And look, promises kept: it's up in January. No idea when I'll manage the next update, though. Sorry. At least there's this one for now! And I'm working on Ostad as we speak. Well, not literally, because we aren't really "speaking" and I can only type one thing at a time but...you know what I mean...

Chapter Thirty: The Storm Breaks

Tiraran and Tarlas gaped in shock at the apparition before them. Thranduil, thin and pale and nearly as ephemeral as a spirit, stood before them. The king’s long hair hung flat and lusterless about a face unnaturally white and thin. His eyes looked overlarge above sharply pronounced cheekbones and their snapping blue was dull and nearly leeched of color. One could almost imagine being able to see through the frail figure to the room beyond him, but even as they watched he seemed to grasp at solidity. A faint spark smoldered somewhere behind those eyes in the distant past and if it was not enough to kindle the fire that had once dwelt there, if it was not enough to draw Thranduil back to the living, it was at least enough to give the ghost that stood before them some semblance of form. It was not enough to recall the Elven-King to his former glory, but perhaps it was enough merely to be a memory of those glories. When Thranduil spoke again, his voice was firmer if still no stronger than a breath of wind upon a glass.

"Bring me my sword," he repeated.

"My—my lord," stammered Tarlas, his own eyes widened with shock. "You—are you—how," he whispered to himself. Hope had outstretched its hand to the Elf, but he was too afraid to find out that it was only a shadow hope and not something real to be touched, and he could not bring himself to grasp it for fear of the despair its disappearance would bring.

Tiraran could not speak, but fell heavily to his knees. Tears poured down cheeks nearly as pale as the king’s. The warrior’s lips worked but he had no breath with which to speak.

"My king," Tarlas whispered, raising a hand that fell trembling before it could touch him. "You have…come back to us?" The last word shook, transforming it from statement to question.

Thranduil turned to look at his loyal advisor and the aching emptiness in those faint blue eyes nearly sent Tarlas into tears. The king took a step forward and stumbled. Tarlas leapt forward and caught him before he hit the ground. When he touched him, he realized that he was not dreaming. This Thranduil was real and solid, and though he was painfully thin and his milky skin so white it seemed like clouds rather than flesh, he was real. This hope might fail, but it was not illusion. Tarlas drew a shuddering breath as he steadied his liege.

Thranduil looked past Tarlas to where Tiraran knelt weakly on the floor. "I am shamed," the king whispered, his eyes sunken. "I have forgot my people, turned away when they needed me…"

"My lord, you ought to return to bed," Tarlas murmured soothingly. "You are not well, and while this turn is a miracle I could not hope to see you are still weak. You need to recover your strength."

"No," Thranduil replied, and while his voice was soft it was also firm. "I have forsaken my people long enough."

"My lord," Tarlas began but the king stepped away from the supporting grasp of his advisor with steps that, if they were not as firm and strong as they had once been, did not tremble. Thranduil crossed to where Tiraran watched with wide and tear-filled eyes in silence too sudden to break. He knelt gingerly next to his commander and deep, anguished grey met faint, anguished blue.

"I am sorry," Thranduil whispered. "I do not deserve your forgiveness, Tiraran. I ask only that you help me restore to our people what is ours and drive this shadow from our homes once more."

Tiraran shook his head, at last finding words although he did not know where. "Nay, my lord," he said in a voice that quivered but did not crack. "It is I who must beg forgiveness from you. My words were inexcusable—"

"And all that would reach me," Thranduil interrupted. He bowed his head before his warrior. "I do not ask your forgiveness."

"I would give it if there was forgiveness needed, my lord," Tiraran replied sincerely, lifting his hand to place it over his king’s.

Thranduil’s eyes were hauntingly empty. "I cannot accept it," he whispered. "Yet I do ask for your help."

"You know you have never to ask, your majesty," the gon responded immediately, his tears stopped like water that has met a sudden dam.

"Then have the troops prepared, my friend, and my armor fetched," the king commanded.

