Work Text:
The Ithryn Luin speak often between themselves, their own mission beyond the scope and knowledge granted to Glorfindel himself. The maiar shift forms throughout the journey, in the likenesses of the race of Man, age marking their faces which by turns are male, female, pale, dark, heavily lined, bearded, or as clear as Glorfindel's own. Their bodies likewise spend a morning stooped, an evening tall, rounded or thin by turns, sometimes mirroring and sometimes opposing one another in appearance.
The kaleidoscopic change slows during the passage along the straight road, where the very air changes as their ship moves towards the altered shore of Middle Earth itself, the wizards' images solidifying as mortal lands draw closer, as the scent of the ocean deepens, rich with life and decay. Glorfindel watches as age settles over them in weight, in time, not just in appearance.
It is a distraction from his own thoughts, from decisions he cannot make without information he does not know, and from all the paths that lie open before him in living once again. The alteration of the maiar beside him lends a strange sense of acceptance to the alteration of the world they are approaching.
Glorfindel knows the outline of these new coasts from above, from maps drawn by Earendil's hand. He knows the kingdoms and peoples of this Second Age, from having spoken to elves recently sailed, and from the maps and books they have brought. It is still surpassing strange to see the bay where once Belieriand would have left their boat on dry land, to see the lines of mountain ranges altered, fallen and risen and unknown.
He has kept his hopes as formless as he may.
It is a new world, a changed world. He is both new and changed himself, reborn into a body both his own and made fresh, scars that once pulled at his flesh now only marks skin deep, carrying the memory but not the pain.
He suspects that some of his thoughts may be the same. Not erased, but healed upwards, from beneath, from within, during his time in Namo's halls. He felt clean, down to his soul, on awakening, and he feels it still. He is not a blank slate, all of him is writ as before, but with a steadier hand. More vibrant ink.
He laughs, into the sea spray, and Pallando laughs with him, ancient eyes curving into happy crescents within an old woman's face, deep blue robes falling over gnarled fingers gripping his arm.
It is strange to be of one mind with a maia, but they are both ready to reach the shore, and eager to begin.
***
When that single eastbound ship reaches the harbor, sailing up between Forlindon and Harlindon, Ecthelion is not there to meet it. Instead the ripening summer finds him far inland, with a party of those who have work between Gil-Galad's court and city and the crafting cities of Eregion and realm of Moria beyond.
The trip is routine, still, but it grows less so each time.
There's an energy present now in Eregion that is familiar to Ecthelion, a waiting, not quiescent but active, the city like a single herd of deer who know some larger predator is just out of sight. He cannot say they are wrong. But it spikes his memories to the surface, of Gondolin's final years, of Sirion when the sons of Feanor sent their first rounds of demands. He does not want the same fate for Eregion.
He has not met with Celebrimbor himself, this trip. Ecthelion sees him in only passing and at what evening meals the smith chooses to attend. Ecthelion has never known exactly what to make of Silverfist. A Noldor of Feanor's line founding himself a little kingdom was only to be expected. But he hates the more mundane work of leading, and when Ecthelion last visited the city, Celebrimbor was barely even present, spending weeks underground with the dwarves of nearby Moria. In past years Eregion's nominal leader has detailed almost all the work of governance away to those who enjoy it, those who will endure it, or simply those who have greater patience than his own.
In the past, he was occupied always with new projects. Driven. Now his eyes are deep shadowed, and his mouth and shoulders often twisted.
When Lindon turned away the 'lord of gifts', Ecthelion had been beyond glad. Annatar held none of Maeglin's visible desperation or malice, but there was a hunger there that spoke to something in him, felt like the machinations of long ago. When Annatar finally moved on from Eregion also, Ecthelion had been relieved not to encounter him again. From the courtyard in front of the Guild Halls Ecthelion now watches the largest of the forge buildings with a lingering unease despite that absence, and his skin crawls with how close he has stood to the Enemy, and never known it.
In this sixteen-hundredth year of the Second Age of Middle Earth, Ecthelion's business is with Celeborn, Pelorion, and Erestor, negotiating what protection the High King can offer shipments between Eregion and the coast, what changes are needed, and conditions of the elven roads. Mannish civilizations are becoming more common, but vary greatly in manner and language as well as allegiance, and the dwarves are more willing to work with other groups of elves if Eregion acts as go-between. More than simply delivery of correspondence, Ecthelion's work lies in giving context to both parties, in answering of questions, facilitating movements of people and information both.
He is glad to leave Eregion's walls. Once upon a time- a bare few hundreds of years- he would have lingered as long as he might, exploring the silversmith's halls, seeking out artisans to commission, or little treasures to wear, or to gift, or simply to appreciate. There would have been detours to the doors of Khazad-dum, always after dark, just for the pleasure of watching the doors open, and to see the beautiful things wrought within. Now the city feels changed, and he is relieved to leave its gates behind.
The wind changes, on the ride home. More than spring becoming summer, more than a storm coming in from the ocean, there is a day when the air around them suddenly shifts, swirling and then blowing hotter, buffeting the riders with the promise of lightning, unfulfilled. The kind of air that hangs heavy in your lungs.
It is Elrond who comes to find him, catching him still with the dirt of travel on his hair, trying to decide how much of a cleanup he could get away with before delivering his initial reports.
Glorfindel is alive.
Later, perhaps, he will be ashamed that his first reaction is not joy. Instead cold terror shoots through him, viscera to spine.
Elves do not return from death. In the west, before the sun, in the farthest reaches of memory, but not here, not in Middle Earth. The lost and the dead returning has ever been a trick of the enemy. Those believed lost, returning to joy and fellowship and bringing the machinations of the enemy into the bosom of their former families. Elves who return are a lesson every elf of the first years learned slow and hard, hoping each time for their loved one to have come back to them intact and in truth. An elf thought lost, or captured, returning to their people is an upturned blade that a whole settlement must balance on, waiting for the cut or (and) the fall.
Whatever shows in his countenance is enough for Elrond to step closer, to take Ecthelion's hands in his own. His hands, always a little warmer than most elves, are steadying. Grounding.
"I promise you, it is him in truth, not just in seeming. And he came from the west, with two who are to be emissaries of the will of the Valar, working in the world. You might have seen them on the road, cloaked in blue, and in the shape of Men."
Disjointedly, Ecthelion searches his recollection of the road for the ones Elrond describes, and finds the impression of blue, and age, and heavy-seeming walking staves. Elrond's hands at his wrists urge him backwards, and then down, and the bench beneath him is a sudden catch.
"They would not tarry, and departed eastwards after only a few days, but Lord Glorfindel has remained. He has been examined, by all our healers, and vouchsafed by all who have met him before." Elrond's gaze is assessing, reassuring. Ecthelion doesn't know whether to take that reassurance.
"I cannot say how you must feel. I hardly know for myself. But I do not think him evil."
Ecthelion doesn't either. But that was always the point.
He lets Elrond's surety, even Gil-Galad's, stand where his own cannot.
Glorfindel looks just like Ecthelion's memories, but happier. Brighter. Observing him from a distance, Ecthelion feels --
Many things.
He remembers the clench of Glorfindel's hands in his shirt, the smell of his blood, tacky and drying on Ecthelion's hands, the last time they had clung to each other, before they had returned to Gondolin without their charge and the failure of Aredhel's loss had pushed them apart.
Ecthelion feels almost under-dressed, standing in Lindon's throne room with only a few pieces of silver in his hair, only two rings on his fingers, without any more adornment than the single jeweled clasp at his belt- But Glorfindel himself wore only semiprecious gems in his own hairpiece and belt, a single looped strand bracelet, fit for a normal day of court business -- and no one dressed like Gondolin anymore. Lindon and Mithlond alike would have laughed at the ostentation of a shield studded in adamant, and the woodelves and grey elves would have joined forces to write ridiculous songs in his honor.
Glorfindel as he stands before Gil-Galad's court is no more ostentatious than any of Lindon's Noldorin or Sindar lords, in traveling greens, oddly cut, chased with embroidery in bright colors of thread, not the spun gold flowers of Ecthelion's memory. That about him which shines is outside of the sight of Ecthelion's eyes, but perceived nonetheless, even across a crowded room he seems to sparkle, to draw Ecthelion's gaze.
He would tell himself it was simply the effect of the West, if it were not so familiar. If it were not the same sparkle he felt beneath Glorfindel's skin, lying in the mountain sunlight, dancing between their bodies, in flashes each time their gazes had once met, across Gondolin's courtyards, across dying battlefields, across the length of a single pillow. Meeting Glorfindel's bright eyes, the good times he can remember clearest are sharp with Gondolin's high mountain air, thin sunlight seeming closer to their bodies, just within reach. He remembers the shine of fountain dewdrops on yellow hair and yellow flowers, and the taste of clear water on Glorfindel's lips, tasting of mountain rock, not groundwater wells.
He does not approach Glorfindel himself. And whatever Elrond may have said to their king, Gil-Galad does not set them together. But for all that week, there is hardly a moment Ecthelion spends unaware of Glorfindel's entire being.
The initial spike of fear, of utter certainty of betrayal, wears away beneath the certainty of those whose judgment Ecthelion trusts, king and liege-lord both, as well as through his own observations. It is not that Glorfindel has done no evil yet, many of those who returned did nothing unusual for months or years. It is that there is something about him that feels clean, and clear, purified in a way that would accept none of the Enemy's taint, not even that small amount of it that came from living in Arda marred.
Some of Ecthelion's dreams are sunlit and pure, timeless with longing. Some are choked with the dust of Nan Dungortheb, where chitinous voices mock him from endless shadows as guilt and failure draw them apart.
It is Glorfindel who reaches out first. Ecthelion's throat is tight, following him through a muffling corridor, and into one of the palace's smaller connecting courtyards. When Glorfindel turns to face him, Ecthelion expects words to fall like spring rains, whether questions or demands, but Glorfindel seems as stuck for words as he is himself. Instead he extends his open hands. "My friend?"
Ecthelion knows - in truth, craves - what he is offering, but his body still freezes at Glorfindel's touch like a wild animal's, unused to elven hand. But the hand extended to him is also frozen, and the fine pale hairs across the back of it are raised.
He has not shared thoughts with anyone in a long time. Past are the times of easy mindspeech, of openness, of it being common for elves to cultivate the skill. He lifts his eyes from their clasped hands to meet Glorfindel's clear eyes, open as Cuivienen's sky.
It is him. Only and wholly Glorfindel. Ecthelion breathes out, slow. And lets himself fall open.
Go gently, bright hair. You've gotten better at this, and I am out of practice.
Glorfindel's eyebrows tighten, but he doesn't answer out loud. Instead Ecthelion receives a mix of pleased regretful anticipatory and a wave of welcome, sunlit yellow warmed with hopeful sunrise pink. He answers as he used to, a mix of music and birdsong, but where once was the sound of a flute and a rock dove, this time the flute breathes low and questioning, amidst a confusion of starlings. Glorfindel lets out a bubble of delighted laughter, fingers tightening between Ecthelion's own.
A long time, an instant, the span of a candle, they traded thoughts back and forth, impressions and images, sound, color, the scent of the dawn in the west.
Ecthelion can feel the breath of the world on newborn skin, feel the grey waiting of Namo's Halls recede until his limbs have weight again, until he stumbles trying to stand.
Glorfindel can taste water and foul blood, as Ecthelion was pulled from his own fountain, even as that other balrog would have been catching up with the party fleeing along the mountain road. Sirion is a cacophony of gulls and crashing swords, and the last years of the first age a blur of guilt and battle, shadowed by failure and loss.
He leans in, breaking the eye contact but not the connection, pressing his face to Ecthelion's cheek to cheek, the hand not knotted within Ecthelion's at his back, steadying them both, so that when they sway, they sway together in unconscious dance.
It's too much.
Not to me.
And that was something Ecthelion should have remembered, first and before all else. Glorfindel had always held himself open to every part of Ecthelion, the dark and the light both, until that dark had gotten too heavy in them both.
The light in him is so strong now. The wellspring of it drinks in Ecthelion's sorrow, his fear, and remains unpoisoned. Guilt whispers between them for that, too, before Glorfindel catches it, sends back starlight and a taste of hope.
"I came back to help. I promise."
Ecthelion had almost forgotten that little roughness of Glorfindel's voice, when his emotions caught in his throat.
"You are here for your mission, for the Valar, for Lord Elrond, for the long fight. You didn't come back for me." It isn't an abnegation of caring, but the echo of that old need to keep separate purpose and emotion.
"You were not mine to come back to. But I missed you."
Ecthelion's eyes burn hot, and his own throat closes, admitting only a single wet gasp of air. He pulls Glorfindel closer, clutching at him, as though if he is only close enough, Ecthelion will be able to breathe again. What a stupid thing to say. Missing him. As if Ecthelion hadn't wept like Nienna for years out of counting, that this idiot was gone.
Glorfindel laughs into his shoulder, and holds on just as tight.
***
A hundred years can be only a moment, and it can hold the upheaval of the world. Across four score and ten and seven turns of the seasons, Eregion's waiting fears take form, and traversing Eriador is no easy summer ride but an open battlefield.
Elven eyesight is a curse, when the banner of Eregion's defeat is raised.
The hidden valley wherein Elrond's forces shore up their retreat is nothing at all like the shadowed plains before the ruin of Angband, but it is the dust of that defeat that Ecthelion tastes on his tongue, however much the waterfalls strive to evoke his own fountains. The dust of travel from the open land between Eregion and the foothills of the mountains northward clings to everything, elf and horse and portage alike, in places darkened still with soot, in others sticky with blood, both black and red, long dried and still seeping fresh.
Ecthelion does not like losing people.
His eyes mark each of those he looks for instinctively, Lord Elrond first, his lieutenants, then his own soldiers and those citizens of Eregion who came under Ecthelion's own purview in this last flight north.
Always, in every check, his eyes find their way to that brightest point in the camp, regardless of weather or danger or mood; whether that bright hair is covered or tossed back into the evening breeze, Glorfindel is still his lodestone.
If they must be besieged, he could ask no better company.
He does enjoy the construction. The making of the valley from a hiding place to a home. The House of the Fountain had not been a title devoted to simply standing glittering in the sunlit spray. Lord of the Fountains was a better title than Lord of the Sewers but Ecthelion had been architect of both, and in the transition of encampment to living settlement he becomes so again, tracking the individual watercourses where they emerge from the rock and where they join together, to see where different channels must be carved, which streams must run unsullied.
Tonight he returns with the evening, the stars already full bright above the valley walls.
Across the bustle of camp, their gazes catch, and Glorfindel's eyes flicker warm in the firelight. Glorfindel turns his hand upwards, wrist angled and fingers open, in offer and invitation. And Ecthelion moves to take the place beside him.