#im sorry finritter this doesnt actually feature that much turgon/finrod interaction

[actual-bill-potts]

i just read your finrod-re-embodiment prompt fill and I'm having all the emotions </3 (loved it a lot, I will re-read this so often, I already know that!)

For another Finrod-related prompt: anything about his friendship with Turgon, maybe?

(I'm very partial to any "Finrod survives and is brought to Gondolin for some reason"-aus, if you need more incentive, but I'd be happy about anything! From fluffy early childhood in Valinor days, to "where did my best friend vanish to I miss him"-angst.)

-finnritter

Turgon had once loved the Eagles of Beleriand: the hope they represented, the promise that the Noldor were not completely abandoned by the Valar. He still trusted them, and honored them for their help. But ever since they had come bearing his father's body, he could no longer feel joy at their coming. His father's chest had been crushed in; blood had encrusted his mouth and run down his neck; the bones of his legs had been shattered beyond repair. His death must have been agony.

Nothing would ever erase the sight from his mind, and no matter how he tried he could not stop wondering: if you could bear my father away from that battle, why did you wait until he was dead? Perhaps it was a disloyal thought, to the Eagles who had indeed risked much to retrieve his father's body, and to his father who would have been furious to have been ripped from the battle he had chosen; but he did not care.

So when he saw an Eagle circling, and was able to discern a limp body clutched in its claws, his only thought was: not again. And then as the Eagle descended, he caught a white-gold flash of hair and began running for the hill-top on which they customarily landed, heedless of his startled guards or the flashes on concerned recognition on the faces of his people. His mind was wiped clean of all but a burning urgency. He was aware of a cresting wave of grief, growing in strength in a corner of his mind - but he would not mourn until he was sure. He would not. He would not.

He reached the top of the hill just seconds after the Eagle landed, his hair blowing back by the wind from its wings. He bowed hastily and then hastened closer.

The Eagle had deposited its burden on the ground, a bloody heap of rags and limbs in disarray. The one ear visible through a tangled mass of dirtied golden hair was cruelly torn.

This was not Finrod. Surely it could not be Finrod. Finrod was motion and laughter, beauty and song, always arrayed in gauze and gems; this Elf had had misery carved into the jagged lines of his bones.

The Eagle bowed its head to him. The Lord of Wolves has suffered a great defeat, it said in rasping Eagle-speech, and left this one behind. We recognized him.

With that it departed, and Turgon with shaking hands reached out and rolled the body onto its back.

The delicate lines of Finrod's face stared back at him, thin and bloodied and so very, very still.

But there is not room for another monument next to Atar's, Turgon thought, miserably and inconsequentially. There was a great scream building in his throat, but he could not let it out. I shall have to find another spot. Perhaps I will have it encrusted with pearls. He would like that. His head was pounding. He could not move. He could not speak.

Footsteps behind him; his retinue had arrived. "My King!" Culúrien in the lead said; then, sounding astonished, "What has happened? Who is that? We must summon the healers! Cyruion, Eruion, go the healers' wing and tell them to come at once to the Eagles' Hill! Go, now!"

The sound of the chosen messengers retreated quickly, but Turgon took no notice. "There is no need, Culúrien," he forced out, "he is dead, do you not see?"

"But he is not dead!" Culúrien exclaimed. "My King, he breathes!"

It could not be. He had prayed for this, when he saw Elenwë's still body, and Aredhel's, and his father's. His prayers had never been answered.

But now he was looking for it, he could see it: the faintest rising and falling of Finrod's chest. His head spun.

But there is so much blood, he thought, how can he be alive?

Finrod's chest continued to rise and fall. Suddenly his hand twitched - Turgon saw with a flash of nausea that it was mangled, the white of bone shining oddly through his palm - and he let out a quiet cry.

Turgon was not entirely aware of having moved, but he was suddenly kneeling at Finrod's side, one hand in his friend's filthy hair.

"It will be all right," he said, like a prayer. "It will be all right. My dear friend, you will be all right."

Finrod's lips moved, soundlessly. Then his eyes opened.

"Turgon...?" he breathed. "There was...an Eagle..."

"Yes," Turgon said, "The Eagle brought you here, to my city. To Gondolin. Here you will be safe. Just - hold on. Don't try to move," he added hastily, seeing Finrod gathering himself as if to sit up.

Finrod stilled, breathing harshly. "Wouldn't...dream of it..." he said.

Behind him, Turgon heard the approaching footsteps. "The healers are here, Finrod," he said gently, and moved to get up.

But Finrod reached out with his undamaged hand, hissing through his teeth as he did so. "Please," he said, voice growing fainter with every word, "Please - don't leave. My friend - I have missed you."

"I won't leave," Turgon said, and meant it. He grasped Finrod's undamaged hand, and held it as the healers lifted Finrod onto a litter and bore him back to the city; as they bandaged his wounds and set his broken bones, and stitched together the deep marks of teeth and claws all over his shoulders and chest; and he was holding Finrod's hand when his friend woke next.

Finrod's smile, now lopsided by a scar that split his upper lip, was still as brilliant as he remembered; and the pressure of his fingers, though thinner and more bare of rings than Turgon had ever seen, was a warm and familiar weight.

"I am relieved," Turgon said, "that I no longer need to order an absurd amount of pearls for your burial mound."

Finrod frowned slightly. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Turgon returned, and laughed. Something within him that had been frozen since his father's death seemed to be cracking open, flooding his chest with light.

He laughed again, because he could. It felt like a miracle.