FIC: Flawless [Glorfindel/Gil-galad, 13/?]
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silwritersguildTitle: Flawless
Chapter: Thirteen
Author: Ilye (ilye@hithanaur.net)
Rating: General up to this point. Later chapters may include some more graphic slash, but you will be forewarned.
Warnings: At present, just angst and references to violence. There will later be slash and possibly a few het references.
Genre: Angst, romance, drama, action/adventure.
Summary: A sweeping arc set initially in the Second Age in Lindon, telling the story of the rebirth of Glorfindel of Gondolin and a very nasty scar. It follows his developing relationship with Gil-galad and also features Elrond, Erestor, Celebrian, Celeborn and Galadriel, tracing their involvements in the key events of the Second Age and through into the Third.
Author's Introduction: Although I have written several LOTR pieces before, ranging from short stories to novel-length, I plan on this one being the longest. It is also the first that is set strictly in a Silmarillion timescale and uses canon events within the plot.
I feel that one of my main issues is writing to a long timescale; it's something that I find very tricky, and so I'm always open to feedback on this (actually, I'm always open to feedback on any aspects of my writing - I will bounce rather than explode if you send me constructive criticism!) The other main issue with this story is the manipulation of canon to fit, given how sketchy it is around the Second Age. I'm always happy to discuss anything.
Related Links:
Prologue and Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part Thirteen
SA 1371 – Lumír is 33.
It always surprised Gil-galad how quickly the Beltane festival came around each year. He was sitting at the high table, enjoying the soft warmth his glass of wine sent tingling through him – even at this festival he had to take care not to get too far into his cups – and surveying the goings-on from his vantage point.
The customary dances that began the evening had progressed so that anyone who cared to could join in whilst the food was prepared and laid out for the feast. The whirling, ribbon-bedecked dancers were surrounded by various pairs who swayed and spun in time to the flute-and-drum music. Gil-galad recognised most of the dancers, including several of his advisors and soldiers; towards the edge of the crowd, Elrond laughingly partnered an acquaintance from the healing collegiums. However, the king could not keep his eye from wandering to the pair deeper in the midst of the throng: where Lumír and Meren were dancing with wide grins and great enthusiasm.
“You will not dance, Sire?”
Gil-galad cast his bird-like advisor a tired glance from the corner of his eye as the seat next to him was claimed. “You will not dance, Erestor?” he replied, almost sing-song and not quite acerbic.
Erestor was silent for long enough that Gil-galad thought he would not receive a reply. However, at length the advisor drew a deep breath and said, “We are a fine pair. Even were they not dancing, we would not partner them.” His dark grey eyes met Gil-galad’s – the only part of his face that did not remain cold and closed. Barely a moment later, he clapped his hands together and rose with a crisp rustle of robes. “Ah, excellent, the food is here!” he exclaimed, and left as swiftly as he had appeared.
The kitchen staff had indeed begun to lay the food upon the long tables. Platters of vegetables and grains were set along the middle of each amongst the candles, interspersed with meats, cheeses and fresh breads, as well as wines, meads and ales, all imported from various regions of the Lindon estate. On either side of the tables a fire had been lit in a stone-walled pit with upright forks at both ends. Across these forks a spitted boar had been laid; the pair of them had been hunted by Bregolas, the guard captain, in the preceding days and sacrificed as a sign of thanks to Yavanna.
The musicians struck up for one last dance before dinner. Elrond, Brandir and the other senior members of the court did not stay for this, however, and instead made their way over to the high table. Elrond smiled at Gil-galad as he took his place at the king’s right hand and received a drink.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said, giving Gil-galad a look of anxious amusement.
Gil-galad gave a short snort of laughter. “You have no idea,” he replied. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell Celebrían.”
Laughing, Elrond smacked him playfully across the shoulder just as the music ended. Gil-galad did not retaliate but, smiling nonetheless, took his refilled wine glass in hand and got to his feet. The dancers dispersed and the remainder of the kitchen staff finished laying out the food in the time that it took the general hubbub to die down, so that by the time the king was ready to speak, everything was ready.
