Chapter 18

When Celebrian meant that she'd see Leda tomorrow, she really meant tomorrow.

She'd nestled into Elrond's lab like she had always been there, taking his seat at his desk as if it were hers and demanded, in a way Leda assumed only children of Edhel royalty would, that Leda tell her 'everything'.

Lindir, who had been gone for ages, wasn't there to help Leda when she floundered.

"E-everything-"

"Oh, yes." Celebrian interrupted, steepling her fingers under her slim chin, eyes bright. "Everything."

They ended up speaking for hours, until the sun had set so low that when Lindir returned, Celebrian had begun to light each of the blue lamps around the lab.

Just as she lit the last, Elrond strode into the room, almost knocking into Lindir who had taken station at the door and refused to move, even when Celebrian had insisted her relax.

"Oh- Lindir. My apologies." Elrond said tiredly with a placating wave of his hand. "Though I have told you many a time that you are free to sit while you watch our guest. You-"

He stopped abruptly, eyes widening as he noticed Celebrian sitting in his chair.

For a moment he was completely and utterly still. And then he did the most peculiar thing: he clasped and then un-clasped his hands before settling them awkwardly at his sides as if he'd forgotten what to do with them.

Leda had noticed a few 'peredhelisms' about him before: how expressive he was compared to other Edhel, his extra fingers, sometimes even the turn of his mouth when he was thinking hard, was slightly human. But, as she looked between him and a Celebrian who looked remarkably pleased with herself, Leda decided that he'd never looked quite as human as he did there; like a nervous boy around his crush.

"Well met, Lady Celebrian." Elrond breathed coming back to himself with a jolt. He dipped into a shallow, quick bow, and straightened so properly that Leda thought his back might break. "Were you waiting for your Lord Father? I believe that he is still in the War Room, with Lord Glorfindel."

Celebrian stretching forward lazily. "That, I know."

Elrond opened his mouth, but no words came. It might have been hilarious, if Leda didn't feel a bit sorry for him.

Celebrian's lips twitched. "Your ward was just relating some of the knowledge she has shared with you of her lands medical history."

Elrond cleared his throat, nodding for perhaps a little bit too long.

"Yes. Well. The land she hails from does seem to have tales of extensive medical advancements. Though the collation methods of such distinctively detailed recordings of the human body are questionable at best. Moral antithesis to us, at most."

Leda didn't think it was possible for Edhel to…ramble. Celebrian, it seemed, felt the same. If her sudden, Cheshire-like grin meant anything.

"Quite." She quipped.

Elrond looked at loss for a response, so Leda decided that he'd probably suffered enough.

"I hadn't actually got up to Psychiatry yet, Lord Elrond." She said.

Elrond startled at her voice, as if he'd forgotten she was there. Her knees popped incriminatingly as she stood. "Maybe Lady Celebrian would appreciate you catching her up to speed?"

Elrond's placid look turned panicked, hands curling in on themselves reflexively. "Nonsense, Leda. I think Lady Celebrian would rather it come from you."

"Nah- you understood it. You might even be able to explain it better than I would. I've finished the Arnica anyway. And we promised Gildor we'd stop by before the sun set." She turned to Lindir, eyes widening slightly. "Didn't we, Lindir?"

His nostrils twitched, and for a second she thought he'd expose her lie but instead he gave a single, rigid nod. "…Yes."

"Leda, I really think-" Elrond tried.

"You're much more elegant with your words than I am." Leda said quickly as she strode towards the door. "You can explain it better. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Elrond's hand rose and then fell before he sighed in defeat. "Yes. If time is on our side."

"I'll be here." Celebrian hummed, but she wasn't looking at Leda, her eyes were locked on Elrond.

"Yes. Well." Elrond tucked a sliver of his black hair behind his ear. "As Miss Ackerman has explained it, Sy-Kyatry is the study of the human mind. She has said that the earliest mention of it in their annals dates back to…"

Elrond's voice filtered away as Leda made a quick exit, dragging Lindir by the arm behind her.

