Author note: Hello and welcome to another just in time update!

I'm loath to give spoilers away unnecessarily but this chapter does come with a content warning. I don't want to say if it goes well or badly for Keren before you've even read the chapter, but either way obviously there are birth scenes ahead! I recommend skipping if there are *any* issues surrounding childbirth or pregnancy you are uncomfortable with.

Three chapters to go, thank you to everyone who is on the last leg of this long journey with me :) xx


Chapter sixteen - Feet in the Earth

Keren did not tell anyone for months. It was her secret, hers and Legolas's, for as long as she could hide it, for once the news was out the whole world would take notice. The whole of Gondor, and beyond - everyone had been waiting, for years, for news of the first elf child born of a mortal womb.

But there was nothing to hide, not for a long time. Her belly did not grow, and she was not sick, and she did not lose or gain weight. For the first five months she wondered if she really was pregnant, but the way Legolas would look at her, love and hope and concern all mixed up in his eyes, would convince her she was.

"Remember elves are slow to grow once out in the world too," he had said, one very warm day in late summer, when her body should just be starting to show what was happening inside it. "An elf-child of thirty summers would appear as a child of ten in your eyes, though their mind and skill is that of an adult. We don't come of age until we are a hundred years old."

A hoar-frost spread through Keren's veins.

"I'll never see my children grown," she said quietly, and all at once his face fell.

"Don't think of that, Keren," he said gently.

"Don't tell me what to think," she replied, sounding tired. "Even if I live to a hundred, this baby will still be a child then, albeit of seventy, looking to her mother for guidance, for support as she nears adulthood. And her mother will be gone." She had known all this, thought on it many times before, but hearing the words so starkly had formed a cold clenched fist of anger in her stomach.

Legolas never knew what to say when Keren was in this kind of mood. However wise she always called him, sometimes he felt at a loss as to how to help, for really what could be said? All she said was true.

In the end, though, Keren provided herself with the words she needed to hear.

"But she'll have you," she said simply. "She'll always have you. And perhaps brothers and sisters too. I mustn't forget that."

Legolas smiled, and put a gentle hand on her still-flat belly.

"Oh, she will?"

"I might be wrong." She shrugged. "But in all my imaginings, it's always a girl I see. And she has everything of her father, and nothing of me - silver hair, grey eyes, tall and slender as a young tree. She looks like an elf, Legolas, and yet she's the grand-daughter of a carpenter of Minas Tirith." She shook her head in wonder.

"She'll have much of you," Legolas replied. "When I see her - yes, I see a her too- she has your grace, and your skill for healing, and… your face, but with the grey eyes and pointed ears of my people, and it causes a strange twisting in my heart that I can't describe. Seeing both of us there, in one person, I…"

"It's magic, isn't it?" She looked up at him, and still, nine years since their first meeting, the sense of wonder that this was all real was almost overwhelming. "There's no other word for it."

Finally, when Keren in any normal pregnancy would be two-thirds of the way through, her belly started to grow. There was still no sickness, nor nausea, which she was most grateful for. Already she felt as if the child was an ally, wanting to preserve her mother's strength for the long period of carrying her. But there was a little fear, too. This was it, the real proof that there really was a child of the Eldar inside her, and the delay so far showed her she was in for a strange and long six months. She was only halfway through, and it had been easy, nothing, so far. But what lay ahead?

She told Palen - no-one else - on their next trip to the city. Palen had hugged her sister close, and cried tears of joy, but could not hide the worry that furrowed her brow. It was November, and the days were growing chill. The prospect of a winter like the last one, when Keren was perhaps at her most vulnerable, was not inviting. If all went as expected and she carried for a full year, the baby would arrive in the mildness of mid-Spring.

It had been conceived on Keren's birthday after all - Legolas telling her that regardless of what day it was born, their child would share that day of festivity with her, for elves considered the start of life as the moment of conception. It made Keren feel a little strange, the thought that something was not only living inside her, but had already, to the elves, started its journey under the sun. But sharing her birthday with her child was a nice thought. Visions flooded her mind, of celebrations, of cakes and song and laughter - and her daughter grew taller and fairer in each vision, and, after a time, Keren grew grey at the temples, then a little stooped, then suddenly she was as wrinkled as poor old Ioreth had been. But all the time Legolas and their daughter remained unchanged - beautiful and ageless.

She looked at herself in the glass at Palen's house. Even now there were small signs of age upon her, though she was not yet thirty. She could blame her wider hips and stomach on the child, for now. Her face could still pass for that of a young girl, but looking closely she could see tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes. They had appeared gradually, and she liked to think it was because she spent so much time smiling, but she had a feeling it wasn't that. One wiry white hair had sprouted amongst the soft brown, which she had plucked from her head, mouth agape with disbelief, but it had stubbornly grown back.

