Rating: PG-13
Characters: Elrond, Elladan, Elrohir, Arwen, Glorfindel (Tharin, Erestor, Tasarë. References: Celebrían, Gil-galad, Legolas.)
Pairing: Elladan/Elrohir, 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: In the wake of Celebrían's departure the twins turn to each other in ways that they had never expected.
Notes: WARNING: References to incest.

"Into this night I wander,
It's morning that I dread,
Another day of knowing of, The path I fear to tread.

Into the sea of waking dreams
I follow without pride,
Nothing stands between us here,
I won't be denied.

(Sarah McLachlan - Possession)

She walked through the valley, the moon streaking her hair with silver and her pale skin glowing with the soft reflection of the light. The cool night air lifted her hair from her face and brushed her cheeks to a rosy hue. Around her Imladris was quiet, the gentle hum of the night bugs murmuring and the haunting cry of the owl proclaimed the peace within. Beyond the borders she knew not what lurked that a shadow might conceal and she was momentarily saddened by the realisation. In her early youth, though she had rarely strayed far, she had never feared to pass the sanctuary of home and out into the wilds. But within the valley at least, she was secure, for the power of the hidden Vilya met with the cloak of night to form a protective dome around Imladris.

Arwen negotiated the narrow path that meandered alongside the river, passing through a stray cluster of trees that stood, ancient, the knots in their gnarled trunks illuminated by the touch of the moon. An owl blinked and peered intently at her from the branches, its eyes wide and watchful amidst the pale spectacles of lighter feathers. It hooted softly to her and took flight, a silent, spread-winged phantom lost into the night.

Beyond the small ring of trees the path descended into a low clearing, the rush of water from the smallest of the falls poured like liquid pearl into a shimmering pool. Walking the grass, his light tawny robes floating around him like the wings of the lonely owl, was her father.

"Papa?" Arwen came to a halt.

Elrond lifted his head, slightly surprised at her approach, indicating the depths of his distraction.

She moved to him and he opened his arms to her. She snuggled against his chest; taking comfort in the familiar cocoon of his embrace and felt his lips graze the top of her head.

"You look so tired, Papa." She laid a cool palm on his cheek, her eyes anxious and wide in the moonlight. "Will you not sleep?"

He took her hand, placing it flat between his own and studying her fingers thoughtfully.

"Not yet a while," he sighed.

"You will hurt yourself if you do not rest." Arwen's voice held a quaver.

Elrond patted her hand, giving her a reassuring smile.
"'Tis rest enough to walk in this grove."

"It is a beautiful night," Arwen agreed.

She lifted her hand to his face again, brushing her fingertips across his brow.
"You are worried, Papa."

Elrond smiled ruefully.
"Yes, a little," he confessed. "And you, my daughter, are sad."

She nodded, catching her lower lip between her teeth to hide its tremble.
"You do not seem sad, Papa," she ventured.

Elrond considered.
"Yes and no," he said eventually. "I will miss your mother, Arwen. Indeed her absence this very night moves me to this solitary vigil. But I cannot feel the ache too deep when I know, within my heart, that she is better now where she is."

"Grandfather said this also," Arwen admitted, surreptitiously wiping at her eyes. "And Grandmama. They were grieved to hear of her choice to depart, but," and she frowned, "They did not seem surprised."

"Did you expect aught else? Or had you forgotten that your grandmother is the Lady of the Wood?" Elrond smiled a little.

Arwen managed to lift the corners of her lips.
"I had not and yet, perhaps I did, for I expected them to be more distressed. But they were not so." She lifted her head to look at him. "They said that you would not be either."

"Oh?" Elrond enquired, a touch warily, recollecting that some of Celeborn's recent words directed toward him had not been of an amicable nature.

"Celeborn said that, first and foremost, you are a healer. You cannot bear the pain of others and that you could not keep a creature from its path to recovery."

Elrond nodded.
"It is so," he said quietly. "I was more troubled to see your mother here and unhappy than I am to see her depart, though," he sighed. "Much will I miss her."

He sighed again, to himself, for he had realised only now that Celebrían was no longer there, how much he had grown accustomed to her presence. In the early days there had been an awkward tension between them, he longing only for his lost King and struggling to hold together the sanctuary of Imladris when he could barely hold together himself. She missing the company of her home, her family and the serenity of Lorien that could not be within Imladris, for the sanctuary each day opened its doors to the victims of the wars that had ripped their land apart and the aftershocks still brought casualties of the body and the soul.

They had managed to work together in the treatment of the lost and it was that which had been the grounds upon which their relationship had long since stood. The love for their kinsmen - which had, of course, been why their marriage vows had been taken - was unity amidst the chaos. In their work they had found each other's company a blessing, an ear to lend, ideas to share and sometimes someone to complain bitterly to, even shout at when frustration over took. Celebrían had been the one who would sometimes entirely loose her cool and snap at him - Elrond tending to keep internal his concerns, which was sometimes her cause to grab his arm and shake him in her exasperation. Then from that, talk and understanding spread.

What had distanced them for so many years had been the sharing of their marital bed. There had been the need upon them to produce offspring, to cement their marriage and through that the alliance of Imladris and Lorien. Yet neither had felt any desire for such an act. Elrond had been consumed by his grief and fighting with every minute to conceal it. Celebrían had been uneasy. She did not fear of the act itself, for double standards were not the way of the elves and to share one's body was as natural to them all as to breathe. Yet she had been unwilling to intrude upon his pain, as she felt his unconscious rejection of her. And she had known that his heart was already given away, never could it be reclaimed. So long had their uniting been only for comfort, when comfort could not be found, save in time. There had been a long detachment to the procedure, as though a sword lay between them to keep them chaste even though their flesh was bound.

It had been through their healing - Celebrían offering a quiet ear to the distressed and Elrond with his medicines - that they had found more than the vows to bind them. They had learned so much of each other through their works, even in their rather grim nighttime rituals. She had proved more than willing to listen to his sad tale and gradually Elrond had opened his heart to her. And equally she to him. He had looked automatically for her that evening, to seek her consolations and hear her thoughts upon what should be done. But of course, she was not there. Standing with Arwen, he felt the wash of loss sweep over him in a black wave and for a moment he was lost for air.

Yet, Elrond reminded himself, he could no longer have borne the agony that had consumed her soul every last minute that she had spent in Imladris. Her grief, her absence of self that made her appear only to be a portrait of his wife and not the Celebrían he had known all the ages they had been together. It had torn at his insides to see her that way. And to feel that he could not heal her - the compulsions of his craft had led him to seek every will and way he knew of, even if the ministrations left him drained, in cold sweats or numbed for days after.

He knew that such was the nature of his art that it pressed him ever towards a cure for any beast in pain, yet he could rarely recall such a time when he had fought so hard to save another creature. Save one, and that had been in his earliest years among the Eldar, when he knew not the dangers of expending himself to greatly. Gil-galad had thoroughly berated him for it, acting in the role of virtual guardian at that stage. He had known them this time and suffered for it as he had continued, not so much regardless, as with the due consideration given and then laid aside.

He had known though, when she had come to him that morning, that no cure was to be found in Imladris. Whatever the cause of her grief, it lay too deep to be reached by, perhaps was even due to him, his sons and his daughter. There was nothing there that could help her and his only option was to let her go. The ease he felt inside at her passing to the west radiated from him, despite the sadness that he felt at her loss - but many years of schooling such from his features rendered him to appear impenetrable to that sensation.

"I understand," Arwen said. Elrond felt a soft touch upon his heart at the preciousness of a daughter that could so speak, and mean it. She lowered her head, biting her lip again and then lifted tear-filled blue eyes to his face. "I ...I wish I could feel that way too. A-and I do, I understand why it is that you can feel it...it is just that...I want her here too." She bowed her head again. "I feel so selfish."

Elrond pulled her close, holding her tightly.
"I know," he murmured soothingly. "Oh Arwen, I know." For half an instant he let the wave of his own anguish rise inside him. "There is a part of me that wants her with us too, but not as she is now. It would not be fair to any of us."

Arwen nodded into the front of his robes.
"I wish she could be how she used to be again. I wish she could be well once more."

"If she could be she would not have left," Elrond assured her. "And she will be again, given time. You will see her again, Arwen, doubt it not. When the time comes that we must follow in her wake, she will be waiting for you."

Gently he lifted her face and wiped the tears away with the edge of his robe.

"Will we sail west?" Arwen asked, her brow crinkling at his certainty.

Elrond nodded. "When are time here is over and we fade from theses shores."

"You seem so sure that this will..." Arwen faltered. "When?"

"I know not," Elrond tightened his arms around her. "In time though."

"We have so much time," Arwen murmured.

"Is that so bad?" Elrond tilted her chin up to look at her.

Arwen hesitated.
"No," she said eventually.

Elrond looked at her for a long moment, seeing the doubt flicker in her eyes, but she did not speak again.

"Come," he said, gently steering her towards the houses. "You at least must get some proper rest."

"Promise me that you will try, Papa," Arwen pleaded, turning to cast worried eyes upon his countenance.

"I promise." Elrond gave her shoulders a squeeze. "If for no other reason than to ease your mind."

"I love you," Arwen said, managing to smile as she rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

"And I you," Elrond echoed as they parted.

* * * * *

Elrond did not manage to sleep, though, true to his promise, he gave it a full three turns of the hour before he acknowledged defeat and abandoned the effort entirely. There was an emptiness to the chamber and the closet was bare. The chair was naked without its adornment of half embroidered silks and perilous peppering of needles ready to spike the foolish who thought that it was designed to be sat upon. The bed was empty and it was disconcerting to have the covers to himself, instead of having to fight for them. He drifted for a little, only to wake uncomfortably hot, so unused was he to having any quilt. Finally he rose and moved to the balcony, watching the dawn break over the valley.

The sun rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the darkness, paling away the moon and dimming the stars, causing the clouds to blush in its warming glow of copper and gold. Elrond donned his dressing robes and headed down to the bathing pool, where he encountered Glorfindel, splashing copious amounts of water on his face and blinking wearily at Elrond. Elrond raised an eyebrow.

"You do not look rested."

"Thank you," Glorfindel said wryly. "I am not, though I swear I settled to dream last night."

"Grief can manifest in any number of ways," Elrond observed. "I did not sleep at all."

Glorfindel winced sympathetically.

"How was Elladan?" Elrond asked. "I am surprised he is not risen with you."

"He did not stay with me last night," Glorfindel replied. "I looked in upon him this morning though. He is still sleeping - curled up with Elrohir."

Elrond smiled, chuckling a little.
"For all their great ages it is always each other's company they seek when they need comfort."

"It was rather appealing," Glorfindel admitted. "They were wrapped around each other like they used to when they were small - only there is a great deal more of them now."

"They are much alike," Elrond said. "No matter what their differences, they understand each other better than I hope to understand either one of them."

"Or I," Glorfindel seconded fervently. "It is well that they are together, I think. I rather feared that they might fall out over the matter of their mother, blaming each other or somewhat. I am glad I misread them."

* * * * *

They rose and dressed in silence, exchanging not a word, not a glance. Yet the soft whisper of laces slipping through eyelets and the creak of bootlaces against fastenings was exactly in sync. The silence in Elladan's chamber was oppressive. The bed in the centre was stripped of its sheets, which lay piled upon the floor at its foot. The windows to the balcony and the west were flung wide open, the drapes hung over the ledge so that they should not blow closed. Elrohir stood by the western window, Elladan in front of the mirror set in the eastern wall. When Elladan happened to look into the mirror and found Elrohir working a comb through his hair, untangling the ends of a fresh braid, he cast his own comb angrily aside and let his knot work fall loose once more. The comb clattered to the floor.

Elrohir looked up sharply, his gaze drifting first to the comb and then rising, trying to meet his brother's eye. The name engraved upon the hilt of the comb was not Elladan's. Elrohir turned his eyes swiftly to the one he held, registering with some alarm that it bore the name: Elladan, amidst the carven ferns that decorated it. He put it quickly upon the end of the bed and lifted his eyes once more to his brother's face. Elladan kept his gaze firmly fixed upon the lacings of his tunic, which he had undone only to retie.

"Elladan..."

He shrugged away automatically and Elrohir let his outstretched hand fall, the gesture uncompleted.

"Elladan, we have to talk about this." His voice was unsteady. Such an admission from Elrohir's lips rang stranger than ever in the alienating silence.

"No," Elladan replied flatly.

Elrohir's eyes widened and he sucked in a breath.

"But...w-what we did... it is not just going to go away."

"We did nothing." Elladan turned to face his twin, his features utterly composed.

Elrohir stared at him.
"Elladan...?"

"Are you not satisfied?" Elladan asked, his voice even. "Finally you have taken what you wanted from me."

Elrohir's cheeks coloured hotly and his eyes flashed with anger.
"Do not dare to put the sole blame upon me! I do not recall you protesting."

"I will put the blame only where it is due," Elladan said frostily.

Elrohir eyed him for a moment, his lips thinning into a pale line.
"Fine," he snapped in a tone grown chilly with anger. "What do you propose I do about it?"

"You do nothing. Why do you not listen? We never speak of this again. In fact, we are not even speaking of it now! Come," he continued as Elrohir opened his mouth to protest. "It cannot be so hard for you. You manage to lie perfectly well to Papa, Starlight and Legolas if it pleases you not to tell them where else you have spent the night."

