Going Home (to a place we’ve never been before.) Chapter Five.
I am so grateful to wiseheart for organising another picowrimo session. It really does make me at least try to write a little every day for the month. And this time I have not only written the extra chapter for 'Consequences' but have just got under the wire with another chapter of Going Home!
Chapter Five; 'Conversation with Tindómë, part one'
This chapter is 2535 words long and was, as usual, beta-read by speakr2customrs.
“Tindómë was right, then,” Elladan said, when his brother told him about Fâniel having forgotten that the two of them were, to some degree, men not elves. “She said, the last time we were in Eryn Ithil, that being related to Elven royalty would be more important than being peredhil when it came to being accepted here.”
“Although,” he went on, “you should have told Fâniel that, yes, all ellyn with Noldorin blood have the same line of black hair, then waited to see how much confusion it would cause over the coming years.”
Elrohir grinned. “Perhaps you can start that arrow in flight instead, and we can see which gets furthest.”
“I think,” Elladan said after some consideration, “that I will wait and see if my companion tomorrow evening mentions it… Who knows - perhaps she may not even notice it.”
“And if she does,” his brother joked, “she probably won’t realise it is meant to be straight…!”
……………………………
It was a couple of days later that Elladan found Tindómë in the library of his parents’ house. He had not actually been looking for her but, rather, to see if he could find a story book he remembered from his early years. Although a copy of it had gone to Minas Tirith when Eldarion and his sisters were young he was almost certain the original would be here somewhere.
He was also, he realised, considering the actual space and wondering if they might need something as big when he and Elrohir built their new home; it seemed it had already become a ‘when’ not an ‘if’ in both their minds.
How fortuitous, then, to find Tinu here just as he had been thinking that he still did not know quite how it had been her, and her husband-brother, who had found the valley where this new home seemed likely to be built.
“All alone?” he asked from behind her.
“Hi Elladan,” she answered without turning around, reminding him, again, that both he and his twin would always think of her as ‘family’ as she always knew which one of them she was speaking to.
She turned, then. “Yep. I’m just doing some copying to take with us when we leave. To be honest, Eleniel and I were mainly gossiping about Sérëdhiel, but Eleniel has just gone for her lunch so here I am, all alone.”
He did wonder what the gossip about Sérëdhiel might be. As far as he knew she had been carried off, within minutes of their ship docking, to be fussed over by her parents and her maternal aunt and uncle. Her packs and trunks of tools were waiting here for her to unpack although he knew she had ‘escaped’ briefly for a reunion with Eleniel and the others… what had she done to occasion any gossip?
But he could ask about that later; this was too good an opportunity to miss.
“There are so many things El and I want to know about what has been happening between your arrival in Aman and us ‘getting our Lordly asses over here’, as you instructed through Ithilienne. There is also an apology to make, and something funny that I know you will appreciate. Would you come and spend the afternoon with us? I’m sure we could arrange wine and cakes…”
“An apology, something funny… and wine and cakes? How could any elleth refuse you?” She smiled and began putting her work away.
Ten minutes later and they were in the twins private sitting room, and Elrohir was on his way to join them.
……………………………
“So,” Tindómë said, “an apology?”
“You were quite right that no-one seems to be bothered that we are not fully elven,” Elrohir said.
“At least no-one here in Alqualondë,” Elladan added, “it may not be the same everywhere. When we spoke at your home the other evening none of you made Tirion sound all that welcoming to those who are not Noldorin, and we are only that in part no matter how you look at it. As Grandmother Gull pointed out to me the other night, when we go to visit our very great grandparents Elu Thingol and Melian, folk in their domain are more likely to think of us as ‘Luthien’s descendants’ than anything else, and so Sindar.
“By the by,” he added, “she also said that ‘the bird thing’ was due to her being descended from Melian, and that a lot of people seem to forget that having Melian as a mother explains a good deal about Luthien…”
“You know,” Tindómë said, “by the time you two have caught up with everyone claiming you as descendants, I can see Tharhîwon and I both being very grateful that we have no blood relatives here!”
