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“Be careful what you eat at Elrond’s,” said Gandalf — Olórin now, and looking more elf than wizard, though he kept the beard (a little tidier and less dull) and the curt manners. But Frodo was too old and too much a hobbit to change his ways now: he would only ever be Gandalf to him.
“Why?” he asked his old friend. Elrond’s table had always been a delight for the senses.
Gandalf hummed. “He has been gardening.”
While Frodo puzzled how that answered his question, for he very much doubted such a great healer and herbalist would grow bad vegetables, they came to the decorated door of Elrond’s villa. Gandalf knocked with the butt of his staff (he still had that, too). A long moment passed before it was finally answered, by Lord Celeborn.
The former Lord of Lothlórien, recently returned from Middle-earth (the Last Ship’s arrival, some two weeks’ past, was in fact the occasion for today’s gathering), appeared to have swiftly embraced the relaxed manners of the Blessed Realm. The silver lord wore a robe of many hues, swirls of blue and green and orange all flowing from some centre that must have been located at the back of the garment. His hair was pulled back into a simple, low tail and he had the first scruff of an unkempt beard growing. He stared at them, or rather at Gandalf (Frodo was not sure he had been noticed yet), blankly.
“You,” he said at last. “You look different.”
“So do you, Lord Celeborn. Now, will you step aside and let our esteemed guest through, or will I have to knock you down?”
As it so happened, Gandalf did have to nudge him aside, for Celeborn seemed incapable of moving more swiftly than a tree. The poor man, Frodo thought. Those years spent in Middle-earth after the defeat, and without his beloved lady, must have been so wearisome.
They passed into Elrond’s grand atrium, with its pool of many fountains and exotic flowering vines cloaking the walls and dripping from the ceiling. From the open-roofed centre, sunlight cut a path across the floor, spotlighting on a radiant figure draped in a low velvet chair resembling a large sack of grain.
“Glorfindel!” Frodo cried.
“Frodo Nine-fingers!” Glorfindel raised a cup and the others around him joined in with a cheer. “It is good to see you again.”
“And you!” Frodo hurried across the floor to join them, squinting to make out the other figures sitting or reclining around a low table which was, disappointingly, as yet bare of refreshments. There were Elladan and Elrohir, the twin sons of Elrond, cross-legged on the plush, bright green rug; Erestor almost disappeared into his surroundings, robed in dark colours with Glorfindel’s legs draped across his lap and a cat curled on his chest. Celeborn had, by unseen paths, rejoined the group and now sat sombrely in an armchair, half-removed from the circle of friends.
“Will the Lady Galadriel be joining us?” Frodo asked in an effort to include him.
Elladan answered for him. “No. Our dear grandmother is quite unimpressed with Father’s latest, er, experiments.”
“Do you mean his gardening?” asked Frodo.
“Gardening!” Glorfindel cried. “Yes, you might call it that. Say, hobbits are great gardeners, and enthusiastic growers of pipeweed, I am surprised he did not solicit your aid.”
“Oh, I am not much of a gardener,” said Frodo. With a pang, he thought of dear Sam, still in Middle-earth, and the Last Ship now docked in the Blessed Realm. “And it was Merry who knew most about pipeweed. Is Elrond growing pipeweed?”
“I am not sure,” Glorfindel replied. “Olórin!” he called for Gandalf, who had retreated somewhere out of sight. “That hobbit-weed you so favoured, was any of it like the cultivars our Lord Elrond has been developing?”
“You ought to have tried it yourself, Lord of the Golden Flower,” Gandalf called from another room — the kitchen, if the sweet scents wafting through the open archway were any indication.
“You know Erestor would not let me smoke.” Glorfindel affectionately pinched his partner’s ribs. Erestor grunted. “No, it was my choice. We all overdid it somewhat in Gondolin. You’ve heard the stories, I am sure.”
