Beta: Many thanks to Moreth for the beta.

Notes: Written for ALEC Sun and Moon challenge. Winner of honorable mention.

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“But are you certain?”

“One can never be certain of anything, Glorfindel.”

“But will it work?”

“It may or it may not work.”

“Gildor Inglorion, I swear you are one of the most irritating folk with whom I have ever conversed in such dire circumstances!”

“If you wish for a plainer answer then you should be more specific,” Gildor replied matter-of-factly.

“Elrond’s sons are dying!” Erestor exclaimed in exasperation as he shifted Elladan’s unconscious body before him on the horse. “How much more specific do we need to be with you to find out if this will help?!”

Gildor sighed long-sufferingly as he led the weary band of irritated warriors down the steady slope deep inside the wood. “My lords I am aware of the poor state of health of Elrond’s sons- both physically and spiritually. You finally listened to me or perhaps events played out for once in our favor. I am not certain which is more accurate or perhaps both are true. However, even if all of the ingredients for success in this endeavor are correct, it still may not be enough for this to work.”

“Why?” Glorfindel snapped as he gently eased Elrohir’s still bleeding head back against his shoulder to rest more comfortably. “I have memorized your litany of reasons why this could never work in the past, and I think that for once everything finally seems to be in order. The twins are incapacitated enough to not fight us in this. Our escort consists entirely of elves who have seen the light of the Trees. Isil is –“

Glorfindel reined in his horse abruptly as his speech trailed off. Those behind him scattered to keep from running into him, then halted as well, not daring to breathe for fear of marring what they saw before them. The wood opened suddenly at the base of the hill, almost miraculously displaying a glorious sight. The full light of Isil illuminated the waters of a beauteous lake, glossing the sands of the shore into grey glass. The gentle breeze blew an air most pure and sweetly scented as if they were beside one of Irmo’s lakes in Lorien. Herons slept amidst bushes heavy with berries upon a leafy island in the middle of the shimmering waters. Blossoms of pink and white drifted merrily from the surrounding trees to alight softly upon the travelers.

“Yavanna and Varda worked together to create this haven in the forest.” Gildor explained, gesturing around them. “My wife was a maid in the service of Varda when we left Aman, and she has remained faithful in her service of the Valar. After the Last Alliance, I was too wounded in body and spirit to heal properly. In a dream, Varda told my distraught wife that my work here in Middle-earth was not complete and that I still have an important task ahead of me. She instructed my wife to bring me here to Isil-aëilin for healing. The ents used to come here to drink and replenish themselves. This is where my people and I come to renew ourselves when the sea-longing threatens or the cares of this mortal world become too great.”

Gildor looked around at those of his folk who were already gathered awaiting the warriors and nodded his greeting to them. They nodded in return, then continued setting out food, drink, and clothing for later.

“The night is young, my friends,” he said, “But we must begin now for there is much to do.”

With that, four ellyn, clearly of Noldorin origins approached and assisted with lowering Elladan and Elrohir from the horses. Working swiftly yet gently, they removed the bandages, weapons, leather armor, and clothes of the twins.

“All of you need to enter the water and we will bring the twins to you,” Gildor said.

The warriors looked at Glorfindel questioningly. He shrugged and nodded, so they all dismounted and disrobed. Glorfindel joined them and walked to the edge of the water, his shadow heavy from the intense light of Isil. Just shy of touching the water with his bare feet, he stopped.

“I feel almost as if I am about to walk into the sky,” he whispered. “The water is so beautiful, shimmering with drops of stars and Isil an island among them. I do not wish to disturb it.”

Smiling knowingly, Gildor encouraged, “But you are all disturbed and that is precisely the reason why you must enter it.” When Glorfindel glared at him menacingly, he clarified, decidedly undaunted. “The cares of this world lie heavily upon all of you, sapping your strength, draining your fëar even if you do not realize it. From one warrior to another, I say to you: enter the water and you will find healing, if not in body than at least in peace for your fëa.”

Glorfindel took several cautious steps into the water until it was waist deep, then immersed himself completely. One by one the warriors waded into the water following Glorfindel’s slow example.

“The warm mud on the bottom embraces the feet rather than clinging and clutching at them,” one warrior observed in surprise. “I have been running for many weeks in the company of the twins. I cannot believe how wonderful this feels.”

“The water is warm yet cool at the same time,” another commented before ducking under. When he came up, he exclaimed, “The fish shine silver and blue in the light of Isil! I have seen fish shine brightly under water in the light of Anar, but never by the light of Isil! This is so strange.” Then he ducked back under the water.

