Chapter 9

Four days later, my arm now fully healed, I walked behind Elrond on the mulch path to the meeting deeper in Irmo's garden. We entered a clearing surrounded by willow trees where a small stone building sat amongst beeches and oaks, with flowers scattered here and there. The guards and I split off from Elrond and Cularë and walked to one of several small rings of seats and tables under the shade of a large willow. Rather than take a seat at a table, I sat under the tree and leaned against the silver trunk, placing a small bag on the grass next to me. Out of it, I pulled a pen and a composition notebook. Although I didn't have any particular music in mind to compose, I could always improvise something. And if I became tired of that, I could always read. Furthermore, having something in hand meant I could stare off into the distance, and few would think anything of it.

Over the next half hour or so, the other groups participating in the talks came into the clearing, and the leaders always entered the stone building while the guards grouped themselves around the clearing, some sitting on chairs around the other tables. I didn't pay much attention to them, though I recognized the symbol on the Avarin armor. If they noticed me later on, I knew the meeting would not be pleasant. Though there were both curious and hostile looks directed my way from the other groups, I ignored them for the moment.

However, once everyone settled in, the different groups started mingling. I wasn't surprised- after nearly a week of these negotiations, the guards (whose function was mostly ceremonial to begin with) were friendly. I shook my head. Aman was an insular place. Few had any need to learn weaponry, and those who did- or continued to act as warriors- had to train with others also versed in combat, else they would become too complacent. The Avarin guards clearly knew those originally from Eryn Lasgalen and Ithilien. Given that the Silvan Elves were Avarin themselves, just the most friendly with the Eldar, it wasn't surprising that these guards would be at ease with each another. From the way all the groups interacted, it was obvious that this was not the first time many of them had met. Those who looked uncertain were, as a rule, the youngest ones who evidently were here as part of their training. After all, what else were guards used for here?

Rather than pay attention conversations to which I had no desire (or knowledge) to contribute to, I started writing down random notes, pretending to do something. And it worked- save for a few looks, the guards left me alone. But as the morning drew on, I realized I had been writing down the ebb and flow of conversations. I paused and looked at the pages I had filled up. I hadn't done something like that for decades. But if it meant I was writing songs down again, I didn't mind at all.

I allowed myself to become lost in the flow again, and only looked up when someone's shadow blocked my light. My guts clenched, but I forced myself to remain composed, not allowing myself to show any outward sign of fear when I recognized just who glared down at me. I wasn't going to give the Avarin king that satisfaction.

He sneered and said in Sindarin, "So the Shadowed One has truly returned. Pity. We had hoped you suffered the death you deserved."

"Why didn't you kill me?"

"It was not our place. Exile is the true torment."

The king looked me up and down. He spat on the grass before my feet and then walked away. I sank back against the tree trunk in relief, and raked my eyes around the clearing, searching for Elrond. He had to be around, hadn't he? I finally spotted him talking to a dark-haired Elf nearby, and he realized the situation almost as soon as I caught his eyes. He excused himself and came over to me. I stood up awkwardly and I bowed, murmuring, "My lord."

"Sit." Elrond sat on the ground, so I did as well. "Did he threaten you?"

"No. But even unspoken, the threat is there."

"It always will be." He rubbed his temples. "You are safe enough here, but I think we will have to make arrangements when we return home."

"What kind of arrangements? Will I have any say in them?"

Elrond looked at me. "I will not force anything on you, but you are the one who suggested that you are not safe in my own lands."

I picked at the blades of grass, focusing my eyes on the deep green color. "I do not want to be coddled, nor cause inconveniences."

"You will not. Now, do you want lunch?"

I followed him to a table spread with food and drink underneath the oak across the clearing, ignoring the way two Avari moved away from it when they spotted me.

Over the next week, some of the Sindarin guards began to talk to me, curious as to what life was like in Middle-earth. None of the Avari did, but I had expected that. After my encounter with the king, they completely ignored my existence. I found that preferable to the stares and muttered comments, as well as the occasional warding gesture. The guards Elrond had brought with slowly relaxed as well, drawing me into their conversations, and they started leaving me unguarded for short periods of time. We had never discussed that they were guarding me, and I knew that we never would.

Still, I was glad to leave Lórien after the talks concluded with no firm result. Elrond wasn't displeased, in spite of the lack of a treaty, for there had been progress made. I wondered at that, and he laughed.

"You are accustomed to mortals' politics and their haste, Maglor. This contention over fishing rights has been on ongoing issue for nearly half a yén."

I stared at the cart horse's dappled rump while I processed what Elrond had just said. Almost seventy-two years. Elrond was right- I was too used to shortened, and generally shortsighted, politics of Men. Even when I was living there, I could not understand why our mortal kin thought it was a good idea to rotate their leaders once every few years. The difference in tempo here in Aman was yet another adjustment I had to make to my thinking that had been shaped from living in Middle-earth for so long.

Once back at the House of the Sea-hills, I started home once Elrond dismissed me, desiring nothing but solitude. I had walked for less than two minutes down the path when Glorfindel caught up with me. I looked askance at him.

"I don't need a keeper."

"No, but I thought I would see how you survived," he said pleasantly, ignoring my glare.

"Let's see… I have a habit of running when I shouldn't and ended up with my arm broken. Lord Irmo lectured me, telling me much the same things you did, though I did find out the Valar trust me enough to put me here. I wrote some music that may not be completely terrible. Oh, and the Avari still despise me."

"This is going to take a while, I presume?" Glorfindel remarked, his mouth quirked in a grin.

"Yes, it will take a while." I shifted my bag to my other shoulder. "If there's still edible food in my house, I'd be willing to cook us dinner. And if there's not, would you be willing to cook?"

"Done," Glorfindel said.

After a pleasant meal- it hadn't taken long at all to adapt to the Elvish kitchen- Glorfindel and I settled out in the hill-top courtyard on one of the benches to talk, him with a glass of wine and me with water, the sound of the ocean a pleasent background noise. The conversation meandered back and forth, from topic to topic, sometimes about my journey, sometimes about what happened here in my absence, sometimes about happenings in the rest of Aman, sometimes about inconsequential things.

Once the sun had set and the stars had appeared, I finally asked, "What is being done in regards to my safety?"

"I need to talk to Elrond. I have some ideas, but I do not know how practical they are."

I stared at the starlight glistening on the water below us, "Well, I'm tired of being afraid. But that won't change until I know more about how people will truly treat me. I don't know how much of my own fears I was reading into how people were reacting to me."

"Both more and less than you think. Lindir has been too afraid to converse with you, not because of the Kinslayings, but your musical acumen."

I stared at Glorfindel. Surely I had misheard him. Was I truly that legendary? He laughed in response to what must have been a dumbfounded look on my face.

"Ah, Maglor. You were renowned as a singer long before the Darkening, and that never changed. Do you really think those in Aman stopped playing your songs just because you composed them? You know those in Beleriand did not, even with all the hard feelings against you."

"I know they didn't," I said softly. "If they had, no one would remember the words to the Noldolantë, much less care enough to sing it."

"And that is only your most famous work. Most of the others are still played."

"Please tell me the satires have been forgotten."

"Not at all."

I put down my glass and buried my face in my hands. I could never show my face in Tirion, not that I had any desire to in the first place.

"Things will be interesting again. You think that Elrond's family does not visit him?"

I groaned and peered at the smirking Noldo through my fingers. "Finarfin doesn't like me, and half those satires mock him!"

He chuckled and said, "I know. Let me put it this way: people still laugh at them, the king of the Noldor included. The Eldar do not hate you as much as you think, though you are just going to have to take my word for it for now. You have not met enough people, nor talked with them, to truly know." He grinned. "Though there are a few who want to discuss things with you."

Suspicious, I straightened up. "What things?"

"Pranks a certain peredhel played."

"I am not becoming involved in a such a thing. If Elrohir and his brother want to know, they can ask their father."

"I told Elrond you would say that, but he did not believe me."

"He's too paranoid."

"Says the Elf who refuses to leave his house."

"Two different things. Two entirely different things."

"I know. But Elrohir will be bothering you when you least expect it."

"Then I'm keeping my doors and windows locked." At the look on Glorfindel's face, I rolled my eyes. "And that won't prevent anything, of course."

