I do not own much in this chapter, except for my OC Mellolaes. I also make no money from this, so please don't sue, but just enjoy.

Elrond entered the room and took in the sight of his steward lying flat on his bed staring at the ceiling. His face was not wrinkled in pain or anger. His eyes were not overly wide in shock just intent and focused. His skin far too bright to be in the process of fading.

The healer smothered a sigh and allowed a faint smile to come to his face before chiding, "You seem to have frightened my child's nurse." He closed the door behind him before taking a few more steps toward the bed while continuing in a warm voice with raised eyebrows, "You recall she is a beloved member of King Thranduil's household do you not? We do not want to incur his wrath against us. Nor do I wish my house to become known as a place a young elleth cannot be expected to be treated well."

Erestor did not take his gaze off the ceiling, but he did tuck his chin in toward his chest as he replied. "I owe her a deep apology. And I also owe you one, my Lord Elrond."

The Healer's smile gentled, "I think, while hurt, she is more concerned for you and your healing both in body and spirit. You seem to be concerned of how well you are healing now also, she says?"

Erestor finally lowered his gaze from the ceiling. He met the amused glint of his healer and lord's eyes with the calm grey and still stare of his own like a cloudy damp sky. He nodded. "Yes, I wanted you to see how well the healing of my flesh is progressing."

Elrond strode across the room and around his patient's bed to his side. There, he pulled down the blanket to reveal the long nightshirt covering the older ellon from breastbone to just below the knee. Not bothering to pull this thin piece of clothing away as well, he laid his hand on the flesh covering the fractured bone. He squinted his eyes.

For a human, such a fall would have been devastating. It had certainly been painful for this ellon whom he'd known all his life. Since Erestor refused pain medication, possibly due to his hatred for how it dulled his mind, Elrond had others, soldiers, hold his patient down and still while he very carefully pushed through the flesh to realign the bone something impossible for those who could not feel the most minute differences in The Song to accomplish.

Then the elven strength and his own gift flowing through his hands as he periodically laid them on Ererestor's hip through his nightshirt had great work. Still, even now Elrond could feel there was much swelling, which meant some pain, and a gap in the still-knitting bone less than a hair's-width in size. He nodded. "I think in a month's time you will be able to perform your duties again with only mild discomfort. In two months you should be almost completely healed as if it never happened."

"How long will it be before I can travel on horseback for many leagues?"

Elrond blinked at his steward. "Can you repeat yourself?"

Erestor met his gaze without blinking. "How long before I can travel to Green Wood the Great?"

Elrond continued to stare at his steward in silence long moments before replying, "I would add another two weeks of gentle activities at least to the recuperation time I have already spoken of before telling an elven patient with your injury he is ready to travel such a great distance over such terrain. But why are you asking me this Erestor?"

"I must travel to the Green Wood at my earliest opportunity, Lord Elrond."

The Peredhel's face fell. He laid his hand next on Eesrtor's shoulder and squeezed it gently as he met his gaze. "But why my steward? You have never indicated the need to travel so far away from your duties before."

"I have just learned something I did not know before. And it has helped me realize I have left undone something for far too long. I wish to rectify that as soon as possible."

Elrond nodded. That made a little more sense. He had known his steward was far older than himself by centuries at least and had come with his mother from Doriath after serving under her father, and Melian before that. The Green Wood was home to many who'd once lived in Doriath with Melian and her grandson Dior, his own grandfather. Still … "Was it listening to Mellolaes' story that caused you to realize you'd left this task incomplete?"

He nodded. "Listening to her tale let me know I had both the duty and opportunity to do what I must as soon as I am able."

Elrond nodded. "In that case, you have my answer as a healer and my offer as a grateful Lord of a small, but lively and well-ordered land to his steward of every aid I can give you to make your journey possible, profitable, and comfortable for you, not to mention safe. You will go with a guard or two."

Erestor nodded. "I would prefer to go with Glorfindel if you can spare him here."

Elrond's head shot up along with his eyebrows. Then he nodded. "I would feel easier indeed if you went with him, my steward. But him I do not usually command except at greatest need. If he wishes to go with you, I will let him with good will. If not, I may order my two sons to accompany you instead."

Erestor simply said in a tired voice, "I think you will find him determined to accompany me when he finds I am determined to go."

Elrond nodded. "Do you need anything to help you prepare for this journey you wish to undertake? I know you had much of your usual work done before your accident?"

"If you will bring me a wax tablet and some of the papers detailing future plans for events here, I will be able to both plan my trip, and write down instructions so others can be at work while I undertake this journey my lord."