Frodo had not heard the stories. He would very much like to hear the stories, but at that moment Elrond and the lovely Celebrían emerged from the further room, dusted with flour and bearing trays of confections.
“Baked to perfection!” Elrond announced, swanning across the room and setting the trays on the table.
Frodo’s stomach rumbled and he reached for a sweet on instinct. “May I?” he asked belatedly.
“You better not,” said Elrohir. “See that the big folk test Father’s baking first.”
“Do you think I’ve neglected to properly portion a confection for Mr. Baggins?”
Elrohir narrowed his eyes. “Still, I’d be careful if I were you, Frodo. Look what happened to his test case this morning.” He twisted to look at Celeborn. “Eh, Grandfather?”
“What?” Celeborn replied slowly. “Oh. No, Galadriel is not coming.”
“Right,” said Elrond. “Well, for the benefit of Mr. Baggins I had better explain what I have prepared for you all. Frodo, you are familiar with laughing-pipeweed, yes?” Frodo smiled and nodded shyly into his shirt collar. It had been a great comfort of his, in the years before he sailed, to smoke the laughing-weed that Sam so carefully grew. “Well, as you know, I was quite at a loss for what to do with myself when we first came to these shores. When one can visit a Maia of Estë or Lórien just a short stroll from his front door, Elrond of Rivendell’s skills as a healer are hardly in high demand. That was when my dear Celebrían introduced me to the many and marvellous mind-altering plants of Valinor. Now, the Noldor were, as in most things, artisans of cultivating and devising new ways of consuming these plants in the Years of the Trees.”
“That they were!” Glorfindel interjected.
“But it fell out of fashion. Not to mention the possibilities of baking with the plants was sorely underexplored. I found only two recipes in the library of Avallóne, and they were no good at all. So, I have spent the last several decades perfecting this art, which I believe has great potential to heal the hurts of those lately returned from Middle-earth or the Halls.”
“Oh,” said Frodo. “That is very interesting indeed. Which is mine?”
The chocolate treats were themselves delicious; it took some time for the plant-infused butter baked into them to take effect and each guest seemed to feel it in his own time. It settled like a mellow fog over Frodo’s mind quite quickly, but he retreated within himself as the others chattered about this and that, sharing tales of what had passed in Middle-earth since Elrond’s departure. This included the wedding of Gimli and Legolas, presided over by Glorfindel, at news of which Frodo smiled wistfully, pleased for his friends but knowing he would not again meet either of them in this world.
Then, quite suddenly, while Erestor was in the middle of explaining how the library of Rivendell had been relocated to Gondor, Glorfindel burst into peals of laughter.
“Elrond, you have outdone even the greatest botanists of Gondolin!” he shouted, and rolled off his chair and onto the floor. The cat, who had relocated to Frodo’s lap at some point, dashed off in alarm. “I am sorry, Erestor dear, but I cannot take you seriously when you are cawing like a crow.” He melted into high-pitch laughter again, and Frodo chuckled with him.
“A crow!” Elladan whooped. “Yes, he does look like a crow.”
Erestor rubbed his brow between his fingers and thumb.
“Are you not feeling the effects, Lord Erestor?” Celebrían asked.
“No, and I told you I would not,” said Erestor.
“He will!” said Glorfindel, who had pulled off his socks and was tickling Erestor’s face with his toes.
Celebrían giggled. “Right, besides Erestor, I think we are sufficiently affected, husband?” She winked at Elrond. “Is it time for the cards?”
Elrond blinked. “Cards? Oh, yes! I have prepared a series of questions for us to aid in processing.” Elrohir groaned. Elrond pulled a stack of cards from his pocket and read: “Ah, this one is about the future. What is the thing you always wished you had time for in Middle-earth that you will now pursue in the Blessed Realm?”
“Start a band,” said Elladan. “The Sons of Elrond.”
Elrohir sputtered with laughter. “That’s the best name you could come up with? Anyway, I am not starting a band with you. I will go travelling.”