"I have not lied to Legolas!" Elrohir objected.

"Oh no? And what of the night that you spent with that young maiden friend of our sister's?"

Elrohir grimaced.
"Oh, I forgot about that."

"So forget about this," Elladan said simply, his disapproving sneer curling back his lips.

"How?" Elrohir demanded. "This is not the same, Elladan!"

"No," Elladan hissed at him. "It is not. What we did is wrong! It goes against every law known to our kind - against nature itself!"

"I know that!" Elrohir cried in frustration. "But pretending it did not happen does not undo it! Elladan - whether or not you like to admit it - we slept together! Shared our bodies, though brothers we are! And it is not as though not talking about it will keep it from being so or from someone finding out."

"It will."

"Oh, because it worked so well when you tried it with Glorfindel," Elrohir's voice dripped with sarcasm.

At the mention of his lover's name, Elladan caught his breath. But he met Elrohir's gaze with a stony countenance.

"This time it will work. We are older now and not so indiscrete."

"You cannot lie to save your own throat," Elrohir retorted.

"In that you are wrong." Elladan bared his teeth into a smile. "I merely do it less than you do."

Elrohir stared at him for a moment of disbelief and then turned away, yanking open the door.

"Elrohir." Elladan's voice arrested him.

He turned reluctantly.

"We do not speak of this again."

"Fine," Elrohir said in a tight voice.

He walked out, leaving the door hanging open.

*****

2

The breakfast room was silent when Glorfindel walked late into it. The lengthy table set in the centre of the room, before the vast windows that stretched the height of the wall from floor to where the roof arched off from the straight and could double as doors, was curiously still. Though it was designed to sit more than twenty people at once, upon a normal day the table served usually only the family and a few close consorts, Glorfindel and Erestor among them. Elrond sat in his place at the head, with Elladan and Elrohir to his right and left. Elladan sat several chairs down however, not directly opposite his brother, who, though, he had not taken his mother's chair, was but another seat down from it. Erestor was two places beyond this, spooning up the last of his milk from a bowl. Glorfindel took his seat next to Elladan and felt as though he had pulled out a chair next to a wall. Elladan sat still and utterly silent. He did not acknowledge Glorfindel's entry and appeared virtually unaware that he had even company at the table. Casting Elladan a puzzled look Glorfindel did not even receive a glance in response. Elladan had open a book, which he held propped against the edge of the table, casting a shadow over his plate, which bore a lonely piece of uneaten bread.

Elrohir was tearing crumbs off a hunk of loaf and listlessly picking at them. His eyes shifted nervously about him. He met Glorfindel's eyes and his gaze slid abruptly away. He looked tired, Glorfindel noted. Beneath his eyes the skin was darkened and his cheeks slightly hollow. There was a redness to his lower lids and also to his lips that suggested tears had been shed. Prudence made Glorfindel hold his tongue. Celebrían's leaving would have impacted particularly hard upon Elrohir; for it was to her he had always turned before any other. Glorfindel sighed to himself, it was not as though Celebrían had been anything like her former self in the dark days she had spent in Imladris after her capture, but she had been there - now that she was gone her absence had greater impact than her presence.

The chink and scrape of cutlery upon crockery sounded twice as loud in the unnatural silence. It was as though something held its breath, a funeral hush of disquieting proportion. Elrond met Glorfindel's eye with a raise of his brow and then looked between his two sons with an audible sigh.

"Tell me not that you have had a fight?"

"No," came the unionised answer.

Elrond stared rather hard at Elrohir, who happened to be the closest.

"No," Elrohir repeated defensively.

"There is no need upon you to sound quite so scandalised, it would hardly be the first time," Elrond dryly observed.

"I said no!" Elrohir rose with his chair legs scraping upon the flagstones and hurriedly exited the room.

Elrond lifted an eyebrow as the oaken doors snapped shut behind his younger son, turning then to Elladan.

The young elf's eyes were already upon him, anticipating the scepticism.

"It is nothing," Elladan said quietly. "It is just Mama."

He returned his gaze to his book as though that closed the matter. Elrond nodded grimly with another sigh. But after a moment he met Glorfindel's eyes with a new question forming, though it neither was given voice.

For Elladan remained at the table, seemingly indifferent to his twin's exit, his eyes firmly fixed upon his book.

* * * * *

Elladan was not as indifferent as he had made himself appear to be. He excused himself a few moments later, walking from the room without haste, leaving his lover and father distinctly puzzled. He had briefly brushed his fingers against Glorfindel's when the older Elf had reached automatically for him, but neither stayed his exit nor even made eye contact. He walked directly to the narrow lobby room containing boots, cloaks and regular hunting weaponry, bows hung upon pegs and quivers propped against the wall, losing his cool demeanour as he did so. The room was empty, save Elrohir, his foot braced upon the central bench as he pulled on his boots in preparation for the first ride.

Elladan closed the door quietly behind him, but spun around with rage contorting his features.

"What do you think that you are doing?" he snapped, slamming his book onto the cabinet beside the door.

Elrohir lifted his head, still gripping the edges of his boot, his long dark braids falling over his face.

"What do you mean what am I doing?" Elrohir asked, a trace of annoyance in his voice.

"I mean not your boots so play not that card with me," Elladan snarled. "Could you be a little more obvious perchance? Do you think that you could stand upon the table and announce what it is that troubles you?"

"I thought that we were not talking about this," Elrohir said in a hard voice.

"Perhaps if you could school yourself into not wearing a 'guilty' label upon your brow then we should not have to," Elladan replied.

"I?" Elrohir stood up abruptly. "I? For one thing, Elladan, I am did not agree willingly to this so do not presume to direct me any further than you already have..."

"Are you trying to get us discovered?" Elladan rounded on him

"Of course I am not! Forgive me, however, if I do feel guilty about what it is that elapsed."

"Can you lie no better? - I know that you can for I have seen it so with your disguise of your doings when you entertain more than one lover."

"Firstly, Papa will not notice, nay nor Glorfindel. In case you noted it not, our mother has just left us. I care more about that than any indiscretion I may have had concerning you," Elrohir hissed at his twin, stooping to tug on his other boot. The words were not in the strictest sense true, and their bite was deep on both sides.

"Of course, I had forgotten how much you desired this," Elladan sneered at him.

Elrohir's head came up sharply.

"You are not so attractive as you believe yourself," Elrohir growled in return. "And," he continued, before Elladan could respond. "Do not dare to criticise me when you yourself have all the subtlety of an arrow in the nose."

"How mean you that?" Elladan demanded.

"To be so cold, so indifferent - 'tis a façade and an obvious one so seldom is it seen upon your face. At least my behaviour is more in character - when do I not have a guilty conscience about something?"

"You seem to have developed a perchance for rushing from rooms."

"Then it will not have gone over so strangely," Elrohir said simply. "You, however..."

The door opened and he broke off abruptly. Tharin, one of the patrol leaders and a trusted warrior of their father, poked his head into the room. His face bore a long scar that ran in a pale line from his hairline, through his eyebrow and down his left cheek. His grey eyes were curious as he looked between the twins, but he did not enquire, merely asked if they were ready to ride out. In silence once more, they accompanied him.

* * * *

Tharin did not ask what it was that stood like an icy barrier between the twins as they rode out. They kept their usual formation and in no way disrupted the running of the patrol, which was as well for they met with Orcs and for a little time, fierce conflict prevented thought for anything, save the song of the bows and the ring of metal upon metal. Yet, Tharin noticed, once the post-battle damage had been assessed, they spoke only to their close colleagues and virtually ignored each other during both the outward and homeward trips.

It concerned him more, hence that his thought turned that way, when one day it became apparent that Elladan had been injured. It came almost a full month after Celebrían's departure and still there was little sign of reconciliation. Elladan's wound was not severe, to his fortune. A blow upon the elbow joint he had cracked in his rescue of their mother from the Orcs in the Redhorn pass had stunned the limb and he held it awkwardly. But he had waved Elrohir's concern away so abruptly that the other twin had removed himself to the rear end of the riders and spared him not another glance. Puzzled, Tharin absorbed the scene and turned his mind to the more urgent concern. The numbers of Orcs had grown less of late, though small knots of them were met with and their skills had been honed with the regular scuffles, it appeared that their energies were being concentrated elsewhere. The question to Tharin's mind was of course, where? And why?

It was not until he had spoken with Elrond about this that he remembered once more the curious state between the twins - whom he knew well from many years of instructing them in the arts of battle. Elrond had bade him send a rider to Mirkwood and Lorien to discover what they might about the decreasing Orc numbers and Tharin had all but turned to go before it occurred to him.

"Oh, my lord?" he stopped, glancing back at Elrond.

"Yes, Tharin?"

"Is there somewhat amiss with your sons?" he enquired carefully, more than a little conscious of the Lady of Imladris exit, which must surely be upon the minds of the family. "They were...I...oh, just different today."

"How so?" Elrond enquired sharply.

Startled, Tharin murmured an apology.
"Forgive me, it is clear what must trouble them and I should not have intruded upon your grief."

"No, Tharin, it is no cause for apology. Have they in some way disturbed the patrols? We cannot afford that no matter what the sorrow that is ours for a time."

"Not exactly, no," Tharin said slowly. "They - I wondered if they had fallen out over some matter, for never have I seen them so cold to one another."

Elrond frowned, adding this to the recent behaviour at the breakfast table.

"I know not, Tharin, I will speak with them about it. Meanwhile, if you think it best that they cease accompanying you for a time, I shall also convey that news."

"May it be at your discretion, my lord. Their behaviour upon duty was as it always is - indeed they rode the better for not jesting with each other," Tharin replied. "It concerns me only in that some time has now passed and they are still not themselves. If you feel that they need the time to heal a little in spirit, I can manage for a while without them, as I said before, it is curiously quiet this way."

"And that bodes ill," Elrond mused. "Very well, I shall endeavour to have words with them both this evening and I will let you know my decision. In the mean time, will you do what you may to assess our position in defence and see to it that the dispatches are sent out?"

Tharin nodded and took his leave.

* * * * *

"How went this morning's ride, Elrohir?" Glorfindel asked cheerfully as the younger twin entered the barn to shut away his horse.

Elrohir stopped. Glorfindel. He froze, for a moment unsure of what to do. Then, biting his lip, he forced a smile.

"So, so," he replied meeting Glorfindel's gaze and hurriedly averting his own, unable to hold the friendly eyes. He had managed to avoid Glorfindel for almost the full cycle of the moon. Now confronted with him and caught off guard, he felt more uncomfortable than ever. "We met with Orcs."

Glorfindel nodded, unlatching the Asfaloth's stall door. He stepped out, closing it behind him, glancing over his shoulder to look at Elrohir, waiting for him to continue.

"Oh, we...um, killed them," Elrohir said, clenching his fists around Carnil's rein as he cursed himself for his discomfort. Oh, Elbereth, I cannot lie about this. Elladan was right...No, he was not, Elrohir thought grimly of his brother's stinging dismissal of him and forced himself to grin at Glorfindel and jest.
"What else did you expect?"

Glorfindel smiled, giving a little chuckle.

But the elder elf's expression grew solemn as he noted a gash upon Carnil's shoulder and he crossed swiftly to the injured mare. Elrohir, following his eyes, bit his lip again, realising that he had not even noticed the dark scratch upon the liver-coloured coat.

Glorfindel knelt beside the sweated beast and gently probed the wound. It was not deep, but the edges were jagged and blood oozed thickly from it. Glorfindel put a fingertip to it, bringing it away with a crimson stain upon his digit. He licked it thoughtfully and then spat with venom.

"Poison," he said curtly. "Elrohir - a bucket of water will you? Bathe her clean while I get some remedy. Elrohir?" he added, as the youngster did not move.

Elrohir stood staring at the blood trickling down the liver chestnut mare's chest. Poisoned. And he had not even noticed. His breath choked suddenly in his throat as he imagined where first he would go if Carnil were to die. And remembered that he could not. For it was Celebrían who had given the mare to him. And to her he would have run. But Celebrían too had been poisoned. The Orcs had a love of the cruel concoctions that soiled the blood and destroyed the body. He knew that intimately. And still he had not thought to check Carnil. Bile and fury rose together in his throat. For a moment he could not move, could not speak, as though freezing his own motion could somehow stop time itself. Stop the poison spreading.

"Elrohir!" Glorfindel grabbed his shoulder and shook him slightly. "Quickly! Will you not move? Get me water."

But the harshly spoken words were not cruelly intended and proved enough to rouse Elrohir, who hastened at once to the river.

Returning with a full bucket of the fresh stream water from one of the smaller waters that ran through the valley, Elrohir found Glorfindel already stood with Carnil, forcing a cleansing draught down her throat. Carnil's head was tipped back and her eyes rolled in their sockets, her teeth clenched. A sticky, colourless fluid trickled down Glorfindel's arm as he forced the neck of the bottle between her lips. He kept his hand braced beneath her jaw even as he emptied it so that she was forced to swallow. Her ears pinned back she violently shook her head when he released her.

Glorfindel took the bucket from Elrohir with a nod of thanks. He used soft cloths to bathe the wound, working swiftly, tearing open packets of herbs with his teeth. Glorfindel could not walk away from an injured creature. He had a strong sense of life and its value, for reasons that were, of course, directly related to his own first death. He had fought night and day with their father to heal Celebrían of her wounds. Elrohir felt a wash of shame overtake him. How could he have done this to Glorfindel? What would he say, if he ever found out? Glorfindel, his tutor and invaluable friend, was also his brother's lover. How could I? What was I thinking? What was Elladan thinking? Elrohir closed his eyes in humiliation.

Glorfindel's hand upon his shoulder made him reopen them, startled.
"She should be fine in a couple of days, Elrohir, do not look so worried," Glorfindel soothed.

Aranel was folding blankets across Carnil's back. As they watched, she waited until he had almost fastened the clasp and then whisked her head around to snatch it off her back with her teeth. Glorfindel chuckled.

"You see?"

Elrohir nodded, his throat tightening.
"Thank you," he said, not trusting his voice.

Never, never before had he felt such guilt. It coiled around his stomach like a strangler snake crushes its prey, making him ache inside. Glorfindel's kind smile and comforting words, not to mention the actions that had probably saved Carnil from the worst of the poison, were like a lash across his back and his gut spasmed painfully. In the end it was not right that the mare should suffer for his own folly, but the grief it would have cost him to lose her would have served him right for being the cause of pain to Glorfindel, though the older elf knew it not. For a moment he stared at Glorfindel, gazing up into the ancient face, feeling sick to his stomach.

"She will be well," Glorfindel repeated, his brow crinkling a little at the scrutiny he was receiving.

"Elladan is hurt too," Elrohir found himself saying croakily. It was hard to form Elladan's name before Glorfindel, knowing what he did. And the rejection from his brother earlier still stung, but Elrohir felt he more than owed it to Glorfindel to let him know of his lover's condition.

The alarm that crossed Glorfindel's face made him wince and he opened his mouth to apologise.

"Calm yourself," Elladan's cool voice said from the barn entrance. "Glory, I am fine, the hurt was not much."

Glorfindel turned to him, his face lined with anxiety.
"Where were you injured," he asked, reaching for Elladan.

Elladan submitted to the inspection, rolling up his left sleeve for Glorfindel to allay his concerns. He cast Elrohir an annoyed look over his lover's head.

Satisfied that the arm was just bruised, Glorfindel straightened up and carefully held Elladan to him.

Elladan lifted his head and pressed a kiss to Glorfindel's lips, giving his upper arm a little rub to reassure him. But as Elladan's lips met Glorfindel's again, his gaze sought Elrohir's and held them, warning plain upon his face and an almost mocking look within the grey depths of his eyes.

*****

3

Elrond recollected his word to Tharin as dusk fell and they were rising from the table.

"Elladan, Elrohir, may I speak with you both a moment?" Elrond said, as they pushed away their chairs.

Elladan looked sharply to him. Elrohir shrugged.

"Now?" he asked, careful to keep his voice only curious.

"Yes, please. Would you go to the summer rooms."

Elrohir relaxed. If there had been a cause for concern his father would have bade them go to his office or some other private suite. The summer rooms were the family rooms, where family matters were discussed amongst themselves. Arwen looked to her father expectantly, he squeezed her hand, but murmured softly to her and she departed with a smile.

The summer rooms were situated to the rear of Imladris, in the private sector of the houses, or as private as elven kingdoms ever were. 'Rooms' they were for although there were no doors standing between them, the layout meant that it was possible to sit in one and be shielded a little from those in the others. There were in fact, three rooms, two that linked together to form a long one and, though a dividing wall separated them, there was a vast central arch set within it to lead directly into them. The third room was tucked to the left of the river-facing room, smaller and only partially visible through a doorway that held no door. They were neutral rooms, with high ceilings and empty walls. These were decorated in pale colours and lit only by natural light or occasionally candle light, though such was the openness of the rooms that sun or moon could illuminate them equally. The furniture was simple, crafted from oaken wood and cut into basic shapes. There was a coolness to the rooms that felt unlived in, for they spent little time there, particularly now that they were older.

Such was the case once more that evening, for Elrond proposed instead a walk and led them, ignoring the irritated glance and 'Then why bring us to here first?' directed his way by Elladan. They took the path to the riverside and thereupon the bank sat, Elrond perched atop a fallen tree, idly fingering a fern. The twins sat to either side of him. Elrond lifted his head and gazed for many long moments across the water, seeming to be lost to his reflections.

"Papa?" Elrohir eventually ventured.

Elrond looked back at him with a sighing inhale and a slight lift of his eyebrows.
"Forgive me," he said. "Now, I wanted to speak with you both alone this night."

"Alone?" Elladan queried. "But you bring us both here together and so we are not alone."

"That is to make technicalities of what I said," Elrond said, giving his son a slightly puzzled look. "I did of course mean to speak with you both without the company of your sister and our various associates."

"Then say it so, we may be twins but we are not one and the same elf," Elladan muttered.

"It was partly this sort of behaviour that I intended to be the topic of this night," Elrond said in a mildly reprimanding tone.

"Oh?" Elrohir prompted, glancing uneasily at his father.

Elrond drew in a long breath and released it slowly, looking first to one then the other.
"Listen," he said quietly. "I know that things have been immensely difficult for you both over the turn of this last year. I have been impressed by your maturity and your strength both, though," he cast Elladan a wry look. "You exhibit it in different manners. You have proved yourselves courageous and caring in your saviour and protection of your mother, not to mention very supportive of your sister, each other and myself. I am grateful for it and I thank you both."

"But there is a 'but' coming is there not?" Elrohir's jest was weak in delivery and in tone yet Elrond smiled for him.

"Yes," he admitted. "Yes. But your recent behaviour has come cause of concern to me. I know not what it is that has moved you to this new fashion, but it has come to my attentions and also to those around you who care for you."

They were curiously silent and Elrond studied first Elladan's inscrutable face and then Elrohir's slightly arrested countenance, finding little clue in either.

"I know that your grief has yet to run its course, and there is nothing that could be called wrong about the full expression of that sentiment, whether it takes you another year, another three..."

"Another three thousand," Elladan interjected.

Elrond looked at him sharply.
"Is that supposed to mean something, Elladan?" he enquired in a deceptively mild tone.

"You speak of grief yet you do not feel it," Elladan accused.

Elrond frowned.
"What should make you think that?"

Elladan shrugged, an angry gesture. Elrohir was staring now across the river, twisting a dead twig between his fingers.

"What makes you think that?" Elrond repeated more gently.

"You do not seem to care," Elladan threw at him. "You have far more pressing concerns upon your mind than that Mama is gone to a far off shore. Then," he laughed bitterly. "Why should you care? After all, it is not like you loved her."

Elrond simply stared at him.
"Sometimes," he said after a long moment of silence. "It is about loving someone enough to let them go."

Elladan turned scornful eyes upon him.
"I have one word for you, Papa. Nay," his eyes narrowed. "I shall couple it - make it two: Ereinion. Gil-galad."

Elrond held the angry gaze steadily.
"That, Elladan, makes it a blow," he said.

Elladan said nothing more, just sat glaring at the water, glaring at his own reflection, rendered speechless by the cruelty of his own words.

It took Elrond a moment to collect his scattered wits, but he turned, braced, to Elrohir.

"Think you that too?" he asked, the hint of a challenge colouring his voice despite his efforts.

Elrohir's gaze ticked fleetingly up to him. He shrugged.
"I cannot think right at this time. I know not what to think. She did not want to be here. If you can let her go, so it is."

"But you cannot?" Elrond asked gently.

"I..." Elrohir caught himself as his voice wavered a little. "No. Papa, I..."

He fell silent again, his voice a traitor that he had no delusions of faith in. He wanted to lean against Elrond and just sob. Sob for his mother and her loss. For Elladan, who would not speak to him. And for himself. Yet he knew if he did so he would eventually have to explain himself and he did not think that he could tolerate the humiliation of tears...or his cause for them.

"Oh, I do not know!" he finally cursed and threw his twig angrily into the water, shattering it into ripples and washing away the warning look the reflected Elladan in the water was directing his way.

"Look, Papa," it was Elladan who spoke, his voice soft and apologetic. "I apologise. I should not have spoken as I did."

Elrond's quiet nod prompted him to continue, which, with effort, he did.

"I am not thinking correctly, it was unkind of me and I am sorry. I am just..."

"I know," Elrond took his hand and gripped it comfortingly. "Upset."

Elladan nodded. More than you can know.

"I am still sorry," he murmured, hating himself for lashing out. Elrond's immediate acceptance made it all the worse.

"I am worried only about you, both of you," Elrond looked over to Elrohir and took his hand also, prying it away from its lacing of fingers that were making his knuckles crack. "I do not know how to ease your grieving. I can only hope that time will offer you some relief. And talking - it is a comfort where no other can suffice."

And that is the one thing that we cannot do. Elrohir bitterly noted, pulling his hand from his father's grasp.

"You do not have to talk with me, Elrohir, if the idea is so abhorrent to you," Elrond said, lifting an eyebrow at him.

"I did not mean..." Elrohir shook his head. "Sorry."

Elrond smiled.
"You may, of course, but you could instead talk to each other."

There was a weight to his words that Elladan felt instantly and turned wary eyes upon his father's face.

Elrond's gaze was even, but he was watching them closely. Elrohir looked away.

"Perhaps we should," Elladan said coolly.

"There were days, Elladan, when there would have been no 'perhaps' about it. What is going on between you?" Elrond asked.

Elladan caught his breath in his throat and he could not speak on.

"Nothing," Elrohir quickly interjected.

Elrond's gaze was suspicious.
"I find that hard to believe," he said steadily. "One night finds you curled up together like children again..."

Elladan stared back at his father, feeling his face blench.

"And the next," Elrond shook his head, not looking at him. "You barely have a word to say in each other's hearing. It is not like you to be this way and I can only assume that you have fallen out over somewhat. If that is so then I am saddened for you, you are too close not to be able to be of comfort to each other in these painful days."

If you knew how close... Elrohir thought grimly.

Elladan closed his eyes briefly. I have had quite enough comfort to last me an eternity.

Elrohir said, shrugging, "We just need a little time apart."

"It is so, Papa, nothing more," Elladan lied. The words rang false even to his ears and he wondered that Elrohir was probably right - he was inexperienced when it came to outright lies. Perhaps the key was to tell the edited truth.

Elrond looked between them once more, sighing.
"I hope, for your own sakes that that is all it is. I would not have either of you blaming the other - or yourselves for what has come to pass. You did all that you could possibly have done for your mother and then a little more. Neither of you are in any way at fault and I would be loath to have you think it so."

He rose then and moved away, his words hanging between the twins as they sat, unmoving, together upon the lonely log.

* * * * *

Despite his outward show of calm, Elladan far from felt that way as evening drew to a close. He wandered alone later that night, along the hanging corridors of the houses of Imladris. The sculpted walks that shimmered of moonstone beneath the white beams that strongly shone from the round face of the moon, a glowing orb suspended in a velvety sky smattered with proudly twinkling stars and their light, beneath, echoed by the fat glow-worms that sparkled from every bush. The lights of the evening were almost as bright as day, casting the valley into a relief of purest light and deep charcoal shadows, the daylight colours of the vegetation and rocks dimmed and tinted with darker hues to glitter in the night spotlights. He stood for a time, just staring out across the valley with its rocky slopes and intricate paths interwoven. Each was lined with tiny pinpricks of natural light, which shone out from the clusters of bushes between the rocks and tall stretching trees that spread their branches up to the stars as if worshiping the moon that bathed white their leaves.

Elladan did not really see the valley's beauty. And the knuckles that gripped the rail where as pale as the moon bleached leaves. He bowed his head; his long hair falling into his eyes and drew in several deep, tremulous breaths.

"Elladan?"

He lifted his head, stiffening involuntarily.

Glorfindel.

"What brings you here - I thought that you were talking with Papa?" Elladan swiftly added, seeing slight confusion flicker on Glorfindel's face.

"We finished our conversation some hours ago," Glorfindel smiled. "Are you so distracted?"

"Sorry," Elladan murmured.

Glorfindel moved to him and Elladan felt his back begin to ache as he tensed again. Please, oh please do not let him touch me.

"How are you?" Glorfindel asked gently.

"Fine," Elladan replied, tightening his fingers around the rail. "I am fine."

Glorfindel sighed quietly.
"As you say," he said eventually.

Elladan glanced sideways at him, seeing the resigned disbelief on Glorfindel's countenance.

"I am fine, Glory."

"Good," Glorfindel tried to smile.

He looked at Elladan for a long moment and then sighed again, turning to stare out across the valley. After a moment he reached out, folding Elladan into his arms, holding him close. Elladan closed his eyes. Do not, oh Glory, do not, he thought, agonised. His skin felt as though it could crawl from his body. It seemed to him that where he leaned against Glorfindel it would stain and blacken the other's flesh. He shifted uneasily in the grip, wondering that Glorfindel could not feel it, certain at any moment that he would be pushed away and stared at. But the month's bathings had wiped any remaining physical traces from his skin.

Glorfindel smoothed a hand down Elladan's back and he felt his muscles contract. He pushed suddenly away, wondering if he was going to be sick. Every touch upon his skin burned and the thought that Glorfindel might put his fingers where Elrohir's had strayed... His throat constricted at the thought.

"What is the matter?" Glorfindel asked, startled.

"Nothing," Elladan turned away from him.

