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Chapter Text

Arriving in Middle Earth was so unlike falling asleep that to make the comparison would be almost cruel to you. Falling asleep is temporary and regular and usually expected. Sleeping is a process of rest and recovery. It is sometimes accompanied by dreams, hazy or vivid, realistic or fantastical, but all a product of your mind trying to process what you encounter, think, and feel. Moving from one reality to another was not deliberate, not expected, did nothing for your state of rest (at least, not in the short term). It did not allow you to process what you had been through, rather it made life even more difficult to understand.

And, most importantly in my eyes, falling asleep can happen in countless different ways, whereas your arrival in Middle Earth could only ever have happened as it did.

So, you see, it would be a completely inaccurate and unflattering comparison.

But how else am I to describe it? For it was as seamless and easy and soft as all the writers say sleep is. Such an instant and impossible change of world that dreams can be the only possible comparison. You closed your eyes in one world and when you opened them you were in another and always had been.

I suppose, if we’re being pedantic with comparisons, it was a little more like sidestepping. But done unconsciously, involuntarily, and in a way that could never be recreated or comprehended. You lived all your life in one world and then suddenly were in another, and may possibly have never been in the first at all. Reality shifted. Folded around you.

Your place was moved.

And you woke to the sound of birdsong. To beetles in your hair and dew drenching your clothes, clothes you had never before seen in your life. To voices.

The people who had found you were farm labourers. And the clothes you did not recognise, upon examination, were far too fine for you to be one of those. They recognised that well before you had come enough to your senses to do the same. So they took you, all confusion and fear, to their boss, who took you to his boss, who took you to her boss until eventually you were standing before the mayor of the local town and trying to recount to her who you were and what had happened.

She had leant to the assistant by her side and, in a voice she didn’t realise you could hear, had whispered “a case for the elves, I should say,” before straightening up, smiling too widely, and offering you a room in her household until they could put you in contact with someone who could help you better. A scribe wrote a letter, a messenger was sent. You waited.

After four days you had settled into the conclusion that you were either mad or actually in Middle Earth. The latter was, somehow, the best option. This certainly all felt very real. It felt even more so when two elves arrived, introduced themselves, and said you had been invited by Lord Elrond to take residence in the healing house of Rivendell.

It was only a journey of a few days, and after you had explained yourself as best you could to your escorts they did not ask you further questions. You were grateful for that. It is exhausting explaining over and over a thing which you do not rightly understand yourself.

When you arrived in Imladris you decided that if you were mad then it wasn’t so bad. What a beautiful madness it would be to have found yourself in the place you had dreamed of since childhood.

The wonder soon died as you were brought inside and passed off from one person to the next. No one quite knew what to tell each other or where to put you. You felt like a combination of a package they were keen to be rid of and an unwelcome guest. At last you were brought to a room and told to rest.

It was a modestly sized room, a balanced mixture of cosy and airy. White linens and a lightly embroidered throw dressed a bed with an elaborate frame, carved as though it were rippling water. There was not much other furniture, a small table and chair, an easy chair, a thin chest of draws, but you had nothing to put in them.

You caught snippets of conversations. Half-heard sentences carried out by people who only almost understood. The explanations which finally arrived with Lord Elrond were a garbled mixture of amnesia, madness, and dark sorcery. None of these were true, although you had moments when you feared you were indeed teetering on the edge of insanity.

You sat on the edge of a bed that was soft and warm and welcoming. If you had relaxed your self-control for even a moment you would have sunk onto it and slept. But you couldn’t do that. There was too much inside you.

This was Rivendell. Imladris. The Hidden Valley. The Last Homely House. You knew this place. Had never been here, but knew it all the same. It was like the twisted cousin of Déjà vu. Things seeming achingly familiar despite having never been there before, and yet knowing precisely why. Knew you were safe. You slipped away into thought and exhaustion, staring out from the edge of the bed to the view from your room over gardens and walkways.

“Good afternoon.” A voice startled you back to reality, if indeed this was reality. A voice you recognised. Knew. You turned to look and for the first time the truth of your situation was clarified. This was Middle Earth, you were here, and before you stood the Lord of Rivendell himself.

He was dressed in robes of deep blue, pulled in at the waist with a belt dyed purple. His hair was pulled from his face by two simple twists, tied behind his head. He looked precisely as you had expected, and very, very real.

“Good afternoon,” you croaked out, not even hiding the fact that you were staring.

“My name is Elrond, welcome to my home.”

That was the first time in the days you had been in this land that you had been welcomed anywhere. It felt genuine, too. You were welcome here. A lump formed in your throat and you weren’t sure you had the mental energy to fight your emotions.

“Thank you. I’m Y/N.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you. May I sit?”

You nodded. He moved closer, taking up the chair which sat by your small table and bringing it to sit close by.

“I shall not waste our time with small talk when you and I both know why I am here. I have heard multiple versions of the story which has brought you to us, though they do not quite line up with each other nor do they make much sense. I would like to help you, but first I must understand what has happened. Your own version.”

Despair gripped you. Being considered mad by people you didn’t know was one thing, but you didn’t think you were ready to be dismissed by Elrond himself.

“I don’t know how to explain it to you. It’s all so impossible.”

“Start with the simple facts, I often find an explanation flows from there.”

“I don’t really know what the facts are. And even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. No one else does.”

“I shall do my best to understand and promise to take you at your word that what you say is what you have experienced.”

The promise of being believed and listened to did something to calm the overwhelming spiral in your brain. He was holding you in a steady gaze, ready to listen and willing to help. Deep breath. Another. Then the words tumbled out.

“I’m not from here. And- and I don’t mean here as in Rivendell or Middle Earth or anything like that. I mean I am not from this world. This reality.”

You unconsciously held your breath, staring intently at Elrond for any hint of a reaction. But you got none. He remained exactly as he had been, sitting beside you, open and warm and ready to listen. So you talked.

“Where I come from, this,” you waved a hand vaguely around you as though that could somehow encapsulate the entire plane of existence you found yourself on, “this is all fiction. Stories. Books and movies and audios. You, for example. You’re in the stories. You’re a character. You’re not real. And this place is just art and sets. This is just books written by a man! And I’m… I’m here. In a world that isn’t real.”

Elrond would have liked to take longer to give you a response to your story, to make sure he had processed it all, but knew the silence would have been unbearable for you. So he rushed his response instead.

“And how did you get here?”

“I don’t know. I woke up, but I never went to sleep. And I was here.”

“What do you remember? From before you were here.”

“Lots of things, but they’re hazy. My life feels sort of faint. Like it happened a long time ago. But it didn’t, it’s only been a few days.”

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out of it. You could see his thoughts turning.

“This is a strange story indeed. Are you certain there is nothing more that you can tell me?”

“Nothing. It happened exactly as I’ve said. There’s no more. I’m living in the world of my favourite books, talking to a fictional character.”

“Is there any way you can prove it?”

You spread your hands, at a loss of how even to answer.

“How would I do that? Anything I tell you will either be something I could easily know if I had grown up in this world or risks being something that hasn’t happened yet. And I’ve seen and read enough fiction to know not to tell people things from the future. Even you.”

“Why would I in particular make a difference?” the question wasn’t entirely a test, but your answer could aid your version of events.

“Well you can sort of see bits of the future, can’t you.”

“That is not common knowledge.”

You paused, unsure if you had said something wrong.

“I told you, I know things about this place, and some of the people. I can’t tell you most of it, in case you knowing changes how you act and so the things I know don’t happen at all. But I thought…” you trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging.

“You thought sharing a detail about myself with me could not be harmful.”

You shrugged.

“Seemed safe enough.”

At last he allowed himself the silence he needed in order to mull over what you had said. You waited, getting up and moving to wander the room, taking in details, trailing your fingers over surfaces to ground yourself. A slight breeze whistled through the valley and you closed your eyes to listen. To feel it.

You took a shaky breath and opened them to find Elrond looking at you.

“Are you going to tell me I’m mad?"

“I do not believe you are.”

“Oh.”

“Do you think you are mad?”

“I probably should. But no, I think this is all real.”

He nodded slowly.

“Unless another explanation should present itself, I believe the best course of action is that we take you at your word. I can see no reason for you to lie in this manner, and, as improbable as your tale might seem, I am inclined to believe you.”

“Wait really?”

“I would not joke about this.”

“Why? I mean, not the joking thing, but why would you believe me? I hardly believe me.”

His smile was only small and you could not read the meaning behind it, but it was friendly and soft. You felt safe with him.

“It would be a bizarre story to make up, and you seem entirely capable of competent thought. But in truth it is your speech which has convinced me. It is unusual. Close enough to ours that it could pass without question if needed, but the patterns are unique. I have never met someone who speaks as you do.”

You were taken aback.

“That’s it?”

The slight movement of his shoulders was, you supposed, the closest he ever came to a shrug.

“It is the smallest details which are most difficult to fabricate, even subconsciously. Your story is highly improbable, even impossible within our understanding of the world, and your behaviour, though seemingly genuine, could easily be the result of a talent for acting and falsehood. But there are things about you which seem entirely alien to these lands or any other. I would not naturally assume you are of another world, but when you come to me with such an outlandish story it is those details which prove to me your credibility.”

“I’m not… sure I expected anyone to believe me.”

“I may yet change my assessment, but for now I am pleased to be a surprise. However, that being the case, there is little I can do to remedy the situation for you. I do not know how I could even begin to send you home.”

“I know. I’m… I’m slowly coming to terms with that.”

“Know that I will help you in any way I can.”

“I know. You are very kind. If I was going to be flung upon the mercy of anyone, you would have been a top choice.”

A slightly raised eyebrow, a question he decided not to ask.

“If you need anything, you will find a bell by your door. Ring it and help will come. Otherwise I will leave you, if you do not mind being alone. I cannot imagine you have had much rest of late.”

Tiredness, as it so easily does when you ignore it too long, came across you in a tsunami. Sleep was suddenly your only priority, now that you were somewhere you knew was safe.

“Yes that… That sounds perfect.”

Elrond said no more, but left you quietly, as you crawled into the softest bed you had ever encountered.

Chapter Text

You slept for a long time, and by the time you awoke the next day you found food, drink, and clothes waiting for you. It was something of a relief to know you would be allowed your privacy in those matters, at least for now. You would have felt self-conscious eating with others, knowing how much of a rumour mill likely swirled around you.

In fact, even once you were up, dressed, and fed you found that leaving your room wasn’t an appealing prospect. There was a world beyond the door that you didn’t entirely understand.

So you stayed. Hid might be a more accurate term. But, even hiding in that one room, you could see much. There was nowhere in Imladris not well-furnished with windows and views.

Elrond came to visit you late-morning, and found you gazing out over the balcony.

“How are you finding Imladris?”

“Confusing but also completely natural.”

“How so?”

You sighed. How to explain something so innate in you?

“I’ve dreamed of being here since I was a child. But it was always an impossibility. I could dream all I liked and never need to do anything about it. And now here I stand. It is not a comforting sensation.”

“Why would you dream of being here?”

“Well look at it. Everything here seemed better, my own world could never quite hold up.”

“Is your world not a good place?”

You laughed slightly, though it was more out of tension than humour.

“That’s a big question. Not sure there’s an answer to it, to be honest. There’s plenty of good back home, plenty of beauty and kindness and wonder. But the problems just always seem larger than the goodness. The bad feels all-encompassing at times.”

“Darkness is so often more apparent than light. We are not free from that here.”

“Trust me, I know that. But Middle Earth always seemed better somehow, even in its darkest hours. Like the problems you faced could never eclipse the beauty of it. Even though I’d never been here and never could, or so I believed, it still felt like home. I spent my life chasing the feeling one shot of this place could give me.”

