The first chapter in: The Fadriel Chronicles

Prologue to: A Journey's Danger

The Loss of Felagund.

Falandir was stunned. She couldn't believe it, or maybe she just wouldn't believe it; Felagund was dead.

She had unbelievingly implored her mother, Galadriel, time after time,

"He can't be dead, I saw him a week ago!" She had watched, horrified as they brought him out on a stretcher made of fur, werewolf fur. They had come from the crumbled gates of Felagund's tower, Minas Tirith upon Tol-In-Gaurhoth to a hill covered in brown grass outside, where the small elven mourning party from Doriath stood. Small snowflakes drifted down to melt on the dead grass, and a chill breeze whipped over the hill, causing the Elves gathered round to shudder. An escaped Elf-thrall and Beren lowered the stretcher; Beren, how she never wanted to hear that name again. He was the one who had gotten her beloved uncle to go on the quest; he let him die down there in the dark. He was the one walking out alive! They stood back and bowed their heads as angry thoughts passed through Falandir's mind. She looked from the stretcher to her mother's face. Galadriel had always been the strongest in mind of the ladies of the house of Finwe. Through the Dagor Bragollach, the news of Aegnor and Angrod's death, she had held on, didn't let the others know her sadness. But now, at the horrifying sight of her beloved brother lying unmoving upon the ground, her heart was torn as never before. Falandir perceived that against all effort to look stoic her mother's face held great sorrow. Looking briefly into her mother's eyes, she was forced to quickly look away again, perceiving that Galadriel's mind was open, and un-guarded thoughts seeped out in the terror of her grief. Jumbled words of a pained mind rushed through Falandir's own, and she couldn't stop the flow that her over-keen Elven senses had picked up.

"The oath," "The oath, he told me this would happen, why didn't I-" with a sharp glance Galadriel realized her daughter was reading her mind. Accident or no she immediately trailed off and closed her welling thoughts from view. As one resonant Elven voice began to sing the lament for the King of Nargothrond, a tear slid down Galadriel's cheek. A small drum of war began to beat, and a heavy overcast sky drew on. Falandir's wide eyes passed from her mother's face to the ground, and suddenly she couldn't bear it any longer. She struggled free from her mother's grasp.

"Ellethae!" Galadriel called, but it was no use. Falandir fled to the stretcher and knelt beside Felagund. She grasped his hand; it was ice cold. Reality hit the Elf like a wave. Her uncle wasn't sleeping, and he would never wake up. She laid her slender hand upon his breast. No heartbeat. Falandir stared, eyes filled with terror, at the pale face of her uncle, that looked as if in the midst of sudden horror and pain peace had come to him; a lasting peace that lifted the cares of ruling a kingdom, the toil of the years, and the hardships of the fateful trip to Arda; they had all been seemingly washed away from his fair face. In a sudden breakthrough of emotion and grief she collapsed, falling upon his prostrate form, still holding his hand. Two blazing tears slid down her cheeks

"Please don't let me go" she whispered.

Faint memories of her uncle in Valinor flooded through her mind...his smiling young face as he lifted a blonde baby out of her bed for the first time; how he had altogether missed Feanor's speech upon Tirion just to skip through the fields with young Falandir. How he had named her Ellethae, his little Elf maid...always he had called to her by that name, even when she would have an argument with her father he was always there to hold her on his knee. Once he had saved his young niece from a wolf when they were visiting Doriath, he slew the beast and caught her when the branch on the tree she was climbing broke, the only one who could rescue her. She didn't want to get up from there, to face the pain of tomorrow, to live another day without him. She remembered when he had to leave to go to Nargothrond; she had pleaded with him... holding his hand and saying "Please don't let me go," those words reverberated in her memory. They had always worked to sidle one last moment with the golden haired Elf-lord, but even those words would never bring him back now.

She didn't know how long she lay there... maybe she blacked out, maybe she didn't. She awoke from her trance and lifted her head, and looked from face to face, as tears streaked down her cheeks. The Elves standing around the stretcher looked pityingly at the young Elf grieving over her uncle. Glorfindel faintly smiled lovingly at her from where he was standing next to his father. She forsook looking at the elves and gazed to the west, more unwanted tears sliding down the young Elf's face. Suddenly, a thought re-entered her mind. She looked up at Beren with doubt and disbelief in her eyes.

"How could you let this happen?" "I want my uncle back!"

"Ellethae." a hand touched her shoulder, it was Celeborn. Pain filled her heart at that name, the name Finrod had given her. He always used to call her "My little Elf maid," now he was gone. She turned and stood, putting her arms around her father and resting her head on his strong chest, taking comfort in the sound of his beating heart as one last sob was muffled in his clothing.

Beren watched sadly as leaning into her father's embrace, the young Elf walked back to the circle of mourners. Sorrow filled his heart as he watched, for he too, mourned the Elf king more than she would ever know.

Galadriel and her husband both thought that sending their daughter to Nargothrond would be the best option. There, Orodreth and Finduilas would comfort her, and there she would be well hidden and protected, she would be out of the Girdle of Melian but farther away from the threat of the North, for Morgoth was ever on the hunt for the Noldor. Glorfindel had gotten leave from Gondolin to come to the mourning of Felagund to comfort Falandir after the news had reached him. He was then summoned to return, but his love for Falandir was so great that he promised her parents to safely escort her to Nargothrond. The love that had grown between them, however, is a tale for another time.

And that is how Falandir Ellethae, firstborn daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn, came to be sent to the Elf-kingdom of Nargothrond.

A/N: Copy this link after reading to hear the song that inspired what is my first ever fanfiction (remember to take out the spaces before hitting enter in the search box) :

youtube watch?v= I3px9frGwak