“It is as if I hold liquid light in my hands,” a third wondered in delight as she held up her hands and watched the shimmering silver slip through her fingers. “I remember playing in the waters near Telperion as a child and…” but her voice trailed off as she lay back and floated aimlessly. “Oh…I remember…I remember…” she whispered.

Gildor and his people joined the warriors in the water while two of their own carried Elladan and Elrohir, carefully supporting them as they made their way to Glorfindel and Erestor’s waiting arms. When the twin’s heads rested safely against their mentors’ chests, ellith of Gildor’s company began scooping up mud from the bottom and carefully coating the unconscious peredhil.

As the ellith covered the last of the exposed skin, Gildor’s wife glided over, instructing, “Now, you must tow them about in the water as if you were playing with children. It will slowly cleanse them.”

“We must play?” Erestor asked dubiously.

“Yes, of course. Until all of the mud is gone.” She eyed Erestor critically. “Do you not play, Lord Erestor?”

“My lady,” Erestor said in annoyance. “There is very little time for play in Imladris since Lady Celebrian was injured and sailed. There simply are too many concerns of far more importance than frolicking about in water. Are you certain this is even going to help?”

She looked long at Erestor before replying. “For more than one hundred years, you have not played? You have not taken measures to ease your fëa?  The world is always full of troubles and lies ever anxious in its sleep as in its waking. But you, who are counselor to the world-weary Lord of Imladris must take time to play, take time for joy. You must be a light and a haven to ease his care, his grief. Lord Glorfindel understands this.” She motioned to where the Captain of the Imladris Guard had drifted away, smiling and swishing the floating Elladan around in the water if he held a child of ten years instead of an ellon of many hundreds. “He is Reborn and knows the importance of play in maintaining the strength and resilience of the fëa.”

Erestor scowled. “Watching his sons in their vengeful madness is slowly destroying Elrond. Playtime is hardly going to be of benefit to any of them if the twins are dead.”

Gildor’s lady pierced Erestor with her bright gaze. “I realize that. And if they continue as they have, they will die. The twins’ mortal blood will not release them from their suffering. Care latches on to the grief and powerlessness they have felt since the sorrows befell their mother, thus driving their unquenchable madness. Anger is easy while healing requires patience and hope. Fortunately, Elrond’s sons also bear the blood of elves and the blood a Maia in their veins. Much healing, much strength for others, and much good can come of them, if they would only remember the rest of what they are. They are destined to be a source of strength for estel in more ways than one, but they must heal first.

“Now take Elrohir and go wander about the pool. It is the only way the mud will come off.”  Then she playfully pushed Erestor, dove under the water, and swam a ways away before resurfacing near Glorfindel and calling back over her shoulder. “You are angry, too, Erestor. You need this as much as Elrohir does.”

Muttering foully under his breath, Erestor pushed Elrohir away in the opposite direction, putting as much distance between himself and Varda’s irritating maid as possible.

A few passes around the small lake later, the mud slowly washed away and Elladan and Elrohir gradually began to awaken.

“Glorfindel, where are we and why are we here?” Elladan quietly asked, still held close to Glorfindel and staring at the wash of stars above in fascinated wonder.

“You two were sorely wounded and in need of healing,” Glorfindel replied, carefully angling away from a small waterfall which dripped silver starlight into the pool. “My guard joined your band and some of Gildor Inglorion’s folk to aid you and bring you here. How do you feel?”

Elladan sighed. “I feel…I feel calm and warm and…at peace. I fear to move lest it all goes away.”

“Be still, and relax. I will show you around the lake. Would you like that?”

Elladan nodded, then settled back against Glorfindel.

“Good. Over here,” Glorfindel laughed, motioning toward a sudden great commotion of feathers, elven curses, and splashing star spray. “Erestor and your brother managed to disturb some herons who had been enjoying a pleasant repose. So let us go this way where wings and Erestor’s wildly flailing arms and scowls cannot assail us.” He steered them toward a corner of the shore. “And… we… will…,” his melodious voice grew softer and more elvishly mysterious in his exertion to swim, pulling Elladan along. “Watch as stars bathe in dew drops on the rushes.”

Elladan’s chuckles smoothed away into wonder at the new delicate sight. “Glorfindel, I never knew there could be something so glorious contained in something so mundane and… so small.”

“It is difficult to see these things when all of your senses are trained on finding the next orc for the slaughter.”

Elladan rested in silence for several long moments, before sorrowfully whispering, “Glorfindel, how long have I been this way? How… How much have I missed?”

