FIC: Small Mercies 1/?

[laguera25]

Title: Small Mercies 1/?

Author: laguera25

Fandom: LOTR(TTT movieverse)

Rating: FRM/R

Pairing Haldir/OFC, with long stretches of gen

Spoilers: The LOTR trilogy

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, places, and events are the property of J.R.R. Tolkien, the Tolkien estate, and New Line Cinema. No infringement is intended, and no profit is being made. For entertainment only.

Prologue

It is night when he ascends from Mandos' dark and somnolent halls, the stone stairs cool on his bare feet. The air is redolent with the scent of roses and lilies and sweet spring grass, and he draws it deeply into his lungs, glad of it after his long sojourn in airless, stone halls. He pauses to savor its mischievous tug upon his hair, sly and joyous, a sprite inviting him to its endless game, and then he leaves Mandos' grave hall behind.

He has no destination in mind. Long has been his sleep, much longer than he had intended, but he had found peace in the halls and companionship with his brother, Orophin, and it had pleased him to linger before Vaire's splendid tapestries woven of gold and silver, starlight and the blood of roses, and let the sorrows and horrors of his fall bleed from his soul. He had made no plans, had painted no golden future. For a time, he had been content to simply drift, freed from the tethers of blood and sinew and the roots of ancient trees. Sometimes Mandos himself had appeared among the spirits of his halls. He spoke not, but only moved among them, stern and fearsome, his gaze as hard and scouring as Morian rock. Now and then, he'd paused before an idling spirit and bent low to whisper in their ear, and that spirit would fly from him, bound for Vaire's chamber and the raiment that she gifted to them upon their departure from her lord's halls. But his appearances had been few, and the spirits had passed the numberless hours in quiet reflection.

Mandos had come for Orophin first, had gazed upon him with grave eyes and pitiless countenance and bent to whisper words of deliverance. Such words must have carried with them longings of old, for Orophin's face, formerly placid, had suffused with great joy, and with a cry of delight, he had flown to Vaire's chamber and forsaken his solemn contemplations.

He had thought his own time would come soon after, but long it was before Mandos appeared before him and passed his freedom from lips that had seldom known a smile. All the desires of old had stirred at his words, and he had turned from tapestries grown as familiar as his own history and made haste to Vaire's chamber. He had been a spirit then, a tatter of fea with naught to anchor him but will, but when he had passed into her chamber, awareness had momentarily deserted him, and when it had returned, he had discovered himself lying on a small cot and blinking at a ceiling shrouded in gloom and shadow. So queerly heavy he'd felt, as though he'd drunk too much wine.

"You have been remade," had come a soft voice from his left, the mournful hiss of winter rains, and he'd realized that it was so.

Fingers warm with blood and hands with the strength of muscle and bone. A chest that rose and fell with the breath of life, and hair that tickled his nose and sought entry into his mouth. This he'd spat out with his first conscious breath, and then he'd floundered upright, shocked at the suddenness of his transformation.

He'd cast about for the source of the voice, and then he had espied her, a shadowy, gracile form seated upon a chair in the darkest recess of the room. Hidden she was, save for a flash of cold, grey eye and pale, unsmiling lip and tresses dark as night.

Vaire, he'd thought in wonderment. I gaze upon Vaire, weaver of shrouds and time's delicate strands. He'd sought for words with which to honor her, but her tongue had been the swifter.

"Not so lovely as my sisters am I," she'd said, and it had been as black water over cold stone.

He'd opened his mouth to deny that this was so, but she'd had no need of his assurances, and she'd spoken anew. "Your time here is at an end. You may go now if you wish." A flash of silver in her hand, and her needle had disappeared into the shadows gathered at her lap. An unfinished tapestry had draped her legs like a gown and puddled on the floor around her slippered feet.

"I have a choice?" This he had not expected.

A flash of sliver, the snap of thread. "There is always a choice." A hint of dark mirth. "Though most choose to fly from here, to return to the bosom of their kin. Have you no kin, Haldir of Lorien, no loved one who waits for you?"

"My parents," he'd admitted. "My brothers. My wife. Have you seen them?"

"You know well that I have seen your brother. He passed through here not long ago. Your parents I have not seen."

"And my other brother? Rumil?" He, too had been with them at Helm's Deep, but they had been parted in the flight to the keep, and he'd known not what had befallen him. The youngest of them, and the sweetest, more interested in poetry and history than the art of war. He would have flourished here, would have tarried long before the tapestries, delighting in their every detail.

The grey eye had disappeared momentarily as she'd considered, then reappeared again. "He has not passed through these halls."

Sweet relief, cool water against feverish skin. "And my wife?"

A pause, and even the flash of her needle had ceased. "She...has ever yet eluded us."

Us? Disquiet had stirred in his heart.

