A Midwinter’s Feast by Lilith

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The Feast

The feast is held, and several very questionable decisions are made.

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Celebrían sat very still for a moment and watched the people around her.    The feast was well underway, and it seemed everyone was enjoying themselves as they always had.   Her mother and her father sat at the center of the table, the light of the lamps dancing about them, catching her mother’s hair and illuminating it and glinting upon the circlet and other jewels her father wore.  Her mother listened patiently to some tale or other Master Orchall told her while her father inclined his head and smiled in response to a comment from Kemmótar. Her mother wore her customary white, a long gown of fine silk.   She also wore a circlet made to resemble a crown of holly, very much like the one Mairen had made for Celebrían, upon her head, and a necklace of interwoven holly leaves at her neck. Celebrían’s father wore robes of a light silver-gray.  He too wore a circlet but his took the form of birds, nightingales, Celebrían knew, facing one another on interconnected branches. At the far end of the table, the High King’s herald, Elrond, sat. He was far more simply dressed than her parents, wearing robes of a deep blue and no circlet upon his dark hair.   He appeared to be enjoying his conversation with Atanvardo who was sketching a plan, with what Celebrían did not know, on the cloth her mother had used to cover the table. 

 

Celebrían herself sat at the end of the table farthest from the herald.   Her cousin sat beside her as he always had. He had come earlier to help her and her mother with the final preparations, something that she had expected but that had surprised and pleased her mother.   He had placed the last touches on the decoration of the house for the feast, draping delicate strands of silver and golden stars across the tables and in the greenery. These had been polished carefully so that the light of the lamps reflected onto them and they seemed very much like tiny brilliant stars fallen from the sky only to be caught among the greenery and scattered upon the table.     He had then re-arranged the smaller tables to allow better movement to and from the kitchen, he’d said, and repositioned the chairs. He had carried platters when asked and helped her choose the gown she wore, one of a deep, dark blue, the color, he’d said of the spaces between the stars. It was decorated with delicate stars made of mithril along the sleeves, around the neckline and the hem, all of his making, as was the circlet her father and the jewels her mother wore.   She also wore a tiny, delicate circlet crated of mithril and made to resemble a chain of stars. Now, he listened, head bowed towards hers, as she told him how worried her mother and Elanor had been that the food would not be ready when it should be or that it might not taste as it ought. He laughed gently and told her that it was, as it always was, perfect. She was glad to be seated near him, so that she was able to speak of what she wanted and not have to try to invent conversation to please her mother’s guests.   

 

She was also proud of him.  He looked handsome. She thought he was, but she loved him and it wouldn’t have mattered to her if he hadn’t been at all.  But he seldom dressed finely. He said it wasn’t practical if you worked as he did, and she supposed it was true since he was often smudged with soot and his clothing stained and dirty too.   She was then always a little surprised to see him finely dressed upon a feast day and still more surprised to remember that, once upon a time, many years ago, he had been a lord and a warrior who’d led men into battle and not simply the gentle, quiet man she knew.  This day he wore a fine tunic in a dark red, worn over fine black leggings and high boots. He wore a silver circlet upon his head and cuffs of a simple design, finely polished and shaped smoothly, almost like a wave, upon his wrists. His hair, normally pulled into a tight and simple braid, was braided still but so elaborately that Celebrían was reminded of tales of Fingon and wondered how her cousin had managed to plait it on his own.   

 

The dinner itself was near its end.   A very few guests were finishing one of the last courses, either an individual dish of rich custard, either flavored with the seeds derived from a trumpet-shaped flower or with the beans from a plant grown far to the west across the seas.   The beans were called cacawa in the lands from which it had been imported or so the spice sellers said. It and the other plant came from the same place and had been brought first to Númenor and then to Middle Earth by one of the more adventurous of the Numenorean princes.  She’d said a few other things about that prince, none of which were particularly nice but all of which were interesting. The second sweet dish was one of Master Orchall’s more remarkable creations. It was a tall tower made of delicate pastry puffs, very like the fritters Celebrían loved but perfectly round and of the same size,  These were carefully arranged and then bound together by threads of spun and burnt sugar. It was a very pretty dish, but not too pretty to eat. Celebrían had enjoyed some of it, one serving had been presented ceremonially to her, after her mother and father had first been served, by Lisen. Lisen had seemed, for a moment, as she’d set the dish before Celebrían as if she wanted to say something to Celebrimbor.   She’d looked intently at him and seemed on the verge of speech, but, when she’d opened her mouth to begin, her father had called her back to his side. Celebrían wondered what it was she’d wanted to say.  

 

Lisen was now seated across the great room, among the other musicians.  She and Lindir were speaking quietly to one another, almost certainly reviewing the songs and the order in which they planned to sing them.  They normally alternated; one sang a few songs before they’d sing a duet or two and then the other would take their turn before the cycle would begin again.   Lindir had said it allowed them to rest. Some of this songs were designed for the audience to hear, and this, Celebrían thought, was where they would begin. But other songs were intended as accompaniment for the company’s dancing which Lindir and Lisen would also lead. This — the prospect of dancing — was what Celebrían looked forward to the most.   The Midwinter Feast was unique among the feasts held by the lords and ladies of her mother’s and her father’s people in Eregion. While most other feasts were limited to the same lords and ladies and some of the masters of the guilds, this feast, though similarly limited in scope, had one central exception. When it came to the dance, all, including the servants, were permitted — in fact, encouraged — to dance, and so it would not be unusual to see Elanor dancing with Celebrían’s father or her mother dancing with one of the serving boys or Celebrimbor with one of the girls.   This the servants did after the meal was served and the dishes taken away but before they left near to the stroke of midnight and went their way to the bonfires in the lower city to which the lords and ladies did not go.   

 

Lindir had begun to sing, beginning as was customary with a song of Varda crafting the stars and setting their patterns into the depths of the sky.  Celebrían enjoyed this song, knowing the verse and the melody so well that she anticipated the places where he’d pause to make the song more dramatic.   As he sang, she noticed the approach of the King’s herald. Elrond came and sat in the seat next to her cousin. It had only recently been vacated by one of the other guests who had moved closer to the musicians.   Celebrían smiled at him and her cousin did too, though his smile was smaller and tighter.   

 

“It is a marvelous feast,” Elrond said to her.  “I am very glad to be here.”

 

“Thank you,” she said in reply and, feeling nervous at his presence, she reminded herself to look at him and not to pick at her dress.   Her cousin lightly squeezed her hand under the table. “You are enjoying it?” she asked and then felt very foolish for he’d already told her that he was.

 

“Yes,” he said kindly, “I am.   What is your favorite part?”

 

She had been happy to answer, telling him about the dancing and about the music.  She told him how much she looked forward to Lisen singing.

 

“Have you heard her before?”

 

“No, I’ve not,” Elrond answered.

 

“She’s a great singer better than Lindir, even.  She’s the best I’ve heard ...” Celebrían said and then paused, remembering this afternoon.  “Almost the best I’ve heard.” 

 

Celebrían noticed that her cousin shifted slightly in her seat, and she decided that she ought not to mention who it was who sang better than Lisen, but it seemed a little too late.

 

“Someone sings better than she and that someone is not Lindir?” Elrond asked, his voice was light but his eyes were very serious.

