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Chapter Text

         The empty halls of the abandoned station were silent but for the soft sounds of Erestor's footsteps. A fine layer of dust covered everything. The environmental systems were running the bare minimum to keep the halls pressurized and most of the gravity stabilizers on. When Erestor glanced over his shoulder he could see only his own steps and the thin tracks of his wagon in the dim light of the hall.

        Gondolin Station was a relic of the First Age. Its location had been lost to time and the wreckage of the War of Wrath that had torn the galaxy apart for over four centuries. Once the dust had settled from that the whole configuration of the galaxy had been changed. Nebulae had been torn apart. Black holes created out of stars, twisting vast regions of space uninhabitable. The entire Beleriand sector was wracked with dangerous gravitational waves and massive belts of asteroids and other hidden debris that could destroy a curious ship in seconds.

        The Beleriand sector was also a place where a body could make themselves a fortune if they were daring enough to chance those dangers. Relics from the abandoned cities went for vast fortunes in the auction houses of Ost-in-Edhil. Orc raiders still lingered in the large moons that survived the War of Wrath, breeding in the Dark and coming out into the rest of the galaxy to pillage and destroy what they could before slipping back into the wilds of that ruined sector.

        Then there were ships like Elrond's. The Imladris had been built by the smiths of Moria – or Khazad-dûm if using the language of the dwarves – a gift from then-Prince Durin IV to Elrond on his marriage to Celebrían, daughter of Galadriel, the Lady of the Lothlórien sector. The Imladris spent much of its time in the greater Arda galaxy, taking in any and all who needed medical help. However, a part of every year was spent inside the Beleriand sector, searching for Númenor and any trace of Elrond's long lost brother Elros.

        Elrond and Elros were young when the War of Wrath began and Erestor himself was a child when it ended. Elrond and Elros had been sent to the Eriador sector and into Mithlond Station with Gil-galad by their parents to be safe during the worst of the fighting. Erestor knew that at some point all three went back into Beleriand to fight against the forces of Morgoth and that Elros had somehow rallied the races of Men under his banner and had become their king. There had been some sort of rift in the forces of elves and men towards the end of the war, Erestor had been told by a solemn Elrond, but no one knew just what it was. They had almost lost the War of Wrath when a large portion of Elros' Númenórean forces had mutinied, defecting to Morgoth's side. Some sort of weapon had been detonated then, causing a massive gravitational wave that had ripped apart the entire far sector of Beleriand and swallowed all of the Númenórean forces whole.

        To this day, over a thousand years later, no one knew if they were alive or dead.

        Thus did Elrond go back into the danger that was the ruined Beleriand sector to search for any sign of his brother. Most all of Elrond's other family was gone, his foster fathers destroyed by some strange virus of Morgoth's, while Elrond's parents had vanished into the Dark beyond the reaches of their galaxy, searching for the Valar of myth. Elrond's maternal line had been wiped out in Doriath during a betrayal of their forces and a rout of their main planet. His paternal line had been lost here, in Gondolin Station, to Maeglin's betrayal.

        Erestor had met Elrond in Mithlond Station just after the war, as a young elf just entering his studies at the university there. Elrond himself was settling into a position under Gil-galad's rule before what remained of the elven peoples splintered into many smaller nations. Gil-galad still ruled in Mithlond but to a much smaller people and sector. Elrond had been restless even in those early days, when clan after clan of elves broke out from under Gil-galad's rule and set up their own small communities in the rest of the galaxy. And when Prince Durin IV had given Elrond his own ship, the glorious Imladris, Erestor had known that Elrond would soon leave Mithlond and never look back. So he had gone to his friend, then, had asked Elrond for a place on his ship, even if it was to sweep the halls, and – laughing – Elrond had hired him on the spot as one of his science officers.

        Over the last few centuries they had been slowly mapping out the ruins of Beleriand. Elrond had started slow, sweeping through a small area at first and only then going deeper and deeper each year. They had found the remains of Amon Ereb two centuries back and in those ruined halls they had found one computer with a partial memory core intact. The data had been horribly corrupted but what Lindir, their best data recovery analyst, could recover they had found a partial map of the sector before the great weapons had warped the very space of Beleriand beyond recognition.

        Using that data and what maps they had created from their own exploration, they had made their way deeper into the ruin of Beleriand, hoping to find Doriath and the Girdle of Melian, which was purported to be a vast shield of some kind though no one knew exactly how it worked. Elrond wanted to see where his mother's people had lived, wanted to see the vast planet of Menegroth, wanted to see if anything remained of those valiant people that Elrond had heard so much of.

        Instead they had found Gondolin, shining brilliant white in the vast darkness of space, shocking them all.

        There were multiple teams on the station. It was going to take months just to map it all with their seeker bots. Gondolin Station was the size of a planet, once set inside a thick asteroid field that no one had maps to. They had found the station in the middle of clear space, just beyond the lit arm of a nebula, alone and defenseless. It felt almost like it had been waiting for them.

        Erestor had been on one of the first teams to arrive on the station. All scans showed that there was nothing living in these vast walls, not even small creatures that most stations had problems with in their food-growing tiers. Erestor was the lead for his team, splitting his people up into different sectors, going room by room to find any and all data cores they could salvage. There had been one of their team that had to drop out at the last minute leaving them with odd numbers. Erestor didn't mind exploring on his own. He was just going down the hall from their port, not more than a hundred meters away, checking the small shops that lined the concourse where they had docked.

        They were all wearing environmental suits, just in case the systems on the ancient station failed while they were inside. They also did not know if any of the vegetation was still growing inside and if it had mutated due to being bombarded with so much cosmic radiation that it could evolve into something deadly to any curious wanderers that made their way onto the station. All precautions were being taken. Everyone had a link to the Imladris open. Erestor could see the status of his team in his HUD. Everything was going by the book, just as they planned.

        A whisper of sound made Erestor stop. He tilted his head, sweeping his gaze back and forth across the empty hall. He muted the chatter on his HUD, thinking he had heard that faint singing from one of his team members. The resulting silence almost made his ears ring. The light on his shoulder swept across the dusty hall as he turned back and forth, listening. Nothing. He took a step forward, leaning to look into one of the empty, open doorways. His shoulder light illuminated little beyond the door.

        The part of the concourse he was in was starting to turn from shops to something else but he was not sure what these rooms were for. Offices, perhaps? He was nearing the boundary of where he had set to explore. Perhaps another hundred feet in front of him he could see a railing where the hallway ended. It looked as though there was some sort of balcony there. Erestor chewed on his lower lip, glancing at the empty rooms and then at that balcony. It would be going beyond his set borders but not by much. Perhaps it would be best to map to the end of the hall and mark what he saw and then on his way back do a sweep of the rooms.

        He scanned his HUD but his team was deep into their own explorations, with no alerts popping up at all. It seemed as though one of his teams had found what might have been a security office with an intact computer. A part of Erestor wanted to make his way to that find and help them pour through the data but that could be done later on board the Imladris with Lindir doing the work far faster than they could ever hope to do. No, his place was on the station, to map this part of the hallway and to look through the rooms that branched off from this area.

        Mind made up Erestor turned his gaze back to the end of the hall. It must have been a visual trick but it looked like the concourse stretched on far longer than the hundred feet his HUD had marked out. There was also something...familiar to the hall, though he could not say why. It felt like he had been there before, but that was impossible. Perhaps it was a symptom of living on large stations for so long. He did not know. Erestor started forward, one eye on the ground in front of him, just in case the ancient steel floors had weakened over the years. The farther in he went the thicker the dust on the ground got. His HUD was starting to show a few warning alerts about strange particles in the air the deeper into the station he went.

        Twenty feet before the railing those yellow alerts started to go red, with his HUD picking up some sort of vibration from the floor underneath him. Erestor paused, feet pressed to the ground, but he could feel nothing through the thick soles of his boots.

        He switched over to his comm. “Imladris, this is Erestor. Come in.”

        Silence.

        Erestor cursed and looked back and forth. The alerts were holding steady, still saying there was movement under his feet and dangerous particles in the air. “Imladris,” he tried another channel. “Come in.”

        Nothing.

        Erestor was not about to become this month's holder of the Stupid Decisions Award, so he took a step back, intending to go back the way he came and return with a larger team to this area of the station.

        That was when the floor beneath him gave way and he was swallowed by the darkness below.

Chapter Text

        Erestor cursed as he came awake, his head throbbing in time to his heartbeat. He cursed again when he saw the crack in his HUD. Most of the screen was black but more worryingly was the actual gap he could see in the visor. Through that gap the view beyond it was dark with a few strange shafts of light. He fumbled for the clasps and got the helmet off with a groan. He coughed as he sucked in a deep breath. The air was thick with dust and...flowers? Erestor blinked a few times, his head feeling like someone had shoved cotton into it.

        He got a hand braced against the floor and slowly sat up. The light on his shoulder was damaged as well, leaving him with only a small area around him illuminated. He peered up through the gloom but he could not see the balcony from where he'd fallen or any sign of his wagon.

        That was decidedly not good.

        Once he was up he got a better look at his surroundings. He seemed to be in some sort of hall? Tall pillars held up a vast ceiling, dark but for the few gaps Erestor could make out, but where those led to he did not know. The floor around him was not steel or plastic alloy but marble that had small metallic flecks that reflected his shoulder light. There were several fountains to his right, all of them dry, but the elaborate flowers and graceful maidens dancing about the central pillar of the closest one made them seem almost alive. There was something odd about that fountain, something that reminded him of dreams he used to have as a child, but he couldn't pin down just what it was.

        Erestor gave himself a once over as he took stock. His head was still muddled and he had a nasty headache brewing. His right ankle felt sprained but considering the height he must have fallen from it was lucky that he wasn't dead. There was debris all around him, bits of metal and what looked like stonework and thick piles of dust.

        Erestor pulled one glove off and felt around his head. He had a cut that was still weeping blood soaking the left side of his environmental suit. Probably the source of his concussion, if he had one. When he checked his wrist-comm it was also cracked and dark. Even as he poked at it his helmet gave a chirping buzz before it went dark, the remaining parts of the HUD fizzling out. He had no diagnostic, no way to communicate with the rest of his team, in an unknown part of the station after an unknown amount of time unconscious.

        Erestor winced, already hearing Elrond's shouted lecture ringing in his ears.

        It would be best if he stayed where he was. His team had regular check ins every fifteen minutes and someone must have seen his signal go dark. His team would drop everything to come and find him. All he had to do was sit and wait to be rescued.

        But the low growl that rolled out over the vast empty space made Erestor think he wasn't about to get to have that luxury.

        A strange wave of whispers seemed to reach his ear, the words strange and garbled, there and gone like music from another room. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Perhaps some remnant of a signal from his ruined helmet or his concussion, he wasn't sure, but he had more important things to worry about right now. Like that growl that was getting closer, the clickclickclack of something hard walking across the marble floors.

        Erestor struggled to get to his feet, his ankle searing with pain once he put any type of weight on it. Forget sprained, it might just be broken. He put a hand to his belt and then swore, looking down. The blaster they were all required to carry was gone from its holster, lost somewhere in the dark. He fumbled for his knife, another thing they were all required to carry, even as he began to scan the shifting shadows around him.

       The growl cut off. That clickclickclack sound vanished. Erestor was rather sure whatever was in here with him had not left. Perhaps it was just waiting or perhaps it was intelligent enough to know that he could hear it coming.

       Pity that Erestor was utterly hopeless at might of arms. Whatever this was in here with him did not need to be so stealthy. If he survived this Elrond was going to drag him to the practice rings for months. Erestor might even let him.

        But first he had to survive.

        Erestor shuffled his way back, making a slow scan of the hall as he went. The sound of the growl had come from somewhere ahead and to his right but there was no telling if it had moved elsewhere in the meantime. The dust and the strange thickness to the air kept catching in his throat and lungs, making him want to cough. He didn't dare, not with the headache that was pounding at his temples and the noise it would make. No, he needed all of his attention front and center if he was going to make it out alive.

       Something out in the dark made a loud scraping noise and then a thunk that shook the floor enough that Erestor felt it through his boots. He managed to bite back a yelp when his back hit something cold and hard. One of the pillars that held up the ceiling that he could not even make out in the darkness.

        Erestor settled against that pillar and tried to calm his racing heart. He glanced back and forth, angling what remained of his shoulder light to try and pick out more details of where he was. The figures in the fountains kept catching his eye, looking almost like they were moving in the flickering shadows of his light. His breath sounded too loud in the silence. That strange thickness was tickling his lungs, making the urge to cough grow and grow.

        Movement to his left made Erestor snap his head around and regret it immediately. His vision bloomed with tiny black stars. The world tilted on its axis. He clung to the pillar with one hand, his knife in the other, helpless for a long moment. When he could focus his gaze there was nothing in the darkness. Not even the dust was disturbed. He panned back around and then froze, staring, at where the figures in the fountains should be.

        They were gone.

       Forget being dragged to the practice rings for months, if Erestor survived this he wasn't leaving the Imladris for a year if not more.

       Erestor stared at that dry fountain, picking over the spray of flowers, the low basin, the fluted pillar in the center where the water had once erupted from. There had been four maidens in graceful robes about that pillar, holding the empty, carved ribbons in their hands that now hung motionless in the air. He had seen them. He had seen them there.

       A soft shushshush of fabric trailing over the ground made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. There was a whisper of words. A sigh. Then silence.

        Erestor needed to get out of there. Every part of his mind and body told him he was not alone in this strange hall and that he was in danger. But which way did he go? Not towards those fountains. Then where? Erestor squinted up at the shafts in the ceiling, hoping to be able to make out perhaps the point where he had fallen from. Stairs had to exist in this station somewhere. If he had fallen this far then he could make his slow way back up.

        Surely he could make his way up.

        A skittering sound came from his right, beyond where the dry fountains were, sounding like many legs running across the floor. Erestor twitched at the sound, pressing his back against the pillar, frozen in place. He was in a terrible position to defend himself. Anything could come from around that pillar and blindside him. He needed a place to make a stand, if not escape from this situation entirely. Taking one last look at where he had fallen – and where his helmet had been left – Erestor decided to go to his left, where he thought the hallway he had walked down would have been. Sometimes such large stations had an atrium for greenery and other plants to grow and be enjoyed by their people. Balconies would often look out over such places. Surely that was what he had stumbled upon. And such structures often had staircases leading from one level to the other, each connecting a kind of common area full of shops and places to eat. If Gondolin Station followed such patterns then all Erestor had to do was look for such a staircase and make his way back up to his team.

       Erestor sucked in a deep breath and regretted it. His lungs seemed to seize in his chest, a hacking cough doubling him over and making his temples pound. Pain spiked through his head, making him gag. A thump and a soft groaning noise made him choke back any more noises, his watering eyes flicking back and forth through the dim light. None of the dust had been disturbed. A tinkling sound, like glass being broken, could be heard. Erestor squinted through the dark, his light wavering, as he panned back and forth once more, his gaze catching on something to his right.

       The figures were back in the fountain. And now there was water spilling from the top of that fluted spire, spilling down the ribbons and over the hands of the graceful maidens and then down onto the flowers that surrounded him.

        Absolutely not. Erestor gave the fountain the look it deserved and steeled himself to move. His concussion was making him hallucinate things. Those figures had been there the entire time. Of course they were. They had to be. He was just confused.

        Erestor ignored the way all four of those maidens were now looking in his direction when before they had been facing each other and the pillar between them.

        His ankle was a study of agony as he took the first step. It felt like something was grinding together in his boot. Erestor set his jaw and kept moving, one foot in front of the other, ears pricked for any sound as he hobbled his way from the pillar and into the dark. The light on his shoulder bobbed up and down to his movement, flickering in and out of power in alarming ways. Another pillar loomed up out of the darkness. Erestor braced himself against it as best he could, taking the pressure off of his ankle. He pushed past it and then threw himself back, shoulders and head colliding with the cold stone.

        A graceful maiden stood in front of him, one hand outstretched. Water still dripped from her fingers. None of the dust at her feet was disturbed.

       “Absolutely not,” Erestor squeaked out and ducked that outstretched hand as he made his best run for it.

       A terrible sccreeetching sound came from behind him. Erestor did not stop to look. The light on his shoulder wobbled wildly, making it hard to see where he was going. Another pillar rose up on his right. It looked cracked and damaged with soot. A roaring snarl erupted from behind him. Sounds of heavy stone on metal screeched through the air. Erestor just kept going, trying to focus on his next step and the next step and the step after that. His ankle was a blaze of agony. He could taste metal with every breath. Then, as his light flickered in and out, he thought he saw the start of a staircase from the corner of his eye.

       Erestor swerved to make a straight line to it. Something howled behind him. There were several heavy thuds that shook the floor. Erestor tripped forward, his balance all but gone, catching himself on the edge of the railing at the base of the stairs. They were wide and made of the same marble as the floor. Once they might have been gleaming white and flecked with bits of metal. Now they were gray and covered in a thick layer of dust.

        Erestor braced a hand against the rail and put his foot on the first stair. The he looked up.