“Thank you everyone, once again, for coming,” Gil-galad began. “This looks to be yet another successful year in which we may give thanks to Yavanna and pray for continued fertility – for without her grace we would not be able to feast on the fine foods you see before you.” He paused and raised his glass so that everyone else could join him in his toast. “Our thanks, Lady, and Queen of the Earth.” He took a sip from his cup and then, considerably brighter, continued, “Now, the kitchens have outdone themselves once again, so enjoy the food, enjoy the wine, enjoy the dancing and make merry!”
“Merry is not the only thing people make on Beltane,” Elrond muttered with a smirk as Gil-galad sat back down to a ripple of applause and the noise and music started again.
“I told you I shan’t tell Celebrían,” Gil-galad remarked innocuously, this time managing to evade the elbow to his ribs by sheer chance that he reached for the potatoes. He laughed. “Come, Peredhel, you know I jest!”
“You do nothing but!” Elrond replied, then turned his attention to a passing waiter and requested a plate of meat from the spit-roasted boars. His eyes followed the waiter towards one of the fires, around which there was a crowd of people waiting. He surveyed them with an idle interest; there was Bregolas, eager no doubt to taste his quarry, and Meren holding two plates with Alfirin beside her. Elrond wondered with a start where Lumír was.
It took him a few moments to locate the child sitting at one of the tables with an empty seat on either side of him – presumably for Alfirin and Meren, since Tamagor and Celevyl were seated on the opposite side of the table. Lumír already had a plate in front of him with only a sparse offering on it and was pushing something around idly with his fork. It could have been the firelight, but to Elrond’s eye he looked a little pale and seemed somewhat listless.
As Elrond watched, Lumír abandoned his food and placed both elbows on the table with one hand cupping his chin so that it also covered his mouth. His eyes were staring straight ahead but focused on nothing except the blackness between two torches some distance away – his parents had stood up to exchange a few words with Alfirin and Meren, and left as the girls sat back down. Meren slid a few slices of meat in front of Lumír and then, when she received no response, touched him on the shoulder. Lumír shook himself and offered her a half-hearted smile. He then looked down at his plate, and tensed visibly.
Elrond frowned in concern and made to rise.
“Elrond?” Gil-galad placed a hand on his herald’s arm. “Is something wrong?”
“Watch Lumír,” Elrond muttered back without taking his eyes off the trio. Immediately on his guard, Gil-galad did as so.
Meren was speaking to Lumír, who shook his head. All of a sudden, he shoved his chair away and got to his feet, clambered shakily back from the table with his hand over his mouth and turned towards the palace with an expression of revulsion.
Gil-galad would have been on his feet in an instant if Elrond had not beaten him to it. “Stay here!” he hissed, “I mean it!” and made a smooth but swift exit from the festivities.
He intercepted Lumír on the boundary of a small copse on the way back to the palace, just as Meren and Alfirin came tearing around the corner. Lumír did not appear to notice any of them as he staggered forward with one hand still clamped over his mouth and his other arm wrapped across his stomach. His eyes were glazed over and his face was sickly pale.
“Lumír!” Alfirin called out, not having appeared to see Elrond either. She rushed to him as he turned towards her voice, only to lurch back again and drop to his knees.
Elrond crouched next to the boy and caught his hair up out of his face just as he doubled over and began to vomit. “One of you,” he called out sharply to the girls, “Go and get his parents and tell them we’ll be at the healers’.”
Meren hesitated for a moment, but did as she was told when Elrond turned as if to scold her. Alfirin hung back a few steps, twisting her hands nervously in her skirt, to give the pair some room.
Lumír had obviously not eaten much, Elrond noted as he held the blond hair back in a tail. He smoothed his other hand over Lumír’s back with brow furrowed as he felt the turmoiled spirit’s tremors within. He allowed his eyes to fall closed as he reached out to feel the stability of the earth at his feet and drew a fraction of it forth. A surge of heat and energy thundered through him, which he channelled with practiced ease into Lumír’s body so that he himself was left only with a pulse of inner calm before it dissipated.
