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Twilight Tales - The Captain's Guerdon	By : MPB Category: -Multi-Age > General Views: 8528 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings (and associated) book series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter XV

Elladan curiously regarded the thick, large volume upon his lap. He glanced up wonderingly at Glorfindel who lounged before him, eyes intent upon his every expression.

They were in Elladan's room, seated on the furs before the hearth, nursing cups of mulled wine. No other light brightened or heated the chamber though neither noticed it. The warmth of each other's company was more than enough to dispel the twilight gloom.

It was a week since Elladan's near avowal to follow his sister's path. A week since Glorfindel so summarily snatched him back from it. Now was the eve of their binding ceremony for the captain had demanded it be accomplished at once. Elrond had not balked - the sooner his oldest son was bound in elven matrimony, the sooner he could rest secure in the knowledge that both his sons would join him in Valinor.

For the next three days or so, the couple had scarcely spent a moment apart. Their constant togetherness had led Elrohir to jestingly caution them from overexerting themselves to the point of passing their binding night in restorative slumber rather than invigorating union. After all, he gibed, his brother could only withstand so much before his backside started to protest such vigorous if loving usage. That prompted Glorfindel to restrain himself and force his attention back on his duties despite his lieutenants' assertions that they would take up the slack and Elladan's assurance that Elrohir had been exaggerating.

But tonight, the captain suddenly showed up at his lover's door, a pitcher of hot, spiced wine in one hand and the book in the other. He said nothing about the tome until they had settled themselves before the fire and imbibed some of the wine. Only then did Glorfindel hand the book over to Elladan.

“'Twas Faelrin's,” he said. Elladan was startled. Apart from his one pronouncement that memorable evening a week ago, Glorfindel had not mentioned her again. “One of her sisters escaped the sack of Gondolin and made her way to Sirion with Tuor and Idril. When we met in Valinor upon my return, she gave it to me. She thought I might appreciate having a memento of our time together.”

Elladan looked incredulously at him. “She thought of taking a book with her whilst Gondolin burned down around her?”

Glorfindel shook his head. “You must understand, even when we believed ourselves hidden from our foes, we were ever prepared for the worst,” he explained. “Turgon may not have hearkened to Ulmo's call to him to abandon Gondolin but he nonetheless warned us all to be set to flee should it come to that. And so every house had packs of belongings ready in case of a hurried departure. Faelrin shared one with her sister and kept this book within, always returning it for safekeeping after making an entry.”

Elladan stared at him in surprise. “Entry?” he echoed. He looked down at the volume and finally opened it. A soft gasp escaped him as he realized what he held in his hands.

It was no ordinary book but a journal. Its entries were written in a bold yet patently feminine hand. Here and there whole pages had been given over to illustrations - simple oil paintings and sketches rendered in charcoal. Each page had been treated with some transparent coating that protected these treasures - their lines and hues were nearly as dark or vivid as they had been when first set down on paper.

Glancing occasionally at his lover, he slowly flipped through the pages. The accounts within did not hail all the way back to Aman - Faelrin had apparently started it in Nevrast ere the move of Turgon's people to Gondolin. He caught his breath as he came upon a charcoal sketch of a familiar-looking Elf mounted on his warhorse. The likeness was astounding. He looked at the captain questioningly.

“She was as much an artist as I,” Glorfindel softly said. “We shared many interests. Indeed, we were very much alike despite the difference in our callings. Though I was a soldier by nature, I was also drawn to intellectual and artistic endeavors; I still am. She was a scholar and a scribe but she was also as fierce and valorous as any warrior-maid. Mayhap that is why we were so close; why I deemed her dearest of all my friends.”

Elladan flipped through another few pages then stopped at an austere but expressive painting of an elleth. Glorfindel nodded at his inquiring glance and he gazed at the image of the one other Elf who had known the captain's love. That Glorfindel had held her in high esteem was apparent in the care with which he had depicted her.

