Rating: PG
Characters: Arwen, Elrond, Glorfindel and Galadriel
(Ref to pairings: Elrond/Celebrian, Elrond/Gil-galad, Elrond/Legolas, Arwen/Lindir and Elladan/Glorfindel)
Disclaimer: The characters and world are the creation of Tolkien and belong to him. New Line Cinema also has rights to them, which I cannot claim. No copyright infringement or offence intended by the use of them. No profit made.
Summary: Those left behind in Imladris contemplate their positions. Series: Days of Light and Darkness

Elrond was the first to turn away as the dark shapes winding their way up the valley sides lost their colour, form and finally mounted the crest, vanishing from view.

"And so business divides us once more." Glorfindel sighed aloud, dragging his gaze away from the empty valley.

"No sooner have my sons returned and at least half of the pair grateful for it, than they are gone once more." Elrond muttered something uncomplimentary about Thranduil of Mirkwood.

Glorfindel chuckled softly.
"Surely you can think of one good thing that he has done," he privately volleyed.

Elrond cast him a jaundiced look out of the corner of his eye.
"Nay, I would believe the young prince adopted, were it not for the family resemblance."

"Oropher's great beauty was his only saving grace," Glorfindel confirmed. "And Thranduil has inherited that, along with many of his less desirable characteristics."

Elrond smiled appreciatively, then, distracted by the continuing stare of his daughter toward the lip of the valley, paused, and turning to her.

"Is my sight declining in my great age, dear daughter, or has Elrohir forgotten somewhat and returns?"

Arwen glanced to him, pasting a smile upon her lips.
"Neither Papa. Forgive me."

Glorfindel excused himself as Elrond frowned, checking his reluctant return to his duties. His daughter wore upon her face a strange expression of anxiety, her stillness speaking of her tension. Her eyes strayed back towards the horizon, as though she sought some far away shore or longed to follow the riders.

"Arwen? For what do you ask forgiveness?" Elrond pressed when she did not reply. "Do you too desire to leave the valley, perhaps for Lorien?"

"Nay indeed, Papa!" Arwen's exclamation startled him and she vigorously shook her head, turning wide, pleading blue eyes upon his face. "I am content to remain here, I thank you. I assume it is safe?"

Elrond nodded, a little surprised at her response.
"For the time at least. I am glad to have you home, Arwen." He offered her his arm to escort her for a distance. "It is lonely with both you and your brothers so often absent."

"Poor Papa," Arwen murmured, slipping her arm through his and smoothing the elvin silk of his sleeve. "I should not spend so much time away."

She turned guilty eyes to him.
"You will not send me away again will you?"

"Send you away?" Elrond echoed, shocked. "Do you feel that I do so, my daughter?"

"I did not visit Lorien so much before Mama left," Arwen said quietly.

"Do you miss her, Arwen?" Elrond gently inquired.

Arwen nodded. "Not as much, I fear, as Elrohir does," she sadly said. "But I miss you more. You are here. And it is I who is not."

Elrond swallowed rather hard, feeling the bright, hot points of guilty pain pierce him. She could not have hurt him more if she had tried.

"I am concerned that you do not have enough company here," he said, trying to find reason for himself and her. "I do not mean to banish you, Arwen. I hoped that you would value some female company and Galadriel's influence can do you no ill."

If you knew what we have spoken of, would you truly think that? Arwen grimly wondered.

Noting her silence Elrond stopped, turning to her and gently brushing the back of her cheek with his hand.
"Was I wrong to think that you enjoy your time in the Golden Wood?"

Arwen shook her head. The affection in his caress calmed her. He smoothed her hair, his eyes puzzled. Suddenly, though they stood close, she missed him. Missed the easy time that they had shared, talking, walking together. Given that a great deal more of her time had been spent with Celebrían, Arwen had probably been closer to her than Elrond. Yet she valued her father's company more and delighted in it, perhaps for the fact that she spent less time with him than her mother.

In her many years Arwen had frequently visited her mother's family, both before and after Celebrían left for the West. In the tranquil, mystical Golden Wood of Lothlórien Arwen had found both great wisdom and great wonder. The trees within the wood whispered with their ancient voices to all those who listened and a permanent song lilted in the air. The very atmosphere was alive with magic, dancing like dust motes and lightly charged with the humours of those within it. Every source of water was a crystal flow that mirrored back what had come, what could come, if one had the eyes and wit to see it.

And the Golden Lady had taught her granddaughter much that already her bloodlines had given her perception for. Celeborn was kind company, long in wisdom - words too - and not averse to telling her many stories to light her laughter and draw her considerations. He loved her dearly, but when speaking to her wore about him the weary air with which he sometimes faced his wife. The air of one who bears full knowledge that he has neither the power to see, nor the ability to convince those who can to divulge what they conceal. Arwen never felt he resented it, though sometimes resignation was his air. For the most part he seemed only sad, that he could offer no more to his burdened lady and his love. He looked similarly upon his granddaughter, with his troubled eyes, knowing that within her veins ran the blood of the elvin sorceress, his lady and her grandmother.

In both Arwen's grandparents, traits of Celebrían were visible, both those she had clearly inherited, and those that had perhaps been inherited in reverse. There was perhaps a little more of Celeborn in Celebrían. Though Galadriel's feminine power had been strongly present in her daughter, its outlet had been in a swifter temper than Galadriel bore and Celebrían had not had her mother's ominous foresight. The contrasts and the compliments within the family were a reassurance, like a touchstone for Celebrían herself and the Lord and Lady held fast claim to Arwen's affections. But Lorien was not her home.