She paused, then added, “Actually, if we are apologising, you really should have made a proper wager with me about your grandfather Eärendil, as I have now seen his ship take off and fly East I have no option but to accept that it is not just a story. I freely admit that I was wrong that the star in the sky has nothing to do with him.”
“We will just remind you, sometime, that you have admitted to being wrong about something,” Elladan answered, with a grin.
“You mentioned something that would amuse me, too…” their guest said, expectantly.
Elrohir recounted the story of Fâniel and her query about whether all ellyn with Noldorin blood had the same line between navel and vië.
“She had forgotten that we had any mortal blood at all,” he finished.
“You should have told her ‘yes’, definitely a Noldorin thing,” Tindómë said, at which Elladan laughed out loud and told her that was exactly what he had told his brother.
“I wonder,” she added, “if any of them will ever notice that you don’t exactly match?”
“Please do not tell any of them,” Elrohir said. “Although if anyone ever works it out for themselves we would certainly admit which one of us is which - I would hate anyone to think that I was less than perfect!”
He caught the cushion his brother threw at him and threw it back without even seeming to notice it. Tindómë ducked as, for a minute or two, a barrage of cushions criss-crossed over her head and it was a little while before the conversation restarted.
And this time the conversation was getting down to the things that the twins really wanted to find out.
“There are still so many things we want to know,” Elladan began.
“About Ithilienne, about the new lands, how was it that you and Haldir went alone to discover them…” Elrohir continued.
“And why Rumil has a drawing of the Máhanaxar…”
“M’kay,” Tindómë said, “but it is going to take some time.”
“We have plenty of that,” Elrohir said, refilling the glasses and settling down comfortably.
“I probably need to go back right to when we arrived,” Tindómë began. “Rumil and Orophin’s parents had been returned and lived on your grandmother’s estate. And their naneth Did Not Approve, with capital letters, of her sons now being of the Ithilrim, and married. As far as she was concerned, Lithôniel and I were conniving temptresses who had lured away her elflings.”
By this time the twins were beginning to laugh at the idea of poor Orophin and Rumil being seduced by the ellyth and somehow forced to join Legolas in Ithilien.
“And I was the worst, not even a proper elleth…” she continued, going on to describe a little of that first visit by Rumil’s parents.
“So when Haldir also returned from Mandos, her opinions were the first he heard of Lithôniel and me, Haldirin and Ithilienne. And, of course, he had always been used to his brothers obeying him, whilst also being his companions in off-duty pleasures, and he felt they should immediately join him on Her Ladyship’s estate, with or without the extra people they had picked up without consulting him.”
“Oh dear,” said Elladan, with a smile in his voice as he imagined Haldir’s non-approval. “I remember their parents from our visits to Grandmother and Grandfather when we were young warriors. What did their father have to say?”
“Not a lot,” she answered. “At least at first. But eventually, at the end of that visit, Adar Thorontor told her he was proud of his two younger sons, it was clear that Lithôniel and I were the wives the Valar intended for them, and Haldirin and Ithilienne were a joy to him. But I think Haldir was more willing to believe his mother. And, like her, he somehow seemed to think most of the blame for this unsatisfactory state of affairs lay with me. ”
Elladan nodded. He remembered the quiet Thorontor with respect, but had never particularly liked his wife. And as he, and Elrohir, were coming to realise how much had been happening whilst they remained in Imladris, Haldir must have been even more surprised with the changes in his brothers’ lives during his time in Mandos. In his brothers themselves, even.
“So, anyway,” Tindómë continued, “that sort of sets the scene, and I think it was kinda relevant to Haldir being there in the Máhanaxar and, then, both of us going on a trek across more of Aman than anyone thought even existed.”
Both twins, though eager to hear more of both the reasons behind the appearance in the Máhanaxar and the journey that followed, knew there was no point in hurrying Tindómë, so they settled back comfortably in their chairs and waited. She sat quietly for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts, and then surprised them when she did speak.
“It was Radagast’s window. I didn’t know if it would work here in Aman, nor if it would work after Buffy died, and she had looked awfully frail the last time it worked in Ithilien. She said, that time, she was dying and she was fine with it, that it was her time to go.”
Elladan remembered the strange construct of twigs and string that the Istar had made so that Tindómë could have occasional contact with that ‘sister’ in the other place, although he had never been around on any of the occasions that ‘the window’ had been opened.
“Well one day after the hobbits passed away, and Haldir was returned, I saw the ‘window’ begin to glow but I could not find Buffy and I knew she must have gone.” She stopped and a look of sorrow passed across her face, but then she went on. “And then I thought of Spike, left behind, and somehow I was able to concentrate and contact him instead.
“And it was so sad. There was no-one left he knew, no-one that cared about him or even realised that, although he was a vampire, he was one of the good people. He was so depressed and he was even thinking of simply walking out into the sunshine and letting it turn him to dust. And I thought he should come here, to Aman. I was his only family left, and he was a good guy.”
In his head Elladan heard his brother. “I wonder what Rumil thought of that idea? I cannot see him having been pleased about it.” He was sure Elrohir was right.
Tindómë was still speaking, “so I asked Gandalf to use my blood and open a door for Spike to come here, but he said he could not do that as it was ‘not within his sphere of responsibility’.
”That would have pleased Rumil,” he said to his brother.
“But he said he would ask the Valar about it for me…” Tindómë finished.
“I begin to see how Tindómë and Rumil would, then, have been in the Máhanaxar,” came Elrohir’s silent voice.
“So that is why you and Rumil were in the Máhanaxar,” he said, out loud.
“And the others. The Valar sent word that they wanted my ‘brother of the heart’, my husband, and both of his brothers, to come with. Which was a bit surprising. I mean Legolas, Orophin and Rumil had met Spike, but Haldir hadn’t. With being dead at the time.”
She went on to describe their journey, and their stay at Her Ladyship’s estate, how poor she thought the existing maps were even if, as Haldir had pointed out, no-one really needed them to move between the major towns and cities, or to know where to find the homes of the Valar.
Then she spoke again, of the attitude towards them all in Tirion; Valimar, she said, was actually friendlier. They seemed to treat everyone who visited their city more or less the same, and were, apparently, used to people turning up to go into the Máhanaxar.
“Although,” she added, “as you two look more like Noldor than anything else, and are the great-grandsons of the High King, I doubt anyone in Tirion will be anything other than welcoming and, possibly, even obsequious to the pair of you. You will have to get used to speaking Quenya all the time though.”
“When we have our own home,” Elrohir said, “We will probably shock any visiting Noldorin kin by using Sindarin as the everyday language.”
Before Tindómë had a chance to comment on the certainty with which his twin spoke of them having their own home, Elladan changed the subject.
“It is nearly time for the evening meal and it feels as if we have hardly touched on so much that we want to ask, whilst we have you to ourselves. Would you like to join us to eat? We will have food brought here so that we can continue our conversation uninterrupted.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she answered, “I’m all yours.”
“Should we send word to Rumil that you are here?” Elrohir asked.
“Nah, no need,” said Tindómë, “I often stay in the library for ages or go visit your Naneth or Eleniel to catch up on the gossip, especially now you two are here, and stay all evening. It’s not as if Rumil and I are permanently joined at the hip.”
Elladan was torn, briefly, between wondering what the gossip was about the two of them, and wanting to joke about the hips not being the parts of the hröa used in joining.
She must have seen the glint of amusement in his eye because she answered the second thought unprompted.
“We are not even permanently joined in any of the more regular ways either… it is just a saying from the other place.”
She paused and he could see her suddenly being struck by something.
“Do the edhel even have…” she used a word in the language of California that he did not recognise, “twins. Um… twins whose hröar did not form completely separated, but sort of shared bits?”
