Writing Celebrían by BalrogBalls

Moth!

Day 2 - Childhood. Two moments between Celeborn and Celebrían. 

She liked to climb trees, Celebrían did: Celebrían had, anyway, though it was a long time ago. I like going places nobody can follow me to, she used to say. Or at least they’ll have to try very hard. Galadriel, that old Nolde, would call her monkey child.

Why though? Celeborn asked her once. She was ten or thereabouts, all skinned knees and knocked-out-tooth that she didn’t let them heal and thus gave her a lisp. Battle scarth, she called them.

We live in flets, Cello-baby, he told her. Your room overlooks the treetops, Celebrían. Why do you keep climbing these other trees?

She had looked all around, ensuring that only she and her co-conspirator could hear, as though someone was going to eavesdrop on the Lord of Lothlorien messing about with his daughter on a treetop. Moth, Ada. Moth. Look, I’m creating a new thpecieth of moth. And don’t call me Cello-baby! I’m ten yearth old!

Moth?

She points. Moth, Ada! That’s my thecret! I’m making my own treehouthe here, and it’s better than our treehouthe because it’s got all thith moth on it!

Aha, moss! And you better not let your Ammë catch you calling the palace a treehouse, Cello-baby.

Now it’s our thecret, marchwarden-esque knee-scabs and all, she gave Celeborn a conspiratorial nod, faux-tipping her helmet. Our treehouthe, at the edge of the world! And if you call me that again I’ll push you off!

What a wonderful life she lives, thought Celeborn, to think the edge of Lothlorien is the edge of the world. Was that not the canon he and Galadriel had always wished to make their daughter a character in?

He smiled as she continued showing him the two types of moth, moss! colliding all across the branch, both biological and artistic at once, growing higher and lower, fully solid in some parts. Completely pointless, mind. It was only another word in the language of changing-his-world Cello-baby was fluent in. There was always something with her, something small and irritating she’d become obsessed with for months on end. Plankton or little unicellular organisms or something along those lines and frankly if it turned out moth was in fact something fantastical beyond Celeborn’s understanding then so be it, he didn't care a jot about moth aside from how much he loved how much she cared. 

On the beach, Celeborn takes his daughter's hands and wants to tell her he will see her again and the words are bitter, winding around inside his mouth. The seven of them have gone to the edge of the world to find a cure, even as every single one of Celeborn’s bones tell him it is far too late. Wind howls in his ears, a thousand clocks tick her down. She is whitewater in his hands, and every word dies inside him.

“No words, Ada?” she asks. She is turning to stone before Celeborn’s eyes, and no matter how tight, tight, tightly he holds her, no matter for how long, he cannot save her, but still he holds her in case it matters, in case it adds up. She crosses her eyes, because she’s still Celebrían. “No final requests?”

He shakes his head, sniffs, lets all of her go except her hands, and then draws her to him again - carefully, avoiding all her battle scarth - to whisper “build me a treehouse, Cello-baby? Build me a treehouse at the edge of the world?”

“Sure, Ada,” she blinks hard, and then snorts right in his ear. “Though by the time you get there, it’ll be buried under a good six feet of moth.”

Chapter End Notes

Celebrían was a weird kid. You know it. I know it. Celeborn knows it.