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The Avarin King

Canticle of the Haunted: 4th Chapter


"He must master or be mastered;
while to show mercy was a weakness.
Mercy did not exist in the primordial life.
It was misunderstood for fear,
and such misunderstandings made for death.
Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law;
and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed."

- Jack London, Call of the Wild


Author's note:

Can you talk a little about where your inspiration for such huge story comes from and how you manage to keep track of the plot?

Sure! As far as keeping tack of the plot is concerned, the answer isn't very sexy: Microsoft Excel. I keep a big spreadsheet with two tabs. For Cavern's Shade, on one tab I kept Tolkien's timeline of the First Age and I added in the dates of the events in the story. This helped me to make sure that everything in the story was happening in the correct order in terms of the canonical timeline. It also helped me keep track of Tolkien's timeline, because that is so complex. If I hadn't have done this it would have been impossible both to keep track of the dates in my own story and to keep track of the dates from the Silmarillion.

In the second tab of my excel sheet I keep a map of the fic. So basically I have a row for each chapter and then a cell for each main event in that chapter. Writing a story this large, it is REALLY difficult for me to keep track of the events of my own story. Using the excel sheet helps me to keep track of all these things. There are events that I completely forgot happened until reviewers reminded me later in the fic. I actually didn't start Cavern's Shade with my excel sheet but it quickly became impossible to keep track of things so that's why I made it. I didn't write every single event, but I wrote the big ones and then filled the rest in on the way. For example, I always knew when they would marry, when Doriath would fall, when Finrod would die, when the long peace would begin, when Galadriel would tell about the kinslaying, but the rest developed as I went along.

I don't freeform write though. When I start a chapter or a group of chapters I ALWAYS know exactly where they are going and what events will take place. But I tend to plan chapters in groups of 3-5 chapters. So I write the main events of the whole book in my spreadsheet, then I plan the first five chapters. As I am writing those I usually get a much better picture of where the next five chapters will go. So, once I finish writing the first five, I plan out the next five, etc. This is what works well for me.

Sometimes I would try to write far ahead but I found that didn't work well. A lot of times the characters would change and develop in ways I didn't expect. Events would affect them in ways I didn't expect. So by the time I got to the part I had prewritten I would have to completely redo it because it just didn't fit anymore. I think you can plan a story and you can plan a plot but you can't really plan your characters. You can't tell them what they have to do, or think, or feel. I think this is where inconsistent and ooc characters come from because the author is trying to force them to behave in a certain way that perhaps juxtaposes the integrity of the character's personality. For my characters I try to establish a solid base of what their personality is and then, as events develop, I always try to keep in mind how that character would react to that event or in that situation. So if Celeborn values courage (which he does) then in battle I could expect he is going to be the one leading the charge. He may even do dangerous things because he will see his own safety as a last priority. So if Celeborn goes into battle and leads a charge then this is easily in character for him. But, this doesn't mean Celeborn will never run from a fight. However; if I am going to make Celeborn run from a fight then I also need to acknowledge that he would feel guilt or shame over this because running is against his personality and values system. So it's ok for me to make him do something he wouldn't normally do, as long as I show the repercussions that has on him. In other words, having him run from a fight would be OOC. But, having him run from a fight and then feel crippling shame, guilt, and remorse for it is in character. These are the kinds of things you kind of have to develop as you go, in my opinion.

Another thing was, I often found that I grew as a writer immensely chapter by chapter, mostly due to all the helpful feedback I get from reviews. So, if I wrote too far ahead, I would often get to that part and then no longer think it was good. I had learned to write better by then so I would end up redoing it.

Ok, now about where the inspiration comes from. The answer really is practice and doing it again, and again, and again. Part of what took me 5 months to get this current fic to publication was just trying to work out what on earth the mental states of the characters were. I knew exactly which events were going to take place in this fic, I knew which characters would be in it, I knew the plot, but I could NOT figure out what was going on with the characters.

I had actually done about 50 pages of prewriting for this fic before I even finished Cavern's Shade but by the time I had finished Cavern's Shade I thought this prewriting was no longer any good and no longer reflected the growth that the characters had gone through so I threw it out. Then when I actually did start writing this fic I rewrote the first chapter 6 different times. There are 6 completely different versions. Nothing was working. It just didn't feel right.

I had in my head that they were newlyweds and they were going to be happy just being newly married and making their home in the forest. But it felt really wrong and forced. The characters were refusing to behave. So finally I had to sit and think about it and say, ok, well they just went through a hell of a lot of trauma and traumatized people generally struggle and turn on each other, traumatized people have trouble coping with everyday things, they lash out, they take things too personally, and they start fights as a way of avoiding bigger problems. I had to give up this happy idea of them. I really did not want to do that and I fought it. But eventually I realized that I had to do it or the story would never work. Once I decided that I wrote the first chapter in one night.

I think that is very important. If you feel like you are having to force the story out then you are probably on the wrong path. Whenever I am on the right path with a plot or a character then it all just flows out very naturally. But, I never would have gotten to the point where I understood their mental states if I hadn't done all of that prewriting and struggling and all of that rewriting of chapter one. For me, I really have to work things out on paper. Thinking it over in my head isn't enough. I have to keep trying until something works.

Another thing about inspiration for me is that I'm very visual. I have to see stuff or touch things to understand them. Along with this, I really have to get a picture in my head before I can write. For me this is usually the picture of the settings. So I had to have a very crystal clear idea of what Doriath looked like and I had to have a very clear idea of what Nan-Tathren looked like. For me at least, the settings really are key and I have to be able to visualize them to write. That's where a lot of my inspiration comes from is from the pictures of the places I imagine in my head. I think it is different for everybody but this is what has worked for me.


The first thing of which Celeborn became conscious was a throbbing ache in his head that caused fractures of pain to lance through his mind, constricting and relaxing so that in one instant he was filled with overwhelming agony while in the next he was gasping in momentary relief. He made an attempt to gather his wits about him as yet another spasm wracked his aching head, and discerned that the pain had two sources: one was a throbbing knot at the back of his head from where he must have been hit, the other was the medicinal scent that lingered in his nostrils, evidence of a drugged sleep.

