Chapter 17
The next morning, Leda was awoken by loud banging.
She groaned awake, flopping onto her back as she blinked into the gloom of her room. The sun hadn't risen yet through her window-hole so the room was near dark.
She didn't mind. The shadows suited her rotten mood. It'd been hard enough to fall asleep after her disastrous day yesterday, but even her dreams were plagued with uneasiness. The sneers and disdain and mistrust from Mereneth and Galadriel and Glorfindel all mixed into a dream where she was running through the Stronghold's tunnels. But no matter how far she ran, or how many corners she turned; she'd always find herself back in the bowels of the mountain- back at the black doorway that led to their graveyard. When she'd given up on sleep hours before, her body had felt tired, like she'd run each step her dream-self had taken.
The knocking came again and she sighed, flinging an arm over her eyes, determined to pretend to be asleep.
"I know you are awake."
Lindir's voice came through the door so clearly, she had to peek to make sure he hadn't snuck into the room somehow.
But no. It was just her and the gloom, together as one. And she'd very much like it to stay that way for at least another hour.
"I can hear you breathing." Lindir said. "I know you are awake."
She almost laughed at how creepy he sounded. Instead, she rolled her eyes.
"I don't know what time Mereneth wants me in the Halls of Healing but I'm almost certain it isn't right this second." She said.
The doorhandle rattled, and Leda sat up straight, pulling her covers up to her chin.
"I'm not decent!" She yelled as he slipped through the room.
He threw something at her that hit her in the face.
"Nonsense." He huffed as she dragged the thing off her. It was a purple bundle of cloth. Medium thickness and so soft she was tempted not to be annoyed with him for barging in. "I would have heard you disrobe yourself."
He was wearing his armour again. What little light spilled into the room from the hallway caught it, and for a second, the dim gleam reminded her of the crystal graves. Sickly shining in the mountain. Her stomach rolled.
"Get up." He barked, marching to the desk and picking up the grey robe Olorin had given her. "And put this on too."
She caught it before it hit her face with a huff. "Lindir. Please. I'm tired. I don't want to go on an adventure."
"This is not an adventure." He smirked. "You smell. You are going to bathe."
She blanched. "I don't smell."
"Perhaps not." He mused. "But I'm tired of carrying a bath to you each morning."
That made her feel a little guilty. Not guilty enough to not be annoyed with him for saying she smelled, but enough to make her feel a little bad.
"Sorry." She said quietly. "I didn't know. You can add it to the list of things I've done wrong since I got here."
Lindir's angular cheeks caught the shine from his armour and she saw his jaw work once, twice before he spoke.
"Come." He bade. "I will take you to baths."
When she didn't move he pursed his lips. It made him look very human.
"It will help." He said softly and then left, shutting the door behind him.
She'd half a mind to fall back to sleep. But the shadows that had not three minutes before felt like home, suddenly felt as lonely as she did. If Lindir was offering to take her somewhere to help, she shouldn't look a gift horse in the eye. Or however the saying went.
"Fine." She called, shuffling off the bed. "But if it's not amazing, I'm blaming you."
. . .
The Baths, as Lindir called them, were absolutely amazing. Not that she had anymore lingering doubts about elven ingenuity or architecture.
They consisted of two pools of water in a domed Cave, parted by a thin rock wall that didn't reach the ceiling. There were natural spots of sunlight that filtered down; but no matter how hard she squinted; she couldn't tell where they were coming from.
Shimmering turquoise reflections slid up the walls making the whole space feel as though it were blanketed by calm water. A world away from magic and Orchs and war. She could cry.
"Do you see?" Lindir sounded smug. "I spoke true."
She tabled her snark, and instead offered him a grateful smile. The same she'd given him when he'd taken her to the Cave Garden what felt like years ago.
"Thank you." She breathed.
He blinked, looking a little uncomfortable. His unsureness made him look even younger.
He inclined ihs head to the pool on the right.
"Use that one." He instructed.
He slipped around the partition to the other side. She undressed quickly, selfconcious of the wide opening they'd come through and how silently the elves moved. The only thing that could make make her feel any worse was being caught starkers by Elrond, or worse, Glorfindel. She shuddered. He'd probably make it no secret his disdain for her human body. Compared to what she'd seen of the elves, who were all slender, fit and beautiful, she was sure he'd find her significantly lacking.
