Author's note: Part of this chapter will touch on some behaviour that may or may not bring to mind symptoms of Cluster B personality disorders (specifically narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)- or, perhaps, concepts thrown around such as psychopathy and sociopathy). While I won't be describing these in Psych Notes this time, I feel it is very important to highlight that there is significant abuse thrown at people with Cluster B personality disorders (and often extends to most personality disorders in general, though it seems particularly malignant in Cluster B). Though people with ASPD and NPD almost never fully recover, with help, many are able to gain a level of insight that sees improvements in behaviour and cognition. Unfortunately, though, social stigma often causes great hindrance in the process. These disorders do not automatically create abusive people, and it is certainly not the case that all abusive people have one or both of the above disorders. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you would like more information about these, or other personality disorders, and I'll happily stick them in the next chapter's Psych Notes.

We were in no immense rush to reach the Grey Havens, so Glorfindel and I decided to make a road trip out of our journey west. We travelled light, only taking the bare necessities, such as a hammock for trampolining and a guitar for music making.

As I had imagined, both were very necessary, but not quite in their originally intended uses. It rained for the entire first half of the journey. Absolutely bucketed down. The hammock, joyfully, was a terrific makeshift roof that we coated with leaves to keep us at least somewhat dry of a night.

Naturally, our spirits were not lessened by the inclement weather. Indeed, we admitted to frequently feeling smug, because we had decided to walk there and not take the horses, and this sort of weather would have made for less than desirable conditions on their part. Not just that, but because we had set out in summer, it wasn't cold rain, which was always a bonus. Really, it was like a free shower.

"Hey, sunshine, tell me a little bit about Olórin," I said to Glorfindel as we squelched our way across a huge field, both of us wringing wet.

"Oh, he's lovely," he said with a smile. "In Valinor, he and I would roam the land together. He never was content to stay in one place for very long."

"Why do you suppose that is?"

"Hmm," Glorfindel pondered as he thoughtfully swept some wet hair off his face. "I imagine it is because of how he started out. He was Manwë's Maia, you see, but he lived in Irmo's gardens and was taught by Nienna, so he had been travelling all his life."

"That's quite a spread out sort of way to be," I remarked with a nod.

"Well, he could have simply transported himself there faster than light, but he preferred to go around by foot. I don't think it ever bothered him, though, not even in the beginning," Glorfindel commented. "He was always very eager, quite a fiery personality, so if he ever was displeased, we knew about it." He laughed a little.

"But he was always good-natured, never the type to hold a grudge or seek power," Glorfindel added. "I think you'll like him."

"I trust your judgement," I replied with a grin. "Your taste in friends has already shown itself to be very good."

Glorfindel giggled and rolled his eyes. "Do you know who your Vala is?"

I fell silent. It was rather embarrassing to admit, but I had put extraordinarily little effort into learning about my own race. I'd picked up what I thought was enough to function, but this question made me realise I was woefully ignorant on even the basics.

"I don't, actually," I said with a frown. "That might be interesting to find out one of these days. I hope I wasn't sent here with a specific mission or something. If I was, I never heard about it."

This put us into a contemplative silence for a short while- or at least as close as it got to silence when the rain was pouring so hard it made white noise. Eventually, though, my questions started again.

"What about the other four Maiar that are supposed to be on this mission, too, then?"

"Ah, I know far less about the others," he admitted. "Curumo will be attending, too, I believe. He was another main Maia to the Vala Aulë. I saw him a few times, but he always seemed uninterested in having much to do with the Elves, so our communications were rather limited."

"Hm," I murmured. "Let's hope he turns out a little better than Aulë's other big headliner. I think one Sauron is more than enough for now." I gulped. Glorfindel nodded in agreement, and continued.

"Aiwendil is another one. He served… let me see… Yavanna, I think it was. I only spoke with him once, but he was friendly. Loved animals of all sizes and types- better than he liked people, even, so I imagine Yavanna was well pleased with him. The other two I know only by name- Alatar and Pallando. They always seemed to be together. Perhaps they were good friends. That's about all I can really tell you, I'm afraid." Glorfindel shrugged.

I shrugged back. "Hey, I know more now than when we started out. It's all handy. Thank you muchly!" I shot Glorfindel a wink and a thumbs-up.

Not a few minutes after our conversation had tapered off, the weather did a complete about-turn. The rain suddenly stopped, and the clouds were punctured by rays of sunshine shortly after. There were even patches of blue around. We could scarcely believe it.

