Chapter Seventy-Six: Friends, Foes and Forgiveness

Anxiously wiping the tears from his face, Elrond I hurried along beside his godson, in his young uncles' wake, with Mandos following unobtrusively behind. The half-elf stared all around him in rapidly-mounting wonderment; this place was somehow similar to Sirion, Mithlond, Imladris, Lothlórien and Greenwood at the same time. Vairë's tapestries served well to complete this perfection. And still they had only just crossed the threshold.

Through wide stone halls and beneath lush trees, across a rushing river and in the glow of the moon and stars, Elrond and his kindred wandered through the Doomsman's dwelling. The round moon lit their path almost as brightly as the glaring of the noontime sun. They met the spirits of other elves as they passed; all of them were strangers to Elrond, though Eluréd and Elurín seemed to know them all very well.

Elurín suddenly darted far ahead of his comrades, calling back to them in a high-pitched, elated voice. "We're almost there! She's right by the fountain, like always!"

"Is that you, Elurín?" laughed a cheerful female voice in reply. "Who have you brought with you now?"

"Lord Mandos, Eluréd, and two new friends!" Eluréd replied cheerily as they approached a corner. "One of them claims that he knew you when you were alive. His name is Lord Elrond the First!"

There was the briefest possible instant of total silence, and then a hasty whispering sound of running feet against grass. A small white figure seemingly crowned with flaring flames all but flew around the corner, finally skidding to a halt about a foot from Elrond I. There, she breathlessly bobbed a curtsy, brushing her fiery hair back from her bright blue eyes as she did. She was every bit as well-mannered, not to mention every bit as beautiful, as the half-elf remembered her to be. Death had never seemed so sweet.

"Lord Elrond," Caranel the First breathed, apparently just as unable to believe her eyes as Elrond I himself was. "You're here." Liquid-crystal tears were visible in her eyes, but she was smiling. Elrond I understood her mixed emotions completely.

"Yes," he replied in a whisper. "I'm here. I never imagined I'd see this day come to pass, but here we are, almost like these past Ages never happened. The years have been kind to you." Kinder than they've been to me, he added without saying a word.

Caranel nodded, tears dripping down her face. She laughed rather hoarsely through them, mopping her cheeks self-consciously with her sleeve. "I don't know whether I should feel happy because I'm finally seeing you again, or sad because you're just as dead as I am."

"Neither do I, believe me," Elrond agreed. He gazed tenderly into her face and sighed, "I can't believe you're here. You had your whole life ahead of you, and it was all torn away from you by a Kinslayer's sword, in a blow that was really meant for me… I still haven't fully forgiven myself."

"But it wasn't your fault," Caranel insisted, her eyes sparking with a mingled emotion he didn't quite recognize. "And besides…" Her gaze softened. "I'm totally happy here. You know the saying about death: he or she has 'gone to a better place'? Well, this place is a hundred times better than anything I could ever dream of."

Elrond I smiled warmly. "I'm happy for you."

Caranel's cheeks flushed bright pink – another well-known sight. "Thank you very much. Oh, I have to take you to see… you're never going to believe…" Her blush bypassed five shades of scarlet and settled on maroon, and she turned away, just as a very familiar male voice rang out behind them, from a tall figure who was striding briskly toward them.

"Entertaining Lord Mandos' newest arrivals again, eh, Caranel? You do that every single time someone comes along…"

For a long time Elrond I thought he'd swallowed his tongue. The ellon approaching them was tall, with a mane of long red hair, and grey eyes, like flakes of stone. A white seven-pointed star was embroidered upon his tunic, and a deep blue cloak fell to his ankles. But the elf's arms ended at the wrists, totally handless. His sleeves had been sewn together at the cuffs to conceal the stumps from view.

Elrond I allowed the ellon's name to escape his lips in a disbelieving whisper.

"Maedhros?"

Maedhros – for it was indeed he – stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes found Elrond I and locked onto him, as what little color there was in his face hastily vanished, and he gasped, "Eärendil? Lord Eärendil?"

"No," the elder half-elf replied, shaking his head. "My name is Lord Elrond the First. But I believe I am the one you're thinking of, as you never learned my proper name while you were alive. You seemed quite comfortable with calling me Eärendil, so I left it at that."

"Lord… Elrond," Maedhros repeated slowly, stepping hesitantly forward. "It's you… I… I don't know what to…" The dead Kinslayer's voice and body both shook perceptively.

"…to say?" Elrond I finished for him. "You don't have to say a word, Maedhros. I am the one who has a lot of explaining to do. Explaining… and confessing.

