A/N: As usual, the world belongs to Tolkien, the words alone are mine.
Through Lórien the song went. It wrapped itself around the mellryn, threads of melody rustling the golden leaves. It slipped through the undergrowth, it lingered upon the petals of elanor. The creatures of the wood fell silent when it passed; even the stars, it seemed, dimmed their lights in reverence.
It lasted three years, and they did not let the song fail. Each time one voice fell silent, of sorrow or exhaustion, there was another to take its place. They sang of family, friends, and strangers who might have been friends, were they not lost. They sang of a fallen King, and a new King risen.
Now, as the song drew to an end, they sang of a Queen.
She was beautiful, all dressed in cloth of silver; her crown was woven of niphredil, and bouquets of elanor and alfirin were laid about her feet. Nimrodel came at night, as Amroth sat waiting. For him she brought a wreath of golden water-lilies, stolen from the river. For tonight they mourned Ningloriel, wife of Amdir, Queen of Lórien.
Neither spoke, but she stayed there for a while, her hand on his shoulder, his head bowed in silent prayer. While the stars lasted, Nimrodel was at his side, and he knew peace. But when dawn came, she was gone, only the scent of linden-leaves remaining.
-----
The years passed. Amroth ruled with a mild but firm hand, in the manner of his father, and the people of Lórien turned inwards. Seldom now did they hear of the world of men, except for stories brought from Imladris or the Greenwood. It was after Galadriel's daughter's daughter had come to Lorien for the first time, to dance with chubby infant feet on the grass in front of Cerin Amroth, that she returned.
So long had it been, he at first thought her a dream, and the words came uneasily to his tongue, as used as he was now to all around him speaking Sindarin.
"Why have you come back?" he asked, for it seemed she only delighted in tormenting him.
"I came to see the King," she said. As usual, her only ornaments were the flowers of the wood and the light of the stars. He had the sudden feeling, as sharp and painful as an arrow wound, that it would indeed be wrong to pursue her further. To chain his love with a crown of mithril, to bind her to him here, away from her home by the river.
But she loved him, and he knew it, and that made it all the harder.
"And here sits the King," he replied, "an Elf like any other."
If Nimrodel disagreed with that statement, she choose not to comment.
"And if here sits the King, then where is the Queen?"
"Perhaps she stands in front of me, her beauty only eclipsed by the Valier themselves."
She laughed, hair falling across her face. But when she spoke again she was solemn, her words perilously final.
"There is no Queen here, Amroth. I cannot, and will not, wear that crown for you."
"Then there shall be no Queen at all, and the line of Kings shall end with me."
"But Lorien shall continue," she pointed out, "as it did before your coming, it shall last beyond your going. The Golden Wood is older than any of us, and shall be here far longer than the Sindar, and their wars and sorrows."
He stood, slowly. Anger and love warred within him. How could she know him so well, love him, and yet not understand?
"Do not be so quick to dismiss the Sindar. I have lost friends, lost kin, in battle; my sorrows come from the wars fought to protect this wood--to protect you, Nimrodel. What would you have done, had the enemy come here? Would you drive the yrch back with your songs alone?"
"Perhaps," she replied, still serene. "I would rather you had stayed here, and your kin, and your friends. Why ride to fight battles that are not your own? For the folly of Men you went to war, and by the folly of Men the evil lingers yet."
"You would make me a coward?" he asked. "You forget, my grandfather fled from Doriath when it fell. How many more here have been touched by war? Why did you think my father took in the refugees from Eregion? Not out of pity, but out of kinship. We cannot, and will not, stand aside."
She bowed her head, a snippet of song falling from her lips, a lament. "Then you shall lead them to their deaths, as your father did, when the time comes?"
"You need not remind me of that; after all, I led them back. But my father made the choice, and I feel it was the right one."
"And you would blindly follow in his footsteps?"
Amroth shook his head. "Nay, not blindly. Love is blind, Nimrodel. Beyond sense, beyond logic. But if we must go to war again I will go my eyes open, a song on my lips and a lament in my heart. I pray to Elbereth that such a thing never comes to pass. But in the end, it is out of my control, do you not think?"
"I agree," she said. "Love is blind."
"And to the rest?"
But she was gone.