“And does the reality of it hold true to that?”

You thought about that for a moment. Looking into your heart, wading through the confusion and fear and tiredness. You looked around yourself at the place you had spent most of your life fantasising about. Took it all in. The running waters, the clear sky. The architecture, so delicate and elegant. The music.

Here you were standing in Rivendell after all this time.

“I don’t know about home, but that feeling’s back. Like looking at something and knowing a part of you belongs to it. A part of me belongs here.”

He did not reply instantly, but wandered a few steps, gently pacing the balcony.

“Perhaps that is why you are here. That part of you was brought home.”

Home. It was the right word to use, but you weren’t sure how you felt about that.

“Perhaps. Though I think you might be wasting your time trying to find an explanation. I’m Alice down the rabbit hole, only I don’t think I’m dreaming.”

“Rabbit hole? You said nothing about-”

“It’s a metaphor,” you cut him off to spare further confusion, “a reference to a book from home. Girl falls through a rabbit hole and ends up in a bizarre world called Wonderland. And then it turns out to be a dream, or possibly not, depending on your interpretation. The dream is the only possible explanation for it, but if you don’t think she’s dreaming then you just have to accept it happened. I am here, and I am awake. Who knows if I’ll ever go back.”

Who knows if I want to?

The thought clung on even when you refused to say it.

Chapter Text

Being in Middle Earth, once you had accepted and embraced that fact, was a deeply emotional experience. Beyond the obvious, of course, the fear and confusion and loneliness of being the only person from your world (as far as you knew, at least). But beyond even those were other emotions, triggered by familiar sights and sounds. Nostalgia, affection, sadness, love. Sudden corners and nooks and rooms encountered in the House of Elrond and you knew words that would one day be spoken there. Could see faces that had not yet seen these halls, but would. The whole place echoed with events and people that had not yet been.

And your own personal feelings were awoken, expanding beyond yourself to entangle amongst those same familiar sights. Twisting your own heart up with histories not yet written. Your own grief.

It wasn’t an easy thing to process.

Elrond, it seemed, understood this, and was committed in his duty of care to you. He was your companion as often as you would allow it. Gently prying, seeing if any clarity might come from something you didn’t think was important. He wanted answers, though he was subtle enough about it.

Still, it was clear what he was looking for.

“Do you think I’m here for a reason?” you asked him one day, as he showed you around another corner of the valley you had never seen.

“The thought had occurred to me, though I can’t imagine what for.”

Faces danced through your head. Things you could change. Maybe even should.

“To make things right,” was all you said, and even that felt like too much. You darted your eyes away, but not quick enough to avoid Elrond’s. The look he gave you was impenetrable, so full of different thoughts. Was it reproach? Fear? Alarm? Confusion? All of them and more, most likely. Did he know as well as you the dangers you potentially brought to his haven? Did he realise the implications of your mere presence? The gamble he was taking by allowing you to remain.

If anyone understood the perils of forbidden knowledge then it would surely be him.

“We cannot know why it is you are here. We can only do our best with the information we have, and right now that means ensuring you are safe and healthy with us.”

It was a diplomatic answer, shutting down the need for further discussion. It was also a compassionate one. Placing the certainty of your wellbeing above the hypotheticals.

All you did in response was nod.

But his expression in that moment of your weakness would not leave you all day. Guilt weighed down your conscience. The fear that you were doing something harmful, or at least would one day. The knowledge of your own thin control over your actions where certain things were concerned.

Eventually you made a choice. Elrond had to be told. It was the fairest thing for everyone, keeping him in the dark might somehow be harmful. And so you sought him out again.

He greeted you with a smile.

“Do you need anything?”

“No. No I’m fine thanks.”

“Then to what can I attribute this visit?”

I’ve just… I’ve been thinking. There’s something I have to tell you. About my life before. About my relationship to this world.”

He held up a hand.

“Be careful where you tread with that. If we take the stories of your homeland to be the reality of this one then sharing details may be more dangerous than you realise. As tempting as it is to know the future or events happening far away, I must insist you do not tell me.”

You let him finish his speech rather than interrupt because, though it was not what you had meant, it was an important rule to set.

“I know. I wouldn’t and I won’t. I understand how dangerous it could be to share what I know and change things. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you?”

A deep breath. Readying yourself to speak of something which could be taken any number of ways. Preparing to set Elrond’s opinion of you back.

“There are certain people here. I do not know if they are alive now, or if I should ever encounter them, but there are certain people from the stories I know whom I care for fiercely. More so than others. People I have, at different times and to different extents, considered myself to love.”

The slightest raise of an eyebrow.

“Even though you believed them to be fictional?”

You nodded.

“I have found fictional characters just as possible to love as real people. Easier in fact.”

“Perhaps that is why you are here then,” he said it quietly, as though it were a musing rather than a statement to you, “because your emotional bonds with this world are so great in so many ways. But still,” he emerged from his wondering, “I suppose, based on your word not to try and change fates, you do not tell me this because you have sworn to take action.”

“No. I’m telling you this because if I see someone about whom I have a complicated set of intense feelings, I don’t know what I’d do. And I need you to know that. So that you are prepared.”

A slow nod.

“Of course. Thank you for letting me know.”

“I thought it made sense.”

You turned to go, but he spoke again.

“I cannot say that I have encountered someone so deeply invested in fiction before.”

You stopped, turning and faced him.

“I find that hard to believe. People are people, no matter where they are.”

“Perhaps it is not part of our culture.”

“Or perhaps you’re just not keeping the right company.”

You held each other’s gaze for a moment, you in challenge and he in calculation. Challenging him to judge you. Calculating whether you were serious. He may have been a near-mythical figure in your eyes, a person worthy of all possible deference and respect, but you would stand by this regardless. Stand by your own experiences.

“You are an unusual person.” Elrond broke first.

“You’re not the first to say it.”

“No?”

“Fitting in has never been my first priority. Nor something I found easy.” You moved closer, leaning easily against the back of a chair.

“It is overrated in my experience.”

“I know that now. It’s not so easy to accept when you’re younger.”

“Youth clouds many things in confusion.”

You smiled to yourself. Elrond’s metaphors and roundabout ways could be confusing, but they were also an integral part of his speech. They made him him.

“Some people might say you are unusual too,” you told him.

“Why is that?”

“Well for one thing, you are related in some way or other to pretty much everyone of importance, which boggles the mind. And for another, you turned down power and so-called greatness in favour of a quiet life helping others. Now I understand that choice, but I’m sure many don’t. Especially from someone as steeped in power struggles as you have been.”

He was studying you still, as though even as you spoke he was considering his original point. How strange you were in these lands.

“You seem to know more about me than you should.”

You cast him a meaningful look.

“You are a prominent figure in Middle Earth, my Lord. Not much goes on without you learning of it, and indeed you are involved in so many lives, even if only briefly. Does it surprise you that the tales I know involve you?”

“You should be careful of how you speak.”

“If you are going to ban me from discussing all that I know, then I must stay silent entirely. I will come to each conversation at a distinct disadvantage. That I know things of this world through unusual methods does not negate the fact that they are easily knowable through others. And right now, I am talking to you. So I think it’s probably alright to be a little looser with what I know where you’re concerned. In terms of the past, anyway.”

“You are very astute. I am grateful someone with both your knowledge and intelligence is my ally.”

That took you aback. Both that he, a person so renowned for their mind, had complimented your intelligence, but also that he’d suggested there had ever been a possibility you wouldn’t be on his side.

“It never occurred to me not to ally myself with you. You’re… Well you’re Elrond.”

You made a hasty retreat. It had been an unsettling conversation.

Chapter Text

Elrond gave you as much time as you needed to recover from your ordeals, but in truth there was not much wrong with you. With no way to return home, and a deep, lingering doubt that you even wanted to, you set about making a new life.

He assigned you a tutor to get you up to speed on all things you had missed by not growing up here. Food and drink, literature, language, history, geography. You learnt the extent of magic in the world, the politics of different peoples and factions, and all the important days in the calendar, as well as actually learning how the calendar worked. Some things you knew, others were entirely new. You learned elvish, haltingly introducing yourself in a tongue so elegant and beautiful you had long dreamed of speaking it. Then you began to ask questions in it, then to hold simple conversations. History caused a tension in you, but nothing was ever mentioned that could cause you danger. It seemed the events you knew best had not yet happened, though you couldn’t quite remember precisely when they were supposed to.

You became a familiar face around the valley, carrying packages and messages in faltering elvish, both to be useful but also to help you learn better. Months slipped away in routine and learning. You took up new hobbies, tried out skills you had always wished you could. There were moments when you wished you could remember the precise year that events happened in a fiction now turned reality, but those moments were few. It did not occur to you to actually try and place yourself in time, to trawl through histories and accounts, to pick Lord Elrond’s brain for clues. Better not to know. Living among the elves made time seem so unimportant, these people would look just like they did now in a hundred years, just as they had looked this way for thousands.

Thought of it slowly left you.

Until the day the dwarves arrived.

“I felt I ought to let you know about our newest guests.” Elrond didn’t offer a greeting, he rarely did these days, the two of you had become so comfortable in your patterns that there was no rudeness in launching straight into conversation.

“Someone interesting?”

“Not people of our usual calibre, certainly.”

“Who is it?”

“The wizard Mithrandir,” – you did not flinch at that one, Gandalf was mentioned in all his names so often that it had ceased to be unusual to you – “accompanied by thirteen dwarves and a hobbit.”

The ground seemed to fall away. Or perhaps it was you who was falling. Falling from reality. There was a distinct feeling of dropping. Whatever had pulled you to this world threatened to pull you back. You were no longer stood in Rivendell with Lord Elrond, friend and confidant. Or rather, you weren’t entirely there. You teetered between two places. You were back at home, your first home, your first world. You were reading under the covers. Stories based on stories. Oneshots and fics longer than books and everything in between. You read it all, filling your brain with stories where the ones that mattered didn’t die. So many that you could almost pretend they didn’t the one time it counted.

I wonder if you could have returned home in that moment. If that was the chance to leave it all behind. Would you have done? Could you?

Could you really have gone home knowing all that you did now?

There was a hand at your back and another at your elbow. Stabilising you.

They were here. Kíli was here. In this world, in this valley. Having conversations and revelations you had already seen. It was impossible to process.

Elrond escorted you away from the balcony and inside, helping you down to sit in a chair.

The vision of your other self faded. You were back in Middle Earth. The ever-present sound of running water grounded you.

The reality of it all weighed like a mountain on your chest. Breathing was a conscious and enormous effort. You could not speak.

Elrond could read the signs. Had looked for them every time he had mentioned someone new.

“I wondered how long it would be before you encountered something like this. I had hoped perhaps these tales you speak of were from a time different to this one, that they would happen after you had lived your life, or were already complete.”

Everything you knew was flashing through your mind. You were a teenager again. Watching a film you had both dreaded and been desperate for. Watching the fates of people you loved unfold before you. Fates you had known were coming but could not change.

There were tears on your face both in remembered heartbreak and fresh horror. Time slipped through your fingers. Minutes dripped by. Elrond sat with you. At last he felt you could take some small conversation.

“You told me once there were people in the stories you know that meant more to you than others. People you have loved. People you perhaps still love.”

Your heart broke anew every time you allowed your thoughts to move again.

“I hope I am not pushing too hard to say that it is one of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield you hold so dear.”

A nod from you, anything else felt impossible. Emotions swirling inside that you couldn’t contain.

“It is a dwarf whom you love.” Not a question this time. A statement. But, for the first time, you did not find him entirely correct.