       Statues stared back at him from the stair, one of them a graceful maiden, her white robe splashed with crimson. Some thick liquid dripped from the tips of her fingers. Erestor thought there might have been a tiny smile on her face. Her hand was still held out, as if beckoning him closer. Beyond her were statues of guards in full armor, but they were not elves in that black banded metal. No, those were orcs cut out of that same white stone, their teeth bristling with jagged teeth, hands curled about swords and spears, all of them staring straight at Erestor.

       His feet froze to the floor. All the breath left his lungs. He thought that graceful maiden's head moved, just an inch, turning that tiny smile into the curl of something far more hungry.

        Then there was a loud snarl from directly behind Erestor and something grabbed the back of his suit, jerking him back. Erestor was unconscious before he hit the floor.

Chapter Text

       Erestor groaned as he woke, his head beating in time to his rapid heart. Then his breath caught as his sense returned, one hand flying to his head, the other pushing himself up.

       His shoulder light was still working, if barely. He seemed to be in some sort of small room, where the dust was not as thick and there was a closed door with what looked like it might once have been a filing cabinet toppled in front of it. He was on a couch, of all things, a hideous beast of red and gold and blue plaid. He did not know why his heart tripped over seeing it, some sense of knowing prickling in the back of his head before he pushed it away.

       In the silence the rasp of his breathing seemed as loud as a shout. His light was shaking in time with the tremors that ran through his body. Then his fingers moved and Erestor realized that there was something wrapped about his head. Careful exploration told him he had a bandage about his brow and some kind of pad where the worst of the cut had been seeping blood. He looked down at his foot to see that there was a slapdash brace rigged up around it, keeping him from moving it too much.

       Well then.

       Another glance around the room told him there was only one entry and exit. Which meant whomever did this had to still be in the room with him. Right?

       “Hello?” He spoke barely above a whisper. It seemed to echo off of the walls. “I...is there –”

       A tremendous thump rattled the door. Erestor slapped a hand over his mouth. A second, third, and then fourth blow made the entire wall shake. Something growled outside the door, deep enough that Erestor felt it in his bones.

       Then everything went silent. And in that silence he began to hear the trickle of water.

       Absolutely not. Erestor pushed himself to his feet, gaze darting about the room. There was a wide desk, still littered with datapads from an Age before. Styluses were scattered over the top, all of them covered in a thick layer of dust. There were no footsteps in the room – not even his own. There was some sort of carving on the front of the desk but Erestor had no time to stare at it. The sound of water coming from behind him was growing louder.

       He thought he could make out dampness seeping in from underneath the door. The room he was in turned out to be larger than he first thought. There was a blind corner in the back left, which when he hobbled his way over to it, turned into a short hallway with another door. There was a keypad but Erestor hoped very much that it was not locked. Not with what sounded like the filing cabinet being moved behind him, scraping against the floor bit by bit.

       Erestor jabbed at the open button and to his relief the door did open. A bit. Then it ground to a halt, the gears whining high and loud. The scraping from behind him stopped. Erestor cursed and jammed his fingers into that gap and pushed, trying to get a look out into the hall beyond. It did not seem to lead to the left, where he thought the other hall lay, but without his HUD and an internal map of the station he was fumbling his way through this blind. He got the door open enough so that he could slip through it, leaving a bit of fabric behind as his suit caught on something sharp and tore.

       There was another roaring growl from behind him. Erestor did not look back as he hobbled his way down the hall. All the other doors were closed and if he quick glances from the plates on the wall were correct, then there were offices of some sort. Offices of the –

      Erestor stopped and stared. There, above the doorway that stood at the end of the all, was the image of the helm of Turgon, carved of marble and in full relief. The hairs on the back of Erestor's neck stood on end. It finally seemed to hit home that he was standing in Gondolin, one of the mightiest empires of Beleriand, that had vanished without a trace during the War of Wrath against Morgoth. No one knew what had happened to them. Just that a bare handful of their people remained, all having been on the outskirts of the empire at the Fall.

      Then Erestor gave himself a shake and forced himself forward. He could have an existential crises later. Right now he had something loud and angry to out run.

       The door at the end of the hall led to what might have once been a break room of some sort. There was a large table with plates and cutlery on it, as if the people there had just got up and left the meal mid bite. Erestor hurried past it, his skin prickling with the feeling of being watched but he could not tell from where. Then he had a dilemma on his hands. There were two doors. One left. One right.

       Left would put him closer to that growl and that strange water. Right it was.

       Except right turned out to be a coat closet so that was a bust. Erestor backed away from vibrant cloaks of all colors still on their hangers, waiting for owners who would never come back for them. Then he went to the other door and pressed his ear to it, trying to listen for any hint of a sound. He closed his eyes with a silent hiss when he realized that he had not even thought to look for his knife when he woke, too disoriented to think of it. A check of his belt told him whomever had bandaged his head and ankle had not put it back in its sheath. So now Erestor was alone, weaponless, concussed and probably with a broken ankle to boot.

      If he survived this Elrond was going to lecture him for months. Erestor wouldn't even complain about it.

       There was no sound coming from beyond the door. Erestor sucked in a breath and pressed the release button, hoping that these gears were in better repair than the last. He was in luck. The door slid back with a whisper of sound, almost like –

      Erestor spun around, gaze darting about the empty break room. It almost sounded like someone said his name.

       Then a series of loud thumps came from the hallway he had come through and Erestor shoved his hallucinations to the side to deal with later. Preferably after a nice mental breakdown. The hall beyond the door branched into three directions; left, center, right. He wasn't about to go left, while the center hall looked to go to yet another break room of sorts. Right it was.

       All the illumination he had to see by came from his damaged shoulder light. It made shadows twist wildly on the wall. Whomever had wrapped his ankle knew what they were doing, though, since as he moved the joint itself was held stable and hurt much less to hobble on. He still used the wall to help take some weight off that leg as he hurried as best he could down the right hand hall, hating the way the corridor curved around some interior structure, forcing him to forge forward blind.

      Something behind him crunched. Erestor thought it might have been a door. He thought he heard a tinkling laugh. Erestor's hobble turned into a lurching run, faster and faster as sounds came from behind him like the fall of glass – or the water from a fountain.

      Then Erestor rounded the last of the curve and ran face first into a marble body. He looked up. A handsome elf stared down at him, eyes wide and blank. His brow was furrowed, with tiny lines about his eyes and mouth. He looked to be in the midst of saying a word. Then Erestor felt heat from behind him. He turned, heart in his throat, seeing a glow rounding that long curve of corridor. There was a flicker of white, like the dress of the graceful maidens by the fountains. A tiny laugh.

      Then, “Erestor,” came from behind him, breath tickling the back of his neck. Erestor gasped as hands came about him, hauling him up and away from that advancing glow. Then they were falling, a startled shout leaving his lungs as they plunged backwards...

       Right into a deep pool where there had been none the minute before.

Chapter Text

        Water rushed into Erestor's lungs. His feet kicked but the arms about him were clamped tight like irons – or a marble statue's. Bubbles escaped from his lips, twisting up through the water and into darkness where the illumination of his shoulder light did not reach. Erestor thrashed in that hold, feeling his environmental suit tear even as it felt like those marble arms slipped away. He did not look back as he kicked against the deep water, black spots blooming at the edges of his sight. He kicked and kicked and kicked and –

        Erestor broke the surface, retching water from his lungs, the terrible coughs shaking his entire body.

        “Erestor!”

       The shout made him flinch but then hands were on his body, hauling him out of the pool he was trapped in. He fought at them, mind still in that terrible maze of halls, on the sound of that massive something behind him, on the arms that had grabbed him –

       “Erestor,” Elrond's voice broke through his panic. “Erestor, please. Be calm. You are safe. You are safe. I promise.”

        Erestor blinked open eyes he did not remember closing to see his friend kneeling before him. Tremors were still running through his entire body. “El-Elrond?”

        A warm hand covered his own. “I am here, my friend.”

        “Where – where –”

        “We are still on the station –”

       “No ,” Erestor surged up, grabbing for Elrond. “We have to leave. We have to leave. There's something here, Elrond, there is something –”

        “Easy, easy, Amdir, are you – thank you –”

        “It's below, I saw – I saw something, Elrond, we can't –”

        “You have a head wound, my friend, you were unconscious for more than fifteen minutes –”

        “Fifteen minutes? But it was...it was longer...I – I –”

        There was a prick on his arm and Erestor glanced down to see the hypo in Elrond's hand. “Easy, my friend. You are injured and we need to get you back to the Imladris. Stretcher!”

        That was the last Erestor heard before the drugs kicked in and he was swept unconscious once more.

        But when he opened his eyes he was not on the Imladris. He was...he was in a place he had never seen before. At least not in real life. At least not until that day.

