And in darkness, light by AdmirableMonster  

Rededication

He stood beneath the pines of Rivendell, with the wind in his face.  Smoke on the wind, the faint sharp scent of early autumn.  He felt foolish.  He was a seneschal and keeper of letters, sometime librarian, now.  The Elf he had been when last he had spoken these words had been dead for millennia: a wild hunter, a vicious-willed, careless warrior.

Yet death, sacrifice, and rebirth were all a part of the Hunter’s domain.

Glorfindel sat cross-legged a little way off, face turned into the wind as well, not speaking.  He looked calm, eyes shut, a faint smile on his face.  It was all different.  Everything was all different.  All the Elves of Imladris had emerged from that final battle changed, if they had emerged at all.  Elrond’s sharp edges were sharper than ever, though he made an effort to swaddle them away in concern and caring, hiding in the shape of a leader the way his foster-father had done before even the Sun rose.  Glorfindel, somehow, was calmer.  Erestor himself—

He didn’t know.  He thought he’d lost something in the murky waters they had waded through to leave the dead lands, but it might be that what he had lost was something he had needed to lose for a long time.

Shivering, he put his arms about his shoulders.  He could not speak a formal oath.  Not anymore, no matter how ritualized.  He had thought about it, he had wrestled with himself and considered it, but now that he stood here in the wind, he knew the words could not pass his lips.  Instead, shivering intensifying, he said, “My lord.  I failed.  I’m sorry.”

The wind caressed his face and dropped a few leaves in his hair.  Erestor stood there for several moments longer, continuing to feel like a fool, and then he turned away and let Glorfindel’s arms open to envelop him.