Though Tarisilya was of course very aware of the main reason why her husband had ordered her bodyguard here: When the guard outside her door announced this particular visitor, she just couldn't be angry. She had been yearning for a long while to see the elf again who'd saved her life more than once. Especially since some messages had reached Minas Tirith, first from Imladris and then from Mithlond, saying that Lord Glorfindel had now indeed sailed west. That loss inevitably left Tarisilya wishing to follow the call of the sea as well, which for her would not be possible for many more long decades to come. And Glorfindel's son of course wouldn't fare any different. She hoped, she would at least be able to distract Thondrar from his misery a little.

If she was being honest, she was even a little sulky about him not showing up here earlier.

That he'd actually been residing back at Cair Andros for days, she knew since her last things from Lórien had finally been delivered to the Citadel, just like the horse that Éomer had lent her back then until she would have her beloved Mearas-mare back.

And yet it had been another elf of North Ithilien bringing the things to Minas Tirith, along with the explanation that Thondrar was buried up to the tip of his ears in work.

While Tarisilya understood that, she still felt a little ignored. Her expression when the door finally opened, was accordingly sour.

But instead of the warrior, someone entirely differently stormed inside – no, something, something velvety, lively on four paws that jumped onto her mattress immediately and nestled against her belly with a purr.

"Conuiril! Hey, sweetie! I missed you." These damn pregnancy moods … By now, even the sight of an ordinary cat seriously had Tarisilya burst into tears. She couldn't help it; the relief was just too big. After she'd lost sight of her pet in the course of being kidnapped by Barhit, she hadn't thought she would ever see it again until Thondrar had sent that one relieving letter to her. Holding this creature in her arms again now, that was so plain but radiated so much warmth, being able to caress its still slightly ruffled white fur … It seemed like a small miracle. "You look as if you've been fighting wolves."

"No wolves, just a little wind and weather. Another reason for us being late. After the long ride, she was very exhausted; I had to grant her a bit of rest at Cair Andros."

Something was different. She couldn't put the finger on it but when Thondrar finally entered her chambers as well, Tarisilya felt it immediately that these burdening weeks that he'd tried to comfort his father over Erestor's loss in, had left traces, and not necessarily in a bad way. His golden hair had grown quite a bit longer. He was openly wearing the narrow circlet of Gondolin, easy to recognize by its shape tapering off to the top and bottom, something she'd almost never seen him do before. He'd put on a little weight, too, which was indeed a reliving sight, given that the crisis in Gondor had exhausted him deeply, too, both physically and mentally. The muscles on the healthy side of his body had also gained some mass; his sword arm almost burst the sleeve seams of the simple white and gold tunic he'd thrown on. His father and he had apparently spent their last time together with the usual training more than once.

But what Tarisilya's searching eyes really got stuck on was his smile, friskier than any she'd ever seen on him, a gesture so heartening coming from that often so melancholic warrior that she just had to return it, her irritation already gone, and not only thanks to his explanation.

"Then another member of my family owes you their life." With some effort, she sat up a little further to finally be able to greet her bodyguard properly.

But said bodyguard didn't make a move to sit down beside her yet. Instead, he paced the room so restlessly a few times that it would have made her nervous if he hadn't still looked to be in such a good mood.

When he finally stopped at the end of her bed and stared at her intensely once more, she had enough.

"What? Have you never met a heavily pregnant elf?"

"Never such a beautiful one, possibly. Here, take these. In five minutes, I might forget about them." With his healthy hand, Thondrar rummaged in the bag over his shoulder, his other arm resting calmly between two buttons of his tunic to hide his disability from fleeting glances, as so often. When he put a few scrolls with Lord Elrond's seal down on the bedside table, it fell out of this simple sling; the sleeve slipping back a few inches, Tarisilya promptly spotted something that had her raise her eyebrows in surprise.

It was something capturing her attention far more than a few letters of Imladris that would only contain the same wistful words as usual, or the usual empty encouragements and premature congratulations on a birth that she was more afraid of with by the second.

But she managed to suppress that at least for a few minutes thanks to the riddle that Thondrar's strange behavior posed. Including this jewel on his right arm that had her startle because for a moment, she thought she'd somehow made it to lose one of her biggest treasures during the kidnapping as well, and that he'd brought it along, too … That was nonsense of course; her bracelet was still securely on her wrist.

But she didn't need elaborate tales first to know that the one that Thondrar was wearing had been forged by the same skilled kingly hands, into an almost identical shape. The jewel on his wrist was golden yellow and not red like hers; he was wearing it on the inside and the chains weren't wrapped around his thumb base so that they wouldn't hinder him in doing what little work was still possible with this almost useless arm. But the silver enriched with countless crystals, the leaf-shaped frame of the gem, modeled accurately to the last inch, a miniature version of the crest of Eryn Lasgalen at the end of the tightly entwined chains … All of that was unmistakable. Did someone have a pattern there when he wanted to make someone happy?

"When did you start wearing jewelry?" She couldn't remember ever having seen Thondrar with anything purely decorative except for this circlet.

"King Thranduil was apparently of the opinion, he owed me a little for the crisis in Ithilien not going completely haywire. And for his daughter-in-law still not having managed to break her neck, no matter how passionately she keeps on trying." Thondrar winked teasingly.

"Well, you're welcome to put my last jump from a height on the list of Barhit's mistakes; that was not my fault for a change," she replied just as little seriously, trying hard to suppress the short shiver down her arms when the memory of this terrible day at Rauros immediately tried to flicker in her mind again. Not now, not when things were being so nice right now. There weren't many elves she knew that she could be so easily childish with; few managed to make her laugh like this. Apparently, she'd have to thank her husband briefly for trying so stubbornly to lift her mood after all.

She couldn't take her eyes off of the jewel, especially since Thondrar was fidgeting with it constantly, visibly not yet used to wearing something like that. During the next combat training at the latest, the thing would probably be tossed aside, respect for kingly gifts be damned.

"It's beautiful." She stretched her hand to the side of the bed and grabbed his so that he would stop tugging on the thing. "Don't. You're dangerously close to me giving you a lesson in etiquette."

Thondrar pulled back his hand, gently enough. "Eru save me. I have to get used to the sensation, that's all. Lord Elrond said, just like the one in your bracelet, this jewel was among those waiting in Thranduil's vaults for more than one Age to finally serve a purpose again. Elmalendae. The golden star of day. The energy of countless created and decaying lives is embedded in it. You can still feel it, Ilya. It's stimulating, like small sparks under the skin, minus the pain. The nerve tracts have started responding a little better since I'm wearing it," he confirmed, seeing Tarisilya's suddenly excited, questioning glance.

That was definitely something they would have to talk about someday. This development was just as positive as surprising since after that terrible night back then when Thondrar had almost fallen victim to a warg, Tarisilya had actually been certain that he would never be able to use that arm again.

But it wasn't that either, moving him so much that he was already starting to walk back and forth again. "The actual gift that he gave me was much bigger though." She could see his fingertips clench around the crescent-shaped jewel. Apparently, that one could be twisted in its frame too. It was likely, that Thranduil had left a portrait there, too, using his surprising skill at detailed burning art … And Tarisilya already had an idea whose it was.

"Ilya …" That unbelievably tender smile again, and the use of a far more personal form of address than usual; this time, she could definitely not think it a lapse anymore. And here she'd been basically bludgeoning Thondrar for centuries into dropping unnecessary formalities, in vain. If she didn't still have a feeling, she'd missed the punchline, she'd probably have been glad that he was finally listening to her for once. The way he was eying her lovingly from head to toe repeatedly revealed almost a little too much affection for a bodyguard.

Now Tarisilya, too, was becoming so restless that her cat meowed in protest and jumped from her lap, curling at the end of the bed to start cleaning herself extensively. She wished she'd have the same calmness. "Don't get me wrong but did you have a little too much of Thranduil's wine?"

"As if you could stomach more than a glass of that brew." Laughing quietly, Thondrar dropped onto the chair next to her bed, with a determined expression this time.

"It's just … My stay in Imladris has revealed something lost for millennia. And that too, I have King Thranduil to thank for. If he hadn't happened to look at the pictures that my father drew of my mother for me so that I can remember her again …" He shook his head slowly, visibly shocked.

