Grass is Still Growing by StarSpray

Grass is Still Growing

Celebrían felt that she was half in love with Elrond Halfelven before she even laid eyes upon him.

The journey from Lórien to Imladris was long and filled with grief. They passed through Khazad-dûm, as they had when they had departed Eregion, but awaiting them was only a wreckage of the realm that Celebrían had loved and called her home. Nothing remained of Ost-in-Edhil but blackened ruins, and long lines along the road leading north of cairns, raised by those who had come back after the fighting to retrieve what they could, and honor those whose bodies they could find.

They did not travel through Ost-in-Edhil, skirting around it instead—but they passed over hills high enough to give a view of it all. Celebrían had wept bitter tears for all that had been lost, and had ridden on north in a gloom that she was sure only reuniting with her father could lift.

But then they came to the edge of the valley, the land falling away suddenly before them as the land opened up, revealing waterfalls tumbling down the mountains above, and woods and meadows coming together in the deep cleft there at the feet of the Misty Mountains. From above she could see the lingering scars of long military occupation—quickly-erected buildings only now being properly dismantled, and a patchwork of muddy fields and muddy tracks still visible although grass and flowers were starting to grow up again—but the main house and the gardens were also visible, lovely things in spite of their hurried and tragic origins.

As they descended the narrow switch-backing path, Celebrían could hear nightingales, and then elven voices singing merrily in the trees somewhere off the path upriver. A slender bridge arched over the water that flowed swiftly and merrily down its stony bed, shining in the bright noon sunshine. The house rose up before them, a mishmash of building styles, but somehow all the lovelier for it. The hurriedness of its original construction was being smoothed over into a look smoother and more pleasing. The scent of niphredil and roses hovered in the air around them. It was a house that promised comfort and safety, and Celebrían thought that it must be the sort of house to reflect its master—and she was suddenly very eager to meet him.

The courtyard was not quite fully paved with flagstones as they rode into it, but that hardly mattered, for Celeborn was there waiting for them. Celebrían jumped down into his arms even before her mare had a chance to stop, and her mother was not far behind them. There was much laughter and many tears, and then Gil-galad came out to greet them too—another merry meeting. Ciryatur was there also, tall and imposing, broad-shouldered, with smiling eyes the color of the sea. But Elrond was not there. Gil-galad said they had come earlier than expected, and Elrond was deeper in the valley—something to do with the river, and concerns about flooding. Celebrían was surprised at just how disappointed she was—it would be only a few hours at the most before he returned, after all.

She was shown to a small but cozy room with windows that opened to a lovely view of the valley and of the mountains looming up over them. The window box was filled with colorful and fragrant flowers. She changed quickly out of her traveling clothes into more comfortable robes, and let her hair flow loose as she made her way back outside into the gardens without waiting for her parents.

The gardens closest to the house were filled with herbs and vegetables—all useful plants, neatly arranged. The herbs were fragrant, and the vegetables flourishing. Here and there were flowers either growing on their own or planted with the beginnings of whimsy and thinking of no more than beauty and pleasure. Birds sang in the trees and shrubbery, and overhead the sky was a dome of clear and clean blue. The very air of the valley was a breath of welcome and refreshment. Celebrían breathed deep, and laughed aloud for sheer delight, and skipped a little down the path. There was a large tree ahead, and she thought she saw a figure standing beneath it, but her mother called to her and she turned away, stopping her walk to wait for her parents.

They came up arm in arm, the silver and gold of their hair mingling together as they bent their heads toward one another. Celebrían had not seen either of them so happy and at ease since long before she and Galadriel had departed from Ost-in-Edhil. When she turned back down the path as they fell into step with her, she saw the figure emerging from beneath the tree, coming towards them. He was tall and dark-haired, with patches of mud on his trousers and crusted on his boots, and his face was very fair—and pink around the cheeks in a manner that she did not think came from the sun or exertion. Her breath caught at the side of him, and she knew even before her father introduced them that this was Elrond, Master of Imladris and herald of Gil-galad. When he spoke his voice was as sweet as a nightingale’s song and his words were thoughtful and kind, and Celebrían thought to herself even as he bowed over her hand, I am going to marry him. And when their eyes met as he straightened, she saw the same feeling reflected in his soft grey eyes.

But he said nothing, and later Galadriel came to Celebrían when she was walking at twilight among the hemlock umbels and the fireflies. There was no hiding anything from her. “Guard your heart, my daughter,” she said gravely, hands clasped before her. “One day—perhaps soon, perhaps not—Elrond will march south, to the borders of Mordor. Whether he will return to his fair valley, I cannot see. He will take no wife before then.”

Celebrían smiled at her. “I am patient,” she said, “when I must be. Though for my sake you might tell Gil-galad to muster his soldiers sooner than later!”

Her mother smiled, but only briefly. “Such a marriage will bring you great joy,” she said, “but it may also bring you the bitterest grief—for any children of Elrond Halfelven will be Halfelven also, and given the same choice. They may choose as Elros did, and Lúthien.”

“Whatever joys and griefs are to befall us, I would endure them at Elrond’s side,” Celebrían said. It had never been her habit to withhold her heart when it might be given freely, and while grief might come of it, even greater joy was certain. She took her mothers arm in her own. “Let us talk no more of perhapses and maybes. The moon is rising, and the stars are bright on the water. Is this valley not the loveliest place you have ever seen?”

“It is lovely indeed,” Galadriel agreed.

They returned to the house by meandering paths, and as they returned Celebrían glanced up one more time, and saw Gil-Estel hovering over the trees. She smiled at it, and went to bed.