She was not a great beauty though Elladan conceded he was by no means a neutral observer when his grandam, mother and sister were hailed as the greatest beauties of this age. Her features were quite asymmetrical for an Elf, one eye slightly larger than the other, the left corner of her lips a tad higher than the right giving her a perpetually impish look. Even so, she was striking and attractive. You would not forget her face even if you had met her but once.

Her hair was dark brown shot through with amber streaks. Suddenly, he understood the reason for her name - he could imagine the crown of her head turning dark gold under the rays of the summer sun.

Glorfindel softly explained: “She possessed an exuberance that was far more alluring than mere physical beauty. I knew how coveted she was for I met many of her suitors.” He chuckled wryly. “She would ask my opinion of them but never heeded me for though she dallied with a chosen few, she took none in marriage, even amongst the Elves I urged upon her.”

Elladan choked on a chortle. “You played matchmaker for her?” he asked disbelievingly.

“I attempted to but she would have none of it,” Glorfindel replied with a wan smile.

The twin glanced down at the painting once more. Something about Faelrin's expression as she regarded Glorfindel while he painted her had struck him earlier. On a hunch, he swiftly scanned several pages preceding and following the portrait. He bit his lip then looked up.

“Are you aware that she was already in love with you even then?” he asked. “'Tis obviously the reason she refused all who wooed her.”

Glorfindel sighed. “I did not know it then,” he admitted. “She never told me how she felt. Not even when I finally declared my love to her did she confess her long desire for me.” He gravely looked at the image he had wrought. “I only discovered this truth about her when I read the journal the evening the Company departed.”

Elladan stared at him in surprise. “You did not read this when her sister first gave it you?”

The captain shook his head. “I only perused it fleetingly. I could not bear to read about what we'd shared knowing that it had ended in so much anguish and resentment and guilt.”

“Then what drove you to read it at last?”

“The thought that I might lose you.”

After a moment's hesitation, Glorfindel described his struggle that fateful night to grapple with his feelings and allow the remembered pain of loss to wash over him. But hard on that memory had come the even more heartbreaking prospect of losing Elladan forever.

“For the first time, I looked back at my life here in Imladris and realized that were it not for your refusal to leave me alone, I would have been the loneliest Elf in all the valley. Were you to forsake Elvenkind, you would leave an emptiness in my heart that would never be filled again. I understood then that the old emptiness was no longer there; that you had filled it with your loving. And there lay the difference. My first loss had been due to circumstances beyond my control. But were I to lose you it would be because of my fears and there would be no redemption this time around.”

Elladan gazed at him in compassion. He lifted his hand and slipped it behind the captain's nape to pull him in for a tender kiss. When it ended he let his hand fall to clasp Glorfindel's and hold it fast.

“Tell me what happened,” he gently encouraged his lover.

Glorfindel blinked several times to still the threat of tears before he could continue. He said: “Just before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, I felt my regard for her change. Or rather I realized that my great rapport with her was born not merely out of friendship but also of love - that I must have desired her from the moment I left childhood behind but did not recognize it as such. Call me a fool for not having known the true nature of my feelings for her but I had been raised to consider it unseemly to harbor lust for a friend. And so I set such thoughts aside. And as she believed I did not feel anything more than platonic affection for her, she chose to keep silent as well.”

“You were indeed much alike to think along the same lines,” Elladan remarked.

Glorfindel nodded. “Yet in other matters, we were quite dissimilar to the extent of exchanging harsh words.” He leaned back against the hearthside couch. “As I said, she was exuberant, almost recklessly so. She had a great sense of adventure and a cavalier attitude toward traditions and limitations. I, on the other hand, had been bred to place duty and honor above almost everything else. This difference led to many a quarrel between us even before we left Valinor.”

He paused. “I remember a conversation we had one day not many weeks ere the Noldor fled Aman. She asked me if I was curious about Middle-earth. If I had ever wondered what the land of our people's awakening was like. I said nay - I was happy in Valinor. I had no pressing desire to cross the Great Sea and discover what lay beyond. She scoffed at me then. She said: You may be content with your lot, Glorfindel, but I am not! I yearn for more than these hallowed shores. I want to see what lies across the Sea. Indeed, I would seize any chance to journey to the Hither Lands.”

