TITLE:  Christmas Special: The Sequel
AUTHOR:  Ezra’s Persian Kitty
E-MAIL: ezraspersiankitty@yahoo.com
PAIRING:  Erestor/Glorfindel (others)
RATING:  NC-17
SUMMARY:  Secrets and Someday; Sequel to Christmas Special.
DISCLAIMER:  Not mine.
WARNING:  Talk of death and promiscuity.
NOTES:  I think this is the first time I’ve written a sequel on request.
Good job, on your part, convincing me.  :)  Also, uh, you might as well
throw canon out the window.  I did.

= = = = =

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: SECRETS


Glorfindel had had a routine.  For that matter, so had Erestor.

But then came a moment.  In the snow.

And there was a confession of love on Glorfindel’s part, and a possibility
of someday on Erestor’s.  They had gone to bed together.  Not as lovers.
Not exactly.  It had been, for them, a matter of comfort and connection.
An acknowledgment of affection, a sign of some union, the beginning of a
new relationship for them.

After that, things between them changed.  And things in Imladris changed,
for such a great change had overcome Erestor.  No longer did he shout at
the children who ran through the halls, criticize his underlings, glare so
mercilessly.  No longer did he haunt the library’s archives by day, nor
disappear at night.  No longer did he strike fear into the hearts of all he
met.  And no longer was his face pale as snow, but colored as though
emotion stirred there.  Erestor, somehow, had internalized from the world.
His focus had turned from outward to inward.  He was quiet but not
belligerently so.  He was . . . different.

Glorfindel had not appeared to change so much, though he might have
been a bit jollier.  A bit quicker to smile, slower to anger.  He was,
undeniably, happy.

Every night, the same thing happened.  At the end of the day, Erestor
knocked on Glorfindel’s door, and Glorfindel let him in.  Glorfindel’s bed
became their bed.  They were never intimate.  They did not kiss.  They did
not speak of love.  They lay in bed together, and it was good.

= = = = =

Glorfindel, for a long time, for over a year, made not a sign of complaint.
He did not want to encroach on Erestor’s feelings.  He truly did not mind
waiting for Someday.  But he would join Erestor for meals, or creep into
his office.  And he would be content to sit and to stare with unconcealed
devotion.  In bed, he would lovingly wrap strong arms about the dark Elf
and tell him, “I am glad to have you here,” or something of the like.  He
always made an effort to show that he definitely wanted Erestor in his life.

But in those months of sitting and staring, staring at shadow-dark eyes and
lily-white skin and coral-pale lips, Glorfindel began to hunger.  Not madly
or passionately, not lustfully, not forcefully.  It was only a little 
hunger, as
of a man who is not starved, but only craves dessert.  He would stare at
Erestor’s mouth, and want.

And so, one day, as they sat together on a balcony bench overlooking the
twilit Valley, each reading a book of their own choosing, Glorfindel
decided to speak.  He did not do so all at once, but rather would close his
book, open it again, set it aside and take it up again, before finally 
Erestor
said, without raising his eyes from his own pages, “Speak, Glorfindel.  Do
not fidget so.  I cannot evict you from the balcony, nor am I apt to leave,
whatever you might say.”

Glorfindel raised his brows and when Erestor finally looked up to meet his
wide, blue gaze, Glorfindel smiled.  When he spoke, saying just what was
on his mind, his voice still fidgeted a bit.  “Erestor, oftentimes I wish to
kiss you, but I am wary of intruding where I might make you
uncomfortable; I just wanted you to know.”

Erestor laid aside his own book and answered, “Glorfindel, if ever you
want to kiss me, then ask, and I shall tell you whether you would be
welcome or not.”

At this, Glorfindel smiled again.  “All right.  But I must also tell you 
this:
that if ever, EVER, you want to kiss me, you are welcome to do so and
need no permission, for you already have it.  Though if you feel the need
to ask, then of course you may do so.”

Erestor grinned at this lengthy, carefully considered speech.  “Very well
then.  May I kiss you, Glorfindel?”

Glorfindel’s smile lit up his face like the sun shone there and he
practically bounced in his seat with excitement.  “With pleasure, you are
welcome to kiss me, Erestor!”

Then, Erestor’s pale hand rose to Glorfindel’s cheek, and he caressed the
warm skin there, looking deep into trusting blue eyes.

Glorfindel patiently waited.  This was Erestor’s kiss, to do with as he
pleased.  And he was gentle about it, and slow.  Glorfindel was not
surprised.  But he was still undoubtedly elated when Erestor’s nervous lips
covered his, a cautious and curious and delightful exploration of teasing
nips and sweet suckling.

= = = = =

Later, Glorfindel was sure to add much kissing to their repertoire of gentle
conversing and silent communion.  But never in the bedroom did he
approach Erestor in such a manner.  He had made a statement, an oath, he
thought.  In the very beginning, he had said, “This bed is for sleeping.”
He maintained that thought forever.

This bed, Glorfindel’s bed, was for sleeping.  No fear, nor terror here.
Only sleep.

= = = = =

Years passed.  Glorfindel grew to recognize the differences in Erestor’s
smiles.  What had once been a single, unfamiliar expression became sweet
or secretive or devious or amused or loving.  Kisses, too, had their
individual meanings, turning playful or passionate in turns.  One
memorable evening was spent doing little aside from trading tempting
kisses.

Still, Glorfindel never tried anything more.  He could see Erestor was not
ready, he could tell.  And so he trained his own body, cooled his own
rousing lust, basking solely in the unique joys of love.

As Erestor and Glorfindel slowly worked to merge their lives together,
they each learned to accept their own joys, to accept the thrill of a shared
life, to accept what came with the gives and takes.

= = = = =

Every night, the same thing happened.  At the end of the day, Erestor
knocked on Glorfindel’s door, and Glorfindel let him in.  Glorfindel’s bed
had become their bed.  They were never intimate there.  They did not kiss
there.  They did not speak of love there.  They lay in bed together, and it
was good.

But then one night, Erestor would not enter.  At the threshold to the
bedroom, he stopped.  He merely looked with cold, black eyes at
Glorfindel, hiding something.  “I must sleep in my own bed tonight,
Glorfindel.”

Gone cold with shock, the golden Elf hung upon the word ‘tonight,’
desperately believing that this was temporary, a one-time occurrence, an
anomaly.  He longed to grab Erestor’s hand and drag him in, to protest and
plead, at least to question, beg an explanation.  But then Glorfindel told
himself he had known this would not be easy, this would not be a simple
path that lay before them, this would not be anything resembling easy, and
he had to have known that Erestor would need his own time, his own
space to deal with these changes.  So Glorfindel smiled through the
threatening tears and told Erestor only, “I will miss you.”

= = = = =

For the first night in over three years, Glorfindel lay in his bed alone.  
And
he was miserable.

= = = = =

The next day, Erestor was wary, as though he expected Glorfindel to lash
out or hold some grudge, but Glorfindel appeared properly attired for the
dining hall for breakfast, and greeted Erestor with his usual smile.

Their day may have been a little strained, but it was nothing unexpected
after such a sudden rupture in their routine.  And when dinner was done
and nighttime fell, Erestor followed Glorfindel to his bedroom as usual.

But as soon as they reached the door, Erestor did the same thing.  He
halted at the doorsill.  He looked to the floor, to the wall, to anywhere 
but
Glorfindel’s tremulous blue eyes, and said, “I cannot sleep here tonight,
Glorfindel.  I am sorry.”

Again, Glorfindel was overcome by instinctual urges to do everything in
his persuasive power to keep Erestor with him, in his room, in his bed.
But he knew that would not be right, that Erestor truly held no obligations
to him, and that he might very well need this time apart.  Lying only a
little, Glorfindel answered, “I understand.”  He smiled, or tried to, and
refused to cry.  He said, “I will miss you.”  And that was the utter truth.

= = = = =

Again, Glorfindel slept in his bed alone.  And he felt wretched.

= = = = =

The following day was harder for them.  The tenseness that had grown
remained and deepened.  Smiles did not come so easily, and no kisses
passed between them.

That night, Erestor repeated his avowal.  “I cannot be with you tonight,
Glorfindel.”

And Glorfindel, beginning to fear that Erestor was drawing permanently
away from him, still maintained his inner strength, and said only, “I will
miss you.”  This time, he did not fight the weeping.

= = = = =

His sheets, that night, were salted with tears.  He did not sleep.  He 
feared
for what he had accepted to be his future.  He feared it would not be.

= = = = =

But the next night, as he sat waiting in his room, there was a knock on the
door and Erestor walked in before Glorfindel could even answer.  Erestor
weakly smiled and changed into his sleeping clothes.  When Glorfindel
still did not react, Erestor crawled under the covers and lay waiting,
watching the golden Elf.

Glorfindel dove into the bed and pulled him close.  “By Elbereth, I missed
you!” he declared into a face full of silky black hair.  “I thought . . . Oh
Erestor, I missed you!  I love you, you know?  I love you.”

And Erestor let him say it.  And if Glorfindel’s embrace that night was
slightly stifling, then Erestor easily forgave him for it.

= = = = =

Routine resumed.

But, as the years cycled their seasons, there were nights when Erestor
would say, “I cannot sleep here tonight,” and Glorfindel would answer, “I
will miss you.”  But never did the occasion arise where Erestor would
leave for more than a night, and Glorfindel never complained.

In a place such as Imladris, it seems that people ought to have noticed
what was happening between the two, but they did not.  People were
curious, true, but they did not pry.  Glorfindel had few friends and Erestor
had none, so they had nothing to explain.  Perhaps the only one who took
a vested interest in what passed between them was their Lord.  But even
Elrond did not dare interrupt the delicate balance growing there.  He only
watched.

= = = = =

One morning, as Glorfindel sat alone before his mirror (Erestor always
rose very early to depart his room in the mornings), there was a knock
upon the door.  Glorfindel twisted with difficulty, with his arms oddly
coiled about his neck in an effort to braid his hair, to face the door.
Cheerful as always (annoyingly so, some might call it) he hollered, “Come
on in!”

Erestor opened the door.  He was wearing, for the first time in Glorfindel’s
memory, leggings and a tunic, with tall boots, and he had a bag slung over
his shoulder.  His eyes were dark and expressionless as the moment they
had met and in his hand, Erestor held a slim book.

Slowly, Glorfindel’s arms dropped to his sides and his golden hair fell
streaming to either side of his face in a short-lived waterfall.  “Erestor,”
his voice wavered, whispering full of trepidation, “why are you in
traveling clothes?  Why have you packed your things?”

Erestor’s voice was cold.  “I need time away from you.  I am going with
Arwen to visit Lothlorien for a time.  Do not worry; I will be back.”

Glorfindel found that his throat was choked with fright and he could not
speak.  He watched with wide blue eyes as Erestor handed out the thin
book.  “My secrets are here.”  Glorfindel took the narrow journal in a
shaking hand.  Erestor hitched the bag further up onto his back.  His dark
eyes remained mysterious; Glorfindel could not read them.  “Please do not
open it ‘til you know I am gone; then we will both of us take the time for
thinking.”

Everything within Glorfindel rebelled, saying that this wasn’t right, that
Erestor couldn’t possibly be leaving him, not just out of the blue like 
this.
Glorfindel barely restrained himself from leaping to his feet, from
grabbing hold of Erestor and locking him in this room so that he could
never threaten to leave again.  But still some strength must have been in
him, for Glorfindel only held the book tight in both hands and said, as
tears flowed, “I will miss you.”

= = = = =

Glorfindel stood at his window, holding to Erestor’s wishes.  He watched
the escort party below, Arwen and Erestor among them.  He watched them
set off and when the last of the troupe finally disappeared through the 
gate,
Glorfindel returned to the vanity to sit on his stool, open the book, and
read.


~*~*~*~*~*~

Glorfindel.  These are my secrets.  I entrust them to you.

I was the son of a cooper.  I was the sixth child, but the first son.  I
remember my life very clearly then, as though a child’s life is simpler, as
though I do not want to remember the things that came after.  And that
sounds just about right.

I was the son of a cooper.  My first memories are of sitting upon the floor
of my father’s workshop.  The scent of the newly hewn wood surrounded
me, embraced me.  The rhythmic scrape-scrape of the file and the wooden
churning of the awl.  The sawdust upon the floor like a carpet of tawny-
white, auburn-gold, or brown dun.  The barrels stacked in rows against the
wall.  My father’s sweat, his straight hair, his height and his strength.  I
remember far more clearly the sight of his boots than the sight of his face.
He always wore red boots, though no other colors.  Only grays and
browns.

I was the son of a cooper.  My first toys were the amazing spiral shards of
wood that fell like snow from my father’s hands as he shaped the timber.
The delicate curls lay in clumps about me and I would test their strength,
stretching each one until it broke, or curl them up inside one another or
mash them to dust.

My first lullabies were the songs my father sang as he worked, songs sung
by carpenters, cartwrights, and coopers the world over, songs of trees and
death and wood and art.  Songs of love, the love of one’s craft.  These
songs he sang over and over as he made the barrels that would house the
wine, port, ale, and other goods of the kingdom.  I remember how he used
to test each one.  After binding it with the huge, flat metal rings, he 
would
reach inside to pound reeds of willow in the cracks, and smooth a resin
over the whole when done.  When the resin had dried to a hard, smooth
surface, he would fill the barrel with water and let it sit overnight.

Those are my first memories, but my only memories of my father.  The
story, I am told, goes like this:

Every month, the Elves who labored in our forest as lumberjacks would
drive their wagons by our house to deliver my father’s portion of lumber,
but he was keen to experiment with a new breed of tree, so he went
walking in the woods himself, with an axe in his hand.  He should have
known better really, than to be in the woods by himself intending to fell a
tree.  But many people could, and did, tell me of how happy the cooper
had been to have finally fathered a son.  He loved his daughters well, no
doubt, but every father longs for a son, especially fathers who have a
legacy to pass on, and my father’s legacy to me would be our trade, the
trade of a cooper.  Babe though I was, I think even I understood that, as I
sat playing with the heavy twisting clamps I was not yet strong enough to
lift.

But my father went out to the woods alone that day, perhaps sidetracked
with his head full of thoughts of his son, who knows?

I do not, for he died that day.

An arrow, the king’s arrow, pieced his eye in a tragic hunting accident that
struck my father dead.

It is believed that he was mistaken for a deer, for his hair is dark like 
mine
and rare among our fair-haired people.  The king’s men brought the body
back and a pyre was erected on the Burning Field near the river.  I do not
remember it.

I remember crawling across the frosted ground from the kitchen to my
father’s workshop and finding it dark and empty.

My father was a cooper, but I would not be.

I grew up in the Greenwood.  I grew up in the Greenwood when that name
still fit it, when there were no evil, poisonous beasts to foul our land, 
when
our land was still truly green.  The caves that now house the palace and
too many homes were vacant and mysterious then.  We lived close to the
land, in low cottages.  And the King and his family had great rolling
Houses with tall limestone columns and heavy curving architecture.  I
grew up in what was considered the soul of the Greenwood.  Those royal
houses and the great courtyard there and the town square: they were the
heart, the heart of the Greenwood.  And the Wood itself, that was the
body.  But surrounding the small merchants’ city that ringed the town
square were the rolling green fields of the farmers.

The farms that fed the people of the Greenwood were lands that had been
slowly, carefully cleared of the forests and turned with tender precision to
raise the wheat and corn and rice that would be made the staples of our
food.  There, in the countryside of my home, fields of green were carpets
of cabbages.  Dark brown soil held the potato crop.  Sprouts of vegetation
would become barrels of carrots, and miles of roped poles drooped heavy
with the vines for our wines.

My father’s workshop and our home were situated just at the edge of one
of these fields.  It was a field of corn.  This field belonged to my 
father’s
brother, and he willingly helped to care for my mother and her children.

I remember, when I was quite young, being tied into a sling about my
mother’s hip.  I went with her everywhere for several years.  But as soon
as I was deemed old enough to wonder about on my own . . . Well.  You
can be certain I did.  I got into everything.  I got into our pot of flour 
and
covered everything with it, especially my sisters.  I stole cookies from the
cupboard at every chance.  I played after every rainfall in the mud and
pulled down stalks of corn to make cones of green, like tents to hide in.  A
child’s duties on a farm were many, though, and I worked hard, even then.
Since my hands could perform the task, I’ve been husking corn.  And in
the house, churning better, shelling peas, pealing potatoes, scrubbing
floors, and laundering the clothes.  I did it all and I loved it.  
Sometimes,
my sisters complained about the chores, but I never could.  It was as
though our family was a living, breathing unit, one whole made up of
seven individuals.

I did not know at the time of the great lengths my mother went to for me.
She accosted every woodworker in the Greenwood, looking for a master to
apprentice me off to.  But her way was difficult.  I was too young to have
any experience, and quickly getting older.  And all the craftsmen had their
own sons, you see, often more than one.  They would not take on a boy to
whom they held no obligation.  And one of those young Elves, fifty years
my senior, married my eldest sister and moved into my father’s workshop.
They built their own cottage on the other side of it, but he was still young
and making his own way.  He would not take his brother-in-law as
apprentice.

And so my destiny became clear.  I would be a laborer on my uncle’s
farm.  I did not have a problem with that.  I thought it was bound to be
jolly good fun.  And, for me, it was.

Life, still, was not easy though.  No, not for a family of women without a
breadwinner.  Without the trade of my father, we had no income.  My
father’s brother and sister’s husband did what they could for us.  But 
still,
in comparison to most stable families, we were having a rough time of it.
We never went hungry, that was for sure.  But some things, we simply had
to do without.

For example, I was a young boy, a growing Elfling.  Why bother spending
money on cloth or clothes that will soon be outgrown and unusable?
There was no good reason.  Without any other boys my age in the near
family, the solution was simple.  I wore my sisters’ old clothes.

I hardly interacted with anyone but my mother and sisters; to me it was
nothing.  Clothing was clothing, and I was young enough that I ran about
naked half the time anyway.

But the years carried on, swiftly in fact, and I grew older.  I was still a
boy, and growing conscious enough of society to know that boys did not
wear dresses.  For whatever reason, this still did not bother me.  After 
all,
we all have bodies and we all wear clothes.  I’d seen the grand robes of
great Elves on splendid horses traveling the roads past our lands.  How
different is a frock from a robe?

Quite different, I was to find out.

After living in a house where my mother only vaguely apologized for not
having other clothes to give me and where all my siblings fondly called
me ‘little sister’, I stepped into the role, finally, of youngest sister.  
In our
family, the youngest child had always been charged with one of the more
energetic tasks: the unexpected trips to market.  When we unpredictably
ran short of something, it would be their job to run the hike to market.
Market lay twelve fields up a slight incline from our home.  We did not
keep horses.

My first trips to market had been on my mother’s hip every third Saturday,
and later I walked with my tall sisters crowded around me.  Now, for the
first time, I made the journey myself.

I cannot tell you how proud I was, deemed old enough to go to market
myself.  One failing of our family was that we kept few animals.  Only a
few chickens, for eggs and occasionally meat.  Supplies had run low, and
none of my sisters had ever been trained to poach, even if they were old
enough now to do so.  My uncle had given us enough, too much my
mother said.  And so I went to market, head held high and feet quick to
march, my pockets full of coppers and in search of meat for that day’s
dinner, and salt to stock the shelves.

The corn was tall on either side of the road for some time, and grew
shorter as stands of trees separated the corn from the wheat, the wheat
from the barley, the barley from the cabbage.

I sang to myself as I walked the road, meeting hardly anyone on my
journey.  But in the end, but two fields before the trees ended and the city
began, I met a bit more of my destiny.  Three boys were on the road, little
older than myself.  I recognized them at once; they were the sons of a
nearby farmer, who grew grain for the mill.  Like myself, they looked
forward to lives of hard labor and little else.

But boys at that age are impulsive, and as soon as they saw me, their
minds went to work.  The eldest, whose name I knew was Dinilion, halted
with his brothers.  They stopped, watching me approach.  My steps might
have slowed, but I never felt truly intimidated.  Finally, as I drew near, 
he
called out “Hey look, a little orphan girl on her way to market!  You must
be youngest of the bunch; haven’t seen you.  Must be buried in the pack
that comes crawling in on Saturdays!  Whutcha doing without yer brat
sisters to protect you?”

Well, I planted my fists on my hips and gave him a telling-to.  “We aren’t
orphans!” I shouted angrily.  “Our mother takes care of us!  And I don’t
need protection on this road, you big bully!”  And then I called them some
other names that I had overheard my cousins using as they worked the
field.

As you might imagine, they certainly weren’t happy with that.  Dinilion,
impulsive as I would learn he always was, ran straight at me and with a
firm push to my chest, sent me sprawling to the road.  “You show respect
to elders and to men, little slut!  When you’re a couple years older, I’ll
spread your legs and teach you a lesson!”

Frankly, I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.  But I knew it was
mean.  I stood up, brushed off my red skirts, rolled up my red sleeves, and
gave him a hollering.  “You uncouth swine!” I cried.  My mother always
said I’d had a way with words.  “How dare you push me!  You’re no better
than a filthy cur, pushing me about.  As for elders, only those who respect
me earn my respect in turn, and as for men, I’m as much a boy as you
are!”

Maybe something shown in my eye, the glint of a challenge recognizable
to all boys, for they all three of them took a step back and stared at me in
shock.

That only lasted so long, however.

Three smiles came over three dirt-stained faces.  Before his brothers could
say anything, Dinilion asked me, “What’s your name, then?”

I told him.

Maybe I shouldn’t have.

They passed me by, just like that, and didn’t look back.  As soon as they
seemed a safe distance from me, they turned back around and Dinilion
shouted:

A boy in a dress
What a mess
When he’s in distress
He’ll just give a yell
A prince will come
But then turn numb
Instead of a lass
He’ll save a lad
And then go mad

Not very witty, but quite a head for rhyme had Dinilion.

And to this day, I curse myself for wearing a red dress.  Dinilion started
up, and his brothers soon followed.  Chanting, over and over, “Scarlet
Harlot!  Scarlet Harlot!”  They made it rhyme, in high-pitched, ringing,
rhythmic voices, “Scarlet Harlot!  Scarlet Harlot!”

I turned my back on them, and held my head high.  But all the way to
market, their cries of Scarlet Harlot rang in my head; I could not rid
myself of the horrid rhyme.

I went about my business and returned home.  But in a house such as ours,
my depression went unnoticed.

I soon overcame it, though, and destiny fated another meeting for me, to
counter my association with Dinilion.

Young enough that only a portion of my day was taken up with chores, I
slipped out of the house and into the cornfields.  It was my favorite time 
of
year, when the corn was high, but not yet harvested.  Heavy ears drooped
from strong green stalks, and I ran the rows of the field, losing myself in 
a
race with no one.  I whispered a child’s secrets to the corn, as though I
could commune with it.  Sometimes I fancied I could.

In the end, I turned south, to the southern end of the field, to the little
stretch of forest that divided my uncle’s corn from our neighbor’s rice.  In
this particular area, a stream ran through, and I crawled my careful way
down the stony incline to the bottom, where wildflowers grew in
abundance from the rocky bed.  The cool stream meandered and the trees
were high and thin above, casting great patches of golden sunlight down
into my secret haven.

I sat upon my favorite rock.  It was flat and I could dangle my legs into 
the
water if I so chose, and the flowers grew in a half a ring about me, their
sweet green vines creeping toward me with their little tendrils.  That
particular day, I tucked my feet under me and arranged my white skirts
about me.  The dress was old and worn, but new to me, so not quite yet
dirty.  In fact, it was the first day I had worn it.  Although it wasn’t 
silk, it
was smooth as, and I thought it very comfortable.  I undid the long braid
that kept my hair halfway free of tangles.  I ran my fingers through it and
picked a few stray weeds to plait into the hair behind my ears, as I’d seen
my sisters do.

“Hey!  Little girl!  What’s your name?”

I suppose anyone would have thought me a maiden.

Taken by surprise, I momentarily looked up in shock, my hands on my
cheeks.

A boy stood upon the rise opposing me.  He ran down the slope, silver hair
in a braid behind him.  He stood, barefoot like I was, just beside the 
stream
and looked at me. “Oh, I’m Elstras,” he added, as an afterthought.
“You’re one of my neighbors, aren’t you?  The corn daughters?”

I stood, self-consciously plucking the flowers from my hair.  “Yes,” I told
him, “But I’m not a girl.”

He did not, of course, believe me.  “You look like one,” he told me.

I had to admit that I did.  I shrugged my shoulders.  “I’ll grow up quick.
When I do, it’ll be worth it to get proper clothes for me.  Until then, I 
wear
my sisters’.”

He seemed unimpressed.  “Why don’t you get your mama to alter them?”

“She’s got better things to be doing.”  I was very defensive of my mother.
I suppose all boys are.  “I don’t mind the dresses.”

He smiled at me.  “I bet you don’t have any friends.”

I was confused.  “I have sisters,” I pointed out.

“So do I,” he told me, and then added with a laugh, “It’s NOT the same.”
He looked me up and down, and then plodded across the stream.  It was
neither very deep nor wide.  He stepped up upon the stone to look me in
the eye.  He was shorter than I, and younger.  He was looking at my skirts.
“Are you SURE you’re a boy?”

I scowled.  “Of course.”

It seemed he was going to question me further, but finally he decided,
“Okay.”  He eyed me up and down one last time.  Then said, “Wanna
play?”

It had never occurred to me that I might enjoy playing with other children.
I had quite a bit of fun by myself, occasionally I played with my youngest
sisters, and I also found amusement in my chores.  All the same, I
answered, “Sure.”  I was always up for a bit of fun.

And after that, Elstras and I had every kind of fun you can imagine.  As
much trouble as I had got into as a toddler, the two of us got into more.
We ran amuck in the countryside.  We journeyed to what I thought were
amazing places, confined as I had long been to the cornfield and my
uncle’s barn.  Elstras took me to see the mill, the winery, the granary, the
distillery, and the great underground grain stores.

In turn, I took him to the market.  Elstras had never been in the city, and 
so
I introduced him to the wonders of the pastry shops, the butcheries, the
fisherman’s wharf (which wasn’t exactly a wharf, since we only had a
river), the flower sellers, the candle makers, and the tavern where you
could get two mugs of cider for a copper, which we did.

It was not long before Elstras and I ran into Dinilion and his brothers.

There was to be a barn-raising two fields over (which was how country
children measured all distances) and boys like us were expected to keep
the men supplied with water and cider.  Elstras, by virtue of his mother’s
soft heart, had leant me some clothes.  After living in dresses, the 
breeches
and shirt that were too short for me were quite a change, but -- on this
occasion -- a welcome one.

We arrived just before sunrise with my eldest unmarried sister, who had
brought two baskets full of sweet things she had baked and was hoping to
catch the eye of one of the farmer’s sons.  I knew which one.  He was just
her age and the eldest and would inherit a portion of his father’s wheat
field.  He was tall and strong and gifted with red hair.  I’d never seen an
Elf with red hair.  Even though people marveled at my own ebony locks, it
was my own hair and I thought nothing of it.  That, however, was how
Dinilion finally recognized me.

Not long after the raising began, a cried trio of “Scarlet Harlot” rang out
above the heads of all, and my face went red.

Elstras did not understand at first, merely turning his head and trying to
peer through the crowd.  “What’s Dinilion all in a bother about now?”

In hushed tones, I related to Elstras my first and only encounter with the
brothers, who, like Elstras and my mother and most in our land, were
gifted with that misty silver hair.

Elstras fumed.  “Bastard.  Just like him, too.”  He shook his silver head
and told me, “Never mind him.  He’ll pick on anyone shorter than he is,
just because he has a chance to work in the mill.  He’s fooling himself
though.  He’s gonna be a farmhand all his life, just like us.  You wait and
see.”

“All the same, I’d just as soon not run into him here.”

Elstras agreed, and we determined to stay on the opposite side of the barn
site as the three brothers.

Dinilion was smart enough to keep off my back when so many people
were present, people who would at least take objective interest in someone
being pummeled.

But after the raising was complete, when my dark-haired sister was sitting
under a tree with the fire-haired wheat son, and the barn stood nearly
complete before us, and the sun was setting in the west, Elstras and I left
with the masses to return home.

Halfway to home, alone on the road, we were stopped.  Dinilion jumped
down from an overhanging tree before us, and his brothers appeared
behind us.  “Well, Scarlet Harlot.  Seems you got yourself a boyfriend.
Este Elstras.”  He chuckled.

“You think yourself quite a wit,” I said.  I turned to Elstras to say, 
“Quite
fitting; it seems they’ve one wit between three brothers.”

Dinilion fumed.  “I can hardly decide if your taste in clothing has
improved.”  He finally called me by my given name.

I smiled.  “He must be shamed,” I told Elstras, though I leveled my stare at
the flaxen-haired mill son, elder and taller than the two of us.  “I think 
he
had a crush on me when I was dressed as a girl.”  Elstras giggled.

Dinilion reddened and stuttered.  “Twerp!”

“Is that the best you can do?” I easily teased.  “Why, you’re all bluff and
bluster, Dinilion.  Know what that means?  All bark and no bite.  Like a
tame wolf.”

“And you’re a boy who wears dresses; what does that say about you?”

I only laughed at him; Dinilion didn’t bother me.  “Whatever you want it
to!” I told him.  “Whatever you wish to make of it.”  Then, I grabbed
Elstras’ hand and we skipped off past the bewildered youth for home.

Elstras seemed impressed that I had somehow avoided all physical
contact.  “Dinilion loves nothing better than a good brawl!” he told me
safe in the shadowed rows of my uncle’s cornfield, the moon and stars
guiding our dawdling feet.

“We’re too young to brawl,” I thought aloud.  “What’s he gonna do,
gimme a black eye?  I think I can take it.”

“Why DIDN’T he attack us?”

“Because he doesn’t know what to think of me; I’m too different.  And I
confused him.  But I don’t think I’ll manage to do it again.”

And I was right.

Two weeks later, I was sitting up on the kitchen counter, my dark-haired
sister dabbing at my face with water and puckweed.  “I never thought I’d
see the day,” was the beginning of the hour-long lecture that ended in,
“You’ll be cleaning yourself up next time!”

I didn’t doubt it.  Though I was privately very proud of my battle scars.
Elstras and I had got into a rumble with Dinilion and his brothers, whose
names I learned were Lathor and Burren.  The scrap rolled us into a patch
of thorns, and you can imagine what we looked like after that.  For a
scuffle of two on three, I’d say we walked away all pretty even.  My face
and hands were covered in tiny cuts; I’d a split lip and sported a greenish-
colored black eye.  Proud I was, yes, very proud.  Of the five of us, I was
probably best off as well.  I’d been wearing a dress, which -- though
hindered my movement -- protected against the worst of the stickers.

And when my mother attempted to give me a second sermon on fighting, I
was ready.  “But mom,” said I in my most innocent voice, “you try being a
boy my age who wears dresses!  What was I supposed to do?  Wave a
hankie and let Elstras defend me?”

Not only did I not get a lecture, but she laughed and gave me a kerchief
bound up with cookies to take over to Elstras.

And three days later, I had my very own outfit of well-fitting trousers and
tunic.  Complete with one of my father’s belts, which I had to wrap around
my waist twice.

That, however, was not my last fight with the mill sons.  But every time, I
would just pick myself up, dust myself off, and go on my way.
Sometimes I didn’t even bother to go home; I’d just get a telling off
anyway.

Still, my family was not impressed.  It didn’t bother me, for I could
understand.  They were women after all.  They just didn’t appreciate a
boy’s need to tussle.

I bid a final farewell to the dresses that I’d grown up in.  They’d served
their purpose, but I was done with them now, growing steadily taller,
though Elstras had long outstripped me in height.  I would soon become a
man.

And the following year, Elstras and I joined the harvesters.  This meant
that as the fields around us ripened, we moved in turns to harvest each
crop.  Our harvest range covered over a dozen fields, mostly west of our
cornfield, and five different crops.

I’d never experienced anything like it.  I’d never worked so hard in my
life.  I picked and plucked and lifted and scythed and carried and hauled
and dug and pulled until my muscles screamed and my body ached and
every night I would fall dead onto my pillow with the setting of the sun.
I’d never been so happy.

Working the fields was a race against time.  And a race against Elstras,
who worked beside me.  And -- to our horror -- Dinilion, Lathor, and
Burren lived close enough to be part of our team as well.  We never let our
rivalries interfere with our work, however.  The five of us once worked
together as a team over an acre of wheat in less than a day.  We were
highly praised and rewarded.  We came to an unspoken agreement that
competition this way was a whole lot better than duking it out in the dusty
roads and bramble patches.

One day, the first day of planting five years later, I discovered that I fit
into my father’s boots, and his old clothes as well.  And so I wore my
father’s red boots, fondly remembering the sight of them when I had been
a babe.

So, we grew up together.  Elstras, Dinilion, Lathor, Burren, and I.  There
were others our age who we associated with, who we organized games
with, but the five of us were close.  After each harvesting, we worked
together assembling the great field feasts that took place in the empty
countryside.  We battened down each others’ barns and homes for the
short Greenwood winters.  We bent over the endless stretches of earth
together when the time came to sow, and swam together in the river when
the sun was high and lazy.

We grew strong together.  We teased and played and worked together.
And Dinilion and I, we still tossed insults.  And Elstras and I, we still 
had
our own time in the tiny valley between our homes, where yellow and
purple flowers still grew upon the rocks.

And when our bodies awakened, Elstras and I loved together.  As though
it were the most natural thing for two male bodies to entwine as one in
such devoted comfort.  For us, it was.

I remember that first sweetness, that first mutual relief.  It was in the
shadow of my father’s old workshop we first kissed.  It was in the shade of
the tall corn we first touched one another.  It was in that little valley I 
first
took him in my mouth.  And it was in the loft of my uncle’s barn he first
entered me.

And so, Glorfindel, you see, I lied to you.  “I have only ever shared my
bed with books and virgin moonlight.”  It could not have been further
from the truth.

I don’t think I can put words to that thrill, that amazing indescribable
sensation of taking him inside me, becoming one and sharing this ecstasy,
and then letting go.

I wanted to do it again and again.  He called me insatiable.

I wore him out.

We reveled in life, he and I.  But I doubted that anyone loved the pure
thrills of life as much as I did.  Every waking moment was so full that I
never dreamed of ever wanting anything more.  I loved to play.  I had
learned that at a young age.  I loved to work; I knew that too.  And Elstras
taught me that I loved to have sex.

Years passed and the seasons maintained their cycles, and so did we.
Harvesting days were just that, stretching our sore muscles to the limit
under the beat of the sun or in pouring rain, and sleeping like stone
through the night.  Feast days were full of preparation.  Sowing time was
nothing but just that.  And there were still days spent rollicking in the
fields with the mill sons.

But then Elstras and I had our other time.  In the high summer, while the
green things grew.  And in the short, dead winter, when the fires never
went out.  Those were the times when we might lock ourselves away for
days, doing nothing but discovering the joys of our bodies together.

Then came the day that defined my life.

It was true that I loved sex, that I could have kept going long after 
Elstras
was spent.  It was true that I loved to tease him, laying there nude and
stroking myself and gazing unrepentantly at him.  It was true that we
snuck off to my uncle’s barn loft to make love when duties were light and
the noon sun was high.

It was no oddity, therefore, that one hot summer day found us lazily
thrusting together in an old pile of blankets in the barn’s loft.

When Elstras finally came, he let out only a soft sigh, my body skillfully
milking him.  He rolled off and to the side, for the loft was hot, made
hotter by the sun streaming in open windows, which we had hoped would
tempt in a breeze.  We lay there, comfortably close but not touching,
sweating and breathing hard, and basking in the overall deliciousness of it.

Maybe we drowsed.

At any rate, we were taken off guard when Dinilion popped his head up
over the edge of the loft.  “. . . didn’t answer me, but I could have sworn 
I
saw you two head in here . . .”

His leaf green eyes grew round.

No one could have mistaken the scene for anything other than it was.

I smiled at Dinilion.

What else was I do to, really?

Perturbed, he turned his hopeful gaze to Elstras, who lay tanned and tall
beside me.  He glanced at me and then downward, as if to say ‘close your
legs.’  I shook my head, as if to say ‘no way.’

We understood one another far too well.

In the end, Elstras gestured Dinilion forward with a jerk of his head.
Dinilion slowly acceded, climbing the rest of the way to stand near our
feet, looking down at us.

I’d always admired Dinilion in a distant sort of way.  But lust-crazed as I
was, I finally noted the pure godliness of his form.  Unlike the rest of us,
he had grown not only tall, but broad, a massive figure of an Elf, all hard
muscle, packed into tree trunk thighs, rock hard chest, and muscle-corded
arms.  My smile grew.  How could I have ever failed to notice?  And with
that fall of classic Greenwood silver hair and eyes the color of a summer
forest?

And I could tell that the sight of me did not leave him unaffected.  He was
far too tense.  I made an effort to open my legs further.  I touched myself
shamelessly, one hand stroking myself to hardness, the other teasing a
tightening nipple.  “What was that you first said to me, Dinilion?”  I
slurred his name delectably.  “‘Respect your elders, little slut.  When
you’re a couple years older . . .’”

“‘I’ll spread your legs and teach you a lesson,’” he remembered that
forever-ago day on the road, eying me with interest.  “You don’t seem to
need any lessons, but you sure paint a tempting picture.”

I glanced at Elstras.  He was amused to the point of having to hide his
smiles in false yawns.

“I think wearing dresses messed him up,” I heard young Burren (I would
always call him young Burren, though he was older than I) whispering to
tall Lathor (who was indeed the tallest of the mill sons).

They, of course, had followed their brother.  And two sets of pale green
eyes were peering over the edge of the loft as they stood beside one
another on the ladder.  I couldn’t see their mouths, only two giant pairs of
eyes framed by silver hair.  I snorted and rolled my eyes and Elstras
finally let out the guffawing laughter he’d been holding back.

I can only imagine the way my eyes lit up.  Elstras always said I got this
little twinkle when I knew I was about to get laid, and that my eyes turned
black at the point of ecstasy.  “Hey Dinilion.  Why don’t we give your
brothers a demonstration?”

He did not complain and, in fact, began to undress, rolling those great
shoulders as he removed his shirt.  “A demonstration of what?”

“Of what they get to do with me when you’re done.”

That lifted Dinilion’s eyebrows.

I got my own chance to raise my eyebrows when he removed his trousers.

Thankfully, he started out slow; he was a lot bigger than Elstras.  But then
once we found our rhythm, there was nothing like it.  As he pounded me
into the straw-strewn floor, I suddenly recognized the possibility that not
only was each lovemaking unique, but so would each partner be.

Elstras removed himself to sit against the wall as Lathor and Burren
cautiously crept closer -- but not too close -- to watch.

And watch they did.  The way I reveled in it, thrilled at every sensation.
They watched what Dinilion did with his hands, they watched what he did
with his body.  I believe we taught them well.  And when we felt the peak
nearing, we gave as good a show as we could, without loosing that
internal, shared marvel of first-time lovers.  As much as we took our
pleasure, we performed for our audience, all moaning sighs and shouted
curses.

“Hey guys,” Elstras managed to warn through his laughter, “do you want
even more of an audience?”

I only made efforts to increase my noise, and Dinilion finally shut me up
with a kiss.

I came like that, with his lips over mine, and him thrusting forcefully into
me.  I would grow to love being taken like that.  I loved it already.

His release followed shortly and, as Elstras before him, he rolled off to 
the
side, sharing the ratty old blankets.

I giggled and looked to his brothers.  “Who’s next?”

Elstras and Dinilion shared a look.  They couldn’t believe it.  “I didn’t
think your lust was, in reality, unquenchable,” Elstras worriedly observed
as Lathor and Burren quickly tossed a coin.

I smiled and rubbed myself against the blankets, ran my hands through the
straw, plucked at my nipples.  I’d never been so sensitized.

I think Elstras heard something I did not, for he suddenly pulled on his
trousers and shot down the ladder, seemingly faster than I could see.

It didn’t concern me as Lathor bared his body, all lanky sinew and silver
hair.  I smiled and gestured him toward me.  As quick as Dinilion had
always been in his rhymes, Lathor was truly the intelligent one of the trio,
and he had proved it in the many conversations we had shared side-by-side
in the field or splashing in the river.

He had observed everything very closely, and he was sweetly careful
when he entered me, though it seemed nothing could have hurt me at that
point.  I was too far-gone.

I stroked his body as he stroked within me, and I did my best to show him
pleasure.  He was quick to spend and, I think, embarrassed, but I kissed
away any shame and let him move off.

Only then did I hear voices from below.  There were people in the barn,
talking, and Dinilion was spying down on them.  But I was pretty out of it
by that point.  The words blurred and disappeared altogether when Burren
came to take me.  I smiled sweetly; he had always been the quiet one.  I
had always been glad to have someone around who was shorter than I, and
he was nearest my age of the three brothers.  We shared something like --
but, I suppose not TOO like -- brotherly affection.

He was far less restrained than his brothers, and entered me with one swift
thrust.  I barely noticed Dinilion wince in sympathy, but I do not
remember it hurting.  Burren’s movements were swift and shallow, and I
cautioned him to take his pleasure more leisurely and draw it out.  He
heeded me and deepened his thrusts, slowing at the same time.

When he finally came within me, I orgasmed as well, and our low groans
rumbled through the air.

As Burren moved away, I heard shouting.

Carefully, I levered myself to my feet, their seed dripping down my
thighs.  Burren lay, oblivious, in the hay.

Dinilion tried to shoo me back, but I approached the loft’s edge to look
down.  Nearly a dozen of what had been our old playmates were trying to
get past an increasingly nervous Elstras.  Their shouts of lustful curiosity
died away, however, at the sight of me.

I smiled down at them.  “So many.  No bother coming up; I’ll come
down.”  To avoid the muck on the barn floor, I only pulled on my old red
boots.

I climbed down the ladder, quite brazenly.  They were moved to utter
silence, as was Elstras, who was trying to convey with his eyes that he
knew what I was planning and that it was a Bad Idea.  I could see the
capitalized phrase, right there in his gaze.

