For Red_Lasbelin: "Reunion" (Haldir/Erestor, PG)
Title: Reunion
Author kenazfiction
Category: FPS, Haldir/Erestor
Rating PG.
Disclaimer. These characters are the property of J.R.R. Tolkien Estates, and I have merely borrowed these names for the story.
Summary: While Elrond awaits a reunion with his sons, Erestor awaits the coming of an old friend.
Notes: For red_lasbelin, who requested "something about a love that's been there for a long time."
The boy at my doorstep brought the smell of brine with him to my threshold, and I met him with my heart in my throat. His presence meant only one thing: news. Whether the news be good or ill… well, that remained to be seen.
When we arrived in Valinor, Elrond declined Finarfin’s offer of a stately home near to his own in Tirion in favor of a more humble abode in Alqualondë, close to the harbor. Celebrian departed her grandsire’s house with a small and loyal retinue and joined him there, as did I. We would watch (at first discreetly, then less so) for the great beacon on Tol Eressëa to part the sea-brume with its glow, the signal that ships from Endor were in sight, the signal for the harbor at Alqualondë to make ready. On those nights, his spirit made restive by the light of Avallónë, Elrond would pace away the dark hours and the shift of the tides- not in his own rooms, mind. He did not wish to trouble his lady with his agitation, nor add his own fears to her own. No, he would seek my company, the line between my duties and our friendship long since blurred, and we would pass the night playing at games of strategy, or simply sitting together, waiting. At first light, he would be off, down to the harbor, wearing a rut in the last of the great marble steps leading to the promenade, watching for his sons, or, failing that, waiting for some word for them.
Later, when Elladan and Elrohir dispatched a letter bearing the tale of Arwen’s final days, with no inkling given of their own intentions, Elrond stopped meeting the ships, and sent me in his stead.
Later still, when we had had no news from them at all, I, too, ceased my discouraging vigils and gave the harbormaster coin to make sure the fastest of his scampering rope-rats should hurry to me with any news from any ship addressed to my lord. And though many years had passed since then, my coin had been apparently generous enough to keep the memory of our bargain fresh in his mind.
The boy held out the tightly-folded paper and I knew at a glance whence it had come; there was no mistaking the strange scrawl, and my breath caught to see it, my heart seizing for an instant before regaining its rhythm. My mind’s eye conjured the awkward arch of the writer’s arm curling in on itself, as if to guard the words spooling from his pen-nib. Fëanáro Curufinwë had been left-handed, as had Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. Sterner parents chastised children who favored their sinister hands, kinder parents inveigled with praise and sweets to use the right, and in the main, these methods worked: Elvish children are quick to learn.
But Haldir, I imagined, would have ignored the punishments and refused the treats out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Or perhaps he would have borne the punishments and taken the sweets, and just gone back to his own way of doing things until his parents and tutors tore out their hair in defeat. That would have been more like him.
Haldir had been a man, though still rather a young one, when first I met him. Only a courier, then, but trusted by Celeborn and Galadriel with their most sensitive messages. He carried himself in no wise like a mere courier, however. He neither bowed, nor looked away with bland indifference as he pulled parcels of letters from his pack. Further, he refused to relinquish his messages to any but Elrond, and I took umbrage at his arrogance and refused him entry to my lord’s chambers. This served only to goad him into further stubbornness. But his was a cool mulishness, laced through with mischief, not the heat of scalded pride. He grew neither defensive nor defiant at my instance and my awaiting palm, but rather, he seemed amused by it, as if he was curious to see if he could out-wait me or irritate me into submission. He can be an excessively patient man- when it suits his interests.
But I did not know that then; I knew only that this infuriating upstart was withholding important documents under the guise of protocol, and damn his eyes, I would not let him win. No doubt he believed he could get far on his looks and cheek alone. No doubt he *did* get far. But I fancied myself too clever to be taken in by a handsome face. And it was handsome. Not fine, and not fair in the way of Elrond or his sons or Glorfindel, but... handsome. It would probably continue to be handsome even with the bloody nose I wished to give it. Eventually, a brief nod had marked his concession, and he had pulled the letters from his pack. I snatched them up, fearing that he would pull away and leave me grasping at air. The glint in his eye told me he had considered it. Bloody bastard.
“If you’re going to play messenger,” he had drawled as I turned to go, “you may as well take this, too.”
He had pulled the note from his cloak rather than his pack, addressed to my lord’s sons, and penned in the most atrocious scribble I had ever seen. I bemoaned aloud the disgraceful state of scrivenery amongst our careless youth and watched the wry bending of his lips.
“I’m afraid that’s mine,” he said, though clearly Haldir of Lorien had never been afraid of anything, least of all my caviling. I felt utterly foolish- and annoyed that he had so easily wrong-footed me, laying snares where I least thought to look.
But that had been another time, another land, another life.
Now I stared fixedly at the wax seal until the lad who delivered it cleared his throat. Not a patient courier nor a player of waiting games, this child of Ulmo with salt-twisted hair and a fair face bronzed by the sun. Fair, but not handsome. I gave him a silver coin and sent him on his way.
My fingers brushed the seal. Did I dare? Letters from the Hither Shore were as infrequent as the ships traversing the Straight Road, and communication flowed in only one direction. And there were, each new arrival warned us grimly, very few ships left. The way would not remain open forever.
Propriety be damned. I split the wax. If the letter held the news for which I hoped, my lord would forgive my impertinence in his joy; and if the letter held the news I feared, my incursion into his privacy would be the smallest of his griefs.