Tiraran’s eyes shone once more with both hope and strength. "At once, my king," the Elf replied, rising to his feet and aiding his liege to do the same.

"My lord, I must protest," Tarlas cut in. "I am as overjoyed as Tiraran to see you return to us, my lord, yet I must be the voice of prudence. You are not fit for this. Please, take some small time to recover your strength."

Thranduil turned to face the dark-haired Elf and Tiraran paused at the doorway he had so recently stormed through in wrath. The king and his advisor stared at one another in silence for a long moment, Thranduil calm and resolute; Tarlas worried and dismayed.

"My friend," the king said at last, and his voice seemed almost strong again, "there is nothing now in rest that will restore me. Only in death and vengeance will I find that now. I have forgotten how to live, to love. All that is left is wrath." Tarlas stared at his lord imploringly, then at last lowered his head with a sigh.

"Tiraran," the king said softly, "bring me my sword."

…………

Lost in the gray paths of empty dreaming, Fuiniel distantly felt some sort of change in the word in which her lightly slumbering body lay. Instantly the clouds about her dissipated and in but a single eyeblink she flashed to wakefulness. Hand clenched tightly on the hilt of a long knife in her belt, the Elf-maid nimbly shifted her feet beneath her, ready to spring.

"I bid you good waking," one of the twins said, looking at her tense form with friendly amusement. It had to be Elrohir, for he was currently engaged in picking clumps of snow and ice from the soggy dark hair hanging in bedraggled lumps about his face.

Fuiniel frowned and looked around, trying to discern what had awoken her. Sharp eyes flashed first to Legolas but the elfling still slumbered peacefully. She glanced at the horses cheerily shaking snow from their manes as they blinked away sleep and that was when she realized what it was.

"The snow has ceased," she exclaimed in surprise.

Elrohir grinned broadly. "Ay," he replied in a voice merry with laughter, "the storm faltered an hour or so past and finally blew itself out completely a few minutes ago."

Fuiniel blinked, then scowled. "Why then do we still sit here?" she asked harshly. Had the twins thought better of their plan and decided to wait for their father’s people to come upon and drag them all back to the warm comfort of Imladris? The child’s mind started racing for a plan or argument with which to escape the twins and continue on alone ‘ere that could happen, but before she had formulated more than the wisps of an idea, Elrohir answered.

"Elladan has gone to scout, to make certain our position. We thought to let you sleep ‘til he returned, at which time we would have a brief breakfast before we went on our way." The Elf’s wry grin said he knew very well what Fuiniel had been thinking but the girl refused to be ashamed for being distrustful and stared back at the young Elf Lord coolly.

Elrohir shrugged and returned his attention to his personal icicles that still dangled stubbornly from his ears. He hoped to have the snow and ice gone from the dark locks before his brother returned. He had been teased enough, he felt, and it was time for Elladan to show some maturity and cease to nettle him about his errant hair. He had made good headway so far, but some sense that was not physical told him that he was now out of time.

The Elf dropped his hair a moment before Elladan came into view, running lightly over the snow. He was grinning, and Elrohir, reading his twin’s thoughts in his broad smile, grinned in turn.

"We are not so far off as I feared we might be," Elladan confessed in an excited whisper to avoid waking Legolas as he dropped down between his horse and brother, patting the former and playfully ruffling the ice-speckled hair of the latter. There was no need for quiet, however, for Legolas sat up blinking but alert as soon as the older Elf sat down.

"Then you know in which direction our path lies?" the young prince asked eagerly.

"Ay," Elladan replied, fending off his brother’s surreptitious attempt to dribble snow down his back. "The day is dawning quite clear and out route is easy to divine."

"Then we had best be on our way," Fuiniel broke in sharply. While the sun was steadily casting light upon the cloudless sky she nonetheless felt a great unease as if yrch were near.

"Relax, warrior," Elrohir said with a laugh. "Let us fill our bellies ‘ere we set out or we shall find it hungry riding!"