I looked about, pleased to see a neatly stacked pile of hay bales, not yet
fed to the animals who, in their stalls, ignored us.  “Dinilion,” I lazily
drawled.  “Send down a blanket.”

If I rightly recall, Elstras made furious gestures of refusal behind me, but
Dinilion obeyed me, sending down the blanket like a giant, flickering leaf.
It fell into my arms and I spread it on the hay bales stacked no higher than
my thighs and crawled upon the makeshift bed like a whore.

“Who wants a go?”

Young and energetic and unattached, none of them left.

I smiled and spread my legs.

They all took their turn with me, some more than once.

Some of them showed me some interesting new things, and I showed them
quite a bit more.

I remember every one.  Each once my playmate now my lover, and each
unique and wonderful.  Daronath, one of those with that rare fire colored
hair.  He was thin, but strong, as we all were from the work in the fields.
Younger than I, and with bright burning eyes.  He moved to me first,
wicked and lovely.  Ratannon, with gilded hair and nervous smile.  Wieril,
strong and broad; he gave me quite a pounding.  Silivren, a classic
Greenwood beauty; he had the look of the princes.  Ateldir, still young and
awkward and oh-so tender.  Berrihan, merry always and a joy to make
love with.  Yajhavir, hair tainted with chestnut and famed for his skill at
poaching.  Ilahir, the silent barley son; I’d never heard him speak until he
lay against me and whispered my name. Wipher, a sliver of a lad too
young to know any better.  Celidrir, another silver beauty, this one
willowy and determined.  Magorad, the oldest of the lot, and by far the
most experienced.

Fluttering in the background, Elstras had swiftly evolved from amused to
nervous to downright concerned.

I wasn’t.  I was thoroughly enjoying myself.  It was hardly as though I
could die from too much sex.  I had the virtue of being both an Elf and
male.  I couldn’t get sick and I couldn’t get pregnant.  I was young and
lust-crazed and satisfying all my friends to the best of my ability.  It was
the best day of my life.

In the end, when they had gone, and the mill sons were cleaning away all
evidence, taking the blanket away to burn, Elstras stood -- green eyes
filled with concern -- looking down on me.

I can’t rightly recall much about those moments, tingling all over with
satiation and need.  I think Elstras was dumbfounded that I was still
aroused.  I hadn’t counted, but maybe he had, the number of times I’d
climaxed.  Looking back, I don’t really want to picture how I must have
looked, sheened in sweat and dripping with semen, dark eyes lost to lust.  I
remember, though, what I did.  I held out my hand and called for him.

He took it.  “I can’t,” he pleaded.  “After . . .”

I looked over.  He was hard and ready.  Despite what he thought of my
condition, I wanted him in me.  “We started it,” I growled.  “We’ll finish
it.”

And we did.  I pulled him down and he took me there in what had been
reduced to a pile of straw.  We mated like animals in the barn and I loved
it.

Later, when we attempted to leave, I discovered that I could not walk.

Elstras wrapped me in a one of those old blankets and carried me to the
stream.  He bathed every inch of me in cool, clear water and playfully
counted the love-bites that covered my skin.

He carried me up the other side of the bank and through the field of rice to
his family’s home.  He snuck me into the cottage and into his bed, where
we curled together like puppies in a pile.

I fell asleep, knowing that I had just lived a day that would change my life
forever.

After that, the seasons continued to turn, but my life took a turn for the
better.  I doubt many other people saw it that way, but I certainly did.

Like a wildfire could take to a dry field, whispers of my escapade in the
barn burned across the countryside.

The many Elves who had been there sought me out days later for a repeat
performance.  I willingly obliged them.

Weeks later, I was a changed man.  Again, my fashion adapted to my life.
I took to wearing long tunics that reached halfway down my thighs and
nothing beneath.  Still wore my old red boots though.

My ring of lovers grew.  How else were lusty young men to occupy
themselves in the hazy days of summer, the merciless monotony of
winter?  When I was so willing?

Everyone knew what I was.

They called me a whore.

I maintained that ‘harlot’ was a much more dignified word, and whether or
not Dinilion revived the term, the name Scarlet Harlot was soon how the
people of the countryside referred to me among themselves, helped along
by the sight of my father’s old red boots.  Scarlet boots.

I moved out of my mother’s cottage.  In the end, I converted the loft of my
uncle’s barn into a home for myself, with his permission.  He must have
known what I was up to, but he never acknowledged it.  I didn’t much care
either way.  I lived a life of hard work, fun play, and good sex.  I didn’t
need anything else.

In the Greenwood, there was this old song.  I walked the roads to market
and to my lovers, singing this old song.  It was one that was known to
every child in the Greenwood.  It was taught to me by my sisters, and I
had sung it with joy in the company of Elstras and Dinilion and his
brothers.  It was one of those things when you stopped understanding the
words, so often we sang it, dancing in circles in green fields of yellow
flowers.

And, older, I sang it on the roads, laughing at those words.  It was an
announcement to any who knew me.  If you hear me singing, you have but
to follow the sound of my voice.

I am what the Valar make me
I am a child of the firstborn
A shadow who walks
A tree who talks
I am what the Valar make me

I am an Elf, I am a child
I am the sum of my parents,
The wish of my king
I am an Elf, I can be anything

I am what the Valar make me
A ship that sails,
A bird that calls,
The babe that wails,
The snow that falls

I am my dreams,
I am my hopes,
I am what seems
To be the future
I am what the Valar make me

It is written
It is seen
In the stars
In the everything
I am what the Valar make me

One day as I sang and walked, my tunic skirt flapping in the breeze, my
black hair dangling half-loose in the open air, my scarlet boots kicking the
dirt up behind me, I saw a horse approaching.  I continued my song and
thought nothing of it.  But as it drew near, I saw -- seated upon the 
beast’s
back -- an Elf tall and proud with ivory-pale hair and leaf-green robes.  I
hadn’t a clue who it was, but when he drew up aside of me and halted his
mount to look curiously down on me, I performed an inexpert bow and
declared, “Good day, my Lord!”

He smiled and inclined his head.  “A good day it is indeed, my country
youth.  Tell me, if that song is true, what have the Valar made you?”

I grinned lecherously and lifted the hem of my tunic to reveal myself to his
avid gaze.  “Take a guess.”

A slight blush overcame him.  Still, he seemed old.  Sometimes it’s hard to
tell, but I knew he was far older than I.  I’d never lain with anyone more
than a few hundred years my senior.  But he seemed more along the lines
of ancient.  I grinned.  I told him my name and said, “If it does not
displease you, we could make a bed of reeds to lie in for a time.”  I knew
that road far too well and I gestured to a stand of trees behind me.
“There’s a place not far from here.”

He smiled through his blush.  “That’s just fine.”

I introduced myself to his horse and led the beast into the open trees.  The
Lord dismounted and removed his outer robe to hang upon a low branch.
He was attired in shirt and leggings, which revealed a fine figure and he
was just my height.  I led him deep into the glade, which housed a
burbling brook and a flat clearing perfect for the nature of my common
rendezvous.  In fact, the delicate green grasses were still pressed flat 
from
a previous day’s tryst.

After I’d thrown my boots and tunic aside and lay naked in the soft grass, I
watched him disrobe, I watched him watch me.  “May I ask your name,
stranger?”

“I am Silinde, advisor to my King Oropher.”

I smiled widely.  “An advisor.  I’ve never met anyone so . . . lofty.”

It did not take long for us to get things underway, and you can be sure he
taught me a thing a two.  A few tricks to remember for later.

When we were done, we bathed in the brook and bid farewell and he went
on his way.

I began to look forward to my encounters on the road.  I seduced and was
seduced by soldiers, traders, craftsmen, scholars, laborers, and every other
assorted citizen of the Greenwood.

And still I continued my trysts with my old playmates, and especially my
loving interludes with Elstras.

As though every claiming filled me with life, I felt as though I grew in my
enjoyment of it, in my own effervescing sphere of contentment.  Joy is the
word, I believe.  I took joy in it.

Every joining thrilled and excited me, and left me feeling more complete,
as though giving of myself always meant I received something equally as
exciting in return.

I never longed for anything but the joys of life.  To savor the taste of my
food, to fully enjoy every drop of my drink, to thrill at the physical labor
of my work, to relish my fatigue at the end of the day and to delight in the
pure joy of arising each morning.  If it is true, I thought, that old song: 
I
am what the Valar make me, then I am joy.  The idea, the thought, the
mere *word* of sin never crossed my mind.  Sin was something evil, was
it not?  Something base and vile and irreverent.  Something harmful to
oneself or to someone else, and what I did was none of these.  I gave and
took only joy.

And perhaps others did not think the same, did not understand, did not
approve.  Certainly many did not, my family did not.  My mother, my
sisters grew apart from me, ignored me when they met me on the road,
turned their backs on me in the public square, shut the door on me when I
came to visit.  I was different in so many ways, and they did not
understand.

But I considered that I had enough tolerance for all of us.  I understood
that I was unique, that they could not accept what I had become, what I
had grown to be.  And that was all right.

I rarely thought then on my lost trade, on my lost father.  Only more and
more common has it become for me now, in the security of my Imladrian
home, to wonder on what would have been if my king had not
unknowingly slain him, if I had grown to learn the skills of a cooper and
carry on the family line.

As it was, we lived our blissful, unchanging lives in the rolling green
fields, the marketplace, the free and open wood.

___________________

Then, one year, the crops failed.  Nearly half of them.

We had fooled ourselves into living a timelessness, a summer of country
existence, without cares or concerns.  For me, my five hundred years was
an eternity, and I had expected it to go on forever.  We all had, I think, 
all
of us country boys.

After the first shock of watching field after field turn to pestilence, 
after
wandering in devastated silence the blighted potato crops, the empty
husked corn fields, the withered vineyards, after all this failure, my
memory becomes hazy.

For then came the spiders.  We had no warning in the country.

Years before, my eldest sister, whose husband had become one of the
Greenwood’s coopers, had given birth.  I remember shouting and screams.
I remember fires.  I remember the body of our mother, blackened with
poison, bent over in the rotting field.

I remember running in the night for the caves, with Elstras beside me and
the mill sons behind me and my little niece cradled in my arms.  Her
parents were dead; that’s how I thought of them then, her parents, not my
sister, not my sister’s husband.  She was my niece and her parents were
dead.  It did not hurt so much to think of it in those terms, it made sense 
to
an Elf who was barely a man and had no preparation for anything
resembling this wave of evil that swept the land.

Elstras carried a scythe, I remember.  With the ferocity of a bear whose
family is threatened, he cut down a spider that sprang up before us.
Dinilion, Lathor, and Burren carried what weapons they could.  A shovel,
a hoe, and Dinilion had his father’s sword.

We all had tears in our eyes, but for my little niece, who was too young to
understand the dying screams in the distance, the raging fires of the 
fields,
the great shadows of the spiders.

Maybe because we were young and swift, we were among the first to
reach the caves.

There were women screaming for their dead children, husbands weeping
for lost wives.  Children were few.  Like my niece, only those who could
be carried had survived.

We cowered together in a corner, touching one another as though to be
sure we were actually there, petting one another’s tangled hair and holding
sweaty hands, while brave Burren snuck through the caves.

When he returned, he had word.  He was breathing hard and still held his
shovel tight in his hands, as though waiting for an attack.  “The royal
family is here; they are already organizing defenses.  They are asking us to
organize ourselves.  Farming families this way.”

We followed him through the deep dark of the caves, lit by smoky tallow
candles and poor torches.  We found familiar faces in that long stretch of
cave, even as we faithfully repeated the names.  Names came to us as we
huddled along the wall; those known to be dead and those missing.  We
passed the names through the caves, sending on messages.  Every once in
a while, the piercing screams of those who mourned were punctuated by
the happy cries of reunion, but not often enough.

I was only destined to find one of my sisters, the one with dark hair like
me.  She had turned from me in the past, but all was different now, and we
held our silver-haired niece between us and mourned.

Then, to our shock, her fiery haired love appeared.  He knew, of course,
what I was, but he had never judged me, and I had always silently
appreciated his indiscrimination.  Abruptly, he said, “I mourn with you
your loss.”  I could see he had his own losses.  Like us, his eyes were
haunted.  Then, he said to me, “I had intended to ask your mother, but now
it is left to you.  May I have your blessing to wed your sister?”

“My blessing, yes.  You would have had our mother’s blessing, the
blessings of our family.  I hope the Valar keep you, I hope your lives grow
full of love and peace.  I know that you will be happy together, should Eru
permit it.”

Then I handed my niece over to them without a word.  They understood.

___________________

Our lives, then, became a hundred-year shadow of darkened caves, of
spider attacks, of orcs ravaging what had been our city.  I worked
alongside my friends and lovers, digging further down into the earth,
carefully widening out what would be the halls of our homes.

My trysts took a different nature then.  Silent we were, and quick in the
depths of the caves, always with a lookout.  They traded me around,
shared me like I was an eternal light that they each wanted to shine over
their lives for a short time.

I didn’t count the years, in truth.

And there was nothing to break the monotony.  The seasons ceased to
exist for people who barely saw the sun as it was.  There were no feast
days to divide the waxing of the years.  When you’ve seen spiders the size
of small horses destroy your home and kill your family, your faith in the
Valar diminishes.

___________________

Whispers pervaded the cave finally, whispers of a war to come.

In due course, the king’s men came.  They searched out all male Elves
who could wield a sword.  We were working in the caves and they were
moving down the line.  I listened.

“Name?”

“Dinilion.”

“Father?”

“Fealion.  Deceased.”

“Trade?”

“Farmhand.”

“Skills?”

“I wield a sword.”

“You’ll be in the King’s battalion.  Second company.”

I listened as his brothers answered the list of questions.  They, too,
claimed skill with a sword, though they had none.  They got their wish
when the soldier coolly told them, “King’s battalion.  Second company.”

“Name?”

“Elstras.”

“Father?”

“Eldinir.  Deceased.”

“Trade?”

“Farmhand.”

“Skills?”

“Sword.  Spear.  Archery.”

“How good are you?”

“Good.”

“King’s battalion.  First company.”

It was true, Elstras had been far better educated and well-rounded than
myself, though he was hardly a warrior.

My turn came next and I answered with detachment, as my friends had
done.

“Trade?”

“Farmhand.”

“Skills?”

I exchanged glances with Elstras.  I’d never held a weapon in my life and
he knew it.  The king’s man raised his brows, waiting.  He didn’t have all
day.  I shrugged and looked away.

His partner, who had been recording everything, moved to make the mark
beside my name that would define my destiny, but then the inquisitor
happened to look down.  “Hold on.”  He looked up into my face.  “Those
boots.  I’ve heard about you.”  He smiled at me.  Smiles were rare in those
days, though I saw more than most.  I smiled back.  “You’re the Scarlet
Harlot.”

Somewhere behind me, I heard Dinilion groan.

I nodded.

The king’s man turned to his partner.  “Give me that.”  He grabbed pencil
and paper and wrote something beside my newly entered name.  “We have
a place for you,” he assured me with a leer.  “You’ll travel in the rear
company.”

“What company is that?” I questioned.

He did not meet my eyes.  “You won’t be there to fight.”

Then he moved on down the line.

___________________

Day and night smeared together.  Weeks were distorted into months.  I
remained attached to my friends as well as I could.  We ran errands for the
king’s men; we gathered for the march to the south.

My life had lost any concept of cycle.  Sometimes I ate, sometimes I slept.
Sometimes I stood guard, sometimes I packed wagons.  Sometimes I
stitched tents, sometimes I lay with my friends, or other, needful men.

Before I knew it, we were marching.  I was in a party near the middle,
with the King, the princes, the advisors, the other keepers of other things.
I hardly knew who was who.  I knew that my friends marched on the
perimeter, keeping the spiders at bay.  I went days without seeing them,
though everyone who marched was accustomed to passing messages.
Every once in a while, a soldier would suddenly walk beside me, “Elstras
sends you his best wishes.”  And he would move away again.

It was good to know that even parted, we were not alone.

And when halted, so that the majority of us could sleep, I did not sleep.
Men already sick with the journey, hateful of war, longing for home, came
to lay with me in the night.

Each of those stops on the long road, I was the only one who always
erected my very own tent.  I welcomed anywhere from three to ten a night.

They needed what succor I could give them.

___________________

One day as I walked, weary and confused, a horse stepped up beside me.  I
looked up into familiar green eyes and smiled.  “My Lord Silinde.”  I
nodded respectfully.

He greeted me as cheerfully as one may on a march to war.  “I thought I
saw you among us.  Where is your armor, your weaponry?”

I had grown used to the question.  “I have none.”

“Why are you here then?”

I gave him a pointed stare.  “I am here to give comfort to the men.”

___________________

Soon, our banners joined those of Lothlorien.  Then, on the last days when
the sun still shone and the air was not hazy with campfire smoke, I could
make out the standards of the High-King, of Lindon, of Imladris.

But the Elves of the Greenwood were proud and secretive even then.
Without strictly stating it, I was forbidden to ‘associate’ with any
‘foreigners.’

I obeyed.  I was frightened enough, marching to war without any
knowledge of what that truly meant.

Sorrowfully, I looked at the faces about me.  Warriors there were, yes,
soldiers.  Oropher had always kept his military men in great numbers.  But
among them I saw too many faces that I knew.  They were not the faces of
soldiers in any way.  They were craftsmen, cooks, and farmers like me.

With such large numbers, our stops for rest were larger and less organized.
I made a habit of wandering the fires, speaking to the men.  I would sing,
tell jokes, and explain exactly how they could find my little tent, if ever
they wished to visit.  I was saddened to find nearly all of my friends 
there.
In fact, the only lovers I ever had who were not there, were not there
because they had already died in the initial raids on our land.

My only relief was that my new brother-in-law, for that fire-haired Elf had
indeed wed my sister, was not among our companies.  Perhaps they would
indeed know peace.

___________________

When our final camp was made, at the end of a long line of tents of Elves
and Men, it was in the shadow of Mount Doom, for that blasted place was
always visible.  One had to close one’s eyes to not see it.  And death
already surrounded us.  The Dead Marshes were not then what they are
now, but they still carried that name.

But I saw little of camp.  Instead, it seemed I lived in my tent.  And they
came to me, one after the other.  And I gave them what they needed.
Whatever they asked for.

It was always good to see familiar faces, though.  Elstras, Dinilion,
Silinde.

The time drew near, I knew, for the first attack, for what would be the
beginning of years of battle.  I could sense it, even if I did not overhear 
the
whispers.

“He is too confident.”

“We’re all going to die.”

One eve, as I lay naked and alone in my scrap of a tent, I heard someone
calling my name.  One of the king’s men stuck his head inside.  “You’re to
come with me.

“My clothes . . .”  Bleary-eyed, I glanced around.

“You won’t need them where you’re going.”  The soldier leered at me.
“It’s the King’s tent you’ll be sleeping in tonight.”

For a moment, I could not move.  But I slowly roused and pulled myself
together.

I thought then, on the King.

I wondered if he suspected that I was the son of the cooper he had killed.
Or if he even cared.  Like the rest, he would take me to his bed to sate
whatever it was he needed in my body.  Lust, fear, connection, anxiety.
Often, it seemed, they sought me out merely to escape from the reality of
war.  And I welcomed them all.  It was what my king demanded, and the
only thing I thought I could offer.  Some were so young, far younger even
than I, and others were survivors of long distant wars; some I’d grown up
with and others I saw for the first time naked and ready.  There was
always an eagerness about them there at the end.  Perhaps they knew they
were destined for death.  Perhaps there was a bloodlust that grew among
them.  But all the ‘perhaps’ in the world could not save them.

But he bid me into his tent that night, King Oropher.  I still could not 
find
my clothes, and so walked the long distance across the camp with only my
scarlet boots.  Few saw or cared.  When I saw him I thought him a
miserable man, so sure of success and yet riled enough about something to
send for ‘the harlot.’  I knew that was what he called me.  Many of them
did.  But I doubted he even knew my name.  I doubted and I was right, for
when his guards pulled aside the flaps of the tent and I disappeared within,
feeling as though I was being swallowed alive into the yawning maw of
some dark monster, he turned his bleary green eyes to me and asked,
“What shall I call you?”

I gave him my name, the one I was given at birth, the one I long had
answered to, growing ever more distant from my own name, hearing it
bandied about in bawdy tones and hoarsely shouted in meaningless
ecstasy.  I gave him my name that night, knowing I was giving it away for
the last time.  Just as I was giving myself away for the last time, the last 
of
myself.

And he was not kind, nor was he brutal.  Only a weary indifference bound
us, my body finally feeling as though its use was past its time, worn and
gone.  I felt nothing.  Neither arousal nor pain.  No enjoyment, no
fulfillment, no irritation, and no sensation.  I was, finally, numb.

___________________

And when he was through with me, I succumbed to true sleep, as I had not
since the march began.  I wondered what spell came over me, for when I
finally awoke, a day had passed, and all the camp had been emptied.

I wondered if I had been left behind on purpose, undisturbed for I could
not fight, or if they had merely overlooked the shadowed compartments of
the King’s tent.

I did not even know in what direction they had gone.  I was so lost to the
horror of it that I did not even know I was naked as I sat outside the
King’s tent and made a fire for myself.

There was no food, so I did not eat.

I sat there for many days.  I heard the sounds of war.  I could almost see 
it.

Then, there was the sound of riders.  Thranduil came, with tears in his
eyes.  He saw me and ignored me.  He and the small remainder of his men
were battered and wounded.  They moved about the camp and packed a
few things into a wagon, which they hitched together, and then they
slowly moved away.  They moved in the direction of the main camp, that
of Gil-galad.

I stayed where I was.

___________________

I knew the rest were dead.

Can you grasp it, just the smallest idea of what it means?  Being a harlot,
and knowing that you alone have survived all your lovers?

I could not.  I was half-mad with the knowledge of it.  I do not truly
remember those times.  Who found me.  Who cared for me.

___________________

Later, I returned to the site where they had died.  The battle had since
moved elsewhere.  I went alone.  I carried a shovel.

Previously, someone had come to lie out the dead.  In lines the Elves were
laid, arms crossed, eyes closed.  When they still had arms or eyes.

I found Silinde first, near the edge of battle.  He had fought, scholar
though he had been.  His white hair was twisted in bloody knots.  I lay
over him a Greenwood standard.

As a ghost, I wandered the lines of the dead.  I could name many, but there
were few I was looking for.  Dinilion.  Lathor.  Burren.  I dug one grave
for the three brothers.  Time was short.  I marked the grave with scarlet
boots.

I never found Elstras’ body.  But there had been no survivors from that
first raid.  Like the High King would be later, it seemed he had been so
close to the front lines that there was nothing left to find, let alone 
bury.

Did I love Elstras?  I was too scared to let myself know.  I still don’t.

___________________

I did what I could in the camps of war.  Most often, I was a water-carrier.
Or stretcher-bearer.  I saw the battle at times, but still I had never 
raised a
weapon.  I decided I never would.

When at last I was introduced to Elrond as ‘one of the few Mirkwood
survivors’, I gave the name Erestor.  He looked upon me kindly.  His eyes
were haunted.  The war was over.  It was time to rebuild.  Not buildings
for us, but reconstruction of a different sort.  A reconstruction of the 
heart.
He was sympathetic when he told me all my brethren had already returned
to Mirkwood.

“Mirkwood?” I remember asking.  “Where is that?”

Elrond and the other Elves exchanged looks.  I didn’t bother to read those
looks.

“Please excuse me,” he answered.  “It is what we have taken to calling the
Greenwood.”

“Mirkwood?” was my response.  “The name well becomes it.”

“It is too dangerous to return there alone,” one of the others told me.

“I will go, then, wherever else I am welcomed.”

“Imladris has lost many,” Elrond told me.

We have all lost many, I thought, but I did not say it.

“You would be welcome there.”

“Then let me be your servant and follow where you lead.”

And I did.  I latched onto the Half-Elf like he was the last light left in
Arda, though with what found skill I masked every emotion that passed
through me, I do not know.  And he depended greatly upon me.  It was the
first time in a long time I shared a bed without sharing my body.

___________________

Once the ride home finally began, Elrond soon found a way to occupy
himself.  He was, to my hidden horror, assembling a list of the dead for his
Valley.  He asked me to assist.  I was happy to excuse myself with a
truthful excuse.  “I am sorry, my Lord.  I do not read.”

After all, what need had country boys for reading?  Even Elstras had not
known how.

Horrified at this confession, Elrond took it upon himself to teach me.  That
was how we spent our evenings, and along the road home he would test
me as well.  He taught me all the languages he knew.

___________________

Entering Imladris was like entering a new world.  Though I had very much
changed.

As the centuries ripened and rotted and fell away to the books of time, I
made my place and kept it.  People knew me as the cruel counselor.  That
became my name.  I allowed it.  I encouraged it.  I had no stamina to think
on the past, nor to welcome anyone into my future.  I was too tired for
much of it.  I took what path was easiest for me.

___________________

So, you see, I lied to you, Glorfindel.  “I have only ever shared my bed
with books and virgin moonlight.”  I suppose it is true, in some respects.
The only bed I have ever had, of wooden frame and stuffed mattress, is
here in Imladris.

But I had wanted you to see me as something I was not, something as pure
and untouched as those cold clear winter mornings you so love.  I
trembled as I said it.  I trembled not because I feared you but because I
feared lying to you.  And now it is all laid bare before you.

I cannot be what I wanted to be for you, for someone who looked upon
me, who approached me, first with love and not lust.  I cannot be your
equal; I cannot be as an untarnished sheathe for a brilliant shining sword
newly reforged from the Halls.

But this is all my life and I cannot hide it from you any longer.

___________________

And now, here I am in Imladris.  Choosing to remember my childhood, if I
remember anything at all.  Wearing my eternal mourning robes, ever
grieving for those who I recall with any fondness.

Still guarding close those memories of childhood, of the bullying in my
sisters’ clothes, I rattle after the wee ones in these white halls, yelling 
at
the top of what I know are very formidable lungs.  I don’t know if they
hear my words; sometimes I don’t even hear myself.  I yell after them to
mind themselves, to take care, to look out.  As though I can yell the same
thing to my childhood self.

At the same time, I am silent to all else.

And you are right.  You haven’t said it, but I know you think it.  ‘Why do
act as you do, Erestor?  So cold, so intimidating?  Why push people away?
You are hiding.  Why are you hiding?’  I think you know the answer now.

I have had my fill of closeness.  I have found that people are not to my
liking.  Selfish they are, as I never was.  I’ve never met anyone like
myself, so willing to give of themselves that they gave away everything.
That is what I did, you see.  I kept nothing for myself, in the end.  No 
joy,
no pleasure.  No thrill or delight.

Numbness, finally, was all that I was left with, a cool replacement for the
vivacity of my youth, I know.  For so long I have felt as spent as the days
of late autumn, when even the drooping trees are weary and the sun
content to lie abed late and return undercover early.  Nothing could be
roused in me.  There was no more joy.  There was no more anything.  Life
was an old routine, though much changed for me.  And so discouraging
was I to people that they stayed away.  They feared me.  And I was
grateful for it.  Distance of any kind was welcome, and fear was close
enough to respect.

So, that is who I was, and who I became.  I was a summer and I became a
winter, do you see?  Frozen, some have called me.  How apt.  My body
does not rouse in any way anymore.  Like the rest of me, I thought it dead.
Dead emotions, dead senses.  Nothing.

But you see, I forgot something.  For after every winter, comes a spring.
And the trees that seem to die are merely hibernating.  I feel, suddenly, as
though I am waking, waking from this extended hibernation.  I feel,
suddenly, as though I might find joy again.

Not in myself, though, no, not yet.  In myself there is still too little of
anything.

It is in you that I find my joy.  You have given to me what I only ever
gave to others.  Slowly, Glorfindel, you are filling me up again.  I once
more recognize these things I have spoken of: pleasure, delight, and joy.
It is like finding some treasure that was familiar to me a long time ago.  I
must hold it carefully, and examine every inch of it to define it, to
recognize it, and say yes, I know this.  This is joy.

So too you have given me strength.  Strength enough to finally recall all
that I had pushed so far away from me.  All that I set down before you
here.

