The stone cliff face rose high above Galadriel. She knew not how high, it faded into darkness in the distance, blending into the black, smoke-filled sky. Trying not to think of how far below her it also stretched, she wedged her fingers into a thin crack in the stone beside her as she had seen Celeborn do just moments before and pulled herself higher. The stone rumbled slightly beneath her hand, echos of the tremors that ran through the ground all about them.

"There is a ledge just above," Celeborn called down to her, breathless from the long climb. "We may stop here for now."

She watched him, a grey shadow just a few fathoms above her. With a lunge, he reached a final handhold, then he seemed to slide into the cliff face. A moment later he reemerged, looking down at her.

"Just a bit further," he called.

Galadriel continued mechanically. Another handhold. Another foothold. She ignored the straining of her muscles. Handhold. Foothold. A small shuffle and a lunge. Then her aching fingers felt the edge of the ledge and Celeborn's hand was beneath her arm.

With a last effort, she found herself lying on a wide ledge of weathered stone. She lay there a while to catch her breath though the ground shook beneath her chest and the smoke burned in her throat.

"You choose a good path," she said to Celeborn. "I do not think I would have made the climb alone."

There was no reply from Celeborn. Galadriel looked up and saw him sitting beside her. His arms trembled with weariness, but he seemed to notice nothing except the fires that raged beneath them, stretching across Beleriand even to the sea. Galadriel went to him put a hand on his shoulder, holding it as a sailor might hold to a railing in a storm.

Softly, she said, "Often I have wondered why the Valar allowed Morgoth to return to these lands - why they did not stop him, as they did long ago." She looked out at the burning trees and collapsing mountains. "Now I understand."

Celeborn spoke then. His tone was detached and his face was still, all anguish held back by a dam of disbelief. "I think that is Lake Helevorn in the distance. I have seen it only on maps, but it is too vast to be any other lake. It is boiling. It should not be possible. But I can see the steam." He sighed. "I feel as though I am in a dream, that I will wake in the morning with the sun upon me and the grass beneath and wonder how I ever thought it real. But in my heart I know there will be no waking."

"I would tell you it will look brighter in the morning," Galadriel said, "but I know not if we shall see it. I know not if there will even be another morning. This is beyond all my experience."

Celeborn took her hand in his, though he did not turn his eyes away from the scene below. All was roaring flames and smoldering embers. The air swirled and sparks rose up, even as high as the ledge on which they took refuge. The ground groaned and shook as great sheets of earth sloughed from the mountainsides. Black smoke filled the sky and hid the stars. The only light was from the flames below.

Galadriel's eyes though were fixed on Celeborn. She watched the way his silver hair swirled in the ashy eddies that surrounded them and the way the soft features of his face looked in the orange light. Flecks of black soot dotted his pale skin, an inverse of the stars she could not see. He seemed to her to be the only point of stability as the world crashed down around them.

"I want to marry you," Galadriel said.

This roused Celeborn somewhat. He looked at her, confused. "Yes, we are betrothed," he reminded her.

"Not in some vague future. I want to marry you now. Through the whole climb up here, as my fingers scrabbled for purchase and I felt the heat of the flames at my back, the thought that filled me most with fear was that I might die without having been your wife. So long we have been betrothed, waiting for a time of peace as the world slid further into darkness. I no longer believe such a time will come." She leaned in close, until she could smell the scent of his skin beneath the ash. "Let us wait no longer. Let us make our union before it is too late."

Celeborn pulled away, surprised, though he kept hold of her hand. "It would not be right, at a time like this. It is not done."

"Men do."

"Men must. Their lives are short. They have no other choice."

"Do we?"

The ground rumbled. A great stone tumbled down the mountain beside them, sending up a shower of sparks.

"I know not," Celeborn sighed. "But I would have had our wedding be a time of joy. There is no joy today."

"There has been little joy for a long while now. What joy I have found though has been with you."

Celeborn put an arm around her and drew her closer. "Galadriel, I do want to marry you." He brushed a hair from her face, then let his fingers fall gently down her neck to caress just above her collarbone. "I want to badly. But would you really have us build our marriage on despair?"

"Since we have naught else to build on."

"Well, if you are certain." Celeborn shrugged. "They say the weather on one's wedding night is a sign of how their marriage will be," he warned.

"Then ours will change the world."

Celeborn laughed at this. It started dry, little more than a scoff. Then it built, slowly, into full peals, as all the terror and despair of events at last had found an exit. Galadriel looked at him with concern, but he smiled at her reassuringly.

"Change," he said. "Such a small word for this calamity. Perhaps, though, it is the right one. Everything I have ever known is ending, but that does not mean all is." He looked into her eyes. "I will not marry you out of despair, Galadriel, but out of hope. Nothingness is not in the nature of the world. Something new must come after this. It must. And whatever it may be, I would like to face it by your side as your husband."

Before his words were complete, Galadriel threw one leg over him and reached for the ties of her dress. But Celeborn was not through "I will pledge myself to you, Galadriel, through joy and hardship -"

Galadriel laughed hearing the familiar vows. They were words from peaceful times, said by happy people in sunny meadows with flowers in their hair. How strange it was to hear them on a barren cliffside as the world burned around them. But why should they not say them? She brought her hand from her dress and placed it in his.

Celeborn continued, "-bounty and famine, victory and defeat, from this day until the ending of the world."

Celeborn smiled at her. Galadriel smiled back and repeated the words. "I will pledge myself to you, Celeborn, through joy and hardship, bounty and famine, victory and defeat, from this day until the ending of the world," she said. "However long that might be," she added.

There was a pause as they realized the enormity of what they had just done. Then as one they pressed their lips together. Their fingers found the ties and clasps in their clothes.

There was no art in the act itself. Their first union was like a starving man might devour a heel of bread. They made no pause to savor it. They took one another in a state of half madness, the cumulation of centuries of longing.

Then it was over, and though the earth shook and burned, a stillness came over them. Softly, they murmured the final marriage blessing, which no mortal ear has heard, save perhaps those few who have married one of elf-kind. They lay then together on the ledge in a loose embrace and watched the destruction about them.

Suddenly, Galadriel laughed. Celeborn looked at her curiously.

"A fleeting thought, absurd," she explained, brushing a piece of ash from his chest. "I thought that I would like this moment to never end."

As she said it, there was a flash of light far in the distance. They watched it, transfixed, for the space of several breaths. Then a great tremor shook the ground under them. There was a noise like rockslides and thunder.

A shadow spread in the distance. They held each other and watched as a wave of darkness swept towards them, embers of trees snuffing out one by one, drawing closer and closer. They thought not of fleeing. There was nowhere to go. There was a great cloud of steam and the smell of the ocean.

The tide crashed against the cliff face below them, rising so high that they could feel the spray. But then, slowly, it subsided until it was nothing more than gentle waves whispering far below them. All was dark. The earth grew still.

"So ends the first age," Galadriel said.

"The first age," said Celeborn, daring to breathe once again. "Then you believe will we shall see a second?"

Galadriel smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. "Let us find out in the morning."