In Earendil's Light

Part Six

Middle Earth, Third Age, Year 2,718

At the thunder clap, he veered westward.

Elrohir charged hisry sry steed into the stark, stone labyrinth of toothsome crags and of sooted trails amidst the Hithaeglir foothills. The blunt rock floor of the passage sheared at the edges of Virgor’s hooves, but not a moment’s respite could be spared. Above, the ashen mist pooled into thick swaths of gray cloud, as the wind blew fitfully against them. The elf-knight kicked hard at the horse’s flanks, though he need not remind the spooked stallion of the gaining threat. Daring to glance behind them, he found the black riders mere inches from Virgor’s tail, an arm’s length from Elladan’s flailing cloak.

How his failing brother clung to him still, he did not know.

As if in response, Elladan gripped his iron hold deeper into his twin’s rigid abdomen, his sweat-mired brow pummeling the back of his shoulder-blades. Elrohir feared their breakneck pace might knock him unconscious, but there was no alternative. Elladan’s constant, heaving rasps were the only sign that his brother yet lived, even as the dampness of his blood-soaked wound spread across his back.

As they sped into higher ground, Elrohir again heeled the over-strained horse. They galloped wildly through a tight crevice, hoping to gain some distance, when Elrohir was inspired. He screamed at his near-listless brother, who coughed a heave of blood and bile onto his already streaming neck. This time, Elrohir kicked at Elladan’s limp boots, which sufficiently roused the groggy elf enough for him to release his cloak. The dark, billowing blanket had the twin advantages of momentarily blinding their pursuers and saving Elladan from choking.

The Nazgul shrieked, a spine-splinting, primal cry. Lightening blast around them, singed a raw, cindered scar into the ground ahead. Virgor, pushed beyond his limits, reared ericerically, his hooves mere steps from plunging into a sheer-faced gorge. The sky erupted, then, dousing them with icy spews of rain and bruising pellets of hail. Elrohir held tight to the reins, doubly tight to Elladan behind, then spun the horse around to meet the preying Shadowspawn head on. He had no other choice.

The elf-knight, muttering a hasty prayer for leniency in Mandos, drew his sword. The faceless Nazgul loomed beyond, unhurried, relishing the capture of such hallowed prey. He felt Elladan’s blood-smeared lips against his ear, his parched throat gathering his last farewell.

“Forgive me,” he bleated, collapsing his weight against him.

“I am here, gwanur-nin,” Elrohir swore to him, gripping desperately into the hand that now sagged in his lap. “I am with you to the last.”

Before he could raise the final charge, a swarm of flaming arrows buzzed by, blindsiding the Nazgul. Four instantly flared up, their steeds fleeing into the night. Three others were unhorsed, a second wave conflagrating them into a communal pyre. Before the last two could ride through, Elrohir smacked Vigor’s quavering flank and the horse leapt over the blazing pile, racing, as if the animal himself was aflame, back through the crevice, down to the main road. Elrohir had not caught sight of their saviors; he nevertheless lifted his eyes to the heavens.

When they came to the bridge at Corseth, the elf-knight slowed them to a light canter. Once crossed, he dared pause to look back. Further lightning strikes reflected on the elf-guard’s silver armor, as three distinct parties descended behind them. Elladan’s lax body slumped to one side; Elrohir knew he should halt, wait, if only to thank them. He guided Virgor over to a sheltering ledge, then dismounted, easing Elladan down after him. The valiant elf-warrior was merely sleeping, not as he had feared, his orc-cut wound clotted nicely. Elladan had managed to suck the last of a healing drought early in their flight, its effects already potently felt.

The elf army had crossed, collapsed the bridge behind them. They were safe.

The captain - by his colors, though strange to Elrohir - and two lieutenants trotted over, their faces obscured, cloaked in similar fashion to the Nazgul. Elrohir’s gut knotted tight; he kept Elladan closely held. The lieutenants set down around them, revealing themselves at last.

“Feolath! Orandthil!” Elrohir exhaled, relief claiming him at the sight of the rogue Galadhrim. “Mae govannen, mellomanim. What brings you so far norto vot that I have cause to object...”

These two valiant Lorien elves, and no doubt their party, formed a secret band of well-placed spies. Formed and ultimately commanded by Lord Celeborn, the rogue elves held allegiance to him, but wore no known colors and kept no code; indeed, only those of highest authority even knew of their existence. It was said in their ranks were pairs of bound lovers, though Elrohir had never known for certain, once forced out of Lorien by the stingy guard-captain that fathered Haldir. Now, their missions were so protected, even Galadriel herself knew nothing. With relations so fraught between Mirkwood and the other tribes, Elrohir had little trouble guessing of their provenance.

“You know well enough, we wander far, Son of Elrond,” Feolath replied, concern overshadowing formality. “How does he fair?”

“On the mend, until we reach Imladris,” Elrohir assured them. “I gave him a healing drought, athelas and flaxweed.”

“Which is he?” Orandthil asked bashfully. “Which are you?”

“He is Elrohir, the elder,” the captain announced coldly. “He will ride with me. The wounded is Elladan, Feolath tak take him on. Orandthil, lead the horse.”

“And *his* name?” Elrohir hissed, angered at the unknown captain’s imperious tone and heedless commands.

“Virgor,” the captain snapped, but also seemed somehow amused by the gambit.

Elrohir, searching for his no doubt familiar identity, spied a white-gold lock caught in his collar-clasp. “Glorfindel?” The captain snorted loudly in disdain, also somehow familiar to him. “Name yourself, stranger, or else be revealed by my broadsword.”

Nerves frayed bare by the harrowing chase, Elrohir, exhausted and overburdened, held no temper for games. Handing Elladan over to Feolath, he unsheathed his waiting sword and marched over to the dismounting captain, teeth grit.

thisthis the favor a rescuer claims?” the hidden captain chided. “What would your Lord father say of such bleak gratitude?”

