Commitment

Arwen had changed, Cúraniel thought. 

She had never known her friend to be carefree – at least, not since the hideous incident that had taken the Lady Celebrían from them all to take ship for the Undying Lands – but neither had she been inclined to seek solitude where she sat as if gazing into some vision that only she could see.  Yet, despite her determination to return home, within no more than a dozen seasons she had returned to the Wood, slightly paler and quieter, like one who faced a painful choice.

At first, Cúraniel had thought her friend had, at last, found the ellon whose fëa called to hers – perhaps one who had settled in Imladris since last she had dwelt within her adar’s halls.   But she had rapidly seen that, where Arwen was concerned, nothing could be that simple. 

The Lady had greeted her granddaughter as she rode up, flanked on each side by a brother whose eyes were bright with an eagle-like ferocity, but the golden gleam that surrounded their daernaneth had been muted and the gentle grief of an autumn glade had radiated from her.  The Lord, though, had been incandescent, burning with silver fire, as a cold rage had hardened his spirit.

He had enveloped his granddaughter in his arms, as if he would, with his own body, come between her and anything that threatened her, but she had touched his cheek gently and smiled and shaken her head and he had melted like an icicle in the sun.  He had dropped his chin, his hair blending with hers, silver and ebony, and held her as if she would break.  The glare with which he had burned the Lady, though, had been unforgiving – and she had endured it meekly, taking refuge in greeting grandsons who seemed, too, as if they had seen shadows of distant events that pleased them not.

The emotion that had rippled through the trees had faded soon enough, but, Cúraniel felt, had left an increase in the gentle melancholy that affected the golden trees and echoed in the plaintive songs of the elves.  It smacked of endings, she thought, and loss; of hope abandoned and a veiled future – and she was not sure she wanted to know its cause.

‘You cannot sit here indefinitely watching Anor sink into the west,’ she said disapprovingly as they curled up on a grassy bank by a rippling stream.  ‘Idleness becomes you not, Undómiel.’ 

Arwen sighed.  ‘I suppose you are right,’ she said.  ‘Though it seems to me there is little I can do but wait – action is not for such as me.’

She sounded almost bitter.  Cúraniel tilted her head and inspected the dark elleth.  Something had happened while Arwen was in Imladris – something she was not altogether certain she liked.  Just for a moment Cúraniel felt intensely relieved that her kin were simple elves tied only to Middle Earth by their love of its song.  You thought, she allowed herself to muse, when you were half-grown and silly, that to be the subject of song would be a grand thing, but when – if – you grew to wisdom, you came to realise that there was a lot to be said for being ordinary.  Most of those of whom elves sang, after all, were the victims of tragedy with no happy-ever-after to reward them for their endeavours.

‘I would not agree,’ Cúraniel reflected.  ‘True, no-one would thank us for demanding the right to ride off and slay orcs – I would much rather not attempt it, anyway – but there is plenty to do.’

‘I was not counting weaving grey cloth and baking lembas – or making salves and grinding nuts – as action,’ Arwen said scornfully.

‘It is, though.’  Cúraniel lay back on the soft grass and watched the last of the day’s light burn in the high cloud.  ‘Where would they be, those who oppose the dark forces face-to-face, without what we provide?  It is more than a reason to fight – I have no wish to be merely a symbol of what should be preserved – but the wherewithal.  Without those who harvest the forest and weave the cloth and forge the blades and supply their needs, there would be none to fight.’  She paused.  ‘Orodruin is again aflame; Gondor weakens; Curunír scorns our Lady’s advice and shuts himself up in Isengard brooding over the Gap of Rohan.  We are needed – whether what we do seems important to us or not.’

Arwen sat up, as if her friend’s words were a call to action.  ‘You are right,’ she acknowledged.  ‘Whatever the outcome might be, it is our duty to stand and hold.’  She raised her chin.  ‘We are not ciphers, to be moved and controlled as others wish.  I will not be a cipher – my fate is my choice, not my adar’s, not Daeradar’s, nor yet something set down at the beginning of time.  It is my decision.  And I choose not be helpless and mindless and compliant.’

‘And what difference does your choice make?’ her friend asked.

‘I know not.’  Arwen sounded deflated.  ‘Everything.  Nothing.  Somewhere in between.’

‘Have you asked your Daernaneth?’

‘She will not say!’  Arwen gave a brief laugh of frustration.  ‘She says it is not her role to guide me – that I must make my own decision if it is to mean anything.’

‘But you know what you must do,’ Cúraniel said shrewdly, ‘or it would not distress you so much.’  She propped herself up on one elbow and examined Elrond’s daughter. 

‘I do not want to cause anybody pain!’ Arwen declared.

‘Of course not,’ Cúraniel said so mildly that it took the other elleth some moments to catch the undertone. ‘Everyone should be friends.  We should spend our lives ensuring that we never displease anyone – and giving in to others’ desires so that they should be happy.’

Arwen scowled.  ‘I did not mean that kind of wishy-washy mindlessness, and you know it.’  She sighed.  ‘It is not time for any kind of action – there is too much happening in the world beyond the wood.  My part in any of it is minimal at best.  But you are right,’ she added.  ‘Much must be done – and we cannot drift like falling leaves through the time that remains to us and leave the responsibility to others.’  She grinned.  ‘There is much that my grandparents can teach us – and much they can delegate to us so that they might continue to fight in the way that best suits them.  It is time we took up the burden.’

‘You, my lady,’ Cúraniel emphasised.  ‘Much that you can do.  I am only an elleth of the Wood, remember.  I have no lords and princes cluttering up my family tree.  I am no heir to power and dignity.’

‘Some are born to it,’ Arwen said airily, ‘and to some it comes unbidden.  You would not leave me to do this alone, would you?’  She batted dark eyelashes at her friend.

Cúraniel sighed.  ‘No,’ she agreed.  ‘If you want me there, I will stand by you. That is what friends do.’

***

‘Evil spreads,’ Galadriel said with foreboding.  ‘Like rot through an apple, it takes what it good and fouls it – and leaves it to corrupt all it touches.’

‘Thranduil struggles to hold back the dark tide that swells from Dol Guldur,’ Celeborn observed.  ‘The marches of the Wood need ever stronger guarding to hold them inviolate.  We run short of those skilled enough to serve as still more head for the Havens.’

Galadriel’s head bowed.  ‘It is not for us to end this age on the fields before Mordor,’ she said.  ‘We must stand firm, but . . .’ she looked at her husband, her eyes wide and unfocused, ‘we are to watch and wait and make possible.’  She opened her pale hands and offered them, spread with the palms upwards.  ‘It is in surrender that we hope for success.’

‘I do not surrender.’  Celeborn looked at her grimly.  ‘The Wood and those it shields are in my care – and I will hold it until the end.’

His wife nodded.  ‘Do you think we are wrong?’ she asked.  ‘Might Curunír be right – and the Ring lost to Sauron?’

‘I think that I would not trust the Istar to tell me that the day was fine,’ Celeborn said shortly.  ‘Too many times has his cozening voice convinced us not to act – too many times he has sought his own advantage while we have held our hand.  No, my love, too many things are coming together in the dwindling of this age – we must prepare now: either for disaster or decline.’  He took her hand.  ‘I would not have it end in the triumph of the Dark Lord,’ he said.  ‘Whatever I have said, I would fight to offer Men a future worth having.’

‘Our time is passing.’  Galadriel’s voice whispered like the rustle of a breeze through autumn leaves.

‘But not yet spent.’

‘So many years to end in such a way.’

Celeborn watched her.  The long trials were wearing on her, he thought.  And she was always one who would rather have the drama of a battle than endless erosion and long endurance.  But she would smile graciously, and look like a queen, and accept her diminution of power as if it were of no moment to her, and fade – if they ever got to that point, of course, before the dark forces overwhelmed them.  He could wish that she had never taken Celebrimbor’s ring – wish that that sprig from Fëanor’s tree had never thought to meddle with baubles of power under Annatar’s greedy eye, but he could not fault her courage.  Or, he rued, her desire to use her uncertain sight to contrive certain ends.

‘What has Elrond told you of Isildur’s heir?’ he asked.

Galadriel shook her head.  ‘Little,’ she admitted.  ‘He finds it hard – he has lost them both at a time when he needs his family around him.  Our grandsons watched the Dúnadan for a while – until he had grown into his skin, but he is no longer in the north.’

‘Lost?’ Despite his reluctance to accept this distant son of Elros’s house, he could not keep the apprehension from his voice.  Isildur’s heir was needed, for, without him, their long trial would end in disaster: that much he knew.

‘Sauron’s cries of triumph would echo from the hills, were that so.’

‘I do not wish him ill merely because I have no desire to hand him my granddaughter.’

‘He has her already.’  Galadriel’s thought twined through him like mist.  ‘And she inspires him to endure what is beyond the capacity of mere mortals.  For all his youth, he is true as mithril and shines as bright.’

Her husband raised his hand to stroke her gleaming hair.  Her pain was tangible, but she controlled it.  If she had learned one thing over more than three ages, he reflected, it was that sometimes it was necessary to submit to the inevitable.  Not a lesson he was prepared to learn.  Not yet, while there were battles still to fight.

‘Only time will tell,’ he said, prepared to compromise so far.

***

‘Mithrandir!’  Haldir emerged from concealment among the dense trees fringing the Wood.  His bow remained unstrung, but his hand rested on the hilt of his long knife.  ‘You are welcome in these lands.’

The white beard stirred as the Istar pressed his lips together to conceal a smile.  If he were welcome, he would not care to arrive unwelcomed beneath Lothlórien's shade.  For all the marchwarden’s apparent casualness, Mithrandir had little doubt but there were others in the trees whose arrows were ready to fell him.

‘It is good to see you, Haldir,’ he said easily.  ‘It has been some time since I have sought the shelter of the Lord and Lady’s realm and much has happened in the world.’  He looked at the tall elf under the veil of his hat, his bushy eyebrows in no way concealing the sharpness of his eyes.  ‘I would welcome your company on my way to Caras Galadhon.’

The warden bristled – so slightly that only one expecting it would notice.  Clearly, to his mind, any who arrived in the lands under his charge did not set the terms of their journey to the tree city of the Galadhrim where Celeborn and Galadriel dwelt.  ‘I would be happy to serve as your escort,’ he replied.

Mithrandir turned his laugh into a throat-clearing harrumph.  ‘Good.’ He gathered up his pack from its place at the foot of a sturdy oak and slung it over his shoulder.  ‘You can tell me about your brothers as we walk.’

The brief glance Haldir cast into the canopy clearly conveyed all the information he felt it necessary to send, for he turned obligingly and led his way between apparently trackless trees.  ‘There is little to tell,’ he shrugged.  ‘We guard the borders against those few who dare to breach them.’

‘I am fortunate to be able to pass your watch then,’ the Istar commented.

‘My lord has granted you access to the Wood at any time.  You are an honoured guest.’  Haldir sounded non-committal, refraining from mentioning that he was of the opinion that Mithrandir’s arrival was generally ominous, presaging as it did some time of trouble.

The aged-seeming Istar found himself relaxing as the atmosphere of the Wood breathed into his lungs and spread throughout his body, allowing the wary tension of a cautious traveller to seep from him.  Here, at least, he was safe.  Only here and in Imladris could he really afford to let his guard down a little and rest, sure that Elrond and Galadriel shielded their realms from the uncertain winds that blew across the rest of Arda.  The treesong was easy and content and the forest’s creatures scurried busily about their activities with an amiable disregard of the elves among them.  It made him homesick, Mithrandir realised, for a world where danger was the exception rather than the rule.  Yet, at the same time, he was not sure that Galadriel was wise to invest so much of herself in recreating her birthplace here.  Failure of Nenya’s power would shatter her – more so, he was certain, than the loss of Vilya would drain Elrond, whose haven acknowledged and welcomed the calls for aid that came from beyond its borders.  But, he had to concede, the peace was welcome, if only for a time.

‘Tell me,’ he invited.  ‘What news is there here among the Galadhrim?’

***

Elladan urged his mount into the cold water.  ‘Come, my brother,’ he said.  ‘If we keep going, we can reach the Wood before dark.’

‘And be within sight of Caras Galadhon by the time Ithil rises,’ Elrohir chanted.  ‘I know, my twin – and, if you say it again, I might be forced to aim an arrow at your back.’

His brother grinned, as his horse picked its way between the rocks.  ‘You want to be careful that I do not force you to take a bath,’ he warned.  ‘And the Celebrant is always as cold as Caradhras.’

‘Come, my pretty one,’ Elrohir coaxed the nervous mare, ‘the cool water will feel good on your hooves.  Take no notice of my foolish brother – just remember the sweetness of the grass in the Golden Wood and the softness of the breeze.’

‘Reduced to talking to your horse.’  Elladan shook his head.  ‘It is sad to see.’