        Ever since he was young Erestor had a series of dreams that felt so real he sometimes questioned whether he was awake or not. The dreams always took place on some massive station he did not know. It was the size of a planet, glorious and beautiful, with a population that was happy and content with their quiet part of space. Erestor had grown up from a young child on this station, darting in and out of the markets in his dreams, watching the other young elves play in the different atria, sometimes joining in when he was especially lonely.

        In his dreams the children he played with had the names of heroes and legends of old. Glorfindel and Ecthelion and Egalmoth and Duilin and more. It wasn't until he was older and the dreams tapered off that he realized all the names he had given these elves were from Gondolin. That he had put himself in this vast station, a lonely child looking for playmates and conjuring up bits of myth and legends instead.

        But he had been on Gondolin Station. He had seen the empty halls, the dust collecting on the ground. And, as he stepped out of the shadows of this dream, glancing around the atrium that had scared him so badly, he realized that those dreams had been right all along. He knew that hall. He knew that atrium. He knew that fountain. He knew those steps.

        He knew the face of the elf that had caught him. Ecthelion of the Fountain, his first and best friend.

        Erestor knew he had to be dreaming. There had been a worry with some of his foster families that his dreams were indicative of some deeper problem, a too-fanciful mind or perhaps even madness. Erestor had learned to stop talking about his dreams, about Ecthelion, as if they were real. And, as the drugs he had been subjected to over the years did their work, his dreams grew dull to the point that he could not remember them. Only once in a very great while did he return here to the station of his earliest dreams, when all was vibrant and alive with good cheer and happiness.

        The last time Erestor had dreamed of this place he had just accepted a position on the Imladris. He'd had too much wine with dinner, stumbling to bed so happy that he couldn't keep the smile from his face. And when he'd opened his eyes in the dream he'd been seated on the edge of that fountain, the one with the flowers and the twining ribbons, the music of the water filling his ears.

        He'd heard the cry of his name and then Ecthelion was on him, wrapping him tight in his arms. Dreams being what they were, Ecthelion had never asked before where he had gone or where he had been. But in this last dream...Ecthelion had put a hand to the back of Erestor's head and held him in his arms, asking again and again, “Where did you go, my friend? Where did you go?”

        Erestor had no answer to give him. The rest of the dream was...fractured. Many times it felt like Ecthelion was the only thing keeping him in that place. Every time his attention would waver Ecthelion would hold him again, press his lips to Erestor's temple and whisper, “Do not go, my dear. Stay here with me. With Fin. Stay here with us. We have so much to tell you.”

       But morning came with or without his say so. The last he could remember of that dream was Glorfindel sitting on his other side, fingertips warm on his face as he turned Erestor to face him. There had been something...something they were saying but Erestor could not remember that part. Something that he had to tell them. Only that for once he felt safe and wanted and home in a way he had never had before so those thoughts were hard to hold on to, slipping away like sand through his fingers.

        Then he had woke, horribly hungover, and vowed to never drink again. Then he had moved onto the Imladris and not once had he dreamed of that vast station and his imaginary playmates he'd thought up as a child.

       But now, unconscious because of whatever drug Elrond had given him, Erestor knew he was asleep. He knew this dream. He knew this station. But it had never, in all the years of his dreaming of it, looked like this.

        The Gondolin Station of his dreams was full of elves walking arm in arm. Flowers bloomed in vast planters, perfuming the air. Delicate birds brought from some far planet would wing their way through the large atria, trilling songs in their wake. Shops were bustling with business. Children darted through the crowds. The scent of sweet pastries would waft from the stalls on the corners. There would be such song and good cheer that it was difficult not to smile as you walked along the concourse.

        The Gondolin Station he opened his dream eyes to was one of terror and panic. Alarms were blaring. Children were huddled against the walls. The thick, vast windows that looked out over the maze of the asteroid field were lit up with bloom after bloom of explosions. The station was being attacked.

        “Erestor!”

        The cry of his name made him turn. He saw Glorfindel skid to a stop in front of him, some black substance smeared across his jaw. His armor was bloody. “Glorfindel,” Erestor said, hearing his voice come as if from a distance. “You're here.”

        “Erestor, you must leave,” Glorfindel took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake. Erestor could not look away from the fear in those blue eyes. “You must leave, my love.”

        “My love?” Erestor blinked up at him. Glorfindel's expression crumpled as he pulled Erestor close, pressing their foreheads together.

        “I am so sorry, my love,” he whispered. Erestor could only stare at him. “I do not know where you go, but you must –”

        “GLORFINDEL!”

        They broke apart. Erestor stepped to the side, seeing an elf in all black advancing on them. Maeglin, some part of his mind whispered to him. The King's nephew. The traitor.

        “WHERE IS SHE?” Maeglin's eyes were red rimmed. His face was pale. His hands trembled. But even then he did not slow his advance. “Where is Idril? Where did you hide her?”

        “I will never tell you were she is,” Glorfindel pushed Erestor back. Erestor stepped to the side instead, drawing Maeglin's gaze.

        “You,” the traitor hissed. “Little dreamer. Turgon should have had our best people purge you from this place! This is all your fault!”

        Erestor blinked at him, his head still feeling strange and empty. There was no panic, nor fear. “I told them, didn't I,” he realized, staring into Maeglin's glittering gaze. “That last time. I told them you would betray the station. That you would let Morgoth in and the station would fall.”

        “Erestor...” Glorfindel reached for him.

        “That AI should have been wiped from the computer core and eradicated!” Maeglin raised his blade, one of the few made from the exotic metals pulled from the asteroids about the station. “I'll end you now, once and for all!”

       “I am no AI,” Erestor tilted his head at him. He raised a hand and the dream...the dream lurched , like a film reel pulled taut. He saw as Glorfindel turned to look at him, movements slowing bit by bit. There was a tremendous crash as something made the entire station shudder. There was...there was something terrible and dark slithering past the vast windows of the atrium, not one of the dragons of myth but something...something worse. Something that was right on the tip of Erestor's tongue. Something... something...

        Time slowed. And slowed. And s l o  w   e    d       .

        Erestor woke up with a gasp. The ceiling of the MedBay stared back at him. “Ungoliant,” he croaked out, the word catching in his throat. Then he began to cough as the monitors at his side started to scream out their alarms. He was on his side and retching by the time their head doctor Amdir made it to his side.

       Black bile hit the floor and began to hiss.

Chapter Text

        When Erestor woke once more it was to the steady, soft sound of monitors in the MedBay. Whatever strange substance he had hacked up was gone from the floor. It seemed to be night shift, with a nurse at the far desk and what few doctors there were gathered in the break room out of sight. Erestor stared up at the ceiling, bits and pieces of his dream coming back to him.

        Why did Maeglin call him an AI? Why did that dream seem so real. It couldn't be real. Just...just bits and pieces of the terror he had lived through on the station coming together in his subconscious, mixing with memories of a place he had only seen in dreams. Surely that was it.

        Surely.

        Erestor dozed off and on until the bustle of nurses and doctors woke him in the morning. He saw Elrond making a beeline for his bed when he opened his eyes. His friend had dark circles under his eyes and a pinched look to his face. That did not bode well for Erestor.

        “I am sorry,” Erestor said before Elrond could open his mouth.

        Elrond's expression crumpled for a moment before one finger was whipped out and pointed at Erestor's nose. His eyes crossed a little, trying to focus on it. “Do not even,” Elrond said. They both ignored how suspiciously bright his eyes were. Then Elrond found a stool and pulled it up next to Erestor's bed. One of the nurses pulled the curtains closed and the click of a noise jammer was loud in their little cubicle. It wasn't perfect – anyone lingering outside the curtain would be able to hear pretty much all of what Erestor was about to say, but most missions-gone-sideways that ended up with crew members in the MedBay were dealt with like this.

        “From the top,” Elrond said as he put a recorder between them.

       Erestor opened his mouth...and then paused. For a moment all he could see was Glorfindel's bright blue eyes. All he could hear was the words my love coming from those lips. Of course he'd had a crush on both Glorfindel and Ecthelion in his youth. Of course he had dreamed of holding their hands and secret smiles shared between them both. Erestor had never, in any of those dreams-that-felt-real ever spoke about such feelings. He had swallowed such words down, not trusting even a dream not to break his heart. But to have it happen like this, with the station under attack, with Maeglin there...

        “Erestor?”

        He drew in a shaking breath and reached out between them and pressed the off switch to the recorder. He met Elrond's worried gaze as the silence settled. “I need to tell you of something. Something that...I have not spoken of in centuries. Something that once had me put on medications that I hated. Will you listen without judging, until I am finished?”

        Elrond's frown deepened as he stared at Erestor but after a long moment his friend gave him a solemn nod. “I will listen. I promise.”

