White Water Flowing by StarSpray

Chapter Six

The winter passed in a string of parties in Tirion and Alqualondë. On the coast it rained a great deal, and many left Eressëa for sunnier climes. Celebrían enjoyed the hospitality of her kin in Tirion, but often retreated to her own quiet house to listen to the rain on the windows as she sketched out plans for her mountain home. There would be snow there in the winter, and she quite looked forward to sitting by the fire watching it fall, with a hot drink in hand and a roaring fire on the hearth.

Spring came with warm sunshine and snow melt, turning the nascent path to the hanging valley into a muddy track, and swelling the stream that it followed. Celebrían laced up her sturdiest boots and made the trek, taking pleasure in getting a bit dirty. Huan appeared and kept pace with her, disappearing occasionally into the underbrush, but always returning to flop down beside Celebrían when she took a rest, or to splash about in the stream. She expected at any moment to come upon Celegorm, but she met no one at all, not even at the base of the cliff, where Huan ran headlong into the pool, barking delightedly.

Celebrían made her camp by the pool, and once that was done she got out her notes and sketches, adjusting some of her notes now that she could see the cliff itself again. It had been marked with chalk all around the pool and waterfall the autumn before, but the winter snows and rains had washed all of that away. She also made a more thorough exploration of the valley itself, and drew a little map for herself, marking places of interest, such as a large patch of blueberry bushes, and an open space nearby that she thought would be the perfect spot for a small apple orchard. The orchards of Imladris had been her pride and joy, and she missed tending to her trees.

Huan usually followed her about, but after a couple of days he vanished down the path again. Celebrían expected him to return soon—and not alone—and she was not disappointed. Celegorm appeared on a sunny morning, accompanied by his brothers and a handful of stone-workers from the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. They greeted Celebrían in delight, and immediately set about marking the cliff face again with chalk, and debating the best place for the start of the tunnel-staircase. Others stood back with ropes, talking of how best to make the climb up.

Caranthir came to sit beside Celebrían. “Good afternoon!” she said. “How is your lady mother?”

“Very well, thank you,” he said. “She sends her greetings. I suppose you are eager to get started?” He nodded toward the cliff.

“Oh, yes! Of course, I’m no stone-mason or builder, so there isn’t much for me to do except make sure everyone remembers to eat and sleep sometimes. When the foundations are laid up above, my work shall really begin.”

“I’m no use with building either,” Caranthir said. “But I am good at lists and things. I am less good at stopping Celegorm doing foolish things,” he added, as the brother in question began to scale the cliff face, ropes slung over one shoulder and a pouch of something hooked onto his belt; he was barefoot, his toes finding crevices in the stone invisible to those watching at a distance. Curufin stood below him, arms crossed, head tilted back to watch the progress. Celebrían found she wasn’t particularly worried. Huan would have stopped him if there was any real danger—and though he climbed rather too close to the wet stones by the waterfall for his brothers’ comfort, he went carefully, and stopped frequently to fasten metal anchors into the stone, and to thread the rope through. He worked his way carefully up the whole of the cliff, but he did not climb the final way over the top. Celebrían wondered at it, watching him rappel back down. But then Huan let out a bark, and she forgot all about cliff climbing in the face of new arrivals.

She was rather surprised to see Finrod, accompanied by a lady that Celebrían had not met before. She was clad in silver and green, and her dark hair was cropped unusually short. She had an archer’s arm guards, and carried a full quiver upon her back. Beside Celebrían, Caranthir inhaled sharply. “What’s the matter?” Celebrían asked him.

“I did not know Irissë had returned from the Halls,” he said. Curufin and Celegorm had also gone still with shock, until Aredhel broke into a run around the pool to embrace them. “I am also a little surprised that Turgon isn’t here,” Caranthir added, glancing back to the path.

“Maybe he’ll turn up,” Celebrían said cheerfully, ignoring Caranthir’s grimace as she got to her feet.

“Celebrían, there you are!” Finrod cried as Celebrían joined them. “I thought you would be here, as you were not at home.”

“The weather is too fine to stay home,” Celebrían said. “And look! Soon we shall be able to climb to the top without fear of falling.” She pointed the ropes swaying gently in the breeze. “And I daresay it will be no more than a day or so before they start excavating the tunnel-staircase.”

“Has anyone been to the top?” Finrod asked.