 

“Lisen is better than almost anyone else,” Celebrían said.  “And I like the songs she sings.”

 

“Is it, perhaps, the Lady Mairen who surpasses her?” Elrond inquired.

 

“I ... yes, she’s the best singer I’ve heard.” Celebrían replied.   Her cousin squeezed her hand a second time, and she knew this time he’d done so not in reassurance but in a warning.  She didn’t understand why; they were only speaking of song.

 

“Is this true?” Elrond asked Celebrimbor.  

 

“Yes,” her cousin said, “she is.”

 

“Interesting,” said Elrond.

 

“I’d only heard her sing today,” Celebrían said.

 

“I should like to see your friend while I’m here,” Elrond said to her cousin.   “I wish to know more, as the High King does, of the plans you have for Eregion and to learn more of her.”

 

“I would be happy to discuss our plans,” her cousin replied.  Celebrían noticed that he made no mention of whether Mairen would be present for this discussion.  From the expression on his face, Elrond noticed as well. “Simply let me know when you’d like me to come.”

 

“Perhaps I might come to the Mirdain,” said Elrond. “I would like to hear her thoughts on these advancements.   It is interesting to me and, indeed, to Gil-Galad that your plans for Eregion became considerably more aggressive once she arrived.”

 

“We had the desire before she came but we hadn’t the ability,” her cousin said.  You know that.”

 

“Still I would like to speak with her as well.  I am disappointed she is not here.”

 

“As am I,” her cousin said.  “As for the other, you may ask, but it is her decision whether she will or no.”

 

Celebrían was puzzled.  Why wouldn’t Mairen wish to speak to the High King’s man?

 

Elrond, however, seemed not to be surprised.  “I understand that the possibilities available to you since she has come are very enticing and allow you to accomplish many of the things of which you have dreamed.  But, my kinsman and my friend, you need — we all need — to know more of her before this continues.”

 

“Celebrían,” her cousin said quietly, “would you mind asking Elanor if she would mind making some of the ginger tisane for me before she joins the dancing?”

 

That was very odd.  He seldom drank any of the tisanes her mother served, and, when he did, not the ginger, claiming that it was the most complicated to make in a way that was drinkable and so took the longest time.  But he had asked and Celebrían, despite suspecting she was deliberately being sent away, began to walk slowly to the kitchen.

 

“We’ve no reason to think ...” she heard her cousin say before she left the room.

 

When she returned with the tisane, Elrond had returned to his place at the far end of the table and her cousin stood, leaning against one of the pillars in the center of the room.  His face, Celebrían saw, was stern, almost unhappy, but he smiled at her as she came and walked back to the table.

 

He took a sip of the tisane and looked a little surprised.

 

“It’s not ...” he began.

 

“As bad as it usually is,” Celebrían finished.  “I put some honey in it and orange rather than lemon.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Cousin,” she asked, “will you tell me why my mother, my father and the king’s herald want to know more about your friend?”

 

“Celebrían,” he began, “I don’t …”

 

“Please,” she said.  “It is what none of us have talked about and everyone has thought about since before the feast.  I don’t understand.”

 

He looked at his tea, breathing deeply.   “They think,” he said, “that they do not know what she is and that she seems too good for her story to be true.”

 

“And you do not?”

 

“I think her story makes more sense to me than it does to them, but then my family ... Celebrían, this isn’t easy ... my family has done things that make me understand why someone might not want to tell you everything about themselves at once.”

 

“And Mairen hasn’t told you everything.”

 

“No,” he said, “she hasn’t.”

 

“Shouldn’t she?”

 

“Perhaps,” he said.  “I don’t know. We’ve not asked it of the others who’ve come; we didn’t force them to tell tales of what they’d seen or things they’ve done. We’ve only asked that they be open to living and working with those who are different to them and with whose ancestors they may have quarreled.  Besides, who am I, of all people, to ask it of her? Or to blame her if it isn’t what I want to hear?”

 

“You’re her friend,” Celebrían said, looking at his hands, wrapped around the mug.  They were heavily calloused, with burns and places where the skin had been cut. They weren’t pretty, not fine as her father’s were or Elrond’s, but were rather the hands of someone who’d spent his life working with them.   Still they were his and made so many wonderful things. She touched his fingers. “You care about her. Doesn’t that allow you to ask?”  

 

“Perhaps,” he said, again, “or perhaps the fact that I do care for her requires that I wait.”

 

Celebrían did not understand.  She placed her hand on his. As she did, she noticed the music had changed.  Then she looked and saw that the servants and guests were beginning to clear the smaller tables out of the way in order to create space for dancing.   As they did, several men and women began to move towards the center of the room. Her cousin watched her, smiling gently.  

 

“Should we?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” she said.

 

He bowed to her, as formally as if she were a queen and he her subject.  Then he extended his hand to her in a courtly gesture. Celebrían took it and allowed him to guide her through the room through one song and then a second and a third.   When the third song had ended, he escorted her back to a seat near her father and her mother and knelt at her side.

 

“I thank you for the dance, my lady,” he said, warmth and gentle laughter in his voice.  “If it does not displease my lady, I shall take my leave and will see you on the morrow.”

 

“You’re leaving already?” Celebrían asked.

 

“Yes,” he replied.  “Before I agreed to come here, I had promised Mairen that I would spend Midwinter with her.   She felt that I should not miss the chance to spend Midwinter with you, and so she had decided to attend a feast with many of the journeymen of the Mirdain.  I am glad to have been able to see you, but I feel that I should also honor my original promise to her.   It is late now, already much later than I had expected, and I shall have to hurry in order to arrive there before she will have left. Will you forgive me?”

 

“For what?”

 

“For leaving,” he answered gently.

 

“I wish you didn’t need to go,” she said.

 

“But I did make a promise,” he replied.

 


“I know and I understand,” she said and kissed him.  From the corner of her eye, she saw her parents watching.   Her father seemed concerned but not surprised. Her mother, however, seemed surprised and not a little angry.    Celebrimbor rose from where he’d knelt at her side and moved quickly towards the kitchen. After a moment, her mother stood and followed after him.  Celebrían looked to her father who said simply, “She does not want him to go.”

 

“I know,” Celebrían answered.  “I would like him to stay too. It was only a few dances, but he said he needed to leave.”

 

Her father leaned down and squeezed Celebrían’s hand.  “I think we had best be prepared to see less of him than we have.  In truth, I was surprised he came.” He paused and brushed her hair behind her ear.  

 

“Why?” Celebrían asked, plucking at her sleeves though she knew she ought not to do it.  

 

Her father sighed and said gently, “I think he chose to come only because you asked him.  He was here to see you and to dance with you. Now that he has and with many others certain to wish to dance with you, I am not surprised he chose to go.”

 

Celebrían shook her head, “He came because she told him he needed to come.”

 

“She?” asked her father.  “Mairen? You said she had.”

 

“Yes, she told him.  He came because she asked him to come.  Now he’s leaving because he wants to see her. If we had invited her, he would have stayed.” 

 

“Perhaps,” her father said.  “Either way, I think you should be prepared to see a little less of him, though I am certain he will always come when you ask.   You are very important to him. That will not change. Other things, I suspect, including how often we see him, may.”

