Turning by Tethys Resort

Chapter 1

“All the sacred rights of humanity are violated by insisting on blind obedience.” ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

“That was ill done.”  Celeborn’s words were soft and neutral but rang harsh in the deep quiet of their rooms. 

Galadriel looked over at him, he was crouched staring into the cold fireplace.  He ran a hand along the hearth before standing, and following her to the window of their suite.  It was narrow and the sill deep, but it had a rare view of the stars above the trees. 

He stared out at the trees.  “This isolation, the false peace is dangerous enough.  Now he is inviting arrogance, ego and disaster simply naming the Silmarils in an oath.”

Galadriel felt like weeping, or maybe screaming and howling in rage.  Melian had taught her well to channel her gifts and the stones of the audience hall had rung with King Thingol’s words.  “The Silmarils are such.  My uncle wrought them of his soul itself.”  She sighed before continuing on, her mate deserves an answer even if it hurts to speak.  “Pride, arrogance…  Feanor attracted people to himself because his soul glowed with his brilliance and the Light of the Trees.  Hallowing the gems only made it worse, they call to all beings like the need for water.”

She shuddered, remembering her uncle wearing the Silmarils: they had glowed with purity and sung to her, whispering in her dreams for weeks afterward. 

Celeborn looked hard at her, judging her words said and unsaid.  “Do they call King Thingol now?  Is this a plot by the dark one?”

Even as he spoke they both knew his words were wrong.  The problem was the Girdle. 

The Girdle protected and sheltered and within its bounds all remained unwithered and untouched by Morgoth.  But within its bounds all stagnated slowly too, becoming set in its ways.  It was so slow that the elves that remained within Menegroth never noticed the change.  Even those who watched the borders barely noticed; Morgoth’s evil permeated the air at the Edge and muddled the signs. 

The Girdle was outside Time. 

Time was for Mortals, and the Grinding Ice where life was measured in shifting patterns of ice and death.  Galadriel had loved the Girdle before Nargothrond, it had felt like the timeless peace of Valinor.  But the bones of the lost lay outside the Girdle.  And she had come to realize that Valinor was not timeless at all, but outside of Mortal time and closer to the Song.  Change still came, sometimes even faster than here in Beleriand.  Danger and loss were still present.  She thought Uncle Fingolfin would have understood the difference in a way King Thingol did not. 

“King Thingol has slowly changed, he would have heard other council before.”  Celeborn hesitated, tasting the ideas and thinking them through before continuing.  “He has become isolated in mind.”

“And now has assigned a foolish and hopeless quest to that Man, hoping he will die in failure.”  A tear fell, Galadriel had felt the King’s words alter fate.  A quiet slow decay had been replaced with the first tiny ripples of war, blood and death.  She wondered if Melian had noticed that her Girdle had fallen at that brief moment.  Or the rage in Luthien’s eyes. 

“Doriath has become a gentle trap.  A cage for the peaceful and the weary.  Maybe I have rested too long here.  Let us go East, away from Beleriand.”  Certainly she had been less welcome from the moment the Oath and the Kinslayings had come to light.

“You would leave, again?  And abandon the King and Doriath to its fate?”  Celeborn shook his head, “There is always something to be done.”

“Yes, run.”  Galadriel would never beg, not even her husband, but there was a quaver in her voice that betrayed the internal jumble of heartache and pain. 

Celeborn snorted.  This was an old argument between them.  “You run too fast and too easily instead of standing in one place and fighting.” 

“Better to run, and find someplace better and new than stay and die with the old.  Better cowardice than willful blindness and thoughtless obedience.” 

Cowardice.  The word rang.

They stared at one another, trying to step back from the words before they reopened great wounds barely healed.  The last time they had trod this path, he had accused her of cowardice.  She had left for Nargothrond.  And he had stayed in Doriath, still faithful to King Thingol and his kingdom. 

They stared bitterly into one another’s eyes and then Celeborn turned and walked away to sit down by the empty fireplace again.  He muttered, “The worst mistake I ever made was simply turning away in stubborn bitterness and anger and letting you go to Nargothrond alone.”

The silence echoed. 

Galadriel whispered, “The worst mistake I ever made was not staying beside you, running away from you and my problems in pride and shame.”

“My glorious glittering love….”  Celeborn walked back to gently pull her away from the window.  He sat them together on the couch and Galadriel leaned into his chest.  “If you will abandon your pride a little, I will try to abandon my stubbornness.  Maybe we can thread this path together.”

“King Thingol spoke Doom today at Council.”  The words were muffled.  “And Lady Melian did nothing, she is caught within her own trap of the Girdle, I think.”  She sighed.  “I think War is coming to Doriath, called by King Thingol’s words and brought to roost by the Silmaril and that Man.  The sort of War that kills everyone and brings no honor or safety.”  Like the Kinslaying at Aqualonde.  “We must flee, now while we can still pass the Mountains and the Dark.”

“No one will follow us.  Maybe not even my House.  Doriath is too safe, too secure.”  Celeborn sounded sad at that admission, the border lords had tried for years to convince King Thingol to allow sorties.  To offer aid and assistance to those beyond the Girdle, associated with the Noldor or not.  All Lord Celeborn had managed to do was become an outcast in a Court certain of their isolated safety and splendor.  “Better to stay here and try to change all from within.”

“I know we must try.  But when we fail?”  Perhaps the other border lords would hear them, as a group they were more inclined to forgive Galadriel’s Noldor blood and listen to Lord Celeborn.  Maybe they could push the Doom away, into another form. 

Celeborn sighed.  “Or if we succeed?  You depend too much on the turning of fate and the words of an demand that may come to nothing.”  He sighed.  “If we fail, I will go with you and we will go as far as we can run.”

They sat together in silence until dawn, watching the dead fireplace and listening to the running of the river.  This time they would stay together.