He tried not to move too much, not to alert his captors to the fact that he was awake, and gently slid his wrists against the ties that bound them, attempting to test how much give the rope had and how expertly he had been bound: not much and quite expertly were his respective conclusions. Nevertheless, the use of his hands was not strictly necessary for killing. His feet were unbound and that should provide him with enough mobility to at least cause harm. He blinked but the blindfold that covered his eyes was thick and he could not see through it, so instead he sat, trying to discern as much as he could about his surroundings.

From the taste in his mouth, his sleep had been induced by a mixture of pollen taken from the anthers of moon lilies and a rather potent dose of ground Hawthorne bark. It was a common sleeping remedy amongst the Avari, though the Sindar had more sophisticated methods of inducing sleep in prisoners. The Avari…Celeborn had to resist the urge to grind his teeth even as his hands itched to find Hwindan and throttle the boy's neck. So he had sold them out after all…

He heard the sound of footsteps approaching, a muffled grunt, hushed voices that he could not quite make out, and he was judging the ground beneath his feet, trying to discern whether it would provide ample purchase for what he intended to do. He could not be sure whether there were others around him, but he could judge the distance between himself and the hushed voices.

The thought of his wife sprang to mind but he tried to stifle it. There was no use in considering where she might be, not until he had freed himself, and this damnable headache and the combination of drugs hindered him from accessing her through their bond at all, which was doubtlessly what their captors had intended. The voices stopped their muttering and he heard light footsteps coming towards him, his mind automatically calculating the distance, the weight of the stranger, determining how much power it would take to knock him out cold.

He waited not until the footsteps stopped, but for the moment just before, the moment when whomever this was approaching him would not completely have the firmness of the earth beneath their feet and, in that moment, he leapt upward, bringing the crown of his head directly up beneath the man's chin, and it was certainly a man, judging by his weight.

The stranger let a filthy curse fly in a voice that sounded vaguely familiar but was obscured by the sound of him choking, on his own blood no doubt. The blow must have caused him to bite his tongue or at least his lip. Celeborn spun about, his movements tight, employing the economy of motion displayed by all those well trained in the art of dealing death, the quick flick of one of his unbound feet toppling his captor to the ground. In the next moment his bound hands had become a strength rather than a liability as he seated himself upon his captor's shoulders, the rope that was binding his wrists wrapped about the man's neck to form a garrote and he twisted his hands ever so slightly, indicating to whomever else might be there precisely what would happen to this man were they to approach any closer.

"Remove the blindfold," he spat, his voice full of venom, and the man beneath him tried to speak but he jerked his hands and the man gurgled and fell silent. A moment later he felt quick hands at the back of his head, undoing the knot in the cloth, and a moment later his surroundings swam into focus. It was like coming to out of a fever dream, the world fading in and out in blotches of color, his head still swimming from the concoction with which they had drugged him.

When his eyes cleared at last he saw that he was in a tent, an Avarin tent, and, looking down, that he was staring at the back of a sloppily braided head of flaxen colored hair filled with beads and bobbles and ornaments: Hwindan. The lad spat blood out upon the ground but whatever sympathy Celeborn might have felt was long faded. He shifted, turning the boy over, glaring into dark gold eyes still startled with fright.

"We trusted you," he growled. "We took you in as our own. We fed you, clothed you, provided you shelter. Do you know how we worried over you when we found you gone? And you exploited us, endangered us." He stopped speaking in an effort to corral his anger and prevent himself from striking the lad. "You will unbind my hands," he snarled, "and then you will take me to my wife and may Bauglir disembowel you if you have harmed even one hair on her head." He watched the young elf's throat bob as he swallowed and pushed the rope down about his neck again at the sound of the person who had untied the blindfold stepping forward once more. "Touch me and he dies," he growled.

"Not above killing kin now?" A familiar voice said, deep and mellow and a reminder of days long gone: Amdír. "And you?" The chieftain said, clearly addressing the lad. "What did I say? Didn't I warn you?"

"He were…" Hwindan wheezed and Celeborn released his grip on the young man's throat ever so slightly so that he could speak. "He were bound and drugged! I was just curious is all!" Hwindan protested.

"Bound and drugged and just as dangerous as if he had not been, as I told you!" Amdír reprimanded the young elf, his voice gruff. "Let him go," he addressed Celeborn. "He is a fool, but a harmless one."

"Not so harmless it seems," Celeborn said as he rose, a scowl sitting heavy upon his brow, "or so says the ache in my head." Hwindan leapt to his feet, seemingly finding himself in a paradox. He could not exit the tent without passing Amdír but he clearly had no desire to be anywhere near Celeborn and so he took refuge in the furthest corner of the tent from the both of them, huddled against a wooden beam.

Aside from a pair of buckskin breeches and the feathers and bone ornaments that adorned his myriad black braids, Amdír wore nothing else and he regarded Celeborn for a moment with his yellow eyes, then produced a knife from his belt, sawing through the ropes that bound the Sinda, and they slithered to the ground like snakes as Celeborn flexed his wrists. "My knife," he said, but Amdír only pushed a leather canteen into his hands.

"Drink this," the Avar advised, but Celeborn angrily shoved the canteen back into his hands.

"My knife," he demanded.

"It will soothe the ache in your head," Amdír said but Celeborn only took a step forward, pushing the Avar backwards.

"My knife," he said again, his voice low and slow and dangerous. "Then I will treat with you. But first, my knife."

The corner of Amdír's thin lips curled upwards, not in a grin, nor in a sneer, but in a look that Celeborn had come to expect of Avarin men, the look they wore when they knew they had best not protest but didn't appreciate the position in which they had been put.

"You," Amdír cast a piercing glance toward the lad, who scampered forward, producing Celeborn's knife belt, and Celeborn took it, buckling it about his waist.

"My wife," Celeborn said, as Hwindan retreated to safety once more, "is she safe?"

"Your woman is safe," Amdír grunted. "And this was all my son's fool plan. He believes he is doing you some kindness. Had he consulted me first this would never have happened."

"Your son?" Celeborn asked perplexed. "I thought you had just the one, Amroth was his name, was it not?"

"I do have just the one," Amdír replied.

Celeborn paused, trying to puzzle things out. "Your wife's name?" He asked at last.

"Hwin," Amdír grunted. "Not a very clever name is it 'son of Hwin' but it apparently fooled you so perhaps his choice of alias was the least foolish thing about this entire debacle."

A strangled sound of protest rose up from the corner where Hwindan – Amroth – huddled, but Celeborn and Amdír were both quick to direct accusing fingers and glares in that direction.

"No," Amdír said.

"Don't," Celeborn said, and Amroth meekly lapsed into anxious silence once more.

"If you had nothing to do with this then what need was there to bind me?" Celeborn asked, turning his attention back towards Amroth's father, and Amdír thrust the canteen back into his hands.

"Just drink this," Amdír said. "You're unpleasant enough when you're feeling well, Celeborn, and considerably more unpleasant when you aren't."

The two men eyed each other tensely for a moment before Celeborn yanked the cork from the mouth of the canteen with his teeth and spat it into his palm, taking a long drink. Whatever was in it, and it seemed to be an alcohol of sorts, had a distinctly pungent herbal flavor, but from the first swallow the horrible headache began to fade until it was simply a dull buzz at the back of his mind. He replaced the stopper and handed it back to Amdír.

"I decided to keep you bound because I knew you'd be angry and I knew you'd be dangerous enough with your hands tied when you awoke, even more so with them free." Amdír said with a grunt, his leathery brown skin crinkling around the corners of his yellow eyes as he grinned. It was not necessarily a friendly grin, but one that indicated interest. He shook his head and laughed, an odd croaking sound. "But your woman kicks like a mule."

"You deserve it after that stunt," Celeborn spat, still furious and not yet recovered from the shock of being captured. "Where is she?"

"Safe," Amdír said, seeming unconcerned and making a gesture with his hand to indicate this as he turned his attention to the ground, stooping to draw patterns in the dirt, pushing his finger through the soil.

"What need was there for any of this?" Celeborn demanded to know, seating himself on the ground across from Amdír, crossing his arms over his knees. Amdír looked up at Celeborn with a smirk.

"My son got it into his head that your wife was a witch," he said, "and he wondered if her sorcery was behind the strange things we have been seeing of late, the animals passing over the mountains, the sickness in the trees. He roped his friends into capturing you with the intent of purging her of witchcraft and releasing you from her enchantments. In his mind a kindness. In the mind of anyone with half a brain…" Amdír shot a furious glance across the tent at his son, "clearly a foolhardy endeavor."

A witch…yes, the Avari certainly would have thought Galadriel was a witch with her visions and her water scrying. Though their meaning of "witch" was perhaps not the same one that the Noldor or the Sindar would attribute to the word. To the Avari a witch was someone who sought to disturb the natural order of things, which they believed disturbed the harmony of the universe, thereby causing floods and famine.

There were some Sindar who held to these beliefs still, though not very openly, for even amongst Celeborn's people the ideas were held to be antiquated, remnants of their backwoods origins, though they had believed them once upon a time, when he had been a child, the same way they had believed that elves became stars when they died. The Noldor would almost certainly scoff at such beliefs as heretic, backwards, and barbarous. Galadriel…well…she would certainly have opinions on the matter.

At the thought, Celeborn burst into full-hearted laughter, laughing as he had not for many long decades, perhaps even centuries, until his sides ached and tears began to run from his eyes. Amdír was laughing too and at last the two men stood and embraced, slapping each other heartily on the back.

"Your son has played me for a fool," Celeborn said.

Amdír laughed, merriment twinkling in his yellow eyes. "You should know by now that we Avari are a wily folk, and if you put us in a tight spot you may soon find the tables turned on you. You gave the boy quite the fright the night he met you."

"Seems I never learn my lessons," Celeborn said with a grin.

"Aye, and so I wondered why they always called you the wise one," Amdír joked.

"The blind leading the blind," Celeborn quipped and the Avarin king laughed.

"So you wed the Noldo after all," Amdír said, crossing his arms over his chest, ever one to get down to business rather than spend time in pleasantries.

"Nothing formal," Celeborn said with a shake of his silver head. "It was just after we'd escaped Doriath, when we first made our home in Nan Tathren. No ceremonies or feasts, just vows and bodily union."

"That's how marriage should be," Amdír said with a grunt. "That's how the Avari have always done it and the Green Elves too, how Eru intended it. The trouble was when your lot started complicating things, encouraging engagements, ceremonies, family approval," his yellow eyes narrowed and he made a guttural sound that indicated his disapproval. "Why ritualize such things? A man and a woman know well enough what to do when they want to marry without having others meddling in their affairs. That's how arguments start, disunion; the harmony of things is disturbed."

"Do you know, I agree with you?" Celeborn said and Amdír looked intrigued. "When we were in Doriath there were always others who wanted to dictate the terms of our relationship…so many things that got in the way…none of them of our own choosing or desire. But when we were out here at last…I felt free for the first time in a very long time." He felt almost guilty saying it, as if it were somehow doing dishonor to those he had loved, those who had died, but the thought had long been in the back of his mind and he only felt safe in expressing it now, to Amdír.

"Why do you think I left?" Amdír said, his eyes meeting Celeborn's. "So many tried to stop me. They couldn't understand how I could walk away from the pleasures and luxuries of Menegroth." He laughed softly, his eyes full of remembrance. "It was the easiest choice I have ever made: freedom."

He was quiet for a while, both of them looking out into the beauty of the forest, before he turned to look at Celeborn and spoke again, softly. "You would do well amongst the Avari, Celeborn. You have the spirit of a chieftain. I can see it in your eyes, that this is what you want, to follow the old ways, the ways of your father and grandfather…the way things were when you were young, when we were both young."

"Perhaps," Celeborn said softly. He had pondered the idea for a long time. It was the thing that had held him here in Nan Tathren now for over two decades. And yet it was not the choice that he would make, that too he knew as clearly as the stars shone in the sky. Amdír seemed to understand and bowed his head.

"Has your marriage been a happy one?" Amdír asked, clearly seeking to steer the conversation away from the direction in which it had headed.

