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Chapter Text

There was only one whom he could send. It felt a sin to do so, with so small a force. 

Gil-galad saw a battlefield again. Sometimes he thought that was all the ring revealed to him. War and death and life slipping reluctantly from the beautiful lands and forests of Middle Earth like some sorrowful specter. Since the first vision of fire and searing heat, a sense of doom had settled on his shoulders. Then following in succession, more visions had come to him. Variations on a theme, they all seemed to show him the same things. 

Death. 

Decay. 

Departure. 

Doom had settled on his shoulders heavier than the crown had settled on his head when first it was placed there. He saw it in the mornings when he woke alone and looked out his balcony. He saw it in the faces of his people, in the golden leaves of the tree that had reclaimed its vitality when the light of the rings shone upon it. It was a strange thing, that the rings had brought restoration to the tree and to the hope of the Eldar, but to him, it brought instead this whispering of his own end. 

It felt insistent, the way the visions tugged at him. 

Some kind of strange counsel demanding to be heard. 

He knew, with no sense of despair, that the brevity of the ring's visions suggested to him that he would not remain long in Arda. 

So what then was left to him? He thought of the weight of the crown and who must wear it next.

Perhaps the time for crowns and scepters was drawing to a close. 

Yet, a king must not leave his people bereft of hope. Oft he thought on that as he took counsel with his commanders and walked under the golden tree. He had thought of it when he spoke to Galadriel and extended an olive branch to her; he had thought of it when he made Elrond the commander of the small company sent to Eregion. 

What would he leave to Arda - and in whose hands would he place it, when his time came?

And he had felt a sort of settling, a deep peace. He traveled to visit Círdan in the secrecy of night, and Círdan, wearing his own ring, welcomed into his humble home. They drank his sweet homemade wine, and ate honeycombs together, and neither of them spoke of what they had seen. 

But they had walked to Círdan’s lookout over the sea and sang together under the light of the stars. And Círdan clasped his shoulder. 

“Our time comes to us on swift feet.”

“It will be swifter for me.” 

“Yet you will not leave elvendom desolate when that time comes.” Círdan had returned, and his gaze was gentle. “Ever you have shaped others to carry on. Ever you have found and lifted those who will guard Middle Earth until the last of our days. When the time comes for you, you will not have left us without hope.” 

Gil-galad felt joy for the first time since he had seen the first vision of the ring, for Círdan was wise and had seen many ages come and depart. He had seen both light and darkness. He had seen the crown passed from the head of one king to the next. He had seen kingdoms rise and fall. It was his steady hand, that was the relief on which a burdened king might lean against without being held to some lofty standard. 

“Have you seen goodness?” 

Círdan’s face became shadowed as he looked at the King. 

“I have seen much.”

Gil-galad touched the ring again and he saw the trees bend in front of him, on fire. He saw mountains of dead fish, and mountains of hewn bodies. He saw darkness. He saw shadow and flame.

“All I have seen is darkness and death. It has been a steep gift, if it may be called such a thing. I would beg for a boon of it, just one image of light.”

“And yet, in spite of what you have seen, I find strength in you, Ereinion, that is as resolute as the bones of the earth.” 

“I would beg for one light of hope, Círdan.” 

And Círdan placed his hands on his king's shoulders. 

“I have seen light.” 

...

He spent the last days assembling a force to march to Eregion. Walking alongside his herald, speaking to captains and inspecting battalions, cobbling together a force to go aid the beleaguered Celebrimbor. When it was complete, he had looked it over, all he could spare, and realized it was too small. It was unfair to send these elves into a battle they had not much hope to come out of. 

He met with Elrond that evening to address the final preparations. In his chambers, he lay aside his finery and wore only his simple tunic. Vilya rested on his finger. He knew it still caused the peredhel distress. It was strange, for Vilya sang so prettily when Elrond was near, and yet his own brow would be furrowed when he saw it on his king's hand. 

Elrond knocked on his door and entered, his simple gray tunic rumpled from long wear, for long they had labored the last days without stopping to rest. 

Gil-galad looked on him with new eyes. 

Love for the young peredhel gripped his heart - but much remained to be seen. 

When he had first taken him as his herald, it was in some part because the boy was gifted. 

Gifted with the power of words, for much reading he had done, gifted with the power of persuasion, for he had been raised by the fierce sons of Fëanor and understood well the nature of elves and other creatures alike. From Maedhros he had acquired the tongue of the diplomat, and from Maglor the beauty of poetry to marry it with, skilled indeed was he with the craft and wielding of words. The descendent of Melian, he had her wisdom, a shard of her foresight, and in his blood he carried some of the enchantment of his foremothers, although Gil-galad thought it seemed that Elrond did not desire to fully open himself to those gifts yet. In some truth, he remained hidden, reserved, as if waiting on the backfoot. 

His herald had changed much from the soft-eyed youth he had once been, constantly questioned and observed to see if he would match the honor of his parents, or the wildness of the ones who had raised him. Much had been made of that, and Elrond, to the dismay of the court, had made no secret of the fact that he loved them. The boy had been kind and with an open mind, but Gil-galad and Círdan had both seen the gifts of his foremothers shimmering underneath his calm demeanor, and they had both laughed for such gifts married with the ferocity of the sons of Fëanor was an intimidating thought. But Elrond was sweet, his smiles warm and only small flashes of the ferocity and the potential in his blood bled through in how he carried himself. 

All of these gifts, but the boy had been young, untested, uncertain even. There had been jibes he cared only for politics, and jibes over his standing and acceptance. And in desperation, Gil-galad himself had not trusted him with his confidence over the matter with the dwarves, and rather trusted that his sharp herald would perceive the truth of what was happening in Khazad-dum on his own. But the king knew, his herald resented the deception. 

It had placed a strain on their relationship. 

Now, he could see the tiredness on his shoulders. Since Elrond had returned from the disaster that befell them on their journey to Eregion, he had not rested, pleading with the king for an army and helping him organize one as soon as Gil-galad had agreed. 

His eyes were tired and he looked so very young again, as he entered the room. 

Gil-galad looked on him, and he realized he loved him - almost as a son, or a younger brother he had become to him. In all of his burdens as high king, he had come to lean on the half-elven for more than his wisdom, he had come to lean on him for his companionship. They had each suffered much, and much was understood between the two of them. Still, the King must be set apart, and Gil-galad regretted that he had not shared in words what the companionship had become to him, he must hope his herald had perceived it as well as he oft did the unspoken in other matters. 

He is dear to me. 

It was not fair. 

Gil-galad greeted him and the peredhel stood with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting for the King to speak. 

“You have done much work these past days, Elrond. I am grateful for it.” 

“Thank you, High King.” 

Tell me in truth, what hope you have for the force assembled.” 

“It is small, High King. It will take cunning in strategy, and strength of will to buy a victory. We are not without those - yet.” 

He paused. 

“Still, I think it will not be enough.” 

It is not fair - the king thought. 

“I would ask leave to travel to Khazad-dum my king, to beg the dwarves to lend us aid.” 

“The dwarven king banished you from all lands, last you were there, my son. What makes you think he will lend his warriors to you now?” 

Elrond’s face was set. 

“There is love and loyalty between myself and the Prince, he will come to my aid if I can reach his ear. You may trust in this, my king.” He hesitated. “You may trust in me.” 

Gil-galad looked at his herald, wise he had been beyond his years, and a gift to have at his hand. But he was young, without the testing of what he was about to lay on his shoulders.

It felt a sin to do what he must. 

“I will ride with the army to Eregion.” he said and watched as the set face blanched. 

“High King, you cannot risk your own life on the battlefield. At the front of such a small force!” Elrond exclaimed, and he leaned forward as if to grab him and convince him not to do such a thing. 

“I will ride with them, so that when you break off to ask aid from Khazad-dum, they will not be left leaderless. I will ride with them to lend a strong hand to the captains, while you are gone.” 

It felt a sin to do what he must. 

Elrond looked at him and understood. 

“I could not abandon such a small force to one without hope, Elrond Peredhel. Do not let them abandon theirs.” 

There was steel in those eyes when they met his own. 

“I will not.” 

…

When the newly made commander departed the rooms of the king, Gil-galad went to his window and looked up at the stars. He thought of Círdan and the gift of his words. 

“I have seen light.” 

He placed the ring on his finger. 

Dark. 

Death. 

Decay. 

Flames and piles of bodies. 

In the middle of the carnage, he saw an elven warrior, shielding something to his breast, but the fury of the battle and the waves of the enemy swept over his vision, and he saw not the face of the warrior, nor what he clasped to his bosom, and a searing heat spread over his mind so that when he removed the ring from his finger to relieve the pain, he was once more left in the dark. 

…

The cold sun was rising as Elrond half-elven stood on a hill overlooking his army. 

He had risen early, for his body would not rest. Wrapping his gray cloak around his shoulders, he slipped out to walk through the encampment. As he walked he sang songs of courage and hope under his breath, willing them to find the spirits of the elves under his command. 

His high king had charged him to not allow the force to abandon their hope. 

Yet as he stood beside his horse, surveying the elven army, looking at all the lives entrusted into his hands he was sure of defeat, he had told Durin of it with no hesitation. The force the High King had sent with him was not enough for the armies of Adar. They would outfight them, surround them, and then he, and they would fall. 

Unless - 

Durin would come, he thought to himself. But he still felt sick as he gazed at the tents and the beautiful horses stamping impatiently. They seemed to reflect the sick feeling in his own bones, the heaviness over the camp, the booming war drums of Adar’s force a forest over as it besieged the city. 

He was sick, yet not with  uncertainty for himself, for he had fought many times as a child. With his brother, with bullies, with elves who had hated him for his love of his adoptive parents. He had fought orcs on patrol with the High King, he had fought creatures, he had slain three hill trolls to save the dwarf with the flaming red hair who would become his dear friend. When the need arose, and his hand gripped his weapon, and the enemy was before him, he had fought enough to know he could master his fear. He knew he had fought enough to trust his blade and his skill. 

But he had not commanded. 

And he was wise enough to know that wielding one’s own sword well was not what it took to inspire men to ride straight into a defeat with nothing more than a hope. Being a good and shrewd leader was not something that could be faked, either your armies loved you or they did not, either you commanded respect, or you did not, either your decisions were sound in a crisis, or they were not. And none knew their own strengths in this regard, until one had been tested, and the armies under your command had accepted it, and bought into it - or not. 

And Elrond half-elven did not know what strengths of command he had. Yet here was an army encamped, even now starting to stir to rise at the command of his subordinates as he had directed. Elven lives, in his hands. If the end was today, then such an end they would make of it, he thought. And he remembered the smiling face of Celebrimbor in his forge, and the charge his king had laid on him, and the promise of his friend Durin as they had bid each other goodbye. 

On the one hand was the certainty of the enemy, Adar and his armies. And Sauron, somewhere in the city. For a moment his resolve blanched, for he knew it was foolish to think one could take on the dark Lord alone. 

What then? If all went well, and Durin came, and the armies of Adar were broken. Would he crash into the city and wrest the Dark Lord out? And he thought of his foster fathers and Maedhros’s long years of torment, and his own youth. The foresight that thrummed in his body was silent this morning. But he did not see a clash with Sauron -

Not yet

He had been raised on the stories of great deeds in the face of great destruction. He had known bravery in his brother as they had fought to preserve their own lives in the face of death. He had known it in his Mother’s desperate, defiant leap, and in the sickened but stalwart love that had been shown him by those that had taken him from his home. 

His eyes sought the skies, saw the fading light of Eärendill. 

On his breast a star shone on the plates of his armor, his shoulder guards reflected the wings that had been given his mother. And in his heart, beat the savage persistence of the red-headed warrior, and on his lips, the song of the dark-haired who had loved him. And before them, there had been the loveliest of all elven maidens and her lover - hands that had plucked the silmarils themselves from Morgoth’s crown. 

He mounted his horse and rode down to the army. 

…

Vorohil had his helmet ready for him. Elrond noted how steady the swordsman had been. Galadriel’s man, he had been, but after the disaster in the barrow downs, he felt a kinship almost with him. 

As they had fled back to Lindon, Vorohil had followed behind on his footsteps, aiding the shaken Camnir with Rian. They both had been a godsend to him as he had left them behind, trusting them with their own safety as he sped on in a desperate effort to reach the king. Once he had seen the threat to the city and knew that Adar and Sauron were crashing together in a fury at the place that had become everything to him, his feet had been spurred on with great need to reach the king before all was laid waste.

Ost-in-Edhil had become a second home to him during his time there with the generous but prideful smith. Celebrimbor was mighty in skill and treasured beauty, collecting art and skill over long years to inspire his own mind to create something worthy of Fëanor. Much did the elven smith pursue in his search for perfection. 

Elrond had feared some of the pursuits. He did not trust a full abandon to works of the hands divested from the preservation of Arda, and often he had felt that the greatest of smiths toyed too easily with methods that could damage instead of preserve. But he loved the Fëanorian. He admired his desire for greatness. His delight in the art and the histories was something Elrond shared, and long hours he had spent poring over Celebrimbor's vast collection of scrolls, the wealth of knowledge he had accumulated. 

All of that, and the strange words of prophecy that Celebrimbor had attributed to his father,  rang in his ears as he had ran with all his strength to reach Gil-galad; they must save Eregion. 

They must save Eregion. 

And now here he was, outside the walls of its city with an army. 

With his whole heart, he yearned to defend this city that had given him so much. Defend its peoples, and its Lord. And he thought again of Celebrimbor in his tower, musing that Eärendil the mariner had told him once, long ago, that his future was in his son's hands. 

The force is too small

Durin will come

And he refused to let go of his hope. 

He walked to the tents where the men were huddled for drink and bread before the charge. 

When he entered, the chattering hushed, so he went and asked for the draught himself, and made his way to a table around which the soldiers were gathered. 

Vorohil was at his side once again - and Elrond noted that. He would be a good man to send to guide Durin - when the time was right. 

The men at the long table were silent. 

And Elrond smiled, for what use was he as a courtier and herald if he used not his voice to remind the men of the bravery that had borne aloft the best eleven warriors of time past? 

He stood and lifted his cup. 

“To the dawning of this morning, when Vása sets on this day, may she find our hearts as faithful as they were at first light.” 

And the men raised their own cups, and Elrond prayed that they might be bold, and that he might not fail them.

And then he grinned. 

“Glorfindel and the Balrog!” 

“Glorfindel and the Balrog!” 

The answering shout swelled, with laughter, and with the shout came a renewed fierceness to the eyes of the warriors readying themselves for the clash. Elven warriors leaning forward to bash their cups against the table and raise them high. Elven warriors stooping to attach their armor and secure their weapons. Elven warriors whose turn it was to take a place in the stories of this age. 

Glorfindel against the Balrog! 

And Elrond knew they would follow him.

Chapter Text

Durin will come. 

Durin will come. 

Durin will come. 

It was a mantra, a hope. 

It was all he had. 

The one thing, as darkness closed around like a net. 

The one thing, somewhere like a precious secret locked away, in the shouted orders and the desperate, continual pressing forward, he held it like some saving grace. Even amongst all the screams of the dying and the clashing of weapons, the wading through mud and streams of blood, stumbling over bodies fair and foul, he knew Durin would come.  And when he came, the sacrifice of the elven warriors wouldn’t be for naught, and Celebrimbor might be spared, and the city saved. 

All he could do was press on. 

To the wall. 

If they could hold it for one night…

The day had been long, and much had gone wrong in a day that had been ill-favored at the start. 

The charge. 

The cage. 

Realization, swift and horrible. 

Daro!

And in the tent he had played arrogance with Adar, for he knew Adar would smart under the use of his honorific name when played against the wishes of his children. He knew the father of the orcs would bite once he saw the hunger in his eyes as they had roved over his face. They had traded barbs - and he had played into Adar’s hands, for he knew that Adar wanted badly to crush him, to have the final say, to be the one who beat the foolish and arrogant courtier with his comely face. If he could be baited into coming too fast, too recklessly, tasting victory in his hands, tasting the crushing of the arrogant commander - then Durin would arrive, and instead do the crushing. Eregion would be saved. 

Adar had taken the bait. 

The orcs came in waves, beaten back by the excellence of Elrond’s warriors. He mourned them as he saw them fall and he tasted the bitterness of command, for each life lost felt as if it were a new burden, rolled up and placed on shoulders already straining to shoulder this steep, new responsibility. 

War, he realized, was a series of staggering towards the thing of the most importance at that immediate, pressing, moment. There was no past, no future, only the raising of one’s sword to block the descending blow, only the individual enemy who loomed before you out of the surrounding haze. Only the machinery to be brought down before it brought down the wall. Only the crashing, screaming, violent, present. 

You met each one as it came to you, or you fell to it. 

War was too fast, too hard, it pulled no punches. It sucked the kindness and gentleness and goodness out of one's being like some vampire of the horrors past. One minute standing beside a friend, the next charging forward as the friend fell. And there was no time to mourn her body. To sit down beside it and weep. To sing a song of farewell or to close her eyes with gentle touch, there was only time to bring the blade up to block the blade of an enemy. There was only time to run to the aid of the others who still drew breath, there was no time, there was no time, there was no time. 

Only now. 

Sweet light of day, calm still of night, soft caress of wind, the touch of grass beneath feet. Somewhere, somewhere, in Arda, they still were - but here - only agony. Clashing discordant sounds of weapons falling on eachother, and the sickening gurgle of weapons sinking into flesh, screams of torment and horror. Groans from the dying raising their shriek of protest to the silent skies. Flames eating carcasses and creeping over the upturned earth, a lake of mud like some evil bog drowning souls in its grip, and a tiring body screaming in rage over the sins it was committing, driven forward by desperation, falling and rising, falling and rising, falling and rising. 

Durin will come

He remembered as he stumbled again. 

As the wall loomed before him. 

As the heavy hand of the troll came down and flicked his body like a fly and searing pain erupted in his skull. 

As he dragged himself to his feet and saw his king through a haze of pain. Feeling sweet joy at his face in such a sea of such darkness only to have it replaced by a sudden, overwhelming horror. 

The darkness might take him too. 

Not Ereinion. 

Never. 

He staggered to his feet. 

…

There was a gap. 

A gap between getting back up and then nothingness. Only searing pain. Not pain of body, but a darkness greater, an absence of something that had been precious to him. The insistent promise that to continue would be rewarded. Something strong had beaten in his heart like a fluttering bird. 

Hope. 

It now lay dead and mangled, violently crushed by some dark, evil hand. 

Where it had sung its pretty song to him, even in the middle of the darkness, even in the middle of the flame and shadow, and given him strength to hold on - was now a dark night, over which a choking silence lay. 

He lay in a starless void, he didn’t remember how he got here. But there was the memory of the song fading out of his ears as the sun rose. Such a beautiful sunrise it was, to be the herald of his failure. And he drifted into its colors. Saw it all again. Flashes of a betraying sunrise, of a final slaughter, of a hand around the throat. Of the loss of something that he had been charged to protect. Of lying one’s head in the mud, because there was nothing else left. 

A blur of dark and light, weightlessness and sudden, searing, pain and just when he thought he might float off on it, he came back to his body with a groan. 

His king held him. 

“Come, Elrond.”

“High King.” 

Gil-galad shushed him, gently placing a finger on his lips. 

“You should not be here.” 

He ground the words out, tears springing to his eyes. 

“Be still Elrond, be still. You have just come back to me”.

The coming back had brought violent, searing, pain with it. The flood of it on his side where the swinging hand of the troll had crushed him, where it had also caught his head, staggering and scattering his thoughts. It flooded his body, and the bone weary tiredness, and the stinging cuts on his cheeks, and the bruises around his throat made way for it, allowing it to overwhelm, he gasped for air and it came out as a groan. 

“Be still.” 

Finally his vision cleared and the sight it brought was evil and brought evil remembrance with it. For there stood Adar, his fingers wrapped around the chain he had yanked from Elrond's neck, his fist closed around a ring he should not be permitted to touch. 

None of us should have touched. 

But that was an old fear, and not as pressing as the fact he was in the mud, resting in the arms of his king, who was kneeling - kneeling - beside him, holding him, while the orcs stood around with ready weapons and rope. One of them shifted and Elrond saw he held Aeglos aloft in his arms. 

He would not do such a thing . 

He thought, but the king was renowned for his skill with the blade and Elrond had seen him in action enough to know it was true. He did not believe for a second orcs or even Adar could have taken him through skill alone - which meant - 

He would not. 

It was too bitter a thought for him. 

For the day had been but one continuous series of failures on his part. The agony of pressing forward as both friends and subordinates fell around him, watching, strength sapped from his wounded body as the last warriors under his command fell before the blades of the orcs, as the wall crumbled behind him, as he had failed to keep the ring with too much power out of Adar’s grasping hand.

He could not bear, on top of all of this, to be the reason his king knelt in the mud. 

He shifted to try to raise himself, and the movement brought too much pain. A wall of white flooded over his vision and he was drifting again. Gil-galad had him by the elbow, and his right hand hidden beneath Elrond’s back, was pressed against him. From it came coolness and some relief, and he knew not what it meant, but he was back to himself again. 

Adar was barking orders to his children, and the protective hold of the king's embrace was ripped away. Violent hands seized him, and his king and there was some surge of strength in his bones after all, for once they touched Gil-galad he was lunging to his feet, slipping, covered in mud as he was. 

But the orcs kicked him back down into the earth and he knew no more. 

…

Elrond was in agony, the king saw, at the sounds of the city falling around them. He sat against the stall he had been bound to, his face white, clenched fists tightening over and over. 

Gil-galad almost wished he had not awoken, for the screaming of the elves that had not escaped as they were hunted through the streets, the sound of the crashing of stone to the earth, and the frenzied exultation of the orcs' bloodlust was indeed evil. Torment it was to sit here and listen, and be able to do nothing about the evil being wrought outside the door. 

Much he had seen, much he had endured and presided over since he had worn the crown. And his own trial had been great when he had suffered the visions of the ring which came at some cost to himself. He had looked death and the end in the face and made peace with it as he sat with Círdan when last he had been there. But Elrond had not, and he saw in his eyes now the same doom he had felt. For they were without the silver light that had always shone there steadily - it was as if a shroud had been placed over the starlight. 

Adar watched as they were bound to the posts and Gil-galad saw how his eyes gleamed when his gaze alighted on Elrond’s face. Saw how it lingered there. 

He held an elven pin between his fingers, moving it back and forth, as if pondering what to do with it. Finally he knelt beside Elrond. Elrond's eyes were wary, but he met Adar's gaze with steel the king saw, he also saw that when he caught sight of the pin, his jaw tightened into a hard line. He looked back up at Adar who leaned towards him. 

"It was an ingenious ploy, commander." 

He smiled as he leaned back on his heels. 

"Would you like to know how it worked? For perhaps the lady Galadriel walks free now, but she left such an incriminating piece of evidence behind for that, wouldn't you agree? Or perhaps I knew your hand from the start, and I took this pin back from her dead hand to return to its owner who lost it so carelessly, as carelessly as he loses the lives of those whom he might appear to love."

Elrond leaned forward, an edge to his mouth, almost a sneer, a desperate gamble. 

"Where then, is her head on the pike as you promised me?" 

Adar's eyes gleamed then, but he answered not at first, instead he reached to grab the bruised neck and with his other hand he traced the weeping cuts on Elrond's face with the pin. 

The king wished heartily that his hands were free and his choices so as well, that he might seize Adar and give him bruises of his own. But the ropes holding him were strong and the thick pin too near to Elrond's eye - too near to Elrond’s throat. 

“The ring or Galadriel’s life? Do you remember?” Adar’s tone was soft. 

“You told me to ask you again, when you held your blade to my throat. Yet here we are. And the ring is in my hand, and you also - and your king who surrendered his spear to save your life.” 

