Under Agate Skies by Isilme_among_the_stars  

---

Lothlórien

---

“It was foolish to bring him,” Erestor hears a deep, feminine voice say.

“That judgement is not yours to make,” Elrond replies.

Erestor is warm, and though pain throbs and radiates through his body still, it is not so unbearable here, in what seems a nest of soft, yielding cushion and cloth, compared to the saddle.

“I know of his condition, Elrond,” the female voice—Galadriel—goes on, condescendingly. “Did you consider that travel would test his limits past breaking point?”

Elrond exhales through his nose, short and sharp. In each other’s presence, sometimes, Elrond and Galadriel roll back the years and regress to the people they were in the First Age: fiery, shorter of patience, and stripped of the stately grace both have curated over the last six millennia. By the sound, Elrond strives to contain the impulse, bundling frustration tightly behind his words. “Do you think me so careless? Had we not encountered orcs in the mountains, he would have been tried, but not unduly so.”

There is a tense pause. Galadriel’s reply, when it comes, remains quietly furious, though restrained. “If there is one thing you are not, Elrond, it is careless, but you well knew the risk. You should not have taken it. It is he that suffers for that mistake.”

“He can hear every word you both speak,” Erestor intercedes, “and wishes it known that he makes his own decisions, foolish or otherwise.” With an effort, his eyes open blearily to dapples of olivine light. We reached the forest, he notes with relief.

“You are as foolish as one another,” Galadriel accuses. “Drink,” she tells Erestor, raising him up slightly and pressing a cup to his lips. “You have grown dehydrated.” The water is sweet and refreshing.

No matter how determinedly he strives, Erestor’s leaden limbs refuse to move. He cannot take the cup in his hands as he wishes. “How long have I slept?”

“Through the night and a better part of the day,” Elrond answers. “It is mid-afternoon. You woke briefly upon our arrival in Caras Galadhon at noon, moving from saddle to bed.” Erestor does not recall it, but that is not terribly unusual. On the worst of days time fritters away, barely remembered hours eaten by exhaustion. It is unsettling, but the disturbance is one he has learned to live with. How much of this day he will be able to recall a week hence is impossible to say.

“Eat,” Elrond urges, offering a spoonful of porridge made with ground mallorn nuts and the healthful grain usually baked into lembas. Five mouthfuls are all Erestor manages before he grows too weary to take any more.

—

East of the Misty Mountains, in a spearhead of golden forest where the violence of Wilderland is kept at bay by the vigilance and strength of the Galadhrim, lies Lothlórien. Like Imladris, it is a refuge of a kind, the beating heart of Elvendom in Middle Earth. Here, in the city ruled by Celeborn and Galadriel that sprawls from flet to flet throughout the Golden Wood, is a place of beauty, peaceful and bright, that the marching of time changes not.

Well below the great, arching canopy, among sweet swards of green littered with dainty, golden and white flowers, a pavilion has been raised for Erestor, and Erestor rests fitfully within.

“How do you fare?” inquires Celeborn.

Erestor, who has recently achieved the victory of a near upright posture after days of semi-recumbency at best, curls his mouth into an ironic smile. Ignoring the waves of dizziness threatening to necessitate a fully reclined state, he answers, “I am improving.”

“I am glad to hear it.” The Lord of Lothlórien does not leave his mantle of office at the entrance, as Elrond does, but his presence, though proper, is kind and unwearying.

Speaking, Erestor soon finds, is a mistake. His recent meal of bilberries, currants, and mallorn nuts makes a second, unwanted appearance. Celeborn quickly positions a basin to save the bedclothes while Erestor reflexively braces his aching ribs. “Do you always suffer thus, after such exertions?” he asks, setting the basin and its undesirable contents aside so that he might help a defeated Erestor lower himself once more.

“I usually avoid such exertions,” Erestor says, once the roof of the pavilion has clarified from a nauseous blur to its usual hatched weave and he is confident all that will escape from his open mouth is his voice.

Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel are more than mere acquaintances to Erestor, nor is he a stranger to them. They have traded stratagem, discussed matters of import to their respective populations at length, and enjoyed intelligent small talk on a great variety of topics. Never before, however, have either seen him so desperately unwell.

“That seems wise,” Celeborn remarks, adding carefully, “Have you not thought to seek succour across the sea?”

Erestor sighs. It is a conversation he has had before, more times than he would like, and not all interlocutors approach the topic with a curiosity respectful and mutual, as Elrond does. It is astounding, really, how opinionated many elves can be about bodies and maladies not their own, and how forcefully they will assert unwanted solutions. Though Erestor had not supposed Celeborn would number among them, for a moment he fears judgement, and an attempt to corral him towards ends he wants not. He answers firmly, “I was born in the shadow of the Misty Mountains. I am not yet ready to forsake my home.”

Judgement does not come. Instead, Celeborn slowly nods. “Neither, I think, am I. Though I do not expect Galadriel shall linger long in these lands with Sauron defeated, and his fortresses thrown down at last. There are many her heart aches to re-unite with in the West.”

“I do not believe Elrond shall linger, either, even with Arwen firmly bound to these shores,” Erestor divulges.

“No,” Celeborn agrees. “He has hinted as much. Do you intend to travel on to Minas Tirith?” Celeborn does him the courtesy of not questioning, either in word or expression, whether Erestor will be capable of such a feat when Arwen’s escort departs in four days.

“Yes, if I am able.”

“Very well. Then I shall leave you to rest. I would succour you, in any way I can, and see you healed and refreshed. Is there anything to be done?”

There is not, beyond what has already been given. Rest and time, in quantities extremely disproportionate to the inciting exertion, remain the only reliable remedies. The dreary wait may be maddening, but it is a frustration that Erestor is unfortunately accustomed to. “I have been well provided for, my Lord. You have my thanks.”

—

Lothlórien is strangely restorative in a way that differs from Imladris. Rivendell holds one close, comforting and uplifting like a warm fire, a good tale and fine, spiced mead. Lothlórien, by contrast, seems to nudge one out of the turning of time, coaxing them back to an era and place where decay and fading were not a feature of the world. Erestor has no duty to fulfil in the great city, not a single one. Between the house of Rivendell and the many from Lothlórien who will be joining their train, Caras Galadhon is flush with capable personages who joyfully carry out the meagre responsibilities Elrond had assigned to him during their travel. The one duty Erestor had taken for himself, care of Elrond, has been neatly assumed by a surfeit of law family and longtime acquaintances from Celeborn’s court. Most gatherings, whether social or pertaining to matters of state, take part high in the treetops, and Erestor, relegated to ground level, attends none and tries not to feel bitterly about this isolating state of affairs. He could not partake, even if determined to do so—too many Eldar in one place remain overwhelming during a worsening of his illness such as this—but this fact does not lessen the sting of exclusion, when much of Rivendell remains open to him in such a state, even if he cannot bear communal spaces for long.

On the day before Arwen’s escort is due to leave, by now able to walk a level half mile continuously without overwhelming vertigo or breathtaking exhaustion, Erestor takes advantage of what stamina he has regained. He ambles slowly through the trees for a time, listening to the tinkling flow of brooks and streams as they wend their way patiently toward Celebrant. Over their waters the trees bend, and in their branches can be heard birdsong: a rich chorus of many varied piping voices. These silver streams are not said to ease weariness as Nimrodel is. All the same he slips his feet into the waters and feels their cool embrace. Over pebble and stone they flow as smoothly as molten silver. Erestor’s thoughts turn from mountains and endings and begin to vibrate instead with music and linger on the ambiguous oddity of the passage of time. Turning back toward his pavilion, he revels in the beam of light that has cut through the clouds in his mind after a week of haze mercilessly choking intelligent thought.