"But perhaps she waits for you at the shore." Brisk, then, and Vaire's needle had been silver fire in her nimble fingers. "Make your choice. Yours is not the only soul to leave this place today, and I have no more time for idle chatter." She'd nodded at clothes neatly folded on a small chest beside the cot. "Garments for your travels."

"I am honored by your kindness."

"My duty," she'd corrected, and said no more, the industry of her needle a winking star in the firmament of the small, silent room.

He'd arrayed himself in the clothes she had set for him, and with a bow, he had departed. To the great stair he had gone, and the door that had so vexed formless hands had opened to him, and he had begun his ascent, fingers skimming the cool, stone wall as his feet had borne him toward the faint glimmer of light that had shone upon his face and turned his hair to spun silver. Moonlight, soft and cold as the waters of the Anduin where he had once bathed.

And so it is that he finds himself alone in Valinor, barefoot and possessed of nothing but his name and his memories. He had hoped to find Orophin waiting for him, but perhaps the prospect of reunion with long-departed kin had been too joyous to resist, or mayhap the wait had proven too long and wearisome for one eager to explore the wonders of this world promised to them from legends of old. Orophin had always been the adventurous one, quick to explore each sound, each furtive rustle of leaf on his patrols.

They will meet again soon enough, he is sure, and so he is untroubled as he walks, his steps unhurried. The grass is cool with dew against his feet, and he hums in satisfaction. His newly-restored ears take in the hushed songs of crickets and the burble from a distant stream. No voices does he hear, no tramp of feet. He sees no cookfires on the horizon nor lamps in the trees. Only starlight, clear and cold, and the moon, pouring her silver waters over the earth.

He makes for the stream. Thirst tickles his throat, and he would bathe his feet and consider a moment his surroundings. His footsteps are light, accustomed to stealth by his time as marchwarden of Lorien, and he passes rabbits and scuttling dormice, their oildrop eyes mischievous glints in the night. On the hunt, he supposes, and he wishes them well. He is yet too newly-made to feel hunger, but he will need sustenance ere long, and he may yet find himself wresting berries from their bulging cheeks.

The stream is narrow and shallow and full of pebbles worn smooth by the water's ceaseless passage. The water is so crisp and cold that it steals his breath when he plunges his feet into its currents, and he laughs in delight even as gooseflesh ripples up his calves and along his thighs. When he has recovered his breath, he settles himself on the bank and plucks a pebble from the stream. It is a smooth, rosy ingot in his palm.

I could make a bauble of this, he thinks as it drips cool water into his palm. Some pleasing trifle for Anariel. A homecoming gift to mark the end of our long parting. A necklace, or perhaps an anklet to catch the light when next they dance. The idea pleases him, and he sets the pebble on the bank, far from the water's chuckling grasp and mishap's caprice.

Too long and too bitter their parting, he knows, and more bitter still for the unfairness of it. He can still remember her face when he'd told her that he must away for Helm's Deep to aid in its defense, the naked, ugly shock of it, as though he had fetched her a blow, and so he had, though not with upraised hand. It had grieved him deeply, as had her first words in reply.

But how can this be? We were to leave for the Undying Lands in a fortnight, perhaps less. Disbelieving and fretful, and yes, betrayed, as though he had played her a cruel jest at the last.

And were it possible, I would still have it so. Assurance and apology at once, and he'd sought to soothe the undeserved hurt with the gentleness of his hands. But it has been decided that Lorien shall aid as it can with a few men.

By the Lady, I suppose, she'd sniffed sullenly.

Yes.

I don't suppose she volunteered her own husband for this madness?

Lord Celeborn has served us well and long, and he serves us far better as a lord than a warrior.

What of the Lady, then? She was a fierce warrior herself once, and a merciless one besides. If she can slay her kin, then surely she can turn her bloody blade against a few orcs.

Her sharp words against the Lady had stirred his ire. You go too far, he'd snapped, and turned from her, and she had immediately subsided.

Her hurt, however, had lingered in her wet eyes and subdued silence as she'd tended their small garden, pulling weeds and harvesting the ripe abundance of Vana, reed basket resting on hand and hip as she'd worked. Her expressionless face as she'd kneaded lembas dough. Her sorrow had vexed him, and he'd tried once more to ease it, had rested his hand upon her shoulder as she'd punished the dough for his sins and the sins of Men, but she had only stiffened, and he could only leave her to her fury and her toil.

Her fury had been spent by the time he'd returned from his final patrol, but in its place had been a fragile, brittle ache. The silence then had been, not of smoldering anger, but the terror of anguish revealed. And so they had crept around one another, shuffling invalids clutching tender wounds. When he'd trudged to the Anduin to bathe, she had followed, his faithful fetch, a drawn and sorrowful loveliness at his heels.

If he could have taken that doom from her, he would have done, would have cast it from her with all his strength, but the Lady had asked it of him, and he'd been bound by oath to obey, and even if that had not been so, he'd been reminded of the covenants of old, when elves and men had fought as brothers against Sauron on the fields of Pelennor. He'd been bound by honor past and present and could not turn from it, and so he could only accept it as his terrible duty and watch its miserable shadow fall over his beloved Anariel, she whose light was brightest in his heart.

