dim ricochet of stars by kimaracretak

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

Lothlórien is gold.

This is the first thing Celebrían notices when she and her mother reach the forest's edge: it is gold like she has never seen before, not even during the time she spent among the dwarves.

"Oh," she whispers, and feels her horse shift underneath her, picking up on her excitement. She wants to dismount, to run the rest of the way, wants to feel the earth under her feet and run until the trees swallow her whole, run until she breaks herself across their branches and drifts among them in formless shimmering gold.

Lothlórien is alive.

"Yes, oh," her mother murmurs beside her. She reaches out, and her hand is warm on Celebrían's arm. "We will be safe here."

Celebrían is not a child; Celebrían knows what and who they left in Eregion and wonders at the skill of even the mountains to keep it at bay. But Lothlórien is gold, and the elves who live there welcoming, and as they enter the forest she listens to the whisper of laughter around the trees and thinks her mother may be right, for now.

(Celebrían is not a child but she will look back to these days with the added weight of centuries lived, and remember when Lothlórien was alive, and think that the forest was very, very old, and she was so very young. And she wouldn't take any of the years back, even if she could.)

 

 

*

 

The rivers are new. The ones she grew up by in Eregion seem pitiful in comparison to these, and hardly worth the name. Here the rivers are a riot of colours, shades of blues and greens and golds and whites that Celebrían had barely dreamed could exist.

By the rivers, Celebrían starts drawing. She collects pencils and paints and papers, experiments with the colours made by Lothlórien's leaves and fruits. She drags her projects through bushes and up trees, flits between abstract and painfully realistic styles, wondering how she could possibly begin to capture anything about the ways the forest makes her feel.

Her mother gives her creative endeavours a critical eye, and Celebrían knows she's thinking of other crafts, other dangers. "They're pictures," Celebrían tries to reassure her. "They're just pictures, and they're just mine. I only want to remember how this feels."

"Memory has never been a problem for our family," Galadriel sighs, and though she doesn't bring it up again, Celebrían notices quickly that she never runs out of her favourite colour blue after that.

And she is careful. To avoid disappointing her mother, of course, and because she, too, cannot shake the memory of elven crafts, but there is a third reason, one she holds close than those: she had known from the very start that Lothlórien was alive, she is only just now discovering in how many ways that was true.

Celebrían paints the turning of the year and more. Summer comes to Lothlórien and the light through the trees changes, falls on mellyrn seedlings that barely reach her ankles. Celebrían takes to wandering further and further through her new home, easels and paints tucked securely under her arm. She starts to learn the names of the elves here, of the paths and the trees and the glades. She starts to feel at home.

Until one day -- a year? two years? she had stopped counting at some point, though she's not entirely sure she could explain why -- when there's a woman sitting in the space she's come to think of as her own, nestled between the roots of a giant willow and dangling her feet in the water.

"Hello?" she asks cautiously.

The other woman looks up, a delighted smile spreading across her face. "I've been waiting for you!" she says, and the five words somehow manage to make Celebrían feel like the most important woman in the world despite her confusion.

"I ... see?" she says, for lack of anything else. She doesn't, not really. The woman looks vaguely elven, though there's something not ... quite that clings to her edges, like maybe she only belongs here because she's spent so long convincing the world that she does.

"You don't," the woman says. "But that's okay. I've seen you, here, drawing. I thought you might like company."

And Celebrían can't deny that she would, and if it's the company of this beautiful woman with whom she's already fallen into a deep fascination that would be even better, but ... "You haven't even told me your name."

"Goldberry," she says, "Goldberry River-Daughter." Celebrían can hear it now, the whispered rush of the water running underneath her words. Goldberry is dressed all in blue; her hair, which had looked shiny from afar, Celebrían can now see is damp, tiny blonde tendrils clinging to her cheeks. She still looks entirely unfamiliar.

"Goldberry," she says, testing the name on her tongue. "Do you live here?"

She only realises the ambiguity after the words have left her mouth, and she thinks Goldberry is playing with it when she replies, "No. I belong here."

"Well, Goldberry who belongs here," Celebrían says slowly. "I am Celebrían. And you are welcome to sit with me."

