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Elrond gazed at Galadriel one last time before turning his horse to follow Arondir away from the settlement.
Galadriel, light of his life, light of them all , had not been glowing lately. She had been listless .
And who could blame her?
The daring commander of the northern armies, suffering from a wound which no longer bled but continued to pain her nonetheless. And as a result, Galadriel was confined within the terribly insufficient protection of Imladris.
But the still-under-construction walls of Imladris were the reason he needed to venture away from her. To hold off the orcs for one more day, while the strength of the rings’ protection grew around the city.
They reentered the settlement just before nightfall. His father’s star was visible on their last stretch through the woods, although it was hidden by buildings once he and Arondir had passed through the gates.
Elrond’s first thought, on joining the elves sitting down to dinner, was to look for Galadriel.
But she wasn’t among the others, chatting happily past their raised forks.
The day’s ride had made Elrond too hungry to attempt to find her until he’d filled his plate at least once. But as he ate his way through his meal, his eyes repeatedly flicked up. Each search across the room failed to find her.
Had the pain of the wound grown worse again - was it confining Galadriel not only to Imladris, but within her bed?
Or was she physically fine, but too mentally drained to remember to eat?
Elrond wasn’t sure which possibility was worse, and his concern for her drained all flavour from the perfectly well-cooked food in his mouth. He replaced his utensils on his plate, and abruptly stood up, though the plate was not yet empty.
At least Gil-galad was easy to spot through the crowded room, in his bright royal robes. Surely he would know how Galadriel was doing?
Gil-galad seemed to be in the middle of lecturing Camnir on proper archery techniques. Seeing Camnir’s slightly glazed expression, and feeling his own racing pulse, Elrond felt himself justified in interrupting.
“I beg your pardon, High King,” Elrond cut in, struggling to keep his voice level, “But do you know where Galadriel is tonight?”
Gil-galad waved his hand vaguely. “I believe she was in the hospital today.”
This answer did nothing to reduce Elrond’s heart rate. “In the hospital? And you didn’t think - all the time I’ve wasted in here -”
Camnir stopped Elrond with the slightest headshake, and a gentle hand on his forearm. “She’s not unwell. She was helping to care for the others. But she’ll still be glad to see you.”
“You can see her right now, if you’d both look up,” Gil-galad chided them. “She’s taking two plates.”
Elrond caught the last swish of light, golden hair walking away. The greatest sight in the world, he thought to himself for a moment - and yet wasn’t that what everyone thought, of the golden maiden who had inspired the Silmarils?
He pulled himself out of his daydream and bowed his goodbye.
“I’ll join her in the hospital.”
Galadriel’s voice was audible well before Elrond could see her, or the elf she was talking to, in detail through the poor light.
“But why are you worried about the peas being lonely, and not the potatoes?” Galadriel was asking, extremely seriously.
“Peas grow up with lots of friends! The potatoes can’t see other potatoes in the ground.” The speech was interrupted by an aggressive metal-on-porcelain noise, and the next words were more muffled, as though spoken around a mouthful of food. “They don’t care that they can’t see in my belly .”
Confused, Elrond moved closer. Galadriel was seated on the edge of a hospital bed, whose small occupant had tilted her head at Elrond with curiosity. The short, haphazard hair of a child expecting to climb trees, not sit indoors, and matching energetic eyes. But she didn’t wait for Elrond to ask the first question.
“Who are you?”
Galadriel seemed amused by the outspoken child, and her laughter brought a bright colour to her cheeks.
Elrond felt the tightness in his chest, which had been growing since the start of dinner, finally started to dissipate.
“Oh, Haeressel, this is Elrond, Lord of Imladris! Surely you’ve seen him?”
Under the small child’s inquisitive gaze, sustained far longer than he would have expected her patience to last, Elrond felt the tips of his ears flush pink.
“What makes you a Lord?” she asked finally. “You don’t look any different to a regular elf.”
“Well, the High King declared it...” Elrond attempted.
“If the King makes himself a Lord, is he still the King?”
Elrond had to admit he had never prepared for such a question. He struggled to come up with a sensible response, but eventually gave up in defeat. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”
The child returned her attention to her plate, and Galadriel stood, following Elrond a short distance away.
When they seemed out of the child’s notice, Elrond clasped her hands in both of his own, the concern he’d felt earlier creeping back into his voice.
“Are you sure you’re fine?” he asked, “I’d heard you were in the hospital, and -”
She squeezed his hands in response. “My wound remains, but I have grown in my ability to ignore it. I truly only came here today to help. You, of course, know how many are in need of healing...”
“Well, it seems you’ve found yourself fully occupied with exactly one of those,” Elrond said, directing his sight back to the hospital bed.
Galadriel turned to follow his gaze. “Yes, Haeressel, isn’t she wonderful!” Her voice grew dark. “But you have only seen her since her food has been here - before, I had to go to great lengths, to keep her spirits up.”
Though his thoughts had been dominated, lately, by Galadriel’s injury, many other elves who gathered in Imladris had also suffered in the escape from Eregion. And children were clearly included in that number.
“She is gravely injured?”
Galadriel’s face twisted in a way Elrond couldn’t immediately place.
“She has only a broken arm -”
Elrond squinted, and realised only one of the girl’s arms was visible above the sheet, aggressively stabbing the contents of a plate balanced unsteadily on her lap. That explained the volume of her cutlery nosies.
“But the orcs sent her parents to the Halls of Mandos during the battle.”
Elrond’s heart fell.
Was this Haeressel older or younger than he had been when his father left, when his mother left, when he and Elros had their lives completely upended? Maglor and Maedhros had raised them well, in their way. But still, Elrond was a different person than he would have been, had Earendil and Elwing been there throughout his childhood.
He squeezed Galadriel’s hand again.
He wanted to aid Galadriel in cheering this girl, to show his love for his people as Galadriel seemed able to do, but the sudden crash of feelings would surely prevent his being useful. For now, at least.
He looked directly into Galadriel’s eyes. How was it possible to express to someone, who had been raised by their parents, what it meant to barely remember yours? To be unsure what they would make of the person you had become?
Could Galadriel understand the great rip that still tore through him, all these millennia later? How his love for the brothers who had adopted him fought with love for the parents he had lost?
And yet since Elrond’s youth, Galadriel had seemed to know how to raise his spirits when he missed his family. He would trust in her instincts to care for another lost child.
“Take good care of her.” He brushed his fingers along her arm and was gone.
It would not do for the residents of Imladris, the people he was supposed to lead, to see him cry.
Elrond was surprised to see Galadriel at the council meeting the next morning. Of course, she’d taken an active interest in the governance of Imladris the whole time they’d been there, but the meetings themselves had been too taxing. Each week, Elrond had made his way to her rooms, afterwards, to report on what they’d discussed.
And he was even more surprised to see the slight circles under her eyes. The yawns, which she occasionally had to obscure with a hand.
When the council had agreed on an approach to protecting the elven rings from Sauron - Gil-galad would return with Vilya to Lindon, as soon as Imladris was more established, so there could be no single location for Sauron to attack - Elrond followed Galadriel back to her rooms.
“My friend, I worry your wound is draining your energy too much,” he began, holding her hand to help lower her into her chair. “You know the council would not ignore your thoughts, were you to rest here and share your thoughts with me afterwards.”
When she had settled herself, and pressed his hand in thanks, Galadriel shook her head resolutely. In spite of her tiredness, her eyes seemed to sparkle. “You know I love our discussions here, dear Elrond. But I am not in need of healing - I only spent the night sharing a very small bed.”
Elrond tried to suppress the involuntary pang that ran through his heart - she would never share his bed, would she, not now when it was more of a cot, nor in future with whatever chambers were pressed on him as Lord of Imladris?
But he quickly realised what she was referring to and his eyes widened. “The girl - Haeressel?”
“Her mother used to comfort her in her nightmares,” Galadriel explained, sadly.
Elrond’s heart was torn between admiration, for Galadriel’s warm, open heart - and a continued fear that she would over exhaust herself. And how would that benefit Haeressel? How would he cope, without her?
But he could not fault Galadriel for loving an orphaned child. Not when Galadriel’s fierce protection of others had always been what attracted him.
“I am sure she is grateful to you,” Elrond stated, finally.
“Was there anything you specifically wanted to discuss? I should like to go back to her.”
Elrond pondered for a moment. “This seems less necessary, when you shared your opinions at the time. Only - since you had not been attending the council meetings. The change of heart - why?” He broke off.