Ever the dutiful soldier, he'd shed his clothes and picked up his burden, and ever the dutiful wife, Anariel had done the same. She'd followed him into the water, bare and silent, and begun to bathe him.

I would not have hard words between us, he'd said as she'd sluiced water over his shoulder.

Nor I, husband. More water poured over him from her cupped hands, and moist lips had found his bare nape.

And yet, no more words had come. She had simply continued the sweet ministrations of her hands, brushing dirt from his back and anointing his head with the waters of the Anduin, cool and clear and delicious against his flesh.

He'd tried again. I leave on the morrow.

I know. Water over his head and fingers in his hair, and once more the silence had fallen.

His words, it had seemed, could not move her, and so, in desperation, he'd begun to sing, a soft, crooning murmur above the rush of water and the splash of her hands. He'd seized upon the first strains that had come to his mind, and only when he'd begun did he realize that he had chosen a song composed for their wedding feast, when the night had been full of merriment and the forest had rung with the lively songs of pipers and lyrists. The tune he had carried with him ever since, but the words he had thought lost until that night. He had sung it with sweet urgency, with all the talents of his tongue, his heart swollen and tender inside his chest and his throat clogged with terrors, hopes, and regrets he could not name.

Not a word had Anariel uttered. She had frozen behind him, water dripping unto his chest from the ends of her fingers. This, overture, too, he had counted as failed, and then had come the sudden, ragged hitching of breath, and her fingers had clamped around his shoulder in a trembling, convulsive grip. Another hitching gasp, and another, and then a single, faint sob, quickly smothered.

He'd turned to see her swaying in the water, face wet and too white and lips pressed into a bloodless line against the sobs that had threatened to escape. Always she had been so, his child of the golden leaves, fierce and proud and often stubborn as a dwarf. Determined now to hide her sorrow so as to ease his his.

Anariel, come, he'd entreated, and reached for her, but she had turned her head, shamed at her tears, and scrubbed them from her face with the heel of her palm. You stubborn maiden, he'd groused, and pulled her to him.

No maid, I, she'd mumbled as she'd buried her face in his neck. You saw to that long ago, or was it so tepid a thing that you have forgotten it?

Hardly. He'd kissed her temple and then her ear. It shall remain the chiefest of my sweet memories as long as I draw breath. Which, he'd realized a sinking heartbeat too late, was not the best assurance to make on the eve of war. Maid or not, he'd said when she had shuddered with another suppressed sob, it will be all right. We must but delay a while. He'd closed his eyes and cupped the back of her head. One last duty, and then we shall be away.

She'd raised her head, her gaze intent despite the tears in her eyes. And if you do not return? What then?

I will return.

She'd scoffed. Stubborn fool of a man. You can promise no such thing.

Do you doubt me so much then? He'd studied her face, so hard and white in its bewilderment and sorrow. He'd reached out to brush a tear from the tip of her nose.

She'd pressed her tear-stained cheek to his palm. I am not so faithless as that, and never would I be though the earth should crumble beneath my feet. But chance is fickle, and cruel for the sheer want of it, and even the best of us has been bettered on a day.

Her words had gladdened his heart, though his face had betrayed nothing but a soft smile. If it is not me you doubt, then what? He'd bid her rest against him while he repaid her ministration in idle kind.

I cannot name it, she'd admitted as she'd settled against him, the blades of her shoulders snug against his chest. But it is an ill thing to be parted now. I can find no comfort in it. She had stirred the surface of the water with her fingertips and stared into its limpid depths.

It is not my will, he'd said patiently.

Nor is it your duty. Anguish and asperity. Long have men clamored for this land, schemed for it with every covetous, sordid dream. Leave them to it, and if this be the consequence of their bumbling stewardship, then so be it.

Such was the thinking that led us to this unhappy hour, he'd pointed out, his wisdom an unintended rebuke for the sharpness of his voice. If we had but paid heed to the world beyond our borders before now, mayhap we had stopped this new malice before it could take hold, but that hour is long past, and we must fight or fall. What of Lorien? Would you see it fall, in ruin by Orcish torch and blade? Would you see Calas Galadhron sacked, despoiled by foul hands, or the glade wherein we wed reduced to a pyre of ash and withered leaves? Would you see our kin who remain yet a while driven out in chains, bound for enslavement in the black halls of Barad-dur? Make no mistake; that is what would come to pass if this threat is left unchecked. Lothlorien would burn, its trees felled by Orcish ax and its golden leaves trampled beneath unwholesome feet. Its beauty would be wiped from the face of the earth, and this thought I cannot bear. This is our home, and I shall defend it until my last breath, even if it means I must treat with fools such as Men.

When she made no reply, he'd sighed and washed the day from her hair, delighting in its softness. That this causes you hurt...