Imladris, her place of birth and where her closest family resided, when they had mind to in her brothers' cases, was where Arwen's heart truly belonged. The changes in Imladris since she had last been at home made Arwen realise how long she had been away. Things that Galadriel had spoken of coming to pass, they were well in motion it seemed. Arwen knew that she spent a great deal more of her time in Lorien than Imladris now. Elrond encouraged it and though she did not doubt that his reasons were in her best interests, Arwen longed for the companionship they had shared. She missed every detail, from his long thoughtful musings with her; to his encouragement of her in every sphere she sought achievement in; even to his occasional bouts of despondency. How long had she been absent this time? A hundred years, perhaps nearer two…

"I go only because you ask me to Papa." She spoke aloud without thinking.

Elrond's features crossed with pained horror. Arwen grabbed his hand and tightly held it, speaking quickly to retract her unintentional cruelty.

"Think me not wrong Papa, please!" she swiftly said. "I am content to stay in Lorien. I love it well and dearly I am fond of my mother's family. I…I feel like she is still here, in some way when I am in Lorien. I regret my absence from here only in that I see so little of you now. I worry about you."

Elrond regarded her dubiously, deep lines indenting his forehead with concern.
"I worry for you," he replied quietly. "Galadriel has much time for you, which," he sighed heavily. "I seem to lack. And she is very fond of you, my daughter."

"As she is of you," Arwen supplied.

Elrond shook his head mutely.

"Truly," Arwen insisted, her vivid eyes intensely boring into her father's. "She speaks highly of you and commends to me your courage in both body and mind."

Elrond glanced down at her, puzzled.
"Does she give reasons for this?" he asked, their walk resuming down the tiny sandy path between two fat lines of bushes.

Arwen only smiled.

Elrond stopped dead in his tracks, suspicion clouding his eyes as he scrutinised his daughter.

"And what," he grimly demanded. "Has the Lady of the Wood seen fit to divulge to your eyes in her mysterious mirror?"

Arwen lifted an innocence-widened gaze to meet his.
"I know not what you mean, Papa," she replied, her voice softening with assumed confusion. She walked on, stepping slightly ahead of him where the path grew too narrow to walk abreast.

Elrond steadily gazed at her for a few moments and then gave his head a shake, following her course.
"Perhaps it is truly naught as you say. I am glad to hear that Galadriel is not asking for my blood for her daughter's westward stray."

"Nay indeed! Though Celeborn once hinted to such things," Arwen admitted with a smile. Then, cryptically she added, "Galadriel replied only that enough of your blood had she taken for her own purposes."

Elrond frowned at his daughter, misgivings once more surfacing.
"How meant she that?"

"I suppose," Arwen replied with a little shrug, glancing over her shoulder at him. "That her line by marriage is bound to yours and the embodiment of it within myself and my brothers. The ties of words are by blood cemented within us."

"That is a..." A part of it indeed. But you do not speak in full, there is hesitation upon your tongue, my daughter, I hear it. What precisely did the Lady of the Wood mean about taking enough of my blood to serve her purposes?

Elrond shook his head, falling into silence once more, his sentence uncompleted. He linked his arm with the one she offered, repeating her words to himself with curiosity. A half glance in her direction showed only a sweet admiring smile upon her lips, as she gazed at a lone butterfly, flitting between flowers. The plants bore only seeds. Autumn was drawing in and there was no pollen to spread.

Their pensive perambulations had carried them to the edges of the river and it was there that Arwen released her father's arm, knowing he had duties to return to. Arwen stared into the glassy surface of the river as though she had never moved from the previous night. Elrond did not immediately move away, glancing once more up at the edges of the valley, as if searching for the phantoms of the departed company.

"They will return soon enough, will they not?" Concern framed Arwen's question, spoken to the river and caught Elrond's ear.

"Yes," he replied, hoping to speak true. I would have them safely returned as soon as they may. As I hope equally Legolas may come with them...

Arwen seemed comforted, though Elrond was certain he had not seen such angst in her before. The comings and goings of her siblings she accepted with tranquil understanding. She seemed to recognise their need to do something, anything, though it did not motivate her into the same course of action, to Elrond's great relief. Then again, Elrond realised with a cold sense of sorrow, he did not see her while she was in Lorien. How much else did she conceal to lessen his burden?

"Will our riders catch up with the Mirkwood elves do you suppose?"

Arwen had plucked a loose leaf from a nearby branch and twiddled it between her fingers, watching the hues of autumn catch the light. Elrond glanced at her in frank astonishment.

"I have no idea, my daughter. The Greenwood party will have ridden hard for they are needed to defend their forest, though our own company set out at no slack a pace. I do not know."

Arwen pensively nodded.

"Why the questions, my daughter?" Elrond asked.

Arwen lifted deceptively blank eyes to his face.
"For no reason, Papa," she replied and then, with a smile, changed tack with the enquiry: "How did you find the company of the Prince, Papa?"

Elrond frowned, a little startled by the question.
"He...he is pleasant enough," he warily replied. "He has an impressive intelligence and seems good of heart."

The neutral response tasted like ash in his mouth as he struggled to conceal his heart from the one to whom he often opened it before. No matter what he told his sons, his kingdom and his friends, he was honest with Arwen. As, he realised with a flicker of interest, he had been with Celebrían. His face, through years of practice, remained a mask. Arwen fought not such a battle. A warm smile crossed her lips.

"His heart is what matters, is it not Papa?" she countered happily and, without waiting for an answer, danced lightly away down the valley.

Elrond stood staring after, stunned into silence and as doubtful of his daughter as he was of the Lady of the Golden Wood.

*****

2

She watched her father's stationary musing, pressing her fingers to her lips to quiet her involuntary giggle. With a frowning glance along the path that she had taken, Elrond retraced his steps towards the house. His skilled concealment of any finer feelings for the Prince of Mirkwood had not in the least swayed Arwen's belief in them, any more than his sendings of her to Lorien made her doubt his affection for her.

