Yulefic: Preparing for War by Rhyselle
Author name: Rhyselle
Recipient's name: Keilisse
Title: Preparing for War
Rating: G
Request: 8. elves, second age, mild slash - Erestor/elf, taking place as the Last Alliance army prepares to leave Imladris.
Author's notes: (optional) - I hope that Keillisse will forgive me for not making this overtly slash. I just can’t write slash. I hope that a story of a deep and Ages-long friendship will still be satisfactory. Approx 2,200 words.
Beta: (optional) Kaylee (first beta) and oxbastetxo (second beta)
Summary: The old tales glorify those who march to war. But what about those who help them prepare to go, and must await their return? A somewhat angsty friendship story starring Erestor and Elrond.
PREPARING FOR WAR
By Rhyselle
Winter Solstice, 3430 S.A.
Erestor tidied up his stacks of notes and made sure that his inkwell was sealed while Elrond, Gil-galad, Celeborn, and Elendil started to take their leave of Imladris’ small conference room. It had been a productive meeting, he supposed, getting to his feet with a handful of documents, and was then surprised when the mortal King slapped him on the shoulder, remarking jovially, “It’s nigh on time to stop being a scribe and take up your old mantle of warrior once more, eh, Erestor? Ereinion and Elrond were telling me all about your prowess during the War of Wrath.”
Erestor never remembered what he’d said in response, but when the four had departed from the room, he realized that his hands were shaking, rattling the parchments together so that he couldn’t read what he’d written thereon.
He dropped the notes back on the desk’s polished surface and wrapped his arms around himself, seeking calm so that he could go out amongst the household and none would see just how unsettled he was.
* * * *
That night the Path of Dreams took him back to the past, before the end of the First Age, and into nightmare.
He was an aide to King Gil-galad, assigned to assist Elrond in his duties as Herald. He was never expected to be at the forefront of battle, but remained with the non-combatants--healers, supply sergeants, and the civilian mortal adults and children whom the army had rescued from captivity as it had moved through the lands of Morgoth’s control. Assigned to supervise the camp while the troops went into battle, he was armed, but never expected to have to use the beautiful blade that had been a gift from his Peredhel friend.
And then, a large squad of orcs and swarthy men had somehow slipped behind the lines and attacked the camp, looking to seize the baggage train and field hospital.
Terror. Screams. Blood. Death.
Red and black blood mingled on the muddy ground as the enemy fought the healers who refused to leave the wounded, who were unable to flee, and the mortals who could not outrun them. Erestor raced to defend them, the lessons learned on the training grounds of his youth coming to the fore. The mithril blade sang in the air as he joined a half-dozen semi-ambulatory warriors to cut down their adversaries.
One by one his companions fell, until it was he who was the only one between the enemy and their prey. He fought, all sense of time gone, his blade growing heavier in his hands as exhaustion claimed him. Finally, one of his parries was too slow and an enemy sword got through, catching him across the side of the head with the flat of the blade. . Another crashed down into his shoulder. He cried out in pain and despair, knees buckling beneath him. "Elrooonnnnnd!”
As he fell into darkness, he thought he heard a beloved voice cry out in roar of rage which mingled with the sound of trumps and clashing steel.
Erestor snapped to wakefulness, his ears echoing with the last of his outcry, gasping for breath in the darkness of his bedroom. He was tangled in the bedclothes, his heart pounding furiously.
A sliver of light appeared and widened as the door to his sitting room opened to admit Elrond, a candle-lamp in his hand. “Erestor?” Elrond’s worried eyes met his. “Are you all right?”
“D-dream,” the seneschal managed to get out as he struggled to sit up.
Elrond settled on the bed next to him, setting the candle on the bedside table, helping to detangle trembling limbs, and drawing Erestor to lean against his shoulder. “The one about the attack on the camp?” At Erestor’s nod, he felt Elrond’s arms tighten around him before the Peredhel let him go enough to look him in the face. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had it this bad.”
“I-I know.” Erestor fought to get his breathing and heart rate back under control and eventually was able to sit back with a sigh, but not entirely freeing himself from Elrond’s embrace. “It was worse than usual. Tonight… tonight you didn’t get there in time.”
He watched Elrond close his eyes for a long moment.
“I almost didn’t back then, Erestor.”
They sat in silence for a while, then Elrond said, “This afternoon, Elendil didn’t mean that you should be fighting with the armies.”
“It certainly sounded like it. Everyone will think I’m a coward for not going!” Erestor couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice, and he looked away, only to have Elrond’s fingers gently pull his face back towards him.
“No! Who else but you would I trust with the well-being of this valley? Who else would I trust to ensure that the refugees of Ost-en-Edhil were cared for; that all we’ve built together would be sustained? That the wives and heirs of the kings are guarded in their absence? Who else but you could I make my regent? You’ve filled the place in my heart that has gaped since Elros chose to take the Gift of Men. You have been as a brother to me for longer than I can say.”
Elrond took in a deep breath and continued unsteadily, “I must go to war, but I need to know that Imladris will be protected while I’m gone. I… I need to know that I have someone I trust to take all whom I hold dear here to the West should things go ill in the East.”
Stunned, Erestor gazed into Elrond’s grey eyes and just barely heard him add in the faintest of whispers, “I need to know that you will survive, my dearest, best, friend, even if I do not.”
* * * *
Spring Equinox, 3431 S.A.
The Hall of Fire was packed with the captains and sergeants of the various elements of the army that had been encamped in the valley for the past two years. Although the musicians were playing requested tunes interspersed between the offerings of poets and storytellers, the babble of continued dinner-time conversations discussing the forthcoming campaign overrode the entertainment.
Erestor wove his way through the chamber, searching for Elrond, who had inexplicably vanished at the end of the evening meal.