The older twin caught his breath as he realized the implications of the Elf-maid's words. “You followed Fingolfin because he was your lord to whom you had sworn allegiance,” he said. “But she saw exile as freedom from the constraints placed upon you by the Powers.”

The captain nodded again. “Only I knew that 'twas not love of family or devotion to duty that tempted her away from the Blessed Realm,” he said. “Not even her parents understood this - they were proud of her for choosing to go into exile with them while her sisters hesitated.”

“She thrived on the difficulties we endured, even the crossing of the Helcaraxë and the hard years when we strove to make a realm of our own. The wars did not daunt her and I imagine had she possessed the wherewithal to be a warrior, she would have been one of our most glorious soldiers. But she did not have the fleetness or physical strength or enough of an understanding of or patience with the discipline military service required.”

“We were happy with our friendship. I will not deny that I occasionally wondered what it might be like to lie with her but I was always fearful that to introduce that intimacy into our relationship would only ruin it. Especially if she obliged me for friendship's sake. If there is one other thing I rue about the whole affair aside from its bitter end, it is that we wasted millennia dancing around the issue when we might have known years of bliss before the fall.”

“In wedlock, Glorfindel?” Elladan quietly asked, a catch in his voice.

The captain stared at him in some puzzlement before realizing what the twin was thinking. Had he wed Faelrin, he would not now be allowed to return Elladan's love. He gripped Elladan's hand tightly.

“Even had we wed, I would still be free to bind to you,” Glorfindel assured him. At the slight rising of a skeptical eyebrow he added: “All I would need do is invoke the Doom of Finwë and Miriel Serindë to gain the Valar's permission to take another spouse.”

Elladan gasped in shock. “She remains within?” he blurted out.

“'Twas her choice,” the captain said.

“Valar, how great was her sin against you that she should be so shamed to face you once more as one of the living?” Elladan wondered in a hushed voice.

“Yet 'twas not her betrayal of our lovers' pledge that doomed any future we could have had together,” Glorfindel somberly commented, “but her betrayal of the trust we'd built as friends.”

Elladan gazed at him in mingled sympathy and absorption. “Go on then,” he said. “You said you realized you loved each other just before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.”

“Call it a foreboding of sorts,” Glorfindel continued. “I sensed that all would change after that battle though I did not know the extent of the evil that would befall our peoples. It was then that I realized how deeply the thought of never seeing her again wounded me. And so I acknowledged my feelings at last and told her how I truly felt. My joy was beyond description when she told me she returned my love.”

The captain paused in his narration to pour more wine into their cups. After a few deep draughts, he went on with his tale.

“We had but a week to celebrate our love,” he murmured. “A week in which we spent every single night and every possible waking minute together. Before Turgon led the army out to that accursed battle. You know how that ended. How the greater number of our forces was obliterated. How your foresire retreated back to Gondolin with the remnants of our army. And how we closed the leaguer of the hills and never again opened it even to those who sought aid of us.”

Glorfindel closed his eyes for a moment, the memory of sorrow and regret clear in his pinched features. “My forebodings proved right,” he whispered. “Change came upon us indeed though not in the way I'd expected.”

“The guard on the Seven Gates in the Orfalch Echor and the passes in the Echoriath was tripled and the captains of Gondolin were charged with manning the watchtowers for six to eight years each term of duty. I stood watch four times in the 38 years that followed, once as warden of the great gate at the end of the ravine road. The first was when Turgon issued his decree, the second just before Tuor came with Ulmo's warning, the third when he and Idril wed and the fourth in the last years after Maeglin betrayed our fair city. It was hard on all of us for we could not visit our loved ones or receive visitors in turn. Only through trusted couriers could we send missives to our families and friends.”

“Yet for all your vigilance Maeglin managed to slip past the leaguer,” Elladan commented, briefly digressing. “How did he accomplish this?”

Glorfindel shrugged. “He was Turgon's sister-son. Not even the king thought him capable of defying his edict. And he had always mined the Anghabar for iron. It was not uncommon for him to sojourn in the north of the Echoriath. Even I would not have suspected him.”