"The Prince of Sunlight will guide his future while the King of the Stars holds his past."

Upon her last visit to Lorien Galadriel had spoken of the coming of this day. The wonderment in her tone had allayed Arwen's uncertainties and brought hope to her. Late last night, stealing from the riverbanks after leaving Lindir, she had heard the soft-speaking voices within Elrond's chamber and happily clapped her hands to her grandmother's foresight being fulfilled.

Long ago now, when first Celebrían, mother to Arwen and daughter of the Lady of the Wood had journeyed West alone, Galadriel had begun to explain to Arwen a little of the secrets that the ring-bound havens concealed.

"It is time," Galadriel said wearily. "To put right what I have put wrong."

To Arwen alone, Galadriel confessed her concealment of the few rites of unity that could possibly have consummated the relations of the two fair kingdoms without wedding chimes in the offing. Arwen had at first been appalled, deeming the disguise beneath the Lady of Lorien's impressive self. Gradually though, she had come to understand what had truly come to pass and why. Understanding had bred acceptance.

Galadriel had gravely told of the need upon her to preserve the dwindling bloodlines of the elves. Before ever the Last Alliance had occurred, she had wished to unite the lines of the Eldar. The coming of the Last Alliance made it not a wish, but a necessity. Their kind was beginning to doubt itself, staggering under the weight of loss after the Last Alliance. She had feared that they would fade into nothingness, or diminish into the West, long ahead of their time. She spoke of the casting out of the shadow and the feeling that it lingered still, like the slivers of darkness that no amount of day can banish, lingering and waiting for the return of night.

"We could not afford to fade. The whole course of history would dramatically be altered and great I fear would be the price. Men's hearts are too easily swayed and it takes a different type of individual to recognise and rectify what generations have failed to see. The elves can draw on experience their own, not a dead man's account that seems but words on tattered paper."

But added to this there was more. Misty were the mirror images then, as they were even now. The unmappable future is ever unclear. "Rings and crowns." The cryptic whisper of her grandmother haunted her. " A child of no love born will find great love. Elves of the time of the ring shall bring wife to the crownless king and give him heirs thereafter," Galadriel had murmured. "I saw it then, when the crowns all bore kings beneath them; save that of the Elvin High King. I first thought that this meant your father, who by rights should have taken that crown. Wife and heirs he needed with that in mind. Though I see now that he, himself, was not the case and the beginning of the riddle may yet make some sense."

I am a child of no great love born... Arwen's mind whispered with a shiver of premonition.

You are. And your parents are elves of the time of the ring. You may have a place in this strange web of wonderings, Arwen. Galadriel mind-spoke her. She gave no further voice to it and continued upon her original thread without another indication of her speculations.

"I do not understand it, Arwen, it may be a long time before ever I do. What little I have gleaned is this: that those with power and no desire to wield it, often make the better in powerful circles, for they are less likely to be corrupted by the very source of their strength. This may be the meaning of the crownless king, though who it is to be I know not..."

Silently Galadriel continued to herself: And I fear that if the riddle I earlier bespoke you rings true, the title of wife may fall to you, my Evenstar. To Galadriel's fortune, Arwen did not underhear her grandmother's thoughts.

Centuries down the age it was all to make sense, for a child, his father and king cruelly snatched from him by the armies of Sauron, was to be raised in the houses of Imladris, leaving Gondor with only a steward to lead it. Raised by Lord Elrond, neither wholly elf, nor wholly man and yet understanding with that a great deal of both, the child, named Estel, for hope, was to become the King who played great part in the overthrowing at last of the shadow. Who was to wed Arwen Evenstar and take heirs of her loins. Who was to know the manners of both elves and men. Who never desired the crown and yet, because of that, made perhaps the greatest king ever known to the men of Middle-earth.

Yet as it stood then, the faintest hints at this told no understandable tale and ignorance, tainted with suspicious premonition, was all Galadriel could claim.

"Could you not have explained this to them?" Arwen had plaintively enquired.

"I can barely explain it to you, even now," Galadriel had replied with a sigh. "And they would not have listened to me." She offered her granddaughter a small smile. Sombre once more, she poured forth from her silver jug more crystal fountains into the mirror and from the jewelled spray more images of the past arose.

Tears involuntarily spilled from Arwen's eyes as she witnessed for herself in brief, the history of her father and the Noldorin King. Fleeting moments she saw, Elrond's laughter and light, a permanence within him instead of the glimpses of it too rarely seen in this age. She watched him encompassed in the strong arms of the powerful elf-king, their passionate kisses exchanged and teasing quarrels. A younger Elrond. A different Elrond. He was as pensive and considerate as the man she knew to be her father, his healing abilities less developed perhaps, he was recognisable, yet not the same.

But there was a rougher side to him, more intense and his wry humour more pronounced. The flash of blinding light on star-touched blades as king and herald duelled beneath the night, their mocking challenges ringing into the midnight air, their swords fast as striking lightning. Then, in soft, stark contrast, the hushed exchanges of forever offered to the Valar. Arwen started, recognising beneath the memories of trees, Glorfindel and Círdan, witnessing the rites of eternity and so confirming them. Staring, she had turned to her grandmother. She had not known of her father's true relationship with Gil-galad and she was shocked beyond measure, knowing well the customs of their kind.

"Were my parents ever truly wed?" she shakily questioned.

A single nod came as her answer. Images of Gil-galad's family implications in the kinslayings.

"The doom of Mandos," Arwen hushedly whispered and saw a shiver pass Galadriel's frame, for she too was reflected in those pictures. "My father's first vow was voided."

A vow she had unto that moment, never even known about.

The last image made her turn tear-blinded from the mirror with a useless cry of protest. The ripple of heat upon the surface of the water, the blackening of the snow-white spear Aeglos, born to the last by the King. And her father's wretched agony as he silently swayed upon the slopes of Mount Doom. Alone.

"The walls of grief are not easily over-perched," Galadriel softly told her. "No explanation could ever have served, particularly not one so vague as the little I have told you. Remember I knew still less when all this first came to pass."

It was with sorrow that Galadriel had taken it upon herself to deceive the man whom she had respected for many an age, and also, though it tore at her heart to do so, her own daughter. Celebrían, she explained woefully, could not have been expected to bear the burden of the whole truth and conceal it from Elrond. It was better that she too knew nothing. And Celeborn too. From even the companion of her soul and long-time loved, Galadriel had hidden the wretched truth.

"How could I tell each of them all that I had seen, granddaughter mine? Elrond would roundly have cursed me for permitting Gil-galad's regretful demise. There was, and believe me, I looked, no other way. But I fear what he might have done," Galadriel sighed, giving her head a little shake and Arwen frowned.

"What do you mean?" she asked uneasily.

Galadriel smiled wryly.
"There are some things even the Lady of the Wood has permission to fear and the grief-driven rage of your father would be one to sway a stronger heart than mine. He does not lose his head in battle and that makes him dangerous, more so even than Lindir of your house. Lindir puts little value on his life and it may one day destroy him. Your father would cast away his life for a cause, but would not ever do so out of disregard for existence. In the time that he would have been told what I told you now, I think he may well have killed me."

Arwen lifted astonished eyes.
"My father would never..."

Galadriel's expression stopped her words. The great Lady's eyes glowed with a dark light.
"Never, Arwen, underestimate what your father is capable of. He is a good and great man, but he is in his own way, quite as dangerous as I. Think, he would not have been able to bear Vilya if he had not the power to wield her. But he would not have been entrusted her if he had not also the knowledge to know when and how."

Gazing into the eyes that saw beyond the boundaries of the realm, Arwen felt her flesh chill. Galadriel's own power beat upon her skin like the pulse of mosquito wings upon the air.

Like a shroud lifting, the quivering air settled and Galadriel's gaze lightened to clear pools of blue touched crystal. She laid a gentle hand on Arwen's shoulder.

"I still think he would have understood," Arwen shook herself from her shock and glanced up at her grandmother.

"Perhaps." Galadriel spoke without conviction. Bending to one knee she took her granddaughter's hand in hers. "I am sorry. It is much to take in for you to take in my Evenstar, this I know."

"Are all our futures wrought by you?" Arwen fearfully questioned.

Galadriel's hand tightened on her arm.
"No one individual can control the future." The low husky voice turned abruptly stern. "I did what I had to, regardless of the individuals, for the greater good of our people. I directed your parents' course to but one of the patterns, which the circumstances had already brought into potential existence."

"Patterns?" Arwen frowned.

"Our every choice creates a number of paths along one of which our next decision may guide us, in doing so eliminating the other possibilities, or patterns. I see all of these and they are what I used to weave together the fates of your poor sire and my only daughter. The choice in the end, was theirs, jointly made though I made it near impossible for them to find an alternative route. Arwen, I hope that you will understand that I myself gain nothing from such an undertaking."

Though she did not speak aloud, Arwen heard the underspoken thought in fact I believe I lost a great deal.

Galadriel sighed as she continued.
"The unity between your father and my daughter was essential at the time in which it was made. A forced match that only fortune made no more ill than it was already. The price has been paid. The necessity for such a unity is over and my daughter is gone into the West. Only distance can heal her hurts and I greatly wish to undo the pain that I caused your father. And I think that the best thing I can now do is step aside."

With that she had spilled more from her silver jug into her mirror, until it brimmed with iridescent waters. And before Arwen's eyes a new tableau unfolded. Framed within a window in the houses of Imladris stood Elrond. Legolas of Mirkwood, who for a hand span of years had courted Elrohir, was now set beside her father, an arm casually draped around his waist. Arwen spun to face her now silent grandmother, her mouth falling open in astonished question.

Galadriel lifted her slender shoulders.
"Whether this shall come about I know not, and it shall not be mine to decide upon. Be not alarmed, granddaughter mine, what little of this I have seen I think does not bode ill."

"What do you wish me to do?" Arwen breathed.

"Naught," Galadriel firmly answered. "Watch, listen and support. Your father must be free to make his own choices and find solace for his heart."

"This is not meddling?" Arwen asked, quirking a smile at her grandmother.

Galadriel shook her head and then smiled to. "Well, perhaps a little, but only in the most minor and harmless form."

And now she was home, watching what Galadriel had spoken of coming to pass. She made the decision then to do what she could to help her father. Even if it meant to meddle a little. And in that same time she vowed also to wed only for love, praying to Elbereth that she had sense enough to fall in love with the right person.

Thinking upon that a smile flickered onto her features. Perhaps she would not claim exactly to be in love, certainly not the kind that the elves were noted for, but a certain elf who was prepared to cap his sword for the first time in several thousand years and fail to keep to his meticulously scheduled hours simply for her was more than worthy of her affections.

*****

3

Up inside the houses of Imladris it was nearing noon. Elrond opened the door to his seneschals' private study, with a soft knock of warning. Glorfindel, sat over his desk surrounded by leaves of paper, looked up distractedly.

"How do we fare according to your scrupulously kept records?" Elrond enquired, closing the door behind him.

Glorfindel made a noise of disgust in his throat. "Give me one moment please."

He scribbled another few paragraphs onto his parchment and then laid his pen aside with a sigh.

"Where do you wish me to begin?" he asked in a weary voice.

"Somewhere that will not make me wish to follow my wife to the West," Elrond suggested with a smile.

Glorfindel raised a weak chuckle. "Perhaps I should send forth a message to Círdan."

"Oh?" Elrond moved closer and leaned over Glorfindel's shoulder, examining the sheaves of spread papers.

"The patrol co-ordination is a nightmare. We are short sixteen horses through lameness and various other injuries. We have seven riders no better off than their steeds and one, as you know, who has not yet recovered consciousness from his fall. Sending riders to Thranduil's aid hasn't helped, but if it is consolation any six of the sixteen horses we are lacking are those gone to the Greenwood. This means we are without Lindir as commander and four of our more experienced patrol riders, not to mention the twins. Organising six patrols each day with sufficient experience to counter the younger riders is proving difficult. Tharin is riding four times each day and that cannot be maintained for long. I shall probably have to take over the twilight in addition to the dawn ride.

"On a more positive note the trade has been good and so at least we face the winter with enough provisions and financially relatively stable. I shudder to think what our lot could have been if it was not for the scouring of the Passes. We have probably only lost about a twentieth of the usual trade due to the Orc attacks. We should at least be grateful that the regularity of their interferences means that the delivery riders are growing ever more wily and the carts coming ever more heavily armed, in order to deflect the attacks."

"And so it seems that this news is not so bad. Did you seek to wind me up?" Elrond asked.

Glorfindel smiled, shaking his head.
"Nay indeed, my lord. Had you been sifting through the inventories as long as I have you would probably be truly headed for the West."

Elrond smiled, laying a hand upon his seneschal's shoulder.
"What would I do without you, Glorfindel?" he sighed.

"Let us hope that you never have to find out," Glorfindel suggested, glancing up at his lord.

Elrond stepped behind the chair and placed his other hand upon Glorfindel's opposite shoulder, beginning to lightly work at the tense muscles with strong fingers. Glorfindel tilted his head back gratefully, relaxing against Elrond's stomach with a sigh.

"There are days when I wonder who it is that is more worth to the kingdom," Elrond remarked, smoothing the balls of his thumbs across Glorfindel's shoulder blades. A throaty chuckle answered him.

"If you think that you underestimate your worth. There would not be a kingdom if it were not for you, Elrond." The formality slipped from Glorfindel's address. Azure eyes, which had closed under Elrond's ministrations, opened once more. "You are expending a great deal of your power just to protect the valley."

Elrond nodded pensively.
"Though Vilya has her many benefits in lending our houses protection, she is weary-making to her bearer."

"Namely you," Glorfindel noted. "And yet you are still having to heal so many of our people."

His features grew sad and he sighed again. Elrond nodded.

"It never ends, does it?"

Glorfindel shifted his shoulders beneath Elrond's hands, closing his eyes again.
"It begins to feel that way," he acknowledged.

For a moment there was silence, Elrond's fingers curling into the tight muscles of Glorfindel's shoulders. Then the Lord of Imladris shook himself and said aloud,
"Ah listen to us, Glorfindel. Do we not grow despondent? Our great ages do begin to tell upon us if we are to fall into despair."

"Then I should truly fall both far and hard." Glorfindel opened his eyes lazily. "And you are right, we should not despair for we have faced a deal more bleakness than comes upon us now."

"I believe it is that we are granted the luxury of contemplation and consideration that we grow grim, for when all is at its gravest we have not the time to spend upon it," Elrond observed with a smile.

Glorfindel chuckled.
"It is so, it is so."

Elrond ran his fingers through Glorfindel's hair and then moved away. He opened the cabinet in the wall to withdraw a flask of miruvor and two glasses, doling out the soothing drink. Rooms considered private to all others in the house, whether specifically Glorfindel's or Elrond's each knew as well as their own. Handing Glorfindel his glass, Elrond moved to sit on the window seat, gazing out across the valley.

Glorfindel turned in his seat, taking a sip of the miruvor.
"You are concerned about them," he said quietly, knowing the direction in which Elrond stared was that of the Greenwood.

"When am I not?" Elrond asked with a rueful smile. "I treat so many injuries and some of those I saw to earlier were poisoned foully. I dread the day that it is one of my sons lying in place of the unfortunates in the hospital wing."

"While they are but wounded they can be treated," Glorfindel replied.

"True enough I suppose," Elrond nodded. "But then, Celebrían brought home to me that physical hurts do not always bring the greatest ill to an elf."

"This we both knew before," Glorfindel pointed out softly.

"Ah yes, but I spend so much of my time tending to the wounded and healing them, that when it comes that I can do no more, it is a shock to me."

Glorfindel rose then and crossed to lay a hand upon Elrond's shoulder. He did not speak but simply stood, his presence a familiar comfort.

The afternoon they passed away tending to what matters were urgent enough to need instant attention, among those being Elrond's own informative dispatch bound for the other Elvin strongholds, organising repairs to one of the main paths that was slipping off the side of the valley and paying off the various outstanding trading agreements. It was growing dark when Elrond laid aside his quill with a definite sense of finality.

"If I have to put signature to one more piece of paper I shall be authorising it in a different name, I am heartily sick of my own!"

"That would throw our various correspondents." Glorfindel sounded amused.

"Yes indeed. Oh permit me to sign it in the name of one who has long since departed for the Halls or, better still, an entirely fabricated persona!" Elrond chuckled.

"You have my consent," Glorfindel shrugged. "But I shall leave you the paper work to undo the mess that would come of it!"

Elrond smiled.
"Can you just imagine it - Celeborn would believe me to have taken leave of my senses!"

"And at least one of your tradesmen would be reduced to tears by such a complication," Glorfindel said.

Elrond grinned, entertaining himself with the image of the rather portly man who came occasionally from Rohan, (a trading agreement courtesy of association with Elrond's twins) who would certainly not be able to cope with such a detail. He had been most disturbed when one of the main access paths to the valley (the one that they had instigated repairs upon that very day) had been closed. He had clambered down a very steep and rocky track into the valley, leaving his cart and company at the top, stumbling purple and bedewed with thick sweat, casting the salty tang of overexerted human to snivellingly beg direction into the valley by an alternative route. In the time it had taken him to reach the houses by so complex a path, his company had quietly negotiated the most obvious substitute road and were ready waiting when Elrond had emerged.

"Tempted though that makes me to carry out such a jest, I fear that it would cause more grief than humour," Elrond sighed. "Come, we have quite worked our way through dinner. Perhaps we should seek out the kitchen staff and see if they can provide us with a little sustenance."

"You go on," Glorfindel stretched, making no attempt to rise. "I am not in need of nourishment, I shall stay here a little longer."

"No, you shall not," Elrond said firmly. "You have worked a great deal in excess of what is required of you in these last months, which I assume is due to a desire for distraction from Elladan's absence. If you continue this way you will exhaust yourself…"

"As you so frequently do?" Glorfindel enquired with a smile.

"I set a truly appalling example, Glorfindel. You should know better than to follow it," Elrond countered flatly. "If you are not hungry, then will you not take a walk in the groves or, for I know it absurdly pleases you, brush Asfaloth."

"There is no absurdity in it," Glorfindel defended himself. "It is both soothing and companionable."

"Then it is what you need, far beyond what these wretched details can offer you," Elrond told him. "Go, take some repose my friend. Do not make me worry for you too."

Glorfindel saluted him sloppily.
"As you command, my lord." He rose at last, freeing a few locks of captured hair from his collar and together they exited the room.

* * * * *

Elrond, having obtained from the kitchens a hunk of bread and a little cheese, his appetite not greatly in excess of Glorfindel's, retreated for a time to his library. He stood out upon his balcony until all the food was gone, flicking through 'Ainur's Music', forgotten the previous night. He could almost hear Legolas' slightly musical tones echoing from the pages as he turned them and marvelled again at the spell that the youngster had woven around him. How strange it felt to gaze into the distance, knowing in which direction the kingdom of one he longed for lay and feel again the restive ache at the distance between them.

His gaze drifted in the direction of the long-deserted Lindon and for a moment he bowed his head, then turned his eyes to the stars.

"Forgive me, my lord, my love," he whispered to the night.

Above him the stars glowed brightly, their light never dimming. Then he allowed his gaze to slide back towards the distant Greenwood.

Legolas, wherever he now was, had shown him that feelings he had long believed dead, buried with the ashes of his fallen King, were not dead and awoken for dormancy, flickered like determined sparks trying to make fire. The hint at completeness he had felt in their love making the two nights before. The urgent and shocking desire of his body, burning at every touch from the youngster's fingers had startled him. Never once in lying with Celebrían had he felt such desperation for contact. Though she had proved a skilled lover, the rough passion, testaments of which still lingered in bruises upon his skin that night, showed the intensity of Legolas far exceeded what she had offered him. Legolas was like a golden light amidst so much darkness, a leading light into a future that Elrond had expected to face alone and lonely. Though elves could be solitary creatures, with so many years to their lives they were none islands, needing each other and companionship like they sought air and water.

Elrond hesitated and then shifted to sit upon the balcony rail, repressing a shudder as he foolishly looked over the long drop to the ground. He closed his eyes, keeping a firm grip upon the edges of the rail, trying to summon the image of Legolas perching upon the same rail, his legs casually dangling, amused at Elrond's unease. His teasing taunts rang in Elrond's ears, his youth and humour a relief to the senses. Imagining him so, Elrond felt a powerful emotional stir fan upwards through his insides. He did not miss Legolas, not yet being used to his company, but that did not weaken the desire to see him. To feel the strange surfacing of emotion, sense-obscuring lust and the fascination the unexpected younger elf evoked in him.

Elrond smiled to himself. He knew, without doubt or concern that he would never entrust heart and soul to another single individual again. There were some promises that could never be truly retracted. But to share a part of himself, a part with which he found himself suddenly unfamiliar, the desire to do that was strong. While he found great company in Glorfindel, Erestor and his other associates and good counsel in his daughter, as he had in his wife, Elrond knew that the untouchable emptiness within him that lingered from Gil-galad's death kept him forever at a distance. A distance from himself. To find a little solace from that, Legolas had granted him that and already he longed for it again.

Ironically the severest concern about Legolas was also one of the strongest attractions to him. His age. He was fewer in years than Elrond's sons, perhaps even than Arwen. That it made him not of the past, but part of a future, different and untainted, was compelling. That it would almost certainly dismay Elrond's family was likely to prove a challenging rise to overcome.

Suddenly Arwen's enquiry came to haunt him once more and Elrond frowned, thinking upon the lightness in her tone.

"How did you find the company of the Prince, Papa?"

What had she meant by that remark? Elrond suspiciously wondered. Legolas was of Thranduil's kingdom and Arwen would have to have been not only a permanent resident in Lorien but blind, deaf and dumb to have missed Elrond's views upon that palace. In his previous dealings with Thranduil's sons he had formed no better opinions of the Sindarin King's protégée than of their sire. She would surely not have expected him to think so differently upon Legolas and so her question rang strange. If she had known - how in Middle-earth could she know? But if she did she sounded not displeased by it, for her perky counter to his neutral reply was joyful and laughter had lit her tone.

Elrond tried to think where she had been the previous night that she might have had reason to notice the intimacy between the Lord of Imladris and the Prince of Mirkwood. Frowning, he realised he could not place her after she had left the steps where she had been sat with her brothers. Certainly that morning she had come from her chambers. Elrond paused, contemplating that more carefully. He had passed her in the corridor on the way to his sons and found her talking with Lindir, with whom she had been spending a vast amount of time lately. She had jumped, startled at her father's approach and then smiled her secretive smile, worn more often every time he saw her now. Lindir had nodded curtly to him as always. Elrond shook his head, puzzled, trying to recollect the snatch of conversation he had overheard.

"Take care," Arwen had said urgently, touching Lindir's arm.

"I may have reason to, my lady."

Elrond shrugged, gleaning nothing from this scrap to explain her curious remarks to him. His hand clipped the book and, with a rustle of pages, it fell like a dying bird to the grass many hundred feet below. Elrond carefully climbed down from the balcony rail, feeling slightly nauseous as he leaned over, the book reduced in size so far it had fallen. Then he turned and left the library to recover it.

*****

4

Making his way back up the stairs, Elrond did not immediately head for his own chambers but turned instead for Glorfindel's.

"Who is it?" Glorfindel called out as Elrond tapped on the door.

"At this hour of the evening there are few else but I who would disturb you," Elrond replied.

Glorfindel's low laugh answered him and he entered to find his seneschal preparing for rest. Glorfindel was unbraiding his long golden hair, which spilled through his fingers as he combed it loose around his shoulders. Elrond sat upon the edge of the bed as Glorfindel peeled off his garments, dusted lightly with Asfaloth's grey hairs. The cloth was darker in patches, where the horse had taken a drink from his bucket and dribbled contentedly over his master's shoulder.

Glorfindel threw his clothes into the corner and drew on a robe, taking out a chair from beneath his desk and settling astride it, leaning his arms gracefully across its back.

"You have scarce strayed from my side this day," he said in an amused voice. "I am glad to find my company is so pleasant."

"Have I once given you reason to doubt its value?" Elrond smiled, leaning back against the bedpost and stretching his legs out.

Glorfindel shook his head.
"Of course not," he replied. "But I did wonder what makes this day so special."

"No given thing," Elrond replied, shaking his own head. "A little of everything. I stopped in upon the patients before I went in search of the kitchens and it put me rather off my dinner."

Glorfindel pulled a face.
"Curse the Orcs and their accursed poisons," he murmured wholeheartedly. "My lord, forgive me the insult, but you make me most uneasy in your own disquiet."

He did not explain himself, giving his head a shake and rubbing a hand across his brow wearily.

Elrond watched him in silence. The quiet air of strength, endurance that ever radiated from Glorfindel gave no clue to what he was thinking, but Elrond knew the same thoughts to be on his seneschal's mind as his own.

"You are thinking, I suppose, that these last weeks we have seen the Orcs to have developed more foul poisons than ever before and to dip every blade instead of just the majority. We cannot yet find cures against all and some that are in our care now may yet pass to Mandos'. Despite this I sent my sons out to face the Orcs, though they are not rested from their last outing and their horses are not fresh. Your anxiety, Glorfindel, is mine too."

Glorfindel raised his head.
"This I know, my lord," he said softly. "And that it is Elladan's choice as it is Elrohir's, as it was once mine, to judge his own ability and find what challenges he seeks..."

"And yet being here, seeing the side that they do not see and the ages that their years have not granted them, you are worried senseless," Elrond finished.

Glorfindel chuckled.
"Yes!" He sighed then. "I should place my trust in his skill and the Lady Elbereth, yet I fear his motivation. Rage is never a balanced master, nor guilt, nor bloody vengeance."

"You speak as one who can rise above his emotions, yet you achieved that only by practice," Elrond reminded him gently.

"As you yourself can boast."

"Not with the conviction that you can, my friend." Elrond shook his head. "Only with a sword in my fist or Vilya in my hand can I claim true level headedness. The rest, a façade," he said with a wave of his hand.

"Nay," Glorfindel laughed.

"Indeed," Elrond insisted. "Do you remember when the dwarves last came to council? What you mistook for level headedness was me biting my tongue while I counted backwards from a thousand not to smack his lordship upside the head! And I believe I lost it entirely in Lorien, when it took the ladies Celebrían and Tindomerel to keep Thranduil and I from an uncivilised brawl."

Glorfindel's features were quite animated by his laughter and for a moment he was unable to speak for his mirth.

"Oh Elrond, if I believed quite half of your scathing portrayal of your own character I could not claim to know you at all!"

"It is fortunate for me perhaps that you do," Elrond smiled.

"Indeed," Glorfindel swung a leg over the edge of his chair and with distinct felinity, rose and touched Elrond's cheek lightly. He flicked back the covers to his bed with his free hand and slid beneath them, opening the other side of the double quilt. Elrond moved to join him, both shedding their robes as they settled beside each other.

Glorfindel folded his arms behind his head, gazing up at the stone ceiling and listening to the gentle humming of the night bugs in the valley below. Elrond reorganised the pillows a couple of times and then lay upon his side, closing his eyes, as was his way. Being Peredhil, Elrond tended to find relaxing the closing of his lids. Glorfindel, glancing at him, traced the thin veil over Elrond's orbits with a light fingertip, a soft sound of amusement escaping him. Elrond opened an eye.

"You mock me."

Glorfindel's lips curled into a smile.
"It is my turn, you have mocked yourself enough this night."

Elrond chuckled, shutting his eyes again.

"May the Valar bless your dreams," he murmured automatically.

"And yours," Glorfindel echoed.

* * * * *

Elrond's quiet breathing was a comforting sound, his bulk a familiar presence beneath the covers. Glorfindel was surprised at himself, in times long past he had always preferred to keep his bed empty for the most part, needing the privacy to think and reflect. Years and years back, during the Last Alliance, he had lain often with Haldir, the partnership satisfactory as each preferred to slumber alone, parting after their copulation. Elladan and indeed, Elrond had changed that. Perhaps it was their measure of human blood, but Elrond had often sought Glorfindel's sanctuary after Gil-galad's death and, though markedly less so, after Celebrían's departure. The relationship between lord and seneschal was purely platonic, each seeking only companionship in each other's beds.

Elladan was a little different, obviously, but even when their blood ran cool and did not move them to coupling, the twin came frequently to his lover's bed. Whether that was the twin blood and that Elladan had rarely ever slept alone, or his human side requiring the presence of another more fiercely than elven blood demanded, Glorfindel did not know. Yet it had come and impressed itself upon him too and he was grateful for Elrond's company that night.

Glorfindel exhaled quietly. Restlessness gnawed at him. He kept his body still, breathing slowly to pacify himself. He closed his eyes then, though he had teased Elrond for it, trying to find some consolation therein and quickly reopened them. The darkness too close to the Hall's and the terrible, endless fall twisted up in the Balrog's whip. Though the chamber was under the shroud of night, the stars glimmered through the window and the blackness was not absolute. He turned his gaze inwards, searching his soul for the source of his agitation. It was, as Elrond had mentioned, a little of everything. The day-to-day trials and tribulations of the kingdom always grew greater as winter approached. There were horse shortages and half a hundred other minor problems to deal with, all of which were an irritation while the largest portion of concern surely backed the twins and their meagre company.

He would never get used to the twins manic scouring of the Orcs. Though year in and out they rode, rarely staying behind for more than a decade at a time and despite his understanding of their reasons, Glorfindel knew Elrond was right. While he had ridden on reconnaissance with Mithrandir, often encountering near impossible odds with their many accumulated foe, he had seen but a little of what those like Elrond were left to deal with when one was not fortunate. Now, working so closely with Elrond, assisting him with his healing or occasionally just supporting Elrond when nothing could be done, Glorfindel grew uneasy in his heart about the twins' missions. He knew what death was. He had met with Mandos and walked in his Hall's. This knowledge had guided his blade and steadied his head like no other tuition could have hoped to achieve. He knew his own abilities and would stretch them to their limits. He could walk the line between life and death. He did not fear death, not exactly, for it was no longer the unknown quantity to him as to the other Eldar. But he respected it. Elladan...

He had seen the twins pass from their early years and in many ways felt a touch of great sadness, carefully closeted, for the loss of the innocence they had suffered. The fate of the elves, to see too much, it was all too easy to slip from that grace. He had watched their terrible grief drive them to brutal slaughter, turned cocky, turned cold and now habitual, grim bloodlust. Revenge. Familiarity with death had bred contempt for it. It was life that they sometimes found fearful. Yet, and it was really this that made Glorfindel stir uncomfortably in his sheets, they found, when their strange grief gave them respite, such pleasure in so many of their youthful things that their return to chill vengeance-seeking swordsmen seemed a very unnatural change.

The side of Elladan that Glorfindel loved was the thoughtful, intellectual who could lie upon the bed for hours puzzling over some small piece of history, prying information from his former tutor or trying to learn Quenya, the long since forbidden language. He encouraged Elladan in all of this, where he could, hoping to reset the balance a little and it appeared that the twin both recognised and appreciated this.

Do not ever leave me, Glory.

"Elladan," Glorfindel sighed the name aloud, scrubbing a hand across his eyes grown weary from staring too long at the ceiling, which was beginning to blur out of focus.

Before he had left this time, Elladan had asked if they could bind. They could… Glorfindel knew that Elrond would give permission and Celebrían would not have denied them, though her consent probably could be asked for, if Elladan wished it. Would they though? That was another matter. Could one ever really bind to a twin? Half of a shared soul, and Elladan was so very close to Elrohir. Glorfindel bit at his lower lip and rolled over, drawing the bedcovers around himself, fixing his eyes upon the stars. Eternity with Elladan was a seeming certainty, yet Glorfindel wondered if they could ever find the words to explain what it accommodated - the Orcs, the haunt of Celebrían, Elrohir and then Glorfindel's own demons, half memories from his previous life. He would have liked to have spoken with Elrond about it, neutrally, impersonally, for Elrond was his closest friend and confidant aside, of course, from Elladan. But Glorfindel was not yet certain enough of his own feelings to speak to the father of his lover about them. He shifted again.

Warm breath stirred against his shoulder and a sleepy voice growled in his ear: "Thief of the bedcovers! Lie still can you not?"

"My apologies," Glorfindel murmured, smiling despite himself.

A strong arm wrapped around his waist and Elrond's cheek pressed against his back. Glorfindel shook out the stolen covers so that they were spread more evenly and settled against Elrond's chest, looping his fingers lightly through Elrond's.

His thoughts strayed automatically back to Elladan. Why did the question bother him so much? He had wanted to ask it himself and dismissed it, thinking that Elladan would not yet be ready for such a commitment. But was it really that he felt himself incapable of it? Yes. And no. Neither of them was really capable of it, were they? How could they swear eternity to each other when without words or such superfluous ritual, they were each sworn elsewhere? The end of the line was supposed to be that one could follow the other to the Hall's of Mandos. To be blunt, that would never be the case. Glorfindel himself held to much responsibility; was too much tied to the fate of his peoples. Elladan to his twin. That did not necessarily divide them; after all it was more of an easier option than suffering the soul-sucking grief of a broken heart to follow ones loved unto the death. Yet even that fate could be born. So what it was, Glorfindel was left unsure. Perhaps Elladan would be able to put a name to it. Or allay Glorfindel's concerns. Whichever it was to be would have to wait until Elladan returned.

~ END ~