       Erestor let out a breath. Then, in fits and starts, he began to talk about the dreams he had as a child. How he had grown up in that station, how he had run through the long halls with Glorfindel and Ecthelion and Egalmoth and Duilin and Rog and so many others. How sometimes as a child it had been hard for him to know which life was real. How his foster families had dragged him to doctor after doctor, until Erestor learned not to speak of the dreams at all. How he had been forced to take a regimen of drugs until the whole world felt flat and dull, like looking out through a pane of grimy glass. He spoke of the long hall he had walked down. He spoke of the alerts on his sensors, though he had not felt any such tremors in the floors.

       Erestor spoke of waking from the fall. Of how the fountains had seemed familiar. How they had moved and changed. Of the sounds he had heard. Of the graceful maidens and their terrifying smiles. He spoke of being bandaged, of being treated. Of being chased. Of being rescued.

        Of Ecthelion.

       He paused, Elrond pressing a cup into his hand, but continued with the dream he had just had. Of the station under attack. Of Glorfindel. Of Maeglin. Of Ungoliant and her spawn swarming the space just outside the hull of the station, searching for a way in.

        “I know it sounds mad,” Erestor said at the end, voice cracking.

        Elrond held up a hand, cutting him off. Erestor was barely able to meet those dark eyes as Elrond looked at him without a word. Then his friend reached over and picked up a tablet and handed it to Erestor without a word.

        “What...do you want me to do...with this...?”

        “Draw the layout of the station as you remember it,” Elrond said. “Right now. Anything that you can remember, down to the smallest detail. Please.”

        That was not what Erestor had expected Elrond to say. It was better than Elrond calling for psych meds at least. Erestor fumbled a bit with the tablet but the schematics program was easy enough to pull up. Elrond left after half an hour, leaving Erestor to work on all the places he could remember.

        He had spent most of his dream time in the atria, playing in the grand gardens that were in the mid-sections of the station. The area he had fallen into in...well. In the here and now. That atrium had been a grand assembly area, where the speeches of Turgon were heard from the balcony on the far wall. The stairs led up and up and up through at least five mid-section levels, with restaurants and shops and all sorts of stores lining the concourses that overlooked that grand space. The fountains of that atrium...the fountains had been a gift from the House of the Fountain, from Ecthelion's father to Turgon during the Gates of Summer festival when Erestor had been young.

        But the fountains Erestor remembered only had flowers and ribbons trailing down from the tall center spike, the carvings a gift from the House of the Golden Flower to go along with the House of the Fountain's offering. There had been no statues of graceful maidens there. Not that Erestor remembered.

        By the time Elrond came back Erestor was resting with his eyes closed and the tablet turned off under his hand. He opened his eyes as Elrond took the tablet from him, propping it up on one of the rolling side tables as he brought out one of the small computers the data systems teams often used. Then Elrond connected the two and tapped at the keys – a painful peck-peck-peck that drove Lindir mad – as Erestor watched without commenting. There had still been no psych meds, no adjusting of his IV, nothing at all to indicate that Elrond did not believe his words to be true.

        It felt a bit like missing a step as he walked down a flight of stairs. He wasn't sure how he was going to land.

        The tablet and the computer beeped at each other. Elrond drew his hands back with a frown, eyes flicking back and forth between the two. More beeps. A single, louder beep. Erestor had no idea what was going on.

        “Well then,” Elrond said on a breath as he leaned back. “Well then,” he repeated, softer. Then he turned both the tablet and the computer around so that Erestor could see the displays. He reached out at the tablet with a trembling hand, looking back and forth with wide eyes.

       From the rough schematics Erestor had drawn out on the tablet he saw a corresponding match to what was displayed on the computer. The stairs and the atria and even some of the shop names. All of it matched. Exactly.

        “What...”

        “Your team found a security station that had not been corrupted or destroyed in the fighting,” Elrond told him. “Lindir worked on the information all night. From the files that he had it seemed like that particular station was used for the Greater Market Port Security. Within those files was a layout of the entire station as a whole.” Elrond looked down at the tablet in Erestor's hands and then the computer. “You could not have known that. You have been unconscious this entire time.”

       Erestor felt a fine tremor start in his fingers. Elrond lurched forward to grab the tablet from his grip. “But that. That is not. I can't.” He shook his head. He was having a hard time drawing breath. The monitors at his bedside began to beep. “That's not – it can't – Elrond, I can't – I can't –”

        “Erestor, Erestor breathe, please. Be calm. Everything is well. You are safe. You –”

       Erestor caught Elrond's hand as his friend reached for him. “But they're not ,” Erestor wheezed out, panic closing his throat. The monitors began to blare at his side. “I left them there, Elrond! I left them there ! This is – this is – did I cause this? Was this because I was a fool? Did I kill –”

       “Erestor – Erestor no, breathe my friend. Breathe. All is well. All is well. Erestor. Erestor? Erestor!”

        But Erestor could not hear his words. All he could hear was the wild rushing of his pulse and what sounded like station alarms blaring in his ears. All he could hear was his name being called, but not by Elrond. Oh, no. It was Glorfindel. It was Ecthelion. It was both of them screaming his name.

        That was when the darkness took him.

Chapter Text

        The station alarms were so loud it hurt Erestor's ears. He stumbled as the station was rocked by some giant blast. Elves were screaming. The scent of smoke choked his lungs.

        “I will end you!” Maeglin's scream made Erestor's head snap around. It was...it was as if he had only missed a handful of moments. Maeglin was still advancing on Glorfindel. They were in the same atrium. Erestor could still see the giant dark beasts crawling across the station viewports, looking for a way in.

        “No,” Erestor whispered as he watched Maeglin swing at Glorfindel's head. He did not know where Ecthelion was. No one knew how Gondolin had fallen, for there had been no survivors from the station itself. It had only been Eärendil's unknown departure of the station with his family – supposedly to surprise Elwing's family in Doriath – that had saved Elrond and Elros from the same fate as everyone on Gondolin Station.

        Chaos surrounded him. Explosions kept rocking the entire station. Smoke was growing thicker. Perhaps that had been ash and not dust he had walked through – would walk through? – not a day before. His before? Their future? Erestor's head ached.

        It felt like his feet were frozen to the floor as he watched Glorfindel duck Maeglin's wild swing, his own sword ringing clear of its scabbard. There was a loud rush of cries from the far end of the atrium and then the harsh shouts of orcs filling the air. Erestor glanced over at the stairs, still feeling a little like he was moving through molasses, seeing those orcs charging down the wide marble stairs.

        And leading them were graceful figures in draping white robes, pale of skin and red about the eyes, with strange crimson marks painted beneath their eyes. Had they been made of marble and lacking paint Erestor would have called them graceful maidens in spring robes. But looking at them now, with the knowledge of the War of Wrath in his past, he knew them for what they were. Fallen Maiar who had been corrupted by Morgoth, leading the great enemy's dark troops to eradicate Gondolin Station. Or, as later peoples would call them...

        Balrogs.

        He had seen those figures on the steps. He had seen those robes covered in crimson, those same cruel smiles on their faces. He had seen...he had seen them, in the here and now but this was not here and now this was then, this was before...

       Erestor's head ached.

       Those white-clad Maiar were scanning the atrium, as if looking for someone. And, when their gazes locked onto him, Erestor felt his heart drop. They knew. Somehow they knew. Those tiny smiles turned hungry. A gleam of teeth showed between bloodless lips. All Erestor could do was watch as they started down those stairs, headed straight for him.

       “Erestor!” Ecthelion's cry rang out in the atrium. Erestor saw Glorfindel stumble in his battle with Maeglin, earning him an ugly cut across the arm. Erestor could not see Ecthelion, could only hear his screams, even as those Balrogs marched step by step towards him, the hordes of Morgoth's armies at their backs.

       “No,” Erestor murmured, raising a hand. This...this could not be. This would not be. His lungs ached, his skin prickled, even as he spread his fingers in the air, as if he could stop those monsters by sheer will alone.

       And then, to his surprise, they stopped. The whole atrium stopped. From the corner of his eye he saw Ecthelion trying to climb out of one of the fountains – how had he gotten there? – water dripping down his face. Water was streaming onto the floor but it felt like each drop went slower and then slower and th en s l o  w    e     r.

       Everything stopped. Erestor could not even hear his heartbeat or the rasp of his breath. All he could see was how the darkness loomed. How color seemed to leech from everything around him. How Glorfindel was still bleeding, bright splashes of crimson fading to brown then gray then to nothing on the ground. The trickle of water slowed, fading to nothing. The Maiar on the steps froze into statues, graceful as maidens, skin devoid of the paint he saw in his – dream? – reality? – here . Erestor staggered, feeling some pressure build up and up and up in his throat, in his head, in his heart. He opened his mouth to scream. And then...and then...

        Everything. S T  O   P     P       E         D.

