Leaf and Branch, Water and Stone by StarSpray

Leaf and Branch, Water and Stone

“Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lórien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.” - The Fellowship of the Ring, “Farewell to Lórien”

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Galadriel sat at her loom and began to weave. As she passed the shuttle through the warp she cast her thoughts to the natural world, to the many varying hues of grey of the stones, of the myriad greens of the trees and the grass, of the uncountable shades of brown in between. She began to sing, and to add thoughts of hiding and of safety to the colors. Beneath her fingers the threads seemed to shift, taking on the colors and the intentions of their weaver.

She had thought of this first upon hearing of her brother ’s fate. Finrod had been skilled in song and in disguise, but if, perhaps, such disguises had not been needed? Galadriel knew that it was foolish to think of such what-ifs. Finrod had walked to his doom with open eyes, and if he’d not been caught in Tol-in-Gaurhoth he would have been caught somewhere else. But still, the idea niggled—and her plans grew firmer upon hearing of Lúthien’s own, similar idea. It could not save him, but it could save someone else.

And so she wove, until her fingers were stiff and her voice was hoarse. When the cloth was done she washed it in the Esgalduin beneath the sun, and then sewed it into a cloak, humming quieter songs of both warmth and cool shade into the stitches, so it would protect the wearer from the elements as well as enemy eyes.

Celeborn smiled when she gave it to him, and kissed her deeply before donning it, raising the hood against the sharp winds outside. She watched him leave to join the marchwardens in the north; he vanished into the trees. Melian stood near, and nodded her quiet approval. “Do not stop weaving,” she said to Galadriel, her voice low and heavy with premonition.

Many long years and many long miles from Menegroth, beneath the golden boughs of Lothl órien, Galadriel sang her most powerful songs of concealment and of safety into eight cloaks, already woven with the enchantments and skills of her handmaidens (she smiled, a little, thinking of Samwise and his talk of Elf-magic), and to them each she fixed a brooch, as a gift for the dark times ahead, that the Fellowship might see them and remember the beauty and rest of Lórien, and take heart that they remained in the thoughts of its Lady.