"I am the reason you're here, Maedhros. After Caranel died, I knocked you unconscious, remember? But the wound went much deeper than I thought. I attempted to heal you after the funeral that Maglor and I held together for Caranel, but the consequences of that were horrifying for all of us. You went… insane. You attacked Maglor and me, and we fought back out of instinct. I cut off your left hand, and you tried to tear my throat out with your teeth. I knocked you unconscious again, and that time I left you to bleed and die. And…" He bowed his head in profound, genuine remorse. "I'm sorry."

Maedhros was silent for a long time, his eyes wide with amazement. Eventually he found his voice again. "Well, um… that explains a lot…"

Elrond I nodded; what else could he do? There was a lengthy span of awkward silence, in which quite a bit of self-conscious fidgeting and shuffling was done, until Caranel timidly broke the thick quiet.

"Well, now, I suppose we all… understand each other a little better. Lord Elrond, and… Lord Elrond," she nodded to Elrond I and II, even as she moved to Maedhros' right side, "this is who I had wanted you to see. We've both been here for quite a long time, and we both have learned – at least I think we have – to put the past far behind us. We've grown fairly close, Maedhros and I."

This time, Elrond I was in no doubt that he had swallowed his tongue. After opening and closing his mouth mutely several times in succession, he gave voice to a weak half-laugh. "That explains a lot, too." He grinned down at Eluréd, who hadn't spoken in a long while. "So, that's the reason for the…" He imitated the expression his uncle had worn earlier, at the first mention of Maedhros.

Eluréd sniggered. "Exactly."

"But that's all in the past now," the elder half-elf continued, looking into Maedhros' face again. "Everything is absolved, isn't it? We can accept what happened, and move on." He held out his right hand to his former enemy, who stared blankly at it for a moment before offering the stump of his right arm. Smiling, Elrond shook it, loosening his grip a little bit as Maedhros grimaced. "Am I hurting you?"

"It always hurts," the redheaded elf replied, his mouth twisted into a half-wince, and half-smile. "Serves me right, though, doesn't it, for everything I did in my cursed life?"

Elrond I had no comeback to this. He was spared the requirement, however, when a male voice called Maedhros' name, and no less than six ellyn came around the corner. Three of them had ebony hair, two were redheads, and one sported silvery locks. Maedhros smiled when he spotted them, and embraced them one by one, or at least tried to. The second of the black-haired elves immediately sidestepped Maedhros as the handless elf approached. Maedhros merely nodded to him and moved on.

"Lord Elrond," he said in a voice more pleasant than any he had used while he was alive, "these are my brothers: Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, Amrod and Amras; and here is my nephew, Curufin's son Celebrimbor."

The five sons of Fëanor nodded curtly as Elrond inclined his head to them, and the son of Curufin smiled cordially and came forward a few paces. The elder half-elf embraced him as kindly as he would a brother, but a huge pang of guilt twisted his heart. He looked into the silver-haired elf's deep blue eyes and started to speak, but Celebrimbor cut across him just as his lips had parted.

"I know exactly what you're going to say," the jewelsmith said candidly, "and I have two words for you: forget it. What's done is done. You don't have to feel any guilt about what you did. The one thing I owe you, Lord Elrond the First, is probably the strangest debt in the world. It was because of your actions that my soul ended up here in paradise, and not deep in the Void with the wraiths who nearly turned me into one of them. Thank you very much for that."

"You're… you're very welcome," Elrond replied faintly. How on earth was he supposed to come up with a response to that? Celebrimbor seemed to sense his nervousness, and he smiled in reassurance.

"It's all right," he insisted gently. "You don't need to say anything. I fully understand."

Elrond I nodded, breathing deeply through his nose to calm himself. "Thank you."

The half-elf turned his head unexpectedly, his sniffs growing fairly fretful. "Is something burning?"

Caranel gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh! I left a batch of muffins in the oven! Please excuse me!"

Bobbing a curtsy to them all and whirling about, the elleth rushed back around the corner she had come from in the first place, leaving the others in an exceptionally uncomfortable silence. Elrond I marveled idly at the way Caranel never dispelled politeness for the sake of urgency.

A few minutes later, Caranel burst into sight again, now holding a basket nearly brimful with sweet-smelling, golden-brown muffins. The girl herself was rather out of breath and flushed, but victorious. "I saved them! Would you like some? Careful, they're hot…"

Caranel shyly passed the basket around, waiting for an opinion of the result of her efforts. She regarded Elrond I especially, knowing that he had been quite partial to her muffins in his life. Her eyes lingered on his face as he took a careful bite of the proffered snack.

Elrond I couldn't help but weep a single tear, as the familiar sweet-and-spicy flavor of the muffin burst on his tongue like a blessing. The honey had been baked right into the dough this time, he soon discovered, but he still didn't know the name of the unusual seasoning she used. He swallowed his mouthful, blinking as Caranel asked, "How is it?"

