"I had a ragdoll once." Glorfindel's voice trailed off. It was quiet when he began again. "It was something someone had thrown away. I found her in a trash heap, dumped unceremoniously atop fruit peels and old discarded clothing, waiting to be burned to ash. Clumps of her hair was missing, and there was a rip in her dress, but I pulled her out and gave her a bath in the pond, and took her home."
"She lived under my bed, in a special little box," he continued softly. "When I ran away from home, she came with me to Gondolin. Then I hid her under my pillow. There were a lot of times when I was young that I held her and cried; she was the only one I could talk to about anything - until I met you."
Erestor tightened his embrace around his lover, his husband. Glorfindel snuggled closer.
"I suppose she ended up burned into nothing when the city fell. It was not as if there was much left of her - she was so raggedy by then."
Unsure of whether or not to speak, Erestor finally said, "I know her fate."
Shifting to look into Erestor's eyes, Glorfindel's expression begged his mate to continue.
"You must know by now that I took one last walk through the ruins before I left. It was after the survivors had fled, after the orc had run away, after the final dragon had been beaten by the eagles. I made my way through the streets, very slowly for my ankle as you know was injured, and I looked everywhere for any last survivors."
"And?" questioned Glorfindel.
"There was only one." Erestor blushed slightly; his cover now blown. He sensed Glorfindel had figured it out as well - who but someone in love, holding onto a memory, would save such a thing for so many years? "Wait here," promised Erestor, crawling out of bed to retrieve something lost but not forgotten from a small wooden box beneath the bed.
