down!” Elladan puts in.

“—by Huan and Luthien!” Elrohir continues. “If there is a chance, it is now!”

“Huan and Luthien,” Arwen replies bitterly, “of whom—in case you hadn’t noticed—we are neither! Her blood in us is not enough alone!”

“It’s not alone,” Elrohir points out. “It is joined by Fingolfin’s, and Grandmother’s. And you know Grandfather is no slouch himself!” He looks then to his brother for support, but Elladan is instead focused on the goings on below, a musing expression now crawling across his face to replace the anger.

“Adan?” Arwen asks warily.

“We are not Huan and Luthien,” he says slowly, “but will they not come hither soon themselves?”

Ada! Arwen cries, half despairing. The twins want to kill Sauron and steal the Silmarils when Beren and Luthien come to Angband!

If she’s expecting a scathing reprimand delivered upon the twins for such a dangerous idea, she does not receive it.

What she gets is a long, contemplative pause. Estel tugs on her hair curiously as her face gets paler and paler. Both twins cross their arms and glare pointedly.

Please do not try to kill Sauron, is Elrond’s eventual comment. He feels pained where his thoughts bleed into their minds. I should fear for you then more greatly, for even weakened he is now more formidable than he ever was in our time.

Elrohir looses a furious snarl, loud enough to be heard but luckily alike with the sounds already echoing up from below, so he draws no attention from it. Arwen breathes again, and then regrets it as the poisonous air of the fortress makes her cough. Elladan catches her elbow as she rocks a bit, also angry but no less her older brother.

But, says their father, and all three pause. You need to remove yourselves from Angband, this much is without question.

So if we WANT to steal the rest of the Silmarils on the way out? Just, if it’s an option? Elladan prods.

Their father is quiet for a moment, then he admits, I can hardly stop you from here, can I?

Arwen slaps her hand over Elrohir’s mouth before his vicious cheer of victory can give them away.

It’s placation, a balm against the twins’ as-yet impossible goal; she knows it, and they know it too, but as long as it gets them all out of this cursed place, she’ll accept it. Though if they’re doing something stupid anyway…

“Do you suppose,” she says quietly, “if we add our voices to hers, we might help encourage a deeper sleep?”

Elladan raises his eyebrows. “Encourage?”

Arwen thinks of her grandfather, who still misses his beloved Beleriand, and Galadriel, essentially the last of the Finwean cousins; the smoldering fury she hides well, but never entirely, when the topic of long histories comes up. And their father, who was robbed of all three of his own by the great marring of the world.

“I only wish to stab the Dark Lord a little,” she says.

The twins smile in perfect synchrony, showing all of their teeth.

“Oh,” says Elrohir, whose voice is sweet with a haunting air—much like his brother’s, sister’s, and father’s—when he puts his mind to it, “I’m certain it won’t be too much trouble at all.”

Chapter Text

Elrond is shorter than Finrod, but luckily the blond elf is long and willowy rather than thick-set, and thus easier to bear. His weight has also suffered from his captivity—or at least Elrond hopes Nargothrond doesn’t usually let their king go about with quite so many ribs showing through his skin (where there is skin)—which also makes him easier to carry, for all that Elrond worries over it.

To the southwest, as mentioned, he does find the smaller river Beren had directed him to. Elrond scouts for somewhere shallow enough to ford, and sets Finrod down carefully on the grassy bank upon finding it.

He wets a few strips of Luthien’s dress and sets to cleaning the injured elf’s emaciated body, which seems more scar than skin at times. Tenderly, he pads and wraps the worst of the damage, not quite trusting the majority of the familiar plants around him to make a poultice with, still too close to the wolf isle.

Finrod rouses slowly, then wakes all at once. Elrond startles backwards as the unnaturally pale elf’s eyes flick open, bright points of light gleaming from within.

Finrod pushes himself up onto one elbow then pitches sideways, and Elrond scuttles back as his uncle-in-law is sick all over the ground where he’d been sitting.

“Who?” Finrod says blearily, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Elrond winces as blood smears with the vomit. Then the blond throws up again, coughing and spluttering. “Thou art—”

“Peace,” says Elrond, offering an already-dirtied rag for the king’s hands and mouth. Finrod takes it gratefully, then Elrond has to help him as his body seizes with pain trying to lay back down. “I am, er—” 

Elrond blanks on the appropriate actions of someone thrown into the past. He doesn’t consider it often, and has neither name nor story prepared. Telling Luthien is one thing, but Finrod—Elrond will need to figure out exactly how much more he’s willing to change history, and soon.

“—Lilthanoss. I was a prisoner as well of Gorthaur’s esteemed hospitality, though not so unjustly treated as yourself. I am a healer, and your lady cousin sent me to return you to your kingdom after driving Gorthaur from his tower and throwing the entire poisoned place down.”

Dancing-kin is accurate enough, he supposes, making his way around to the king’s other side and crouching there, and hopefully won’t be too suspicious.

“We are for Nargothrond, then?” Finrod asks, staring at the stars past Elrond’s shoulder.

“Aye,” Elrond says, tipping Finrod’s head carefully to the side as he re-wraps the make-shift bandage around his neck.

“I fear thou must not mend me entirely, in that case,” the king says, “for I may well use my hale body to hateful end upon setting eyes on my deceitful cousins once more. I would hate to become a kinslayer now, having escaped it all these years.”

Elrond has to double-take at both the words and the candidness with which they’re delivered. But then, he thinks he’d be beyond ready to kill someone too if they were responsible for the deaths of ten of his closest friends. If he watched said friends be eaten alive because of them… which Finrod evidently did. Elrond suddenly feels the urge to follow suit with his uncle-in-law’s first move upon waking.

“Should we not go that way?” Elrond asks carefully.

Finrod’s whole body tenses in pain as he forces out air for a sigh. “Barad Eithel is closer,” he says. “And certainly easier to pass to now that Gorthaur has been run off as thou says. I am sure Fingon would receive me happily…”

“…but?” Elrond says, sensing hedging in Finrod’s words.

“But,” the king’s face twitches, lips pulling up for a moment in what’s definitely not a smile before dropping again, chased by pain. “There are a pair of vicious cousins of mine loose in my kingdom, and I’ll not leave dear Orodreth at their mercy if I can help it.”

Well, that’s as reasonable as anything he might have said.

“Alright,” Elrond agrees. “But I am going to mend you, for as a healer I am sworn to succor all ills of all people. Will you give me your permission?”

Finrod nods slowly. “Speed is of the essence, I think,” he says. “Aye, thou mayst do thy work, enough that I can walk without slowing thee.”

Elrond frowns, because he’d like to do a lot more than that. But if it is Finrod’s wish… he will keep his uncle-in-law alive, and that will have to be enough.

His children murmur between each other in his mind as he does his work, then helps Finrod ford the small river and supports the injured elf as they trudge onward. The quiet thrumming is a comfort, and he listens for any spikes of panic or calls for him. If Finrod notices his slight distraction, the blond elf says nothing.

Elrond has nothing to feed his patient with, which is unfortunate, though his boot knife is all he really needs to make a few traps. He’d much prefer to keep moving, however.

So that night as Finrod sleeps restlessly curled against a tree, Elrond stands in the starlight and begins to Sing quietly. Maglor had taught him the charm of small summoning in his youth, though Elrond and his brother were always warned to use it with caution, and certainly never tell any professional hunters of it lest they be scolded into the next century.

“I’m sorry,” he says to the rabbit who answers his call a few moments later, hopping slowly, confused and dazed. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

He snaps its neck with gentle hands, pressing a short kiss to its forehead. He’d rather not make a fire, but they can’t well eat it without—at least not if he wants Finrod to get better and not sicker. With that in mind, he gathers some kindling and dry, scrubby bush and makes a circle of rocks, scraping up the dirt inside so he doesn’t set the entire area ablaze. Grimacing at the thought of drawing untoward attention, Elrond Sings up a few sparks to start the fire burning, then sets about skinning the rabbit.

“Lilthanoss,” Finrod says into the soft orange firelight.

Elrond startles and turns to look at his uncle-in-law. He falters on address for a moment, then settles on, “Yes, my king?”

Finrod snorts, though the sound is amused rather than derisive. “Not likely,” he says. “I doubt I am any king of thine. Where hailest thou from, friend?”

“Doriath,” says Elrond confidently, having never been to Doriath in his life.

“Ah,” Finrod’s eyes are sharp and bright, gleaming in the firelight. “A kinsman of Luthien, then? Younger, I think.”

“I—” Elrond starts.

Finrod would probably wave him off if lifting his arms didn’t hurt. “There is no need to explain thyself to me, Lillapîn. If thou art kin to my cousin, then thou art kin to me!”

Elrond would defend that he is not little, and dances only acceptably—and has indeed been laughed off the floor by his wife on more than one occasion—but sincerely doubts that it would deter the Arafinwëan from finding another, more objectionable nickname.

Elrond smiles weakly. “It is so,” he says, because he knows what he looks like and now that he’s met his grandmother in the flesh he can’t well deny it. “Here, I will put out the fire in a moment but come sit by it while it is warm.”

Finrod shuffles over painfully and leans against Elrond’s side. If Elrond weren’t positively filthy himself, he might’ve taken more issue with the blond’s ratty hair falling over his shoulder. As it is he pats Finrod’s knee and says nothing until the rabbit is cooked and he must move to take it off the fire and divide it.

“Eat that, please,” Elrond says of Finrod’s haunch, which the king seems content to pick apart with his fingers and actually consume little enough of. “It gave its life that we may be made stronger—at least honor that.”

Finrod sighs, but begins to eat. “Honoring,” he says.

As soon as day breaks they begin to move again. It’s slow at first, but Elrond sings strengthening songs to a marching tune and Finrod regains more mobility with every passing hour.

“Lilthanoss,” Finrod says again as they walk—he can mostly move on his own now, even limping, though he graciously accepts assistance when the pain strikes him harder. “How didst thou come to be held in bond in my old tower? If thou mindst not my asking.”

Elrond has been thinking about this, because apart from his situation and worrying over his children, there’s precious little else to think about.

The problem is, Elrond doesn’t look like a thrall. His hair is long still, he has all of his fingers and toes, and most of the scars on his body are many hundreds—if not thousands—of years old. So if he was captured, it must have been recent. Which begs the question of how his children got to Angband, which will surely come up sooner or later.

Elrond is not prepared to tell the truth just yet, and find out all the (surely delightful and not the least bit stressful) consequences of such a reveal.

“I was travelling from Brethil to Hithlum,” he explains. “I am a healer, and do some work in the scattered villages in those lands. They are my husband’s people.” Now that’s not entirely true, or at least it’s not true yet. Possibly. He’s fairly certain Erienion was born less than a year prior to his father’s death. But it’s not completely a lie, either.

(Elrond tries not to think about either Ereinion or Celebrían too hard just yet, because if he does he might break down and never get back up.)

“I was taken crossing the Sirion far above the isle not a few weeks before you were, I think,” he continues musingly. That will explain the lack of Sauron’s creativity showing on his body—Finrod and his companions drew most of the umaia’s attention to themselves, unfortunate as it is.

Elrond lets his expression fall into the aching despair he feels even thinking of it. “And only a few days ago my son reached me through osanwe as he and his siblings were taken themselves to Angband, stolen from patrol beyond the Girdle.”

Finrod makes a harsh sound of grief in the back of his throat and lurches sideways to throw his arms around Elrond’s shoulders. “Ai,” he whispers, “My heart weeps with thine, dearest Lillapîn. Elbereth protect them.”

“Thank you,” Elrond breathes, blinking back his own tears. His kids are smart and strong and not actually prisoners for all that they are trapped. And help is on the way. They’ll be alright; he must have faith in them, or he will lose it.

Finrod looks at him with a distant kind of sorrow for a while after that, but once Elrond makes it clear that the topic is not really up for discussion, he asks only milder questions, and is happy enough to tell Elrond about Nargothrond and what he knows of the rest of the Noldor at the moment. They march on.

Ada. Ada. Someone smacks against his mind in an ungainly flail and Elrond looks that way automatically, barely thinking about it as his shoulders shift and his face turns fractionally toward the north.

Are you well? he asks. His children have kept in contact, letting him know they’re still there every few hours.

For all that they are stuck in Angband, however, they’re still siblings, as becomes evident when Elrohir says I stole found a wonderful bone-knife and Adan says it’s a baby dragon’s tooth and now Arwen took it and won’t give it back does this look like a dragon’s tooth to you don’t they have roots that are not enamel are dragon teeth hollow Ada tell her to give it back-

Elrond sighs as the image of a grotesquely twisted and jagged splinter of bone comes to the foreground of his mind. At least it’s not trouble.

Finders keepers, Arwen, you know the rules, he delivers his verdict.

Rude, says Arwen. They won’t let me leave our nook, Ada, how am I supposed to collect my own trophies?

Elrond, who’d been slowing down as his attention was diverted by the conversation, fully stops walking. Finrod stops beside him, looking concerned, and places a hand on his shoulder in silent question.

Angband is not a game, he says sharply. You will get yourselves killed or captured or worse treating it like one. Stay in one place, stay safe, and don’t draw attention to yourselves.

We aren’t, Ada, says Elrohir. We’re just scouting.

Elladan sends the faint impression of taking Elrond’s hand and squeezing it. We’re trying to make the best of the situation, is all. We’ve already secured a bit more food than we had, though we’ll limit our excursions from now on. We’re careful, Ada, we really are. You don’t have to worry about us.

Elrond forces himself to take measured breaths, then says, I trust you, my children. But I will worry anyway.

There comes a half-grudging, half-affectionate chorus of, We know, Ada, and then the connection fades again as his children turn their focus elsewhere.

“Art thou well?” Finrod asks.

Elrond nods, but the other elf gives him a dubious look nonetheless as Elrond starts walking again.

“My children,” the healer explains shortly.

Finrod pales, and Elrond pointedly does not stumble as the king leans hard on his shoulder. “Are they—are they alright?” He likely has a very good idea of just how “alright” one can possibly be under the Shadow.

Elrond takes a bit of pity on him and gives a small nod. “Not a one is dead yet,” he offers, though he well knows it to be a meager comfort.

Finrod swallows and removes his hand as they continue on, placing his feet carefully even in Elrond’s borrowed shoes—now tattered and worn, though they hadn’t been very sturdy to begin with—on the uneven ground.

“How many dost thou have?” he questions.

“Three,” says Elrond. “Twin sons, and a daughter.”

Finrod looks up, eyebrows rising. “Twins!” he says. “Thou’rt blessed indeed!”

Elrond smiles, though it feels smaller and weaker than he’d like. “Aye,” he says.

“Pray, what are their names? What are they like, thy children?”

There’s a knot caught in Elrond’s throat, and he breathes carefully to keep from choking on it. His children yet live, and are alright, he reminds himself. He opens his mouth, then pauses. He might get some uncomfortable questions if he gives Elladan away as a peredhil just by saying his name.

Names, children, he sends a bit desperately, quickly!

Gil-henë, says Elladan, and Arwen follows it up with Gil-neth. Elrohir is not much better, tuning in a moment later to add Gilion to the suggestion pool.

He’s going to think me the least imaginative parent on the face of Arda, Elrond points out, hoping Finrod takes his long pause as choked-up sorrow.

The ringing silence he gets in response is well deserving of the mental huff Elrond gives them before returning without further comment to his place beside Finrod.

He’s not calling all of his kids “star-child.” He’s not. He can be more creative than his own ancestors!

…he also can’t think of anything else.

“Gil-henë is the oldest,” he says.

:::

“You must call me Gil-neth now, Pîngil,” Arwen says seriously to little Estel as he squirms in her lap.

The child has been remarkably good and quiet during their stay in the black fortress so far, and she regrets having nothing to reward him with. When they get out, though, she is going to find him the largest cake she can, and distract her father while he eats as much of it as his tiny body can fit.

“Yes, Gil-neth,” Estel agrees dutifully, pausing his wriggling as he finds a more comfortable position.

“And our brothers are?” she questions.

“Gil-henë!” Estel says. “And Gilion!”

“Perfect!” Arwen cheers quietly, kissing the boy’s brow. “Such a brilliant little star!”

Estel grins, his smile gap-toothed and sweet.

“Pranking, dear Pîngil,” Elrohir says as he slides down one of the stone arches and into the nest, “is a matter of utmost importance.”

“I know, Gili,” Estel tells him, his expression almost comically serious. “This is a very big prank. I’ll do it right.”

Elrohir’s grin is strained, but he ruffles the boy’s hair lovingly anyway. “I know you will, star.”

:::

Finrod leads Elrond the last of the way to Nargothrond, following the river Narog down to the hidden gates. The city of caves is every inch as majestic as history portrayed it; the first thing Elrond needs to do when he sees Orodreth is tell him that bridges are stupid, and always have been.

Finrod is greeted with massive fanfare and promptly ushered in all haste through the caverns to the palace.

While his people carouse wildly around him, Finrod stops dead under the gate of the main courtyard, staring straight ahead. Elrond, who’d been dragged along, doing his best to protest any bumping and bruising from less-careful members of the escort, nearly runs into his taller uncle-in-law’s back.

Peering around the king, he spots three nobly-dressed people standing equally still on the other side of the stone-tiled expanse. Two are blond, though one is distinctly more gold-blond and arrayed in plentiful jewelry and a crown, which points to him being Orodreth. The other blond wears red like his black-haired compatriot, and it’s not hard to guess at their identities from there.

Elrond takes a deep breath and raises his most imposing High King’s Herald voice. “Everybody out!”

The command echoes for a moment in the sudden silence before fading into the shuffle of moving bodies as the momentarily less-celebratory people of Nargothrond drain out of the courtyard.

“I thank thee, Lillapîn,” says Finrod quietly as the last of them exit, leaving only himself, Elrond, Orodreth, and the Fëanorian brothers.

Elrond nods.

There’s a loud cry, then Orodreth flings himself clear across the courtyard and into Finrod’s arms, sobbing. Elrond braces his uncle-in-law’s back with his shoulder as Finrod nearly staggers, still weaker than Orodreth is likely used to.

“You live,” the younger Arafinwëan breathes as he pulls back to look into Finrod’s newly scarred face, tears streaming down his flawless cheeks.

“Aye,” says Finrod, and clutches his nephew close.

Another shriek echoes from a side-door, and a blur of gold and white hurtles into the courtyard as well, bee-lining for the returned king.

Finduilas embraces her great-uncle with just as much vigor if not more than her father had, beaming and crying gladly. “Oh uncle,” she says, “we had thought thou wert dead and lost to us!”

“I very nearly was,” Finrod tells her seriously. “I probably should be, in fact, and would if not for the timely arrival of my cousin, and a healer.”

He gestures to Elrond, who nods to confirm the statement as he finds four sets of eyes suddenly burning into his soul. He’d thought Finrod and Luthien’s gazes to be intense, but apparently that’s just the look of all the Finwëans of the first age; Galadriel still has some of it in the Third.

“You decided to fight the wolf, your majesty,” he points out mildly.

Finrod’s face cracks in half with a bitter smile. “That I did,” he says, teeth flashing.

Orodreth buries his face in the king’s hair, his shoulders shaking. Finrod pats his nephew’s back soothingly. “It’s alright,” he says, “I have returned now, darling, I am here and well.”

Orodreth steps back, nodding and wiping at his eyes, and Finduilas goes with him. “Thou art indeed,” the regent manages eventually. “And so—” he lifts the gem-studded crown off of his head and goes to lay it on Finrod’s brow, but the king raises a hand to stop him.

“I thank thee,” he says softly, “but I will settle my dues before I take that back; t’would not do to sully it with this next business.”

Orodreth’s face hardens and he nods, pulling the crown back to his chest and tucking his arms around it protectively. “Aye,” he says, “go then with our blessing, uncle. We have not taken well to the rats in residence, I fear. Little enough lenience or mercy have we left to afford them.”

Finrod snaps his teeth sharply.

“Stand by, Lilthanoss,” he says to Elrond. “My cousins will soon be in need of thy services, as I shall not suffer to send them a healer of my own.” When he continues, the words are louder and carrying, and both Fëanorians stiffen, though they’d probably heard the rest of it anyway. “Indeed they ought to be grateful that thou art bound to heal all ills and I am disinclined to ask any person to break their oaths, for I take them very seriously.”

Elrond nods quietly and makes to follow after Orodreth and Finduilas to wait at the edge of the courtyard. This is not his business. …but. “Finrod,” he says before he goes, “I hope you truly meant it, what you said about kinslaying.”

By the way the king’s eyes go narrow, bright and sharp, he understands perfectly and feels little need to elaborate on the statement himself. Curufin and Celegorm deserve to chew on that without explanation; a small price for their crimes as Finrod prepares to deliver the big one.

“I did,” he says, and taps his right leg, the damage to the tendons of which has not healed enough to keep a limp from his step. “Thou hast done thy duty and done it well, kinsman. A thousand thanks.”

Elrond bows as he would to his own beloved Ereinion, and steps away.

“Kinsman?” Finduilas asks him as he joins the pair of watching blonds.

Nearer to the center of the courtyard, the Fëanorians murmur to each other, and Finrod begins to patiently divest himself of the robes and streamers that had been draped over him in the impromptu parade to the palace. That fact that that many people just had streamers on hand is really quite questionable and probably says something about Nargothrond itself, but Elrond is too anxious to bother analyzing it.

“Through Olwë,” he explains. “I come from a vaguely royal Iathrim line.” Which is… one way of putting it.

“Ah,” she says. “Well met.”

“And yourself,” he replies, clasping her arm as she does his in greeting. Much the same follows with Orodreth, and then they collectively turn their attention back to the more interesting goings on.

Finrod stands up straight. He has no shirt, as he hasn’t since they left Taur-in-Gaurhoth, and the red and furious scars the wolf left him are plainly visible cris-crossing his torso, interspersed with bandages. His leggings are the same ones he’d worn on the march, torn and muddied now, borrowed from under the rest of Elrond’s clothes. There are skirt-strip bandages still wrapped around his throat and his calf as well, blood speckling the faded blue fabric.

The blond king turns, shining furiously in the underground torchlight, and points one long, elegant finger. (Elrond knows that the middle two on that hand are shorter than they should be.)

“You,” he says flatly. Orodreth shudders and it occurs to Elrond that Finrod has never once addressed him with the formal word, choosing to thee-thou him instead from the moment of their meeting, as if they were and had always been friends. Finduilas has her hand over her mouth already, eyes wide.

“Finrod,” Curufin starts. Finrod doesn’t let him finish.

“Not a word from you, wretch,” he says, his tone brooking no argument. “It is your brother to whom I speak, and your brother with whom I will treat. Get on the floor, Celegorm. Fight me with your hands, or I will take my nephew’s sword and kill you where you stand.”

Celegorm, perhaps wisely, says nothing. Instead he shucks his own heavy lordly robes and strides across the courtyard to meet his cousin. His step is sure and the jut of his chin cocky, but Elrond thinks he spots hesitation in the flicker of his grey-silver eyes, and perhaps just a hint of fear.

Still, the hunter settles into a ready stance a few paces from the king, without weapons but hardly defenseless. “Come on then,” he says, teeth sharp as he bares them.

Finrod lunges with a vicious snarl, and blood sprays.

Elrond has seen duels before. Over honor or debt or the ridiculous pride of elves barely past their majority. They’ve been stately and brawling, friendly and out for blood. Half the time he can tell from the outset how a fight will end, and it’s usually not pretty.

This one will kill, if Finrod lets it.

Elves are not animals. They try to hold themselves above crawling, primal beasts, citing creation in the purest form at Cuiviénen. Not animals, but when it comes down to it there’s hardly a difference, claws and teeth on full display, mouths bloody and fingers breaking as snarls and grunts and cries of pain fill the air.

Elrond had only caught a brief glimpse of the fight with the wolf. That was violent and terrible; this is a very coherent nightmare.

Finrod is like a snake in how he fights, slipping in and out, always away from Celegorm’s grasp, striking quick and hard then sliding free again. Celegorm isn’t like any animal. He fights like himself; a person who has trained his body for a long time to make himself as dangerous as he needs to be. And that isn’t better.

The paving stones are slick with gleaming red by the time a staggering Celegorm slips, head cracking against the unforgiving floor as he goes down, one arm broken and dislocated at the elbow, the other one pinned and kept from protecting his skull.

Elrond looks up as Finrod follows his cousin down to find Curufin, who watches the fight apparently dispassionately, but flinches minutely whenever Celegorm makes a sound of pain.

Finrod straddles Celegorm’s body, pinning the hunter’s legs as he bears all his weight down on his cousin’s chest, not unlike a move Elrond might use in cases of cardiac arrest. Except where that might break ribs, Finrod fully means to.

Elrond hears it happen, and sees where blood vessels burst under stretching and tearing pale skin as Celegorm’s ribcage caves and the outer breaks carve cruel paths to the air. Celegorm shrieks like an honest-to-Eru valarauka. Red runs down the sides of his chest and Finrod leans over him, panting.

The king isn’t done, though. His hands, clasped together to crush his cousin’s protective casing, separate and migrate to Celegorm’s throat.

“Finrod,” says Curufin. Finrod ignores him.

Celegorm stares up at him through a sweaty blond curtain dyed pink with all the blood, breathing hard. It sounds wet and ragged; at least a punctured lung, to Elrond’s trained ear. Finrod’s fingers find the hunter’s collarbone, and dig in. Elrond begins thinking in medical supplies, and how much blood a person can really stand to lose.

Finrod pulls. With a grinding creak, cartilage snaps and bone breaks, and Celegorm screams. Curufin sounds like he’s choking, swaying where he stands.

Finrod sits back, satisfied with what he sees. Elrond hadn’t ever thought of him as an incredibly violent person, but then, neither had Celebrimbor assumed his beautiful friend would betray him.

“There,” says the king, bleeding profusely from a great many new wounds of his own, his bared skin a tapestry of blooming bruises. “Easier for the wolves to get in.”

Celegorm gurgles, eyes rolling.

Finrod uses one of Celegorm’s twitching shoulders to push himself back up, cradling what’s probably a fractured wrist close to his chest as he does so. He stumbles for a moment, then finds his feet and walks purposefully over the Elrond and the king’s relatives.

“Thou mayst attend him, Lilthanoss,” he says, and spits blood and a tooth onto the floor.

Elrond almost doesn’t want to. He has two abandoned uncles, two dead grandparents, and a childhood of anxious, abiding terror in a city of refugees hanging over his mind like a gloomy shroud. He can’t make himself step forward towards where the responsible party lies bleeding on the floor.

“Please, Lillapîn,” says Finrod, pressing his palm against Elrond’s shoulder. “It is enough.”

Is it? Will anything ever truly be enough recompense for more suffering than Finrod knows? That future hasn’t happened yet, in this moment, but it’s the only thing Elrond can remember.

Curufin kneels at his brother’s side, tearing off his over-robe and folding it into a pad to press against Celegorm’s chest, trying to stem the bleeding.

Elrond hears brothers and sons in the younger Fëanorian’s half-desperate whispers, leaning over the hunter. You’re fine, it’s just a little blood, breathe, Tyelko.

Shaking himself, he steps forward and reaches for his Song.

“Go now and fetch him a healing kit,” Finrod instructs his great-niece. “I will not deny him his tools.”

:::

“Come now, Pingîl,” Elrohir says, pressing a bite of lembas into Estel’s hands. “We’ve got to keep our strength up.”

“Don’t want it,” Estel says tiredly, his piping little voice gone a bit hoarse from breathing in the smoky, smog-filled air.

“Stomach ache?” Elrohir asks, frowning. Arwen tunes back into the conversation from where she peers over the edge of their lofty shelter, keeping watch.

Estel nods miserably and Elrohir meets her gaze with worry. Their small charge has been feeling worse and worse at mealtimes, though he hasn’t yet refused to eat as he does now.

Arwen leans over to press the back of her hand to his forehead, and hisses when she finds it hot. Everything in Angband is tinged with red light from the foully-burning torches, but he’s paler than he should be even with that, his skin grey and waxy when she takes a closer look.

“Fever,” she says.

Elrohir frowns harder and opens his arms for Estel to bundle himself into, and the boy does so. “The water, perhaps?” he suggests.

“Or maybe just Angband,” Arwen agrees tightly, lips flattening. “The whole place is sick, and he hasn’t got as much elven blood as we do, anyway.”

Elrohir grimaces. “We’ll have to—” he starts. “Well. I’ll try and find what the working prisoners are drinking, next time I go down. That’s got to be better than anything else around here.”

Arwen nods, though she doesn’t like it. Not that she likes much of anything about their situation.

Her brothers have been collecting ragged bits of cloth and loose chains with unlocked, rusty manacles attached to wear whenever they venture down from the perch, so they can blend in. They’ve plenty of scars from long years of orc-hunting, and muck they rub on their faces and bodies looks too much like blood for her comfort. Luckily Elrohir’s hair was already short to begin with, chopped after a recent unfortunate incident with a spiderweb while chasing Legolas around Mirkwood, but they had to cut off Elladan’s braid and he’s been sullen and silent since, even though Arwen keeps the hair wrapped securely around her bicep for safe-keeping.

“Ell—Gil-henë will be back soon,” Elrohir says after a while, ducking his head with a sigh. “I’ll go then.” He looks up, and Arwen meets his bleak gaze evenly. “We can’t do this indefinitely, ‘Wen,” he says, though his tone is far from defeated.

She reaches out to take his hands where they’re twined with Estel’s little ones on the dosing boy’s chest. “I know, brother,” Arwen says. “Just a little longer. Luthien will come, we must have faith.”

Elrohir nods, his eyes slightly brighter again. The defiant spark of their line never truly leaves, but it banks and rages in turns. “A little longer,” he says.

:::

Curufin, for his part, snaps and glares and barely wants to let Elrond touch his brother, much less tend him. He’s worse than either of the twins when the other is injured in terms of defensiveness, but luckily Elrond has experience, and a sharp tongue.

“Get back in that bed right now, your majesty,” he snaps, not looking up. “You cannot destroy your own body then expect me to allow you to walk around wherever you should please.”

Finrod, who might’ve been about to go for Curufin’s throat, climbs grudgingly back into his bed. “Thou didst,” he points out.

“With no other choice, in an effort to move you to a location where I could treat you better,” Elrond rebuffs. “Typically, I do not let my patients fight each other nearly to the death, either, but what can a humble Sinda do?”

The statement distracts Curufin from glaring daggers at the unrepentant king of Nargothrond, and he switches his intense focus to Elrond instead. “I would have taken you for a Noldo,” he says, sounding as curious as he ever does.

“I receive such comments often,” says Elrond with a grimace that’s only partially played up. His heritage remains one of the more difficult aspects of his identity to effectively obfuscate.

“Mixed blood?” Curufin asks.

Elrond wants to know what about him suggests that he’s a particularly young elf. “Something like that,” he says.

Celegorm makes a small sound under Elrond’s hands and he refocuses. He’d been able to mend the worst of the damage with a bit of well-placed Song and plenty of stitches, at least enough to keep the Fëanorian from drowning in his own blood (which nearly makes him weep for the good he could have done if the power Beleriand seems to give him had bolstered him through the second age and beyond).

A few major injuries remain and Elrond is working on internal damage as best he can with his Song. On the surface it’s mostly cuts and bruises now and a few splints; he secured several broken bones rather than fully healing them in an effort to warn Finrod off of fighting his cousin again any time in the near future.

Finrod himself has his own host of issues from the scrap, courtesy of Celegorm. Though most of those were managed by his own healers, the king did insist on being treated by ”Lilthanoss” for the majority of his convalescence, after Celegorm is seen to.

Elrond would’ve preferred if he had not for several reasons, and none of them involve disliking his uncle-in-law in any way.

Elrond would also prefer it if Finrod would allow himself to be separated from Celegorm’s unconscious body, but the golden blond doesn’t seem to want to let it out of his sight. It makes treating both notably more difficult as the other extension of Celegorm’s body, Curufin, wants to fight Finrod just as much as Finrod wants to fight him.

Elrond doesn’t care if they attack each other with words, but the minute they start trying to move toward each other, he has to step in. It’s not the least bit conducive to a healthy or efficient working environment.

I’m proud of you, you know, he says to his children, still humming under his breath, his hands on Celegorm’s chest. Lungs can be very tricky, though thankfully at least one of the blond’s was mostly undamaged.

Mild confusion rings back, mixed with smugness and pride.

You get along with your cousins, he explains, and provides an image of Finrod and Curufin at each other’s metaphorical throats.

Someone on the other side muffles their laughter, while he can feel Elladan gaping at him.

Oh yes Ada, says his eldest, we shall continue to not kill or be sent to our own deaths by the Dunedain and Gondorians, if it pleases you.

Elrond rolls his eyes. It does, he intones.

You never told us that elves of the first and second ages were actually ridiculous, Elrohir says gleefully, watching the spitting of increasingly childish insults through Elrond’s eyes. It isn’t really a laughing matter but Elrond finds some level of inexplicable hilarity in the altercation as well, so long as he ignores Celegorm’s broken body on the bed between the two.

Didn’t I? Elrond asks mildly. Oh hum, how unfortunate that your grandmother never made to murder me for sharing silly stories behind her back.

We wouldn’t have told her! Elrohir defends.

You don’t have to TELL her anything, Elrond says with a snort. She would have known. Or your mother—he breaks off and his children hang in pensive silence, Celebrían has always been completely her mother’s daughter. It would’ve gotten back to Galadriel one way or another.

Ada— Arwen starts.

“Are thy children well?” Finrod cuts her off unintentionally. Elrond’ expression must have been doing something strange, or else he attracted the Finwëans’ attention with his snort.

“As well as they can be,” Elrond assures him. His gaze slides away from Finrod’s for a moment, still caught on the memory of similarly sharp eyes and quick smiles.

“Thou’rt certain?” Finrod presses.

Elrond blinks back to the present. “Er, yes,” he says. “Well they’re not alright, but neither are they dead or presently being tortured. Gilion says that the pair of you are more ridiculous that he would have expected from—a king and a lord.”

Finrod raises an imperious, half-mocking eyebrow. “And I suppose my great-uncle’s court is less so?”

Elrond opens his mouth, unsure how to reply when he doesn’t have that experience, but Curufin saves him before he can fumble his cover.

“Where are your children that they might be tortured at any moment?” he asks, his grey eyes narrow and suspicious.

Elrond feels a jolt of bleak misery crack through his faint humor. “Angband,” he says. “In the company of the Moringotto.”

Curufin pales, and Finrod’s mouth tightens.

“They are in good spirits, however,” Elrond tires. “And Luthien shall free them upon her arrival.”

Curufin’s expression is doubtful, but he says nothing, perhaps trying to spare Elrond’s faith.

“Luthien,” a voice croaks. Elrond jerks and whips around to look back down at the bed, while the pair of cousins do the same. Celegorm’s eyes are slits against the torchlight—headache, Elrond catalogues, likely from his concussion. It’s good that he’s awake; a few more hours and Elrond would’ve begun truly worrying. “You ‘ave her look,” the hunter finishes, his voice hoarse.

Curufin and Finrod both peer over or around Elrond as he reaches for a glass of water on the table beside the bed and holds it to Celegorm’s lips.

“We’re related,” the healer offers, and nothing more.

Celegorm coughs and Elrond withdraws the glass, returning it to the table. “Ev’r’one seems ‘a be, these days,” the blond says, the last few words barely a sigh of breath.

“Tyelko,” Curufin huffs out, relief in his voice though he evidently tries to hide it on his face.

“’m fine, Curo,” Celegorm says. “Not good ‘nuff, cuz.”

Finrod makes a derisive sound.

Elrond clicks his tongue before the king can say anything, aiming to deescalate. “You are not fine, and you will hold off on baiting your cousin again until you are, or I shan’t treat you at all for seeing no point in it.”

“’lrigh’, alrigh’,” Celegorm coughs. Elrond frowns at the still slurred speech, reaching for the hunter’s temples and beginning to hum as he attunes himself to Celegorm’s Song to try to tease out the source of the problem.

Finrod reaches for Celegorm’s hand at the same time as Curufin does, having moved around to the other side of the sickbed. Celegorm has five broken fingers between his two hands. Elrond swats without thinking, well used to his sons aggravating each other’s wounds intentionally or otherwise in an effort to comfort.

“Touch him and I take your fingers,” he says, still focused on the injury to the blond elf himself.

Both cousins pull back, frowning, and Celegorm quirks a grin. “Like you,” he decides. Elrond doesn’t really care, at the moment.

“Ah. You’ve fractured your skull,” he says, turning Celegorm’s head to feel the shape under his hair. If he hadn’t been working on the rest of the broken body, he probably would’ve noticed sooner. “And there’s the swelling. Finrod, you are sure you will not offer any of your healers for your cousin?”

Finrod pauses, then he says, “Thou shall be granted what and who thou have need of to correct the ills I have done my dear hunter.”

Elrond nods perfunctorily. “Get them in here, prepped for surgery, and get out.”

Both of the more lucid Finwëans hesitate, and Elrond looks up with his best deadly serious expression of authority. “Now!” he snaps, “I’m a healer, not a miracle worker, and we’re rather short on time!”

:::

“How is he?” Elladan asks, dropping quietly into their nest. Elrohir, slumbering with his eyes fully closed across the way, doesn’t stir.

“Fine,” Arwen replies. She peers down into the smoke-hidden, dimly-red lit hallway below, but doesn’t see any oncoming trouble. “Not better but not worse.”

In her arms, Estel shifts and whimpers. Elladan runs a hand over the child’s brow, shushing him softly.

“Here,” says Elladan, and pulls a full waterskin from beneath his ragged tunic. Arwen wrinkles her nose at the musty scent rising from it, but it’s hardly worse than the stench of the rest of the dark fortress.

The twins had at least stolen a pot to boil the water in, though it does leak a bit and their fire might draw unwanted attention. Arwen stirs the coals anyway, gathered in a now-ashy divot near the center of the hidden loft.

The pot is on the fire, cooling from the last boiling, and Arwen scoops some of the slightly-cleaner water into Elrohir’s travel-mug and sets it aside for give to Estel when he wakes.

“Adan,” Arwen says as her brother crouches to bustle about with the pot. “I mean, Gil-henë. I think we ought to ask Ada about him—he’s cared for those out of Angband before. He’ll know what to do.”

Elladan’s expression pinches and he shakes his head. “He’ll only worry more,” he says. “He ought to be focusing on his own end of things. We’ll be fine.”

Arwen frowns, tucking a lock of Estel’s sweaty hair behind the boy’s ear. “We might,” she says, “but will he?”

Chapter Text

“Your children,” Curufin says, holding out a tray with food. “They are well?”

The question seems innocuous, but there’s something imperative about the way he says it that makes Elrond cautious as he nods, taking the proffered lunch.

“They are,” he agrees, though he doesn’t need to be worrying more about them. What he needs is a good long shower—do they even have showers yet? They were only brought to Lindon and Imladris by survivors of Gondolin, Elrond muses. He’ll be very upset to discover the lack, if there is one. “From what they’ve said, they’re not in very visible places,” he says, fabricating on the spot, “more intensive labor, less powerful attention.”

Curufin nods sharply to himself and takes the chair beside Elrond, facing Celegorm’s bed. On said bed, Finrod sits on top of Celegorm’s legs, trying to force soup down the latter’s protesting throat.

Finrod seems to have gotten over his fury, or at least mostly. Elrond doesn’t know that there will ever be true forgiveness between the golden king and these particular cousins, but they’ve moved past trying to kill each other, at least for now.

Finrod personally has adopted a malicious form of tough love, taking Elrond’s instructions for the care of Celegorm very seriously as he recovers and practically forcing them on the other blond. Celegorm is not as appreciative as he might be, but Elrond will only stop Finrod if he goes so far as to try sitting on his cousin’s currently-delicate chest, which he has yet to do.

The surgery went well and Celegorm has been mostly awake since, not lapsing into unconsciousness again, which is good. Elrond can’t do much more that’s not long-term, other than keeping an eye on his patient for the immediate future, which he plans to.

“Gah,” Celegorm spits soup on Finrod’s tunic, not that the Arafinwëan seems to care. “Stop—I don’t need you to feed me, you bitch.”

“Hn,” Finrod replies. “You may suffer then, for I have on good authority that you are not to use your hands for some time yet.”

“Asshole,” Celegorm bites out. “Curvo, make him—”

“Have some bread,” Finrod says, and stuffs a chunk of it into his cousin’s mouth, to the tune of much furious spluttering.

Elrond continues peaceably writing out instructions for Curufin to take with him when they make their way north to Himring or farther south to Amon Ereb, as is their stated intent. They will not, at least, be staying in Nargothrond.

“Do they often patrol outside of Doriath?” Curufin asks, scratching out a letter of his own to somewhere or other.

It takes Elrond a moment to remember the context of the first question, then he nods slowly. “My people and my wife’s are of the wood, but our husband is of Hithlum. The children are often in transit between our houses.”

All motion in the room halts, from Curufin’s pen to the other two cousins’ squabble.

“You have… two?” Celegorm asks.

Ah, Elrond thinks, perhaps that was unwise to give away. “I do,” he says slowly, as if confused. Of course a bunch of Finwëans with no time to get used to the idea might be taken aback by a three-way marriage. “Is it much more uncommon outside of Doriath?”

Finrod shuffles off of his knees, swinging his legs down over the side of the bed. “I was not aware that it was common inside of Doriath.”

Elrond shrugs at that. “Perhaps not in the high courts,” he says, “though my extended family has never taken objection to it.” Granted, most of said extended family is dead, or were, by the time he married, but there’s no reason to say as much here.

Curufin and Celegorm look at each other for a long moment.

“How many parents do you have, Lilthanoss?” Curufin asks.

Elrond opens his mouth, then pauses. He only really considers two people his parents. But, there’s an opportunity for a bit more foolery here, and if he’s trying to keep his activities in the past more covert—or at least muddled—which he’s been doing anyway…

“Three,” he says, because he never really knew Ëarendil anyway.

Celegorm raises one hand painfully to drag it—lightly, for he hisses in pain at the contact of his broken fingers—down his face as Elrond watches innocently. “Of course you do,” the blond sighs. “Of course he does.”

“I’m, sorry?” Elrond tries, though he’s not really.

Curufin pats him on the knee absently, scribbling faster with his other hand. “Don’t be,” he says, “we’re not upset with you.”

Elrond frowns. “Who—”

I don’t care, Arwen says in his head, clearly responding to something else Elrond didn’t hear, I say it’s time to panic, so I’m panicking. Ada, your brain is a book, I need a song to—cheer up? Draw out darkness? Estel is ill—

"You didn't say ESTEL was with you!" Elrond shrieks, and doesn't realize he's said it aloud until he looks up to find the three Finwëans staring at him.

Elrond genuinely doesn't care what they think of him at the moment, and promptly tucks his head between his knees to hyperventilate for a minute or three.

After a pregnant pause, a hand lands on his shoulder and pats him a bit awkwardly. Elrond would, actually, like to be comforted, so he leans into it. The touch becomes more confident and truly soothing as it brushes over his back.

Celegorm is still abed, and Elrond can see Finrod’s bare feet beside it, which means it’s Curufin sitting next to him who’s gently patting him now. Somehow that doesn’t make him as uncomfortable as it probably should, though that’s likely a result of stress and shock.

“Estel?” Finrod asks lightly.

“My—” Elrond manages. He trips for a moment, caught between Gilraen’s tired laughter, eyes like his brother’s, the child’s cheerful squirming in his arms; ward, nephew, son, “—kid. Small child.”

All three of the Finweans hiss like angry cats, and Elrond looks up, startled.

“No child should be in Angband,” Celegorm bites out.

“Ah,” says Elrond. “Yes. I agree.” Especially not that child, he thinks a bit hysterically, because he’s particularly important to Elrond, not to mention the fate of the future entirely.

“Your other children are older?” Curufin checks.

Elrond nods, still letting the hand on his back calm him as he glances sideways at the dark-haired Fëanorian. “Much older,” he confirms. “They’ll—they’ll handle it.” It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than anything, and he winces.

Curufin nods, his gaze farther away than the room they sit in. “It is impressive,” he says, “that you can reach them even with the distance.”

Elrond doesn’t think so. His family has always been powerful. But, he supposes… “My boys are twins,” he says, “they amplify each other.”

“Like Ambarussa, then,” says Celegorm, nodding.

“I suppose,” Elrond agrees.

Ada? Arwen taps on his mind again.

Sorry, he says, busy. I trust that you will care for him accordingly. Remind your brothers of Glorfindel’s fourth day marching songs, and those should do.

Alright, thank you, says Arwen immediately. She’s more like a soldier sometimes than either of her brothers, though none of them will say as much. I was going to—if we flee Angband with Luthien and head for, what, Brethil? We won’t make it, she says flatly.

Elrond closes his eyes again painfully. Curufin squeezes his shoulder. “Maedhros,” Elrond says. “Your brother. How soon can you get news to him? If—when my children come out of that fortress—"

“We shall write him immediately,” Finrod says promptly, “if Orodreth hasn’t already.”

Elrond forces himself to keep breathing. We’ll make a plan, he tells his daughter.

Too late, she says, a feeling of being harried flushing the bond between them. She’s here.

Elrond sits bolt upright, eyes wide and far away from the room and its occupants. “She’s here,” he echoes.

There’s a long, distressed silence, then Finrod claps his hands. “We shall write Maedhros in any case, that he might prepare for their coming.”

Elrond feels himself nod, and his lips move in thanks.

“Thou had not mentioned a fourth child, Lillapîn,” Finrod says as Curufin surrenders his writing supplies and a fresh sheet of paper, inquisitive as ever.

Elrond shakes his head. “He’s my brother’s,” he explains haltingly, noting the sharp glace Curufin and Celegorm exchange but not really considering it. “Estel’s mother brought him to me when—when, when my brother could no longer care for him.”

Elros will be born in sixty-seven years. That’s a snap of the fingers. A blink of the eyes. A heartbeat and a half.

“I’ve looked after him since but he should be safe in—in Doriath, not,” Elrond stutters to a full stop.

Elros will be born in sixty-seven years, and Elrond does not know how long he himself will linger in the past.

:::

“What’s that?” Elladan asks, gesturing for his softly murmuring siblings to hush. In the quiet, they can hear a bit better as the doors to Morgoth’s great throne room creak open much further down the hall and the snarling rumble of his many ghastly attendants becomes audible.

Below, a grey shape slumps past their perch, a flitting shadow following it, both tinged red in the dark.

Elrohir grins, the first true smile he’s bothered with since they found themselves in Angband. “The cavalry has arrived,” he says.

Elladan nods, and Arwen swiftly rises to her feet and crosses the nest to begin backing their meager belongings. “Let’s go then,” she says.

Elrohir and his twin make quick work of changing back into the worn hunting clothes and gear from the disguising rags they’d taken to wearing instead. He can feel Elladan’s relief at not having to wear even open and rusted manacles again.

“Not a peep now, Pîngil, you’ll be alright,” Arwen murmurs, though their younger brother is barely awake and lucid to hear it, his head lolling.

Estel is carefully bundled against Elladan’s back with Arwen’s contrived skirt-sling, and Elrohir picks a moment when the hallway is empty to begin the scrambling climb down, his siblings following. The pillar is slick with smog-residue that comes away with the fingers and makes it hard to grasp, but the stone is crumbling, which allows for more handholds.

They make it to the floor without incident, and Elladan starts up a humming song of concealment, even though there’s no one around. Elrohir leads the way on silent feet to the throne room, Elladan just behind him and Arwen covering their backs.

The great doors have rarely been open in the time they’ve been trapped in Angband, but what the twins have glimpsed within hasn’t made either of them particularly eager to go inside. They stand open once more now, a red-orange glow even richer than that in the hallway spilling out beyond. A clamor echoes from within, and a rumbling voice that Elrohir is glad he can’t make out the words of.

The orcs who usually guard the hall have deserted their posts, probably to watch the spectacle inside, which makes it easier to sneak to the doors.

As they approach, the commotion of roaring and growling grows silent, and Elrohir hears it. It’s—it’s so fucking beautiful, he wants to cry. He wants to lay down forever and never think again, only sleep for all eternity. His feet stop moving without his input, not that he would want to make them do anything else; it would be better to just lay down right here…

Someone slaps him. Elrohir jerks. It’s Elladan, whose hands are not full of a bow and arrow as Arwen’s are.

“Sing!” his twin hisses, sounding half-musical himself, “unless you wish to be caught in it!”

Elrohir shakes himself, then reaches for his own Song. Arwen and his twin in his head help him find the melody their great-great-grandmother weaves deeper in the room. It’s still beautiful, when he joins them in song, but it’s harder to fall into himself. The spell cinches around them, tightening its grip on the hall as they add their power to it—nowhere near that of Luthien herself, but together they’re certainly nothing to sniff at.

With control over himself returned, Elrohir turns and runs, still singing, full-tilt into the hall of Morgoth. They don’t have much time, and he knows it. There’s a patter of uncareful footsteps as his siblings follow him.

Luthien’s dance is incredible. Elrohir has to tear his eyes away from her as she twirls through the air above them, almost violent as her vampire-cloak clashes with her sweet Song.

Arwen tugs on his hand, rushing forward toward the throne, and the mighty form slumped off of it. “Come on!” she cries, entwining the sound with the spell they sing.

“Beren! Beren, my love, wake!” Luthien, shining white, alights at the foot of the throne, lit in red shadows. Elrohir squints as a wolf-shaped lump stirs, then a frazzled man’s head pokes out of the fur.

“I’m up!” he replies, disentangling himself from the Dragluin-disguise. “Oh Tinuviel! What amazing magic you have crafted here!”

“T’was not my work alone,” Luthien says, gesturing to Elrohir and his siblings as they come to a stop. She’s beautiful in truth, though the twin privately thinks she looks more like their Ada than Arwen.

“You did most of it, grandmother,” Arwen says with a short bow, which Elrohir and Elladan copy as they let the song of power trail off.

Luthien and Beren seem to take that in stride, and she takes his hand as he stands up fully. Elrohir has to do a double take; so many generations later, and yet he can still see traces of his great-great-grandfather in the Dunedain—not to mention his own face and his brother’s.

Luthien shakes her head, “Not without thy assistance would I be standing and speaking now. But now, our quest—”

“Yes,” says Elladan, starting towards the fallen iron crown of Morgoth. It had rolled form the Vala’s head to rest on its side, the jewels glowing out away from their little group. “Here,” the eldest continues, hurrying over and crouching next to it. “Beren, you have Angrist?”

Elrohir winces at the way Estel’s head bounces, and steps up beside his twin to steady the boy against Elladan’s shoulder.

“No?” says Beren, looking a bit confused.

“I have it,” says Luthien, baring the knife from her belt. When Elladan gives her a questioning look, she shrugs. “Huan nearly stuck me with it in Nargothrond before we left—he wished that I have it, I believe.”

“Right,” says Beren, “such forethought. Huan is a very good dog.” Elrohir has to agree with that; evidently very smart, too.

Their grandfather takes Angrist and Elladan untucks the dragon-tooth knife they’d found as well, fearing to snap one of their few good steel ones. “You’ll only be able to get one,” he says, “or the knife will snap. And you’ll probably want it to stab Carcharoth so you don’t lose a hand.”

Beren pales dramatically, but says nothing as he sets to prying a gem free beside Elrohir’s twin.

The knife does not snap, and the silmaril comes free. Elrohir feels the breath leave him as the brilliant light is fully revealed in his great-great-grandfather’s hand.

“Elbereth,” Arwen breathes.

“No,” says Luthien, drawing herself up. “T’was not a work of the Valar that we have done this; this is a thing of love and hope, not the divine.”

“Right,” says Arwen, taking a shuddering breath as Elladan wiggles his own knife and a second palm-sized point of light pops free from its setting. “Quite right, grandmother. We should probably call up a second verse, or else—”

Luthien nods. “If thou canst manage it, t’would be welcome,” she agrees, looking at the Dark Lord’s insensate form.

Elrohir joins the song from the start this time, and feels less woozy himself as he does so. Elladan, singing under his breath, takes one of their steel boot knives to the third gem as Beren begins to shift anxiously.

The anxiety is reasonable, Elrohir decides, and lets Luthien and Arwen carry the song as he cuts off to fill their grandparents in urgently. “In our time, Thorondor met the two of ye at the gates after Caracharoth caused them to crumble with his howling. Because he swallowed the Silmaril and went mad, that is. Luthien, can we give thee our brother, that thou might take him to safety as thou flee?”

Yes, of course, the half-maia agrees without breaking her song for even breath. Elrohir begins to untangle Estel’s slumbering form from his brother’s back.

A howl cuts through the haze of their spell, violent and unearthly. Beren jerks as Elrohir and his sister swivel to look towards the entrance of the hall, through which the sound finds them.

“We left Huan at the gates to keep watch,” the man tells them.

“Carcharoth,” says Arwen, paling. Elrohir can’t focus on her fear, though, because in the next moment Morgoth, the dark Vala himself, shifts. Estel too rouses in the twin’s arms, and the world seems to hold its breath as every evil thing in the hall shifts in its sleep.

“Ha!” says Elladan suddenly, and the last of the three silmarils comes loose from the crown, falling into his hand. As it does his knife, like the original Agnrist, snaps. Elrohir watches as if frozen as the gleaming tip sails through the air—

Elladan puts his left hand up, and the shard embeds itself in his palm before it can complete its arching path towards Morgoth’s head. “Fuck!” he says, in the tone of someone who meant to do that but didn’t mean to do that.

“Good job,” says Arwen, taking cautious steps back from Morgoth’s still-prone form. She’s trembling a bit, and Elrohir doesn’t blame her in the slightest. “We need to go right now.”

And then they’re running. Beren leads the way, with his own silmaril shining in his hand and Angrist, sharp as death, glinting in the other. The Elrondili close ranks around Luthien, who follows her lover on swift feet, cradling their most precious living burden.

The howling and furious racket echoing down the halls from Huan and Carcharoth’s tussle-to-the-death grows louder and louder as they approach the make gates of Angband, which still stand open.

Elrohir feels as though he can breathe again, seeing the grey and smoke-choked sky beyond, because at last it’s the sky, and it’s right there.

And then suddenly, also right there, is the largest wolf Elrohir has ever seen. It stands near triple his own height, and froths red at the mouth already. Though neither of his siblings stop moving, he can feel them quail through their bond just as he does.

A silver blur leaps from where it was hidden beside the gate, and then the biggest dog Elrohir has ever seen tackles Carcharoth at the shoulders, knocking him sideways. Both are covered in blood, Elrohir notes distantly as they roll away from the gate, clearing a path for Beren to lead them out.

“Shit,” Arwen pants, and Elrohir turns to look just as she fires an arrow through the head of an orc who was stumbling groggily towards them. “They’re waking up!”

Elrohir goes on the defensive himself as well, spinning and shooting as he runs. Elladan, with his injured palm tucked close to his chest, draws his short sword in his off hand.

El, Elladan says in his twin’s head, his tone urgent and panicked. How are we going to draw off Carcharoth without throwing a silmaril down his throat?

Fuck, Elrohir agrees.

The wolf himself snarls viciously and throws Huan again, lumbering towards them. Huan lands with a yelp and rolls, but he’s too far away and getting up too slowly to stop the greatest of all wolves from reaching his goal. Which is, unfortunately, them.

Beren, valiantly, does make an effort to stab Carcharoth.

Carcharoth, unfortunately, is faster.

Beren swipes, and the wolf bites. At least they’ll get to call him Erchamion again, Elrohir thinks, somewhat hysterically.

“What did I say?!” Elladan shrieks.

Beren screams. He falls back against Luthien, who cries out in shock at the wolf’s teeth suddenly gleaming barely a foot from her nose.

"Bad doggy!" Estel wails thinly, waving his tiny fists furiously over Luthien’s shoulder.

"Oh yes," Arwen says as she dodges out from side Luthien to the left. "Very bad doggy," she continues, and shoots Carcharoth in the face. The wolf roars in pain and fury, turning on her.

The silmaril, Elrohir says, swiping an orc arrow out of the air with his bow before it hits their grandmother’s back. He’s got to eat it.

Damn, says Elladan, but it’s not disagreement.

Luthien falls back as Elrohir tugs on the back of her dress, pulling her towards him. He shoots again and again as orcs begin to tumble out of Angband’s gates. The very ground begins to shake, and Elrohir suspects the Dark Lord is awake, and not very happy.

Now or never, he says to his twin as Arwen and Huan jump out of the way of thrashing paws and snapping jaws. We have to bring down the gates before anything else can come out of them.

Elladan slides in close, kneeling beside the fallen Beren, who’s bleeding profusely. “Your aim is better,” he says to Elrohir, and pushes both of their Silmarils into the younger twin’s hands. “Thorondor is coming. I’ll stay with Pîn—Estel.”

Elrohir nods shortly and takes them, tucking his bow over his shoulder for the moment as he sprints for their sister and the canines’ brawl.

“Hey!” he shouts, and burning eyes turn towards him. “You want a shiny, spawn of Morgoth?” Elrohir continues, not slowing.

Carcharoth’s toothy maw would be one of the most terrifying things Elrohir had ever seen, had he not just come out of Angband itself. The great wolf opens his mouth, and Elrohir remembers that he can speak. He doesn’t give the ferocious beast the chance to, though, instead hollering “Fetch!” at the top of his lungs and lobing the silmaril from his right hand straight into the wolf’s mouth.

Arwen, Huan, and Carcharoth himself all freeze as the wolf’s jaws close with a distinct click. Elrohir skids to a stop, holding his breath. Arwen suddenly moves to shoot something behind him, but Elrohir doesn’t look, too busy with a burning sort of glee as Carcharoth’s throat begins to glow red.

The massive wolf shudders, then writhes, full-body, and begins to thrash and howl. The sound tears from his gaping red maw, lit up white from inside as he burns alive, and thunders through the air like a shockwave, sending everyone standing, orc or elf, nearly to their knees.

“Get away from him!” Arwen cries, linking her arm with Elrohir’s and tugging him to stumble with her back towards their brother and grandparents.

A limping Huan takes charge of herding the suddenly raving Carcharoth back towards the gates as the stone there begins to shudder and crumble and the orcs start to flee.

Elrohir finds himself laughing a bit hysterically then, but no one pays him any mind.

High above them, the clouds of smog part and a great winged shape swoops down to land beside Luthien, who kneels at Beren’s side while Elladan tends the man as well as he can. Gouts of fire and arrows rain down from the battlements, but with the whole world shaking around them from the force of Caracharoth’s howling, none of them have much hope of finding their mark.

With a mighty groan and screeching rumble of stone, the huge black gates of Angband begin to crumble in on themselves, and everything shakes harder.

“My back has only so much space, though I would be glad to bear any of Luthien’s kin,” Thorondor intones as they approach, incongruously calm for the situation.

Elrohir coughs on dust and smoke, leaning on Arwen. “Adan,” he croaks, “stay with Estel.”

His twin nods, lifting their great-great-grandfather in his arms. “Can you take Luthien and Beren on your back and me in your claws? If we won’t all fit.”

“Aye,” Manwë’s messenger says solemnly. “That I can do.”

Arwen waves her hands, and none of the terrified turmoil he feels from her shows on her face as she says, “Get on then, you lot! We’ll flee on foot, you be off now by wing!”

Elladan lifts Beren up to Luthien as she climbs onto the eagle’s golden-feathered back, Estel situated in front of her. Elrohir steps forward to cling to his twin for just a moment before they are separated.

“Be well,” Elladan whispers to him. “Call me if you need me.”

Elrohir nods jerkily. He can panic about this at a later point; right now they really do need to go. It’ll only be for so long. “I love you,” he says.

Elladan buries his fingers in the short hair at Elrohir’s nape and presses their foreheads together. “Of course,” he agrees, “I love you too.”

Then, after doing much the same with Arwen, he waves to the giant eagle. With a few flaps, Thorondor lifts himself into the air, then closes deadly talons gently around Elladan’s middle and bears him away.

Elrohir coughs again, shuddering. Carcharoth continues to howl earth-shakingly. “Alright,” he says, tucking the remaining silmaril into the pocket sewn into the inside of his tattered jerkin as he takes notice of it in his hand, “ready to run for our lives?”

Arwen groans.

Wild barking behind them makes both Elrondili turn, and Elrohir’s eyes widen as he finds the crazed wolf himself barreling towards them. Arwen readies her bow, but Elrohir doubts they have the time for that. Her shot goes wide as he drags her out of Carcharoth’s mad path, the arrow burrowing into one of his back paws as one of the fore swipes wildly, pulling Arwen out of his grasp and throwing her across the ground aways away.

Carcharoth hardly seems to notice, charging onward while Elrohir stares at his empty hands in shock.

He turns. “Arwen!” His sister’s crumpled form does move and he staggers over to it, breathing harshly. Ro? Ro? What’s happened? Elladan begs inside his head, and Elrohir can only answer him in fractured pictures.

Arwen has a pulse, though she doesn’t wake and four ragged claw-marks drag bloody lines across her torso. They haven’t visibly displaced any of her guts, though, which is better than nothing. At least according to Elrohir’s healer-brain.

Huan noses his shoulder suddenly, and Elrohir starts. The great hound crouches on the shaking ground, offering his back with a lowered shoulder.

Elrohir lifts his sister with shaking hands and lays her down across the wolfhound’s back, then steadies her as Huan straightens.

“I, uh, I don’t have,” Elrohir tries, searching for something to secure her with. His pack is gone, abandoned before they reached the gates, not that it would have been of any use anyway.

Huan meets his gaze with far too intelligent eyes and shakes his shaggy head deliberately.

“Er, right,” Elrohir stutters. He’s going into shock, he thinks as his extremities begin to go numb, the rest of his body beginning to shake. But he can’t afford to go into shock. “We need to—to run. Now.”

With that thought, he places one hand on Arwen’s hip so he knows if she’s slipping, and begins to stumble after Huan, who steps slowly so his shorter elven stride can keep up. Elrohir shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I meant run. I’ve, I’ve had worse. Let’s go.”

And with that, he forces his feet to move. He retreats in his mind to a familiar place, built on years of ill-advised orc hunting, when the tables turned regularly out of his and his brother’s favor. He can make himself move. He has to make himself move, with any level of injury. Because they know well the alternative, and it’s so much worse.

Huan lopes, and Elrohir lets the dog lead and does his best to keep up, doing his best to focus not on the pain but on the motion of his feet across the burnt, uneven ground. Together elf and hound make their way across the dead, barren plains that were once Ard-Galen.

Chapter Text

Elrond blinks himself back into the present moment, resettling in his own body. Elladan’s report—dangling from Thorondor’s claws moments after being picked up, apparently, indicated the relative safety of himself and Estel, and a good course of action for Elrohir and Arwen.

“They’re out,” he says for the benefit of his waiting relatives. Finrod, sitting beside him, squeezes his hand with a smile. “The gates of Angband are collapsed, and they’re out.”

Curufin and Celegorm look at each other for a long moment, then turn back to him. Celegorm’s expression is very tight, and Curufin doesn’t bother to hide a grimace, avoiding Finrod’s gaze as he asks, “And the mortal’s quest?”

“Beren,” says Elrond slowly. “He lives. His—the great wolf bit off his hand. But he will be well in time.”

Finrod puts an arm around Elrond’s shoulders, smiling a bitter sort of smile. “I am gladdened beyond words to hear of his survival! But Curufin means the silmarils, Lilthanoss. What of my uncle’s gems?”

Elrond considers not telling them, or indicating ignorance. But then, they’ve sat with growing tension and impatience for this news for some time now—minutes, hours, Elrond can’t rightly remember at the moment—and Celegorm might try something stupid like standing up to pace if he says nothing.

“There are no more in Angband,” he offers eventually.

Curufin lets out a sound like a sob. Celegorm reaches out for his brother, who’d switched places with Finrod at some point to sit on the bed, but Curufin slips out of his grasp easily. One hand over his mouth, he ducks out the door.

Elrond has quite a lot of feelings over the Oath, and the House of Fëanor in entire. “He—” he starts.

“He’ll be back,” Celegorm tells him, looking grim still. “Just needs time.”

Elrond nods slowly. Finrod strokes his shoulder, then presses his palm gently to the side of his head until Elrond lays it against the king’s shoulder. “All manner of things shall be well,” he intones soothingly. “Thy children too, shall find freedom and safety. Have faith now, and rest, for it has been long since thou hast closed thine eyes.”

Elrond sighs. Finrod is like… like Galadriel, he supposes, if she was as sweet as her daughter all the time. He can’t tell yet if Finrod’s wicked side translates into Celebrían’s style of morbid humor when he’s less stressed and in pain, but he suspects that it probably does.

Elrond personally wouldn’t trust Galadriel enough to fall to sleeping against her shoulder, if only because she might well summon Mithrandir or her daughter—when Celebrían was with them still—to doodle on his face in staining berry juice. But Finrod at the moment lacks berries.

Elrond closes his eyes, trying to sink past floating reverie to true rest, because he’s not so naïve after six thousand years of living to imagine he can just keep going forever without it.

Before he gets too far, though, a commotion in the hall startles him into alertness once more. His lips tug down out of habit—these are the healing halls and they should be quiet; his patient needs rest, not disruption.

He lifts Finrod’s arm carefully off of his shoulders and stands up, patting the king’s hand as he protests.

“Lillapîn, sit back down! Better yet, take a bed—"

The door that Curufin had left slightly ajar swings entirely open and Elrond freezes halfway to it. His hands jerk up from his sides involuntarily, coming together as his fingers twinge.

Celebrimbor stands in the doorway, his handsome face pale and drawn. “Pardon me,” he says stiffly, “I heard—”

“Tyelpë,” Finrod says. Elrond hears the swish of his clothing as he stands up. He still can’t move, but neither of them seem to notice.

“Uncle,” Celebrimbor breathes, and rushes forwards to wrap Finrod up in his strong embrace. “I apologize—I was out on a hunt in the wood, I did not know thou had returned!”

“Tyelpë,” Finrod whispers again, and lets his sort-of nephew bury his face in his golden hair.

:::

“Star-child,” Thorondor rumbles. He’s probably not talking to Estel, so Elladan looks up from the majestic sight of Gondolin stretching out below, his short hair whipping across his eyes in the wind. Manwë’s messenger peers at him from under his body, his head cocked around at a strange angle.

“What!” Elladan cries.

“I may have overestimated my carrying capacity,” says the eagle, far too conversationally.

“What do you mean by that, please?” Elladan calls back, surreptitiously clinging tighter to the bird’s trailing foot.

Thorondor swoops instead of answering, and Elladan’s stomach swoops along with him.

“Hey, wait, don’t—” he gets out before the mighty claw shakes him off in an almost lazy gesture, not unlike Elladan himself would dislodge a clambering Estel, or his clinging younger sister when she was small.

He falls.

The fact that Elladan has the time to think oh, you feathery asshole as he tumbles through the air says nothing good about the probable state of his body upon landing. At least the overgrown pigeon had the common decency to drop him towards a fountain.

Fuck it.

Elladan screams at the top of his lungs, then he hits the water.

:::

The problem is, Elrond thinks detachedly—and he can feel himself swaying in place as sudden nausea strikes him, but can’t do anything about it—he knows Celebrimbor. Or at least an older version of his cousin. He knows that that glad embrace feels like; he knows the warmth of that single-minded attention; the silver smile of the smith.

He knows what Celebrimbor’s body looks like broken and trampled into the mud. Hanging on by a thread, begging— Vilya thrums on his finger, its power ever-twined with his own.

There’s a sudden sharp pain spreading suddenly across his back, tugging at his bond with his children, but it hardly registers even as he brings a hand to it behind himself almost curiously.

Elrond was a battlefield healer long before he settled into a quieter life in Imladris. He’s seen blood, death, gore, and every traumatizing thing that that life has to offer. He’s used to it and keeps his calm well, but it’s never made seeing the mangled corpses of his loved ones any easier. His arrow is quick and flies truer than it ever has—

“Hrk,” he says, and puts a hand over his mouth dazedly, surprised at himself. Valar, his back, chest, ribs, everything hurts.

The thought of Celebrimbor’s fate should not disturb him so now, he thinks, when the elf himself is alive and well. The broadhead goes straight through the eye and out the back of his skull. That’s not fair. Elrond can do something now; he’s already saved Finrod, what’s a bit more change? He can warn them—

He feels his mouth flood with saliva, a protective measure typically preceding—

The light winks out. Stomach acid burns its way up his throat, and Elrond turns to the side and folds over himself just in time to vomit on the floor rather than down his front.

Tears gather in his eyes and drip down his nose, and Elrond doesn’t understand. Which is ridiculous, because he’s studied this! He knows some elves’ trauma responses better than they do themselves! It’s not normal; Elrond is supposed to shut down until he has processing time, that’s what he does, he doesn’t cry or throw up. It was always Elros who had the more physical, violent reactions to things, a more visceral display that should have told them, should have been warning enough—

“Shit,” someone says, hands coming over his shoulders from his back to hold him up, too familiar in more ways than one.

Finrod’s arm wraps around his stomach, bangles jingling. Elrond leans hard against it as the king makes soft, soothing sounds. “There there,” he murmurs. “What’s wrong, Lillapîn?”

“Gil,” Elrond manages, coughing, because that’s as good an excuse as anything and he can feel Elladan in pain too, though he doesn’t have the presence of mind to worry about it. He tries not to notice Celebrimbor’s hand between his shoulder blades, or Finrod’s reclaimed rings against the back of his neck as his uncle-in-law holds his hair out of the way.

“Shit,” someone says, more vehemently. It sounds like Curufin, though Curufin had just left. “Is—are they okay?”

Elrond closes his eyes, reaching out for the steady, solid bond to anchor him. He feels a bit bad for leaning on his children when he can’t adequately control himself, but he needs to know that they’re well, or at least alright.

For a long, painful few moments, there’s nothing. Elrond feels himself begin to shake harder, his breathing picking up as his heartrate likely spikes. He calls again into the silence. He can still feel them living, they’re still there—then, as if from a great depths or far-off height, someone calls back.

Deep breaths, Ada, says Elrohir, Elrond’s little healer, the son who takes after him most in that respect. In two three four, out, there, keep counting. This is a panic attack, he provides. Which is why you need to focus, and breathe with me. In two three—

Elrond knows what his son sounds like distracted and in pain, and he hates that he does. In truth he should press more—he should be offering comfort, but instead he simply lets the steady mantra ground him, sagging in Finrod’s hold as someone pats his back. The king slowly lowers them both to the floor, though he doesn’t let go, pulling Elrond to lay against his chest.

Adan? he tries.

Don’t worry. It’s fine. You’re safe in Nargothrond, Elrohir continues, strained, not answering the question. Elrond feels his son rifle through his surface thoughts for a moment, and shoves the image of the three rings at him, resting on blue fabric in the box Celebrimbor had sent with the last note they received from him before—

He is safe as well, Elrohir assures him haltingly. Sauron limps about Angband. Celebrimbor is not hurt and we can keep him that way. It’s—it’s okay, Ada. Just keep breathing. Is that Finrod talking to you? Listen to him, I can’t—I have to go. I love you Ada, you’re alright.

“Lillapîn,” Finrod is saying, “Lilthanoss. Art thou with me?”

Elrond… is not alright. And it’s not as if they’re in his head; he can give in to the Finwëan urge for a bit of theatricality. He’ll feel bad about it later. Besides, he hurts in too many ways and needs a damn good cry.

With that thought, he rolls over in Finrod’s arms and buries his face in the king’s flowing hair, falling over his shoulders freely under his crown braid. Elrond feels his tears smearing against his face in the strands of gold and keens, long and loud.

For every tragedy of the years that haven’t happened yet. For fallen Nargothrond, which shines so brilliantly now, and for kind, ever-loving Celebrimbor, who lives and smiles and never fucking deserved it, foolish and trusting or not.

For his own life, well-lived but less for all it was missing. His parents, all four of them, and his beloved Celebrían and Ereinion.

Because he’s going to change history. He can’t stop himself now, seeing the First Age for all that it is, beauty and pain and so incredibly alive. Neither of his lovers are born yet, but he can only pray that they will be, and that wherever the souls that he loves rest now, they forgive him.

Elrond can’t leave things like this. He can’t go back, when he can create a world worth more for all that’s in it.

Ereinion, Celebrían—Elrond’s sorrow cracks him to the core, and he fills the space with hope. He can save them. If this isn’t a second chance, then what is it?

:::

“Shit!” Ecthelion shrieks as someone falls into his fountain, screaming loudly. He jumps away from Glorfindel as the massive splash threatens to soak their shoes. There are quite a few ways he typically expects to be caught kissing his fellow lord under a balcony, but this is admittedly not one of them.

“Fuck,” Glorfindel agrees, and promptly strips off his robes, tunic, and boots then hurries into the courtyard proper to dive in and fish them out. Still cursing, Ecthelion follows to help.

The person the golden lord passes him out of the fountain is, funnily enough, also cursing up a storm.

“Ohhh,” the elf groans as Ecthelion lays him out in a puddle on the flagstones. “Fuck that bird.”

Thorondor, Ecthelion assumes, noting the use of slightly different Sindarin than he’s used to. “Are you alright?”

There’s shouting and general commotion in the rest of the courtyard, but Ecthelion ignores it in favor of checking on his new apparent patient.

“M fine,” said patient manages. “Broken ribs, probably. Asshole could’ve dropped me lower. Or perhaps not dropped me at all.”

“So you didn’t mean to end up in the king’s fountain in Gon—our city?” Glorfindel checks dubiously.

The elf blows wet hair out of his face and groans again, arms twitching. “Not at all,” he says. “I’m supposed to be in Doriath with my—” he sits straight up, nearly bashing his skull into Ecthel’s nose. “My brother! That fucking bird stole my little brother!”

“I’m sure if he’s with Thorondor then it’s fine—” Glorfindel tries.

Their unexpected guest makes a very rude gesture at the sky and flops back down onto his back, then winces. “Definitely broken ribs,” he groans. “And bruises. Lots of bruises.”

“Hold on then,” says Ecthelion, noting the blood streaking down the boy’s arm. “Our king shall wish to speak to you, but I’ll have you to the infirmary first!”

“Oh,” says the elf, “great.” And he promptly passes out again.

:::

Well, Luthien thinks, that is truly unfortunate. It is good that her many-times great grandson lives still, probably, but less great that they’re now without a healer of any sort.

Pîngil, tucked in her lap, makes a noise of protest against the situation that’s nearly lost in the wind. Luthien presses her lips into his hair to murmur soothing comfort.

Beren, laid out before her and no longer bleeding quite so much thanks to the efforts of their grandson, does not stir. Luthien has never had cause or need to be a great healer, but she must at least try, for him.

Wrapping her hands around his stump wrist as she’d seen Elrond’s son do, she begins to sing. The wind whips the sound away, but her power unwinds no less as it hits the air. Healing is just mending is just growing after fire is just new life from rot, is something she’s familiar with, even if she has never done it before herself.

Where Luthien steps, flowers grow; even outside of Angband, white teardrop petals had sprouted in the rocky slate-ish soil beneath her feet. If she can do that, then she can keep her lover alive until they reach Melian.

“I shall loose thee in Brethil,” Thorondor tells her as the green of unblemished trees begins to carpet the world below, “on the edge of thy mother’s wood.”

“Many thanks,” Luthien says gripping his feathers tightly in one hand. The silmaril winks cheerfully up from the tawny and gold, clasped in Beren’s remaining hand. As soon as they cross the border into Doriath proper, Melian will know they have arrived and send someone for them; Luthien gives a very small sigh of relief.

“Nana?” Pîngil asks, his very small voice nearly stolen by the wind. “Where are we going?”

“Doriath,” Luthien tells him. “My home—it is a great forest, darling, protected from the dark by powerful magics.”

That’s something to do until they arrive, then—Pîngil doesn’t look quite enough like her to be her son, so who does he belong to? Then there is Elrond as well, and his children…

Luthien frowns, considering. Elrond Peredhil and his get look enough like herself that it would make the average mirror ashamed of itself… and so too does her brother. Though little and less people like to acknowledge the latter, for she is their father’s enchanting daughter, and he’s just, Daeron.

Anyone who knows Daeron himself would hesitate to call him just anything, in truth, but Luthien knows that she tends to steal attention often before he even has a chance. It’s hardly fair or just, for her brother is enchanting in his own right, but it is the way of it.

It’s possible, she supposes, that her brother may have, perhaps, enchanted someone of his own. And had a child or two, who share his look as undeniably as her grandchildren share hers.

Luthien smiles. Not her princess smile, or even her yes, father smile. No, this one is neither stunning nor innocent, but purely the expression of a mischief-maker. Daeron deserves it, anyway.