I took a breath, and I read:
My Lord Elrond:
I write to inform you that I journey even now to Mithlond with your wayward sons in my keeping, their most solemn word at long last given that they will board Legolas’ ship and take their place among the Firstborn, under threat of grievous bodily harm. Look for us near Midsummer.
I am your most humble and obedient your servant
Below that bit of impudence, the sigil passing for Haldir’s signature.
And further below, a post-script:
Legolas brings the Dwarf. Consider yourself forewarned.
I’ll not lie; the noise escaping my lips was far closer to a giggle than I am pleased to admit, and yet how else could I respond? The bloody bastard had done it: he was bringing the sons of Elrond home, and had harangued, harassed, browbeaten, or in some other wise cajoled them into claiming the immortal life of the Elves- a feat their own father had failed to secure ere he sailed. And he had done it with the complete irreverence for which he was both praised and cursed.
With a lightness I had not felt in many years, I flew from my rooms in search of Elrond.
~~ * ) ( * ~ ~
As dusk fell on the eve of Midsummer, I heard my name reverberating in the corridors. I threw wide my window and looked out toward the water through twilight’s violet veil. The beacon of Tol Eressëa glowed in the distance, as full of hope and portent as a harvest moon. I had not heard such joy in Elrond’s voice in more years than I dared reckon- and for this, if nothing else, I owed much to Haldir. Celebrian, too, beamed with a felicity I had all too rarely seen in her, and though she wore her joy more subtly than her spouse, it radiated through her very skin. We passed the night, we three, simmering in anticipation. Too distracted for games, we returned again and again to the window to assure ourselves the light had not been a trick of our imaginations, and drank the second-best bottle from Elrond’s vintage. The best had been reserved for such a time as Elrond could share it with his sons. We would open it tomorrow.
The night passed no more swiftly for our excitement than it ever had in our dread, but when darkness gave way to dawn, Elrond, Celebrian, and I made haste to the quay. Celeborn and Galadriel had arrived before us, of course, two white trees planted in the pearly sand. When the White Lady took Celebrian in her arms and embraced her fiercely, I looked away. Galadriel knew all too well the pain of separation, the interminable parting from a child, and the joy of reunion. I had not known, nor could I have fathomed, the depths of their grief… but then, neither had I known the peak of their joys. I wondered if this would always be so.
The tide turned, and with it came the great grey prow of an unfamiliar ship, sturdy and seaworthy, but lacking, perhaps, in some of the grace and spectacle of Círdan’s vessels. But no matter: it had sailed from Endor, and as I squinted to scan its rough-hewn decks, I found, two dark heads and two fair poised at the bow, and cared little for the shape of the ship, nor or any of its cargo beyond the incalculable treasure my eyes had already glimpsed.
I held back, cast adrift when the passengers disembarked. I was not family; this was not my moment to claim. The tears shed here were private tears, the whispered intimacies meant for others’ ears. Haldir, too, stood aloof, and in the same moment I had made this observation, I made another: he was looking at me quite boldly. After a moment, he sidestepped the thronging reunion and made his way toward me. Part of me wished to rush forward and embrace him, but I faltered in my confidence and did not move; he did not strike me as a man receptive to public displays, be they of affection or any other bold emotions.
Even so, as he approached, I might have sworn for an instant that his impulse had been the same- to lunge toward me and grip me fast. In the end, he said only, “Erestor. My friend.”
But on his lips, the words very nearly sounded like a sigh.
“Haldir, late of Endor, welcome!” And what else could I do but smile? I thought I might never stop.
We walked, without purpose, up the steps and toward the promenade overlooking the water. We did not speak; out of the corner of my eye I watched him take in the sights of his new home: the bright spires of Tirion rising from the Pelóri, the snow-capped peaks of Taniquetil defying the Summer heat. Perhaps it looked to him as it had to me, a place both foreign and familiar. He did not turn his head toward the water. Of the great blue sea, I wagered, he’d seen enough.
In the years since our initial acquaintance, Haldir had risen high in Elrond’s esteem, and, of course, in Celeborn’s, and Celeborn often sent him ranging either overtly or covertly to learn the movements and measures of friend and foe alike. I had ceased to forestall his entry into Elrond’s chambers, yet he always sought me out, and we would walk together, sometimes falling into a flurry of conversation, other times rambling in amiable silence. He frequently chose the steep trail leading to a sharp outcropping of rocks high above the Bruinen where he would bask in the river’s raucous roar and in the view of the mountains and the sea beyond.
“I did not think a courtier in fine robes would be up to the task,” he admitted the first time we had reached the summit. “I wondered if I would have to carry you part of the way.”
I suppose his words had rankled my pride, for I had responded with asperity. “Just because I no longer serve with a sword does not mean I have never done so.” Had I been of a mind, I could have lifted my robes to show the deep cleft through my calf, the souvenir of the Dagorlad which had nearly cost me my leg, and which had abruptly put an end to my soldiering career, but my anger had hobbled me, and I did nothing other than cast him a dark look. My anger, perhaps, was disingenuous, for I did not miss the incessant vacillation between fear and tedium which marks a soldier’s life, and I gave Elrond greater service with my mind than I had ever have given him with my sword.
Haldir had flushed and sketched a curt bow. “Forgive me. I assumed, and I should not have.”
The earnestness of his apology disarmed me and my ire was lost. I suggested perhaps he should warn me next time, so that I might wear more appropriate shoes. And thereafter he always did.