‘I need some rational conversation.’  Elrohir’s mount consented to step delicately into the rushing stream.  ‘And I have had little choice in recent weeks.’

Elladan’s horse scrambled up the bank to stand squarely blocking the only good exit from the water.  ‘You might come to regret that statement, Elrohir.’

‘Not if you want to spend what is left of the night resting on cool linen with your head cushioned on down pillows.’  Elrohir looked up at his brother.  ‘After supping on roasted venison and sipping on mead made from mellyrn honey.’

His brother’s eyes brightened.  ‘I will forgive you – for now,’ he declared.  ‘I am not one to hold a grudge.’  He grinned.  ‘Are you ever going to get that animal on dry land – or are you thinking of exchanging . . .’

A waft of air like a sigh brought a putrefying scent of decay and between breaths both brothers switched to alertness.  Elladan turned, his sword in his hand before his enemy was more than a movement in the sheltering rocks, but his twin was swifter. 

Even as the figure moved, Elrohir’s arrow skimmed within inches of his brother’s horse to pierce the orc and send it tumbling backwards.  The roar of fury died to a gurgle and the creature’s clawed hands clutched at the air before dropping limp to the dust.

Elladan pulled his horse round, examining his surroundings in minute detail, but he could neither see nor sense anything out of place nearby.  The water danced, silver in the evening light, and the trees stood calmly, their brief tension released.

‘How?’ Elrohir dismounted easily to check the huddled heap.

‘How?’ Elladan was confused.

‘How did this creature come to be so close to the Wood, my brother?’  Elrohir glanced up.  ‘Daeradar’s wardens permit nothing to cross the Silverlode unobserved – how did this thing escape them?’

Elladan watched warily as his brother completed a brief examination.  They had been surprised once – believing that they were close enough to the guarded borders to be safe – but he was not about to let that happen again.  ‘What can you tell me of it?’

‘Hurt,’ his twin said briefly, ‘and doubtless in hiding – waiting its moment to retreat and try to find its way back to its lair.’  He wiped his hands fastidiously on the hem of his cloak.  ‘I am surprised the wardens had not finished it off.  They must have smelled it.’

‘We nearly failed to scent it,’ Elladan pointed out.  ‘It must have been mad with hunger to risk attacking us.’

‘Well – this is one orc, at least, will never attack again.’  Elrohir stirred the body with the toe of his boot.  ‘Do we burn it?’

His brother nodded towards the trees.  ‘There have to be some advantages to rank,’ he observed.  ‘Let us delegate that task – and continue on our way.’  He gazed soberly at his twin.  ‘If the borders of the Wood are beleaguered by foul creatures, it is yet another indication that hard times are coming.’  He sighed.  ‘Let us take what pleasure we can, while we can.’

With a final glance at the orc’s carcass, Elrond’s sons rode to meet the elves emerging from the shelter of the trees.

***

Mithrandir puffed at his long pipe, enjoying the subtle way Celeborn moved away from him to avoid the drifting smoke.  It was bad of him, he acknowledged, but he took a malicious pleasure in observing just how far he could goad elven courtesy before his hosts felt impelled to take steps.  Galadriel, of course, knew exactly what he was doing – it took a lot to pull a veil over her eyes – and he got the impression that Elrond’s daughter suspected him of deliberate mischief, but most seemed simply to take their places to the windward and watch him, their gleaming silver eyes wide with amazement at his bizarre habit of inhaling the fumes of crumbled leaves.

He examined Galadriel’s dark-haired granddaughter, sitting like a damask rose among the Wood’s eglantine.  He had seen her before, of course – many times over the course of the age – but he needed to know that she was ready for the task that faced her.  And, perhaps more importantly, that she was prepared to accept the role that confronted her.  Time was, after all, running short and what had once been of little importance had now become the difference between success and failure.

‘She passes your test?’ Celeborn asked waspishly.

The wizard gazed up under his bushy eyebrows.  ‘You are not yet reconciled, then?’

‘Nor ever will be,’ Celeborn declared.

Mithrandir blew a smoke ring and watched it contemplatively as it dissipated in the still air.  ‘Never is a long time, my friend.  Too long even for the wise to be able make such irrevocable pronouncements – if they are truly wise.’

‘It is not I who claim wisdom,’ the elf lord frowned.  ‘I seek merely to protect those in my care.’