Gil-galad, he saw, was seated near the great hearth, drinking from a bejeweled tankard, and elbowing High King Elendil the Tall, who sat at his side, as they shared an apparent jest. Isildur glowered sullenly at them from his place nearby. The younger king’s suggestion at the afternoon’s strategic planning conference that a select group of warriors sneak into Morder to assassinate Annatar while the army kept his attention occupied by a siege had been shot down by the more experienced warriors.
The Seneschal, playing scribe for that meeting, had kept his tongue behind his teeth, as the suggestion was argued back and forth until the so-called voices of reason won out. He personally thought that it actually wasn’t as bad an idea as the conventional generals thought.
Beren and Luthien, using stealth and guile, had been the only ones successful in obtaining a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown ever, despite all the prior wars that had been fought to do so. It had taken vast armies, led by a Maia, forty-two years to finally get the other two--to finally destroy Morgoth’s power over Beleriand--and it had forever changed the face of Arda in the doing. It wasn’t his part to speak up, though, and so he had kept writing down the final plans upon which the war leaders decided.
A headache was beginning to throb behind his eyes as he wandered the room. Picking up pieces of arguments and conversations, and he hoped that he would find Elrond soon.
“We need more smiths. Even our most sturdy blades will require repair if this is anything like the battles I fought during the War of Wrath…”
“Ost-en-Edhil will be avenged if I have anything to say about it…”
“Why don’t they split the armies? King Gil-galad can take his Elven warriors over the passes now, before the snow melts and before the orcs come out, and meet up with troops from Lorinand and Greenwood. They can set a line of defense that we can reinforce by taking the southern route …”
“It’s stupid to travel before mid-summer. What will the armies eat? There won’t be anything to gather living off the land and the peasants will have used up most of their winter reserve…”
Erestor found himself trapped between two groups of mortal officers, and it took all the diplomacy he’d learned in the years working as Elrond’s lead administrator to extricate himself gracefully when various factions enlisted his support of their opinions.
Haven’t they had enough talking and arguing about the war all day? he wondered, wishing for some peace. He finally made it to one of the hall’s side entrances, and ducked out into the dimly lit corridor beyond--and immediately ran right into someone in a hooded cloak who was hurrying down the hallway. As he and the other staggered at the impact, they grabbed at each other to keep from falling.
“I’m sorry,” Erestor apologized as he got his bearings and stepped back.
He heard a familiar chuckle, and saw Elrond’s smiling face appear as the hood was thrown back.
“No, Erestor, I’m sorry. I was hoping to get outside without being noticed,” Elrond apologized in a whisper.
Drawing himself up in an attempt to regain his dignity and composure, Erestor nodded at the explanation. “If you’ll excuse me, then; --“ he began, to cut off when Elrond took him by the arm.
“Come with me.”
Erestor looked into Elrond’s grey eyes and realized that a long absent spark of mischief was there, and he began to smile back. “Let me get my cloak. I’ll meet you at the gazing point.”
* * * *
The pair spent half the night on the rim of the valley, gazing skyward and pointing out planets, constellations, and sporadic falling stars to each other, as well as sharing comfortable silences born of their long companionship.
“It’s been far too long since we’ve done this,” Elrond commented, handing his silver flask over to Erestor. He rubbed his eyes. “I should feel guilty for indulging myself tonight. I still need to review the status of the tithe barns to see how much we can afford to take from the food stocks for the army to travel on--”
“Please! No more talk of this Valar-benighted war!” Erestor erupted, abruptly putting the flask on the ground with a thump. “Not tonight! Can’t we have at least one night where we can think and talk of something else--anything else?” His voice changed from anger to quiet desperation as his dreadful memories of the War of Wrath and his fears for the future roiled up yet again, turning his anger into tears. “You leave in less than a week.”
* * * *
Four days past the Spring Equinox, 3431 S.A.
Erestor watched the last members of the mixed army disappear into the newly-leafed trees, leaving behind the churned up ground where neat rows of tents had sheltered them over the winter. Eldar and Edain alike were finally gone after the long months of preparation for a war of necessity, marching south and, ultimately, west. To Morder.
He found himself shuddering at the thought of what was to come. He had too many terrible memories of the destruction of Ost-en-Edhil to feel sanguine about the future success of the mission. In what felt like a moment of prescience, he knew that far fewer would return to the hidden valley, if any. Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, friends, lovers might not come back to their families. He felt an awful pang in his heart. He might not come back. He might be lost to me.
“Erestor, you’ve stood out here for hours. Didn’t you notice that it’s been raining?”
The soft question startled him from the horrific path his thoughts were taking. Erestor turned to find Celebrian, daughter of Lord Celeborn, behind him, offering a grey cloak. The others who had come out to see the men depart were gone, returned to pick up the threads of life as best they could without them. “They’re all out there, marching in it,” he told her.
She sighed and shook her head. “By now, they’d have started to make camp for the night. They’ll be lucky to make ten miles a day, with having to keep to a speed that the Edain can match. Mother asks if you will preside at the evening meal, or should she ask the kitchen to send something to your rooms?”
Erestor pulled the proffered cloak over his shoulders, and shook his head. Already Celeborn’s ambitious wife was attempting to take up the reins of the valley’s governance. But it was not she who had been appointed the regent to the Peredhel’s realm, and he’d need to make sure she understood that sooner rather than later.
As he moved to take the path that led to the Last Homely House, he noticed that Celebrian, too, looked longingly back over her shoulder to where the armies had gone. It seemed that he was not the only one who desperately prayed that a certain someone would return home again.
The End
A/N: Erestor's dream was inspired by the scene at the end of Shakespeare's "Henry V" when the French attack the non-combatants in the English camp.