I had considered inviting him to my room that night, and many others. That I desired more of his company than perambulation and conversation… well, that has never been in doubt. But always something stopped me. Perhaps I feared I misread his interest, or I feared it inappropriate for Elrond’s councillor to take up with his law-father’s courier. As time passed, I told myself I should not because I would somehow prove a distraction from his duties, or he a distraction from mine. He would always seek me on his last night in Imladris, no matter the lateness of the hour, and we would greet the dawn together. But only ever talking. Sometimes I thought he sensed my longing, felt the hum of the air between us, but wanted me to concede, to admit the attraction first. I don’t supposed it ever occurred to me that he might have feared my rejection; I could not imagine Haldir fearing anything. It brought to mind our earliest encounter, his attempt to claim victory through attrition. As I have said, he could be a very patient man when it suited his interests, damn him. A thousand excuses I made, a thousand points of benighted pride, and a thousand opportunities denied.
A thousand regrets hounded me, and they hound me still.
When he ventured abroad, he sent the occasional brief note to Elladan and Elrohir, but he did not write to me. Not that he had struck me as a man of who put stock overmuch in words. He certainly cared little for the art of forming them. But then parcels began to arrive for me bearing no mark beyond my name in that ungainly script of his containing unexpected tokens: a wooden cellar of pink salt from the southern seas, seeds from strange plants in far-flung places. Little things. Stories of journeys best told without words. I found myself itching for them, and for him. My yearning was a strange tendril rooted in my gut and spreading through my limbs like the slow unfurling of the nameless seeds he sent from nameless places.
I had no name for this place inside myself, either.
Later, his work became more clandestine still, and more dangerous. He would appear and disappear under cover of darkness, and even I would not know anything of it until I would be summoned to Elrond’s council chambers and find him bent over some map he had drawn, depicting the mustering places of the enemy or nests of Yrch. When I would raise an eyebrow at the dimensionless images and warped perspectives, he would snort. “It’s perfectly serviceable. Elrond’s men are more than familiar with this terrain; it needn’t be to scale.” Which, for all practical purposes, was true. I supposed we needn’t have worried if they fell into enemy hands. After all, no one would recognize anything in them.
When the days darkened, toward the end, he left Lorien no more; its defense had become his most important task, and he had become Celeborn’s most trusted captain. Later, I would hear story after story of his valor, of his indefatigable will in the face of relentless fire and foe. Celeborn, never one for lavishing laurels on anyone, sang Haldir’s praises the loudest. But in the immediate aftermath, no messengers could be spared to send word, and I learned only through Elrond’s gift of Sight that Celeborn and Galadriel had not perished, and that Lothlorien had withstood three assaults from Dol Guldur at great cost. Of Haldir, I heard nothing.
Weeks passed, and the delicate fronds I had cultivated in my heart had all but perished for lack of hope when a courier arrived with a small parcel bearing my name in that horrid, endearing scratch. The rumpled packet held the broken shaft of an Orcish arrow, and at the very edge of the paper, the smudged print of a finger the unmistakable color of dried blood. I never asked him, not even when all danger had receded and peace reigned at last, to tell me more.
And now Haldir had returned for good. He would need wander no more lest it be his own choice. Elrond would no doubt fete him as a hero and he could make of his future whatever he wished. I wondered where he would go now: Oromë’s forest, perhaps, where I had heard his brothers dwelt, with its mellyrn to remind him of his former home? Some rough hunter’s hut in the foothills of the Pelóri? And would he still send tokens from time to time to apprise me of his adventures?
Perhaps I am a chary man, ungracious, for I found myself very much wishing he would stay close so that I would not have to wait for news of him, for little trophies of his distant life.
“So. What now?”
I had not expected him to ask the very question poised on my own tongue. My answer was simple, trite.
“Whatever you wish.”
He stopped then, and when he looked at me, I saw the depth of his weariness. Had I been so tired when I had first set foot upon these shores? I think we must all have been, all of us who had lived through three ages of war. But my days had changed little, truth be told; Elrond’s need of me remained much as it ever had been, if less urgent. But with his final task successfully completed, Haldir’s days were at last his own, and he was at a loss as to what to do with them.
As my own life has in the main been given over to arranging the affairs of others, to the determination of strategies and the marshalling of resources, it seemed a natural thing for me take this situation in hand. “There is a lovely little inn off the high street. It isn’t fancy, but I think it quite homely, and their rates are more than fair. I am well acquainted with its keeper, and his wife, Éde, is a delight.” Valinor-born Teleri, they had a deft touch at welcoming newcomers and providing friendly and unobtrusive guidance. Several had been so taken with their hospitality that they had become permanent lodgers. And while I did not think Haldir’s tenure there would be overlong, it seemed as good a place as any for him to acclimate himself.
That the inn stood near to my own house was incidental. A matter of convenience. Or so I told myself.
I gestured toward the high street. “Let’s get you settled there and I’ll have your bags sent up from the ship. Éde will fix you a good meal and sing you her welcome-song, you can have a good, hot soak, take a nap in a bed that doesn’t swing from a beam, and I will fetch you for dinner. Elrond will be expecting us both; the last remaining bottle of Dorwonian on these shores is waiting.”
He said not a word as I led him away from the water, but I recognized the expression on his face as one of gratitude.
~~ * ) ( * ~ ~
When I arrived for him later in the evening, I found him ensconced at a long, burnished table in the tavern with Éde, his hands folded around a mug of small-ale, laughing at some story she had been telling. A day of rest and Éde’s easy company had done him good, and he looked comfortable in his skin once more. He rose when he took notice of me, and I found I could not quite decipher the small smile ghosting his lips, inscrutable, like a drawing on his maps which might have been one thing, or might have been another. After all this time, the man was as difficult to read as his writing.
“Don’t keep him out too late, Master Erestor,” Éde called after us. Her laughter carried over the threshold and into the evening air.
“You were right,” Haldir said with a more legible grin. “I rather like it there.”
“Did you doubt my taste?” I clutched my chest in mock offense. “Did Éde over-feed you? We can forego dinner and move straight to the wine, if you prefer. Though not too much, of course.”
Haldir slowed his pace and groaned half-heartedly. “Ah, yes, the Dorwonian, and the interminable toasting.”
I nodded. “I’m afraid you’ll have to put in a command performance.”
“Let them laud Legolas,” he sighed. “He is more at ease with such attention than I, and at least as much to credit for the twins’ presence here. He had not slaked his thirst for adventure, and Valinor appeared a novel quest; he sold it well. And the Dwarf Gimli proved an adequate herding dog; his axe kept the lads from wandering too far afield. I was merely the drover, lashing them on from behind.”
But I have known Elladan and Elrohir since they first drew breath, and I knew it was not so simple a task as Haldir pretended. They had ever heard the call of their Mortal blood, more so even then their father, though he claimed a larger share of it. Their souls ever seemed to yearn toward the bright, brief flame, its surging heat and the promised relief of its evanescence. Elrond had feared losing them for longer than I expect anyone realized, and had tried to force their choice ere they rode south with the Dúnedain in search of Aragorn. But not a father’s fear, nor his desperation, nor even his anger overcame a stubbornness matched only by Haldir’s own. When Elladan and Elrohir learned Arwen had made her choice, I imagine it was nigh well impossible for them to turn their backs on a similar fate. And yet, they had.
“You were tasked with bringing them home, and you did. Elrond is in your debt. You earned your keep on this, old friend.”
Haldir shook his head, laughing lightly. “No one is in my debt. I took this task because I wished to, and because they are dear to my lord Celeborn and to your lord Elrond, not because I was paid to do it. They are dear to me as well. We three have ranged far and wide in our time, and gotten into more mischief together than I should rightly admit. I could not in good conscience leave them.”
I felt my heart stutter for the space of a breath. “If they had not come, would you have stayed behind?”
He twisted the signet ring on his finger and did not answer straight away. “No,” he said at the last, “I believe I would have come to Valinor in any case. But I would have come with shame.” He snorted softly. “I would also have come with a far lighter purse.”
I punched his arm. “You said you did not take this task for money!”
“I said I took the task because I wished to; I did not say I turned down Celeborn’s gold to do it. Horses must eat, and so must I; hostlers and innkeepers must be paid for their hospitality. We could not live on air until we had purged those two of their errantry.” He shrugged equivocally. “Bounty, Guerdon. Call it what you will. Services rendered. Elladan and Elrohir notwithstanding, I have given Celeborn a lifetime of duty; I will not say no to its recompense. Besides, Celeborn ill likes being in any man’s debt, least of all his own captain’s. Now our accounts are settled, and I am a man of comfortable means...and very little else.”
We had reached the promenade very near to where our day had begun. I had brought a bottle of wine from my own cellars, along with two thick-walled goblets; the malmsey so popular in Tirion is not always readily found in Alqualondë, and the gentle breeze lilting off the sea too pleasant to cloister ourselves behind tavern walls. Besides, I did not think either of us wished for company beyond our own.
"So," I asked as I passed him a glass, "Have you considered where you will settle, or what you wish to do?" I took a sip of wine and let its sweetness play across my tongue. “All roads are open to you,” I remarked in a tone I hoped was encouraging. “You could go anywhere, do anything you wished.”
He swirled the wine in his glass and raised it; he might have been appraising its color or offering a vague salute to the sun melting over the harbor. Haldir's actions are always deliberate, if not always comprehensible to me.
"I've always wanted to take up painting. Landscapes and whatnot."
I presume myself subtle; an age or two in council chambers teaches a man a great deal, and the lesson I learned earliest and best was never to let my face show my thoughts. And yet the answer was so unexpected, and so antithetical to every perception I have ever held of Haldir that the old lesson failed me utterly. He took in my bewilderment and laughed. Uproariously.
"Perhaps portraits," he amended, his eyes narrowing as he grinned. "Shall I make a study of you, Erestor?"
I remembered his maps, the stunted horses that looked more akin to dogs, the trees and mountain ranges all out of proportion. I envisioned myself on his canvas, cross-eyed and short-necked, and it was my turn to laugh. "Be my guest," I said between snickers. "Just tell me where to sit and what to wear."
His eyebrows arched over his inscrutable grey eyes, but he said nothing, and I felt myself flush, accompanied by a surge of desire. I drained my glass swiftly. “We should be off,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse, and not my own. I rose and turned and my blood coursed through me, volatile and sweet as wine.
The clutch of his hand at my elbow sent sparks through my arm, through my body entire.
“In truth,” he said, his voice low, and his tone marked with an uncertainty I would not have thought possible in him, “I...I am lost, Erestor. Utterly. I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with myself.”
And in that instant, I set aside all my foolish fears, all my ridiculous excuses. I forgave myself a thousand foregone opportunities. “You will come home with me,” I told him. It was not a request. “Tonight, after all Dorwonian and the interminable toasts. Come home with me.”
His grip tightened on my arm. The strange buds I had been tending silently in my heart threw wide their flowers within me. When a smile opened across his face, I felt a garden of unfamiliar blooms inscribing their story-our story - across my heart in Haldir’s odd and beloved hand. When he kissed me, I could feel the words he did not speak: I have been patient long enough.
“Erestor, My friend.” Just as before, the words on his lips were like a sigh. Before he drew me near again, he chuckled, deep in his chest, and said, “My dear one… I thought you would never ask!”
Author kenazfiction
Category: FPS, Haldir/Erestor
Rating PG.
Disclaimer. These characters are the property of J.R.R. Tolkien Estates, and I have merely borrowed these names for the story.
Summary: While Elrond awaits a reunion with his sons, Erestor awaits the coming of an old friend.
Notes: For red_lasbelin, who requested "something about a love that's been there for a long time."
The boy at my doorstep brought the smell of brine with him to my threshold, and I met him with my heart in my throat. His presence meant only one thing: news. Whether the news be good or ill… well, that remained to be seen.
When we arrived in Valinor, Elrond declined Finarfin’s offer of a stately home near to his own in Tirion in favor of a more humble abode in Alqualondë, close to the harbor. Celebrian departed her grandsire’s house with a small and loyal retinue and joined him there, as did I. We would watch (at first discreetly, then less so) for the great beacon on Tol Eressëa to part the sea-brume with its glow, the signal that ships from Endor were in sight, the signal for the harbor at Alqualondë to make ready. On those nights, his spirit made restive by the light of Avallónë, Elrond would pace away the dark hours and the shift of the tides- not in his own rooms, mind. He did not wish to trouble his lady with his agitation, nor add his own fears to her own. No, he would seek my company, the line between my duties and our friendship long since blurred, and we would pass the night playing at games of strategy, or simply sitting together, waiting. At first light, he would be off, down to the harbor, wearing a rut in the last of the great marble steps leading to the promenade, watching for his sons, or, failing that, waiting for some word for them.
Later, when Elladan and Elrohir dispatched a letter bearing the tale of Arwen’s final days, with no inkling given of their own intentions, Elrond stopped meeting the ships, and sent me in his stead.
Later still, when we had had no news from them at all, I, too, ceased my discouraging vigils and gave the harbormaster coin to make sure the fastest of his scampering rope-rats should hurry to me with any news from any ship addressed to my lord. And though many years had passed since then, my coin had been apparently generous enough to keep the memory of our bargain fresh in his mind.
The boy held out the tightly-folded paper and I knew at a glance whence it had come; there was no mistaking the strange scrawl, and my breath caught to see it, my heart seizing for an instant before regaining its rhythm. My mind’s eye conjured the awkward arch of the writer’s arm curling in on itself, as if to guard the words spooling from his pen-nib. Fëanáro Curufinwë had been left-handed, as had Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. Sterner parents chastised children who favored their sinister hands, kinder parents inveigled with praise and sweets to use the right, and in the main, these methods worked: Elvish children are quick to learn.
But Haldir, I imagined, would have ignored the punishments and refused the treats out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Or perhaps he would have borne the punishments and taken the sweets, and just gone back to his own way of doing things until his parents and tutors tore out their hair in defeat. That would have been more like him.
Haldir had been a man, though still rather a young one, when first I met him. Only a courier, then, but trusted by Celeborn and Galadriel with their most sensitive messages. He carried himself in no wise like a mere courier, however. He neither bowed, nor looked away with bland indifference as he pulled parcels of letters from his pack. Further, he refused to relinquish his messages to any but Elrond, and I took umbrage at his arrogance and refused him entry to my lord’s chambers. This served only to goad him into further stubbornness. But his was a cool mulishness, laced through with mischief, not the heat of scalded pride. He grew neither defensive nor defiant at my instance and my awaiting palm, but rather, he seemed amused by it, as if he was curious to see if he could out-wait me or irritate me into submission. He can be an excessively patient man- when it suits his interests.
But I did not know that then; I knew only that this infuriating upstart was withholding important documents under the guise of protocol, and damn his eyes, I would not let him win. No doubt he believed he could get far on his looks and cheek alone. No doubt he *did* get far. But I fancied myself too clever to be taken in by a handsome face. And it was handsome. Not fine, and not fair in the way of Elrond or his sons or Glorfindel, but... handsome. It would probably continue to be handsome even with the bloody nose I wished to give it. Eventually, a brief nod had marked his concession, and he had pulled the letters from his pack. I snatched them up, fearing that he would pull away and leave me grasping at air. The glint in his eye told me he had considered it. Bloody bastard.
“If you’re going to play messenger,” he had drawled as I turned to go, “you may as well take this, too.”
He had pulled the note from his cloak rather than his pack, addressed to my lord’s sons, and penned in the most atrocious scribble I had ever seen. I bemoaned aloud the disgraceful state of scrivenery amongst our careless youth and watched the wry bending of his lips.
“I’m afraid that’s mine,” he said, though clearly Haldir of Lorien had never been afraid of anything, least of all my caviling. I felt utterly foolish- and annoyed that he had so easily wrong-footed me, laying snares where I least thought to look.
But that had been another time, another land, another life.
Now I stared fixedly at the wax seal until the lad who delivered it cleared his throat. Not a patient courier nor a player of waiting games, this child of Ulmo with salt-twisted hair and a fair face bronzed by the sun. Fair, but not handsome. I gave him a silver coin and sent him on his way.
My fingers brushed the seal. Did I dare? Letters from the Hither Shore were as infrequent as the ships traversing the Straight Road, and communication flowed in only one direction. And there were, each new arrival warned us grimly, very few ships left. The way would not remain open forever.
Propriety be damned. I split the wax. If the letter held the news for which I hoped, my lord would forgive my impertinence in his joy; and if the letter held the news I feared, my incursion into his privacy would be the smallest of his griefs.
I took a breath, and I read:
My Lord Elrond:
I write to inform you that I journey even now to Mithlond with your wayward sons in my keeping, their most solemn word at long last given that they will board Legolas’ ship and take their place among the Firstborn, under threat of grievous bodily harm. Look for us near Midsummer.
I am your most humble and obedient your servant
Below that bit of impudence, the sigil passing for Haldir’s signature.
And further below, a post-script:
Legolas brings the Dwarf. Consider yourself forewarned.
I’ll not lie; the noise escaping my lips was far closer to a giggle than I am pleased to admit, and yet how else could I respond? The bloody bastard had done it: he was bringing the sons of Elrond home, and had harangued, harassed, browbeaten, or in some other wise cajoled them into claiming the immortal life of the Elves- a feat their own father had failed to secure ere he sailed. And he had done it with the complete irreverence for which he was both praised and cursed.
With a lightness I had not felt in many years, I flew from my rooms in search of Elrond.
~~ * ) ( * ~ ~
As dusk fell on the eve of Midsummer, I heard my name reverberating in the corridors. I threw wide my window and looked out toward the water through twilight’s violet veil. The beacon of Tol Eressëa glowed in the distance, as full of hope and portent as a harvest moon. I had not heard such joy in Elrond’s voice in more years than I dared reckon- and for this, if nothing else, I owed much to Haldir. Celebrian, too, beamed with a felicity I had all too rarely seen in her, and though she wore her joy more subtly than her spouse, it radiated through her very skin. We passed the night, we three, simmering in anticipation. Too distracted for games, we returned again and again to the window to assure ourselves the light had not been a trick of our imaginations, and drank the second-best bottle from Elrond’s vintage. The best had been reserved for such a time as Elrond could share it with his sons. We would open it tomorrow.
The night passed no more swiftly for our excitement than it ever had in our dread, but when darkness gave way to dawn, Elrond, Celebrian, and I made haste to the quay. Celeborn and Galadriel had arrived before us, of course, two white trees planted in the pearly sand. When the White Lady took Celebrian in her arms and embraced her fiercely, I looked away. Galadriel knew all too well the pain of separation, the interminable parting from a child, and the joy of reunion. I had not known, nor could I have fathomed, the depths of their grief… but then, neither had I known the peak of their joys. I wondered if this would always be so.
The tide turned, and with it came the great grey prow of an unfamiliar ship, sturdy and seaworthy, but lacking, perhaps, in some of the grace and spectacle of Círdan’s vessels. But no matter: it had sailed from Endor, and as I squinted to scan its rough-hewn decks, I found, two dark heads and two fair poised at the bow, and cared little for the shape of the ship, nor or any of its cargo beyond the incalculable treasure my eyes had already glimpsed.
I held back, cast adrift when the passengers disembarked. I was not family; this was not my moment to claim. The tears shed here were private tears, the whispered intimacies meant for others’ ears. Haldir, too, stood aloof, and in the same moment I had made this observation, I made another: he was looking at me quite boldly. After a moment, he sidestepped the thronging reunion and made his way toward me. Part of me wished to rush forward and embrace him, but I faltered in my confidence and did not move; he did not strike me as a man receptive to public displays, be they of affection or any other bold emotions.
Even so, as he approached, I might have sworn for an instant that his impulse had been the same- to lunge toward me and grip me fast. In the end, he said only, “Erestor. My friend.”
But on his lips, the words very nearly sounded like a sigh.
“Haldir, late of Endor, welcome!” And what else could I do but smile? I thought I might never stop.
We walked, without purpose, up the steps and toward the promenade overlooking the water. We did not speak; out of the corner of my eye I watched him take in the sights of his new home: the bright spires of Tirion rising from the Pelóri, the snow-capped peaks of Taniquetil defying the Summer heat. Perhaps it looked to him as it had to me, a place both foreign and familiar. He did not turn his head toward the water. Of the great blue sea, I wagered, he’d seen enough.
In the years since our initial acquaintance, Haldir had risen high in Elrond’s esteem, and, of course, in Celeborn’s, and Celeborn often sent him ranging either overtly or covertly to learn the movements and measures of friend and foe alike. I had ceased to forestall his entry into Elrond’s chambers, yet he always sought me out, and we would walk together, sometimes falling into a flurry of conversation, other times rambling in amiable silence. He frequently chose the steep trail leading to a sharp outcropping of rocks high above the Bruinen where he would bask in the river’s raucous roar and in the view of the mountains and the sea beyond.
“I did not think a courtier in fine robes would be up to the task,” he admitted the first time we had reached the summit. “I wondered if I would have to carry you part of the way.”
I suppose his words had rankled my pride, for I had responded with asperity. “Just because I no longer serve with a sword does not mean I have never done so.” Had I been of a mind, I could have lifted my robes to show the deep cleft through my calf, the souvenir of the Dagorlad which had nearly cost me my leg, and which had abruptly put an end to my soldiering career, but my anger had hobbled me, and I did nothing other than cast him a dark look. My anger, perhaps, was disingenuous, for I did not miss the incessant vacillation between fear and tedium which marks a soldier’s life, and I gave Elrond greater service with my mind than I had ever have given him with my sword.
Haldir had flushed and sketched a curt bow. “Forgive me. I assumed, and I should not have.”
The earnestness of his apology disarmed me and my ire was lost. I suggested perhaps he should warn me next time, so that I might wear more appropriate shoes. And thereafter he always did.
I had considered inviting him to my room that night, and many others. That I desired more of his company than perambulation and conversation… well, that has never been in doubt. But always something stopped me. Perhaps I feared I misread his interest, or I feared it inappropriate for Elrond’s councillor to take up with his law-father’s courier. As time passed, I told myself I should not because I would somehow prove a distraction from his duties, or he a distraction from mine. He would always seek me on his last night in Imladris, no matter the lateness of the hour, and we would greet the dawn together. But only ever talking. Sometimes I thought he sensed my longing, felt the hum of the air between us, but wanted me to concede, to admit the attraction first. I don’t supposed it ever occurred to me that he might have feared my rejection; I could not imagine Haldir fearing anything. It brought to mind our earliest encounter, his attempt to claim victory through attrition. As I have said, he could be a very patient man when it suited his interests, damn him. A thousand excuses I made, a thousand points of benighted pride, and a thousand opportunities denied.
A thousand regrets hounded me, and they hound me still.
When he ventured abroad, he sent the occasional brief note to Elladan and Elrohir, but he did not write to me. Not that he had struck me as a man of who put stock overmuch in words. He certainly cared little for the art of forming them. But then parcels began to arrive for me bearing no mark beyond my name in that ungainly script of his containing unexpected tokens: a wooden cellar of pink salt from the southern seas, seeds from strange plants in far-flung places. Little things. Stories of journeys best told without words. I found myself itching for them, and for him. My yearning was a strange tendril rooted in my gut and spreading through my limbs like the slow unfurling of the nameless seeds he sent from nameless places.
I had no name for this place inside myself, either.
Later, his work became more clandestine still, and more dangerous. He would appear and disappear under cover of darkness, and even I would not know anything of it until I would be summoned to Elrond’s council chambers and find him bent over some map he had drawn, depicting the mustering places of the enemy or nests of Yrch. When I would raise an eyebrow at the dimensionless images and warped perspectives, he would snort. “It’s perfectly serviceable. Elrond’s men are more than familiar with this terrain; it needn’t be to scale.” Which, for all practical purposes, was true. I supposed we needn’t have worried if they fell into enemy hands. After all, no one would recognize anything in them.
When the days darkened, toward the end, he left Lorien no more; its defense had become his most important task, and he had become Celeborn’s most trusted captain. Later, I would hear story after story of his valor, of his indefatigable will in the face of relentless fire and foe. Celeborn, never one for lavishing laurels on anyone, sang Haldir’s praises the loudest. But in the immediate aftermath, no messengers could be spared to send word, and I learned only through Elrond’s gift of Sight that Celeborn and Galadriel had not perished, and that Lothlorien had withstood three assaults from Dol Guldur at great cost. Of Haldir, I heard nothing.
Weeks passed, and the delicate fronds I had cultivated in my heart had all but perished for lack of hope when a courier arrived with a small parcel bearing my name in that horrid, endearing scratch. The rumpled packet held the broken shaft of an Orcish arrow, and at the very edge of the paper, the smudged print of a finger the unmistakable color of dried blood. I never asked him, not even when all danger had receded and peace reigned at last, to tell me more.
And now Haldir had returned for good. He would need wander no more lest it be his own choice. Elrond would no doubt fete him as a hero and he could make of his future whatever he wished. I wondered where he would go now: Oromë’s forest, perhaps, where I had heard his brothers dwelt, with its mellyrn to remind him of his former home? Some rough hunter’s hut in the foothills of the Pelóri? And would he still send tokens from time to time to apprise me of his adventures?
Perhaps I am a chary man, ungracious, for I found myself very much wishing he would stay close so that I would not have to wait for news of him, for little trophies of his distant life.
“So. What now?”
I had not expected him to ask the very question poised on my own tongue. My answer was simple, trite.
“Whatever you wish.”
He stopped then, and when he looked at me, I saw the depth of his weariness. Had I been so tired when I had first set foot upon these shores? I think we must all have been, all of us who had lived through three ages of war. But my days had changed little, truth be told; Elrond’s need of me remained much as it ever had been, if less urgent. But with his final task successfully completed, Haldir’s days were at last his own, and he was at a loss as to what to do with them.
As my own life has in the main been given over to arranging the affairs of others, to the determination of strategies and the marshalling of resources, it seemed a natural thing for me take this situation in hand. “There is a lovely little inn off the high street. It isn’t fancy, but I think it quite homely, and their rates are more than fair. I am well acquainted with its keeper, and his wife, Éde, is a delight.” Valinor-born Teleri, they had a deft touch at welcoming newcomers and providing friendly and unobtrusive guidance. Several had been so taken with their hospitality that they had become permanent lodgers. And while I did not think Haldir’s tenure there would be overlong, it seemed as good a place as any for him to acclimate himself.
That the inn stood near to my own house was incidental. A matter of convenience. Or so I told myself.
I gestured toward the high street. “Let’s get you settled there and I’ll have your bags sent up from the ship. Éde will fix you a good meal and sing you her welcome-song, you can have a good, hot soak, take a nap in a bed that doesn’t swing from a beam, and I will fetch you for dinner. Elrond will be expecting us both; the last remaining bottle of Dorwonian on these shores is waiting.”
He said not a word as I led him away from the water, but I recognized the expression on his face as one of gratitude.
~~ * ) ( * ~ ~
When I arrived for him later in the evening, I found him ensconced at a long, burnished table in the tavern with Éde, his hands folded around a mug of small-ale, laughing at some story she had been telling. A day of rest and Éde’s easy company had done him good, and he looked comfortable in his skin once more. He rose when he took notice of me, and I found I could not quite decipher the small smile ghosting his lips, inscrutable, like a drawing on his maps which might have been one thing, or might have been another. After all this time, the man was as difficult to read as his writing.
“Don’t keep him out too late, Master Erestor,” Éde called after us. Her laughter carried over the threshold and into the evening air.
