Chapter Text
Elrond had ceased to think it unusual to find his middle daughter alone in the library late at night. Tindomiel might still sleep more as the Secondborn than the First, but Anariel had confessed to him that even when she’d believed herself a daughter of Men she had slept less than most. She may not go without sleep as long as the purely eldarin do, but Elrond cannot be sure if that was because she was peredhil or because of something less clear.
Her return to Arda had caused her hroa to recognize its true nature. Hair that once had streaks of darker color had turned to undiluted gold, features that were already beautiful among the Secondborn became subtly more so. But the power of the Slayer, a power he still did not trust, had not diminished. If anything, it had been augmented.
Limbs stronger and reflexes faster than those of Men were enhanced still further, so that despite her small size she was stronger and quicker than even the Eldar would expect. She healed faster than any elf he had ever seen, though Elrond was uncertain if that was because he has known relatively few Amanyar born in the Light of the Trees. It was rare for her body to retain scars – the only ones visible are from California, a tangible reminder that other world was real.
He could understand that such gifts exacted a price – indeed, it made sense that Anariel must sleep more than most elves to rest both hroa and fëa. She has at least learned to sleep as she needs to, rather than push herself beyond what is healthy as she had done when she first returned from Erebor.
But he found himself concerned about his daughter all the same. The look on her face this evening was more one of an elf walking dream paths with eyes open than exhaustion – and it was no pleasant path she tread, he was certain.
When he caught sight of the book she had not glanced at in the half hour he has been quietly watching, he understood all too well.
It was one of those that told of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and not just any account – it was Turgon’s own.
Elrond had not realized until many years later just how carefully curated the library at Amon Ereb had been.
He had been so proud to be given free run of it, allowed to read any book he wanted – he can still remember that being one of the first things he had told Galadriel when she asked how he liked life in the Fëanorion fortress. He may not recall the face of his mother’s librarian, but he remembered the ellon’s hovering presence and repressive attitude all too well. He had rarely been permitted his first or even second choice, steered always to something ‘more fitting for an elfling so young’.
Maedhros, on the other hand, had shown him to the library the first time he had asked for a new book, and sat quietly off to one side to read a book of his own, leaving the elfling to choose for himself. Elrond had gaped openly at the many shelves of books he was free to explore as he would, and spent the rest of the afternoon happily looking them over. Only the bell signaling dinner-time had persuaded him to cut short his exploration and make a choice.
It was only years later, when he was finally able to bring himself to open the trunks that had been sent with them to Gil-galad’s court, that he realized Maedhros had not needed to worry what book he might pick, because any books not suitable for impressionable little eyes had already been removed to safe locations, packed away out of sight.
Elros, with the bitterness of their loss still so fresh, had jeered at him that they had been too young and naïve to see the library for what it was – a bribe, calculated to cozen Eärendil’s clever, bookish younger son into asking no questions his Kinslayer cousins would not wish to answer.
Elrond had been hurting too much himself at the time to challenge his brother’s interpretation, no matter how his heart had protested that whatever else they had done before and after, Makalaurë and Maedhros had loved them. Elros’ fury at Maedhros would have allowed no objection in any case.
The entire library, both the books suitable for children and those removed until a day when they were old enough to read them, had accompanied them to Balar. Their foster fathers had known enough to suspect those goodbyes would be final.
When many years later, with older, wiser eyes – eyes that had by then seen and lost much more than the battered young ellon at the close of the First Age – he had finally read his great-grandfather’s account of that bitterest of battles, he had understood Maedhros’ choices better.
When, still later, he looked into his own sons’ innocent little faces, he was absolutely certain that there had been love in his foster father’s actions. He wondered if Elros had ever allowed himself to come to the same conclusion. He had been a father, too.
There were some things that were simply not for children’s eyes.
But his sunshine child was no innocent elfling – California had seen to that, and the heat of battle at Erebor had tempered the young adult that had returned still further. He could not winnow his library for her as Maedhros had for him. She would never accept such treatment, even had he judged the attempt worth undertaking.
He did not know how she had discovered the book. Her reading habits were eclectic, as often as not shaped by nothing more than whim and chance. A word or question from one of her mortal sisters or brothers – for he was pleased to find that she treated Estel as a brother also – would be enough to send her off on some tangent that might make sense only to her.
Elrond’s heart sank when he saw the page she had stopped at.
…his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.
If Anariel had to read of the Nirnaeth, he would rather she had stuck to Pengolodh’s drier, less dramatic treatment of the battle. The bare facts were horror enough.
Turgon had been deeply affected by the death of his older brother, greatly though the Noldor outside the Hidden City had doubted it at the time. The vivid prose describing Fingon’s death as seen through his brother’s eyes was as sickeningly clear as one could be without having actually stood by them on that cursed field.
Elrond had often wondered how exactly Maedhros had come to have a copy of Turgon’s account. He had just as often concluded that he might not like the answer to his question and set it aside.
He would not normally disturb his children when they were lost in thought, but this once he felt it was better to do so.
“My sunshine, what are you thinking?” he asked softly, suspecting that she was not even aware of his presence.
His suspicion was confirmed when she started at the sound of his voice.
“Ada!”
She did her best to smile – it never failed to warm his heart that his long-missed daughter always brightened to see him – but it was neither as happy nor as genuine as usual, and slid quickly from her face as the book again caught her eye.
“Ada,” she said slowly. “What are valaraucar?”
“That is the Quenya for balrog,” he answered heavily. “Maiar corrupted by Morgoth, creatures of shadow and flame. Of all the elf-banes, the most deadly-”
“Except Sauron,” she finished, but there was a flavor of question to her words.
“Perhaps,” Elrond said. “It is difficult to say – I do not know that they ever contested with each other, though it is also true that Sauron is no longer as powerful as he once was.”
He disliked discussing the Enemy with her, for he privately feared her brothers were correct – it only gave her ideas. But for once, her focus was not on Sauron Gorthaur or his rings, but on something not seen in the light of day since the First Age. That, at least, should be safe enough.
So he told her what he knew of them, what they looked like, how and where they were used by Morgoth, and of the elves that fought them.
“Though balrogs are a foe you need never face,” Elrond concluded with some relief, “for they were all destroyed in the War of Wrath, save one – and that one is trapped in the ruins of the dwarf kingdom of Moria, buried deep and unlikely to emerge.”
The troubled cast of his daughter’s countenance worried him, but there was only so much he could do to reassure her. The First Age was long over, and neither of them could change what had already happened. They can only look to the war yet to come, and do what they can to make safe the world for Estel’s descendants.