"I know what you believe you have done." He said when they'd walked some ways to Gildor's room.

Leda grinned up at him, almost giddy. "He was so clearly-"

"Edhel do not engage in courtship in times of war." He interrupted, turning to force her to stop.

His tone wasn't stern, but he wasn't soft either and in the shadowy hall, his face was grave. Leda's smile slipped from her face.

"While I know you were trying to do right, the pain of love found and lost in such times is too heavy for us Edhel to bear."

"I-"

"I know." He interrupted gently. His gaze was singled on her, but she got the impression that he wasn't really seeing her. Three hundred and fifty years was a long time to live. Even if the others called him young. Had his sudden harshness come from first hand experience? "I only seek to explain. Why it seems perhaps they will orbit each other but never touch."

Her heart swooped, feeling at once exposed and bereft. Was he speaking from experience? "Is this- Have you… ever been in love?"

He blinked, pupils dilating as he seemed to focus back on her properly.

"Gildor is waiting." He evaded, turning to continue their journey.

Three hundred and fifty years, she thought, staring at his retreating back.

There was still so much she didn't know about him.

. . . .

"So, are you?" Leda asked the next day, in a rare lull of quiet. It was just her and Elrond, Lindir had been mysteriously gone again for hours and Celebrian promised to be back after visiting her mother.

Elrond's hand didn't stop as his quill scratched against the furling parchment on his desk. "Am I?"

"Sorry." She jerked her chin towards the lidded jars on his desk without looking up from her grinding work. Inside each was a clump of dully glittery metal, floating in a murky substance. "I meant those. I asked before but my wording was off. Are you containing metals or something?"

"What of it?" His tone was peculiar.

"Oh- Well it just looks like what we have on Earth. A way of storing volatile metals in oil. I only wondered."

Elrond was silent for so long that she looked up to find him watching her in the way that Glorfindel often did: with suspicion.

"I'm sorry." She said quickly. "I shouldn't have asked. I didn't mean anything by it."

Elrond breathed deeply, before picking his quill back up. The scratching as he wrote filled the room, and Leda thought that was the end of it until he spoke again.

"When first we happened upon the Stronghold, much work had to be done to hollow out tunnels, halls, rooms. We travelled deep into the rock and found this substance." His mouth twisted down, his writing paused. "It…was volatile. Many were injured when attempting to remove it from this oil you see around it now. I wished to study it. But war does not often leave time to study."

She hadn't expected such an honest answer. But his truth, and the act of giving it to her, was oddly symbolic. It was nice to be trusted.

"It almost looks like Caesium." She ventured, pestle and mortar momentarily forgotten.

His quill dropped, and his new stare was more curious than sharp. "You have this substance? On your Earf?"

"No." She shook her head. "Probably not the same. This isn't Earf. But Caesium is an alkaline metal, highly reactive to air and water. Difficult to refine and dangerous and it's almost the same sort of gold colour as yours."

He hummed, eyes drifting to the jars and something occurred to her then: "Couldn't you use it? Against the Orchs?" The push for violence felt sour in her mouth. She'd never advocated for harm before. Then again, she'd never been in a war zone before. Maybe it changed you. She wondered if her colleagues who so easily signed up for Doctors Without Borders had ever had the slight change in morals she seemed to have just experienced. "If it blows up on contact, wouldn't it make things easier? In the…in the war?"

Contemplative eyes swept over her form. "I have had the same thought. But the time it would take to apply it to a device, and the limited amount we have here would lead to a unpredictable and finite weapon." He sighed. "Quite useless in a war that seems to stretch for eons."

The silence felt so loaded, she found herself talking to fill it. "Sorry. It was just a thought. And maybe it's for the best. Even if this was Earth and that was Caesium; it's a strange metal. Sooner to back fire on you than actually be applicable. I've only ever seen it in real life once, and definitely not as much as what's in that jar. Most of what I know about it came from textbooks and my mother."

It slipped out so easily, this piece of herself, that it took her by surprise. But the squeeze in her chest, and the wave of grief was like a familiar blanket surrounding her. She avoided Elrond's questioning look, busying herself once more with the arnica in the hopes that he'd let it go. This silence was one she was eager to continue.

And Elrond almost let it, until he added quietly: "That is the first I've heard you mention her."

Leda's jaw ticked and she found herself wishing, not for the first time, that Lindir would enter and interrupt.

"That's because there's nothing to mention." She said dismissively. "She's dead."

This time, Elrond let the absence of noise settle around them. He might have thought he was being kind, but as the quiet ebbed around her and her truth sat fat and bloated in the air, Leda found herself feeling all too exposed.

. . . .

"How does such a device work?" Elrond asked later that day, dangling her stethoscope by the end while she devoured her honeyed bread with the vigour of someone who hadn't eaten in years.

During her time there, Leda had noticed that the Edhel ate a lot less and less often than humans, which meant that she always felt on the verge of hunger. They weren't cruel, and she knew they had better things to be doing than worrying about her, so she hadn't quite worked up the courage yet to ask for more food.

"It's a sound magnifier." He frowned as she swallowed the bite in her mouth, washing the sweet bread down with some water. Celebrian watched curiously from her perch by the window behind him. "The drum works as a sound amplifier. The sounds travel up the tube into the earpieces so we can hear the inside of a human body. It's a way of determining illness if the illness does not present obvious physical distress."

"You used this on Gildor." Celebrian said, eyes wide. "He said you were trying to find his heart."

Leda nodded, wiping a hand across her mouth. It must have been barbaric by Edhel standards though, because Lindir tutted beside her and produced a cloth. He wouldn't relent until she took it to wipe her mouth and hands and crinkled his nose when she tried to give it back.

"Yes. I was trying to count his beats per minute."

At Celebrian's confused look, Leda explained: "The average human heart beats at sixty to one hundred beats per minute. Anything less or more and something is wrong unless you're an athlete like David Beckham. But your hearts are…weird."

Celebrian laughed, leaning forward so that a lock of her hair touched Elrond's shoulder. He didn't flinch, like Leda thought he might but he seem to melt, slightly. She remembered Lindir's words from the previous day, about them orbiting but never meeting. And she noted how Elrond's chair was at a slight angle, as if to allow room for Celebrian and how the woman was tilting forward now, almost wanting to be in the same air as him. Was their orbiting as obvious to them as it was to her?

"How so?" Celebrian asked.

"They beat very quickly. Before Gildor collapsed, he had a resting heartrate of one hundred and thirty five. On a human they'd be in tachycardia. It freaked me out."

"I can imagine it might have." Elrond smiled wryly, holding it out for her to take but she shook her head.

"Keep it." She said, waving off his confusion. "I have a thousand back home. I can teach you how to use it before I leave."

Lindir stilled beside her and when she peaked, she found his face sour, in only a way an Edhel could: with a slight downturn of his full rose-tinted lips.

They hadn't spoken about her leaving. Not since Olorin had given her their verdict, but it had hung between them unsaid, a threat growing closer every day. And while Leda was happy to go home, she couldn't deny that it might sting when she had to leave him. It seemed, from his jerky movements as he mindlessly turned the pages of the book he had chosen that day, that the feeling was mutual. She thought of Gildor and his warning. Maybe she shouldn't get too close. Maybe it wasn't fair.

"And this?" Elrond's voice cut across the dim, and she tore her eyes away from Lindir only to gasp and scramble up to her knees. "What does this do?"

"That," she said cautiously, eyeing the taser Elrond held so easily. "Isn't mine."

His eyes narrowed. "Lord Glorfindel said that you used it in the battle."

She hadn't seen it since then, either. She'd almost forgotten about it. But Astrid's face popped into her mind, bright and clear, and the terror she'd felt the last time she'd seen it rocked through her. The longer she stayed, the further home, and the horror she'd seen when she arrived felt from her. But the taster brought it all back in stark colour.