He almost trips over Glorfindel, who kneels close by the entrance, carefully arranging Erestor’s chattels and fitting them in his bags. Tenuous, half-concluded threads of thought dissolve and are gone before he can grasp at them. They will not be caught again easily. Travel will numb his mind with the fog that comes with effort soon enough. Irritated, Erestor turns to Glorfindel and snaps, “What are you doing?”

“Helping,” Glorfindel answers matter-of-factly. “Well I know you, Chief Counsellor, and there is not a chance in Irmo’s wildest dreams you wish to remain behind. Yet I doubt you have much strength to spare. And I am familiar with your organisational preferences.”

“Glorfindel,” Erestor warns, as the bubble of peace he had drawn around himself begins to dissolve under the weight of his friend’s well-meaning, yet unwelcome, intrusion. “Had I wished for assistance packing my own things, I could have asked.”

To his credit, Glorfindel, detecting the mounting irritation in Erestor’s tone, pauses and turns to face him with an appropriately chastised look. “I apologise. I, too, could have asked.”

“You are right in one thing,” Erestor says, kneeling heavily and taking a rumpled shirt from Glorfindel’s hand.

“Is that so?”

“I do not intend to be left behind.”

This amuses Glorfindel, who chuckles heartily. Erestor is nothing if not predictable in his wilfulness, though long years of infirmity have forced him to tame that particular trait, imbuing it with a stubborn patience that makes him a formidable force in the council room.

“I will not object to your assistance,” Erestor concedes, tapping one of the bags, “if you let me lead.”

“You are determined, then?”

Erestor smiles his most stubborn smile.

A flash of undisguised concern is evident in the furrowing of Glorfindel’s brow as he sighs. That he feels conflicted is plain, yet his words are soft and sincere. “I do not think it wise, and yet, you have my support. Most certainly I shall not like the consequences, but neither must I live through them. I do not understand your choice, and yet I shall be there, for the rest of the journey and beyond, even should you become bedridden for months after.”

In truth, Glorfindel understands Erestor’s reasons better than he professes to. Well he is acquainted with the steady and intimate friendship Erestor shares with the Lord of Imladris. He bears witness, more than most, to the caring reciprocity within, and would be less shocked to find the sky torn from its high seat in the heavens than for Erestor to spurn Elrond in a time of vulnerability. What he can neither fathom nor approve, is what seems to him an unhealthy determination to remain personally present in this endeavour despite heavy cost when there are others capable and willing to provide succour. Much affection does Erestor hold for Arwen also, and yet, a few additional months in her company, marred by the miserable toll of travel, seem scarce worth the outlay to Glorfindel. 

What he can never know is the sting of missing a thousand significant moments, of being persistently sidelined from life’s adventures, of knowing all the ways in which he cannot be dependable, and watching with self-deprecating melancholy as those he loves arrange themselves to meet their need elsewhere. Ever self-sufficient, ever sacrificial Glorfindel might not baulk so if he had known such dratted helplessness too.

When the houses of Rivendell and Lothlórien set out the next day, travel, resumed before Erestor has the strength to absorb its demands adequately, is a sore trial. His broken ribs burn. Each bounce in his rouncey’s gait feels as a wicked needle stabbed into his side, breathtakingly sharp, and repeated over and over as if Erestor were no more than cloth to be sewn. He does not pity the cloth. It, at least, cannot feel the insult of the stitches forced through its weave. Worse still, even the moderate walking pace that has been set has him nauseous and light-headed. After an hour of Erestor wincing and clenching his fist around the saddle horn as if gripping it could lessen his pain, Glorfindel proposes a trade.

“I am well,” Erestor hisses before Glorfindel can utter a word, having read the compassion writ on his face. He has steeled himself for the trials of the day, but this overly plain expression of care threatens to render his resolve brittle, like poorly tempered metal.

“As I can see,” Glorfindel remarks drily. “I only thought you might appreciate a smoother ride. Asfaloth will gladly bear you.”

