"None of that child!" Dior drew himself up imperiously as he mentally chided Elrond. "You are beautiful still. Scars mean little - all of us have scars. It is the price of living – and you have not only survived but thrived, taught, fought, and crafted much. Not to mention how many you have healed!" His stern mien was tempered with a smile as he faltered in his step. Elrond caught him in a heartbeat, his healer reflex honed from ages of caring for the injured in Middle Earth.
"Forgive me, Dior." Elrond steadied his grandfather, who also sported a familiar mix of stubbornness, impatience, and, at times, temper. To his chagrin, he was unable to veil his thoughts.
"It served you well. You were too stubborn to give up and refused to be intimidated by chauvinists, kings, or even rouge Maiar. Would that some of your kin had been there to help you in your youth!"
"I had support from Cirdan and Gil-Galad." Elrond countered though age-old regret and criticism bubbled in his soul of things done and undone, of people he should have saved. He tried to suppress those thoughts, counterproductive as they were. Dior yelped and grabbed at his foot. The sound abruptly drew and pushed the self-accusations aside as Elrond bent and inspected the small cut on Dior's sole. The offending shell was slightly red with blood. "Do not touch. Sit down. Let me clean it." He said as his wished-for pack appeared in his hand. He wiped the area and focused on his healing gift. The small cut rapidly knit itself closed.
"My thanks, Elrond." Dior smiled. "You scolded me to treat myself with kindness and compassion. You also need to heed your own words!" The former Lord of Imladris could not hide his blush.
"Regrets, we have plenty." Elrond closed his eyes in some small way to block his thoughts from his too-perceptive relative. Dior reached out to squeeze Elrond's hand.
"We cannot change the past."
"How are we so solid?" Elrond mused. Was this not still a dreamscape? For indeed, he was in Edlothdor sitting by the river. His body could not be in two places at one time. This contradiction made his head ache. "How long have you had this new body?"
"Three long days! Yet it still does not seem to obey my simple commands." Dior scowled, much like Elladan and Elrohir when they recovered from injuries. But Dior's visage glowed brightly, reflecting his Maiar heritage. The term grandson slid away. It was a meaningless classification. For what grandson could be five thousand years more experienced than his grandfather? "You have a point, Elrond. You are far too old and experienced for me to call you grandson. I only know how to be a father to young children. My precious sons were only six when they disappeared! What do I know about being a grandfather? I lived barely forty years!"
"Time you now have in abundance!" Elrond gently cajoled. The pouting face reminded him of young Estel, upset at being forbidden to leave with the twins.
"You should not compare me to your sons!" Dior threw his hands up in exaggerated affront. But his smile belied his amusement.
"You should not go routing around in my head." Came Elrond's ready retort.
"I do no such thing. You think too loud!" Dior's smile faltered. "You left things much too late. Was the situation that dire? Could you not have departed earlier?"
"I could not leave my people and my children facing things alone."
"Someday, once you have gained suitable distance, you must share the full story with me." Dior sighed sadly. "I want to share this new beginning with Nimloth and my family."
"You will." Elrond felt it in his heart.
"Yet, we have none of our children. Nienna told me that my sons never came to Mandos." Elrond drew a quick breath at that revelation and smothered the questions his soul was burning to ask. Such questions would bring neither peace nor healing for the newly embodied Dior.
"Yet, your daughter awaits you in Lórien." He encouraged.
"But she is an adult and a leader in her own right. I missed her childhood. That is something I can never recover. What will she think of me? I will seem but a simpleton to her." Dior seemed to peer straight through Elrond. The power of his focused soul song extracted a grimace from Imladris' former Lord. "Oh, please forgive me. I meant no harm."
"None was done." Elrond soothed, trying to focus on Dior while suppressing thoughts of Elwing. There were quite complex feelings to sort through still. Yet, her letters were very encouraging. "I, too, am only beginning to get to know her."
"What is the place you chose? I do not recognize it."
"It is strange we can migrate in spirits that yet remembered their attachment to our bodies." Elrond mused. He had several experiences of migrating in the wind through Vilya's intervention. Elrond shivered at the memory, for the wind held many voices and songs. The song of Dior's spirit whispered around him. Was its insistence, privilege, and possessiveness somehow related to his abundance of Maiar heritage? What Maia would be willing to part with what they considered their own? The wind had fought to capture him. Yet, in the end, he escaped.
"Not so strange. Your heritage endows you with such a connection and Vilya helped guide you. But the ring was unnatural – a dangerous force that tore and pulled at your fëa. Had Melian, my Naneth, or I have instead been around to teach you, you would have fared much better. Some of these attributes are inherent within you. What you consider possessive is only the spiritual connection between our kin. I can only thank the One that you survived." Dior advanced steadily toward the ocean. Elrond's arm was in his iron grip. Elrond made a note to look for a bruise later as a test to see if he was here in body. An echo from the first age rang out. He distinctly recalled the Maiar battle song that had injured him and Elros. Cold invaded his being, and his heart momentarily quivered in fear at that revelation. It took all his strength to hide this from Dior.