        The alarms in the MedBay echoed in Elrond's ears as he tore through the curtain that had given Erestor some modicum of privacy. His friend was arching in the bed, back bowed off the mattress, mouth open in a silent scream. The monitors were showing a flat line for Erestor's heartbeat, even as his friend thrashed on the bed. Then all of the electronics around Erestor screamed out at the same time before popping one by one, causing sparks to fly everywhere.

        Elrond swore and ducked, arms about his head as the curtains were torn off the railing by some power he could not see. Elrond had seen Maglor and Maedhros do small feats of magic, back when the galaxy was different and the ruin of Beleriand had not yet been complete. It was said that once, long ago, their peoples had greater magics, abilities that seemed fantastical in the realities of the here and now. Maglor and Maedhros would tell such stories to Elrond and his brother before bed, fanciful things like the Light of creation being trapped in three gems or how once their people could heal with the power of magic alone. It had all been fairy stories read to children and little more.

        But what Elrond saw when he peeked out between his arms was some great power arcing off Erestor, blazing white and crimson and cerulean. Erestor's eyes were wide open but unseeing. It looked as though his friend was screaming but Elrond could hear no words, could not even make out a sound, just some vast ringing that pounded in his head. He darted forward, trying to reach for Erestor, but one of those arcing bolts of power hit him in the chest, the cerulean light blinding him. feeling as though he had been punched in the gut and losing all the air in his lungs. That vast power swept over him, bringing a tingling feeling from head to foot. It centered on his hands, curling about his fingers one by one before it faded.

        Then Elrond found himself on his back, staring up at one of the other doctors on call as he pounded against Elrond's chest, crying out orders for the nurses and orderlies darting about.

        “I'm fine,” Elrond croaked out, catching Amdir's wrist in one hand. He saw how the other doctor reared back at the touch, eyes blown wide as an shimmer of that cerulean power swept from Elrond to him.

        Perhaps he was not fine.

        Then his attention was torn away when one of the nurses next to Erestor's bed went flying back. Elrond pushed a gaping Amdir away to see Erestor seizing on the bed, blood and some strange black substance coating the sheets under him. It looked a little like the bile Erestor had vomited up and they were still running tests on. Then Erestor jackknifed into a sitting position, the whole MedBay going silent about them. Erestor's eyes were wide open as he stared at something only he could see.

       Then, slowly, his head turned to look at Elrond. He could do nothing but meet that blank stare, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. “It's coming,” Erestor whispered into that silence. No one moved. “She is coming. The Balrogs will lead the way.” Then his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slumped back on the bed.

       Elrond was the first to recover, lunging towards his friend to make sure Erestor still had a pulse. He did. Bit by bit the rest of the nurses and doctors and orderlies regained their senses, getting the lights back and on the area about Erestor's bed cleaned up. Elrond resisted Amdir's attempts to put him into his own bed. No one spoke other than orders being called out and for tests to be run. The machines nearest Erestor were fried, their terminals melted and reduced to scrap. They went through two more machines, each one surging and then frying the moment they hooked it up to Erestor's body. Elrond had to take Erestor's pulse and blood pressure the old fashioned way, borrowing Lindir's ancient watch that was made of only gears and winding and nothing more to track the beats of his friend's heart.

        By the time they got Erestor resettled into a bed far away from anything with electricity Elrond's old friend was looking a little better. He was still pale and his breathing was shallow but Elrond could hear no obstructions in his lungs and his pulse seemed fine. But the entire time they worked on him Erestor's eyes were flicking back and forth behind his eyelids, seemingly in some deep dream they could not rouse him out of. Elrond thought back to Erestor's hesitant confession, of the dreams of Gondolin he had in his youth, thought to be nothing more than a lonely child's imagination. How his map had matched the one they had found in the security station while Erestor had disappeared off their maps for a long fifteen minutes.

        And, when Elrond left the MedBay, rubbing at a tense neck, he felt the Imladris shudder, as if she had been hit by some sort of debris. Ship wide alarms went off. Elrond entered the bridge at a sprint, seeing his sons Elladan and Elrohir already taking charge.

        “What is it? What is going on?” Several more shudders had gone through the ship during Elrond's run to the bridge.

        “We don't know,” Elladan, his eldest, shook his head. “The sensors are not picking anything up but something is moving the ship.”

        “What about our docking with the station?”

        “It's under a lot of stress,” Elrohir was the one to say. “There are fractures forming.”

        Elrond cursed and glanced up at the large viewport. Their view of the station was obstructed by how close they were to it, able to see little more than the pitted steel of the hull and the area of the dock where they had made connection. “What about our people on board?”

        “Almost back. ETA five minutes.”

        “Good. See if we can hold until then and when we're all accounted for detach from the station and pull away. I don't want to risk our people if this is being caused by the station.”

        “Yes, sir.” Both of his sons went back to work with the rest of the bridge crew, all of them tense and silent.

        Elrond was tracking the last of the exploration teams through his datapad when a call came in from the MedBay. “What is it?” He said, even as his stomach sank.

        “He's gone,” Amdir said. All around him the bridge went still. The Imladris had just stopped shaking. “Erestor. He's gone. I turned my back for one minute and I just. I don't know how he left the MedBay. But he's gone.”

        Elrond stood on shaky legs, staring out at the viewport. “Elladan, check the cameras. See if Erestor made it through the dock.”

        “I don't see him.”

        “Can you pinpoint his location at all? Is he on the Imladris?”

        There was a long moment of silence. Then, “No,” Elladan said. “He's on the Gondolin. He's...he's in the middle of it. There's no way he could have gotten there this fast.”

        Elrond tilted his chin up, his heart racing, wanting nothing more than to go after his old friend but he had everyone else on the Imladris to think about. “Pull everyone back. Once we're clear of the Gondolin, detach us.”

        “But –”

        “I want a full security team assembled in one of our drop ships. We're not leaving him there but we cannot risk us all. Get everyone back and then we'll go get him.”

        “Yes, sir. The last of the teams are –”

       The Imladris lurched, knocking Elrond to one knee and more than one of his bridge crew to the ground. Cries rang out. Alarms sounded.

        “What is going on?”

       “There's something coming out of the station,” Elladan called out over the shrieking alarms. “It's – it's massive. It's – I think it's an alien life form? It's in vacuum! I don't – it's attacking the Imladris! It's wrapped itself around our docking arm and we can't dislodge it.”

        “Give me a visual,” Elrond used the arm of his chair to stand as the viewport shifted to the cameras outside the docking arm. At first he did not understand what he was seeing. Then, bit by bit, as horror settled in his gut, he realized just what he was looking at.

        Black bodies, bloated and distorted, their legs bending in ways no normal arachnid could, the massive figures were oozing out of every dock on Gondolin Station, making their way straight towards the Imladris. And, as he watched, those black bodies ate up every speck of light as they came.

        “Turn off the exterior lights!” Elrond called out but it was too late. The horde had reached them. The Imladris jolted as the first wave hit the docking arm, ripping away panels as they searched for a way inside.

       The last thing Elrond heard before the bridge went black was his sons crying out, “Father !”

Chapter Text

        Erestor did not remember when the dreams first started. The psychologists had all tried to get him to pick apart his dreams, to analyze them in such a way that would make sense in the greater light of day, using them as analogies or metaphors to explain away how real they had felt. The clearest, earliest memory he had of the station was when he was perhaps under ten, small enough to walk and run, darting about the colorful crowds that swirled along the concourses, unseen to most, just a child playing away from his family's eyes. Erestor had been trapped in a crowded orphanage at the time, thick with children who had lost their parents in the War of Wrath, but while other children were snapped up, Erestor was not. So it had seemed natural, later, to think that he dreamed of such a wide place, full of freedom for him to run and play to his heart's content.

        Later, in his teens, he remembered finding a group of children in one of the atria, playing a hopping game with chalk and gems carved with fanciful figures. Erestor remembered hiding behind one of the fountains, watching them with eager eyes but too scared to go up to them, afraid that they would turn with sharp words on their tongues, telling him to go away.

        That was when he had first met Ecthelion.

        Erestor had been crouched down behind the lip of that fountain, peeking out at the children playing, wanting...but he could not force himself to go out. Then a warm presence had sat down next to him and Erestor had tried to jerk away, fling himself from his hiding spot and run as he did when the other children at the orphanage would target him for their cruel games. But when Erestor had fallen flat on his face, instead of flying to freedom, warm hands had helped him up and sat him down wiping the startled tears from his face. That was when Erestor had looked up to see a child perhaps a few years older than himself, dark hair falling about his shoulders, with gray-blue eyes framed by long lashes.

        “Are you alright?” That child had said, hands still on Erestor's shoulders, keeping him in place.

        All Erestor could do was nod.

