The company moved with haste to the northeast, stopping only briefly to let their steeds drink. For three days they traveled without sleep or a proper meal, living only on what plants the wild provided.

Glorfindel was ever vigilant of his charge, and his concern for her grew every day. She had become listless and mute, and her temples burned with a fever.

"It is shock," said Glorfindel's second in command, Gollon. "Be mindful of her yet, but do not worry. Master Elrond will right her,"

But Glorfindel was not convinced, for a pallid gloom had settled upon her, and she seemed to quake at the sight of passing shadows or the noises of woodland creatures. When she slept, she would sleep only for an hour or so before awaking from some fitful nightmare.

At one point, she awoke with such a scream that the horses startled and the riders cursed. Glorfindel halted at once, and held her to him as she croaked with anguish.

"Papa!" she cried, "PAPA!"

"Hush, hush," Glorfindel pleaded, squeezing her far too tightly.

"Glorfindel, gag her if you must! Every orc within a league of here shall hear her racket!"

And so he did, tying a strip of linen about her mouth. His heart filled with self-loathing at the deed, but he knew then that she was beyond consoling.

A rider came to him later, and passed into his hands Maia's doll. "She must have dropped it when she screamed,"

Seeing that the child was now asleep, he unbound her mouth and lashed the doll to his saddle. He ran his hand over through the fraying yarn that was its hair, and smoothed out what tangles he could. As he did so, its last button eye fell from its face and landed upon the leaf litter beneath Rocharon's feet.

Glorfindel cursed, and with a bitter grimace he thought to himself "I am no good at this. I am no father,"

But he swore then to replace the doll entirely, and to buy the child new clothes. He swore to see that her hair was properly cut and braided, and that she would have decent shoes instead of going about barefoot like she now did. And he swore that no matter what opposition he might encounter, that he, Glorfindel Balrog-slayer, would find this innocent mortal girl a home, a family, and a new life.

The councilor rested his head against the cool surface of his desk, staring lackadaisically at a vast pile of scrolls he had meant to return to the library days ago.

"I shall have a page attend to it," he thought, but he never did. Instead, he lay upon his desk, indolent and unenthused, for hours.

Outside, the light faded into twilight. Inside, his time-keeping candle burned down into nothing but a puddle of wax and ash.

The councilor did not notice this at all. Instead, he stared unblinking and unmoving at absolutely nothing.

It was not until an anxious knock sounded upon his door for a third time that he roused himself.

"Enter," he called, straightening his robes and several pieces of wayward parchment in the process.

A page entered. "Glorfindel's party has been sighted, my lord. Master Elrond wishes for you to meet them with him,"

"Very well," the councilor said, waving the messenger away. The child, knowing well of the scholar's ever shortening temper (especially when it came to the mention of Glorfindel), nearly ran from the room.

The councilor stood before a mirror, meaning to address his looks. Instead, he was rendered motionless by the sight of his eyes. They lacked all memory of light or energy. Instead, they were like cold, steel buttons merely projecting a façade of liveliness.

He shook himself back to consciousness and ran a wet comb through his hair. It too was lackluster, as if it had been bathing in the dust that lay on so many of his books and tomes. As of late, he had had no will to care for his library. As of late, he had no will to care for much of anything.

He left his room with a baleful sigh, and walked in turgid silence to the Southern courtyard. There, Elrond was waiting for him. He grinned in earnest at his advisor, but it fell from his face when the grin was not returned.

"Welcome, Erestor. How has the day treated thee?"

"Fair, Elrond. And yourself?"

"Fair as well. The weather was amiable today, and I took advantage of it in my garden," Elrond said, sending a smile to the sky.

"That is well, sir," Erestor's tone was that of neutrality.

Elrond had thought he had learned the art of patience when he had first met his fiery, effervescent, and vastly and adorably immature wife.

He then thought he had learned the art of patience when his wife gave birth to twin boys. Later, he recounted and relabeled himself as such when his sons had first developed a passion for swordplay and later developed a similar taste for females.

By the time he had raised a daughter, Elrond had appointed himself the winner of the award for the most compassionate, even keeled creature to have ever walked the earth.

Erestor's sulking reversed any notion of such a thing now, and Elrond confronted his councilor with a brazen fire.

"I thought Glorfindel was the worst of the twain, but I was wrong! Too long have you been this aloof, austere creature, Erestor! Once there was a fire within thee, as vibrant as the stars, and you had love for all things in Imladris. You were once revered for your inner strength! Wherefore did that esteemed individual run off to, Erestor? And who is this stranger that has taken the place of my closest friend?"

Erestor had no comment, no way of replying. He stood amongst the pristine beauty of Imladris and the calls of birds and the songs of elves, and he was mute.