‘If only it were possible.’  The Istar spoke softly.  ‘You are not omnipotent, my lord – you know your limits.  Better to grant her the right to play her part in this – for I tell you that, should you prevent this, then our chances of success diminish to nothing.’ 

‘And you have demanded this of Elrond?’ Celeborn challenged him.  ‘Asked him to sacrifice his only daughter to fuel the fight against the Dark Lord?  To abandon her to death?’

‘Death is Ilúvatar’s gift – releasing the Aftercomers from the bonds that tie the Firstborn to the world.’  Mithrandir spoke sharply.  ‘Would you put yourself in the place of Ar-Pharazôn?  Be blind enough to believe that the immortality of the elves is to be craved at all costs?’  He paused as Celeborn drew a quick breath, then continued more gently.  ‘Will you sail to join all those who passed across the sea – or took the swift route to Námo’s Halls?  Will you abandon those who will remain here?  Choices must be made, my friend, and not all of them are joyful.  Pain is part of life – and sometimes the greatest satisfaction lies in submission to a greater need.  Elrond knows this – his whole life has been one of sacrifice.’  He settled back against the tree, drawing on his now-empty pipe, allowing himself to lapse back into the image of the dishevelled old man.  ‘It is not that easy, my friend.  It is never that easy.’

The silence between them hovered, charged with emotion.  ‘I see Melian in her,’ the Istar mused. 

Celeborn watched his granddaughter.  ‘Every now and then,’ he admitted, ‘she will turn her head, or move to music only she hears – and it is Lúthien before me.’

‘Would you deny Arwen what they had?’

Her daeradar’s shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly.  ‘No,’ he sighed. ‘I would not – but I would have her be sure that this is what she wants.’

‘She will have some time to convince you,’ Mithrandir said comfortably.

***

‘The pressures are intensifying.’  Celeborn drew the comb through his wet hair.  Only his grandsons, he thought, would bring information to him here, as he bathed in dawn’s clean light.  Of course, only family would be permitted to approach him so closely in this hidden glade.  He shook his head, spraying them with the drips from his long locks.  ‘The south used to be relatively safe from attempted intrusion – but in recent years. . .’  He shrugged.   ‘That is no longer the case.’

‘The orc we saw,’ Elrohir said slowly.  ‘It was – not typical.’  He watched his Daeradar pick up his tunic of sun-bleached linen.  ‘Bigger than those to which we are accustomed.  Less afraid of daylight.’

‘It was wounded, true,’ Elladan agreed, ‘but, even hungry, the mountain goblins would not attack before dusk at the earliest.’

Celeborn inclined his head.  ‘I have seen them,’ he acknowledged.  ‘There is something about them that concerns me – it is as if Morgoth’s abominations have begun to change after millennia of stagnation.  And it cannot be good.’

‘Those that crawl forth from their lairs in the mountains are still as they were,’ Elrohir said thoughtfully.  ‘And no word has come from Thranduil of any change.  Life grows ever more difficult in the shadow of Dol Guldur, but that is because of quantity rather than quality.’

‘My lady seeks to see the pit in which they breed,’ Celeborn mused, ‘but it is hidden from her.’  He looked narrowly at his grandsons.  ‘You travel more freely than most in the lands beyond the bounds of the elven havens.  What have you seen?  Do these creatures crawl into the light beyond Mordor’s gates to threaten Gondor?  Are they feeding on the flesh of the Rohirrim?’

‘We have heard nothing – nothing, that is, beyond what is expected.’  Elladan linked his fingers behind his dark head and stretched.  ‘There are more orcs breeding – the Battle of Five Armies caused little more than a setback in the north and affected the forces of the dark on Gondor’s borders not one whit.’

‘Their origin is closer then.’  Elrohir frowned.  ‘Somewhere between Gondor, Dol Guldur and the Misty Mountains.’

‘Isengard?’ Celeborn asked.  ‘I like Curunír not at all, but he is Istar.  He would not betray the Valar so.’  He considered.  ‘He is very sure of himself.’

‘And very contemptuous of those he considers less,’ Elladan remarked.  ‘He conceals it from Adar, but he has never considered us worthy of any care.’

‘He is cautious around your daernaneth . . .’

‘He is arrogant, not stupid,’ Elrohir pointed out.

His daeradar grinned.  ‘But he is less – guarded – where I am concerned.  I, after all, am of the Moriquendi – and inferior.’ 