She tested the water with a toe and found it to be strangely warm but couldn't see any opening for coals to heat the rock and water below. Maybe this was a hot spring, she thought logically and then almost scoffed. Or maybe it was just more magic. There were still so many things she didn't know about the Stronghold. Or about the elves.
There was a set of submerged stairs that she took down, sighing as the water rose around her. Warm gratitude bubbled under her rib cage. It wasn't a waterfall shower, or the high-pressured jet stream of the showerhead in her pokey little flat back in London, but it was good enough. More than good enough. She thread her hand through the water and grinned. Way more than good enough.
She heard a tiny slap of water from the other side and startled.
"Lindir?" She called uncertainly.
"I am here." His voice floated towards her and she instantly relaxed, feeling a weird urge to giggle. What on earth was going on? She hadn't taken a bath with anyone since...probably ever.
Inside a clinical setting, the naked human body was an occupational occurrence. Nakedness meant nothing. Usually, she was more concerned with what was happening inside the body (or what was sticking out of it) to note much more than height or weight or gender. Boobs, fannies, penises, bottoms. They were all just things. But here in the Stronghold, she wasn't a doctor. She wasn't even the equivalent of a scullery maid.
So now, naked across from a nude soldier who she was sure was only about nineteen, she felt a little weird. And she realised quite startling, that for someone she'd spent most of her days with since being there, she knew next to nothing about him.
Maybe it was the nakedness. Or maybe it was the fact that she hadn't spent this much time with one person outside of work in over a decade, but she suddenly wanted to...know him. If she was bathing with him- she should know him, right? That would probably make it less weird.
"Lindir." She called abruptly. He hummed in response. "How old are you?"
She'd never heard him properly laugh, before. But the tinkling baritone of his laugh sounded around them and she found she very much liked the sound of it. The sound mercifully eased some of the uneasiness she felt.
"Older than you." He said, followed by a muted splash of water.
Leda rolled her eyes, kicking up with her feet to pitch her backwards into a float.
"Liar." She muttered.
She could feel the water on her scalp. Usually, she was always concerned about getting her hair wet, knowing that the struggle of getting it back under control was rarely worth it for a quick swim. But without a hairdryer in site, and the whole falling into another dimension thing, she couldn't really find it in herself to care what any of the elves might think of the potential bees' nest of hair she might be left with later.
"Where are you from?" She tried next. "Are you from the Stronghold?"
A heavy quiet filed the space and Leda worried she'd pried too much. Maybe he didn't want to tell her. She hadn't told him anything about herself. Maybe he didn't want to give her any information if she wasn't willing to do the same. They weren't friends, per se. But he and Gildor were the closest she had there. Wasn't that how friendship worked? An exchange of personal memories until common ground had been achieved?
It'd been a long; long time since she'd had any real friends. Her boss and her flatmate certainly didn't count. And she wasn't saying Lindir was her friend... but he was the person she'd spent the most time with outside of work in – she grimaced as an image flashed in her mind of shining blue lights, police officers at the door, Dad, bearded and wild eyed at his trial – a...very long time.
"No." Lindir finally supplied. "I was born in Eregion."
"Oh." Leda said dumbly. What did normal people usually respond with? "Is that...far from here?"
After a pause he said softly: "...Yes. But it is gone now."
Her stomach fell. Gone. Her mind drifted to the injured teenagers laying on beds in the Halls of Healing. Maybe at one point, one of them had been Lindir too. The thought didn't make her feel very steady. "I'm sorry, Lindir."
"For what? It was not you."
She swallowed. "Yes. I know. It's just what people say when they hear about loss. Like- I'm sorry for you. For your loss. That you had to feel loss at all."
He didn't reply. She couldn't blame him. She knew all about sympathy wishers. When her parents' friends had said the same to her, she'd never understood how to respond either.
After a while she heard a splash then the quiet zing of armour moving through the air.
"Come now." Lindir bade. "Let us leave."
She was reluctant to leave her sanctuary but did as she was told, drying with the towel that seemed to soak everything up but not get wet itself. Magic, she scoffed to herself.
He must have been listening, because as soon as she had tied the ends of the robe together, he appeared, hair miraculously dry and perfect.
He eyed her, lingering on her hair and self-consciously, she ran a hand over it. Her two French braids had held, but it must not have been to his standards because he pursed his lips and said:
"Await me here. I will be return."
He was gone for a while, so picked a boulder to sit on until he returned, carrying a small glass vial and a white comb.