Then let us speak no more of it, she'd murmured, and bowed her head. Not forgiveness, but acceptance of the inevitable.

Despite her misgivings, she had tended him with lovingkindness once their bathing was done, had dried him with great care and scrubbed the water from his hair with soft linens. She'd made to plait it as well, but he had stayed her hand and entwined their fingers, and hand in hand, they had returned to their flet, where they had lain in their reed bed in a tangle of limbs, hands roaming and lips meeting to soothe aching hearts. Apologies had trembled on his lips, but she had smiled sadly and swallowed them with her kisses, and when she had wordlessly bid him come to her, he had obliged with hunger in his loins and bittersweetness in his heart.

They had walked the path of waking dreams but uneasily that night, and whichsoever path he had chosen had seemed desolate and cold. When he had risen with the dawn, Anariel had been already about the business of farewell. His garments she had arrayed at the foot of their bed, and lembas she had wrapped in mallorn leaves and set upon the table, At the rustle of the bedclothes, she had brought him a goblet of water, and when he had thanked her, she had offered him that same mournful smile and pressed a kiss to his tousled crown and carded her fingers through its length.

So much had he wanted to tell her, but he'd known words to be of no account, and so they had simply done what they must. When he had donned his clothes, she had helped him with his armor, fastening greaves and pauldrons and breastplate clasps with steady fingers. Only once had she faltered, when she'd removed the collar her mother had gifted him on their wedding day. She had hesitated upon its unclasping, had let the thread of silver hover at his throat.

It will return to its rightful place soon, he'd assured her. She'd nodded brusquely, cleared her throat of treacherous cries, and reverently set it aside.

Steady hands as she'd brushed his hair, and he'd relaxed into the rhythm of her strokes. When every last tangle had been smoothed, she'd plaited it with all the skill of their years together. Her lips had trembled, but her hands had been unstinting. She had lingered over the task, he recalls now, fussing over each twist, and in that he could not find fault. To finish had been to part, and neither had wanted to say goodbye.

When at last she could delay no longer, she had gone to retrieve his grey cloak.

I would have the crimson, he'd said when she'd made to drape it about his shoulders.

She'd blinked at him in surprise. But that it for special occasions, and it would be as a beacon to skulking enemies.

It is my favorite, and I would have it, he'd insisted. It will remind me of you until we are reunited.

She had retrieved it from its place and draped it about his shoulders, and when she had fastened the clasp about his throat, she had smoothed its thick, velvet folds.

Almost a lord you look, she'd observed when she'd stepped back to survey her handiwork.

As I always feel under your attentions, he'd told her in a bid to raise her spirits, but she could only muster that dreadful, broken smile that had not reached eyes dry and bleak.

Walk with me? He'd offered her his arm.

And so she had taken that last walk with him to the glade where the soldiers of the Galadhrim waited, her footsteps as steady as her hands and heavy as her heart. She had held her head high, but her hand had gripped his so tightly that it hurt, and when he'd opened his heart and reached for the thread of her soul inextricably twined with his, he had found pain and despair and worry like an ague in her bones. He'd curled himself around her, swaddled her in his fea, comfort and shelter and a respite from that unkind burden, and from the corner of his eye, he'd seen her shoulders slump in relief.

The soldiers had been gathered in the glade on the northern border of Lothlorien, and the Lord and Lady had stood among them, resplendent in white and silver. The Lady had acknowledged his approach with a widening of her eyes, and Anariel had reluctantly released his hand and joined the women there assembled to see their men off to war.

He could recall the lofty speech given that day beneath the sheltering, golden leaves of the wood if he so chose, but it is of little import now, passed into dust with the bones of the men he and his kin had fought so hard to save. He remembers other things: the glory of the Lady's silver-golden hair as it caught the sunlight that had filtered through the trees to warm the soil and glint off the armor of the soldiers; Lord Celeborn's gaze as swept over the crowd; the musical clank of armor as restless soldiers shifted in their ranks; the light of the Eldar shining forth from the faces of the soldiers, so many of whom seemed but children to his eyes; the tears streaming down the faces of wives and sisters and daughters who had no say in this terrible matter, but who must chafe beneath its merciless yoke.

What he remembers most clearly is Anariel, standing among the women clustered on the edge of the wood, her bearing proud and her face impassive and almost cruel in its beauty. His heart had yet been open, his soul still coiled around hers in a protective cocoon, and as Galadriel's voice had soared over the glade with its tidings of war and sacrifice and the bonds of ancient brotherhood, the strand he so jealously guarded had thrummed with bitter thoughts and seething anger.

Peace, my Anariel, he'd whispered inside her mind. The choice was mine. If you would lay blame, then lay it at my feet.

The anger had been supplanted by shame, hot and gnawing, and he'd crooned wordless comfort to her before withdrawing from her mind to better attend the Lady. The communion between their hearts he had left open, and now and then he'd extended his love to her, soft and fleeting as a kiss in the night.