        “You were watching us,” the child continued. Erestor felt his stomach sink. “Did you want to come play with us?”

        Erestor had only been able to blink at him. The child had waited him out. Then Erestor had nodded, not trusting his voice and those warm hands had guided him to his feet. Then that child had taken Erestor's hand in his and led him towards those bright, laughing others, who all turned to them with smiles on their faces.

        “My name is Ecthelion,” that same child said later when Erestor was wedged between him and another, this one called Glorfindel, bright golden hair already curling about his shoulders and who had the brightest blue eyes Erestor had ever seen. They had been given a plate of sweets by one of the shop keepers when they had stopped their play, curled up on one of the large steps of the atrium, surrounded by the planters full of colorful flowers and emerald green vegetation. Above them the large windows looking out over the vast asteroid field shimmered a faint blue from the station's shields. Erestor had looked up at those windows, had felt some strange chill sweep through him when a shadow seemed to move over those lights. But Ecthelion was still looking at him and Erestor opened his mouth to reply...

        And that was when he had woken up.

        Erestor had gone to bed early for a month, trying to recreate that dream again. It had never worked. All Erestor got was a doctor's visit about the amount of time he spent sleeping and a stern order from his foster family to spend more time outside. It had been two more months until he had another dream. This time when he had opened his eyes he'd found himself in a long hall that had closed doors on either side. They were not shops but Erestor could not say just what they actually were. He'd felt...strange, in that dream, and no one who passed him seemed to be able to see him. He'd stopped at a door and peered in, seeing a large bank of computers and several elves gathered around one monitor.

        “See, sir? The sensors are going haywire.”

        “I see it. Can you run a diagnostic to see what is causing it?”

        “It looks like it's coming from the AI servers.”

        “Which ones? If the weapons AI is malfunctioning...”

        “No. No, I can't tell, it's just...overheating? But now the life support systems are starting to ping and show signs of stress. It almost looks like it's cascading.”

        “But from where? What started it?”

        “I don't know, sir. I can't find – hey. Hey, who are you?”

        That was when all eyes had turned to Erestor standing in the doorway. He'd felt frozen to the floor. Then he'd turned and ran despite the shouts coming from behind him. One turn and a second and then ahead he'd seen the concourse that ran along the edges of the atria open up ahead of him and Erestor had flung himself towards it –

        Only to fling himself out of bed, landing with a thump that would earn him a trip to the medbay with his irate foster family and a dislocated shoulder reset.

        The next time he'd meet Ecthelion Erestor had been sitting on the edge of that same fountain where they'd first met, trailing his fingers in the water, watching the ripples shimmer from the lights hidden in clever sconces about the atrium, illuminating the space without glare. Erestor had been back on the station several times since he'd dislocated his shoulder but each time in strange places like halls and never for long. But that day he had watched one of the other children in his foster family be paired with a family for adoption, leaving full of smiles while Erestor watched from a screen on his tablet as he hid under his bed. He'd fallen asleep there and woken up here, in this atrium, at this fountain, listening to the music of the water as it tumbled down the flowers and ribbons.

        “Hello again,” a voice came from behind him.

        Erestor turned and there was Ecthelion once more. He seemed the same age as Erestor remembered him, if perhaps a little taller. That dark head had tilted to one side and Ecthelion had taken the seat next to Erestor, staring all the while.

        “You never said your name, last time,” Ecthelion said. “May I know it now?”

        Erestor had blinked at him but some of that sadness that had been choking him eased bit by bit as Ecthelion waited at his side. “Erestor,” he finally whispered. “My name is Erestor.”

        Ecthelion had smiled then, reaching out and taking Erestor's dry hand in his. “I am glad to see you again, Erestor. The others would like to see you again. Do you want to go and play with us once more?”

        Erestor had looked down at their joined hands then back up at Ecthelion's patient gaze. “Please,” he'd said. And so they'd gone, joining the chasing game in the maze of flower beds, the warmth of those smiles chasing away that sore feeling in his chest bit by bit until he could laugh once more.

        And so the dreams had continued. Erestor would wake in different places and sometimes he would see his friends and sometimes he would not. Sometimes he would be afraid...but why he could not say. Sometimes they heard a few station-wide announcements for techs to head to different stations while they'd played, but Erestor had been so focused on his new friends, on Ecthelion and then Glorfindel, that such details had escaped his notice for many, many years.

        But the wheel turned, as it ever did, and his dreams had dimmed after drug after drug had failed to chase them away. Sometimes all Erestor could do was catch a glimpse of his friends from afar. Once he had simply sat down among them, startling cries from their throats. Then the dreams had stopped and Erestor had forgotten them, putting them away in a part of his heart that was for impossible things and moving on with his life.

        But the dreams were real. Gondolin Station was real. Ecthelion was real. Glorfindel was real. They were all real. And something terrible was happening to them. Was...was still happening to them. Because Erestor...Erestor had done something. Changed something.

        So when Erestor opened his eyes to the atrium in chaos, to Glorfindel and Maeglin still battling, their swords mid-swing, to the balrogs standing on the steps, hungry gazes staring straight at him, Erestor did not panic. Everything felt so strange and calm in his head. There had to be a reason why he kept coming back here. Some power had made this happen, not him. But why? What could Erestor do? He was one elf alone in a station that was destined to fall, in a sector of space that was to be torn apart by the powers of Morgoth and Ungoliant and the great wave that had torn the sector apart.

        Erestor looked down at his hands, finding his fingers wreathed in crimson and cerulean and iridescent white. The strange power seemed to circle about his fingers, like rings. He did not know this power...

        Wait.

        There had been an anomaly that had ripped through the sector while Erestor had been dreaming on the station. It had been his longest dream, before or after. He had not woken for three days and in the dream he had stayed for almost a month, staying with his friends night after night, curled up tight with them as the dream went on and on and one.

        It had been the happiest month of Erestor's life, at least until he'd met Elrond and gotten a position on the Imladris.

        But during that month long dream a strange anomaly had caused strange lights to break upon the shields of Gondolin Station. Crimson and cerulean and iridescent white, they had lit up the space outside the station like never ending fireworks. Several times Erestor had gone to sleep in that dream and woken up somewhere else once more, out from the bed of Ecthelion or Glorfindel or Duilin or one of the others. Sometimes he had been in the heart of the stations power reactor, watching those same lights arc off the heart of the reactor, sometimes going through him and sometimes going into him, but it never hurt. Then he would close his eyes and wake up once more in those same beds of his friends, finding them bent over him worriedly but they would never say why.

        After that month long dream the doctors visits had increased greatly. So had the drugs. Sometimes...sometimes Erestor thought there would be tiny sparks that flew from his fingers when he grew angry with those same foster families that had little care for him. Sometimes Erestor thought he could see those same lights in his eyes in the mirror when he stared at himself too long. Then the drugs had taken their toll on his body and Erestor wasn't looking much at anyone for a very long time.

        But now those strange lights were back, wreathed about his hands and curling over his skin like a pet that was happy to see him once again. He could start to hear sounds once more. The echoes of shouts. The world about him began to gain color once more, bit by bit, turning the figures from anonymous statues into people Erestor knew.

        “Erestor,” Ecthelion's cry came from the water. He was clawing his way out of the fountain. But Erestor could not look at him. Not when those balrogs were on the steps, all their attention focused on him.

        Erestor raised his hand. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw another hand raised. He turned his head, just a touch...

        To see himself, beside himself, eyes wide and blind, fingers spreading as time s l  o   w    e     d.

Chapter Text

        It felt like falling. It felt like at that moment Erestor thought he could reach out and stop some terribly massive event even as he knew he could not. It felt like looking into a mirror and seeing an elf he had not seen in centuries. It felt, strangely, like coming home.

        Time slowed. Erestor could not see himself breathing. Nothing moved in the atrium, no scream rent the air, no sounds of fighting echoed against the walls. All the color leeched from the world once more, leaving him in a hall of white dust and white floors and white statues acting out a play he knew the ending to.

        “Do you?”

        Erestor blinked and that strange feeling popped but the world did not return to color. He turned, feeling as if he was moving through thick water, to see a woman standing behind him. She was of height with him, her dark hair falling loose about her shoulders without even a pin or comb to hold it back. Her eyes though...in her eyes Erestor saw the same flecks of power he once thought he had seen in his own.

        “What?” He couldn't seem to make himself think.

        “Do you know the ending of this place?” The woman tilted her head to one side. She was dressed in dark brown robes with strange embroidery along the hems. Her hands were folded together at her waist, but in them Erestor saw that she held a pair of silver scissors that gleamed in the odd light of this time-stopped place.

        “Yes?” Erestor didn't mean for it to come out as a question.

        “Then how does it end?” The woman had yet to blink. It made the hairs on the back of Erestor's neck stand on end.

