Celeborn glanced up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the downpour. Cloud like the grief of Nienna hung low and dense above. Before him, following the river, into whose brown water the rain fell with a hiss, a trail wound away. Wet gorse slapped against his legs, had to be ducked as his horse picked its way patiently onwards.
Adjusting his cloak against the downpour, for though it troubles me not, I dislike rain down my neck as much as any Mortal, he smiled. Hardier than they we are, unnecessarily foolish we are not, and wet is wet, immortal or no.
Oaks clung onto the riverbank with gnarled roots, their branches too sodden to provide shelter. The current ran fast and deep beneath them, swollen by the rain and in uncompromising mood. As you were then, river daughter, he thought with a nod of respect to the rushing water.
Stretching his senses beyond the rain, he thought of the past; and of his grandsons, in whom, like Arwen, his line had mixed with that of Elu. They had accompanied him - for even now orcs and other dark creatures were too numerous in these lands for Elf or Mortal to travel alone in the wilds - and he had been obscurely aware of resemblances in their faces he had not allowed himself to see before. This whole journey was a strange alignment of the ancient with the present. Eerie, as though Doriath had risen from the sea, and he was now walking open eyed in the weed-bedecked paths of another world, taking his daughter's children with him.
A short while ago, moved by delicacy - a desire to be private with his struggles - he had bid them wait for him under the trees close to a green meadow that sloped down to the gliding water. The place had changed so much; ancient trees had fallen, the river changed course to wash over it twice, three times, leaving new silt, new stones. No one would now recognize it by sight, and yet... He smiled again, and remembered how they had looked around themselves, Elrohir going to one knee, touching the soft earth. His grey eyes - so like his mother's - sought Celeborn's, "The Teleri were here once, I can hear their voices."
Celeborn had nodded, voice soft with memory. "We camped here for several days, a host of us."
"And you celebrated," Elladan stirred beneath his hood, hands running lightly over the bark of a tall beech. "The trees hold the songs, pulling them out of the deep earth as water in their roots. Their tale is of light and life amid toil and weariness." He turned his head, gaze sharpening suddenly as he looked at his grandfather, but he said nothing. And that was the wisdom of Elrond, and of Galadriel - to see, and not to say, lest the words prove too heavy for a delicate world.
Elrohir raised his eyes, and now both of them were looking at him keenly. In their minds, the land sung of a young warrior who danced a deadly dance with a king, and they wondered at it.
He had not enlightened them, and they had not asked. Secrets between them were few, and if one were kept, it was not to be questioned, merely respected. Elladan smiled, touching Celeborn's shoulder as Elrohir moved to make temporary camp under what little shelter was to be found among the trees, moving with the ease of one long practised, "We will wait here then, daerada. Call if you need us."
Grateful for their silence and their love both, Celeborn had grasped the hand on his shoulder a moment before mounting his horse and turning it back onto the river path. The twins had watched him go, then turned as one to the setting up of the small camp. Ever had it been thus with them. They moved as one, fought as one, at times even seemed to think as one. Sentences begun by one would be effortlessly finished by the other, seamlessly, without any consultation. The griefs and joys of each were the same for the other; the bond of twinship making them almost one fëa.
Celeborn remembered a time when Elrohir, tending an injured, fevered Elladan, had lain beside his brother and pulled him into the curve of his own body, singing softly to his agitated twin. Elladan's restlessness had immediately quieted and both twins had slept, Elrohir holding his brother to him with fierce protectiveness, Elladan's head pillowed on his twin's arm. They were united as only those who have shared the same womb can be, and though it was no secret in either Lórien or Imladris that the warrior sons of Elrond, fair of face and form as they were, each had their share of lovers, they had cleaved to none.
Should they ever marry, he knew with certainty, still would their link remain undiminished. It would take special elves, elves worthy of his grandsons, to understand and accept such a bond. In the face of his own losses, he blessed the Powers that, whatever befell, his grandsons would never know the gnawing, empty ache of loneliness that paced like a shadow behind him. The shadow of the West.
For a moment, he called to mind hair as silver as his own, spoke to that loved presence in his heart. They will come, my daughter, I am sure of it. Give them but time enough.
He thought then of Elu, made childless by Luthien's choice, and wondered how it would be to bring him these scions of his own blood. Would he be as proud of them as Celeborn himself was? Or would their relationship to an once lover, put aside several ages ago, dim them in his sight, so that Thingol could not look on them in comfort?
And why, Valar why did he still care?
