Deific Flame
By Bejai

"Galadriel and Celeborn together with Celebrían departed from Imladris and went to the little-inhabited lands between the mouth of the Gwathló and Ethir Anduin. There they dwelt in Belfalas, at the place that was afterwards called Dol Amroth; there Amroth their son at times visited them."

~ The Unfinished Tales

Chapter 6: Belfalas Interlude

The waves soothed her. The cool air drawn off the vast sea was rich with their rolling bass and the syncopated cry of the gulls. Eons of evening mists were moored deeply in the beach, which, churned by the unending surf, spoke more with the voice of water than of land. She had always loved the sea, and even the horror at Alqualondë had not banished the blissful memories of a distant youth in her grandfather's home, of giddy races over the sand and hunting for shells in the tide pools. They had found hundreds of them, Artanis and her brothers, gleaming with perfect whiteness under the brilliant light of the trees.

When they had first come to Belfalas, Celeborn had humored her and walked the beach at her side, a small smile on his face as she told him of joyful moments in that far-off land. Galadriel walked the beaches every day, but after those first days, she often walked them alone. Her husband did not feel the peace in standing at the edge of something unconquerable and, knowing it was so, accepting its magnificence. He would no doubt be distressed by the metaphor, but he himself was not unlike the sea. Temperamental, dangerous when underestimated, and often stormy, they were, Galadriel admitted to herself, the two things she had never attempted to rule, and the two places where she was truly home.

And so, naturally, they did not get along.

Evening padded softly after her as she walked, filling her footsteps with the winter mist. Turning away from the billows, she climbed the long path to their manor high above on the bluff. Initially, she and Celeborn had intended this secluded abode, perched between sea and forest, to be a merely second home. They had another, far grander, in the midst of Edhellond's bustle, for the elves of the haven had insisted. They did spend some time in the city, engaged in the affairs of judgment, trade, and statesmanship that they could never seem to escape. But the grind of the years had depleted them both, and more often, they left Celebrían to contend with the burgeoning population and retreated here, to a nameless place, to breathe and rest.

She came in from the thickening cold, pricked with points of dew, to a hall flickering with yellow heat. From beside the fire, Celeborn glanced up at her as she came in and, with a smile that might have been for her salt-stiffened hair, or merely the joy of seeing her, bent again over his work.

The image caused her heart to falter. He seemed a graven monolith of the past as he stood, hands splayed out before him, silhouetted by the flames as he leaned over a long table covered with maps -- the look of a general who would not needlessly give up to his enemy one inch of the land he loved. Peace, she calmed herself as she neared, and the picture before her resolved into a far gentler scene. He was arrayed in robes, not armor, his hair loose, not in a warrior's braids. The tokens that he used to trace the movements of armies of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, remained in their drawstring pouches, and even across the room, she could hear him softly singing.

"Tea?" he asked, looking up again as she came beside him.

"Please," she said gratefully as she sank into a chair at the table. "It is a cold night."

He held up a flask of Imladris miruvor and lifted his eyebrows in unspoken question; she nodded and he added a generous measure to her tea.

"How is the sea tonight?" he answered, handing it to her with a ripple of amusement in his voice. "Large? Damp?"

She reveled in the warmth of the chalice and the touch of his fingers upon her own. "Beautiful," she answered.

"Are not we beset by fog?" he asked, straightening to see out a window.

"Need I remind you that neither beauty nor love change merely because we cannot see it?" she asked. He shook his head with a smile, conceding the point.

She sipped her tea and, curious, turned one of the maps toward her. She immediately recognized Elrond's hand, for these maps had been drawn as a part of his original survey after they came over the mountains. The volume and accuracy of the work was itself of great worth, but these particular maps had value beyond price. Overlaid on the foundation, often in Celeborn's own script, sometimes in hers, was the true location of hidden places. And more: the words that opened locked doors, the height of mountains, the breadth of rivers in the spring, the mouths and twining twists of deep caverns, the dispositions of forests, and a score of other notations. All combined to trace the paths by which they had passed time and again through death into life.

"These could use to be redrawn," she said, fingering an edge. Although they had been carefully kept and jealously guarded, they had seen both battle and time. Here calculations in the margins, hastily scrawled reports of despair, testified to forces of overwhelming evil. There was a tear and a crease from some too-hasty retreat, and the mottled distortion of a water stain wrought during a grinding march. She noted brown fingerprints that smudged the edges with imprints of agony, and speckled drips spread across the surface -- old blood, which burned through the landscape and degraded the parchment beneath.

"More than merely redrawn," Celeborn answered, tracing the line of mountain range. "Re-surveyed. The world shifts around us again. See? The rivers have changed, the coasts. The forests are smaller, some meadows are now woods. There are places that are new," he continued, tapping his finger on Imladris and Pelargir "and places that are gone," he said, indicating Eregion. He drew his finger up the Anduin, and then East. "And I would that we had better maps of Mordor, ere we face Sauron again."

"Such unknown is disquieting," Galadriel agreed. "And the whispers of dread grow daily. I fear the interlude is nearly ended"

"Indeed," he answered, and, leaning heavily on the table, he shook his head. Then, dismissing that worry to another day, he took up another parchment before handing it across to her. "And speaking of 'disquieting,' a messenger came from Edhellond this morning. Celebrían has heard ill news brought by traders up from Pelargir. They say the king of Numenor's is dead.

"Ill news indeed," Galadriel answered skimming the letter. "Tar-Palantir was a man of honor, and a friend of the elves. He had a daughter, did he not …?" She broke off, disturbed by what she read. "The nephew? Pharazôn has taken the throne? Is not he the one who has wrought battles and raids on our shores in recent years?"

"The same. He married Tar-Palantir's daughter, his cousin, by force," Celeborn said, "and calls himself Ar- Pharazôn, which is ominous enough in itself. I do not believe he will follow in his predecessor's ways. He is more eager for power than even his father was, and I do not believe that his ambitions would be quenched merely by rule of Numenor. But what he will do I cannot say. What do you see?"

Galadriel looked across at the antiquated maps as a wash of horror broke over her. They had come to Belfalas because she had foreseen that history would turn at this place. But the sea had called to her, and the trees to Celeborn, and somehow, after a thousand years gone, the only path she was sure of was on the foggy sands of the shore. She laughed humorlessly and gestured at the maps. "These are not the only things we have abandoned too long to time," she said. "We have fallen out of history, beloved, and I fear those paths will be harder to discover again. The world shifts around us, indeed, and I can scare see what is, much less what could be. It is time to awake, my Lord of the Trees, and find the world again, if it is not too late.

"Too long indeed since I have seen our friends of Ethir Anduin, though time is different for us," he said. "Lord Steward, this is Amroth, my son, a lord of the forests of Lorien."

The man of Númenor bowed low. "An honor indeed. Lord Celeborn, did you also bring your lady and beautiful daughter?"

"I fear not," Celeborn answered.

"Alas!" the man cried. "You hide your treasures?"

"Nay," Celeborn laughed. "But we seek gifts for them in your great markets."
The man bowed his head modestly, though he knew that the markets of Pelargir were famous indeed. The port was the havens of the Elf-friends among the men of Númenor, at the mouth of the mighty Anduin. The Numenoreans has begun to build dominions on the coasts of Middle Earth after they helped to defeat Sauron, for they saw it as their right. A small group, the Elendili, had established Pelargir, attracted by the richness of the river Anduin and the elven settlement in Belfalas across the bay to the west.

The location brought the Elendili great wealth, although it had not endeared them to their opponents in Númenor. From the north, goods came down the river from Rivendell, Lorien, Moria, and Greenwood the Great. From across the bay were sent the crafts of Belfalas, and the wares of Mithlond came south down the coast. Yet Pelargir was more than the cross-roads of Middle Earth, for on occasion its seamen traveled home across the waves to Númenor and returned with wine and grain, silver and gold. And from time to time, though rare, goods would be brought via Númenor from the Isle of Eressëa, and, it was rumored, Valinor itself. The men of Pelargir liked to joke that if a Silmaril or ring of power was found, it would soon be for sale in the great market, though such talk made elves blanch. Indeed, that was the best part of the joke.

But more than riches, the men of Pelargir basked in the favor of the Lord and Lady of Belfalas. They were ancient and kind, full of wisdom and matchless grace. From time to time, a mortal visitor might catch them in an expansive mood, and if so could learn a richness of tales from ancient days falling from the lips of those who had lived through them.

"Lord Steward, what news?" Celeborn asked. It was a familiar question from the great lord, and one that the steward was usually eager to answer. To his great joy, he had developed a friendship with the elves, and particularly with Galadriel and Celeborn. They valued him much for the information he could glean from very nearly anyone, and he valued the kind of immortality they would grant him, ever held with fond memory in their ageless hearts.

The news of late, however, was grim, and the Steward's smile faltered.