 

Celebrían did not want to think about this.  She thought it was simpler, easier to invite Mairen, and then she would be certain to see her cousin.

 

Her father continued to look in the direction her mother had walked and then stood quietly, seeming ready to follow after her.  But, even as he began to move in the direction of the kitchen, Elrond saw him and began to walk in his direction.

 

“I’ll go find her,” Celebrían said to her father. 

 

She walked around the edge of the great room, avoiding couples as they danced and spun along the floor, and slipped into the kitchen.  She began to walk through it, but, before she’d traveled very far, she saw Elanor’s worried face and heard her cousin’s weary voice. 

 

“I do not understand, Artanis,” he said.  “I know you are not fond of her, and I know you have doubts.  But you seem unwilling to entertain the possibility that she is who she says she is.”

 

“And you,” her mother countered, “are unwilling to consider that she might not be.  That this is a lie.”

 

“Perhaps it is,” he said in response.  “But should we not have proof before we accuse her of serving the Dark?  What reason do you have to believe that? What proof?”

 

Her mother made no reply.  Celebrían had now moved far enough into the kitchen that she see them facing one another before the door leading outside.

 

“You have none,” her cousin said bluntly.  He held his cloak in one hand and gestured towards her mother with the other.   “You have no proof, only a feeling. That is not a sufficient basis to make an accusation, especially of the sort you are making.”

 

“I do not trust her,” her mother’s voice rose urgently.  “Her story does not fit the person she appears to be.”

 

“Artanis, you have been to war,” he answered.  “You’ve felt its effects. You know what it does to those who’ve fought in it, year after year, even those who are powerful, wise and strong.  It damages the best of us. She need not be weak or a fool to have suffered and to have been affected. Consider Nelyafinwë or Findekáno. Were they weak?”

 

“The Oath caught them.”  His mother’s voice had grown cold with anger.

 

“Nelyo, yes; do you think I am likely to forget that?  He helped to raise me as much as my father did. He looked after me more than you were asked to do.” Celebrían heard a sharp pain in her cousin’s voice, similar to the pain in his voice when he’d spoken of her uncle, of Finrod.  “But, had he not sworn it, do you not think he would have felt the effects of the war regardless? If you cannot — if you will not — show compassion for the mistake of a man grieving his grandfather’s loss and his father’s pain, then look to those you’ve loved in Doriath.  Did the wars not affect Beleg or Mablung?”

 

“It was the jewels and the Oath that brought evil to Doriath.”

 

“Artanis, do not be so short-sighted,” he said, forcing his voice to become calm.  “Had evil not already been in the world, there would have been no need for Melyanna’s protections.  Did the jewels bring Thû to your door?”

 

“Short-sighted?” Her mother remained unmoved.  “You do not want to see what is before you. You don’t want to believe that she is not what she seems.”

 

“No.  Who would?   Is it truly something you want to believe?” 

 

“I don’t, but I don’t understand why you don’t trust me in this.”

 

“Because if she is what she appears to be, she is a great gift to us.  Because we may benefit so much from her. Because I already have. She’s given us so much already.”

 

“Yes, you’ve said.”  The anger remained apparent in her mother’s voice, but now there was something beneath it, something uglier to Celebrían’s ear.  “You’ve told me — they’ve all told me — how generous she has been with her knowledge and her help. Even here, at the feast, they’ve all spoken of the gifts she’s given: a new pick for Kemmótar and a hammer for Atanvardo. They even speak of the gifts she sent to Celebrían, to my husband and to me.   Truly, they say she is the lady of the gifts. If that is so, perhaps we should now begin to call her Annatariel?” 

 

“They’ve welcomed her,” he said simply.   “She wanted to show her appreciation.”  

 

“They’ve become blinded by what she offers,” countered her mother.  “Have you? Or were you already?”

 

“Artanis, I have learned from her,” said Celebrimbor.  Celebrían heard how he struggled to keep his voice calm and easy, not to raise it or to argue with her mother.  “I am learning from her. I’m learning with her. She and I — we — are learning so very much together. She can help me.”  Celebrían watched as her mother refused to listen. She watched as she turned away. She saw her cousin follow her and heard the plea in his voice as he spoke.  “She can help this city. She can help us make Eregion what we dreamed. I cannot do it alone, Artanis. I haven’t the skill, but she does and can teach me. This can be the city of which we — you and I — have dreamed.  It can be a place that allows us to move beyond the past.’

 

“She’s using you.”   Her mother’s voice was flat, her face closed.

 

“Is she?  For what?” Her cousin asked, disbelief clear in his tone.  “I’ve no skill to offer that she doesn’t possess. I’ve no knowledge to give her.”

 

“Only a willing mind and body to follow where she leads.”

 

“Artanis, that is unfair,” he said quietly.

 

“She uses you and the Mírdain to achieve a purpose but one we do not yet know.”

 

“If anything, we use her,” he said, still quietly, still attempting to remain calm.  “She’s not asked for anything.”

 

“Yet,” her mother said flatly.  “You had concerns about her. Why were they not sufficient to keep her out?”

 

At that, her cousin’s calm shattered.   “Look at me, Artanis,” he said, anger and pain clear in his voice.  “Look at me, and ask me again. How many places have I been welcome?  Truly welcome.”

 

“Lindon,” she said simply.

 

“True, Gil-Galad was kind,”  he said. “But how many others would have happily sent me away?  How many wished I’d perished as my father or my uncles had done, forgetting that I had sworn no oath and forsworn my allegiance to my own house.   There were always whispers of whose child I was and what my grandfather, my father and my uncles had done. I was of their blood. I was .. I am of the House of Fëanáro, and, by virtue of that alone, I was guilty.”   His voice was steady but Celebrían saw that his hand shook. Her mother refused to meet his eyes. “You know this. It is why you led us away, why you made a home for us here, before the whispers in Lindon became shouts.   Even so, even still, I am not and I cannot be welcome in Lórinand or in the Green Wood, not as you, whose father was blameless and whose husband is a Sinda, are.”

 

“I am sorry,” her mother said, “but that is no reason ...”

 

“How is it not?  Why would I not offer someone a chance?  Why would I not treat someone more fairly than I have been treated?  Why would I not require proof and fact rather than casting someone out based only upon rumor and suspicion.  Artanis, if she is not who she says she is, we will learn and will act then.”

 

“But when?  I fear it will be too late.  I fear you are already blinded by your own desire and your own affection.”

 

“Desire for what?” Celebrían heard the anger in his voice now.  “Affection for what? For her? Artanis, that is unworthy.”

 

“By your desire for knowledge,” her mother said.  “I thought you were blinded by your desire to surpass your grandfather.  I thought your ambition to best his achievements and your need to prove yourself blinded you to what she is.   I have also come to fear that you have become blinded by your affection for her. I have grown to fear that you may care for her and that affects your judgment about her.”

 

Her cousin laughed, but it is a strange laugh with no humor in it but only a very bitter sound.  “Artanis, she is my friend,” he said. “I do care for her.”

 

“Tyelpe, don’t,” her mother answered.  “Don’t make that mistake. Do not care for her.  Choose anyone else. But do not choose her.”

 

“Artanis, she is my friend,” her cousin replied.  “but, were she more, that is hardly your concern.”

 

“Not her, Tyelpe,” her mother said with a new and a strange urgency in her voice.  “Not her. Don’t think she’d stay with you and be happy here. Don’t imagine she’d marry you and bear you eight children so that you might finally best your grandfather at something.  She won’t.   She might make use of you, even bed you if it pleases her, but she'll not do more than that.  She can't."

 

He looked as if she’d slapped him.   “Artanis,” he said, “you go too far.   Why would you even care who I wed or who I ...  Why would it even matter to you?”

 

“I …” her mother seemed to sense that she had, perhaps, pushed him too far.  “You’re my family and I care for you. I’m concerned about you.”

 

“Artanis, I am happy when I work with her,” he said, and Celebrían heard how he forced his voice to become quiet and to return to something resembling calmness. “I’m happy to be around her.   It’s been no more than friendship, but it’s more than I’d thought to have. And what if it were more? Why would that matter to you? She understands me. She sees me. And not simply as the heir to a house dispossessed.”

 

“She doesn’t mean well.”  

 

“Is it so hard to imagine someone enjoying my company?  Wanting to be with me?” Celebrimbor asked, the calmness of his voice giving way to bitterness.  “Simply because you refused me? Do you hate me ... did you hate my grandfather so much ... do you see him in me so clearly that you can’t imagine someone would care for me?” 

 

“No,” her mother sounded shocked.  “I think many would, but she is not one of them.” 

 

“Have done, Artanis,” he replied.   There was a bitter finality in his voice.  It frightened Celebrían. “You cannot reject me and then presume to tell me whom I may befriend, whom I may love.  You haven’t that right.” He turned and left, closing the door quietly behind him.   

 

Celebrían’s mother stood and walked to the door.  She seemed ready to open it and follow him, but she did not, standing quietly before it with her hand placed above the handle.   Then she turned and saw Celebrían there.

 

“He has a point,” Celebrían heard her father say.  He stood behind her with the King’s Herald at his side.  “And a good heart. He loved you once, and he has not begrudged you your happiness with me.  He has accepted me and has loved our child as if she were his own. Would you begrudge him friendship or love simply because you do not care for the woman he may choose?”

 

“I know,” her mother said, and Celebrían saw the tears on her face and heard them in her voice.   “I know, but I do not trust her. I fear for him with her.”

 

“Unless and until we learn differently, there is little we may do about it.  I had intended to encourage you to invite her into our home in order to learn more of her and to keep his trust.  Now I do not know if that would matter. You may be correct, but he is not yet able to hear it and you may have driven him to her.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Do you not think he might confront her with your fears?   Do you not think her more than capable of answering any question he might have?   Unless she is both false and foolish, I suspect he will go to her now and she’ll have this well in hand.  It will be far more difficult to remove her from his company now.”

 

Celebrían turned and, moving between her father and Elrond, hurried out of the kitchen.  She walked quickly through the great room, not minding the dancers or the expressions on the guests’ faces, and then, finding her heavy cloak still hanging on a hook near the front door, threw it on and ran out the front door.

 

The night air was cold.  The sky was heavy with clouds and there was the smell of snow upon the soft breeze.  The sound of revelers making their way to the lower city surrounded her. For a moment or two, Celebrían stood, shivering in her thin gown and shoes, in front of her house before she wrapped the cloak more tightly around her and considered what to do.   She was certain that her father was right. Her cousin had already planned to see Mairen, and Celebrían knew that the argument he’d had with her mother made it more rather than less likely that he would seek out his friend. But she didn’t know where he would look for her.   He had said that she was attending a feast with some of the journeymen, and Celebrían knew that many of them lived in or very near to the lower city. She also knew that the quickest route to the lower city passed both Mairen’s home and her cousin’s and so she began to walk down the street in that direction without any clear idea of what she would do if she saw her cousin or Mairen along the way.  She knew that she needed to see him and she knew that she needed to tell him not to mind what her mother said because she was only worried about him. But she did not know what else she should or could do. She wanted to make it as if the argument had never happened, but she did not know how or if that was possible.

 

After a block or two, she saw him moving before her.  He was not walking quickly, and he seemed to be very deep in thought.  He stopped from time to time and stood very still, but he always began to walk again, moving steadily in the direction of his house.   Celebrían watched as he walked past the house on the corner, the house in which Mairen now lived, and then stopped. There was a light shining in one of the windows on the second floor.  He turned to look at it, both his face and his body appearing, to Celebrían’s eye, as if he were wrestling with a decision. He seemed to have made one because he turned from the house and began to walk towards his home.  But, as soon as Celebrían decided that it would be safe to call to him, he stopped abruptly. She watched as he walked back to the corner house and strode up to the door. He rapped twice upon it, but no one responded, at least not immediately.  His face uncertain and his body tense, he stood, waiting, for a few moments longer before he turned again and walked down the steps. As he reached the last one, the door opened. As it did, Celebrían stepped back and slipped into the space between two of the row houses.  She was able to see her cousin where he stood and the door as it opened completely and a woman stepped out.

 

It was Mairen.  She stood in the doorway.  She carried a lamp in one hand, the light of it illuminating her face.   Celebrían thought that she must have only very recently returned from the feast she’d attended.   Mairen wore a gown, green as the leaves of a holly tree, and she appeared to have been taking down her hair.   Its raven-dark waves fell loose down her back, but a single braid remained and hung down by her right shoulder.   She looked at the man standing before her and seemed surprised to see him at her door.

 

“It is late, my friend,” she said quietly.  “I had decided that you were no longer coming.”

 

“Forgive me for being late,” her cousin replied, “but I find I have questions that I must ask you.”

 

“These questions will not wait until morning?” Mairen asked.  The lamp moved slightly in the breeze so that its light flickered, illuminating some parts of her face but casting others into shadow.  

  

“No, my friend,” he answered, “I am sorry, but they will not.”

 

“I see,” Mairen said in response.  “Do you wish to ...” She stepped away from the door in order to allow him to enter her home.

 

“No, not at the moment,” he said.  He paused. His eyes were fixed upon hers.  He seemed to be studying her. Celebrían thought that she was as strikingly and strangely beautiful as she had seemed that afternoon.  Her hair was thick and dark and its sheen glimmered in the moonlight. Her skin was fair and fine under the light of the stars and of the moon.  Her features were perfect, as perfect as the face of the doll she’d given Celebrían.   

 

Despite the perfection of her features, Mairen seemed as uncertain as the man standing before her.   The hand holding the lamp was steady, but Mairen’s other arm was wrapped tightly about her body as if she sought to protect herself against something.   Celebrían thought this was very strange. Only Celebrimbor was here, and he had tried to protect Mairen rather than do her harm. 

 

“What is it?” she asked, her rich and musical voice filled with concern.  “What troubles you?”

 

He continued to scrutinize her.  “Why,” he began, “are you here?”

 

Celebrían heard the concern in his voice.  She saw it mirrored on Mairen’s face.

 

“In Eregion?” Mairen asked in response, the music of her voice soft, shaded towards sadness.

 

Celebrían watched as he hesitated.   She knew that he’d wanted to see Mairen tonight, but she also knew that he hadn’t wanted to be here as he was, standing before her and asking difficult questions of her.   She remembered him in the snow, looking at Mairen and saying more of his family than he’d said in the years Celebrían had known him. She thought of how he’d said that her voice, speaking his name, sounded of home to him and thought of how he’d looked when he heard her sing.  She remembered how he’d defended her, quietly but firmly, to the High King’s man and become angry when her mother had suggested that Mairen wouldn’t, that she couldn’t, care for him as he seemed to care for her. But here he was and he had begun to ask questions of her that seemed certain to hurt her and likely to damage their friendship.   He’d done this, Celebrían realized, because her mother had doubts about Mairen and because he loved and trusted her mother. She wondered if her mother knew, if she’d understand.

 

He drew a slow, deep breath and continued, “In Eregion, yes.  But also in Middle Earth. Why are you here? You have said that you came with the Host of Valinor when they fought Melkor. You have told me that you chose to stay and that you traveled in the East for many years after the war.  But why did you stay once the war had ended when we know of no others of Valinor who did?”

 

“Why did I stay after the war had ended?”  Mairen asked. Celebrían noticed that her voice had become strained, its music far softer than before.   “Why did I stay once the host of Valinor left? Why did I stay when I was told to return with them? I have told you this, my friend.”

 

“I would have you tell me again,” her cousin replied.

 

“You do not believe me,” Mairen said, her voice was now flat and its music almost gone.

 

“I did not say that.”  

 

“The Lady did.  She does not believe me,” Mairen countered, the sound of her voice strangely discordant, “and so you doubt me.”

 

“I did not say that I doubted you, but I would have you tell me again.”

 

“Will you always doubt me if she does?”  Mairen asked. Celebrían heard the question in her voice and the strain in it, and she saw that Mairen’s expression as fragile and brittle as it had been earlier that day.   “She will never trust me, no matter how true I am proven to be.”

 

“She will,” Celebrían heard her cousin say and noticed the plea in his voice.  “She is fair.” 

 

“In other matters, she may be.  But I fear she cannot be in this one,” Mairen answered.  “But, be that as it may, I will do as you wish. I will answer these questions and I will answer them as many times as you bid me until you either accept me or order me to leave.” 

 

Celebrimbor said nothing in reply.  He simply stood and waited for her response. 

 

Mairen continued, “You would know why I remained in Middle Earth?  I stayed because I had seen the valor and the struggles of the people of Middle Earth in the Great War.   I grew to care for them, and I became concerned for them. I did not want to leave them to rebuild on their own.”

 

“Few of those who traveled with the Host of Valinor felt as you did.”

 

“Perhaps more than you know,” she answered.  “Most, I suspect, would not have wished to anger the Valar, especially with such powerful evidence of the effects of their wrath.   Others, I think, were weary of the fighting and wanted only to return to a home untouched by war.”

 

“Why didn’t you?”

 

“I no longer felt Valinor to be my home.   I had not for some time.” 

 

“Why?” 

 

“I was hurt, Tyelperinquar.  I was confused. I was angry.  The endless war had damaged me, and Valinor, particularly under the conditions the Valar had imposed for those who would return, could not be my home.”

 

“Conditions?”   As he spoke, Celebrían began to notice the sounds of revelers moving through the streets near to them.   

 

“Imposed by the decree granting forgiveness to some and not to others.   Those who would return must have repented. Those who would return dare not question.  Those who would return must accept that the Valar cannot be wrong.”

 

Celebrían was surprised.    Her parents, particularly her mother, sometimes questioned the Valar, but they had not suggested that they were or could be wrong, merely that there were things they had not known or considered.  Even as she pondered this, she heard laughter from a street or two away, the sound of a bottle shattering as it hit the ground and then voices breaking into a loud and bawdy song.

 

“That was for the Exiles,” Celebrimbor said.  “You were not an Exile.”

 

Mairen paused, an odd expression on her face.  But then she replied, “And you do not believe it holds true for others too?”

 

He did not answer.   

 

“I was not ready to accept those conditions, not after what I had seen.  How could I return home after having watched a world destroyed before my eyes?”

 

“Many others did.”

 

“And I did not,” Mairen said simply, her voice no longer discordant but not as musical as it had been.  “Do you ask me — does she ask these questions — because you are both barred from returning? Does she wish the way open to her?  Her husband will not go. He remains tied to Middle Earth. Would you have returned had the way been open to you and had she asked it of you?  Would you have returned with your cousin if she’d asked? Would you still, Tyelperinquar, if she did?”

 

“Mairen,  I don’t know.  It doesn’t matter,” he said.  “I cannot return. I must still make amends for my family’s crimes.”

 

“And you say this and wonder why I do not return?”  A note of bitterness had entered her voice.

 

“Mairen,” he sighed, “You did not know me or know I existed.”

 

“Do you think you are that unique?  That there are no others judged unfairly as you are?”

 

He sighed but didn’t respond directly to her, “What was it that prevented your return?”

 

“I saw the suffering of the people of Middle Earth, and I knew that the Valar had known of their suffering and had allowed it for years.  I was angry that they chose only to come at the very end, in the most desperate hour, and then, having won and having attained their vengeance, chose to offer succor to some and not to others.  I was angry that they had wrought destruction and then left many to rebuild without 

assistance because they were unwilling to forgive them the mistakes they’d made.” 

 

“What did you intend to do with this anger?”

 

“I didn’t know what to do,” Mairen said, her voice becoming musical once again, though the music was strident and fierce.  “I knew only that my anger was wild and destructive. I knew it served no good purpose, and I knew I needed to be away and to heal.  I went to the East, away from the drowned land and the destroyed lives. I should have stayed, Tyelperinquar. I might have helped, but I was angry and I was ashamed.

 

“And?”  As he asked Mairen this, Celebrían heard another group of elves and then another — the servants must have been released from their duties in the great houses — moving through the streets behind them.  Their voices were lifted in song and laughter, making it more difficult to hear what her cousin said to Mairen and she to him.

 

“You know this.  I have told you.”

 

“Tell me again,” he said, but, though it wasn’t easy to hear him, Celebrían noticed that his voice had changed.  It was less uncertain. It had become the sound of one who wished to hear a tale rather than one who feared it. 

 

“I went East, and, in the East, I stayed.   I learned more of the people there, the people the Valar neglected, the people most here despised.  I lived with them and I helped them, and I learned much of great importance there, including knowledge we’d believed lost, curwë we’d not yet discovered.”

 

“So you’ve said,” her cousin answered.  “And then?”

 

“I lived there and I learned, but I grew to miss the languages I had known of old.  I missed the sounds of the songs I had loved. I missed the voices of Elves. I was not ready to return to Valinor, but I sought an elven home in Middle Earth.”

 

“And so you returned.”

 

“And so I did.”

 

“What do you seek now?”

 

“I seek to make a better world for those who stay here whether by choice or decree.”

 

“For whom would this world be better?” asked Celebrimbor, sounding uneasy again.

 

“For everyone,” she answered, her voice beginning to grow in strength and the music of it becoming stronger and more clear, though it was still more fierce and strident than Celebrían was used to hearing.  “For Elves. For Men. For Dwarves. For the Noldor. The Sindar. The Silvan. For you. For me.” 

 

“Ambitious.”

 

She began to step away from the doorway and to walk a step and then two closer to him.   “It will be a better world for everyone,” she continued, “but we start here. We start in Eregion.  We show them what the world might be. Show them that they need not seek the West. That we might make our own blessed realm here.”

