The golden brilliance of Anar(the sun) shone upon the silver waters of Mithlond and cast a blinding reflection at the watching elves. Many of them were incapacitated any way as they mourned for the return of the Lady of Imladris to Eldamar.

Celebrían, the beloved wife of Elrond and mother of the twins Elladan and Elrohir and the Lady Arwen, had been found by her youthful sons. They never spoke of the discovery, but all knew from her state, that it had been a harrowing experience. It must certainly have been branded into their minds forever.

The Lord of Imladris, son of Eärendil, had employed all his prowess in healing and every prayer to the Valar and Eru that he could comprehend, but it had not been enough. To stay her fading, to keep her from the Halls of Mandos, it became necessary to send her to Eldamar and to leave her with her people. She was leaving and only one elf had ever been known to return from Elvenhome.

" You should be with your father and family by the quay, Elladan." A wistful voice sounded behind him. He had known that she was there long before she had ever spoken. But as with all Elves, they can be in each other's presence and have no need for speech.

" How can he let her go? How can he knowing that she will-" He broke off, his own words strangled by the love of a son for a mother. " Will she come back, Lírëya(Elvish-Song)? Will Emil(mother) come back? Will she?"

Lírëya turned towards her friend and then sighed. " Elladan, do you not think that if she were to stay, she would have far more pain and madness thrust upon her than if she were to leave and find peace in Eldamar? Could you truly bear the disintegration of your mother? The fading of all that she ever was?"

Elladan turned forcefully to her and then taking her hands, forced her eyes, creamy gray, to glance up at him. " Lírëya, will she come back?"

" Elladan, only one elf has ever returned from Aman. He was your tutor in the art of war. Do you think Glorfindel would have returned if not chosen?"

He cried out in pain, " Ai! How can this be? Is this world so dark and full of evil that good must only ever leave it and never return? Why does Eru place us within His symphony of Endor if he must remove all the good things that we Elves have? The evil wrought in this land has taken from me my mother and because it remains she and others can never return.

Lírëya felt the entire force of his lost passion. He was still a young elf, so young, and to find his mother after years and then to lose her again-that heartache was so extreme that his very fëa was at stake. If only he could comprehend the truth that all Elves who had lived at least a generation of men knew.

" Mellon-nín(my friend), you weep for yourself alone, your sorrow turning to self-pity. How can you so defile the day of your mother's healing with these tears of selfishness? Do you feel that you alone have lost her? What of your sister, Lady Arwen? So young when she was taken. She will never grow up in the knowledge of her mother as you and your twin have done. And what of her mother, Galadriel? She has none of her blood-kin. And now, her own and only daughter has met a fate not unlike that of her most beloved brothers."

Elladan's grey eyes cleared and Lírëya rejoiced hoping that her words had entered into a reachable place of his heart. As he raised his head, however, she became afraid of the wrath and indignation that she saw being birthed there. She had seen it once before, when her father had descended into a wrath of murder and bloodshed. " Elladan, your features, nanyë sessëa(I am frightened)!"

He did not reply to her and stood featurelessly looking off to East. He had become a statue, held in place by his own thoughts and designs. Then he spoke, metallic and empty, " This world, it drives out the good and destroys those who dare to stay. It is the evil in this place that has harmed my mother and its continuance is what will keep her from returning to me. How many more must we loose ere they can feel safe to return to these shores? How many must die before we begin avenging ourselves upon these dark forces and driving them out? Already rangers of the Dunédain roam, defeating those terrors which haunt the nights of all children." He grabbed ahold of her shoulders and pulled her to him, forcing her to look up into his face. It was a masque of white fury, black accenting his eyes. " Lírëya, I refuse to allow the crimes of evil against our people stand. I will make it safe for every Elf to return, and I will do so so that my own dear family will come back to me. They must come back to me!"

His voice shattered and he cried out in pain. She was caught in the web of his emotion, her own fearful knowledge of such madness terrifying her, and she too longed to cry. To break down into a thousand crumbling pieces and beg him to put them back together again. To hold her as he had done when she had first learned that Celebrían had been taken, as she had done when he had returned with the remaint of his mother. But she could not. No, she must warn him. " Elladan, you speak madness. That madness which stains the line from which you so truly descend has begat itself in your own fëa. Listen to me. You must remove it from you, cut it out as you would a cancer. For if you even begin to give heed to it, bloodlust will descend upon you. It will grow as the premier passion of your life and one day, you will no longer be content with the blood of your enemies. You will turn upon your own kin as well."

