Work Text:
It was a wonder to travel with two elves into the foothills of the Misty Mountains once more. Bilbo had made smaller journeys in his old age, mostly with Erestor and Lindir, going here and there to help them with some of trade talks with the communities about Bree and elsewhere. It seemed as though Imladris had been rather hoodwinked by some of the Mannish communities in their long years which Bilbo put a stop to right quick. Erestor and Lindir had always appreciated the help.
It felt different traveling with Maglor and Maedhros. The two brothers were quiet for the most part, though often Bilbo thought he heard Maglor humming under his breath as they made their way through the late spring forests. They had not questioned Bilbo's avoidance of the road, going so far as to help scout out the best tracks for them to take through the rolling foothills until they could not avoid the road any longer.
Bilbo had forgotten how poor the road had been in his youth. When he was an old hobbit the road was much more obvious and used. He was not sure if it was because of the elves that were leaving more and more from Rivendell – Imladris – or if it was because more and more people were coming and going through the mountains and thus to Elrond's door. Either way finding the road was a bit of a bother at first – it took Bilbo ages to remember how it had been marked out by white-washed stones – and then a slow going to pick their way through the upland heath. There were ravines to avoid, steep and dangerous and so well hidden that it had taken Maglor's quick grab at Bilbo's pack to keep him from falling down into one. There were other that plunged deep down into sunken valleys full of trees and running water. Once or twice Bilbo thought he caught sight of waterfalls in them, small things compared to the vast cataracts that surrounded Elrond's Last Homely House.
“I believe these are elf signs,” Maedhros said as twilight started to fade and they were thinking of finding a place to camp for the night. He knelt and brushed gentle fingers over a thick stone. Bilbo squinted at it and could barely make out the markings etched into the sides. “Himring had such signs about it, once,” Maedhros said.
“Himring?” The name rang a bell.
Maedhros stood, his thumb running over his fingers as he stared down at the stone. “My – our – home in Beleriand, before we had to abandon it.”
The elf was a rather dour fellow. Bilbo blinked up at him and then cut a look over at Maglor, but the more cheerful brother – which was odd, considering Bilbo had read several tales about Maglor's supposed haunting of the sea in repentance – was not smiling or rolling his eyes at Maedhros. Maglor's own expression was distant and a bit sad.
Well then.
“Did you tell Elrond of them?” Bilbo glanced down at the stones and then back up at the elves. “And what do they say, if you mind? Young eyes or not I cannot read them.”
And, sure as rain after a halo about the sun, both of the elves' expressions brightened once more. The sheer mention of Elrond never failed to bring either of them out of whatever melancholy had come down on them. “They are a waystone, saying that the path into Imladris is close at hand.”
“I see,” Bilbo rocked back on his heels, thumbs hooked through the straps of his pack. “Shall we go forward into the dark? I remember the path down into the valley being a bit dodgy but you both seem to have keen eyes. I'm sure you won't let me fall.”
“If the path is so steep it would be best to camp here for the night and make the journey in the morning,” Maedhros said after exchanging a long look with his brother. “We have never traveled so far East and do not wish to chance your safety by going forward in the dark.”
Bilbo blew out a breath but let that stand. A part of him wanted to rush forward as well, wanted to see Rivendell lit up before him, warm and bright and cozy in the thick darkness of the valley below. He wanted to see Erestor and Elrond and Lindir. He wanted to tease Aragorn and get Arwen to dance with him in the Hall of Fire. But all that belonged in a life that no longer was and in the here and now Bilbo was yet a stranger to all these people, no matter how dear they were to him.
They made camp with ease after the last few days of traveling together. The elves were well provisioned, even with Bilbo's dwindling stores, and they fed him well with simple fare. Bilbo had teased a few tales out of them about such things – apparently they and their brothers had learned such things not in Arda but in Aman when they were young, traveling the length and breadth of that fair land with their mother and father when things were simpler. Bilbo had only read a few tales about that place, all from the library in Imladris, where those stories had much grander things to talk about than learning how to make campfires and stews from a pot.
Speaking of...Bilbo glanced at Maedhros as he wiped out his bowl and packed it away after he was done eating. All the tales he had read of that storied elf had said he had lost a hand when he had been captured by Morgoth in the First Age. But the Maedhros before him had two hands of flesh and blood. “Would you mind a bit of an awkward question,” he began when the curiosity built to a point where he could not stand it anymore. Both elves glanced over at him. “It's just...you see, the tales I read about you,” he made a vague motion at them both while pulling a face. He thought he heard Maglor snort. “Maedhros was always missing a hand and after well, the unpleasantness of everything,” Bilbo flicked his fingers over his shoulder, “it was said that you, Maglor, went rather batty by the sea. You're obviously with both hands now, Maedhros, and my great aunt was nuttier than you Maglor, so...do tell?”
He watched as both elves sat back against their packs. Maglor's fingers were still on the harp on his lap. Maedhros' expression shaded grim for a moment before it softened. “I did lose a hand,” Maedhros was the one to speak. “I had been captured and chained to the side of Thangorodrim for...many years. It was not until...” He turned his face away. All that could be heard was the crackle of the fire. Then Maedhros drew in a stuttering breath and faced them again. His face was dry. “Fingon came,” his voice broke on the elf's name. “And he saved me. But in saving me he was forced to cut my hand off at the wrist, even though I begged him to kill me. Fingon...Fingon was always the bravest of us all.”
Bilbo glanced down at his own hands, tangling his fingers together. He wondered how many times Maedhros had despaired on that mountainside to make him beg for death.
“After...” Maedhros continued. “Well. After, when I woke in Mandos, I had two hands once more. The Halls are a place of...healing, in their own way. To learn acceptance and to wash oneself clean of regret and pain and bitterness of the life you had left behind.”
It sounded rather like Bilbo's own time in Rivendell. How those lovely halls had healed that sore spot in his soul as best it could.
“As for the tales of my madness,” Maglor said once Maedhros had gone quiet. “They are true. I did wander the shore for years uncounted, full of regret for our actions.”
“And then?”
Shadows moved over Maglor's face, turning his eyes dark and hard to read. “A great wave rose from the ocean,” he tilted his head to one side. “I had thought...that perhaps it was Lord Ulmo, come to free me of my repentance at last. But I was wrong. The wave blocked out the light of the sun. Such a wind was pushed in front of it. I remember standing on the sand as the waters drew back, further and further until you could see the bottom of the sea. Then that wave was over me and all I could hear was the fury and the roar of the water.” He gave himself a shake, sitting up a bit as his fingers drifted over the strings of his harp. “When I woke I was in the Halls of Mandos and my healing finally began.”
It was Bilbo's turn to lean back against his pack. At least he hadn't decided to travel with a pair of nutters. Though, considering his own mental state, perhaps it was the two elves who had gotten the short end of the stick.
“And you, Bilbo?” Maglor's gaze was as sharp as Elrond's when Bilbo's old friend was at his most persistent. “Would you tell us of yourself, then and now?”
Bilbo opened his mouth to give a flippant answer and was shocked at the sudden knot that silenced his words. He stared into the fire for a long moment, swallowing against that pain. In fits and starts he told them about his first meeting with Gandalf and how foolish he had been. He told them of meeting the Company one by one. Of Dwalin. Of Thorin.
“I was a middle aged bachelor by then,” Bilbo told them, still staring into the flames. “I was just fifty. But I'm twenty now and that adventure will not happen for decades yet. Or at all,” he added, softer. “There are things that I must do, things that I learned about only later, after I had done even more foolish things.”
“After you found the...”
“Yes,” Bilbo sighed. “I played with it, like a faunt. A child,” he said to the questioning looks. “Never knowing the danger I was putting myself in or the Shire. It is a wonder that Sauron did not raze the place, like Saruman did, later.”
Both elves sat up at that. “Your homeland was destroyed?”
“Not completely,” Bilbo gave a humorless laugh. “Saruman – he's a wizard, you see, one that Merry and Pippin helped to stop but he escaped the watch of the Ents and came to the Shire and set up like a little petty lord, trying to tear the whole place down about our ears. I heard that Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin had to help stage a revolt against him and the wizard ended up being killed by his own lackey in the end.”
The elves exchanged a look he could not read. “A wizard, you say?”
“Yes, like Gandalf. He – Saruman – was once good, or so it was said. But I do not know when he turned to evil,” Bilbo shrugged, shivering a bit. He dug out his blanket and wrapped it about his shoulders. “We'll avoid him, I think. Best not to take any risky chances.”
“What...is a wizard?”
Bilbo glanced up at Maglor's question. “I don't know,” he admitted. “Not an elf, nor a man, but excellent with fireworks, or at least Gandalf was. A bit mad,” he smiled. “I think I heard Galadriel call him Olórin, once.”
“Galadriel?”
“Olórin?”
Bilbo blinked at them both. “Oh dear,” he said at their expressions. “This will take a bit.”
Morning came far sooner than Bilbo wanted. They had spent much of the night talking about the people Bilbo knew – had known – in his other life. It seemed to shock both Maedhros and Maglor that their cousin – cousin – Galadriel was still on Arda's far shores. Both of them were of the opinion that she would have gone back to Aman the first chance she got to see her brother Finrod once more. Bilbo, having met the fine lady a handful of times, was of the opinion that nothing on Arda or Aman could move that Lady unless she was willing. And for whatever reason – though surely it was not to stay on Arda just to torment Thranduil, which was a particular hobby of hers and Erestor's – on Arda did Galadriel stay, at least until the passing of the Ring.
Bilbo was still a bit bleary-eyed when they started following the trail that would take them to Imladris. He relied on Maedhros and Maglor's sharp eyes to pick out the stones for them to follow, winding their way through tall – for Bilbo – hedges of heather not yet in bloom. It took some skill to avoid the sudden bogs and figure out which way through the myriad of deer trails to figure out which way was the correct one, but finally, just before the time when Bilbo would have his light second breakfast, they came to a steep fall that was cleverly hidden between two boulders even taller than Maedhros was.
“Here we are,” said elf was staring up at those rocks. “See? The old marks, like we taught them,” Maedhros added, softer. One hand ran over what had looked to Bilbo like random scratches on the stone. They slipped through the stones and the path immediately narrowed, so that a hobbit might be able to walk two abreast but no more than one pony could come or go on that ribbon of a trail that led down into the valley.
The first time Bilbo had seen this same sight it had been in the dark, and the valley had been full of deep emerald shadows and the only thing he could see was the glow of the lights coming from across the river. Now, though, he could see out across the valley, picking out the many waterfalls that surrounded the halls he had lived in for so many years. The mountains were still packed with snow, gleaming in the morning light, touched with gold and wreathed with mist. Bilbo's nose twitched at the scent of those pine-trees as they went deeper and deeper into the valley, each step warmer than the next. The thick grasses between those tall trees were awash with bluebells and the sudden shock of white and yellow daffodils. Bilbo had spent many a spring in those fields with Erestor and Lindir, weaving flower crowns for them and telling them stories of his life and of the Shire, much to their patience and delight. Sometimes even Arwen would accompany them, or the twins Elladan and Elrohir.
Bilbo had to blink away tears at those memories. Perhaps, if he made it back again, he could tell them all of the stories he had forgotten, or perhaps the new ones he would make in the here and now. He rather wished for that to happen. He did miss his dear friends.
Then they were at the valley floor and the trees had changed out to beech and oak, tall sentinels that had always guarded Imladris so well. He and Erestor would climb them in the summer and hide from Elrond and Glorfindel after pulling a successful prank or two. Lindir would come with them sometimes, would play a decoy for them, laying on his back on a wide branch as he came up with songs while staring at the sunlight through the leaves. There had always been music in Imladris and not always the stuffy choirs that had driven his Company rather batty during their first stay. No, Bilbo had learned though his long years there that elves had a rather peculiar sense of humor, happy to seem serene and fey one moment and then silly and irreverent the next.
And, as if from a dream, Bilbo heard a voice start to sing from one of the trees that towered over the path ahead of them.
O! What are you doing,
And where are you going?
It's a long path to be following
While the river is flowing!
O! Bilbo Baggins! Good day!
What a day in the valley!
Bilbo felt his feet freeze to the path, the two elves with him stopping as well. He stared up into that tree, gaze going to Lindir's favorite wide branch, just as a fair hand became visible, and then the crown of a dark head, then Lindir's dark eyes as he peered down at them while propped up on his elbows. Those dark eyes went wide at the sight of Maedhros and Maglor, though.
Bilbo set his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at his old friend. “Something tells me you know more than just my name, O Lindir of Imladris.”
Dark eyes went wider and then the flicker-flash of Lindir's sly smile lit his face. “I told Erestor I would meet you first,” his friend said and rolled off his perch, startling a sound from the elves at Bilbo's side. Lindir landed light on his feet, just like a cat, knees bent and hair a tangle down his back. Those dark eyes were locked on Bilbo. He could not look away. “I am glad to see you again, my friend.”
Bilbo couldn't help the dampness in his eyes as he stepped forward into open arms. Lindir was rarely one for shows of affection, but here and now Bilbo felt those arms come about him tight for a long moment. “I am glad to see you again,” Bilbo whispered into his ear. “Though I do not know how you know me, now.”
“Long have we dreamed of you, Bilbo Baggins,” Lindir whispered back and then let him go. He stood, gaze going beyond Bilbo to the elves at his side. “But we did not dream of your companions.”
Bilbo looked up at Maedhros and Maglor, but the two were stony-faced and Bilbo could not tell if they were pleased or upset. “I think it would be best for us to see Elrond first before I make any introductions,” Bilbo said. “If you don't mind.”
“I know that you would never bring danger to our doors that wasn't of your own making,” Lindir told him, falling into step at his side as Bilbo started forward. Maedhros and Maglor fell back like two long shadows for them both. “Erestor will be pleased to see you again. Elrond as well.”
“Not Glorfindel?” Bilbo canted a look up at Lindir.
A brief twist of sadness passed over that expressive face. “Our Glorfindel is as wise as ever, as kind and valiant an elf as he was, before. He, though, did not share in our dreams, and was rather...concerned over them. Especially when Erestor claimed to have them as well.”
Bilbo wrinkled his nose with a sigh. Watching Erestor and Glorfindel dance about each other for all the years Bilbo had been in Imladris had been a test of his patience. More than once he had petitioned Elrond to just lock the both of them into a closet and hope for the best. It had taken Lindir to sit him down to explain that such an outcome could never be, for Glorfindel already had a spouse, one Ecthelion of the Fountain, and could not take another without Ecthelion at his side to declare such an intent. It was not their way. Bilbo thought it was a shame, since he had watched Erestor pine over the blond warrior for decades, though he hid it rather well. None of them knew if Glorfindel felt the same.
With Lindir at their sides they made their way through the lush meadows of the valley, the grasses as tall as Bilbo's thigh, with flowers bending in the gentle mid morning light. They came to the river that was rushing high in its banks, silver and frothy from the spring melt. The bridge was as narrow as Bilbo remembered it, one of the many small footbridges that led over the water, difficult to cross except one at a time. Bilbo wondered if these bridges were also something Elrond had made in remembrance of his foster fathers but could not glance over his shoulder to check the elves' expressions. Not without falling into the drink and he'd done that enough for one lifetime, long before.
There had been white, puffy clouds high in the sky as they'd made their way down the narrow path to the valley, but when Bilbo stepped into the courtyard before the main hall of Imladris the sun came out at last. Bilbo stopped to turn his face up to that warm light, hearing the sounds of the house and the cheerful call of elves all about him. It could have been any day in his then-past, when he'd gotten up early and had a nice walk, his joints not hurting and feeling like he was fifty again and ready for a new adventure at any time.
When Bilbo opened his eyes he saw Elrond standing on top of the stairs that led to the hall, Erestor at his side. But Elrond's gaze was not for him. No, it was for the two elves at Bilbo's back, still silent as they came to rest on either side of Bilbo.
“Hello again, Elrond,” Bilbo said to break the silence. He saw Erestor hide a laugh behind a hand. “Hello Erestor! I am glad to see you again.”
Elrond's gaze flicked to him and then went back to the elves at his sides. “Bilbo Baggins. I had wondered when we would meet again. But I had not thought you would bring...” Elrond shook his head. There was a shine to his eyes that Bilbo had not seen except when Elrond had spoke of Arwen's choice of staying, of becoming mortal, like Elros.
“Elrond,” Maedhros said, taking a half step forward. “I...” But he did not get a chance to finish as Elrond was down the steps in a flash, grabbing Maedhros and then Maglor into a hug that forced sounds from both their throats.
Bilbo stepped to one side, watching their reunion. He wasn't quite sure if Elrond was truly hugging them or attempting to put them both in headlocks. A shadow joined him and Bilbo looked up into Erestor's dark eyes and said, “I believe you owe Lindir money.”
Faint lines appears at the corners of Erestor's eyes. “I will pay it gladly,” he said. Then Bilbo was caught up in a hug of his own, with Erestor's arms tight about him.
“What a morning for meetings,” Bilbo said into Erestor's fall of dark hair. He couldn't think of a better one.