Epilogue
2463 Third Age, Narwain (January). Lothlórien.
Three days later some fifty Elves of Lasgalen, their King and Prince riding at their head passed under the bare mallorn branches of Lothlórien. They had not gone more than a furlong when a party of Galadhrim met them.
"Hail kinsman and well met." A tall Elf called, placing his hand over his heart in greeting. "I am Rúmil, Marchwarden of Lórien. I bring you greetings Aran Thranduil, Ernil Legolas, from my Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel. Your errand is known to us."
"If our errand is known then why do you delay us?" Thranduil barked.
The Galadhrim stiffened. "Forgive the delay Hír nin but I have been sent to guide you to Caras Galadhon and to offer any aid within my power."
Thranduil's arrogant posture crumbled as he lowered his head. "Nay, forgive me Rúmil of Lórien, I spoke in haste and did not mean to be discourteous but our errand is now a matter of life and death. My wife and ward were set upon by orcs, whilst journeying to seek your Lady's council. Their wounds are grievous and we have no time to tarry."
"Then come, Aran Thranduil. The Lord and Lady await; all will be done to save Bereth Líawen and Anaríel Nimrodeliel.
Thranduil paced the balcony of the talon. His eyes turned inward, seeing nothing of the beauty of the woodland city about him. Within, Ancalimón strove feverishly alongside Lórien's best healers and the Lady Galadriel herself to pull Líawen back from the brink of death.
Legolas sat with Anaríel, watching and waiting to see if the elleth would rally against the poison racing through her veins.
A gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder. "You should get some sleep cousin. All that can be done for the both of them has been done. All that is left for us is to wait—and hope."
"What, not pray?" Thranduil turned to face his cousin.
Celeborn smiled sadly. "I never took you for religious, just the opposite in fact if memory serves aright."
"I have more to lose now."
"Aye, as do we all. Come." The Lord of Lórien laid his arm across the shoulders of Lasgalen's King.
For several days, Anaríel drifted in the grey lands between life and death. For some reason she did not wish to open her eyes, but could not recall why. It seemed far safer to lie still, wrapped in warmth and comfort.
Finally, her eyes focused of their own accord. Her left hand clasped in a warm grasp, she let her eyes travel up her arm to find Legolas sitting beside her. He looked pale and weary in a way she had never seen before. Dark circles ringed his eyes and his cheeks were hollow.
Noticing Anaríel was awake, he turned his gaze upon her. Anaríel gasped. His eyes were red and raw as if from weeping long and hard. Her heart slammed in her chest as memory came flooding back.
"Naneth! Where? How, how is Naneth?"
Legolas lowered his head, his hand tightening around hers.
"Le'las! How is Naneth?" she begged, tears forming.
Legolas shuddered but raised his head, tears streaming freely down his cheeks. "She—she is gone." He choked, sounding as lost and bewildered as a child.
Anaríel closed her eyes as the inexplicable horror of it all settled. "When," she whispered.
"A few hours ago. They tried—everything possible was done. Her, her wounds were just--."
"My fault," Anaríel cried bitterly, "all my fault! If it were not for me, Naneth would still be alive."
Legolas blinked, shaking his head. "No Arí, you must not say that; it is not true."
"Yes it is!"
Anaríel's cry rang throughout the talon. Celeborn and Galadriel exchanged concerned looks. Thranduil raised grief numbed eyes. Stiffly he rose, shuffling towards the Anaríel's door. The Lord and Lady rose, following.
They found Anaríel weeping hysterically in Legolas' arms, the Prince too grief stricken to do much more than absently caress her hair as he held her. His eyes stared unseeing; unaware the elders had entered the room.
"If it was not for this—this thrice damned curse of mine, Naneth would never have insisted on bringing me to Lórien. We would still be home in Lasgalen. We would all be safe. We would all still be a family. It should have been me. It should have been me!"
Legolas' eyes focused at that. "What should have been you?"
The distraught elleth cried weakly pummeling Legolas' chest with her good arm. "I should have been the one. I should have died in her stead! Why not me? Valar, why not me?"
"Nay! I will hear no more of this!" Thranduil gasped harshly, snapping out of his grief. Swiftly he strode to the bed, taking the elleth's face in his hands.
"You are alive by the grace of Eru and I take particular consolation in that fact. Líawen's death is not your fault. It is no one's—fault. She made her own decisions because she loved you and could not bear standing by while you were in torment.
"You almost got yourself killed fighting to save her life—do not think Legolas and I do not know it—not for a moment. You are brave, and fought valiantly for your Queen and you have my unending thanks—my undying love.
"Lalaith," he paused, choking on his own tears. Anaríel raised her eyes to his. "You are my beloved Lalaith—the daughter we—I—never had. Never say to me or to Legolas that you wish yourself dead. We could not bear it. We could not bear to lose you."
"But Naneth," Anariel whispered brokenly.
Legolas bowed his head tightening his arms about her. "Adar speaks true meleth nín. You are not to blame. You must live Arí!" He shuddered. "You are all we have left—."
For a long while, the Elves of Lasgalen clung to one another, mourning their dead. Quietly the Lord and Lady left them to their grief.
"How goes it Thranduil?" The Elvenking raised weary eyes. The Lady of Lórien stood holding out a glass of wine to him. "May I join you?"
Silently Thranduil nodded, taking the proffered glass. Gracefully Galadriel sat next to him on the bench carved from the living roots of the massive mallorn beneath which they sat.
For a time they sat in silence. Galadriel, respectful of Thranduil's grief, Thruanduil, not quite sure what to think or feel regarding the infamous elleth seated beside him.
For centuries, the two had clashed; Thranduil never once forgiving her for being Noldorin and of the House of Finarfin no less; Galadriel never once forgiving him for being her husband's arrogant, overbearing, bigoted cousin.
The last week had revealed layers of each other's characters neither had ever suspected. As a result, a grudging respect was forming between them.
"She still sleeps." Thranduil sighed at last, in answer to the Lady's question.
"Legolas still sits by her side?"
"Aye."
"You have a son to be proud of in that one. You must find great joy in him."
"I find great joy in both my children."
"Anaríel is not your daughter Thranduil." Galadriel cautioned gently.
"I have raised her from infancy. She is the daughter of my heart. She is the only daughter I will ever have."
"You have done well in the rearing of her but now I must speak plainly." Galadriel turned piercing eyes upon Lasgalen's King.
"You and Líawen could have neither foreseen, nor prevented this day from coming; it was foretold on the hour of her birth. Líawen was right to insist on bringing Anaríel here; never think for a moment that she died for naught."
Thranduil tensed but kept his silence as Galadriel laid a calming hand over his.
"If you had done nothing, the visions would have soon consumed her. Now, we must wait and see if her grief and guilt devour her as thoroughly."
"And if it does?" Thranduil asked wretchedly.
Galadriel smiled sadly, "Pray for the sake of all of us that it does not. More is at stake than her life alone if she chooses despair and fades. She is needed here, not in Valinor."
Anaríel sat alone on the balcony. Legolas had left her only a short while ago. In silence, she turned the news over repeatedly in her mind. Legolas and Thranduil were leaving for Lasgalen on the morrow. The Queen was to return home for burial. The very thought was a knife in her heart.
Legolas and the King wished her to go with them but she knew in her heart she could not. She could never go home again, not after all that had befallen.
"You are pale pen neth. I have brought you wine to put the bloom back in your cheeks."
Anaríel glanced up. The Lady Galadriel took a seat beside her. Anaríel ignored the wine.
Galadriel pursed her lips. "Take it. It is from your foster Adar's own cellars. A gift of Dorwinion should never go to waste."
"I do not thirst."
"Do you not?"
Anaríel turned to the Lady, confusion breaking through the ice encasing her emotions.
"I would say you thirst indeed," Galadriel continued, "for peace, for salvation from self-imposed guilt, for love—for knowledge."
"Knowledge of what?"
"Have you never wondered about the Power within you?" Galadriel quirked a brow, "Oh I know full well Aran Thranduil deems it a curse and feels suppression and eradication are the cure for what ails you; but I believe you know better."
"I know only that my—gift," Anaríel spat, "has killed my naneth."
"Despair killed your naneth child—yrch killed your foster naneth, your gift had nothing to do with either—never make that mistake. Harken to me Nimrodeliel. What is it you want?"
"I want to be left alone."
"That we all want from time to time. Kindly clear your mind. Do you wish to return home to Lasgalen; do you wish to choose the path your naneth took and sail for Valinor, fleeing the truth about yourself forever; or do you wish to learn to understand and develop the Power within you?
"Three choices lie before you—three paths. If you choose the first, you may return to Lasgalen and live out your days amongst Thranduil's household. In time, you would marry Legolas and most likely have children of your own—the wheel turns. A good life true, but the guilt you hold over yourself will never leave you, not amidst the constant reminders of Líawen's death. In time, that guilt will poison your soul and all around you.
"Or, you could give up and sail to Valinor; perhaps to find peace and healing, perhaps to find undying bliss empty and hollow without having the one you love beside you to share it.
"Or, you could choose the third path—the hardest of the three."
"What may that be my Lady?" Anaríel turned towards Galadriel, tears coursing down her cheeks. "Tell me true, for all roads open to me seem naught but bleak."
Galadriel took the elleth's hands in her own, "You can choose to remain here in Lórien and choose to hone the special gift Illuvatar, in all his wisdom, saw fit to bless you with. You can choose to fight the coming darkness."
Anaríel stared transfixed at Galadriel's hands. Upon one finger, a brilliant white gem flashed as bright as a star.
"Yes child," Galadriel said softly. "I too know what it is to have a Power within so great, so terrible it can rend your soul. Long ago, I faced a challenge not unlike your own. I chose to fight—though the decision sundered me from all I knew and loved. Stand with me, and we will battle the Shadow together."
Legolas rode beside his father, his heart heavy. They were returning to Lasgalen, but never had he dreaded a homecoming as he dreaded this. He was leaving behind two people he loved more than life itself, one to Mandos, the other seemingly to guilt and grief. The enormity of it all threatened to break his spirit.
Eyes blind to the woodlands of his home, he replayed the scene of the night before in his mind. Lost in memory he saw it all as if it were happening over again. He and Anaríel stood alone by a curious stone basin placed beside a running stream. Repeatedly he begged her to come with them on the morrow.
"Nay Le'las," she sighed heavily. "My place now is here."
"How can you say that?" Legolas cried. "Your home is Lasgalen. Your place is with me! I beg you Arí, after all we have been through--"
"Le'las, do not do this, I beg you."
"Then explain to me, for I do not understand. Nay, I cannot understand! Do you no longer love me?"
Anaríel smiled sadly raising her hand to cup his cheek. "Listen to me Prince of Lasgalen, my shining one, I love you more than life itself. You will always be my beloved, my heart. But while Shadow lies over Lasgalen, while yrch and fell creatures foul its fair woodlands, I cannot return home."
Legolas gasped unable to comprehend, her words a blow to his heart unlike any other.
Anaríel ran her hand through the Elf's silken hair. "Please beloved, try to understand. I am not rejecting you, nor am I turning my back on Ada, this is not about you—this is about me. I must learn who I am. I must learn about this Power within me; not because to ignore it means to be devoured by it, but because it is a gift—a force to be used for good.
"Lady Galadriel believes she can teach me to hone this Power; that it can be used as a weapon against the Shadow. Naneth will not have died in vain, I owe that to her, and to Adar—and to you—to try; to become who I am destined to be. I cannot do that in Lasgalen—there are too many memories."
"But will you never come home to me?"
"I did not say that. I said only that while the Shadow lingers over Lasgalen, I will remain here—to fight."
Legolas bowed his head, "and what of us?"
Anaríel stroked his cheek. "Our love will never fade. You are and always will be my Le'las—the other half of my soul. Dark times come beloved. We both shall be called upon to give more of ourselves than we think we have to give—to be far more than we think we are. Our love for one another shall be our strength—the one thing the Shadow cannot take from us. Believe in us—we will stand together and see a day dawn without Shadow."
Legolas gazed long upon the maiden he had known all his life, taking in every minute detail and branding them to his heart. Reaching up he buried his hands in her hair, noticing the strands at her temples were turning silver and gleamed in the starlight. At last, he drew a shaky breath.
"Is this what your Power tells you?"
Anaríel smiled radiantly, "No, meleth nín, it is what my heart tells me." Reaching up she kissed Legolas long and lingering, a kiss as sweet and pure as joy.
End of Book One
To be continued in Book Two.
elleth/ellyth (pl): female elf
ellon/ellyn (pl): male elf
galad nen: bright one
meleth nín: my love
ion nín: my son
Naugrim: Dwarves
tithen pen: little one
Nórui: June
pen nethyn: young ones
Taur-nu-Fuin: Forest under Night—name for Mirkwood
bereth: queen
Híril nín: my Lady
yrch: orcs
noro lim: ride on
Ai: Alas!
Ernil nín: my Prince
fëa: spirit (Elven)
elu nín: my heart
fëa nín: my spirit
iel nín: my daughter
Aran nín: my King
Hír nín: my Lord
pen neth: young one
Nai elen síla lumenn'omentielvo: May a star shine on the hour of our meeting.