“Pîngil,” she says seriously, and the boy eyes were with tired curiosity. “I am not thy Nana, but thou mayst call me Lulu.”

He favors her with a very small gap-toothed grin. “Lulu,” he repeats.

She nods. “I am thine aunt, dearest. Thy daerada, my brother, awaits in my father’s court.” She hopes, at least. Daeron in panic, depression, or any strong emotion that he doesn’t quite know how to handle is liable to do any number of ridiculous things; she only hopes he hasn’t injured himself.

Pîngil frowns, a cute little scrunching of his face. “I don’t ‘ave a daerada, miss Lu.”

Luthien hums. He’s incredibly polite, for one so young. “Thou dost now, young one! Though we must wait some time to meet him, I am afraid. Soon instead we shall see my father, who will just adore thee, I am certain.”

Pîngil looks dubious, but he agrees quietly, which is the most Luthien can ask of him at the moment. He’s been a very good boy, all told.

Luthien calls with power in her voice for Beren to rouse as they descend towards the gleaming fork of the river Mindeb. He wakes groggily, and she leans over little to kiss his bristly cheek.

“Art thou well, my love? Is there much pain?” she asks.

He looks at where his missing hand should be with a slightly numb expression, but when he turns his gaze to her again it is all love.

“I am in awe,” he says, “as always. I had half thought—”

She smiles as he cuts himself off. “Didst thou takest not the arrival of our grandson for a sign?”

“No, I,” he shakes his head, then returns her smile though smaller. “I am glad,” he says at last. “Next time I shall have more faith in us, and in true love.”

Luthien kisses him then over Pîngil’s head, and he returns the gesture deeply.

Thorondor seems to try very hard not to jostle them too much as he touches down beside the river. “My dear lady,” he says as she climbs off, Beren passing Pîngil to her before sliding to the ground himself. “It has been an honor to carry thee and thy love. I wish thee only the safest and swiftest path back to thy home.”

“I thank thee,” she says quietly. “But please, wouldst thou check in on our companion whom thou didst drop? I hope that he is at peace in safety as well, though I cannot know from here.”

The eagle ducks his great head in a bow. “I shall, lady.” And then, with a few powerful beats of his mighty wings, he is gone.

“Here, my love,” Beren presses the silmaril into her hand in exchange for Pîngil, who he takes somewhat awkwardly.

“Art thou sure thou’rt well enough—” she checks, but he shakes his head.

“I feel strangely fine, in truth,” he says. “I must imagine some magic of yours or our descendants’ that keeps me so, and I only hope it shall last.”

Luthien nods slowly, then tucks the glowing gem they fought so hard for down the front of her bodice and helps Beren situate Pîngil on his shoulders, seeing as it’s harder to do one-handed.

“Come then,” she says, taking his hand-less wrist, “we’ve aways to walk.”

:::

Your Majesty, My Dearest Grand-Uncle;

Please disregard any previous missive regarding the freedom and courting status of thy daughter as sent by my half-cousin. Allow me to assure thee that her beloved Beren remains chief in her heart, second only to thee and her majesty thy lady wife, though she no longer remains herself in Nargothrond.

Neither did I, at that time when Celegorm relates that he sent his eminently foolish and ill-thought letter, for I had passed with Beren (in less secrecy than we thought) up the Sirion to Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and were there captured. We were freed by virtue and song of thine incredible daughter, who had freed herself in turn from the clutches of said idiot cousin (and stole his dog and a knife from Curufin, good on her!), and I made my way slowly in good company (though regrettably less than I left with) back to my kingdom to reclaim it.

I have done so. And to my own great shame, I have also claimed a blood price from my half-cousin for his treachery against myself, and lechery and ill conduct against thy daughter my cousin.

I did not kill him, uncle, though I am sorry to say that I meant to. I have truly kind friends on my side—some relation of thine, according to thy daughter, a healer named Lilthanoss—who saved me from making a kinslayer of myself for those crimes Celegorm and his brother committed against me. Thou hast my apology for that as well, that I should have met thee in thy court with such hateful spite hiding in my own heart.

In any event, I consider my cousins’ foul deeds paid for on my end, though I will not grant them forgiveness that is not mine to give, but belongs to the ten dead in Gorthaur’s grasp. And, of course, thy daughter herself, for the insult held against her.

On a brighter note, though, uncle, thy daughter is well! At least, last we heard from her. Lilthanoss had sons and a daughter awaiting her arrival in Angband, for she followed Beren on the quest thou set him. The osanwë between them is more powerful than ought I have seen of many since Valinorë, and his eldest has reached him to confirm their flight from that dark place. Thorondor the great eagle carries dear Luthien now to safety and though I know not more of her, thou wilt surely be gladdened to know that she and her Beren have indeed claimed a silmaril!

Thou may wish to keep a close eye on thy northern borders, however, as he also claims that a deranged wolf the size of a small house will soon be haring across them, having swallowed another of the jewels and currently less than pleased with it inside.

I myself shall be making my way to Menegroth shortly to tender thee my apology in person, and to reunite Lilthanoss with one of his children, whom I am told Thorondor also carries. I hope that the lord of the skies has returned thy daughter to thee by the time we meet again, your majesty, and be wary of wolves!

With Love and Respect,

Finrod Felagund

King of Nargothrond

:::

“What the fuck,” says Elu Thingol, staring at the letter. His eyes skip over the words, not quite reading for he already knows their content well, having read it more than once already.

His wife, leaning over his shoulder as he sits on the window seat in their bedroom, where the cheerfully quarking blackbird had delivered the letter, does not seem properly perturbed.

“What the fuck,” he repeats, just for good measure.

He cannot decide it this month is better or worse than the last—finding that one’s daughter has been detained in a hostile kingdom by overtly hostile and lecherous kinslaying elves, versus finding that one’s daughter has successfully escaped said containment in order to break into and out of the lair of the Great Enemy himself—

Elu feels faint.

“What the fuck,” he says a third time, leaning back against Melian and tipping his head back to rest on her shoulder.

She pets his head consolingly. “Quite spirited, our daughter.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Elu mutters, half wondering why he even bothers with trying to keep her safe when she seems perfectly intent on walking herself into all the trouble in the world. The fact that she walks out of it fairly consistently is not the balm it might be, considering said danger. Next she’ll go waltzing through Nan Dungortheb for a picnic, he’s sure of it.

Elu sighs deeply. “We had best prepare the kingdom then,” he says. “I fear we’ll have to hunt a wolf.”

:::

“A party!” the sentries’ runner pants as Maglor and his brother turn to him in the doorway. “A party approaches,” he says.

Maglor sees Maedhros frown. “We’re not expecting visitors,” he says slowly, pushing himself to his feet. Maglor abandons the scout reports and follows suit.

The messenger shakes his head hurriedly. “Not from the south, my lord.”

Maglor’s eyes widen, while his brother’s expression hardens. “Outriders, Maglor,” he says. “Now!”

Chapter Text

For all that he may seem to be mostly healed, Beren is showing his wear and tear by the time they reach a decent place to ford the Mindeb. Pîngil dozes on his shoulders, his little hands fisted in Luthien’s lover’s thick brown hair.

Were Beren himself not stumbling every few steps, Luthien would smile to see him with the child. He’ll make a good father for their own, when that time comes. As it is she tucks herself under his arm, just tall enough to act as his crutch.

The river is fairly wide in most places, but the depth varies up and down the edge of the forest. Luthien passed this way in her flight to Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and is familiar with the territory.

She leads him out of the thicket to the bank where she’d crossed previously, guided herself by the trees who remember better than she does. It must have rained in the meantime—recently, even—for the river is nearly swollen with a fast-flowing current even at the shallowest and thinnest spot, but in Angband and on the burnt plains they saw it not.

“What ho?” calls a voice across the river as Luthien contemplates how exactly to manage this. “Do my eyes find that beauty whom I know hath gone from my woods?”

Luthien smiles. “They do! Ai, Belegmain! It is good to lay my own upon thee, for I have been too long from our home under the great green boughs.”

The marchwarden stands on the other side of the water and sets down his pack to open it and unearth a rope within. The water is strong but he’s stronger, making his way fleetly across the hidden rocky bottom.

“Dearest Princess,” he says, and she embraces him as he climbs up the muddy bank and out of the water. His bright red suede boots are soaked up to his thighs, but he doesn’t seem to mind, shaking off the water with a jingling of the bells sewn up the sides of his vest. “We were bitterly aggrieved by thy going, but the parting makes thy safe return the sweeter.”

“Safe indeed!” she says gladly. “And I have brought my Beren, my father’s quest through and done, though I find myself afeared of the consequences to come.”

Beleg nods solemnly, taking up his position on Beren’s other side after dropping a light kiss on the mortal’s forehead and blinking curiously at Pîngil. The rope he’d tied to a thick trunk on the other side of the river and then drawn across it. He hands her the end of it, thin but sturdily woven.

“Here,” the marchwarden says. “Luthien, if thou wouldst take the child…”

“Pîngil,” she supplies.

“Pîngil,” he agrees with a nod. “Take him and walk the rope—tie it to that tree there, yes—and I shall help Beren across beside it that we may mark a steady course.”

“Aye, Belegmain,” Luthien says, doing as instructed. Her purview is courtly behavior and dancing; she loves her mother’s forest, but she’ll bow to the marchwarden’s superior expertise in woodcraft. She lifts Pîngil lightly enough from Beren’s shoulders that he hardly rouses as she does so and cradles him against her chest.

“Belegmain?” Beren asks as Luthien climbs up onto the rope, gratefully leaning on the archer’s shoulder. “I had thought thou wert called Beleg, or else Cúthalion. When didst thou become my beloved’s?”

Luthien laughs softly so as not to disturb Pîngil and explains, “For as long as I have been alive, my love, and longer. Beleg is—well. The father of many, enough that it begs too much time and effort to address him as exactly whose specific ancestor.”

Beleg laughs like chittering tree rodents, scratchy but with no less true humor. Beren, in his kind way, barely gives the marchwarden a second glance for the sound. “Thou canst refer to me as I am, dancing bird! I get around, lovely Beren. Thy beloved’s father is my—oh, hum, three? Four?—four times great grandson, I think.”

Beren’s eyes go wide. Luthien grins at him, stepping lightly across the taught rope as her lover and grandfather slog through the water beside her.

“Thou didst not truly imagine him the eldest of elves!” she says.

Beren keeps up a brave face despite his sheepish smile. “He carries himself with a certain regality,” he hedges.

Beleg bursts into shattering laughter, then cuts himself off abruptly at a small sound from Pîngil. “Elu is a child,” he says cheerfully, though more quietly. “Or, perhaps, not truly ancient. Aye, he was born at Cuiviénen, but of a long line before him.” He sighs. “Most of them gone or much retreated now, despite my best efforts.”

Beren, who is more than familiar with that form of loss, nods consolingly. “I had not known,” he says quietly, his motions becoming slowly more labored as they cross the ford.

Luthien feels his pain deep in her chest as well, but is unwilling to release Pîngil to soothe him. “Well,” she says to break the tired, heart-weary silence. “We who descend from him call him our Beleg rather than wasting time on preciseness.”

Beren blinks, jerked out of his melancholy. “Thou’rt to be my kin!” he says, delighted in a muted kind of way.

Beleg winks. “Aye,” he says with a flashing grin, his too-sharp teeth catching the sunlight, a sign of his undiluted blood from waking at the lake. “Indeed I am.”

Luthien laughs again softly. “Pray, less encouragement, my love. He’s a terror enough as it is.”

Beleg smirks, but says nothing as Beren gives him a dubious look.

They make good time to the opposite bank and Beleg helps Beren up. The mortal sits on the bank, cradling his handless wrist to his chest and breathing heavily. Luthien kneels beside him with Pîngil on her hip, concerned.

“Is it the pain,” she inquires, “or exhaustion?”

Beren sighs and tips his head to rest against hers when she brings it close. “Can it not be both?”

The attempt at humor fizzles and dies as Luthien takes note of his carefully measured breathing.

Beleg kneels beside the mortal and lifts his injured arm, examining the wound carefully. “We need only make it to the tree line where the Queen’s power is strongest and I can call for a group to bear thee further,” he offers. “Thought they now gather in Menegroth to keep safe from the wolf who comes hence.”

Luthien frowns. What truly unfortunate news, though she did indeed see the great beast go.

Beren, Luthien knows, would much prefer to walk on his own two feet. She personally would like him to receive medical attention as swiftly as possible.

“Go fetch them now,” she tells the marchwarden. “I shall get my beloved up.”

Beleg nods and hurries away from the bank to where the trees are fuller and the forest of Doriath truly begins.

“Hold on now,” Luthien says to her lover, kissing his forehead sweetly. Pîngil, much to her delight, mimics her with a small giggle, wide awake and peering about from her arms. Beren laughs weakly too and reaches for her hand. She takes his with true and vibrant hope in her heart.

:::

“Huan?” says Maglor, confused. “For what purpose art thou now in this place? I had thought thee in Nargothrond with Celegorm!”

The dog, predictably, doesn’t answer him, instead nosing at the figure leaning heavily on him who had not halted on Maglor’s previous order, instead stumbling on with Huan limping beside him.

Maglor examines the exhausted elf, who upon looking closer bears to striking resemblance to a great many people. The Arafinweans, for certain; Artanis, Finrod, and also Daeron? Or perhaps Luthien, though Maglor has not met the famed princess to say so. But that can’t be! He doesn’t waste time dissecting it, instead hauling the bloodied and battered boy over the back of his own horse behind him.

His second, Eswë, does the same with the torn-up young elleth lying unconscious on Huan’s back, and the dog whines as he noses at Maglor’s knee urgently, encouraging him onward.

“Stay with Huan,” Maglor says to those of his escort not now carrying extra people. “Ensure that he makes it to the keep.”

Then he wheels and with Eswë in tow, directs his faithful steed back towards hill Himring.

:::

Glorfindel is here. Glorfindel is here!

And Glorfindel, of course, doesn’t know Elladan—or Gil-henë, as he introduced himself. Elladan half wants to cry about it, and is half busy marveling over the gorgeous, pristine city of his ancestors.

Well. It’s actually a bit too shiny for his taste; he might prefer something more like Minas Tirith in its heyday to this blatant attempt to collect and refract the sunlight a thousand times brighter. And despite the walls it’s not quite as defensible as he’d like, but still the place is full of architectural wonders and a bustling community.

He can see nearly the entire city from his vantage point—Gondolin has no dungeons, only a limited gaol for the occasional too-rowdy merry-makers or petty crimes, so they’ve stuck him instead in a tower, supposing that if they guard the stairs well enough, he can’t get down. Elladan hasn’t the heart to tell them that he could make it down the outside of the tower itself more quickly than Legolas could scale a decently sized tree—and the tree would help the wood elf do it, too!

He hasn’t been much constrained otherwise, apart from a thin silver chain threaded through manacle cuffs on his ankles. It’s only a little longer than his own forearm, so he has to shuffle a bit but he can still make it around the room. the chain is deceptively thin and light, only about the width of his two fingers together, though he’d wager a guess at it being much stronger than it looks. He doesn’t test it.

Ecthelion of the Fountain—or so Elladan put together from Glorfindel’s meager attempts as secrecy, had apologized as he put clasped the manacles on after the healers looked the Elrondion over. The king wishes it so, he’d said.

The king who Elladan has yet to see, despite being assured of Turgon’s interest.

He wonders what’s keeping his several-greats grandfather as he sits in the window seat. The room, at least, is appointed well enough—it looks to be a guest quarters, or something of the sort, though Elladan doesn’t know who exactly the king is expecting to have over.

The healers had worked quickly enough, wrapping up his hand and ribs, prescribing a salve for his bruises, and then passing him off to the guards again. It’s only been a few hours, but everything Elladan has heard about Gondolin always suggested a slightly more stringent guest policy.

Elladan closes his eyes against the slowly fading day out side, evening made blinding by the white white white everything of the city. As he has once or twice every few minutes since being locked in the tower room, he reaches for his twin.

Elrohir doesn’t answer him, but Elladan can’t tell if it’s distance keeping them apart, or something wrong with his other half. Nothing feels wrong at least, but he’s only getting flashes of emotion rather than words, which tells him his twin is focused on something far away from him. Elladan pulls back to let him do that.

He leans against the cushioned wall and peers down at the city again. The deep, wide, valley around it, crowding with shadows as night approaches, is like a dark velvet carpet to the stunning gold-lit backdrop of the mountains. Those, at least, remind him of home.

Elladan sighs, not for the first time. He’ll not rattle his chain and make a menace of himself, but he’s trapped in a small room with nothing but a mixture of boredom and worry to keep him company, and he’s going to go crazy sooner or later.

At last, there’s a faint stirring outside the room. Elladan fairly leaps to his feet, excited to finally be engaged with anything other than waiting.

The door opens and a number of guards file in, followed by Ecthelion and Glorfindel.

“His Majesty, King Turgon of Gondolin,” Glorfindel announces with a broad, embellishing sweep of his arm.

Through the doorway steps an absurdly tall elf in deep blue robes covered with complicated silver embroidery. Turgon Fingolfinion looks—well, a bit like Elladan’s family, which makes sense. His hair is dark as pitch, though in the lantern light and what seeps in from the window streaks of teak gleam through it. His skin is darker than Elladan’s, rich like coffee the way Erestor likes it; the barest hint of milk, no sugar. The Elrondion spots his own pointedly straight nose and flat brows as well as he stands to attention.

A twining silver and gold circlet rests on Turgon’s brow, and his eyes glow with deep light as his gaze sweeps over Elladan. The twin feels a bit like he’s failed some test he wasn’t aware he was being put to, and tries not to shrink under it.

A flush of embarrassment creeps up as he remembers proper etiquette, though it’s been a long time since he’s had to seriously greet any kings.

As Elladan bows, he hopes belatedly that the fact that his least-rusty courtly manners are derived from the Sindarin-Silvan mix Thranduil hosts in the Greenwood instead of anything Noldorin won’t be a problem here. He brings two fingers up to tap his forehead, then his lips, then his heart just for good measure before drawing them away, because this is his great-something grandfather.

“Rise,” says Turgon magnanimously. Elladan does so. “And you are…?”

Elladan almost says his true name for a moment, before remembering the very important con that time travel has made imperative. “Gil-henë,” he says, “Lilthanion. Your Majesty.”

“Please, have a seat, Gil-henë” Turgon gestures to the room’s small table, moving towards it himself. His guards spread out around the room (Elladan doesn’t see what he needs so many for, but has little time to ponder it).

Elladan sits. Glorfindel takes up a position at Turgon’s shoulder, while the Lord of the Fountain plants himself behind Elladan.

“You must first understand that the secrecy of my city is paramount,” Turgon begins. “And must not be compromised under any circumstances. In that vein, I have for you a few questions regarding your presence here, and then we must situate you here, depending on your responses.”

“Erm,” says Elladan, “yes.” The king nods at that and steeples his fingers together on the table in front of his chest.

“What manner of business led you to be carried by the great eagle?” Turgon wants to know first.

Elladan debates briefly over how truthful he can be here, and then says plainly. “I was held in Angband until the coming of Beren and Luthien who wrested me from bondage there, and as well three silmarils from the great foe’s crown.”

Glorfindel, who was shifting his stance, freezes. Elladan hears Ecthelion’s breathing stutter, and Turgon himself goes uncannily still.

Clearing his throat awkwardly when no one speaks, he continues. “That—Thorondor offered his back to bear us from the gates back to the Girdle, but there was not room enough for we three to be carried. Nor had he the strength, as he was forced to, er, lighten his load by dropping me in your fountain. Truly it was not my intent to remain here, or indeed find myself here at all!”

Turgon is silent for a long moment, then he speaks slowly. “This is truly momentous news. This is Luthien the daughter of Thingol?”

Elladan nods. “My kinswoman,” he adds, “through my father.”

Turgon’s eyes narrow as he contemplates that. “I was not aware that Thingol had many more relatives.”

Elladan shrugs a bit helplessly. “We are not closely tied,” he offers. Without his brother by his side, he can’t reach as far and find their father to clarify.

Turgon nods thoughtfully. “You told my lords here that the great eagle ‘stole your brother,’ is that correct?”

“Ah,” Elladan says, frowning. “Yes. My youngest brother, Pîngil, was with me upon capture, and so too we escaped with him in my arms. I had given him to Luthien as to keep him from danger, but it troubles me to know not of him now. He’s not yet four—I worry for him.”

Every elf within earshot hisses violently at that, including a particularly loud display from an elleth by the door. Elladan starts, wary.

“No child ought to be in that place,” Ecthelion bites out in explanation.

Ah. Yes. Elladan bares his own teeth in mute agreement. He and Elrohir had filed their canines to long, vicious points when they found themselves using their teeth in their hunts, and he can tell from Glorfindel’s slight flinch that the expression has its intended effect, on both elves and orcs.

Somewhat bitter, he says, “Well, he is gone from it now, but I’ll not celebrate to find him also separated from me again—and my sister and brother who could have likewise protected him.”

Not that he doesn’t trust Luthien to do an admirable job, but Estel is his father’s ward and thus his own responsibility as well, and being far from him with potential danger abounding leaves a sour taste in Elladan’s mouth.

“Should he not be safe then, behind the Girdle?” Turgon asks. Elladan suspects it’s as much a prod for information about the outside world as a weak attempt at comfort.

He lets his teeth flash. “Most likely, aye. But it remains my responsibility as the eldest to ensure it is so, and I am… disquieted by being so unable.”

Turgon’s regal face falters for just long enough that Elladan thinks perhaps he imagined it.

“I understand,” the king says eventually. “He shall have our prayers, then.”

Elladan blinks, but nods nonetheless to avoid being rude. In his time, the Valar and even Eru were typically more separated from more earthly matters, but he supposes he can hardly turn down any extra assistance.

“In the meantime,” Turgon continues, “you are now here, and we cannot, unfortunately, allow you to leave.”

Elladan knew that, in theory. It doesn’t make it easier to swallow. He hopes Elrohir can talk soon.

Turgon sits back in his chair, apparently more comfortable giving out instructions. “Because you’ve just come from Angband and I’m afraid trust is rather in short supply on that front, my daughter the Lady Idril, will evaluate you to ensure you are not a danger to our citizens. Then, we can see about having you integrated in the city.”

Elladan takes that in, and then nods slowly. “Aye, your majesty,” he says, and hopes Idril is not quite as powerful in osanwë as the few Gondolindrim histories they have paint her to be.

:::

Beren accepts a stretcher only after much protestation and a stern talking to from Beleg, who had to pull out all his years of experience herding his young and impetuous family members in order to convince him. The marchwarden then promptly stole Pîngil right out of Luthien’s arms and swung the giggling boy up onto his own shoulders, showing no signs of willingness to return him.

Luthien smirks at her beloved’s pinched face as the healer Melian sent from the nearest scouting group along with the carriers checks over his arm any the many other lesser injuries Gorthaur’s hospitality had left him with.

Beren grumbles wordlessly but lets the elf poke and prod him. The scouting group was carrying food, which is excellent because Luthien hasn’t eaten much at all in the last few weeks, and Beren has been barely subsisting on the last of the lembas left in the pack their grandson had given them.

“I shall not be carried into thy father’s court,” is his last defense as he’s shooed onto the stretcher and lifted so they can start moving. “I am missing a hand, Tinúviel, not both my legs!”

“Very well,” she acquiesces, “but thou shalt rest until that time is come! I worry for thee, dearheart.”

His irritated expression softens under her concern. “I know, my love. But I shall be well soon enough. I suppose I should not protest so this manner or delivery when already we have been aided and carried quite enough.”

Luthien leans over to kiss him gently, then takes his remaining hand as they march on.

“Princess,” says Beleg as they approach the entrance to the caves ensconcing Doriath’s capital, dropping down from the trees with Pîngil still sat on his shoulders, clinging to his head. “I assume thou hast a plan for thy entrance?”

Luthien hums. “I was rather imagining we might make quite the show of my beloved’s injuries—” her lips tighten, for she does love her father but no less it was him who led Beren into danger in the first place “—before presenting the silmaril which we retrieved.”

Beleg nods thoughtfully. “I’ll admit I’ve been away much of late, minding the borders and helping evacuate the sections of our beautiful realm which the wolf threatens—so I cannot tell thee what sort of mood the king is in. I know he has been—temperamental, recently.”

Luthien huffs. “I am sure thou meanst to say that my father is being most unreasonable about my romance, yes?”

Beleg hums, the tall heels of his boots crunching fallen leaves next to the flowers sprouting where Luthien steps. “A bit of an ass, aye.”

Luthien laughs and Beren, who has been silently listening as he’s carried beside her, chuckles painfully as well.

“Well,” the archer continues. “I know not exactly where thou hast achieved this one—” he reaches up to pat Pîngil on the head and the boy ducks to admit it “—but as a small, adorable child he might be utilized, I think, to quell thy sire’s ire should it rear its ugly head.”

“That’s the king you’re speaking of,” one of Beren’s carriers says mildly.

Beleg snorts. “I’ll speak of my own descendant however I should like. If he insists on acting the fool, I shall treat him as such. Though aye, ‘tis his temper that is loathesome, not his face.”

Luthien giggles a bit herself at the suddenly flouncing way her many-times great grandfather walks, as if to say, no one of my blood could ever be anything less than fabulous.

“A wise plan,” she agrees. Her father, like all elves, has something of a weakness for children. “As for his origins… well, that is a complicated tale in itself, but all shall come to light eventually, dear Belegmain, just wait and see.”

Luthien does, actually, have a plan for that. Though it’ll require a fair bit of maneuvering on several people’s part, and most of them don’t know it yet.

Beleg ruffles her hair with a shrieking snicker. “Thee and thy secrets, Princess. I shall wait in tense anticipation then, young one.”

Tense anticipation indeed is what awaits them in the throne room when they arrive.

True to his word, Beren demanded to be offloaded from the stretcher onto his own two feet as they entered the palace, for Luthien and Beleg would not let him up sooner.  He still sways a bit with every step as though his body means to give up and tip right over, so Luthien tucks herself up under his arm and he leans gratefully on the support.

Her most dearly beloved gives her a small appreciative smile, then focuses on making his way into the great hall of Menegroth.

Luthien has been feeling her mother’s power keenly since returning to Doriath, but here in the throne room it’s more of a miasma than anything. Luthien suppresses a wince as she feels the thread of her brother as well—she must have truly, deeply worried them.

Luthien had given Beren the silmaril before entering the room: though it would’ve been morbidly entertaining to have him pull it from down the front of her dress before her father, Luthien is not that cruel. He’d put it in a pocket of the cloak Beleg had thrown over his shoulders on the healers’ orders and doesn’t remove it as they approach.

Beleg slips around them with Pîngil in his arms and blends into the crowd as neatly as he always does.

“Hail, king.” Beren doesn’t bother projecting his voice as he greets Thingol. That’s alright by her, though. It was a harrowing quest, and the fault rests solely on her father’s shoulders. He deserves to know it.

“Mortal,” the king returns coolly. “Daughter.”

Luthien draws herself up and summons a blinding smile. “Father!” she cries joyously, feeling little of it. Her brother the bard is not the only one in Menegroth who can put on an act. Aye, she loves the king dearly, but that does not preclude her anger. “We return successful, and indeed with a silmaril in hand.”

Beren reaches into the pocket and withdraws said rock, and the murmuring court falls utterly silent. Then someone gasps, and there follows a chorus of awe.

Luthien tries not to sneer, for she is a gentle and loving princess, who knows no ugliness. Someday, she’ll throw off that mantle, but not while it still has use.

“I bring it before you,” Beren says, holding up the brightly glowing gem, “in my hand as I have said. Your price is paid, woodland king.”

Thingol is silent for a long moment, then he stands abruptly. “I shall speak to my daughter and… Beren alone,” he intones, and sweeps away towards a side door.

Luthien sighs through her teeth, clinging onto her smile as best she can. She tugs on Beren’s arm to implore that he follow her after her father. The Queen makes her own stately way out as well, and the room erupts in chatter as they leave.

“Come now, beloved,” Luthien says, letting Beren lean on her again. Her father will have retreated to an adjoining set of receiving rooms, so she leads her lover there.

Indeed, Thingol sits haughtily in a throne-like chair, draped in gems and velvet, tapping his fingers against the arms of it. Beren marches right up with Luthien and throws the silmaril down at the king’s feet.

Luthien helps her dearest one to a seat without asking for permission, but remains standing herself.

She can only be perfect for so long—nay, not even perfect. Compliant. Perhaps she has been dancing without a care for too long or, no. She doesn’t regret that. Luthien can recognize at least that she only really started caring when it was her own flesh and blood—loved ones or loved ones to-be—out beyond her reach. But now they are there, and her father still wishes to live in his cave, cut off from the rest of Beleriand.

Her father, who has leaned down to reach for the silmaril. He seems almost hesitant. Good, Luthien thinks, perhaps a bit more viciously than is her norm.

Luthien feels the room flood with power as her mother enters quietly and shuts the tall doors behind her, but makes no move to greet her.

Thingol stares at the gem in his hand, coming upright again. Luthien looks to Beren, who nods.

“It is indeed beautiful,” her lover says quietly. “But not, I think, as lovely as Tinúviel.”

Luthien’s father opens his mouth and she cuts him off sharply, biting out, “Aye, this Noldorin gem shines brighter yet than anything you have seen. You will yet worship this foreign treasure, but will not let me hold and love my own?”

Thingol pauses, gaping a bit like a fish. In any other circumstances, Luthien might find that amusing. She has had a thought, though, and while she really shouldn’t—

“I hold him dearly indeed, father,” she continues. “More precious to me than that stone you hold is to the kinslaying Noldor. And yet you would hold him from me as the Moringotto held the gems from them.”

Her father chokes on whatever he was about to say, his hand spasming around the silmaril. His eyes are wide and horrified, but it can’t be the first time he’s noticed the parallel.

“Thou shalt not compare me and him,” he thunders and moment later, the rock nearly forgotten as he stands up himself to tower over her.

There is a time and place to be his sweet, adoring daughter. It is not now. Luthien doesn’t back down.

“I shall cease when thou dost!” she cries. “If he was not wicked, they would not name him so. If thou had not been cruel to me, I would not have fled.”

Thingol goes pale and quiet. “I have no choice here, do I?” he asks eventually.

“No,” says Luthien. “It is good of thee to recognize it as such. Thou didst give thy order, and it was done. I have wish to be married, and naught more shall stay us.”

“I am not well pleased,” he tells her plainly, though she can tell, knowing him, that the slope of his shoulders reads defeat.

“Well neither was I when thou made to have my beloved killed,” she says plainly.

“I did not,” Thingol starts, but no one is fooled by that, including himself.

“What did we think would occur, my love?” The air trembles as Melian speaks at last. Luthien looks over to find her mother sitting beside Beren, with one hand on his shoulder, glowing, and the other holding his stump. “That the sons of Fëanor would simply allow it all? That our daughter would see the return of her heart? No.”

“He is mortal,” says the king, as if Beren is not there.

“Well I would have what years he can give me!” Luthien argues.

“I would give thee all,” Beren adds from his seat. His voice is less strained with pain after the Queen’s touch and Luthien rejoices to hear it.

“Not less only through the kindness of—” she catches herself just in time, “—strangers.”

Thingol’s eyes narrow. “Aye,” he says, “tell me of thy journey. Ye have brought not only thyselves here, but danger to our woods as well.”

Luthien frowns. Beleg had mentioned the wolf, but the fact that they were in Angband at all still reflects her father’s choices more than those of herself and Beren.

“First,” she says, “I would have thy blessing. Thou saidst thou would give it, given the silmaril thyself.”

Thingol glares, but eventually, as if with great struggle, he turns to Beren and says shortly, “My daughter is free to accept thy hand.”

There comes a sharp, crackling laugh and Luthien looks up. She hadn’t realized Beleg had slipped in behind her father, but smiles at the sight of him.

Beleg isn’t smiling though, and the image of her normally cheerful great-grandfather holding a faintly grinning babe without even the faintest hint of happiness on his face is just enough to give Luthien pause.

“Free to accept it,” he says bitingly as he steps forward. He has a way of moving with silence and grace that seems more of a glide than anything. Even when wearing the tall, heavy, branching antlers he’s carved with years of familial memory and hung with dozens of golden bells bound up in his hair, Luthien has not seen him once carrying himself with anything other than perfect smooth control. A testament to the power of the first generation, she supposes.

“Belegmain,” Thingol sighs, and he sounds for the first time very tired.

Beleg is rarely anything other than subservient to the king, at least in his presence. He swore to bow to his great-grandson many, many years before Luthien was born, but he’s never been afraid of disagreeing either. Sometimes that makes life difficult for her father, but Beleg is always worth listening too at least.

“Thy daughter was always free to take her Beren’s hand, just as she was free to give her own, Elu,” Beleg says. “Think not that it was any less than absolute love for thee that made her allow the quest thou gave him. Thou art lucky that she chose to stay, rather than untying herself entirely from our lands.”

Thingol looks back at Luthien, who nods, eyes hard. He looks stricken then.

“Thou would not…” he says, but he can see it on her face.

“I love him,” Luthien says, aware that she has to be gentle. “I have since I met him. I love you too, Ada, more than almost anything. I would not have liked to chose, but…”

The glowing silmaril hits the floor with a thunk and her father sits back in his seat heavily. He knows, she sees, that he could have lost everything. She doesn’t have to mention that she’d warned him.

Lips pressed together thinly, she sits on Beren’s other side and lays her own hand over her mother’s on his arm. Beleg bounces Pîngil in his arms and the child giggles. The archer then moves behind the sofa they sit on to meander back and forth there, booted feet making no sound on the carpet.

“Oh, powers,” says her father softly. He drops his face into his hands and tips it towards the floor, his leafy silver crown held in place only with his braids.

They sit in that silence for some time, then Luthien turns to kiss her lover on the forehead. “We shall stay, Ada,” she announces. “We shall marry come the full summer, and then stay.”

Thingol looks up. “Will you hunt the wolf, o mortal who holds my daughter’s heart?”

Beren tips his head. “Only because she gave it to me, your majesty. Yes, no, perhaps. I gave you the silmaril, so my own hunt is done. But if I am to marry Tinúviel, then Doriath will be my home and my people too. And it is them that Carcharoth now menaces.” He looks to Luthien. “I shall join this next quest if my love would bid me so.”

Thingol accepts that surprisingly quickly. He nods and turns to Luthien.

She wants to laugh and tell him that she is not her beloved’s keeper, as brightly as she might have not even a year past. But she cannot.

“Thou’rt healing, my love,” she says. “And t’was the wolf who injured thee so. I would have thee rest and regain thy strength, but neither shall I cut thee from a chance at revenge, should thou wish it.” Her lips twist as she says it, but she already knows what his answer will be, and indeed smiles as Beren gives her exactly what she’s expecting.

“Revenge lost any appeal when I regained something to live for,” her beloved tells her with a smile.

Luthien returns it and doesn’t kiss him solely for her father’s sake, though the king has done nothing particularly to deserve it. Something in her still wants to be kind, and she can’t quite regret that either.

She nods. “Do not chase the wolf then.”

Beren hums. “I shall not.”

Thingol sits up straight again, this time with more purpose. Luthien is somewhat gratified to see that he doesn’t reach for the silmaril right away either, bright and tempting as it is.

“A hunt must be put together in any case,” he says, “as the beast cannot be allowed to terrorize Doriath unimpeded.”

“I shall assist thee,” Beleg puts in and Thingol appears to notice him again, and his cargo.

The king’s silver brows furrow. “Where didst thou acquire a mortal child, Belegmain? Bring it here.”

Beleg comes forward with Pîngil willingly enough, well aware that the king would never injure one so small and defenseless—and indeed likely plotting to distract him entirely.

“The boy is called Pîngil,” Beren provides, “we stumbled upon him on our journey and could not rightly leave him behind.”

Pîngil is curious and cautious, but smiling in Thingol’s arms soon enough, and as predicted the king’s entire form relaxes to hold the child, smiling softly.

“What a lovely little one,” he murmurs, rocking the boy gently. Pîngil seems entertained enough, but Luthien suspects he’ll be hungry and tried sooner rather than later. That’s alright, though. If her father can handle anything, it’s cranky children.

Sure enough, by the time Melian releases Beren—far nearer to fully healed than Luthien herself or her grandson had been able to manage—Thingol seems quite enamored of the child, and Pîngil of him. The princess would be impressed if she didn’t know her father.

He waves the pair of them off without further commentary, and Beleg steps out the door with them as Melian closes in on her husband and the babe.

“He’ll get over himself sooner or later,” Beleg says with a surety that comes from raising more than a handful of his own offspring. “Ye twain ought to get some rest in the meantime. Perhaps thou shalt not participate, Beren, but we would not turn down thy expertise in planning, my dear scourge of Dorthonion.”

Luthien suspects Beleg has hunted and outrun things bigger and scarier than the many orcs Beren has killed, but it’s kind of him to make the invitation in any case.

“I shall certainly make myself available,” Beren says with a smile, probably catching exactly what Luthien did.

Beleg leaves them at the door to Luthien’s rooms with a wink and a smile. He very pointedly does not make several comments that he could have, but Luthien hears them anyway.

She throws the sturdy, deceptively slim and delicate-looking deadbolt the moment the door closes, and spins around to grin at her lover. Beren grins back, and then begins to laugh. Luthien joins him before she even thinks about it and soon they’re both on the floor, giggling uncontrollably.

Beren rolls onto his side on the rug and laughs and laughs. Luthien crawls over a moment later and kisses him hard on his grinning mouth. He sinks his remaining hand into her hair and pulls her closer, and Luthien goes gladly.

“Welcome home, beloved,” she murmurs against his lips.

They lie wrapped in each other’s arms for a while, their mirth faded but the air of comfort remaining. Warmth blooms from every point of contact.

“As long as thou art here with me, it shall be a good one,” he says quietly.

Luthien tucks her head against his chest with a soft, sweet smile. “All of thy days thou shalt have me with thee.”

Chapter Text

The boy’s head lolls against Maglor’s shoulder as the bard carries him to Himring’s well-equipped infirmary, and he pats it unconsciously. The elleth with him was quickly loaded onto a stretcher and will have made the trip faster than Maglor himself, carrying the not-especially small elf wrapped bodily around him like an elfling.

“Here,” Maedhros sounds wary, but holds open his arms anyway for Maglor to shift and lay the boy in them. He does so gratefully, Maedhros bending his knees to make the exchange less awkward.

“Many thanks,” Maglor huffs, catching his breath. He catches a glimpse of his brother’s face, though, as they head once more for the healing wing, and his following scoff is more exasperated than anything. “He’s unconscious, Nelyo, he was hardly going to stab me!”

Maedhros only shakes his head. Maglor supposes that “untrustworthy until proven otherwise” has held reasonably enough in the past, and doesn’t fight it. Even though— “Thou saw Huan was with them?”

“Aye,” Maedhros replies, “from the ramparts. Strange business, that.”

Maglor sighs, a bit of worry for his blond brother whom the dog is usually attached to bubbling up. They haven’t heard as much as he’d like from Nargothrond, of late…

“Well!” he claps his hands, blinking at them when he finds them grimy from carrying the elf. He wipes them on his trouser legs and carries on. “We’d best hope these ones wake up quickly, as we’ll not be getting an explanation out of the hound himself, I’m sure.”

“Right,” says Maedhros.

The redhead’s long strides eat up ground at a pace Maglor and his short legs have long been envious of, and they make it to the doors of the healers’ hall quickly enough. Inside is a bustling mess that Maglor has learned to keep his distance from, lest he be roped in or kicked out promptly. A few attendants take the exhausted elf from Maedhros’ arms without fanfare, and lay him on an empty bed.

“Pockets,” Maedhros says.

Rhosg—the head-healer’s second, in charge for the moment while her direct superior is out on a trip to Himlad—gives him a short glare but moves to rifle through the unresponsive elf’s clothing anyway, as is procedure. Too many incidents have warned them to be wary of failing to check for concealed weapons before tending those who come from Angband.

Then she pauses with a most strange look on her face, and from inside the ragged wrappings of the elf’s multi-layered tunic, she withdraws a slimaril.

Everything stops as the room becomes suddenly very bright.

Maglor stares. Maedhros stares. The other healers and attendants, scattered throughout the room, stare.

The boy on the bed groans softly.

“Shit,” says Rhosg and presses the hallowed gem into Maedhros’s slack hand. “Take that away from here, my lord! Everyone else back to—they won’t save their own lives!”

Maedhros staggers backwards as he clutches the silmaril. Maglor, still half numb, takes his brother’s elbow and drags him from the room, the double doors slamming unceremoniously behind them. Without much thought about it, he drags his looming brother down the hall and up two flights of stairs to Maedhros’s personal office.

Maedhros is mute, something like terror on his face. Maglor has no such limitations. “What the fuck!” he shrieks the moment they’re ensconced in the privacy of his brother’s office. “What! The! Fuck!”

“Yes,” Maedhros agrees.

“That child—praise be upon him, whomsoever the fuck he happens to be—stole an actual silmaril! From Morgoth!” Maglor can’t believe what he’s saying as it comes out of his mouth.

“Yes, thank you, please stop repeating it,” Maedhros grunts. He drops said jewel on his desk, then sits heavily in his tall chair behind it, still staring at it.

Maglor chooses to sit down across from him rather than repeatedly stating his shock anymore.

“I’m—” he starts, and is cut off by a low boofing outside the door.

Maglor stands back up, his knees feeling young and springy in a way they haven’t in ages, and steps back around his chair to let Huan in. The dog is still limping and covered in crusted grime, but seems intent on dodging the attempts of a healer to wrap his bloodied hind paw, dancing out of reach.

“Thank you,” Maglor says, taking the bandages from the poor healer. “I’ll handle him from here.”

“Yes sir,” they nod gratefully, and Maglor closes the door behind them on the way out.

“Huan, sit down just there,” Maglor says, “You’ll get blood all over the floor.”

“I shall not, though I thank thee for thy consideration,” says Huan, in what must be the most ancient form of Quenya Maglor’s ever heard, no matter that he followed his father to conferences with Rúmil on the topic on more than one occasion.

“What the fuck,” Maedhros chimes in.

“I shall remain upon my paws,” Huan says slowly, seeming more concerned with their comprehension than the fact that he’s speaking at all. “Though it is truly charitable of thee to waste thy limited supplies on me.”

Maglor blinks, taking a moment to decipher that. “It wouldn’t be a waste,” he says eventually. “You’re part of our family, and Celeg would kill me if I didn’t.”

The hound looks dejected at that and Maglor feels a flash of concern. “Is he well?”

“Unfortunately,” Huan huffs. “But not for lack of trying to ensure it is otherwise.”

“I—what?” Maglor starts.

“Pray allow me to speak my piece,” Huan stops him. “It is not often I do so, and I should like to.”

Feeling strangely chastised, Maglor shuts his mouth and sits back down.

“Thy brother,” Huan starts, sounding distinctly displeased, but in a very I’m less mad than disappointed kind of way, “has been party to several heinous crimes of late. Beren of the line of Bëor came unto Felagund’s kingdom seeking aid, and thy brothers turned him out with the king behind him—to Angband with intent to prize one of thy cursed jewels from the iron crown. Tyelkormo was… acting in a particularly foolish manner, but Beren and his lady love were being even more so, so I followed them and brought assistance as well in an effort to mitigate the damage.”

Maglor sucks in a breath. “You came to us not with a mortal,” he says, choosing to put aside the rest of that for later losing his mind over.

“I did not,” Huan agrees. “They are kinsfolk of Luthien, who raised herself also from Doriath to follow Beren. Long in the dark they have languished, waiting for a chance for flight from the black gates. It came.”

It’s Maedhros’ turn to take a deep, calming breath, his gaze finally tearing away from the silmaril. “They look less like thralls than those I have seen,” he observes.

Huan gives him a slow blink. “They escaped that place, did they not?”

“Helpful,” Maedhros mutters, though Maglor can tell that his deadly seriousness hasn’t left him. “This is the only of our father’s works they brought out?”

“Ah,” Huan replies. “No. The three are freed, provided that one flies to Doriath now, and the other goes that way as well in the belly of my enemy, the great wolf Carcharoth.”

Maglor chokes, because that may be one less certainty they have. “You fought him?”

Huan bares his teeth in answer, and speaks no more.

“Wonderful,” Maglor says, setting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers over his forehead to stare at the floor under them.

“We’ll need to write Nargothrond,” Maedhros breaks the hanging silence.

“Right,” says Maglor, forcing himself to his feet. “Yes. As for you Huan, I shall clean your wounds if I have to tackle you into a bath. We can’t have you taking ill now.”

The dog—maia, apparently; Maglor had always thought something was off about him—bows his shaggy head in acquiescence.

Maedhros nods as well. “I shall write our cousin then,” he murmurs. “And after that go to sit with our honored guests in their recovery.”

Huan boofs appreciatively and noses Maglor’s hand.

“I’ll join thee upon having washed and treated this one,” Maglor says, patting Huan’s shoulder.

Indeed he sits on a tall stool by his brother’s shoulder hours later, both of them working on the same paperwork they were completing upon the unexpected guests’ arrival. Huan, clean and as cared for as he’ll let them get close to him to do, sits at the bedside with his head laid over the ellon’s legs.

The young elf has been stripped and washed, then re-dressed in a new set of clean, loose clothing. The healers report a great deal of old scarring, but nothing immediately needing treatment apart from latent malnourishment and dehydration.

The hound lifts his head and Maglor looks up as his brother does the same beside him. Huan gives a questioning whine.

On the bed, the boy shifts, then groans. “Ada?” he calls, voice thin and scratchy. Smoke inhalation, probably. His hands fist in the sheets, fingers rubbing unconsciously against the softness. “El?”

Maglor looks to Maedhros, who nods.

“Hush now,” says the bard, sliding off of his stool to take the elf’s hand. “You’re alright, my friend. Can you hear me?”

Maglor reaches for the young elf’s face as he continues to writhe and whimper. His eyes are wide, silver-grey and watery, but there’s no recognition in them.

“Rhosg,” Maedhros calls, though not loudly. The only healer still on duty at the moment, she pokes her head out from behind a curtain where she was organizing some supplies and checking on the other, more wounded patient.

“Yes, lord? Ah, he wakes.” She approaches with a basket of healer’s things, beginning a swift evaluation of her patient. She doesn’t pry Maglor’s hands away from the boy’s face, so he doesn’t remove them.

“Eswë’s report suggests he was in quite a state,” she murmurs, examining the ellon’s rolling eyes. “I wouldn’t expect full lucidity just yet.”

And then, as if solely to defy her, the elf promptly snaps into full consciousness. Maglor sees it in his suddenly clearer eyes and Rhosg pauses as well. None of them move for a moment, then the boy coughs. “You’re not my father,” he says, and faints again.

“No,” Maglor agrees, blinking, “I am not.”

Rhosg doesn’t shoo himself or his brother away as her patient fades in and out of bouts of lucidity, occasionally calling for a selection of people Maglor doesn’t know and can’t provide for him. Maedhros sits quietly, though Maglor watches the tension slowly draw the blood from his steadily paling fingers where they grip the arm of his chair.

Finally, the boy seems to stabilize in an at least mostly present state. Rhosg goes to fetch some tincture or another for his throat. “In,” he starts. “Safe?”

“Aye,” Maedhros agrees lowly. “You are safe here.”

Their guest nods, more of a rolling of his head against the pillow than anything. “’imring?” he tries.

Maedhros, if anything, gets tenser. “Aye,” he bites out. Maglor debates the merits of comfort versus potentially getting his arm bitten off, and decides against putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Okay,” the boy sighs. “Good. Make sure they get the rock.”

Maglor feels the urge to laugh a bit hysterically at that. “We have it,” he assures the child.

The boy nods. “S’ry,” he says. “Threw the other one at—at, the big bad wolf. ‘e ate it. Had to.”

Maglor chokes on his bubbling laugher. “That’s—” he says.

Suddenly, the young elf sits straight up in bed. Maedhros lurches to his feet as well, and Maglor springs up. He can’t tell if his brother’s hand on his belt knife is preparation to defend or attack, and he doesn’t like it. The boy moves no further though, only beginning to look wildly around until Maglor has to grab his shoulders to still him.

“Where’s—” he gasps. “My sister, where’s my sister. I can’t—”

“Be calm, be calm,” Maglor tells him. “She’s alright. You brought her here very well and our healers are looking after her. You’ll all be alright.”

The boy puts a hand over his mouth and sobs into it, tears leaking from his silvery eyes.

“Shh,” Maglor hops up on the bed and opens his arms, and the elf tips into them, fully weeping. “All will be well, child, it’s alright now. Hush now, it’s all over.”

Maedhros looks blanky at him as Maglor tucks the poor boy against his chest, rubbing soothing circles on his back. Maglor tips his head meaningfully and his brother reaches out somewhat awkwardly to pat the head of short, messy black hair.

Maglor remembers a time when his brother could comfort like breathing, and crying children turned to him like flowers to the sun, his warmth drying their tears.

“You’ve done well,” the bard murmurs again, gentle. “It’ll be alright.”

Eventually the young elf regains control of himself and pulls back, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. He seems surprised to find clean brown skin no longer coated with the dirt of Angband and the smoke-choked plains.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “It’s been… a lot.”

“Thou hast naught to apologize for,” Maglor assures him patiently. He’s no Maitimo, but he’s not without experience of his own. “Wilt thou tell us thy name, child?”

“I am Gilion,” he says. “Son of Lilthanoss, and.” He takes a breath, half looking like he might cry again. “And—my mother.”

Well, Maglor’s not about to push on that front, though Maedhros doubtless wants all the information as soon as possible.

“My sister is Gil-neth,” he continues after a pause. At the raised eyebrow Maglor fails to suppress, a small smile blooms. It turns Gilion’s face from fearful frozen beauty to living enchantment, though it feels tired and old for all that he must be a young elf. “Something of a family tradition,” he explains. “You should fully blame my father. We certainly do. My elder brother is Gil-henë, and the youngest of us is Pîngil.”

Maglor snorts amusedly. “That’s definitely… a theme,” he says charitably.

Gilion runs a hand down his face. “I know, I know, I promise I’ve heard it all before.”

Maglor shakes his head lightly, still smiling as well. “I am Maglor Fëanorian, and my lord beside me is Maedhros. ‘Tis a pleasure to meet thee, star-child.”

Gilion taps his forehead with two fingers, then brings them outward and down. Something of a Sindarin greeting, Maglor thinks, though not one he can identify off the top of his head. “And ye,” he says.

“Would you be able to tell us your story, then?” Maedhros asks roughly. Maglor appreciates the soft edge to his brother’s voice; he’s always had a weak spot for younglings.

Gilion seems to steel himself, eyes distant for a moment, then he nods. “I should like to see my sister with my own eyes before I start, however,” he says. “I do not,” he bares his teeth for a moment in a mockery of a grin, an expression Maglor knows well on his own brother beside him, “I do not like to be so separated.”

“Understandable,” he says, and gestures to the curtain behind which Gil-neth lies.

Gilion untangles his legs from the sheets, and Maglor notices his bandaged feet just as the young elf swings them to the floor.

“Hold,” he says, but the boy is already putting his weight on them with a hiss as he lands on the ground. Gilion doesn’t stop, though, using the bed to support his weight as he steps forward.

Maedhros rounds the bed in long strides and scoops the boy up into his arms before Gilion can do more than yelp, just as Rhosg returns to the room.

“Hey!” she says. “What are you doing with my patient?”

Maedhros blinks at her as Gilion badly conceals a grimace in his hold. “He was helping me,” he says. “I need to see my sister.”

Rhosg squints, suspicious. “Fine,” she says. “She has yet to wake, but you may see her. And stay off your feet. You tore them right up running all the way across Anfauglith—after you ran through your poor boots. They need not suffer any further abuse!”

Gilion gives her a weak salute. “Yes ma’am.”

Maedhros dutifully carries the boy the rest of the way under the healer’s watchful gaze and snapping critique, and sets him carefully on the stool beside Gil-neth’s bed. The elleth looks peaceful in sleep, though Maglor doesn’t doubt she’ll be in hellish pain upon waking, with clean white bandages wrapping fully around her torso and one thigh.

Gilion leans over to tip his forehead against hers with a small sigh. “We did it,” he whispers. “We really did it, nethen.” He embraces her slumbering form carefully for a moment, then sits up and wipes his eyes again with the back of his hand. “Alright,” he says, turning back to Maedhros and holding out his arms in a demand that Maglor’s brother barely hesitates to fulfill. “I shall tell you now.”

:::

“Daeron,” Luthien says. Daeron freezes, his shoulders hiking up. After the search for his wayward sister, he had considered not returning to the capital at all, but eventually decided that he ought to at least proffer his apology and try to explain himself to her before he left entirely out of shame. Though it’s easier thought of than said, and he has admittedly been avoiding her since her return.

He turns around slowly, hanging his head. Luthien frowns at him. “Come with me,” she says plainly, and takes him by the wrist to drag him after her, as if it were any other day in their youth.

Her rooms are bright and airy as always, though it does nothing to smother Daeron’s anxiety. He takes a few deep breaths as she closes the doors behind them.

“Luthien,” he says quickly, dropping to his knees on the soft carpet. He stares at the hem of her skirt rather than meeting her gaze, his words stumbling over each other in a way they never do. “I know that what I did was cruel, but I did not mean to hurt you—in truth it was only my wish to keep you safe from the harm that may have befallen you, with a stranger in our woods. I should have known that Melian our mother would let you come to no harm here. It is my deepest regret, and if you cannot forgive me—”

“Daeron,” she says.

Daeron shakes his head sharply, looking up. “If you cannot forgive me, I would accept it. Throw me out then, banish me, for I have done you evil.”

Luthien watches him with fever-bright eyes that match his own in shape, size, and hue. “Thou knowest not evil,” she says eventually. “Thou didst me harm, but I knew ere even I left that it was not for thine own sake but mine.”

Daeron sighs softly, and doesn’t feel much better.

“I shall not then banish thee,” his sister continues, holding out her hand. “But I have a task that thou mayest do if thou wishest to reconcile thy heart with me for true.”

“Anything,” Daeron says, raising to one knee but not standing. He takes her hand and kisses the back of it.

Luthien snorts in a distinctly un-lady-like manner, and Daeron grins at her.

“Then I will tell thee that I am soon to have an heir,” she says. Daeron chokes on his smile, but not because he’s upset with that.

“Thou’rt with child? But thou’rt not yet married!” he says. “Oh Lu, Adar will have his head—”

Luthien smiles and shakes her head, not quaking with nearly as much terror as she ought to be, though he supposes she did go to Angband itself for her Beren already.

“He shall not,” she consoles him, “for I am not yet pregnant. Though I know that I will be, for I have met my own descendants.”

Daeron chokes again, for a different reason. He knows his sister is not mad, or anywhere close to it. She’s probably more sane than he is! That fails to explain why she’s presenting him with impossible truths.

“But come!” she claps her hands. “Sit on the bed with me as we were young, and I shall tell thee of it. ‘Tis a marvelous tale indeed!”

Daeron does as directed. Making his way from the receiving room to the bedroom, he hops up onto the plush comforter and settles against the headboard. Luthien retrieves the bowl of berries from the table in the anteroom, then joins him with sticky fingers.

“I went from Nargothrond to find my Beren, and there in Gorthaur’s tower I found a most interesting surprise as well,” she says.

“Wait,” Daeron begs. “Start from the beginning, my sister? Only I should wish for the story entire from thy mouth, lest I be relegated to seeking out an inferior source.”

She grins again and shakes her head, but does indeed start over from the moment their mother told her of Beren’s peril. Daeron listens, lyrics and a theme finding their way through his mind already.

Luthien swats his arm and her brother jerks. “Stop composing verse behind thy eyes and listen to me!” she says laughingly. “This is the important part.”

“My apologies,” Daeron replies sheepishly. “I’m listening.”

“Elrond Peredhil, he said, and named himself my great-grandson.” Daeron frowns, but she continues to clarify. “We are of the thought together that when I tore Gorthaur’s tower from him, I may have unintentionally pulled Elrond himself through time. And not only him, but his own children. Only, they landed not like him close to me, but far off in Angband itself, which is in large part why Beren and I moved in all haste to rescue them.”

Daeron shudders at the thought of anyone trapped in Angband. Though he knows there are many there, the fact remains that he is personally helpless to aide them, so he dwells not on it. But Luthien—

“Ye found them?” he asks.

She nods. “We did,” she says, “or they found us and helped me weave song such that all the dark fortress slept as we crept about to complete our quest.”

“Incredible,” Daeron says seriously. “Thou art amazing, Lu.”

His sister laughs like trilling bells, like fresh air in his lungs. “If thou sayest so, my singer,” she returns. “Now. I have not brought all of them here, only the young Pîngil, who—well. I’m unsure of the exact relation, but I gather he is taken as a brother to Elrond’s children, and certainly related to me in some way, though he seems markedly more mannish than elven.”

“And thy task?” Daeron asks, an idea of what it may be creeping in his mind.

“I have no children, as yet,” Luthien says, staring into the bowl of berries in her lap, of which she’s eaten few throughout her telling. “Yet Elrond Perehil and his own look so like me it is as if a mirror has been only faintly distorted.” She looks up. “The court would surely have noticed had I carried a child at any time, Dae.”

He nods. “Thou needest me to bring the line of their blood into our house, rather than thyself,” he guesses.

His sister nods. “Thou’rt often with one or another courtier by thy side,” she says slowly, “thou couldst perhaps fabricate a relationship…”

Daeron feels himself pale. “Or Adar will have my head,” he finishes. Luthien nods again mutely. “Oh dear,” he says. “I suppose I had best begin looking—I am certain I can find someone so discreet…”

“And a mortal,” Luthein adds.

Daeron groans and drops his head into his hands. “Yes. And a mortal.” At the look his sister gives him, he’s swift to explain: “I take not issue with the fact of their race,” he says, “but the fact that I know precious few, despite my many wanderings. And most of those I could mention are either very dead now and recalled in stories that mention me not, or far from old enough to have spawned adult children with me—and with grown children of his own, no less!”

“Oh,” she says, “hum.”

“Aye, oh hum,” he repeats. Then he sighs. “Nonetheless, I shall begin my search. But thou saidst there was one here?”

She smiles. “Indeed. Pîngil is down for his afternoon rest at the moment, but he’ll wake in a few hours. He is only three years old, and still recovering from the miasma of Angband—thou’rt very deeply concerned.”

Daeron nods immediately, schooling his face into one matching the emotion (not that it’s very difficult, as he is concerned). If there’s one thing he can do, it’s perform. Speaking of which—

“Hast thou informed Adar of the identity of the child in residence?” That may be important.

“No,” she says. “I’ve said little of him but that we stumbled across him and could scarce leave him behind. I am sure Adar will hardly mind a late coming explanation, however. Thou knowest how he is enamored of children.”

Daeron nods. “Of course,” he says, “I won’t have seen him here for some time, because I’ve been avoiding thee. I suppose I shall continue to do so until such a time as I have secured a past spouse, and then I shall conveniently run across Pîngil, and recognize the child.”

“Perfect,” says Luthien with a dazzling grin. “And thou shalt meet him now when he wakes, to secure the ruse. I knew thee for an excellent partner in this mischief.”

Daeron swats at her half-heartedly. “Thou hast known it ere we were small,” he argues.

“Aye,” his sister says, poking him in the ribs just to hear him yelp. “But evidence has been less than strong of late—”

“I am doing thee a favor,” Daeron cuts in, playing at being offended.

“Thou’rt in it for the drama,” she laughs. “Deny it not, I know thine heart!”

Daeron laughs too at that, and though there’s certainly more to it, he can hardly deny her. “Menace,” he names her affectionately.

“Aye, but thy menace,” she says, taking his hand and squeezing it. “And nevermore the twain shall part.”

Daeron closes his eyes and tips his head against his sister’s where it rests on his shoulder. “Something like that,” he agrees. “Something like that indeed.”

:::

“I’m not a child,” Gilion grumbles as Maedhros sets him carefully back on his bed, making sure to catch his bandaged feet with his own arm before they hit any part of the frame.

“Of course not,” says Maglor indulgently. When Maedhros looks at him, he nearly laughs at the blatantly clear urge on his brother’s face to tuck the boy’s blankets up to his chin and wish him sweet dreams.

Sweeter at least than the nightmares Maedhros still suffers many years after his captivity. To have been trapped with those he cares about in harm’s way—well, he can imagine, and he doesn’t like it. He only hopes the last two brothers Gilion told them of made it safely to their destination behind the Girdle’s encirclement of protection.

The youngest, at least, is very definitely a child, and Gilion was willing to admit that. He seems very protective of his siblings, and indeed demanded to see his slumbering sister once more before being left for the night. Though with a mildly petulant expression, he’d allowed Maedhros to carry him back and forth again on pain of intense scolding if he walked.

Gilion grumbles some more, but hasn’t told them his actual age and doesn’t appear to be planning to. Maedhros would guess that he either doesn’t know it—which seems unlikely, even for those born in the years of the trees before the sun—or is unwilling on the basis of indeed being a child.

He certainly looks it—Maedhros has been surrounded by the ageless eldar all his life, yet he’s hardly seen an adult who looked quite so innocent and youthful. It may be the wide silver eyes, or just something about his face, but Gilion looks distinctly young in a way that very, very few Noldor do anymore, mired in a state of war as they are.

True youth or not, though, he suspects Gilion and his very similar sister will have half of Himring eating out of their palms within a week of her waking, and or as soon as he can get back on his feet. Children tend to do that to elves and Maedhros, who helped raise a good number of them, is well aware of it.

“Here,” Maglor had run down to the kitchens to fetch a small but filling meal while Gilion badgered Maedhros about carrying him, and he sets the tray now on the small rolling table beside the elf’s sickbed. “Rhosg has informed me that thou’rt not to have any food too hearty for the sake of thy stomach, but thou ought to try to keep something down at least.”

Gilion can’t have had a solid, full meal in days—or perhaps even weeks, depending on what he was able to scrounge while dodging about Angband after breaking from their guards, as he claims—but still he eyes the bread and broth a bit suspiciously. Maedhros can’t blame him; it took him quite some time after Fingon rescued him to graduate to eating real food again himself.

“Don’t make me feed it to thee,” Maglor says humorously. He picks up the spoon, gathers a bit of broth into it, and dances it through the air towards Glion’s mouth, not spilling a drop. “On rusheth the dubiously flightless chicken, of less than impressive directional capabilities—open the coop!”

Gilion pulls a disgusted face and takes the spoon from Maglor, closing his mouth around it almost vindictively. He waves the empty implement at Maglor a moment later, poking the air viciously. “A lord you may be, but I would scarce hesitate to stab you with this were you the high king himself if you actually went through with that.”

“Fear not!” Maglor says cheerfully. “I’m not a lord, so thou dost not threaten anyone of any particular importance. Proceed accordingly!”

Gilion blinks at him. “You are not? But Lord Maedhros is your brother—”

Maedhros sighs, tugging Maglor out of spoon range by the back of his shirt and looking pointedly at the bowl until their guest gathers up more broth. “This one refused to retreat from his Gap when the fire came,” he says tiredly, assuming Gilion is familiar enough with the Dagor Bragollach. “And then the dragon.”

Maglor is still smiling, though to Maedhros’ practiced eye it’s tight and strained. “Avoid disobeying thine elder brother, Gilion,” he advises. “He may strip thee of rank and title and have thee arrested for insubordination.”

“And personal endangerment,” Maedhros adds sharply. “Don’t try to—” he stops. Gilion is endearing, but it’s already made him reveal more than he’d meant to, and Maglor evidently is not even trying to help.

“I haven’t gotten around to reinstating him,” he finishes, instead of explaining that Maglor won’t have command of any significant numbers again until Maedhros trusts that he won’t attempt to throw his own life away with it. Maglor took the fall of the Gap hard—as one would, Maedhros imagines, after years of holding it under the weight of all the people living in safety dependent on it.

“Oh,” says Gilion softly. His expression is one of stark pain and understanding. “I see. Though I believe, of our number, t’would be Gil-henë himself on the chopping block for stepping between us and danger. No, I understand completely.”

He brightens minutely with another sip of broth. “In that case, Lord Maedhros, I shall threaten your brother with impunity, and this spoon!”

Maedhros rolls his eyes. “Finish your dinner, ch—Gilion. Maglor and I have business to attend to minding the keep, but we’ll as like return this way on the morrow to see to thee and thy recovery.”

Gilion nods and takes a small bite of the chunk of bread. “Aye,” he says quietly, noticeably subdued without his humor to bolster him. “Good night, my lord. And Maglor.”

Maglor smirks an unhappy little smirk and nods to their guest before turning on his heel and trotting from the room. Maedhros follows after more slowly, though it matters only a little with the difference in the length of their strides.

“I don’t doubt he has parents,” Maedhros points out when he catches his brother in the hall.

Maglor doesn’t even twitch, his step not faltering. “I know not what thou could possibly be referring to,” he says blandly.

“Maglor,” Maedhros says, exasperated. “He is not one of our children to coddle, and if you steal him I suspect the boy’s parents will find pounding on our doors easier than doing the same to Angband.”

Maglor sniffs. “Thou handled the child awfully tenderly for someone professing that we ought to throw him out.”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” Maedhros replies flatly, well used to his brother twisting his words.

“Then we shall keep the pair of them,” Maglor says promptly, as if that was the deciding statement. “It’s been too long since these halls saw younglings.”

He means forever. And he means elflings. And he means my wife is dead with my unborn babe in her belly and you and Finno are not doing nearly enough to accommodate me.

“They aren’t infants, Maglor,” Maedhros sighs, though he reaches out and tucks his brother under his arm, not missing the way the bard shudders slightly against him. “You cannot treat them as such.”

“I shan’t,” Maglor says quietly. “I just—I’m sure we have space for them. Just for a while.”

“Just until their parents come looking,” Maedhros stipulates.

Maglor is silent for a long while. They’ve nearly reached Maedhros’ office by the time he speaks, and when he does his normally pristine voice, only occasionally scratchy from the smoke of the Bragollach, breaks over the words.

“When Gil-neth wakes,” he says, “we should send them south to Caranthir and Ambarussa. It is not… fair, to keep them in danger here.”

Maedhros nods in agreement, unwilling to break whatever peace Maglor has come to by opening his own mouth.

They have reports to go over and supply lists to check, and settle in the Lord’s office as evening wears on into night.

One of the keep’s message runners brings them a letter from the dovecote when the candles are nearly worn completely down. Maglor takes it and thanks the girl, evidently prepared to put it aside for the next morning and shoo his older brother away to sleep. But then he pauses, blinking at it.

“We were expecting ought from Nargothrond?”

Maedhros glances over, frowning. “Not that I’m aware of, but then with all the upheaval there it’s not surprising… give it here.”

The river-and-columns stamp is indeed their cousin’s sign and Maedhros cracks it quickly with practiced fingers to skim the contents. Then he pauses and re-reads, and it’s not due to difficulty with Finrod’s impeccable tengwar.

Maglor is giving him an inquisitive look when Maedhros tears his eyes up from the page.

“The children are—” he starts carefully. Finrod is a beloved cousin to them all—though apparently less to some than he’d thought—and Maglor in particular adores the kingly Arafinwean. This could get dangerous for several people very quickly, even with Maedhros’ tight control over his own temper. “They belong to a healer of Thingol’s kin, who Finrod has with him. Our brothers have,” he stops.

“Nelyo?” Maglor asks pensively.

Maedhros forces out a harsh breath. “Alive. They’re all alive, but—fuck. Someone grab my golden beard before I invent another dimension of kinslaying.”

“Oh dear,” says Maglor, reaching for the letter. Maedhros holds back a burst of hysterical laughter only with the strength of long, long practice.

Chapter Text

Dearest Carnistir—

Interesting happenings in Nargothrond of late. Though it is possible that news of recent events may reach thee before this letter does, like as not through Maedhros’ furious ranting. Thou shalt be pleased to know that Celegorm and myself yet live and are well. Cousin Finrod has yet to remove us, and we may well remove ourselves before that point, but for now we remain on sufferance and the dubious relationship between that alluring relative of ours and our dear brother.

              This is not what I have written thee for, though if thou should wish to speculate, gossip, contemplate that wonder of the world together at a later date, I will gladly make myself available.

              Finrod, though having left in just less than disgrace on his quest with the mortal Beren, suitor to Thingol’s spawn, returned to much fanfare, trailing a supposed healer of Doriath. Said healer, by the name of Lilthanoss, is some sort of cousin to him, through Olwë. Or so we are told.

              Carnistir. I know thee to be holding a living secret close to thy chest; thou art not nearly so subtle as to obscure entirely the nature of it. We would have hoped, as thy beloved brothers, that thou might perhaps have told us when thou chose to shack up with a partner (or two). This is an opportunity to come clean, or I fear I needs must go straight to our eldest brother with this most wonderful familial news.

              I shall grant thee a grace period to respond, on the note that we may well be moving soon enough (but then, perhaps not), and thy letter shall have to find us where we land.

With love,

Curufin

PS. Thy son appears in need of an actual father figure. Step up, Moryo, or expect to shortly find thyself supplanted in the records because I have claimed him under my branch before thou did. I am certain Telperinquar will be delighted with his new sibling.

:::

Darling Curufin—

              Damnably, I’ve been found out. I shudder. I quail.

              You’ll have neither son of mine, as I’ll write Himring to file Lilthanoss and Erestor as soon as this letter is gone from my desk.

              Fuck you kindly.

Yours,

Caranthir Fëanorion

:::

Dear brother,

             Not one secret but two! What amazing communication our family perpetuates—here I thought I had been the only one working towards father’s grandchildren goal. Pray, who art thy spouses that thou hast so successfully hidden? I had not thought thee much for fraternization with Doriath.

With glee,

Curufin

:::

Curvo.

              My sheets are none of your damn business, so I’ll thank you to keep your pointed nose out of them.

Yours,

Caranthir Fëanorion

:::

Prince Daeron, Minstrel of Doriath,

              Allow me to prevail upon thee for but a moment, though I know thou art scarce willing to offer more than that for the begging of a kinslayer—but dost thou wish not for a path back into Luthien’s good graces? Pray, hear me out.

              Thou hast met my late wife in thy wanderings in Brethil—deny it not, I know it for true because she did speak of thee now and then upon those occasions when we could see one another—and I pray that for the sake of thy friendship with her and for love of her family, thou wouldst be kind enough to work with me, here.

              I do keep in touch with gossip; ‘tis an integral part of foreign relations, as I’m sure thou art well aware. And I hear, in paying attention, that thou hast somewhat fallen from grace in the eyes of thy esteemed sister, who is herself the subject of Thingol’s ire regarding her choice in partner. What I am offering is a way to give her cover from the line of fire by drawing thy father’s attention to thyself.

              That is to say, I’m adopting a child in the interest of stealing him straight from my brother Curufin’s grasping clutches. Said child claims three unnamed parents and (perhaps distant) relation to Luthien herself, which she purportedly corroborates, and I only have the one partner. Thou need not play at any mockery of even friendship with myself now, if thou dost not wish it, but I shall ask in any case; wilt thou marry me? Retroactively.

              Thou may of course have thine own parental rights over Lilthanoss, should thou find it in thine interest. As said, I do this mainly to aggravate my brother who has so wronged thy dear princess. And because any child Curufin would seek to claim (though he remains at present already under the impression that the boy is in fact mine) is certainly worth snatching up as my own.

              Thy only responsibility then would be to tell thy father in front of thy sister of thine… indiscretion, in marrying me, and the associated political mess. I should hope that thou wilt enjoy the moment appropriately.

Hopefully thine in partnership,

Caranthir Fëanorion

Lord of Amon Ereb

:::

Fëanorion,

              I like your brother more than yourself, at least that one that is so musically inclined. However. The proposal has merit. For dear Haleth—may her soul rest in peace—I consider it.

             And for my dearly beloved sister, who has come to me of late with a most interesting proposal, oddly akin to yours in nature and specificity. That is to say, I too am in search of a spouse that I may claim that child of which you speak.

             I think we may have already come to an agreement on this matter. I need to have been hiding a spouse, you need to have been hiding a child. The fact that it is you I bind myself to shall stir up the court like nothing else, I imagine. My sister is mightily pleased, and after giving both her blessing and various dubious encouragements that I shall not mention here for fear of scandalizing the very parchment, is prepared to throw confetti upon the announcement.

            So yes, I shall marry you. You had best be prepared to grant me some small spousal concessions, o Lord of lost Thargelion. As this letter leaves, I make ready to do so myself. I shall see you in three days in the fifth wayhouse on the river Aros, and we may then discuss the specifics of this venture further.

-Daeron, Bard of Doriath

:::

Brothers,

              Why. Why does none of my family see fit to tell me anything of their personal lives, ever? What have I done to you lot that I’m suddenly less deserving of hearing your joys and sorrows in equal measure? Don’t mistake me, I am very serious. I fail to understand this ridiculous phenomenon. Am I not the head of this House?

              If I don’t receive at least four letters in return to these, I had best see those faces who have not bothered to pen me in Himring within the month to explain yourselves. Or perhaps it hasn’t occurred to any of you that your spouses and children are rather important to our House and should be filed in our records upon birth or marriage—if not so that I may congratulate and rejoice with you, but because they concern the succession?!

              Respond post haste.

Maedhros Fëanorian

Lord of Himring

Warden of the East

:::

Nelyo,

              As though I could escape thee if I tried. I hope that despite receiving a copy of thy letter it was not in fact directed to myself and my own activities.

              Is there not a “Prince Consort to the King” missing in thy parting signature, o Lord of Himring, thou great hypocrite?

Thine as ever and with much amusement,

Maglor

P.S. Are we not sharing a keep, dearest brother? Needst thou truly waste the parchment and messenger who had to hunt me down in the very halls of Himring? Or did my presence here merely slip thy mind in thy immense irritation? Get some sleep, darling, the east shall hold without thee for an hour or two.

:::

Mae,

              I’m sleeping with Finrod. Or was. But we’re still talking. I think. It’s complicated. Good enough?

Love,

Tyelko

:::

Maedhros,

              Seeing as it concerns the succession—my son has disavowed our family. But we’re still talking. I think. It’s complicated. Good enough?

-Curufin

:::

Einiorrussa,

              Ambarussa has adopted a bear! It’s adopted me, Neylo, not the other way around. I swear I didn’t even feed it it just keeps following me. Adopted! A bear! And you’re courting a marchwarden now, what of it? Fair enough, I suppose. Nelyo wants to know about our lives so I’m telling him, that’s all. The bear is hardly important, Ambarussa. I think she is. You should train her to bear you around (ha!) that you may ride into battle on a truly majestic steed. I’m telling your horse that you said that. Try it, twin mine. I know where you sleep, and I’ll eat my crumbliest crackers on your sheets.

Menaces as ever,

Yours with love,

Ambarussa

Chapter Text

Idril is exactly as powerful in osanwë as the histories paint her to be. Which is unfortunate. Elladan feels a bit like he’s just sat down for tea with his grandmother and is attempting to hide exactly how many injuries he entered her woods with despite her previously warning him off the exact activity which landed him with said injuries.

Mostly because Idril gets into his head before she even sits down across from him, and he is scrambling to close doors in his mind before she even enters the room.

Turgon and his guards have remained, though Turgon gave up his seat at the little table for his daughter to take, and Glorfindel stayed at her back instead of the king’s. Once more, Elladan wants to take a minute and ponder the oddity of the guard situation, but he really can’t afford to be distracted.

“Tea?” Idril asks, smiling prettily as one of her ladies places a tea service on the table. She’s blonder than Galadriel and just as beautiful, with wide blue eyes and clear, coffee-toned skin.

Elladan pastes an expression of interest and enjoyment on his face as he accepts. He has a sister; he knows how to play these games.

“Have you ever shown someone your mind?” she asks, her voice gentling as if she’s speaking to a questionably grumpy wild animal.

“I have,” he says. And not only with his twin bond; working with his sister and parents and Galadriel, Glorfindel and Legolas, once or twice, and even Haldir of Lothlorien on one truly desperate occasion.

“Excellent,” she says. “Then I shall reach out, and you receive, and we should be done here quite swiftly.”

“Perfect,” he agrees, flashing his sharp teeth. As pretty and polite as you please, they sit across from one another and close their eyes.

First he feels her presence wade through his surface thoughts, then she stops as she comes to his mental shields, held in place through long practice and usually shored up with his brother’s power as he helps shape and detail Elrohir’s own.

