She ate with them in the hall the next morning, so early that the sun had not yet risen over the mountains to the east, and the great room was shadowy and gray. Meren's jests were wry, Anna's face set in stoic resignation, and for a time Aragorn's thoughts did not seem to be with them at all. But sunlight touched the tips of the trees as they said their farewells, in the stone-paved courtyard before the great doors, and they did not seem so downcast. She embraced Meren fiercely, murmured, "Half odds says Tathar will be with child by the time I get back," got a kick on the ankle for her trouble, and a murmur in return: "And you'll take one of those Elves for a lover. Tell me how he is, eh?"
And so they were both smiling when they drew apart. He glanced at Aragorn and then back, said with deliberate clarity, "We'll take care of the puppy, Mir. Wouldn't want him to get lost again."
She chuckled, met Aragorn's rueful smile with a grin, said to Meren, but with her eyes still on the Chieftain, "Good. Tough job, but someone's got to do it."
Anna did not smile, only gripped her arm and looked in her eyes. "Valar guard and guide you, Ranger."
Miriel swallowed, nodded, forced her voice steady. "Valar guard and guide."
And then Anna stepped back, and Miriel turned to Aragorn. He reached out, took her hands in his, and she felt him with her again, the words clear this time in her mind: You are not alone. She nodded, pressed his hands and then let them go. And then he said softly, "Dunadaneth," and smiled again at her sudden astonishment, and before she could reply he turned away, bowed in farewell to Elrond and strode over the bridge to the path that led down the valley.
Elladan and Elrohir were there as well, to bid Aragorn farewell, and when he and the others had disappeared into the trees, one of the brothers turned to her. She could not tell them apart, felt momentary panic that she would be required to address them, but the Elf spoke first.
"Estel said we are to make sure you do not go soft while you are here." The words were sharp, but a grin twitched at the corners of his lips. "I am Elrohir, the unfortunate foster brother of your wayward Chieftain. You can tell me," a sweeping gesture toward himself, "from him," another in the direction of his brother, "because I am better looking. Also, taller."
"In point of fact, not," returned the other at once. "You're wearing taller boots."
"So? I never said I was taller barefoot."
"And regarding the first charge, shall we discuss a certain—"
"We shall not. That is entirely beyond—"
"I ask only evidence for your assertions, as I am bound to do. Am I not, Father?"
A thin smile touched Elrond's lips, and he turned to her. "Miriel, I leave you in the rather dubious care of my sons. Aragorn assures me you've enough strength and sense to survive it. I do hope he is right."
"What, Father, are you doubting Estel's word?"
"Not at all." The words were slow and distinct, and she thought there was a warning in the look he gave his sons. But he nodded to her, and then turned and went up into the house.
When he had gone, the brothers glanced at each other, and then back at her. "In truth, the easiest way to tell us apart," said Elrohir, in a more normal voice, "is that I have a scar just below my ear, here." He pointed, and she saw it, thin and white, and thought of the close call that must have been.
"Though," said Elladan, and he did not now restrain the grin, "Glorfindel's daughter does prefer me. In point of fact."
"You and your facts. Nasty, inconvenient things."
"Indeed they are. Now, Estel did ask us to see to it that you had all you needed to keep up your skill and strength while you are here. Weapons I do not doubt you have, but we will show you where to use them, and how we go about it. Come."
They led her around the side of the house, and in a sheltered space that faced south down the valley, there was a practice yard. Archery targets, marked circles and cloth-covered bales for sword work, racks of weapons glimpsed through a door: it was all instinctively familiar, as nothing else had been in this strange house, and she found herself smiling. Seeing it, Elladan said quietly, "Now this feels like home, does it not?"
He's an Elf. Maybe mind-reading is one of those secret gifts they are supposed to have. "It does. Thank you," she answered, and did not try to hide the sincere gratitude in her voice. "May I come in the morning?"
"Certainly. We are usually here then, and if we are not, the others will welcome you."
"Or at least leave you alone, which is nearly as good."
"True," Elladan laughed. "Now, we will show you the way back to your room. Girth will expect you by the middle of the morning, but he knows you will be here first."