When the Lady had bid them leave, he had ordered his men to say their farewells, and then he had sought Anariel and guided her beneath the sheltering boughs of a great mallorn tree.

He'd taken her hands and rested his forehead against hers. I must leave you now, he'd murmured into her mind.

Then return swiftly, I pray you, had come the reply. Another answer had cried out from her heart, but it had been swiftly suppressed, hidden from his by her fierce will.

When the deed is done, I shall fly to you. Aloud, he'd said, I will return to you, I swear it.

You cannot-

And yet I do. And then he'd kissed her. No chastity, no timidity, just bruising lips and clashing teeth and the audacity of a promise. Her cheeks had been rosy and her lips plump when they'd parted, and his name had been a delighted laugh upon them.

Her fingertips had lingered against his when he'd released her hands, but no cry had escaped her and no tears had fallen. Instead, she'd caressed his cheek in farewell, and then she'd squared her shoulders and drawn his hood over his head. It had been as much an act of courage as the charging of an enemy horde, and pride had sung in his heart.

He'd dared not look back as he'd marched from Lothlorien at the head of a gleaming, golden column. To look back would have been to falter, and so he had kept his gaze fixed on the distant horizon and concentrated on the tramp of booted feet and the pop of Lorien's banner on the breeze. The last image he has of Anariel is of her wistful smile as she'd drawn his hood about his face, her own countenance too wan for his liking and framed by the spun gold of her hair.

His promise, so rashly made, had been no boast, no idle arrogance. It had been a comforting truth imparted to her as a measure of peace, or so he had thought it. He had not realized his folly until he'd stood atop the Deeping Wall and watched armies of Mordor spill across the plain in a noisome, clashing tide. Orcs and Uruk hai as far as the eye could see, dark and stinking and possessed of siege engines and trebuchets and other weapons he'd thought beyond their skill to manufacture. Torches had burned above and before them and seethed behind them, illuminating their monstrous faces, and dismay had settled over him like a clammy mantle. No skirmish, this, no dirty squabble on the plains. All the servants of Mordor stand before us now, he'd thought, and prayed to the Valar for courage.

He'd known then that he would not return from that ravaged, cratered field, would not return to the trees and the Lady and the wife he loved so much. There had been too many, and they had been too few, and of their scarce number, many had been too aged or too young or too unskilled in the ways of battle. There had been no thought of victory when he'd nocked an arrow, only of time, of winning a few precious hours with which to stall the advance and evacuate the women and children and infirm before Sauron's obscenities overran the holdfast.

He had not fought for Men and their petty glories, but for Arda and its splendors, for the glades and woods and springs that had yet lain beyond Sauron's corrupting grasp. He'd fought for the beauty of the world, and the fragile hope of what it could be, and for the vision of Illuvatar. He'd fought for the Lady, and the wood, and the snatches of the Great Song that sometimes danced upon the wind or dreamt beneath winter's ice.

And for Anariel. Always for her.

There had been some small hope near the end, when Elessar had ordered him to fall back to the keep. He'd still had a few dozen men under his command, and aside from the burning throb of muscles well-used, he'd borne no hurt. If he could make the keep, then perhaps they could barricade the doors and loose arrows from the slits and hold the horde at bay and hope for reinforcements from Gondor or Imladris.

And then he'd been surrounded, and an Uruk blade had slipped around his armor and into his ribs. Its poison had burned his flesh, and the tainted steel had knicked his ribs. Agony had washed over him in a red, wave, and his blood had turned to phosphor in his veins. He'd staggered, his blade sagging in his grasp, and reeled against the pain in his abdomen. Blood had flowed freely, warm and slick and dark against the stone, and his strength had fled with it.

He'd sunk to his knees. He'd seen them then, his fallen brethren, entangled in an unseeing pile, helms askew and cloaks sodden with blood and rain. Robbed of their light and loveliness and left like so much rubble amid the ruin. He'd thought of Orophin then, who'd joined a group gone to shore up the breached wall as best it could. Did he still draw breath, or was he, too, a lifeless ruin in the wrack and mud trampled underfoot by enemy and ally alike?

So many souls sent to Mandos, and to what end?

He'd thought to rise then, to gain the keep and search for his brother amid the survivors, but he couldn't find the strength, and then an Uruk ax had buried itself in his neck and sunk between his shoulders. He'd dimly heard Elessar's despairing shout, but it had been of no matter. Already the life had been bleeding from him, his heart grown sluggish inside his chest, and his last thought before the darkness had claimed him had been of Anariel. She waits for me at the edge of the wood, he'd thought, and with his last breath, he'd opened his heart and sent his love to her. He'd sensed her presence, the skim of fingertips over flesh just beyond reach, and then he had fallen into oblivion. When he'd next come to himself, he'd been adrift in Mandos' shadowy halls, unencumbered by flesh and the concerns he'd left behind.