Elladan smiled. “I doubt that,” he said. “But, please, continue.”

Glorfindel took up the story once more. “Faelrin was upset when we were parted so soon after my return and begged me to ask for a reprieve from Turgon. She knew he favored my house because of our distant kinship. But I refused. How could I ask this of the king when my comrades were taking on their share of the burden without complaint? It became a bone of contention between us. She accused me of placing duty above her. I could not gainsay her but neither could I set duty aside. I understood as she did not how close to the edge of disaster we were.”

“It lay between us from thereon. Even when we reunited upon each of my returns, we knew the strain of it. But I did not realize just how deeply she resented my commitment to my charge and how it would serve to drive a wedge between us.”

“It was during my last watch that everything came undone. I was sent to replace Ecthelion as warden of the eastern passes. When I went to bid her farewell, she was more distraught than in all our previous partings. She said she could endure my absences no longer; that I had to choose else she would break our troth. I was shaken by her threat - she had never issued an ultimatum before. And so I swore that I would go to Turgon when I returned and request that this posting be my last for many a year. My promise seemed to pacify her and so I left, confident that all was well between us. And it seemed thusly for the next four years. But in the fifth year, I noticed her letters had become infrequent. And they were more often than not briefer and more distant than her wont.”

“Distant?” Elladan questioned.

“As if she were withholding things from me. Which was strange for we had seldom kept secrets from each other and certainly not for an extended period of time. I inquired after her but the messengers told me that of late she no longer personally delivered the missives to them but would send a servant in her stead. Again that was unusual for she was given to entrusting verbal messages to the couriers aside from her written dispatches.”

“My kinsfolk finally saw fit to enlighten me as to the cause. They wrote that she had been seen keeping company with other Elves and not in the manner of friends. And that her parents and sisters had taken to shunning contact with any of my house or those known to be my boon comrades. They suspected she was cuckolding me for why else the avoidance of her kin if not out of shame? The captain who relieved me at the end of my posting confirmed the validity of their suspicions. She, too, had heard the rumors. And she feared there was truth to them for the Elf who disclosed them to her was no gossipmonger but a reliable acquaintance.”

“I hastened home and went directly to her father's house. They were shocked to see me and none opposed my demand for an audience with her. As she left the hall, her mother begged me to keep my temper in check lest I upset Faelrin overmuch. Before I could demand why I should heed her counsel, Faelrin arrived and I saw the reason for her mother's plea. She had clad herself in a loose robe but there was no concealing the evidence of her infidelity to me.”

Glorfindel closed his eyes as if to shut out the searing images of that dreadful confrontation. But having loosed the memories, he could no longer push them back into the recesses of his consciousness. Even as he spoke, he saw once again the main hall of Faelrin's home. He standing stunned by the dark hearth, she defiantly, almost proudly meeting his stare from across the room.

When he found his voice, his first words were: “Who is the father?”

“I know not,” she coolly replied.

Glorfindel looked at her in confusion. “How can that be? Did you not mark the moment of this child's begetting?”

She laughed bitterly. “Not in my fraught state,” she snapped. “I did not feel the change until much later.” Her mouth tightened. “It could be any of the ellyn who have comforted me in your absence.”

Glorfindel gritted his teeth. “How many?” he bit out.

“No less than a score.”

He nearly gaped in his shock. “Sweet Eru! Why, Faelrin?

“I merely matched the number you took to your bed in my stead.”

“What in creation are you talking about?”

“I know who my true friends are, Glorfindel,” she scornfully retorted. “They carried the tales of your betrayals to me. How you have passed the years in debauchery with your comrades-in-arms while I languished here for want of you!”

“And you believe these falsehoods?” he snapped. “You deem the bearers of lies your friends?”

“You deny their charge?”

“I do deny it!” Glorfindel cried. “I have lain with no one but you since we plighted our troth. You may question every warrior I kept vigil with, maid and male alike. I was true to you, Faelrin. As Elbereth is my witness, I did not stray.”

