#elrondweek

The robes are might out of bleached linen and are combined by deer leather gloves at times

I haven´t decided on a look for them as I would like for them to have visible buttons down, but that way it wouldn't have the slits that shows the color of the under robe, so I´ve decided it goes with a button down jacket if needed.

The colors are meant to be soothing but blood and dirt also need to be visible on them, and they have to be able to handle boiling.

They are meant to be easy to take on and off so they are assembled by an underrobe, a shirt, and then the tunic on top.

The veil are meant to cover all hair - except the tips - and keep it from getting in the way. It is also used to get hair away quick if you need to treat someone fast but don´t have the time to braid your hair away. The five braids are nearly for keeping as much out as possible but also to wear when not wearing the veil to show you have medical experience

As the lord of Imladris and its founder, Elrond should have known that it was extremely rare for someone to feel cold in the Last Homely House. The climate of the Hidden Valley was expertly controlled by the Elves; whilst temperatures would rise and fall through the seasons, they were much more moderate and forgiving in Imladris than in the outside world. Here, one could wake up to a crisp frost at first light and see it melt away by midday. Even in depths of midwinter, no-one ever needed more than a shawl to stave off the mild chill, and even that would not be needed indoors with the heat of the roaring fires.

Today, however, Elrond felt the cold more than ever, biting and gnawing at his insides like a swirling snowstorm. He shifted in his chair to draw his robes tighter around him.

This simple act drew Erestor's attention away from the parchment he held in his hands. "My lord Elrond, are you quite well?"

Elrond started slightly at his advisor's direct question. "Fine," he said with a forced smile, "I'm fine. Were there any other tidings?"

"If.. If you were hoping to hear news of your sons," Erestor said hesitantly, guessing his lord's intentions, "there has been no word. Neither Elladan, Elrohir nor Estel have been sighted by our patrols," he finished quietly.

Elrond nodded. He had been a fool to hope that today would be any different from yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. He would give almost anything to hear even the slightest word of his sons. Even knowing they had at least been sighted would ward off the frigidity that had his heart in an icy grip.

At that moment, a sharp shudder of cold rattled through him, shaking his shoulders and sending tingles down his spine.

"Are you feeling the chill of winter today, my lord?" asked Erestor kindly as he rolled up the various scrolls on the writing desk.

Elrond sighed softly. "It would seem so."

Erestor gathered up the scrolls and turned to face his lord. "I shall instruct the kitchens to bring you some hot tea," his eyes glanced over at the dwindling flames of the hearth, "and find one of the staff to stoke your fire."

"Thank you, Erestor," Elrond nodded with yet another forced smile, "although I am quite capable of tending to my own fire."

"Very well, my lord." Erestor dipped his head respectfully before taking his leave.

Elrond watched as his advisor closed the study door behind him. Carefully, he rose to his feet, pulling a thick blanket from a nearby chair and draping it across his shoulders. The warmth of the wool was comforting, and he felt some of the tension in his body release with the extra layer. He then crossed the room and approached the fire, tossing an extra log from the wood basket and taking the poker from its hook. Sparks flared as the remnants of the burned wood were turned, the flames and heat gradually growing in strength as the new wood ignited. He lingered near the flames for several minutes, allowing the warmth to seep into him, replacing the coldness he had been feeling for days.

As he returned the fire poker to its hook, another vision of foresight erupted in his mind, the pieces shattering his composure and jarring his senses.

Rough bark. A stench of filth and putrid muck. Lying prone, water rushing past his ears...

Elrond grasped the mantelpiece as the vision took hold, trying and failing to hold on to his surroundings.

Cold as ice. Freezing, perishing, every inch of him chilled to the bone. The sub-zero temperature biting his skin. Shivering from head to toe...

"My lord?"

The soft sound of an Elleth's voice shattered the vision.

Elrond blinked, his breath catching in his throat. The mantelpiece was back in view, as were his white-lined knuckles which gripped the cool stone. He quickly retracted his arm and turned to face the Elleth who had unknowingly been his salvation. She stood on the threshold of the study, a tray in hand with a porcelain teapot and cup, and wearing an expression of both fear and apprehension.