It was all nothing, really - tiny little things, not even noticeable to others. But to her they were the start of what she feared - Legolas watching her change as he never would, slowly but irreversibly, her body beginning to adapt to age, to fail, to make her weaker - and she banished such thoughts to a deep, deep part of her, and she would keep them there until she was too old to see her reflection, when she would finally have to admit defeat.

"You look fine," Palen said as she came into the room, Little Keren in her arms. "More than fine."

Keren smiled ruefully at her sister's reflection, Palen herself perhaps just starting to look her age after raising three children.

"You're as good at the elves at reading my mind," she said.

"Well I've known you your whole life," Palen replied, "which is something none of them can claim. And admit it, you've always been a little vain," she added with a slight smirk, as she put Little Keren down to toddle around the room.

"I have not."

Keren tried to say it with conviction, but failed.

"Don't think I don't remember those days," Palen said. "Pulling down your shift, letting some hair 'fall out' from beneath your hood, pinching your cheeks - all to get Lord Faramir to notice you. You were so… young."

Palen had been about to say 'pathetic', but something in her sister's face made her change her words.

"He was all mixed up in it, wasn't he?" Palen asked, perhaps realising it for the first time. "This" - she waved vaguely at the crystal upon Keren's brow - "business."

Keren sighed.

"I don't know, Pal. Perhaps. But it doesn't matter now, either way."

"Do you ever see him, hear from him?"

"No." Keren shook her head. "It makes me sad, in a way. But really, his part is over now. If he was ever 'mixed up in it', I think his part was to make me realise what love is, and what love isn't. You can say it, Pal, I was pathetic. But I didn't know any different, and all along, this" - she tapped Tinúnil - "was telling me I had to love him."

"And then your elf-prince came along," Palen said smiling, all doubt, all fear she had about Legolas long gone. Even their father could speak to him without turning puce.

"Mmm," Keren agreed, silently. "But even then, it took me the best part of a year to see what Faramir had taught me. Perhaps I learnt it a little too well, for I resisted what I felt for Legolas for months."

"I know," Palen said dryly. "I could have told you long before. Even before you went off to Lothlórien."

The word conjured up many memories for Keren, all filled with a kind of inner light, a shining, silver quality - but far, far weaker that it once had been.

"I wish I could see it," Palen said quietly. "I wish I could go there, see our grandmother's grave, see where our mother was happy."

Keren had never told Palen that the tall, fair elf at the wedding ceremony was the person their mother had truly loved, the person who had caused the grief that ended her life. Sometimes she regretted it. But Palen was a mother herself now, and Keren knew she would never do as Orwen had done. She would travel to Lórien with all the children in tow, or not go at all.

"Perhaps one day, when the children are older," Keren offered. "But don't expect there to be anyone there. They're all leaving, one by one, slowly but surely. This isn't their world anymore."

"It's sad," Palen said, and Keren was flung into another memory, of her and Palen curled up side by side in bed, their mother telling them a particularly sad but beautiful story of the elves. Her elder sister had the same look on her face then as she did now.

"Not really," Keren said. "Well, only for us. This has never been their home, not their real one. They're just going back to where they belong."

"And Legolas stays for you?"

Keren nodded. "So he says."

"I've, um - don't laugh," Palen said quickly, "but I've started writing something. A book, I suppose. A book about you."

Keren did not laugh. In fact she felt pride rush through her.

"Mother's book was full of stories," Palen went on, "of love, and danger, and magic, and elves. And I thought - my sister's story is full of all those things. I only realised once I was older - who wrote those stories down? Well, she did. She knew them by heart, and she wrote them down, for us to keep forever. I keep it locked away, the book, for it's far too precious for the children to have just yet." Keren watched as tears grew in Palen's eyes. "But I wanted to add my own story to it, for us, for the children, but mostly for mother. A story of her daughter - the girl with a magic stone, who ran away to live with elves, who fought her way through to wed one, and bore the first child of its kind ever seen. I think it makes a good story."

"…Palen…"

"Of course you're famous now, and there'll be far greater writers who talk of you, who sing of you, for years to come. But no-one knows you like I do, my little sister. And when we're both dust, I want the Keren I know, my Keren, to live on. I want Dannis, and Orwen, and Keren to read it, and I want their children to read it, and their children's children, on and on and on and on, until the book itself becomes dust but it won't matter, because everyone in our family for the rest of time will know it by heart, and they will still tell it."

Keren smiled through her tears, but she suddenly felt a desperate fear, stronger than any she had ever felt. She clung to her sister, and Palen did not need to ask what was wrong.

"You will always be more than the things that happen to you," Keren heard her say in her ear, and she knew then there was a very real fear in Palen after all, as real a fear in her sister of something as she had herself, unspoken, unacknowledged, but always there. It was a fear that had prompted Palen to write everything down, to ensure she always had a part of her. It was a fear that kept Keren awake at night, though she heard Thranduil's voice, over and over, telling her of what it was he had seen - her child's hand in hers, both alive, both well.

But she did not trust the Valar.

