Withered Leaves
Disclaimer-I do not own Arwen or anything you recognize. Everything belongs to Tolkien and estate.
Chapter 1-Change
A lone figure stood among the roses of Imladris.
It was to be seen that the figure was tall and shapely, with a graceful figure with noble bearing, but it was now enshrouded in an unbecoming cloak of red velvet trimmed finely with painstakingly well drawn golden leaves. The hem of her cloak, for the figure was easily recognized to be female, trailed listlessly along the mossy floor, stained well with long travel.
But of her identity, none know yet in the realm of Elrond, save Elrond himself, and those closest in his confidence.
For her name was Arwen Undomiel, and she was closest to Elrond's heart and mind ever since the Lady Celebrian left for Eldamar.
She had lived among her mother's kin, who were mostly Sindar, in Lothlorien. So different was fair Lorien from Imladris, and Arwen was almost frightened.
She had had arrived just that hour, and of all places she had been in Imladris , the rose garden stood vividly clear in her mind. But when she had wandered here, it had always been in the company of her family, as they had deemed her too young to wander among the rose bushes alone.
But those roses had been vastly different, and those times too had been vastly different.
Now the roses grew wild and free, but they were not tended for.
The garden spoke of better days, when time was not so cruel, and it spoke of the present, when none came to see it. It talked with wonder and amazement of a Lady dressed in flowing blue who unfailingly trimmed it and made it beautiful. Arwen's mother.
But now, no one came to tend to it. It was untamed and dangerous. And the roses were fading, choked slowly but surely by poisonous weeds.
Arwen fingered a rose morosely. Was this what her father's land had come to?
Untamed and uncared for, withering slowly by the passage of time.
Ah! How she longed for the woods of Lorien!
But Imladris had an aura of definite masculinity, whereas Lorien was almost feminine in an oddly elusive way.
Lorien was beautiful, and the mallorn trees were mighty and old, but suddenly she wished not to be the Lady of Laurelindorenan, but to be called the Lady of Imladris once more.
Imladris was gravely reflective, and was not a land of action, that much was obvious.
But it spoke of constant change, that was clear to Arwen from the time she first beheld the majestic stone pillars of her father's court.
It was perhaps not so surprising that more children were born in Imladris, but it was apparently true. But she herself had seen elflings, of not more than twenty summers, perhaps, as they skillfully weaved through the various stalls of the busy market place.
She had tried talking to some, delighted at the prospect of young and artless company once more, but now she was not so now she was no longer very enthused at the prospect, in fact, she almost wished herself back in the peaceful woods of her upbringing.
No one knew better than she how cowardly it would have been to decline her father kind offer to receive her as a lady of the court.
Galadriel had wanted to bring her granddaughter out, but even she knew that Elrond deserved to have at least this.
But that was weeks ago. And only the horrors she had seen on her journey, that was long and arduous, even, it seemed for her guard, could have changed her mind.
And changed her mind they had.
Now, she was faced with the unhappy prospect of starting all over, in a place where she had no acquaintances, and only a family to welcome her.
But that was only what she thought.
She did not know, she could not know that even this minute, Erestor and Glorfindel, who had known her when she was a child were anxiously waiting for her to finish conversing with Elrond, so that they could too properly welcome her.
And her brothers, too had come back from their orc hunting, to once again meet the sister they had only known as children.