“He would say,” Elrohir seethed. “That those that cower behind cloakhoods deserve their rash judgment.”

“To which corner of Arda fled your renown diplomacy, Prince of Imladris?” the rich voice laughed outright.

Behind them, Elladan coughed, once, roughly, then replied: “Into the sea, in hand with your virginity, Prince of Mirkwood.” Elrohir’s astonished face, first glaring at Elladan, now spun to meet that of the captain revealed. “Really, Elrohir, it was plain from the start.”

At this, Legolas snickered, then moved to welcome his slack-jawed betrothed.

“Mae govannen, melethron,” he whispered, now but seconds from the first embrace of their reunion. “I have come to claim you.”

*

The air was cool, calm beneath ghostly Ithil above. Elrohir, wrapped tight in the captain’s cloak, was crouched by the hearth-fire, as Legolas tended Elladan’s wound. With sure, clean strokes, he washed away the purpled gore, pushed athelas gum into the seam, then dressed a measure of wheycloth around his sen aen abdomen. Elladan, though long asleep, still managed to move when gently pressed to do so. Yet a half-day’s journey from Imladris but far from the treacherous foothills, Legolas had judged a brief rest necessary, if only for Virgor’s sake.

Elrohir, having slept through most of their easy road, now scarfed down a veritable banquet of lembas, oarberry cakes, dried quintail, and Shirefield mushrooms, more food than he’d seen in a month. Careful not to fill himself too quickly, he instead indulged another gnawing appetite, his keen silver eyes rarely losing sight of Legolas. The flaxen-haired elf was easily half a foot taller than before, though still not quite Elrohir’s height, the raw beauty of his features more distinguished, more sage. His frame had developed most, where once there hung the lank gameness of elflinghood, now reigned a feral, sinuous grace. His smile was still such that misers might weep at its sheer radiance, yet, at times, a look of such dastardly delight came over him that one knew some rare mischief was imminent.

Those rabid eyes turned on him, now, as the archer concluded his ministrations and took a place by the fire.

“Has my cloak warmed you?” he teased fondly, seeming to rejoice in the mere sight of Elrohir before him. “Or would you prefer a more… intimate touch?”

“If you wish to embrace me,” Elrohir acknowledged. “You are welcome.” Pleased, Legolas came over to him, entwining their tired limbs and resting his head on the slope of the elf-knight’s shor. Hr. He sighed mightily, then, with pure contentment.

“I have longed for this,” he told him. “The memories of our time together are strongly held with me. But, at times, I feel I cannot trust in them, trust that I saw what was before me, and not what an elfling’s mind would see there.”

“I have felt the same, of our time in Mirkwood,” Elrohir admitted. “You ensorcelled me… for months, afterwards, I thought of nothing else.”

“And now?” Legolas queried, far more lightly than he felt it.

“Now…” Elrohir considered this, but had not yet truly formed an impression. The day had been so trying…

“You are weary,” Legolas concluded, seeing his mind struggle to right itself. “I should not press you so.”

“Tell me of yourself,” Elrohir changed tact, though out of genuine interest. “Why do you ride with this strange band?”

“I was recruited to them, on a visit to Lorien, though we presently come from Mirkwood,” Legolas began. “da… da… He often sends me off on tactical errands, as a result of my rampant taste for journeying. Once charged, I send word to Celeborn… and receive my orders. Other times, I simply ride with the band. I am not oft in Mirkwood, these last years.”

“You deceive your father? Report on his commands?” Elrohir asked, astounded, but attempting to understand this peculiar choice. “Are you no longer loyal to Mirkwood, then?”

“It is because I love the Mirkwood that I… I chose this path,” Legolas explained, concerned by the undercurrent of disapproval in Elrohir’s tone. “My Ada is gentle as he ever was, in moments when I am simply his son, but my King has gone mad. Breaking promises to Imladris and Lorien, endangering our people with his wilding schemes… I am an elf, first, and then one of Mirkwood. I cannot allow the Sindarin race to be killed off out of ignorance, or our Noldor kin endangered in these fell times.”

“Do your brothers know of this deception?” Elrohir questioned further, thought calmed by this reasoning.

“They introduced me to it!” Legolas exclaimed, his blood up. He had not thought Elrohir, of all, would press him so.

“But how are these elves in your care, if you report alone?” he continued on. “They are ten times your senior.”

“I outrank them,” Legolas replied.

“Outrank them?”

“Aye, Elrohir, mine is the greater skill,” he elaborated, not without some pride. “They know it well. When I ride with them, I am captain. s tws twenty year guard-captain of Mirkwood, until I withdrew to wander.”

“Thranduil must have esteemed you then, resigning from his guard,” the elf-knight commented wryly, which tempered his betrothed.

“It was a matter of honor,” Legolas informed him, grown quiet. “Your very own, if I’m not mistaken.”

“My honor?” Elrohir mused, overwhelmed, now, by ever-constant revelation.

“Indeed,” Legolas sped on. “He refused to honor our betrothal, wished me wed to some long-lost cousin. A maid, at that. I resigned my commission, and the next week departed for places unknown. Lorien first, naturally, then ten years with the band. Only recently have I returned to Mirkwood, and then at Celeborn’s behest.”

“By Elbereth,” Elrohir reeled at the telling of it. “If I’d known you’d have such troubles, I’d have never left your side.”

“I am glad of your wisdom, in this,” Legolas insisted. “Though I will never be glad of parting from you.” He rose to meet those placid mithril eyes, cupping the darkling elf’s cheek in his steady palm. “I am grown now, my brave one. An elf of my own, as you once wished me, and come to join with you, as promised. As sworn.” He brushed sweet, ready lips over Elrohir’s own, the kiss patient, searching. The elf-knight’s eternal flame surged at the unexpected reunion, both his hungers now blissfully sated. “Will you have me, melethron-nin, upon our return to you father’s house? Be bound to me?”

