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Elrond knew that they were finished.
He’d known it as soon as he’d seen the huge troll they’d brought into the battle, but that had been at night when he’d had plenty of energy left, and there had been a small part of him that thought they might get through Eregion’s walls in time to save the city and defeat Sauron. But when the sun came up and they were still fighting hoards of Orcs, no closer to the city than when they’d started, Elrond really, truly knew they were finished. Then Sauron came onto the battlements and showed them all what he’d done to Celebrimbor, and that was the nail in the bloodied coffin.
Elrond was exhausted – more exhausted than he’d been for centuries, or perhaps ever. The world whirled around him and he was dropping to his knees in the blood soaked, waterlogged mud, next to some crumpled corpse – Orc or Elf, he couldn’t tell, they were all smeared in the same filth – and his sword had fallen out of his hands.
His head was swimming. He stared at his sword in the mud. He knew that he needed to pick it up, that he needed to look around, to check on the safety of his king, to check on the safety of himself, but the effort it would take seemed insurmountable. Besides, death was going to come now, perhaps it was better if it came when he wasn’t looking.
The world swayed, this way and that. The sun was rising, blood red, and the glare was blazing into Elrond’s eyes. He could not see – he could not see through the sheer fatigue that was pulling down his eyelids. All was screaming and cries and fire and –
Horns. A new sound. Strange. Horns, blaring horns, not Elven horns and yet he’d heard them before, he’d heard them many times. Decades ago. The blare of horns and – and something else that came with it – a loud shout, a laugh, and twinkling eyes over a flaming red beard.
Dwarven horns. They were Dwarven. The Dwarves had come after all.
Somehow, Elrond found the energy to raise his head. He stared up, over to the hills where the sun was rising, and there were people rushing down those hills towards the battle – hundreds of them, short, stocky, wielding axes and hammers, and roaring with fresh vigour. Dwarves.
“Durin,” said Elrond, and that was when everything went black.
He awoke to the sound of rain. It was heavy rain, pattering above him, and for a moment he thought he was in his bed in Lindon, except that something told him this was not the case. Whatever he was lying on was harder, for one thing, and there was a strange smell in the air.
Elrond forced open his eyes. The world spun around him again, but he saw enough to know he was not on the battlefield anymore. He was on a makeshift camp bed in a low tent, the rain soaking daylit grass just outside, and near him someone was clattering something around on a table.
Elrond opened his mouth to speak. “Durin,” he tried to say, but it came out all garbled, like he had no control over his tongue. The figure turned, and it wasn’t Durin but the dear, dear, welcome face of Disa.
“You’re awake!” Disa rushed forward, taking his hand and coming into glorious focus. “Oh, Elrond, I was so worried.”
Elrond tried to force his tongue into action again. He was a diplomat, words came easily to him. Why wouldn’t these? “The king?”
“He is safe,” said Disa, kneeling down so she might better look into Elrond’s face. “Passed out from exhaustion though, like the rest of you. I didn’t know Elves could even sleep, but you lot are proving me wrong!”
Elrond’s eyes were drooping despite himself. He clung to Disa’s hand. “Eregion?”
Disa patted his hand. “Elrond, it was lost before we got there.”
Lost. Yes, Eregion was lost. Elrond had known that. He had seen Celebrimbor, and he had known. He had nothing to say at all now.
Disa patted his hand again. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “Let me make you some – ”
But her voice had faded away into darkness again, and Elrond along with it.
When he woke again the rain was still falling but it was dark outside. The rain wasn’t why he had awoken though. He had woken because someone had settled into the bed behind him.
A warm, heavy arm reached around his waist. Elrond knew that grip like he knew his own.
“Settle down, it’s only me,” said Durin’s rumbling, low, lovely, lovely voice.
Elrond wanted to turn around to face Durin but there was no energy in his body anymore. He was already melting into the bed. He reached down and folded his hand over Durin’s arm instead. “Are you well?” he asked, and the words all slurred together.
“Aye, well enough.” Durin’s arm squeezed him. “Sleep now, meleth nîn. I have you.”
And Elrond slept once again.
When he awoke for the third time, it was once more daylight. The rain had stopped, a golden morning glow was filtering through the thin walls of the tent, and Elrond had somehow twisted around in the middle of the night to throw his arm around Durin and bury his head in his beard. He could hear Durin’s heartbeat in his chest, slow and steady. The Dwarf himself was dozing, breathing heavily, but he stirred readily enough when Elrond moved. His face was about as filthy as Elrond’s and he smelled of mud and blood, but he grinned brightly when Elrond peered up at him.
“Finally awake,” he said. “How do you fare?”
It was a difficult question to answer. Usually as an Elf Elrond hardly felt tired or hungry or any of those all too mortal feelings. But they were all there now, and his limbs ached. How he ached, both outside and inside, an ache in his muscles and an ache in his soul, at the thought of all those dead, of the city he had failed to save.
Some of this confusion of feelings must have shown on his face, because Durin wriggled out of Elrond’s hold and sat up. “I’m getting you some food and running a bath,” he said. “No arguments. Don’t go back to sleep.” And he stomped out of the tent like a Dwarf on a mission. But Elrond still noticed Durin’s bandaged right leg, and the limp, and for a moment felt thoroughly sick.
He sat up too, to stop himself falling back asleep. His body throbbed with the effort. He was clad only in his underclothes and those were mucky enough, he hated to think what the rest of his armour was like. He ran a hand through disordered and muddy curls, and touched the cut on his cheek. Someone had smeared some kind of healing salve on it, he could smell herbs. The rest of his face was still streaked in black filth though. He must look a picture.
Durin came back with a plate piled high with cold cuts of meat and cheese and shoved it into Elrond’s protesting hands, along with a tankard of some kind of tea. Elrond sniffed it and to his surprise smelled Elven leaves and flowers – the kind of tea he drank all the time. He glanced over at Durin, who grinned at him.
“Don’t you think after all our years of travelling together I wouldn’t have learned how to make your disgusting brew?” he said. “Aulë, it’s revolting, but you Elves are perking up at the smell of it.” He shrugged. “Give me a good tankard of Khazad-dûm ale any day.” And he began dragging a metal tub over to a fire that was blazing in the corner.
“Disa has insisted on drawing you a hot bath,” he said, settling himself on a stool near Elrond with some discomfort, clearly favouring his left leg. “There’s no point arguing with her when she’s in this mood, so I’d go gracefully if I were you.” He poked at the plate in Elrond’s hand. “Eat. Now. All of it.”
Somehow a smile hitched itself onto Elrond’s face – it felt foreign after so many hours spent grimacing in effort and the action pulled on his cut. He discarded the thought of talking in favour of eating – small bites at first, for in truth he still felt nauseous, but the Elven tea was doing wonders at restoring him, and he soon set to with gumption.
Eventually some Dwarves came with buckets of hot water and began to fill the bath. It was clearly a lot of effort that Elrond thought he didn’t deserve, but, as Durin said, he knew better than to argue. To distract himself from the guilt, he looked around the tent instead.
He knew at once this was the battle tent of Dwarven royalty – there was no shabbiness here and the tent had been made and erected well. There was a little fire in one corner and the bed he had been lying on was large and covered in various furs and cushions to keep the warmth in. Elrond knew immediately that this was Durin and Disa’s own tent, and that they had given it over to him. This was an unexpected honour – really, it should be the king who was recovering in such luxury and not his humble herald, but Elrond had no energy to argue the point. And anyway, no one could argue with Disa – it would be like a pebble trying to stop a rockfall from sliding down the mountain. The rockfall would move regardless, and it was better to join the slide than to be dashed to pieces by it.
Eventually Elrond had finished his food and the bath had been filled. Durin took his plate and pointed at the bath imperiously. “In. Don’t make me get Disa.”
“Perish the thought,” Elrond said cheekily, and managed to stagger over to the bath, remove his underclothes, and get in.
It was an effort not to groan out loud at the warmth of the water instantly relaxing his muscles, but Elrond just about managed it. He lay back in the too small bath and sighed.
Durin hovered beside him with a bar of soap. “Let me do your hair,” he said, and Elrond was too busy floating on a cloud of euphoria to fight him. Instead he passively tipped his head back and let Durin rinse his hair and run the soap over his scalp, digging it in with blunt nails. For a moment they sat in lazy silence.
“What happened to your leg?” Elrond said at last.
Durin grunted behind him. “Wrestled an Orc and made a stupid mistake. It’s just a graze.”
It was likely more than that, thought Elrond, and the guilt twisted inside him again. “You would not have obtained that injury if I had not asked for your help.”
Durin sighed explosively. “You asked me to come and I came. Good thing I did too, because you were all dead on your feet.”
Elrond considered this. “That is an unfortunate truth, however the fact remains. If I had not asked – ”
“But you did ask,” Durin pressed. “And I came. Because I will always come when you ask. Elrond.” Elrond twisted his head around at the sound of his name, so that he could look up at Durin. Durin stroked a soap-soaked hand through Elrond’s hair. “If you had not asked and you had died, I would never have forgiven myself,” he said softly. “So you did us both a favour by asking. Let that be an end to it.” And he stroked Elrond’s hair again.
Elrond closed his eyes at the touch. “Meleth nîn,” he said, and leaned up for a kiss. Durin gladly fell into it, kissing Elrond back with such tenderness, so starkly different from the violence Elrond had been subjected to just hours before, that Elrond felt tears come to his eyes. He let Durin break the kiss and blinked up at him blurrily, and for a moment neither of them knew what to say. Eventually, Durin went back to scrubbing Elrond’s hair and Elrond went back to soaking his aches away.
“It should not be me receiving such lordly treatment,” Elrond said finally, splashing the last of the mud off his face. “It should be the king.”
Durin considered this. “I can throw a bucket of water at him if you like,” he said, and Elrond sat back in the tub and laughed and laughed, no matter how much it hurt.