Elrond did not flinch, but Gil-galad who knew him so well, saw the rage that swept through him, rage not at Adar, but at him for doing such a thing. It shimmered under his skin and in his blood and his words were as biting as a serpent's when they came. 

“And where then, is Sauron? For you have spent the blood of your children and needlessly slaughtered innocents and sit here even now tormenting captives other than the one you sought, and the one prize you came for evades you still - for great has been your blindness.” 

It was almost a snarl, Gil-galad thought. And if Adar had not backhanded his herald, he thought he might have himself, for all his diplomacy had turned to daggers meant to provoke. The starlight was gone, what stared back now was a dark night. 

Adar seemed to regret his blow, as Elrond’s head whipped to the side and Gil-galad and the other elves voiced their displeasure. It had been a concession to the snarling boy tied to his post. 

“All you have left is your words, courtier . I will grant them to you, for I have all else.” 

Gil-galad cursed Adar and his children with every insult he knew as he made his own bid to buy Adar's attention before his herald could incur more wrath upon himself. When Adar turned to him finally, he was cold in his anger, and deadly. The orcs shied back from him even though he was bound fast. 

“I have done what you asked and you promised no harm. Go after the one you came for and I may forgive the blow you dealt him, breaking your word to me. Strike him, or any of those under my protection again however, and my wrath will be so great I will slay mountains of your children before I slit my own throat, robbing you of your play for peace.” 

Ah, he had struck true.

For Adar raised his hands and stepped away from Elrond, though his air was still thunderous.    

“I promised he would live, but I will take great pleasure in taming his tongue as you have failed to do.”

He almost could have laughed, so comfortable Gil-galad had grown with his own end, for he felt an unholy desire to wish Adar great success in his endeavors, for he would have as much chance of achieving that as defeating Morgoth himself. But he spoke with authority instead. 

“You will not touch him again, for I will make another promise of my own, one not to your liking. For greatly you desire my cooperation with convincing the other elven lords to grant you Mordor, but I swear to you it will not be given if you transgress further.” 

“There are other ways to ensure your cooperation, High King.” Adar mused. But his face bore less malice than before, and Gil-galad saw he had placed Galadriel’s ring on his finger. 

His words were less of a threat now, and more of a play to have the last word. 

“When I return with Sauron’s head, perhaps we may speak differently.”

…

Gil-galad reached over to see where the blow had hit Elrond. Adar had struck him with the pin he had held in his fingers and there was a new abrasion melting into the rest of his bruised face. Gil-galad touched it gently. 

Elrond shrank from his touch. 

“Is it true?” 

“Yes Elrond.” 

He sighed. 

For there was a bitterness in Elrond that sorrowed him. 

“It was wrong of you to do so.”

“We would have suffered defeat regardless Elrond, I would rather have had the surrender of my spear be for one dear to me than have it taken from my hands by force next to his lifeless body. You would have done the same.” 

“I am not the high king!” 

“The high king protects those he can. That which is most dear. If we live, you will learn this. That you can not save all, but you can save those before you, even at great cost, even if the choice seems evil.”

Elrond finally met his eyes, there was great pain in them. 

“Hope is never mere.” Gil-galad reminded softly. 

“Yet mine is - ” He struggled for words. 

His herald never struggled for words.

Deep, gray, eyes that had always shone were now dulled, the starlight was shrouded, hidden. Gil-galad knew what his herald could not say.

“Share in mine, then.” 

Elrond bowed his head and said nothing, and Gil-galad thought for a moment that perhaps the darkness of the day had been too great indeed - perhaps he had asked too much - and then he rested it on Gil-galad’s breast. 

The king knew that Cirdan was right and what had seemed an evil thing from his ring's vision was indeed a great gift, for it had given him great clarity. That even now, bound to the walls of the stable there was hope. For he and Elrond breathed still, and besides them others with valor in their blood and courage in their bones. For even here, he could strive to protect the goodness of Arda. And even here, he could guard what one day might guard that goodness in turn. That even here, he could give the gift of his hope to Elrond when he had none. 

Elrond did not raise his head again. 

But the king felt the song stealing back into the his herald’s fëa. And Vilya was singing with it from her hiding place on his hand. 

…

Adar did not return. 

His children did. But they were different this time without his presence, leering and taunting and prodding their captives with sticks. 

When they had tired of their games they cut their bonds, gripped their shoulders and dragged them through the ruined city. Elrond could barely look at it so great was his grief. 

The defeat was bitter. Not because he had failed. 

He had known they would be defeated. 

Bitter because Durin had not come, his friend. 

Bitter because his High King was held captive alongside him. 

Bitter because around him, the city he loved for its light and beauty burned. 

Bitter because he had heard no word of the safety of Celebrimbor, and his heart trembled to learn of his fate. 

And the scrolls being burnt filled him with a rage, a rage outside of himself, but the sight of his high king held to the ground with a knife to his throat -  his hope - stole the breath from his lungs and caused some kind of clawing panic to rise out of his throat like a screaming, frightened animal. 

And the rage spiraled out, until he found himself beaten to his knees again. 

Sauron was coming for them, the uruk had said.

 Elrond wondered how the Dark Lord would compare to Adar whose eyes had gleamed with joy at the sight of him beaten to the earth, on his knees. Would Sauron simply kill them there, would he torture and revel in their pain - what had happened to the proud uruk who had been so assured of his own victory against Sauron?

He knew that beyond anything, he would kill any who laid their hands on Gil-galad and he waited on his knees, for the moment to come where he would fling himself over his king and take whatever blows they meant for him. 

But instead when he met the  king’s eyes he saw they were gleaming with joy. 

And his shout brought hope, as sure as the hail of arrows that struck the orcs holding them. 

The dwarves had come. 

…

Gil-galad’s heart rejoiced. 

He wrested the crude iron knife from the grasp of the orc holding him and turned it against its owner with a fierceness he had not felt for many years. 

To his side was the stalwart and formidable warrior, Arondir who had survived the assault with them and recovered under the touch of the hidden ring, and the king noted his great skill. 

And there also was Elrond, with two hands, breaking necks, Valar, he had learned true from his foster parents, he thought. 

Still, there was not enough of a force to win the day, but to survive to fight another. So he called to the survivors, drawing them to himself, and led them out of the city. 

The end was not this day. 

…

Elrond did not follow. 

He turned towards the tower and stumbled over the torn doors, wrenched from their hinges. Up the stairs he ran, calling Celebrimbor's name with bruised lungs, begging the Valar that the dear smith had survived. 

The tower groaned above him, flames licking up the side of the wall, and several orcs scurried in after him. He picked up a sword from where the slain guards lay. Fury guided his arm and the first fell before his wrath, the rest scattered, wary of his rage and bewildered by the pursuit of the dwarves outside. 

Where are you Celebrimbor? 

Tears swam into his eyes, staring at the forge that had been such a success. Happy memories returned to him unbidden. The feeling of the first time they had lit it in celebration, Celebrimbor’s joy, the approval of the High King who had sent him to achieve this for the elven smith. 

In agony, he dropped to his knees, the words of a lament on his tongue, he wept over the silent forge, and the lost Celebrimbor. Some hope not altogether evil entered his mind, that Sauron had kept the smith alive. That he lived still. That he might be rescued. And then the tower groaned again, shifted as if it were gathering itself up for its last stand. Outside he could hear Gil-galad calling his name. 

He turned and fled from the tower, eyes blinded by his own tears.

Chapter Text

He saw her. 

He saw the evil, blackening, wound. 

He saw it glinting in the light of the sun. 

…

Elros came to find him. 

“Come brother!”

He grabbed his arm and they fled outside of the tent together. Panting, Elros pointed out what he had seen. There, glittering in the sky, blazing like a white flame, it hung. 

They would have recognized it anywhere, their mother’s jewel. She had loved it, not for its own brightness but for what it signified for her family, and she used to gather the boys on her knees to tell them stories of fair Lúthien and Beren the bold. Stories of their child Dior, her father. She would speak of the pride they might feel in their name, and of the responsibility they bore to it. 

Leaning against her knees, in the quiet of those gentle evenings, they had hung on every word of her tales. Elwing was a gifted storyteller, though young, and when she spoke to the boys, birds would flock to the sills of the windows and sing along with her words. It caused the boys great joy, and Elwing would tell them of Melian, their foremother, who taught the nightingales their songs and how they would circle above her head as she sat on her great throne. She told them of Lúthien, her great beauty, she told of how when Beren first saw her dancing and singing he had called her Tinuviel - one of the singing birds. As the light of the stars came out one by one, Elwing would tell of how those two had braved the lair of Morgoth and plucked the silmarils from his crown. And she said that Lúthien’s own song was said to have brought spring when she sang, causing flowers to grow and life to come forth at her bidding. 

Elrond thought it was the most beautiful thing he could imagine. 

“Can you sing like that Naneth?” 

She laughed. 

And the birds had chittered and whistled when she did. 

“Of a different kind, perhaps.” 

Elros begged for another story but Elrond was wondering if he walked outside and sang, how the world would respond to him. 

He loved those stories best, and he dreamed of Doriath, a sanctuary, a place of enchantment and loveliness. He crafted it again in his head, its glory, its hiddeness, its beauty. He thought of Melian’s nightingales and Lúthien’s warm glow of spring, and it was them and Doriath he most longed to learn of. 

She spoke most often of Lúthien and Beren though, and Elrond wondered why her face became full of shadows when he asked her for stories of her home, or when Elros asked of her brothers. 

“They were twins like you.” 

She would say only. 

“And so very brave.” 

And she would say no more. 

When Elrond had asked her why they had left Doriath, he thought his mother looked like a little girl for a time, for her face became young and frightened - scared. And she had whispered that it was lost, but she could say no more. 

He thought then, that he would rebuild Doriath one day. For her. A place where the birds would sing, and there would be enchantments to protect it, and songs of warmth and light, a place where flowers bloomed and life was coaxed forth by the goodness that dwelt within. 

But he kept his dreams to himself. Elros also had dreams. 

He would lean his head against their naneth’s shoulder from the knee on which he sat and tell her - 

“I shall be like Beren when I grow old.” 

Elwing would smile, drawing him nearer. 

“And will you then find a lady fair, my son? For who will rescue you when you are imprisoned and at the end of your strength?” 

Elros laughed. 

“I would rather have a great hound than a fair lady!”

Those were days of joy and one night, after they had talked long into the early morning of those stories, Elwing went to an old, hidden, chest and took out the jewel. 

It shone on her face and Elrond thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as his mother in that moment. 

“It is your legacy, my sons.”

But Elrond saw her face was burdened by it. 

He saw pain in his mothers face when she looked at it, and pride. And he thought together, those were two grievous things to bear. A legacy carried by one alone felt heavy indeed. He was glad that Elros was there to share it with him. 

He would think then, of his father, who so often left them behind. He had heard his mother defending him to the prying housemaids who had disparaged his long absences, but he saw her loneliness. 

When she put it away, he was glad, for the beauty of it burdened her face. 

…

Then, came the evil day. 

When they heard the screaming and shouting they had both fled to find her. 

The air was rent  with the sounds of stamping and shouts, the clash of weapons, tearing the peace of the havens. He thought he saw her, as they ran, in her white gown, searching the fleeing crowds and those pursuing them. He thought he saw her, but someone gripped his arm violently and wrenched him back, and Elros was screaming and biting at the hand that gripped his brother. 

“He is as brave as Beren” Elrond thought.

 Then he heard her. She was screaming their names. Her voice a sob. Before the hands dragged him away he saw her face, there was no beauty there now, only breaking. He saw that she was a child again, watching something happen that had happened before. Something she had never forgotten. Then a press of warriors swept between them and he saw her no more. 

The hand in his hair holding him aloft caused him pain and his eyes watered from the strain, and he scratched and clawed at the hands for he could hear Elros beside him suffering the same. 

He kept dimming eyes on the white gown. Saw its flight, saw it disappear into the tower. 

Years later, he would think of her own youth in that moment. He would see that the stories he and Elros had been told of their legacy had been told to her, stories of bravery and impossible choices. He would see the indecision and the fear and a choice that had been as much thrust upon her as actively chose, and he would look up at the light of Eärendil and send love - and receive it. 

But then - his heart was darkened. 

He hated the light of the jewel as it fell. The burden it had cast on the face of the one whom he loved. How Elros cried out when he saw the descent of the white gown, flowing behind flailing arms. And Elrond thought he was falling, as she was, would have fallen except for the cruel hand in his hair, so great was his anguish. And the ones who could not catch her and grasp her back returned burning with wrath and turned with a rage upon Elros and himself. The blows were mighty and he thought as they both clung to one another that the jewel would take everything from him. 

When the elf with the flaming red hair came upon them, he had flung the enraged elves aside with a rage of his own. But he had them bound and carried off and Elrond had seen the same burden on his face that the light of the Silmaril wrought on that of his mothers. 

Those days had been evil at first. 

And though the two were not hateful to them, their loss and anger were great. Elros and Elrond were their captives, and they listened as the fierce brothers argued. In the dark of the night, heart beating a desolate pulse even though he wished it would not, wished to be dead, to be tossed on the sea with her, Elrond heard them speak their thoughts. Perhaps they might trade the lives of the boys for what was rightfully theirs. The jewel. Elrond thought of it again and he understood then, it was also the legacy of those brothers, a more terrible burden even than the one his mother had borne, and he hated it, for its light had brought only evil darkness. 

But here it was now, glimmering brightly in the sky. He and Elros knew what it was and what it meant. 

And the burden of it shone on their faces. 

…

When he first saw the light on Galadriel’s face as she stared at the ring in her palm he had started, for there was the burden, for good or ill, and in his hand he held a scroll which told of her deception. 

All the elves he loved and looked up to had bent their will towards the rings. Gentle, ambitious Celebrimbor, smiling at his wondrous work - he wanted so badly to craft something as lovely as Fëanor had - it had blinded him to all else. Galadriel had desired them so much she had let them be made, knowing the possibility of Sauron's corruption. Círdan himself had set out to destroy them and changed his mind, transfixed by their perfection. Gil-galad had willingly courted what he knew to be a desperate risk. 

Elrond knew they indeed were older than him, and much had they seen. But he had also seen beauty, beauty so terrible it had taken everything from him. 

The rings whispered of the same. Power so deep and seductive, it could destroy all that was dear to him. Power that perhaps had been brought into being  under the hand of the great deceiver. 

Wear the rings they might, but he would never. 

And there it lay on the ground, glinting in the light of the sun. 

There she lay on the ground, so dear to him, dying . 

He had leapt from the waterfall to keep them from corruption, those whom he loved. He had refused her counsel not for any hate or bitterness, but because he could not bear to see what looked terribly beautiful cause terrible evil once again. He had stopped the charge of his army and slipped her the pin to give her a chance at life. 

And here she lay dying. 

Gil-galad was commanding her to come back. But it was not enough. He knew, it was not enough. 

.

.

.

There it lay, glinting in the light of the sun. 

.

.

.

He had thought once, that flowering and warmth and wholeness - and the coaxing of life to come forth - was the most beautiful thing he could think of. 

There was Elwing’s choice, closing her hand around the jewel. A choice thrust on her that she had not prepared for. 

Here was his own choice, a crossroads not of his choosing. 

He hesitated. Then he bent forward and grasped the ring with his fingers, abandoning the promises he had made to himself - he did it for her. 

It wasn’t for the jewel, or the ring, it was for the protection and preservation of good. It was for one whom he loved. 

The counsel of Círdan proved true. 

Power, great power lay on his hand, and the power within him surged to meet it. All the whispered songs of Lúthien and Melian, the gift of enchantment, and his own gift, the holding and coaxing forth of life, rose like some great wind and met with the power of the ring and he knew that this power in his hand, used for the love of another - was not evil. 

The ring on his finger was a weaver, she pulled all threads into one. 

Her own strength she threaded with the strength of his ancestry and the gifts he had been given. Then she adorned it with all the arduous work he had done to make himself into something kind, when all he had felt for years was abandonment and black, choking anger - that had become something strong in him too, and it joined with the pull of the ring. She was pulling it all out of him, all of his light and goodness and all the suffering that had made him like iron, it grew into a great force. 

He took all of what and who he was and gave it to Galadriel. 

…

Long had he been a skilled healer. He had learned it from the two who had taken him from that golden home of joy. When the hate was gone, he saw with new eyes. And he saw that great burdens both bore, like his mother had, and he had found that he understood them - almost - then.

Hate had been the first to depart, slinking out of his soul like a chastened beast. Then the long nothingness, the long dullness, became something where there had been nothing, and one day, staring at the earth that had been cold to him since the day they were seized, he heard the dark-haired one sing, and he thought of his old desire to sing life into the world. 

He began to shadow the dark one, then. He knew it gave both of the fierce brothers joy. 

Elros watched at first, but so tightly had they clung to another after the evil day, that he joined soon. 

Maglor knew many songs and he taught him generously, but Elrond who had loved so dearly the stories of Lúthien bringing spring in her wake, and who had seen so much torn apart, loved best the songs of mending and healing. Maglor wept when he first taught them to sing to heal rifts, for much tearing he had done throughout Arda, and in the hands of the two who had come to love him, he saw much healing would come to Arda.

And one day, Maedhros observed Elrond quietly as he and Maglor sang over a wounded deer in the forest - “Great you will be in these arts one day, little one.”   he said to him.

Elros also became gifted in healing, and he cherished it as much as Elrond. Later, when he made his choice and built his kingdom he made it great in preserving health and vitality. So often did he visit his halls of healing and with such results, that his people whispered that the king had healing hands. Elrond, who loved his brother, labored beside him in these halls and great joy they had found together in those pursuits in the happy years they had spent together in Númenor. 

How Elros had loved his halls of healing and poured so much of his strength into his own people!

After his brother’s death he had felt such great sorrow, the light in his eyes had dimmed, and the burdens of the court did little to distract him from his pain. He would slip out to the healing wards of Lindon and learn from the learned there, for it was the only thing by which he could forget his pain. 

In the dark of this day, the ring which had caused him such fear had reawoken all of this. All of his skill and learning, all of his gifts and practice, and the songs he bore in his bones from his foremothers and the songs he had learned from Maglor woke and woke loudly, they wove together into one tapestry, they mixed to one strain. It was tapping on his bones, all of this grace.

Gil-galad still held Galadriel’s quiet body when Elrond looked up and saw the survivors scattering through the forest. Leaderless they were, and their cries of pain and sorrow cut deep into his soul. 

He rose. 

Gil-galad met his look and understanding passed between them. He nodded at him. 

And Elrond went to the forlorn crowds and gathered them together. He arranged the packs of what had been preserved from the city to be carried by the strong, and checked the wounds of those most grievously hurt. Snarling groups of orcs were in the woods already, and he feared the bulk of the army would not be far behind. So he left Galadriel and his High King and Arondir to follow behind, and took the lead of the straggling survivors, taking them deeper into the forests in search of some protection from the roving orcs. It was slow going, and when he commissioned a young lieutenant who was still mostly unharmed and seemed to have a solid head on his shoulders to take his lead, he began to travel up and down the line, helping where he could. He looked for the ones whom he loved most and saw the trio making their own slow way behind them, Arondir and Gil-galad carrying Galadriel between them. As he turned from them he saw the proud tower of Celebrimbor crumble. 

For a moment, he felt as if it were his own heart that had crumbled, and he fought a great bitterness as he thought of the empty forge and the lifeless bodies of the guard, and the pool of blood beneath a column. 

Where are you Celebrimbor? 

But he turned to look at Celebrimbor's peoples - these he could save still - he thought fiercely, and he made his way over to the elleth who had collapsed on the forest floor, he raised her, steadied her. She hobbled forward again. 

He caught the arm of a hale warrior. 

“Accompany her and do not let her fall.” 

As he watched them go, he came to the end of the line. He scanned for the orcs he knew would follow, and as he searched, he heard a crack in the forest and turned to face them. 

No orc followed, but a small child, creeping through the trees after them. His hair was dusty from fallen buildings and swept over his eyes as he limped forward. His little chest was heaving with sobs and the exertion of running. Tears and sweat streaked his face. 

Elrond was running too, tears streaking down his face, clinging to Elros’ hand. 

He swayed, and when his knees hit the ground, he rested there, waiting for him, and he was glad for the rest, for his head was aching and there was a great thickness in it, and his steps had become uncertain. 

The little child came, alone. No mother or father clutching his hand. He could be no more than five, the Peredhel thought. And he heard the screams that had haunted his childhood. The black billowing smoke, the cold emptiness that had clutched his own heart as he and his brother had raced for their lives on desolate shores. 

“Are you alone, little one?” 

His question took the child by surprise and he nodded cautiously at the warrior covered in blood and grime, kneeling on the ground before him. 

“Yes.” And the child’s weeping began anew and he felt very stupid for the brave commander to see him cry thus. 

But the elven commander said nothing, and held out his hands instead. 

The little elfling crawled into Elrond’s arms, stiffly. 

Elrond gathered him into his own tired, aching arms and pressed his head against the small one of the child. 

He held him.

He would not say all would be well for others had said that to him and it had not been well. He would not promise joy when there could only be sorrow and pain, and only at the end of that, at great cost and after much time, some healing growing out of darkness. 

So he held the child, and he whispered instead. 

“Let me share your burden little one.” 

“I am here.” 

And he felt all he had borne over the long years rise up out of him, and all the wrangling of his might to turn it into something good after it had so long threatened to turn him bitter, it came out of him like a soft, gentle song, and wrapped around the child. 

All of his skill and learning, all of his gifts and practice, and the songs he bore in his bones from his foremothers and the songs he had learned from Maglor woke and woke loudly, they wove together into one tapestry, they mixed to one strain. It was tapping on his bones, all of this grace.

And as he carried the little child in his arms in his weary haste to catch up to the rest, even without the ring on his finger, he called all that strength back to himself, and he gave his grace to the child and to the people fleeing. 

They must have strength to continue. 

What he had, he gave to them.

Chapter Text

Galadriel still remained in a deep healing sleep with the other survivors, many of them barely clinging to life, when Gil-galad spared a few precious moments to stop and look after her. She rested more peacefully now, he observed, and he nodded to those looking after her and the other grievously wounded. He asked if there was anything they needed, and the caretakers were polite, but they both knew what they needed could not be provided as they fled ruin. 

Some semblance of order was crawling out of the chaos. Those who could heal had come forward to give what care they could to the wounded. When the retreating elves would stop to orient themselves, stop to determine the best route forward, or stop to fight off attacking orcs, the healers would kneel in the center of the refugees, working on the most severely injured. The others would draw around and shield them, and beyond them the able bodied defenders held a thin line. The fighters they had were wearied, and harried, but still they held what weapons they had with a steely grace for the love of what they protected.

An elleth called Muilwen had taken it upon herself to reunite those who knew one another. For those who had none she assigned caretakers and she assembled a group of others who aided her with the children who were parentless. Her face was joyless and stern, her aid invaluable, and there were many others who had come forth as she had to lend their help in what manner each could. 

But they were a desolate people. 

Survival hung on a knife’s edge. They were fleeing, and where desperation had once spurred on their steps, despair now threatened to halt them. For there was no place to go, and they were fragile, barely held together, constantly harried by the servants of Sauron who hunted the forests for survivors. 

Gil-galad looked at them and saw rot taking hold of hearts as sure as the black rot had spread over the golden tree of Lindon. 

They were a desolate people. 

He, a desolate king. 

But a king could not bring desolation, but hope. 

Where he walked, he carried his head high, he washed his face in the river as they passed it. He arranged his grimy armor into some semblance of his old respectable carriage and strode through the encampment with sure foot. 

The scouts had seen no sign of orc for some time so he commanded a stop so that the people might regain their strength before it was wholly spent. While they rested he sent Arondir, the wood elf who was becoming invaluable to him, to bring Elrond back from where he commanded the outermost guards. 