"I know I did. But it isn't mine. It's called a taser. It's used to incapacitate. It's a weapon." Her mouth thinned to a line, disgust evident. "It creates a low-level electrical current that stuns."

Elrond eyed her curiously, and then against reason, pressed the button to turn it on. She cringed at the sizzle of electricity, shooting up to her feet. Celebrian eyes widened, the blue electric line reflected back in her grey eyes until they shone.

Elrond watched Leda with eagle-like intensity. Her chest felt tight- like it had the first and only time she had used it and instinctively, she stepped back, feeling her chest collide with Lindir's who had apparently stood with her.

Celebrian looked between her and the device and back again. "You are afraid."

Leda felt hot, like the tasers live wire and when she spoke, her voice sounded stringy. "Yes. And you should be too."

Elrond held onto the power button for a moment longer releasing it and putting it into a box Leda hadn't noticed before. He shut the lid and tucked it back into a pull draw under the table.

Lindir pressed gently onto her shoulders until she relented, lowering into a crouch on her knees. She felt like she wanted to run, like her body was coiled to flee if he took it back out. She hadn't felt fear like that since the battle, now her stomach roiled with it.

"I don't want that back either." She whispered. Elrond's ears twitched as he sat back. Celebrian's hair falling further down his chest.

"Yes." He mused. "I understand that now."

She wasn't sure what that meant, but the gentleness of which the way he said it made her think she'd passed some secret test.

Lindir sat again, but closer this time. So close that when he resumed turning the pages of his book, his arm brushed hers.

"What is elek-tricity?" Celerbian said suddenly, as Leda felt herself coming back to sure ground.

Leda sighed, picking up her pestle again. The cool, heavy granite reminded her of where she was.

"I'm not sure I can explain that one." She said.

"Try." Celebrian breathed.

Leda wasn't sure what to make of the new light in Edhel's eye.

. . . .

Leda was staring at the mountain again, leaning out into the crisp fresh air as a full, bight moon lit the valley below. Lindir had asked her to wait for him in the Lab, said he'd take her down to the Cave Garden as a treat. But as the seconds ticked by, her feet had moved on instinct and led her out of the Halls of Healing, to her looking window.

Heat bloomed under her chest as she watched the rock face. She tried to hold her hand along its top peak, to measure if the mountain really heaved up and down as though it were breathing, but it stayed still, despite her being sure of what she had seen before.

The hole in the rock-face seemed to call to her. How deep did it go? She got the feeling that, should she crawl inside, it wouldn't be very deep at all. The shape of it, the set…if it had been in a museum, it might have even looked like an artist's impression of an eye. There was something there. She was sure of it. If she could just-

"You are always where I least expect you to be, Miss Ackerman." Glorfindel's voice zapped her out of her trance. She whirled to face him, hands clutching at her chest to calm her rocketing heart.

He was devoid of armour, in a simple tunic and trouser set. Coupled with his loose hair, it almost seemed as though he were normal. A civilian. It set her on edge to see him so relaxed. Until, of course, she saw the pommel of a sword strapped to his back. Even his normalness was tinged with the violence she knew him capable of. Her lip curled. She had no desire to speak to him again after their last disastrous attempt at a civil conversation.

"I'm sure that's only one more blight against my name." She muttered, pushing away from the wall to make a quick escape at the first opening.

"That is the fifth time in as many days that you have stopped at that exact opening."

She bristled. "Spying on me, are you?"

"No. Rather you are merely remarkably inept at observing your surroundings."

"Of course I am."

Quiet wafted between them, uncomfortable as the breadth between their personalities. He didn't seem to feel the same urge to get away from her that she felt for him, though. His face might have been blank, but his stance was relaxed. Leda on the other hand, felt like multiple eyes were watching her.

"I should probably find Lin-"

"I find it peculiar," He cut in, gaze pensive. "That you have not once inquired about the whereabouts of the leaves you arrived with, stuffed haphazardly into your pockets like forgotten lint."

Her eyebrows shot up. That was not the line of questioning she had been expecting.

"I'm…sorry?"