"Nothing, Elladan, usually means something," Glorfindel stepped closer to him.

"Well, in this case, nothing means nothing," Elladan said sharply.

Glorfindel checked his pace, a frown crossing his face. Then, with effort, he said quietly.
"Very well. But if you want to talk about nothing, you know where I am." He offered a passable attempt at a smile.

"I do not," Elladan turned on his heel and walked away.

* * * * *

Glorfindel waited in his chambers for several hours, but Elladan was true to his word and did not appear. Glorfindel sighed to himself. It had been this way for over a month now and while grief was not so easily cast aside by the elves, he was a little surprised at Elladan's new demeanour. And hurt. Sadness, he knew, could manifest in a number of ways. Elrohir, he had caught shooting a bird one afternoon. It had not been intentional; the younger of the twins had been setting up his wooden target stands and viciously killing them. But he had been careless of a shot and hit instead the starling. Glorfindel had intended to thoroughly chastise the youngster, angered by what he had seen, for the bird had perished needlessly. But Elrohir had been bent over it, tears pouring down his cheeks and so wretchedly disgusted with himself that Glorfindel had held his tongue. Elrohir had scrambled up at his approach and looked for a moment as though he would simply shatter where he stood. But he had not. With clear effort he had scraped dry his cheeks with a palm and dragged himself off to bury the bird, shaking off Glorfindel's offer of help.

The younger twin's emotions were far more volatile and similar displays of his anguish were not unusual. The death of the bird had unfortunately reminded him of the mortality of all creatures, for it seemed to Glorfindel as though Celebrían had died that day in the pass. Died a death, not of the body, but of the soul. Seeing the little bird's soul take flight had broken Elrohir to tears, for it had not only reinforced the contrasts between physical and ethereal form, making it appear that the Celebrían brought home had been nothing but an empty shell of her former self, but also it had meant that he had killed a creature.

To do such a thing was against the nature of the Elves - it was one reason that they avoided conflict were the option was theirs. Once fighting of course, their own measure of mortality was a powerful driver and in the cases that they went to war, their reasons motive enough to offer death, swift and thorough for whatever had stirred them from the tranquillity. To bring death could easily tear an Elf apart, for there was beauty to be found in killing, of a dark and macabre nature, but it was so. The Elves feared that almost more than their own prospect of death, to become a creature of darkness and see death in such a garish light. To kill for no reason, it was small wonder Elrohir had ended in upset - Glorfindel himself was still angered by it.

The unexpected and yet not exactly unexpected explosions from Elrohir interchanged with periods of prolonged brittle silence and a dispirited air. He lingered with Erestor and occasionally Lindir, occupying himself with mundane tasks and shunning his old companions. His agony at his mother's departure was plain in his gaunt face and blank eyes. He had no one to whom he would open up save her - covering much of his real feelings with an blasé indifference that was as much a shield to himself as it was to others. He tended to have many associates with whom he formed relatively detached alliances, with no special friends among them - he found it easier to handle the emotional attachments if he did not form them.

The one whom he was closest to, aside from his brother, had been Celebrían. That he was left without one and without the heart for the other rendered him unmasked and curiously vulnerable. He had also, much to Glorfindel's astonishment, begun to spend time in a clear relationship with Starlight. It came rather as a shock, for in over two thousand years; he had not once known Elrohir to so closely unite himself with another. His inconsistency in the matters of love was a constant. Usually. But the days were not usual now.

Elladan's behaviour was much more perplexing. In the past when he had been upset, Elladan had come to talk to Glorfindel, often for hours, just sorting things out in his own mind and taking comfort in the sharing of feelings. His distant air was far more disturbing. He kept much to the company of the warriors and those of his own age amongst Imladris, where before they had not been so important to him as they were to his brother. It was as if his and Elrohir's preferences were suddenly reversed. Glorfindel was beginning to despair of what he could offer the youngsters.

Finally tiring of his solitary bed and his mind too disquieted to sleep, he moved out into the corridors and tapped upon Elrond's door.

"Come in."

Elrond was standing beneath the archway to the balcony, his hands in the pockets of his robes, gazing out into the night. He turned as Glorfindel entered, seeming a little surprised to see him. Glorfindel did not close the door.

"I came to see how you were that is all," he said.

Elrond managed a strained smile.
"You find me confused, weary and in much need of sleep, though," he cast the expanse of empty bed a nasty look. "I doubt I shall get it."

"Confused?" Glorfindel closed the door behind him. "How went your talk with your sons?"

Elrond exhaled with a sigh.
"It was like talking to a fence - only you get more from a fence and it does not throw its bars at you."

Glorfindel looked startled.
"What happened?"

Elrond rolled his shoulders in a helpless gesture. "Nothing of a great deal of any value I fear. And Elladan tore strips off me." He smiled self-depreciatingly. "I have no clearer idea as to what it is that divides them, they claim nothing. I can only suspect that they are feeling the culpability for Celebrían's departure and either turn upon one another for it, or in upon themselves."

"But that is silly!" Glorfindel protested. "They must not think that way - did you not say something?"

"I did," Elrond nodded. "We can only wait and see what effect it has, if any."

Glorfindel sighed then.

"And Arwen? How fares she?"

"Better, I think," Elrond admitted, relief upon his countenance. "She is growing accustomed to the reasons behind choices made - I think her time in Lorien has done her the world of good."

"I do not doubt it," Glorfindel seconded. "If it is any consolation, I tried to speak with Elladan myself this night - he would not have it from me either."

Elrond shook his head.
"Why would that be a comfort?" he asked rhetorically. "Still it may be that time is the only thing that will cure him."

Glorfindel nodded.

After a moment he turned as if to go.

"Glorfindel," Elrond's voice came again, but hesitantly.

Glorfindel looked back with worried eyes.

"I would ask of you a favour," Elrond said slowly. "Will you leave your bed this night and stay here?"

Glorfindel almost smiled. He put a hand gently on Elrond's shoulder.
"Gladly, my lord. Gladly."

*****

4

He fled from Glorfindel, each footstep driving him further from his lover - but only in distance. His heart cried out to him to stop, turn and explain, before too much space stood between them. Never before had he needed help so desperately. Never before had he been so short of words with which to ask for it. When he rounded the corner and Glorfindel was lost to his sight, he ran, blindly, heedlessly, as though he could leave his shadow behind him. Yet it followed still. With no thought for direction, he found himself amidst the copse where first his brother and father had come upon him and Glorfindel in a compromising position, revealing their involvement. He stopped running. For what was the purpose of running, when all that he ran from was himself? Around him the tall trees towered, their branches looming over him and darkening him in shadow. Their ancient faces seemed scored with disapproval. And there was no one to run to. Every avenue was closed, its briars strewn across the path rendering it impassable - because of what he had done.

And he had. No matter what he had said to Elrohir, it had been he as much as his brother who had led them in that foolish, grief stricken dance. Elrohir had started the dance, yet he, Elladan, had not stopped it - he had guided it, taken and offered in equal quantities.

Elladan leaned his head back against the trunk of a tree and slid wearily down it until he sat upon the earth. They had sought only consolation, understanding. They had sought the unity, the clarity of those terrifying moments below the earth inside the tunnels of the Redhorn pass, where each instinctively knew the other's actions and moved accordingly. They had found that clarity. That unity. But it was not what they had expected to find. For in the Redhorn pass they had been thinking, planning, anticipating, not acting in blinded emotion, careless of the consequences. Unthinkingly they had tried to share a bed as they once did, as children, when such a thought would not have occurred to either. They had tried to share everything. But it was no longer possible. <> And there was no way to offer healing when each heart was equally torn. There was no way to share every drop of pain and confusion and guilt because the burden was each one's own to bear. They had hoped to dilute the sea of pure salt emotion, yet had found only that it stung more and grew greater in volume. One moment and all that they had, their childish bonds of love and friendship and kinship had been torn aside by the actions of those who counted themselves now among the mature elves. It was as though his inner child had been left reeling, wide-eyed and sickened as though with some fever - the fever of age, Elladan thought miserably. Oh for innocence, though that time has long passed away.

To cement the natural unity of their twinned souls with physical pleasures had wrenched them apart - cast them both backwards by an unseen blast, every difference coming suddenly to light and those that were the same to them both more dividing than even the differences. Their unity came from their physical separation, the only boundary that stood between them. How had they come to cross that boundary? Elladan did not know. He could remember only the night itself - the tears and the cradling in each other's arms. Then the soft brush of Elrohir's lips upon his own. His automatic response to return the kiss, thinking nothing of it. Elrohir had pulled back then, as he always had done, as though it really were nothing. Had it been anything more then? Where was the line drawn? When he lifted his mouth to touch Elrohir's lightly? When the new flood of tears welled up and spilled, making their kiss deepen, as though to drink the sadness from each other? But even then, they could have stopped, cuddled close and there would have been nothing more. Yet they had not. And why that was, Elladan was beyond understanding.

The tears had played their part, bringing the swell of grief to toss them upon its tidal waves of sorrow. And somehow they had found themselves clinging, as though afraid to lose each other, legs and arms entangled. Could they have stopped then? Elladan wondered, for he did not know. Carried then by their shared emotions, he was not sure where they had lost all seeming power over themselves and so been drawn only by their grief, for misery best loves company. Was it because they had felt the same way, every minute, every second, whether it was in the next fall of tears or the sudden fiery surges of anger? Felt the blame to themselves, each other, mother, father, it mattered not who, only that they both felt it? Fingernails had driven deep, hair tangled in fists, bodies crushed together until they gasped aloud. Pain in the soul, pain in the body. Hands gentling, touching, caressing. Seeking to soothe away their own grief by soothing the other's. Comforting the body, comforting the soul. Rising above all emotions, all thoughts, until they were lifted instead upon waves of sensation that carried them above the ocean of their sorrows. Arching, crying out, all emotions fleeing. And then the fall into the inexorable blackness of sleep.

The waking though...Elladan shivered despite himself. The dawning realisation. The scent on his skin. The feeling of sickness that perverted him. The expression on Elrohir's face as he woke, sitting up with a jerk and a start to stare, stare and stare again, his face bleaching of colour. Childish teases ringing in both their ears.

"Take it yourself if it means so much to you!"
"You know I love you. But. I really do not want to sleep with you."

"Get the wooden spoon! Go on, I bet it would be quite..."
"If you dare insinuate that you would find it pleasurable for me to spank you with a wooden spoon, then I will personally..."
"You will what? Do tell."
"Kiss you."

Stumbling apart, yanking the sheets from the bed, united again in their disgust with themselves, with each other, they were thus divided. Elladan miserably closed his eyes.

"You keep to your solitude much these days, my brother," Arwen's soft voice startled him and Elladan looked up sharply.

"Arwen," he said, in a voice bruised by his recollections.

She came and sat beside him, reaching up a hand to brush away his hair. He shied away, loathing himself and afraid that somehow she would know, by touching him, or worse, that he might touch her... He felt nothing, nothing save the shock and the horror that still remained, but was it not that which had driven him and Elrohir together.

"I was only going to push your braids back, silly," Arwen chided him.

Elladan looped them away himself, wishing instantly for the protective fall of hair to mask his face from her.

"What is the matter?" Arwen asked, her huge eyes luminescent in the night. She seemed to glow, her skin pale and touched in the milk white light of the moon. She looked so innocent, so young. Elladan dropped his eyes away, looking down at the mud on his palms from where he had sunk his fingers into the earth. The dirt seemed fitting. He had dug himself a grave.

Arwen touched his arm and reluctantly he lifted his eyes once more. Her gaze seemed to stare into his soul, her eyes the colour of the ocean, filled deep with emotion. She saw too much for the youth of her face and Elladan realised how much she had grown from her time in Lorien. She held within her all the intensity of their mother and father both, yet, bound in her own soft layers, she had neither Elrond's jadedness, nor their mother's long suppressed frustration at her loneliness. Elladan felt as though both his parents at once gazed at him from her face, knowing him, reading him and seeing what was there. He flinched from her scrutiny.

When she opened her mouth again it seemed impossible that she could not know. How close their father had come to it that night! If their mother had been home...it would never have happened. Elladan closed his eyes. Or would it? When some other event had shaken them to the bone, brought them so close. Was it something that had waited these years for an opportunity? Had they always held it within?

"Elvin aphro-. You were going to rape me?"
"No! Well, yes... oh, I don't know! I did not, did I? I could not!"
"The thought was there."

So it seemed.

"Why can you not look at me?" Arwen whispered. "Elladan, why do you fear me?"

"I... I do not... exactly," Elladan stumbled through an explanation, his mind still churning with his dark thoughts. "I...you look as though you judge me..." He caught himself; choking upon the words he could not bear to give voice to. It was all that prevented him from confessing all to her, so much did he need to hear that the seeming truth was not so.

"Judge you? Oh, Elladan, how could I do that?"

"Mama...I..." he managed to say. "Arwen, could you ever forgive me?"

But what forgiveness he was asking for he did not know. For not intercepting their mother? He knew, somewhere in his heart that his fault in that was only in part, it divided equally among them all. For not being able to save her somehow? For bringing her back the way she was? For not being able to stop her leaving? Or for the something else that he could not find the words to describe, that throttled his throat and turned his blood to ice.

"Forgive you?" she echoed, her hand light upon his arm, her eyes astonished. "But Elladan, what for? You have done nothing wrong."

He stared at her in disbelief. He felt wetness upon his cheeks. And he ran from her too.

* * * * *

Elrohir grabbed her hands, pinning them above her head. Starlight giggled, a willing victim. She pushed her small bust forwards, her lips greedy against his as he transferred his hold upon her wrists so that he could restrain her one handed, letting the other hand lip down the front of her tunic. She squirmed against him, giggling again and he pressed a hand over her mouth.

"Shh, can you not? We will be discovered."

He froze, letting his hand fall back from her breast, releasing her wrists roughly. She stared at him, her features crinkling in confusion as he stepped back. She touched his face, but he knocked her hand away, his eyes averted.

"Ah! Oh Elbereth, Elrohir!"
"Shh, can you not? We will be discovered."
"I do not care, I do not - please, please, just hold me. I need you."
"And I you. Oh Elladan..."

He lifted his eyes to her face, stormy eyes the colour of the dark thunderclouds. He stumbled backwards.

"I am sorry," he said hoarsely.

"Elrohir...?" She reached for his wrist but he struck her away, wrenching his arm from her hand and turning from her, almost running up the wide white steps to his houses. Starlight watched him go, her eyes narrowing. Was he sleeping with the Prince of Mirkwood - again? She vowed silently to challenge the one who called himself 'Legolas' to a shooting competition. But as she watched, Elrohir raised a hand to his face, a hand that shook, pale in the moonlight. Was he...crying? She bit her lip, looping a long strand of her dark hair behind the pointed tip of her ear. She opened her mouth to call after him - but what to say? She knew very well that there were no words to offer. Her father had been slain by an Orc when first the Watchful peace had been broken. Shards of ice that stabbed into the soul could not be melted by a mere word. She brushed off her tunic, lifted her quiver from the floor and moved back towards her own houses, silently murmuring to the stars for him.

* * * * *

"I do not believe... Not you as well!"

Glorfindel rolled over sleepily, blinking awake as a tap on his shoulder and the sound of Elrond's voice roused him.

"Hmm?" he murmured, still more than half asleep. He lifted bleary eyes to his Lord's face. Elrond's glinted with amusement in the darkness shrouding the room. The sun was rising over the eastern horizon, just a thin band of palest gold glowing upon the darkened skyline. The night was fading from midnight colours to a dusky blue, the tiny pinpricks of stars hiding their light in the presence of the sun. The drapes were open and through the arched window in the eastern wall that led onto the balcony Glorfindel could see Imladris shrugging off its cloak of darkness and taking clear form once more. By the growing light he could clearly see Elrond's face, framed by sleep-tousled braids. Slightly surprised, but none the less relieved to see humour once more upon his lord's countenance, Glorfindel propped himself up on his elbow, curious as to what had put the smile upon Elrond's face. Elrond gave him a push, tugging at the trapped covers, which his seneschal had managed to wrap around himself.

"Everyone, and I mean everyone, with whom I have ever shared a bed steals all the covers," Elrond complained.

"Sorry, "Glorfindel obligingly attempted to extricate at least some of the blankets. After a pause he said, quirking an eyebrow, "Everyone?"

"Everyone," Elrond confirmed. He straightened the dark green sheets across the double bed, tucking the corners down between the mattress and the drape posts to secure them. He settled the covers around his waist, leaning against the post at the foot of the bed, facing Glorfindel. "Gil-galad used to kick them off the bed entirely." A sad half smile crossed his face at the memory. "And as for Celebrían..." Elrond shook his head, leaning it back against the post with a roll of his eyes. "I begin to see why the Elves of the Wood favour to sleep in trees - indeed I begin to envy them."

Glorfindel chuckled.
"But there is much that could not be done in a tree."

Elrond cast him a look of mock disapproval, then a smirk crossed his lips.

"So say you?"

"You have cause to prove me wrong? Or do you merely wish to experiment?"

Elrond raised an eyebrow.
"With whom may I enquire? No, Glorfindel," Elrond shook his head, his expression sobering for a moment. "I am finished with the attempts to share my heart in love, it ends too ill."

"Who said that love must enter the equation?" Glorfindel teased. "Can we not in our great ages..."

"Behave like awakened youngsters?" Elrond enquired sceptically.

"You say that as though it is a bad thing," Glorfindel observed, a slight smile upon his lips.

"Thank you, Glorfindel, but I do not wish to know what it is that you get up to with my son," Elrond smiled with a shake of his head.

"Then do not interrupt me..."

"Have I not every right to - am I not your lord?" Elrond jested.

"No and yes," Glorfindel countered. "Or, if you prefer a double affirmative then you cannot complain if you mistake my meaning."

"Oh, my apologies," Elrond pretended to grovel.

"Please at once continue."

"I thank you," Glorfindel said, with a self-satisfied look that made Elrond purse his lips. "As I was saying - before I was interrupted..."

Elrond folded his arms, lifting both his eyebrows.

"As I was saying..."

"Before you were so rudely interrupted?" Elrond interjected.

Glorfindel aimed a mock swat at him.
"Yes. My lord. But," he continued more seriously. "I hope that you will not cut yourself off, Elrond. There is no need to form such close alliances again, but you do not have to bind yourself to love to share yourself. There are many ways in which to heal old wounds and to take the comfort another offers is..."

"Futile," Elrond sighed.

Glorfindel sat up, straightening his arm to support himself.

"Do not speak that way," he scolded. "I do not suggest that you marry in an attempt to recover yourself, you could not in any case. Elrond, consider it, you cannot form such an attachment again, so why will you not take advantage of what you can do and hope to find some comfort in it."

"Am I required to sleep with someone to be considered suitably recovered, because I assure you Glorfindel, that it would mean not so."

"Do you have to be wedded to eternity?" Glorfindel countered.

"No, but so it has been my way - and should I not run the risk of more such miseries again if I do not?"

"With your current record? I doubt it much," Glorfindel chuckled.

Elrond lifted his eyes to the heavens.

"You are right - perhaps," he added warily. "But will you not allow me to grieve the loss of my wife, before you decided to indulge your perchance for scheming in playing the love maker with my affections?"

Your grief for Celebrían's loss will not take long to heal, save in that you will miss her companionship. It is not her absence which prevents you considering even the prospect of taking another into a bond of love - if you were to find the right other.

Glorfindel sighed inwardly.
"Come now," he said however, acknowledging the jibe with a smile but speaking with due seriousness. "You will miss her much as friend and counsellor, yet I do not think that you can truly say that you will miss her absence from your bed?"

Elrond sighed, shaking his head.
"My love for Celebrían runs a different course to that with the one I shared my life and body with before. You are right in that I think of her as friend, but she was more than that, if not truly lover to me - we shared a great deal until, it seems, these last few months. I grew more than fond of her in the years we had."

"This I know," Glorfindel laid a hand gently upon Elrond's arm. "Yet you are calmer now that she is gone."

"Her last months here were grievously unhappy for her. She is gone and she is glad of it, I feel, and I am relieved for her that she may now find some peace."

"Círdan will make certain of it."

"My thoughts exactly and such were his assurances. I cannot help but feel that she will be better off where she is now - she seemed to believe it so. And I would not have inflicted her last months here upon my most loathed enemy."

"Even Thranduil of Mirkwood?" Glorfindel asked playfully.

Elrond bit back a smile.
"This is not the peace that you usually counsel me to hold with him, Glorfindel," he observed.

"There is no necessity to write to him a composed response that will not induce war between our kingdoms this day."

Elrond chuckled and then sighed.
"No, though the idea tempts me much, not even Thranduil."

"Has he some redeeming features then at last to your eyes?"

"There is more to that question than its innocent frame would suggest, Glorfindel," Elrond noted suspiciously.

Glorfindel kept his composure.
"Think you so?"

"I know it is so. What is it that you think of?"

Glorfindel shook his head.
"Naught, my lord, truly."

Elrond raised a sceptical eyebrow.
"I believe it not. I know that you hold some among his kingdom in high esteem - not least his lady, if my memory is not mistaken," Elrond remarked.

Glorfindel chuckled.
"Your memory is too good," he groused. "But there are others."

"His youngest son came as a pleasant surprise," Elrond admitted. "Having met already with some of his less favourable protégée, I must confess that I did not have such complaints of Legolas."

"No?" Glorfindel asked innocently and Elrond frowned again.

"Glorfindel! Shame upon you. He is a lover of my youngest son!"

Glorfindel raised his hands.
"'Twas you that formed the connection and not I!" His smile betrayed his words however.

Elrond merely shook his head in disbelief.
"No and no again. Keep your mischief for another time."

Glorfindel collapsed back against the pillows in mock despair, his blond hair spilling out around him.

Elrond lay back also, folding his arms behind his head and sighed deeply.

"I suppose we must rise."

Glorfindel let his gaze drift toward the breaking dawn in the window.
"Yes," he said, without much enthusiasm. "I must go to the patrols - though thank the stars that all is quieter these last few days."

"Hush!" Elrond groaned. "Do not tempt the fates, I beg of you."

Glorfindel mimed gagging himself. Elrond lifted his eyes to the dawn painted sky, streaked now with gold and copper, the promise of an azure day peaking out from between the streamers of sun-stained cloud.

"Go to," he suggested.

Glorfindel sighed, nodding reluctantly and rolling off the bed, drawing his robe around him. Swiftly he stepped into breeches and tunic, picking up a towel from the chair in the corner beside the door to bathe with at the waterfall.

"Glorfindel."

He paused at the door, looking back at Elrond who had shifted to sit upon the edge of the bed.

"I thank you for your company last night."

Glorfindel smiled.
"It was not a problem."

"How did you explain it to Elladan?"

"There was naught to explain was there?" Glorfindel teased. "Or did someone slip something unbeknownst into my wine last night?"

"You know what I mean," Elrond chided him, suppressing a groan at the reference.

"I have not as yet," Glorfindel confessed. "Though I shall if he enquires. He was absent from my chambers again last night. I fear I am proving inadequate company for his liking."

Elrond shrugged.
"Well, you were more than adequate for mine."

"I think perhaps the needs were rather different."

"Please, spare me the details," Elrond said with a shudder.

Glorfindel chuckled. His expression sobered briefly.
"Does it so distress you, my lord?"

"No." Elrond laughed. "Not in particular. I would just not wish to know what it is that elapses when the door closes upon you."

"It is not something I would wish to share," Glorfindel smiled.

"And yet with a comment like that..." Elrond said, shaking his head. "Anyway, I thank you."

Glorfindel nodded once and then stepped out into the corridor.

*****

5

Glorfindel opened the door into his own room to gather a change of clothes before heading out. He peeled his tunic over his head, casting it slovenly aside onto the end of his bed. He stretched, delighting in the cool breeze from the window that tickled his torso and the ripple of muscles, unstiffened by their night of rest. He curled and splayed his fingers a couple of times and then set about combing the tangles from his sleep-tousled hair. The early sunlight beginning to filter through the windows was warm upon his face; he closed his eyes in silent appreciation of its consecrating touch.

A hesitant tap upon the door stirred him from his thoughts. Occupied by a particularly stubborn tangle

Glorfindel called out, "Come in."

The door opened, slowly.

"Elladan?" Glorfindel let his hands fall, taking in, with some surprise, the appearance of his lover.

Elladan was drenched. His robes, unchanged since the previous day, hung dark and heavy about his frame. Water in tiny diamonds of fluid adorned the hem of his robe, clinging, only to fall and shatter into dark splotches across the flagstones. His black hair was strewn in rats' tails about his shoulders, loose from its binding braids. His face, however, quenched the spark of amusement lit within Glorfindel, like water upon the embers of a fire. His skin was stretched taut across his bones and his eyes were like wounds, burned deep and cloudy in the pale flesh.

"Where were you?" Elladan asked, his voice a raspy whisper.

"Did you come looking for me?" Glorfindel asked, feeling his heart lurch guiltily.

"N-no," Elladan shook his head, his gaze fixed somewhere in the region of the floor.

Puzzled, Glorfindel stepped towards him, concern beating below his breast.

"No...do not," Elladan held up a hand, the skin stretched bloodless over the bones. "Do not touch me."

His voice was low and shaky.

Glorfindel stayed his approach, his brow crinkling in confusion. The room was holding its breath as he gazed at his lover, the silence ringing around them.

Elladan lifted his head, his grey eyes roiling with turbulent emotions like the gathering of storm clouds.

"Oh Glory," he whispered. "I think I am in trouble."

He lifted a hand to push back his hair, only for the wet mane to slip forwards again.

"I do not know what to do, Glory." His voice cracked and he lifted a hand to swipe at his hair in another futile gesture. A trickle of water inched down his cheek from his hairline, glistening like a teardrop.

He lifted liquid eyes to Glorfindel's face, his voice dropping almost inaudibly.

"Help me?"

"Of course," Glorfindel said at once, keeping his voice steady as though he was addressing a spooked horse. He did not know what was troubling his lover, but felt inside a growing sense of foreboding.

Cautiously he moved to Elladan's side and saw the tension run through the twin, like a ripple on the surface of a lake. His stillness darkened the shadow Glorfindel felt inside. He stood squared, as if he faced a great battle; only his downcast eyes spoke of his reluctance to meet it.

"Help me," he repeated in a low whisper.

"I will, Elladan."

Gently Glorfindel laid a hand on Elladan's shoulder and felt the rigid muscles beneath his hand.