"I'm so frightened, Pal." It burst out of her. "It's real, and I can't stop it, I can't shake this feeling. Thranduil saw a child, Legolas saw a child, I see a child in my mind, and that should be enough, but it isn't, it isn't. Palen, what if I can't do it? What if a human body just isn't supposed to do this? I have nothing to go on, no guide, no idea of what to expect."

"Hush." Palen said gently, holding her close. "Has all gone well so far?"

Keren pulled away, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"Too well. I've - I've felt nothing. I'm six months gone, and this is all I have to show for it." She put her hands upon her tiny belly. "What if something's wrong?"

"Speak to Arwen," Palen said quickly. "We can go up there right now. She'd help. We wouldn't even need to request an audience, I bet."

Keren shook her head. "The more people I tell, the more real it is. If things go wrong I don't want the world to know."

"The world doesn't have to know. I'd trust her with my life."

Keren sighed. "Legolas says it's normal, that elves grow slowly."

"Well, there you are, then. Hopefully you'll have a nice, easy, small baby at the end of it."

And Keren knew she spoke logically, and sensibly, but she still couldn't shake the feeling of unease, and when she glanced sideways at her sister as she left later, she saw Palen couldn't either.

By the time they were back in Ithilien the leaf-fall was at its height, Keren's favourite time of year, harking back to her time in the Golden Wood. Even Ithilien, where the leaves turned orange and brown and red, rather than Lórien gold, stunned her with its beauty every year.

Her belly continued to grow, though it was still small, but a few weeks into winter she finally felt it - that strange fluttering feeling all new mothers think is something they ate, before they realise, and their eyes widen, and their hands shake, and their smile grows.

A baby quickening at seven months is quite something, Palen had written, replying to Keren's hastily written letter. Then, abruptly: I wish you would let me speak to Arwen, or better, you would come here, see her yourself. It's winter. Come home.

But she put it off. This would be a child of the forest, this forest, where she now lay upon a bed of fallen leaves as naturally as she once had upon her bed in the Houses of Healing. She did not want to give birth in the world of Men. Ithilien was her home - she wanted a sturdy tree behind her back and her bare feet pressed hard into the welcoming earth when she delivered this child. She wanted Palen and Legolas by her side, no-one else. Palen, who had birthed three children of her own and helped bring hundreds of others into the world. She knew she was not bringing her daughter into the world upon fine sheets and velvet pillows. She wanted her first sight to be the grass, and the spring leaves, and the sky, her mother and father smiling beneath the trees where they belonged, where she belonged.

The little flutters continued, and they seemed to herald a time where things began to change faster. Finally, by the eighth month, her stomach rose with a roundness that her clothes could no longer disguise, and she had to tell the people around them, who all rejoiced. Bergil had raced home to his mother and father at the earliest opportunity to share the good news, and a few weeks later Keren and Legolas received a chest full of gifts, for them and for the child.

From all at Emyn Arnen, it had said, in Beregond's writing, and Keren briefly wondered if that was true.


The time came and passed in which Keren, had a fully human child been within her womb, would have given birth. She could not feel too disheartened though, for it had all been easy so far - no sickness, no pain, just the delightful fluttering sensation which recently had turned into definite and obvious kicks. She began to feel far more confident in her body's ability to carry the child to term, to give birth safely. From within there was a little nudging, a whisper from the unborn daughter so clear in her mind, that she was helping to make her comfortable, and safe.

The worst of the winter had passed, and it had not been nearly so cruel as the one before, plus she had had some wonderful furs from Emyn Arnen keeping her warm, and a bright idea that had struck her as she woke one morning, which had led to a hasty new building project.

As a result there now stood, just under the first line of trees at Cormallen, a large round hut, built quickly of dried mud and sticks just as Hrafn's had been, with a door that shut, and warm hangings, and a fire that never went out. Her grand winter quarters, she called it jokingly, but it had been all she had needed - a warm bed, and shelter from any snows or biting winds. It was not grand, and certainly not fit for an elven lady, but she wasn't one. Legolas had pledged to build her something finer, less hurriedly built, for the years that followed, but she had said it was perfect.

Legolas's eyes would widen, as they lay upon their bed in that winter hut, at the sight of her belly moving as the child did, his brow furrowing in baffled amazement, a comical look of disbelief on his face. Keren would just laugh, laugh until it hurt, laugh until tears rolled down her face at the fun and wonder of it all. They were so, so happy, and her confidence grew even more. They were too happy to let fear rule them, and if fear did not rule it had no place there amongst the trees. So the forest became hallowed ground for Keren, and she became superstitious about leaving it, even when the winter briefly turned vicious just at the end, a parting harrying of snow and ice, and Legolas urged her to travel to the warmth and comfort of Minas Tirith, perhaps even to stay there until the birth.

"No, my love," she would say every time. "My place is here. I worry if she's born there she'll never leave. She'll be so used to the finery and warmth of the King's House - for you know Arwen will insist we stay there - she'd cry and cry if she's brought here."

Legolas smiled fondly.