She taps politely on his mental door, and he shows her Angband.

She raps her knuckles harder against it, plucking at the flurry of his surface thoughts that are exposed, and he shows her the mind-numbing dread and terror of being in the presence of pure evil.

She hikes her skirts up and kicks the door, hard, and Elladan gathers up the trembling hope of himself and his siblings lost in the dark, then the jubilation of seeing the slumbering dark lord, and ecstatic white-warm-fire flush of the gems in his hands, the joy-terror flight from the gates, and the distilled fury of being dropped and landing in the fountain. He shoves them all at her, and waits patiently through her thorough examination.

This is well and good, she says eventually, I too am glad for your escape. But with your mind closed, how can I tell if there is a moldering evil lodged behind it, tucked away and twisted out of your own memory?

That’s a horribly uncomfortable image, Elladan thinks. He’s fairly certain there isn’t. Would Morgoth have let someone get away with the Silmarils for the sake of a petty ploy? he asks.

Hm, she says, which is not an answer. Open the door, she says, her voice an echoing thrum of pure power which very nearly makes Elladan do it. But he’s trained with his grandmother, who had more skill and experience than Idril does—or ever will, considering the age gap and maia apprenticeship—and he knows how to protect himself.

I cannot, he bites out. He needs to think of a better excuse than that and he knows it—

The princess plucks that thought from the surface of his mind that floats beyond his locked and hidden recesses.

Why? What are you hiding from me? Idril’s power pulses, and Elladan feels his face wince, even as his attention remains locked inside his head.

He also knows when he’s outmatched. The future, he says, taking a gamble. The past. I am a Seer, Idril Celebrindal, Silverfoot, daughter of Turukano and Elenwë who fell for you on the ice—

“Stop!” He can’t tell if she meant to say it out loud as well as in their heads, but several people in the room shift as he opens his eyes and finds her staring at him. His breaths are coming shallowly, so he focuses on taking few deep breaths and shoring up his walls before he feels her presence again.

You could have— she starts, someone could have told you that.

Who would? Elladan gives her a mental shrug. If this is what he’s going with, he supposes he might as well dig his hole in deeper. I can tell you things I cannot possibly know, if you’d like.

Idril is silent for a long moment, then she says, Tell me.

If Elladan remembers his histories properly, then— Aredhel, your aunt and princess of the Noldor, was killed by a poisoned dart thrown by her own husband the dark elf Eöl, who was then hurled from Caragdûr for his crime.

Idril does not respond to that for a long few moments, and when he peels one eye open, he finds her staring at him in a patently unladylike manner. He closes his eye again, hoping she’ll take the hint.

Why would you not tell me that to begin with then? she asks, and he can feel her mentally re-ordering herself.

Knowledge of the future is a thing that many would hope to claim for their own, he points out, because it’s true. It is not without its dangers, nor is the future set in stone.

Are your visions many and terrible, then? Idril wants to know. At least she sounds more curious than disbelieving, he reasons.

Well… No and yes, he says frankly. But, my lady, before you ask—are you familiar with the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

She pauses. You’ve seen much of Gondolin, then?

Elladan grimaces. If I do not wish to tell you?

Idril thinks about that for a long while. He feels her thoughts sweeping around his own in graceful currents, but they don’t try to connect or pick out bits as before.

I have to ask that you share with me anything that is a threat to my home, so that I may inform my father, she says at last. But if you fear we may act in a way that brings about the less desirable end, then speak to me of that too, and we shall make all attempts to avoid it.

Elladan nods slowly. In a number of years, he says, then pauses. He sighs. Aredhel’s son. Your cousin. He’s not—I need to, well. This will not matter for quite some time, but Gondolin will fall.

Idril chokes, loudly. The room erupts in motion, and within a breath someone has yanked Idril’s chair with her in it back out of his reach, and Ecthelion holds a dagger to his throat.

“Your highness—” Glorfindel starts, but Idril waves him off even as Turgon comes to her side, concerned.

“Angband,” she manages, which is as effective a cover for their conversation as any. “I overreacted. Please, one moment, then I wish to continue.”

“If thou’rt certain,” says Turgon, and waves to the guards, who back off again.

Elladan stays still as Ecthelion slowly lowers his blade, stiff with the many distrustful eyes on him.

One of Idril’s ladies cajoles her into sipping some of the much-cooled tea, and wipes her brow gently with a handkerchief before Glorfindel pushes her chair closer to the table again. “Thank you,” says the princess, and rests her forearms on the table. “Now. Gil-henë.”

He places his hands on the table where everyone can see them and opens his mind once more.

How, she demands immediately. And what has Maeglin got to do with it?

Elladan takes a deep breath. The problem with attempting to change the future is that one no longer knows what will come of the future they’ve attempted to change. However. In many, many years, he begins, your cousin will be captured by the Enemy, and tortured for the location of this hidden city.

Idril sucks in a breath.

Elladan does not want to be cruel, but in truth he knows little of the Traitor of Gondolin, beyond being utterly reprehensible on all counts. But if he means to change that, it’s probably best to not present Maeglin that way, lest that self-fulfilling prophecy idea he mentioned come around to bite him in the ass.

He breaks, he says, rather than ‘he gave you up’.

Some section of Idril’s power shudders deeply, then shores itself up in seconds.

I know little more than that, he continues, but in truth I believe it to only have been the last straw. For… other reasons which I hope will not come to pass, the Enemy was—or will have been—able to surround the mountains protecting Gondolin completely by then, and it was only a matter of time.

He opens his eyes again at a small sob, finding the princess with her head in her hands.

“Idril,” Turgon starts, but she shakes her head, and he quiets.

There is time now then, she says a moment later, looking up determinedly, to fix what went wrong. No?

Elladan nods. Many years, he repeats.

“Good,” she says aloud. “Good. Then—Atar, I have need to speak with thee, and thee alone. Gil-henë is safe to be introduced to our city and our people, and indeed will be a valuable asset, I am sure. Lord Ecthelion, have him join the—actually,” she pauses, Gil-henë, what do you do?

Elladan blinks. He hunts orcs, but that’s hardly applicable. I… guard, he settles for. For it’s not incorrect; he does guard Imladris, and spent many years as well with his twin integrating themselves into Legolas’ troops, only in part so they had an excuse to spend time with him. I have guarded the small settlement from which I hail, and a—my prince as well, upon occasion.

Idril had evidently seized on some of his more scattered floating thoughts from earlier, as she latches on to one. You did not like the way our lords guard my father. Could you do it better?

Elladan is a bit taken aback at that, and she scoffs between their minds. They were only a few of them true nobles in Aman, and none of their number guards, for at that time they knew not violence or fear. Even after the Ice and Vinyamar, I think they flounder a bit when it comes to this and could use a steady hand with your knowledge.

The Glorfindel of Elladan’s time was an ancient warrior, more than familiar with protection and fighting both, but Elladan supposes it’s true that that sort of skill doesn’t come from nowhere, and they’ve hardly had the practice they need for it locked away in the safety of the hidden city.

Idril blushes slightly. But don’t tell them I said that, she orders.

Yes, my lady, he says. And yes. I can guard your father, if you should wish. Or at least organize a better system, though I shall need to see what exists now…

“Of course,” she says, closing their link with a snap of her fingers. “Then it’s the King’s guard for you. He’s trustworthy enough, Atar, and I believe we would do well to take him on.”

Elladan realizes what he’s signed up for just moments later as Turgon begins to nod. If he’s stuck guarding the king, he can hardly attempt to sneak out of Gondolin, can he? Aside from the fact that he’s told Idril that he has knowledge she desperately needs to keep under wraps, which means he’ll likely be watched more closely than a boiling pot of stew in a room full of hungry adolescents.

Elladan bites back a groan. He always walks himself into these sorts of things, and never thinks ahead enough to get himself out of them. That’s what he has Elrohir for, but Elrohir is, unfortunately, nowhere to be seen.

“I would be honored,” he says instead of voicing his deepest regrets.

Oh and, Idril turns to him before rising from her seat, her eyes suddenly hard and steely. I love my father, Gil-henë. I am choosing to trust you, for the fear of the dark I felt in your heart and mind was real. However, I know too how fear can be twisted to evil end.

Elladan meets her gaze steadily as she continues, I am choosing to trust you with his well-being. We have met on good terms, and I do hope we may part so as well only in many years. For you have felt my power now, but if you betray me, I fear I shall hardly be so polite.

Elladan nods solemnly. I understand, he tells her, letting the truth of that bleed through. If you feel discontent from me, know that it is a mark of my family beyond these mountain walls. But I will not betray thy city for I know that a time will come when we may be reunited in the land of the gods.

“Truly?” she says aloud, eyes shining. Elladan tips his head to her, accepting her joy and grief both as they flow over him. He has a grief or two of his own; the unmade Choices of his half-elven siblings and his own, the fading hope of return to his time, and Estel’s limited mortal life; but those things will sit at least until he can speak with them again.

Idril doesn’t need to know that though. In this, he can afford to offer her hope, feeble as it may be. “Truly,” he says, hoping the future he knows holds true.

:::

“So that I am not misunderstood,” Erestor starts, “I am not averse to contracting a sibling—”

His father snorts. “It’s not a disease, Maeu.”

Erestor throws up his hands. “Well I didn’t expect it, and it’s posing an impediment to my daily life. And compiling all I’ve seen from your brothers, I believe affliction is an accurate enough descriptor.”

Caranthir rolls his eyes, tightening the girth on his saddle. It’s not that he doesn’t trust anyone, it just happens to be the single most sabotageable part of the entire production and he prefers to handle it himself.

“Please,” he says derisively. “You exist to run around doing my bidding—don’t act like this small errand is such a woesome burden.”

Erestor pulls a face. “I have been reliably informed that I exist to be loved and cherished above all else—”

Caranthir would blame Haleth, but then Erestor would doubtless cite every ill-considered comment the former Lord of Thargelion has made on the topic himself. He shakes his head instead with a huff.

“In any case, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” Erestor continues, eliciting an eye-roll from his father, “I don’t entirely understand the premise.”

“Pure sibling rivalry,” Caranthir is unashamed to admit it. “My dear brother slipped up, which presented an opportunity like no other. You’ll understand when you meet your own new brother, I’m sure.”

Erestor’s expression is dubious. Caranthir sighs. “Our family seems thus far content to put two and two together,” he explains, “but I don’t believe we have enough information to do even that. There’s something going on here under the surface, and I aim to find out what it is.”

Erestor frowns. “There is no simplest answer, if he’s not actually your son,” he muses.

“Aye,” says the elder Fëanorian with a nod. “Lilthanoss can hardly have appeared from nowhere,” he points out, “but thus far none have claimed him. He’ll have to explain himself somehow—reports suggest whatever the truth is, it’ll be hellishly complicated.”

“Oh,” Erestor says. “You mean to put yourself in his command tent as an ally to brace with. To integrate yourself into his story, you have to know it.”

Caranthir nods again. His son blessedly tends to think like him more than the rest of his family. Plotting becomes much easier when they focus in the same direction from the get-go.

“I’ll let Daeron do the majority of the work ferreting out information, and when he needs an accomplice, I’ll back him up,” he says. “Simple as that.”

Erestor looks suspicious again, and Caranthir briefly regrets bringing up his soon-to-be husband, who has become a topic of much contention in their household since his return letter arrived. They don’t have time to argue about it at the moment, however, and the look he gives his son says as much.

“Besides that, another connection to Doriath cannot hurt, now that they’ve come into possession of a Silmaril,” he adds. Those particular rumors are still difficult to believe, but with Maedhros’ follow up letter regarding Caranthir’s “grandchildren” currently in Himring with another of the jewels, the evidence is too much to discount.

“You don’t have to marry him,” Erestor mutters mutinously, his expression dark though his hands are gentle as he rubs the mare’s neck.

Caranthir frowns. “I’m not trying to replace your mother,” he says.

He half expects something pithy in response, like aye, you’re ‘taking advantage of a business opportunity’, but instead he receives only a tight, “As you will, my lord,” from his son.

Erestor dips his head in the short bow he uses when no one else is present and he can be a son rather than a servant. (Though there’s really no need to hide it now, Caranthir supposes.) Then he turns to go.

“Maefin,” Caranthir calls after him.

Erestor’s step hitches at his second name, and he stops. “My lord?”

Caranthir trusts the horse to stay where she is and hurries after his son, turning him around by the shoulder. “You know I’m not trying to replace you,” he says seriously, searching the half-elf’s face of a tell of his true emotions. “Haleth was my heart, and thou art my love. Thou dost know this.”

Erestor gently removes his father’s hand from his shoulder. “I know, Ada. It’s very sudden, is all. Give me time to come to terms with the new situation, please.”

Caranthir takes his hand back and nods slowly, unconvinced though willing to grant his son a show of faith and believe him for now.

Erestor looks around quickly, though there’s no one else in the small stable attached to the main keep, then he ducks in and wraps his arms around his father. Caranthir returns the embrace, feeling no small amount of relief.

“Just don’t expect me to call him Atya,” Erestor mutters, and Caranthir musters a chuckle.

“I expect nothing,” Caranthir says. “Well, other than your best behavior with a new business partner.”

Erestor steps back, brushing off his clothing and his Lord’s with a far too knowing look.

“Oh hush,” Caranthir tells him, still hanging onto a faint smile. “I’m not that bad.”

Erestor purses his lips but doesn’t comment on it further. “I shall see you again in a few fortnights or less, Eru-willing. Farewell, my lord.”

Caranthir brushes his thumb across his son’s forehead in a gesture that might be mistaken for fixing his hair. “Go with love, ion nin.”

Erestor leaves to finish his own packing, set to begin the journey up to Himring to receive his new niece and nephew the next morning. Caranthir mounts up and rides out, trusting the keep to his highly competent aides in his absence. The Ambarussar will return from their wanderings sooner or later, and take up command in his absence.

Caranthir turns his horse north and begins his own trek towards Doriath. His explanation for Erestor was possibly the most accurate thing he could have said on the topic—something’s going on, and he wants to be in the middle of it, or at least know who is. If he has to have been married to an Iathrin elf for years to accomplish that goal, then he’ll make it true.

There is of course the fact of a marriage bond, which does require he and Daeron to have participated in the act of marriage together at some point, which they have not, considering they’re never met.

Well. Caranthir doesn’t count walking in on his future husband engaging in unmentionable acts with his brother and promptly walking right back out at the Mereth Aderthad as having met.

Caranthir has never been particularly inclined towards others of his own sex, but neither has he been actively disinclined. Haleth—and her memory—has been enough for him since the day he realized he was in love with her, so there’d really been no need to look elsewhere. But she’d convinced him to try new things often enough that sleeping with another nér is hardly interesting, much less daunting. (Sleeping with the Iathrim prince who is nephew to Olwë and jumbled up in that whole bag of snakes is the bigger issue, honestly.)

Erestor, he knows, is worried about being replaced, even if he won’t say it. Caranthir is not particularly concerned himself. If there are two things twined about his fëa that cannot be denied, they are the Oath itself and his ever-abiding love for Haleth and what came of her. Betrayal of her is not something his heart nor soul will ever let him do.

He hopes that Daeron will at least prove himself interesting, if nothing else. Caranthir’s late wife did truly enjoy the bard’s company by her account, which is a mark in his favor. Maglor as well is prone to speak highly of him, and the most musical Fëanorian brother tends to struggle with patience for boring conversations. Though the potential that the pair were simply engrossed in musical theory has not escaped Caranthir’s calculations either.

If a small, smugly satisfied smile flits across the lord’s lips at the thought of stealing yet another thing from under his dear brothers’ noses, well, there’s hardly anyone else around to take note of it.

:::

“Lillapîn,” Finrod croons, smoothing the younger elf’s hair gently with his hand. “Wilt thou wake, darling?”

The king of Nargothrond is well aware that he tends to become attached far too quickly for his own good, but he doesn’t regret showing his poor kinsman all the love and comfort the healer seems to have been missing.

Lilthanoss had exhausted himself in his grief just after meeting Finrod’s nephew—his other nephew, that is; he has his suspicions—and locked himself in the set of rooms that had been provided for him for nearly an entire day after. It remains unclear whether he’d been sleeping or working feverishly, as no one but him has set foot in the rooms since.

Following that, he’d showed his face long enough to chivvy people into beginning preparations to leave, checked on Celegorm, apologized to Celebrimbor for ruining the reunion—not something anybody actually thought he needed to apologize for, but he wouldn’t be kept from it—and then disappeared in a tizzy again before anyone could make him sit down long enough to get some food in his stomach.

Finduilas had come to fetch Finrod after palace staff found the Sinda passed out on a bench in the gem gardens, snoring softly. And adorably. Finrod almost didn’t want to wake him, but the curled position his kinsman had adopted could not be good for his back in any way and he should probably ask first before carrying the boy to a bed.

Lilthanoss blinks slowly into awareness, his grey eyes unclouding groggily. He’d been sleeping with his eyes closed, which says something about how deeply fatigued he must be.

“Finrod, I, what?” he says confusedly, uncurling himself to sit up.

“Eloquent,” Finrod chuckles. “I am afraid I must ask thee to take up residence in a bed lest thy aching back accompany us to Doriath upon the morrow.”

“Oh,” Lilthanoss blinks owlishly. “I’m not tired.”

Finrod pauses, then looks meaningfully from the bench where the healer had just been laying and back up to his face.

“Not anymore,” Lilthanoss corrects sheepishly. “I slept.”

“I see that,” Finrod smiles. His young kinsman really is just too sweet. “Ai, well, rest is not just reverie, is it? Come and join me in the baths, my dear—I doubt thou hast had more than a basin scrub since arriving, no? What is the point of living in luxury if we cannot lavish our family with the benefits of it?”

He says this last sentence with an expansive gesture to the gem gardens around them: a long, low-ceilinged cave filled with thousands of real and crystalline flora with bubbling brooks running along either wall. The place is stunning and peacefully quiet, for too much activity tends to bother the hanging clusters of blue fluorescent glow worms that light the room rather than torches.

Lilthanoss smiles slightly at the display. “I thank you for the offer, but I really would not wish to impose.”

Finrod snorts and takes the dear elf’s hands in his own, pulling him up from the seat and tugging him along. “I am inviting thee, Lillapîn. ‘Tis more offensive to decline!”

“Right,” says the healer bemusedly, “I suppose it is.”

“Come, come!” Finrod cheers. “Thou shalt love the hot springs, I am sure. And perhaps finally relax as well. Thou’rt gentle, I think, but so tense!”

He gives the younger elf a look to emphasize the genuine concern in his comment—Finrod is still recovering himself, but Lilthanoss seems to be bouncing constantly between one stressful thing to another, though the king supposes he can hardly help it.

Lilthanoss frowns. “I shall rest when I have my children in my arms again,” he says. “Until I reach that point, there is work to be done yet.”

Finrod sighs, but cannot truly argue. “Thou mayest yet work clean and warm, then,” he proposes. “To the baths!”

Lilthanoss rolls his eyes but acquiesces with a nod of his head.

The caves where the hot springs under and around Nargothrond feed the baths are warm and steamy and perfectly comfortable. Finrod, as king, has the most glorious right to an empty one all for himself. He ushers Lilthanoss with dramatically sweeping gestures and the Sinda laughs at him a bit tiredly.

“Dost thou find thyself in suitable awe?” Finrod inquires, waving around at the space.

Lilthanoss appraises the many-columned cavern, lit with gold and green glass lanterns. The look he wears makes Finrod double-take, only used to seeing that politely skeptical expression on his eldest cousin.

Perhaps Celegorm and Curufin are on to something after all with their bets—the younger Fëanorians are known to share the quirks of the elders, and three parents might well have tempered a son of Caranthir…

It’s not his business. Well. He’ll certainly keep looking into it, but that’s because he’s incredibly nosy. Right now he’s trying to make the boy relax, rather than grill him.

Finrod shakes his head and begins to gather his braids and pin them up above his neck to keep them from the water. Gorthaur had not done him the particular indignity of cutting them, though the umaia might as well have, considering every other ill he’d vested upon the erstwhile Arafinwion.

Unlike some other denizens of Nargothrond, the king knows his healer won’t give him even a second glance for his newly-marred body. Lilthanoss will glare mildly at him for exposing his wounds to the water, but not for being any less beautiful. The perspective is refreshing after all the tip-toeing his people—and even the rest of his family!—have been doing around him.

Lilthanoss has been remarkably patient and kind with them all despite their differences, and watching him drop his robes onto a bench and step into the pool, Finrod thinks he might understand why. The elf looks to be more warrior than healer; he’d had one rough swipe of werewolf claws on his side from their adventure in the tower, but it’s far from his only scar. His kinsman is veritably covered in them, and if Caranthir is one of his parents, Finrod might have to hurt another cousin for failing to protect his poor son.

“Oh,” says Lilthanoss, spotting the furrow between the king’s brows. “I’m—this life has been kinder to myself than most, but it’s rarely easy for anyone.”

Finrod purses his lips. The citizens of Nargothrond have largely been protected from the horrors of Beleriand, he knows. Of course there was the Ice, but many would prefer to forget that time entirely and hark back to Valinorean ideals of beauty standards that uphold and enforce complete non-violence. His people live in a painful sort of peace that makes it all too easy to forget what goes on beyond their walls.

He won’t initiate contact unless his young kinsman does first—Finrod learned that lesson with his other relatives long ago—but still he raises a hand towards Lilthanoss and traces the path of a winding scar on the elf’s shoulder without touching it.

“These are old, Lillapîn,” he says softly. “And thou’rt not. But surely thy family hast protected thee?”

Lilthanoss gives him a look that’s blatantly sardonic. “What makes you think so? Is Luthien not also an adult by many years?”

Finrod’s eyes narrow. When the healer said kinsman—and it’s true that he looks unquestionably like Thingol’s line… but nay. If Luthien had any children, Finrod would know.

Lilthanoss pauses, taking a seat on the bench in the water and leaning back and stretching out with a sigh. “There is only so much any person can do, I find,” he says quietly. “And my family is…” he pauses for a long time, and Finrod lets it go on, luxuriating in the hot water. “We are—I haven’t spoken to my parents since I was much younger,” he says eventually, something bitter in his tone. “But they did more than enough with their time to ensure I was cared-for. This land just gets to everyone in the end.”

And doesn’t Finrod know it?

“Do they live yet?” he asks gently, not particularly expecting a straight answer.

Lilthanoss watches the water instead of him, lips pressed in a thin line. “In part,” he says, “not that it matters.”

Finrod holds up his hands. “I know not how much of my history thou’rt familiar with,” he tells Lilthanoss, “but I am very knowledgeable concerning relatives one disapproves of.” And a father he can’t speak to, for one reason or another.

Lilthanoss shakes his head slowly. “People will make their own choices,” he replies. “But even then—they could think about anyone other than themselves for a moment or two. Ai,” he tips his head back, “I am less angry than I am disappointed to be proven right.”

If Finrod had a drink, he would raise it in toast to that. Lilthanoss is much like Celebrimbor, he thinks. Love and regret hold both of his hands, taking up the space his father could reach out to.

Then Lilthanoss gives him a shrewd look, and Finrod can practically feel the conversation flipping on him.

“Speaking of relatives you disapprove of,” he says. Finrod winces. Lilthanoss holds up a placating hand. “I will not judge you for it,” he says, “Eru knows I struggled enough with my own spouses and my family when I first married. I only wish that you let someone know if things pass into more dangerous territory.”

Finrod feels a bit flayed under the lightless yet weighty gaze. It’s not judgmental; Lilthanoss wouldn’t lie about that, but it’s entirely too knowing.

Finrod shakes his head like he’s not going to crawl right back into Celegorm’s bed at any point in the future. He’d more likely strangle the hunter now than let Celegorm enjoy himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s ever stopped loving the stupid, self-centered, horribly loyal elf. And Celegorm would let him, which makes it worse.

He sighs. “They will not. I’m sending them away.”

Lilthanoss nods. “When we leave?” he guesses.

The king nods. “Aye. I can hardly leave them here—I’ve given their judgement if they return whilst I am away over to Orodreth’s discretion.”

“I see,” says Lilthanoss, with a perfectly controlled expression.

Finrod almost laughs. “Yes,” he says, “my cousins will not come back here, I imagine, unless they are very, very stupid. And stupid they are not, unfortunately.”

It’s not something he wants to ruin his peace with, suffused with the cozy warmth of the water, but he’ll have to face it sooner or later. “I do blame them,” he murmurs. “I think it might have been a simpler task to forgive them if I had died. At least then… time and contemplation might have softened the blow, perhaps.”

And he would still have his friends and dearly beloved companions with him, then. That, of everything, might be the hardest part.

“I will not apologize for saving you,” Lilthanoss says, sinking deeper into the water. His hair pools around him, inky dark and mostly unadorned but for a few sections held away from his face by clips Finrod can’t see.

Finrod waves a hand. “And I shall not ask thee to,” he says. “I am glad to be alive, only moved by who else is, and who else is not.”

Lilthanoss hums and says nothing to that, closing his eyes. Finrod is pleased to see the healer relaxing fully for once as the hot water gets to him. Perhaps if he’s sleepy enough when they climb out, he’ll find an actual bed to take to, rather than a floor or bench somewhere.

“Uncle?”

Finrod’s ears prick at the call from the main baths. Finduilas is not a baritone and hasn’t joined Finrod in the king’s baths since she was splashing about as a true youngster, and Orodreth is more likely to jump in first and ask questions later.

“Do you mind if Celebrimbor joins us?” he asks his kinsman quietly.

The half-Sinda hums noncommittally and Finrod takes it as acceptance.

“Come in, Tyelpë,” he calls.

His nephew pokes his head into the room, blinking through the steam until he finds Finrod and smiles at him, stepping fully inside. The smith nods to them both, then strips quickly and slides into the water, careful not to cause too much motion in it.

Finrod goes back to relaxing. Celebrimbor probably wants something, but the king is too worn out to ask after it, so Curufin’s boy can speak up for himself.

But for all that Finrod can feel the water stirring as his nephew shifts now and then, it’s Lilthanoss who breaks the silence. He sits up and shakes his head, running his fingers through his wet hair. Finrod thinks he catches a flash of gold on one of them, but when the boy pulls his hands away holding a few butterfly-shaped clips, his fingers are bare.

“Celebrimbor, will you help me with my hair?” he asks, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “I need to re-braid it for travel.”

Finrod blinks, then resettles a few things in his head. Either the boy was raised by Caranthir and knows Celebrimbor is his cousin, or he grew up Iathrim and is unfamiliar with the traditions of the Noldor. The latter is seeming more and more likely with everything Lilthanoss lets slip, but none of it particularly inclines Finrod towards understanding or charity in Caranthir’s favor anyway.

“Oh, I, yes of course,” says Celebrimbor, looking a bit blindsided. Lilthanoss doesn’t seem to notice, shaking out his hair and detangling it with his fingers.

Finrod decides it’s about time he gets up in any case and rises from the pool to fetch the pair a few of the hair soaps and oils and a porcelain basin he uses to wash his own hair to keep the suds out of the water.

Celebrimbor takes the vials while Lilthanoss grabs the basin, and they both thank him. Finrod towels himself off and resists the urge to ruffle both of their hair because he knows Celebrimbor doesn’t like it. Once clothed, he bids them farewell instead with a pair of blown kisses and an admonition to make sure they get dinner after they finish. He has his own matters to attend to.

The halls hosting the Fëanorian contingent are quiet and empty, though Finrod can sense a sort of anticipation in the air. It could well be the fact of their departure tomorrow. Or he could be expected.

The king of Nagrothrond raps his knuckles against his cousin’s door, leaning against the frame wearily. He’s put this off for long enough, he thinks.

It takes some time for Celegorm to answer, but Finrod is hardly surprised. The blond Fëanorion has been off of bedrest for barely a day, and still spends much time sitting or lying down, limping when he has to get up. Finrod is not particularly remorseful about that; his cousin lives yet, does he not?

At last the door opens, and the look Celegorm gives him falters between accepting and resigned, as if he can’t quite bring himself to be as calm as he should, though he knows it is right.

Finrod slips past him into the rooms beyond.

Celegorm is only half dressed in a nightrobe and seems to have been changing what bandages he can on his own, judging by the supplies on the table before the mirror.

“Curufin will return in a few minutes,” he says as he closes the door. “He went to fetch better shears.”

Finrod notes the broken pair of scissors in a mangled pile of pieces by the wall, likely the victim of someone’s temper and strong throwing arm. “Hm,” he replies, drifting further into the room.

The antechamber makes up most of his cousin’s room, with an attached bedroom and only a small bath, though Celegorm has never complained or sought any other accommodations. Finrod has particularly fond memories of the chaise lounge and aforementioned bath, but now is far from the right time to bring them up.

Celegorm has apparently been packing as well, and shuffles a box of miscellaneous items off of the armchair by the cold fireplace for Finrod to have a seat. He’s definitely not supposed to be using his shoulder or still-healing hands that much at the moment, and Finrod says so.

Celegorm huffs. “What are you going to do, tell Lilthanoss on me?”

Finrod raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. “He’ll find out anyway when you have to hunt him down on the morrow and ask for help because they hurt again.”

Celegorm rolls his eyes. “And he’ll give me that same look you’ve got on, as like. Fine.” Raising said injured hands in defeat, he makes his way to the table and takes a seat again.

Finrod hums and braces his elbows on his knees, fingers steepling under his chin thoughtfully. “He will, won’t he?”

Celegorm crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back. “If it turns out he’s not one of ours, I’ll eat half of Huan.” His expression darkens a bit at the mention of his missing companion; Finrod would guess he didn’t mean to bring it up.

Finrod snorts, but he rather agrees. “That confident, art—are you? Ah, well. I do see the Finwë-look, but I haven’t the foggiest who ties him to Elu Thingol—I know you have not met the king of Doriath, but by his waves they look alike.”

Celegorm is quiet for a moment, then he says, “I really did imagine him to be Luthien returned, when I woke. The delirium, I think, for I saw him too in the courtyard and knew it to be false from that.”

Finrod doesn’t have to say anything to that—the look he gives his cousin is warning enough.

Celegorm sneers. “Please,” he says, “I’m not a monster—” many, Finrod does not comment, would beg to disagree with that “—the boy is most probably my own nephew! Everything I did with his—with Luthien, was a mistake.”

Finrod frowns curiously, and Celegorm throws up his hands. “I can admit it! I was furious and terrified that I’d sent you out to die—you know I can’t be trusted like that.”

Finrod does know it. It doesn’t make it better, but it’s somewhat cathartic to hear nonetheless, even with the questionable truth of the statement. His legs protest a bit as he stands abruptly, but he ignores it and strides purposefully across the rug to his cousin.

“I know,” he says bitterly, “it was my own mistake to assume it wouldn’t matter.”

“Finrod,” Celegorm starts, leaning back as the king places his hands on the arms of his cousin’s chair. Leaning away from him. He’s scared, and Finrod should be glad. He can’t find any sort of happiness, though, only a foreboding weight in the back of his mind.

He’s already determined not to kill his cousins, though. That’s as far as he imagines he’ll get in things he can’t take back.

And he doesn’t want to, anyway! This relationship is already ruined—it probably was from the start, in all honesty—Finrod shouldn’t feel even a hint of hesitation! But he can feel the flutter of his own pulse at just the smell of his former lover, and the way his tongue feels heavy and unwieldy in his mouth.

He wants to be righteously wroth with the other elf, but can’t even muster an insult.

Finrod’s entire body wants to sit back down and let things be, just as they always have (the pair of fools that they are). But Finrod wants, no, needs to be angry. He needs fury to prop up his failing bones and reinforce his pitiful will. He can’t do this on his own.

Celegorm meets his stare with flickering grey eyes, uncertain. Then he leans forward again, without any of the confidence he typically flaunts.

Finrod’s weakness shows as he lets the silver-haired elf kiss him, and it shows as he does nothing to pull away nor fight back.

“Don’t think like that,” his half-cousin whispers against his lips. “You are nearly the strongest person I know.”

Finrod wonders what it is about their family that lends itself to trial by Sauron as a measure of worth. At the same time, he wants to shriek at his old lover to stay out of his head, but he can’t even move.

Celegorm would know. Celegorm should know, that Finrod doesn’t want it. Or perhaps the fact that he can’t afford to want it doesn’t quite come through past the confused anger and desire. Celegorm kisses him again softly.

Finrod is so damn tired of being the emotional awareness for himself and just about everyone else around him. Edrahil was good at managing it, being the only other person Finrod trusted in his inner circle to be competently self-aware.

Edrahil—

He smirks weakly as that thought makes Celegorm jerk back as if burned, and then Curufin is there, pulling him away.

“What do you want, Felagund?” It’s probably a good thing that Curufin is fairly blunt, or Finrod might’ve ended up in his cousin’s rooms all night anyway for all the wrong reasons.

Finrod steps back fully, though it removes his option to lean on anything and he feels he dearly needs it.

“Payment,” he says, feeling ill-equipped to deal with his own issues all of a sudden, under Curufin’s unwavering glare, “promise. Not retribution but—you owe me.”

Curufin nods slowly. He must have seen this coming; Finrod’s dear cousin is often too smart for his own good, but he’s usually right on the mark. He has a new pair of scissors in his hand and he looks down at them for a moment.

That will do, in terms of oaths no Fëanorion will ever make again. “Yes,” Finrod says.

Handing him the shears seems to take much more effort than the physical, but Curufin sets them in the king’s hand eventually.

“Oh,” says Celegorm quietly. Finrod feels a burst for some prickly emotion, but he shoves it down. The hunter had to have seen this coming.

Curufin begins shedding his many hair ornaments and pulling it down to hang free—like any good Noldo, he would never do so in public, and there’s no small amount of decoration to remove. Finrod watches his fingers pulling slowly through the long strands, relishing this last time he can do so before it grows out again.

A string of pink pearls piles with several golden beads and thin chains on the tabletop, then Curufin gathers all of his hair up into a simple three-strand braid and turns his back to Finrod, offering it.

His cousins are silent as Finrod takes the seal of his promise from them, cutting Curufin’s braid at the base of his skull and claiming it for his own.

Hair is—it’s not honor, but it is a special kind of sanctity among the Noldor. Unbinding it is a personal affair, and touching it is reserved for only close family, typically. The Enemy tends to take it from thralls to try and break their spirits, and for some, the utter loss of that identity does.

Finrod isn’t trying to break anyone, he’s just taking what he’s owed.

“I’ll keep this,” Finrod murmurs, tying off the snipped end with a tie from his own hair. “And you, manage your promise.”

Curufin turns back to him, his newly short hair falling askew. His eyes are dark and angry, but that’s hardly surprising. It’s helpful of him to stand still for any of it.

“When you call for me,” he says, “I will come. Because I did not when you had true need of me, now I shall give what I can—more than ten men at least, for each of those whom you lost.”

Celegorm is next, though a few of his fingers are still splinted and his shoulder is still healing so he needs a bit more assistance with his hair. Curufin takes it all down lovingly and wraps it into another braid, longer than his own and gleaming white-gold in the lantern light.

Finrod cuts it quickly, tying it off as Celegorm shakes his head curiously, suddenly lighter.

“When you call for me,” he repeats after his brother, “I will come. Because I sent you away when you needed shelter and stole your support, if ever you come to my gates, I will open them to you.”

Fëanorions will not take oaths anymore, but their promises are still worth something. Finrod loops his cousins’ severed braids around his wrists and employs Curufin’s clever fingers to tie them off, wrapped tight.

“I fear my direst need has passed,” he says quietly then, soft as the fading evening. “Because you did not aid me, for what I lost because of you, I accept these pledges.”

Celegorm stands up and steps forward, throwing his arms around Finrod’s waist and leaning on him. Curufin rests his hands on the golden king’s shoulder, then his forehead on top of them. Neither of them really says sorry, but Finrod holds onto them tightly anyway.

When the harsh light of day breaks over them all, he can keep his distance again. But now in the dark, there’s no one to comment on the silver tears slipping down his cheeks.

Some elven cultures of Beleriand cut their hair short as a sign of mourning, and Finrod wonders if he shouldn’t do so himself as well. His cousins, at least, understand the worth of what they all lost when they came to these cursed shores—perhaps Finrod should stop living like they could ever return to those simpler gloaming years. It might be time to give it up.

But those are thoughts for the cold, bright morning, and for now, they have the night.

:::

Tyelpë can’t keep his hands from shaking; he’s impressed that he even managed to finish the many rows of braids that Lilthanoss had requested.

He hadn’t minded doing them, really.

As long as he didn’t think too hard about anything else—though the half-Sinda was far too quiet to make that easy. Tyelpë shakes his head uneasily, lacing and unlacing his fingers together in a repetitive self-soothing gesture.

Really, Tyelpë’s problem is not with his uncle’s kinsman. He doesn’t know what the issue is, honestly. His family has never been blessed with much foresight, on his father’s side nor his mother’s. But some unfamiliar sense is telling him that there’s something very strange going on.

He can’t tell if it’s a bad thing or not, but whatever it is, it’s playing the ends of his frayed nerves like his uncle Maglor on his harp.

Lilthanoss wears a beautiful ring on his finger—a flat, quartered gem of deep blue and green-gold that he didn’t get a good look at, set in a gold band with what appeared to be white diamonds forming eight points around the main stone—and it calls to Tyelpë like nothing he’s ever felt before.

He didn’t make it; he knows he didn’t make it because he would’ve remembered that.

But still, it feels like his.

Chapter Text

Just for the record, Elrohir is aware that this is stupid and inadvisable, and he’s doing it anyway. Their Ada would yell at him, probably, but he isn’t here, so Elrohir will continue to do whatever he wants finds necessary.

He’s not his brother, and he ditched mental precision training with their grandmother more often than he stuck around. He isn’t able to walk people’s thoughts like Elladan can, but he doesn’t need to, either. He just needs to get in.

Maedhros and Maglor would probably yell at him too—not to mention the tongue-lashing he’d get from Rhosg if she spotted him—but Elrohir has been a troublemaker all his life and doesn’t plan to stop now. His father’s adopted parents don’t have the experience of feral young peredhil yet to warn them, but he’s certainly not going to sit down and shut up just for their sake.

Walking does hurt; he did quite a number on the soles of his feet treading across the ragged, raw face of Anfauglith with only his worn boots on. The odd heat of the ground had probably contributed largely to them giving out far sooner than he’d expected.

Elrohir winces his way over to his sister’s side in the dark and silent infirmary and leans on the edge of her bed. Arwen hasn’t awakened yet and the healers say they plan to give it a day or so more, but Elrohir was raised by the greatest healer of elvendom entire and if he knows anything, it’ll be injuries. He trusts their judgement up to a certain point, is all.

Elrohir hefts himself up to sit next to her where Maedhros usually places him, then reaches for his sister’s face. Placing his hands on either side of it, he closes his eyes.

The first thing he feels is, naturally, his twin. Elladan is far off and quiet, but his presence remains overwhelmingly comfortable and safe in Elrohir’s awareness.

Arwen is next, thrumming softly with life under his hands. Their bond is not as close as it might be, having stretched thinner over her many years in Lothlorien with infrequent visits, but it’s there nonetheless and he calls to it.

Arwen hums back, barely aware of him but welcoming. Flitting shadows swirl by, but escape his grasp like dye floating in water. Elrohir finds the doors to her mind—he may not be able to rifle through her thoughts, but he at least recognized the entrance!—unlocked and ajar, waiting for him.

Inside it’s dark and fuzzy and quiet, until the haze dissolves to leave him standing on a rocky costal shore. At least he assumes so, looking out at the breaking waves.

Elrohir turns about and finds himself actually on an island, or perhaps a peninsula, with shale slopes behind and around him. Towering cliff walls around the small inlet he stands in make it difficult to determine how large the island is, though he can see the rocky shore tapering away to the left of him.

Arwen lies on her back in a patch of sparse yellow grass, twirling a dry-looking reed in her fingers above her head. Elrohir hurries over and crouches beside his sister, who smiles to see him.

“We made it, I assume?” she asks plainly.

Elrohir wastes no time scooping her into his arms and attempting a literally rib-cracking hug. “Hey,” he whispers. “Yeah. We’re in Himring now. I met our granddads, they’re very…” he trails off, not finding the words he needs to encompass the full interestingness of their father’s fathers.

“Huh,” Arwen says. Elrohir agrees with that wholeheartedly.

“You seem alright,” he hedges, glancing around her mindscape. Not everyone has one—some people just float around with their thoughts—but he could have sworn his sister’s was more cozy winter nights in Imladris than imposing barren isle that’s kind of cold and downright inhospitable.

She sighs. “I would have rejoined you by now, I swear,” she defends, “but I can’t leave this stupid island.”

“Huh,” Elrohir echoes her earlier statement. “Interference from someone?” Elladan would be able to tell, but his twin doesn’t have that skill, and neither does their sister.

“Possibly,” Arwen concedes, wriggling out of his embrace to stand up and stretch. “Though I’ll admit I haven’t left this cove place so I wouldn’t know.”

Elrohir huffs. His sister is not as much of an adventurous spirit as himself and Elladan, but that doesn’t excuse it. “What were you going to do if I didn’t come, then? Just keep waiting? Lying in a bed in the infirmary for so long is not actually good for you, you know, for all that Ada’s always trying to keep us there.” Usually when they’ve gone and broken themselves, aye, but that’s beside the point.

Arwen rolls her eyes but has nothing the defend herself with. She shrugs. “Good thing you came then. What are we waiting for now?”

Elrohir laughs and stands up himself, giving her a quick side-hug before beginning a circuit to explore the little cove.

The area is much what he’d expected at first glance and the cliff walls are steep enough to make climbing seem like perhaps not the greatest plan. Legolas and Elladan are the climbers; Elrohir had always been happy to follow the prince and his brother around, but he is ultimately no true wood elf.

“How’s the water?” he wants to know.

Arwen grimaces. Their family would favor Ulmo as a patron Vala if they had to choose one, but that doesn’t mean he’s always kind to them.

“Cold, then,” Elrohir surmises and she nods. He shrugs and starts stripping down to his pants anyway to swim out a bit for a better view of the situation.

The water is indeed cold (just the spray of it beading on his skin sends him into full-body shivers) and difficult to access. There’s no real beach available—even the grassy patch Arwen had been laying on is more sandy dirt than anything. The shoreline is rocky and uneven, and eventually Elrohir gives up on a slow descent and fully dives out over the rocks in instead, leaving the return trip as an issue for future-him to figure out.

“Oh blessed fucking froth and foam!” he gasps as soon as he comes up for air. It doesn’t help with the bone-numbing cold, but it is a bit cathartic. He should not be able to get this chilled in an Eru-damned mindscape, that’s just not fair. Arwen laughs at him unhelpfully from the shore.

Elrohir thrashes a bit to try and warm up, though naturally that doesn’t help either. He wipes the salty water out of his eyes and peers around, finding that he’ll need to swim out a bit farther to spot anything over the tops of the cliffs.

So swim he does, while Arwen calls encouragement from the shore. The water isn’t calm, but neither is it raging, and he’s able to get out a good distance in just a few minutes.

When he turns back, aiming to look for any way around the cliffs to climb further onto the island, there are turrets peeking over the tops of the cliffs. Strangely familiar turrets.

Now. Elrohir was admittedly half delirious when Maglor carried him in. But he’s pretty sure he remembers what Himring looked like on approach. A stupidly tall hill covered in stark cliffs with a turreted fortress on top fits the description. It does not explain why he’s looking at it from in the actual ocean.

If this is a vision from someone, he doesn’t quite understand it. He knows what happened to Beleriand; Glorfindel had once mentioned spotting Tol Himring on the ship back from the West.

“I think I’m missing the point,” Elrohir grumbles in case anyone is listening, and begins to swim back to shore, shivering.

Arwen reaches down and helps pull him back up, wrapping him in a cloak she’d materialized apparently from thin air. He doesn’t suppose she can manifest a ladder…

“Just around the mouth of the cove to the right there’s what looks to be an easier climb,” he chatters to his sister.

She grimaces at the thought of swimming in the frigid water, but dutifully begins to shuck her heavier clothes.

“We appear to be on Tol Himring,” Elrohir tells her as well. “It’s still somewhat taller than I’d expected.”

Arwen frowns. “This is some vision of the future, then, I suppose. But why is Himring important?”

Elrohir shakes his head, water flying from his short hair. “I couldn’t tell you,” he says.

Just as he says that, they both hear it. Elrohir sees his sister’s ears prick up and swivel as far as they can to locate the source of the sound, and does much the same himself.

It’s singing, drifting over the clifftops, deep and smooth as the sea itself, but not wholly unfamiliar. It sounds like, like—

Elrohir blinks. “Maglor?”

And then he falls right back into the waking world again, and off his seat into the arms of the Lord of Himring. Maglor is standing beside him, crooning a song that the Elrondion struggles to parse through the ancient Quenya. His voice is recognizably the same as that from the dream, but the song is completely different.

What.

What? Arwen replies.

Was Maglor in the vision or—wait! You’re awake! Elrohir flails around in Maedhros’s arms until the redhead wraps him up more securely. “Ar—Nethen!” he cries, because he’s a master of the craft of deception.

Arwen sits up and promptly moans in pain, dropping back to the bed. Maglor cuts off his song, hovering.

“Don’t try to move,” Elrohir tells her belatedly, “Carcharoth hit you pretty hard.”

“Aye,” she says dryly, though it sounds painful, “I feel that.”

“Gil-Neth,” Maedhros says. “We’re glad that you’ve awakened. Maglor, go fetch a healer.”

Elrohir wonders where Rhosg is as Maglor hops to and his brother adjusts Elrohir in his hold. (The elf is large enough to make the twin feel small in his arms, though he’s not particularly short himself.) Rhosg is usually the first person into the infirmary after the night shift—a healer he doesn’t know who usually works on paperwork or naps in a small side room in the evening hours.

Arwen blinks up and up and up at the Lord. “Thank you for taking us in,” she says.

“It is no matter.” Maedhros blinks, then seems to remember himself and frowns. “Gilion!” he switches to scolding, “What in Ea were you doing? You could’ve hurt yourself!”

Elrohir shakes his head, falling into a mutinous expression as Maedhros sets him upright again on the edge of his sister’s bed. Arwen takes his hand and squeezes it, and he squeezes back. “It turned out fine,” he says. “I knew I could do it.”

Liar, Arwen laughs at him, perfectly straight-faced. You’re not Adan.

“One comatose child is bad enough!” Maedhros says.

“I’m not a child,” Elrohir defends.

“But you are someone’s child,” Maedhros snaps, “and I’m not telling my cousin that I let things get worse here right after he asked me to take care of you. Not to mention my brother, you know grandfathers only get more protective with each new grandchild—"

“Lord Maedhros!” The doors to the infirmary burst open and Rhosg storms through, Maglor right behind her. The small brunette looks to be a right terror as she rolls up to the Lord who must be half again her height, poking his good arm hard with one accusatory finger. “You are not dodging this appointment again—you said eight-thirty on the dot!”

Maedhros looks very definitively caught. Elrohir doesn’t have a moment to giggle about it because—

Brother? Arwen yelps in his mind. Grandfather?

Not Maglor, Elrohir rationalizes as the bard in question slips around the scolding in progress to approach the Elrondili with a plate of fresh pastries. He’s here, so Maedhros wouldn’t have to tell him—

He mentioned Finrod, Arwen points out. Do you suppose Ada told them anything?

Ada! Elrohir hollers across their bond. It’s only slightly more difficult to reach across the distance without Elladan, but the connection is there and the two siblings in Himring are powerful enough on their own. Why is Maedhros our grand-uncle?

He’s your grandfather, actually… you knew this? Elrond points out, sounding groggy, which is not helpful.

But why does HE know it?!

Elrohir gets the distinct impression that their father has just sat straight up in bed in panic, which is equally unhelpful, and only lends itself to further panicking.

It can’t be Maglor, Arwen points out, he’s here. Not Curufin or Celegorm either?

No, their father agrees. I would—no. You’re right. That leaves three. I shall investigate.

Then his end of the connection dims again which is all well and good, but doesn’t help Elrohir and Arwen with their own predicament.

“Ah, thank you,” says Elrohir, taking a conciliatory pastry.

“Apologies for—” Maglor waves his free hand at the bickering pair as Rhosg drags Maedhros to a seat and begins to examine the stump of his missing hand, still scolding diligently, “—that. My lord tends to skive off business concerning his health with impressive alacrity. She’s had to reschedule this four times because he keeps, ah, tactically retreating.”

Arwen snickers and he turns on her. “Oh, Rhosg will come for thee too in a moment or two—beware!”

Elrohir’s sister shakes her head slowly with a smile. “I know. Our father is a healer—they’re very much alike.”

“Aye,” Maglor huffs. “Obstinance outweighing even that of their patients, I find. And just as terrible if not worse when you have to keep them down from an injury!”

“I heard that!” says Rhosg, but notably does not deny it.

Arwen smacks her brother on the shoulder. “And don’t we know it,” she chuckles.

Elrohir rolls his eyes. “It’s not as if I go about doing anything strenuous. I know my limits.”

Arwen opens her mouth—likely to make a comment on said “not strenuous” activities, but Maglor speaks before she can.

“Thou’rt a healer as well?” he asks Elrohir curiously.

“Aye,” says the twin. “Ada had to pass his craft on to someone, and my layabout siblings—"

Arwen bursts into a fit of coughing. Faked, he can tell, until she aggravates her wounds and finds herself in suddenly increased pain.

“Hey, hey,” he says gently, passing his hands over her torn up stomach and beginning to hum a soft tune to help with the pain. Maglor joins him after a moment of listening, and Elrohir trails off to let the Fëanorian’s much more powerful Song do its work.

“Thank you,” Arwen murmurs dazedly after a moment. “Water?”

“I’ll,” says Elrohir, and is stopped by Maglor with a hand on his chest and a pointed glance at his feet. “Right. Maglor will get you some, Nethen.”

Maglor hurries away to fetch said water, and Maedhros returns, having appeased Rhosg. The healer herself is soon bustling about Arwen, giving instructions and checking on her patient. She demands that “Gilion” be removed to make space, and Maedhros returns the twin back to his own bed.

“I’d like to keep you for a few weeks yet, but failing that I’ve detailed long-term care instructions here—” Rhosg sorts through her carry satchel and comes up with a thin parchment covered in a scrawling healer’s hand and places it on the small table at Arwen’s bedside.

Elrohir blinks at that, confused. “Why wouldn’t we be here? I’d have thought—”

“Your uncle is coming up from Amon Ereb to bring you back there,” Maedhros informs them. “I fear your departure from Angband may have stirred more than we’re well prepared to handle, and scouts report rumblings in the north.”

“I see,” says Elrohir faintly as he reels for a moment. Uncle, not grand-uncle. So their presumed grandfather must be—

Caranthir, Arwen guesses. Short of Curufin whom they’ve ruled out, none of the other Fëanorians have known children.

Erestor is coming for us, Elrohir manages.

Arwen is silent for a moment and then says, That’s good. He’s a planner, and he’ll figure us out anyway in the first few hours. We should just tell him—

What? Elrohir barely manages to keep his face clear of any untoward expressions as he mentally yelps at his younger sister’s scheming.

You know we can’t lie to him for long, she points out. That much is true, at least. They can fool their parents and Glorfindel, as well as damn near everyone else in the valley, but their father’s steward has always seen through them like a living mischief detector.

Fine, he decides. We tell him and only him. Ada got Luthien, we can have Erestor. Elladan will tell… someone, probably, at some point. Valar, Arwen, with a sigh, he leans against Maedhros’s steady presence beside him for lack of any other support. I’m so tired already.

“Oh,” says Maedhros quietly. “Waking her must have sapped your strength.” He runs his hand over Elrohir’s shoulders soothingly, then lowers him fully to the bed. “Rest now, star children. We shall watch over you.”

A nap does sound pretty good. Elrohir evaluates, and determines that they can figure out the strange dream and new grandparent situation at a later date. Someone should probably get their father on the same page with them but for the moment, he can sleep.

Elrohir hears his sister calling out to their father again as reverie creeps over him, then he knows nothing more.

:::

Elrond rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes again tiredly, though he knows it won’t help. He’d been roused far too early in the morning by Arwen and Elrohir’s concern, and he hasn’t been back to sleep since.

That doesn’t mean he’s left his bed. The suite Finrod has had provided for him is far too lavish, in Elrond’s opinion, but then, he has spent much of his life avoiding this level of kingly luxury lest anyone get any ideas.

He’d said he would investigate, too, but everyone he could talk to is likely still asleep at this hour anyway. Elrond might as well go back to sleep, but instead he curls into his blankets and contemplates his sins.

He really shouldn’t dwell on it, but every time he pauses for even a moment, the thoughts of everything he’s killing with his very presence in the past begin to creep back in. He can only promise himself he’s making a better world, and try not to start crying every time he closes his eyes and sees his spouses’ still and silent faces.

Ada, says Arwen, and Elrond latches on to the distraction.

Aye?

It’s Caranthir, she says. They think your father is Caranthir. Maedhros says our “Uncle” is coming to fetch us back to Amon Ereb—Erestor, we presume.

Elrond finds himself suddenly much more awake and alert, though it’s still much too early for this foolery. Really? he wonders. How did they come to THAT conclusion?

We are also unsure, Arwen reports, though Maedhros has just received a letter from Nargothrond—we believe, based on not-insignificant evidence—so it must have come from your end.

Her tone isn’t accusatory, but the comment is very pointed nonetheless. Thank you for that, daughter, he replies drily. Your confidence in me is overwhelming.

I didn’t do it, I just woke up, she points out.

True. And that’s good too; Elrohir had mentioned she was unwell, but on the path to healing, so Elrond had chosen to worry less about it than anything else.

Speaking of which, Arwen continues, Ro had to come and fish me out of a vision of some sort, for I was unable to leave myself. We suspect some interference from a Power—Ulmo has always favored our family, has he not? In any case, the vision was of Tol Himring, and Maglor singing there. Make of that what you will.

Curious, Elrond thinks. He doesn’t bother to send his musings to his daughter though as he can feel her slowly trailing away—tired out, he supposes. For some reason, expending mental energy often saps an elf more than anything physical.

Sleep then, he suggests, and we shall regroup later.

Right, Arwen murmurs. I will. Oh and Ada, we’re planning to tell Erestor everything. Good night.

“It’s morning,” Elrond says aloud, then, “wait, we’re doing what?!”

Arwen does not answer, her end of the connection going as silent as the others. Elrond tires not the feel the bitter holes where his spouse bonds should be when he scans them all; it’s easier than it might be, having so much practice, but it still hurts.

If Erestor is going the meet his children anyway… Elrond sighs. Much like telling Luthien, he’ll have to treat it as a necessary step, then take full advantage of it. Hopefully.

Erestor is a good choice, all things considered. Elrond doesn’t know exactly how evolved his—future? Former? —steward’s path toward complete professional competency is, but even when the other half-elf was helping manage Elrond and his brother as children, he was good at what he did. And that’s less than a century away.

And in the broader family sphere… they’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out, he supposes. He is in need of a convenient backstory, after all.

Now that he’s thinking about it, he probably shares far more of the eldest two Fëanorians’ habits than can be brushed off as coincidence. But Maglor always had a few of Maedhros’s habits himself, due to being half raised by him, he remembers. Perhaps they’ve been dispersed enough among the brothers to point to these conclusions?

At least he hasn’t picked up a sword or spear yet, Elrond thinks a bit helplessly, or it would’ve been immediately obvious who trained him. Choosing to fight with his left hand can be explained away; occasionally forgetting he has the right one too is not so simple.

Elrond grumbles quietly to himself and cuddles deeper into the ridiculous number of pillows. (Just because he thinks it’s silly doesn’t mean he won’t take the time to properly appreciate it.)

Things would be much easier if he could just tell people why he can’t tell them, but he knows that the more people who are aware of the situation, the more dangerous it becomes. Of course, they’ve changed enough since arrival that the future they know is significantly less likely to occur (Elrond will take drastic measures to ensure the Beleriandic kinslayings don’t happen, if he has to), but that doesn’t make his family less priceless to the Enemy. Especially if the Fëanorians are dead-set on adopting him again.

Most of Nargothrond will have seen him by now, what with the entry parade, and those that also saw Luthien can attest to the similarity. That’s a kinship tie to Thingol, and then half of the Finweans are now liable to think he’s one of them (he is, too, but not how they believe). All of that adds up to a very valuable set of hostages who no one in Beleriand is stupid enough to try negotiating for if they’re caught.

So keeping a low profile is imperative—not that it seems likely now, but it’ll be his excuse if people ask why Caranthir (apparently) has been hiding him. His other “parent” is probably Iathrim, considering Haleth. At this rate, that will sort itself out too in no time.

Besides, Elrond is sure that knowing what came to pass before will break his fathers potentially beyond repair. And if they know that he knows, they won’t stop trying to find out until he’s told them, too.

Both of them will claim tactical reasons, and both will be lying. Elrond’s not stupid. Maedhros was looking for more reasons to call himself a monster long before he drove Elwing off a cliff and stole her children, and Maglor is not much better. Even with Fingon still alive and well and only one kinslaying under their belts, Elrond is not willing to take that chance.

A knock at the door distracts him from his thoughts, and Elrond sits up as he calls for the visitor to enter. It’s a pair of servants bearing an early breakfast and an offer to help him with his clothes for the day.

Elrond hadn’t often kept house servants in his home in Imladris—he’d had a housekeeper, but she was one of those rare Noldor whose craft lay more in pure organization than creation, and she truly enjoyed the work. Occasionally he’d take on maids and manservants, as well as a rotating group of waitstaff, but that was mostly to supplement people’s income while they got settled in the valley and he didn’t run into many issues going without. (Of course, that’s discounting Celebrimbor’s influence on the valley through Vilya; the smith had always been obsessively clean and his lingering power reflects that.)

Ereinion had had servants to help dress him once; Elrond had found it silly then, and finds it silly now. Still, he thanks the elleths and dismisses them kindly, because it never pays to be rude.

Breakfast is simple enough, and Elrond eats the sausages and eggs in between stretching out his creaky half-elven body and planning for the day.

Finrod himself is at the door soon enough and gives Elrond an odd look when he finds the healer on the rug in the middle of the floor, on his back with his hips turned over to the side.

“Dare I ask?” the king says mildly, raising an eyebrow.

“Latent aches and pains,” Elrond explains. “It’ll hurt more later if I don’t stretch now.”

Finrod takes a seat on the chair by the vanity and peers at him curiously. “Old wounds?” he asks.

Old everything, Elrond almost says. “Aye,” he replies instead, because Finrod probably doesn’t know that peredhil exist.

Finrod frowns at that but shakes his head, evidently dismissing the thought (for the moment, at least).

Elrond doesn’t give him much time to think about it anyway. “I haven’t much to pack,” he says. “What I’ve collected is all together there by the door. I believe we meant to leave before noon at the latest?”

Finrod nods thoughtfully for a moment, gazing at said luggage. “I realize now that thou mayst be missing a few important belongings,” he says, “due to the Enemy, and all…”

Elrond goes to shake his head and assure the king that he’s really quite alright with what he has (Elrond has experience with kings worrying about him), but the blond is already forging on ahead.

“As an elder relative, I fear I would be remiss to not provide for thee—”

Elrond deeply wants to roll his eyes churlishly, but he knows that Finrod means well. It’s mostly only mildly irritating that everyone he meets tends to think he’s younger than them. Something about his face. And probably the fact that there were no Sindar in Aman for some Nolde to have married.

That being as it is, he can’t really correct them lest he invite more questions that he’s not prepared to answer. He’s only three thousand-ish years older than the oldest Finwean in Beleriand at the moment, with the lived experience of all those centuries. But then, he suspects they’d treat him as a child even if he could explain himself.

“Really, King Felagund, all is well with me,” Elrond cuts in.

“Ah,” says Finrod softly. “My apologies.”

Elrond realizes he’d snapped quite rudely, and sighs. He’s very good at managing his own emotions when he hasn’t been thrown off by time travel and the sudden everything of the First Age.

“I’m sorry,” he echoes, slightly less formally. “I did not mean to be sharp with you. I don’t like being given great gifts.”

Or any gifts at all, especially from people in power. Vilya thrums quietly on his finger, a reminder he doesn’t mind so much. The empty space in his soul where his bond with Elros was ripped out with his brother’s passing twinges as painfully as the former is comforting. That too, was couched as a Gift.

It’s less the gifts themselves, honestly, and more that he tends to receive them in times of utter turmoil and stress, and Elrond can’t say he enjoys it. As much as Vilya is part of him now, it came with Galadriel’s wail as she read that bitter note. A cloak from Ereinion had been cherished for many years, but that didn’t change that it was wrapped about his shoulders as the High King’s party surrounded his and Elros’ little ponies and led them away from their fathers. The act of receiving is… complicated for him.

In light of all of it, Elrond is quite happy to earn what he needs to.

“I fear not pity, nor sympathy,” he adds as Finrod’s brows furrow and his mouth opens. “You could say I have a… bad history with receiving them. If I have need of anything, I can manage it for myself.”

Finrod nods, but he does look a bit put out by that. Elrond considers Maglor’s penchant for adorning himself and Elros in their childhood, and how the bard had not liked to see them bare of any jewelry, even lacking as the Fëanorians were in that time. Many of the Noldor, including his good-mother, who had spent many years with the Sindar, shared the habit of draping things on him when they found him going without, never mind that it was easier to do his business bare of shinnies and bangles.

Elrond knows it’s important to the Noldor the same way their hair is—traditions of a bygone era. He’s used enough to adhering to them and putting up with the adornment. He even wears his hair up in some way, shape, or form every day to avoid scandalizing half the people around him.

Elrond doesn’t want to upset Finrod… but he supposes the weathered butterfly hair clips from Arwen that had survived the trip through time probably don’t count, as tarnished and battered as they are.

He purses his lips. “If it would assuage your feelings of failure,” he says, “though I assure you you’ve done no wrong—I may be persuaded to accept a few small items.”

Finrod practically leaps from his seat, barely concealing a blinding grin. Elrond charitably bites back a comment about the king’s not yet fully healed injuries in the face of the blond’s exuberance.

“Excellent,” he says, clapping his hands together. Elrond notes two new braids of elven hair wrapping around his biceps and chooses not to ask. “If thou hast need of anything else—”

Elrond is also overly familiar with kings who constantly want to give him things.

(“Your Mannish blood may not withstand these temperatures,” Ereinion had said, pressing woolen mittens into Elrond’s hands.

“We’re at war, not destitute!” he’d muttered as he rifled through the peredhil’s wardrobe, making note of items to replace.

“Damnable Fëanorians, at least they knew how to keep you proper,” he’d continued as he dumped a massive box of jewelry into his herald’s arms. “You wear this too, you hear me?”

At least they were always useful gifts. Until they weren’t. Elrond is still embarrassed over the four bouquets and three boxes of sweets it took him to realize his beloved was asking for permission to court him.)

“No, thank you,” he says firmly. He has to put his foot down now, or the deluge will never stop. “I’ll be just fine with whatever you can scrounge up.”

Finrod looks horrified at the prospect of giving Elrond castoffs and disappears out the door swiftly, likely to dig up his best bangles short of the Nauglamir itself.

Elrond would grumble more about being weighed down, but he’s a healer at heart and if Finrod’s trauma response involves seeking out some level of normalcy, he won’t stop the aggrieved elf.

With a tired sigh, he lifts himself off the floor and makes his way out of the guest wing. Finrod will need breakfast himself, so Elrond plans to wait for him in the dining hall and do a bit more planning while he’s there.

It had surprised him at first to find Celegorm and Curufin still participating in society as usual after Finrod’s return, but then he supposes they’re still Lords of a great house. They could be sanctioned at least, but Finrod seems less than inclined to do so himself. (Elrond has seen how the Fëanorian pair hover around the king; though Celegorm is in much the same shape, neither seems willing to let Finrod fall into any sort of danger again.)

Either way, the pair of them lean together at the high table when Elrond arrives in the dining hall, murmuring quietly. They fall silent as he approaches and settles in the guest seat he’d been directed to when he’d made it in time for an actual meal, once or twice.

Having already eaten, Elrond doesn’t take note of the fare. Instead, he moves his plate aside and begins to write out notes for a summary of information Erestor will need. When Arwen and Elrohir wake, he’ll be prepared to help them.

If Erestor tells his own father… well, Elrond will have to build that bridge when he gets to it. At least it appears that construction has already begun on Caranthir’s side.

The Fëanorions give him curious glances, but neither does more than nod hello.

Elrond pauses for a moment, then makes a note to ask after Elladan as well. His eldest son was separated from the other two and should still be with Luthien, who’ll take care of him. Elrond doesn’t expect that he’ll be able to reach Elladan at least until he and Finrod get to Doriath—their heritage is powerful, but Elrond is not Elrohir and there’s only so much one elf can do. Still, he’d rather not face any unpleasant surprises when he gets there.

“Lillapîn,” Finrod says cheerfully from across the table. Elrond looks up, folding his notes into a pocket of his robes as the king sets a mid-sized chest on the table. “I’ve put together a selection for thee,” the Arafinwion informs him happily.

Elrond examines the gold-inlaid box dubiously, then reaches for the latch. He’s sure he hears the table itself creak under the thing’s weight as he opens it, though that might also be the ancient hinges.

The glittering display inside is… okay, Elrond will admit to being impressed. It’s a lot, and it’s all beautiful. A number of dazzling parures vie for attention, in gold and silver and dozens of colored gemstones.

Elrond blinks at all of it for a long moment. He’s seen riches before; of course, he’d visited Erebor and Moria before their dooms, and he does come from some of the highest families of elves in both of the largest groups. He’s seen riches, but not this kind of treasure.

He’s certain half of the box must have come from Valinor, and could not be surprised to find out that Fëanor himself had had a hand in a few of the pieces.

Down the table, Curufin and Celegorm have shifted over to look, then given up on that and just made their way over by the time Elrond shakes his head clear and reaches inside.

Rings are a hard no. Elrond will only ever adorn his hands with Vilya, and that’s quite alright with him.

The ring of air is a quiet comfort always on his right middle finger, and shows itself to whom it prefers, not necessarily by his will. Elrond doesn’t mind; he’s worn it long enough to discover a sort of personality that reminds him of no one so much as his lost cousin. It’s bittersweet, but unfailingly loyal.

Bracelets tend to get in the way, but Elrond picks up a pair of thin silver cuffs that should stay in place in the name of appeasement.

Elrond doesn’t know what possessed him to ask this new and painfully familiar Celebrimbor for help with his hair—maybe he’d been more tired than he’d thought—but he’d done it anyway, and now has eight perfect braids loosely spiraling out from just about his left temple. Four of the braid tails only have simple ties, because he only had four clips, so he can pick a few more fixtures for that too…

“Thank you,” says Elrond, and sits back from the box, setting his chosen items on the table and beginning to fix the clips in his hair.

Finrod looks disappointed again, but Elrond didn’t get this far in life by giving in to every kicked puppy look that was turned on him. (Celebrían and the childrens’ don’t count, of course. Neither does Erein’s, or Tyelpë’s, or Legolas’, or Lindir’s, or—)

“That’s all?” asks the king, reaching for the box very slowly, clearly hoping Elrond will change his mind.

“That’s all,” Elrond says firmly.

Curufin, peering over his shoulder, makes a distinctly displeased noise. “You cannot mean to walk around like that,” he hisses.

His own jewelry jangles as he shakes his head, the noise mostly from an ornate hairpiece with hanging beads. As it has since Elrond first saw him across the courtyard, a silver star of Fëanor hangs on the thinnest of chains just above and between his eyebrows.

Elrond really doesn’t need anything so dangly.

The look Curufin shares with his brother all but confirms Elrond’s suspicions of a powerful mental bond, especially with how they close in on him in the next second.

“He’s right, you know,” Celegorm agrees, sliding around to Elrond’s other side. The peredhil is feeling a bit cornered, and it’s not helping with the situation. Unfortunately, he’s ninety percent certain it’s intentional.

“Sinda or not, it’s not right to go about in public without a scrap on,” Curufin mutters, shucking the beaded bracelets from his wrists. Never mind that they’re all fully clothed; the Noldor would be more scandalized by someone without a single shiny on them than an elf streaking stark naked through their yard, provided the latter was wearing enough bangles.

Elrond shoots a look at Finrod who crosses his arms and says nothing, looking far too pleased with himself. Celebrimbor, the other main rescue option, is nowhere to be seen. Indeed, the entire dining hall is sparsely populated. Elrond would guess it’s something to do with the nasty looks the denizens of Nargothrond all give the Fëanorions every time they cross paths.

He would like to give them a few nasty looks of his own as the pair hold up bits of their own jewelry to measure against his skin, eyes, and hair, tutting all the way. Neither give him any choice as they do so, but Elrond’s tongue feels too thick and heavy to object.

He shifts uncomfortably and the armband Curufin had slipped around his bicep slides down. The dark-haired elf grumbles under his breath and fixes it, though Elrond’s arm doesn’t have the forge-trained muscles to keep it up.

“For your cloak,” says Celegorm, unpinning a Fëanorian star broach and slipping it into Elrond’s hand.

“Hey,” Finrod says mildly, apparently willing to object to that, if nothing else.

It’s Celegorm touching Vilya that does it. Just a brush of the fingers as he puts a ring with two red stones that are not rubies into the peredhil’s palm, but to Elrond it feels like a lightning bolt down his spine.

“No!” says Elrond finally, breaking the silence enforced by his fumbling tongue. He pushes his chair back from the table and wrenches his hand out of the blond’s grasp. The ring clatters to the table. “I’ve tolerated enough, I think. Ask for permission before touching me. And,” he takes a breath, only keeping his voice steady out of millennia of practice, “I do not like jewelry.”

The Finweans blink at him and Elrond forcibly calms himself.

“But,” Celegorm starts.

“The ring was a parting gift from a friend,” Elrond bites out. “I wear it because I have little else of him. But I do not like jewelry.”

Particularly rings, actually, but in general he’s never enjoyed being bedecked from head to toe. Which is doubly unfortunate, because draping every bare elf they see in precious metals and stones is something of a Noldorin nervous habit.

“I apologize,” Finrod breaks the stunned silence, his hands fluttering. He looks genuinely distressed, and immediately Elrond’s anger cools as he feels a flash of regret. He won’t back down on setting his boundaries, but he’s not happy to hurt the king either. “I did not realize it meant so much to thee—it is a but cultural expectation that we should not have forced on thee.”

He seems about three seconds away from picking up the chest and its priceless contents and dumping it all straight into the nearest firepit, which would be a waste.

Elrond holds up his hands placatingly. “It’s alright, your majesty. I will take what I picked out, and no more. As I told you, I have a bad history with things like this. Only, please refrain from giving me gifts.”

Curufin, who’s been silent since Elrond’s outburst, narrows his eyes. “Gifts as in jewelry, or all gifts?”

Elrond figures this is the downside to being adopted by a bunch of craftspeople, again. The Noldor give what they make as a love language all of its own, and he really should have seen this coming.

“All of them,” he says shortly. “If I need something, I’ll get it myself. Thank you.”

Elrond can’t tell for the life of him why he’s being so polite to a pair of rude and standoffish kinslayers who didn’t raise him.

Chapter Text

Fingon sometimes wishes Maedhros had not given up the crown. He really does detest being king. Of course, he wouldn’t have to worry about any of it if his father had not—

Fingon sighs and rolls over. He supposes the luxury—such that it is, in Beleriand—and the trappings of the title are not so bad, and he certainly doesn’t mind having the single largest bed in the entirety of Barad Eithel, but he would prefer not to be tied down to it. He lives for the open plains and violently blue sky, not for the closeted chambers, no matter how rich they are.

The curtains have not yet been drawn for the morning, so he has no way of telling how long he’s slept. His body says not long enough.

Fingon relishes the ache of sore muscles through his thighs and core as small signs of his few freedoms. A prince can ride out and drive dragons before himself across the dusty plains of once-green Ard-Galen; a king has to sneak into the stables and hush his horse as he leaves for a short scouting trip.

The former crown prince buries his face in a pillow. By Manwë’s feathery behind, he hates being king.

The room is mostly silent on the morning of fifth day. Birdsong filters in faintly, but Barad Eithel’s choir is too busy drilling down on the practice grounds to wake the castle with song.

In the silence, it’s easy to pick out the soft creak of the large wooden doors to Fingon’s chambers, and the shuffle of stockinged feet on the cold stone. Fingon lifts his head from the pillow just in time to be brutally ambushed by a small mass of curly hair and fur-lined housecoat.

“Rahhh!” Orien launches herself at him with a ferocious battle cry, and Fingon yelps, rolling and flailing dramatically.

“Good morning!” Orien shrieks at the top of her lungs, perched on his chest. “Emil said I get to wake thee up, Ada! Thou hadst best be awake now!”

Fingon grins up at his precocious little girl. “That I am,” he confirms. “But knowest thou who also wakes up with Ada?”

“No,” Orien gasps. “No, Ada!”

She tries to flee, but one does not simply invade their father’s peaceful rest and expect to get off with no repercussions.

“The tickle monster!” Fingon crows, catching his daughter in his wriggling fingers before she can scramble off the edge of the bed.

Orien shrieks with laughter and it is a wild, wonderful sound that brings Fingon back to happier days with his much younger family in fits and snatches. Valinor was slow and blissful, but he can’t say he’s sorry to have left, for Valinor would never have been able to succor his laughing, bouncing, quicksilver Orien.

“Emil!” Orien howls, still laughing up a gale as Fingon mercilessly tickles her.

“Ai,” he cries, “cheating!”

“I hear the tickle monster can be banished with breakfast, but only if one is brave enough to venture to the kitchens and fetch it,” Ammuiawen’s voice drifts in from the open bedroom door. She’s probably in their living room, curled up on the couch facing the window with the earliest paperwork of the day.

He relents in his attack long enough for Orien to slip free and tumble to the edge of the bed. She scampers swiftly for the door, pausing there to turn and wag a chastising finger at him. “I’ll be back!” she announces, and then she is gone.

Fingon stretches and yawns, then meanders out of the bedroom himself. His wife is exactly where he thought she would be, a cup of coffee on the low table beside her.

“Good morning,” he says, looping his arms around her shoulders over the back of the couch.

Ammuiawen turns her head to accept his kiss, then grimaces. “Bad breath,” she says.

Fingon huffs a laugh and angles his face far enough away from hers to avoid spewing it in her face. “Sleep well?”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Not better than thee I’m sure, thou log,” she says. “Someone came flouncing into our room before sunrise to demand her other father visits soon, and someone else slept through it. Was the night good to thee?”

Ammuiawen thumbs at the skin by the corner of his eye. Her finger comes away smudged with gold and red. Fingon winces. He’d thought he had washed it all off before crawling into bed the night before.

“Beréthen,” he starts.

“I am not your keeper,” she says.

She is, actually, in nearly every way that matters. But he knows well that she wanted to be queen no more than he wanted to be king, so he says nothing.

Fingon knows that his wife thinks even less of being a dowager queen than being one with a living husband, and their little daughter is certainly not ready for the throne. But—if he is to live like this, he must have his freedoms.

And if the freedoms that he needs turn short scouting rides to war paint and a bow made for hunting orcs rather than animals—

Ammuiawen doesn’t bother to chide him anymore, and he can’t blame her. Maedhros had despaired of him in Mithrim, too. The pair of them probably still do, sending letters back and forth across the wreck of their land, commiserating about their wreck of a lover.

Fingon was not planning to ride out again any time soon, but he mentally adds to the time before then anyway.

“Thou deservest better than me,” he murmurs.

Ammuiawen rolls her eyes. “Thine own personal shortcomings aside, I assure thee there is none. That elf does not exist; I am quite pleased with the one I married, thanks very much.”

Fingon sighs and doesn’t refute that. He moves around the end of the couch instead to plop down next to her. “What are we working on this morning?”

“Letters,” Ammuiawen says, shifting into a more businesslike tone. “These came in late yesterday. The messenger preferred Anfauglith to Nan Dungortheb, but reported a struggle to get here undeterred, much less undetected. There are rumblings from the north, mostly, and thy cousins have been wreaking havoc six ways to seventh day.”

“Havoc?” Fingon asks. His wife passes him an opened letter. He skims it, then pauses and reads it more slowly. “Well. That’s terrible. Valar, I might have to exile them.”

Ammuiawen waves a hand. “Just consign them to Fëanorian lands only. If Maedhros had been in Nargothrond, this wouldn’t have been an issue.”

That’s true enough. Maedhros can manage his brothers. Wielded by him they are dangerous, but poised to do more damage to the Enemy than the indiscriminate chaos they tend to cause without him steadying them.