Elladan released her harshly and then pushed himself away from her. " Lírëya, I am no kinslayer."

" You descend from them all."

" I do this only to cause my mother to come back. Because she must-" grief and true sorrow became the only emotion holding him. " She must come back. To us all."

The next morn, as they rested in the generous dwellings of Círdan, Elrond stirred as was his wont. He paced the corridors and desperately tried to still the deep and abiding loneliness that enveloped his fëa. His and Celebrían's bond, that union of souls, had been broken. It had not been the fading that had wrought it; no, not even the torture. It had been the terrible loneliness of the years; the days, weeks, and months that had been silent. No love or tenderness had ever embraced her in those terrible halls of the goblins. And she? Who knew the evil that she had to embrace if only to stay alive. His sons had yet to inform him of the extent of the horror of her condition when they had found her. He was certain he did not wish to know that which had broken the unions of two souls forever bound.

" Aran Elrond, forgive me for disturbing you. I was not aware-" Lírëya's rich tones met his ears and he smiled at her.

" My thoughts were in need of disturbing. I am told by the Falathrim that your sleep was so deep that you had become as dead. What troubles you so much, my child?" Elrond reached a sinuous hand out to her, the pale thinness of it reflecting his own loneliness.

" I may speak freely, aran-nín?" Lírëya inquired. He nodded, drawing her into the warmth of a brotherly embrace. Though she was as a contemporary to his sons, he knew that her age was much greater than their own. She had been begotten in the silent night after the destruction of Beleriand and before the establishment of any Elvish rule upon Endor. She was both of darkness and light, order and chaos. Her name well suited her. " It is Elladan, Elrond. He is bewitched of the bloodlust of the Noldor. I comprehend the signs. They are as known to me as my own face. And I greatly fear his isolation. He does not mourn with those of his family, and comprehends only his own loss."

Elrond bent his head in acknowledgement, resting his chin upon her red locks. " This madness I have seen brewing from the moment his mother was brought back to the House of Healing. And it has grown exponentially in these last moments of his mother's. I fear- perhaps it was folly that he should go with the Dunédain."

Lírëya removed herself from Elrond's embrace. " What? He has left."

" Last night. He said that it was the only action he could take to bring his mother back." Elrond looked serious. " I had hoped that being out where there was no memory of her would save him. Was I wrong to let him go?"

" Is he alone?"

" Elrohir would not be separated from his brother."

Lírëya felt panic whorling up within her breast, hammering at the very pump which provided her life. " May the Valar save them both from each other. I pray that the first taste of blood does not prove their undoing."

And then she turned, gazing as Elladan had, out at the wild and terrible East. There in its confines were the terrible holds of Orcs and Goblins, and the menacing creatures that would provoke the power and strength of Elladan's soul, just as their victory would feed his need for blood. " Oh Elladan, come back!" And her words were carried aloft on the winds of the rivers and fords of the streams and the hope of all Elves.

So I thought to be naughty and make this a two parter. Personally, I think that it's too long to be done any other way and also, I think that the concepts of revenge, bloodlust, and the evil of this world really require some settling into.

There are some things that a person might need to know as they read the story. The bloodlust I speak of is the Curse of the Noldor. It was when Fëanor swore that he would revenge himself upon Melkor for killing his father and stealing the Silmarils. This led to the Slaughter of Alqualondë and the First Kinslaying. As in a previous note, the Kinslayings were unholy killings between kin that was deplored by both Eru and the Valar. Elladan's desire to revenge himself upon the Orcs, could lead to an exaggerated bloodlust which could summon a madness of revenge, where he might kill another Elf. This would curse him to Mandos and many years of expiation.

Another thing is Lírëya's statements about her understanding of the bloodlust. She is of the Fëanorians and her father is one of Fëanor's sons. However, not until the next story will I tell you who.

Thank you so much for reading this story. I hope that it inspires you to write your own and that it also encourages you. Please tell me what you think of the story. Vote, review, or message me. I would really love that.

Live for Christ,

Jetta Lee