Imladris Revisited
By: DLR 2002
Disclaimer: Most characters owned by JRR Tolkien
Elrond/OFC
Rated: PG13- sexual situations and references
(M/F, M/M)

Chapter 12

Elrond was in his chamber the next evening, half undressed, contemplating going to bed early.  He was tired. Tired of worrying, tired of so much useless thought, looking forward to the escape and obliviousness of slumber, when there was a knock on the outer door.  "Lindir," he called. "The door, please." The only sound was another knock.

"Lindir," he said again. "Drat." He started to re-button his shirt as he walked to open the door. Culurien stood on the threshold. Elrond gazed at her in astonishment.

"Could I come in please?" she asked. "I would have a word with you privately."

He moved aside to allow her access and closed the door. He stared at her and waited, unable to speak.

She took a deep breath.  "I have come to apologize for the incident at the field last week, I am sorry I hit you, I was wrong to criticize you, please forgive me."

Her eyes never left the floor during this remarkable statement.

Now Elrond was truly speechless. He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back off his face.  "Apology accepted, although entirely unnecessary. On the contrary, it is I who must apologize, for my behavior was inexcusable."

"You did nothing but speak the truth," she said, still looking at the floor.

He reached out, lifted her chin up and looked in her eyes. He was not sure he liked what he saw there. He held her gaze, unblinking, for a moment. What was it? Resignation, defeat possibly. This was not a good sign.

Culurien placed her hands on Elrond's chest, and then slowly moved them upwards until they encircled the back of his neck. She tilted her head back, her eyes half closed, her lips parted slightly, pink and sensuous.

Elrond could no more refuse this invitation than a starving man could refuse a feast.  Their lips met in a hot embrace, their bodies pressed together tightly as his arms went around her, stroking her back and neck, pushing his hips against hers, his fingers running through her hair…

He opened his eyes and stopped kissing her. His hands grasped her arms at the wrist and pulled them down. He took a deep breath.  "Something is wrong," he said, looking at her with an odd expression on his face.

Culurien gazed at him in silence.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"Do you not want me here?"

"Answer the question," he insisted.  His eyes bored into her and she looked away.

"A week ago," he continued, "you had firm convictions about intimacy outside of marriage and now you offer yourself to me like any… what was your term? Doxy."

Her eyes filled with tears.  "I cannot seem to do anything right, I refuse you and you are angry, I accept you and you are angry.  Oh, Elrond Peredhil," she touched his face with her fingers.  "Why is there so much anger in you?"

He ignored her question. "Why are you here?"

"I only want to please you," she said.

His voice became heated.  "Then that is the problem, because that is not good enough a reason for abandoning your convictions."

He paused and stared at her a minute.  "Let me guess, I am the Lord of the House and you fear you have offended me, it will not do to offend the Lord, for he rules the fates of many. At any cost the Lord must be obeyed, happy, and satisfied. Woe to him that does not do the King's bidding."

He stopped suddenly, with a pained look on his face. "The Lord's bidding," he said more quietly.

During this exchange he had gripped her by the shoulders.

"Stop," she whispered. "You are frightening me."

He let go of her. He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. Culurien came slowly to the table and sat across from him, concerned at his troubled aspect.

He looked up and reached for her hand.  "Linariel, be here because you want it to be so. I would never, never ask of you something you would not give freely. Whatever your reasons, do it for you, not for me."

She was not convinced.  "So you say now.  What if I did refuse you? In time you would come to resent me. By one means or another, my life here would become untenable, and to be quite honest, I have no where else to go."

"Did I not say to you at our first meeting, that you may call Imladris your home until the end of days?" he asked.

"Things change," she answered.

"But you forget, I have knowledge of the future, and I do not make idle statements. Linariel, you must trust me in this."

He paused and drew a deep breath. "I have been in the same situation you are in now and I know exactly how you feel."

She looked at him with cold skepticism in her eyes.  "I am sorry to doubt you, my Lord, but I do not see how that could be possible."

Elrond studied the table for a while.

"I will tell you a story," he said with a sigh. "It is not an easy one to tell and so I have never told it before. At the end you will feel differently about me. You may possibly lose all respect for me; I know I did, for myself, at the time." He looked up.

"But I will tell it anyway, for either way I will lose you, so there is no difference, except that one way is the path of honesty and one way is not. Hopefully, I have learned from past mistakes." He took another deep breath and began.

"My brother Elros and I were four years old when we were stolen from my mother. My father was at sea at the time. Out of grief she threw herself in the ocean, possibly you are acquainted with the story, it is well known.  We were probably very lucky that Maglor, son of Fëanor did not slay us in revenge for the loss of the silmaril that my mother had in her keeping. Eventually, we were returned to our own people.

"Gil-galad was High King of all the Noldor in Middle-earth and at Lindon was his throne. He was my kinsman, being the cousin of my grandmother, Idril Celebrindal, daughter of Turgon, King of Gondolin that was no more. Therefore, he assumed responsibility for me."

"This took place sometime before the fall of Thangorodrim, after which the Lords of the Valar made us choose to which kindred we would belong. Elros eventually went to Númenor with the Edain and I remained at Lindon with Gil-galad."

Elrond sighed.

"In the beginning, he was my father, my teacher, my mentor, my friend. He was the most important person in the world to me and I loved him dearly. Eventually, though, he took my love and he killed it. He took my innocence and he destroyed it… he betrayed my trust."

Elrond put his face in his hands. His hair fell forward and Culurien reached over and pushed several strands back behind his ear, her hand lingering there for a moment. She said nothing. He looked up after a while and continued.

"Yes, he betrayed my trust in him," Elrond said. "I did not know it at the time, but I know it now."