"You don't know that. Her heart will be here. And I have such plans for her home, Keren. The caves are deep, the trees are tall, the rivers and falls plentiful. It could be the fairest place to dwell in the whole of Middle-earth. I will send for more of my people from the North, and we will build doors, and gates, and landings and stairways and halls. We can extend the talans, for already our first ones seem too small for all the folk we will welcome here. I want her to be proud of her home. She will, after all, be the heir of it, after I have sailed. I will leave it to her to watch over, should she wish to remain."

"Such big plans, for such a little thing," Keren said.

They lay listening to the wind whistling outside, blowing the last of the snow about. It was late February, and their child was due in three months.


Spring came, bright and mild. Keren stopped sleeping in the hut and moved back into the talan she and Legolas had called home since their very first days in the forest. It was the largest and the grandest, spread across three horse-chestnut trees that stood close together, tall and old, only a mile or so from the river. They were covered in blossoms of white and pink and red at this time of year, tall cones that sprung up from the new leaves like tiny colourful trees themselves. A winding stair wrapped itself around each trunk, and the flets were across three shallow levels. It had not taken Keren long to notice that it was as close a copy of Galadriel and Celeborn's home as Legolas could make, although she was glad it was not quite so high up, for there were no mallorns in Ithilien.

April went by, and Keren looked as any woman about to give birth would - her stomach was large and stretched, her back always arched, her breasts heavier and lower. She took the steps up and down the trees a little slower, but other than the relatively new ache in her back and slightly swollen ankles she had no real complaints.

One night in early May though, she faced her first real grievance. Her belly was now so large that the large swathe of scar tissue, left from the wound to her abdomen, had stretched so much it was becoming more than uncomfortable, in fact a constant source of pain. She endured two sleepless nights before she admitted something had to be done.

"I need to make a balm," she said, through gritted teeth.

"You need to do no such thing," Legolas replied. "Tell me - "

"No, I want to do it, it'll help my mind focus on something else. But you could perhaps - ouch - get me the tools, and the ingredients?"

"Of course - tell me what and where."

Keren reeled off the herbs she knew from many years of practise would help with the tearing pain. But she had learnt a few slightly less traditional methods from old Ioreth as well, and she had trusted her more than any other healer in the Houses.

"A lemon and - don't look at me like that - a lemon, and some honey, and some apples."

"To eat or to put on your skin?" Legolas asked, trying not to laugh.

"Probably both. Oh, and a potato."

"Potato?"

"Yes, potato, a potato, ow - don't make me laugh, ow!"

There was so much laughter still, even when she was in pain. Such happiness, and joy, and peace. All the things she had longed for. The fear was ever fading. All had gone well, the pains and niggles she was feeling just an ordinary part of an ordinary pregnancy. And when the moment came she would have Palen with her, the only person she would trust to be there.

The moment could not be far off now, she thought once Legolas had gone. Her birthday was in a couple of weeks, and that had been the day, last year, that she had conceived. Would it really only be a matter of days until she met their child? She couldn't fathom it.

And she would be thirty. If she was lucky she would have at least that number of years allotted to her again, and hopefully many more, but already six years of marriage had just… gone. It was the one raincloud left in their clear sky.

May began to fade, the blossom growing fuller on the trees before falling and giving way to the verdant green of summer leaves. Keren's birthday came and went, celebrated quietly. Her scar was bothering her less since the soothing balm had been made and - to Legolas's amusement - the slices of potato and lemon had sat upon it day in, day out. But she had begun to feel very uncomfortable, and she sent for Palen from Minas Tirith, sure the time was almost upon her.

Palen arrived in a flurry on horseback, excited, nervous, with all the things she could possibly need carried with her all the way.

"You rode here?" Keren asked, her eyebrows raised as she greeted her sister. "You can ride?"

"Ever since Dannor got Roharan I itched to try it," Palen said, referring to her husband's huge, sorrel stallion. "I love it. Such freedom. This is Ides." She smiled at Keren's shocked face as she patted the small grey at her side. "You don't know everything about me, sister. I do have a life outside of healing work and motherhood. For a few hours a week, anyway."

"I'm so glad you're here." Keren enveloped Palen in as good a hug as she could give her in her rotund state.

"Everything still alright?" Palen checked.

"Fine. More than fine. I just thought, as the time - or the time we thought should be - has passed, that you should be here, ready for when…"

She trailed off, and began to feel a little anxious.

"Now you're here it's all very real."

Palen laughed. "So this - " she pointed at Keren's stomach - "isn't real?"

"Oh, you know what I mean. It's really happening. A matter of days, maybe hours."

"Are you scared?" Palen was suddenly very serious.

Keren nodded. "As scared as anyone would be, I suppose. But really, my body's coped admirably so far, there's been nothing out of the ordinary at all, so I'm far less scared than I once was."

"Well, good. It'll all be fine."

But Keren did not miss the quaver in her sister's voice. She felt she understood why it was there.

"I trust you, Pal," she said quietly. "You're the best healer in Minas Tirith, far better than I was. I know you won't let me or the child come to any harm."

Palen smiled a wobbly smile.

"I know it's a baby like any other baby," she said, "but I can't help dwelling on the fact that, really, it's the first of its kind. It's… a responsibility, bringing it into the world."

Keren took her hand.

"You helped at the birth of Prince Eldarion, Palen. Aragorn and Arwen honoured you with that - it shows how highly valued you are for your skills, and for your presence alone. Nothing is going to go wrong, Pal, really, this whole pregnancy has been blessed. The Valar are with me. I feared their presence at first, but I know they would not let me come to harm now, not when I'm so close to bringing to fruition what they willed into being. The child itself is helping me, I can feel her will inside me, and it's a comfort."

Palen shook her head, resigned to bewilderment as always when Keren started speaking like this.

"Sometimes I wonder just who you are," she said, and the sadness, the strange jealousy behind it, caused Keren to loose her hand from Palen's, just for a moment.

"I'm your sister," she said firmly, before hugging her again.


Palen had been there a week, and was ready to send for the new wet-nurse to bring Little Keren to her, for she was missing her own baby daughter whilst watching Keren prepare to birth hers. They had risen significantly in the world, she and Dannor, since his two promotions within the army of Gondor, and since, of course, her sister had married a friend of the King. But it was not natural to Palen, to leave the children in the care of servants. In the early morning of a particularly fine midsummer's day, however, she had no time to miss them.

Legolas had been drifting, his mind wandering as it always did, never fully sleeping, just resting. Keren had returned from her morning ablutions and found him in such a state, as she often did. He had awoken to her lightly shaking his shoulder.

"The child's coming at last," she said simply, her voice coming through the fog, deathly calm. "The pains have started, and they're bad. Fetch Pal, please."

He had blinked once, twice, opened his mouth to speak, blinked again, then sprinted down to the flet below.

"A summer baby after all," Keren said, her voice light and high with excitement, with trepidation, and from breathing heavily, as he brought Palen to her. "And born on the longest day of the year. A sun-child, like mother, Pal."

Palen had briefly met her eyes, and the various things each sister felt were too much to contain in words. But then the healer set to work. Palen checked Keren top to bottom, asked her many questions, listened to her heart, felt her belly.

Keren lay still for a little while, and she thought perhaps they had been a false alarm, those pains she had felt, but after some time the dull ache built again to a pressing pain, double the strength of the first. She stood and walked about a little, and shortly after felt something give inside her, and moistness running down her leg. She had felt it long before, in a dream - it had not been her body, not been her child, but she had felt it nonetheless. A shiver of fear passed through her. Her grandmother had felt what she had, and within hours she had been dead.

"You're safe, Keren," Legolas said calmly, knowing just what she needed to hear. Her face must have shown her panic.

"It's moving along quickly," Palen said, jumping up at the sight of the water pooling beneath Keren's feet. "Come on, let's walk you over," Palen said, for Keren had a very specific place she wished to bear this child. "The walking will help with the pain."

They made their way down the steps that curled about the tree. Legolas sprinted ahead to clear the way and prepare the ground.

The two sisters walked slowly through the forest, calm and quiet in the early morning sun, stopping once for another contraction. The birds sang, and the air seemed to hum with life, but Keren, for those agonising couple of minutes, could not hear it, for the pain took over. She stifled a scream.

"That's good," Palen said. "Screaming and yelling just use up your strength."

Keren nodded stiffly, then relaxed as the moment passed. She breathed deeply for a little while, then began her march again, becoming aware of the sounds of the forest, her home, drawing nearer and nearer to the place that meant the most to her in the world.

After a few minutes more they arrived, and she smiled with relief at the sight. She would be far happier knowing her daughter could be born here. There stood the oak tree on the far side of the glade, a soft sheet beneath it, and there stood her husband as well, anxiously waiting. He ran towards her as he saw them approach, and, for the first time ever, his hand felt clammy within hers.

"How is she?" he asked Palen, swiftly.

"She's fine," Palen replied, patiently. "It's looking to be a quick labour, but that still means several hours. We only left the talan twenty minutes ago, so I would sit down and rest with her instead of pacing about. Or better, if you want to feel useful, you could fetch some fruit, perhaps some bread, and water - she should eat a little before it gets bad."

"I thought this was bad," Keren said with as much humour as she could muster. She had helped at many births and knew just what to expect, had seen mothers weep and scream with pain whilst some barely made a sound, but somehow none of this now seemed enough to prepare her for being on the other side of it.

"Oh, it gets worse," Palen said, truthfully. "But somehow later you forget how awful it was, even after only a few days. I suppose otherwise no woman would ever have more than one. And anyway, you're strong. In every way."

Keren smiled, and relaxed a little, the pain subsiding for now. She propped herself up between the two roots, which had always invited her to sit there since that very first night alone under the moon.

Legolas returned with a small plate of food, and two pitchers of water. Palen laid out all she needed upon the clean, cool grass. Keren was familiar with all the herbs and tools in case things became difficult, but Legolas stared at the shining silver.

"What are the knives for?" he asked, his voice tight.

"One for the cord." It was Keren that replied.

"Oh, of course," he muttered.

"The smaller is if I need to make a tear, or…" Palen tailed off.

"If she needs to cut my belly open to save the child, if things go badly," Keren finished for her.

Legolas sat down beside Keren and took her hand. She squeezed it tight.


Two more hours passed, and the contractions, each one like a band of iron tightening around her torso, came closer. Another hour and they were every few minutes, and Keren was feeling exhausted. She knew what was coming though.

"I need to… push," she said, through shallow breaths. "I have to, Pal, I can't bear it anymore."

Palen checked her for what felt like the hundredth time, then nodded.

"Go on, then." Then she turned to the elf who had knelt unmoving, other than to speak and kiss Keren's brow, for hours. "It won't be too long now. Perhaps another hour, perhaps less. Everything's going well."

The sun was past its peak in the sky, and the day was warm. No-one outside of the glade knew that this moment was happening. Few people outside Ithilien knew that Keren had been pregnant at all. And she did not know that her father, ever since Palen had left, had awoken each morning with an anxious flutter in his heart, waiting for news, he and Dannor the only people in Minas Tirith aware of what was occurring away over there in the forests.

At Emyn Arnen, Beregond and Orel were waiting for any news Bergil could bring them of the happy event, and Beregond would be sure to watch his Lord and Lady's faces carefully when it was announced. They knew, had known, of Keren's pregnancy since Bergil had first rushed in looking fit to burst, and Beregond saw the still calmness they had both received the news with. He had felt wretched with pity for them.

So a grand total of ten souls knew anything of this child. Her conception, let alone her birth, would be a joyous surprise to the many thousands, the hundreds of thousands, of people - rich, poor, old, young, men, elves - who had been waiting for such news.

But all that really mattered was taking place in a quiet corner of Ithilien by the field of Cormallen. There, history was being made. And Keren, by the time she had pushed for twenty minutes, did not care in the slightest.

Her hand was clutching Legolas's so tightly it made both their fingernails white. Sweat was gathered at her temples. Her bare feet were dug into the earth. She felt sick. She felt exhausted - too exhausted for fear or worry or joy anymore. She just wanted it done.

"Palen!" she cried, not able to form sentences, just wanting to know how much longer she had to endure it.

"Almost there, Keren, almost there. Two big pushes and the worst will be over." Palen was struggling to contain her emotions, trying to keep her voice steady. "You're doing wonderfully."

"You can do it, my love." She heard Legolas's voice close to her ear.

Another contraction rolled over her, and she was lost, feeling nothing but the pain and the urge to push. She gritted her teeth and began again. So close, Palen had said she was so close.

And so she worked, her body and her mind using all their strength to see it through. She heard Palen give a cry of joy. The head, she assumed, through the fog of pain and exhaustion. She did feel a little relief from the burning pressure. Legolas took her hand within both of his and kissed it.

"Rest for a little while," Palen said, and Keren knew, from the many deliveries she had helped at herself, that she was turning the baby, clearing the nose and mouth.

"And go again." The calm clear voice of her sister urged her to start pushing once more.

She strained, and grimaced, and shook, once, twice, then suddenly she felt an end to the pain and the pressure, and she fell back against the supporting trunk of the old oak, too exhausted to ask if it was all over.

All was silent for a tense moment, then a high, sharp cry rung out through the glade, loud, piercing, and very, very real. Keren looked over to the source of the sound, and saw a bright pink, tiny little thing, arms and legs wiggling and twitching in Palen's arms. Palen wiped it hastily with soft, clean sheets, checked it over, then finally allowed herself to cry with joy.

"You have a daughter," she said, to Keren, to Legolas.

And suddenly she was there, and Keren found herself holding her upon her chest, and Legolas touched both her and their daughter with such heartbreaking gentleness she could not help but weep. She was so very, very tired, but she could not take her eyes off the person that lay at her breast - a new person, quieter now, eyes shut apart from one brief experiment to ascertain what this strange new brightness was.

The afterbirth came away easily, and Palen was satisfied all had gone as well as it possibly could for both Keren and the child. After any successful birth she would always give herself a metaphorical pat on the back. But for this one she hugged herself tight. She had not failed her sister, as she had secretly so feared she would.

Keren lay for a while, not speaking, not hearing anything other than her own heartbeat as it began to slow after her ordeal. Rest was a wonderful thing, and she would never take it for granted again. After a time she felt a little more awake, and looked up at Legolas with a tired smile.

He spoke no words, but he did not need to.

The sun was still not low in the sky. She had come quickly, the first child to be born in the forests of North Ithilien, the first elf child of mortal womb. Keren at last registered the tiny ears with their delicate points, like beech leaves.

She had really done it. And now she could tell the world, and share in their rejoicing.


A week passed - a happy, blissful week. Many, many letters were written, to their friends near and far.

Legolas could not function properly, his waking hours spent staring either at the child or at Keren, a blissful, dazed look on his face. Their friends within the colony would laugh and smile, and pat him on the shoulder. Bergil had taken one look at the baby and his face had very nearly crumpled, but he regained his composure and bowed low before Keren and Legolas.

"My hearty congratulations," he said loudly. "May I tell my father and mother?"

"I've already sent a messenger with the tidings," Keren replied, smiling.

She had, briefly, considered including a letter to Faramir in that package to Emyn Arnen, but found she could not write anything when she had set pen to paper. What was it to have been? An apology? Happy tidings? Pity? Joy? No, it was best to stay silent.

Aragorn had asked if, with their blessing, a public proclamation could be made in Minas Tirith, and when Keren and their daughter were fit for travel would they care to attend a great feast, and a city-wide celebration? But Keren still felt very tired, and the prospect of even leaving the forest in the next couple of weeks seemed overwhelming.

The news would take a little longer to reach Éomer at Edoras, and Gimli at Aglarond. The hobbits were so far away she had to resign herself to the fact that it may be years until they heard, when Aragorn journeyed through their lands. Perhaps, if by that time their child had grown a little, they could make the journey with him, and she could see her dear friend Pippin again. But just now it seemed far too much to have to do, when she could just stay here beneath the trees with her husband and daughter, forever.

Legolas had offered Thranduil grand lodgings for as long as he wanted to spend time with his new grand-daughter, but it would be weeks until they heard back from that great distance as to whether he would make the long journey south again. Keren was sure a visit to Mirkwood was on the horizon in the next year or so. But she would not travel before she and her daughter were ready.

Her daughter. She did not have a name yet. The right one would come, Legolas said, and Keren felt that to be true. She would let them know what she would like to be called, somehow.

Palen stayed with them until she was sure all was well. Keren had been very tired, but that was to be expected, for she was feeding the child herself, at any hour of the day or night, and had, after all, carried that child for thirteen months. She found she nodded off during the day when the opportunity presented itself, and as long as she could do that she felt alright.

One day Palen and Keren walked in the woods, the baby not swaddled in the fashion of men, but held close to her sister's chest in a fine silken robe after the manner of the elves. They stopped at the oak glade, the old tree unchanged, not revealing that he had seen a miracle occur beneath his boughs.

They sat where a week ago Keren had laboured, talking of many things and nothing, the baby at Keren's breast.

"And you'll be alright if I go?" Palen checked for the twentieth time.

"I'm fine. She's fine. Please, Pal, go and see your poor husband and children. You've been here three weeks. And I will be forever grateful to you for it. I couldn't have done it without you."

"Yes, you could," Palen said. "But I was so happy to be a part of it all. Though I admit, I do miss my brood. I think tomorrow, if it's alright, I'll go."

"Go with all my love, and tell the children I'll see them soon, and I'll bring their new cousin to meet them."

Palen nodded, and did as she had done for the past three days - left Keren alone with the trees and the gentle wind and the green grass. She had grown stranger with the years, her little sister. Or perhaps the strangeness had always been there and she had failed to see it. But again Keren's feet were bare, and the crystal was upon her head, and her eyes were closed, and she almost seemed to breathe in time with the breeze that rustled the leaves ahead. If the Valar truly had chosen her out of all others to live as an elf, Palen thought, they had chosen well. And her child, no doubt, would be as naturally at home amongst the trees as her mother.

Palen shook her head, fondly, and walked back to her talan, taking a last look at her sister, already dozing gently against the rough bark, the baby asleep in her arms after a hearty feed. Part of the forest they were, truly, looking new and ancient all at once. Beautiful, and wild.


It grew dark, and Legolas, like Palen, did as he had done for the past few days - went to meet his wife and child at the oak tree, where she had taken to sitting for a few quiet hours by herself as the sun went down. He never knew what she was thinking, where she wandered to in her mind during those hours, but he knew it was important to her. Sometimes he would have to wake her if the baby was quiet or sleeping, but always she was smiling and pleased to see him when he joined her and walked her back to their talan.

Tonight she was asleep again, and he drew nearer softly, not wanting to startle her awake. Something pricked at his mind as he crossed the clearing, some odd feeling that he could not quite define. She looked so perfect, lying beneath the tree, hair dark and flowing, face peaceful and full of love for the child she held. Ethereal, beautiful in the dim light, more like an elf with every waking day.

And then, when he was a few steps away, it struck him, with cold, hard panic, what the oddness in the air was.

Always his elvish ears could hear her breath, even from the other side of the glade. Tonight there was silence. Horrible, echoing, empty silence.

