Interlude

They lay in each other’s arms, each deeply relaxed in the other’s company, freed from the tension caused by rings and responsibilities, suspended between worlds in a rare moment of stillness and harmony.  Neither wished the summons of time to call them back. Day turned to night and the song of the stars resonated in their bones.  Dawn came with fiery shafts of warm light from the east and joyous birdsong, but they continued to hold themselves apart from their surroundings, drawing close about them a cloak of serenity.

It could not last.  The world thrust itself back, pushing them apart and compelling them to resume their lives.  Celeborn sighed, a long regretful breath.  His lady lifted a hand and touched it gently to his cheek, a caress as light as the breeze that stirred her waterfall of hair.

‘How long, do you think,’ she murmured, ‘would it take for us to grow moss as we rest here beneath this tree?’

His shoulders shook in silent amusement. ‘You are not one to take ease for long enough to find out, my lady,’ he told her. ‘I was surprised to find you lingering here at all. Are there no mountains to climb, no dragons to challenge, no upheavals to plot in the Blessed Realm?’

She placed a finger on his lips.  ‘I did not wish to find any,’ she said. ‘I chose to wait here for you.’

‘You have not visited the lands of your birth?’ he said in surprise.  ‘What thinks your family of that?’

‘I have not asked them,’ she told him indifferently. ‘Returned Exiles have long been confined to the Lonely Isle and I have not chosen to mention that the ban was lifted. They have visited from time to time, but I have not wished to return to the haunts of my youth. I was little more than a child when we left – long ages have passed since last I was there and I have changed.’

Celeborn looked at her.  He could not imagine Galadriel willingly returning to the subordinate role of daughter or subject.  Too many centuries had been spent in authority as the recipient of respect and cause of trepidation for her to relish bending her head to another.  He smiled.  Even with him, she would comply only of her own will.  He had tried from time to time to demand a certain line of conduct, but he had never defeated her, succeeding at best in obtaining an armed neutrality.

‘Will you come, then, with me?’ he asked. ‘There are old acquaintances I wish to renew before seeking a new home among the trees of Valinor.’

‘I will come,’ she replied, making of the words a promise that meant more than the simple statement.

‘To visit the halls of your adar, or to seek to establish a home with me?’

She moved closer and touched her lips to his, sliding her cold hand under his hair to cup his neck. ‘Both, if you wish it.  My adar will be most interested to come to know you.’ She smiled. ‘And I have lived long enough with a Sindar to long for a home among trees, my lord, in preference to any stone tower. What is more, I have long found the chief compensation for our separations to be the reunions that follow.  My dearest wish is for us to build a new haven in these lands.’

He drew her closer and the heat of his kisses ignited the fire within her.  ‘I do not know if I will be happy here,’ he warned her.

‘You may be unhappy if that is your desire, my lord,’ she told him, ‘as long as you are here with me.’

‘I may yet be compelled to reconcile myself to my arrival,’ he murmured, burying his hands in the liquid gold of her hair as his mouth sought hers. ‘I refuse to have you humouring me like a wayward child.’

It was some time before their conversation resumed. ‘And speaking of children,’ he continued, ‘I have, as yet, seen little of our daughter.  How is she?’

There was a brightening of Galadriel’s eyes. ‘She is well, my lord.  When I arrived, weary, and grieved for our parting, it was a joy to see her restored to the Celebrian we held in our hearts.  With Elrond’s coming, she was complete – and although she longed for her sons, she never lost her belief that they would join her in their own time.’

‘Arwen?’

‘She misses her – but she has a better understanding of the choice she made than Elrond will ever attain, for all his wisdom.’

‘I would wish to remain with her for some while and enjoy her company.’   

‘That will be possible, my lord,’ Galadriel teased him. ‘I am sure she will not object to the presence of her adar.’

They stilled, watching the shift of light and shadow, feeling the soft drift of breeze, breathing the scent of green and growing things, as the leaves whispered and the birds sang.  Celeborn spoke suddenly.  ‘The very air here is filled with peace and life and the – essence of timelessness.  I begin to understand better what you wished to foster in the groves of Lothlorien, although I suspect the echo of this place aggravated your longing for the West at least as much as it soothed it.’

She turned to look at him.  ‘I am no longer so certain that I was right to encourage the Golden Wood to take on the qualities it did,’ she admitted.  ‘It was a haven, true, but it functioned by excluding the rest of the world and it could not begin to withstand the failure of Nenya.  Imladris welcomed those who sought its aid – and survived the loss of Vilya better for that.  Thranduil had no ring of power and his lands remained his beyond the ending of the time of the elves.’

‘I should ask you to repeat that,’ Celeborn smiled. ‘I have so rarely heard you acknowledge that your decisions may have been wrong.’

She prodded him warningly.  ‘I am only considering it as a possibility,’ she told him with dignity.

Celeborn regarded her seriously.  ‘It is easy to look back and say how things should have been done differently, my love, but we do what seems best at the time.  You know that I felt the rings should not have been used – that they would have been better destroyed – but we cannot know what would have resulted from that choice. You made your decision – despite my rather forcefully expressed disapproval, you put forward your arguments and held to them.  You did nothing on impulse, Galadriel, and you may well have been right.   The sheltered fortresses of Lothlorien and Imladris enabled the elves to keep hope alive and maintain their presence in Middle Earth until Sauron was defeated.  The warriors of Mirkwood fought long and bravely, but theirs was a losing battle.  Only the courage and resilience of the Ringbearer brought them unlooked-for victory.’  He touched her cheek.  ‘Do not waste energy speculating on what might have been, my lady.  We succeeded against all odds, and we are here.  Let us enjoy what we have.’

‘Celeborn the Wise,’ she sighed, settling her head against his shoulder. ‘Who named you that?’

‘I always suspected that it was you,’ he said dryly. ‘I cannot imagine anyone else spreading such an unsubstantiated rumour.’

‘If that were the case, it must certainly be true.’  She turned her head to glance up at him.  ‘After all, I am gifted with foresight, remember.’

He drew a breath to reply, but released it without speaking, realising suddenly that he was happier than he could recall having been in centuries.  Not only was his daughter well and content, but he was reunited with someone who was to him far more than wife and lover: she was his partner – his equal in hard experience, possessed of resolute intelligence, fierce determination, indomitable courage and unconquerable passion, the person with whom he had shared the events of ages and endured both success and failure, who would challenge his complacency, yet defend him with ferocity. 

‘I have missed you,’ he remarked finally. ‘I cannot understand why I allowed our separation to continue so long.’

‘Duty, my lord.’  Galadriel took his hand in hers, stroking his palm with her thumb until he closed his fingers to still it. ‘Duty and thoroughness.  You came when it felt right – and I am only too delighted that you left before it was too late.’  She raised their clasped hands to her cheek.  ‘I am glad you were accompanied by our grandsons. I was afraid that they would choose to remain.’

‘Elladan might have done at one time,’ he answered, ‘out of pure contrariness, save that no-one put any pressure on him to make a decision either way.  Elrohir always wanted to join his parents, which in itself was likely to influence his brother.’  He drew her hand back to kiss it gently. ‘They have long been too old and too experienced to be ready to choose a mortal life without the inspiration of a love as consuming as Arwen’s.  For all their affinity with men, they are elves and this is where they belong.’  He paused. ‘It saddened them to see their sister’s line beginning to forget her and observe generations growing up to whom she was only a name and a legend.  It made them understand the limitations of the choice.  Then, in the end,’ he sighed, ‘in the end it became a fight to leave – for us to reach the sea at all – and that in itself made it something they wished to achieve.  They will be well.’

‘Did you stay for them?  Or did they remain longer for your benefit?’

Celeborn considered. ‘Probably both,’ he concluded sadly.  ‘None of us really wanted to surrender our connection with Arda and none of us wanted to be the one to state the obvious.  At the last,’ he said with some surprise still evident in his voice, ‘it was Thranduil who made the final decision.’

Her eyes met his searchingly as he exhaled deliberately, releasing his distress at the memories. Silently, she offered him her strength and opened her mind to him, filling him with welcome and love.  ‘I should make a point of thanking him,’ she said with relish, turning the subject. ‘He would be most uncomfortable.’   

He snorted. ‘How many centuries have you spent irritating each other?  Do you not think you should have outgrown it by now?’

‘We count it in ages rather than centuries,’ she replied. ‘And he does not irritate me, not really.  I could like your cousin, were he not so clearly hostile to my company.’  Her slow smile revealed her amusement. ‘You cannot blame me for provoking him, my lord. He asks for it – and it affords me considerable entertainment.’

‘I should lock you in a room together until you both learn to behave,’ he observed, releasing her hand in order to enfold her in his arms.

‘That would be most improper,’ she informed him primly, eyes dancing, as she turned towards him and slid her hand under his tunic.   

‘And propriety is, of course, the prime motivation of your life,’ Celeborn nodded as his hands caressed her, causing her to catch her breath.  ‘I have long observed it.’  

‘I am sure you have, my lord,’ she laughed, bringing her mouth to meet his.

Conversation forgotten, they lost themselves in the remembered pleasures of the senses. ‘Galadriel,’ he sighed eventually, his voice echoed by the rustle of leaves and the ripple of water as the land responded to their presence and returned their warmth. ‘Galadriel.’ 

They rested on their bed of moss, cradled by the ancient tree that shaded them from the sun, bathed in the song of life surrounding them.  Shafts of light descended through the canopy, illuminating tufts of grass and patches of flowers, as if pointing out nature’s gifts to any there to see.

‘I sense a lightness of spirit about you that has not been there for many years.’ Celeborn said.

She tilted her head, her hair falling over her shoulder.  ‘That may be,’ she mused. ‘I had not noticed – but the Blessed Realm provides healing whether you wish to take it or not.  I have had little work and no responsibility for a long time.  And you are here, my husband, and that is enough in itself to lift my heart.’

‘Foolishness,’ he replied, and kissed her.

‘Then let us be fools together, my lord,’ she told him, moving closer to settle beside him.  ‘No-one will miss us for a while.’

He took her hand, stroking her fingers reflectively, but his tension revealed him to be less at ease and conveyed more anxiety than longing. ‘What worries you, Celeborn?’ she asked gently.

He glanced at her, then lowered his eyes to their joined hands.  ‘I dread idleness, my lady,’ he murmured. ‘To be abandoned to a life of useless indolence, far from home, compelled to live out endless centuries with no purpose to my days, bowing my head to some ancient lordling who has never suffered the effects of the Shadow.’

‘That will not happen,’ she insisted.  ‘Trust me – you will find tasks suited to your talents.’

‘Then why do you remain here still, wasting yourself in inactivity?’

She sighed.  ‘Perhaps bearing Nenya left me with greater injury than I suspected – and I know that I was sorely in need of your presence.  I have not been ready to move on, although when the time comes, I will feel it.’  She turned and shifted so that their eyes were on a level. ‘Believe me, my lord.  There is space enough and a readiness for us to begin again when we are ready.  There are many who have sworn loyalty to you, who will follow wherever you will lead.  There are virgin forests, even here, that have never seen an elf and would welcome us and offer us shelter.  Listen to the song of these lands and let it bring you comfort and remedy your hurts.  This is not where you were born, Prince of Doriath, but it is the home for which you have been searching, if you will allow it to be.’

He did not reply, but, as twilight softened the edges of the glade and closed away the outside world, he reached out to her and pulled her close, while, high above the canopy of trees, in the centre of a small patch of navy sky, jewel-bright, gleamed the promise of the Evening Star.