Denoument in Alqualondë

In Cavern's Shade: Epilogue

"Sometimes the strength of motherhood

is greater than natural laws."

- Barbara Kingsolver

Author's note: Thanks so much for reading guys! I can't believe I am actually finishing this fic and I am SO excited to work on the sequel.

Next Fic: There are going to be some new POV characters and you are going to see a lot more of the relationship between the Sindar, Green elves, and Avari as well as the arrival of the host from Valinor, which should be VERY interesting, as well as the introduction of some new main characters, including Cirdan, Gil-galad, and Amroth. Oropher will also play a much more prominent role, although as you may have guessed, I don't actually like Oropher and Thranduil very much so they won't be POV characters although they will play an important role in the story. Plus there will be a lot more Celebrimbor…whether for good or for ill. It probably will be about half the size of Cavern's Shade. I'm planning on breaking it into 3 parts again. It will run from immediately after the sack of Doriath up until Celeborn and Galadriel move to Eregion. So…F.A. 506 – S.A. 700.

Character profile: Bainwen and Paniel.

A big issue I faced in the planning stages of this story was that almost all of the main canon characters in this story were nobility. I also really wanted to bring in more about the common people of Doriath since I felt that if we only focused on the nobility it wouldn't provide us a well-rounded idea of the society, culture, and kingdom as a whole.

Beleg and Mablung aren't nobility and they're obviously in the fic (more on them in the questions at the end) but they interact almost exclusively with nobility so they couldn't really provide as much of the commoner perspective as I wanted. So I created some OCs. I've talked before about how nervous it makes me to create OCs and I was nervous with these two as well, but it is pretty hard to write a Silmarillion fic without OCs.

To be honest, a lot of Part II doesn't sit well with me and I wish I had done some things there differently, but I really did want to bring in more of the interaction with the common people and I especially wanted Galadriel to interact with them. I think she had been living in the upper echelons of Doriathrin society and she never really saw what common Sindarin elves thought of her or how she was perceived. She also never had really stopped to contemplate their life experiences before and in her mind they almost didn't exist in a way. But when she does meet Bainwen and Paniel she kind of gets a different perspective that she never had before.

Another thing about this story is that I really wanted to portray elves as imperfect characters. I think too often in fics they get portrayed almost as perfect godlike beings but when we read the Silmarillion we can see that this is obviously not true and elves are capable of and do terrible things. So I wanted to portray that side of them, that elves are just as complex, layered, variable, and gray as any other character. With the common people I really saw a chance to play that up so I incorporated that idea into Bainwen and Paniel's characters.

I wanted Bainwen to be just a complete but well-meaning ditz. She's honestly not that bright but I wanted to show that that doesn't matter because she has a lot of other really valuable and important qualities. She was genuinely a really kind person and extremely loyal. She does things because they are the right thing to do and she doesn't really think further than that. But she also really wants to kind of make her way in the world and she has a very hardworking spirit. She is really easily tricked by deceptions and lies. She tends to take everything at face value and to believe everything anybody tells her. In the end, she was willing to defend and help Galadriel even at the expense of her own life.

I also really wanted there to be a character that would challenge Galadriel and call her out on her crap. Celeborn does this to an extent but he also has a romantic relationship with Galadriel, which sometimes prevents him from being completely honest with her. Paniel has no such compunctions. She tells Galadriel exactly what she thinks of her always. I think she actually does consider Galadriel to be a friend but there are a lot of times where she genuinely does not like Galadriel. Often, she has very good reasons for this.

I think that fanfic readers/authors in general often tend to believe Galadriel's perspective completely and trust her in everything but I wanted there to be a character that points out that Galadriel does actually have some serious issues and she isn't perfect. You shouldn't side with Galadriel all the time.

I also really wanted to have a character who was one of Thingol's spies since the use of spies is one of the parallels that Tolkien draws between Thingol and Celeborn in Fellowship of the Ring. Paniel was a character that I wanted to have a really hard edge to her so I used her in this role. I also wanted an elf who had led a really rough life to kind of show that elves aren't perfect and they still suffer and go through hard things that happen to real life people. But don't start thinking that Paniel is secretly all rainbows and butterflies inside. She really can be quite nasty sometimes. I want her to be a complex character even though she really only acts as a supporting character. I also really wanted to show that you can respect someone very much but still not be a big fan of their personality, which is kind of the relationship that she and Galadriel have.

