A/N: I felt like writing about Glorfindel. (He is one of my very favorite characters.) So, voila! This happened. It is supposed to be from the pov of a maiden of Gondolin who survived the seige because of Glorfindel's sacrifice. Apparently she felt a little more than gratitude for him...
Enjoy.
Disclamer: Everything except the thoughts of the girl is Tolkien's - yada yada yada.
Some things never change.
My mother told me that before she died. I had been crying for her; for everything. For the flames eating our Gondolin alive, for the screams of children and the fright in everyone's eyes. I had told her that I thought things would never be the same now. I told her I thought things could never go back to the way they once were.
She told me that even through war and the passing of ages, some things never change.
Then she died.
I suppose she was right. Some things never do change.
When I lived in Gondolin I prided myself from being different from the other maidens – except in one thing. I couldn't stop myself from mooning over Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower.
No one could.
It's no wonder. The Elf was a beauty even by our standards. Hair as golden as the sun as it sets, eyes the color of lakes at twilight, and an infectious smile. He was brave too. I think we all daydreamed about being rescued from Balrogs by him.
But we never thought we'd watch him die doing just that.
I remember him falling from that cliff, his golden hair catching fire and his face triumphant but scared.
I cried for him for many years. I really had loved him, in a foolish, girlish way.
Some things never change.
He's come back. In some miraculous twist of fate, he has come back from he Halls of Mandos, and my infatuation with him has not changed.
But he has.
His hair is still golden, his eyes are still a dusky blue, but his smile is not quite as catching, his laugh not quite as merry.
There is a sadness about him sometimes, and his laugh is like time: precious but fleeting, and it makes me sorrowful. Every once and a while his eyes take on a haunted look, and once I heard him scream in his sleep.
He never comes near fire anymore, either. He never reads after daylight, because he fears the flame of a candle.
And he flinches when we praise his golden hair.
The Balrog's flames were golden too, he tells us. Gondolin was golden as it burned to the ground.
Gold is the color of a city catching fire, gold is the color I saw as I died. It is the color that fills my memories of my city's ruin.
All this he tells us, in a suddenly hollow, haunted voice.
The Glorfindel I once knew was a noble Elf who loved to sing and dance, and could laugh at anything – anything at all. The Glorfindel I once knew was golden.
You were right, mother. Some things never change, like a young maiden's infatuation with a legend, or the color of a hero's hair. Some things never change.
But some things do.
There you have it. Review, please.
Kiricat