He sat, his head in his arms, watching the starlight slant through the windows and onto the carven table before him. But his mind was far removed from the silver sheen that came softly through the branches of oak and elm and glittered on his hair. Thoughts of fire and blood raged hot inside him, pulsing in waves of ice and flame through his blood. Gondolin fell, the White City fell, and with it fell Tinwel.
Agony. He was doubled over, crouching, clinging to his sword as his only support. He felt her die. There, upon the blood-stained courtyard of Gondolin.
She was in his arms now, but it was too late. Her face was pale, the star-grey eyes dimmed with death. He held her cold hand and wept.
Memories went like the wings of swift birds.
The Years of the Trees, in which love and light had blossomed.
The time when she first had let him hold her hand.
When she had kissed him, when he had felt his heart stilled and seen her eyes so near to his own.
The Sea. The Teleri Ships. The Helcaraxë. When he had pulled her from the Grinding Ice and held her chilled body close to his.
Of years of bliss in Gondolin. Of endless love.
'Glorfindel!' A desperate scream echoed. Idril was shaking him, her face blood-streaked and golden hair tangled. She was almost spent, he could see her trembling as tears mingled with the blood. 'Glorfindel! Gondolin has fallen! We must make for the mountain pass!'
He kissed her, he laid her on the stone and then fled and did not look back.
"Glorfin'el?" lisped a trembling voice. The golden-haired Vanya sprang from his memories, suppressing a shout, and turned to see Lord Elrond's little Elfling daughter. Black curls hung in tousled masses.
Glorfindel made himself smile as Arwen crept into his lap. "I scared."
"Why?"
Arwen's eyes grew round as she listened to the tapping of the branches on the pane. "There are g-ghosts in my room!" she wailed, seizing Glorfindel in a death grip. "They're all dressed in white an' they're so-" She burst into tears, unable to finish her sentence. "Elladan says that ghosts live in the Halls of Mandos, but sometimes when Elflings are naughty he lets them free and so they carry it 'way! And I was bad, Glorfindel, awful bad. I played with Elladan's weapons. An' I saw the ghosts! Elladan was telling the truth!" She buried her face once more in Glorfindel's tunic.
The Elf would have barely hidden a laugh at the poorly-spun tale, but ghosts haunted the two of them this night, it seemed. So instead he soothed the child and told her stories of Valinor, and assured her that Mandos was a good Vala. At last, he led her back to her room, but she clung to him the whole way. He searched the shadows with a lamp, and at last put her, unwilling, into the bed. "I will stay with you." he promised, as Arwen jumped at every shadow and clung to his hand. "And in the morning, I think your brothers might have to explain something."