Chapter 40
I wedded Legolas as the light of the Sun shifted to a deep bronze and the wheat was turning golden. Under the trees we stood when he placed his hands in mine and I kissed him in front of his father and my family.
To Thranduil of Mirkwood I gave many healing plants and herbs that I hoped would prove useful as his people strove with the cruel creatures in his woods. From him I received nothing but Legolas, but from his father Legolas was gifted a new bow, expertly crafted, and a quiver of arrows whose fletching was a vibrant shade of green. To Legolas I gave a slender golden circlet which I placed upon his head, and Anor glinted through the trees and her light fell upon him and he was properly crowned.
There, in the kiss that we shared, I took him once more into my heart and his joy blended with mine until the world lay wrapped in a dazzling light. And from there I led him into our future.
o.O.o
During the years that followed, even as the Shadow darkened and lengthened, I walked with a song in my heart and my soul found solace. Sweet were the hours which I spent with Legolas and his laughter wove itself into my dreams. When I opened him and filled him I knew nothing but that song, and when we lay together, breathing in the starlight, I was sure that I would never again know grief. For so deep did my love for him run, and so brightly did he shine, that the edges of all my bitter memories were blunted and the pain was erased, and I was healed.
He rode out at times with Elladan and Elrohir and I bore the weeks that we were separated as best I could. For I would not hold him against his will and perhaps I thought in those days that the vision of far-off horizons I had once seen in him was only this: weeks and months spent far afield with my sons. And while I knew that they sometimes sought battle with the orcs together, I forced my fears from my mind and focused on other matters. Glorfindel had trained him and he was strong and young and skilled, and he simply must return to me unscathed. There was no other option.
In that time, rumour came to us of a dragon and of his attack on the city of Dale and of Erebor, the Dwarf kingdom under the Lonely Mountain, and gruesome were the tales that sped to us in its wake. From that horror King Thrór escaped with Thráin, his son, and Thorin, who would later bear the name Oakenshield.
That a dragon once more should stretch his wings and slay free folk with his fire was a sign we could not ignore, and long and grim were the councils in Imladris then. But we did nothing at that point for it was still unclear to me when we should act and how. And Saruman and Mithrandir also urged caution and patience, and for another eighty years we lay low, as if waiting for something neither of us knew by name.
As we delayed, orcs crossed the lands and travelling became increasingly perilous. There was war again between the dwarves and orcs for Thrór was slain in Moria and long the earth shook with the grisly sound of battle-axes set against cruel swords. Further eastwards was slain also the King of Rohan and the orcs roamed then freely across those grassy plains.
But when at last Thráin was taken captive and dark whispers rose from Dol Guldur, Mithrandir went there and returned with grim tidings. Thráin he had found but there the dwarf finally perished and Mithrandir knew for certain what power dwelt there. Then we came close to agreeing on an attack on Dol Guldur and even Thranduil voted with me but Saruman spoke against this and his power was persuasive.
It was in that time that mention of the One Ring was made at last and a cool wind seeped through the trees and into my garden. I set against it my will, and all my determination, and Vilya shimmered on my finger. The Elven Rings, untouched by the malice of Sauron, worked ever against him but as Saruman spoke I felt a deep unease settle in my heart. The One Ring, he said, was lost and would never come again to the hand that had forged it, and so we were quite safe. But Mithrandir sat apart from us and he was silent.
Afterwards I sought out Legolas and took him in my arms. He asked no questions but only rested his head on my shoulder and held me close. Then, when I finally sighed and made to straighten, he kissed me.
"I see a shadow on your face," he told me, when it was over.
I lifted my hand to run my fingers through his hair. "The days are darkening," I said.
He nodded. "Aye, but that does not mean that all light is extinguished."
I smiled and tightened my hold on him. "No," I said, "for you are the light."
"Not all of it," said he.
Together we watched as the sun draped the western sky in a dazzling crimson and light lay like a wrought band of copper above the treetops. My arms came around him again, and the first stirrings of autumn hung in the air as he leaned back against me. But I could still find traces of summer in the scent of his hair and the taste of his kisses.
o.O.o
So the years passed and there came into my care several fosterlings of the Dúnedain. Dark of hair they were, and grey-eyed, and there was ever in their faces a solemnity which proved hard to shake. One by one they rose to full stature and even in those days, so long after the fall of Númenor, they stood taller than many others of their kin and were fair enough to look upon in their youth. But they also fell, one by one, and gave up their lives as Ilúvatar had decreed in the Beginning.