I was so excited to see the sunshine that I started jumping around like a dog.
"Yessss! A little summer sun at last! Glorfindel!" I grabbed him by the arm and pointed at a huge, black rock on top of a nearby hill. It was one of the rare beneficiaries of direct sunlight, and I knew it was where I wanted to be. "Let's get onto that rock and dry off!"

Glorfindel seemed to be equally taken with the idea, and we waddle-ran like ducks through the mud to get up the hill. The rock was already dry by the time we reached it. We both let out a contented sigh after we had climbed up sprawled out on it, soaking up the delicious heat of the sunrays.

As I dried off a little, I sat up and reached for the guitar. This was the perfect moment for a celebratory song. It was an old one I remembered hearing thousands of years ago on the radio. Hum along if you know the tune.

"Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain,
Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain,
Now the dark days are gone and the bright days are here,
My sunny one shines so sincere,
Sunny, one so true, I love you"

I'd gone through the rest of the song before I even looked away from the sky in the distance. I turned and saw Glorfindel still lying down, smiling dreamily at me. My face (figuratively, thank goodness) caught fire. I felt my heart skip a beat. An arrhythmia in a Maia? That was odd, but I decided to ignore it. I shook my head.

"A penny for your thoughts, my sunsh-" I stopped in the middle of my own sentence. What a bizarre Freudian slip. I get calling someone sunshine after that, but my sunshine? Glorfindel's cheeks grew pink and his smile broadened as he sat up. I caught his eyes, and they seemed to almost… sparkle? My heart rate shot through the roof, and a smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. What on earth?

In the moment after I made that brief mistake, I racked my brains for an answer as to what was going on here. Glorfindel and I had always been close, to be sure. Practically inseparable at times. But hadn't it always been platonic? Very, very tender and affectionate, certainly, but still.

I was going to shake it off and suggest we kept walking, but as I made to slide off the rock, Glorfindel spoke up from behind me.

"I don't know if this helps, Rhodri, but I was so thrilled the day you told me you weren't interested in Gil-Galad."

My stomach dropped, and I heard my breath catch. It was that same noise I'd heard Elrond make when he saw Celebrían the first time. Holy shit. Two and some millennia pass and I'm suddenly falling hard for my best friend. This was wild.

I turned around, eyes about to fall out of my head, and saw Glorfindel sitting up and smiling at me tenderly, his cheeks now properly aglow.

My heart was hammering now, and if we had had access to modern surgery, I'd have had someone over to remove my stomach from up in my throat.

I seemed to lose control of my body as I silently moved back closer, reached an arm out and put my hand on the rock near his. A terrified feeling was creeping over me that I might somehow have misunderstood, misread the situation, but he shifted his fingers so that they gently stroked mine. The blood throbbed in my ears so hard I thought I was about to haemorrhage, but I miraculously remained alive as I tried my luck a little further and moved my hand a little more over his.

I was numb with fear as I waited for his reaction, but his fingers curled around mine, and I relished it like eating food after starving for days. After I set the guitar down beside me, I faced Glorfindel, and he was looking at me like he was about to cry.

Shocked and anxious to comfort him, I moved close to him and hesitantly put my free arm under his, watching him closely for any sign of objection as I carefully pulled him to me.

To my continued relief, he returned the gesture, letting my hand go as he slipped both arms around me.
"Rhodri…" he whispered, gently holding my head with one hand and pressing on my back with the other.

That undid me. My other arm shot around him and I ripped him close to me, feeling his heart pound as hard as mine. I pressed my cheek against his, fully intoxicated by him as I breathed in his characteristic scent- sunlight, wood, and leaves. Nothing about him had changed. I'd known how his embraces felt, what he smelled like, how he smiled at me, for ages. They were things I had always appreciated, but now mixed in with that appreciation was the unreasonable, irrepressible desire to have them for myself, to admire them closely and adore them intimately.

I moved away for a moment and watched him, trying to think of what splendid thing I could say to both gauge how he felt and to sweep him off his feet, but my fear continued to choke me. I put a hand on his cheek, trying to maintain composure. He held my hand against his cheek with his own free hand, and then moved it to his mouth, where he put a kiss in the middle of my palm.

"Rhodri," he said softly as he rubbed my hand with his thumb, "I've loved you ever since the day I stopped by your office to introduce myself. Do… do you think you might ever return that feeling?"

I think in the last five minutes of conversation, I'd made more noises of disbelief and astonishment than I had over the course of the last century. I was getting absolutely blindsided- and not just by Glorfindel, either. This array of new feelings had hit me like a rogue wave.

