here we go again by lonelyvisitor  

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you come to look for a king

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Orodreth attempted to calculate his chances of returning to the inn without anyone noticing he had acquired two Fëanorions. Yet by the time he’d run it all through they were already walking through the gates—and there in the courtyard, of course, were Elrond and Celebrían assembling flower-garlands, and with them most of their parents.

Eärendil was polishing silver and whistling affably; Celeborn was braiding his wife’s hair. For a brief moment it was only Galadriel’s Tree-lit gaze that went wide in shock at the sight of the strange Elves delivering the linens. She alone of this assembled company had laid eyes on her elder cousins, in distant and more fateful days.

Then the pelicans began to attack.

After an initial spate of shrieks and bellowed curses, the brothers displayed characteristic methods of defense. Curufin drew out his hair-pins to wield like daggers, and twisted several of his rings to reveal retractable razors and spikes, while at the same time Celegorm seemed to be attempting to negotiate with one especially belligerent bird by beast-speaking in the manner of Oromë.

This approach proved very ill-advised when she transmogrified into Princess Elwing.

“You,” she snarled, with her pelicans gathered about her in thunderous fury. “What evil wind has cast you here, enemy of my grandmother, my parents, my brothers—lechers and murderers—my father killed you once, I would do him honor to gut you myself—”

Elrond, having grasped the situation, presently inserted himself.

“Naneth, please, no deaths before the wedding.”

“Your mercy is most gracious, Lord Elrond.” Celegorm bowed, stirring many feathers that now dusted his head and shoulders. “Or should I perhaps say ‘nephew,’ given the love my brother bore—”

Elrond held up a hand. “I will not suffer you to speak, kinslayer.”

“Orodreth, what is the meaning of this?” Celebrían stepped to her husband’s side.

All the while the innkeeper of Ellairë had been creeping his way past the altercation; he was now halfway to the storeroom across the yard. The reproving gaze of his future children-in- law froze him like a hare in a hunter’s track. Elrond retained that kindly dazzle in his eyes, even with features sharpened in admonishment. Moreover, like her mother and father beside her, Celebrían was built rather like a tree trunk; it was not inconceivable that she might crush between her thighs the tender skull of anyone who dared to cross her husband.

An ensuing silence only made things worse. All attention fixed on Orodreth to explain a situation that had barely been contrived by him at all, but rather imposed with only his grudging acquiescence.

Oh, how typical of the Theme, to blame calamity on Angrod’s son.

Orodreth’s fear curdled to affront. “I haven’t got the faintest idea what they’re doing here— they came upon me and followed me, the nuisances, and then they carried some...towels and things. And that’s all!”

“We paid a debt.” Curufin played at his hands, resetting the weapons to their decorative state. Celeborn advanced with quiet fury. “There are some debts that cannot be repaid.”

“To a launderer’s they can be, actually.”

Against this retort an Iathrin rabble rose again, Elwing and her great-uncle spitting threats and curses as Celegorm and Curufin attempted to remain unagitated, covered as they were already in pelican-down. Celeborn, ever haunted that he had not been present to defend the fallen realm of his people, seemed well prepared to do so now.

Yet then his wife stepped between the warring parties, descending from her position of distanced observation, and spoke in her deep portentous voice.

“Artaresto.”

Even more so than Elrond, there was a very terrifying kindness to Galadriel’s manner of speaking. For a long moment she let Orodreth wither under it.

“Did you not once drive out the sons of Fëanor from your dominion?” said his aunt at last. “For in your wisdom you saw their evil influence upon the folk of Nargothrond. Much as you wisely limited this evening’s engagement to close family.”

“The next return ferry’s not for a week,” said Orodreth in misery.

Eärendil looked up from the silver, with which he had awkwardly continued. “I could take them in Vingilot—”

“No,” said almost everybody.

“Then they can be banished from the wedding, if not the island,” Galadriel went on. “It is indeed very strange that they are here, certainly when my brothers received no invitation—”

It was at this moment that the gates burst open again, admitting Gil-galad and his mule and their laden cart, which had three large barrels strapped to the back.

“Rodnor!” Orodreth cried, made hopeful by this arrival.

Everyone liked his son, in a manner they seemed incapable of liking him. Having engendered the boy’s relatively happy childhood—which had then engendered four millennia of relatively stable governance in Middle-earth—was perhaps the only thing Orodreth had ever done correctly in his life, even if Círdan had stepped in to finish the job.

Yes, Gil-galad was the reason all of them were here. Orodreth was sure his presence would smooth things over. His son was a canny leader and consummate diplomat, attuned to all avenues of potential strife between the Elves.

Yet leaping off the cart Gil-galad began leading the mule down the alley towards the stables.

“Hello,” he said in passing, not giving a second glance to his father or fiancés, nor indeed noticing the strange tension in the atmosphere. “Must make sure this wine’s chilled, see you all at dinner—”

It was now half three in the afternoon. Dinner would not be for many hours, once Arien had traded shifts with her silvery brother—the Elvish tradition being to stage a wedding feast from gloaming to gloaming, with the vows spoken at dawn in the rising light.

Did Gil-galad truly mean to hide himself away until dusk? “Darling, wait!”

In Orodreth’s haste to set after his son he nearly knocked over his elder child, Finduilas descending the north wing stairway with her arms full of candlesticks.

“Oh, thank Valar. Lassë dear, you remember your cousins? Would you deal with...all this?”

Vaguely he waved toward Celegorm and Curufin, ignoring the look of horror on his daughter’s face, as well as the shouts that ensued behind him as he fled.

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In a granary adjoining the stables Gil-galad located a crowbar. This was first used to pry open the barrels containing his potential fathers, second to bolt the door against inquisitive intruders.

Fingon, Finrod, and Celebrimbor once again demonstrated limber grace in extracting themselves—and not at all complaining about smelling of fish, at least outwardly.

Gil-galad smiled. “Here we are! Your accommodations.” Amid the looks of horror Finrod was the first to laugh.

“Such a lark you are, Artanáro, joking with us! Your father always gives me the Uinen Suite when I come to stay, I’ll show myself there—”

Gil-galad held up his hands. “The inn’s booked—utterly, I’m sorry to say, but being as you were last-minute invitations I’m afraid it’s what we have.”

The floor of the granary was strewn with hay and there were several goats milling about. Finrod for the first time allowed himself a peevish look; Celebrimbor seemed to be taking great interest in the olive-harvesting equipment rusting in the corner. Of the three Fingon seemed most agitated.

“I’d have a word with your father,” he said sharply. “It was Orodreth who summoned us, was it not—why then would he refuse to see us and trammel us with his livestock?”

Again Gil-galad saw the anxious glaze of his eyes. If Fingon believed Orodreth had sent the invitation, he now must be certain that this had been done with intent to humiliate him, and thereby undermine the many millennia of rumor-mongering that Gil-galad was a Nolofinwëan by birth.

Gil-galad did not want to impress that his father had the malice or cunning to concoct such a scheme.

“Actually,” he confessed. “He doesn’t know you’re here. I invited you. ”

Fingon’s look turned from irked to irrepressibly hopeful.

“You did!” he said, and continued in the rather leading manner with which he’d cornered Gil- galad at some Tirion ball a century ago, as if anticipating a tearful reunion. “Well! Why might you have done such a thing?”

He seemed to have forgotten his cousins were there at all, let alone had shared his same invitation. Beside him Finrod’s eyes narrowed, good graces at last worn through.

“What are you playing at, lad? I’m your kin. Why should my invitation be so furtive? And in the company of these rather random gentlemen.” Finrod cast about a cursory glance. “No offense meant to my noble cousins.”

Fingon did seem offended, looking on the brink of another outburst, but then came a loud metallic crash followed by the outraged bleating of goats.

“Apologies!” said Celebrimbor. “I’m just trying to see—aha! Now there’s the spring- loader...”

They were all growing restless, Gil-galad thought. Before long they’d burn the place down. “Why don’t I get some drinks,” he suggested. “And some ice for your oysters, Uncle—I won’t be but a moment. Do not leave, and do not tell anyone what I just told you.”

He spoke this with the command of a king, and left without leaving time to hear objections, taking the crowbar as he went to now barricade the door from the outside.

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Chapter End Notes

Elwing + pelicans inspo owed to Chestnut_pod's great Elwing fics!!