In the West

Emmelin cleared the dead leaves away from the base of the tree and examined the fungus.  Its spores had settled where the branch had been torn away and the fruiting heads were well-grown now.  She sighed.  It would not harm the tree – and the fruits would provide food for the elves and forest creatures – but she did not like to see damage such as this.  It always seemed to her to contradict the idea of the Undying Lands as a place where no harm could come to any.  But then, she brooded, had she ever really thought that could be true?

She had allowed herself to be brought west; her despair so great that she had not cared if she lived or died – but if she had ever expected to find her love waiting for her on these shores, she had been rapidly disabused of the idea.  Námo’s Halls were named the Halls of Waiting, she thought bitterly, but what were these lands of supposed bliss if not the place where so many of her kind waited in the vain hope of reunions that never seemed to come?

Her daernaneth’s bright glow of expectation had dimmed on the crowded quay, as distant kin had drawn many into their care and they had been left among those unclaimed, handed over to the compassionate charge of some who had heard their story so many times and whose answers had proved to have more to do with belief than evidence.  Elowen had paled further as months had passed contained in cool stone walls – but at least that had forced her granddaughter to push aside her own grief in order to seek for them both a home that would comfort them by its familiarity.

Emmelin looked around her.  They were not her trees, she sighed, but they were trees – and the small cottage in which they dwelt had taken on the look and smell of home.  But she missed her adar and naneth, finding their lack left a gap more nagging even than Sinnarn’s.  His loss was a chasm, rending her heart, but without them there was a constant melody missing from the song around her.  And Elowen felt their absence even more.  They had been taken from the place they belonged and abandoned in a strange land, among foreign groves, where even the stars were alien and nothing, nothing would ever make it better.

They should have stayed, Emmelin sighed.  At least there, at home among the shadowed trees, she knew she could have made a difference; would have had something to fight; something to protect.  Who knew if her parents would ever sail – or whether they, too, would fall in the endless struggle against the spreading darkness and rest in the Halls of Mandos for years uncounted until the end of days? 

Her slender hands detached some of the fungi efficiently without bruising the remainder.  Daernaneth would appreciate them and they would add flavour to the stewed rabbit and fresh greens that would be waiting for her when she got back.  She thrust them into the bag she carried and rose, slinging it over her shoulder.  She had best return now – after all these seasons, Elowen still disliked having her granddaughter out in the woods once the sun had set, even though she knew that Emmelin was more than capable of dealing with whatever creatures might hide among these trees.

The small house was in darkness when Emmelin came to the edge of the glade and she stopped in confusion.  No smoke rose from the chimney and she heard none of the soft singing that usually accompanied Elowen’s activities. 

Emmelin paused and listened to the trees and the sighing of the gentle breeze – but there was nothing to hear.  She frowned.  Had her daernaneth told her that she would be visiting one of the friends she had made here in this little haven of Silvan elves?  She could not recall any such conversation – but that was not surprising.  Even now Emmelin found that she could lapse into a brooding melancholy when she was scarcely aware of her surroundings, although such moods usually passed relatively quickly these days.  With a feeling of unease, the elleth looked round her cautiously before approaching the closed door.

‘Daernaneth?’ she called, raising the latch and swinging the door wide to let in the last of the evening’s light.

There was no answer.  Emmelin crossed the room and stirred up the glowing embers of the fire, adding dry fuel to send yellow flames licking up to push back the shadows.  She lit a taper and set one of their small oil lamps on the table before taking another and tapping at Elowen’s door.  ‘Daernaneth?’ she repeated.

The room was empty.

Emmelin turned round slowly.  Everything seemed to be in place –exactly as she would have expected it – except that the cottage was abandoned.

There was no point allowing herself to panic, Emmelin told herself firmly.  She had teased Elowen for worrying on the occasions she had returned late from the forest and there was no more reason to fear that anything had happened to her daernaneth than that anything had happened to her.  It was just – odd. 

Elowen had been preparing the meal, she observed, but she had been interrupted before she had time to hang the pot over the fire.  And left the carrots spread across the table, cut into rings, but scattered, their surfaces dry, as if the cook had jumped to her feet and knocked them into a careless arc before dashing out the door.  Emmelin gathered them automatically, placing them in the cooking pot and hanging it from its hook.  She took a handful of herbs and tore the leaves roughly before scattering them over the mixture.  She would slice the fungi and add the pieces later, she decided – once she had discovered where her daernaneth had gone.

Guarding the fire, Emmelin slipped out and headed to the nearest cottage where she could expect to receive news of the day’s happenings.

A beaming smile greeted her, as if Gwaloth expected her, too, to be delighted about she knew not what.   ‘There!’ she said excitedly.  ‘Your daernaneth was sure you would know and come running after her, but I said, ‘No,’ I said.  ‘Emmelin would not know what to expect.’  She was not even born when . . .’

‘Daeradar?’ Emmelin interrupted incredulously.  ‘Are you saying that daeradar has returned?  Where?’

‘They will be here soon,’ Gwaloth declared.  ‘Elowen felt his song in her heart some hours ago – and my husband has taken her to the Fennas Arnediad – where the rehoused emerge to take their place among us.’  She smiled encouragingly.  ‘Your Daeradar must be ready to rejoin us here,’ she said, ‘or he would not have been sent out.  They are very careful not to put too much strain on fëar that have recently been rehoused.’

‘There are many here among us?’ Emmelin asked slowly. 

A shadow passed over the cheerful face before her.  ‘Not as many as we would like,’ Gwaloth admitted.  ‘But more each year.  It is only a matter of time.’

‘And what it time to an elf?’ Emmelin returned, the hollowness of her tone subdued enough that Gwaloth was able to ignore it.

‘Precisely,’ she said.  ‘Siondel will be most welcome.’

Emmelin gathered herself.  ‘Thank you,’ she said.  ‘I will not chase after them – Daernaneth will want to be alone with her husband, I would think.  I will go home and ensure that there is food to welcome them when they are ready to return.’

‘You do that, my dear.’  Gwaloth’s shrewd eye absorbed and ignored the elleth’s pallor as she turned to her store cupboard.  ‘I have some dried apples left and a jar of honey – take them as a gift to greet your daeradar – and as a promise of times to come.’ 

Emmelin hoped that the tears that stung her eyes and blurred her vision were not obvious to Gwaloth as she turned and walked blindly towards the little cottage that had been her home for half a century now.  Dusk had turned to night under the dappled branches of the trees and the stars’ light was dim – but their neighbour’s eyes were sharp and she was unlikely to miss the uncertainty in the elleth’s step.  She stopped behind the broad trunk of a sturdy oak and leaned back against the rough bark, ignoring the way it tugged on her long braid.  Would this sorrow never end, she asked helplessly?  Did she want it to?  She and Sinnarn had had so little time.  Did she fear that to put aside her grief would be to forget her love and dismiss him from her mind?  If only he had been of one mind with her when it came to having an elfling, she thought, recalling the sweet face of his uncle’s daughter as she had last seen her.  She would be grown now, Emmelin recalled, and joining her uncles and daeradar in their fight to preserve what remained of Mirkwood.  And Sinnarn would be no more to her than a name. 

Dragging her sleeve across her eyes, Emmelin sniffed defiantly.  No, Sinnarn had been right.  It had been no time to bring an elfling into the world, whatever Thranduil had claimed.  An elfling deserved to grow up with two parents in a world at peace.  And she would not think of it – she would go home and prepare to meet her adar’s adar and smile and wait patiently for the day when Sinnarn’s presence would light a fire in her heart and this rot of uncertainty would be burnt from her.

***

‘A granddaughter.’  Siondel tested the word uncertainly.  ‘A granddaughter.  Emmelin.’  He smiled almost shyly.  ‘It seems to me that Annael is scarcely grown – how can he be old enough to have an adult daughter?’

Elowen could not take her eyes from his face.  Half a century, she supposed, was not that long and although she had seen how the inhabitants of this land dealt with those who landed on its white shores, worn and uncertain, she had never been this close to one who had newly returned from Námo’s Halls.  Siondel was just as she remembered him – but unshadowed.  It was as if the struggles of his life had been smoothed away and the empty years when she had endured without him had aged her, but left him untouched.

‘Our son is no longer an elfling,’ she said softly, fighting back the urge to weep as she remembered Annael’s face as she had last seen it, wounded by the departure of naneth and daughter, bereft, yet determined to continue the struggle against the forces of the Dark Lord that had ripped apart his family yet again.  ‘He is a lieutenant of the King’s warriors and as committed to the survival of our forest as ever you were.’  And older by far, she thought bleakly, than you lived to be.

Siondel reached out a cautious hand to touch her arm, aware of her grief, but uncertain as to what he should do about it.  His fingers against her skin were so familiar, leaving a warmth that spread like fire to halt her breath as the connection between them blazed.  Elowen’s fingertips brushed his cheek tentatively in return and Siondel gasped.

‘You feel so real,’ he marvelled.

‘I am real,’ she said, ‘and you are real – and you are here.’

‘Do not let me go,’ he pleaded.

He was not yet accustomed to his body, she realised.  His fëa was healed and Námo had sent him forth – but it would take him time to adjust to living in a material world.

‘Come,’ she said gently, taking his hand.  ‘Let us go home.  We have all the time we need.’

It would seem, she thought, that reunion, although undoubtedly joyful, was also more complicated than those dreaming of these times from their homes east of the sea would believe.  Elowen sighed and savoured the sense of completeness that came from having her husband by her side.  He hung back slightly, glancing behind him as if he was not sure that he could do this, but then, as he began to move, she felt his confidence grow and his fingers shifted to return the clasp of her hand.

***

Emmelin worked on the small garden that flourished between the cottage and the edge of the trees, hoeing the weeds from between the rows.  Plants grew tall and strong here, she sighed, but that was true of the weeds as well.  Only sustained effort deterred the unneeded plants from setting up home among their vegetables, but the work was necessary.  She glanced over towards the stump where her daeradar was patiently reducing the deadfall to a stack of logs precisely trimmed to provide fuel for their fires.

‘You are brooding again.’ His voice roused her to find that the sun was no longer shining on the patch of ground at her feet.

‘How did you know?’ she asked abruptly.  ‘How can a fëa tell that it is time to return to the business of life?’

‘I cannot tell,’ he said helplessly, an armful of wood resting against the front of his soft green tunic. 

‘If it is a secret. . .’ Emmelin began snappily, only to stop as he shook his dark head.

‘Not as far as I know,’ he smiled wryly, ‘but it might as well be.  I have no idea how Námo knows – or even if the choice is his.  Nothing I can tell you will be of any help to you.  One moment I simply was – and nothing existed but space and light and silence – and the next I felt a tug and knew that I was Siondel.  It could have taken no more than the time a speeding arrow takes to strike its target – or it could have taken a hundred years.’

His granddaughter inspected the thriving bean plants at her feet.

‘I can say,’ Siondel said gently, ‘that, as I became more myself, I yearned for Elowen.  I could feel her song and desired nothing more than to be reunited with her.’

‘So Sinnarn will return more swiftly because I long for him?’  Emmelin asked. 

‘He would be a fool not to,’ her daeradar said, ‘and you would not have wed a fool.’

Emmelin’s laugh was more than half a sob.  ‘He was wild enough when he was young,’ she admitted, ‘and often heedless – but he was never a fool.’

‘It would have been no easy thing,’ Siondel remarked, ‘to grow up as Lord Ithilden’s son and King Thranduil’s grandson.’  He smiled.  ‘Not to mention with Eilian and Legolas as uncles.  I know well that Eilian found it hard to accept who he was.’  He reflected for a few moments on the elf with whom he had grown up.  ‘Eilian’s naneth understood him very well – but he was still at odds with the world much of the time.  The demands put on Sinnarn would have been hard to bear.  It surprises me not at all that he was a reckless youth – although I doubt if he compared to his uncle.  I remember him as a little elfling, you know,’ he added.  ‘He was all apple cheeks and dark hair and enthusiasm – he would follow Legolas and your adar whenever he could, but Alfirin was convinced they would forget him and leave him among the trees somewhere and she guarded him carefully – for he was her greatest treasure.’

‘I am afraid I will forget him,’ his granddaughter whispered, ‘as the centuries drag past.  That I will cease to want him.  That the waiting will turn into a life lived without him.’ 

‘You will not,’ Siondel assured her instantly.  ‘He is part of you – I can see him in your eyes.  It will take more than a temporary sundering to divide you – and, in the end, you will be stronger for it.’

***

The chickens pecked busily in the grass before the doorway and the scent of fresh bread filled the air.  A curl of smoke ascended into the blue sky and the last of the night’s rain dripped from the thatch to be gathered into the wide barrel.  If it were not for the tension, Emmelin thought, it would be the very picture of cosy domesticity. 

But ships were coming.  More and more ships, their passengers telling of battles beyond the memory of the younger elves.  Cataclysmic battles, in which the forest burned.  Battles where the forces of the Dark poured from their shadowed mountains to rip apart the world of men and elves and seize control from those who had striven for so long to hold them back.  Battles where victory came at a price that even the greatest must pay.

Dol Guldur had fallen, ripped into nothingness amidst the rotten corpses of twisted trees, but the time of the elves was past.  Only in coming west would they avoid fading.  But would they come?

Her adar had survived.  She had been assured of that, by dark-eyed widows and grieving parents whose sons and husbands had not been so fortunate.  They had wept in her arms and she had told them that she understood.  That time would make the pain more endurable.  That one day they would wake to find that the sun still shone.  She was not sure she believed it, even now. 

Her parents lived still – but would they come?  

Elowen and Siondel did not believe they would, she knew.  Not while Lasgalen needed them.  Not while there was a hope of restoring the beauty of the living forest.  Not while Thranduil endured.

Emmelin’s hands busied themselves with spinning the fibres into thread, but her mind was free to listen to the song of the wind in the treetops, that sang of change and endings.  They would none of them leave, not unless they were driven.  Not even if they were driven.

Unexpectedly, Emmelin was conscious of a flicker of pride – in her people, her parents, her king.  It was a grief to be here without them, but a joy to know that they refused to accept the inevitable, but would protect the forest anyway. 

‘Come, child,’ Elowen invited her, ‘I have made rolls – come and eat one while it is still warm.’

‘I am not a child, Daernaneth,’ Emmelin protested mildly.  ‘I have not been a child for a long time.’

‘No-one is too adult to enjoy fresh warm bread and berry jam,’ Siondel said appreciatively, sliding his arm’s round his wife’s waist and burying his face briefly in her hair.  ‘I certainly am not.’

Elowen turned her head and leaned her cheek briefly on his head, a tiny gesture of intimacy that made Emmelin catch her breath.

‘I remember sitting at a table very like this one,’ she said, ‘eating bread and jam while Adar sat fletching arrows and telling me stories of when he was an elfling.’

‘And you will again,’ Siondel declared.  ‘They will come – when the time is right.  Believe it.’

***

Letters filled the small chest.  Letters inscribed in her naneth’s familiar writing.  Letters in her adar’s neat hand.  Even letters in Ithilden’s firm black script and Alfirin’s flowing words.

‘I hope Ithilden will consent to sail soon,’ Legolas said gently.  ‘He will sail for Alfirin where he would never agree to do so for himself.’ His face, she thought, was haunted.  ‘And Adar is working on him.’

Emmelin poured him tea and he took the mug between his long hands as if needing the warmth.  Outside a boisterous laugh made them both look up.

‘Ithilden was badly hurt in the last battle,’ Legolas told her.  ‘Had it happened earlier, he would almost undoubtedly not have survived – but the fighting had reached close to home and its ending meant that they were able to get Ithilden to the best healers straight away.  And Alfirin would not let him go.  Gwaleniel knew that to lose Ithilden would be to lose her daughter – and Ithilden, once he knew anything, understood that, too.  And he survived.’  He paused, then looked up at Emmelin with his sweet smile.  ‘But you know how obstinate he is,’ he said.  ‘Adar has told him, time and again, that he should sail, but he is convinced that he knows best and he will not listen.’

‘And Eilian?’ Emmelin asked.

‘Escaped without a scratch,’ Legolas told her.  ‘Unless Celuwen took him to task later for his reckless disregard of his own safety.  They will not leave until Adar decides to go – and perhaps not even then.’

‘My adar, too,’ she said with certainty.

‘Annael will stay by Adar’s side,’ Legolas agreed.  ‘He might try to persuade your naneth to take ship with Alfirin.’

‘She will not leave him.’

‘No, I doubt she will.’  Legolas drank some of the cooling tea.  ‘I was happy to see that Siondel was here to greet you – I was always very fond of Annael’s adar.’

Emmelin looked compassionately at the fair head that was deliberately turned away from her as he refrained from asking the question that was on his mind.  ‘He was not here when we arrived,’ she said.  ‘Even Siondel appears to be unable to say when or why certain fëar return when they do.  Some people make us wait – but all we can do is hope.’

Another laugh from the clearing before the cottage made them both look towards the door.  ‘Well, at least there is Gimli to help me stir up these staid lands,’ Legolas remarked. ‘And the wait will be rewarded when the time is right.’

‘Your adar must have been furious when you arrived home with a dwarf!’  Emmelin shook her head.  ‘I cannot begin to imagine what he had to say.’

‘He may well have told you.’  Legolas indicated the letters.  ‘We built our own vessel,’ he said, ‘and none were anxious to sail with us – for fear the Valar would blast us from the sea for our pretension – so we had plenty of room for extras.’  His eyes sparkled.  ‘I am sure Adar was unable to resist telling you what he thinks of my irresponsibility.’

‘Your adar would not discuss your conduct with me or anyone else,’ Emmelin said.  ‘And you know it.’

‘He will tell you that he thinks the sea-longing has driven me mad,’ Legolas informed her.  ‘And ask you to be sure that I am cared for kindly until he is here to take me in hand.’

‘I think we can manage that,’ Emmelin teased.  ‘Provided you are not too dangerous to be around.’  She smiled.  ‘I believe Daernaneth would enjoy the challenge of tending one who is as dear as a son to her.’

***

She had found it hard to depress the hope in Alfirin’s thin, pale face as they disembarked, but words had been unnecessary.  As soon as Sinnarn’s naneth had seen her standing on the dock, her eyes had confirmed what her heart had been telling her.

Her naneth-in-law had headed straight for her and taken her in her arms, and they had wept on each other’s shoulders, disregarding the happy reunions around them as if no-one else was anywhere nearby.  Emmelin had closed her arms around Alfirin, so shocked by her frailty that it was some time before she noticed that Ithilden, too, seemed diminished as he stood close to his younger brother.  The imposing troop commander Sinnarn had so admired, so much wished to please, looked as if the trials of life were almost more than he could bear.  The arm Legolas had slung round him in greeting looked more like support than affection and Alfirin’s naneth hovered close, her sharp healer’s eye fixed on her son-in-law.

‘Not yet,’ Emmelin murmured reassuringly in Alfirin’s ear, ‘he is not here yet, but the time grows closer.  He will come, do not doubt it – but first you must rest and become strong again.  Sinnarn would not wish to see you tired and pale.’  She was babbling, she thought in dismay.  It was the shock of seeing those she had always thought to be indomitable through the eyes of a stranger.   ‘Come,’ she said gently, drawing Alfirin with her so that Emmelin’s free hand could take her adar-in-law’s, ‘we have a house prepared here until you have had time to adjust.  Arrival is hard on all – and you will need food and beds that do not move with the waters.’  She risked a quick glance at Legolas, unsure if either Alfirin or Ithilden would be able to manage the short walk to the airy villa designed to welcome newcomers.

‘I, for one, will be glad of something green at which to look,’ Gwaleniel declared. ‘The view from on board ship can become very tedious.’  A passing sailor with the sun-bleached look of Círdan’s folk grinned at her in a way that suggested he had heard the complaint many times.  ‘For all I keep being told it is endlessly different,’ the healer added, deliberately loud enough for his ears, ‘it all looks like water to me.’

Ithilden looked at his wife’s naneth affectionately.  ‘Then we had best seek trees,’ he said, the calm strength of his voice belying his appearance.  ‘I am sure our baggage will catch us up in time.’

‘I will see to it.’  Legolas’s smile widened as he recognised Tonduil’s voice.  Alfirin’s younger brother seemed more solid, despite the strain round his eyes.  He exchanged glances with his naneth.  ‘You go on ahead,’ he said calmly.  ‘I am sure we will be able to find you when we are ready.’

‘It is just up that road and to the left,’ Legolas told him.  ‘I will be looking out for you.’

The walk took longer than Emmelin would have believed possible.  She stopped several times to point out interesting views over the harbour or to exclaim over blossoms cascading over white walls and to allow Ithilden to catch his breath.  His brother kept a hand under his arm to steady him and the troop commander leaned heavily on a carved stick while attempting to make look like an affectation.

Alfirin paused, her long fingers on a vivid bloom.  ‘So beautiful,’ she marvelled.  ‘It seems almost unreal!’

‘It is quieter where we dwell,’ Emmelin said.  ‘More wooded – these bright flowers grow less well there and we have patches of violets and wood anemones.  Bluebells carpet the wood in season and brambles tumble in patches of sunlight bearing berries sweeter than any I remember.’

She was surprised to see her naneth-in-law relax and expand a little at her words, clearly relieved to hear of familiar things in a familiar setting.

Ithilden glanced at his wife.  ‘I hope there is room for us to settle there,’ he said.

‘Of course, my lord,’ Legolas teased.  ‘You may dwell in my cottage while your own palace is being built.’

‘No palaces,’ Ithilden replied mildly.  ‘I have had enough of dwelling behind fortifications.  A cottage among the trees sounds just what I need.’

‘And where will you go?’  Alfirin turned an anxious gaze on her husband’s brother.  ‘I have no wish to turn you out!’

‘He sleeps in the trees unless the weather is very bad,’ Emmelin interrupted, ‘and eats, more often than not, at my naneth’s table.  Do not let him tell you otherwise.   You are not dispossessing Ithilien’s lord – this house and others have been prepared for you and in the hope of other arrivals.’

She opened the delicate wrought-iron gate and drew them all into a sunny courtyard bright with baskets of flowers and scented with honeysuckle.  The house behind had silvered shutters set open on either side of wide windows open to let in the soft air.

Ithilden sat thankfully and closed his eyes briefly.  The journey had been long and he was only too glad to be able to rest a while before anyone asked him to get on the back of a horse.  He shifted slightly as the pain in his hip reminded him of its presence.

‘Tea?’ Emmelin asked, bustling into the kitchen without waiting for an answer.  Alfirin trailed after her, her naneth watching in concern.

‘She will be all right,’ Ithilden said softly.  ‘She is here now – we both are.’

‘What happened?’ Legolas asked, his bright eyes gleaming with anxiety.

His brother shook his head.  ‘Not now,’ he said.  ‘I cannot speak of it – it is all too much.’ 

The weariness in his voice was almost frightening, Legolas thought.  Ithilden had always been so strong, so decisive, so certain of the rightness of his decisions.  For centuries before his younger brothers’ birth he had been Thranduil’s right hand – the only one his Adar really trusted; the only one to whom Thranduil would occasionally concede.

He put his hand on Ithilden’s.  ‘They say that you find healing here,’ he said, ‘and it is true.  Just relax, my brother, and let others take on the burden for a while.’

Ithilden shifted his fingers to hold his brother.  ‘Naneth?’ he asked, his eyes searching the fair face.  The silence told him what he already knew.  ‘I hope she is rehoused before Adar sails,’ he said softly.  ‘He is at the edge – and the prospect of reunion is all that draws him to take ship.’

‘I have been seeking news of her,’ Legolas said, his voice no more than a thread.  ‘I have little feel for her – I was too young – but I have been asking all those who knew her.  Now you are here – she will return.  Surely she will return.’ 

Ithilden accepted the camomile tea Alfirin offered him and sipped the fragrant liquid.  ‘She will,’ he said, and if his assertion sounded more like a prayer, Legolas did not contradict him.

***

Alfirin stirred the hanks of thread immersed in the foul-smelling liquid as it simmered over the fire, judging the colour with an experienced eye.

‘I can see why you prefer to do your dyeing outside,’ Elowen pronounced, her nose wrinkled.

‘It is not all dyes,’ Alfirin smiled.  ‘But I am not fond of this one.  I would stop using it, but I like the colour it produces.’

‘It is an attractive shade,’ Elowen admitted, ‘and unusual, too.’  She sat on the bench in front of the cottage and let the sun warm her face.  ‘Are you planning on weaving it into cloth or are you going to use it for your hangings?’

‘Cloth, I think,’ Alfirin decided.  ‘I would like a new gown – or Ithilden needs an over-tunic.  I could embroider it for him to wear for those occasions when he needs to look like his adar’s son.’

‘He will not thank you – if he even notices.’  Elowen smiled.  ‘He seems far happier than I would have expected living this simple life.’

Alfirin’s face glowed.  ‘He is healed – as he never thought to be,’ she said.  ‘When I realised how much he suffered I almost grew to wish that I had never begged him to fight Námo’s call and remain with me so that I might live, but . . .’ She turned to look Elowen full in the face.  ‘I never wanted to leave Lasgalen,’ she said frankly.  ‘I do not know if I could have brought myself to do it had my parents and my brother and his wife not come with us – it was hard enough leaving Ithilden’s adar and Eilian’s family – but I am glad we are here.  If only Sinnarn would return, I would be perfectly happy.’

‘He will return,’ Elowen told her certainly.  ‘It is only a matter of time.’

Alfirin stirred her pot and lifted the thread to inspect it again before saying carefully, ‘Emmelin says little of him – and she changes the subject when I mention him.’

‘Never think that she does not care!’ Elowen exclaimed fiercely so that Alfirin dropped the wooden stick she was using to stir the mixture.  ‘She has shed so many tears that she can no longer speak of him.  On the surface she is quite happy here – but there is part of her that is simply waiting – unable to move on and live.  If the only way she can deal with that is to hold Sinnarn apart from this life, then that is what she must do.’

‘I did not mean to make it sound as if I thought that,’ Alfirin said conciliatorily as she fished the end of the stick from the water, holding it delicately to avoid staining her fingers.  ‘I know exactly what you mean – I have spent too many years avoiding mention of my son for fear of starting the tears.’  She sighed.  ‘Ithilden felt guilty enough without having me weeping endlessly.  He has always blamed himself for letting Sinnarn convince him that he should be part of that party – just as Eilian has never forgiven himself for surviving when Sinnarn did not.’

Elowen looked tired.  ‘Males,’ she said with resignation.  ‘They are all the same – they think that everything should be under their control.  As if there were no more to life than that.  You do the best you can – but the outcome is not in your hands.’

‘I just hoped that – with Emmelin – I could speak of him.’  Alfirin’s voice was so low as to be barely audible.

Impulsively, Elowen took Ithilden’s wife in her arms and kissed her cheek.  ‘I am happy to talk of my granddaughter’s husband at any time,’ she promised.  ‘I came to love him dearly – and I, too, long for the day when we meet again.’

Alfirin giggled tearfully.  ‘It is a good thing you are wearing an apron,’ she said, looking down at the stain on the front of her overgown.

‘Look,’ Elowen said wonderingly, gazing at the mark, tracing with her fingertip the perfect outline of a butterfly resting with its wings outstretched.  She smiled.  ‘Perhaps it is a promise,’ she said, ‘of things to come.’

***

Legolas was gutting fish when his brother came charging between the trees as if the hordes of Mordor were pursuing him.  He swept the rocks by the river with a commanding eye, one that demanded instant obedience.

‘Now,’ he barked.  ‘Come with me.’

His younger brother carried on with his task.  ‘I am no longer one of your warriors, my brother,’ he remarked calmly.  ‘And I do not respond well to being ordered.’

‘She is coming,’ Ithilden said.

Legolas raised his chin and stared at his brother, eyes calculating.  ‘How do you know?’ he asked.

‘Can you not feel her?’ Ithilden spread his hands out before him. 

‘I can scarcely recall anything about her.’ Legolas placed his knife carefully in the basket and wiped his hands on his leggings.  ‘Are you sure?’

‘Look inside you,’ Ithilden said urgently.  ‘Look inside you – can you not sense her in the very core of your being?’ 

‘I will take these back,’ Legolas said mechanically.  ‘If what you say is true, we will be hosting a feast tonight.’  His hands were less than certain, he thought as he stood.  It was just as well that this first meeting was unlikely to demand that he displayed his skill with weapons, for he was not entirely certain that he would be able to do so.

‘Leave them,’ Ithilden dismissed his decision.  ‘Let someone else take them.  If we do not reach the Fennas Arnediad soon, she will be there before us.’  He drew a deep breath.  ‘I will not permit that.’

‘She will be safe here.’  The news Ithilden had brought began to sink into Legolas’s consciousness.  ‘I cannot greet her like this!  I stink of fish!’

‘There is no time.’ Ithilden began to grin, a blaze of excitement lighting a face usually determinedly controlled.  ‘She would not notice if you were covered in chicken dung, little brother.  In fact, I think the last time she saw you, you had been wallowing in something similar.  Perhaps it will help her to recognise you.’

‘We will make up time through the trees,’ Legolas insisted.  ‘I have not seen my naneth since I was an elfling – and I do not plan to greet her barefoot and smelling of fish.  I am going to change, my brother.’

‘Then be quick – or I will go without you.’

Legolas’s face softened as he looked at his brother.  ‘You go on ahead.  I will join you just as fast as I can.’

‘Ten minutes.’  Ithilden folded his arms.  ‘Move!’

‘Yes, Commander.’  Legolas saluted his brother ironically, disappearing into the trees even as he spoke.

Ithilden closed his eyes and forced his breathing under control.  He had even forgotten what he was missing, he realised.  The warm light-heartedness: the gentle interest: the passion for life: the desire for freedom: her fierce, partisan love – over the centuries they had faded in his memory to leave him with no more than a flat picture of his naneth.  But this was true and real and almost frightening – and his adar was not here to meet her.  A wave of sorrow swept over him.  It was unfair: this should be Thranduil’s moment.

‘What are you waiting for, Ithilden?’ Legolas’s frenzied tidying had produced a little brother undeniably adult – and rather less fishy – apart from a few scales sparkling in his hair of soft gold.

‘You, of course,’ his brother said affectionately.

The glade at the edge of the wood was bordered in drifting mists, gleaming rainbow-bright in sunshine that seemed not to flow like normal light.  The trees rustled in a breeze that did not stir its still air and the birdsong seemed muted.

Legolas’s heart pounded like battle drums and he felt the pulse in his neck throb a rapid rhythm.  Ithilden put his hand on his brother’s arm, but whether to steady him or to seek comfort, he was uncertain.

She emerged from the mists, clad in simple white, her arms uncovered, looking uncertainly around her as if wondering what she was doing there, but the bewilderment on her face faded rapidly, giving way to delight as she saw Ithilden.

Her oldest son was drawn to her as a lodestone to the north, stopping before her to take her hands into his and raise them to his lips.  ‘Naneth,’ he said, ‘I am so sorry.’

She detached one hand and, sliding her fingers through his hair to cup the back of his head.  ‘Dear Ithilden,’ she told him softly.  ‘I do not remember your being so tall.’  She stood on tiptoe and kissed his forehead affectionately.  ‘I fail to see what you have to regret.  You are too inclined to take responsibility for events that are none of your fault.’

Legolas laughed.  It sounded more than a little comical to hear his dignified brother being reproved for being overly responsible.  Lorellin stilled, looking into Ithilden’s eyes.  He smiled and nodded.

‘Legolas?’ his naneth murmured incredulously.  ‘My little leaf?’  Sudden tears filled her eyes and spilled over to trickle down her cheeks.  ‘My baby,’ she whispered.

‘No longer a baby, naneth,’ Ithilden commented, meeting his brother’s gaze blandly. ‘He has been grown for a while now.’

Lorellin pulled Ithilden closer, reluctant to release his hand even as she stretched out to touch Legolas’s cheek.  ‘I am so sorry I left you to grow up without me,’ she said.

‘Not your fault, Naneth,’ he said.  ‘You did not choose to abandon us.’

‘My impatience,’ she said ruefully, ‘led me to take risks – and you have all lived with the consequences.’  She drew a wondering finger down his jaw.  ‘I hope you will forgive me and allow me to come to know my precious son.’

He captured her hand and pressed it to his lips.  ‘Adar never let me forget you,’ he said.  ‘You have always been in his heart – and mine.’

Her smile saddened.  ‘He is not here,’ she said with certainty.

‘Not yet,’ Ithilden said, ‘but he will not keep you waiting long.’

‘And Eilian?’

‘Adar will bring him,’ Ithilden insisted.  ‘Even if he has to put him in chains.’

‘My poor son,’ Lorellin twinkled.  ‘Still driving his adar wild!’

Legolas grinned.  ‘Adar needs the challenge, now that Dol Guldur has been ground down to powder and Mordor is greening.  I cannot decide how either he or Eilian will entertain themselves in these quiet woods.  We will have to arrange something to keep them busy.’

‘Come, Naneth,’ Ithilden drew Lorellin’s arm through his and led her towards the gap between the trees.  ‘Let us take you to meet my wife and daughter-in-law, so that we might again learn to be a family.’

***

The wood was becoming busy, Emmelin thought.  Too busy.  Where once she and her daernaneth had been left to dwell peacefully among the trees, the presence of Thranduil’s queen and two of his sons had drawn to this wooded valley many of those who had made their homes in Lasgalen and too much strain was being put on the resources around them. 

As the need for guidance grew, Ithilden had sighed and put aside his simple occupations to begin to hold court for those many elves who had sought out his advice, his guidance, his direction.  No-one would know – who did not know him very well, she acknowledged – that wearing his adar’s crown was not to his taste.  Lorellin supported him staunchly – and if she chose to tell him at times to strip off his uniform and take himself off to have some fun, at least she did not do so in public.

But time was passing.  Emmelin found it difficult to keep track of exactly how many seasons had come and gone since she had parted from her parents – since she had collapsed to the forest floor when Sinnarn’s warm presence had been ripped from her mind – but she knew there had been many.  She had built walls around the abyss of his loss: built walls and covered them with greenery in an attempt to conceal his absence, but still she yearned for him with every passing minute.

She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms round them.  Here, in her favourite refuge, high above the everyday activities on the forest floor, she felt safe enough to take out his image and remember him.  So little time, she thought.  They had had so little time together that every moment lived in her memory.  She had loved him for his mischief, for the serious side he concealed, for his need to serve the forest that was their home, his reckless courage, the tenderness he showed to so few, his strength in adversity – but most of all she had loved him simply for being Sinnarn.  And he had loved her.  She smiled.  Her adar had not been enthusiastic when Ithilden’s son had begun to pay attention to her – deeming him a flirt like his uncle Eilian, who would end up breaking her heart.  And Adar had been right, she acknowledged ruefully, though not in the way he meant.   But Annael had come round – he had seen soon enough that the link between his only child and Thranduil’s grandson was more than just a passing interest and he had consented to their bonding without obvious reluctance.  She should have been suspicious, though, Emmelin sighed, that it had all been too easy.  Too much tragedy touched Sinnarn’s family and her own.  Too much loss for them to subside into lasting happiness.  She dropped her head onto her knees and closed her eyes.  When would he come, she asked herself again. 

She was surprised, when she returned to the cluster of cottages, to see the bustle of preparation for a journey, but it took only a few moments for the brightness of the faces to let her know the reason.

‘They are coming!’ she exclaimed in astonishment.  Elowen beamed at her as she thrust garments into packs with shaking hands, too happy even to speak. 

‘Here.’  Siondel handed her a bag already prepared.  ‘Their ship crossed into local waters no more than an hour ago – but we must hurry if we are to be on the quay when it docks.’

Emmelin risked opening the shields she normally guarded carefully.  ‘Adar!’ she gasped.  ‘Naneth!  They are coming!’

Tears poured down Elowen’s face, in complete contrast to her expression of joy and she nodded, unable to speak.

Emmelin spun, seeking out her adar-in-law in a need to confirm that this reunion would be a celebration for all of them.

‘Thranduil, too,’ Siondel assured her.  ‘And Eilian – and Celuwen and Loriel.  It would seem that the last elves have left Lasgalen to seek homes in the west.’

Elves poured from the wood like an exodus.  As Emmelin and her grandparents joined in the rush to the sea, she thought that she had not known that there were so many living their lives in anticipation of their king’s return – but there was no doubt of the excitement that drove the crowd onwards.  Some dropped away as they reached the cliffs, where the sight of white sails gleaming in the sun transfixed them, but others continued to speed towards the waterside, pausing there only to let those who sensed the arrival of kin ease their way to the front.

A path opened, allowing Ithilden to make his way through, Lorellin on his arm, Alfirin and Legolas following behind. 

Ithilden paused briefly, meeting Emmelin’s gaze, but when she shook her head, he continued along the jetty, matching his pace with the approach of the ship, so that, just as the sailors leapt from the rail to secure the vessel, he and Lorellin stood, opposite the tall, broad-shouldered figure of the Elvenking, dressed in shimmering green, his wheat-fair hair arranged in kinship braids, but his head bare.  To one side stood Eilian, his more wiry form hidden under formal robes of a deep russet, Celuwen on one arm and, behind them, their daughter.

‘Well,’ Lorellin’s amused voice broke the awed silence of the waiting crowd.  ‘At last.’

Without a word, Thranduil moved.  With one foot on the rail, his robe streaming behind him, he leapt willingly onto shores he had never wished to reach and gathered his wife into his arms.

Eilian drew a resolute breath and inclined his head towards Celuwen.  ‘If I had done that,’ he remarked, ‘he would never have let me hear the end of it.’

As if the Woodland King’s movement had opened the floodgates, the whisper of the crowd became a roar and the massed elves cried out their welcome in a babble of sound that echoed to the very heart of the Blessed Realm.

***

It was as if the arrival of Lasgalen’s king had been all that his people had been awaiting, Emmelin reflected.  No sooner had he landed than restless elves had begun to voice their demand for a land of their own.  Somewhere in this unknown continent, they were sure, there were forests vaster than those they had left behind, far from the ordered civility of the elves of Aman, where the Silvan could be themselves.

Thranduil, unable to rest, had sought out those most likely to know – and by requesting, and demanding and generally persisting to the point where those in authority were only too happy to give him anything he desired simply in order to get him to leave them alone, he had been granted the right to seek whatever land he chose in the vast unexplored centre of the Blessed Realm.  His former warriors had gathered, petitioning eagerly to be among those to explore in search of the western realm – and Eilian had happily taken charge of them, just as Celuwen had happily let him go.

‘He will not settle until he has set foot on as much of Aman as he can,’ she had told Thranduil frankly.  ‘And he is the best person for this task – and we both know it, Adar.  If anyone can find what we need, it will be Eilian.’

‘True,’ Lorellin supported her, smiling affectionately at her daughter-in-law.  ‘Eilian has a closer bond with the forest than any – other than you, my love, and you cannot be spared for this task.’

The sheer size of the project meant that it had taken longer than any had expected at its start, but finally the groups had returned, fired with excitement at the news they brought to those who waited – and, gradually, the wooded valley had emptied as the elves found their way west.

Finally, the dappled shade beneath the ancient trees hummed again with the song of the bees and the trickle of water and grass grew again where cottages had held families of elves.

Annael sat outside his cottage, his arm round his daughter’s waist as they enjoyed the fading evening light and the whisper of the leaves.  Inside, Beliniel and Elowen sang as they tidied away the day’s work, and across the glade, Siondel persuaded the scatty chickens to take refuge in their pen from the possible depredations of night’s hunters.

‘I wish you would come with us,’ Annael said gently.

‘I cannot,’ she told him.  ‘Not while I am still waiting.’

‘Námo is capable of finding you wherever you might be,’ her adar suggested.  ‘There are gates uncountable between this world and his halls.’

‘That may be,’ she conceded, resting her head on his shoulder and, for a moment, feeling a little elleth again, ‘but it is here that I wish to see him first.’

He stroked her hair soothingly.  ‘It seems unfair,’ he sighed, ‘that both you and Legolas should be kept waiting so long.  You deserve better.’

‘Few they are, I am told,’ Emmelin smiled with resignation, ‘who are not drawn back to life by the song of love undying.  They will come – but it would seem that neither elf nor Vala knows when.’  She sighed.  ‘I have railed against the cruelty of fate – and the thoughtlessness of the Valar; I have allowed myself to sink into depression; I have tried to shield my heart against his absence; I have wallowed in distractions – nothing has made any difference and he is still not here.  I will continue to wait.’  She clutched at his tunic, her slender fingers burying themselves in the folds.  ‘You and Naneth go west – build a home in the forest, among trees that have never seen evil, and Sinnarn and I will join you as soon as we can.’

‘We would not go if your grandparents were not remaining.’  Annael kissed the top of her head. 

‘I know,’ she said comfortingly.  ‘But the western realm calls you – and it is right that you should go.’

Unexpectedly a rustle suffused the canopy that had nothing to do with the passage of a breeze and the song of the evening intensified.

Instinctively, Annael and Emmelin stood and looked towards the origin of the sound, even as Beliniel and Elowen came to the doorway and Siondel stepped into the middle of the glade.

Emmelin smiled.  ‘I think Legolas might not be travelling alone when he journeys with you to his adar’s house,’ she said.

***

She had asked herself questions about acceptance and obedience to the will of the Valar.  She had asked herself whether the nature of a death made it harder to return.  She had mused on feelings of guilt and helplessness, whether the complexity of the elf’s own nature delayed or speeded recovery.  She had pondered love and the communion of two fëar.  She had wondered about the bond between parent and child.  Sometimes she almost felt she had grasped an idea so tenuous that it hovered beyond her understanding like a wisp of cloud in the dawn sky.  But it all boiled down to one thing: she must wait.

Emmelin thanked the tree for its gift of sap that her daernaneth would boil down to provide a sticky syrup, and plugged the cut carefully so that no infection could enter the wound.  The tree made her aware of its pleasure in offering something of itself to the elves who tended it so lovingly and boasted that it would happily provide more another day, so that they might enjoy its bounty.

She lifted the pail carefully and covered it, carrying it so as to conserve every drop, and returning without mishap to add it to the others in the store room.

‘It is a good supply,’ Elowen said approvingly.  ‘There is more food for those of us still here now that so many have followed the king.’

‘Did you not wish to go?’ Emmelin asked.  ‘I would not have you stay simply because I do not desire to leave.  I would be perfectly all right here with our neighbours.’

‘What are a few years more?’ her daernaneth said briskly.  ‘It will just save us the effort of having to weave our homes into the forest – by the time we arrive, your adar will have prepared a place for us.’  She smiled.  ‘And Ithilden and Alfirin will be waiting for you and Sinnarn.’

Emmelin sighed involuntarily.

‘You are fretting again,’ Elowen said.  ‘It does no good – and it will not bring him any more quickly.’

‘I am restless,’ Emmelin admitted.  ‘I feel as if there are ants crawling over my skin and I do not know what to do with myself.’

Elowen stilled.  ‘Go and bathe,’ she suggested.  ‘Wash your hair and indulge yourself a little.  You spend too long working, child.  Take some time to yourself.’

‘Perhaps.’  Emmelin wandered to the doorway and looked out into the sunlit glade.  ‘I cannot settle to anything.’

Her daernaneth laughed, opening a cupboard to retrieve a drying cloth and a cake of sweet-scented soap.  ‘And while you are about it,’ she said, ‘give me that dreadful gown and I will mend some of the rents.  I fail to understand how you manage to get in such a state.  I will find you something else to wear when you get back.’

She chivvied her granddaughter out into the warm afternoon relentlessly, leaving Emmelin with no choice but to take herself to the small pool where she and Elowen liked to bathe.

The water was cool and refreshing and Emmelin had to admit that when she emerged, her hair fragrant and freshly combed, she felt better.  She wriggled into her shift and shoes and wandered slowly back to the cottage, enjoying the feel of the air on her clean skin.

She frowned when she saw the gown her daernaneth had left on her bed.  Blue silk?  It hardly seemed the right thing to wear on a perfectly ordinary afternoon.  She opened her clothes press to seek something that seemed more suitable, but it looked as if her daernaneth had removed her other gowns for some reason of her own.  Emmelin stretched out a finger and stroked the soft fabric of the blue dress before slipping it over her head.

It was not until she wandered outside to dry her hair in the sun that the gnawing restlessness returned, only this time the itch seemed to be more inside than outside.  The ordinary beauty of the glade seemed muted and Emmelin felt almost as if she was cut off from it by a wall of glass so thin that she was barely aware of its existence. 

She paced.

Why, she could not tell, but only movement seemed to ease her increasing tension.  She paced the glade, forward and back, ignoring the pecking chickens as they scattered before her.  She did not even notice when she headed into the woods, nor did she realise when she began to run, drawn in one direction as if on a cord.

It was not until the eerie remoteness and the light-dispersing white haze of the Fennas Arnediad chilled her bare arms and made her breath appear as a mist that she registered where she was.  Her breath came more quickly and she folded her arms before her defensively, spreading her fingers wide to rub skin chilled more by frightened anticipation than by cold.

She had been waiting so long.  How could this event possibly live up to her hopes?

A faint noise behind her made her turn – and, where before there had been nothing, there he was.

Sinnarn stood, his dark hair untidy, his grey eyes focused on her, and before she could bring herself to do more than stare, he smiled his sweetest smile and the ice that had frozen her to the spot melted. 

The force of her leap would have been enough to tumble them both to the flower-studded grass, had not Sinnarn been drawn to her with equal need – and in their touch, all Emmelin’s doubts disappeared.   They held each other as if each had found in the other all that was needed to offer strength and comfort, and the long wait was forgotten.

‘I am sorry,’ Sinnarn whispered in a voice that sounded long unused.

‘You are here now,’ she said as if that was all that mattered.  ‘Let us go home.’

‘And where might that be?’ her husband asked, reluctantly loosening his hold enough that they could walk side by side.

Emmelin smiled, a smile that for the first time in centuries came from every part of her being.  ‘Wherever we can be together,’ she said and, arms twined hungrily round each other, they walked from the drifting shadows into the golden sunshine of the Blessed Realm.