Curate, connect, and discover
Y'all the worldbuilding is getting intense rn, I'm having so many thoughts, because Elrond is a mosaic of dozens of different people, so many facets and multitudes, and different people see different things in him. People see his starry grey eyes and dark hair and hear his Voice and think of Lúthien, think of Maglor. They see his braids and attribute it to Turgon’s preference for traditional styles rather than that well-known Fëanorian obsession. His gracious courtly manners are from Melian or Idril, though clearly taught by Maedhros, who learned from Finwë. His skills and wisdom and bearing are clearly passed down from any or all of the 20+ different kings, queens, lords and princesses he is associated with. He dances like Lúthien and Idril. He is as courageous as Fingon and Beren and Eärendil, as fierce in battle as Fingolfin and Maedhros and, Eru forbid, Fëanor. He speaks archaic Quenya, just like the Gondolindrim, if only one ignores the Fëanorian accent. His giggle is Elwing’s, birdlike and odd; his laugh is rich and merry like Finwë’s; that half-despairing chuckle is Beren’s; the endearingly awkward titter is Finarfin’s; the exhilarated whoop is Fingon’s; the manic mid-battle cackle is Fëanor through and through. He fights left-handed like Eärendil and Maedhros, plays the harp right-handed like Fingon and Finrod and Maglor; he can write with either hand, producing a spindly scrawl with his left (so like Maedhros, so like Elwing) and authoritative calligraphy with his right (so like Fëanor, so like Thingol). His eyes are the chasm of the heavens - he gets that from Melian - but did Maeglin not also inherit his piercing gaze from Aredhel? He has his father’s jaw and his mother’s hair, or was it Turgon’’s jaw and Finwë’s hair, or maybe those angular bones came from fair Nimloth and the little flick of a curl at his temple from Beren. In certain lights he’s the spitting image of Thingol - or was it Fingolfin? The tilt of his wrist is as bird-like and fragile as Dior’s, as graceful and deliberate as Idril’s. His cheeks dimple when he smiles, just like Fingon, and his eyes crease when his face softens with fondness, just like Tuor, who looks little like Haleth but in moments like this. When he’s concentrating, the furrow of his brow is Thingol’s and the lip between his teeth is Beren’s, who took after Bëor. That eyebrow raise brings to mind 15 different people, all of them dead. One may look at Elrond and see a lost loved one in his profile, until the light shifts just slightly and he becomes the one who killed them, before he turns his head just so and suddenly looks like a complete stranger. Elrond is a Silmaril of ghosts, each facet a memory, love and terror and awe and joy and grief reflected and refracted upon one another again and again, radiant, hypnotic, infinite.