Once Upon A Contract

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 25: 𝖂𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖎𝖘 𝖂𝖔𝖗𝖘𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖓 𝖆 𝕯𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖔𝖓?

"Tell me." Glorfindel said, his knees drawn up before him as he perched high above the estate of his lord. "Were the Istari sung into existence?"

Beside him, Gandalf sat perched on a rock. His cloak was folded neatly beside him and his staff was laid politely across his legs. The istari's clothes were well worn and not for the first time, Glorfindel wondered if Gandalf was deemed 'the grey' because the dust of the road allowed little other colour to be seen.

"What is this about?" Gandalf asked, gaze stuck on the sprawling valley below.

For a moment, Glorfindel didn't answer, instead he looked at the old man in silence. The Istari had been old when Glorfindel had first met him. He had been old in the same way that the stars were ancient and the Maia were vast and ageless. Gandalf had always been old, but he had never carried his age so apparently as in the last few centuries. In the last few centuries the man had aged. Laughter lines had turned to carved frown lines. Skin had wrinkled and blotched. His hair had become greyed, much like his clothes.

Gandalf was old, but Glorfindel was hardly much younger when one looked at the age of Arda as a measurement. And Glorfindel did not look nearly as worn.

"Were the Istari sung into existence?" Glorfindel pushed.

Gandalf did not respond.

Glorfindel figured that was enough of an answer. "Tell me, do you hear it? The song?"

Gandalf twitched ever so slightly and Glorfindel couldn't help but watch as the old man turned towards the distant tunes of the Hall of Fire. "Your kin do sing beautifully." Gandalf eventually commented. "But I believe you would hear them better than me from such a distance."

The songs from the Hall of Fire could barely be heard even by eleven ears at such a distance. The valley ensured it, hiding the croons of her people from any who might try to breach her towering walls. But that was not the song Glorfindel referenced. No, the song he called attention to was the boundary.

Perched high above the Last Homely House, Glorfindel balanced on the heart of the boundary. Few people ever came this way, and those that did, only passed so as to pay tribute to their fallen cousins. A half dozen paces away, there was a token box, as old as the valley. Every year, Elrond would climb to the perch and drop a small bag of seed and a silver coin into the box. Every few decades, Glorfindel would make the climb and empty the box, placing the tribute in a chest he hid in his own rooms.

There had been no fairies to pay for services rendered and Elrond had no need to continue his offerings but... Glorfindel could still see the fanged grin of his littlest contractor and he had no doubt Elrond saw the edge of Laurel-ly's face whenever the twins' antics gave way to too much paperwork. Grief touched everyone differently, and Glorfindel had never begrudged Elrond his right to mourn.

The Great Burrows had been razed and the Great Clans had been massacred. If a token of seed and coin could help, then who was Glorfindel to say anything?

If, perhaps, the coins had been gathered up from the chest and distributed to children with sunken cheeks and growling bellies, while seed had been offered to those with withered window boxes and fallowed gardens... Well, Glorfindel did not think his cousins would mind.

Elrond had been a child of the camps, he certainly would not begrudge Glorfindel his decision.

Still, Glorfindel sat near the heart of the boundary and he swore all of Rivendell sang in joy at the presence of a fairy. Had he been younger, he might have found himself swept away in the song. He might have found himself tossed into the grasping joy and the far flung happiness, and he would have sunk into the beginnings of a revel without a thought.