here we go again by lonelyvisitor  

prologue: i have a dream

The parcel from Pengolodh had arrived one week before the wedding.

Orodreth was envisioning an intimate affair. Immediate family only, he’d insisted, for the inn did not have accommodations sufficient for all of Elvendom, and would be overcrowded as it was with the retinue of two grooms and a bride.

Gil-galad had no cause to disagree with the father who had raised him from a babe, before dragonfire and general misfortune had passed the responsibility to Círdan of the Falas. And yet the great loremaster’s curious gift occasioned a change of heart.

Far be it from me to stir the pot on the eve of your nuptials, read the enclosed note’s impeccable tengwar. Yet puzzling as I always have on the problem of your parenthood, I recently came across a fortunately un-singed ledger of your father’s in my material from the wreck of Nargothrond.

It seems I have long misfiled it, which perhaps was Orodreth’s intent: what begins as a record of fertilizer production—yes, yes, this too is of historical interest, but quite literally dull as bat-droppings—turns, two-thirds through, into some sort of secret diary.

This furtive document gives an account of your adoption and first years of life, and provides his own speculation(s) as to where you might have come from. This includes variation on traditional theories, as well as some intriguingly novel conjecture.

Having read and mulled the implications of said account, Gil-galad now found himself standing in dawnlight on the docks of the Island of Ellairë. He was holding one carrier- pigeon in each hand while a third perched on his head. The birds had tiny scrolls tied to their feet, missives bearing the silvery-blue wax seal of the House of the Star of Radiance, which had only ever comprised one person.

Now he who had once been High King prepared to send three last-minute invitations to his wedding.

To the first pigeon he whispered: “Findekáno Astaldo.”

As she flew westward toward risen Arien he addressed the second: “Findaráto Ingoldo.”

The third pigeon seemed like she might be content to stay nestled on his braid-crown. Gil- galad nudged her off, murmuring the final flightpath:

“Curufinwë Tyelperinquar.”

His three messengers on the wing, Gil-galad drew a steadying breath of the salt-sweet air. He’d led a decent life in Middle-earth, before its doomful end. Now in Aman, with Celebrían

and Elrond soon to take him husband, the life that stretched before him seemed it would be far more decent still (and less likely to be cut short by fiery combat).

Yet some measure of who Gil-galad was had always been missing. Through all those grave and kingly years he had been given occasionally to wonder — to hope, to dream of someday knowing the whole truth.

Now his dream rose up above the pinkened Sea that stretched between Ellairë and the mainland. Both fear and giddy anticipation coursed the body that still bore the memory of single-handed battle with the Dark Lord, if not the scars.

It’s done, then, Gil-galad thought, and turned back toward the shore.

One of his fathers was hosting his wedding, but another would be sitting in the aisles.