"I should not be surprised," Gil-Galad voiced, venom coating every whispered word as he stepped from Eönwë's tent, "that they would do such a thing again. I should not be surprised, but I am."
Elanor shrugged as well as she could from where she sat on the ground outside the tent, her knees were tucked into her chest and her arms wrapped around them. The scent of blood was still lingering in the air from when Maedhros and Maglor killed for the two remaining Silmarils. She was grateful that Elrond and Elros had been and still were sleeping off the fatigue of the battle.
"I am not," she muttered and closed her eyes. "I was the one to warn you all after all. Perhaps if I had not, no one would have been killed this time," she added, not even bothering to hide the bitter guilt laced in her voice before she put her head down on her knees and arms.
"Those deaths were no one's fault but theirs," Gil-Galad hissed. Elanor wondered if he would have shouted had they not been trying to keep their voices down. He sighed and though it was barely audible, it seemed to sound in her ears like the ringing of a bell. "We would have placed a guard outside the tent whether you had told us your worries or not."
"Is it wrong of me," Elanor couldn't keep the choking sound of her words from her voice but she pushed through, "to want to excuse them even the slightest bit? Because I know how their oath was a living thing and how it tormented them. So I do take blame, however much you would argue otherwise. Perhaps if I had suggested there not be a guard instead of just warning you they would attempt to take them three elves might still be alive." She let out a viscously sour laugh. "To think they made it through the entire war only to die after it was over."
"It was their choice, Elanor, and no one else's," and there was the tone of kingly finality. But he didn't know, couldn't know. He hadn't had to live with them, didn't see how they were when not focused on the oath, when it slept as much as it could.
He didn't know how they were caring. That Maedhros could be witty and whip smart, and loved to tangle with words. That the music Maglor could call up was the most beautiful thing Elanor had ever heard or felt. He didn't know that Maglor's hands—stained with the blood of kin though they were—could be gentle in healing touch, and quick on a harp. He didn't know that each was a patient teacher with whatever they taught and they had taught her and her brothers so much. Everything.
Everything had been made real for her in this world because of two sons of Fëanor in a way that her brothers, two years older in body they may be, could not have made real.
"Their oath," Elanor resisted the urge to let the wetness coating her eyes fall. She would not cry, not now, not in front of anyone. "Their oath was horrid, I could see it. I could feel it." She pasued. How best to put it? "In the Unseen realm."
He inhaled sharply at her admission. "What do you mean?" the words were dragged slowly out of his mouth, quietly.
She'd never told either of the brothers nor her own—though she thought Elrond and Elros could also see and feel some of what she did—but her magic added a layer to her senses that neither of the others had. It felt and looked like a dark, twisted curse which had mutated and grown sentient with malice. She didn't know how to tell Gil-Galad, High King of the Noldor in Middle-Earth, any of that, however. He was not aware of her talents, only Maedhros and Maglor had been aware, and later on Elrond and Elros somewhat. But only Maedhros and Maglor had known the whole truth as she just couldn't bring herself to tell her brothers that she was both less and more than their sister in truth.
Bodily, yes she was their sister. But soul? Her Fëa? Perhaps a part of it was, but not fully. She had brought her soul, her memories, her magic, with her when she'd been reincarnated into this world, and though her brothers knew she was more, they did not know how she was. They only knew she was different.
"Morgoth twisted everything," she finally said. "Does it not stand to reason that he twisted the Oath of Fëanor just as well? Especially as it called for action, for war, to be brought to him by the very people he despised and stole from?"
Silence.
"Is it not logical that he could twist something, even said in anger and madness, which was meant to be a driving force against him, to work for his own ends, against his enemies?" Elanor took a deep breath as she turned her head to look at him. He was sitting next to her, his bright eyes looking at her as if he'd never seen her before, though she did wonder what he was seeing now. "Neither of us knew them before the Noldor left Valinor, but I have since spoken to those who did. Do you know what most say, if pressed enough?"
He shook his head. "All who speak of them speak ill of them."
"Ah, well," Elanor breathed out. "They say that the princes they knew could never have been so cruel, so…marred as to slay kin, to rip families apart, or any of the horrible things they did. Fëanor himself? By the end, they'd said, it would have been a shock, but not so against his parts of his character, his madness. But not his sons." She paused. "That is what the oath did to them. It was not a simple phrase which bound them only by honor, it was alive."
She had to give this…cousin of hers credit, though the horror on his face was plain, he did not flinch back from her as her words became more passionate, though still whispered.
"It was like a dark miasma made solid to form chains, binding them and dragging them around, messing with their minds and there was only so long it could be put to sleep before it would wake again more terrible and cruel before. It was a torture as sure as any that Morgoth or Sauron devised. Worse, still, because even to the end they believed they continued to choose to be bound by the oath. Maedhros tried to forswear it, you know? I'm sure you've heard that tale. Or not. It only held stronger to him, coiled the shackles tighter around him."
There was a long, tense silence as Elanor just stared at him, and she wondered what he saw in her eyes, heard in her voice, that caused him to look away from her.
"I—I don't know what to say to that," he finally said. "I don't think anyone would believe it, sadly."
"You mean you don't know whether or not to believe it," Elanor said in a flat tone and knew her gaze would be burning through him if he but looked her way. He still probably felt it even so.
"No," he sighed. "I don't know what to believe." He paused and shook his head, keeping his gaze on the sky. "I have you three children—"
"We are not children," she interrupted coldly as she lifted her head up. "We have not been children for some time now, regardless of chronological age. War does not allow for children to remain so for very long."
