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Chapter Text

It is not quite a lie to say the boy has something of Melian’s beauty. She had been beautiful, but that was not what people remembered about her. 

After all, it was her daughter’s blinding perfection that the elves still sung of so incessantly. 

Adar had never seen Luthien, and so could not say if there was any of her in Elrond, but he suspects not.

From what he’s heard Luthien was a flighty wild thing, well named Tinuviel by her mortal lover. 

Elrond has a steadiness to him, which, had Adar not once gazed upon Melian, he would have thought the result of his mannish blood rather than his Maiar ancestry. 

He should not feel a kinship with this peredhel who is a thing of halves and almosts. 

Elrond is of starlight and gloaming, implacable as his heartless foremother had been in her own way. Adar is a shadow now, only. 

Elrond watches him with bright eyes that never saw The Trees, from where he is shackled to the table. 

“I hope you do not intend to propose a trade.” He says archly, seemingly unafraid. “I know not what you have heard of my history, but such proposals usually go unanswered.” He smiles with a baring of teeth, and Adar against his better judgement wishes to smile back in kind. 

In truth, Adar knows almost nothing of the child’s history. The line of Luthien, (and what an insult to name the daughter of the goddess before the goddess herself) had ceased to be of concern to him once Doriath had fallen. 

“You seem well at ease, considering your situation.” Adar notes. 

Elrond looks about, as though searching for what it is exactly that should distress him. 

“I find fear rarely provokes mercy, and you are not Sauron. I have hope, that should the moment come, you will be quick in your decision. Arondir has said you were ruthless, but that need not mean cruel.”

“And what would you know of cruelty, little elfling?” It is an empty enough barb. Elrond is young but would have reached his majority before the ending of the first age. 

He is not an elfling. And as such he will have witnessed the cruelty of Morgoth, in some form or another. 

Elrond shrugs. “Less than you, I am sure. As you say, I am young.” 

Adar has rarely found conversation with an elf to be anything but dull. He searches for what he wishes to know. They are enraged and terrified at his existence and worse so at the existence of his children. 

He provokes, they attack, and one way or another he gets his use of them.

Elrond does not wish to be provoked, that much is clear. 

Adar must try a different approach.

“How old are by the count of your kind? I have never met one before.”

Elrond shrugs. “It is the same as by the count of elves- grown, but still young. No longer a youth but not yet of an age to be considered wise.”

Adar scoffs. “ I have never found years to be a measure of wisdom. By that count Sauron has would be the wisest being to walk middle earth, followed most like, by Galadriel or I.”

Elrond eyes him sharply, but does not answer.

“Sauron is many things,” Adar continues, “but none have ever counted him amount the wise.”

“And yourself?” Elrond asks. “Do you count yourself among the wise?” 

That is a deft maneuver since Adar must know either argue his own ignorance or argue against himself. 

“It is had never been wisdom I seek.”

Elrond hums. “And yet despite, having made a place of safety for yourself and your children, you are here.” 

Adar scowls. Elrond shrugs. 

“Do you not intend to scold me for what was defiled, as your lady Galadriel would have?”

Elrond smiles, a courtier’s look and false as fool’s gold. “What good would that do? The south lands are as lost as fair Gondolin.”

Adar considers. “It is different to mourn an old tale never glimpsed than a home recently lost.” 

“And yet, the drowned lands will yet lie beneath the waves, and the south lands beneath the fires, until such time as forces far greater than you or I choose otherwise.” Elrond replies without hesitation. 

Adar looks away. He has been distracted and was speaking for the joy of words rather than the well-being of his children.

“Why do you not despise orcs? It is odd from one born in the first age.”

Elrond considers this and for the first time seems to struggle for words.  

“What evil I have know,” he finally answers. “…was never suffered at the hands of your children.”

He has the haunted look of one forced to look at something he has ever kept out of sight. 

Adar has been vaguely aware that the Elsar were not always peaceful among themselves but, had never thought much of it as they were so much more peaceful than the constantly squabbling Edain. 

He has never considered what hollow horror facing your own kind across a field of battle would be. Particularly for the elves whose children are born so rarely and grow so slowly.

He has heard of massacres among the elves, and what a strange thing it is to realize that the Enemy had had little enough to do with the worst of them. 

“Is it men then? Who haunt you so?” He asks softly.  

Elrond looks away. Adar know it is not men who haunt this scion of Melian, but he will press his advantage now that he has found it and steps closer to the boy. 

Elrond closes his eyes, the first true sign of distress he has shown since his capture.

“How did you come to gaze upon my foremother’s face? To know that I resemble her?” He asks. 

It is a desperate parry, but a good one, one which might have wrong footed Adar if he were not now so firmly on the attack. 

He leans even closer to the boy. “It is a lie you know,” and he knows Elrond must feel the heat of his body and his breath upon his cheek, “that the servants of the enemy despise beauty. In truth we long for it, as a drowning man longs for air or a starving man for food, and hate it only for the pain of our longing.”

Elrond has his eyes closed still and his face turned away. He is tense in anticipation of a blow or a different kind of assault. 

If it were a different captive Adar might consider such a thing, for while he has no particular enjoyment of it, there is almost no surer way to kill an elf than to force them and wound their spirit beyond repair. 

But, Elrond is a peredhel so who knows if that would even work besides, fading is a slow death and what Adar lacks most is time. 

He moves away and sits once more. Elrond does not relax but he opens his eyes and turns to watch him. 

Adar smiles and picks up his goblet. “Tell me child,” and he uses the word that means a child of men, and not elves, “have you heard the tale of your forefather Dior the Fair?”

The peredhel gives a minute nod, perhaps confused by this turn in coversation, perhaps afraid. 

Dior had hardly lived long enough to to accomplish anything of note, certainly nothing to the Uruk would consider important. 

“They say he was the most beautiful of Ilúvatar’s as children, having in nearly equal parts the blood of men, elves and maiar.” 

Elrond licks his lips to find his voice. “I had always heard it was Luthien who was the fairest-“ 

Adar scoffs. “Luthien was beautiful and terrible and fell. Her son, to his sorrow, inherited only her beauty but it was beauty beyond any other. So say those who say him with the silmaril on his throat.” 

Elrond has regained his nerve and considers Adar more openly once more. “And how did you come to speak with any who would have seen the sight?” 

Adar ignores the question, many elves have been captured and held for various uses since the first age, and he did not lie when he spoke of how the Uruk coveted beauty. 

Sometimes, if a prisoner could spin beautiful words they might delay the inevitable. 

“His beauty lingered even without the silmaril, even after he was dead.” Adar meets Elrond’s gaze and holds it firm. “When servants of Morgoth looted Doriath they came upon his body and counted it among the treasure to be brought back with them, before quarrelling over it.”

Elrond is wide eyed and pale. 

Adar continues. “Scraps of it changed hands among the many thralls in Angband, though obviously what grace and beauty he once possessed were faded from such pieces. The head though-“ he pauses, relishing the horror of what he will Impart. “The head was preserved by one of Morgoth’s servants. A bauble kept within the keep, and bestowed as a banner to favoured legions.”

He pauses again. “I wonder what became of it in the end?” 

“A general likely disposed of it when the Hosts of Valinor landed. Even a servant of Morgoth would not be so foolishly vile as to wave the severed head of Melian’s only grandchild before the Valar themselves.” 

Adar considers this. “I suppose it is likely.” 

Elrond nods, and then takes a deep breath. “The rings you seek are as the silmarils. They enthrall with their beauty and will lead those who covet them to ruin and despair.” 

Adar pretends to consider this. “Except of course, that any hand may wield them. No matter how foul or bloodied.” Adar raises his own hand to show his intention. 

Elrond’s eyes are full of kindness and pity. “My brother said it was the curse of elves that we endure, and through enduring we are changed, and forever forced to face the changes that time and pain have wrought. Only men are free to move beyond this narrow plane that the rest of us are chained to.” 

Adar supposes that is as good an explanation as any he had heard for why men ought to consider death a “gift”. 

Elrond looks at him. 

“What horror must the Dark have wrought that the severed head of a murdered king would seem a thing of beauty to one who had awoken beneath the stars before the sun ever rose.” The peredhel murmurs. 

Elrond seems almost as though he will weep for all the unending suffering the thralls of Morgoth suffered and will never escape. 

Adar snorts. “I have no need of pity.” 

Elrond raises his brows. “And yet. I pity you. As I have few others.”

Adar considers him. “Truly. There is very much something of Melian in you

Chapter Text

Elrond is in truth not particularly important to Adar, being only connected to the powerful rather than powerful himself. Perhaps in time he would learn to wield his gifts to greater effect but, for the moment, he could offer little save insights into the thoughts and minds of his betters, and perhaps the workings of the rings. 

Still, Adar was interested in him.

 He had spoken true when he said he’d never seen a peredhel before, but he had heard rumours that they were once relatively numerous before the end of the first age, when the Valar had more or less told men and elves that they were not to fuck each other anymore. 

So, Adar goes to look at his prisoner; opening the cell and creeping as close as he could without disturbing the boy. 

It is a particular terror to know there is nothing to protect you while you sleep. Adar remembers it well. He crouched near where Elrond half lies, half sits, with his hands shackled to the wall. 

He leans forward and blows on Elrond’s bound hands and when his captive startles awake it is to meet Adar’s eyes uncomfortably close to his own. 

Elrond cannot hide his fear and there is satisfaction in that, though not so great as it would have been if Adar had managed to frighten the scornful lady Galadriel, who so disdained him. 

Adar blinks at the boy. 

Elrond frowns. “Is it the old longing for beauty that has brought you here?” He asks, and it is gentle as though Adar is a wounded elfling crying over a wound but allowing no healer near him 

Adar does not answer, allowing his malice to slip free a little. 

Elrond shudders and closes his eyes. “Was there singing in Utunmo or Angband?” He asks. “Even uruk must sing, for I cannot imagine any people being people if they do not have songs.” 

Adar is once again impressed. He can practically taste Elrond’s fear, and yet he has the presence of mind to speak of his children kindly and with the right name. 

Adar falls back on his heels, not really moving but giving the peredhel room to breathe. 

Elrond peaks out of one eye and then the other. He takes a breath. “Do you remember an elf with red hair hanging from a cliff of Thangorodrim ?”

Adar is surprised by the image that immediately conjures. A memory so vivid and long forgotte. 

He remembers the elf chained high upon the mountain with hair that glinted like fire in the sun’s light. 

It was easy to see at a distance and it had been a favourite game for a time to watch for the red hair amid the dark rocks on the journey home and rejoice when it came into sight. 

“Yes.” He answers unthinkingly. “I remember him.”

“Did he sing?” Elrond asks, and there is something pleading and tender in the words. “Thirty years is so long to live without music.”

This child asks the strangest questions. 

“Not so I could hear.” Adar answers truthfully. “Though I only saw him from a distance, and rather assumed he was dead, and preserved with magic.”

Elrond nods and Adar sits comfortably on the ground, giving up his crouch and creating even more distance between them. 

“A kinsman of yours?” He asks. 

Luthien wed a mortal of some renown but he has no idea who Dior or his children might have wed to produce Elrond. 

 His captive shrugs. “After a fashion.”

That told Adar nothing. All the high elves who had come out of the west with the light of trees in their eyes were kin to one another and neither the green elves nor grey elves tended to red hair. 

Elrond watches him. “You did not answer me.”

“What?” 

“Do Uruk have songs?”

“Yes.” Adar admits. 

“But not beautiful ones.”

Adar huffs and rolls his eyes. “They serve other roles.” 

Elrond hums. “Would you have a song of me? Is that why you are here?” 

Adar would like a song of Elrond, scion of Luthien whose song had calmed the heart of Morgoth himself, but it would draw attention. 

Adar moves closer. “Do you take me for a fool?” 

Elrond’s cheek twitches. “I have no talent for songs of power, despite my ancestry and much to the despair of my illustrious tutors.” 

“Nonetheless.” 

There is a long pause. 

“Is this the longing for beauty you spoke of?” Elrond asks again. “Or, are you only trying to demonstrate your power over me?” 

Adar does not know, only that he has had no one speak to him in kindness who was not a child of his in an age or more, and Elrond, for all it is a kindness born of fear, speaks to him as an equal. 

It reminds him of happy times before the world as he understood it ended, and there were still other Moriondor yet living. 

A foolish notion, but still. It is a comfort somehow, and Elrond is right, it eases the ache in his chest that longs for all the things he lost. 

Adar shrugs and leans back again. “Share with me some scrap of the beauty of the world you have known.” He commands. “A tale perhaps, but not of Luthien- her’s I have heard before.”

Elrond stares at him and thinks. “Most of the tales I know are not quite beautiful, for they speak of terrible things. Though, perhaps that might please you?” 

Adar scowls. “As we have our own songs we have our own tales that tell our own histories. Speak to me of yours.” 

And so Elrond draws a breath and tells of the wandering star that appeared at the end of the first age, which is in truth a blessed ship sailing the void with a silmaril upon the prow. 

It is a good enough story: the mariner seeking the aid of the Valar in defiance of the edict against men reaching Valinor. Though, the bit about his wife becoming a bird and joining him was odd. 

Elrond finishes the tale quickly, having told it very simply as to a child. Adar suspects that without the song behind them he cannot recall the verses some grand poet has attached to the story. 

“What I don’t understand-“ Adar immediately begins. “Is why the mariner is called a man if his parents were an elven princess and a mortal lord?”  

This time Elrond’s confusion and surprise break his fear entirely. He laughs incredulously. “All Peredhel must choose whether or not we will accept the gift of men and become mortal or linger among the elves until the breaking of the world.”

Adar frowns. So this peredhel is not a half thing for he has chosen to be an elf. And presumably there are far fewer peredhel about not just because they were no longer being born but also because many had chosen the gift of men. 

He blinks and sits back. “The Valar made you choose? What? All of you? And-“

And enforced the choice it seemed. They had made half things whole, undone that which had already been born into the world, and not in mercy or kindness but for control. 

How dare Elu’s children behave in ways counter to the valar’s design? 

How dare Aulë not speak for them when he had made his own people to suit his whim? 

How dare they offer no mercy to the Uruk, who had no choice but to be born and die in torment for most of the ages of the world?!

Adar bursts to his feet and storms back and forth. 

“They took from you your mannish blood?” He asks. 

Elrond opens and closes his mouth, unsure how to answer. 

Adar paces again. “I had heard half the little villages in Beleriand held a peredhel or two!” He shouts.

His children had spoken of them from time to time returning from raids and he and the other generals had gossiped that the Noldor elves fucked women the way certain wild men fucked sheep: only because they had heard it could be done and were curious of the experience. 

Certainly most elves saw the men of Beleriand as far far below them. 

Elrond shrugs. “Most peredhel were born to  elvish fathers and human mothers. Having been raised among the edain most of those that were not killed in the war chose the Gift and sailed to Numenor with the other men so blessed by the Valar.”

He says it as though it were easy and Adar seethes. It is a terrible thing to be unmade and reborn. He had chosen it and wanted it for all that came after, but the peredhel? Rebirth was their only option- either as elf or man but never as themselves. 

Adar clenches and unclenches his fists while Elrond watches warily. 

“It seems to me that if Eru did not wish his children to mate he would not have made such matings fertile.” He hisses. 

Adar is so angry. This least of indiscretions the Valar had corrected but the thralls at Angband had suffered. The early uruks who were more elvish than their later descendants had lived and died in torment never understanding why and never having hope of anything better. 

The Valar has corrected the beings of the peredhel, who were born, if not of love, than at least of no worse lust than mortal men and who none save the Valar objected to and left the orcs, born of torment and torture whose existence all elves and some men considered a crime against the One. 

They could have been remade as some tribe of lesser men, still hideous in the eyes of elves but stronger of mind than they were now and able to walk in daylight. 

Adar’s heart clenches at the dream: his children living in some harsh and barren place unwanted by the other races, able to sit by a river in the sun and fish.   

Instead, the Valar had corrected what did not need correcting and left the bastard children of their hated brother to languish. 

How like the fickle ignorant gods to think their own creations the only things of value. Even the dwarvem fathers who had not befriended elves or men had dwindled down in these later days. 

Only the line of durin, elf-friends that they are, prospered. 

Elrond is watching him. “We are not mules being made back into donkeys and horses. You do not understand what you speak of.”

Adar scoffs, dismissively, and looks down at the peredhel. 

He had had men and women before, all the Moriondor had, in mockery of Luthien. Rather, like the elves themselves, they had been curious what had so enticed the daughter of a goddess to such great acts. 

Though, one among them had so disdained the idea that she had clipped the points from the ears of an elvish thrall and loudly declared him her human lover, much to the amusement of the other Generals around them. 

He wonders what had become of them, in the end. Had she killed him? Or had he been saved by Morgoth’s defeat and gone west with the rest of the half-mad slaves the war had freed? 

Had she died with the fall of Angband? Or long before then? 

He doesn’t remember. 

He has an impulse to hit Elrond with his heavy gauntleted hand and kick him in the head once he had fallen. He imagines the blood and disorientation with satisfaction. Elrond would not understand being hurt without reason. 

Whatever he had lived through there was a gentleness to him that the world had not yet touched, and a kindness that came of never having been torn to pieces. 

Adar sighs and sits again, leaning his head back against the wall, eyes closed. 

He tries to bring to mind the others who had climbed that mountain in the eldest of the elder days, what their faces had been and what names he had called them by. 

It is so difficult to remember. 

There is a rustle as Elrond shifts closer to him. The elfling is too kind, it will kill him in the end. 

“Would you like another tale?” The peredhel asks gently. 

Adar opens his eyes and sees Elrond again and wonders when the fact of him will stop being surprising. Melian’s get in his dungeon, as calm and sure as she had been at the dawning of the word. 

“A proper one this time.” Adar commands. “Not some half remembered children’s tale.” 

Elrond nods looking nervous again and licks his lips before he begins reciting poetry. 

The poem is about the western elves in the time before the trees, the loss of the trees and how the western elves came east against the dictates of the Valar.

It is a beautiful song, though Elrond merely recites the lyrics and gives no voice to the melody, Adar can tell there is a tune beneath the words as beautiful as anything he has heard. 

It is a sad song as elf songs so often are. Adar closes his eyes to listen, raptly. 

After a time he opens them and listens with interest. 

Finally he sighs in boredom, and stands with a stretch. “Enough of that!”

The peredhel ceases immediately.

“Morgoth’s balls child, that song is far too long. Perhaps I ought to have you listen to some Uruk songs so that you might understand what it is to have music stir the blood rather than send a body to sleep.”

Elrond shrugs. “It is a song from the second greatest bard of the first age; the work of a lifetime.” 

Adar laughs. “What, you could not recite a tale from the greatest bard of the first age?” 

Elrond bites back a smile. “The only one of his that I know is the Lay of Lúthien.” 

Adar shakes his head.

“Will you sing me an uruk song then?” The little fellow has the cheek to ask. 

Adar considers kicking the little scrap over but decides against it. 

“Do you know what became of him? The elf hung from the cliff?” 

“He died at the end of the War. The pains he had suffered became too much.”

“He faded like some weakling?”

Elrond’s laugh is mirthless. “Such a fate would have been too slow. He slit his own throat.”

Adar raises his eyebrows, impressed. Self murder is vanishingly rare among the elves. 

He turns to leave again, but Elrond’s voice stops him. “Do you really love them?”

He looks over his shoulder at the prisoner bound in the dirt and yet somehow still standing in judgement. 

“Your children.” Elrond clarifies taking Adar’s silence for confusion. “Do you really love them or do you only love that they are yours? Feanor loved neither his sons nor the Silmarils in truth. He loved only that they were his.”

Adar considers the questions and then steps forward and strikes Elrond with his gauntleted hand as hard as he can. 

The peredhel laughs from where he is crumpled on the floor. “I see.” 

Adar thinks again about kicking him in the head until he cannot wield his words so skillfully.

Instead he just turns and locks the door behind him. His prisoner is elf enough to suffer in darkness. 

He tells the orcs guarding to door to gag the prisoner and blindfold him. 

Let him sit silenced in the dark and see how long his bravery lasts

Chapter Text

Elrond is not afraid of the dark. 

He has worn it as a blanket and wielded it as a shield. 

His arms hurt where they have been bound, and he knows he is alone.

There is blood in his mouth and the taste of dirt from the balled up rag and the cloth between his teeth cuts into his cheek where it is tied too tight. 

He feels his eyes prick with tears and the pain in his head confuses him and he is certain for a moment that whoever has done this to him will be sorry when Nelyo gets here. Nelyo will make them sorry for what they’ve done . 

He catches the thought, surprised, and examines it like an unusual insect. 

He had so rarely called Maedhros Nelyo . That was Maglor’s name for his brother and Elrond only used it when Maedhros had seemed in need of kindness or when Elrond himself had been small and terrified and in desperate need of comfort. 

Elros had used it more, usually to goad and irritate their guardian-captor.

How strange that, despite being dead an age, it is the kind and monstrous jailer of his childhood that his brain turns to for imagined rescue? 

Maedhros may not have loved them for themselves, but he had been fiercely protective if he thought they were in harm's way. 

He used to fly into rages that would reduce the two of them to tears if he thought they had been careless. You are fragile, you must not risk yourselves. 

In Elrond’s mind, even now, there is no greater terror than Maedhros’ anger, unpredictable and unstoppable as it was. 

There had been no elf born as fierce and strong as the first son of Feanor. In his mad rage and courage none could stand against him. 

He would cut through this host of orcs like a  knife through butter and carry Elrond away from here draped over one shoulder, screaming his rage at his wayward ward for causing him so much trouble the entire time

Elros and Elrond had not been free, because they had not belonged to themselves or been allowed to wander,  but they had been loved and that was something. 

The mean red wolf can snarl and growl

Snarl and growl, snarl and growl 

The mean red wolf can snarl and growl 

But my black dog, he bites!!

He is bound in darkness with his shoulders ache if and a mouth full of blood but suddenly he’s laughing because he remembers Maedhros’ put upon look as Maglor held Elrond on his lap and sang the song he’d made for the twins to sing if  Maedhros was frightening them too much.  

Elrond shifts so his face is more comfortably in the dirt and he can smell the rich scent of fertile soil and growing thing and starts to hum to himself. 

“A song to banish frightful things” Maglor had told them seriously when they had run sobbing down the hallways, terrified that Maedhros would kill them and equally terrified that he would turn them out to die alone in the woods.

Maglor had written more songs to annoy his brother than any other type, but there had been dozens of other simple little ditties he had taught the captive peredhel to pass the time.

So many happy songs and most of them forgotten. 

He hums the song Maglor write to remind them he would always place himself between the peredhel and his brother’s rages. 

It will pass the time he thinks, to try and remember all the verses. 

—

Time does pass and he has moved on to one of the songs he remembers as his mother’s favourite in the early days of his childhood, before their city fell and she was lost to the forever. 

In Eol’s keep the dog’s don’t bite

In Nagothund the lamps are bright 

But in Doriath we dance! 

There is a muttered conversation occurring in black speech by the door, and steps inside the tent. 

Orc steps. Not Adar then.

The blindfold is lifted from his eyes and he is confronted with the earnest face of an orc. 

“Shhh shhh shhh!” The orc hisses, as though Elrond could make much noise at all, gagged as he is. 

“You must turn lord father from this folly!” The orc whispers, glancing around as if said lord father might erupt from the shadows at any moment. 

Elrond makes an incredulous sound behind his gag and glances around the tent as though asking how exactly he is meant to convince Adar of anything when he has been kept alone, bound and blindfolded. 

The orc winces. “We have not broken camp since your capture!” He pleads. “That is as close as he has come to turning from his purpose since he heard the news of Sauron’s return.” 

“Please, Master Elf! He says he loves us but he will kill us all in service of his revenge!” 

The orc is heartbroken, Elrond realizes distantly. The only creature to ever claim to care for them is leading them to their deaths and what a thing it is to learn that orcs have hearts to break. 

Elrond meets the orc’s eye and nods. 

The orc is not comforted by this and instead reaches out to awkwardly pat Elrond’s bound arm. 

“He probably won’t listen.” The orc warns. “But if he does we can go home, and maybe no more of us have to die.” 

Elrond is suddenly aware of how much his arms hurt and how the taste of old blood and dirt in his mouth makes him want to gag. He is once more in the orc camp, not hidden in the palace of memory. 

He tries to focus on what the orc has told him. 

If he convinces Adar to return to the Southlands, then Eregion will not be attacked at all. 

The desperate sprint to warm Lindon and mustering of armies great enough to defend it will not be necessary. 

Since his capture, Elrond has been mostly unconcerned with the larger strategies at play. He has been focused on his own survival and thwarting Adar as much as possible in his desire for the Elven rings. 

But, now he sees the possibilities this orc clings to in desperate hope and he holds the creature’s gaze and nods again. 

He had resigned himself, since he had seen Adar’s hosts marching, that battle in defence of Eregion could not be avoided. 

But all he needs to do is convince Adar to leave off his pursuit of Sauron and there would be no battle. No elves or orcs would need to die.

The orc nods back and looks over his shoulder. “He will call for you again before long. Do your best, but do not let him know I spoke to you.” He whispers as he draws the blindfold down over Elrond’s eyes once more. 

And then Elrond is alone in the dark again. 

The problem is that not even Adar knows what he wants from Elrond, so how can Elrond know what words or offers would sway him? 

There is no doubt Adar wants Elrond, and not to torment. The violence did not seem to please him, nor did Elrond’s terror. 

He is not sure it even lust that holds the Uruk’s attention. It was the knowing he had the power to enact them that Adar seemed to enjoy, not the threats themselves. 

Elrond thinks of the tale of his grandfather’s head and wonders if it is as simple as hoping to hoard a treasure of the light;  as Morgoth had clung to the silmarils even as their light burned him. 

Yet, Adar had shown no such interest or reverence to the Lady Galadriel, who had seen the Trees and was accounted by most as the fairest and most powerful of the Noldor who yet remained in Middle Earth. 

So it was not the beauty of the elves in general but rather some grace specific to himself. 

Elrond was used to people looking into his face and seeing someone else. 

Maedhros used to call him and Elros Ambarusso on days when he did not know when or where he was, when they were older sometimes he’d look Elrond in the face and call him Fingon with completely sound mind. 

Celebrimbor looked at him and saw brave Earendil. 

Galadriel saw her dead kin. 

Men saw long dead Elros, and elves the last fading light of fairest Lúthien. 

But it was not Lúthien that Adar spoke of when he looked at Elrond. It was not the memory of the star of hope or the slaughter at Sirion or the last legacy of Maedhros who had not flinched in the face of evil and torment. 

'You have the beauty of your foremother, Melian of the Valar .’

And suddenly Elrond knows exactly what Adar hopes, though he cannot admit to the shard of possibility, even to himself. 

Hope after despair is painful, Elrond knows that well, but Adar has neither killed him, nor ransomed him, nor tortured him, so he must want something… 

…and Elrond knows what he can offer and he thinks, maybe, he can buy a city with it. 

Melian had drawn a line through Beleriand and decried no evil thing could cross it, and none had. 

—

Elrond is limp with pain and exhaustion when they haul him before Adar again, but his mind is sharp. 

“If you keep me captive out a a greed for the light and beauty you once knew, I say cut off my head and carry it before you and have done with it.” 

Adar jerks in surprise at the harshness of Elrond’s words. 

“I cannot bring you the rings.” Elrond continues. “I do not have them and those who do would never allow them to fall into your hands. However, if you want to make any real use of me to save your children’s lives than I beg if you: send out word that you hold my life hostage to the good behaviour of elves and men, that they allow you to retreat back behind the mountains to the land of shadows you have made for your children.” 

“And find myself besieged on all sides by those seeking to rescue you? I think not.” Adar scoffs.

Elrond smiles despite the way his face aches from Adar’s blow earlier. 

“Of course not, for then you would be under my protection. Besides, the elves would do anything to prevent  the last remnant of the light of Lúthien from leaving this world- they would not risk my death at your hands.” 

Adar considers this and sits back in his chair. “What do you mean, your protection?” 

Elrond forces himself to sit straight and raise his head. “As you said, I am the scion of Melian, and  I may wield only a shadow of her power, but I need only keep Sauron at bay and he has only a shadow of Morgoth’s terrible might.” 

This is what Elrond had realized in the darkness- in Doriath we dance! 

They had only danced in Doriath because Melian would allow no evil things to enter her husband’s kingdom. 

Alone she had defied Morgoth, and no Balrog, wraith or dragon had crossed her border while she dwelt in Middle Earth. 

Elrond did not have the strength to fight Sauron, not like Lúthien who had set herself against Morgoth and won, but he could hold fast against an onslaught- create a door and ensure it stayed forever barred. 

Adar watches him. 

He had lived in Doriath before the shadow took him, Elrond is almost certain. He had known the peaceful woods under the light of stars,  ere the first sunrise. 

He had known the protection of Melian the Maia and when he saw her face reflected in Elrond’s own it had not been mercy which stayed his hand but, hope. 

Hope to know such safety and  peace again.

“Turn back from Eregion.” Elrond begs. “Leave Sauron to the tender mercies of the Lady Galadriel, act as the Father you claim to be and lead your children out of danger! And I will shelter them!! This I would swear!” 

He had not understood the choices his parents made before this moment. 

It had seemed inconceivable that they would have left their children behind. 

But, now that he is faced with such a thing himself, it is easy. 

There is no choice. He would be sundered from all he loves a thousand times over on the hope that it would save those he leaves behind, rather than face the possibility of watching them die and knowing he had not done everything possible to save them. 

Elrond weeps. “I beg of you, lord father of the Uruk: spare Eregion! Turn back, and I will shield your new kingdom from he that would enslave you.”

Adar watches him, and Elrond know that he is pleased to have ensnared the descendant of his goddess.

Adar does not look away. “You really could do this thing?” He asks softly. 

Elrond nods. “I believe it is within my power.”

“And how am I to trust you will not turn such power against me?”

Elrond holds out his still bound hands. “Keep me chained, brand me if you must, but forsake the rings and spare Eregion and know that I will keep my word.” 

He hopes he may avoid an oath. He knows once sworn no power in existence would allow him to break it. 

Finally, Adar nods once.. He barks over his shoulder to the guards. “Begin the process of breaking camp! Tell the army we move south.” 

Elrond sags in relief. He had gambled and won. Eregion would not fall, he had paid with everything he was to keep it standing. 

The sons of Feanor had sacked the cities of Doriath and Sirion in pursuit of a single jewel. 

Why should a city not be saved on the ransom of a single captive? 

—

They put him in a cage on wheels, half covered by a piece of cloth so any elvish scouts will not see him within. 

It will be easy enough to miss among the baggage carts and siege engines. 

Elrond can sit more comfortably too, his arms no longer secured to the wall and instead shackled in front of him connected by a long length of chain that allows him to move his hands and arms almost freely , and if he leans his head against the bars of his prison just so he can see the orcs marching. 

He was right they do have music.

He catches the eye of the one who had begged him to intercede and the orc grins at him. 

Elrond smiles back

Chapter Text

Adar leads Elrond through the camp by his chains, and dows his best to be solicitous of the elf. 

He does not jerk on the chains to make Elrond stumble or use his long legs to force him to run to keep up. He is careful to guide him through the camp safely and Elrond in return is careful to keep only a step or two behind ensuring much slack in the chains.

The orcs watch him curiously, interested as always in what Adar is planning, though some were confused or disappointed in his sudden change of heart.

It is the nature of orcs to love a battle. 

Adar stops before a tent that serves as a temporary forge. 

“Magathaus!” Adar calla as he leads Elrond inside. “Lay the branding irons on the fire. I believe you have them in your pack.”

The orc looks up, eyes flicking to the captive and back to the elf once more. 

“Of course lord father.” 

Adar loops the chains over a post most like intended for holding horses in need of shoeing, while the smith busies himself finding the brands 

Once they are in the fire, Adar ignores Elronds fearful gaze by moving the smith’s work from the anvil to a barrel of water. 

Magathaus has pulled Elrond to his knees and forced his head forward and down, to bare the nape of his neck where they placed the brand on the men who swore to him in the South. 

“No. He is different, the brand must be visible.” 

Adar grabs the chains and hauls Elrond’s hands up into his own, unable to stop himself from playing with elf’s fine long fingers, twinning them through his own as if they were anything at all to one another. 

Adar taps the back of Elrond’s hand. “Here, perhaps?” 

Magathaus makes a noise of disaproval. “Hard to make the mark neat on hands, and elves heal quick.  the scars would fade.”

Adar nods and moves his hand to Elrond’s forearm, above the shackles on his wrists. “Here than?”

Margathaus nods and jerks his head to the anvil. “He’d need to be bound tight enough he cannot flinch and ruin your mark. “

Elrond stiffens as though intending to resist, so Adar grabs collar and hair in one hand and shakes the young elf like he would a stubborn warg-pup or a defiant orcling. 

“None of that, fool. You offered and I take only what had been given or is your word worth so little after all?”

Elrond does not resist as they move him to the anvil and chain his arms straight before them with hardly slack enough to twitch. 

Margathaus pumps the bellows and eyes the brands. “T’will be a minute yet, lord father, the brand’s must be as hot as possible for the marking of an elf.”

Adar nods and thinks of something. “I leave you to it then, and will return to collect him once the work is finished.”

He does not meet Elrond’s enraged gaze though he is surprised at the silence.

“One on each wrist I think Margathaus.” Adar tells the smith as he turns to go. 

He goes first to the his own tent to find what he needs and then walks slowly back towards the smith’s, so as not to miss who he is looking for. 

“Glûg!” He shouts to his son who is pretending very hard to be deeply engrossed in watching a game of dice. “Do not think I have not seen you skulking after me since we turned south!” 

It is not Adar Glûg has been skulking after but the elf and Adar had not begrudged it. He guesses that his child feels a paler reflection of his own greed and fascination with the creature. 

“What is it lord-father?” Glûg asks, coming to heel like a scolded dog. 

“I have a task for you.” He tells Glûg. “The elf must be guarded closely. We cannot allow any attempt at rescue to even come within his earshot, and equally we must allow him absolutely no chance at escape.” 

Glûg nods, earnest and listening closely. He is a good boy really. 

“And yet, you and your kin cannot toy with it for your own amusement. Do you hear me?”

“Of course, Adar.”

“Good boy. Watch over him as you would your own woman and child.” 

The brands are fresh and weeping by the time Adar returns to the smith’s tent and Elrond’s eyes have gone empty and distant. 

He’s curled away inside himself for the moment, hiding from the pain. 

Adar tosses the tin he had fetched from his own tent to Glûg. 

“Put that on the wounds. Part of your duty will be seeing to it that they don’t fester and weaken our new guest.”

Glûg crouches hurriedly and begins spreading the balm across the burns. 

After a moment Elrond stirs and blinks down at his arms with a frown before turning his head to look at Adar where he stands at the entrance of the tent. 

“What is that?” The elf asks. “The pain has…fled, I’ve never felt the like.”

“Venom from the offspring of Ungoliant, mixed with fat.” 

Adar holds out his hand and Glûg passes him the tin. 

“The spiders use it to keep their prey alive as long as possible while they are being eaten.” 

He digs a finger into the waxy mixture and holds it in front of Elrond’s face .

“There is no pain it cannot numb, though I admit the taste is foul.” He gives Elrond a meaningful look.

Elrond opens his mouth. 

“Under the tongue.” Adar tells him. “Hold it there as long as you can, the pain will be less than the memory of a shadow.”

Elrond lifts his tongue and Adar smears the fat and venom there. 

He is glad he thought of this, it will make things easier. 

It is better the boy not know that along with numbing the pain from the burns the venom will also see to it that the scars heal thick and raised, and it will be convenient for the first leg of their journey to have in quiet and still. 

He pets the boy’s hair. “There now, give it a minute to work.”

He feels the Elrond begin to unspool from how tight the pain has wound him. 

He looks to Glûg. “The lack of pain may cause him to accidentally do harm to himself, and it is best to leave the wounds uncovered for now.” He picks up the chain pooled around Elrond’s knees. “We will need something different.” 

They carry him back to Adar’s tent and secure his hand to either end of a plank of wood, so it is impossible for him to touch his own wounds. 

Glûg looks at the limp pile of elf they have dumped on what passes for a bed  and asks: “Why do you hold him in such regard Father? He seems just another elf to me.” 

Adar sighs and tried to find the words. He doesn’t know what prompts him to honesty.

“He is a thing between. A thing the gods say should not exist. neither one thing nor another. Like myself, I suppose.”   He never usually admits to being less than completely Uruk, but standing next to an elf it seems ridiculous to deny the truth of it. 

“Because of that I think he can help us protect our new home.” Adar explains to his son. 

Glûg nods, and there is a long awkward moment where they stare at each other. 

Adar is standing on one side of the cot, and Glûg on the other. After a moment Glûg moves seemingly toward the exit but,  instead steps in from of Adar, placing himself between the unconscious elf and the father of the orcs. 

“You said none were to toy with him for their own amusement. That includes you lord father.” 

Adar laughs and cups Glûg’s dear face. “You are right my child. Truly, I think I could trust none but you with this.” 

He wanders out, to walk among his children and pass along the news of their new plans. 

He walks through the camp and tells his children that the captured elf has sworn to him, and taken the brand and that is victory enough to turn homewards. For with such a weapon to serve them they will be able to keep Sauron at bay. 

He doesn’t look like much. What good will he be against Sauron?

“No one looks like much when they’ve taken the venom on their tongue, and we need to keep him quiet in case his people try and steal him back from us.” Adar tells the assembled crowd.  

“And the elves will try and steal him. They know his value. He is the child of the same sort of thing that Sauron is. A little godling, and the elves will try and get him back. His mother was no god of flames and torment, after all  but of quiet safe darkness. He will make Mordor safe and dark for us, as he has kept the elves safe in their northern kingdom of trees.” 

 The dream of what he is promising feels so close as to be painful- Mordor made over into something like the dark woods of Arda in the elder days before the sun rose and flooded everything with blinding light.

Of course it won’t happen- Mordor is no Doriath and the land was scorched to ash, but still, it is pleasant to think that one day he might again walk in dark silent forests.

———

Elrond sees the light of the Silmaril refracted on the wall above his childhood bed and knows his mother is nearby. 

He find himself wandering down a long hallway. Ahead of him he can see the riotous mesmerizing red hair of Maedhros as his guardian walks away. 

He runs after him but when he reaches out to tug a curl to get his attention, the face that turns to look at him is Dior’s. Too beautiful, and neither human, elf nor Maia, the Silmaril shining at his throat so brightly it hurts Elrond’s eyes. 

He backs away and turns to run back towards his room, where he can see candles burning. 

But, suddenly he can hear Maglor singing from just behind the door and then he hears Elros start shouting in response. 

He can’t bear to open the door and step into the light, even though the song is so beautiful. Even though Elros would be there. 

There had been, as they grew older, something repulsive in Maglor’s desperation to be be loved.

Elrond had known it was unfair even then- after all  it was such a small thing, to wish that the children you raised would love you back, as you love them. 

And yet. They had so resented it being expected of them. 

They did love him but, it was a resentful undesired love and if they could have cast it out of themselves, once they grew old enough to really understand what had been done to them; they would’ve. 

Elros had been so angry in the final years of their time among the Feanorians, and Elrond had been sick with longing for a place free of anger and terrible tragedy. 

He turns away from the door, despite the beautiful song. Despite Elros. 

He is a child walkng down the beach, the smell of salt and smoke. He can see elves camped around a fire in the dark. There might have been a time when he believed no elf would harm him. He knows better now.

He stands outside the glow from the fire, looking at the elves. He thinks they’ll have lembas in their bags. He thinks he might be able to rob them without waking them, but right now he just stands outside the firelight, enjoying the warmth and the feeling of being not quite alone, but enjoying the comforting safety of the dark far too much to step into the light. 

Do you need water, child?

He wakes slowly, and not completely at first. He is confused. There is a dark haired elf, and he tries to roll away. There is an orc, and that is… confusing. 

There is the clinking of metal on metal, and long shadows beneath the trees, but the sun hasn’t yet sunk below the horizon. 

The orcs are marching south, chanting in their tongue to keep the beat.

Elrond tries to roll over but finds he can’t. His body does not feel like his own. 

He watches the trees going by in the darkness and hears the song of the orcs. 

They always speak of Luthien as a being of great light, but she wove shadows with her hair and walked in woods darker and more dangerous than these. 

He sings to the beat of the orcs’ marching chant. He sings to the trees about the dark beyond a campfire’s light. He sings about dark soil and the comfort of caves. The hollow halls where elven cities were. The desolate places where men and elves dislike to tread. The safety  of a dark hiding spot where nothing can find you to hurt you. 

He’d grown up in the glow of the silmaril around his mother’s neck, and everyone said he was blessed that that was the case. 

But, to him it had just been a pretty rock, cold in his hand when he would lay his head on her shoulder to play with it. It had not been his favourite part of the necklace. He had liked the complicated gold work set with diamonds better. 

He sings of the feeling of lying in the dark and knowing someone who loves you is just beyond a door that is easily opened. 

He sings of the firelight in Maedhros’ red curls, which he had been more enchanted by than the Silmaril of his mother; the way their favourite game had been sneaking behind him to grab a single curl and watching how far it would unravel before Maedhros noticed. 

He sings of the stories his mother told him as a tiny elfling on her knee; stories of the thousand caves where her father ruled. The darkness lit by crystal lamps.  Or had it been Galadriel who had told him tales of her brother’s beautiful city? 

He realizes suddenly that he is not singing in the Sindarin his mother spoke, but the lisping Quenya of the Feanorions. It makes him want to cry. He wishes it made him want to scream. 

He is confused. He’s not sure where he is or why he can’t lift his arms. 

He sings of the elves who forsook paradise for love of the stars. The Trees shone too bright for them but they were not faithless for it. 

  He is running and jumping through the long shadowed woods with Elros, scream singing their joy, and knowing it was all the sweeter because soon the shadows would grow long enough that they would have to turn home. 

He turns a corner and finds himself in Elros’ favourite court yard in the palace on numenor. It is long gone now, the victim of some long ago building program, except n ow it is before him full of sunlight and orange trees . 

Elros is sitting there. The Elros that is truest, which is to say, the Elros who had grown old and would soon die. 

He looks up from his tea and awkwardly raises him arm to greet Elrond. 

Elrond smiles softly and walks over to sit with his brother. 

“Will you have tea? It’s mint.”

“I wish you wouldn’t grow mint. It kills everything around it.”

“ That’s hardly the tea’s fault. Or the mint’s for that matter! Tea or not, little brother?”

“Tea. And we don’t know which of us is oldest.” 

“It has nothing to do with who is oldest.” Elros scoffs. “I am a wise and venerable king now, and you are hardly past your elven majority. I decided to grow up. I’m glad you are considering it now too.”

“That’s not fair, Elros.” 

“What? You didn’t choose youtu over-“ 

“I am what I am! And I am king past my elven majority which you would know if you ever cared to-“ 

“ Now who’s not being fair!” 

“You! You find the time to build all this but not remember the customs-“

“If this is going to be an issue of “-of the people to who. You were born-“

“Then I will uninvited you to the island and you-“

“And who raised you, and among whom I still-“ 

“-can go home to Lindon and sing to trees and wait another five hundred years-“ 

“- number! I am an elf and I can no more help it then you could-“

“To do something at all with the life you have chosen!”

“-have chosen not to be a man!” 

T here is a pause as they both process what the other had said while speaking over each other.

Elrond flinches and looks down at his hands. “You should not be so unkind to me bother.” He mimbles. “I may think poorly of you when you die.”

Elros rolls his eyes and begins pulling apart an orange. “You should grow up and do something with your immortality.” 

“What? Make myself a king of elves?”

Elros shrugs. “You’ve as much right to it as anyone.” 

“I don’t want to be king! I don’t care about that! I just want-“

He finds he cannot say it in front of his brother. He is suddenly ashamed of his own small dreams- a house of my own where there is always music and guests and no one is ever lonely, perhaps beside a pretty river . 

How can he say that to his brother who has built a city, a nation and a people from nothing in lifetime? Especially when Wlrond has not even secured an official title in Erenion’s court during the same number of years. 

Elros flicks a finger against his glass to get Elrond’s attention. The chime it makes is clear and pure. 

“You have so many years Elrond.” His twin tells him: “that doesn’t mean you should waste them. You could accomplish anything, I think, if only you would stop thinking of everything as being somehow already decided.” 

Elrond glares at his brother. 

Elros sighs and reaches out to grab his twin’s hand. “I wish you could come on this journey with me. That I would not have to worry about leaving you alone. That we could sail beyond the stars together.” 

Elrond squeezes back. “But why would I leav e? Why would I want to when there are still trees to song to and birds to watch?!” 

Elros sighs again, and let’s his brother’s hand go with a little pat. 

“Well, sing a better song to them at least!”

Elrond wakes to Adar staring at him from the foot of the bed. 

“You sing in your sleep. Sometimes.” He tells Elrond. 

Elrond blinks and swallows suddenly more aware of reality and his own pace in it than he has been in who knew how long. 

He wiggles his toes and fingers and tries to catalogue any injuries other than the, now  horribly itchy, burns on his forearms. 

“I don’t usually.” He finally answers Adar. 

Adar frowns. “Spider venom usually makes a person less, not more, active.” 

“I did not move.” Elrond protests. “Only sang, while somewhat delirious.”

Adar rolls his eyes and sits on the edge of the bed. “They weren’t bad songs.” He admits. “My children liked them.” 

“I was singing along to their marching music, and telling the trees all about my marvellous plans for Mordor once we get there.” 

Adar sighs heavily and rolls his eyes.  “Of course you were. Fucking elves.” 

Elrond expends a tremendous effort to roll over slightly to better face Adar. 

“Well, sing me a song of your own if you think mine are too frivolous.” He demands. 

Adar scowls at him. “You don’t want that. Not really.”

“Please?” Elrond asks, with the same tone that always convinced Maglor to give him extra cakes. “I would like to know what songs forged in the shadow sound like.”

Adar considers it. “They are not pleasant songs, and they may not fit your precious elven sensibilities.”

Elrond makes a show of snuggling up under the deeply terrible blankets.

 Is he going to have to explain fibre production to the orcs? Truly, these were awful.

“I don’t mind. I’m curious, and I assume we’ve stopped for the day so it’s hardly as though  I’m going to find anyone else to entertain me.” 

Adar sighs again, this time in the exaggerated way of a father pretending to be very when indulging a favoured child. 

“Alright. This is an old one, sung by children of mine long dead. I’d be surprised if anyone alive remembers it.” 

And he starts to sing.

Elrond has never heard anything like it. Adar was right, it’s not exactly pleasant, but it’s so new and interesting to him that he would be happy to listen to it all day. 

And he does.

Chapter Text

Gil-galad looked at the no longer blighted Great Tree of Lindon and wished once again that Galadriel and her brother had been forgiven their exile at the end of the War of Wrath, before this business of Sauron could render the more pleasant one dead and the other completely unfit for company. 

“You say Elrond has been captured?” He asks, though he heard her very well the first time. 

“Yes,I-“

“If you say captured does that mean you have reason to believe he is still alive?” 

“Adar took prisoners in the south lands, there’s no reason to believe he would change his ways now.” 

“Except of course that then he was entrenched and seeking to establish his foothold, whereas now he and his army are on the move.

You have no real reason to assume our dear friend yet lives beyond your own desire.”

“My king!” 

Her outrage vexes him. She has always vexed him. They are too little alike to find each other easy company. 

“He was your commander. How could you allow him to be captured?” He snaps. 

“I thought it important to take the ring to safety and  -“

“I suppose you have given no thought at all to how this looks.” 

Galadriel frowns. “How this looks? My king there is an army marching on Eregion, your lieutenant is captured, Sauron is, even as we speak, likely twisting Celebrimbor’s mind to his own purpose and you would speak to me of how one tragedy in this litany might be perceived?” 

That is like her. Artanis of the line of Finwe, of the golden house of Finarfin always so assured in her power and importance. 

Gil-galad sighs. “Not all of us have the luxury of ignoring what others may think of us. You, daughter of your great house and apprentice of Melian herself, have only recently learned what it is to be helpless to the whims of others.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Evidently.” He frowns at the tree, thinking of Elrond and missing him already. “To you this is a simple tragedy, no different from any other we have recently suffered. Your dear friend has been captured on a dangerous mission, and you grieve for him. 

Now, let me explain how it might appear to other elves who dwell on this shore: 

You departed on a mission of great danger with Elrond Earendillion acting as your commander- a decision of mine you made it known you disliked. On this mission, to save an item which he has made it well known he disagreed with, you allow him to be captured.”

He meets her gaze and allows his voice to take on a story telling quality. “The disgruntled princess of the Noldor, already having turned her back on the blessed realm, allowed to be carried away by orcs the last of the line of Elu Thingol; likely to his death and almost certainly to torment.

Your own kin will only look on this askance, and wonder that you made such an error. The Sindar will not be so generous in their assumptions.”

“They will think I had him killed” she murmurs. 

“Not likely anything so extreme, but, perhaps you did not risk yourself when doing so might have saved him? Perhaps you quarreled and he sent you away, leaving himself undefended. “ Gil-galad spreads his hands. “Perhaps, they will simply wonder that you, the warrior maiden of the Noldor, could be bested at all. But, no matter the truth of it they will likely lay the blame at your feet.”

“My feet! Elrond is dear to me beyond measure! I- I saw his mother married! I-“ she protests. 

“And your kin saw her dead!” He reminds her sharply.  “It is not just or fair, Galadriel, but it is what will be said. The sons of Feanor are dead, and much of your family with them. There is no one alive left to blame so it falls to you. “

“I would never harm him! You know this Erenion!!“ 

“I do know it, but we have both been careless with my herald of late. I only wish you to see what problems you have brought me. The sindar lords may refuse to treat until an attempt is made to rescue Elrond. They may ask why any of them should risk their lives for a Feanorian city,”

 “That is most unjust to Celebrimbor! He-“ she protests. 

“These are the things that must be thought of Galadriel! I had hoped the two of you  would return reconciled and reunited in purpose! 

The symbolic leaders of your two peoples bringing word of our enemy and united as our peoples must be once more!  

Instead, I find myself with few cards left to play! I intended to send Elrond to the dwarves to beg their aid in defence of the city, instead I must ask whether it is worth sending anyone at all, given that almost no one else would be granted audience. 

Gil galad sweeps his robes around and longs fiercely for Elrond. His herald is so clever. He is so good at knowing what to say so people will understand what Gil-Galad means. 

Galadriel stares at him open mouthed. He almost never loses his temper, being as slow to anger as he is to laugh. 

It isn’t fair, Gil-galad knows she loves Elrond fiercely. He knows she would never have allowed him to be captured and no doubt it was only the result of a split second mistake and she has spent the rest of the long flight to Lindon tortured with thoughts  of what might have prevented it. 

But, still. 

Elrond is now in the hands of the enemy, that marches on Eregion and they do not have the men to spare to mount a rescue mission. 

And Galadriel is here, and it is not her that he needs. He has warriors. He is a general. He needs a diplomat. 

He can only hope Adar will know to ransom him. The high king of Lindon finds he would pay almost anything for the peredhel’s safe return. 

Gil-galad covers his face. “You do not understand what it was like when we thought those children dead. What it did to the souls of the Sindar to think that all our dearest hopes died not at the hands of the enemies but at the hands of those who should have been our friends!” 

Galadriel steps forward gingerly. “It was terrible, I know.” 

“You can’t know!” He shouts. “Your home still stands across the sea and many of your family yet dwell there in peace!” 

“It haunts me. What my kin did.” 

Ereinion snarls “I know!”

Of course it hurt her. In all likelihood it hurt her more sharply and personally than it did most Sindar. She had been Melian’s student. She had danced with Luthien and held the infant Dior and seen Elwing married. 

Her cousins had killed almost everyone  she had found to love this side of the sea.

But. She is so old, and has travelled so far. A city has never been her whole world. 

Since Celeborn had gone she had given her whole heart to nothing and no one save vengeance. 

It is impossible for her to ever understand what it was like for the Sindar when Doriath fell, when Sirion fell. 

He sighs again, and does his best to master his emotions.  “I will send scouts to report in the movements of Adar’s armies and call upon as many of our kind to join me in the defence of Eregion as can reach the city in time. Perhaps we may exchange something for Elrond, though I suspect the only thing that would be accepted is the one thing we cannot give.”

They will not risk the rings, whether they are evil or good and it is a cruel rhyme of history that once more Elrond’s life is weighed against a bauble and deemed lesser. 

“We should send word to Kazad-dum of his capture. Perhaps Prince Durin will come if only in the hopes of rescuing him.” Galadriel suggests. 

Ereinion nods.  It is a sensible suggestion. 

——

Disa walks into her house and is shocked to find a strange elf standing in the archway looking at Elrond’s tree. 

She drops the bowls she has been carrying and he turns. 

He is a messenger clearly. Clad in the forest tones she has come to expect from the elves that flit through the forests from one stronghold to the next.

More even then the Lord Annatar, who is supposed to be a Maia, this stranger seems a creature apart from every elf she has met before. 

He is dark haired where they are fair, broad where they are slim. Stern, when all other elves she has met seem to have faces built for smiling if only the long years of their life would stop delivering them heartbreak. 

Perhaps he is one of the forest elves she’s heard tell of. If he were a dwarf she would assume he was descended from a different of the dwarven fathers, but she does not know how that works with elves. 

She knows he wears his hair as the grey elves who never went west often do, but other than that she could not say. 

He puts a hand over his heart and bows to her. “I did not mean to alarm. Only, I carry a message for the Prince Durin.”

“From Eregion?”

“No, Lindon.”

She blinks, and her stomach drops. She had hoped Lindon at least would be protected from the troubles which have stirred here and in Eregion. 

“What had happened!? You must tell me!” 

“I am afraid, my lady, that the message is for the Prince alone.” 

“Oh! The goblins take that! He is attending to his father’s funeral! There’s no telling when he will be back.” 

The messenger blanches. “The throne of Kazad-dum sits empty?!” 

Disa nods. “The period of mourning will begin tomorrow. It will be some time before the next king is crowned.” 

The messenger turns to look at the tree again. “That is troubling news indeed. It seems these are dark times in all kingdoms.” 

