Elrond's Secret: Part One.
By Maybe (miztruzt@blueyonder.co.uk)

For notes and disclaimers see prologue. WARNING: Het and slash content.

Strong hands caressed his back the sheets slid with a whisper of silk as he lifted his legs, and was subsumed in the rising beat of his heart, the warmth of quickening breath, of skin sliding against skin, the building of delicious, anticipatory friction. At the moment of unity he awoke.

The light breeze ghosting through the chamber made the drapes on the window blink in the early morning light. Jerked into the present, Elrond stared up at the crimson canopy of his four-poster bed. The sunlight danced over the flagstones, and outside the morning chorus lifted harmonic avarian voices to sing in the day. Imladris itself had awakened before him in the usual flurry of haste that preceded any great occasion. The scuttling steps of servants sounded along the corridors inside and out; the housekeeper's clear tones organised the early hours and servants to her will. The emptiness in the room was his master. The door to the outer world was over four yards away; the canopy was closer. If he closed his eyes he could see the night sky still stretching into accessible infinity, illuminated by the inviting glow of the stars...

But they were too bright. Elrond forced his eyes open, banishing the spectres of the past to the night. This, he reflected tiredly, was supposed to be a day of the future, the uniting of two great lines of the elves in one house. This was supposed to be his wedding day. He pulled back the bedcovers, sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. It was easier once the cold flags were beneath his feet and he was actually moving. He glanced out at the window as he wrapped a robe around himself. The sun's head was higher over the horizon than he had meant it to be. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to erase the lingering images of his dream, and crossed to the door.

He opened it just as a hand rose to knock upon it and found himself staring into the fist of Glorfindel.

"Morning," Elrond remarked drily.

Glorfindel lowered his hand. The seneschal was already attired: brushed velvet robes became his person, the soft, rich greens of the forest accentuating the thick golden hair tidied into formal braids at the crown, falling loose over his shoulders beneath. His boots, which he buffed casually along the back of his breeches as he stood, shone beneath.

"Good morning," he seconded, his sharp blue eyes taking careful stock of his tardy lord.

Elrond forestalled him with a slight smile, his own gaze shifting to the silver-grey robes draped upon dark-haired Erestor, standing a little behind Glorfindel.

"You both do me great honour," Elrond said quietly, impressed at the transformations.

Erestor gave a single nod, but Glorfindel smiled, steering Elrond back inside his chamber.

"We are but pale reflections of your magnificence, my lord," he teased, gesturing to Elrond's sleep-tousled hair and crumpled dressing robe. Releasing him, Glorfindel turned a circle with a flourish. "So, we shall not disgrace you then?"

"You know perfectly well that you do not," Elrond reproached, chuckling a little as he watched the body servants filter into the room.

"He knows you know, and he knows you know he knows you know," Erestor remarked, crossing the room to lay out the folded finery he carried upon the dressing racks. "He is fishing for compliments, as usual."

"Had I but one from you, I would stop seeking," Glorfindel sparred, flashing Erestor a wide-eyed look of hope.

"I will not be party to the unnecessary flattery of you and your overdeveloped sense of self-worth," Erestor retorted.

Glorfindel laughed aloud and caught the words from the air as if they were a blown kiss. "But one barb from you is worth two honeyed words," he teased.

Erestor snorted.

"I see I shall have to work on my compliments," Elrond observed, smiling as the tendrils of affection reached out from his counsellors and drew him back from his estrangement.

"Come, come, my lord," Aradan, the head body servant interrupted gruffly, "Is this to be your wedding garb?"

Elrond submitted to the removal of his robe, while Glorfindel strolled over to lounge on the window seat; Erestor remained standing alongside Elrond's costume, supervising both the proceedings and the seneschal with a hawk-like eye.

Elrond's own gaze drifted past both and out over the open valley beyond. The trees were bright with the green of flourishing spring, and the bushes stood tall again. The valley floor was arrayed with fragile flowers and tiny plants that gathered along the edges of the paths, and lifted inquisitive heads across the gardens, now restored to their former glory. It was as if the encampments of the great kings of Numenor, Lorien, and Lindon had never been there at all.

"Elrond."

He realised with a start that Glorfindel stood before him. The seneschal's tone implied he had missed several preceding "my lords?" Erestor's gaze was heavy upon his shoulders and even the body servants had paused. Elrond blinked and focused upon his seneschal.

"Yes, Glorfindel?"

He caught sight of Erestor's sharp gesture for the body servants to continue and watched as they poured away the scented water - when had they washed his body clean of the night? Glorfindel's eyes lingered on him and he squeezed Elrond's shoulder before he stepped back.

"Did you dream last night, my lord?" he asked, watching too closely for the casualness of his tone.