"More or less," Celeborn replied, glad for the change of subject but trying not to think overly much on the harsh words that has passed between him and Galadriel of late. He did not regret his marriage and yet it had not quite been what he had expected. The cause of the seeming constant discord between him and his wife escaped him. "But do you not disapprove?"

Amdír shrugged, giving him a small smile. "You know I don't like her people, but it is none of my business to pass judgment on which woman a man takes. That is between you and her."

"Do you really believe in all that about witches?" Celeborn asked with a little laugh.

"Witches…" Amdír mused with a smile. "I know that wherever there's trouble there's a witch. But as far as what a witch is…to me that's just someone with bad intentions. And your woman…" He raised both his dark brows and laughed. "She spits venom like a viper, and she's a strange one alright, but whatever it is she practices seems more to me in harmony with nature than out of it. She has a good heart. She is not behind the dark things we have seen of late. That is Bauglir's work." He turned to Celeborn, the corners of his eyes crinkled again in happiness.

"And what have you done with her?" Celeborn asked with a laugh.

Amdír grinned. "They wanted some sort of proof that she isn't a witch," he said. "Whatever my thought on the matter, once Amroth had introduced her as a sorceress my people would not be satisfied until they had discerned whether or not the accusation was true." Celeborn felt a broad grin blossom on his lips. He could only imagine Galadriel's indignance. Amdír bent, pushing his way out of the tent and gestured to Celeborn, who followed as they wound their way about buckskin tents and past suntanned faced with curious eyes. The encampment was not very large and soon enough they had come within sight of Galadriel.

She looked quite angry indeed, tied securely to a pole in a seated position on the ground. Several of the Avari were gathered about her performing some ritual in which they chanted in their own language before blowing a puff of smoke into Galadriel's face. She didn't look pleased about it at all and called out to them as they approached.

"Think it's funny do you, Celeborn?" She snarled. "What is this madness and why are you so pleased? Are you friends with these people? Why on earth have you allowed them to tie me up like this?" Her blue eyes were flashing in rage. Celeborn looked to Amdír and, with a nod, the chieftain bid his people free her, which they appeared to do with some reluctance and much suspicion, murmuring as they loosened her bonds.

"Oh and what have you been up to while I've been being tormented?" she asked, storming over to them. "Having a pleasant time it seems!"

"Galadriel," Celeborn said gently, placing a hand on her lower back. She glared at him but allowed him to continue. "This is Amdír, a Chieftain of the Avari."

"And do you tie up all of your friends' wives and blow smoke in their faces?" Galadriel seethed, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Amdír.

"They thought you were a witch," Celeborn explained, which made Galadriel's eyes go wide. He had doubted she would see the humor in it and, indeed, she had not.

"A what?" She exclaimed.

"Not like that," Celeborn laughed. "To them it means a person who disrupts natural harmony, causes chaos."

"I've done no such thing," Galadriel seethed.

Amdír watched bemusedly, looping his thumbs into the waistband of his breeches, his breastplate of bone rattling with the breeze. "We've much to discuss," he said softly, interrupting whatever further argument Galadriel was poised to make. They followed him back to the tent, ducking inside to find that Hwindan, or Amroth as Celeborn now knew him, was seated on the floor, whittling something out of bone, his anxiety of earlier seeming to have dissipated somewhat. He looked up as they entered, giving them a nervous and sheepish smile.

Galadriel said nothing, but her glare was sufficient enough to wipe the grin from his face and he returned his attention to the bone he was carving. "How much do you know of the outside world?" Amdír asked as they seated themselves on the ground.

"Only what we have learned from the Onodrim," Celeborn replied, "that the earth is turned dark, the animals fleeing over the mountains, that the Sindar have gathered at the mouths of Sirion and on the Isle of Balar."

"The Noldor as well," Amdír said grimly. "Gondolin fell some years ago."

Galadriel said nothing but Celeborn felt her tremor of fear traverse the thread that twined their souls together, jolting through the both of them like a shiver of lightening. In the Avarin way, Amdír said nothing else, waiting patiently until they were ready to speak again.

"Gondolin," Galadriel said, and Celeborn noted a strange trembling in her voice, "but Gondolin was our best kept secret. How…how could it be possible?"

"We do not meddle in the affairs of those who came from over the sea," Amdír said, "nor have we fondness for politics and so we do not know the details. But those who survived came through the mountains and some of my scouts said they had seen fire on those mountains at night. They sojourned for some weeks in the northernmost part of Nan-Tathren."

"And we did not know it?" Galadriel exclaimed.

"But they continued on some years ago," Amdír said, "to the mouths of Sirion. My people might have approached you sooner had it not been for them. But we have no fondness for elves who dabble in witchcraft…"

"Oh is that what you call the crafting of things?" Galadriel cried, her voice laced with anger.

"Galadriel," Celeborn murmured, turning to her in an attempt to calm her. She had no experience with the Avari, with their ways and customs, and he knew that Amdír had little patience for anything having to do with the Noldor.

"The tearing of metals and stones from the mountains, the murder of trees to fuel forge fires, the creation of magical stones that twist and warp the minds of their makers, that bend the earth to suit the needs of their bearers. Yes," Amdír said, his voice low, yellow eyes cold, dark brows swooping low over those thin eyes, his whole visage seeming to take on the aspect of a hawk, "I do call the disruption of the natural world witchcraft."

"These are skills taught by the Valar themselves, taught by Aüle!" Galadriel hissed.

"What love have we for the Valar?" Amdír replied, his voice terse. "What love have we for gods who love not their children equally and us the least of all?"

"If you will blame the Valar then why not blame yourselves for refusing the journey?" Galadriel snarled and Amdír's eyes grew black.

"By that line of reason you might easily blame your husband for the misfortune that has befallen him," Amdír spat.

"Galadriel, enough!" Celeborn said as she opened her mouth to reply, his voice firm as he turned to her, taking her arm, but she shook him off, stalking from the tent, and Celeborn next turned his anger on Amdír. The Avar rose, quiet anger burning within him, his yellow eyes narrowed, his hawk-like nose giving him an even fiercer appearance.

"You tell her such news and then bait her?" Celeborn snarled, his anger coming loose.

"I will not withhold the truth, not even before an outsider, certainly not for the sake of politeness," Amdír said, drawing close, but Celeborn was not intimidated. It was a common tactic amongst the Úmanyar, even the highly cultured elves of Doriath: the use of physical proximity as a means of communicating threat. Celeborn and Amdír stood chest to chest, eying each other like two stags on the edge of a contested territory, only Celeborn was far taller and played this trait to his advantage.

"You try to play my own woman against me even once more and I will never speak to you again," Celeborn hissed, speaking now in the guttural language of Amdír's tribe, his green eyes narrowed. Galadriel would have been irritated to hear him talk of her in such a fashion, but Celeborn had long found that when dealing with the Avari it was best to adopt their culture as well.

Amdír made no reply for a moment, his eyes fixed on Celeborn's, and Celeborn watched closely, looking for the shift in their depths that would betray movement. It came and Amdír pressed his forearm against Celeborn's chest, pushing him slightly, but the Sinda had anticipated the movement and brought his elbow into the Avar's ribs, checking him. Even after years of living in the forest, he was still a bigger elf than Amdír and the Avar stumbled backward, though he made no more physical threats, and Celeborn turned, striding from the tent.

He made his way back through the Avarin encampment, passing elves who looked at him curiously, and then south, arriving at their encampment by nightfall. A glance upward told him that Galadriel had retreated to the talan, which he had expected, but she had pulled the ladder up and so he climbed the tree instead, perching in the branches for a while.

He knew she would be angry with him and so he waited, even though he knew waiting would likely do no good. Something was bothering her, something she had not told him, or else she would not have reacted to Amdír as she had, not that what Amdír had said had been fair of course, but her comments about the Avari had been equally as wretched, and they would not have been something she would ordinarily have said unless something was troubling her mind.

"Do you think I don't know you're up there?" She called up, turning her face up towards his, the torchlight flickering across her face. Her voice had a chill to it, but there was sadness as well and something more foreign, weakness. He dropped light-footed to the talan and Galadriel eyed him suspiciously, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Why don't you just tell me what it is?" He asked her, trying to keep the irritation from his voice.

"You sided with him. You told me to be quiet," Galadriel seethed, her blue eyes hard and accusing.

"I didn't side with either of you," he retorted. "I'll have you know I was very angry with him after you left. We nearly came to blows over it, but what you said about the Avari was equally offensive to me as what he said to you."

She softened somewhat, staring down at her feet for a moment before she looked back up at him. "You know I didn't mean it," she said quietly, but she did not raise her eyes to his, instead brushing her hair behind her ear, an oddly nervous gesture.

"I know he provoked you but whether you meant it or not…" Celeborn began.

"I've already said I didn't mean it!" Galadriel interrupted him, her temper snapping.

"They didn't mean any harm by it!" Celeborn retorted, struggling to keep his voice calm, what sympathy he had had for her quickly evaporating. "It's just….their way of understanding the world is…is…different…"

"Primitive? Divisive?" Galadriel supplied, her lips twisted in a wry grin. He could see tears gathering in her eyes and she shook her head. "I don't fit into your world, do I Celeborn? I…I don't belong here, or with them, or with your people, or even with my own! And the truth is I've never belonged anywhere! Even in Aman I could never call any people fully my own! I'm just an…an anomaly caught between them all and I can feel myself falling through the cracks!"

"What brought this on?" Celeborn asked, his anger having vanished, replaced now by confusion and numbness.

The night your people held a knife to my throat, she thought but did not say. "You knew it then and you know it now!" She said instead, wiping at the tears that fell freely. "You were going to send me away to Gondolin…" The reason he had been about to send her away so many years ago still held true now: she was dispossessed, belonging nowhere, and the doom of the Valar sat as a yoke about her neck, chains that bound her body in the prison of indecision, a weight that would sink her to the bottom of the sea where Elenwë's bones now moldered.

"And I am glad now I didn't!" Celeborn replied, his voice tense with anxiety. "You might have been killed…"

"That isn't the point!" Galadriel sobbed.

"Well then what is the…" Celeborn stammered, throwing his hands out in a gesture that signaled he was at a loss. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to take her into his arms, to enfold her in his love, to comfort her, that if he were to hold her now then she would tell him her secret at last and he would have his answer. But he could not relent, would not relent, needed to tear the problem open so that he could understand it, so that he could fix whatever was wrong with them, whatever was wrong with him; and there was something terribly wrong.

"The point is that I don't know who you are anymore and I don't think you do either! You're not acting like yourself!" Galadriel cried. "This isn't like you…this…this…hiding…"

Her words had struck true – too true. They had delved deep into the pit of him where even he had dared not linger. They had burrowed inside the part of his soul that he had locked away and wrenched forth the decay. They had opened the door that he had kept shut for so long and revealed to him the depths of his self-deception, the secrets he had kept from himself for so long, and those were too big for his mind to hold, too terrible to contemplate, anathema. His mind shattered beneath the titanic weight of them.

"Then this is who I am, and if you want a decision then I shall give it to you," Celeborn growled, his index finger quivering before her eyes, whatever control he had held over himself having dissolved completely, whatever desire to reconcile he had possessed now superseded by the shrieking need to prove that he was not broken. "We leave tomorrow. We go to the mouths of Sirion and then onwards to Balar."

They stood for a moment, wide-eyed, staring at each other not with hatred but with hopes shattered and love trampled beneath the weight of guilt until Celeborn could endure it no longer and turned, dropping over the edge of the talan, hanging by one hand before he let himself fall to the forest floor below. He couldn't bear to be near her, couldn't bear to be near the physical embodiment of all of his failures, to see the disappointment in her eyes, to face the fact that he had failed her so utterly, that he was no longer than man with whom she had fallen in love. He felt as if he had been pretending for so long, desperately trying to deceive her, to hide from her the fact that that man had perished in Menegroth's bowels.

"Celeborn….Celeborn wait!" He heard her call, but her voice seemed as if it came from far away, from another lifetime, so distant that he could not discern whether it was filled with sadness, anger, worry – what did it matter – they were all the same.

"Celeborn." He looked up, startled, at the sound of the voice to see Amdír standing before him, solemn as ever, but with the shadow of remorse in his yellow eyes. The two men stood in silence, staring each other down, and Celeborn could feel his body quivering with anger, with rage that threatened to shrug off the bonds of the body and scream careening into space, his fists filled with the desire to hit something, to fight. He heard Galadriel's soft footfalls come to a halt behind him, the sound of her voice.

"Haven't you done enough?" She asked Amdír, her voice cracking with pain. The Avar hung his head.

Even in his youth in Doriath Amdír had not been good at apologies. Age had not caused that trait to improve. "There are no witches here," he said gruffly at last, raising his eyes to them, "but there is disunion, and discord. If you do intend to go then come to our camp at first light and let us sing the blessing ceremony on your behalf. Shadows fall now upon the world and my people would have you walk in harmony… I would wish you to walk in harmony."

He fell silent and Celeborn said nothing. It was not his decision to make. It was Galadriel whom Amdír had addressed and Celeborn prayed that her pride would not cause her to rebuke the Avarin chieftain. She knew naught of their customs, but Celeborn knew that for the Avari to offer such a thing was rarely done, for outsiders it was forbidden. It was not an apology in those precise words, but it was indeed an apology, and more than an apology, Amdír meant to afford them the highest honor and respect that he could offer, not only his, but that of his people as well.

The silence persisted but at last Galadriel spoke, her voice still tense. "At dawn," she said, "we will come."

The day dawned in frigid winter glory, the sun bright, and white, and cold, glancing across the darkened trunks of trees, their network of brittle black branches encased in frost and dripping with icicles. It was strange, Celeborn thought, that they would leave this talan so soon after it had been built. Something about it seemed a waste, to leave it to rot here alone while they pursued their fortune elsewhere, and he wondered about the state in which his rooms in Doriath must now lie, if blood and bones now profaned the sacred spaces in which he had first seen Galadriel dance, or touched her hand, or watched the way that her hair glittered in the morning light. He brushed the tips of his fingers across the edge of the talan, the patterns of leaves and flowers that he had so painstakingly carved, and he wondered when he had lost her.

She was silent as they walked, by his side and yet not, his wife and yet become a stranger. He did not know how it could have escaped him before or how he had only come to realize it now, and he wondered how long that epiphany had lain sleeping in his heart, unknown even to its master, the knowledge that his marriage was so completely broken too terrible, perhaps, to comprehend. For so long he had known that he had lost some part of himself in Menegroth's caverns but he had not known that some part of his wife lay now also beyond his reach.

The Avari had woken early, soft gray smoke wafting up from campfires into the morning air, making the village seem like something of a mirage as they approached, and wandering amongst the tents he could see the Ents as well, the familiar branches of Fangorn and the slender shape of Fimbrethil. He felt Galadriel tense at his side as they entered the encampment, the flurry of trepidation that filled her mind.

Are you alright? He asked her.

Well enough, she replied, though even in his mind her tone was curt. But there was no more time to speak on the subject or to push her for answers, for the Avari had come to greet them, and Amdír took their hands in greeting.

The Chieftain's long dark hair had been carefully plaited and threaded through with clay beads, a ceremonial breastplate of bone slats rattling against his chest in the gentle breeze of the morning, crow feathers in his hair that caught the sun's light and glistened black.

"Come," he said to Celeborn with a jerk of his head, leading him away with the men as the women took Galadriel's hands and showed her into a tent. She went with them reluctantly, glancing at Celeborn's retreating back, and yet she went with them nevertheless, allowing rough and calloused yet gentle hands to lead her into a tent.

Her hands had become like those of the Avarin women and she stared at them as they flitted about her, muttering in their strange guttural language. Tributaries ran across her palms, confessions written in flesh. How many times had she washed them of blood, and tears, and the aftermath of love? Her hands bore witness to her crimes and she wanted to make them as they had been, smooth, and soft, and secret.

She recoiled with a gasp as one of the Avarin women took her hand and the woman paused, turning curious gray eyes to her, tugging insistently upon her hand and Galadriel at last relinquished it. She knew that they did not intend to be unkind but, as the woman traced designs in soot across her fingers, she felt not as if this were some metamorphosis, as she had in Doriath so long ago, but as if it were some act of mocking pageantry. They would hardly have welcomed me were it not for him, she thought. The idea curdled in her stomach.

The Avarin women smiled at her, crooked smiles with broken teeth, and handed her a mirror of polished copper. They had dressed her in breeches of soft deerskin the color of an acorn, trimmed with a fringe of shells and beads, a vest of white suede carefully embroidered with homespun thread, and pulled her golden hair pulled back in a myriad of intricate braids threaded through with carved clay beads, ornaments of bone, and the brilliant blue feathers of a jay. It was a gesture of friendship and yet all she could think was how much she wanted to rub the soot from her hands and the paint from her face, how she would have scratched off her own skin if she could.

So many years ago she had ridden into Nargothrond under her father's banner so secure in her right to bear it and filled with every certainty that she was about to become the wife of Doriath's prince. All of her dreams had been within her grasp; all she had to do was reach out and pluck them.

An ivory oliphant carved in miniature - held betwixt her thumb and forefinger up to the light that slipped through the star-carved lattices screening the windows of Nargothrond – for a moment she was herself and then in the next she was overwhelmed by the sensation that Finrod had once stood in this exact place, holding this same figurine in the prism of light, the same thoughts coursing through his mind in a deluge of hope, as if his memory had been imprinted upon the ivory and at her touch been awakened from the dead. She opened her hand and the figurine fell slowly through the air, so slowly that she knew this must be some vision or –

Trembling she came to wide-eyed, sitting on a bed of leaves at Celeborn's side with no recollection of how she had come to be there. All the things in which she had staked her hopes had not only failed her, nay, far worse, they had ceased to have meaning. Everything she was no longer mattered: the golden house of Finarfin was but a memory, Doriath a moldering ruin. To have a world destroyed was one thing; to have it made obsolete was entirely another.

The scent of burning sandalwood wafted over her and she found herself looking into Amdír's yellow eyes, the world oddly out of focus around him as he pressed his thumb into a copper bowl filled with some red tincture and drew it down the center of her forehead, across her nose and lips, over her chin. It was sticky and wet, thick, drying slowly in the chill morning. In his two hands he held a clay bowl filled with smoking ash, offering it to her, and she breathed deeply, inhaling the heady incense, feeling the smoke curl in her lungs as the world around her buzzed with the soft murmur of voices and a strange humming noise. The world faded for a moment and then returned in a wave of flickering lights like fireflies. Where Amdír had stood a moment earlier, or what seemed as a moment at least, Amroth now crouched, his young face oddly solemn.

Whatever it was he murmured she did not understand, but he, as his father had done, pressed his thumb into a bowl, this one filled with the soft, silver, granular pollen of the moon lilies and drew it down the center of her face, from the part of her hair to the tip of her chin. The bowl of smoking ash appeared again, only this time she could not discern who held it, but she breathed deep nevertheless, the smoke somehow soothing, washing all of her thoughts from her mind and allowing in the strange fantasias that ever lingered on the edge of her sanity, so near as to whisper in her ears, so far that she had never before been able to grasp them.

The spark of the sun slid across the meridian of the darkened orb of the world. The earth appeared as a marble of glass, cold, and hard, and curled upon itself like an animal in pain, potent with the senescent musk of autumn leaves, and she wondered at how the world had been warped into this foreign shape, how Valinor now lay on the dark side of the earth, beyond the range of sight.

But the world flickered, pulsing now in a thousand glimmering lines of gold across the cloudy surface that traced pathways to a thousand upon a thousand eventualities, things that might be or that would never come to pass, binding them together in some synchronicity that escaped her reach. The world was water and she breathed across it.

She was floating in the darkness, weightless, her eyes fixed on the dark orb before her now pulsing with light, watching as the spark of sunlight reached its zenith and rose, cresting the world, the light magnified, pulsing, suddenly more intense than she could possibly endure, blinding her in its whiteness, pain searing through her eyes, and in that briefest of instants she heard a thousand voices cry out in some canticle written in blood and light upon the flesh of the earth and felt the nameless words inscribed upon her skin.

The amber current of the sky washed across her and then suddenly she was falling from the light through the inky blackness of the sky, turning like a leaf drifting slowly and gently down through the deep blue of the autumn sky, revolving until she came to rest in the softness of sheets. Yet relief was only momentary before she became conscious of the fact that her skin was coated in some sticky liquid that bled out from the still fresh words that had been carved into her flesh.

She raised her hands to staunch the blood only her hands refused to obey her and she was suddenly possessed by the overwhelming sensation that her arms were made of glass, that even if she were able to move them they would shatter and she would drown, unable to save herself from this sea of blood that was seeping slowly from her body, pooling now between her thighs. It was rising now, surrounding her, and still she was powerless to escape as if some invisible hand held her pinned in place, her body wracked by sudden spasms of pain. Then, suddenly, she felt the cold chill of steel at her throat and saw Celeborn's face hovering before her own, his green eyes filled not with anger as they always were in her visions, but this time with fear. And yet, despite his fear, he did not release his grip on her, nor did he remove his knife from her throat,

Motionless, she stared into his eyes, her mind pleading for him to let her go, let her go, let her go –


He had always found her here when she was upset, even as a young girl, when one of her brothers had accidentally broken one of her toys, when she had spent hours agonizing over a man's affection or the cut of a sail, the time when she had accidentally driven a hole into the hull of her own ship. The throne room was empty but the windows were flung open, inviting the evening breeze in, crepuscular hues of amber and lilac glowed in soft patterns upon the marble floor, the gauzy white curtains wimpling like sea foam in the draft. His daughter sat on the wide windowsill, knees pulled up to her chest, looking out into the harbor.

She knew he was here and yet she did not turn to him, knowing why he had come and yet reluctant to hear what he had to say. He knew she would never rebuke him though she did not welcome his company, and yet Olwë had been a father long enough that he had learned when to be heedful of such sentiments in his children and when to disregard them – child – even after all these years he still had to remind himself that the others were dead.

"I did not raise you to be cold, nor to be cruel, nor to be unforgiving," he said, making his way to where she sat and taking a seat opposite her on the windowsill. Eärwen still did not turn to him but he had seen a flicker of fierceness in her eyes. "I suppose you thought yourself very fearsome that day but behind all of your pageantry, and your anger, and your mockery of your husband I saw a scared little girl." The anger flared in her eyes now as she turned a withering gaze upon him.

"Father I beg you not to use my love for you as a means to insult me," she said and Olwë breathed deeply. He sometimes wondered at how his daughter seemed so perplexed in discerning the source of her own daughter's pride.

"Your love for me?" He queried. "Is it for love of me that you do these things?"

"No, I…" Eärwen paused, turning her gaze out to the ships once more, her fingers idly playing along the casing of the windowsill. "I…" she paused again, clearly torn, on the cusp of either lies or truth and he wondered to which side she would lean. "I went to him, some nights prior…I went to him."

Olwë shifted. Whatever he had expected to hear it had not been that and he mused that perhaps his daughter was even more torn than he had thought. "And was…" he began but she interrupted him, impetuous as ever.

"He was as he has ever been, remorseful, repentant, and completely lacking in any sort of initiative. He would not even be going on this fool's crusade if he felt he had any other choice!" Her voice had risen to a nervous pitch and she quieted it, taking a few deep breaths, crossing her arms over her chest. "I want something from him, anything, anger even perhaps, anything but this enduring and unmoving stoicism."

"Isn't that precisely what you used to love about him?" Olwë asked. "He was always the wisest of Finwë's sons, never bold but…"

"I love him still for it," Eärwen said, her voice breaking, "and I hate him for it the same." She stood, fingers frantically dabbing at her eyes, and stalked off, walking the distance of the throne room before returning. She did not wish him to see her weep. When she returned she seated herself in the same place but some of the tension had drained from her, leaving her trembling ever so slightly as she stared out at the ships below.

They were quiet for a long while before they spoke again but Olwë did not prod her, not this time. In matters of the heart his daughter had to draw her own conclusions, that he had learned very long ago when he had dared to cautiously advise against her betrothal. She had not been swayed and in fact his mild opposition had quiet possibly hardened her resolve. It was not, however, a matter he would bring up now; Olwë was not one to rub salt in a wound. And besides, she had been right about the marriage. The golden son of Finwë had tempered his daughter's hurricane spirit, brought her happiness in peace, and now with him gone she broke herself to pieces like a ship on the rocks.

"Have you ever been," she began haltingly, shaking her silver head, "out at sea in a storm, clinging to the top gallant yard, terrified to let go because you know that to do so means certain death, and yet there is some part of you deep inside shouting at you to do it, something in you that hungers for it?" She paused. "It is how I feel perpetually except I do not know what to cling to, my marriage, to you, to this anger that," she paused, clenching her hand into a fist and pressing it against her chest for a moment, perhaps because she could find no words to express it, "that has become such a part of me."

She unclenched her fist but the tension did not leave her body. "How do you love the ones you hate and hate the ones you love? Perhaps if my love is not great enough to forgive then it is worth forgetting. Everyone thinks me so spiteful and cruel. Everyone thinks I am unwilling to forgive him and yet there is nothing that I want more in the world. I want to forgive him with everything that I am but I cannot and I cannot and I cannot. I have tried a thousand upon a thousand times." Her voice broke once more and this time she did not bother to hide the tears that slipped like pearls down her face, through the thick lines of kohl that traced her eyes, and dripped from her chin, and Olwë drew his daughter tightly into his arms, his cheek pressed tight against her silver hair, gazing out upon the horizon that would bring their reckoning.


The heady scent of incense still hung heavy in the air as Hwind…, no, Amroth, clasped her hand and pressed it to his chest, looking up at her with that lopsided broken smile of his, the familiar twinkle of mischief returned to his eyes now that the ceremony was over. "If I had it to do again I reckon I might do things a bit different," he said and Galadriel, even fraught with anxiety as she was, could not contain a smile at that.

"I would certainly wish that you would," she said. "Being captured and drugged that day did not make for a pleasant morning."

"Aye, so we all make mistakes so we do," Amroth said with a furious blush, reaching up to scratch at the back of his flaxen head. The speed with which he had returned to his natural state of disorder after the ceremonials were complete had been remarkable. Amdír had bid them sit around the fire at night, given them some hot herbal remedy to drink, and as they had sat speaking to the Avari and to the Ents, planning their route to the Isle of Balar, Amroth had reemerged from his tent, braids once more fixed in their usual sloppy array, a far cry from the serious young man who had stood by his father's side in a mist of smoke.

"Some more than others," Celeborn said with a laugh, reaching out to rub a hand vigorously through the young elf's hair. Galadriel said nothing but most ardently wished her husband wouldn't do that. As much as she had come to care for Amroth she wasn't entire sure that his braids were free of lice and she knew there would be no end to Celeborn's bellyaching if he was forced to shave his magnificent silver hair.

Amdír embraced Celeborn warmly and yet he refrained from such displays of affection towards Galadriel, though his gaze was not unkind. "The sight is very strong with you," he muttered and Galadriel detected respect in his tone, nascent yet present nevertheless. "I hope it will serve you well, and him well." There was a flicker of something strange in the depths of his yellow eyes, either humor or judgment, she wasn't sure; Amdír was particularly difficult to read.

Galadriel paused, a question at the forefront of her mind that she wasn't sure whether she dared ask. "Are you one of the ones who thinks that I influence him overly much, that I make his decisions for him?" She had expected anger at worst, irritation at best, but Amdír laughed, a harsh croaking sound, yellow eyes glimmering now with friendliness.

"That pig-headed stubborn bastard?" He jerked his head in Celeborn's direction. "I've known him long enough to know that nobody makes his decisions for him without his consent and that he is unusually impervious to influence, no matter how pretty a form in which it comes."

"So you understand my troubles then," Galadriel said, surprised to find herself laughing with the Avarin chieftain.

"Better than you think perhaps," Amdír said with a smile and next she found herself looking up into the faces of Fangorn and Fimbrethil.

"Oh my Glittering Garland," Spring Blossom said, stooping from her great height to take Galadriel's hands in her own gnarled roots. "We do wish you well. Are you certain that you have all that you need for your journey?"

Galadriel hefted her pack filled with gifts from the entwives' gardens and slung it over her back. "Any more and we might not be able to carry it," she said with a smile, hoping it hid the nervousness that lurched in the pit of her stomach, heavy as a rock, reminding her of what waited at the end of this journey. She tried not to think overly much on the matter as Celeborn said his farewells to Treebeard, and she breathed a sigh of relief when at last the Ent turned his eyes to hers and reached out to place his gnarled hand on her shoulder.

"We shall meet again, hm, I think," he said, and from the kindness in his eyes she could almost have made herself believe it if the future did not seem such an impossible thing. The thought clung to her mind that evening like a moth to a lantern as they made their camp at the base of a hill, the long dry grasses of the plains whipping about them in the evening breeze that rolled in off the ocean.

"What did you see in the smoke?" Celeborn asked quietly, turning to her with a look halfway between curiosity and suspicion, and she struggled to keep the shudder that passed through her from flowing to him through their bond.

"I can't remember," she said, turning away, acutely aware of the fact that he knew she was lying and yet what else was she to do? How could she tell him that what she feared most was what he loved best, that the love that had once set her free now kept her prisoner?

Her hands were trembling by the time that she reached the creek, trembling so badly that she nearly tore out her hair as she desperately freed it of the beads and ornaments that the Avarin women had so carefully plaited into it. She held them in trembling hands for a moment, loathe to cast them away and yet overcome by a compulsion to rid herself entirely of every trace that this earth had left upon her. She would have carved the scars from her heart if she could. A flick of her wrist sent the precious little objects skittering into the stream, tossed for a moment on the surface of the current before they darted into the deeps like minnows, irrecoverable.


Footnotes: Thanks for reading! If you have time to leave a review I would greatly appreciate it. If you have anything you would like me to talk about in an author's note please feel free to leave a note!

Fun fact, the title of this chapter was actually the original title of Chapter 16 of In Cavern's Shade, which is also the chapter in which Hwindan/Amroth first appears and his mother, Hwin, is referenced.