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Elrond pauses before opening the door. It’s never easy to see one of his children injured, but he doesn’t want to look alarmed. Even a brief moment of panic could cause stress, making the pain worse. He closes his eyes and counts slowly. Already he is starting to see Elrohir through the door – a strange thing that he cannot say for sure isn’t just a trick of his mind. But it always happens. Elrohir is aware that he’s here now, he feels suddenly, and turns the handle. The door pushes open. The room is warm.
Elrohir lies on the bed, trailing his fingers along his neck. ‘I'm a bit out of it,’ he says. His bed is white.
‘Yes,’ Elrond says. He touches Elrohir’s forehead. He is quite warm. Elrond opens the last window fully. Birds sing. Roses bloom in soft red around the window frame. The wind chases petals in.
Elrohir's fingers drop from tracing his neck. ‘I’m tired, but I can’t sleep.’ Elrohir’s gaze is clouded and soft. His hair spills around him. ‘I’m trying to think of words,’ he whispers.
Elrond sits beside him. He checks his bandages. They are white. There is no trace of blood on him any longer.
‘Does it hurt?’ Elrond asks.
‘A bit.’ Elrohir tries to shift on the bed, but Elrond stills him, hands on his arms. ‘Tell me.’
‘I want to sit up more.’
Elrond lifts Elrohir gently, not disturbing the two new wounds he carries. He puts two more pillows beneath his shoulders and head.
‘That’s as far up as you’re going.’
Elrohir smiles. ‘Yes, my lord.’
Elrond rolls his eyes. My lord is one of their favourite phrases to annoy him just a bit. He never had them call him it and so they picked it up to irritate him, fondly, of course. Even through the pain and the weariness, Elrohir’s eyes laugh. Elrond kisses his temple.
‘Do you want more medicine?’ he asks.
‘Has anyone ever turned down pain medicine?’
‘Mmm.’ Elrond is already measuring the medicine. ‘Some have. To look strong, sometimes, or if it’s muddling your head too much.’
‘My head is already muddled.’ Elrohir draws in a sharp breath through his teeth. Elrond gives him the medicine. He rests his hand on his head until the pain eases. He hates to see him in pain, but the wounds – on his leg and side – are both shallow and will heal without complications. And for now, he will know that he is alive and safe. That relief is a guilt to him for what it cost. He kisses his son again.
‘Is that better?’
‘Much.’ Elrohir smiles at him. His eyes are half closed. Elrond strokes his hair back. There is a dampness near his scalp from sweat.
It is summer, and the sun is still bright. There are no clouds in the sky – no feel of any storm. Elrohir will stay for the rest of the summer. So will Elladan. They may both stay into the winter, then. He lifts Elrohir’s hand and kisses it.
Elrohir studies him, gaze still soft, not fully focused. He strokes Elrond’s hair where it falls against his arm. He tucks it back behind Elrond’s ear, fingers shaky, hand unsteady.
‘My darling,’ Elrond whispers. He kisses his hand again.
Sunlight fills the room. The light shakes with the tremble of the leaves. They are green, all touched golden.
‘Don’t leave,’ Elrohir murmurs. ‘Ada.’
‘I’m not leaving.’ Elrond lies beside him on his side. Elrohir turns his face to him. He stares up at him, not focused, everything about him soft in a way that makes thousands of years fall away like an ice-eroded mountain range falling back to the earth, leaving Elrohir a child again, for just a moment.
He was a child with dark grey eyes and hair as black as the night whispering of flames and shadows until Elrond’s hand steadied him. He fell asleep in Elrond’s arms. He brought his parents wildflowers from his walks. He wove yellow flowers into golden crowns, and there was no gold more beautiful.
Elrond slides his hand into Elrohir’s hair and cradles his head. He cradles his cheek. He kisses each freckle on his face.
‘Don’t leave.’ Elrohir’s voice is as soft as the breeze.
‘I’m not leaving.’ Elrond kisses the top of his head. The wounds will leave pain in his body. They both know this. They both have scars – barely visible where their skin has fixed itself – but imprinted in their flesh, kept and carried in their bodies. And both will face danger again, even to the point of death, for love. For vengeance. For a world that they do not fully belong to.
Elrond strokes Elrohir’s arm with the back of his hand. Elrohir shivers.
‘I want water.’
Elrond lifts his head gently to let him drink. Through the water the sunlight flies, casting golden light and rainbows down onto the bed.
‘It’s such a beautiful day,’ Elrohir says. He shivers again and reaches for the bandages. ‘My, I feel it.’
The knitting of the flesh together – the healing – is a pain in itself. Elrond whispers a song, but he cannot sing out loud, and his words are lost beneath the sound of the waterfall.
Elrohir twists, trying to work out the pain. Elrond stills him again.
‘Lie still,’ he says softly. He places his hand over the stab wound on his thigh, concentrating on the feel of it in his son’s soul. It is stinging, burning. It aches, and it throbs. It is all of these things at once, as many wounds are.
The wound on his side is shallower, but longer. It comes from the sweep of an axe, not the blade of a knife. It throbs more than it stings.
‘Mother would call me reckless,’ Elrohir says. ‘That I take on battles too great for me.’
Do you have a choice, my love?
Someone must fight.
Elrond holds Elrohir closer to him, curling himself carefully around Elrohir’s body so that he would not hurt him more. He finds the pain in his body that the medicine could not drive away and pulls it to himself.
I know what you’re doing, Elrohir says.
I want to.
Not too much.
There is no pain that would be too much to take from you.
Elrohir stares up at him without an answer. Elrond brushes his fingers against his cheek.
‘Sleep, darling.’
Elrohir sleeps, and Elrond holds him. He watches the sunlight turn from white to yellow to gold to grey and then slip away. The moon rises silver.