Author's Note: Written for lynndyre and the 2015 Ardor in August challenge. I kept within the bounds of book canon as much as possible. So much of the Second Age is only sketched though, I hope you'll forgive a few liberties for the sake of a story.
Special thanks to ignoblebard for a swift and meticulous beta at the eleventh hour!
Rating: PG-13 for battle-related violence
Summary: He'd faced a Balrog on the cliffs of the Cristhorn. At least then he had had a sword, and, at the time, no particular need to live beyond that moment. Glorfindel returns to Middle-earth and journeys to find the one who might bring him absolution.
Request: The request gave a wide variety of tantalizing options, among them Elrond/Glorfindel.
Story elements = Hurt/comfort, healing, nonsexual physical intimacy, deep friendship, banter. Moments of intense emotional connection. Magic. Book characterisations. I'd love a happy ending, but I don't mind angst on the way. I love rescues, defending/protecting/helping/healing each other, characters being shiny and awesome. Emotional payoff. Playing with various identities (Aragorn and Glorfindel esp.)
From Ashes, Rise
"All things of grace and beauty…have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes."
― Cormac McCarthy
The gangway hit the jetty with a thud more final than Mandos' judgement. He would not be returning the way he had come.
Swinging his one pack to his shoulder, Glorfindel felt the lift and dip in his stomach as he stepped over the gunwale and onto the weatherworn boards of the pier.
The scent of fish and wet sand filled his nostrils, the salt-laden air settled on his shoulders. Beyond the pier was a market full of people, all talking and laughing at once, haggling over prices, their speech vaguely Telerin and clamorous as a shore in a tempest.
Home again.
A man, standing at the end of the pier, spotted him in the crowd and came forward to clasp both Glorfindel's hands in a grip surprisingly strong.
"Welcome, my lord. I am Círdan, master of these Havens. Seldom do my ships return and never before with such passengers aboard."
"Thank you though it has been long since I have borne any title," he managed, falling into step beside the man as he led the way to the shore proper. "I did not think I would be expected."
He had scarce known to expect himself. Until the summons.
"Word came to us of your coming. I trust you had no difficulty with the crossing?"
"The night skies proved cloudless, the Númenoreans hospitable." Never mind the whispers of a Darkness rising, or the warnings and looks he had caught when Men had learned of his journey… Or that all the maps had looked so wrong.
"Good, good," Círdan said, but his gaze lay elsewhere.
Not far from them, another ship was being swiftly loaded, men hurrying to and fro along its decks, up and down the gangway. Some had the look of soldiers, grim and purposeful.
"Your men seem in a great hurry."
"We are summoned north. To Lindon." He turned his head to take in Glorfindel's face. "I trust you know a little of the affairs here?"
"Mostly rumor. The crew spoke little, but I gleaned what I could from them." And others, he thought, but did not say. He had all but stalked the Halls for the freshly dead, who often brought tidings of Middle-earth, of the war, of Eärendil's heir… "But I'm afraid what tidings I garnered are rather overcome. Even the Númenoreans could not tell me for certain how things stood save dark hints and dire warnings."
"They had reason to speak so."
"Eregion?" All those in the Halls had been of Eregion.
"Overrun," Círdan said in a strange, flat tone. A disguise for grief. "Celebrimbor is dead. His people scattered to the winds. Some have made it as far as here and go north with me. Others…" He spread his hands.
"And Elrond?" Glorfindel pressed with careful nonchalance, but something of his eagerness must have shown in his face.
Círdan cocked his head at him, an inquisitive hound with the scent of blood in his nose. "It is said he took refuge north somewhere amid the valleys and crags."
"You don't know?"
"The road between us is long and rife with enemy patrols. What messengers we could spare miscarried or vanished altogether. Long months have passed since we had any sure news of Elrond's whereabouts."
"So." Glorfindel let out a breath. "I may already have come too late."
He had said it half to himself, but Círdan's mouth rucked.
"I would not see you come to grief in the wild, lord. I think you would do best to come with us. Gil-galad would welcome such a one as you a hundred times over."
Part of him ached for Lindon. The last remnant of Beleriand and his home, what his people had lived for. Died for. And for a moment, he wavered. But only a moment. It was too long ago. Full of too many ghosts.
"I am bound elsewhere."
Círdan sighed. "Sometimes, all we can do is what we have done."
"You have lived in Ulmo's power too long, my lord, if you start speaking in such riddles."
"No, but I, too, know what it is to be drawn into the fate of the Peredhil." Círdan smiled, but his glance pierced Glorfindel with unnerving clarity. "And I know the burden you bear. I hope that here it grows no heavier."
"I'm afraid you mistake me, my lord. I come but to discharge my duty as I have been tasked. Then I will return."
"I have no doubt you will return." Though there seemed more behind his words, he did not offer any further explanation. "But you shall not return at all if you do not get started. You are certain you will not come to Lindon?"
He sighed at Glorfindel's fixed expression.