It took ten minutes and a couple of drawings for him to understand what she meant, at which point he was sure he had never heard of such a thing happening with elves, equally sure he was glad he and Elrohir had a complete hröa each, and completely distracted from what she and Eleniel might have been gossiping about concerning the two of them.
....................
Chapter Five; 'Conversation with Tindómë, part one'
This chapter is 2535 words long and was, as usual, beta-read by speakr2customrs.
“Tindómë was right, then,” Elladan said, when his brother told him about Fâniel having forgotten that the two of them were, to some degree, men not elves. “She said, the last time we were in Eryn Ithil, that being related to Elven royalty would be more important than being peredhil when it came to being accepted here.”
“Although,” he went on, “you should have told Fâniel that, yes, all ellyn with Noldorin blood have the same line of black hair, then waited to see how much confusion it would cause over the coming years.”
Elrohir grinned. “Perhaps you can start that arrow in flight instead, and we can see which gets furthest.”
“I think,” Elladan said after some consideration, “that I will wait and see if my companion tomorrow evening mentions it… Who knows - perhaps she may not even notice it.”
“And if she does,” his brother joked, “she probably won’t realise it is meant to be straight…!”
……………………………
It was a couple of days later that Elladan found Tindómë in the library of his parents’ house. He had not actually been looking for her but, rather, to see if he could find a story book he remembered from his early years. Although a copy of it had gone to Minas Tirith when Eldarion and his sisters were young he was almost certain the original would be here somewhere.
He was also, he realised, considering the actual space and wondering if they might need something as big when he and Elrohir built their new home; it seemed it had already become a ‘when’ not an ‘if’ in both their minds.
How fortuitous, then, to find Tinu here just as he had been thinking that he still did not know quite how it had been her, and her husband-brother, who had found the valley where this new home seemed likely to be built.
“All alone?” he asked from behind her.
“Hi Elladan,” she answered without turning around, reminding him, again, that both he and his twin would always think of her as ‘family’ as she always knew which one of them she was speaking to.
She turned, then. “Yep. I’m just doing some copying to take with us when we leave. To be honest, Eleniel and I were mainly gossiping about Sérëdhiel, but Eleniel has just gone for her lunch so here I am, all alone.”
He did wonder what the gossip about Sérëdhiel might be. As far as he knew she had been carried off, within minutes of their ship docking, to be fussed over by her parents and her maternal aunt and uncle. Her packs and trunks of tools were waiting here for her to unpack although he knew she had ‘escaped’ briefly for a reunion with Eleniel and the others… what had she done to occasion any gossip?
But he could ask about that later; this was too good an opportunity to miss.
“There are so many things El and I want to know about what has been happening between your arrival in Aman and us ‘getting our Lordly asses over here’, as you instructed through Ithilienne. There is also an apology to make, and something funny that I know you will appreciate. Would you come and spend the afternoon with us? I’m sure we could arrange wine and cakes…”
“An apology, something funny… and wine and cakes? How could any elleth refuse you?” She smiled and began putting her work away.
Ten minutes later and they were in the twins private sitting room, and Elrohir was on his way to join them.
……………………………
“So,” Tindómë said, “an apology?”
“You were quite right that no-one seems to be bothered that we are not fully elven,” Elrohir said.
“At least no-one here in Alqualondë,” Elladan added, “it may not be the same everywhere. When we spoke at your home the other evening none of you made Tirion sound all that welcoming to those who are not Noldorin, and we are only that in part no matter how you look at it. As Grandmother Gull pointed out to me the other night, when we go to visit our very great grandparents Elu Thingol and Melian, folk in their domain are more likely to think of us as ‘Luthien’s descendants’ than anything else, and so Sindar.
“By the by,” he added, “she also said that ‘the bird thing’ was due to her being descended from Melian, and that a lot of people seem to forget that having Melian as a mother explains a good deal about Luthien…”
“You know,” Tindómë said, “by the time you two have caught up with everyone claiming you as descendants, I can see Tharhîwon and I both being very grateful that we have no blood relatives here!”