And that became the rhythm of her days, as the wind grew colder and snow crept down from the mountains. She woke early, and worked in the practice yard until her muscles ached and sweat prickled under her warm clothes. At first she kept to herself, though always she was aware of eyes on her. They made her stiff, self-conscious, reluctant to push and risk for fear of looking foolish. But gradually she grew used to it, and sometimes Elladan and Elrohir drew her into their practice. They introduced her to others, and before a month had passed she felt nearly as comfortable among them as she did on the practice ground in Elenost; if Elves' banter was rather more decorous than Rangers', still she felt at least a shadow of the familiar ease of comradeship.
But nothing else that she learned in Rivendell was comfortable, or familiar, or easy. She had expected her training as a healer to be difficult, painful even. But it had been a vague expectation, without form or detail, and so she was not ready for the brutal realness of it.
Complete openness, that was how it began, exposure of body and mind as she allowed Girith to see everything in her, that she might know how it felt. He taught her then to search him, and though not painful, it drained her more utterly than she had ever been drained save in the days after the plague. Pushing into an alien being, familiar enough that she felt it ought to be easy, but the familiarity was deceptive, served only to make her more conscious of the effort, more frustrated that what ought to be smooth and natural felt instead like swimming upstream.
More than once she found herself thinking, It was not like this with the Chieftain. And once, Girith caught that thought, pulled away from her and stared into her eyes, said very quietly, "That is not often known." Only once, for she took care not to have the thought again. Not at least when he could feel her mind, and she forced herself not to ask what he meant.
The pain came later. "You must know what is normal," he said, "the shape and feel of it, the better to find what is not." But when he was satisfied she could do that, and not only with him but with others as well, he said one morning, without expression in face or voice, "Today we will begin."
On occasion there was injury in Rivendell, and even more rarely illness, but she could not wait so long. And so he gave the injuries to himself. They were simple at first: a strained ankle, a wrenched shoulder, a cut on the arm. Each she must find within and pull out the pain, the damage, then sew or poultice or bandage. "I heal far more quickly than you," he said, when she expressed dismay at it, "and more completely. If you injure your knee, it may never be the same again. I do not suffer so."
"But then do you not feel the pain as I do?"
And he said quietly, looking straight at her, "I feel the pain."
Silence then, only the distant whisper of wind in bare branches, and at last she said, "Why do you do it?"
That same quiet voice, that same level gaze. "For the same reason you do. I can, and because I can, I must."
There was more after that, deeper cuts in places more difficult to stitch, dislocations, and finally a broken finger. "That is all I will break," he said, "though it is not all you will see in the Wild. But even I have limits." And she was grateful, for she had come to dread the onslaught of pain.
Yet she found that she could bear it, more easily in fact than she had feared. He taught her ways to accept it, to let it flow through her and out. "Into the earth, and into the air," he said, "for from them all come, and to them all shall return." He did not explain further, merely showed her the way, and after some difficulty she was able to use it, and it became easier, smoother as time went on. But still she thought, My people are from the sea. 'From water we came, and to water we return.'
They did not do this every day, for he allowed her time to recover. "In the Wild, you may not get it," he acknowledged, "but I will give it to you here, the better to learn. And the better to feel how it goes, to know the contours of your own strength, and its limits. Your body will tell you, 'You may go this far and no farther,' and you will hear it true if you know how to listen. If you do not, or if you ignore it…" He looked at her, and said no more. But she saw in her mind Mirloth crossing the Hall, blank and unfeeling, and she knew what would happen if she pushed the limits of her strength too far.
She learned also to expect and handle the effect it had on her ability to fight. It was unutterably frustrating at first, and vaguely, inchoately terrifying, to find of a sudden that her body could not do things her mind knew she could do. It was not the first time, of course. She had felt it after the plague, and even, she realized reaching back in memory, after healing Calen. But still it felt wrong, wrong in her heart, wrong in her gut, as if a part of herself had disappeared. The brothers watched her with understanding, and offered words of reassurance, and that helped a little. But still she was infuriated, and shamed, when she found she could not do something any trainee could do with ease. Her arms shook, her arrows went wide, her sword strokes were slow, she stumbled over her own feet.
But slowly she became accustomed to it, suppressed the instinctive flash of anger and breathed deep, stopped when she needed to stop, knelt when she needed to kneel, until her head was clear and her limbs steady. And then when she knew she could do that, sometimes she did not, and instead fought through it, trembling and reeling and sick. For there will be times when I cannot stop. And so she learned to fight with weakness, to fight with pain, grew to know the limits of her body when it was thus reduced. And at last, she grew to feel a sober, melancholy pride in it. This too I can bear.