 

“That is heresy,” he answered, but his voice contained a thread or two of excitement in it.

 

“Indeed.”

 

“What would it look like, Mairen?”  he pressed. “This brave new world you imagine?”

 

“It would be orderly,” she answered, her voice growing more intense and melodious with each word.   “Without chaos and strife. Without war. There would be no famine, none would go hungry. Mortals would live longer and better lives.  We would not fade.” 

 

“Is it possible?”  He had begun to walk up the steps towards her.  The sound of music and song was now to be heard from the lower city; it rang out, fierce and joyful, against the darkness of the longest night.

 

“Perhaps.  I do not know,” she said, moving another step or two towards him.  “No one has tried. But should one not strive for it? Is it not a worthy end?”

 

“How would you achieve it?”  he challenged, drawing still closer to her.

 

“Draw upon the better qualities of Men and Elves.  Of Dwarves. Show them what life might be. Provide them with an example.  Raise their hopes. Their expectations. Help them.” Looking at Mairen, as she spoke, Celebrían saw a brilliant light beginning to shine in her eyes and upon her face and she heard the song stronger still in her voice.    She was drawn to it and drawn to the woman speaking. She was compelling and so very beautiful.

 

“Is this something we ought to attempt?” he asked.  “Isn’t decay written into the nature of things in Arda Marred?”

 

“Must it be?   In Valinor, there is little that fades.  Why not for the Men and Elves of Middle Earth?  For the Dwarves? Why must they, faithful as they have been, suffer for decisions not their own?”

 

“And how do I fit into this?  Into this new world of which you dream and for which you plan?”  he asked, standing directly before her. “Am I merely useful to you as you said last night?  A tool of which you might make use?”

 

He was almost as compelling as she.   His eyes were starlit. He was very strong and commanding, and his face was very fair.

 

“Not useful,” Mairen replied softly.  “Necessary. You are necessary.”

 

“How so, lady?”

 

“I cannot do this without you,” she said, light still in her eyes and in her face.  “I have need of you.”

 

“In what way?” he answered.   

 

“Your skill.  Your talents. Your craft.  None of this is possible without you.”

 

“For my abilities and only that?”  His voice was very gentle and with the slightest sound of disappointment in it.

 

“Isn’t it what you want?” she asked.   

 

“It is more than I imagined,” he said gently, the light of the lamp she carried playing upon his face.   “I simply imagined a better and more lasting one.”

 

“But do you not find it worthy?”   Her voice had become more fervent.

 

“Yes,” he replied.

 

“Then create it with me,” she said.  She seemed almost to plead with him, to beg him to understand and to agree with her.  There was a snap and a soft boom and Celebrían heard the keening sound of fireworks coming from the markets and the guild houses.  She heard them explode and saw the dazzle of thousands of tiny, multicolored stars in the sky. “I can show you how it might be built. I can teach you what you need to know to create the city and the realm of which you’ve dreamed, the sanctuary you’ve imagined.  Let us build it together. You cannot do it without me. I cannot do it without you. I need you at my side.”

 

For the curwë?  For the craft?” he asked softly,  raising one hand and touching her face gently.   Another firework had been set and its light, a deep red, was cast around them, staining Mairen’s skin and coloring his hand.  Cheers and voices raised still louder in song sounded from the lower city. “For that and that alone?”

 

She did not answer him immediately.   Instead, Celebrían noticed that she seemed to hesitate and noticed how intently she looked up his face as if she were not sure of what she should do and searched for some guidance.   Celebrían also saw how her cousin watched her as intently and as if he was uncertain of what she might say. Mairen closed her eyes and the light in her face grew softer. When she opened them, she seemed smaller and less certain, and Celebrían heard uncertainty in the music of her voice.   

 

“Perhaps at first,” she began.  “Before I knew you.” She paused and seemed to collect herself and her words, then continued.  “I thought it might be beneficial to the both of us. You would receive the knowledge you desired and the curwë you sought, and I would help you to build the city you imagined.    I would learn then whether the project — the world — I had dreamed was possible. But it quickly became more than that.”

 

“How so?”  Celebrían noticed that where Mairen seemed to diminish, Celebrimbor had not.  He remained as compelling and strong as he had before. His eyes were as brilliant and his voice as challenging as it had been before.  Celebrían heard another crack as a firework was lit and exploded; brilliant white light touched her cousin’s face while Mairen’s fell into shadow.  

 

“You challenged me from the beginning.  You did not accept what I said as truth but would have me prove it and show you why it would work,”  she said and seemed to have regained some of her certainty, her voice had grown strong and rich and her eyes seemed to meet his with more ease.   She stood, though, in a way that suggested that this was not entirely true, that she was less easy than she appeared. She seemed poised to move in response to some threat Celebrían was not able to see.  “You challenged me to demonstrate why my plans were viable and why my course of action should be followed. You made suggestions. You forced me to reconsider. You demanded that I improve.

 

“You did not care for that,” he observed.  “Not at first.”

 

“It has been a long time since I have been asked to do more, a longer time still since I have been challenged, and a still longer time since the person who challenged me meant well,” she replied, stretching a hand towards him and brushing her fingers against his cloak.  “You understood the implications of each suggestion and pushed me farther than I had thought you would. I found that I was challenged from the beginning. I found that I looked forward to the debates and the collaboration. I discovered that I was becoming better than I had been, and I knew it was because I worked with you.”

 

He watched her closely.  “But that is the work, Mairen.  Am I important to you outside of it?”

 

“But that is where it started,” she said, and she seemed almost to be pleading, almost to demand his understanding.  “I cannot do this without your help. I need the skill and talent you possess; that is true. But it would not matter.  I would not wish to do so. I looked forward to each new project, not only for its own sake, but because it would be done with you.   I realized that I had found a friend in you, someone to whom I may speak, someone with whom I may share my thoughts.”

 

Celebrían noticed that she had reached for and touched his cloak again, her hand resting where his arm must be.

 

He slipped his hand from beneath his cloak and caught hers.   “And?”

 

“It has been a very long time since I have had such a friend  I had not thought ... after the war, even before, I thought I should always be alone, that I might find those with whom I might work but none with whom I might share more than that.   But I found you here, and you were more than I had expected, more than I had hoped to find ...” she paused, struggling to find the words she wanted. “I have said that you are necessary to the work I would do, that we would do together, but I find you are necessary to more than that.  I do not want to continue alone. I would have you with me.”

 

“Good,” he answered.  “I want to be.” 

 

She closed her eyes and stood very still.  “Do you?” she asked, her voice very soft.

 

“Yes,  I do,” he said, moving closer still.  He still held her hand in one of his but, reaching forward with the other, touched her face carefully, his fingers lightly cupping it, brushing gently against the line of her cheek.  “But, Mairen, I have to ask one more question of you.”

 

“Which is?” she asked.

 

“If I do this, if I work with you, will you tell me what it is you hide?”

 

“I have answered your questions.  I have told you why I am here. What else do you want of me?”

 

“Mairen,” he said gently, “there is something you are concealing, something you hide.  I have not pried. I have not pressed because I know what it is to have something of which you are ashamed, but, Mairen, it is hard to support you if I know nothing of what you fear.”

 

“Please trust that I have my reasons and that they are good.”