Elrond nodded with a slight smile. "Then I will get them for you." He turned and walked out of the room before striding to the one in which he had left Mellolaes. Her eyes looked up at him from her head held in her hands. He met her gaze with a hard one of his own. "What have you done to my Steward?"

. . .

"Glorfindel!"

The golden-haired Balrog Slayer pulled up the reigns of his mount. His eyebrows rose and face went hard upon hearing two sets of hooves approaching him at a rapid pace through thick snow after the muffled shout of one of Elrond's twin sons had reached him. Elrohir and Elladan soon appeared over the snowy fields on dark mounts. Elrohir rode a small black mare. Elladan was astride a slightly larger brown gelding brought to the valley by a human trader. Both were steeds they used for pleasure rides on wintry days. Though they were told not to race in such weather, the stable elves usually gave them these sure-footed and gentle horses to ride in winter, because they believed they would anyway. These particular beasts were neither big nor spirited enough for war nor cunning and quiet enough for hunting though. Glorfindel only relaxed a hair upon seeing them beneath the twins. The need to speedily deliver a message swiftly in snow must mean dire news indeed. Both younger elves pulled their mounts up near the nose of his own. Their wide eyes met his own grim one.

The Balrog Slayer raised his chin before speaking in clipped words. "What news, my lord's sons, that brings you so swiftly to me?" He took in the wide eyes and slightly greying tinge to their skin. "And so full of fear."

Words sprang from Elladan's mouth. "Erestor wants to leave us!"

Glorfindel's brow furrowed in thought. Erestor? His mind turned to Mellolaes' tale before his thoughts were interrupted by another.

Elrohir had shot his twin a glare before meeting the blue eyes of their captain again. "Our steward says he will go to Green Wood the Great as soon as father allows it, though he also says he'll return … if he can. Why does he want to go and so suddenly, Glorfindel?"

Elladan cut in again. "He's never wanted to leave us at all before. We, Father, Arwen and mother before she … we've all left the valley many times before, but never Erestor!"

"Till now," Elrohir finished.

Glorfindel sat still with a bowed head while listening. When both younger elves had fallen silent, he raised his gaze to meet theirs again his face as pale and obscuring of what lay beneath as the layer of snow all around them. "You must remember we have lived far longer lives than you both, even longer than your father's. We had loyalties and duties that predated ours to you and your family."

Both twins' brows furrowed. Elledan spoke next, "But surely not Erestor's to our ancestress Melian?"

Elrohir nodded. "How much older can duties get?"

Glorfindel urged his steed forward again, but only into a walk between the twins' mounts as he answered. "There is much about both of us you do not know. Had this anything to do with Mellolaes' tale do you think?"

The twins turned their own mounts and caused them to walk on either side of Glorfindel's. Elledan again replied. "Yes, and if I had known her telling him a story would cause him to leave us …"

Glorfindel cut in "You both are being quite greedy with Erestor's days are you not? He's never asked for months to look after only his own affairs till now. Is he not due months to spend as he wishes after spending millennia looking after the interests of your family and kingdom young ones?"

Both twins bowed their heads. Elrohir answered first in a whisper. "Of course, Glorfindel, but that's just it. He's never 'wanted' to before. And now, to go so far, and through the 'mountain' pass!"

Elrohir fell silent and he and his twin's eyes darkened in melancholy. Glorfindel's own jaw tightened. His eyes hardened. "He will not go alone. I will accompany him."

Both younger elves heads shot up. Their expressions lightened and shoulders fell back into more relaxed alignments. Elladan even grinned. "He said you'd want to accompany him. Father said you would have to be asked, but Erestor said you would want to."

Glorfindel nodded. "He was right."

Elrohir's eyes narrowed. "What do you know about this matter that we don't Captain?"

Glorfindel drew in a deep breath before speaking. "Would you like me to tell others, clearly next time, when they ask what you two are up to, when I know you'd rather your activities and plans not be shared?"

Both twins exchanged glances over the taller ellon's clenched hands grasping his reigns. Then they looked at him brows darkly narrowing their eyes. Elrohir spoke first, "This is different though Glorfindel."

The light-haired Noldo nodded. "Yes. It is."

Both twins sighed and bowed their heads. They finished the ride in silence. Glorfindel gave but a few words of instructions and thanks to the stable elves who came out to take their mounts. The twins stayed to answer their questions about Erestor's sudden interest in traveling to the Green Wood, though not very well, as they knew so little themselves.

Glorfindel began to stride to the houses. He passed many other clutches of ellon and elleth all whispering of Erestor and his desire to depart the valley to travel to Greenwood the Great. All seemed as confused as the twins on the matter.

