Disclaimer: Tolkien owns it. I'm just borrowing.
Timeline: T.A. 252
Rating (this chapter): PG

Shadow Child
Chapter X: Arwen

Seven years later, the night that he nearly burned his shop down, Findur was the recepient of an altogether unexpected proposition.

"Lost in thought?" asked Curuan wryly as he watched Findur stamp out the last of the flames from a greasy cloth that, too close to the forge, had caught fire and would have sent the whole place into flames had not Findur, snapping out of his reverie, apprehended it.

"In a manner of speaking," said Findur, falling back into his seat with a sigh. He put out the fire of the forge; the helm he had been shaping, left untended, had disfigured and would have to be reformed. "Tatharien leaves tomorrow; you know. Her parents wish to depart to the West, and she will follow them. Her tutelage was almost complete. I suppose she will ply her trade on the Lonely Isle, if iron or gem are found at all in that green land."

"Your words are well wrought," Curuan observed.

"Why should they be otherwise? I am not a child."

"I did not say you were. Go on."

"If you insist," said Findur. "But my words will be nothing new. I've been master smith of this realm for forty-two years, and in all that time, our people have hardly increased. The number of births is only a little greater than the number of departures. Nothing changes, only stagnates and grows old with time. What has happened to the proud spirit of our people, Curuan? I fear that this land will soon be forsaken, only to be inherited by mortals: mere children indeed, whose lives are brief whispers next to ours. Is there nothing we can do to halt this decline?"

"More exactly, is there nothing you can do to halt it, you mean."

"Well, why not? Why shouldn't it be me? I seem to be the only one who's even aware of the problem. But what could I possibly do?"

"Very little presently," said Curuan. "But there are some items in this world that hold such power as you seek."

Findur laughed. "What, the Rings of Power? Maybe if I go to Imladris and ask nicely, they'll lend me one. And don't," he added, giving Curuan a stern glance, "think that I can make such an item. I may have the skill, but that sort of craft requires, well, the proper tutelage."

"I was not speaking of the Rings. Come now, it should be apparent. It's a family heirloom of yours, isn't it?"

Findur raised his eyebrows. "Do you mean... the Elessar? The second stone that Celebrimbor made for my mother?" He paused. "My mother... she gave it to my sister before she left." His eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that I steal the Elessar?"

"Or you could ask nicely."

"Well... they don't need it," Findur admitted. "Its powers are unfocused and highly limited, and Imladris already has the blessings of two Rings of Power. It would make a difference, here, though. It's said to have great powers of healing and renewal. But I can't—I can't just—"

"Why not? Others have. Look at the Silmarils."

"That's hardly a comforting precedent."

"You have learned nothing if that is your only response. Holy gems, Findur, if you'll remember your mythology. The rightful property of the sons of Fëanor. Seized at last—with more force than you'll need to apply, of course—and then cast away, without reason, out of a self-imposed guilt. Why should you be subject to the little fears of a craven heart? Think, if they had not cast away. Imagine that unbroken light, the crowning star not of heaven, but of earth."

"I'll have to think about it," said Findur. "Naturally. Just remember, Findur: utilitarianism." And with that, Curuan hobbled out of the room, leaving Findur to salvage the broken helm.

Before he attended this task, Findur sat alone for a few minutes, pondering the influence that the presence of the Elessar could have on Thranduil's realm. Yet he found it hard to concentrate; his thoughts were continuously straying. In his mind's eye, he saw a flash of silver hair, heard a burst of chiming laughter, felt the warm summer sun cast its light upon the green valley as they walked together down the tree-lined path.

How he missed Celebrían.


That night as they were readying for bed, Liniel asked the inevitable question. She was sprawled upon the bed, already clothed in a loose linen gown, and watched him behind half-closed eyes as he pulled on garments for sleep.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, returning her smirk with a gentler smile.

"Oh," Liniel replied languidly, "just considering how to paint you tomorrow." She had been in an art craze all week, returning to her brushes and canvases with unusual fervor. "Maybe I'll come into the shop tomorrow afternoon. The light of the forge illuminates your face wonderfully."

Findur bit his lip. Curuan would be present the next afternoon, and their conversation would likely cross into areas that Liniel had better not hear.

"By the way," Liniel added, as if on cue, "you never did tell me why you were late for dinner tonight. What kept you?"

Findur did not hesitate. "I was speaking with the king about taking a leave of absence," he explained. "I'd like to go down to Khazad-dûm, study some new techniques."

"How long will you be gone?" A touch of concern filtered through in Liniel's voice. She sat up, drawing up her knees against her chest.

"Ten weeks, I think." On horseback and under fair conditions, it would take a month to reach Imladris, but the slightest bit of trouble in his descent over the mountains would significantly increase that time. "I know we've never been apart for that long. But it will pass quickly."

Liniel shook her head, as if to say that time apart was the least of her worries. Then she rose and went to the overflowing shelves that lined the wall opposite them, stacked with her many books—some filled with songs of power, others with the lore of growing things—as well as dried herbs and bottled draughts. When she returned, she was holding a clear glass phial filled with later.

"I know you probably won't need this," she said, handing it to him, "but I thought I should give it to you anyway."

Findur peered at the phial, trying to discern its use.

"It contains water from my mother's river," said Liniel. "A weapon that's a bit less... messy... than a sword."

Findur smiled thinly. "This is thoughtful of you, but what trouble could I possibly run into?" In fact, this phial might prove most useful during his journey, but he could not fathom how Liniel's intuition was so keen as to apprehend this. True, the occasional band of Orcs passed near Khazad-dûm, but the roads were protected by Arnor and Khazad-dˆm alike.

"Of course, you're right," said Liniel. "I'm only being overcautious."

Findur gave her what was meant to be a reassuring kiss. "Thank you for worrying about me," he said. "But I assure you it's not necessary."

"Of course," said Liniel. She cast her eyes down reflectively, and, for a moment, it was as if he looked at her through a veil, transparent but impenetrable.

Then she looked up, her gaze resolving to a placid expression. "Findur," she said, her voice an affirmation, and she placed a firm hand on his shoulder, as if to verify that he was really there beside her. Her hand was small against his broad shoulder, firm with countless years of heavy smith work, but her grip was surprisingly powerful. And the veil was lifted.


Though two hundred years had passed, Imladris was as serenely beautiful as ever. In the unexpected brightness of the late afternoon sun, its rising slopes and untamed meadows glowed with vitality. Findur noticed all this subliminally as he stepped lightly across the stone bridge that connected the steep wooded slopes in the east of the valley to the flatter land upon which Elrond's mansions were situated. Beneath him, swift waters rushed over jagged rocks, a cacophony further augmented by the many streams and cataracts that fed into the river.

Rather than inspiring awe, the valley's majesty only made him feel conspicuous, even under the cover of a gray cloak of Liniel's weaving, the well-knit cloth intended to blend in with its surroundings. But his reason told him that elven eyes were keen both in daylight and darkness, and that the valley would be more heavily guarded in the night. He had, in fact, purposely chosen this hour to descend into Imladris; most of its inhabitants would be dining within. It was unlikely that he would be spotted.

As he reached the opposite end of the bridge and, in a stooping position, began to make his way up to the side of the house, he did not really try to avoid these artificial worries. It would do no good to think of his real fears, for against these, he had no defense. He was most concerned about the vigilance of the Rings of Power over the valley. Because of these, he must hurry in his task before he was detected, or at least before he was caught. Equally daunting was the thought of seeing someone who knew him. What, for instance, would happen if Celebrían came across him as he searched her room for the stone? Even if he managed to escape, it was not a meeting that would be easily borne.

But no thoughts of that now. He had reached the terraced gardens that grew outside his sister's room. His mother once had tended it, but after her departure, Celebrían herself had taken it up. He marveled at how little its landscape had changed over the years, the orderly rows bordered by green hedges and overflowing with multicolor blooms, occasionally shaded by a petite dogwood or poplar tree. How different it was from the sprawl of Liniel's garden, the latter a vibrant wilderness extending from the well to the far vegetable patch, the whole of it virtually unnavigable unless one knew where to step.

Focus, Findur reminded himself. He crept up through the garden towards Celebrían's window, lurking under the poor cover of the hedges. Approaching the window, he studied its design quickly and found it unaltered, two panes of glass fastened from the inside with a metal latch. Easy enough to force. He straightened up and was about to do so when he blinked and realized what he was seeing.

The room within was changed. A modest bed rested on the wall opposite the place where Celebrían's had been, a long table with a basin and mirror beside it. That was all. There were no personal articles of any kind. All that remained of its former contents were a few trinket shelves attached to the wall, now bare.

Findur was so startled that he did not hear the bright, clear melody of a voice behind him, minute approaching footfalls accompanying the song.


Well, this was just wonderful. Only a half-hour into his expedition, and he had already been apprehended. By a child, no less! It would have been laughable had he not been in such peril.

Her name was Arwen, and she had lost a toy in this very garden. She understood that he was a stranger, but if he wasn't too busy, could he help her look for it? She would have asked her parents for help, but, she had confided, she wasn't supposed to take this particular toy—a small wooden bird, more of a trinket than a plaything, really—outside of the house, and she didn't want them to know she had both broken the rule and proven its necessity.

For reasons that were presently unclear to him—a way to make her leave as quickly as possible? A subliminal undercurrent of self-destructiveness?—he had agreed to help her and was at this very moment combing through a clump of artemesia, hoping that she wouldn't ask another difficult question.

Ah, the questions. First, she had asked him for a name. After an overlong pause, he had replied with "Culril", filching the name of his fellow councilmember. From there, the torrent of questions continued: why are you here? Where are you from? What's your family like? Do you have children?

Don't let her make you feel guilty, he told himself. You are doing nothing wrong. Yet how could he not feel guilty with this dark-haired, rosy-cheeked cherub of a little girl asking the mostly terrible, innocent little questions?

At the moment, at least, there was relief, for Arwen had begun to sing again. Her song was a popular children's tune in Imladris, and apparently quite old, for it was in Quenya. His own mother had sung it to him when he was a child. Now that he reflected on it, the song must have remained unsung for thousands of years, only being revived when an atmosphere had arisen in which the culture and language of the Noldor were not held in contempt. So Arwen was the product of this atmosphere, her little voice rising and falling like the piping of a songbird. The Quenya was pronounced clumsily, the sounds shaped more like those of Sindarin, but it only added to the charm of the simple tune:

"Dance all ye joyful, now dance all together.
Soft is the grass, and let foot be like feather.
The river is silver, the shadows are fleeting.
Merry is my heart, and merry our meeting." (1)

And so she rambled on, crouching down amongst the blossoms, and Findur knelt beside her, searching half-heartedly in spite of his need for haste, when Arwen cried out, "Here it is!"

Triumphantly, she held up the item in question, a small wooden carving of a bird in flight, and handed it to him so that he might examine the trophy. Findur felt his mouth go dry. Numbly, he took the carving, staring at it all the time. He knew this carving, though his recollections were drawn from a time long past and a world away. It was the bird he had carved long ago, the week his mother had been called to the Gray Havens and received the tidings that had broken his own heart and saved hers from despair, gifted to his sister in a moment of haste and carefree jollity.

"Arwen," he heard himself asking with sudden fervor, "Where did you get this thing?"

Arwen scrunched her nose at the peculiar question. "My mother. I saw it on a shelf and I thought it was pretty. And Mother asked if I wanted it and I said yes. So she gave it to me. Why?"

"Your mother," he started again. "Your mother... is Celebrían?"

Arwen nodded.

Then this girl, this white-souled jewel of a child... was his niece.

At first, he could not think of anything to say. But soon enough, a query came to mind, and out flooded the thousand questions that he had no right to ask, not at a time like this.

"Then your father is Elrond?" he began tentatively.

Arwen smiled, gray eyes glimmering. "Of course!"

Now everything became clear, why his sister's old room was vacant. And he thought, She was married, and I was not there to see it.

"How are your parents?" he asked eagerly, then adding by way of explanation, "I once knew them well, but I did not know that you were their daughter."

"They're well," Arwen replied perfunctorily, as if they could never be otherwise.

"Do... do you have any brothers or sisters?"

Arwen nodded in the affirmative. "Elladan and Elrohir. My older brothers. They're twins."