He needed to take counsel with his commanders. 

He needed also, to see his herald. 

The suffering of the last days had been great. 

Night was falling as the elves rested. Gil-galad walked through the encampment looking over them as he waited for his commanders.

 He had chosen a spot against the mountainside, so that their backs would not be exposed, still the front of the forest whispered of the evil forces now running free. They were too few to protect the many vulnerable, and Gil-galad had whispered pleas to the Valar as he directed the people to huddle in makeshift shelters under tree and rock - whatever they could find. 

He had last seen his herald carrying a child into the camp. While he stood there with the arms of the child clinging to his bruised neck, stoic Muilwen approached and they had spoken softly to one another, and when the child saw that Muilwen had some water to offer him and other elflings around her, he broke his tight grip of the commander and went with her. 

And then Elrond had been before him, at his side. And when he sent the few warriors he had to guard their exposed area so that the survivors might rest, he had sent Elrond with them, for he saw respect kindling in their eyes for the commander who had led them this far. 

Now, the commanders huddled around him, as gloomy skies shivered and started to rain, and Arondir and Elrond came back soaked and the king noticed how the fingers of the peredhel had started to shake. 

“Tell me of our defenses.” 

“They hold for the moment, High King.” 

But the scouts brought troubling news, they told the desperate group of advisors that a large band of orcs were following their trail. 

It would not be long before they were found. 

When they were found, they would be overrun. 

Gil-galad knew they looked to him for some miracle, for some action to take. There was none left to him. 

“We must protect those in our care. Yet I will be frank with those of you here with me, for you know what I know now, that we are unable to do so in this position. We cannot defeat such a force exposed as we are.”

“We might try to draw them out, to divert them away.” Arondir said. 

“But there are not many to send.” Lithiel, spoke up. A captain of the surviving Eregion guards, her soldiers were now few of what had once been a full company. 

Gil-galad looked at her.

“I will not send a diverting troop yet. We shall do so only at the end of all other chances, for we cannot spare to lose any fighters, and it is likely to send any forth, would be to send them to their doom. We must continue to flee further away from the orcs. It is the best hope we have at the moment.” 

“Yet the people are at the end of their strength, I fear they will not be able to continue on soon.” Elrond said. 

And Gil-galad knew it was true, as much as he had clung to hope and walked through the people, and spurred them on, he saw their strength was flagging. 

“We will let them rest for as long as we are able.”

He nodded to Arondir. 

“Arrange a patrol willing to divert the enemy away if we are faced with no other choice, but make no decision without my permission. Lithiel, I would ask you to prepare the rear-guard to protect the retreat. Elrond, you will lead them as we go.” 

As they made ready to depart he spoke once more: 

“Trust still, to hope. For their strength depends on your own.” 

But as the commanders departed with their orders, he caught the sleeve of his herald. 

“Stay.” 

Much they had suffered together in the last days. From their final desperate stand before the walls, to Adar threatening Elrond’s life before his eyes, demanding the king lay down his spear. And Gil-galad had, for his pain was great when he thought for a moment that the boneless body in Adar’s grip was without life. 

They had suffered at the hands of the cruel orcs, and their evil taunts. They had watched the tower burn, and the scrolls and wisdom of Celebrimbor destroyed. He had watched as Elrond placed the ring he had protested so much, on his finger to heal Galadriel. 

When he looked at Elrond, he saw deep wells of sorrow and quieted suffering. He saw the burden of spent lives on his shoulders, he saw weariness in the gray eyes and deep reignited pains, and new ones. He looked at his hands, and saw the trembling fingers. 

Elrond almost flinched under his gaze. 

“You will rest before we go.” 

Elrond had defied him before, but the king had never seen such open rebellion on his face. 

“Have you rested?”

He asked his king, and for all the rebellion on his face, it was quietly spoken. 

Gil-galad sighed. 

“You are not high king, Elrond.” 

“I will not.” 

Elrond said, and it was not said in anger, but calm. 

“Until you rest also, I will not. You know I cannot.” 

Gil-galad opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it. 

Much they had suffered together

“I would see you rest, Elrond. But if you will not, I will ask you to seek the best path for retreat.”

Unspoken were his thoughts that for a brief moment, the king wished to provide some respite from the people constantly reaching out for direction and assurance and comfort. Quiet could restore some strength of will at least, if not strength of body.  And the king saw that Elrond perceived his intentions and that some of the rebellion dissipated from his face and was replaced with gratitude. 

“It will be done.” He said. 

His body leaned forwards towards his king. He wanted to stay near, to say more, but the noose was closing around them, and his warriors tired, and his own heart weary and their strength on the edge of a knife. So he bowed, and wrapped his cloak tighter around his shoulders and slipped back into the rain. 

…

The rain fell like an avenging demon, lashing his skin and soaking through his cloak. Gil-galad had approached him at some point during the first days of their flight, and foisted it on his herald. 

Elrond had not bothered to argue with him. And the king did not bother to tell him it had been taken from one of the dead. There was no time to dwell on such things. 

But he gripped it for the small protection it offered now and kept on. While the rain fell, they would have respite from the attacks of the orcs. Once it stopped, the chances of being discovered and assaulted again rose. 

On the wearied faces of the hasty council that had been the unspoken thought they all shared. They needed a miracle to survive the night. Even if they fled, there was no strength left among the survivors, not enough. They would fall, one by one, and the tiring soldiers who tried still to protect them, would not be able to hold back the evil pursuers. 

It would be a bitter thing for it all to end this way. 

It would be a bitter end indeed, to gather the last remnant, to guide Celebrimbor’s beloved people out of the beautiful city, out of its terrible destruction, to search for some refuge and hope, only to have it end here, harried to starvation and despair on the blades of the enemy. 

Grimly, Elrond thought of all the stories of his childhood, and all the time spent in the halls of lore at Lindon, at Ost-in-Edhil. He thought of the fall of the glorious city of Gondolin, and the flight of the survivors from that great disaster. 

They also had been harrassed by the servants of darkness. Assailed by those who served Morgoth himself, his balrogs and goblins. But they had fled into the high passes, enduring attacks and desperate cold on the high peaks they fled through - and they had lived. 

Because they survived that great evil, he lived. For his father, a child at that time, had been one of their number. 

How he wished he could look to the sky and see the light of the stars, find the Mariner where he sailed. But the rain fell and he slipped, knees driven into the mud. 

He could not fail. 

For the sake of Celebrimbor, whom he prayed might still draw breath, for the sake of his people, for the little child he had carried to safety. 

He was shaking, limbs wearied and strained beyond exhaustion. The rain brought a chill with it that settled over and shook his bones. He was nearing the end of his own strength. 

He should go back. 

Return to his king.  

He couldn’t. 

Some desperation drove him forward. 

He couldn’t go back - with empty hands. 

The darkness of the night felt evil. For the light was shrouded, there was none to be found in the cloaked sky, only dark clouds, stretching like some choking hand. And the wind behind him whipped as if it were some avenging wraith. It shrieked ominous warnings in a thin voice, and wrapped its arms around him as he stumbled forward, as if to drag him back into despair. 

He couldn't go back.

His mind slipped.

He was no longer stumbling through the dark ravine, he was hauling stones and drawing plans with builders, he was rebuilding Doriath. A hidden place of enchantment, he was leading the survivors into it. Warm light and blooming flowers and singing birds, and around it, a hedge of enchantment, protecting those within from the forces of evil. 

No, it was not Doriath, but Gondolin, the glorious hidden city. They had found it, and they were safe now, and he stood in a golden room speaking to his father, but his father was a child and he laughed when he saw Elrond. And there was light and laughter, but there came a firedrake in the sky, breathing fire. And it was not fire it breathed, but ice, pelting him with fury. He was drowning in it, shivering - why was it so cold? The city was falling and he was pulling people out, leading them somewhere. They would be lost if he did not lead them through it, they would be lost if he did not continue on, they would be lost if he did not - 

Please

He asked the child who sat there in his golden room. 

Please help me. Not for my sake alone, but for theirs. 

Did you not sail away to beg the Valar to save the peoples of Middle Earth? Is that not why you left me behind and I hardly knew you? 

Do it for their sake, if not for mine. 

Elrond came to himself. 

His lips were moving, he was repeating a plea over and over. 

A Hîr Annûn gilthoniel,
le linnon im Tinúviel!

O Lady of the West, Starkindler,
to thee I sing, I Nightingale!

…

“You have been working too hard, Elrond!” 

The smith chided him, taking the tools out of hands. 

“Come along with me, I have something I wish to show you.” 

Elrond followed the smith into his own room. 

It was spacious, with wide open windows to let in the light in and curtains flapping in the cool breeze of the evening. 

“Sit Elrond!” 

Celebrimbor had demanded, taking a wine bottle from his shelves and uncorking it. 

“I will not let you return tonight. Tonight - we shall enjoy ourselves.”

Elrond sat then, and long had they laughed and traded stories together. Celebrimbor had been so welcoming to him. He felt such an ease in the presence of the master smith. Maybe it was how he reminded him so much of his foster parents in his manner of speech and movement, or perhaps it was his open admiration of beauty and excellence. Maybe it was as simple as his open heart, how quickly he took people into his confidence. How he had no hesitation in his kindness. 

–When I have a home one day, I want it to be like this. Light and celebration and song, learning and creation - conversation around good drink.

“But you are wandering far, I see!” Exclaimed the smith, laughing at Elrond’s chagrin when he realized he had been caught not listening. 

“Come, this is what I wanted to show you.” 

He held an old scroll out to Elrond and when Elrond scanned it, he saw the lines of a song. 

“It is what we have of the hymn of Lúthien.” Celebrimbor said. 

“I thought you might enjoy reading it.” 

Elrond thought he could not possibly be any happier in his life, if he lived for thousands more years, and he read the lines slowly, with great joy.

“I’ve always wanted to write another version of it. Some sort of homage. I’ve just barely started it here, if you’d like to see...” he trailed off. 

But when Elrond reluctantly relinquished the old manuscript, he had wanted to see what Celebrimbor had set down. 

They looked over the few scribbled lines together. 

“I know you are better suited to this sort of thing then I am - and I wondered if -” 

Celebrimbor trailed off, smiling. 

“Perhaps we can finish it together sometime, my boy.”

…

A Hîr Annûn gilthoniel,
le linnon im Tinúviel!

Now, he pleaded, with Lúthien’s words that Celebrimbor had so lovingly shared with him, he pleaded with she who had crafted the stars, to grant him light. 

Light for his path, light for their strength, light where all was now dark. 

If the little child could sail all the way to Valinor and demand help for those he had left behind, then Elrond would demand his own audience. She would hear him. 

Hear me, I nightingale. 

It became a song. 

Hear me. 

Hear me. 

Hear me.

But the rain lashed, and the night wore on and no light could be found, and finally, the sodden earth gave way beneath tiring feet and he fell . 

When his body stopped rolling, he felt the cold mud encase him almost gently. How long he lay, he knew not, for his exhaustion was great and he closed his eyes. He did not know if he could rise again. 

He felt the rain slow to a drizzle and then finally, blessedly fade. 

A Elbereth Gilthoniel
le linnon im Tinúviel!

A clear beam of silver came out of the clouds and struck his face.

And suddenly silver sparkled in his veins, and his blood sang. 

Before he even opened his eyes, he saw it finally through the clearing clouds, the glorious sky, the sparkling moon and the stars. 

Elbereth had heard his prayer. 

And there, finally, was the light of Eärendil, gleaming over him. 

Its light swept over him where he lay, warming his cold body. 

He felt it creep through his body like a slow flame. He heard the song of nightingales and the singing of the stars. The silver light and the song swept over him and held him. And he thought he might at least try to stand. He might try to rise so that he could return to his king and be at his side during his last stand. And he breathed thanks to Elbereth for the strength that the light had given him to do so, and raised himself to his knees. 

There, shining under the light of Eärendill, it lay. 

Hope.

…

When the last of the people had settled under their make-shift shelters, Gil-galad and Elrond took the rings and walked around the perimeter of the hidden valley. 

Vilya hummed on the king's finger and Nenya sang on Elrond’s and they bent their minds towards the precious remnant of the people within the contains of the valley, they bent their wills to the tall trees and river running through it. Together they wove a barrier of protection and Gil-galad looked at his herald and saw that the light of Vilya on his ring was reflected in the silver shine of Elrond’s eyes. He saw how the herald looked almost lovingly down at what he saw, the people, the beauty of the sanctuary he had come back covered in mud to tell his king about. And he saw that the strength in him was like a candle burnt down to its last wild flickering. 

As the last of their spell was woven, he caught his crumbling herald as he fell and carried him to his own shelter. 

Under a grove of willows, the elves had thoughtfully piled the layers of soft forest floor that had not been wholly dampened by the rain to create a soft place to lie. The king laid his herald on his own place of rest and covered him in his own cloak. 

“Rest now, Peredhel”

He murmured, and he stroked errant curls away from his eyes as they fluttered shut. 

And then the king knelt beside him and kept gentle watch over him, as Elrond finally slept. 

…

When Galadriel woke, they had both recovered their strength. The storms had departed the valley, and the sun was shining, and Gil-galad knew the time had come for the King to return to Lindon, to gather the elves there to defend Eriador against Sauron. He knew he must send her to speak to the elves of the greenland, he knew he would send with her the woodland soldier who was devoted to her. And Elrond - 

How he wished to take Elrond with him, for now they had begun to move in an easy kind of lockstep, an understanding. Before he even needed to ask, his herald would often be there, directing and arranging. And none questioned what he had to say, for Elrond’s word spoke for the King. 

But someone must stay. 

Someone must preserve what was left of Celebrimbor’s people.

And he could hardly assign to another, what one had adopted so freely. The people loved the young commander with his dark curls who had fought for their city and led them through the dark nights away from it. The warriors had followed him on sleepless nights of patrol, and the sick looked to his coming with joy. A warrior he was now, but they loved him more for his skills in healing, and often he would come to those tents, and spend time there with the recovering. 

When he came out from those visits, the starlight around him was strong, and Gil-galad sensed something old and ancient about him. 

The protection the rings had given the valley was strong and Gil-galad had stayed as long as he could for them to build other defenses. Outposts and a bridge which could be guarded well by even a small force. Small halls for dwelling had been erected. Simple and stalwart. 

He stayed as long as he could spare for these measures to be put in place, for he was taking the protection of the ring with him, and Galadriel would take with her, Nenya. The little stronghold would be left without the protection of the rings. 

He looked at Elrond, and saw starlight again, and remembered his foremother. It was no great leap to watch the peredhel walk through the valley and see something ancient in him, see that the place responded to his song. The people whispered of Melian’s girdle and Gil-galad himself believed that even with the departure of the rings, the valley would not be left desolate. 

It was precarious though, vulnerable. 

And he must leave someone to strive to protect it. For though more and more survivors straggled their way into its arms, guided by the elven scouts who watched the forests for them, it was a small and shabby force of few warriors and wounded peoples. 

The armies under Sauron were swelling, growing strong. 

He had to return to Lindon. 

He prayed the little encampment would survive. 

It would hold that which had become very dear to him. 

…

Their farewell was brief.

Galadriel kissed them. 

“Hold fast dear ones, I will return with aid.”

But she could not keep the worry from her eyes as she departed. 

And Gil-galad walked with Elrond to the top of the cliff which overlooked the valley, and for a time they stood together in quiet understanding. 

“Again, I leave much in your hands, Elrond.” 

“Would that I could do this and yet still accompany you, my king.” he said. 

And the King said only - 

“Ereinion.” 

“Ereinion.” Said Elrond. 

And Ereinion kissed his herald’s brow. 

“Trust to hope.” 

He said. 

But he mourned as he departed, for with him went the largest detachment of fighters afforded. 

The small valley behind was dear to him, and so very fragile. 

Celebrimbors’s people had found their hope, but Gil-galad found as he rode from the hidden valley, that he was leaving his behind.

Chapter Text

Gil-galad was fleeing again. 

Years of peace he had presided over. It had been the pride and joy of his reign, all this hard bought peace. Small skirmishes and clashes were nothing the strong hand of the king could not contain, and he had done so often during the long years of his rule. 

But now, he thought with wry humor, he might as well be known as the king of flight as much as the king of peace, for he had fled from the crumbling Eregion, and gone forth from the hidden valley to the seat of his once formidable power to find even that nearly overrun.

He had drawn much of elvendom to him upon his return. A king bore the burdens the others could not and many came to heed his call to fight, to take up arms against the might of Sauron’s growing armies. But many came also - to flee. On Círdan’s ships, they sailed to the west, bidding goodbye to Arda. 

He did not blame them. 

Did not hold their passage against them. 

The pain of seeing Sauron rise again was too much to bear for many. They would rather depart and leave behind the other races of Arda to deal with this evil. 

But Gil-galad could not. 

He knew Galadriel, proud and ardent, could not. 

He knew Elrond, who had so much love for the world, could not. 

And it would be a cowardly thing, he thought, for a king to preside over such a long peace, only to flee the shores of Arda when war came. And what a desperate war it was proving to be. 

For he was fleeing again. At the head of his army, beating a retreat over once lovely lands, ravaged by the roaming orcs. 

Ere long, I will end up at the shores of the havens myself if I keep fleeing.

He thought grimly. 

Letters he had written to the shining city on the seas. 

He did not voice aloud his hope, that one day Círdan, leading his own army near the havens, would send word that glorious war ships were seen on the horizon and the mighty city had sent aid. 

Word from the rest of elvendom came slowly now. It had been a long time since he had heard from Círdan and he worried over him. It would be a blow too deep to lose him. Galadriel had sent word on her progress assembling the Galadhrim and promises of her aid. 

Elrond also had sent messengers at first. Vorohil, his trusted friend, had arrived on two separate journeys, one to warn Gil-galad of the push of a large force towards Lindon, the second time at the head of a small group of fighters sent by Elrond to join the king. 

Vorohil told the king with pride that the valley was undiscovered, that some sort of enchantment protected it from the evil roaming across Eriador. That they were well and that it was growing into a little stronghold. 

Gil-galad had listened eagerly. 

“It gives me great joy to hear these tidings, Vorohil.”

Vorohil bowed and handed him a scroll. 

“Commander Elrond sent you these my liege, he asked that no eyes see it but your own.”

“Thank you.” Gil-galad took the scroll from his hands and perused it briefly before rolling it and slipping it in his robe.

“Give your commander my grace and blessing when you return to -”

“Imladris, we call it now, High King.” 

“When you return to Imladris.”

After that, there was silence. 

No other word had they heard, nor received a visit from a courier. Finally, after much time had passed, Gil-galad’s scouts told him that there were rumors that Sauron had discovered there was an elven hideout somewhere near the ruins of Ost-in-Edhil. There were rumors that he had allocated his servants to find and harass those who still lived. There were rumors he had found and destroyed the hideout. 

But no word came from Elrond, or Vorohil his messenger. 

Gil-galad had no time to think of it, to mourn what his heart feared, for orcs were marching on his own position. And here he was, once again fleeing, thinking of Círdan and Galadriel, because he could not bear to think of the third, who had gone silent. 

Often, he touched Vilya. 

Hoping for some light, for some promise. 

Again and again she showed him warnings of war. She showed him flame. She showed destruction.

But she also showed him the sea. So he had continued his long retreat, preserving what he could, saving what he could. 

He touched her again, and he directed his mind towards the peaceful little valley she had once protected, but she was silent. 

He heard nothing. 

It was almost more than he could bear. 

…

At long last, Círdan finally sent him a scroll through a messenger. 

“The Valar have spoken and light has come to our shores. I send it to you, Ereinion.” 

It was not the warships the King longed for, the ones he saw in his fitful dreams. It was a single horseman, riding like the wind. From afar the king saw him, and the sight of his bearing, his proud helm and the sun-kissed waves streaming behind him as he rode, was beautiful and strange. It felt like the turning of the tide, like the Valar had heard some prayer.

Hope and joy he brought to Gil-galad’s beleaguered elven army as he rode in. 

Long, golden hair streamed behind him as he rode. His arms were strong and his face at once kind and stern. There was a gentleness and surety to his movements that betrayed the deep power he possessed. He seemed a vision of past glories and a promise that strength yet endured amongst the Eldar still on these shores. 

Long did Gil-galad and Glorfindel speak together. He deeply wished he could keep the warrior with him, for the hope he brought to his armies, but the long and painful silence had become too much for him to bear. 

“Much time has passed since last I heard from my herald. I left him to keep guard over the survivors in Eregion who remained in great peril, a small camp of refugees before the might of the dark lord’s anger.  I would have you journey to that land to see if any remain. If he yet lives, I would send you to aid him.” 

Glorfindel bowed low. 

His heart had been stirred by the stories of the fleeing survivors and the last stand of the people who had fled their ruined city. 

He thought of the beautiful and once mighty Gondolin, and his own final battle protecting those who fled into the mountains. 

“For such as this, I returned.” 

“If Elrond Peredhel yet lives, I swear I will guard him with my life. His people will not fall.”

…

He didn’t know what strength was in his blood, but daily, he found himself in the early hours of the morning walking through the valley, thinking of she whom had protected the kingdom she loved. 

He had not spent time in Melian's shadow as Galadriel had, but as they became dear friends over the years, he had asked her to tell him of her time there and she had shared generously with him, knowing how much he had cherished the stories told by his mother of that hidden realm. 

"Some can learn, some cannot, and for some, it may be a part of their song." Galadriel had mused to him once as they spoke of her enchantments. 

"Yet none shall ever be as mighty in these gifts as she was."

It had been the songs of Lúthien and Melian that stirred his blood as a child, some kind of rising to meet what he perceived as something a deep part of himself. An understanding and a call beyond all conscious thought, it felt woven into his very bones. 

He didn't know what strength of hers was his, but in the chill of the early mornings he would slip away alone into the valley. Where he walked he begged the trees to shield the innocent with their shadows, to cast them before the eyes of evil wanderers. He asked the water of the falls and nearby river to cover the sound of the children's cries and to deter evil feet with its strength of flow. He asked the leaves to cloak the sound of the swift feet of his warriors, and to reveal with a great crackling, when others with ill intention entered the valley. He asked the wind to obscure and confuse the evil and to guide the weary home. He asked the earth to shift and suggest away from discovery. He asked the birds to warn and to scold off. 

He knew that they listened. 

There was no other way to explain that they had not been found yet. 

For the birds chittered and the earth stood and the trees swept, and from their movement and harmony, a natural shield of the activity of the elves within the valley became set.

He spent the early mornings with them, watching as the light of the rising sun crept across the valley. 

This morning was bright and clear, and when he returned to the shelters he was to meet with those who had extensive knowledge of plant life. They had planned to scour the valley floor in order to find and transplant more of the plants useful to healing. Many varieties had already been transplanted and a small garden now flowered near the newly constructed healing halls. They were rough hewn and stark - built with hasty purpose rather than for beauty - that would come in time - if time proved gracious. 

The last time Elrond had been in the healing halls he had looked up with tired eyes, had seen the bare walls and the unfinished floors and he had pulled aside the ellon he had made his master of building and asked him to create windows, for the light to enter by. 

Then he had called those with herb knowledge to go down to the valley to help him gather plants known for healing, but also plants that were beautiful, for he was certain that adding beauty to the halls of the sick would aid the recovery of the ill. 

No orc band had been spotted for several days. The sentries were well-rested and fortified, the day pleasant, so they entered the woods and returned with plants and shrubs to fill the halls. 

There was so much to do here, he had found himself inadequate to it all at first. Now he thought with some humor, he understood Gil-galad much better, biting his tongue when one of the captains spent his time at council complaining about the need for something trivial when there were so many greater things of importance to worry over. Things such as desperately trying to build some kind of defense so that when they were inevitably found, they were not overrun, or ensuring there was food enough for the growing number of refugees finding their way into the valley. 