“Aye, I will have you most thoroughly, meleth,” Elrohir promised, a hint of mischief bedeviling his own brimming eyes. “But only after our binding.”

“And I will take the whole of you for my own, lovely one,” Legolas smirked, unable to mask his arousal. “As, I believe, was also promised. In our bed.”

“As you wish,” Elrohir glinted archly, then indulged in another long-denied kiss.

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

As Erestor’s carving knife slit through the translucent skin of his wrist, Glorfindel appeared more resigned than bothered.

The Loremaster gripped tight to the bone from behind the arm, placed the clean wound over a ready vial, then squeezed out a vital stream of blood. With the swift, sure fingers of a longtime healer, he dropped in a pinch of wolfsbane for freshness, corked the chilled vial, and, after anointing the severed skin with athelas cream, covered the wrist in a mistweed compress. Dismissing Glorfindel’s wry smirk (he’d survived far graver injuries), Erestor’s sharp eyes instead moved beyond the restless guard-captain to his fitful patient’s bed beyond. Limbs splayed wild, Elladan had finally lost the battle against sleep, his exhausted body weighted down to the mattress by sheer overexertion, his eyelids leaden, still purpled by fatigue. Never had the Loremaster had a more reluctant patient, his determination to rise during wakefulness only outlasted by the raging nightmares that plagued his dormant hours. True rest remained elusive, as did the restoration of his health, thus this brief respite from torment, self or otherwise, was much valued by his vigilant physician.

His sallow face betraying a keen sadness, Glorfindel also turned to face the elf-warrior’s sickbed.

Though Erestor was hardly shocked by the guard-captain’s willing compliance in this healing-technique, he wondered if the sight of Elladan so helpless might not aid in softening his hard stance on other, more worrisome facts of their binding. Erestor knew well what caused Elladan’s weakened state, what kept his body leagues from rery ery when his wound had been mainly superficial; knew also his friend’s blunt stance on the subject of his devotion. Ever since Erestor’s own binding, they had often quarreled over the contentious issue: Glorfindel holding stubbornly to his path of argument-erosion – while offering none of his own, Erestor desperately rallying for emotion over reason. Relations between the elders of Imladris had also suffered in the twins prolonged absence, Elrond’s trust in his guard-captain’s judgment as diffused as Elladan’s waning flame. Still, Glorfindel clung to his beliefs, though his current haggard appearance gave the Loremaster some little hope.

It was Glorfindel’s arms who’d met Faolath as he’d dismounted, weeks ago; Glorfindel who’d cradled Elladan’s gaunt head to his steady shoulder and carried him straight to the Healing Halls, shouting down the sick ward as if Imladris was under orc attack. For the next week he’d nightly haunted the ward, stealing down from the stable-dorm under cover of darkness to loom at the sickly elf’s side, dabbing his fevered brow, settling him after his harrowing dreams, every-ready with a water-cup, extra blanket, or comforting hand. The sole reason Erestor knew of these secret ministrations was an undercooked oxted shank, which had caused him to seek out a midnight remedy for Haldir’s lurching stomach. He greatly doubted, however, that Elladan himself was aware of his husband’s tireless nocturnal presence, as the young prince rarely evidenced coherence before noon, or after sunset.

As he replaced the mistweed with a firmer bandage, the Loremaster wondered at the condition of Glorfindel’s apparent change of heart.

“I dissolved loaksbloom into his supper broth,” Erestor commented to the preoccupied guard-captain. “Enough to sunder a horse.”

“Was that wise?” Glorfindel asked, fear underlying his studied patience. After weeks of gripping anxiety, his usual balance of pointed humor and of steel-strong reserve had given way to rawness Erestor had rarely witnessed in him.

“Hardly,” the Loremaster admitted. “But necessary. He must rest! His nights are plagued by-“

“Dreams,” Glorfindel finished for him, yet turned inward. “Terrible, soul-scraping dreams.” He halted, then, and sighed as if with his last breath. He stood, ignoring the fall of the unfastened bandage at his wrist, and strode over to the prince’s bedside. “Can you do nothing for him?”

Erestor formed his answer with care. “I have employed all the remedies I know. The trouble is, as you say, in his soul. Perhaps… perhaps if you visited him in the afternoon, showed him some affection… It is thus, among the Eldar. One caress from your lips, one mere embrace would be a more potent curative than a thousand doses of pure athelas root.”

“My blood will not cure him?” Glorfindel expertly deflected.

“Aye,” Erestor confessed, chafing. “It may. For a time.”

At this, Glorfindel’s head whipped around. “A time? Is it so weak?”

“His wound is long healed,” Erestor explained. “The scar fades daily. He is not kept bedridden by the accidental swing of a orc’s feeble hand, but by the dimming of his fea. His soul-flame. For some long time, it has bourn an immeasurable burden; light, at first, but grown heavy with the passing years, until now the weight near-crushes him. Thft oft of your life’s blood will chip away at it, but, without a constant renewal, it will grow to again overtake him.”

“Does he fade?” Glorfindel questioned in a dull hush, his face ashen.

“It bears certain similarities,” Erestor conjectured. “But he does not grieve. He cannot. You are bound together, both alive, both…relatively unharmed.”

The guard-captain took a moment to digest this, his mind working hard to form the necessary links to other, pressing inquiries. “Will he die?”

“I am unsure,” the Loremasted exhaled irritably, as much at his own incapacity as at Glorfindel’s attitude. “There is no precedent for such a malady, among our kind or other. Though I have little doubt as to the necessary course for remedy...”

“Curse you,” Glorfindel lashed out at him; Erestor only now seeing sign of the titanic anger held tenuously at bay.

“I merely relate what I have observed, mellon-nin,” Erestor stated calmly, long able to stay the course of the guard-captain’s renown, yet rarely seen, temper.

“Such convenience,” he snarled back.

“It is my duty, like your own, to seek out the invisible enemy and snuff him from existence,” Erestor coldly reminded him. “The foes I face down cannot be seen, but they are equally quick, merciless. Perhaps more so.”

“And it is my sworn duty to protect he to whom I am bound!” Glorfindel bellowed, thrusting the full velocity of his fury at him. This instantly spent, he swallowed dryly. “Even from myself…” Glorfindel looked down at the tousled, troubled prince, then sank to his knees as an anchor into the sea. He entwined Elladan’s lissome, calloused fingers with his own, his penitent gaze locked on the young elf’s face.

“How may such caring harm him?” Erestor inquired with extreme delicacy. “If you would only show sign of the love I know you bear him…”

Glorfindel grunted in response, shut his eyes. He fell dangerously silent. With cautious, yet convinced steps, Erestor approached his old friend, then lay warm, steady hands on his shoulders.

“I will confess it now,” Glorfindel suddenly remarked. “And we must never again speak of it.” He waited for Erestor to swear to this, but, when none came, he nevertheless pushed on. “I… I know not if I would love him, Erestor, had Elrond not… if he had not so unthinkingly erred, being so joyously distracted. I have come to believe that Elladan… may have evidenced love for me, either way. He loves with such ferocity, such unbending will… and when Legolas’ clear, unblinking adoration for Elrohir came into evidence, at Mirkwood… a drop, a mere drop of blood was shared between Elrohir and he, and they love with such blithe, unreasonable skill… it must be destined. It cannot be woe work of blood alone, which has little sway in the afterlife of those that are slain.”

He paused, collected himself, then elaborated on this last point. “I have been dead, meldir, waiting for a near-century in Mandos, but not as others. Those contented souls did not even note the passing of time, so reconciled were they with those they once cherished. But the love I held for Tuor, for the people of his rule and of his kin so haunted me, tormented me without end or reason, until the Valar took on my piteous cause and sent me back as protector of Elrond’s house. I had known some love before my death, but none so ripe, so urgent as that I felt for Tuor in Mandos. At Gondolin, we had bound our souls together, not with blood, but in a haze-mist ritual. Our fea, as one. If I so bind myself to Elladan, in the consummation of our marriage, and he is slain…”

This last admission struck Erestor as a blow to the skull: “Glorfindel!! You have kept from Elladan’s bed… to reduce the pain of his possible death?!”

“He must have his freedom, in all things, Erestor!” Glorfindel cried, his warped reasoning and its underlying agony laid frighteningly bare. “I know not if my love is… is uncompromised. I know only that in Mandos, these blood rituals do not hold. It is the binding of soul to soul in the love act that holds true beyond this life, and… if I do not truly love Elladan… don’t you see, he must be free to quest, to avenge Celebrian… in all things!! But this freedom comes at a grave risk… if he should be slain, and awaiting my return to Valinor, or Mandos, but then I come and my love does not hold… if I have but lusted in our bed, and loved him as a guardian should… an eternity of the most corrosive torment I have ever known awaits him… I cannot, Erestor, I cannot be so cruel…”

“Glorfindel, this is madness,” Erestor chided him, yanking him up to his feet and spinning him around. He shook him roughly, incensed by this fell, self-protective reasoning. “Never have I known you so unreasonable, so fretful, so… cowardly!!”

The guard-captain’s face hardened, his blood up: “I confess myself to you, *meldir*, and you do nothing but taunt me?!”

At this, Erestor almost laughed: “How can I act otherwise, when you have abandoned all sense of reason? What if Elladan survives, passes on to Valinor without incident? What if he remains in Arda, choosing the mortal life of his uncle? What if you are slain, and he fades? For his soul-flame dims now, as if you’d passed over again to Mandos. He is loveless, and alone, only Elrohir keeps his weak strength, and when he himself is bound… How can you persist with this insolence, when the elf who once begged for your hand is now cindering like a smote hearthfire. Is this how such a brave warrior should fail? Where is your boldness now, Balrog-slayer?!”

“If you had known Gondolin’s fall, Loremaster,” Glorfindel seethed, ever defiant. “You would not be so brash, so… misguided, in your conclusions.”

“He needs your strength,” Erestor spat, disgusted. “Your absconded heart. Perhaps you should return to Mandos, and search for it.”

At this cunning quip, Glorfindel snorted with pure menace, fisted his fight-clenched hands over the seams of his cloak, and fled into the night, rage quaking through him as never before.

Deflated, Erestor watched him go.

His movements incorrigibly pensive, he retrieved the knife, bandages, athelas cream, and necessary vial from the worktable, then positioned his seat at Elladan’s bedside. Only when he lifted a hand to check his temperature, did his stunned eyes lock with the darkling elf’s weary glare.

“I have not slept,” Elladan rasped, by way of explanation. “I am heavy with it, so that I cannot long keep focus, but it has not come.” Erestor sighed mightily; shelving his healer’s tools by the bedside and taking the groggy elf’s arm between his own.

“He is… confused, Elladan,” Erestor attempted to justify.

“I marked little confusion,” the prince replied softly. “Yet much conviction. As I am now similarly convinced. I will not have the remedy.”

“You must, my brave one,” Erestor insisted. “Else…”

“Else I will pass to Mandos,” Elladan acknowledged, without sign of fear or of shame. “So you have declared. At considerable volume, if I recall.” A faint smile emerged on his lips, shocking Erestor all the more. “I do not fear the waiting. I long for peace… I welcome such blissful oblivion, meldir. There is little here that tempts the continuation of my presence. I knew this before Glorfindel spoke so… forlornly, of his own torments there.”

“Glorfindel spoke poorly…”

“I knew, also, of Ada’s mistake,” he admitted. “I have known it since before my majority.”

Erestor, now leagues beyond mere astonishment, could only bleat: “But how…?”

“It is unimportant,” Elladan dismissed sluggishly, his attention waning. He corralled his roaming focus, this discussion, unlike his longtime understanding of Glorfindel’s plight, of considerable import to him. “If I am healed, Erestor, even for a time… I will fall to Shadow. The ominous dreams… which grip me so ardently… are the Nazgul’s call. They have plagued me since the first month of my binding. They summon me into their ranks, knowing of my soul’s weakness. When I was injured, in the orc battle, they knew. They came at once, preying on my vulnerability, my lack of strength. It was not for vengeance they pursued us. It was for my… my…. If it were not for Legolas… I would be with them, now.” He let this black revelation hang between them, struggling for control. “So, you see, I must be allowed to fade. My dear Ada, loyal Elrohir, will suffer through my loss… but they would not survive my fall.” He rallied his own waning spirit. “I am a warrior, first. I *will not* fall.”

Overcome, suddenly, by a healer’s sheer frustration, by a wrought, blazing rage at the guard-captain’s blind insolence and Elladan’s shattering valor, Erestor snatched the blood vial from the waytable and whipped it across the hall. As the fat glass smashed and the glutinous crimson smeared down the far wall, he sunk back into the stiff oak chair, defeated. /All the resources in Arda at my disposal, all the lore, potions, enchantments of this world… and not a thing to be done for him./

His dark, hollow stare bit deep into the prince’s placid gaze, who welcomed a near-crushing clasp to his frail arms.

“You’ll be spared the Shadow’s claw,” Erestor vowed, in a coarse whisper. “And, when the time comes, I will mourn you the rest of my days.” Elladan exhaled haltingly, the truth of his decision almost choking his resolve. “I promise to see through this sorrow with your dearest kin, and… and to see your foul husband banished from their too-giving company.”

“No, Erestor,” Elladan compelled him. “Your love alone will he take. Yours alone, in this. You must… you must give him the greatest share of it. You must… Ada will scorn him. You must be his comfort. He will need such comforting, when he sees… when he knows… you must swear to me, Erestor!!”

Erestor regarded him, then, with nothing short of awe. He had never in all the millennia of his existence known such a heart, so bereft, yet so forgiving. The very definition of warrior’s honor.

“I swear it, my brave one,” Erestor murmured to him. “I swear it, though it eats me through.”

“Then I will see my brother bound and blissful,” Elladan added, almost serene. “Bid my father farewell, and climb to the highest peak of the blue-ridged hills. There, observing my happy twin safe in his binding-honeyed cabin, watching over the sweet season of my Rivendell valley, beneath the light of Earendil’s star, I will pass on…”

Thusly satisfied, Elladan gave in, at last, to sleep’s brief consolation.

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

His exhalations stuttered in sharp, jagged pants, Legolas eased himself, salve-readied, swollen, in to the hilt. Elrohir, vise-legs around his rigid waist, cried gutturally out, then lingered on a sigh.

Beneath the breeze-shivered, concealing bows of the willow, they lay entwined; the elf-knight’s eloquent, limber frame spread decadently over the verdant leaf bed, the archer’s formidable body above, caught in the thrall of this first, sensuous penetration. Agile, singing tongues of heat snaked around Legolas’ taut thighs, his abdominal skin braised tight as rawhide. He fought to still his quivering hips, which longed to abandon themselves to his basest desires, to plow into his beloved’s bountiful flesh like a shovel into fallow ground. With tenuous control, he momentarily withdrew only to sink himself further in, quicker, harder, the resulting jolt of addicting pleasure blasting away at his resolve. The hot, purpled bud of Elrohir’s arousal jabbed into his strung navel. His blunt heels butt the back of his pillar-thighs; his keening legs writhing, slapping against the sides of his waist, desperate for friction. The argent pools of his warm mithril eyes drew him in, wordlessly pleading to be taken, to be undone. Their tender sheen consoled Legolas; no matter how ardent their coupling, there was no question of the act being born of their love.

With eroding restraint, he set a languorous rhythm, savoring every stroke, every slow-burn thrust that further joined them in rapture.

For the Mirkwood prince, this sudden, instinctive coupling saw the completion of two centuries of careful self-preparation to become Elrohir’s equal in skill, in character, in wisdom, and, especially, in loving. That the elf-knight regarded him so entirely to give himself to him - in body, in soul – caused tears to wet the edges of his vision, though he struggled to keep sight of his beauteous mate in his throes. As he twined their fervent fingers together, their feas flowed free, merging in a heady gush through their flushed palms and flooding down into the wellsprings of flame at their core. Thusly united, Legolas allowed his thoughts to run wild through potent memory, staving off bittersweet release for a short while.

The sobering aftermath of Elrohir’s departure from Mirkwood, endless nights spent resurrecting his touch, his caresses, only to remain dissatisfied at the dull stirrings his hands wrought. Heedless, tiresome experimentations in his homeland led to more fruitful ones abroad, at first among the soldier’s ranks, then some few nobles, many with his sacred-band comrades, never with man or maid. He found he preferred elfkind; oftentimes Elrohir’s own former lovers, a trait so unwittingly common in his selections he came to seek it out, as if his bed-teacher had chosen these skilled companions for his apprenticeship. His liaisons, however useful, were fewer than most, until one restless night he found he had not bedded another in seventeen year, so ever-present was Elrohir’s sweet memory, and knew the time had come to find him.