"Ilya, please, tell me … What do you know about your mother?"

Though she could still make head nor tail of his behavior, she answered him, after a moment of pain-filled silence. That wasn't exactly her favorite subject, and Thondrar actually knew that very well. He had to have a reason for torturing her like that anyway.

"Not much, unfortunately. My father, just like yours, managed only rarely to talk about Nestradyl; it's just hurt him too much." She paused for a moment to recollect herself, to let her fingertips graze her own jewel. Right now, consciously remembering her family that she was banning from her thoughts so often, to not suffer from the separation, might actually help to distract herself.

"They were both unusually old when they found each other. Nana had even witnessed some bad conflicts in the First Age already, albeit on the sidelines only. She grew up very sheltered in a hidden settlement, far from the big cities. Her mother died giving birth to her, just like she herself later did. That haunted her for a long time. I think that was the reason she was never really close to her sister, too."

Again, she had to pause, to swallow down a new gust of tears. She didn't want to allow the panic to creep up in her mind yet again. "It was only some time after her father died, too, that she moved to Mirkwood. Then, on a journey to Imladris, she met my father and went to Lórien with him. That's basically all I know. That and what she left me of course." She nodded at the book of her mother on the bedside table, her lower jaw trembling.

"And you never learned anything about her sister?" The vague yearning in Thondrar's voice didn't exactly help her understand better what was going on in him.

"Ada had often asked her, of course, but she never really wanted to talk about it. He doesn't even know her name or if she's still alive; he could never find her. Why are you asking me all this?"

"Your father could probably never find out anything about her because he looked in the wrong places. Here - Lady Galadriel sends her regards." Thondrar reached for his bag again and thrust a book into Tarisilya's hand, the sight of which showed immediately that it had seen more than one Age.

When Tarisilya folded back the completely yellowed cover, in awe and more curious by the second, most of what she read was very ancient-sounding names and dates that felt far away, unimaginably far … And still at that moment, on this fateful noon, she was getting quite a little closer to them. A very old directory of elven realms including family trees. On the page that Thondrar had marked with a dead leaf, data from a village had been written on that Tarisilya had never heard anything about. Her heart started beating faster immediately when she read her mother's name.

"When this was created, they didn't even talk about Galadriel and Celeborn in Lórien yet. I'm sure your father never saw this. The Lord himself only found it after searching a completely dusted archive for days."

Thondrar guided Tarisilya's searching fingertips to the right spot so that she was allowed to learn the names of her mother's parents for the first time … Then her eyes followed another line, neatly drawn sideways, pointing at a third name. One she wasn't hearing it for the first time as she suddenly sensed for certain.

"Sednara it is." Tarisilya carefully traced the almost unreadable letters. It felt unreal, this unexpected revelation that there was a part of her family that she had never been allowed to meet, just as little as her father had. But maybe it wasn't too late yet. Maybe, so long after her mother's death, she finally got a chance to learn more about her life …

"Do you think she's still alive? If she's grown up so secluded as well, maybe she's somewhere out there …" But a single look at Thondrar's darkened eyes quickly had this beautiful illusion go up in smoke.

"Who was she?" And only now, wondering in confusion why the death of a she-elf that had probably also happened millennia ago was supposed to make Thondrar feel so low, she started to understand.

A fleeting flicker in her soul that she'd already used to feel in the past sometimes when she had looked in the mirror and Thondrar had been standing beside her. This deep, completely harmonic intimacy connecting them ever since their very first meeting in Imladris …

Using his other hand, Thondrar lay his arm on her blanket, palm up, and turned the gem in his bracelet to reveal the image that Tarisilya's father-in-law had given him just like he'd once given another one to her. Two portraits almost identical except for small differences in the eye area. "Glorfindel's wife. My mother."

Though she'd started to suspect it more and more in the last few seconds, Tarisilya stared at him in complete bewilderment. "By the stars …"

"I'd somehow hoped for a more positive reaction." Thondrar forced himself to laugh.

She called herself stupid, loosened her stunned rigor almost by force, and flung her arms around his neck without even thinking about it. She was crying again, but this time, it was alright. He was crying too. And for many long minutes, they couldn't stop.