Despite the lingering unease that the foresight vision had left in his mind, he feigned a welcoming smile as he greeted his staff member. "Thank you, kindly leave the tray on the desk."

The Elleth seemed to snap out of her state of shock and did as instructed, the tray clattering as she set it down. She bowed before Elrond and proceeded back to the door to the study.

"Tell no-one." His words were solemn and barely a whisper as the Elleth halted in her steps, turning to stare wide-eyed at the lord of Imladris. "Tell no-one of what you have seen."

Cold.

A violent shudder ran through Aragorn's body, jerking him back to consciousness. His eyelids flickered open and shut like a candle in a breeze, eyes rolling back into the sockets as he struggled to register his surroundings. Eventually he gave up, exhaling shakily and letting his vision go dark, relying instead on his other senses to interpret the world around him.

The slow thump thump thump of his heartbeat drummed in his ears. The steady trickling of water over rock. The rough bark against his cheek. The chilly autumnal breeze rustling branches and leaves of nearby trees. The metallic smell of fresh blood mixed with putrid mud and grime.

His mind was sluggish and slow. Why was he slumped over a log and partially submerged in water? Why was he in so much pain?

Another spontaneous shiver of cold shook him from head to toe. He then realised with horror that he couldn't actually feel his toes. They were numb with cold, as were his hands and fingertips. Confusion and dread surged through him, forcing his eyes to open and the beating of his heart to gather pace; even in this exhaustive state, he realised he had been in the water for far too long.

Aragorn tried to lift one arm from the perishing water, but the limb was heavy and his waterlogged clothing dragged it down. He then tried to get his feet beneath him, but he didn't have the strength to fight the current. He needed to get out of the water. He tried again to push himself upright, to force himself to leave the ice-cold river, but the more effort he exerted the more his strength sapped away, until the only thing he was capable of doing was taking shallow breaths and sagging back against the log.

His attempts to move reignited his pain. It felt as though his veins were on fire, pumping agony around his body with every beat of his heart. The side of his abdomen and his shoulder throbbed angrily, the wounds having now been open and exposed for a prolonged period of time. His breath came short and shallow as he battled against the torment.

Distorted thoughts floundered in his brain, a testament to his semi-conscious state. Orcs had been close. Were they still close? Regretting travelling alone. If only he had travelled with Elladan and Elrohir. They would have lent him strength from their personal vendetta against the creatures of Mordor. Would things be different? The village might have been saved had he not been insistent on solitude.

What had Elrond said before he departed?

The memory of preparing for his departure from Imladris, where his final words were exchanged with father, floated through his mind as he slowly succumbed to delirium. 

"Be cautious, Estel," Elrond had said as Aragorn added supplies and possessions to his travelling pack. "The scouts report that Orcs are afoot. If you insist on going alone, keep to the wilds and stay off the road."

"Do I ever do anything else, father?" Aragorn said with a smirk.

Elrond pursed his lips. "Clearly some of the cheek exhibited by Elladan and Elrohir is beginning to wear off on you," he noted, folding his arms and giving his youngest son an unimpressed look.

Aragorn chuckled. As he placed the final item into his pack, the emerald jewel on the Ring of Barahir flashed green as it caught the light from the open window. He stretched his forefinger out straight. He had been wearing the ring for so long now that he hardly noticed it anymore. The ring was now as much a part of him as his future to reclaim the throne of Gondor.

Elrond's eyes too fell on the ring wrapped around Aragorn's finger. "Your father would be proud of you. Arathorn would be proud of the man you have become, of your deeds and the way of seeing the world."

Aragorn nodded in appreciation at his words, adding "a testament to the family who raised me, Ada."

Elrond smiled. It was a smile as warm as summer that sparkled from within the elf's eyes. A smile of pure happiness as he looked upon his youngest son, the human who had been his charge for two decades. Ten more years had passed since Aragorn had first set out to make his own way in the world, joining the rangers of the north who were his kin, yet Elrond still welcomed him with open arms whenever he returned.

