Gathering Dusk by Idrils Scribe

---

Chapter 4

---

“Pendants are cumbersome. You should wear this beneath your armour, or the Orcs will get their claws on it.” Arwen turned a coil of perfectly drawn mithril wire over in her hands and gave Elrohir a look of frustration across her workbench. “Unfortunately certain historical sensibilities keep me from setting it in a ring.”

Elrond’s daughter was clad in a sooty leather apron over a smock riddled with burn holes. Not a strand of her chestnut hair escaped from the austere braid, looped twice around her head, that kept it from singeing in her brazier.

Elrohir laughed with genuine mirth for the first time in days. He had been deeply grateful when Arwen offered to make a jewel to ward him in the war to come. Taking an hour out of his long day’s work in the barracks to spend with her was a rare delight in these busy times. His fiery-tempered sister came into her own here in her jewelsmiths’ workshop, surrounded by heat and smoke and and an aura of thrumming, arcane power. 

“I would pay to see Erestor’s face when I ask him how he likes the stone setting on my brand new Ring of Power.” Elrohir gave Arwen a rebellious grin. 

She did not smile as she deftly measured the glimmering wire to the right length before snapping it with fine pliers. Arwen first pursued jewelcraft out of sheer defiance. Her apprenticeship with the last remnant of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, former Fëanorians who lingered in Elrond’s house rather than face judgment across the Sea, had ruffled many a Sindarin feather. Celeborn had been especially displeased, but Arwen clung to her chosen craft with mulish insistence. By the time her work rivalled Celebrimbor’s best pieces even Celeborn had to acknowledge her talent.

“I would pay good money to be as far away as possible when Grandfather catches wind of it! He already thinks this craft of mine far too Noldorin without me giving free rein to our House’s – what were his exact words again? – Fëanorian tendencies.” 

Arwen’s words deepened Elrohir’s smile, but she herself remained serious. Elrond’s children walked an eternal tightrope between the various races and kindreds of their mingled lineage, fraught with both duty and risk. 

He watched her silent, furious hammering – as if the mithril had done her some personal wrong – shaping the setting for a fine ruby she had bartered from the mines of Khazad-dûm, no small feat given the growing danger on the roads. She had cut the rough gem into a perfect oval with the mastery of a true Mírdain, so that bars of reflected light overlapped inside its blood-red depths. It now lay gleaming like the Star of War atop its leather wallet on her workbench, still inert. Singing Power into the stone was a precarious task that could not withstand the curious gazes of the uninitiated. Arwen would likely perform it some cloudless night, alone beneath the stars in the jewelsmiths’ secret hideaway high in the mountains. 

As he watched her skillful hands at work Elrohir wondered which path his strong-willed, independent sister would have chosen, had she been born to parents of less renown. What would Arwen have become, unencumbered by the pressing weight of her lofty ancestry? Judging by her faraway look she must ask herself that question far too often. Elrohir was suddenly determined to brighten this day for her.

“You are absolutely correct, sister mine. A pendant it is, unless you mean to outfit me with Arda’s very first Earring of Power?”

This time she did laugh, and Elrohir basked in the sound of her mirth, heard so rarely nowadays. 

“It would hardly be fitting for my final piece of jewelcraft!”

Elrohir was taken aback.  “Mother and Grandfather have disapproved of your profession for almost five long-years. You never paid them heed. Surely you will not fold now?”

Arwen shook her head furiously. The silver clasps of her braid reflected the midday sun falling through the open doorway, sending dancing flecks of light across the smithy’s walls. 

“I have no intention of giving up smithing, only a change of specialization. I will turn to blades and armour. Helwo has kindly granted me an apprenticeship. I already know the basic techniques. Obtaining full mastery should take no more than five years.”

Elrohir was struck speechless. “Why?!”

She gave him a long, pointed look. “That you of all people should ask me that question! Did no one in the barracks remember to tell you that we have a new Dark Lord on our hands?”

Elrohir smiled indulgently. “I did notice. Even so, you need not give up your passion on his account!”

He had carelessly hit a painful nerve. Arwen dropped her hammer on her anvil with an earsplitting clatter.

 “I may be the youngest of Elrond’s children, but I am no child to be indulged! Elladan has his place in the councilrooms – Father has no need of me in his dealings with the petty kings of Men. You have found yours among the warriors. But what am I? Neither a ruler nor a warrior nor even the lady of a house of my own. I have no taste for killing, and yet my blood is as fierce as yours. Shall I remain coddled in the lap of luxury, creating pretty trinkets while my people pay for our freedom in blood? My works will serve the warriors of Imladris when they ride against our foes.”     

Arwen drew a deep breath, remembering that she was talking to her staunchest ally. Elrohir knew well enough what it was to be the younger child, left outside the councilrooms to carry out decisions made by others while his elders grappled with the politics.

“One more jewel I will make, my finest one yet. A stone to ward you in the battles to come. After that, nothing but swords and mail will come from my hands until peace returns.”

Elrohir decided that lightness might draw her out of this fey mood. “It may be a long time, then, before you get to make anything controversial enough to upset Mother.”  

A flood of warmth washed inside his chest when she laughed in shared remembrance of Celebrían’s vocal disapproval of Arwen’s more Fëanorian-inspired projects. 

“I am just ambitious. Swords bring their makers more honour than bracelets!”

 Elrohir chuckled, relieved at her lighter mood. “I have not heard many songs in praise of bladesmiths.”

Arwen bent to her work once more, but this time she did smile. Her hands were more gentle as she selected a fuller from the rack beside her. 

“True, but have you heard what they sing about those mad jewellers?”

-----

Arwen hitched the silky coil of hithlain rope over her shoulder and craned her neck to look up to the summit of the towering mass of grey rock jutting up from the valley floor, draped in windswept, gnarly pines.

To reach its foot she had carried the rope and the metal tools that would help her scale the height up a series of steep switchbacks, ascending through the solemn quiet of dark spruce forests. Birdsong came in lulls and bursts, weaving together with the wood’s profound silence to create a music more ancient than any Elvish voice. Here in the woods the harsh, revealing light of the sun was muted, touching all things more gently than out on the open meadows. She sat for a moment, drinking the water remaining in her flask. She would refill it in the brook burbling its merry way downhill beside her before beginning the long climb. 

She would have to be quick – the sun was at its zenith. Soon it would begin the inexorable descent towards the western valley rim. For a moment her hand strayed to the ruby in its wrappings, resting against her heart in the inner pocket of her tunic. She needed to finish her climb and prepare herself and the gem before Eärendil’s rise, or be forced to spend a day on the bare, windswept height waiting for the next one.

A sudden sense of presence was all the warning she received of her unexpected visitor. 

The commander of Imladris’ Silvan scouts had been trained on the marches of Lórien, and knew all the Wood-elves’ arts of stealth to the hilt.  

“Mother.”

Arwen cursed inwardly. She had planned to be discreet about this project, have Celebrían first set eyes on the ruby as a fait accompli hanging around Elrohir’s neck. There was not enough time left in the day for both this climb and yet another reiteration of an old and acrimonious disagreement. 

Celebrían materialized from a young stand of silver-green fir. Arwen’s eyes widened at the sight of the climbing gear draped over her back. 

“A fair day – well chosen for a climb. I would join you, if I may?”

“Gladly, if my purpose up there will not offend you.”

Celebrían gave her a hard stare. 

“Elrohir will need all the help he can get. Perhaps even Celebrimbor’s old folly.”  

---

Arwen briefly allowed herself to rest her weight on the balls of her feet as she lifted one hand from the rockface to wipe her brow, heedless of the white chalk traces she left behind.  

Celebrían looked down from her perch atop a wider ridge, where a few elegant, windswept birches grew into miniatures of those on the richer soils below. Sunlight dappled her in gold and green. A sweet, melodious babble echoing from far below betrayed the course of the brook, cut deep into the mountains’ craggy bedrock. The walls of this chasm were steep and wet enough for thick pillows of moss and little ferns to have sprung a small forest of their own where no trees could take root. 

