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Bilbo Baggins ran into the elf-lord sometime after his midday nap. It was June, and though many streams ran through the valley of Rivendell, the afternoons were still hot and better spent indoors, sleeping away the heat. Now, it was nearing suppertime (which came quite a bit later, and much less plentifully than Bilbo was used to, but was nonetheless excellent fare, which mostly made up for it), and he was taking a stroll along the outer walkway—not to work up an appetite (for hobbits need no help with that) but simply to look at the northern slopes of the dale, and smell the breeze off the pines.
He had walked this route a few times already in the last week, and had found it mostly deserted. It was a surprise, then, to find the golden-haired elf-lord who had joined them that first night—Glorfindel, his name was, though Gandalf had told him that with an expression that meant he wasn’t likely to ever use it—standing at the edge of a balcony, holding so tight to the stone railing his knuckles had turned white.
“Er,” Bilbo said, a little worried, for all the elves he’d seen so far had been merry, not shaking with anger. “Pardon me, but are you quite alright?”
The elf turned around, looking less surprised at his question, and more confused at who was asking it. It took many long seconds before his bemusement reconciled into remembrance, at which point surprise colored his face, and made his words more true and less polite than they would likely have been otherwise.
“I had the unenviable experience of seeing Thorin draw his new sword earlier.” There was a twist on new, as if it meant something quite different to him.
“Ah,” Bilbo said, trying to tread lightly. It wasn’t often one came upon an irate elf-lord, and certainly not often that one came upon an irate elf-lord that Gandalf had all but told him not to talk to. “It’s, er, a nice sword?”
“Yes,” Glorfindel replied, a touch of melancholy joining the frustration in his words. “Yes, it is.”
Bilbo resisted the urge to scratch his head, immensely regretting having begun the conversation at all. He was a deft hand at dealing with angry relatives and the occasional disgruntled town official, but comparing either of those to an elf-lord was like comparing a piece of gravel to a mountain, and Bilbo had very little experience with mountains. “I suppose you—well, you’ve seen it before?”
Glorfindel’s face became heavy with grief. “I have.”
“Did it... belong to you?” Bilbo ventured, after several moments, when it was clear that he intended to say no more.
“No,” he said, and the exhaustion in his words was trailed by a strange note of longing. “No, it did not. But I knew its owner.”
“Oh.” Bilbo began to feel extremely awkward, like a schoolchild approaching a recitation in front of a large crowd. He had expected dragons on his adventure, not unlikely conversations with stony-faced elves, and though he still preferred the elves to the dragon, he was beginning to think they were more similar than he had imagined. “Well.”
Glorfindel took pity on him then, and his face softened as he spoke, though the grief in it again waxed keener. “I had not... expected to see it ever again. To see it again here, in the House of Elrond, was—well, I was not prepared for such a thing. And—” At this, Glorfindel’s expression grew bitter, and hard, and hurt. “The Lord Elrond did not warn me of it, nor indeed mention its presence at all.”
“You’re angry with him.” Bilbo’s words surprised even him—he hadn’t realized he had the boldness to speak to an elf-lord like that. (His Tookishness, he thought, was beginning to get the better of him more and more often. That did not scare him as much as it might have.)
At this, Glorfindel’s expression lightened—not to the gaiety of the ones that sung among the trees as the company arrived, but to something less glad and more wise, a sort of grave farsight that was more fit for the halls of kings than a garden.
“He is young,” the Glorfindel said, and the distance in his eyes was in his voice too, “though many ages of the world he has seen by your counting. Yet I knew his grandfather, and his grandfather’s father. And for his youth, I cannot be angry with him. He did what he thought was best.”
“Youth?!” Bilbo tried not to sound too surprised. Elrond to him seemed far older than even the eldest of the Tooks, who lived to great ages indeed. Kind as summer—that was him—but venerable as an old king, too, with the sort of look that meant very little could surprise him anymore.
Glorfindel turned to look at Bilbo, and Bilbo had the faint and uncomfortable feeling that he was amused. “It is perhaps a failing of mine, but I have never been able to see those born after the destruction of the Trees as more than children. There is something in the eyes of those born under the sun—something young, and unfamiliar to me.”
“Trees?” Bilbo asked, growing more and more bewildered with every word Glorfindel spoke. The elf smiled, suddenly, and his face became less high and yet more sad.
“There are not so many that sing of them now, but if you wish to hear of them, there are few better places than the House of Elrond. Go to the Hall of Fire, and you will hear as much as you can stomach.”
