The Tangled Web We Weave.

By Maybe (miztruzt@blueyonder.co.uk)

Pairing: Elrond/Celeborn and Galadriel/?
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Tolkien's characters, Tolkien's world, not mine, just playing, no money made.
Response to Dusk's challenge: Explain why Celeborn is holding up a female undergarment and looking faintly puzzled.

There was underwear on his floor. Staring at it, Celeborn, Lord of Lothlorien, wondered many things: where it had come from, whom it belonged to, and, most importantly, what he was going to do with it. It was evening in Lothlorien and Elbereth's handiwork graced the dark cape of night. The silver beams of Ithil streamed through the arched windows of the lord's and lady's private talan, set high in one of the mallorn tree of Caras Galadhon, and illuminated the underwear on the floor.

It was not something he had expected: to return from the great feast celebrating the autumnal equinox of the past year and discover underwear upon his bedroom floor. Particularly when he was quite certain that neither of those to whom the bedroom belonged was the owner of the stray garment. It was...delicate...feminine...therefore not his...and Galadriel did not wear underwear.

Celeborn lifted his head to look at his wife. Galadriel stood at the far end of the chamber. She had unfastened the catches on her gown and now looked up at him with the dress clasped to her bosom, her shoulders bared. Her skin was the hues of palest moonstone and her endless hair poured like ripples of liquid sunlight down her back. She smiled sweetly at him and let her dress fall away to form a lacy puddle upon the floor. Celeborn swallowed, momentarily distracted from the problem of erroneous undergarments, and then gave his head a sharp shake. Galadriel was laughing at him: silently, but unmistakably. Her blue eyes sparkled with amusement at his confusion.

"My lady," Celeborn cleared his throat and addressed her. "If I draw your attention to the item of clothing that has discovered its way into our bedchamber," he pointed to the offending article, "do you think you could explain it?"

Galadriel shrugged her nightgown gracefully over her head and smoothed imaginary creases from it. "I fear I cannot, my lord," she replied, smiling. She let her eyes flick up to his and continued. "Any more than I can explain why it is that you are not wearing your crown of state."

"I - what?" Celeborn's hand flew to his brow for he was certain that he had donned his circlet before he returned to his chambers. His fingers contacted with a mithril wrought band and he frowned. "I believe you are mistaken, my la- oh..."

Celeborn trailed off as he removed his crown, or rather, the crown that he was wearing. The intricately crafted headpiece did not bear the mark of Lothlorien, but that of Imladris. Celeborn stared at the circlet for a moment, wondering if he closed his eyes whether it would disappear and re-form itself into his own. To his great sorrow he concluded that it would not. He was also gloomily aware that he was in point of fact wearing his son in law's shoes as well.

It was one of the perils of donning scattered clothing in haste and in the dark, after illicit liaisons deep in the forests. One could really only excuse oneself for private discussion of realm alliance matters for a certain amount of time. Although his daughter Celebrian's abrupt departure to the West had meant that there was a suitable reason for Celeborn to spend at least an hour or so closeted in a private chamber with the Lord of Imladris. The alliance between Lothlorien and Imladris had been secured by the political marriage betwixt Celeborn's daughter and Lord Elrond, herald of the former high king. With the sundering of that marriage - or at least the semi-permanent separation of wife and husband due to the extensive area of sea between Middle-earth and the lands of Valinor - Celeborn could justify wishing to find alternative means of ascertaining the security of the alliance between the two kingdoms. Perhaps taking his daughter's lover as his own had not been the wisest method.

Celeborn sighed to himself. He had known about the shoes when he walked through the door to his chambers, a fact that he had hoped to conceal from his wife. Looking up at Galadriel, who sat upon the window-seat running a carven wood comb through her hair, he wondered why he was concerned. The mirror would have told her anyway. And the fact that he had not mysteriously found himself stricken by some incurable mystical seizure, nor indeed had her mind-speak him severely at the height of his evening with Elrond, suggested that she was not distressed by his new "alliance treaty." The real concern in his mind was, however, while he had been with Elrond, precisely whom had she been spending the evening with?

[End]