A rare beam of full sunlight warmed their destination: the bole of a fallen oak lying across the sheer drop, painstakingly dragged up here for the purpose. There was no flat surface, no handrail, only the mossy, lichen-covered trunk crossing like a bridge, part of the unmarked track to the summit. Arwen felt her mother’s look of concern. The cleft was deep enough to ensure a broken leg or cracked skull if Arwen should lose her balance, and she was no Wood-elf. 

“Why have you smiths not built a stone bridge here, complete with parapet and decorative gilding?”  

Arwen laughed. It seemed that Celebrían’s unhoped-for leniency had its limits. 

“Because the path is secret, as is the destination. We cannot have all and sundry running up and down this rock to disturb our Singing.”

Celebrían smiled, and turned around to attach the rope securing her to yet another of the iron hooks driven into the rock for the purpose. 

“Only the Noldor would call a few bars of iron hammered into bare rock a path. Everyone else has the sense to climb trees instead. Could you not perform this Singing from the great oak?”

“Boldly spoken, for a half-Noldo.” Arwen basked in this comfortable, teasing familiarity regained with her mother, her acceptance. 

It was hard work, pulling themselves up from one tenacious handhold to the next. Once they climbed out of the crevasse to reach the bare rockface the harsh afternoon sun and an incessant mountain wind rendered the world clean, cold and bright. When Arwen finally lifted herself onto the great rock’s flat summit, beauty struck her with silent awe. 

The valley of Imladris lay spread at her feet in its green and golden summer glory, bordered by the wild, soaring pinnacles of the Misty Mountains crowned in white. Waterfalls, pearl-white as ribbons of the finest lace, thundered down to disappear into the emerald roof of forests of oak and pine. A pair of Great Eagles appeared small as toy birds soaring above the distant slopes, their mighty wings outstretched as they wheeled in pursuit of a leaping herd of horned mountain sheep. Arwen breathed deeply. The air was as pure and clean as if Eru had newly shaped the world especially for her that very morning, and the radiance of high summer poured over all creation like a blessing.

Helwo and his Mírdain had been the first Elves to scale this height, in the year of Imladris’ founding as a refuge under siege. The iron path Arwen and Celebrían had taken was their creation, but they had done more. They hauled up the stoneworkers’ tools to shape a great boulder of grey rock into a flat, smooth table atop the very summit. Arwen now carefully lifted the ruby from its wrappings to place it in the hollow at its center, where it gleamed like a piece of living flame. 

Arwen Sang the first Song of the stone’s making, bidding it to drink in the sun, to take up the light, the spirit of the thriving valley and all life within, so its wearer would find strength in the living memory of what he defended. Now the stone needed to absorb the wind and the height’s bright sun.  

Celebrían had carried up a bottle of cider, a loaf of bread and a small wheel of Imladris’ sharp yellow cheese, covered in wax. They ate in companionable silence, sheltering from the mountain winds that whistled endlessly across the height amidst low shrubs of fiery red snowroses in bloom. 

A noisy pair of choughs descended to peck their fallen crumbs. These birds mated for life, and the sight of their squabbling aerial acrobatics brought Arwen little peace.  

 “What am I, Mother? I have lived twenty lifetimes of Men as a child in my father’s house and still I make jewels to ward my brother instead of a husband, or a son.”

Celebrían’s reply was matter-of-fact. “Suitors are not hard to come by for any child of our House. You yearn for more than a spouse.”

 “Ambition is in my blood. Both you and Grandmother have sought and found rule.”

Celebrían took a deep, measured breath. “Erestor has been remiss in his tutoring, if he left you with the foolish idea that ruling Eregion brought your grandmother much happiness.”

Arwen felt her own shoulders stiffen in outrage.“I am not cursed by a Vala. And is my blood less royal than my brothers’? No one questions their seats on the White Council.”

Given their longstanding disagreement Arwen had never set much stock in the fabled insight of Elvish mothers into their children's destinies. Celebrían’s analysis was uncanny nonetheless. 