"I will give you what aid I may, though I fear you will find it little enough. Your road will not be an easy one."
Glorfindel offered a smile of his own, felt it bloodless on his lips. "It never has been."
With the coast soon out of sight and the sun falling fast behind him, he left the last familiarities of home behind.
At least, the horse—Asfaloth—seemed to know his own mind and the road well enough and did not falter, despite the rising dusk. Glorfindel just prayed that it wouldn't lead them into the middle of a deserted clover field.
The saddle jolted under him, not for the first time, and he cursed the painful chafing at his thighs. Long had it been since he had ridden a horse. He was out of practice.
Or the horse was simply malicious.
The saddle jerked under him again, and the hilt of his borrowed sword knocked him in already-bruised ribs.
"I warn you, horse, I will leave you for Orc-meat if you insist on treating me like a bag of potatoes."
The horse's ears twisted at the sound of his voice, but the painful jolting eased, a little.
"That's better." Glorfindel readjusted the hilt of his sword so it rested more comfortably against his hip.
He had borne no weapon since Gondolin, and the blade he had once possessed had, of course, perished along with him and probably was sunk somewhere off the coast of Lindon by now. The weight of steel had become a heavy, unfamiliar weight that made him feel off-balance after all this time.
Círdan's folk had few blades between them, none particularly well-kept: mariners caring more for the quality of their ships than their arms after all. The blade lent him was probably a thousand years old and looked it, all pitted from salt air and dusty. Doubtless, it had been lying in some corner of a market stall, the arms of a soldier-turned-fisherman.
Still, it was better than nothing on an unfamiliar road. Especially when he did not know the destination.
The horse picked his way more carefully now, slower but sure-footed. Glorfindel's own light cast a dim glow about them, not enough to see by but it was reassurance of its own.
Let Vingilot guide you, Círdan had advised him. If anyone can show the way to Elrond, he will.
A twinge went through him as he raised his head towards the east in search of Eärendil's ship. It had been long and long. In Valinor, he had looked once when first it rose and never again for the light smote his eyes, turned them blind and aching. Besides, he had enough reminders of his sins.
There… hanging low over the trees to the east…there it was…its light dimmer here but sharper. A bright, arctic point in the night sky.
"I am trying," he murmured though Eärendil wouldn't hear. "I am trying to make it right."
As if to cheat his words, a wrack of cloud scudded across the star. Glorfindel felt the shadow—the damning rebuke of it—go through him like a blade.
Not enough. Too late and not enough.
Nothing for it. With the road now too dark to see, Glorfindel found a thin patch of trees to camp in for the night, turned Asfaloth to graze, and risked a fire. He sat by it for a long while with his sword in his lap, wary lest the light give away his presence.
At a sudden scuttling of leaves, he was up with blade drawn. He circled twice around his camp and a little way into the brake on either side. There was nothing, other than Asfaloth who huffed into his grass. It sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Glorfindel sighed and raked a hand through his hair, the pulse still thudding in his wrists and throat.
Fool. Ecthelion would have laughed himself sick to see you startling at squirrels! Knight of the King, indeed.
He flung his sword down and resettled himself, gathering his cloak close against the night chill. He was unused to it again though he remembered winters when the snow piled as high as the King's Fountain.
Once, he had convinced Ecthelion, with a little aid from a beaker or two too many of mulled wine, to drain it, turning the Great Market into a sheet of ice.
Naturally, the king had handed both of them their hides for the spectacle…But it had been worth it, to sit on the fountain beside Ecthelion, watching the children of Gondolin pelt one another and slide in flat-bottomed shoes across the now-smooth cobbles, laughing as Salgant tried and failed to negotiate the ice between his home the hall of the Harp. The scents of roasting nuts and cinnamon and the clean smell of the wind filled the street.
It had been a good day. One of their last winters…
He smiled though the thought pained him. The market was no more along with Gondolin. Ecthelion was dead. Even the Echoriath themselves were gone, crumbling and drowned.
So much had been lost. Could he bear to lose yet more?
A pine cone burst in the middle of the fire, sending a gout of sparks into the air.
One settled on the hem of Glorfindel's cloak. He moved to brush it away.
There were worse ways to die than to burn.
It slipped into his mind, not quite a thought that belonged to him. It seemed to come on the night wind, a cold whisper that knew his name and his purpose.
What can one Elf do, alone, against the hordes of Darkness? What have they ever been able to do?
The hem of his cloak was smoking before he stripped it off and ground it out against the earth.
All too soon, they left the pleasant, wooded country behind and came into bleak lands. Dusky, empty hills formed a line of long, broken teeth along his left.
The bare track that hardly resembled a road grew ever worse as he went on, pitted by horses' hooves and wagon wheels, ironshod boots. Every now and again, he would spot things—a boot, a shield, a discarded blanket too threadbare to clothe a mouse, a dropped spoon…
The detritus of an army. Whether friend or foe, he could not say with certainty. But a disquiet rose in him like cold water, and he shook the reins, urging Asfaloth on even by day, keeping as eastward as they could.