But I did not forget you, my faithful Anariel, and I have come for you at last, he thinks.

He considers pressing on, but this is a strange land, and even his keen eyes cannot discern the path he should take, and so he spreads his cloak on the bank and settles himself upon it. The earth is cool and damp through the fabric, and its scent is pleasant in his nostrils. He draws deeply of it, closes his eyes, and ufurls his fea, wills it to find her across the miles.

And there is nothing. Only vast, ringing silence. He casts it forth again, further this time, and still it finds no purchase, settles upon no joyous heart. Peace deserts him, and his brow furrows in concentration.

She...has yet eluded us, Vaire whispers inside his head, and her needle flashes in the gloom like a shard of captured starlight.

The first fluttering of panic inside his chest. He pushes it down, stops his ears against Vaire's words, and casts his fea as far as he dares, drives it outward until his bones lighten and his head swims. Anariel, where have you gone? he implores the silence.

It is not the silence that answers, but a small, feeble speck of light. So faint, little more than a hope, and he fears to breathe, lest it scatter before him. He would cradle it in protective embrace, but as his fea reaches for it, it shies.

Anariel, it is I, he soothes, but it draws no closer. It's a pale, fragile spark, so unlike the bright, fierce flame that he had once held close, and it radiates sorrow and weariness and bitter longing.

So diminished, he realizes, horrified. What has become of my proud, unbowed queen? He bids her come closer, but she does not. She merely hovers just out of reach, remote and weltering with a quiet anguish that scours his exposed heart. He will not leave her, not like this, and so he stays until exhaustion forces him back. The light winks out, no match for the darkness that rushes to meet it in his absence, and his fea returns to him with a thump that jars his bones. His eyes fly open, bulging and wild, and he pants as he gathers himself.

Perhaps these lands are bigger than the tales foretold, suggests a rational voice. If the Valar can fashion world from thought and sunder Valinor from the envious eyes of Men, then it would be no hardship for them to create a land too vast for an Eldar soul to travel.

He finds comfort in their reason, and he clings to it as he lies down and laces his fingers across his chest. This land is vast, and he is long out of practice in seeking her soul. She is here, settled in some distant vale, perhaps, or gone to dwell with her kin until the hour of their reunion. He will find her. It is only a matter of time and patience.

Thusly reassured, he turns his thoughts to the moon and stars, cold and beautiful in the firmament, and lets himself wander among them.

Seven days it is before he comes to the great city of Tirion and its peaceful, beauteous bustle. The sea glitters to the east, silver and sapphire, and to the north, the white walls dazzle his eyes. Banners pop and dance in the breeze, and the hum of conversation is a song against his skin. The road leading into the city is thick with people who sweep by him with a nod or a smile--merchants with bundles on their backs and young maidens with baskets in their arms and jewels in their hair and children who laugh and weave between milling legs. The agreeable rumble and clatter of merchant carts and the piercing cry of merchants, farmers, and fishmongers with wares for barter.

He threads his way through the throng to the city gates, and there he asks a woman trading figs where he might find information about those who dwell here.

She offers him a knowing smile. "You are recently departed from Mandos' halls?"

He inclines his head. "I would find my family."

"Check the town square. Often there are postings from families seeking one another. There are also the guilds. Most skilled craftsman register with them. If your family are tradesmen, they might know of them."

"I thank you for your help."

She rests her hand upon his wrist and drops a handful of figs into his palm.

"I have nothing to trade for them," he protests.

"You will repay me when you are able. I trade here daily. Until we meet again, may the Valar bless your journey."

"And yours." He leaves her with a bow and continues into the city.

His journey ends not far into the city market, as it turns out. He's just paused to admire the vibrant bolts of silk arranged on a wooden rack beside a tailor's stall when a familiar profile catches his eye two bays on. His youngest brother sits cross-legged on the sun-warmed stones of the street, and parchments and canvases are arranged on easels behind him or bunched into neat rolls on either side of him. His head is down, his gaze fixed on the piece of parchment in front of him, and an eagle-feather quill rests in one raised hand, poised to add another stroke.

"Rumil?"

His brother's head snaps up at the sound of his name, and in the next instant, he's scrambling to his feet with a strangled shout, the parchment trodden underfoot in his haste.

"Haldir!" he cries, and laughs, and before Haldir can reply, he's all but smothered in an exuberant embrace. The figs so kindly given by the woman at the gate are knocked from his hand and scatter in all directions. "Forgive me, brother," Rumil says breathlessly, and crouches to retrieve those not trampled beneath passing feet. "Long and long it has been, so long that we had begun to despair of seeing you again."

Haldir drops into a crouch and joins him in his task. "So long, then?"

A nod. "When Orophin returned, we thought you would follow soon after. When you didn't, we went in search of you, fearing you had lost your way. There's a notice for you in the square." He tips his head in the direction of a large, white-cobbled plaza bathed in sunlight. Its center is dominated by a large, wooden board plastered with pieces of parchment and tatters of cloth and vellum. "Directions, in the event you made your way here."