"I only find it strange, that you would bring nine leaves of Telperion and Laurelin." There was a weight to the names, a heaviness she hadn't noticed before. "And then abandon them to those you do not trust."

What the hell was that supposed to mean? "Am I being… accused of something?"

The casualness with which he held himself bled away into something sharp, eagle-like in his focus of her and she knew his earlier relaxedness to be a rouse. A ploy to get her to talk. Despite his civilian clothes, Leda became acutely aware that should the fancy take him, he could lob her head off with one swing from the sword against his back. Her eyes bent around him, searching the dark hallway. Where the hell was Lindir and why was he taking so bloody long?

"That depends on you." He said. "Are you doing something that deems accusation?"

"No."

"And yet."

"…And yet, how can you trust the word of a woman who crawled out of a lake?" She guessed sourly.

He nodded slowly, the feel of thousands of eyes burning brightly across her skin. But without a reply, Leda could only stand awkwardly, unable to defend herself against an accusation she didn't fully understand.

He rolled slightly on the balls of his feet after the tenseness had stretched. "I think I shall take my leave."

Annoyed at the sudden dismissal, she decided it wasn't up to him to decide when her interrogation was over. "Did Olorin tell you about the giants?"

Surprise momentarily broke his blank façade as his eyebrows twitched.

"What of them?"

Her head jerked back to the window, and the other side of the valley that kept calling her. "He said this used to be giant country. That they're only sleeping."

He huffed what might have been a laugh if they were friends. "Olorin is old. He enjoys stories. This was giant territory millennia ago. If they sleep, they sleep far and deep. The old tales say they leave one partially awake, to watch for threats. To guard the others and wake should they need to. But those are only tales. There are no giants here."

She frowned. Thinking of the mountain. Of the hole shaped like an eye. "Are you sure?"

A shadow must have passed over the moon, because the hallway darkened. His eyes narrowed, two dim glowing jewels in the shadows.

"What do you know?" He demanded. "What is it that you-"

"My Lord Glorfindel." She hadn't heard Lindir's approach, but there he was at her side, materialising out of the gloom as though he had been there the entire time, smoothly cutting in.

He bowed deeply to Glorfindel. She scoffed at the show of deference and Lindir's hand shot out, latching onto her elbow. He squeezed it once in warning and began to pull her to the side. "I was just about to escort Miss Ackerman to her room."

Glorfindel blinked and then took a step away, and the weight of a thousand eyes left Leda's body. She felt lighter, not even knowing the feel of his scrutiny had been so physical.

He looked between them and then offered the blandest of smiles. As though all their hostilities had been nothing.

"As you were, Lindir. Report to the War Chamber once finished."

Lindir bowed once more, clasping his hand to his chest and all but dragged her back down the hallway. It wasn't until they were inside of her room, plans for the Cave Garden forgotten, that he released her, pushing her inside her room with a scowl. Her door clicked shut as with a kick of his boot.

"You must not antagonise him." He said sternly.

"Oh screw him. He's a megalomaniac with a complex!" She spat.

His mouth thinned, as he rested his hands on her shoulders. "No. You do not understand. He is second only to Olorin in might and even then they are matched almost evenly. In command he is only second to Lords Elrond and Celeborn and even then they oft defer to him. He is above us. Do you understand?"

"No." She crossed her arms over her chest as some of the fire cooled to embers in her chest. His hands felt like stone on her shoulders. "No. I think I understand even less."

"He is revered. He is beyond Noldo. He is more." He shook her once and tutted when she tried to wriggle out of his strong grip. "He has singular authority, granted by Lord Elrond and Celeborn to dispatch any threat in any way in which he deems right. Leda."

His grip tightened and she whimpered. "Do you understand? Do you understand what he will do if you pose any threat to any Edhel inside these walls?" He shook her again, voice rising to a shout. "Do you?"

She flinched, and the sight of it snapped Lindir out of his anger. He blinked, pupils contracting to pinpricks.

He jerked away, yanking his hands off her shoulders as though she had burned him. He stared at them, turning them over as though they were the appendages of a stranger.

