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The breeze in the air sang of spring as the elves of Lothlórien lifted their voices in greeting. Soft, white flowers bloomed as quick feet danced along the pathway that led to the halls of Rivendell.
“Mam, Dâd!” The cheerful greeting burst from Elladan and Elrohir, springing forward and seizing their grandmother’s arms and dragging her forward. “Come and meet Arwen.” Celebrían held back from her parents, the reason for their visit nestled in her arms, and Elrond looked fondly at his wife and daughter.
“Your parents made good time,” he murmured, smiling wider as Celebrían tossed her hair back.
“Naneth probably insisted they begin the journey over the mountains before the birth began,” she said. “I’m surprised she held off long enough to miss it entirely.”
She hugged Galadriel as she approached, carefully placing the small bundle in her arms, then bent down to kiss Celeborn on the cheek.
“Isn’t she cute?” asked Elrohir, his eyes lighting up as Arwen flailed her arms in his direction.
“And she loves Ada’s lullabies,” said Elladan, grinning with the new pride of an elder sibling. He reached over, wiggling his fingers in Arwen’s face until she giggled up at him and grabbed for him. “She’s so little.”
“As were you once,” said Celebrían with a merry laugh. “Come, Naneth, she will need feeding soon, and I would speak with you. Elladan, Elrohir, take your grandparents’ things to their usual quarters, please.”
Galadriel turned, and Elrond’s gaze followed hers to Celeborn, standing solemn and silent behind them. His lips had tightened at the airy laughter that floated around them and Elrond did not miss the warning that flashed between his law-parents.
He wished suddenly that he had no obligations to his guests, that he too could vanish into his quarters and escape the icy judgment Celeborn projected.
“Elrond,” said Celebron at last. “Pray tell, what family lullabies are my grandchildren inheriting?”
“The songs of Maglor,” said Elrond, refusing to flinch from the scowl that deepened on Celeborn’s face. “I was left no other. Elros taught them to his children, and now I teach them to mine.”
“You haven’t told them.” There was no question in Celeborn’s words, only a look of disgust. “Your mother intended to die in your place rather than give you up—”
“Yet give us up she did,” said Elrond. He held up a hand as Celeborn’s eyes flashed. “Do not fear law-father, I hold no blame against her account. I have children of my own whom I would die for, if they would but live.”
Elrond sighed. “My sons learned not the bitter taste of a sundered parent from me. You may call me a fool, but I would rather they see strength in their kin.”
“They are heirs of the Sindar, not Noldor alone,” Celeborn said sternly. “They cannot be told only of the triumphs of the Noldor, not when they came at the expense of your own people.”
“Eärendil did not—”
“I speak not of Eärendil,” interrupted Celeborn. “As well you know. You cannot hide from the sins of the one you name ‘father’ forever.”
“Say not that I hide,” said Elrond, his voice growing cold. “I will never know all that I lost by his hand, but still I would have my children know that Elros and I knew happiness.”
Celeborn was silent.
“There are those who call my wife proud,” he said at last, “but she forsook the ways of the Noldor long before they came to ruin. You need not cleave yourself to their same Doom. You need not bind your children to your fate.”
“Your daughter is a child of Noldor and Sindar both,” said Elrond simply. “If it were your choice and not hers, would you not choose to bind her to your own ways? Would Finarfin not have kept Artanis by his side had he any say over her fate?”
“I have never sought to bind Celebrían to me,” snapped Celeborn. “Surely you don’t—”
“I do not,” said Elrond. “But nor have I been forced to bind myself to any who would call me ‘son’.”
The golden afternoon light held little warmth in the turning of the years, and the cold northern wind swirled between them.
“I cannot tell my children of Doriath’s ruin,” said Elrond at last. “I was not there. What I remember of Sirion has long been overlayed with unsought kindness and songs of love, not terror. What would you have me say to them?”
Celeborn looked at Elrond, his eyes grave.
“You might speak the truth.”
His robes billowed as he walked away, their wind rustling in his wake.
Elrond stood still, his eyes tracking to the West where his birth place stood no more.
“I have never lied,” he said softly to no-one.
Dinner that night was a cheery affair, the elves of Rivendell delighted to welcome friends both old and new amongst them. The fires crackled merrily around the hall and song passed from table to table as elves joined their voices to the bright music.