"Do not," Elladan murmured. His gaze was inward turned yet he was clearly uncomfortably aware of his physical form. He turned the glazed eyes of recollection to Glorfindel with a helpless shrugging motion to remove the comforting hand.

"Please," he shook his head. "Glory, do not."

"Very well."

Glorfindel knew better than to feel offended. Such contrasting signals radiated from his lover that it was a struggle to read the swirl of emotions. The feeble verbal protest glanced off the cry of the soul within that ached for comfort, yet in some small way, seemed to give voice to a real need, a real fear of contact. Never laying a hand upon him, Glorfindel guided Elladan to his bed and mechanically the youngster sat upon it.

For a long moment he was silent, plucking at Glorfindel's discarded robe, folding the material between his fingers. When he spoke at last, he addressed the robe, but his voice was steady once more.

"Glorfindel, do...do you remember the night that Mama left?" He waited for a moment, swiftly lifting his eyes to Glorfindel's face for the nod of assent and then ducking them away. "I...I did something - I know I should not and I...I have tried to put it from my mind," he swallowed hard. "But I cannot. I..." He broke off again, a small frown crossing his face. "Why does this smell of...?"

His demeanour abruptly changed. The muscles in his arms corded as his fingers clenching around the robe. He lifted steely eyes to Glorfindel's face in a piercing stare.

He was on his feet in an instant, accusing eyes boring into Glorfindel, the robe creased between his fisted hands.

"My father." His tones were clipped. "Glorfindel - tell me not that you...?"

For a heartbeat Glorfindel was rendered without words, his jaw falling open as he stared into the anger-darkened face of his lover. Elladan flung the robe aside. He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. The restrained snap of wood into wooden frame punctuated the silence.

Glorfindel reacted at last; his astonished muscles propelling him forward and out into the hallway. The wash of the breeze funnelling down the corridor wound freezing fingers about his bared torso, but the ice upon his mind was colder. Glorfindel caught Elladan's elbow as the youngster walked away from him.

"Elladan," he said urgently.

"Do. Not. Touch. Me." Elladan spat the words at him, turning eyes that glittered blackly upon his lover.

A door opened down the hallway. Glorfindel released Elladan, but with a motion of his head indicated the twin to follow and headed out beneath the sky. The walked in hostile silence around the corner of the house, stopping where it backed onto the woods behind the summer rooms and they were sure that they could no longer be heard.

"Elladan," Glorfindel said quietly, turning to him the moment that they were halted. "I did not sleep with your father. I will swear to this and he also if you wish it so. I spent the night in his chambers because he is lonely in your mother's absence. I am frankly surprised at you that not only have you refused to let me explain thus much, but also that you would believe anything of such a nature that could transpire, would have any effect upon the way I feel about you. I know it is not the same, but you have Elrohir for companionship."

"Companionship," Elladan said softly. "I wish you had slept with my father, Glory. It would make this easier to tell - nay, nothing would do that," he amended in a broken tone.

"Elladan? I do not understand," Glorfindel said hesitantly, feeling the shadow of uneasy inside him gather and darken.

"I slept with Elrohir."

The words hung upon the air, oblivious to the swirling of the breeze.

"Did you hear me?" Elladan asked quietly. Now the thing was said he turned to face Glorfindel, his eyes wretched. "I slept with him. My brother. My *twin*."

The last was spoken with such self-disgust that Glorfindel was taken slightly aback by the animosity of it.

The whispers in the wind deafened him and he could not find the words to speak with. Elladan's deadened eyes met his, empty of all emotion. The sight was chilling.

"I heard you, "Glorfindel said quietly. "When?"

"The night Mama left."

Glorfindel realised that this had already been said, but it gave him another precious moment to quell his immediate reaction of utter shock that set him mentally reeling. The gathering darkness of premonition that he had felt inside solidified into a thick shroud around his soul, as the impact of the last month crashed down around him. The peculiar alienation of the twins; their constant denials of any concerns; the lack of squabbles, and, more notably, the absence of their shared humour. All had been put down to grief. Grief, as it turned out, had far more severe consequences for them. Glorfindel, protected by his pall, looked rationally at the circumstances, even as his mind uneasily inspected the scene of seeming brotherly affection he had witnessed upon the morn of the guilty night.

"You were both upset," Glorfindel said, considering his words carefully.

"It is no excuse." Elladan's voice was flat.

"No," Glorfindel acknowledged quietly. "It is not. Not an excuse, Elladan, but a reason. And at least you are able to recognise the fault.

"Fault?" Elladan stared at him. "Fault, Glory? 'Tis more than that. Folly. Unnatural perversion..."

"Stop it," Glorfindel said firmly, thinking with mild irritation that Elladan was much like his father and well skilled in chastising himself. "Self-flagellation will not solve this, Elladan. You know as well as I do that this problem must be handled and it is futile to berate yourself perpetually once what is done, is done. We must, however, give this some thought."

Elladan lifted wary eyes to his lover.
"How mean you that?"

"I mean, Elladan, that this cannot lie untouched. We must attempt to resolve this situation between the pair of you. Let me think upon it for a time."

Elladan nodded slowly. He sighed, heavily, but it was as though a weight had been lifted from him and he straightened a little, bracing himself.

"I am so sorry," he said, his voice under control, but weary with his internal distress. "I did not mean to hurt you, nor bring such a problem to your door."

"What else am I here for?" Glorfindel asked ruefully. "Elladan, I love you. Whatever my own concerns I always have time for yours. And as for hurting me, it would have hurt me more to know that you did not feel you could trust me with this."

Cautiously he reached out to finger the ends of Elladan's wet braids.

"What did you do?" he murmured. "Throw yourself in the river?"

Elladan nodded, shifting uncomfortably.
"I just feel...horrible," he said awkwardly. "Unclean. It is as though I have the blood of those creatures upon my hands once more, only worse, for Elrohir is not one of them. He is my twin, and...I love him..."

He cast Glorfindel an anxious look, but Glorfindel knew that he did not mean anything above and beyond his natural affections.

"I feel as though I have corrupted him in some way, poisoned him."

"Hold, hold," Glorfindel said soothingly. "From what you say it was not a forced event and you both participated."

"That is true," Elladan admitted reluctantly. "But when I see him now, all I can think of is them. Orcs. When we were..." He bit his lip. "When it happened, we were talking, about Mama and I kept seeing her like she was in the tunnels. It is the clearest image I have of her - the blood and what they did to her." His agonised eyes sought Glorfindel's. "After that she seems to fade as though she was never really here." His voice broke and he clenched his fists. "And I just wanted to do something, anything that would stop that. Make it stop. Elrohir understood that," he finished softly.

"Elladan, you shared a great loss in the tunnels that day. It is something that no one else can ever hope to fully understand - except the pair of you. Sorrow is something that we all experience, but the way it affects us and what we see, is always very different. You two have more to bind you than most who feel such pain together, for you are twins. You have your differences but there is so much about the pair of you that is alike. What I mean is that the day you found her, you both lost your mother. What she meant to you was different, but you both loved her. And you hated what was done to her. Those are two incredibly powerful emotions and closely related. They entwine together like the ivy does upon a tree and sometimes become indistinguishable. The hate you felt for the Orcs was fuelled by your affections for your mother. It may be what happened to your mother," he added thoughtfully. "She loved you so much that eventually, when she needed something to hate, you were all that was available to her."

"Is that not what Tharin used to say? That friends are the ones upon whom we inflict what we would like to do to our enemies, only in a milder and symbolic version?"

Glorfindel nodded, quietly relieved to have stirred Elladan into a strand of thought to occupy his mind.

"That is why he insists upon you practicing weapon crafts with your closest friends, because you can then learn not to be consumed by your anger, because you do not feel it when you are learning and therefore hopefully do not associate it automatically with your weapons."

"I suppose that must be so," Elladan frowned. "But I am assuming that does not mean that I wanted to sleep with the Orcs that hurt my mother?" He offered a wry smile.

"Not exactly," Glorfindel admitted with a smile. "However, the abuse that you witnessed was of a sexual nature so it is not entirely surprising that the reaction to it manifested itself in a similar fashion. You were trying, as is the nature of our kind, to offer up the contrast, the healing to that abuse. But you could not offer it to her. What you both experienced, only the other could understand and so the pain and the hating you both felt, which meant of course that the love and healing you both sought you believed only the other could offer."

"But it did not work," Elladan said, his voice twisting with frustration. "It has served only for me to shame myself and my twin. Every time I look at him, Glory, I cannot be around him without wanting to pour out the counter again to the love."

"And that, Elladan, is because what you did was only a symbolism of what you wanted to do."

"Are you trying to tell me that what I really wanted to do to the Orcs was to offer them love?"

Glorfindel nodded.
"Convoluted it may seem, but you felt as they do, all the time, when you confronted them. You felt disgust, revulsion - hate. The most powerful counter to that is love in its purest form. In a sense you wanted them to be able to feel that love, because you needed something powerful enough to override it for yourselves. You also wanted to show much of the same to your mother, to heal the damage done to her.

"However," and Glorfindel sighed as he spoke. "By turning to Elrohir you directly contacted with neither and so the outpouring of emotion served to do nothing except stray where you should never have gone. To express such love and know it to be so wrong means that now you want to offer back the hate to reset the balance. To neutralise it."

"But I am loathed to feel so ill toward him."

"Precisely, because you love him - in the most natural way possible - and that is simply one further factor to complicate the situation."

Elladan digested this for a moment and then sighed.
"Why did this have to happen to us?" Elladan's voice was bitter.

"These are hard days, Elladan, I fear that the hour will darken further before we finally see dawn."

Elladan set his jaw and Glorfindel sighed to see the new hardness around his eyes. His every source of comfort run dry, he enfolded Elladan into his arms, feeling the youngster stiffen.

"Come," Glorfindel whispered. "Will you not at least try to see the value of what you still have? Are we become men that the beauty of these worlds and of each other can be so easily spoilt and discarded that we must seek only the darkness for comfort?" Then, slowly, Elladan's arms slid around his waist and his cheek dropped to Glorfindel's chest. He sighed himself then, keeping the silence unbroken for many moments.

The cheery chatter of the morning chorus sounded from the trees, as though the world had been released from a vacuum by the admission of the truth at last. The rush of the falls was audible, a constant flow of purest water pouring its cleansing jewels into the valley and the rustling of the trees as they bent their branches towards each other held them together in their embrace for a long time.

Finally Elladan lifted his head, his eyes caught with a flicker of concern as he drifted back from the quiet of the valley to full consciousness.

"You will not tell Papa?" he asked.

Glorfindel was struck again by the likeness to Elrond, and to his dismay the comparison was not a favourable one. Must you shut each other out? he thought sadly. You cannot bear your pains alone and yet you are stubborn enough that you will not inflict them upon others - there is a tendency to care too much among you all. And yet you care not enough for yourselves. But he did not speak this aloud, tightening his arms around Elladan to serve as an answer.

*****

6

It was later, far later than usual when Glorfindel eventually separated himself from Elladan and headed to the stables to prepare Asfaloth for the dawn patrols.

"There you are," Aranel called cheerfully. "Another few moments and Lindir said that he would have gone without you."

"My apologies," Glorfindel returned, vaulting lightly atop his horses back, as Aranel had in his absence had bridled the horse. "Shall we ride?"

"We shall - and about time too," Lindir muttered.

He was a brusque creature upon whom the Last Alliance had taken a terrible toll. He stared out at the world through the jaded eyes of one who has seen no light in the darkness and who no longer cares to recognise it.

Lindir had lost many of whom he loved in the Last Alliance. He found his only solace in the silvery flash of white fire upon a knife blade and the fountain of black blood spilled in penance for a crime committed by the ancestors of the Mordor beasts. Lindir's sister had been taken by the forces of Sauron and undoubtedly broken into one of his creations, twisted by fire and furnace. Glorfindel looked at him sadly. He had known Lindir in the days before that time, long before, before Gil-galad had been crowned High King, before ever Elrond had been brought among the Eldar, even born. The Lindir of times past had been a different creature, with an almost pious reverence for their world, finding beauty in everything. He saw it now only in death.

As they rode together, Lindir spoke little and Glorfindel was granted a much-needed chance to think. Looking at his old companion, Glorfindel grew cold inside, fearing that the same would come of Elladan and his twin. The tension around the eyes and lips he had seen in Elladan that morning, the glint to the eye that told the anger of the heart, he saw again in Lindir. Elrond and Tharin had both feared that Lindir should not have duties with the young Elves during their weaponry training, but Glorfindel had persuaded them otherwise. Lindir was invaluable to him during the preparations for battles of any kind, for he loved to work upon formations and strategies, seeing them as a kind of dance - it had served them well upon many occasions.

He had proved himself to be a fine enough tutor too, for he could teach the art of sword and bow in the motions, leaving the emotions behind the actions to Tharin's counsel alone. They were a fine compliment to one another in their organisation of both the youngsters and the elders during the wars. But Lindir himself was a creature within whom love and hate were one and he was bitter about it. Thinking of Elladan and Elrohir, their laughter, their easy appreciation for all things; their ability to forgive, forget, change, adapt, the contrast and what it would mean to lose that made Glorfindel shiver.