“That’s all you did in Middle-earth! That’s not new.”
“Ah, but I won’t be hunting orcs. While testing one of Father’s early cultivars, I dreamed up a new device that will make travelling over long distances much more expedient. It is a sort of mechanical horse with wheels, which the rider operates with his feet on a crank that pulls a chain. I still have to sort out how to make it less arduous to ride up hills.”
“Gears,” said Erestor, apparently still unaffected. “You ought to seek out Celebrimbor. He began work on a such a device, though he’ll tell you it was of little use on rougher terrain.”
“Goblin Cleavers,” said Elladan. “What if we called the band Goblin Cleavers? Or Foe Hammer? Or Grond?”
“Now you’re just naming weapons!” Elrohir flicked his twin on the shoulder. “’Roh, we can stop being violent now.”
“Hm. I think I’d like to try wrestling,” said Elladan. Elrohir slumped over his knees and groaned.
“I’d like to learn to fly,” said Gandalf. By the look on everyone’s faces, Frodo was not the only one who had forgotten he was there; and, seemingly, Elrond’s confections were potent enough even for a Maia, for he wore quite a glazed sort of expression. “Yes. In fact, I might apply to Manwë to spend some years as an Eagle. I like flying.”
Frodo tittered, but not subtly enough to escape Gandalf’s notice. “You think an old wizard can’t be an Eagle?”
“No, no, only that— well, could you not have applied to be an Eagle while in Middle-earth? It would have been quite useful, not that I am ungrateful for the services of Gwaihir and his kin!”
“That’s not how the Valar work,” Celeborn said darkly. Glorfindel shushed him, but he carried on. “I would like to write an opera.”
“Oh, what a wonderful idea, Father!” Celebrían clapped her palms together.
“About the kinslayings,” Celeborn finished, and for the first time since Frodo had arrived, his eyes found a direct target: Erestor.
“Are we really going to start this, Teleporno? You know I stopped following them well before—”
“Oh dear,” said Elrond.
But Glorfindel rolled up from his prone position on the floor and smacked Celeborn’s knee. “Oh, cheer up, you old tree-fucker!”
“Glorfindel!” Celebrían shrieked, but there was laughter in her eyes.
“What? He is. Elrond, give this tree-fucker one of your good specimens.”
“I think it may be an issue with the patient and not the medicine,” Elrohir quipped.
Things devolved from there. After only one, Elrond’s question cards were forgotten. The cat returned to entertain Erestor, who remained resolutely unaffected. Though Frodo was not so sure — perhaps the elf-lord was having a similar experience to Frodo, who had fallen into a reflective melancholy. Time passed strangely. When a knock came at the door, Frodo noted that the light coming through the ceiling had turned coppery-rose with the setting sun. No one else seemed to hear the knock. Could it have been only a symptom of Elrond’s potent weed?
This was soon answered in the negative by the presence of another in the room. Elrond scrambled to his feet. A ripple of reactions followed, everyone except Gandalf standing in succession, including Frodo, though he did not recognise the guest.
“Turgon!” Elrond cried. “What a surprise!”
“Turukáno!” Glorfindel bounded across the room and wrapped the King of Gondolin (how exciting!) in a fierce embrace. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”
“You invited him?” Elrond inquired with alarm.
“Of course! How could I exclude the most renowned connoisseur of weeds in Aman or Middle-earth!”
“You…?” Elrond stared at his revered great-grandfather.
Glorfindel gave the king a hearty pat on the back. “Yes, him. Now, Turno, you must try the confections your most talented great-grandson has devised. He is a genius.”
Turgon strode into the room and took a seat among them, his long legs making large triangles to either side of the too-small seat.
“So, you eat them?” he asked, and popped an entire square of chocolate in his mouth. “Mm, very good.” He took another.
“Careful,” said Elrond.
“Don’t worry,” said Glorfindel. “He can handle it.”