Then came the day he was trying to speak with Muilwen about arranging meals and food distribution, and realized he had no grand ideas or plan of his own. In the past, he might have withdrawn for some time, came up with something clever and presented it with pride, but now he had no time for that, he simply asked her for her thoughts and followed them when he saw her judgment and knowledge was sound. 

On one of his very first war councils with all the captains, he had gathered them all around and so tired he was, he found he opened his mouth and had nothing to say. 

He laughed then, and the others had laughed with him. And they had finished their business whether or not every word he spoke was perfect.

Pride got in the way of leading. 

Looking back at his time at the king’s side, he saw with some surprise he had spent more time than he realized thinking of leadership, wanting to be established, to earn the respect of those around him. Now he didn’t have time to waste on such trivial thoughts, he was more concerned with the immediate needs of those who relied on him. And there were many of them now. The entire little valley, the children, the survivors, crusty old Feänorian followers who could never be accused of timidity, the different outcast and strange elves who had found their refuge in Celebrimbor’s realm. The early days had been a challenge, for the people were wounded in body and spirit and the confusion of loss left them unmoored and floundering. There had been conflict and despair and on occasion he had found himself nearly driven to desperation when the burdens became too heavy. With all of his will, he had tried to bring them together, and he found that when he spoke, they respected him, even before the king departed with his backing. It was his word that the people accepted as final. All of them were becoming dear to him, and they were generous with their many gifts and skills. He gave them all of his and he relied on theirs in return, and out of that sharing, they were building something . 

He left the elves to finish the work of transplanting and went to see the progress on the outposts as he had promised his captains.

A young warrior called Lanir who had come the week after they first resettled into the valley hailed him and they traveled to the location where a fourth outpost was being built. When they arrived, Elrond rolled his sleeves and worked with the builders for several hours. He knew that Muilwen, the capable and conscientious elleth, would be directing the simple meals for the survivors and ensuring the needs of the vulnerable were met in his absence and he need not worry. 

When the sun set, the builders continued to build under the light of the moon, but Elrond bid them farewell and made his way back to the main halls. 

As he walked the dirt paths that had been made by traveling feet he saw all they had made. The simple healing halls stood completed, and small homes for what families remained were being erected. A long stalwart hall had been one of the first buildings built, a place for the people to fall back to if the valley were breached. It was strong, and served as a meeting place for the captains as well as a place of retreat and it was where they all gathered at the end of the day and sang. 

It meant something to Elrond, that the people, weakened in spirit as they were in those early days, could gather to sit in beauty and song for a time. If they had nothing to live for, all the plans for survival might as well be for naught. The despair and darkness had been strong when they first fled here. If the elves faded under the weight of loss and pain, over the burden of the pressing evil roaming across the lands surrounding them, then what purpose did it serve to build what they were trying to now. Beyond survival of the body, there must be survival of the light, they must cling to the goodness of Arda, to hope. 

So he had asked that a fire be lit in the long hall each night, for those who needed comfort to come sit in its glow, and around it those who could, would sing. Finally after some time, some would also dance. It was a great victory the first time one of the survivors had bowed before the rest and took her place on the floor. Her body bent and moved with the sound of the singers and she moved like the first tentative winds of an early autumn. 

As she danced,  he looked at the faces of the people in the hall and saw joy and appreciation and new hope. It had made him feel very fierce, for this joy was a great victory against the evil that had tried to take them under its evil claw into darkness and despair. 

He entered the stronghold now, saw the elves gathered around, heard the strain of their voices.

The fire leapt at the end of the hall in its grate and the voices of the elves rose in a beautiful hymn. It had become a nightly custom. 

He sang along. 

A Elbereth Gilthoniel

silivren penna miriel

o menel aglar elenath!

Na-chaered palan-diriel

o galadhremmin ennorath,

Fanuilos, le linnathon

nef aear, si nef aearon!

For he had taken what he remembered of the hymn of Luthien, and the few scribbles of Celebrimbor and written the song to Elbereth who had heard his prayer as he had stumbled in great need through the darkness. Taking pity on them, she had led him here to this sanctuary, and here they now gathered. 

To make a return of the light they had been given. 

He had thought of the words of Lúthien’s song and the few words of Celebrimbor's homage to it, as he hauled stones from the ravines with the other elves. He had thought of them as he stood on the outposts with his captains looking into quiet, fearful nights. He had thought of them, in the healing halls and while speaking to the children with their haunted eyes. He had thought of them as they built homes and planted gardens. And then, words of his own had come to him. He had set them down on a scroll and taken them to the song makers. They had set them to a melody and the first time it had been sung for the people he felt tears spring into his eyes, for it was a song of light, and it brought hope in the face of despair. He felt near to the lost Celebrimbor who even now, was still giving gifts to his people and his friend. 

He saw hope spring on the faces of many where there had only been stark winter, and it had become their custom to sing to Elbereth nightly. Other writers had begun to compose their own verses to her and the song became long and winding, it became the song of their people. 

Now, he stood and sang it with them. 

The elves around him slowly retired one after the other, but Elrond Peredhel stood still in the back of the hall, eyes closed as the comforting heat of the dying fire danced across his face. 

They were building something here. 

He rested in that. 

…

The warning was whispered urgently in his ear. 

“Orcs! Near the foremost outpost. Make haste, commander, there are many.” 

And he was slipping from the hall, grabbing his armor and buckling it on. Hurried instructions were given to the company in reserve to be ready to guard the stronghold at last defense. With him he took the patrols available. They rode out to the outpost. The night was dark now, and the sounds of snarling and death loud, as he heard the violent clash of the two forces. 

What he saw first, was that there were indeed many of the enemy, and that flashed through his mind as he assessed the outpost, how many elves were stationed there, and what lay beyond its protection if it fell. He brought his men close around him, split them in two. One to reinforce the elves already engaged, and the others to overrun the orcs as they were pressed back. 

He went at the head of the first group to reinforce the flagging elves already fighting. There, he found Vorohil frantically fighting for his life with a small group of warriors. Elrond ducked under the arc of a descending orc blade and slashed his own sword through the creature's gut, and with a leap, he stood beside his friend. 

“To me! To me!”

He called fiercely. 

“Daro a vaetho! Avo dheo annin!”

They rallied to him, leaping to his side. With a great shout he flung himself at the approaching orcs and his warriors followed him with a matching fierceness. 

Their ferocity was great, and under the onslaught of the elves the orcs were driven back, stumbling straight into the arms of the second group of waiting elves who had snuck behind them. As the orcs fell before their blades, victory seemed assured, and then from the darkness, another large pack of orcs sallied forth. 

Elrond whirled to assess their numbers. His calculations were swift and horrible. He knew the number was too great to defeat. He  knew also he could afford no more losses, for there would be too small a number left to defend Imladris. 

And he also knew a hurried and panicked retreat would lead the orcs straight into the valley on their heels. 

Quickly, he gathered his captains to him. 

“Lead the retreat back. Split into two groups. Take separate paths and do not return by ways they can track into Imladris. Use silence and secrecy to the second outpost. If we lose this one, let it be lost, the rest of the valley must be defended.” They nodded and began to scatter urgently. 

But it is not enough.

Something warned him, it was not enough, the enemy would follow. 

Unless they had a distraction.

The thought was grim. 

It was all he had. 

He looked to the trees he had begged to protect Imladris as they bent and twisted as he had asked them to, and the wind whipped with fury, providing some cover from the roving eyes of the evil army. 

If he could enchant within, perhaps he could also enchant away from. 

He slipped onto his horse. 

“Go now!” 

He whispered fiercely to Vorohil who alone stood with a remaining patrol, waiting faithfully for him. 

“I will draw them off.” 

Vorohil’s face blanched and Elrond pitied him for a moment, for he would not have wanted to obey his high king if Gil-galad had given him such an order, but his friend obeyed, his ginger hair flowing behind him as he bit his tongue and called the remaining warriors to him.

Elrond did not look to see them go, he knew they would. He rode forward, and he bent all the power in his blood to himself, calling it forth with a violence he had not exerted before. He wrested the light of the stars into his own eyes and the swirling of the earth to his cloak, and he knew in the dark he shone before the orcs, and he heard them follow as he rode forth, away from the little haven. 

Then came a clashing of swords, and a swirl of fury. He swung his blade and flung his daggers and felt the giving way of soft flesh and and the clash of tearing mail beneath every stroke, everything reduced to a frenzy of movement and blur.  Then a rope sailed out of the darkness and settled around his neck. With a hard yank, it tightened around his throat and jerked him sideways. He hit the ground hard. 

Up, up, up. 

He was screaming to himself, but he was stunned and sluggish as he tried to grasp for a weapon, and before he could find his knees, he was being dragged into their snarling midst. Hands tore at him, seeking a hold and a scimitar found his side, it’s cold metal biting into his skin and ripping open his body. He felt the stinging clarity of pain, the blood streaming forth, and the press of angry hands and then finally there came a blow to his head, and he knew no more.

Chapter Text

“No!”

Krogush flung his arms, driving back the frenzied pile of orc bodies. He thought he had recognized the dark curls ruffling in the wind as the elf had ridden forward in his desperate flight. When he caught a glimpse of his face before he went down, he had known for sure. 

He moved then, but not quickly enough, for the other uruks had swarmed greedily over the fallen body and he had to pull his blade and threaten them with it to get them to back off. 

“Back you fools.” 

Momentarily beaten back, one of the pack snorted in defiance and lunged forward again with his knife. Without a single moment of hesitation Krogush lunged forward himself and lopped his head off. The dispatched head flew into the ravenous group, and the black blood on Krogush's blade worked where his words had not - at the sight of it, the other orcs stumbled back, uncertainly.  

“I remember this one.” He said, snarling at the unconvinced uruks whose eyes burned hungry as they stared at the fallen elf lying before them. He was small for an elf and seemed almost not quite one of them. Almost like a child he looked, his head flung back on the forest floor, blood leaking sluggishly from where one of the blades had pierced his side. He was growing pale before their eyes. 

“He’s the one the Lord Father wanted.” 

The pack stirred. 

“The Lord father’s dead now. We don’t have to worry ore’ what he wants.” 

Krogush decided their insubordination had gone on too long. With a roar he shoved them away and stood over the body. 

“But you have to listen to me, don’t you! Captain Krogush gives the orders and speaks to Lord Sauron, not you sniveling worms. Adar kept this one alive when he killed near all else. Lord Sauron has promised us reward if the stinking elves are found. This one might know where they are.” 

He reached down and grasped the elf. 

“If he does, we make him talk. When he squeals - we take him to Lord Sauron and we collect our prize.”

The orcs around him hesitated. 

“He lives.” he snarled and he flung his prize back to the ground. 

…

Elrond’s eyelids fluttered as he came back to himself. He lay on the ground, side twitching painfully. Harsh cries and the smell of death washed over him and he knew the evil surrounding him before he opened his eyes. When he finally forced them open, a chorus of jeers and boos welcomed him back. He groaned, trying to catch his breath. 

He was not dead. 

There was a great tumult around him as the pack made ready to leave. He saw that they were outside the valley, that no elves were captive beside him, that the pack was making preparations to leave and not to follow the elven fighters who had slipped away. 

Thank Eru. 

That knowledge brought a singing clarity back to his body, he tried to move but an orc prodded him back down with his spear. He lay where he had fallen, looking up at the trees as they bent gently in the wind now, almost bowing over him.

He was not dead.

But in the next minute he wished he were, for the orcs seized the rope still tightened around his neck and started dragging him behind them as they moved to leave. 

Darkness crept into the edges of his vision and the rope seared into his skin. His fingers grasped at the noose but they were weak and without strength and his entire world condensed down to his inability to breath. Lungs screaming, throat crushing, a red haze that crept over his field of vision. He was choking. A strangled animal sound was clawing its way out of his throat, cut off by the tightening pressure. Oh Eru, he would not last long…

Then Krogush was shouting again and there was blessed relief, the rope slackened and he was gasping in air, his nose and mouth pressed to the trodden grass where he lay, trembling with the effort to breathe. 

“Not that way, unless you want ‘im dead!”

Elrond near sobbed in the dear scent of the grass, and the earth he clung to. For a moment he felt the ground cradle him as if to lend strength before he was wrenched up. His hands were bound, and his arms wrested over the neck of the largest orc. Then they were running and all became agony as his body swung against the back of the orc and each jostle sent stabbing pain down his side. 

He was not dead. 

…

His time was now. 

Many names he had worn, many faces he had taken since he had come to these shores. Always, he had been naught but his shadow. 

The Eldar, the Edain, all the beasts beautiful and terrible, the Valar themselves, would come to know that it was not Morgoth who was great, it was he. For Morgoth had wanted to destroy, like a jealous, petulant, child. But he sought instead to make right, to bring order, to bring a great lasting peace when all was contained in his hand as it ought to be. As it should have been from the beginning. 

And his time had come. 

His servants swept over plain and valley, driving retreating elves before them, burning the glory of the Eldar. Each edifice, city, and home that fell to him caused him sweet, long-denied  joy. For it must all fall to be built anew by him. 

Some he brought into his service, some he kept as thralls - it was hard to do so with the elves, so full of pride they were. They were much more eager to choose death or to choose the ships that they fled to. Men had proved easier to enslave. The uruks, when Adar had fallen, were as malleable as clay. 

With Adar’s children he had crushed Ost-in-Edhil, the jewel of the realm. He had felled Celebrimbor who had dared defy him, taking the power he had wrought in the rings for his own. 

In his tent, in the middle of his swelling armies, Sauron turned the rings on his fingers. Six remained. Three he had already given to those who would serve him. They were beautiful but he coveted them not, for he knew they would serve him better glittering on the hands of those enslaved to him. And he did not desire them for his own, for time and again they would remind him of the dying smith and his pained words of prophecy. 

“You are their prisoner…”

Celebrimbor, whom he had invited into partnership with him, who had shared an intimacy of delight in order and structure with him. How he would have wished for him to be at his side now, with his secrets of craft and his peerless skill. How he had desired for Galadriel to rule beside him with her ardent pride and her commander's eye. The elves had spurned him. All his extensions of invitation. Now, they would know his wrath. 

A great number of survivors had escaped the burning city, he knew. His scouts had followed, and a pursuing troop had been sent after them to eradicate what remained of them. They had returned empty handed. Yet there was no further trail of their movements, and as Sauron moved his forces across Eriador, tearing down what villages and homes and smaller cities he found, he thought with black anger of those who had slipped his grasp. 

The dying words of Celebrimbor had been a lance to his heart, he had felt skewered by them. When he seized the spear himself and drove it through Celebrimbor’s body, he had felt no relief from the sting of his words. 

He felt no relief now, turning his rings on his fingers. 

It chafed to think that his people still lived somewhere, that they might have escaped him for good. It would forever rob him of the fullness of his victory over the smith. So he had sent out scouts to renew the search for the survivors in his black anger, and they returned empty handed, cringing before him to tell him they had found nothing. But the men he sent whispered of strange trees and strange birds. And the orcs told tales of confusion and becoming lost in the woods. 

All was not as it seemed. He wondered of the three rings, perhaps this was their work. 

For he knew the King and his herald of the cursed line had been Adar’s captives briefly before the dwarves arrived and robbed him of the joy of that meeting. He doubted not that the king wore a ring as Galadriel did. And Galadriel - if she had lived, had held one in her hand as she fell. 

The elves had slipped him, and the king had reappeared in Lindon, drawing to him what remained of the scattering peoples. Galadriel and the other, had not shown. 

He moved across the lands to weaken the once mighty strength of the elves before he would corner their golden king and crush him, but he thought of Celebrimbor's words and stared at his rings, and desired to wipe his memory from the earth, and so he had told his orc captains that if they found the remaining survivors of the smith’s people, that he would reward them greatly. 

It was one of those captains who stood before him now. 

“I entrusted this task to you Ushnash, I can take it away.” 

The orc cringed before his master, his head bowing. 

“We look for it daily, my lord. If such a hideout exists, we should have found it by now. I think it is only elf lies.” 

“Did I ask for your thoughts captain?” 

“No lord.” Ushnash wheedled, taking a step back. 

"Forgive me."

“You are forgiven. What other news do you bring me?”

Ushnash hesitated. 

“Krogush is my superior.” 

“And I am your master, you will tell me without fear.”

“A commander of the elves we have caught m’lord.” 

“I assume you have gotten a name from him.” 

Sauron said dismissively. 

“No Lord, he has not given one.”

The dark lord gestured impatiently from where he reclined. 

“I have no care for unimportant leaders. You would have done better to kill him if he is useless to us.” 

“Krogush would not allow us to, my lord. Said he was important. He remembered him from when he was in Adar’s captivity.” He snorted. 

"He thinks he may know of the hideout, he wants your reward."

“Is this why he failed to report this to me?” 

His tone was icy and Ushnash bowed in fear. 

“It is why I thought you should know.” 

“You have done well, Ushnash. Tell Krogush to come see me, and then I will accompany you to see his prisoner.” 

He stretched lazily, and rose. 

“I will come see this commander. Perhaps I will get from him what you have been unable to.” 

...

But when he laid eyes on the chained commander he had no need to wrest his name from him. He knew him as soon as he laid eyes on him, led into the tent by a bowing and scraping Ushnash. 

He had seen him in the forge, briefly, as they all scurried and he laid his plans. Young he had seemed, and latent. He had been so preoccupied then, with Celebrimbor and with her - he had not stopped to look closer at the king’s herald with his earnest eyes and old cloak. 

He had not wanted to. For he moved with the grace of one who had robbed him, his voice rang with her timbre, and when he had caught his eyes in the forge during their brief time together, he had seen the same starlight he had loathed in hers. 

Every time he looked at him he heard the beating of wings and felt the snarling, wet jaws of the hound around his throat. 

Melian’s spawn, with their great beauty, a constant thorn in his side and here he was, as lovely as she. 

But the rings were his priority, and his sights set on Celebrimbor and the lovely, earnest herald was but a whisper of those who came before him, he thought, and the least important of the three, as he worked with all his might to bring Celebrimbor and Galadriel under his sway. So he had put him out of his mind. 

The commander had both arms stretched to either side, chained to poles. His armor was filthy, as if he had been dragged through the mud, and one side was badly rent, blood spilled beneath the tear of the metal. His breathing was heavy and labored, as if there was a catch each time he drew breath. His head was bowed. 

But he heard the faint sound of a melody, straining against his own music. It was hers, that strain, made new, made different. He could have reached out and caught it in his fingers, the whisper of her enchantment. 

Melian with her strength, Melian one of his own kind, Melian whose descendents had harassed and grappled with him - and left him in shame. 

That this line had continued on caused him much pain. Long he had kept a watchful eye on the power growing in Numenor, some evil would come of that strength he yet feared. But this one, this one had not done more than disappear into court politics. He had slipped from his eye until he had seen him again in the hurried weeks they had shared around the forge. 

A waking song seemed to spill from the drooping body. Something ancient. Curse the elves with their peredhel titles, this child was more than a half of elvenkind, or a half of men, he also carried some of the ancient, and it swayed the tent with its song, or maybe he swayed himself, in excitement, in something like hunger. 

It had been so very long since he had met with one of his own…

Her song thrummed in the blood of whatever knelt in front of him, face obscured, so much bruised loveliness in the middle of the orc camp. 

In fascination, he slipped a finger under the drooping chin and lifted the face. 

Starlight, sparkling gray gleamed from wounded and weary eyes. 

They slanted just like hers, curiously as if to stand out against pale skin

So like her, so lovely, he wanted to reach out to crush and lovingly tear apart. 

“Remove this armor.” he said as he stepped nearer and the orcs scurried to obey.

As it came off, the commander’s breath caught, almost as a sigh. He curled into his right hand side and Sauron saw the wound through the torn tunic. He seemed so very small hanging there without his armor and so gentle. Like a little bird. 

The thought caused him revulsion as he thought of her, Tinuviel and her songs. It also brought desire, for since she had humiliated him, long had he dreamed of humiliating her - a chance never granted him. But here was one of hers, with a face so similar, and the song beating its rhythm into the air around him, the shadows in his dark hair. He could have been her child, so great was the resemblance. 

The melody pulled him forward, he was listing, reaching out for the shimmering gray of the eyes, for the pale skin of the throat, the trembling arms, still spread out, spread out like a bird, like a nightingale.

Long fingers crept forward like serpents, pulled the edges of the torn tunic aside and traced the tear in his flesh. The boy shied from his touch, a shiver running through his body. The orcish medicine Krogush had given him had kept him alive Sauron saw, but the body was weakened and infection setting in. Slowly, painfully, he dug his fingers inside the wound. He pulled out the infection and that which would threaten his life, but he coaxed the pain to stay. For it was so pretty the way it showed up on the sweat on his face, and the wrinkle on his brow, and he drank the suffering in when the child trembled as he pulled forth the sickness from his body. 

And then his face was set again, bravely. Clinging.

Sauron had thrown off cloaks of his own after the deception of Celebrimbor. He had been Halbrand, for Galadriel, who needed to prove darkness could be defeated by stalwart alliances. He had been Annatar for Celebrimbor, who needed to create something as beautiful and powerful as Fëanor. He had thrown off these cloaks, and now he was himself, or something more akin to himself. 

His time was come and so he had stepped back into his power. 

Whatever the young commander had been through during the same time seemed to have woken some of his own, for what had once seemed latent now pulsed , slithered through the body as if music that had been awakened. 

How he wished to play it. 

“I will take him.” he said to the orcs around him and they bowed. 

…

Glorfindel recognized the sway of enchantment when he first stumbled across its faint tendrils in the depths of the forests. 

An enchantment to draw in the good and dispel the bad, but it was faint, weakening. He felt it fading even as he found it.

He urged his horse forward. 

He could hear his kinsmen before they heard him, great now were his gifts, and he allowed his grace to shine forward, to become visible, for he sensed there was great fear in them and he wished them to know he brought no harm. 

In the trees he heard them rustling, and so he drew up his steed and waited. 

A brown haired captain strode forward with several soldiers behind her. 

Glorfindel had only been back in Arda for a short time and already he was growing weary of the song and dance of what must be done when someone met him anew - the surprise! And the hero worship, and how he would have to gently turn it aside and speak of what was truly important to him now.

He fought hard to keep his patience. 

But the captain met him with no foolish questions. 

Glorfindel saw the mourning in her eyes before she even spoke of it. 

“Is this the valley of the refugees?” 

He asked and the captain nodded soberly. 

“I am Lithiel. Imladris now, we call this place."

Glorfindel nodded, he looked at the small patrol of soldiers and his heart went out to them. 

“Where might I find your leader, Lithiel?” 

A shadow fell on the captain’s face. Sorrow and pain and much bitterness. 

“Our commander was Elrond of Lindon, the Peredhel, herald of the King.” 

Glorfindel saw the overwhelming grief turn to tears in the eyes of the captain. 

“He was lost to us over a fortnight past in battle with the orcs of Sauron. It has been a grievous loss.”

And Glorfindel felt sorrow for the king who had sent him who would learn the truth of what he had feared, and for the grief of the soldiers and the loss of the settlement. But he also felt hope - where there should be none, so he asked for the confirmation he dreaded.

“Did you recover his body?” 

“No, my Lord.” 

“Then there may still be hope.” He said gently. 

“Will you bring me to your stronghold?” 

…

There is no navigating his labyrinth. 

Elrond clung to his chains and he thought of Galadriel. He thought of her strength.

"I have closed the door to him." 

He had entered her mind and she had driven him out.

He thought of Lúthien and her hound. 

He thought of Maedhros hanging from his rock. 

Sauron would want him to speak, he would try to bait him, bring him out to seduce him with words and a melody not of his choosing. 

He could not, if he would not humor him. 

There is no navigating his labyrinth. 

...

The little bird would not sing for him. 

It caused Sauron great pain. For great pains he had taken to tend his wounds and provide him comfort, and the bird sat in his cage and refused to speak. He would look, oh how those gray eyes met his with some great clash, and the jaw would set. But Sauron had made many attempts to speak with him, and not one word passed from the lips of the child. 

“You were a courtier, were you not?” 

He waited for the silence he knew would come to stretch - to fill the room. 

“Yet, you have no words for me.” 

“I know who you are. I might barter with you. Will you not attempt to barter with me?” 

Ah, there was a flash in those eyes, thinly veiled. 

Sauron was delighted in this game. For he knew suddenly why the bird did not sing. The young courtier was wiser than he had given him credit, and more stubborn. And he suddenly knew that the boy did not speak because he knew it would be the greatest torment to him who so badly wished to hear the whisper of power, to meet and wrap around and lay down enchantments of his own. If the little bird stayed out of the labyrinth, he could not get caught. If he did not get caught, the master of the maze would be disappointed he would not play. 

But the bird did not know the maze master had a worm. 

He told the orcs to bring him another prisoner, and they had to catch a new one, for the last they had torn asunder in their frenzy. But after a few days had passed, they had brought him one. A young warrior, too young, actually to be a warrior, but such were the times. And Sauron hoped that what he thought he saw in the commander's proud carriage would prove true, and that he might be brought to crack as easily over the non-important, as those with titles. 

“A sorry herald you must have been indeed, to your king.” 

...

“A sorry diplomatist who will not speak unless he is made to.” 

...

“Perhaps I will seek for one who would sing more sweetly.” 

...

And the orcs dragged the young warrior into the tent. 

Ah, there it was. 

Not the face as it set further, but the widening of the corners of his eyes, and the fingers, twitching in their chains. 

Step in, step in, step in

He coaxed. 

You have nowhere to fly to. 

…

“Lanir.” 

Elrond said to the young soldier and the young soldier’s pained face lit with something akin to joy. 

“Commander Elrond!” His voice sang. 

“A Elbereth - we thought you dead.”

Elrond’s fingers were tapping against the poles he was bound to with some sort of warning. 

Their eyes met, held. 

Hold fast. You must know what is coming. 

The young elf nodded and his face matched the resolve of his commander. 

I will hold fast. 

May light be with you, Lanir. I will hold you as long as I am able. 

May the light be with you, my Lord.

…

Sauron threatened the tongue of the young Lanir, and the commander finally spoke. 

He sat between both of them, languidly observing them. The commander had been reticent with him when it was only the two of them who had shared the same space. But now that the other elf was here, his head was up, his eyes on the face of the young Lanir. Earlier he had been a cagey, closed door, now he was a superior, and his carriage was lofty and assured and bled confidence. 

It was for the sake of the elf opposite him who held his gaze. Sauron saw hero worship in the soldiers eyes, and he saw burden in Elrond’s and he knew he had guessed right. 

“You must know what I want, commander.”

“Ask politely.” Elrond said, bitingly. 

The sound of his voice was sweet satisfaction to the dark lord who had so long tried to coax it forth. 

“I have heard tell of a hidden refuge where the elves gather. I desire to know where it is.” 

“When you find it, let me know, greatly would I desire to find such a place.” 

“My servants tell me strange things, they tell me in some places of the woods they get lost, they lose their footing, their senses become confused. I have heard tell of a strain of enchantment that is a shade of one I once knew well. Do you not find it strange that I find one of Melian's hiding in the very forests the whispers come from? My orcs tell me Adar kept you alive for your beauty, do you not think I know it was because he had once seen her and still honored her memory? 

Elrond laughed and his tone held derision.

“Truly you have been scarred deeply by my foremothers if you think Doriath exists now under every rock. What fear fuels these delusions? Shall I tell you Lúthien yet lives and her hound guards the gate to this place you have dreamed up?” 

He would not speak of her - his pretty little bird who had flown from his grasp, she who had humiliated him. The shame in which he had fled from Morgoth’s wrath was a pain he had long harbored. Long had he held it against her line. 

“You are bold, commander. From the ruined city I know you fled, but your king appears in Lindon and you remained to languish in the woods? A strange choice.” 

Sauron tapped his fingers, he saw the commander's eyes follow them, he saw him flinch when he recognized the craftsmanship of the rings glittering there. 

“If the enchantments are yours little one, if you have her song, I will hear it, you will sing for me, and I shall follow your song to the nest you have made. I will find them as my servants found you.” 

Elrond looked up from the rings on his hand, his eyes were hard. 

“This is Mairon the admirable? He who casts shadow over hearts but stands before me now trembling in fear lest a few from the city he crushed escaped? Are you so craven that you fear the phantom arm of the battered and fatherless who may have escaped your grasp?”

The air charged between them. This was a dance between the two of them, and Sauron saw how he had been pulled into a direction not of his choosing, he stepped to the side instead. 

“He is your leader, is he not?” 

He spoke to Lanir. 

Lanir stuttered. 

“Is he your leader?”

“No.” Lanir said, and he lifted his head. 

Elrond was watching him, their eyes met. 

Courage, Lanir. 

Sauron stooped over Lanir and placed his heavy hands on his shoulders. 

“Why then, do I see love in these eyes? Do you not think I know? You would cut your own throat if he asked you to.” 

“He would not ask.” Lanir said. 

The fierce defense in his words was a concession to the dark lord. 

“Is that not what he asks you now?” Sauron’s voice dripped with sorrow. 

“For here you are, at my mercy, and I will take from you what I seek. And you will resist, because you are noble, because he is here, and you would follow his lead. But he I will keep alive, yet if you refuse to treat with me, I will not be so gracious to you. Is that not an injustice? Should he not protest such a thing?” 

“So be it.” 

“If I am his leader, perhaps you should treat with me?” Elrond said. “For why should the subordinate bear what the one in command is responsible for. Would you not agree, as one who served Morgoth?”  

“Treat with you I will. For he loves you. And I desire to hear you sing.” 

He struck Elrond. 

The sound broke the stillness of the tent, and the rings seemed to pulse on the hand, making the blow fall with a vengeful heaviness. Elrond swung in his chains and Lanir cried out in despair.

He could not help it , Elrond thought fondly, as he panted behind the shielding curtain of his locks. He was too pure of heart, the young elf, too loyal and full of love. 

“Tell me where the stronghold is, and I will beat him no more.”

Courage Lanir! 

The second blow rocked him, and the third. 

And Sauron gripped his chin in his fingers and caressed the blooming bruises and dripping blood almost gently before he struck him again. 

Lanir was bent, he kept his eyes on his commander and prayed for strength. 

For them. Elrond’s eyes begged. 

For them. He assented, and he bowed his head for he could watch no longer. 

But when Sauron stooped again, he instead seized Elrond's shoulder with his hand and the heat from it seared his skin and Lanir’s face was white as snow as Elrond writhed from where he hung in the dark lord’s grasp. 

“Take the other out.” 

Lanir’s protests were loud, but silenced. 

And when Elrond looked up, it was he alone, and the dark Lord.

Chapter Text

The dark lord looked down at him with something akin to kindness. 

His eyes were shimmering, his hair magnificent around his face, his touch gentled. 

He released Elrond almost gently and touched his shoulder. The pain of the burn dissipated under his hand. It felt cool, it felt like such sweet relief he could have sobbed over it. It felt wrong. 

Elrond was back on his knees. 

Sauron sat before him, and power seemed to shake the air around him. It was strange, how many visages he wore. How many faces. How quickly he would trade one expression for another. It made Elrond feel as if he were constantly on his back foot. He could not plant his feet and dig in his heels, for constantly, Sauron changed shape, changed approach, changed touch. He was impossible to grasp onto and pin down. It was impossible to build some sort of defense against one who kept so rapidly changing. 

He realized better, how Galadriel could have only seen the noble southlander who had met and matched her every desire. He did not know what face the deceiver had worn when he worked with Celebrimbor - perhaps this one, perhaps another - but it must have suited Celebrimbor's desire to be respected, to be seen as mighty, to be acknowledged as the talent of his age. 

What he saw you wanted, he gave. 

“Sauron looked inside you and plucked the very song of your soul note by note. Making himself out to be exactly what you needed.”  

He did not think now, that he had been wrong then. 

But how harsh, when it was so very hard to see the deceiver's true face, when he offered that which seemed so fair. 

He had asked first, for Imladris. 

What would he offer now? 

“Finally, we may treat with one another. Speak to me. Take the burden off the shoulders of the young one who looks to you. Did you not see the pain you caused him?”

He was gentle when he said it. 

“If you lead, him, you would not leave the burden of seeing you suffer on his shoulders.”

How right it was of him to play this card, for it was a great burden indeed, to be looked to, Elrond thought. 

“For I would hear you sing. Come and sing for me, sing on your own or at my hand. Think you that I cannot wrest your song from your lips whether or so you will?” 

The words of Sauron were a melody of his own, soft they came, as a lullaby. Winding up and around him, he could not take a breath without feeling it slide down his throat, it was begging to be sung.

In his own veins, an answering melody called. There was a singing, a climbing, a rising to meet the invitation of Sauron's words. 

No. No. No. 

“You think me evil? Yet you should know yourself that not all that has been called so, is.”

“Nothing is evil in the beginning. Not even you, once the admirable.” Elrond said, and his words felt harsh where Sauron’s had seemed so fair. 

“Nothing is without worth. Not even you, a thing of parts, a shade of a deeper strain.” Sauron returned and his smile was sweet. 

Too sweet, it looked as the over ripened fruit did in the summer, juices dripping outside of the cracked skin when inside all was rot and decay. 

It was almost physically painful to think. No words, no song, nothing came readily to his lips. He felt like a stunned bird, paralyzed after being struck by a serpent whose fangs dripped poison. He stood still, eyes fixed, watching as the serpent coiled around him. 

Sing!

“I have heard it told, that Morgoth used you for his own purposes.”

Sauron laughed. 

“I used him, little one. Think not that I am like him, or that we are one and the same. He hated Arda, but I loved it. I desire it to be whole, that which was splintered from the start. The Valar would not bring order to the chaos they wrought, nor fix that which was broken. He had the power to challenge them, so I followed him, knowing it gave me the greatest chance of repairing what I loved. But never was I he, I stayed in his shadow for many years to take what was his. It was I who used him.”

My song is shadow. 

For it I was

In the darkness cast by his

I was, waiting, growing 

The lofty do not know 

That the shadow crouches 

Waits and waits and waits 

Bides its time

Until it swallows he who cast 

Until it spreads over sun and star 

And deep root and long branch

And he who cast 

Languishes now in chains

But see! the shadow remains

The melody rose and could no longer be ignored. Elrond raised his head. Gray eyes and fiery eyes met and there was a clash of starlight and shadow.

“I see shadow in you too, commander. Do not deny it! It is a noble work you have done to make those around you sing of summer and warmth when the suffering bleeds from your very pores. It takes one who has borne great shadow to see it.” 

It was closer now, the music wrapping around him. It was poison, it was like a serpent poised to strike. 

“What is it you desire? I could make you whole. All these parts. Tell me you do not long to take the splinters and reforge them? Do they not stab at you still? The brother who chose another life, the parents who did not return. The lost happiness of that home on the shores. Great must have been your abandonment to turn to the very ones who took it all from you. It would seem you thanked them for the death of your heritage.” 

“No, I forgave them.”

“Forgave them. Loved them, cherished them, learned from them.” the serpent returned.  

“Yes.” Elrond said. And he felt lightheaded with a rush of great clarity. 

“Yes, and it was good that it became so.” 

...

The fierce elf with the flaming red hair who had spared them from the others did not smile. He was not around as often as his brother. But he would come silently at times with pockets filled with waybread and berries, making sure they had something warm to cover them in the cool evenings of their march. When his dark haired brother had cut the bonds from their arms he had said nothing. But when Elrond and Elros made to flee that night, they found him sitting alone before their tent flap. Waiting. 

“For the sake of one another, stay. You would not last in the wilderness alone.”

“It would be better to perish there than to remain any longer with you!” Elrond said. He saw the burning jewel and the sea roaring up to meet his mother. He saw wings, white wings, beating away. Far away. His bitterness was great. 

“Look at your brother and think on what you have said little one. If you still believe this to be so - that it would be better to see him die, shivering in cold and hunger, than to see him fed and warm here - than I will let you leave. I will not stop you.”

Elrond swallowed rage. It had been the first time in his young life he had felt the blackness of it take his soul. He looked at his beloved brother, already shivering as the cold wind outside the open tent flap ruffled through his hair, and then he looked back up at the serious elf with his flaming hair and old eyes.

Bitterly, he fought back tears.

“I would not trade my brother to be rid of you.”

“And now you learn what it means to speak true, child.”

He did not leave after, but sat down beside their makeshift places of rest and when Elros finally slept, he looked and saw that Elrond was still awake, staring silently at the tent above him, his gray eyes shining with unshed tears. 

“Perhaps one day, you will not need to bear with what has wronged you to protect what you love.” He sighed and his own eyes shone with unshed tears. 

“Perhaps. Although I think that is not the way of this world.” 

Maedhros had taught him how to speak true. 

...

Maedhros had taught him how to speak true. 

Maedhros who had hung for thirty years, alone, in the darkness until he heard the song of his cousin, who had heard only evil and known only the suffocating darkness of the pits beneath him. Yet he had come forth from that darkness with some good left to offer. And Elrond knew that he and Elros in some part, had brought it from him in ways Maedhros had not thought remained to him. 

It was good that love grew. 

He did not need to push back the too sweet melody wrapping around his limbs, for he thought of Maedhros alone on his cliff, Maedhros who had outlasted the darkness, and his own song burst forth again. 

“You seek to drive a wedge between them in my heart. But both rejected you did they not? Is this not the one thing they share? Your embarrassment at their hands. Fair Luthien in your grasp, and you crawled in submission at her feet. Maedhros hanging on his precipice and your master could not keep him. There is room enough for both those I loved and those I came to love to be a part of me.”

“I see a shadow of both of them.” The serpent said kindly, but it sounded nearly a hiss. 

“You said yourself the shadow swallows.”

“Yet no shadow I am. I am Elrond, beloved of Elwing and Eärendil, cherished by Maglor and Maedhros, my forgiveness was not some cheap thing. It brought wholeness, brought healing. Know this deceiver, not all things must be perfect and right ordered to become beautiful. I mourned for my parents, and their loss was bitter, for I will never know them again on these shores. But the ones who brought evil to me bore their own, I forgave them, and out of that forgiveness love came. All does not have to be unbroken to be good.”

“Speak not of order to me, for one such as yourself could not recognize it, peredhel. And not only peredhel, but a strain of something greater that was never meant to be so diluted. Do not lie, for I know you have felt the sundering. One side, the Eldar, one side the Edain, one part, a shade of power that should not be yours. I hear it in your song. Have you not agonized over all these sides, do you not feel split? Is that not what happened to you and your brother?”

The melody struck, taking the breath from him. It hit true.

For the choice had been indeed a great sundering. 

...

"Why must I choose? "He had thought. And others said to him, “what a gift to have such a choice!” but they had only ever known one identity. They had not known what it would be to lose the other half. He had known what Elros would choose, he was too much like their father who loved men with such great ardor. He thought of both halves. There was never a doubt which he would choose if he did not know the choice of his brother. He heard the earth sing to him. The birds and the flowers. They all told him to remain. He knew the longing in him to preserve them was something he could not deny or ignore. But he knew what Elros would choose. And he thought for a time he would suppress everything his heart yearned for, and the begging of the earth to remain, for the love of his brother whom he could not bear to lose. Even as the world coaxed him otherwise.

 Stay. 

Stay. 

Stay. 

Even then, he had made plans to ignore the chanting in his blood. 

But that night a vision had come upon him of a great, kingly, warrior fighting against the shadow. It looked as Elros from the back and Elrond ran to stand beside him, but lo! when he turned, he saw his face was lordly indeed, but not Elros. And where he had loved Elros as a brother, this one he loved as a son. 

“Stay.”

The king was saying, and wore the ring of Barahir on his finger, and held a scepter in his other. 

“Stay, for I will have need of you. Without you, who will lead me here?” 

When he made his choice, and his brother his own, the sundering had nearly broken him. 

It had felt evil. 

...

“Are you whole, even now? I could make you whole.” 

He lifted his head. A great knowing filled him. He saw the splintering of his choice. He saw his vision of the lordly king, the last of his kind, greatness reborn of Elros. He saw him leading an army against a great familiar evil. “Without you, who will lead me here?”  

“Even now, I see that it is the splintering of my brother and I that will play a part in the breaking of the shadow.”

The words came forth with the certainty of prophecy. He sang them. Before all time, now, he saw that the choice had been foreordained. Elros had chosen the Edain, so that man would rise to challenge darkness when the Eldar could not, and Elrond must choose the Eldar, for someone must be there to guide them when it was their time. 

If they had not broken, Middle Earth would have. 

Not all that was whole was good, not all that was broken was evil. 

The sweet lullaby Sauron had been singing became bitter. It climbed, grew, burgeoned to a great clash of sound.

It changed from gentle lullaby to loud howl. Like a wicked wolf it sounded, a sinister wail, a snarl between bared teeth.

And Elrond tasted fear - he perceived that Sauron feared his brother’s kingdom as much as his high king had expressed his hopes in them and he felt a surge of pride for his brother and his choice. 

When the dark lord responded, his words were biting. 

“Ah, but he is dead little one, and you are nothing more than a pretty little bird in my hand. I shall clip your wings.” 

The song leapt forth, swirled around him, where it had once been gentle, it was now mighty and tore at him with long teeth and snapping jaws. 

“Long I have humored you, with this song and dance, but while you sharpened your words, I have followed them to where you would not have had me go. Much I have perceived of your thought. I have touched your mind. I see that you desire to preserve, to protect, to hold. 

And now I shall offer you what I may. 

When you saw the rings on my hand you recoiled, I see in your mind what you have wanted to ask me since we first spoke. You desire to know what became of the smith whose work sits on my fingers. It was your army at the gates of Eregion that fell. What brought you there besides duty to your king? Devotion? Did you feel some responsibility towards him? Did you think that you might preserve him? Think you that you can preserve his legacy even now? 

Shall I tell you how he sat in my hand for days, at my torture and your army could not save him? Do you think I did not witness your failure? Preserve away, for all submits to me regardless. Tell me what plans you have to keep safe even yourself? Already I have mined thoughts and memories from you, already I know what you desire, already I have seen that it would be better to keep you than to kill you. And you should fear that, for you know not if I mean for my pleasure, to keep Lúthien’s image at my side, or for your gifts, as a thrall to enchant my kingdom. 

I give you a choice. 

Use your gifts to preserve. I will not destroy all. You will come to see you might be able to preserve still, under my service. Do not turn away in stubborn refusal. What I allow, you may safeguard. Think of that which is dear to you.”

No. 

“No.”

He panted, but the pain of refusal was great. 

No. 

“I will take it from you regardless.” 

He was mighty suddenly, and his darkness grew and the little tent filled with it and Elrond swayed in its grip, stubbornly resisting the lilt and tug of his words. 

“For if you loved the smith so well, how will you feel when your king is paraded before you? How when Galadriel is sat at my side as my dark queen? Then you will spin your webs and sing your songs, for you will not suffer to see them end at the same fate.”

“What did you do to him?” Elrond asked softly, for he could bear no longer the evil words. 

“If you are good, I may show you.” 

Submit to me. 

The song washed over him. It was mighty. Where it had been gentle at first now it was violent and tearing. It had sunk its claws into him and now it pulled him forth, casting down his defenses, filling his lungs and the chambers of his mind with its sound. 

Elrond was swaying, his head was heavy and he had no strength in his limbs, he was falling and the shadow was all around him. The shadow had arms, and it caught him. 

Such a sweet little bird in my hand. 

Submit, submit, submit. 

A voice chanted in his blood. 

He heard it moving in his bones. He almost met it, almost joined with it. It hung suspended, vibrating, charging the air around him as he pondered its weight and its rhythm. It was sweet, it was a perfect melody. It was one voice. Rising by itself, it felt somehow thin, for all its beauty. 

It was too sweet, sacharine, dripping decay. 

It was not his own, but the deceivers, his own song was bitter and sweet and yes, many parts, not one singular. 

What was broken was not always evil. All the threads the ring had woven out of him to heal Galadriel, all the shattered splinters he had forged into a new kind of blade, all the strains he had wrangled with all his might to harmonize together. 

That was his song. 

With violence, he pushed back against the climbing melody, reached deep, deep, down and found his own. 

He brought it to his lips in opposition to the sweet, beguiling chant swirling through him. 

There was fire and starlight meeting in a great clash. A tower mighty, and the wolf became a serpent and the serpent became a vampire and the vampire became a great shadow, mighty and towering. It stretched over the sky, over the light of the stars. Its power was too great, the darkness overwhelming, and it beat back his melody. 

The song rose from his being. It beat small wings against the blackness. It was caught in the coils of the serpent. It stretched, stretched, stretched - and then - it broke. 

Chapter Text

The moment he rode into the little sanctuary, he felt healed. 

The Valar had sent him back to shores changed by time. Sometimes the younger elves looked at him and struggled to understand his speech. Some of them looked at him as if he were some hero stepped straight out of tales told to them as elflings. Some of them looked at him as if they did not know what to do with themselves around him. Dearly, he had wanted to return to do what he had departed Arda doing, protecting those most in need, but often during his short time back, he had already felt his patience gently stressed. He did not wish to be celebrated so, or fawned over, he wished to do what he had done well previously. Guard and protect. 

And when he rode into the little sanctuary, he found a people in need of guarding and protecting. A people so like the one he had defended so long ago.

The beauty of the valley greeted him first. It was a true sanctuary, waterfall and stream flowing with grace, tree and plant stretching elegantly towards blue skies. Lithiel and her small band led him into it, through hushed wooded areas, up the jagged sides of the mountain, then as if one might fall into it, the landscape opened to reveal a settlement. As they came to a narrow bridge (a wonderful place to defend) Glorfindel thought, they were hailed by Vorohil, a ginger-haired elf whose face was as shadowed as the night. He came down to greet them. Glorfindel saw that his eyes were dull with pain and what looked to be deep regret. 

This one was in need of healing. 

Lithiel and her band bade him goodbye when Vorohil greeted them, returning to their post and the swordsman led him over the bridge into the safe haven. 

Then, his heart softened as he saw them. 

It was his people, the people he had guarded as they fled. 

He thought of snow on mountains and his own faltering soldiers. The strength of his will holding them together. When the people had faltered, he had sent warriors ahead to help aid them.  Then his own soldiers had been attacked in the rear and they had fought with all their might to protect the innocent ahead of them. 

The demon who had come upon them with his whip, leaping over him to get to them, had filled him with desperation. He had leapt after him, higher and higher over the frigid peaks, until they had fallen together. 

Vorohil told him that is what their commander had done. No balrog had he faced, but he had traded his safety for theirs nonetheless. Glorfindel heard the tale and felt a great kinship with the commander who had been lost to the people. It grieved him that they had lost him, it grieved him that he had not been in time to aid him in his defense of the valley before he had fallen. 

He walked through the valley with the soldier, saw the stalwart little halls standing in proud lines, saw strong walls and fortified bridges still being erected to guard what was inside. Children ran under the watchful eyes of the the eldest, warriors trained and many of the people trained with them. All might be needed if the valley were to be invaded. 

It soothed him to see such cooperation and beauty growing out of what had been shattered. It had been his one regret as he fell, that he had left the vulnerable behind. Now, he saw what he had wished for the refugees he had guarded, that they could find a place to settle and flourish, was growing here for these refugees of another time. It felt a great gift to him to witness such a thing. 

With purpose he met with the leaders of the valley. He looked over the defenses and spoke to the soldiers guarding the outpost. He spoke to those who helped organize the little stronghold.

He looked to the people, for great was their mourning. Desolate faces looked to him, and some did not brighten, but looked back down. 

So he went to the children where they played under the watchful eyes of their elders. He tossed them in the air and played mock sword fights with them, and an image of a laughing golden child came before him. Eärendil as he had played with his parents whom Glorfindel had loved so well.

That child had become a great hero, even now he sailed above them in the evenings. It was his son, this people had followed through their own trial. And as he worked to restore the spirits of the children and their caretakers, he resolved to look for this commander who had given himself for his people, for he felt an understanding with him, a sort of kinship and admiration though they had never met. He would find a body or he would find news. 

When the evening fell, Vorohil led him to a great hall and in awe, he heard the song in the evening. 

It was a lament. 

The swordsman told him no other song had touched their lips since the dark night they had hurriedly rode out, and rode back in without him whom they had loved. 

Glorfindel stayed in the hall until the last song was sung, then he buckled his sword to his side and called his horse to him. 

Under the light of Elbereth, he rode out.

…

Sauron dismissed the captains he had summoned for his war council. Already the great mustering of his army had begun. Companies of orcs marched from Mordor, those who had not come with Adar to Eregion, joined him now. The fierce armies of the men he had brought under his sway came also. It was time to crush the elven king who even now was fleeing further to the havens. Soon, he would have nowhere to go. Perhaps then he would sail, leaving his people behind, a sweet betrayal to those he would leave behind. More likely, he would put up some desperate last stand, and what sweet joy it would be to drag him behind his victorious armies in chains when he fell. His herald had already unwillingly given him sweet joy, how much more might he wrest from the proud king? How much more from the two of them together? 

The council had been called and he had left the herald in his corner, his head hanging in exhaustion. After he had thrown down his song, Sauron had departed, not before bidding the orcs to array the commander in a clean tunic. It hung now on his body for it was too large, but it was the color she had worn when she sang, before she had flown from his grasp. A deep blue, the deep of the unclouded sky in summer. Over it they placed a black cloak. It was long and draped over his shoulders and in the dark curls and starlit eyes, Sauron could see her as she should have been. His lovely songbird.

Let the proud thing hang there before his captains as his prize. Let them leer at him and laugh at his clipped wings. Perhaps he would begin to see the inevitability of his choice.

Now his captains departed, leaving with purpose. Now began the final drawing up of his strength. Now he would reach his long arm to the harried king, for closer and closer did he draw his nets around him. The time was nearly ripe to strike. 

“Sit him at my feet.” 

The commander’s eyes flashed dangerously, but his limbs were weak, and the pain of his wound still sharp, the strength drawn out of his body, and the arms of the snarling orcs strong as they released him from where he hung and pressed him to the earth at Saurons side. Sauron listened for the exhale of air, and he looked for the lifting of the chin, and he was not disappointed. 

“You need not be angry with me.” 

“You knew his life was forfeit from the beginning.” 

Elrond did not answer. 

The song had broken. 

And when it broke, Sauron had brought in the lifeless body of Lanir and burned it before him. 

“I told you I perceived your mind. Choose to serve me, or all the rest will suffer the same. Will you refuse me as I bring each one I catch before you one by one? Will you not preserve the innocent? Surely you will not make them suffer for your stubbornness." 

Death. The gift of Illúvatar they called it. Now, he understood. Maedhros had flung himself into a fiery chasm because the pain was too great. Were there such a chasm before him now, he would not hesitate. 

He and Lanir had both known that Lanir's life was forfeit. They had strengthened one another for what they had known would come. Elrond had almost wished, hanging there before the captains, helpless as they spoke of the net they drew around Ereinion, that his life might be forfeit too. 

Now he was on his knees and the hand of Sauron heavy on his shoulder.

“You shall not be given such a gift.” 

“Perhaps I shall I march you to my armies at the havens, where I have driven your king? I will parade you before him in finery as mine. With you in my grasp do you think he would hesitate to come forward? Or perhaps I shall bring him to you as I have promised.”

His hand found the unruly locks of Elrond’s hair. They were longer now, curling down the nape of his neck towards his shoulders and he stroked them almost tenderly. 

The commander did not flinch but Sauron could taste the revulsion shimmering off him in waves at his touch. He wrenched his body away from Sauron's hand. 

His eyes were shut tight, and it angered Sauron. He desired to see the starlight, he wished to watch as it was blotted out. 

His hand dipped to his face, caressing it. 

"Songless you are now, child. Sing mine. When I return with him, would you refuse when he is in the stead of the young elf? When he is in the stead of Celebrimbor?"

Sorrow came over his face as he spoke.

"If you continue to choose silence, it is your hand that shall wreak the silencing of their cries, it is your hand that shall wreak the silencing of your king, it is your hand that shall wreak the silencing of those who remain of Celebrimbor's people when I find your stronghold."

He almost seemed to be weeping. 

Elrond met his eyes then, and Sauron felt the great tumult of defiance in them. Songless or not, the child was still flashing starlight. 

He had thought the breaking of the peredhel's song, the cruel death of Lanir, the pain of his own wounds that had been allowed to stay festering on his weakening body would drain the child of his fight. But he saw now the child was too well acquainted with suffering. And perhaps he had not taken enough from him, for the commander must have known indeed that Lanir's life was forfeit from the moment he saw the young warrior, he must have expected pain, he must have known his own song would be overcome before the might of he whom Finrod himself could not withstand. So though storms clashed and raged in his eyes, he had kept firm. All of this he had prepared for.

And he had held. 

But he was weakened and so very exhausted after their long battle, and the death of Lanir. His strength was sapped, sitting at his feet, his breathing soft and shallow, and Sauron had another gift to give him. He thought now, the time was right to show him what he so desired. 

"Come, I have a gift for you."

He gripped his collar and dragged him out of the tent. The orcs gathered to watch as the proud commander was dragged through the mud in the punishing grip of their master. A light rain was falling and the sounds of the mustering armies rose. Fires burned and the commander who had spent weeks in darkened tents saw the mustering and the dark clouds gathered over the camp and his face grew white.The two went towards Sauron's tent, where none were allowed without leave. Around it a shadow hung, and the elf's pale face seemed to grow whiter still as he saw the darkness encroaching around and the evil markings on the outside. His feet scrabbled for purchase and slipped, and the dark Lord dragged him within.

"Before I crush your king, I would leave you a gift. Look and see the work you have wrought. Think on whether you desire to receive another of similar kind." 

He watched with hunger as the child caught his breath, for the first time, he caught fear and shrinking in the beating of his pulse. He watched, he waited. 

Elrond looked up and saw it.

His very light flickered. 

Like it had been blown out, some essential thing in him crumpled. 

He fell to his knees, a broken cry escaping his body. 

…

Celebrimbor. 

Greatest of elven smiths. 

He with the quick smile, so eager to share his knowledge and his joy. 

He who reminded him so much of those whom he had grown to love. The way he spoke, the manner in which he scoffed. 

Morning teas with him on the balcony as the sun rose, long talks at night about the lore he had so painstakingly collected. 

He could not breathe, the pain was so great. 

"See the work you have wrought." 

Knees crumpled beneath him, and the rugs of the tent rose to meet him. 

He cared not that the great deceiver was there watching him, feasting on his pain. 

He wept, for the light of Celebrimbor. 

For there his remains hung, fixed to some sort of banner. The flesh was all but gone, only tatters of it remained on bleached bones affixed to the hide of some beast they had felled. But the standard of his house had been painted behind it crudely, and the hammer of Fëanor. 

It was all that remained of him. 

“Do you know he told me, that one day, my future would be in his son's hands?” 

"See the work you have wrought!" 

Sauron had a hand in his hair, holding his head so that he could not turn from the banner before him. He twisted sharply and Elrond hung from his burning hand, tears scalding his face. 

"You should know little one, that he cried out when I skewered him with my spear. You should have been there to see him deteriorate from the proud lord of Eregion to a frazzled shell sitting by my hand. You could have told him that Halbrand was not to be trusted before you fled with his rings, could you have not? Perhaps then, he would not have let him in so easily."

He was pulling the starlight out of him. It was leaking from his eyes and in the tears sparkling on his cheeks. The songbird was in his hands. 

"He spoke of you. He told me of a prophecy. While he sat in his bonds, I saw it in his eyes. His hope. And you came, blowing your horns, but you broke before the wall. You could not save him. You hastened his end. It may as well have been your hand that drove the spear into him, for it was your hands that held his future, not mine. This was the work you wrought. Look upon what you have made." 

The evil words smote him. Distantly, he knew that if he were safe and somewhere warm and beautiful with Ereinion or Galadriel at his side telling him it were all lies, he would know so. He would be able to see that it was not the truth even if it held a part of the truth. It was not his hand that had done this. But he was not there, but here. Alone in the grip of darkness, Sauron's hand on his shoulder, in his hair, his words slithering around him. There was a violence to the hold that burned his body as his head was wrenched back and he saw the remains of the smiths face and the sight stole all the breath from him. 

If Ereinion or Galadriel were here to seize him by the shoulders and assure him it were not true, he would believe them. But they were not, and they had not in the first bitter days after the fall, where he had replayed his failure over and over again even as they fled. He had not expected them to, the king trying to keep his people together, Galadriel, in a healing sleep. But the silent forge and the blood on its floors and the crumbling tower had seared themselves into his sight, and he saw them at all times. 

Celebrimbor had told him his future rested in his hands, and Elrond had not saved him. 

It was his hand that had failed him. 

He tried to close his eyes, replace the hideous sight with the image of the one whom he had loved. 

Celebrimbor telling him stories of his father. 

Celebrimbor feeding the crows outside his balcony. “Come now, Elrond, you at least will not disparage them as others do -  they are really quite remarkable! Do you know that they bring gifts to me? Little bits of thread and stone…"

Celebrimbor laughing as Elrond tried his hand at the forge. “You stick to smithing your words for I would keep my forge safe from your clumsy hands!”

Celebrimbor bustling into his room when he had fallen ill after his journey to Khazad- dûm.

“I have brought some things to restore you.” Elrond had laughed when he saw the scrolls and one of Celebrimbor’s best bottles of wine. “The scrolls may stay Celebrimbor, but keep the wine - it is your best and tea suits me better for now.”

He could not breathe. 

He had climbed the tower to look for him when the dwarves came, seen the empty forge - he had wished - he nearly sobbed - that Sauron had kept the smith alive and that he was not dead. What evil had he suffered at the pleasure of Sauron before the end? 

Oh my friend.

Would that you were in the hidden valley with me and I could tend your wounds and sing you the song I finished for you. It is a hymn to Elbereth, in the style of the song you gave me. 

“O Elbereth Gilthoniel”

Where he was songless, that cry found its way to his lips. 

He felt not the hand of Sauron as he whispered the words, he clung to the light that had been Celebrimbor's. 

“O Elbereth Gilthoniel” he whispered, even as Sauron stooped over him, pressing his dark hand over his mouth, bruising it beneath his grip, choking off the cry.

The bleached bones accused him. 

He said himself, his future was in your hands. 

Elrond shut his eyes. He saw the fond smile, the forge. He saw the kind face. He saw Celebrimbor's frustration when his art failed to satisfy him. He saw him shouting and apologizing just as quickly with a sheepish smile after the tempest cooled. He saw him as he had been when he gave him the song of Lúthien, he saw him surrounded by those that he loved. He saw him as he had stood in his glory, the Lord of Eregion. 

Sorrow so great it stole his breath overwhelmed him. He could not withstand it. 

The darkness forced its way back in.

“He said himself, his future was in your hands.

See the work you have wrought!" 

Sauron's hands were burning as he chained Elrond before the banner, but he hardly felt the searing grip, or the pain as his hands were menacled before him.

"Here you shall stay until I return. It is my gift to you."

...

He was drifting. 

So high, he felt he could slip right off, float away to the halls of Mandos. 

Somewhere deep in his being something beat still, something whispering to him, something urging him not to let go. 

Cling, cling to something. 

What was he clinging to? 

A rock like Maedhros, an oath? Some bit of light? 

Light. 

For all that remained was darkness.

Where was his song? He reached for it. Reached and found nothing. Fingers scrabbling into empty space. There was no weapon left to him. 

Days passed and the orc who entered the tent grew worried for he could hardly rouse the elf to drink the water he brought.

He stayed where he had fallen, head bowed against the earth before the remains of his beloved friend.

The light was a fraying thing in his soul. 

The shadow swept over him and consumed him and he looked into it and heard the melody Sauron had sung to him. 

He thought he could not raise his head from where it rested. The bitter tears turned the scarred ground beneath him wet. He could drown in them and care not. 

"See the work you have wrought!" 

And he had no song to hold against the shadow.

Nothing came forth when he called. 

...

Maglor did not like to speak of Lúthien. He felt too much guilt over the actions he had taken against her children. But Elrond had told him one day of his song. How it pulsed in his blood, how he wished to sing to the flowers to cause them to grow and the birds to ask them to sing, how to coax life out of a cold world. 

“I wish to sing, as Melian and Lúthien, as my mother did.”

“I know songs - of a different kind. Perhaps they can help you understand the one you hold already, little one.” 

So Maglor had taught him what he knew. 

They were beautiful and sad, ballads and laments. Songs of healing and songs even of power. They were of a different kind than the one he had always held, but he thought one day, they might strengthen the one, they might harmonize with it.

“Someday, you might find you cannot sing anymore. It has happened to me at times of great pain - or sorrow. If you find you can’t sing any song, you should go back to something simple, something that is habitual to you. Something that flows without thought. Sing that, and the rest may return with time.”

“What is that for you?” Elrond asked him.

Maglor had sighed. 

“The sound of the sea.”

“What is yours child?”

...

He opened his mouth. 

The call of a nightingale rang through the tent. 

He and Elros had spent days practicing the call as children to surprise their mother. It became second nature to them so often did they call to one another as they listened to the birds above their heads. When the day came that they surprised her with their skill she had been so delighted with them they had danced together. Elrond and Elros had sung their songs to the feathered songbirds and delighted when the birds returned their songs. It had brought Elrond unbridled joy. After, he had learned the songs of the other birds. 

The call of a nightingale rang through the tent. 

Something that flows without thought.

For a moment the darkness receded, and the blackened earth beneath him seemed to surge, as if it felt life and responded to it. And then it grew cold again as his weakened body trembled violently and the tremors robbed his breath, stilling the song on his lips. 

At the end of his strength, he lay in the dirt in his chains and he drifted far away. 

Cling, cling to something. 

What was he clinging to? 

Celebrimbor seemed to be near him, he was before him. 

"My future is in your hands." He said to Elrond and his smile turned from that which he loved to the image of the hideous banner hanging before him. 

"He will not have you." Elrond assured him deliriously. I will not let him have you! and he saw Sauron with a spear in his hands and tears in his eyes. 

"You have done this." He said to Elrond and his reproach was genuine.

No.

What was he clinging to? 

The darkness covered him. 

He thought of giving in to it. Letting it have its way. 

No.

Galadriel had said Celebrimbor had met her on the tower, had gathered his strength around him. Had went forth bravely to stand against the terror in the forge. 

Before such light, darkness must flee. 

And he finally looked up at the remains of Celebrimbor without horror and instead he mourned him and in his heart there was love, and on his lips the words of a lament. 

There was naught he could do, other than resist, with hope or without it.

He clung to that and the darkness around him shuddered.

...

He sang to the nightingales with Elros.

He was a bird, he was flying up to the stars.

Elwing was laughing in delight, she was calling to the birds with him at her side. The gulls swept and circled and in a great flutter seized the scraps from his fingers. 

Elros, his brother the mighty king, coming out of his council and whistling. The councilmen did not know that the sound of the birdcalls they thought came from the eaves came instead from their king and his brother, and that their secret communication was covert laughter at their expense.

There was the white wings beating up towards the sky, away from the two twins clinging to one another on the bloody beaches.

There was a fluttering of wings when Elros died and they laid him to rest and the birds as well as his people came to bid him farewell. 

There was the sound of his own song beating like the wings of a bird before the claw of darkness had seized it. 

He drifted far. He was weightless and held by soft feathers, he was being borne aloft. There was a flutter of wings all around him. 

There was a flutter of wings in the tent and Elrond lifted his head from the ground. 

A crow stood suspiciously eyeing him.

Out of the choking shroud of darkness came a harbringer, not of death, but life. The suspicious bird, wearing feathers dark and shadowed, but he was not of the shadow. 

Other birds would not come into a camp of orcs, but the crows, scavengers as they were, would brave them, searching for scraps and spoils as this one must have. 

In the darkness, the crow seemed to Elrond as regal as the mighty eagle who bore Maedhros from his torment. 

Caw !

The crow said

Caw caw caw!

What a pretty song you sing little nightingale.

My heart sings to see you! sobbed the nightingale.

May I stay for your song? asked the crow.

And the nightingale sang for him. 

When the song died on the nightingale’s lips and he drifted off again, completely spent, the crow hopped out of the tent and took to the sky. 

When he returned, the nightingale was still lying still on the cold ground.

The crow hopped around him, cooing and fretting, singing his own soothing songs with his hoarse voice.

Then he buried the pin in his dark curls and flew away. 

…

Elrond woke to the singing of the metal near his ear. Shaking fingers felt for the sound and closed around the needle buried in his hair. He twisted it between his fingers. 

Do you know that they bring gifts to me? Little bits of thread and stone…

He remembered the bird fluffing his feathers as he had drifted away. He caught sight of the small black feather left besides his head. 

"Thank you mellon nín." He breathed. 

 Sauron had not returned after he had chained him before Celebrimbor. For how long he was gone, Elrond could only guess, but he would not squander this gift. So he held the pin and waited. When the camp was quiet, and the night fell, he picked his locks. 

He took the long black cloak off his back with trembling and clumsy fingers. The pain of the wound in his side flared, for Sauron had kept it from fully healing, but it was not his side that troubled him most, but his fingers. They were numb with disuse and poor circulation. Furiously, he rubbed them, desperate to get some sort of feeling back into them. And they were not the last of his problems, for when he dragged himself off his knees, the reality of how long he had been bent in his slumped position rushed over him, and with a soft cry he crumpled back down to the earth. When he clawed his way back up, he was breathing with exertion and the pain in his right side was throbbing with renewed intensity. He could barely walk. 

But when the guard came on his usual round into the tent to observe the broken commander, he found a rusty shard of metal jammed into his throat before he could shout the alarm over the empty chains, and Elrond with all his remaining strength drove the shard into the windpipe of the creature and silenced his gasps. 

Quickly, he gripped the orc's cloak - thank Eru he was large - and it slipped right over his head and dwarfed him. The hood was large enough for him to disappear into. They would smell him, he knew, all the wounds of his body still unhealed and all but shouting themselves to even himself, but it would help.

He stumbled to the banner and spread the black cloak on the ground. For a moment his heart quailed and the darkness threatened to drive him to his knees again, and then gently, he took down the remains of Celebrimbor and laid them within the dark folds of the cloak.

He bound it tightly, slipped the precious bundle under his arm and fled into the night.

...

For a time he thought they did not miss him. 

He ran, more like stumbled, through the dark night. He hardly felt his body respond to the repeated commands of his will. 

He was drifting, could drift right up to his father, beg him to take him on his ship. He could not turn him away could he? That whom he had already left behind once - he could not turn away again. 

He came back to himself. He was running. Through a forest. Elros was on his heels. He could not let Elros catch him. 

Or the game would be over. 

He would lose. 

I cannot lose to Elros. 

He was running like his mother, he held something precious to his chest. The evil could not touch it. Could not take it. He would give his life to keep it from their grasping hands. He would jump if he had to - down off the cliff into the hidden valley. 

Imladris. 

And he was back to himself. 

He had to get there. 

It was daylight. And the forest rushed by, the crows called. 

Run

Run

Run 

They croaked. 

Faster little nightingale! 

The sun moved back towards the horizon and darkness crept back over the land. 

Then he heard them. 

Heard the crash of their bodies through the forest, noses to the earth, to his scent. And he was weak, too weak. If Sauron was here, he would already have been back in captivity. But Sauron was not…and he stumbled on and on through the dark, praying that his strength would last, praying that Imladris had lasted, praying for help. 

When at last he stumbled, he fell so hard, his consciousnesses fled. 

When he blinked his eyes open, there they were, snarling, surrounding him with torches and savage faces. 

He would not go back to Sauron. 

He had no weapon with which to defend himself.. 

The orcs came nearer and the first to reach him seized his hair and violently began to drag him away. 

Elrond would not go back to Sauron.

His grip on reality was fraying, the call of nothingness coaxed him, floated up before him. He longer to surrender to it. But if he did, when he woke, he would find himself back in his chains, the dark Lord coaxing his song from him. The orcs surrounding him shouted in exultation, they were jubilant as they dragged him back, over all the long fought for territory he had stumbled over. He felt the jaws of the wolf closing around him, the bars of the cage shrinking. 

He would not go back to Sauron. 

His hands scrabbled down the side of the orc, grabbed for the knife that hung there. 

But the orc dropped him to the earth, screaming in pain as a golden vision dropped from the trees into the forest, slinging daggers and sweeping a gleaming weapon in a long beautiful arc.

Light shone in his eyes and in long golden braids down his back. It scattered from his person and glinted on his blade and the orcs scattered in fright before it.

Elrond, lying where he had been flung to the earth, tried to catch his breath and found he could not. He was gasping for breath and his body would not respond. 

The orcs cried out in dismay as the warrior moved to stand over Elrond where he had fallen. Then he leapt forward, and his feet were light. He moved with a swiftness as ancient and sure as the wind, like a dancer he parried and thrust and his arm was as strong as the smiting tail of a dragon. The fleeing orcs wailed even as he slashed their throats open. 

Elrond thought the warrior must be some vision come to lead him to the halls of Mandos, so brightly did he shine when all had been dark for so long. 

He felt himself slipping. 

He lay his head down on the cold ground.

 Elros was laughing over him. 

“A well ran race, Brother!” 

He was reaching his arm out to raise him up, but Elrond’s fingers were cold, too cold to grasp his, and he was falling. 

Falling.

Falling.

His head on the cold ground and fingers slipping. 

What was he clinging to? 

The golden elf ran up to him, warm fingers gripping his own cold ones. 

“You must not go, little one! You must not go.” 

It is not your time.

Chapter Text

Glorfindel tucked the bound up cloak into the arms of the fallen commander and swept him gently into his own arms. 

He knew it was the one for whom he had searched. 

The people had talked enough about dark curls and deep gray eyes, for him to notice and recognize them. Even without that, he knew it. Knew it with the certainty of one who had been sent for a task and finds it, knew it as one who had once tossed a golden child into the air and watched over him at rest and saw some of the smiling face in the well-shaped chin of the one he held now, knew it as certainly as he knew there was not much life left in the limp and fragile body he cradled now.

“You must not go. Not when you have come thus far. Not now, when I am here.” He whispered and he looked up at the light of the stars and found the Mariner where he sailed. 

Around him the piles of slain orc lay and with a calculating eye he swept their bodies to ensure none remained in a state in which they could follow. He would not endanger further what the commander in his arms had risked in the first place, the safety of that sanctuary. 

And then he was running, light step of the Eldar made lighter still by his will. He ran as swiftly as he could and as gently, and he breathed prayers over the dark head tucked in his arms, willing the warmth of his own body to be given to that of the cold one he carried.

I will not be too late a second time. 

He argued with the Valar as he ran. They would not send him back to be too late in this.

Starlight and song beat a thready pulse within his arms. 

It was frayed, torn around the edges. He felt the recent touch of fear and agony and shrinking as darkness had groped at it. He felt the pushback. The stubborn clinging. He found the light where the boy had bound it within his being. 

But the peredhel’s head hung against his arm. Limp, dark, curls shrouding his face and making every bruise on his pale skin stand out as if they had been branded there.

Stay with me little one

For he was little to him, although the arms he held he could feel were once strong in battle, and the gray eyes wise and sorrowful with the share he had seen of time, but, he was little to him and precious, and for such to protect, he had returned. 

So he ran and he prayed to the Valar that his arrival would not be too late. 

He ran through mud and across stream. He ran up hillside and ravine. He ran until he heard the sentry call out his warning into the clear night. 

When Glorfindel answered back in a shout of haste, the sentry returned it with joy. 

It was Vorohil who ran down swiftly to meet him. 

“My lord!” He gasped. 

“We had thought you lost.”

“No” Glorfindel responded and as Vorohil’s eyes landed on what he shielded protectively in his grasp he gave a strangled cry - as if he had been stabbed. 

“It is not - it is not possible.” he whispered in broken disbelief. 

He could not bear to ask the question flooding his every pore. 

“He lives yet.” 

Glorfindel said, but he had not paused his stride and Vorohil fell into step alongside him. 

“No! Get any healers you have, and be swift about it, for much depends now on your haste.” 

Both the shock and unbridled joy left Vorohil’s face, all that remained now was a fierceness that matched the light in Glorfindel’s eyes. 

…

He found the healing halls. In his great haste, he thought the doors might be wrenched off as he flung them open, and he did not regret such a thing. 

For all of his gentleness, the precious cargo he carried seemed to have slipped further from him. He gripped Elrond tighter to his chest as if to ward off the reaching hand of death. As if to show that the child belonged, that he was of the living, that he could not be taken. He strode through the halls and he found he was shouting, calling for the healers with urgency. He felt suddenly desperate now that his task was done and others must take over to do what he could not. 

When he reached an open bed he stooped and gently laid Elrond on the fresh, white sheets and he could have wept for how bruised and shadowed he looked against the purity of the clean coverlets. He knelt beside him, smoothing his hair away from his face, tearing open his tunic to see the wound he had felt the child curl into as he had carried him. The healer on watch came to join him, took one look at the face against the white sheets and stopped still as if turned to stone. In the next instant he was rolling his sleeves, on his knees beside Glorfindel, bellowing for aid and instruments. 

He need not have shouted for the head healer and several others came in swiftly with Vorohil on their heels. 

“Peace Tiutalion, Îdhanar said calmly as he rested a hand on the feverish brow. 

“Our shouting will not aid him.”

Glorfindel stayed where he knelt, as under the calm hand of Îdhanar the master, the rest followed his sure and gentle lead. 

Îdhanar looked up and saw that Vorohil still stayed, hanging back on the edges of the circle of healers pressing near.

“You are of no use to him here, go and gather the captains. Tell them of this. Keep any who may know calm. Ask the people to beg the Valar’s mercy.” 

Before Vorohil could depart Glorfindel caught his arm and handed him the wrapped cloak he had retrieved from Elrond’s lax fingers. 

“Do not lose this, if your life depended on it. Take it to wherever your treasures are kept.” 

And then he held the hand of the waning commander as he laid, pale against the white sheets, willing warmth back into his body. 

Îdhanar looked at him, and Glorfindel silently dared him to try to send him away as he had Vorohil, but the wise healer looked, and said nothing, and Glrofindel was glad of it.

Around him there was a haze of movement as the healers opened the evil looking wound. Glorfindel saw that it was dark and ugly, not healed but not festering and it seemed to cause the child great pain, for he saw the manner in which the commander groaned as the healers pressed against it. 

The wound was cleaned, washed and stitched, as crushed herbs filled the air with their fragrances, as the skilled came and laid hand and song over the crushed body and spirit, entreating it back from the shadow. 

He lost all track of time, he was holding the limp hand, willing life back into it. It was so very cold to his touch.

Finally after much time had passed he felt the press of healers recede. He looked up and Îdhanar met his gaze from where he stood wrapping the wound. 

“Infection was held off by some evil sorcery, I think. The wound itself is not a threat to his life, but rather whatever darkness touched him for so long. I have done what I can here. The rest is up to him.” 

His face was grave. 

“I will stay with him.” Glorfindel said. 

“And I.” the healer assented. 

Side by side they waited and the healer sang, and others with him, their eyes bright as they sang songs of healing and songs of light, and finally the hymn to Elbereth. 

But Glorfindel held the limp hand in his own, and bent his head over it. 

He had felt the pull of darkness still hovering over the child as he ran. He felt as if he had waded through it himself with the commander, refusing to be pulled under its grip. Yet now, the boy walked where he could not follow. 

I will send him my light and grace.  

Perhaps it would help to dispel the touch of the evil that had rested its hand on him. 

So he thought of the golden shine of Gondolin that he had loved, as it stood in its mighty glory in the waking morning, he thought of the piercing light of the shores of Valinor and the light of Eärendil from where he sailed in the skies. 

He thought of the gentle embrace of golden summers. He thought of the flickering of fireflies in the deep forests, he thought of the sun as it rose and warmed a cold world, banishing the frost and chill of the night. 

He thought of the flickering candle, the fire of golden flowers and the warmth of an open hearth. 

Be awash in light. 

Be covered in it

Let it touch all the places where the darkness has taken hold and dispel it

May my light, the house of the golden flower, be yours. 

He would not be too late. 

…

The fires on the edge of the encampment burned brightly. Around them huddled larger numbers of orcs than usual. None wished to be close to the tent at the center of the camp, so they had congregated here, uneasily, nervously. An air of unrest hung above them and their whimpers and snarls were kept low. 

When it was found that Sauron’s prize had escaped, the captain of the company in this encampment had panicked. In rage he had ordered the others uruks to say nothing of this to the other troops for he knew such a thing would be used against him when their master returned. He had led half of them out in pursuit of the runaway elf.

None of them returned. 

The remaining leaders argued and fought long into the night. Finally it was decided a messenger should be sent to tell Sauron of the news, for not telling him seemed certain to bring his ire down on all of them. 

Yet none would go until the orc leader pulled one out of the troop and  threatened to gut him on the spot if he would not go. 

“Take your chances worm, if you don’t go, you’re dead. If you go -”

They drove him out of the camp and he went cringing with fear. 

He did not return. 

Sauron did. 

With him came a storm. It hung around his shoulders like a cloak. His face was terrifying to behold. Not because of anger, but something else. 

He stalked through the camp and though all the uruks scattered to avoid his path, the ill-fated Grogu failed to get out of his way quickly enough. The other orcs had not wasted his body, and it warmed them now as they huddled around the fire gnawing the fresh bones. 

But Sauron was quiet, and that puzzled and worried them. No rage, no shouting, nothing, only a deep silence. It hung over them and they feared what would come out of his silence. 

Then the unfortunate uruk who had been tasked with keeping the master’s prize alive had been summoned. He ran, but the other orcs, eager to have a scapegoat, caught him as he fled and delivered him to the tent. 

None knew his fate. Not a bone or a bit of skin was recovered, and that was deemed an unpardonable waste by the orcs, but none would say so aloud, for speaking around Sauron now, meant death.

The guards on the perimeter trembled with fear, but Sauron could not very well kill the entire camp where the elf had been kept, not when he was drawing up so many for war. 

But Sauron sat in his tent and looked at the empty poles where his prize had hung and he thought of the slanted eyes filled with starlight, and the dark curls and the song he had bested, and great was his shame. He would not bear the humiliation of his captains returning to discuss war only for them to see that his prize had slipped from his hand. 

So he left the camp in a dark rage. Taking with him many of the orcs who had been most closely informed of the elf. 

If he found the bodies of the slain orcs and knew it was elf work, none knew. If the orcs who had accompanied him were slain over the bodies of their deceased comrades, none knew. But the dark Lord came back without those he had left with, carrying a body that looked fair and beautiful and almost like the commander who had slipped him, though some muttered it did not. 

Those that muttered did not see another sun rise. They were found, throats ripped out in the middle of the night. 

And Sauron announced in great sorrow to the remainder of that troop that the pet had died at his hand. 

When the captains came and met with him for the final meeting before his great push against Gil-galad, he told them of how he had wrested the song from the little bird and it had killed him. 

They toasted him then. 

And the cowed orcs who had seen the bird fly, and Sauron follow, convinced themselves that he meant he had caught the elf in the woods and killed him then, for to speak on such a thing, otherwise meant death. Thus from the camps the word slowly crept. From the orcs to the tribes of corrupted men, from the tribes of men, to the far-ranging scouts, until one day it was heard by a patrolling elven scout. The scout told his captain what he had heard, and the captain told his commander and the commander sent word to the havens where Gil-galad had joined the last of his forces with Círdan's. 

By the time the rumor reached the king it had lost many details and all that remained was the message that Sauron had taken a great prize, a young commander dear to elvendom, and killed him.

It was whispered to the king after hurried counsel with the remainder of his generals. The messenger was gentle, and waited until the rest departed, and then he told the king his news. 

Gil-galad thanked him - thanked him - with firm tone, and steady hands, but he felt as if he had been struck down. And when his affairs were settled and he had a moment of rest he fled to the tent of Círdan.

Círdan was troubled. 

“The days are evil indeed and much is shrouded, even despite the visions of the rings, but I would think I would have known such a thing. I do not think I would have been blind to such loss.”

He looked at the distraught face of his king. 

“Neither, do I think, would you.” 

Gil-galad’s face was stricken, for here, he need not be high king, but Ereinion, and Círdan saw the steady youth who had once accepted a burden too heavy for his young shoulders. Saw him as he had been when the crown was placed on his raven black hair. How he had straightened his jaw and held his shoulders aloft proudly, but Círdan had seen then too, the uncertainty in his eyes. 

How he longed to hold him as he had that first night, to whisper assurances that he bore the blood of mighty heroes and he would surely handle each task that came to him with the same honor and courage. That he would not be left to face those tasks alone, so long as Círdan lived. 

“Tell me it is not true.”

“Do you think it is true?” Asked Círdan.

“I do not trust myself.” said the king. 

“I do not think we would have been so blind to it, here.” Círdan said again, and he laid a hand on Ereinion’s heart. 

“Still, if it is true, we must honor him. We must honor the many we have lost.” 

He sighed and pulled the king’s forehead to his own. 

“And if it is not, we may yet meet again. Come Ereinion, we must not falter now.”

…

He was walking a silver path. 

Behind him was darkness. 

He knew it was there, he did not have to turn to see it, he felt its hovering, possessive presence over him. He did not need to turn and observe it, to recognize the searing pain of its touch, the tendrils of it still clinging to him. It had held him beyond his will, and even now, it still grasped at him. He felt it tugging on his shoulders, creeping over them like a cloak, pulling him as if it had made a claim, begging him to remain. 

He would not turn back to it. But he found he could not move quickly enough to outrun it, weary as he was, and it nipped at his heels as he drove forward. 

He kept walking forth from it. He set it behind him. It would not keep him. 

He walked on a silver path in a whispering forest. The trees were tall and fireflies swirled in their depths, sparkling as the stars did in the heavens. 

He walked and he heard whispers calls from the deep bowels of the night. The grass gleamed beneath his feet, edges touched by the lights in the heaven, and small white flowers bloomed in the sparse light. Yet the darkness spread above him as he stared, he was panting, he could not move fast enough to escape its reach. It was covering the stars.

He heard evil whispers around him, they were singing of wholeness, promising something they could not give. 

The song was sweet and it was a song, where he had none. And so he listened to it as he walked, for his own being felt empty and foreign to him, barren where there had once been life. 

He listened, but he wept to see that as the song rose around him, pulling, pulling, pulling, the silver grasses withered, the trees before him bent crookedly, the flowers drooped in decay. 

The song was evil. It would be better to sing naught at all then to sing such a melody. 

He ran from it with what strength remained to him, and it fell behind, and the path opened and he saw a great throne. A mighty woman sat on it, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders. Nightingales flitted and hovered above her head, and she instructed them in their song. Around her, a thicket of thorn rose, a guard against the pressing darkness, and it was dangerous, he knew, but it was so beautiful and its whispers so enchanting, he wished to fling himself into it. But as he stepped up to it, it receded, parted, let him through, and it left flowers in his hair as he passed. 

He was on a hilltop now. 

On it, a woman danced. As she danced the earth rose up to meet her. Flower and vine grew up around her light, springing feet, they wove themselves into her blue garment. Her hair was long and black, and it shone in the light of the stars. She sang and the word shuddered, not in fear or torment, but for the beauty of it. And where she sang, bird and beast followed, enchanted by her dance and the long shadowy cloak she wore. She flung out her arms and from her fingers fell delicate petals, and they stuck to him and wove themselves into his own hands. He longed to reach out to her, but instead her lover came to her, and their embrace swept over him like a call, like their joining was calling him forth. 

Their son was beautiful and his daughter. But the evil chant fell over them as he watched and sorrow came, and the daughter grew up clad in it, she stood on beaches instead of forests, and she stared out at a lonely horizon. He saw her go up to the homely house, and her face was lightened by the sound of boyish laughter within it and he heard the song of many strains push back against the song of darkness. He leaned against the lit windows of the warm house. He could not go in. But he heard the boyish voices singing with her, and like the vines had grown up the garments of Lúthien, he looked down at his feet and saw that the flowers were growing around him, they were bowing and weaving as if in rhythm. They threaded themselves into his cloak. 

The house receded. 

He walked a silver path. 

A harp played in the depths of the woods and he saw the light of a warm fire. He could not enter its gentle circle, but he heard the same voices of the boys in song, saw small heads resting on strong shoulders, saw the fierce light in faces that had at first been terrible to him. He heard soft laughter that should have been bitter but was not, and another flowery thread wound up and wrapped around him. 

And suddenly the forest was gone and the sea had returned. He stood on a dais at his brother's side and placed the scepter in his hands and the men shouted with great joy and the elven delegation nodded with grace as Tar-Minyatur took his seat of rule. After the celebrations the two had walked along the shore. It was early morning, the last stars giving way to the light of the approaching sun, but the light of Eärendil shone on the king and his brother as they stood together. The king had left his crown behind and they walked as they had as children, arms slung around each other as the surf pounded behind them, and the salt spray collected on their brows.  

He followed behind, though he could not catch up, and the blooming sea thrift blew against his tunic and wound around him and another thread joined the others. 

The shores receded.

He stood on the silver path. 

And the path shuddered with life. Vine and blossom stretched before him, rose and curled around his face. Arrayed his arms as if bracelets made of costly gold. Around him clung the flowers and vines that had wound themselves around him as he walked, those and many others. They climbed up his tunic and across his shoulders, they wove a circlet across his brow, they sighed and brushed and whispered. And suddenly the flowers turned golden and their tendrils were warm and he recognized the song of life being coaxed from coldness. He had sung it himself so many times to a cold world, and now where he was cold, the warmed world returned it to him. 

From a great distance he heard the cry to Elbereth being sung and his own lips formed the words he had written. 

He opened his mouth, and song came forth. 

And the darkness receded. 

…

He woke up. 

Îdhanar rested in slumber against the headpost of his bed. 

He looked up at the rough hewn walls of the halls, the wide windows where bright, warm, light now streamed forth from. He saw the healing plants he had transplanted with the others on that last, fateful day as they stood now bending with grace, giving off a sweet, healing aroma. 

He was home. 

Vorohil sat beside the bed reading a scroll - Vorohil, a scroll! - Camnir would not believe such a thing! The swordsman straightened as if he heard the rustle of opening eyes lids and looked over. 

The joy could have killed him; it was so sharp. He flung himself on the bed and wrapped his commander in his arms and wept. 

“Ai Elrond, we thought we had lost you. Eru be praised.”

“You may lose him still, if you crush him so.” Îdhanar scolded, roused by Vorohil’s cry and hovering near now like a mother hen, his own face awash in unrestrained joy. 

Elrond allowed himself to drift in the embrace of his friend. It had been so long since he had felt held by goodness and tears fell from his own eyes as he rested in its touch. 

He was home.

He clung to Vorohil until he felt warm again, until his arms weakened anew and his lids fluttered shut. 

As he drifted away, Vorohil laid him back down gently and gripped his fingers tightly against his heart. He looked with pleading eyes to Îdhanar.

"This is a good sleep."

Îdhanar said.

"The worst is past."

And he and Vorohil embraced one another and wept for joy. 

…

Glorfindel was not there to see it. He had gone out to defend the outposts against a roaming band of orcs that had been spotted. They were small in number and Glorfindel had led the elves against them and they were vanquished. 

In the midst of the skirmish, he felt his heart lighten and with gladness, he knew the commander had returned to the land of the living. But he spent the next days patrolling with the troops for he did not wish to risk missing any survivors from the skirmish who might return to the dark Lord.

When he returned, it was to a commander who had already donned his tunic and made his way through the settlement. His face held wonder and pride over the progress the people had made in his absence. He was pale and unsteady, but he walked with a faded kind of grace, and Glorfindel saw him greeting the orphans and speaking to the wounded and meeting his captains at council. He saw he did so to restore their hope and joy, even at pain to himself, and Glorfindel knew then that he loved him. 

And Glorfindel saw the same love in the set and shining faces of the young warriors who followed him, and the old who cherished his words, and the young ones whom he had helped carry on their desperate flight from Eregion. And he knew with the gifts he had been given, that this love amongst the scattered, would give birth to a place of sanctuary, and his heart rejoiced for the light born out from under the crushing blow of the darkness.  With all his heart, he wished to remain here. 

He knew the commander was looking for him after his return. Once he had seen that the wounds of his warriors had been tended and the defenses shored up after the last attack, he bathed the blood off his shoulders and dressed himself in a white tunic. He went to the great hall where he knew he might find the commander and waited there before the flaming hearth. 

Elrond met him. 

He reached out and touched his hand, brought it up to his breast. 

“Thank you.”

“For preserving them while I was gone. For coming to aid me. If you had not come at that hour, I fear where my spirit may have fled - for the darkness was great.” 

Glorfindel clasped his hands to his own breast. 

“It was my joy to preserve what you began. It was my joy to return you to them.” 

He squeezed the still weak hand in his grip.

“They look to you, Elrond Peredhel.” 

Elrond was quiet. 

“The darkness is bitter. More bitter than even I had thought. Strength we indeed need to resist it, strength of purpose, strength of will -  but also goodness and light. Armies we need, to stave off the dark, but also healers and beauty to nourish the light within. For the darkness can take no hold on that which love has already claimed.”

Already he was nearly breathless with the effort of speaking, his face still wan with pain and Glorfindel boldly reached out to steady him. 

“I will have much need of those who can bring both.”

Glorfindel’s heart swelled with joy. 

“It would be my great honor to stay and serve you, Lord.” 

And he bowed low. 

Elrond smiled. 

“Lord, you may not call me. Do you think I do not know the history of Glorfindel the golden! Ere the dawn of the battle we fought at Eregion I thought of you. My soldiers and I sang the songs of your clash with the Balrog. We called our own plight after your fight. Before I became commander, I was a studier of our histories, do you think that I would not have known you? When you dropped from the heavens before me, I thought you had come to lead my soul to Mandos.”

His smile faded and his face became gentle. 

“Titles need not be worn here. I am Elrond, half-elven, many have brought me to where I stand now.”

Glorfindel smiled. 

“I must doubt your words, for how, knowing my history, could you think I would abandon a fight I have taken up as my own, Lord Elrond? For I shall call you Lord, and I do not intend to lose this battle with you. And I will say that few others would have been so bold as to tell me what I am permitted to say or not.” 

Elrond laughed then, and Glorfindel with him and it was the first of many times the valley would hear the sound of their joy ring out together.

Chapter Text

Elrond stood looking over the valley. 

His strength had still not fully returned to him, but he had slipped here in the early morning to see what remained of the protection he had woven before he left. 

Finally, as the sun rose quietly, and its rays fell upon the waking valley, warming the air with its embrace, he had a singular moment of peace. 

He was no longer his own, but all of theirs. He did not resent it, but the moment of solitude was like a long-awaited balm to him. Sauron’s malice had hung like a shroud over him. Smothering, suffocating, driving the song from his lips. It had taken all the grace of his foreparents, all the grace of his long-suffering strength, all the grace given to him by those that had loved him, to cast it out. 

The effort had exhausted him. 

And then, it had been both his joy and his burden to be present for the people who needed to see him. 

He was no longer his own, in a sense. 

Gil-galad had told him that, when Elrond had once scolded him for allowing the courtiers to demand too much of his time and not taking enough rest for himself. 

“A king is not his own. That is the burden of the crown.” 

It was not the same, but a lord was not his own either, and whether or not he desired the title, the people had picked up Glorfindel’s use of it, and now he had given up arguing with them. 

It was both his burden and joy. 

He thought of Ereinion.

He missed him.

With all his might he wished for the simplicity of those lost times where he had stood at his king’s side, scolding him for not taking enough rest. How Ereinion would turn around and do the same to him, mentioning his half-elven status. In the beginning it had seemed an insult, now he knew it had been used in affection. 

How he wished he could be at Gil-galad’s side now, as the end loomed before them. 

But Elrond was bound to Imladris and the people who followed him, and the King to Lindon where he had taken his defenses, and between both of them lay an army the likes of which Elrond knew had not existed in Arda for many years. And it was evil. He had tasted it, thick on his tongue, corrupting and sweet. It would turn the whole of Arda inside out under its black touch. Even now it reached for the last bastions of light, for the remnants of Eregion, for the shining king.

May the Valar protect you my king.

It was the only thing he could offer him now. A whispered prayer. He had climbed the cliffside and stood in the cold morning reaching for the enchantments he once sung over the valley. They were weak, he knew. He had not felt their tug when he awoke, and now from where he stood he could finally reach out and touch them. But like ghosts they were, the last tendrils of his protection fading like shrouds of fog before the rising sun. Like smoke chased by the wind from cooling embers. The cloak of enchantment was faint, so very faint. 

It would not be enough to keep Sauron from finding them. 

He would not let him have Imladris. Not its people. Not the light that had been guarded so fiercely in its shabby persistence.

But he felt so very lightheaded. 

It was the weakness of his recovering body, taxed to the edge of its limits, he knew. Every part of the healer in him knew he was pushing - pushing too hard. The song had returned to him, but he knew as weak as he was, so the song would be. It would not be enough for the vastness of the shadow. 

Still, he was stubborn. 

He reached deep down and gently tried to coax out a melody of enchantment and protection. 

It came forward, but the threads hardly strengthened. The trees trembled and shook their boughs at him, and the birds fluttered anxiously around. 

Again he tried, reaching to wrest it out of himself. He was trembling from the exertion, he could barely move, the wind tossed him in its grip and he swayed. 

An arm caught him, steadied him. 

“Lord, you cannot.” 

He looked into the compassionate and stern face of Glorfindel. 

“Your strength has not returned enough. It will kill you if you keep trying.”

It was true.

“In truth you are right my friend. Would that I still had some strength left with which to protect them.” 

He looked mournfully over the beautiful valley. 

“The songs will not hold.” 

Glorfindel nodded. 

“Neither will you, if you try again before you have regained your strength. Grievous was your time with evil I fear, and time it will take to recover fully. Lean for a time on the strength of the warriors who now guard the valley, lean on mine. Our swords are not without merit”

Elrond was quiet when he spoke again. 

“I will not try now, for I will save what I may for the final test. Resist it or not, it will still come to us.” He sighed. 

 “But you speak true - much can yet be decided through the skill of our blades, the cunning of our minds and the strength of will we hold.”

They stood together in perfect understanding. 

“Lead them with me.” 

The lord said, and the golden warrior bowed. 

…

It was one of the wild men who came to him and told him of what he had found. 

He had stumbled upon it. A trace of  fading enchantments. The strange whispers had clung to him, but he had broken through and when he looked off the precipice on which he stood, he had seen it from afar - the long sought for stronghold. 

“It is true Master.” 

Sauron could not turn aside now, as he moved the legions of his might to corner the king. Long had he prepared his forces to assail what remained of Gil-galad’s beleaguered army in the havens, and now he marched at their head, holding his troops under his iron hand. If he moved his full power he had no doubt the evasive King would fall to his grasp. 

But finally he knew where the little bird had flown. 

He could not be permitted to sally forth to help his king, and he could not be allowed to escape. 

Sauron wanted him contained. 

He took his best commander, and a fifth of his force and sent them to lay siege to the valley, to bring a force against them that would occupy all of their strength. Loath he was to abandon the bird and his nest, but he bent his mind towards the greater prize, the golden king. Once he had him in his grasp, the little bird would come out, would try to reclaim him, and Sauron would be waiting. 

When he was back in his hand, then, he would show him the fullness of his mercy. 

So he sent them off and turned his malice towards the havens. 

…

They built it together. 

The master builders, the healers, singers and warriors and bread makers - even the little children. 

As one, they laid the white stones and planted lovely plants until the courtyard shone under the light of the moon and stars and when it was finished, they placed Celebrimbor’s remains in an urn and built over it a beautiful small replica of the forge tower that had given him such joy. They had thought about what to put there, a replica of Feanor’s hammer, or his crest. But Elrond wanted to remember the smith as he stood in his glory, his pride, and the fullness of optimism in what he might achieve for elvendom. He remembered every detail of the forge they had planned together. 

So they had built the tower, and at its top, the master craftsman had set a white jewel so that the light of the stars was caught in it and sparkled with great clarity. 

The Light of Celebrimbor they called it. 

And when they sang in the courtyard that night, the people had wept long healing tears. The songs of lament mingling with the shouts of preparation for the approaching war. 

Glorfindel and Elrond had spent days preparing Imladris for what they knew must be coming towards them. Defenses had been prepared and plans drawn. A sort of guerrilla warfare to keep whatever forces came against them off balance. A diverting attack here, a series of laid traps and snares there. A thick guard of men to watch the bridge. Archers stationed on the overhanging cliffs to pick off those who would assault the bridge. It would take a truly mighty power to smash into the now stalwart defenses of the last remaining homely house in eastern Eriador.

They were ready. 

And finally one windy afternoon, as Elrond and his captains bent over their plans, the horns of the valley sounded in warning. A sentry burst into the hall, his steps clattering as he ran up to the group. 

Elrond looked up at him and he steeled his heart. 

The time had come

He had fought long enough with the darkness and spent enough time under its shroud to know it would have to silence his very gasps for breath before he let it claim that which he loved so dearly. 

Sauron would not claim them. 

He felt some pity for the thralls of Sauron, and he did not think it was arrogant, even pinned down as they were, for bitter would this stand be, if it were their last. 

He was reaching for the curved blade at his side, his fingers itched for its weight in his hand. He felt a ragged, untamed ferocity rising out of his being. It was his song, rising up in blinding defiance. And before him flashed images of bright swords and tall helms, the long history of all those who had come before him. He saw all this and then he looked and saw the resolute determination in the faces of the elves who looked to him as the sentry breathlessly came to a stop before the table. 

“They come.” He panted. 

And Elrond let the song forth, let it surge into his words and beat its defiance into the hearts of those around him. He saw it reflected in their faces and in their own answering shout and the tightening of their fingers around their weapons. 

“Come, let us show them the strength of our people.”

…

Birds of carrion circled the hushed expectant armies, waiting. Already they had gorged themselves on the wreck of Eriador. They had followed on Gil-galad's trail as he retreated, feasting on the fallen. Greedily, despite the mounds of flesh available to them, they hung overhead as the approaching might of Sauron's army pressed the elves back to a final stand. They desired fresh meat. 

Gil-galad and Círdan had placed their troops strategically against the Lhûn. The small river would do what it could to protect the remnant of the elves. The rings helped as well, and long did the two of them labor to build up defenses with their powers. 

They felt it before they saw it. In the trembling of the earth and the fading of life. Saw it in the shrinking of the trees and in the hiding of the creatures. The great force of Sauron came, and before it crouched a greedy darkness, stretching out lustful fingers for the last shreds of the once great Lindon. Gil-galad watched it come, and he wondered if this was the moment the ring had warned him of. His heart ached for such a bitter end, knowing not the fate of the rest of those whom he loved, and the fate of all the good left in Arda. At first he felt a great despair, and then as the dark hand stretched ever nearer, he felt instead an answering defiance rise out of the brokenness of his heart. 

Let it be such an end, Sauron. 

Come and take us if you may!

He had dreamed the night before that Sauron had stood before him, and he looked neither fair as he had as Mairon, nor humble as he had presented himself as Halbrand, but a twisted demon he was. And Gil-galad smote him, even as he himself crumbled into ashes. 

Flame and shadow. 

The old visions had returned. 

Death came for him on swift feet. He knew his days were numbered. Knew that something chanted in him to prepare to withstand, to safeguard. He felt great bitterness for the end seemed nigh and he had begged for a chance to leave Arda with hope and none was in his power to offer. 

So let us make such an end. 

Gil-galad knew that Sauron had drawn all of his strength about him and came forward in terrifying might. Yet when the scouts came, their calculations were not as evil as they had at first surmised. And when the first companies marched into view with their evil spears and standards held high, the force was mighty indeed, but not such that they  would be overwhelmed immediately. If it had been any larger, surely all would have been lost. 

Now, Gil-galad stood at the head of his warriors, to meet the great seizing hand. 

It was almost a relief to meet him here, finally, face to face on the field of battle. His deceptions had splintered their relationships, caused mistrust between the ones he loved the most. The glorious city of Ost-in-Edhil and her lord, the skilled and gracious Celebrimbor had been lost to his webs. 

The elves had not done well. They had been behind him at every step, too busy keeping secrets of their own to see the deceiver's work in front of them. He knew this, but he did not dwell on it any longer. Now, they must do what they could. Now, they must thwart him for as long as they may.

And it was a relief to meet Sauron here, on the battlefield, at long last. 

At least, if death comes, I will try to smite him. 

He had laughed at death when he and Elrond had been at the mercy of Adar in the burning city, and now he thought he would embrace it again, but not before he dealt Sauron a blow of his own. 

If Fingolfin himself wrestled with Morgoth and left his mark on him, a limp to mar his step forever, surely I may wrestle with his servant and deal him a blow of at least equal merit. 

He was astride his faithful horse. The sunlight caught in his flowing mane as he galloped down the thin lines. It was beautiful, even here. 

He raised his eyes and the last of Lindon saw the light there, the glory of elvendom, the might of the last of the great high kings. 

His voice was terrible with the light it held. 

“The shores wait behind you. Flee if you may! It will not be held against you.”

He looked at the sun on his horse's mane, and the elven warriors with set faces. He was not the first to stand and plead with the Eldar to look after this place they had chosen to stay. He was not the first to exhort them to look after those younger than them who had woken later. He was not the first, he did not believe - even now - he would be the last to beg a stand against the might of evil.  

“Flee! And it will not be held against you. But if you have ever looked upon the shores of this place with love, if the rising sun dancing on the tall hemlocks has ever warmed your heart, I bid you stay. If the stars reflecting on the waters of Arda have ever caused you joy, I bid you stay. If plant or flower or tree or creature has ever moved you to song, I bid you stay. 

What is foul seeks a hold on all things. 

Let us deny him what he desires. 

Each cherished life, the well-being of the other races whom we have guided and looked over, the goodness of the earth, the sweetness of life in its majesty, each fragment kept from his foul touch is a victory! I bid you cast him out! Deny him his joy. Tear the prize from his hands. For he craves the domination of all life - and we shall not grant it to him.

Resist now, I call upon you to resist. 

For all that is beautiful in Arda, for all we have stayed for these long years. While we live, he shall not have what he desires.”

Círdan was at his back, his face shining with pride, and the elves stirred to great ferocity at the words of their king and when the first hordes of orcs crashed against their lines with evil intent, they broke not. And so it was that after the first evil day of fighting, they were still standing, and when the sun rose on the second, it rose on mighty sails filling the harbor. The warships of Númenor had come. 

Then the malice of Sauron and his evil joy shattered. Forces of fierce eyed men climbed up the beaches with long, glittering swords and joined the ragged groups of elven warriors and in great vigor they went forth to fight Sauron. 

The Dark Lord broke before them.

The mighty army he had paraded in great show through a devastated Lindon retreated, and he at their head. At his heels followed the men and the elves, they harried him and pressed hard. Once again the armies clashed together, and once again, Sauron was forced to withdraw. 

Great was the rejoicing of the armies then. 

Still Sauron was not without teeth, and rumors came that he had joined his army with fresh forces, what remained of his reserves and a still formidable force remained. 

Gil-galad, Círdan, the Númenoran admiral Ciryatur, and his captains met and held council, and Ciryatur revealed that even more ships were even now arriving. He sent a messenger to them to divert course. So it was that when their forces besieged Sauron at the mouth of the river Gwathló, the diverted ships arrived at his back and the two fronts caught what remained of Sauron’s might and crushed it. 

And Sauron, without honor, turned and fled with a handful of his thralls, leaving his servants to die crushed on his field of ignominy. 

His might was destroyed and man and elf rejoiced alike, the songs rising into the sweet, liberated air. 

But the leaders met in their tents as their warriors sang. 

“I will pursue this miscreant and catch him.” Ciryatur said. 

“He shall suffer for what he has wrought here. Neither shall he be permitted to rise again, for when I send word of our victory here, Ar-Pharazôn will sail to these shores. I shall bring Sauron to him in chains. For he desires to keep contained what you have not.” 

At his side Elendil, a captain with great courage and great grace in his bearing, looked at Gil-galad. His eyes bore an apology. 

“When we have kept evil contained for centuries, perhaps we may speak then with such pride.” He said gently, and so amiably, the admiral did not take his words ill. 

“Nonetheless, we shall take him, for such is the desire of our king.” Said the admiral. 

“Take him! And let these gentle shores be rid of him.” Gil-galad said. 

“But I will accompany you no further. I left behind a contingent of my people in Imladris. I would bid farewell to you here and march my army there, in hopes some remain still. I wish success upon your own task and pray the blessing of the Valar be on you.”

Captain Elendil stepped forward. 

“I would bring the forces under my command with you, Gil-galad, if my commander allows. An alliance of man and elf has together broken the might of Sauron. It seems fitting to me that one should remain by your side, to lend aid where it still might be given.”

“So be it.” said Ciryatur.

“I will pursue the craven Lord. When you have finished your task, I would be keen to see you rejoin me in my endeavor. For though craven, I deem him crafty, and I will have need of your help before the end, to corner him where he may be caught. May you not be disappointed in what your heart seeks and may your journey be not without reward.” 

“May the stars shine on you.” Gil-galad returned, bowing. 

…

Thus it was that the Eldar and the Edain rode out together. 

Elendil rode at the side of the king and quickly did their kinship grow as he spoke the old tongue and Ereinion found himself looking into gray eyes that flashed with something familiar to him. So it was that when Elendil revealed his heritage, Ereinion understood why he felt as if he had known him for a long time. Then the captain's son had rode up to his side and in his earnest young face he saw Elrond’s twin. Young Elros, who had become a mighty king. 

But the march was grievous, for Sauron had laid waste to all of Eriador. He had killed without qualm, torn down the beautiful homes and halls of the Eldar. His hand had stretched and squeezed out life, broken limb and heart, ransacked what was once beautiful. As Gil-galad passed each new monument of death and decay, his face fell further still. Elendil saw the burden on his shoulders and he ached for the pain he knew the king suffered. 

As they drew closer and closer to the valley Gil-galad felt almost sick, as one does when they are desperate to know the truth but terrified of what it may reveal. He steeled himself against Círdan and his hopeful words, against the joy he had felt when the tide had turned. Everywhere he looked as they marched he saw bodies and decay. None remained of those he had left behind when he had traveled swiftly to Lindon.

He thought of Elrond, how he had held his battered body in his arms after the fall of Eregion. He had shared all of his hope with him then. He found now, that it rested in him. 

Yet it would be foolish to hope such a thing could be.

It would be asking for too much. 

…

He sat in his tent alone. 

The ring on his finger sang. 

Even after the defeat of Sauron she still warned. 

He saw a battlefield again. Sometimes he thought that was all the ring revealed to him. War and death and life slipping reluctantly from the beautiful lands and forests of Middle Earth like some sorrowful specter. 

Death. 

Decay. 

Departure. 

Even now, in the midst of it. 

He twisted the ring on his finger. He begged it for hope. 

Sauron was broken, but she still sang and his doom had not changed. 

When his doom came, who would he leave to take care of what remained of the light of the Eldar and the goodness of Arda? The guidance of the Edain? 

Círdan with his quiet faith had told him he did not believe the evil rumours were true when they had reached them. Gil-galad wished he were like him, that he might be able to cling to hope. He wished he could quiet his mind enough to ascertain if he believed them or not. 

He knew he was too compromised to know.

His hope and love overrode his ability to discern. 

So instead he pushed it out of his mind as much as he could. 

He would not think of it.

It was too much to hope for when the scarred earth cried out around him, and the stench of rotten corpses rose to the heavens, and vulture and varmint alike feasted on the fallen. It was too much to hope for when the whispered news had first fallen on his ears, it was too much to hope for when the familiar armor had been sent to him when Sauron had them cornered and had wanted no doubt, to drive the stake of despair through his heart.

It was too much to hope for. 

The messenger flung aside the flap to his tent.

His heart beat a hopeful tattoo in his breast. He could not help it. 

“My king, we have sighted orc fires.”

…

In the middle of the melee, Gil-gald swung his spear. Before its wrath, the servants of Sauron fell in droves. At his side Elendil cut through his opponents with great skill of his own, and at his side stood his son, who followed in his wake with devotion.

Sauron was not here. At first they thought perhaps he had retreated to this army, but he had not. It was led by an evil orc captain who met them with unyielding strength. The fighting was thick where the king fought with Círdan and the Numenoreans at his side and they found themselves pressed back. 

Gil-galad saw siege towers and trebuchets, he saw the signs of a bitter siege.

If they had brought such a force here to the valley, it meant that some must remain. 

It was too much to hope for!

Then there came a sound of blowing horns, and from the valley, elven fighters rode forth in a great clash and shout. 

His heart leapt within him. 

The orc commander, seeing the elves approaching from the valley, turned with a last great effort towards the King and his men and threw himself on their forces, desperately trying to win enough ground to purchase an escape. 

Gil-galad leapt to meet him. They traded blows and the fighting became fierce, for surrounding the commander were a large group of berserker orcs. They harried the captains and their press against the high king and his companions was desperate and fierce. 

Gil-galad smote down their commander but as he turned to meet the descending berserkers, a warrior broke through their lines. The high king paused for the stroke of his sword was familiar - a movement that carried both the grace of the Eldar and the ragged edge of the Edain. Some tattered and long-suffering part of his heart pulsed in agony as he strained to see the warrior's face. The warrior did not turn, but he did not need to, for he as he danced beneath the descending arc of a sword he stooped to the earth, and when he rose again he had lost his helmet and dark curls tumbled forth. 

It was Elrond. 

Their eyes met.

Suddenly the ground between them was no longer separating them, they stood in front of one another and it was Elrond, the same Elrond he had left behind, but he held himself with a new grace and at his back followed a golden warrior and a company of fierce warriors. They bowed to the king and went forth swiftly, pursuing the fleeing orcs. 

“Ereinion.” Elrond was saying, his face awash with light.

Gil-galad felt ferocious in his joy. It stole his breath and took the words from his lips. He felt he might lose his mind to it. 

His hope stood before him, and the ring was singing on his finger. She sang to the king now, not of the battles he had seen over and over, but of his hope, she was singing with him, finally. 

He flung his arms around his herald, pulled him into his embrace.

He was real. He was alive. He was here. 

“We heard you were dead.”

“No, Ereinion, I am here.”

He pulled back to look at his face. 

“I knew he would not be able to take you, Ereinion. His malice could not stand forever. Not against you.”

“Not against us.” 

The King’s tears flowed over Elrond’s head as he wept against the kings shoulder. When they pulled away from each other, their joy overcame them and they laughed through the tears. 

Elrond's curls had almost reached his shoulders now, so long had they grown. Ereinion laughed at him as he shook them back from his face. 

“If you are going to let those grow long, herald, you should learn to braid them away from your face.”

“Perhaps my liege will be gracious and show me how.” 

Elrond returned. 

And with joy they embraced again.

…

When the last orc had been slain, Elrond and Ereinion met with the other captains on the field. Círdan and Elrond embraced and then Elrond turned to meet Elendil and he bowed. 

“It is with great joy that I receive you, Elendil.”

Elendil stared at him. He had seen this face in the tapestries and art hung in his city, this face so like their first great king. He bowed in response. 

“With joy, I accept your welcome.” 

He gripped Elrond’s forearm. 

“Well do I feel I know you, though we have just met.”

And then Isildur, his impetuous son, strode forward and also clasped Elrond’s hand eagerly. 

“Truly, you look as well as you do in the tapestries hung in the halls of lore!”

Elrond laughed but his eyes became soft when he looked at Isildur and Gil-galad saw that he was not the only one who thought the youth bore an uncommon resemblance to Elrond’s twin. 

“Well met, Isildur.” 

“It would do us great honor to house you in Imladris.”

… 

The valley bore the recent signs of war on its edges. Blackened outposts and trampled trees told of fires that had been set with the intention to burn out. The outer defenses were smashed and crumbling in areas where the trebuchets had found their mark. All around there were signs of desperate struggle. Still, as Gil-galad rode into the valley at Elrond’s side he could not help but stare in wonder at what had sprung up in his absence. 

“Imladris greets you with great joy.” Elrond said and his eyes shone as they rode themselves through the valley, over bridge and up to halls and homes. The elves protected within came out and hailed the king with shouts of welcome and the king was moved to great joy. 

First the wounded were carried to beautiful healing halls and tended. When the injured had received care, Elrond led the captains to a large hall and the people arranged a simple meal with what food they had. The king sat at the head of the table in the great hall and when he looked out at the people he saw for a moment, the former glory of elvendom, here in this little refuge, even despite all that had been lost to the wrath of Sauron. 

Some remained. 

The light of the Eldar was here. Preserved in this little sanctuary. 

He looked to his side where Elrond sat beside him. He saw no longer the young herald who had been uncertain of his place in court despite his gifts. 

He was still the Elrond he had cared for and guided and loved for so many years, yet he was also changed. An air of authority hung around him in the manner with which he spoke to and guided the people. He was still kind and gentle to those around him, and Gil-galad could still see the edge under the calm that he and Círdan had once kept an eye on with amusement. Elrond was at once like his foster parents, dangerous and diplomatic, and he was like his parents, full of light and song, courage  and gracious forbearance. All of these gifts sat on his brow and he wore them with pride and did not hide that which had been given him. He seemed noble and as a great lord of times past.

He heard the people call his herald such, and he laughed as Elrond waved the title away, shrugging with amused despair at his delighted king. Vorohil who had reunited with an overwhelmed and overjoyed Camnir, had indulged in too much of the amber mead and he now rose and toasted Elrond with great emotion. Gil-galad thought his herald might throttle the ginger warrior there on the spot, but Glorfindel had risen then, and claimed responsibility for the creation of the title and none would deny Glorfindel, but none also would deny that the son of Eärendil and Elwing and the fosterling of Maedhros and Maglor was indeed lordly and commanded great respect both within and without the valley he had cherished and nurtured.

Gil-galad saw the light of the Eldar in the simple halls and he saw the gentle hand of his herald guiding the people within, and for the first time since he had placed the ring on his finger, he felt great peace. 

Vilya, where she sat on his finger, hummed in unison with him. 

…

Elrond and Ereinion bid the Númenoreans goodnight and Círdan went with them to help arrange the beds for their men.

Then Elrond walked with his king to a small courtyard. It was still fresh of make, clean stones shining under the moonlight. 

A small stone monument stood in the clear night. It was carved in a replica of a forge tower, and the stone that was inlaid at its top sparkled in the starlight. 

Gil-galad and Elrond stood together and sung a long lament over their lost friend. They sung through the night and Círdan came and joined them for a time before departing. 

So the night passed and when the light of the climbing sun broke through the cool morning and touched their faces, the king spoke. 

“Glorfindel told me of the evil you suffered at the hands of Sauron.” He said, and he looked with grief at the deep sorrows freshly etched on the face of his dearly beloved herald. 

“Would that I could have spared you that pain.” 

Elrond thought of his pain. He could hold it now without it wounding him as it had when the memory of its touch was too near. The tents of Sauron, his evil song, the killing of the brave young warrior, the parading of the banner before him…it had caused him great sickness when he thought of it at first. 

The darkness had been overwhelming, suffocating. 

He had looked it full in the face, and thought for a moment, of submission. 

“If you had not come at that hour, I fear where I would have gone - for the darkness was great.” he had told Glorfindel…

And yet 

It had not taken him. 

“All is well now, Ereinion. And we have both passed through this test of darkness at least.”

He looked at the tomb shining in the morning light and he felt gladness for what his suffering had bought. 

“And now at least, we may honor our dear Celebrimbor.”

“Yes.” The king assented, but he saw in Elrond’s eyes that some burden remained and he remembered Celebrimbor’s talk of the prophecy of Eärendil. 

He had seen it in Elrond's eyes as they had rode to Eregion and in his suffering silence after the city had fallen. He had not known then, what to say to him to comfort him. 

But now, as he stood before the simple tomb of the smith, he thought of what he had seen. The people of Ost-in-Edhil supping and singing in simple halls earlier, a refugee settlement turning from something practical into something hallowed, the light of the Eldar enduring in this place, guided that way by the will of the one who stood before him. 

“Our friend must surely know great joy in the halls of Mandos, Elrond.” 

He saw hunger in the eyes as they turned towards him. 

“When your father foresaw that you held the future of Celebrimbor in your hands, indeed, he must have seen this valley. These people. Celebrimbor was lord of Ost-in-Edhil. In every stone and building he was, and the elves he loved and ruled over were his joy, if they had been lost, then he would have been lost. But he remains. It is his people that he saw as his future and here they are cherished and looked after by the son of Eärendil.” 

He held open his arms and Elrond, trembling, took his warm embrace. 

“The light of Celebrimbor endures here. You have seen that it is so.” 

So it was that the sun broke over the two of them as they stood in embrace and Gil-galad held his hope for Arda in his arms and knew great peace. 

When the darkness came again, as it was wont to do in whatever manner or form, when his time came for him on swift and sorrowful feet, there was one whom he could send in his stead to preserve the light of the Eldar and the guidance of the Edain. 

He would not be leaving Arda bereft. 

And the sun rose over the king and his herald. 

Epilogue: 

The fleeing Sauron found himself greeted by an army of Galadhrim commanded by the Lady Galadriel whom he had failed twice to bring under his sway. Loath to meet her in battle, he turned back, only to find himself hemmed in by the forces of the High King. Surrounded at all sides, the Dark Lord could not bear to be captured by the lady Galadriel or the scion of Lúthien who came against him at the side of the golden king, so he flung himself at the feet of the admiral Ciryatur and begged to be brought to Ar-Pharazon the great, so that he might do homage to him. 

So Sauron went forth to the island of Numenór. It was not the last time he would return to these shores, for he must suffer his last great defeat. The final one, in no small part brought about by the guidance of those two whom he was too ashamed to surrender to, the Lady and the Lord.

But that day was not come yet. 

Nor the evil day the herald would be separated from his king, and the noble captain Elendil from his son Isildur. 

And it need not be thought of here, for at the moment of Sauron's surrender, light and joy reigned over all of Arda. And in that moment, the High King and his herald, the Lady Galadriel and Círdan, and Elendil and Isildur who would return to these shores, only knew joy.

And here, let us leave them.