And yet, there is something else still.  Among the treasures you have given
me, there is something new, something unfamiliar and unremembered.
Based upon what I have learned and read and heard, the name I must put
to this unlooked-for treasure is love.  Love grows in me.  I did not wish to
speak of it, as though it was so fragile the merest utterance would break 
it.
And so I kept it secret, a slow and careful cultivation of the poor 
seedling.
But nothing grows without light, I have learned, and love always hidden is
no love at all.  And, I begin to realize it is not so fragile a thing as 
first I
thought.  And though my voice would tremble, I soon shall say them.  Not
quite yet capable though, I shall first write them down, finding the subtler
telling of the written word not quite as destructive as those that are 
spoken.

I want you to know that I mean each of these words in their entirety.  “I”
as in all of me, every part.  “Love” as in the eternal kind, merry and 
bright
and completely indefinable in these clumsy words I am so uncomfortable
with.  “You” as in all of you, every part.

I love you.

And this also you need to know.  Though my body does not yet stir, does
not yet shake the winter snow from its limbs, my heart already has
warmed, and I do not think it will be long before my body longs for more
than your sweet embrace and fleeting kisses.

I have chosen to give to you my secrets.  I trust you will not betray them 
to
any other, and if you do, it is my own fault for so harshly misjudging you.
As for me, I must have time alone.  Is it a test?  I think it is.  Not for 
you,
you must know, but for me.  To think more deeply than I have yet dared to
think, to dream more soundly than I have ever hoped, and to feel more
keenly than I have ever dared to feel.

Time I have taken for myself and time I give to you.  Think, if you will,
dream if you dare, or feel if you must.  Perhaps your needs are other.
Perhaps you have come to hate me for these secrets or perhaps you long
already to have me back.  I ask only that you use this time wisely, and
regard these secrets selfishly, for they belong only to you.

And when I return, then we both shall discover what each of us has made
with our time.  If my voice has grown strong enough to utter the word of
love, or if your heart has turned away from me.

With love,
Your Erestor
If you will have me
Still waiting for Someday

~*~*~*~*~*~

Glorfindel breathed.

Then he, very carefully, trembling as he did so, closed the tear-spattered
papers.  He set the book aside.  He stood up, pushed in his chair, stepped
back from the desk, and breathed.

“Damn him!  Damn him damn him damn him!  Dammit Erestor!  Damn
damn DAMN!”  He ran to the window and threw it open to the spring day.
“ERESTOR,” he shouted, loud enough to throw the birds from their
perches, to turn the heads of those guarding the border; his voice echoed in
the Valley like a godly thunder.  “Erestor!  Get back here right now!
Come home at once!  If you can hear me, then turn around right now and
come back to me!  Erestor!  I love you!  DAMN YOU, COME BACK!”

The squirrels chattered angrily, the maidens tittered in the gardens and
Elrond, somewhere in the Valley, shook his head in bemused
consternation.

But there was no returning cry.  And there was no returning Counselor.

= = = = =

Glorfindel spent the next days in an uproar.  He spoke with Elrond, won a
temporary sabbatical from all duties, acquired the room next to his own
chambers, was granted a sum of goods and money, and was given a troupe
of three Elves who agreed to do whatever he asked of them for a month.

He took these three Elves under his wing: young they were and eager to
achieve much in the Valley.  One was a craftsman whose trade was that of
a woodcarver, the next was a librarian newly migrated from the Harbors,
and the last was one of Glorfindel’s own warriors, but a novice in
comparison to himself.  He took them aside and told them, “I am in love
with Erestor, and he is in love with me, and now that he is gone, I wish to
prepare a surprise for him, do you see?  All right, come with me, my
cronies, my eager minions, and bring with you your paper and ink and
write down all that I say, for I don’t want a single thing forgotten.”

In this way, Glorfindel amused himself.  He kept busy, he made what he
thought was the best possible use of his time.  And so trusting were his
three henchmen that they kept every secret he gave them, enthused in their
labor and excited at the chance to work with a suddenly completely
eccentric reborn hero, for the fallen warrior of Gondolin is what everyone
said Glorfindel was, even if he never said it himself.

= = = = =

In the depths of the Golden Wood, Erestor wandered.  Alone he wandered,
and full of deep thought.  Any who saw him would turn to those beside
them and say, ‘Do you see that Elf?  What shadow weighs so upon him
that he appears caught in it, even in the midst of our Lothlorien?’  And if
an Imladris Elf overheard, he would answer, ‘That, that is the Counselor
Erestor.  Long has he haunted our own halls, devoid of cheer and light.
And why he has come here I do not know, but that a change has overcome
him in these passing years and it is said the Golden Wood is a timeless
place.  If it is time he seeks, then he has found it here.’

And just as in Imladris, those who saw Erestor let him be and did not
disrupt his solitary ruminations.

But in the end, as the months fell swiftly down the tunnel of time and his
return to Imladris drew near, Erestor did something he had never in his life
done before.  He sought advice.

One night after a feast shared between the people of Lothlorien and the
visitors from Imladris, Erestor approached the queen who did not claim
such a title and asked to speak with her.  Galadriel, dressed all in white
and pearls and the delicate blue of sea foam, rose elegantly from her chair,
bid her husband farewell, and clasped Erestor’s elbow, asking him to lead.

Now, Erestor was not easily intimidated, but when in the company of this
witch, he could not hide his awe.  Galadriel was indefinable, at some
moments a maiden, at others a wisewoman.  She was bright as molten
gold and yet seemed to cast a dark shadow.  She was beautiful and,
somehow, horrid.  He could not stand her, but longed to stand near her.
She was taller than he was too, which was upsetting for some reason, even
though many people were taller than he.

He walked with her along the swinging bridges high above the ground
until they reached some unnamed talan, merely a crossroads of the high
city that branched throughout the mellyrn, a silver-roped roadway.

The talan was large, and circled round the trunk of the tall tree, with
curving banisters all about and various stairs and bridges leading off it.  
It
was a good place.  A few white lanterns hung like dripping icicles from
the branches above, and there were no people within sight.

Galadriel finally let go his arm and she needlessly rested her hands upon
the white railing, looking out over the Wood.  “What do you seek from
me, Counselor?”

Her voice, too, seemed to hide some magic in it, as though there were
nothing normal about her, as though only the heavenly and miraculous
resided in or near her.  Finally, Erestor answered, “I am not sure, my
Lady.  I seek counsel, but I myself am uncertain what nature that counsel
should take.  My secrets might be known to you, for you see much, or I
may be a mystery to you, as I am to many.  I do not know.  But I feel
obliged to admit that my visit here had a basely selfish purpose.  I have
come here in cowardly flight from the man whom I love.  I do not know if
I have the strength to seek what I desire, or the ability, even, to love him
as I wish to do.  I have come here to think over the whole of my life, and
to wonder at my future.  In my wonderings, I have grown sure of a love I
was previously too weak even to speak of.”  Throughout his speech,
Erestor dared not look to her, for her starry eyes -- he knew -- would have
stilled his tongue, so full of knowledge and time were they.  “What I
expect or hope from you, I suppose even I do not know.  I have thought
too much it seems, and have overwhelmed myself with questions no one
has answers to.”

“Love always offers more questions than answers.  Do you not know this,
Erestor of the Greenwood?”  He looked up with shock at her words.
“Aye, I know more of you than you think, Counselor.  And as for counsel,
I may offer you this: Trust to love, to your heart and his.  Do not think
overmuch.  Also, relationships -- of any kind -- are a two-way affair: there
must be give and take for both parties, forfeits yes, and triumphs.  You
have already given much, however.  Now is your time to receive.”

“I don’t know that I completely understand,” Erestor confessed.  “But still
your words calm me, and I shall remember them.”

“That is well, Erestor.  Now, the night is far gone and I seek my own bed.
Do not be too long in seeking yours.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

And she was gone.

And Erestor, Erestor returned to his guest quarters to pack his things.
They would be leaving soon, he knew, and now he looked forward to his
return.

= = = = =

End Part 2




TITLE:  Christmas Special: Part 3
AUTHOR:  Ezra’s Persian Kitty
E-MAIL: ezraspersiankitty@yahoo.com
PAIRING:  Erestor/Glorfindel (others)
RATING:  NC-17
SUMMARY:  Someday has arrived.
DISCLAIMER:  Not mine.
WARNING:  I can’t really decide if this needs some kind of warning.
NOTES:  Welcome, Erestor, to your emotional rollercoaster.  Please keep
all angst within the ride until it has come to a complete stop.
Sorry about the modern-day terminology, but really, is there any synonym
for ‘turn-on’ let alone an old-fashioned one?

Thanks to Mo-chan, for timely inspiration in essential moments, or -- as
she would call it -- her ‘liquor logic.’

= = = = =

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: SOMEDAY


Erestor, so long used to hiding what had -- admittedly -- been fairly dull
and depthless emotions in previous years, could not mask the very real
anxiety that radiated from him the closer they rode to home.  Of all the
Elves who made up the escort, none dared discuss or even mention the
changes that had overcome Erestor in recent years.  Accustomed as the
Elves of Imladris were to Erestor’s foul moods and cold manners, they
easily did as they had always done.  They ignored him.

But also riding tall and proud in the escort was Elrond’s daughter.  The
Evenstar rode her white mare beside Erestor who was mounted on a
chestnut stallion, and she alone braved the possibility of cruel retorts and
evil glares.  She watched him with a calm sweetness inherited from her
mother’s mother, all subtle smiles and knowing looks.

It was hard to miss the fact that, as the troupe came within sight of the
gates, Erestor was downright jittery with nervousness.  Finally, Arwen
could remain silent no longer.  She guided her mount directly alongside
Erestor, who had -- with much disgruntled impatience and indecipherable
grumbling -- taught her to read and write so very long ago, along with
other proper skills for young ladies and lords to be tutored in.  Since 
then,
she had maintained her distance from him, as most people did.  But like
most who at least associated with him at meals, she had noticed his
metamorphosis.  And she approached him now to speak.  “My dear
Counselor, you’re unsettling your horse.”

Shocked to find the young lady so close, Erestor started, but then took her
words to heart and took a moment to calm his mount, fondly patting the
beast’s great neck.  “You are right.”

In an effort to prevent eavesdropping, Arwen leaned in to whisper,
“What’s come over you, Counselor Erestor, to so alter you these last
years?”

Erestor offered a shaky smile and Arwen raised her eyebrows, in an
expression all too reminiscent of her father.  She’d never seen anything
happy or uncertain in Erestor’s face, but both were there now.  Erestor
also leant in and whispered back.  “I doubt you are the first to see it, but
you are certainly the first brave enough to say anything.  Even your father
has avoiding speaking of this ‘alteration’ as you so delicately put it.”

“And?” she asked, with a girlish grin.

“It is the one thing that changes all who experience it.”

Arwen shook her head, not understanding.

Erestor lowered his voice even more, pitched it so only the lady might
hear.  “I am in love.”

Arwen’s delicate hand clapped over her mouth in astonishment and dark
eyes went wide as saucers.  She glanced about as though to see if anyone
else had heard, but the Elves of their escort were all firmly engaged in
watching the surrounding woodland shadows or giddy with anticipation of
returning home, which was now in sight.  Arwen tittered a moment,
staggered at the mere thought of Erestor being in love with anyone, at
being susceptible to those more tender emotions that surely swayed every
Elf at times.  Until this moment, she just could never have conceived of it.

Despite her lack of a verbal answer, Erestor continued.  “I may confide in
you, yes?  Glorfindel has told me he loves me.  I may have panicked a bit
when I finally decided I returned the sentiment.  I left him a note before I
ran away to the Golden Wood with you.  . . . I can’t imagine he is very
pleased with me . . .”

“Oh Erestor,” Arwen cooed in a sympathetic voice.  “I had no idea.”

“No one does.”  Except Galadriel of course, but he didn’t say that.

He turned fearful eyes to her, and she read more emotion there in that one
look than in all the expressions she had ever seen him wear altogether.
And when he tempered his pretty voice to her ear, it was desperate with
desire to know, “Do you think he will be angry?”

And even with her lack of knowledge in the subject, she answered to the
best of her ability.  “Oh Erestor, may I call you that?  Erestor, even if he 
is
angry with you, if he loves you, he will forgive you, I am sure.  Glorfindel
is not one to hold grudges or keep any hatred in his heart.”

“May your words strengthen me,” Erestor seemed to pray.

And then no more words passed between them, for the gates loomed near,
and a party of Elves waited within the forecourt to greet them.

= = = = =

Glorfindel had been careful in his manner of dress.  His hair, his secret
vanity, was brushed free and loose as he never wore it in public.  An
uncommon idea nowadays, he had been raised to believe that hair
untempered by braids was not a sight fit for public viewing; it was not
proper.  But he wore it thusly now.  Perhaps even he was not certain why
he found it fitting.  Perhaps it was merely the imagery of displaying what
was -- to him -- a symbol of the bedroom to publicly greet his lover.

The outfit he wore was newly commissioned: all shades of blue, from the
most delicate pale icy cerulean in the lace at his collar and cuffs to the
deepest, richest cornflower of his leggings.  A bright sky blue doublet
embroidered with coils of gold and sewn with sapphire jewels was the
crowning grace of the ensemble accented by navy velvet boots and a
braided belt of softest leather dyed the color of rainbow’s indigo.  He wore
a mithril ring twisted with silver and set with a blue stone on his left
forefinger.

He cut a dashing figure to say the least.  Among all the Elves in the court,
he shone the brightest by far and many interested glances were cast his
way.  Elrond only stared in inquiring perplexity.

Glorfindel regarded none of them.  As they all waited in the courtyard of
white and gray stone with trees rising majestically above them and the
wind softly blowing, Glorfindel only had eyes and ears for his three
henchmen, who had grown as attached as puppies to a master.  As the
greeting party waited, these three Elves stood in a line beside Glorfindel,
and what a line it was.  First stood the young craftsman, by name of
Saelbeth, dressed all in tones of violet, in delicate shoes like lilac and a
costume of heavy, swooping sleeves like the soft iridescent underbelly of
curving sea shells.  He wore dark leggings the color of violets and purple
ribbons in soft yellow hair.  Next the librarian stood in line, by name of
Melpomaen.  His small, dark figure was draped in proper robes, but all in
the colors of red, from crimson lining to an almost plum velvet surcoat
lined in gold buttons.  Currant-colored ribbons bound his ebony hair and a
thin fillet of filigreed gold sat upon his brow.  Last but not least came 
the
young warrior, by name of Dinendal, clothed all in shades of green from
boots of suede and linen breeches to shirt of silk, and ribbons in auburn
hair; he was decked out in evergreen and paling lime and forest tones of
jade and emerald.