“Thank you,” Bilbo said, because it was polite, and made a note to visit the Hall of Fire if he could. Elves, he was learning, very rarely gave advice that was actual advice and not just a long talk about how every decision was dangerous. He figured he ought to follow their directions when they told him what to do.
“I am not sure you will thank me later,” Glorfindel said, and his eyes were smiling. “I have no knowledge of the appetites of halflings for stories, but I doubt they could rival the hungriest of elves’. I suspect you will tire of such fare long before the rest of them, even though you will likely fall asleep in the telling.”
Bilbo felt a wave of indignation go through him at that, and drew himself up to his full height. “What you mean by that I don’t rightly know, but I should thank you to know that we hobbits—” he emphasized this word as much as he was able— “take great pride in the telling of our own stories and family histories. If you had the time, I could recount my lineage for you since the first of my kind crossed the Brandywine, and you should be here for days.”
At this Glorfindel grew truly merry. A light was in his face and a pleasure on his brow like the sun on a stream in July, and when he spoke his voice was like to those Bilbo had heard entering the valley. “Is that so, Master Hobbit? Then perhaps I should send you to the loremasters, for we elves also enjoy recounting family history—indeed it is the Master of the House’s lineage of which is most often told here—and I am certain yours is missing from our archives.”
Bilbo began to feel as though Glorfindel was making fun of him.
“Do not think I mean you any disrespect!” the elf added quickly, seeing Bilbo’s face. “I only mean to say that very few of the Eldar would liken our history to the kind you describe, and I myself have often faced censure when I said something of the sort. If I have offended you, I am sorry. I am unfamiliar with those who do not live in Imladris, for it has been many lifetimes of men since I have ventured outside its bounds. Hobbits in particular I have no knowledge of; when you crossed the Baranduin—the Brandywine, forgive my speech—already I had begun to leave this valley less and less. But I should dearly like to remedy my lack of knowledge.”
“Well,” Bilbo said, indignation much assuaged, for he could never resist an opportunity to speak of family history, and Glorfindel had just given him an excellent one, “I doubt it rivals that of the elves. What I have heard of your deeds is not very similar to what we hobbits like to speak of, and even similar to what we like to do. But if you are interested and you had a few hours, I could give you a short history.”
Glorfindel smiled again, gentler, and the merriment in his eyes was matched by a gladness and a strange satisfaction. “I would like that very much indeed, Master Hobbit, for you are not at all as I had guessed, and I should dearly like to know if all hobbits are similar in temperament to you.”
“They most certainly are not,” Bilbo said, about to launch into an explanation of Tookish versus Bagginsish versus Brandybuck versus Bracegirdle and Proudfoot natures (along with a great many other families besides) that would set all of Glorfindel’s mistaken assumptions to right, but he paused, remembering the grief on the elf’s face when he had spoken of seeing Orcrist in Thorin’s hands. “I—well, in any case, if you should like, I could talk to Thorin about letting you have a look at that sword.”
“This is what I mean,” Glorfindel murmured, a hint of a smile down on his face. “There are few who would face the wrath of a dwarf-lord such as Oakenshield for a favor for someone they have only spoken to once, and that with great offense given by their partner. If all hobbits are of such a mold, then I think the Wise have gravely underestimated their importance. But—” He paused, and all at once his face was far away again. Though it was unlined, there was much pain in his eyes, and his sight seemed to have passed out of this age into the world and into one long past. “But I think not. The things that befell that sword should not be recalled now, and besides—he who held it passed out of this country long ago, and now he walks silver shores with pearls in his hair and the sea about his feet. Fair and gentle is his song. I would not disturb it, nor call back memories of when he was otherwise.” His sight resolved, and once again he seemed only to be in this world, not another. His hair was golden and his face was noble, but his feet were on the same stone as Bilbo’s stood on, and his hands were rough with callouses.
Bilbo nodded. He thought it a good choice. It wasn’t good to think too much of grief when it had long passed—not when there were other heartier pursuits to involve oneself in. (Bilbo himself had taken to improving his penmanship after his mother’s death, and had begun a habit of writing very long letters to distant relatives.) And besides, he did not want to see Glorfindel cast back into the same aching fury that Bilbo had found him in.
“Come,” the elf said after a moment. “You promised to tell me of your people, and I shall hold you to it! There is much I would know.”
Bilbo straightened his back, and began with the crossing of the Brandywine long, long ago.