"What's that?" She asked as he marched over and reached a hand for her hair.
She flinched back, breathing sharply through her nose.
He paused, hand hovering where her head used to be. They watched each other, each as startled as the other. She like a deer in headlights, he with wide, confused eyes.
His hand dropped and his face became carefully blank.
"My apologies." He said stiffly. "I only wanted to help."
She cringed.
Touching hair without permission tended to be a big no-no back on Earth. And muscle memory had made her move before she'd had time to think.
But this was a different world, she thought as she tried to reason her learned reactions with this new experience. And Lindir definitely wasn't about to touch her hair and comment about its versatility or compare it to a box of springs.
"No. Sorry. I'm sorry." She said quickly and made an effort to move her head back to its original position. "If you want to- thanks. I appreciate it."
His jaw moved and then he nodded, stepping forward cautiously like she might bolt.
"The water here is very soft." She rambled awkwardly, tense as his hands landed on her head. "I think my hair just isn't used to it yet so it's just...tangled. I tried with the plaits but as you can see it's not really working out too well."
She tried to suppress the flinch as he began to undo her braids, but couldn't seem to stop bunching her shoulders against his touch. It had been a very long time since anyone had touched her hair. Even before Mum - her heart thumped once painfully - and she hadn't really needed help with her hair since she was an early teen.
Lindir, ever observant, slowed his movements, gently separating sections of her hair and combing from the ends.
She twisted her hands around themselves as he worked, trying and failing to come up with something to fill the silence between them.
"I-"
"Do your people not groom each other?" Lindir asked suddenly, when he while he re-did her right plait.
She grimaced. "No. Not really. Maybe children. Maybe between parents and kids or friends. And hairdressers. But it's not...the norm to just do it."
"That is why you pulled away." It was a statement but she got the distinct impression he was asking a question.
"Sort of." She hedged. "It's a bit more complicated."
When he didn't, she sighed.
"It's difficult to explain." She said.
"Try."
She huffed again, tutting when he pulled a knot too hard.
"Threre are many divisions at home. Men and women. Black and white. Nationality and nationality. In the past there was a lot of...policing about hair. And the perceived ownership of someone else's. Or rather, the right to touch what isn't yours because you did not perceive the other person as having enough agency to protest."
He hummed but did not respond. They lasted back into silence but it was a little easier now. Some of the tension left her shoulders and she was began to wiggle, feeling her legs grow numb from the rock. When he pulled too hard she hissed. When he pushed her head to the side she huffed.
When he tilted her head back, she caught him smiling.
"What are you so happy about?" She griped good naturedly. "Like watching me squirm?"
He huffed a laugh, and his sweet breath washed down against her forehead.
"No." He grinned. "Your fidgeting. You..." He trailed off, grin sliding from his face.
Leda didn't think he would continue but he did, so quietly she almost missed it.
"You remind me of my sister." He said softly.
Her eyebrows skyrocketed. "You have a sister? Is she here? I haven't met her yet."
His hands stilled and she only realised her mistake a second too late.
"No." He said glumly. "She was lost with Eregion."
She'd never sought out more human contact than she needed, but some old buried instinct had her reaching her hand up to press the pads of her fingers to his wrist briefly.
"Lindir, I'm so-"
"Sorry." He finished for her. But his voice was soft. "Yes. I know you are."
She dropped her hand back to her lap, and he finished quickly in silence, patting her shoulder when he was done.
She had no mirror to see, but when she ran a hand over the French plaits he had re-done, she found her hair soft and oiled.
She turned, grinning. "You should consider a second career as a hairdresser."
He rolled his eyes. "Why would you need a dresser for your hair?"
She laughed. "No- they're not-"
He shook his head. "Explain on the way. If we do not leave you will be late for Mereneth."
"Shit." She scrambled up, wincing as pins and needles danced down her calves to her feet. "She already hates me enough."
"She does not hate you." He said, holding out the vial and comb for her. "She is wary. There is a difference."
She wanted to make a quip about Mereneth and the theoretical long stick up her arse but instead she frowned and looked at the comb and vial.
"Take it." He said, when she didn't move. She looked up and found a little colour on his cheeks. Was he...embarrassed?
"Oh." Now she felt embarrassed to. "No- Lindir it's OK you don't have to-"
"It is rude to refute a gift." He snapped but it had no bite to it. The colour in his cheeks deepened to a pretty pink so she decided to spare them both and took the comb and vial from his hand.