Their lives were brief and hard and though they knew some joy it seemed to me that they knew more pain. But they were strong and valiant in battle and though I could not precisely say what about them that woke in me compassion, my house stayed always open to them. Perhaps it was kinship, for in ages past Elros had served as the first King of Númenor and maybe I was honouring him by taking them in. Or perhaps I already then sensed the doom that lay before us all though I knew it not, and a part of me strove to retain our friendship and do for them what I could.
There came then a time of parting, in a fragile spring when the first flowers turned their heads to the tentative sunlight. For many years, Galadriel had urged me to send Arwen to her and equally long I had closed my ears to her wish. But now, as the first notes of birdsong trilled towards the clear blue skies, my daughter herself came to me and took my hands, and spoke:
"I know you wish it not, father," she said gently, "but it is long since I saw the Golden Wood and there the leaves will soon emerge and dance shining in the wind. I should like to see their beauty again."
"We also have trees," I told her, but it was a poor argument.
"We do," she allowed, "and I do not love them any less, but it is also long since I last spoke with Galadriel."
I looked down at her hands in mine. "I do not wish it," I said honestly. "But neither can I keep you here against your will."
Her clear grey eyes glinted with humour. "Why is it that I sense you have spoken such words before? Is it every time Legolas prepares to ride out with my brothers?"
I let her go and I found that she had brought me to a smile. "Maybe," I said. "But that is another conversation."
"Yet not so different," said she. "For just like him, my heart is turned westwards and its home is here, even though I should ride elsewhere and dwell for a time in Lothlórien."
"Thankfully, Legolas has no such desires," I told her, and it made her laugh.
"Then I am glad," she smiled. "For though I love him well and should very much enjoy his company, it will ease my heart to know that he is at your side when I am not."
But I could not smile for in that hour a sense of foreboding struck me and I took her hands in mine again.
"Come back," I said, perhaps more urgently than I had intended for her eyes widened with surprise. Yet I could not chase my sudden anxiety from my heart. "Come back soon."
For another moment she stared at me but then a new smile curved her lips.
"I promise," she said. "I will be back before you know it and we shall see a new spring together."
I nodded but found no more words. Gradually, fear left me but when she at last set out I stood in the courtyard with my arms around Legolas for only he could steady me in that moment. The sunlight gleamed in her dark hair as she lifted her hand in parting and the last I saw of her face ere she turned to the road ahead was the smile that lit it up. Then I closed my eyes and for a long time we stood in silence with only the singing of many birds to soothe the ache in my heart.
He felt it also. I saw it in him when he gingerly turned to face me and there was a streak of pain over his eyes. But he placed his hand over my heart and pressed a kiss to a spot just above it.
"It will be well," he said. "Whatever comes will be good."
"We do not know that," I said heavily.
"Then we must hope," said he, and perhaps he spoke in foresight.
For there was indeed Hope. In another spring, while frost still lingered on the grass, and the Morning Star still sailed low in the heavens, Gilraen of the Dúnedain came at last to my threshold and she was worn and weary. And in my halls she dwelt for many long years ere she returned to her people and among them surrendered her life and went to seek her husband who had been slain. But to me she brought her child and him I received and took into my care; and when he looked upon me with wide, fearful eyes my heart was melted and I gave him the name Estel.
In my halls he prospered and over my grass he ran, and he caught the heart of many, among them Glorfindel and Legolas, and my sons. Fast friends they became and together we taught him speech and writing, and when he was old enough to lift a sword, Glorfindel gifted him one. As he grew, though also he carried the sorrow of the Dúnedain, in his eyes there shone another light completely. And for a time, even as the outside world came once again knocking at my door – this time in the form of Mithrandir accompanied by thirteen Dwarves and a Hobbit who went by the name of Bilbo Baggins – laughter once again rang through my Valley.
But as is the way of time, light is eventually replaced by darkness, and this time a darkness so dense and so suffocating came to me that had it not been for Legolas, I surely would have perished. For the seasons turned and Estel grew to full manhood and I revealed to him his heritage. And in that time also, Arwen, my brightest star, returned to me, and yet she was lost forever.
Little will I say of the years that followed. Only that I lay at Aragorn's feet a quest no easier than the one Thingol once appointed Beren, but to no other Man but a King could I ever give my daughter and I fear that in that hour I was hard and grim to look upon. But even this pain was lessened and the deep divide that had opened between myself and Aragorn was somewhat closed, for Legolas was ever beside me, and by him I was comforted.
TBC