With that thought, Celeborn now touched that place within himself which said, Elu. Holding himself from the emotional tangle of the name, he sought to confirm to himself how far he was from his goal. Odd, how a memory could be so imprinted in the fëa that one could fly to its source like a dove returning unerring to its home, though the whole world lay between.
Almost, he smiled at that; am I a pigeon, or a salmon to have such instincts? The king would have laughed at the idea, for they had neither of them been philosophers. Galadriel would have said nothing, her eyes as ever hinting at secrets only she could perceive, her head at that mocking angle which told him that Arda held no mystery for her after Aman.
At the thought of his wife, he frowned. Something had stirred in his mind; something wavering, as if across a fire - when rising heat made the image indistinct. Was she trying to touch his thoughts, as she had not done since she left? Was the distance too far even for her, so he received only this tantalizing hint, this frustrating something? Unsure, he breathed deep and surrendered to the sending, and this time it came clear. All was changed before his eyes, and he looked on a place he had never seen.
It seemed a hall, so vast he could not see its walls. Or...no, it had no walls. No, that too was not quite... it had walls of crystal, through which the outside could be seen, but strangely; a jumble of light and forms, indistinct and distant. The roof was of crystal also, and let in a light the purity of which pierced his heart. Radiance fell in shimmering waves to the pale floor, where it fractured into a fume of shifting rainbows.
At one end of the hall stood a dais, on which sat an empty throne. There knelt an elf woman, her pale gold hair unbound, flowing like water over her slim, proud shoulders. Galadriel. He stared at her, frowning, unsettled by her posture. It was not submissive; it was not in her to be so, not even in this place, wherever it was. But respect there was in plenty. And he could see, in the quiet way her hands were folded across her knees, the fingers tightly curled, some hint of fear. What could she fear? She, who had never been afraid of anything?
Her blue gown, sewn with tiny jewelled flowers of silver and gold, fell about her in soft folds, accentuating her captivating grace. It spanned slender shoulders which were pulled straight and proud, poured down the line of her back, that elegant curve along which he had loved to trail his fingers as they lay talking in Lorien, drowsy and content, with the song of nightbirds and soft breezes playing over their wide bed. But no memory of warmth seemed to cling in that place. In the crystal hall, her soft, sad posture seemed removed, alien, and he shivered involuntarily at the sight.
Perhaps it was merely the rain's cold touching him, making the vision take on that foreboding chill. Telling himself that it must be so, he let the image fade. It would do no good to dwell on it. Its significance, if it had any, would become clear in time. With his practical nature, Celeborn did not try to force the knowledge. There was turmoil enough already in his mind and heart.
Uncertainty, anticipation and fear warred within him, but the sharp stab of loss cut suddenly through all; so keenly he had to bite hard on his lip to drive himself through it - the outer pain drawing his mind from the inner. He wanted to do this, needed to do this, but now the moment was at hand he knew himself reluctant to face the past, reluctant to reopen wounds it had taken a thousand years to close. For one wild moment, he almost fled; almost ran away, and there was some tincture of self-disgust in his mood as he stopped, slid from his horse and faced the surging river.
The rain had eased somewhat, but the great waterfall now filled the air with its thunder and spray. Celeborn walked as if in a waking dream, the music of the water stirring memories more ancient than the rocks. What good was this doing? Fear and longing battled in him, his hand closed about the hilt of his sword, for mere reassurance. What waited for him, returning as he was to the beginnings of his life - rebirth? Or ruin?
With a sound of mingled impatience and frustration he paused. A hawthorn had grasped his trailing hair with thorny fingers, bringing him up short. It had been a very, very long time since any tree had treated him with such disrespect, and he turned at once, feeling the approach of a power before which he was indeed little but a child. She was there. The lady of this wood. Though they had not yet met, he knew her: Elu had told him of her as they lay amid the furs in their haven.
"It was as though all the light of every forest were hers, every call of a bird, each sharp scent, every bough and every leaf are hers." Elu had looked down into Celeborn's listening expression and kissed him slowly, lifting his head to murmur, "She let me come to you, without her blessing, this could never have been..."
The words echoed in memory as he stared now into the fathomless green of her eyes. He bowed his head, hearing her voice in his mind, her words softer than water, clearer than starlight, "What do you here, Celeborn of Doriath?"
He raised his head, "Few now name me so, Lady"
She smiled, "Should I call you then Lord of the Golden Wood, husband to Galadriel?" The green gaze bore neither pity nor accusation, she merely waited for his answer, surrounded by the boughs and grasses of her bower, as she would wait he thought with sudden knowledge, until the ending of the world. She knew why he had come.
"I am both, Lady," he said with pride - a familiar mantle, worn with ease after all these years of earning it. "Prince of Doriath, Lord of Lórien. My wife I love and honour as I have always done, without reservation. What business I have with him whom I seek, whom once I adored, I do not know. An ending, perhaps. I beg you will not hinder it."
The Lady touched her fingers to his arm, then, unexpectedly, his lips. Her touch was cool; timeless and alive. "You and he bear like courage," she smiled. "I marked it in him then and I see it in you now. Though not named king, a king you are, as great as he, and perhaps, as flawed." Stepping back from him, she seated herself in her living throne, lifting her hand to receive the touch of a willow branch as it bent toward her, considering him. "Go then, Celeborn, lover and beloved of Thingol Greycloak, seek what you will in that place you fear and long for. I give you my blessing as I gave it to him."
As she finished speaking, he found himself kneeling at her feet, having instinctively bowed to her rightful rule. At the touch of cool lips on his brow, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was gone. He knelt in wet grass, with only the sensation of light on his arm and brow to tell him she had been there at all. Awe and wonder were in his heart, knowing that he had borne witness to a being few even dreamt of. So it must have been for Elu, reverence breaking through, despite the wild fear which had held him its grip as he had sought to reach Celeborn across the raging water.
He got to his feet and turned once more to face the river, surprised to find the cave before him. He had not truly expected it to remain, unscathed by the frosts and storms of millennia. The river should have washed it away by now, and time left him nothing to return to. Yet there it was, unchanged. A gift of the Lady, perhaps. What on earth had either of them done to earn such tender care?
The flood was quiet now, at Her command, and he swam across easily, pulling himself out onto the far bank. Oblivious to the breeze, he stood staring at the cave where so long ago, he had known for the first time the touch of a lover.
Surely it should mean more? Instead, he felt frozen, trapped in an unchanging instant, numb and alone. Catching himself, he made a sound of impatience, and took the step which would bring him into the cave.
He stood still, looking about himself. The walls were dull now, with no reflected firelight to light them to golden brilliance. The sandy floor had been disturbed by many years of swirling breezes, but he walked forward unerringly, drawn to the place where their furs had lain, where he had found a love so powerful it shivered across his skin even now. Crouching, he trailed his fingers through the fine sand over the spot, drawing idle patterns. He looked up, to the small pool at the rear of the cave. It had been cold, that pool, but its waters had been refreshing, when drunk from a horn cup brought by the hands of a lover who had just brought such ecstasy to his body.
He rose, looking down at the floor, unseeing, while the breeze off the river lifted his drying hair off the back of his neck, blowing his tunic against him playfully, as though a hard body leaned lightly into his. Why am I here? There is naught here but memories, naught but dry sand and cold rock. There is nothing of him here, nothing of us.
Ah, is there not, Celeborn-nin?
He whirled, hand dropping to the knife he carried, staring into the familiar face. Shocked, he fell back a step. You are not here. You cannot be here... But even to himself, his voice sounded uncertain. Was it truth? Or was he at last succumbing to madness? Staring at Elu, he blinked hard, but this time the image of the king did not fade, remained solid, alive and - he reached out a hand - so warm!
Thingol's smile was loving and gently mocking all at once. Why so shocked, melethron? With such longing as yours, how could I be anything but real? The tall figure took a step forward, another, and at last he stood so close that Celeborn could feel the heat from the powerful body against his own skin. Gritting his teeth, he drew a shuddering breath.
"Because you are dead, Elu. Do not torment me with visions, if it is you at all and not some cruel jest sent to remind me of what cannot be."
A large hand came to rest over his swift beating heart, as if to claim it. Grey eyes stared into his own. For long moments, they watched each other, then the king leaned forward, brushed his lips over Celeborn's, murmured against his mouth, "Does this feel real, Telpë?" Long fingers brushed aside the heavy fall of Celeborn's hair from the pulse racing in his neck, and a moment later, he gasped as warm lips suckled it gently. "Does this?"
One touch, and all the long years of rule and lordship fell away. Power, experience, the long battle against the dark, all counted for nothing, were forgotten under the heat of that mouth, the caress of those fingers. Celeborn tried for reason, grasping after it, yet desperately wanting it to elude him. Wanting to be weak, wanting to be overwhelmed, to give in. "Elu..."
"Please, my prince, do not speak,. It has been my one wish these years to touch you again, love you again. Do not deny me now." I beg you. The words were unspoken but there as clearly as if they had been uttered aloud. Celeborn's eyes, which had slid shut, opened now in surprise. Never had he heard that tone from Thingol, that note of pleading beneath the deep, rich warmth of the king's voice. It sounded for all the world as though Elu suffered the same torment he did, the same desperate, hopeless longing.
Shaking his head in the only answer he could give, Celeborn reached out, made a sound deep in his throat as his hands met the hard, warm flesh of Elu's back where the king wore neither shirt nor tunic. Ai, his skin was damp from the rain! And as if that touch proved beyond doubt that this was real, Celeborn immediately slid his hands lower, caught Elu to him as though he might disappear. A low laugh which turned to a hiss of pleasure greeted the movement, as Celeborn dug his fingers into the firm muscles he found beneath his hands.
It no longer mattered that this was not possible, not allowed, not right - possibly not even happening at all, except in waking dream. He didn't care. Right, or real, he would have it nevertheless, let everything else burn.
"I missed you so.." he whispered into the heavy steel-silver of Elu's hair, pressing his lips to the shining strands, feeling their warmth. Its scent surrounded him; uniquely, enticingly Elu - cinnamon and open skies, the sea and the elusive scent that he knew was of Aman. As one starved, he inhaled it, tipped his head back and savoured it as the mouth he had so longed for came back to his, drank from him and tasted him with equal hunger.
Urgent hands begged him with their touch to lie on the sandy ground. This was no dream, then, there was no softness beneath him now, only the fine sand, which shifted under him as he moved to accommodate Elu's weight. He felt his tunic being undone, a warm hand slip inside, beneath his shirt, to ghost across the muscles of his chest. In his ear, a deep, aching murmur came, "Ahhh, you are so beautiful, not even memory could compare, melethron..."
The words dissolved against Celeborn's skin, were drowned out by his gasp as Elu's capable fingers brushed his hardening length. He shifted once more, and suddenly rolled them so that he was the one lying atop a startled Elu, who looked up at him in momentary confusion. Then those eyes closed as Elu moved his head aside in open invitation, hands roaming over Celeborn's body, tempting and caressing, making him groan with the sweet fire of it. He leant forward, framing Elu's face with his hands so that he could kiss him, slipping his tongue into the mouth he had longed for, so different from...
He froze, as though the icy waters of the river only now touched him, mind surfacing from the need and bliss and selfishness.
What was he doing?
"No.." Valar! It hurt, it hurt him to turn back, but "no." He lifted his head, eyes closed as he struggled for calm. Reluctantly, he opened them to find Elu staring up at him, desire and pain warring with understanding in the grey gaze, and something else, something indefinable...
"You think of Galadriel." The words were spoken with finality and resignation, but no trace of guilt, no remorse. It horrified him, and he pulled away abruptly, run through by the knowledge of what could so easily have happened. Even now his body needed, demanded Elu, with staggering intensity. Ruthlessly, he forced the desire away, bringing his body and his mind under control. Much though he might want to be overwhelmed, he knew it would be a lie. He was no longer a green youth, no longer the youngster in the throes of his first love, dizzied by his emotions and desire. He had ruled his own lands, married and loved, raised children and borne loss and endless war. There was no excuse - he had the strength, and right, and duty to end this now.
"Who else? She is my wife." Shock and disgust at his own actions made the words harsher than Celeborn had intended them, filled them with self-loathing. Turning away, he pulled his tunic closed with rough, angry movements. "She is my wife, my beloved. I will not betray her. We loved and fought together for longer than you and I, and do not forget, my lord king, you found one who suited you better."
He grimaced, knowing his words were cruel, remembered pain twisting his mouth, pain he had thought himself long reconciled to. "Have you forgotten Melian? Melian, for whom you gave up your dreams, and ours, and who paid us back with desertion." He stopped, surprised at his own vehemence. Surely he had loved and respected Melian, whatever pain it had cost him to see her with the elf he adored? Long, long before he had even met Galadriel, he had thought that jealousy overcome. It seemed he was wrong.
As Elu remained quiet and the silence spun out between them, he deliberately opened his memories of Galadriel; coming to their wedding, her gown of pale gold, her skin lit from within by the glow of Aman, her hands full of flowers like those in her hair. Those same hands raised as she brought down the walls and uprooted the very foundations of Dol Guldur, slim and terrible and utterly merciless. Those same strong hands had held out mallorn blossom to him as she laughed, the gaze of her eyes reaching to his heart. Her slim body had trembled beneath his, as she cried out his name, clutching him to her as they loved. And at the last even her hands had trembled in his, heartbreakingly fragile, as she turned away and took ship at the Havens, her eyes dry and spent.
As if in sympathy, he felt a warm hand on his back. The touch meant to reassure, but did nothing of the kind, laying him open to more agony than he could easily bear.
Voice shaking with grief and terrible, thwarted desire, Celeborn rejected the silent gesture. "There is nothing between us, my lord. There never should have been. We were fools then, and now we are worse than fools. I love Galadriel. I will not taint that nor play traitor! We are Quendi - we feel no desire for any but our mate once bound, you know this as well as I do - and by that measure this is a falsehood, a dream. It is not real, and I do not wish it to be."
Elbereth! That he should have to defend his honour by lying! But it should not be a lie, it should be the truth, and he would force himself to make it the truth though it killed him. "Now be gone and plague me no longer. I weary of you."
Yet as he felt the hand on his back fall away, he wanted to scream out loud at its loss. Touch me again, I need you to touch me, I love you! But he stayed silent, waiting for Elu's reaction to his words. It did not come. Only silence met the finality of his statement, the cold starkness of it. When he could no longer stand it, he turned, wanting a reaction, needing something.
Elu was gone.
oo0O0oo
Fire snapped and crackled in the wide hearth, casting shifting shadows into the room. Thingol sat before it, head bowed in deep sorrow. At length he stirred and reached forward, trembling slightly, to lift the kettle of wine off the blaze and pour the steaming liquid into a silver cup. His pale hair turned to molten gold in the amber light.
"Did you see my father?" A quiet voice reached him from the doorway, where she stood, cloaked against the cool of the spring night, watching him. Celeborn's child.
"Yes." He offered no more, took a sip from the cup.
Celebrian came into the room, sighing. It had gone badly, even had she been unable to see the slump of the king's powerful shoulders, the welling glisten of his eyes, she would have been able to feel it, like a storm sunk into the very stones. "What happened?"
"He loves Galadriel." A simple statement of fact, spoken with finality, "That will never change."
She turned a calm, but vehement gaze on him, moving to touch his shoulder. "Of course he loves her. Did you expect him to say otherwise?"
There was something hawklike about his grief, she thought; hunched up and sullen, full of anger. Kingly and magnificent as he was, he did not seem to know what to do when the world thwarted him - too used to it acquiescing instantly to his demands. It was at such rare times she could easily imagine him as the unjust father in the tales - doing evil to Beren, locking his own daughter up when she would not accept his protection.
Evidently, he had gone into this just as certain he would prevail, handled it in the worst possible way, and been rebuffed. Now all was made even more difficult, if that was possible.
"He has lost her but recently, and even had he not, still would he love her. My father's heart is not lightly turned from those he loves. You know that." Why else would he remain so far away, and all this tangle so irrevocable, if not for the constancy of his nature, and a stubbornness that easily rivalled Elu's? "Has he sensed it?"
The king gave a slight nod, his smile wry, skirting the edge of bitterness. "He has, but he does not yet know what it signifies. He thinks he starts at shadows, yet within him there is more grace than he knows. Your mother knew. It is why she loved him, I think. Why she let herself love him. He thinks himself a simple elf, for all he has done."
Celebrian smiled, eyes on the fire, remembering. "Few know him as we do. Simple as the land he loves and as deep." She lifted her head and placed a reassuring hand on his arm. "There is still hope."
The laugh was soft, "Perhaps. But I think not until he sails, and not even then is it certain. I saw his spirit, he is not ready to heal. He is not ready to forgive me, nor to trust me again with a heart I once broke. Mayhap he will never be."
Celebrian frowned, surprised at this new vulnerability in him - a worn tiredness she had never seen before. "You sound as though you would let him go, as though you will not fight for him."
At that, he looked up, meeting her eyes. She blinked, taken aback. If he was softer, it was only as the shine on a sword becomes softer with the many scratches of use. His voice was full of the power and command that was effortlessly, utterly his, "I will fight."
It was enough. Celebrian left the fire, came to him, smiling. Kissing his brow she murmured, "Then there is hope indeed."
She gathered her cloak about her and went home. A gust of cool air stirred the ends of his hair as she left.
Alone before the fire, Elu Thingol bowed his head and wept.