gondolin_noble | (no subject)

Glorfindel is pretty sure he was sat on by a mountain troll. It explains how he feels at the moment - flattened and disinclined to rise any time soon. He's not sure how to account for some very strange mangled memories between the fight he believes put him down and now - something about strange stars and Namo calling and Elrond?

He's pretty sure he didn't heed Namo this time - this doesn't feel like that. Doesn't explain memories of Elrond, or how he got somewhere so comfortable - last he remembers, he was on a particularly desolate strip of coastline.

Not that he's complaining - cold wet sand would have been particularly unpleasant.

Since he's explored all avenues of investigation that he can as he is, Glorfindel works next on opening his eyes and focusing on the world around him. This is... harder than expected. Just how close had he come to a personal audience with the Doomsman?

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Elrond has kept vigil but even the most vigilant will succumb to sleep.
Still, he feels something almost stir on the bed and comes to, sitting up a little too abruptly.

While rubbing his eyes, he reaches over to offer a reassuring touch to Glorfindel's hand.
"Are you stirring, Glorfindel?" he asks, quietly.

He sounds - almost as worn as he looks.

"I am debating it. So far it does not seem like a very alluring prospect." Glorfindel mutters. "How..."

He suddenly stops, frowning. That isn't the voice of one of the twins. That isn't one of them leaning over him.

"How?" He tries to sit up for a very brief moment, subsiding pale and pinched into the bedding again. Definitely injured still, but this is not Lorien, he knows Lorien, remembers the song in his bones.

Elrond hushes him.

"You're in Milliways. You stumbled in, bled on everything, complaining about the trees and stars, and got out to bed."

More or less.

"... Bled on..." He frowns, trying to remember how he...

The creature was at least partially orc, partially human... maybe uruk at one point, but hulking and angry for certain, and he wielded his weapons with a sort of whirlwind fury.

Glorfindel's hands flutter over where he was stabbed, hesitant to touch but... curious, wary. He remembers agony, and biting cold.

"It was an evil blade that hit you," Elrond murmurs, intercepting Glorfindel's hands.
"And it bit deep. But you're mending."

Elrond's hands are rather cold.

"Elrond, you haven't been taking care of yourself." There's distress there, the same bone-deep dislike of being a burden that drove him to avoid healers' tents and infirmaries alike over millenia of service. "Not on my account, surely."

"You were the only one busy dying in the forest right then, so -"

He strives for levity. He doesn't quite make it.

"... So that memory is a true one as well." He hadn't been sure - there had been plenty of times he'd been injured enough to almost wish Namo would offer a way out, but other than after Gondolin, it hadn't actually happened.

"Not exactly how I planned on going home."

"And you are not, so everything is as it should be, " Elrond replies, sounding just this side of brittle.

"Elrond..." He knows, he knows why his lord would be angry with him, fearful for him. He also suspects that they are quite mismatched in time again - this is not an elf who has had most of his losses restored to him.

"I am deeply grateful for my life - the Halls of Waiting are truly something I never wish to experience again. But I would have gone gladly, and come to you eventually, hale and in joy."

"I know," Elrond replies. "I know. And you told me as much. But I could not let you go."

It's very simple really.
"I could not."

"I am here." It is statement and reassurance - there is no risk of him leaving now. He has been told to stay... so he will.

"Though you may come to regret it, I am told I am less than a model patient. "

Edited Date: 2015-04-22 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I know," Elrond replies softly. "And better than most."

He gets up to fetch water for Glorfindel, burying his urge to ask about just what had happened.

An oath fulfilled.

Glorfindel eyes his friend, but honestly, he knows better than to pry to hard, or fast. He tries to make a list of his injuries instead, something more concrete than 'sat on by troll', which he's... pretty sure didn't happen. He has no actual memory of a troll, anyway.

"Wasn't there a boy?"

"There was. First you terrified him, and then you hit him."
He returns with a glass of water and hands it to Glorfindel.

"He'll be fine. "

He sits down, a little heavily.

Glorfindel goes wide-eyed, dismayed.

"What? I have no memory of this... the knife?" He doesn't feel any lingering effects from the wound other than the cold and the inevitable pain, but that is not a sure way to tell.

Surely Elrond would tell him, if he were a danger.

"It was an evil weapon, there can be no doubts about that," Elrond says, slowly, "but I think he merely startled you. We were moving you from his flying carpet to the bed. "

"... I had thought I'd hallucinated that." Glorfindel admits. It does explain the memories of gliding, however - he knows full well he wasn't so graceful at that point.

"As long as there are no immediate ill effects of the dratted knife, whatever is still wrong can be corrected in Lorien, I suppose." He sighs - he is under no illusions that he is going to be able to avoid a stay there.

Most likely, he'll be tackled and dragged to the gardens on Lord Irmo's orders as soon as he sets foot in Aman. Valar knows there will be enough volunteers for the duty amongst the elves who used to make up the Imladris and Gondolin guards.

"I suppose it can. Once you have rested here."
It's not a tone of voice that invites discussion or counter arguments.

He really did fear that Glorfindel was slipping away from him for good.

And the talk of Lorien is making it quite a challenge not to ask.

"If you are impatient, they have silk thread here, made for sewing wounds. And numbing creams that are supposed to be quite efficient."

Glorfindel shudders, finely - he is not, nor will he ever be, a healer. The idea of flesh sewn together like cloth is just plain disturbing. Even if he has had the distinct displeasure of the experience, that doesn't make it any less disturbing.

"If you deem it appropriate." He's a willful, stubborn patient, but he does know who is the healer here, yes.

"Let me see," Elrond says and steps closer to the bed, with a basin, a pitcher, clean cloths, and cleans bandages.

He gently starts removing the bandages, soaking them a little where they have dried to Glorfindel's skin.

Glorfindel laces his fingers behind his head to pin his hands there - no matter how many times this happens, it's never pleasant.

"Fair warning, your sons will be angry at me - unfairly so, in my opinion, but my opinion is unlikely to change things. I fully expect you to take them in hand. Not that you wouldn't, but it will be a welcome moment." He rambles to distract himself.

Casual observes would likely notice nothing. But there is the slightest pause at this - and then Elrond, almost completely calmly - asks, "Did you prevent them from being foolish heroes? Again?"

His heart is like thunder in his chest.

Glorfindel has been a student in the care and feeding of half-elves for ages of the world. He laughs, not unkindly, and not without a hitch as the bandages tug on torn skin.

"Why not ask the question you want to hear answered? They are coming home to you and your lady wife." At least his amusement at his lord's attempt to seem unconcerned is distracting. "They left it a bit late, and are in no condition to fight... well. Elladan could, but Elrohir is entirely too distracted, and thus the pair would be endangered. I am afraid I vicious in pointing that out when they insisted on joining me. They won't be pleased."

Elrond's touch stays featherlight as he bends his head, closing his eyes. Briefly,

They are coming home..

He knows that things are never set in stone. Coming here, who wouldn't? That there are worlds upon worlds and that the same event may end up in many different ways, causing roads to fork and futures to be changed.

But somewhere, in one place at least, his sons are coming home.
His fingers tremble as he opens his eyes and resumes removing the bandages.

"Then I will thank you in their stead," he says.

Definite tremble there.

Edited Date: 2015-04-24 04:05 am (UTC)

Glorfindel does his best not to flinch, and muses that perhaps his timing leaves something to be desired. Carefully he frees one of his hands to reach down and cover Elrond's.

"I can only apologize for not convincing them sooner. I've only given you more work to do." He thought, he'd been convinced, that when the sea-longing started they'd be easier to manage.

That... really didn't come true. Stubborn elflings.

He takes a deep breath, willing his hands to be still.
"You have guarded them, Glorfindel. That was all I ever asked for."
That, and tidings, if they had decided otherwise.

"It seems to be healing well, but it does gape a little. I would like to give it a few stitches if you would let me," he then says, turning his attention to Glorfidel's wounds.
He'll cry with relief later.
Perhaps even literally.

He is worn and tired. That is not helping any.

"... Very good numbing creams?" There's another shudder, this from the elf who has cleared out orc dens without turning a hair. "As you will, of course."

Maybe he'll have good enough luck to faint before Elrond gets too far into it.

"They have medicine that will allow you to sleep for the duration. But I would need to ask for assistance with that," Elrond says, gently cleaning the area around the wound,

"They are skilled here, Glorfindel. And I trust them."

Glorfindel's expression shows exactly how he feels about the matter - he's too run down to be diplomatic. If the decision were entirely in his hands, he'd be adamantly against it.

But Elrond trusts them.

And he trusts Elrond.

"If you think it best." The whole idea of being asleep for all of this is certainly alluring. The rest... the rest he will endure.

Elrond sets about binding the wound again with clean bandages. "I will make something for you that you will take straight away."
Not can. Will.

"Then I find out if anyone is available straight away."

He strokes a hand over Glorfindel's hair.

"Yes, hir nin." It's as meek and biddable as anyone might wish - but it's motivated by other things than good manners. He wants the pain to cease, he wants to not be an active participant in any sewing, he wants to go home (oh, he wants to go home, the last few centuries have been long).

So he'll do whatever needs doing to accomplish this.

Even if he doesn't particularly like it. He didn't particularly like the knife (or the wielder) who started it all.

"Good. Now - look into my eyes, old friend."
He can at least help him find rest now. Even if it tires him. He can rest later. When this is over.

And ask himself whether it was mostly his own, selfish needs that made him want to act here. His own sorrow.
Later.

For now, he lets calm fill him like water and pass like waves, through gaze and touch, to the wounded warrior on the bed.

He doesn't like this, either. He knows very well that Elrond can overtax himself.

Never mind the last time he saw it was millenia ago - that sort of thing is not something one forgets.

He knows there's only so much aid that can be taken, he hates being such a burden, he hates that he cannot think of a reasonable alternative, he hates that he's already given his word.

So there's a mulish look in his eyes when he complies, and an expression that matches, but he doesn't actually fight it. Slowly he relaxes, his gaze unfocusing and sliding away.

He can hate it some more later.

Elrond stays at his side till he is certain that he is truly resting.

And then he exits the room in search of someone with a better grasp of modern medicine and ways to keep a wounded elf under.

He returns a little while later and speaks softly to Glorfindel as he carefully moves his hands under him so he can lift him up and carry him down the stairs and into the infirmary.

He weighs a ton. More or less. But at least it only puts strain on his body.

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