“How could I sit with her without doing everything in my power to fight the evil that has taken her parents? Everything in my power to prevent other children ending up the same way?”
Elrond shook his head thoughtfully. His thoughts drifted to the day before. “That is what motivates me with every military party.”
Galadriel rewarded him with a warm smile.
“But, please - continue to tell the healers how your wound progresses. If there is anything that can be done.”
He did not mention that it was not only the orphans - like Haeressel now, and like Elrond himself had been - he desperately wished to protect when he ventured outside of the city. Perhaps most of all, he was motivated to safeguard Galadriel herself.
When Elrond returned from another military party, he knew where to go directly. As expected, Galadriel sat at Haeressel’s bedside - though now, she seemed sufficiently well established to have a chair, and was intently folding paper.
As this party had returned earlier, while it was still light, Elrond held back, watching the pair of elves before him, trying not to disturb them.
The girl did not seem to be in the same positive mood he had seen yesterday.
“And as Finrod told me, this little boat, it does see the darkness. The important thing isn’t to close our eyes to the darkness, but to also look for the light -”
“But Finrod isn’t here anymore, either.”
Galadriel stood from her chair, shifting to the bed. Haeressel may have missed the pause halfway through, the wince as Galadriel’s hand touched the scar from Morgoth’s crown, but Elrond’s sharp eyes tracked it. And in spite of that, once she was seated again, Galadriel reached out, through her own pain, to stroke the child’s face.
“You’re right, sweet child, Finrod is gone. And I miss him - I miss all of my family, who stayed in Valinor or returned to the Halls of Mandos. But there are other sources of joy - they do not replace Finrod, but I can love those I have here in their own ways. We need to experience joy in Middle Earth, until we are able to go home to Valinor.” Her tone grew more cheerful, though Elrond was sure it was forced. “Like I now find joy in you!”
Elrond felt he had been standing in the shadows long enough.
“Good afternoon, Haeressel, my lady Galadriel?”
“I don’t think it’s good,” Haeressel insisted, slowly. She curled closer into Galadriel’s body, hiding her face - presumably in an effort to hold back tears. The war had forced all children to age too fast. “How can it be good without my parents?”
Arriving to stand beside them, Elrond placed a hand on Galadriel’s shoulder. His heart ached for Haeressel, of course. But surely it was also painful for Galadriel, in addition to her physical suffering, to work so hard to cheer a child, and yet remain powerless in the face of Sauron’s devastation?
“Then, afternoon that I hope will get better, though it is not as good as we wish, Haeressel, my lady Galadriel,” Elrond corrected himself, mock bowing to each of them in turn.
The child’s voice, normally so precocious, remained hesitant, though she had the energy to change the topic. “Sir Lord, can I... be your lady too?”
Elrond was confused for a moment, but Galadriel laughed. “His name is Elrond, meleth , Lord of Imladris is just a title.”
Elrond grinned, understanding better. “And of course, my lady Haeressel. I’m certain your ladyship’s parents will be proud of your elevation in rank when you see them again in Valinor.”
The girl finally seemed to be starting to smile.
Galadriel bent down to kiss Haeressel’s forehead. They were so sweet together, Elrond thought. Galadriel mothering her, kissing her forehead protectively, was perfectly suited to them both. Galadriel’s fiery energy had finally found an appropriate outlet, while she didn’t have one astride her horse.
The rapid swelling of his pulse completely drowned out Elrond’s ability to think, and before he had regained it, Elrond had pressed his own kiss to Galadriel’s forehead.
So close, the floral scent of her hair was as glorious as its colour.
He could feel Galadriel start with surprise, but for the briefest moment, before he came to his senses and withdrew, he almost imagined that Galadriel was pressing her forehead closer against his lips.
“I just - thought you might feel left out,” Elrond stammered, foolishly, his fingers suddenly fidgeting and entwining themselves. Of course that was nonsense. Galadriel had been the one kissing Haeressel’s forehead - he was the one left out.
And he had not wished to be.
“I should return to my duties,” he said, after another pause. Elrond turned without waiting to see the reception for his ridiculous explanation of an inexplicable action.
Elrond had much to stew over, as he lay in his cot.
He sighed audibly. Thankfully, there was nobody present to hear his exasperation.
Most firmly, his thoughts fixed on his own action at the end of their conversation.
Of course Elrond had recognised the feelings within his heart towards Galadriel before. But he had believed himself to be more mature. To be a responsible elf in control of the expression of his feelings.
Once again, his impulsive man half had appeared.
Elrond rolled onto his side, curling tighter together.
A kiss on the forehead was not necessarily romantic? Galadriel had kissed the young elleth on the forehead, obviously. But that had been maternal . Galadriel was a far more ancient elf than himself. She had been in Valinor, she had watched him grow up into his role in Gil-galad’s court, Elrond had no right to treat Galadriel in such a way, and Galadriel would not be forgiving, if that was how she saw his behaviour.
Could she have interpreted the kiss as merely friendly? That was his hope.
Elrond sat up. It was pointless to remain in bed, when his overactive ruminations would not allow him to make actual use of it. He stepped quietly to the window, but his father’s star wasn’t visible, amid the clusters of quickly assembled accommodation.
And even if he had been able to see Earendil’s star, when had it ever given the guidance he’d truly needed? In love, or anything else?
As close friends as he was with Galadriel, the fact remained that Elrond had not kissed her forehead from his feelings of friendship. And when the world awoke, they would have to wrestle with that fact.
Remaining at the window was pointless. He would attempt to look over some letters that had arrived from the other elven kingdoms, Elrond eventually told himself. He had been neglecting them over the previous days, due to the need to ride out of the city walls.
And due to the stretches of time he had spent in the hospital, or Galadriel’s rooms, of course, but he tried to ignore those.
But even sitting at his desk, Elrond found his thoughts wandering. The words before him seemed to wander through his mind without being absorbed.
Hadn’t Galadriel’s speech, before his kiss, stirred and sparked some of his feelings?
Who was Galadriel referring to when she told Haeressel of loving others, in Middle Earth, while she missed Finrod? Though she might not love Elrond as he wished, she had said before that she loved him as a close friend, had she not?
Could Elrond master his desires, to be satisfied with their friendship?
He wasn’t aware of it, but somehow, his head fell to the desk in an approximation of sleep.
Elrond thought the presence of the child would make meeting Galadriel less awkward. He found her with Haeressel, as expected.
After he’d last been there, somebody must have swapped Haeressel’s cot for a larger bed. Galadriel lay above the blanket beside the girl, thankfully less cramped than she must have been on her previous night in the hospital.
Elrond’s eyes rested on Galadriel’s relaxed form for a moment. The mark, where the evil crown had stabbed her, was visible above her collar, and he felt an urge to caress it, but stopped himself, worried that would increase the pain.
The wider bed seemed to have been effective in improving Galadriel’s sleep. Although her eyes showed she was awake, she had the restful smile of one only recently returned to consciousness, and the previous dark circles were no longer present beneath her eyes.
Elrond dragged his eyes away from Galadriel, telling himself he had no right to wish her sleeping in a very different bed. Oh, to be the elf who watched her beautiful transition from dreams to liveliness every day!
When she felt she had his attention, Haeressel launched into her usual energetic conversation.
“My lord Elrond,” Haeressel began, imperiously, and Elrond smiled, “You also need to sleep. And there is space for both of you in my bed!”
Elrond looked hesitantly at Galadriel. To his surprise, considering his recent behaviour, she nodded, apparently impervious to feelings which made him exquisitely happy - and yet irredeemably miserable. Without an excuse to deny the child’s whims, Elrond made his way to the other side and sat hesitantly on the edge of the bed. When Haeressel had shifted herself closer to the middle and Elrond had removed his shoes, he found there was sufficient space for him, too, to lie above the sheet.
Elrond continued to feel out of place, in this position. But what had Galadriel said when she spent the night comforting the child before?
He could not deny Haeressel his support, if she needed it. He turned his head to look at her. “Have you had nightmares, my sweet lady Haeressel?”
She tried to keep a brave face, but nodded. “I keep seeing the orcs, coming through the doors and grabbing -” Haeressel broke off, but the implication was clear.
Elrond thought he saw her shiver, and reached an arm out to envelop her, carefully avoiding the broken arm - but withdrew it when he found Galadriel was already holding her.
Their eyes met across the girl, and Elrond felt warmed by their shared affection. A marked improvement over the weeks they had been fighting about the rings.
“That must be very painful to remember,” Elrond attempted to soothe her, and she burrowed deeper under the blankets.
“Thank you for protecting me.” Her voice was small, and hesitant, slightly muffled by the sheet.
“Of course.”
“We always will,” Galadriel added.
“Always?” she repeated, pausing before coming out with a question which clearly took bravery, “Like... my new Imladris parents?”
No adoptions had happened yet, in the new city, as far as Elrond knew. His heart told him where the child was going, with her question, but he still pulled back slightly. “What do you mean? Who are your new Imladris parents?”
“Galadriel tells me I’ll never stop missing my parents.”
Elrond agreed. “My parents also left when I was very young,” he sympathised, “And I’m sure you think I’m very old now, but their loss is still a gaping emptiness inside me that can never fill. And yet - I am grateful for the life I have here.”
He risked a look directly at Galadriel.
“For the people I have here,” Elrond added.
Haeressel might not have understood all of his meaning, but she nodded. “And I can also have people here who make me happy. And you make me happy, and Galadriel makes me happy, and I want you to be my new Imladris parents.”
It was too much, too early in the morning.
“I have responsibilities to all of Imladris, not only to you,” Elrond said gently.
Galadriel was immediately sitting up, looking at him, a fire in her voice. “And your meaning?”
Elrond sat up in turn.
“Of course I care for her! Only... I don’t know if I will always spare the time she deserves.”
“Galadriel says I won’t be in hospital forever! I’m going to come with you to rule and meet the High King,” Haeressel cut in, eagerly.
Galadriel leaned over to ruffle the girl’s hair. Elrond tried not to allow himself to be distracted by what it did to her silhouette.
“I’m sure the High King will be glad to hear your opinions, dear one.” She turned back to Elrond and motioned towards the door. “Go, rest, attend to your other duties. But you and I will discuss this later .”
Elrond wasn’t sure if that was a threat.
Galadriel came to find him at work in the library. The anger seemed gone from her face, but she sat beside him, looking ahead of her, rather than meeting his eyes.
Elrond paused in his reading when she arrived, but as she didn’t begin to speak, he looked back down and resumed taking notes.
“Do you not want to have another family?” she asked, finally.
Elrond flinched. “Nobody will replace Elros.” He attempted a laugh, but was sure it would fool nobody. “And I have already been through my two sets of parents, and now all four of them are gone.”
Galadriel placed a hand on his forearm, and slowly ran it up the length of his sleeve, to his shoulder, and back down again. “As Haeressel has understood, a new family does not replace the old one. It simply adds a new dimension to who you are, and your attachment to your place in the world.” She paused. “But if you do not feel ready - or do not ever wish - to be a father, she will not demand it.”
“I do not have an issue with becoming a father.” Elrond could hear the longing in his own voice, and attempted a deep breath to settle his nerves. “I am scared of becoming a family with the mother Haeressel has chosen.”
Galadriel drew back her hand sharply. “With me? But - Elrond - I thought we had always been friends? Of course we will be able to agree on how to raise her!”
Elrond tilted his head back in the hopes of keeping his tears from escaping down his cheeks. “I know we are friends!”
From the corner of his eye, he could see her place her hand on the table. It slid slightly over towards his own, which was now clutching his pen with far more force than when he’d been writing.
Though he couldn’t imagine it would please her, he would have to reveal his feelings, to justify refusing to parent jointly. Were they both to adopt Haeressel - that relationship would be too close to what he really wanted, and yet too far. Elrond would not be able to cope.
“We are friends, and yet I think to care for Haeressel together - much as I do already care for Haeressel, I promise you, just as fiercely as you can yourself - to care with you, in this way, will be too difficult.”
“Because of your other responsibilities. Because I will not be a sufficient mother, while you are taken up with leading our people.”
Elrond shook his head. “That is not my issue either! Galadriel, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“And what is hurting me more than discarding this child who has grown to look up to you? A child you yourself told me to take care of?”
Elrond sighed. “I do not wish to hurt her any more than you do. Galadriel, must you really insist on the truth?”
She responded with a stony silence that Elrond felt obliged, finally, to fill.
His voice was so soft he wasn’t sure she would hear. “Galadriel, there - there is a form of family I wish to be with you, and if we were a family with Haeressel - and yet you choose not to love me in the way I wish for - my feelings for you could not handle that, Galadriel!”
Rather than leaving in fury, Elrond felt Galadriel’s head sink onto his shoulder. He could smell her hair, refreshing and warm, the same as it had been during his foolish forehead kiss.
