Midnight Excursion

He could taste the dust in his mouth, feel it in his nostrils and gathering in every crevice of his body, where it mixed with his sweat to turn into a very personal and singularly uncomfortable mud.  He tried to spit the grit out, despite the disgust he usually felt at the crude habit, but he could not work up enough saliva.  This time last year, he thought ruefully, he would have been lazing by the bathing pool, his hair wet on his back, lapping up the heat of the sun before slipping back in the cool water.  This time last year he would have been protesting that he was old enough to go on patrol and insisting that he was ready for the responsibility.  Somehow, now he was here, it no longer seemed quite so glamorous.

Elladan coughed.  ‘I can see why the captains get to ride at the front,’ he said.  ‘I have wondered sometimes.  It seems rather silly to put your leaders where they can be attacked first – but at least they can breathe.’

The white dust covered his brother’s face and faded his dark hair to grey.  Elrohir grinned, knowing that he must look just as bad. ‘I was thinking about the bathing pool,’ he said.

‘Stop,’ his twin groaned.  ‘That is unnecessary cruelty. I am hot and filthy and I feel as if my behind is welded to this horse – and I know that when we get back Glorfindel will insist that we groom every single hair before he even allows us to get a drink.  I am so thirsty I think I might put my head in the trough with the horses.’

‘Tempting,’ Elrohir agreed, ‘but I think I would prefer to wait for something that comes in a goblet.’

‘A crisp white wine,’ Elladan dreamed, eyes half closed, ‘chilled enough to frost the glass.’

‘That sounds delightful,’ a familiar voice said sharply.  ‘It is a shame that you will both be too busy to enjoy it this evening.’

Both twins snapped to alertness as they registered that they were now the focus of their captain’s attention. 

‘Has it occurred to you,’ Glorfindel asked softly, ‘that patrol is more than a matter of sitting on your horse’s back?  That it is essential for your attention to be on what you are doing, rather than wandering to dreams of wine and your evening’s pleasure?’  He looked at the pair of them, fixing his eyes on them until they were hard pushed not to squirm.  ‘You will both report to me after you have seen to your mounts.  I think perhaps you need some additional training.’ 

Having successfully reduced his newest recruits to the status of elflings, he urged his horse forward to resume the lead.

Elrohir exchanged a swift glance with his brother and gave a tiny shrug of resignation, before they lapsed into a studied silence which neither broke during the rest of the trip back to Imladris. 

As they arrived the sun was dropping behind the stables, casting a rich golden light over the yard.  The dozen members of the patrol led their mounts into their stables, allowing them to sample the sun-warmed water before removing the buckets and getting down to the process of caring for their horses. 

Elrohir eased the clothes sticking to his back and stretched before removing the tack and beginning to brush the dusty hide, humming soothingly as he did so.  His horse twitched and flicked his tail as he settled down to enjoy the attention.

‘Finished?’ his brother said from the door.  ‘Do not forget that we have Glorfindel waiting to tell us once more how hopeless we are.’

‘I can wait a little longer to hear that again,’ Elrohir commented as he put the brushes in his bucket. 

‘I have a serious longing to get into the bath before we greet our beloved parents, my brother, and the longer we take to go to our captain, the longer he will make us suffer.’

‘True enough.’  Elrohir bolted the stable door and deposited his bucket next to his saddle.  ‘Let us get it over.’

Glorfindel looked them over as they stood before him.  They had not done badly really, he thought, although there was no need to let them know that now.  They were in the unfortunate position of being the Lord’s sons – and, for them, not bad was not good enough.  He would have rebuked any of the patrol for chattering as they rode and consequently this needed to sting. He did not wish to keep them here any longer – their naneth would be wanting to see them to check that he had been taking proper care of her ellyn, but he could not let them walk off without penalty.  Oh well, he decided, he would resort to the consequence commonly inflicted on young guards when nothing better could be found.  ‘Dawn tomorrow,’ he told them.  ‘The training yards will be awaiting you.’

‘My lord,’ they said together, keeping their faces carefully blank as he dismissed them.

Caution persuaded them to remain silent until they had entered the house, but, even knowing that Glorfindel would be following them, Elladan could not control himself any longer.  ‘Could have been worse,’ he said philosophically.

‘It could have been a lot worse,’ Elrohir agreed.  ‘And now I am going to bathe.  Do not be surprised if I do not emerge for some time.  I think it will take at least three tubs to get me clean.’

