A/N: I love this chapter so much.

Chapter Twenty-Two - Maedeth

Maedeth caught her breath as the elven stablehands took their panting horses away. They'd ridden hard. Days of galloping down the East Road had exhausted both the steeds and their riders. But there had been no time to spare.

Evening fell about them. Maedeth listened to the song of the waterfall not far from them. Beside her, Elladan spoke quickly with the stablemaster. They would need new horses by morning. They would take a night to rest but then they were off again.

Some had advised they take the Great Road south. But Maedeth and Elladan both worried about the forces arrayed against them in Cardolan. They would've had to traverse the Andrath Pass. Maedeth never wanted to look upon that cursed valley again. Her brother had died there. Perhaps not in body, but certainly in spirit.

So they'd chosen the same route as a decade prior. To Rivendell, then over the Redhorn Gate to Lórinand. There they would be aid, horses or boats, to continue their journey to Gondor.

A gentle breeze blew through the courtyard before the stables. Maedeth closed her eyes against her racing thoughts. She focused on the fragrant flowers, recently blooming in spring. The air was warm here. Pleasant. Full of life.

"Mallornloth will see to the horses," Elladan said. He forced a smile, but exhaustion was written all over his face. "Two will be ready in the morning. Sure-footed and swift."

Maedeth nodded. "Good. Thank you."

"Now I must see my father. Elrohir may yet return to report his intentions," Elladan said, "but somehow I doubt it. Get some rest."

"You as well, Elladan," she said, laying a hand on his arm.

He leaned into her touch. Maedeth felt her breath leave her, staring at him under the first stars as the last light of the sun disappeared. Some days, he reminded her of the moon; in his gentle face she saw reflected all the light of the world she wished to feel for herself. He had the most beautiful silver-grey eyes.

"I… I will," he whispered, leaning closer as she didn't move. "I promise."

Maedeth held his gaze. She never wanted to leave this moment. But she had to. Tears sprung to her eyes as she closed them. Maedeth put her hand back to her side and stepped away.

"Go," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."

Elladan didn't respond at first. He just watched her, lips barely parted in unspoken words. But he nodded. A moment later, he turned and hurried up the steps to the Last Homely House.

Another gust of wind blew through Rivendell. It carried spray from the nearby waterfall. Maedeth turned her focus to the water on her face. It cooled her down. In the early spring breeze she found a distraction. Perhaps it would offer rest, too.

She made her way to the Guest House. Surely Lord Elrond would forgive her for not offering a hello before sleep. She had ridden almost non stop for nearly a fortnight.

The door opened silently. Inside she found an unlit fire in the hearth and fresh bread on a platter. Maedeth smiled. Perhaps they had been expected.

After a quick bite and lighting the fire, Maedeth went to the bed. The softness caressed her hand as she felt the bedding. She climbed in and closed her eyes.

No sleep came. Hours later, Maedeth sat up. She could not endure silent staring at the ceiling any longer, nor examining the inside of her eyelids. The air in the Guest House felt stuffy. She slipped out into the dark.

Nightingales serenaded the spring night. Maedeth wandered down winding paths until at last she came to the Gardens of Rivendell. She had spent so many good nights in these gardens. She removed her shoes. Soft, cool grass tickled her feet and sprang up between her toes. Beside the paths grew natural quilts of multicolored flowers. They smelled sweet in the breeze.

A small waterfall cascaded down into a pond nearby. Maedeth followed the sound until she stared at the gentle falls glittering in the moonlight. Her heartbeat settled. There was still beauty in this world. The elves protected it. They cultivated it. All she had cultivated in her life was death, it seemed. Her words had prolonged this thankless war.

Maedeth sat down just a few feet back from the edge of the water, hugging her knees to her chin like a child. Here the nightingales' song mingled perfectly with the other sounds around: gentle grasshopper chirps, the flowing water, distant hymns to Lady Elbereth.

Her heart sank. The world blurred as tears filled her eyes. Elladan followed her without question. But was she leading him to his death? She could not be responsible for that. He had to live. If anyone had to live, it was him.

"Maedeth?"

The beautiful voice of Lady Celebrían shook Maedeth out of her early panic. Her grip on her knees faltered. She straightened herself as she sat on the bank, trying to look more presentable and less like the terrified little girl she felt like.

"Lady Celebrían!" Her voice cracked as unshed tears retreated. "I apologize for not saying hello when I arrived-"

But Celebrían just cracked a small smile and shook her head. Her silver hair and silver dress sparkled in the soft light of the full moon above them. Her skin practically glowed. Moments later, she joined Maedeth on the grass.

"I have a question, Maedeth," she began, voice low as she looked out at the small waterfall. "And I ask that you answer truthfully, no matter what."

Maedeth nodded. "Of course. Anything." She gripped her still trembling hands together in front of her.

Celebrían gave a quiet, short laugh. But she nodded. For a moment all they could hear was the symphony of nature in the gardens of Rivendell.

"Do you love my son?"

Maedeth froze. The world quieted. For a moment all she heard was Elladan's promise that he would be there, always. She saw his fair face in the pool before them. She could feel his hands steadying her on her feet.

"Yes," she whispered.

Maedeth didn't dare look at Celebrían. There was so much more to say, so many words that never left her lips. As tears filled her eyes and her body trembled, she finally spoke aloud what haunted her every moment.

"But it does not matter," Maedeth said. "My heart has no room for love while my brother breaks it in two."

Had Aegnor felt this way so long ago? He had turned away from the woman who held his heart in order to face the duty that haunted his exiled steps. Had Andreth cried this way? She had been left alone to face the long darkness without the one she loved, left wondering if death really was the gift the Eldar claimed it to be.

Finrod wrote such beautiful words in the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. Ever the perfect orator, Maedeth wondered if he understood truly the pain that he described. It had been his brother in the depths of agony from love. 'If his heart ruled, he would have wished to take thee and flee far away, east or south, forsaking his kin, and thine. Love and loyalty hold him to his,' he had written. The words had never left her heart since reading them ten years before.

Love and loyalty held him to his course. As Maedeth finally turned in the silence to Celebrían's gentle expression, she knew that was what held her together as well. Love and loyalty. Duty.

"I feel the grief you bear," Celebrían said. "But I urge you to look to the end of war, to the morning light that shall yet dawn. If there is no other constant in this world, know that the sun rises, and it falls, and it rises again. And in dawn is ever found the hope of men."

Maedeth closed her eyes. So it was. So it had always been. She had told herself this for five hundred years of sunrises.

"When I married my husband, I knew the doom he carries," Celebrían whispered.

She turned from Maedeth and stared up at the stars. Her breathing slowed. Maedeth realized fear had begun to haunt her as well. Straightening up, she turned all her attention to Lady Celebrían.

"I do not envy the Peredhil," Celebrían said. "To choose between the life of elf and man. To choose between their deaths."

Maedeth frowned. She picked a blade of grass and began to wrap it around a finger to find some distraction. But it helped little.

"I have always felt more akin to the Eldar than the Edain, though perhaps more out of a fear of death than a love of living," she said. "But I have delayed my choice. Rínior chose quickly. I think, perhaps, this was a mistake."

Celebrían nodded. She turned to her again. "Much has been written on the agony of unions between elf and man, namely the suffering of the half-elves. Many say that only grief is found in the doom that befalls them. But I do not agree."

A gust of wind blew the branches around them, cascading white and pink petals down around them. A few settled on the surface of the pond. Maedeth watched as the ripples of the waterfall pushed them to the edge. The fresh petals joined the ring of others on the riverbank.

"There is beauty in all unions," Celebrían said. "And though love is mingled with grief now, that makes it no less wonderful. Maedeth. Elladan loves you as well. I caution you, do not fall into despair before the morning dawns."

She trembled as a shiver ran through her body. Hearing it aloud, that which she had guessed and hoped for, made it more real. Maedeth felt tears flowing down her cheeks. Celebrían smiled. She wiped some of them away with her hand.

"I do not wish to entangle Elladan in the doom of my house," Maedeth choked, accepting an offered handkerchief from Celebrían. "I watch each day as Tiniel fades. We have done great injury to her."

"No, Maedeth. Rínior has done that," Celebrían said, voice hardening. "You have not. Consider perhaps that the doom of your house has arisen yet again not by fate, but because of his actions."

She took a shaky breath, trying to get herself under control. All of Celebrían's words made sense beneath the starlit sky and surrounded by the peace of Rivendell's gardens. But when she left the safety of paradise, would it be the same?

"And if I chose the life of Men, to die and leave this world behind," Maedeth said, "I could not live with myself if then Elladan must face the agony of choice too. To leave behind his family, or me."

"I love nothing in this world more than I love my children," Celebrían said. She gripped the skirt of her dress tightly as they sat on the riverbank. "They are everything to me. I do not wish for Elladan to be pulled into a web of dooms and darkness."

Maedeth's tears redoubled. This had been her fear, her concern, her every thought. She wished for nothing more than Elladan at her side, his lips on hers, his safety forever. But everything stood between them.

"But it is not for me to make that choice," Celebrían said, the hardness in her voice crumbling away until she spoke barely above a whisper. "The choice belongs to Elladan, and to you. I do not wish to be sundered from my children. But I knew the doom they would be born into: to choose, between their two halves. I knew that the moment I married my husband. And I have always known, though I hope it will not come to pass, that someday I will lose one of them forever."

The nightingales quieted. Maedeth looked at Celebrían through drying eyes. The woman stared up the stars, lip quivering. But she did not cry. She just sat in silence.

Maedeth turned from her to the stars. Did the Valar hear her tears? The Doom of Mandos spoken after the Kinslaying of Alqualondë said otherwise: 'not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains'. As a coldness settled in her heart, a familiar numbness when thinking of her family history, she frowned.

The Valar were not above change, though. Lúthien Tinúviel, greatest of all the Eldar, had sung a song so beautiful she moved even Mandos to weep. And thus began the first union of elf and man, and the first peredhel in her son Dior Eluchíl. Maybe they did hear her.

Then again, perhaps they thought the downfall of Arthedain a just punishment for harboring children of the line of Fëanor. A perfect irony that one of those children was trying to seal their fate. Maedeth hardened herself. She wiped the tears from her eyes.

"The war must be won first," she said. "I have a duty to my people, a duty I must see to before I can consider love."

Celebrían nodded. She smiled, looking across as Maedeth. She had the same silver eyes as her sons: they glimmered in starlight, reflecting the light of the moon. She put her arm around Maedeth's shoulders and pulled her in for a gentle hug.

"Rest well, child. The troubles of the world will still be there in the morning. But perhaps the new light of dawn will bring hope where you have none now."

Maedeth's eyelids drooped. The lullaby of the waterfall and the nightingales calmed her heart. Celebrían's warm embrace drove away some of the fear. And even when Celebrían stood, leaving her alone on the riverbank, Maedeth felt more at ease. She decided that if she could not sleep in a bed, then she would sleep there. She would sleep surrounded by the gardens of Rivendell thinking about what could be.