A/N: I would like to extend a huge thank you to all the readers and reviewers of my story. If the bunnies have their way, hopefully I will have a whole new story with my spy elf, the charming advisor and blond warrior coming your way soon so keep an eye out.

May the wind be at your back!

Holding Destiny - Epilogue

"Come on, eat this."

"I'm not hungry."

"Not hungry! Are you becoming ill? Is there infection? I shall fetch Elrond."

"No, I'm not hungry because you just made me eat 2 other bowls of soup plus fruit salad."

"Oh, but you need to keep up you strength, Erestor."

"I don't need to looked like a stuffed pig doing it, Glorfindel."

Elrond smiled from behind the door hearing their bantering. He remembered four days ago when Glorfindel had ridden like an elf possessed carrying Erestor, who was severely wounded. The internal bleeding was terrible and it took Elrond many hours to get it under control, but he did and his advisor would recover. For a couple days he watched Glorfindel walk around Imladris with guilt that was eating him up. He tore himself up saying that it should have been him.

When Erestor insisted his friend sit with him he set Glorfindel straight and the topic never came up again. Elrond wondered at times what it was his wise advisor had said to get the warrior to calm down. Whatever it was, it worked and only cemented the thought in his mind that Erestor was the most talented advisor ever and could persuade anybody to see things his way.

He opened the door and entered the room to the sight of Glorfindel still holding up the bowl and Erestor giving him a look that said he would throw the blond out the window if only he could get up out of bed.

"Now, Glorfindel, I heard the chef needs a new assistant. I'm having thoughts of sending you to that position." Elrond joked.

Mocking laughter, Glorfindel rose from beside the bed. "What is an elf to do with two such jokesters as yourselves around?" He turned to leave, but not before giving the dark elf a look which spoke that their argument was certainly not over.

The door shut quietly leaving the two elves alone.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

Elrond's eyebrow raised, "You can use that wonderful gift of hiding your real thoughts on others, Erestor, but never on me."

The elf in the bed sighed, "I'm sore."

"I bet you are, has the bleeding stopped?"

"Mostly, it is nothing to worry about."

Elrond sat in the chair that Glorfindel had vacated, "Do you ever think about what might have been, Erestor?"

"You're still thinking on the circumstances surrounding the battle."

"I cannot be rid of it." The Lord confessed, "If we had fired on the men when they came out of the woods running towards us."

"They would have fired back, Elrond." Erestor surmised, "Their arrows wound have rained down and we would have been fighting both man and trolls. The beasts would have come out of nowhere, against both foes we would have been decimated by arrow, club and spear."

"Those visions told me one future."

Hearing despair in his Lord's voice, Erestor cut him off. "Aye, they did. One you were able to avoid, one you overcame, Elrond." He spoke. "Fate is not something anyone can control, not even with foresight. One cannot hold destiny in their palm of their hand and bent it to their will. You are an elf, Elrond, nothing more. Do not expect the impossible to come from you more than you would from the tactfully challenged warrior or me. Just do the best you can and make peace with the fact that you have done all you can do."

Silence filled the room for a long time while the advisor's words hung in the air.

"Perhaps you speak the truth."

Erestor grinned, "I am always right, you should have learned that by now." Elrond peered up at his friend to see him winking at him.

Leaving Erestor to rest before Glorfindel's next wave of attacks, Elrond smelled the cool night air.

The damage from the fight was still evident in his lands, but soon the elves and nature itself would take away the scars and replace it with new life.

The Lord looked forward to that new life and the challenges in the days to come. With his friends beside him, nothing felt unattainable, even peace.

Fin