Every place and every character mentioned by name is Tolkien's not mine, save Mellolaes. I give him and God all the credit for them, for Mellolaes I only give God's inspiration credit. :)

This story is not meant to bring me financial gain, so please just read it and enjoy. Maybe tell me what you think.

Glorfindel led the young elleth into a comfortable, but little used room. It was Erestor and Elrond's hide-away, barely used, because they were both far more addicted to work than to wine.

The Golden ellon closed the door behind them and turned to the Silvan. She still stared at him with hard, green eyes and her arms crossed over her chest. He sighed. "I suppose you want to know what that was about?"

She nodded. Glorfindel's eyes widened. Complete silence from a Silvan elleth. This was never good.

He walked over toward the window behind her and to her right, running a hand over his scalp. He gave a long, low sigh before raising his head and looking out the window. He let his fingers run down his cheek and jaw line. "You once said … 'I hate to think of any of you that way' …"

Mellolaes had turned where she stood to follow the ellon with her eyes. The brows above her green orbs rose. Glorfindel continued gazing out the window. His voice grew soft. "You have no idea what that meant to me …"

Mellolaes' own gaze grew softer. Glorfindel lowered his face into his hands to rub it. He finally turned back to her. "Nonetheless," he looked up and met her gaze with a hard one of his own, "we shed our own kins' blood, Mellolaes, on many occasions."

Mellolaes tilted her head in confusion. Then she actually gave him a small smile as she sat down on the white couch right behind her. "Glorfindel, there were just a few such occasions. And you … did not participate in … any of the others, did you?" It was a carefully worded question delivered in a light-tone.

She leaned forward for his answer with an even bigger smile her eyes shining with hope and belief up at him. Glorfindel sat down across from that smile on a light-blue couch. The fabric color set off his famous hair, pure-white skin, and equally blue eyes. He kept his gaze turned away from her innocent one. "We … I … did not participate in any of the others, but I knew of them. And do you know what the worst part was about the knowing of 'some' of them?"

Mellolaes let her smile fall away. She leaned back as she listened. He finally looked up at her. "I understood. I heard what was happening, I grieved, and I said 'nothing,' because I understood why, and I was equally enough a coward to say 'nothing' then."

Mellolaes stared at him. This time, as she spoke, there was a strain in her voice. 'What was happening then?"

"Elves were escaping …" He waved a hand to gesture to something no longer there as he met her gaze, "from Morgoth's stronghold, and we … due to those 'set' free … and their actions, did not dare welcome them back in among us."

Mellolaes gave a slight shrug. She hated herself for it, but continued anyway in a lighter voice than she knew she would before she heard it herself as if those they spoke of could overhear her. "And you sent them away. Some of them came to us." She bit her bottom lip and then went on. "It was horrible. I can't imagine the deep hurt they felt, but good things came from it, like green blades from dark soil … Some came among us and live there still. They are 'our' kin now and have been happy being so for a long while."

Glorfindel leaned back into the couch … "Not all … There were those who refused to leave sight of our walls, when we tried sending them away … So, we … we slew them, Mellolaes, from our walls."

Mellolaes jerked upright and stared at the golden elf. "Not you!"

Glorfindel shook his head. "No, not me, I never had that unfortunate … tragic duty, was never even in the vicinity of it, but I knew of it. I heard of it after it was done. And I just bowed my head and accepted it as a necessity of facing an enemy with no mercy, a mesmerizing gaze, and a dreadful cunning."

Glorfindel closed his eyes and bowed his head further. "Erestor … Erestor is no kin-killer, quite the opposite in fact. His kin, kin-of-the-heart, was thus killed."

Glorfindel raised his sad, golden head to look Mellolaes in the eye again. "I told you his friend was dragged from his horse by orcs, and that was true. But it was no orc that slew Erestor's only friend in those days. They captured him, tortured him, made him a slave, but when he returned to us after escaping them, that torment, that torture, that slavery … 'we' slew him ourselves."

Mellolaes' mouth dropped open. She stared at Glorfindel. He no longer met her gaze now, but stared beyond her head and into the past itself. "And perhaps the worst part was, the rest of us went on with our lives, our mission, mourning him, but not ... not admitting what we'd done, just believing and knowing he was dead and refusing to call ourselves his murderers. I heard of it later and did so myself. I was sad, uneasy, but not enraged. Erestor could not go on like that, accept or 'not' accept it thus. He's never fully forgiven us ... not me as much as I wasn't there, but ... many Noldo, truly, Noldo in general."

Glorfindel finally turned a tearful smile back upon Mellolaes. "That is why he is so fond of Melian's kin. Your people are too rough and simple for him, but after 'that' ... he couldn't bear being around the Noldo for some centuries. As we grew farther away from that time, he began to accept their descendants, who know not of their ancestors' sins. He also likes Galadriel well enough, who was far away in another place, with 'his' queen Melian at that time. Even those, like me, not directly involved and afterward well-punished, he can be civil, even genteel, toward. However, when he comes across an ancient Noldo he knows was there or participated in such things ... he stares at them, daring them to call him one of us, daring them to tell him it's not their fault his friend is dead."

Mellolaes eyes overflowed. Rivers ran down her face. "And now I have reminded him of all those things …"

Glorfindel looked back to her. His mouth fell open. "Oh Mellolaes." He rose from his own couch, went over, knelt before hers, and wrapped her slight body in his strong arms. His voice grew softer. "It's not your fault. It ours ...ours alone young one, not yours …"

She sobbed into his shoulder. "But I was so proud … I wanted to show him we had fine tales too, tell him a story he'd think fine, splendid even, one about one of his people, one with sorrow … and now ..."

Glorfindel had no words for that. He only squeezed her harder.

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God Bless

ScribeofHeroes