Disclaimer: All Tolkien's, none mine.
A/N: I am awfully sorry for this long, long wait, but the Muse fled on many wings due to the Return of the King anxieties and now that I have it over and done with, and liked it, I am feeling much better. Save for the fact that Glorfindel still does not appear, but that is inconsequential. Anyhow, here is another chapter of Time, and do drop a review. Feed the Glorfindel. It will ease your aching conscience. *laughs*
*
Ren sat in her room, idly reading a chapter off the Return of the King. She wondered if things had changed back home. She wondered what she had missed, or if time had stayed still. Time, sigh sighed. All she had was time, and all her time was running out. She looked down at her text in dismal moods, and read the first line that came to her sight:
'Earnur now rode back, but Glorfindel, looking into the gathering dark, said: "Do not pursue him! He will no return to this land. Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall." These words many remembered; but Earnur was angry, desiring only to be avenged for his disgrace.'
Ren paused.
'Not by the hand of man,' she said softly to herself. 'But of course by the hands of a woman.'
She sighed. She was not made for this. Was not made for traipsing off her own dimension and time and reality to come crashing down into Middle-Earth during a period of war and deceit, where no one could trust and no one was trusted save a few who were in fellowship. The gathering darkness could be seen from all angles, and even here in the middle of Mirkwood, it could be felt. Dol Guldur in the south festered by each day, spewing forth all manners of those evil and beyond redemption. And far to the east, Gondor lay, and farther than that, Mordor. Ren shut her book with a deep sigh. She was not meant to affect worlds. She wondered if the Fellowship were as they were meant to be, if Boromir was truly dead, if Frodo had reached Cirith Ungol, or if Osgiliath had fallen.
'Thirteen months,' she muttered darkly. 'Thirteen months. And I am not one to change any of it.'
Could a cut bowstring matter? Could any of the fallacies that she and her friends have committed mattered, in the long run?
Ren did not know. She hung her head and turned to the east. Maybe she did not want to know.
The silmaril lay on her bedside table, still wrapped tightly in cloth and leather thongs. The human took a deep breath.
'And Varda hallowed the Silmarils, so that thereafter no mortal flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will might touch them, but it was scorched and withered; and Mandos foretold that the fates of Arda, earth, sea, and air, lay locked within them. The heart of Fëanor was fast bound to these things that he himself had made.'
The cloth bundle did not move. Trust it to ruin a cinematographic moment, but Ren at least comforted herself that it did not Mary-Sue-anize her in a fit of evil/good glee. With unsteady, but not trembling hands she unwrapped the oilskin cloth and looked at the jewel.
The silmaril was not made to be an innocuous thing. It was made to be taken notice of, to be beheld and worshipped. It was a thing of great beauty, and of great peril.
'Just like the Ring,' Ren said to nothing, as she resisted the urge to run her fingers along the lines and cuts of the great jewel. 'And I am not the only one to hold, and bear, this burden.' Her hand reached out. A touch would not hurt. She was not evil, or tainted. Just one touch.
And it burned. It burned like no other wound on earth, or Middle Earth for that matter, could possibly burn. Ren retracted her fingers with a yelp. She berated herself.
'I am not an elf, and neither will I become one. A life eternal is not a prospect I would look forward to, anyhow,' she said, her face scrunching up at the very thought. 'No,' she repeated to thin air, 'not for me.'
Carefully, Ren packed the Silmaril up and retied its bonds. A voice from the door startled her to the point of almost dropping it. Ecthelion leaned in the doorway, emulating Glorfindel in a manner that made Ren want to twitch uncomfortably.
'Breathtaking, isn't it?' the tall elf said, making a short but graceful inclination of his head towards the jewel. Ren swallowed and nodded. Ecthelion stepped into the room without invitation.
'It has done more than a little hurt over the years,' he continued, a Quenyan accent coming into the unfamiliar, unpractised Westron words.
'That could be seen as a gross understatement,' Ren replied weakly. She was not used to elves coming into her room to talk about world-shaping jewels. Ecthelion shrugged.
'Perhaps. But then again we are all temptation's fools.'
And then he was gone.
Ren shook her head.
'I am not made for this.'
*
'She has her many vices,' Ecthelion declared as he walked into the large chamber that he shared with Glorfindel. 'They all do.'