“Shhh,” Elrond soothed the stricken youth. “There, now, just let it… That’s it.” He smiled, feeling Lumír’s tense body relax fractionally under his hands. “That should help ground you, so you can free your mind for a moment like I taught you, remember?”
Lumír nodded, allowed his head to fall forwards, and took a deep breath. Elrond kept his hands on his back until Lumír inhaled deeply again a few moments later and sat back on his haunches.
“Good,” Elrond smiled, wanly returned by Lumír. “Now, can you tell me what happened?”
Lumír hesitated, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and ran his hands down his face. “It was the roasted meat,” he said at length. “Just the smell… ugh, it made me stomach-sick. I was fine before that, but then it was just dead, burning flesh…” He tailed off with a wince and a shudder and took another deep breath.
Although Elrond’s expressive features were schooled to a neutral concern, his belly cinched at the sudden realisation of why it had affected Lumír so. He warranted that he would not be able to stomach roast hog once he had smelled his own flesh singed and branded, either.
“Let’s go inside and away from it, then,” he suggested, unwilling to field any subsequent questions out here. Lumír, still somewhat shaken, nodded and stumbled to his feet, walking with Elrond towards the palace with Alfirin trotting anxiously behind.
***
“Sooner or later, we are going to have to tell him.”
It was Gil-galad’s voice that floated through the door surreptitiously opened a crack, slightly louder than the previous hushed whispers. Alfirin turned away from where she had been peering through into the next room to look at Lumír, but he was lying curled up on his bed and didn’t seem to care.
“Don’t you want to hear what they’re saying?” she whispered to him.
Lumír sighed. “I am waiting to stop feeling sick before I go and ask them,” he murmured without opening his eyes. He was silent a moment, then said, “Oh, never mind, I’ll do it anyway.”
Heaving himself up into a sitting position, he sat on the edge of the bed for a second before standing. He batted Alfirin gently aside from her eavesdropping perch and opened the door into the common area of the apartment he shared with his parents.
“Lumír!” The startled exclamation came from his mother as well as Elrond. “Go back to bed!” Celevyl chided, at the same time as Elrond scolded him for not drinking his sedative tea.
“Your tea is disgusting, Elrond,” Lumír said plainly, though not unkindly. “And you’re talking about me, so I should have the right to hear it.”
Tamagor, who was sitting on the sofa under the window, gave a low, quiet laugh and beckoned to his son. “Come here, you cheeky little imp,” he ordered, his voice stern but his eyes alight. Lumír looked as though he was going to resist, but after a short study of his father’s countenance he padded obediently over to the sofa and stood next to him by the armrest.
“Now,” Tamagor continued, “What makes you think we are talking about you?”
Lumír rolled his eyes at the patronising question. “Why else would you all be in here? Anyway, Alfirin heard you talking.”
His mother clucked her tongue, whilst his father chuckled again. “Ah yes, I had forgotten you were in there, young lady,” he said loudly, directed towards the splash of silver hair in the bedroom doorway. “Come out here, please.”
The door opened wider and the slender young girl emerged sheepishly from Lumír’s bedroom. Tamagor smiled at her kindly.
“I don’t mean to be rude, Alfirin,” he said, “But this concerns Lumír and not you. If he chooses to tell you what this is about later on then that is his choice, but for now I think you should go back to your own house.”
Alfirin glanced at Lumír, looking concerned; he nodded, and so she forced a smile at him and left. Lumír waited only for the door to click closed before he turned his determined gaze upon both Elrond and Gil-galad. “So are you going to tell me what is wrong with me now?”
Gil-galad’s expression was verging on troubled; Elrond’s was resigned. “There is nothing *wrong* with you, Lumír,” he began gently.
“Well, why am I *different*, then?” Lumír interrupted hotly, his eyes warning of fire. “No other children seem to have dreams of infernos or repulsion at cooking meat – or, actually, a scar the length of their bodies. They don’t feel pain like me, do they? Is there something that happened to me that I should remember, but don’t? Am I ill? Am I possessed?”
“That’s enough of this nonsense.” Gil-galad’s voice was loud and firm as he assumed the accustomed position of leader and decision-maker. “Lumír, you are not possessed and you are not ill. If you would listen to what we have to say then you might receive an answer.”
Instantly, Lumír fell quiet. He stared at Gil-galad, who looked back at him with a strange mix of sympathy, irritation and apprehension. Lumír shifted on the balls of his feet, glanced at each person in the room, and then said quietly, “Go on, then.”
Gil-galad’s eyes shot sideways to Elrond, who shrugged and gestured for him to continue. “You have been reborn, pen-neth,” he then said. His cobalt eyes were intent on Lumír’s reaction, but the boy merely remained standing next to his father with his arms folded across his chest, expectant. “For reasons known only to them, the Valar have re-embodied you upon this shore. We have reason to think you will be important, that you will do great things…”
“How did I die?” Lumír’s voice interrupted, though softly this time.
Gil-galad gave a wry, humourless smile. “In fire.”
Lumír nodded. “Do you know who I was?” At Gil-galad’s hesitation, he grew suddenly more forceful again, and his voice louder. “Elrond? Nana, Ada? Do you know who I was?”
“Lumír,” Elrond said with a warning edge to his voice, “We do not think—“
“What, you do not think that I should know who I was? I should not know who I *am*? I don’t know what I’m here for, or what happened to me, or—“
“Lumír Tamagorion!” Celevyl’s high voice cut her son off at once, surprised as he was to hear his normally quiet mother’s interruption. “I will not hear any more of this! You may not have been my son in your first life but you are most certainly my son in this life, and I will not hear you disrespecting these lords when all they have done is help you. We talked to you about this because we thought you would be able to deal with it like an adult, but I certainly shall not be making that mistake for a while!”
She paused, staring silver at her son, who stared defiantly back with his jaw set and his eyes hard. Silence hammered its way around the room, until Celevyl softened slightly and began, “Now we understand how upsetting this is for you, but…”
Lumír stormed past her before she was allowed the chance to finish and she fell silent. All four watched as he crossed the room to his bedchamber and, loudly enough to make everyone flinch, slammed the door behind him.
To be continued…
Resources and Acknowledgments: Many thanks, as always, go to Maybe for the beta.
Chapter: Thirteen
Author: Ilye (ilye@hithanaur.net)
Rating: General up to this point. Later chapters may include some more graphic slash, but you will be forewarned.
Warnings: At present, just angst and references to violence. There will later be slash and possibly a few het references.
Genre: Angst, romance, drama, action/adventure.
Summary: A sweeping arc set initially in the Second Age in Lindon, telling the story of the rebirth of Glorfindel of Gondolin and a very nasty scar. It follows his developing relationship with Gil-galad and also features Elrond, Erestor, Celebrian, Celeborn and Galadriel, tracing their involvements in the key events of the Second Age and through into the Third.
Author's Introduction: Although I have written several LOTR pieces before, ranging from short stories to novel-length, I plan on this one being the longest. It is also the first that is set strictly in a Silmarillion timescale and uses canon events within the plot.
I feel that one of my main issues is writing to a long timescale; it's something that I find very tricky, and so I'm always open to feedback on this (actually, I'm always open to feedback on any aspects of my writing - I will bounce rather than explode if you send me constructive criticism!) The other main issue with this story is the manipulation of canon to fit, given how sketchy it is around the Second Age. I'm always happy to discuss anything.
Related Links:
Prologue and Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part Thirteen
SA 1371 – Lumír is 33.
It always surprised Gil-galad how quickly the Beltane festival came around each year. He was sitting at the high table, enjoying the soft warmth his glass of wine sent tingling through him – even at this festival he had to take care not to get too far into his cups – and surveying the goings-on from his vantage point.
The customary dances that began the evening had progressed so that anyone who cared to could join in whilst the food was prepared and laid out for the feast. The whirling, ribbon-bedecked dancers were surrounded by various pairs who swayed and spun in time to the flute-and-drum music. Gil-galad recognised most of the dancers, including several of his advisors and soldiers; towards the edge of the crowd, Elrond laughingly partnered an acquaintance from the healing collegiums. However, the king could not keep his eye from wandering to the pair deeper in the midst of the throng: where Lumír and Meren were dancing with wide grins and great enthusiasm.