This was love. This was family, this was home. Nothing else in the world could compare to the simple things he had in Rivendell.

"Ada…" Aragorn said aloud. The scene was slipping from his mind, melting like snow warming in the winter sun, trickling away along with his consciousness. 

"Ada…"

Elrohir tugged hard on the reins of his horse, bringing the animal to a sudden stop.

He thought he had heard something. A faint whisper on the wind. A voice, but whether they were friend or foe, he could not tell.

Elladan brought his steed to a halt beside his twin. He was about to ask Elrohir the reason for stopping when his brother raised his hand. Both remained completely still, trying to identify every minor sound and scuffle with their keen hearing.

They had been following the tracks of orcs through this forest for over a day now, spotting the occasional human-like boot prints in between. The human prints had been sporadic, weaving in and out of the undergrowth in a bizarre fashion, never travelling in a straight line. This concerned the brothers greatly; if it was indeed Estel's tracks they were following, it appeared that he had been pursued through these woods. Additionally, if the prints had been made by a ranger, they were extremely irrational. At times they moved directly through shrubbery, which would have undoubtedly made a racket and alerted the assailants to the ranger's presence.

The more details Elladan and Elrohir noticed about the tracks, the more concerned they became for their brother's welfare.

"Did you hear something?" came Elladan's voice quietly after several minutes of unbroken silence.

"Mmm," Elrohir mumbled. "I thought--"

The sound of a branch snapping silenced him. The twins exchanged looks as their apprehension grew. Elrohir instinctively reached for a weapon secured at his hip, but his own long, finely crafted blade was not the only weapon he carried; looped into his belt was the scabbard of another sword, slightly shorter and wider than his own.

Several days prior, the pair had come across a village which had clearly been overrun by orcs. They knew something was amiss before even stepping foot in the settlement, for the stench of death and burnt timber alone had carried on the air. Elrond's twin sons were no strangers to war, but even the sight that greeted them as they crossed the village boundary turned their stomachs; carcasses of orcs in varying stages of rot and decay littered the ground, accompanied by villagers who had fallen in the fight. Arrows, discarded pikes, pitchforks and farming scythes told them this had been a fierce and bloody battle. It was only whilst Elrohir had been carefully treading through the chaos that his foot caught on the belt loop of a discarded weapon, one with distinctive designs on the scabbard and a blade which gleamed brighter than any other abandoned weapon.

Estel's sword.

Elladan and Elrohir had wasted no time in searching for a lead on Estel's tracks. The discovery of their brother's sword did not comfort them in the slightest; they now knew that Estel was alone, likely injured, and without a weapon to defend himself.

The twins knew the odds were not looking in their brother's favour.

Minutes crept by as the brothers remained on horseback and held their silence. When no further sounds came, Elrohir dismounted, his boots landing hard on the firm ground. He looked down towards his feet where the orc prints were present. Taking several slow, steady paces forwards, his brows began to furrow as his eyes traced the tracks. Here, the human prints were often partially covered by the orc ones, and it was difficult to pick them out, but not impossible.

Elrohir suddenly noticed the tracks he was studying veered off to the right, down an embankment to a large river. "Down there," he uttered to Elladan, pointing towards the rushing body of water.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

The pair secured their horses to nearby trees and began to carefully pick their way down the slope towards the river. The closer they got to the water's edge, the more the ground beneath their feet became slick with mud, with Elladan almost losing his footing in the muck. Once they reached the water’s edge, Elladan bent low to study the ground for further tracks, whilst Elrohir stood still looking out across the river. The water lapped at the edges of his boots as he scanned the scene before him.

There was something here, his instinct told him that much, but what exactly he was looking for he could not say.

His eyes landed on a pile of rocks near the opposite shore. A broken evergreen branch, recently detached and still covered in leaves, was wedged between the two largest boulders. Elrohir frowned. He tried to place his mind into that of his brother; had he been injured, weaponless and pursued by orcs, he would have tried to evade the creatures rather than fight them off. Could he have...?