But what to do. Glorfindel knew not. He feared that to bring the twins together and attempt to make them talk over what had happened would prove a useless exercise. At worst it would rehash the pain of Celebrían's death, which could so easily lead to a pointing of fingers, blaming one another or themselves. And at best, an explanation of the whys behind the whats, which were already known. Glorfindel did not know if he could listen to an account of what had passed between the twins. All in all the purpose would not be served.

"Nothing," Lindir drew a knife from his back and lashed it down in a silvery sweep that slit the air before him.

Glorfindel turned his eyes to the valley. The winding path that they rode was flanked by trees whose branches formed a canopy overhead. The soft green buds of spring were spreading into thin leaves with skeins of veins running their length and breadth, their colours luminous. Between their branches shafts of warming sunlight streamed down, the tiny creatures of the air flitting in their golden beams. To their right the valley dropped steeply away in a pattern of rocks, roughened or smoothed by the years, thick brushes lit by tiny bright buds of growth and intertwined with the flow of the crystal waters from the many rivers. To the left stretched up the craggy sides of the valley, ending in miles of spreading wilds, heath and open moor.

"Nothing, Lindir?" Glorfindel enquired sadly.

Lindir turned blue eyes that glowed almost black even in the warm sunlight.
"Nothing, Glorfindel," he repeated, his voice empty.

* * * * *

"Tell me Glorfindel that it is not bad news?" Elrond lifted weary eyes from his desk, strewn with papers and a broken quill that steadily dribbled ink down the sides of the desk to plop onto the floor, as he answered his seneschal's knock later that morning.

"What has happened, my lord?" Glorfindel asked in some concern, registering Tharin standing to one side, his face grave.

"The Misty Mountains are impassable. We are isolated from the Greenwood and Lorien entirely," Tharin ventured.

"Then the peace is truly breaching," Glorfindel said. "It has been since the Greenwood first earned itself the name of Mirkwood. But now it increases. A rider was sent through to Lorien but came back to us without ever having passed the mountains," Elrond rose and met Glorfindel's eyes with his brow deeply lined. "This, it seems, is what is come of all this strange silence. The lack of disturbance is because the forces of Mordor are more gainfully employed than in getting themselves killed upon our borders. It would appear that they seek to draw us out of our sanctuaries. We cannot communicate. The last word received from the other kingdoms was that we feared this was to come and Thranduil was suggesting that we each sent a contingent of riders through to scour the passes. There was idle mention that the men of Rohan might join with us and Celeborn did not reject the proposition."

"But we cannot communicate with them now to know if it is still their will, so we have to act and yet to act we must communicate," Glorfindel grimly noted.

"Will you think upon it a while? I shall also," Elrond said with a sigh. "Tharin, speak with Lindir if you have the chance to. I shall request of you all your counsel come tomorrow's dawn."

Tharin nodded and excused himself.

"Now, did you wish to see me about something, Glorfindel?" Elrond enquired, returning to his seat and lifting the quill between forefinger and thumb, depositing it on the window ledge out of his way. Glorfindel hesitated. He had come to Elrond while still gripped in the agonies of debate. The mention again of Lindir had momentarily decided him, where the talk of greater troubles had swayed him once more. He stood now, a picture of Elladan's face, registering only the epitome of betrayal as it had flashed with that dawn when he had believed Glorfindel to have been with his father.

"No, my lord," he said eventually. "I merely wished to assess the state of affairs as it stands."

"Well, now you know," Elrond said without humour. Elrond nodded, turning back to his papers and lifting a piece of parchment to dechiper the scrawl upon it.

Glorfindel turned to go.

But he paused, one hand upon the door handle. Elrond lifted his head. Glorfindel gripped the handle, opening the door a fraction. He paused then again.

"Glorfindel?" Elrond laid aside his papers and rose, a frown forming upon his brow.

Glorfindel leaned his head against the edge of the door, debating. With a sigh, he closed the door once more and turned to face his lord.

* * * * * *

"Elrohir?" Erestor opened the door to Celebrían's sewing room, not entirely surprised to find that after nearly a year locked shut it opened easily. The sunlight bathed the domed room at the top of the house in a golden light, the arches of the windows castin in light that bleached the flags. In the centre of the room, where the old chair lingered still, the basket missing from beside it, Elrohir sat. His head was buried in his hands, his dark hair falling across his face.

"Elrohir?" Erestor repeated more quietly, closing the door behind him.

Elrohir lifted his head wearily. He looked to have been sitting there all night, for his clothes were crinkled and unchanged from the previous day. His eyes were rimmed in red and sunken.

"She has really gone, has she not?" he whispered in a husky voice, dried out from the shedding of too many tears.

Erestor moved to him, bending to his knees in order to gently embrace the youngster.

"Oh Elrohir, I am sorry," he murmured.

Elrohir drew a shuddering breath, exhaling softly. He drew back, pushing his sticky, tear-dried hair aside and wiping his sleeve across his face.

"It is all right, Erestor," he said in a strained voice. "What was it that you sought me for?"

"Are you all right?" Erestor questioned him.

"No," Elrohir answered with unusual honesty.

He had spent the night alone in this room that still echoed of his mother. He had told the empty tower of his sorrows, of what he had done with Elladan, because there was no one else to tell. And the tower was well acquainted with loneliness. But it had been no aid to him. No more than it had his mother, when she had spent her solitary hours within it.

Erestor sat back on his heels, giving Elrohir's arm a comforting squeeze.

"Your father wishes to speak with you," he said gently.

Elrohir nodded slowly, rising. Suddenly he froze, giving Erestor a sharp glance.

"What about?" he asked warily.

Erestor opened his mouth and then hesitated.

"I know not," he said, with a small frown. "He just said that it was imperative that he spoke with you immediately. But," he smiled at the guarded expression that had settled onto Elrohir's face. "I doubt he would mind greatly if you wanted a little time to compose yourself."

"I'll be fine," Elrohir said, shrugging. "I shall go to him directly, as it is his will."

"I never once knew you to do something just at another's will before," Erestor observed, smiling.

Elrohir was silent. He had little faith in his own will any more.

* * * * *

"I am sorry, my lord," Glorfindel said heavily, pouring out two glasses of miruver automatically.

Elrond shook his head, ceasing for a moment in his distracted pacing to accept his glass.

"It is hardly you who is at fault, Glorfindel," he said, though not unkindly. "Well," he took a long swallow of the dark liquid and then set the glass aside, wishing for a moment that he had not the sense to put it aside, but to fill it with something alcoholic and abandon himself to oblivion. Years told however and he did not. "Well, this must be dealt with and the sooner the better. Go you to Elladan..."

"My lord," Glorfindel interrupted in a very quiet voice. "Please, I ask it of you that you do not make me call him here. Not for this."

Elrond nodded, moving to Glorfindel's side and putting a hand lightly on his shoulder.

"Very well," he said. "I do, however, request that you stay and hear this."

Glorfindel nodded reluctantly.
"I shall."

Only the pain in his eyes belied his calm voice.

Elrond crossed to the doorway and hailed a passing maid.

"Tasarë, will you bid my son, Elladan, to come to me please?"

At her affirmation that she would, Elrond closed the door and walked back across the room.

"I am glad that you came to me," he said, his fingers gripping Glorfindel's shoulder. "Thank you."

"Please," Glorfindel said, his voice steadier than he believed possible of himself. "I cannot hear your thanks, my lord."

"I understand," Elrond said, tightening his grip reassuringly.

Then he sighed heavily.
"Why us, Glorfindel? What do we bring upon ourselves?"

Glorfindel shook his head raising a rueful smile.
"I do not know. Truly I do not."

Elrond dropped his forehead against Glorfindel's shoulder.
"I was afraid that you would say that," he said, his voice slightly muffled by Glorfindel's robes.

* * * * *

Elladan opened the door to his father's study and entered. He was feeling more than a little uneasy about the unexpected summons to his father and hoped it was nothing more than his own guilty conscience.

Having spoken to Glorfindel that morning he was calmer in himself, however, and had been intending to track down Elrohir to see if they could not attempt to address their differences. He was slightly surprised to find Elrohir already present, sat in his father's chair, twisting his hands nervously together.

Elrohir's face was stained pink across the cheeks and he met Elladan's gaze with a grimace. Elladan's eyes flew to his father's face and he was struck by the sudden appearance of age within it. Not in the faint creases around the eyes nor the furrowing of the brow, but in the grey depths of his eyes. For the first time since the departure of Celebrian, Elrond looked sad, as though he wore a mourning cloak about his aura. But there was a hard set to his mouth that Elladan knew well from his youth and recognised his father's displeasure.

Elladan turned back to Elrohir, his eyes flashing as he registered.
"You told him!" He felt as though he had been struck, the air seemed to have been sucked from the room.

"I did not!" Elrohir snapped, looking up in astonishment. "He just knew, Elladan. I do not know how."

"I told him."

Elladan froze as he recognised the quiet, regretful admission to have come from Glorfindel. His stomach clenched as he turned his gaze slowly to meet his lover's eyes.

"W-what?" he whispered, astonished in turn.

He looked back at Elrohir, concern etched across his features as shock played over Elrohir's. Elladan bit his lip. Elrohir met his brother's eyes with a shaky exhale.

"It is all right, Elladan," he said unsteadily. "I think, maybe, in the long run, he was right."

"Yes, he was," Elrond spoke then, stepping forward to gain the attention of both his sons. He stood taller it seemed, gathering his years around him like a cloak of wisdom and his ancient eyes connected first with Elladan's, then Elrohir's. His gaze beat down upon them, older than the stones around him, but the lack of inflection in his voice told him to be as unlikely to judge them as the walls of the room. Elladan bowed his head. He loathed his father's anger, and wondered, with the innocence of one who does not know raised voices intimately, if it would not have been better if Elrond shouted at them both.

"No," Elladan said with a sigh. "No, we should have come to you ourselves."

"Yes, you should," Elrond admitted, a sympathetic smile touching his lips. "And I would have said to you much what I will say now. Except, having had the chance to adjust to this in private, I will leave out the 'what in Middle-earth did you think that you were doing?' and various other such ejaculations. As it stands, I do not know why you did this. And," he held up a hand as they shifted uncomfortably. "I am not asking either of you to justify yourselves to me. Do you know why you did it?"

Elladan looked at his hands. Elrohir was twisting his together until his knuckles cracked, but they both nodded.

"I know that you realise it was wrong," Elrond continued gently. "Have you talked about it between yourselves?"

Elladan stared hard at the floor, feeling his cheeks burning with humiliation. He felt Elrohir's eyes upon him and darted a glance at his twin, seeing the heat on his cheeks too.

"No," Elladan said.

"We did not know what to say," Elrohir ventured and Elladan felt his lips part in astonishment as his twin took a share in the blame where none was due. Guilt bit at his gut and he felt compelled to put in.

"It was just too confusing, Papa - it is not as though we intended this to happen. We have never felt like that before."

Elrohir's gaze ticked to him, gratitude flickering in his eyes that Elladan forbore to mention the incident with the aphrodisiac.

"That is to your advantage," Elrond said with a wry smile. "However, I cannot allow this to be left as it is currently. I think it perhaps would be best if you were to be separated for a time. It will allow you to realise what it is that you truly value about one another. You will be isolated within Imladris until such time as you, Elrohir, can be sent to Lorien. I am certain that the Lord and Lady will not begrudge you their hospitality and it will allow Elladan to remain here with Glorfindel - if he is still speaking to him that is." Elrond smiled slightly, although Glorfindel's expression was far from comforted.

"How long?" Elladan asked fearfully, lifting his eyes to his father's face.

"A century."

"A...a hundred years?" Elrohir breathed, his eyes clouding with horror.

They stood before their father and lord, united once more in their dread at the prospect of such a thing.

No barriers they had erected between themselves seemed quite so unbreachable as this. The identical expressions that faced Elrond sent twinned bolts of pain coring into his chest, but he held his ground.

"This is not a punishment," he said firmly. "I think that it would be best for both of you to put a little distance between you and perhaps, when you are reunited, you will be more inclined to talk."

Elladan met Elrohir's gaze as his father's words seemed to linger threateningly in the stilled air. He felt the hot welling of tears behind his orbits but he did not look away, even as Glorfindel gently put an arm around him and guided him from the room. It was not until the door snapped shut between them that their connection was severed, as though a knife had slit between them. Then he turned and buried his face in the front of Glorfindel's robes.

Elrohir stared for a long time at the closed door, unaware that down his cheeks spilt a fresh rain of his misery until Elrond knelt beside him, offering him a soft cloth to wipe his eyes with.

"Come on," he said softly, taking his hand and squeezing it. "It is not so long, Elrohir."

Elrohir just stared at the door, the handkerchief held limply in his hands, soaking, but unable to dry his tears.

"If this is not punishment," he said finally, weakly. "I would hate to have you punish me."

*****

7

A full turn of the moon passed over Imladris. It was a time that the house had never seen before. The twins rode each day as they ever had done, but they rode with separate patrols. Elladan now with Tharin, Elrohir with Lindir, never once crossing paths. Even their dining was done apart. The family divided, as it had never been before. Glorfindel, eating with Elrond alone that night, for Elladan had eaten with Arwen and Elrohir with Tharin, Erestor and Lindir, felt that the isolation was made all the worse by the desperate need to breach the forced chasm that parted the twins.

Neither of the twins had argued, in so many words, but there was a certain degree of resentment building.