Erestor had traveled far less than Elrond and any of his kin during the third age. Imladris' steward had seemed as permanent a fixture of it as the mountains ringing it. Most blamed the Silvan elleth and her story, but none could draw a direct line from it to the Steward's new obsession. Yes, her story had been of her people, and Erestor was now going to the kingdom of her people after hearing it, but how could either have captured his interest so? Many mentioned Erestor had come from Doriath before living in Sirion, and some of Melian's folk lived in the Green Wood now. Still, others asked, why now would he feel an urgency to see any of them, and what could the Silvan servant's story have to do with it? Glorfindel's jaw tightened upon overhearing these conversations. When Lindir opened his mouth after opening the door for him, the Golden-haired Noldo shook his head before striding up the stairs.

After turning left upon the first landing, he stopped. An elleth with green eyes and warm brown hair with red and gold glints stood in his path. She glared at him. The golden warrior sighed and gestured with one hand to an empty room with an open door. The eleth marched past him into it coming to about the center of the room before turning her glare upon him again. He followed. The moment he closed the door behind him, leaning back against it, she spoke. "What have I done? People here are treating me like a tempest touching shore, and Erestor is like one enchanted all because of my story!"

Glorfindel nodded. "So, I hear. "Tell me the tale, just as you told it to him from when I ceased to listen."

By the time she finished they both sat on a couch. Glorfindel had had his head clasped in both hands since she recounted the deaths of Narkal's brothers. Finally, she said, "That is all I told him."

Glorfindel nodded. "You have told me enough as well. I understand."

Her face went grey and voice low. "What did I do?"

He raised his head taking a deep breath. His eyes focused on the wall before him. "You solved a mystery neither he nor I knew the answer to for more than an age. What happened to Narkal? Now Erestor knows where his heart-brother is. And he will go to him in haste and determination even if it kills him."

Mellolaes rose off the couch to shout down on the tall elf's bowed head. "You told me his only friend who he traveled with here was dead!" She pointed out a thick window toward the east. "Sarnhael has been in our woods for over an age!" She then pointed toward the west. "And in Lindon before that!"

Glorfindel continued to stare straight ahead and spoke low. "But Sarnhael Celuant hides in your woods from Noldo like me and even from some Sindar. I have spoken to your king and queen many times. I have even seen and spoken with Sarnin and her children and grandchildren. Every time I ask about the most mysterious member of their kin, he is said to be locked away in some underground room working on something."

Mellolaes threw her hands up I the air. "So 'none' of you knew?! How is it you thought him dead in the first place!"

"Caranthir lied to us all. Now I ponder it, he was not one to simply take the word of on such a matter. And all who came with him, when he spoke of Narkal's fate, were silent, tense, and refused to meet our gazes. Ascarant and the twins were not their either, but only Tarman and Rombar looking even more sorrowful and lifeless than all the others with them. I and others they were meeting believed the seriousness, sorrow, even cruelty of what they related caused them to act thus. Maglor and Maedhros were unhappy with their younger brother's news of Narkal, even if they understood the choices and end he'd given him. They might, though, have sent someone to seek such a long friend of their father's family if they'd known he yet lived wandering the wild. Caranthir probably knew that. There was so much paranoia in those days of waiting for the enemy's plans to find and harm us."

Mellolaes sat back down on the cough turned to face the ancient Noldo and narrowed her eyes at his profile. "Why doesn't Erestor write his old friend a letter. He must still lie abed more than a month before even setting out to see him. Why wait so long to tell one he thought dead so long he now knows and is glad he lives?"

Glorfindel's bright skin grew, just a tad dimmer and his eyes took on a tone of deeper blue. "There are things that must be talked of face to face, dear elleth."

. . .

Glorfindel entered Erestor's room and closed the door behind him. "So, you are going."

Erestor stared at the ceiling. "Are you coming with me?"

"Of course. But you 'could' send a letter …"

Erestor's stare at the ceiling became a glare. Glorfindel's teeth clicked together and he sighed. He walked over to the side of the bed and sat down on a stool there, the very one Mellolaes had used. He however, made it seem much smaller. He bowed his head low though while Mellolaes had usually sat straight and tall. He set his clasped hands on the bed. "You know … if he harms you, it could mean trouble between the hidden valley and Green Wood again."

"I am leaving a letter explaining everything to my lord and telling him whatever Narkal does to me is fair."

"That is not quite true."

"You know how true it is."

Glorfindel fell silent again. Long moments passed before he said. "I will go with you and guard you there. I will also try to stand back from you both a ways but I should remain close enough to bear witness to whatever happens next."

"That is all I ask."

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes