This is an extract really from Through a Glass Darkly but I have had so many readers wanting this bit, I've posted it separately. It doesn't matter if you don't get the SIlmarilion references but they are explained in the next chapter of Through a Glass Darkly.

Unbeta'd

Warning for slash

I walked in moonlight

Glorfindel watched into the deepness of the night. Above him the stars wheeled overhead and high above Eärendil sailed Vingilot with the Silmaril set at its prow.

So they said.

It was a children's story, he thought. He wondered where the Silmaril really was if not there. Erestor always said that the Valar had stolen Elwing's Silmaril and kept it in Tirion in Aman. He had also said that Maedhros had taken both remaining Silmarils, that Maglor had not taken one. If that were true, did that mean that both went with him into the fire? he wondered. And then dismissed it because it did not matter either way.

He turned his head towards the Mountains for the air was cold and filled with snow. All was utterly still and silent. Not a leaf stirred, not a twig broke under the foot of deer or fox. Only the soft breath of Erestor as he slept.

No longer afraid of the shadows and threat that had crowded in his mind up in the Oromardë in Phellanthir, Glorfindel allowed himself to settle into the watch, letting his senses spread out. Away from the High Hall of Curvë, he no longer felt a heat that singed the air, that threatened to boil his blood and melt his bones. There was no Balrog and there was no Maedhros either. Both he and Erestor had merely been beguiled by the atmosphere of the place into seeing what was buried deepest in their hearts. He told himself that he pitied Erestor for he had deluded himself that his beloved lord was somehow beyond the mirror, somehow still…alive? He could not be. No one could have survived that plunge into fire as had been told. And so they had both conjured something that was not real.

So he told himself. So he convinced himself because the alternative was fear.

Gone midnight it was when Erestor stirred and awoke. He stifled a yawn and rose without a word and stood at the edge of the clearing, looking into the trees.

After a moment, he turned his head and said, 'Sleep.'

Glorfindel thought suddenly that he was indeed tired. He sighed and sat beside the fire. Then he wrapped himself in his cloak and pulled it over his head. Immediately sleep came upon him, deep and filled with dreams. Sudden sharp memories of another Age, another place flooded his dreams. Memories he had suppressed, had ruthlessly quashed for it had been a fall from grace, succumbing to something he had not known he wanted. No, he told himself, he did not want this but was beguiled by empathy and loss and, he admitted now in his own dreams, by intense loneliness.

It had been during the Siege of Barad-dûr…a tent splashed with mud and its pennant torn. No guards.

There had been no guards because there were simply not enough of them left to spare and they spent every day battling Orcs and trolls and all of Sauron's dreadful force. Why would you need guards? Anyone could kill you easily enough on the battlefield.

He made a noise to announce himself and then slowly pulled aside the tent flap and ducked within. It was simple compared with the pavilions of the Noldor, but the silk was strangely warm and dampened the noise outside so for a moment, it felt one could indeed forget the near only feet away.

The young man within looked up, his eyes red-rimmed undoubtedly from weeping and Glorfindel felt an immediate empathy for him. In his hand was a quill, the end had been bent and he had ink splashed on his fingers, and on the parchment he had spread out on the travelling writing desk perched precariously on his knees. A stained cup held down one corner and the other was held by a dagger but the parchment curled over it as if defiant, unruly. Lamplight caught on hair the colour of gold coins. It spilled over the Woodelf's shoulders and down his back, pooled on the narrow camp bed on which he sat. Rich. Gold. Like Idril.

Glorfindel caught a sigh in his throat and stifled it.

Slate green eyes watched him warily, as all the Woodelves must, thought Glorfindel regretfully. None of them trusted the Noldor. They never had before but they felt they had a reason now. Oropher was dead and their grief could be heard, felt all over the Alliance camp. His son was the new King and here he sat, muddied, blood in his light leather armour that he had not even taken off yet, writing dispatches.

'What do you want?'

Thranduil had not been any friendlier to his Noldor allies than his father had; both Oropher and Thranduil had listened, non too politely, to Gil-Galad's plan, Oropher had said it would not work and then both had turned and strode away between the shining, armoured ranks of Noldor and Men. Now Thranduil's tone was positively frosty. There was a bloody knife at his side, blood on his fingers, and a hastily, badly wrapped bandage around his chest. Like he had dressed it himself, thought Glorfindel. It was spotted with blood, a pattern emerging. Three slashes and a rough-cut circle.

'I have messages from the High King.' Glorfindel tried not to look at the bandage; he had heard that the silvans keened over the loss of Oropher with an extravagance that shocked the Noldor. Instead he bowed his head slightly and held out the scrolls, three. One from Gil, one from Cirdan and one from Celeborn, Thranduil's kinsman.

Thranduil snorted. 'I do not have a High King.' And then with a wracking sob that he tried to hide but could not, 'I do not have a King.' He bowed his head and for a moment, his shoulders shook.

Glorfindel shifted, compassion moved him and he reached out to clasp the other's broad and muscled shoulder. An archer like the best of his folk then.

Strangely, Glorfindel found the same words in his mouth now as those he had spoken to Turgon in the aftermath of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears after Fingon's death; long, long ago, when Gondolin was fair and filled with the sound of water and bells. Before the demon had come. 'You must be King now. You must find whatever there is in you to lead your people. Grieve, yes. But you must lead them too.'

He thought that Thranduil though would shove him away, tell him to leave, how dare he…but instead Thranduil lifted his face, his beautiful, sculpted face made even lovelier with grief, and said, 'How do you bear it?'

Glorfindel leaned forward and without a thought, without having ever felt a moment of lust for another man, he pressed his mouth over Thranduil's.

The explosion of lust detonated through Glorfindel as he dreamed, remembered warm skin and the rich hair, those strange marking of the Woodelves on Thranduil's skin, gold and green like Thranduil himself, the slate green eyes locked upon him, deep, knowing and filled with grief that, for a moment, he could forget in the glory of that love-making that Glorfindel had never known before or since… for it was not his way, nor did he desire men… until that moment.

Rough hands stroked him to hardness, a demanding mouth on his, shoving him down, fumbling with buckles and belt, gripping so it hurt and then a hot, hot explosion like fire, like burning. Fierce pain that he had forgotten and then it was breathless and intense desire, pleasure, ecstasy that made the pain easier to bear.

There was no sweetness in the aftermath. Glorfindel was bemused, not ashamed but he had been thoroughly taken, used, and was now dismissed. He stood outside Thranduil's tent, confused as he had not been for long ages, soreness now settling in his bones and flesh, and a light bruise on his heart. Like flame that excoriated the memory of his enemy and instead of pain or fear, he felt… renewed.

He had not seen Thranduil again except in battle, beautiful and sad, fierce and powerful. Glorfindel thought rarely of the encounter for it had awoken something in him that he did not know he had wanted. He forced himself to forget and smothered the groan that pushed itself up from his chest for Erestor was too close…He closed his eyes tightly, forcing himself to forget that mistake, that fall from grace. Was he not Glorfindel, beloved of the Valar, golden, untouchable, pristine? And he was so lonely that he envied Maedhros his forbidden love for had not he and Fingon loved deeply, passionately and without restraint?

But here in the shadows of Phellanthir dreams came unbidden and unwanted, unlocking desires that had been secret for too long.

0o0o