"How old are they?" Findur pressed.

Arwen thought for a moment. "One hundred and thirty... two." With this number fresh in her mind, she gave Findur a strange look. "You know my parents? You can't have seen them for a very long time."

"No. No, I have not." And now I return to them as a liar and a thief! This isn't right, can't be right. Not here. Not like this. How can I cheat my own sister thus? How can I lie to this girl, her daughter?

Yet he could lie, couldn't he. Or at least he had been able to, once. Now, though, his reason was slipping away, and he was telling her things that his good sense rebelled against: "That carving, it was I who made it. I gave it to your mother many years ago."

Arwen looked at him with wrinkled brow. "But Mother said her brother made it..."

Before Findur could attempt to reconcile these two statements, the sound of footfalls announced another's entrance into the garden. And a few moments later, a powerful but distant voice: "Arwen! Come, it's suppertime!"

Must leave. What else: I'm home, Celebrían; miss me? Mind if I steal a jewel or two? But this was not home. This was thievery, and thieves did not steal from their own households.

Must leave, and yet he remained, as if to test his limits. How long could he linger without being found out? Arwen, distracted by her mother's call, turned her head towards the sound of Celebrían's voice, but she too remained in place. Findur's heartbeat sped up with each reverberation of slipper against stone. There, in the distance, was that a figure, tall and swanlike between the rows of flowers, a silver crown of hair falling haphazardly about two blue eyes? Blue eyes: like the piercing reflection looking up at him from the depths of the mere, blue eyes that bespoke death, departure, his mother's clear blue eyes...

Arwen's head was still turned away when he wheeled and bolted. He ran down through the gardens, past the house and across the stone bridge that arched above the white-gray cascade of the river, the setting sun throwing a long shadow before him. His ears were engulfed by the rush of a wind that was not wind at all, but still air overtaken by a moving body. By the constant flooding of the river beneath him. And, if he listened carefully enough, by a small voice that nevertheless cut through the waters and the wind and the thudding heart, or perhaps was a product of the three: Where are you going? Don't go. Why are you leaving? Stay with me.

The river is silver, the shadows are fleeting; merry is my heart, and merry our meeting...

Across the bridge and up into the steep hills that rose in the east. Above, the sky was dusty gray with tints of violet, untouched by the reddish light that still flooded into the valley below. The crowding trees were a comfort after the open valley. Here, he was hidden from curious eyes, could not be seen for what he was.

Perhaps this is a sign, he thought whimsically, although he did not believe it was anything of the sort. A warning: "though you have been granted innumerable years for reasons high and absurd, do not take your existence for granted! Do not overstep your place! Remember who you are, who you steal from. Steal for. The Elven people? Regard the contradiction inherent in the ostensible. But what else? A shadow in the night?

I am a good person. I am successful. I have idealistic goals and realistic methods of attaining them. My wife loves me. I have given her peace of mind. And a barren womb.

He continued to ascend the hills, setting his mind on the moment that he would reach the edge of the valley and the world would be his again. Just another hill, another cluster of jagged rock and dense greenery. Another and another. Night setting on, and the woods were curiously alive, a pulsing creature that wheeled about the cold machine of his perpetual up, up, up. Just another minute, and then freedom.

There, there it was: the gratifying green expanse, the vast purple sky lit with the beginnings of silver stars, the silhouette of mountains rising up in the east. Dizzily, he perched on this last hill and sent out his senses to drink up his surroundings: the sliver of watery moonlight, the high-pitched symphony of nocturnal insects, the crisp, summer scents of grass and cool night air.

That was when he felt the points digging into the calluses of his clenched fist, sharp like a reminder. He stretched out his hand and opened it, hesitantly, afraid to confirm the definite. There lay the little winged carving, clumsily fashioned but burnished like bronze.

He had stolen something from Imladris after all.


1. Adapted from "The Last Stage", The Hobbit. The reason for the change from "May-time" to "my heart": according to my pretense that the original song was from Valinor, it therefore was written in the time before the Sun and Moon. Therefore, months didn't exist, since they didn't use a sun and moon-based calendar. So the original Quenya version couldn't very well have said "May-time".