The Wearied Traveller
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Rating:
G.Summary:
Glorfindel reflects on Elrond's endurance after the attack on Celebrían.Feedback:
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He bewails not his fate.
He cries not aloud, nor has shed even a single tear, and no imprecations, no utterances of hatred and outrage have passed his lips.
That he of all Elves, of all Men, should be singled out to suffer so much, to lose so much, passes all understanding. Yet he does not rail against it, does not complain or shy away from the burdens laid time and again on his shoulders.
He does, not crumble, does not fade. His step is as steady and sure as it has ever been, his face proud, his brow noble and his eyes certain.
They say that it does not touch him, this loss. That he does not miss her, because he will not show it. Because he will not rant and rave in the teeth of the storm, froth at the mouth and rend his garments. They say he has no heart.
But I know better than they, I who knew him before the fall of the Star of Radiance, before the death even of Elros Tar-Minyatar. He has a heart, strong and deep in its affections. Yea, it is bruised, for it has suffered much, and time has not been kind to it, but there it is nonetheless.
And I see that it no longer beats, for she is gone beyond the sea. He breathes, he talks, he walks among us as he ever did, but he does not live. All his life was … is in her presence. Without her, he is nothing, less than the shadow of a ghost fleeing before the tempest of fate, less than the bodiless spirits awaiting their return in Mandos' Halls. 'Tis as if he has lost half himself, and all his joy.
They do not understand it, that ice which shines in his eyes when he thinks that none is looking. They do not understand how he can suffer his sons to wreak their bloody vengeance in the wilderness, or his daughter to retreat to far Lothlórien. Even I understand but a little of this, yet I know that he fears that they will be tainted by the cold which envelops him. And so, when they ask, he does not deny their requests, much though he needs the comfort only family can bring. This he does for love and fear. Love and fear: the same two things which led him to bid Celebrían farewell on the shores of the Sundering Seas, and watch with clouded eyes as her ship slid out into the Gulf of Lune, losing itself in the blue-grey blur of the horizon.
Sometimes I could curse Eärendil for his mission of mercy, for his high ideals which led him so far from his son, great though was the love I bore Tuor, his father. But what would it avail us? I would wager that in the depths of his unspoken grief, Elrond does not think of them, but only of her, of the wild maiden I saw him woo, of the wife and lover who lit his life for so many years. What good would it do if I could, by some grace of the Valar, I could drag the Mariner from the heavens? It would take a hope greater than Gil-Estel to bring cheer to my old friend now, and I fear that this will not come to pass until many sorrowful years have slipped into the endless night, and he at last sails the seas to Aman.
It is summer now in Imladris, and the fire of Anar rides high in the sky, but there is no light in the valley, nor in the heart of its master. 'Tis a sad thing that any of us should live to see such days, but saddest of all for him who bears the greatest burdens.
FINIS
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