When she finally backed away a little, she felt exhausted, but in a good way that she hadn't experienced in a long time. "My cousin, hm? Better brace yourself when we go to Aman someday. My brother and father are extremely strict when it comes to my company."

"I think, ada will have softened them up by then." In spite of this happy news, that came with a clear trace of sadness in his soft voice.

And Tarisilya was just too aware that this pain of parting would only become really bad once the yearning would really set in. Sometimes, such big wounds in the soul could only be treated by focusing on smaller ones, on pain older and at least partly processed, because there was no comfort in such a situation anyway.

"Come on, get some of that tea over there. You'll need it soon."

"Because …?" No matter how well he knew her by now, he still couldn't keep up with all of her mental leaps.

"Because I want to know all about your mother that you can tell me," Tarisilya answered roguishly.

"As long as you take that grieving look off your face then," Thondrar said with one eyebrow raised. "Just so we're clear, cousin: I didn't only just find you to let you say goodbye to this world now, too, just because you've been staring at the sky a few times too often."

Instead of a reply, Tarisilya squeezed his hand. For the first time in a long while, such teasing did indeed feel encouraging, not frustrating.


Thondrar had only just started to tell his tales when the conversation was interrupted. But in this case, Tarisilya could hardly be angry with the visitor. She'd been yearning to finally be able to share the news with her husband ever since learning about them.

Legolas still was spending a lot of time in the Queen's chambers, to help with all kinds of things still left to do there; therefore, she didn't hold it against him that he wasn't holding her hand day and night. She was far too happy that he was having such a deep connection to the twins now after all.

But her impatience was apparently showing because Legolas ducked his head in apology, not even greeting Thondrar before explaining himself. "I know, I should have come much earlier. This weird food administrator, Hithrim, he's been in the Queen's chambers for half an eternity. I didn't want to leave her alone with the guy."

"But they're doing alright?"

The mention of a man she'd never had any dealings with so far, whose name she hadn't even known, had Tarisilya frown absently. Wasn't that a name she'd heard before as well? She'd probably caught it in passing in someone else's conversation at some point. She'd spent more than enough time in the Citadel for that.

"They're growing stronger by the hour, all three of them."

Legolas' relieved smile almost slipped from his face a little when he turned all the way to the bed.

He seemed to register only now how intimately Tarisilya and his substitute were sitting here next to each other. Thondrar being barefoot, with a light tunic instead of the usual golden armor of Gondolin, with his legs crossed comfortably ... And Tarisilya having scooted closer to her bodyguard than actually, she was usually seeking other peoples' proximity … More than anything though, the dreamy grin that Tarisilya, too, now couldn't wipe off her face anymore, had to give them both away.

"There's a joke hidden somewhere in here that I'm not getting, right? A Sinda enters the chambers of his Noldo wife and finds her in her bed with a Gondolindrim …"

Again, he raised his hands in apology when Tarisilya rolled her eyes and made a move to flare up. "Leave me my bad humor today, elwen. Things to make me laugh were rare in the last few months."

"Then what I just learned should be pleasing you all the more. Henceforth, you'll have to deal with twice as many members of my family."

Tarisilya exchanged a meaningful glance with Thondrar, fidgeting with the sleeve of her blouse. They both reached their arm toward Legolas, triggering the mechanism almost at the same time that doubled the jewels in size. "Our mothers."

Legolas gasped. He had to let himself fall onto the mattress beside her, staring at the portraits at least as unbelieving as Tarisilya had earlier. "Sisters?"

"They were separated far too early back then but yes, there's no doubt. It was your father who noticed, by chance." Tarisilya nestled close to him when Legolas wrapped his arm around her, looking back and forth between Thondrar and her, still shocked but not reluctant by a long shot.

"At this point, we really owe him a lot. Once the baby arrives, we should go visit him. I finally want to see your home. Not only because of him. After all, it's been my mother's home for a long time, too. I badly need to learn more about her past; today just made me realize that once more."

"I'll accompany you of course," Thondrar offered immediately.

"Then I do not have to worry about my wife's and my child's safety on such a trip."

