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'At first it didn't even feel hot,' thought Glorendil son of Glorfindel, scion of the House of the Golden Flower, as he shielded his King Turgon from the blast.
The tongue of flame melted his shield. His arm felt encased by ice, for a least several heart beats before the pain began.
Glorendil screamed, and Turgon dragged him away, concealing them both behind a marble column, one which was miraculously still standing.
Panting in agony - he knew he must not scream for it would reveal their hiding spot to the dragon- Glorendil leaned against his King. The scattered survivors of Aran Turgon's bodyguard, Glorendil's fellows, regrouped around them. Aran Turgon and his personal honor guard had drawn the worst of the creatures further into the great hall, whilst Glorendil's father, Tuor and Princess Idril led the bulk of the surviving Gondolindrim to safety
"We have little left that will even inconvenience that beast and its fellows, Aran-nin." Spoke Captain Lumbacundo.
"We have a roof." Glorendil murmured, looking up at the arched ceiling, with its rotating panorama of sun and night sky. Millions of jewels and decades of work by artisans and engineers had gone into the building of it, hundreds of panels with clouds, rain, sunrises, sunsets, and every season of stars. Stars made of a steel and mithril alloy, forged by dwarves and honed by elven smiths.
"Hush, titta Arandil." Soothed Turgon, evidently mistaking Glorendil's utterance for pain-induced nonsense.
He frowned, and tried again. Captain Lumbundo was saying something about getting Aran Turgon to safety, but...
"Stupid Captain Lumbacundo," Glorendil said, unfortunately aloud, "The Aran will not go."
"Quiet, Soldier." Lumbacundo snapped, after he and Turgon both stared at Glorendil for half a heart beat, "We don't have time for this now." Lumbacundo continued with calm urgency, "Majesty, that ceiling Laurefindilion so admires might fall at any moment."
"Not the ceiling." Glorendil clarified, wishing that he could think beyond the agony consuming his arm. "The stars. The stars need to fall."
Everyone was staring at him again.
"On the dragon." He added, in case that hadn't been clear.
"On the dragon...." Lumbacundo hissed, laying a gentle hand on Glorendil's knee. "Majesty, I will go and move the panels." It would be a one-way trip. The other guards would do their best to distract the dragon which still followed them, but it would not be enough. And the commotion would likely draw the beast's fellows.
Turgon closed his eyes in pain, and nodded briefly. "Your service honors me, Lundo." He said softly to his long-time retainer.
"I never REALLY hated you." Glorendil offered, feeling that he should add something after having just accidentally called his former training officer stupid, "And I have always respected your courage and heart."
"You are worse than your father, in ways both good and bad." Lumbacundo replied, his dark eyes trained on Glorendil as he stripped off the heaviest of his armor to aid in his sprint, "Whether they love you or hate you, no one will ever forget the golden and ebony flowers of Gondolin."
Then Lumbacundo was gone. The dragon roared, one mighty claw swiping at Lumbacundo. The Captain leapt over it, then made a second leap, dodging the beast's jaw by such a narrow margin that Lumbacundo lost a braid. A spear thrown by Turgon distracted the dragon just long enough for Lumbacundo to make good his dash. The spear also gave away their position. Glorendil, being half-carried behind the Aran's granite throne, must have lost consciousness for several moments. The next thing he knew, the stars were falling.
"Hold up Lundo's shield with your good arm, titta Arandil." King Turgon told him gently, using his pet name for Glorendil. "Little King's friend," it meant, and ever before Turgon had only used it on the most informal of occasions.
Finding strength from he knew not where, Glorendil held up the shield. He did scream in torment as one of the heavy stars glanced off his shield, but the angle of the throne and the columns mostly kept them safe. Half of the dragons lay dead, after, including the large one that had targeted the King and his beleaguered guards. The great lizards seemed discouraged - perhaps they had not known that they could die? Unfortunately, the orcs were not so discouraged. A healer Glorendil didn't recognize found them in the thick of the fight. A flask was held up to his lips and he drank. The pain faded to a mere discomfort, and Glorendil of the House of the Golden Flower drew his blade and waded boldly into the fray.
Time passed, he knew not how much. There were ranks upon ranks of orcs, and the dragons regrouped as well. Glorendil's shield arm was useless, and he took another gout of dragon fire, this time to his face, when he was too slow in turning. The pain didn't come, this time. He couldn't see out of his right eye, and Glorendil vaguely recognized that as a problem, but it was one that could be dealt with later, if there was a later. His father had made him practice drills with both eyes covered, so fighting with one did not much slow him.
At the last, only three elves remained standing. King Turgon, Sir Hasseron of the House of the Swallow, and Glorendil. Turgon had taken a lethal wound, and Glorendil's new goal - his only remaining goal - was to see his King's dying body to safety so that it was not defiled by the orcs, or taken as a prize to their master. With Hasseron following closely behind, it was now Glorendil's turn to half-carry his King as they fled swiftly up a staircase open to the cliffs beyond. Just another hundred yards, and they would reach a key stone which, if removed, would topple the tower, bringing their death and that of many enemies, who would then be unable to follow the other elves of Gondolin as they retreated.
Glorendil didn't even see the eagle, at first. The clean breeze from its feathered wings hit his face, waking pain on his left cheek. It banked as Turgon spoke to it - him- and easily followed them the rest of the way to the keystone. Glorendil pulled the mighty stone lever to release the diamond-and-mithril rod at his King's command, but what Turgon commanded next, Glorendil could not do.
"No! I will not leave you, Aranya." Glorendil cried. He loved his King like an uncle, and besides, he had sworn an oath to protect this elf, and Gondolin, unto his death.
Turgon's expression grew firm even through his grimace of pain. "Nothing this side of the sea can save me, titta Arandilya. And you WILL go, for I command it. And you are my loyal retainer, are you not?"
Glorendil was, yes, but he was also his father's son. "We all leave, or none of us leave." He said stubbornly, as the great tower began to groan and sway.
"Nienna's tears, boy!" The King snapped, driven beyond patience. "I should have let your father keep you home until you were old enough to obey!"
Glorendil had to grin, at that. Amusing his 'Uncle Turgon,' often by inadvertently reminding the King of his father Glorfindel, had been a particularly successful way to get to do things before thought he was old enough for all of his life. As recently as last week, in fact.
Then Turgon nodded to Hasseron over Glorendil's head. A sharp pain to his temple, and the next thing Glorendil remembered was screaming in anguish, and Hasseron holding him still as the stars of Middle Earth shone above them.
It took the burns over a decade to heal. Glorendil's father and mother, Glorfindel and Laureamoriel, were confirmed dead. So too were his Uncles, Siromo and Helyandur, and Helyandur's wife Lindanelle and their son, Glorendil's only cousin, Laurehandon. And his Aunt Lindanelle's older brother, Lord Ecthelion of the House of the Fountain. Glorendil had seen him fall.
"Glorendil" died in Gondolin, or what was left of his youth did. He took the name Arandil, in honor of the service to the King that he and his beloved father had both shared. Arandil allowed it to be forgotten that the great Glorfindel of Gondolin had even had a son. For Glorfindel became a hero, in the wake of the Fall of Gondolin, and deservedly so, for slaying a balrog at the cost of his own life. Every elf on Middle Earth knew his name, and so did Men, and the Enemy. Arandil was proud of his father - had always been proud of his father - but in the wake of Glorfindel's unlikely success he felt more keenly the pain of his own failure, leaving Turgon behind.
Arandil did not think he could bear to answer questions about his father from all of those people who had never known Glorfindel of Gondolin as anything other than a legend. Glorendil had always had to share Glorfindel, always had to struggle to make his own life in the shadow of his father's golden greatness. Scarred and shadowed and saddened, Arandil did not think that he could live that way any longer. Particularly not since Glorfindel had succeeded in securing the safety of Idril, Tuor, Earendil, and many other Gondolindrim, whereas Glorendil left Turgon to die, willingly or no.
In time, Arandil married a pretty young apprentice healer, Elain, whose mother had carried the baby Princess Elwing safely away from the Kin-Slaying at Doriath. The patience Arandil had gained, in healing from the burns and learning a new trade, brought him to the attention of the young Aran Ereinion. So he became King's friend again, and served Ereinion Gil-galad, first as tutor to the young peredhil Elrond and Elros, then as soldier and diplomat.
As the peace of the Second Age began, Arandil allowed himself to forget that he'd ever been Glorendil of the House of the Golden Flower. His sword lay in a chest with his wife's fine linens and then the outgrown baby clothes of their son, Erestor. Arandil went to Eregion to serve as Gil-galad's ambassador there, and his son befriended Celebrian, the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn. When he was grown, Erestor traveled to Lindon and became the friend and retainer of Elrond Earendilion.
Rumors made their way to Eregion in the year 1600 of the Second Age, whispers that Glorfindel of Gondolin had returned to Middle Earth, in the company of two Istari, Pallando and Alatar. But many strange rumors were finding their way to Eregion in those years, after Galadriel and Celeborn had left but before Celebrimbor realized that Annatar was Sauron the Deceiver. And not all of Gil-Galad's messengers made it safely to Gondolin. At the last, Gil-galad's request that Arandil and Elain leave Eregion for the safety of Lindon became an order. And it was then, at the end of that journey in Gil-galad's great sea-side palace, that Arandil first saw his father again.
It was like dragonfire, at first. Nothing, at first, but shock and numbness. Then the joy came, and it was nothing like the dragon fire, for all his heart felt burned and scored. For he was in his father's arms, and Arandil was still Glorendil, with the claim to both the sorrows and the joys of that name. And with a full claim to his father's displeasure, when Glorfindel learned that his own son did not even know which linen chest his sword had been packed into!