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Long ago when the world seemed ageless, Elrond Peredhel still held onto the ache of youth. Then, the grief was new, and the mourning was violent.
What he harbored dwelled within the ribs, cautioned and carefully thumped against by his immortal heart. He had chosen, and chosen well. Yet something disagreeable sat within him, a nameless thing that left him floating and ghost-like; demolished by the weight of this unknown.
It thumped harder as Elros stepped forth.
He watched his brother take the bow, hold his right hand to his heart, brush the furrow from his brow, and choose mortality.
Elrond stood quiet as the messenger left, flitting back to Manwe with his brother’s fate in hand.
“You have chosen death,” he whispered. Quieter perhaps than Elros could now hear.
Night had followed Elros’ choice. A cool night, with wind that prickled against Elrond’s skin and whistled, frozen, on the sweat that had gathered in the day. The sky was clear; his father shone brightly, as remote and steady as always.
Behind him he heard his brother’s footsteps follow him out the hall into the night. They were quick, but not nearly as quiet. Elros took a seat beside him and laid his head upon his shoulder. His cheek was cold and damp. Neither of them said a word.
“Call him back,” Elrond’s voice was eerily steady, so much so Elros awoke with a start, despite the low tone. He noted he was laid on his back, draped in the haven’s finery. Dyed linens and fluffed out cottons, Elros was wrapped in a makeshift cocoon of bright yellows.
“Who do you wish me to call for?” Elros wiped the crust from his eyelids, closed in sleep for the first time. Elrond does not give himself over to the thought, how much Elros looked like the dead, his skin as bleached as the skeletons laid out in Doriath-
“The messenger.” Elrond said. “Call him back and relay the message that your choice was faulty. We have been through much, your grief led you to a lapse of judgment. Manwe and Eru will be merciful-”
“My message has not changed, brother.”
Elrond swallowed. Dug the heels of his boot into the stone tile to ground himself. He began counting the seconds as he pressed into the floor, how long would it take for the tile to give way and let him crumble into the crust. One, two, three, four, five…
“My message has not changed, look here,” Elros rose from his bed. Pressed Elrond’s palm into his cheek. “Feel.” He said.
Elrond jerked his hand back. “No.”
He could still feel the prickles of hair on his palm. Like the small clasp of dried wheat, it tickled, then grasped, then bit. All in the second before he pulled back.
“No,” Elrond said again. And fled.
The ground held the entire way to his chambers.
Elros had only begun to dress when Elrond returned. He was not empty handed, a murky green vial sat in his palm. He held it out. “Drink.”
Elros pushed his hand away. “This is not something you can heal, Elrond.”
The day after Elrond arrived in Númenor to meet his kingly brother he had awoken without the ability to breathe. It took several soundless coughs and him throwing his back into the bedpost for his lungs to fill again.
His first breath tasted of seawater and smoke.
The years that swallowed Elros’ mortality traveled slowly for Elrond. He had fought in more wars, healed more than enough bodies, and now he lingered in the gardens of the Valar-blessed home his brother built. The island was loud with the clang of society, bells tolled, and children’s laughter wafted through his window.
For now, he rested in the solace of the room. The wind cooled the sweat on his brow; his skin wrought with sunburn from the voyage yestereve.
With a lingering cough, Elrond dressed and went off to the gardens–a spot Elros had written off in many letters, the cowskin nearly not large enough for such flattery of Yavanna. The garden itself was not a measly thing. With stems so tall they were scorched by Anar herself, and roots so large and deep that if the island were destroyed the trees would stand still. Elrond grew dizzy standing in such blossoming beauty.
“I dreamt the night before you arrived,” Elros said from behind him. Elrond turned, momentarily struck by the differences plaguing his brother’s body. The lines on his face, the greyness shadowing his scalp. Like roots scorned by volcanic ash. His finery was no less beautiful–but the age. Elrond struggled to swallow.
Elros continued. “A volatile dream. Your face was distant but the expression twisted so clearly to one of hate.” Elrond moved to speak, admonishing such a statement. Elros stilled him with his royal hand. “Nay, listen. We were surrounded by a great blue; the sea or sky I cannot say. And we fought, viciously, with no swords nor words I could hear. It was great and terrible–as gnashing as a fierce lion.”
Elrond snorted. “A sign.”
“Of?”
“What will become of you, of your fëa.”
Elros rolled his eyes, Elrond’s heart pulled at the childish movement. “Brother, please–”
“A warning, perhaps. Death for men is as mysterious and terrible as the sea and sky. It harbours only the infinite unknown–you will be surrounded by a fierce quietness.”
“It is a gift,” Elros said simply. His shoulder’s stood tall but his eyes held pity. Elrond found himself questioning the words of Eru.
He rolled his shoulders back, mimicking his brother. “You will be living on borrowed time, how be that life? How do you find joy in that?”
Elros sighed, breathless. “And you are not? Tell me brother, was Maedhros? Tomorrow, the One could decide to flood the waters red and have the stars fall from their own sea. We know not when our time will come, I will enjoy my mortal life just as I have enjoyed the one I lived already–only now with more urgency than before.”
Elrond held no answer. He watched Elros until the wind picked up again.
The quiet was interrupted by another bell toll. Another staunch reminder of their environment, the island and its inhabitants. Only one of the brother’s truly belonged here now.
“Tonight, there will be a feast, welcoming you and the other Elves.” Elros nodded. “Come, please.”
When he left, Elrond stood still until the sun scorched another layer of his skin. Around him the garden flourished, green and ripe with life. He knelt to the soil, fire fresh on his fingertips. Around him the garden grew alight–so radiant, it seemed for a moment the picture of Yavanna’s face. Until the fire grew hot and heavy and the stems melted, the trees withered. He felt the first of his tears fall then, the impurity of his blood growing too violent–beating at the wisdom in his heart. Elrond placed his forehead to the dirt, when he rose again the garden had grown anew.
The feast was grand, as Elrond expected of a king of Men. Plates of roasted meats, salted fish, and dollops of island fruit covered an open table. He was surprised to find the dining would take place near the sea–the night too warm and beautiful for four walls, Elros had said.
Men and women filled the air with words Elrond drowned out, children scuttled by, half-dancing, half-running about. He sat beside Elros on his silver dais, watching the firelight bounce off his brother’s face.
“The river was always so loud,” Elros started. “The bubble like the mouths of all those I cannot quiet. It is nice to be by the sea, where the rush is more like that of breathing, more like that of being.”
It doesn’t take him long to realize Elros can no longer hear the sea’s song. It had quieted, a fact he forgot could happen. Why should Elros long for a home that he could never have?
Elrond doesn’t respond. He shovelled more fish onto his plate, salting his tongue to keep both the tears and words at bay. He longed for the comfort of his chambers, of the four walls Elros shunned. There he wouldn't have to listen to a song only he could hear. The sea, so great and blue.
To him the stars seemed too bright. The wings of a dove too far off and pitiful, scratching against his overly tender skin. Nothing in this life was as sublime as he was promised, the rot dwelled within even as he lived on.
His second night in Númenor he ripped through the pillows and doused his chambers in the silky glow of pigeon feathers. When they fell to the ground he followed, carving himself a spot amongst the white. He remembered watching along the shore as his mother was raised, wet and dangling, from the waves she had subjected herself to. Elros behind him, begging him to walk, to face neither shore nor sky, nor burning home behind him. To just walk along the pale sand and ignore the ravishing surrounding them from all sides. Elros who now sat upon a brittle throne, regal but so, so mortal. Elrond could practically hear the frail pump of his brother’s blood beneath the weakening bones, thumping in time with the drops of salty sea falling off his mother’s feathered skin.
More time passed. Elrond sailed back and forth between beloved Númenor and Middle Earth. Elros, too, sailed. Blessing the valley of Imladris with his presence, until the gentle rock of sea became too much for his body. Time battled against the ridges of mortality. The sun rose, the moon followed. Elrond returned to Númenor when a letter from Elros turned bitter.
“You may be able to heal this, Elrond.”
“Oh, hush.” Elrond shooed his hand away. Elros’ cough had grown feverous, phlegm mottled his paper skin. The flush was inhuman, crimson as the cresting sun.
Elrond poured more water into the bowl, the maid had brought it fresh from the rivers. He let the cloth fill with its coolness before pressing it into Elros’ neck. Elros reached out, placed a trembling hand to Elrond’s wrist and pulled him close enough to rest his forehead on his brother’s.
“Tell Atar, if you see him, that we worshiped the stars as well as we could.”
Elrond gulped, the smell of death sundered by the scent of his brother, so familiar yet so terrifying.
I fear the Silmaril too bright for me to see his face. Could I find him in the sea of stars? Could I speak to him? Elrond questioned. But he nodded all the same.
In the womb Elrond had nearly succumbed to the desperate pull of sharing. He had come out a mere child able to fit in his fathers hand, swallowing his cries in place of searching the room with his barely open eyes. Elros had come out first, devouring the air with piercing screams, full bodied and angel faced. Even then, amidst the chaos of birth, Elrond and Elros found their markers. One was destined for want, for desire, for need. The other was there to watch.
But watch he could not. After Elros fell into another fitful sleep, Elrond went out into the summer night.
The sky was clear again. The rain from earlier had come and gone, leaving Númenor in a shadow of its harshness. The earth had returned to its normalcy, but many of its people grew sick from the constant cold and wet–spring was meant to be a time of rebirth, but here it came only with more illness and death.
From here, he could hear Elros’ brittle breath, rasping against the confines of his flesh.
He thought of his uncles then, and their fate. Resigned to the unknown and despairing fortress of the cold wood, a fate chosen for him by the same brothers who raised him–
Brothers. It would not be so bad to die beside his, Elrond thought–
The love grew between them, but as Elrond grew taller and wiser, something akin to guilt wove itself into the web of his mind—how could he grow to love them as fathers, as kin to whom he could never separate without tears, when they had been the ones to bring destruction.
It was their kin’s creations that now branded his father’s forehead, a limp mark that braised the night sky. It was their war that they took to Elrond's doorstep, their bloodied swords that swung, their fire that burned pale in the mouth of Sirion. Depravity wailing, so wild, that Ulmo’s waves seemed like gentle nudges.
It was their greed, their forsaken oath, that led them to the twins as they hid beneath the shadow of their falling towers, the smoke leaving them searching for figures that flew above.
Elrond took to walking, tracing the sands of Númenor. He wondered what he’d do now if on these shores he’d wandered into Maglor. Forlorn and searching. He’d understand now–the peace that comes with trailing the coast, balancing between the sea and the land. Round and round and round. Elrond could see how repetition was a better friend than grief.
But would he crawl into his arms as he did a child? Find comfort on the sharp edge of the knife? No, not anymore. For now his mourning wasn’t as small and soft as it once was. He was no sniffling elfling, he had seen war, he had watched all he loved fall into the maw of fealty. Now he’d swear his own oath, to stand tall and strong, and kind, even if Arda does not call for it. He shall be the one with open arms, and they will be as kind as summer.
Yet, not even the walk, the freshness of the air, the scent of salt, and white, clean earth, could break him from such woe. Elrond was surrounded by his pain, the fire carried Maedhros, the sea, Maglor; his father resided in the sky, his mother floating on the air. And soon, soon, Elros will join the earth in his tomb.
Nowhere could Elrond go that did not exist apart from his grief. It was everywhere; in everyone. He could breathe it in and feel it fill his lungs, feel it press against his ribs and carve itself into the bone. Engraving the sense of ungentleness that only a survivor could feel.
His grief mingled. Maedhros’ smoke rose into the sky, and met his father’s forehead with searching hands. One day Maglor’s sea-stained boots could walk across Elros’ burial and never know the boy he raised rotted beneath him.
The sea around him raised in a symphony, the Song contented with its soul listener.
The gentle hiss of gulls pulled his gaze from the thrashing waves–Elrond looked up, wild eyes unearthing Earendil in the heavens. It may be that Elrond had created the first versions of prayer. That night, when he begged for answers, for reasoning for his grief, and mercy for his pain.
When he talked to his father, he looked to the sky.
Elrond closed in on Elros’ chamber again, by now Anar had risen again. She drenched the sick city in a cloak of golden warmth, wrapped the weeping in faux comfort.
Elros sat, hunched, in a river-cold bath. His body was diminished, the chestnut sheen of his hair a soft white. His beard had grown long and savage in the weeks he spent abed–coughing his lungs out onto the silk sheets.
Even in the coolness of the bath Elrond could see the redness pumping beneath his skin–blood that was far too hot. He had seen Elves succumb to such fever, he shuddered to think how far it could push a man.
He knelt beside the basin, washing the sweat and grime from his brother’s back. “I have told Atar,” he said. “Of your worship.” He did not say anything of his tears, of his begging. Too much for him now.
Elros’ voice was quiet as he thanked him. His eyes stayed closed, his body leaning up against Elrond’s arms.
Elrond scooped more water, a soft smiling forming when Elros leaned closer. When he was washed, he led him back to his bed–the maids had stripped it and redressed it with cotton sheets at his request–and settled him back against the pillows.
He sat behind Elros then, combing his fingers through his hair, softening the wet strands with a fragrant oil he had brought from home. Elrond massaged the oils into Elros’ hair, drenching it in the sickly sweetness of Doriath. Their mother bathed them in this, their father smelt of it everyday. Elros might die tonight, and it comforted Elrond that the last thing he did was give his brother a piece of their family with his own hands. Perhaps, he would smell of home when they burn his pyre.
Elrond sectioned his hair–listening to his quiet, struggling breath. He braided it in his own style, weaving it away from Elros’ face. With that, he laid him back against the bedding and said goodnight with a kiss to his burning cheek.
He did not, in fact, die that night. It took several more days before the fever grew too hot for him to handle, and his lungs filled with fluid that Elrond could hear in his breath. The rush of the sea, so deep inside. With nothing to do, he left Elros to his wife and children and slept that night in the garden–eyes trained on the sky.
Elrond had taken the news with composure, the messenger nodded briefly and left, a look of pity in his face.
Soon he found himself wandering the garden, watching the stems bend and the birds hop from branch to branch. His steps echoed even in the dirt.
He couldn't see his father in the morning sky. And the birds did not sing such sweet melodies as his mother once did. No footsteps followed him as he delved deeper into the woven green.
Elrond knelt beside the garden wall again. With his forehead to the dirt, he heard nothing but the city's bells.