‘He might be worth watching,’ Elladan commented.

‘I will send scouts to keep an eye on him,’ Celeborn agreed.  ‘It is as wise to know those who pretend to be your friends as it is to watch those who are your enemies.  And now we have decided that,’ he added emphatically, ‘do you think you might remove yourselves for a while?  Go and bother your sister – or disturb your daernaneth and talk to her.’

Elrohir laughed.  ‘We are no more foolhardy than Curunír, Daeradar.  But we will leave you to your morning peace.’ 

‘Come, my brother.’  Elladan clapped him on the shoulder.  ‘We have placed the matter in the best hands.  Let us now go and enjoy the delights of the Wood.’

***

‘Well?’ Arwen rested her hand on her hips and stared at her brothers expectantly.  ‘What have you done with Isildur’s heir?’

Elrohir folded his arms and quirked his eyebrow in imitation of their adar.

‘We have done nothing with him, my sister,’ Elladan protested.  ‘It might seem remarkable, but in men’s eyes, he is considered old enough to look after himself.’

Their sister inspected them incredulously.  ‘What reason, then, did you have for travelling so far south?’

‘Very well,’ Elrohir conceded.  ‘We have seen him.’  He paused.  ‘He needed to know what was happening among the Dúnedain – and Adar thought we would make the best messengers.’

Arwen bit her lip.  ‘And how did you manage among the Horse People?’ she asked.  ‘They are noted for their superstition – and they do not care for the idea of elves.’

‘They did not see us as elves.’  Elrohir lifted a sardonic eyebrow.  ‘Show them dark hair and they see Men of Gondor.  Men, my sister, are good at deluding themselves.  They see what they expect to see.  They accepted us – those few of them that saw us.  With some confusion, I admit.  But they refused to see anything strange.’

‘And Aragorn dwelt among them?’  She spoke his name apparently carelessly, but her tongue caressed the syllables.

‘Mithrandir and Adar said he should know those who would be his people.’ Elladan watched her.  ‘They said it was not uncommon for rangers of the north to serve in the southern lands – and that Estel should learn what he could while he might.’

‘He is no longer as pretty as he once was.’  Elrohir shook his head sadly.  ‘You would not wish to see him now, my sister.’  He exchanged a swift glance with his twin.  ‘Do you remember Nyéni?’

‘The goat?’ Arwen was bewildered.

Elladan moved his hands to indicate dwarf-like growth of beard and sighed.  ‘Estel certainly found himself among men who shared his standards of grooming.  Were it not for his colouring, he would have fitted perfectly among the Rohirrim!  For the sake of his kin, we had to escort him south – any longer in Rohan and Isildur’s heir would have resembled nothing more than a bush.’

‘But he is well,’ Elrohir intervened. ‘I think his time among the Rohirrim suited him.  He liked being no-one in particular, standing out merely because of his dark hair.’  He grinned.  ‘And it did not take him long to prove the superiority of elven training – Thengel took him as a captain quickly enough, and was sorry to see him go.’

Arwen looked at him.  Untold stories, she realised, hung between them, neatly ruled off and closed away.  ‘What of Lady Gilraen?’ she said.  ‘How is she?’

‘Enduring his absence.’  Elladan’s face had sobered.    ‘She has not yet left Imladris, but she spends an increasing amount of time visiting her kin.  Did Adar tell you?  We have been to see her.’

Elrohir’s eyes were concerned.  ‘She ages,’ he said, ‘although she should not, for among her people she is still young.  It is as if she has lost her hope.’  He sighed.  ‘She has done all she can – and I think she is afraid to hold him back.’

‘And even more afraid to see him fail.’

‘He will not fail.’  Arwen’s eyes hardened.  ‘We will not let him fail, my brothers.  Will we?’

In the silence a song thrush’s pure notes dropped into the air between them, like molten silver.  ‘If you are sure, Undómiel,’ Elrohir said intently.

‘I will do what I must,’ she said.  ‘And this son of Elros’s line will have his due.’  She stepped between them and stretched out a hand to each.  ‘He must not falter now,’ she coaxed.  ‘He has grown up your brother as well as Adar’s son – and he needs our support.’

Elladan sighed as he wrapped one arm round his sister’s waist.  ‘The Evenstar gleams in his eyes, my sister, and brightens even his darkest nights.  And he is true as mithril – he will hold.’