Celeborn crouched on a tree branch above the white awning of the Fellowship's pavilion. He had put forth his power, and not even his own people would have seen him there, his weight not bowing the slender limb, his clothes grey as the stems of the trees and his hair like a glimpse of pearl sky through the fluttering leaves.

Frodo walked a little away from the others, weighed by a heavy doom, increasingly seeking solitude and silence, in which to die a little... or to grow into something the Ring would accept for itself. It would be an easy matter to stroll beside the Perian a while, unobtrusively take him somewhere private, engineer a situation in which he would see no better choice than to offer Celeborn the Ring.

And if Frodo had learned better than to try and offload the precious thing on every passing stranger, well, his offering was not needed. Celeborn could take.

***

The voice of the Ring was subtle and beguiling as Annatar's voice had been, when they walked together in the sunset of Ost-in-Edhil; the sky torn asunder with splendour, full of flying red and russet clouds. The snow upon the peaks of Celebdil, Fanuilos and Caradhras turned them into mirrors of Anor's falling light - mountains of fire.

"I know not how you can bear her sharp tongue," the tall Maia had said, contemplatively, and it seemed the sun had found her twin in him, for he glowed with a kindly, golden light. It hurt, almost, to look upon his perfection, and that was one of the reasons Celeborn was wary of him. The Lord of Eregion had never yet met anyone who was entirely perfect - no, not even those he most adored - and he distrusted its appearance. "She does not hide her scorn for me. Perhaps she has no reason to; no loyalty, no duty toward the Maia, though she learned enough from Melian and others.

"Yet towards you she has a duty, surely - to support your Lordship, nor to criticize your decisions and thoughts in public, making herself loved at your expense."

He turned a look of great sympathy on Celeborn, as Finrod once had, telling him he would grow to resent Galadriel's greatness. "Does it not grieve you that folk regard her and disregard you? Does it not irk you in the slightest, to be so forgotten, so disdained?"

They stood on the balcony of the Mirdain's hall, whence Celeborn had gone to try and discuss the gem-smith's new projects with Celebrimbor, only to find himself gently, inexorably, handed off to the Lord of Gifts.

If Galadriel had been open in her dislike for Annatar, so Annatar, though unfailingly courteous to her, smarmily so, had always been dismissive of him. It was a new experience for Celeborn to find himself the focus of the Maia's light filled amber gaze. A test, he thought, but also a chance for me to test him.

"She is the most powerful elf of Arda." Smiling down on the white domes and fountains of the city as one telling an unflattering truth, he shrugged; a guileless, rustic grey-elf, without the depth or strength of one of the Exiles. "Suppose you found a great weapon, stronger than anything else on this earth... Would you want it in the hands of your foes, or in your own?"

"My own, of course."

"Well then," said Celeborn, knowing there was enough truth in what he said for Annatar to sense it in him. "Better to have her as my ally than my enemy."

Annatar stepped back, his godly face looking surprised. "I was expecting a declaration of love," he said - a truth so obvious it was equivalent to keeping silence. In his eyes there was a new expression; a re-evaluation of possibilities, something approaching respect. "I had heard before that you were wise, yet this is the first time I have seen it for myself. True. If you cannot gain the eagle's power, at least tame it to fly to your hand. You may, after all, be interested in my work here."

***

"I am," said Celeborn, and started, hearing the sound of his own voice. Where was he? In Eregion with the Lord of Gifts, or in Lorien, ghosting invisible through the air, looking down on the curly brown hair of the Ringbearer's bowed head? His mouth was as dry as though he had breathed in the fire of an ancient sunset, and he remembered that - though Annatar's reply had confirmed all his misgivings - it had still been good to be accepted as a person in his own right, not merely as the oafish native husband of Galadriel.

And no one would dare think that of you, ever again, if the Ring were on your hand.

This time the voice was not like Annatar's. This time it was like his own.

He considered it; a Sindar future for Middle-earth, as it should have been, as it once was, when all the peoples between mountains and the Sea were ruled by Thingol; when Men were allies of the elves, not their replacements; when Dwarves too were friends and work mates, ere they proved their friendship concealed base betrayal and murder.

Or he could pay them back for that, once and for all.

Why not? Why not build a new Menegroth in honour of the old? Why should not the last full-elven lord of Thingol's line take up Thingol's crown and restore that which had been unjustly ripped from his people - the rule of Ennor.

The first thing he would do, when he put the Ring on, would be to command all orcs over the surface of the earth to die. No more war; no more killing or grief, just an order they could not help but obey. No other father would have to go through what he experienced when Celebrian was taken. No other child would ever suffer so. It was almost a moral duty.

He would say to his Lady; 'We will make this land into a second Valinor for glory, all things will be healed. You will never need to leave me now.' And they would rule together, radiant and beloved, like Thingol and Melian...

Yes. Galadriel could become like Melian - who would not speak out against her husband, nor ever thwart his will or word. Annatar was right. She had a duty of love and support towards him, which too often she had neglected, in favour of expecting him to provide these things to her. Was it not about time she learned to give more than she received?

Annatar was right?

He stirred uncomfortably on the bough. A breeze played, coldly teasing, with the locks of hair which had slipped from his plait, but his heart was touched by colder fingers yet. His spirit felt heavy and compressed within him; as a diver feels who goes too deep into the lightless water.

Sauron was right?

Panic filled him for a moment, as a man who thinks he is drowning flails in fear. Holy stars! Were these truly his thoughts? To pay back a murder long avenged with genocide? To cheat Aragorn of his hoped for crown and kingdom? To force his wife to obey him as though she were a slave, depriving her of final absolution and homecoming?

If Melian had only spoken out to gainsay Elu's will in the matter of Beren, they might both still be here today, he thought, with an ancient, poignant grief. A truer love and support she would have shown him by leading him out of error.

It hurt to be criticized in public, that he knew - for it had been a hard thing to apologize to a dwarf. But better so, than to be allowed to continue in an injustice. What fool would gag his best and most loving councillor? Not he.

And that he could, without the Ring even in his hand, contemplate wiping one of the Free Peoples from the face of the earth - innocents, allies, yes even - possibly - friends. One evil done so long ago spawning such another... It took little wisdom to see, with such a beginning, how terrible the end would be.

Even the desire of it corrupts the heart.

No. He sighed and stood up, felt the heartbeat of the tree under his hand; the pulse of sap and heartwood, readying new leaves, and all at once his chest ached with pain and loss. This was a mallorn, straight and grey, crowned with gold. Most beautiful of all trees, symbol of the love he and his wife shared. It would not long survive the unmaking of the ring. Neither would long survive it.

On impulse, he put both of his arms about the tree trunk and set his cheek against the smooth, silvery bark. At once the tree's presence reached out to him; it bore him up with its strength, and it became unclear who was holding whom. Its roots were deep, its thoughts clear as clean water, but it was old. Years gnawed at it like woodworm, and only Nenya's power gave it strength to ready for another spring.

I am abandoning you to death, he thought. If I do not take the Ring, I doom you. I sentence all this land to death. And myself to spend the rest of time alone.

Why did it always come to this? Why was he always condemned to live, when everything he loved was lost?

A bitter laughter escaped him, no less harsh for being almost silent. Why was it like this? Because it was. Needless was the grief of spirit caused by hoping it could be any other way.

All other choices were worse.

Silently, mind to mind, he summoned the guard he had brought with him. A shade detached itself from a nearby oak and flowed through the moving branches to his side, revealing itself at last to be Nethron, one of his silvan scouts.

'You know what you are to do?'

'Yes, Lord. I and my companions will protect the Perian from all threat so long as he remains in our land. No one shall take whatever is his, even if he offers it.'

Good, Celeborn thought, nodding in satisfaction. Remembering that the barbed steel tips of three arrows would be trained on him - did he come too close - would aid him in keeping to this resolve.

'Have an eye on the Man of Gondor. My Lady tells me he... wavers.'

If Boromir had the strength to pull back from Sauron's lure of his own will, he should never have to bear the dishonour of knowing himself suspected. No elven mouth would then reveal it, until the end of time. Yet courtesy was one thing and recklessness another. So long as he knew a threat existed, Celeborn refused to take no practical steps to meet it. Secret though his precautions might be, he would at least act in his own realm to keep Frodo safe.

'Have an eye too on the Lady, and myself.'

Nethron stood a little straighter, his grey eyes shocked 'Lord I could not! Loose upon you? Upon the Lady Galadriel? I could not!'

'I do not ask you to kill, Celeborn said, looking down at where Frodo had curled up in the roots of the mallorn. He was weeping silently, soaking up the tears with the scuffed, threadbare cuff of his coat, doubtless having gone aside to mourn for Mithrandir unobserved.

It seemed wrong thus to spy on him when he thought he was alone, but it was at just such a moment when he would be most vulnerable. The Dark Lord had few niceties, and did not scruple to attack when his opponents were weakest. 'You will aim to disable and distract. So that I - or it may be she - will have time to do what needs be done ere the other recovers.'

'If I only understood...' Nervously, Nethron pulled the fletchings of an arrow through his fingers - making a sound like the claws of squirrels on bark - as he looked for a certainty against which to weigh this seeming disloyalty.

Looking at the earnest young face - for here was an elf to whom Amroth was mere legend - Celeborn felt again a rush of fury that he should have to allow the vile Ring to enter his realm at all, pose such a danger to his people. 'Is it not enough that I command it? Must I explain all my thoughts to you, my servant?

But seeing the youth flinch, then recover; a look of steel - a determination to prove himself or die - hardening his mist coloured eyes, Celeborn caught himself again. How this thing had him on edge! He was not fit to live with. Softening, he reached out to clasp the scout's arm in wordless apology.

'If you understood, you too would be in peril.'

The look of self sacrificing ferocity flashed into a smile. 'I will do as you ask, Lord,' said Nethron, 'And hope you are still of the same mind after, when my arrow stands out from your knee-cap.'

'Valar permitting it will not come to that,' Celeborn grinned, turning his mind to thoughts of the swiftest way to get the Company out of Lorien if it did prove vital to part his Lady from the Ring by force.

'Valar permitting, you will have a long, tedious watch over nothing, and your part in the great tale of this Quest will remain unknown and untold. As is the way of many needful deeds in this world.'

Yet if he had been reluctant to let the Ring within Lorien, Galadriel had not. Too happy, she seemed to him, too excited by its presence. He had not defied gods and spent his life in the search for power. He had not practised the use of ring-magic, nor jousted in tests of strength with Sauron, as if in preparation for a final battle. She had. If the Ring spoke to him, it was folly not to suppose it would speak to her more strongly, recognizing a mind already trained to its use.

'I pray these preparations will prove unnecessary, a secret known only to we four. But it does not hurt to be ready for the worst.'

After all, with the Noldor, the worst so often happened.

'Just in case.'