Once Upon A Contract

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 24: 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖔𝖋 𝖀𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕳𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖞

Rivendell was singing , Glorfindel realised with a jolt. This wasn't the song of the stars or the call of the sea. This wasn't the march of the dwarrow or the flutes of their tree bound cousins. Rivendell was singing a song of court and Glorfindel knew enough to catch every third word.

From the flummoxed expression of the child before him, Glorfindel was willing to bet he heard a fair bit more. (He'd have to watch out for that. There was no access to the fairy paths in Rivendell, but the boy would be able to wander out of the boundary with his kin soon enough, and it was best to stay away from the decaying paths as much as possible.)

"Glory." The boy said, eyes wide and words still lisping with that baby drawl. "Glory, what is that?"

There wasn't much Glorfindel didn't know. Not to say he was omnipotent but what he had experienced far more than his share. What he wasn't familiar with, Elrond tended to have dabbled in. And whatever Elrond didn't know, Galadriel tended to have experience and access to. But, out of the three of them, Glorfindel thought he might have the most experience with this particular song.

...***...

Once, a little girl had caught him outside of his unit. She had been a wisp of a thing, slight enough he had worried she'd blow away in the wind. He hadn't been able to hear back then, didn't know the songs and the whispers. But she had grabbed onto his arm and for a moment, Glorfindel had seen stars in her eyes and jagged edges on her teeth. But then he blinked, and all there had been was a little girl shaking in the cool evening, biting her lip until it bled.

Glorfindel had knelt, thumb gently pushing her lip away from her teeth. (He hadn't been careful enough. Her teeth nipped his fingers, but they had been so sharp and she had been so quick, he hadn't even noticed.) "Don't do that starlight. We don't want you getting hurt."

The girl blinked at him, her face pale in the darkness. (There had been something off with her appearance, but the camps were hardly a place for a child and Glorfindel had been too tired to think further on the situation.)

"Mama says you're important." The girl said, voice startlingly clear for someone so small.

He couldn't help but grin, his hair falling over his shoulder as he ducked his head down into a slight chuckle. "Aye, I like to think so!"

The girl's face brightened. "Can I have your Name?"

Like a fool, Glorfindel had answered, title and all. (He had been young and tired and the war had never seemed to end.)

The girl beamed. "You will come back." She said, her voice near two toned and bright. "No matter what, you have to come back."

He couldn't help but feel touched that the girl was this worried for an elf she had just met. "I'll try my best." He promised.

"Bound in blood." The girl said. "You will."

Later, he would battle a balrog. Later, he would spin around in triumph, hand held high in victory. Later, he would be bleeding and battered, and all he would think of was a little girl with too sharp teeth telling him he had to come back. He would fight a balrog and in the last possible second, the beast would grab his hair. (Elrond was right. He should have worn it in battle braids.)

The balrog grabbed him and he would fall and fall and fall and...

He didn't like to think about landing.

When his kin had spoken of re-embodiment, Glorfindel had not known what to expect. Once, he had thought it would be something soft, like floating in a cool spring after a successful spar. In truth, he had not wondered about it much at all. He was an elf, re-embodiment was simply a fact of life.