“Thou dost not suppose…”

“Hm?” she doesn’t look up from the other letters, but Fingon can feel her attention on him.

“Would he strip them of their titles for behavior such as this?” Fingon wonders.

Ammuiawen purses her lips. “I think not,” she says slowly. “He has enough trouble with what he’s done to Maglor at the moment. Maedhros is not one to repeat his mistakes.”

Fingon frowns. He hates to see his beloved struggling—though in truth the time since his captivity has been little but struggle—and the Dagor Bragollach brought such a shadow upon Himring that Fingon has hardly been able to untangle the edges of the issue, much less strike at the heart of the problem itself.

“Mayhap I ought to summon Maglor here,” he says thoughtfully. “Lord or not, he remains the greatest bard of the Noldor, and in service to me before Nelyo.” Technically.

“If thou thinkest distance would assist thee in wading through that mire,” Ammuiawen says, her tone indicating a scrunched nose of doubt more than her face does.

Fingon doesn’t know if it’s his place to go diving into the issues holding the eldest Fëanorians at odds, honestly. But he does know that if no one so much as pokes it, the tension will continue to wind tighter and tighter until it explodes in a very loud and messy way, as is typical of their family. And that would be non-optimal.

Maedhros and Maglor have always been particularly close; the brothers all paired themselves off neatly—Caranthir excepted, though he doesn’t seem to mind it—and the bond of the eldest was forged long before the rest existed as even thoughts in Fëanor and Nerdanel’s minds. If Maglor gets himself killed, Maedhros will spiral, and even if Fingon can pull him out of that, he’ll never forgive himself. But as much as that desperately cannot happen, the current situation in Himring is not a solution, according to Fingon’s informants.

Loss has destroyed their family before, and Fingon would not see it happen again.

He can’t really imagine it; in the chaos of the fire and closing hordes, Ammuiawen had been shocked into a premature labor with Orien, nearly a year and a half before their daughter’s due date. There had been so much blood, he’d thought for a moment that their little spark was gone entirely, and it had nearly torn him apart.

If he really had lost them both, he thinks that he may well have ridden out on his father’s heels, hands still slick with his wife’s blood, her screams and sobs ringing in his ears. He’d been told that Maglor refused to retreat, and even now it makes perfect sense.

Still, he can’t truly imagine where Maglor stands now and he’s selfishly glad for it.

But he knows the pain of losing a brother. And he knows the fear of losing the rest, watching with dread as it slowly comes to pass. Turgon, Aredhel—Fingon does not like to dwell on them, no matter how alone in the world that leaves him.

Had he the opportunity to keep them close and lock them away where no harm could come to them, Fingon is afraid he might do it. They would not thank him for it, but he’d do it anyway. He likes to imagine he would not be so blind to miss the damage they could do to themselves in such conditions, but then, it’s never happened to him.

Part of loving someone is understanding their faults, even if you can do little to help them.

Maedhros returned from Angband possessive and protective in turns, determined that no cruelty or evil that he can stop would ever come upon his brothers as it did him. But Fingon suspects he is perhaps protecting the little brothers he knew, rather than those that exist after those thirty years. As such, he reacts as if the worst pain Maglor has ever known was stabbing a Teler through the chest and feeling his own soul wrench open. Nothing more or less than that, and certainly not losing his brother.

Maglor is familiar with working through loss, but he chose not to that one time and Maedhros is struggling to understand that. Fingon can empathize, but he doesn’t imagine it will help.

“I don’t know what to do with them,” he admits at last.

Ammuiawen sighs. She loves Maedhros as an extension of Fingon, which doesn’t mean she understands him any more than most people do.

“Thou must always burden thyself with such issues as are not thine own,” she says. “It does thee no good service.”

Fingon purses his lips. “They are my people,” he says.

“The very thought of Himring keeps thee up at night,” his wife says, “it drives thee to frustration, and frustration to recklessness. Our lover can sort himself well enough in the east. Thou hast people here, too.”

A patter of little feet sounds just beyond the doors to their chambers, and the door is pushed open by the guard on duty, Gador. Orien chirps a thank you and trundles in under his arm, carrying a small covered tray.

“The head cook says thou wert thiiiiis close to going breakfast-less, Ada,” Orien says. The tray tips precariously as she frees one hand from under it to pinch her fingers together in the air.

Fingon blinks. “It cannot be so late yet,” he says.

“Quarter to ten,” Ammuiawen says, “I’ve let thee sleep.”

“Ten!” Fingon yelps. “But there’s council this morning!”

Ammuiawen grins at him. “Consider it thy reprimand. Thou’st a moment or five to prepare, methinks.”

Orien snickers with her mother as Fingon fairly leaps off the couch and tumbles back to the bedroom to find a suitable outfit, crying foul all the way there.

He’s able to pinch a slice of swiftly cooling buttered bread from Orien’s tray and drop a kiss on top of her gold-beaded curls before hurrying on his way; his daughter pouts at the wasted tray, but begins to make good use of the food before Fingon is even out the door.

Ultimately his wife would never betray him too terribly and he makes it down to the council room on time—barely. He probably deserves it, though.

Ammuiawen herself isn’t needed to open the council session like he is, and will probably join him later during the day. For now he’s on his own, though. Fingon rubs his eyes as he takes his seat at the head of the long, oval-shaped table. Just because he hates being the king doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to be good at it.

He just wishes, more and more often as the harsh northern weather rounds the edges of the empty mausoleum they’d erected for his father, that it was anyone else in his seat.

:::

“Higher, Atheg!” Thranduil shrieks with winsome delight as Beleg catches the boy and tosses him up into the air again.

Beleg grins and complies with the demand. He knows that other elves prefer softly lit groves and unfurling flowers, or the visages of Melian and Luthien, perhaps. But his world is a blur of colors and shapes in which sound comes to him sharpest and keenest, and his son’s laughter is the most beautiful thing of all.

“Careful there,” Oropher says mildly as he steps out onto the open patio of his cavern home on the outskirts of Menegroth proper. “If thou dost toss him too high he may find himself more inclined to the sky, and fly right on away.”

“Wheeee!” Thranduil is undeterred by the comment, and pouts when Beleg catches him the next time he comes down and holds him close. “Atheggg,” he whines when no further toss is forthcoming, and begins to squirm.

“Shh,” Beleg says, petting his son’s hair with what he’s fully aware is a horrendously sappy smile. “I came to say goodbye for now, my little light. Atheg is going away to chase a big wolf.”

Thranduil stills, eyeing him curiously. “How big?” he wants to know. “As big as Ada?”

“Bigger than Ada!” Beleg tells him cheerfully.

“Woah,” Thranduil mutters for that is indeed quite a size, as his father is very tall. “Bigger than Hano Elu?”

“Bigger!” Beleg says.

Thingol too is quite tall, so this fact is doubly astonishing to the elfling.

“Bigger than… a tree?” he asks cautiously.

“Bigger,” says Beleg conspiratorially. “Bigger than a house!”

“That’s very big,” Thranduil says seriously. Oropher snorts a laugh.

“It is indeed!” Beleg agrees.

“Be careful, Atheg,” Thranduil tells him. “Make sure you don’t get stepped on, or Ada would be very sad.”

Beleg puts on a faux offended expression. “Only Ada would be sad? Not you, my son? How could you?!”

Thranduil pauses, but Beleg has already dived down to blow a loud raspberry on the boy’s stomach under his loose tunic by the time he gets out a laughing, “I would! I wo-hould, Atheg!”

Beleg laughs and ceases his onslaught, shaking his head. “I know, darling, I was only playing with you.” He holds the boy up to his eye-line and tells him solemnly: “I shall take all precautions to come back home safe and sound, just for you!”

Thranduil accepts that with a nod, and then all seriousness is once more forgotten in gleeful elfling fervor as the little blond wriggles until he’s released to run back into his father’s home.

“Now that we’ve established the proper size of the beast thou’rt about to go play with,” Oropher chuckles, brushing Beleg’s hair aside to press a kiss to the back of the archer’s neck, “wouldst thou like help with thine antlers so that thou mayst do so?”

Beleg turns his unbothered smile on his lover of the past three decades. “I thank thee, dearest. I would.”

The process of weaving his hunting braids and securing his tall, many-pointed antlers on with them is complicated and made much easier with the addition of another pair of hands. Beleg can do it himself, but he will not forsake the help any more than he’ll ever forsake the antlers themselves. Carved with milestones of his life, rune-written marks of stories kept only in his memory, and the names and symbols of each of his dozens of children, they are not light to carry, but Beleg often feels ill at ease without the bone-gifts.

Once Oropher steps back, Beleg shakes his head to hear the bells tied to the bones jingle. They won’t make a sound when he’s hunting—mostly because he’d prefer that they didn’t—but at the moment the soft tinkle is a comfort.

“Be careful,” Oropher tells him. He doesn’t touch Beleg’s ears, knowing how sensitive they are, but he taps the hunter’s temples and adds, “Stay sharp.”

Beleg grins at him with naturally pointed teeth. “Always,” he says.

Beleg is sure his lover’s eyes are beautiful and very concerned, as he always is, but focusing on them is difficult so instead he seeks Oropher’s lips. Oropher guides him with hands cupping his cheeks, and Beleg doesn’t mention that he can pinpoint the faintest whistle of the other elf’s breath just fine.

He presses as much comfort and reassurance as he can into the kiss, then pulls back. “I will survive, dearest. I will return.”

Oropher huffs. “You had better,” he says. “If I have to raise that little firecracker on my own I’ll hunt you down on the other side.”

“Pshhh,” says Beleg, who reared Thranduil’s older half-sister with the help of a mother brown bear and a particularly calm river. And with that, he’s off to meet with the rest of the hunting band.

Elu himself plans to lead the party alongside Beleg and Mablung, while Beren stays behind but helps them plan. Beleg personally thinks taking his grandson along is a terrible idea, but someone important once said something about kings and holding their own, and now it’s in the boy’s head so the archer won’t gainsay him.

Not because Elu is a bad hunter—in fact he’s more than decent. Beleg holds more objection with the king needlessly putting himself in danger in such a time of upheaval as Beleriand is going through at the moment.

“Beleg!” Beren greets him brightly as the archer strides into the courtyard they’ll be gathering in before setting out.

“Lord Beren,” says Beleg with equal cheer. Horribly grim and dangerous tasks are even less enjoyable when you treat them as horribly grim and dangerous, he’s learned. A certain level of caution is warranted, but there’s no need to act as though you’re walking to your own funeral.

“Here,” Beren gestures him over—Beleg follows the swish of his sleeve and moving air more than the beckoning arm himself. “A few of thy wardens came in early this morning to update the map of where he might be. He can also set fires, according to reports, but not consistently.”

Beleg nods as he comes up beside the table, which is lain with a large pale square that must be a map. “The Silmaril,” he says, “I am told they are hallowed to burn evil, yes?”

“From what we know, aye,” Beren says, a grimace in his voice. “It’s probably cooking him from the inside out.”

Beleg pulls a face as well; that’s not a great image. But then, the beast did bite off Beren’s hand, so he can’t find it terribly undeserving.

“Reports suggest the wolf ranged a bit between this smaller river and the Sirion,” Beren says, gesturing at the map, a blur of his dark sleeve over the parchment. “Perhaps trying to douse and cool himself in the water. He’s broken into the forest here, and comes closer and closer to the lower forest though he’s yet to cross the border river.”

Beleg squints at the map, though he knows the woods like the plains of his own face. South of where a dark line that’s probably the Mindeb joins the Sirion is… “The Teiglin runs widest there,” he says. “To ford it would be to swim, even for something that size.”

The Man’s hair swishes as he nods. “The survivors from the village there said the great beast did not fear the water, but neither did he run rampant into it.”

Beleg frowns. “There are no villages on those banks,” he says, “it’s too close to the edge of the wood… hold on, which river art thou referring to?”

Beren points, which would be more helpful to someone who can see. “This one. I do not know the name, though thou saidst—it’s not the Teiglin?”

“Well, we don’t build on the Teiglin, so I think not,” mutters Beleg. “I cannot actually see the map, my friend, my eyes are not as keen as thine. The name should be there—”

Beren laughs, but it sounds a bit pained. “Then we are evenly matched, marchwarden, for I cannot read it. I could parse a bit of my mother tongue, aye, but written Sindarin is beyond me.”

Beleg lifts his head to blink at the Man, then grins and throws his head back with a shrieking laugh. “What a fair pair of fools we are!” he says, shaking his head. “Unable to speak it, unable to see it—one of my scouts lost her hearing many winters past, we ought to bring her in as well, for a perfect match of three.”

Beren’s laugh then is less forced and more mirthful. Ruefully, he shakes his head. “Perhaps we ought to wait for the rest of the party. Some help I am.”

Beleg clasps the warrior’s shoulder in a friendly grip. “Maps or no,” he says cheerfully, “thou art the scourge of Dorthonion and respected as such. Reading skills are clearly not required for hunting and destroying servants of the Enemy, or thou’d not have even met the princess yet for being still locked up in a library thyself, as like!”

Beren chuckles. “I appreciate it,” he says. “I mislike feeling a bit useless, here.”

Beleg shakes his head. “Not at all,” he says firmly. “Thou hast done thy part and all that was expected of thee. The princess and thyself have not yet been bonded—take thy rest, and allow us to defend the forest for now, at least until thou claimest it as thine own as well.”

“Hn,” says Beren, sounding unconvinced.

“Strategy and tactics art thy territory, no?” Beleg asks. “This hunt, I suspect, shall be like no other. How then wouldst thou hunt a wolf?”

That, at least, gets through. Beren hums more consideringly and turns back to the map, peering at it and murmuring under his breath in a mannish language Beleg doesn’t know.

A sound from the hall catches his attention; voices and footsteps drawing nearer.

“—disgusting,” Mablung is saying as he comes into hearing range. He sounds joking, his tone and pitch tipped in the sort of mentorly direction he takes on with marchwardens-in-training, with an added ring of affection he withholds for only one or two people. (Beleg is not sure if people know that their voices change constantly. He doesn’t tell them, and continues to use it to his own advantage.)

For a hunt like this, the captain wouldn’t bring along anyone unexperienced or unprepared, which means it’s most likely—

“Pshh, mind your own business, Urus,” Beleg’s daughter says laughingly. “You’d like him if you ever left the trees to actually meet him.”

“Suggesting that I could ever like any of their ilk feels like an impingement on my identity as a respectable elf,” Mablung huffs. The captain of the guard is a huge, bulked up elf with a deep, solemn voice that’s only turned to humor in good company.

“Well I just love him, so you’ll have to get over that,” Tauriel replies cheerfully.

Mablung makes a show of grumbling without much substance to it, then falls quiet once more as they approach and enter the courtyard. Beleg’s daughter spots him immediately and bee-lines for him, most probably with one of her blinding grins on her face.

“Sire,” she says as she takes his hands, which makes Mablung huff and Beren jerk up and look around confusedly.

“Thou’rt ridiculous,” Beleg tells her, kissing her knuckles and then her cheeks.

“No, I’m Tauriel,” she says. “You’re getting old, father—confusing me for things. I’m your daughter, tell me you recognize me!” By the end of the plea she sounds perfectly agonized, in a patently overblown way.

Beleg rolls his eyes. “Ah, right,” he says, “I thank thee for reminding me. Just once, wouldst thou please call me Ada?”

He doesn’t have to see it to know Tauriel is wearing a wide, unrepentant smile. “Not until your deathbed, old man.”

“Come then girl, meet Beren,” Beleg says, catching her around the shoulders and drawing her over to the table.

“Hello!” says Tauriel brightly. “I’ve heard much of you, Beren Erchamion.”

“Is that what they’re calling me?” Beren says, nonplussed. “Ah, hello. Nice to meet you, mis—?"

“Tauriel,” she tells him. “Reigning champion of the Best Children of Beleg Games—a contest of sport, you understand, beauty, smarts, grace—"

“And that’s enough of that,” says Mablung, clapping his hand over his partner’s mouth.

Beleg gives his old friend a silent nod. Oropher complains that Thranduil is a firecracker, but it’s Tauriel who never stops moving and making noise. He loves her, of course he does, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be a bit overwhelming upon first interaction.

“Sooner or later, I’ll get the respect I deserve,” Tauriel sighs in faux lament when she’s released.

“Right,” says Beren slowly. “Who are the… other, children of Beleg?”

Tauriel grins. Mablung sighs and raises his hands in defeat, turning to find a seat on a box near the edge of the courtyard.

“Well, I haven’t met all of my siblings,” Tauriel starts, “but first there’s the oldest, my half-brother Aerandir, then Elcelu—the king’s great, great something grandfather—then Mirsell. They were all long before I was born, and so was—”

Beleg leaves Tauriel to explain the extensive family wellspring to Beren and follows Mablung instead. Beleg clasps his friend’s proffered arm in a warrior’s greeting, then turns back to the other pair and crosses his arms. “Trouble in paradise?” he asks quietly.

“Hmph,” says Mablung. Beleg’s ears twitch at the sound of boots and clamor in the halls beyond the courtyard.

“Hold on,” Beren is saying, “if half the rest of you were gone or dead, then how was it any sort of fair competition?”

"Psh," Tauriel replies, "forty-eight out of one hundred and thirty-seven is more than a decent representative sample!"

“Thou cannot have expected my daughter to be monogamous,” the archer chuckles quietly. “No child of mine.”

“I expect nothing,” Mablung says, monotone as usual. “We’re not married.”

Beleg turns to him curiously, ears twitching. He hasn’t brought it up before, but surely— “But you,” he says, and is promptly interrupted by the entrance of the King and his escort. Eh, he’ll get his answers later, he supposes.

Mablung steps up to take over planning with the other accomplished hunters. Beleg and Beren attain clarification for the map, then offer their expertise.

The king agrees easily enough to the plan—one party to draw the beast’s attention, led by Elu, and one to flank and herd the creature, led by Mablung—and soon enough they’re riding out into the grey pre-dawn.

Beleg has never been a very good rider, even once horses became popular in Doriath due to trade with the Noldor. They’d had horses before, but more scraggly little ponies than the tall, well-bred palfreys and destriers the Amanyar had brought over. Too high off the ground with too little control, if you ask Beleg, but few people have.

He keeps to the trees instead, in prime position to drop or move or otherwise intervene with goings on below. His longbow he leaves strapped across his back; he can string it when they get closer, there’s no point leaving it in tension for so long if he’s not using it, especially with the weight of his draw.

Tauriel, who’s in his group as well, clambers up into the weave of branches with him once she gets tired of walking.

“Sooo,” she says, hands behind her back (he can’t see it, but he can assume from the halting fall of her steps that she’s walking in her cheerfully careless, leaned-back way). He should push her, just for the laughs. “Four gold pieces says I can put an arrow in the wolf’s eye.”

“Just one?” Beleg raises a brow at her.

Tauriel snorts. “Eye, or arrow?”

Beleg grins, laughing. “Either, but I’d advise thee to pick a more gullible mark. I’ll not take that bet with thee!”

“Eh,” his daughter says. “Worth a try! Now, if I can pin his tail to a tree—”

Beleg cackles. “Spare the tree!” he says.

Beleg hears the beast before he sees it, but that’s normal. He hears it before everyone else does, too, which is also not unusual. Mablung waits for him to point them in a direction before letting Elu take the party that way.

The wolf has caused serious damage across wide swathes of Doriath; Beleg can hear the crackle of fire from far off and the distinct lack of forest animals in the area. They, at least, are smart enough to stay far away from the raving beast running amuck. Not so elves.

Though sometimes Beleg wishes his people were just that much smarter.

It’s not that his grandson is a poor hunter. Elu, like most of Beleg’s descendants who were raised near his influence, is quick with a bow and nimble in the trees.

Beleg’s not worried about Elu claiming whatever honor or glory he looks to get out of this hunt. He’s worried about Elu taking risks, and not being as careful as he should. Honestly, the fact that he’s not a bad hunter at all will do nothing to help.

The boy has always been impulsive and quick to action, when older and wiser elves would suggest caution and wariness. It was what drove him to follow Oromë away to Aman, the land of light, and what brought him back to cry on Beleg’s shoulder for the beauty of such a place.

Beleg can’t be sure that Aman is really that much better than Beleriand, truthfully. It is possible that it is but two different types of beauty, and the reconciliation of both brought Elu to tears. The king has not spoken of it since marrying Melian, and Beleg hasn’t asked.

He doesn’t make a habit of prying into his children’s business if he doesn’t have to. He will judge them, though, if they act like idiots.

Elu’s responsibility is not just to his family, as it was when he made his journey to Aman, before the lights down the line of Enel and Enelye by their son Himelion and Beleg himself began to flicker and snuff out one by one. Elu had been unprepared, Beleg thinks, to be thrust under a crown when he came home. He’d handled it as well as he could, but he’d never quite lost his impulsiveness or pure bullheaded stubbornness.

Now, he serves the realm. And because Carcharoth threatens the realm, he hunts the wolf. Beleg knows exactly how to tell the boy that he ought to serve by not putting himself directly into danger, but he hesitates.

Elu has suffered enough blows to his own ego of late and it’s not that Beleg fears damaging it, but more that he knows what comes of boys who’ve been kicked again and again and are desperate to prove themselves. He won’t pile on the blows.

He will, however, be over cautious.

Running through the treetops beside Tauriel while the rest of the party picks up the pace below, Beleg shares a knowing look with his daughter.

“I’ll be careful,” she says.

“Contrary to popular Mablung belief,” Beleg says with a chuckle, leaping and landing on light feet. “I know thou’rt typically more careful than thou dost let on. That is not what I would ask of thee.”

Tauriel raises a brow. “We’ll protect him, Ada,” she says, driving right at the heart of the matter.

Beleg sighs. “For the sake of more than ourselves, we had better.”

Somehow, it doesn’t surprise him when he finds himself putting his body between Elu and a vicious blow from the wolf’s paw not an hour later. The creature’s entire body is bristling with arrows—his own, and the other archers’, but it appears to have done little but infuriate Carcharoth.

Multiple someones cry out as the paw connects and Beleg goes flying. His ears ringing from the blow which managed to catch both his head and chest in one fell swoop, Beleg doesn’t hear the tree coming.

Impact comes with a sickening crunch and Beleg’s hea

:::

Maeglin would be the first to find fault with Gondolin in any situation—if disliking the white city were a competition, the force of his distaste would surely outlast every opponent—but he can admit that it has a few nicely shaded balconies.

The one just above and beside his cousin’s favorite terrace is very nice, as a matter of fact, and Maeglin is liable to be found there with a book or papers for some time at least four days a week.

It’s not, honestly, anything to do with Idril herself. Maeglin is not stupid; he knows what the city thinks of him, and he keeps an ear to the ground collecting rumors and gossip, just as he had done at home Before.

It’s purely a matter of location, and he’ll swear to that. More often, the tittering of his cousin’s ladies and guests puts him off his spot rather than enticing him to it. He likes Idril, he does. (She’s kind to him, and gentler than most, which is refreshing.) But not to the point of stalking her.

However, as previously established, Maeglin is an incurable gossip-collector. And it’s not every day they get a new elven face in Gondolin. Why, Maeglin snorts to himself, the last time it was an entire affair, now wasn’t it?

So there he sits on the nicely shaded balcony, just barely within view from below if you know where to look (he knows; he’s checked, because Idril is entitled to her privacy as well though he doubts she’s slow enough to ever assume she’s alone). He has a book and he does intend to read it… in between a bit of good-natured spying.

It’s about brunch time, and he can smell what he imagines are crepes wafting up from below. Idril and the newcomer—Gil-henë; part Sinda, according to Rog, secondhand from Ecthelion—are speaking quietly as Maeglin settles in his favorite wicker seat.

Maeglin was named for his eyes, but that doesn’t mean his ears are anything to sneeze at. Staring down at his book without really looking at it, Maeglin listens.

“You’ll have to swear fealty to my father, you understand,” Idril is saying in her patient way. Maeglin’s collected information suggests that Turgon is planning to arrange a dedicated king’s guard, and the newcomer will be some part of it. If they want him as the leader of it, Maeglin is prepared to tell them all that’s wildly stupid, but if Idril vouches for him…

“I know,” Gil-henë agrees. “Do you plan a public ceremony, or—?”

The princess hums thoughtfully. “Not a large one,” she says after a moment. “You won’t be inducted as a lord yourself, just a minor officer. I imagine you’ll be sworn in in the king’s office or his smaller receiving hall with a few of the lords as witnesses.”

Maeglin is very technically a lord himself, though really he just manages a small group of miners and people of the earth who help supply the city’s Noldorin jewelry addiction.

He grimaces to himself. That was far too charitable a description. At times it seems as though the people of the white city are half mad in their desperate squabble over the best shiny objects. He hadn’t understood his mother’s stories about her family going to war over jewels until he met the Gondolindrim and was forced into constant close proximity. One would think they’re draining their jewels like power sources with how quickly they always want more—Maeglin has been admonished more than once that if he wants to make any money, he’d best move from weaponsmithing to something more “suitable”, a comment that he’s beyond tired of and disgusted with at this point.

“Lovely,” Gil-henë comments in a tone that does not quite agree with the sentiment. “At which point I suppose I’ll be granted leave to roam and bound to your train no longer, Princess?”

Idril laughs in her smiling, genuine way and says, “I should hope my company is not so hateful—I’ve been instructed to acclimate you, not alienate!”

“Of course, of course,” the guest demurs. “I would never imply such dishonor regarding such a fine lady. T’would be uncouth. You are as a—”

“If you say fresh flower, or anything of the like, I shall be forced to plant you in the gardens to endure their true company,” Idril laughs. “I like to imagine myself a slightly better conversationalist.”

“Absolutely,” says Gil-henë, sounding perfectly at ease with the near insult to the princess. “Though you should know, your highness, that I’ve more than one friend who find plants to be superb conversationalists. My… my closest friend has always maintained that they hold status even above myself in that regard, and consistently ignores me in favor of them.”

Maeglin watches silently as Idril covers a smile with one white-gloved hand.

“I’m sure,” she agrees, “there would be no other obvious cause to do such.”

Gil-henë puts a hand to his chest in mock affront, gasping loudly. “Princess! I trust you enough to tell me if I’m a bore!”

Maeglin narrows his eyes, fixed back on his book though he isn’t reading it. Something about that rings untrue; he files it away to dig into later.

Gil-henë, he decides, is far too personal already. There’s a danger to people like that—like Luthien, who assumes herself welcomed in every space. Indeed, with the charming disposition this newcomer displays, there could be quite some upset in the gossip-rife court of dearest Gondolin. Maeglin sneers. He hopes the white city gets quite shaken up over it.

Idril, however, only laughs lightly again. “Speaking of poor conversationalists,” she says.

Maeglin sits straight upright, feeling a sudden chill chase itself down his spine. She wouldn’t… but it’s Idril, and she absolutely would.

Maeglin stands from his seat with intent to flee just in time for his cousin to raise her voice to say, “That’s my cousin just over there—you two ought to be introduced.”

Maeglin groans softly. Fine, he grumbles silently. He can play Idril’s game until she gets bored—and she always gets bored, look what happened to him. He supposes Gil-henë may be interesting for a season or three, though he’ll quickly learn that Gondolin is no easier on the rest of them than Maeglin himself. He just can’t be bothered to stay quiet about it.

“Maeglin! Good morning!” she calls. He supposes he’s taking too long for her.

He does not return her greeting out of pure effort to retain his grumpy image as he makes his way down the open-air staircase from the hallway his balcony extends off of. If people want to see him as the son of the Dark Elf, then he’ll present himself as the son of the Dark Elf. He has no issue with that.

Idril smiles at him sunnily as he approaches where she sits with her guest, who rises respectfully.

“Princess Idril,” Maeglin says with a grudging nod.

Idril doesn’t seem bothered by his weak greeting, gesturing for him and Gil-henë both to “Please, sit down!”

To the newcomer, she says, “Maeglin Aredhelion is lord of the House of the Mole; my aunt’s son, and prince of Gondolin.”

Maeglin’s lip curls faintly. “Just because my father was an evil bastard doesn’t mean he didn’t exist,” he points out. He’ll not be treated like a half-orc and then have people refuse to ever think about the orc. That’s their own problem, but he will hold it against them.

With barely a flick of mental power, Maeglin reaches out to get a feel of Gil-henë himself before the elf speaks.

Oh, breaking waves, Maeglin scrapes off the surface thoughts. This poor sweet thing.

He scowls ferociously. He is not sweet.

“The pleasure is mine,” Gil-henë says with a charming smile as if he isn’t belittling Maeglin where he thinks the prince can’t hear it.

Maeglin considers, then decides firmly that he will not like this elf. “I’m sure,” he sneers. Gil-henë, unfortunately, does not seem the slightest bit perturbed by the expression. Asshole. “Do you always make yourself so at home immediately upon arrival in lands not your own?”

Aside from a brief blink, his abrasive front doesn’t appear to be very effective.

“Not at all,” says Gil-henë cheerfully. “I daresay everyone here has been more than welcoming thus far—pastries in the morning are better than what I would receive from my own home!”

Well. Now Maeglin can either change tacks, or double down. It’s not really a choice.

“Some,” he suggests with false mildness, “might take umbrage with your sudden friendliness with our dear princess. ‘Tis not everyone who gets invited to private meetings in the gardens.”

Gil-henë gives him a bemused look. “I like to think myself decently friendly with everyone I meet,” he says, “lest I give them insult when there is cause for none. Seeing as I’ve only just arrived in the city, I hardly think my friendliness is sudden, more than a product of the circumstances.”

Well, fuck. That failed harder than trying to soak a duck, and now Idril is glaring at him too when Gil-henë isn’t looking.

It might be time to retreat, Maeglin supposes. But at the same time, Maeglin is not one to flee with his tail tucked. His father would probably insult the irritating elf’s dubious heritage, which is not really an option for Maeglin—not that he generally goes about actively emulating his father, especially the racism—considering he probably shares certain genetic percentages with Gil-henë. There are only so many part-Noldos who are related to Thingol, after all. yet

“Good to know you’ll be… less than industrious, then,” Maeglin says cuttingly. “I’ve been repeatedly informed that first impressions are the most important and days in here you are, lazing about, gorging yourself on our city’s efforts—"

Idril looks like she’s about to cut in, and Maeglin gives her a sharp glare. She asked for this, interrupting his perfectly pleasant spying to make him interact with people. Well here he is, interacting.

Maeglin opens his mouth to continue his scathing diatribe, then pauses. “May I have a crepe?”

Gil-henë blinks, then smiles, quickly moving the tray closer to the smith. “Please, have at it! I was just about done anyway, Princess?”

“Of course,” Idril makes a benevolent gesture, but Maeglin has outpaced her and is already bringing one of the cream-filled delights to his mouth and taking a rather smug bite. The faintest flicker of her expression at that prompts him to paste on a sunny smile right back at her. Two can play this game, cousin.

The crepe is delicious. So worth it. And it precludes the need to pause awkwardly while scrounging for something else reasonable to insult. Or unreasonable; Maeglin’s not picky.

“Her Highness was just telling me about the high lords of the city, Lord Maeglin,” Gil-henë says, before Maeglin can continue his internal debate. “I’m told you work with Lord Rog in the forges upon occasion?”

She was not and they all know it, but Maeglin wasn’t supposed to be listening in, so he has to go with it.

“I do,” he says grumpily, patting his mouth clean of crumbs with a napkin because he’s not an uncultured savage, no matter what people say. “I am a smith, like my father.”

If Gil-henë knows very much of that, he doesn’t show it, merely putting on an interested face as he asks after Maeglin’s projects. The half-Sinda is… pleasantly surprised at the newcomer’s interest, though he doubts it will last. Before he quite knows how it happened, he finds himself with a standing invitation to wherever Gil-henë ends up living permanently, and feels obliged to offer a return invitation to the gossip-lunches he shares with Salgant twice a month as well.

Idril points out the time eventually, and Maeglin realizes that somewhere in the midst of talking he fell to enjoying it, and that just won’t do. That’s something to hate about this new elf: too likable.

With a huff and a few more grumbles he excuses himself to find somewhere quieter to sulk consider this new development. Gil-henë will definitely require more studying. If that results in more time spent laboriously in his company… well, so be it.

:::

Tyelpë is not well pleased.

Things would be better if—well. Things could be better. His shakes his head with a short sigh and closes the door to Lilthanoss’ chambers quietly behind him. It was not unlocked, but that’s hardly been an issue for him since he was a child just learning to Sing to metal. That in itself shows a level of mistrust that Tyelpë finds himself strangely more comfortable with than Finrod’s typical open-door policy.

Certainly, it’s warranted.

The room is quiet and pleasantly dark with only the soft orangey glow of a half-shuttered lantern hanging above the doors leading out of the anteroom, presumably into the bedroom. He locks the door behind himself, throwing the deadbolt just to be sure.

Lilthanoss’ things—only a few bags—are all neatly packed in a pile on the rug near the door, but Tyelpë ignores them for the moment in favor of ensuring he’s alone. Careful to take his slippers off before stepping on the rug, he unhooks the lantern silently and takes it with him, turning to glance at the deadbolt once more before peering into the bedroom.

The bedroom is empty, the bed made though slightly rumpled; the servants clearly have yet to come through and tidy after the occupant. They’ll probably be in later, but Tyelpë sets the lantern on the bedside table, precisely squared with the edge, and straightens the bedding anyway.

He is indeed alone.

Tyelpë starts with a bit of basic snooping, nosing through drawers and poking around in the closet, but finds a distinct lack of anything personal. He supposes that’s fair; the elf did just return from captivity in Gorthaur’s tower, so most of what he has in Nargothrond are probably various gifts and provisions sourced from Finrod’s generosity.

Tyelpë shakes his head. He doesn’t quite trust the elf, though Finrod says they do truly share a kin-bond. That may be, but even with Sauron’s attentions turned to Finrod, Beren, and their company, Lilthanoss was too untouched, with his hair still long and his body unbroken.

Sure, he has scars; Tyelpë saw them in the bath, and the majority seemed deep, but also old. Which does not line up with the story as Celebrimbor heard it.

In essence, Lilthanoss is a liar.

And that’s fine; Tyelpë’s father is a liar as well. Half his uncles can talk in circles for hours and seem perfectly reasonable until they get what they want.

But it becomes less fine when it’s near people Tyelpë cares about. Finrod is… not careful with his affections. Granted, neither is Tyelpë, particularly, but he knows that his half-uncle tends to be much looser than even he is with people whom he latches onto.

Curufin and Celegorm are prime examples, and they would have seen Finrod killed for it. So Tyelpë will hold onto his reservations.

At least Lilthanoss seems to be a fairly neat person, which is a point in his favor. At last, Tyelpë finds some sign of occupation apart from the bags; on the desk in the bedroom there are a few scattered writing implements and a sheaf of parchment which is strangely disorganized compared to the rest of the room.

Tyelpë shakes his head, frowning, and picks the pages up carefully with his fingertips. They’re covered in a looping scrawl of tengwar that’s very small and in quite precisely even lines, but halfway illegible.

Tyelpë scoffs softly. He’s often wondered if having terrible handwriting is a perquisite for being a healer, or if the opposite order is true and the handwriting degrades as one delves deeper in their studies. Either way, it’s nearly impossible to read, and he certainly won’t have time to do it all here before Lilthanoss returns to gather his things and leave.

Tyelpë squints at the mess of swirling characters before he puts the pages back down—Lilthanoss must have picked up his quill only to replenish the ink, and even then a few words trail off to inkless scratches here and there before the next one is dark again.

He’s about to give them up for a loss when he spots what’s definitely his own Sindarin name, despite being only half-inked and with a trailing scratch from the line above it struck through it. He brings the page closer to his face to squint at it—

Celebr…or, followed by what’s either dispenses, displays, or displaces, but he probably won’t be able to tell without a loupe or other magnifying glass and better familiarity with how the healer writes his vowels.

Tyelpë is rather caught, unfortunately. He can’t just leave it now that he knows it’s talking about him, but neither can he memorize or copy the notes, seeing as reading them may take a while. The remaining option is to steal it now and figure it out later.

Tyelpë looks around, though he knows he’s alone, then tucks the entire sheaf of notes into his robes, leaving the few blank pages left over where they lie. Hopefully by the time Lilthanoss notices them missing, one or both of them will be long gone from Nargothrond.

Tyelpë taps his fingers against the parchment nervously. It’s a long shot honestly, but he can hope that Lilthanoss will find hunting him down over a few pages too much effort when he has other places to be. Especially seeing as Lilthanoss won’t necessarily know who exactly took them anyway…

And besides that, it’s a challenge, now. And Tyelpë is perhaps overly fond of challenges. He blames his father’s teaching (and parenting) style.

With that thought, he settles his course of action and takes up the lantern again to replace it where it came from before taking six steps across the rug and sliding his hall slippers back on on the stone floor.

It’ll be back to the forge next; he needs to pack up for his own departure, but most of his belongings are kept where he works anyway so it’s a step in the right direction. He’s been gone from his space too long anyway and will need to ensure everything is in order again when he returns because his father or other smiths may have been through while he was gone.

Tyelpë feels a small thrill of excitement as he closes Lilthanoss’ door and whispers the lock engaged. He feels just the faintest bit like those old Tree-lit days spent sneaking about his grandmother’s Tirion house with Huan, playing at uncovering mysteries and rescuing various stuffed animals in distress by solving his grandfather’s puzzles strewn throughout the manor.

The thought is enough to amuse him as he turns the corner and runs straight into the person he’s stealing from.

Ah, thinks Tyelpë, shit.

“Lord Celebrimbor,” Lilthanoss says, blinking. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Celebrimbor returns.

He has determined through his observations since the healer came to Nargothrond that no one else can quite see the power that Lilthanoss is carrying around, though Finrod probably feels some hint of it. To him, it calls like a distant siren. It knows his name, and somehow that’s not frightening at all.

But it is suspicious. Very, very suspicious. Tyelpë shakes his head. Once he finds out what the bloody notes say, his next mission will be tracking down the half-Iathrim and getting that ring off of his finger to examine it.

“Just passing through,” he says before Lilthanoss even asks, then curses himself for being so horribly awkward. Hopefully the healer is not of a particularly suspicious mind. “Safe travels, Lilthanoss.”

Lilthanoss gives him a strange look that Tyelpë can’t quite parse, but nods. “Are you leaving as well?” he asks.

“I am,” Tyelpë confirms. “To Himring, for I’ve a need to speak with my uncles there.”

Lilthanoss tips his head. “Not with your father?”

That feels like a very impertinent question, but Tyelpë answers anyway. “Not,” he agrees simply, “with my father.”

What Curufin and Celegorm have done certainly warrants repudiation, but Tyelpë does not know that he’s yet prepared to do so to the whole lot of them. Maedhros and Maglor will probably support him, to be completely honest, but he’d prefer to speak with them and set something up for himself outside of the family before taking such a drastic step.

Not that those are his actual reasons to make for Himring. No, that has much more to do with Lilthanoss’ children, who will hopefully be more forthright about what’s actually going on than their father.

Celebrimbor half hopes that being the first to have spoken to both will allow him to tease out precious information, but he’s also aware that any progress at all will do. He will get to the bottom of things, if he has to hunt his answers all across Arda.

“Right,” says Lilthanoss, tearing him out of his thoughts. “Well, safe travels indeed then.”

“Aye,” Tyelpë says and nods politely before slipping past the healer and on down the hall. The notes feel like they’re burning a hole in his pocket, but he has enough to feel guilty about in life without adding this on top of it all.

With the door to his workshop in the forges shut securely behind him, Tyelpë focuses a lamp stone on the table, fishes out a small magnifying glass from the box he keeps them in and a blank parchment for taking his own notes, then sets about breaking the code.

Chapter Text

“So?” Glorfindel asks Idril, leaning against the pillar the princess stands beside, arms crossed over his chest. “Thoughts?”

Idril hums. “I believe he would have preferred a moment to speak to his family before making this decision, however he tells me their osanwë is more powerful than his own and he is unable to reach them by himself.”

Not that it was much of a choice, Glorfindel knows. He suspects if Idril hadn’t put him into service in the court somewhere, she would have swiftly taken him into her own house. It can be helpful to have a Seer around, besides whatever she found in Gil-henë’s head that has made him of special interest to both herself and her father.

The new captain of the royal guard himself chats with the other lords and various courtiers who had attended the small ceremony off towards the center of the chamber. Despite the oddity of having to build his own force from the ground up and technically serving the princess’ house rather than the king’s, he seems to be settling in well enough. Glorfindel watches him with a narrow gaze, not quite trusting the easy, gracious smile and big silver eyes.

His oath for the ceremony itself had been suspicious enough. Turgon had been hesitant to allow any changes to the standard oath of service, but Gil-henë wouldn’t back down. He had family, he said, to whom he would always owe allegiance first. No, that does not, apparently, mean Thingol. It does mean the part-Sinda’s own Lord Father, for which Turgon was willing to make an exception—with Idril’s support, of course.

Personally, Glorfindel doesn’t like it. He suspects it’s sentiment, mostly; less than ten years past, their King buried his own father, and his sister before that. Deep elven emotions tend to run slow and thick, and the golden lord is not sure at all that that grief has been fully purged from Turgon’s system.

There’s something odd about Gil-henë, too, perhaps a sense of familiarity. Or maybe it’s how he treats Glorfindel; at times overly familiar, then abruptly stiff as if remembering himself. He doesn’t do it with anyone else, according to Salgant, their little master of rumors.

Either way, it puts Glorfindel just off-balance enough to not trust the boy. He’ll accept him for Idril and his king, but not trust.

Idril is giving him a Look when he turns back to her and Glorfindel rolls his eyes.

“He is… genuine,” Glorfindel says, though it’s more of a question than anything.

“Yes,” Idril agrees.

It’s not innocence, per se, but a definite and intentional kindness which is honestly a bit off-putting in the face of Gondolin’s crafty court.

“Ecthel is trying to charm him,” she notes as well and Glorfindel glance back over.

“Ecthel tries to charm everyone.”

Idril inclines her head. “Of course, and more often than not it works. I’m only curious.”

Glorfindel settles back with a wordless grumble. His partner is a known philandrist, and he hardly minds it as he is one himself as well, but Ecthelion rarely reigns in his efforts for even Glorfindel’s sake.

“Ooh,” Idril comments idly, as if spectating a croquet match, “a polite rebuff! How impressive. I wonder if he has someone at home.”

Glorfindel raises an eyebrow. “You couldn’t have figured that out from digging around in his head?”

“’Twas hardly so crude,” Idril says, waving a hand. “More of a mutual exchange, and I hardly went asking after his personal history once I had the information I needed.”

“Hn,” Glorfindel grunts. “Sure.”

Idril rolls her eyes. “I don’t understand what you have against osanwë, Findelë.”

Before Glorfindel can do more than open his mouth, though, the princess rolls right on over him. “I am aware that my cousin was not incredibly restrained at first, but he’s an exception rather than the norm. You knew me before you ever knew him, and I’ve had strong abilities all my life!”

Glorfindel pulls a face. “That’s not as comforting as you think it is,” he points out.

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” says Idril in a good-naturedly exasperated tone, “even were I so callous as to disrespect the most personal of boundaries like that, I wouldn’t go rummaging about, as you imply, in your brain of all people’s!”

Now Glorfindel frowns for a different reason. “What’s wrong with my brain?”

Idril places a blatantly patronizing hand on his arm. “I love Ecthel as much as the next Gondolindrim,” she says, “but I don’t need to know how many of your thoughts throughout the day are comprised of him naked on the council table with a rose between his teeth.”

Glorfindel is not prone to embarrassment and doesn’t flush in the slightest, instead laughing at the comment. “We wouldn’t go in for the council table,” he says with a chuckle, “Turgon would have an aneurysm. Now, the chaises in the public receiving room—”

“Star-strewn seas,” Idril mutters. “That was not an invitation.”

Glorfindel laughs louder and shakes his head. “I believe I’ll be off to extricate my lover before Gil-henë gets the impression that we’re all voracious harassers,” he says, pushing himself off the column.

Idril inclines her head, already busy watching some other interaction in the large chamber.

Glorfindel sweeps through the crowd easily and with enough care that only a few people notice him enough to get out of the way. There’s often reason to present himself as impressive and in charge, but not so when he doesn’t mean to draw undue attention.

Ecthelion feels him coming through their bond and gives him a slow blink accompanied by a lazy smile from where he stands at Gil-henë’s side, just barely not draped over the young new captain’s shoulder.

Glorfindel wonders how far his partner would have to go with the part-Sinda to be accused of impropriety, or lechery following that. There are many who find themselves flattered enough by the attention that they never do so at all.

Of course, most elves in that category get summarily invited to bed and given the night of their life and Glorfindel is patently unwilling to engage in even flirting with someone he doesn’t trust farther than he can throw.

But that doesn’t mean sensuality doesn’t have its place either. It’s a marvelous distraction tactic.

“Ecthel,” he murmurs, pressing against his lover’s back and sliding his hands down the other lord’s sides to rest of his hips. Ecthelion shivers but doesn’t pull away from him or Gil-henë, who has noticed, by the set of his ears, but continues to chat peaceably with the little group of courtiers around him anyway.

“Glaur,” Ecthelion replies.

“Might I tempt you in the direction of the food?” Glorfindel asks, gesturing around his lover to the buffet-style snack tables.

He doesn’t have to see it to know his partner is rolling his eyes as Ecthelion lets himself be steered away and murmurs wryly, “Tempt me away from a new person of interest, you mean.”

“I am not a jealous lover,” Glorfindel decries that, “but I am a wary one.”

Ecthelion rolls his eyes. “And don’t I know it.”

The rest of the gathering goes well enough; the court seems to like the newcomer decently, though there are always those stuffy members of their number looking down their noses at the new captain for little more than the blood he claims.

Glorfindel shakes his head silently at them. Old, terribly Noldorin, and very much stuck in their ways despite a good third of the city being Sindar and Fallas-Teleri they merged with in Vinyamar. It’s a stupid reason to distrust someone, if you ask him. Especially when there are other, more abundant, reasonable, and perfectly good reasons to distrust him that are being entirely discounted in favor of their blatant racism.

Eventually people begin to trickle out, and it’s long past lunch by the time it’s mostly only the high lords and a few of their people left.

Gil-henë is wrapping up quiet discussions with some of Galdor’s people, who he’s likely poach for his new king-protection unit, when Glorfindel finishes his last flute of sparkling wine and looks for Ecthelion to take their leave.

Ecthelion is wrapped up with Duilin and Penlod, discussing what’s blatantly gossip but they’ll all claim is vital government intelligence if questioned.

Gil-henë excuses himself sometime in the midst of that, and Glorfindel only vaguely clocks it.

He pays more attention though as Duilin cuts himself off mid-sentence, staring out one of the tall windows on the same side of the hall as the main exit. Glorfindel looks that way along with Ecthelion and the other lords and spots a circling eagle, swiftly descending towards their fair city. It only takes a moment to realize why that’s a problem.

“Shit,” says the typically stoic Penlod.

With that sudden impetus, the group bursts into motion, hustling for the door to try and catch the part-Sinda. He can’t have not seen the bird, or failed to hear the shrieking cry Thorondor lets out on descent.

Turgon takes the lead beside his daughter and Glorfindel lets him, taking up position opposite Ecthelion at the king’s other shoulder. Gil-henë isn’t likely to do anything but try to leave, which they really can’t have seeing as he’d have then flown both into and out of Gondolin with a bird’s-eye view each time, and will live far longer than a Man to tell people about it.

Though he did just swear to serve Turgon as king as well, which means staying in the city unless ordered out of it along with the rest of his new job. Hopefully, he doesn’t make a habit of breaking oaths.

I’ll go for the legs, Ecthel tells him with a few short hand gestures as they hurry along a terrace walkway, heading ever upward.

Glorfindel indicates agreement with a quick motion of his closed fist. If they need to catch Gil-henë, it’s best to have a plan of action now. They must be careful not to drive him towards a roof or wall, though—the eagle will likely catch him up if he jumps.

“There,” says Idril, pointing up another flight of stairs towards what Glorfindel knows to be a large, open balcony area. “He’s stopped.”

And this is a perfect example of why Glorfindel finds her level of power with osanwe creepy and worth being leery of. That she can just track a person so effectively, even at a shorter range—if put to nefarious use, the ability could be devastating.

Not that she would, but there are significant other people in the city—and the palace—who are known to be of the same power, if not skill. Idril would call him paranoid and biased. Glorfindel believes it to be necessary caution.

The fact that they don’t have to chase him anymore is less comforting when faced with the sound of shouting and flapping as they round the corner.

“You don’t even have a real asshole!” Gil-henë hollers in lisping Quenya. “How are you so good at emulating one?!”

The part-Sinda does not, oddly enough, appear to be planning an escape via giant bird. He’s standing close enough to the wall that he could reasonably jump over and be caught as he fell, but instead of doing so he has collected a number of rocks from a decorative plant pot nearby and is throwing them one by one with aim that would be very good if his target wasn’t sweeping back and forth in the air so erratically.

“And fuck your lord, too!” Gil-henë shouts, viciously hurling another fist-sized rock. “All-seeing, well watch this, you ruffly-feathered knob! Rude, churlish, betraying, elf-dropping, brother stealing, cloud hugger! Someone should’ve chucked your egg out a window, you overgrown pigeon!”

“I am not,” Thorondor rumbles, “a pigeon.”

“Well then get your act together, you carrion crow! At least pigeons can be trusted to carry whatever you give them from one point to another reliably. They—” this accompanied by another rock, Gil-henë has an impressively strong throwing arm, “aren’t known for dropping their package prior to delivery. Could you even see the fountain, what with your little chicken eyes?”

Thorondor has no reply to that, only mantling in pure affront. Half of Glorfindel is breathless with awe at the youngster so righteously handing the bird’s feathered behind to him, and half is utterly mortified at the insults to such a hallowed creature.

“I wouldn’t stuff a pillow with your feathers, you bristle-backed vulture beast!” Gil-henë continues. “You could have killed me!”

“You elves are very hardy,” Thorondor says.

“I am a half-elf!” Gil-henë shrieks, which is information Glorfindel is sure they’ll be discussing at a later date. “And where is my brother?”

“That,” Thorondor huffs, “would be what I was asked to tell you.”

The eagle’s tone very much implies that he’s less inclined to be helpful and charitable now, faced with this violent welcome.

Gil-henë sets his hands on his hips, one still grasping a fist-sized rock. “Well, get on with it then. We don’t have all day.”

The eagle sniffs, which Glorfindel hadn’t known was possible. The golden lord blinks and turns at Turgon’s tap on his shoulder. The king gestures forward, and Glorfindel takes it as his cue to approach on silent feet, matched by Ecthelion beside him.

The cocking of Thorondor’s head tells Glorfindel that he sees them, but he says nothing to the elf he’s facing off with, only flapping and fluttering to stay more or less in front of Gil-henë.

“The Lady Luthien delivered your brother safely to Menegroth ere I left them in Brethil,” the eagle says. “They will be well there.”

“Well,” snarls Gil-henë, launching his rock. “Well! Did it occur anywhere in your thimble-sized bird brain that they don’t let people leave this city?”

Glorfindel pauses and Ecthel mirrors him, halfway through a step. Glorfindel silently gestures his partner around to circle just out of the part-Sinda’s line of sight so they can cut him off from the wall.

“And I’m sure it’s very nice,” Gil-henë continues, “but while I am here, Estel is going to grow up and grow old without me. You’ve killed my little brother, for all that I’ll ever see him again. So you can shove your dull, placating beak right up where Arien doesn’t and will never wish to shine. All because you got fat and lazy sitting pretty for Manwë while the rest of us have been scrambling about so far below your vaunted reaches—”

“Gil-henë,” Turgon says loudly.

Gil-henë spins and Glorfindel and Ecthel spring as one, wrapping bodily around the tall elf and taking him to the floor.

Gil-henë yelps, but his physical protestations cease the moment he evidently recognizes who has tackled him. Glorfindel and Ecthelion maneuver him between them, then stand up and swiftly frog march him away from the wall. Thorondor takes the opportunity to perch on the wall.

“Why are you harassing the great eagle?” the king asks, approaching with Idril just behind him.

“Because he’s an asshole!” Gil-henë says stalwartly. “And he started it!”

“He’s not—that is a servant of Manwë, the elder king.” Turgon looks very much like he wants to pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh as long and hard as he can.

“Well he’s a useless lump,” Gil-henë snaps, apparently unwilling to be the slightest bit charitable. “So you save one guy from a cliff and your tenure as being anything useful to anyone is just over?” He turns back to Thorondor, as much as he can while held tightly between the two lords. “If you could snatch up Fingolfin’s body then you certainly could’ve helped with that fight!”

Glorfindel hears both Turgon and Idril suck in their breath together. Gil-henë either doesn’t hear it or does and doesn’t care.

“And really, bringing it here—we were all under the impression that you liked Fingon, but you didn’t even let him bury his father’s body! And you knew!”

There’s something jaggedly painful in Gil-henë’s voice, which rises to a quavering peak as he faces Thorondor, head held high, something breaking in his expression as he speaks:

“You knew. You, petty-lord of the skies of fair middle earth, you, who comes at the call of wizened maiar but won’t do more than pick over the bodies of your favored for scraps when the battle is done. You see all that comes and goes from your heights, and from your mouth to Manwë’s ears goes the wind of the world. You knew. You’ve watched us all bleed, and cry, and die for millennia and you did nothing. You said nothing.”

Glorfindel finds himself less holding the elf back then and more holding him up as he sags under the weight of what must be great and terrible foresight.

“If Manwë truly cannot comprehend the concept of evil, then surely his actions must all be good. Tell me why it took a silmaril to move him,” Gil-henë says, voice breaking and falling from his enraged shout. “I know she screamed, o eagle. I hear my mother every night when I close my eyes. It echoes still in the passes in your mountains where they took her, tell me why you did nothing.”

Glorfindel can’t say he’s a master of discerning eagle emotion, but the ruffling of Thorondor’s feathers reads as distinctly uncomfortable.

“I am, unfamiliar, with the events you describe,” he says haltingly.

“Of course you are,” Gil-henë sighs, sagging. “You’re just a bird, none of it is your responsibility. Just, just go. Thanks for letting me know Pîngil is alright.”

Still, the eagle shifts restlessly. “If there is ought my kin and I should—”

“Go tell Manwë to send help before we all start killing each other over here,” Gil-henë says bitterly. Glorfindel knows he’s a Seer, which makes that particular statement set a ringing in his ears the way typical complaints about the Fëanorian ilk do not.

“No,” Gil-henë continues with a sigh. “If you cannot do that, it hardly seems worth it to even try. Besides, the world is already… much changed, and I suspect that that which will come to pass will be very different indeed from the times I have Seen. That’s the trouble of knowing anything at all, I suppose.”

The bird clicks his beak a few times, then launches off the wall without further comment, presumably returning to the mountain peaks where he and his fellows roost.

“Gil-henë,” Idril says, hurrying up with her father close behind as Glorfindel and Ecthel steady the elf between them. “Is that—what did you mean, much changed? Is it—oh, yes, just have a seat there. Someone fetch him some water!”

Looking at his king, Glorfindel flinches minutely at the expression on Turgon’s face. It’s torn and raw with an untold grief and heartbreak, and cuts the golden lord right down to the bone.

“His favored,” Turgon rasps. Idril stops fluttering in a moment, turning to look at him slowly. “My brother, Gil-henë. You meant my brother.”

The part-Sinda—half-elf, apparently, which is just too much to be considering for the moment—gives him a level look, though he seems drawn and wrung out himself.

“I cannot say it’s preventable,” he says plainly, “unless the battle itself never happens. They will call it the Union of Maedhros, then they will call it the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.”

The words ring with deep truth that makes Glorfindel shudder and he feels Ecthelion do the same on Gil-henë’s other side as they crouch on the ground with him.

“Tears unnumbered,” Turgon says in the fumbling way that speaks of the Ice and suggests his lips are numb with the thought.

Gil-henë nods gravely. “Many will die,” he says. “The Noldorin leaguer will break completely, Himring and Barad Eithel lost. If the Dagor Bragollach was not, then the Nirn is the beginning of the end.”

Turgon’s expression freezes, then hardens solidly. “Then it cannot happen. You will tell us what you have Seen, and we will prevent it.”

Gil-henë seems to be analyzing him for a long moment, then he dips his head. “As I said,” he replies, “much has already changed from the path we were on. The future is not static; I cannot guarantee anything I See now will hold true either. But if you really wish to change anything, I would start with contacting your people outside of this city. There is much to be prepared for.”

“Agreed,” Idril says before her father can speak. “But now, today has been very full and I am certain Gil-henë could use some rest.”

“You can just ask your questions you know, Princess,” Gil-henë mutters. “Please don’t tempt me with a nap then interrogate me instead.”

Idril smiles beatifically. Glorfindel thinks he feels the snap of osanwë, though his senses have never been very sharp in that direction.

“Come,” she says instead of responding to Gil-henë’s comment. “You’ll have to join us for dinner as well.”

Gil-henë very obviously bites back a groan. Glorfindel resists the urge to empathize.

:::

“You look ridiculous,” is the first thing Daeron’s soon-to-be husband says to him upon finding him in the tavern-like dining room of the fifth way-house on the river Aros.

“Romance, thy name is Caranthir,” says Daeron dryly. “Believe it or not, I am aware of that. What I do not look like is a prince of Doriath. A precaution I’ll note thou didst not find necessary for thine own part.”

Caranthir is dressed in the trappings of a lord still, albeit a lord a-travelling. His cloak is thick and lined with lush fur and his doublet is barely stained. In comparison the clothes Daeron wears are intentionally old and worn, his cloak ragged enough to draw little attention, but not actively in disrepair. He’s taken the time to paint his silver-white hair with a bark and charcoal blend as well under his hood, in the interest of not being noticed.

It's one thing to show up with his supposed partner at an outpost nearly perfectly between their lands when they’re about to out their secret relationship. It’s another entirely to have never been noticed there together before. It could suggest an alternate clandestine locale, or a wary observer might put two and two together and come up with the right answer to basic arithmetic.

Caranthir raises one dark eyebrow at him. Daeron could go about pretending his future spouse—whom he does have to sleep with to form a marriage bond, who is also a murderer and generally villainous character—is not particularly handsome. But that would be a lie, and would do nothing to elevate the experience.

He will not, however, swoon.

“I’ve always seen first meetings as the moment to set a standard. I suppose I am to be married to a vagabond, then.”

Even at that dark, rich voice. Daeron stands his ground. Or sits it, gesturing the Fëanorian into a seat at his table near the back of the room, where he’d been sitting in the chair facing the room so he could keep watch for his liaison. He waves to the basket of breadsticks on the table as well, and meets a passing waitress’ sweeping gaze to have ale brought for his companion.

“Ah,” he says, “but it cannot be our first meeting, for thou hast recognized me! And with my hair darkened as well. I’ve no memory of such an event, thou must enlighten me.”

Caranthir takes a moment to move the chair opposite Daeron around to a different side of the square table, so he doesn’t sit with his back to the room. Paranoid, but Daeron probably would be too if he spent so much time outside the Girdle.

“We’ve not met, formally,” says Caranthir. “But I never forget a face, not even one half-buried in my brother’s crotch in the middle of our communal kitchens at the Aderthad.”

Daeron blushes hotly for a moment before remembering that he’ll soon be at liberty to put his face wherever he wants in respect to Caranthir’s body. He purses his lips, then says, as mildly as possible, “Is that where we were? I did wonder why he kept shushing me. Not quiet enough, I suppose.”

“Too quiet,” Caranthir corrects bitingly, “Eru knows I wouldn’t have walked in if I’d heard you.”

“No?” asks Daeron. “How unadventurous.”

“My brother,” Caranthir says flatly.

“Ah,” Daeron says, catching his tongue before it runs away from him. “Right. Well. I hope thou wilt not hold it against me for having previously blown dear Maglor’s mind—among other things—ere we came to our arrangement.”

“Pray, might we cease talking about you and my brother?” the Fëanorian bites out. Daeron almost laughs at the look on his face.

“Only on thy promise!” Daeron chirps. He might be having too much fun with this.

“I’ll make no oaths,” Caranthir says, the flash of his teeth emphasizing the point.

“Oh,” Daeron’s eyes widen. “Right. Thou hast good reason, I suppose.”

They sit in silence for a long moment before, as if he’s as unwilling to fall into painful awkwardness as Daeron is, Caranthir says, “Why do you mark me as friend? I know I am hardly such to you and your people, and your letter made your stance quite clear.”

Daeron does have an answer for that, one he’s had the entire trip from Menegroth to come to terms with himself and thus can explain easily enough. “My family knows me to be a charitable sort, well inclined to certain manners and inflections around kin and friends. If I married thee many years past, then I shan’t have been calling thee by a lesser address, no? ‘Tis good practice.”

“Hm,” says Caranthir, and takes a breadstick, biting off the end sharply.

“Thou ought to do much the same,” Daeron presses, “if only because I would have certainly badgered thee into it many years passed. ‘Tis but an… advanced timeline.”

Caranthir shifts slightly, perhaps sitting up a bit straighter under Daeron’s watchful eye. “I grace neither my brothers nor my son with the informal,” he says, “because I care not. For it or otherwise.”

Daeron nods. He knows elves like that; typically much older generations who neither marry nor formally declare their kin. They don’t believe in it—if they wish to show that they care, they’ll simply go out and do so. Daeron takes a more personal approach, but then he is as they would say “young and unburdened by the ways of the world.”

“Dost thou care to be annoyed, then?” he asks. “Because I can be annoying. Shall I adjure thee, or perhaps compose an entreaty or three? I don’t mean to press but I must beseech thee, or else the security of our ploy is a wisp, a dream, no guarantee. If we are to have our children, and happily, thou understandest that thou can’t not agree—

“Stitches and spindles,” says Caranthir. “You—thou art just like him. Please shut up!”

Daeron grins. “Delightful. Tremendous. Fantastic. Thou needs must practice that, then. And note that it was thee who brought up thy brother this time! But pray, I don’t see what the textile arts have to do with it.”

“Vairë has never done me wrong,” Caranthir says grouchily. “I would hate to pay the others even the scrap of attention necessary to properly be profane.”

“Thou’rt a devotee?” Daeron asks, genuinely curious.

Caranthir shakes his head firmly. “Powers forbid,” he says with a slight sneer. The expression does nothing for his face, but then, Daeron has noticed that most people with what his father calls “the Finwë-look” can do just about whatever they want and still be unfairly pretty.

“My grandmother was a broideress,” the Fëanorian continues somewhat grudgingly. “Only I have continued the craft, of my family. I find it, calming.”

Daeron hums. “Your grandmother—”

“Therindë,” Caranthir cuts him off with a sharp side-eye.

Daeron holds up his hands slowly at the halfway defensive look. “I’m not about to eat thee alive for it,” he says. “My father has… some strong opinions. Not all that I agree with.”

“So, Alqualondë,” says Caranthir.

Daeron doesn’t hesitate to slap his kinslaying husband-to-be for the reminder. “Mention it again and the wedding is off.”

Caranthir rubs his cheek idly, but doesn’t seem incredibly offended. A faint smirk curls the edges of his lips. “Noted.”

Daeron leans back in his seat, doing his best to compose himself again and eyes Caranthir as he picks apart a breadstick with keen, immaculately clean fingernails. The moment he loses control of himself, he loses any semblance of control over the conversation and the arrangement on the whole, taking lunch with a predator as he is.

“I take more issue, I find, with the attempted erasure of thy people’s culture,” the Iathrim says, “beyond Doriath’s borders, than with thou flying in the face of my father’s rules.”

Caranthir frowns. “I would hardly count it erasure,” he says. “I assure thee, we remain very much ourselves.”

Daeron waves a hand. “I can see that perfectly well. It is not the result but the original law. Putting aside any pointed comments thy brother may have made and their, ah, possible accuracy—language forms society. Not to mention the very roots of Sindarin being buried in early proto-Quenya. As a scholar myself, the mere idea of banning a language completely is offensive in the extreme.”

Caranthir narrows his eyes for a moment, then says, “I have just had the vaguely nauseating thought that thou wouldst get on well with my father.”

Before he can stop himself, Daeron’s natural sibling impulse kicks in and he makes a retching noise in the back of his throat.

Rather than flying into a rage, however—which Caranthir is regrettably prone to, to hear a few Arafinweans tell it—the Fëanorian just laughs. The waitress arrives with a tankard for him and he takes it with a genial smile, far more pleasantly than expected.

“I hope,” says Daeron, while he seems to have an in on Caranthir’s good side, “that thou wouldst be amenable to… adding to my knowledge base, in that direction.”

Caranthir sobers, giving him a long look, then says, “Of course. What kind of ruse would we have if thou knew nothing? Needs must thou shalt teach Erestor and I about the ways and styles of thy people as well.”

“Aye,” says Daeron. “Thy—our son would know these things, even if he was raised in thy care. My father would be mightily disappointed otherwise, not to mention Luthien.”

Caranthir frowns. “Dost thy sister not know? I had thought she was the impetus more than the result.”

“Oh, she knows,” Daeron says, rolling his eyes. Then he puts on as serious a face as he has. “But understand, Caranthir, that henceforth this is not a ruse. Menegroth is a court full of talented liars and schemers, who recognize their own faster than a bat after a lightning bug. If thou desirest to deceive them all, then thou’d do well to forget that we are deceiving.”

The Fëanorian nods slowly. “I have six brothers to my name, Daeron. I reached out to raise this plot myself. Thou’ll find me more than capable of playing a very long game.”

“Good,” says Daeron shortly. “Then so to we ought to sort out our story.”

“Erestor was born in Thargelion ere my wife left for Brethil,” says Caranthir. “I see no reason to adjust that truth…”

“Our wife,” Daeron corrects distractedly. “How many years afore thou saw her gone?”

“She saw herself,” Caranthir returns coolly. “Erestor was not four.”

“Hm,” says Daeron. “And I know that thou hadst kept contact thereafter… perhaps she was pregnant, when she left. Men do not know it as elves do—they rarely feel the spark of life, nor indeed are aware of it, ere their bellies grow round with the babe. So, she did not know. And then in Brethil… how came we to meet?”

Caranthir purses his lips. “Through Haleth, I imagine. Unless thou roamest often from behind thy mother’s magic skirts?”

Daeron huffs. “Impertinent, husband. Thou speaketh to a prince.”

“I’ll speak to whom I like how I like, for I answer to my brother,” says Caranthir blandly, tipping his ale into his mouth without particular care.

The uncouthness is perfectly intentional and Daeron laughs. “Dost thou address thy king this way?”

“He’s well aware of it. But then, it matters little enough when the one we look to bears Fingon’s own chain upon his soul. Little more than a hunting hound among common dogs—prouder? Perhaps. Nobler? He would not say so, and yet he does as Fingon says and we follow.” Caranthir shrugs.

“Rude!” Daeron says with a laughing grin. He’s had his own speculations, of course; everyone does. “Is it true, then? Maedhros One-Handed would kneel before the High King of the Noldor for more than one means?”

“They don’t exactly hide it,” says Caranthir.

“And Fingon’s wife, the queen?” Daeron asks, perhaps morbidly curious.

Caranthir stares at him for a moment. “Daeron. We are proposing together—or reminiscing, I suppose, on that long-missed wife of ours. Is it so scandalizing to imagine my queen and brother both seated upon Fingon’s throne?”

Daeron is glad that his tankard is long empty on the table before him for had been drinking anything, he’s sure he would’ve lost some out of his nose. As it is, he makes a terribly undignified sound, choking on his own spit. Caranthir proceeds to laugh at him and leans over to pound a fist against his back as Daeron coughs.

“I’ll remind thee that we have not slept as three,” Daeron says, wincing at his own squeakiness.

Caranthir smirks at him. “But that is untrue if what we have is not a ruse.”

“Dear Eru,” Daeron says, catching himself just before he chokes again.

“Anyway,” Caranthir shakes his head. “Orien Astaldiel is Maedhros’ daughter, sure as anything. He’s like to badger us day and night about our marital lives, but see if he invites us to celebrate with him!”

Daeron nearly falls to cough-laughing helplessly once more. “Thou’rt trying to unseat me,” he says once he gets himself back together.

“I?” Caranthir asks faux innocently. “Nay. T’would be undue as a husband. And thou wouldst decry me for rude!”

“Decry, never,” says Daeron. “I think, if thou’ll pardon me, that thou’rt best served rude. Like a deep Nogrod brandy.”

“I’m not convinced Thaic isn’t just collected silt-oil runoff from the carts in their mines,” Caranthir muses.

Daeron grimaces. That particular dwarven liquor had come to Doriath with later groups of dwarven traders and smiths, and was very quickly colloquially dubbed “Shriek” for the sound the average elven drinker makes upon throwing back a shot of it.

“I would fain believe it,” he says.

“You know they keep it on hand at diplomatic meals,” says Caranthir, “and drink a swig or two to make themselves throw up if they believe they’ve been poisoned.”

Daeron raises an eyebrow. “Hast thou been in attendance of many a meal where the diners had cause to believe such?”

Caranthir grimaces. “If thou thinkest negotiating smithery with the Dwarven kin is bad, try selling them silk.”

Daeron’s other eyebrow climbs up as well. “You have silk?”

His mother, maia that she is, had long since gathered all of the silk worms and spiders in Beleriand to shelter behind the Girdle. There ought to be none outside of it; Doriath uses the dominance to shamelessly control the silk trade. But if that’s not entirely true, it begs looking into.

“Not much of it,” says Caranthir, eyeing him.

“A growing supply, I imagine,” Daeron says, considering. “The provenance ’twould have to be a source within Doriath…”

Caranthir purses his lips. “Thou knowest I shalt not reveal my contacts,” he says.

“No, no,” Daeron agrees, waving it off. “I would not deprive my dear spouse of his business. But rather… I don’t suppose thou’d be interested in securing a better price?”

Caranthir blinks, then stares at him. “You’re suggesting extortion,” he says, slipping up for a moment.

Daeron shrugs. “Personally, I would not use such harsh language. I’m only saying, as thee and I both know, there are no silk worm colonies outside of Doriath by royal decree, and have not been since ere ye set foot on these shores. Standard diplomacy would prevent prosecution beyond our own borders, for we well know the Noldor answer to their own. But inside, if such news were to reach the wrong ears…”

The Fëanorian sits silently for a long few moments, then says, “I was not sure I’d like thee, thou knowest. Or even ascribe fondness to our relationship.”

“…But?” Daeron doesn’t bother stopping the grin slowly splitting his face. Is his soon-to-be spouse a reprehensible kinslayer? Certainly. But he’s also unexpectedly fun.

Caranthir doesn’t offer him a matching expression, but Daeron rather suspects the elf’s face has been in “snide” mode for so long that it might take him a good while to achieve anything more than a particularly caustic smirk.

“I suppose I look forward to our partnership,” Caranthir says eventually.

Daeron loves his family—though at times he does question their collective sanity—and he truly didn’t expect to find any fraction of that in this venture. But he’s swiftly coming to the realization that there is more that is not beyond his grasp. He only has to grant his new husband his own open arms.

“I, too,” he agrees. “Shall we away upstairs, then?”

“Certainly,” says the Fëanorian, pushing himself up from his chair before Daeron does and sweeping away towards the stairs.

Daeron is entirely sure the other elf fully meant to leave him with the bill—dropped on the table a moment later by a keen-eyed waitress—but it only makes his grin grow. What an asshole. Daeron can’t wait to take him apart.

:::

“Thou canst not be wearing that,” Galadriel says, upon finding Celeborn waiting outside her chambers with breakfast steaming on a platter in his hands.

Celeborn blinks at her and opens his mouth, but she pulls the door open wider and tugs him inside before he can properly respond. Only his quick reflexes save the tray, but she’s not too worried about breakfast anyway.

“Altariel,” he says, “what—”

“This morning is not right,” she says, spinning towards the window with her hands on her hips. “Thou’rt supposed to be in blue—pale, like hydrangea. Not—this.” She waves a hand at him, dressed not in blue but in a soft, pastel green tunic accented with silver.

“My lady,” Celeborn says slowly, taking a seat on the couch in her receiving room, “if I have given offense—”

“No!” she says. “Not blue because I wanted it, blue because! Gah!” Galadriel throws her hands up in frustration. She knows her closest friend doesn’t understand what exactly she’s after, but he’s never had particularly strong foresight like she does.

“This morning…” Celeborn is already putting together the pieces. “Thou hast Seen something?”

“I always See,” she corrects him. “Didst thou have in mind that I take to full sleep more than reverie for the restfulness of it?”

“Ah,” says Celeborn. “Carest thou to enlighten us who are so lashed to the present moment?”

Galadriel snorts and turns on her heel to begin pacing.

“Altariel,” he says, “I cannot offer assistance if thou wilt not bend my ear to thy troubles.”

“The future is wrong,” she bites out. “’Tis as if my Sight is lagging a few steps behind. I should think to write my brother and inquire if he feels much the same, but I would not trouble him at present what with all we’ve heard out of Nargothrond of late.”

“Wrong?” Celeborn asks, well used to his friend’s abrupt and taciturn moods. He uncovers the breakfast tray and Galadriel’s gaze skips over the rashers, eggs, and slices of what appears to be ham steaming on the small plates inside.

“I have Seen,” she says, plucking a bit of bacon from his fingers before he can eat it, “things that have not come to pass.”

Celeborn’s brows furrow though not in response to the stealing. “Thou hast said upon occasion that the future is a malleable thing, hast thou not? As much as a tossed handful of seeds may fall in any multitude of arrays, and yet more when collected and tossed again.”

Galadriel appraises him for a moment, then smiles. “So thou dost listen to me. I had wondered!”

Her friend rolls his eyes and points to his face. “’Tis my eyes that are oft captured by careful study of the middle distance, not my ears,” he says. “I am paying at least some measure of attention, if not I do not present as entirely attentive.”

Galadriel softens her smile slightly. “I know,” she says.

He’s an odd one, Celeborn. Many would account him slow or limited in capacity for his tendency to become unfocused and fail to respond, but she’s never known him to lose track of a single fact nor throwaway comment made in his presence. He’s invaluable, really; she wouldn’t have him any other way.

“Aye, and each seed a person, making their mark upon a place at a time,” she says, returning to her pacing. “I am granted in my Sight a glimpse of possible events; uneven divots and scars in the table where the seeds are most likely to collect, bounce, roll…”

Celeborn puts a piece of ham in her twitching fingers when she passes and she brings it to her mouth, nibbling thoughtfully.

“Thou hast picked green this morn, but that’s hardly all… Someone has been moving them.”

Celeborn tips his head. “A grand puppeteer?” he asks. “Behind the curtains of the stage?”

“No,” Galadriel shakes her head decisively. “Elves manipulated act that way. It is recognizable. Designed patterns, for a desired consequence…”

Once upon a time, her uncle Fëanáro had been her favorite of any of her father’s siblings. They argued, of course, because they were the family’s strongest personalities constantly forced into close proximity. (It is easier to see all of this now, removed from Valinor and the pressures there, having taken steps to climb out of her own naivety.)

He’d been eccentric, and usually entirely focused on works of his own. He slept far too little and thought far too much, and certainly they’d argued—but it was once debate for the purpose of debate, not to be cruel or petty, not meant at all to harm. Once.

In those last peaceful days, her uncle had asked her for a few strands of her hair when he’d run into her coming from the palace libraries, in public though there were few people around. He hadn’t been cruel, or terribly improper, either, apart from the nature of the request.

She’d known her uncle then, and understood as much as she could of his oddities. Thus she’d turned him down as politely as she knew how, for her hair was her own—beautiful as she knew it was, gleaming in the light of the mingling. Fëanáro had nodded more to himself than to her and puttered off, mumbling quietly.

Galadriel recalls clearly the thought she’d had then that her uncle was unlikely to even remember the interaction the next day, much less bring it up ever again.

And yet, barely had she arrived home before she was set upon by her middle brothers, hunting hungrily after the juicy details of an incident that had not happened. Their half-uncle hadn’t even been angry, much less shouted at or demanded after her!

But by the end of the week, through no working of hers nor her family’s, half the court at Tirion was righteously upset on her behalf, the other half viciously defending their inscrutable crown prince.

Fëanáro had done nothing wrong, really, and Galadriel had been helpless but to watch as dark, thorny rumors of pride and ambition that were not his ripped apart the court, and swiftly thereafter their family.

She knows what manipulation looks like. This is… not that.

“No,” she says again. “Thou’ve picked a green vest this morning, when my Sight told me to expect blue. This is not the work of some grand plot—this is happenstance. I was wrong.”