"Are there so many of us, then?"

"Travelers from Mandos' halls? There were many in the beginning. You are the first in some time." Rumil drops the gathered figs into his hand and rises from his crouch. "Bloodshed is unknown here, and none have come from Arda in centuries upon centuries."

"So I am the last of my kind?" he jests, and Rumil offers him a sunny grin.

"Mayhap you are," he says, and gestures him toward the space he had but so recently occupied. "Come, sit with me a while. The time of business will soon be done, and we have much to discuss."

"This is business, then?" Haldir picks his way through the piles of parchment and the small stand of canvases and settles in a cozy niche.

"And pleasure." Rumil sits beside him and smooths the ripples from the drawing he had trampled. "Some days are better than others."

"And this day?"

"The best of days," he answers, and claps him on the shoulder.

They sit for a time in Rumil's bay, shoulder to shoulder and sunning themselves. They talk of Valinor, and Rumil gladly imparts what knowledge he holds thereof. He tells him of the various kin that people the island, and of the best orchards from which to harvest fruit. The best fishing, he learns, is to the east of Alqualonde, and the best hunting is to the west of Aule's hall. Few venture to the north; though improved from the days of sorrow, when kin slew kin and the Noldor fled across the Helcaraxe, rumors still swirl of fell whispers that drift from the crevasses and passes and tempt the unwary wayfarer to their doom.

"And where do you dwell?"

"Near Alqualonde. So do we all. The sounds of the sea stir me, and the vistas are a boon for my art."

"So I see." Haldir turns to study a nearby canvas. "You are much improved since I saw you last."

Rumil swells with pride. "As I have told you, it has been long since I saw you last, and with no orcs to fear, I have naught to do but practice my craft."

"And Father? Mother? Do they still practice theirs?"

Rumil nods happily. "Father has become a builder of some renown, and mother yet practices the healing arts. She is much in demand as a midwife. Contentment breeds lustier desires, it seems."

"And you? Have you had need of her skill?"

A gusty sigh. "I could only wish. A few comely women have caught my eye, but I have not caught theirs."

"You have time yet."

"Says he who found the one he would take to wife almost as soon as he came to manhood."

"In that, I was most fortunate," he concedes.

"Mother is of the same mind, for what it is worth, but I begin to doubt." He brightens. "Orophin is not without prospects, however."

"Orophin? The grumbling curmudgeon has unfurled his plumage at last?" He huffs in pleased surprise.

"I thought the same," Rumil admits, and chuckles. "She is a Telerin maiden. Orophin is well besotted, though I am not certain her family is of accord."

"Are they highborn, then?" The idea of his reserved, gruff brother winning the heart of Telerin nobility amuses and amazes him.

"No, though I suspect they have pretensions as such. Her mother, in particular would invent a bloodline to the house of Thingol if she could. I have not the Lady's gift, but methinks they fear Orophin will wrest her from the bosom of the sea and doom to a life of shadow and drudgery in the heart of the wood."

"Do they have reason to think so?"

Rumil snorts. "Hardly. He goes to the gardens of Lorien now and again to lose himself among the ivy and flowers and birdsong, but he is as enamored of the sea as the rest of us. So deep is his thrall that I could not pretend to surprise were he to leave for Tol Eressea and seed his house there."

"It matters not what her parents think of the match. If they pledge the oath and lie together, the deed is done."

"Would he do such a thing?"

"If their love was great enough."

"Would you have done so if our parents had not favored Anariel?"

"Yes." And so he would have done. Had his parents spoken against the match, he would have done the deed in the secret cloister of the glade, witnessed only by the stars and the rushing waters of the Anduin and the all-seeing eye of Illuvatar, and when the deed was done and the vow woven into the song of the wind and seeped into the soil by dint of blood and seed, he would have taken her hand and led her into the heart of their home. And if they had rebuffed her still, he would have sundered himself from them and mourned them as dead.

"Is it so powerful, then? Such love?"

Haldir smiles. It is." He shifts and lets his head loll against the white stone at his back. "And what of Anariel? Does she wait for me at home?"

The silence endures for so long that he lifts his head from the wall and turns his gaze upon his brother. "Rumil?" he prods, disquieted by his sudden reticence.

Rumil squirms beneath his gaze. "She does not," he murmurs at last.

"With her kin then?"

"Perhaps." But his demeanor is evasive, and he refuses to meet his gaze. "Look, the sun begins to sink," he says in an abrupt change of subject. "It is time we started for home." He leans forward and collects the parchments displayed before him.

But Haldir refuses to be so easily dissuaded from his course. "What will you not tell me?" He reaches for his brother's shoulder, but Rumil darts away under the pretense of picking up his canvases. Haldir blinks and sighs and goes to help him pack his wares into the satchels and bags tucked neatly behind a wooden bench. "Rumil..." Pleading now.