For the first time, she faltered, perturbed by the captain's steadfast assertion. “Is this possible?” she responded doubtfully. “I know you dallied with them ere you wooed me. Could you have kept chaste in their company all these years?”

Something snapped within Glorfindel. That she had trysted with others was offensive enough. But to have done so out of lack of faith in his fidelity and they known to be the closest of friends afore they became lovers was an affront beyond bearing.

“Elbereth, they assailed me for prudery and all the while you were sullying your name and mine with your perfidy!” he shouted. He stepped closer, eyes brilliant with grief and mounting anger. “We have known each other for years uncounted; swore to always guard each other's hearts and trust. Yet you took the word of newfound friends and did naught to seek my side of their sordid tales.”

Her eyes widened in sudden realization of her error. Watching her, Glorfindel saw the moment when the veil of her misapprehensions was lifted from her eyes. And the beginnings of fear and regret gleam in their dark depths. But he found he did not care what she was feeling at the moment. Not when she had not given much thought to what he would feel upon learning of her treachery. He advanced on her a shade threateningly, stalking her as a warrior would his cornered foe. She shrank back instinctively.

“Tell me, melethen”-my love-he almost spat with derision. “Of your so-called worthies, how many found their way into your bed to sooth your aching heart?”

She blanched. He knew he had aimed well. Fury overtook his anguish and he gave full vent to it.

“Faithless whore! I do not know you at all!” He pulled his betrothal ring from his finger as if it burned him and flung it at her. “Give that to the Elf who will own your bastard his.”

The captain swung on his heel and hastened to leave, the pain in his heart almost too great to bear. He heard her voice rise in a frightened wail behind him and sensed her attempt to follow him.

“Glorfindel, wait! Ah, forgive me, beloved!”

He half-turned and held his hand up, warning her to stay her advance. “Do not call me that!” he harshly commanded. “You forfeited the right to name me yours the first night you took another in my place.”

She mutely stared at him in misery and belated repentance. But he only dropped his eyes one more time to her swollen belly before departing. Not once did he look back.

“Glorfindel.”

The captain blinked then looked at his darkling lover. He realized with a start that he was weeping and that Elladan had pulled him into his arms. He sank further into the twin's embrace, pressing his face against the latter's shoulder. It was many minutes before he stilled the shaking of his tall frame and calmed his frayed nerves.

“We can defer the rest of this tale for another time,” he heard Elladan murmur. “I cannot bear to see you in such straits.”

Glorfindel shook his head and straightened up. He gazed at his anxious betrothed. “I want you to know this about me, seron vell-beloved-he said. “Before you tie yourself to me irrevocably.”

Elladan snorted. “Do you think I would change my mind about you because of this?” he tenderly chided. “Continue then but for your own sake, Glorfindel, and not out of misguided chivalry toward me.”

The captain took a deep fortifying breath. “She attempted to contact me after that but I refused to see her. And my kin and other friends took care to shield me should it seem that we might cross paths. She sent letters but I neither read nor answered them. I did not want to think of her, did not want to see her, and certainly did not want to bear witness to the continued growth of the proof of her disloyalty. None of her erstwhile lovers had come forth to claim the child and none could fault them when she could not say who had sired it.”

“But then, I saw her again by chance and I was shocked by her appearance. She was but a shadow of her former self. If not for the obvious girth of her belly, she might have been mistaken for a mere wraith. Her father approached me and implored me to take pity on her and at least forgive her even if I did not take her back. He said she was so steeped in remorse that she no longer took heed of anything or anyone, not even her mother or sisters.”

Glorfindel broke off for a moment to stare at the briskly burning log in the hearth. “I told him I would think about it then turned to take my place with the folk of my house upon the walls of Gondolin. We were awaiting the dawn. It was the eve of the Gates of Summer.”

Elladan gazed at him in horrified fascination. “Valar! The night your city fell!” he whispered.

Glorfindel drew a shaken breath. “We did not see them until they were beneath the northern wall. They broke the Gate and entered the city before we could form a sufficient defense. Balrogs and Trolls and countless Orcs crowded our streets and invaded our halls, slaying any and all they came upon. And the dragons set our dwellings afire with their very breath. I saw Ecthelion die even as he slew Gothmog. I witnessed the toppling of Turgon's tower. And I watched Tuor cast Maeglin to his death upon the slopes of Amon Gwareth.”