I couldn't believe what I was doing, but it was happening so reflexively that I couldn't have stopped it even if I wanted to, which I certainly didn't. "I believe I already do," I breathed, nodding, feeling a smile threaten to split my face open.

Glorfindel's breath caught this time, and he leaned forward, cupping my face in one hand.

"If you'll have me," he whispered hoarsely as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, "I'll care for you and love you and give you everything your heart desires. A million trampolines, overalls of every colour. Whatever you wish."

He searched my face, watching me closely as he awaited my response.

I felt myself lean toward him, until our foreheads were touching. His eyes were absorbingly blue, and the longer I looked, the harder it was not to speak. "My Glorfindel," I murmured as I stroked his cheek with my thumb. "I will. Have me, too?"

A sort of ecstatic laugh came out of Glorfindel as he nodded animatedly. "Oh yes," he said, his voice returning to its usual, clear timbre. His eyes shone like diamonds as he edged his face a little closer to mine until our noses were touching.

"My Glorfindel," I whispered again, scarcely able to believe it.

"My Rhodri," he murmured back. His warm breath hit me, and before I realised what I was doing, I had leaned into him and brushed my lips against his. His eyes fluttered shut as he gently pressed his mouth against mine, and the kiss slowly grew more intense, more demanding, and more excited.

When we eventually came up for air, we lay back down on the rock in the sun, only this time, my head was on Glorfindel's chest and our arms were fastened around each other. We stayed that way the rest of the afternoon and slept that way overnight, shifting only slightly to prevent pressure sores.

The remainder of our journey to the Grey Havens went without a hitch and in much the same manner as the first half had (with the exceptions of more hand-holding and the other emetic things new couples do).

I hadn't ever travelled this far west before, so I was rather excited to see what this part of Gil-Galad's kingdom looked like. I'd had a rather curious idea that Mithlond was a sleepy fishing village with a couple of industrial-sized ports. A haven, you know? The sort of thing that's not really known for being built up.

Fortunately, this was not the first time I had been wrong about things, so I was perfectly aware of how it was to eat my own words. The first glimpse I had was from a fair way away. Huge, white wooden houses with carved spires on top formed a sort of horseshoe shape around the large ports (I was at least right about those). They looked like something out of a fairytale.

When we reached the edge of the city, we were greeted by Elves passing by. They did not know us, but they were pleased to see us all the same as they walked with purpose to their destination, all clad in flowing white robes.

Glorfindel and I went out to the docks, where an enormously muscular, tanned Elf with silver hair and a matching beard stood holding a wooden mallet the size of a baby. He was effortlessly knocking a colossal nail into place when Glorfindel shouted out, "Círdan!" and waved at him.

Círdan looked up and when he saw who had called to him, his face broke out in a huge smile, and he strolled over to us, the mallet casually dangling in his hand like it was made of styrofoam. The shine in his amethyst eyes danced like the afternoon sunlight on the water.

"Well hello there, Glorfindel!" he said heartily as he embraced his friend. "Wonderful to see you again." He turned to me. "I don't believe we've met…?"

"Not that I can recall," I replied with a smile. "I am Rhodri of Imadris."

"Ah, pleasure to meet you! You must be the psychologist Elrond spoke of," Círdan said with a nod.

"And you'll be the shipwright," I replied with a smile, returning his nod. "Nice to put a face to the name at last."

Círdan smiled affably. "Indeed. Well, you two have absolutely impeccable timing. That ship out there, I believe, is the one bearing the Istari." He pointed at a boat out on the glassy water that couldn't have been more than ten minutes away from us. Some other Elves were preparing a dock for the boat to moor at.

Círdan excused himself a moment to down tools, and then we made our way over to the dock to greet our (other) new arrivals.

I wasn't entirely sure what I had been expecting to see, because I had seen depictions of Gandalf and Saruman in cinema, and I knew they were old men, but the five guys that stepped off the boat looked like they should have passed away ten years ago. They were dangerously old. Still, I supposed average consumer confidence wouldn't be too high in wizards who looked like young, spry supermodels, what with the whole looks versus books adage being what it was.

Glorfindel and Círdan smiled broadly as the Maiar walked down the dock. The one in front was clad in white and had long black and white hair. He had his eyes wide open and was inspecting the place with great interest, seemingly forcing himself to tear his gaze off the scenery to look at us. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile, but it lacked the characteristic crinkling around the eyes that made it genuine, and it was with this smile that he greeted us.

