Chapter Text
‘Overall it’s not bad, even though Mâglog keeps threatening to eat me and Freigon hit me for snoring and Lorel got everyone drunk so they made him walk the plank but he’s still not dead so we’re getting used to it.’
Elendil chuckled as he traced the random ink blotch on a salt-speckled letter, imagining Isildur’s irritated holler as he tried to write with four other crewmen arm-wrestling for table space. Two months felt like an age since he’d sent the young man off on a ship with black sails and an oath of freedom. Eärien hadn’t spoken to him for weeks after he came home alone.
She was out in the garden now, rattling off to Avan where she wanted the marigolds planted and asking if they could shape a hill over the pond for Elrond’s tree. The lonely winter had changed her, honing her natural leadership as the household responsibilities fell to her shoulders, and now Elendil referred most of the staff’s questions to her. He hoped that the family reliance would keep her from straying off for a long while yet.
He wasn’t ready for an empty house.
As if sensing the impending loneliness Russo scrabbled onto his lap, claws digging in with just enough force to remind Elendil that he was neglecting the most important task of rubbing tattered ears. Properly slung out and at peace with the world, the former stray sniffed another letter with stamped Dwarven insignia and promptly sank his teeth into parchment.
“Russo,” Elendil warned, tugging the letter free and sighing as the signature was shredded. Wrong Durin, if the cat was holding a grudge. He had planned to present the notice to the queen tomorrow morning.
‘As the time of mourning is now passed, it is the wish of King Durin IV to reestablish our friendship with Númenor. Please ensure that a certain Sea Captain is present for the duration of the ceremony and accept any apologies in advance for insults exchanged.’
The irony was not lost to Elendil, nor was the sweeping nostalgia as he recalled that first disastrous week when he brought a lonely survivor into his home. From a slave to a warrior embarking on his final quest, Elrond’s journey across sea and land had earned its own place in the ballads of Númenor. There was even a statue in the library where old scrolls had been scavenged; although the model chosen by the architect couldn’t quite emulate that mulish set to Elrond’s chin when he was trying to make a point. Eärien was still upset that her sketch was considered “too familial for a brave warrior.”
Not for the first time, Elendil wondered if Elrond had found his peace. Such a feeling had never felt so far away for himself, even in the comfort of his now too quiet home.
Rankled by the stillness that itched of trouble without a reckless soul to get underfoot, Elendil plucked up a yowling Russo and marched out the door. He needed to feel the wind in his hair and the spray on his skin until he recaptured that impulse to sail to the end of the world.
One day he might take that urging all the way to the fabled Havens.
The world felt different resting on Ulmo’s shoulders. While Russo dangled his paw over the prow and clawed in a silvery morsel Elendil sat against the mast, tugging the main rope to keep the skiff in line with the shore. Tol Eressëa flashed behind him; a fallen monument that recent expeditions still could not reach, even though some days it seemed close enough to approach with a dingy.
He’d scooped Elrond out of the water on that reckless plunge. Every shore and pier was saturated with memories.
“Never grow old,” Elendil sighed, ruffling the fur along Russo’s flank. “Everyone will leave you eventually.”
The cat trilled a response and crunched down on his fish. He would not pine over the two squalling, helpless runts that had survived a litter of six. El and Isil were currently refuging in a box in Eärien’s room and they had a ruthless feeding schedule, which was far too much work for a beleaguered single father.
“One day they’ll grow up and then you’ll be sorry,” Elendil warned him. Yellow eyes blinked lazily before Russo ripped off a chunk of silver flesh. This is my life here and now, do not trouble me with tomorrow’s problems.
Oh that they could all live with such frivolous regard for the march of time.
Leaning back and folding his arms, Elendil watched a pure white gull flit across the horizon. The waves were peaceful and he would force himself to feel the same if he had to laze out here all day.
Except that the sea hadn’t been peaceful for weeks now. It thrummed, it vexed, it hastened and pulled, it screamed on the fringes of consciousness and now it sang, pulling Elendil down to the skiff and tugging him deeper, further, away from dull white shores and closer to something for which the dolphins held their breath.
He saw a blotch on the horizon and watched it idly, too comfortable to move and too curious to look away. The shadow became a sail, a mast, a rickety frame of thatched boards probably salvaged from an old wreck.
Merciful Eru, he knew that graceful stroke.
Springing to his feet, Elendil spared himself but a moment to squint at the rower and then he threw his sail into the wind. Choppy water, the glare of a too bright sun in a cloudless sky, the pulse in his ears thundering how, when, why?
Abandoning the cloak he’d tied up as a sail, the reckless fool jumped and swam the last league, seizing Elendil’s vest as he stooped to haul him into the boat. The chattering teeth could not hold back a smile any more than the ring strung on a mithril chain could not fit on those perpetually thin fingers. Speechless, Elendil yanked the sodden Elf against his chest, muffling a sob of consternation, of hope.
“Y-You weren’t expecting me, I gather?” Elrond teased, the lightness of choice strengthening the voice that had once wavered in helplessness.
Thrusting him away with sudden dismay, Elendil demanded, “What happened? Were you attacked? Where are the others?”
“They’re safe,” Elrond said, tucking back his soggy curls with some measure of guilt. “I saw them pass into the horizon. They’re home.”
“And you’re here now.” Anger conflicted with joy because here wasn’t safe, not when Durin was still quarreling with his brother over territorial lines and the corsairs hovered by undefended ports. “Why are you here?”
Confused by the scolding, Elrond tugged a sleeve that was practically worn through. “I felt you call me,” he said uncertainly, his fingers latching onto his ring. “When I looked into the water I saw you going home. Alone. So I jumped ship before we crossed into Valinor.” With an embarrassed flush he added, “Galadriel will be furious with me until the end of the age.”
“Galadriel will be furious?” Elendil exclaimed. After all the trouble he’d gone to put that fool onto a boat and shove him off to a land where every threat was punted by the gods? “I will be furious until the end of the age!”
The wide-eyed innocence was unrepentant and mischievous and so dearly missed. “I can always catch another boat?”
Elendil managed to hold his scowl for a full ten counts before he laughed, cuffing the crested ear and pulling Elrond into a longer hug. You belong here. You’re home.
“You realize I’m the one who has to tell Eärien to put out another plate for supper,” he said begrudgingly as he detached himself and turned the sail, already imagining his daughter’s scream when he hauled in her dripping adopted brother.
“Oh thank Eru!” Elrond groaned, leaning down to swoop up Russo and bury his face in squirming silken fur. “I feel like I could eat a whole mountain troll!”
Elendil pressed a hand to the sun-kissed brow with a frown. “Are you ill or did Ulmo send me the wrong Elf?”
The sharp laugh was as relaxed as Isildur’s; the herald of happier days to come. For foreign shores were not a prison if the sojourner was willing and welcome, and a home was not lonely so long as family gathered within. Elendil slung an arm around bony shoulders, kissing the salty curls as he imagined an impossible future. They’d have to repaint Elrond’s room and the garden would be magnificent and Toban would have more coins in his purse than there were pebbles in Isildur’s wardrobe and everything would be fine.
But first, he would string a hammock in that birch tree so he could make Elrond regret singing in the next confounded winter. Dear Eru, he was going to have to fight off every midwife and gardener this year who wanted an Elf’s blessings on their harvest. Perhaps he could put a cap over those pointed ears and pass him off as a third son. No one would notice.
From the ragged shriek of delight when they pulled into the harbor — when Valandil launched himself at the skiff and plucked up Elrond without space to breathe — it was clear that Elendil’s plot had already failed. It was a wonderful peace while it lasted.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to ship him back to Valinor.