Gratefully, Erestor accepts. The white steed’s ambling gait is much kinder on his healing injury. Despite this, hours spent in the saddle stretch on long and uncomfortably. Finding his mood increasingly fractious, Erestor remains silent, biting back bitter words that his travelling companions deserve not. By the time that lengthening shadows and honeyed skies herald the late afternoon, and the company halts, Erestor feels little more than an abused sack of grain draped miserably over the saddle.

Quietly, Glorfindel arranges matters so that there is nothing Erestor must do except dismount, eat his fill of an evening meal cooked by others, and seek repose. Stretched out in the cool shade of a beech, the bustle and business going on about him as tents are raised, Erestor weeps exhausted tears. There is no holding them back, as much as he might resent their flow.

“Are you troubled?” Glorfindel asks, handing him something fragrant and warm, steaming in its bowl, that Erestor finds he has little taste for.

“No, only worn. And I feel of no use, which I little like.”

“Rest,” Glorfindel soothes. “I will see to all else. If you can find one person in this entire camp who will argue for your uselessness, not against, I shall be very surprised. No one need prove their worth with deeds at all times. You will recover yourself again, in time.”

It is a slippery sentiment to hold in mind, yet Erestor tries. Thumbing the piece of azurite still kept in his pocket, thoughts of its dormant potential tumble through his mind. It was destined for grand purposes once, to colour the end of a fine artist’s brush, to paint sun-bathed seas and twilit skies. That, it never did. And yet, as the worn-smooth faces attest, it has not been without use. Metal, perhaps, provides a better analogy to cling to. For a damaged sword blade may be annealed and reformed into something new, and a bronze pot dented beyond use melted and recast.

That night he dreams of his mother collecting scraps of precious metals from forge-room floors in Eregion. Carefully her deft fingers sort twists and splinters. Staring into the flickering flames of the fire by which he sleeps, Erestor sees her melt and recast them into ingots, ready and waiting to be used. Visions of his father follow, his indigo-stained hands lowering lengths of linen into a bath of madder. The fibres, he explains, must rest in the dye for a time, before they emerge rich red and ready to be sewn.

Erestor rises late. The next day is much the same as the last, and so the days go on.

—

Summer creeps steadily toward the land as Erestor stands at the threshold between Lothlórien’s bounds and the wide world, gazing across the polished-sheen waters of the Limlight to the weary miles ahead as the large company begins to ford the river. Gone are misty, chill mornings of spring, replaced by balmy warmth, like to a workshop with kindled forge. The sky shining jubilantly above is fluorite-clear and very bright. Minas Tirith seems impossibly far.

“Strange,” Celeborn muses beside him, “to bask in the first blush of summer when in my heart it is Winter that approaches, for Lothlórien, my home.”

Plagued, already, by sour awareness of the dread days of exhaustion yet to come, and sympathetic to the dissonance of bleakness set against warmth, Erestor offers a grim smile in solidarity.

“You put on a stoic face, Erestor, yet I think you are not quite so recovered as you wish to seem. This journey is a sore trial, I believe.”

“I have no wish to bemoan that which I have, of my own free will, chosen.”

“No, and yet, if I am not mistaken, you teeter on the edge of despair at the thought of the road stretching before your feet. I am well acquainted with failing hope, Counsellor. I was there when Eregion fell, and Doriath long before. Too many times have I seen the look you presently wear on the faces of others.”

“And yet, walk this road I will.”

“The famous determination of Rivendell’s Chief Counsellor turns to problems other than matters of state, I see,” Celeborn jests lightly, wearing a fond expression as he produces a vial, filled with ground, organic matter that Erestor does not recognise. “I offered, some days ago, to help you if I might. This will not serve to restore you, but may hold off the effects of depletion, for a time, until you are better placed to shoulder them. If relied upon too heavily, it can cause one to spend their strength more quickly than they ought. However, if used sparingly, it may render the journey tolerable, and allow your full presence upon our arrival. Elrond will not offer it, for he is already wracked with guilt regarding your present sufferings, and nor will Galadriel, for she holds to the opinion that you both acted in folly and will not enable what she sees as further foolishness. Both were of a mind to order you remain behind, and might have, if it were not for Lord Glorfindel.”