"Thank you, Lindir." She squeaked. Christ. Why was this so awkward? "And for the hair as well. You didn't have to."
"That I know." He sniffed; looking at a point above her head. "You reflect on me. It was duty. Not kindness."
Despite the embarrassment she found herself trying to suppress a grin. "Alright. Duty not kindness. I get it."
And she did. Because as he led her out and through the tunnels, she realised that she might have just made her first friend in ten years.
. . .
Mereneth was waiting for them when they arrived. She clucked her tongue as they walked in, but said nothing about lateness so Leda assumed she'd dodged another strike against her name. Instead she wordlessly handed her another pestle and mortar and said before leaving: "To dust."
This time Lindir stuck around. He spent the hours as she worked tinkering with the pots on the shelves and then grabbed a stray book and sat next to her to read. She marvelled at the fluidity of his armour that he could cross his legs beneath him without pain or restriction. Elven ingenuity at it again.
Mereneth walked in when she was done, forehead dripping with sweat. She shook out the contents of her finished bowl without a word and handed her another bag of leaves.
"Again." She commanded.
"Are you sure?" Leda leaned up on her knees. "I can help- I'm trained. If there are patients-"
"I said again." Mereneth snapped before rushing out.
Leda sighed deeply and looked down at her bruised fingers. Guess she was on grinding duty for another day. Frustrated, she opened the new bag but winced as her fingers cramped.
"Here." Lindir said, startling her. She hadn't even heard him get up, but now he crouched beside her, some greenish paste on the tips of his fingers.
Wordlessly, she held out her hands and winced as he rubbed the salve on. Whatever she had thought of their medicines, it worked almost instantly and she stretched her fingers that felt good as new.
"Thanks." She muttered and then at his look rolled her eyes as she saw the protest on the tip of his tongue. "Yeah. Yeah. Duty not kindness."
They sat in silence until Elrond showed up some time later. Leda was half surprised he had kept to his word. But like the day before he slumped heavily into his chair and waved off Lindir as he stood and bowed.
"No need for formalities in here, Lindir."
Lindir bowed again and then said awkwardly: "Yes my lord."
He dithered for a bit, clearly unsure if he was permitted to sit and Leda suppressed a grin. Older than her. Yeah right.
"Sit lindir." Elrond bade with a tired smile. "Do not stand on my account."
Lindir sat stiffly but did not pick up his book again.
"I see your fingers are not ruined." Elrond turned his attention to her.
She grinned but didn't pause her task. "Thank Lindir. He's great at hair and healing."
Elrond laughed a little. "Yes. He is multi-talented."
She felt his gaze on her neck as she worked, he let her finish her bag without question, happy to watch her work.
When she was finished, she looked up, frowning at his half-lid eyes and the slump to his shoulders. He looked exhausted.
"Are you...OK?" She asked, uncertainly. She wasn't unaware of the 'My Lord's' being thrown around. But she'd never existed within a Feudal society and wasn't sure if she was overstepping her bounds. Was there a certain way you had to speak to Lord's? "Sorry- am I not allowed to ask?"
"You are allowed. I would not deny someone concern for me." He smiled. "I am well."
There was more to it. But she didn't want to pry. So, she nodded, instead and said: "Alright, where did we finish?"
"You were speaking of the art of using thin string to tie veins together when they were severed." Lindir said quickly and when her gaze snapped to his, he flushed.
"Listening in, were you?" She teased.
His lips thinned. "Monitoring you."
"Whatever you want to call it." She grinned. "So, after vein ligation, I think came the invention of the rabies vaccine..."
They spoke for hours. And by the time the sun had set and Elrond had lit a few blue lamps around the room, Leda had gotten through another two sacks of leaves. The Arnica held up, but her arms ached and when Mereneth came to get her last bowl, she was so tired that she didn't even have enough energy to be annoyed when the woman roughly snatched her bowl and left without thanks.
Elrond sighed. In the blue glow of the lamps, he looked even worse than he had before.
"I should go." She said softly. "We can pick this back up tomorrow if you have time. I said I would visit Gildor today as well."
"Ah. Of course." He stood and smiled at her. "I too have duties I have been neglecting."
Leda blinked. She knew he was a Lord and was in charge with Celeborn and Glorfindel, but she hadn't thought he was ignoring the needs of his people to come and talk to her.
"If you're busy you know you don't have to come and sit with me and talk." She murmured.