With secretive smiles on each and every face, they awaited the slowly
approaching escort.

Then they all filed in, guards and diplomats warmly greeted by friends and
family, Arwen by her father, and last to dismount, Erestor.  He left his
horse, reins drooping to the ground, staring disconsolately after him.

Erestor was frightened.  He simply did not know what to expect.  And
there stood Glorfindel, with the most colorful trio behind him.  But
Glorfindel himself, oh how magnificent!  As though a god of the sky stood
before him, manifested in velvet and gold and satin and lace and glorious
flesh!  How intimidating, how beautiful, Erestor barely found the strength
to edge near.  Erestor, in plain brown traveling clothes stained with the
muck and mire of the road, seeming so small and completely unappealing.
And some part of him was acutely aware of the many eyes on them, even
as he fearfully approached the figure drenched in blue.

Glorfindel’s expression remained firmly unreadable.  Neither smile nor
frown tempted the wide mouth.  Eyes were clear and blank.  And still
Erestor came near.  Knowing not what else to do, Erestor performed a
little bow; it seemed appropriate in light of such a presence.  He ignored
the three curious youths in a line behind Glorfindel.  And Erestor licked
his lips, his dark eyes glancing aside and darting up to resolute blue.  His
words came slow and his voice stuttered, “I can understand if you are
cross with me . . .”

Then, Glorfindel sort of . . . swooped.  In a predatory lunge, he shot out 
to
wrap iron-strong arms around Erestor’s slim figure.  He lifted Erestor into
the air and spun him about.  When Glorfindel finally set him down, he still
would not release him.  “Cross??!?!?” he belted out, loud in Erestor’s ear.
“Nay!!!  FURIOUS I was, furious that you had left me!  You coward!
And, so, well, what did you unravel in your thinkings?”  He pushed
Erestor away so that strong hands on weak shoulders dictated the distance
between them.  He looked Erestor firmly in the eyes, he madly looked,
blue eyes suddenly deep with love and worry and frenzied devotion.
“Anything of note?”

Erestor glanced wildly about.  “Nothing for public consumption, really,
Glorfindel.”

“TOO BAD!!!!” Glorfindel howled.  He seemed quite mad, and he just did
not care that there was, indeed, an incredibly amused and curious public to
witness them.  He embraced Erestor again.  “Erestor!  You . . .”  It seemed
he was going to swear.  Erestor was stiff as a board in his arms, as though
fearful of physical attack.  “I love you, every last part of you, I love
everything you are and were, I love your heart.”  Glorfindel pulled back
again and hunched over to kiss Erestor’s tunic where it lay over his heart.
“Your mind.”  He kissed Erestor’s brow.  “Your soul.”  He took Erestor’s
hand in his own and brought it up to lay a kiss on the inside of his pale
pulsing wrist.  “And your body.”  And kissed Erestor full on the lips,
soundly and without reserve, with much tongue and mashing of lips.  He
practically bent the other Elf over backwards, staking his physical claim.

Arwen and Elrond raised their eyebrows in a similar expression.  The
Elves in the guard stared in shock, and Glorfindel’s three henchmen
shared happy, anticipatory smiles.

Glorfindel pulled back and the two Elves stared at one another as though
surprised.  They both were shaken.  But then Glorfindel’s mad sanity
returned.  He held Erestor at arm’s length again and cried, “And dammit
all, Erestor, you’ve already told me, and if you never voice it, I don’t 
care,
and if you’ve changed your mind that’s just too bad, because I love you,
now, always, and forever.  I love you and you’ll never be rid of me.”

Then, it seemed as though his steam finally wore off.  Glorfindel seemed
to deflate.  He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Erestor’s.
He continued, ending in a whisper, “ I am not cross, Erestor, not furious.
No never, not with you.  And if you can wait, if you can hold off your
bathing and eating for just a little while, there is something I’d like to
show you.”

“I will go with you,” Erestor readily answered, though still unprepared to
deal with an out-of-character Glorfindel, so at ease in his sudden madness.

“Oh but first!” Glorfindel declared, stepping up to stand side-by-side with
Erestor, and hand-in-hand, “Let me introduce my helpers.  Of course you
know Melpomaen, and these are Saelbeth, a craftsman who lives outside
the House, and Dinendal, one of my up and coming guardsmen.”

Erestor nodded in turn to each young Elf, who offered salutations and
welcome and secretive, knowing smiles.

Glorfindel told them, “Run ahead now and prepare things!”

And off they went, scurrying into the house.

Glorfindel took Erestor’s arm gently and crooked it into his own and led
him toward the House.  He turned his head to whisper near Erestor’s ear,
mindful now of keeping down his voice, seeming to have already
forgotten his antics in the square.  “My dearest friend,” he said, so easily
and lovingly, with a longing in his speech, “I’ve taken the liberty of
preparing for you a gift.  I trust, from the tone of your letter to me, and
from your passive acceptance of me today, that your feelings have not
changed?  Have continued, even, to grow?”

Erestor glanced shyly into kind, blue eyes no longer glaring with near
hostile intensity, but only soft and wise, as they ever had been.  “That is
right,” he agreed, all the old harshness of his voice tempered by these new
feelings arisen in him.

“Good, that is well,” Glorfindel answered happily at once.  “And I must
also say that your letter touched me in many ways, but never did I waver
in my love for you, and so devastated was I that you had fled that I might
admit to a slight case of psychosis.”

“For this lunacy that has possessed you, and for any suffering I may have
caused you, I am sorry.  But I needed my own time away to think.  I
oftentimes think too much, maybe as a replacement for feeling.  I’ve been
. . . adjusting.  And being around you, it would have been too distracting.
Too complicated.”

Glorfindel smiled.  “I understand.”  He really did.  “I’m just glad to have
you back.  I did miss you.”

= = = = =

Erestor could not help but notice that everyone was staring at them as they
walked the hall arm in arm.  “Glorfindel . . . what did you do?”

Glorfindel guiltily rubbed the back of his neck.  “Well, I DID go a little . 
.
. insane.  As soon as I read your letter, I may have made a slight
confession to the whole of Imladris.”

Squeezing shut his eyes, Erestor sighed and bowed his head.  “You MAY
have?  Really?  Well, I’m glad I was not here to witness your foolishness,
Glorfindel.”

Glorfindel blushed and laughed.

Finally, Glorfindel led them to his chambers and then halted.  Listening
carefully, faint scufflings and whisperings could be heard.  Erestor canted
his head and eyed the white carven door with narrowed brows.  “What
have you done?” he asked curiously.

“A little remodeling,” was Glorfindel’s answer.  Unspeakably excited, he
clasped his hands behind his back and rocked forward on the balls of his
feet.  “They’re almost done.  Just wait and you’ll see!”

Sure enough, the trio of brightly colored Elves emerged from the room a
few minutes later, each bowing at the pair as they passed, smirks firmly in
place.  The scent of some spicy incense followed in their wake.  Glorfindel
nodded his thanks to them and then turned to Erestor.  “Ready?”

“And willing,” Erestor answered, waiting for Glorfindel to open the door.

Which he did.  He pushed the white door so that it swung inward and
bowed Erestor through.

Erestor let out a slight gasp.  Much was changed within the single room
that made up Glorfindel’s quarters.  In fact, all that remained the same was
the positioning of the bed relative to the fireplace, which stood black and
empty in these warmer seasons.

He stepped within, carefully looking everything over.  What had been a
ramshackle collection of a disorganized warrior’s life in all manner of
disarray had become a cool and organized room, in shades of blue and
white.  Gone was the dark mahogany armoire that had loomed in the
corner.  In its place stood two identical wardrobes, stained with that
incredible Imladrian white that could be found in so much of the Valley’s
woodwork, and the doors of the wardrobes were skillfully carved in subtle
scenes of snow-washed winter in the Valley.  Erestor approached to
curiously run his fingers over the shaped wood.  “Saelbeth’s work?”

“Aye.”

“There are two.”

“One of them is mine,” Glorfindel agreed, stepping forward to open the
other wardrobe, revealing his collection of clothes neatly displayed.
“They other is empty.”  His meaning was clear.  He licked his lips and
looked plainly at Erestor.  “You don’t have to use it, but I thought maybe
you wanted to keep a few things here, so you have something to change
into in the morning.”  He shut the door and backed away and looked then
to the floor.

Erestor made no reply, still overwhelmed at the look of the room.  He
turned his attention elsewhere, taking in the heavy blue bed curtains and
matching drapes.  Blue cushions embroidered with silver thread had been
bestowed upon the window seats.  Plain wooden chairs, the sort that
Erestor favored, had replaced the monstrous seats upholstered in fading
red that had so long lived there.  Glorfindel had switched the place of his
oak vanity and maple desk so that the latter now sat nearer the window,
where there would be more light.  A new array of shelves were spaced
evenly along the walls, housing Glorfindel’s small collections of not only
books but also games and a few bottles of wine, as well as the many books
and small personal things that had some how migrated from Erestor’s
room to Glorfindel’s.

Erestor walked the soft blue carpets in what small floor space was left in
what was already a fairly undersized room, examining everything.
Finally, he noticed something.  “Snowflakes!” Erestor exclaimed, holding
up a small inkbottle that was green glass set with a design of pewter
snowflakes.  His dark eyes lit up with joy.  There were snowflakes subtly
embedded throughout the room, sparkling in the blue cushions, hiding
along the carved edge of the bookcase, shadowed in pattern on the rug.
Even in the old woodwork of desk and vanity, they appeared.  Plain brass
handles had been replaced with silver drawer pulls, which Erestor finally
saw were indeed six-pointed and delightfully reminiscent of snow.

“I didn’t want it to be too overstated,” Glorfindel said, somewhat
sheepishly.

But before he could say a single thing more, Erestor finally noticed the
most drastic addition to the chamber.  “Glorfindel.  Why is there a door in
your room?”

Where once had been flat wall now housed a door.  Granted, it blended in
with the rest of the lightly colored room and was not designed to draw the
eye.  Its silver handle was, unmistakably, shaped in the likeness of a
snowflake.

And Glorfindel answered the question.  “There is a door in my room,
because my room is now . . . two rooms.”

Erestor eyed the threshold warily, as though the closed door might hold
something evil behind its innocent appearance.  “That was a guest
chamber.”

Glorfindel shook his head.  “Not anymore.”

“This isn’t your room, is it?” Erestor asked, looking steadfastly at the
white paneled door.  “These are our rooms.”

“Only if you wish it,” Glorfindel readily answered.  “Only if you’re ready.
After all, you still have your own . . .”

“My own space for thinking?” Erestor questioned with a smile, looking at
Glorfindel again.

Glorfindel shrugged.

“I don’t know that I’ll need it anymore,” Erestor told him boldly, then
approached the secret door to open it.  Those dark eyes darted about and
the smile slowly melted from his face.  Not in disappointment or alarm,
but only in shock.  He moved within.

This room was easily twice as big.  It was a corner room, with windows on
two walls and a balcony as well.  Between warmly hued rugs the wooden
floor was revealed, pale oak planking, warm in the light from what was
conceivably a few hundred candles, no doubt only just lit by Glorfindel’s
ambitious minions.  Candles filled the warm room in warm colors, the
yellow light flickering and cheerful and accompanied by a subtle incense
smoking from large brass braziers.  The room itself was done up in light
greens with touches of peach and red.  The bed in this room, for example,
was very . . . red.  There was no other word for it.  And big.  The bed was
decidedly very big.

The wide windows were draped in flowing gauze of peach and lemon, like
spring flowers blooming from the pale green of the walls.  Potted plants
grew in the corners and hung from high shelves.  The fireplace here was
again much larger than the other, and painstakingly carved of dark
mahogany in the likeness of great growing things.  Not flowers nor viney
décor as was common among Elven architecture, but great growing stalks
of some crop.  A great many pillows, cushions, and blankets were laid out
around the hearthrug, so that one might make a nest there.

Then he saw the mural.  Along one side of the wall that housed the door to
the hall was a stretch of plain wall, painted in brilliant colors, a 
landscape
of rolling hills and sprouting trees with a great blue sky above, and a 
plain
dirt road disappearing over the hills.

Erestor ran toward it, dirty shoes skipping across the rug-scattered floor.
He stopped short but a few feet from the wall, reaching out to almost -- but
not quite -- let his fingers dance over it.  “It’s home,” he whispered in a
voice wet with tears.  He turned with shining eyes to face Glorfindel, who
had taken a few steps within.  “Who painted it?”

“Saelbeth’s grandfather.  You know him; he works with the carpenters.
He, too, remembers the time when the name of the Greenwood was an apt
one.”

“This is the very road!  The very road,” Erestor exclaimed, pointing, “that
led down to my house!  You can see where the corn grows in the distance!
I walked this road!  I knew it!”

Glorfindel admitted, “When he asked me which fields to paint, I just told
him to choose, ‘the road that led to the corn and rice.’  He remembered it.”

Erestor nodded, looking again upon the mural.  “I did not know him then.
Though I may have seen him at market once or twice.”  Erestor thought
long and hard before voicing his next thought, “People who knew me then
tend not to recognize me now.”

“Lack of joy changes a person,” Glorfindel told him.

Erestor turned to regard him again.  “I suppose it does.”

For a moment, then, they looked at one another.  And when their thoughts
began to show, they looked away and stood in silence.  Erestor’s eye then
caught upon a low dresser with wide drawers beside the bed.  “What is
here?”

Glorfindel followed to watch as Erestor pulled open the top drawer.  “Oh,
all sorts of things,” he said in a voice that was not quite innocent.

