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When Turgon and a few of his kin, Glorfindel among them, returned at last to Vinyamar, everyone from the lords and ladies to the fisherfolk wanted to know all they were willing to tell about the hidden city. They weren’t willing to tell much. In fact Turgon had forbidden all but himself from telling anything, so after a few hours people learned that speaking to Glorfindel gained them nothing and stopped doing it. Another night Glorfindel might’ve been bothered. That night he took advantage of a moment alone to slip away from the party and out of Vinyamar entirely.
On the path winding down to the feet of the cliffs, the frogs sang loud enough to drown out the singing of the people. Soon enough they were drowned out by the waves. Glorfindel made a sharp turn, picked his way through some long grass, and emerged onto a beach. At once he spotted what he sought: Ecthelion crouched in the surf of the sea. He was dressed for it, his trousers rolled up to his knees and his night-dark hair tied into a knot at the crown of his head. As Glorfindel watched, he extended long fingers into the surf and pulled them out again.
“Well met!” Glorfindel called to announce his presence, and Ecthelion glanced up and stood but made no move to approach. Glorfindel approached him. “I missed you at the party,” he said, attention fixed on Ecthelion’s face.
It gave away nothing. “Did you? I didn’t think you would,” Ecthelion said.
“You think too lowly of me,” Glorfindel said, “or else you don’t think highly enough of yourself.”
That earned him the ghost of a smile, though it was amused more than pleased, Glorfindel thought. “I forgot you like to flatter,” Ecthelion said and stepped around Glorfindel out of the sea. Almost at once it followed him, lapping at his heels with white foam. Glorfindel’s sandals were soaked, but he hardly noticed. He reached out and caught Ecthelion by the fingers.
Ecthelion stilled. Glorfindel asked a question with his eyes, but Ecthelion shook his head. Did that mean no or not yet? Glorfindel found, not without surprise, that he cared deeply about the answer.
He let Ecthelion go, and Ecthelion turned to walk up the beach. “If I like to flatter,” Glorfindel said, following him, “then you like to slight. All the people of Vinyamar came out wanting to welcome us home—or at least wanting to know about their new city! And here you are on the beach. I should take it as an insult.”
“Do you?”
“No. Not as an insult, exactly.”
Ecthelion said nothing. Then, “I didn’t think you would miss me.”
Glorfindel considered that. “Am I wrong,” he said, “to have sought you out?”
Ecthelion shook his head again. Glorfindel liked that shake better than the last. Quickening his step, he drew level with Ecthelion and paid heed towards where they were headed: a pile of pale driftwood rising out of the pale sand. “What is this?” Glorfindel said.
“A new hobby. Driftwood sculpture.”
The pile was not small. “Can you move it all before the tide comes in? It wouldn’t do for you to lose your work to the sea.”
“You think I’m gathering it for later use,” Ecthelion said. “No. This was supposed to be a person.”
Glorfindel studied it, trying to pick out a head, perhaps the bend of an arm.
“It fell down. Not once, but twice. A few days ago I composed a piece for flute and viol about a young lover who left his betrothed behind in Tirion. Hardly an original idea, but I’m proud of it. So proud that I forgot I’m still rather poor at the art of driftwood sculpture.” He crouched and uncurled a hand to reveal a bit of wood sitting in his palm. As he settled it in the sand, Glorfindel saw it as he must: a person with impossibly bulbous knees and a misshapen head; one who knelt, hunched forward, with gaze fixed towards the sea. “That will have to do.”
“The sea will take him.”
“Yes.”
“It would’ve taken whatever you made. It will take all this wood.”
“Yes again.”
“It’s a strange hobby.”
“And again.” Ecthelion looked at Glorfindel sidelong. “Stranger still, I imagine, to you, who’s discovered I prefer it to falling at your feet the very moment of your return.”
“Now I do feel insulted.”
“An entire year you’ve been gone. How did I bear it? It felt more like an age.”
Glorfindel made a show of sighing. He didn’t know if it was that or Ecthelion’s own words that prompted him to grace Glorfindel with another ghost of a smile, but Glorfindel didn’t care. They’d hardly moved—the driftwood lay not quite forgotten at their feet—and yet it seemed they stood closer to each other than before.
“Since you’re here, you may as well tell me,” Ecthelion said. “What was it like?”
Glorfindel was meant to say nothing. He said, “It’s little as of yet. When it’s built, it will be our own Valinor, guarded, secret, safe. It will be Tirion carried across the sea. It will be a pearl, white and shining under sun and moon alike.”
Ecthelion looked west. “A pearl, maybe. But I will miss the sea.”
A reply shaped itself on Glorfindel’s tongue and died there. You might stay. It was the reply he’d give to most anyone else, and he was surprised to find himself reluctant to say it.
“Are all those words about Valinor and Tirion and pearls yours,” Ecthelion asked, “or are they your lord kinsman’s?”
“Turucáno would never call his city a pearl. In all his speeches, it’s a flower.”
At last Ecthelion smiled, a true smile that shaped first his lips and then the rest of his face, and of course Glorfindel had no idea what put it there. “You’re right. He’s not one for sea metaphors,” Ecthelion said, lifting a hand to brush against Glorfindel’s arm, and leaned in.
The kiss was chaste and slow to move beyond chaste. Glorfindel first had to understand that it was happening. He settled his hands on Ecthelion’s waist and was only just parting his mouth when Ecthelion drew away. “I’m sorry,” he said, eyes intent and strangely bright. “I really didn’t think you would miss me.”
“Quiet!” Glorfindel said. “It’s been an entire year. It felt more like an age! Let me kiss you.”
“You do so like to flatter,” Ecthelion said, but he barely got out the words before Glorfindel was kissing him again. It was just as well that he managed it. For a long time afterwards, Glorfindel made sure he had no more chance to speak.