"We both are embodied here. Can you not tell?" Dior turned his palm upwards. "We are not just here in spirit." He chuckled as he quickly read Elrond's thoughts. "No! You cannot call me a child! I was King for seven years!" But he ruined the effect when his soul pealed in delight as the waves tickled his toes.
"I was none too fond of those responsibilities. They took us back from Tol Galan and the bright Adurant River to the caves of Menegroth, where such sorrow had just occurred. Elured and Elurin protested greatly." Dior's mind conjured an image of his toddler sons playing in the falls with their mother. Elrond smiled at the shared image, for they looked much like his own sons.
"I hope to meet your twins." Dior smiled as their names rolled off his tongue. "Elladan and Elrohir. May they venture west."
"Eru willing." Elrond prayed.
"Elured and Elurin were but two when the call came. I did not hurry them off to Menegroth. Something told me that our time was precious. But, by four, it was their primary residence, and my responsibilities began to crowd out our family time."
"So, it is with all thrust into such roles."
"You managed to carve out time for your children." Dior's voice held admiration.
"I had wily helpers and the fortune to wait to have my children in times of peace."
"Nimloth wanted children but said she was willing to wait. I always found joy in playing with the children on Tol Galan. We were surrounded by men and elves – perhaps slightly more men than in your Imladris. When Nimloth first conceived, we were both surprised. What could it have been but a blessing from Eru?" Dior sat on the water's edge, grasped a handful of the wet sand, and let it slowly drip from his closed fist. The beads of sand dribbled slowly out to make a little tower. The wave licked at its base. The next wave would knock it down. Elrond crouched next to the precariously tilting tower, shoring up its base with practiced ease. Once satisfied, he turned his attention to the water, which receded slightly at his command.
"There is more to you than meets the eye." Dior quipped and continued to build. Elrond quirked a brow but shifted to sit down and join in the construction progress. Their hands touched serendipitously as they worked together.
"We are kin. Can you not feel the connection in your soul?" Dior asked, then words tumbled from him as if set free by the ocean's undulating current. "I felt the moment Grandfather was slain, though it was nothing compared to when my parents departed for Mandos a year later. Had I not had Nimloth and the boys…." Dior's voice trailed off. The bonds to his family had kept him grounded to Arda. Elrond felt the words ring in his soul. "These voids in my soul still ache. Yet, I rejoice in the ones restored! Nimloth has returned, and I have you – a fortuitous meeting with a new family member. We need a different term for our relationship …. my kin. You could be a long-lost brother, given our resemblance."
"It is unusual how Luthien's likeness propagated through our line and the Dúnedain."
"Melian's likeness. Perhaps the strain of the Maia was too strong. She bound part of her spirit into the act of creation." A familiar flicker of mischief glinted in Dior's eyes. "A little glamour and some practice, we might exchange places."
"The strength of your fëa would give you away." Elrond smiled and scooped up more sand. In his mind, he felt ancient and far too jaded for the youthful Dior to impersonate.
"I would hear more of your life," Dior stated, but Elrond understood he meant for him to share those tightly held experiences of loss.
"I .." Elrond started, but no words could express wrenching wounds to his soul at each departure of his family.
"No need to put it into words." Dior picked up another handful of wet sand and sent warmth through their nascent kin bond. "I share those feelings." But, oh, wise one, you said to focus on the remaining bonds. Or was that just talk?"
"Nay, it has helped me through many a dark day." Elrond divulged breathlessly as the scars on his soul ached anew. Dior discretely focused on the horizon.
"Yet, this place is from your memories. Where and when is it?" He followed his new friend's line of sight. Beyond the jetty, an outline of a partially constructed house was barely visible.
"It is the beginning of Cirdan's dwelling in Mithlond, early in the second age," Elrond said as he dripped sand onto a third tower. "After Morgoth was defeated, bound, and led away by the Valar, many refuges gathered here and a little further on in what became Lindon. There were many orphans among them." Suddenly, shadows and memories of a band of traumatized Elflings glistened around them.
"You spent many an hour building castles with them," Dior stated.
"And digging holes." Elrond smiled. "One was obsessed with digging the deepest hole he could. Silsilalda and I worried. We made sure to fill it in at the end of each day, lest some unwitting wanderer fall in during the night."
"What happened to him?"
"He became one of our most talented smiths and nearly left for Eregion. Thankfully, Gil-Galad appointed him to Master. Perhaps he had to tire of digging first before he turned his hand towards making. So many were deprived of family. We substituted as best we could." The image of a tiny Elleth concentrating hard as she arranged colorful plumeria blossoms over a small mound of sand flittered through Elrond's mind. Dior smiled.
"That was Elwing on one of our few family outings. Poor sprite! She lost us all. How can I beg her forgiveness? How can I tell her that her brothers are still lost?" Again, the lament of Dior's spirit washed over them both. The underlying song of Luthien's son was strong and distinctive yet held some familiar strains that awoke memories from Elrond's past.
