A/N – Sorry if this seems to wander a bit, but I have had a lot on my mind. Exam results and the like. Anyway, it might still be fit to be read, so enjoy. Also apologies for the delay.

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"And was it then that she first took the name Galadriel?"

"Was given," corrected Arwen, "but yes. Then or shortly thereafter, and what short time lay between was no matter in the eyes of the elves. Celeborn gave to her the name Alatáriel, which was Quenya, but in Sindarin it was to become Galadriel as she was for the passing of the ages habitually known."

Thronghene nodded, thought written across her features. From around them, the watchful gazes of the Guard of the Citadel followed both Queen and Princess without movement of the men themselves. The women passed through a flower-twined archway into an older part of the gardens, wilder and with more birdsong in the air than there was in much of the Citadel grounds. Stopping at the base of one of the gnarled trees, its branches dipping so low with the weight of blossom as to almost caress her shoulders, Thronghene ran one hand over the back of the tree and spoke to her mother without looking round to meet her gaze.

"From the way you speak, it seems perhaps that prudence quenched her desire for her own Kingdom, Princess of the Noldor though she may have been and be still. Yet some intuition tells me that it was not the only reason that she remained."

She turned then, and in that moment was far more than any human maiden. The sunlight swept over her form, and she was clad in the green of summer leaves which is the richest, with a belt of silver but no other adornment, for she neither cared for them nor needed them. She seemed to have within her the same natural grace as did the leaves around her when they danced in the wind; the faint flush of youth in her cheeks was as the touch of hue within the rose, and in her twilit eyes the ageless elven light lay. It was not the tale heard which had bought this look upon her, but a twining of her mind with the very heart of the tale in a way which Men had long tried to follow.

"Indeed it was more than prudence which prevented her from leaving Doriath at that time," replied Arwen. "Her love for Celeborn, of course, bade her remain, though love runs so true in the hearts of elves that they do not fear even many years far separate. Her loyalty to Melian the Queen of Doriath may also be noted. Perhaps it could even be said that she felt the first changes which would lead to the great storm which was beginning to grow, and the darkness which had then only started to descend."

Arwen's voice had softened as she came to the end of her explanation, and her eyes were cast to the ground. As every other elf she had heard the tales, and yet it seemed to her sometimes that her children did not understand the ties between their blood and the blood of the elves who were the heroes of those same stories. The history of both Elves and Men united in them, each tale from the great journey of the Eldar to the War of the Ring. It was true that a greater awareness was in them than would be in most of their age, yet they like so many were detached from the stories that they heard save for isolated moments.

Thronghene crossed and set her hand gently upon her mother's shoulder. "Do you wish to return within the walls of the Citadel?"

"There is no need. I was considering the old tales, not so much the Great Tales but the many which are in danger of being forgotten; there are times when your father would think as such, for he knows of the same histories, and more than that is one of only two still in Endor who have seen within the great chasms of Sauron's mind."

"I find it curious," said Thronghene, as despite Arwen's words both turned their feet by silent agreement back towards the Citadel. "When Father speaks as such, he uses the title of the Dark Lord for the power who was once the Necromancer and later made a darkness out of Mordor. Yet you and some others would use Sauron for name and title both. Why such a difference?"

"Most would say that the race of birth marks the distinction, but in truth the passing years have changed the memory of Men. To most Elves, the Dark Lord would still be Morgoth, and some of the most ancient no doubt still remember the name by which he was first called though no child of Iluvatar would use it now. All those who have my years or more have heard the tales of him and the fury that he wrought, and though few now live who fought against him in battle their memories are long and without fail. But in the Third Age and this Fourth, the greatest danger in the memory of most is Sauron, and so the title of Dark Lord was passed to him even through the different names that he took upon himself."

Her daughter appeared to consider the words for a few slow moments, and her eyes became clouded. "And so, despite all of the suffering of those who dared oppose Sauron…"

"The great War of the Ring was but a shadow of battles and wars long past. Alas, in spite of the loss suffered this is true, for it was the elves who stood in the War of the Jewels before the first Dark King, Morgoth with the Silmarils in his iron crown, and now they are fading. From the children of the stars to the heroes of ancient story and rhyme. So quickly they are forgotten."

Arwen sighed, and her troubled gaze seemed to be fixed on something beyond what Thronghene could ever think to set her eyes upon. Then a hand lighted upon hers, soft but with a strength beyond what fleeting mortality would oft endow that told in both the touch and in the voice which accompanied it. "No, Mother, not yet. We do not forget, and so are not forgotten. In the Peredhil Telchontar line let such change be remembered, lest all too much be lost."