Elrond paid little mind to the contagious joy that reverberated around the room, his thoughts still on Celeborn’s indicting words.
Elrond had told them the truth.
He had.
He watched his sons, freshly grown into their adulthood and all its joys, laughing with their friends from patrol under Glorfindel’s watchful eye. He had wanted to give them everything they needed, hadn’t wanted to dwell on the life he had missed out upon. A warm hand, small but strong wound around his and squeezed, and Elrond started, his gaze leaping up to register Celebrían’s soft smile and the unasked question in her eyes.
He shook his head minutely, gesturing instead for their daughter.
“Let me hold her, rían nín,” he murmured. “I have eaten my fill and so has she. You need your strength.”
Celebrían smiled at him gratefully, and he sat back in his chair, his world narrowing to his daughter in his arms. She fussed for a moment but settled against him, her eyelids drooping into sleep.
“What shall I do, Arwen?” he whispered. “Do I only hold to the good, let only the light fall on you while you are in your youth? Or shall I allow myself to remember that ancient pain and inflict it upon those I love?”
Arwen only gurgled and snuggled against his chest with a yawn, and Elrond hummed the song of sleep that permeated his earliest memories, remembering the one who first had sung it. The one who’d murdered hundreds and saved two, who’d destroyed the only safe haven he had known and who had still become a person who meant home. The one who had taken everything and given what little he had in equal measure.
He knew there was room in the world for both truths; Maglor as villain and saviour alike. And yet, so determined was he that his children learn what others could never see, he had given them a myth, the mere bedside story of an ancient elf who had done little but loved him.
He pressed a kiss to Arwen’s forehead. “Is it better to know, little one? I am the one to decide for you, after all. My history is yours in the end.”
The merrymaking continued long into the night, the elves taking no notice when the Lord and Lady of Rivendell arose with their youngest child to retire to their bedchamber.
Elrond lay Arwen in her crib, gently stroking her cheek, still silently wondering what he would say come dawn. If he should say anything.
Celebrían wrapped her arms around him from behind, allowing her chin to fall onto Elrond’s shoulder.
“You have been deep in thought all night, meleth nín,” she said. “What has captured your mind so?”
“Something on which I need your advice,” said Elrond, softly. He told her all, of Celeborn’s accusation and the guilt he felt, how he now doubted the years of silence.
“So you have allowed my father’s words to torment you?” asked Celebrían, her eyebrow raised high. “By the one who sees, Elrond, that decision was never yours alone. Do you think I wished our children to know fear and danger when it has long passed us by? Oh no, not forever,” she added hastily, already seeing the trouble in Elrond’s eyes, “but this is a time of peace. It is not foolishness to desire our children to know little of war.”
“But he is right in other ways,” said Elrond, quietly. “If they have not been taught a lie, I still have not given them honesty.”
“Then perhaps it is time to speak of it,” said Celebrían, “though I am reluctant to see their bliss dimmed for any reason.”
“I should have told them before now,” said Elrond. The admission stung and he swallowed, throat painfully dry.
Celebrían slipped an arm around his waist and tugged him close, tucking her head against his shoulder. “None of us can navigate our fraught histories without error. Maybe we have wronged them, maybe we did well. This decision is new, and it will bring new choices and actions in their time too.”
“Should we tell Arwen earlier?”
“Perhaps, Elladan and Elrohir will be open to advising us,” said Celebrían. “Worry not for Arwen. In time, she will be grown and wise. But let her have some years of folly too.”
Elrond nodded, leaning into his wife’s warm embrace, and kissed her cheek.
“Then we shall speak in the light of a new day.”
“Would you like me to be by your side?” Celebrían asked. “Only ask and I will arrange it.”
“No,” said Elrond, although his heart beat faster to say it. “This is mine to share. You should spend time with your parents and Arwen. But if you would join me after, I would be grateful.”
“Than I shall do that,” she said simply. “Rest now. What’s done is done.”
The morning mist shadowed the courtyard where the dawn patrols gathered for final instructions. Songs to welcome the sun echoed in the space, a refrain passed between elves amidst the good cheer of a new day.
Elrond had little desire to summon his sons to his side, not for anything so trivial as a history lesson. Their place had been justly earned without interference from him and he took no pleasure in removing them from their duties. There was no perfect moment in which to interrupt the lives of his children now they were grown.
Still he descended the stairs, wishing the nerves did less to choke his breath. The songs died as his approach became known and a hush fell among the elves as they turned as one to their lord.
“Stay yourselves,” he said with a small smile. “I bring no news of war.”
The tense atmosphere relaxed only minutely, as each elf awaited the reason for his presence.
“Glorfindel, I need a word with my sons. Will you release them to me?”
A ripple flew across the gathering as all turned to glance at Elrohir and Elladan, then back to Elrond.
“I shall,” said Glorfindel, no surprise or question in his voice. “Elladan, Elrohir, step forward and present yourselves.”
His sons did so, their gaze both fixed on their father.
“I thank you,” Elrond said. He turned and retreated, trusting his sons to follow him and trying to ignore the burst of chatter that resounded the moment he entered the arched walkways leading away from the courtyard.
“Ada, what—” began Elladan, but Elrohir shushed him hastily. Elrond knew they were speaking between themselves, sharing their minds on the matter as he once did with Elros. He allowed them to speak freely with ósanwë, he always had. It had been Maedhros who insisted on Elrond’s own right to do so, steamrolling Maglor’s attempts to make him and his brother speak a foreign tongue.
“Your grandfather has charged me with much,” he said at last. “And your mother and I have agreed it is time he was satisfied.”
He felt rather than saw the glance they exchanged, the friction that sparked as they tried to glean his meaning. Elrond stopped, his sons on either side, the view west clear to the horizon. Not even Glorfindel could glimpse the sea from this distance, but he could hear the cry of gulls over Sirion if he stretched his memory far enough.
“My upbringing was unusual among elves,” he said. “This you know.”
“The Elder Days were full of darkness,” said Elrohir, hesitant assent in his voice. “And you were peredhel.”
“And Half-Elven I remain,” said Elrond. “I take not my father’s name.”
“Speak plainly, Ada,” said Elladan. His words were gentle, for all that they demanded. “We are your sons, we will stand by you.”
“So too, Elros and I said to Maglor,” said Elrond wistfully. “And yet today, I must speak against him.”
He turned his back to the view and drew his sons towards the settee, wishing for a modicum of comfort to couch his words. They followed, and said nothing as he spoke, faded memories warring with raw emotion. There was little eloquence to his speech, Elrond remembered little of Sirion and knew less of the massacre, hidden as he and his brother had been. Often, he was forced to double back, to revisit key experiences long forgotten and reminded only by the telling, the sins of his father laid down beside his own.
Elrond’s voice failed entirely when it came time to speak of the final, desperate acts of Maedhros and Maglor. He swallowed, but the words remained stuck in his throat. “I will give you histories that hide nothing, should you wish it,” he said at last. “But ask me to say no more of the past. It pains many, and I have few people with whom I can speak of their love. For there was more love than people know.”
He stared at his hands, his heart rent in his chest. Warm arms enveloped him, and he looked up, confused. Elladan and Elrohir clung to him, with none of the resentment that he feared.
“Thank you for telling us,” said Elladan. “We knew some, but not all.”
“And thank you for waiting,” added Elrohir, quietly. “It is hard to bear, that time when elves once slayed elves. And harder still to know they were not always monstrous.”
“I wish I could say more of Elwing and Eärendil,” said Elrond. “Despite what Celeborn believes, I have not kept knowledge of them from you to satisfy a childish resentment.”
“Glorfindel would tell us of him,” said Elrohir with a smile. “He is close only out of courtesy for you, I am sure of it.”
“And Dâd and Mam both lived in Doriath for many years, even if they left before it fell,” said Elladan. “They would know of those who could speak more of Elwing.”
“Only if you want to, Ada,” said Elladan. “We said we stand by your choices and we shall.”
Elrond’s grip tightened around his children, love for them flaring in his chest.
“I have no wish to dredge up painful memories for any of our kin,” he said. “But you may speak with them of what they know. You are fully grown into adulthood and I will not hinder your decisions.”
“You never have, Ada,” said Elladan, smiling softly. “You have ever been a good father to us both.”
Emotion swelled deeper and wider than Elrond had known possible.
There was good —and love— in his life, and there always had been.