 

“Mai, please believe that I am worthy of your trust.”

 

“I am here, am I not?”  Celebrían noticed how brittle the sound of her voice had become, beautiful but near to breaking. 

 

“You are, and that should be reason to trust me.”

 

Celebrían noticed how still she stood and how closely she watched him.

 

“Mai, please,” he extended his hand to her.  A gust of wind had moved through the street. It caught his cloak and caused it to billow around him, and her hair to stream around and behind her.  “Please.”

 

“I dare not.”  She looked at his hand but did not take it.

 

“Mairen, how may I support you, how may I answer those who doubt you, if I know nothing.”  He stepped closer to Mairen. Celebrían thought she might step back in her turn, but Mairen did not.   “Trust me, Mairen. I would not hurt you.”  

 

“It would not be your intention,” she replied.  The light of the lamp she held flickered. She sheltered it with her hand, but the light danced in the wind, so that her face was sometimes shadowed and sometimes illuminated.

 

“It would not be my intention, but there is something else you have concealed,” Celebrimbor began.   Celebrían noticed that he seemed both uneasy and determined; the expression on his face was similar to the one he wore when he must tell her mother something he knew she would not like. “There is something else, something I feel when I am with you.  There are parts of yourself that you hide. I feel them. I feel them when we work with one another. I feel them when you are near and your thought touches mine. There is more to you than you have shared. I feel it.”

 

She made no response, but seemed to be considering her answer.  Celebrían watched as her cousin took her face in his hands and asked, ”Am I not your friend?” 

 

“Yes.” Celebrían felt, even at this distance, that Mairen forced herself to remain still.

 

“Then trust me with this.   What is it about yourself that you do not want me to know?”   One of his hands remained upon Mairen’s face, turning it to face him.

 

“You may not like it.”  Her voice was flat in response.

 

“I am your friend.  You are important to me.  I want to know you. I need to know you.  Mairen, please. Trust me with this.”  

 

“You do not know what you ask.”

 

“Don’t be,” he replied, his hand curved around her cheek and fingers slipping into her hair.  “I would protect you.”

 

“Can you?” she asked, disbelief clear in her voice.  “Would you? It is so easy to say before you know.”  

 

“Please,” he said.  “Mairen, please, trust me with who you are.”   Watching him, Celebrían was again reminded of the captain of the guard and the way he’d looked at Lisen as if he needed something only she might give him.

 

“As you will,” Mairen replied, her voice resigned.   Celebrimbor released her and stepped back. She placed the lamp down upon the ground, throwing her face and Celebrimbor’s into more shadow.  Still, Celebrían was able to see her as she slowly extended her hands to him and took his right hand in hers. She drew it close to her. Cradling it in her left hand, she ran in the fingers of her right hand across his and then covered his with hers.  She held it close for a little while, her eyes upon his face, before she released it and moved away. 

 

Celebrimbor looked at his hand and then at Mairen.   Celebrían thought his expression was very strange. There was wonder in it and surprise, but she saw no fear in his face at all.

 

“Oh,” he said softly.  “Mairen, that’s .... I ... I didn’t ...”

 

He moved much closer to her and touched her face again with his fingers.   But, where his touch had demanded her attention and forced her to remain where and as she was before, it was now gentle and tender.  He touched her, Celebrían thought, as if she were something very precious, something to be admired. He brushed his fingers across the line of her cheekbone and the curve of her jaw before tenderly cupping her cheek in his hand.   Mairen remained very still and allowed him to continue to touch her, but Celebrían, seeing her, felt that she remained a little uncertain and afraid. But, even as Celebrían thought this, Mairen seemed to grow more receptive to his touch.   Her stance, so alert, softened. She moved a little closer to him and then raised her hand to cover his with her own, intertwining her fingers with his.  

 

“I am a fool,” he said.  “I should have known.”

 

“I did not want you to know,” she replied.  “I was not sure you would accept me. We were not to stay.   But I was not yet ready to go.”

 

He slipped his hand from under hers and took both of her hands in his.  “You refused to return after the war, knowing it meant you could not go back to the service of Aulë?

 

“I did.”

 

“Were you free to return?”  Celebrían heard an urgency in his voice she didn’t understand.   But she didn’t understand what it was he knew, what she’d told him.

 

“They asked it of me,” she answered, her voice careful and soft, scarce to be heard.

 

“And that you haven’t?”

 

“I’ve heard naught about it,” she said more firmly.  “Nothing good. Nothing ill. Nothing. But nothing is unlike to be good in the end.”

 

“No,” he replied.   “It is not, and so you are here among the Exiles, seeking to build a new and different world from the wilderness.”

 

“And so I am,” she answered.

 

“Are there others like you? Of your kind? Others who, like you, are not in service to the Dark?”

 

“Yes,” she replied.  “The evidence of that may be found in your own city if you have the eyes to see.”

 

“Oh,” he said.

 

“But I would advise you to keep that secret.  There are those that guess but do not know. Some of those would judge her almost as harshly as they might judge me with little reason.  She had no control over her birth.”

 

“I will,” he said.  “You didn’t need to ask.”

 

“Thank you,” she said.

 

He looked intently at her.  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for trusting me with this.  We shall speak more tomorrow of what you plan and determine how we might move forward.”  As he spoke, Celebrían heard, louder than before, the sounds of music and celebration both in the lower city and in the streets around them.  

 

Mairen nodded.

 

“Good night, Mairen,” he said gently.  “Sleep well, my friend.”

 

He released her hands and took a single step away from her, his eyes still fixed upon her face.   After another moment, perhaps two, he began to turn in order to walk down the stairs. But, before he’d taken the first step, Mairen moved forward and asked, in a voice that suggested the question was one she felt compelled, rather than wished, to ask. 

 

“And I, Tyelperinquar of the House of Fëanáro?  What am I to your plans? To your ambitions? Your goals?”

 

Snow had begun to fall again.  Heavy, large flakes descended slowly, spiraled lazily from the sky.   It began to blanket the lamps, to fall along the cobblestones. It touched Celebrían’s cloak, dusted her cousin’s hair, covered the lamp next to Mairen’s feet.

 

He stopped.  She waited. Another burst of laughter and the sound of many feet running might be heard a street or two away.

 

“Necessary,” he said, his voice strangely rough.  “You are necessary.”

 

“For the knowledge I possess?  And the curwë? The skills I can teach? For how those serve your goals?  Your desire to surpass what has been done before? For that alone?” Celebrían heard the doubt in Mairen’s voice, and she didn’t understand it.

 

He turned and looked at her where she stood, snow falling in the small space between them.   “Do you not know? Everyone else seems to know, even Celebrían. It seems I have been transparent to all but you.”

 

“I do not,” she replied, the doubt all the more apparent.   A delicate trail of snow began to appear on the arms of her gown and along the skirt.  It collected in her hair and at her feet. Amid the ongoing sounds of revelry in the streets around her, Celebrían heard the sound of a step on the street behind her and sensed a presence behind her.

 

“I cannot do what I imagine alone, not without you or what you teach,” he said, closing the space between them.  “But, had you no more knowledge to offer and no skill left to teach, no matter whether every goal I had was fulfilled or would ever remain out of my reach, I would still have need of you here.  You, my friend, my very dear friend, are essential to me. Never doubt that.”

