Rating: NC-17
Characters: Celebrían, Elladan, Elrohir, Elrond, Legolas. (Glorfindel, Celeborn, Galadriel.)
Disclaimer: Tolkien owns all. New line Cinema has the rights to them. No copyright infringement intended by the borrowing of them. No profit made
Summary: Celebrían's experiences in the caves of the Orcs. Is her love strong enough to override the feelings evoked by the Orcs?
WARNING: Torture within - if you do not like it, do not read it.

Dark. It was dark. Inside at least. Outside it could be anything. She wasn't outside, she could feel the walls pressing in around her, compacting the air. It was cold. Stagnant cold though, not the chilly breath of wind. The cold of a place that did not know sunlight. Or warmth of any other kind. She tried not to shiver. Celebrían lay still, her eyes closed, not daring to open them, lest she attracted attention to herself. Lest she saw where she was. She did not want to know. So far she had managed to keep herself from screaming, but she was afraid that if she opened her eyes this might change.

Fear pulsed through her veins like blood, pounding against her temples and building in her throat until breathing became an effort and she had to concentrate to inhale around it. She tried to focus on her surroundings. It was damp, she could feel the moisture running down the walls and dripping onto her hair, she could hear it plopping like internal raindrops onto stone, the faintest echo and that the sound carried suggested that wherever she was it was not small. Yet the pressure of the air on her skin and the stillness of the air told her she was inside. The stone she was lying bound upon was damp, not moist, just the dampness that very cold stone retains when it never dries out. She was underground. Probably. The air was too chill, the stone too damp to be higher up. And it just felt low, as though she were trapped in the earth. It was a sensation that her kind despised, therefore they learned to recognise it. She felt herself shivering now anyway, though she clenched her jaw to stop her teeth chattering and contracted all her muscles to still her limbs.

A flinch shuddered through her as she sensed movement behind her head. She gritted her teeth, biting back a scream. She could feel the shadow fall across her. Something snagged in her hair, tugging at the strands and she felt her lip tremble. A voice rasped the air, grating words tumbling over themselves. The twisted tongue of Mordor. Pain shattered across her cheekbone, stinging the flesh and juddering into the bone beneath. Her jaw fell limply open and her eyelids shot upwards as salt burned into the orbits. Then she screamed.

* * * * * *

The council of warriors dismissed and the guard upon the borders strengthened at last, Elrond closed the door quietly behind his most trusted advisors. Words of sympathy hung deadened on the air, empty of meaning. What was the value of sympathy anyway? Elrond bitterly wondered. What use was it at all? It did not bring the lost back, or take away the pain of the wound. It cut like a blade and felt like a gloat - 'I am sorry for your pain,' seemed to read, 'I am so glad this befell you and not I'. He gripped the door handle until his fingers ached, red waves of pain flaring in his hand but he did not release it.

He felt so helpless. His borders were secured and his people safe. Once again he was safe. Sealed away inside a protected shell, distanced from the source of the problem while others bore the brunt of it. He had watched - watched - while Gil-galad burned and perished. Stood at a helpless, useless distance, unable to help, unable to do aught but cry out in anguish and witness his lover's death. When he should have protected him. As herald's duty. Because he loved him.

And now, here he stood, barricaded inside his own sanctuary, feeling it a prison, while his wife rode into the jaws of death and his sons did what he himself should. As a husband's duty, he should have protected her. He should have protected her just because she mattered. And now Elladan and Elrohir, unversed in battle and young to their world, rode hard upon her trail, vulnerable to the very same thing that threatened her. If anything happened to them... And he stood here. Doing nothing.

Elrond slammed both palms hard against the door. Wrenching himself away from it, he turned with anguished eyes to meet the steady gaze of Glorfindel. It occurred to him that he had spoken his fears aloud. The words hung upon the air, shivering with tension like a stressed animal, caged and distressed. He closed his eyes grimly and felt Glorfindel's hands on his shoulders, pulling him close. Elrond gripped the back of Glorfindel's tunic and set his teeth. Losing his control wasn't going to help anyone.

* * * * * *

The greyish hint of dawn crept through the trees like smoky shadows bringing with it a damp, creeping mist that sank moistly into their bones and dewed their hair with clinging droplets of water, chilling them to the core. Elladan stretched his neck stiffly and gently touched Elrohir's shoulder. They had settled to rest beneath the arms of a spreading oak, spending much of the night in an uneasy silence, awaiting the dawn. Elrohir had fallen to sleep a few hours ago, his head resting on Elladan's chest, his fingers laced with his brother's and a small frown touching his brow. Elladan smoothed his hair, easing out the tangles with his free hand. Elrohir's eyes opened slowly and he blinked, squinting against the sharp beams of pale light stabbing like icicles between the trees.

In silence they rose and crossed to the horses. Carnil was cropping grass in short tearing strokes, but her eyes showed white and darted about their surroundings between mouthfuls. Elen was hunched up and shivering, her flanks hollowed. But her ears were not cold to the touch and her coat only a little damp. Her ears twitched ceaselessly. Elladan cast a wary eye around them and stroked his mare's thinned flank as he untwisted her reins. Elrohir was already mounted. He met Elladan's eyes, his own mirroring the fear Elladan felt inside. But Elrohir sucked in a long, unsteady breath and squared his shoulders. Elladan swung himself up onto Elen's back and turned her to face the trail once more.

* * * * * *

Pain exploded across her face, the sickening crunch of bone splintering into her skull was nothing to the blaze of pain that accompanied it. Blood poured into her mouth and she choked, feeling it splatter across her lips and trickle stickily down her chin. Another blow fell and then another, her shoulder, her elbow, flaring with pain. It was about power, she thought grimly, the exertion of dominance over another. It was how the Orcs were controlled. It was how they in turn controlled.

The sudden shock of a fist landing was incomparable to the driving ache that followed when the numbness receded, leaving her limbs tingling and shaking. Moans spilled from her bruised lips, but it did not matter. They could have her cries. She was powerless to stop them.

A fist smashed into her torso, crashing between sternum and belly doubling her up like a speared fish. The breath roared from her lungs and she coughed up blood once more, flopping helpless, the cord of her bindings biting into her wrists. Fire spread outwards in a web of pain, shifting like fluid and grinding like rolled stones around the point of contact. She gasped again, hearing her breath rattle and suck. Bile rose with the exhale and the throbbing of her chest magnified. As soon as she could draw breath again, she screamed.

Her head snapped back. Pain jolted through jaw and skull together to core into a centre point of pulsing pain inside her cranium. Her ears were ringing insistently. The air beat heavy upon them, heavy like the pressing of a weight on her aching body. The air was crafted from lead, crushing her. Her screams echoed around, reverberating back and thundering into her head. She was no longer aware of when the cries came from her mouth and when the echoes took over. It was as though the cave itself was screaming.

The words shredded through the air a second time, accompanied by the stinking gust of halitosis. Celebrían stared up at the mound of muscle and oozing flesh that faced her, all the more horrifying for the points at the tips of its soft ears and the catlike eyes that saw deeper than her reddened face, seeming to bore into her soul. This creature, this twisted and ruined creature had been an Elf. The thought seared into her brain like an arrow. In which case, I also could... she did not complete the thought in case she was to give in and scream once more. And she did not want to do that. She could not be sure she would be able to stop. Trembling all over she met the flinty eyes with a courage she felt ebbing away as its lips curled back in a grim parody of a smile. The words came again and the smile appeared more to be a barring of yellowing teeth as the hiss in its voice proclaimed its displeasure.

Helplessly she simply gazed back at it, transfixed in her shock, for smile or grimace was indistinguishable as the muscles seemed to have been torn from its face and metal clips inserted. Iron clips. Iron burned elvish flesh like a fire. What it said she could not know, for Elvish was her tongue, in all its forms - save the language of Mordor. Whether or not an answer would have changed her situation, she knew not. And within moments she did not care.

She tried to cry out but the sound would not come. She arched back against the rock, wrenching at the straps that bound her hands and feet. She felt herself growing lighter and from a distance recalled dimly that she could will her soul to leave, leave the body and spare her the indignity of being murdered.

Unbidden an image of a face floated into her mind. Elrond. Who had lived when he could so easily have given up and died. To die was to hand over victory, he had grimly said when she asked.

To die was to hand over victory. Let them then kill her, if her life she was to lose. Let her death be upon their hands, she would not flee from even that, at least they then were responsible and not she.

She stared blindly into the eyes of her tormenter and realised with a start that there were two now. She had not heard the other come. Minutes ago? Hours? There was no time here. How could time be judged without the sun? She shivered. No light. There was no light in the eyes of the Orcs either. A deadened glint showed that life existed, but it was the soulless gaze of a snake.

She started violently as another materialised beside her. Her stunned flesh had not detected the brush of its aura and her swollen mind was unable to function above the pain.

The rending of material made her flash open the eyes she had shakily closed as she fought to calm herself and not hyperventilate. Automatically she tried to lift a hand to pull closed the gaping flaps of her tunic. The leathery straps bit into her wrists and the muscles in her shoulder protested. She abandoned the movement, defeated. Rough skin scratched across her breast and she flinched, her eyes following the movement as it traced the curve of her body. She lifted her eyes to the owner's face, disgust and fear radiating from her own. But the Orc did not meet her gaze; it was watching its own hand, fascinated by the softness of her skin.

Suddenly its golden eyes locked with hers and she felt another cry gurgle in her throat, like a strangled child choked into fearful silence. These were not the eyes of a mindless creature that knew only pain, the giving and the receiving of. The eyes that stared back into hers knew what she was - and loathed her for it. Whether, in the shredded remnants of its mind, it knew what it was, what it had been, she knew not. She could only assume so for the look in its eye was enough to still her heart in her breast. The Orc hated her.

She bit her lip, drawing blood and feeling splatter across her lip, tasting copper in her mouth. She felt the weight of the Orc fall across her legs. She heard her skirts tearing. But she couldn't see any more for the blurring of her eyes. The cave began to scream again.

* * * * * *

Elrond restively paced the corridors, impatiently awaiting further news from the borders. He walked the walls again and again, like a beast ensnared seeking escape where none lies, yet it must continually check, least when it stops an opening appears. He opened the door to his library, more to shy away from the young maid, Tasarë, who had stopped in her tracks like a hare beneath the hooves of a horse, tears pouring down her cheeks. He ducked into the library, half hoping that by some miracle, Arwen would be there, for she above all others could well handle whatever mood he wore. Yet of course, she was not.

Instead, to his surprise, he found himself facing Legolas of Mirkwood, curled up in his chair, one of Elrond's volumes open in his lap. His long hair fell in a soft blonde curtain across his face and his dark eyes lifted to meet Elrond's through the waterfall of gold.

"Lord Elrond," he said quietly, rising respectfully. "I apologise for the intrusion. Glorfindel suggested that I come here, but if you wish for privacy I may leave."

"No," Elrond waved a hand dismissively. "Stay if it pleases you, I care not."

Legolas nodded once and after a moment's hesitation, resumed his seat, his eyes drifting back to the text he held.

Elrond crossed to the window and stared out of it at the deceptively silent valley. It was too quiet, not a bird sang nor an insect whispered. Yet nothing else stirred within it. A mixed blessing.

"You do realise that you will not be able to return to your kingdom," Elrond said abruptly.

Legolas raised his head.
"I fear it would be unwise to travel," he replied. "But I do not wish to trespass upon your hospitality."

"No, no. I would rather you stay. I wish not to have your death upon my conscience and your father would no doubt serve me the same sentence."

"I think that he would not need to. You are your own judge and jury I think," Legolas said softly.

Elrond wheeled around, utterly disarmed.
"You speak as one who knows me well," he said, the beginnings of a rueful smile twisting at his lips.

"I speak out of turn, I apologise," Legolas said quickly.

"No," Elrond shook his head. "You are right, to my surprise, yet others have every right to judge me and once again I shall be found wanting."

It occurred to him that he was speaking these words to the son of Thranduil and no doubt the youngster's father would take delight in them.

"So my father often says, yet no man is without his faults," Legolas answered. "My father would happily put you down to give the culpability a name - and a name that is not his. If you are indeed to blame then to accept it is the beginnings to a reprisal."

Elrond met his eyes curiously, but the youngster did not speak again. He held Elrond's gaze for a long moment and then returned quietly to his book.

Elrond watched him for a moment. The words were spoken with an innocence that reminded him of Arwen, but the thought of Arwen drew his mind once more to his sons and the lurch of fear made him forget the presence of the young Prince, his books and the silent valley.

* * * * *

The circle of faces swung around and around before her watering eyes - were there three Orcs? Or five...no, six. She tried to count them. Around four she lost count again, each face seeming like the last. She felt tears burn up in her eyes again that she could not count the number of Orcs torturing her. The pain washed over her like waves on the ocean. The ocean. She wanted to hear its song. The screeching whine of metal upon metal sounded a little like the gulls. The gulls cried like that. Why did gulls cry? She was crying. Why was she crying?

Ah yes, the touches. Foul hands that forced their way into places hereto untouched by any save the Lord of Imladris. Elrond! The thought was like ice upon her fevered brain. And she hated - *hated* - the beast that rode her body and wrenched at the bindings of her soul. She was Elrond's. If he could touch her, just once more, none of this would matter. It would be gone. He owned her, body and soul. From our bodies came life. This creature's body cannot bring life. It cannot create. We can. Elrond and I. I can. Elrohir. Elladan. Arwen. They need me.

I cannot die, she thought dully. What would become of them if I were to go? What would happen to Elrohir? They need me. Elrond doesn't need you. I need him. And my family needs me. She focused hard upon mental sculptings of their faces. They need me. She clenched her fingers around the leather thongs of her bindings as though to anchor her soul. Elrond. Elladan. Elrohir.

* * * * *

Elrohir stared up at the mouth to the Redhorn pass. The mouth was cast into shadow, framed by the craggy rocks that shielded the entrance. Before him a stretch of grass lay bare and trampled to dusty soil. Scrubby clumps of grass were scuffed with gritty dirt. The pass was well used and followed with care. Yet this day it seemed deeper scored and the sides uneven. He pressed his heels to Carnil's sides. The mare baulked, sidestepping with a toss of her head. Elrohir increased the pressure of his heels and then crudely kicked her as the mare shook her mane and stepped back. She had grown ever reluctant since they met the trail to the pass and now outright refused to go forth. The jab of his heels sent her up on her hind legs. She landed again in the same spot, laying flat her ears and stepping back.

Twisting around, Elrohir realised that Elen had stopped some yards back, sweating and shaking. Her ears were pinned flat to her skull, her teeth set around her bit. Elladan cast him a troubled look. Grimly Elrohir lashed cruelly at his mare with the end of his reins. Carnil reared straight up. Down she came and pitched instantly into a vicious buck. Elrohir gripped her mane with both hands. She landed once more with a sideways plunge and snorted, yanking against her bit. Sweat had broken out on her neck. Elrohir released his death grip and ran a hand over her stained coat, defeated. For her to resist in such a manner spoke ill, though the frustration at her refusal gnawed at him.

Elladan's hand touched his knee and he saw that his brother had dismounted.

"We continue upon our feet," he said quietly. "The horses will stir not another step. Something in the air dismays them."

"What is it, can you tell?" Elrohir asked, slipping from Carnil's back.

Elladan shook his head, his senses trained upon their surroundings. Elrohir freed Carnil of her bridle and hoped that she would not wander far.

Elladan took a few steps forward, his pace quickening as he neared the foot of the cliffs. Elrohir saw him stoop and then glance instantly up to the rock face. Swiftly he moved to join his twin. He saw at once what had spooked the horses. The grimy earth was stained to black in a congealed pool beneath the shadow of the rocks. A twisted chunk of something hard and darkest grey lay within it, whitish fragments jutting from it. It took a moment to register what it was. The hoof of a horse, ripped from the coronet band away.

Elrohir gagged, lifting a hand to his mouth. Elladan swallowed hard and convulsively, rising quickly and averting his eyes. Elrohir laid a gentle hand on his arm, feeling his twin shudder. Retreating, his boot contacted with something hard, which mercifully clinked of metal. And from the tufty grass he extracted the shaped steel of a horse's bit - and leather bridle straps. The browband was inset with the crest of Imladris.

"Oh...tell me...no - Yavanna!" Elrohir managed to gasp.

Elladan's face paled still further, his eyes huge and dark set deep.

"Where...?" Elrohir looked around, suddenly uneasy. "Where is the rest of her?"

Elladan just looked at him.

"Inside an Orc I should imagine."

Elrohir wished that the moment were funny for he giggled, the sound high and feeble in the oppressive air. It tailed into nothingness as he realised how serious Elladan was and his stomach churned. Elladan said nothing of his hysteria, but his face was grim and set. He indicated the ridge with his eyes and without waiting for a confirmation, began to climb the path.

* * * * *

Fire lanced up her spine and she felt her body twist and arch, hearing a scream echo around the cavern. The underground cavern. She was underground. Out of the light. There was no light here. No day. No night. No time. It was always dark. A sort of half dark, occasionally flickers of flame lit the walls and cast shadows. Shadows crept inside her. Inside. They were trapped inside her. She was trapped inside. And it was dark. Darkness. Eternal darkness. Was it dark in the Halls? But the name of the Halls eluded her.

Mad...madness? Was she mad? Man...mandrake? Mandrakes...what were mandrakes? Again she heard the awful scream. Ah, yes, mandrakes screamed. The cry of the mandrake was deadly. Was it the mandrake screaming? Was she dead? She didn't know. She couldn't feel anything anymore.

She could see a body, twisting and bucking upon a slab of stone. An Elvin woman. She had a long, tangled mane of blonde hair. She had blood on her face. As she watched the woman opened terrified blue eyes, staring up at the craggy rock, seeming to stare right at her. Her name...the woman's name was Celebrían. She was dying.

My name is Celebrían.

It was her, she realised with a start. She was young woman who lay dying upon the rocks. No! She couldn't die. Why couldn't she die? There was a reason. It had a name. She had a name. Who was she? Celebrían. A cooling wash of relief. My name is Celebrían. I am an Elf. I have blonde hair and my eyes are blue. I am married. My husband...what is his name? A face in her mind's eye, framed by long dark hair, grey eyes turned towards her, an eyebrow lifted in question. Elladan. His name is Elladan. No, not Elladan. Elrond. Elladan...a son. A younger man, the same fall of dark hair, but plaited back from his face, calm grey eyes. He looked like Elrond. He was his son. My son.

He has a sister. Arwen. But she could not remember anything about Arwen. It was just a name. Her vision swam and suddenly there were two Elladan's. She blinked. Lots and lots of Elladan's - like the Orcs. Two, three, four. But when she tried to focus upon his face the others melted away. Except for one other. There were still two. She had another son, she thought dimly. But who he was she couldn't remember. Tears slipped from her eyes; although she did not feel them somehow she knew she was crying. Like the gulls. The gulls cry. Of this she was sure. But she couldn't remember why the gulls cried.

She couldn't remember the name of this other son. He looked like Elladan, but his features were sharper somehow, his eyes dancing with a bright light. He wouldn't like it in here, she thought dazedly. It is too dark. But the bright glint of his eyes made her stiff lips curl. Lights in the darkness. He is my son. My name is Celebrían. I am married to Elrond.

Elrond...I had something to tell him. What did I have to tell him?

And suddenly it was important that she did not die. She had to tell Elrond something. She clung to the bright eyes that flitted into her vision. And this child. He needed her. She had to know his name. For that she had to live. My name is Celebrían. My name is Celebrían. She stared deeply into the eyes that shone so brightly.

But even the brightness dimmed. The eyes grew dead within the pert face and the image began to blur as her eyes teared once more. The cheekbones sagged. The glitter of metal - fragmented teardrops seeming that iron glinted from the face. The face of her child. An Elf. An Orc. And the hatred surged within her.

*****

2

A ring. A ring of faces. Spinning. Spinning. Orcs. Twisted faces. Metal in flesh. Growing fuzzy. It hurts. It hurts. Dying. No! Elrond. Children. She could see their faces. Metal in flesh. Orcs. No, Elves. Orcs. Elrond. Children. She heard the cave scream. It hurts. Around her the faces of her children glittered with the stapled inserts of Mordor metal. Their deadened eyes stared at her. And her body was ridden by her husband. And only hatred burned in her heart.

* * * * * *

The walls of the caverns dripped with moisture that beaded like sweat upon greying skin as Elladan stepped inside the darkened pass. He could feel his heartbeat drumming against his ribs, Elrohir was pressed close behind him, Elladan heard his twin's breath catch in his throat and hold there. Crowded, Elladan motioned for him to stay back a distance, ducking beneath an overhanging rock as he did so. The pass lay out black before them, in the absence of the usual torches burning in their holders. The metal rings had been ripped from the walls. Elladan pressed against the face of the rock, letting his eyes adjust to the impenetrable shadows.

Elrohir's hand on his wrist startled him. His twin's eyes glowed in the darkness.

"I can feel her," his voice came out as a raspy whisper.

Elladan listened for a moment and then let his own senses slide away from their immediate surroundings. He shook his head after a moment.

"I cannot," he murmured, scanning the pass again.

"They are hurting her," Elrohir ground out. "She is reaching for us I think. I feel the brush of her mind." He shivered slightly.

Elladan reached out to give his shoulder a comforting squeeze.
"Then you must guide me, though I confess I do not regret that I have not your perception in this field."

Elrohir managed a weak laugh.
"I am better than you at many things - at last you are prepared to acknowledge it."

Elladan thinned his lips and scowled.
"Later we shall have words about this," he grumbled, flattening against the wall to let Elrohir pass.

The passage through the tunnels was well known to both of them for they rode often to Lorien and indeed, of late, Elrohir to Mirkwood. It was a great surprise, therefore, to Elladan, when Elrohir suddenly stopped and laid his hand upon the wall, running his fingers experimentally over it. He retraced his footsteps a small way, frowning. He stumbled forward as he reached the edge of a projection and with a soft cry, indicated that there was a gap behind it. It was wide, though Elladan noticed that there were no torch brackets and so in previous years it would have been easy enough to miss it amidst the shadows.

Elrohir ducked behind it. Elladan had barely moved to follow him when there was a wet slap and before his feet landed the thickened, meaty form of an Orc. Black blood spilled upon the rocky floor. Elrohir's pale face emerged from behind the rock and he wiped his dagger across the thigh of his breeches. Elladan stood for a moment, staring at the dead Orc and drew a deep breath. He almost choked as the nauseous scent of Orc flesh assailed his nostrils. Elrohir raised a weak grin at the face his twin pulled. Turning, he vanished again into the darkness, his dark hair flicking across his blanched cheek.

The small path ended abruptly upon a ledge where below lay a drop of several feet. Elrohir was plastered against the cliff face, his mouth set into a thin line. Elladan moved slowly forwards until he too could survey the room, while keeping back amidst the obscuring darkness. A surge of rage surged through him so great that the cavern swirled before his eyes, turning to a formless blur of dull colour. He felt nails biting into his wrist and realised that he had stepped forward unconsciously.

"Do not!" Elrohir hissed urgently at him.

Elladan shook off his hand but his vision had settled, the scene standing out sharp and clear. His blood ran to ice in his veins and he reached for his bow.

The cavern was not vast, just a hollow in the rock that might have been at one stage a blasted vein that the dwarves had neglected as worthless. A mound of rock that barred a portion of one wall suggested that there had previously been an alternative access route and it occurred to Elladan that the cave might have been discarded as unsafe. He pushed the thought aside. It did not matter. What mattered lay before him. There were some fifteen Orcs beneath them; most preoccupied in either what seemed to serve as slumber for them or crouched in small knots around two areas.

In one he could see only a misshapen mass of pinkish matter that was streaked with flashes of white and a garish scarlet in places. Elrohir made a stifled gagging sound and Elladan suddenly processed what he was looking at. The glint of shattered bone projected upwards from what appeared to be a thick bent branch. It was then that he noticed the angle of the bends suggested joints, hock and fetlock. Yavanna. The thought sickeningly churned at his stomach and bile rose in his throat. The stench of sweat and blood hit his nose and he leaned back against the rock face, casting an agonised glance at Elrohir.

Elrohir's hands were clenched into fists and he stared, oblivious of Elladan's gaze to the other clutch of Orcs. Elladan felt a sudden brush on his mind. The waves of turbulent emotions that Elrohir fought to rein in were so similar to his own that he barely noticed them. The sensation that touched against him was like the familiar placing of his mother's hand against his cheek - and then as though she had drawn it abruptly back and slapped him. He twisted back to follow the frozen direction of his brother's eyes. And such a rage as he had never felt consumed him. It was as though his soul had stepped outside his body to watch as a cold hearted, implacable stranger took control of limbs that locked as though with tetanus.

His automatic thought was to shoot the beast that rode upon his mother's prostrate body. He drew arrow and bow with precise fingers and fitted the two together with ease. He met Elrohir's eyes and mouthed, "Take the left."

Elrohir nodded, his own face a mirror of Elladan's own set with chilly anger and grim determination. With another glance, coupled this time with a nod, he let loose his arrow.

The song of the bow swelled unheard amidst the shrieks of metal and grating tongue of Mordor. Borne by winged shafts, death found its mark again and again.

* * * * * *

It was communication of a form. There was no other way to look at it in order to rise above the shared pain and grief that assaulted her, as long as her eyes remained fixed upon the glassy surface of the water. The Orcs were pitiable. A form of life that within it lay eternal torment, which could only be shared, never released from. Even death would not sooth it away, for the broken soul would be forever trapped, as so often the victims of violent deaths are held in place by their own shock, unable to process that the inevitable has finally occurred. To feel is to die; yet to live without feeling is never to live at all. But you have felt enough, go now and rest.

"Let your soul slide before there is no release for you either, my daughter," Galadriel murmured.

She felt the answering thoughts, unconsciously connected to her, strike like blows themselves. No! Elrond. Elladan. Ar... and the other. Mine. My sons. My daughter. NO! Yet the phantasmagorical images that came with the thoughts were bound with cords of both purest love and darkest hate. Chained together like two cannon balls to strike down the masts of ships tossed upon the seas of war. The Orcs and the Elves alike. Galadriel closed her eyes.

And then the picture shifted again...

Amidst the spiralling patterns of shadow and light, which danced and intertwined with each shaping move that shifted the futures towards their eventual outcome, there were not two, but one. One mind, one way of thinking, one soul split between two entities in such a manner that to see them so, it appeared a trick of the light or some false reflection that there were two at all. Galadriel watched motionless as the twins within her mirror let fly their youth and brought their ages crashing upon their heads as they shot the Orcs from their perches.

It took but a moment for the cascade to result, the attention attracted by their fallen comrades and the thick outpouring of blood caused the globulous mass of Orcs to separate out into individuals and lunge towards the twins. They leapt from the ledge in sync. Elrohir landing low in a crouch that brought him up to drive knife into the gut of his nearest foe. Elladan twisted in mid-air to evade the swing of a blade, catching his boot upon it and falling into a roll that sent him clear of the Orcs, giving him passage to rise.

She switched her focus back to her daughter, whose mind reeled, unable to process that the pain had stopped and that its source was lying slit open in a pool of blackest liquid, slain by Elladan's hand. She reached out with her mind, a soft balming touch that was all she could give from such a distance.

"My love," Celeborn's voice, though he softly spoke, rolled like thunder across the hills of her mind. "A message cometh from Imladris. Our daughter..."

"I know," Galadriel answered. "Go to her, go to them all."

* * * * * *

Elrohir slipped, bringing his short blade up in a defensive parry, feeling the impact of the blow shudder up his arm. He ducked beneath its second swing and rose, blade pointed up in a savage jab that slid between the jaws of his attacker and poured blood down its silvered edge.

Elladan cried out as he was thrown hard against the wall of the cavern, the rock slamming up to meet him and sending pain coring through his elbow. He lifted his arm to counter the flying blade and found his arm weakly buckled, the sword falling loose from his hand. He dipped beneath the flying steel instead, hearing it strike rock and drawing at the same moment, his second knife with his uninjured hand. The satisfaction of hearing it shatter home and the spray of crimson fluid that splattered across his cheek lent him strength again to turn and press forward, his left arm clasped to his side.

* * * * * *

"Arwen," Celeborn's voice stirred her from her reverie. Arwen had been sitting alone by the banks of the Lorien River, staring out across the water, transfixed by the shimmering beauty of its pearly depths. Yet despite the peace that held her mind, she had been growing aware of an unease in her soul. Her thoughts flitting to her brothers, mother and father respectively, had brought the same sense of disquiet. She sighed unhappily to herself; they had sent her away when they feared for Imladris security, knowing that Lorien would always be the last place to fall to darkness. She had known when she left that the situation had to be growing dire, for Vilya lent Imladris a strength, which some of the other kingdoms like the unfortunate Greenwood did not have. They must be in danger, she thought anxiously. She had stared and stared into the waters of the river until finally its tranquillity had washed into her and though the unease still ran within her, she was distant from it.

Now she jumped at the sound of Celeborn's voice. "I hear you," she twisted around to face him, supporting herself with one palm on the turf.

His serene countenance betrayed little, but long years with her father taught her to look into his eyes and see what the blank mask of Celeborn's face could not hide from their depths - a turmoil of emotion.

"Grandfather? What is wrong?" Her voice came suddenly breathless as she felt the peace drop away from her, like the shedding of a protective cloak and to leave her shivering in the chilly air. "Is it Papa...?"

"Childe, you are perceptive when I have but spoken your name," Celeborn offered calmly. "You are correct. I bear you news from your father and ride at once to Imladris. Your mother was this way bound a few days past but has not reached us. Your brothers ride upon her trail for it seems that she left alone. Your father grows fearful of their safety and begs my counsel. I am to leave in an hour."

"Let me come with you," Arwen said instantly, rising to her feet.

"Child, I cannot allow you to do this. You must see that your father entrusted you to my home to protect your being. To take you with me would be to put you at risk and this I cannot do."

"I shall ride with you or I too shall ride alone," Arwen replied steadily. "My father will need me and..." her voice cracked beyond her control. "If Mama is hurt then she will be taken home and I..." She broke off to suck in a tremulous breath of air. "I want to see her. Grandfather, please, what if she is badly hurt...what if she...she is dying?"

"These thoughts are in my mind also," Celeborn replied gravely. "But Arwen, if the passage from Imladris to Lorien cannot be made, to reverse it may not be possible and I would not see you endangered."

"But you ride that way. A-and the messenger got through. Grandfather, I cannot stay here!" Arwen pleaded.

"I understand," Celeborn said heavily, holding his tongue about the condition of the messenger. "But I made a pledge to your father and your mother that I would protect you come what may."

As he once pledged to me that he would do the same for my daughter, how came it to be so undone?

"This could not have been foreseen!" Arwen cried, momentarily forgetting that she was within the realm where that was possible. "I am sure that they would understand!"

Celeborn held her gaze for a long moment.

"That is hardly my meaning."

Arwen bowed her head.
"I cannot stay here and know not what is happening. I will not," Arwen said determinedly.

"You would disobey the wishes of your family and guardians then?" Celeborn asked gravely.

"I do not believe that they or you would wish me stay when I may be needed."

Celeborn met her gaze implacably. The soft blue eyes begged him silently, reproaching him for even considering that she could be left behind. It was her composure eventually swayed him, for she was not undone by the fearful information he had borne her, instead resolved by it. And if my daughter should be injured and die then she would blame herself for not being present. I could not stay; I do not stay.

"Come then," he said resignedly. There was little else that he could say.

* * * * *

The face that loomed in her vision was blackened with blood and the stench of death abhorred her. A long tangled mat of black hair fell across a face that was garishly streaked with crimson and white. Blood and bone. The cave was ringing with the echoes of shrieking metal and guttural cries, reverberating with the wet sound of rending flesh. The noxious odour of internal fluids and the dripping of the walls signalled that death drew near. A voice spoke into the ripples of fading sound.

"Oh, Mama!"

It took her a long moment to register that the words she knew. Mama. What was a Mama? She dimly knew it to belong to her.

Elrohir reached out a trembling hand to touch his mother's face and then drew it back, unable to ascertain the damage with the dried mask of blood. His hand shook for the blood still fired his veins and he was shot with anger, even in the moments of his shock as he viewed his mother's prone body. Elladan limped to his side, bending at once to cut the bindings with a notched knife blade that shimmered crimson in the feeble light. He held one arm awkwardly at his side; the tunic sleeve was torn and stained with blood.

"Can we move her?" Elrohir asked nervously, running his eyes over his mother's still body trying to assess the extent of the damage.

Elladan ran his own gaze over her pensively, noting the shattered breastbone, the crushed nasal and half a hundred more minor wounds. The pale skin blossomed with purpled prints turned to black in patches and swollen to scarlet in others. She had an arrow, probably from a misjudged shot during the turmoil jutting from her hip, its shaft shattered. Unless there it had been plunged by the rutting beast that lay bubbling a few feet away, fighting to breathe through its shredded windpipe. Elladan had meant to kill it, but his aim had not been true so driven was he by fury. Black anger never fought well. Hatred could destroy but could not bring closure. With a detached malicious pleasure he registered its gargling breaths as its life rattled away. He should have been sickened by it and a part of him would later reproach that he was not, the same part that lay curled and whimpering in a corner of his soul as he eyed the broken body of his mother. He was loath to cause her more pain.

"We do not have a choice," he replied grimly.

Cautiously Elladan touched the lips of flesh that pouted around the arrow's entry point, his mother's body shifted convulsively and she moaned. Gritting his teeth, he grasped the fractured wood and tugged. Celebrían's body arched up and she cried out as the shaft jerked free of the skin, bringing a welling of bright blood to the surface. Elladan cast the arrow aside viciously and pressed the edges of the torn skirts to the torn flesh.

Elrohir had hold of Celebrían's hand and a quick glance showed Elladan the tremble on his twin's lips, physically shown. His own insides were quivering, but he held his face still. Elrohir glanced at him, stroking Celebrían's brow. His face was drawn and his cheeks hollowed, streaked with dirt and a bruise rising on his cheekbone.

"There are Orcs coming," he muttered. " I can hear them."

Elladan listened for a moment, hearing the deadened tramp of feet some distance off. The echoes of the pass made them sound closer than they were.

"We must go," he decided. "We shall tend to her as soon as we are clear of the pass."

Elrohir slipped his arms around his mother's body tenderly.

Celebrían's eyes snapped open, wide with panic.

Elrohir swiftly placed a hand over her mouth.

"Shh," he begged urgently. "Please, oh please, do not scream."

To his surprise she seemed to hear him, whimpering and thrashing her skull beneath his fingers, yet when he removed his palm she was quiet, staring up at him with her wild eyes. For an instant recognition flitted across her face.

"You will not let me die?" she whispered.

Though the voice was little more than a hiss it seemed to be a question.

"Never," Elrohir promised, cradling her to him.

Her eyes dropped away listlessly and her voice came like a sighing breeze in the wood.

"You will not let me die."

*****

3

Now the damage is done,
The certainty's gone,
The spirit's altered.
(Sarah Mclachalan 'Back door man.')

She could remember his name. It was Elrohir. And Arwen had long dark hair. But her eyes were blue, like Celebrían's. She could even remember what she had wanted to tell Elrond. I love you. Except that now she was not so certain. When she stared up into the worry lined face and the soft grey eyes as the gentle hands soothed her, sending healing warmth spreading throughout her body, she did not love him. She loved that he made the pain leave her.

When he sat beside the bed, holding her hand in both of his, talking quietly, sometimes kissing her knuckles or reaching out to stroke her hair back from her face, she felt the stirrings of something that murmured to her of love beneath her broken breast. And then she thought only that he was there because he had to be. To do his duty as a healer and make himself feel better about failing as a husband. She did not see the tears in his eyes when she fell asleep and shifted uncomfortably in her slumber. She never noticed his sympathetic winces as she cried out when he touched her injuries. She did not see him lean his head into his hands in despair when she refused to eat, or in her less composed moments struck out, once blackening his eye and splitting his lip. She did not see that he left her side only when it there was no other option. Nor the bitter tears he shed alone. She did not see him collapse in the midst of a council, exhaustion eventually bettering him some weeks after her return. She only knew that he did not come that night.

He always came at night. Night and day were clear in Imladris. The windows were always open and the drapes never closed. But even if they had been she would have been able to tell which it was by her visitors. Each day they came, always at the same time, as though it were some macabre ritual. Elladan usually came early, before everyone else had risen, he woke with Glorfindel, before the dawn patrols set out. He would sit quietly with her, talking a little about where everyone else was or simply gazing with concerned eyes.

Elrohir asked questions. He came later, around mid morning. She would try to answer him. Sometimes. But more often than not she found that she did not care to. The words did not mean anything. So she was silent. Those times Elrohir would grow wet in the eyes. Then he would leave.

Arwen always joined her during the afternoons. She would sing songs or brush Celebrían's hair. The songs were pretty.

Glorfindel occasionally visited, with no regular pattern, just whenever he could be spared. Though she saw it not, he covered a lot of Elrond's regular work where he could. He would walk about the room and just talk, telling her what had happened on that day and what they were expecting to happen - as if nothing had changed. At first she resented it, yet after a time she found herself asking questions, even managing to smile when he told her of some escapade or groan when he spoke of the latest complaints from Mirkwood. She liked it when Glorfindel came.

Her father was there too for a time. It was he who had brought Arwen back. She first heard him talking to Elrond outside her door when they both thought she was sleeping, his voice colder than the wind in winter.

"I gave her to you on the grounds that you would protect her. We did not ask of you love, nor any other such affection that you could not have given, merely protection. Would that the vows could be retracted. For pity's sake Elrond!" Celeborn cursed, he never cursed and it sounded strange from his lips. "You have here the power of Vilya to your hand and it lends its strength to your valley. It would take precious little effort upon your part and still you have failed to keep her safe."

He had not waited for an answer, entering more quietly than his evident anger should have allowed. But she had not pretended to be sleeping.

He met her eyes with consternation upon his countenance.

"I am sorry," he sighed. "I did not intend for you to hear that."

"It was not his fault, Papa," she whispered back, fear that the alliance would fail when most it was needed drying her throat. "It was I who did not protect me."

The tears had fallen then and her father had soothed her, promising her that his distress would soon pass and assuring her that he would go directly to Elrond and make certain that there was still unity between their lands.

Reassured, she had been able to lie back and fall into a restless sleep. Her own words haunted her. It was not his fault, Papa. The truth in the words disturbed her, for Glorfindel had explained to her the confusion that had led to her isolation. She should not have ridden out alone and in that, at least, the fault was hers. Yet she could not help but feel that in some way she had lied.

* * * * * *

The tap on the chamber door caused Elrond to turn from his papers, which he had been trying to sort through, even though Glorfindel had once already done it.

Celeborn stood in his doorway.

"I wish to speak with you a moment, if you may spare me one, my son."

"I can indeed. What would you wish to see me about?" Elrond's voice was wary.

"It should come as no surprise to you that it is my daughter."

"Of course." Elrond uncorked a decanter of miruvor and began to pour two glasses. "But if you come once more to berate me then I ask that you spare your tongue the barbs. I have no more to say and no other apology to offer." His eyes were weary as he met the steely gaze of his father in law. "I have failed in my duty as Lord of this valley, as husband and friend to your daughter. I have dishonoured myself and done your family great injustice."

"That is indeed so," Celeborn said gravely. "Yet I believe that it may be forgiven." He took a measured step across the room. "My daughter was most insistent that I came to you in order to reconcile the situation between our kingdoms and I would do so lest the alliance have been in vain."

"We cannot afford to stand divided," Elrond agreed.

"No, we cannot." Celeborn steepled his fingers together. "The situation betwixt Imladris and Mirkwood is precarious enough without *our* kingdoms being at odds." He pulled a wry face. "And my daughter assures me that she is to bear a measure of blame in this matter."

"The fault was mine alone," Elrond murmured.

"Martyrdom does not become you, Elrond," Celeborn snapped.

Elrond lifted his head, startled.

"Forgive me, I did not intend..."

Celeborn held up a hand.

"Let us walk not this path, already we both are bruised by its thorns. I came for another purpose." He accepted the proffered glass before he continued. "I seek your counsel as a healer rather than the investigation of common tensions between marriage kinsmen."

"Then ask away," Elrond said, taking a seat upon a chair.

"How fares she physically?" Celeborn asked, taking the opposite chair.

Elrond sighed, cradling his glass between his hands. "The wounds were severe, but they will heal with time," he said slowly. "The bones in her chest are knitted already and there will be no lasting damage. The most concerning injury was the arrow hurt, for the tip must surely have been poisoned. Glorfindel, to our fortune had, a long time past now, discovered a remedy, which proved her saviour. For a time I feared that we should not be able to relieve her of the poison. As it is however, her blood is cleansed and she will be well. In truth it is not her physical wounds that grieve me."

"That is what next I was to ask. What feel you about her condition in that respect?"

Elrond sighed again, gazing into the depths of his glass.

"I know not what to think," he said finally. "In her mind I feel such pain that few of my balms can offer relief from. I know not what happened to her, so I cannot hope to pass the mental walls that she has erected within. And she will not speak of it."

"She does not speak at all, or precious little. She gazes endlessly unseeing, yet you would think that she has lost her tongue," Celeborn grimly said.

"I know." Elrond said heavily. "I know."

Celeborn sighed then. After a long moment he indicated Elrond's glass, still gripped between his hands.

"You will warm your cordial that way," he remarked.

* * * * * *

As her strength began to return, so too did the frozen emotions that had deserted her during her convalescence. With increasing restraint however, she concealed them. It was no longer that she could not feel, more that she was ashamed of her feelings.

Glorfindel came running the day she broke the looking glass. His face had been so writ with concern that she had lied and said that it was an accident. So silly, Glory, so sorry. I did not mean to startle everyone. So silly. Yes, yes, I am fine. A little laugh and pick up the pieces.

She could not explain to him that it was not the mirror she had intended to break, but the woman inside it. She could not stand the mocking stare. The woman was beautiful. Slender and tall, she had long waves of golden hair and wide blue eyes. And she laughed silently at Celebrían, laughed because she was strong and her body was pure, smooth and pale. And Celebrían hated her because she was not real. Inside that ephemeral shell cowered the real woman, who saw only a bloodied face and broken limbs in her mind's eye. She wondered at the false reflection. And she cried because she could not be the woman inside the mirror any more. The mother, daughter, wife and friend. She was just Celebrían. And it was not enough.

It was Elrohir who finally asked. Elrohir who lost his temper in the way that she had often wanted to do with Elrond. Who had slammed aside his glass at the table, slopping crimson wine all over the white cloth. Who had shaken himself free of Elladan's hand and cried out: "What is the matter, Mama? Why do you keep this endless silence and look at me as though you might spit?"

She had stared at him for a long moment, the angry words boring into her mind. She had heard her voice rasp from her throat like the foul tongue of Mordor.
"Because you would not let me die."

Elrohir had swayed on his feet, the colour blanching from his cheeks. He made no sound but turned and stumbled from the table. Elladan had risen and hastened after him, casting her a look of bewilderment frosted around the edges with something close to resentment.

* * * * * *

"That, Celebrían, was unforgivable."

Elrond's voice was as hard as iron, his jaw clenched with suppressed fury as he paced the dining chamber in short, angry steps.

"I know." Her voice sounded far away, like a little girl's.

"Then for what did you say it?" Elrond demanded, stopping to stare at her. "Do you feel so much pain that you wish us to share in it?"

"That would not be possible."

Elrond ground his teeth together. A muscle flexed in his jaw.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I do not pretend to know what it is that you feel Celebrían. But the wounds on your body are secondary. I know that inside you are hurting; I can feel the scars in your mind. I have tried to reach them when I heal you..."

So that is why I could not feel, she thought distantly. The light that made the pain go away made all my feelings go to.

"Healing?" she asked, her voice empty and bleak. "You are skilled at healing, are you not physician? Your touch it is true can soothe all kinds of aches. But it will not cure mine."

Elrond's gaze was upon her and the silence in which he waited for her to speak stretched endlessly between them. Finally he sighed, a hiss of breath between his teeth.

"What else can I give you?" he asked softly, despairingly as he dropped to his knees before her, his hands on the arms of her chair.

Your love. But she did not want it any more. Because now she knew how he felt, unable to love because the pain of loss burned too deeply. His loss at least had been complete. Hers was not so. It stood before her, in the forms of her husband, her children, lost to her amidst the fires of the Orcs. She could not ask of him what she herself could not give.

"Do you hate me?" she questioned him, lifting her eyes from her lap to his.

His brows drew together sharply, registering confusion.

"How could I hate you?" he almost whispered. "Celebrían, I..."

She grabbed his hands, her nails biting deep into his flesh, her grip crushing.
"I want you to hate me, Elrond," she hissed at him, her voice feral.

He met her eyes steadily.
"No."

She sank back defeated, releasing his hands as she crumpled internally.

"Do not ask for that again," he said sternly. "Not from me and never, ever from your sons or daughter. If hate is what you want, Celebrían, you are going the right way to it. The deepest love can twist to the darkest hate with provocation enough, it is its nature. But I do not think that it is what you truly want. You seek instead love." He rose and walked to the door of the chamber, while she slumped in her chair, only her eyes following him. His hand was on the door handle when he turned to look at her. "Be sure, Celebrían, that is all you will find here. From all of us."

The door clicked shut in his wake and she slid to the floor, burying her head in her hands as she wept.

*****

4

When we wore a heart of stone we wandered to the sea,
Hoping to find some comfort there, yearning to feel free.
(Sarah Mclachlan 'Drawn to the Rhythm'.)

When Glorfindel had rolled off him to collapse weakly across his side of the bed, Elladan lay quietly, staring into space. Though his body thrummed with the echoes of their touches, his mind all too easily strayed. He felt empty inside. Not spent or pleasantly tired, just empty. It was late. How late he was not sure. He rose, drawing his robe around him and moved to the window. Glorfindel propped himself up on one elbow, following Elladan with his gaze.

"Are you well?" he asked.

Elladan sighed inwardly. "Yes."

"Elladan," Glorfindel reproached.

"Then no, of course I am not!" Elladan wheeled on his lover sharply. "What a foolish question, Glorfindel!"

Glorfindel was silent, watching Elladan with steady eyes.
"I am sorry," he said eventually.

"So am I," Elladan snapped. "But it does not change anything."

"Elladan," Glorfindel rose too, moving to the younger Elf's side and laying his hands on Elladan's shoulders. "Stop berating yourself. It serves no useful purpose. Your mother spoke in haste and I am certain that she..." he broke off, unwilling to lie to the youngster.

"Do not dare to say it," Elladan said fiercely. "She meant it. Every word."

"I do not think for a moment she knew what she was saying. When one has immortality it is all too easy to throw it away with a word. She could not appreciate the consequences."

"What would you know?" Elladan snarled.

"I?" Glorfindel asked in a strange voice. "Think you not that I would know perhaps the most about it? Do not forget that I have died once before, Elladan." His voice grew dead and flat. "I know what it is when you are not allowed to die."

Elladan stood frozen. He half reached up a hand to touch Glorfindel's damp hair, but let it fall, the gesture uncompleted.

"I... oh Glory, I am sorry." He bowed his head wretchedly.

Glorfindel drew him into a hard embrace, gripping the youngster close to banish his own memories.

"Shh," he soothed, smoothing the dark head leant on his chest. "I also know how it is that you feel - I spoke words similar to your mother's once - and had then the effect of them explained to me. It hurt almost more than the cause to say them."

"Did we do wrong, Glory?" Elladan whispered into the soft fabric of his lover's robe.

"No," Glorfindel said with conviction. "You did what you could under the circumstances. It would have been wrong indeed to leave her."

But, kissing the top of the lowered head, Glorfindel could not help but wonder whether there had been more to Celebrían's words than it appeared. Her detachment was to be expected, it was a common effect of shock. But her coldness to her sons, daughter and Elrond troubled him. She seemed angry at them, more than angry, her feelings burned deeper and the waves of rage shimmered off her in moments where she thought that no one was near were black. He had, with as much subtlety as he could master, worked in an explanation of what misfortunes of failed communications had led to her being able to ride out alone. She had nodded distractedly and then smiled, albeit weakly, seeming comforted by the knowledge, yet her demeanour had not changed towards her family.

It made Glorfindel uncomfortable that she responded more to him than to any other. And he did not understand it. It was not the Celebrían he knew to so savagely condemn her loved ones without thought or care for their feelings. She had always had utmost consideration for the weaknesses of the heart and the lash of the tongue. She seemed almost to take their presences as an insult, as though she blamed each one of them for her torment and apparently her life. Yet she had reacted to his explanation with understanding. Glorfindel could not fathom what plagued the mind of Celebrían, but it concerned him.

"Under the circumstances?" Elladan whispered, lifting his head to stare at Glorfindel. "If it had been different...?"

"Then it would still have been the right thing to do," Glorfindel cupped his cheek, holding his gaze firmly. "Come now, if your mother had truly wished for her own demise then she could have willed her soul to take its leave, could she not?"

Elladan was quiet for a moment, then, more calmly he laid his head back against Glorfindel's chest.

* * * * * *

The same thought was on Elrond's mind too as he sat, his arms wrapped around Arwen, rocking her back and forth despite her age. He was grateful that Celeborn had requested permission to be at his daughter's side that night. Elrond, though his words to Celebrían had been true, was beyond restraining his anger as he tried to pick up the pieces of her bombshell. If death you sought so desperately then why did you not let yourself go? The thought churned ceaselessly around his mind bringing with it waves of alternating anger and understanding.

Arwen's face was pressed into his shoulder. What had finally broken her control he knew not, whether it was her mother's statement, Celebrían's changed state, or Elrohir's chilly dismissal when Arwen had tried to console him. These tears that soaked into the front of his robe were the first he had seen her shed in the weeks she had been home.

Imladris' external defiance to the threat that pounded upon its borders was like the shell of a burned building, the timbers standing to the last, though the insides were already gutted. Why did you not just let yourself die? He cringed inwardly at the callous sound of the words. He did not want her to take her own life, but it was her clear misery that she had not which perplexed him. But then, immortality was not so easily cast aside. And she has much to live for. Then why is she so ungrateful? Oh come, he chided himself; you were guilty of the same and worse after the Last Alliance. You sought death but denied it as wrong, a weakness, an escape and because you held too much responsibility to those who lived and those who died. Was that what it came down to - responsibility? Did she feel that she was not able to let go because of them? If that was so...

Elrond pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes. Permission to leave was hardly something that one could offer - for telling her that she should die if she wanted, because they would survive it, he could not even comprehend the consequences. And there was of course the question, could they? He did not want to, that much he knew. And so with each turn there comes a new wall to collide with, he grimly realised. At a loss he laid his cheek against his daughter's hair.

The echo of another's words rang harshly in his ears. "Why? Why did you do this? Why did you bring me back?" What was it Glorfindel had said? Elrond tried to remember. That he had wanted it over, he had felt unable to face the world, knowing what lay beyond it. Everything had felt unreal, harsh and bright. Everything that was hard and rough had grated like punishment and made him cringe away, yet everything soft and gentle felt wrong when all he had known was pain. What I did to Glorfindel - that truly was wrong. The memory made him shudder. But what I did for Celebrían - what else could I have done? What else can I do? The unanswered question gnawed at him and he sighed.

After Arwen had retired, eyes dried, to her chambers, Elrond made his way along the darkened corridors, lit only by the pale fall of the moonlight through the arches. Without real thought to his direction he found himself before the door to his library and, having no better option, entered. He wandered for a time amongst his shelves, unable to find a volume to occupy him. But the presence of the books and the idle scanning of the titles was enough to prevent coherent thought forming in his mind and that was peace of a sort.

The pale beams of the moon flooded into the room through the external door onto the balcony, bathing a half circle of light at the end of the library. The cool breeze drifting through it ghosted the drapes inwards and Elrond moved towards them. He passed through the billowing cloth and out beneath the stars.

He started, caught entirely by surprise to find a figure perched upon the rail, his back to the wall of the building, one leg dangling over the rail, pointed groundward, the other bent to support a book. Legolas lifted his head, startled in turn.

"Lord Elrond," he said, blinking the glaze from his eyes and Elrond almost smiled to realise how submerged the youngster had been.

"Tell me," Elrond said allowing a little of his smile to show. "Do you ever rest, Legolas?"

"But a little. Oh, but think it not your hospitality! I meant no offence. Elrohir is a restless bedfellow."

"None is taken," Elrond assured him. "And my son it seems has much in common with my wife. Does he steal the bedcovers frequently?"

Legolas chuckled.
"All too often."

"If you wish to be allocated another room it can be arranged."

"Indeed no, I will return to him later, I just could not sleep and did not wish to disturb him. Forgive me if I intrude, Lord Elrond, I knew not where else to come."

"No, no, do not trouble yourself," Elrond assured the young Prince as Legolas made to rise. Elrohir was bound to be vile company and he was quietly impressed that Legolas had made such an effort to soothe him where his own family could not.

He was also mildly surprised at himself in that he was not in the least annoyed to find his sanctuary violated.

"I find no rest this night either and company is not so unwelcome," he found himself saying. "Though, I would rather that you did not sit upon so precarious a perch."

"I am an Elf of the Wood," Legolas simply smiled. "I find comfort in such positions."

Elrond nodded, letting it slide as he moved to stand by the rail, gazing out across the valley.

His thoughts turned, once the silence enveloped them, much against his will, to his wife once more. Again and again her vicious words replayed themselves in his mind. He thought of Arwen's tears. Of Elrohir's brittle composure. Of Glorfindel's similar words cast in despairing anguish so many years before. The power of healing, he bitterly thought, so great it is that I cannot offer my children comfort and yet with it I torture those others whom I love. And yet I could not heal the one above all others whom I would have wished to. He bowed his head, gripping the rail, forgetting momentarily the warriors to whom his powers were so valuable and all those others whom he had soothed over each Ea. "There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he first made the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made..."

Elrond realised that Legolas was occupied with the tale of Ainur's music, the creation of Middle-earth. The choice came slightly as a surprise to him, for his own sons in particular were more intrigued by the tales of war and the practical aspects of nature. It seemed a queer text for a young warrior and particularly one of Thranduil's kingdom.

He cocked his head, listening as the familiar words flowed comfortingly over him, washing away his discomforting reflections. He wondered if Legolas had not noticed what he was doing, but a swift glance at the youngster ascertained that he did, for his gaze was met with an impish arch of an eyebrow, but no pause in the tale. In the morning the youngster would be gone, escorted to his home country by Celeborn's procession as he returned with Arwen to Lorien. Now Elrond submitted to the soothing tones of the Legolas' voice, grateful as he stood beneath the stars of the silent acknowledgment of his turmoil and the calm placating of it.

* * * * * *

She drifted upon the sea of dreams, which shifted inexorably around her, ever changing. For each moment she floated as though upon the current, there was a change. Whether it was the trees that passed from blackened, bare branches through the spring budding and fragile blossoming, until the spreading of their proud finery in green canopy to the sun; or whether it was the ocean that sometimes she could see, sometimes only hear, with its crest of white horses or gentle lap upon the shore. But as the world shifted about her she moved with it, changing state as a river flows into the sea, naturally and easily. She was the air, the sea, the land and yet, somehow, still herself. Celebrían.

Gusting in the breeze, she became aware that upon the shore walked a woman. Her long hair streaming in golden waves behind her as she left the dunes and crossed the bay. She watched herself walk toward the sea, leaving behind in her wake a faint impression of footprints.

And, by the water's edge, a lone figure turned to greet her. His lips parted into a smile as Elrond took her by the hands. Amidst the waves rose up the forms of Elrohir, Elladan and Arwen. They did not come to her, but stood, smiling, awaiting her as she stepped into the sea herself. As she did so she felt her body slide away and she became the sea, rolling, rising and peaking to break, lift and surge again. All around her she was aware of the ocean, aware that within it were contained her family as much a part of it as she. She was Elladan, Arwen, Elrohir and Elrond, everyone she had ever known was within her, a part of her and yet she remained herself in a small indescribable way.

Then she was sat upon the shore, up in the dunes where the beach grasses grew and blew in long streamers about her, watching the waves, watching herself within them.

"So, my daughter," Galadriel's voice spoke from beside her.

Unsurprised, she turned to meet her mother's eye.

"So," she countered. "I have your counsel at last."

"What do you not have here?" Galadriel murmured. "What does anyone not have here?"

Celebrían thought for a moment, realising that each one of her family held within them a part of her as she did them, so each held also those whom they had dear. In the sea Elrond had Gil-galad still, yet also Elros and half a hundred others.

"Pain," she said simply.

Galadriel shook her head, smiling a little. "There is pain. Do you not feel it?"

Celebrían's hand flew to her chest and there she found it scarred, the flesh puckered and paled into a star shaped web of long ago damaged tissue that should have been healed beyond sight.

"No," she said slowly. "No, there is not pain, only the memory of it."

"And so you do still feel it."

"I suppose that is so," Celebrían nodded pensively. "But it...it matters not."

Galadriel smiled as if she were pleased. "Exactly."

