Work Text:
"That isn't fair. He raised me, why cannot I search for him now?"
"He was not your father." Gil-Galad's tone was sterner than Elrond had grown accustomed to and it made rage simmer in his heart. He knew he shouldn't argue, he knew he should just let it rest, Maglor was hardly blameless. Indeed, the King had every right to be angry, to withhold his forgiveness, but what right did he have to dictate the same for Elrond?
"He was more of a father to me than Eärendil ever was! At least he was actually around, at least he didn't abandon me."
"Oh yes, he did." Within an instant, the King was mere inches from his face, his usually serene face contorted by wrath. "He sent you and your brother to me, didn't he? In the end his oath was more important than you. When will you understand it? You were a hostage, nothing more."
Elrond couldn't think past the red in his vision. Without quite meaning to, he swung his arm and there was a sharp crack as his palm collided with Gil-Galad's cheek. And for just a moment, everything fell silent. He stumbled back, unsure whether to be more shocked that he had struck the King or that Gil-Galad had not called for guards. Yet he did not apologise, no, sweet relief was flooding his veins, an exhilarated trepidation that made his hands tremble and his chest seize.
Gil-Galad touched his quickly reddening cheek, his jaw slack with surprise. Then his eyes flooded with ice cold fury and quicker than Elrond had ever seen him move, he seized the peredhel's collar.
"Men have died for less than that." He hissed. "I should have you whipped."
"Go on then." Elrond squared his jaw against the fear coiled in his gut. "Whip the boy Maglor trusted you to look after. I shall not beg for mercy."
"Guards!" He almost flinched at the shout so close to his face. Almost. "Escort Elrond to his chambers and lock the doors. I want men watching his windows and standing guard outside his door, he is not to leave unless I specifically request otherwise." He released Elrond's tunic and Elrond could not help the relief that washed over him. He did not want to be whipped, even if he was secretly pleased that he had finally gotten a reaction out of the King.
The guards were eying him curiously and he wondered how long it would take them to link the growing redness on the King's cheek to Elrond's apparent disgrace. He did not glance back to the King as he was marched out of the room, though the look in his eyes was playing on repeat in his mind. Anger, disgust, surprise. All of those he would expect but beneath them there was something else: betrayal. This wasn't the first time he had spoken out against Gil-Galad, not even close, but it was certainly the only time he had been so brazen. Of course it would be seen as a betrayal. Striking the King was treason after all, though he could not bring himself to regret it.
The doors to his chambers were locked from the outside, Elrond's set of keys having been confiscated, and he stood in the middle of the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. His anger was nowhere close to fading and his head was buzzing with a thousand other things he could have said or done. He might have escaped a whipping for now but he wasn't safe yet. The King could be planning his retribution right now. To think hitting him would go without punishment was folly, even Gil-Galad was not that forgiving.
He wished for his brother, if only so he would have someone to bounce his feelings off of. In truth, Elros would likely only exacerbate the situation, his temper was worse than Elrond's. He had always had a way of getting out of things though, one that Elrond had not inherited. So without anything better to do, he sat by his window and stewed. Twilight arrived and he briefly wondered whether any dinner would be delivered to him. He had not eaten lunch and hunger was beginning to gnaw at his stomach, although that pain was familiar enough that he was able to ignore it easily.
A darkness so impenetrable that it veiled even the brightest of stars had descended over the city by the time Elrond was stirred from his daze by the rattling of a key in a lock. He squinted against the darkness, suddenly realising he had forgotten to light any candles. In fact, he was not sure he had moved at all since coming back to his rooms and over that time anxiety had tied a knot in his throat.
"It's a little early to be sleeping, don't you think?" The voice wasn't the one he had expected and Elrond quickly hurried to his feet, fumbling around to find his way over to the door without tripping.
"Cirdan." A sphere of golden light illuminated the elf's disapproving expression and Elrond halted but the boat master simply strode past him to light the candles littered about the room.
"Really Elrond, one incident and you have converted to a life of darkness." The door slicked shut behind him and Elrond mumbled some lie about dozing off. "Now, would you like to explain what in Eru's name lead to Gil-Galad's messengers interrupting my work at the shipyards to tell me that you were under house arrest?"
Elrond bit his tongue.
"Not particularly."
"I thought you might say that. Which was why I went to Gil-Galad first to have him tell me exactly what happened." If Elrond had not known Cirdan for so long, he might have assumed the impassive look on his face indicated that he was not angry. Instead, he knew the opposite to be true.
"He forbade me from searching for Maglor." He said eventually and the second the words passed his lips, he felt indignation swell like the rising tide in his chest. "He said Maglor abandoned me and Elros, that we were only ever hostages to him." He knotted his fingers through his hair, frustration making his skin itch. "It's not fair that he can just say those things and I have to take it. He's entirely biased. He doesn't allow me to have my own opinion, instead he forces me to agree with him and comply with every little order he gives no matter how unjust."
"He has good reason for that bias."
"Don't you think I know that?" He burst out. "Maedhros and Maglor burnt my home to the ground, slaughtered everyone I ever knew when I was only a child. But they also carved me toy horses and sung me to sleep and held me when nightmares woke me. They taught me arithmetic, botany, music. They played with me in the woods, nurtured free thinking, encouraged me to stand up for myself, to fight back. And yes, in the end they sent us away but it was for our safety. They knew we had no future with them, they only wanted the best for us."
When he finally stopped, he was breathless and he flopped onto a chair, scrubbing his face.
"Hitting the King is treason." He mumbled.
"Yes, it is."
"What's going to happen?" Elrond hated how much he sounded like a child but in that moment he felt like one. In that moment he was sixteen years old, arriving on the Isle of Balar for the very first time and being pelted with abuse and forced to wait days for the King to formally acknowledge that he was taking him and Elros in. The uncertainty had been harrowing, but was had been worse still was the knowledge that the King might turn them away, for then they would be truly on their own.
"I do not know for certain." Cirdan admitted, though the look in his eyes was more pensive than grim. "I expect the King will ask some service of you to make up for it."
"He threatened to have me whipped."
"Did he now? Well, he certainly left that out." Cirdan must have found something that troubled him in Elrond's expression because he added, "That won't happen, I will not allow it."
"He is the King, I thought we had to allow everything."
"He may be the King but I raised him and I ruled in his stead for many years. He would do well to remember that." With a sigh, Cirdan shook his head and turned for the door. "There are matters I must attend to, I will visit you tomorrow. Do try to refrain from insulting the King in the meantime." He said it as if Elrond went out of his way to offend Gil-Galad but Elrond did not argue, just bade Cirdan a muted farewell and withdrew into himself to wait out the night.
/////
Three days passed like that and he did not see the King once. Elrond could not stop himself from remarking that it was utterly like Gil-Galad to ignore the problem as if that might somehow result in its resolution and Cirdan had just given him a look as if to say 'this is why you are under house arrest'.
At least they were feeding him now, that made a marked improvement to that first night after he struck the King.
He spent most of his time poring over his vast collection of scrolls and tomes, reading each one again even though he had read most of them twice already. It wasn't a bad way to spend his days but by time twilight fell on the third day, Elrond was feeling about as twitchy as a coiled spring. He dropped the glass he had been holding when Cirdan called on him and he was still finding small shards of pottery around his room hours later.
He slept restlessly and it was for this reason that he woke instantly when the door to his bed chamber opened almost silently. He lay still as footsteps crept towards him and then shifted his hand upwards, grasping the shard of pottery he had tucked beneath his pillow.
And so when he heard the scrape of metal against metal, he surged upwards, baring that shard out in front of him. An elf towered over him with a knife drawn, and Elrond thought he recognised him as the man who was supposed to be guarding his door. So this was Gil-Galad's decision: for him to be stabbed as he slept.
Well, if there was one thing that had not been taken into consideration, it was who Elrond had been raised by. Which was why he was able to dart out of the reach of the dagger and retreat to the door. The guard made for him and he ducked, slashing with his own weapon. In Maedhros's hands it would have been as good as a sword, in Elrond's it was just good enough to match a knife.
That was until it shattered.
The guard's dagger hit the side of the shard and with a crack that resonated up Elrond's arms it broke cleanly in two. Blood trickled from his palm and he turned on his heel and fled, careening through the half open doorway into the main room of his quarters and out into the corridor. He didn't know where he was heading, if Gil-Galad had ordered his death, he was not safe anywhere but he if he had even the faintest chance of escape, he would take it.
A hand caught the back of his tunic and he was thrown against the wall. Stars danced across his vision as his head cracked against the stone and he cried out, raising his hands just in time to catch those of the elf who was now mere inches from taking his life.
"Traitor." He snarled. "Feanorian-lover." Transfixed by the pure hatred in the guard's eyes, Elrond barely had time to fight back before the elf's knife buried itself in his abdomen.
The air was forced from his lungs and he froze, eyes wide with shock, staring at the leather hilt sprouting from his gut. Then came the pain, worse than anything he had ever experienced. It was like he had been impaled on a bar of molten steel, the searing heat of it radiated outwards, paralysing his lungs and turning his legs to lead.
He had apprenticed as a healer during the war, been taught the basics by Maglor as a child; he ran the statistics in his head now. As long as an artery wasn't nicked, gut wounds could take up to four hours to prove fatal. That would give him plenty of time to track down Cirdan and hope that he would take pity on him. But his attacker was never going to let him leave alive, least of all with the incriminating knife lodged in his abdomen.
Elrond nearly wept as he considered what he knew he must do but instead he gritted his teeth and wrapped his fingers around the dagger's hilt. A delirious smile crept across his lips at the alarm on the guard's face as he realised what Elrond was doing and not a second later, the dagger's pommel collided with his forehead.
The guard collapsed onto the marble flagstones.
Elrond clamped a hand over the wound in his gut, barely managing to bite back a scream, and steeled himself. He intended to survive this and he certainly would not achieve that standing here. So, ignoring the blood crusting on his fingers and pooling beneath his palm, he staggered on down the corridor towards the exit he knew was guarded the least. On the high walls, the frescos swirled and spots of crimson formed a telling trail behind him. He briefly worried that it would make him too easy to follow before another wave of agony quashed the thought.
He did not know how far he had made it, what felts like hours of stumbling he knew logically cannot have been more than twenty minutes, if that, and he stilled at the sound of footsteps. Eyes darting frantically around for a crevice in which to hide himself, he soon realised there were none. The footsteps grew closer and closer and Elrond stood there like a startled deer, barely breathing.
His gaze was met by Gil-Galad's.
The King stumbled, blanching, and Elrond backed away. Of all the elves he might have run into, it had to be the one who wanted him dead.
"Elrond, what happened? You are covered in blood." Again the King stepped towards him and again Elrond retreated, face twisting into a pained grimace.
"I didn't kill him." He gasped out. "Only knocked him out. I'm not a kinslayer."
"Elrond, what are you talking about? Who didn't you kill?" Gil-Galad seemed genuinely confused and Elrond had never known him to be a good liar, yet how could that be true? Who else would want him dead? The guard who had tried to kill him had called him a traitor.
"I disobeyed your orders." He said numbly. "I left my chambers, I would say I did not mean to but I was being chased by the elf you sent to murder me." He had not thought it possible for the King to be any paler than he was already, yet somehow he managed it.
"Murder? I sent no one to murder you, I was on my way to talk with you just now."
"Oh." He blinked and when he opened his eyes he was on his knees. Gil-Galad was knelt next to him, Elrond's blood already seeping across the rich silk of his robe.
"You need a healer." He was saying. "You are going to be alright, Elrond listen to me, you are going to be fine. Just stay awake."
Stay awake. If Elrond had been thinking straight he would have known that Gil-Galad was right, but he wasn't thinking straight. He was tired. He wanted to close his eyes. In fact, falling asleep was beginning to sound like a brilliant option, his eyelids were so heavy and if he ignored the pain that was tearing every inch of his being apart, he was rather comfortable against Gil-Galad's chest.
"Elrond. Elrond-"
/////
"I'm bringing him around in three. Two. One-"
Elrond shot upright, spluttering for air. There was a strange blackness blotting out his vision and he scrambled madly to find some purchase on the slippery soft covers that he was entombed in, a wild panic gripping his throat.
"Elrond, calm yourself. You will tear your stitches."
Stitches? It took a moment for his memory to kick in and by then hands were pushing him down against a mattress. He recalled a knife in the dark, a tussle, a blade sinking into his gut. His recollection of wandering the palace's corridors was hazy at best, though distantly he remembered running into the King.
The King!
He bolted upright again and this time he shoved off the hands that threatened to push his back down. He could see better now, think more clearly. He knew he had to run while he still had a chance, before Gil-Galad could have him formally arrested, if he had not already...
"Really, child, must you be so obstinate?" That voice was familiar, though it took his disorientated mind a moment to place it.
"Cirdan." He was growing increasingly aware of a terrible pain somewhere below his stomach that throbbed beneath a thick swathe of bandages. "Where am I? No wait, not important. I need to leave. Now."
"I would advise you against that, at least for now. I doubt your body would hold up well in the wilderness." Elrond froze as someone spoke from the other side of his bed. Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head to face them. "Besides, you are still officially under house arrest."
"My King." He could not hide his anxiety at the sight of Gil-Galad but the elf simply grimaced and gestured for him to lay back down.
"I thought we had gone through this, I did not send that guard to murder you."
"Oh."
"Yes, that was what you said last time."
"Right." Had they really had this conversation already? It seemed he had forgotten more than he realised. He supposed he should be relieved that the King had not actually ordered his death but he bit his tongue, unable to shake the feeling that he wasn't out of danger yet. It could have been some residual fear from the previous night, the effects of being raised by two incredibly paranoid individuals, years of things never going quite his way.
Or it could be an instinct just like the ones that had saved his life so many times.
"There was no permanent damage done, the healers assure me that you will be right as rain in no time at all." Gil-Galad was rambling, from what Elrond had seen that usually meant he was unsettled. "The elf who attacked you was relieved of his rank, of course, and has been arrested, pending trial."
Elrond didn't know quite how to reply to that, so he just nodded. Cirdan was giving him a strange look, assessing, almost worried. After a very uncomfortable few seconds, he turned to the King.
"It is nearly noon, I believe the merchant council are expecting you." In other words: go away. He emphasised his point with a meaningful glare, one that made Gil-Galad clear his throat awkwardly and hurry to his feet. It was quite unbecoming of a man who was supposed to be the King, Elrond thought, but anyone who had met him knew it was Cirdan who held the real power in Lindon.
Once they were alone, Cirdan's manner shifted entirely.
"He did not send that guard after you." He said firmly. "However, I have been looking into the matter and I do not believe he was acting alone. What do you recall of last night? Did he say anything?
"He called me a traitor and a Feanorian-lover. Both of which are true, I suppose." He tipped his head back against the headboard of his bed. "It is interesting that he chose Feanorian-lover as an insult when he intended to become a kinslayer himself by killing me."
"Indeed."
"You think he was directly involved in one of the kinslayings?" Elrond guessed, though it wasn't much of a stretch. Many of Lindon's residents were survivors of Doriath or Sirion, all hated the sons of Feanor.
"I think it is worth investigating." That was the sort of non-answer that had always frustrated Elrond.
"Tell me what he plans to do about me." He tried instead. "Please. I cannot live waiting on a knife's edge for him to make up his mind."
"I do not know what the King has planned."
"You have to!" Elrond tugged his hands through his hair to hide the way they were trembling. Whatever they had given him for the pain might have numbed the physical pain of his stab wound but it only enlarged his growing panic. He felt the urge to tear something apart and knotted his fingers only more tightly into his hair. "He has to have made up his mind by now."
"I think he sees the... incident last night as punishment enough."
"No, that cannot be his decision. He is indecisive, he is not negligent. I committed treason when I struck him, he cannot just let that slide."
"Elrond." There was something in Cirdan's voice that succeeded in drawing his attention. The elf was grim faced and he gripped his knees tightly, his brows creased with furrows. "You could have died. After Gil-Galad found you, he sent a messenger directly to me and by the time I arrived they had only just begun surgery on you. There was a time when he did not think you were going to make it."
"But you did? Think I was going to make it, I mean."
"Oh, I know you better than that. You are too stubborn to die from such a thing." He sighed and the tension dissolved from his shoulders like snow shaken from a branch or rooftop. "Now, rest and when you are recovered enough to sit up without looking like you are about to pass out, you and the King are going to sit down and talk."
He stood before Elrond had a chance to object.
"Go to sleep." And so he did, though his dreams were no less agonising and turbulent.
/////
The King and the peredhel stared at each other for a good few minutes before either of them attempted conversation. Two cups of tea in delicate metal glasses sat steaming on a table next to a platter of untouched cakes and despite his nausea, Elrond was beginning to consider downing the entire teapot just to have something to do.
They'd had their differences before but now it was as if a stake had been driven into their already fractured relationship. Gil-Galad could not forgive Elrond's violence and Elrond could not forgive Gil-Galad's comments. If Elros were here, he would have said something by now. He would have argued, bravely taken whatever punishment was decided and gone on with his day, the matter resolved.
Elros was not here. Elrond needed to stop thinking about what he would do, he had left him just like everyone else.
"Why won't you just tell me how you intend to punish me?" He burst out eventually, gripping the arms of his chair with enough force to turn his knuckles white. Gil-Galad startled at his sudden outburst and then slowly selected one of the glasses of tea, cupping it between his hands and breathing in the minty aroma as if to soothe himself.
"Punish you?"
"Because I hit you." How wasn't he following along? "Which is treason. Which is... well, highly illegal."
"Yes, I suppose it is."
"So?" Elrond could not keep his voice from turning shrill.
"You are not someone who acts without reason. Whether the reason itself seems illogical or irrational, from my experience you have always had one. So why did you decide to hit me?"
"You insulted Maglor, forbade me from searching for him. I was angry, I wasn't thinking clearly."
"I have insulted Maglor before, forbidden you from searching for him before. You never listened to me then and you always kept your anger to yourself. What changed?" That stumped him and he had to sift through the conversation to remember what had really angered him.
"You said Maglor abandoned us. That we were only ever his hostages." An icy chill took hold of his bones as he said it and he looked away in an effort to conceal the tears that glazed his eyes. He had not hit Gil-Galad because he had insulted Maglor, he had hit him because he had said that Elrond had been abandoned. And ultimately, Elrond knew it was true. His father, his mother, Maglor and Maedhros, Elros... all of them had left him. He had yet to figure out why, if he was really just that unlovable. And so to hear it from Gil-Galad's mouth, to hear what he would not let himself admit, had been too much.
He did not realise he was openly crying until a sleeve brushed the tears from his cheek. He flinched back and the sleeve withdrew.
"Forgive me. I should not have been so thoughtless."
"No." Elrond agreed, as he was not quite ready to apologise himself. "For all his many faults, Maglor loved me and Elros as if his own. He sent us to you because he knew you could keep us safe and he could not. We were more than just hostages, I would not look for him now if that had not been the case." He hesitated. "It angers me when people refuse to see it from my perspective. I was only a child when he took me in, what was I supposed to do? Reject every act of love, every bit of care from him? He raised me, of course I grew to love him, those years I spent with him were the happiest I have ever been. I know that is wrong, but it is the truth."
He took the other glass of tea, though his hands were shaking so much that half of it splashed onto the tray when he picked it up.
"I am sorry for hitting you. But I will not apologise for loving the man who raised me." There was a long silence after that and Gil-Galad seemed to be figuring out what to say.
"While he never cared much for Maglor, Maedhros was my father's favourite cousin." There it was, shining clearly as a gold ring dropped in a field of grass: a peace offering.
It was well past midday when they ceased their conversation and Elrond returned to his chambers with a renewed vigour in his step.