"Ah, Círdan, Glorfindel," he smiled and nodded.

"Greetings, Curumo," Círdan returned, his own smile only a little more true.

Glorfindel made his greeting fairly brief before moving on to the second in line, who bore a striking resemblance to a destitute Albus Dumbledore. He had long, grey hair with a beard to match, and his cloak was long, grey, and in tatters. This one seemed quite nervous, and looked like there was nothing he would rather do than get back on the boat and sod off home. A wave of reassurance came over his face when he saw Glorfindel striding over to him, beaming as he said, "Welcome, Olórin!"

"Glorfindel!" he gasped in relief as he allowed himself to be pulled into a hug. He smiled at Glorfindel—a real smile—as he pat him on the arm happily.

Third in line was Aiwendil, who seemed to have gone all-out on the colour brown- hair and beard? Check. Robes? Check. Eyes? Check check. Verifiable nature boy. I could tell it was him because he seemed rather indifferent about the whole situation until he caught sight of a huge seagull strolling around on the dock. At this point, he suddenly became very animated, and Aiwendil bent down and picked it up like it was a pet chicken, where it sat placidly in his arms until the others had finished talking.

The other two, who looked like ancient twins clad in matching blue robes, were (unlike their clothing) rather nondescript sorts. They looked around from time to time, but I had a feeling they were the sorts who would show up to parties out of obligation and then sneak out at the earliest opportunity. Nice enough, but not really into it.

We all decided to make our way up to Círdan's house (which looked more like a mansion and functioned more like a hotel), Glorfindel and Círdan leading the way with Olórin. I was a short ways behind because I had intended to speak to Aiwendil about the possibilities of keeping a seagull as a riverine pet (I had been bugging Elrond to let me keep a pet in my room for ages to no avail).

Before I could drop far back enough to start talking with him, though, I started hearing words in a intimately familiar language that I had never spoken before. It was Valarin, the language of the Valar and the Maiar. I kept my gaze out on the ships, away from the others, and kept listening.

"Aiwendil, cease your foolish interactions with animals. You are diminishing our presence here!"

"What does it matter, Curumo? We are not here to try to match Sauron's power, and are not forbidden from enjoying ourselves. Manwë only asked us to play our part in helping the peoples here!"

I heard a noise of disgust come from Curumo. I looked around and raised my eyebrows at him. He met my eyes and with another feigned smile, he said, "Do excuse me. I am a little unwell after the long trip." He had no idea I had picked up on anything except the noise.

I played along, nodding. "Oh, my, yes it has been a long trip. Perhaps some wine will calm your stomach."

Curumo gave me the sort of unctuous, falsely grateful look that would have made a horse start to retch, and for the safety of my own stomach, I shot him a tiny, quick smile and looked away.

People who are unscrupulously power-hungry have funny ways of distinguishing themselves outwardly. They are usually charming and can construct an excellent presence when around powerful people. In those brief moments that they are left alone with those with less power, though, the mask falls right off. I had a bad feeling about Curumo, and wasn't sure how to proceed.

Dinner followed shortly after, and as we all sat at the table together, things seemed to go as I had anticipated they would. Curumo subtly dominated the conversation, the other would-be participants only getting their piece in with difficulty, Aiwendil was absorbed in trying to train a hermit crab he'd found, and the boys in blue sat there like the Grady twins.

I internally shook my head. Curumo was meant to be the leader of this group of itinerant magicians, but he had absolutely no desire to engage the others at all. I had my doubts that he had much in the way of empathy, but people don't need empathy to understand the wisdom (and benefits to themselves) in good communication and caring leadership that encourages all members to flourish. This guy was just a selfish twit.

There was not a hint of shame in my head as I started twisting song lyrics to insult Saruman while said wizard continued rambling and cutting others off. I'd just made one up I was incredibly proud of ("He's an extreme-age dirtbag, baby," in case you were curious), when Cirdan asked me if I was all right. Turned out I was smiling like a fool as I mentally pat my back for my lyrical manipulations. The table went quiet and looked at me. I got the impression they had been talking about a rather heavy subject when I zoned out, so I had to cover my bases.

I shrank my smile into a small, apologetic one. "I'm sorry, I got a little distracted," I admitted. "Truth be told (it absolutely was not), I was thinking about how happy I was to finally meet you all. There are some worrisome times ahead, and your presence in Middle-Earth will really bolster our efforts against Sauron."

This seemed to sit well with them, and the conversation continued.