“You know that Idril had devised a way out of the city, a northward tunnel beneath Tumladen. I was one of the few who had been entrusted with the secret. When word reached us that Turgon was slain, we knew the city was lost and we gathered what survivors we could find. It was then that I came upon Faelrin and her sister. They had managed to salvage their pack from their home and escape ere its roof collapsed. Not so the rest of their family.”

The captain leaned into Elladan's embrace once more. “We could not speak long with each other but she pleaded with me to permit her to make amends for the wrong she had done me. I unbent enough to tell her that if we survived, we would talk. Then Tuor called for my help and I had to leave her. Still, in the midst of ruin, I felt a glimmer of joy touch my heart again. I did not delude myself that all would be as before but, at the very least, there was a chance to renew the bond of affection we'd shared since our days in Valinor.”

“But that hope came to naught when we hastened down the street that led to the secret way. Many alleys and lanes intersected it and somehow, in all the confusion, Faelrin was separated from us. I only realized she was missing when I heard her scream my name.” Glorfindel shuddered. “I saw her through the smoke in an alley just several feet from where I stood. She had blundered into a pack of Orcs and they had hemmed her in. She was terrified beyond belief and kept crying out my name. I longed to help her but to do so would be to betray my location and alert the Orcs to the existence of the tunnel. Had I been alone I would have gone to her but I was now charged with protecting the remnants of our people. And there was also Eärendil to consider. I could not save Turgon but I was not going to let his only grandchild meet the same fate.”

“And so I delayed as long as I could, until the last Elves were almost within. I thought it safe to aid her then but I was too late. I could only look on as they held her down, sliced her belly open and tore her unborn babe from her womb. She turned her head as she lay dying and I know she saw me at the last. And I watched the light leave her eyes as her spirit fled her body.”

Elladan held him tightly when he began to shake anew from the onslaught of recollections. Once more, tears flowed down his cheeks unhindered as he strove to calm himself.

“I did not long outlive her,” he whispered. “I never mourned her properly. Even within the Halls of Awaiting, I did not have the chance to grieve. Though I met others who had died with me, I never saw her again. Even when I was released centuries later and allowed to walk the streets of Tirion once more, still I did not see her. I wondered why when others whom I had known had also returned to life - Finrod and Ecthelion and Thingol were back. As were Fingolfin and his sons Fingon and Turgon. I dared to approach Námo and thereby learned that she had foregone the chance to leave his halls. That after all she had discovered of my 'legend', she could not face me again. And so she had vowed to remain within forever and that is an oath that cannot be set aside even by Námo himself.”

Glorfindel sighed in resignation. “Once more, I felt betrayed. First she had broken her pledge of faithfulness to me. Now she had broken her promise to set things aright and thereby withheld from me the chance to heal inside. For how could I close the wound she had dealt me when I could not understand why she had dealt it in the first place? When her sister gave me this journal, all the feelings of hurt and rage were revived and I could barely look upon her image once more, much less read about her treachery. What I failed to consider was that I might have learned sooner the reason for her actions. That she would have written them down as well.”

“And did she write them down?”

“Aye, and quite extensively at that.”

“Then… why did she believe you capable of baseness?”

“'Twas her fundamental dislike of the constraints of duty,” Glorfindel explained. “If you recall, she resented it when I had to part from her for long periods of time in the performance of it. She never fully comprehended the ties that bound me as warrior and vassal and Elf of honor. She could not believe that my oaths of loyalty and service were enough to bear me through our enforced separations. Because she would never have borne it, she fell to thinking that it would hold true for me as well. And so it was easy for her to believe that I had found lovers amongst my war-comrades to occupy me whilst I did my duty to king and kingdom.”