Visibly relieved, Legolas put one hand firmly on the other elf's arm, covering that so very precious jewel. "Now that you're officially part of this family as well, which basically you've already been since the end of the war, I wouldn't want to do without your company on such a trip to the past anyway. We'll go traveling as soon as the little one is strong enough for it, Ilya, and once Thondrar and I are done properly instructing Camhanar in filling in for us for a longer period of time. We'll bring Gimli along, too, he's been waiting for this journey long enough. I finally need to start keeping my promises. Trusting in your bodyguard probably no longer leaving you out of his sight at all now, I can do that with a clean conscience."

"You can count on it. Until the day when all of our paths will lead us home one day, your family's safety is firmly in my hand. And when we walk the white beaches together, I will look back at my life on Middle-earth in happiness because I did not have to go through the last stretch of it alone anymore. Fate has already united us a long time ago; now let us finally follow its call. What do you say, Your Highness?" It was Thondrar's turn to grab Legolas' shoulder for a short, amicable moment while he gave Tarisilya who was sitting between them a kiss on her temple.

"I'd say it's about high time we get on first-name basis", Legolas answered.


Why did you do all this, Erestor?

I finally want to leave the darkness behind.

Wasn't it you who once told me, they always need a watcher?


I need to get going, milady. I need to see him again before they prepare the funeral. Or it has all been for nothing what he did to himself.

Are you sure you can do this?

There is no one else who can.


"Ilya. You're dreaming. Calm. I am here. Listen to my voice. Find the light."

It was only Legolas' melodic Sindarin words whispered in her ear preventing that Tarisilya startled up bathed in sweat and possibly even thrashing about. As it was, she only ended up crying hot tears on her husband's light sleep tunic when she had finally fought her way back to reality. As usual at waking up, she had one hand resting on her belly in pure instinct, but these cruel things that she'd just been forced to see in her sleep once more had without a doubt frightened her child, too; beneath the fabric of her nightgown, nothing was stirring at all.

She still thought to taste the clear, heavy water of Anduin on her tongue; the not yet too old wound on her thigh was throbbing dully away which hadn't been happening in weeks. So much for her having found a little distance to her kidnapping and especially to what had happened afterward. To her last conversation with Erestor, their reconciliation, finally; his gentle, liberated smile, only split seconds before an arrow had hit him from behind, right to the heart, protruding from his chest with that disgusting meaty noise …

She shuddered so badly that Legolas had to feel it when that last terrible image from her dream, in particular, showed up in her head again and again, as if her mind was unable for some reason to untangle itself from this of all things.

But it hadn't even been the last one. Tarisilya blinked in confusion, raising her head to look at Legolas' worried face, trying to anchor herself on the warm, protective reality of her husband's nearness, to be able to let her still dazed soul fall into her dream once more, consciously this time. No, it had ended with her farewell from Glorfindel, just a few hours after he'd safely brought her to Minas Tirith …

Not a happy day in many regards. Back then Glorfindel had already had decided that now he wouldn't be dwelling in these realms for long anymore at last, not after the death of his best friend – of the elf that he'd loved just as much as his wife as Tarisilya knew by now. So in spite of his hurry, he'd tried at least to say a proper goodbye to his acquaintances in the city.

At least he'd still been able to exchange many words of friendship and unforgotten affection with Aragorn and Arwen before he'd finally steered Asfaloth to the gate to the seventh ring where Tarisilya had been waiting … He hadn't had much left to say to her whom he'd be seeing again in a few decades anyway. They'd just had time to tell each other the most important thing, to support each other one last time when realizing what kind of unpleasant job was waiting for Glorfindel upon his arrival in Imladris …

Only when the memory of that one moment just shortly before that, when Tarisilya had helplessly had to watch an elf die, pushed that other scene in her head in the background once more, she understood what her subconsciousness was signaling her.

The reason she couldn't forget this last assassination of an insane King's enemy was that this man's legacy was still threatening the royals and everyone else here.

"Ilya?" Legolas was being close enough to her to make it out even in the weak candlelight that her eyes went wide, to feel her trying to straighten up jerkily which her corpulence and the constant pain in her chest and her back made impossible though. "Slowly. What do you need, elwen?"