There's a voice in the back of her head that sounds suspiciously like her mother's telling her she should turn and run, should leave the River-Daughter to her charms, that she's already said far too much. But Goldberry's eyes are sparkling in the light reflecting off the water, Goldberry's hands are cold and smooth as the stones from the riverbed as she helps Celebrían unpack her materials, and the temptation to settle with her is far too great to resist.

 

 

*

 

They fall into friendship so easily that Celebrían hardly notices, at first. She sits and sketches or paints or just watches the birds, depending on the day, and Goldberry brings her berries and roasts fresh-caught fish over fires that she builds with inexpert hands. They don't meet every day, nor even every day that Celebrían ventures out into the much more sparsely populated areas of the forest, but the routine becomes an odd sort of comfort.

"Why do you never paint me?" Goldberry asks, after they've been doing this for so long that personal questions are no longer off-limits.

Celebrían looks up, startled out of a half-trance by Goldberry's words, the first she's uttered all day. "I ... well, I've never painted people at all before," she says, somewhat shyly. In truth, she paints to make the world around her intelligible, and she's not quite sure she wants to know what Goldberry made understandable would look like. She knows better than most that some things are best left unknown and untouched.

But Goldberry is lounging naked on a bed of fallen mellyrn leaves, pale curls and pale skin a sharp contrast to the gold all around them. Her expression is open, a little expectant and a little wanting, and suddenly Celebrían's fingers itch for her charcoals, for anything that will let her preserve the sight in front of her. She had been tired in the morning, had gone out without her supplies and without, even, any particular thought of seeing Goldberry.

"I don't mind," Goldberry says, and only then does Celebrían realise that she's been staring perhaps a bit too intently at Goldberry's bare breasts, the soft curve of her hip. She blushes and drops her eyes back to her own hands.

"But I do," she says, hoping her voice is steadier than it sounds to her. "You're so ... I would want to do it right. And I wouldn't, the first time, I'm not even very good at landscapes, and --" She stops speaking abruptly, Goldberry having moved close enough that she was nearly in her lap.

"You are very talented," Goldberry reassures her, reaching out to interlace their fingers. "And I am sure your drawings of me would be lovely, if you do one or a hundred."

Celebrían swallows hard. This close, it's harder to deny her own want, the desire that's been coursing silently under her skin since ... well, since she first met Goldberry. The other woman's eyes are dark, and when her tongue darts out to lick her lips, Celebrían thinks maybe both their wanting is about something entirely different than painting.

"I'm afraid my talents lie elsewhere," she says, and her voice is rough. She presses their foreheads together, listens to the hitch in Goldberry's breath, feels her fingers tighten around her hand. The moment stretches taut between them, just long enough for Celebrían to wonder if she's made a horrible mistake, and then Goldberry pulls back just far enough to kiss her.

She takes a moment to enjoy the soft press of Goldberry's lips against hers, bringing one hand up to tangle in her hair, before deepening the kiss. Goldberry kisses soft and slow, like they've done this a thousand times before, tongue preternaturally clever at finding out exactly what Celebrían likes.

"Oh," is all she can say when they finally separate.

"I didn't mind the staring, either," Goldberry says warmly, and Celebrían sighs at the thought that she'd been so obvious. "But," she adds, "I think it's my turn now."

Celebrían is more than happy to take the hint, trying to figure out how best to divest herself of her light tunic without moving further away from Goldberry than absolutely necessary. The warmth spreading through her body has little to do with the spring air and everything to do with Goldberry's eyes on her, hot and hungry.

"There," Celebrían says, tunic finally discarded. Goldberry seems speechless for once, and Celebrían can't help the small proud smile that tugs at her lips. So often it's Goldberry who silences her with some riddle about hungry rivers and coloured lights.

Goldberry runs her eyes up and down Celebrían's body like she's never seen her before. "Lie back?" she asks, finally, and Celebrían shivers in delight as she complies. Goldberry kisses her again as soon as she's settled, and Celebrían's delight grows when there's nothing slow or soft about this kiss. She tangles her hands in Goldberry's hair, pulling lightly as she guides her head, nipping her lower lip as the kiss ends.