 

She nodded and bowed her head.   “Good,” she said. “I would like to be.”   

 

“I am glad,” he said softly and and took her hands in his.  Then he bent his head and pressed his lips to her hands. Celebrían knew this gesture.  He had kissed her hand this way and her mother’s too. Her mother said that it was a courtly gesture and that it signaled allegiance and admiration, but Celebrían thought she saw a different meaning in the touch of his lips to Mairen’s hands.   It was more tender and the touch of his lips lingered. It spoke of allegiance and of admiration, but also of something more, something deeper and more complicated.   

 

She watched as he turned Mairen’s hands in his own and brought his lips to her fingers and then her palms.   She watched as Mairen, her face still so very beautiful, closed her eyes and lowered her head. She watched as her cousin, moving very slowly and carefully, lowered Mairen’s hands and, releasing them, stepped away.    He stopped and stood very still only a pace, perhaps two, away from her, and Celebrían saw that Mairen had lifted her eyes and was looking at him. The expression on her face startled Celebrían. It was the same brittle, fragile and vulnerable expression Celebrían had noticed upon her face both that evening and earlier that afternoon.  Seeing it before, Celebrían had believed it to be the look of someone who feared she would be hurt.  But, now, she saw that it was not so, at least not entirely.   Instead, it was the look of someone who wanted something, who yearned for it, but knew that what they desired would always be out of reach.  It was, Celebrían thought, remembering Mairen's description of the Werewolf Thû and how he'd felt hearing Finrod's song, the look of someone who was able to see light in the darkness and to feel warmth in the night but who knew that the warmth and the light were not and had never been meant for them.  But, unlike earlier today, this was not a fleeting expression easily to be dismissed or overlooked.  It was clear and unmistakable, and Celebrían felt her own heart ache, watching Mairen.   

 

“Mairen?” Celebrimbor asked, and Celebrían heard the concern in his voice and knew that he too had noticed the look upon her face.  “Should I not …”

 

But he fell silent.  Mairen had begun to take one slow step and then another towards him, her eyes never leaving his face.  Standing before him, she raised her hand to touch his cheek and then the line of his jaw before she took one final step forward and brought her lips to his.  

 

It was not a hurried kiss.  It was slow, and it was certain and clear in its meaning.   Mairen kissed him the way Celebrían’s parents kissed one another when they did not know she was in the room.  As she kissed him, Celebrían saw her cousin carefully slide one hand into Mairen’s dark hair and then, placing the other at the small of her back, pull her body against his. 

 

Celebrían felt embarrassed and uncomfortable as if she were, once again, seeing something secret and private, not meant for her eyes or anyone else’s.  But she also felt that she saw something very important, something that, though it seemed only to do with her cousin and Mairen, would matter to them all.  

 

They remained close, Mairen's body pressed against his, for longer than Celebrían thought would be comfortable before their lips parted and they stood looking at one another.

 

“Are you,” she said softly, “glad of this?”

 

“Yes,” he said simply.  “And you?”

 

She did not answer but gently brought her lips to his again, letting that be her answer.  When they parted for the second time, they stood silently, gazing steadily at one another, the sound of songs and of laughter and the noise of music surrounding them.   Very gently, he released her and moved away. “Sleep well, my lady,” he said. “We have much to discuss and to plan tomorrow.”

 

“And you,” said Mairen.  “Sleep well.”

 

He turned and continued walking down the street toward his home.   Mairen stood and watched him go, a strange expression upon her face.  For a moment, a wild and triumphant joy blazed upon it, only to fade slowly and to be replaced with something very much akin to sorrow, something very much like regret.   She stood, perhaps watching until Celebrimbor passed from her sight, and then she turned and entered her home.  

 

A hand gently touched Celebrían’s shoulder.   “We should return home,” the High King’s herald said to her.  “It is late and growing colder, and your parents will be concerned.  You frightened them when you left.”

 

“They didn’t come after me.”

 

“I thought it would be better if I did,” he replied.  “I thought you and they needed a moment to collect yourselves, although I’m not sure, given what we have heard, that you have had that opportunity.”

 

“I didn’t understand it.  He would not hurt her.”

 

“No,” Elrond replied, “he would not mean to hurt her.  But he might even if he did not mean to do so, as she might hurt him whether she intended so or not.  That is a risk we take when we care for another person. We become vulnerable and we might be hurt.”

 

“Oh,” she answered.  “I’m not sure I ...”

 

“The heart has its reasons,” he replied.  “We are complicated, Celebrían. We are all complicated, particularly when it comes to one another.”

 

“Was that a good thing?”

 

“That we heard and saw?” he asked.  “For them? Perhaps it was. Perhaps not. For me and for my king, I do not know. I have many questions and, as of yet, no answers for them.”

 

They walked slowly to her home, the cobblestones of the street had grown slick with the snow.  Elrond slowed his pace to match hers and carefully guided her through the more treacherous places.  After some time, perhaps less time than it seemed, they had arrived at Celebrían’s home, and she saw her parents waiting for her at the door.   

---

Chapter End Notes

Mairen's rather extensive plans for building a brave new world in Middle Earth have a certain basis in canon, despite her decidedly non-canonical nature.  

In his letters and other writings (and, yes, citations, I know; they're coming), Tolkien describes Sauron as a revolutionary whose nature and whose great weakness involved an affinity for order and a desire to impose that order upon the world, and, in certain of the letters, he is described as a revolutionary being, whose inability to reliquish control leads ultimately to his corruption and to his downfall.  In this particular universe, Mairen desires above all to craft a world in Middle Earth that is tangibly better in terms of quality of life of its inhabitants.   As with the canonical Sauron, her desire to achieve order led her to serve Melkor about whom she is somewhat ambivalent and decidedly cynical.  He is, ultimately, for her a means to the end she wants to achieve, though, how precisely, that would work is unclear to her; as for Melkor, well, he's aware of the divergence in their plans and, given how much more powerful he is, he's not concerned and finds his lieutenant's persisting idealism both annoying and amusing.  He also very much enjoys watching her slow and continued corruption.   As for Eregion, it does mean that her designs are set upon improvement and there is a certain affinity and overlap with those of Celebrimbor who hopes to achieve a renewed Middle Earth in which the works of the Elves are maintained.  He also envisions a hierarchical society in which Elves occupy the pre-eminent place.    Mairen may, in fact, imagine greater scope for Men in her world than he does in his; he, however, is far more in tune with the idea that the peoples of Middle Earth ought to exercise their own free will.   Needless to say, she doesn't exactly agree.

On a lighter note, the dessert made of pastry puffs is a croquembouche, and, yes, Galadriel does serve chocolate and vanilla pots-de-creme, custard not being an uncommon dish in our own early modern world.   The reference to the troublesome and amoral Numenorean prince is a nod to the unscrupulous Hernan Cortes, reputed to have brought vanilla beans and cacao seeds to Europe.   

The tradition inviting servants to dance at the Midwinter Feast is a reference to Addison's Goblin Emperor and its Winternight Ball, an occasion on which servants and nobility in the Elflands may dance together.  Again, this tale is an effort, albeit a poor one, to acknowledge works I've loved.

Mairen's secret involved what she is, not who she has served.   He remains unaware of that.