She must not have heard him, must not have understood his meaning, he told himself.
But her words revealed otherwise. “I thought I felt your feelings when you kissed me. But then you left.”
Elrond couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you not angry with me?”
Her head moved against his shoulder, but he couldn’t tell whether she was nodding yes or no. Then her hand on the table reached his, and carefully unpeeled his fingers from the pen. With their fingers intertwined, her palm was warm.
“Why would I be angry, meleth ?”
“I just always assumed... you have known me since I was young, and impulsive, and foolish. I didn’t deserve you - I still don’t deserve you. And if you’d wanted something other than friendship, you had centuries to ask for it.”
“As did you.”
He conceded that point, and was left to his chaotic mixture of emotions.
“Are you going to kiss me again?” she finally asked.
He tried to twist his mouth to reach her forehead, but it was difficult, where she rested on his shoulder.
“If you could move slightly -”
She sat back up, sheepishly, and Elrond stood, to reach her forehead with his lips. He gave himself slightly longer than the previous time - she wanted this, she had asked for it, he reminded himself - but still drew back after a moment.
Galadriel stood to meet him. “I wasn’t asking only for my forehead,” she murmured, and met his lips with her own.
The taste of Galadriel’s lips was different from the smell of her hair - a smell Elrond had only so recently grown familiar with, and yet that felt seared in his brain. But her lips - she was sweetness, but refreshing. Her lips were soft and moist, and he felt a draw to keep touching them with his own, once he had started, which no practice of self-control over the centuries could enable him to overcome.
Still, Elrond’s hands were free to explore, to roam up and down, to tangle themselves in her hair drawing her head closer, then press themselves into the curve of her back, wanting the full length of their bodies to finally be joined. But when he reached the neckline of her dress with one finger, Galadriel sprang back, both of them falling into their chairs.
“The wound it - it didn’t like that,” she gasped.
“You mean you didn’t.”
“No,” Galadriel insisted, reaching out to take Elrond’s hands in her own. “I want to be with you. I revel in your touch. But the wound - sometimes I think I feel his spirit. As though he’s in it - as though it has a will of its own.”
“So you’re not healed enough!” Elrond stood, dropping her hands to pace in a furious circle. “There must be more we could do - and if we get together, it will only make you worse - and I could not risk that.”
Galadriel stood, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t want to waste my life hoping the wound will heal. Perhaps it never will. I want to live, and love, even through the pain.”
Elrond let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. “So we will form a family?”
“In which we parent Haeressel together,” Galadriel agreed, stroking her thumb over Elrond’s fingers where their hands met, “Though we cannot replace her parents, and she cannot replace the family we have lost.”
Elrond paused, tidying away the remnants of their evening meal. Of course he enjoyed discussing politics with Gil-galad as they ate, or welcoming new arrivals into the community - but it was special to have a place of their own, to some days be a family of three.
Or, three, plus all of their family members now in Valinor or elsewhere.
Perhaps when Haeressel had joined the other elven children for lessons, Elrond and Galadriel could work towards expanding that number further. Galadriel seemed to have regained her former confidence on a horse, in spite of the forever wound, so that boded well for other physical activities.
Elrond blushed and busied himself again with the plates, though nobody was around to read his thoughts.
By the time Elrond finished washing their dishes, Galadriel had led Haeressel to bed. But Elrond still stopped at her bedside, to add a kiss to her forehead, and was unsurprised when small arms reached around his neck and held tight for a moment.
It helped that both of Haeressel’s arms were back to full health. Some physical ailments could heal, though not all.
It didn’t matter, Elrond knew, that Haeressel was now in her own bed. By the time he woke up, she would of course, be in their larger, shared bed. Right in between Elrond and Galadriel. Right where she belonged.
With Haeressel asleep, Elrond rejoined Galadriel at the kitchen window. He was grateful for their newly chosen accommodation - built high into the cliff, with a view above the trees. From here, his father’s star was visible.
Earendil provided no more advice about love than he ever had before. But Elrond did not need advice about love - love, Elrond had learnt to navigate for himself.
And Elrond was grateful to see Gil-Estel in spite of its lack of advice. Gil-Estel - like his wife and his daughter and the city they would make their home, like the many family members they loved though they could not see in the flesh - provided joy.