She swallowed, rolling her shoulders to brush off the feel of his panic. Her skin felt tight.

"Don't tell me you're actually worried about me?" She tried to joke, but her smile wavered and the levity petered out horribly at the end.

When his gaze focused on her, it burned away any humour, leaving only cold sincerity.

"Yes." He breathed.

Earlier, she had thought Elrond had looked almost human. But now, with Lindir's wide eyes, the curve in his spine that set him forward, as close to her as he was willing – the fear and worry, packed into the subtle downturn of his mouth, the tightening around his nose.

She had seen that look before. On herself. Only a glimpse, when she was sixteen. It was as the bobbies left her house after delivering the worst eleven words she'd ever heard and she'd caught sight of herself in the hallway mirror and saw someone so unbelievably lost.

How many people had Lindir lost? How many more would he?

He was three hundred and fifty years old but still so…young. She didn't want to be the reason he lost anyone else. She didn't want him to look like she had all those years before.

So she forced a smile and told a fib. "Then I'm sorry. I'll be more careful. I'll try not to upset him. I promise."

. . . .

It became apparent the next morning, that she had missed a very important fact: leaving the Stronghold was no longer going to be as easy as jumping back into the Vortice and hoping to shit it took her back home. Now it meant saying Goodbye, too. And goodbye's had always been disastrous for her.

Thinking about home sometimes felt like a distant dream. Something she wanted so badly yet it seemed impossible to exist anymore outside of the Stronghold.

She hadn't had much time for going to gigs, or keeping up with the latest music back home. It was easier to list all the components of a standard med-pack than it was to list the Top 10 artists or songs at any given time. All in all, music wasn't a top priority for her something she barely thought about and now in Middle Earth, something almost foreign. But in the baths the next day, Lindir began to hum. She could hear it clearly, rising above the occasional slap of water echoing over the partition as he swam.

"Lindir, can you sing?" She asked, floating on her back, watching the soft greens and blues reflecting in shimmering lines along the ceiling.

"Define 'singing'?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be difficult."

She heard a few more delicate splashes an then it was still. She assumed that was as much as she would get.

Then he sang, and her world tilted on its axis.

His voice was almost impossible. She only understood half of the song; some of it was in that old language, the one her translation spell didn't stretch over. Quenya, Gildor had called it. It was about a bird, and two trees, and filled with wistfulness. As his last note resonated around the bath, she found herself strangely overcome by some emotion she couldn't quite place. Leda didn't understand music very well, nor did she care much for it, but she could be down for absolutely anything Lindir decided to sing.

"Lindir that was…you are- you-"

Although she couldn't see him, she could tell how smug he was from the silence. Even when he sat her on her rock after they dried off and dressed, delicate hands parting her hair, she couldn't stop gushing.

"Seriously, Lindir. I can't believe you can sing." She exclaimed. "You're amazing."

"Am I now?" She could hear his smile. Could feel his pride. And it mingled with her awe and made her tongue loose.

"Why on earth would you want to be a soldier when you can sing like that?"

She knew instantly that she'd said the wrong thing. She'd meant it as a compliment. She'd wanted to praise him. To try and express to him how wondrous his voice was. The same she might have said to a particularly skilled doctor. But when Lindir's fingers stilled in her hair before beginning again with quick, rigid movements, she realised she'd done something wrong again.

She tried to joke with him on the way to Elrond's lab, but he was quiet. Even as they sat for hours alone, Elrond and Celebrian strangely absent, he was quiet. When Lindir dropped her off at Gildor's but declined to stay with only a short, brusque reply that he would be back, she knew right then, that she'd probably messed up far more than she believed.

Gildor of course, noticed as well. He looked remarkably better. He was sitting at the desk when she arrived and when he stood, forcing her to sit on the edge of his bed and shoving a bowl of watery soup in her hands, he did so without a flinch, his movements back to the unnerving fluidity of the other Edhel. He tutted as she tried to peak at his bandages, batting away her fingers until she relented.