The land about grew emptier and more silent the further they traveled, the hills closing in like an iron wall. Even birds seemed to despair of the place—but for the crows. A pair of them winged into the air, their cries echoing.
A wind stirred the edges of his hair and cloak, bringing with it the reek of smoke and charred meat.
Glorfindel knew the stench of burning flesh all too well.
Not a stone's throw beyond the road, a circle of blackened grass surrounded a single, blasted, scrub tree.
The body tied to it was rags and smoking remnants from the thighs down. But the face, still incongruously framed by a mane of dark hair, was elven-fair and smooth save where the crows had been at it.
Sweat standing between his shoulder blades, Glorfindel eased Asfaloth as close as he could. An evil sign was carved into what remained of a blue and white livery across the Elf's chest.
But the face was not the one he sought. He sighed then winced with the shame of his relief.
Here was someone's son, anyway. Or brother. Or husband.
It took time to cut the body from the tree; time he could not spare. In the end, he had to leave the corpse where it lay. No cairn could he raise nor tools had he to hand other than his sword. A spade it was not. Besides, the sense of urgency that had been creeping up on him all day, suddenly kicked hard.
He drove Asfaloth on as fast as he dared, covering miles upon miles with only as many rests as he dared so as not to drive the horse under. His provisions had run out a day ago, but he dared not stop to hunt. He gathered what he could and tightened his belt for the rest.
At last, the country grew a little greener, the hills crept closer still and rose higher. The woods reappeared and gathered in thick patches.
Glorfindel reined Asfaloth to a stop at the foot of a plank bridge.
The chattering water it spanned sounded sweeter than Vairë's singing.
He dragged himself out of the saddle, his legs almost buckling under him and hauled the strap of his water skin over his shoulder. It bumped against his hip with a hollow sound. He flung it down in the weeds and cupped the water to his mouth. It tasted faintly brackish this close to the bridge, but he cared not.
He splashed his face and brought a damp wrist across the back of his neck. He'd slept but a handful of hours in the last three days, eaten nothing in two. He'd forgotten what it felt like to be dusty, hot, hungry, thirsty, and wearied beyond all bearing. That part of life in Arda he had not missed.
But there were still miles to go…and whatever lay at the end of it, afterward.
He filled his waterskin and turned to fetch Asfaloth.
A man was standing a little up the hill, watching him. He wore the livery of Númenor though it fit him oddly as if made for a slightly smaller man.
Glorfindel brought himself up short, the lowering sun in his eyes. "Well-met! You rather gave me a turn. I had thought this whole country empty of everything but birds."
The man did not smile. "I come from that way." He pointed away south, speaking in halting Sindarin. "Saw your horse. Strange color, that."
"He is rather conspicuous," Glorfindel admitted.
A quick glance to either side of the Road revealed two, three, four more men, emerging from the brush. All dressed in the clothes of Númenor. All ill-fitting. And all very much armed though Númenoreans tended, as a general rule, to favor pikes and staves for reach…
A funny, little sensation fluttered in his chest like a bird in a belfry.
"I had not looked to find men of Númenor so far from the coast and their ships," he said. "Though glad I am to find you thus."
One of the group sniggered: a brutal, taunting, ugly sound that raked across Glorfindel's nerves like a twinge of remembered fire.
That man has murdered. And laughed while he did it.
"I'm missing something amusing," he said though his tongue felt like wood, his chest hollow.
He'd faced a Balrog on the cliffs of the Cristhorn. At least then he had had a sword, and, at the time, no particular need to live beyond that moment.
The leader glowered at the laugher. "What are you doing in these parts, Master Elf? Rather far from your lines in Lindon aren't you?"
Something skittered behind the man's eyes like a spider trapped under glass. Eager. Hungry.
Glorfindel didn't answer.
"Carrying messages, perhaps?"
They had moved between him and the horse.
Cut off, his mind whispered.
"No."
They were looking for Elrond, just as he was. Well, not just as he was. The way the fox comes running when the rabbit screams. He comes running…but not to help.
"Where are you bound then…if I might ask?"
The leader's belt buckle. There was something twined about it. A rope of twined fiber…not fiber… Hair. A braid of dark hair.
Briefly, Glorfindel debated if he could take them by surprise with a rush. But there was an archer in their midst. Wouldn't take him longer than a blink to fit shaft to bow.
The odds were not in his favor.
He smiled disarmingly. "I am merely a traveler."
"Dangerous to travel these days. Especially alone. Or haven't you heard, there's a war going on?"
"Not my first war," Glorfindel returned, edging a little closer. "Although, you do have the right of it, and if you don't mind, I'll just be on my way."
The leader stepped in front of him, making sure to stay between him and Asfaloth. "Now, now, no need to rush off so quick. We're all friends here."
Another ugly snigger from the group.
"Indeed."
