#elerrome

A little portrait of young Elerrómë on the shores of Alqualondë~

"You have to make more of an effort to resolve things peacefully before you jump right to the slaughter of innocents again!"

"*Innocents?*" Celegorm sneers in response. "They deliberately keep what is ours away from us, after we've already made a peaceful request. They bring this upon themselves."

Elerrome's eyes widen in anger; Maedhros stifles a sigh and narrowly resists the urge to bury his face in his hand.

"Bring it upon themselves?! And did Luthien bring it upon herself when you captured and imprisoned her in Nargothrond? Did Findarato bring it upon himself when you usurped his kingdom, when you sent him to his death?"

"Thingol and his bride price sent Findarato to his death! It is he who began this; if he had cared about protecting his people he would have returned the Silmaril when he had the chance. It never should have passed to Luthien and Beren; if their upstart brat doesn't have enough sense as "king" to value the lives of his people over stolen treasure then their fate is on his head."

"The Doriathrim have lost both of their rulers, the boy just lost his entire family, and yet you would jump to attack after only a few months without response!"

True fury enters Celegorm's face now. "And why should their grief take precedence over our own? Have we not suffered greater loss? Why should his grief lend the right to hold onto that which was never his, yet ours not give us the right to take back the very thing with which our loss is entangled?!"

"*Enough.*"

Maedhros' voice is low and steady, but his tone allows for no protest. "This argument will be no more productive than all its predecessors. We will take back what is ours; but we can make one last attempt at a peaceful resolution first. Elerrome, you and your kin were always more in favor with Doriath than we. Mayhap your words could convince them where ours could not."

Caranthir scoffs. "And now this girl is allowed to speak for us, just as her precious cousins did with Thingol."

Maedhros shoots him a look; he speaks no more, but Ellerome can feel more than one heated gaze upon her as she nods.

In the early days after Maitimo's return from Angband she nearly killed herself a couple times pouring too much of her own energy into him to try and help him recover. (Her cousins and Finno stepped in to make her rest of course)

The ship sails out of view before he can tell whether they turned back or not, but he wonders as they journey up the coast. Sends inquiries back through the rear host; learns that they had indeed continued to follow, and she among them.

As the days go by and the cold deepens, Maitimo's concern for Elerrome grows. Long journeys drain her greatly even in the fair climes of Aman, let alone through unwelcoming cold and after facing heavy grief. He knows she is with Arafinwe's family and they would never let any harm come to her, but this does little to quell his own anxiety. When the decision is made among the Feanorians that they will abscond with the ships, he breaks away as preparations are being made, dons an obscuring cloak and hood, and slips as quickly as he can through the throngs of travelers until he finds the family tents at the front of the third Noldor host.

Her tent is easy to discern among the rest, and he calls out to her, carefully drawing the entrance and stepping inside. A slow turning of cold empty eyes is all the greeting he receives.

"Elerrome..." he begins after a long stricken pause, "the ships will make the first crossing shortly with the forward host. Please, will you come with me? I wish to see you safely delivered from the darkness and the wearying journey."

"Did you take part?" Is her only reply, voice flat and distant. He does not need to ask what she refers to.

A grim expression and averted eyes give her all the answer she needs.

After a long tense silence he speaks up, voice soft but thick with heavy emotions. "Father ... is mad with grief. He will suffer no delays in pursuit of the one who murdered our grandfather, who stole everything from us."

"And so you would inflict those same griefs upon the others in your path?"

A grimace twists his youthful features. "Father tried first to seek aid peacefully. He requested assistance of your Grandfather as would be fitting for our long friendship, but he refused us. We did not wish to harm your people. What choice did we have but to act in desperation..."

Elerrome does not respond, but her dull eyes study his face closely. Her gaze feels burning upon him.

"Please, Star...I fear to leave you behind here even for a brief time. We will send the ships back for Findarato and the rest of your family, and for Findekano and his, as soon as the first crossing is successfully made. I will even bring you with me on the return to pick them up, if it soothes you. Just let me see you safe. Please..."

She is never sure, in later years, what it was that possessed her to rise shakily and stumble from the tent to join him then. Perhaps her heart was still too weak to his influence, or perhaps the grief and exhaustion had numbed her mind too far. Perhaps she was simply desperate to escape those bloodstained shores as soon as she could.

Thinking about how slowly the understanding would come to everyone that something was different about Elerrome. From the outside, her body and soul look just the same as everyone else's; but as she goes through life, she finds they handle things very differently.

Her as a tiny elfling telling the older folks that she couldn't run as far or as fast as her older cousins and friends; the boys are older than you, they say, of course they can run further. Artanis and Irisse are very athletic, Elerrome's strengths just lie elsewhere.

Childhood scrapes and bumps heal up just fine, but she doesn't seem to bounce back as quickly as the other kids. (She thinks she must be doing something wrong, or that maybe everyone feels like this and they just don't show it, so she tries her best to act normal and not say anything.)

Then, when she's an adolescent, there's a week where she just can't get out of bed. No one understands what's wrong with her, everybody is either freaking out or upset at her for acting like this or both. The Finweans are taking this in various not good ways, but their close ties with the Miriel situation give them a unique perspective that makes things both better and worse. Arafinwe expresses his concern to his father; Finwe himself comes to Alqualonde to visit Elerrome.

He speaks to her gently, very kind and very sad. He asks her how her hroa feels. How her fea feels. Then, asks how her heart feels; why is she so weary? She tells him she doesn't know; confesses that she tries so hard to do what everyone else can do, but everything seems so much harder for her than for them, and she gets so tired trying to keep up. She must be doing something wrong, she tells him sadly, but she doesn't understand what. She wants to live like everyone else. She wants to leave this bed and not be tired anymore. Her family wants her to go to the gardens of the Valar to get healing, but for some reason, she's afraid. She doesn't want to end up like Lady Miriel.

(she immediately feels terrible after saying that to him and apologizes profusely. He tells her he's not upset; he doesn't want her to end up like Miriel either. But he does seem a lot sadder for the rest of their talk.)

Finwe tells her not to fear--that if she truly desires to get up again and live, then she will. Miriel became weary after exhausting too much of her body and soul; perhaps Elerrome has unwittingly been doing the same somehow.

She does go to the healing gardens, the first of several visits over her life in the West, but there never is a way to fix her. They find, after much examination, that for some reason her body and soul drain much quicker than those of normal elves, and recover themselves much slower; there's no healing that can rectify it, because it's not an injury, but an inherent difference in her makeup.