"Want you," she murmurs, urging Goldberry's lips to move further down her body. She's fairly sure she shouldn't want this so much, or at all, and that she shouldn't be acting on it even if she did, even if she and Goldberry hadn't been dancing around this since they met, everything strange and hungry and glittering in the forest collecting in them and leading them to --

-- here, which is Celebrian's fingers digging impossibly deep into the grass; here, which is Goldberry pressing open-mouthed kisses to her stomach and inner thighs; here, Celebrian's half-shut eyelashes framing Goldberry between her legs, and surely it's just a facet of this wanting that makes her look thin and blue and half-transparent; here, Goldberry's tongue flickering at her clit and then finally, finally inside her and, oh, this is so much better, so much more --

until her voice mingles with the colours that explode behind her eyelids when she comes, and everything is silver-blue and unbearably soft.

 

*

 

Goldberry is waiting for her in their usual spot by the river the next day, but she stands up before Celebrían can put down her basket. "Not here," she says.

Celebrían blinks, realising with a sudden twist of dread that this will be the first day she follows Goldberry somewhere, the first day Goldberry doesn't come to her. She feels, impossibly, even more vulnerable than she did yesterday, naked on the grass.

But follow she does, Goldberry's blue-clad shape darting through the trees along the riverbank faster and more clever than Celebrían had thought possible. 

"Here," Goldberry finally says when they reach their destination, barely giving Celebrían time to pause for breath. But as soon as she's regained her breath from the climb, she nearly loses it again at the sight that greets her: Goldberry's standing naked on a rocky ledge above a cove that is impossibly, brilliantly turquoise, formed at a part of the river that's so wide it looks like it's arching up to meet an equally brilliant sky. Against the backdrop, Goldberry is impossibly bright, impossibly, present. She stretches her arms out as if about to take flight.

"Here," she repeats. "Paint me here."

Today, again, it is Celebrían's turn to be struck speechless. She drops to her knees, unpacks her materials more quickly than she ever has, and begins to sketch. Thoughtless charcoal lines, at first, anything and everything she can see in front of her, shading into more focused colours as the day goes on. She's never worked like this, but then, she reflects as she watches Goldberry pose, trusting her fingers to work without her watching, she has never had such an impossible model before.

"Can I ... can I draw you now?" Goldberry asks, when the colours of the sunset are just starting to stain the sky. She sounds tentative, for the first time since Celebrían has known her.

Celebrían thinks about fairy stories, about don't tell the creatures in the woods your name. But she'd passed that particular point of no return long ago. She hands over the charcoal.

 

 

*

 

"What are you?" she asks Goldberry one day, and the other woman giggles, turns somersaults in the water instead of answering right away, chases the bubbles of her laughter to the surface.

"What am I?" Goldberry repeats, laughter still caught in her eyes. She shakes her head and furrows her brow in concentration. She looks, Celebrían thinks, as if this is the most confusing question she has ever been confronted with. And then her expression clears, so suddenly Celebrían wonders if she had imagined the confusion. "Goldberry," she says confidently. "I am Goldberry. Goldberry River-Daughter."

It's not an answer, precisely, but she's reaching out a hand and tugging Celebrían into the water, and Celebrían is gasping at the cool shock of the water against her sun-warmed skin, pressing close against Goldberry and feeling the other woman melt summer-sweet into her touch, and it's enough for now, it's enough.

She has dinner with her mother that night, for the first time in far too long. Lothlórien has been good to Galadriel. There's an energy, a steel to her now that Celebrían thinks she hasn't seen in years. Still, she thinks it best to broach the subject gently, so she waits until dessert. "Mother," she says, "you would know, wouldn't you, if any of the Maia were still here?"

Before she can blink, the table between them is upended, and her mother gone. Celebrían takes a long, careful breath, and resolves to work on things like gentleness.

 

 

*

 

She doesn't see her mother the next day, nor Goldberry, and she sweeps sulkily through the forest kicking fallen branches out of her way. Of all the things her mother could choose to keep her silence about, Celebrían has never been quite sure how the Maia worked their way onto the list at all, much less gotten so high on it. She's paying so little attention to where she's going that she hardly notices when she walks straight into someone else.

"Hey!" Nimrodel snaps, hands on hips and glare boring a hole in Celebrían's skull. Celebrían, balance regained and mind firmly brought back to the present, debates the merits of pulling a vanishing act similar to the one her mother managed last night.

"Um," she says instead, with far less grace than she would like. "Sorry, I -- wasn't paying attention to where I was going."

Nimrodel's glare becomes, if anything, even more pointed. "You and your mother both," she says sourly.

Despite the events of the previous night, Celebrían's anger at her mother vanishes in an instant as defensiveness takes over. "What about my mother?"

The other elf tilts her head, considering. Her hair falls thick and wavy over her shoulders, and in the midday sunlight it is the only part of her that looks at all substantial. Like if Celebrían turns her head just so, the light would slip between white-gold cloth and hollow bones and Nimrodel would vanish quieter than a ghost. "When your mother is not dwelling in the past she's looking too far to the future to see what's in front of her now," she says, and there's too much regret in her voice for the words to be a threat.

"But still she keeps us safe now," Celebrían reminds her. "It's just..." It's just the ring, she might have said to another, but to Nimrodel, strange and sad and so much a part of the forest, the ring is nothing more than another source of pain.

Nimrodel sighs. "I hope your now is as long as you hope it is, little one. And I hope your mother knows what she's doing."

She's gone before Celebrían can come up with a response.

Her mother finally shows up at Celebrían's bedroom door the next morning, wearing a look as close to apologetic as Celebrían has ever seen. "I'm sorry for the other night," she says, almost before Celebrían has finished turning away from the mirror where she's been carefully pinning loose curls around the crown of her head, "It was ... inappropriate."

Another time, maybe, Celebrían would have rolled her eyes and murmured yes, mother, I know, but she still wants answers. "Glad we agree, then," she says instead, and smiles as a peace offering. "But if you've come to answer my question, you could have done that at dinner and saved us trouble."

Galadriel sighs, and Celebrían is sure she would have run a hand through her hair had it not been so elaborately styled. "It's not a simple answer," she says softly. "I lived with Melian for many, many years, and I learned ... I learned so much from her." Her mother's eyes take on a faraway look, and Celebrían studiously avoids trying to think about the layers of implications behind learned.

"The last thing she taught me," Galadriel continued, "was that the Maia were going to leave whenever it suited them. I watched her decide to leave. And I watched what happened after. So, yes, I would know if they came back, any of them."

Celebrían keeps her face carefully neutral. She's not sure how she would feel if Goldberry were a Maiar, but then she would at least be dealing with something known. This is different then: new and strange and she's even more determined to keep hold of it.

Her mother must see something in her expression, though, because her eyes narrow. "Why do you ask, anyway? You know I don't like talking about this."

Occasionally Celebrían wishes her mother were less perceptive. Of course, the fact that Goldberry is new and strange is exactly why she should tell Galadriel about her: Lothlórien's borders are not sealed by any understanding of the word, and Celebrían knows better than to think that wishing the forest didn't have its own secret darknesses makes it true.

"Celebrían," Galadriel says, and she feels suddenly ten years old again, being scolded for nicking the last of the jam and trying to hide red-stained fingers behind her back.

Celebrían sighs, and settles on a compromise. "I met a woman by the river," she confesses. "And some of the things she said ... I thought, maybe ... it was a silly thought."

"You met a woman," her mother repeats flatly, and Celebrían winces slightly at the ice in her tone. And then suddenly everything about Galadriel softens, and she moves to sit on Celebrían's bed. "Oh, love, what did I say about being careful?"

"I am being careful," Celebrían protests, but she remembers the warmth of Goldberry's mouth between her legs and thinks that probably doesn't qualify as careful at all.

Galadriel looks like she doesn't believe her either, but she opens her arms in a silent invitation for a hug and Celebrían goes to her without hesitation. "Things older than us or the Maia live in this forest, little one," she murmurers into the top of Celebrían's head, and Celebrían is so comfortable in the warmth of her mother's arms that she doesn't think to protest at the endearment. "And I will always be here if you need help with them."

And Celebrían believes her, which is why she knows she'll never tell her anything else about Goldberry.

 

*

 

Light falls through the trees like water through Goldberry's hair, and outside Lothlórien time moves on. Something is changing inside, as the world darkens outside. In the far reaches of the world shadows gather, and in the forest they climb higher and higher into the trees. Running from something, Celebrían thinks, and shivers at the thought. Best not to pursue that line of thought too far.

Here there is gold, here there is light. Silver light that sparks off her mother's ring, pale blue light that shimmers around Goldberry as she kisses Celebrían in the river over and over again. And if the shadows those lights cast aren't exactly where they ought to be, at least they can't consume the forest.

(The gold is duller now, weakening under silver spread thin and watery. The forest is emptying of its elves, and those who come to join them don't sing the same. These newcomers are her own people, and Celebrían should welcome them, but she feels ... possessive. It frightens her, and she doesn't say a word.) 

 

*

 

"Do you think," Celebrían says slowly one day, on a misty morning when her paints and brushes have lain untouched for nearly an hour, her inspiration as absent as the sun has been the past few days. Goldberry arches an eyebrow, plucks a mint leaf and examines it with a critical eye. "Do you think," she starts again, and then falls silent with a shake of her head. It's a silly thought. Probably not worth dwelling on, not now, not in this forest.

Goldberry sighs. "You're not usually this inarticulate unless we're doing things that involve significantly fewer clothes." The beginnings of a pout pull at the corners of her mouth, and Celebrían would laugh to see such an expression on the face of such a powerful woman were she able to shake off the sense of ... being unhinged that has been growing in her mind for an uncomfortably long time. She settles for a half-smile, one she's not quite sure is genuine, but Goldberry's face brightens for real and she exclaims, "I know!" 

"You know what?" Celebrían asks, with no small amount of trepidation. Decades of friendship and more and she doesn't think that Goldberry can read minds, exactly, but she's older now, and more cautious.

"You ask me your question," Goldberry rolls over on her back, one hand teasing at the hem of her dress, "and then we move on to the part where we both have significantly fewer clothes."

Celebrían bites her lip as she contemplates that suggestion. She's still not entirely sure she wants to verbalise her suspicion but ... she also wants answers. And even if the answers Goldberry gives don't go beyond her usual riddles, if they come with Goldberry sweet and naked underneath her, she can live with that, for now. "Do you think time is moving differently here now?"

The smile on Goldberry's lips changes, becomes something unfamiliar, secret, small. "Time," she echoes, and Celebrían is reminded of the day decades -- was it decades? was it a century, more? -- ago when she first asked Goldberry what she was. "Oh, darling. Time has its own ideas, it always has. It takes care of itself, and of us."

She means, Celebrían thinks, to be reassuring, but very little about the prospect of being some detached far-flung island carried along by an intelligent, wanting river of time that is reassuring. "Hush," Goldberry murmurs, as if she can hear Celebrían thinking. "You're worrying too much." She reaches out, drapes an arm over Celebrían's waist and tugs her close. Celebrían lets herself be pulled close, closer, until she's hovering over Goldberry, one hand on either side of her head and thigh pressed between her legs.

"It's a time for worrying," she protests halfheartedly.

"No," Goldberry grins up at her, fingers already busy undoing the front laces of her gown. "It's a time for doing this." Her grin widens as the final knot comes free and the gown falls to the side, dangling precariously from Celebrían's shoulders and leaving her breasts free. 

"I -- oh fine," she breaks off in a moan as Goldberry wriggles her way down Celebrían's body and replaces her hands with her mouth, flicking lightly at her nipples with a wicked ease born of long familiarity. Celebrían can't see Goldberry's eyes, but she can imagine them, wide and dark with desire as her own. She reaches down with one hand, trying to tangle her fingers in Goldberry's hair and pull her even closer, but all she manages to do is shift too much weight onto the hand still supporting her, and she feels her wrist start to buckle as soon as she touches Goldberry's head.

"I'm--" is all she manages to say, before she's toppled over, half-rolling and taking Goldberry with her in an absolutely undignified tangle of limbs.