“And yet, you offer it.”

“You are equipped to make your own decisions, foolish or otherwise, are you not? And, I would not see you suffer for them needlessly, nor your goals thwarted.”

“My thanks,” says Erestor, accepting the gift and tucking it securely away. He does not think to use it, for he trusts Elrond too well to gainsay his wisdom so lightly, and yet there is a comfort in possession of an aid that might be tried at the uttermost end of need.

—

The procession of the combined houses of Rivendell and Lothlórien, owing to its great size, moves at a stately pace. But travel, no matter how slow, does not afford Erestor the rest his body requires. He stagnates, like a still pond caught in an algae’s chokehold, and cannot renew even a small portion of strength. Each day remains a miserable plod. Sunup to sundown Erestor takes to the saddle and shelters within the fuzzy hollows of his mind, taking little notice of the world as it passes. The cost of each small endeavour magnifies, but Erestor has little capacity to recalculate, let alone budget, and with every action haemorrhages strength. On the worst of days, laying aside his dignity, he cedes to Glorfindel, who sits behind the saddle as a bolster so that he need no longer hold the weight of his body upright alone. Erestor’s mood becomes bleak as slate, and that bleakness is unyielding as granite.

Still, there are beautiful moments. Once his ribs are sufficiently improved, Erestor rides ahead on some days, bargaining on expending more energy per mile in trade for less hours in the saddle. It helps. On one such afternoon, as the hot wind blows from the south, Erestor lays with Elrond amid the long, golden grasses of the Wold as waves ripple through their stalks, rendering them a living sea. They peer up at clouds huddling in turquoise skies, like crystobalite clusters in obsidian, and laugh like children.

“I am glad you are here,” Elrond says. “Though I don’t know that I should be.”

“I am glad to have come,” Erestor assures him, squeezing his arm, and self-blame softens from Elrond’s eyes.

Arwen, having thoroughly had her fill of fawning attention, convinces Glorfindel to race through the rippling grass seas one day and Erestor watches as their hair trails behind like golden and sable pennons. Asfaloth flies past Arwen’s palfrey each and every time but neither pay this much mind, for the true joy is in carefree hours which stream exultantly past as warm and wild as the wind.

Flushed and happy, Arwen catches Erestor’s wistful smile. “’Tis a shame you cannot join us.”

Oh, how good it once felt to gallop carefree across fields and hills. Such pleasure is indeed a shame to forgo, and yet, it is no small thing to find himself in the wide world. And if the joys Erestor grasps must in part be vicarious, they are no less precious. Near veraciously Erestor answers, “For once, Evenstar, I am in the midst of things and find myself content.”

Bolstered at the last by Celeborn’s gift, Erestor rides beside Glorfindel under sapphire skies on Midsummer’s Eve, sitting tall and proud in his saddle. Down the Northway toward Minas Tirith they come. Before them golden light from the West burnishes the white city in bronze and flickers along the silver banner Elladan and Elrohir bear as it flutters in the cool breeze. The scent of summer blossoms carries in the air. Erestor can think of nothing so fitting as the city walls draw near and he turns to watch Arwen approach. Her hair is set with white gems that shine in the gloaming, first of all the stars that will soon bloom with the approaching night. Aragorn, tall and regal and with a look of such affection on his face that it is lit with more warmth than the boughs of the trees in the enchanted hour following dawn, takes her hand in his own. There are many prominent guests for the new King to greet, but he does not spurn Erestor even so.

As a boy Aragorn learned more than kindness on Elrond’s knee and has more than a fleeting acquaintance with Erestor’s troubles. “Are you well, Erestor?” he asks with lowered voice after an official greeting. His keen healer’s eyes do not miss the pallor that no medicine, no matter how helpful, can hide.

“Well enough. Though I find myself much depleted by the road, it lightens my heart to see you happy and whole.”

“The weariness of the road I know too well. My heart, also, lightens at our meeting, but my friend, it would have caused no offence should you have stayed in Rivendell. I would not see you suffer on my behalf, nor Arwen’s.”

“When our Estel and Evenstar are to be wed? I have forgone so much in this lifetime. Not this, Estel. Not this.”

There is a sadness in Aragorn’s smile alongside appreciation, come to rest comfortably in the crags worn into his wise face from his own years of trial and hardship. “Then let us be glad,” he says. Aragorn, like he, chooses joy, and does so not lightly, but with grit-toothed determination. Such happinesses as can be claimed in these newborn days of peace are bedfellows with sorrow. United in intimate understanding, they clasp hands and Aragorn moves on, leading his guests through the ruined lower terraces toward the shining heights of Minas Anor that even now catch the very last light of the setting sun.

—

“It is done,” Elrond breathes from his position beside Erestor on the wide, comfortable bed that the fine hospitality of Gondor has allotted Rivendell’s Chief Counsellor. He speaks quietly in deference to the pain that grips Erestor like a vice at the temples and pounds like a battering ram behind his eyes. It is an affliction he shares with half of Gondor, though unlike they, Erestor has not come by it through the imbibing of ales, wines and various other fermented drinks during days of celebration. It is a familiar agony that makes a home in his skull when his fund of strength has been overdrawn, borrowed for too long from the allotment for days to come. He has not slept for some time. It matters not that weariness towers over him as inescapable as Mindolluin’s height; whenever he tries to chase it, sleep slips away, elusive as shadows in the night.

Erestor cannot quite tell from Elrond’s tone which weighs more heavily upon him: exhausted relief at the completion of his bittersweet task, or grief. Nominally, his presence is to ensure Erestor’s needs are seen to now that the long, weary months of travel begin to exact their toll. However, it is plain to him that Elrond seeks solace of his own account, in a place where he is unlikely to be disturbed.

“So it is,” Erestor replies.

This room is not so suited to his needs as his own chamber in Rivendell, generously appointed though it is. Elrond has already had a low table dragged beside the bed, that Erestor might have access to much of what he requires without the need to rise. Elrond’s silver circlet lays upon it, alongside Erestor’s own finery haphazardly discarded. The finely wrought precious metals appear incongruous laid alongside fortifying foods, Erestor’s travelling water-skin, a decanter of the Dúnedain’s answer to miruvor and a basin of washing water. Shakily, Erestor pours a measure of the heady, yet reviving drink and passes it to his friend.

“I feel,” Elrond says, as he accepts the small crystal goblet, “as if I had come to an unexpected stop. We have reached an end — that is plain — yet my heart had expected the path to go on for some miles.”

“That is a sentiment I can well sympathise with.” Erestor thinks of Ost-in-Edhil, and how it lodged within his soul for centuries after his path turned unexpectedly away, and how his heart made a home anew. How much harder it must be to hold space in a soul for the love of one’s child, knowing that space shall never, in all eternity, be filled again.

“What now shall I do with my restless feet?”

“They will find a new path. And the heart may grieve, but yet will it find unexpected joy and kindness along the road. You are not one to let hope remain unkindled.”

“No,” Elrond agrees, though tears glisten in his eyes, caught by a glimmer of starlight that comes softly through the open window with a summer breeze.

“Could I ease you?” Erestor asks.

“Sing us away from this room,” Elrond requests. Erestor does, and though his voice is but a rough whisper that falters here and there, he lays down a rich mosaic from the many paths they both have known. They soar over sparkling mid-winter snowdrifts in the hills about Hollin, dash through bright wild-flower laden fields high above Rivendell, walk beneath the elms of Lindon and rest under the golden mallorn in Lothlórien. Elrond joins his clear voice to the song and Erestor finds, after that, that all paths lead inexorably toward the sea.

✧ ✧ ✧