“It is a dwarf,” you began through massive attempts to steady your breath, “I loved. It is a dwarf I thought about every day. It is a dwarf I lusted over, mooned over, dreamed about. It is a dwarf… It is a dwarf I have grieved for ten years.”

You had hardly managed to shock Elrond since your first arrival in Rivendell. Ever had he been a paragon of calm. But you did not miss the way his breath hitched when you said that.

You had never given away a single detail of what you knew.

“I have been good, Elrond. So good. I have controlled myself so perfectly. Given nothing away. Nothing. But I… I can’t. Not this time. I know that if I saw him… What is the right thing to do when you see a living ghost?”

“I think it is best if you tell me no more. Not even who it is.”

“I… Yes. You’re right. But please don’t leave me just yet. I swear I won’t say anything else. But I couldn’t bear to be alone.”

“Of course.”

You sat together in silence for a while. You tried to ground yourself, to name sensations and list senses. You noticed that Elrond was breathing slower and deeper than usual, you recognised those breaths. He was, in an unintrusive way, reminding you how to calm your breathing. And so you followed along. In time your mind settled a little. Your heart slowed.

“I think,” Elrond began after he had decided you were ready for it, “that it would be best if you kept to yourself for a few days. Stayed away from the area the Company are residing in.”

“You wish me to hold myself prisoner until they are gone?”

“I will place no boundaries on you because of their presence, nor will I place harsher limits on my guests. They are already suspicious of me as it is, I wish to engrain in them some trust. But I fear the pain it would cause you to encounter the one you love, or indeed any of those you care for, in these circumstances.”

“I can’t say what I’d do.”

“I hope you do not have need to find out.”

You only hummed in response, unwilling to commit to the thought that seeing him would be a wholly bad thing. Even if you knew it would be dangerous.

Chapter Text

The dwarves brought a vibrancy to the valley that had not necessarily been lacking before, Imladris thrived on quietness and calm, but it was a change that couldn’t be ignored. No one laughed in Imladris, not like that. Not with their whole body, so hard they cried and so loud it echoed.

The sound of it seemed constant. Joyful. Alive.

It drilled into your skull. Nestled in your brain. Sat there. With you.

Those people you knew so well. So close.

Sleep was slow to come and difficult to keep.

“You have not slept.”

Elrond was blunt when he saw you the next morning. He saw no need to pretend your exhaustion wasn’t clear.

“Not much and not well.”

“I cannot say that I expected you to.”

He handed you a cup and you took a sip without even inspecting the contents, so detached and full were your thoughts. The liquid was warm but refreshing, quenching thirst and seeming to flow through you and wash away grogginess and heaviness. Your tiredness abated. Your thoughts flowed easier. Elrond could see the surprise on your face.

“It is a remedy for sleepless nights when all other remedies fail. It does nothing to bring sleep or replace it, but revitalises the drinker long enough for them to take a break from trying. I guard its recipe closely for it is too tempting to abuse the substance. However I thought you might be in need of some help today.”

You took another sip and understood why he felt the need to keep this drink so secret.

“Gratitude is not the word,” you sighed into the drink. “Thank goodness for the magic of elves.”

Elrond gave you a moment, waiting until your sips had become less frequent and your brain was working again.

“I don’t suppose I need to ask what has caused your disruption.”

“Take a wild guess.”

“I am sorry you are in such distress.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Then I shall reword my sentiment. You have my sympathy and my compassion.”

“Better. And thank you. Are you… Did you have a pleasant evening hosting them?”

His eyebrows creased in annoyance. He forgot, for the time being, that you loved one of those dwarves enough to make you ill.

“They are… disruptive people. Even among the standards of dwarves.”

“Not as enjoyable company as their ancestors then?”

“Of which ancestors do you speak?”

“Weren’t you close with one of the Durins and his kin?”

He took a moment to smile, both in recollection and in amusement at himself.

“I should stop being surprised when you know things.”

“And rob me of my single source of smugness? How cruel that would be.”

A joke. Seeming so completely out of place in this moment. An opportunity to smile and forget, for the briefest of instances, that your heart was doomed to break all over again so soon.

You followed Elrond’s recommendation. Staying home, not straying far, keeping to yourself and your hobbies. You read, painted, wrote. Pulled all your focus to tangible activities, endeavours with physical results and goals. Anything to be a distraction.

It worked for a little while. For a couple of days.

It is understandable that you broke. Who could have contained it all in that circumstance?

You had done so well. Avoiding the Company even when every fibre of your being screamed at you to sneak a look. To see them happy and alive and safe. But you knew that if you saw them, saw him, you would never escape those faces in your dreams.

The dwarves had, however, taken the valley’s hospitality to heart, and you were not truly housebound.

If you had been thinking truly logically you would have known to avoid Elrond’s house in those days. But he was the only one who knew what you were going through, and he was your closest friend. His house was designed to soothe pained souls and few were more pained than yours. A walk in the grounds was a natural part of the routine for you. Your feet took you there naturally.

But it was also where the Company were housed.

Perhaps your subconscious knew that and sent you there anyway. Perhaps something inside you was trying to see them. Him.

If that is the case then it got what it wanted.

It wasn’t that you went to him, so much as you put yourself in a position where you were not avoiding him. And he certainly didn’t avoid you. Indeed the opposite. It was in the halls of Lord Elrond’s house that you overheard Dwarven voices, loud counting, as though playing a game not unlike hide and seek, and then a figure hurtled round the corner.

And right into you.

Kíli reeled back, you reached out a hand to stabilise him.

“I’m sorry,” you choked out on instinct.

He cracked an amused grin, not rattled for a moment.

“You’re sorry? I’m the one who crashed into you. And I would certainly be sorry, if it hadn’t meant I had the chance to meet the most stunning person I have seen here.”

He was so quick about it. So instantly turning on the charm.

Words were impossible. Breathing had halted. He was here. In front of you. Flirting with you. The part of yourself you had locked away from all the pain and sorrow, the young teen falling in love with a fictional character, was screaming. The rest of you wanted to scream too, but for different reasons. The teenager took charge, being the only part of you not paralysed.

“It was my privilege to be crashed into by the most handsome dwarf I can imagine exists, master Kíli.”

You watched his expression go from taken aback to flattered back to flirty. How you wished you could freeze that moment and live in it forever.

“You know my name?”

“Of course.”

“Then may I have yours?”

“You will lose your game if you tarry with me much longer.” You weren’t sure why you were trying to send him away, why you would cut short the very thing you’d spent years dreaming of. But speaking with him was dangerous in too many ways.

“The game is not important.”

“But your honour is. Keep running.”

You could tell he had no intention of doing any such thing, but not far off you heard someone declare something in Dwarvish and Kíli was brought back to the present moment.

“Please. Before I go. Your name.”

You gave it to him. He repeated it and you knew for certain you were doomed. Hearing your name from his lips.

“I hope we meet again, Y/N.”

He winked at you and then he was off running. Leaving you almost unable to breathe.

You made it to Elrond’s study in a haze, not bothering to knock. You stayed steady until the door was shut behind you before finally falling to the ground.

Surprising the lord of Rivendell was something you were becoming good at.

“Y/N! What happened? Are you unwell?”

He was up from his chair and dropping to kneel by your side. You turned desperate eyes on him. If you started crying then you weren’t sure how it could be possible to stop.

He understood without the need for words.

“You met him.”

“He was right there in front of me. We spoke. We flirted. We… He asked my name. He knows my name, Elrond.” A shaky breath you couldn’t control. Another. Breathing getting shorter.

You had spoken to him.

You loved him still.

He was going to die.

Truths. Spiralling.

A single sob broke through. You held your breath in hopes of stopping more but it was futile.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, Elrond took your hand and led you up from the floor and over to sit on a sofa, pressing a cup of water into your hand. You took a sip. Then a gulp. It did something to stop the sobs.

A lone thought shot through your grief.

“I could have told him. I should have. Just grabbed his arm and told him everything I know. Or none of it. I could have just told him not to… Not to go.”

Elrond put a finger on your chin and guided your face to look at him. You knew what he was going to say before he did.

“You cannot save him.”

He was right. Morally. He was always so infuriatingly moral. Right then you didn’t care.

“I can. I’m the only one who can! I can tell him. I can stop him!”

“But you must not. The repercussions would be incalculably vast.”

“I love him.” Your voice was hoarse. Heavy with emotion. And pleading.

“I understand. It is a heavy burden to know what you do. But you told me yourself that you must not use it to change fates.”

“What harm can Kíli do? He’s just one person.”

Utter desperation had claimed you. You were hysterical, clinging to one horrifyingly tempting idea. The fact that you had finally let his name slip didn’t even register as something that should have been avoided.

“He is not. Any one person would be dangerous to save in this circumstance, but to save a member of the line of Durin would have consequences that would echo across Middle Earth.”

Hearing him say it like that, ‘a member of the line of Durin’, clicked in your head. At last you understood.

“Dain wouldn’t be king. Kíli would inherit the throne.”

The dam on information was broken. In that one sentence Elrond learned much. He knew the quest to reclaim the throne would be successful. He knew there would once again be a king under the mountain, but it would not be Thorin or his kin. It did not matter. Not right now.

“It would change all politics in Middle Earth. Reshape the future that you know in ways we cannot predict.”

You sat in the dreadfulness of it. Trying to reason your way out of doing the right thing. How could letting people die be the right course?

But then, it is well known that those who try to change history only make things worse. Butterfly wings fluttering. Empires falling.

They would never have believed you. It was a miracle Elrond believed you, and he had seen far more strangeness than the dwarves. You could not have convinced Kíli. And if you had then there was no telling what you would change.

Elrond watched you reaffirm in your mind the impossibility of it all. Watched your hysteria fade.

“You see now, do you not? You must do nothing. You must let him go.”

The regret on his face seemed all too real. He knew he was right but he desperately wished he wasn’t. Wished he could allow you this. It was always his first and strongest impulse to save people.

Perhaps that’s what he was doing. Perhaps he was saving you.

The fight left you. You sagged against him. So overwhelmed by sorrow and despair that all you could feel was emptiness.

“I wish I had never come here.”

Elrond was steady. He did not move as you fell against him, but remained a rock. The one security you felt you had.

Chapter Text

You entire existence was on fire. Burning to relive the moment he’d looked at you with those agonisingly soft eyes. The moment you’d seen a whirlwind of romance dance through his thoughts.

You knew him.

Knew what he was like. How he saw the world. Sought always for excitement and joy and beauty. Lived as though his life were a story. As though he would never die.

One of those things was right, or at least used to be, but it wasn’t the one you wanted it to be.

But he was here and you were here and you’d met him. It was just a taste and you’d been starving for years. Just a drop when you’d been living in a desert.

The one you had loved in so many ways other than real.

If you saw him again it wouldn’t be like that first time. Wouldn’t be a moment of horror and magic equally. If you saw him again you knew you’d see nothing but his death. You weren’t sure you’d be able to keep yourself from saying any one of countless things that would only do more harm than good. Cause more confusion than anything else. Even scare him.

No. You couldn’t do that to him. Couldn’t bare to live the rest of your life knowing what it was like to have him look at you like you were mad.

So you went back to hiding, and you did it right this time.

Why did he find you in your solitude?

Perhaps he sought you out. More than perhaps. He did. After that first meeting his eyes had been peeled but all he ever caught were glimpses of you. Flickers in the edges of his vision. It wasn’t enough. He burned with questions, impulses alive with thoughts of you.

Somehow he knew exactly where to go. Wasn’t surprised when he found you there, back turned to the room, to him. Looking out across the view, trying to ground yourself. Or perhaps it was less grounding you sought and more distance.