He leaned his chin on his hand and his eyes took on a far away expression.

"I was twenty-eight* when it happened," he said, "Older than Estel actually, but still very young by our reckoning. Young, innocent, naive and trusting, I was all of that. I came to realize later it was those qualities that attracted him, for when they were gone… well, I jump ahead.

"So, Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor decided to take his foster son, Elrond Peredhil, as his lover. What does one do? What does one say? He was the King, one does not refuse the King; it was not an option.  I loved him and I trusted him. He would not do anything to hurt me, or so I thought.

"But it was wrong, so very wrong," he whispered. "Mostly because of my extreme youth and the position of trust he held with me, partly because although I loved him, I did not love him in that way.

"At the time, however, I did not know it was wrong, all I knew was that he was the King and it was my duty to do as he bid me. I owed everything to him.

"So, he did with me as he wished.  I will not say it was entirely unpleasant, for at times it was not. It was not as though he was disagreeable to me, for I loved him, and only wanted to please him. He was always more concerned with his own pleasure than mine and that was something of a relief, for I am not sure I could have responded in the way he might have wished.

"And so this went on for some time and I endured it, foolishly believing that he loved me, that he loved me alone and no other, that I was his 'grand passion,' if you will. It was, after all, quite a privileged position. Eventually, though, my fragile tower of cards came crashing down.

"I came into his chamber one day and found him enjoying the company of another. Needless to say, I was in shock. He actually had the audacity to invite me to join them.

"Now that should have been the end of the story, but it is not, and it was at this point that I abandoned all self-esteem.

"It turned out that Gil-galad was not rejecting me in favor of another, but that there had always been others and I was not the object of his love so much, as the object of his lust.

"He desired me still, and I allowed it. I allowed it to continue," he whispered.

"I should have called an end to it right then and there, king or no king. I was older, no longer naive and fast becoming jaded. But courage I lacked to defy him. Eventually, he became aware of the harm he was doing and bothered me no more.

"I was angry at the time, and I am still angry that I was not the one to stop it, that I never confronted him with my feelings, that I did nothing to curb the resentment that was growing inside me, that I never demanded an apology or an explanation from him. Of course eventually it became too late, and it eats at me still, even after all these long years. End of story," he said, not looking at her.

"Is it?" Culurien asked gently. "What is there between you and Glorfindel?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Ah, very perceptive you are, my lady. It was he I discovered with the King in his chamber."

"Is that all?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," he said quickly. After a pause, "actually, no," he sighed. "Glorfindel became enamored of me as well. Him, I denied, but he would not take no for an answer.  Eventually he plied me with alcohol and wore me down. I felt like a common whore anyway, what difference did it make? But it did make a difference in the end and he knew it."

"How did he know?" she asked.

"It turned out to be a lot more than we both had bargained for and I wept for the rest of the night," he answered vaguely.

She looked at him for a long moment.  "Was he sorry?"

"Yes," he said. "He was sorry and he tried to comfort me."

"And you became friends after that?"

"Well, it was more of shared experiences on the battle-field that brought that about. One does not go through conflicts such as the War of Wrath, Dagorlad, or the siege of Orodruin without forging certain bonds," said he. There was a pause.

"You have never told this story to anyone else?" she asked. He shook his head.

"Why did you not tell Celebrían?  There should not be secrets of this sort between husband and wife."

"It was not intended to be a secret," said Elrond. "There just never seemed to be any reason to bring it up. In hindsight, though, it appears she should have been told, reason or no."

"Would you have told me, if our reason did not exist?"

"Maybe," he said. "Glorfindel has been putting pressure on me to do so. I suppose he does not want to see history repeat itself."

"I do not follow you," Culurien said. "There is more to this than you are saying."

Elrond sighed. "This is what happened, I did not tell Celebrían, she found out.  Perhaps it would have been different, coming from me, who knows. She overheard a conversation just before she left for Lothlórien, the time she was attacked. She confronted me with it, but she did not have all of the facts straight and she would not listen to any explanation. She did not know how young I was with Gil-galad and she seemed to think the relationship with Glorfindel was on-going, that I had cheated on her our entire marriage.  We were not on good terms before this and I think she chose to believe the worst as an excuse to leave and never come back. She was always much happier in Lothlórien."

He pushed his hair back off his face and his eyes met hers.

"Well," he said with sarcasm in his voice, "What is the verdict? Any questions, comments, snide remarks?"

Culurien tried to hold his eyes, but he looked away.

"You have torn down a wall with one hand, a very large, thick wall. Now you try to build it again with the other," she said quietly. "Why?"

Elrond folded his hands and stared at them.  "I am afraid to hear what you might say."

She rose and came around the table to sit next to him. She laid his head on her shoulder, putting her arms around him.

"I would say to thee, Healer, look to thine own medicine, for you are blameless in this matter. Be at peace," she whispered. "As for your regrets and your anger, now that you have voiced them, perhaps the pain will ease somewhat."

He sat up. "Perhaps.  All I know for certain is that I am weary beyond words, or is it that so many words have made me weary? Sorry, a poor jest, I am going to bed."  He stood, looking at her.  "Will you stay for a short while and sing to me?"

She smiled up at him. "Certainly, Lord, if you wish it."

He froze and then smiled weakly. "Another poor jest." He walked over to the bed, took off the clothes he wore and got beneath the blankets. He stole a quick glance at her. She sat very still, staring at him.

"Linariel," he whispered.

"What?" she asked, coming out of her daze with a start. "Oh, yes," she murmured and sitting next to him, she sang a quiet song to him as he closed his eyes and relaxed. His breathing became deep and rhythmic at once. Culurien quietly sang every song she knew as she watched him sleep.

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*Thirteen, by human reckoning.