Elladan and Elrohir

Birth and youth

Elladan and Elrohir were born in Rivendell in T.A. 130, the elder children of Elrond and Celebrían and the grandsons of Galadriel and Celeborn. Their sister Arwen was born a century later. They were so alike that few could tell them apart, dark-haired and grey-eyed like their father, and they were seldom apart from one another. Like all the Half-elven of Elrond's house they lived under the Choice: to go West with their father and remain of the Elves, or to stay and become mortal.

The rescue of Celebrían

In T.A. 2509 their mother was ambushed by Orcs in the Redhorn Pass under Caradhras and taken. The brothers tracked the Orcs to their den, rescued her and brought her home, but she had been tormented and poisoned, and though Elrond healed her body she sailed West the next year. From then on the twins rode against the Orcs of the Misty Mountains without rest, sometimes with the Dúnedain of the North and sometimes alone, and the Appendices say that they never forgot the torment of their mother. They were often in the company of the Chieftains of the Dúnedain, and they were the friends and companions of Aragorn from his youth in Rivendell, calling him brother.

The War of the Ring

In the autumn of T.A. 3018 the sons of Elrond went out with the scouts sent from Rivendell to search the lands for the Nazgûl before the Fellowship set out, riding as far as the sources of the Gladden. In the following spring, at Galadriel's prompting and their father's command, they rode south with Halbarad and thirty Rangers as the Grey Company, and met Aragorn at the Fords of Isen on the sixth of March. They carried two things to him: the standard that Arwen had made, and Elrond's message that the days were short and that if Aragorn were in haste he should remember the Paths of the Dead. They went with him from Dunharrow under the mountain, where Elladan brought up the rear of the company among the shades, and Elrohir stood beside Aragorn at the Stone of Erech. They rode with the Dead to Pelargir, fought on the Pelennor Fields, and were among the captains in the council after the battle, where their word was for the march on Mordor. At the Black Gate they stood in the last battle, and in Minas Tirith after it they were among the Elven-lords at their sister's wedding, having ridden south from Rivendell with Elrond and Arwen.

After Elrond

When Elrond sailed in T.A. 3021, Elladan and Elrohir did not go with him. They remained in Rivendell, where Celeborn joined them for a time after he left Lórien, and the house of Elrond endured for many years into the Fourth Age. Their final choice, whether to follow their father over the Sea or to accept the fate of Men as Arwen had, is not recorded in any of the published texts.

Legacy

The twins are the Elven face of the long war against the Orcs in the North, and the living tie between Rivendell and the Rangers. They were the Fellowship's reinforcements in the hour when Aragorn most needed them, and their unrecorded choice is the last open question of the Half-elven.

Remained in Rivendell into the Fourth Age after Elrond's departure; their final choice between the kindreds is unrecorded.