Title: Washed Up
Author: Enismirdal (enismirdal@caths.co.uk)
Pairing: Glorfindel/Ecthelion
Rating: PG
Summary: The latest thing to wash up on the shores of Valinor is
curiously familiar.
Disclaimer: As always, the lurvely Elves are the exclusive property of
Professor Tolkien. Oh, how I envy him. No insult intended and no
profit made.

(Bizarrely for me, this was written in one single evening. Read at own
risk.)

***

The knock came at the most inopportune moment, right in the middle of
Ecthelion's intricate dissection of a perfectly-cooked globe
artichoke. Sucking the butter from his fingers after finding that the
dog had run off with his napkin and seemed to be trying very hard to
kill the poor object, Ecthelion resigned himself to the interruption
and wondered what Penlod wanted this time around. As fond as he was of
his friend and fellow former captain of Gondolin, Ecthelion did wonder
how Penlod ever managed to make it through a day. There was always one
disaster or another that required Ecthelion's immediate assistance, or
else they would all be doomed.

The first thing to hit him as he opened the door was the odour of
seaweed. The next thing was a spray of similarly-scented water
droplets. He rubbed his eyes and blinked them open again as a voice
said, "Oh, sorry. I had no idea you were going to open the door at
that precise moment."

Ecthelion looked up. Glorfindel's hair was stuck to his face, and when
this wet looked less golden and more a kind of antique-bronze. To be
generous. The strips of brown bladderwrack hanging from one
disheveled braid did not lend much to the overall effect. "You did
knock on the door," Ecthelion observed mildly, schooling his expression
to remain carefully neutral - despite the fact that the unheralded
appearance of this particular Elf should rightfully have left him
speechless. "This usually suggests that you expect someone to open it
soon after."

"But I did interrupt your dinner," Glorfindel countered. "I had not
thought you would abandon it so hastily."

"You try living next door to Penlod," Ecthelion replied with a weary
sigh. "After having to save the world for him at least once an
evening, you learn about dropping everything. Even perfectly-cooked
globe artichokes." He glanced back at it ruefully.

Glorfindel stepped through the doorway, the movement depositing a rain
of sand and seashells on the neatly-swept flagstones that Ecthelion
had gone to considerable trouble to acquire for his hallway. It was a
similar white stone to that from which his house in Gondolin had been
made and it added a familiar touch to this new home in Valinor. "New
home" was, in fact, not entirely accurate; Ecthelion had been reborn
some six centuries ago and had spent the last five hundred and forty
eight of those years here. Still, there was something about Valinor
that felt transient to him, perhaps because he had been so young when
he had departed it the first time with the host of exiled Noldor.

Ecthelion's curiosity finally got the better of him. "Glorfindel," he
sighed, "why, exactly, did you turn up here unannounced, after we have
not seen each other for millennia beyond count, looking like you swam
here at high tide?"

Glorfindel looked down at the puddle and broke out in a wide smile.
"My dear, it is because that is exactly what I did do. The ship was
apparently going to turn north and drop anchor in the main harbour
nearly a day's ride from here, and..." his voice softened, "...I
glimpsed someone walking a dog on the beach and I would have
recognised Ecthelion, shining Lord of the Fountain, ten miles away."
His damp hand reached out to stroke Ecthelion's hair, and Ecthelion
found himself leaning into the touch, rather than shrugging away. "As
it was, we were only a mile or so from the land, so I dived from the
rail and swam ashore. The current was a bit stronger than I had
anticipated, but never mind - I got here, did I not?"

"Wait - rather than waiting another day out of thousands of years, you
threw yourself from a ship and swam through the ocean, to turn up
dripping wet and smelling like a dead fish on my doorstep in the
middle of my dinner?"

Glorfindel nodded sheepishly, then wrapped his arms around Ecthelion
and gave him a light but very sincere and emotion-filled kiss.

"Your idea of romance is the oddest one I have ever come across,"
Ecthelion said quietly, "but it will work for me..." He smiled through
a curtain of bladderwrack-adorned hair and contemplated a future
containing probably many more joyful, seaweed-scented embraces from
his very favourite Elf.

End