High Princes of Tirion
by Nemis

My thanks to those to whom thanks are due. (You know who you are.) ;)

Elrond had watched the rain come to an end with something resembling relief. The weather had been reminiscent of that during a particularly dreary time he had spent in Tirion not long after leaving the gardens of Lórien, shortly before settling at Imloth. It had been a transition period, but not one he looked back on with fond recollection.

The eventual emergence of the sun just after midday had improved his mood considerably. But still there was something that kept him from being entirely at ease. A kind of restlessness he could not explain.

There was some peace in a memory of a certain day in that same period of time; the day that had preceded the evening of the banquet in the High King’s halls announcing the start of the summer solstice feasting. It had been his first full summer in Tirion after all the years he had spent in the gardens.

The day had consisted of meeting Celebrían outside the city, in green meadows, basking together in the first gloriously sunny days since a long time. There had been lovemaking, a small picnic, and a ride on horseback, which should have led them back to Tirion, but had not. For no reason at all he had gone into another direction, on a whim. Celebrían had made no comment on it; most likely she had expected that either the alternative route had a purpose, or that he had needed the time to collect his thoughts. He was uncertain how long he had continued at the time, recalling his uncertainty of what he had been looking for, and what it would be he would find.

They had kept to the higher regions of the hills, the river from Tirion running besides the chain of hills down below. Even in the memory there was the sound of faraway water, and that of the second horse, together with soft touches of Celebrían’s mind on his own, reassuring. A breeze blew around his hair, slipping underneath his tunic to cool his skin. Briefly, trusting the animal beneath him, he had closed his eyes, feeling Anar’s rays, the serenity around him, his beloved’s ease, and he had forgotten what had caused him to go this way.

When he opened his eyes, it had been there.

It had felt as if he had been there before, while he was quite sure it could not be so. Large fields of flowers moved in the wind amidst the green grass, and the shadow of a lonely cloud sped over the scene, the wind above pushing it relentlessly.

‘Elrond?’

Drawn back into the present he turned in time to see Celebrían enter, just returned from the library, and observed the flush on her cheeks as she neared to catch his hand and kiss him in greeting. It was difficult not to notice his wife’s radiance when she was in her element.

‘You waited for the rain to cease?’

She nodded as she put down the books she had brought.

‘It seemed the best course of action to wait it out. But the afternoon was delightful. Even though Esvalgor remains an old fool.’ She looked at her husband, finding him sharing her smile, adjusting to her mood and making it his own. Bringing her hand to his cheek she gave him a comforting look, as always able to trace something in his demeanour back to his frame of mind, however much he would try to hide it. ‘Something is amiss?’

He shook his head and kissed her hand.

‘Merely memories.’

She breathed deeply.

‘That dreadful year in Tirion. I was reminded of it earlier as well.’

Elrond smiled and pressed the back of her hand against his cheek.

‘There were good moments though, I tend to forget.’

Renewing her smile, Celebrían looked at him.

‘Yes, I remember.’ There was a long moment when they both did, eyes meeting knowingly, colour rising slightly in cheeks, and finally Celebrían embraced him, closing her eyes and letting the memories sweep over her. ‘You told me you had found it, and I did not understand. Then you pointed to the east and said with so much certainty that Tirion was there. You knew exactly where we were, and yet when mounting earlier you had had no idea where you were going.’

He nodded, kissing her neck before pulling away slightly, enough to be able to watch her face and brush a thumb along her lower lip. He did not need to tell her that had been a period in his life during which he had been uncertain entirely of where he was going; she knew already.

‘I recall you had the most questioning look in your eyes at the time.’

‘It was a very enigmatic conversation, El-nîn,’ she replied with a chuckle. ‘You nodding at that green valley, and saying you had found your peace as if those words explained everything.’

Letting a breath of air escape from his lungs Elrond shook his head.

‘But that dreadful banquet in the evening...’

She touched his face soothingly.

‘It was not that dreadful. Did you know the first time I attended such a feast a certain elfling ran around continually with a banner around his shoulders for a cape, and a clothespin keeping it in place? And neither his grandmother nor his grandfather had the heart to tell him to cease doing it.’

It brought a smile back to his face, and bringing her hand to his lips he nodded, understanding the underlying meaning of her words. The past did not rule them now. Even if that time had been horrible, it had been the beginning of happiness. At Imloth everything had returned to how it had once been; a kind of new beginning.

Some time went by until the last touch lingering between them was their linked hands. Releasing Celebrían’s hand finally, Elrond sat down, and watched her find a seat behind the desk which stood in the room, where she began sorting papers and was soon caught up in reading and taking notes. He pensively watched her, hand to his head, still not quite able to let it all go as easily as she.

In many ways she was ahead of him, as she had always been, taking matters in a much more uncomplicated way than he did, accepting many things with less of the anguish he would go through before arriving at that same point. Hers had once been his way also, so long ago, until everything had spiralled out of control, and his need to keep this control in future had caused him to consider all and everything, taking it into account in order to predict what he could be confronted with next.

She had been one of the few factors in his life he had never been entirely able to calculate, and he loved her the more for it. In comparison she knew him so much better. Well enough to give up this life here in Tirion, with her family, near the things she loved, which she had gotten to know in the time he had not been at her side; all that because she knew he could not be entirely happy here. Not yet.

‘I never asked you.’

Not taking her eyes off the documents before her, Celebrían shook her head.

‘Asked me what?’

‘Imloth. Whether you would not rather have lived in Tirion.’

‘I seem to remember going to Imloth was a decision we took together,’ she replied quietly, meeting his eyes.

His gaze was serious, an indication to her of the conclusion he had come to already privately.

‘But I never asked.’

‘Was there any need to, truly?’ she posed, rising and crossing the room. ‘I knew it would take a long time before you could find peace in Tirion, and today I know you are still not entirely at ease here; if anything this visit has proven that. Imloth is your peace. And I have no wish to take that peace away from you, I did not then, and I do not now.’

‘I would stay here, settle here, in Tirion, if you wished it,’ he whispered, looking up at her.

‘You will do something for me,’ Celebrían said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder, requesting his with the other.

Unreservedly Elrond took it, an answer in itself even before anything had been asked.

‘Yes?’

She smiled at his questioning look, showing an eagerness to please similar to that which he had already shown her over an age ago. Resting two fingers on his lips she shook her head.

‘Once this betrothal ceremony is over we shall return to Imloth.’

Grey eyes watched her intently, not entirely understanding.

‘But Brí...’

Bending down she replaced her fingers with her lips and felt him answer, bringing up a hand to rest on her face.

‘We shall return because I wish it,’ she added when she could.

‘And Briníel?’

‘I shall inform her of our plans, and if she does not wish to join us I am certain Elrohir will gladly watch over her in our stead. In case she does join us, I do believe both she and Ereinion have possession of a horse. It is only a two hour journey.’

Nodding slowly, Elrond seemed to judge something in her eyes, not entirely convinced by her words alone.

‘There is something you wish to tell me?’

Looking at him, on the verge of speaking, she ended up first chuckling and then shaking her head.

‘We both know each other too well, you and I.’

He nodded, inwardly amused at how he had considered exactly that before. Kissing her fingers he silently waited for her to continue. Taking a deep breath Celebrían entwined her fingers with his and sat down on the armrest of the chair.

‘It concerns a book of yours, as far as I know there is only a single copy, and you gave it to one of the companies leaving Imladris for the West to be given to Ereinion’s mother upon their arrival there. I think it must have been shortly after our marriage. I know of its ultimate arrival there because the lady showed it to me when I came to Tirion for the first time, some years after my arrival on Aman, many years before Ereinion’s return from Mandos’s Halls.’

‘I know what it is you speak of,’ Elrond replied quietly. ‘What of it?’

‘When Ereinion returned, she wrote to me asking if you would mind if she would make it a gift to the Great Library. She never said it, exactly, but I believe it was her intention to protect him of what was in it for as long as she could. I answered you would not mind, whether rightfully so or not...’

‘You were right,’ he whispered, only interrupting her words a moment before she continued.

‘In any case, he did find it of course, years later, and came to me, closest as I was to you of those living here on Aman.’

‘Closest of those living anywhere,’ he told her with half a smile on his lips, caressing her hair, and resting an arm around her waist. Not able to continue immediately, Celebrían slipped from the armrest onto his lap, where Elrond gladly accommodated her.

‘I did not know whether Ereinion kept the book,’ she went on, ‘or whether he returned it to the Great Library. This afternoon, while waiting for the rain to abate, one of the librarians asked me whether it would be troublesome for me to take along the books Briníel had selected earlier, because they would not have the time to deliver them until much later. Naturally I acquiesced to take them with me.’

‘Finding that book among them?’ Elrond asked, completing the story.

‘Yes.’

Sitting back and pulling her along, he rested his head against her shoulder.

‘You predict she will have questions after reading it. And I believe she will. But I fear she will not come to me for answers.’

Celebrían placed a hand on his chest, her head resting against his.

‘Perhaps Ereinion is the one who should answer her questions. He was with her, he is likely to know she has seen it and will read it.’

He shook his head.

‘She will understand what those pages say, she will recognise the history, but his victories as well as my bereavement lie between the covers of that book. There was a reason you urged me to start and finish it. I was angry, disillusioned. She might not understand that. And she might not go to him to ask either.’

‘I could speak to her of it, if you wish.’

Taking a deep breath Elrond looked up at her, bringing his fingers to play upon her cheek.

‘No. I will speak to her myself.’

--~~*~~--

That evening, late, returning from Elrohir’s house where he had seen Celebriníel home, Ereinion entered his chambers and halted. It was not because he felt a need for it, or because he had seen something which had surprised him, but just because it was a moment worth considering.

How long ago had it been that he had sat here in the dead of night, unable to sleep, mourning a feeling he had expected would always remain unanswered? It felt like it had happened ages ago. Perhaps it had.

From there he remembered another time he had been seated similarly, cross-legged, the night surrounding him. Far away, there had been the fires burning clearly in the encampments, some forms seated around them, and that had continued to content him, during the many years they had spent there, in Mordor. Repeatedly he had been warned not to go, not to wander off, of enemy patrols coming near, surprising him in the dark. It was a possibility, he knew all too well. But he had never heeded the warnings.

So what was it that had caused him to sit there then? Pride? He knew pride well, had cursed it as often. Had he wished for it to come, death? Had he willed it to? The only thing he had known was that it would come, as certain as light would come in the morrow. Though he wondered each night again whether some light would be able to find them at all in that dark place.

I will find my end as my ancestors have found it. I do not see myself on a ship going to Aman.

And he had not seen them win, then. If there were to be a kind of victory, he had known beforehand he would not see it, and that it would not end the Darkness entirely. Would it ever end entirely?

For some reason none of that mattered now. It lay in the past, and it was behind him.

Entering his bedchamber, he undressed and made ready for the night, not fearing anything. Slipping underneath the sheets, closing his eyes, utterly at peace, the last thing he thought of before sleep conquered him was that he did not believe any nightmare could threaten his happiness now. And that night, no nightmare dared.

--~~*~~--

Across the city, nightmares did discomfort another.

It had come down to a struggle for breath, a struggle to rid himself of the immense weight placed on his neck, his chest; his lungs burning. In reality, there was nothing that held him back, but in his dreams his bed had become Dor-nu-Fauglith, and his sheets unseen restraints which kept him from escaping. His blood pounded through his veins, and his head was filled with the same pain and wrath and despair as it had been then, so long ago.

The sound of blood in his ears still resounded in his head as he woke, strangely familiar and yet he knew he would never grow accustomed to it. He breathed deeply, feeling how his lungs took up the air in great gulps, and in his eagerness he nearly choked and was forced to cough his airways free while rolling off the bed and ending up on the stone floor on hands and knees.

He had no idea how long he stayed so, the most important matter to his body was air, breath, life, and everything in him screamed for it. Only slowly did he become aware of what went on around him, but one of the first clear things he could distinguish was a hand resting half against his neck, half between his shoulder blades. Her mind soothed him, and even if unconsciously he had to have been aware of it before, he only took notice of it after he felt her cool fingers on his skin.

He attempted to sit up, but she held him back.

‘Take a moment to find yourself first, meldaverno.’

Sitting back nevertheless, he fixed his eyes on the curtains blowing softly in the night breeze. Slowly, everything was falling back into place where it belonged; the past returned to itself, and he returned to the then and now, unscathed.

Just then, her hand rested on his chest from behind, and with a smile he caught it as she kissed his neck.

‘I felt it wake you,’ she whispered.

He nodded, and concentrated on her fingers entwining with his, remaining silent. Anairë rested her other arm around him as well and rested her cheek against his shoulder. Fingolfin was grateful for it; her warmth always chased the coldness of death away; firm evidence how much stronger reality was compared to a memory.

‘I do not know where it came from,’ he confessed, shivering from the after effects of the nightmare, his skin slightly clammy with sweat.

‘You take too much upon yourself, and your mind has been on too many other matters.’

He smiled.

‘Perhaps.’

Rising and releasing him, inwardly reluctant, Anairë gathered the chamber coat which lay draped across the foot of the bed. Arranging it around Fingolfin’s shoulders she observed him commencing in pulling it on slowly, before preparing to rise.

She was uncertain whether to mention their late visitor at all; she had already informed the elf in question that Fingolfin was indisposed, but there seemed to be an urgency about the elf making it clear the matter could not bear to be postponed. In her experience her husband’s recovery from the few nightmares he had nowadays was swift, but she also knew each situation could be an exception. And she had no wish to place yet more weight upon his shoulders.

Once on his feet, Fingolfin met her eyes and smiled, raising a hand to touch her face thankfully.

‘I shall be fine momentarily. Who is waiting?’

Studying his face a moment longer she finally breathed deeply and took his arm.

‘Elrohir’s son. He seems ill at ease and would not leave until he had been able to speak with you.’

With a slow nod Fingolfin gathered his coat around him and placed a reassuring hand on Anairë’s arm. 

‘Let us go and attempt to reassure him then.’

--~~*~~--

‘You are such a fool, Briníel,’ Celebriníel mumbled to herself as she drew her garments closer around her. Entering the library she found a single lonely light lit. If it was a sign of anything, it was one of her father’s presence.

Picking up the lantern, she used it to light her search for the books her mother had informed her were to be found lying somewhere around there. It did not take her long to discover the stack on the desk. With a smile she retrieved one of the books from among the others, and taking the volume back to the table she lay it down there, placing the lantern beside it. When she found the right page, she simply stared at the picture of which the image had occupied her so much.

A hand rested carefully on her shoulder, and she half-turned, knowing very well who it was that stood beside her.

‘I fear you will not understand this,’ Elrond spoke softly, leaning over and pulling the volume closer.

‘So, it was you who drew it?’ she asked him, observing her father biting his lip as he watched the picture. ‘I was not certain.’

‘I drew it,’ Elrond replied. ’I drew all of them.’

He went back a moment and stared at one of the earlier images. Then he returned to the sketch.

‘I had to,’ he said blankly. ‘For I could not... There was no way to remove the image from my mind. I gathered... Your mother thought that perhaps I could confront it in this manner, so it would not occupy me as much. And it did indeed help. It became something I could live with, even though I could never bring myself to colouring it. Perhaps like that, it was less... real.’

Celebriníel watched him, almost frowning at the picture.

‘Why did it occupy you?’

‘His death was revenge. Revenge for all the times he had thwarted Sauron’s plans. And even if it was never clearly spoken, I came to believe he knew he would die that day. He was aware only death awaited him on that barren plain. For me that changed everything, because it suddenly meant he had gone there purposely, knowing he would not return from the encounter alive. At the time, I could not fathom it. He never spoke to me of it.’

‘Did you question him about it later, when you met again here on Aman?’

‘I did, in passing, but I believe he was not certain of the answer at the time, and I did not truly wish to know anymore. By then I understood why he made that sacrifice.’

‘Why?’

Elrond sat down beside her, catching her hand.

‘To protect the ones that he loved. To save his people from terror.’

Nodding slowly, Celebriníel fixed her gaze on the picture, recognising it, or the feeling that accompanied it.

‘When I shared his nightmare, I felt that. He felt it was what he had to do. Is he really that person still, or is he much different now?’

‘He still does the things he feels he has to do,’ Elrond began, and only when Celebriníel gave him a weak smile did he continue. ‘I somehow seem to remember he was more boisterous. It is an act he has not quite mastered yet, it seems.’

‘An act?’

‘You know him well, Briníel. Do not underestimate this. You see things now you would never have seen in Middle-earth. When he laughs now, he means it. When he laughed then, I was not always certain. When I arrived on Aman and met him again, I believed someone had to know Gil-galad to know Ereinion, but now I think I was mistaken.’

‘You were?’

He nodded.

‘All the same, I am quite certain that if you know Ereinion, you also know Gil-galad. It is a part of him now, undeniably, but not something that rules him.’

’You were great friends, even then.’

Elrond nodded pensively, while his daughter was silent for a while. Celebriníel wondered if Ereinion would do the same now, when forced to make the same choice. However ridiculous the notion, she could not help but speculate. How much had she influenced him, how much more did she mean to him in comparison to those he had known in Middle-earth? The question was unfair, selfish, even, but it occupied her. Would she be able to live without him? Would he be able to live without her?

‘How did you do it?’ she finally whispered. ’Stay in Middle-earth for over five centuries, after Naneth left?’

It was almost the same question, she thought, and it was equally unfair to ask, because she could imagine how much her father must have suffered over it all. If her mother’s reaction was anything to go by, it was a question that would best remain unasked, continue as something between the two of them, not something for her to wonder about.

‘It is not easy to fathom, even, at times, for me,’ she heard him say, to her surprise. ‘If I had been able to surrender duty, if I could have lived with that, believe me, I would have done so, and joined your mother in an instant. I very nearly did. But you would not have been here. And perhaps not even Aman would have been safe now.’

Meeting her eyes, Elrond shook his head.

‘She could not stay, or she would have... faded. And I could not go, Briníel. It was not yet my time.’

‘But why duty, Ada? She missed you, and you missed her...’

Swallowing, Elrond stared at her.

‘I could not go yet because... I have grown to believe it was meant to be that way. Even then, all was already decided. If I had left then, Arwen would have accompanied us. And Middle-earth would likely have fallen, and only Darkness would reign there now.’

‘Do you believe you had to stay so my sister could fall in love with Elessar?’

His breath deep, Elrond shook his head.

‘At the time, all I knew was that Sauron would return, and that if there were none to stand against him, all we had done previously would have been for naught.’

‘You stayed so Ereinion did not die for naught?’

Thinking for a moment, considering a thought he had many times before considered in the privacy of his own mind, he shook his head and caught Celebriníel’s hand again. Was he to tell her that perhaps he had not trusted those who remained enough to protect Middle-earth? That conceivably a weakness of his had been to believe he was indispensable? Duty bound to protect his people?

‘He once told me he felt that what happened had to happen. Whatever reasons were behind it, he did not die for naught.’

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Dor-nu-Fauglith: ‘land under choking ash’, also (previously) called Ard-galen, and Anfauglith

meldaverno: (Quenya) melda: beloved, verno: husband

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