Celeborn hums, staring somewhere out the balcony window.

“It is not the seeds that are being moved,” Galadriel says. “’Tis the table that has been tipped. The seeds are still falling.”

Celeborn makes no sign that he’s heard her. Galadriel turns back to stand in front of him and reaches out to cup his face in her hands. “Three,” she says, “two, one—Celeborn. Stay with me.”

He blinks on the last number and shakes his head free, though he doesn’t seem bothered by her hands on him.

“Does my apparel every day have such an impact on thy schedule that thou hast come to anticipate it?” he asks, barely acknowledging his slip into that lonely place where he goes.

Galadriel raises an eyebrow. “No. I had a vision of the trial.”

Celeborn stares at her for a moment, his eyes slowly widening. “Oh powers, the trial.”

“Fuck,” says Galadriel eloquently, and promptly scrambles out the door with the Sinda hot on her heels.

The uninterruptable reputation she’s built for herself in Menegroth as Melian’s apprentice is helpful for moving quickly through the busy halls without being waylaid, and she and Celeborn make decent time hurrying down to the deeper caverns.

Galadriel is quite certain she’s mastered the “elf on a mission” look by now—she doesn’t have the wherewithal on a daily basis to mimic Luthien’s flighty yet oddly compassionate act to much the same result, so she’s been working on her own mythos. She’s quite proud of it.

She’s not as tickled by her own timeliness, or lack thereof.

“Damn,” she says under her breath, “damn damn damn. Far be it from Nessa to offer an elleth of a kin her favor!”

“It happens,” says Celeborn, who is not unknown for being late.

“Not on the job for my Queen,” Galadriel hisses back.

Celeborn just hums.

They come to the end of a long, winding hallway where a pair of tall, heavy doors made of white wood absolutely caked with fanciful embellishments wrought in gold and bronze bar the way. There are no guards, and indeed, no other elves in sight.

Celeborn puts a hand on Galadriel’s wrist to stall her before she can reach for the handles. She forces herself to calm down with a few deep breaths and lets him take the lead.

Quietly and without fanfare, Celeborn pulls the right door open. No one turns to look as they enter, but Galadriel can see ears twitching near the door.

Cast in semi-darkness by the lacking light from far too few lamps, the place seems gloomy and foreboding. Soft murmurs echo throughout, many quiet conversations pausing for a fraction of a second as Celeborn shuts the door again with a soft thud.

“Celeborn,” someone says from the dark. Galadriel squints, but even her Tree-lit eyes struggle to pierce the shifting shadows in the torchlight deep underground. “It is past time—come, let us begin.”

“Just for the record,” another voice chimes in, “this gathering is impetuous and presumptive, to assume we know best the will of our father. Aerandir is not here, nor Olbes—”

“If anyone was interested in the rules and traditions, there would be no foul blood in our midst, either,” someone else hisses. The feminine voice is far too close for Galadriel’s comfort and she steps closer to Celeborn with just enough poise to seem casual rather than hurried.

“Oh please,” says another.

Celeborn taps against Galadriel’s mind and she opens a window for him to slip inside. Aerandir and Olbes are our elders, he says, they are far flung from Doriath, which means Brenior is next in line to lead our gathering. And Uilos.

“It is not done!” An elleth dressed in close-fitting green and brown leathers, well-worn and travel stained, steps fully into the light.

Tinweth, Celeborn says quietly beside Galadriel. She will not be sympathetic, I fear.

“Is she not of us?” another elleth asks serenely, floating more than stepping into view—after a moment Galadriel places her as Sammareth, the healer typically assigned to the royal family. An elf of fair hair and fairer skin, her wide, child-like eyes make Galadriel shiver when they pass over her. “A granddaughter of Olfu, across the sea?”

“A granddaughter of Finu!” says Tinweth, throwing up her hands. “And Olfu—Olfu the brother of Elu, whose hunt it was that caused all this trouble in the first place!”

“Olfu the brother of Nelu,” Celeborn says. “Whose line will not go un-respected here.”

“Wouldst thou claim this one?” A dark-haired elleth with eyes glittering like gems in the torchlight peers around Galadriel’s shoulder, and the Noldë nearly jumps.

“Lady Tegolel,” Celeborn says with a respectful nod. Family record keeper. Sister of Tinweth, but neutral. In theory. “I would.”

“Hn,” Lady Tegolel says, nodding shortly.

“But moreso,” Celeborn continues before anyone else can cut in, “Lady Galadriel is the Queen’s apprentice, and has come on Her behalf.”

Tinweth scowls, but no one contradicts that.

“We have not come together to debate the inglorious legacy of Finu,” Sammareth says, holding up a hand. She’s very short and wizened for an elf, which strikes Galadriel as odd but she doesn’t have more than a moment to contemplate it. “She has been here all these four hundred years and not one of you raised a complaint in that period, so I’m sure you can keep it to yourself for the duration of this meeting.”

“I thank thee, Sammareth,” a new elf says. He’s on the shorter side as well, but carries the unmistakable aura of the old, at least to Galadriel whose senses are trained to catch such things.

Brenior, Celeborn tells her. Eldest son of the first generation after Aerandir, when Aerandir is male. Well, eldest living son.

Galadriel nods minutely. Is he fond of the king?

Celeborn gives her the mental impression of a hand sawing back and forth in the air. He was very close to the king’s great-great-great-great grandfather, his older half-brother Elcelu. Now? It is not often we see the ancients here in Menegroth. I could not rightly say.

Galadriel files that information away. She’d been distantly aware that a large portion of Eul Thingol’s higher court is comprised of Belegians, but it’s different to stand in a room full of them and put together new connections and allegiances.

Celeborn, she says as Brenior opens the discussion, what exactly is thy position here?

At her side, her friend shrugs slightly. I have some say. It would be less than the king’s were my father not raised by Belegmain when my grandfather passed on. In true ancestry, I am far removed.

Hm, says Galadriel.

The room, Galadriel finds with her eyes more adjusted to the half-dark, is much like the king’s council room in shape. A central stage-ish walkway for a speaker is buffered on both sides by rows of bench seating marching upward to the walls.

Looking around, she finds only a few people she knows from court and many who are dressed as marchwardens or in travelling clothes. Behind Tinweth stands Lord Olchon with his arms crossed, his expression severe as always. A few other ellyth are gathered on the seats behind him.

Lady Halphen the seamstress sits a few benches up with her brother Lord Nyarrondur beside her. The quiet, muttery lord has one of his large furry rats in his hands and is petting it rhythmically. Gadrion the palace stablemaster and his niece, one of Luthien’s Ladies named Faumben, are perched a little farther into the room.

There are many more but Galadriel suspects those closer to the stage will be of the most interest and turns her attention to them as Celeborn pulls her towards a seat.

Tauriel the marchwarden sits beside Captain Mablung on a lower bench on the other side of the room, glaring at anyone who meets her gaze.

There’s a dark-haired ellon seated just behind them, with his feet up on the back of the seat next to the Captain. Beside him is a remarkably pale elf, with Beleg’s white hair and even fairer skin, leaning forward with her elbows propped on her knees.

Galadriel eyes them both, then nudges Celeborn mentally. He finds her focus within a moment. Aista, he says with a distinct sneer in his tone. Tinweth’s only brother. And she’s their sister, Fáne. I have to imagine they’ve positioned themselves to tackle Tauriel should she attempt to assault Tinweth or any of Olchon’s clan.

Galadriel blinks and looks back at Tauriel. Why would she do that?

Celeborn sighs aloud. Because she is close to Belegmain, but too young to have the position on the council she believes she deserves.

“Excommunication, as a jumping off point,” Tinweth says as Galadriel tunes back in to the world around her.

“Elu is the king,” Brenior points out mildly.

“We are the court,” says Tinweth. “Is it not ours to determine the strength of the king, his right to lead us?"

"Is it ours to determine the fate of all our people?” Celeborn asks, arms crossed where he sits primly beside Galadriel. He tips his head at Tinweth, teeth flashing briefly. “The Queen goes where the king does, as does our protection.”

Galadriel takes that as a cue to make her case. She stands up, hands folded in front of her, and looks to Brenior, who nods.

“The Queen,” she says, “is not conflicted. Doriath is not Her kingdom—but Thingol is Hers.”

Lady Halphen makes a soft scoffing noise; Galadriel ignores her.

“As of now,” she continues, “the lands outside of Doriath are in turmoil after the Dagor Bragollach. Maglor’s Gap, the gate of the east, lies open despite Himring. If you choose to expel the king, the loss of Her protection is guaranteed; it will shrink and be bolstered about the forest of Nan Elmoth and cover no place else. That wood is not large enough to host the population of Doriath who rely now on the Queen’s protection.”

“We’ve not need of it,” says Tinweth shortly.

Galadriel stares at her. “Do you know the troubles of the world beyond?” she asks.

“We survived well enough on the Journey,” Tinweth asserts. “Do you, Finu-child?”

Galadriel feels her lips begin to pull back before Celeborn reaches for her hand from beside her and gently uncurls her fingers from their tight fist. She’d received sparse news in the weeks after the fighting died down, oscillating violently between terror and relief, grief and rage which only the Queen’s soft, steady presence could soothe. Even now, the balm of that comfort is stretched thin over jagged barbs of hurt.

“I’ll remind everyone that should Elu be deposed, the crown still falls to his children, and they will likely remain here,” says Sammareth. “Tirnel will not take up the crown, and of his line Elu’s blood holds presumptive heirship before Nelu.”

“Tirnel—” Lord Olchon starts.

“Leave him be, Grandfather,” says Tinweth at the same time as several other similar outbursts.

Lord Olchon holds up his hands in deference and shuts his mouth.

“Tirnel has done his duty,” Brenior says coolly. “The options are Prince Daeron or Princess Luthien’s line.”

“Luthien is the elder,” says Tinweth.

“Luthien married a Man,” Aista puts in in a distinctly derogatory tone.

Galadriel can’t help herself. “Luthien laid a spell over the Enemy himself,” she says. “If what you seek for the throne is power, command, and will, she has the three.”

“All of this is true,” says Brenior, “what of Prince Daeron?”

“Daeron isn’t even here,” Tinweth snaps. “As far as I know he hasn’t seen fit to leave any hint of where he’s gone, and it’s far from the first time, either. The boy is too flighty for the throne.”

“Are you truly proposing that the bard responsible for the entire New World epic cycle isn’t capable of dedication?” Tauriel asks incredulously.

Galadriel’s vision flashes with swishing dark hair over damp brown skin and someone’s lips on someone else’s throat. She shakes her head violently and rubs her eyes. Celeborn squeezes her hand, though he continues to silently observe the argument as it continues.

“If not the Prince or Princess, then who?” Mablung asks in his ponderous way.

“Not Elu,” says Tinweth.

“Would you like to go into the east and hunt down Elvea then?” Brenior asks her. “Our father’s line is not the royal one, and there is no one else. There is effectively little that can be done to sanction Elu, if we accept that such is necessary in any case.”

“Our father will not wake,” Tinweth says bitterly, “and we know whose fault it is. We should be considering our options, not debating the merits of prosecution at all.”

“You churls!” Tauriel cries. “Who are we to presume his wants? Ada would’ve given his life to defend Thingol—given it. That is his choice! Thingol did not throw him in front of the wolf!”

“And yet he lies still,” says Tinweth.

Galadriel’s eyes go wide in a moment, flashes of the near future blooming across her vision as ringing fills her ears. The seeds are not falling still, she realizes, but gathered and re-tossed such as she has only seen in times of intense turmoil—the Darkening, the Ice, the Dagor Bragollach.

“Ye of little faith,” she doesn’t hear herself say, though the words beat a pattern of sound in her chest and she knows them well. “The Hunter rises to meet his Majesty. The Healer will come to Doriath, and his hands are those of a king.”

Celeborn’s gentle hands steady her before she falls and then she stands, blinking, just processing.

“The blood of Olfu has always been inclined to prophecy,” Sammareth says into the sudden silence.

“You’re kidding,” Tinweth snarls. Galadriel smiles at the floor.

Chapter Text

The trek from Nargothrond is much like the journey to the city, only Finrod can walk for himself and the sense of imminent, foreboding danger is marginally less, being in mostly friendly territory.

The people of Nargothrond had wanted to send a group along to guard their king, but he had sharply declined. He’d apologized for that to Orodreth in Elrond’s hearing, but had not said why. Elrond can guess easily enough though, and senses it’s far from the time to press.

There are plenty of bridges and ropes crossing-cutting the river Mindeb within the borders of the Girdle—or at least Finrod had said so when planning their route and Elrond had quietly deferred to his wisdom rather than breaking his own cover to question it—so they’ll make for the forest boundaries, then cross inside Doriath proper.

The stretch of land between the kingdoms’ borders is mostly low rolling hills of tall grass, but the road is well-used and decent enough for their pack mule.

The mule is carrying less than it might be, too—Elrond has to give the tiniest smug smirk at the thought. He does enjoy being correct, not to mention furthering his own goals.

Celebrimbor is, was… a mess, to be honest. In many ways. Many liked to blame him for the evil of the One Ring—Elrond had spent years defending the late smith on that point exactly—but while there were those detractors, there were also those who went hard in the opposite direction and liked to imagine him as a soft, naïve innocent who couldn’t help being taken in by Annatar’s wiles.

Those who knew him well would disagree with the very essence of that argument, and Elrond had known him very well indeed.

The image of innocence was a pleasant lie reenforced by Celebrimbor’s easily excitable and distractible nature which had always made him seem more youthful and careless than he was. In truth Elrond had expected and counted on the smith breaking into his rooms to snoop because he was at heart a suspicious and canny elf just like his father and grandfather before him. Possibly for more the right reasons, however.

When Elrond had known him—in the future-past, such as it was—the healer himself had been deeply impacted by the various mental issues of his foster fathers and was doing as much as he could to study and help those suffering from similar conditions. Celebrimbor’s anxiety and depression had been familiar, but the violently obsessive tendencies that were taking over his life had required new terminology entirely.

Elrond and the few healers he was working with as they developed the field of mind-healing had settled on Functional Imperatives as a label for the disorder. Celebrimbor couldn’t control it, and instead it had begun to control him.

Elrond’s observations of his once and future patient in Nargothrond had indicated only the first stirrings of the habits he’d seen before, which made sense as they were primarily exaggerated by stress. Naturally, he wrote it all down while cooped up in his room and left it where his cousin would find it under the guise of things he’d just noticed.

Physical tics could be managed—Celebrimbor’s head-shaking, finger twisting, and not-yet prominent throat clicking had served to drive others away from him (more elves than men and dwarves, however, as the latter tended to expect less perfection from people). The compulsions that cluttered his brain and trapped him in certain routines had and would become harmful—keeping his forge as his only safe space, for one, and worrying obsessively over whether it was disturbed while he was gone to the point of breaking off important tasks to go check on it—and Elrond wanted to at least make his friend aware of them so they could begin to consider counter-measures.

Ultimately, Eregion and Ost-in-Edhil—built off of Celebrimbor and Galadriel’s oscillating intensity and constantly teetering on the brink of instability—had become hostile to Celebrimbor while the smith wasn’t paying attention as people grasping for power sought to take advantage of his disorder for their own gain.

Like Annatar, though he was only the worst of it.

Apart from the fact that Elrond plans to stab the Maia in the neck if he ever so much as feels him within ten miles of Celebrimbor, he’s patently unwilling to ever let something like the events of the future-past happen again.

So he fully intended to have the notes stolen, and hopefully read and heeded. Because through it all Celebrimbor had always tried to lean away from his family’s legacy, to be kind and charitable where his father and uncle had not. It didn’t mean he was less suspicious or wary, but Elrond knew he’d intentionally put that aside in favor of offering welcome even when he undoubtedly should not have.

At the end of the day Elrond couldn’t and still can’t control his friend’s mind, nor his actions. But he can try to help as much as possible, and he will while he still has a chance to. Being torn through time hasn’t made him any less himself or any less of a healer, and now more than ever he has so much work to do.

Speaking of work—

“Are you well, Finrod?” Elrond should probably check on the patient he has with him. Finrod is in the last stages of recovery now from his various ordeals, but that doesn’t mean he is entirely in the clear.

“Perfect, darling,” Finrod tells him with a grin, injecting a slight skip in his step as if to demonstrate his fitness. He jingles as he does so, having left only some of his jewelry in the safety of his nephew’s care. The Nauglamír thankfully does not accompany them; Elrond would like to keep that firmly away from Doriath for as long as possible.

“Good,” Elrond says, having not much more than that to add.

He’s never been much for hiking voluntarily, much less with a pack and a spear strapped to it. He would carry a sword, but he doesn’t doubt Finrod has seen Maedhros fight or at least spar, and doesn’t wish to open himself up to that line of questioning should they run across trouble. Elrond was raised by some of the greatest warriors of the age but also trained by them, and he knows it shows.

“Lilthanoss,” Finrod says eventually, seemingly just to break the silence. “If thou dost not enjoy high fashion, nor jewels, nor trekking, what dost thou prefer?”

Elrond huffs. “Who says I don’t like trekking?” he asks.

Finrod raises an eyebrow at him that distinctly says well, look at thyself.

Elrond shakes his head. “Fine,” he accepts that. “It’s far from my favorite activity, aye. What do I like doing?” He hums in thought. “Problem solving,” he says after a moment. “And book-binding, when I have time.”

Finrod tips his head, his golden earrings swinging and glittering in the sun. “Problem solving is an incredibly general activity,” he points out.

Elrond shrugs. “It comes of managing a household,” he says. “And I do enjoy making things run smoothly.”

“Healing on a different level,” Finrod says. “And book-binding?”

Elrond nods. “A friend of mine is a bard,” he says, “but he hates writing down and organizing his works like nothing else. Another friend taught me, and I put them together for him as a hobby.”

He’s been trying not to think too hard about how much he misses Imladris. His people, who will be so far spread across time and place if he wishes to collect them again—and if he does, who’s to say he wouldn’t be taking them from his younger self’s service?

It’s a dilemma that hurts his heart to contemplate, but at the same time he knows that he’ll have to be there, to help his old future-housekeeper’s daughter home in a storm when she’d broken her leg miles outside of Mithlond. And if he doesn’t collect a young Lindir off the street in Eregion, tossed out of his third home in four years with only his harp and the clothes on his back, then who will?

Such is the case for many of his people… he cannot know what will come of them if he never meets them, yet already he feels the losses like wounds in his very fëa.

Elrond shakes his head and finds Finrod watching him with a look of quiet contemplation.

“Ah,” he says, feeling he’s missed something, “pardon?”

“Dost thou have a craft?” Finrod asks. “As the Noldor take—is it healing? Or aught else?”

Elrond blinks. He supposes he took to healing mainly out of necessity to begin with, self-studying with Celegorm’s journals in Amon Ereb, but aye, it calls to him as well.

“It is healing,” he says slowly. “I have known… my family has been in need of it for a long time, so I sought to provide what I could.”

“That seems a worthy cause,” says Finrod thoughtfully.

Hm. Apparently they’re encouraging the son-of-Caranthir theory, then. Elrond still has no idea how the elder Finweans drew that conclusion, but he’s prepared to run with it. Erestor had never been inclined to say much about his father, and far from enough to determine if the middle Fëanorion brother is the type to help with this ruse or hinder it. Elrond hopes for the former.

“I like to think so,” he agrees.

It takes a few days to reach the edges of Doriath, and by the time they make camp under the stretching shadows there, the supply of bread and salted meat they’d brought is running uncomfortably low.

“I am not much of a hunter myself sans my cousins, I’m afraid,” Finrod says with an apologetic shrug.

Elrond nods. “Neither am I,” he says. “My sons or—well, I am decent enough in a group, but I usually travel with someone more competent than myself, just for that reason. Though…”

Finrod raises an eyebrow at him from across the flickering campfire which the king had Sung to life himself with a few notes.

Elrond hums. “I do know some small magics that your Celegorm or any other accomplished hunter would certainly beat me for.”

“Well,” Finrod stretches out with his back to a section of log, “I am far from them, so let’s have it then.”

Elrond stands and takes a centering breath, them begins the charm of small summoning Maglor had taught him all those years ago. Technically he shouldn’t be using it for anything but emergencies, but they’d waited a bit too long for any true hunting before dark, and neither had they brought the equipment for it.

It’s possible that Elrond could have thought this through better, but it’s admittedly been some time since he was forced to travel without capable hunters in his company. It’s not as if he could not make do, but he’s old and tired and entitled to just the slightest bit of ease in his life.

Finrod does not interrupt him as a pair of small, thin grouse wander dazedly into the firelight.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Elrond tells them quietly after snapping each of their necks, letting his Song trail off.

“Thou used that on the way down from Tol Sirion,” Finrod notes after a moment of silence.

“I did,” Elrond agrees, retrieving his boot knife to prepare the unfortunate little birds.

Finrod hums. “Where didst thou learn it?”

Elrond hopes he hasn’t divulged something he didn’t mean to by accident, though this may well be a good thing in any case. “My father taught me,” he says.

“Hm,” is Finrod’s only comment on that.

Elrond is not questioned further that night, and in the morning Finrod seems to be naught but his typical chipper self. They approach the trees.

Elrond was not sure how to prepare for whatever encountering Melian’s Girdle might reveal, so he’d essentially prepared nothing. That thought provides no security onceover as they cross through the thin tree cover and are swiftly deep under the shadows.

Elrond feels the maia’s power before he hears her, like a living cloak settling over his skin. He shivers, then stops dead as a sound like a gong echoes in his head.

Distantly, he’s aware of Finrod stopping beside him and putting a hand on his shoulder. Elrond appreciates the moral support, though it does him little good.

KINSMAN. YOU ARE LILTHANOSS.

I am he, Elrond replies, as if compelled.

THAT IS NOT YOUR NAME. YET YOU HAVE ENTERED MY WOOD WITH NO ILL-INTENT, DESPITE LYING.

I mean no harm, my lady, he tells her. He wants to be careful and thoughtful with his words, but they’re whisked out of his mind almost before he can form them. He gets the sense he’s being intently examined, though there’s no telling if she finds him wanting or otherwise.

YOU ARE THE BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, Melian says. She sounds almost confused, to Elrond’s experienced interpretation. YET THOSE OF MY BLOOD HAVE NOT SPREAD THEIR OWN. HOW IS THIS?

I… Elrond thinks.

HOW IS THIS? Melian repeats, as if sensing his scrambling.

Elrond supposes there’s nothing for it. I am not of this time, he says plainly.

…NO, the Maia agrees. YOU ARE NOT. BUT YOU ARE MY KIN. BE WELCOME IN MY WOODS, SON OF MY LINE.

The great weight that had settled upon him with her presence lifts, leaving him feeling strangely bereft.

“Lillapîn?” says Finrod, sounding concerned. “Art thou well?”

Elrond shakes himself and blinks at the king. “I am,” he says. “Some strange welcome, is all.”

“Ah.” Finrod must be familiar with the habits of his grand-uncle’s maia wife as he nods knowingly. “Many things indeed have been strange of late.”

Elrond can only nod, desperately holding in the screaming truth of that which Finrod cannot know.

“Well,” the blond continues, undeterred, “we had best keep moving now—I do hope Beren and Luthien arrived alright.”

Elrond is suddenly reminded that Elladan and Estel will be with Finrod’s pair in Menegroth, and nods. “Right,” he says, “lets away then, my apologies for the delay.”

They finish the remaining bread and salted meat around lunch that day, which is more evidence of Elrond’s terrible planning. Elves do not need to eat as regularly as men, which was why they wasted little space on food, but neither do they like going hungry.

“I don’t suppose thou couldst preform another little Song for us?” Finrod side-eyes Elrond as they set out their bedrolls in a well-placed clearing deep in the forest that evening.

Elrond shouldn’t really, not wanting to become dependent on the charm, but he nods anyway, hating to disappoint. Hopefully there aren’t any true hunters nearby to be righteously offended by it.

“If you’ll get a fire started,” he says, and stands to move a bit further away from the bedrolls.

“Certainly,” says Finrod. He then looks around and mutters something about kindling before trotting into the trees.

Lifting his hands, Elrond raises his voice and Asks the woods if they would be so kind as to provide, for he is hungry, and beasts eat each other as the way of the world, it is only natural, so if one could come forth for him—

There’s a crashing not terribly far away that does not sound at all like some hapless prey animal caught in his spell.

Maglor had recalled to Elrond and Elros once accidentally summoning an adult elk taller than he was, but Elrond is familiar with Thranduil and knows well what an elk sounds like moving through a forest at speed. It crashes, but not like this. No, this is something much, much bigger.

Eyes widening, Elrond realizes suddenly exactly the sort of massive creature which would be in Doriath at this particular time.

Oh dear.

“Finrod,” he says urgently. “Find a big tree and get behind it right now.”

“What?” says Finrod, poking his head above some bushes. By the set of his ears and flicking eyes, he hears the noise too and likes it not at all.

“Wolf coming,” Elrond says, diving for his pack with the spear strapped on top. “Go now!”

There are a few different types of standard Finweans; sensible (the rarest), just plain tragic, hard-headed idiots, and stupidly brave. Finrod is a combination of the several categories, Elrond thinks, but mostly the latter and can’t rightly be trusted to do the smart thing.

He doesn’t stop to see if Finrod goes, though—if the elf wants a particularly terrible crash course in exposure therapy then he’s free to it, the only issue being that Elrond then has to protect him when he freezes in his boots—instead snatching the spear free of its ties and taking up a ready position facing where it sounds like the wolf will emerge.

Just because it’s not his weapon of choice doesn’t mean Elrond is not proficient with his husband’s favored pointy stick. They’d sparred often enough, and even before that Maedhros had been adamant about the twins being able to defend themselves with anything they had available.

The crashing grows louder, suddenly joined by a vicious snarling, and the trees around the clearing begin to shake.

Elrond takes a deep breath, narrows his eyes, and calls to mind everything Elrohir had told him. This beast tried to eat his children, ripped open Arwen’s abdomen, and has caused who knows how much trouble since. Mercy is not a thought that crosses his mind, only how to best eliminate the threat.

Their pack mule screams and flees into the woods, which is probably a good plan in all honesty.

The wolf’s size, when it appears at last, is staggering.

Carcharoth growls and fumes—literally, through smoking holes in the flesh of his sides and back—then roars in pain and fury right in Elrond’s face. His paws are the size of tables and his legs are as thick as tree trunks, bloody and corded with muscle. His hide bristles with arrows, probably of the Iathrim, and there’s one in his right eye, pouring viscous fluid down the side of the wolf’s face. Elrond can see a fiery glow down his throat when he roars.

This is clearly a beast of wanton destruction, caught in an agonized rage after eating something it shouldn’t have like the baby badgers the twins once tried to keep as pets before they got into Celebrían’s pepper patch.

Elrond has fought worse. He ought to put it out of its misery.

“Lilthanoss!” Finrod says. Elrond spares a quick glance over to find the blond elf standing valiantly with his sword in his hand.

His hand that’s shaking. Of course it is; his most recent experience with oversized wolves was them eating all of his friends in Sauron’s basement.

“Sit down,” Elrond snaps at him. “At least this shit’s only got four legs, I can handle it!”

“Four?” Finrod says faintly, then astonishingly takes the advice and slumps down slightly behind the large tree next to him. Or he might’ve fainted. Elrond doesn’t really have the time to check.

The Carcharoth of legend could speak and did, but helpfully the wolf seems disoriented and deranged, which means he’s not thinking. He swipes clumsily with one paw and Elrond jumps back to avoid it, slicing at the tendons he can reach with his spear tip.

The wolf snarls as blood sprays.

Carcharoth lunges and Elrond tries to dodge under the snapping teeth as bloody foam from the jaws flecks his hair. He misjudges the speed of the wolf and those terrible teeth close on his right leg a moment later, snapping shut.

Screaming takes more energy than it’s worth, really. No crunch of bone signals a break; Elrond’s femur must’ve just slipped into a gap between teeth. He curls into himself as the wolf shakes him, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to focus on his task rather than the ungodly pain. He can’t afford to be taken out by the first blow.

Carcharoth shakes him a final time, the heat of his mouth searing the gouges his teeth leave, then hurls Elrond sideways across the clearing and charges after him.

Elrond lands hard then snaps his eyes open and rolls towards the beast rather than away, ending up under his foe’s throat and in range of the paws. His leg shrieks with constant pain and he shoves it down, forcing it to work for him anyway.

There’s no point in trying to tire the beast; Carcharoth simply being able to move is a threat to Elrond’s life, which means he has to handle that before anything else. With a scramble and a grunt, Elrond leaps off his good leg and buries the spear in the vulnerable cavity under the wolf’s sight shoulder.

Carcharoth howls and thrashes as Elrond tugs his weapon free by hanging from it and rolls clear. He knows he can do serious damage with just the spear, but he needs to be able to stick it somewhere inconvenient first to best hinder movement.

Elrond staggers back out of the way of claws and teeth, leading the furious creature farther from Finrod as much as he can.

It’s a very good thing that the wolf is not thinking straight, or Elrond doubts he’d still be on his feet. Or have feet at all.

That thought, and spying the arrow sticking from Carcharoth’s eye, leads him to shout and lift his hand, a pulse of power making Vilya flare like a burning star as the wolf charges. The beast howls furiously and goes for Elrond’s hand, the source of the light which creatures of darkness hate so.

Elrond ducks out of the way again and plants the spear behind the creature’s jaw, unable to reach anything further. Using it as a step up, he jumps and hauls himself up with holds in the thick fur of Carcharoth’s ruff. His leg screams at the harsh treatment; Elrond continues to ignore it.

The wolf snarls and shakes his head furiously but Elrond clings on with bitter strength, climbing towards the ears.

Carcharoth swipes at him in attempts to dislodge him, but struggles to lift his right paw high enough with the new injury and can’t reach around with his left.

Elrond is scrambling over his skull by the time the wolf thinks to throw himself down and roll to crush the elf. Too late.

As expected, the arrow in the beast’s eye is Iathrim make, bendy but not breakable like others of the type that Elrond has seen. He closes his hand around the shaft as the wolf rolls and yanks it out, safe from being crushed by the dip of Carcharoth’s snout.

The wolf howls and gives a full-body jerk, flipping to his paws again and scraping at his snout with them. Elrond jams the arrow into the beast’s other eye and then leaps free as the ensuing roar of pain shakes the entire clearing.

Fully blinded, Carcharoth is more cumbersome yet still deadly on account of his sheer size.

Elrond stays quiet and as light as he can manage on his feet as he dodges around the thrashing, howling creature. He’d prefer a sword, but failing that Elrond climbs again, using the arrows prickling the wolf’s hide to get to his shoulder.

Carcharoth helpfully jerks his head away when Elrond jostles the spear, which rips it out and drops Elrond in perfect position to stab it through the very back of the roof of the beast’s mouth when the wolf then tries to eat him whole.

He probably should have gone for the back of the skull, but this works too.

Carcharoth jerks, his teeth touching the ground and jaw held open by Elrond’s heel against his tongue. Elrond reaches for Vilya and the ring thrums with power, sending burning light through the spear as blood pours down.

Elrond shoves. The spear sinks in and the wolf shudders, dying. Elrond snarls and shoves the spear in harder, sparing less than a thought for how the jaws will close on him when the creature falls. He doesn’t care about that; he cares that this vicious thing hurt his children and will, now, die.

The wolf’s body crushes trees as it keels over, thankfully away from where Finrod lies. Elrond doesn’t see much of it though, busy keeping his limbs from being severed by the razor-sharp teeth on either side of him as Carcharoth’s massive head comes to rest.

It’s hot in the beast’s mouth, and sticky, and Elrond extricates himself as quickly as he can without losing any limbs or further blood of his own.

He crawls away and just lies on the ground for a bit, aware that he’s covered in blood but not really caring at the moment.

He stands by what he said though—at least wolves only have four legs. If it had been a spider of the same size… that would’ve been a different story.

Eventually Elrond sits up and takes stock. His shoulders twinge, probably from hanging onto the spear while the wolf jerked his head around, and he feels a lot like one massive bruise, but apart from that and his leg he seems mostly unharmed, which must be a minor miracle at least.

His leg is—

It’s bad. The wolf’s teeth had scraped off skin and muscle tissue on both sides of his right thigh, and the leg is burned down from there with the wolf’s acid saliva, and the power of the Silmaril boiling Carcharoth’s blood. He’s sure it was only pure adrenaline that allowed him to stand on it at all.

His pant leg is in tatters and his boot thoroughly ruined; his own blood continues to soak the fabric to blackness, though it’s already turned the color of wine with wolf blood.

Worst of all, Elrond has nothing to clean the wound with, and he’s quite certain it will quickly become infected if it isn’t already from the foul beast that bit him.

Looking around, he spots a half-crushed branch within crawling distance. With a groan, he forces himself up as much as he can get and shuffles carefully over to it.

Elrond uses the sturdy branch to push himself to his feet—or foot, as the right is quite unusable—then notices the light. A point on Carcharoth’s stomach that he hadn’t seen before glows with an inner light, and the flesh all around it is lit up orangey-red from it. That would be the silmaril.

Elrond looks around. His boot knife won’t be very effective here, and neither is he going to be digging the spear out of the wolf’s brain. Finrod’s sword should do, he supposes. And he really ought to check on the elf while he’s over there.

Finrod is lying in the leaf litter with his eyes open but glazed over. Elrond limps over and touches him lightly on the shoulder. Finrod jolts, eyes flickering as he scrambles backwards up against the tree.

“It’s alright,” Elrond tells him calmly, knowing that showing signs of panic himself is not likely to help the terrified elf. “The wolf is dead,” he says, “there’s no need to be afraid.”

“Dead,” Finrod mouths, eyes wide.

Elrond nods. “I’m afraid it probably would have eaten us,” he provides, “so I did have to kill it. May I borrow your sword?”

“Why?” Finrod croaks after moving his mouth soundlessly for a few moments.

“It has a silmaril in its stomach,” Elrond says. “That’s not the sort of thing we should just leave lying around. I left my spear in its mouth and have nothing else to cut it open with.”

“Right-t,” Finrod stutters. Then his rolling gaze skips off of Elrond’s leg, then narrows and focuses on the healer’s arm, and he says, “Thou hast taken many wounds?”

Elrond blinks and looks down. “Oh,” he says.

A long gash in his blood-soaked sleeve is steadily turning darker. He moves the edges of the fabric away and finds a long scrape down through layers of muscle and fat. He can barely feel it, which is probably some of the lingering adrenaline from fighting Carcharoth, the same stuff that’s propping the rest of him up. The teeth, he thinks, somewhere in there. It’s not impeding his movement, however, and he’d really prefer to get going—but, he needs to deal with his leg too so he might as well.

“There should be bandages in my pack,” Elrond tells the blond. “If you wouldn’t mind searching them out…”

“Ah, certainly,” Finrod agrees.

The king’s knees are a bit wobbly, but he accepts Elrond’s bloody hand to help him to his feet, then shakes himself out a bit, seeming dazed. “Dead,” he says again.

Elrond nods. “I’ve killed many wolves in my time,” he says reassuringly. “They won’t come near you while I’m here.”

Finrod nods faintly and scoops his sword up off the ground, dusting it off absently as he stares at the rather obvious giant carcass laying across the other side of the clearing.

“May I?” Elrond asks, holding out a hand.

“Oh, yes,” says Finrod and passes him the sword.

Elrond is already soaked in wolf blood so really, what’s a bit more? Despite how bright the light is from the outside, the wolf’s stomach takes some getting to, and the healer grimaces as he practically wades through the beast’s guts, leaning on his stick and hacking one-handed. The nice traveling clothes Nargothrond had provided certainly won’t be salvageable after this, which is a shame.

Finrod sits on the ground after pulling their packs and bedrolls out of the way of the spreading pool of blood and watches silently. The roll of bandages waits in his hands.

The encroaching darkness of night has fully fallen by the time the sword clicks against something hard and Elrond is lit with pinkish light as the Silmaril is exposed.

Elrond reaches down to pick up the red-streaked gem, then straightens back up. He’s always wanted to know what exactly was so special about these glorified rocks, and there’s no time like the present to find out.

It takes a stagnant moment and focus on the jewel, but, there—

Elrond is washed in an all-consuming, overwhelming kind of love brings tears to his eyes and compresses his chest like a vice. He can’t draw breath through it, and finds himself choking on a sob.

It feels like Maglor singing in the nursery, and sitting on Maedhros’ shoulders as he climbs the tallest hill near Amon Ereb to sit and watch the stars, and the faintest hint of Elwing’s arms around him, Eärendil’s laugh on the sea breeze. Celebrían’s hand in his and Ereinion’s quick-silver smile. Arwen’s sunny grin when she was so young, the twins’ wild laughter on the wind. All that and so much more it whites out the world around him until there’s nothing but that warmth.

I love you, whispers the gem, parent and partner and child all at once. I love you, I love—proud—love—my heart—dear one—love you—

This is perhaps, Elrond thinks dazedly, what it feels like to be held in the grasp of Eru Ilúvatar.

Once upon a time he’d screamed at his mother not to leave him and Elros. Before that, he remembers a cold and quiet house with none of the love a parent ought to pour out. He’d resented it, he thinks. Now he can’t help but understand.

There is no room for resentment holding the gem, only open channels for that flood of love.

It hurts to think this had ever been bestowed upon anyone else. Morgoth cannot have appreciated it. Fëanor himself—

He feels breathtakingly worthy in the light of it. Known and cared-for and craved and appreciated all at once.

I love you, it tells him, tickling his ears and tugging on the edge of his tunic with hands full of flowers. Always love—so proud—love you—

There’s nothing he needs to do to earn it, nothing that can draw it away from him. It’s intoxicating, it what it is, yet there’s no room nor reason to feel ashamed for needing it.

Dimly, he feels his knees fold and hit the ground, warm blood soaking his trousers. That warmth and the tracks of it on his face are not even candles to the hearth fire in his hands, wrapping around his being and suffusing him so entirely his own self is stripped and compressed in the face of it.

There can’t be enough room in him for this inviolable kind of love, and yet the thought of letting it out into the world sparks a rending kind of jealousy that hooks thorns in his heart enough to tear him apart from the inside if he ever lets go of it.

The tugging becomes more pronounced and Elrond turns his heart to it, expecting to feel the expectant, easy love of children against his soul and there is that but—

Ada?

He jerks. There should be no others here—none are deserving of this, it’s can’t be shared or split, it’s only meant for him—

Elrond hurls the Silmaril away from himself as hard as he can with a wrenching gasp, feeling his heart break as he does so. Eru, what was he thinking?

Or, what was it doing to him?

Blinking spots from his vision—which is really more like blinking the world back into view because everything is just one blinding light—he shakes his head. Now he does understand why Elwing and Dior so coveted the jewel and wouldn’t give it up to save themselves or their people. It they had that to contend with…

He takes a few shuddering breaths, feeling horribly bereft even as he dreads the idea of picking the thing up again. To think of his children in such a manner—it is untenable. He cannot become whatever shell of himself that gem would turn him into, no matter how much he aches to reach for it again.

And he does ache. There’s a new pain in him that’s not really new at all; simple loss, magnified by the knowledge of what it feels like to have it all.

Elrond shakes his head. He feels he’s lost a part of himself to the gem, but that taking it up again would only siphon away more.

Ada? Arwen calls again. Are you alright?

Elrond closes his eyes. I will be, he says tiredly.

We felt… she trails off.

A burst of power, Elrohir fills in. We thought you were calling for us but it was, odd.

I held the Silmaril, Elrond says. The one Luthien found in the—the future past. The first time. It is… Fëanáro must have made it from his pure condensed love, I think. I apologize, it was hard to break free from.

His children contemplate that for a moment.

Don’t be sorry, Arwen says. Just be careful, Ada.

Elrond nods even though they can hardly see it. I will, he says. I believe if I take it up again I may never put it down.

…I felt none of that, Elrohir says slowly. From either that I held.

Elrond frowns. It only affected me after a moment of being in my hand, he reasons. Though I know not of the others. If that which you have delivered to Himring is not alike… perhaps they have different purposes? Aye. We must be very careful with all three, I think.

His children are quiet. They know him better than anyone else in this time, and will hardly doubt his skill or prowess. Elrond is afraid of what he may do to protect that Silmaril if he touches it again, and Elrohir and Arwen know enough to fear it too.

It should be a comforting thought. Instead, Elrond twists Vilya on his finger nervously. I need you two in Doriath, I think, he says. Adan should be here already, and we can come together and make a better plan then we have.

Aye, they agree as one.

When Erestor arrives we will be sent down to Amon Ereb, Elrohir says. We can break from that and take to the woods instead.

Good, Elrond says. That will do. I love you two, stay safe.

You as well, Ada, Arwen says. Then, Hold on, did you KILL Carcharoth?

Elrond pauses. I did, he says slowly. He was… a threat?

Yes, she agrees. I’m glad. Just wondering how anyone’s going to explain that.

Elrond blinks, then glances over at Finrod, who has stood up and approached as close as the edge of the black-looking blood puddle. The king is looking at the Silmaril where it lights up the clearing near the log he had been leaning on. I don’t think anyone saw how it happened, he tries, I can tell Finrod he was already in bad condition and I got lucky.

Or let them know, Elrohir says with a mental shrug. A healthy bit of respect never hurt anyone.

Carcharoth was house-sized, Elrond points out dubiously.

Well done, Ada! Arwen cheers instead of anything useful.

Elrond sighs. Go to sleep, he mutters at them.

He looks up again in time to shout “Don’t touch that Finrod!” as the king leans over the glowing Silmaril.

Finrod fairly leaps back and throws his hands up in surrender, giving Elrond an almost fearful look.

“It’s cursed,” Elrond says quickly. “Exposure to Morgoth.”

It probably is, too, not that he’d be able to tell past the essence of Fëanor’s spirit infusing it. But Elrond doesn’t want to have to wean anyone off of it if they become addicted from a single touch, like he nearly did. Elrond knows his own will is strong and he’s sure Finrod’s is too, but that doesn’t mean he wants to risk anything.

“Ah,” says Finrod, “my apologies, I only meant to look.”

Something in Elrond hisses at that, but he ignores it. The love itself is not corrupting, but what people will do to retain it certainly makes it seem so. He refuses to be part of that.

Elrond shakes his head. “Best not to touch it with bare skin,” he suggests, hoping more than knowing that that will lessen the gem’s influence. “We ought to be away, though. It does not do to hang around large carcasses in the middle of the night in wild woods.”

Finrod nods at that and returns over to their things, picking up his pack. “Oh,” he sighs, “we shall have to track down the mule.”

Elrond nods, limping free of Carcharoth’s lifeless form. They have a long night ahead of them, most likely. And he definitely needs to deal with his leg before anything else. But the woods may be a bit more friendly to them as they do it, which has got to count for something.

:::

The wild, furious howling from the woods dies off eventually. The pack of ranging wolves and wargs that had chased Tyelpë into a tree had fled when the racket started, issuing from through Doriath’s towering shadow. He chooses not to move until morning comes, tucking himself further into the hollow of the branches.

Tyelpë rubs his palms on his tunic again, hating the phantom tree bark grit against his skin. His knees sting, blood darkening the knees of his trousers from where he’d scraped them climbing the tree.

Grumbling softly to himself, he checks on his bag. Lilthanoss’ notes—not coded, Tyelpë had found, just utterly illegible—are tucked away inside his shirt, wrapped safely in oiled leather. The rest of his possessions are notably less secure, however.

Tyelpë shuffles his pack around to dig through it, worried that the buckles may not have held it shut well enough. Everything seems to be in order, but it’s dark enough that he can’t see anything he may have dropped whilst scrambling away from the wolves.

He can use a sword perfectly well, but he’s hardly stupid enough to go eight on one in the dark. Tyelpë still doesn’t regret choosing to leave Nargothrond on his own rather than with his father and uncle though. He could have had their safety half way to Amon Ereb before he split off, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Scrabbling through his bag he finds mostly what he expects. At least everything that should be there is there, just with a bit of unexpected company.

Tyelpë pulls a small ring with two stones on it from his bag and stares at it for a long moment. The weight-to-size feel of it suggests gold for the band, and it’s not hard to guess what the stones are. Tyelpë is nearly sure that this is the exact ring he’d worn for the last four hundred and some-odd years before leaving it on his father’s desk when he took his leave of Curufin.

The language of jewelry is more complicated than most non-Noldor will take the time to try and understand, even if they use bits of it without even being aware of it. Banded red jasper has been a lesser sign of the house of Fëanor since Tyelpë’s grandfather married Nerdanel in Aman. Two stones separated on a band signals to anyone looking that a person is under the protection of and to be protected by elves of the house.

Tyelpë sighs and shakes his head, closing the ring in his palm.

His father can be a real idiot sometimes. Though if Tyelpë hadn’t taken at least that much from everything in Nargothrond already he’d be more than a little disappointed in himself.

At some point he really will have to make his choice, he supposes. A symbolic rejection of his father and everything the smith stands for… or really, truly leaving. Starting anew, completely.

Tyelpë drops the ring, and listens as it clatters against a few branches before hitting the leaf-litter with a faint thud. Whatever he’s doing, wherever he’s going, he doesn’t need to carry that with him. Tyelpë will see him again, almost unavoidably, but he can cut that connection now, and deal with the rest of it later.

Like lancing a wound to clear out the poison below the surface. Or just cutting off his own arm. Essentially the same thing.

Tyelpë shifts restlessly and wraps his arms around himself. He misses his forge in Nargothrond; it was safe, it was clean, it was home and he never should have left. But somehow it doesn’t seem like this decision would’ve been any easier there, steeped in memory.

Tyelpë squeezes his eyes shut, curls up on his branch, and begins to cry. But at least he’s free.

Chapter Text

Erestor rides into Himring under the earliest dawn light of a crisp, cold morning, though he has to suspect there are no mornings here that cannot be similarly described.

He’d always thought Thargelion sat at much the same latitude, but in his memory the lands around Helevorn were warmer—enough to grow grapes in the summer—and only up in the mountains did it become so chilly. He has to wonder if that has more to do with proximity to the Enemy, or with the inhabitants of the Noldorin fortress itself.

Granted, Erestor has never met Lord Maedhros himself, and he supposes he shouldn’t make his judgements before then. His uncle’s fortress is… impressive, he’ll give it that.

It’s much larger than the main outpost at Amon Ereb, and the population easily outclasses what Thargelion’s was, though his old home covered more space around their lake. The fortifications do uphold the idea of surviving endless siege; on approach up the hill, Erestor can pick out blackened burn scars on the rocks and ground, though much other evidence of the fighting is gone.

He’d seen a few scouting parties on his way in but when they wheeled towards him, he’d waved his left hand twice as his father had instructed and received a similar salute and no trouble.

The triple layered gates—two sets of huge, thick doors and a clattering portcullis—open for him without fanfare, and shut with a rather ominous rattle and thud just behind his horse’s rump.

They’d asked after his identity before they raised even the portcullis, and he’d heard someone calling loudly for their lord to be fetched while he waited, so he’s not surprised to find an impressively tall redhead waiting for him in what appears to be the central courtyard. There’s a much shorter brunet standing at Maedhros’ right shoulder—or elbow, rather, dwarfed as he is by his brother’s shadow.

Erestor recognizes him, at least—his father had hosted Maglor, along with his wife and some of their people, a few times before the Bragollach, always with much feting and feasting and general comradery. Erestor doubts the bard will recognize him, though; he’d spent much of that time as his father’s cup-bearer without a seat at the high table.

(He doesn’t mind being raised half squire and half son; he knows his father fears nothing more than Erestor getting wrapped up in the bloody family affairs. He’s willing to do quite a lot more than most to make sure the Lord of lost Thargelion sleeps well at night.)

Erestor rides a bit further into the courtyard and shoves down the sense of awkwardness as he waits for something to happen. He has plenty of practice with lords and general protocol, but he’s never found himself with quite so ambiguous a status before.

“Nephew,” says Maedhros after a moment, “be welcome in Himring.”

Erestor takes that as his cue to dismount, and bows once he’s on the ground. “Thank you, m’lord,” he replies evenly.

Maedhros frowns. “Have you no escort?”

Erestor shakes his head. “No, m’lord. We lost much to the retreat—there aren’t many who can be spared. But I am competent enough myself, I assure you.”

Maedhros’ frown turns to a grimace, but Erestor expects it’s directed more at his father and the situation than himself. But then, his father has set himself up to be receiving enough of his House’s ire already, so Erestor ought to soothe what he can.

“The road was not so bad,” he adds. “And I do know which end of the sword goes in orcs.”

The road was frankly terrible as they’re unable to do upkeep with the Enemy’s constant presence, and he’s much more effective with a quill than a sword, but there’s no reason to go about telling all and sundry the truth of everything.

“Hm,” says Maedhros, eyes narrowed. “Come, then, your nephew and niece are in the infirmary.”

Ah, right, Erestor thinks, the more difficult aspect of this maneuver of theirs. He does hope the children know his name, at the very least.

“Hold on,” says Maglor, slipping around his brother’s side to peer at Erestor, suddenly unexpectedly close. His voice is smooth and lyrical, but something about it slides over Erestor’s skin too much like oil to be comfortable. “My lord, you’ve not even given suitable introduction.”

Maedhros sighs. “I do believe it’s fairly obvious, Maglor, unless the boy is both deaf and blind.”

“But of course,” says Maglor, blatantly ignoring his lord brother. “M’lord there is Maedhros, warden of the east, and I am Maglor, warden of the wine cellar. It is a pleasure to meet you at last, dear nephew of ours.”

Maedhros snorts, but says nothing.

“Erestor,” Erestor replies, “and likewise.”

“Maedhros,” says Maglor, leaning close to take Erestor’s face in his gloved hands and just staring at him, eyes wide.

“Maglor,” Maedhros sighs.

“Maedhros,” says Maglor.

“Um,” says Erestor.

“I am going to kill your father,” the bard tells him with a sweet smile.

Erestor shivers. His uncles thus far are nothing like his father at all, and with little basis for comparison, he can’t tell if Maglor is serious or not.

“Please refrain,” he says, doing his best to tug his chin free without causing offense. “I’m rather fond of him non-deceased.”

“Of course,” Maglor pats him on the head, “aren’t we all?”

“Come,” says Maedhros with finality, gesturing his brother back to his side. Erestor hands his horse over to a waiting stable hand and follows. Maedhros stands aside and waves his hand for Erestor to enter the infirmary first, and Erestor can’t shake the feeling of being closely scrutinized as he does so.

Erestor expects awkwardness. He does not expect to be nearly bowled over by an exuberant half elf (who is by no means as light as a full elf) upon setting foot in the healing hall, without even the time to open his mouth for a greeting.

“Erestor!” the young woman cries gleefully. “You’re here!”

Erestor, who’d stumbled back into Maedhros, is tipped back upright by the lord’s hand on his back.

“I—” Erestor starts, “of course. My apologies for any delay.”

“Not at all,” says another smiling half-elf on one of the beds. His bandaged feet dangle off the side and swing back and forth carelessly. “Gil-neth has just come awake recently, and I shall be ready to move myself soon enough.”

The girl—Gil-neth—points one accusatory finger at him. “We aren’t leaving until you’re well, and you’re certainly not walking, you hear me, Gilion Lilthanosion?”

Gilion holds up his hands. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, his tone utterly patronizing.

Erestor narrows his eyes at the pair. They knew he didn’t know their names—they’re playing at something much deeper than even his father knows, at a guess. What, he can’t be sure, but he does know how to recognize an experienced liar. His father’s holdings are chronically fully of them.

They’re going to be putting on a show, he sees, but that’s fine; Erestor can act. He’s been masterfully pretending everything is normal and nothing about his life situation is strange at all since they packed up and fled Thargelion ten years past. Even before that.

Besides. His father is not their grandfather, so there’s quite a bit to be questioned either way.

The pair do look young, but he’s young too and knows well enough the odd aging of peredhil. Erestor decides to lean in.

“What’ve you done now, you fool?” he asks.

Maglor makes a strange hissing sound but Erestor ignores him. His gamble has paid off: Gilion just grins at him.

“Ran across Anfauglith,” he says cheerfully.

“Namo’s socks, you stupid,” says Erestor, his eyes widening not entirely for show.

“Right?” Gil-neth puts in.

Erestor points at her. “Unhelpful.”

“What did you want me to do?” Gilion injects a bit of hurt into his voice, but Erestor doesn’t believe it. “Stay in Angband?”

Erestor is not sure how they got to Angband, and if they have a plan for that it probably has to do with their backstory which he also doesn’t know. So he chooses not to ask, and steps forward with open arms instead. Gil-neth tucks herself into his embrace and tugs him enough to the bed to hug Gilion, and the pair of them squeeze him much harder than he’d expected from children he doesn’t actually know.

“Dumbass,” he mutters, just loud enough for the elves still in the doorway to catch it.

“Thank you for coming for us,” says Gilion, “we’re glad to see you.”

Erestor lets the genuine emotion at the thought of elves—any elves, especially his supposed family—in Angband clog his throat as he responds. “Just don’t do it again.”

He hears Maglor murmur something to Maedhros, then the pair of them exit quietly, leaving Erestor and his “niece” and “nephew” alone.

“Alright,” he whispers after a long moment to make sure the elder Fëanorians are gone, “what in the all of Varie’s blessed weave is going on?”

The pair look at each other, then at him, then back at each other.

“Er,” says Gil-neth, “how good is your osanwë? It’s not really safe to speak of out loud.”

Erestor’s eyebrows fly up, but he says, “Make a connection, and then we’ll see.”

Gil-neth’s expression is somehow abashed and unrepentant at the same time as she says, “We already have one?”

“What—” Erestor starts, eyes widening, before they’re in his head. And there is a lot of them. Erestor has only initiated osanwë once or twice and only with his father so he doesn’t have a good sample size, but even the memory of his father’s mind resting against his own is now dwarfed in comparison to these. Gilion and Gil-neth swirl in and around each other’s consciousnesses like green ink in gold water until they appear one and the same, and seep into his alarmingly swiftly.

Hello, says Gil-neth, well, here we are.

Erestor’s mind stutters over his questions, struggling to catch up while still processing. He squeezes his eyes shut to try and lower the amount of stimulation he’s receiving, and Gil-neth tucks him more firmly against her side.

Oh, Gilion says, Ar, pull back a bit. We’re about two and a half thousand years old, Erestor, that would be the issue. Sorry.

Two and a half thousand—

The weight of the pair lets up slightly and Erestor’s body takes a few gasping breaths before he manages, The Edain aren’t even that old. How—

Technically, says Gilion.

There’s no technically about it, Gil-neth cuts him off. We’re from the future, Erestor. Descendants of Luthien and Fingolfin. Arwen Undomniel and Elrohir Elrondion at your service. You should know that you raised us, as well.

I, what?? Erestor asks, still fumbling with previous information.

Perhaps we should’ve done this more slowly, says Gil-neth—Arwen?—sounding apologetic.

He’s Erestor, Elrohir returns, he can handle it.

He’s like a hundred, Arwen says dubiously.

Eighty, Erestor provides, feeling faint. If you’re from the future, does that mean you know everything?

He’ll probably question it more later, but at the moment he’s willing to take their story at face value.

Not everything, Arwen hedges. Where—when—in the time we came from, Luthien and Beren only stole one silmaril from Morgoth. So, things are moving a bit faster than we can keep up with, and anything we did know is subject to change.

Hm, thinks Erestor, and he’s pretty sure they both hear it. Feeling a bit more grounded, he opens his eyes, but determines that everything outside of his little space in their arms is still too much and closes them again. As his mental presence shifts and settles, he brushes against a sparking trail of white twining through the green gold—at least, the best mental approximation of the colors—and gives a small yelp as it burns the fringe of his mind.

Don’t touch that, Arwen advises. It’s a bit sensitive right now.

What is it? Erestor wants to know, suspicious.

My twin-bond, says Elrohir. He’s far away right now, so it’s stretched a bit thin.

We should check on that, Arwen murmurs, though Erestor senses it’s more for her brother than him.

You have a twin, says Erestor flatly, because of course Elrohir does. Why wouldn’t he? Erestor supposes they’ll have to go and collect him too when they leave Himring, but that’s an adventure for another day.

Elladan, Elrohir tells him. Though he’s going by Gil-henë right now.

Spindles, says Erestor before his mind-to-mouth filter can figure out how to function with other people in his head. Tell me you had to pick your names here for good reasons.

There’s a long pause, then Arwen says, eh, heheh. Messing with our father is a good reason, right?

You are two thousand something years old, says Erestor flatly. Full-on adults.

Elrohir snorts. And we’d be very miserable adults if we didn’t have a bit of fun now and then.

It’s a gift that keeps on giving, Arwen says, and Erestor can feel her mental grin. The thought of Ada’s expressions whenever he hears any of them is my motivation to get up every morning.

Elrohir laughs at that. When Erestor presses a curious feeling in his direction, he explains, You’ll get it when you meet him. For my sake, say our names as much as you can when I’m in the room too. I’ll give you my desert or something as payment.

Erestor’s training from living in Thargelion kicks in at that. One unspecified favor, he demands.

Chop and sweet water, Elrohir mutters. Already a hardass.

Specify it now, Arwen suggests.

No, says Erestor, take it or leave it.

Damn, Arwen says. A favor of the same weight, then. He’ll take it.

Elrohir apparently has no further comment on that. You’ve never poked at your father just for some harmless fun? he asks instead.

Erestor purses his lips. There isn’t a lot that’s truly “harmless” from where I’m standing, he points out.

The siblings are silent for a long moment, then Arwen nods against his shoulder.

Erestor gives a soft sigh. Well, go ahead and show me then, so I know where we’re standing.

All of it? Elrohir asks dubiously.

All of it, Erestor confirms.

There’s a beat of clear, soft silence, then the weight of ages descends. Images, sounds, thoughts, and distant, heartrending knowledge flash behind his closed eyelids nearly faster than he can keep track of, but a few of it sticks for more than a moment. His father is dead. His uncles are dead. Their people are gone. Beleriand is gone.

Erestor starts screaming. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to tell if it’s mental or physical, and doesn’t really care.

Elrohir and Arwen pull back but it’s too late; the cascade has already begun, falling like blinding stars through his mind. It’s gone, it’s all gone.

Erestor takes gasping breaths against someone’s palm and takes hold of the power around him to reach out for the few comforts he has, still wailing. His father, with a burst of concern, reaches back.

:::

Finrod resists the urge to flee into the woods screaming for Melian, the Marchwardens, anyone, for the fourth time that night as he turns and nearly jumps out of his skin upon finding Lilthanoss behind him, holding the pack mule’s reins.

“Sweet waves,” he breathes, one hand clutching at his chest while the other props him up against the tree beside him. “Please, I beg thee, refrain from sneaking up on me.”

“Oh,” says Lilthanoss, perfectly calmly though he does look a bit contrite. “My apologies, it was not my intention to do so.”

Finrod forces himself to look away instead of staring and nods weakly.

His kinsman is too damn calm. Too collected after the events of the night. It seems unnatural, and is frankly a bit terrifying. Finrod is all for accepting strange and interesting new friends, but at the moment, still shaken from the fuck-off huge wolf that had attacked them, he can’t quite tamp down his jumpiness.

Minus the soul-scraping fact that it had been a wolf in the first place, which Finrod was not prepared to deal with in any capacity, he’d watched from the ground as Lilthanoss brutally murdered the beast.

Lilthanoss, the kind, thoughtful healer who falls asleep on garden benches and has to be truly pushed to put his foot down. And Finrod would simply say “killed”, but that word fails to grasp exactly the kind of butchering the half-Sinda had done.

Finrod is fairly certain his friend had thought him unconscious from the shock of the wolf, but in truth he’d been fading in and out, and was fully able to watch most of the battle.

He’d watched Lilthanoss be snatched up and shaken, then roll right back his feet to land the next blow. He’d watched the other elf ruthlessly rip out the arrow in the beast’s eye and stab it back into the other one, leaping free of the swiping paws a moment later with grace that spoke of long practice and training, even as his blood sprayed onto the leaf litter.

He’d watched, frozen in place, as those slavering jaws came down and Lilthanoss propped them open with his own body, driving his spear up inside the wolf’s skull without a care for nearly being devoured whole.

Finrod had not been able to lift himself, or even move, to check on his kinsman after Lilthanoss had crawled free, so instead they’d laid across the clearing from each other for a while, just breathing, before Lilthanoss got up.

Then the elf had the gall to treat it like it was nothing at all! I’ve killed many wolves, he’d said. As good as you’re safe with me.

With that display, Finrod wondered how in all of Eä the healer had been captured by the lord of werewolves in the first place. There are things he doesn’t remember about how he was delivered from the tower; blank patches in his memory enough to make him suspicious. But every time he begins to turn the thoughts over, Lilthanoss goes and does something soft and kind and utterly unmalicious, and Finrod is tumbled back to square one.

Oh, he’d said, as if he hadn’t even noticed his other weeping wound among all the rest of the blood soaking him to the bone. It had been smaller, aye, but by no means a mere scratch! He hardly seems to notice it, either, or be bothered by it. Finrod tries not to shiver every time he accidentally gets a too-close look. He avoids looking down at all; his friend’s leg has been outfitted with a hasty tourniquet, but is still a messy sight.

And then there’s the Silmaril.

Lilthanoss had a point, that they shouldn’t just leave it there for who knows what to happen to it, but even still as he’d watched his kinsman pick it up he couldn’t help but think—in hand taketh, finding keepeth.

Finrod shivers even now at the thought of it.

The look on Lilthanoss’ blood-streaked face had scared him, if he’s being honest. He’d just knelt there, for minutes, and didn’t even seem to hear Finrod calling his name.

Finrod could not know if it was some power of the jewel holding him spellbound or what exactly was happening until Lilthanoss shuddered bodily and hurled the thing as far from himself as possible. Or afar casteth.

Finrod still doesn’t know. He’d moved to examine the jewel himself curiously, and been snarled at for his trouble. Though he supposes if it really is cursed… if that’s even true, he probably should avoid touching it. Not that he was or is planning to anyway.

Now Lilthanoss has the thing tucked into his shirt, wrapped in a strip of bandages to keep it from touching his skin, though he seems decidedly averse to letting go of it either. Finrod is not going to push on that front.

“Can you go on through the night, or should we make camp elsewhere?” the healer asks.

Finrod shakes his head to clear it and decides, “I can go on.” His wounds are mostly spiritual now due to Lilthanoss’ own care, and even those that twinge aren’t enough to make him want to sit down for too long in the dark woods.

In theory, there was only one giant wolf lurking about. But then, there really should have been none.

Still, Finrod begins to hum a small song of concealment as they walk on towards the heart of Doriath. Just in case there’s anything else out there. It doesn’t occur to him that the magic might have also deterred the marchwardens’ notice until daylight comes and he recognizes one of the many well disguised roads to Menegroth.

Lilthanoss doesn’t notice it until Finrod points him to it, but that can be forgiven for the glazed look in his eyes, his head tilted slightly and gaze unfocused. Finrod has to imagine he’s speaking to his children, or else lost in thought. Or perhaps—Finrod knows admittedly little of healing, but he knows that infection can kill an elf as well as taking the wound itself. Not to mention blood loss.

Either way, with what he’s seen now Finrod is more than a bit wary of startling his companion unduly.

With that in mind, Finrod takes the lead and Lilthanoss follows him as placidly as the pack mule until they come upon the first wooden dwellings on the outskirts of the thousand caves.

Unlike the entrance to Nargothrond, which is not protected by the Girdle, the gates of Menegroth are fairly simple to reach if one can find and follow the right paths. A laughing, rollicking branch of the Esgalduin splashes underneath the beautiful stone bridge leading into the caves proper, whose gates are draped in greenery intwined with small, gleaming lights.

And closed. That’s not good, but Finrod doubts it’s to keep them specifically out. More probably, they don’t know that the wolf is dead.

Towing Lilthanoss in his wake, Finrod crosses the bridge and reaches through the heavy, iron-latticed portcullis to knock politely on the grandly carved and decorated doors beyond.

There’s a long, long pause. Finrod strains his ears, but only catches the faintest sounds through the thick wood; not nearly enough to get anything from.

Finrod clears his throat. The sounds on the other side stop momentarily.

“The great wolf Carcharoth is dead,” he says, “if that be the reason ye have barred your gates. I would beg entry.”

Another long pause, then Finrod backs up as the portcullis begins to rattle upward. The mighty doors open on the other side before the way beyond them is even clear and there stands Captain Mablung, staring. Admittedly a reasonable reaction. Finrod has blood on himself too from where he’s touched Lilthanoss.

“Hello,” says Finrod, mustering a cheerful smile. “It has been too long, friend Mablung! Lilthanoss and I have come up from Nargothrond bearing news and in search of his children—may we enter to rest in your halls?”

“Yes, I… would—” Mablung starts, still staring, “can I get you a bath? And clean clothes?”

“That would be lovely,” says Lilthanoss, finally breaking from his previous stupor though it takes him a moment to focus, squinting. “Thank you. I will also need a quiet area to attend my patient—I’m afraid he’s had quite a fright recently, and that does take a toll on the mind—and I also,” he pauses, then frowns. “Where is my son?”

Mablung blinks and looks at Finrod. Finrod gestures with his palm down around waist height; the young ones. Mablung’s eyes light with understanding and he nods. “He’s with the king. We’ll take you to them once—”

“Please,” Lilthanoss interrupts him, “I need to see my son, now.”

Mablung visibly fumbles for a moment. “I,” he says, “you cannot go before him in such a state, you’re—” The centuries old warrior gestures a bit helplessly at the healer’s entire everything.

Lilthanoss, covered from head to toe in wolf blood and little bits of gut, hair askew and the Silmaril glowing clearly from within his shirt, blinks back at him. “Yes?”

“Lillapîn,” Finrod says carefully, “I believe he means we ought to bathe, change, and make ourselves presentable.”

Lilthanoss turns to him with a frown. “Yes, well,” he says, “I need to see my boys first, and then we can do all that. E—Gil-henë has seen me worse, I assure you.”

Finrod can’t help the slight widening of his eyes. Dost thou make a habit of going about slaughtering giant wolves, he wants to ask, or is there some other reason thou hast been oft covered with such foul blood? He’s still fairly certain his kinsman thought he had fully fainted whilst he slew the wolf, however, and there’s something deep and quiet in the back of his mind warning him not to correct that assumption.

“Gil-henë,” Mablung starts with a frown, but he’s swiftly cut off by the sound of a commotion at the other end of the entrance courtyard.

Finrod is familiar with the feel of his grand-uncle’s power, and a slight flush of relief at the familiarity blooms in his chest as Thingol approaches. It makes him feel safe, even with the tingling buzz of danger that Lilthanoss presents next to him.

The king is holding a small child in his arms, but there’s no other adult elf who closely resembles the healer in sight. Finrod glances at Lilthanoss to find him also searching, if with a slightly more desperate expression than Finrod feels he bears himself.

“Hail, King Thingol,” Finrod says with a short bow. Lilthanoss does not copy him, though he’s wise enough to not step forward either.

“Ada!” the boy who must be Pîngil—or Estel, as Lilthanoss had called him—wriggles in Thingol’s hold. “Ada!”

Thingol does not let him go, possibly because the little one has been dressed in small but rich clothes and Lilthanoss is covered in blood. Or just because Lilthanoss is covered in blood.

“Pînno,” Lilthanoss murmurs.

“King Finrod,” Thingol greets formally, “and company. Clearly, much has transpired in my woods that I have been thus far unaware of—would you be so kind as to share the details?”

“Certainly,” says Finrod, “but perhaps we might—”

“Ada!” Pîngil shrieks loudly and hurls himself from Thingol’s arms. He falls barely a foot before Lilthanoss has stepped in on his good leg, swooped him up, and stepped back again clutching the boy close. The guards around the king barely have time to jump and Mablung’s sword only comes up belatedly, so quickly did the elf move.

“Pîngil,” he chides, “you must be more careful, we’ve discussed this! Do you remember when you fell from the chair in Erestor’s study and hit your head? That hurt, no? King Thingol is much taller than the chair, dear heart.”

“Ada,” Pîngil whispers, tucking his little head into the crook of Lilthanoss’ neck, unbothered by the dried blood there, nor that which is crusted in the healer’s hair as it sweeps across his cheek.

Lilthanoss seems more settled already with the child in his arms, though his posture is far from relaxing all the way. Finrod frowns as he catches his friend swaying slightly, an odd sheen of sweat barely noticeable on his skin.

Thingol clears his throat, frowning deeply. He opens his mouth to speak but a bright clear voice calls across the courtyard before he can.

“Lilthanoss! Welcome to Menegroth!” Finrod looks up to find Luthien on a balcony above, Beren beside her. He gives a true, bright grin at the sight of both, alive and well. “You must come in,” she continues, “we’ve much to discuss.”

“Luthien,” Thingol says sternly as his daughter swiftly descends the exposed steps along the wall.

“Yes, Ada,” Luthien replies pleasantly.

“My lady,” Lilthanoss says, “where is my son?”

“Ah,” says Luthien, looking a bit sheepish for a moment before her expression smooths. “On the journey here—”

“Bird dropped him,” Pîngil mutters into his uncle’s neck.

Finrod freezes, every muscle in his body seizing between fight, flight, and faint on the spot as Lilthanoss fairly flairs with what feels like a most ancient and furious power. Every other elf in the courtyard evidently feels much the same judging by the hands he can see tightening on weapon hilts and the sudden tension like a current in the air.

“What.” Lilthanoss sounds terribly calm.

Luthien smiles at him as if he wouldn’t rip her apart in a moment (a thought Finrod is finding it very hard to doubt himself, and the wolf blood certainly doesn’t help).

“Thorondor could not carry him all the way to the forest of Brethil,” she provides, “and was forced to leave him in the hidden city of the Noldor in the mountains. But he is well.”

Lilthanoss twitches. “My son is in Gondolin,” he clarifies.

Is that what Turgon has called it? A part of Finrod itches at the new knowledge, wishing to take it apart and find out what else his kinsman knows. The rest of him is still frozen.

Luthien nods serenely. “And he is well.”

Lilthanoss’s sharp gaze narrows on the princess. “And you know this how…?”

“I did not intend to leave him there, and indeed sent the great eagle to ascertain his well-being, after being deposited in Brethil,” Luthien informs him calmly.

“Yet he was not brought here,” Lilthanoss says in a distinctly accusatory tone.

“I am told Gil-henë preferred to violently rebuff Thorondor’s attempt.”

“Violently?”

“Throwing rocks. I suppose it was more insult than danger that drove Manwë’s messenger off, but he has not returned within thy son’s throwing range since.”

“I see,” Lilthanoss says with a sigh, deflating a bit from the mighty presence that he had possessed a moment before. “That does sound distressingly like him.”

“Luthien,” Thingol says, this time more determinedly. “Wouldst thou care to introduce this new friend of thine, or carry on thy conversation above the rest of our heads?”

“’Twould be difficult to carry much of anything above thy noble head, Father,” Luthien notes. “But of course, I apologize. This is Lilthanoss Peredhel, Daeron’s son.”

“What?” quite a few people say together, quite loudly. Finrod is one of them. For many reasons, he’d like to find some place to pass out now. For many similar reasons, he cannot.

:::

“I shall stand, thank you,” Gil-henë says pointedly, not moving from his chosen place beside the doorway.

“Please, do sit down,” Idril returns.

“He has his duties,” her father adds, “though we have plenty of food—you are welcome to it, Captain.”

“I’m sure he can sit at the table with us and still do his job perfectly well,” Idril says with a pointed eye-roll. “The threat is not in the tower with us.”

Gil-henë gives her a raised eyebrow for her efforts and remains beside the doorway.

Maeglin takes another bite of his eggs and pushes the rest around his plate for the duration of the ensuing staring match before cutting through it with a loud sigh. “Oh sit down, Gil-henë,” he grumbles. “Aratto said you could, and you won’t do anyone any good on an empty stomach.”

I’ll have you know I’ve done plenty of good on an empty stomach, Gil-henë scoffs in the empty space between them.

“Your majesty?” he checks again, just to be sure.

Turgon waves a hand to allow it and Idril hooks her ankle around the leg of the chair beside her to pull it out.

“Many thanks,” the captain says formally, taking the seat.

Idril flushes triumph through the mental space in the room. Maeglin’s stony expression—the one he always wears when conscripted to appease the king’s wishes for family meals—takes on a faintly nauseous quality.

What, exactly? her little lord cousin bites out, chewing viciously. Fainted into a fountain?

“If you’re sitting you have to eat,” Idril comments blandly. Those are the rules.

Since when? Maeglin sneers, pointedly dropping his fork with a clatter.

“I am certain Captain Gil-henë knows how to do his job,” Turgon starts, his voice uncharacteristically uncertain as he glances between the three of them.

“Certainly, Ada,” Idril says cheerfully.

“That’s nice, Aratto,” Maeglin says in the same moment.

She smiles sunnily as he glares at her, imbuing as much pettiness into the expression as she can manage without drawing a consternated look from her father.

Maeglin kicks her shin under the table. Her smirk falling to a faint scowl, she kicks back. Her prosthetic collides with a hard and solid boot that’s definitely not Maeglin’s house-slippered foot.

Ow, says Gil-henë, his placid smile still in place.

You did that to yourself, Idril points out, though she does not kick again.

My job is to protect the royal family, he says. You appointed me yourself, so I will do it. Even from each other.

“Aratto,” Maeglin says, “we’ve had a small mine collapse in the northern iron field—nothing terrible though there were a few small injuries. We’ll need to re-open it or else seek new veins… I’ll bring it up in council later, but I’d like to go myself.”

Gil-henë’s calm, friendly face twitches into what Idril now recognizes—with some practice and much watching—as a mild glare.

I can’t be in two places at once, he says icily.

“Of course,” Turgon replies. He appears a bit surprised that Maeglin has approached him so boldly on any topic, what with the sullen and typically closed off demeanor of his nephew. But he’s happy, too, Idril thinks, because he’s always searching to make progress. “I assume thou hast a proposal?”

“I do,” Maeglin agrees, staring Gil-henë down though his face is pointed at the king. “I shall present it in council.”

Then I suppose you’ll have to put some trust in the Gondolindrim to protect Turgon while you’re gone, or else me whilst you remain here. Maeglin’s stare is quietly violent. He’s testing his bounds under the new terms of their living situation and Idril intends to let him, because she’s curious.

“You’ll have my support,” Turgon says, “though a few of the lords may be less willing to grant theirs—I know Egalmoth was looking to secure funding of his own from the treasury this quarter.”

Our training as a unit is far from complete, says Gil-henë. She can hear his deliberately slow, calming breaths. If he’s only realizing now that her cousin is an annoying, bothersome menace to himself and everyone around him, she really can’t help him.

“How troublesome,” Maeglin replies blandly, to both.

 “But,” the king continues, “provided it is a, reasonable… and justifiable… venture…”

Ah, her father has taken note of the territorial dispute going on down the table.

“Both of those,” Maeglin says, meeting Gil-henë’s gaze squarely. “Definitely.”

The grim prince promptly winces as there comes a faint thud, and Idril stifles a snort. What happened to protecting us? she inquires. You turn so soon?

I am, Gil-henë says flatly. The sooner you two get used to not going off on your own, the better.

He’d said it was her cousin’s capture that led to the fall of Gondolin in what he’d Seen, she remembers. In that light, this doesn’t seem such an unwise policy to implement early.

Turgon looks between Maeglin and Gil-henë with an interminable expression, then purses his lips. “If the pair of you would like to work out whatever differences you have on the sparring grounds—”

“Not at all, your majesty,” says Gil-henë breezily. “My primary directive is to protect yourself and your family. Beating your nephew up would be counterproductive.”

If satisfying, Idril predicts.

As if, Maeglin bites out at the same time.

“Are you a mop, your highness?” Gil-henë whirls on him in a moment, entirely forgetting the king. Turgon himself looks more confused and entertained than anything, at least to Idril, who knows him.

“Mind yourself, Captain!” snaps Maeglin, defensive.

Idril knows people often attack him for his appearance, which he stopped trying to manage once he realized they’d say the same if he spent hours on it every day. She suspects that’s not at all what Gil-henë means, but it is a prominent nerve to play on with her cousin. She sips her tea, and waits.

“I thought not. We wouldn’t get very far if I wiped the floor with you,” Gil-henë says, “so there’s no reason to try it.”

Idril nearly spits out her tea. Her father does lose a sip of his coffee, and is quick to bring his napkin to his mouth—both to clean it, and hide further startled laughter. Maeglin splutters.

“In any case,” Gil-henë continues, “I’ll come with you to the mine—we’ll see if the unit I’m training can manage our new patterns on their own while I’m gone.” I’d also like to see if I can reach you from that distance, Princess. You should try with your cousin as well—we’ll need to be well connected for any sort of safety beyond Gondolin.

Maeglin pulls a face, but sits up straighter in his seat at the mention of the world beyond the city’s mountain walls. “Fine,” he says.

“Fine,” Gil-henë agrees.

Alright, says Idril. Though she’s not entirely happy with the idea of spending more time linked with Maeglin’s mind, Gil-henë’s right that it’s not a bad idea to forge strong connections now and not be left fumbling later. Do you imagine you will be able to?

Gil-henë makes a strange face and hides it with his glass of water. The only bond so strong that I have known is with my siblings, he says. My sister and twin brother, who are both like the pair of you compared to me—much more powerful, if less precise.

Idril would take offense to that if she hadn’t previously felt the intricate weave of his defenses, surely nigh-impenetrable when reinforced with another elf’s power. Maeglin, she feels, does bristle.

But her cousin, astonishingly, does not bite back immediately, in favor of taking a curious tone. You have a twin brother? “Well,” he says aloud, gesturing around the table. “I imagine you’ll be taking up a fairly close role to the royals here, and you already know us, so tell us of your family.”

Gil-henë blinks a bit, then sets down his glass. “I have—” he starts, then pauses. “I have one sister and two brothers, one of whom is my twin, Gilion. My father is… our mother is gone.”

“Gone,” says Turgon softly. “She was a Man?”

Gil-henë pauses, then nods jerkily.

Maeglin opens his mouth, and Idril speaks up quickly before he can put his foot in it. “We grieve with you, then,” she says, curious still for having not asked previously. “That makes you half-elven?”

Moving away from the topic of his parents seems to make the captain more comfortable and he nods. “Aye,” he says, “and my siblings. My father as well.”

“I don’t mean to make you dwell on your tragedy, though we shall endeavor to avert what we might,” Idril’s father says, “but you look to be an elf, and you told Thorondor that your younger brother is fully human? How can that be?”

Gil-henë gives a long sigh, looking down at his plate without appearing to see it. “Peredhil,” he says, and Idril files that away, “are given a Choice, between elven life and mortality.”

Choice. The word itself seems to carry some invisible weight, hanging in the air heavily over the silent table.

“But your brother is not yet four, you said,” Idril murmurs. “How can he be expected to choose in good faith?”

Gil-henë purses his lips. “Some,” he says, “have their Choice taken by the actions of the past and the imperative of the future.”

The table is silent for a long moment, then Maeglin speaks surprisingly softly, almost plaintive, though that can’t be right. “But that’s not fair.”

Gil-henë’s typically cheerful and sunny expression has been replaced by sheer stone when he turns to Idril’s cousin, and he reminds her rather abruptly of her father, speaking Eöl’s doom. “Has the world struck you as particularly fair thus far, your highness?” he asks.

Maeglin looks away.

Gil-henë shakes his head. “I am not—” he says, clearly to change the topic though Idril thinks none of them are about to stop him anyway. “I have not yet made my Choice. I am nearly—well. I am older than any Man should be, at this point, but I have not Chosen, really. For my other siblings, it is the same.”

Idril frowns. “So at some point you just, decide to live the rest of your life as a Man?”

“A very elfish Man,” Gil-henë says with a shrug, “but aye. Though I do not know that I will, in any case. I would hate to make such a decision without my twin by my side. Whatever I do, I was not made to live a life alone, nor to leave him.”

In fact, he adds, sounding a bit odd, usually I get terrible migraines from being so far from him for long. The strain on our bond should be great from hi—m. It is strange, that I do not even feel a twinge.

Hm, says Maeglin in a way that indicates he’ll be swiftly retreating from the physical conversation to poke around in their mental space for the rest of the meal.

“Maeglin,” Idril chides, “you know we should not speak with our minds at the table, it is exclusive to father.”

Maeglin and Gil-henë both give her incredulous looks, though her cousin’s is markedly more irritated.

“Maeglin…” says Turgon, frowning.

“It’s not my fault!” Maeglin bites back, though he doesn’t go so far as to cast any blame.

Idril’s father only frowns again curiously. “Only to me?” he asks. “Are you particularly skilled in osanwë, Gil-henë?”

Maeglin snorts into his napkin as Idril smirks. “You could say so, father.”

Gil-henë nods. “Skilled,” he says, “though my reach is very limited without someone else reaching back.”

“Ah,” says Turgon, “I see.”

He’s never practiced the skill as far as she knows, so she highly doubts that he does.

“We’ve determined that for the strength of Gondolin, we ought to build as much of a bond as possible,” Idril tells her father. “To aide Gil-henë’s efforts in protecting us all in the coming days, and to be able to communicate with each other more effectively.”

“Idril can only yell at me from halfway across the city,” Maeglin snipes. “She’s looking to extend her purview.”

“Nephew!” Turgon chides, but Idril laughs. Mostly because it’s a lie—they can and have spoken across the entire bowl of Tumladen, when Maeglin was prospecting and Idril was irritated with him—but it’s nice of her cousin to cover for her.

Many of the folk of Gondolin’s court are not as comfortable as she thinks they ought to be with using osanwë. Even between close friends, siblings, and partners, they rarely speak mind to mind.

It’s only Maeglin’s fault in part; he had been less than careful with his power upon first arriving. The echo chamber of the city’s gossip mill had blown the actual events (just mild snooping, for the most part), out of proportion quickly enough that a stigma had grown around using the skill before Idril could even hope to counteract it.

But osanwë is valuable, even when one lacks in power, and she would not see her people entirely shut out such an advantage in both war and peace on account of ridiculous rumors and misplaced concern.

“He’s not wrong, father,” she says. “Gil-henë is talented, and I believe a connection between us can only do us good in the long run.”

Turgon nods slowly, looking a bit dubious but willing to accept it for her sake. Not that he could stop her, anyway. “If you believe it would be in our best interests,” he says.

In her head, Maeglin outright cackles. Is he so wrong, to fear our unholy triumvirate?

The look on Gil-henë’s face suggests he was not quite expecting that, but neither is he going to back down, either. Good. Gondolin will soon be stepping out into the world to reforge the Noldor with the future in their pocket, and they’ll need to be ready for anything.

“Still,” Turgon says, “no osanwë at the breakfast table.”

“Yes father,” Idril chirps.

“Sure,” Maeglin says.

“Of course, sire,” Gil-henë finishes. How much do you think we can get away with?

Idril valiantly keeps down a cackle of her own. We could give our best rendition of the Eldalindalë, he won’t notice a thing.

Chapter Text

Luthien shares a concerned glance with Beren as their grandson stumbles slightly on the way to a private receiving room, her father in their wake.

“Come,” Luthien says, taking hold of the half-elf’s arm to support him. With Pîngil in his arms, Lilthanoss’ other side is unavailable but Beren takes up position there anyway.

“Cousin—” Luthien says.

“He fought the wolf,” Finrod fills in. “Ah, his leg.”

Luthien looks down and grimaces.

“It’s… a bit infected,” Lilthanoss says faintly.

Beren presses the back of his hand to the half-elf’s forehead and frowns. “And you’re running a bit of a fever. Tinnuviel, we’ll need to sit him down soon.”

“It’s fine,” Lilthanoss protests.

“Enough, nephew,” Luthien says, ignoring the way the word feels odd in her mouth. “Ada, do call Mother—your grandson will require healing.”

“Grandson,” her father mutters, but he falls silent quickly enough, likely summoning the Queen’s attention in his head. Aloud, he calls for healers as well and Luthien gives a short approving nod. Her father can be trusted with his brood’s safety for the most part, it’s just a few specific instances that have given her reason to doubt.

Menegroth has no official healer’s ward; those who study the art have not been in excessively high demand since Melian drew up the Girdle. The healers have offices to work in, with a few moveable beds for those Marchwardens and travelers who stop in in poor health, but the lack of an organized area means a private room that’s not being occupied by Beleg will have to wait a few minutes while it’s being set up.

The royal family’s official healer, Sammareth, arrives before the Queen herself, and swiftly has them lay Lilthanoss out on a sofa in the receiving room, uncaring of the blood everywhere. To be fair, Luthien doesn’t care much herself, and her father looks more concerned for his “grandson” than the upholstery.

Sammareth makes short work of the half-elf’s trousers with quick, methodical slices of her belt knife, tsking as she examines the wound. Beren holds out his arms in question, and Lilthanoss somewhat weakly transfers Pîngil into them. The boy watches his father carefully as Beren adjusts his hold, but makes little complaint.

“The tourniquet is good work,” Sammareth says, rifling through her medical pan for a cloth. “Someone fetch me a pot of boiled water!”

“He is a healer himself,” Finrod says as one of her apprentices dashes away. “A fine one.”

“Thank you,” mumbles Lilthanoss as Luthien brushes the tail one of his braids off of his pale and sweaty face.

“Hm,” says Sammareth, before looking up and frowning at them all gathered around. “Sit down,” she says, “he’s hardly going to get better faster from the lot of you hovering.”

Lilthanoss huffs a sound like a laugh and closes his eyes, apparently accepting that his treatment is in good hands.

Luthien takes initiative to perch primly on the closest couch, Beren quickly taking up the space beside her. Finrod rubs his hands together anxiously before Thingol takes him by the shoulder and guides into a seat.

Lilthanoss frowns and points at Finrod, looking a bit dizzy. “Finrod needs help,” he says.

Sammareth pats him on the knee. “Yes, yes,” she says, “eventually.”

“I’m fine,” says Finrod, not sounding particularly fine.

“Hush,” says Sammareth. Lilthanoss hisses at whatever she’s doing to his leg and folds his hands together tightly over his stomach. Luthien watches his knuckles go white with tension.

“Finrod,” says Thingol, “Luthien. Beren, I suppose. Wouldst any of you care to explain yourselves? Or better yet, Daeron. Where is Daeron?”

Luthien purses her lips. She can tell him… or she can take the tiniest bit of devious sibling pleasure in letting him take the fall for their scheme. In theory, he’s married to Caranthir by now.

“Travelling,” she says noncommittally.

Beren, who’s been let in on the plan because she’ll keep no secrets from him, gives her an intense side-eye.

“Travelling…” says Thingol slowly, his eyes narrowing. For better or worse, Luthien’s father is not stupid. “I don’t suppose his intermittent absences throughout the years have also been clandestine meetings with his probably-illicit spouse?”

“Ah,” says Luthien. She doesn’t actually know what Daeron was doing for most of those, though he has always had a habit of wandering off now and then without explanation and returning days or weeks later in a musical fugue state. Once odd, now convenient. “What givest thou reason to imagine it illicit?”

“Unless he was trying to avoid the pomp and circumstance of a royal wedding, I see no other cause to have kept it from me,” her father says. “Rarely have I known your brother to avoid excessive fanfare and frivolity.”

Luthien feels that she might defend her brother there, but it’s true enough so she really can’t say much in his favor.

“It is true,” she hedges. “I know not his spouse, but I know that he was unwilling on account of fearing your disapproval.”

Thingol frowns. “Not that he feared it enough to refrain from marrying in the first place.”

“Mhm,” says Luthien as the room’s doors open and her mother sweeps in, sparing her from any further questioning.

The Queen takes in the scene at a glance, then crosses to the low couch where Lilthanoss is laid out as Sammareth and her two apprentices attend his wounds.

“Grandson,” she says, and Luthien sees her father’s jaw tighten with betrayal. Melian holds up a hand to him before he can comment, giving him a gentling smile. “I have only known him since he crossed through my Girdle, my love, surely thou wilt forgive me that.”

Thingol nods sharply, but his expression remains flat even as he continues to rub Finrod’s shoulder comfortingly where the blonder elf sits close against his side.

“Where hast thou resided before that, then?” he asks.

Luthien gives her grandson a look over Sammareth’s shoulder as her mother kneels beside the healer.

“Brethil, your majesty,” says Lilthanoss after a moment. “With my mother.”

“Brethil,” says Thingol, tipping his head back and bringing his free hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Brethil, of course. What peoples dwell there apart from the Haladin then? Not many, I am sure.”

Lilthanoss glances at Luthien, who presses her lips together thinly, this time in an effort to not smirk.

“Ah,” says Thingol sharply, “but you are of age enough to have children, clearly. So be Daeron’s spouse a Man—"

“Not quite so, your majesty,” Lilthanoss says, a bit oddly.

“No…” Thingol agrees, eyes narrowed. “You’ve the look of Finwë. What has Daeron done?”

Lilthanoss blinks a few times, lashes fluttering.

“Thou canst ask him thyself, leave the boy be now,” Melian says pointedly, “hither he comes up now from the Aros this very morn, spouse in tow.”

Luthien’s eyes widen before she can stop herself, and beside her Beren tenses. He may not be entirely up to date on the elven political sphere, but he knows Fëanorians well enough.

Daeron is bringing Caranthir Fëanorian here. Here, where there are two Silmarils.

“Did he say why, mother?” she asks, with as much control as she has.

Melian gives her an inscrutable look, and gestures to Lilthanoss, whose leg twitches under her hands. “His son is grievously wounded,” she says. “I imagine they speak, upon occasion.”

Luthien glances at Beren, who meets her expression with a twitch of his brow.

“Lilthanoss—” she says, only to find that the healer himself has passed out. “Lilthanoss!”

“’Tis a fever brought on by the infection,” Sammareth tells them. “Have him brought to my office, we should have a room set up by now and this is no place for healing.” She turns on Finrod as her apprentices magic a stretcher out of nowhere and begin to situate the half-elf on it. “For what purpose has he gone swimming in such foul blood, your highness? Just the smell of it is enough to curdle any wound.”

“He fought the wolf,” says Finrod. “To the death. And then went to cut out the Silmaril—he has it now in his tunic, but he claims it cursed and not to be touched with bare skin.”

“So it’s in his tunic,” says Thingol flatly.

“Wrapped up,” Finrod amends. “He seemed quite serious about it… I would not take it from him.”

“No?” Luthien’s father asks, though to his credit he doesn’t make to rise or claim the jewel himself.

“Ah,” Finrod catches Luthien’s eye as his gaze skips over the room. He knows, she guesses, or has guessed himself at the falsified truth of the ruse. Caranthir’s initial overture of partnership had expressed as much of the denizens of Nargothrond.

If Caranthir has claimed Lilthanoss as his son, does that actually make the healer a Fëanorian? Luthien knows naught of his true past in the once-future, even as it unravels, but he is hers, so as it stands she has to doubt that he truly has the blood of Fëanor.

Would her now being Caranthir’s goodsister be enough trick their Oath into counting her as close kin? It is a troubling question. She would prefer—as she’s sure everyone would—that there be no bloodshed over the gems in Doriath.

Yet all the same she’s committed now to letting Daeron explain himself before she leaps into that pit of snakes herself, and cannot say as much to her father lest he link their actions together in betrayal and be more deeply wounded for it.

Sammareth and Melian sweep from the room with Lilthanoss in tow before Finrod responds, and when he does it is to demur. “It is his prize, is it not? His spear is still in the great wolf’s mouth if thou should like to gaze upon proof.”

“In its mouth?” Beren exclaims, his eyes lighting with intrigue. Braced against his chest, Pîngil murbles discontentedly until Beren readjusts his hold.

“It was a terror of a battle,” says Finrod more solemnly than Luthien usually sees him. “The beast was in a great fury but Lilthanoss, I think, has been nursing a grudge.”

Thingol murmurs something under his breath about Finwean stubbornness that makes Finrod snort indelicately, then asks, “What did he have to hold against Carcharoth? He cannot have known of Belegmain, or much of the rest of the damage.”

Finrod jerks. “Belegmain?”

Luthien holds up her hands soothingly. “He is injured, but alive.”

Finrod nods slowly, taking a few deep breaths before he says, “His children met Carcharoth whilst fleeing Angband where they were held in bondage. I don’t know how they got there; he was not very forthcoming. Princess Luthien assisted in their escape, but his daughter was gravely wounded in transit.”

Thingol’s skin is fairer than that of his children, not quite approaching milky but with none of the dark tawny that Melian’s blood leant them. Still, it is no less impressive to see it turn utterly white as Finrod continues.

“Correspondence with my cousin suggests that two of them arrived in Himring and reside there now at least until C—Daeron’s other son comes to fetch them. Lilthanoss’s daughter’s recovery was uncertain for some time.”

Luthien’s father remains white as a sheet, appearing torn between his many options of things to start screeching about.

“Ah,” says Finrod, “she’s alright now.”

“Daeron’s other son,” says Thingol, sounding strangled. Finrod taps the taller elf’s hand lightly in response to the suddenly white-knuckled grip on his shoulder. Thingol lets go with what appears to be excessive effort.

“Mhm,” says Luthien. It hadn’t occurred to her to consider if Caranthir and Haleth had other children. That could be… interesting.

:::

Daeron is… suspicious.

Upon hearing of his young “grandson” in Doriath, Caranthir had insisted on going that way as well. He had seemed to be his usual snarky, grumbly self when they entered Doriath, but since they woke this morning to continue on their way, he’s been quiet and sullen. Daeron thinks he looks almost… afraid.

His eyes flicker back and forth near frantically and he twitches at mere bird calls and snaps more sharply when Daeron speaks to him. He’d had no trouble at the border; Daeron had watched closely for any sign of a greeting from his mother, but there’d been none as far as he could tell.

It may have something to do with the bone-rattling howling in the late evening that had them both up a tree in minutes with their horses shaking below it.

Neither of them had been stupid enough to suggest chasing after the loud evidence of what was clearly a fight as night came on, considering the sort of beast known to be rampaging madly about Beleriand at this time. Caranthir had said it must be the wolf, and Daeron had no reason to disbelieve him.

When the howling and snarling echoes went silent, they had cautiously climbed down from their tree and decided to try and sleep again, this time with a proper watch set.

(“Look,” said Caranthir, “I’m tired, thou’rt tired, I’m sure it’s tired too after whatever that was.”

“Uh-huh,” said Daeron, staring out into the dark.

“I’m going to sleep,” Caranthir continued. “Do keep watch if thou’ll be up.”

“Uh-huh,” said Daeron again.)

Or it might be to do with how Caranthir woke up the morning after.

Daeron had been stirred from his staring match with the darkness between the trees by the sound of his companion tossing and turning in his bedroll, keening with his teeth set against his wrist. Daeron, having noted that his husband despises showing weakness more than most things, had endeavored to be kind and wake the other elf with an abundance of noise rather than anything more pointed.

The loud clattering of the cooking pan and utensils Caranthir had brought falling to the ground as Daeron “accidentally” dropped them next to his husband’s horse had done well enough.

Excepting that Daeron then found himself with his hands in the air and a sword at his throat a few seconds later. He hadn’t touched the spouse bond previously, but in that moment it had served him to fairly shriek through it whilst suffusing as much warmth and comfort as he could manage with cool steel against his skin.

Caranthir hadn’t looked like himself, not that Daeron had enough experience with him to guess what his true normal is. His eyes were wide and wild and though he calmed after a breath, shoulders falling into a slump, he’d held his blade up until the bard said his name and pushed it gently to the side.

After a quiet, tense breakfast, Daeron had suggested seeking out the source of the noise now that it was lighter out, just to make sure they wouldn’t have to watch their backs as they travelled further into the woods. Caranthir had grunted his agreement and off they went.

Personally, Daeron didn’t enjoy being held at sword point. He doubts even now that Caranthir would’ve actually killed him, but that doesn’t do much to soothe the memory.

The ride under the woods’ rich green boughs is solemn and silent, and not in a particularly comfortable way. After a while riding and no horrible creature sightings—yet, which does make it clear how very loud the beast must have been—Daeron suggests they pause for lunch and his husband grunts in response.

The Iathrin prince halts his horse at a break in the trees, not quite a clearing but with enough open space to let the light in above. He finds a rock in a patch of sun and sits on it, breaking out the bread and meat he’d carefully wrapped up at the inn and brought with them, and makes a sandwich.

Caranthir takes a few minutes to attend his horse in silence, and eventually comes to sit by Daeron’s side. Daeron munches peaceably, and waits patiently for the confrontation he can feel coming. He doesn’t know what it might be about; he hasn’t done anything wrong as far as he knows, but the tension is there nonetheless.

“Did you know?” Caranthir snaps finally, glaring at him sideways.

Daeron blinks, and finishes chewing the last bite of his sandwich. “Know what?” he asks in a perfectly confused tone when his mouth isn’t full.

“The children,” says Caranthir, giving Daeron a look as though daring him to disagree, “the ones we’ve adopted. They’re—they’re not from here. Now.”

“Oh, that,” Daeron says nonchalantly. “Luthien told me. They’re her descendants with Beren—that’s why she wanted me to help look out for them.”

Caranthir narrows his eyes. “Anything else?”

Daeron frowns, more serious this time. The question is if he can trust his husband to tell him if he says no. “Some of the rest of it,” he hedges.

“Everyone dies,” Caranthir says flatly. “Morgoth wins.”

Daeron barely has time to feel the blood draining from his face before he turns to the side and throws up on the leaf litter. His husband huffs, then leans over to pull his hair out of his face.

Daeron presses his hand to his mouth, then makes a face at the slime of vomit still on his lips and fumbles out his handkerchief. His hands are shaking, he notes, and tries to get them to stop with no success.

“No,” he manages after a few stutters. “That can’t be true. Not everyone.”

Caranthir doesn’t have the decency to look apologetic as he shrugs. “I lied,” he says. “The Enemy won’t prevail in this Age at least.” Daeron takes a relieved breath before he adds, “Most of Doriath died though. It’s completely gone.” And Daeron feels the nausea bubbling up again.

Caranthir sighs. “It’s changing already,” he says in a way that’s probably meant to be soothing.

Daeron chokes on his spit. “Fuck you,” he coughs.

“I’ll be dead too, if it makes you feel any better,” his husband says, looking at the ground. “And then it will be a long slog to the end of the age and then the next as my family is slowly whittled down one by one until there are few left to scrape out life in Sauron’s shadow.”

“It does not,” Daeron manages past the lump in his throat. “How do you know?”

“They told Erestor,” Caranthir says. “Lilthanoss’ children. Apparently he helped raise them in the future and they trust his competence. Or at least that’s as much as I got from the whole of it—I don’t think they were very delicate in giving him the information.”

“Ah,” says Daeron. “This is why you’ve been…” he gestures to the whole of his husband, who snorts.

“I don’t actually mind being the bearer of bad news,” says Caranthir, “but I’m afraid this is my normal. I’ve just been caught in something of a good mood.”

“Aw,” says Daeron because he can’t help it. “How romantic!”

Caranthir gives him a mild glare before sobering and shaking his head. “I believe it’s for the best that we are now on this path,” he says. “Whatever Lilthanoss has to do or say, he’ll need support to change the future.” He looks up sharply then and Daeron meets his gaze evenly. “It cannot happen the same way. I will not see my family broken further, again.”

Daeron nods. “Nor I,” he says, making some probably valid assumptions about what the fall of Doriath entails. “We can’t tell them what comes…” he adds, imagining a range of possible reactions.

“What may come,” Caranthir corrects. “The future is far from certain, though I understand why they’re hiding their provenance from within it. Either way, there is no reason anyone needs to know if we ensure that none of it happens.”

Daeron is not sure what the whole of “it” is, still, but he has decided on trust, so trust he will dispense. “Aye,” he says firmly. “Aye. Together, then.”

Caranthir nods at him and holds out his hand.

Daeron clasps his husband’s wrist as he knows Iathrim warriors do and shakes it up and down firmly, then he pulls the Fëanorian into a kiss, bruising with promise. Caranthir does not like to make Oaths, and that’s perfectly understandable.

Really, truly coming to know his husband will take more time than they have at the moment, he’s sure, but Daeron is willing to take the first steps. Caranthir kisses him back after a stiff pause, hesitant for an instant before his full confidence returns, and Daeron takes that to mean that he’s ready, too.

Caranthir is… bitchy, and rude, and patently unapologetic more often than not. But he lets Daeron close enough to wrap around him, and tenses when the bard’s fingers under his tunic and vest play over the wheals his fingernails had previously left on that clear, so easily marked skin.

He doesn’t pull back, though, he never has. Daeron thinks his husband either takes everything as a challenge his pride won’t let him fail, or else has been missing physical closeness with a passion since Haleth passed on and doesn’t want to admit it (though he does, physically, every time they lie together). Daeron can understand both, and is more than happy to break Caranthir of one in favor of forcing him to let himself have the other if he has to.

“Thy mouth tastes of barf,” Caranthir says against his cheek after breaking the kiss.

“Suffer,” Daeron murmurs with a light chuckle. “Consider it proof that I care.”

It is, too. Elves don’t get sick naturally, but they experience emotion so strongly at times that it can provoke a physical reaction, which usually involves losing the last meal they ate. Most of the humans Daeron has met had been very concerned by that particular facet of his biology until he’d explained it in detail. (Haleth hadn’t.)

“Hn,” says Caranthir.

“Come on then,” Daeron says after sitting in comfortable silence for a while longer. “We should be on our way.”

“Aye,” Caranthir agrees, hauling himself to his feet after his husband with what looks like monumental effort. “Let’s be off, then.”

They don’t have to ride much farther to find the source of the commotion. Or at least part of it.

They smell it first, tangy iron in the air that somehow makes Caranthir even more twitchy than he’d been in the morning. Daeron frowns as the oddly metallic scent grows stronger, almost like the smell of Beleg shortly after a hunt, even changed and bathed with his antlers put away, but more sour.

His catches his husband’s eye to give him a questioning look, and Caranthir’s lips thin. “It’s blood,” he says flatly. “A lot of it.”

Daeron puts his hand over his mouth to avoid losing the contents of his stomach again. Caranthir nods shortly, nudging his horse in front of Daeron’s with his knees even as he wraps his long fingers around the hilt of his sword.

Daeron is more than happy to let his husband take the lead on this one as they come to the scene of what must have been a terribly violent encounter. Fallen trees mark the path of an enormous beast’s journey, and the body itself lies in an open area, surrounded by what could be poetically described as a small lake of blood, but is more accurately a stagnant, putrid smelling pool of the stuff.

“Caranthir,” he says as his husband dismounts and starts forward.

Caranthir pauses to look back at him, one eyebrow raised. “If the thing’s still alive, I’ll eat my entire illicit silk worm stock and then it can eat me.”

Daeron purses his lips, but nods. It doesn’t look alive, but he also doesn’t much like looking at it.

“Stay there,” Caranthir sighs after a moment. “I just want to check a few things, then I’ll be back.”

Daeron nods tightly, very willing to not go trooping through the bloody mud to get to the corpse. Caranthir’s nice boots make a somewhat horrific squelching noise as he forges through the muck, and Daeron huddles over his horse’s neck, squeezes his eyes closed, and covers his ears until the Fëanorian is done with whatever he’s doing.

A hand on his thigh makes him startle so hard he nearly falls off his horse. Caranthir steadies him. “Hey,” he says, surprisingly gentle for his gruff normal tones. “Stop worrying. It’s very dead, and whoever killed it was carrying elven weapons, so they probably won’t try to kill us.”

Daeron just inclines his head, not trusting himself to speak past whatever emotion is clogging his throat. Caranthir pats him twice then mounts up again himself—Daeron looks away from the dark stains up past the ankles of his boots—and leads on with a click of his tongue. Daeron’s horse follows without much input from him, which is probably for the best.

The only other stop they make is upon the banks of the low-running Esgalduin, where Daeron finds his voice to insist upon a break so he can wash the charcoal out of his hair (and the crawling feeling off of his skin). Caranthir sits on the shore and waits impatiently, but he doesn’t comment on it.

Daeron gladly strips himself entirely, but can’t find the energy necessary to truly show off as he gives himself a cursory scrubbing and rinses his hair. The water is cool and rushes merrily about his thighs, unknowing and uncaring of the disturbed turmoil inside of him.

Doriath should have been safe. Doriath always should be safe—there should be no wolves here but for those carefully herded in and out by the marchwardens in culling season. Because if something that large had been able to break into their borders, who knows what else has slipped through the cracks…

Besides that, it shouldn’t be an issue. Daeron has seen death before. He watches the hunters come in regularly—hell, he’s seen dead elves brought in from skirmishes with orcs along the border to be buried with their shrouds. It shouldn’t be an issue, except that he hadn’t known what battle smelled like, or the red-brown of festering blood and wretched, fly-covered wounds. The wolf’s eyes—

“Come here.” Caranthir’s call cuts off Daeron’s thoughts before they can begin to fold in on themselves, and he looks up. The Fëanorians raises his hands and gestures to the mossy rock in front of himself. “I’ll do your hair,” he says.

There’s something there, Daeron knows, something about the Noldor and hair, but he can’t dig it up in his memory right now so he just nods instead and moves to sit as directed. It probably won’t dry well braided up, but it does need to be combed out at the least and he can take it down without trouble later.

Caranthir’s hands are gentle and sure, contrary to the rest of him, at least at first glance. Daeron wonders if there isn’t more to his husband’s affection for weaving than he’s said. He doesn’t usually do his hair up in more than a few simple braids—his people have styles with meaning, but Daeron usually gets bored or distracted halfway through putting them in.

It’s hard to be bored or distracted from the soft drag of fingers across his scalp and the occasional brush against his sensitive ears. Caranthir very obviously knows what he’s doing, and the competency is incredibly attractive.

It’s doing wonders for Daeron’s headspace too, he recognizes—the swirling thoughts have been redirected to how very good the scritch of nails is behind his ears, how grounding the light pulling of many strands is, how warm Caranthir’s legs—sans boots with trousers rolled up to the knees—are against his back.

By virtue of circumstance, their relationship thus far has burned hot and bright with little time for softness or slow, simple pleasure. Not that Daeron had thought his husband very inclined to either. Perhaps he should have asked.

He closes his eyes, rests his chin against his knees, and lets the cheerful rush of the shallow river soothe him along with his husband’s hands.

Caranthir himself is quiet save for the occasional hum as he teases out a tangle or completes a braid. The bard’s head feels heavier for the work put into it when his husband pats his shoulder to indicate completion, yet his heart sits lighter and he feels more settled altogether.

Having dried in the sun whilst Caranthir worked, Daeron re-clothes himself and mounts up again tiredly, already missing the hands in his hair. Maybe that’s the Noldo thing—comfort, or some related process.

The guards at the main gates of Menegroth let him in before they fully take in who exactly is riding beside him. Not that he imagines they’d recognize his husband’s face, but the eight-pointed star all over his clothing and jewelry is rather difficult to miss.

Menegroth’s throne room is full to bursting with curious elves of the court by the time they arrive, but Daeron ignores them all in favor of meeting his father’s harsh gaze from up on the dais.

“My king,” Daeron says formally, “I apologize for my disappearance from court at such an auspicious time, but it is my husband who knows our grandson better than I—I did contrive to fetch him ere the boy grew too frightened and confused on his own here.”

“Your husband,” says Thingol flatly.

“Aye,” Daeron against, gesturing to Caranthir, who stands tall beside him without bowing an inch to the woodland king. “Caranthir Fëanorian, your majesty.”

“Fëanorian,” Thingol snarls.

Daeron supposes it’s time to face the music, as there’s not much else to be done now. “Aye,” he says. “We have been married long, and did so in secret to avoid facing censure for our love.”

Beren, standing beside Luthien where she sits primly on her throne beside Melian’s—which is curiously empty—coughs pointedly.

Daeron glances curiously at him. The Man is holding a plain wooden box the length of his forearm and half that high, his good hand under it and blunt wrist steadying it carefully.

Brace, he says idly to Caranthir. The other elf snorts inelegantly in his mind.

“Thou didst think that censure thou would face, and thou wert correct!” Thingol says. “How dare—"

Beren coughs again, loudly and as clearly attention-seeking as he can be. Daeron gives him a look, but pauses when he finds Luthien’s hand tight on the Man’s arm and her shoulder set against his as she stands from her seat.

“Yes, Lord Beren?” Daeron’s father asks slowly, glaring. It sounds distinctly warning to Daeron but Beren is undeterred.

“Prince Daeron is a bard,” he says, “but holds no official court position as such.”

Daeron’s eyebrows begin to climb. Internally, he wrestles with the smirk pulling at the corners of his lips as he begins to see what his tricky sister—and her apparently equally tricky husband—has cooked up.

“Traditionally,” Beren continues, “as an aspect of both Sindarin and Mannish courtship, a spouse whose position offers little supportive value to the other’s is offered with significant incentive. Not that we believe Daeron is in need of such, but he doesn’t produce any monetary or property benefits—"

“And though we know it’s a bit belated,” Luthien picks up the thread, “seeing as you didn’t tell anyone about your marriage—” she gives Daeron a well-faked glare along with the comment, “my brother, as the party without that specific income, does necessitate a dowry.”

“No—” says Thingol, half standing for his throne, but it’s too late as Luthien opens the box Beren is holding and lifts up a beautifully wrought tiara, nearly blazing with light from the Silmaril set as its focal point from the plush velvet within.

“We’ve prepared one,” Luthien says, and holds it out towards her brother. Beren puts the box on the floor, his hand coming to rest on the dagger at his belt. The guards, who’d stepped forward at the king’s cry, now seem uncertain and do nothing to halt the exchange.

Even slightly prepared, Daeron’s mouth goes dry at the offer. “Thank you,” he almost stutters, and gestures to his husband.

Caranthir, when Daeron looks, has his eyes locked on the jewel. The rest of him appears to be held in place by pure force of will, though Daeron can see the tips of his fingers twitching.

“It’s yours,” Daeron says. By gift and by right, though he can’t say so in front of his father. He’s not actually sure how he feels about the conflict himself, but he can agree easily that anything preventing bloodshed with nearly the whole of his family in the room is a Good Move.

If. I move, Caranthir says in Daeron’s mind, sounding tense even over osanwë, I’m going. To stab her.

Daeron freezes for half a moment before he nearly lunges forward to grab the filigreed crown and jam it down on Carnathir’s puffy braids. The tension Daeron hadn’t noticed in his husband’s body loosens exponentially, and his chest heaves like he’d been holding his breath, which Daeron suspects he had.

Caranthir doesn’t hesitate to unbuckle his sword belt and toss it, sword included, at Beren, who catches the lot with ease. “Don’t let me have that back,” the Fëanorian advises.

“Noted,” says Beren.

“I am liable to use my teeth, though,” Caranthir continues. “And nails, if I have to.”

Caranthir’s mind, still hovering close enough to feel, thrums with warmth. He reaches up to touch the crown, but only to tuck a few loops of his hair around the ends resting behind his ears. The blindingly radiant light from the gem sitting above his hairline throws his face into deep shadow and Daeron squints to see him.

Luthien raises her hands placatingly. “We won’t take it from you,” she assures him.

“That’s just as well—I don’t think I could give it back if I tried,” says Caranthir, warning though almost curious at the same time.

Luthien folds her arms over her chest. “Then you had better not hurt my brother.”

“I hope thou dost not mean to sleep with it on,” Daeron quips lightly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to put up an argument then in the interest of getting any sleep.”

“Enough,” says Thingol abruptly. “Enough. Detain the Fëanorian, and my son.”

Daeron’s eyes widen, and he takes a half step closer to Caranthir’s side.

“Ada,” says Luthien sharply, but by the nervous fluttering of her hands Daeron can tell she won’t interfere. “Don’t do this.”

Their father makes no move to rescind his command, and this time the guards move forward as ordered. As promised, Caranthir bites the first hand that reaches for his tiara, eliciting a shout of surprise and pain.

Daeron gives his own shout as he’s pulled away from his husband, and many of the surrounding elves clap their hands over their ears, wincing or crying out. His mouth is covered by a guard’s hand before he can whip up more of a song—probably just as well, for he has never made much practice with battle Song and has little control over it.

“Be silent, and heed the order of thy father,” the king tells him.

Daeron glares, but has too much dignity to struggle against the elves holding him.

“We find thee disloyal,” Thingol continues, “for holding in contempt the will of thy king and consorting with our enemies.”

Daeron bares his teeth at that, but is smart enough to say nothing. Luthien makes a small sound, and the bard looks her way. She’s standing rigidly under Beren’s arm, attempting to glare a hole in the side of their father’s face, not that Thingol seems to notice.

“The Fëanorian shall be imprisoned for his crimes,” the king says, “and thou, Daeron, shalt be given time to consider thine own actions and what they may cost our kingdom ere thou comest before us again.”

Daeron doesn’t think his father understands the cost of this at all. Staring hard at his sister until she senses his gaze and looks to him, he implores her to stay, think this through, and don’t leave us just yet.

She’d told him what she said to their father upon returning from the quest with Beren, and that she was very serious, as well. If it comes down to a choice between Doriath and her freedom, she won’t hesitate. Daeron doesn’t want to be left behind, and he’s not so sure himself that he wants to go.

Even as ungodly stupid as their father can be about certain things, Daeron does love him. He loves Doriath, and their Mother, and he doesn’t know that he’d want to go. He only asks that she does the same for now at least, until they have a chance to discuss things.

Luthien’s expression sets and she nods firmly before turning away and stalking from the throne room with Beren behind her. The Man gives one look over his shoulder as well, and Daeron shoos him off with a flick of his left hand, which a guard holds by the wrist.

Daeron, unsurprisingly, is taken to the Tower. It’s actually only sort of a tower; the shape is there but the free-standing nature is not.

The structure is a massive spire of stone inside one of Menegroth’s deepest caverns—the whole room is a hollow column with the tower jutting up through the exact center, with enough space to fit two more towers in on all sides of it. Criss-crossing bridges connect the ringed balconies around the walls of the cavern to the spire’s trunk to access the spiraling stairs inside, and at the very top of the Tower, two levels above the highest bridge, is the room where Thingol keeps his treasures.

Well, his living treasures. They have vaults for the gold and gems.

Daeron is led up the central stair to the very top, and pushed inside the well-furnished suite there after his father, the door shutting solidly behind him.

“He is my husband,” Daeron snaps immediately, before the king has a chance to even speak. The bard is quite the actor and he knows it, but something about his anger feels oddly more genuine than he would have expected.

“Every elf makes a youthful mistake or two,” says Thingol, though not as flippantly as he might’ve.

“Tell that to the children I have with him, why don’t you,” Daeron says, crossing his arms.

At that, Thingol raises his eyebrow. “Far be it from me to make undue assumptions,” he says, “but I have to note that the Fëanorian bears none of the marks of one like Belegmain.”

Daeron sneers. “In light of what you did to Luthien, I have to say my choice to not mention marrying a mortal myself is looking more and more like the best thing I could have done.”

Thingol’s face freezes. Daeron doesn’t give him a moment to chew on it.

“Have you learned nothing from her? I seem to recall some threat of self-exile involved in that sorry affair. Exile, I think, Caranthir has enough experience with to help me through. It is well that I did not ask for permission—I shudder to imagine the type of challenge you might have set my lover to. Though I doubt you would’ve passed up the opportunity to spit in his face with another Silmaril quest.”

“Thou—” his father starts, “a mortal.”

Daeron throws up his hands. “Of course that’s what you focus on! Yes, I married twice! I dare not guess which you’ll take most offense to.”

“Thou hast married our enemy!” Thingol says.

“We have but one Enemy!” Daeron retorts. “We, all of Beleriand, cannot afford to splinter and fracture so as you would have us set apart. But I think you make little of that true war by your insistence on hating the very people come to fight it!”

“Daeron—” says Thingol.

“Do you act to protect your people, my king?” Daeron snaps. “Methinks I do more!”

His father’s face grows cold. “Thou dost overstep.”

Daeron throws out an arm and points to the window. “And I’ll step over, too!”

Thingol’s gaze flicks to the window and back. Without turning to the door, he calls for a guard. The elleth—Avorneth, one of Tinweth’s brood though Daeron doesn’t know her well—comes to his side with a questioning hum.

“Watch him well,” he says, “and mind the window.” Then he turns and sweeps from the room.

“You are a fool, Adar,” Daeron calls after him. “Coveting your gems like the Silmarils without a thought for their strife. A fool!”

His father slams the door behind himself. Daeron gives one short, semi-hysteric laugh, then turns to flop down on the bed. Avorneth moves to sit in the windowsill. Daeron sighs and stares at the arching wooden beams of the ceiling, for all appearances listless and despondent.

He’s deeper already than he meant to sink into this ruse, but what he’d said to his husband before their marriage was not a lie—to hold up against the keen senses of the court, they must be perfect, and true more than anything.

Daeron is not going to jump out a window over an elf he only officially met a week or so ago. That doesn’t mean he’s not prepared to fall to some good old-fashioned drama. But first, he does have business to attend to.

The bond is still new and fresh, a thin thread, but strong enough by the virtue of their powerful blood. Caranthir hums somewhere on the very edge of his consciousness, waiting. Daeron closes his eyes, settling with that strange comfort. 

Chapter Text

Elladan would like it noted that he is Not Happy with current events and is only conceding to go along because Certain People aren’t allowed to be stupid on his watch. Maeglin, with his hands tucked into two of the many, many pockets of his black outer robe, doesn’t appear to notice or care.

The other guards from Elladan’s slowly growing unit that he’s decided to bring along, Bregedwen and Cosdis, definitely notice, but neither of them say a thing about it.

Bregedwen is a cool, collected older elleth with the light of the Trees shining in her measured gaze, slow to anger and determined, with a strong work ethic. Elladan mooched hired her off of Galdor’s people, and doesn’t regret it.

Cosdis is much younger and still effectively in training, but Elladan had figured that if he could train her up in his style, specifically to work with his unit, the benefit would be greater than adding another old warrior with already ingrained training. So far, he’s been proven correct enough that he might try it again if he has time to do some recruiting.

Taking two leaves six in Gondolin proper to keep an eye on things there and practice their routine and while Elladan isn’t happy with that at the moment, he really didn’t have much of a choice so he’d put the most experienced soldiers he had in charge and left them to it.

Still. Not Happy.

They left the city ahorse early enough in the morning that they’re able to reach the northern mine fields by around lunch, and pass through several checkpoints before reaching their destination. Maeglin is recognized at every one; he probably comes out often enough, being lord of the miners.

They’d left the horses then at the last checkpoint, and Maeglin had been eager to hurry up with their task—begrudgingly, Elladan had left Cosdis to manage the horses and Bregedwen to check in and hunt down some of the miners Maeglin wanted to talk to when they returned to the small settlement there. That’s not her job, but the lord would not be stayed from his hurrying on his way and leaving his guards to catch up.

So catch up Elladan does. The mountain paths this far out won’t support horses—too narrow and infirm for their hooves and weight—so he chases after the smith on foot, steps light even on the shifting shale.

“Lord Maeglin,” he calls, more waspishly than he means to. “You cannot go wandering off just as you like—I have a job to do and trust that I can make it just as difficult for you as you do for me.”

“Why? What’s it to you?” Maeglin snaps over his shoulder in response. “I can defend myself.”

“Allow me to assure you that I don’t give a shit,” Elladan bites out, grasping Maeglin’s shoulder to stop the smith and turn him around.

Maeglin opens his mouth, then pauses and narrows his eyes. “You’re trying to do something about the future, aren’t you?”

Elladan purses his lips.

“Do tell,” says Maeglin in a way that’s probably supposed to be intimidating, but Elladan has held his own against far worse than a rude child.

“I aim to prevent a senseless tragedy,” he says eventually. No matter the bitchiness he has to put up with, he must continue believing his efforts worth it. Besides, he does have his job.

“A senseless tragedy involving… me,” Maeglin says shrewdly.

“Involving,” Elladan mutters. “Sure.”

“Hm,” says Maeglin, still watching him.

Elladan shakes his head, then gestures on down the path. “Let’s be off then, the sooner we’ve finished here, the better.”

Half an hour later, both of the part-Sindar stand at the bottom of a jagged, rocky ravine, looking at a pile of rubble. Elladan can make out a few snapped wooden beams which must have made up the supportive ribs of the cavern. Much of the pile is covered in rock dust and gravel that must have slid down the slope above the entrance.

“Just to clarify,” says Elladan, “we’re looking at a fully collapsed mine, no?”

“Not fully,” says Maeglin, “my miners suggest the damage only goes a little ways in east of this entrance.”

Elladan eyes the loose shale trickling down the outcropping to their left warily. “There wouldn’t happen to be an undamaged section right below us, would there?”

“What?” Maeglin asks, then evidently spots the same duty trickle of little rocks that Elladan had, and freezes in place. “Don’t move.”

“I got that,” says Elladan, holding as still as he can.

Maeglin, to his credit, handles the situation with admirable calm, though Elladan can see the slight shake of his fingers from where he stands feet away.

“What do we do?” Calm doesn’t mean he knows how to get out of this, but at least he recognizes the danger and knows when to ask for help.

“Have you ever been on frozen ice?” Elladan asks.

The smith goes to shake his head, then visibly stops himself. “No,” he says, just short of snippily though Elladan’s willing to give him a pass for nerves. “Not many lakes in Nan Elmoth.”

“Right,” the half-elf says. “If you ever do find yourself on thin ice over water, you’ll want to lay down to disperse the pressure of your weight on the ice. We’re going to do the same thing now by slowly lying down and moving over to that solid looking outcrop.” And hoping a bit desperately that the same principle works on shifting rocks.

He points to a nearby sheet of flat rock slightly raised above the gravel they’re standing on, which looks to be jutting out from a more solid section.

“Okay,” says Maeglin, his voice just a little bit thready.

“You go first,” says Elladan, because he has sworn to protect the royal family. “Very slowly.”

At an almost glacial pace, Maeglin takes a knee. And what better moment than with him off balance to discover that the same principle does not work on shifting rocks.

The ground rumbles, Maeglin yelps, and Elladan launches himself at the prince as the earth collapses under them.

The world goes dark around them quickly as they fall; Elladan wraps himself bodily around Maeglin and tucks the smith’s head against his own chest, cradling the back of his skull with one arm as the other holds the younger elf close with a tight grip on his midsection. They hit a jumbled pile of rocks hard; Elladan takes the brunt of the impact against his back and shoulders, then rolls to cover Maeglin with his body.

Desperately, he hums a tune of protection, hoping it’ll keep them from being crushed completely.

When the rocks stop moving and dust begins to settle, Elladan unwinds himself cautiously and checks on his charge. Maeglin is shaking but alive, and appears miraculously unharmed. Elladan himself can already feel the bruises forming, but doesn’t seem to have broken anything. His ribs twinge violently when he makes to sit up, reminding him that he is still recovering from his fall into the fountain, and shouldn’t be treating them so harshly.

He seems to be alright, and then he puts pressure on his hand, and lets out a small scream before he manages to cut himself off. There’s blood, tacky on his palm, and when Elladan flips it over he finds a jagged, weeping slice from the inside of his pinky finger to his wrist. Not so alright, apparently, he’s sure he’ll be feeling that once his rushing blood cools again.

“Shit,” he mutters. Above them, the light of the surface is not so far off at all, but to get out they’ll have to get to it without disturbing the rest of the pile they’ve landed atop. “Are you alright?” he asks Maeglin. “Nothing hurts like it’s broken?”

“I’m fine,” Maeglin says tightly. “Alive, at least.”

“Right, good,” Elladan nods to himself. “Alive is good.”

Something glitters on the pile beside them, and when Elladan plucks it up the jewel revealed glows in his hand like a very small sun. It must’ve fallen out of one of Maeglin’s many pockets, judging by where it lies.

Catching light in gemstones like Fëanorian lamps is not an uncommon Noldorin practice, even if most Noldor don’t go for ultimate overachievement like Fëanor, but Elladan knows this gem—he knows it well, in fact. The light of the sun glows from within the green stone in its setting between the broad wings of a silver eagle.

“Why do you have the Elessar?” he asks before he thinks about it.

Maeglin halts in what was evidently about to be an attempt to snatch the jewelry back from him, and grimaces.

“I made it,” he says flatly. “Is it important? And it’s not called that.”

Elladan blinks, reassessing several things about his knowledge of history. “It will be,” he says to both the question and the comment.

“Give it back,” says Maeglin, and Elladan does so. “And no, I refuse, that’s a stupid name so the future will have to find something else.”

“Did—” says Elladan. “What were you going to do with it?”

Maeglin narrows his eyes at the peredhil distrustfully. “It’s meant to be a gift,” he says slowly.

That makes sense for how it got to Idril, who is presumably the target of said gift. Elladan pauses, then shakes his head at the thought. Target. His knowledge of the future is making him see maliciousness where there is none, he thinks. Or at least, probably is none.

“Do you have a lady friend?” he asks. “Or lord? Or other? Romantic, I mean.”

Maeglin blinks, then his expression flattens in a way Elladan recognizes easily as a protective cover for whatever thoughts are trying to break through underneath. “No,” the smith says sharply.

Elladan raises his hands placatingly. “I was only asking because—you know how a gift like that will be taken, right?”

“No…” Maeglin gives him a stink eye, and gestures for him to go on.

Elladan frowns. It’s never been a cultural practice that he was deeply involved with, having spent most of his courting-aged time in the Greenwood before his mother was taken, but he doesn’t suppose Maeglin would know it either, unless Aredhel had told him.

“Giving single stones is a Noldorin courting thing,” he explains. Or at least, it had been in his time from what little he knew of it. Elladan is familiar enough with courting traditions among the Sindar—and Silvans to a lesser extent, though he’s not sure it’ll help here.

He and Legolas had tried it back before true strife had touched their lives. They’d quickly realized that just because they spent most of their time together didn’t mean they needed to further their relationship in any way, but not before researching key romantic overtures from both of their peoples. (Elrohir had laughed at them the entire time, which should have been a sign, and considerably more boisterously once they’d quit trying.)

But where Imladris was home to much if not most of the remaining Noldorin population in Middle Erath at the time, Elladan’s parents’ courting had been… nontraditional. Particularly because his father had had and still has no clear idea of what’s involved in any of it and had thus defaulted to Celebrían’s approximation of the Lothlorien cultural tradition, which was born of and brought from Doriath.

In that vein, most of his knowledge of Noldorin traditions comes from having watched Erestor and Glorfindel dance around each other for ages. And that’s effectively only half of a relationship, as Erestor always preferred to keep private affairs private, and little enough of the courting happened in public.

Still, he knows this much.

Maeglin stares at him, then pales, gripping the Elfstone so hard Elladan is afraid he might bend the metal. “Why would they give each other rocks?!” he hisses, sounding panicked.

Because they’re pretty, probably. Sindarin traditions involve trading weaves and jewelry of living plants symbolic of budding affection and a growing relationship—among other meanings—which makes far more sense to be honest.

Elladan makes an educated guess: “You’ve given her some already, haven’t you?”

“Oh powers,” Maeglin whispers. Despite his iron control, the thought I am a FOOL rings between them loud and clear anyway.

(Yes, says Idril distantly. What for?)

“No,” says Elladan quickly, “it’s not your fault you didn’t know—”

“Do you want me to apologize?” Maeglin hisses. “That’s more embarrassing than making the mistake in the first place!”

Elladan frowns and crosses his arms, taking on a sterner tone. “Would you rather explain your own cultural expressions and ignorance of theirs, or let the entirely of Gondolin think you a perverse menace chasing after the affections of your clearly disinterested cousin?”

Maeglin’s eyes widen. “I’m not—” he starts.

Elladan waves his uninjured hand. “I know you’re not,” he says. “And on some level I’m sure the other Sindar in the city could probably understand where you’re coming from, but they’ve been integrated with the Noldor here in a way that means they probably know this tradition and see it as your Noldorin side appearing in a primarily Noldorin space.”

“I didn’t even know the stupid tradition was a thing!” Maeglin snaps, growing agitated.

Elladan really doubts that will help his case much without the addition of a sincere public apology, as unfortunate as it is. He opens his mouth, but Maeglin cuts him off.

“I will… explain myself,” he says.

Elladan is willing to take that, for now. “Right,” he says. “We should… call Idril, then.”

It’s a good enough time to test their range as any, though hopefully Cosdis and Bregedwen will catch up sooner rather than later.

Maeglin blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Yes.”

Before he can explain how to go about long-distance osanwe, Elladan’s mental presence is abruptly yanked along as Maeglin’s gaze shifts to the south and he reaches out towards Gondolin.

Hold, says Elladan, hauling back on that thread of seeking connection. There is danger in throwing yourself about unwarily, he warns.

Maeglin gives him a glare. “I know that.”

Elladan raises an eyebrow at him.

“Alright,” Maeglin snaps, “fine. I’ve never done the reaching myself, how would you do it?”

Elladan reaches for the smith’s hand, and settles it on his own shoulder, gesturing for Maeglin to do the same with the other.

“I’m going to guide your power,” he says. “Reach out to me.”

Much more tentatively, Maeglin’s power unfurls. There is a lot of it, and it reminds Elladan of his siblings; swirling and sparking, seeking direction. Elladan weaves himself through it like lace, settling over and around ever blooming cloud. In his skilled hands, it’s more than power; it’s a tool.

The half elf flares their joined presence like throwing a massive blanket made of stardust over the mountains, feeling for Idril.

And—there she is, not so far away but enough that he wouldn’t have been able to reach without assistance.

Gil-henë? she asks.

Aye, he says. And Maeglin.

Thou’rt at the second-farthest mines, now? she checks, and Elladan sends the impression of a nod. Any trouble?

Ah, Elladan hedges, well.

We’ve had another collapse, Maeglin says flatly. We were rather in the middle of it.

Idril can’t disguise the flare of concern sweeping across their connection, though she buries it quickly enough. Are ye well? she asks. Shall we send help?

I believe help is already on the way, my lady, though we appreciate your concern, says Elladan, hearing the distant chatter of voices; Bregedwen’s baritone and Cosdis’ bright tenor, along with a few others.

Of course, Idril returns. Well, I shall expect thy return with all haste, then, as I’ll not thou’ve failed to mention thy condition.

Elladan purses his lips. We’re fine.

Maeglin is giving him an extremely doubtful look, but Elladan shakes his head. He’s had worse; he’ll be alright.

That is well, then, Idril says, dubiousness infused into the thread of their connection. We shall call this distance test a success, in any case. I’ll have more practice of thee yet, so do return with all safety and precaution.

Certainly, Princess, says Elladan.

“So,” says Maeglin as Idril fades away and above the sound of shouting filters in. “How often do you plan to lie your ass off to every royal you know?”

The prince is looking at Elladan’s hand like it might try to bite him. Elladan grimaces. He needs to find something to wrap it with, probably.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Putting that down as very often, then,” Maeglin snarks.

Elladan sighs at him, and then they wait.

:::

“Thou seemest disappointed in me,” Daeron observes once Avorneth has left them alone to relieve herself. Not because he particularly cares, Finrod thinks, more for something to say.

Finrod sighs. “Not in thee,” he says, “I could never be upset with thee for choosing someone you love over good sense. ‘Twould make of me a horrible hypocrite, I fear.”

Daeron gives him a sharp look, but the blond continues before he can protest that. “I’m not saying Caranthir is wrong for thee, it’s just a fairly terrible time. Thou knowest that thy boy is here, no?”

Daeron blinks. “Pîngil,” he says, “aye.”

“Ah,” Finrod realizes there may be some key information missing here. “Yes, but. I did not arrive on my own—I travelled up from Nargothrond with thy son Lilthanoss. We met the great wolf Carcharoth in with woods, and—”

Daeron turns sideways and puts a hand over his mouth, breathing carefully and deeply through his fingers to stave off what’s surely the acidic burn of horror climbing up his throat.

“Is he well?” he chokes out after a moment.

Finrod sets his tea down on the saucer and puts them both aside, reaching for his cousin’s hand. “He was injured, gravely,” he says, “though he did kill the beast. The Queen says he should recover well, but he lies abed with a fever that has yet to break.”

Finrod had been sitting with Lilthanoss when Daeron and Caranthir came in, as a matter of fact, holding a steady line of Song for Sammareth to draw from as she assisted the unconscious healer. Melian had offered her power as well but she is a maia of Vana before Este, and was made more for growth than healing.

Lilthanoss’ wounds themselves are gruesome, and Sammareth says his fever is higher than most elves would survive, but he’s shown no signs of critical failure yet. Not that Finrod is going to tell the boy’s father that.

“Powers,” Daeron whispers, staring wide-eyed at the floor. After a long moment, he squeezes Finrod’s hand and looks up, expression firming. “My father would keep me from him. What thinkest thou of the king of late?”

Finrod purses his lips. He hadn’t borne witness to the ugly scene when his cousins were detained in the first place, but Beren and Luthien had come to Sammareth’s office directly after to give him a rather scathing play-by-play.

“He’ll keep you from more than that,” he says. “Thy sister has been disallowed access to thee as well, or I am certain she wouldst be beside us now.”

Daeron frowns at him. “But thou wert granted leave to come hence?”

“I petitioned that thou might be told of thy son’s plight,” Finrod says. He had pointed out the distinct possibility of Lilthanoss’ impending demise before Daeron even got to see him, as well. He suspects the thought of being forced to explain that himself had affected Thingol’s decision more than anything.

“Hm,” says Daeron. “And ought else?”

Finrod crosses his arms and looks out the window at the arching ceiling of the cave outside where it slopes into the wall. “I would not speculate on the king’s thoughts,” he murmurs. “But I do not imagine he could possibly be well.”

“No,” Daeron replies quietly. “I would not think so.”

“Ah,” Finrod points at his cousin. “But thy husband probably is. Admittedly, I have heard less of him than of the king, but I know him for a wily creature on the best of days.”

Daeron snorts. “Thou knowest him well, I see.”

Finrod picks up his tea again, humming. “I would not say well,” he says. “I admit I am more familiar with most of his brothers—even in Aman he was something of a recluse, comparatively. But I do know his temperament. I’d imagine he’s prepared to break out of his prison at any moment, if need be.”

“And terrorize his way through Menegroth until he finds me, most probably,” Daeron says drily.

Finrod waves a hand. “Well, certainly tell him not to do that!” He pauses. “I assume thou canst reach him from here?”

Daeron nods.

Finrod sighs. “Give him my regards, I suppose. And tell him to manage himself until a real plan is made—”

Daeron frowns. “A plan?”

Finrod gives him an uncharacteristically flat look. “Pray do not imagine Maedhros will simply let his brother languish in a hostile kingdom until Thingol decides what to do with him. I’ve recently been acquainted myself with the lengths the Fëanorian contingent will go to in order to secure their family.”

Daeron appears concerned at that, which is reasonable. “Thou dost imagine he’d move against my father?”

Maedhros, Finrod knows, cares for his brothers more than almost anything in the world. He likes them the way they are, paired off to look after each other; himself and Maglor, Celegorm with Curufin, and Ambarussa ever together. However, the fact of their seven tends to leave an odd one out—always Caranthir.

Finrod isn’t sure Caranthir himself knows it—the invitation to the Mereth Aderthad for him alone outside of Maedhros and Maglor’s perfect pair should have proven it well, though really who knows with the dourest brother—but Maedhros worries a bit excessively over him on his lonesome.

In line with the parental position the eldest Fëanorian has always taken up, he’ll claim no favorites, but Finrod can’t think that any of Maedhros’ brothers are stupid. A bit dense in certain aspects, perhaps, but never stupid. After Maglor, Maedhros will defend Caranthir first and foremost, because the others can look after themselves.

If Thingol threatens his middle brother—and Maedhros will certainly take imprisonment alone as more than enough of a threat…

“I have to doubt he would hold back.”

“Well,” says Daeron, looking pale. “A plan indeed, then.”

Finrod feels the distinct sparking buzz of osanwe passing around him, but doesn't pry. It's not his business how his cousins handle each other. 

That is, of course, when Avorneth returns because nothing can ever be simple or easy. Daeron changes the subject easily to questions about Doriath whilst he’s been away, and happenings beyond it from Finrod’s mouth rather than Luthien’s—Finrod suspects some composing is going on as well, but he’ll hardly complain. At least he gets to truly give his perspective, this way, which is more concession than he’s sure some bards will give.

“The king has requested your presence, Finrod King,” Avorneth tells him eventually after meeting with a whispering servant at the door.

Finrod bids his cousin farewell with a quick embrace and buss on the forehead, then takes his leave from the Tower. He approves of Thingol’s decisions there not at all, but until he can fully articulate why all of the king’s choices of late have been terrible ideas, he’ll not bring it up.

“I’ve sent to your eldest cousin,” Thingol says as Finrod enters his huge, well-appointed office.

Finrod freezes as a chill skitters down his spine. “My king… what exactly didst thou say?”

Thingol’s expression takes on a derisive shade, though Finrod suspects it’s not directed at him. “’Twas hardly inflammatory, you need not worry, nephew.”

Finrod brings his hands together by his belt, twining his fingers tightly to avoid fidgeting or possibly doing anything more inflammatory himself. (He’s having another belt made, and when it is done the loops and lace of his cousins’ hair will surely be much more occupying for his nervous fingers, but for now, this will do.) “I feel it should be noted that what comes to thee as such may not be the same at all to my cousin’s ears. Pray, what didst thou say?”

Thingol frowns. “I thought to tell him that he should send a party to collect his brother, ere Caranthir grates on my nerves enough to have him removed myself.”

Finrod feels a bit faint. “Tell me thou wert more clear, your majesty.”

His great-uncle waves a hand. “A bit more politic, perhaps, but in such terms, aye.”

“Ah,” Finrod whispers.

Thingol pauses, and after a moment his eyebrows fly up then down again as surprise shifts swiftly into controlled rage. “Surely you do not mean to imply there that Fëanor’s spawn might come to the conclusion of execution as a means of removal. They think so little of us to become murderers and kinslayers ourselves?”

Finrod purses his lips. “They think so little of themselves, m’lord. Once a person has seen pain and death of a kind happening to anyone at all, it can be difficult to remain assured that the same fate will not befall their own.”

That doesn’t make it better, he knows, but there are many facets of history that will never be effectively repaired, and Finrod has not the time nor energy to try. He will prevent what potential evil is before him, and leave it at that for his own health if nothing else. (Some days he’s even able to convince himself that that’s true.)

His great-uncle’s face is a stone mask, anger in the line of his brow, frozen at the edges of his mouth.

“Thou shouldst understand, as well,” Finrod says quietly, “if thou wilt permit me the presumption of drawling similarities. Mor—Caranthir is Maedhros’s Olfu.”

Thingol opens his mouth immediately to argue, but Finrod holds up both hands to stay him.

“Pray,” he hurries on, “allow me to explain! Let eastern Beleriand be the sea that splits them, each to their own for posts equally important that they may not leave. Only, they do have letters—imagine Fëanor had sent to you when he sought your brother’s boats. Of course it is not the same, but tell me thou wouldst not assume thy brother’s side first and foremost, to defend him.”

Now the king is wearing a bitter snarl, but he does appear to be considering the problem, much to Finrod’s satisfaction.

Even besides Caranthir being in Doriath, though, there is also his Silmaril to consider. It’s not a topic he desperately wants to broach, but.

“What of his Silmaril?” Finrod asks.

Thingol’s expression flattens. “Such a light of hope cannot be allowed to remain in the clutches of evil.”

Finrod pauses. “…Thou canst not mean to take it from him,” he hedges.

Thingol arches a brow. “You disagree,” he notes.

“Is not the one who raises a hound to obey just as responsible for the loss as the shadow cat that kills it during a hunt?” Finrod snaps, more harshly than he means to. He takes a calming breath. “I mean,” he says, “thou knowest what will come of ordering it removed from my cousin’s person. Violence, assuredly. Quite possibly deaths, multiple. He killed at Al—he was willing to kill just for the chance to get those gems. Now that he has one—”

Finrod shakes his head. “When Morgoth had them, they were unachievable. Now, it is definitively not so. Elves are much easier to fight than gods.”

Thingol gives him a flat look. “You’re saying it would be my fault if we lose good elves trying to claim it.”

The golden Arafinwean wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly, but yes, that’s exactly what he’s saying. And— “Far be it from me to laud any skills of Fëanor’s sons—” blatant appeasement, though Finrod is fine with that “—but it would not do to underestimate Caranthir, even as unremarkable as he seems next to the rest. I very much doubt he’d leave the great wood without the Silmaril.”

Even if Thingol manages to take it, nothing and no one will be safe until Caranthir has it back, dungeon cell or no.

Finrod is not certain that the Sindar understand the Oath. All they’ve known of it has been tales of the consequences, and Finrod knows too well how easy it is to shove away the gut-wrenching horror of that in favor of clinging to imagined goodness in elven hearts. He supposes that must be a stronger impulse too in Beleriand where all that is not elves has been more or less out to get them for as long as Thingol has lived before his wife’s protection came down.

Understanding of it is absolutely vital, however, now that the Silmarils are out and achievable for normal, non-maia-blooded elves.

Finrod grimaces at the thought of what Thingol might do to keep Lilthanoss’ Silmaril away from the boy’s Fëanorian father.

He sighs, and looks up. “Your majesty. I hate to put it so crudely, but there is nothing in all of Doraith, short of thee or thy people killing him, that will keep Caranthir from achieving his goals. On the blood of our shared kin in Alqualonde, I swear it. It is not a good idea to play with Fëanorians expecting not to lose blood and flesh for it.”

Thingol’s lips thin, but he nods slowly. “…What do you recommend?”

:::

Elladan is completely and utterly ready to fall face-first onto the nearest flat, soft-ish surface by the time they return to the city. After handing off the horses, Elladan drags like a shadow in Maeglin’s wake into the palace proper.

His actual living quarters aren’t in the palace itself, but the bunkroom he shares with his unit—always three at a time, ready to swap out for the night shift—isn’t far from the royals’ rooms. Elladan is on-call for tonight since he hadn’t had any reason to change that fact before the mining trip from Utumno itself.

All of that together means he’s going in the same direction as the youngest royal when they pass through the Lords’ courtyard, where Glorfindel and Lord Ecthelion are huddled by the burbling fountain with Lords Duilin and Penlod, speaking in low, serious tones.

They look up as Maeglin and Elladan pass by, and the half-elf catches more than one double-take, though with the mood he’s in it doesn’t bring more than a faint twist to his lips.

“Lord Maeglin,” says Ecthelion curiously. He sounds a tinge alarmed. “Is all well?”

Maeglin barely gives the Lord of the Fountain and his companions a second glance. “Fine,” he says, “good evening.”

Glorfindel reaches out and catches Elladan’s sleeve as he passes by, holding him back. Cosdis gives him a questioning look, but the half-elf only straightens his spine and nods to her. He’s sure the look he turns on the other group isn’t anything particularly welcoming, but he tries to keep his expression out of the depths of “dead-eyed stare” that he knows his family does too well and calls that good enough.

“What happened, Captain?” Ecthelion asks, his voice low.

“Fell in a hole,” says Elladan shortly, just out of weariness. “He’s fine.”

“I’m not asking about him,” says Glorfindel. “Are you okay? You look like you were dragged through Nan Dungortheb by a balrog.”

Elladan tries not to flinch and is pretty sure he fails. “I’m—” he starts. Then he yelps as the collar of his tunic is snatched and hauled back. He spins, and Maeglin lets go. “What?”

“Come with me?” the little lord says stiffly, barely managing to make it a question more than an order.

Elladan, covered in dust, scraped, bruised, bleeding a bit, and desiring nothing more than a good long nap, stares at Maeglin for a long moment, then sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Fine, but then I’m going to find a healer.”

“Thank you,” Maeglin mutters almost sullenly.

Elladan doesn’t call attention to that, only nodding in response and gesturing the smith on ahead of him. He can feel Glorfindel and Ecthelion’s stares on his back, and does his best to ignore that for the moment.

Maeglin bobs his head, then marches off into the palace in a hurry. He too is covered in rock dust and dirt, and leaves motes of it floating in the air behind him. Elladan exchanges a look with Cosdis that he feels is notably more tired on his end, then they follow.

Maeglin wastes no time searching; he stops the first servant he sees and asks as to Princess Idril’s location.

She’s in her rooms, they are told, taking an evening meal with a few of her ladies. The average servant probably wouldn’t be aware of where exactly Idril is at all times, which means Maeglin managed to stop one who does on the first try, and Elladan is not going to think about that right now, and definitely won’t be dwelling on whether he knew, and why.

There are guards at Idril’s doors, of course; Elladan’s guards. He nods to both ellyn and Ehtyaro—a tall, blond part-Vanya who’s very fond of his spear—leans in through the open doors to announce them. They’re waved inside a moment later, and Elladan follows Maeglin into Idril’s chambers.

The floor plan is very open, with light, airy colors and décor. Between the main doors and the balcony, a stepped depression in the floor is filled with cushions and low tables. Idril and her ladies are arranged about the circle with various platters and small plates about them, and Elladan takes a moment to be impressed with the remarkable lack of crumbs and food detritus everywhere.

“Lord Maeglin,” says Idril, looking up. She inclines her head instead of rising to curtsey, and her ladies follow suit.

“Princess Idril,” Maeglin greets her in return, “I’ve come to apologize.” His expression says he’d like to spit and wipe his mouth out with the nearest available cloth, and would if not for his own all being so soiled.

Idril takes that in slowly, blinking innocently at him. “What for, good cousin?”

Maeglin presses his lips together. Elladan elbows him in the side.

“I have… done you dishonor,” says Maeglin. “I did not know, do forgive me.”

Idril bears a look of dawning comprehension. Her ladies, to their credit, make no move to giggle or smirk, taking their cues from Idril herself. Quietly, the group of them sit and wait.

“Perhaps explain in greater detail, your highness,” says Elladan quietly.

Maeglin spins to him, pointing one accusing finger. “It’s not my fault!” he says.

Elladan opens his mouth to pontificate on the unfairness of life in general, and how an apology necessitates an original issue, if not actual guilt, but Idril cuts in.

“I care very little for blame,” she says, along the same lines as Elladan’s considerations. “I care for how your behavior has hurt me. While an apology is well and good, I would appreciate some explanation. Pray, what in Eä were you intending?”

“In my culture, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Maeglin snaps.

Idril plants her hands on her hips, takes a deep breath, and says, “Then you explain yours, and I’ll explain mine.”

“I didn’t—” Maeglin starts, then pauses as he evidently takes in what she’d said. “Oh. Gems and stones don’t have specific meaning in Iathrim culture, unless you’re from Nivrim or East Region. Which I’m not. If I wanted to court you, I’ve have started with, ah, flower pots. Or decorative planter beds.”

Judging by Idril’s expression, she has been offered neither. “And then?”

“Well,” says Maeglin, glancing at Elladan, who gives him a reassuring nod. “There are, uhm, air plants, vines that grow long and thin. In Nan Elmoth a courting ellon or elleth would twine a seedling with their own hair and either braid or just tangle them as the vine grows, and cut it off later to be offered to their intended as a kind of crown.”

He gestures to his own head, obviously empty of any such adornment. In fact, he wears few braids at all which much be absolutely scandalizing for the Noldorin half of the court, now that Elladan is thinking about it.

“And there are gifts,” says Maeglin, gaining a bit of steam as Idril’s expression turns a bit less frosty and a bit more interested. “There’s an art to courting patterns—you take the planters and coax whatever you’re growing into a weave or art while it’s still growing, and eventually courting pairs or groups merge their projects into to one. Some people do topiary. There are other traditions too, but those are considered standard.”

That matches fairly evenly with what Elladan knows, or at least it’s easy to tell where the traditions have grown over time into the Greenwood cultural practices.

Idril, for her part, raises a brow. “And when you gave me those blue crocuses not a year past?”

An expression like horror flashes across Maeglin’s face before he manages it. “I would never give something dead as a courting gift,” he says fervently. Then, much more quietly: “It matched with your dress and I thought it was pretty, is all.”

That also matches up, as Elladan’s distinct lack of green thumb had contributed quite a lot to he and Legolas choosing to end that experiment.

Idril hums thoughtfully. “Well. I accept your apology in good faith, cousin, provided you commit to making efforts to better understand the people you now live with.”

Maeglin nods tightly, the tension that had been lost as he talked about his homeland creeping in again.

Idril rises and claps her hands. “Many thanks, my dear ladies, terribly sorry to dismiss you early but I must take counsel with my cousin in private.”

Her ladies leave with a chorus of “of course”es and “be well, my lady”s, and in a moment Elladan, Idril, and Maeglin are alone.

Elladan catches Idril’s eye and hooks his thumb towards the doors to the chambers. “Shall I—?”

Idril snorts, just shy of unladylike. “And be unable to keep an eye on us? You would prefer not to, I’m sure. Do stay.”

Tired as he is, that’s admittedly true. Elladan nods, but steps back farther so the pair of them may speak in some semblance of private. He’s certainly not going to tell anyone.

Idril holds out her hand and slowly, slowly Maeglin takes it.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I really didn’t mean anything by it.”

“That is a lie,” says Idril softly. “But I accept your apology nonetheless, for this too. I realize that your time in Gondolin cannot have been easy thus far.”

Maeglin looks up from staring at their hands with a jerk. “Wh—pardon?”

Idril’s gaze is solemn. “I have considered it, cousin. I am sorry that I had not given it more thought on my end. But—you lost not one parent but two so shortly upon arrival, and then you were faced with an entire people who only saw Eöl when they looked at you. It is no wonder that you focused on me when I was kind to you. I should have realized.”

“That’s not,” says Maeglin, a bit wild-eyed. “I’m not—"

“I cannot absolve you of what you may have felt,” Idril says, drawing herself up straight. “And I’ll take no coveting of myself at any point, but for now I can accept this. Can you? As friends?”

Maeglin’s mouth opens and closes, throat working for a moment, before he just nods. “As friends,” he agrees. He takes a breath then, and says carefully. “May I give you a gift still? Of friendship and cousinhood?”

Idril’s gaze narrows. “What is it?”

Maeglin winces. “It’s, a jewel. But a jewel that holds no cultural significance to me whatsoever!”

Idril raises an eyebrow, and Maeglin fishes the Elfstone out of his pocket.

Idril’s eyes widen at the sight of the sunlight caught in the stone and she lets out a soft gasp. “But cousin, this is beautiful! Surely you’d like to save it for someone more important—ah.”

Maeglin points at her. “It’s just a rock,” he says. “A very pretty rock, but that doesn’t make it more alive or special.”

Idril pauses. “I… see,” she says. “So I can trust that as long as your gifts have no life to them, they mean naught but friendship.”

“Aye,” Maeglin nods. “I do not intend to court you in any way, Idril. If I give you a plant in a pot, something is wrong and you should be concerned. So, don’t you go giving me any precious stones either, I suppose.”

Idril quirks a smile. “It’s jewelry, for the most part,” she says. “My people speak with gems; color, size, type, number, setting, even, all of these have meaning.”

Maeglin presses the Elfstone into her hands in order to throw his own up in exasperation. “Ridiculous!”

Idril adopts a faux-haughty look to peer down her nose at her cousin. “Surely you cannot be commenting on Noldorin communication when accidentally giving someone the wrong flower crown is enough to make a Sinda swoon.”

Maeglin snorts. “Well played.” Then, more seriously, “You must teach me.”

Idril smiles. “I would be happy to, cousin.”

A small grin of his own blooms on Maeglin’s face, then he nods to the broach he’d given her. “Gil-henë says it will be called Elessar. It’s a stupid name but apparently it’s the future.”

Idril laughs and cradles the small, precious piece in her palm. “I think it suits.”

Maeglin peers at her for a moment, then he frowns. “You’re teasing me,” he says.

“That’s what friends do,” Idril says, grinning. “I think the Elfstone is very beautiful, and I’ll certainly wear the Elfstone as often as possible, and I’ll definitely make sure to tell all my friends it’s the Elfstone, and you know, anyone who asks deserves to know as well, because the Elfstone—”

“Enough, enough!” Maeglin whacks her lightly on the shoulder, shaking his head. “I’ll come up with another name for it. The future is malleable, is it not?”

“Too late now!” Idril crows. “Come, cousin, I know the perfect balcony to shout about it from, I just love the Elfstone—”

“Gah,” Maeglin mutters. “See if I ever give you any more rocks!”

Idril laughs delightedly once more and takes the smith by the hand, hauling him out of her rooms and away down the hall.

Quite satisfied with that, Elladan lets Cosdis and Idril’s guards fall in behind the royals without him, then meanders off to find a flat surface to collapse on.

:::

Caranthir sits on the cold stone, leaning against the wall with his legs folded neatly like he’s never been more comfortable in his life. At least the travelling robes he’s wearing are warm; it’s cool and damp in Thingol’s dungeon, buried deep under stone and loam.

It should be dark in his prison, but the light of the Silmaril won’t permit such an offense, sparring with the shadows and winning as if it doesn’t know how not to.