She paused, then added, “Actually, if we are apologising, you really should have made a proper wager with me about your grandfather Eärendil, as I have now seen his ship take off and fly East I have no option but to accept that it is not just a story. I freely admit that I was wrong that the star in the sky has nothing to do with him.”
“We will just remind you, sometime, that you have admitted to being wrong about something,” Elladan answered, with a grin.
“You mentioned something that would amuse me, too…” their guest said, expectantly.
Elrohir recounted the story of Fâniel and her query about whether all ellyn with Noldorin blood had the same line between navel and vië.
“She had forgotten that we had any mortal blood at all,” he finished.
“You should have told her ‘yes’, definitely a Noldorin thing,” Tindómë said, at which Elladan laughed out loud and told her that was exactly what he had told his brother.
“I wonder,” she added, “if any of them will ever notice that you don’t exactly match?”
“Please do not tell any of them,” Elrohir said. “Although if anyone ever works it out for themselves we would certainly admit which one of us is which - I would hate anyone to think that I was less than perfect!”
He caught the cushion his brother threw at him and threw it back without even seeming to notice it. Tindómë ducked as, for a minute or two, a barrage of cushions criss-crossed over her head and it was a little while before the conversation restarted.
And this time the conversation was getting down to the things that the twins really wanted to find out.
“There are still so many things we want to know,” Elladan began.
“About Ithilienne, about the new lands, how was it that you and Haldir went alone to discover them…” Elrohir continued.
“And why Rumil has a drawing of the Máhanaxar…”
“M’kay,” Tindómë said, “but it is going to take some time.”
“We have plenty of that,” Elrohir said, refilling the glasses and settling down comfortably.
“I probably need to go back right to when we arrived,” Tindómë began. “Rumil and Orophin’s parents had been returned and lived on your grandmother’s estate. And their naneth Did Not Approve, with capital letters, of her sons now being of the Ithilrim, and married. As far as she was concerned, Lithôniel and I were conniving temptresses who had lured away her elflings.”
By this time the twins were beginning to laugh at the idea of poor Orophin and Rumil being seduced by the ellyth and somehow forced to join Legolas in Ithilien.
“And I was the worst, not even a proper elleth…” she continued, going on to describe a little of that first visit by Rumil’s parents.
“So when Haldir also returned from Mandos, her opinions were the first he heard of Lithôniel and me, Haldirin and Ithilienne. And, of course, he had always been used to his brothers obeying him, whilst also being his companions in off-duty pleasures, and he felt they should immediately join him on Her Ladyship’s estate, with or without the extra people they had picked up without consulting him.”
“Oh dear,” said Elladan, with a smile in his voice as he imagined Haldir’s non-approval. “I remember their parents from our visits to Grandmother and Grandfather when we were young warriors. What did their father have to say?”
“Not a lot,” she answered. “At least at first. But eventually, at the end of that visit, Adar Thorontor told her he was proud of his two younger sons, it was clear that Lithôniel and I were the wives the Valar intended for them, and Haldirin and Ithilienne were a joy to him. But I think Haldir was more willing to believe his mother. And, like her, he somehow seemed to think most of the blame for this unsatisfactory state of affairs lay with me. ”
Elladan nodded. He remembered the quiet Thorontor with respect, but had never particularly liked his wife. And as he, and Elrohir, were coming to realise how much had been happening whilst they remained in Imladris, Haldir must have been even more surprised with the changes in his brothers’ lives during his time in Mandos. In his brothers themselves, even.
“So, anyway,” Tindómë continued, “that sort of sets the scene, and I think it was kinda relevant to Haldir being there in the Máhanaxar and, then, both of us going on a trek across more of Aman than anyone thought even existed.”
Both twins, though eager to hear more of both the reasons behind the appearance in the Máhanaxar and the journey that followed, knew there was no point in hurrying Tindómë, so they settled back comfortably in their chairs and waited. She sat quietly for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts, and then surprised them when she did speak.
“It was Radagast’s window. I didn’t know if it would work here in Aman, nor if it would work after Buffy died, and she had looked awfully frail the last time it worked in Ithilien. She said, that time, she was dying and she was fine with it, that it was her time to go.”