"But this is not real!" Celebrían cried desperately, seeing the smile fade from her mother's lips. "It is but a dream!"

"But a dream?" Galadriel echoed. "What is a dream but a journey outside the common time...inside oneself?"

Celebrían stared at her. "I do not understand."

*****

5

You left in the morning I stared out the window,
And I struggled for something to say.
You left in the rain without closing the door,
I didn't stand in your way.
But I miss you more than I missed you before.
(Randy Van Warner 'When I needed you most')

Galadriel sighed.

"My daughter, look up to the sky. What is its colour?"

Celebrían obediently lifted her eyes.
"It is blue."

"But can it not be many other colours? Can it not be green?"

Celebrían started to say no and then paused.
"Yes...when the storm comes it can look green."

"And purple as a storm breaks, or golden in the dawn. Shades of meaning, my daughter."

"Shades of meaning?" Celebrían repeated, confused.

"How is it that the sky can be many colours?" Galadriel asked gently.

"How mean you that?" Celebrían frowned. "There is naught to prevent it."

"That is so. And that is my meaning."

Celebrían eyed her, her lips parting a little as her brow crinkled once again.

"You say then, that there is nothing to stop the sky changing and so, by implication that there is nothing to stop me being, having, this?"

"Yes."

"But there is!" Celebrían cried out.

"There is not," Galadriel cut in. "You see my meaning, yet you miss the point."

"I..." Celebrían trailed off, staring at her mother in bewilderment.

"Celebrían, just watch for a moment. Watch how the sand blows over the dunes, ever shaping them. How the waves shift over the sea and how the sunbeams dance golden upon the water. What is it that all they have in common?"

"They are free," Celebrían sighed wistfully, gazing out across the ocean.

"Free to do what?" Galadriel gently pressed.

"To change." Where the words came from she did not know, but, as they sounded into the quiet air, she knew only that they were the absolute truth.

She turned from the sea to meet he mother's eye and met only the face of her father, framed in the window, the dawn light cascading over his hair bathing it to white gold.

"Long have you been sleeping," he said in a low voice. "Are you now awake?"

"Yes," she heard herself say. "I think that at last I am."

* * * * *

"I am leaving."

She stood before Elrond, dressed in her soft blue gown, a green shawl draped over her shoulders, which she held clamped across her breast, shivering in the cold chambers. Elrond met her gaze calmly.

"I cannot stay," she spoke abruptly, feeling her teeth bare as she looked with loathing upon his image, which seemed to burn into her eyes. It grated against the deep internal serenity that lingered in a secret cavern of her soul from the memories of her dream. "I cannot stay here and be who I was when I know no longer who I am."

Elrond's silence closed around her and her tongue cracked like a whip.

"Will you not speak?"

He did not. In fact, he turned away from her to stare out of the windows, a silhouette against the glaring light, a shadow of an Elf.

"I know not what to say," he replied finally.

"Then this indeed is grave," Celebrían heard her voice waver slightly.

For another endless moment he stood before slowly rotating to face her once more.

"When do you wish to leave?" he asked gently.

"As soon as I may." Relief made her voice tremble for she could not tolerate even the thought that he might have refused her.

Elrond nodded slowly.

"I do not mean to Lorien," she said very softly, owing him the truth in its completeness.

"I know," he sighed, his eyes straying back to the window and then meeting hers again, resignation touched with sadness. "Where else would you go but to the sea?"

She felt tears wet her eyes and his picture blurred, softening.

"Give me a little time," he murmured.

She felt his arms fold around her and allowed herself to lean against his chest, her fingers curling around his forearms.

* * * * *

'A little time' took nearly the turning of the year, but, whence it came, she stood upon the shore, gazing up at the tall sides of ancient Cirdan's ship - summoned by Elrond to bear her west. Behind her stood Glorfindel, Elladan, Arwen - returned briefly from her continued stay in Lorien, and Elrond. Elrohir would not come. He had refused even to say goodbye, remaining at home with Erestor keeping a subtle eye upon him. She did not turn. She stepped up onto the gangplank.

Elrond stood a little distance from his family, side by side with Círdan. He turned away from the shrinking figure of his wife mounting the dark ship, her travelling garb pale against the wooden sides of the vessel. She looked like a wraith of light, fading away before his eyes and yet, when she reached the deck and the sun fell upon her, she seemed to glow brighter, stand taller, as she caught her breath gazing upon the sea.

"Always it seems we are stood together when those we love are lost," the older Elf said quietly.

Elrond closed his eyes briefly.
"Perhaps we should stop meeting this way."

"I fear that is out of our hands."

"As do I," Elrond sighed. "But grateful I am that it is with you I stand for I may take a little strength from your support."

"When two great towers tilt if they lean towards each other then mutual support is generally offered."

Elrond cast the shipwright a curious look.
"And who is it that cause you to sway in your foundations? Tell me not that you have found love at last?"

Círdan smiled, shaking his head.

"Nay, not of the kind you mean. My only love is for the ocean, and no doubt one day, it shall bring my death."

"As it is so for us all," Elrond murmured.

Círdan glanced sharply at him.
"Do not dare to, Elrond," he threatened.

Elrond met his gaze painfully. "Take. Care. Of. Her."

"I give you my word," Círdan clasped Elrond's hands in his.

After a long moment Elrond let his eyes fall.

"You will see her again," Círdan reminded him. "When my ship finally comes to bear you west."

Elrond let his gaze drift over the horizons.

"Yes, when all else that I love and call home is lost and likely beyond all recognition."

"You will find something new to love equally."

Elrond frowned a little, unsure as to what it was Cirdan referred.

"So say you? If I were to take the sea from you could you be so assured?" Elrond questioned.

Círdan smiled ruefully.

"Nay, but would you not now offer the same counsel as I do now you?"

Elrond smiled weakly.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave..." he murmured.

"Yet when we practice, quite a while, greatly we improve our style," Círdan countered.

"Do we truly deceive ourselves with false promises think you?"

"If that were so we would not lean upon each other like toppling towers. We should fall."

Círdan clasped Elrond's forearm in a warrior's grip and then moved to board his ship. Celebrían stood alone at the prow, like a figurehead. Yet as the ship slipped free of its moorings and was lifted by the sea, she turned, staring back at the lonely figures upon the shoreline until they were lost even to her straining sight.

* * * * *

Elladan lay alone in his room, unable to keep the company of any save himself that night. He felt hollow as though his very spirit had been sucked out of him. He lay unmoving in his bed, the covers folded across him where he had fussed with them for a time. He knew that he should rise if he could not rest, take up a task to occupy his mind, or even just go to Glorfindel for a much-needed embrace, yet he could not muster the energy to do so. And he had tried to let Glorfindel hold him earlier, finding himself only crowded by the gesture. He stared into the darkness, his eyes falling upon the western window and alighting there, uninterested in the rest of the room.

The soft tap on his door sounded as though from a thousand leagues away. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind that he should answer. But he had not the strength to find his voice. The door opened anyway.

"Elladan?"

Elrohir. His voice cracking. Elladan flinched at the quaver. He did not want this. He did not want to feel anything besides the deadened emptiness. He had counselled Elrohir for many months not to hold his false composure, not to pretend that all was well, yet it had fallen on deaf ears. Not now, he silently pleaded. Not now, when I can least of all take my own advice.

Wearily though, he found himself propped upon one elbow, lifting his eyes to seek out Elrohir standing in the doorway. It was like staring into a mirror. The pale, strained face, framed by dark locks, tousled from tossing and turning, the stormy eyes liquid. Just the act of meeting Elrohir's pained gaze cracked his own composure like sandstone and he gritted his teeth, holding out his arms.

Elrohir moved to the bed and slipped in beside him, falling against Elladan's chest and burying his head in his brother's shoulder. The damp touch on his skin spoke of tears and Elladan hugged him closer, pressing his nose into his brother's hair. Elrohir was shaking, his fingers clutching and clinging. Elladan kissed the top of his head again and again, cupping his brother's cheek and pulling him close so that his lips brushed Elrohir's brow. Elrohir leaned his forehead against Elladan's, sighing breathily, his body still trembling. Elladan felt the wetness of tears slipping from his own eyes and closed them miserably, feeling Elrohir hold him closer, kissing his cheek.

When his brother's mouth moved to cover his own, he was too weary to protest.

~ END ~