"I like this horse." The man reached out and stroked Asfaloth's neck. The horse twitched and shied. "Could use a horse, we could."
"I imagine your companions might find it a little difficult, riding pillion. Especially considering I've had a more comfortable ride in a flat-bottomed wagon over a rutted road."
Asfaloth whickered.
"We could take him, if we had to," the man said with another quick skitter behind the eyes. "You're not the first lonely traveler we've come across in this neck of the woods."
"Yes. I saw the fruits of your…labors."
The archer drew a shaft from his quiver.
Glorfindel whistled, once and sharp.
Asfaloth's ears went up, and he surged, knocking the leader in the shoulder. His fore-hoof came down hard, and the man shrieked with the crack of bone Glorfindel felt in his stomach. He seized the horse's withers, heaved himself into the saddle, his shoulders and back screaming with the effort.
The horse's hooves clattered over the bridge.
He had nearly made it to the other side before something punched him in the back. He stiffened and almost lost his seat, but Asfaloth shifted his weight, kept him in the saddle as they raced into the trees.
Pain came later.
Hours. Days. He lost track in the haze.
A point of agony stabbed him every time he took a breath. He suspected an arrow but dared not halt to look for fear he wouldn't be able to haul himself into the saddle again.
Exhaustion and agony washed over him in waves, swallowing him in periods of blackness where he put his head down against Asfaloth's neck, letting the horse determine their road.
His thoughts circled and circled when he grew more aware of himself. It came back to him ever more frequently—that afternoon, the ice in the Great Market, the winterlight on Ecthelion's hair, his cheeks ruddy with wine and laughter.
The memory went round and round until the burn of sunlight on the back of his neck was the burn of snow and spread numbness all the way to his fingertips.
"Ecthelion. I think it's time to go in," he murmured. "Quench our thirst with something better wouldn't you say?"
Ecthelion did not answer, but he must have opened the cask already because he could hear it. A sweet, wet sound…
His eyes opened.
Asfaloth had stopped at the edge of a river. A ford. The water was running over stones. It glinted and flashed in a thousand arcs of light.
Something answered in Glorfindel, his blood thrilling to the singing of the waters as it had onboard ship. Ulmo's power brought to bear, harnessed by something he could sense but not see.
The horse waded into the water at the same time a shadow broke from the trees.
The enemy had pursued him. On foot, they were slower, but dogged.
He turned at the water's edge and drew himself up straight in the saddle despite the flash of pain it tore out of his back. He jerked his sword out of its sheath.
"Come then. I have faced worse than you," he croaked. His vision wavered and rocked.
The enemy halted at the water's edge, their expressions uneasy.
For a moment, Glorfindel thought he himself had given them pause. Then he felt it. The tingle behind his teeth, the electric ratcheting along his nerves.
The river was rising. Slow, at first, sluicing over the stones, darkening them with silt then burying them in it.
A beat later it leaped forward, churning as if in thundering snowmelt, forcing Glorfindel and Asfaloth in an ungainly scramble up the banks.
His pursuers were not so fast. The river knocked the legs from under them, swept them into the torrent. So fast, they did not even cry out.
Still roiling and lashing out of its banks, the river calmed. Nothing remained on the other side but a dropped pike and a boot.
Glorfindel did not realize he had fallen out of the saddle until he felt the water tugging at his boots. But he was too tired to do much about it. The water rushed in his ears, the sand, the salt. The sea? Water and fire, burning and freezing and darkness… For a moment, he glimpsed movement, something on the edges of the trees. Or someone…
He put his head down against the bank and knew no more.
For a long while, he lay in a dark sea.
Sometimes, that cold whisper he had heard in the wilds returned, spoke to him words he did not hear or fully understand but felt the chill of it in his breast.
A bright wrench tore across his vision, illuminating the sea with a brilliant arc of pain centered somewhere in his back. How did the Balrog find him here?
After came blackness, where even the sea couldn't reach him...
He came back to himself by degrees.
The tide went out, and a greyness revealed a pale, thin morning.
He was lying on a straw pallet, the ticking itchy against his bare skin. Someone had divested him of his shirt and boots. He tried to raise his head, but fuzzy greyness rolled over behind his brow, and a soft warning tugged at his back. Pain was somewhere beneath the numbness, crouched and waiting, sated at the moment. But if he moved too fast or too soon, it would gather its strength for the leap.
He would just as soon wait it out.
"You are fortunate," said a voice somewhere above him; it would have startled him had he had the strength for it. "Most have gotten worse off a filth-crusted arrow."
He turned his head to blink owlishly up at the silhouette near his bed. There was no light in the room.
His mouth was parched, his lips glued together by a gauze of sleep. He worked his throat, swallowed once or twice, something sweetly bitter in the back of his throat.
"Where am I?" he croaked.
"A safer place than the riverbank, anyway."
"How long…?"
"Two days." Before Glorfindel could ask any more, the man rose. "The commander will wish to know you are awake. He will have some questions." The whisper of a tent flap opened and shut.