“Glorfindel,” Erestor’s voice was all seriousness.  He had removed from a
great pile of them one of the Imladris bathing tokens for the Bath House,
painted one of six colors on one side and engraved with a rune or two on
the other.  They were flat and round and just smaller than the size of
Erestor’s palm.  “These are for special services.  Expensive oils and
steams and the private rooms.”  He looked up at Glorfindel.  Around at the
room.  “Where did all this come from?”

Glorfindel shrugged.  “I called in a few favors.”

“A few?”

“My cronies helped.”

“You didn’t have them steal, did you?”

Glorfindel laughed and smiled kindly down at a firmly glowering Erestor,
who was kneeling before the dresser.  “You know me better than that.”

Erestor agreed with a nod and a tight smile.  “Still, all of this . . .”

“It was worth it,” Glorfindel told him as Erestor replaced the bathing
token and closed the first drawer to open the second.  Which was filled
with a variety of bottles stacked in their own little wooden or velvet
compartments.

Raising an eyebrow, Erestor commented, “Never have I seen such a wide
array of oils.”

Curious, he quickly shut the drawer and moved to the last.

Glorfindel suddenly stood beside him, hovering.  “Oh, you don’t want to
look in that drawer.”  He seemed quite certain of it, and even reached as if
to pull Erestor away.

“Don’t I?” Erestor answered, pulling it open in any case.  A blushing
smile grew upon his previously ashen face.  “Why Glorfindel, I had not
realized your tastes were so varied.  Your selection of toys is impressive.”

“Well, I don’t really . . .  I’ve never . . . I had some help, assembling 
this . .
. collection.”

Erestor looked up.  Glorfindel was blushing a far deeper shade of red than
Erestor himself.  Erestor shut the drawer and stood to look up at Glorfindel
and tell him, “Wouldn’t I have loved to eavesdrop on that conversation.”

Glorfindel giggled anxiously and again made that nervous gesture, rubbing
the back of his neck, as if he had nothing else to do with his hands.  “Yeah
. . .”

Shaking his head in bewilderment, Erestor looked about the place again.
He noticed something new every time he did.  This time it was the brass
chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling and could be lowered
with a golden rope run through a pulley system and tied off at chest level
beside the door that led to the first room.  “What is all this, Glorfindel?”

Glorfindel did not answer until Erestor turned to face him.  “I had told
you: my bed, the one in the other room, that bed is for sleeping.  That is 
all
it ever will be for.  I never want you to feel . . . obligated or pressured. 
  As
long as we are there, you are safe.  Safe from intimacy, from physicality,
even from love if you wish it.  That room, that room is our winter.  It is 
for
hibernation, for resting, for breathing deep and slow and easy.  But this
room, this room is our summer.  It is for . . . everything else.  If you 
want
it to be.  If you wish, we will lock this room until you feel comfortable
here, or we can lock it away forever.  But, you said, in your letter to me,
that your body was only . . . resting.  Waiting for summer.  When that
spring awakening comes, we have a room to be comfortable in.”
Glorfindel sighed and looked then to the floor.  “That was a lot less
eloquent than I imagined it.”

Erestor took Glorfindel’s biceps in the gentlest of holds, moving close and
looking up into worried blue eyes.  “It was perfect.  And you, Glorfindel . 
.
.”  Erestor savored the name as it rolled through his mouth, “you asked me
about my thinkings, my conclusions.  Four months ago I wrote it and you
read it, and I discovered that I am quite strong enough now to say it: I 
love
you.”  He then tugged on a strand of that magnificent golden hair to bring
Glorfindel’s head down for a kiss, slow burning and sweet.

“Mm,” Erestor purred as he pulled away, eyes closed and face drawn in
smooth lines of contentment.  “Thank you for these rooms.  A Winter and
a Summer.”  Then, he looked with dark pools of love into Glorfindel’s
calm face.  “I hate to think I’m so divided.”  He laughed.  “But I like this
place.”

Glorfindel smiled.  “I’m glad.  And, uh, I have something else to show
you.”  He took Erestor’s hand and led him back into the Winter Room, to
stand beside the cold hearth.

They stood facing one another, in the path of golden light from the candles
in the Summer Room.

“In your letter,” Glorfindel nervously began, “you were very careful,
Erestor, to leave out any names of note.  Your mother’s, your sisters’, your
niece’s.  Your own.  Despite this,” Glorfindel said with an unsure smile, “I
sent out some letters to Mirkwood and guess what?”

Erestor was motionless, not knowing what to think.  He gave no answer.

Glorfindel reached out to retrieve several papers from behind a vase on the
mantle.  “You were gone quite a long time.”

“Four months,” Erestor agreed.

“Aye.  Plenty of time for an ambitious messenger to seek out the caves of
Mirkwood and return.”  He rifled through to pick out a sealed parchment.
“There’s a letter here from your sister.”

Erestor suddenly paled.  He regarded the plain envelope as one might eye
a riled snake, uncertain if it would bite.

Glorfindel replaced the other papers on the mantle and looked down upon
the note in his hand.  “I know not what words are here, nor what the tone
might be.  I can understand if you do not wish to read it.  The unknown is
often--”

“Will you open it?” Erestor quietly interrupted, his voice hitched with
fear.  “Will you read it to me?”

“Yes.  Yes, of course,” the golden Elf readily agreed, breaking the wax
seal and unfolding what turned out to be two sheets of thick paper.  Blue
eyes searched the heading and he suddenly smiled.  “It begins, ‘My
Brother!’”

“Read it.”

“Yes.”  Glorfindel read.

~*~*~*~*~*~

My Brother,

Glorfindel’s enquiries came to us quite unexpectedly.  My hand shakes so
badly, I’ve had to rewrite my reply, my correspondence to you, four times
now.  Oh my dear, we’ve counted you so long among the dead that the
mere thought of you reading this now is enough to move me to tears.

I gather that you have much changed.  I believe we all have.  Glorfindel’s
letter brought to mind my life on the old farm; I had not thought on those
days in such a long time, but I am glad I was reminded of them.

And I am glad I was reminded of you.  I understand you are the Chief
Counselor Erestor in faraway Imladris.  I can say I have heard of you, I
have heard many things of you, and none of them match up to my
memories of my little brother running about in my old frocks, nor the
youth I cleaned up after his first fistfight, nor the man who sheltered with
me in the mysterious caves I now call home.

Too long had we been parted, by too many things.  I do not wish to speak
of them now.

I wish to speak of my life and of yours.  I wish you well, I wish you all 
the
blessings you once bestowed upon me, and my husband and little Cellel.

Cellel, of course, is a grown woman now, and you’ve never seen such a
beautiful young lady.  Though barely six hundred years my junior, I shall
ever call her young.  Despite the delight she takes in life, she is of a 
fickle
heart and has not yet settled with a man.  She earns her place here by
toiling in the gardens.  She is the only woman to do so, as the garden area
has been host to three spider invasions in the years since it was
constructed, but she refuses to part with her work there.  As so many find
to be true, she cannot live long without the light of the sun, else her soul
dims and she begins to pine.  And so the gardens keep her vivacious and
young, it seems, and I am glad of it.

When I told Cellel of your survival, she burst into a fit of tears and
demanded at once to join the next party leaving for Imladris so that she
might come visit.  I explained that she could not just drop herself on your
doorstep, no matter you’re her uncle.  She agreed, but her determination
may yet sneak her out of the caves and to your side, whether I will it or 
no.

If this is the case, you may expect a lovely lady of long silver hair and
with a bright green cape clasped with a silver buckle in the shape of a rose
to come clattering through the halls of your House any time now.  She will
not have changed much from the last time you saw her, really.  She knows
to call you by your preferred name now, but she is a passionate girl and
may forget.  For that, I apologize.

She told me, after her tears had dried, in a quiet voice (rare for her) that
she remembered holding tight to you after her mother died.  She
remembered always taking joy in the sight of you in the caves before you
left.  That your joy added to hers and that though she pretended to resent 
it
when you ruffled her hair when passing in the halls, that she truly enjoyed
the attention.

As for myself, Caranir and I work side-by-side in the new mill.  Long did
we work to shape the caves, but we have always been happy, for we have
always been together.  What grace kept him at my side during the War I
do not know, but I am grateful for it.

Please, Erestor, be not long in replying.  I must know all that has happened
in the long centuries that have parted us.

With love,
Dondeild

~*~*~*~*~*~

Erestor was weeping, great wailing sobs.  He had backed up to sit upon the
blue bedspread and his arms hung weak and limp at his sides.  Glorfindel
set aside the letter and slowly moved to sit beside him on the bed.  Erestor
turned to him and cried with great gasping sobs into Glorfindel’s shoulder.
“I’m” *gasp* “so” *heave* “happy-y-y-yyyy!”

= = = = =

After Erestor cried himself to a restful sleep, Glorfindel escaped into the
Summer Room to douse all the candles and put out the incense.  He
collected a token at random from their drawer and when he left, closed the
door behind him.

He let Erestor sleep until the majority of the House had sought their
dinner.  Then, he roused the sleeper and Glorfindel led him by the hand
through corridors lit by the last of the day’s light.

The Bath House was an extension of the main House and could be reached
without leaving the safety of a roof, particularly handy on those rainy
days.  Glorfindel led the silent Erestor through the hall, down a staircase,
round a tower, and through the wide-open double doors to the Bath House.

Glorfindel presented his token to the bored attendant, a young maiden, still
a girl really with curly black hair and rosy cheeks, who was thrilled at the
opportunity to actually do something.  She hopped to her feet, glanced at
the rune and the color -- dropping it into one of many tubes that would fall
down to the boiler room where more people would be working to run the
pumps -- and smiled brilliantly at them as she sorted through the keys at
her waist.  “Follow me sirs!”

Erestor remained silent and rather pliant, following wherever Glorfindel
led him.

The walked past the community pools and individual tubs, loosing steam
this time of day, and down a torch-lit stone corridor.  They were
underground now, as the valley went slightly uphill.  The waterfall beside
the building would be turning a wheel to power the pumps.  But it was not
audible through the thick stone.

The attendant pushed open the oak door, which would have been heavy if
not for being so well balanced on its sturdy iron hinges.  Glorfindel and
Erestor followed her in and sat upon the wooden benches as she pulled
down the wooden ramp that the heated water would flow down.  She made
sure that robes and towels were laid out in their proper places.   Once the
water started flowing, she sniffed it to make sure it was the scent that had
been recorded on the token, not that Glorfindel cared one way or another,
and Erestor was practically catatonic.

She flashed a smile at them then, and said, “If you leave your clothes in
the basket, they’ll be cared for.”

Glorfindel smiled his thanks and when the door finally clicked closed with
a final thud, he sighed out a deep breath of relief.  “All right, Erestor.”  
He
climbed to his feet and held out his hand.  “Up to your feet, my friend.”

Erestor took the hand and slowly stood.  It seemed he was looking at
Glorfindel’s chest, but he was more likely glazed with a trance-like sleep
still, though obviously responding to Glorfindel’s auditory output.  “You
gonna get undressed?” the golden Elf asked with gentle sarcasm.

Erestor shrugged.

Glorfindel tenderly stripped him of the traveling clothes stained with mud
from the roads.  He set aside the shoes and threw the garments in the
woven basket that waited.  Then, he guided the naked Elf over to the deep,
circular pool.

Erestor wakened a bit as he stepped into the heated water, the scent of
lavender and something else, almost like vanilla but subtler, rising from
the steaming surface.  He relaxed with a low, crooning moan and sunk into
the water that was still falling from the wooden ramp with little bubbles.

Glorfindel waited until the bath had filled and the water ceased.  He
tugged the string that pulled the ramp away and then sat on the floor
behind Erestor where he sat in the sunken stone tub.  He reached out to
unbind Erestor’s braids and run his fingers through.  “You’ve had quite a
day, Erestor.  You must be tired.”

“Mm-hmm,” Erestor rumbled, leaning back.

Glorfindel massaged the soaped water into Erestor’s mass of black hair.
“I’m glad to have you back.”

Erestor mumbled something that could have been, ‘me too.’

“If you like, I could give you a massage before bed?”

“S’nds nice,” Erestor drawled.

“Are you gonna eat tonight?  Or can you do without?”

“Glorfindel?”

“What?”

“Are you getting in here with me or not?”

Glorfindel pulled his hands away and looked at the back of Erestor’s head.
“Do you want me to?”

For a moment, there was no reaction, and Glorfindel could imagine
Erestor rolling his big brown eyes.  “Of course.”

Glorfindel stood.  “All right.”  He removed the braided leather belt and
carefully undid the many buttons of antler that did up the front of his
bright doublet.  Soon his clothes, nowhere near dirty, were neatly folded
on one of the wooden benches, soft boots sitting crumpled together
underneath like a pair of blue lop-eared rabbits.

Glorfindel came round to slip swiftly into the steaming water, humming
with satisfaction at the wet heat that soothed nerve-tightened muscles.  But
he was not fast enough for Erestor’s quick eyes, which caught the sight of
his arousal.  Those eyes, long shadowed with darkness to an inky black,
were now very clearly a deep brown, and they sparkled in the lantern light.
“So,” Erestor’s sleepy voice rumbled, “have you been wondering about
my body?”

“Wha – what?”

Erestor chuckled easily.  “Your eyes get so big when you’re shocked.  It’s
cute.”

“Oh, but, what?”

“So hopelessly confused,” Erestor observed with a giddy laugh.  He
peered into astonished blue eyes.  “What I’ve come to think of as my re-
awakening.  I know I feel it coming.  Soon now, Glorfindel, I’ll wish to
show my love for you in physical terms.”  He peered through the water in
the direction of Glorfindel’s groin.  “Very physical terms.”  He looked up
again at Glorfindel’s face, his brown eyes a skillful mask of innocent
curiosity.  “If that’s okay with you.”

Glorfindel’s arms had been spread out along the round rim of the sunken
tub, and he fought to keep them there, lest he draw attention to what he
wished to cover.  “Erestor,” he nervously laughed.  “I’ve wanted you for a
long time.  I look forward to any way in which you’d care to express this
love.”

The predatory gleam in Erestor’s eyes dulled to something more tender.
Then he reached out across the distance to touch the ring on Glorfindel’s
index finger.  His voice was lazy.  “I’ve never seen this before.”

Glorfindel pulled bac