Second Age, 1703
The Sun rode high above the Hithaiglir, bathing the labourers in its loving light. The masons bent diligently over their intricate stonecutting while the carvers laboured over great boles of felled oak and mahogany, destined to become pillars and beams. Those with talents in the appropriate direction were ceiling the deep cellars or laying cornerstones. In the smithy, spikes were being crafted and latches and hinges being wrought of fair and enduring metals. The glaziers were busy shaping and colouring glass as only their folk could, for a day would come when the windows would be needed. All worked with great care and meticulous industry. They were building a house designed to last through many thousands of years.
Having no talents in any way related to the particulars of construction, the High King's emissary and the lord of all the labouring folk was occupied in one of the troughs, treading mortar for the builders. The builders went through it at a great pace, for all that they were only now starting on the walls themselves, and those who mixed it—chiefly warriors and scouts with little knowledge of the arts of the Noldor, were kept busy. It was not unpleasant work, as it so easily might have been. The company was merry and the day pleasant. It was good, also, that the master of this new haven was occupied in this lowliest of labours in the making of his own home. It proved that the young princeling was not only a dour captain of desperate war, but also worthy of this more peaceful charge and the offices he held.
Elrond thought little of this. He was not over fond of manual labour, being more inclined to his studies and his writing, but the valley was beauteous in the sunlight, and the house must be build. As for the status of his task, years under the command of Maedhros son of Fëanor had cured him of whatever stiff-necked pride he might otherwise have inherited from his renowned forbearers. He was content, for his was the serenity of a general when rest comes after trial and peace comes after long strife. His folk were safe and his toils past, and there was nothing now in his world save the sounds of sand and chisel and laughter in the clement afternoon.
As he worked, a sound of horses came to him and he turned. Through the trees came a great horse, such as the Noldor had bred through all their long years in Middle-earth to serve in the hunt and the war. Upon it, crowned with golden braids in which it was said the light of the Two Trees was caught, sat the Lady Galadriel. Her coming, unheralded though it was, was not unexpected, for Elrond knew full well that he held something in his keeping that she would one day want back.
He stepped out of the trough with help from a grinning foreman, and rinsed his hands in a barrel kept for that purpose. His dark hair was flying loose from its plait in random tendrils, his short tunic was smudged with sweat and lime, and his bare legs were crusted with mortar, but he was not shamed by his appearance. It was that of one engaged in honest labour, and in any case the last scion of the house of Finarfin had seen him at far more inopportune moments.
'Welcome to Imladris, lady,' he said, bowing to her. 'I regret that we cannot make you suitably welcome, but as you can doubtless see, we are some years from having a banquet-hall or guest-chambers. Yet you are welcome to what we have.'
'That is well, Lord Elrond, for you have that which I desire above all.' Galadriel smiled as her mount pawed the ground in a moment of restlessness. 'Where, I pray you, is Celeborn the Wise?'
'With Glorfindel and the others with knowledge of architecture that extends beyond my own grand notions, in the pavilion on the hill,' he replied, also smiling.
They continued to exchange tidings and pleasantries, but Elrond found himself looking away from she to whom he spoke. For, some paces behind the lady Galadriel and mounted upon a white palfrey, was a maiden. Her hair, too, shone like the sun upon the water, and her eyes were clear and bright. As he looked into their fathomless depths and beheld something of her heart and mind through them, he knew that he had found she whom it was his fate to love, requited or no, until the ending of all things.