It was the cold hour before dawn, when clouded night seems least likely ever to end, and the heartbeat of Arda stills, poised between past and future. The woods were silent, and the thousand caves of Menegroth lay quiet beneath slumber. In the guarded chamber of the King and Queen, adamants studded the ceiling, gleaming with their own faint light. Tapestries of bright scenes flickered on the walls - Valar and Maia in youthful joy, dancing to honour the Lamps; the sapling Trees - and, under a cover of cloth of gold, Elu Thingol lay beside his wife and dreamed.

He was bodiless, and wound among the trees of Region like a wisp of winter's frost. A dread was on him that did not loose when he heard his daughter's voice, singing a prattle of childish words, in a sweet, unformed voice. There she sat; by the edge of a pool, darkness all around, her black hair tangled and spilling about her smooth, round face. She grew up to look like a star, but in those days she had been most like the full moon; her face alight with a child's wonder. Her eyes sparkled, and the perfect pink bow of her mouth was always wide in a grin which showed at least one lost tooth. His breath caught, seeing her. Such small hands! Her arms were barely wider than his two fingers; the bare feet which kicked with laughing abandon at the water, breaking starlight into fountains, would both have fitted into one palm. Yet her spirit! Her spirit filled Doriath with laughter. The bare earth put forth Niphredil where she walked, in sheer delight at her passing. And he... his chest ached at the thought that anything might harm her. If she fell and grazed her knee, she would be up and dancing again long ere her father could persuade himself to stop raging at the world. How dare it! His little girl. His Luthien. He would go to his grave before he would see her hurt.

Now a nightmare prescience came upon him. He could feel the approach of something, some monstrous thing, dark in the impenetrable shade of the starlit woods; cold, dragon like, unstoppable as destiny. Luthien! he wanted to call, Luthien, run away. Quickly! But he was bodiless as a winter wind and his shout of panic did not even whisper in the silence. The little girl laughed, heedless, as the branches swayed and the monster crept closer.

A weight was on his chest, he could not breathe, he could not move as he watched the thing emerge from cover. Harmless enough, it looked - a strange, but graceful cross between elf and dwarf. With the unquestioned knowing of dreams he perceived what it was: a Follower, one of the Secondborn children of Iluvatar, whose coming into the world had not yet been accomplished. A Man.

Innocent, it would have seemed, but for the fear. There was a smile on its face as if it too were enchanted with the child, but he could feel the darkness, the death that followed it like a reeking stench. Luthien! He could not breathe; his mouth was stopped, and again she did not hear his warning cry; leaping lightly to little feet and turning to face the intruder with all the impudent curiosity of her unstained young heart. The fearlessness of innocence shone brightly in her wide eyes.

The thing came close to her and touched her with its dirty hands, lifting her up as though it understood what a treasure she was. Such a look of adoration she gave it in return that, even amid horror, a red spike of jealousy and fury went through him. Mine! She is mine. Do not touch her! And then; reverently, as though in worship to some sick god, gently, with love, the creature's big hands closed about her neck. The snap of her spine breaking startled crows into the air, made Elu scream, silent, enraged, helpless. The thing dropped his daughter on the dirt, like a splintered twig, and she lay utterly still.

His heart stopped, and the world fell away from him, revealing itself to be a thin layer of light above descending depths of anguish. He drew close and saw with agony her perfect face empty, her lively spirit...gone. Broken, and with it all the light in the world. What use was life, or song, or tree, what use was wealth or crown, or stars or sea, if Luthien had ceased to be? None! He reached out, gathered the little body into arms that had not been strong enough to save her, and looked into oblivion. This could not be. This would not be. No!

"NO!" He woke weeping. Twisted into his sheets, trembling and sobbing, inconsolable. Cold seeped outwards from his soul, making his skin and his clenched fists icy. Gritting the words out between his teeth, as he struggled to stop the shameful tears, the terror that did not become a king, least of all the king of guarded Doriath, he told himself, "It was just a dream. Just a dream. It is not real."

Faltering towards steadiness, his heart beat again, and he forced his laboured breathing to slow. Reaching out, he had flung the heavy golden cover off him before he knew he was moving, swung his legs out of bed, driven, haunted. He had to go now to his daughter's room and make sure she still lived. He would stand beneath the door frame, as he had done of old, and just watch her breathe, marvel at the drowned, blissful innocence of her sleep and reassure himself that she was well. If it would keep her safe, he would stand there forever, between her and the world. Let all the harm fall on him, and pass her by!

"My Lord?" Melian roused from what passed for sleep with her. Her voice was soft with slumber and concern, intimate in the darkness. "What ails thee?"

