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His ears were ringing, Glorfindel dimly noticed. Like in a vision of Sight, but this was no Sight.
The clamor of the last of his warriors dispatching the remaining orcs seemed nearly muffled by the phantom sound in his ears, and the smell of blood and disturbed forest-soil mixed with snow bore into his nostrils like acid.
He sank to his knees, gently propping up Erestor’s head. The councilor wheezed, blood bubbling out of his nose, the unmistakable sound of a pierced lung.
Glorfindel’s hands trembled. The blood flowing from where one arrow pierced Erestor out of his back was thick and warm and sluggish and his fault.
His very fёa recoiled from the feeling.
Why, why had he jumped before him. He had armor. He would have survived, even as foggy-minded as he was now, awake only thanks to adrenaline and terror.
Erestor, the stupid ellon, looked at him with pain-clouded eyes, and dared to try and smile reassuringly. He was so small in his arms. Short and willowy, frail in a way that made the blood even more wrong.
Glorfindel always had issues with separating his anger from his grief. His anger was sad, and his grief angry, and his ears rung, and Erestor was dying in his arms and dared to smile like it wasn’t Glorfindel’s fault, and his vision whited out for a second.
Something like the sound of tearing fabric shook the air.
*****
He fell over on his guardpost, again six hours earlier.
The pine needles were cold, frozen through. The ringing in his ears faded, only the soft breaths of sleeping elves in the camp behind him left in the silence of the night.
*****
Thud. Thud, thud.
Three arrows embedded themselves into Erestor’s chest as he shielded the apprentices.
Glorfindel howled at the sky as he fell down, sleep deprived mind sluggish.
His vision whited out once more.
******
Glorfindel hated snow with a burning passion.
It hadn’t been so, before the Helcaraxe. He had enjoyed mountain-climbing then, the Pelori full of snowcaps and ice.
But, Eru, how he hated it now.
Oh, how bright was blood on the whiteness of snow.
This time the foolish, idiotic, brave son-of-an-unknown that was Erestor fell to a sword to the gut.
Glorfindel didn’t know if he wanted to cry or scream. He told him to stay put, he told him to just. Stop endangering himself.
And the idiot took it as an affront.
Before the world tore apart again with a scream like the ripping of cloth, Glorfindel managed to close Erestor’s eyes.
******
He had to get it right this time. Had to. How many more tries would be afforded to them?
But Glorfindel hadn’t slept for a week and four cycles of whatever this was.
His sight was getting more blurry and shades danced on the edges of his vision.
And Erestor fell again.
Fuck. If we make it I’m going to bundle him in all the blankets in Imladris and never let him near anything sharp ever again.
Glorfindel managed to think, holding back sobs of helpless rage and grief, before the world whited out.
******
The last orc fell to his blade, and Glorfindel swayed on his feet. His ears didn’t ring.
He could see the clearing they battled on lit like if with sunlight. This was odd. It was supposed to be night.
Breathing shallowly to combat the bile threatening to rise, he looked up from the corpse.
His guards ( useless, useless, not enough training, his fault) stood in a circle around the apprentices, finally doing their job properly. Erestor stood between them, not an injury to be seen.
Glorfindel could have wailed with relief at that. Thirty eight tries. Thirty eight tries it took to save that self-sacrificing idiot and all the apprentices.
Everything hurt, he noticed dimly. His body felt fuzzy, like if his spirit was spilling over. Odd. Shouldn’t happen. He had mental shields to block that from happening.
He registered the terrified and awed expressions on the faces of his companions after a moment of staring at them blankly, but his mind wouldn’t come up with an explanation for it.
When he had last slept? A week and thirty eight cycles ago, wasn’t it. Around a week and a half?
He exhaled heavily, exhaustion weightning his limbs down. Somebody said his name.
Glorfindel frowned at them.
Ah, it was Erestor. He tried to listen. His ears didn’t ring, which was good. He didn’t want to do it again.
The words were difficult to understand. His mind felt like a bog.
Somebody caught him before he collapsed, unreadable brown eyes staring at him from Erestor’s face, and he smiled softly, promptly falling into close-eyed sleep of the kind elves usually avoided.
He did it. They would live.