"Now is the hour of the swan! Her Highness the princess arrives!" The herald's voice rose up clear and musical and the servants threw themselves to the ground, heads pressed to the floor. At the flick of a hand white as ice that seemed nearly encased in silver for all of the glimmering rings and ornaments that adorned it, the groveling servants arose and quit the room while the princess strode from one end of the hall to the other, where a massive throne of diamond stood glittering like ice that seemed as though it had been cut from a glacier.

The floor of that great hall was of white marble, veined with silver and yet there were dark patches of rust-colored red here and there, not a natural aspect of the stone, but stains that were a remembrance of the blood that had once pooled there. There had been those in the court that were disturbed by this, that had sent pleading letters to the princess begging her have the marks buffed out, to have the floor redone even, but she had refused with wrath.

"Shall I erase the sin for comfort's sake?" She had cried, flinging her diamond glittering hand out, her skin so pale it might have been glass. The blue of her veins showing through made her look as though she were a crystal veined in color, as she challenged each and every one of the nobles. "Nay!" She had laughed with scorn, strutting about the throne as if she were a man, though she wore the garb of a woman. "When the princes of the Noldor come groveling before my throne like the dogs that they are then they will remember how my brothers and my mother died before this throne on the ends of their swords, begging for mercy. They will be forced to recall their crimes. Long did they call us Nelyar and late-comers! No more! Now Alqualondë reigns supreme!" It had been many long centuries ago but her anger had not lessened.

Now she strode, heels of diamond as hard as her heart clicking across that bloodstained floor. The thick and heavily beaded silver hem of her otherwise airy dress whipped about her ankles as she walked. She wore a gown of blue paler than the sky, a gown of silk so delicate that her body was clearly visible through the fabric: her small but firm breasts, her hips and waist about which girdles of hammered silver and pearls were fastened, her back was completely bare. And yet, the near nakedness of her did not incite desire so much as it inspired fear, for there is nothing so intimidating to so many as a woman who is so unafraid.

Her eyes – her eyes were the most ferocious thing about her, violent as the sea in a storm, the only glimpse of color in an otherwise colorless face and they were made all the more fearsome by the way that they were adorned, eyes and brows both painted in lines of obsidian kohl that extended all the way to the edge of her face in the traditional Telerin style. But though her brows were black, her hair was of pale silver, nearly white, bright as a star, glimmering like the ocean beneath the moon. And this was gathered tight atop her head, bound there with silver ornaments that jingled as she walked, but the hair hung down long and straight, falling nearly to the floor. Her face was a marvel, beautiful and perfect as freshly fallen snow, with high and refined features that made her look as though she herself had been carved of marble by the most skilled of sculptors. Her beauty was incomparable, her wrath inescapable, her thirst for vengeance…unquenchable.

She had come now to the throne and she mounted it with ease, as if she had been born to it, and indeed she had. The hall fell silent, the servants who had accompanied her bearing massive fans of peacock and swan feathers fell back, bowing low, and Eärwen of Alqualondë raised her bare, pure white, silver-bangled arm, extending her hand to the door at the far end of the hall.

"Does he come groveling then?" she said with a scornful laugh, her voice deeper than a woman's wont. "Very well then. Show him in."

He entered, posture suitably deferential, walking in silence the length of the hall, the gauntlet of unforgiving eyes, taking a knee at last before the throne, not even daring to raise his eyes to the woman who was now his wife only in name.

"Stand," she said, a single, cold syllable, and he did as he was bid, his eyes meeting hers at last, a quiet man, but not one who was unbrave. "What business brings you here to these halls where you are so unwelcome?"

"Our children," he said simply, crossing his hands behind his back. Arafinwë was a simple man, quiet, unassuming, even as a king. "A messenger has arrived bearing news from Middle Earth. Our sons are dead, and Orodreth too. No one knows where Artanis is or if she even lives, but she has not been seen in over 30 years." He said the words calmly because he had practiced them so many times, standing before a mirror, knowing he could not, must not break when he spoke them to her. Even if Eärwen loved him no more he would not have willingly caused her harm.

He watched the subtle signs of emotion in a body that otherwise bore no witness to feeling, the way her grip on the throne tightened, making the bones of her hands stand out in a skeletal way, the skin stretched tight over her knuckles. She swallowed, her eyes fixed on his, intent now, none of the earlier scorn remained there.

