Work Text:
Elrond sectioned one pile of archivist notes into three more separate piles with a sure certainty that he would not remember the criteria by which he’d done it by the end ‘that was if they were in anyway separate by then,’ he thought as the soft midsummers breeze lifted a page and the entirety of the makeshift library was jostled as he shifted his legs under the sheets to catch it. This certainty was solidified as he found himself intrigued by a transcript of a debate that was civil only in the lack of profane vocabulary on the matter of the Quenya Ban and on where to categorise it. A new pile it was.
He knew logically that the very depth of the night was far from the best time to be doing this, at this time of year he should not have to wait far longer for better light than that of the lamps in their bedchamber, and a desk would be a more ideal work environment but nonetheless he found his productivity improved greatly when it was least convenient to be brimming with a thirst for knowledge.
He was so engrossed and enthusiastic that he did not notice the return of his wife through the swaying curtains until the mattress dipped beside him as she collapsed face first onto the sheets as if intending to sleep right then while still in her dressing gown and slippers.
He carefully slipped the papers from beneath her and set them on the floor before they were creased too severely and she stretched her arms up and shifted to rest up against the pillows with long yawn, ‘Elrond?’
‘Hmm? Yes, dear?’
She barely restrained a snicker as she rolled to watch him affectionately ‘What exactly are you doing?’
He looked down at the papers in front of him and started to tidy them off the bed ‘Well you were gone so I thought I’d read while I waited for you but then I noticed the book wasn’t compiled correctly, someone had put the Nirnaeth Arnoediad before everything about Gondolin Celebrian, which makes no sense so I started reordering things and-’
He cut off awkwardly and turned to face his wife once he remembered the reason for her absence and that no matter how patient she was with his sleeping habits this was probably not a time she wanted to be hearing about his archiving.
‘Oh, is Arwen alright? She’s not upset is she, I swear if one of the boys said something to her-’
Celebrian settled into the crook of his arm and kissed his neck soothingly before replying.
‘There’s no need to worry to yourself Arwen is perfectly alright. But, well,’ she scrunched her face up in contemplation as if not entirely sure of the truth of her words.
‘But there is something. What troubles you?’
‘Well she seems in good health, she- she started her bleed,’ she whispered that last bit with surprising distress for an elleth who had never shown much reservation in such simple matters.
‘I’m not sure I follow the problem?’
‘She’s not yet thirty Elrond! There should have been another decade before we had to worry about this, even accounting for her perdhel blood!’
‘Celebrian, I’ve said it’s not an exact science with these things, there’s no way to really anticipate….. anything really,’ he spoke haltingly, the nature of his own blood and his children’s by extension was always a complex topic and deserved to be considered with care.
She clenched her eyes tightly together in the way he knew indicated tears welling up behind them and that her unease was not a sudden thing but something that had been building.
‘I know that. I do and I try to get used to it but, oh Elrond they’re my children and I feel as if I know nothing at all about them! I have no understanding of so many things they go through, when I was trying to reassure Arwen she kept talking of symptoms I’ve never even heard of before and I told her it was all perfectly normal because she seemed alright but I don’t know.’
She lowered her voice to a soft earnest whisper, ‘I sometimes feel that you could do this better yourself. You just understand all of this in a way that I never can, it seems as if anything could happen with them and it’s terrifying!’
Her concerns brought to mind memories he knew his wife would not enjoy a comparison to, of the battle hardened kinslayer, with the voice of silk and raw power both, fervently conversing with his brother over the latest incident that left him feeling so thoroughly out of his depth both as a caretaker in general but especially one to two who were the only of their kind as a direct result of his actions.
‘Don’t say things like that my love, you are an excellent mother and the children love you so very much, as do I, you do not need to understand everything to make them feel safe and loved, which is the important thing and you do it so well,’ he definitely wasn’t thinking of how said kinslayer had held him to his chest on sleepless nights and gently teased knots out of his hair while two who may not have been as out of depths in regard to the nature of half elves were certainly too so in other ways to do so. Neither blood, nor good character make a good parent in all cases and one with arguably neither may be one in others. Celebrian was a good mother, there was no question about that and it would not do for her to think otherwise.
‘It’s terrifying for me as well. I know I may come across as if I know these things but I have scarcely more idea than you a lot of the time. They are the only children of that exact genetic combination of elvish, edain and Maia blood that ever has or ever will exist and while that’s a daunting a prospect and not in the slightest simple for us or them there’s a beauty in it all the same. They will discover and shape themselves in a way none ever will again, each in their own way.’
He knew the fear that she speaks of, how could he not when it is one he felt his whole life, not for his child but for himself? Waking up in the morning and not knowing what may happen to him, if his skin should turn to fire or ice, if plants should grow at his feet or the rocks should crack at his voice, with none he spoke to having anymore idea. He hit adolescence at fifteen and in a peculiarly staggered manner, Elros in an entirely different pattern as well.
He still doesn’t know when he was an adult and no one around him did either. Following logic he supposed it should have been in and around his fifties but whether that was true or not he’ll never know, he reckons it came a lot earlier and could convince enough people of that to let him bear arms at twenty three. Whether Elrond was in all truth still a child- it’s hard to be entirely sure. A childhood such as his would make it hard to tell.
What he did know was that callouses formed over his fingertips while he weaved sweet clear music to bend starlight, rivers and flame with naught but a harp. He knew that many didn’t know what to make of him or the seemingly endless contradictions. He’d had more than one conversation in which he’d been oh so politely asked to ‘tune it down’ a bit, that he was unnerving people and if he looked and sounded enough like an elf and chose to be one why did he have to keep complicating matters for himself. He supposed it would have been ‘easier’ if he were in elf but the fact remained that he wasn’t, and he had no illusions that when they asked why he kept complicating matters for himself what they meant was complicating matters for them. How could it be confuse him to be what he was?
He supposed that vein of questioning may not have frustrated him so if it hadn’t been exactly what he’d heard over countless other things, his gender, his inclinations, his parentage and loyalties. They did not truly want to help him they wanted to be able to know which little box they should put him, if they should condemn him, pity him or embrace him as their own but this was a very difficult distinction to make when he insisted on being both their’s and their enemy’s kin and did not have the decency to pick one. When he did make the Choice many people were confused as to why he kept making a point out of being a Perdhel because he ‘was an elf now’ as if that was what the Choice had been about.
They did not actually wish to understand they wished for things to be simple so he made a point of continuing to challenge them as much as possible. He strode about Lindon in swaying elvish gowns holding piles of books and scrolls, gathered herbs in the folds of an edainic skirt and apron, sparred with all the Feanorian techniques in a Beorian tunic, sung the work of Maglor in the unmistakable sweet tone of Luthien Tinuviel, flirted shamelessly with whoever caught his eye and laughed among the tips of trees with his floor length dark hair streaming behind him arrayed in robes of Nolofinwean blue. He outraged all with every manner of braid and insignia and above all refused to comprise on any facet of himself to assist any other’s comfort with his existence.
The place in the world for him and his children did not exist but they would make one. The way he had created one at Gil Galad’s side and again in Imladris. The way Elros had among the Numenoreans, his parents had with each other all the way back to Luthien defying the laws of death itself to create what had previously been impossible. They would make one and it would be glorious.