DISCLAIMER:
I do not own, or have anything to do with Lord of the Rings and the story's related characters. The characters Taryn, Nefiáthiel, and Nefára belong to me, everyone else is property of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Disclaimer: I own NOTHING in this story except most of the plot. *MOST* of the plot. That's right. This one is AU. *wink* Everything belongs to the AMAZING JRR Tolkien. Nothing is mine. Much thanks to everyone at www.learnelvish.com and the Sindarin Dictionary Project for helping me get these words right. *wink*
Summary: Glorfindel is left behind as the ships depart for Valinor without a way there himself. Elladan and Elrohir choose to stay with him, and become mortal. Glorfindel is cursed to stay an immortal and witnesses the altering of the world from what we know as Middle-earth to the modern day. When he returns to Imladris with a mission, will he accomplish his goal of going to the Grey Havens, or will he be doomed to remain in the modern world for the rest of eternity? One-shot. AU.
Distribution: PLEASE ask! ;)
A/N: Well, this story gives the reader an idea as to what may have happened to Elladan and Elrohir, Lord Elrond's twin sons, but as for Glorfindel...? Read on and find out.
Ibrono Edhel = The Last Elf
Diola lle = Thank you
Lle creoso = You are welcome
Yrch = Orc. (pl.)
Daro! = Stop!
namarie = farewell
ada = father
Noldo = Singular form of "Noldor." The heritage of the Elves of Imladris & of Glorfindel.
Imladris = Rivendell
Teli = come
Revio! = Fly!
mellon = friend
nana = mother
gwador = brother
Halls of Waiting/Halls of Mandos = Both are one and the same. Heaven for the Elves.
Tolna Valinor, Glorfindel, Teli. = Come to Valinor, Glorfindel, come.
Ibrono Edhel
He moved noiselessly through the shadows of the dark alleyway, golden hair covering ears so far from the 'normal' figuring of the modern world. He was the last of his kind, that he knew of anyhow. He hadn't met any others of his kind in...he forgot how many years had passed. An age had passed, to be sure. Maybe even two or three ages.
He had been proud. One of the last of his heritage. He had been slain in battle and fallen along with his home, Gondolin, he had been re-embodied as another of his kind, Lord Elrond Half-elven, tried to retrieve Gil-Galad from the Halls of Waiting. He returned in the King's stead, and had gone to Rivendell alongside Lord Elrond. Now he had come to find that he had the misfortune of becoming the last of his race. All had fled to the Undying Lands, and he had been left behind in troubled times. Orcs had roamed near the shipyard where all the ships to Valinor were docked, and he had proposed himself to guard the outgoing ships from attack. He had known the risks, and still promised to protect Lord Elrond and his kin at all costs...
*
"Glorfindel," The Elf turned, the beauty of his eyes, the sun making his golden hair gleam even brighter, and the youth of his face causing his friend to smile sadly.
"Lord Elrond."
"You do realize what is entailed in your task? The risks it implicates?" Elrond's eyes narrowed at the thought of losing such a good friend.
"I do, and I trust to it. I shall protect you and your heirs, Elrond, until death should seek me out," Glorfindel nodded proudly, his right hand straying to the hilt of his sword fastened to his left hip. His grip tightened on the leather-bound hilt as a fire burned in his blue-green eyes. He would protect any and all who set out for Valinor.
Elrond nodded and placed a hand on the re-embodied Gondolinian's shoulder and gazed at him wonderously. "You really are amazing, Glorfindel. You risk so much for us all. Diola lle."
The two Elves gripped each other's elbows tightly.
"Lle creoso, Elrond," Glorfindel nodded prouldy as he watched the Lord of Imladris board one of the handcrafted Elven ships.
*
Glorfindel hadn't known that would be the last conversation he would hold with Elrond, or that he would never board one of those ships to Valinor: they were all going on one-way trips, and none of them doubled back. There was no possibility of him getting there now...he knew not where it was, and none now lived who knew how to get there. He had known once. Long ago. But time - cursed time - had caused this noble Elf, a descendant of the Vanyar, to forget.
With a sigh, the Elf stepped from the damp alleyway and onto the bustling nighttime lamplit sidewalk of New York City. He hated it here. Absolutely despised it. Why couldn't life be more like it was in the First Age of Middle-earth? Or the Third? Or, hell....Glorfindel would even take the Fourth over whatever age it was now. He would give anything to be helping the little hobbit, Frodo, escape the Nazgul again. He would take the Black Riders, or a good Orc fight any day.
The Gondolinian grimaced as he realized that an Orc fight was what had gotten him into this quandary in the first place. He snorted in disgust. "Yrch," he hissed in his native tongue, earning him a few odd looks on the street. Glorfindel didn't care. He merely wanted to be in Valinor with his people. If it even still existed.
*
The boats were nearly loaded, and Elladan and Elrohir were putting the last of their belongings into their father's ship when the attack came. From two sides, Orcs rushed the dock, setting fire to and sinking the ships nearest them. Glorfindel pulled the sword from his scabbard instantaneously and beheaded two of the Orcs to his left, and then three who came charging upon his right.
"Glorfindel! Glorfindel!"
A voice rang out at his back along with the clang of swords, and he barely recognized the voice as Elladan's, the elder of the twins.
Glorfindel's sword leapt from Orc to Orc, first beheading one, and then slicing another from collarbone to hip, and yet another from hip to throat. He shouted back in Elvish as the twins and several sentries leapt into the fray. "Guard Elrond!" The sentries obeyed, but the twins refused to listen. "Retreat, Elladan! Elrohir! Leave me!"
"NEVER!" Came Elrohir's adamant reply. He would not give up on any who had helped rear him.
Glorfindel growled and lunged for the younger Elf, and grabbed him by the neck of his tunic. "LEAVE NOW OR YOU WILL BE SLAIN ERE YOU SEE VALINOR!"
"Then I shall be slain. And I shall never see Valinor," Elrohir replied coolly, his grey eyes boring into the blue-green orbs of Glorfindel.
Glorfindel snarled before releasing him. "Stupid elfling."
Elrohir grinned and continued to fight side-by-side with the Gondolinian. Behind the three of them, the boats, one by one, began to shove away from the shore. As the ship carrying Elrond was shoved away, the Lord of Imladris let out a cry for his sons and Glorfindel.
"Daro! Daro! Elladan! Elrohir! Glorfindel! Daro! Daro!" Elrond tried to stop the ship, but none would listen. "Revio! Tolo! Tolo! You will miss the ship!"
"Namarie, ada! Give nana a kiss for us!" Elladan shouted back, lost amidst the fighting. Elrond let out a cry of dismay and sank against the side of the ship. His sons were lost to him now. He had to pray to the Valar that Glorfindel would not let him down.
"Take care of them Glorfindel! Watch them well!" Elrond's voice sounded far away in the battle to Glorfindel, but he head Elrond's wish all the same.
"I will, Elrond. I promise you."
*
Things had changed since then. Many things. When Elladan and Elrohir stayed behind, they made a choice, and that choice made them mortal. They stayed, along with their sister, and became susceptible to growing old...sickness...and death. Years passed before Elladan went on to the Halls of Mandos, followed a year later by Elrohir, and Glorfindel was alone. He built a ship, and attempted to make it to Valinor, only to be turned around in a storm and land farther into the realm of Men. There he stayed, waiting....hoping that someone would come back to find him. Eventually he ventured back to Imladris to find it crumbling and overgrown. Nothing was like it was before.
He had no clue why he didn't become mortal like Elladan and Elrohir. Perhaps it was because he was re-embodied. Perhaps it was because he wasn't offered the same choice they were. Glorfindel had betrothed himself to protect the outgoing Elves, and nothing would skirt him of that promise. He oft wondered why he had made such a promise, and when he did he ventured back to Imladris, deep in a forgotten valley in what the world knows now as New Zealand.
That was where he was headed now, as he sat in the airport awaiting his flight. Glorfindel had a fear of such creatures...if one could call these flying beasts creatures. Airplanes, they call them. Glorfindel scoffed at the hideous title. Airplanes. They seemed almost the same as the Eagles he had once known.
He wondered if one of these 'Airplanes' could find Valinor.
He doubted it. That is why he needed to get back to Imladris. Get back to the Library and find out how to get to the Grey Havens. He was tired of this world, and wanted to go back to the past...with his heritage, the Noldor, the Sindar, the Silvan Elves. He wanted to be near his people again.
*
As the battle came to an end, and all of the invading Orcs were slain, Elrohir and Elladan, both twins bruised, cut, and bleeding, moved slowly over to Glorfindel to watch the last boat disappear onto the horizon carrying their father.
"Do you ever imagine that we will see Valinor, Glorfindel?" Elrohir asked naively as the ship passed out of sight. "That we will see mother again?"
Glorfindel hung his head. "I know not, Elrohir. That, I know not." The Golden-haired Noldo turned and surveyed the shipyard, taking in all of the bodies scattered from one end of the dock to the other. Elven corpses mingles with those of the slain Orcs, and Glorfindel shuddered. "Help me."
The three Noldor spent the rest of the day, piling bodies of Orcs and burning them, and burying the slain sentries. It was a day of loss, and not just for the loss of life. Everything had come to a screeching halt at Imladris, and nothing could be done about it.