"I am leaving in a week's time," he said, "for Middle Earth, with a great host from Valinor to conquer Morgoth once and for all and I will find Nerwen…bring her home to you…"

"Leave." She said, her voice low and angry, and the hall fell silent. Her eyes darted up to his, unafraid, full of fury.

"Leave!" She shouted, springing to her feet. And then, all of a sudden she was shrieking, standing from her throne, commanding the guards with fury unmatched. "LEAVE! Cast him out! Leave!"

Arafinwë was already on his feet, his heart in pieces on the bloodstained floor, backing away as quickly as he could. The Telerin ceremonial guards were only too eager to assist, pushing him roughly from the hall, and the last thing he saw before the silver doors closed in his face was the heartbreak in Eärwen's eyes.

The anger bled out of her slowly, leaving her drained and lifeless, the same way that her mother and brothers had bled out their lives in this very room, upon this very floor. The throne room was empty now, per her command, and she sat no longer as a princess, high and unapproachable, but simply as a woman now, on the stairs at the base of the throne, elbow propped up on her knee and chin in her palm, the late afternoon sun casting golden rays of dying light into long shadows through which specks of dust filtered and glimmered like gold.

She let her hand fall to her side, the silver bangles clattering to collect about her wrist, the jingle of them echoing throughout the empty hall. She remembered how this hall had once been filled with laughter and merriment and music, how it was here that she had first caught Arafinwë's eye from across the room.

She reached out into the golden glimmering dust, watching the way that it passed through her fingers, slipping away, as everything else had. The way it glittered reminded her of Nerwen's hair. Nerwen…she was still alive perhaps…perhaps there was some chance… Her heart recoiled at the thought. Why should she care for Nerwen when Nerwen had marched off to Middle Earth without a second glance behind her, when Nerwen had scoffed at her warning, filled with the pride of her father's people, when Nerwen had refused to turn back even after the proclamation of doom?

At least Arafinwë had returned, she thought, but no sooner had she thought it than her heart condemned him. Returned: too late. What good did it do for him to repent after he had left, after her people had been slain, after their children had gone? There was no fight to him, even today he had not protested when she had thrown him out.

"You will not find fire in him," her father had cautioned her on her wedding day.

"It isn't fire that I want," she had replied. Then what did she want now? She stood in silent contemplation for a while, watching the sun set on the western side of the harbor, the banners streaming from the topmasts of the ships like ribbons of gold in the dying light as the sailors climbed the masts, furling the sails, and at last the sun sank over the horizon.

"Now is the hour of the moon! The high princess approaches!" The cry of the Telerin herald was what jolted Arafinwë from his restless slumber and he sat up in his dark room, in a bed he had once upon a time shared with his wife. Now his sole companionship was the shafts of pearly moonlight that filtered through the arabesque window grates. The high princess...Eärwen? She had not been in Tirion since the kinslaying and he could not fathom why she had come so suddenly, especially in the middle of the night.

There appeared to be some sort of commotion outside of the door and he rose, padding to the door in his nightshirt. "Your wife demands entrance, your majesty," the guard murmured in response to the king opening the door but Arafinwë hardly heard the man, for his gaze was fixed upon Eärwen, still in the same clothes that she had been wearing this morning, a fearsome look upon her face that did not quite rhyme with the conflict that her eyes seemed to evidence. She was surrounded by Telerin ceremonial guards who wore silver mail that glimmered in the moonlight and a train of handmaidens dressed in gauzy white gowns, sapphires burning like blue flames at their throats, pearls in their hair.

"Please come in," he said softly with a subtle nod and the guards stood down as his wife passed within. He shut the doors behind her and turned to find that she had already traversed the expansive room and thrown open the ornate shutters, the moonlight streaming in now in great beams of silver light.

He could not help but think how beautiful she was caught up in that moonglow, like a star at eventide, a ship standing strong against the current, never to be beaten back. "Eärwen…" he whispered, approaching her slowly, stopping an arm's length away from her. He could not think of what he ought to say next, all his apologies, his regret, his explanations had meant nothing to her. The only thing he wished was to relieve her pain and yet he had no idea how he could go about doing so, if it was even possible.

She spoke into the silence. "Our children are dead," her voice sounded softer, frailer, more devoid of life than it had earlier today, when she had been a raging storm crowning a throne of ice. He marveled at her heart that in a single day she could feel both such ferocious anger and such crippling pain and he stood in awe of the strength of her soul, just as he had so long ago felt such fierce admiration for the silver-haired girl who had piloted her ship in races against the most weathered of mariners: she was indomitable.

She turned, her eyes meeting his, and he knew exactly what to say, what lay in his own heart, "there is still hope," he murmured. "For Nerwen, there is hope." He wasn't sure what had happened or why but, in the next instant, her mouth was on his like the kiss of salt-spray on the shore and then they were tumbling into his bed, and she was atop him in the moonlight, all silver and alabaster as she threw back her head and cried out her pleasure to the stars. And he, he was left gasping for air like a man drowned, trembling as if from the sheer force of a wave crashing upon him.

Later he held her in his arms, kissed her softly, their clothes discarded and forgotten and she said, great sadness in her eyes, "our daughter Arafinwë, bring her home, bring Nerwen home."

"I will," he whispered into her silver hair and he knew that she was like the moon, that with the rising of the sun she would disappear from his bed as if this night had been nothing more than a dream, but he wanted this dream to last forever, wanted things to be the way they had been before the kinslaying, back when the halls of their home had echoed with the laughter of their children, back when their marriage had been a marriage. Now they loved each other, but they were not in love.

The first rays of dawn's light broke his heart like a wave shattering on the shore as Eärwen slipped from his arms, bending to retrieve her gown and dressing slowly with not even a glance towards him. And he could not help but ask the question that gnawed like a wolf at his heart. "Why?" He said, sitting up. "Why after all this time did you come to me?"

Her azure eyes flickered towards him for a moment before she began dressing again. "There is war coming," she said stiffly, "a great war. There were witnesses at your door: my guards, your guards, my handmaidens. They all saw me attend to your chamber."

A show of solidarity then, a political move, a display meant to indicate that the Teleri would not oppose the host meant to leave these shores and travel to Middle Earth to do battle. But still…the reason was a façade, he knew it, for she needn't have carried through if she didn't still love him, she needed only to be seen entering his rooms.

"Stay, Eärwen." He whispered, rising from the bed and taking her hands in his. She looked up momentarily and he saw her answer in the stiff set of her jaw before she looked back down, sliding her myriad silver bangles back onto her wrists, but still he said it. "Stay with me here." His words hung in silence for a moment before she replied, shaking her head.

"In this house?" She said. "This house where every day I would pass by the rooms of my dead and departed children? Do not ask such a thing of me Arafinwë; you are a kinder man than that."

"Then let me come with you to Alqualondë," be pleaded in a soft whisper.

"Stop," Eärwen murmured, raising firm eyes to his, pressing her fingertips against his lips. "You are the king of the Noldor. Your place is here and mine is with my people, with my father who still grieves so deeply the loss of my mother, my brothers."

Arafinwë nodded, accepting what must be; it was useless, in any case, to counter Eärwen's will. She hadn't said it directly, but they had been wed long enough that he understood what her words really meant: she still could not forgive completely, not yet. But how he missed her…

She ran her fingers through her silver hair before tossing it over her shoulder, standing straight, and tall, and proud. He could not help but recall Artanis in those moments and pain lanced through his heart at the thought of his daughter, missing in a foreign land. His wife turned to leave and then stopped, pausing, before turning back for a brief moment, reaching out, her fingertips brushing against his, and he felt the warmth of her as he had so long ago. She swallowed hard, pondering her words for a moment, the deep blue of her ocean eyes meeting his.

"The Teleri will not fight," she said, "but our ships are at your service to ferry you across the sea." In those words was his answer, the answer to why she had come, to whether or not there was still love in her heart for him And then she was gone and Arafinwë was left as he had been so many years ago, completely in awe of her.

The End

Footnotes: OK! Here are the answers to all your questions!

I'm really curious about your Mablung and Beleg, we see them a bit in your story, but do you have any deep feelings or characterizations for them?

I really wanted to write more of them but I had to cut out a lot of stuff just for the sake of time and brevity. I really like Mablung and Beleg. I tend to prefer Mablung over Beleg. Basically I wanted Celeborn to have some bros and Mablung and Beleg seemed like a good choice to me.

As I mentioned in the characterization note at the start of this story, it was important to me to portray the life and perspectives of elves who are not royalty. I also wanted to show characters who are in the military since Celeborn is also part of that. Beleg and Mablung gave me this opportunity.

I wanted to portray Beleg as kind of a quiet guy and I always kind of thought maybe there was something going on with him and Nellas but I always kind of figured Nellas had a thing for Turin and it all just ended unhappily. So I wanted to bring that in because I didn't want everyone's love story to end in happiness or marriage. I also wanted to make sure that Celeborn wasn't "to good to be true" so I wanted to have some guys who could occasionally upstage him. So we know Celeborn is a great warrior but Beleg and Mablung are better.

I think Celeborn and Beleg are really different. Beleg is pretty laid back and quiet while Celeborn is pretty intense and has a habit of opening his mouth at inopportune times. But Beleg is also prone to making poor decisions and he is really stubborn so he sticks with those decisions even when he can see they won't end well. I think he also has a really misplaced sense of loyalty and feels like he owes people things. He sees things through to the end even when they won't end well for him. To Celeborn that just doesn't make sense. Celeborn is a more of "if it doesn't work then don't do it," kind of guy and he can't understand why Beleg just doesn't walk away from the things that are causing him problems. This is at the root of the final argument they have. As sad as I think Celeborn is that Beleg died, I think he really does see it as something Beleg brought on himself and I think he is resentful of the fact that Beleg chose his personal issues over Doriath.

Mablung is kind of the tough guy and I think he feels a deep sense of responsibility and duty to Doriath so I really wanted to bring that out to play in the fic. I think that he and Celeborn really have that in common. I kind of headcanon that they used to do a lot of womanizing back in the day when they were younger but I think that Mablung has kind of a softer more romantic heart. Celeborn can be more callous and rude about things. But overall I think that Mablung is a really virtuous sort of character and he really cares very deeply about his friends and the people he loves.

I always planned for the two of them to have this really painful scene at Mablung's death where Celeborn ends up having to kill him to prevent his suffering and that the first non-orc elf Celeborn ever has to kill isn't a Feanorion, but is actually a Sinda and one of his best friends…because I like pain. I think it is even harder for Celeborn because he recognizes the same sense of duty in Mablung and, in a world where it suddenly seems like everybody he cares about has betrayed him, especially Thingol, he ends up having to kill the one person who he knows is loyal beyond a doubt.

Could you elaborate on your perspective/interpretation on the curse/doom of Mandos? (I never really understood its meaning myself)

I basically interpret it as that everything they do or start will come to ruin. So basically they will work really hard to build and create things but everything they do will get destroyed. And, that it will be their own paranoia and infighting because of the kinslayings and rivalry among the Noldorin princes that would lead to their destruction. Also, I interpret it as meaning that they will never be allowed to return to Valinor. So that is one reason that Galadriel is so terrified of losing Celeborn or of dying herself. She knows that he would be reborn in Valinor but she would never be allowed there. At best she would be allowed to dwell on Tol Eressëa but they would probably never be able to be together again.

How do you actually feel about the Valar? (considering the sindar's view that they do not care for them)

I'm really not a big fan of the Valar. To be perfectly honest I think they kind of act like dicks. Leaving the Sindar behind was kind of a shitty thing to do. I don't know why they couldn't have waited for them to find Thingol and then let them come to Valinor. I don't like how the elves of Aman are often considered superior to the elves of Middle Earth because first of all that's kind of racist and also the elves of Middle Earth didn't really have much of a choice. That's not their fault. But most of all I don't really like the Valar because I think it is pretty shitty of them to just leave the elves of Middle Earth to suffer and get killed. It seems like they didn't really care what Morgoth was doing to the Sindar, Green Elves, and Avari and they didn't do anything to help. I think that canonically the Sindar espouse that view themselves since the do call themselves 'the forsaken'. I think I really put this into Thingol's character arc a lot, how he can't understand why the Valar left them behind. I think he had this really idealistic view of the Valar and that was crushed when they abandoned the Sindar. I like Yavanna pretty well though.

What are your top 3 characters? (just because; lets do favorite and least favorite)

Favs! Celeborn, Galadriel, Thingol (Thingol is a fav but I have a love/hate relationship w him)

Least favs: Fëanor, all 7 of his sons collectively, Saeros

And just for the hell of it, whose your least favorite character and why?

Feanor because he is a racist, selfish asshole who can't get over his mommy issues and also commits mass murder that is completely unjustifiable. Also, he doomed all of his sons and even his own wife ended up leaving him because she couldn't stand him. Plus he is a hypocrite. He wouldn't give his Silmarils to Yavanna to reconstruct the two trees because they were his most precious possession but THEN when the Teleri wouldn't give him their ships because they were their most precious possessions he just murdered them.

How did you get in touch with Tolkien?

And, I was also curious about your history with Tolkien, where you discovered him, and what brought you to the events of writing this story.

What made you decide to write your series? (maybe also explain the planning and work that goes into such a huge project)

I'll answer these three together. I actually saw the LOTR movies first when I was 14, which is when FOTR came out. After I saw the first movie I really wanted to read the books so I did and I got really into them, eventually reading everything, including Tolkien's letters, Unfinished Tales, HOME, etc. I just really like high fantasy in general and especially the world that Tolkien created. I think there is so much to work with for fanfic because Tolkien himself was so inconsistent, which makes for a lot of different possibilities. I think one of the reasons I really enjoy writing fanfic is because I like to fill in the gaps and answer questions that Tolkien left unanswered.

I actually started writing this story 14 years ago pretty soon after I saw the first movie. I had this clear idea in my head of what I wanted to achieve, which was basically to chronicle the events of Celeborn and Galadriel's lives and to fill in all the missing information about them. I actually even published 8 chapters of this fic back then but I think it is so different as to be unrecognizable. It still exists on and I desperately want to take it down because it is so bad, but I can't remember the password for the account. However; after I wrote the 8th chapter I think I realized that I wasn't capable of writing the story that I wanted to write. I just didn't have the life experience, romantic experience, or writing skill to be able to pull of what I wanted to pull off. I knew I wasn't accomplishing what I wanted to and I didn't know how to make that happen. So I stopped writing the story, although I still read other people's fics about the characters and I never really forgot about it.

Over the 13 years that I didn't work on it I would periodically go back and work on certain parts. There was a time about 6-7 years ago when I did begin working on it seriously again. I actually wrote up to Chapter 12 at this time, though these were much more bare bones chapters than what I eventually published, and a lot of stuff that is present in the story now was not present then. Chapters 1-4 are actually from this time and largely remained unchanged, which is part of why they have a different style and tone and a big reason that I want to revise them.

But, I ran into some of the same issues. One big thing was that I had a lot of toxic people in my life at that time and that came out in some of the characters, especially in Celeborn and Thingol. They ended up coming off as pretty abusive and I wasn't happy with that. I thought that they diverged too much from the book characters and I wanted to try to present them as canonically as possible. Also, the same old issue of not really knowing how to create a healthy and believable romantic relationship became a big problem. Eventually I realized again that I still wasn't at a point where I was capable of writing this story and I stopped. Though, again, it was always in the back of my mind and I would periodically go back and read it again.

The first version was also told completely from Galadriel's point of view, which really didn't work. I think doing that made Galadriel too believable and I wanted to show her negative side too. So eventually I ended up adding Celeborn's point of view as well and I am really glad I did. I think he made the story what it is. I really wanted to show the Sindarin view of things and to really paint a culture for Doriath and the Sindar. Obviously that wouldn't have been possible without…an actual Sinda.

Finally I was living in Japan and, having been there for 3 years, I felt that my English was getting pretty bad. I needed something to help me keep up my writing skill, especially as I was starting to apply to grad schools. So I pulled out Cavern's Shade and started working on it again a little bit before I moved back to the US. I had also recently been through a lot of bad things in my life and was struggling with some mental health issues so I started to see a therapist and she recommended writing as a way to help me deal with my trauma.

This time the story just flowed out of me like I was meant to write it and I think I had finally come to that point in my life where I felt prepared for it and where I had the experience and ability to write what I wanted to write. I think that is the really hard part about writing. If you want to write a story like this, something this big and emotional, you HAVE to pour your real self into it. All of my life experiences, my pain, my insecurities, my trauma, the darkest days of my life are all here in the fic and so are the best experiences of my life. If you want to make that emotion real to the reader you HAVE to put your real emotions in there. There is no choice. That is a huge risk and a very frightening thing to do.

Finally, about 7 months after I had started working on the fic again I started to think about publishing it for a Silmarillion Appreciation Week event but I was really on the fence about it. So I talked to my best friend and she encouraged me to publish so I did.

I never thought anyone would read this fic much less ever leave a review. Celeborn/Galadriel really isn't a very popular pairing and I didn't publish until a decade after ROTK had been released so I thought I had missed my window of opportunity. So I didn't put any effort into the title and I didn't edit the first four chapters, I just posted them. But I ended up getting reviews and there were people who were interested so I kept writing and kept uploading and well…here we are!

I can honestly say this fic would never have been finished without you guys. You guys have been really amazing and, when I look at the first chapter compared to the last, I can really see how I have grown as a writer over the course of this past year. That is all thanks to you guys for leaving me so many helpful reviews and helping to keep me on track and encourage me to keep going.

The planning of this story was pretty intense. When I finally decided I was going to actually write and publish this thing I saw down and drew up a MASSIVE spreadsheet showing each chapter and the main events that were to take place in that chapter. I also added a tab with a timeline of the first age so that I could reference that and make sure the story stuck to the actual timeline.

Of course the story changed a lot as I wrote and I ended up adding stuff I didn't plan on. It also got a lot bigger than I intended. There were originally only going to be 30 chapters. But, the spreadsheet was immensely helpful because it is so hard to keep track of Tolkien's timeline. Also, writing a story this big, it is really easy to lose track of your own timeline. Sometimes in your reviews you guys remind me of things I completely forgot about. I also sometimes go back and read certain chapters and find things that I completely forgot happened. If you are planning on writing a really long story like this I would definitely recommend that you spend a lot of time charting out your plot and prep work like character studies (i.e. short fics to help you get a grip on a certain character). This doesn't mean you have to follow your map exactly, but it can be really helpful to have a framework to work from so that your story stays consistent and stays on course.

I have about 600 pages of unpublished writing that is just stuff I cut out of chapters during the edit, including entire scenes, and character studies I did as prep work. Regarding character studies, one of the things I see A LOT in fanfic that I really wanted to avoid was the feminization of the male characters. I think a lot of fanfic authors are women so we tend to present perspectives and thoughts that women have or in the way that women think.

For an opposite example, if you read George R.R. Martin's books his women actually tend to have a lot of male perspective. He often talks about them thinking about the way that their breasts move beneath their clothing, etc. Well, as women we never think of stuff like that so it seems strange. Only guys think about the way women's breasts move beneath their clothing…

So I wanted to make sure I avoided that kind of thing with my male characters, especially because there were certain characters, like Thingol, Celeborn, and Mablung, that I wanted to come off as VERY masculine because I think Tolkien portrays especially Thingol and Celeborn as very masculine characters in his books in the way that they react to things and the choices that they make. So I ended up talking to a lot of men just about the way they think and how they think about things, their thought process etc. and then I played with those ideas in character studies where I would just try to examine one part of a character's personality. I think that kind of prep work is very important for developing consistent, realistic characterization. Basically, if you are going to try to write a huge fic, prep work and research are reeeeeally critical.

Someone asked me about what I imagine the characters as looking like so here are just a few ideas I have:

Galadriel: LOTR movies Cate Blanchett

Celeborn: younger Marton Csokas, esp. from Asylum

Thingol: George Clooney

Melian: Beyonce or Lupita Nyong'o

Lúthien: Deepika Padukone

Beren: Ben Barnes

Galathil: Wilson Bethel but with dark hair

Inwen: Adelaide Kane

Paniel: Amanda Seyfried

Bainwen: Lourde

Finrod: A Knight's Tale era Heath Ledger

Angrod: Josh Hutcherson

Aegnor: Chris Hemsworth

Dairon: Robert Pattinson

Saeros: James Franco

Mablung: Jason Momoa

Beleg: Jake Gyllenhaal

Nellas: Shakira with her dark curly hair

Oropher: basically almost exactly like Thranduil in the hobbit movies except maybe with a thinner face

Venessiel: Natalie Dormer

If you guys have any more questions, if you want to know more about any characters, or if I accidentally forgot anybody's question please feel free to PM me! I love talking about Tolkien, writing, and this fic so I would be more than happy to talk. You guys are never bothering me.