“Y/N?”

You were as unsurprised as him. You didn’t turn at the sound of his voice. Didn’t dare.

“Were I a more gullible person, I’d call us meeting again a coincidence,” you said.

Sounds of him walking gently closer. How long could you avoid turning to look at him? How long until he saw the tears?

“I had hoped we might run into each other. But then I remembered it is better not to leave such things up to fate.”

“Fate is fickle and unkind. You’re right to make your own choices, Kíli.”

The statement was cryptic at best and a desperate prayer at its worst.

You did not raise your head but flicked your eyes his way long enough to see his smile. You tried not to remember he was almost the same as a ghost. The two of you were living different love stories in the same conversation.

That brief eye contact was enough. He saw in your eyes the sheen of tears you could never seem to be rid of. The wetness of your cheeks. His face fell, cheekiness replaced with concern.

“You’re crying.”

“I’m ok. It’s mostly stopped.” Two lies. He saw through them both and moved closer, finger under your chin to tilt it. Catching your gaze for longer than before.

“It won’t do for someone so beautiful to be so sad. What has upset you?”

There was a time you would have done anything possible to be this close to him. If you’d known back then that the impossible could happen too then you would have fought to make it happen sooner. To have him look at you with so much concern and care. To look into his eyes.

“It is nothing you need trouble yourself with.”

“A burden shared is one halved.”

“You don’t even know me.” You bit off the ending of that statement, the fact that you in your turn knew him so completely. It remained nothing but a thought.

“And yet I want to help anyway.”

You looked at him for too long. The world faded away. Details blurred in your periphery. If you were to live through this moment then you would make sure to hold onto it for all of your days. The way he looked, the feeling of his finger on your chin. The sensation it left even after it was gone. Those eyes, full of compassion and life.

You couldn’t help but think how empty this world would be without him. Your throat was tight.

“Sharing my troubles will not make them any less. But I admit your company is a comfort. Would you… Would you stay with me? Just for a bit.”

His reply wasn’t in words but in actions as he sat beside you, close enough for your legs to press together.

“Why do I feel drawn to you?” he asked. You shrugged.

“I flirted with you, and you’re a romantic.”

“That’s not what I meant. I may not know you, but that doesn’t mean this is all just my fantasy.”

The merest suggestion of hurt in his eyes. He was too used to having his thoughts and feelings dismissed. You rushed to explain yourself. To make him understand that you didn’t see him that way, that you would never treat him like that. Never had.

“I only meant that you are so sure of the romance in all things that you yourself construct it. Shaping your life around romance and adventure. It is a beautiful way to see the world.”

The hurt left him, the defensive tension in his shoulders lifted. He tilted his head to one side.

“Who taught you to speak like that?”

“Hang around with elves long enough and you learn.”

He laughed and it was a shot of healing through you.

“I’ve never been one for elven speech. Better to be straight forward. I’ve got no time for obscure misunderstandings. My mother always said I was blunt as a wall.”

“Bluntness is a trait among your people. It is refreshing after only speaking with elves. They dance around and put their points into metaphors.”

“It would drive me mad if I had to live here.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Oh trust me, it is. Their songs are too long and plaintive, they never say what they mean, and I can’t imagine they’re good partiers.”

“Now there I must stop you, elf parties are quite something to behold.”

“Nothing on a dwarven do.”

“I’m sure they’re very different affairs.”

He cracked another grin, cocky and sure of himself. You would have waited forever just to exist in this moment.

“Maybe when this is all over I’ll come back here, and take you with me to a proper dwarven party.”

“I… I would like that above anything.” You choked on the thought. On the dream.

 His grin mellowed. Softened. Became filled with such gentle yearning that it almost cracked you.

“Kíli…”

“Yes?”

“There’s far more to you than I think you realise. I hope you have the chance to discover that.”

You were playing with fire now. Flirting with death.

How literal that phrase felt.

He wouldn’t stop looking at you. Couldn’t.

If this was all a dream, you hoped you’d never wake up.

“Why do I get the feeling there’s so much you aren’t saying?” he asked.

Take his hand

Don’t take his hand.

Neither seemed like the right choice.

Which would you regret least?

You took it and squeezed gently, searing the roughness of his skin into your memory, hoping that one act would convey something of what you could never say.

“I’m just a paragraph in a story. Don’t read too much into what I say. Forget about me.”

“I’m not sure I ever could.” All contrariness was gone from him. All that remained was an endless love of life. A boundless ability to see the romance in this world.

You couldn’t bring yourself to think of regretting this. No matter how much worse meeting him might make the outcome, you knew now that you could never have been content with yourself if you hadn’t.

“You are a remarkable person, Kíli. I am glad to have met you, even if only briefly.”

The sun set. He kept holding your hand.

Chapter Text

The Company left the next day. They had a place to be, a deadline to be there, and no reason to stay. You knew the time and manner of their departure before anyone else did, but your promise to Elrond meant you could not warn anyone. They slipped away while no one was looking. No one but you.

You watched from afar as they made their way out of the valley. For a moment a pale face was turned back to Imladris. You could pretend it was mere chance that Kíli looked straight to where you were standing, that he just happened to see you rather than was drawn to look. He waved. You waved back.

This was your last chance. Possibilities danced across your thoughts. Temptations.

If he walked away from here he was never coming back. Never going home.

But you were steeled against it by now. Not ready, but steeled. Reconciled to the awful impossibility of changing things.

You prepared yourself to die again. Held yourself tightly, ready for the impact of a farewell you’d lived through before.

Let him have the joy of a friendly farewell. Perhaps he would fantasise about you for a few days, dreaming of the mysterious human in the elvish town with whom he had shared such a precious bond for the briefest of evenings.

It was the only gift you could give him.

When Elrond heard of the Company’s departure you were the first person he looked for. He found you still staring after the path they had taken.

“I assume you knew of this long ago?”

“Of course.” Your voice lacked any real emotion.

“I do not suppose that helped you.”

“There is no way to prepare for losing one you love. Even when you have so much time to do it.”

“Was it worth it?”

“I didn’t give anything away. He will think of me for a while, but soon his adventures will be distraction enough. I won’t linger with him like he will for me. I may have done more than was prudent but I do not believe I have put the future into any uncertainty.”

A very long moment. A look full of compassion from Elrond. Empathy.

“That is not quite what I meant.”

You took a long breath. Thought of having never met him. Of having been so close yet so far.

You remembered that empty, incomplete heartbreak you had felt when you first lost him. The devastation of losing someone you loved, but the hollowness of knowing you had never had them to begin with. Of knowing they were dead but no less present for you than when alive. Of bearing a heartbreak you were told time and time again you should not feel. Of loving and losing someone who wasn’t real. Bearing a hidden heartbreak because the world told you there was no reason to be broken over, but being broken anyway.

The raw, empty, all-consuming nature of it.

 You couldn’t have done that again.

“It was worth it.”

You were quiet in the days after the Company’s departure. Your thoughts moved slowly, their weight making them sluggish. It was difficult to conjure up much but apathy and a low, constant, crushing despair. People were confused. Concerned. No one but Elrond held your confidence in these matters. No one but Elrond knew why you had changed so completely. Fallen so swiftly and wholly into depression.

And he knew better than to try and ease it. Instead he stood there and bore it with you. For, though he could not understand precisely what you were going through, he could sympathise. Could understand the heartbreak of losing one who was not wholly gone.

Knew how it rotted you from the inside out.

In doing so he felt fonder of you than ever. Closer. You shared this, the understanding of losing someone and not losing them. Though Elrond had the comfort that he would see his wife again one day (it was all that kept him going some days), while you had none of that. Only the empty horror of losing one you had already lost long ago.

So he came to you when you would not see the world. Brought you food and conversation and wise words.

Brought you himself. Sitting in a chair in your room while you stared endlessly at the valley which would slowly heal your soul.

“I’m sure you have better things to be doing than spending your valuable time with me. I’m afraid I haven’t been especially good company of late,” you broke the silence to tell him.

“As your friend, it is my honour to be with you through your darkness. As your healer, I wish to provide whatever soothing I can. You are in deep distress, I would not leave you now.”

“It feels silly. Being so broken over people I don’t even know.”

“Love is the sharpest knife. Its wounds are deepest.”

“I’m so deep into my own thoughts that I’m not even sure it is love anymore. It’s all confused.”

“Emotions are difficult things. They have a habit of hiding among one another and wearing each other’s faces.”

“I knew you’d have something poetic to say about it.”

There was a slight chuckle from your friend. It comforted you. Elrond was well acquainted with sorrow and anguish, he knew how to face these things with kindly grace.

“Would you prefer a more clinical assessment?”

You sighed.

“No, don’t worry yourself. I can provide that one for myself. I’d say it’s a potent mixture of shock, confusion, and exhaustion.”

“And what does that have to do with the dwarf?”

“I dunno. Repressed teen trauma maybe? Projected all my emotions onto him when I was younger rather than process what was really hurting me. Meeting him… All of this… brought me back to that headspace.”

“I cannot tell you what is going on in your own head. Although that sounds like rather an astute assessment.”

“Thank you. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”

There was quiet for a moment, Elrond waiting just long enough to feel it was alright to circle back.

“Did you have much to repress in your younger years?”

“Define much. I think we all do it to some extent. At least, where I’m from. Can’t let the world see you. Can’t be who you are, not entirely. So we hide bits of ourselves in other places, in fantasies and hobbies and behind closed doors.”

“You hid parts of yourself here?”

“Is that so surprising? This place is a refuge for aching souls and bodies.”

His reply faltered for a moment.

“That was always my dream and my sincerest hope, though I never imagined it would translate beyond this reality.”

“Yes, well, I don’t think anyone can fault you for not thinking that was possible.”

“No, I suppose not.”

The conversation stalled. That thought felt complete enough. Elrond ran his thoughts back, aware you had fallen off topic.

“All of this may be true, but none of it means you do not love him.”

You hummed gently.

“Maybe. I certainly thought so at the time. But now… I don’t know if it’s true anymore.”

“Perhaps,” Elrond began slowly, “it is because for you he died years ago. You have mourned and grown beyond who you were when you loved him.”

Your reply, when at long last it came, was on a different tangent, thoughts having made vague connections and shifted onto other tracks in the wake of the Elrond’s words.

“My dreams have been confused of late. They are haphazard. Inconsistent. Even in my own mind I cannot keep stories straight. I sleep long nights and yet wake exhausted, having spent the hours bound to the madness of my own mind.”

“You are coming face to face with yourself as you were and are. With emotions you had wrapped up in people and places you never thought to encounter. It is understandable for you to feel a little mad. But know that I am here for you. As a friend.”

“Thank you. Despite the insanity of all of this you always seem to understand. And your presence… it means more than I know how to say.”

You felt a comforting hand upon your back. It was a rare physical comfort, for the elves expressed their affections in a different way to humans. Suddenly you realised how lonely you were. How long had it been since you had been held? You could not tell, but you ached for it.

Chapter Text

On your first day in Imladris you had looked out at the view over the valley and felt a sense of peace. A moment of wonder in the midst of confusion and fear. Is it any wonder you sought out that same view over and over again? That you found your way to the highest windows in the quietest rooms and watched the world. It was a mindless comfort. Gave you something to focus on while your brain worked away in the background.

After days, however, you found you could sit no longer. You felt a restlessness take hold. A need to walk. To move so that your thoughts could too.

You didn’t stop for hours. Not until you were crossing a bridge, and your eyes were drawn to the water below. You didn’t know how long you stood there. Watching it.

“It is good to see you out.”

You startled slightly, looking around until you saw Elrond, rounding the bend and stepping onto the bridge.

“I could stare out the window and at my walls no longer. I needed to see the bigger picture.”

“Does it help?”

“I don’t know. I love this view, watching the world slip gently by in the water. It reminds me to breathe. But then I just feel guilty for enjoying it.”

“There is no shame in allowing yourself to heal, nor to take a break from the pain. It is what you need.”

“I know that. I do. It just… It feels as though I have failed in something.”

“In what?”

“I’m not sure. Something profound.”

“You have no great mission or purpose here. All you must do is exist.”

“And yet I still feel I have failed.”

He sighed, steeling himself to reassure you of something even he couldn’t always justify as a certainty.

“If he is doomed to die then interfering could only hurt him more. Death does not like to be cheated of those promised. You could not have saved him.”

“Nor would he have believed me if I tried. I don’t think that’s what I mean.”

“Then what?”

You did not reply, your breaths so shallow you were almost holding them.

“What is it?” Elrond asked, acutely aware of your behaviour as well as your words. Your shoulders sagged.

“I’ve lost him all over again. He was there, right in front of me. I could have… I should have loved him better while I could.”

“You loved him in your own way and with your whole heart. There is no better than that.”

“But I…”

Speech was impossible for a moment. Elrond took it as a chance to continue.

“He is already gone, my friend, it is too late for regret.”

“Do you really believe that?”

A pause. Complexities being considered.

“Yes. And no. I believe it, and yet I know it is impossible to act upon that knowledge. Does that help?”

“In a way. It’s nice to know you understand.”

He held out a handkerchief.

“You are crying.”

“Am I?” no surprise showed in your words. “I cry a lot these days.”

He said nothing. It was comforting to be with someone who knew when not to speak.

“I don’t even notice it half the time. Yesterday I was reading and then there were tears on the page. I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t… I don’t think I’m doing this right.”

“Doing what right?”

“Whatever I’m going through.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is grief.”

“No one’s dead yet.”

“Are they not?”

You eyed him carefully.

“Are you asking me to reveal something I shouldn’t?”

“Of course not. But Kíli will not be returning to Imladris. You know this. Know far more than anyone else could. You have seen it happen. There is no point in trying to work out the exact date. Those who are to die were dead the day they left this valley. Whether consciously or not, you are grieving.”

“It is exhausting.” You pushed off from the bridge’s railing, words bidding him goodnight perched on your tongue.

Elrond’s reactions were lightning quick, but he was gentle as his hand darted out to land on your elbow. He was not holding you, you would not even have had to shake him off to get away, but his hand was there as a sign that he wanted you to stop.

“You sleep too much lately.”

You didn’t know what to say. It was an unusual accusation. You tried to shake it off.

“I thought sleep is supposed to be good for you. Where I come from most people don’t get enough.”

“Of course it is good for you, but too much of anything can be harmful. And in your case I think you know what it speaks to.”

“You think I’m depressed.”

“I think you’re in great anguish and sleeping is easier than being awake at times.”

Realisation hit you. Personal details Elrond had never shared with you, but that you knew anyway. His history. His tragedies.

“Are you speaking as a physician right now, my Lord? Or perhaps from a different side of yourself?”

“Must it be so binary?” His hand fell away from your arm. “It is true that there have been times in my life when darkness claimed me. It has made me a better healer, and a more understanding friend. It is not easy for me to disconnect the two sides of myself. Now please, whether it be in regard to my position as either, do not go to bed just yet.”

“And do what instead?”

His smile, even when it was small as this one, felt like it lit you up through the gloom. You relented. It was an easy decision when he looked at you like that. Like he’d known you for thousands of years. Like you were so very dear to him.

“Lend me your company a while longer, it is a beautiful evening.”

No matter how dark things felt in your head and heart, that fact was undeniable. It was a beautiful evening, and it felt easier to believe that when standing with him. With the person who had dedicated so much of his extraordinary life to ensuring evenings like this were possible.

You were hit by a wave of empathy. A deep sorrow, but not for yourself this time. For him. The knowledge of what was to come was a heavy burden. The strain it would put him under. The pain he would feel.

Your swore to yourself to be with him through it. To do what you could to lighten his burden. To brighten his heart during the darkness. It did not matter to you that those events were decades away, you had every intention of being there for him. With him.

It was the first time you had made plans for the rest of your life in that land.

You reached out and took his hand. Both seeking and giving comfort. Seeking for the grief you were living in, and comforting for the sorrows only you knew were yet to come.

The river slipped placidly by beneath the bridge, as it ever had.

Chapter Text

“I must leave Imladris for a short while. There are things underway to which I must attend. Matters which may require my skills.”

Your face betrayed nothing. You simply held a steady gaze, allowing Elrond to connect the dots.

“But you knew that already.”

A small smile. “I did.”

“How I wish you could tell me what you know.”

You placed your hand on his arm and squeezed gently.

“You will know much of it for yourself soon enough. When do you leave?”

“There is no reason to delay. I set off within the hour.”

You were suddenly afraid. However could you not be? Elrond was coming home, you knew that. Had seen it many times. But still, someone who had become deeply important to you was going off to what you knew was war, though he could not know the extent of the battle he would face. It made sense to be afraid.

A thought lingered in the back of your mind. What if you had screwed up? What if your presence here had, no matter how hard you tried to prevent it, influenced events. Influenced Elrond. What if he wasn’t safe?

Nonsense. He would be fine.

But still.

“Before you go…” you had started with little idea as to how you were going to end. He stopped, waiting for you.

“Yes?”

“I just… You are very dear to many people. I count myself as one of them. And I… I’m not used to seeing you leave. I’ll miss you.”

Whatever it was you were trying to tell him, he seemed to understand. Or pretended to, for your benefit.

He took your hands and held your gaze.

“I shall not be gone any longer than I have to be. Take care of yourself, and count the days until my return. For I shall, I give you my word.”

Funny, you were the only one there who knew that for certain, and yet he was the one doing the reassuring. He could so easily have taken your words as a bad sign, as an attempt at a goodbye without being able to say it. But still he promised he would return. It was that more than anything else, even your own knowledge, that comforted you. That made it possible to let him go.

Elrond’s absence… It was a strange force.

You had many people in Imladris you could speak to. Chat to. People you were pleased to see and were pleased to see you. The beginnings of friendships that would last your whole life. But they were new and tender, built upon meeting by chance as you went through your days. These were not yet people who would impose upon you without just cause. Even your tutorage had halted recently, though you weren’t sure if it was by Elrond’s instruction or a simple conclusion from your tutor that you were not capable of study right now. Everyone knew you were not well. You were battling something. But they did not feel it was their place to interfere. With Elrond gone no one would seek you out unless your absence was notable, unless it strung on too long and concern was raised.

So long as you were seen on occasion you were left alone.

So entirely alone. In a world not built for you. In a world you weren’t built for.

And cloaked in grief.

You needed that solitude. The loneliness that gripped you. Needed to sit in it. To feel it.

With Elrond gone there was no one there to stop you from sinking. No one to try and drag you back to the surface so you did not drown. And so you did. You wandered away from people, found groves and pools and corners to hide in. Like a wounded animal.

Time took on a different meaning. What to you felt like hours was only minutes. The world slowed, as though to stretch those days when Elrond was gone into enough time. Enough time to come out the other side of this darkness.

Slowly you began to realise: Kíli was not just Kíli. He had never been just Kíli, not now that he was real and not before when he was fictional. You grieved him because it was easier to grieve a person than whatever larger thing you felt you had lost. What was it? Innocence. Childhood. The future. Possibilities. Time. So much time.

Your own life, your own world and home and family, came back to you gently. Like ghosts. Like memories and fragments. It had felt so far away since you came here. A different time and place and life. A different you.

Would you have gone back to them then? Would you have left this life, this world, that felt so right in your heart?

The grief bled you dry.

Opened your veins and let the pain slip out. Pour out.

But it didn’t feel any less for it. Didn’t feel any better. The pain just kept coming.

Eventually you found you did not want to wander anymore. You did not want your solitude and your pain. The self-indulgent grief was no longer cathartic. Was no longer letting out what needed to be released. It was sad and lonely now.

You craved something else. Craved company. Music. Food and drink and conversation.

So you came back to the world, and found it waiting for you.

Chapter Text

Elrond returned to Rivendell, as you knew he would. He brought news of the battle, of the dwarves, and of dark things occurring. None of it was a surprise to you.

It was a relief anyway.

The far-reaching effects of what had happened meant that the moment he returned home there was much he needed to do. People to inform, preparations to order. Explanations, reports, letters.

It was not until the next afternoon that he came to you. There was little greeting when he did.

“Apologies for taking so long to make time for you.”

“I’m actually surprised you made it here so quickly.”

Elrond hovered in the doorway. Never before had you seen him unsure of himself. You took the lead.

“Come in, Elrond. Sit down.”

He did, and sat at your table, hands clasped together. You sat opposite, surprising yourself with your calm, and waited for him to start.

“It feels a long time since I saw you,” was his opening statement. “I do not understand it.”

“The time dragged here, too. I could not help but wonder whether or not any given day was the day I was dreading.”

“That is why I missed you. Speech like that. It has become a strange comfort to me that I have someone near who knows something of what to expect. Things happened and I found myself wondering if you knew. If you had already been hurt by them.”

You were quiet a moment. Your feelings had become hard to put into words lately.

“It’s over now. That is what we should focus on. Pleasantries and emotions aside, I believe there are things you and I need to discuss.”

“Yes. Though I do not know how to begin.”

“Yes you do.” You didn’t know where the confidence had come from. He waited, wrangling himself to ask the one thought going around and around.

“So this is the story your people tell? This quest, this battle.”

It was so often you coming to Elrond for answers, it felt strange being the one teaching him. You smiled.

“We call it The Hobbit.”

His eyebrows drew in slightly. You elaborated.

“It is a tale of a person who values home and hearth and good things, but who goes on a quest to help people who have lost much. The larger repercussions are framed by him. The eye is drawn inwards, to remind you of what truly matters, even in the face of such monumental events.”

Elrond seemed to think on that for a while.

“At last I believe I have some idea of those repercussions. I see now why you have been so careful with your secrets.”

“The dwarves’ quest means a lot of things for a lot of people.”

“Is it over now?”

“Their part is.”

He raised an eyebrow slightly, and gave a brief nod.

“You are right to be careful with your words. I am sorry, I should not have asked you that. But I find myself shaken by what has happened.”

“I know.”

Elrond looked at you and saw a gentle, knowing nod. There was much knowledge behind your eyes, and with it came a sureness he had not seen in you before. A glimpse to your true self came through, the person you could be if it were not for the confusion and uncertainty which had haunted your time in his home.

You spoke again, and he was made acutely aware of how your speech had changed since you arrived. The peculiarity of your patterns was now mixed with the speech style of elves. You were becoming part of this place.

“It is not the fault of the dwarves. They quested only for their home, but a lot more came out into the open because of it. You’re right to be shaken, the world is changed and changing more.”

“Is it odd I find your knowledge of it a comfort? Though I cannot know what you do until after the fact it is strangely reassuring to know my future is written in your memories.”

“It’s not odd. I can imagine there’s something almost secure about knowing the future is, to some extent, certain. You can only act as you see best, but can do so knowing that at least one person knows the outcome.”

“You are very astute, I’ve said it before.”

“I think I prefer the term empathetic.”

He smiled.

“Well you are that too, of course.”

“Besides,” you shook off his affectionate smile, too full of confused thoughts to be ready to process it, “I do not think it is going too far to tell you that my knowledge is thin and of little use in this aftermath. Our book follows Bilbo, I will know nothing of relevance until our other stories. And you’ll understand I cannot tell you when that shall be.”

“Perhaps, then, you shall have some peace.”

“Peace? Hm. I hadn’t much thought of peace.”

“Well I hope it happens to you, whether you think of it or not.”

“You are kind.”

“Nonsense. I am a friend, wishing you well is a given.”

He smiled and you saw, for the first time, Elrond in his entirety. The core of him. Who he was. The parts of him that had always been there and the ones the world had formed him into, either sculpted or burned. Here he was before you, vulnerable and shaken but full of compassion, empathy, and gentleness. Wise as a wizard. Kind as summer.

Pages and screens could never have done him justice. The intricacies of him, the rawness of someone constantly portrayed as refined.

He was beautiful.

How you had missed him.

Oh.

The realisation that your affection for Elrond went deeper than you had ever thought possible was not as earthshaking as you might have expected. It was gentle in its own way. Obvious almost. But you did nothing about it. To your mind there was nothing to do. He was your friend, and if you tried to put that into further words then all you could seem to manage was ‘everything’, but that didn’t signify. Not now, not while he was still processing a dark shift in a peace he had fought so hard for many lifetimes ago.

What mattered was that the world was changing in ways you alone understood and Elrond was trying to come to terms with that. Trying to reconcile what he’d seen, what he now knew was true, with the world he was living in.

It was your turn to be there for him.

“You do not look well. Have your recent trials drained you?”

He deliberately relaxed his brow and made a show of being unburdened.

“Your concern is very kind, but I am quite well.”

He could control his countenance and words, but he could do nothing to remove the darkness beneath his eyes in an instant, nor return the colour to his complexion.

“I am afraid I will have to disagree. You look exhausted, Elrond. And pained.” You took tentative steps forwards, wary of overstepping a boundary, physically or metaphorically.

Still he forged onwards.

“It takes more than what I have done of late to unsettle an elvish body, my friend.”

You moved closer now, placing a hand gently on his elbow.

“But your body is not fully elven.”

He sighed, and smiled in a tired fashion, one you knew was not put on for your sake.

“Ever you insist on remembering such details that others would never use in kindness.”

“Yes, well,” your hand was slightly firmer at his elbow as you urged him towards the door, “I take rather too much pride in being not like others.”

He stopped, discomfort momentarily forgotten, brushed away by the intensity of thought.

“No. You are right to be proud of your individuality, your ability to stand out.”

“It is easy to stand out when you are the only one who is a stranger to this entire world.”

“That is true I suppose, though I cannot imagine you blending in anywhere, even in your old home.”

You chuckled.

“Yes, well, falling in love with fictional people was considered somewhat atypical behaviour. I was always a little weird, and not just for that. At least here I know why people are whispering about me.”

“We are each different to those around us, and that is a gift as much as a burden.”

“Even when it means our limits are not the same as those others?”

He parted his lips to reply, but then paused as he caught your meaning.

“Well played.” He sighed. “You are right, of course. I am not as elven as I would sometimes have people think. And a rest does sound beneficial.”

“I love it when you agree with me.”

He was moving again now, gently but surely towards his own rooms, where he could rest undisturbed.

“As far as I can recall, I usually do.”

“That’s because I’m usually right. Perhaps not as much as you, but regularly enough.”

“You have a different way of thinking. Your unusual origins have taught you to see the world in ways the rest of us do not.”

“Is that one of those gifts of individuality you mentioned?”

He paused again, and looked at you with an expression you struggled to read.

“Certainly. Your unique perspective has taught me much. I value your opinions and insight greatly. And not just because of where you come from, but because of who you are. Your gifts are more than what has happened to you.”

Something in your stomach shifted under his gaze. You had mostly grown used to your new life here, but to have Lord Elrond tell you how much he valued your opinion was surreal. It was a feeling you instantly craved more of.

But you weren’t going to think about that right now.

“Come now, there’s only so much flattery I can handle. You need rest, and I have offered to help in the kitchens.”

“I have made you uncomfortable, you are right to escape.”

“No!” you were a little too quick to deny it, hand darting out to rest on his arm. “Please don’t think that. You’ve never made me uncomfortable. But I don’t want to keep you from the rest I know you need.”

He nodded.

“Very well. Enjoy the kitchens. I will leave you.”

Chapter Text

You could not quite do as Elrond asked. It was true that you often enjoyed your shifts helping in the kitchens, it was fascinating learning how to cook a cuisine you had spent much of your earlier years imagining, just as it was true that you found great satisfaction in body and soul to be doing something so domestic and physical. Cooking, preparing food, even washing up. These things tied you to this world in ways you could never have manufactured before you came there.

But you couldn’t enjoy them today.

It wasn’t that your interaction with Elrond had shaken you, but rather that it hadn’t. It should have. His tiredness may only have been a small breach, but it was the most vulnerable you had ever seen the usually infallible Elrond. He had been a beacon of strength ever since you were a child. Seeing him be anything less than that should, by all rights, have been a perception shift for you.

But it wasn’t.

You were distracted by that.

Elrond was your friend, yes. You had long since come to terms with that fact, and were adjusted to seeing him on a day-to-day basis. But you still held him with a respect that was close to awe.

And yet.

Seeing him be so vulnerable, being the one to support him, even to take charge, had felt natural. Necessary, of course, but also natural. Normal. Was this what he meant when he said he had come to rely on your presence?

It seemed you had slipped into a whole other level of familiarity with him without even knowing it.

It felt so right that it threw you a little.

It’s difficult to say whether it was deliberate or accident that he came across you the next morning as you idly studied a text your tutor had set you – your lessons had resumed once you had regained something like equilibrium in your mental and emotional state. Elrond himself likely didn’t rightly know himself. What matters is that he did find you, sipping on a drink as you gently unwound the meaning in a text that would have been incomprehensible to you months before.

All was forgotten once you saw him.

“Elrond! Good morning.”

“Good morning, my friend.”

“How are you today? I hope you slept well.”

“I did, thank you. I find myself somewhat recuperated.”

“Only somewhat?”

“Rest has done me great good, though it seems that admitting my weakness has opened the door to vulnerability.”

“You know, Elrond, I like to think I’m pretty good at understanding you, but sometimes you’re a little too cryptic for me.”

“Apologies. I merely mean to say that I am not feeling as robust as I usually do.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Anything you need?”

“Company perhaps. I feel I am disposed to musing today. Would you walk with me a while?”

“Of course.”

Elrond led you away from his house, into areas of the valley that were not as well trodden. Frequented paths gave way to ones where the ground was ever so slightly spongier, not having been compacted by regular use. The sounds of music that so often drifted among the houses drifted away, replaced by increased audibility of the nature. The rivers, streams, trees, birds, insects all too its lace. You walked in silence.

Elrond carried the air of someone with things to say but who wasn’t sure how to say them. You gave him his time, content to walk with him.

“You told me recently of a book from your home. One set here,” he said at length. You smiled, remembering a darker day and a conversation that had meant much.

“The Hobbit.”

“Yes. It is a conversation that has not left my mind.”

“We discussed important things, I’m not surprised it’s stayed with you.”

“While that is true, it is not quite what I meant.”

“Oh? Then what?”

He sighed, mentally glancing back to a recent yet more mentally turbulent time.

“You talked of framing a larger world with a single, small person. At the time I was grappling with the larger world, I thought little of the smaller frame.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

He took a careful breath before continuing.

“It has felt a long while since I had something at home to ground my thoughts. Thank you. Though you may not have intended it, you reminded me to look inwards, that I may better understand when I once again look out.”

“I changed how you see things?”

“Is that so surprising?”

“Your life experience vastly outweighs mine, as unusual as my experiences have been. I’m only surprised I have anything to teach you.”

“You underestimate yourself.”

A beat. A smile from him. You faltered. The world shifted.

The two of you walked on in silence a while. Elrond led up a set of stairs, vines growing around the banister, nature gently reclaiming what was always ultimately hers, as though this corner of the world were only rarely frequented. As though you were alone. You found yourself pausing as you reached the top, eyes drawn to the view as you arrived at a covered seating area but you did not sit, instead naturally leant against the railing and gazed out. The world stretched out, going on far beyond the horizon. A world you had dreamed of since childhood. A world whose existence you could never understand.

Reminiscence claimed you. Regret.

“I’m afraid I was rather harsh on you as a child.”

Elrond took up position by your side. You pretended not to be impacted by how right it felt.

“How so?”

He had long since grown used to you saying somewhat strange things. It had not been easy, but in time he had adjusted to the implications of your story. That you knew so much of him from your childhood despite him only knowing you recently was a strangeness he had become immune to.

“I thought you were grim. Too intense. I believed you needed to relax a little. Be kinder. No, not kinder… Softer.”

You dared not look at him as you admitted to things you were ashamed of, even if they were only the initial thoughts of a child. Even if they were so completely different to what you thought now.

“That is a harsh portrait indeed. I’m sorry to have led you to think that way.”

“Please don’t apologise. I was a kid. I wasn’t equipped to understand everything that was going on. How that can impact a person. Or even how people can express themselves differently.”

“I hope your opinions have changed. We are friends, I would not wish for you to think me grim.”

His face gave nothing away. He was engaging in the conversation but still waiting for you to finish the sentiment, sure you would not have brought this up without good reason. He was wise enough not to feel hurt until he knew it all.

“Of course they have. In almost every way. Even before I knew you. As I grew older I began to understand your position, what you have been through, to learn something of your history. That though your demeanour is not like mine, and you express yourself differently to the way I understood as a child, that does not mean you are not kind. It does not mean you are not loving and caring and filled with goodness and softness. You are all those things.”

“It seems we have been on a journey together long before our meeting.”

You moved your hand to gently place it over his, where it rested on the railing. He did not recoil but allowed the contact with no sign of discomfort.

“It is not nearly as important as the way we have grown to know each other in person. The way I have grown to see you.”

“And how is it that you see me now?”

“I see that there is no end to your kindness. No limit to your heart. Your expression is careful and controlled but no less important for it. You are beautiful to me in all ways, in all your aspects and intricacies. I admire you. Care for you. Your presence in my life is a blessing I would not be without.”

“I think,” he began, turning his hand to hold yours rather than have them merely rest together, “I prefer that above any other way I have been described.”

Chapter Text

You stayed like that a while, hands intertwined as you watched the world pass by. Both unwilling to let the moment end, and so ensuring that it stretched. Went on for a small eternity. You could almost have lived in it if you chose.

You didn’t.

There was more life to live beyond that moment. Beyond sitting in the in-between where possibilities swirled, settled, then were sent up again. Beyond wondering.

You resumed your walk. Elrond followed, joining you at your side.

“Elrond?”

“Yes my friend?”

“You have the gift of seeing the future, don’t you?”

“I do. Though to call it a gift is not always accurate. I get only glimpses, and I cannot control what they are of. There are things I wish I could see but don’t, and others I would rather not have witnessed.”

A breeze whistled through the valley, winding through your hair

“That’s rather my point. It feels amiss that we haven’t discussed it before. How similar we are in that respect.”

“The two situations are far from the same. And yet, I suppose there are similarities. I too understand the burden of the future, of not knowing what to reveal.”

“So we are perhaps more alike than appearances would suggest.”

He smiled.

“I hope we have the chance to discover many more such similarities. The more time I spend in your company, the more I begin to understand how well matched our temperaments are.”

You hardly dared hope at what that meant. Hardly dared allow yourself to believe he meant what you thought he might.

Conversation was scarce after that. You walked for a long while, but it felt there was nothing to say. Or perhaps too much. Either way you did not try to fill the silence between you. Let it speak for itself. Let it fill in the gaps you couldn’t quite express.

It was not an uncomfortable way to pass some time.

You parted ways when you returned to Rivendell proper. When disused trails gave way to well-trodden paths. When wilderness was replaced by gardens. When solitude could not be guaranteed.

It was with a strange reluctance that you left his side. Let him go back to his duties, and trailed off on your own path, aware of the lingering look he left you. You found you could not bring yourself to turn to any definite pursuits. No study, no chores, no hobbies. You knew none of it would hold you and so you didn’t try.

You spent an aimless day. Replaying the same memories and thoughts. The image of yourself at Elrond’s side. The gentle understanding of how right he was, how well matched you truly were.

How desperately you wanted him in ways you could hardly believe.

You were restless. Filled with thoughts and possibilities.

Filled with hope. A life you hadn’t dared let yourself live.

And so you went to him.

It was darkening outside. The valley was preparing for bed, settling down for the evening. Anyone who showed up at someone’s door was cause for concern, even in a house as frequented as Elrond’s. You knew this but did not care. You had to see him. To tell him. And so you knocked on the door.

It was not Elrond who answered, but your face was well known and you would have been granted entry at any time. A single question came from you. A simple answer was received. He was in the library. You knew the way.

“Y/N? Whatever are you doing here? Is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine, I… I had to see you.”

“You have found me. Please, what is the matter? You seem distressed.”

He would not be denied as he bustled towards you, concern written in his every line.

“Not distressed, though I admit my mind is a flood of thoughts. I cannot get our conversation out of my mind.”

The concern left Elrond. He understood better than you realised.

“It has stayed with me, too.”

“And do you also find yourself realising things you were so utterly unprepared for?”

“I do.”

He was as soft and gentle as he had always been with you. As approachable and easy as you had always known him. He did not look like someone having love confessed to them. But then you didn’t look like someone confessing love. You were almost frantic, filled with a buzzing energy you had to get out.

“It feels presumptuous of me,” you finally managed to say.

“What do you mean?”

“You… Well. You are older than mountains. You have lived longer than I can possibly understand, and will continue to live into a timescale far beyond my comprehension. You are powerful in every way. Significant to the whole of time. You are a lord, could have been a king. Could have been a ruler greater than all of history tells. And I… I feel as though I have no right to ask of you what it is I so desperately want.”

He took a step closer, closing the gap between the two of you. Had it been anyone else you would have felt your personal space had been invaded. Elrond, however, was welcome in it. He took your hands and held your gaze with his own, face full of compassion and empathy and deep, deep affection.

“You forget, my dear, that I am no longer someone from your books. Beyond all that you have said, as true as much of it may be, I am no more or less than you see me before you now.”

And you did see him before you. In such clarity and wonder that you knew you could not now ever leave him. When you looked into Elrond’s eyes you saw something of that same wonder reflected back in his gaze.

There was an understanding between you. It gave you courage to speak without having to scramble to explain yourself.

“I did not look to find romance here. I thought of nothing more than companionship, someone I could trust in a world I could not begin to understand. Yet without you I would feel so utterly lost. I have loved others in this world, in different ways and at different times. But I am not the same person I was then. They were ideas to me. Concepts. Dreams. But you… You are real and that is how I have learned to love you. Not as an idea but as an actuality. As someone I know and someone I can talk to and hold and feel. And so I offer you myself as I stand before you. I will love you as only I can love. I can offer no better than that.”

He was still holding your hands, still looking at you as though you were the world.

“Because there is no better. You shall love me in your fashion and I shall love you in mine. Where the two meet is where we shall be happy.”

Chapter Text

Loving Elrond was not a new experience. You had loved him more and more for longer than you would ever realise. Had been becoming his one piece at a time almost since you met. Possibly even before, as was the advantage of your position. Loving him openly was something you had been unconsciously doing for weeks. Months.

Even when Kilí had been there. Even when his departure had been fresh. Some part of you had been Elrond’s even in the grief. The part of you that wasn’t who you had been before. The part of you that was new.

But now it was all of you. New and old. Grown up now. Matured, even if it didn’t always feel like it. Broken and fixed, battered and scarred but still standing. Whole and complete, Not that complete meant set, you would continue to change for your entire existence, as we all do, but you finally had all the cards. All parts of you were on the table.

You loved him and knew you loved him and there was such comfort in that. Such beauty.

He looked at you with such adoration. Such wonder and hope and affection. You did not shy away from it, try to avoid looking right back. You let him see how much you loved him back, let it pour out of everything you did.

There was something inside you that you’d never noticed before, something that had been searching your entire life, that was finally still.

So this was what you had been waiting for.

How good it was to know that.

There were ripples through Imladris when it became known that Lord Elrond had taken you as more than just a friend and confidant.

There had been no one since Celebrían. His wife was beloved by all, and her departure to Valinor widely regretted but also understood. Elrond had taken no one since. It was widely understood he would never.

No announcement was made exactly, but behaviours changed. It began to be understood that not only was it on the cards for him to choose a new companion but that he had done so. That it was you. The mortal with secrets no one but Elrond could know. The mortal who had made their home in the valley. Who had worked so hard to become one of the its people. Who spoke in hesitant and careful elvish.

You waited for the pushback.

It never came.

You never announced the change in things between you and Elrond, but they all saw it. Understood it. Were glad you had found happiness with each other.

And it was happiness. It was bliss. Joy and love and peace and understanding.

It was wonderful.

A weight seemed to be lifted from both of you. Every spare moment was found to be together, even if that meant you both working in silence but in the same place. Especially then.

Because suddenly you didn’t need to find an excuse to spend time together. You could just do it.

There was a thought in the back of your mind. The idea that you were brough here because of this. For this. That you had been brought from your first world to this one because really you were supposed to love Elrond. Because you were so perfectly meant to be his. The idea that some extra-cosmic entity had realise their mistake and moved you so that you could be together.

That was, of course, silly, because you were not quite the person you had been when you first came here. Your experiences had changed you. Shaped you into a person it felt you had always been striving to be.

The heartbreak almost seemed to have been necessary. Had been a part of your path; ugly but needed.

Nothing had ever felt like his arms around you. Like his lips beginning to learn the ins and outs of you. Like whispers in your ear.

Like being able to whisper back. To trail your fingers along his arm when you passed each other. Like catching hold of him and making him hesitate. Linger with you purely for the joy of it.

The teenage fan in you, the one who had so desperately loved Kilí, who had sworn to their family and to the wind and to the world and to anyone who could hear that they would love that dwarf until the end of their days, was happy for you. Kilí was dead all over again and that would never be ok, but you had made your choice. Had chosen not to make things worse. Had chosen known horrors over unknown ones. And had learned to live with it. To grow with it.

You had found a love you had never looked for. Could never have expected.

And it was all the sweeter for it. For having known him so long. For having grown to know him all over again. To know him better. To know him right.

It was in Elrond’s nature to love. To give his heart to those in his life and devote himself to them. To move mountains, raise armies, end wars for the people he cared for. It was his entire being and his greatest purpose. He was made of love. Not from any aim of his upbringing, he was no product of his guardian’s design. No, it was a peculiarity of Elrond that he had been raised in a world of power and war and politics and had come out of it the single most loving person you had ever met. The only explanation was that it was written in his bones, in his very nature. It was simply who he was. Who he was supposed to be.

But his love for you? That came from his blood. For, in ways most people did not dare nor bother to track, Elrond was ultimately the product of pairings so completely made in love that they had shaken the foundations of the world. Pairings between mortal and elf, on both sides of his lineage. It seems he was destined to love a mortal eventually, for he was half that way himself and had ancestors on both sides who had risked and sacrificed it all to do the same.

It is not, I hasten to assure you, as once he had assured himself when his feelings for you began, that he did not love his wife. Celebrían had been Elrond’s entire world. His whole heart. His everything.

But she was gone. Not lost, for one day he too would cross the sea and join her in the lands where pain could not reach, but gone nonetheless. His life was so full, with so many whom he loved deeply, but something was missing. Some part of him yearned, he knew not what for.

Until you came into his life.

Mortal as anything. Uncalloused by the world. Carefree when you could be. Open and honest about who you were, and proud of it. Looser in your ways than ever elves were, freer in your living of life. More complete in your happiness when it came, for you were ever aware, as all mortals, that life wasn’t guaranteed.

There was much about you that made you unique, things that meant Elrond fell for you fast and hard. Not just the obvious, not just your circumstances. Things he could never put his finger on but which made you stand out so far from everyone he’d ever met.

But ultimately, you were mortal and you reminded something inside Elrond of his own heritage. Taught him to embrace that side of himself.

It was in his nature to love. It was in his blood to love you.

Chapter Text

When it rained in Rivendell it poured. Sheets of water pummelling the pavements and rooves, turning the outside from idyllic paradise to inhospitable in moments. Drenching everything it touched. Soaking people right through all their clothes and sitting right next to their skin.

It was best to be inside on days like these. To curl up by the window beneath a blanket and surrounded by friends. To share stories and thoughts with the people closest to you. To watch the droplets run races down window panes and feel the exquisite security of being inside.

The valley was filled with shelters for those who did not time themselves so carefully. Who were caught out when the heavens opened and sent forth a tidal wave of life-giving water. When the river burst its banks and reminded the valley that it was a place of water first, foremost, and always.

It was a warm day despite the downpour, and even with the water sitting next to your skin you did not feel cold. The valley felt wild in that moment. Untamed. Impossible to tame. More alive than it ever was outside of moments like these. A force for and of nature.

If ever anything in this world felt holy it was this. It was standing beneath a roof with no walls and feeling the droplets of rain bounce up and splash your legs. It was dragging the water-heavy air into your lungs and holding it there. In you. Part of you. Entwining yourself with this world that had called you to it.

Cut off from everyone else, just you and the person you loved alone in a rainstorm. Alone in the world.

It was feeling Elrond place his hand against the small of your back and press his lips against your neck.

It was being home.

Something inside you snapped. You choked on a sob, not out of sorrow but relief. Another. Hot tears fell down your face, hit the ground at your feet. Sank into the dirt alongside the rain. Became part of the fabric of the world.

How strange that it had taken so long and so much for the final part of you to register that you weren’t dreaming. This was real. This was Rivendell. This was Middle Earth. These were the people you knew, the places you knew. The air that you struggled to drag into your lungs belonged to a place you had dreamed of. Yearned for. Imagined yourself in when life was its toughest and you needed comfort and security.

This world was part of you. It had made you. Sculpted you. You were hewn of its rock, moulded of its clay, etched in its earth. The leaves around you bore vein patterns that matched your own. Water flowed down the rivers and streams to the exact same rhythm of the blood in your veins. Your breath was its wind. Every mark on your skin was a star in this sky.

None of this was actually true, of course, it was all metaphorical.

But also all of it was true. In every way.

The final part of you that was holding its breath had let go. Sank deep into the reality.

Something inside you broke and healed all in an instant.

You kissed the love of your life and you cried and when you were done there was nothing left to hold onto. Nothing left to hold your breath for. When you were done you felt the last bit of sorrow lift. The last part of you waiting to wake up and go back to how you had lived before.

Your tears soaked into the ground below you.

You felt free. You felt healed.

You felt right.

From that day onwards there was no part of you that belonged anywhere else.

Chapter Text

Sixty years had passed. Sixty beautiful, blessed years. Not always perfect, life never is even in the best of circumstance. But they were good years. The best years. Living with Elrond. Loving Elrond. Never once doubting that you were equally loved in return.

Elves live to a different pace. Life is slower for them. Moments last hours, days, even years. Things matter deeply but not so urgently.

