Since Olórin's regular visits, Melian began to seem a little more interested in her surroundings.  These woods had been her home, long ago.  And she had been content under their branches, singing with the nightingales.  But even as her eyes strayed about the woods of Lórien, she began to murmur to herself a broken, confused lament for Doriath. 

            Sometimes Melian sang in Sindarin, a lovely, flowing tongue which Amarië did not understand.  Sometimes she spoke in Quenya, and Amarië copied down all the words she could catch in her neat, precise hand.

            How silly, to feel a twinge every time she lifted a quill, remembering the laughing, golden lad who'd taught her to hold it, and to form the letters his uncle had made.

            And yet, she cherished the little pang of pain, as she did all of the pricks that never let her go more than a few moments without thinking of her beloved.

            And although Melian might not believe it, Amarië knew she could fathom a little of the Maia's sorrow.

A nightingale flew in Doriath, which is no more…

            Amarië found herself struck by this line.   She stared at it when Melian fell silent, rubbing the end of her quill against her nose.

            "Lúthien used to do that," Melian said softly.

            Amarië looked up sharply.  This was the first time Melian had spoken to her attendant.

            "What is your name?" Melian asked, rubbing at her head.

            "I am called Amarië, Lady Melian," she replied, putting down her quill and tucking a strand of straight, dark gold hair behind her ear.

            "Amarië?  Why do I know that name?" Melian murmured.

            Amarië blinked.  "Galadriel was your companion, was she not?"

            Melian nodded.  "For many decades."

            Breaking eye contact, Amarië played with her quill.  "That explains it then.  Lady Galadriel's eldest brother and I… were to wed," she concluded quietly.

            "Finrod?"

            Amarië nodded with a soft, sad smile.

            "And then he traded his life for my Lúthien's happiness.  You poor dear child."

            "But Lady Melian," Amarië argued, shaking her head, "Mandos is no further from my arms than Middle-Earth."

            "Sometimes," Melian began, her voice dreamy, "I wonder how things might've been different, had my Elwë followed me here, instead of staying as we did, in Beleriand under the stars."

            Amarië had been haunted by her own such questions, since…

            "I cannot ask you…" Finrod began, his eyes deep and liquid, and the starlight caught in his thatch of golden curls.

            "Forgive me," she murmured, her tears soaking into his tunic.

            "Always," he whispered, kissing the top of her head.  "Always."

            Olórin was right.

            It was not good to dwell on the past.

Uinen put her hands on her hips sternly.  "Out of the water, children."

            Two little dolphins turned somersaults in the surf.

            Olórin crossed his arms, an amused smile trying to pull at the corners of his mouth.  "Dolphins?"

            Uinen shrugged.  "It seemed the best way to get them here.  And besides… they've had precious little to be happy about.  I've never met a sad dolphin."

            "True.  But…"

            She nodded.  "I know."

            The two little dolphins disappeared under the waves, and when they reamerged, they were two very wet elf-children, who promptly started crying as they flailed their limbs about to keep afloat.

             Wading waist deep into the waves, Uinen scooped up Eluréd, who clung to her, and Olórin put his staff aside on the beach to retrieve Elurín.

            Wiping at his tears and pushing his sopping black curls from in front of his eyes, Elurín, son of Dior, considered Olórin, called the wisest of the Maiar.

            "Are you going to take me to my Mother and Father?" he asked after a moment.

            Olórin shook his head.  "I cannot."

            Elurín's eyes filled with tears again, and Eluréd clung tighter to Uinen. 

            "But… you said," Eluréd pleaded to her.

            "You are home, little one," she said, holding him tight.  "Valinor – Elvenhome"

            Eluréd burst out crying, and Elurín looked from Uinen back to Olórin.

            "I want Mother," he whispered, tears pouring down his face.

            "So you shall, my child," Olórin answered, his voice comforting, but sad.  "So you shall."

It had been Melian's Garden since the first time she'd planted flowers at the base of the mallorn trees of the little grove, and sang to help them grow.

            But for too long, Melian's enchantments had been for sterner causes.

            Doriath, the Hidden Kingdom, had been her garden too.

            Olórin, with a now quiet Elurín in his arms, strode between the trees, until he caught sight of Amarië, sitting in the grass with her quill moving smoothly across her little book.  Melian lay nearby, staring listlessly at the canopy of emerald leaves, fluttering in the breeze from the ocean.

            Amarië looked up at their approach, and blinked at Olórin's companion, and their burdens.

            "Visitors, my lady," she told Melian, closing her quill into her book to keep her place.

            Olórin and Uinen set the dark-haired children on their feet.  The little boys rubbed at their identical tear-streaked faces, and reached for each other's hands.  Melian sat up, and for a moment, could only stare at them – the image of their father, who had been the image of his mother.

            "The princes of Doriath have come to Melian's first garden," Olórin told her gently.

            "Eluréd… and Elurín," she murmured.  She had been present at their birth, but she spoke the names as if it was the first time.

            Heir of Elwë.

            Remembrance of Elwë.

            The children struggled to remember their great-grandmother, and their tears started anew, since she looked so much like Father.

            Looking into the teary eyes of her daughter's son's sons, Melian felt any regrets she'd ever harbored melt like snow under the afternoon sun.

            If she and Elwë had not remained in Beleriand, Lúthien might still dance to the nightingales' song in Valinor.

            But Dior, son of Beren, would never have lived.

            And his children would not be before her now.

            Melian gathered Eluréd and Elurín close to her, and ran her fingers through their coal-black curls as they wept onto her shoulders.  And through her own tears, she smiled.

I wrote this story as a result of two very unsatisfying holes in the Silmarillion – where the story just stops, and leaves what becomes of the characters in question up to the reader.

The first hole is in the quotation of "Of the Ruin of Doriath" at the end of the Prologue.  In reference to Eluréd and Elurín, "…of their fate, no tale tells."

The second, has to do with Melian being left to "ponder her sorrows" in Lórien, after the death of Elwë.

And somehow, in my mind, the two connected.

Sometimes, I wonder if Professor Tolkien didn't almost expect us to write fiction based on his work…  It's just too easy!!!  I (obviously) can't resist!

The Prologue, I blame entirely on Celeborn.

Many, many thanks to all who reviewed the Prologue so encouragingly!  And particular thanks to Deborah, for helping me iron the idea to begin with, and to Ekuboryu and Anne-sempai for reading as I wrote.

---- I'm waiting for the donuts, Haleth!