He looked surprised. "I enjoy our talks. What is mundane for you is all new for me. Do not fret, Miss Ackerman. I have time spare to listen."
She shrugged, if he said he had time, she guessed she wasn't in a position to tell him that maybe his spare time should be spent sleeping instead. She offered a hand to Lindir which he pointedly ignored as stood.
"Lindir, remain behind for a moment, please." Elrond called.
Lindir nodded, leaving Leda to make her way to Gildor's room alone.
She got lost three times along the way, but made sure to peak into the room first so she didn't have another run in with Galadriel. She wasn't sure she'd be able to handle another interrogation.
"Little Leda!" Gildor burst when she eventually found his room. He wasn't alone though; there was someone else sitting on his bed who rose stiffly and turned to face her.
"Belwen." Leda breathed, with more relief than she had been expecting.
"You are Leda Ackerman." For someone so slight, Belwen's voice was an alto toll of a bell.
"Yes." Leda smiled and stepped further into the room. " And you're Belwen. You saved my life. I never got to thank you."
Belwen pursed her lips. Leda noticed she was slightly hunched; favouring her left side. It was an uncomfortable twist, but Belwen's face was proud, if not a little pinched.
"You assisted Gildor." Belwen stated and then nodded slowly. "I am pleased that you are not dead."
It was so stark that it startled a laugh out of Leda. "Same to you." She said.
Belwen wobbled and Leda reached out in instinct but the elf waved her off and hobbled around her to the door.
"I should rest." She said as she left. "Lest Mereneth gouge anymore from me as punishment."
"I see Mereneth has other torture victims." She muttered.
Gildor grinned. "Where is young Lindir?" He asked as she took a seat on the edge of his bed. Her translations were still scattered on top, and warmth filled her at the sight.
"Probably insulting me with Elrond." She replied reflexively and then grinned when Gildor laughed. She liked his laugh. And peculiarly, she felt proud that it had been her to make him do it.
"He is fond of you." He murmured, eyeing her new hair.
"Could have fooled me." She joked, but found Gildor had turned serious and was looking at her hard.
"He is young."
"Not according to him." She joked awkwardly, but when he didn't so much as smile she frowned. "Did I...do something wrong?"
He sighed, looked to the door and then back.
"No, Little Leda. I only worry about him. And you. He is curious. And has never met a Second Born. He is unaccustomed to your nature."
Leda frowned. "And what nature what that be?"
If he picked up on her annoyance, he didn't show it, instead he adjusted himself to sit higher.
His face was grave when he explained: "You burn brightly once and then no more."
She frowned. "I don't understand, Gildor."
"Humans can be...fascinating. You burn so brightly that it is in our nature to want to watch you eclipse. But the light can be blinding." His eyes slid from hers to the door. "And little good has come from our joining."
Leda was half past confused. But she was distinctly aware that Gildor was trying to warn her of something.
"What are you saying? Do you not want me to be his-" She paused, unsure and then said the word in a hurry like she wasn't sure if it was real "friend anymore?"
For one split second he looked devastated and then he smiled in defeat.
"No little Leda, I suppose you do not understand, either. For you are young, too. And the gift of youth is that every tragedy has the potential to be your first."
Her frown deepened. "I'm not young, Gildor."
"Yes." Lindir said as he marched into the room, breaking through the gloom Gildor's strange words had taken them in. "You are."
Eager to follow the change in subject and dissipate some of the tension, she rolled her eyes. "Says the teenager."
Lindir's eyebrows rose so high that they almost kissed his hairline. It might have been hilarious, if it didn't imply that she'd made another misstep and said something stupid.
"I am not in my youth." He said slowly, like she really was an idiot.
"Sure." She scoffed. "And I'm an Elf."
"I should hope not." He sniffed.
"Leda?" Gildor asked curiously, drawing her attention. The look he gave her was the same one Dad used to give her when she'd ask something perfectly logical to anyone without three Doctorates. "How aged do you believe Lindir to be?"
It felt like a trap. But Leda wasn't about to be the butt of whatever joke they were leading her into joke.
"About nineteen." She said confidently. "Maybe twenty but he can't be any older."
For a quiet moment she thought she was right, and a triumphant grin stretched her lips wide.
And then they burst into the most beautiful sounding laughs she had ever heard. It was almost enough to quell the sting of embarrassment at being so obviously wrong.
Almost.
. . .
"But how is that even possible?" She spluttered, as Lindir led her back to her room along blue lamp-lined tunnels. Night had long since fallen.
She'd been asking the same thing for hours. Tiredness had burned the edges of her eyes and along her limbs but it must have been obvious because Gildor had to promise he'd answer all her remaining questions in the morning, if she promised to rest. But even though her eyes stung, and her arms felt like noodles, there was a burning spark in her chest that kept her animated, kept her mind whirring at all the possibilities.
"How could you be three hundred and fifty years old? How could you be...immortal?" She whispered the word like it might ignite if she spoke too loudly, the very laws that governed her threatening to stamp out the impossibility.
"It is as was, and is, and shall be." He droned, his tall body casting long, navy shadows in the glow of the lamps. He'd said the same about six times, but it didn't answer a single thing.
"But immortal, immortal?" She asked quickly. "As in, never die, immortal?"
"Technically." He sighed.
"But I saw-" She swallowed thickly. The crystal grave flashing in her mind. "I- I saw what happens...Olorin showed me-"
"It is not death as you know it." He stopped walking, but she so lost in her thoughts that crashed into his back. He scowled down at her, twisting to steer her by her shoulder's through her open bedroom doorway.
Frustrated, she groaned. "Lindir that doesn't make any sense. None of this makes any sense."
He lit the lamp on her desk, blanketing the room with a soft cobalt glow.
He turned to her, bright eyes assessing. His lips thinned and then softened.
"Get into bed and-"
"Lindir!" She interrupted with a whine she would be embarrassed about tomorrow. "Please. I just don't understand-"
"Get into bed and I will explain it to you." He emphasised, cutting off her tirade before it'd even begun.
She felt like a child as she dashed to the bed, dutifully slipping under the covers and beaming at him as he watched, one eyebrow quirked. It was like Christmas. But Christmas on steroids. Immortals. Being's who don't die. Where the hell had that blasted Vortice spat her?
"If that was all it took to illicit obedience from you, we ought to have told you sooner." He muttered drily.
"Insults later." She said eagerly. "Explain it to me again."
"We do not...perish as you might understand it." He began. "We rarely befall illness, and it is by fatal blow alone that we may pass."
"Like the..." She trailed off.
"Yes. Like the grave-mounds you saw Below."
She frowned but nodded for him to continue.
"There is another place...far from here. Land of the Valar" He said the name gravely, like a prayer. Or a wish. She couldn't quite work out the twist to his lips. "It is where the leaves you brought are from. And it is where we coalesce. Where we are re-housed when we are mortally wounded here. It is where our lives continue. Where we remain."
"So then why-" She stopped, thinking hard. She didn't want to upset him. Or get it wrong again. Not when she was finally learning things. About him. About them. "Why..." but the worlds failed her.
He took a step forward, inching around her bed until he came to stand above her. Looking down at her from that angle, angled cheekbones shadowing his face, he looked like a vengeful angel.
"Why bury them? Why mourn them if we will see them again?" He guessed her question. She flushed, mouth opening to apologise but he shook his head. "There is no sorry. It was logical for you to ask. We bury them because for the majority of us, the way back has been barred. We are banned. Our fallen soldiers will make their way to Mandos' Halls but they will not be re-housed, to begin anew. There they will remain in his halls, apart from us, and the kin left before."
Leda struggled to digest his words. Mandos' Halls, a land far away with other elves that Lindir was banned from, a land where her leaves were from. It was almost too much, but she couldn't stop herself from asking questions.
"So, if you aren't k-killed," She tripped over the word, surprised by the yank on her heart as she briefly thought of Lindir not being alive. If he noticed her stutter, he made no comment on it. "You'll just...stay here? Forever? Even though you were supposed to go to that land to be what, reborn?"
He dropped to a crouch, and the strain in her neck rejoiced as their eyes met at the same level. "Yes. Here we will stay."
"And...and humans?" Gildor's words filled her mind. She thought she already knew the answer to her question. Gildor had already given it to her. Humans burn brightly and then not at all. "Do they live forever here too?"
Something unreadable passed across his face. "No." He said shortly. "They do not."
Relief and a surprising twinge of disappointment filled her. The thought of living forever sounded like a nightmare but the leaps that Science could take- the leaps medicine could take? If humans lived forever back home, they could have cured cancer by now. They could have done immeasurable good.
And, she grimaced thinking of everything bad back home, immeasurable evil, too.
"Rest." Lindir said gently, rising to a stand. "Your questions can wait."
He made his way to the door and her mouth moved before she could stop.
"Oh, Lindir." Her voice wobbled as she realised what the barring to the Land of the Valar really meant and where his sister was now, stuck without him as he lived forever in the Stronghold. "Your sister."
He stilled, shoulders stiffening. A heavy silence filled the room and she wished she hadn't said anything.
"I'm so sorry." She whispered.
His shoulders thawed, relaxing. "I know you are, Leda."
He twisted the doorknob, opening it to let in a waft of cool air. As he stepped into the tunnel again her mouth spewed more words before she could measure them.
"My-my Mum-" Her throat closed, cutting her off. Lindir turned his head, face unreadable.
"She..." She swallowed around a lump. Her eyes felt hot. But she wanted to reach out. She wanted to tell him. She had to. "She used to do my hair. All the time when I was little. I used to fidget then, too."
His eyes softened.
"No one has- I haven't...had someone do my hair since she-she-" She sniffed, fingers worrying the edge of her blanket. "Thank you for what you did."
The smile he offered was gentle. "Rest, Leda." He said softly. "I will be here in the morn."
As the door closed softly behind him, Leda let out a whoosh of air. She wasn't sure why it was so important to tell him right then about Mum and her hair, and though her heart throbbed dully, she was strangely relieved.
Her mind whirred, even as her eyes drooped. Immortality. A mysterious ban that prevents the elves from being re-born. Mortal humans amongst immortal elves. No wonder there were no others humans in the Stronghold. If there had been any when it was founded, they were probably long dead now.
Gildor's words drifted back to her. And little good has come from our joining.
Immortality, she thought as she hunkered down, curling in on herself under the blankets. It sounded like a curse.
. . .
"But I can help." Leda protested the next day as Mereneth snatched the bowl from her stiff grasp. "I could be more use to you out there with patients-"
"You will not," Mereneth pinned her with a hard look. "Touch a patient within my care untilyou have proven yourself capable."
"But I-"
"My word is final." She snarled before leaving.
Leda sighed, sitting heavily next to the newly empty mortar. The pestle, tinged green by the herbs she ground, lay beside it. She picked it up with a huff at its weight. No use moping, she thought as she got to work.
She didn't see Lindir at all- which meant she still burned with questions of their ages, their lives, how the passing of time felt to someone who knew, barring war, they might never die. She filed each new question away, determined to ask him each one whenever he reappeared.
By the time night had fallen, the elf woman had come back three times for more ground herbs. Leda's arms ached as Mereneth snatched the fifth bowl from her.
"Adequate." She quipped, turning back to the door, surprising Leda with the praise. From Mereneth's sharp tongue, 'Adequate' may as well have been her comparing Leda to the skill of Michelangelo. "Gildor is resting. Lord Elrond will not be joining you tonight and Master Lindir will be along shortly to escort you to your room."
That was a surprise to her. Leda had been a little eager to talk with Elrond again but she understood, in a way, the kind of pressures he must be under. Not seeing Gildor made her deflate, but she knew he had to rest if he was ever going to get better.
"Wait outside the Halls." Mereneth threw over her shoulder before slipping out of sight.
Leda exhaled. Figures Mereneth would make her wait in the drafty tunnel. She pulled Olorin's robe tightly around her as she slipped out of the Halls of Healing.
There were no lamps in the tunnel – the window holes to the outside let in enough sunlight and now, moonlight to light the way. It was eerie without the blue lamps, colder, somehow. Lonelier. If she hadn't just come from the bustling Halls, she might have thought herself the only person alive in the Stronghold.
She made her way to one of the windows, shivering at the chill but grateful for the moment to herself to breathe in the fresh air. She gazed up at the cloudless sky, noting the stars that winked, brighter than they ever did in London.
There was a line of three stars that she zeroed in on, squinting at their formation. If she was back home, she would have named it as it was, Orion's Belt. And true, the stars looked remarkedly like it, but she shook the motion off. This was another world. Not earth. There was no Orion's Belt here.
A funny heat in her chest tore her eyes from the stars to the opposite mountain side. To where Olorin said the Giants slept. The last, mangled stone, like boulders folded in and around each other captured her gaze. There was something fascinating about it. If she kept very still, it was almost like the rocks moved. And there- an opening in the rock-face. A black, empty tunnel into the mountain. Except- well except that when she squinted, it was almost like-
"You breathe the air so deeply – it's almost elf-like."