He had no body, only spirit. He was a swirling zephyr who sometimes wrapped around other spirits. Their multitude amplified their strength as they billowed and blew along the surface of the Anduin.
"Our songs belong together." Two voices twined around his. Some connections are yet undetermined. Their voices were soft yet held inner strength like mithril.
"Who? What?" They swirled and shifted, laughing and waxing over the sandalwood trees. It was a dance, an endlessly entertaining movement of color and light and sound. They sumptuously ambled over the neighboring wisteria vines, selfishly coveting the scents of buxom flowers, before stretching out over the expansive meadow. The wind pushed upthe white flight feathers of an egret. Its keen eyes surveyed yet detected none of the silent souls trapped within the wind.
"Elrond!" Voices of power beckoned. Yet the wind's company did all it could to cajole their newest member along the current. Still, the zephyr was pulled inexplicably towards the center of Lothlorien, transfixed by the smooth silvered trunks and the velvet texture of the undersides of the Mallorn's leaves.
"Elrond …..Adar …Ion-nin…Mellon-nin" There was something he had forgotten. Were these not names he answered to? Like a moth to a flame, his song separated from the wind, pulled through kinship bonds into a clearing where a circle of familiar faces gathered.
"Elrond, Mellon-nin." Whispered the golden one in the circle's center. "Come back to us." Tears slide down the elf's cheeks and he opened his arms wide. The breeze swirled about his golden hair and drew on the light of Aman that was emitted from deep within his being."
"Elrond?" Dior was shocked by the images that had been just shared. "What was that?"
"A long story." Elrond grabbed another handful of wet sand and dribbled it further along the sand towers.
"We appear to be making a city," Dior remarked casually, though his thoughts were focused on images of flying on the wind. "I heard my daughter transformed into a bird and flew away from danger. Now, it seems her son also flew in some respects."
"Celebrimbor's creation," Elrond paused.
"Another Noldor jewel." Dior shook his head, although there was no anger behind it. The dead leave those things behind in their long years in Mandos.
"Yes and no." Elrond was at a loss for words. But his spirit shared the feeling of interacting with Vilya, the ring of the air. "Even as a child, I felt a special relationship with the wind. I imagined it warned me of danger and shared its songs with my spirit. But that nearness was nothing like when I first put on Celebrimbor's ring. His purpose in making them was to facilitate understanding, guide making, and support healing. But it had its own sharp, defining power and rhythm. My spirit was forced to find a balance with it. But through some means, I cannot explain, I could travel on the wind to become one with it. At times, this was done from sheer desperation under Gil-Galad's orders to try to gather information on our enemies."
"But that was not the experience you shared just now." Dior puzzled. "That felt like you were part of a whole, part of a kind of community."
"Yes, I escaped a terrible fate by hiding in the wind. My family and Glorfindel helped me find myself again."
"Why share this memory with me now?" Dior wondered.
"It was your spirit and song which caused it to surface." Elrond grasped at the melodies.
"The song of my spirit," Dior repeated slowly.
"The harmonies of the wind were wonderous to be a part of. I felt accepted, welcomed, and complete. But the longer I stayed, the less I remembered my life before. I do not know how my family – Galadriel, Celeborn, Glorfindel, and my children were able to call me back."
"You think my sons might be caught up in there still?"
"I do not know. But your song reminded me of Voices in the Wind. Those voices learned my song well." Elrond said slowly. "Our family seems to connect to flight and wind." Would it be so different if the boys had tried to transform in their desperate flight? Elwing had been full-grown when she made the transformation. But Elurin and Elured had been only six. They were injured, terrified, and alone.
"Would the Valar tell me if it was so? Would they allow me to go and search? If there is any chance to reclaim them." Dior felt hope kindle in his soul. "But there are none there now who might help them!"
"My sons and Glorfindel remain. Elrohir believed they had a purpose yet to fulfill." Would the lost boys recognize Elrohir or Elladan as kin?
"Dear Eru, let my sons be found and restored to us." Dior prayed.
"May Eru light their way and keep them safe."
Long did they sit, building a little collection of dripped sand towers on a beach conjured from Elrond's memories. Each confidence and each conversation spurred Dior's healing as much as Elrond's. The sun was near to setting when some chime rang in the distance.
"Tomorrow is the day that I am released to walk in Lorien." Dior shared.
"Nimloth will be there with you. You have nothing to fear." Elrond said.
"You will come also to Lorien?"
"Within the year. Celebrian has plans. She tells me not to worry. Tis time to let go and trust her with the decisions. I shall soon hear how the art festival went today. My minders thought it unwise for me to be exposed to a crowd just yet."
"I suppose we must accept that for a time, our task is to focus on healing in body and mind. You have been a blessing to me." Dior's smile turned more devious, and he jumped up and splashed water towards his grandson. His vivacious spirit crackled with energy, engulfing Elrond in its welcoming wake.