“Your brothers have their tasks in service of this realm. You crave that same fulfillment, but even if you were to turn your hand to soldiering or politics I expect it would elude you. Elladan and Elrohir are content being the sons of Elrond and seeing to their father’s affairs. You lack the necessary … complaisance. A change of career will not change your nature.”

Arwen made a sweeping gesture to encompass the sky, the mountains, the shimmering, endless depth of vastness and distance surrounding them. 

“Is there not space enough in all the world to build something entirely new, something unthought of?”

Celebrían shook her head. “The Eldar no longer begin new works in Ennor. If you would become more than you are now, you must look across the Sea.”

“Who decreed this? On what authority? In Valinor the likes of us will be latecomers to realms long established. How could anything new be begun in so ancient a place?”

Celebrían did not answer, and Arwen regretted her ill-considered question. What could the Ennor-born daughter of an Exile and a Moriquendë truly know of life across the Sea? To the Elves of Middle-earth, the one certain fact about Valinor was that there could be no return. In that respect the crossing was not unlike Mortal death. 

After a time of silence, broken only by the chattering of the birds and the incessant winds playing through craggy rock Celebrían spoke, tentative. 

“There is one last queen’s crown to be gained, if you can be patient. Prince Legolas of the Greenwood is not yet spoken for. The match has been talked of ever since you were begotten. He will be the Woodland King, should Thranduil choose to sail. Would you propose to him?”

Arwen shook her head, as she had at that very question at least once every long-year since her coming of age. 

“Queen Síloril is no friend to the Noldor, and Thranduil even less so. They will not accept a jewelsmithing half-Golodh for their good-daughter.”

Celebrían leapt to her daughter’s defence. “You have as much Sindarin blood as Legolas. He is half-Silvan!”

“Thranduil will beg to differ, and his word is what matters in the Greenwood. No, Mother. Let Legolas marry some barefoot Silvan chieftainess with leaves in her braids and a rabbit-bone through her nose, one who will sing of nothing but trees. I wish him joy of her.”

At that image Celebrían could not help but laugh, and for a moment mother and daughter sat drinking in the majestic view in peaceful understanding. It was not long before Arwen rose to her feet. Eärendil would soon rise, and it was time to weave her Song.  

The sun had sunk into the western valley rim, painting the grey mountain faces shades of russet and madder. Arwen took up her ruby once more and lifted it in her cupped hands to a sky the colour of flame. 

Standing barefoot on the living rock she Sang words of calling and creation, summoning the slow, flowing life of the deep roots of trees, the hidden streams below the earth, the Secret Fire burning at the heart of all Eä. The ruby caught the last light of midsummer’s day as if Arwen’s hands suddenly overflowed with flames. 

Her voice resounded between the sheer cliffs when she gathered the rainbow of colours hidden in Anor’s light, the rising of the stars, the flow of the quick, sweet waters of Imladris’ many falls. She called upon her grandfather the Mariner, and for a moment the light of the Silmaril rising above the valley rim grew bright enough to outline Arwen’s shape against the mountains at her back. 

At the horizon now rose Carnil, the red Star of War, and Arwen called its bright and brave essence to the gem in her hands. She Sang of vibrant, thrumming life, secret words of guard and ward, of valour and victory, strength to lift the heart and steel it in courage.The highest blessing of all she sang at the majestic rise of the Valacirca, seven stars set by Varda Elentári in defiant challenge to the Enemy.

Celebrían’s voice soared with hers, and even now Arwen was astonished by her mother’s sheer power, her deft way of commanding the very threads of reality by her Song. Arwen wove some small spark of her own fëa into the Singing, a part of herself to seal the work. The ruby flamed to life one final time, bright enough to light both women’s faces as they marvelled at their creation. It was done.  

When Elrohir rode out to war, he would have every advantage Elvish arts could provide.  

---

Chapter End Notes

And so Arwen demonstrates her controversial career choices and Celebrían comes up with some unusual mother-daughter bonding.

Of course I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! What do you think about Arwen's chosen profession? And Celebrían's handling of what appears to be her daughter's rebellious phase? A review would make my day!

The board is set ... see you next week, when the mysterious Witch-king makes his first move.

Idrils Scribe