Caranthir makes a face at it, holding the finely-wrought crown in his hands and bathing himself in the stone’s glow.

He’s warned them, so the blood he’d drawn in defense of his father’s work is only on the hands of the guards who’d tried to take it from him. They’d given up before reaching the cell he’d been thrown in, warned off by his writhing and the sharp snap of his teeth. Or perhaps it had been something in his face that made them back off.

To be quite honest, Caranthir doesn’t care. He has it now, and he’ll hold on to it, for the strange new lightness in his chest if nothing else.

He doesn’t like the Silmarils. Oh, they’re pretty enough—some of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen next to the Trees themselves, and perhaps the children of Melian—but their value, he thinks, comes in blood rather than gold, and that’s just not profitable.

He doesn’t like them, but he has his Oath, and more than that he has his precious spite. Caranthir has built his entire life off of that spite, and is loath to let it go, twining as it does around everything he is.

The Fëanorian doesn’t think his husband would even be upset to hear him say it. Daeron knows well enough what their marriage was based off of, and as far as Caranthir can tell, he doesn’t regret it.

Daeron…

Caranthir had left Amon Ereb looking to form a partnership. Every marriage is one, though the profits differ. Some people like to consider it “sacred.” Most of his culture does, actually, but Caranthir has never been particularly close to the sacred, for all that it walked among them in Aman.

He’d given Daeron no lies thus far, or at least none that he wasn’t intending to reveal quickly enough; a good business partner treats his fellows as equals, and certainly doesn’t withhold important information.

Caranthir likes Daeron. Or, at least, he admires him. In the way one admires a portrait for both the picture on canvas, and the skill of the one who put it there.

Caranthir doesn’t think he’s in love. He’s fairly certain he’s not in love.

The quiet way the bard had lowered his head and followed after him around the wolf as if tethered invisibly to Caranthir’s hand… that feeling in him is not love. Lust, it could be. Caranthir wouldn’t say he’d been starving for sex post-Haleth; he’d accepted Daeron like a cool spring shower more than a reviving pool in the empty plains. Thirsty, but hardly dying of it.

Besides, Daeron fucks like a wily forest demon—a wildfire trying to char Caranthir from the inside out, no refreshing spring. Caranthir is more than happy to take that, but that feeling isn’t love.

Even just braiding the bard’s hair, the near-blinding urge to wrap his fingers in it and tug until Daeron’s pleased humming was silenced against his own mouth—that’s just lust. It’s because he’s allowed to, and encouraged, even!

It’s much too early for love… but Caranthir is very aware of his own habit of falling too fast and too hard.

The weaver’s fingers twitch at the phantom memory of Daeron’s hair like silk across his palms, kinks and curls from the water saturating it dragging between his fingers like a slew of the finest diamond powder.

His tips his head back against the wall and sighs. “Fuck. This is going to make business much more difficult.”

Presumably, this is why Haleth moved away to Brethil. Vairë’s blessed tapestries know there was love there.

“Stitches and spindles,” Caranthir mutters, shaking his head. “Cast off and locked up. That’ll teach me to stop getting married.”

The Silmaril in his lap twinkles at him with its cold light, giving no response. Not that he expected it to; it’s a rock. It’s a wonder they give it even half the worth it’s ascribed.

“Some company you are,” Caranthir tells it blandly. Predictably, the Silmaril says nothing.

“Fuck me, I’m going to have to explain this to Nelyo.” All of this. Caranthir groans, hoping his brothers don’t do anything unforgivably stupid while he’s gone. Not that he can usually stop them, but mitigation is something he’s good at in both political and financial crises.

Unfortunately, Caranthir doesn’t approve of behaving like a fool on the regular. “Of course they’re going to do stupid shit,” he sighs.

The Silmaril glimmers cheerily. It’s a bit irritating.

Caranthir points a finger at it. “You aren’t helping.”

He would throw it across the room, except that the tiara itself might be damaged which would be a waste. Besides, the impact is unlikely to damage the Silmaril at all. Somewhat vindictively, he places it on the floor beside his leg and covers it with his cloak.

But then he’s sitting in darkness.

There are several doors between him and the closest guard, if he recalls the path to being thrown in his cell correctly—which he does—and the elleth’s torch is the closest light source to him, invisible despite the small, barred windows in the doors.

Caranthir is not afraid of the dark, but no one who was at Formenos on that fatal day is stupid enough to be unwary of what exists within it. He uncovers the Silmaril again.

“For fuck’s sake,” he sighs. He can tell he’s going to get very bored, very fast.

Caranthir.

Caranthir blinks. Daeron? The marriage bond is new and strange, and Caranthir fumbles with it for a moment before forcing something across, frowning as it comes out of his mouth as well. He’ll get better, he’s just not used to it. “Daeron.”

Oh thank Eru that worked, says Daeron. Not too worse for wear, art thou?

Caranthir blows out a breath. He’s not, and he says as much.

Good, says Daeron. I should have warned thee about my father. He can be… actually, I’m not going to defend him right now. That was dickish.

“Thou’ve been detained as well, I presume?” Caranthir asks.

He gets the vague impression of small motion, though not enough to determine what it is. Aye, says Daeron. In the Tower, because of course.

Caranthir raises an eyebrow at the far wall. “Is there particular emphasis on the Tower for any reason or just—I had thought Menegroth was all caves?”

It’s in a cave, Daeron explains. A large one. It’s where he locked up Luthien.

Caranthir doesn’t have enough information on the Doriath aspects of Luthien and Beren’s Silmaril-stealing to really understand that, but— “Imitation can be flattering but repetition is just boring. I had not thought Thingol so one-note. An ass, sure, but one with layers.”

Please— Daeron pauses. Layered ass. That’s new but alright. In any case, we should be considering how to get out, not the circumstances of our captivity.

Probably true. “Thy father has surprisingly nice dungeons for someone who professes his land is perfectly safe and secure. One wonders where he expected to get his prisoners from.”

Ah. He had them built after he found out.

Daeron doesn’t need to explain further than that. Caranthir nods to himself, watching his shadow do the same against the wall beyond the slatted door of his cell.

The question, Daeron continues, is if you can get out.

“I can,” Caranthir says carefully. “If you need me to. I have needles in the lining of my vest and lock picking is not so hard once I have the right angle. Then it would only be a matter of tricking the outer-door guards in. I could, but I would not call it a good idea.”

One could say the same about thy business strategy, Daeron notes.

“Daeron,” Caranthir sighs. “I’m trying to do as little harm as possible here. Until we have a reason for me to move, I am quite content to wallow in the consequences of my apparent iniquity.”

This time when Daeron snorts, Caranthir understands the impression of it. Thou? Content? Never, my dear. And I would not wish it upon thee.

“Right,” the Fëanorian rolls his eyes. “It is as thou sayest, of course.”

Daeron sends him a soft sigh. Stay, then, he says. Take care down there. A soon as we have a plan, I’ll let you know.

Caranthir nods and assumes his husband feels it. Daeron’s presence retreats a moment later to a quiet thrum in the back of his mind.

A rattle and creak in the muted silence of the dungeon makes Caranthir look up from counting cracks on the floor. The thick wooden outer door scrapes open slowly, and in comes—

“Luthien,” Caranthir says, surprised. “Who let you in here?”

He hadn’t thought the princess would be allowed anywhere near a terrible, dangerous criminal such as himself.

Luthien shakes her head with a distinctly un-ladylike snort. “I’ve been ordered not to visit my brother,” she says. “No one said anything about visiting my delightful goodbrother.”

“I’m sure it was implied,” Caranthir says, crossing his arms.

Luthien shrugs, and folds herself into a cross-legged seat before his cell, striped dark and pale by the shadows of the bars in the Silmaril’s light.

“I thought you should know what exactly you’re walking into, being here,” she says almost idly, as if it’s not really that important. “I’m sure Daeron can help you with the who’s-who. But you should know that your son Lilthanoss is here, and he is not well.”

Caranthir, who’d tensed hard at “your son” relaxes a fraction at the qualifier, but really not that much. “And by unwell you mean—”

Luthien’s bright eyes meet his, brilliant refractions of the light on his brow. “He was injured killing the great wolf,” she says, “when he and Finrod entered the wood.”

Caranthir sucks in a breath. “That was him?” Good to know his new son is an absolutely brutal warrior. “Wait, alone?” Because Finrod— Not-so-good to know the boy is absolutely insane, too.

Luthien raises an unimpressed brow, though Caranthir suspects it takes quite a bit to impress her in general. “I suppose he doesn’t take after his father in that respect?”

Caranthir tries to take measured breaths. “No,” he says. “No… that’s all Haleth.”

The princess of Doriath smiles faintly, then she shakes her head. “In any case,” she says. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how Daeron and I are feeling about our father at the moment.”

“Allow me to assure you the sentiment is shared,” Caranthir says as flatly as he can, still trying to get some control back over his voice. “That is the way with fathers, I’ve found.”

Luthien hums. “Yours never locked you in a tower to keep you away from true love,” she points out.

As true as that is, and as upset as Caranthir can make himself just thinking about the elf who sired him… “I believe,” he says slowly, “that if he thought true love put me in danger, he would not have stopped at a tower.”

Luthien tilts her head. “You agree with his actions?”

“I have a—I have children,” Caranthir tells her. “I understand the impulse, if I do not support the methodology.”

“Not many towers in Amon Ereb,” Luthien notes.

Caranthir shrugs. “How would you know?”

Luthien inclines her head in acknowledgment of the point.

That’s when Caranthir realizes he’s effectively defending Thingol, and he pulls a face. “I would call recent events a conflation of errors,” he says, “rather than any single flaw. Your father is reactive, responding rather than planning. Far be it from me to support such an elf, as much as I may understand his point of view.”

Luthien smirks. “I like to think things worked out decently enough,” she says.

Caranthir only shakes his head. “How is he? My son?”

Luthien’s look turns solemn, like a raincloud descending. “He lies abed with fever the likes of which would put your father to shame. Yet, he is not dead and my mother and the healers do not think he will be any time soon.”

It takes Caranthir a moment, caught up in the harrowing knowledge of an elf with thousands of years under his belt child he’s now responsible for lying on his deathbed half a city away—then a snort bursts out of him before he can stop it. But there’s hardly anyone else around to hear, and it’s not like it’ll ever get back to certain father-worshipping brothers of his, so—Caranthir laughs. Short, but real and brighter than he’d expected it to be.

Still chuckling, he swipes his palm under his eyes and shakes his head. “Thank you for that,” he says.

“You are not afeared for the boy?” Luthien sounds a bit accusing, and Caranthir hurries to reassure her.

From what he knows, the knowledge he hasn’t had time to fully sort through but keeps getting helpful flashes of: “I believe he’ll be alright. A powerful illness is nothing he has not faced before, and Peredhil run hot.”

Luthien narrows her eyes, frowning. “I don’t suppose you know much more about his life with the Lady Haleth?”

“Ah,” says Caranthir. Is that the angle they’re driving this from, then?

“You had better dredge your memories, methinks,” Luthien says, giving him a very pointed look. Caranthir winces.

“…Aye,” he says.

“Ah,” she looks up, gaze distant. “Lilthanoss is awake, my mother is calling me.”

She stands to go, and Caranthir’s mouth is suddenly unexpectedly dry. “Luthien,” he says, and she looks up from dusting off her skirts. “Give him my love,” Caranthir says. “And tell him I’ll be there, if he needs me.” The same as he would for any of his family.

Luthien nods sharply. “Be ready,” is all she says, before leaving on light feet and closing the cell’s wooden outer door solidly behind her.

Chapter Text

Elrond wanders in strange dreams.

Imladris is silent and empty but for a single bed in the healing halls, where what appears to be Legolas’s body—it has Legolas’ scars; Elrond has treated the prince often enough to know them well—lies unmoving, his face changing again and again through visions of vaguely familiar people Elrond doesn’t know. Unsettled, he moves on through the valley.

The forest is bright and haunting, white and grey and blurring here and there, greens and browns pale and washed out, and the leaves sing instead of rustling.

There’s a hand in his. A spirit stands beside him, but Elrond can’t catch more than a sliver of black hair and olive skin when he turns his head to look. It’s comforting, nonetheless. To not be alone.

Upon a hill there stands a buck, whose stance is proud but head bowed, straining under the weight of other antlers caught in his own. Attached to those antlers is another deer's head, bodiless and bleeding.

Elrond steps towards them to help untangle the mess, but the buck with legs dances away. As it goes it turns its head to better see Elrond, staring at him with wide black eyes. The bodiless head blinks at him.

Elrond raises the bow he hadn't realized he was carrying, an arrow stretching between his hands as he draws it—

The shot is perfect, and the bodiless deer screams when Elrond's arrow pierces the other's throat. The buck who’d been struck makes no sound, its legs folding quietly under it as it goes down. If not for the blood, it could be sleeping.

Elrond kneels beside it without walking to the carcass and places his hand against its flank. Blood spreads from the wound like rivers on a growing map, reflecting stars. Elrond frowns and looks up at the sky, but the sun shines on still and the stars are nowhere to be found.

The fur is silky and long under his fingers, and when Elrond returns his gaze to the body, he finds that it's nearly white, sprouting from the head of an elf lying face down where the deer had been. The other head is gone. He turns the body over and finds familiar eyes staring lifelessly up at him, her hair gleaming silver instead of white.

“Oh,” he says softly, “oh, my love.”

Celebrían makes no response.

With a gentle breath out, Elrond leans down and drops a kiss on her lips like the passing sigh of butterfly’s wings. “I’m sorry,” he says, as if it means anything. He tips his forehead to rest against hers, gathering his beloved wife into his arms, her hair tumbling unbound over his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again. “I’m sorry, ‘Rían. I’ll take care of them, I will.”

The children are all he has now, in this odd and fracturing past. If he has to take on Morgoth himself like a bitter parody of Fingolfin’s final charge, he will do it. If he has to give up what was for a chance at what can be… he will do it.

Elrond heaves a sobbing breath. He will.

“Of course you will,” says Galadriel. “You have the hands of a healer; taking care is your prerogative.”

Elrond startles, nearly dropping the body he holds, which is no longer his wife’s and no longer dead. “My—my lady?” Elrond stutters. It’s not that he doesn’t like his goodmother, he’d just prefer to keep his mental image of her clear of any hint of dying in his arms.

“Athelas is not endemic to Numenor,” she says seriously.

Elrond stares at her. “I’m—sorry?”

“Athelas,” the lady of the golden wood repeats, “is not endemic to Numenor.”

He gets the feeling she’s frustrated with him—which he is too, to be honest, but he suspects for different reasons.

“I don’t understand,” he says, and when she starts to repeat herself: “Just saying it slower isn’t going to help.”

“It has always grown here,” Galadriel murmurs, then begins to dissolve into white, soft-petaled flowers. Elrond stares at the lacy ringlets of them in his lap and draped over his arms. The whisper of “Athelas,” trails on the breeze as it scatters the flowers.

Elrond blinks and the world goes dark as night, then he blinks again and day has come once more, but fire has begun to eat the sky. The world bleeds more and more orange dark, and it occurs to him that he’s waking up.

The healer comes to with a groan that feels layered as it crawls up from his chest. Eru Ilúvatar, his head feels like an overripe fruit, set to burst as the sun’s heat boils it from within. His vision is blurry and dark around the edges, spots of color that’s not quite color but can best be described as pink eat themselves from the inside out like fireworks shooting out of the black.

Elrond hasn’t felt this thick in the head since he contracted a literal plague when he was about seven hundred years old. He runs hot normally, but he must be absolutely radiating heat at the moment.

“Good evening,” says a faintly raspy voice, and a cup is pressed to his lips. “Drink this.”

Elrond does so, the cool water silky on his tongue. “Thank you,” he manages.

“It is naught but my job,” an elleth in a pale beige apron says as she bustles around him, refilling the cup from a pitcher and placing it on a small table within his reach. Rolling his gaze to the left reveals Melian sitting on what must be a visitor’s chair as well. “I am Sammareth,” the elleth tells him, “the royal healer of Menegroth.”

Elrond works his mouth around the lingering dry, sticky feeling and replies, “I’m El—Lilthanoss. A pleasure.”

“It is good that you’ve wakened.” Sammareth still wears a frown, though, placing her palm over his forehead and her other hand under his armpit. “You’re still burning up,” she notes.

Elrond waves a hand, though the motion takes monumental effort. “I run hot,” he says. “Very hot.”

The other healer squints at him.

The collective crafting mind of Ost-in-Edhil hasn’t invented even a crude thermometer yet, so he can’t well explain himself in degrees.

“I normally feel like a Man with a fever,” is what he settles for. “If you can feel the heat from two hands-widths away, then there’s an issue.”

To her credit, Sammareth doesn’t question that. Instead, she turns her hand on its side and places the other atop it in the same position, then flips it so her palm is facing his skin and raises it a bit. “So, there’s an issue,” she says.

Elrond grimaces, winces as moving his face hurts, and closes his eyes against a few tears. “I’m awake,” he says, “I’ll be alright eventually. The fever is… is a good thing.”

Sammareth looks dubious. Though, Elrond expects she doesn’t have much experience with humans in general, and the fever she’s seen might well have been limited to infection in elves, the appearance and disappearance of which happens to coincide with turns for the better or worse, which drives its own conclusions.

Elrond wants to return to a place and time where it would be reasonable to invite the healers of Doriath to one of his guest lectures in Ost-in-Edhil.

He remembers very clearly the initial reactions to his cutting open a cadaver to study it for the first time (the body of a very willing and intrigued human, thank you very much, who expressed a deep interest in life in having her body donated to the cause of healing). It might not be a good idea to bring up his findings right here and right now.

He sighs. He’s really not sure how advanced her knowledge is. Even if he could recite by heart every single thing he and his colleagues have added to the field in his time then subtract that from the whole, that would take more time than he’s willing to dedicate to the effort.

“Half-elf shit,” is what he settles for, resigning himself to hunting down Doriath’s healers to evaluate their program at a later date. All of his children would laugh at him for that weak explanation, but it is what it is.

Sammareth nods then, apparently trusting him to at least know what’s going on with his own body, which is more credit than he’d give most of his own patients.

“You are a half-elf,” says Melian in a musing tone. Elrond had almost forgotten the maia was present, and he looks over to find her perched still on her chair with her legs folded like a Numenorean pretzel, skirts sweeping the floor. “Dismissed, Sammareth, thank you. How has this come to be?”

The royal healer bows out, and Elrond sighs, crossing his arms over his midsection. Eru, but his head hurts. “With respect, your majesty,” he says, “I really don’t want to go over this more than once, but I feel there are others who should also hear it.”

Melian tips her head, and the beaded veil over her hair seems to drip and smear in the lantern light and the faint glow of the Silmaril, which he now sees is still wrapped in the scrap of fabric, sitting innocuously on the side table, just within reach. “I see,” she says. “Luthien will arrive presently.”

Elrond closes his eyes against the oddly distorted colors of the room. “Right,” he says faintly, “just let me know when…”

When he wakes again, sunlight filters in through the angled shafts in the room’s ceiling, and both the Queen and princess sit patiently at his bedside.

“Good morning,” says Luthien with far too much cheer as Elrond focuses on her. “Terribly sorry thy father couldn’t make it; he’s been indisposed, of late.”

Elrond blinks for a moment before remembering the whole ruse. Right, Daeron. He frowns. “I had not thought him much for straying from within the wood?”

“Oh, he’s not,” says Luthien with a fond expression that makes her fairly glow despite its mildness. “He went to fetch Caranthir at the border, in hopes of finding someone Pîngil was more familiar with. Our father was not particularly pleased with that development.”

The knife-gleam of her smile suggests she cares very little for what her father finds pleasing, even if she doesn’t care for wasting the breath to say so.

“…Right,” says Elrond, taking that in. There’s a thought tickling in his mind that hasn’t fully arrived yet, and he lets it sit for a moment to ask, “Caranthir is in Menegroth, now, then?”

Because that could be really very unfortunate for a number of people.

“He is,” Luthien confirms.

“Ah,” says Elrond, for lack of anything else to input. They’ll deal with that later, probably. And there’s the important thought he wasn’t quite having— “I may or may not have told Finrod and his cousins that Pîngil is my brother’s son, who I took in after… unspecified life troubles befell said brother, presumably. I didn’t say.”

Luthien frowns. “Caranthir’s son is well, I assume?”

Elrond nods. “And eighty, or thereabouts, which is a problem because Peredhil grow fast but not that fast.”

Luthien raises an eyebrow. “Thou’rt factoring this into thine explanation of thine own grown children, I trust?”

Elrond grimaces. “Alright,” he says, “perhaps we can play at the lifespans of Men, but it is not foolproof.”

“Little will be,” Luthien replies with a shrug.

Something about that, the too calm, blasé way she says that, grates on the raw nerves that Elrond has been ignoring for too long now. He rather desperately needs to shout and scream and tear up the world like he hasn’t since he and Elros were rebelling against their foster fathers/kidnappers in the very first years with them. It crawls up his throat like a bad cough, tickling the tenderness there.

He doesn’t want to, though; Elrond is fairly certain he likes Luthien as a person. She’s cool, collected, and very effective as far as he can tell, all traits he admires as far as personality goes. Elrond likes Luthien.

But Elrond hasn’t spent the last several thousand years developing the field of mind-healing just to not apply it to himself. He understands relationship theory; Halls, he created it. Recognizing people’s investment and picking apart the give and take is second nature, a feature he can’t turn off even just people-watching.

That also means knowing when the give is growing and the take is failing, and correcting the balance.

Elrond likes Luthien, but that doesn’t mean they can just let their differences lie without talking out the consequences of their actions for themselves and for each other.

Elrond has… accepted, more or less, the facts of his fate. By the way she looks at him, the princess of Doriath knows his mind on that front. That doesn’t mean he isn’t angry.

“I think,” he says, almost a whisper, then clears his throat. “I think the beginning is a very good place to start. Where I come from, you are dead.”

Luthien nods like this is not surprising. Elrond wonders if she knows already what will come of herself and the love she bears.

“Doriath is gone,” he continues. “Because of greed, in no small part, but largely because of those—because of the Silmarils.” He meets his grandmother’s gaze evenly; he can feel Melian’s presence like a physical weight in the air, but the maia makes no move to interrupt, just listening.

“You know that the Fëanorians have sworn to come for them,” he says plainly. “But I don’t think you understand what that actually means. I was orphaned by it, as were my mother and uncles, your grandchildren.”

Luthien purses her lips but seems dedicated to understanding before grieving, and only nods jerkily.

“Though,” says Elrond, perhaps feeling a bit cruel, “my uncles died shortly after anyway, because children are generally afeared of bloody elves with swords.”

“The Girdle fell?” Luthien asks, though it seems to be more for confirmation than confusion.

Elrond looks at the ceiling, then back at his grandmother. He’s not sure how Melian will take it, but he forges on anyway: “There was no reason to hold it up, with Thingol gone from Doriath.”

Melian makes a small sound, the walls shudder, and blue, long-tailed butterflies scatter from under her hair. When she looks at Elrond, her eyes seem just a touch deeper, more kaleidoscopic and fae. “Because of the Silmarils.”

Elrond nods.

Melian doesn’t look away but he has to eventually, snapping himself out of a daze like falling.

“If they stay,” he says with a sigh, “the end will come for this kingdom, sooner rather than later. Perhaps it will come anyway, I cannot know the future now that so much has changed. In any case, I shall warn you now and not bother with it again, as results have not been conducive the first few times it was tried.”

“Please,” says Luthien quietly, “continue.”

Elrond thinks of the next few stuttering steps of his own history, and the anger seeps back in. “I have—I had a brother, grandmother. My twin, half of my very soul. He has been dead and gone beyond the circles of the world for more than six thousand years, and I will never see him again.”

It sounds more dramatic than it feels. Underneath the anger, Elrond is numb. Underneath everything, he’s been numb for a long time.

“That is not the way with souls,” says Melian, and Elrond blinks.

“He Chose mortality,” he says by way of explanation. “I have never been able to tell if it was worth it.”

“No,” says Melian, sounding it out almost like his children when Lindir started teaching them North River Kindi as youngsters, fumbling the strange sounds out syllable by syllable. “That is not how souls are—how they settle on this plain, in Eä. Every soul that has existed and ever will exist is known to Him, they await only incarnation. I do not think the actions of His Children could change that irreparably.”

Elrond isn’t sure that makes sense, until suddenly, wonderingly, it does. Perhaps Elros is formless in the Void, then, waiting for his body to come to life.

“That does not mean he will know me,” he says, more bitterly. It’s strange how so much hope can feel like a hundred new open wounds.

“Souls have deep memory,” Melian says, but it’s less comforting than the healer imagines the Queen is trying to be.

“How can they have memory of what hasn’t happened to them?” he asks bitingly. “I have seen hundreds of lifetimes that will all be different now—”

“Changed for the better?” Luthien offers.

Elrond glares openly. “There is no better world,” he says. “Aye, many I have known and loved are dead or gone, and it was messy, and painful, and terrible, but it was my life. By his rivers, grandmother, my spouses haven’t even been born yet! Am I to bring my children to Barad Eithel, point them at an infant, and say here is your other father, I know you have long wished to meet him?”

That gives her pause, at least.

“I could stay away,” says Elrond, “but we did not build our marriages off of staying away.”

“No,” murmurs Luthien, “I don’t imagine thou didst.”

“I will not ask of you that which you cannot do,” Elrond tells her, suddenly tired. “I would only impress upon you the blow you have dealt to my soul, even accidentally. I cannot absolve you of it, not yet, maybe not ever. When their souls are in the world, and they are not the souls I know… I fear I may be angrier than you deserve.”

The healer holds out his hands, and his grandmother takes them with some hesitation.

“I would ask—” he starts, but the look she’s giving him makes him stop.

“I believe I do understand,” Luthien tells him quietly. “And I accept your anger. I did not intend to remove thee from thy time, nor did I realize the enormity of my own actions—” she huffs, “—an experience I’ve been regrettably familiar with recently.”

Elrond knows he’s wearing what his wife had more than once declared to be his “most soulful” look, but he can’t quite bring himself to spread anything else across his aching, fever-tight face.

“Then—” he says.

Luthien kisses the backs of his hands, gentle and soft, motherly. Elrond wants to pull away because he doesn’t want pity, he wants his life back, and he’ll never have it. Perhaps there are some things about this existence that he can work towards living with, but—

“I will be there,” she says. Elrond blinks and refocuses on his grandmother. She’s not typically unserious, but now it’s turned strangely solemn. “I will be there for you,” she says.

Elrond frowns. “I don’t need your penance,” he says. He’s had quite enough of self-recriminating parental figures.

Luthien shakes her head. “I would not give it,” she corrects. “I would present my care, instead. Because I do, and I would know what I have destroyed in full, if you would share it with me.”

The ancient healer pauses, then inclines his head slowly. “I accept, then, on behalf of myself and my children. We have no one else, because those that are ours no longer exist.”

Luthien closes her eyes, her lashes like the brush of dark wings across her skin. “So it shall be. Grandson.”

“Grandmother,” says Elrond, and uses the hands she still hasn’t let go of to pull her into an embrace. Aye, he hurts. But he’s going to hurt for a long time, and there’s no reason to brush off support where it’s offered.

:::

Maglor retrieves his brother’s mail just for something to do in the morning, other than pacing around uselessly outside the infirmary. The children are still sleeping there; they’d been holed up for most of the day and Maglor had stopped in in the evening to offer Erestor a room for the night, only to find a slumbering pile of half-elves atop Gil-neth’s bed, too tangled to be moved without waking.

Maglor will bring them breakfast once the cook has it ready. For now, he shuffles through the pages retrieved from the dovecote.

There are a few small notes from Maedhros’s march-lords, reports from Himring’s few reclaimed farmlands lands and the patrols around them. Something from Curufin, which may or may not make Maedhros blow his top depending on the news—

Maglor pulls his thin-edged knife from the collection at his belt and slides it carefully under the little scroll’s seal. Turning the blade just so, he applies barely enough pressure to snap the dried wax off the paper without breaking it, then unfurls the roll.

Curufin and Celegorm are coming up to Himring. Wonderful.

That will be news for later in the week, Maglor thinks. As for the last…

There’s a full letter in an envelope that must have come in by hawk—which is rude, for post from a foreign leader. At least assuming it’s from Thingol. The sign stamped on the front is Doriath’s swirled flower within its diamond, four stars dotted in the empty space. No one else uses the official seal, so it stands to reason—

Maglor sighs. He ought to hand it off to Maedhros; hopefully, it’s the reply they’ve been waiting for about the Silmarils in Doriath.

The bard resists the urge to read it before his brother and makes his way down to Maedhros’s office. He tucks Curufin’s scroll away in his own vest before opening the door and slipping inside.

After slicing the it open with another of his belt-knives, he drops the letter from Doriath on the broad, imposing desk, then perches on the edge of the chair in front of it and begins to sort through the general reports.

“This is—?” Maedhros asks, without looking up from the ledger he’s flipping through, a charcoal pencil in his hand.

“Probably some unreasonable bull shit,” Maglor sighs.

Parchment shifts and rustles as Maedhros picks up the letter and pulls it out of the envelope. He reads it quietly, then lets out a breath, which makes Maglor look up.

Maedhros has his eyes closed, leaning his forehead against the back of his hand, elbow braced on the desk. Maglor sits up straighter, eyes widening. “Bad news?”

Maedhros looks at him, and the expression is more pained than it’s been since they had news of Fingolfin’s death. “Caranthir is in Doriath.”

“No,” Maglor says, because that can’t be right.

Maedhros holds out the letter, his arm swaying across the table almost listlessly. Maglor takes it tentatively. Later, he’s sure his brother will stand tall again and be the commander they need, but right now he seems fragile in a way that makes Maglor uncomfortable.

He’s read a letter or two directly from Thingol, though most of the woodland king’s correspondence comes in official announcement form, copied out by scribes.

Just the scrawl of his brother’s name in Thingol’s hand makes Maglor set his teeth. The rest of the letter’s content does nothing to lessen the tension winding him tighter and tighter.

He sets the letter back on the desk when he’s re-read it thrice and realizes he’s crumpling the parchment.

“Shit,” Maglor manages eventually. “Well.” He draws Curufin’s letter out of his vest pocket and drops it beside the one from Doriath.

Maedhros raises an eyebrow at him, picking up the scroll and unfurling it one-handed with a practiced motion of his fingers.

“Hm,” he says when he puts it back down. “There’s one option.”

Maglor grimaces. “Luthien is in Doriath,” he points out. “Finrod is apparently going there as well, or was when that was sent, which means he’s probably made it by now.”

Sending Curufin or Celegorm or—Eru forbid—both to retrieve their wayward brother would almost certainly result in either political or physical violence. Neither of which are things they need festering among the elvenholds of Beleriand right now, as the Enemy is stirring.

Maedhros nods. “I doubt a bird would be able to reach them before they arrive here.”

Maglor frowns at his brother. “I’m not hearing ‘I won’t send Curufin or Celegorm to Doriath for Moryo.’”

The Lord of Himring remains silent.

“Maedhros,” Maglor says. “You can’t be serious. Just because they’ve invited us to come get him doesn’t mean Melian is going to let her daughter’s kidnappers in. We have people right here, right now, whom we can send for him. They ought to be headed past Doriath anyway.”

Maedhros twitches. “I won’t sacrifice children—”

Maglor throws up his hands. “Caranthir is their father, and grandfather, for Eru’s sake. Maedhros, he married the prince of Doriath! Even Thingol can’t be stupid enough to entangle violence in something so dangerously political.”

The look Maedhros gives him is incredibly unconvinced. Maglor sighs.

“It’s not—” he starts, but he’s interrupted by a knocking on the door.

“Enter,” Maedhros calls.

The page who opens the door informs them that their nephews and niece are awake. Maglor thanks him with a nod, then stands to leave himself and fetch breakfast as he meant to before stopping in with his brother. Maedhros says nothing as he goes, not that Maglor expected him to.

Breakfast is ready for Maglor to pick up—he’s late, according to the sous-chef’s impatiently tapping foot.

“When will the lord be ready for his breakfast?” he asks.

Maglor shrugs, then remembers that keeping Maedhros’ schedule is part of his job, and huffs out a breath of frustration. “Give it an hour and a half,” he says. Not that he thinks they’ll be busy with the children for that long, but if he knows his brother, Maedhros won’t be stopping for food until he’s paced around as much of Himring as he’s convinced himself needs “inspecting” this morning.

The sous-chef sniffs and nods, and Maglor ducks away out of the kitchens, heading upstairs with his heavily-laden tray.

He catches up with Maedhros in the hallway outside the main entrance to the healer’s halls, and his brother skips a step and then another to make sure they enter in some semblance of “together.”

“Good morning,” says Gilion, sounding tired.

Maedhros nods to him, surveying all three youngsters in a way Maglor recognizes, even though they can’t possibly have been injured in the night; they’re in Himring, for fuck’s sake.

“Erestor,” says Maedhros tightly, wasting no time. “Thingol has your father.”

Erestor presses his lips together thinly. His face looks somehow older than when he’d arrived, shadows under his eyes that Maglor is sure weren’t there previously. He looks more than ever like Caranthir.

“Which?” he asks. “He usually does have at least one—that is not abnormal.”

Maglor opens his mouth but Maedhros cuts him off before he can speak: “This is not a matter to be played with, nephew.”

“Why would you imagine I’m playing?” Erestor asks. “They’re my fathers.”

“Has—” says Maedhros, then narrows his eyes. “Thingol did not know.”

“He did not,” Erestor confirms. “I’m sure you would’ve known sooner if he did.”

That much is true, Maglor supposes. Thingol is not well known for having a good handle on his temper.

“Would he wound my brother?” Maedhros asks flatly.

Erestor shakes his head. “I would not know. I have been kept far from the dangers of politics thus far, especially those so fraught.”

Maglor doubts the full truth of that, considering the boy’s father. Well, his brother at least.

Erestor’s face twitches oddly, then he says: “I believe, if he could, Daeron would stop harm from coming to Ada. Though I am less informed as to whether he has that power.”

“I should hope so!” Maglor nearly yelps, trying not to sound utterly aghast.

“Hm,” says Maedhros.

Erestor looks away. “It’s complicated.”

Gil-neth sighs and leans back, flopping down onto the covers. “This family is complicated, Erestor. The question is usually complicated how.”

And isn’t that the truth? Maglor wonders what kinds of Doom have found his brother’s children while the rest of them didn’t know enough to help, then shoves that thought down before it can really get its claws in him.

Gilion shakes his head at both of them. “What do you plan to do about it then, my lord?” he asks Maedhros. He tips his head at his sister and uncle. “For our part, we must make for Doriath with all haste. It seems most of our family is gathering there, though we’re having trouble reaching them to ask about it.”

Maedhros’s expression tightens, and Maglor feels his own going flat. This is not a good idea, and he knows damn well that he won’t like whatever next comes out of his brother’s mouth, for one reason or another.

“You will go to Doriath,” Maedhros decrees. “And you will take guards, as well as a message for Thingol.”

Gilion opens his mouth for a moment, but a moment later his eyes cut to Erestor and he shuts it with a snap. Maglor can feel a faint tingle in the air; osanwe, most certainly.

“We will,” says Erestor. “We should leave as soon as possible.”

“Aye,” Maedhros agrees. “I will have instructions given for you, and have the stablemaster arrange the required horses. Come by my office—or, no. Maglor, find Rhosg to clear Gil-neth and Gilion to leave, then stop by my office to give them the letter for Thingol.”

“Maedhros—” Maglor starts.

“Go,” his brother cuts him off.

Maglor does not approve, but is it not his purview to disagree. At least where anyone else can hear about it.

:::

Melyanna doesn’t need a mirror to know what she looks like; she formed her fana with intricate and intentional detail and knows well all that it contains. Still, she sits in front of the huge, pool-like looking glass in the rooms she shares with her husband, and contemplates all that she wishes to achieve.

Lilthanoss had related to her—at her request—the specifics of the fall of Morgoth and the crumbling of Beleraind. It’s… somewhat satisfying, to know. Much more helpful, though.

Much has changed, he’d said, and that much appears undeniable. She cannot says she is unhappy with the current changes, as Elu’s death in Lilthanoss’s time was apparently due to the Nauglamir, and if it stays in Nargothrond because Finrod will return there…

And, of course, her goodnephew lives still, which is a marked improvement from a world without him. It is good that he has come to Doriath. The Arafinwean has a certain presence about him that rings with the touch of a Power, and Melyanna thinks the worth of his advice is undervalued by many of the elves who could benefit from it most.

As for the rest… the Silmarils of Lilthanoss’s time had much different paths of those now, and yet, she doesn’t have to look at a map of events to understand that it was necessary. Ilúvatar’s Themes have always been intent on a destination, or at the very least a transition to the next, and it only suits that the embodied world should move in ways that strive for that chosen end.

Melyanna cannot say she understands his will; only Manwë has a fraction of that concept. But she can attempt to step along the path provided by Lilthanoss’s memories.

Ultimately, Morgoth cannot be defeated by the forces in Ennor. So Aman must be moved, but to move them takes a Silmaril… perhaps.

Lilthanoss had been, unwilling, to offer her his. Melyanna suspects she knows why—she hadn’t touched it, as the half-elf asked, but maiar are much more in tune with the music around them than the typical elf in any case. It is most curious, but she’ll let it be for now.

Taking the one the boy in the basement has is not a plan Melyanna is willing to engage with for many reasons, though she can only hope her husband understands that as she doubt she sees it at all the same way.

Speaking of Elu—

She feels him approaching like one feels the blood in their veins shifting towards their heart.

“Hello, my love,” she greets as he enters their bedchamber.

With a sigh, he wraps himself around her shoulders from behind and just drapes himself there. Melyanna gives him a small huff of amusement, because as an elf he will not read the change in her Song.

“What troubles thee now?” she asks. There is much to be afeared of, certainly, but she will worry over those things as they come.

“I—” Elu stops and starts, as he only ever does with her, and Melyanna places her hands over his on her shoulders to indicate his welcome with her. “I have let my temper get the better of me, as appears to be the norm these days. Only, Finrod tells me this will have consequences beyond the scope of what my kingdom is prepared to deal with.”

“Hm?” Melyanna waits for him to continue, taking his hand and standing up to guide him to the bed in the meantime.

Elu sprawls out on his back at a light push, his hands open on either side of him, staring at the ceiling. Melyanna sits on the edge of the bed, watching him. “He thinks I should stay in my own play box, like a child sequestered at stops on the Journey.”

“I’m sure he didn’t say as much,” she notes.

“Of course not,” Elu huffs. “I have sent Maedhros Fëanorian a rather ill-advised summons, of a sort, and Finrod suggested I make use of Daeron’s grandson to appease his eldest cousin’s temper. Among other appeasing measures. I seem to have… underestimated their loyalty to each other.”

His face twists into an unpleasant frown, and it’s not hard to tell he’s revising every proof he has of the Noldor’s fractured kingdom, trying to determine where his gauge of the situation went wrong.

Melyanna smiles softly, and doesn’t withhold the small chuckle that escapes her. Most of what she has learned about the Fëanorian suggests that he and her husband share far more similarities than either would ever be willing to admit.

“It works well enough on thyself,” she teases. This will have to be dealt with carefully, but neither will she be able to assist much herself, so she’ll leave him to it. Elu is a cunning strategist, when he can be trusted to think with anything but his heart.

Elu rolls his eyes at her and reaches out, asking to hold her with every line of his body.

Melyanna purses her lips, sitting on the edge of the bed and turning to face him. Elu frowns and pushes himself up onto his elbow, his silvery hair draping beautifully across his frame.

“My love?” he asks. It’s not tentative, because he never really is, but there’s a certain nervousness present in his tone. He knows her well and that is enough to earn him another soothing smile, but not enough to soften this blow.

“I must go to Aman,” she says, “and soon. I have Seen what is to come, and I misklike the chances of Beleriand without the Valar’s intercession.”

Elu stares at her for a long minute. She meets his gaze and hides nothing that he might take from hers.

Her beloved’s eyes are wide and shining as he shakes his head in denial. His shoulders have risen, tensed. “I cannot lose thee, love. Please, I cannot.”

Melyanna knows well that there is no other in all of Arda whom he would ever beg so, and it tears at her ëala like the claws of a ravaging beast. She knows he doesn’t mean to hurt her—would never mean to hurt her—but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

But Melyanna has had the time to settle here in Beleriand, to grow strong, and her roots have been buried deep. Menegroth does not quake with her grief; she will not be moved.

“It is not a loss,” she says, tucking Elu against her chest and cupping his face in her palms. Her husband is tall, but she is whatever she needs to be, and right now that cannot be small and delicate lest his fear of losing her grow stronger even as she soothes it. “It will never be a loss.”

Elu makes a painful sound, his long fingers wrapping around her wrists. He shakes his head again, as if his simple denial will stop her.

He knows, though—she knows he knows that their children’s curiosity for life, their stubbornness, does not only find its wellspring in him.

“Melyanna,” he whispers.

Melyanna has only ever truly cared for her elf and the family they’d made together, as much as she holds compassion in her heart for all things. She is able to recognize, though, that the weight on Elu’s soul is that of his entire people.

She is willing to bear that weight as long as he needs her to, and to help steady him in supporting it. He does not need to ask her for this.

“Doriath cannot bear the coming strife alone,” she tells him, her voice low and swaying to match the sorrowful strains of his Song.

“I know,” Elu drops his head onto her chest and she adjusts to cradle him there, rubbing soft circles on his neck with her fingertips. “I know that. But we are stronger when we have thee.”

Melyanna’s sigh whispers across his hair, shifting the silver strands. “You are made strong by the measure of your own hearts,” she says. “But I will hardly leave thee alone, my love.”

He looks up at her, and she shakes her head. “I don’t mean to drop the Girdle. Thy people must have the time they need to prepare before I return.”

Elu frowns, but it’s more thoughtful than sorrow-wracked. “Who else could hold it?”

He knows her mind already, just as she knows his, and his eyes widen again.

“They won’t forgive thee,” he says quietly, but he does not drop her gaze.

“Thou wert not prepared to let them flee Doriath in any case,” she points out. They have nursed and raised all of their own troubles, as is the way with parenthood, though not once has Melyanna regretted it.

“Is this why thou counseled mercy and peace with Beren?” Elu asks, more shrewd now. “Hast thou any premonitions of what comes?”

“I need no premonitions to know that only evil is born of Melkor stirring,” Melyanna tells him. “I counseled mercy and peace because I know thy heart, my love, and it is not the heart of a cruel elf.”

Elu is silent, his eyes shaded by his heavy brow.

Melyanna tilts his chin up until he meets her gaze. Always, his bright eyes are a wonder she is grateful to know. “Thou must move past this fear of change thou clutcheth so,” she says. “It does not fear thee, my love, and I would not see it find thee cowering.”

Her husband would not cower, that is an exaggeration. He would stand his ground and face it, but she aims to give him as much ground to stand on as she can, which means starting sooner rather than later.

“The Fëanorian, then?” he raises a challenging brow. “Wouldst thou have me release my enemy to make a den of his own in my home?”

Melyanna tips her head. “Thy grief has made a hollow of this place long enough,” she says.

Elu blows out a harsh breath. “How am I to live then without fearing knives in the night, as my brother did not know to before me?”

“If thou dost not know danger already,” she tells him somewhat sharply, “then my Girdle has failed thee more powerfully than it has protected this realm. Caranthir Fëanorian has no reason to sow chaos in a kingdom that could be a strong, desperately needed ally for his people. Trust him to serve his own interests, if nothing else.”

Elu looks away, but she can tell he’s thinking.

“And,” she adds softly, “trust thy son, my love. Would he truly have thrown in with one so irredeemably wicked if there was no faith between them?”

From what she knows of that relationship that’s exactly what happened there, actually, but saying as much will do nothing for her argument.

And from what she has heard of both of their Songs, Daeron and the Fëanorian are already twined together more closely in spirit than some true couples she has seen, who were actually bonded for the amount of time her son is pretending to have been. She is not surprised in the slightest that Daeron sought and found the perfect complement to his own soul, as in tune with the great music as he is.

She knows only little of the nature of elven bonds—that which she holds with Elu is as unique as it is beautiful, but certainly not the same as a bond between elves alone—but surely there must be something there to tie that pair together.

Nevertheless, it matters little what she thinks of it; the boys appear happy, and someday Elu will realize that this is enough.

“I am not ready,” he whispers, tucking his face into her shoulder again.

Melyanna pets his hair. “I have found that it is rarely so,” she says, meaning both her husband’s unpreparedness, and the nature of embodiment—life, for the Children—to confront you when you least expect it. “And still, we must go on.”

“But must thou go?” It is a plea, and likely the last he will make. Melyanna pushes him back gentle to just look at him until he gathers himself and nods firmly.

“If it is so,” Elu says, sitting back, “then there is much to do here, and much to do there. Tell me what it is thou hast planned, my love.”

His gaze has hardened in a way that does little to please her, but she doubtless will not be able to change.

“I will secure their aid,” she tells him, “if I must bring Eonwë here myself to show the Elder King what we face.”

At last, Elu smiles. She does not recall if he has met her cousin, but she imagines he must have, to look so at the thought. “I do not doubt thee, my love. As much as I hate to admit it, whatever thou canst bring us will be needed. I will—” he frowns again, but there is more concentration to it, this time. “I suppose more than appeasement may be needed, with the Fëanorians.”

Melyanna taps the back of his hand in a soothing rhythm. “It is good that you have one here already then, is it not?”

Elu’s teeth flash as his lips twitch, but he nods eventually. “I suppose so,” he says.

And their children, for she knows their power, and it may take more than they have to carry the weight of Doriath’s protection. Elu must, and will, protect them. That much, at least, has never truly been in question.

Chapter Text

Celegorm will never fear his brother. At least, not this one. Curufin has a temper on him powerful enough to turn even the foulest beasts Celegorm has hunted to flight, sure, and he’s woefully adept at finding exactly the right words to wither and dry any goodwill a person might have ever held toward him. But Celegorm will never fear him.

Sometimes, though, Curufin gets… cold. He just, shuts down. Like the forge at Formenos when they’d been away all winter; freezing, dark, and generally foreboding in the back of the dark workshop.

Celegorm was never the one responsible for getting it lit—that was always their father, or Curufin himself, occasionally even Maedhros. Even though he’s not afraid, it takes a certain bravery that he doesn’t know he has to venture into the dark with a blazing torch—or, as it stands, mere spark rocks.

Celegorm has long been called bold and daring, but faced with his brother’s constant, chilly stonewall, he feels neither. Instead, he seeks other distractions on the road to Himring.

The large wolf prints in the stirred-up mud are alarmingly fresh, but the mud is dry enough that the makers of said prints must have passed through long enough before Celegorm’s party that he doesn’t need to worry. He’s in a mood to hunt anyway, though, and is glad to have something worthy of notice as he swiftly dismounts to examine the tracks.

The river Aros is a crashing roar not far away, roiling with what must be recent rainfall from inside Doriath—not that the scorched earth without saw the same tender treatment. Though the camp their people are setting up is just over the hill, Celegorm can barely hear any proof of it.

The hunter doesn’t like being unable to hear his surroundings when there are predators about. He opts to keep his horse close, looping the reigns around her saddle horn and clicking his tongue for her to follow.

Though the woods on the opposite bank of the river grow rich and green, south of the Aros there are only sparse clumps of trees here and there. Reedy black alders and birches bend and shiver in the cool wind, casting shuddering shadows across the wild-growing swathes of scrub grass.

Celegorm trots through the flickering shadows, shading his eyes from the afternoon sun as he follows the paw prints and trampled brush upriver.

His horse wuffles uncomfortably as he analyzes the ground, and he rubs her nose distractedly. The prints lead directly—with a few circling paths branching off and joining back, as happens with a wolf pack—to the foot of a more sturdy-looking birch, where they create a muddle of jumbled tracks around the base.

Celegorm walks around the tree curiously. From the story written on the ground, he can nearly hear the baying and howling of a pack, snarling as they corner their prey—

Their prey, who must’ve climbed the tree, which means it was something that could climb.

A closer look at the tracks leading towards the tree shoes the edge of a boot-print in the dried mud, a sharp line against the rounded paw-prints. And indeed, there on the bark around shoulder-level is a scraped patch where a boot must have taken off bark on the way up.

Frowning to himself, the hunter rounds the tree again.

There are tracks pointing away, but no sign of a fight or struggle, nor a body. He’s drawing a blank on things that would make an entire pack of wolves—and some wargs, by the size and shape of some of the prints—flee without demonstrating themself clearly in the dirt around. There are no hoof-prints that he can find, nor evidence of fire, nor even claw-toed orc tracks.

A glint in the mud near the base of the tree catches Celegorm’s eye and he hurries to unearth it. Only metal glints like that, which means it probably wasn’t a Noldo being dragged off to their doom; gems designed to come loose from their settings and be left as a trail are a staple in the Beleriandic culture of Celegorm’s people. But then, if they’d already dropped what stones they had—

Suddenly possessing far more urgency, he rubs it clean with the edge of his tunic. It’s a bit dirty and somewhat dinged, but that does little to disguise the gold band or the pair of red jasper stones, or the utter, terrible familiarity of the ring on the whole.

“Fuck,” Celegorm mutters to himself, a chill creeping over him. “Fuck, Tyelpë.”

Holding the ring tightly, the hunter springs from his crouch and vaults back onto his horse, full of nervous energy with the ring tucked tightly into his palm. His steed doesn’t need to be told twice to head back to the company, and is cantering over the little hill separating the camp from the river before Celegorm has figured out what he’s going to tell his brother.

He almost doesn’t want to say anything at all, because he knows it won’t go well. Curufin is only just now coming off his quiet, cold bout after being unceremoniously booted out of Nargothrond. Celegorm has seen his brother that way too often before; after their father’s death, as they fled during the Bragollach, after his wife left. The hunter doesn’t like to see his brother still and silent, without even a wire twisting between his fingers.

He’s been almost mellow, as terrifying as that is, Celegorm doesn’t want to push him back into that state. Not that he’s sure he will. It’s either that or blank rage, and as much as Celegorm has faith in his brothers and their mission, he’s not willing to lose Curufin to whatever folly the inventor might cook up in his anger, no matter how much damage it does to the enemy as well.

With that in mind, he waits.

Dinner is a quiet affair, at least around the Feanorions’ fire. A few of their captains stop by to warm their hands while they report, but they move off soon enough to the more raucous firepits where the common soldiers sit. From the sound of their merriment, one might wonder if they regret having left Nargothrond at all.

Celegorm resists the urge to stand up and bellow for them all to be quiet, because that wouldn’t be good for morale or motivation in the slightest and they really do need to keep moving.

“Curufin,” he says after, taking his brother’s bowl and tucking it into his own to return to the kitchen-folk of their number, who’ll wash the dishes in the river and pack them back up. “I need to speak with you.”

Curufin’s head snaps up from his contemplation of the flames, and he watches Celegorm narrowly as he nods. The hunter puts the bowls on the ground beside his foot and braces his elbows on his knees.

He presses his lips together for a moment, unsure. Then, “You know Celebrimbor came up this way.”

Curufin’s eyes flash, and Celegorm hates that he can’t tell anymore what emotion is responsible for the sudden brightness.

“Speak not of him to me,” the smith snaps.

Celegorm chews on his lip. For his part, he’s prouder of Celebrimbor than the boy will probably ever know. Not that he’ll say as much aloud. He will say, though: “I’m worried about him. He’s out here alone.” With nothing and no one to scare off any fouler comers.

Curufin’s expression twists as if he’s not quite sure how he wants to hold his face, then he grunts, “That was his choice.”

Celegorm huffs and leans forward to grab his brother’s hand, shoving the ring into it and then snatching his own back before he gets bitten.

Curufin stares at it, silent. This is shock, Celegorm thinks, and like as not world-shattering terror as well. The only reason he’s not losing it himself is that he needs to be able to do something about the situation, which means he can’t afford to.

“Where did you find it?” Curufin says eventually, the words barely there on his breath.

Celegorm jerks his chin towards the river. “Under a tree that-aways. There are wolf tracks, a whole pack.”

Curufin looks at him then, something like hate twisting with the terror writ plain across his face. “You said nothing until now?”

Celegorm doesn’t know how to explain that he was trying to protect Curufin from himself. (Or that, perhaps, he has the concepts of fear and love all tangled up inside, and there’s no one around to sort them out for him anymore after their own terrible choices in Finrod’s kingdom.) So he doesn’t try, lowering his head instead.

Curufin makes a derisive noise, half snarl and half scoff, and stands to call the camp to order. “Himring will have to wait,” he says loudly, “Lord Celegorm has found us a hunt, first.”

“Curufin…” he says as they mount up once more, but he can’t quite tell what he’s actually warning about. This, wherever it takes them, is bound to break his brother in more ways than Celegorm is prepared to handle. He loves his nephew, too, and he’s sure that once what’s happened really hits him, he’ll be on the exact same warpath.

“Shut up, I don’t care,” Curufin snaps. “He is my son.”

Celegorm watches him ride off into the blackness, and doesn’t say you’re too much like our father.

But Curufin still needs someone to look after him, and Tyelpë needs someone to rescue him, and Celegorm can’t really afford to fail either of them, no matter how close to Doriath they are. He rides after his brother and their people, tension and terror warring in his gut, though he has room for neither.

:::

Elladan wakes up on the floor by the window seat alcove in his room, his back and neck shrieking in protest. Blinking like a newborn kitten in the morning sunlight, it takes him a few moments to remember why he’s on the floor and not in the bunk rooms he has designated for his guardsmen.

After checking in with a healer and getting his hand patched up and ribs checked the previous night, Elladan had headed back to the bunk rooms in the royal wing. He’d been turned away at the door by his senior-most hire, a Sinda he’d poached off of Galdor’s woodspeople by the name of Astoren.

He’d told Elladan that he looked dead and needed to go get some real rest, and so Elladan had made his way begrudgingly back to the rooms he’d first been given near the servant’s quarters—mostly because Gondolin had guests rarely enough that rooms for them were not a given.

The bed in his room hadn’t really agreed with him; he’d twisted and turned until the sheets twined around him into a tight, restraining mass like ropes. That feeling had made him struggle with untangling himself for a bit before stumbling over to the window seat in the dark with a blanket and a pillow and huddling up there.

He’s still not sure how much he slept, but it must have been long and deep enough to migrate onto the floor somehow, so he’ll take it.

The bruising along his shoulders and back loudly lets him know his sleeping habits aren’t appreciated when he tries to move, so instead of getting up directly, Elladan unfolds himself carefully on the rug in the middle of his floor and stretches as best he can. He’d love someone to help work out the knots in his shoulders, or even just a good round rock would do, but alas—

Actually, Elladan does have people he can ask.

He changes into a new set of clothes quickly, having slept in just his undershirt from the day before, and deals with his hair cursorily after determining it not unsalvageable, though he’ll need to wash it sometime soon. Then he makes for the bunks.

The way he’d arranged the guard schedule, there are three elves assigned to each royal though only two are on duty at a time. They work in two-week shifts, with a one-week break period so that their shifts overlap with each other for one week each. Elladan hopes it will help his people learn to work together effectively, and he himself cycles through the royals, spending three weeks with each with no down time so he can get to know the methods and habits of each guard pair and royal himself.

This means there are always three elves off duty; Elladan had decreed that at least one must be on-call in the palace at all times in case of emergencies, but the three may split their off-week up however they see fit otherwise.

Hopefully, whoever’s off right now—it’ll be Ennalótë, Halfel, or Etilo, this week—will be in the bunk rooms.

Indeed, when Elladan pokes his head in he finds not one but two of his guards present. The bunk rooms are really only one set of rooms, a repurposed old servant’s area. Three separate rooms with the actual beds in them branch off of a main common area with a cozy depression on one side of the floor that has a low table in the center and cushions and pillows around the sides, and a fully functional kitchen on the other. A table with six chairs takes the up the remaining space, though it’s only rarely in use.

Etilo and Halfel are sitting in the floor nest, Etilo with a book and Halfel mending what looks like a child’s trousers. Her nephew’s, probably; she’d mentioned him when Elladan was interviewing her, as she’s very close with her sister’s family.

Both look up when he enters, on alert immediately. Excellent.

“Can we do something for you, Captain?” Etilo asks, putting his book down to get up.

Elladan opens his mouth, then winces. Now that he thinks about it, it’s a rather awkward question to ask. “Do you happen to be any good at massages? Sleeping’s given me an awful crook in the neck.”

“Of course, honey!” says Halfel cheerfully, gesturing him closer as she puts aside her sewing, though she makes no move to stand. “Sit down, Etilo, I can help with this. I do it all the time for my goodbrother. He’s a lumber worker, you know, many muscles and repetitive motion.”

Gratefully, Elladan takes a seat in front of her as directed. A moment later her fingers are digging into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, precise and intent on unravelling any knots she finds.

“Ai,” she says, “did you sleep on the floor, lad? What’ve you done here?”

“Um,” says Elladan, busy trying not to make any embarrassing sounds as the painful pressure is relieved.

“Captain…” Etilo chides. He’s Maeglin’s third guard, a more formal elf who takes a good deal of pride in being well-kempt. Elladan has been working on worming into his thick shell of formality and would be more pleased to see his efforts paying off if not for the circumstances.

“I didn’t start on the floor,” he defends. “I just… ended up there, unexpectedly.”

Etilo is still giving him a distinctly judging look, but Elladan just rolls his eyes. Just then, Halfel’s skilled fingers find a particularly tight spot and Elladen squeaks. Etilo covers what’s obviously a laugh with one hand. Elladan makes a rude gesture at him, grinning, and then melts further under Halfel’s ministrations.

“Captain?” Cosdis’s voice from the doorway breaks him from his rapture and Elladan opens his eyes and turns that way, despite Halfel’s tsk-ing. “Prince Maeglin wants to head into town today, and he was wondering if we’d be seeing you for breakfast. The family’s all there now.”

Elladan resists the urge to groan, which would not be good for morale. “I’ll be right there,” he says.

Halfel pats his back as he clambers to his feet and out of the stepped resting area.

“You come on back if you need anything else!” Halfel calls after him.

“Will do,” Elladan says with a wave, “many thanks!”

He finds Maeglin as expected, with his uncle and cousin at breakfast. The six guards currently on duty are arrayed around the edges of the room and by the door. Elladan nods to them and moves to lean on the wall and wait for Maeglin.

The prince is seated at the king’s left hand at the head of the table as usual, across from Princess Idril. More unusual are the addition of a few other guests further down—Lord Galdor and his wife, and Lord Glorfindel.

They must be discussing something agricultural, but it’s hardly Elladan’s business anyway. He crosses his arms and gazes out the open doors onto the terrace behind Idril. The mountain walls of the valley are visible in the distance, painted with golden sunlight. It’s beautiful, as usual, and makes him rather want to climb.

A boisterous laugh at the table catches his attention, and Elladan looks back, and then away again sharply.

It’s not that Elladan doesn’t like Galdor. It’s just that every time he hears that laugh, sees that hair, that height, that self-assured walk and the green green green of his robes—

It’s difficult to be reminded every other day of what he might never have again. His best friend beside his brother won’t be born for another few thousand years at least, if he’s ever born at all.

He’s also fairly certain that Galdor thinks himself a dead elf walking, because Elladan—much to his shame—hadn’t been able to control his first few reactions to the phantom shade of Legolas haunting who he’s pretty sure is Thranduil’s wife’s grandfather. Elladan should probably inform him to the contrary before the lord loses too much sleep over it.

Galdor, at least, braids his hair like a Noldo, as is the cultural norm in Gondolin’s court. He’s a Sinda from the merging in Vinyamar but the white city calls for conforming, and Elladan has noted the odd looks he’s been getting himself without much adornment.

Admittedly, he could probably be doing a lot more with his hair if he wanted to, but for now he’s been leaving it mostly loose but for twin braids from his temples on either side, held together with a tie around the back to keep the rest of it out of the way.

Idril had given him a few plain silver beads and demanded he weave them in so he’d added a few smaller braids with two beads on each braid’s end. Maeglin, not to be outdone, had presented him with longer, thin white tube beads of bleached bone, delicately carved with a pattern like thick, swirling fur. Turgon had flinched when he’d seen them, and Elladan can’t help but wonder where they came from; Aredhel had been famed in history for wearing white.

He hasn’t taken them out of his hair, though, because they were a gift and winning Maeglin’s trust and acceptance was worth it. If the king has an issue, he can say something about it.

All the same, Elladan does have a position and reputation he should be upholding. As the Captain of the King’s Guard, he can’t afford to let biases like the shade of his friend cloud his judgement in any way. For the rest of breakfast, he makes sure to stay focused on the room and everyone in it, his charges most of all.

Finally, they’re free to go. Turgon leaves with his lords, still talking amongst themselves, and Elladan gets a short greeting from Maeglin and the Princess both before they’re on their way for the day.

At least, he thinks as they pass through the ornate gates and he avoids looking at the green livery of the workers coming in to mind the palace’s mazes and gardens, it’s a chance to get out again.

Not out of the city, though—Turgon had swiftly forbidden that when he caught Elladan fiddling with the bandage wrapped about his palm at breakfast. Apparently neither Maeglin nor Idril had seen fit to notify anyone of the incident, and if it was recorded by Maeglin’s people, they haven’t mentioned it.

Elladan had started drawing up mental plans for a guard’s log then, but hadn’t had the chance to write anything down before Maeglin insisted they be off into the city.

The prince had people to visit, apparently, so Elladan trails after him with Bregedwen and Cosdis, trying not to look as dead on his feet as he feels. He can go a long way under a lot of stress without resting, but eventually it always catches up to him. The trouble with being a half-elf, he supposes.

They make it through three appointments before Maeglin notices. The mole lord doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by their accident the previous day—at least, on the surface. Elladan can feel something uneasy swirling around the walls of younger elf’s fëa, though he doesn’t dig too deeply for the sake of Maeglin’s privacy.

The little lord has his focused face on the whole morning, intent on his course of action for the day. First to the Quarrier’s Guild and then to his own House of miners, to inform the lot of the new cave-in. They’ll have to send out scouts to ascertain the new safety level of the area, and rearrange other sites to ensure expected income is still received while the northernmost mine is under reconstruction longer than initially planned.

Then to the Apothecary Guild, which is technically also Glorfindel’s House, to cut a deal of some sort on healing products for insurance while the north mines are riskiest. Maeglin had left that meeting grumpy, though he’d had his guards wait in the hall so Elladan can’t be sure what in particular he’s upset about.

By the time lunch rolls around, Elladan is in the process of retreating entirely into himself in a low energy state. His father had taught him to do this before the war for Angmar, in order to rest on his feet whilst still maintaining necessary function, though he’d warned against doing it too often, especially in a place as suddenly changeable as a war camp. They’re safe in the city, so it should be fine.

Maeglin’s fingers snapping in front of his face pull Elladan back to the moment, the scope his senses shrinking once more to one focused point, rather than the broad blanket he’d spread out. They’re outside a small, wire-gated garden café in front of a large many-fountained courtyard, presumably about to go in and find seats.

“—said lunch,” the lord says, frowning at him. “Are you alright, Captain?”

Elladan blinks, sways slightly, and shifts his feet to steady himself. “Fine,” he says.

“Captain,” Bregedwen cuts in, serious, “are your injuries hurting you much? If you can’t be present for the job you should head back up to the palace and get some more rest. Just send someone else down.”

She doesn’t sound as if she means it cruelly, but still Elladan can’t help bristling a bit. He’s served longer shifts than this in worse conditions. He’s seen more injury than a little rock fall; he didn’t even lose that much blood!

He takes a deep breath and forces back the part of him that wants to object to all of this. It doesn’t suit his cover, not really. And it is admittedly a bit unprofessional. He expects the best from his guardsmen, and yet doesn’t present himself at his best… not a great look.

This contemplation must take more time than he feels it does, for a hand on his shoulder snaps him out of it, which suggests they’ve already tried calling his name.

It’s Maeglin’s hand, it turns out, and the lord himself looks more concerned than before. “Did you even sleep?” he asks.

“Ah—” says Elladan.

Maeglin frowns harder and shakes his head. “You’re not seriously injured from yesterday, are you? You looked fine…”

Elladan appreciates that unlike his siblings, Legolas, and most of the people who raised him, Maeglin does not immediately resort to investigating under his clothing in case he’s hiding anything. (It was warranted three times out of ten, but it’d have been nice if they had actually believed him now and then.)

“No,” he says, “just bruising. And—” he waves his bandaged hand self-explanatorily. “Tired. I’m fine.”

Maeglin does not look convinced. “You ought to return to the palace,” he says.

Elladan opens his mouth and— “That’s an order, Captain.” —is immediately shot down.

His teeth click together as his mouth snaps shut jerkily. “Fine,” he says. “Yes, alright, your highness. I’ll go.”

And go he does. Shaking himself slightly, Elladan leaves Bregedwen and Cosdis to mind Maeglin and turns back toward the upper levels of Gondolin and the palace. Though he hasn’t been much in the city, it’s fairly simple to return the way he came, and even if he got lost, the simplest solution in the hilltop city is always to go up.

Up, from where they are, happens to lead him through the fountain courtyard, past the large central basin. Four other fountains sprout like marble trees from their planter bed-like basins in large crescents around the largest, oval fountain. Inside the largest, a fair grove of smooth, gold-veined trees crowds together on an island-like plinth of the same material. Water trails down from off many of the intricate silvery leaves each marble tree sports, forming a willowlike effect and a multitude of delicate ripples.

The ripples don’t reach the edge of the largest fountain, and the sun’s shine off the still water catches Elladan’s eye as he passes it.

Despite the rich power of his blood, from both of his grandmothers—particularly Galadriel, even having studied under her—and the oddly doubling effect of his mixed heritage, Elladan has not had a single vision in his entire life. His brother hasn’t either, nor his sister. Their father is more likely to be struck with the occasional premonition than any of them.

He’s found himself snorting at the irony every now and then, going about as a “Seer” in Gondolin. But the pretense does what he needs it to.

Not that he particularly wants to be a Seer. They’d had an elfling come through Imladris on her way to the Grey Havens with her family a few hundred years ago; the girl had such strong Sight that Galadriel had recommended she sail for her own safety as visions often left her insensate for hours at a time. The visions themselves were never of anything the girl could identify, but they left her with a permanently haunted expression and a wan, tired disposition.

Elladan realizes that that’s far from the experience of most Seers, but at the same time he can’t say he’s interested. He’s content for now with the knowledge he has, at least until its usefulness runs out.

All this to say that Elladan has never Seen once in his life, nor has he wanted to.

And yet, what he catches a glimpse of in the lightly rippling reflection of the fountain is definitely and absolutely a vision.

Elladan blinks, and stares. Sound begins to filter in, clattering metal and snarling orcish voices. The flickering, uncertain lighting suggests a tunnel of some sort but a kind of filmy gauziness over the water distorts too much for clarity. Before Elladan realizes he’s doing it, he reaches out to swipe the obstruction out of the way.

The instant his fingertips brush the water, Elladan’s mind is overwhelmed. Darkness, fire, and shouting voices in Black Speech he can only half parse wash over him, tearing jaggedly at his senses.

Elladan hasn’t had an episode in years. In the decades after the incident, he’d often been set off by sounds and sights every other week or so; usually he’d frozen up completely in response, or on worse days, taken everything around him to be hostile and attempted to defend himself from the people who were trying to help him.

He has yet to forgive himself for breaking his father’s nose and the arm of a helpful guardsman who’d been passing by the worst time.

He can hardly help it, though he hates to be trapped in his own mind so. What’s really incredible is that Angband failed to trigger any of the fractured memories of his period in captivity. Elladan attributes that to his time in Lothlorien with his grandmother, learning to wrap up his inner mind and protect himself even as his body continues to act without.

He’d had one panic attack upon landing in Angband before Elrohir managed to haul him into a hidden alcove and calm him down.

The water he can’t see beyond the black and red clouding his vision closes over him as he topples fully into the fountain with a splash he barely hears.

At the moment there’s no one to pull him back, no one to remind him where he is and what he needs to be doing, and the water flooding into his mouth and up his nose doesn’t help. Elladan is all too suddenly trapped and helpless, all of his old wounds beginning to scream again as he flails.

The blind terror like liquid lightning through his veins is freezing cold, and Elladan can’t feel anything else.

:::

Glorfindel wasn’t spying—he was just passing through. Repeatedly. Conveniently around the district Prince Maeglin and his guards have been making their way through on business in the city.

He’s not sorry for his own nosiness, and he’s even less sorry when the proximity means he sees Captain Gil-henë lean over the water of the main fountain in the courtyard beside the restaurant Maeglin had stepped into, looking a bit odd, then promptly take a header into it. A large splash follows, and what looks like flailing.

Glorfindel is running before he thinks to give a shout for other people nearby. He sees Maeglin dash out the gate of the restaurant’s garden seating as well, but ignores him for the moment in favor to stripping off his cloak and diving into the water after Gil-henë.

The fountain is far deeper than it appears; Ecthelion’s people study light and color when they’re not busy with the plumbing, and have determined specific depths for the best viewing of the tiled mosaics the bottoms of most fountains in Gondolin feature. Unfortunately, few of them are particularly shallow.

Glorfindel takes hold of the struggling elf and hauls him towards the surface even as he continues to throw his limbs about heedlessly.

The golden warrior heaves himself up to the side of the pool, then curses and lets go to catch Gil-henë’s skull before it cracks against the marble ledge. Before they can go under again though, thin hands reach down from over the edge and catch under the guard captain’s shoulders, pulling him up. Glorfindel pushes as best he can to help, and catches a look at the half-elf’s eyes.

They’re wide in a way Glorfindel would usually associate with terror, pupils blown huge and jerking here and there with a crazed lack of focus. They look filmy, too, grey where there should be black, near-white instead of steel grey.

Then Maeglin hauls Gil-henë up over the edge and tries to pin him to the ground as he thrashes. Glorfindel pushes himself up after the captain’s dead weight and comes to his knees beside him on the ground.

Gil-henë has stopped thrashing by the time Maeglin—and his guards beside him—have him fully laid out, but there’s no motion of his chest to show he’s breathing, and Glorfindel didn’t see him spit up any water on the way out. A slap gets no response, so he begins forceful resuscitation.

Glorfindel knows healing of a more medicinal sort than physical, but everyone on the ice had learned this technique when they first found it worked. Hands clasped over each other over Gil-henë’s sternum, Glorfindel begins to rhythmically press against the spot as hard as he can, putting all his strength into each impact.

People are gathering now, restaurant goers and a few city guards. Glorfindel spares half a thought for the last time he pulled Gil-henë out of a fountain, then sets it aside for later. He’s not even sure if the boy actually knows how to swim.

“You’re going to break his—” Maeglin starts.

“I know,” Glorfindel grits out, and drops all his weight onto Gil-henë’s chest until the half-elf begins to choke and water starts spluttering from his mouth. Gil-henë twitches, coughing raggedly as more water pours out of his throat. Maeglin takes initiative to turn the captain on his side when Glorfindel sits back, then helps hold him like that as he convulses.

Gil-henë doesn’t come back to himself immediately, even once he seems to half coughed up half the fountain—how he swallowed that much water in the first place is a mystery Glorfindel doesn’t know will ever be solved.

Glorfindel takes the half-elf’s face in his hands to examine it—he lifts one eyelid with his thumb to find the eye beneath still unfocused and cloudy, though the pupil has contracted again to a more normal size.

“Is this—every time?” Maeglin whispers beside him, sounding small and vulnerable. Glorfindel catches himself before giving the boy a sharp look; he hardly deserves it for being frightened for his friend.

“I don’t know,” he says shortly. He’s never been inclined to prophecy or Sight like some in his family. “Come, let’s bring him to the healing halls.”

He’s pretty sure he did actually break a rib or two, which means it’s now 2-0 for fountains versus Gil-henë. Glorfindel purses his lips; he shouldn’t be joking at a time like this.

“Fetch your uncle,” he says to Maeglin, and scoops the captain on the ground into his arms to carry him away. The city guards clear a path through the curious onlookers, and Glorfindel tries to ignore the thread of worry he feels over how light the half-elf in his arms is as he goes.

Gil-henë is very light, for a half elf. Or, what Glorfindel imagines the weight of a half elf should be. Heavier, in theory, than a full elf. He decides not to be concerned about it as he hurries up through the city and into the palace.

In the palace’s rarely-used (thankfully) but well-stocked infirmary, the healers are quick to take charge of Gil-henë, ushering Glorfindel back out into the ward proper as the captain is situated in a private room. Glorfindel finds a bench to sit on, then waits for Maeglin to arrive with Turgon.

One of the healers sticks her head out to announce that Gil-henë is awake just as Turgon comes down the hall, flanked by a scurrying Maeglin with both of their guards in tow. The Royal Guard are tense and serious—it can only be a good thing if they’ve bonded with their captain so early, Glorfindel thinks.

“Right this way,” the healer ushers the king and his lords inside, leaving the guards in the waiting area.

“My apologies for this incident,” Gil-henë says right away, sitting up against his pillows with his arms tucked around his stomach defensively. “It won’t happen again.”

Glorfindel wants to chastise the boy for acting like a soldier when he should be a patient, but that is not his place, at the moment.

Turgon, for his part, shakes his head. “I have to doubt it’s entirely your own fault. Please, tell me what happened. Was it your Sight?”

Gil-henë winces, but nods. “In part,” he says. “I—what I Saw reminded me of, of being captured. I didn’t mean to fight, or anything, but—"

“You were trapped in memory. You see things that aren’t there, even without the visions,” Turgon says, his expression shrewd.

Gil-henë sighs. “My—the healers call it sense-memory, in warriors,” he says. “Hauntings of battles past.”

Turgon nods. “My cousin, Maedhros, suffered the same long after his captivity,” he explains. “As, I imagine, do you. What exactly did you See?”

“Tunnels,” Gil-henë closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again to give the king a serious look. “Under the earth, deep and hot and crowded with orcs. They are plotting an attack of some kind. Where, I know not, though I have to imagine somewhere under Anfauglith if they mean to come for a Noldorin stronghold.”

“Hm,” says Turgon. To Glorfindel, his expression reads as considering, and still somewhat concerned. The young captain of the guard must see something different, though, as he pushes himself up to sit straighter.

“It will not ruin me as a guard,” he promises. “It has not, before. It was only the vision that triggered it.”

Glorfindel doesn’t like the implication that there was enough trauma before Angband itself to incite sense-memory of it.

Turgon places a hand gently on the captain’s shoulder. “Before, you had not been to Angband,” he points out.

Gil-henë shakes his head. “That is hardly the only hardship I have faced in my life, your Majesty. I have not let it make less of me.”

“I don’t doubt that,” says Turgon peaceably. “You should rest, all the same.”

Turgon is a good king, Glorfindel believes that in his heart. It can be difficult to balance the power and responsibility with kindness and grace, but the Nolofinwean does his best.

But even the best king does have responsibilities, and one of those is defending himself in the interest of defending his kingdom, and so when Gil-henë insists on maintaining his guardship after only one day of rest, Turgon agrees. Glorfindel privately does not, but he’ll keep that to himself. He too has responsibilities; to his friend, and to his king.

Well, they will see where things stand tomorrow. For now, Gil-henë really should rest.

“Here,” says Maeglin, pouring the half-elf a glass from a pitcher of water brought in by an orderly. “We’ll get you something to eat, too, then you should sleep.”

Gil-henë eyes the glass oddly for a moment, but takes it cautiously and raises it to his lips with a softly spoken “Thank you.”

No sooner has he taken a sip, however, then his hand begins to shake violently and his eyes glaze over with filmy grey. The remaining water splashes from the glass before a paling Maeglin can take it back, re-soaking the damp front and collar of Gil-henë’s captain’s livery.

The lord of the moles grabs the glass when it slips from Gil-henë’s spasming fingers as the captain coughs, spluttering and choking.

“Shit,” says Glorfindel, pushing himself from his seat.

“Another vision?” Turgon asks.

Glorfindel nods sharply and places his hand on the half-elf’s chest even as the shaking subsides. “They are not kind to him, I think.”

“No,” says Turgon distantly, a bit wide-eyed. “I gathered.”

Suddenly Gil-henë gasps for a deep breath and spits up the rest of the water, nearly convulsing again on the bed. He groans.

“By all of Ossë’s storms,” he chokes out, “he’s—fuck, he’s—oh Eru, what have we done?”

:::

Erestor pats the breast pocket of his trailing traveling coat to make sure the letter still sits safely within. There’s no reason it shouldn’t as he hasn’t moved it, and he’s not normally so nervous, but it’s a comfort to know that his father’s defense is with him and he’s in dire need of comfort.

What exactly his head of house— High Lord— father’s brother— his Lord Uncle can do to Doriath from Himring is not something Erestor is going to consider too hard. He’s sure it’s all laid out in explicit detail in the message he bears anyway.

Not exactly a comforting thought, that—bringing Thingol a letter no doubt threatening to do all sorts of terrible things to him—but some part of Erestor where his father’s blood is strongest finds the sentiment kinder than it might be. Especially in times like these.

With a jolt, Erestor remembers the fate of Doriath in the time his—his niece and nephews came from. It would be odd that all of it’s not on his mind constantly, if not for the fact that he’s been doing his best to forget every bit of it.

He doesn’t like to think that his father could— he’s not sure if he’s more upset with the cantankerous elf for marching on Doriath, or having the gall to die and leave Erestor alone without him.

Erestor can only really be glad that neither Gilion nor Gil-neth were actually present then to have those in-person memories; the textbook-like recital was quite enough, thanks. He’s glad they weren’t born yet, either. He’s glad they’ve known peace in their lives.

Their long lives. Erestor is not entirely sure, but there’s a good chance that the pair of them are older than his father, and his new “brother” Lilthanoss definitely is. And he raised Lilthanoss. There’s something terrifying about that that he’s trying not to think too hard about lest he come face to face with it.

Lilthanoss… the idea of him had rested strangely in Gil-neth and Gilion’s minds. There was deep love that Erestor can only really equate to his own relationship with his father, but a kind of… knowing, too. An unquiet worry.

Unlike Erestor, his niece and nephew don’t seem to believe in their father. Or, no. That’s not quite it. They believe things about him—things that Erestor, through their eyes and memories, could come to believe too—but what’s missing is a… cloak against the cold feeling. A bulwark against the world. A steadiness. It must be terrible, to be so untethered.

Erestor turns to Gil-neth at his right, pauses, then asks, as gently as he knows how: “How is your father, do you think?”

It makes sense for an elf to ask after his brother. Erestor can keep a secret as well as anyone raised in his father’s house might.

The six guards Lord Maedhros had sent out with them are arrayed around them on horseback and he watches their ears flick and swivel warily, but they’ve been doing that off and on anyway, observing everything about the road for danger. Somewhere out in the long grass and shrubby trees is Huan, as well, charging about on his mostly-healed paw and sniffing everything he can find six ways to seventh day.

Gil-neth’s lips twist though she evidently tries to tamp down on the expression. “I imagine it must be difficult not to break down screaming at odd hours.”

“…ah,” says Erestor.

Gil-neth smirks at him, and it’s not a pretty expression even on her enchanting face. Then the expression drops. “My apologies,” she sighs. “It is only that I know my father. He’s a somewhat more… mercurial creature than he’s often given credit for, and we shall have to keep careful watch on him once we find him.”

Erestor frowns.

“There is a grand scope of things he can hide behind acting fine,” she adds, which doesn’t make him feel much better.

Gilion, who’d been riding ahead of them with the head guard, Captain Candaras, scanning the tall waving grass stretching away to their right, twists in his seat to point at his sister. “Did you just call Ada mercurial?”

Gil-neth makes a face at him. “I did. What of it?”

Gilion opens his mouth, then pauses. “I was going to defend his honor,” he starts.

“But you know I’m right,” says Gil-neth.

“Who says being mercurial is a bad thing?” Gilion asks, slowing his horse to walk beside them on his sister’s other side.

Gil-neth rolls her eyes. “The persona shifts are just delightful! You can really tell when he’s being grandfather, and when he’s being grandmother. I particularly enjoy catching him before his morning tea and wondering why anyone has ever considered this ungroomed raccoon any kind of intellectual, much less a wise lord.”

“Now that’s just not fair,” Gilion says with a laugh, as if they aren’t cheerfully disparaging their own father right in front of Erestor’s face. “Being a functional person isn’t required before at least two cups of tea in the morning, everyone knows that!”

“Are you trying to tell me that our good father, the Captain of the Night Brigade himself, isn’t a functional person?”

Gilion groans and his sister arches her brows at him imperiously. At Erestor’s curious look, the twin explains: “My brother and I, when we were much younger—”

“You can’t have been that much younger,” Erestor twitches his ears pointedly.

Gilion’s eyes flicker to the head guard’s back, and he continues in an impressively upbeat tone, “Well of course not, but every youngster likes to think themself well and worldly! When we were a bit younger, then, our father made the mistake of telling us stories of his husband, who had passed before we came along.”

“Oh?” They’ve determined that Lilthanoss was raised in Brethil and Erestor in Thargelion, so it only makes sense that he knows little of his “brother’s” life and loves.

“Aye,” says Gilion, his bright cheer dimming slightly. Erestor doesn’t remember without digging through the memories if he knows to whom his nephew refers. “A great elf was he—”

The last whose realm was fair and free, Gil-neth whispers between their minds, between the mountains and the sea.

“And he fell to the darkness so that we might have light yet, in our woods,” says Gilion. A slight smile creeps in again, and then Erestor watches the peredhel visibly muster his good cheer. “Unfortunately, when our father told us the stories, he may have put overmuch emphasis on the darkness. His husband had perished, after all. Naturally, as small children do, we grew afraid at the talk of orcs, wargs, and giant spiders.”

Never in his life has Erestor doubted that his father would do his utmost to protect him from any and all comers. But aye, he can understand fear.

“All of them creatures that lurk in the dark,” Gilion continues, “and thus the dark became a menace.”

“Ah,” says Erestor.

“Indeed,” Gil-neth puts in, eye sparkling. “They were very afraid.”

Gilion flaps a hand at her. “You weren’t even born yet, little gem, leave off! There were some hijinks, aye, and small amounts of fearful childhood hysteria, then our mother suggested—apparently, we were only told this later—that a great foe carrying the spirit of Gi— of a shining hero of old might come and banish the terrors.”

Erestor can see where this is going. “What did he do? Your father?”

“First he tried to beg off,” Gil-neth takes up the tale with the air of one well-experienced in telling it, “for the captain of the guard then had the most brilliant blond hair, and our father thought that surely this would be more comforting to his children.”

“But our captain refused, claiming that he could not hold such a spirit inside as that of the old hero, Gil—” Gilion pauses, then says more softly, “Gil-galad.”

Oh. Well, Erestor supposes that makes some heartbreaking amount of sense.

In this world, if they succeed in keeping Fingon alive—and they must, for all that comes after his death seems to have been senseless tragedy after senseless tragedy—perhaps there will be no need for another elven king to fall to the dark. Hopefully.

“You are named for him?” Erestor asks, before he remembers that the names he’s been drilling himself to say correctly are not those that Lilthanoss’s children were born into.

“Ah,” says Gilion, “in a roundabout sense.”

He looks to his sister and something passes between them that Erestor narrows his eyes at. Perhaps another reason to mind their father.

“In any case,” Gil-neth says brightly, shaking her head. “The captain of the guard would not do it. No other had known our father’s husband so well as our father himself, nor did anyone else carry such a spirit as his that remembered Gil-galad.”

“So he must take up the fight,” Erestor surmises. He tries to picture his new brother armed in the garb of play-war. He tries to picture his new brother at all.

Hair, like that of his children, black so deep it looks blue in the sunlight. Short, because his children are, and while Caranthir is not the least of his brothers in that respect, he’s only holding Maglor off by so much. (Only, Caranthir is not Lilthanoss’s real father, and it surprises Erestor to have that thought only in retrospect.) Brown, because everyone in their family is—perhaps Fingon’s deep, rich brown, that he’d glimpsed on one sole occasion, or Gil-neth’s lighter tawny hue.

Some part of Erestor wants to think he looks like me, and then his logic makes him baulk and shy, bouncing back to the colors of their family, and those he can only guess at of Luthien’s.

“Indeed,” Gilion murmurs, calling back Erestor’s wandering mind. “So he took an old cloak of Gil-galad’s from storage, did up his hair in braids of battle, and painted his face with the colors of his fallen husband.”

It probably didn’t occur to the child that Gilion was then how much doing so must have hurt his father. He knows now, evidently, by the soft hurt in his tone.

“And then battle he did,” Gil-neth says, with old nostalgia in her voice, despite her absence from the story in question. “Our mother and the captain of the guard” and you, too “made shadow puppet monsters to charge across the walls in the Hall of Fire. One by one the nightmares came crawling, and one by one Ada put them down.”

“With much roaring and growling and gnashing of teeth,” says Gilion with a smile that says more than Erestor understands, “because Glaur is an uncontrollable fiend.”

That must be the captain of the guard.

Gil-neth laughs. “And much yelping, too.” Once you got ahold of him.

The history they’re shared with him was far from the complete line of their lives; Erestor had seen nothing of himself or any other concrete person. It was more a passing over of knowledge. Devastating knowledge, aye, but impersonal for the most part. He cannot parse the odd gaps in the information they’re giving him, nor is he certain he should try to.

We were… friends? he checks. This “Glaur” and I?

Oh yes, says Gil-neth, though Gilion hesitates.

For his own sake, Erestor doesn’t press. Whatever came to pass in their time may come again in this one, or it may not. No use pondering the possibilities until they arrive.

They pass the rest of the day sharing stories of their respective childhoods as they ride down towards Doriath—Erestor’s are far sparser than the siblings Lilthanossili, but he has to guess from their reactions that they’ve never heard them before anyway. Something about that rankles. Certainly, he’s not naturally a very outgoing person, but he raised these children, so what had gone wrong?

“The master of arms had us all thrown in the lake,” he finishes a tale of childish exploits with a few of his dwarven and human fellows. “She was really very upset—more than we thought she ought to be.” He rolls his eyes fondly. “Father told her off for it, but only because I was late to dinner on account of needing to change.”

“Dinner,” Gil-neth pauses, “where you, served?”

Erestor purses his lips for a moment before nodding. “Whatever you may be thinking of my father,” he says, “it was not cruelty. He only meant to protect me, and that he did.”

Gil-neth eyes him a bit skeptically at that, which Erestor would let slide if he were inclined to think charitably of people speaking ill of his father. Which he is most certainly not.

“Surely assigning guards to a lordling of the House of Fëanor would be more protective?” She sounds as though she’s trying to be kind, and gentle. He doesn’t need any of it; Erestor has his father’s assurances enough, resting like a cloak upon him.

“The House of Fëanor has its own dangers within,” he points out. “And to hold such a name is to close doors upon yourself that would otherwise remain ajar.”

Erestor is very conscious of the guards around them, but he doesn’t actually care enough to mind his tongue. If they don’t like his opinion, then they can take it up with his father, whose thoughts he modeled it after.

“Surely you don’t mean the Oath,” Gil-henë jumps in, frowning. “There’s no evidence that it transfers generations. Celebrimbor—"

“Celebrimbor came before the Oath,” Erestor cuts him off. He remembers well what had happened, or will happen to his cousin. “He had a place in the hearts of his family before it did.”

Gil-neth’s eyes widen. “You are not afraid of it,” she murmurs, “but of those it holds.”

“No,” says Erestor firmly. “I fear it not at all. My father cares about me more than any jewel or golden hoard, and he loved my mother the same. He is not—” but there’s Daeron, isn’t there? “—fickle in this way. It is only the possibility of… pressure.”

“Surely you don’t think—” Gil-neth starts.

“That Lord Maedhros would use me to steer my father?” Erestor asks. “Yes, I’m quite sure he would, if he needed to.” Did he not kidnap and attempt to ransom yours? “Why do you think he sent Lilthanoss away, if not to keep that bond from growing over-strong?”

Gilion’s lips have turned down completely from his typical jovial expression. “That is a cruel way to think of it,” he says.

Erestor leans over so that he may speak to his niece and nephew more quietly: “Lord Maedhros has seen much cruelty. If there are any who know that best, they are his brothers. I trust my father to know his brother’s mind better than I, and so I will ever do as he says in regards to it.”

“You trust this over your own judgement?” Gilion asks.

Erestor settles back in his seat and shrugs. “I am young yet,” he admits. “I know little enough of the world.”

Gilion and his sister share a long look.

“Blind trust will not serve you well,” Gilion warns quietly.

“I know that,” Erestor mutters. And he does, he does. But he loves his father too—more, in some ways, than Gilion and Gil-neth seem to. “It is not blind. I only have a bit of faith. I believe you could stand to as well.”

Lilthanoss’s children are silent, having nothing to say to that.

“Hold!” a guard calls out ahead of them, and Erestor looks up as sharply as the siblings do, reigning in his horse.

A figure limps along the road ahead of them, tall and broad-shouldered, with a long and obvious sword belted at their hip.

“Who goes there?” the guard demands.

The figure—an elf, by their height, stops and looks up. Their dark hair is caught in a single thick braid, messy with the strain of travel, flyaway strands sticking to their forehead, pale and dirt-smudged.

“I am Celebrimbor, son of none, most recently of Nargothrond, and I have completed my quest. You,” he points at Arwen with one shaking finger, “you look like your father.”

A sudden crashing sounds in the underbrush, the tall grass waving and jerking violently. Before Celebrimbor has the chance to turn and draw his sword, Huan leaps from the side of the path, boofing wildly, and tackles the smith to the ground.

Gilion and Gil-neth look at each other, then spur their horses on swiftly past the head guard, stopping and dismounting when they reach the elf and dog on the ground. Erestor follows hurriedly behind them.

“Oof, Huan,” Celebrimbor is grumbling as Erestor dismounts. “Get off me, thou knowest I detest thy slobber, hound.”

Huan gives him a final long lick up the side of the face for good measure, then backs off so Gilion can offer his hand to help the smith up.

Erestor has heard of his cousin, of course he has; his father’s people are mostly the people of Fëanor, and his (eldest) grandchild is their widely recognized pride and joy. Celebrimbor is much as he’d expected; tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair, dark brows, high cheekbones, and skin lighter than Erestor’s father’s. His fingers are suspiciously ring-less, though, and he bears none of the trappings Erestor would have expected, dressed instead in muddied traveling clothes. He has a small traveling pack with him, but little else.

“Thank you,” he says to Gilion with a gracious smile. His hands are oddly clean too, Erestor notices, compared to the rest of him.

“’Twas hardly a trouble,” Gilion says cheerfully. “I am Gilion, and that is my sister Gil-neth, and our uncle Erestor, son of Caranthir. Gil-neth does take after our father, that’s true, but pray, how came you to know of him?”

“Well met,” says Celebrimbor with a short bow. “I am afraid it is a lengthy tale, and not a very nice one, in most ways. Your father is well, and on the way to Doriath, last I heard, though of the goings on in those woods I know naught.”

“Ah,” says Gilion. “But still, we would hear it. Shall you sit with us then and share it, or must you continue on up the road this morn?”

Celebrimbor smiles again, tired but kind. “In truth,” he says, “I only came up this way with intent to find you, my friend, and your sister. I have a matter I believe you may be able to help me attend. So wherever you are headed is my new destination, I suppose!”

“Doriath it is then!” Gilion claps the smith heartily on the shoulder.

“In that case,” Gil-neth steps in smoothly, “would you care to ride with us? I doubt the journey has been easy for you.”

Celebrimbor spreads his hands in acceptance that hangs just over the edge of supplication. “If you would be so kind as to share,” he acquiesces.

“Certainly we will!” Gilion says, as magnanimous as any noble lord. “You shall ride with me until we make camp this evening, and tell us your tale as we go.”

“That sounds well,” says Celebrimbor, dipping his head.

They mount up once more and allow the guards to hem them in again before they continue on. A few of the soldiers give Celebrimbor friendly waves or solemn salutes.

Celebrimbor has much to tell them of goings on in the south. He has come from Nargothrond, he says, after Curufin and Celegorm ousted Finrod, and were then ousted in turn upon Finrod’s unexpected return. A return he suspects is due largely to the actions of Lilthanoss.

As for why he was on the road to Himring in the first place, alone, as rough as it is—he’ll lay no claim to any Fëanorian troops, nor to Finrod’s people, but he’d heard that Gil-neth and Gilion were in Himring, and so north he came.

“What have you need of us so badly for?” Gil-neth asks, tipping her head curiously.

“Ah,” Celebrimbor leans back from where he’s seated against Gilion’s back to pull his pack around and rifle through it. “I have here… your father gave me some notes—”

“Gave you his notes?” Gilion’s eyebrows shoot up, not that Celebrimbor can probably see it as he comes up with a handful of worn and rumpled pages.

“Mhm,” says Celebrimbor, too quickly. “Notes on myself. Unfortunately, I cannot read them. He did not warn me he uses some kind of healer's cipher—”

Gilion interrupts him with a chuckle. “No, my friend, it is no cypher. I am familiar with this problem of yours. Gladly, I will help you translate. That is what you sought us out for, no?”

“Indeed,” says Celebrimbor with an indulgent smile. “Pray then, for what purpose are his notes so…”

“Unintelligible?” Gil-neth suggests with a laugh of her own. “I’m afraid that’s just his handwriting, my friend. He has a tremor.”

“He is a healer!” says Celebrimbor, a bit aghast.

Gilion nods. “And he’ll stitch straighter lines than you’ve ever seen on sword blades if he needs to. But if he’s only writing, that’s not nearly so important.”

Gil-neth tips her head back, reminiscing. “I think the sharpest script I’ve ever seen from him was on—” she pauses, “on a wedding invitation to our grandmother. She would’ve stayed home out of pettiness for a single jagged tengwa.”

Gilion snickers. “He spent weeks on that alone. And then he had to write Thranduil!”

This is apparently a greater affront, as Gil-neth gets a laugh out of it as well.

“But it’s—” Celebrimbor starts, “it’s—”

“I know,” Gilion pats him on the knee comfortingly. “It’s terrible. It was cruel of him to give it to you in its rawest form. Luckily, I have practice picking it apart.”

“I thought you might,” Celebrimbor nods, looking only slightly mollified. Erestor supposes that as the grandson of the Tengwar’s inventor, he has a right to be affronted. Personally, Erestor was not raised as an heir of Fëanor, and really doesn’t care.

Evidently his niece is thinking along the same lines, as she says: “As a practitioner of the proper letters, allow me to assure you that all of our family is not nearly so liberal with their shape and function. If you wish to defend any particular legacy, I’m afraid you’ll have to take it up with him.”

Bemused, Celebrimbor shakes his head. “It was not on my mind,” he says.

Erestor means to speak up, only to find his tongue locked inexplicably behind his teeth. “What is this—this ‘son of none’ talk?” he manages after a moment, cursing himself for the stutter.

The look Celebrimbor turns on him his nearly unbearable. Painfully understanding, though Erestor can’t think the smith really knows him at all.

“I have disavowed the House of Fëanor,” Celebrimbor announces, his voice low and serious. “My father has done ill by those whom he owed his friendship and allegiance, and I can no longer trust him to do well by those to whom he owes more.”

That hardly seems fair—Erestor has only just gained him, and has now apparently lost him!

Besides that, Erestor’s thoughts skitter uncomfortably around disavowed and father. The words sit heavy in his mind, a betrayal just to think. But Erestor will never need to do such a thing; his father is good, if not always kind, and cares for him more than anything.

“I am sure,” he says, “that our House in entire is less for it.”

Celebrimbor tips his head at that and doesn’t comment further. Huan, who’d been loping about the horses merrily, lifts his nose to wuffle at Celebrimbor’s leg. The smith leans down to pet him, smiling.

They make camp as night begins to fall, finding a thicker copse of trees to lay out their bed rolls under. The weather is cool, though not wet, so they don’t have to set up any sort of canvas or shelter from the elements.

Erestor helps handle the horses—a job he’s familiar enough with to be of use rather than in the way—then joins his niece, nephew, and former(?) cousin by the fire.

Gilion has the notes in his lap while Celebrimbor sits beside him on his right and leans in close. With Gil-neth at her brother’s other elbow, there isn’t really space for Erestor to squeeze in. Stifling a short huff, he takes a seat farther to Gil-neth’s right.

One of the guards—Annuiel, if he remembers correctly from their brief introduction before they left Himring—is bickering good-naturedly with one of her fellows over ingredients in the stew and whether catching a rabbit or two would be worth it. The building scent of vegetables and herbs wafts over,

“So,” says Celebrimbor, his voice low though unstressed. “What’s the diagnosis?”

“Hold on,” says Gilion distractedly, “one moment…” his forefinger trails down the page, pausing here and there, accompanied by the occasional hum. “Ar—nethen, remind me to come back to the informed prognosis in a moment.” He looks up at Celebrimbor then, frowning. “He didn’t give you these, did he?”

“I stole them,” Celebrimbor admits, unashamed.

“I thought so,” says Gilion, “because if not—” he shares a meaningful look with his sister. Erestor is apparently still included in their osanwe bond as it sings between them. Secrecy is imperative, he says. Hypocrite!

“I would advise, in the future,” Gilion continues, with any pretense of humor leached away, “that you do not steal things from my father. You may end up with more than you bargained for.”

He probably shouldn’t have added that caveat, judging by the way Celebrimbor’s expression lights up to hear it.

“Actually,” he says, “there is another matter—”

“This first,” Gilion sighs. “You don’t have a disease, if that was what you feared. What you have is Functional Imperative Disorder. And it’s going to get worse, though there are things we can do to slow the progression and mitigate the harm.”

Erestor has never heard of that, and finds himself leaning forward at the same time as Celebrimbor.

“And that is?” the smith asks. He looks less concerned than intrigued, which… would probably not be Erestor’s reaction upon being told the same thing.

“It is not so much an illness of the body as an illness of the mind. That is what my father is most concerned with healing, so it’s no surprise that you caught the attention of his analytical brain,” says Gilion. He sounds clinical, though not as cool and detached as Erestor has heard his father’s chief healer get when he’s working. “It means there are… impulses, shall we say, that have ingrained themselves in your mind. They become habits, then necessary compulsions, which can severely impede your daily life.”

“Hm,” says Celebrimbor thoughtfully. “I did not think he saw me enough to have noticed such a thing.”

Gilion grimaces. “My father is a more perceptive fellow than many would credit him,” he says. “It is his job to notice.”

This must be a remnant of the future, Erestor realizes. Something Lilthanoss saw play out that hasn’t happened yet.

“He sites here…” Gilion points to a group of scribbles that Erestor can’t make out from where he sits, though he doubts he’d be able to decipher them were they right in front of his nose anyway, “exaggerated hand-wringing stress response, and checking. Probably counting, too.”

Celebrimbor is frowning. “I don’t… oh, well I suppose I do. But not that often. What is checking?”

“You are,” Gilion peers at the notes, “you are uncomfortable outside your safe space, and its security is always on your mind. His words, not mine. How much would you say you think about your… forge, I presume, daily?”

Celebrimbor shakes his head. He opens his mouth, then closes it. “It is only natural to worry about one’s work,” he says consternatedly.

Gilion shrugs. “To a certain degree, but then I can only tell you what my father noted. If you want a diagnosis from me, we would have to sit some somewhere safer and really hash it all out.”

“I—” says Celebrimbor, “if you—you said there is a cure?”

“Not a cure,” Gilion corrects, “but definitely steps we can take the help.”

“The prognosis,” says Gil-neth, nudging her brother with her elbow.

“Yes, that. Compulsions will grow more noticeable and begin to affect work and life over time,” he says, rote. “In a Man, this typically continues on until they pass. Symptoms can be aggravated by stress, trauma, and repeated stimulus. But with an elf… I suppose there would be no hard stopping point.”

Celebrimbor folds his fingers together in his lap, staring into the fire. He begins to shake his head, then halts the motion jerkily. “I would fain know more of this condition I have,” he says quietly. “If you would tell me.”

Gilion nods and puts a hand on the smith’s shoulder until Celebrimbor looks at him. “Of course I will. As a healer, I am sworn to succor all ills and treat every person with compassion. In that vein I tell you that this disorder will not be the end of you. You have been surviving, have you not? You will continue to survive, and we will help you thrive.”

Celebrimbor looks down for a long moment, then meets Gilion’s gaze with a firm nod. “Aye,” he says. “Thank you.”

“As to the other matter…” Gilion casts a glance across the fire, where the guards not on watch are gathered around a stump playing cards in the light of the Noldor’s faint glow. Annuiel stirs the soup idly with one hand while they chatter quietly. “I would not discuss it here, with so many ears about.”

“Is it so dangerous?” Celebrimbor appraises the half elf curiously, the spark of intrigue in his expression flaring brighter.

Gilion holds up one finger warningly. “As I said,” he replies, “do not steal things from my father. You may end up with more than you’d bargained for.”

Celebrimbor doesn’t look completely convinced, but he accepts that with a nod nonetheless. Erestor has no idea what they’re referring too at all. The conversation is then interrupted by Annuiel’s announcement that the stew is ready, following which they speak of only mundane things until they disperse to their bedrolls for the night.

Then, curled up between Gil-neth and Gilion because they wouldn’t let him lie on his own, Erestor asks.

What is the other matter you spoke of with him?

Our father’s ring of power, I have to assume, Gil-neth responds. That is the only thing of real consequence that Ada carries on him at all times that might be stolen.

Ah, Erestor’s brow furrows. That is…

Vilya is the ring of air, Gilion tells him. One of the three Celebrimbor created himself and kept secret from Sauron. Our father normally keeps it hidden, but I don’t doubt its maker could feel it.

We’ll have to tell him, then, Erestor surmises.

At his back, a feels Gil-neth shrug. “Possibly,” she breathes.

You want to leave him to figure it out on his own? Is that a good idea?

Ada is more than capable of holding onto that ring, Gilion assures him. And the less people who know about it, the better.

Erestor can’t help his frown. But surely he would manage—

“Oh froth and foam,” Gilion whispers, not incredibly furtively, “Erestor’s star struck! Or, hammer struck. Smith struck? Silver—”

“Shut up,” Erestor mutters, smacking Gilion’s shoulder and blushing furiously. “I am not.”

“He is quite a handsome creature, isn’t he?” Gilion muses, watching Celebrimbor’s stretched out form across the fire.

Erestor stares at his nephew, appalled. “Gilion! That’s our cousin! You cannot just say that!”

Gilion grins at him. “Who’s going to stop me?” he cackles.

“Gah!” Were Erestor sitting, he would throw his hands up. Instead he settles for rolling over grumpily, only to be met with Gil-neth’s equally mischievous grin, a white slash in the dark.

:::

Maglor rambles down the hallway to his brother’s rooms, humming a sloppy, disjointed tune under his breath as he goes. It’s odd to not have Huan’s claws clicking along the floor after him. The quiet makes his skin itch.

He fumbles with the door long enough that Maitimo comes to open it himself; it jerks back fast enough that Maglor just stares at his hands for a moment, wondering where the handle went.

When he looks up, Maitimo is frowning at him. “Did you need something?”

A slow smile fights to break across Maglor’s face, but doesn’t make it more than halfway, ending in a sad kind of grimace. “Just company,” he says, swaying slightly.

“You’re drunk,” says Maitimo flatly.

Maglor knows that. He sent the stupid letter by bird, and he wasn’t supposed to. He should apologize. Instead, he nods and waves the bottle in his hand in agreement, then blinks for a moment and squints at it to try and explain. It does indeed say… something, in dwarvish runes his head is spinning too quickly to pick apart.

“Yethhhh,” he says finally, the Fëanorian “lisp” which doesn’t usually affect his Sindarin slipping in. “Good of you to note—to no, to…”

“It’s rather hard to miss,” Maitimo cuts the bard off before he finds the word he’s looking for. His voice is cold, which is not very nice. Maitimo is always nice.

Maglor sways and frowns at the floor, brows furrowed enough he imagines his forehead might make an interesting print were ink and paper introduced. Perhaps like mountains… hills…

“Notice!” he cheers at last, looking up with a sliding grin. He promptly jerks backwards, finding his brother far closer than expected all of a sudden.

Maitimo catches him around the waist and sets him back upright again. Maglor leans heavily on his brother’s arm, his forehead coming to rest against the redhead’s shoulder. He feels uncomfortably woozy, but everything is better when he’s held. Especially by Maitimo. Maitimo gives the best hugs.

Maitimo… is not giving him a hug.

“Mai?” Maglor asks plaintively, too drunk to be bothered with dignity and that rot.

Maitimo sighs heavily. It’s not a good sound, and Maglor looks up worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t—” Maitimo stops, which is unusual. The statesman in him doesn’t normally accept simple slips of the tongue. “Nothing’s wrong, Maka, you’re just drunk. Let me put you to bed.”

Maglor frowns at that, something heavy and painful landing in his gut, but he can’t identify it before his brother pulls him against his side—slotting in perfectly under his arm, the monstrously tall creature—and directs them back out the door.

Maglor doesn’t remember how they got to his room, feeling nothing but foggy warmth and odd, uncomfortable heaviness as Maitimo lifts his arm off the bard’s shoulders to open the door. Maglor whines and reaches for it to pull it back, but his brother is unrelenting.

“Do you want the door open or not?” Maitimo asks.

Maglor sighs and slumps against him, dropping his entire bodyweight against the taller form though his brother hardly seems to notice.

“Could’ve—” Maglor mutters, then sighs again.

“You’re such a mess,” says Maitimo, and Maglor entertains himself with pretending he hears a fond note.

“’M fine,” says Maglor.

“And,” Maitimo leans down, down, down lower to reach Maglor’s ear, ticking the tip with his breath and making it flick, “you’re not that drunk.”

Maglor definitely has no idea what his brother is talking about. He raises his hand to show off the bottle again, only to realize it’s not there and stare blankly at his empty fingers as if he can will his favorite vice back to his side.

Maitimo doesn’t explain where the bottle went, just ushering Maglor fully into his room with another quiet sigh.

The lantern light from the hall doesn’t follow them in, and Maitimo goes to the sideboard to light a few candles once he’s seated Maglor on the bed. Maglor shudders away from the light, but can’t tear his eyes from it until Maitimo returns and blocks the view with his towering form.

“Come on,” he says, “let’s get you in bed.”

Maglor blinks, then reaches clumsily for his boots. He doesn’t like wearing shoes at all, but it’s cold in the north, and he definitely doesn’t want anyone to step on his toes.

“Stop,” says Maitimo, “I’ll deal with it. Where are your night clothes?”

Maglor is pretty sure his brother knows the layout of his room full well, but he nods to the bottom drawer of the dresser anyway, head lolling. His feet are freed a moment later, and Maglor lifts one leg, propping it on his other knee to tug weakly at his sock.

Maitimo stops him with a hand over his, then lifts Maglor’s away carefully and pushes the sock back up, though Maglor hadn’t gotten very far in pulling it down. “You’ll get cold,” he says simply. “I don’t have time to dress you tonight, Maka, so either figure out your own clothes, or let me help you under the blankets as is.”

Maglor huffs, then shuffle-crawls towards the head of the bed. He’s lifted up around the middle a moment later, Maitimo scooping him into his arms like a child. Maglor doesn’t have the wherewithal to protest, and his brother deposits him by the pillows a moment later.

Maitimo is a good brother, because Maglor doesn’t think he personally would have the patience to sort someone out, then tuck them in and give them a good-night kiss on the forehead too afterwards. But then, he doesn’t have any delusions about being able to carry normal-sized people to bed anyway.

Maitimo sits on the edge of the bed, then, smoothing the fuzz of Maglor’s braids back. Maglor, which strength he didn’t know he possessed, lunges up to wrap his arms around his brother’s neck, hanging there. His bed is too large and too empty, nowadays.

“Maglor—” says Maitimo, then just sits and pats his back gently. “I know,” he says, “I’m sorry. Shall I leave you a candle?”

“I don’t—” Maglor sobs, “I don’t want candles!”

“Alright,” Maitimo whispers, “no candles for you. I prom—I won’t make you have any candles.”

This is incredibly reassuring, but not enough to halt the flow of his tears. Tears are nice and cool on his hot skin, at least.

“I don’t like it,” Maglor mumbles. He means the flickering light but he can’t say that, can’t think about that or else he’ll remember it’s there, and he’s desperately not remembering the fire is there—fuck, the fire—Maglor sobs again and buries his face in his brother’s tunic, shoulders shaking.

“Hush,” says Maitimo, petting his hair. Maglor envies his ability to make the mouth sounds. “Just get through tonight, Maka. You won’t even remember this in the morning.”

Maglor doesn’t want to think about the morning; the night is hard enough. He doesn’t want to think about anything.

“Braids?” he asks, voice low and trembling for reasons he can’t quite parse himself.

Maitimo is quiet for a long, long time, so long that Maglor nearly falls asleep before he hears a low but firm, “No.”

So instead of falling asleep quiet and soft, from one breath to the next, Maglor goes into his dreams crying again with his brother’s hand gentle on his head, fingers lightly shifting through his hair.

He comes awake what feels like mere moments later, tear tracks still tacky on his face. The warning bells are a shrieking clamor echoing throughout Himring; Maedhros’s holdings are under attack.

Chapter Text

“We don’t know him,” says Oropher flatly. “Why don’t we know him? If he is Daeron’s son, why is this the first instance of his aiding our people?”

Luthien purses her lips for the barest moment, then says, “Lord Oropher, you know very well what evils my mother’s Girdle keeps at bay. What need does a land ever at peace have for healers?”

He doesn’t hide that he’s not pleased with the situation, nor the proposed solution, but as Beleg’s current person, it falls to him to make the decision nonetheless. Luthien does not know that weight and is grateful for it, but she suspects with just one more push—

“He has been a healer for nearly all his life,” she says, with as much assurance as she can, “and treated the ailments of elves and men alike, who you surely know are less hardy than our kind. He will do well by our Belegmain, in that I have the utmost confidence.”

Oropher sighs. “Confidence is nothing,” he says quietly. “Belief, faith… power, riches, jewels—they are all of them nothing whilst he lies still on that bed and knows not the world.”

Luthien says nothing. He doesn’t need her to. He already knows, as she does, that if there’s a chance he’s going to take it. Melian herself examined Beleg’s unconscious form with Sammareth, and her advice was to pass him on to Lilthanoss. Oropher hasn’t the faintest inkling of the true scope of knowledge and experience being offered, but that should tell him enough, surely.

“Princess,” he says, looking up after a long, silent moment. “If this doesn’t work…”

Beleg is something of a lynchpin. One of the oldest and most respected elves still making himself known in Doriath, his family is widespread and their reach is even moreso. The last thing they need as a kingdom is the loss of their own dear grandfather. Blame will be cast, and whether it lands on shoulders that can bear it is not a thing to test now, as the wider world rumbles itself into waking. If Beleg does not wake, he will leave the entire forest in jeopardy.

“It will,” says Luthien. She puts her hand on his shoulder and waits until he looks at her, though she does not know what he might see. “It will work.” It must.

After securing Oropher’s agreement to allow Lilthanoss to do his best with Beleg, Luthien goes to fetch the healer himself. She notes more than a few of his brood watching her progress through Menegroth’s cavernous halls, but none of them accost her. They can be a fractious family at times, but more than anything they are loyal. With their sire resting on the bed which may be his final one, Luthien supposes they’ll try to fix it now and complain later, in whatever form that takes.

She finds her grandson in the guest quarters he’d been given—beside Finrod’s usual suite—murmuring to himself while he braids a few butterfly-shaped beads into Pîngil’s hair. The child himself sits peaceably enough, fiddling with a wooden puzzle toy that was doubtless a gift from Luthien’s father.

Lilthanoss was made aware of the Beleg situation before Luthien went to get permission for him to help, and has his things ready when she gives the word. Pîngil is passed off to a servant to take to the king, and the time-lorn healer follows Luthien to the healing offices.

The walk is mostly silent, and though Luthien casts a pensive glance or two at her grandson, his mien remains placid and serene.

“Dost thou believe that thou wilt be able to assist?” she asks eventually, unable to stand the silence. She frowns at herself briefly; she usually has more decorum. Perhaps the stress is getting to her too.

Lilthanoss nods without pause. “Though I would have liked to be earlier on the scene, as it were,” he says, “I will still offer what aid I can.”

Sometimes the sheer breadth of Beleg’s family really is unfortunate—without Oropher’s confirmation, an unknown person wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the hunter, and Eru forbid Lilthanoss have tried to help without permission and failed. He would have been run out of Doriath before Beleg drew his last breath.

“Although,” says Lilthanoss, and Luthien looks at him sharply. “There is no guarantee, even with all my knowledge,” the healer continues somberly. “There is never a guarantee.”

Luthien has too much practice with poise and proper bearing to suck in air through her teeth like she wants too. Instead she opts to meet his gaze evenly, with a soft incline of her head. “I understand,” she says.

“See that you do,” murmurs Lilthanoss. “We cannot know all that Eru has in store for us, only believe as ever that we shall meet again in His light when the time comes.”

That has the air of a long-held mantra, worn too thin to offer more than meager comfort any more, but Luthien says naught of it. Her mother has spoken to her of the grand Themes, before; she imagines she knows a little of fate.

Oropher waits for them outside the burnished doors of the healing offices, Thranduil on his hip and Tauriel on a carved bench beside them. The young hunter’s feet swing with a jaunty flippancy that does not match her intense gaze as it sweeps over Luthien and lands on her companion.

“My lord,” Lilthanoss greets, but Luthien stops him short from bowing.

“Know who you are,” she says when he gives her a blank look. “We are the Wood, we do honor to those who meet us with our presence.”

Lilthanoss’s eyebrows sneak up on his face, but he schools his expression before turning back to Oropher. He does not bow, but still, he offers his hands, palms up. This ceremony is unfamiliar to Luthien, but she won’t interrupt.

“Unburned, these hands will aid you,” says Lilthanoss.

Strangely enough, Oropher seems to know exactly how to respond, even if—judging by the disconcerted look on his face—he’s not entirely certain how Lilthanoss knows. Perhaps it was a common practice in his time, that he hasn’t realized isn’t common yet. Well, Luthien will tell him later.

Oropher passes Thranduil to Tauriel and places his fingertips on the healer’s palms, drawing them from the heel of Lilthanoss’s hand to his fingertips. “I know them,” he replies eventually. “I accept their aid.”

“Thank you for letting me help,” says Lilthanoss, and with that he wastes no more time in making for the doors, and Sammareth and Beleg on the other side.

There’s silence for a moment, then Tauriel mutters, “Is he always like that?”

Mystified herself, Luthien shakes her head and takes a seat to wait.

The door is thick enough that hearing anything through it isn’t much of an option, and only a bare glimmer of light is visible underneath it. Oropher and Tauriel don’t bother to hide having latched onto it like it gives them life to see the faintest flashes and flares.

Thranduil is mostly quiet, half-asleep in his half-sister’s embrace, so without anything else to do, Luthien turns to watching as well as they wait.

It could be moments or it could be hours, for all that time remains a constant through their wait, before a strange Song begins to fill the corridor from under the door. The tune feels old, notes carving an ancient creature from the air, dragging its feet once more into the dawn. It is in a language Luthien is certain she knows, but the words and the meaning is lost on her.

It’s… compelling. Luthien nearly finds herself standing up—she blinks, and both Oropher and Tauriel are on their feet, though they seem too dazed to even notice they’ve stood.

The music, along with a brilliant light, seep under the door for some ageless time before disappearing in perfect unison. And then there is nothing.

Oropher and Tauriel sway back to themselves in moments, and moments later they’re both hammering on the door.

“Wait—” Luthien follows them, hands up placatingly.

Oropher spins on her with an expression both elated and desperate in pained confusion. “It worked,” he says fervently. “It must have worked—come, let us see him.”

“Wait,” Luthien repeats, this time cool and stern. “If the work is not complete, we must not interrupt.”

The look on Oropher’s face suggests objection is imminent, but they’re spared that confrontation by the contended door opening and Sammareth’s head poking out. Some of her hair has escaped its careful braid and floats about her face like an aura.

“Come,” she says, and doesn’t have to say more.

Luthien, slipping in behind Beleg’s immediate family, observes. The hunter himself lies abed quietly, looking distinctly groggy. Luthien hates to see him so weak, but at the very least he is awake.

“Beleg,” says Oropher, with a violent urgency that Luthien knows herself.

Beleg opens his mouth, then begins to cough. Lilthanoss is quick with a half-empty cup of water and a hand on the hunter’s back, and soon enough Beleg is croaking out a greeting.

Luthien politely tunes out the little family’s murmuring to each other, looking instead to the evident source of their salvation. Her mother, she knows, possibly could have tried the same, but not with the same chance of success, doubtlessly. While Melian is capable of taking some pain from a person and aiding with the healing of new wounds, that’s usually a form of growth. Fiddling with the delicate internal workings of the firstborn is not under her purview, nor is it an activity she’ll attempt.

Lilthanoss looks tired, but not unwell. He has a small basket on the table beside him, and tucks in the thick cloth covering what it holds as she watches. His Silmaril, she supposes. The one he took from Carcharoth.

She has yet to touch it, or even see much of it; he is protective of it, in a way that makes her wonder whether it is the gem or those around it that he truly protects. It must be powerful—she doesn’t doubt he used it to aide his Song for Beleg.

Luthien’s attention is drawn back to the matter at hand by Tauriel’s tap on her arm. Oropher gives her a glance, then turns to Lilthanoss.

“Our family is in your debt,” says Oropher, and Luthien understands that he wanted her as a witness. Thranduil had migrated to his arms at some point, and the lord shifts the boy so that he can bow properly, his hand passing from his forehead to his mouth and then to his heart for honor, service, and devotion. “If there is ought we can do for you and yours—"

“No,” says Lilthanoss, firmly but without true censure. “There will be no debts between us. Into whatsoever houses I enter,” he continues, with the weight of a vow in his tone, “I shall enter to help the sick. I shall take naught but good tidings with me for my work is that of Este and Eru above, and as all things are His in this world, all things are granted to His people, and nothing I have need of is denied to me.”

Luthien catches Sammareth’s questioning look, and privately shares the sentiment.

“Part of an oath sworn by a Man I met once, who dedicated no less than her very life and death to the practice of healing,” Lilthanoss explains, with a small smile that speaks of fond memory. “Though people are not always so kind to those who are kind to them, I have not found such a code lacking yet.”

“Ah,” Oropher says slowly. “Then take not debt but gratitude. Know that… if you should need more than what is offered by those who need you, our family will assist you and yours in what ways we can.”

The smile Lilthanoss grants him is surely a thing of the West itself, like the last gleamings of the sun before a long and welcoming starry night. “In that, I trust.”

:::

The most astonishing thing about the letter is that he gets it at all, at least until he opens it.

Fingon receives it early in the evening along with news of an utterly exhausted bird now resting in the dovecote. Orien is not back from the care of her tutors yet, and Ammuiawen is out as well—probably in the main council offices, working.

Fingon sits on the couch, curls into the corner, and stares at the letter without opening it as the light slowly fades outside. He has things he needs to be doing, but no matter how he tries, he can’t bring himself to open it, nor put it aside for later.

He misses the beginning of dinner, apparently, because a servant comes to fetch him, knocking cautiously on the main doors to the suit.

“Come in,” says Fingon, listens to the summons, then says, “Thank you, please go away.”

The servant fetches his wife.

“Fingon,” she says as she sweeps in, then she sees him and pauses. “Oh,” she says more gently, coming to sit beside him. “You’ve made your kohl run, dear.”

Fingon blinks slowly as she takes his chin and wipes carefully around his eyes with her handkerchief. He hadn’t realized he’d been crying.

“There,” she says quietly. She clasps the letter he’s clutching gently between her fingers and tugs lightly. He tightens his grip. “Shhh,” she murmurs, petting his cheek, and he lets go.

“It’s alright,” Ammuiawen continues. “It’ll be alright.”

She looks at the letter. Fingon watches the parchment crumple slightly between her fingers as they go white with pressure upon reading the hand of the address.

“It’ll be alright,” she repeats more tensely, and Fingon can practically hear her teeth clicking together.

She tips him to lean against her shoulder and runs her fingers softly over his hair as she breaks the seal carefully with her other hand and flicks the letter open. They read it together, silently, and suddenly the fact that they have it is not the most astonishing thing about it anymore.

Dear Findekáno.

I am— I have tried— this is not the first letter I have written to you. I am sorry that it is the first I have sent. Idril recommended that I might stop rendering precious parchment unrecognizable for tears and ink streaks if I wrote without crossing out things I mean to say but have not the courage. I am, endeavoring.

              Firstly, my city is called Gondolin, and for a long time I thought it would remain hidden until the breaking of Beleriand, or, failing that, the world. I was wrong— It has been lonely— We have missed you— Aredhel

              I do not think the end of the world has come, but I have been made unavoidably aware that we cannot hold to our own for too much longer. A Seer has come to Gondolin, and Ulmo speaks through him. There are certain things you need to know. The first of which: there are— I know you— the Enemy has dug tunnels under Anfauglith with which to move in secret. They approach Himring, with the intent of retrieving the liberated Silmaril there.

              Our people who hold the east are in danger. We were not sure a bird would be able to reach that far without being stopped, however, with what we know of the state of Beleriand. We are told Tol Sirion has been conquered and then reclaimed, so I have sent to you over that way, not that I would not have once we decided to break our secrecy. I am sorry—

              The second most important is. Our Seer, is… Our father has returned to life from the Halls, or will, soon. Our Seer nearly drowned for this information and I am— not sure what to do with it. So I give it to you. I—

              There is more I would share—our troop strength, the welfare of our people which you’ve had no means to track, what our Seer tells us of the coming times, and the like. We must be prepared. I have spent too long, perhaps, attempting to realize this and not— doing it well. That is— I do not like to admit that I do not know. But I am unsure of what else to say to you, deprived of your face as I have left myself. I do not— that is all.

              The bird will know where to go when you return her.

Sincerely,

Crown Prince Turgon

King of Gondolin

P.S. Fingon. Brother. I know this letter is not perfect. I am not perfect, but I am sorry. I feel still that we did what had to be done, but I know it must pain you. I am— I hope to see you soon.

Ammuiawen’s grip nearly crumples the letter fully, and Fingon doesn’t reach out to straighten it. “What was he thinking?”

Probably that he’d be spared from explaining himself by the convenient end of the world, Fingon thinks distantly. But his mind is too cluttered with the rest of it to say anything, mostly—

His father. His father lives again, that mighty, stubborn, incredible, asshole.

Fingon’s going to finish the damn job Fëanor started with a sword in Grandfather’s throne room. If he’d known, if he’d seen it coming… Sometimes Fingon wants his father alive again just to shake him violently and throw him down the nearest flight of stairs. Most of the time, actually.

“Crown prince,” Ammuiawen hisses, thumping a fist against the cushion beside where she sits.

Torn from his thoughts, Fingon blinks at her. “Orien is a girl,” he says blankly.

His wife gives him a flat look. “Is she or is she not thy heir?”

Fingon nods slowly. “He would not know that.”

Ammuiawen laughs almost bitterly, and agrees. “He would not. We ought to announce it, at this point.” She places a hand over her stomach then. “We can add in the next one, too.”

Fingon chokes. “The next—”

His wife takes his hand in hers and presses it over her stomach where there indeed flutters a fragile, bright little spark of life.

“Beréthen,” he gasps out. “No!”

“Aye,” she says, curling her fingers tightly around his.

“But I didn’t,” Fingon starts.

Ammuiawen pats him on the cheek almost patronizingly, the gesture softened by her gentle smile. “Thou’rt always wanting, my dear.”

Fingon is—elated is too small a word. Joyous does not suit, but somewhere in there is an expression enough to define how he feels. “But, now, of all times?”

Ammuiawen’s lip curls slightly and she sighs. “It’s not as if I knew of the coming turmoil,” she says.

Fingon leans in to wrap her in his arms, tucking his cheek against her hair, the golden beads there solid and comforting against his skin. “How long?” he asks.

His wife is silent for long enough that Fingon pulls back to give her a concerned look. Her lips are pursed and her expression tight, though there’s happiness buried there too, much like his. Eventually, she says, “Thou recall’st when Maedhros visited us last?”

Fingon’s mouth drops open, and his long-ingrained courtly etiquette closes it for him before he can think about it. He does recall that visit, very well.

“That’s—” he says, verbally flailing somewhat. “You’re—Beréthen, that was almost three years ago!”

“I know,” she says. Soon enough, she would have had no choice but to tell him, he realizes. He’s not sure if that fact softens the blow of only being told now.

“I am glad but, why didst thou keep it from me?” Fingon asks, trying not to be too hurt.

“The time never felt right,” she says plainly.

Fingon frowns for a brief moment, as long as his lips will allow it against his joy. “Does Maedhros know?”

Ammuiawen hums. “I imagine so. Thou know’st how he is about our lack of peacetime—”

“So he does,” Fingon says. And his other lover did not choose to share it either. “Why?” he asks, trusting that she’ll understand. “Why?”

“I… was concerned,” his wife tells him. “Orien’s birth was… traumatic, and I wished that thou might worry less long.”

A part of Fingon wants to storm away, perhaps shout a bit in all honesty, and take the time he needs to sort out how he feels about this essential betrayal. However, the rest of Fingon is the high king, and doesn’t have the time nor option to not communicate with his wife for a personal issue. Like it or, not he serves the realm.

“Thou should have told me,” he murmurs.

“I should have,” she agrees, which doesn’t make it better, though it is somewhat settling. Even more settling is her hand in his hair a moment later, resting heavily on the back of his neck, tugging lightly at the braids she’s caught. “Shall I make it up to thee?”

Fingon doesn’t think that’s exactly a suitable response. But then… he shies from the thought of his father again, closing his eyes. He’s tired enough that giving up feels like a genuine option, if more for himself than for his people.

They don’t really have the time for it, but there’s always some grounding to be gained from giving himself over into his wife’s power. She can take care of him, at least, until he’s prepared to properly take care of their people. (Granted, the means of said taking care are vastly different by necessity, and Fingon supposes he could be called possessive but he’s glad for that as Ammuiawen’s willingness to share only stretches so far.)

So he nods and lets her take his hands, leaving the letter from Turgon abandoned on the coffee table, and guide him into the bedroom. Ammuiawen strips him of his over layers and lays him out on the bed with gentle but firm hands, then goes to make sure they will not be disturbed.

Fingon stares up at the heavily embroidered and jewel-encrusted canopy and spreads his arms out to either side of his body, palms up on the bedspread.

This will not be the end of anything—well, hopefully himself for just a short while—but perhaps when they are finished he can truly begin something new. Something that may, Eru, Doom, and Turgon willing, end better.

:::

Nolofinwë wakes up.

Immediately, everything is terrible. The sunlight filtering through the tree canopy above is too bright, the rustle of leaves too loud, the bubbling of a nearby brook a terrible jumble of noise in his ears. Nolo groans and rolls onto his side, throwing up in his mouth and forcing the overly powerful acidic taste back down. His stomach roils furiously.

The air is too hot and presses uncomfortably against his skin, but the breeze is worse. He’s been dressed in a loose grey robe that is probably very soft but feels like sandpaper against his skin, and the grass scrapes his cheek where it should only tickle.

His soft groan tastes like copper and acid.

The last thing Nolo remembers—Grond came down, and then nothing. He can’t dredge up anything about being dead apart from the vague feeling that it was short and not particularly restful.

Come to think of it, Nolo would very much like to know why he’s been reborn. Isn’t it a bit… early? Not that he knows what the date is, he just feels that it hasn’t been long at all. Not to mention he’d spent most of his time in Beleriand under the impression that Aman widely considered him a criminal, with low to zero chances of being released from the Halls in the first place.

So why is he alive and being abused by sunlight then? Nolo doesn’t have the energy or will to ask the peaceful forest around him, so naturally he gets no answers.

After what could be minutes or hours, Nolo eventually gathers his strength and forces himself up. Everything, unsurprisingly, still sucks. His very spirit feels too sensitive to be inhabiting a body, and coming fully to his feet nearly makes him throw up on the grass as his head spins.

A Mannish friend of Hador’s had once explained to him what being hungover felt like—a terrible affliction of Men after drinking that elves luckily do not suffer. Nolo thinks this fits the bill, and it’s awful. He’d like to formally rescind any and all jokes or comments he’s previously made on the topic.

His throat still protests at even the slightest whimper, much too dry. Nolo rubs his eyes—which hurts—flicks his ears—which reminds him of the too loud everything around him—and makes his way to the small stream nearby.

He kneels on the bank and hesitantly touches the water. It feels like ice against his skin, and Nolo jerks his hand back. He hates ice.

But he probably needs to drink something. That supposedly helps with hangovers, at least. With a sigh that makes his nose ache, the former High King cups his hands together to bring some of the frigid water to his mouth. It burns going down in a horribly familiar way. Nolo nearly throws up again.

His stomach remains very unhappy with him, and Nolo lies on his side next to the stream for a while before making himself get up again. The light is changing as afternoon fades and as safe as Aman is, Nolo would not like to be caught unprepared after dark.

If he remembers correctly, the Halls are almost directly due Northwest of Tirion. Though, the domains of the Valar are also known to change location pretty much when they feel like it. Nolo sets off in a southeasterly direction and hopes he’s going generally the right way.

He doesn’t know if Tirion will welcome him, either; it seems fairly unlikely though it will be nice to see Arafinwë. Nolo doesn’t think he’ll stay. He left the family he’s spent hundreds of years fighting for in Beleriand, and desperately needs to be making his way back.

The fire… Nolo can’t even be sure if the battle is over, or if his people yet live. They had little news of how well the leaguer had held before he rode out, and apart from seeing Dorthonion burnt out through the smoke, Nolo knows nothing of the state of his kingdom.

He shakes his head and forces himself to keep walking.

It hurts, it all hurts, but he’s sure he’ll be hurting for a long while yet. Right now, he doesn’t have time to stop for it.

Nolo walks through several days and nights and his reborn body becomes more and more unhappy with him as he goes. He doesn’t let it slow him down; he’s got places to be, things to do.

Tirion comes into view on the fourth day. Even in sunlight rather than treelight, it shines too brightly for his sensitive vision. Nolo picks a rock by the side of the road and sits on it until evening comes, both to avoid blinding himself, and to try and approach when there are fewer people around to notice him.

A few travelers pass, but apart from giving him odd looks, they don’t appear to recognize him.

When the world is sufficiently purpled by the sunset, Nolo enters the city. Presumably, his brother is the king. But if he’s kept his old rooms—

Leaning out of the ancient tree in Ara’s garden to knock on his younger brother’s old window sill, Nolo certainly hopes the High King in Aman has kept the same rooms, or he might be about to seriously upset some poor courtier.

He doesn’t quite know what quiet instinct drove him to sneak in in the first place, but something tells him that presenting himself in the audience hall in public is just not the best plan.

His brother’s situation is also mostly unclear, but the worst Nolo imagines he’ll face in Ara’s bedroom is a pissed-off Princess (High Queen?) Eärwen—a formidable force on her own, but probably less likely to get him thrown in gaol on the spot than the other option.

Sounds of sleepiness issue from the room and Nolo knocks again. “Ara,” he whispers.

The curtains are pulled aside and his brother’s face appears. Curiosity is swiftly replaced by a mix of confusion and other indecipherable emotions as Ara spots him. His blond brother reaches out the window and grabs the collar of Nolo’s grey robe, hauling him inside with surprising strength.

“Thou sun-stricken idiot,” Arafinwë says, shaking him. “What art thou doing here?”

“I have no idea,” says Nolo, dredging up the Quenya in his mostly Sindarized mind. His throat aches with the words. “But I need to be in Beleriand instead. And it’s nice to see thee as well.”

“Thou— thou!” Ara shakes him again, then catches him up in a crushing embrace. This is perhaps why Nolo opted not to do this in public.

He wraps his arms around his little brother—who seems to be just the same as the day Nolo left, if a bit thinner and paler all around.

“Thou died, didn’t thee?” Ara says, hushed. “The first of the Exiles to be reborn.”

Nolo hums. “Am I?”

Ara nods and slowly releases him as if he doesn’t quite wish to let go. “What—what is the other side like? No, actually, don’t tell me. Sit down! Let me get thee something more… structurally sound, to wear.”

Nolo’s brother pushes him into a seat on a nearby couch and begins to bustle about; Nolo remembers this nervous habit of his from their younger years. Ara comes up with what must be his largest shirt and long trousers and a velvety over-robe.

“Ara,” Nolo says. “Art thou the High King of the Noldor here, now?”

Arafinwë blinks at him. “Aye,” he says. “There was some upheaval during the Darkening, and our relations with the Teleri and Vanyar have suffered from those events. Yes, I remain in power, though are people are more consolidated to Tirion now than they’d been before thou left. Is Beleriand…”

He doesn’t seem to know how to finish that question. Nolo nods anyway. “Fëanáro is dead,” he says and ignores Ara’s squeaking noise of shock, like an inflated bladder poked with a pin. “Maedhros—Nelyafinwë—gave up the crown for his house. I have been the High King since year seven of this age—measured since the rising of the sun.”

Ara’s brow furrows. “Fifteen-oh-seven?”

Nolo frowns. “Ah, no. There is a separate calendar on the other side, because they never had the Trees… three hundred and sixty-five days to a year. Except some years. It’s—”

Ara waves his hand. “Not terribly important at the moment. Has there been battle? How didst thou come to perish?”

Nolo closes his eyes. “We had a few battles at the start. My Arakano is dead. Then, peace for many years and now—Morgoth has broken beyond the leaguer that we built, and I do not know how much of Beleriand his evil has swallowed now.”

Arafinwë makes a wounded sound and a moment later Nolo is being hugged again and his brother’s head comes to rest on his shoulder.

“I am so sorry,” he whispers. “How are… the rest?”

Nolo shakes his head. It’s not his brother’s fault, nor his brother’s duty to share this burden. Ara made his choice and Nolo does not begrudge him it, even if he thinks his brother might’ve truly lived in Beleriand more than he ever has here.

“Most are well,” he says. “Turukáno and Irissë have disappeared. I can only hope they are safe, and all of those they brought with them. Thy children are quite well, to my knowledge—”

Well. Dorthonion was still burning when Nolo last saw it, but that doesn’t mean Aegnor is gone, nor Angrod. And if Nolofinwë was reborn, then who’s to say they won’t be, if they are dead?

“—and our nephews have done well enough for themselves. If anything stands through the firestorm, it will be hill Himring, where Nelyafinwë holds the East.”

“Nolo,” Ara says. “I’m sorry.”

Nolo shakes his head again. He will grieve once he knows his children are dead and not before then. To do so is to give up hope and that he will not.

“Eärwen is not here,” he says to change the topic. “Is Anarie about?”

“Eärwen has not left me, if that’s what you mean,” says Ara tightly, pulling back. “We’ve had many years to work out our differences and become stronger together for it. She is only in Alqualondë for the month, as her brother has been recently reborn.”

That last is said in a distinct tone which makes Nolo wince, but he doesn’t otherwise acknowledge it. They can’t waste their time arguing over acts long since passed right now, as he knows they will if they start this conversation.

Being a murderer is not something one really makes peace with, but there’s little point in brow-beating himself over it every day.

“Anarie?” he asks, perhaps too hopefully.

They’d parted on fine terms at least, but that had been before Alqualondë. She’d told him that his choices were his own and she would love him anyway. She’d said she would follow, but that she had to look after their House as well, and then gone off into the darkness to do so. In the commotion that followed, he hadn’t thought to look for her until his children gathered around him on the edge of the Ice, and not a one had seen her.

Nolo has spent many, many years desperately hoping she did not leave him intentionally, and that she forgives him if he left her behind.

Arafinwë is quiet for a moment in the way that he is when he’s phrasing something very delicately. Nolo tenses.

“What?” he demands.

“She didn’t… follow, you?”

That hits Nolo like a punch to the gut. “She did not,” he chokes out, or at least not that he knows of. She’s gone then, lost or killed or worse.

Anarie is his heart, his life partner, his hope in the darkest hours, alone on a throne with only the dream of her across the sea. Perhaps it’s true that he doesn’t deserve her. With what he’s done, all of it—if he were a better elf, he would have been true and loyal. He would not have left before he even knew her fate.

“And she’s not, back?” he manages. “I mean, I am, and it’s not been long at all, and with all I’ve done—she was an innocent—”

Ara shakes his head. “It’s not normal to return quickly,” he says. Valar bless him, he doesn’t try to be soothing. “I’m sure she will, within the next century.”

That’s not particularly comforting, and then a moment later Nolo remembers that Ara is counting in years of the Trees still, which are definitely much longer than those of the Sun.

High Kings don’t cry; they must be strong for their people, and show emotion as needed, but never more than that. The people know who he is. But so does his brother. Ara holds him close for a long moment as Nolo heaves dry sobs into his neck.

Then, he sits up, straightens his spine, and says, “If my wife is gone and I have seen thee, there is little else for me here in Aman. I must return to my people across the sea.”

Ara watches him with concern, but he only says, “How wilt thou get there?”

Nolo grimaces. It’s not as if anyone is likely to give him of all people a boat. “I’ll walk, if I have to.”

Ara purses his lips and shakes his head. “No, it can’t come to that again, not yet. We will find you a way. For now, stay in court and rest. Recover from being reborn.” The look Ara gives him is queer in its intensity, from his typically more passive brother. “It doesn’t appear to have been a very pleasant experience.”

At the reminder, Nolo’s body begins to voice its displeasure again. His feet ache, and now that he’s thinking about it the sensitively to everything is impossible to ignore.

“Take my bed,” Ara says. “Get some sleep, brother. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

Nolo nods tiredly and crawls into his brother’s bed, closing his eyes before his head hits the too-rough pillow. He feels the brush of a smooth, uncalloused palm over his forehead.

“I’m sorry that thou hast known the pain of death,” Ara murmurs, “yet I am glad to have thee back.”

Nolo does not open his eyes. Ara sighs eventually, and turns away. “It is not for a king to be selfish,” Nolo hears as his brother slips out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Arafinwë is not one to shy away from the dark and looming fact of his brothers’ kinslaying. Postpone judgement, aye, potentially indefinitely if he can get away with it, but not pretend it does not exist.

Nolo appreciates it as someone who deeply does not wish to become suddenly embroiled in the public trial of the first murderer to return to Aman. Of course, it should and will happen someday—Nolo will not deny his deeds either—but for the time being he has a mission to accomplish and cannot be distracted.

Ara makes no move to announce Nolo’s presence, and Nolo lurks and sneaks rather than walking boldly in the sunlight. It makes him feel more like what he is; tainted by blood and the memory of a wider world.

Powers, he misses Beleriand.

In Aman, the peace and rest might well go on in perpetuity, but Nolo carries with him the storm smell of Beleriand, petrichor sunk into his hair and skin, on his breath and in his lungs. Nothing lasts forever on the far shores—a doom and a blessing both, and Nolo feels like a harbinger. Aman is still and stagnant; his steps are as the surf washing out before the coming wave.

It only happens because he draws change.

Ara had procured clothes for him, a traveling pack, supplies and a small sailing boat from his own collection. Everything is ready, and Nolo collides with one of Eärwen’s ladies in waiting on his way out the door to farewell his brother.

She stumbles back, staring at him wide-eyed in the hallway. Then she screams. The lady proceeds to flee, still wailing, while Nolo stands there dumbly. After a moment he curses quietly and hurries off to find his brother.

Arafinwë is in his office even at the late hour, as Nolo had planned to leave with the coming night. Nolo steps inside and shuts the door quickly behind himself.

“Thy wife has returned from Alqualondë ahead of schedule,” Nolo says as his brother looks up. Only the slight widening of Ara’s eyes betrays his startlement. “I am afraid one of her ladies spotted me in the hall.”

“Oh dear,” says Ara.

“Indeed,” says Nolo. For a moment, staring at each other in the dim light of the study, they are a pair of mischievous boys who’ve just pranked their older brother and are now realizing they may have bitten off more than they can chew. There hangs in the air a faint sense of perverse, stuttering hilarity.

There comes a panicked pounding on the door, and the memory slips away.

Nolo steps out of the way and opens the door, standing back as a flustered lord in scandalously casual late-night attire stumbles in.

“Your Majesty!” the lord says. “There is a—”

He spots Nolo, and the book he’d been holding like a shield drops to the floor with a thud.

“Kinslayer in the palace?” Ara says in a way that probably only sounds dry to Nolo because he was raised with his brother. “Yes, I am aware. Thank you, Lord Imbelosso.”

The Lord—now shaking as he stares as Nolo, as if the former crown prince is some spawn of Morgoth and not the same elf who grew up as half the court’s darling, including, Nolo now recalls, Imbelosso’s own parents—nods jerkily and flees.

“Well,” says Ara into the ensuing silence. “If thou’d like to tactically retreat out the window, I believe the time is ripe. I’m sure Eärwen will be here any minute.”

This is not how Nolo wants to say goodbye.

He’d retrieved some of his own jewelry from his old rooms, which Ara had ordered should remain untouched, and now he unclips a bejeweled ring from his ear and presses it into his brother’s hand.

Fingon had made it for him in his smithing phase (nearly all of the children of their Houses had one, desperate to emulate and impress their big cousin Nelyo in the one craft he seemed to continuously pursue, even if it was likely mostly for Fëanor’s sake). Fingon had begged him to throw it away when he was older, for it was an admittedly poor beginner’s piece, but Nolo had kept it out of sentimentality.

“I’ll be back for this,” he says. “And then we can talk about everything we couldn’t now.”

Ara nods slowly, tucking the ring into his pocket. “Alright,” he says. “I shall miss thee until that day, brother. Farewell, and good luck on thy mission.”

Nolo knows his blond brother hardly approves, but Ara has always been more loyal than many would give him credit for. That same many usually fail to account the people and things he’s loyal to when decrying him as a coward or traitor. It is a terrible shame in Nolo’s opinion, for such strength of character as his brother has seems to be becoming a rarer and rarer thing.

He envelops Ara in one more hug which his brother returns tightly, then does as suggested and clambers out the window. The drop is not so far, and in Aman there are few enough things that want to injure elves. It somewhat dampens the sense of adventure Nolo is relying on to keep from breaking down every other minute of the day.

Powers, he misses Beleriand.

The road heading northeast from Tirion is quiet and empty, more so than Nolo would have expected even at the late hour. The Noldor of Aman have been diminished indeed. Within a day he begins to pass empty farms and tiny ghost towns, and the next day only ill-kept, entirely abandoned settlements dot the road.

Nolo has all he needs in his traveling pack, and is well used to sleeping in the elements—in fact he doesn’t mind the mild conditions of Aman at all, though at times he finds himself wishing half-desperately for a thunderstorm, or any sign of nature’s defiance.

Nolo had never before needed to make the journey to Alqualondë on foot, and he honestly hadn’t kept much track of the time it took them during the Darkening. He doesn’t think it can be more than a few days or perhaps a week, though.

The former High King keeps his steps light and his head high as he passes through the Calacirya towards the sea, and doesn’t think about his wife or his children or any of those he cares for in Beleriand who might well be fighting and dying as he walks. He cannot reach them now; that way lies naught but madness.

Madness, much like imagining the sound of horns on the wind and marching in time with the beat of a non-existent war drum.

Except—the horns are real.

Nolo stops walking and looks south, toward the tall, cliff-lined shore of the Bay of Eldamar. The path he’s on is high above the edges of the cliffs and removed a bit more inland up the slopes of the towering Pelori. The area is rocky and barren for the most part, which makes the approaching party easy to spot.

In the stamping rumble of many warriors ahorse with flashing armor and flowing pennants, Nolo is struck still for a moment by a vision of Beleriand come to life. Hunting dogs howl and bay around the pounding hooves.

Then reality hits him, and he wonders what in all of Ea this could be.

Nolo hasn’t had a sword in his hand since falling before Morgoth. Ara had not seen fit to give him one, and Nolo had taken that as the hint it was and did not ask. Instead, he carries only a walking stick, about the size and heft of a quarterstaff rather than his preferred war spear or lance—not that a lance would do him much good without a horse. It’s very light and won’t be terribly convenient for defending himself, but it’s better than nothing.

In theory, nothing in Aman will hurt the elves who dwell there. But Nolo’s father died in Formenos, and he himself killed other elves at Alqualonde. He’s not so inclined to trust blindly anymore.

Nolo glances around and finds a nice outcropping of rock to cover his back. It’s too tall and sheer to reasonably scale and slopes into the tall cliff wall at an angle that allows him to see most of the other side as well. With the reach of his staff, he should be able to get to anyone there before they get to him, and it and the cliff will keep him from being flanked.

He’s not outrunning a horse any time soon, so Nolo tosses his pack into the sort of corner behind him and tucks it back where he won’t step on it. He’s been walking all day and it’ll be a few minutes until they reach him so he stretches and warms up his arms while he has the opportunity.

The party rumbles and stamps to a stop before him soon enough, though the writhing mass of what appears to be maiar and various hunting animals continues to galivant around the horses. Horses bearing a pair of Valar, and not the notably less war-like ones.

“Arakano Nolofinwë,” Tulkas booms, “High King of the Noldor in the lands of Endore!”

Nolo blinks up at the massive warrior. He’s definitely a threat, as long as Nolo doesn’t know what he wants. He tucks his staff under his arm in a ready position and remains where he is.

“That I was,” he says.

A massive grin breaks across the Vala’s face and he leans forward in his saddle eagerly. “Then I have found a worthy warrior indeed!”

Nolo doesn’t shift from his spot or break his stance. “I suppose,” he says, not humble but not particularly willing to give anything up either. “May I ask why you have hunted me down this far from your lauded halls, my lord?”

Tulkas laughs jovially and gestures to Oromë beside him. The pair are the only members of their party ahorse, their maiar swirling around them in various animal and part-animal shapes. “My dear friend had invited me! We were already in the area when we had word of your arrival.”

Gee, Nolo wonders who told them that. It’s not as if his brother’s wife has any reason to like him, though.

“And you’ve come to…” Nolo says slowly, “greet, me?”

“But of course!” Tulkas says. The hulking blond is far too excited for comfort as he fairly leaps off his horse to approach. “It is not every day such a mighty foe of Morgoth is granted life again!”

There is a fine line between respect and wariness, Nolo thinks. Something tells him the cheerful being won’t be too bothered by a display of ill-faith, however, so Nolo remains on guard. Not that he imagines he can take the Vala on by himself anyway.

Oromë, too, slides off his horse gracefully. He wears a towering form today, lithe and lean with nut brown skin and dark hair, nearly a third again Nolo’s own height standing, though somehow he hadn’t seemed at all awkward on Nahar’s back.

The Huntsman’s many hounds twine around and through his legs, snuffling at his hands when he offers them.

“What my goodbrother means is that he has a collection,” Oromë says. His voice is not as an elf’s—it keens like the wind through vast canyons and moans like ancient trees creaking in his woods. “And he means to add to it.”

Nolo backs up a step, sweeping the end of his staff up between himself and the blond Vala. That doesn’t sound at all like something he has time for, in fact it’s quite concerning on the whole.

Tulkas sees the motion and laughs brightly. “I could not pass up an opportunity like this, you understand. Stories of your strength and valor reached us not long ago—I would offer an invitation unto my Halls to the foe of my foe, who struck that defiler so valiantly!”

Not an echo, indeed. Nolo watches Oromë’s maiar forming a conspicuous ring and closing in with concern. “My lord,” he says, “pardon the question, but how do you know so much of events on the other side? We were told—”

“Namo is incredibly dramatic,” Oromë says, dry as the scrape and rattle of loose grain across parched dirt. “I hear when my name is called.”

It’s so far from the expected Valarin gravitas that Nolo gapes, then forcibly shuts his mouth. “Please,” he says, “might we be less flippant about the curse that has ruined my people?”

Oromë tilts his head at the Noldo. “It is not a curse, but a prophecy.”

Nolo frowns at him. “Is there a difference?”

“A prophecy only holds the potential to come true, unless the subjects act on it,” Oromë says. “It’s more of an opinion piece until someone chooses to do something about it.”

Nolo’s entire world view trips, lands on its face, rolls, and goes straight over the edge of a cliff.

The Doom of the Noldor is, is— is wrong.

He should have agreed to go after Morgoth with Maedhros when they had him dodging after the Dagor Algareb. He would’ve, if not for, if he was not—to evil end, all things that begin well.

“Oh dear,” says Tulkas. Nolo hears it only faintly, as if through the roar of a waterfall. Nausea roils in his stomach, churning up his throat and buzzing between his ears.

Treason and fear of treason is still echoing in his head as the massive, muscle-bound Vala gently moves the end of his staff out of the way and steps into Nolo’s space.

“Come, my friend,” he says. “That must have been difficult to hear. Let us find you somewhere to rest.”

Trapped in his own spinning mind, Nolo doesn’t have the wherewithal to fight it as he’s swept up onto a horse-shaped maia and Tulkas places his hands on the mane. He makes fists in it on instinct as the pair of Valar mount up as well and Oromë blows his horn.

The sound is clear and bright, and the Hunt rides on.

:::

“May I ask what you’re doing, m’lord?” Huor inquires cautiously.

“Aye,” the high king replies, the word short and clipped. “Smashing plates.”

That’s obvious enough. “May I ask why?”

“They’re replaceable. My father’s head is not.” Fingon pauses, then throws another ceramic plate at the wall sideways, laughing sharply as it shatters in an explosion of shards that makes Huor flinch. “Well! That’s evidently not entirely true either, is it!”

“Sire?” Huor asks, confusion and concern swirling together in his chest in a horrendously uncomfortable mix. “The late—er, your father is not, here?”

“No,” Fingon snaps, picking up another plate form his apparently carefully curated stack. “He is not, thank you.”

“Should I… call for the queen, your majesty?” Huor asks uncertainly.

“No,” says Fingon. He sighs and puts the plate back down with exaggerated care. “I summoned you, and I meant you.”

“Sire,” says Huor with a short bow.

“I have need of a messenger,” the high king explains haltingly. “The roads to Himring are dark and much troubled, and the skies more so. But still there is a message that must be delivered.”

Huor nods. “And you would not trust it to paper. Aye, I understand.”

Fingon smiles at him, and it would probably be more convincing had Huor not been living and serving at court for years enough to possess some familiarity with the Nolofinwean’s overarching mood. “We are ever grateful for the House of Hador’s service.”

Huor nods again, more slowly. “The mission, your majesty?”

Fingon purses his lips. “As said, there is a message I would have you deliver to my cousin the lord of Himring… the world is becoming very strange and very troubling, my friend.”

“Aye, my king.” Huor has no idea what Fingon is talking about. “Does this have to do with your late father, then?”

“It does,” Fingon picks up another plate an examines it as if searching for flaws in the swirled, powder-blue glaze. “I am sure you know well that my people die, Lord Huor, but you may know less of how we return to life. Our spirits are called after death to Halls across the sea, to be cared for until we are well enough to be born again. At least in theory.”

Huor’s eyes widen. He has seen much more of elves than he thinks the average Man must, but they rarely speak of life—or death—on the side of the sea from which they hail. It is… odd, to imagine such a truly timeless people.

“It was not thought that we—the Exiles, all the Noldor of Beleriand, that is—would be allowed to return with the rest, for we have done great harm and there is a price to be paid.”

Huor frowns. This much he knows, but they speak even less of what that harm was. He knows that it makes certain elves hate each other, and certain others cleave to safety that the rest are not granted.

He’s putting things together now, though, almost as Fingon says them, so he’s not exactly surprised when the next thing out of the High King’s mouth is news of his father’s rebirth.

This, it’s true, definitely should not reach the Enemy prematurely, if they wish to take advantage of the surprise when and if the former High King makes it back across the sea. That is presumably why this is vital intelligence, though, so Huor assumes Fingolfin is coming back one way or another.

“And the rest,” says Fingon with a sigh. “We know this much only because my brother has made contact from his hidden city, and he has a Seer of some sort whom he trusts. You should add as well that Turgon is preparing to come forth as far as I know, and any plans Maedhros may have for him will need to be relayed back here.”

Fingolfin, Gondolin, Turgon’s Seer. Huor can handle that. “Anything else, my king?”

Fingon waves a hand. “Find the master of scouts before you leave, they’ll have written details on the Enemy’s movements we’ve noticed to take with you, and some correspondence for Himring.” He looks up, very serious. “Again, we cannot thank you enough, Lord Huor. If there is anything our house can do for yours, please, do not hesitate to make it known.”

Huor takes in Fingon’s faintly trembling fingers and slightly strained expression, genuine as it is, and shakes his head. “Your house has done plenty for me and mine, your majesty,” he says solemnly. “I am only grateful that we have such an opportunity to return the goodwill that has been shown to us.”

Fingon looks at him for a long, silent moment, then claps him on the shoulder. “You are a good man, Huor son of Galdor. May your journey as if on the wings of eagles be sure and swift.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” Huor intones, then turns to be on his way.