Work Text:
The portion of the Halls saved for Mahal’s dead children is strewn with flowers, a reminder that Mahal’s love for his wife runs as deep as his love for his children.
Khîm suspects many do not love the flowers as he loves them. Even among the others who love flowers for their beauty, there are few who learned stories of their creation from elves who had learned them at Yavanna’s knees. Fewer still had been given gifts of fabric embroidered by elven princes with small golden flowers.
Only Ibun and Khîmmhad had seen their father love an elf, and only Khîm had embraced an elf as a second father without hesitation.
He misses Finrod. He had missed Finrod in life, and had mourned him from the moment Finrod met him the last time, with a tale of a mortal come to claim his oath and a basket of goods bigger than all the others he had given Khîm before.
But now he misses Finrod’s calm voice and the stories about the flowers, for elves do not come here, and Khîm does not know all the flowers he sees before him.
He walks another loop around the Halls, avoiding others who wish to speak to him. It is only when he walks once more through a room filled with the golden flowers Finrod always wore on his ring and on his clothes that he spots a doorway where none should be.
He cannot see what is behind it. Doubtless he should fetch another dwarf, but it does not seem threatening, so instead he waits in front of it as the doorway stretches higher and higher, until an elf could walk through it without ducking.
And then one does.
“Khîm,” Finrod cries as he steps through.
For a moment Khîm cannot move, he can only stare at Finrod who he never expected to see again.
“How?” Khîm asks at last, when Finrod pulls him into a hug, and then to walk beside him as he sees the Halls where Khîm now dwells.
“I reminded Aulë that I love Ibun and you as he loves his children, and it was for love that he was permitted to keep his,” Finrod says. His eyes sparkle with the light Khîm remembers from every story Finrod ever told him and every kindness that he willingly gave to two motherless dwarves, though there too is the sorrow that lurked when Finrod snuck food to Khîm in Khîm’s exile with his father and brother and the bitterness that Mîm’s love had turned to anger and then to violence. “He has ever been close to the Noldor, and so he granted my request to see you.”
Doubtless it had not been that simple, for Khîm has heard every story Finrod would tell of Finwë and Indis, and of Míriel’s choice, and of how Finwë begged the Valar to return for the Teleri, and how only Olwë and his people had been the only ones to come. But Finrod will not speak of stories he does not wish to tell, and it is clear Finrod does not wish to speak of this, so Khîm only nods.
“I am glad to see you.” Khîm wishes to duck his head with the words, but Finrod’s smile does not let him, for Finrod beams.
“I cannot take you with me and introduce you to my father and mother, nor the rest who I left behind when I chose exile,” Finrod says a moment later. “Not yet, for Aulë alone of the Valar understands my sorrow, and I know not if the others will bend. But I have been permitted to visit you, and I will, as often as I may.”
He does not speak of Ibun, nor of Mîm. Khîm does not ask of them, for Ibun still will not leave his rooms nor allow any to enter save Khîm. Of Mîm no word has passed to Khîm. His father may yet live, or he may keep himself from his sons, for Ibun had spoken once of how Mîm wailed at Khîm’s death. And Finrod’s love for Mîm is mixed with sorrow and distrust now.
Instead he walks beside Finrod, who smiles and greets every dwarf that passes, even the ones who scowl at him.
At last they come to a hall cascading with small white flowers.
“I have not seen these flowers before,” Khîm says. He knows he has not, for he would remember them, delicately shaped like the finest of dwarven bells.
Finrod smiles and cups some of the blooms in his hands, lifting them so Khîm can see the cascading flowers even better, before he plucks a sprig and hands it to Khîm to examine more closely .
“You would not have,” he says when Khîm last finishes his examination. “Yavanna made them for Aulë when the first of the Noldor returned, and they have not yet spread to the lands to the East, for his happiness has not returned there yet.”
Mîm and Ibun would question Finrod further, a thousands questions about what Mahal’s happiness has to do with where flowers grows.
Khîm only looks at Finrod’s brittle smile and leads the elf he loves as a father deeper into the Halls, where Mahal visits his children and comforts those who grieve great losses, and hopes Mahal can bring Finrod more comfort.