Before Celebrían could answer, Aredhel was upon them, looking her up and down with one slender eyebrow arched. “So this is Nerwen’s daughter! I thought you would be taller.”

“I thought you would be all in white,” Celebrían replied, and Aredhel laughed.

“I find I have had enough of being the White Lady of the Noldor. Someone else may take the title if they wish.”

After initial greetings were over—even Finrod greeted Curufin and Celegorm with cheerfulness—Celegorm called to Celebrían, “The ropes are secure—do you wish to climb up? It is your valley—you should be the first to see it properly.”

“Oh! Yes, I would love to!” Celebrían joined Celegorm at the bottom of the cliff, where extra ropes were provided and much more care was taken as she began the climb—she was both amused and touched at how concerned everyone was that she not have the slightest chance of falling. With the ropes and Celegorm to advise where the best handholds were, Celebrían made the climb with no trouble at all except one moment when her foot slipped—but that did no more than make her breath catch before she found her footing again.

At last, she reached the top, and hauled herself up and over the cliff side onto soft grass. She slipped out of the ropes and did not wait for the others, gazing about her with growing delight. The stream flowed in more or less a straight line from its source farther up—a small lake and a gladlier above it, she could now see. All around was green grass scattered with wildflowers. Trees grew in stands dotted about the valley, and alongside the stream. Somewhere just out of sight a mountain goat bleated, and Celebrían laughed in delight.

The voices of her companions mingled together behind as she went forward, following the stream in its clear stony bed, her mind turning to the vague plans she had sketched. There was room aplenty for some pastures, and gardens, and it was not long before she found the place where the house would be—nestled back from the water, just below where the valley walls began to rise again. It was perfect, and when it was done she would plant trees around it—tall firs, she thought, to break the wind. For a stiff breeze blew down from the glacier above, and she thought that in winter it would be harsh indeed. But with thick walls and roaring fires that would be no trouble at all.

Finrod soon fell into step beside her. “You are deep in plans, I see,” he remarked. “What are you thinking of?”

“The house will be here,” Celebrían told him, gesturing before them. “And over there seems a good place for forges and workshops, laid out much like Imladris, I think. And we shall keep sheep and goats, and I must make sure horses are able to climb the path.”

“I think that is already accounted for, though you might have trouble if you wanted cattle.”

“A good thing I don’t. May I ask you something?”

“Certainly!”

“Am I to call her Aredhel or Irissë? She is Aredhel in all the tales that I know, but everyone thus far has called her Irissë.”

“I think Irissë,” Finrod said. “She does not remember Beleriand as fondly as many of the rest of us; and to be quite honest I am not sure who gave her the name Aredhel. It may be an epessë from some loremaster or other.”

“Ah. Thank you; I would not want to cause offense.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that.”

Celebrían did not need to worry, perhaps, but it seemed others did. The rest of that day passed quite peacefully, but over the course of the next few days the tension between Finrod and the Fëanorians grew until they were sniping at one another over rock cutting techniques, and whether those used in Nargothrond or at Himring were superior. Irissë observed this with mild amusement at first, but before long she rolled her eyes and vanished into the forest with her bow.

Finally, Celebrían found herself rolling her own eyes, and going to the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. “I suppose you have a stone-cutting method in mind?” she asked Celugil, who had once been counted among the best of the stonemasons of Eregion, and one of Celebrimbor’s closest advisor's—until Annatar came, at least.

He grinned at her. “I do—and it is better than either of theirs.”

“Then please ignore them and proceed as you like.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Celebrían left him to call directions to the others, who jumped up to work, and made her way over to her cousins, who weren’t really fighting about stone-cutting, even if none of them would ever admit it. Huan sat nearby. He leaned against Celebrían when she gave him a good scratch behind the ears. “Do you think they would benefit from a good dunking in the pool?” she asked him. His tongue lolled out in a dog-grin, and he got to his feet, shaking himself out, before trotting up behind Celegorm. In quick succession there were three yelps and three great splashes; Caranthir, wisely, had been sitting at a distance, and so escaped a drenching. Huan sat back on his haunches as his three victims sat up in the shallows, coughing and sputtering.

“If you are going to have it out with one another,” Celebrían said to them, “please do—and do the rest of us a favor by going off to do it somewhere else! No serious injuries, please, is all I ask.” She turned away, wishing a little that she was wearing something less sensible, for it was difficult to flounce without suitable skirts, and went to see what was to be done about that evening’s supper.