“Her discontent became apparent to many including some erstwhile suitors who had hoped to win her in marriage and been disappointed when she affianced herself to me. I wager they thought that by smearing my name, she would reconsider our betrothal and mayhap turn to one of them instead. I doubt they expected her to defile herself to spite me or that she would use them in that endeavor. In the end, we all lost - I, she and they who turned her against me.”

Elladan kept silent after Glorfindel finished speaking. At length, he stirred and looked once more at the visage of the Elf who had shared so much of his lover's first existence.

“Have you forgiven her?” he softly inquired. The Noldo solemnly nodded. Elladan frowned thoughtfully. “If she knew you as well as you say she did, surely she would have realized that you would have pardoned her eventually however long it might take. Why did she shy from the chance when it was offered? Why immure herself forever within the Houses of the Dead? Námo mentioned your 'legend'. What did that have to do with her decision?”

“I did not understand then but now I think I do,” Glorfindel said. “Within the Halls of Mandos there is only memory of the past. When one's spirit passes into those halls, one ceases to be a part of what goes on in the world without. When the souls of the dead speak amongst themselves it is always in reference to what was, not what is or will be. There is no concept of time or its passage or the events that would mark it. I think she learned of my fate on Cirith Thoronath and finally realized what my calling had demanded of me. That the oaths she had so decried and belittled were binding unto death and that I had honored them in full. I think she came to believe there was nothing she could say or do that could possibly redress the pain she had caused me or restore her honor in my eyes.”

Elladan gazed at his lover in some astonishment. “Then she is truly to be pitied, Glorfindel,” he remarked. “And not least for being a fool and a stubborn fool at that.” When the captain would have protested, he laid his finger against the latter's lips, forestalling his words. “You say she could not comprehend your vocation and beliefs. I say she would not. Because to do so would have compelled her to revise her opinion of your chosen path and forced her to admit that hers was the more ruinous one.” The older twin shook his head. “Methinks it was fortunate you did not marry. You were fractious enough as friends. I shudder to picture you in wedded acrimony.”

Glorfindel let out a gust of laughter that was half amused and half rueful. “Aye, that is most likely,” he agreed. “I suppose on some level I knew this, which would account for my reluctance to bind to her soonest.” He regarded Elladan in equal parts affection and uncertainty. “And now, are you still set upon that course?”

“Need you ask that?” Elladan rebuked gently. “Come, take your ease, melethron”-lover-he bade Glorfindel, urging him to lie upon the furs beside him. “I would have you ready for tomorrow's revelry and the toil to follow.”

“Toil?” Glorfindel repeated with some mirth. “Is that how you see our binding?”

Elladan chuckled. “Not our binding but what will make it the success I know it will be. As I struggled to win your heart, so will I labor to guard it now that you have given it into my keeping.”

Glorfindel gazed at him in wonder then pulled him in for a long, breathstealing kiss. Afterwards, he held his lover close and said: “And I will do no less, my Elladan. If this be my penance for my egregious treatment of you, I will undertake it with all gladness.”

Elladan shushed him with a searing kiss of his own. No more words were spoken that night as they permitted their bodies to express what lay deep in their hearts.

*****************************

Glossary:

elleth - Elf-maid

Nirnaeth Arnoediad - Battle of Unnumbered Tears (473 F.A.), the name given to the disastrous fifth battle in the Wars of Beleriand

Helcaraxë - the 'Grinding Ice', the strait between Middle-earth and Araman, the northern barren wasteland on the coast of Aman

Echoriath - the 'Encircling Mountains' about the plain of Tumladen

Tumladen - 'The Wide Valley', the hidden vale in the Echoriath in the midst of which stood the city of Gondolin

Orfalch Echor - the great ravine through the Echoriath by which Gondolin was approached

Anghabar - iron mine in the north of the Echoriath

ellyn - male Elves

Amon Gwareth - the hill upon which Gondolin was built in the midst of the plain of Tumladen

Cirith Thoronath - 'Eagles' Cleft', the high pass in the mountains north of Gondolin, where Glorfindel battled a Balrog to the death in defense of the survivors of the sack of Gondolin

To be continued…
- 15
- 16
- 17
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Twilight Tales - The Captain's Guerdon