He politely let her circle her spoon around the wooden bowl for a while before enquiring.

"What is wrong? Is the soup not to your liking?"

"I'm well." She said faintly.

He dipped his head close to hers, until they were forced into eye contact.

"I'm fine."

He clucked his tongue, making her feel like a chastised child. "Edhel do not lie, Leda."

"I'm not Edhel, though."

"No." He said slowly, as if he'd only just thought about it. "I suppose you are not."

He sat on the bed in front of her and when his lack of prying became too much, Leda gave in.

She sighed heavily and shrugged. "It's nothing, I swear."

He smiled softly. "If it was nothing, then I would not have asked. What is wrong, Little Leda?"

The words felt heavy in her mouth. "I think I might have upset Lindir."

"Oh?" Gildor tone was carefully blank.

That, it seemed, was all it took. "Well. Actually. First I got into it with Glorfindel-

"What does 'got into it' mean? And why were you conversing with Laurefin-"

"And he was, as usual, mad at me for existing and ruining his day by breathing. You know he interrogated me like he was in MI6-"

"What is EM-EYE-SIXE? Leda you are going too quic-"

She ignored him, standing quickly and beginning to pace. Gildor steadied her forgotten bowl of soup with a quick hand.

"And Lindir got so mad at me for antagonizing Glorfindel even though I didn't do anything. And then earlier, in The Baths, he was singing and all I said that he was so good that I couldn't believe he had chosen to be a soldier over a singer but obviously I didn't mean any of that I just meant that he was amazing and- and-"

"And?" Came Gildor's quiet voice.

"…And..." She turned slowly towards him in defeat. "And I upset him. Somehow. And I don't like being the reason he's upset."

Gildor's chest rose and fell three times before he spoke again.

"Why do you think young Lindir would be upset?"

His question, innocent in its wording, but heavy in its implication, hung between them. They mirrored the same that Olorin had asked her in the Cave Garden.

Gildor took a deep breath as she struggled to answer.

"It may seem safe, for someone within the Stronghold, to forget of the worries outside of these walls."

Her heart sunk. "Gildor-"

He held up a hand to stop her, but his face, as ever, wasn't stern, or angry. Only sad, and tired, as though he had had this conversation before.

"Outside the Stronghold a war rages. For one as young as Lindir, it is a war that may seem without end." He patted her forgotten spot on the bed and she slunk over, back to being the chastised child, climbing onto the bed of a lecturing parent. He took her hand, holding fast when she instinctively tried to pull away. "For Lindir, there has been no choice. No freedom to be a Bard. To sing. There has been one path. It is this your words reminded him of."

Leda's limp hand twitched inside his large palm. "I was only trying to compliment his singing."

He sighed so deeply, his shoulders seemed to lower inches. "You are not Edhel. You do not choose your words carefully and so often what you mean and say are separate. That is not our way. We speak true, as best we can."

She blinked, new guilt crawling up her throat. "Have I ever upset you? The way I upset him?"

"Yes." Gildor said truthfully, smiling at her sour look. "And yet, it was fleeting. Because it is as you said – I knew you did not mean it. Young Lindir will forgive you."

"How do you know?"

He smiled, the same sad smile he'd given her when he warned her to stay away.

"Because he is here for you now."

It took a minute, but soon Lindir was silently filing the doorway, just as Gildor said he would be, light of a blue lamp he was holding spilling colour into the room. He beckoned Leda with a curled hand and she stood, passing back her unfinished soup to Gildor who gave her a reassuring smile.

It wasn't until he was ushering her into her room that the courage to face whatever she'd done, came forth.

"Good evening, Leda." Lindir said curtly.

"Are you mad at me?" she blurted.

He set the lamp on the stone table, without answering. His ears twitched to an fro quickly, moving the thick curtains of his hair with his annoyance.

"I shouldn't have said what I did earlier." She said quickly. "I think what you do- what you are is admirable and I didn't mean to imply that you should shirk your responsibility. I was just impressed by your voice. I'm sorry."