“You were right,” Haldir said with a more legible grin. “I rather like it there.”
“Did you doubt my taste?” I clutched my chest in mock offense. “Did Éde over-feed you? We can forego dinner and move straight to the wine, if you prefer. Though not too much, of course.”
Haldir slowed his pace and groaned half-heartedly. “Ah, yes, the Dorwonian, and the interminable toasting.”
I nodded. “I’m afraid you’ll have to put in a command performance.”
“Let them laud Legolas,” he sighed. “He is more at ease with such attention than I, and at least as much to credit for the twins’ presence here. He had not slaked his thirst for adventure, and Valinor appeared a novel quest; he sold it well. And the Dwarf Gimli proved an adequate herding dog; his axe kept the lads from wandering too far afield. I was merely the drover, lashing them on from behind.”
But I have known Elladan and Elrohir since they first drew breath, and I knew it was not so simple a task as Haldir pretended. They had ever heard the call of their Mortal blood, more so even then their father, though he claimed a larger share of it. Their souls ever seemed to yearn toward the bright, brief flame, its surging heat and the promised relief of its evanescence. Elrond had feared losing them for longer than I expect anyone realized, and had tried to force their choice ere they rode south with the Dúnedain in search of Aragorn. But not a father’s fear, nor his desperation, nor even his anger overcame a stubbornness matched only by Haldir’s own. When Elladan and Elrohir learned Arwen had made her choice, I imagine it was nigh well impossible for them to turn their backs on a similar fate. And yet, they had.
“You were tasked with bringing them home, and you did. Elrond is in your debt. You earned your keep on this, old friend.”
Haldir shook his head, laughing lightly. “No one is in my debt. I took this task because I wished to, and because they are dear to my lord Celeborn and to your lord Elrond, not because I was paid to do it. They are dear to me as well. We three have ranged far and wide in our time, and gotten into more mischief together than I should rightly admit. I could not in good conscience leave them.”
I felt my heart stutter for the space of a breath. “If they had not come, would you have stayed behind?”
He twisted the signet ring on his finger and did not answer straight away. “No,” he said at the last, “I believe I would have come to Valinor in any case. But I would have come with shame.” He snorted softly. “I would also have come with a far lighter purse.”
I punched his arm. “You said you did not take this task for money!”
“I said I took the task because I wished to; I did not say I turned down Celeborn’s gold to do it. Horses must eat, and so must I; hostlers and innkeepers must be paid for their hospitality. We could not live on air until we had purged those two of their errantry.” He shrugged equivocally. “Bounty, Guerdon. Call it what you will. Services rendered. Elladan and Elrohir notwithstanding, I have given Celeborn a lifetime of duty; I will not say no to its recompense. Besides, Celeborn ill likes being in any man’s debt, least of all his own captain’s. Now our accounts are settled, and I am a man of comfortable means...and very little else.”
We had reached the promenade very near to where our day had begun. I had brought a bottle of wine from my own cellars, along with two thick-walled goblets; the malmsey so popular in Tirion is not always readily found in Alqualondë, and the gentle breeze lilting off the sea too pleasant to cloister ourselves behind tavern walls. Besides, I did not think either of us wished for company beyond our own.
"So," I asked as I passed him a glass, "Have you considered where you will settle, or what you wish to do?" I took a sip of wine and let its sweetness play across my tongue. “All roads are open to you,” I remarked in a tone I hoped was encouraging. “You could go anywhere, do anything you wished.”
He swirled the wine in his glass and raised it; he might have been appraising its color or offering a vague salute to the sun melting over the harbor. Haldir's actions are always deliberate, if not always comprehensible to me.
"I've always wanted to take up painting. Landscapes and whatnot."
I presume myself subtle; an age or two in council chambers teaches a man a great deal, and the lesson I learned earliest and best was never to let my face show my thoughts. And yet the answer was so unexpected, and so antithetical to every perception I have ever held of Haldir that the old lesson failed me utterly. He took in my bewilderment and laughed. Uproariously.
"Perhaps portraits," he amended, his eyes narrowing as he grinned. "Shall I make a study of you, Erestor?"
I remembered his maps, the stunted horses that looked more akin to dogs, the trees and mountain ranges all out of proportion. I envisioned myself on his canvas, cross-eyed and short-necked, and it was my turn to laugh. "Be my guest," I said between snickers. "Just tell me where to sit and what to wear."
His eyebrows arched over his inscrutable grey eyes, but he said nothing, and I felt myself flush, accompanied by a surge of desire. I drained my glass swiftly. “We should be off,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse, and not my own. I rose and turned and my blood coursed through me, volatile and sweet as wine.
The clutch of his hand at my elbow sent sparks through my arm, through my body entire.
“In truth,” he said, his voice low, and his tone marked with an uncertainty I would not have thought possible in him, “I...I am lost, Erestor. Utterly. I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with myself.”
And in that instant, I set aside all my foolish fears, all my ridiculous excuses. I forgave myself a thousand foregone opportunities. “You will come home with me,” I told him. It was not a request. “Tonight, after all Dorwonian and the interminable toasts. Come home with me.”
His grip tightened on my arm. The strange buds I had been tending silently in my heart threw wide their flowers within me. When a smile opened across his face, I felt a garden of unfamiliar blooms inscribing their story-our story - across my heart in Haldir’s odd and beloved hand. When he kissed me, I could feel the words he did not speak: I have been patient long enough.
“Erestor, My friend.” Just as before, the words on his lips were like a sigh. Before he drew me near again, he chuckled, deep in his chest, and said, “My dear one… I thought you would never ask!”