Fuiniel’s dark eyes caught Elrohir’s securely in their cold glare. "I shall relax when I find us safely in reach of Greenwood’s palace unpursued and no sooner," she said flatly. The twins fell silent, their gay mood evaporating like dry ashes cast to the wind. Elladan looked down and began mutely dolling out their allotted breakfast while Elrohir saw to the horses’ needs in silence. Legolas reached for Fuiniel’s hand but she pulled away from him and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

Something colder than snow ran down Fuiniel’s spine and she liked dry lips that refused to moisten. She could feel that something was wrong although she could not feel what, and it worried her more than she would ever wish to admit.

Almost she reached for Legolas’s hand, but she stopped herself. Fuiniel would not allow herself to rely on false comfort, for she knew in her heart that she was alone.

…………..

Glorfindel leaped to his feet, startling Kelwioor from slumber. The horse snorted at him in irritation but he spared the time for only a brief pat before dashing to where Elrond was slumbering. Before he had taken so much as a step, however, the Lord of Imladris had already risen and started to shake the snow from his cape. Glorfindel’s light step faltered as he wondered if Elrond had slept at all this night, or spent it staring bitterly at the stars he could not see for the snow.

Shaking off the moment of dourness, Glorfindel’s bright smile returned. The snow had shifted and was starting to abate. The worst of the storm was over. They would head out again soon and, while Glorfindel could be as patient as any Elf when cause demanded it, forced inactivity did not sit well with the Balrog-slayer and he was eager for them to be on their way. The storm had broken, they would be moving again, and the day would dawn clear and bright, he was certain. Glorfindel would allow nothing to darken his mood this day, not even that of Lord Elrond.

For if the Gondolin Elf gave in to despair, who would be left to drag the peredhel out of his?

……………

The storm’s sudden loss of fury did not lessen that of Elrond Peredhel. His wrath simmered with a cold and burning heat beneath his armored breast and within his steely eyes. The most fearsome storm-cloud would have envied those eyes for their cloudy, tumultuous grey; indeed, it was more than likely that the snow-storm, realizing that it would never match Elrond’s eyes in fury, had simply given up and gone away to trouble them no more.

Elrond swung himself atop his mount, dark cloak swirling like wrath itself. The Elf Lord’s face was hooded, and not by the cloak that he pulled low over his brow. Wrapped within his heart was sorrow never faced, and anger newly kindled. The two emotions warred with a dark, desperate fear. No sign of this was on the visage of Imladris’s Lord, save perhaps in the shifting shadows of his eyes. His face was calm and cold, albeit hard enough to break stone with but a glance. Chill fingers wrapped themselves around the smooth hilt of a sword and gripped it until knuckles turned white as the snow that was still slowly falling.

Eyes sharper than Elven steel surveyed the cold and wintry land as the storm around him slowly faded. It could not compete with the storm within him. As the weather grew calmer, Elrond felt his heart twist even more painfully. It was time to be off, ‘ere his tangled emotions could break through the calmness that he had forced himself to wear. Like the armor about his form, his mask of calm would serve to protect him and yet it was breakable.

He would just have to hope, as he had always done with his armor, that it would hold out long enough for him to do what he had to.

It would, he was certain of it; it had to.

Shaking his head to clear it of as many dark thoughts as he could, Elrond pointed forward and whispered a command to the horse beneath him. Behind, he could hear the faint sounds of his small force starting forward behind him. They moved with as much speed as they could manage on the treacherous, frosty ground, but a dark voice in Elrond’s ear whispered that they did not move fast enough.

He refused to listen. He knew their speed was enough; it had to be…

………….

A low, haunting melody rose like the whisper of dead winds after a storm over the frozen valley of Imladris, then faded, falling as silent as the snow-chilled dawn. Celebrían’s silver eyes seemed like lingering moonlight glowing on her hair as she watched the faint sun struggling upward against a cold winter sky. Her fingers gently combed through the velvet brown locks of her daughter, head pillowed on the silk skirts of Celebrían’s lap. Celebrían’s eyes were clear as she stared with anxious heart at the distant dawning, but Arwen’s were glazed with sleep like a cloud passing over the moon.