He didn't face her, but there was a small thawing in the stiffness in his shoulders that she took to mean she was on the right path.

Her foot steps were loud in the stillness, but he didn't shrug off her hand when she gingerly touched his arm.

"What you do is important. I know you didn't have a choice, and I know why you fight. You are very brave and I'm sorry." She squeezed him once. "I don't think I've ever had to be as brave as you."

His arm twitched under her hand, before she felt his relax. His shoulders dipped and his ears, which had been almost vibrating with agitation, stilled.

"You are getting better at your apologies." He relented, stiffly.

She snorted, ad dropped her hand. "Is this you saying you forgive me?"

He turned and regarded her thoughtfully. "When I was young...I had thought perhaps that I may. Sing, that is."

She dropped her hand. "And then the war?"

A shadow passed across his face. "Yes. And then the war."

"I'm sorry." She meant for what she had said, and all that he had lost.

He sniffed and nodded, pointing to her bed. "Get to bed, you Sûlokil welp."

She grinned, but she did as asked and crawled onto her hard, stone bed. Although she felt lighter with his forgiveness, but there was a strange sourness there too. How many more times would this happen? Would she ever understand the Edhel? Would they ever fully understand her? And lastly, the most important: how was she ever going to be able to say goodbye to him? "Is that an insult?"

"Call Lord Elrond it tomorrow and you will find out." He said snidely, as he watched her pull the blankets up around her before making to leave.

"Lindir?"

He sighed, and turned to her again. "What is it now? I have already forgiven you. Though if you wish to grovel more, I may be amenable."

She snorted and then said softly: "Will you sing me something again?"

In the blue light of her lamp, he looked otherworldly. "Mayhap. What is it you wish to hear?"

With a yawn, she shrugged, settled further down the bed until she was laying down. "I don't know, something like you sung the other day."

He inched forward, pale face floating through the shimmering blue light of the lamp. "That was a song meant to soothe children. Do you need soothing?"

Her dad. Her pokey flat. Molly and Dr Morgan. Even her mother, a vague impression in shadow flashed before her eyes. All the things lost. It was probably the exhaustion, or she'd never would have admitted it, but the truth slipped out easily. "Maybe. I miss home."

He exhaled slowly, looming over her before sitting stiffly on the edge of her bed.

"As do I." He whispered.

And then he began to sing, and when she closed her eyes, the past rose up to greet her.

It was the soundest she had slept since the Vortice spat her out. If she had known then, that it would be the last good night's sleep she'd have for a very long time, she might have savoured it more.

Oh man. I am SO sorry. If you follow my twitter, you might have seen that 2022 was a really horrid year for me. My course was so intense, my job was intense, I had no time to write or have an original thought. It was truly just a lot. But there was some good as well: I was published. I won't say in what, or where, as I'm not sure I'm ready to merge ff Aobh with IRL Aobh yet, but that took up a lot of time too, and it was such a different writing style that it took me well out of traditional writing like this.

Those aren't excuses, just explanations, so I just want to say again: I am really sorry it's taken me so long to update. I know from being ff reader that it's a particular type of pain when you find a fic you may like and see it hasn't been updated in a year.

You may be frustrated with this Chapter, it frustrated me too. It may seem like Leda is learning the same lesson six times over, so I'm sorry for that as well. But it's taken me so many months to be able to feel like I can get it out, so I just need to post it so I don't spend another 6 months working on it. The pacing and in-world timing is a little off, and it's more viginettes than a cohesive chapter, but I'm just very glad it's finally out. I hope you at least like parts of it, and you'll see from the end line, that the pace is about to kick back up.

I really hope 2022 was much better for all of you, it's been really nice to come back and read your comments and constructive criticisms and see that we've all come really far. I hope you all had a lovely new year, and that 2023, is amazing for all of us.

As always I welcome your criticism, thoughts, questions and anything else you've got for me. (:

Find me on Twitter aobh_fanfiction if you'd like to chat. See you soon.

Navaer,
Aobh xx