Beyond the tent, he was vaguely aware of movement, forms passing back and forth across the canvas, low voices. Once, horse's hooves clopping by, a bark of orders, the steady, thumping of boots in formation.
The sounds of an army encamped. Almost comforting, in its way.
He had begun to drift back towards sleep when the tent flap was thrown back and his watcher returned with another just behind.
A light was brought, a lamp that did not smoke and cast an umber glow across the hard-packed floor.
Glorfindel caught his breath though whether it was the twinge in his back or the face of the commander, he didn't know.
The blood of Tuor and Turgon both blended in his face as it had in his father's: the strong jaw, the high cheekbones, though something of his foremother remained about the light grey eyes and mouth... Neither old nor young did he look, though rather haggard as if he had borne many a sleepless night of late.
It was like looking at a ghost.
Except, here, he was the ghost.
His gaze swept Elrond's face for some sort of sign, some glimmer of understanding or recognition, but of course, there was none. The man's sire had not been tall enough to wield a waster when last Glorfindel had seen him, keening in his mother's grip. How could he expect the son to have any knowledge of him? What else had he expected after all?
Some of the bleakness of his thoughts must have reflected in his face for Elrond bent forward and slid his hand along Glorfinde's brow with practiced ease, his eyes focused on an unseen point. His face, very near to Glorfindel's, was grave but after a moment, he took his hand away.
"Your fever has broken. That is a good sign."
"I heal swiftly." Glorfindel eased onto his side, the better to face his visitor, and winced.
"That may be, but you have some mending yet."
"I thank you for your care."
"Perhaps, in lieu of thanks, you might tell me who you are and why you are here." Elrond leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the knee with an air of expectation.
Glorfindel took a corner of the sheet between his thumb and forefinger, worrying the threads. Such a reasonable question with such an unreasonable answer.
Now it came to it. How to even explain?
Did your father ever speak to you of the sack of Gondolin? The Cristhorn, the Balrog and the madman who had decided the best course of action was to fling them both off a cliff? Yes, he did die, and that's fact. But, funny thing, fate, terrible sense of humor…
Even in his head, it smacked of a conniver's gull. A cruel jest. Or, a spy's invention meant to earn trust.
Or, worse, Elrond might believe him.
The son of a man who had become a star, and a woman a bird… Foster fathers who had defied all odds and cradled the jewels of the gods in their hands. It might almost make sense for a so-called hero of the First Age to reappear in the very hour of his need.
And Glorfindel could not face that.
He told himself he wanted to be taken on his own account, not that of legends, which tended to grow out of all proportion in the telling anyway. He did it because he did not want this man, who knew so much more about the world than he did now, to depend on him.
He felt like an impostor dressed in a similar skin. Glorfindel of Gondolin had died and been remembered a hero. He'd been done. He had not expected or asked for more than that.
But Valinor had not offered him what he needed. Absolution. An opportunity to make it right in whatever way he could. Eärendil and Ecthelion, the others he had abandoned, he could not make it right with them. But with Elrond, perhaps, he could.
Just not as Glorfindel.
"I am only a traveler. A relic of the war."
In brief, he explained his journey east and what he could remember of his skirmish at the bridge. He gave the vaguest of details: that he had heard of Elrond's sanctuary and sought for him… Had not thought to find him. That, at least, was true.
He could not tell if Elrond believed him or not for the man's face was shuttered and gave no hint to his thoughts.
"The river does not rise at the beck and call of any," he said, after a moment.
"If you fear that I wear a fair guise to disguise foul intent, I would disabuse you, my lord," Glorfindel said. "Though I know that words alone will not suffice, I will say them anyway. You have nothing to fear from me."
Elrond smiled, tight and thin. "There are easier ways to infiltrate our ranks than nearly dying after all. But you shall be kept under close watch for the time being. Rest and regain your strength."
With that, he rose, leaving Glorfindel to his thoughts.
It was a sennight before he regained enough strength to gain his legs and another few before he could walk about the camp.
He was shadowed, discretely and at a distance, at all times. He had not seen Elrond again, but there was plenty to occupy his attention, if not his time.
The place he had come to was called Imladris, he later learned, and what remained of Elrond's army and whoever they could gather in their retreat had made it home as best they could.
It was an ideal place if you wanted to make an army disappear. Some strange geographical quirk of the land made the entrance to the cloven valley easy to miss, and the many falling streams and waters would both mute the sounds of an army at rest and slow the onslaught of an enemy.
He climbed up a path, little more than a steep goat track gouged out of the mud and gravel by the passage of horse and boot.
From his vantage point, the encampment looked bleak and austere. Would look even moreso in winter, which was coming on all too fast. All rough huts and tents and rutted mud tracks here and there, things torn up and disordered. Men moved to and fro along makeshift paths. Some had the bearing of soldiers. Others were women, children with the air of the displaced. Yet Glorfindel smelled cooking fires and leaves sere and wet.
