Chapter Text
“No,” Elrond says, and it has the combined force and weight of all the no’s he’s been biting back since they stole - rescued him.
No, he does not actually want to be rescued, not when that means being snatched away from that disastrous skirmish before he could even see who was still alive, particularly not when Elros was still there. No, he does not want to sit and listen while his rescuers mutter dark things about the sons of Feanor, and how one of them thinks he might have done the singer in before they had to flee -
No, he does not want to meet with all these relatives he’s told he has, but that he’s never seen. No, he doesn’t want another helping of supper.
He doesn’t really want to eat at all.
He’s bitten back all of those refusals and instead nodded and forced smiles and clung tightly to the connection he could still feel to Elros. He had been polite. He had been good.
But this is one step too far.
“Gil-Galad is the king,” he said in a slightly calmer tone. He can’t remember who Gil-Galad’s father is, it wasn’t something that had been much discussed in the Feanorian camp, but it doesn’t matter. If he’s ahead in the succession somehow, he’ll yield the crown. Surely that’s what everyone wants in any case.
Everyone looks at each other - Celeborn, who is here to stand for the Sindarin elves, Finarfin, who is also king, and Círdan, who has looked pale and grey every time Elrond has seen him.
The look they share is equal parts awkward and pained.
King Finarfin leans forward in his chair. “Gil-Galad was in the party that ran into my - the Feanorians. He shouldn’t have been there, he never should have been, but he had gotten restless and - ” He stops and swallows before he says, “He was not one of the ones who escaped.”
They didn’t run into the Feanorians, Elrond wants to say, they ran into the orcs, which unfortunately happened to be attacking the Feanorian camp at the time, and then -
Well, in the heat of battle, someone had struck the first blow, and then things had turned ugly, fast. Maglor had shouted at him and Elros to run, and they had, only they had gotten separated, and then when Maedhros had returned from patrol with the elves who had ridden out with them, Gil-Galad’s forces had panicked and ran -
In all the confusion, one of Gil-Galad’s men had managed to snatch Elrond up. Apparently, they should have been paying more attention to snatching up their king instead.
It’s an unkind thought, and Elrond bites it back like all the others, and instead looks at his hands. “Is he dead?”
He’s related to Gil-Galad somehow, he knows, even if he’s not sure quite how. Maglor had recited his whole family tree for him once. When appropriate, Maedhros had interjected with causes of death.
Maedhros had interjected a lot.
Círdan’s grip on the window ledge he’s standing by tightens. Finarfin’s eyes flick to him before he answers gently. “We don’t know,” he says. “No one saw him fall.”
“But the Feanorians have no reason to keep him alive,” Celeborn says, and the look on his face reminds Elrond that Celeborn had been at Doriath.
Elrond frowns. “They don’t have any reason to kill him either,” he points out.
The adults share looks again.
Elrond has grown to hate those looks even in the short time he’s been here.
“Even if he is alive, he is not here,” Celeborn says more gently, “and all efforts at finding him have failed. Someone must stand in his place.”
Elrond’s eyes flick to Finarfin.
Finarfin grimaces. “There have been … tensions,” he says. “It would be better if there was someone to speak for the elves who have been longer in Beleriand.”
“The Sindar will accept you as well,” Celeborn says, and it sounds like a pledge.
Elrond’s stomach rolls sickly. “I’m too young,” he points out.
“You’ve the blood of Men as well as elves,” Celeborn counters. “Like Dior did. You’ve grown well beyond what an elf would have for your years.”
This is true. It does not change the fact that Elrond is still too young.
“We’ll help you, of course,” Finarfin adds. “We all will.” For just a moment, he looks impossibly weary. “Just - the people need this. For the sake of morale if nothing else.”
And Elrond -
When Sirion burned, Elrond hadn’t cried. Not once.
He’d just - retreated into himself for a little while. Let his whole being fall blank and passive and let whatever was going to happen come.
Elros had drawn him out of it with whispered, terrified threats and furious tears. Elros’s tears, and Maglor’s songs, steady and comforting, and a warm thread to hold onto as he wound his way back.
And now that blankness hovers around him again and has since large hands had grasped him in the middle and lifted up into the saddle and hadn’t listened to him screaming Elros’s name.
Everything hurts, and everything’s too much, and no one’s listening, so It’s surprisingly easy to step back into that blankness now; to hover at its edges, not quite surrendering, just enough for every expression on his face to utterly shut down.
Finarfin’s face crumples a little, and he reaches out to touch Elrond’s shoulder, but he stops when Elrond flinches away.
Finarfin’s face crumples still further. “I’m sorry,” he says softly, and then he goes away, and Celeborn does too, but only after he bows.
Everyone goes away eventually, Elrond knows. You just have to wait long enough.
Círdan, he realizes a moment later, has not yet gone away. Círdan is still there, and since he has not spoken once in this whole disaster of a conversation, Elrond finds he does not much mind.
“I met Feanor once,” Círdan says, and his words are so unexpected that Elrond jumps. “And his sons. Their arrival felt like a miracle then. I never imagined - “ He stops himself and shakes his head. “I never knew them well,” he admits. “You probably know them as well as anyone now.”
Círdan, Elrond remembers suddenly, had raised Gil-Galad, at least in part.
The blankness recedes a little, and he stands, though hesitantly, and moves over to the window.
He can see the sea outside it.
Sometimes he thinks he hates the sea.
“They won’t hurt him,” he says, and he’s a little surprised by his own voice. “If he survived the fight, they won’t have hurt him.” He has no idea what they will do with him, but they have no reason to hurt him, and it’s evident Círdan needs the reassurance. Besides, the long, stretched-thin cord between him and Elros feels only hurt and lonely, not full of Elros’s righteous indignation, so he feels fully confident of that.
His bond with Elros is not full of grief either, and Elrond clings to that in the dark hours of the night when all he can think about is that warrior’s words of, “I think I got the singer in the gut before his half-thrall brother showed up - “
Maglor must still be alive. He must be.
The pain in Círdan’s face eases a little, but his focus is abruptly fully on Elrond. “Don’t worry about me,” he says as he takes in Elrond’s concern. “How are you holding up?”
Elrond ignores this question. “They’d probably be willing to trade if you can find them,” he says. “They don’t have any reason to want to keep Gil-Galad, really. They’d probably be willing to switch.”
Cīrdan’s gaze grows even sharper. “We’re not sending you back,” he says firmly. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I’m not worried,” Elrond says, and Cīrdan’s face is worn down by a new kind of pain.
“It’s not just Elros you miss, is it?”
Elrond turns away and looks back at the sea.
But there’d been no condemnation in Cīdan’s voice when he’d said it, so when he puts a comforting arms around Elrond’s shoulders and draws him closer, Elrond doesn’t flinch away.