"Hot," the elf gasped through his thoroughly-scorched throat. But he managed a smile as he added, "And a hundred times as delicious as I remember these muffins to be."

Caranel's face flamed at the praise, and burned even brighter as Mandos quietly accepted a muffin from the tray, smiled mildly as he bit into it, and nodded appreciatively. "These are better than before," he agreed with Elrond I. "Oh, please do stop being so modest," he scolded the blushing elleth gently. This made her face turn even redder as she curtsied.

"Why don't we take a walk while we eat?" Mandos suggested, raising his voice a little so the others could hear. "I am sure Elrond and Elrond would like to continue their tour…"

Nibbling their muffins and talking between bites as they walked, the thirteen companions strolled casually on. While Elurín attached himself to Caranel like an ant to honey, Eluréd asked Elrond I and II very politely about his long-lost sister. The half-elf answered all his uncle's queries as candidly as he could, summing up the many years he'd spent with her. The boy was still throughout the narrative, but after a time he posed the very last question Elrond had been expecting.

"Are you only visiting here like Elwing did? Are you going to go back and be with her?"

Elrond II tried to soften the inevitable blow. "After a little while, yes, we'll go back. Just not yet. Lord Mandos promised Elrond and I that we could stay here for a whole day – no more, and no less. We arrived here right at midnight, and we have until next midnight. So for the next twenty-three hours or so we're going to live for the moment. Well, not live in that sense, but you know what I mean…" He attempted a smile.

Eluréd nodded. "I can 'live' with that, I suppose."

Both elves laughed as the stress between them was broken. Freed from their somberness, they joined in gladly with the others' merriment. But after several minutes Elrond I's ears strained to discern another conversation from a distance away. The voices he heard were tremendously familiar, but he couldn't see their owners, so he couldn't be really sure at first. But when one of the speakers' names was mentioned, all Elrond's doubts vanished.

"…I've told you time and time again, Gil-galad, Elrond can take care of himself."

"All right, all right, don't get your beard in knots. But I can't help but worry. Who knows what happened when the Second Age ended? We haven't had any new arrivals here since then, have we?"

The figures' shadows came into sight on the grass, and Elrond's heart leapt into his throat when he saw familiar silhouettes. The voices continued:

"I've heard about two newcomers, actually," said the first speaker. "Apparently they both got here tonight. I didn't catch any names, but I'm certain it's not Elrond."

"Would you be willing to wage your life on that?" Elrond I spoke up, stepping forth with his godson at his side, just as Gil-galad and the other speaker came into full view. The elf who had been formerly anonymous was revealed to be precisely who the half-elf had first thought he was: "Cirdan!"

The shipwright flinched, his eyes widening in utter shock. "E-Elrond? You're… you…"

Cirdan rushed toward his friend, tears dripping into his beard, and threw his arms around him. Elrond returned the hug earnestly, not knowing whether to laugh or weep. He settled for a teary-eyed smile. "It's good to see you again, mellon nin."

"And you," Cirdan replied rather gruffly. He regarded the half-elf studiously for a minute before chuckling, and speaking in a low voice. "You know, when I asked you to follow in my footsteps, I didn't think you'd take me quite so literally."

"This is only temporary," Elrond II replied, coming forward to embrace Cirdan as well. "Elrond and I were promised this chance for a reunion for one full day, from midnight to midnight. We still have twenty-three hours left."

"Twenty-two hours, fifty minutes," Mandos corrected him as he approached from behind.

"Of course," Elrond II nodded, accepting the rectification. "Still, it's quite a sum. And we both intend to use that time to its fullest capacity."

"Then what are we all just standing around for?" laughed Gil-galad. "We must show you everything! And we've got so much catching-up to do… what has happened since the end of the Second Age? Tell us all about it!"

Urged on by Mandos' mental murmurings, Elrond I and II gave a rather edited account of the events of the Third Age and beyond. Sending his thoughts, the half-elf promised Gil-galad that only he would receive the 'unabridged' version of the story.

"Good for you," Cirdan smiled once the half-elf was finished speaking. "Good for both of you. I'm sure Eärendil would be just as proud of you as I am."

"Thank you," Elrond I replied, fighting to conceal his tears. "Now, Gil-galad, what was it you were saying about showing us everything?"

Twenty-two hours and fifty minutes never passed so blissfully, or so quickly. The friends reminisced about their pasts, alternately laughing, weeping, and rekindling long-unsolved debates. Dawn rose, noon blazed, and dusk draped its murky blanket over Mandos' Halls. Tranquility permeated the air.

Elrond II glanced up in the middle of laughing at a joke Gil-galad had just told. His mirth halted abruptly at the expression upon the Doomsman's face. He didn't even need to hear Mandos' words to know what he was about to say. Midnight was near.