Thwarted, he shook his head, put elbows on knees, sitting disconsolate on the edge of the bed. Lowering his head into his hands, he sighed - still a hitch in the smooth outflow of breath. He was such a fool! Nothing evil could come through the Fence of Doriath. Melian would never permit into her land any creature which would hurt her daughter. He was just ...being stupid. "Forgive me," he said, as lightly as he could manage - his voice yet tight with unreasoning, unbearable sorrow. "Only a bad dream. I had a nightmare, nothing more."

Her slim hand came to rest on his back, gentling the knotted muscles. "If it is a true dream it will come many times. If it comes but once, then it is a phantom thing of no account, which you should not let yourself be troubled with. Go back to sleep and see."

Appalled, he shifted swiftly to face her. It could be true? How could it be true?

She leaned up on one elbow, her braided hair in a long rope of shimmering sable behind her, her face as fair as spilled starlight and song, and her body lying at rest, glimmering among white sheets. She was so fair, so radiant, so wise, she did not deserve to have this doubt placed on her. Though he wanted to speak, and be comforted, he wanted more not to give her pain. So little he was able to protect her. This at least she should not carry.

"Yes," he said, and smiled weakly. "I am too old to be so affected by night fears. I will do as you say." And he lay back down, gathering her into his arms. She curled softly into him, the glossy darkness of her hair tucked beneath his chin, and her breathing regular and warm against his collarbone.

"Sleep well then, my lord," she murmured, smiling against his skin, and by slow degrees relaxed into sweet slumber, profoundly content. But Elu lay awake all night, looking open eyed into the darkness. He did not know if he would ever dare sleep again.

It was a fine day in the middle of winter, bright and crisp, and Celeborn felt he had been too long underground. He noted down the scout's estimate of Maedhros' army in Himring on an old parchment map, which had been used for following the fortunes of the Noldor since they arrived nigh on five hundred years ago. The numbers increased. The ring of fortresses which encircled the Dark Lord's stronghold in Thangorodrim - the Hell of Udun - grew stronger. Behind them, despite their avowed intention of taking vengeance to Morgoth's door, the Noldor had settled and planted cities, too busy raising crops and children to give a thought to their initial purpose.

What was it Angrod said, he thought, amused. 'Fainthearted loiterers who have dwelled with evil for thousands of years without assaulting it. He did not need approval for Doriath's policy of thwarting evil by leading lives of brightness, rather than by dying in battle, but still it was pleasant to see that even the most aggressive of elves preferred to create - new life, new communities - than to deal in death. They are not so different from us, though they might wish to think so.

The scout - a young elleth named Gilwen - sighed, gazing up at the vaulted ceiling, her eyes focused on the painted sky as if she hoped for the clouds to move. Yawning, she rocked back on her heels, pressed lichen-greened palms to her eyes. Celeborn cleared his throat and saw with inward laughter how she straightened, shocked and alarmed, looked down to find her prince's eyes on her, expecting reproach. "Forgive me, Lord, I..."

"It is airless in here, isn't it? Come, we'll finish this outside."

Outside, ice lay on the trees, and each twig was crusted with diamonds. The Hirilorn - the mightiest beech tree of Doriath - was a living tower of white brilliance above them, her roots embedded in the soil over Menegroth, as though she held together the many caves, her bare spread of limbs seeming to support the deep blue intensity of the sky. Winter sun lay palest gold on the forest, and all things were fresh in her light. Where she shone unobscured there was a faint warmth, and a patter of flashing droplets fell from the trees to re-freeze when they met shade. Fugitive rainbows danced among the branches, wan and near invisible, save to elvish sight.

Feeling the ground crunch underfoot, the invigorating chill, Celeborn wanted to laugh, but settled for smiling, lest he disconcert his messenger any more. "You say that Fingolfin was urging the Noldor to make war on Morgoth, but that he could not get his people to agree to it?"

"All but Aegnor and Angrod, yes. The sons of Feanor were most set against it. They... prosper in these lands. Indeed it is said Caranthir Feanorion lies on a bed of gold like a dragon."

At Celeborn's snort, the scout laughed ruefully, aware that she was not employed for her flights of fancy. "It is only said," she clarified, unrepentant, "I have not - you understand - entered his chamber to check."

"Ware then how you speak," Celeborn laughed in return, "or I might be so struck with curiosity as to demand that you do." He had left the maps within, unwilling to subject them to the shivering fall of silver droplets, but it mattered not. His mind had been trained before the cirth and the tengwar; trained to remember songs and history and lore as a bard remembers them - he did not have to rely on marks on parchment. Hearing the rest of Gilwen's report as they walked together, enjoying the brisk, bright scent of winter, he committed the facts and figures, the roll call of military outposts and numbers to memory, to be written down later, if it seemed needful. There was little here that Elu had to know at once, and some he would doubtless rather not have brought to his attention at all.

"You returned through Brethil?"

"Yes, Lord."

"How fare the people of Haleth?"

"They do well also," Gilwen said, with a small scrunching up of her face which Celeborn could not fathom - disapproval? Dislike? Or a mere visceral discomfort with the presence of a people so alien? Though in other kingdoms the Quendi might have grown used to the strangeness of Men, Doriath had shunned them. For some reason, Thingol would not permit a single Man within the boundaries of the Fenced land, on pain of death. The knowledge had bred both fascination and revulsion. For Celeborn's part, he would have liked at least to see one. Yet Elu had knowledge his subjects did not have, and undoubtedly knew best, as he so often did.

"They breed like orcs," said Gilwen suddenly. "A child a year! And not all the children live to grow up. Their women die giving birth. Their men die of..." she gestured helplessly at the falling ice, the biting, refreshing wind, almost angry, "being out in the weather! How can a race survive - so fragile, so dogged with death?"

"They breed like salmon then, in the hope that one or two will survive out of the many," said Celeborn, trying not to be disturbed by the thought, or at the very least trying not to show it. He need not have troubled to hide his reaction though, it was too clearly shared.

"How could that be - in a speaking people?" Gilwen cried, now clearly distressed. "How could Iluvatar have intended such a thing, or the Belain permit it?"

"I am no loremaster," Celeborn turned the conversation back to the matter at hand. These waters were too deep. "You must ask Daeron, if you can find him. But apart from their inherent sickliness the Halathrim prosper? Do they need anything which we can provide?"

"Only the solid protection of Doriath at their back." At this return to safer ground, the scout recovered from the trouble of her faith with a smile. "Otherwise they are too proud to ask for aught. They are numerous enough and martial enough to hold the Crossings of Teiglin, and want no more than to be left in peace for the service. It was a good decision of the King's, to allow them to settle there, though he may hate them."

"It was a decision made in compassion," Celeborn said sharply. "No mere tactical ploy. Though Thingol will not have Men within the Fence, it does not mean he has no regard for them."

Unbidden, he remembered the day Finrod had come, bursting with the tidings that the Secondborn Children of Iluvatar were found. Finrod was obviously delighted - the tale overflowed from him like too generous a measure in too small a cup - how this lord and that had taken followers and servants from among the Edain, how he himself had spent time with them and learned their language, and grown to love them. How Haleth and her people desired to settle in Brethil, on the very borders of Doriath, and had asked Finrod to negotiate for them. By the end of this speech, Elu had worked himself up into annoyance, but Celeborn had been watching closely, and had marked how the king's face paled at the news. If he had slammed his goblet down on the table, it was only to disguise the trembling of his hand. The flame of his eyes had been dimmed with fear for days after.

This was no irrational dislike, Celeborn observed, but something far deeper. Seeing that moment of terror, he honoured Elu more, much more, for the decision to allow Haleth's refugee people to settle nearby. They had no claim on him but pity, and he dreaded their presence, but still he said yes.

"Nor should you say again that the King hates his allies. It is both unpolitic and untrue. I do not know what lies behind his ban, but it is not that."

"As you say, my Lord," Gilwen agreed instantly. At the tone in Celeborn's voice she could not have done otherwise. But she was unabashed, and sighed openly with relief at the knowledge that her report was made, her job done, and there only remained dismissal between herself and her home. Glad himself to have the chance of a moment's reflection - before he had to return to a dispute between the Laegrim and one of Oropher's folk, over the cutting of firewood - Celeborn let her go and walked on alone.

The sunlight broadened, and ice began to wisp away into skeins of shimmering steam. Deeper into the woods he went, where paths ended amid briars and russet bracken. There seemed a glory in the air, and all of Doriath put on beauty like a maiden adorning herself with jewels for her lover. Each drop of water, each softening snowflake were more than they seemed, enhanced into exquisite perfection. The cerulean sky was the colour of joy. The air tasted of happiness.

Pushing through a stand of holly, whose leaves were glossy and green despite winter's cold, whose berries were a flare of fire through the twists of silver vapour, Celeborn at last realized that what he was perceiving was music. A wild, chill, exultant melody insinuated itself among the trees, laying enchantment over all. Sweet notes of the flute, elusive, pure, crystalline bright, flooded from the densest, most tangled of thickets, as Yavanna must once have poured out life, and each new refrain was a fresh revelation.

Celeborn's step faltered, and for a while - he had no idea how long - he merely stood, the music spilling benediction over him. Forgetting everything but harmony and bliss, he found himself passing deeper into the grove, murmuring to the stubborn, spiky leaves to turn aside. The writhing, iron hard branches lifted and swayed apart for him, recognizing him, and he paused to lay a hand in thanks on the moss-green trunks at the centre of the tangle.

Here the wind was still, and the ground dry. Within the leaves the older growth had died back, leaving a dim, round chamber, where nothing was visible of the outside world save dazzle and endless movement - a dome of fluttering stars. There Daeron sat, perched on a branch, one leg wound under him, the other outstretched. His loose hair was a wealth of shadows about his shoulders, his pale, dreaming face lichen smudged. Delicate as a songbird he looked, fawn-shy, making a music for which the whole world might worship him, but doing it from hiding.

There came a phrase like... like the shimmering of a thousand shooting stars, and Celeborn caught his breath at the rapture of it. At the small gasp, Daeron startled out of his creative trance, falling silent, his eyes flying open, his face defensive, as though he expected to be told he should not have been making so much noise. Around him the needled leaves rustled, proving to be full of robins and ravens, jays and jackdaws, songthrushes and nightingales, which had gathered to listen and now stirred, disappointed.

Seeing that his listener was Celeborn, the minstrel smiled. "Is it good enough for her, do you think?"

This was for Luthien? It was very different from the smoky melancholy of earlier works. Intrigued and exasperated together - for it escaped him how Daeron could not see that his gift was as sublime as the stars, the epitome of what it was to be Lindar - he said, "it would move the mountains themselves to dance. She would be a fool not to adore it."

Finding a springy branch, he climbed up to sit among the yield and bounce of wood, the holly humouring him in its black, ironic way. The minstrel's avian audience ruffed their wings resentfully at him and began to fly away. "I have not seen you of late," he said, pleased by this meeting. "For the past year or so you have been elusive as the breeze. Tell me your news."

Daeron looked aside, embarrassed. His smile sweetened, and the white cheeks blushed a faint hint of rose. "I have... Luthien..." He breathed in, and out, as if nerving himself for peril, then gathered his courage and looked at Celeborn with shining eyes. "Luthien likes to dance in the woods in Neldoreth. She asked me to play for her." He shook his head, marvelling at his fortune, at this mark of favour. "We go together - just we two, and I pipe, but she...she makes the music come alive. You should see the way she..."

He made a sweeping gesture - like flight, like the curve of a waterfall, and frowned at the inadequacy of his words. "She knows what the music is saying. She understands! She has taken what I have only sketched and made it live in grace and power..." There was something of the lament of genius, the solitude of one so different, so alone in a populous world, in the way he repeated, in awe, "she understands."

So! thought Celeborn, struck with sympathetic delight, this was a change indeed. Luthien was not cruel, she would not single out Daeron for her companionship, dance for him, give him such encouragement, without some dawning of regard herself. Surely she would not, knowing how he felt? No. He could not believe her so blind. It seemed more likely that at last she had noticed how the mightiest bard of all Elvendom became as a stammering, love struck youth in her presence, and she was, gently, encouraging him to speak. "I am happy for you," he grinned. "All the more so because, if Luthien is wed to one so suitable, there will be less reason for Doriath to rue my own strange match. I pray you be swift, for Galadriel grows impatient with me. Four hundred years is long enough to wait, she says."

Daeron laughed, and blushed harder. "It is not... It is not like that," he said, but his eyes were full of pleasure at the jest, and his music, his new happiness, all said that he hoped very much that it was.

"Of course not," Celeborn leapt down from his branch - he was already late, and doubtless there was shrieking in the corridors of Menegroth, the two factions at full volume in an empty courtroom. "Yet a double wedding sounds a fine idea to me. Midsummer is a good time." Clapping Daeron lightly on the shoulder, he walked away, smiling to himself. It seemed that, after long denial, endless delay, things were about to turn out well for both of them.

"It is said that in all these matters (the coming of Men) none save Finrod Felagund took counsel with King Thingol, and he was ill pleased, both for that reason, and because he was troubled by dreams concerning the coming of Men, ere ever the first tidings of them were heard." - 'Of the Coming of Men into the West'; The Silmarillion.

Nothing more is said about Thingol's prophetic dreams, in the Silmarillion. He doesn't seem to have told anyone what they were about. But it seemed to me that they could well explain a lot of things.