Elrohir was no longer speaking to his father, having lost his temper in a quite spectacular fashion involving the shattering of an entire bottle of wine and the slamming of nearly every door in the houses between his father's study and the stable yard. (There were eleven in all.) While he had not been directly admitted it to be due to missing Elladan, it seemed rather unlikely that it was solely to do with the fact that he had broken his bowstring. Particularly as he was more than capable of mending it himself.

Elladan was not so dramatic, but equally miserable. He had not, to Glorfindel's surprise, been in the least bit angry about his betrayal. When the decision had first been made, he had been too much in need of someone to turn to in his brother's absence and finally too drained to raise the necessary fury. He did seem to recognise Glorfindel's reasons, the only thing he had asked had been an explanation. They had been curled up together in bed, utterly shattered after a very sleepless night, due to Glorfindel's longing to have a pillow that was not permanently damp culminating in a frantic burst of lovemaking.

Glorfindel had talked then through his motives and apologised for not first encouraging Elladan to seek out Elrond.

"It is all right, Glory," Elladan had replied wearily. "I do not think that I could have done in any case." He was distinctly subdued however, despite his claims that he understood.

Elrond picked with distaste at his meal, laying his fork aside with a sigh and lifting his glass to take a mouthful of wine. He put the glass down and picked up his fork, laid it down, lifted the glass. Glorfindel reached out and clapped a hand over his lord's as Elrond threatened to repeat the movement for the fifteenth time, despite the fact that it was making no impression upon either his plate or the contents of his glass. Elrond jumped, startled out of his thoughts.

"You are making me twitchy," Glorfindel explained. "And it is clearly not distracting you at all. Have you actually eaten anything or are you just playing with your food?"

"I am building a castle in my mashed potatoes," Elrond replied with dignity.

Glorfindel lifted an eyebrow at the dispersed vegetable.
"I am glad that you are not involved in the construction of buildings then," he observed.

Elrond looked ruefully at the mess and put his utensils down entirely.
"It does seem rather fortunate." He sighed. "This will not do, I suppose. I should return to..."

"You are not doing any more work tonight either," Glorfindel waved his knife at Elrond. "I know this behaviour in you, my lord. Working yourself through the hours of the clock will not make you feel any the less guilty. You have a remarkable ability to think about far too many things at once."

Elrond sipped at his wine, tasting it for the first time and pulling a face, wondering what had possessed him to bring out such an inappropriate choice for the meal.

"Do you blame me?" he said, continuing to drink the wine for want of an alternative occupation. "I do feel guilty. I am loath to see them so miserable."

"I think, for all I share your current pain, that you did do the right thing," Glorfindel assured him, a trifle sadly.

"Then the sooner Elrohir is sent to Lorien the better," Elrond said grimly. "At this rate he will not speak to me for the next century either."

"I have been thinking about that myself," Glorfindel admitted. "And I wonder, were we too hasty in our decision not to scour the passes? The isolation from the other kingdoms is becoming a problem to us and beyond our borders everything has become an unknown quantity."

"I know." Elrond frowned.

"If I speak to Lindir and Tharin perhaps we should see if it would be feasible to launch an assault on the passes," Glorfindel suggested.

"All right," Elrond spread his hands out over the tabletop. "Go to then and come speak with me in the morning."

* * * * *

"Of course it is feasible," Lindir said impatiently, rising to his feet and stalking the length of the room. "It is perfectly simple. The Redhorn pass is the most direct route to Lorien or to Mirkwood. It is likely to be the most heavily barricaded as a result. However, being the easiest access, if the other kingdoms are or have done the same as we, then it is the pass that they would chose to strike. If we are to hit that with the full force then it will do one of several things. It could grant us straight access through it, and force the Orcs then to disperse their guards in order to recover that ground. This means it will be a simple matter of attacking the less well guarded passes to achieve communication. Either is to our advantage. The other alternative is that it will get us killed."

Elrond looked up at the cold blue eyes, lit with an unnatural light at the thought of the fight. The blank planes of Lindir's face, made severe by his tightly bound hair, showed nothing save irritation at the delay in carrying out the plan.

"I find that such a persuasive argument, Lindir," Elrond observed. "It has always been on my agenda to needlessly slaughter my people."

Lindir glared at him.
"Anything for the cause is it not?" he snapped.

"Some of us, Lindir," Elrond said in a measured tone. "Have come to realise that even 'anything' has limits."

"Then you know not its definition." Lindir pulled out his chair and sat abruptly.

Elrond held his stare for a few moments and then spoke to his counsel.
"May I have a general consensus?"

Glorfindel sighed.
"As one who is not going to be riding I feel that I have no right to speak, yet I am inclined to believe that we cannot go much longer in this limbo. While I appreciate that all too often we are at too great a distance to offer much aid when it is desperately required, we can ill afford to be so divided. One of the greatest advantages of the Last Alliance was that there was a unity of sorts between all our peoples and one must admit that we probably came off the better for it."

He spoke with care, but Lindir snorted.
"What good came of that age, pray tell. If a Balrog were to come now would you say 'twas all to the better that you had fought one before - and died? Would it give you hope?"

"Lindir," Elrond said warningly.

But Glorfindel held up a hand.
"Perhaps," he said steadily. "At least I would be prepared and have some idea of what to do and what not to do. And I say again, I fear that we are at more of a disadvantage standing alone than with some semblance of unity."

"You are stood with me and so I yield, though I imagine your reaction to a Balrog would be so cool," Lindir said, folding his hands upon the table.

"It would not," Glorfindel admitted without shame. "And I appreciate, through that same stretch of the imagination, that your reaction is justified now."

Lindir met his eyes with a slightly more friendly expression and he offered a single nod to indicate his submission.

"Tharin?" Elrond prompted.

The Elf lifted his head, pushing back strands of his light-brown hair.

"It is a dangerous and possibly foolish mission," he remarked. "But Glorfindel is right, it is more dangerous that we sit here like targets and do naught. Too often already this age has this been our practice."

"So we are decided?" Elrond asked, looking to each face for assent.

"You have not ventured an opinion," Lindir noted.

"I am already set to follow your counsel. It is you who have to ride this ride and not I. It is you who know the strength of your riders and are in a better position to judge than I. I trust your decision," Elrond replied.

"Then it is set," Lindir rose again and moved to the window, staring out across the valley with blank eyes, seeing only the prospective gathering of the warriors.

"I will leave also the choice of your riders to your discretion," Elrond said, looking to Tharin. He felt weary in his heart that it had come to so drastic an action and he dreaded with a resigned sadness the prospective consequences.

"We may take whom we please?" Tharin asked.

"Spare the youngsters as long as you may, unless you think that this would be suitable first outing for some. I cannot myself see it for it will be cramped conditions and likely below ground. But," he sighed. "Do not deprive us of our most experienced fighters in their entirety. Take whom you will to get the job done and survive it."

"What about your sons?" Lindir asked, wheeling sharply from the window to challenge Elrond.

Elrond closed his eyes. Oh I was afraid it would come to this. Please, spare them someway. I cannot lose yet more of my family and my loved to these harsh ages. But he opened them again with forced calm. "I said to take whom you will did I not?"

Discretely Glorfindel reached out to grip Elrond's arm. Tharin saw, however, and spoke up.

"I think that we need not ask Elladan and Elrohir to accompany us. It seems unfair to subject them to a return to the place where their mother was captured."

Lindir made a derisive sound in his throat but held his tongue.

"Ah, Tharin," Elrond sighed gratefully. "Go then to the riders and set this in motion. Glorfindel - can you assist with the preparations? Lindir, stay, if you will and explain to me how you think that this can be implemented."

* * * * *

Lindir was drawing a swift sketch of the tunnels in an attempt to outline the strategy to Elrond when there came a firm knock upon the door. Recognising it as Elrohir's, Elrond called to him to enter. Elrohir did so. He closed the door behind him and spoke directly to Elrond without preamble.

"Papa, I hear that there is to be a scouring of the passes come the week's end, if all can be arranged. I would wish to be permitted to ride with the company. Tharin has told me that it must be your assent I seek."

Elrond felt something shatter inside him as he looked into his youngest son's eyes.

Elrohir stood straight, composed, yet within the crystal depths of his eyes, there burned a deep, searing desire. He was beautiful, his long hair falling in ebony silk over his shoulders, two narrow plaits serving as a band around his head to hold it clear of his face. His features were a fraction sharper than his twin's and there was a different intensity to him. The set of his jaw implied that he was quite prepared to defy Elrond if need be. The look in his eye was ugly.

"Please, Papa, I ask it of you. Will you let me ride?"

"Why do you do this?" Lindir looked up sharply. "Do you hope to get yourself killed?"

Elrond turned angry eyes upon his vice-regent, but Elrohir managed to smile.

"Sorry if I am to disappoint you Lindir, but no. In essence I want the passes clear. I want to get to Lorien so that I may come back from it as soon as is possible." A flicker of wretchedness betrayed him for an instant, but he quickly concealed it. "And frankly, the Orcs hurt my mother. If there is a plan to destroy them, I want to be part of it. It is revenge and I acknowledge that. I want it. I want them dead." He offered another wry smile. "I do not intend to give them the satisfaction of killing me, so this is definitely not a suicidal mission."

Elrond stared at his son's implacable countenance, noting out of the corner of his eye, the brief twitch of Lindir's lips into an approving smile. He stared at Elrohir for a long time, his heart wrenching in his chest to see the fire and the passion turned to this. But, he thought, forcing down with an iron will his instant refusal, perhaps it would offer him some form of closure.

"Very well," he heard himself say. "You may tell Tharin that you have my permission."

* * * * *

Elladan's knock, some hours later, came as more of a surprise. As he entered, his gaze steady and his voice equally measured, each word and sentence thought out to persuade his father, Elrond felt his sorrow as deeply as if a portion of his soul was being taken from him. He sat at his desk with Glorfindel turned from the window, seeing the shock appear upon the face of his seneschal, fought down quickly, and schooled himself to keep his own face an equal mask. Elladan spoke of what Elrond knew Elrohir sought, at least in part. Of closure. Of wanting to prevent a repeat of what had happened to Celebrían. But the part that Elrond silently added for him was that Elladan too wanted revenge.

"Very well," he heard himself say for the second time. "You may tell Tharin that you have my permission."

Elladan nodded.

"Thank you." His gaze ticked to Glorfindel still standing statue still, his features deceptively serene. "I am sorry, Glory," he said quietly, before excusing himself.

Elrond turned to Glorfindel.

"I take it that you knew not of that either?"

"I knew," Glorfindel surprised him by saying sadly. "He spoke with me earlier. I suppose I hoped that he would not actually do it."

Elrond sighed.
"I believe that we have both underestimated the measure of their grief."

Glorfindel nodded.
"My lord," he ventured. "I cannot help but note that you have allowed both of them to ride. Is this wise, my lord?"

Elrond sighed again.
"Probably not. But I could not allow one and not the other. Besides," he added wearily. "I cannot keep them separate for much longer, even in the name of doing them good. Can you not see how the strain is telling upon them?"

"I can, Elrond," Glorfindel said, moving to place his hands on Elrond's shoulders, lightly pressing his lips against the dark hair. "I can."

Elrond closed his own hands over the top of Glorfindel's fingers, closing his eyes in silent appeal to the Lady in the Stars for his sons.

* * * * *

They were startled, perhaps foolishly so, to find each other there. Though both had suspected the other would have similar thoughts, to have it confirmed and accepted, neither had imagined possible. They rode in separate companies, Tharin at the head of Elladan's, Lindir with Elrohir, making two sweeps at the pass.

Fortune was upon their side, for a company from Rohan came upon them from the opposite side of the mountains, making it easy to crush the forces of Mordor between the flanks of elves and men. Blades sparkled in the sunlight as they cleared the pass, blood shining bright upon steel. The dark smear of it where a blade was wiped clean across breechcloth, the ingrained burgundy glitter within the silvery shine of the metal, tinting the knife with crimson. The stench that rose from the dismembered corpses that lay in steaming, broken heaps sent blood of the living pulsing with their battle fever.

Tharin looked away, his expression grim as he surveyed the carnage and turned swiftly to assessing the damage his own side had taken. Lindir too aided him, but the slightly maniacal glint in his eyes betrayed his expressions of concern and his voice was too hard for comforting platitudes that he did not believe in anyway. Now and again his eyes swept the battlefield and Tharin heard him utter a low laugh, bitter, but very clearly delighted with the outcome. As the man who lay before him let his eyes roll up into his head and his chest ceased to rise, Tharin shook his head in disbelief at the macabre satisfaction and in sadness that Lindir could feel only this. He moved to the next of the injured, asking Lindir, when he wanted to snap, to find sticks to serve as splints and gratefully taking the proffered wrap handed him by the human physician.

Yet over the heads of it all, the twins' eyes met. Their breasts heaving with exertion, their quivers barely touched though their blades ran with blood, their sweated horses shifting restlessly beneath them, they found satisfaction and they could share it.

Elladan wheeled his horse up alongside Carnil, feeling the dried blood on his face crack as he smiled at his twin.

"It is good to see you here, brother," he said, feeling the familiar sense of security just being around Elrohir offered him.

"And you," Elrohir reached out and gripped his arm in a warrior's embrace. "After all," he added, his eyes bright in his flushed face. "We made a promise did we not?"

~ END ~