After their return to Imladris, they had been startlingly controlled in their chastity, both learned enough to desire knowledge of the other’s kind spirit, before hungry body. As Elladan’s sickness remained elusive to the Loremaster’s ministrations and the days became weeks, their ever-constant company could not help but include some brief but heartfelt kisses, a random hour of embracing, an afternoon lost in contemplation of the other’s radiance. They soon wrangled to keep themselves in check in more isolated moments, in the library or strolling through the forest, both committed to saving their most rigorous passions for their binding night. When a few weeks added into a month of delay, their frustration caused a comedy of midnight stealings: Elrohir to Legolas’ chambers, only to manage some sober reasoning midway, Legolas following in pursuit of Elrohir, only to happen upon a smirking Elrond, to whom they had vowed abstinence. This continued, to Erestor’s delight, for a tumultuous fortnight, until that very morning.

After a cooling swim in the Bruinen, they had found shade and shelter beneath the lilting willow bows, and, as ever, in the other’s languid, giddy caresses. They conversed for a time, of horses, of Haldir’s handsome new longbow, of Elladan’s plight, when Legolas had regarded Elrohir with such open heart, such peerless understanding, that the darkling elf was soon defenseless against his longing. Here was his husband, his forever-mate, if not yet in name then in deed, in his relentless support.

It had begun, then, and now raced towards completion, Elrohir willingly sheathing the archer’s bruising bucks, Legolas’ eyes streaming from joy, from disbelief. The somnolent forest swallowed the last of their fevered moans, as both came to rasping, ferocious completion.

Bliss-drunk and swooning, Legolas burrowed into Elrohir’s blanketing arms, unable to dam his tearful eyes.

“You must always regard me so,” he implored the peredhel. “With such… such…”

“Always,” Elrohir vowed.

“It thrills me,” Legolas added by way of explanation, as if one was needed. “Your eyes… I cannot think that you so esteem me, yet I cannot turn from their worshipful gaze. Especially when…”

“When embedded in my entrails?” Elrohir teased him, hoping to lighten his mood after such delicious exertions. Though he himself felt them deeply, he knew them as an overture, a taste of moments, of meetings to come. An eternity’s worth of blithe indulgence.

“Aye, *then*,” Legolas chuckled at himself, pressing his baking cheek into the elf-knight’s collar. “Do you think Lord Elrond will find us out?”

“How could he?”

“When we face each other, at our binding, he may know,” Legolas noted. “Or across the meal table… or at negotiations…or in passing, in the corridor, the library, the stables…”

“Ada does have a way of reading the soul,” Elrohir agreed. “Though I think he read yours the very minute of your arrival here. It was plain to me the instant you removed your cloak, at Corseth.”

“Took you long enough to mark me,” Legolas retorted playfully, unable to resist stealing away another kiss. Their lips lingered, reluctant as ever to part. “Will you return to questing, melethron, when we are bound?”

“In time,” Elrohir responded thoughtfully. “As, I expect, you will be required in Mirkwood.”

“Aye,” Legolas grunted, unwilling to consider thought of his homeland in such a moment. “Celeborn, in his letter, claimed some other strange devising for Ada’s court. I need not return for a few years, perhaps as long as twenty.”

“Shall we make a pact, then, to remain at Imladris for that time?” Elrohir inquired, the idea most entirely satisfactory to him. “Together, to solidify our binding.”

“Well planned,” Legolas assented. “May I venture another point to our agreement? That we do not remain apart for over a year, unless by some matter of the gravest importance to our peoples or an act of nature’s force prevent us. And we must spend at the very least seven of every ten year together, whether in Mirkwood, here in Rivendell, or in the wilds.”

“Eight of ten,” Elrohir insisted.

“We are princes,” Legolas mused. “That is perhaps too generous a commitment, in the coming times of war.”

“I care not,” was Elrohir’s bold reply. “I would not a day be parted from you, if the times granted such luxury.”

“Nor I, you, nin ind,” Legolas whispered to him, taking a deeper kiss from his ready lips. “Were that it may be so.” After a pensive moment, he was decided. “Eight, then.”

“Nine,” came the mischievous opposition. When Legolas could not be goaded, Elrohir turned to lighter matters. “Tell me, meleth, would you also wish to be somewhat… secluded, after our binding? There is a small cottage Ada keeps at the summit of the mountain, in the thick of the birchwood and near a weak waterfall. We could, perhaps, spend a month or two there? We need only descend y foy fortnight, for supplies, and even less in the company of your swift longbow and slit-knives.”

“Very well, indeed,” Legolas answered, impressed by this foresight. “To speak of luxury!! Alone with my dearest one, our hearth, horses, cascade, and forest as playground, no orcs to slay or fathers to tame down… have we passed on to Valinor?”

“Consider it a taste of what’s to come across the sea,” Elrohir promised. “When Arda is free of Shadow once more.”

“I’ll consider more than a mere taste of you, lirimaer,” Legolas purred against his neck. “When we are two atop the mountain with nothing but the wind to chide us.”

Sparked by this suggestion, Elrohir promptly stroked a curious hand down the length of his sleek back, cupping his lower cheek.

“Why tarry on this… point, meleth,” he murmured suggestively. “With such a fair afternoon stretched out before us and not a chore’s distraction?”

Legolas, his smile brimming with potential, brought their soft mouths together.

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

With a cunning feint, a spin, and a whip-smart swipe of his dulled practice blade, Elladan traced his dagger-tip across Haldir’s slender throat, winning the day.

Cacophonous applause erupted from the punch-drunk nobles surrounding the training ground, as the elf-warrior released his hold on his fair opponent and the two soldiers bowed to their admirers. In celebration of his elder son’s binding later that evening, as well as to occupy the swelling numbers that had journeyed to Rivendell for the event, Elrond had organized an exhibition of swordsman’s skills, where any game warrior might challenge another, for sport. The Lord of Imladris was himself counted among the spectators, along with the two hallowed grooms, Lord Celeborn, the Lady Evenstar, and Legolas’ imperious brothers, ostensibly on leave from Mirkwood for a ‘diplomatic mission’.