*
As the 'Airplane' touched down in New Zealand, Glorfindel woke from his slumber. Once again he had been re-living the past. His first life in Gondolin when he fell slaying the Balrog in the Encircling Mountains. His second life in Rivendell with Elrond Half-elven, Arwen Evenstar, and the twins: Elladan and Elrohir. His third in this terrible world that had somehow emerged from the noble and beautiful land that had been Middle-earth. Glorfindel stepped off of the plane, gathering his coat and his weapons from the baggage claim area he had somehow managed to smuggle though the airport security system and customs, before treading on foot to the long-lost valley.
As he arrived there, what he saw took his breath away, and caused tears to prick his eyes. Imladris...Rivendell...one of the fairest of Elven kingdoms...in ruin. If Imladris could look this hopeless, he wished never to again encounter what had once been the heavenly Silvan refuge of Lothlorien. Glorfindel took out his curved blade and cleaved a path for himself through the tangled weeds and dead underbrush. He kept telling himself that this was not Imladris. Imladris could not look so desperate. Glorfindel took himself back into the past, back when the halls of Imladris had still stood, each of the levels clearly in place. In his mind he saw none of what was now, but what had once been, and also kept a realistic eye as he walked through the rubble, avoiding the once-beautiful masonry that had crumbled from the walls not out of fear that he would trip, but out of fear that he would further damage the work Lord Elrond, the founder of Imladris, had accomplished in his time there.
He wound his way through what used to be the Hall of Fire, through corridor after corridor, and finally shoved his way into the Library. In that room, books lay open to random pages, beautiful Elven script scrawled over page after page. Gingerly, Glorfindel closed the brittle books, eliciting protesting crackles from the yellowed pages and ancient leather spines. Some of the novels fell apart in his hands as Glorfindel went about his task. These books, he shelved with the greatest care. Other books he took down from the stone shelves: tales of the Old Days such as that of Beren and Luthien, and the recount of the downfall of Sauron, the War of the Ring, and so on; the history of Middle-earth, the Red Book of Westmarch, three of Elrond's forgotten diaries, and the all of the very books he had come this one last time to search for. Maps. He would get to Valinor yet, and pay homage to the wishes of the twins as they passed on to the Halls of Mandos.
*
Glorfindel watched as Elladan and Elrohir grew old, and as he stayed young in body and appearance. Both of the twins were as confused as the Gondolinian himself as to the changes to their appearance and state of health. The twins grew feeble and unable to fend for themselves after a while. As Elladan lay upon his deathbed, his grey eyes boring into the blue-green depths of Glorfindel, he turned his feelings into words.
"Glorfindel...promise me...something..," Elladan coughed. His skin was no longer taut over the canvas of his body, but wrinkled and pallid. His dark brown hair had turned to grey, nearly white, and his limbs shook uncontrollably as he moved to take Glorfindel's hand in his.
"Anything, mellon, anything."
"Seek out ada...in Valinor. Tell him...I love him. And nana as well. Namarie, mellon. I shall be always with you."
Elladan turned his grey eyes to his brother, and gave him a weak smile. "Namarie, gwador. I will wait for you in the Halls of Mandos."
With those words, the eldest of the twins passed away, and a year later to the day, Elrohir passed in much the same manner, and with the exact same wish. It was then that Glorfindel set about crafting a vessel to take him to Valinor, and it was shortly after that ship's completion that he lost his way to the Grey Havens as his vessel was tempest-tossed into the nether regions of Middle-earth, and there it was he stayed for many an Age.
*
Glorfindel spent all day searching for the right book of maps to show him the way to Valinor. His salvation. He was tired of being the last Elf. He longed to be among those he considered kin once more, and just as he had nearly given up hope, just as he had nearly moved to put away all of the books of maps, a gust of wind and leaves fluttered through the window and swirled around him before bringing the leaves together to make a well-recognized figure.
The youthful form of Elladan.
He smiled through the leaves and pointed to a partitular book that Glorfindel seemed to have missed in his previous perusal of the library. Elladan's mouth moved, but no sound was emitted. Glorfindel needed no sounds. As he watched, the figure bid him goodbye, placed a ghastly hand upon the golden-haired Noldo's shoulder, and mouthed the word, "Valinor" to Glorfindel before disappearing, the leaves falling at Glorfindel's feet. Glorfindel took a deep breath, just as a second breeze came through the window and opened the book for him.
"Tolna Valinor, Glorfindel. Teli," that missing voice floated to Glorfindel on the wind and he smiled. FINALLY.
Glorfindel grabbed up his bag of weapons, and now books, took up the book of maps Elladan's spirit had pointed out to him, and left the battered remnants of Imladris, giving it one last backwards glance as he walked away.
He had found what it was he had come to Rivendell to find, and now he would no longer be ibrono edhel, but one of many, and fulfill his promises to Elladan and Elrohir. For in that book, on that page, was a map of Middle-earth...with a ship route plotted out for the Undying Lands.
Glorfindel was on his way to Valinor.