"Ada..."

Elladan's head snapped up to look his brother in the eye. There was no denying that whisper, no doubt in their minds whatsoever whom it could have come from.

In moments, the brothers were surging forwards towards the opposite bank, barely noticing neither the chill of the water biting through their clothing nor the pull of the current that fought them.

“Estel!” Elladan cried out at the top of his lungs, throwing caution to the wind and calling out for his brother. Elrohir reached the fallen branch first, tearing back the curtain of greenery out of haste to find their quarry.

What they saw stole their breath away.

Estel lay prone within the concealed boughs of the broken tree branch. Ashen-faced and bedraggled, lips tinged with blue, this was a shadow of the mortal man they knew and loved. His limbs floated aimlessly in the river as though all fight and spirit had abandoned him long ago. Blood and muck and filth stained his jerkin and overcoat, which were soaked through with water. A trail of red flowed with the current.

“Valar have mercy..” Elrohir breathed. Paralyzed from the sight of his brother, he watched with bated breath and as Elladan approached Estel’s form, gently placing his fingertips against the young man’s neck.

After several agonising seconds, Elladan spoke with furrowed brows. “He’s alive, but his pulse is weak." A pause. "Much weaker than it should be."

"Amroth was so much the elder, and so much a stranger even to my parents, who loved him as a cousin and as a son. I was lonesome and without companions, and though the joys and secrets of Lórien need not be shared to be true, still I have found them to be the greater when seen by two, and not one alone."

"So it is, in most places I have journeyed to, and not Lórien alone," said Elrond, carefully. It was the early days of their friendship, and already he had learned to be cautious with his mind and words and heart near Lady Galadriel's daughter, grey-eyed Celebrían whose conversations was like the waters of her own lands, leaping, quick and meandering and full of hidden roots to trip upon.

"I suppose, then, you would wish for children, and not one alone. That is good." Celebrían said, as if it were a natural thing to speak of, on the eve of battle, to the king's own herald.

Her eyes shone, too, with a brightness of sun on water, a glimmering laughing attention. Elrond's heart tripped in his chest, slipped from him again and again.

"I said to Elros I would not marry, if I could not present my children to their uncle."

"He must have teased you very badly," Celebrían guessed, looking at him through her lashes rather shamelessly. "I am sorry I shall not meet him; but then he has so very many descendants, some evil and some not, which on the whole may be better. He may not have wished you to know them, but not much can be done on that account; and at least any children of yours shall not lack for kin. How many would you prefer?"

Elrond, more ancient than some of the rivers and mountains of Imladris, wise in languages and laws and magics, stared.

Smiled, too, a little helplessly. He could not ever quite stop turning towards her when she looked at him with all that bare attention, and he never would; and knowing he never would did not much help in delaying love from taking root.

"A maiden," he said. A woman-child, with Elwing's quick hands at the loom, and Celebrian's way of worrying at the corner of her mouth with her thinking - he saw it, that sure alighting of love.

Celebrían nodded. As if it were that simple - as if it were an agreement, a handfasting, a promise.

"It will be good for the boys to have a sister," Celebrían said. "I used to long very much for a playmate near my age, and another a little my elder, to hide mischief from our parents better."

Elrond, old enough to remember when islands rose at the will of the gods, and all the sea-loving birds flew Westwards in a rush, smiled at her, helplessly enchanted.

-

The days of their early friendship: war ravaged the lands beyond Elrond's hidden valley fortress still. He had not known how to love her. His heart sang, assured from the first, a winged thing certain of its perfect flight - but he had not known her, truly.

He had not meant to be more than a host, her mother's friend - for whatever little that meant. Celebrían was not one to care very much for other people's good intent, when hers was so often an improvement.

For many years they were half-stranger and half-lovers, looking at each other with clear eyes. Over riverbanks and running fountains, desks and dances and the narrow, narrow curving staircases of Imladris, where the brush of a sleeve against a curling palm could be hidden, almost an accident, almost nothing.

To be wed was a thing the Noldor choose only in times of peace, though the the Sindar delayed seldom. Elrond's parents had not waited, and not their parents either; but he did. He was only himself, and too himself to dare otherwise.

Celebrían, he knew, would not have been against a bold flight of passion, not least eloping while her father tarried - would serve him well, she thought.

For Elrond only she delayed. Went patient with her words, and deeds, and the turnings of her mind, as she never had before, or would again.

He thought of it, afterwards, when her ship went where the gulls loved to go, to the place where Elwing's tower rose high, and beyond. All that times spent, that half-time.

There had been a sweetness, too, in the stretching of anticipation, but he could not be certain, afterwards. How they had tasted in his mouth, those kisses ungiven; if his hand had stung to brush her silks, if it had hurt half as much as remembering it would for many centuries.

-

Twins, they had, on purpose. Celebrían was determined, and determined to wait until Elrond was certain he could stand to want it - two little souls, as near in age as Elros had been to him.

Two were enough, they both agreed. Two sons, alike to each other to the tilt of their noses and the curl of their braids. Celebrían's children, restless and in love with the world.

Elrond's children, too, though it felt marvelous and absurd and terrible, many times, to claim such joy as his own. His children, who held his hands as they crossed the many bridges of Imladris, and brought him small treasures, and shared the same closeness he had once known with his own Elros.

Elrohir liked to run, to sing, to make mischief and pull laughter out of Imladris's people like a spark out of a flint - a brusque little surprise, flaring and vulnerable.

He had Celeborn's mouth, and Celeborn's way with beasts and rooted things, and rarely was he ever alone, pockets full of little lizards and shoulders covered with dark eyed minks, ancient serpents twining around his small, very breakable wrists.

He made friends wherever he went, respectful and cheerful and terribly silly; Glorfindel, once of Gondolin by way of friendship with Turgon and Finrod before him, spoke at times with Celebrían of her uncle.

He never made a comparison, never said the words; but it was perhaps a good thing Elrohir had been born of a people and a time with no need for the raising up of new kingdoms. It was perhaps a sorrow, too, but Elrohir never seemed to feel the lack of greatness very sharply, nor the pulling tides of the past either.

Elladan was not so.

Elladan spent half his childhood trying to escape the valley, and the other half hiding wherever he could, in a dozen secret little places that became veiled even to Elrond's senses far too quickly.

He felt sadness very keenly, his mind open like Elrond's to the many voices of the wind and the water and the earth, yet more like his mother's kin, in how the shadows on the hearts of those near and far struck fear and unease and anger in him.

He wept very often, and afterwards laid on their chests, all exhausted weight and heavy eyelashes. Elrond held him the tightest; Elrond was very determined to do so always.

For comfort, Elladan liked to play with the rings in his father's hands, to follow the trail of Iathrim inkings and hunting scars beneath Celebrían's skin. And then of course his brother came to find him, whenever he was distressed, as Elros had found Elrond in Amon Ereb and Sirion and Mithlond, wherever in dying Beleriand that long terrible war brought them.

"This is very good," Celebrían conceded, pressing her nose against their sons's sweet curls, one after the other.

Celebrían pressed her palm to his, her long marked fingers against his rings, Vylia flaring cold and alive wherever at her touch. Her attention set upon him was no less heady. His breast sang towards it only the most surely, whenever his wife's sly joy pressed against his mind; and for an instant the shadow of what might be was easy on it, nearly easy.

She had always seen him very easily, Celebrían Galadriel's daughter. Braver than he, and less patient, was the Lady of Imladris.

"Very good, and no one left lonesome; but I do recall there is a thing not yet done, that I would like to accomplish, and Elros Peredhel would be sure to tease us both very badly, if we both put it aside, on his account."

She came last, the maiden-child with a worried mouth. Tall and fair and not quick to laughter, eager to learn, his stubborn-minded cupbearer and apprentice and scribe.