Leda's heart leapt into her throat and she whirled with a yell, hand clutching her chest. The interruption severed her link with the rock and the heat in her chest cooled.
Leda narrowed her eyes at the darkness that parted to reveal a girl. As she stepped into a path of moonlight, Leda recognised who she was.
"You." She gasped.
Celebrian's silver hair shone like metal in the white moonshine. Her eyebrow quirked. "Is that a popular greeting from your land?"
Leda blinked, feeling her senses come back to her as the shock wore off.
"No." Her voice sounded pinched, and almost shrill. "No, it's not. Sorry. I'm just- what are you-"
"What was it that had so enthralled your gaze?" Celebrian took another silent step forward. She wearing the finest dress Leda had ever seen on anyone. It was white, with what looked like silver threads, mimicking her strange hair. Like all elves, she towered above her, and her slow approach made Leda feel distinctly...hunted.
"Oh nothing." She felt as though Celebrian was peeling back every layer and every inch of her skin to see inside. Knowing who her mother was, it was entirely possible she was.
"I just..." Leda's mouth felt dry. "The mountain. I'm not sure exactly why, it just-"
"I will not apologise for my Lady Mother's doing, yesterday." Celebrian cut across her.
Lady Mother was a weird term, but Leda couldn't help being annoyed by the refusal to apologise for her mother essentially trying to break into her brain to steal blueprints for guns.
"That's what you came to tell me?" Leda asked, incredulous.
Celebrian gave a half-grin.
"In a way." She took another loping step forward. "I will not offer apologies but I do hope that you were not harmed, nor your heart quelled."
"How gracious of you." She said drily.
Celebrian's half-grin turned into a full one. Another loping step towards her made Leda inch back, her bum hitting the edge of the window. There was nowhere left to go, unless she counted out of the window. But she was almost certain the Vortice hadn't given her any special powers of flight, so leaping to her certain death was out of the question.
"They are afraid of you, you know." Celebrian said as casually as one might expect her to tell her that water was wet. "Well...perhaps not afraid. But there is a wariness you leave wherever you step. An uncertainty."
Leda gulped, hands steadying themselves against the dry rock wall.
"Mother would never admit it," Celebrian didn't step any closer, but she did lean forward, bringing them close enough for Leda to smell the sweet lavender perfume she wore. "But war is almost upon us. She is worried."
Leda bit back a retort and the two watched each other for a long moment, until Celebrian, seemingly coming to a decision Leda hadn't been aware she was even debating, leaned away.
"I believe that I hear Lindir." She said by way of goodbye, turning to the shadowed tunnel.
"Are you?" Leda's voice echoed as she stepped away from the wall. A breeze rolled over her shoulders, bringing up a layer of goosebumps.
Celebrian turned, curiosity in her grey eyes. "Am I...?" She trailed off.
"Are you afraid of me? Do you see the uncertainty?"
The elf blinked and gazed at her so long, Leda wondered if she had turned to stone.
She smiled, slow at first and then large, like Leda had said something amusing. "No." She answered earnestly. "I will see you tomorrow, Leda Ackerman."
And then she left, melding in and out of the shafts of moonlight and shadow until she turned a bend in a hallway out of sight.
She didn't hear Lindir approaching from the other direction, but she felt his eyes on her face before she turned to see him materialise out of the dark.
"Come, Leda." He smiled, but it was tired. She frowned, looking him over. He looked drained. Where had he been all day? "Time for rest."
She nodded, following him back down into the mountain. She turned at the last window, to the patch of rock that kept catching her attention. Between one blink and the next she was sure that it moved. Like it heaved as though it was breathing, but when she squinted, it was still. Quiet like the rest of the Mountain.
Hello!
Didn't think I'd be back so soon with another chapter but here we are! Happy New Year, all of you. I wish you a 2022 filled with joy and peace.
Thank you for all the views and reviews for last chapter and all the chapters before. I appreciate every single one of you and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. I'm not sure why this chapter was so Lindir centric! Glorfindel will be in the next chapter I promise. I realise I said slow build and slow burn but we're 80k in now, so I feel a bit bad going this slowly. I'll try and add more scenes with them.
I have 1 exam and 4 essays due, so it might be a little bit before I update again but I'll try to get something up sooner if I can.
Be safe and well. Novaer
- Aobh (: