Third Age, 2509

By the time they reached the house, there was no one in all the valley who did not know what had happened. Arwen and Erestor hastened forward, but not so swiftly as the lord.

The caravan halted on the lawn before the doors, and the guard of armed Dúnedain and dour-faced Noldor fell back. Glorfindel and his rearguard, mounted on sturdy mountain horses, came nearer and dismounted.

In the centre of the group were Elladan and Elrohir, haggard, unkempt, half clad and visibly exhausted. Upon their shoulders was a makeshift canvas bier. Only later did Elrond learn that they had borne it all the way from the west gate of Moria in fallen Eregion.

As Elrond reached them, with daughter and counsellor hot upon his heels, Elladan jerked his head in a gesture that Glorfindel understood at once. The golden-haired warrior relieved his young master of his half of the bier. Elladan bolted forward and seized his sister, burying her face against his bare and filth-smudged shoulder and dragging her back towards the house, away from the vision of horror that he could not spare his father.

Upon the bier, wound with makeshift bandages torn from her sons' travel garments and covered with their cloaks and numerous woollen blankets, lay Celebrían—or at least Celebrían's body. At first, Elrond was not certain that she lived at all, adamant though he had been scant days ago that, if indeed her fëa was severed from her body, he would know at once. What little of her that was visible was marred and bloody almost beyond recall, though efforts had obviously been made to clean away the befoulment. Her hair was matted with gore and grime and beneath the filth she was as grey-hued as the last ashes of a failing fire. But from her nostrils in the cold air a faint vapour of breath would appear, far too seldom.

Tears flowed hot and unchecked down the half-elf's cheeks as he looked at her, broken by torment and untold horrors in the depths of the mountains, and he was glad that Arwen could not see her mother now, even as he wished with all his heart that his sons, too, had been spared this anguish.