They end up eye-to-eye, and Celebrían would want to shut her eyes and sink into the earth in embarrassment if Goldberry wasn't laughing. "I'm sorry," she gasps. "Oh, Eru, Goldberry, I'm so sorry." Her cheeks are burning with a blush that's become nine parts embarrassment and one part arousal. And this had been turning into such a good distraction, she thinks mournfully as Goldberry continues giggling.

"Most graceful creatures in all of Middle-Earth?" Goldberry teases when she's recovered her breath.

"Please," Celebrían groans, laying a finger against Goldberry's lips. "I didn't exactly see you doing anything to make that anything more dignified."

"I," says Goldberry, removing Celebrían's hand and drawing meaningless patterns on the inside of her wrist, "was taken by surprise."

Celebrían's breath catches in her throat, the feather-light touch of Goldberry's fingers on her skin sending arousal spiraling through her again. "In that case, perhaps I can make it up to you."

She shrugs her way fully out of her bodice -- now probably ripped beyond hope after their tumble -- and kneels between Goldberry's legs, dragging her skirt up to pool around her hips, careful not to let her hands touch skin.

Goldberry gasps anyway, and Celebrían grins smugly as she watches the other woman start to squirm. "Celebrían," she complains. "That is teasing, not apologising."

"Mm," Celebrían agrees. She shifts forward, presses her knee to Goldberry's centre and stifles a gasp of her own when she feels how wet she already is. "This," she carefully folds down the top of Goldberry's dress and presses a kiss to the top of each breast, thankful for the hundredth time that Goldberry likes strapless gowns, "is apologising."

Goldberry arches into her touch, but Celebrían pulls away, still grinning. "I like this sort of apologising."

"As do I," Celebrían agrees. She makes sure both hands are properly braced against the ground this time before leaning forward to capture Goldberry's mouth in a searing kiss, humming in satisfaction when her lips part immediately. "I've been thinking about what you said before," she whispers when they finally break apart.

Goldberry makes a frustrated noise and settles her hands on Celebrían's hips, wordlessly encouraging her to get back on with the apologising-by-kissing part. But Celebrían is not quite ready to go back to being distracted with that. "You never answered my question about time here," she continues.

"Doesn't matter," Goldberry says, canting her hips upward and trying ineffectively to press herself even tighter against Celebrían's leg.

"It does," Celebrían insists, leaning forward again and letting her nipples brush tantalisingly against Goldberry's. "Because it means I can do this," she starts to kiss her way down Goldberry's throat, "as if we have all the time in the world."

And to that, Goldberry can agree as well.

 

 

*

 

Lothlórien is silver.

It has been for some time, Celebrían thinks, change slipping in and around the trees, stranging the forest so softly that it seemed inevitable.

The last time she sees Goldberry, they both know it's their last meeting, even though neither of them say. Goldberry floats uneasy in the sheltered cove that they've shared for so long, clasping Celebrían's hand tightly beside her, and the odd synchronicity she's always had with the water is hardly evident at all. "Your rivers are very like the sea here now," she whispers, and the words are almost lost in the water that doesn't quite cover their heads. 

"I know," Celebrían says, just as softly. She sneaks a look at Goldberry out of the corner of her eye, not quite trusting herself to refrain from saying something silly like stay with me or we can fight the whole world from here.

She can feel Goldberry's gaze heavy on her skin, though, and is almost jealous of the other woman for it. "It's a good thing, for you," Goldberry says, and Celebrían realises that she, too, is being very careful not to say certain things. "It will keep you safe here." Celebrían doesn't miss the careful emphasis on you.

"My mother does this for all of us," she says, though the defence is instinctive, now, and halfhearted. Nimrodel is not precisely gone, but her absence has yet to fade.

Swiftly, Goldberry pulls them both to their feet. The current swirling around their waists seems angrier today, rushing forward in deep irritation at their stillness. It presses Celebrían flush against Goldberry, skin to skin and closer than than they've been for some time. "Oh, darling," Goldberry says, dipping her head to kiss away the water droplets clinging to Celebrían's shoulders. Celebrían's arms tighten around her waist. "Find me, one day."

Be safe. Goodbye.

Celebrían releases her hold on Goldberry's waist to bring her mouth up from the hollow of her throat to her own mouth for a proper kiss. "Before the end of the world."

I will. I know.