Title: Golden Vanity
Series: none
Type: FPS
Author: LadyJanelly
Email: janellstaylor@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Pairing: Erestor/Glorfindel
Warnings: Slash, violence
Disclaimer: No elves are my property. Writing not done for profit.
Beta: None, sorry. Volunteers?
Feedback: Gives me a reason to write and post instead of just
playing with scenes in my head.
Archive: Please ask
Summary: Glorfindel, reborn, finds himself changed, and unwilling to
risk another fall for the sake of his vanity.
Author's note: Sorry, all I know about LoTR I learned from
fanfiction, the movies, and an hour or so of research on Library of
Arda. Please forgive my ignorance, and keep in mind that even if
all my facts were correct, this would still be an AU story. Thanks.

*********

He was their golden lord; a golden lord for the House of the Golden
Flower. Beautiful as the dawn he was, and bold as the sunlight
glinting off of the keen edge of his sword. Hair the color of
autumn wheat spilled down his broad armored shoulders, the warm
strands framing a face that artists had used as a model for the
Valar.

He was their golden lord, and they loved him, these scattered and
frightened refugees of a dying city. They trusted him. With the
red glow of Morgoth's forces coming closer, they believed him when
he shouted at them to go, to flee. They trusted him, of all elves,
to survive whatever would come next around the narrow pass. They
trusted him to be victorious.

~~~

Blood seeped down the inside of his armor; wet and hot. The
Balrog's sword had not pierced through, but it had torn the golden
protection, and with every move it cut into the flesh of his side.
He could feel himself weakening, but could not accept that he might
not vanquish this creature of darkness.

The great whip cut through the air, pulling back for another strike,
trailing black flame in its wake. The smoke and the stench of the
creature threatened to choke him, blind him. He could hear no sound
save for the roar of the creature, the overwhelming hiss and crackle
of its fiery body.

The golden lord's sword flashed up into the creature's heart. Good
steel shattered from the sudden heat, a crack that echoed down the
long chasm. The beast staggered, and the whip came down, hotter
than campfire or hearth, hotter than the summer sun or the
blacksmith's forge. The tip slashed the golden lord's face, burning
as it passed, so hot that flesh turned to ash at the touch. It
burned even the bone of his cheek and jaw. The flames passed a
thumb's length from his right eye.

So sudden was the strike that his mind could not register the pain.
As the servant of Morgoth stumbled back, began to tumble from the
cliff, all the golden lord knew was that he had been struck,
scarred, marred.

The blow to his face was not the worst of his injuries, yet it was
the first that he reached to touch. It was the one he was touching
when the fiery hand reached out, and as the Balrog fell, it was his
last thought before he was pulled over the cliff's edge. And then
he was falling, and burning, the creature holding him tight against
its chest. He heard his own scream, smelled the burning of his own
flesh. The rocks came rushing up at them, and all was blackness,
quiet and stillness. There was nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He woke to pain. For long minutes he could only lay there, afraid
to even touch his face. He knew not where he was, curled like an
infant, naked as the day he was first born. Breath by breath the
hurt faded, healing as he lay there. He became aware of the
chirping of birds, the cool embrace of the forest.

Trembling fingers reached up, tracing over the scar. It marked him
from the outside edge of his right eye, down his cheek and into the
muscle and bone of his jaw. This was no shallow wound from a sword
point; it was wider than his thumb, slick-feeling and too-smooth.
Around that was the burn. Most of that side of his face was
dimpled, bubbled, pocked and melted.

The golden lord wept for his loss, curled in upon himself on the
forest floor, and as he wept, understanding filtered into him, as if
in a dream, yet he knew he was awake.

The first that he understood was that great time had passed, time in
which he should have taken some part, could have accomplished great
things. He understood that his vanity, and only that, had been the
cause of his fall. Had he reached for the wound at his side, he
would have seen the hand that reached for him, the hand that dragged
him down.

A sense of duty filled him, and his hand drew away from his scar.
He knew, without being told, where he would be now, at this moment,
had he never fallen. He would be standing beside Earendil's son,
guarding his back as the perendhil strode to war against the re-
awakened darkness.

He fingered the long ugly scar again, and he had no bitterness
towards the Valar who had left him with such a mark. It was not a
punishment; he understood that, but rather a warning against the re-
emergence of his vanity.

"Never again," he vowed to the forest. There was no answer, but he
knew he had been heard.

Barefoot, naked, unarmed, he broke into a long loping stride, moving
silent through the forest. A vision called to him, a dark-haired
elf, with grey eyes and the weight of duty gathered around his
shoulders like a cloak. A name whispered into his mind, to call his
destination by. That name was Elrond.

For hours he ran, and hours became days. He was an elf in the prime
of his conditioning, and the air came easily to his lungs. He came
to a place where a path cut the forest, some deer-trail, easy to
miss. He followed it for a ways, since it flowed with his own
direction. Trampled ground ahead of him slowed his steps for the
first time.

Blood splattered the leaves, red and bright. An arrow lay half-
covered by dead leaves. The fletching was elven, clean and
straight. The tip was broken off, and around the shaft was smeared
the black blood of orcs.

His heart pounded wild in his chest at the sight, and he continued
down the path, feet moving with swift steps even as bright eyes
scanned the floor for tracks. Naked, weaponless, he still could
not, would not, allow elves to be attacked without acting on their
behalf.

He burst into a clearing, and his heart ached to find that he need
not have hurried. Bodies lay scattered around, the fair forms
hacked by brutal weapons, their skin torn and bruised. He trembled,
and covered his eyes with his hands for a moment, then moved to
begin tending the bodies of the fallen.

Forgive me, cousin, he thought as he slipped the armor off of a tall
warrior. They were all soldiers, and he imagined they had been
quite handsome in their blue and silver livery. He would not leave
the valiant fallen naked, but he did find enough clothing in their
packs to clothe himself. He took from each a piece of armor for
himself to wear, and some small token that their families may use to
identify them with. The battle that he saw in his mind would not
allow the time to bring the bodies home, so he did the best that he
could, for the dead and for the living.

With care he arrayed the bodies together atop a mound of dry wood
that he gathered, and using the flint and steel of one soldier, he
lit their pyre.

They had carried no spare boots, and Glorfindel would not send the
dead to Mandos' hall in need of footwear, so when he at last
departed the scene, dressed, armed, armored, his feet were still
bare beneath the edge of his greaves.


TBC