"Orcs, wraiths, fear -- the usual," he answered with failed flippancy. It was hard to be merry in these days. "Sauron presses us all. It seems he is gathering together all evil things, and calls himself the King of Men. To venture outside our protected borders is a deadly mistake. Even your people are fleeing to Lindon, to Belfalas, and over the sea. Just the other week, one of the King's great ships was here, and we sent a message to him, pleading his help. The King cares little for the Elendili, and we … well, he is the king. Perhaps he will intervene. Unless …" the man hesitated. "Unless Gil-galad has some scheme. Or you?"

Celeborn shook his head. "We are too few."

"Well," the steward said, and breathed a disappointed sigh. "Well," he repeated briskly, "the day is too fine and bright a day for such dark talk. Please, go and enjoy the market."

Father and son look their leave and strolled down the crowded boardwalk. Pelargir was always bustling, but today seemed brimming, for many outlying settlers had fled within its borders. The speech of merchants and customers alike was over-loud, as if by sheer volume they could convince themselves that they were joyful.

The people parted as the elves passed through, for the pair was striking. They were equally tall, head and shoulders above the tallest man; their faces seemed graven by the same artist's hand, yet colored by opposite ends of night. So alike were they in profile that a man might have thought them brothers, though the elf-friends were familiar enough with immortals to see the unfathomable time in Celeborn's eyes. Their gray cloaks shifted even under the bright noonday sun, and they seemed a living incarnation of wind, less seen than felt. Where they walked, hearts settled and strengthened.

"That is all we came for, isn't it?" Amroth asked.

"What's that?" Celeborn asked absently, stopping to examine saplings under a hothouse tent.

"'News'" Amroth quoted, amused. "You're a meddler equal to mother."

Celeborn frowned. "It is better to know what is happening beyond my sight so that when the inevitable consequences tumble into my life, I am prepared. If I can do nothing to change them, at least I am not blindsided by them. I would not call it meddling, but tactics."

"But that is what we came for, that exchange on the docks?" Amroth persisted, not permitting his father to draw him into another brooding discussion regarding the contours of evil.

Celeborn looked heavenward for strength. "Your mother has enough baubles and gifts from her legion of admirers that we could start a market of our own. I am not about to add to them, although I am looking for spices if you happen to see any. And there are a few merchants who might be able to expand on the steward's information." Celeborn threw his son a thoughtful look. "You'll have time to find silver rings, if you are looking for them."

Amroth's face fell. This conversation was scarcely better than the one he had sought to avoid. "I have asked Nimrodel to wed me. I have asked her many times, but although she loves me, she will not."

"Mm. So I feared," Celeborn said.

"You have heard?" Amroth asked.

"Amdír," Celeborn answered simply. The king of Lothlorien had come to Celeborn many years before, to receive his great friend's blessing to take Amroth as his heir. In gratitude, the king kept Celeborn apprised of the details of 'their' son's life. "Has Nimrodel given you a reason why?"

Amroth hesitated, and ran his fingers through a shopkeeper's basket of smooth, multicolored stones. "She is concerned that I will permit my responsibilities and duties to stand between us, and I cannot tell her she is wrong. Look at you and mother; you are more often apart than together, pulled every asunder by diverging passions and burdens. Nimrodel does not wish for such a life, and neither do I."

Celeborn shook his head in frustration and pulled his son aside. " Your mother and I have responsibilities, yes, different paths to take from time to time. But I would never cling to her, hold her back, and she would never do the same to me. That is not love, but obsession, or jealousy. She is not my possession. I do not have to see Galadriel to love her."

"At some point, does not a relationship require relations with one another?" Amroth pressed. "Is not love a willingness to give all you are to your beloved?"

"No," Celeborn argued. "It is a willingness to give all you can. That is not quite the same thing. There are parts of myself that do not belong to me, but to our people, to my family, to the king, to the land, and a hundred other things. I cannot give her those parts; they are not mine to give."

"You could," Amroth said quietly, "if you chose to. Nimrodel has done so for me, and waits only for me to do the same. When I find the strength within myself, I will give her this gift."

Celeborn look down, and then into his son's eyes. "I believe you will, Galadaran. Your mother's greatest fear is being constrained, and my offering to her was freedom. I think that, although I may lose Galadriel in the end, perhaps your way is harder. I only pray that in giving Nimrodel everything you are, you do not find that you have lost yourself completely." He smiled wryly. "But come, I will not pester you on the subject, and I believe I see a man selling spices. Such always have a tale of the world to tell."