        “I...” He had to close his mouth and swallow against a painful lump in his throat. “The station falls. It is lost to history.”

        “Is it now.”

        Erestor hesitated, thinking over his words. “All of Beleriand was lost,” he said. “The wave of destruction ripped the entire sector apart. Nothing was found of the nations or people there. Only destruction and bits and pieces of rubble. That was all.”

        “Not a single soul left?”

        “Some survived,” Erestor frowned at her. “On the...on the edges.”

        “And how,” the lady said. “Did they manage that?”

        Erestor stared at her, feeling his heart start to pound in his chest. The histories of the War of Wrath said that the nations of Beleriand had come together under the banner of Maedhros at last, had decided to join together to fight against Morgoth and his allies as one united front. Even Gondolin had...

        Wait.

        Erestor frowned, pain splitting through his head. Elrond had told him long ago that Maedhros and Maglor had died due to some vile virus that agents of Morgoth had infected them with. Elrond had spoke about how both of his foster fathers had died while being tied to the bed as they screamed themselves mute and tried to attack anyone who came near. Erestor had read how after the death of Maedhros and Maglor the united nations of Beleriand had begun to fall apart and that was when Elros had taken charge of the men of Númenor. Gondolin had been wiped out by what everyone had assumed was Morgoth, as was Doriath and most of the sectors between them even as Númenor and all of Beleriand was destroyed in that strange wave of power that had ripped through the sector.

        But in Erestor's dreams of the station that had not happened yet. He remembered – somehow – seeing Maedhros speaking to...to...to Ecthelion's father, one of the lords of the station and a general of Turgon's. How they had been planning their attack on Morgoth's strongholds. How...how...

        “What,” Erestor looked up at the woman who was still staring at him. “Is going on?”

        Finally that woman blinked, a slow closing of her eyes as she let out a sigh that seemed to stir all of the air in this paused place. “The tapestry is torn,” she said as she opened her eyes once more. Erestor could not look away from that sharp gaze. “A star came to us in the Dark, on wings of hope, to plead for our help. But by the time our forces were ready to move the Dark had come and the war was lost. There was nothing left. Only a gaping maw where a galaxy should be and bit by bit that Dark was swallowing up everything around it.”

        “But that...that's not what happened...”

        “No,” she said. “Not anymore.”

        Erestor put a hand to his head. “I don't understand.” It was so hard to think.

        “Don't you, my son?”

       Son. Son . The word fractured through him. Erestor clawed at his chest, unable to breathe as it felt like something cracked him right down the center.

       Erestor fell to his knees, folding over them to rest his head on the cool ground as waves of agony crashed over him. In his mind's eye he saw...he saw ...

       A single ship came winging across the Dark, battered and barely able to limp into the furthest reaches of their sensors at Valimar. Erestor...Erestor remembered...he...he remembered ...

       “Breathe,” said Vairë the Weaver, his mother , the Vala of Time. He felt her cool hand curl around the back of his neck, just as it would when he was a child and would join her at her Loom, watching the threads of Fate be woven in front of his eyes. “Breathe, my little dreamer. Breathe.”

        Little dreamer . Yes. That was what his mother would call him. It...it was what Maeglin called him, but how...but how ...

       Erestor choked as he gasped for breath, his mother's touch grounding him to that one point. His mother. His mother . Morgoth had always haunted her steps. Had watched from the shadows when Morgoth thought Námo was not looking. How...how...

        Once, in a time that no longer existed, two desperate elves came limping into the Aman galaxy, exhausted and on their last legs. Once the one called Eärendil had begged on bent knees for their help. Erestor remembered how both his mother and father had argued in favor of going to help the elves of the Arda galaxy, had said that the harm that one of their own had done to those beings was their responsibility and thus they must go stop the darkness they had failed to contain. Once, in a time that no longer existed, Erestor remembered being with his mother and father, looking out over a void that should not exist. Once Erestor remembered how the screeching alarms of their ships had gone up and how his father had grabbed him and his mother and held them tight as that vast Darkness had opened up its maw to swallow them all whole.

        Erestor remembered in that time that no longer was how his mother had ripped herself from Námo's arms and went to her loom even as Erestor cried out for her and Námo held him close. Erestor remembered...he remembered...

        “You tore the loom,” he croaked out. He could not open his eyes.

        "Yes,” his mother sighed. “I did.”

       “You...you sent me here. There. To then.” Trying to parse out his thoughts made his head ache .

        “Yes,” Vairë said. “I did.”

        “I...did I forget or did you make me...”

        “I did not know if my desperate gamble would work,” she said. “I hoped that you would remember. That you would know my face.”

        “I do now,” he whispered. “I do.”

        “Then I am glad.”

       Erestor got a hand under him, then another. His chest felt as if he had been split open and then stitched back together. His mother's hand slid from his neck and he missed her touch the moment it lifted. “I don't understand,” he said once he could look at her again.

        His mother smiled, but it was a small, sad thing. “The Dark,” she said.

       Erestor opened his mouth and then paused. “The Dark,” he echoed. Then his thoughts began to move once more and a name came to him. “Ungoliant. It's...it's her .”

        “It is,” Vairë said. “So hungry she would devour the universe in her greed. We did not know she still lived. We did not know that Morgoth had not killed her. That she had turned on him in the end in her desire to consume every speck of Light in the universe. The Arda galaxy was the first victim. It would not have been her last.”

        Erestor swallowed, hearing his throat click. “But you stopped that.”

        “As best as I was able. Yes.”

        “By ripping up the loom. By reordering time.”

        Her head tilted to the side once more. “Yes.”

        “That's why,” he breathed, the pieces starting to come together. “I would...I remember...you would show me this station and all the elves here,” he blinked and blinked again, remembering sitting for long hours next to his mother, entranced as the loom played out the lives of elves he had never met before. “You showed me them. Ecthelion and Glorfindel and – and –”

       His mother cupped his cheek. “Yes,” she said. Her smile was so sad . “Their strands were entangled with yours no matter what I did.”

        “But then how...how did...why did...” Erestor pressed his lips together for a moment. “The destruction of the loom caused the time anomaly,” he began, trying to pick through his spinning thoughts. “You...you stopped time at the moment of Ungoliant's initial attack. But something went wrong.”

        “Yes.”

        Erestor stared at his mother. “Where are the others? Where is Father?”

        Vairë's sad smile returned. “You know where they are.”

        Erestor's breath caught. “No,” he whispered.

        “You will be the last of us,” she whispered back at him. “We have given you everything we can. Ungoliant must be stopped. Time must be remade.”

       “But I can't !” Erestor shook his head, not enough to dislodge her hand, not wanting to lose her touch. “I am nothing! I wasn't – I can't – I thought –”

        “You, my son, are whatever you need to be,” his mother's thumb brushed against his cheek. “All that could be given to you has been. All you need do now is to use it.”

       “But how !”

        “You know how.” Vairë's form was starting to fade. Erestor reached for her but his hands went through her arm. His mother smiled at him, brighter now, making her eyes light up in an emotion Erestor refused to name. “Know that we love you,” his mother's voice was fading. “We have always loved you and always will.”

        Then she was gone.

       Erestor knelt in that white hall full of white statues, staring at the spot where his mother had been. Above him something moved across the vast windows of the station, a shadow trying to eel its way in. Erestor looked up and bit by bit the world began to shift. He was on his knees. He was standing by the fountain, his hand raised. He was mourning the loss of a life he had forgotten. He was desperate to return to a life he lived on the Imladris with his friends and the family he had made there. He was a child on Gondolin station. He was Erestor of Eriador, an orphan of the War of Wrath. He was...he was...he was ...

        Erestor opened his eyes to see his fingers spread wide. Glorfindel was in mid-swing, about to land a blow onto Maeglin's guard that would push him back and cause him to fall. But Maeglin had a dagger in his other hand, ready to thrust it up into Glorfindel's gut and end him there.

       Erestor saw it all like threads stretched out on a vast loom, like the one he would watch, like the one his mother had woven. In that moment Erestor was on Gondolin station, Erestor was in the infirmary in the Imladris, Erestor was sitting next to his mother in their Halls, watching her work. In that moment Erestor was watching the universe be devoured by the Dark. In that moment Erestor was watching the universe be born again.

        All that could be given to you has been . Erestor took in a short breath and curled his fingers. Brighter and brighter his palm began to glow, crimson and cerulean and iridescent white. And, outside the station, outside the Imladris, a great vast Darkness paused and turned its attention to him, that desperate hunger that spurred on that monstrous Dark zeroing in on the Light that began to bleed through his fingers and turn the world into a kaleidoscope of colors.

        “Here I am, Ungoliant,” Erestor spoke, feeling the words ripple across space and time. “Come and get me.”