.
The Phantom Moon
Canticle of the Haunted: 6th Chapter
"-O remember
In your narrowing dark hours
That more things move
Than blood in the heart."
- Night, Louise Bogan
Author's note: Don't worry guys, there will be lots more Gil-galad and Círdan ahead, and Elwing and Eärendil will definitely make appearances.
Btw, this story is going to be in three parts but a little shorter than Cavern's Shade. I am anticipating each part to be 10 chapters long as part 1 is shaping up to finish nicely in ten chapters. I'll probably take a little break between parts to gather my ideas and chart out the plot.
The shipwright had offered him a bed, or what passed for a bed in this place, which was to say a straw filled pallet, but Celeborn preferred to sleep beneath the night sky atop the piles of sails at the end of the docks where he could look up at the night sky and know with full certitude that Galathil still lived in that far off crispness of stars. They seemed so much clearer here, less distant, and they were a comfort to him. And yet the peace of sleep still came slowly to him, for he could not now find peace without Galadriel asleep by his side, her head pillowed on his chest, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing and the feel of her dreams intertwined with his own like two threads in a loom.
The horrible keening ache of missing her had so many times nearly driven him to forgive all the things she said, to go to her and beg her to put all of it behind them, but each time the thought crossed his mind he could not help but recall the look of shame in her eyes when she had said, 'a dark elf,' as if what he was somehow cheapened their union. Pain lanced through his heart at the thought. Like any man, he would have wished for his wife to be proud of him, of their marriage, and it had never occurred to him that she would not be. After all, hadn't they worked towards this for so many long years? Hadn't they longed for it for centuries?
Of course, he had had his doubts about their marriage as well, had wondered if perhaps the timing had been wrong, if there could have been a better way to go about it, but he had never been ashamed to be married to her, never regretted the marriage itself, only the particulars. He crossed his arms behind his head, looking up at the stars and wishing they could give him the answers he sought, his heart a dull aching thud in his chest. It seemed that yet another night would pass without sleep and without her.
Dawn was already beginning to pull at the edge of the world, faint tints of gold and pink staining the horizon beyond the sea and Celeborn sat up, watching that glowing orb of the day traveler crest the waterline. It reminded him so much of her, not only the golden light of her hair, but the warmth of her smile, the joy he felt when her happiness filled him. He pressed his fingertips to his chest, hoping to feel the swell of her love there, but of course it was useless, all he felt was empty.
"You'd be a good sailor, always awake before the dawn," he heard Círdan's chuckle at his side and turned to see the mariner standing there, looking out over the edge of the world, a faintly glowing pipe balanced between his thumb and forefinger. He placed it in his mouth and took a long pull then exhaled the smoke into the brisk morning air.
"I haven't slept," Celeborn muttered, pulling off his borrowed boots and dangling his legs over the edge of the dock. Something about the chill of the seawater helped to clear the fog from his mind.
Círdan grunted in reply. "I can tell," he said. "You've that look about you." He grinned with the stem of the pipe clenched in his teeth, some playful spark flitting about in his storm blue eyes.
"What look?" Celeborn said, sounding surlier than he intended, the result of several days' lack of sleep and several long weeks now of his wife's absence. Círdan's only reply was a loud laugh. "Here," he said, thrusting the pipe into Celeborn's hand, "there's much work to be done that will take your mind off things. Gil-galad will be stopping by as well. We've important things to discuss."
Celeborn stood, taking a long draw from the pipe and, finding it calmed his nerves, followed Círdan back down the docks. Gil-galad too appeared to be an early riser or perhaps he also had not slept for love of the stars, a trait that could be attributed to his Sindarin mother, Celeborn mused, watching the young man stride down the docks, the morning breeze tousling his raven-dark hair, hands in the pockets of his breeches. He wore an absentminded smile, a simple white shirt, and an air of easy confidence that was so reminiscent of Finrod that Celeborn could not help but smile and shake his head.
"Uncle," Gil-galad said to him as he approached, raising a hand in greeting. "Círdan, good morning." He unfolded a napkin he carried to reveal a half loaf of some sort of dark bread that was crusted in oats and Círdan bid them seat themselves on some empty wooden crates as he produced several cured herrings from a tin. They ate happily, the salty sea breeze of the morning refreshing, the cry of the gulls and the hubbub of the village coming to life lending an air of anticipation to the dawning day.
"It's not like here," Gil-galad said, and it took Celeborn a moment to decipher what he might be speaking about. The young king had a habit of launching into conversation with very little context, often in the middle of a thought. "There's not really houses, per say, well not like these sorts of houses, though I think you may recognize them as houses. Oropher tells me they're the sort of houses the Sindar used to live in long ago, before Menegroth was built."
"Longhouses," Celeborn said, supplying the word Gil-galad was looking for. He knew exactly what the lad was referring to: the houses of his childhood. They were simple structures, triangular in shape, consisting of a wooden floor and a thickly thatched roof that came all the way down to the floor, doubling as the walls. They were very long, built to house dozens of families who slept along the sides and did their cooking in the center, where hearths were set into the floor, the smoke of the fires rising up through holes cut in the center of the roof.
One thing Celeborn knew for certain was that Galadriel would not like longhouses. He pushed the last bit of bread into his mouth as he pondered the thought. Such houses were clean but had a tendency to become overgrown by nature, tree roots poking their way up between floorboards, moss carpeting the walls. And, it was true that Menegroth had also had such a communion with nature, yet Menegroth had been no wilderness, but instead a modern city filled with modern comforts, and there would certainly be no privacy on the Isle of Balar like there had been in Nan-Tathren. Gil-galad must take after his Sindarin mother, Celeborn decided. No Noldo would have allowed silence to persist for so long in any conversation.
"I'm surprised that Oropher even speaks to you," Celeborn said with a chuckle, ready at last to break the peaceful silence, and Gil-galad grinned.
"Not voluntarily, he doesn't," he said. "But he isn't always able to avoid me."
"Does he know I'm alive?" Celeborn asked and Gil-galad shook his head. "Well I imagine my arrival will prove a nasty shock for him then," Celeborn said grimly. His relationship with Oropher had always been tense at best, though his brother had managed to maintain a friendship with their temperamental cousin. And, while he was certain that Oropher never would have wished him dead, just as Celeborn would never wish harm upon Oropher, no matter how much he disliked him, he was equally certain that Oropher would not relish the loss of power that his arrival would herald.
"I didn't mean to say it, but as you've said it yourself…" Gil-galad began, but Celeborn made a gesture to indicate that it was no matter to him.
"He had always coveted my position," Celeborn replied with a wry laugh and a shake of his silver head, "and I doubt very much that that has changed, even if everything else has." And everything had changed indeed. His heart turned inward, rebelling against the confrontation with Oropher that assuredly lay ahead. Ordinarily he wouldn't have balked at such a thing…but now…without Galadriel it seemed an insurmountable obstacle.
"He's causing unrest," Gil-galad said, his eyes serious now, the pleasantness of earlier gone. "He's talking of the old ways, of founding a new sort of kingdom, going back to simpler times before Doriath, before the coming of the Noldor."
Celeborn scoffed. "He wasn't even born before the founding of Menegroth," he said.
"What does that matter?" Gil-galad said, speaking quickly now, and Celeborn raised an eyebrow, pleased to see the boy had some spirit after all. He had been concerned at first that Gil-galad might prove to resemble Orodreth in temperament, even if he did not resemble him in looks. "It does not prevent him from gathering support. The Sindar are radicalizing under his leadership. There is no room any longer for more moderate voices."
"He speaks even against my people," Círdan said, his storm blue eyes filled with worry, "for our long association with the Noldor, and the Sindar are amenable to the things he says, having just suffered at the hands of Fëanor's sons."
"But we cannot afford such discord," Gil-galad said. "You have already seen for yourself the tension that exists between our peoples here and Morgoth spreads his rumors, with Oropher's rhetoric lending them even further credence."
"It will be as before, after we learned of the kinslaying," Círdan said. "Had we been able to band together at that time perhaps we could have ousted Bauglir but now…"
"We could not have ousted him, even then," Celeborn interrupted, his words tense with conviction as he shook his silver heard. "Our armies were decimated after the Battle of Beleriand. We may have won but we received a thorough thrashing in return, so much so that we were not even able to end the sieges at Brithombar or Eglarest. Even had the Noldor joined forces with us we could not have defeated Bauglir nor can we now. Our numbers are a tenth of what they used to be and our peoples more divided than ever now that there have been two kinslayings. Furthermore, we can no longer rely upon the Green Elves for military aid and the Naugrim…" Celeborn paused, his lips curling into a sneer of distaste, green eyes flecked with latent anger. Suddenly he found himself itching for a fight, longing to spread maps before him, to relive those days in Thingol's war tent when his fingertips had danced across pewter horses that glittered in the candlelight as he arranged and rearranged them, formulating strategies that he wove together as intricately as Melian had plied her loom. "We mustn't romanticize the past," he finished. "We could not have won a decisive victory then and we cannot win one now, that is the reality of things."
Círdan was quiet, his lips thinning to a line, and Gil-galad's quick blue eyes darted back and forth between the two Sindarin lords, clearly trying to discern the power dynamic between them and whether it was Celeborn or Círdan who had breached it.
"Clearly - "
"I didn't mean - "
Círdan and Celeborn had both attempted to speak at the same time and ended up interrupting one another. With a nod of his head, Círdan gestured towards Celeborn and the younger elf finished what he had to say. "I did not mean to sound overly harsh," he said, his eyes meeting Círdan's, "this argument with my wife has made my temper even more excitable than usual."
Círdan cracked a grin, rubbing a hand over the scruff on his chin before he laughed. "I was just about to say that clearly you are the correct man for the job. But I remember Thingol telling me that so long ago, long before the Battle of Beleriand when you were still a young man." The older elf's storm-blue eyes gleamed with the hint of memory. "Said you had wisdom beyond your years."
"He said that?" Celeborn asked, silver brows darting up in an expression of surprise that he quickly attempted to mask. Círdan nodded and shrugged. "He always mocked me for it more than anything, or seemed to at least."
"That was Thingol's way, most critical of those he esteemed best," Círdan said with a shrug. "Not a good way perhaps, but it was his way." Silence lingered in the wake of his words for a moment, a silence in which Gil-galad let out the breath he had been holding upon realizing that the two Sindarin lords had managed to have a dispute without any friendship being lost between them. It must be a novel concept for someone from the house of Finwë, Celeborn noted cynically, but he found himself lost not in thoughts of war now, but instead in pondering what Círdan had just said.
The conversation had moved on, with Gil-galad questioning what possible course of action lay open to them now that Bauglir had overrun Beleriand and all hope of ever returning to their former homes had been surrendered, Círdan making some muttered reply, the sound of sardonic laughter, but Celeborn only looked down at his trembling hands, breath tight in his chest, wondering how this realization of the habits that Thingol had inculcated in him had for so long escaped his notice and shaken to his core by the thought that, despite all of his promises, he had doubtlessly visited those misdeeds upon Galadriel.
"Up, up, Lady lazybones," Idril tutted, pulling the pillow away from Galadriel's face, but Galadriel only tugged the blanket up over her head, an action which earned her a long-suffering sigh from her cousin. "We can't lie about all day like little princesses," Idril said, "there's work to be done." Galadriel could hear her moving around the small room, banging about, tidying up in what seemed the noisiest way possible. She suspected Idril was doing it on purpose and held half a grudge against her for it, the other half she held against herself, wishing she had the industry of her cousin.
"Get a move on," Idril said from across the room and Galadriel groaned, pulling the blanket down at last.
"I'm awake," she said.
"That's not what I meant," Idril said, directing a pointed glance at her. Galadriel wondered where Idril had learned to glare in such a firm but gentle manner. Perhaps it was something that came from motherhood.
"Well actually yes…" Idril mused, setting a copper kettle over the slowly crackling fire, "that is what I meant but, more to the point, what I meant is, get a move on with this business with your husband or else I'll drag you back to your Sindarin prince myself. You're a warm bedfellow, cousin, but you cannot provide in ways that my Tuor can."
Galadriel groaned and rolled over but Idril approached, tearing the blankets off of her. "Up," she commanded in a motherly tone, and Galadriel, left now in the cold, was quick to quit the bed and pull on a pale blue woolen gown over her chemise. The kettle was whistling now and Idril wrapped a rag about her hand before pulling it from the fire while Galadriel busied herself with lacing the ties of her gown and pulling on a pair of woolen stockings.
"Here," Idril pushed an oddly shaped ceramic cup before her and poured the steaming water over a little wire sieve of tea leaves. A minute more and a bowl of rice gruel sat before her as well. Galadriel grimaced and Idril raised a golden brow as if daring her not to eat it. "You're beginning to make me sympathize with your husband," she said, and Galadriel obediently began to spoon the porridge into her mouth as Idril sat across from her, eating her own breakfast.
"Don't you miss him?" Idril asked for a moment and now it was Galadriel's turn to sigh.
"I suppose," she said tersely, not really wishing to speak about Celeborn or all of the problems associated with Celeborn. But in truth she did miss him, missed the way he would remark on little things, missed that grin of his, missed the glint of mischief in his eyes when he was up to something, the inflection in his voice, the warmth of him curled beside her at night, the feel of his lips against hers, against her neck, against her breasts… She cleared her throat, her cheeks flushing pink, and took a drink of the tea. Barley, she swallowed hard, it was always barley tea. It wasn't that Idril didn't do a good job of making it, but it was just that barley always…well it always tasted like barley.
"That poor man. That poor, poor man," Idril clucked, shaking her head.
"Don't feel too sorry for him," Galadriel grumbled. "I'm not the only one to blame, he's done his fair share of obnoxious things in this little squabble."
"What exactly did you say to him that has him so angry?" Idril asked, cutting to the heart of the matter, and Galadriel set her cup down, staring into the murky tea, debating with herself over whether or not she should admit to it. Saying it seemed as if it would somehow make it even more vulgar and yet she supposed she had to start somewhere, and Idril was safe enough.
"I…I don't know," she shrugged. "When we were courting, the whole long time we were courting, our courtship was always falling into favor then out, fluctuating with the political climate. One day we were toasted and the next we were slandered, and I was just so afraid, I still am afraid, of the way that we'll be treated by the Noldor, by the Sindar. He said what should it matter, so long as I had married a man that I loved. And I said…" she paused, "I said, but a dark elf."
"Ah," Idril said, eyebrows creeping up. "Well that's…yes…that's rather…"
"Horrid, I know," Galadriel replied and her cousin nodded. Silence sat uncomfortably between them for the span of a moment.
"Then why not apologize? Why…why provoke him further?" Idril asked.
"I don't know why I did it," Galadriel exclaimed. "I meant to apologize only… I don't know, it all came out wrong and nothing I meant to say came out at all."
Idril sighed softly, wrapping her hands around her cup before she looked up at her cousin again. "Galadriel, your pride will ruin your marriage if you cannot control it."
Galadriel raised her cup to her lips and took another drink, uncomfortable when confronted with the truth. "I know," she said softly, "but…"
"No buts," Idril interrupted her. "You need to apologize to him, simply that, and do not bring anything else into it, anything about Celebrimbor or…or sharing power or whatever the two of you were yelling about."
"You heard," Galadriel said, feeling the heat of a blush coloring her cheeks again.
"You were so loud I had no choice," Idril replied.
Galadriel looked down at her tea once more, pressing her fingertips against the cup. It felt good in the early morning chill. "I miss him," she finally admitted, taking a deep breath. "I can't believe I said that to him. I don't know how I can ever make it right. Maybe that's why I'm so reluctant to approach him about it, because I am not certain that the damage I have done can be healed." Her cousin reached out, taking her hand and squeezing it.
"You've married at a difficult time, which isn't your fault," Idril said. "With all this violence, all this moving about, living in a place like this. Tuor and I had such a happy start in Gondolin. And then the journey here was so hard, and living in this place…I certainly had never dreamed of raising my son like this. It nearly destroyed us and for a while I thought that it would. Sometimes I think that the hardest part was not surviving the fall of Gondolin itself, but what came after."
"Idril did you…" Galadriel began but then fell silent, having just thought of something suddenly, but finding she did not know how to voice it. "Did you worry about the doom of Mandos? Did you worry that it would…that it would affect Eärendil?" She had worried that to ask such a thing might bring her cousin pain but, instead, Idril laughed softly.
"I did," she said, and when she looked at Galadriel her eyes were full of contentment. "But my son's life is his own and I would rather he live and experience what love there is in this world than that he never had been born."
"Even after everything?" Galadriel asked.
"Even after everything," Idril answered. "Would you wish your own life had never happened, would you wish you had never left Valinor?" Idril leaned forward, her eyes twinkling. "I'll tell you a little secret," she said. "I don't regret leaving, even after everything that has happened, even after Mandos's proclamation. Call me blasphemous for it but it is the truth. Had I never come here then I would never have met Tuor, never had Eärendil. But because of them, I can bear anything, endure anything, find joy in anything, even here. So long as I have them I am happy. But do you not feel the same?"
"I will never regret even one step that led me to Celeborn," Galadriel said, "no matter how painful." And as she said it she felt her heart well with love for him, causing her doubts and anger to dissipate like clouds after a rainstorm. Suddenly none of the stupid worries seemed to matter anymore. And then, perhaps because the emotion had risen so strongly, she felt the faint pulse of Celeborn's fëa against her own, distant but there, and she knew that he loved her still, in spite of everything.
"And children?" Idril asked quietly, having noted that this was a sensitive subject for her cousin.
"I…" Galadriel paused. "We had decided not to, on account of the doom of Mandos. But…after we wed I felt something different. I wanted it more somehow, or differently perhaps." She stopped there, finding that her own thoughts were too confusing to go any further, and Idril grinned, sipping the last of her tea and giving her cousin a teasing look.
"So," she said, "how is he?"
"What do you mean?" Galadriel asked quizzically, finishing her tea as well.
"As a lover," Idril clarified. "He's really quite a handsome man and I'm so curious about the Sindar." She winked. Galadriel was certain that she was flushing bright red by this point and she nearly choked on the rest of her tea. Idril merely laughed. "I see you haven't spent much time around other married women!" She said.
"He ah…" Galadriel began with a nervous grin. "He is attentive and enthusiastic in his affections."
"But does he satisfy you?" Idril asked, still teasing.
"Very much so," Galadriel stammered.
"Still bashful as ever about matters of the body I see," Idril said with a wink and a little laugh, clearing away the cups.
"I suppose I take more after my father's family in that way," Galadriel remarked, standing and helping her cousin tidy up. But the truth of the matter was that she often wondered if she would feel such shame about such things had Fëanor not been so inappropriate towards her. But she had little time to ponder the thought as a moment later they were pulling on cloaks against the autumn chill and stepping outside into the early morning.
Thankfully it had not rained in some weeks and so the alleys and roads through which they wound their way were solid dirt instead of a muddy bog but there were still the piles of horse dung to be dodged. Smoke from the morning fires was beginning to rise up from lopsided stone chimneys and Idril hurried around a corner, laundry basket perched steadily on her golden head. Galadriel followed, somewhat less steadily, stepping over the big, gray, one-eyed tomcat that had emerged from an alley. He stared up at her with his one good orange eye, whiskers like a bristle brush sniffing at the air.
"If we're not there soon there will be the longest line," Idril remarked. Galadriel knew she was right; they'd waited in it before. The sources of fresh clean water in the settlement were scarce and every day the women queued up to do their washing. Galadriel was still wearing Idril's borrowed clothes and as the weeks passed, so did her shame in accepting charity diminish. The numbers of stragglers were diminishing as well but, each week without fail, a handful of elves would come in from the wilderness, sometimes bringing humans with them, seeking refuge in the encampment, and these newcomers were treated the same as she had been, given clothes off of other's backs, everything shared by people who had little with those who had even less.
They were walking along the quay now and Galadriel looked out at the horizon, at the ships bobbing along the jetty, at the pink and gold of early morning against the deep blue of the ocean, the softly glowing sun just beginning to rise above the water. And, far out on the docks she thought she saw the spark of the rising sun glance off of silver hair.
The light seared through her mind, turning it white, and she suddenly felt a very strange but pleasant sensation as of a soul drawing upon her own, almost the way that Celeborn's did and yet different. There was a surge of motion in her belly and then…
"Galadriel?" She heard Idril's questioning voice and turned, her mind clearing. "You looked lost for a moment," Idril laughed.
"I only thought I saw Celeborn," Galadriel replied, hurrying to catch up with her cousin, briefly pressing a hand to her stomach, but the sensation was gone.
"You are pining after him, you silly thing," Idril smiled. As it turned out, they were the first to arrive, something that pleased Idril a great deal, and the lady of Gondolin leaned on the rusty iron pump that stood from the ground, causing water to flow into the stone basin. Galadriel knew that the water was cold even before she tentatively dipped her hands into it, her knuckles turning slowly red against the paleness of her fingers.
The water seemed to shiver for a moment and then it was filling her lungs, rushing in upon her, the bitter cold paralyzing her body, causing her limbs to spasm uncontrollably. She was lost, floundering far below the surface and sinking ever more deeply into the black, staring up at a far off and bitter cold sun.
"Galadriel," Idril's voice once again, concerned. "Something bothering you?" Galadriel took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment to collect herself.
"Is it…the visions?" Idril guessed, and why wouldn't she? All of her cousins knew of them. When she had been a child they had been too strong for her small body, had sent her crumpling to the floor, sobbing in confusion. She hadn't understood what they were, why her mind had suddenly been inundated with waking nightmares, why her cousins stood around laughing and pointing as if she were some fish they had pulled up onto the bank for sport. Finrod had always been the one who snuck away, who brought Eärwen running, her mother who had frightened the other children off with all the ferocity of one of those great cats she had read about in her grandfather Olwë's books.
"Galadriel," Idril reached out, taking her hand, her eyes full of sorrow as they met her cousin's, "I'm so sorry. That was a long time ago and I was young and stupid. I didn't understand…but it was a cruel thing that we did."
Galadriel nodded, squeezing her cousin's hand in a silent gesture of forgiveness. "I had nearly forgotten that they're worse when I don't have Celeborn," she said. "He tempers them somehow, or at least makes them more readable."
"Does he have foresight as well?" Idril asked, taking the bar of soap and beginning to scrub the clothes.
"No," Galadriel shook her head, "but, especially since we've been married, it is almost as if they are filtered through him in a way, as if I no longer experience the full force of them, and it makes it easier for me to understand them. I remember my father saying something once about that, how they got better after he married my mother. I wish I could ask him about it."
They were quiet for a while then, listening to the morning song of the birds. The water didn't get any warmer, but Galadriel grew accustomed to the chill of it, and if she scrubbed the clothes briskly enough the movement kept her hands from going numb. But still… she looked down at her short worn nails, at her red knuckles and the too-pale skin that was cracked and brittle. It was growing more difficult now to imagine her hands as they had been, soft, elegant, and she remembered how they had been adorned with rings, and bangles, and patterned with paint as she danced in Doriath's enchanted halls.
It all seemed like a lifetime ago, so distant that it could have been a story in her Grandfather's books, something out of a legend, some wonderful dream from which she had woken far too soon.
"Forgive me if I speak out of turn," Idril said, rupturing the silence, the tone with which she spoke indicating that this was something she had been waiting to say now for weeks. "But Galadriel…I would be wary of Celebrimbor if I were you."
"Idril I…" Galadriel looked up, surprised by what her cousin had said. Though she had not seen her cousin in a very great while they had spent enough time together in their youth that she was well accustomed to the look in Idril's eyes when she had something she wanted to say but preferred to hold her tongue. And yet, whatever she had thought Idril might wish to speak to her about, it certainly hadn't been that.
"I hardly think him dangerous," she said at last. "Certainly I don't like the things he said to me and there was much that passed between us in Nargothrond that I cannot yet bring myself to forgive him for, yet I would hate to put such an old friend off entirely…"
"Yet it would be better for you if you would," Idril said, her eyes meeting her cousin's. "Certainly I wanted to believe the best of Maeglin, that he was simply a good person with ill intentions that could be remedied but he was never able to reconcile himself with the idea of my marriage to Tuor. Perhaps I am speaking out of turn and it is none of my business but I could not in good conscience fail to mention it, Galadriel."
Idril cleared her throat nervously before continuing. "Your husband has a reputation for wisdom," she said. "As I do not know him I cannot ascertain for myself whether than is true, but from what I overheard of your argument," Idril paused once more, a silence that acknowledged that she had trespassed in eavesdropping, even if she had unintentionally overheard, "well…from what I overheard of your argument I would give careful thought to his words...if I were you, though of course it is your choice and not my own," she said, cautiously hedging her words, and Galadriel felt a sharp pain of regret course through her.
If her cousins had been guilty of teasing her as a child then she had been equally guilty of insisting she was right, of arrogantly flouting what advice they had at times attempted to give her. It was a habit that she had perhaps too quickly imagined herself healed of but now she was reminded of how quickly the worst traits in a person can surface in the face of hardship and how very easy it sometimes could be to fail to recognize this.
She swallowed her pride. The sack of Doriath may have brought the Sindar's fear and dislike of her own people to the surface but it had also dredged up her latent prejudices and the most wretched aspects of her personality. Drawing a deep breath, she reached out to grasp Idril's hand and her cousin paused, letting the shirt she had been scrubbing drop into the water, her eyes meeting Galadriel's with a hint of concern, as if she feared being rebuked.
"You're right," Galadriel said and the concern in Idril's eyes turned to surprise. "You're right about Celebrimbor, and Celeborn is right." And Idril laughed, her eyes lit with merriment.
"Why Galadriel," she teased with a wink, "I do believe that is the first time I have ever heard you acknowledge yourself in the wrong."
"I have heard tell of a silver-haired man whose wife is not content only to keep him from her bed, but must keep other husbands from their wife's beds. And, I presume that man would be you." Celeborn looked up into the grinning, weathered face of a man with golden hair that hung in loose waves about his shoulders, streaked with the gray of age, and a bristle-brush moustache, a short trimmed beard defining his already strong jaw. He was built like a bull, and tall, though not so tall as to be mistaken for an elf, even if he had not had the beard.
Celeborn paused for a moment, unsure whether or not this was meant to be a jest, but the sound of Círdan inhaling from his pipe too quickly and then choking seemed to confirm that it was, and he stood from the sails he had been darning and offered the golden-haired human his hand. The man clasped it, laughing. "If you know of a method for returning her to my bed I would be most grateful," Celeborn said with a grin. "My nights grow long and cold."
"If I could then I would," the man said. "My nights suffer from the same ailment."
"Celeborn of Doriath," Celeborn introduced himself.
"Tuor of the House of Hador," the man introduced himself, "and husband of your wife's cousin Idril. But I owe a great deal to your people, Prince of Doriath, and most particularly to the kin of Círdan's lady. It was the Mithrim who raised me."
"I myself was also a ward, raised by Thingol after the demise of my parents," Celeborn said and Tuor nodded.
"If you'd like to return to your bed, Master Tuor," Cirdan said with a wink, "you might consider teaching Celeborn not to treat his wife as if she is a problem to be solved." The mariner looked up from the fish he was cleaning with a twinkle in his eyes, a long pipe clenched between his teeth, the pleasant aroma of tobacco rising up in little puffs of smoke.
"Newlywed eh?" Tuor asked with a laugh.
"Not so new," Celeborn replied.
"New enough," Círdan begged to differ. Tuor seated himself on a crate by Círdan's side. "You treat her like a fortress to be assaulted, Celeborn," Círdan continued. "And surely her pride is to blame as well but..."
"Ay, even my Idril has a good bit of that," Tuor laughed, interrupting, his gray eyes filled with mischief and memories.
"This man knows of what he speaks," Celeborn said with a grin and a raised eyebrow, gesturing towards Tuor. "He knows the true nature of Noldorin women." But Círdan only shook his head, laughing.
"Is it any wonder she snaps at you when you are always pushing her, and making plans, and marching off in pursuit of this and that? When have you given her a chance to speak? When have you taken the time to listen to her needs? Certainly her pride is to blame as well, but you might try giving her a safe haven where she doesn't feel the need to throw up a fortress against you," the shipwright said.
"He's right you know," Tuor commented. "Took me long enough to learn."
"Sometimes I feel that if I'm not doing something, if I don't have something to occupy my mind, I'll go mad," Celeborn said. "I can't abide sitting still instead of taking action."
"Fortunately," Tuor said, plucking the pipe from Círdan's teeth and taking a long puff, "there is a means of both listening to your wife while taking action. Perhaps you're unacquainted with it, Celeborn. It is called 'making love'."
"You know I have heard of it a time or two," Celeborn said, laughing.
"Woo her," Tuor said, "woo her please, woo her well away from my house."
"I'm not much for wooing," Celeborn admitted.
"This is exactly why…" Cirdan began, overcome laugher before he could finish whatever he had planned to say.
"Oh as if you've ever wooed anyone," Celeborn said to Círdan. "What'll you do, bring her a bucket of fish?"
"Take her for a ride on my ship," the mariner said, quirking a gray eyebrow upwards with a grin that might sit quite comfortably upon the face of a scoundrel.
"I'm not sure I want to know…" Celeborn began with a broad grin, shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth, while Tuor wheezed with laughter. "Besides," he continued, "you've never been tasked with wooing a woman like Galadriel. Flowers and delicate words will never win her. She would rather have conquered kingdoms and the heads of her enemies laid at her feet."
"Ah there they are now," Tuor said, rising, and Celeborn and Círdan turned towards where the man was looking to watch a finely crafted little ship making its way towards the docks. At last it was anchored, the sails furled, and presently a young man with his golden hair swept back into a long and well-kept braid leapt from the ship to the docks, turning to gesture to some unseen partner with a beaming smile.
"My son, Eärendil," Tuor commented to Celeborn, a twinkle in his eyes, "and his betrothed, a kinswoman of yours. They go on these little adventures." The young woman emerged then, standing on the rail that ran the length of the forecastle, her hand gripping the line of one of the ladders that ran up the mast.
Celeborn felt his breath catch in his throat. For a moment he could have believed that Lúthien lived again in the storm-gray depths of this woman's eyes, in the midnight of her hair that the wind tousled like a ribbon of shadow, in the pale luminescence of her skin that shimmered like the surface of the moon, even in the bright of morning. She was dressed as a man in close fitting long breeches of deep blue, the loose collar of a white cotton shirt playing about the elegant curves of her collarbones in the gentle breeze. But she paid the rest of them no heed, leaping down from the ship into the arms of her beloved.
They reminded Celeborn of what it meant to be young and in love, in the way Eärendil held her, in their laughing smiles, and the friendly way they boxed one another. Then a moment later they were running down the docks towards them, racing, pushing one another. They were young, very young, much younger than the age at which the Eldar first began courtship, and yet Celeborn could see that they had reached maturity, a result perhaps of their human blood. Their faces still bore the gentle roundness of youth, their eyes the hope of those who had been too young to remember the tragedy that had befallen them and too young again to have weathered the violence the world had to offer, and yet Celeborn caught a glimpse of solemnity in both their eyes, despite the mirth present there, the kind of seriousness that is bourn by children raised in dire situations.
"Father!" The boy came to a halt before Tuor, giving him a mock salute, his beloved's hand clutched in his own. "Has mother prepared my breakfast?" He thumped a messy leather bound journal against his chest. "We've discovered all sorts of new fish and birds. Elwing has been kind enough to sketch them for me here."
But the girl had gone quiet, staring unabashedly at Celeborn, curiosity in her eyes, and Celeborn could not help but note that she had Dior's proud brow, the gentle shape of Melian's ears, the petite fullness of Nimloth's lips, the delicate strength of Lúthien's eyes, the healer's hands of Inwen, the straight nobility of Thingol's nose, and when she smiled…there was a dimple just there in her left cheek, just as Galathil had had. Celeborn swallowed hard, his heart beating a steady thud in his chest.
"You're my grandfather's brother," the girl said by way of introduction. "I'd know you anywhere of course. They told me you had silver hair, they also told me you were dead. How glad I am that one part was true but not the other."
"Elwing," Celeborn said, finding himself unable to say anything else, unable to do anything but stare in shock. He had expected to meet her, so he wasn't sure why it suddenly seemed so astonishingly strange to him.
"That's right," she said with a broad grin, the dimple in her cheek materializing once more. "And I know your name's Celeborn but I'm going to call you Grandfather anyways, even though you aren't of course." For a moment he thought she would embrace him, but instead she smiled, giving him a polite nod. She had a sense of reserve about her that made her seem older than her years, a girl who held herself apart from others.
"I need a better ship," Eärendil was saying, shaking his finger at Círdan with a laugh, "and you promised you'd help me Círdan. You promised and I won't forget it! What have you got to do anyway save sit around and clean fish?"
"So many very important things," Círdan said, his tone laced with dry humor, hands on his hips as he puffed at his pipe.
"Ah yes, I forgot you must smoke your pipe," Eärendil said, which caused Círdan to lob a fish at him, and then the two young people were racing up the quay and into the village, laughing all the way.
"You, my silver-haired friend, had better get your wife out of my bed by nightfall," Tuor said with a grin and a wink, pushing his finger into Celeborn's chest before he turned and followed after his son. Celeborn just shook his head and laughed, still reeling from seeing his past so fully embodied in the flesh.
The idea consumed his mind the rest of the day, as he helped Círdan untangle the fishing nets, as he darned torn sails, as he assisted sailors in docking their ships, as he shimmied up the masts to set the sails, and by the time that evening had approached all he could really think about was how very much he missed Galadriel. He sat at the top of the foremast of Círdan's ship, looking out across the sea at the setting sun, one leg pulled up against his chest and his arm wrapped around it. The sun had dipped below the horizon now, leaving a faintly fading fog of gray.
What he wondered, and what he hadn't told Círdan or anyone else, was if Galadriel had caught on to his thoughts, if she had sensed his trepidation over taking her with him to the Isle of Balar, his concern that the Sindar would reject her. But then wasn't that why he loved her, because she refused to be shut away, because she was fearless and, even when she wasn't, she stood her ground as if she were?
Something had changed in those dark hours where he lay in wait during the slaughter at Doriath. She had become his entire world, the only thing he had left, and he had guarded her fiercely, possessively, afraid that she would slip away, that he would wake and find she had been a dream but that the nightmare was real, that he was alone in it. Thingol had bound the Silmaril within the Nauglamir and he had bound Galadriel in harsh criticisms and unceasing demands. The struggle played out within his heart amongst his guilt over the wrongs he had committed against his wife, the still resonant pain of the heinous thing that she had said to him, and the longing ache for reconciliation. He had half a mind to seek her out, the other half stubbornly refusing, insisting that she ought ask his forgiveness first.
The gray fog of twilight was gone now, the sky painted all in the deepness of indigo, and he climbed down from the mast, bare feet upon the wood of the dock once more, making his way to the end of it and rolling up his trousers so that he could put his feet into the water. It was cold but he liked the sensation, finding it awakened his nerves.
He turned back towards the city, watching candles flickering cheerfully from behind windows, the smoke of fires floating up through stone chimneys to disappear in the dark of the sky, wondering what Galadriel might be doing at this moment. The stars began to appear like tiny pricks of light that had been scattered across the indigo sky as if by some great hand and he turned his eyes up watching them begin to track their slow paths across the rim of the world.
He felt the familiar brush of her soul against his own before he saw her feet slip into the water beside his own, the light of the stars above reflected on the water making it appear as if she wore a bangle of starlight about each ankle, but he did not look up yet, finding himself unable to meet her eyes, equally afraid of seeing pain there as he was pride. Her fingertips shuddered in the starlight as they slowly traversed the span of weather-worn wood that separated his hand from hers before he felt the warmth of her touch and, slowly and gently, curled his fingers around hers.
"When Doriath fell your people held a knife to my throat and threatened to kill me," she murmured, her words quiet and yet her voice did not falter. "It was like Alqualondë all over again, the powerlessness of it all, threatened with death by those I had loved, and had Nimloth not intervened they would have done it…"
She was interrupted when Celeborn pulled her into his arms so tightly it nearly hurt, crushing her against him, his mouth at her ear whispering, "I pray to the Valar that these men are dead, for if they are not I shall do such things to them as will damn my soul."
Galadriel felt her breath catch in her throat and fisted her hands in his worn tunic, clinging to him as if he was her ship in a storm, her face pressed into the warm solidity of his chest, suddenly overcome by a feeling of massive relief.
"But I don't understand," Celeborn said softly, pulling back ever so slightly so that he could meet her eyes. "Why not tell me? Did you think that you would not have my support? Did you think that I would abandon you?"
"I didn't," she began, halting, swallowing hard. Saying the words made her heart ache. "I didn't want to make you think you had to choose between them and me."
"You thought I would choose them," Celeborn said gently. Even in forgiveness he demanded the truth from her and, after a moment's pause for shame's sake, she nodded.
He stroked her hair, eyes as green as pines filled with concern. "I…I wondered if you regretted me, if you regretted not sending me away. I thought things would be easier for you if you had a…a Sindarin wife. And I…I felt so horribly inadequate, and perhaps that was the reason behind it after all. I felt I could never measure up and I was ashamed…" her voice fell away, her ruined pride laid out before him at last.
"You, inadequate?" Celeborn said with a little laugh, drawing her close once more, rocking her gently in his arms. "I am not your judge, Galadriel, nor do I want to be, and if ever I act in such a manner I hope you will remind me of it. You are the wife I have chosen and it was no whim nor was it the result of any lapse of judgment; I chose you consciously. That night in the forest, having had everything else stripped away, I saw what I wanted more clearly than I ever have before in my life, and I wanted you. Perhaps I don't say it often enough…"
"You don't," Galadriel whispered into his chest and felt the rumble of his laughter against her ear.
"But I apologize if my silence ever gave you cause to believe that you were the source of my anxiety or my foul temper. I have never regretted you, not for a single moment. There are things that I regret. I wish…" he paused, "I wish I could have given you everything that you wanted. You deserved a wedding, a proper wedding and to… well I…I would rather have had you the first time in a proper bed, with sheets and…we could have," he paused to clear his throat and Galadriel looked up from his chest, meeting his gaze, "we could have taken our time," he finished.
"Are you blushing?" She asked, a hint of delight fluttering in her chest, and even in the dark she could see that he was.
"Not quite I think," Celeborn said gruffly.
"You are," she whispered, a grin dancing across her lips, "oh Celeborn you are." That only made him flush all the more. "You wanted to be romantic about it."
"Well I don't think we need to pursue this train of conversation any further," Celeborn said but Galadriel laughed.
"Oh I never expected modesty from you Celeborn," she purred, placing a quick kiss on his lips and he turned a furious shade of red.
"I, er…" he cleared his throat again, "I wish I could have given you what you wanted," he said and a pang of sorrow moved through her heart.
"I didn't mean it," she said, taking his face in her hands. "I said a stupid and horrible thing Celeborn. I don't care about all of that, not really. What we had was beautiful, beneath the stars, amidst the willows, and I wouldn't trade it for the entire world; I would never relinquish that memory, not for all the jewels of Tirion, not for the love of my people, not for all the kingdoms in the world."
She felt a shudder pass through him as his arms tightened around her, a weakening in the iron-clad walls that guarded his soul and, for the first time she felt the hollow of his heart where fear dwelled. She entered it quietly, carefully, and knit her fearfulness together with his, melding their souls, so much of life in the threads that bound them, and in that moment she was no longer afraid.
"In the depths of Menegroth I realized," she said, "that having you came with the most terrible price: the risk of losing you. It isn't that I would not be whole without you, but that with you I had become something greater than that, something beyond the stars and the moon, something beyond what I had ever imagined, and I realized it could all be taken away in an instant and that it might very well be the case that nothing I could do would prevent it."
Celeborn shuddered and she drew him to her all the more tightly, brushing her fingers gently through his silver hair. She had known him long enough and well enough to realize that any display of weakness from this elf whose survival had since his earliest days been entirely dependent upon perfect invulnerability was an unspeakable sign of intimacy. "What is it?" She said now, asking him for that last step across the threshold of trust, necessary and yet staggeringly difficult.
"I've thought I was losing you," he whispered, "this whole time. I thought you would not go with me to Balar but I cannot do it without you Galadriel. That much I know. And I am sorry for my anger, and my pride, and my stubbornness, and all of the things I have said…or that I never said but should have. I know I have been overly critical of you Galadriel, just as Thingol so often was of me."
She drew back and Celeborn tilted his head up, blinking away the beginnings of tears that he was too ashamed to shed. Taking a deep breath, she threaded her fingers through his, holding his hands tightly in her own. "It frightens me," she told him, "and yet I will go with you but you must involve me, Celeborn. If you want me to stand by your side then I must be privy to the decisions being made."
He nodded, rubbing his thumb across her hand comfortingly, raising his eyes to hers. "Of course," he whispered, "of course. I promised you so long ago…and from this moment forward I would have you by my side as my equal and I will accept nothing less. Indeed," he laughed softly, "I rather suspect that my decisions are sorely lacking without your insight."
"Come to your senses at last have you?" Galadriel chided him and he pinched her cheek, a smile on his lips, the gleam of the stars in his eyes.
"Don't worry yourself over anything," he said. "They are my people and I am their prince. You are my wife and they must love you, even as I do."
Galadriel took a deep breath. "The same problems will persist as before," she said, "only worse this time I fear."
"We do not yet know what fate has in store for us," Celeborn said. "There are many eventualities that might alter the court of public opinion and let us not surrender. Having despaired of finding a solution before I thought to send you away to Gondolin, a foolish choice. We have not found an answer yet but we will find it if only we keep working towards it, and together at that."
"Who on earth could that be at this time of the night?" Rhossell groaned, pulling a pillow over her head, and Círdan wiped sleep from his eyes as he rose, padding to the door in the dark. With a lumbering sigh he opened the door, peering into the night. Even had his eyes not been keen in the starlight he still would have recognized that moonlit hair anywhere, not to mention the glimmering gold of Celeborn's companion.
The mariner's first instinct was to make wry and slightly off color commentary about the benefits of resolving an argument, but he restrained himself, reasoning that it might not go over well with Celeborn's wife and that a…well satisfied…Celeborn would be far easier to treat with than the ornery and ill-tempered young man he had been dealing with these past few months.
"Is there anywhere we might stay?" Celeborn said gruffly.
"You aren't even going to apologize for waking him?" Galadriel hissed.
"My apologies for waking you," Celeborn said and Círdan restrained a laugh.
"There are a few places that have been recently vacated by people moving to Balar, but I have something else," Círdan said, fumbling for the flint in the dark. His fingers caught upon a stubby candle and after a few tries he managed to pierce it on the needle of the iron candlestick that stood by the door. A moment later and the flint had sparked the wick to life. The flame flared amber for a moment before it at last settled into a calm yellow flicker that illuminated the two somewhat tense and nervous faces before him. Cirdan clapped a glass globe overtop of the candle to protect it against the sea breeze and pulled the door shut behind him as he stepped out into the night.
Not everyone was asleep, most especially in the Sindarin quarter where dingy and cracked windowpanes flickered with candlelight in the darkness. Plainly speaking, the houses out this way were less of houses and more of huts, lopsided conglomerates that had been hastily assembled and just as hastily abandoned, like hand-me-down shoes whose leather had stretched and distorted with each passing pair of feet that slipped into them. It was easy to see why their inhabitants might be so eager to relocate to the Isle of Balar.
Círdan turned a corner, lamplight flickering across a line of warped and weather-worn boards, leading them down an alley filled with compact little one room houses all crowded in a row. The grizzled mariner was never without a plan and even in the wake of Doriath's fall he had held out hope that the princes had survived, tentatively prepared for that eventuality and waited, even as the years slipped into decades. But now at last it seemed his preparation would do someone good. He stopped before a door, pulling an iron loop of keys from his pocket and trying them one after the other.
"Keys?" Celeborn asked, surprised.
"It would be nice if people were honest in the wake of tragedy," Círdan grumbled, "but hardship breeds theft more than it does solidarity." He scratched at his chin. "Unfortunately," he added as an afterthought. The last key clicked in the lock, of course it had been the last one, and he let them in, the candle glancing around the tiny room.
If Celeborn were to lie down the room would have been perhaps a foot longer than he was tall and equally as wide. In the center of one wall was a small stone fireplace, unlit, though a stack of logs sat beside it, waiting for people who had been supposed to arrive decades ago and only just done so. Círdan bent, cramming a few logs into the little fireplace, reaching up to knock the flue open with his fist. He lit the kindling with his candle, holding it there for a while until he was sure that the fire he had set to the twigs would hold and spread to the logs, and then he stood.
There was a low table in the Sindarin style beside the fireplace, and he bent to light the few candles there that sat in squat little crystal candlesticks. The candles were new, well, not new, they were old, but they had never been lit until now. The candlesticks were a bit of whimsy. Someone had carried them with them out of Doriath, or Gondolin, or some other place, he couldn't remember where now, and had forgotten them in the move to Balar. No one could remember whose they were and so Círdan had brought them here, one more embellishment for this shrine to hope. The crystal flickered beautifully in the candlelight and he straightened.
What truly made this room more luxurious than the rest was the mattress of feather down that lay on the smooth polished wood floor before the fire, piled with fresh sheets and soft blankets of rabbit and ermine fur. "I prepared this place, Círdan said, after the Falas fell. I had some inkling, or perhaps Ulmo put the idea in my mind, that fate wasn't done with us yet and so I prepared for…well I thought if Doriath were to fall that…maybe Thingol or…" He couldn't quite remember what he had been intending to say and so he fell silent for a moment. "Well it is yours now," he said, mustering somewhat of a smile as he turned to the young couple, "and it shall be yours for as long as you need it. I've, well, Rossell laundered the sheets recently, on the off chance that you might find it of use."
"It's very nice," Galadriel said, her eyes filled with sincerity, and Círdan nodded in appreciation for her gratitude.
"Celeborn if I might have a moment," he said, stepping out, and the younger Sinda followed him, a mildly wary look in his green eyes as he shut the door behind him, leaving it ever so slightly ajar.
"Whatever you wish to say to me you might say before Galadriel as well," Celeborn said quietly.
"I don't wish to trouble her," Círdan said, a bit concerned, and yet conscience demanded he say it. "Celeborn, if you were to…" he tried to think of how to phrase the next bit as delicately as possible, "if Galadriel were to become pregnant then a great deal of power and influence would consolidate behind the two of you. What is more, it would solve a great many of your problems, our problems."
"What are you saying?" Celeborn asked, keeping his voice low, a disapproving glint in his eyes. "Even if we were to have a son Oropher has one as well and it will take far more to cause him to relinquish what power he has than a child. And then there is Elwing and, as for the Noldor they have Eärendil and Gil-galad besides."
"Gil-galad will never father children," Círdan said with a pointed look. It took Celeborn a moment to discern what he meant by that. "Elwing and Eärendil are young and have more interest in each other than politics. If something were to happen to any of them we could find ourselves in a very desperate situation indeed. And, Oropher will have no more children. You would have a political advantage over him."
Celeborn's eyes flashed in anger now, his jaw stiffening. "I already have several advantages over Oropher: one being common sense and another being my right as prince of Doriath. As for the rest of it, I am truly grateful for all that you have done for us Círdan and I have a great deal of regard for you but if you want things to remain that way then I would suggest that you keep your political designs as far as possible from my marriage bed."
He punctuated his sentence with a look of disdain so carefully measured that it might have been cut by a master tailor and Círdan was forced to recall that, though Celeborn was younger than himself, he was no Gil-galad in need of guidance or lacking experience. He was, after all, a man full-grown who had weathered the intrigues of Doriath's court and come out remarkably unscathed for it.
"My apologies," the older elf said, filled with regret now. "It was not offense that I intended and yet I have caused it nevertheless. I should not have brought it up."
Celeborn softened a little. "Nothing was put amiss that has not already been mended," he said. "It is not as if Galadriel and I have never considered the possibility. Indeed, we do desire children," he paused for a moment, imagining that Círdan must certainly be able to see the sadness and regret in his eyes, trying to think of how to explain things. "But, well, with the curse that lies over her we thought it best to abstain," he said. "I must beg you not to say anything of it to anyone," he hurried to add but Círdan reached out, clasping his hand firmly in friendship.
"Of course I shall not tell anyone," he assured the younger elf. "And I apologize for having raised the matter. It was most indecent and I hope I have not dredged up feelings you would rather have forgotten."
"Nay," Celeborn said, shaking his head with a smile. "It troubles me and yet I have rather grown used to it by this point." With a nod they parted as friends and Celeborn watched until the flickering of Círdan's lantern had rounded the corner before he turned back to the door to let himself in, nearly tripping over a large, shaggy gray tomcat with one orange eye who yowled at him in discontent. With a muttered apology he stepped over the apoplectic creature and back into the little room.
The fire had already warmed the room quite nicely by the time that Celeborn stepped in out of the autumn air. The door clung to the frame for a moment but a gentle tug freed it and brought it scraping shut behind him. While he had been outside Galadriel had shed her gown, dressed now only in her chemise and seated upon the goose-down mattress. She ran the brush through her hair once more, watching her husband out of the corner of her eye. He stood at the door, kicking off his boots, undoing the clasps of his tunic, but his eyes flickered toward her and she knew what he was thinking.
"How much did you hear?" He asked and Galadriel ran the brush through her hair again before setting it in her lap and turning to him.
"Most everything," she said with a soft smile.
"You know I don't expect that of you," Celeborn said, meeting her gaze as he untied his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He looked down again, his silver hair cascading over his shoulder, and Galadriel admired the way that it glimmered in the soft firelight.
"I know," she said, feeling a tremor of his nervousness run through her. It was strange to feel Celeborn welcome her back into his mind, odd to feel his thoughts and feelings slipping over her own once more, and yet it was strange in the most pleasant way, as if she were returning home after a long journey.
"It isn't his business and I told him as much," he muttered, sliding his hands into his pockets and raising his eyes to hers.
"Celeborn, it's alright," she said softly, watching as his lips thinned into a line, "I understand." Silence stood between them for a moment during which Celeborn picked at a stray thread that had come unraveled from his shirt and Galadriel felt the realization dawn on her that this argument may have been healed, or perhaps yet only in part, but that there were many wounds remaining that had not yet been sown shut.
Celeborn sighed and shook his silver head ever so slightly before he raised his eyes from the string he had been picking at to meet her gaze. "I am sorry," he said, "for the obligations that others put upon you on my account."
"It isn't your fault," she said softly as he seated himself beside her and then fell back slowly into the feather down mattress, his silver hair spread like ribbons of moonlight across the blanket of tawny brown badger fur. She turned to look at him, somehow made suddenly shy by the way that his ever-inquisitive green eyes flitted across her. It had always been so, ever since the first; he might not be able to peer into the minds of others and yet Celeborn was oddly perceptive, keenly discerning.
Sometimes, she felt, she underestimated him. Celeborn could be remarkably unassuming when he wished, his sometimes rustic temperament was a clever disguise, albeit an unintentional one, for a wisdom that could lay bare before him the most intimate details of someone's faults and for a sometimes chillingly strategic mind that could in an instant and with vicious brutality cleave ephemera from the bone to leave exposed the true nature of any dispute. How she loved it when he turned that erudition of his on others; how greatly she feared it when she became its object.
The conversation she had just had with Círdan swam to the forefront of her mind and she realized that they would all underestimate him – Sindar, Noldor – and it would be their downfall; Celeborn was not the sort of man who could be safely underestimated. Even she had underestimated him in the beginning; even now the bitter tonic of error had not completely cured her of that vice.
"You're blushing," he murmured, his eyes still lingering upon her as she raised the brush once more and pulled it through her hair.
"It's the way you look at me sometimes," she said, finding herself ever so slightly breathless. She swallowed. "Do you remember," she said, "all those years ago, the night we first kissed?" She didn't know why she should feel nervous now in front of him, he was her husband after all, and yet she did. "And I said that when you look at me like that it makes me wonder whether you mean to kill me or to…"
"Make love to you," he finished for her, propping his head up on his hand as he turned on his side, continuing to study her in the firelight.
"Y…yes," she stammered, and her hand slipped, fumbling the hairbrush. It fell to her lap and Celeborn reached out to take it, offering it to her.
"Death and love are not so divided as I thought," he murmured, "they each make us afraid of the other," and she reached out, taking the brush from him. He held it for a moment before he relinquished it to her and Galadriel took a long slow breath, trying to steady the frantic pounding of her heart. She was no girl in the first blossom of womanhood, nor a young lady who had never known a man's touch, and he was her husband, who had with lips and fingers explored every swell, and hollow, and secret of her body yet in this moment she felt a fierce blush stain her cheeks, the potent heat lancing like lightning to burn at the place between her thighs and she squeezed her legs together ever so slightly in response.
Celeborn was, as ever, too perceptive for his own good and he reached out, sure and steady in his movements, to take her hand, his eyes meeting hers once more, regret coloring their depths. "Galadriel I…" he paused, sadness lingering in his voice, "I love you and…and I wish to hold you in my arms, and to kiss you, to speak with you and know your mind…but still I…"
Now it was her turn to finish his thoughts. "You do not wish to make love to me," she said, her voice catching in her throat, and she pressed trembling fingers over her lips, blinking away tears as the pang of lust faded in the advent of shame and hurt. Celeborn sat up, taking her hands in his own, squeezing them gently. "I cannot blame you for it," she whispered, shaking her golden head. "What I said was dreadful and I know that such a wound requires the poultice of time."
"It is so," Celeborn said and she smiled bitterly, pleased by his honesty and yet cursing herself. "I love you, Galadriel," he whispered. "I am thankful for your apology and I have freely given you my forgiveness, but I need time before I can put this behind me." He took a deep breath. "I want you to understand," he said, "I want to be honest with you. Were I to make love to you now it would be for want of your beauty, of your body, but my soul would shrink away from communion with yours. I would not have it be so between us. You are too…" he swallowed hard and, though this was all a bitter tonic for Galadriel to swallow, she heard in his words that it was equally as painful for him.
"You are too important to me," he said, his eyes meeting hers and she nodded, wanting him to know that she understood. "When I am within you I do not want it to be only my body, but my heart as well and my mind. This I cannot give you now and, as I will not give you less than you deserve, I would ask that we wait."
"I will wait," she said, "until you are ready, Celeborn," and as much as it made her unhappy, she knew that it was the wiser choice and she knew that it was for her own happiness that he had made it.
It had taken some courage for him to say it, she realized as he toyed idly with her hands for a minute, running his thumb gently over her knuckles, tracing her fingertips with his own, before he looked up into her eyes again, sadness lingering in his own and yet that sadness was tinged with a faint hope. "I will not lie to you and say it does not hurt," she whispered, "but I am glad for your honesty, I understand it, and I will respect it. You have my love, Celeborn, as you always have, and as you always will."
Wordlessly he drew her into his arms and laid the both of them down upon the feather bed, cradling her head against his chest where she could feel the slow and steady beating of his heart. And she knew that not all of the poison of discord or of the memories that haunted them had been excised, that there were still secrets to be shared and failures on both their parts to be brought to light, but for the first time, she felt as if the healing had at last begun.
"I was thinking," Celeborn murmured into her hair, just before they drifted off to sleep, "that I shall make Elwing a dulcimer, just as Galathil had."
Footnotes: Thanks for reading guys! If you have time to leave a review I would appreciate it!