It is a pace of life impossible to comprehend in the world you had come from. A world working always towards faster, better, more marketable. The elves taught you to move slower. With more care. To appreciate the way the world changed in patterns older than anything else.

Suddenly all the pressure was gone. All need to live to a purpose, to fulfil your potential, to achieve what society told you was important. All gone.

And what was left?

You. In your entirety. In your distilled, best form. Your calmest, least-stressed, most authentic self.

So you sank into your life. Accepted the inevitable passage of time with a grace you had never before thought yourself capable of. A grace born of safety, security, and love. A grace of ease.

What a beautiful way to while away your life.

The specifics of your arrival faded. The life you had lived before seemed to leech from you the longer you lived in Middle Earth, becoming more like memories of dreams. That was alright. You had no desire to return. It felt as though you had always lived here, and had always meant to. Elrond was here, so where else could you possibly be?

The arrival of an aged Bilbo Baggins was something of a shock to you.

“Mr Baggins, I had wondered when we would be seeing you again.” Elrond greeted Bilbo as an old friend despite having known him only briefly many years ago.

“It has been a long time, Lord Elrond. Too long. But I have never forgotten your kindness to me. Nor your invitation to return.”

“I am glad you finally chose to take me up on it.”

You stared. His face was so familiar that it took a while to remember you and he had never actually met. Seeing him felt eerie. You couldn’t shake the slightly ominous feeling he awoke in you. The tiny voice yelling that this meant something was coming. Bilbo noticed your staring and seemed a little uncomfortable. He shifted.

“I’m sorry for staring,” you managed to say, though your voice gave away that your thoughts were still far from there and then. “I feel as though we have met before.”

“If so them I’m afraid I do not remember you. For which I apologise.” He was full of halfling charm and politeness.

“Please forgive my companion,” Elrond said, hand at your back, touch dragging you back to the present, and voice measured and pleasant, “they have a touch of precognition. At times it can make things seem familiar that have not happened before.”

It was a handy explanation that Elrond had come up with long years ago. There was no need to explain to everyone who noticed your occasional slips when you forgot what you should and shouldn’t know. Precognition was still unusual, but at least it had its place in this world.

“I didn’t know humans could have such powers,” Bilbo said in curiosity.

“Indeed, Y/N is unique in this respect. And many others.”

Elrond smiled at you in a way which communicated far more than Bilbo could tell.

At last you placed the hobbit in your mind and you understood you had not met before. Something inside you stirred. Some of those memories began to wake. You shushed them and pushed it back down, there was no point in disturbing the past. Or the future.

You shook it all off.

“It is nothing very useful or powerful. But it was enough to get Elrond’s attention, and the rest is history.”

History. How heavily it weighed at times. How blessed you were to have the one you did.

Bilbo was kind and friendly, he listened to you indulgently as you talked. At length it felt you had welcomed him enough to the valley, and he was escorted to rooms that would be his until he left forever.

Something like a ghost hung over the thought.

Time passed. Bilbo settled into his new home, as enchanted by the beauty as he had been on his first visit. There was a sadness to him at times, though. Returning to Rivendell had brought back memories of those he had lost.

You understood. His arrival had awoken old pains in your heart, too. What was lost but could have been saved. A loved one sacrificed for the sake of the world.

Fragments of who you had once been a lifetime ago forced their way through. It felt alien, but at the same time you wondered if you had ever really stopped being that person. That teenager crying under the covers.

You could not keep yourself from joining Bilbo one day, early on in his stay, as he explored the valley like you had so very long ago.

“It is strange, isn’t it.” He jumped when you started to speak, having not noticed you drawing near, but relaxed when he recognised you. So you continued the thought. “Being in this place that feels so right but is not built for you. Feeling happy to call it a home, but knowing you are the only one of your kind who does.”

He smiled and you saw in that face a person you were so very familiar with.

“I’m not surprised you understand. Being Lord Elrond’s mortal companion must put you in an interesting position.”

“It has allowed me to help many of our guests feel more comfortable. The elves can at times be a bit much if you aren’t used to them. I wanted to extend my personal friendship to you. In case you ever feel you need the company of someone who understands what it is to be an outsider here.”

“Thank you. I’ll happily accept your friendship, though I don’t really feel like an outsider. I stayed here once, long ago, and ever since I have known I would come back. It feels right to be here.”

Bilbo gazed out wistfully across the valley and in his face you saw something so deeply familiar. You had felt that same emotion so many times when you first arrived in Rivendell.

Something tugged at your insides. You weren’t sure what it was. The floor beneath you seemed to shift. Unknowingly you teetered in a way you hadn’t in decades. Balancing between this world you had grown to call your home and the one that had created you.

Then it all stabilised. You remained. It had never been in doubt.

“I am glad to hear it,” after so long as Elrond’s partner hospitality came without thought. “Please, enjoy your walk. I have matters I must attend to.”

You left Bilbo with nothing more than a nod, making your way back home. Straight to Elrond.

“My love! Are you quite alright? You are pale.” He was all concern and attention immediately.

“I am fine, Elrond. A little shaken perhaps, but nothing more.”

“What has happened?”

“Nothing. The halfling’s arrival has stirred up some memories in me, that is all. I had a sudden need to be with you.”

You were taken into his arms without hesitation. Held there firmly and safely. Kissed gently.

“I have you, Y/N. You are safe, we all are.”

So many times in your life he had reassured you of things you had more right to know than he did. It never failed to make you feel safe, though. You breathed in his scent, closed your eyes as he drew fingers through your hair. You felt grounded once again.

“You are my world, Elrond,” you whispered. He held you ever so slightly tighter.

“As you are mine, beloved. Stay with me for the rest of the day, will you? Let us spend some time doing nothing but being together.”

Nothing could have sounded better.

Bilbo’s return had been something of a jolt to you, but age had faded the specifics. It had been slow in returning to you. You knew something was happening, but you had spent your life learning not to try and connect dots. The knowledge was buried deep. As time went by Bilbo became a normal presence in your lives, and you returned to how things had been before.

You suspected something when Gandalf arrived, old memories had begun to stir. And yet still the penny didn’t drop.

“I hear we have some new guests.” It was not an unusual observation for you to make. There were often people visiting the Last Homely House, and you had heard no specifics of the arrival. Only that it had been done in dramatic fashion.

“Only the one for now. He was gravely injured in his travels, but I believe I have done enough to pull him through. He was brought on ahead because of his condition, his companions will follow soon.”

“And who is he?”

“A halfling. A relative of our newest resident actually. His name is Frodo Baggins.”

Your face dropped. The memories that had been slowly stirring since Bilbo had arrived were suddenly all awake at once. Faces, voices, names. You remembered books and films. Remembered injuries and deaths. Remembered a shadow over the world. A darkness.

And all of a sudden you were young once again. Sitting on your bed and reading fanfiction. Dreaming. Desperately dreaming of living in this world.

It was the first time since Kíli that you had felt the pull back to your first world. The first time in decades that there might possibly have been a way for you to come back if you chose.

You remembered it all.

“He’s been stabbed by a morgul blade, hasn’t he?” It was not your own voice you remembered hearing those words in, but the voice of someone you had only met as a younger man.

There was no denying that things were in motion. Things you thought you had forgotten. Things you could never forget

Elrond had not seen such a look on you in long decades. He reached out and took your hand, acting as your anchor to this reality. The faint pull back to what was once your home was gone as soon as he touched you.

Elrond allowed relief to flood him when he saw your eyes focus on him once again. He, too, had become complacent in your place in Middle Earth. In your being here for life. For a moment he had been forced to consider the possibility that the forces which brought you here could take you from him.

But he had never forgotten. He looked at you with great understanding in his eyes and some small dread in his heart.

“You know how this tale ends too, don’t you?”

All you could do was nod.

Chapter Text

There was a time when you thought that life was always turbulent. It was a belief born from experience, from living in a period on Earth when everything was always ‘interesting times’, when everything was unprecedented. When life was always happening all the time.

It didn’t occur to you that life could stop. Not until it did.

Your long years with Elrond had taught you that life’s natural state was something far less dramatic. Things happened, sometimes huge, scary, world-altering things, but they always found an even keel again.

You had lived too much life to be worried by the stormy patches.

Your unique knowledge probably helped in that regard. It was comforting to know that, whatever happened, there were blessed days to come. That was the knowledge that had cradled you your whole life. It had helped you when you watched the young Aragorn learn who he was, lose his way, walk away from his identity. It had helped you when you watched darkness growing in the corners of Middle Earth. It had helped you every time you walked past the blade that had been broken, the one only you knew would be remade.

And even as the details had become hazy, and then all of a sudden sharp again, you were comforted by your knowledge. The wars of the ring were a truculent time, but you rode out the storm. Peace would come. It always did.

You were, of course, proved right.

And as the world settled, as Aragorn was crowned, as he and Arwen embarked on their lives together, as everyone returned home and settled into their Ever Afters, those whose future lay far off began to look away from Middle Earth. Ships began to sail.

A seed of dread sat in your core.

Even after all the life you had lived among them, you knew you were not an elf. Not privy to everything they were and had. Not destined for this final journey.

“The elves are leaving Middle Earth,” Elrond said one day. He had skipped the build-up. The two of you were so in-tune that it was rarely needed.

“I know.”

That same self-deprecating expression you had seen at so many important moments of your lives together crossed Elrond’s face. The one that told you he was reminding himself how much you knew. How deeply you were intertwined with the ways of this world. How much he loved you.

It amazed you that, after all this time, you could still feel so taken by that look. So consumed. So in love.

“Of course you do my love, I apologise. Ever are you one step ahead of me.”

“Not for much longer. Your departure is the end of my knowledge.”

“Our departure,” his tone suggested he was correcting you, but that didn’t quite add up in your mind, although you didn’t know why. Life had become so hazy recently, with so many familiar things coming to pass. Distinguishing present from future had left you drained.

“What?”

“That is what I wished to raise with you. The elves are leaving. You have a place to come with us. With me.”

“But I am not an elf. Nor a ring bearer.”

Elrond had mentioned nothing of exceptions to the elven rule yet, beyond your own invitation, but he accepted you knew of the hobbits as easily as he accepted everything you slipped on. As easily as he accepted every aspect of you.

“You are my companion and my love. That is enough.”

“But your wife… You will be seeing her again when you reach the Undying Lands.” It was an unspoken truth you had held in your heart always. You loved Elrond and he loved you, but you were mortal. Your life together was, you believed, always destined to be temporary. You had thought you were ok with that fact.

He took your hands in his.

“And she will be delighted to meet you. I think you will get on very well.”

“I…” You weren’t sure what to say. Or feel.

“I am set on this, my love. You were brought to this reality because of your love for it. Your very soul reached out from one world to another, doing the impossible that you may exist in the place you most belong. It would be a shame for you to cut your time here short. Not ever, but especially not now that you can finally meet us on an even footing. Now that the future is as much as mystery to you as everyone. Now that you can exist without holding your breath.

“I would have you be free, my love. Free and happy and saved from ever leaving. I love you so deeply and dearly, and I would not ever be without you if I can help it.”

You held his hand tighter. Held him closer. With you. Part of you.

Elrond had saved you. Had been there for you when you felt most alone. When you feared you were mad. Had believed your story, put his trust in you. Had helped you heal.

All of that was so long ago now. So much had happened. A whole life. Your love for him had only grown. Your comfort in each other’s company. You never wanted to be parted from him. Not even by death.

You kissed him. Gently. Tenderly. Eyes closed and relishing in the love of it. How wondrous it was that life had bent the impossible to its will, that you might wind up here, with him.

“You are quite right, my love,” you said, voice quiet and low as you moved away only far enough to speak. “It would be such a waste.”