"Fair enough," he acknowledged with a nod of his head. "But I have you and your brothers…well not really saying much, this is the first any of you have openly spoke on the matter, but you three with one experience of them, and the rest of elvendom with another view of them. You cannot hope to think you will change others' minds."
"Of course not," she snorted bitterly. "Elves do not like to think in shades of grey. You are either dark or light, good or evil, black or white. Complicated means messy. And people would rather have very defined lines for everything. Even the Valar are not so…one dimensional, little as they seem to understand the Children of Ilúvatar."
He did look at her then, somewhat surprised, though whether by the embittered tone of her voice or the actual words, she didn't know. "Is this—is this why Elros chose the Gift of Men?"
Partly, Elanor thinks. Though that is not all, she knows. She doesn't think even she would ever begin to guess all of his motives for choosing the fate he did, and she had wanted to choose the same as he, but was not permitted to do so.
"Does there always have to be only one reason why anyone does anything?" she finally asked, tired. She was just so, so tired. And she had so, so long to live.
Forever. Eternity. Until the end of the world, and even then.
"I—no. No, I suppose not." How much older is he than I? Elanor wondered. High King Gil-Galad had to be centuries…she didn't know exactly how old he was in truth, and yet he still seemed so terribly young in some ways.
Elanor smirked, though the smirk was a cruel, cynical thing. "Elves," she said shaking her head.
His eyebrows furrowed, creating a crease of confusion between them. "Why did you not choose as Elros then?"
Because I couldn't. "I'll have plenty of time to travel this way," Elanor replied, thinking it was at least a truth she could offer.
Yes, she would go travelling. Elrond could be a Lord and Gil-Galad's Herald, and she…she could just escape. It wasn't like she had any duties that others couldn't do. And she was female. She was not about to allow any sycophants, or worse, prejudiced, stuck-in-their-ways elven lords to chain her down and try to shape her into what they thought she should be. Princess of two elven lines or not.
The Noldor had Gil-Galad, and even Elrond, for she knew he would stay with the king. The Sindar had Oropher, and Amdir, and even a few others. And Elros would be a king of Men. She'd been raised by Kinslayers anyway, so the Sindar probably wouldn't want her ruling them anyway, and she had no desire to rule a kingdom in any case.
Really, what else could she be but an oddity and an outcast? She was a soul who'd been remade by being born into Arda as the daughter of Eärendil and Elwing, She was a princess who'd become a warrior, and she'd always be one—even if she'd never wanted to become one in either life she'd lived. She was too headstrong and independent and in a society, a civilization as…feudal as the Elves—and Men—of this Age, of the coming Ages, were, she'd always be a strange anomaly.
"You don't plan to sail? Or stay in Lindon?" His question nearly took her off guard, so lost in her thoughts as she was.
"No," she answered quickly. Perhaps too quickly. "The war is over. Peace has come, and I haven't exactly had the ability to travel anywhere since…well ever really. Moving camp all the time, avoiding armies, taking part in battle, none of that I count as traveling. If Beleriand hadn't been broken and sunk, I would have spent decades simply traveling around. I'm sure there are other places in this newly shaped land that are worth exploring too, if not the great kingdoms of Beleriand."
And oh, if she regretted anything about being born into Arda when she had been, it had been that. She would have loved to see Menegroth, would have been delighted to see Gondolin—if not delighted to be forced to stay there—and Nargothrong, Hithlum, Nevrast, Mithrim, and all the rest. She could have easily spent the entirety of the First Age journeying around the whole of Beleriand visiting kingdoms and lands which had been built—at least without the battles and wars.
"And will you be going alone?" his tone was, well if she could describe it, he sounded both wary and slightly horrified.
"Don't worry," she huffed. "I don't plan on dragging Elrond around with me when I know he doesn't wish to do as I want to. He will stay with you, have no fear."
"That's not—I did not," he sputtered. How kingly. "I only meant that just because the war is over and Morgoth chained and taken…away, there are still remnants of the enemy. It is not quite that safe yet."
Elanor rolled her eyes. "I killed a Balrog," she said baldly. "Elrond helped just as much, sure, but I doubt that the fleeing packs of orcs or whatever else will be organized enough to pose too much a problem." She eyed him with a hard stare. "I am capable of protecting myself you know."
"Still," he insisted, "I would have you with us."
Elanor arched a brow. "I owe no fealty to anyone." There were times, she thought wryly, that it truly did pay to be a princess of both the Noldor and the Sindar, all the while each had their own rulers who were most emphatically not her.
Surprisingly he laughed, though it seemed a bit uncomfortable. "No, of course you don't. Neither does Elrond, though he's tried to swear it to me already," he said. Well, that was Elrond for you, he needed something like that for a purpose. Elanor, she just wanted to exist for a while. She did not want to belong to anyone like that .
"I know," she said, her tone soft. "He won't leave it alone, you know. He takes those things very seriously, oaths and promises."
That sobered him. "Yes," he said gravely, "I know."
Elanor turned away from him, looking out over the broken, burned, and ravaged landscape. Ash was falling, and probably would for some time. "I just want to be free."
"Well, to your freedom then," he sounded amused. "Though I don't have any wine to go with such a toast."
Freedom. Would she ever be free? She'd already had one major—probably the most major—life choice taken from her by higher powers than herself.
"Maybe some other time," she muttered. "Besides, I'm not sure there's any good wine around here anyway."