"No," Elrond replied. "No dreams, Glorfindel. I find they come less often of late."

Glorfindel's relief was open in his smile. "Good," he said warmly, and his hand gripped Elrond's shoulder again. "Good."

Elrond forced a smile and reached up absently to grip Glorfindel's hand. The Elda's fingers cradled his for a beat, before he was hustled aside by Aradan.

Erestor approached, running a critical eye over his lord, decked now in thick satin robes that shimmered along the colour between white and silver, trimmed in fine mithril thread.

"You look well, my lord," he said with solemn pride.

Glorfindel's eyebrows flew up at the remark. "You do indeed," he approved, watching as the last touches were put to the braiding on Elrond's hair. "You should marry more often – perhaps it would teach Erestor a new language: one of compliment not insult!"

Erestor rolled his eyes and passed Elrond his diadem. Elrond accepted it and set the circlet carefully atop his head. Aradan tweaked a few stray hairs straight before the body servants yielded to Elrond's quiet thanks and dismissal.

"Well, my lord," Glorfindel said, turning to face Elrond squarely. "Are you ready?"

Elrond drew in a long breath, wondering if anyone could ever truly be prepared for marriage. He banished that thought with the practice the last century had driven upon him. He was ready to face the day; the rest he could not allow himself to think about. He nodded. The two councillors stepped aside and Elrond led the way out of the chamber.

He fixed a smile to his face as they walked through the corridors, tempering his expression to a mask of collected pleasure. The detachment he had felt on awakening was unfolding within him once again; but the emptiness was his to bear, not for others to suffer. Had he looked in a glass the falsity of his look would have appalled him, but he could wear it and if he had to meet no one's eye it would serve its purpose. Servants passed him with smiles or compliments, deceived. But one of the Lorien ladies, whom Elrond recognised as Minuial, the daughter of Amroth's chief advisor, skittered past to her lady's chamber, darting him a look equal parts admiration and distrust. Elrond, startled from his interior isolation by the unexpected, raised his eyebrows. Glorfindel chuckled.

"No sword uncovered means one is clothed," he observed, gesturing to Elrond's empty belt. "To lop the heads from maidens."

"One. One maiden, Glorfindel; you have too many plurals," Elrond corrected, smiling in spite, or perhaps because of the coil of tension reawakening had snaked into his core. "And that was crude."

Glorfindel laughed, unashamed. "At least you don't have the same wedding night worries that Celebrían is facing."

Elrond stopped walking. "And whatever makes you think that?" he asked, stepping forward again when he felt Glorfindel had sufficient chance to blink at his astonished expression.

"My lord," Glorfindel reminded him with affected patience, "You can hardly say that you sail into unchartered waters – your bed was not an empty place this last Age."

"By that metaphor, Glorfindel, it is somewhat like saying because you have sailed once into the West, with the same map you may navigate East."

Glorfindel's brows drew into a frown and then he chuckled. "By the stars, I'd not thought of it like that."

"Clearly," Elrond muttered, giving him a quick glare as the Elda struggled not to laugh.

"Well, you know the theory if not the geography," Glorfindel consoled him. "Or if you prefer, I can draw you a diagram."

Elrond thinned his lips and rolled his eyes at the snickering Elda. "I think the theory will prove quite adequate, thank you," he retorted with a wry twist of his lips.

"Fortunate," Erestor observed dryly. "Any map of Glorfindel's would surely lead you astray."

The Elda clutched one had dramatically to his chest. "Cruelty thy name is Erestor!" he protested. "And what guidance, my celibate insulter, could you offer our friend in need?"

"The advice not to take yours," Erestor quipped instantly.

"Oh quiet, both you!" Elrond said, laughing at last. "You bicker more than the serving maids."

"Ah, but our wit is infinitely finer," Glorfindel assured him.

"I can't imagine how you would know," Erestor acerbically noted. "Your 'conversations' with them rarely examine what philosophical jewels they can offer."

"Sarcasm," Elrond interjected, before Glorfindel could launch into his philosophy about the philosophical benefits of carnal indulgence, and raised his voice a fraction, "Is not wit but idleness of thought..."

"And deed," Erestor said, catching on as they reached the door to the servants' quarters. The harassed looking housekeeper hastened to stand before her lord.

"Come friend," Erestor added, with a dubious glance at Glorfindel.

"To war," Glorfindel jested, casting a last look at Elrond. "And conquest," he added playfully. "Of lands not-quite-unknown."

Erestor's eyes met Elrond's, and his expression hardened into its usual lines of severity. "What knowledge of that you do have," the advisor unnecessarily reminded him, "You would do well to keep a secret."

Tbc...