I do not own Middle Earth, Valinor, Yavanna, Nessa, Ossiriand, or the Noldo. J. R. R. Tolkien first wrote of them.

I did first write of Celuant, Sarnin, and her family.

I do not mean to make money from this story, but merely to share it. I hope Tolkien approves.

Celuant followed the Green elves down the canyon for he did not know the way. He walked at Sarnin's side staying on the shore of the river stepping lightly on the sometimes dry and scratchy sometimes wet and clinging sand. Above and around the younger elves, well, the elves younger than the lady at his side, ran, climbed, and leapt up the canyon walls to stand on their ledges and look behind and beyond them.

"What are they doing?"

"Looking out for anything right or wrong in our surroundings. Listening for the songs of our people wafting on the breeze. Seeing if they can spot a sign of green, or worse, seeing if there are any signs of orc or wargs having been about in the night, so we can track them to their dens during the day."

Celuant watched as Lathwinn stood looking out. The lady's profile was silhouetted against the bright sky as she looked west. He wondered ... "Tell me of your family, Sarnin."

She sighed. "Well, my sister and I were part of the firstborn generation, the first children born as elflings to those who awakened beneath the stars."

Celuant shivered. Even for him, born to those to first reach the western shores that seemed an ancient and important time a hard thing to grasp looking back. "What was that like?"

"Exciting. We did not know exactly what we were supposed to do, but it was like the stone and water and growing things hummed with the life and song of Iluvatar's touch when he placed us there. My mother and father could tell us about it since they were there."

"And what made you stay?"

She bowed her head and her lashes drooped to brush her cheeks as she replied. "We … we felt responsible. They were 'our' trees, and 'our' stones, and 'our' rivers. The Valar were wondrous beyond compare and we were sure especially after what the witnesses said their land was just the same, but it was just … Iluvatar left 'us' to take care of that place. And it was ours. To abandon it seemed wrong, even though we were growing more fearful of the shadow we pressed back and that sometimes took some of us. My sister and brother-in-law were less afraid. It seemed to us the shadow took those who wondered off and we were less likely to wander from the center of our land where we were first placed, so we were less afraid … then."

"And Lastannan?"

"Yes, he was already born then. And he also stayed near the middle of our land with us. But, he never told us what he wanted. We, my sister and I, spoke of what we wanted, to stay in the land we loved, which needed us. And her husband spoke of his desire to stay with his wife, and Lastannan simply bowed his head and spoke not at all."

"And Ranthalion?"

Sarnin bowed her head further. Her shoulders seemed to tense slightly and her voice came forth a whisper. "He seemed angry he did not get the choice. At least Lastannan had the opportunity to speak. He did not. He did not know at first, in his youth. He played in the center of the land like everyone else like we let our children and we gave chase, picked him up, and carried him back when he strayed. But then, he grew up, and the land grew dark. We began to fear in our hearts, my sister and I especially, as it reached even toward the center of our land, fissures deep within the earth. The fountains grew less sweet, the air less pure, the stars less bright, the shadows more deep. And Ranthalion saw, and heard our whispers that perhaps we had done wrong. And he grew angry. He had had no choice, but to stay. When we decided to go, I think it was a relief for him."

Celuant looked up at the elleth now climbing down a little ways from the top of the cliff-face. "And Lathwinn?"

Sarnin raised her head and her eyes grew bright and wide and her cheeks slightly pink as she hummed. "Oh, Lathwinn. As we traveled west, we thought we must indeed be getting close to the Valar's lands, for they grew sweet again, and our woods, Ossiriand of the many rivers, where Ulmo's music resounds throughout and the trees grow strong, well, it seemed that land itself to us. She was born there, in our hope as we tarried in that place."

Celuant bowed his head in thought and studied his feet as they walked in the sand beside Sarnin's. "And were her brothers jealous?"

Sarnin squinted up at the sky and shook her head. "No, I think not. Ranthalion was glad to be in a place his mother and father let him wander, for we thought 'Nothing bad can happen here' when we first reached Ossiriand. So he was allowed to wonder far from our sides up and down the rivers among those trees far form sight and even sound, though, his brother still often followed him then. They both, upon returning and finding a new sister stayed a little closer then."

Sarnin smiled and stared off before them into the canyon then grinning. "It had been so long you see, since we'd had an elfling so long. Ranthalion was one of the last before our own land … Well, before we felt unsafe and we almost never have children when we feel unsafe."

Celuant thought of Valinor and how it had overflowed with elflings, how fewer seemed to be born once Melkor was set free, and how even now he'd not heard of his people having one on these shores as yet. He kept these thoughts to himself though, after several beats of silence Sarnin went on, "But we felt safe there, as I said before, and Lathwinn grew up laughing and playing. She jumped off the high tree branches even as a very little elfing and spun on her way down before landing in a very thick, deep, deep pile of leaves or a deep pool of water where the river runs almost still. That was how she got her name you see."

Celuant nodded and looked up now. "I did think it an unusual name."

"And she was so sweet really, spoiled perhaps, Ranthalion complained a bit he was not so free nor attention-snagging in his youth, but of course there were more elflings then and we kept them far from our borders even then. Yet, he watched her and wandered less himself then. And then Yavanna and Nessa came though … We were ashamed, afraid, but she was not … She smiled at and spoke to them and she … she won a boon for us."

"A blessing … I heard of that." Celuant had heard of that and it had made him and the others nervous. The Noldos who had left and scorned the Valar did not want to hear of others repenting and then being blessed by them nor of a child who'd never scorned them in the first place and then been giving gifts by them. He remembered his own jaw clenching at the sound of the story. "And how did you lose her so beloved an elfling?"

He regretted it the moment he asked. The tone of his voice was hard. And he glanced at her to apologize and saw her face pale and then turn grey and her eyes deepen and look far away into the past. "We were fools …"

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes