"She was bound to lose if she set her face to choose

They never could excuse her for stirring up their fears.

She was much too young,

Now the earth has stopped her tongue

I can hear the voices calling down the years.

She said 'I never had a chance to prove them wrong

My time was short, the story long

No, I never had a chance to prove them wrong

It's always them who write the songs…'"

- Oxford Girl, by Oysterband

Celebrian never could keep away from a library. They drew her in as surely as a moth to a flame, and days later her mother would have to all but drag her out, protesting vociferously at the loss of whatever fascinating subject she happened to be reading about.

In newly-built Imladris, as their host Elrond came to greet them, she caught sight of a book laid down on a bench nearby, as if someone had dropped it there when called away to another task. Her eyes lit up - where there was one book, usually more could be found.

"...my daughter, Celebrian," her mother was saying, and she looked up from trying to read the title of the book on the bench, catching only the end of what had been said. Elrond's eyes caught hers, a pleasant, interested, look on his face.

"A star shines on the hour of our meeting, my lord," she said by rote, bending her head, just a little, to him. He leaned forward, a faint quiver of a smile on his face.

"I am not a lord, lady Celebrian."

"No more am I a lady." Her words were blunt, and for an instant she wished she could take them back - he had only intended courtesy, surely. Nearby, her mother smiled, the teasing, enigmatic smile that she often favoured when she found something very funny and was trying not to laugh.

"Then simply 'Elrond' and 'Celebrian' shall we be to each other?" he said. She glanced back up again, and her eyes were caught by the book once more; 'Form and…' - was that next word 'Function'? - She leaned forward again, forgetting that Elrond was still next to her, was following the direction of her eyes.

"It's a very useful book, if a bit dry," Elrond said suddenly at her shoulder, and she gasped, drawing back. "Do you have a particular affection for First Age poetry, that it draws you so?"

She looked up at him, hands gesturing. "Books themselves draw me. All of them - it does not matter what they are about. I want to read them all!"

He smiled, brightly this time, a light leaping into his eyes that made his already fair face breathtakingly beautiful.

"That we have in common, Celebrian," he said. "You should see the Library of Imladris. I am very proud of it."

"Library?" she said, hands clasped in a gesture of pleading.

Once in the library, a little while later, she looked around at the high walls, covered in bookshelves. This library was better than the one at the Grey Havens, and that one had to serve a whole city! Elrond must love books as deeply as she did.

"Where to begin?" she asked aloud, wanting to spin in circles, to take in everything.

"There is a section you might find interesting," Elrond said, going over to the north wall, sliding a finger down the spine of one of the books there. "These books were originally in the library at the Havens of Sirion, and have travelled with me for many years. If you wish to read the Mighty Tales of Gondolin -", he passed his hand across a row of books, all bound alike, or yet books written by those who studied under Melian in Doriath, as your mother did -", he made a motion to another set of books nearby, "this is the place you will want to look first."

Celebrian, thoughtless, said the first thing that occurred to her. "I am surprised the Feanorions left the Sirion library unburnt!"

Elrond's face changed; suddenly he was angry. But the anger in his eyes passed quickly, as if long used to being quenched. "They were Feanorions, but that does not mean they did not care for knowledge," he said mildly. "In fact, they saved much of the library by taking many of the books away with them. My home, growing up, was full of -", he broke off, gently stroking the edge of one particular book on the shelf.

Celebrian felt like a fool. She had forgotten entirely, if indeed she had ever known beyond the whisper of rumours, that Elrond had been raised by Maedhros and Maglor.

"These are the books you grew up with?" she asked.

"Some of them," he answered, not looking at her. "I went back to Sirion's library years later, to see if anything else remained, and found these few still intact. But I have not had the chance to examine them closely, not in all the years since. For many years I could only preserve my books in safety, and had to refrain from much study, until Imladris was built." He raised his head, looking at her now. "I thought you might wish to be the first to look at them." He drew out a pile of books from the shelf, laying them down on a table in front of Celebrian.

She looked up at him; their eyes met again. A shadow of pain flickered in his eyes and for a moment she kicked herself for calling it up.

"I am sorry for what I said about the Feanorions," she said.

"Who has told you tales of the Feanorions?" he asked, very calm. "Not your mother, surely."

"My father," she answered. His face grew very still and quiet, that pain still hiding in his eyes.

"If you will listen, I also have tales to tell of Maedhros and Maglor," he said. "But now is not the time, I think." He gestured to the books on the table with a kind smile. "If you please, Celebrian, may you find something that holds your interest here. There are yet two hours until the supper bell rings."

The first book Celebrian looked at was one titled "Enchantments For The Everyday: Scrying With Mirrors." It appeared to be part of a series, perhaps written by one of Melian's handmaidens, but when she looked into it, the actual content was beyond her. She laid it aside after thumbing through it, as something her mother would probably be more interested in.

The second book had the crest of Idril painted onto its front and appeared to be a personal diary. She opened it carefully - it was very old and looked more worn, as if it had been exposed to more of the elements, than the other books did.

Only a few pages of the book were filled in, the rest were blank. The content began abruptly, the writing looked hurried.

"To the children of my son, and to their children beyond, even to future generations unknown, I write this, for this tale I must tell. I hear the false rumours which have been spoken of Aredhel my aunt, and I must set the record straight, before I now depart for the West. I have little time, I have left this tale untold for far too long.

Now the earth has stopped her tongue, my aunt cannot speak in her own defence. But nothing and no one has stopped mine, and yet I have not spoken, until now, when it may be too late by far.

This is what the rumours say: that my aunt was headstrong and wilful, that she brought her own dark fate upon herself by wishing to leave the safety of Gondolin. Indeed, the words are spoken that the fall of Gondolin itself was all rooted in her. They also say that she bore love for Eol and that Maeglin was born within that love, and, most falsely, that Eol and Aredhel were wed under the laws of the Eldar.

This is not so. I have looked in Aredhel's eyes myself, upon her return to Gondolin in the company of her son. And my heart knew pain to see that in her eyes was no look of one who has been wed. Instead the shadow of enchantments cast off lay deep within her, and fear flickered in her mind ever. She, once so bold and strong, was but a shadow of herself on her return, dazed and lost.

I spoke to her long on her return. For since the death of my mother, she had ever been my closest friend and companion. When she left Gondolin, I grieved, but I also understood her passion to see all the world, not to be trammelled in a small, safe cage of a city. I had little choice, daughter of Turgon that I am, but she was his sister, and he could not bind her to him in the same way he could me.

She remembered far less of what had happened to her than the tales tell. She was caught in a mist of fear, a tangled web of sorcery. My aunt was ever fair and free-hearted, not fond of study, but far more entertained by the pleasures of the hunt and of travel, exploring and finding all that was new. Indeed, she had confessed to me once long before, that she wished with all her heart that she could have loved Celegorm, as he loved her once, for that would have been a life far more to her taste, than hiding away behind white walls.

'But the Eldar do not wed with kin so close,' I said to her then, and she laughed, and bade me say thus to Fingon her brother. For true it is that while the Valar may have regarded cousins marrying with disapproval, they cannot stop love, if it arises, and that which is forbidden is oft the sweeter for it. Well I knew that my uncle and the eldest of Feanor's sons loved each other even from their youth, despite the hatred between their fathers.

(It was not that Maeglin was my cousin that caused me to forbid him - if I had loved him it would have been no hinderance - but I did not! Alas, I rush ahead of myself here; I must tell this tale in its proper order.)

What little I gleaned from her words froze my heart in fear. Long wandering, a ill-omened journey amongst webs and mists - real webs of spiders, real mists of fog - at first, fading into insubstantial dreams, webs and mists of a far more insidious kind, and at the end of them, his face. I saw in her memory - for she at last could not speak of this and let me only see what she had seen - a proud and fair face, hands that drew her ever onward in the dim light, and at the last a darkened room, and his face far too close to hers.

What happened then she hid from me, but it made her weep. It is not hard to understand what occurred, horrifying though the thought is, for I could see the results of it when she returned, standing by her side in the form of a son.

(Maeglin, I must stress, is not to blame for the way in which he was conceived, terrible as it may have been, for that he could not help. But Eol's influence lay all around him, he was steeped in it, the same attitude that Eol bore to Aredhel - that she was little more than an object for his use, not a person who deserved far more - and he turned it now toward me.

He lacked his father's skills and knowledge, and maybe some of his subtleties as well, for I perceived his true intentions easily and clearly, and wasted no time in rejecting them, and him. All his supposed love turned then to scorn and bitterness, thus proving it was no real love in the first place.)

The tale of what followed Aredhel's return, and her death that caused such pain and grief, is well-known. My own heart was angered and grieved in equal measure, even as my father's was, and as one we were agreed on Eol's fate. Even now, the anger I feel, unassuaged by his death, burns in me. Such anger is of the Dark, I know, but all his deeds were of the Dark. I lay blame where it belongs: not on the White Lady, who wished only freedom and joy, but firmly at the feet of the one who cozened her and deceived her, who saw her as fair game in his lust for power over her.

My father's words have been reported as 'those who steal the daughters of the Noldor and wed with them in secret cannot claim kinship with their kin.' But that is not what he said. There is no word in Quenya for 'rape'. Even the thought that it could occur burns our hearts to their very quick. What he said was - and has been misreported by those who never saw Aredhel's face - 'those who take them (he here used the word that meant a specific kind of rough sexual 'taking-overwhelming', never before used in this context, to my knowledge) by force in secret cannot claim kinship with their kin.'

My heart grieves that his words have not been given the accuracy they deserved, in memory. For he saw even as I what had truly happened to her, and even before her death his rage was silent and terrible. Perhaps if we had spoken more of it to our people, remembered more loudly that not all dark deeds proceed from the heart of Morgoth, but may be found even among the people of the Eldar, her tale would have now the power that it needed. For where one tale like hers has happened, I have no doubt that others have, as well, and I find at the end of my days on Endor that I am condemning myself for allowing her story to be hidden in shame, to be watered down like strong wine, to lose its power and potency.

I know not whither this book will go, once I have left these shores. If ever I see Valinor, if by some remote and sweet chance Tuor and I are able to at last walk on the shores of the land where I was born, I hope to find Aredhel alive and joyous once more, or if not, to the Valar I will speak, and her true tale will I tell, that they may know of evil that can be done on Endor's shores, that with me they may grieve her bright life and her strong joyous nature, ripped down by torment and abuse."

The words ended there, and shaken, Celebrian closed the book, sitting silent for a while with her thoughts whirling. Her mind was filled with a nameless dread and foreboding, as if a long shadow reached out and touched her there. She felt very young in that moment, despite her thousand summers, a child lost and alone.

She heard the soft rustle of clothing behind her and turned to see her mother, eyes concerned, looking at her. She held out the book, and Galadriel took it, passing a hand with affection over Idril's sigil painted on the front cover.

"Did you know Aredhel?" Celebrian asked. "This tale, told by Idril, is her story, her sad fate."

"She was my cousin," Galadriel said, sitting down next to Celebrian. "I did not know her well, for she was older by far than me, youngest child of a youngest child that I am, but we were the only two daughters in a house full of sons. We had much in common, I think, but we were divided by age and our different choices in companionship. In those days I was far more inclined to dance and athletics than I am now, and when my cousins and brothers began weapons training, I trained with them, but she did not, ever preferring the company of Orome's hunt." She glanced at the book again. "It is a sad tale, and for those who read between the lines of the rumours, an even sadder one."

"These were Idril's words - that her tale was as fully sad, and more terrible, than all the rumours which can be read," Celebrian said. "Like Idril, I am grieved and angered in equal measure, and also I feel that I have been warned, in some strange way."

Galadriel laid a hand on her shoulder, idly stroking the long silver fall of Celebrian's hair. "Daughter of mine," she began, then stopped, eyes fluttering closed, a look of concern on her face. Celebrian turned to look at her, and Galadriel opened her eyes again, a strange light in them. She leaned forward and took Celebrian into her arms across the space between them. Celebrian put her arms around her mother, listening to the beat of her heart, comforting and secure.

"Oh, Celebrian," Galadriel whispered at last. "How I wish I could make your way easy all your days, that never grief or pain would you suffer. But that is not the fate of any who dwell under the Doom, innocent though you are of any wrongdoing." She stroked Celebrian's hair softly, reminding Celebrian of much younger days, when they would sit together as Celebrian learned to read. But those days were gone, and the look on Galadriel's face now was not indulgent love, but wary, guarded.

Sometimes Galadriel, trained as she was under Melian the Maia, had moments of foresight. Long ago Celebrian had learned it was best not to ask of these, for her mother would only ever say that the future was uncertain, and that what she saw might never come to pass. So she remained silent now, and after a moment Galadriel drew back, smiling softly at her.

"What think you of our host?" she said, changing the subject, a hint of laughter slipping into her eyes.

Celebrian fumbled. "Oh!" she said. "I know not what to think of Elrond. I - I fear I misspoke, earlier, to him, and angered him a little, but he was very kind, even then." She was unsure of what to say, further, of the feeling of companionship she had felt in his company. "I think we may have much in common, and might be friends, if he wished it."

Galadriel laughed suddenly, and looked at her, and there was that glance of indulgent love she recalled. "Oh my daughter, I think he does," she said. "I think he very much wishes it."

Celebrian smiled, looking back at the books on the table. "Then I shall endeavour to make it be so," she said.

Galadriel laid her hand over Celebrian's. "To do that, little one, you must spend at least a little time out of the library. Fear not, it will be here."

Celebrian laughed. "If you wish, I will try, but Mother, I was hoping that I could entice him in here with me, and so accomplish two deeds at the same time!"

Amidst their shared laughter, the bell rang for supper, and they both stood together. Galadriel took the book with Idril's sigil, holding it carefully, and Celebrian also picked up the earlier book she'd found, handing it to her mother.

"Oh," Galadriel breathed. "This I have not seen for many years! I lost my own copy, long ago, and never thought to see another." She smiled. "I think tonight you may find that I will be otherwise occupied, and if you wish to spend time in conversation with Elrond, perhaps about…books, you will have plenty of opportunity to do so." She raised an eyebrow. "Now come, daughter, we are waited for."