Elladan grinned.  ‘If you are late for dinner,’ he said, ‘I will make a point of finishing off every dish you most enjoy.’

‘We had better hurry then,’ his brother said, elbowing him to one side as he increased his pace to jog along the corridor, stopping suddenly at the entrance to his room.

‘Good evening, Adar,’ he said politely.

‘You have baths prepared for you both, my sons,’ his adar replied.  ‘It is good to have you home.’

‘We will not embrace you, Adar,’ Elladan added.  ‘At least, not until we are clean.’

Elrond looked them up and down, a rather pained expression on his face.  ‘I am grateful, my sons,’ he told them.  ‘Bathe quickly, it is almost time for dinner and your naneth would prefer you not to be late.’

‘Ten minutes,’ Elladan said, as their adar moved off towards his own rooms and he spun to enter his own chamber.

Elrohir pulled a face.  Ten minutes, he was sure, would not be nearly enough to get the taste of dust from his mouth and the smell of horse out of his nose, but the lure of food cooked by those to whom catering meant more than scorched meat or lumpy porridge persuaded him to be swift.  He selected his clean clothes more or less at random, more to conceal the drips from his wet hair than for any other reason and he was not surprised, when Elladan entered, to find that his twin was similarly dressed.

‘Never mind,’ Elladan waved the problem away.  ‘You can choose something else if you want, but I want to see Naneth and eat – and not necessarily in that order.’

Neither twin was entirely sure why their naneth’s eyes filled with tears when she saw them – after all, neither of them showed any sign of injury – but they hugged her warmly when she stretched up to put her arms around each of them and kiss their cheeks.  ‘You could have done a slightly better job of drying your hair,’ she laughed. ‘Your robes with be soaked!’

‘No time,’ Elladan grinned. ‘Adar told us to be on time for dinner and we would not wish to disappoint him so soon.’

Elrohir greeted his adar with a swift hug.  ‘It is good to be home,’ he said.

‘How was patrol?’ Elrond asked.  ‘Did it live up to your expectations?’ 

His sons exchanged glances which considered what should be said and what left out.

‘In some ways,’ Elladan said cautiously.

‘It was more real,’ Elrohir added.  ‘More discomfort and less excitement.’

Elrond digested their words.  ‘I think you will find you have just summed up the whole experience of life as a warrior, my son,’ he said sadly.  ‘Most of it is discomfort and boredom, interspersed with moments of terror and intense action.’

Their meal was delicious.  Elrohir was torn between savouring every bite and relishing each delicate flavour and shovelling in as much as he could.  Elladan, he noticed, had no such concerns.  His plate was piled high and he had no hesitation in replenishing his selections from any passing dish.  The wine, too, flowed freely.  It was not quite the same, Elrohir thought, as sipping a chilled white beside the pool, but the rich claret was warming.  By the time he remembered that he needed to be up before dawn, he had already had more than enough to make him feel invulnerable.

‘I would still love to go for a swim,’ he said in his twin’s ear.  ‘I have been able to think of nothing but that pool all day – and I know Glorfindel will not let us get away tomorrow.’

‘It is unfair.’ Elladan blinked at him.  ‘Tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day.  Everyone else will be taking their ease and he will have us sweating in the dirt.   Elrohir,’ he added confidentially, ‘have you thought – we could go to the waterfall tonight and swim in the moonlight.  We would have plenty of time to be back before dawn.’

Elrohir closed his eyes and smiled.  ‘I am just thinking about soaking that trail dust out of my bones,’ he said.  ‘Let us do it – we have not been out on a night-time adventure for years; not since we became grown-up and sensible.’

‘We had best stop eating then,’ Elladan said, snagging a cheesecake adorned with summer fruits.  ‘It is not good to swim too soon after food.’

‘Hmm,’ Elrohir agreed, sipping his wine.

They retired shortly after the meal, admitting to a tiredness they would never have acknowledged had they not plans in mind.  From his place next to Elrond, Glorfindel frowned at them.  There was something rather too effervescent about the twins, he felt.  If they felt that exuberant after their first tour of duty, when they were due for extra training in far too few hours time, then he had clearly not been working them hard enough.

The darkness was silken, Elrohir felt as they slipped from the house by one of the many side doors.  Not the deep velvet of starlit nights, but the light smooth touch of fine shantung sliding over his skin and it made him bubble with joy simply to be out in the fresh caress of the soft air, with the fragrance of the jasmine and honeysuckle in his nostrils.