Glorfindel sighed. “You have missed days of festival and nights when the Hall of Fire blazed in song or smoldered in reminiscence. You have missed quiet days when the house was so still that your adar’s grief permeated the very walls of Imladris.” Glorfindel paused as Elladan reached up and wiped a tear from his guardian’s face.

“I am sorry, Glorfindel,” Elladan apologized in a small voice. “Elrohir and I were so busy running from our own pain, we failed to consider how Adar and Arwen and everyone else must be feeling as well. In every orc we slew, we saw those who tormented our mother and destroyed our family.”

“Did it make you feel any better? Did it assuage your grief when you exacted your revenge? Did your naneth ever come home again?”

“No,” Elladan acknowledged with a shuddering sigh and wiped his own face with his hand. “No, it never felt any better and Naneth never came home again.” He turned in the water, lay his head on Glorfindel’s shoulder, and wept. A while later he whispered, “I think it is time that Elrohir and I go home. There must be many things that Adar needs us to help with.”

Glorfindel glanced over at Erestor who sat with Elrohir where the water lapped at the leafy island, clearly offering his own consolation and comfort to Elrond’s other son. “Yes, Elladan,” he nodded. “It is time that you two went home. We will leave in the morning. Tonight, however,” he smiled, clapping Elladan on the back and then pushing him away. “You will celebrate the festival of Telperion somewhat as we used to in Valinor – though considerably wetter!” And he launched into a joyful description of the food and festivities and the lovely maidens he remembered.

A while later, one of the warriors paddled away from a splashing battle between five of his comrades and called out, “My lord Gildor, I know we have been here for some hours, but how comes it that the stars have moved across the sky yet Isil has not?”

Gildor’s wife replied joyfully from Elrohir’s side where she was helping him to wash the last of the mud from his newly-healed face. “Do you remember the festivals in Valinor? Especially the ones in honor of the Two Trees?”

“Yes, of course,” the warrior replied. “We celebrated one for Laurelin during the growing season when all was lush and glorious and one for Telperion after the harvest while the soil rested with alternate crops.”

“Tonight would coincide with the time when we used to celebrate the festival of Telperion,” she explained.

The warrior looked perplexed. “Why does this matter here in Middle-earth when we have Anar and Isil to sustain us?”

The splashers stopped to listen as did the others.

“Isil’s light is of Telperion and tonight it is at its strongest. The festival of Telperion was a festival of healing and of reveling in the renewal of the land. In allowing the soil to rest and revitalize, the crops would be all the more plentiful next growing season. Tonight we have all bathed ourselves literally in the waters of Isil, the light of Telperion. When was the last time you felt as you do now?”

The warrior lay back in the water for a few moments, then lifted his head from the water again, smiling wistfully. “I felt something close to this about a month after returning from the Last Alliance. I lay on the grass beneath the cherry blossoms watching my wife and children and children’s children and their new little ones sing and play. For the first time in many yéni, I desired to go join them and I had no duties, so I actually could do so. I gathered my two youngest great-granddaughters on my lap, singing them songs of Cuiviénen while weaving crowns of flowers for them, and they wove some for me.”

“I remember the Telperion festivals,” one of the warrior ellith exclaimed excitedly. “The songs were wonderful! This was one of my favorites,” and she started to sing. One by one the others who remembered the words joined her, filling the air with their joyful lilt.

A few songs later, Gildor invited everyone onto the shore where clean apparel awaited them: simple dresses for the ellith and shirts with tunics and leggings for the ellyn – all in the blues and silvery greys of Telperion. Once everyone was garbed in their festival attire, including the twins, a few ellith of Gildor’s folk chose partners and they began the traditional festival dances to the music of flutes and chanted melodies. Soon, even Elrond’s bewildered sons joined in as the revelers mingled hands and entwined arms in weaving the ever-shifting olden dances like breezy moonlight playing across a field of flowers.

Every face glowed with elvish light as silver joy shone in their ageless eyes. Memories spoken aloud and shared in thoughtful glances echoed through the night amidst sips of wine and bites of berries and delicate faerie cakes.

From her silent resting place among the velvet between the stars, Varda looked down on the Children at play, made new by their cleansing, and smiled upon them.

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Author Notes:

Note 1: The title of this story is taken from “Smith of Wooten Major” when the Queen meets Smith and he realises who she is: "Better a little doll, maybe, than no memory of Faery at all. For some the only glimpse. For some the awakening...".

Terms:

Fëa(r) – spirit(s)

Yéni – a period of 144 years

Note 2: This story was greatly influenced/inspired by the poem “Stolen Child” by William Butler Yeats.  Here is a link to the song version of Stolen Child.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvpy7_loreena-mckennitt-the-stolen-child_music