On the days when he let her rest, still he taught her, over and over that she might remember, every plant that grew in the north, its place and way of growth, and any use to which it might be put. Many of these she already knew, as all Rangers did, but he taught her things she did not know even about those that were familiar, and others more rare and strange that were entirely new to her. He taught her how to mix them, combine them to produce this effect or that, and how to measure the amount a man or woman or child would need. She learned also which were forgiving in this respect, and which were poison in amounts even slightly too large, and useless in amounts too small.
And he taught her the making of the mercy draught. All Rangers knew the use of it, and carried it with them, but they were not taught how it was made. That was a secret held by the healers, and they doled it out carefully and required accounting of it when Rangers returned from patrol. This secret he taught her, the precise combination of herbs that would bring death swiftly and without pain. She thought of Silevren, and of Belegon's face as he held her and watched her die.
And she learned also something else, that brought a cold shiver of fear into her heart. "Now that you are a healer, the choice to give the mercy draught will be yours on patrol, and yours alone. The captain cannot overrule you, and you must not give in to the pleadings of a wounded man. You alone can see him clearly, and judge whether he might live or will inevitably die. Yet this judgment goes against the order of nature, and against the healers' craft. So if you judge that he will die, and allow him to be given mercy, you will suffer for it."
He stopped speaking then, and looking in his face she saw memory, and for a time she let it be. But at last she asked quietly, "How will I suffer?"
He looked away from her and was silent. After a time, he said softly, "I do not know. It is different for every healer. For some it is anguish of body; others find themselves taken out of their own mind for a time, into unutterable grief, or dreams of horror and death. For some it is both." A pause, and then he turned back to her, and there was a softness in his eyes. "You will find it for yourself," he said gently, "as do we all."
It was by now deep winter, and though still the Elves were strange to her, her appreciation for their craft increased as the weather grew bitter and the house remained snug. To be sure, the passageways were chilly and damp, and when she woke in the morning her room was cold. But it was not freezing, and when she had built up the fire it quickly warmed, and there was no need to go outside save for arms practice. The food, too, was more varied and plentiful than it was in Elenost, and there seemed to be no lack as the winter wore on. Yet she thought of home as she ate, of the fields that had gone unharvested in the plague, the laborious slaughtering and preserving that had perhaps not been done as fully as it ought, with so many weak and grieving. It was always a near thing, their food supplies by the end of winter, though always in the span of her memory they had been able to eke out until spring. Perhaps this will be the year that we starve. And then, Not we. They. And she was bitterly impatient to be home. Reason reasserted itself, of course, and told her that her absence meant one less mouth to feed. And the Chieftain will look after them, now he is home. So she told herself, had to tell herself, and mostly she managed to believe it.
Girith sensed her impatience, and when he asked her, she told him. Reluctantly, for she did not wish to appear ungrateful, but he nodded and said, "I will speak to Lord Elrond." A small smile. "He will see that Estel's people do not starve." This comforted her, but still part of her wished to be home.
Yet slowly the year turned, and the sun began to creep up the valley, and at last in the daytime the snow began to soften and then melt, though still at night it froze hard. The brothers took her up into the forest, slogging through soft, grainy snow that slid under her feet and on occasion dumped her face-first into icy slush. But then they would bound down, leaping and sliding through the trees, whooping with the exhilaration of speed and release, halting at last at the bottom of a slope, panting and grinning, before starting off down the next. This was mostly for the joy of it, she could tell, but also it taught quickness and balance, and she found it deeply refreshing after days spent indoors.
Girith began to smile more as well, as the light lengthened and the sun at midday grew almost warm. He had a beautiful smile, she realized, or perhaps beautiful was not the right word. He was reserved, always, almost severe, and the smile did not change that. But it brought light to his face, and a life she had not felt before; almost, she might have said, it made him seem less like an Elf and more like a man. He began to talk to her more as well, and not only of work. With the passage of time, grief softened, and when he asked about her family, she found she could speak without tears.