Elladan kept the pace swift – they did not have too much time, and the excursion would be pointless if they were not able to enjoy at least an hour or two in the cool balm of the broad pool.   He stopped as the path cut through the rock walls that cupped their favoured bathing place.  The waterfall rippled down to the pool, not a fierce cascade, as existed elsewhere in Imladris, but a gentler run, with small drops and unexpected swirls.  This place had been where they spent many happy hours as elflings – wild enough to be exciting, yet not so dangerous that they could not be permitted to visit it on their own, and, as they grew up, they enjoyed bringing friends here to sport in the water.

‘Have you seen Liniel recently?’ Elrohir asked, apparently at random.

‘No,’ Elladan shrugged. ‘She was getting a little too serious.  She is a nice elleth – but not that special!’

Elrohir grinned. ‘You, my brother, are a flirt,’ he said.  ‘Soon all the ellyth will avoid you – you are too dangerous.’

Elladan pulled off his tunic and tossed it down some distance back from the edge of the water.  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have come to swim – we can reminisce later.’

‘Orc’s blood,’ Elrohir cursed as he removed his boots and proceeded to strip. We forgot to bring any towels.’  He hesitated for a moment, then dismissed the problem.

‘We can use our tunics,’ Elladan told him indifferently. ‘Last one in the water goes home naked!’ he challenged, leaping immediately into a practised dive.

The splashes came simultaneously.  ‘Valar, this water is cold,’ Elrohir gasped.

‘No colder than it has always been,’ his twin pointed out as they swam across the pool.  ‘It is one of the things that makes it so – interesting – to come here with ellyth,’ he grinned. 

Elrohir turned on his back and floated, like a gangly water-lily in the dark water. ‘Naneth would not be impressed,’ he commented.  ‘You had better not let her in on your little schemes.’

‘What do you take me for?’ his brother said scornfully.  ‘And it is a harmless entertainment – they do not have to take part if they do not want to.’

‘Shall we climb up the falls?’ Elrohir asked, abandoning the subject as he swam lazily along towards them. ‘I do not recall ever climbing them by moonlight.’

Elladan looked doubtful.  ‘The footing can be quite dangerous,’ he remarked.  ‘I have slipped a few times, even in daylight.  It might not be wise.’

His brother laughed.  ‘Since when does ‘wise’ describe either of us, my twin?’ he asked.  ‘I want to climb up and then go in from the diving rock before we have to go back and eat dirt for Glorfindel’s entertainment.’

‘Come on then.’  Elladan pulled himself from the water and shook most of the water from his body before beginning the clamber up the rocks with the insistent water spraying him and attempting to push him back down.  Elrohir followed him, sometimes moving right or left to follow a different path.  Before too many minutes they were breathless and giggling as they scrambled over the uneven footing.

‘I had forgotten how much fun this was,’ Elrohir remarked, wiping the water from his face as his brother diverted a small fall to saturate him again.  ‘I would not have missed this evening for the world.’

Elladan turned to reply as he placed his foot upon a flat rock ready to step up the next boulder.  As he did so, his hand slipped on the green surface and he lurched as the rock moved, throwing him sideways into his brother and knocking him to his knees.  All would have been well, had the rock not chosen this minute to alter its position, allowing the water to wash it downwards so that it made sudden contact with the top of Elrohir’s head.

It was as if, Elladan said later, the world had slowed down.  He saw the blood spray from his brother’s head and watched him dissolve into boneless limpness as the water they had been challenging so joyfully gained the upper hand, sweeping the unconscious elf from his hold on the incline of the waterfall and carrying him downwards, so much more swiftly than he had climbed, to sink into the depths of the pool, where, so little time before, they had been swimming.

Elladan froze.  There were only two options.  One, probably the more sensible choice, was to finish the climb, race to the diving rock and jump in the pool there, further from the spot where his brother would bob to the surface.  The other, to allow the waterfall to carry him down, might well break his bones as well as dump him right on his brother’s head.  Reluctantly, Elladan began to climb again with a relentless urgency that ignored the bruises and scrapes the rocks were inflicting on him.  His twin did not have much time. 

His muscles ached and he was gasping for breath when he reached the point from which he could begin the run to the diving rock.  Somehow, an errant thought skittered across his mind, he did not believe he would ever feel the same about this place again.  Too much desperation had become associated with the careless recklessness of young male play.

He did not pause to enjoy the delicious frisson of dread that the first dive had always brought, together with the excitement that had sent them up the falls again and again to leap from the rock.  All he needed to do was take a quick look to check Elrohir’s whereabouts in the pool and his blood froze to see him floating face downward as he bobbed in the current at the bottom of the falls.   His jump was quick and practised; designed to keep him close to the surface so that he would waste the least possible amount of time in rescuing his twin. 

Dread sped him across the pool at a speed of which he had not known he was capable.  He grasped his brother carefully and turned him onto his back.  Reluctant as he was to risk moving him, drowning was clearly a much more immediate danger than the chance of increasing his injuries.  Elrohir was not breathing.  Elladan suppressed the surge of panic.  He had to get him out of the water.  Grasping his twin gently, Elladan kicked, moving, he felt, far too slowly towards the bank where, in better times, they would spread out their blankets to picnic.

He pulled himself from the water on shaking legs, half-lifting, half-dragging his brother, before going automatically into the drill his adar had made them practise time and again, clearing his twin’s airway and getting as much of the water out as possible before beginning to breathe for him.  It only took a single breath before Elrohir began to choke and Elladan turned him to his side so that he could vomit, coughing and gasping for air.

‘Valar, Elrohir, you frightened me,’ Elladan said, unable to take his hands from his brother’s heaving chest.

They sat motionless for a few moments as Elladan felt time resume its normal pace and his pulse settled down.  ‘Let me see where you are hurt,’ he continued gently.

‘I am all right,’ Elrohir said.  ‘My head hurts, but I do not think I have anything other than scrapes and bruises to worry about.’  His breathing steadied as he consciously calmed himself, focusing on healing.  ‘How about you?’

‘Much the same,’ Elladan agreed, refraining from telling his brother that he had not been breathing when he pulled him from the water.  ‘If I wrap you up in whatever dry clothing we have, will you be able to rest here while I go for help?’

‘I can walk,’ Elrohir protested. ‘Just give me a moment.’

‘You are not going anywhere, elfling,’ his brother insisted.  ‘You have a head injury.  You will just stay here until Adar has had a chance to look at you.’  He moved his brother further from the water’s edge and fetched their clothes, easing Elrohir into his loose tunic before bundling his own into a pillow and putting it under his brother’s cheek. ‘I will be as quick as I can,’ he said, throwing on his own leggings and boots. ‘I would not leave you if I did not feel I had to,’ he continued anxiously. ‘Stay on your side, Elrohir.’

‘Just go, if you feel you must,’ Elrohir told him wearily, his head swimming from the brief move.  ‘I will not melt while you are away.’

Elladan walked until he was out of his brother’s sight and then began to run as fast as he felt safe in doing.  He had to slow down where trees shadowed the path, but for once he was pleased that the paths in Imladris were so well maintained, for, at this pace, it was a matter of minutes before he was greeted by the welcoming sight of his home.  He debated with himself as he sped across the gardens, but decided in the end that the matter was too important for normal courtesies, so, rather than waste time going through the house, he leapt into the trellis below his parents’ balcony and climbed up in a way he had not since facing his adar’s wrath when both he and Elrohir had been considerably younger.

‘Adar,’ he called, the tension clear in his voice.  ‘Adar, Elrohir needs you.’

A brief moment passed before Elrond responded.  ‘Elladan?’  The dreamy tone tightened as his adar returned to alertness.  ‘Elladan?  What are you doing out there?’

‘What is the matter?’ Celebrian murmured anxiously.  ‘What has happened to Elrohir?’

‘He has hurt his head, Naneth.  It is not serious, but I want Adar to see to him. You stay where you are.’

His adar came out on to the balcony to see his bare-chested son shivering in the fresh night air.  ‘What have you done now?’ he asked softly.

‘We went to the waterfall, Adar,’ his son admitted.  ‘Elrohir banged his head and fell.  He nearly drowned, Adar.  Please come quickly.  He needs you.’

‘He is breathing?’

‘He is breathing, Adar.’  Elrond’s eyes closed in relief.  ‘Although he was not when I pulled him from the water.  I did as you have always taught us, and he started again – and he brought up water – and his dinner.  I wrapped him in what warm things we had and came for you.’

‘You need to get to him as quickly as you can,’ Celebrian said, emerging with dry towels and blankets.  ‘Take these, Elladan.  Your adar will come with you and I will send others to find you and bear your brother home.  Quickly now.’

Elrond nodded and paused only to retrieve his healer’s emergency kit from his sitting room before he followed his son over the balcony, landing lightly and running across the gardens as they retraced Elladan’s path to the pond.

Elrohir lay where he had been left, his pale face looking towards them, but his eyes were shut and Elrond felt a moment of panic as he observed his stillness.  He placed his fingers carefully on the pulse point below his ear and was relieved to find that his son’s heartbeat was steady and strong.

‘He lost consciousness?’ he checked.

‘A rock came loose and hit his head,’ Elladan said.  ‘Then he fell about three quarters of the way down the falls.  I climbed up the rest of the way and then jumped in from the diving rock.’

Elrond reckoned the time his son had been in the water before his brother reached him.  ‘He spoke to you before you came for me?’

‘He wanted to walk home,’ Elladan said bleakly.

His adar put his hand on his son’s shoulder.  ‘You did the right things, my son,’ he reassured him.  ‘Precisely as you should.  Elrohir will be grateful to you.’

‘Except that I knocked him down and loosened the rock that hit him,’ Elladan confessed wretchedly.

Elrond drew a deep breath as he carefully examined his son.  ‘Not intentionally, Elladan.  You would never hurt Elrohir on purpose.’

A slow groan sounded as Elrohir opened his eyes.  ‘Stop blaming yourself, twin,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I put the idea of the outing in your head – and, as I recall, I suggested that we climb the falls.  I am fine.’

‘Well, excuse me if I ask for a second and more expert opinion,’ Elladan teased him gently.

‘He is fine,’ Elrond agreed.  ‘If you count fine as a vile headache, mild concussion, a gash needing several stitches and an array of bruises that will make him look like an elfling’s version of art.  And a need to stay in the infirmary until I am sure that his lungs have taken no harm from attempting to inhale half the pond.’

‘I suspect my brother is nearly as colourful,’ Elrohir insisted, coughing painfully.

‘You will both spend what remains of the night under observation,’ Elrond instructed them.  ‘And I will tolerate no arguments.’

‘Glorfindel will not be happy,’ Elrohir observed.

‘I suspect he will think we have done it on purpose,’ Elladan sighed.  ‘At least you will escape his retribution for a while, my brother – by which time he will have made mincemeat of me.’ 

The sound of hurrying footsteps made them all look up.  Glorfindel, his golden hair unusually dishevelled, led a group of guards towards them.  He looked them over piercingly, then turned to Elrond, ignoring both of his charges. ‘Celebrian says that Elrohir has bumped his head.  Does he really need to drag hard-working elves from their beds to see to him?’

Elrond grinned.  ‘I am afraid that, on this occasion, he does.  I want both my sons in the infirmary – and Elrohir will be unavailable for at least two days, probably longer.’

Elladan stood as Glorfindel turned his inspection on him, allowing his gaze to wander over the naked torso, totting up the scrapes and scratches and discoloured patches where bruises were starting to appear.

Before Imladris’s captain spoke, Elrohir intervened.  ‘I am sorry we have let you down, Glorfindel,’ he said defensively, ‘but my brother has just rescued me from drowning.  Ask Adar.’

‘You two have not improved since you were elflings,’ Glorfindel shook his head with disbelief. ‘You have an amazing talent for disaster.  But I will say that you also have an inspiring loyalty towards each other.  You have just begun a week’s leave – I am pleased to say that at the moment you are your adar’s responsibility.  I will leave any further discussion of your failings until you return to duty.’

‘Now, if no-one minds,’ Elrond said with heavy irony, ‘I would be grateful if we could get both of these two back to the safety of the house before my wife comes to the conclusion that they are too badly injured to move and decides to join the party.’

As the stretcher was lifted to begin its journey to the infirmary, Elrohir pushed himself to smile at his adar and brother.  ‘At least it got rid of the dust,’ he murmured vaguely.

‘But at a cost,’ his twin said in a voice too soft for him to catch, as Glorfindel placed a consoling hand on his shoulder, ‘that was almost insupportable.  Next time you are dirty, my brother, and will not be satisfied with a bath, I will drop you in the fountain until you have had time to cool down.’

Glorfindel took one of Celebrian’s soft blue blankets and threw it round Elladan’s shoulders.  ‘Come, ellon,’ he said gently drawing him along the path.  ‘Let us get you home so you can take some rest.  It is not, after all, every day that you get an opportunity to save your brother’s life.'