Rumil's shoulders slump. He hands Haldir a sack and gestures for him to hold it open so that he might slip a canvas inside. "It is not for me to say."

Haldir gives the bag a vigorous snap and tilts its opening toward him. "What is not for you to say? What has become of my wife?"

"That I do not know, I swear it." Rumil slides the canvas into the outthrust bag and ties it with a hank of twine.

"Then what will you not tell me?"

But Rumil does not answer. Instead, he collapses his easels, hoists them over his shoulder, and bends to pick up a sack. Haldir takes three of his own, and together, they leave the market behind, silent save for their footfalls.

She...has yet eluded us, Vaire murmurs inside his head, cool and pitiless, and his stomach roils.

"I see I have troubled you," Rumil says quietly when they have passed the city gates and turned northward.

"How can I be less when no one will tell me of my wife? Vaire spake that Anariel has yet eluded them, and these were glad tidings, for it meant that she yet lived. I had thought to find her here, happy among the green and the gardens or dancing by the sea, but when I turn my heart outward and call for her, I feel only great weariness and terrible sorrow."

"You felt her?" Incredulity, and Haldir spins and sets himself before him, blocking his path.

"And why should I not feel her?" he demands. "What knowledge do you hold from me?"

Though he had surpassed him in stature long ago, Rumil will ever be the younger of them, and he fidgets and quails before his ferocity. He raises his palms in a placatory gesture. "Peace, brother. I conspire not against you. Of her fate, I do not know. I left Lorien before her."

"She did not go with you?" This surprises him. He had always assumed that she had gone with them into the West.

"She would not. Her grief was too great."

"So you left her there?"

Just as you did, whispers an accusatory voice inside his head that speaks with Vaire's pale lips, and guilt throbs and seethes within his breast like a wound untended.

"I could not carry her bodily away," Rumil counters. "Your death undid her, and she would not come. It was not for want of pleading. "I begged her. Even the Lady entreated her, but she and the others would not be moved."

"Others?"

"There were others who shared her mind. Wives and sisters of the vanguard who thought their men slaughtered as fodder for the capricious and futile whims of Men."

He thinks of his soldiers, sprawled in lifeless piles beneath the sheeting rain, cold limbs and empty eyes and helms and armor that had availed them naught. In that, they were not far wrong, he thinks bitterly.

"Most of them have repented of their folly and sailed for Elvenhome. We held some slim hope that she would sail with Lord Celeborn when he wearied of Arda, but it was not so."

"Are there yet others who have not sailed?"

"I cannot say. The last of the vanguard arrived long ago, soon after Legolas, herald of Elessar, and Gimli the Dwarf.

"A dwarf walked in Elvenhome?" he says in disbelief.

Rumil nods. "A concession from the Valar for his service to the Fellowship. The hobbits, too, dwelt a while, though they returned ere their deaths."

"Perhaps she is but delayed," he suggests, but it is a frail hope, a tatter of stardust between his fingers.

"Perhaps," Rumil agrees, but it is too ready, and he studies the horizon as he walks.

"But you do not believe so."

"I believe that if you have felt her, then there is yet hope," he says stoutly, but doubt swirls in the air like choking dust. They journey in silence for many miles, and then Rumil speaks. "The Lady knows more, and Lord Celeborn doubtlessly still more. He tarried long in Middle-Earth. The Lady's gift is diminished but not altogether perished. Her Mirror no longer sees all, or sees clearly, it is said, but perhaps it can still see enough to tell you what has become of your Anariel."

"Would she see me?"

A huff of amusement. "You were the captain of her guard and her most trusted marchwarden for time uncounted. She holds you in especial favor. There is little she would deny you."

The thought buoys him. "Where does she now dwell?"

"In the gardens of Lorien. She and Mithrandir are often seen to tea or strolling through the blossoms and glades. It's a week hence, to the west."

"I shall go on the morrow."

"And I with you."

"That is not necessary."

"Nay, but it is what I desire." Rumil scowls at him and hitches a bag higher in his grip. "I know the way, and I would not say farewell to my brother again so soon after I have regained him."

It occurs to him then that Rumil, too, has endured grief, parted from his brothers for long years as they drifted in the halls of Mandos. While he and Orophin spent the endless hours in meditation and solemn reflection, Rumil had been left to his living grief, a savage, remorseless gnawing unrelieved by the murmur of the Valar in his ears. He was tethered to a heart that still ached and eyes that still wept and hands that longed for the touch of familiar flesh. Memories he carried like fetters, scars he could not slough along with his skin.

He steps closer and slings an arm around his neck. "Then an honor and a debt I will call it," he says.

"An honor, no doubt, but a debt never," Rumil answers, and grins, unbridled and boyish and much as the stripling he had been in ages past, when life had been but newly-wakened in his veins and the world had been to him as a glut of wonders. He breaks into a run, laughing and challenging him to a race, and throwing his cares aside, Haldir follows him.