Chapter Text
It had been months since my discovery that Elves weren’t as fictitious as I had thought. After we had tracked down Maglor in Galway, Glorfindel and Erestor escorted me home, while Elladan and Elrohir took their adopted grandfather somewhere isolated to have some family time. I gathered they were worried about his fragile state of mind and were hoping he would begin to recover in their company.
I was beginning to feel a bit bored to be honest. The trip to Ireland had been a rollercoaster, but I had never felt as alive as I did during those days. Even the realisation that Sauron was still kicking around somewhere, stirring up trouble in our world, didn’t put me off as much as I would have thought. I’d always identified more with Bilbo and his Took side than with Frodo and his more philosophical approach to adventure.
Getting complacent is usually not a good idea. I would have done well to remember that Sauron was a rather formidable villain. There was a reason he was referred to as the Enemy, capital E.
*****
The knock on my door came early one morning. I was awake, if only barely, and was just making myself a cup of coffee. I had nothing in particular planned for the day, maybe a photo shoot at some beach, but there was nowhere I had to be at a set time.
I went to answer the door, and was surprised to see Erestor standing on my doorstep. He had just raised his hand to knock again and now lowered it and stepped inside, throwing a quick look around before entering.
”Hey Erestor, what are you doing here?”
”Coffee?” He looked hopefully towards the kitchen.
”Sure, go right in, there should be enough for both of us.” I noticed he hadn’t answered my question.
I followed him into the kitchen and poured us both a mug of black coffee, then sat down at the table and really looked at Erestor for the first time since he appeared. He looked – harried was perhaps the best word. Not scared, not really, but like he had been trying to solve a problem with too little time to do it. He was still gorgeous, because, duh, Erestor, but he wasn’t as luminous as he’d been the last time I saw him. I decided to be blunt.
”What happened?”
”What makes you think something...?” He trailed off when I rolled my eyes at him.
”First of all, you’re here. Alone. In a hurry? And dead on your feet, more or less. Something happened.”
He sighed and put his mug down, rubbing his eyes in a gesture that looked very human, even if he wasn’t.
”Glorfindel has gone missing.”
”Missing? As in, he’s gone walkabout somewhere? Or what are we talking about?”
”As in, we have no idea where he is, and when Elladan and I tried to hail his frequency or whatever you called it, there was no answer.”
”Maybe he was busy?” I suggested. ”He can be a bit scatterbrained, right? Maybe he found himself a strong woman, he did say he liked those.”
”There was no answer my lady. Even if he was busy as you put it, we would have felt his presence in the world. We felt nothing.”
”You can’t be saying he’s... dead? Not Fin?” I was suddenly really glad I was sitting down, because I could feel my limbs going numb with shock.
”No, not dead. We would have felt if he had died. But something is wrong, I can only think of two reasons we can’t find him, well, three really. One, he’s inside a cave or something like that, which would block all communication, two, he’s unconscious, or three, he’s drugged so he can’t communicate. All three of those would, to me, suggest he has been kidnapped.”
Glorfindel kidnapped? This sounded like a bad novel, with supervillains who had their villain-y lairs in extinct volcanoes on Mediterranean islands.
”When did you last see him? I guess it’s not like you meet every day?”
”We don’t, it’s true, but we try to keep in touch regularly, a couple of times a week maybe. More often since we got back from Ireland, we talked to each other and to the boys almost daily. Fin wanted... he wanted to make sure Maglor was ok and not reverting to his old ways. So... it’s been over a week since I could reach him, and about five days since Elladan and I tried to find him and failed.”
”It’s been five days, and only now did you think to inform me?” I wasn’t sure if I was more angry or hurt. I thought they all trusted me now, but they had kept this from me for five days, while Glorfindel was hidden away somewhere, maybe injured or unconscious, or even dying?
”I’m sorry. Elladan wanted to call you at once, but I thought it would be better to talk to you face to face. Also less of a danger perhaps. Phone calls can be traced. I make sure I can’t be.” He wasn’t even bragging, I thought. He could probably hide from anyone if he wanted to. Then I remembered our discovery in Ireland.
”Do you think the Enemy is behind Fin’s disappearance?”
Erestor squared his shoulders and looked at me.
”I think we cannot rule anything out at this point. It could be something less sinister, like, I don’t know, organised crime, or government agencies. Or it could be Sauron.”
”Did you just say ”less sinister” about the mafia and CIA? I would think they were bad enough!”
”Oh, they are. Just not as bad as Sauron the deceiver. If he has Fin, we don’t have much time. We need to find him soon.”
”Where are the twins? They should be looking for Fin too. What about Maglor, is he well enough to...”
”Hopefully he is stable enough that we can bring him on our quest. He’d be an asset, with all that power, but also a weak point.”
”Well, we’ll just have to hope he can hold himself together. Come on Erestor, let’s go find Glorfindel and bring him home.”