Chapter 10. What future brings.

In Eressëa.

The waves died with a tired sigh on the pale sands of the immortal shores. To one of the elves who walked barefoot along the beach it seemed that they whispered the same word to one another as they dissolved at his feet. “Sûlaer,” they chanted endlessly in his ear.

“I used to dream of this,” he said aloud, partly to escape that relentless refrain. “I walked this same beach, and the waves were whispering her name…”

His companion shook her head thoughtfully. She walked silently by his side,   challenging crests of foam with a white foot. The wind played with her golden tresses as she lifted her head and looked east, whence they both had come long time ago, though in different ships.

“I, who endured years uncounted of sea-longing, say that there is no pain like that of spouse-longing, Legolas Thranduilion,” she sighed forlornly, bringing them to a halt. As she spoke, she playfully raised her foot and splashed him with cold water. Her clear voice rang over the crashing waves, lifting the passing cloud over her companion’s face.

“I defer to your experience in these matters, Lady Galadriel,” he said, jumping backwards and laughing briefly.

“You are wise, Thranduilion. And we shall endure, for such is our way,“ she added with a resigned, beautiful smile. “Let us return,” she suggested then. “Surely my daughter and her husband must have finished roasting our catches by now!”

Legolas nodded in agreement, turning his back on the east without regret. He waited, much as she did, as Elrond and Celebrían did, and as did many of the residents in Eressëa. But none despaired; for such was the grace and healing of those lands.

***

Lasgalen, somewhere near  the Mountains. Late summer, year 402 of the Fourth Age.

“Do not think you can threaten us, woman…”

“Father, no! She is a true Elf!”

“Caelin, come here!”

“Let go of the boy, now!”

“Offa, stop it, please! She saved me!”

“Woman or wraith, you better drop your knife and your bow, you are outnumbered here!”

The men seemed nervous, frightened, and that made them very dangerous. The boy must have thought the same, Laerîniel noticed briefly, because he stood between her and the nocked arrows, his arm stretched to protect her while he pleaded uselessly with his father. As Laerîniel began unfastening her knife sheath from her belt with the greatest reluctance, a familiar, calm voice filled her with deep relief.

“And you are surrounded, Men, so you drop your bows, quivers and knives…”

Laerîniel smiled at the startled faces of the Men as Mallereg silently dropped from a tree to her left, his bow drawn and a slate-pointed arrow trained on the man closest to her. At the same time she distinguished Brûnech and Thalaûr at the men’s backs. Surrounded indeed, Laerîniel snorted mentally while the four men, encouraged by the not so friendly elven faces, slowly got rid of their weapons, not sparing outraged grumbling and murderous glances.

“And now, we will welcome you axes as well,“ Mallereg continued in his softly mocking, congenial voice as Thalaûr stepped up and relieved them from their tools.

“You have no right!” the one who had threatened Laerîniel and seemed to be in charge glared defiantly at Mallereg.

“These woods are under King Thranduil’s protection and no mortal is allowed to wander in here,” he informed them in a cold, menacing voice, his face blank as he kept his bow steadily aimed at the intruders.

“We know not of this king,” the Man spat angrily, despite his fellows’  warning glances. “We are settlers from the Forest Land. If you have a complain you should come before the Master of the Forest, who granted us permission to hunt and cut trees in his lands…”

“The Woodland Realm begins North of the Mountains,“ Mallereg stated calmly. “So you are well out of limits here. Tell your Master that no hunting,  foraging, logging, tapping or roaming is allowed here to your kin by the will of King Thranduil, who has been king of this forest for longer than you Men have walked these lands. And advise him to change his title. The forest allows no domination. Now get on your way, and be warned that we will not be so kind if we run into any of your people trespassing again on our boundaries.”

“You cannot abandon us unarmed in the wild!”

"One of my patrols is waiting down the hill to see you safely off our limits and make sure that you do not return,” the prince shrugged, signalling briefly to Brûnech. “Do you intend to become a forester in our ranks, sapling?” he addressed then the puzzled youth, who stood motionless and gaping before Laerîniel. “You can keep your weapons,” Mallereg added with unrestrained mirth as the boy blushed in embarrassment and raised a trembling hand to his bow.

“I…” the boy stuttered, turning to look at Laerîniel. “Are they Elves too?” He asked in wonder. She smiled and patted his head.

“They are. Go now, and do not forget what you’ve seen and learnt,” she said softly, pushing him encouragingly towards his father, who embraced him tightly and gave her a brief, grateful nod. Pressed by a stern-looking Brûnech, the four men and the boy started off south and soon disappeared from sight.

“Three people cannot make a circle, Mallereg,” Laerîniel pointed out amusedly while her nephew and his father-in-law examined the men’s  bows and axes.

“I am glad to see you too, Aunt; you need not thank me for saving your hide, surrounded or not,” the prince smiled. “Can you explain to us what are you doing this south and on your own?” he added pleasantly. “This is a good one,” he told Thalaûr, showing him one of the axes.

“Do not be so smug, Mallereg, I needed not your help to get out of this...”

“But you would not have your bow and knife with you but for our timely support, not to mention that they would be still roaming the woods. Where is your patrol?”

“A day north,” she admitted easily, sitting on the ground and producing a piece of lembas from her pack. “We ran into the boy while we checked an outbreak of birch canker. We were aware of their passage some days ago, so I sent Cûrion east to warn Maegolf’s patrol...We were to meet around here.”

“But you met the men first,” Thalaûr ended up, offering her his waterskin. She accepted it with a shrug.

“What are you doing this south?”

“Protecting the forest and helping the foresters, as it is our duty,” Mallereg said with a scowl, sitting by her side and accepting a bit of lembas.

“We ran into Maegolf’s party and sent them to check on a group of poachers in the eastern border, while we took charge of this menace,” Thalaûr added, taking a long swig and passing the waterskin on to Mallereg.

Laerîniel sighed.  Things had changed greatly since the War, and orcs and spiders were but a memory for the elves. They had regained control of lands long kept by the enemy or rotten by his evil, and thanks to their patient care -and the trees’ stubborn resilience- great expanses of forest had been totally recovered.

But Men had thriven as well, all around them. Keeping them from trespassing on the borders of the once remote and dreaded Mirkwood had become a growing problem in a world were elves were no more than a memory, or, in the case of many of the new arrivals and their masters, had never been known.Poaching and logging were only too common in many places along the once well-protected borders of Lasgalen, despite Mallereg’s and the now mostly nomadic settlers’ brave efforts.

“Anyway, it is good that we found you,” the prince said, exchanging a  curious glance with Thalaûr, “so we can travel back together. Did Maerlag meet you on his way back? No?” At Laerîniel’s questioning glance he continued. “You and I have been summoned to the King’s presence, my dear Aunt,” he informed in his noncommittal manner. “That’s why I sent Maegolf east and came myself to your rescue...Don’t know what for,” he added defensively at her sharp stare. “I just obey.”

“It is a pleasure seeing this young one so compliant and dutiful for a change, isn’t it, Thalaûr?”

“I think I will forget ever hearing this conversation,” the guard announced judiciously, packing his waterskin and beginning to gather the confiscated weapons, tying the axes by their handles with a length of pine-root cord for easier carrying. “We’d better start off, since the King awaits us,” he added pointedly, shaking his head at Mallereg’s smug face.

They took a trail north and walked for several days under cover of a leafed tunnel that shook gracefully in an early autumn wind. Yet from time to time they also found rotten branches and decaying trees which had not already reached their old age.

“Why would the King summon us?” Laerîniel wondered aloud one night, licking the last crumbles of the sweet hemlock-bark cake from her fingers. They had pitched camp on a carpet of fallen leaves, despite the early season. “It is the first time, since Lord Celeborn announced his departure almost an ennin ago,” she added thoughtfully.

“Perhaps he wants a detailed report?” Mallereg suggested as he put more dead wood in their fire to last them part of the night. “Nobody knows what’s going on throughout the forest better than you, Laerîniel,” he said with a fond smile. “Except for the King, of course. I shall keep the first watch, Thalaûr,” he offered with a tired sigh

Laerîniel lay upon a pile of leaves and wrapped herself in her blanket. Through a gap in a canopy that was still healthily dense there she could glimpse the twinkling stars above their heads, a sight that had comforted her since she was a young child, more than an age ago.  She heard an owl hooting in disappointment, and the soft murmur of the leaves on the trees commenting the failed catch. Lasgalen was alive, and she could still feel its voices better than anyone else, she told herself reassuringly, banishing thoughts of young trees felled down, pines bleeding their resin to death, fires that assaulted their borders recurrently, the invading plagues of diverse cankers, leaf scorching, shoot blight and decay that afflicted different parts of the forest.  As she drifted off she wondered briefly how it would be to walk endlessly under the leaves of the healthy woods beyond the Sea.

Even half-asleep, the thought hurt her deeply.

*******

In Eressëa

“Were he to learn that mellyrn actually grew around here, the Lord Celeborn would be seen striding down Círdan’s quays in no time, I assure you, my friend.”

Legolas and his mare snorted in chorus.

“Do you think you would have forsaken Middle-earth earlier had you known, Haldir?”

“Surely not,” the former march warden agreed easily. “But I must admit that it was an important concern of mine,” he added with a wide smile. “The sight of their tall limbs and golden leafs reassured me far more than that of the White Tree, when I first set foot upon the Isle.”

They had reached the top of a knoll, crowned by tall mellyrn, that oversaw the sea and the main haven in the most blessed shore of Tol Eressëa. A soft breeze sang merrily among the silvery, wooden, carved sea-foam and crystal wrought smoking-pipes the Elves loved to hang from the lowest branches of a strong mallorn tree, in memory of the three Ring bearers and their smoking fellows.

“Well, Master Samwise was equally delighted,” Haldir added in a soft voice as they dismounted and let their horses graze freely for a while.

“I can very well believe that,” Legolas said, stretching his limbs and looking around with a wistful smile. None of the three old hobbits had lived to see him reach the Lonely Isle, but the memory of their happy, generous natures still lingered in that favoured place of theirs. They, as well as Gimli when his time came, had asked to be buried there, among the mellyrn, in that splendid lookout from which, on clear days, the shores of Valinor could be descried.

“It is so peaceful, here…” Legolas was standing by the rim of the hill, watching as the Sun came slowly to her daily rest beyond the calm waters. “If those who still linger there could know how blessed this land is they would not be reluctant to take ship, would they?” he wondered aloud.

“I know not, Legolas. Actually we always knew, although we never truly believed. I would have never thought it possible myself, until the Lady Galadriel departed, and then the lord left us, and suddenly I began considering what lay beyond the Sea…Now, I cannot help wondering that she managed to remain there for so long…She was an exile,” he added as explanation. “She knew what she had left behind, she must have longed deeply for Elvenhome…”

“She surely had her own motives...”

“Of course she had. But that did not make it easier, I suspect… Would you ever forsake willingly these forests for those of Middle-earth, now that you have known this beatitude? ”

“No, I think not,” Legolas answered honestly. “Yet I was happy in Lasgalen, Haldir, and it pains me that those who still remain there are bound to suffer the uncertainty of sea-longing or deep despair, until they finally fade away in grief or accept to take ship. I wished there was an easier way for them…”

“I know what worries you, my friend,” Haldir patted his shoulder comfortingly. “But maybe your departure served to clear the way for others to accept that the time of the elves has finally come to an end. My lord Celeborn is not less stubborn than your father or your wife, Thranduilion,” he added with a lopsided smile. “Love is stronger than the Belegaer, you will see…”

“I shall trust your word, then,” Legolas answered with a resigned smile. “I think we should go on,“ he added, as the impatient seabird that had summoned him earlier that day in his forest house clacked her beak exasperatedly. Mounting their steeds, the two elves followed the unsettled bird down the steep trail.

“I wonder what’s the urgency,”  Haldir sighed after the bird flew again daringly close to his horse’s head, hurrying them. Time passed pleasantly in Tol Eressëa, and rush, together with grief or fear were  emotions the Elves remembered but rarely experienced there. A leisurely ride to the havens had seemed to Haldir a good occasion to pay a visit to the Lady Galadriel, who still dwelled by the Sea patiently awaiting the arrival of her lord, and so he had joined Legolas gladly when he met him on his way that morning. Most of the Galadhrim -as well as former inhabitants of Greenwood- dwelled deep in the dense forests of Tavrobel, and Legolas had soon resumed an easy friendship with many of them.

“She is leading us to the port,” Legolas confirmed, fighting the uncertainty that suddenly assailed him. To their right, the white tower of Ingil shone brightly in the evening sun above the tall, ashen limbed elms that surrounded the city of Alamminorë on its green hill, while the bird kept flying down towards the sea.

Once in the small city, they hurried their steeds along the bright path of flaming beacons that led from the quayside to Círdan’s house, barely noticing the strange vessel moored by the graceful swan-ships that pitched calmly by the docks. A helpful mariner walked out of Cirdan’s house to take care of their horses, followed by a tall, golden-haired lady who beckoned to them gracefully.

“Legolas! And Haldir too, well-done my friend!” the lady smiled to the seabird, who had landed quite recklessly upon her shoulder and nibbled affectionately at her ear. The sound of singing and merrymaking reached them from the inner yard.

“Lady Meril,  what is this all about?” Legolas asked, exchanging a baffled glance with his friend. Travellers from Middle-earth were seldom greeted with such ceremony at the Shipwright’s house. The tall lady who was King Ingwë’s great-granddaughter offered an arm to each puzzled elf. “Come and see for yourselves, my friends! I am sure there will be great feasting in Tavrobel soon!” she told them with a mysterious smile, leading them inside.

The stone paved yard inside Círdan’s house was crowded, and Haldir soon disappeared amidst the multitude, no doubt wishing to greet a long-missed friend. The new arrivals were easily spotted, Legolas thought amusedly; they wore amazement like a cloak. Celebrían’s smile was radiant as a summer morning, and she kept a possessive clutch on her sons’ arms. Legolas had trouble making his way through the delighted crowd that surrounded them, for not only Elrond’s household seemed complete now, but there were many elves from Olwë’s court as well, surely come to greet Ëarwen’s great-grandchildren, Legolas reasoned after some family-tree pondering.

“Legolas!” The twin sons of Elrond showed the puzzled expression of all new arrivals, but their smiles were a bit too forced. “Is there a back door anywhere here?” one of them whispered hurriedly into his ear, as they exchanged warrior arm clasps in welcome.

“You surely want to cause a good impression on your kin,” Legolas began admonishingly. “And, I regret to inform you, almost everyone around is bound to be somehow related to you,” he continued, and they all laughed at the twins’ dismayed groans. “It is good to have you here at last, my friends,” he added with deep sentiment, patting again the twins’ shoulders, not daring to raise the questions he died to ask.

“We did not cross the Misty Mountains again after Eldarion’s passing,” Elladan told him quickly, aware of his restlessness, “but Celeborn brings messages from your wife and your family…“

“Come, Legolas, and greet my adar. Watch your sons, Elrond, they are already plotting how to slip away unnoticed,“ Celebrían commanded gently, pushing Legolas along. “He asked to see you as soon as he…was allowed to speak,” she told him with a mischievous grin as they made their way through the same dense throng to the other side of the yard.

Legolas could not hold a delighted smile as the crowd parted to reveal them in their midst, tall and shiny like Telperion and Laurelin must have been, the Lord Celeborn and the Lady Galadriel finally reunited beyond  the Sea.

“I am glad to see that you finally found it impossible to resist whatever the call, Lord Celeborn,” he said loudly, bowing respectfully to hide his mischievous grin.

“I am sure you are, Thranduilion,” retorted the lord, pulling him into a tight embrace while Galadriel smiled indulgently at them.

“And one would be tempted to think that he really took his time,” a voice objected with undisguised reproach.

“We already talked about that, Grandfather,” Galadriel said soothingly.

“Well-met, King Olwë,” Legolas bowed respectfully while Celeborn sighed in mild exasperation.

“Well-met, young Thranduilion. See? This young one did come when his task was complete, much as Elrond. I cannot understand…”

“Take this, Legolas,” Celeborn whispered hurriedly, pushing a bundle of soft leather into his hands. “We shall talk later…if I survive,” he added with a groan.

“But they are all here at last, Olwë,“ the lady Meril interrupted cheerfully. “And you must admit that they did a great job with their ship…”

“Better than anything my son-in-law ever achieved, I’ll grant you that, my dear lady,” the Teleri king acknowledged with a mischievous smile and a nod to Finarfin, who had just joined the group and rolled his eyes good-naturedly at the barb.

“You are too kind, Lady Meril…what.. what is that? It cannot possibly be the same bird?” Legolas followed the astonished look in Celeborn’s face to the white seabird perched on her shoulder. Deciding that he was far more interested in the contents of the leather bag than in a well-known old tale of past ages and smitten gulls, he nodded guiltily to Celebrían and began to slip away.

“…her descendant. She wouldn’t be parted from my grandfather…” the clear voice of the Vanyarin lady followed him as he entered a wooden door he knew led to one of Círdan’s storerooms, and, through a path of tools, discarded planks of wood and fishing nets, out to the beach. Once under the stars, he sat cross-legged by a torch, opened the leather bag and  immersed himself in the loving words that came from a land beyond the sea, and from a life that had once been his. 

“…Legolas?”

He blinked, suddenly brought out of his contemplation. The stars twinkled high in the sky, and the sounds of merrymaking were now dimmer. The night was well in, he knew.  He looked up to see Celeborn and Galadriel shinning down on him with the same all-knowing, stately smiles he remembered from the first time he had seen them, welcoming tired travellers on their talan in Lórien. But they looked closer now, less awe-inspiring and whole, he noticed. Very different from when he had last seen them together, he thought, worn-out and haunted reflections supporting an equally exhausted Elrond after he completed the most painful part of his duty in Middle-earth.

“You were saying, my lord?” He realized that he had been staring and blushed violently, turning his gaze to the wristband of threaded beech bark in his hands, and the beech leaf that had enveloped that present from his wife. Who knew which descendant of the Old Beech it came from, he wondered idly as Celeborn and Galadriel sat by his side.

“It was love in the end, Legolas,” Celeborn said quietly. Legolas’ head shot up and he looked at the lord in amazement.

“Not the sea-longing? Tell me how it felt!” he urged him.

“It was…” The tall lord groped for words and then shrugged. “We just wished there was a way back, so we could tell the rest,” he finally said, almost apologetically. “As soon as we took the Straight Road… I mean, it was as if -all of a sudden- all grief, sorrow, longing and weariness had been lifted from our spirits…It was all there: the pain, the struggle, the losses, the love and happiness… and it suddenly…just made sense, everything,” he ended with an awed whisper.

Legolas smiled. He knew the feeling, as did every Elf who reached the True West. Memories were there, clear as a spring morning and treasured like a precious thing, yet the weight of grief and sorrow was replaced by an overwhelming understanding and immense relief. It had been a deep joy to him, as the urgency of the sea-longing finally died in his ears and turned into a gentle, soothing whisper, but he had been curious to learn how it felt to one who had sailed without being forced by the call.

“You will grow used to it, my lord, for that is the way here,” the lady told him reassuringly. “We find fulfilment in simply being, and time’s grasp is not painful but enlightening. It is almost as it used to be, when the Trees still shone and the Morgoth had not been unchained,” she added with longing.

“It is as it used to be back then under the stars, before the Sun and the Moon,” the lord retorted in mild defiance, “when the Moriquendi roamed the lands of Middle-earth freely and contented with just being…” They both locked gazes and Legolas could not suppress an amused smile. He could not tell, since he had not known anything like that in Middle-earth.

“But since that is now beyond the Elves’ reach there,” he acknowledged easily, speaking slowly, as if wondering in his own words, “it is natural that we finally find our place beyond the Sea, while never forgetting the lands of our youth…instead of dwindling there, wallowing in regret…It seems so easy and simple now…”

“And yet not to be burdened by memories and longing, but comforted and refreshed,” the lady pointed out evenly. “Four you are not exiles; the gift of healing is extended to all those who dare take ship, and I am most glad for it,” she ended with a soft smile. “But I believe that Legolas wanted to know what prompted you to sail, my lord,” she added with a mischievous smile.

“Oh that! I…I am not sure how it happened,” the lord admitted with a bemused smile. “Yet one day I awoke to the certainty that it was a question of time before the Men finally swarmed the valley and settled down before Imladris’ very threshold…and suddenly I knew that I did not want to be there when it happened. So I summoned Elladan and Elrohir and told them to begin gathering all knowledge available in Elrond’s remaining library concerning shipbuilding…while I paid a due visit to King Thranduil.”

“So it was not love in the end…”

Let me go on with my tale, Lady,” he reproached her softly. Legolas’ indulgent smile at their affectionate bickering had a touch of longing.

“It was love,” Celeborn insisted. “As I rode from the valley I felt like I always did when returning to Lórien after spending a season visiting there. I felt that I was going home, and suddenly I knew that it did not matter to me if there were or were not mellyrn beyond the Sea, for there my lady dwelled, and I just wanted to dwell by her,” he added tenderly, heedless of the pained wince in Legolas’ face.

"My father must have been amused by your reasoning,” he said, trying to sound jovial.

“Quite,” Celeborn admitted dryly. “And I am sure that he felt relieved, too, that he would beat me there...” Legolas chuckled helplessly at that, the agony in his chest forgotten for a moment. “I spent the winter and the following spring there and we talked at length about the lands. Your father may be stubborn enough for Oropher’s measure, but he is wise as well, and he knows his forest…and his own heart,” Celeborn explained kindly.

“It will not be easy for him though…” Legolas wondered what on Middle-earth could move his adar to give up on his beloved forest –and the people who trusted him- and take ship to the West. “He is not one to concede defeat…”

“He has had almost three ennin, since you departed to Ithilien,  to get used to the idea. Besides, it is not as if it was a new one,” Celeborn sighed, his gaze lost for a moment on the waves. “We have all long known that the time of the Elves was running short…”

“And… Laerîniel?” Legolas’ voice came as a strangled whisper.

“She…she is as stubborn as her adar.”

“So says her naneth...” Legolas could not avoid a faint smile at Celeborn’s mild exasperation.

“Glîrbain knows better than anyone. Yet she will welcome the messages that I bring from them,” the lord said softly. “Laerîniel is still wounded, Legolas, and she refuses to admit that she is fighting a lost battle. We rode together for some time, inspecting damages on the forest; the trees love her deeply, yet she grieves because they will not heal as she would them…”

Seeing Legolas’ pained expression, he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “She holds on to the forest because that is all that is left of you,” he said softly. “She will come for love, as I did,” he added then with such conviction that Legolas found himself holding blindly to that hope, as Lord Celeborn began telling them of the changes in the lands to the East; of new roads and trade routes, new cities and thriving ports and lands cleared for tilth…

TBC

A/N: According to the Book of Lost Tales 1, Meril-i-Terinqui was a descendant of Ingil son Ingwë, who dwelled in Eressëa for some time after returning from the War of Wrath. The seabird just…followed.