“You will not dance, Sire?”
Gil-galad cast his bird-like advisor a tired glance from the corner of his eye as the seat next to him was claimed. “You will not dance, Erestor?” he replied, almost sing-song and not quite acerbic.
Erestor was silent for long enough that Gil-galad thought he would not receive a reply. However, at length the advisor drew a deep breath and said, “We are a fine pair. Even were they not dancing, we would not partner them.” His dark grey eyes met Gil-galad’s – the only part of his face that did not remain cold and closed. Barely a moment later, he clapped his hands together and rose with a crisp rustle of robes. “Ah, excellent, the food is here!” he exclaimed, and left as swiftly as he had appeared.
The kitchen staff had indeed begun to lay the food upon the long tables. Platters of vegetables and grains were set along the middle of each amongst the candles, interspersed with meats, cheeses and fresh breads, as well as wines, meads and ales, all imported from various regions of the Lindon estate. On either side of the tables a fire had been lit in a stone-walled pit with upright forks at both ends. Across these forks a spitted boar had been laid; the pair of them had been hunted by Bregolas, the guard captain, in the preceding days and sacrificed as a sign of thanks to Yavanna.
The musicians struck up for one last dance before dinner. Elrond, Brandir and the other senior members of the court did not stay for this, however, and instead made their way over to the high table. Elrond smiled at Gil-galad as he took his place at the king’s right hand and received a drink.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said, giving Gil-galad a look of anxious amusement.
Gil-galad gave a short snort of laughter. “You have no idea,” he replied. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell Celebrían.”
Laughing, Elrond smacked him playfully across the shoulder just as the music ended. Gil-galad did not retaliate but, smiling nonetheless, took his refilled wine glass in hand and got to his feet. The dancers dispersed and the remainder of the kitchen staff finished laying out the food in the time that it took the general hubbub to die down, so that by the time the king was ready to speak, everything was ready.
“Thank you everyone, once again, for coming,” Gil-galad began. “This looks to be yet another successful year in which we may give thanks to Yavanna and pray for continued fertility – for without her grace we would not be able to feast on the fine foods you see before you.” He paused and raised his glass so that everyone else could join him in his toast. “Our thanks, Lady, and Queen of the Earth.” He took a sip from his cup and then, considerably brighter, continued, “Now, the kitchens have outdone themselves once again, so enjoy the food, enjoy the wine, enjoy the dancing and make merry!”
“Merry is not the only thing people make on Beltane,” Elrond muttered with a smirk as Gil-galad sat back down to a ripple of applause and the noise and music started again.
“I told you I shan’t tell Celebrían,” Gil-galad remarked innocuously, this time managing to evade the elbow to his ribs by sheer chance that he reached for the potatoes. He laughed. “Come, Peredhel, you know I jest!”
“You do nothing but!” Elrond replied, then turned his attention to a passing waiter and requested a plate of meat from the spit-roasted boars. His eyes followed the waiter towards one of the fires, around which there was a crowd of people waiting. He surveyed them with an idle interest; there was Bregolas, eager no doubt to taste his quarry, and Meren holding two plates with Alfirin beside her. Elrond wondered with a start where Lumír was.
It took him a few moments to locate the child sitting at one of the tables with an empty seat on either side of him – presumably for Alfirin and Meren, since Tamagor and Celevyl were seated on the opposite side of the table. Lumír already had a plate in front of him with only a sparse offering on it and was pushing something around idly with his fork. It could have been the firelight, but to Elrond’s eye he looked a little pale and seemed somewhat listless.
As Elrond watched, Lumír abandoned his food and placed both elbows on the table with one hand cupping his chin so that it also covered his mouth. His eyes were staring straight ahead but focused on nothing except the blackness between two torches some distance away – his parents had stood up to exchange a few words with Alfirin and Meren, and left as the girls sat back down. Meren slid a few slices of meat in front of Lumír and then, when she received no response, touched him on the shoulder. Lumír shook himself and offered her a half-hearted smile. He then looked down at his plate, and tensed visibly.
Elrond frowned in concern and made to rise.
“Elrond?” Gil-galad placed a hand on his herald’s arm. “Is something wrong?”
“Watch Lumír,” Elrond muttered back without taking his eyes off the trio. Immediately on his guard, Gil-galad did as so.
Meren was speaking to Lumír, who shook his head. All of a sudden, he shoved his chair away and got to his feet, clambered shakily back from the table with his hand over his mouth and turned towards the palace with an expression of revulsion.
Gil-galad would have been on his feet in an instant if Elrond had not beaten him to it. “Stay here!” he hissed, “I mean it!” and made a smooth but swift exit from the festivities.
He intercepted Lumír on the boundary of a small copse on the way back to the palace, just as Meren and Alfirin came tearing around the corner. Lumír did not appear to notice any of them as he staggered forward with one hand still clamped over his mouth and his other arm wrapped across his stomach. His eyes were glazed over and his face was sickly pale.
“Lumír!” Alfirin called out, not having appeared to see Elrond either. She rushed to him as he turned towards her voice, only to lurch back again and drop to his knees.
Elrond crouched next to the boy and caught his hair up out of his face just as he doubled over and began to vomit. “One of you,” he called out sharply to the girls, “Go and get his parents and tell them we’ll be at the healers’.”
Meren hesitated for a moment, but did as she was told when Elrond turned as if to scold her. Alfirin hung back a few steps, twisting her hands nervously in her skirt, to give the pair some room.
Lumír had obviously not eaten much, Elrond noted as he held the blond hair back in a tail. He smoothed his other hand over Lumír’s back with brow furrowed as he felt the turmoiled spirit’s tremors within. He allowed his eyes to fall closed as he reached out to feel the stability of the earth at his feet and drew a fraction of it forth. A surge of heat and energy thundered through him, which he channelled with practiced ease into Lumír’s body so that he himself was left only with a pulse of inner calm before it dissipated.
“Shhh,” Elrond soothed the stricken youth. “There, now, just let it… That’s it.” He smiled, feeling Lumír’s tense body relax fractionally under his hands. “That should help ground you, so you can free your mind for a moment like I taught you, remember?”
Lumír nodded, allowed his head to fall forwards, and took a deep breath. Elrond kept his hands on his back until Lumír inhaled deeply again a few moments later and sat back on his haunches.
“Good,” Elrond smiled, wanly returned by Lumír. “Now, can you tell me what happened?”
Lumír hesitated, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and ran his hands down his face. “It was the roasted meat,” he said at length. “Just the smell… ugh, it made me stomach-sick. I was fine before that, but then it was just dead, burning flesh…” He tailed off with a wince and a shudder and took another deep breath.
Although Elrond’s expressive features were schooled to a neutral concern, his belly cinched at the sudden realisation of why it had affected Lumír so. He warranted that he would not be able to stomach roast hog once he had smelled his own flesh singed and branded, either.
“Let’s go inside and away from it, then,” he suggested, unwilling to field any subsequent questions out here. Lumír, still somewhat shaken, nodded and stumbled to his feet, walking with Elrond towards the palace with Alfirin trotting anxiously behind.
***
“Sooner or later, we are going to have to tell him.”
It was Gil-galad’s voice that floated through the door surreptitiously opened a crack, slightly louder than the previous hushed whispers. Alfirin turned away from where she had been peering through into the next room to look at Lumír, but he was lying curled up on his bed and didn’t seem to care.
“Don’t you want to hear what they’re saying?” she whispered to him.
Lumír sighed. “I am waiting to stop feeling sick before I go and ask them,” he murmured without opening his eyes. He was silent a moment, then said, “Oh, never mind, I’ll do it anyway.”
Heaving himself up into a sitting position, he sat on the edge of the bed for a second before standing. He batted Alfirin gently aside from her eavesdropping perch and opened the door into the common area of the apartment he shared with his parents.
“Lumír!” The startled exclamation came from his mother as well as Elrond. “Go back to bed!” Celevyl chided, at the same time as Elrond scolded him for not drinking his sedative tea.
“Your tea is disgusting, Elrond,” Lumír said plainly, though not unkindly. “And you’re talking about me, so I should have the right to hear it.”
Tamagor, who was sitting on the sofa under the window, gave a low, quiet laugh and beckoned to his son. “Come here, you cheeky little imp,” he ordered, his voice stern but his eyes alight. Lumír looked as though he was going to resist, but after a short study of his father’s countenance he padded obediently over to the sofa and stood next to him by the armrest.
“Now,” Tamagor continued, “What makes you think we are talking about you?”
Lumír rolled his eyes at the patronising question. “Why else would you all be in here? Anyway, Alfirin heard you talking.”
His mother clucked her tongue, whilst his father chuckled again. “Ah yes, I had forgotten you were in there, young lady,” he said loudly, directed towards the splash of silver hair in the bedroom doorway. “Come out here, please.”
The door opened wider and the slender young girl emerged sheepishly from Lumír’s bedroom. Tamagor smiled at her kindly.
“I don’t mean to be rude, Alfirin,” he said, “But this concerns Lumír and not you. If he chooses to tell you what this is about later on then that is his choice, but for now I think you should go back to your own house.”
Alfirin glanced at Lumír, looking concerned; he nodded, and so she forced a smile at him and left. Lumír waited only for the door to click closed before he turned his determined gaze upon both Elrond and Gil-galad. “So are you going to tell me what is wrong with me now?”
Gil-galad’s expression was verging on troubled; Elrond’s was resigned. “There is nothing *wrong* with you, Lumír,” he began gently.
“Well, why am I *different*, then?” Lumír interrupted hotly, his eyes warning of fire. “No other children seem to have dreams of infernos or repulsion at cooking meat – or, actually, a scar the length of their bodies. They don’t feel pain like me, do they? Is there something that happened to me that I should remember, but don’t? Am I ill? Am I possessed?”
“That’s enough of this nonsense.” Gil-galad’s voice was loud and firm as he assumed the accustomed position of leader and decision-maker. “Lumír, you are not possessed and you are not ill. If you would listen to what we have to say then you might receive an answer.”
Instantly, Lumír fell quiet. He stared at Gil-galad, who looked back at him with a strange mix of sympathy, irritation and apprehension. Lumír shifted on the balls of his feet, glanced at each person in the room, and then said quietly, “Go on, then.”
Gil-galad’s eyes shot sideways to Elrond, who shrugged and gestured for him to continue. “You have been reborn, pen-neth,” he then said. His cobalt eyes were intent on Lumír’s reaction, but the boy merely remained standing next to his father with his arms folded across his chest, expectant. “For reasons known only to them, the Valar have re-embodied you upon this shore. We have reason to think you will be important, that you will do great things…”
“How did I die?” Lumír’s voice interrupted, though softly this time.
Gil-galad gave a wry, humourless smile. “In fire.”
Lumír nodded. “Do you know who I was?” At Gil-galad’s hesitation, he grew suddenly more forceful again, and his voice louder. “Elrond? Nana, Ada? Do you know who I was?”
“Lumír,” Elrond said with a warning edge to his voice, “We do not think—“
“What, you do not think that I should know who I was? I should not know who I *am*? I don’t know what I’m here for, or what happened to me, or—“
“Lumír Tamagorion!” Celevyl’s high voice cut her son off at once, surprised as he was to hear his normally quiet mother’s interruption. “I will not hear any more of this! You may not have been my son in your first life but you are most certainly my son in this life, and I will not hear you disrespecting these lords when all they have done is help you. We talked to you about this because we thought you would be able to deal with it like an adult, but I certainly shall not be making that mistake for a while!”
She paused, staring silver at her son, who stared defiantly back with his jaw set and his eyes hard. Silence hammered its way around the room, until Celevyl softened slightly and began, “Now we understand how upsetting this is for you, but…”
Lumír stormed past her before she was allowed the chance to finish and she fell silent. All four watched as he crossed the room to his bedchamber and, loudly enough to make everyone flinch, slammed the door behind him.
To be continued…
Resources and Acknowledgments: Many thanks, as always, go to Maybe for the beta.
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