In the councilor's eyes was a dim vision of a memory, of a hope. He had once been the life and the light of the upper classes of Imladris. He had been a popular dinner host, a sought-for musician, a famed author and orator. He held no such position now.

Now, Erestor was simply a vassal of a recollection, a walking wraith of joy and frivolity.

Elrond took him by the shoulders and dipped his head to meet Erestor's eyes.

"Do you not remember those days? Do you not remember yourself? For I do! I remember the days of your youth as well as I remember my own, for you have been my friend and my chief consultant for far longer than you have been my Councilor," Elrond steered Erestor towards a garden path and led him into a courtyard of roses and statues. He was quiet for a time, hoping that it might prod the Noldo into speaking. But the striking scenery and the awkward silence clinging to it did nothing to free the councilor's mind.

"Do you remember the day that you and Glorfindel announced your betrothal?" Elrond asked, sinking into his role not only as a healer of the body and spirit, but as a friend.

Erestor acknowledged this with a gentle nod. Elrond had thought that such a memory might awaken him.

"And do you remember that even though you faced opposition, those who loved you stood loyally by your sides, eager to see your happiness? For though your suit was a shock to many and a bone of contempt for some, your love for each other was as clear as dawn,"

Erestor nodded again, for such had been the case.

"Those that stood by you then would stand by you again, if only you had the courage to ask for it, Erestor. For you are a great friend in the eyes of many, and friendship requires loyalty in both directions. There are many who would consent to anything if it might right your ill-mood. And that of Glorfindel's as well,"

Erestor was quiet yet, but a gentle glisten had returned to his eyes.

"Elrond, I would that such a case was. But what has been broken between Glor…," Erestor choked on the name, and looked away in shame. He swallowed once before continuing. "What has been broken between he and I has no name, and for that reason I do not think that it has an antidote,"

Erestor had stopped, now running his hands over the arms of a statue made in the likeness of Luthien. He met his old friend's eyes with hesitancy, and in a quiet, guilty voice he said, "I do not know the one who could right the wrongs between us,"

Elrond shook his head, thinking back to the early days of his own tumultuous marriage. "No one can right the wrongs, whatever they may be, but Glorfindel and yourself. It is your marriage that has suffered, and it is your duty to repair it. Others can stand by you and support you, but ultimately, we all must carry our own torches,"

A thrilling horn blow followed his words, and the two made their way back through the rose beds and the busts of stone. When they arrived in the parade grounds, now crowded with the family and lovers of the other hunters, the host of riders had just begun to enter.

Erestor's eyes looked for the great bay horse of his husband of their own accord, well practiced now in locating Rocharon after days of orc-hunting. He remembered then the younger days of his courtship, when upon news of the hunter's arrival, he would hide in the very rose garden he had recently walked through, to be joined by Glorfindel in a secret tryst. Now, after so many years since their secret love had become public gossip, meeting his husband after a hunt was mere habit.

But his eyes were unaccustomed to Glorfindel entering the city as the last of the riders. He was also unaccustomed to Glorfindel leading Rocharan into the city in a slow walk. Glorfindel had always made a point of arriving in full gallop and a tight rear, simply to reinforce his valiancy as a protector of the people and a hero of old.

Erestor, now concerned, strode hastily to his husband and took the great war horse's reigns. He looked up at Glorfindel in fear.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, scanning the high brow, the stubborn nose, the fierce collar bone he had memorized so many years before. His free hand had strayed to Glorfindel's leg, and he groped about for wounds or bandages.

"Nay, I am not hurt," Glorfindel said, a hint of thanks and relief seeping into his voice. Erestor's sudden approach had given him little time to brace for an argument.

But the hunter had let his guard down too soon.

"Then why are you trailing after your men like some vagabond? By gods, you are their captain, Glorfindel! You must lead them, even in symbolism! And why must you insist on frightening me?"

Glorfindel merely shook his head and urged Rocharan forward, simply too exhausted to respond.

But he halted, for Erestor's shrill words had awoken the child sleeping in his cloak. As she stirred, Erestor's eyes fell upon her.

"What is this?" he asked.

Maia looked about, rubbing her eyes with filthy fists the size of apricots.

"We are here, Glorfindel? Or is this another nightmare?" she said, her voice so alarmingly weak that only the one she addressed could hear her.

"We are here, little one," Glorfindel whispered back, and he pulled her shivering frame back against him and into the confines of his cloak. He then looked to his bewildered husband.

"She is my charge. A refugee of war. Let me tend to her," he said. And he led Rocharan away, aiming straight for Elrond.

And Erestor, feeling lost and abandoned as he always had, looked after the blazing blonde and sky blue that shrouded the elf that had once been the love of his life.

And though he did not know it, he looked also at the one holding a little bearer of fading light in his arms. He looked after the one who was now carrying Erestor's torch as Glorfindel once had, so many years ago…