Oddly satisfied with the outcome of their contention, or perhaps merely to conceal his embarrassment, Haldir clapped an arm around Elladan’s back and guided him towards a nearby table of refreshments, as his broadsword-bearing brother Orophin and triton-wielding Lindir took stage behind them. Elladan’s weight crushed against the valiant Galadhrim, who he found required his full support merely to depart the ground. Struggling to conceal the faint wheeze to his belabored breaths, he allowed Haldir to navigate through the crowd of well-wishers, until Erestor welcomed him to the table with a goblet of spiked water. Elladan downed the fizzy liquid, then silently demanded another, the last of his corralled energies sapped by his bold exertions.

For the better part of a week the dissimulation had held strong, Erestor’s potent tonics giving temporary, yet false, strength to listless limbs, atrophying muscles, and scattered, brainless focus. Elladan drank his full of these strange concoctions, trusting the caring Loremaster to see him through to his twin’s binding and a day beyond, when he would depart with the star-crossed pair for the mountain peak, they to their rest-cottage and he… he to his final rest. On the journey, he would forewarn Legolas of what his father would learn in the early hours of that morning, so that his beloved brother might be cocooned by his new husband at the severance of their shared spirits. Foretelling Elrohir would have been an impossible feat; the sight of his devastation might cause Elladan to reconsider, thus he chose Legolas to bear this burden.

Elladan himself had borne enough for one lifetime.

Despite this looming fate, the constant fatigue of this vital deception, the elf-warrior felt an odd, becoming liberation since his heavy choice. Moments of family reunion were effortlessly cherished, the sanctuary of the forest hollows held new appeal, even the most practical exchanges gained import with him. His observations of his peers, his nearest, the soldiers in his charge, became more acute, when his own intentions were removed. Most vividly, his nightmares had ceased altogether: not even the Black Riders could breech the stronghold borders of Imladris and, soon, an attack would be futile. They could not take his soul.

For the first time in two hundred years, Elladan tasted true freedom.

Only when Glorfindel was near did the flavor somewhat bitter.

“Are you suitably replenished?” Erestor asked guardedly, breaking his reverie. The Loremaster could do little to mask his temple-pinching concern.

“Aye, though I shall rest some before the midday meal,” Elladan responded, his face worryingly gaunt. “A bath, perhaps, will warm me.” Suddenly, he remembered Haldir, arm still clenched around his waist. “A pleasure, as always, to best you, my able Galadhrim. You fought with great honor, Haldir.”

“Yet I remain conquered,” he sniffed bemusedly at his old friend. “With no suitable chance of revenge.”

“As it should be,” Elladan twinkled, though Erestor got caught up in the unspoken implications.

Haldir, remarking his husband’s pain-shroud visage, switched to holding the troubled Loremaster. At this, Elladan smiled softly. His weary gaze drifted over the gathering, noting his father wagering with Celeborn, Arwen ever-demur at his side. Further on, Elrohir and Legolas lazed on a low ederwood bow, eyes intent on the match but limbs so tightly wound, the most hardened seafarer could not detach them. Even Glorfindel, amid the border-guards, cheered with their vociferous ranks, at times for one fighter, then for the other. /They are well, now. They will be well, after, with such able hearts for consolation./

Elladan pocketed a tiny sack of the replenishing powder and nodded his thanks to the tender couple before him, then wandered away from the training ground, towards the eastern wing of the Homely House, careful that none note his retreat. If he knew Caellan, the devoted housemother of Imladris oft mistaken for a soothsayer, a steaming, loam-strewn bath awaited him beyond his chamber doors. As he skipped up the weathered stone staircase, long ago carved into the hill’s steep incline, a pair of haggard cobalt eyes broke from the playful bout and marked him.

Later, after a long, blissful soak and brief but bountiful sleep, he rose from his lounging chair with renewed vigor. In a few hours, all of Imladris would gather in the Hall of Fire, where Elrohir and Legolas would be bound. That morning, before the makeshift tournament had begun, he had aided Elrohir in selecting his garments, had kept with tradition by plaiting his hair. The ebony locks, plied with honeyflax, had been easily tamed, Elrohir’s eagerness less so. As his sarong-clad legs loped over to the wardrobe, Elladan was lost in the memory of this, of his own binding-day confessions to absent Elrohir, already preoccupied with the mercurial elfling Legolas.

Then, as if by some fateful mischief, he was startled by Glorfindel, waiting in his armchair for recognition.

“You appear quite well,” the guard-captain noted, as if surprised to find him so able. “Are you wholly recovered, or does some pain linger?”

Suddenly conscious only of his bare chest and skimpy silk sheath, Elladan delayed his reply in search of a robe. Those blunt, red-rimmed eyes, ever-rapt, bruising, unnerved him. He found a loose shirt, tugged it on. He returned to Glorfindel’s hard stare, now tinged with a cutting despondency, as if he longed to slit his hunting blade from toe-tip to obsidian crown, or throttle him barehanded, or banish him from existence altogether. Elladan had thought long on Glorfindel’s suffering during this last fortnight of recovery; the evidence before him aided no conclusion. He could only act in keeping with his own conciliatory desires, and so, he padded towards the lounging-chair, urged his wrought husband to join him. When he refused, Elladan nodded sagely, then reclined himself along the velvet cushion.

“How do *you* fare, nin bellas?” the prince delicately inquired.

Glorfindel couldn’t discern whether the inquiry itself, or the endeared term accompanying it, struck deeper.

“I am as ever,” he tersely answered. “I do not wish to trouble you, I merely came to-“

“I am not troubled,” Elladan demurred, with an air of genuine repose. “I hoped we might speak, before the ceremony began. Better in private than later, observed.”

“Aye,” Glorfindel acknowledged, seeming to temper. Silence fell, as if the area around the guard-captain had been curtained off.

“Why have you come?” Elladan ventured gently.

Glorfindel’s glare became vacant, as if unseeing, yet seeing all too sharply, as well. He opened his mouth to speak, but not a word followed. He sighed, a look of such encumbrance, such forlorn exaggeration weighing upon his lush features that Elladan momentarily thought him drunk. He lowered his foggy eyes, his earlier flintshod attitude smote to ashen shame.

“I know not,” he murmured to his feet.

“I thought on you, the other morn,” Elladan remarked, taking pity. “I took a turn with Legolas, wishing to show him Elrohir’s old ale-haunts. Which, of course, I well knew would unmoor my brother later, when the journey would be so innocently recounted, at the evening meal, but…” He paused when the corners of Glorfindel’s lips twitched, then pressed on. “I recalled a day before our majority, when we were first given leave to travel unsupervised into Barrowman’s Close. Elrohir and I were so emboldened by this new freedom, we marched straight into the ale-hall and demanded a pint of their foul brew.” Glorfindel, seizing the memory, dared a smirk, his head raised to listen. Elladan, caught there, indulged in a chuckle. “Little did we know the effect such gruel has on elfkind. We were legless after but a few sips! Staggering down the lane, heads spinning, the liquor loosening the stop between our twinness, so we were doubly hit.”

“At least,” Glorfindel added, a hint of mirth in his tone. “The pair of you had the sense to hide.”

“Which only the more enraged Ada,” Elladan countered. “But you found us, Glorfindel, and brought us home. Nursed me all night, I was so horribly sick! Remained at my side until morn, without rest… or regret, I imagine.” Gentled eyes met his, this retreat into the familiar drawing him out. “You loved me, then. I have not forgotten.”

Glorfindel swallowed, dry, then rasped: “Nor have I.”

“It was privilege to be so loved, so doted upon,” Elladan continued, as he rose to seating. “My accusations these last years have been… disrespectful, to those times before. I have held, with little merit, to what you would not provide as my husband, Glorfindel… but not to what you have always given me. Your patience. Your knowledge. Your wisdom, protection, guidance, support… A true guardian’s love.”

On impulse, he crossed the distance between them, then knelt penitently, cupping humbled palms over the guard-captain’s set knees. Glorfindel tensed, as if under assault, but restrained himself from pulling entirely back. Elladan’s mithril eyes shone, pure as a mine’s molten core, and he found he could not look away.

“I love you,” his husband declared in a hush, ever bashful. “I was so embroiled by my own concerns, I neglected to consider your own. To remember how you had always loved me. Thus… Glorfindel, I would be reconciled. Let us not greet Legolas and Elrohir into their binding with false hearts… if you would our togetherness be chaste, but with some gentle affections, I… as long as we are, indeed, together...” /Even for some short while; for a night, only…/

In the face of such blitheness, from one often so brash, Glorfindel blanched. Here, again, before him, was the young elf long in his charge, naively pleading for a scrap of comfort from one who had so diligently wronged him from the very moment of their joining. This hurt, blameless beauty now begged him for pardon, *him*, for a measure of peace. He’d finally broken his fierce, wilding colt, tamed him down to simpering with absence and ire. The thought nearly sickened him to grief.

“Aye,” he whispered, in solemn agreement. “As you wish.”

Elladan’s eyes narrowed, suspect.

“I thought this might please you,” he commented, wondering.

“I am…” he began, but could not continue. Instead, he recalled the matter that had first brought him forth. “Erestor has told me that you will part, in the morn, with Legolas and Elrohir?”

“I will go to Gwallach’s Shelf,” he explained, disturbed by Glorfindel’s persistent gloom. “Set camp awhile, among the conifers. Reflect.”

“Upon?” he asked.

Elladan searched for his answer, holding Glorfindel’s questioning gaze a moment too long for overt honesty. He settled on a half-truth: “My years in Arda. My questing… our people. Those I have known, those I have loved.”

“To what aim?” Glorfindel inquired more insistently, his anxiety mounting.

Elladan began to speak, but found that he, in turn, could not fathom an appropriate response.

Thoroughly unsettled, Glorfindel returned to his opening query: “Are you well, Elladan?”

“I am as you see me,” came the halting reply.

Glorfindel sank back into the armchair, the realization like a lead blanket spread over him. Elladan seemed equally anchored, but by fear. Never one to deceive; honest, at times, to a fault, his brutally tamed colt was now muzzled by his own burnished honor and reined down by obligation. Glorfindel could not bear the proud, winsome stare that bore into him, but could not allow himself to look away. /Here is proof of your wretchedness, of your despoiling. Face it, cur, and know it as the bastard child of your weakness./

“How long?” he dared ask.

“Days,” Elladan told him, stark as stone.

“Is there nothing…?” he attempted, the words almost voiceless. “No potion…? No draught…?”

Elladan considered this, then remarked pointedly: “There is but one remedy.”

The prince rose, then, and returned to his wardrobe. As he laid out his tunic, breeches, fetched his boots, his grandfather’s sword, Glorfindel sat, still. He stared blankly at the sea green flagstones of the tile, as Elladan dressed, as he brushed out his hair, portioned out his braids, as he wove them. Only then, seconds before the final horsehair circlet was positioned and clasped, did he rise. He approached from behind; Elladan relinquished the circlet for his husband’s fastening.

Their mournful gazes met in the mirror.

“We are reconciled,” Glorfindel confirmed, after snapping the clasp closed. He back away a step, then offered his arm.

Elladan stood to his full height, and accepted him.


End of Part Six