"You will find strength in your sister," he said once, after she had told him, haltingly and without really meaning to, of the gulf that had always been between them, and its tentative narrowing in the wake of plague and healing and grief. "Her whole heart is in her craft, that I saw when she was here. Perhaps even more than your mother, and she said once that she had committed herself never to love nor marry. Maybe she sensed even then what lay in wait." He paused a moment in thought, then said softly, "Or perhaps it was something else altogether."
Miriel said nothing, was uncomfortably aware that he could probably read more on her face than she would wish, and hoped he would not ask. When he did not, and remained silent, gazing out through the window, to turn his thoughts aside she asked, "Are you married?"
It was perhaps impertinent, but she had wondered. Though she had seen no sign of it, many were the old tales of Elven lovers long separated, for to those who did not die, a few years or decades apart signified little in the stream of time.
He regarded her for a moment without speaking, his face unreadable. At length, he said quietly, "We do not marry as you do. We love...more freely, though some of us choose to bind ourselves to another, for love, and for the begetting and raising of children."
He stopped speaking, and his eyes were on his work, and he did not look at her.
She frowned a little. He didn't answer my question.
You asked the wrong question.
So ask the right one.
"Then are you bound to another, according to the ways of your people?"
"No." His voice was very soft, and his hands had stopped moving, though still he did not look at her. "No. There was a time when I was, but...she died. So I am no longer bound."
Miriel felt a sudden coldness in her chest, the dread of having unwittingly done something very wrong. At last, her face burning, she mumbled, "I—I'm sorry."
On the edge of her sight, she saw him turn to face her, saw him lift his head. As if drawn up against her will, she raised her eyes to his.
His voice was quiet, and gentle. "You have nothing to be sorry for."
"I should not have asked. It was not my concern."
He smiled a little, though it was a brief, sober smile, without joy. "You desire to learn all you can about those around you. You wish to know them, truly know them, understand their minds and their bodies and their hearts. It is what allows you to do what you do." A pause, and then, "The Gift is only a tool, Miriel, and a slippery, tricky one at that. It is not the Gift that allows you to enter another – that is the great myth. It allows you to heal once you are there. But if you do not have the true desire to know the other, his mind will be a wall in which there is no door." He sighed and smiled again, weary and self-deprecating this time, but real. "All that is to say that I forgive you, if there is anything to forgive. I should have spoken of this before now. So." He drew a long breath, let it out slowly. "I pledged myself to a woman of my people, many years ago. She was a warrior. Like you. She was..." He paused again, swallowed, then smiled a little, gazing far off in remembrance. "She was fierce, and strong, and short-tempered, and beautiful, and I loved her with everything in me. The orcs killed her, in the mountains, in the last moon of autumn thirty years ago."
He stopped speaking, his eyes still far away. Not knowing quite why she did it, nor if it was the right thing to do, she reached out, and laid her hand over his where it rested on the table. She said nothing, only held his cold hand with her warm one, reached out and felt his grief, still an icy echo of emptiness despite the passage of years. She thought of warmth, a hearth-fire banked low against the night, and so real did it seem that she gasped a little in surprise when his hand shifted in hers. Then his mind withdrew, but still she felt a whisper, a breath as of the first thaw of spring.
"You see?" He was looking down at her, and the smile that lit his face was full and warm. "That is the true gift, Miriel. You know, now, why I was heartsick in the autumn. You felt it in me, and you wondered, though you dared not ask. But you need not pity me. She is gone, and I will never swear myself to another as I did to her. But I have had other lovers, and though they are not her, they push back the loneliness, at least for a time. And I have my work, healing broken bodies, and teaching others to heal. There is much joy in that, and I am content." He squeezed her hand and then let it go. "And now, dunadaneth, we have work to do." His voice was suddenly brisk, serious, but the warmth of his smile did not fade.
Notes:
This version of Elladan and Elrohir owes much to Isabeau of Greenlea's characterization. Not terribly elven (or at least, Hobbit-era fa-la-la singing in the trees Elves, not LOTR Elves), but so much fun to write...and to imagine Aragorn having to deal with them when he was growing up in Rivendell :)
On a more sober note, "From water we came, and to water we return" is a line from the Dunedain funeral ritual, when the ashes of the dead are cast into running water (refer to NATWWAL Ch. 15).
Sileveren's death is in NATWWAL Ch. 12.