Glorfindel looked at the sky and put his empty glass down. "I will see you tomorrow, Maglor. My wife will be disappointed if I do not show up soon."

I raised an eyebrow and my glass. He laughed again and headed down the path. I spent a few more minutes outside, but collected his glass and returned indoors. After a few long days of travel, a good night's sleep was going to be wonderful.

* * * * *

Three days later, I stood in Elrond's office, staring at the peredhel, aghast at what he had just told me.

"It will not kill you," he said evenly.

"Elrond, you're the one who gave me that house! Why make me move in here if you wanted to give me privacy in the first place?"

He rubbed his forehead. "I can think of no other guarantee of your safety than having you nearby. Glorfindel had no useful ideas. They predicated on a guard following you around, which he knows is unfeasible for multiple reasons, or they skirted the line of your strictures."

"Let me think about it, Elrond. There has to be another solution."

"I know. Trust me, I know."

I bowed and left his office. I went outside, trying to keep a calm expression on my face. I did not need to frighten anyone. When I reached the hollow just before the crest of the hill where my house was located, I heard a child scream and something come galloping toward me. I spun and instinctively dropped into a fighting stance. From the sound of it, the thing that approached me was friendly, but I wasn't taking any chances. From around the curve of the hill, coming from a group of three small houses set around a grassy courtyard, ran a large brown dog with a large black marking shaped like a saddle on its back. It bounded towards me, barking and tongue lolling, always just out of reach of the golden-haired child chasing it. Him, I revised as the dog spun left, dancing out of reach.

I relaxed and started chuckling. Just a child and her dog playing. I resumed walking up the path, but the dog jumped in front of me. I stopped and the child finally caught up with the dog.

"Bad doggie. Daddy said you have to stay with me."

The dog's tail drooped, and I forcibly reminded myself that some of the creatures in the Blessed Realm were intelligent, especially my brother's hound Huan, who I suspected had been a Maia.

Soft footsteps on the grass behind us made me whip around, but the man running up to us only had eyes for the one who had to be his daughter.

"Ah, Lothluin, please don't run off like that again. Tirn will return when he wants."

He picked his daughter up and settled her against his hip. He turned to me, ignoring the dog who was now sitting politely in the middle of the path. "Please forgive my daughter, Maglor. She is a little excitable. Oh, my name is Tathar."

Nodding a greeting to him, I said, "It's no matter. I know how children can be, especially one her age."

"Yes, having five younger brothers must have been interesting."

I did not try to stifle my smile. "It was. I think Father must have been ready to disown us a few times."

He grinned in response and put down his daughter, who had started to wiggle. "Go home. Your mother wants your help with the cookies." Her eyes lit up and she ran back the way she came. Turning to me, he said, "I must apologize for Tirn. He does not think he's grown up yet, even though he is nearly two."

"Is he yours?" I asked, studying the animal.

"No, but I was keeping him here until I was sure his eye would heal." I looked closer and realized his left eye was missing. I glanced up and Tathar continued. "He is a sheep dog, but something got in his eye and became infected. Rather than have it kill him, we removed it. He can no longer herd sheep, but he is still a guard dog and good with Lothluin. But we cannot keep him."

I studied the animal. He was definitely powerful, and quite fast and agile, judging by the way he had been playing with the child. "What and how much does he eat?"

"Meat, some vegetables- he likes green beans- things like that. Why? Do you want him?"

"Possibly. How is he as a guard?"

"He is protective. It may take a few weeks, if not months, before he transfers that loyalty to you, but he will guard you and your house."

The glint in Tathar's eyes made me realize he knew exactly what I wasn't saying.

"When can he come home with me?"

"Tomorrow after breakfast. I want Lothluin to have a chance to say farewell, and I need to ask the kennel master."

"Thank you," I said. "I… don't really know what else to say. It means a lot that you're doing this."

"Thanks is all that is required, Maglor." Tathar whistled sharply and the dog- Tirn- jumped up and ran to him. The Sinda scratched him behind his upright ears, and the two of them returned to their home. Bemused, I watched Tirn galloping ahead of Tathar as they returned to the middle house of my three neighbors. What had I just agreed to? Furthermore, would Elrond approve? I was fairly sure that he hadn't expected the solution to my problem being a dog.