“Please, what has befallen Lindon?” 

The messenger gestures to one of the chairs around the beautiful table Durin had gifted her. “May I sit?” 

“Oh! Where are my manners! Of course, here-“ she pulls one out for him and then bustles about. “You must be famished from your journey! Have you had anything to drink since you’ve arrived? I know how you elves are when you are determined to move at speed, I expect you ran the entire way here with hardly a break at all.” 

She is surprised to look up to find he is almost smiling at her. It looks a little strange on his face, but it is there and clearly kindly meant.

“I see now why Lord Elrond is so fond of you.” He tells her. 

She grins back at him. “Oh it’s Lord Elrond now is it?”

He smiles fully now. “Yes, nearly from the moment of his birth, and if he has ever told you otherwise it is from entirely misplaced modesty.” 

“I expect he was embarrassed. He does so hate to impose or cause any kind of fuss or trouble.” 

The messenger smiles again and looks away. “That is not his reputation among his own kind.” He tells her. 

“Really? Do you know him well?” 

“Not as well as I would like.” 

She poors him an ale and he takes it with a thankful nod, solemn once more. “I hate to impose more upon your kindness my lady, but if I may wait here for your husband?” 

She pauses. “If it truly cannot wait he may be interrupted.” 

The messenger swallows. “ l do not wish it widely known that I am here; and I do not wish to further burden one whose heart is already heavy with grief. “

“Please, Master Elf, you must tell me what has happened.” 

He looks down at his hands folded on their table. “Please. Send for your husband and I will.”

She nods. 

——-

Durin hurries home with his heart in his throat. Disa’s message had seemed to suggest that something was the matter with the children. 

He hoped it was only grief at the loss of their grandfather and not something worse. 

He bursts into his home only to nearly faint dead away in shock. 

The king of the elves was sitting at his table with his wife. The table Durin had played a rather mean spirited trick to take home with him. 

The king was dressed as a messenger runner, and wore no gold or jewels but their was no mistaking his sour face and long dark hair. 

Durin found himself speechless. 

Disa stood up whe she saw him falter. “My love! Are you ill? Come sit! This elf says he brings hard news from Lindon.”

Durin staggers over to the table and tries not to stare open mouthed and wide eyed at the Elvenking who is sat at his table. 

Gil-glad inclines his head to him. “Well met Prince Durin. I am sorry to bring worse tidings to an already troubled realm.” 

Durin tries to work some moisture back into his mouth. “What is it?” He rasps. 

“First and I think most important to you is this: some time ago Elrond Earendillion was captured and carried off by the orcs of the south lands.” 

Disa makes a wounded noise and collapses back into her seat. 

Duein is not sure he can breathe. First Father and now Elrond? Never in his darkest imaginings had it occurred to him he might outlive his friend. 

“Carried off?” He hears Disa ask as though from a great distance. “So that means-“

“No body has been found. There is some small hope they have kept him alive in hope of ransom, as likely to torture for information, or worst of all, that the body will just never be found.”

He hears Disa sob and all he can do is stare at the sad face of the Elvenking as he looks at that blasted tree Elrond had given Durin. 

“You said there was some hope.” He hears himself say. “What do you mean?”

The king looks at him, and makes the slightly apologetic face Durin has learned often precedes some kind of elvish nonsense that the speaker is slightly embarrassed to have to explain to a dwarf. 

“Only that, along the path the orcs have taken as they move south; some of the trees have started singing.”

“What.” He cannot hide his scorn. 

“Oh shut up Durin!” Disa snaps. “We listen to the mountains! It is perfectly reasonable elves should listen to the trees.”

“It’s not quite so simple.” Gil-galad tells her. “For a tree to sing someone usually would have had to wake it.”

“So perhaps Elrond-“

“Perhaps, but the orcs are led by one of the Moriondor. One of the elves who followed Morgoth in the first age. He may have woken the trees or perhaps it is… something else entirely. Perhaps they follow an old ent road south. Perhaps…” he shrugs and looks away and it is difficult to reconcile this seemingly humble heartbroken servant with the haughty king Durin had taken such joy in embarrassing. 

Gil-galad shakes his head again. “There is yet again worse news. No elven messenger has reached Eregion alive in many months. The scouting party Elrond was leading found the bodies of the elves of Lindon decaying in the forest. The king and the Lady Galadriel fear a great evil has taken hold of the city.” 

Disa and Durin exchange a glance. They have feared the same ever since the ring began to prey on the old King’s mind and seemed to turn him to greed. 

“We have thought the same.” Durin admits. “My father was gifted a ring as part of a new treaty with the city and, we believe it may be a thing of great unknown malice.” 

Gil-galad takes a deep breath, and his eyes seem to hold more sadness than any should have to hold. 

“We had feared such a thing may have come to pass. It is terrible to have it confirmed.” 

He stands and paces a moment before stopping once more before Elrond’s tree. 

“You ought to warn Lindon.” Disa says suddenly. “That they do not stumble into the same trap.” 

He just shakes his head, seemingly caught in some terrible reverie. 

Suddenly, Durin notices there is a single ring still on the elf’s hand. When he had first met the king he had worn a ring on nearly each joint of each finger. To see that even in disguise there was one he yet wore made Durin’s stomach lurch. 

“Take it off!” He finds himself shouting before he realizes it. “We want nothing of that here!”

The king blinks in confusion and with no hesitation slides the ring from his finger and holds it out before him. 

It is good, with a red gem that Gil-galad had turned inward to hide. Smaller and lighter than what King Durin had received. Except for Tim’s beauty it would seem a small thing of little consequence for an elven lord. 

“I take it, “ Gil-galad says dryly. “That the ring your father received was also forged by Lord Celebrimbor.”

The both nod numbly.

 “By him and Lord Annatar, the Maia.” Disa tells him. 

There is a long pause. “I do not think he is a Maia.”  The king finally says. “Or at least, no any more. Do you know a way into the city?” 

“No.” Durin admits. “But, Narvi might. He has worked closely with Celebrimbor.”

————

When the rumour reaches Sauron it has gone round the city twice and is generally considered common knowledge.

The high king is in the city in disguise. 

He storms back to Celebrimbor’s work shop to find the smith not at his bench but instead pacing. 

“Oh good! Annatar! Have you heard the dreadful news?”

Sauron’s mind is filled with a lurking high king and he almost answers ‘yes’. 

“What news? Surely nothing has gone wrong with our project?” 

Celebrimbor bats his question away. “No, that is going absolutely fine. It’s the news that has come of my young kinsman. He’s been captured by orc. All of Elvendom is in turmoil over his fate.“

Sauron blinks. He had had no idea Celebrimbor had any close kinsmen at all, having been an only child and his father and uncles long since slaughtered. 

“Who has been captured?”

“Elrond Earendillion!” Celebrimbor yells to him as he begins to rummage among his tools. “The High King’s herald!” 

“Oh, yes.” He thinks he remembers the wan little figure bobbing in Galadriel’s wake, with a vaguely Feanorian look. 

So that was Earendil’s boy? How… disappointing.  The shadow of a memory of something greater. 

“Shall I  ride out to his rescue, that you not be distracted by your important work?” He offers. It would give him to opportunity to further his influence among the orcs.

“Oh, no. They have disappeared back into the woods, and all are concerned not to jepordize his safety. Cornered orcs often kill their captives you know.” 

“Do they?” Of course he knows. It was his idea to begin the practice. Let the elves slaughter the orca for nothing and know they in doing so they doom their kin. 

It broke the spirits of many an elf. He was rather proud of it. 

But, the orcs should not have turned. He had been so sure that Adar would lunge for the lure Halbrand had dangled so expertly. 

Surely, this herald was not such a prize to have distracted him? 

He had needed that army to create a crisis which would allow him to easily undermine and isolate Celebrimbor. 

And now, instead of increasing his own power or hunting down the rumour of the High King in the city he will have to waste time convincing Celebrimbor to stay on task. 

It is… irritating.

——-

Gil-galad had not expected it to be so easy. 

He had forgotten over the course of an age of trying to stuff himself into the correct shape of a High King of the Noldor, why exactly he had been elected to the position in the first place during the dark days of the First Age when all his predecessors fell like wheat before the scythe. 

Gil-galad was not gifted in acts of daring, or magic. He would slay no Balrogs or dragons. 

But, he was watchful and wary as no other. He could walk unseen and unheard, and had a tendency of knowing exactly what to do to unravel the strategies of his enemies. 

He stands by his position that if Galadriel just taken the damn boat things would currently be far less dire.

He sighs. 

Given that wretched Sauron had apparently been adrift on a raft when she found him perhaps the sea god would have swallowed him in the end and put a stop to this entire ridiculous nonsense. 

But, alas. Galadriel is Galadriel and she could not relinquish Middle Earth when the time came and in that alone he thinks he did not resent her. 

He had no desire to sail to fair Valinor after all, since he loves the stars and woods of his home so dearly. 

He does not like Eregion, though. It reminds him too much of Gondolin, hemmed in by the mountains and the river, high walled and nigh impregnable. 

He did not see Gondolin fall, but he remembers the terrible claustrophobia of the fall of Nargorthund- the crush of bodies searching for a way out, a way to escape the doom that came for them. 

Finrod had slung him under one arm, with a different child under the other and carried them out to safety, dropping them in the leaf litter before turning and running back in to find others lost in the caves. 

Gil-galad had run into the woods and stayed there too long, or so said those who had found him eventually, more than half feral. 

Well, Celebrimbor and Cirdan were the one who said that. No others would dare, not when he had been so fierce and hardened even at so young an age. 

He had known the best places to make camp and the right ways to do it. He had scouted orc bands and Feanorians, and killed both while they slept. 

He had been uncommonly gifted at violence for an elf, but his real talent had always been in knowing exactly what was possible with such meagre powers as he possessed, and never allowing himself to be turned from his purpose.

And so, where others broke like waves against the fortress of the enemy, or attempted great workings of magic, Gil-galad busied himself learning where the grain to feed the horses came from, and the best ways to distribute clean water through a bustling camp of refugees. 

He knew how best to harvest a forest that the game would not be exhausted next winter, and where to plant grasses to ensure the banks of a fast moving stream did not crumble into the rivier. 

(And which fields of men were unguarded and easily pilfered) 

He had allowed himself to consider what could be done in this dire moment before hope suffered a terrible defeat. 

When it came to Sauron, he thought, more soldiers set against him merely gave him more minds to twist, more weaknesses to find. 

Whoever confronted him must be powerful and uncorrupted by his taint. 

And so he found himself having travelled alone, and in disguise, first to the dwarves, and then in secret into Eregion itself.

He did not like to be grateful to the father of the orcs but, Galadriel’s story of the Moriondor’s simple deception and successful attack on one who had tried to crown himself the successor of Morgoth opened up so many possibilities. 

The deceiver could be deceived. 

He had not the power of Morgoth to easily see who moved against him and where and how. 

Sauron was alone, with no trusted lieutenant, no guards, nor balrogs or even orcs. 

Sauron was protected only by the belief of the people of Eregion that he was a messenger of the gods sent to help them in their hour of need. 

And Adar of the Uruks had proven that he could bleed. 

Gil-galad needed only to keep Sauron from becoming too comfortable in Eregion and wait. 

He started by ensuring that a notice appeared in the hands of several minor stewards of Celebrimbor announcing the grievous loss of the beloved Prince of drowned Sirion, Elrond Earendillion.

The son of the evening star himself was lost, despite being protected by the fiercest and most valiant warrior of the Noldor. What greater sign could there be that evil had returned to their land? 

The High King walked through the city streets, one more elf with Sindarin colouring, wearing his hair long after so many years at peace. 

Occasionally, an eye would catch on him and widen in recognition and he would draw his subject aside with a whispered warning that evil walked Eregion and the High King himself had come to vanquish it. 

Let Sauron hear that the sharks circled his raft. Let him wonder whether it was bravery or foolishness that had brought Gil-galad to his city. 

But, most of all, let him wake every morning and look to stars every evening not knowing why the king had did not yet strike. 

Fingolfin had wounded Morgoth single handedly, and Sauron was no Morgoth. 

Gil-galad had killed elves before. He certainly would have no problem killing something that only looked like one. 

He sharpened his knives and waited for his moment. 

Chapter Text

Elrond leans his head against the bars of his cage and watches the tree branches move against the sky. They are heading south, at the foothills of the mountain. 

He sings softly to the trees, telling them of a southern land with ash in the soil and clouds in the sky and no men at all.

Adar gives him a look but does not tell him to stop singing. Submitting to the branding had bought him at least that much good will. 

Glug scurries to keep up with the cart pulling Elrond. 

“Do elves have an Adar?” He asks. 

“Not in the way orcs do. We have our ancient ones who we trust to guide us, and we have our king, Gil-galad, whose duty it is to love and protect all elven kind.”

“That sounds like an Adar.”

“Yes, I suppose he is sort of an honorary Adar. The first kings were more like your Adar being numbered among the very first of our kind, but those were all slain long ago.”

“I would not like it if Adar were slain.”

“No child wishes to lose a parent.” 

“Other way around. Parents don’t wish to lose children, even though they often die. All children lose their parents in the end.” Adar snaps from where he is walking near them. 

They both choose to ignore him. 

“My turn to ask a question?” Elrond asks. 

Glug nods. 

“How do orcs live anyway?” 

Glug sputters. “What sort of nonsense is that to ask?!”

“I mean…we must be stripping the forest all around us of game, and wood for the fires. Do orcs farm ?”

Glug opens and closes his mouth. “No...I don’t think so?”

“Do orcs want to farm? Do they even eat grain?” 

“We certainly can eat grain.”

“But do you farm ?”

“I do not think we have before” He finally admits. “Adar said we might have goats or pigs in the new land. Once we found suitable stock to found the lines.”

“Well, perhaps you can learn.”

“My turn! Oh! Why do the elves not just make more of themselves as orcs do? Why are they so few?” 

Elrond sighs. “Well, because elf-babies among elves is a working of considerable magic for both parents, and in times of war can seem to dangerous to attempt. In general it is just… slightly complicated. Most of us were born before the war with Morgoth grew so hot.”

“We’ll, what about your parents? You are young for an elf. You must have been born during the war.” 

Elrond considers answering truthfully. That, as a pair of part-mortal children raised among elves he suspects his parents had had absolutely no idea a child could even be made by accident until they had done so, which had leading to their children being born at what was a scandalously young age by elven count. 

Instead he shrugs. “There will always be those, even among the elves, who wish to bring forth new life in defiance of death.” 

Glug groans, evidently having heard the phrase before and knowing it for the platitude it was. 

Adar cuts in. “If you are asking of farming because you hope your rations will improve once we cross the mountain, I warn you not to be too hopeful. You’ll receive the same fare as my children and consider yourself lucky.” 

Elrond blinks at him exhausted and annoyed. Orcs were tough creatures who can and would eat nearly everything. 

He was an elf and and as the unfortunate business with the mithril had proven, that made him far more fragile than anyone wanted to admit. 

“ I will need a garden. I don’t know if you will need fields, but I have been singing to the trees and-“ he begins to explain the plans he has been making. 

Adar’s face is frightening suddenly. “What do you mean singing to the trees?!”

Elrond blinks again. “You have been next to me the entire time! You have heard the song!”

“I thought you were singing to No one in particular in order to pass the time.” Adar hisses. “Not,  sending a message to be passed along to those who follow.”

“It is a message only ents would understand.” Elrond explains. “Telling them of a safe dark place where they can bring such trees as wither in the daylight.” 

Adar narrows his eyes. 

“Please don’t gag me.” Elrond asks, trying not to beg. “I’ll swear an oath if I must.” 

Adar snorts and shakes his head. “I am not so far removed from the elves that I do not remember the absolute destruction that may be caused by the swearing of hasty oaths.”

Elrond relaxes but doesn’t sing that evening, or that night as the shadows grow long. He just cranes his neck and watches the evening star and wishes for one more conversation with his father. 

Earendil was not like the songs, but oh, Elrond had adored him. 

Adar does not want to break Elrond’s spirit, for if his spirit is broken then he will never be able to create what he has promised, and it will be Adar’s fault. 

“Tell me of yourself elfling.” He asks. 

The captive looks up and frowns. “I thought you knew all you needed of me? Dior’s grandson, scion of Melian, NOT carrying one of the rings.”

Adar waves a hand in dismissal. 

“That is what I need to know, but the road is long and I have met few elves in the last age of the world who did not immediately seek my death. Call it curiosity.”

Elrond sighs and sits up a little straighter, hands folded in his lap loke a child sitting to hear the learnings of an elder. “I am a child of the first age, born, so some say, in the darkes days of the War of Wrath when all the Sindar and Noldor had fled their homes and found what little refuge they could at the mouth of the Sirion and on the Isle of  Balar. My parents were both very young by the reckoning of elves and-“

“No!” Snaps Adar. “If I wished to learn the history of your people I would know it already. Tell me of you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, your skills. Your role in Lindon, perhaps how an elf as young as you had the authority to command the Lady Galadriel.”

Elrond’s eyes flick to his. “You and your scouts were closer than we thought.”

Adar shrugs. “We were beneath the very homes of the Southlanders and they did not know.”

Elrond close his eyes. “I do not trust the Rings.” He tells the Uruk. “I believe they are too powerful. The silmarils were hallowed such that no evil hand could touch them, and yet rivers of blood were spilt in their pursuit. For that the King Gil-galad bid me take command of the scouting party over Galadriel who he thought might not act so cautiously.” 

“Your king values caution?”

Elrond smiles to himself and tries to think of how to explain the king. “He values… care, rather than caution. Risk is acceptable so long as it is understood and not unduly courted. He is the type general who would not plan a match without first considering the streams and rivers the men might drink from.” 

Adar frowns in confusion, and Elrond remembers, of course, orcs. 

“Men and and elves may become sick if the water they drink is not clean.”

“Really?”

“Elves less so, but men may die of such things.”

And Gil-galad would never allow anyone to die of something so ridiculous as carelessness.

Was ther such a thing as ruthless caution? If there was that was Gil-galad.

Elrond is quite convinced that had anyone tried to crown the young Elwing or even younger Earendil following  the death of Turgon Gil-galad would have quietly murdered whoever it was to protect the orphaned peredhel that he had absolutely considered it his duty to protect. 

Or at least he assumed so because when Elrond had reappeared and someone suggested he had a better claim to the crown Gil-galad had nearly banished the elf from camp and Galadriel had remarked she was glad the king had gotten more reasonable. 

And while it is slightly terrifying to consider that that was the reasonableness version of Gil-galad, it was also funny considering that he had barely been an adult when he was crowned and could reasonably have passed the crown to Finrod. 

Except the one time Elrond had asked why Finrod hadn’t been crowned, the king had just stared at him and muttered something about how he’d not trust that starry eyed dreamer plan a party of particular importance, let alone a war and then walked away grumbling something about ill considered oaths to men.

“Gil-galad trusts me because I am Elrond Peredhel,” he tells Adar. “He says I see things elves do not see in themselves, and so am not easily mislead.”

He pauses and looks at Adar, pale faced and dark haired and suddenly sees it. 

“Glug is right. You and the king are rather alike I think, though you seek different ends.”

Adar scoffs in outrage. 

“I can offer no higher compliment.” Elrond tells him, amused because now that he sees it he can’t unsee it. “Gil-galad was crowned in some of the darkest years of the war, and managed to steer my people through it alive, when most had thought us doomed.”

“I thought it was the armies of Valinor that saved you.” Adar grumbles. 

“But for Gil-galad there would have been no one left to save.” 

He is reminded of the young king he had met so long ago, striding through the refugee camp, his hair shorn short for practicality and his armour shining like the Gil-Estel, never without his sword or lance. 

“You should not be so insulted.” Elrond repeats, still laughing at Adar’s outrage at being compared not just to an elf but to the king of the elves. “There is a rumour that when he was just a little elfling he made Lord Celebrimbor himself faint by biting the head off of a baby bird.” 

That makes every orc in earshot turn and look. “What? Why would an elf even-“ 

Elrond can’t stop laughing at their bewildered faces. “I told you! He’s very like Adar in some ways- ruthless! There’s very little he wouldn’t do if he thought the situation required it.” 

Suddenly he remembers the king’s face when Elrond had argued that he was owed a chance to try a save their people on this shore by trying to use the mithril. 

You are owed nothing! 

Allow it because I asked 

He feels sick suddenly. The king had been right. It feels as though every step taken intending to thwart Sauron has only granted him further foothold. 

He eyes Adar. “I think perhaps he’d like you.” Elrond declares. “After all what elf wouldn’t find himself like the one who stabbed Sauron with the very crown he hoped to wear?!”

This makes all the orcs around them cheer, but Adar is looking at him with a look of deep consideration. As though he intends to take him apart to see how he works. 

Later, Elrond is being chained in Adar’s tent for the day’s rest when Adar walks in and considers him from the bed. 

“No elf king would look l upon my face with anything other than horror.”

“Why? Because of your scars? 

“No! Because I am Uruk, and elves are sickened by those who turned to darkness. We will never be safe! None would accept up!” Adar shouts, knocking things over in his rage. 

“I am not sickened by you.” 

“Well, you are a freak and affront to the gods. What else could I expect?” 

It should not feel like a betrayal to hear his captor say out loud what many have thought before and likely would have said if Gil-galad wouldn’t have shoved them off the waterfall for it. 

The followers of the Feanorions had all been of the Noldor and most had seen the trees, they had not seen a peredhel before the sack of Sirion. 

Despite the blood on their hands it had been the harbouring of him and Elros that the soldiers thought might bring down the wrath of the goods. 

Even Maglor and Maedhros had peared down at them as though they were curiorisities rather than people. 

Mules and crossbreeds. 

They hadn’t known until then what was said of peredhel in certain circles. 

They had lived in a city of elves and men, ruled by two peredhel of great lineage. It hadn’t been unusual, or shameful. 

“Dwarves and men have allied with orcs before.” Elrond points out, trying to swallow down the taste of salt and sour that fills his mouth as he struggles to banish memories long buried 

Adar bats his words away. “We will never be accepted, no matter where we go!” 

“Orcs at least were made in darkness.” Elrond murmurs. “What excuse can elves give for their evil deeds?” 

That makes Adar turn to look at him; finally listening. 

The truth is, and this is a secret Elrond will never ever tell anyone, he wishes he had had a mannish soul. Elros had lived a long and happy life. 

That he could have been a creature of change the way his brother had been.  That the knives of the past would dull fit him as they had for his brother to be something vaguely unpleasant and only half remembered. 

Elves only change through pain and horror. 

“The truth is, the worst pain I have known, the most terrible horrors I have witnessed in were suffered at th hands of elves, not orcs or men or dwarves. My own kind.” 

He turns his face away and tries to turns his mind away from those terrible dark memories. “Until a few days ago no orcs had ever done me any harm at.”

The smell of the blood his slippers were soaked in. The painful grip of a gauntleted hand around his arm. The humiliation of being dragged weeping through the camp in nothing but his night shirt to be presented to the enemy captains. 

The feeling of having his face ground into the dirt when they made him kneel. Hearing Elros trying not to cry next to him and being afraid to look up. 

Elwing had been smuggled out of Doriath with the silmaril in her blankets. The Feanorians would not make the same mistake twice. They were looking among the children of Sirion for the princes of the city. 

Elrond and Elros could not hide who they were. Not when twins were so rare among the elves and everyone knew that Elwing had birthed twin boys. 

So,  Maglor and Maedhros had told them that their mother jumped to save the silmaril and had left them behind.

They had frightened the two of them on purpose, because they were angry that they had failed once again to regain the jewel. 

Elrond doesn’t know what happened to the other children. 

He thinks Maedhros and Maglor would not have had them killed, but perhaps they would have spared only the elf children and killed the mortals. 

Or perhaps…well, he thinks it is better not to know. 

“I expect I shall find this captivity far more comfortable in comparison.”  He tells the moriondor, thinking of the way his muscles seemed to cramp in the cold of Amon reb, and gnawing hunger of the outpost. The absolute helplessness of having nowhere to run and  nothing to offer. 

Adar snorts. “I did not think elves had the stomach for cruelty.”

“Elves have the stomach for far more than they pretend.”

His mother had been so young and they had driven her to her death. 

The older he gets the younger she seems. By the reckoning of elves she had been far too young to have children, but then again she had been peredhel and loved Earendil, half-Elven like her, but with the soul of a man. 

Perhaps she just knew that there might not be a tomorrow for her, and whatever joy she found should not be delayed. 

He thinks she did not mean to leave them. He’s sure she had hoped to return for her children or at least to remove any incentive there could be to harm either of them. (You do not need two hostages after all, but if there is no ransom then perhaps you might let them both go)

But, perhaps the sons of Feanor had been right. Perhaps if the Silmarils had been preserved rather than destroyed the Eldar of middle earth would not be in danger of fading. 

And yet, he thinks he will hate the thought of the silmarils until the world is indeed remade.

He blinks and looks again at the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the tent. 

“I would not have thought I would need to argue the cruelty of elves to you.”

Adar looks at him with dark eyes. “You’re right. You don’t.”

—-

Celebrimbor has finally escaped Annatar’s fretful clutches and managed to retreat to his private rooms.

He is surprised to see a servant is already there tidying up and setting out a meal for him. But it is appreciated. 

He’s not sure when he last ate, and thanks them softly as he sits at the table except the individual goes to sit across from him and he is about to snap about propriety when he sees it is Gil-galad himself, with a look that just dares Celebrimbor to make a comment about sitting at the table of your betters. 

Gil-galad adjusts a wine glass while Celebrimbor gapes. 

“Celebrimbor, tell me of the work you’ve been doing under this..Annatar.”

“Your majesty!” Celebrimbor gasps. “When did you arrive?!” He does not usually stand on titles with Gil-galad since he has known him since he was an elfling but well, he knows he is in disgrace. 

He defied his king’s orders. 

Gil-galad’s stare is piercing. “It has been ever said that the line of Feanor was prone to selfishness and carelessness, but I had never thought you capable of being a worse glory hungry fool than even your grandfather. I thought perhaps the ages had granted you wisdom.” 

Celebrimbor winces. 

He probably deserves that. 

Chapter Text

She comes to meet them from the East as they move towards the gap in the mountains, towering in her sun baked beauty she is taller than any elf.

The orcs mutter and clutch their weapons. She is alone, so she is not a threat, and being made of what looks to be braided grasses, they did not think they could eat her. 

“I have heard the singing and come to offer what aid I can.” She says. 

Adar sends Elrond an accusing glance. 

Elrond raises his hands. “Great Lady, I thank you for your kindness! I did not think at all that my message might reach the ears or you or your kind.” 

She leans down to look at them and then beams. “Hello little elf!” She croons. “I suppose you are my singer?” 

He smiles back at her. “Yes! Though it was by your husband and his kin that I intended my message to be received.” 

She stands tall again and laughs. “I’m sure they have heard it and even been moved to answer, but ents will wander and are easily distracted - it may be some time before they remember they intended to come find you.” 

“May I ask your name, dear lady?” 

“It is Fimberthil, and what is yours little master?” 

“I am called Elrond Peredhel.” 

“And what are these things you travel with? Why are they so dirty?”

“These are the Uruk my lady, they have heard of the eruption of the great mountain and hope to make a home in the shadow and ash where no others can survive.” 

She cocks her head to one side. “They look a bit like the Drughu?  Do you know them? They call themselves men even though everyone knows they are not. It makes things simpler. I like them rather a lot but they are always shooing me away. They prefer their woods wild.” 

Elrond grins at her. “I cannot say I know the Drughu, but I have heard of them, but thought they were a race of men for did they not earn leave of the Valar to dwell on Numenor?”

She smiles again, and leans down conspiratorially. “Yes, but they dwelt there barely a generation! The Valar do try but, well, that island did not suit the drughu at all! And so they all came back!”

“Really?” 

She nods. “They live in the forests around the mountains now.”

“I see.” 

She is peering down at Glug, who is clearly uncomfortable with such close examination. 

“Are you sure they aren’t Drughu?”

“No my lady! They are not! For they do not live the wildwoods and are hoping to make a home for themselves, if only they knew how.”

Her eyes snap to his. “What do you mean by that?” 

“They hope to feed themselves with such bounty as they can make the shadowlands produce. Though who can say what would grow in such a blighted land, there is some talk of herding pigs and goats.”

She narrows her eyes and sniffs at him. 

“I do not know if they weave but surely they will at least be able to grow nettles and that may be processed and sold.” He continues, awkwardly. 

She gives the orcs a considering look. “I think you underestimate them, elfling. Look at their tents. There are some among them who can weave.” 

Elrond realizes she is right. Not just the tents, but Galadriel had heard from Arondir of the southern outpost that the orcs had first draped themselves and their trenches in undyed sheets to keep the sun off them. Surely they had must have made some of those. 

And after all it was the orcs that built their siege engines and their carts, which was complicated skilled work. 

“Will you come to our aid, fair lady? We head towards the shadows and will not ask you to come with us, but if you were to follow after we would be most grateful. I do not know what gifts you would like but we would do our best to show our gratitude.”

She smiles at him. “I think you are a flatterer.” 

He grins and bows with a flourish. “That is the way of elves, so I come by it honestly.” 

She hums, “I will think on it, and speak to my sisters. I’m sure there may be one or two among them that would be interested in your project.” 

She squints at the orcs again. “ What did you say they were again?” 

“Former thralls of Angband, neither elf nor man.” 

“I tell you that is a drughu!” She insists.

“ and I tell you I’ve never met a drughu and so could not say if they are alike. If you should happen to cross paths with one perhaps you could send them our way?”

She throws back her head and laughs. “They’d no more kiss the sun and trees farewell then cut off both of their feet! But, perhaps they have trouble makers in need of adventure to send into danger.”

With a creaking like the straining ropes on a ship she straightens, turns and begins to stride awar. 

Adar is glaring at Elrond. “I suppose that went exactly as you intended?” 

“You give me too much credit.” Elrond snaps, the adrenaline rushing in as  she leaves. “I had no notion at all of speaking to an ent wife and absolutely no idea what we’ll do if any of them actually arrive in your new kingdom.”

“I dunno, mister Elf, she seems nice enough.” Glûg pipes up. 

Which in and of itself is shocking. Elrond does not think he’s ever heard an orc describe anything at all as ‘nice’. 

———

Elrond is walking up the hill towards the Great Tree in Lindon, he turns a corner to see Gil-galad standing by the cliff and knows that he is dreaming, for he has never know Gil-galad to look as he does now. 

The king has on his heavy cloth of gold robe, but underneath it wears the worn almost rags that he used on days of hard labour on the Isle of Balar when he had been High King to a race of refugees. Most shocking is his hair, longer than it had ever been, past his knees and unbound, as though he were in private. 

Gil looks up at Elrond’s approach and smiles, which is as unmooring as anything else in the vision, for the king so rarely smiles.

He holds out a hand. “Elrond Peredhel it does my heart good to see you.” 

Elrond puts his hand in the king’s and walks over. He sees now there is a shallow still pool into which the King had been looking. Almost, but not quite a mirror. 

“Is this real ?”

“I expect not. Otherwise that silmaril on your brow would be quite alarming.” 

Elrond’s hand flies up and feels nothing unusual but now that the king mentions it he can see the familiar light dancing around the clearing. 

“So, a dream. “ 

“Or something like it. I blame the ring.” 

Gil galad twists the ring on his hand nervously. “I find it somewhat unnerving. I was speaking to Galadriel before I slept, as clearly as if she were standing before me.” 

“We should have cast them into the sea.”

The king shrugs. “If the Feanorians had not cast theirs away perhaps we would not have needed to forge them.” 

Elrond scowls. “The Valar would have taken the silmarils back to Valinor. We would have been no better off.”

The king sighs. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Was your hair ever like this? You look rather like a tapestry of Luthien woven by a homosexual.” 

Gil-galad smiles and tosses a lock of hair over his shoulder. “When I was a child.” 

Elrond nods and is surprised by the way Gil-galad’s eye linger so fondly on him. 

“You turned the orcs away from the city. And you are here, which means you are alive.” 

“Did you truly doubt me?” 

“Every time you leave my sight I fear I will never see you again.”

Elrond flinches and tries to reach out. “It was not your fault, Ereinion.”

The king sighs. “You are a kind child to try to spare my feelings, but I was the king and I alone could have forced a peace. It was my fault.” 

The king throws off his robe and sits to dangle his feet off the cliff, kicking into the water fall every now and then. 

“Sit with me, Elrond!” 

Elrond hesitates, and Gil-galad smiles brightly at him again “Please?” 

It is so unnerving that Elrond complies automatically.

He is not quite sure he is truly conversing with Gil-galad and yet, if someone had taken his form wouldn’t they act more as would be expected?

Sitting on the other side of the stream with his feet in the water is occurs to Elrond that by most counts he and the king would he considered of almost of an age, with the king having been born less than a century before him. 

“I find myself thinking often of my mother.” Elrond admits. “I do not know when I last thought of her but now she haunts me.” 

“These are strange and turbulent times. It is no wonder we both find ourselves haunted by things long past.”

Elrond looks out across the woodlands. “Elros lived many times her lifetime.” 

Gil-galad nods. “And Eärendil would have chosen the Gift of Men and yet now sails the skies forever. It is not fair. It was never fair.”

Elrond nods. “What haunts you my king?”

Gil-galad smiles wistfully. “The woods of Beleriand. There was an oak tree there, whose nuts were so sweet you could eat them raw. I ate those nuts after the fall of Nargothrond, and it seemed a miracle put into the woods just for me. I think I would trade all the Elven cities that yet remain for that tree.” 

“You wouldn’t. You’d want to, and feel terrible that you wanted to but you never would. You love us too much.”

Gil galad smiles indulgently at him. “When you were children you and Elros used to argue about which of you got to ride on my shoulders, because I was the tallest elf who would indulge you. I have often wondered… Maedhros was so ridiculously proportioned, did he ever carry you in his shoulders?”

And this is the kindness of Gil-galad. He does not speak of the glory, or the triumph, but the small happinesses.

“He did, but only once or twice. We were bigger and older by then and he was not as fond of us as Maglor, but he did at least once. Mostly he carried us on his back if we were playing with him and he was well that day.” 

“Good.”

“ I think Maglor would have carried us about until we were grown if he could have just worked out how to do it. He loved us terribly.”

“Yes, I know, and wherever he has gone I thank him for it. “

Elrond kicks the water again. “I spoke to an ent wife today. I think with her help the Moriondor and myself will really be able to build a kingdom for the orcs.”

“The southlander’s will not like it.”

“They cannot live in the fumes and smoke. Orcs can. There is no point in arguing it.” 

“You should not chooses the lesser evil Elrond. Nothing good can come of such a thing.”

“I do not think the orcs are truly evil.” Elrond admits. “I think they cause pain and suffering because it is all they have known. They thieve and pillage because we elves have hunted them to nigh on the ends of the earth and back. The ent wife pointed out the clever things they have made and I wonder what they might accomplish if they weren’t in constant filth, terror and pain.” 

Gil-galad considers this, and looks up at the great tree. 

“You know, when I sang that tree to reflect the strength and power of the elves I had no thought at all that it would also reveal our decay and frailty.” 

“I often forget it was ever other than what it is now. It seems something that should have say upon this hillside since the making of the world.” 

Gil-galad preens, and flicks his long hair. “I am no Celebrimbor but I have always been good with trees.” 

Elrond grins at the king’s vanity. 

“How is Celebrimbor?”

Gil-galad becomes serious. “Foolish, thoughtless amd reckless. He does not see the frailty in himself that we all know is there. His vanity may have doomed us all. 

“And Sauron?“

“Whispering in his ear“

”What of Galadriel?”

“She is in Lindon. I have caged her with duty. It seemed the best way to punish her and keep her away from Eregion. “

Elrond grins. “Not a bad plan.”

—————

The king wakes up. He is in his little cot in the little room he has rented. 

He walks to the edge of the city and then up along the ramparts. 

A shadow detaches itself from a guard tower and joins him. 

“Elrond Peredhel is alive.” The king tells him. 

The soldier nods, jaw tight. 

He is Sindar, Gil-galad thinks, though he is not sure. He wears his hair short as a warrior but not in the carefully combed way of the Noldor, though that could be in deference to his curls rather than out of some kind of ethnic loyalty. 

“I should not have turned from my pursuit.” Arondir grits out. 

Gil-galad does not roll his eyes but it is a near thing. His opinion is that Arondir should never have begun his pursuit. 

The elf had taken the men of the Southlands to heart in the eighty years he had been stationed there and while that made his grief at the losses there terrible, and his anger justified, it also meant that he ought to have stayed with them in these times of hardship and hopelessness. 

But, then again, like many of the elves of Beleriand Arondir has a heart of cracked stone. 

Love comfort and ease can enter it but only with stubborn persistence. 

Perhaps he is as Galadriel as who had lost the future peaceful she dreamed of and so would have no peace at all. 

“Elrond has works in motion. Your presence would not have been helpful.”

Arondir exhales sharply. “Still, he should not be alone amongst the beasts.”

Gil-galad nods, in acknowledgement but not agreement. Elrond works best when he is not too closely observed. The result of his childhood in captivity when he could never know whether attention from the adults around him would be kind or cruel. 

Poor Maedhros, he may have been a murderer, but it still panged the kings heart to think of the terror of your own mind turning against you. 

Arondir sighs and turns away from the view of the river to look over the city. 

“What do you intend, Elvenking?” He asks, and the way he says the title makes Gil-galad wonder if he counted among the green elves of Beleriand originally. Though, he has never known a wood elf to wear his hair so short. 

“We move slowly and with great care. All the high kings before me looked to confront evil head on, and all perished for their arrogance.”

“Sauron is not Morgoth.” Arondir points out. 

“No, he is more subtle by far.”

Arondir nods slowly.

“How are the roads?” The king asks. “Do the people of the city still come and go? Have any noticed that no one has arrived from elsewhere in some time?”

“Fewer leave the city on ordinary business each day, though I doubt id you asked them any could tell you why. Those who had been away return as normal. Some have noticed there have been no visitors from other Elven realms in some time but they are not yet concerned-only curious.”

“Sauron seeks to draw the elves of this place close around him.”

“The easier to control.”

“Perhaps. What of those who have heard reminders of Sirion and Gondolin? Have any left quietly or in secret?”

Arondir shrugs. “No one of particular importance has left but I think some have left quietly. Families with elflings or older relatives whose lives have made them wary.”

Gil-galad nods. “Annatar grows erratic and forceful though he tries to maintain his mask of calm in front of the apprentices.

Celebrimbor looks to delay, but his mind is not always his own.” 

Arondir’s face crumples in grief and looks away. He may have no love for the last Feanorian but, it is still a terrible and frightening thing to think of one of the mighty of their race overcome and mastered by a power not his own. 

Arondir takes a deep breath. “Does he know the high king is in the city?” 

“He has heard the rumours, but he is old enough to remember the previous high kings of the Noldor. It has never before been the way of such elves to lie in wait.

When the rumours first reached him, he believed the High King to be within the city, but as time has passed with no sign other than rumours, he begins to doubt.”

“It will be Galadriel he looks to.” Arondir suggests. “Their minds were as one when they fought in the Southlands, and she is the leader of the northern armies. It will be her he expects to come for him. I do not think he rates the High King as much of a threat to him.” 

Gil-galad nods again. “Good. We must not allow him to choose the method or place of any conflict. Elrond has already aided us by turning the orcs from the city. He did not expect that and so has been distracted from his aims by maintaining control of the people of the city.”

Arondir looks at him. “How will we know when it is time to act?” 

“When we have accomplished all we can without doing so.” Gil-galad tells him. 

Arondir frowns but does not argue. He turns away from the city to watch the woods once more. 

“I will continue to keep my watch.” 

“Good. I will continue to do what I can from within the keep. We may need to involve Galadriel soon, if only to keep Annatar from dictating the terms of his next meeting with her.” 

Arondir nods again. “I believe his eye is always partially fixed on her.”

Gil-galad almost smiles. “She is enchanting in her beauty and power. All the songs say so.”

Arondir does smile at that. 

Gil-galad meets his eye and then nods again before walking away. 

He has worked carefully and silently from within Celebrimbor’s household, though he has not seen or spoken to the smith since announcing his presence in the city. 

It is better that Celebrimbor only hesitate in his obedience of Lord Annatar rather than seek to actively resist him. 

It allows Gil-galad to do what needs doing without the Maia becoming overly suspicious of what had influenced his thrall. 

Gil-galad has gathered the most important scrolls and codexes from the library. Replacing most with other volumes of little importance, and keeping the more ordinary information in place. They are easy enough to smuggle out, in the few merchant caravans that still leave the city heading to Lindon, and the ring ensures that Galadriel will know to find them. 

He has pilfered as many of the practice rings as could be found without drawing notice from the apprentices, and has since melted those that can be easily destroyed. 

Mostly he stands in corners, poors wine and listens. 

More than once he has passed Sauron in the halls, but they have never met and the Maia does not see those he who he does not consider to be either useful or a threat. 

As it stands the High King of the Elves has learned them workings of Celebrimbor’s citadel far better than the smith himself. 

He knows where they source the charcoal and coal for the lesser forges. Where the ores they smelt are mined, where the slag is disposed of, where the grain is ground to flour, where the ceramics are fired. 

He knows who might spit in the soup if slighted, and who takes special care to ensure the food the lords dine on is never cold. 

He knows the master of the hounds by name and which stables in the city house the finest and the fastest horses. 

He knows which days the floors are scrubbed and who among Celebrimbor’s servants thinks that statue of Feanor is as horrifically gauche as he does. 

He knows the city makes more swords than bread loaves but has a rather alarming derth of fletchers and bow makers. 

Arondir had reassured him by pointing out that in a city of smiths and artisans the vast majority of the population wouldn’t be particularly useful no matter how many arrows or bows they had, which is not entirely comforting. 

They designed the city counting on the mountains and the river to protect them. 

Gil galad has heard that song before. 

One night, he and Arondir sit on the steps in an out of the way courtyard passing a bottle of wine back and forth between them. A couple of Sindar with broken hearts who long for a lost home more than they will ever hope for Valinor. 

A sad sight perhaps, but of no particular importance. 

The lanterns reflect off the water in the fountain and Gil-galad wants to kick off his shoes and run away into the forests in a way he hasn’t since he was a half grown thing unused to company. 

He should not be hurt by Celebrimbor’s foolishness and yet, somehow he is. He had thought the smith could be trusted, could be relied on. He had gone to him for help.

And once more he finds himself disregarded the moment his back is turned.

Just one more elf in a long line, proving themselves untrustworthy. 

“Adar spoke of Beleriand.” Arondir says. “Something about sage blossoms by the river.”

Gil-galad leans back on the step behind him.  “I wonder which river he meant.” 

“I have no idea. The things he spoke of were not things I remember.”

“He is older than the sun, I think. They may have been long vanished before you were ever born.” 

“Will the ache of it ever ease do you think?”

Gil turns a little to look at him. “Which one?”

“For Beleriand, for home.”

“No, I shouldn’t think so.”

“The Noldor are lucky.” Arondir hisses. “For all they were once banished, there home is still there.”

Gil galad sighs. “I do not think the Valar truly love. Not as we do. They would not have sunk Beleriand if they knew what it was to love a place. No marring would have ever made me turn from the lands that were once my home.”

“You speak thus, but would have the Southalnders turn from theirs.” 

“I suppose that’s true. Perhaps the Valar were right then. Perhaps I would have stood my ground in the ashes of a place I once loved and perished there. Perhaps it was wiser not to give us the choice.”

“What about the other ache?”

“Hmm?”

“The ache of loss. They were mortals, but they were my friends, and the other elves of the watch tower. I saw them every day for eighty years and now I’ll never see them again.”

Gil-galad drinks the wine. He remembers when he’d finally heard the story of what had befallen Elwing. 

He’d rushed to Sirion to find it smouldering and at first none could say what had become of her or her children, save that the Feanorions had captured any children they had come across who tried to flee the city.

Searching for the silmaril in baby blankets. 

Finally, someone who had seen was brought before him. She had been in her tower, lighting the way for Earendil’s return as had been her habit. They had seen her and the light fall. It seemed she had jumped.

Thirty years he had had her, less than half the time Arondir had known the Southlands. 

He had kissed her plump baby cheeks and drawn steel when there had been talk of placing a crown on her dear little head.

She had swung their hands where she held his, and smiled shyly up at him when she would ask to be carried over puddles.

Later, Earendil had come and he had held her hand in his while she held Earendil’s hand in hers, and Gil had led the two of them through the camp. 

She was a serious girl, and Earendil had been merry and Gil-galad had always insisted he had no favourite between them but she had been it. 

He had carried her on his shoulders and sung sad songs together and she had leapt to an uncertain fate rather than face the Feanorians alone. 

“I don’t know. I suppose it changes. It does not leave but you grow around it like a wire twisted around a tree and later forgotten.” 

“I cannot think of her. For when I do I weep.”

“That will mend, in time. There will be new loves and one day something will call them so perfectly to mind that it will sear your very soul, but it will be… a comfort, rather than a pain.” 

Elrond was not particularly like either of his parents, partly because he was wiser than both. He did not have Earendil’s brash bravery or Elwing’s broken heart. 

But sometimes, he would say something or do something and Gil-galad would be starkly reminded of them.

He had the same stars in his eyes as his father, and his mother’s sad smile. 

Gil-galad had not seen Elrond grow up, not really. The peredhel had been halfway grown at least when he had wandered into the circle of their campfire one night and nearly killed the entire party with fright. 

Arondir’s eyes are full of tears. “I find that difficult to believe.”

Gil-galad spreads his empty hands before him. “And yet, we no longer weep for lost Doriath; or Nargothrond or Beleriand itself. In time it will be so for those you have lost.”

“My friend used to tease me for the affection I held for a mortal woman. Now, he and she are both dead, and I remain.”

Gil shrugs. “There is no cure but time and perhaps one day you and your friend may meet in the blessed land.”

“But her I will not see again.”

“Not until the breaking and remaking of the world.” The king agrees.

Gil had loved Elros too. Far seeing, strong willed mad thing he had been. 

He never meant to be funny, but he always made the High King laugh.  

“New trees will grow in the land fire once passed over, but we need to put it out first.” 

Chapter Text

The March south continues skirting the edges of the gardens of the entwives. 

Everyone stares in awe through the careful rows of trees to the distant fields. 

“I thought I had seen most of what was in this world.” Adar admits, gazing at the tall figures in the distance who straighten and bend like reeds in the wind. 

He has never seen order that was not oppression, but the gardens of the entwives are more like the complex layering of a dozen patterns on top of the other and somehow harmonious, than the harsh lines if Morgoth’s plantations. 

There are fish in the irrigation canals, and ducks. There are vines climbing the fruit trees.

Elrond glances at him and smiles. 

It irritates Adar that the half-elf seems to have found himself at ease among the Uruk. 

Worse, that many of the orcs seem almost enamoured of him. 

Adar now finds his stomach sours at the peredhel’s smiles. The boy is full of grief, but still he is so gentle and there is something about the way he grins at Adar while they look over the fields that rankles terribly. 

As though they are conspiring together. As though Elrond is not a prisoner dragged away in chains, but rather a partner in the project. 

“I have never seen anything like this.” Adar repeats. 

In truth Elrond has never seen the like either, and it occurs to him how little he has seen of what remains of the world. 

 He lived his youth in drowned Beleriand, his adulthood in Lindon and had visited little beyond Numenor.

He wonders suddenly whether he should go East to Greenwood the Great, an elven realm untouched by Silmarils and people from beyond the sea. 

Elrond rubs at his brands and tries to imagine one day that that would be an easy thing. 

Adar looks at him. “Morgoth had had plantations to feed his armies, but I never knew such things could be beautiful.” 

Elrond shrugs. “Neither had I. I know the ents only very little and the entwives not at all.” 

Adar stares wistfully out beyond the eaves of the trees to where the entwives move amongst their fields, and canals, their distant singing only barely audible on the breeze. 

“And who made them?” He asks. 

Elrond frowns and tries to think. “They say that elves woke the trees up and taught them how to speak, and that was the beginning of ents, but I do not know who crafted the entwives.”

Adar does not look away from the distant figures. “Perhaps no one made them. Perhaps they just… are.” 

He glanced suddenly at Elrond and then yanks the chain viciously, making him stumble. 

“Enough! Set the march drummers! We move to the land of shadows.”

He strides off, chain in hand and dragging Elrond after him. 

There is satisfaction in that, but he sees Glûg's displeasure at the rough treatment of the peredhel and it is all Adar can do not to grind his teeth. 

He has never had to compete for the favour of his children before. He was all they knew of kindness or gentleness or love. He alone loved them. 

He does not like to see Glûg’s fondness for an elf. 

It is not as though Uruk haven’t befriended other races before. They are actually quite good at it. Wargs love them more than men, and plenty of men and dwarves in turn have found them to be better company then elves. Not that most will admit it. 

Glûg smiles at Elrond and suddenly Adar understands. He sees the way his children react to Elrond, how everyone reacts to Elrond.

The peredhel has something to him that most people respond to and turn towards like flowers to the sun and Adar looks at him and cannot feel it.  

He see this elf child and he feels nothing, and even if he can’t admit it he wishes he did and it makes him angry that he can’t and that he wants to. 

He supposes that all the feeling burned out of him an age ago, all that’s left of are the echoes and the memories of what it was to feel. 

He can feel more thinking of long vanished fields of flowers in a land drowned an age ago than he can looking at someone sat before him. 

He hates, though. It might be all that’s left. 

Elrond smiles and it makes Adar want to peel his face off his skull. Power and control is easier to marshall than love. 

But. Elrond is very difficult to frighten. 

Adar sits on his heels where the boy is sitting in the shade with Glûg. 

“We are nearly to the mountain fence. Tell me how you will protect us. “

Elrond blinks up at him. “I don’t know.” 

“You made promises.”

“And I intend to keep them.”

“How?”

“With enchantments. I suppose. Magic never makes sense until it is complete.”

Adar glares at him but drops the chain at Glûg’s feet. “Watch him.”  

The peredhel meets Glûg’s eyes and is surprised to see the orc wince look concerned. 

He forces a smile, but it’s clearly not reassuring. 

“It wasn’t a lie, was it?” Glûg asks. “I wouldn’t blame you for saying what you had to to save your hide.” 

“It wasn’t a lie.” Elrond’s eyes flick to the orc. “But I’ve never done something like that before. I think I can, but I won’t know until…”

“Until.”

Neither of them finish the sentence until it’s too late. 

Elrond walks with the army now, and there is a tension among the orcs. 

They know Adar was convinced to turn back. They know he is is angry. 

They know Ellrond has promised to do something that seems impossible and enough have sat by him and smiled in the shade while they wait for nightfall to be concerned that he might fail. 

It’s one thing for the descendant of a goddess to say he can forge an enchantment across a whole kingdom.

It’s another for the well liked hostage, who sings your marching songs and has won over his guards, to do something that no one has done in more than an age. 

Elrond tries not to let himself doubt. 

It had seemed a true thing when he said he could do it and in truth there is no real reason to think he can’t. 

Maglor had sung them songs of power when he and his brother were children. He knows the form and the shape of magic instinctually- the same way his hand knows to write the shape of the Tengwar. 

Still, it is not an ordinary or a well practiced skill, to weave enchantments. 

Elros had made magical things . That was what most people did. They made something and that thing would be magical. 

That was what the dwarves did. Celebrimbor sought glory and magic by that same route. It was what Fëanor had done. It was even what Sauron was hoping to do. 

Elrond’s heart clenches thinking of Galadriel. She had been Melian’s apprentice once, before the war robbed her of first her joy and then her hope, and had learned to weave enchantments from the Maia herself.

She might have been able to help him, though he doubted she would let him get a word in if she were here. In all probability she’d ignore his protests, sling him over her shoulder and attempt to carry him back to Lindon. 

He has a memory of her before. How different she had been, smiling at him through the warp threads of her loom, the sound of the weights and the rhythm of her weaving as she spoke softly with his mother while the light of the Silmaril shimmered on the walls. 

He is not even sure it is a true memory. He is not sure she ever stayed in Sirion longer than a day or two when he was a child. 

He wants to believe it is true, this glimpse of who she once was, not  before the war, not before the loss of Celeborn, but before her brother died. 

That had been one loss two many and it had changed her. 

Finrod of the golden house of Finarfin. He, Elrond had not met until after he had returned from among the Feanorions. 

He had not known him well, but he had been so kind, and like Gil-galad, completely indifferent to Elrond’s strangeness. 

Gentle Finrod, who loved dwarves more than men, and men more than elves. Who worked the forges and built a city of glittering caves in the mountains where elves and dwarves lived together. 

Durin doesn’t understand what it means that the dwarves barely tolerate the elves and consider it such a marvel that the two of them are friends. 

Because, Finrod had loved his dwarven friends so much he had built a city where both elves and dwarves could be happy, so he need never part from them, and swore oaths of friendship to their descendants. 

And the dwarves do not even remember that there had been a time when they had loved the elves. 

Elrond walks with the orcs to the mountains and then through them. Glûg holds the leash of his chain and talks about what the new Uruk homeland will one day be. All the things that Adar promised them when they were digging tunnels and marching on suicide missions. 

Mostly he promised them safety from all other peoples of middle earth. 

What a sad thing, that to the orcs everyone else is the nightmare. 

The mountains loom over them ominous and implacable. 

His first idea had been to weave some sort of spell that bridged the mountains, and would keep Sauron from crossing them. 

It seems ridiculous now in face of the scale and strangeness of this place he does not know.  Elrond has no idea how he will deliver on his promise. 

He’s no Luthien who’s magic was so great it broke and remade the world to her liking, convincing gods themselves to bend. 

He couldn’t even convince the people who love him most to cast the fucking rings into the god damned ocean. 

He find himself thinking of Maglor. Long harpists fingers running through his hair. Gentle songs hummed as he slept. 

Maglor had never managed to sway Maedhros on anything. 

Much as as Elrond could never change Elros’ mind once it was made up. 

Adar’s threat is not subtle, and the phantom touch of Maedhros’ hand digging into his face haunts Elrond.

He’d been such a big elf and Elrond has always been small for his kind.  It would have taken only one hand to kill him. 

The ancient terror of his childhood chews at him. The feeling of being small and helplessly pinned beneath a force so much greater than himself, knowing only the mercy of his enemy keeps him alive. 

There had never been a point where Maedhros would have found it difficult to kill them. 

Adar doesn’t want him to kill him, but it would be easy for him too. 

Some of the army melts away as they cross the mountains and began to skirt the edge of the cloud cover from Oronduin. 

It’s interesting, the way the Uruk simultaneously have complete freedom and demand complete obedience .

Adar’s word is beyond law to them. Most of them would stab themselves in the neck if he asked. But, if he doesn’t ask, they feel completely free to do as them wish. 

Glûg is one of the few who seems to hesitate. 

Elrond remembers him begging Elrond to convince Adar to turn away from Eregion, and in the weeks since he’s learned at least part of why-  a baby and a woman, or whatever the Uruk equivalent of those are, waiting behind the mountains. 

It’s why Glûg hovers. He sees a debt owed because Elrond had succeeded in turning the legions back. In saving their lives. 

Glûg doesn’t care if it was a lie. He just wants to live. He wants them all to live, and, maybe more than he realizes, he wants Adar to care if they live or die. 

It reminds Elrond a bit of Maedhros. 

Maedhros wanted to love them, and they were desperate for him to. But, in the end he couldn’t. 

They never said it, but the twins knew he only loved them as a reflection of his own dead twin brothers. 

Elrond doesn’t know who or what Adar really loves, but it’s not his children. Not really. Or maybe he loves the Uruk as a reflection of his true children, the first of the orcs, whoever they had been and however horrible their lives were 

But, there’s no doubt that as much as Adar cares for the collective future and well-being of the Uruk, he has no feeling at all for individual suffering and death.

He’d sacrificed hundreds on feignts and distractions in the lead up to the erruption of the mountain. 

He’d even allowed himself to be captured by Galadriel so she’d believe they’d succeeded in stopping the plan. 

Elrond is surprised she didn’t kill him, but is not surprised to learn it was out of cruelty. 

Rage rage rage. 

He’s so tired of anger. 

He misses Galadriel. He misses who she is outside of her rage, and single minded determination. 

Maybe that’s why some elves come to love the dwarves so, their anger is a different less corrosive shape. 

—-

The army finally crosses the mountains and staggers into the city of tents amid the ruins of some southlander town, and Elrond sees Glûg’s baby. 

It’s the first time he’s seen an orc baby. Until he’d met Glûg it had never occurred to him that orcs had babies or were ever children. 

He sees Adar’s love for his children then- in the way he speaks softly when he holds the baby and seems to know the name of every Uruk in the camp.

No wonder they worship him: there are no Valar for uruks, only Sauron and Morgoth who whipped their backs and melted their flesh, but at least wanted them more or less alive. 

Adar loves them, maybe in the same way that Maedhros had loved Elrond and Elros- he’d feared their deaths more than their hatred and could justify anything so long as he believed it would help them survive. 

Elrond lingers for a minute, feeling oddly warm towards the Moriondor as the old orc greets a group of Uruk children. Adar must feel his gaze, because he glances up and their eyes meet.

Elrond feels a shock of panic run through him and it takes everything not to turn and run as the ancient terror of being smaller and weaker and alone grips him. 

He tries to slip away, back to find Glûg or one of the other orcs he had become friendly with but the camp is large and he is surrounded by strangers and there is a not small part of him that knows Adar wants nothing so much as to break him. 

He has spent the last few weeks racking his brain for the answer but the truth is inescapable- Elrond has never tried to complete any great working of magic, and he has no idea how to begin. 

In fact he hasn’t purposefully done any kind of magic since he was practically a child. 

Adar catches him just outside of camp. Grabbing both ear and hair and throwing him to the ground. 

He puts a foot between his shoulder blades and presses down. 

“I hope you know that your death will not be quick, or private.” Adar whispers in his ear. 

Elrond gasps and his fingers claw the dirt. He is a child again, caught in the tempest of one of Maedhros’ mad rages, only now there is no Elros to run for help, no Maglor to come running to the rescue howling at a pitch that makes the earth shake and his tormentor freeze. 

Elrond is alone. His fingers catch on a strange soft sensation. The ash from the mountain’s explosion in a layer under the dirt. 

And something clicks into place in his mind. 

The memory of cowering from Maedhros and Maglor sing-screaming a note that had and would stop armies. 

To protect him.

Adar allowing himself to be captured and likely tortured on the hope that he might create a pace his descendants would be safe . 

You make yourself small. His brother, who worked wonders, had told him with what he thought was disdain but maybe had just been concern.

Gil-galad looks up at the great tree of Lindon, “The things we make do not always become what we intend.” 

It’s not about strength. Or power. It never was. 

Gil-galad would trade all the cities of elvenesse for a single beloved oak tree. 

Galadriel wove no more spells after her husband and brother died, and there was nothing that would satisfy her save the utter destruction of all who served the Enemy. 

Gil-galad had no great power but he wielded it like a scalpel and spent it wisely, a stark contrast to Galadriel whose power could relight the stars but who used it wastefully and recklessly. 

Elrond’s fingers clench in the ash and he throws his arm, and Adar back.

“Don’t touch me!” He screams. 

He is the son of the Evening star. He is not something small and insignificant. He is the last light of Doriath, of Melian, of Dior the fair who moved even orcs to covet daylight. 

His fingers are in the ash from the mountain and he is the ash from the mountain . 

He is the heir of all those who only needed the stars. 

Eol had not needed a maia wife to create a place where none dared walk without his leave, and Elrond was far greater than him.

Maglor had held the gap for an age against the armies of ultimate evil and what was Sauron to that?

Elrond pulled that layer of ash like a blanket and gathered it to his heart. This was his now. Where the ash of oroduim had fallen, was his . That was his border, and no evil thing would cross it without his permission. 

Sauron might get across the mountains but he would not cross that . 

Elrond hunched over the ground, feeling the land that was his now, and howled a note of mourning for what had not been protected. 

Dior had trusted the Feanorians. He had not believed his friends would kill him and everyone he loved over a jewel, no matter how holy. 

Elwing had not wanted to give up the one piece of hope she still clung to. She had not wanted the murderers of her family to win. 

They had died so young. Even by the count of men they had been young .

Elrond clenches his fingers in the ash and wails. 

He is capable of so much, and he is a fraction of what they were. What might Dior have accomplished if he hadn’t been murdered? What might Elwing have made if she’d had the opportunity? 

He stands and it’s more than that.

Galadriel has not put her hand to a loom in an age, what might she have done if her heart had not filled with bitterness and revenge?

He thinks of the king’s peaceful upturned face looking at The Tree of Lindon. What might Gil-galad have been if had had the chance to grow in a time of peace? 

And that burned worst of all because the king had not even reached his majority when crowned. 

Gil-galad had never known what it was to be a child, to be safe and he had never had the chance to learn. 

Elrond used to follow him around and hold his hand, even though he was far too old for such behaviour and the king had neither minded or commented on it. 

He thinks of the orcs. Glûg’s baby and the tents and the way Adar wanted so much to love them but can’t because all the kindness had been burnt out of him the same way it had been burnt out of Maedhros. 

What could they do, if given half a chance? 

Elrond covers his face with his hands and all that comes to mind is Maglor who had held the Gap for most of an age and fallen only to the terrible dragon. 

Maglor who had seen his family die one by one, his brother lost to torment and madness, his home slowly swallowed by the darkness and who had held on to hope and love and had not, even at the end, despaired. 

Maglor had held back Morgoth himself, and what was Sauron but a shadow of a shadow? 

Elrond looks to the gap in the mountains in the distance and thinks. Try and come for me you worm. Try and reclaim those you cast aside. You won’t find it easy any more. 

Elrond palan-tîriel.  His brother had called him, he who sees what elves do not. 

The name hadn’t stuck, but he found he could trust it. His eyes have ever been sharp. Sauron would not slip in unnoticed. 

Elrond paced, his mind full of the singing of the orcs and his own swirling thoughts.

He wanted to beat the earth in rage, he wanted weep and curse the gods for their cruelty.

He has thought himself small for so long, as though he did not write the words that the king spoke. As though his mortal father had not shaken the foundations of the earth. 

He isn’t small now. He feels as though he could defeat Sauron single handedly and eat his heart. 

He is not Lúthien, and he is nothing like her. 

She, he cannot picture, but selfish Thingol, and naive Dior he sees clearly. 

Perhaps he is not built for bravery, but what is bravery when there is safety? 

You won’t hurt anybody here. I won’t allow it. 

He lifts his head and Adar is staring at him wide eyed from where Elrond had thrown him. 

“I warn you now, strike me again and I may banish you from my lands.” Elrond snarls. 

Adar blinks.

“I welcome the Uruk to my protection, and give them leave to dwell in peace in these barren lands.”

Adar opens and closes his mouth. “How can you say these lands are yours?”

Elrond tries to wipe the dirt from his hands, “Because they are? Now at least. Anywhere the ash from mount doom lays heavy is under my protection, and I will not allow evil to come to pass on it if I can prevent it.”

Adar rolls his eyes, a petulant childish gesture that doesn’t suit him. 

He reminds Elrond of Gil-galad, so stoic and wise, while equally so childish and petty at times.

That’s something they do not put in songs, the unbearable pettiness of the elves. 

Chapter Text

Sauron is absolutely confident in the success of his plan, right up until everything begins to fall apart. 

He had noticed that some of the people of the city had trickled out over the months but, his stranglehold on the citadel had ensured no smiths of note had even entertained the thought of leaving. 

And he had grown roots so deep in Celebrimbor’s mind that to dislodge him would as like to kill the elf rather than save him. 

The greatest of the elven smiths had sent word that the Nine and there were only a few little details to complete the project before Sauron began his own work. 

And though he had failed to create the hoped for distraction of an attack on the city, the kidnapping of the Earendillion had upset the populace enough to divert their attention enough to serve as some measure of distraction, and had spawned rumours of everything from the end of the world, to a balrog reawakened or the king arrived from Lindon in disguise. 

He is pleased with himself as he glides to the forge intent of seeing the rings at last complete. 

Only Celebrimbor is not there.

He has kept the smith at work day and night these last weeks completing the rings and it seems impossible the old smith would have finally wriggled free of the illusion. 

He looks about and then realizes not only is Celebrimbor gone, but the rings are too. 

In the distance he hears a cry go up and unthinking he runs towards it. 

He smacks into Celebrimbor’s favourite servant- the big Sindarin elf with the grim face, who gasps when he recognizes the Maia. 

“My lord Annatar! Thank the stars I found you! Celebrimbor has jumped from the tower!” 

The smith had freed himself of Sauron’s tyranny. By, whatever means he could. 

The rings are not on the body when it is brought to him. Sauron seeks out that servant again and berates him. 

“Find the lesser smiths! The apprentices! Some agent of the enemy has stolen your lord’s final work!” 

The elf is pale in fear or panic, but he nods sharply. 

“Of course my lord!” 

——-

Adar finds himself at a loss for the first time in two ages of the world.

It has occurred to him now, that for all his planning he never actually expected to succeed in his endeavours, but rather that it was better to resist even if it lead to annihilation, since the alternative was only to accept a grinding shallow life of cruel control. 

Now, having reached the milestone he’s struggled so hard to gain he finds himself exhausted and bewildered.

How are his children going to be clothed? What will they drink from? What will they burn for their fires?

It is not that he had not considered these questions but rather that they were not the sort of thing he planned for.

Food his children did well at always finding. Water had to be quite foul indeed to harm an orc. 

But, Elrond stood with his arms crossed and looking to the left and slightly above Adar’s head and he asked annd asked and asked. And he was right. 

They were safe. So, now these were questions to be considered. 

Death had always been too close for these to be questions that needed answering. 

Elrond sighs rather dramatically at Adar’s silence. 

“You must at least speak to them about their hunting habits! You cannot harvest so thoughtlessly when you mean to stay in one place or you will exhaust the stock of game and find yourself starving next year.”

Adar blinks. That at least made sense. “Glug said something about goats?”

Elrond’s eyes drift closer to his actual person. “They have managed to catch some livestock that survived the explosion and was abandoned here. The cows all died. But, some of the horses, donkeys and goats survived” 

“What’s a donkey?”

Elrond huffs and points. 

“Oh, I thought that was just a small type of horse.”

Elrond sighs heavily again. 

“The captains can manage the Uruk legions.” Adar points out. “You need not concern yourself so.”

“I need very much concern myself since, having woven such an enchantment on this land means I am unlikely to be able to leave without the loss of those protections, and I’d very much prefer not to preside over a land that is a torment to myself.”

“I suppose that is not…unreasonable.”

Elrond is looking Adar in the eye now, and looking quite perturbed. 

“Excellent. Now, I think we ought to spread the legions out in the abandoned villages, and post sentries near the mountains.” 

Adar nods. Survival, as always, is the management of one irritating problem after another. 


—-

When Elrond dreams he expects to see the familiar tree of Lindon and Gil-galad beneath it. Instead he stands in an echoing hall lit by Feanorian crystal lamps, and Galadriel is before him, dressed as he has never seen her- with flowers in her hair and a white dress.

She sighs. 

Elrond blinks. “I was expecting the king.” 

“As was I.” 

They stare at each other, awkwardly. 

It feels, uncharitable to look at her and be filled once more with the raw hurt he’d felt before throwing himself off the waterfall.

They had travelled together since then. She had tried to keep him in front of her when the orcs pursued them, and commended his quick thinking with the barrowwights.

He shouldn’t still hurt because she had been deceived and refused to admit the danger of things done under the influence of that lie. 

She is his dearest friend. 

She disregarded his warnings, and tried to prevent his reaching Lindon with the news of what had come to pass. 

If she had just taken that ship west then maybe Ulmo would have finished Sauron off and none of this need to have happened. 

She looks at him with those luminous eyes and he wants to weep. He does not know if he can forgive her and it seems so small of him to hold those honest mistakes against her. 

“How goes it? In Lindon? I understand the king left you in charge.”

She sighs. “It goes well enough, though I find I have more than my share of difficulties. I am not popular with the court. They chastise me for my carelessness in the handling of peredhel. “

“Oh? Do they?”

“Constantly.” 

He tries not to smile. He fails. 

She smiles too, when she sees it. 

“Gil- galad also conveyed his deep displeasure with my inability to keep you safe. It’s quite irritating how he manages to be right so often, when he is practically a child.”

Elrond can’t help but grin. “Yes. He’s usually right, but is uncommonly terrible at saying things in a way that will actually be listened to.”

She smiles at him softly and steps towards him with a hand out, to cup his cheek in that way she does upon meeting him after a long absence. 

He’s stepped back without even realizing. He feels like such a child.

And then he realizes what she just said about Gil-galad.

“He’s not a child. He’s not even young by the count of elves. And neither am I.

We’ve lived through an age and a half of the sun. We are thousands of years old. You are great and wise and ancient but we are no less than that. And Gil-galad is your king.”

“Elrond I didn’t mean-“

“You never mean. And yet.” He wants to turn to leave, but this is not Lindon, and he could not say where any of these halls would lead to. 

“What is this place?” He asks. 

“Doriath, of long ago. I was happy here.” 

He glances at her with flowers in her hair and a white gown, and can see it so clearly in his mind’s eye. Her and Luthien, arm and arm with their heads together so that the black mingled with the gold, 

She approaches him cautiously. Like, he is an animal which might spook. 

“You are young, the both of you.” She tells him gently. “Though, I did not know him as a child, so that makes it easier for me to forget.”

Elrond looks at her. He had been a child when he met her, and there is a strange comfort to that. 

She reaches out and barely touches his hand where it hangs limp at his side. 

“Please, tell me, are you well? I have been nearly sick with grief and worry.”

“I thought the king would have told you.” 

“He said you turned the orcs from Eregion, and little else.”

“I performed an act of magic. Nothing truly evil will enter the shadow lands. I fulfilled my promise to protect the Uruk from Sauron.”

Galadriel breathes in that particular way she does when she is enraged and wishes not to show it. Elrond has never before been the cause. 

“I do not regret it.” He tells her. “I bought the safety of Eregion, and the Southlands were already ravaged when the deal was made.” 

She glances at his arm and he follows her gaze to see the brands on his forearms. He’s never had them in a dream before. 

He doesn’t know how to be angry at someone he loves, but as much as he tries he can’t seem to move beyond the hurt. 

“We both find ourselves with realms under our protection.” Galadriel remarks. 

“I wonder if he planned this? He always said you should have had the crown after Tuor.”

“And you, technically ought to have been Tuor’s heir, if we went by blood.” 

Elrond scowls. “He’d better not be trying to wiggle his way out of the kingship.” 

She gasps in mock outrage. “That little bastard! He planned this, didn’t he? Always going on about the two of us shirking our responsibilities.”

Elrond meets Galadriel’s eye and cannot stop his laugh, and for a moment as she laughs with him, it is like they are friends again and she never returned from her ship across the sea trailing danger and ill-omens behind her.

—-

Elrond and Adar have rarely spoken since Elrond had fulfilled the bargain. Instead Adar watches Elrond intently but usually at a short distance. 

Elrond returns the glares occasionally but honestly didn’t know what to say to the elf. 

Neither of them were really up to the task of shepherding the orcs towards something closer to self sufficiently. 

Having performed an act of earth shatteringly powerful magic it would have been considerate if fate had allowed Elrond to fade into the wilderness to protect his new land from the shadows. 

This is, unfortunately, not what has happened. First because it would upset Glug and Elrond found he was weak to sad faces from that particular orc. Particularly if he was holding his baby. 

Second, was that Adar’s only examples of how orcs could or should live were either under the heel of Sauron, under the heel of Morgoth, or in hiding as scavengers and raiders, none of which were suitable long term strategies for the current situation. 

And that wasn’t even considering the rather bewilderinh fact that there are still men in the southlands. 

Elrond had, rather reluctantly, taken charge of them once he realized that however much Adar disliked elves he at least understood them, as opposed to men whose natures were foreign enough that his interactions with them veered wildly between bewilderment, annoyance and intentional or unintentional cruelty. 

Adar disliked the cringing fawning of the men who had happily sworn darkness and what was more had no idea at all what to do with it. But, he met defiance with swift reprisal and so wasted lives and strength on trying to force the unwilling into line. 

Elrond therefore elected to lead the men that wished to leave out of the land of shadows. Adar seems relieved by the proposal, which confirms Elrond’s suspicions that he had never had any real use for his captives or his followers, other than keeping them out of his way. 

The men of the Southlands don’t know what to make of an Elf in the service of the orc king, but seem too exhausted to question it. 

The captives are rounded up to be marched out, and ma crowd of them begins the slow trudge to the sea and the numenorian outpost. 

—//

The appearance of an elf in the little town causes far more of a stir than the fact that said elf had brought with his a large group of stragglers from the disaster. 

This is possibly because apparently everyone in the little towns of the southlands were acutely aware of who had capitualated to Adar’s demands and who had resisted.

so, everyone knew that those still  still missing were those who had sworn to the Dark Elf, as they called Adar. 

Elrond laughs when he hears the nickname and then has a hand over his mouth in embarrassment. 

The adolescent human who seems to have been elected by the community to speak on it’s behalf to outsiders looks confused. 

“There was another who was named the Dark Elf, in agars past. It is… amusing to think how the two would be insulted to share a name.”

“Alright, who was the Dark Elf then?” The boy, asks trying not to look eager. 

It is hardly the place for a lesson on elvish history, standing on the walkways by the docks in a ruin of a Numenorian city, but- 

“Eol, brother of Thingol who was king of Doriath. He wove enchantments better than any other elf not taught by a Maia. He was one of the first elves, and lived in Beleriand long before the sun first rose. When it did he scorned it, and kept his land one of shadow and darkness.”

“ ‘e was a bad’un then?”

Elrond grins. “Of a sort. He was cruel, but he never joined with Morgoth or Sauron if that is what you mean.”

“I thought all the wicked characters in the old songs were in league with Morgoth.” 

“No. As much as we may pretend otherwise, much that is cruel and terrible in the world finds it’s way to us entirely without the help of fallen gods or terrible spirits.”

Theo grins. 

—-

It is much quicker to return to the shadowlands alone then it had been to leave them with a few dozen people in various states of injury and distress.

Elrond finds himself reluctant to move as quickly as he could though. The shadowlands hold no joy for him, and little enough for anyone else, including the orcs. 

As the haze Oroduin casts over the sun grows stronger, he reaches the top of a ridge with a fair overlook down into the lands that are now, more or less, his. 

He squints in confusion as he tries to understand what exactly he is seeing. 

The orcs have massed and are milling about in a state of heavily armed confusion, not unlike a kicked ants nest. 

The tents of the main settlement seem semi-dismantled and, most concerning of all, several incredibly tall shapes tower over the crowds. 

Finally, he recognizes what he is seeing- Entwives have come to Mordor. 

Elrond sprints down the path as fast as his elvish feet can carry him. 

Adar is standing before the Entwives in a state of belligerent confusion when Elrond arrives panting from the exertion of running the entire way. 

He turns to Elrond with the sort of wide-eyed look Gil-galad usually gives when he needs to be immediately rescued from a situation. 

“We’ll met gentle ladies!” Elrond wheezes. “What brings you to these blighted lands?”

There is a creaking and a rustling as the Entwives, reorient themselves to give him their attention. 

“Fimberthil told us of these-“ a gnarled hand waved in the direction of the orcs. “-things! It is most exciting to hear of something new!”

There is much murmuring in agreement, presumably as Elrond does not actually speak entish. 

“I…see.”

“There are so few new things, for us.” The entwife continues. 

Adar sidles over and hisses in Elrond’s ear. “I do not understand. Why are they here?! What do they want??”

“They were curious. They are old. As old as you, at least, and they have never seen your children before. I think they were just curious.”

“What?!” Adar snaps, stiffening in surprise and confusion. The alarm of their leader sends a ripple of unease through the crowd of assembled orcs.

Their loyalty and love for Adar was absolute. At his word they’d match to their deaths and very nearly had. 

 It would take less than a word from Adar for his children to rip apart the strangers in their midst. Certainly, many orcs would die in the doing of it, but that would be no cause for hesitation as far as the orca were concerned. 

Elrond reaches out and grabs Adar’s forearm. “It is curiosity.” He repeats. “It makes them happy to know there is still much to learn in this wide world. They are delighted by your children.”

He flicks his eyes to where one of the entwives has bent over as far as she is able and is more or less cooing over a quite rough and ragged looking orc with ears bristling with piercings. 

Adar blinks. 

“I think they want to help.” Elrond murmurs. “Even if I am wrong, the Entwives have never caused harm to anyone that I have heard.”

Adar blinks again and meets Elrond’s eye. “It would not be hard to kill them, if you are wrong, would it?” He asks softly, his eyes lingering on where some of his braver children have become a but exuberant as they speak to the Entwives.

Elrond grimaces, but shakes his head. “Like I said, they are a peaceful people. I do not know if they even know how to defend themselves.”

Adar softens finally, but does not quite relax. “Very well. Let us see what it is they want.”

It takes some time to unravel, since Entwives, seemingly by custom, do not speak in a straightforward manner, but eventually Elrond feels he has gained a sense of what has occurred. 

Fimberthil had returned to the Gardens of the Entwives with tales of a new and strange kind of people traveling out of the north. 

This had piqued the curiosity of some of her fellows, but had also arroused their sympathy as evidently she had described them as being ragged, dirty and overall quite pathetic. 

So, this group had set out determined, in much the same way tender hearted Elfwomen of the court occasionally nursed wounded birds back to health, to look after these exciting new beings their sister had described. 

Which was to say, the entwives were here to brow beat the Uruk into health and prosperity. 

Which, was something of a relief honestly.  Elrond had been exhausted and heartsick from the march, and had been struggling to make the necessary choices to keep this strange kingdom of monsters moving forward. 

He’d spent hours trying to decide what they ought to do with the corpses from the erruption that they still occasionally uncovered. He couldn’t remember the appropriate elevation and distance necessary to be sure to prevent the contamination of ground water, and absolutely would neverever be able to face Gil-galad ever again if an error in judgement there led to unnecessary suffering or death.

Foolishness killed more soldiers than battle ever did, as the elf king liked to say. 

The Entwives seemed eminently un-foolish, so Elrond left them to more or less take control of the Uruk race and staggered off to sit next to Adar on a barren hillside.

“I’ve never known anyone who met my children and do not recoil in horror.” Adar says, seemingly dazed and bewildered by this turn of events. 

“Well, we all look the same to them. Too short and not enough fingers.” Elrond points out. 

Adar looks at Elrond and it is such a strange expression on his face that it takes the peredhel a second to place it. He is happy, he has hope. 

The Entwives almost immediately out the Uruk to work. 

This is to the good as Elrond had discovered upon reaching the Shadow lands that Orcs are never happy unless they are Up To Something, and if this energy does not have an appropriate outer then an inappropriate one would be found. 

They’re clever, but not careful or practical. 

One fellow had once spent the day carving a post, and not realizing he’d weakened it until the tent it was holding up, (which he was also sitting in) had collapsed on top of him. 

So, once he’s more or less confident that neither the Uruk nor Adar are going to have a change of heart and tear the Entwives apart, Elrond allows himself to retreat from the Uruk army. 

With the help of Glug, and Glug’s numerous friends and relations, Elrond sees to the raising of a pile house in one of the rivers that wound in the base of the valley. 

Most of the orcs have moved into what remained of the ruined towns, or back into the tunnels or else had chosen to continue living in lighter more portable dwellings, but Elrond needed a place that felt permanent and so they had chosen a spot and driven the great posts made by trees killed in the eruption into the soft mud of the river bank, and then built his home on top of them. 

He is surprised to realize later, that it is the first place he has ever lived that was entirely his own. 

He likes the marshy slow moving river, with the buzz of insects and the smell of growing things. Even when the river was choked with ash it had never felt dead the way so much of the country had. 

It is easy enough for him to live there. Elves as a rule do not farm, but there are always roots to dig, birds to catch and snails to harvest along the riverbank. 

He wishes it were a salt marsh. His father’s magic would prefer it if it were a salt marsh leading to an estuary, but his own enchantment rhymes with this place. Water that will not reach the sea, a kingdom cut off from the world. 

In as much as they are a kingdom, and in as much as they are isolated. 

The Entwives have carved out irrigation channels and begun planting fields with such Uruk who have an interest. 

Others of Adar’s children have begun setting up workshops for their various skills and trades. 

The men of the southlands that live on the edges of the shadow now trade with them, and even linger sometimes to watch in amusement as the Entwives attempt to browbeat the Uruk into what they consider to be an acceptable state of prosperity.

They have currently taken it into their heads that the entire Uruk race are afflicted of a skin fungus, which means any Uruk who so much as scratches their nose in view of  an entwife will find themselves subjected to the sort of hygiene Elrond had previousl only thought possible in Noldoran cities. 

They have also taken to forcing any orc they see to wear a wide brimmed hat during the daylight, even beneath the cloud cover from the volcano. 

The Entwives were absolutely convinced that Uruk skin was so delicate the sun could burn it even through the clouds 

Even Adar is rendered speechless in the face of such implacable fussing. 

One morning, Elrond awakes on his little palette to find a strange Elf looking over him. 

Their eyes meet as they wait to see what the other will do. 

“I am Arondir, once of the watchtower in these lands, and I bring a message from the king.”

Elrond has not seen Gil-galad in his dreams for quite some time, and had been afraid something terrible might have befallen his friend. 

Arondir reaches into his pack and pulls out a velvet pouch that clinks with the sound of metal, 

Elrond takes it, mouth dry and pours out onto his rough wooden floor the gleaming master works of Celebrimbor and his greatest smiths. 

The rings shine dully in the early morning light. Some plain and small, others large and ornate. 

“Celebrimbor is dead.” Arondir tells him. “These are the last works of his hand. Nine rings which he had forged to give to men, what we could find of the rings intended for the dwarves, and all the lesser practices and failures we could gather without drawing attention. The king bid me bring them to you, to consider whether there is a way that they might be destroyed.”

Elrond licks his lips and nods. “The mountain. It is the only place which could even come close to heat of Celebrimbor’s great forge, and even if it fails to destroy them, nothing save a dragon could hope to withstand the flames to retrieve them.”

Arondir nods, and Elrond makes to stand but, Arondir stops him with a hand to the peredhel’s chest, 

“Wait. I have something else, something that I was told to put into your hands and none other.”

Elrond hesitates, looking up from the velvet pouch which contains the last works of Celebrimbor, last of the line of Feanor.

“What?”

Arondir draws a chain from beneath his tunic, and dangling upon it sits one of the Three. 

It is Vilya. The sapphire ring. Gil-galad’s ring. 

It is all Elrond can do to keep from flinching from it. 

“No.” 

Arondir takes his hand and rather forcefully uncurls it to put the ring into his palm. 

“It was his decision that it must be sent to you. To safety. He said to wield it’s power well, and use it as you see fit.”

Elrond stares at ring in horror fighting the impulse that demands he not let it touch him. 

Arondir shrugs. 

“We should go to the mountain now, to deal with the rest.” He says, standing to leave. 

Elrond follows after Arondir. 

The Uruk are about in their work bands, undertaking projects occasionally on some task set by an entwife but more often on something of their own invention. 

They make sure their route to the mountain never takes them too close to any of them. 

“This was a beautiful land before.” Arondir mutters. 

“There can be no undoing what was done. We build what we can in the ashes.”

“Still. It was a needless waste of lives.”

“They are a race bred for slavery, led by one who has known only torment since before the sun ever rose. They hold little enough value to their own lives, let alone anybody else’s. They consider the lives lost fair bargain for the land.”

“And you, Lord of the Shadowlands? Do you consider the price well paid?” Arondir touches one of  the heavy silver bracelets Elrond now wears welded shut on his wrists to replace the manacles. 

The peredhel sighs, and shrugs away the touch. “It does not matter whether or not I think the price fair. This land can no more be unmarred than Beleriand will rise above the waves again, and I think it is to the good of all that the orcs find a homeland to protect them from the world and the world from them.”

Arondir’s eyes are pits of anguish and Elrond does not want to meet his gaze. 

“Perhaps.” The scout finally answers. “Perhaps you are right.” 

They walk in silence until they come to one of the lines of fire. Elrond can see orcs in the distance who have set up a shop of some kind near enough to use to heat from the lava instead of needing to burn coal. It’s pretty ingenious though he’s certain at least a few of them died before they found the distance required for their methods. 

They stop and look down at the oozing molten rock below them 

“Will this be enough, do you think?” Arondir asks. 

Elrond considers the situation and shakes his head. “Best to go closer, if it is not enough to destroy them we would have no way of trying again.”

Arondir makes a noise of annoyance but, concedes the point. 

They hike higher up to where a fissure leads closer to the base of the mountain. 

The heat from the molten earth is intense enough that they can barely face it. 

Elrond tosses the bag down into the fire. They stand in silence and watch first the velvet catch fire and then the pile of rings soften and liquify before becoming indistinguishable from the rock around it. 

“So, what will you do now?” Elrond asks Arondir. 

“The king wished me to try and seek out the crown of Morgoth. He believes Adar still carries it.”

Elrond sighs. “I suppose we should go ask him.”

“I did not intend to ask.” Arondir protests.

Elrond sighs again and begins the long trudge back down the mountain. 

Arondir follows him, somewhat petulantly. 

Elrond  finds Adar sitting on the bank of an irrigation ditch with a group of Uruk children weaving hats of dried grasses. 

Before the eruption the orcs tended to use fabric to shield themselves from the sun, now they have taken to using wide brimmed hats, largely to appease the Entwives who get quite snippy if they think their advice is being ignored. 

Adar looks up at him, sour at the interruption. 

Theirs is an uneasy truce for all that they have learned to work together and maybe even respect each other. 

The young Uruk find their mutual distaste for one another hilarious for whatever reason and the little orclings grin at one another in delight to see Elrond approaching. 

They are pale as maggots but with a slightly greyish tinge, and plump in a way that seems correct for children but which is somehow startling for an orc. 

They giggle among themselves but then catch sight of Arondir coming up behind Elrond and screech in alarm. The orclings tumble about in a mad scramble to hide behind Adar, a few of the braver ones peaking up over his shoulder before losing their nerve and hiding their faces against his back again. 

Their hats have been abandoned in the scramble. 

Adar looks at Arondir in surprise. “I know you. How do I know you?”

“I was a warrior of the tower here, when these were still the southlands.” 

“Ah.” Adar closes his eyes. “I remember now. I spared you to act as messenger to the men here.”

Arondir’s face is hard and hateful. “You sowed the field with death and now you build on the bones of everyone I loved.” 

Adar laughs and Elrond winces. He would have warned Arondir not to bother with recriminations if he’d thought it would work. 

He puts a hand out to stop the elf from leaping forward to try and throttle Adar. 

“Such moralities mean nothing to me.” The old Uruk rasps. 

“Enough Adar!” Elrond barks. “You are frightening the children.” 

Adar glances over his shoulder and laughs again. “I’m not the one frightening them, elf.” 

Elrond sighs. “Where is Morgoth’s crown, Adar? Tell us and we’ll leave you to your work.”

Adar frowns and looks between the two of them. He sweeps the children into his arms and whispers to them to go find their parents or an entwife. Orclings unsupervised create worse trouble than anything else Elrond has ever seen. 

They wait for the little ones to scamper off. 

Adar stands and brushes the dirt from his clothing. 

“Why do you ask after that relic?”

“We need it for something.”

“And I am just supposed to give it to you with nothing in return? Why? As some token of the great friendship that is between us?” His tone is acid. 

Elrond is still clutching Vilya in his hand. He hefts it once to gauge the weight and then throws it overhand, as hard as he can, at Adar’s head. 

Adar jerks and fumbles but manages to catch it. 

“Behold one of the three!” Elrond snarls. “I believe there was a time when you would have traded the lives of nearly all your children for it.” 

If Arondir has opinions about this use of the ring, none show on his face. His jaw remains clenched. His eyes are steely. 

Adar turns the ring over in his hand, staring at the large jewel. 

“Very well.” He murmurs. “A ring for a crown seems a fair enough trade” 

He leads them back to his little burnt out hut where he lives with his pet warg, and scrambles about before emerging with a small bundle of rags which he unwraps to reveal his few treasures-  broken pieces of ancient silver that are little more than scrap, and the strange iron crown of Morgoth. 

Arondir picks it up between thumb and forefinger, holding it at arms length as though it might bite him.  “Is there a decent black smith in this benighted country?” He asks. 

In the end, Adar is the one who elects to knock the crown apart while Arondir and Elrond watch from behind a boulder at what they hope is a safe distance. 

Luckily, this process unleashes no cataclysmic magical forces- even if it does produce sounds, sights and smells that make everyone’s eyes water and heads spin. 

The process leaves them with three sharp spikes and a slightly mangled circlet. Arondir scoops them up and then hesitates. 

“Should I leave a piece with you? In case he finds his way here?” 

Elrond sighs and looks at Adar. “What do you think? Would it do us any good?” 

Adar scowls as he considers it, before slowly shaking his head. “If he comes here it will be with the intent to fight, so we will have no element of surprise.” He looks out across the fields and buildings. “He made my children weak to his influence by design. He will not need to strain himself to exert his control over them. We would have no hope of overpowering him, even as numerous as we are.” 

Elrond nods and Arondir tucks the pieces away. 

Arondir’s glare is poisonous when he looks at Adar, but his words are courteous. “I thank you, Elder, for your aid in this.”

Adar scoffs and waves him off. 

Elrond walks with Arondir to the gap in the mountain fence. “Where do you go now?”

“The king bid me not to tell you. In case Sauron comes and invades your mind.” 

Elrond chuckles. “He has always been a careful ruler.”

Arondir shrugs, and turns to look towards the coast. “Would you look in on the Southlanders? I left the son of a woman I loved there. He will be alone.”

Elrond nods. “I have met Theo. He is well enough. He has taken in a survivor from the Numenorian party. They seem to be managing.”

Arondir sighs and looks to the horizons. “The journey back is long. I should leave now.”

“We will see you provisioned. And I will tell the boy you miss him.”

Arondir smiles. “Thank you.”