Sometimes, there was laughter and children running.
In the western exposure of the last day's sunlight, the frame of a great house taking shape could be glimpsed through the trees.
It was a stronghold and sanctuary, still with the character of a barracks about it. An army uneasily resting.
The scouting patrols returning every couple of days had fewer men in them than when they set out, and some whispers—quickly broken off when he passed—bore the name of the Enemy in them.
Yet the people still found time for joy.
Only one room of the great house had been finished, the longest and lowest on the first floor, appropriately enough named the Hall of Fire, for it was the only place where fires were permitted and the only one in which one always burned. All along one side, pillars upheld what would be the upper levels of the house while the other opened onto naked windows, yet bereft of panes.
Though there was little in the way of comfort save straw and rush mats laid over bare flags, even such rough similarities to home drew many every eve.
Those inclined traded tales or sang songs or played games in the firelight.
He watched them and took some solace for having something in common with these refugees who had been driven from everything they had known and loved by the enemy and circumstances beyond their control. He saw the strength and resilience in their hearts, the courage even in the eyes of the children, and he grew to love them a little. As much as they avoided him and as much as he kept to himself. He was strange to them yet.
He was not much used to such things for he and Ecthelion had always preferred the lists and training salles to evenings spent under the spell of an unimaginative and glory-hounding harpist like Salgant.
Even here, he had taken some little delight in the familiarity of observing the men at drill and at arms, speaking with some of the younger ones who were less wary of him, correcting their stance, even wielding a waster alongside them as he demonstrated some technique as he had with Turgon's squires. They had told him of the Hall and invited him to attend.
He had arrived late, but he found a corner shadowed and dark enough that he could slip in without drawing attention to himself.
The storyteller with a considerable group about him was already in full flow.
"—a glow beyond the northward heights, and men marveled, thronging to the walls and battlements. Wonder grew to doubt, doubt to dread as that light waxed and became yet redder; the snow upon the mountain dyed as with blood. The Enemy was come to Gondolin. Lo, here the sentinels of the king and many other kindreds: the folk of the Swallow and of the Heavenly Arch, the Pillar, and the Tower of Snow…" 1
A wave of nausea rolled over Glorfindel, a cold sweat prickling across his brow and underneath his cloak.
"There stood the House of the Golden Flower who bare a rayed sun upon their shield, and their chief a mantle so broidered in threads of gold that it was diapered with celandine as a field in spring, and his arms were damascened with cunning gold. There came from the south of the city, the people of the Fountain—" 2
He surged to his feet so fast, he staggered and nearly fell. He fled the Hall as if the fire-drakes themselves were at his heels, memory stinging more than fire ever had.
He was not followed this time, and if any had marked his discomposure, he had failed to note them.
He paused on the porch, the cool, fall air on his face not quite enough to disperse the feeling of fire.
It was what he remembered of that day. That, and the pear trees.
Standing in his festival garb, he looked out at the winking of festival lights strewn colorfully along the avenues towards the Fountain and the Great Market. A breeze lifted up the first blossoms of the pear trees lining the boulevard and cast them on the shoulders of the revelers' cloaks.
He lifted his face to their coolness and flinched when one of the petals stung him. It was an ember. Embers. The street was filling with ash…
The alarum pierced the silent city.
Above the mountains, an electric roil of cold, black shadows, lightning-lit.
The wind was the only thing among the chinks in the stone. The Market had gone silent, not with the reverence of a moment. Shards of the lanterns scattered underfoot, crunching under his boot heels as he ran…
He hurled himself from the porch as if the pace of his boots along the path might help him outrun the memory overtaking him from behind.
He knew the ending of the story.
Ecthelion, his shield-arm limp, his dark hair plastered about his shoulders—wet with sweat or blood—half-lifted himself against the rim of the Fountain in the middle of the King's Square.
He raised a face, grey with exhaustion and realization, and his eyes found Glorfindel's despite the press. The light in them smote Glorfindel to the heart as he strode over to Tuor.
Though he had not witnessed it, though he had ushered Idril and Tuor and what remained of his men onward, towards the hidden pass, the Market lost, he could see it as if he had stood at the rim of that fountain and watched.
Ecthelion sank, steel-laden, into the depths.
After, he knew only that the street was full of unquenchable fire and falling...
He stopped, the strength gone out of his legs, and he sagged against the roots of an oak tree, his head pressed back against the bark until it dug into his scalp.
And again, that cold whisper, that was half-him and half…something else.
What have you ever been able to do?
He did not know how long he sat there, but suddenly, one of the shadows about him stirred, became more flesh than shadow.
"I fear I must agree. The old stories do go on, don't they? It's enough to make any man flee." A thin moon revealed a sliver of Elrond's face. He was seated on a bench not a stone's throw from Glorfindel.
Feeling caught out, Glorfindel hastened to his feet, his limbs stiff and cold. He gave an obeisance. "Forgive me, my lord. I did not mean to disturb you."
"You don't," Elrond reassured him. Something very like surprise flitted across his face and was gone.
"I admit, I had not expected to find anyone here," Glorfindel offered, if anything more discomposed by the silence.
Elrond gestured at the bench, the oak tree. "Of late, I have been chained to my desk, and it is a rare hour that I find for leisure. But when I can wrest it from the jaws of necessity, I come here. It is a good place for thinking."
"Ah." His heart gradually easing its hard knocking, Glorfindel looked up through the latticed branches of the oak tree. "You have chosen your refuge well."
"It is but a levee before the dammed river. It will not hold the tide of the enemy back forever."
"No. I suppose not."
Elrond gazed up through the interlacing branches. "I have dreamed of a place of refuge. Of preservation. Where a man can come and breathe the air of his childhood. Hear a song he has not heard in years. A place of peace where we will never have to flee again…But I fear it will not come anytime soon. Not until our enemy is destroyed or, at least, quieted."
"There have always been enemies, some greater than Sauron, yet we have survived," Glorfindel said.
"You are not of Eregion, are you?"
The question surprised Glorfindel but not as much as it might have. He met Elrond's eye levelly. "What makes you think that?"
"Your manners. The old courtesies I have not seen in an Age. Erestor tells me you have skill with a blade that surpasses any armsmaster here. Including those that fought the Fëanorians at Sirion. You are a man of intellect, yet you hide your knowledge. You commanded the river to rise when none can do that save me. And then, only with aid. There is a light in you that you try to hide…And you fled tonight. Lindir delights in telling the tale of the fall of Gondolin. It raises our people's spirits, he says, to hear the tales of those who have overcome Darkness, even at great cost."
"They do not know the cost."
"So, it is true what they say."
"What do they say, my lord?"
"That you are a herald of the Valar. That they will do as they once did and bring their might against the Enemy that plagues us, finish him once and for all."
"There is only me."
Elrond frowned. Glorfindel could nigh hear his thoughts as his glance roved over his miserable encampment, his haunted followers, all of it scarce held together with luck and a Ring he couldn't even wield without revealing himself. And the only reason they still lived was the Enemy was more concerned with penning him in than slaughtering him outright while he turned his sights on larger prey.
"Why now? Why you?"
"I asked to come." At Elrond's incredulous glance, he added. "Because I, too, know what it is to desire peace."
"You said nothing before."
"There was nothing to say."
"I beg to differ," Elrond said. He leaned back on the bench a little, the better to look up into Glorfindel's face. "Of all things, I had never thought to find you standing before me." He shook his head in bewilderment. "Laurefindil. Lord of the House of the Golden Flower. Second only to Ecthelion of the Fountain. Knights of the King."
"That was long ago."
"Not long enough if you stand before me now. My father spoke of you. I have always pictured you with longer hair."
Glorfindel's lips and jaw tightened with a smile he did not feel. He had kept his hair no longer than his shoulders after…After. "Vanity has little purpose on the battlefield, and even less after death."
"I grew up on stories of you and Ecthelion. Even Maedhros, who was not liberal with his praise, would tell stories of Gondolin and its valiant knights…"
The memories pressed thick and close and hot under his collar, so hot and sweating. He squeezed his fingers into fists, seeing again the King's Fountain, the flame-eyed demon, the grey-faced Ecthelion with that ugly, limp shield-arm, more waxen figure than living man.
"'Valiant' is too strong a word. My deeds were never deserving of their accolades."
"You sacrificed yourself to save the lives of countless women and children: all that remained of Gondolin," Elrond said, a little incredulous. "That is no small thing."
"I thought of nothing, and no one in the Cristhorn. It didn't matter if I slew the Balrog. Those women and children I might have saved for a day or an hour… The enemy was still upon us. They were traveling with wounded and had nowhere else to go. And in that moment, I cared nothing for them or their lives or what might happen after. I had no thought for the women and children and fighting men who still needed a leader. We were short of those by then. They needed me. And I didn't care. I could have run when the Balrog came. I should have run and taken them with me. But Ecthelion had sunk in his own fountain. And I couldn't..."
He took in a deep breath to try to steady his voice. "In the end, Ecthelion was the one who died a hero. I just…died."
A silence fell between them.
"I have never told anyone that before."
"Do you feel better?"
"No. And yes." Slowly, Glorfindel lowered himself onto the seat beside Elrond. "It's been so long since I've even said his name. Any of their names. Tuor and Idril. And Eärendil."
Elrond said nothing. But his shoulder, unremarked by either of them, leaned warm and heavy against Glorfindel's and did not burn.
The call came in the spring, as Elrond had foreseen. Gil-galad was departing from Lindon to war. The army must be made ready.
Before they set out, he handed him an oilcloth-wrapped package with an oblique "Tuor would not leave good steel to rust."
It was a blade. Of mithril steel. A long, familiar, curving shape, still graven along the blade with the old runes and at the hilt with the symbol of Turgon's house. His own.
From the moment they set out, it rained. Even for the season, it rained unseasonably and relentlessly until the incessant patter of drops on helmet and hauberk near drove some of the men out of their minds.
The banks were scuffed and muddied, and their trail drove a deep rut in the earth, making passage for the wagons ever more difficult.
Elrond cursed it as a foulness cast on them by the Enemy. After a sennight of it, Glorfindel had little doubt of it.
The Enemy had entrenched outside of Tharbad, built up breastworks on whatever firm ground was left.
A ford of shallow depth usually, the week of rain had turned it into a raging torrent. Though the Bruinen had been somewhat tamed, these were the wild waters of the Gwathló, fed by the Bruinen and snow melt springs pouring down from the mountains to form a tumbling, brown water. Now poisoned by the Enemy.
Elrond drew their lines to a halt along the swollen banks. Their regimented lines extended nigh to the drumlin.
"No quarter given," he called, water dripping from his jaw as he drew his helmet over his sodden hair and rode to the vanguard.
The horn blared, sharp and drowning out even the sound of the rain.
They hurled themselves into the Enemy's ranks.
The whirl and turn and slash, the slow rock and spin as pairs and groups grappled against one another, the churn and grind of battle. A cacophony of clashing swords and sharper screams, of men, of horses, and underneath it all, the thin, whispery murmur of the rain.
Though his sword arm ached already, Glorfindel drove himself forward through the center, taking the charge towards the farther bank.
Elrond fell.
The huge Orc with flaming eyes raised his mattock again.
Glorfindel leapt forward into the killing blow. It clouted him with a stunning crack, and he fell back, the river rushing over him.
The water, shocking in its cold, deeper than it had looked from the banks. He was under, and he could not rise.
This was not the way he had wanted to die. Again. Inches from the surface, unable to lift his head, an arm.
The still-falling rain pattered the surface of the river like pebbles upon glass. But there was no shattering. The world had gone ringingly quiet after the cacophony of battle. Peaceful. He could think again, and his limbs felt warm enough in their steel casing… A low, steady throb in his ears… his heart working…
And Ecthelion sank, steel-laden…
So, was this what it was to drown? He did not think he thought, but the hint of it, the keenest edge of it slipped through his mind as his head softened into the mud, his gaze slackening into murk…
And Ecthelion…
Perhaps it was for the best after all.
…sank…
He could sleep. At last. He could find— What was he looking for? Something important wasn't it?
And Ecthelion…
What was he…?
Ecthelion.
Light and noise smote his senses all at once, and though he could not will his limbs to movement, somehow he was moving, painfully and slowly, his legs straggling in mud, his backside rattling over stones, the jolt of his head against a sandy bank. This one, he realized, vaguely, was not underwater.
"Glorfindel!" The voice, hoarse and panicked, raked across his ears. A blurred shape hovered above him.
"Ecthelion?" he murmured or wanted to, but his throat only made an odd, croaking sound.
His chest hurt, and his lungs and stomach gave an awful heave. He rolled to his side, retching up lungfuls of Gwathló.
Blurry and waterlogged came sound, and words.
"We cannot have our hero drown in his own armor, can we, after his last dramatic death?"
"Well… I have to say water's a… nice change," he croaked when he could speak again.
Elrond thumped him on the shoulder and collapsed on the bank beside him, laughing weakly.
The house creaked, settling ever deeper on its foundations. The bells in the tower tolled the after-supper hour as he passed down the stairs, his fingers easing into the grooves of the banister, worn by the strokings of many hands. He crossed the flagged floor and caught sight of Elrond in the doorway.
As always, there was a fire in the Hall within, and many of their visitors surrounded Lindir, whose animated face glowed with the light of his telling.
"It was as if a white light shone from him as he charged the ford and drove the Dark Lord and thousands of his minions before him…!"
"I seem to have heard this tale before," Elrond said, without turning.
Glorfindel twitched an eyebrow but did not look at his friend. "Did you notice the number of the Dark Lord's army keeps increasing with every telling?"
Elrond laughed. "Lindir does love to tell it."
Lindir rose with a flourish and bowed to his audience. Among them, Elrohir, Elladan, home from the wilds, and little Arwen, already nearly a young woman. They had the look of their father and the grace of their mother.
Celebrían lifted her head and caught sight of them in the doorway. She smiled.
He had hung up his sword over the great marble mantelpiece. There was no need for such now in these days of peace.
"Tell me something, my friend… Your duty is discharged now. Do you never think of returning home?"
Glorfindel eyed his lord sidelong. "Trying to get rid of me at long last?"
Elrond smiled, but his gaze did not waver. "Truly, you never think of returning to Valinor? To your kin?"
Glorfindel did not answer at first. The Hall was warm and bright this evening. Arwen laughed at Elladan who was saying something in her ear.
He shook his head.
"I am home."
-Finis-
1 I cannot claim this: the Book of Lost Tales (Part 2): The Fall of Gondolin
2 Another bit of borrowed language