Glorfindel leaned back in his chair, nodding absently. 'Some, their arrogance, others, they ignorance. Most, their lack of courage.'
'If not all,' Ecthelion cut in.
'If not all,' Glorfindel agreed. 'They are young and foolish and headstrong,' he countered. 'Aurë i lómë.' [The day is passing.]
Ecthelion lifted his eyes from a elvish scripture he was looking at to glance at his friend.
'You speak gravely. It is not like you.'
'No,' Glorfindel admitted with a wry smile, 'I suppose not. But then, we are all cursed.'
'Now you sound downright pessimistic.'
The blond elf tucked a strand of hair behind his ears, a thoughtful look on his face.
'Maybe so,' he replied slowly, 'But foresight is a gift not easily interpreted.'
Ecthelion turned sharply, shutting the scripture with a quiet thud.
'You see things once more?'
Glorfindel shrugged in an almost offhanded manner.
'More clearly than I did in the past. Years around Mithrandir do have their effect, you know.'
'Then why aren't you smoking weed and poking your nose into all affairs?'
'I do not hold an affinity to pipes and my nose is not as long as Mithrandir's.'
Ecthelion guffawed slightly at the joke, but waved his hand in the air to return to the point.
'What is it that bothers you?'
'A flash of insight, you could call it. How can children handle these tasks? What happens when we reach Valinor? What happens when we place the weight of the death of those immortal in their hands?'
Ecthelion fell silent.
'Perhaps as children, their insight is more valuable than those who live a lifetime.'
'Our gaze is not narrowed by the chains of mortality.'
'Yet we are not freed from the path of eternity.'
The two elves fell silent, and they spoke no more.
*
Thranduil had taken his medicine, and he felt somewhat better. Nevermind that he had been to the lavatory sixteen times in a row, that was inconsequential. He felt better, regardless of his churning stomach, and he had taken a bath and done other kingly, opulent things in the three hour grace period that he had set down. He had pestered the palace gardeners to give him daffodils instead of daisies, and they had not wilted. Thranduil even managed to pass a bottle of wine, disregarding it in favour of assessing the situation with a clear mind.
The room was filled with expectant people. Humans and elves. Humans and noldor elves. Those crazy elves who slept in rooms with barely any doors! And on the ground, no less! This was a nightmare, and this nightmare was all contained in the little shell of his living room.
'You want my counsel,' Thranduil asked slowly, deliberately drawing out the syllables in an attempt to sound remotely like Elrond as he rolled the last word over and under his tongue. Diana barely stifled a giggle, but Thranduil assumed it was a cough. Need not puncture his newly stitched ego.
'Yes, my lord,' Ecthelion replied before Glorfindel had a chance to curb his sharp, almost anti-diplomatic sarcasm. 'We want your COunSEEEEL.'
Erestor coughed none-too-subtly, making a motion at Ecthelion to Glorfindel and smoothly cutting into the negotiations like the chief advisor he was.
'My lord Thranduil, he come to you for want of your say in things. We have already sought the views of both my lord Elrond Peredhel in Imladris and her lady Galadriel, Lady of Light, She Of the Mirror With Christmas Lights in Her Eyes, Etcetra, etcetra, of 'Lorien. Now we come to seek yours.'
'What part of my COUnSEllLL do you seek?' Thranduil threw back, not put off by Ecthelion's tongue-twisting interpretation of the word. Gildor erred on the side of caution and stepped in.
'We have with us the three Silmarilli,' the poor elf started, but never got to finish as Thranduil started suddenly, a daffodil falling into his eyes as it fell from his crown. The king fell into his native speech and replied.
'Edaved-im, Gildor, le pedo...? Silmaril?!' [Excuse me, Gildor, you say...?]
'Yes, my lord,' Gildor calmly proceed, in Westron for the sake of the humans, 'We want your counsel. We need it.'
'We know not whether it is wise to bring them across the shores to Valinor,' Glorfindel said, 'For it would arise only another Kinslaying, like those long ago.'
There was clear pain on the faces of the older elves in the room. Alqualonde, the burning of the ships as Losgar, the once-haven of Sirion.
Erestor shifted uncomfortably.
'We are not sure whether what we
are doing is right, my lord. In fact... We are not sure of what
we are to do at all.'