But she was just sleeping, she and the baby, for he could see her breast rise and fall slowly, relaxed and peaceful, his daughter safe and warm in her arms. He could see it. He could see it, he was sure, for what other choice did he have? She was breathing… She was breathing… And their child would wake soon, hungry again, and Keren would stir, and smile sleepily up at him.

He stayed the whole night, watching that phantom rise and fall until the sun began to rise. It was only then, when golden light fell across the glade, that it stopped. Perhaps it had never been. He saw that her face was white, and that her lips were pale, and that what he had known inside from the moment he had recognised the silence - what he had been too afraid to face by reaching out to touch her in the stillness of the short night - was true. Their daughter would not cry anymore, for she was not hungry. And Keren, like their daughter, was dead.


Palen awoke to a man's cry full of such pain that it frightened her, startling her awake, her heart pounding. Without realising what she was doing she was up and running, running down the steps, running through the trees, running - her mind caught up with her - to the glade, where she somehow knew the cry was from.

The world seemed to slow down.

There was Legolas, holding Keren close to him, and Keren was… Keren was…

"No!" Palen cried, her legs holding her up just enough to get to her sister's side. The hand she took was ice cold. "No, Keren, no. No!"

Legolas was as frozen as the still form he clung to.

"The baby?" Palen managed to say. "Please, she can't be…" But she saw, far too close and too clearly, she saw. The little form was utterly still and cold within the silk.

"How?" Palen shouted, angry, too shocked to feel anything else. "Keren is well, more than well, she's thriving. Your child's immortal, how could this… How could this happen. I - I don't… How could this happen?"

Her voice grew smaller and smaller, diminished by the reality that was sinking in. Her little sister was dead, along with her child.

Was this her fault? Had she missed something at the birth, signs of bleeding, signs of fever? Had she not watched Keren or the baby closely enough this past week?

"But there was nothing…" she whispered, to herself, to Keren. "There was nothing wrong with you, with either of you. Oh, Keren, this can't be. Wake up. Wake up."

And she took her sister within her arms, Legolas moving, like a ghost, out of her way, silent as stone. But the healer in her knew what she held. It was a corpse, nothing more, and her sister, the soul that had shone from it, was gone.

"I don't understand, I don't understand," she kept saying, her voice breaking, her tears falling upon Keren's arms, cold arms that still cradled her baby. "How could… How can - "

"We must have missed something. We knew there was a risk. There must have been something we missed."

A cold, unearthly voice sounded from behind her. It was Legolas, his voice unrecognisable, sounding older, far older, and more bitter than a thousand winters.

"No, I - they were fine, Legolas. Keren was tired, but that's - there's nothing… Though I suppose - suppose she could have had some hidden… something wrong no-one could have found. Her heart, maybe. I don't - I can't…" Palen's voice was shaking whilst trying to fathom what had happened. "But the baby. She has the blood of the Eldar within her, she can't just… she can't just die." Her strained voice finally broke. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Legolas. I can't believe…"

She cradled Keren to her again, and Legolas took his daughter and cradled her in his arms, and together they wept in silent grief until the sun was at its peak. Then some semblance of reason came into Palen's mind.

"We can't let them stay here. We must… People have to know. All those people. And we must bury them."

"No," Legolas cried, and it was the final snapping of something within him. "Not yet. She likes the sun upon her face. She likes…"

A wave of desolation came over Palen as she saw Legolas freeze over at the prospect of burying Keren. It was as if he was not really there anymore. Suddenly she could not stand it, being there, seeing him fading away into some dark place, seeing Keren lying dead upon the ground. She fled.

She ran back to her talan, and packed her things, and mounted Ides, before anyone could speak to her. She sped back towards Minas Tirith, back towards her home where her solid, human life waited, flying across the plains of the Pelennor, tears streaming angrily down her face. She wondered how she was going to bear telling her father. He had lost his wife to the elves. Now he had lost his daughter too, lost her to their magic and strange ways.

And Palen, though she hated herself for it, found herself cursing the day her sister had ever met Legolas of the Greenwood.


Author note: Honestly... I feel relief now that that's done. This has been hanging over me for the last few chapters, I guess for the whole story, creeping closer and closer, and I couldn't say anything to you guys about it as I didn't want to spoil. I'm sorry to everyone who loves Keren, loves her and Legolas together, for the choice to have my heroine die before the end of the story.

I have a feeling lots of you will be disappointed, so here's a quote from Tolkien on unions between elves and men, to explain my choice: 'such marriages would only be for some high purpose of Doom, and the least cruel fate would be that death should soon end them.'

So yeah, I wanted to stick to that. This was always my plan, right from the earliest plot notes.

You will find out what the 'high purpose of doom' is. I promise you will get answers. I know it doesn't really make sense right now with their 'immortal' baby also dying, but it will. Honestly that was the hardest part to write because it's *so cruel* to Legolas :( BUT there are two chapters to go and I'm hoping you will stick with me to see what it means and how it all resolves. I would actually love to hear your theories. For now though, I bid goodbye to a person who feels almost real to me, after years in her company.

Lots of love xx