"What was the name of that servant again that you saw in the afternoon?"

Legolas scratched his head in confusion, not quite awake yet himself. "You mean Hithrim?"

The moment he said it, the word also flashed in Tarisilya's mind again; she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. "The book, elwen, please …" Damnit, she hated this weak condition her body was in. She couldn't even look it up immediately if she was being right about that suspicion forming in her clearer by the second.

Something in her voice, fortunately, convinced Legolas that there was no time for astonished questions right now. Following Tarisilya's glance at the desk where she kept her version of Erestor's records, he hurried there and carefully put the thick, heavy work down on her thighs. "What is it that you're looking for?"

"I'll know that when I see it."

So many memories. So much knowledge of millennia, and Tarisilya wasn't even remotely close to having read all of it … But this wasn't about the past anyway, at least not about Erestor's.

What she needed were two sheets that a messenger of Lord Elrond had brought to Minas Tirith under highest secrecy and given to her personally, densely filled with Glorfindel's slightly messy handwriting. Using the same caution to make sure, there was no way, an employee of this house stumbled over the precious document by chance, she'd hidden it in a secret compartment in the back of this book with the stylized big cat on the cover that Erestor had felt so connected to.

The brief euphoria wanted to leave Tarisilya again just for a moment when she skimmed the names and dates Glorfindel had noted for the second time without reading the desired line.

Only Legolas' shy objection made her realize, it was impossible to do so. "We've checked that, Ilya, didn't we? All these people that Glorfindel … named have long been seized or are dead by now." Judging by the short pause in his sentence and the tremble in his voice, it clearly wasn't any easier for him to think about this matter than it was for Tarisilya.

It had taken her a few days back then before she'd managed to bring herself to tell him where exactly the last Lord of Gondolin had got this endlessly important information from. That he had copied it from his best friend's rotting skin, had had to read them in countless paling scars from knife and flame. Tarisilya had a feeling that not only did Legolas have even more respect for Glorfindel since then, but finally some for Erestor and his sacrifice, too.

Now she was glad she'd told him; it saved her from long explanations. Her hands trembling, she closed the book without putting the list back where it belonged. It had fulfilled its purpose. Today, maybe for a last time, the big cat had done its highly precise, bloody job in the light of Tarisilya's moon … And that would hopefully make what Erestor had brought about in his last few months, marked by many mistakes, forgotten.

The last of these bastards that Erestor had wanted to stop so badly that he had lost his life to this stupid quest, the man who was still moving around in these buildings as if he belonged here, they would be stopping soon enough now. "Hithrim couldn't be on this list."

"Why?" Legolas had turned just as pale as she had.

That color would probably turn greenish in a second. She couldn't have held it against him. "Erestor had carved his name into the skin above his heart. There was nothing left of it to read. If I hadn't seen him without his tunic right before his death, I wouldn't know anything about this either. Only now, my heart finally allowed me to remember."

Legolas' hand was shaking so badly that he hardly managed to wipe his eyes, to wipe away the image that she had just put in his head. "By the Valar, Ilya … And now? Shall we go wake Aragorn? We should arrest the man immediately."

But Tarisilya had already decided otherwise. It had been long since she'd last been filled with so much iron determination to actively change the course of things. And while this time, there was no way she would put herself into danger for that, she wouldn't leave the decisions to everyone else anymore either. They had all tried it with a sledgehammer long enough, without success.

"Go to his chambers, but please make sure, Arwen doesn't wake up. Make sure neither of them won't have anything to eat or drink anymore until tomorrow. The King running through the halls at this hour would attract too much attention. I'll send a pigeon to Cair Andros right away; I need Camhanar here. We have to make sure that no one here is in danger anymore. But we'll need proof before we can take this guy into custody."

By now, Legolas knew Tarisilya well enough to realize, this wasn't her only motive for not wanting to make this matter public immediately. "What do you plan?"

Tarisilya's jaw ground hard; her hands turned to fists. For the first time since the last stage of her pregnancy had started to cause such bad physical problems for her, the fear subsided. Right now, there were more important things to do. "Finally, we're one step ahead of these bastards. I will not let that go to waste."