Elladan remembered the strange construct of twigs and string that the Istar had made so that Tindómë could have occasional contact with that ‘sister’ in the other place, although he had never been around on any of the occasions that ‘the window’ had been opened.
“Well one day after the hobbits passed away, and Haldir was returned, I saw the ‘window’ begin to glow but I could not find Buffy and I knew she must have gone.” She stopped and a look of sorrow passed across her face, but then she went on. “And then I thought of Spike, left behind, and somehow I was able to concentrate and contact him instead.
“And it was so sad. There was no-one left he knew, no-one that cared about him or even realised that, although he was a vampire, he was one of the good people. He was so depressed and he was even thinking of simply walking out into the sunshine and letting it turn him to dust. And I thought he should come here, to Aman. I was his only family left, and he was a good guy.”
In his head Elladan heard his brother. “I wonder what Rumil thought of that idea? I cannot see him having been pleased about it.” He was sure Elrohir was right.
Tindómë was still speaking, “so I asked Gandalf to use my blood and open a door for Spike to come here, but he said he could not do that as it was ‘not within his sphere of responsibility’.
”That would have pleased Rumil,” he said to his brother.
“But he said he would ask the Valar about it for me…” Tindómë finished.
“I begin to see how Tindómë and Rumil would, then, have been in the Máhanaxar,” came Elrohir’s silent voice.
“So that is why you and Rumil were in the Máhanaxar,” he said, out loud.
“And the others. The Valar sent word that they wanted my ‘brother of the heart’, my husband, and both of his brothers, to come with. Which was a bit surprising. I mean Legolas, Orophin and Rumil had met Spike, but Haldir hadn’t. With being dead at the time.”
She went on to describe their journey, and their stay at Her Ladyship’s estate, how poor she thought the existing maps were even if, as Haldir had pointed out, no-one really needed them to move between the major towns and cities, or to know where to find the homes of the Valar.
Then she spoke again, of the attitude towards them all in Tirion; Valimar, she said, was actually friendlier. They seemed to treat everyone who visited their city more or less the same, and were, apparently, used to people turning up to go into the Máhanaxar.
“Although,” she added, “as you two look more like Noldor than anything else, and are the great-grandsons of the High King, I doubt anyone in Tirion will be anything other than welcoming and, possibly, even obsequious to the pair of you. You will have to get used to speaking Quenya all the time though.”
“When we have our own home,” Elrohir said, “We will probably shock any visiting Noldorin kin by using Sindarin as the everyday language.”
Before Tindómë had a chance to comment on the certainty with which his twin spoke of them having their own home, Elladan changed the subject.
“It is nearly time for the evening meal and it feels as if we have hardly touched on so much that we want to ask, whilst we have you to ourselves. Would you like to join us to eat? We will have food brought here so that we can continue our conversation uninterrupted.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she answered, “I’m all yours.”
“Should we send word to Rumil that you are here?” Elrohir asked.
“Nah, no need,” said Tindómë, “I often stay in the library for ages or go visit your Naneth or Eleniel to catch up on the gossip, especially now you two are here, and stay all evening. It’s not as if Rumil and I are permanently joined at the hip.”
Elladan was torn, briefly, between wondering what the gossip was about the two of them, and wanting to joke about the hips not being the parts of the hröa used in joining.
She must have seen the glint of amusement in his eye because she answered the second thought unprompted.
“We are not even permanently joined in any of the more regular ways either… it is just a saying from the other place.”
She paused and he could see her suddenly being struck by something.
“Do the edhel even have…” she used a word in the language of California that he did not recognise, “twins. Um… twins whose hröar did not form completely separated, but sort of shared bits?”
It took ten minutes and a couple of drawings for him to understand what she meant, at which point he was sure he had never heard of such a thing happening with elves, equally sure he was glad he and Elrohir had a complete hröa each, and completely distracted from what she and Eleniel might have been gossiping about concerning the two of them.
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