The Rescue of Celebrian

“You should go with them, darling,” Celeborn said one night just before autumn.

“With who, dear?”

“With the twins, and Arwen. Celebrian would benefit, I think, from the opportunity to see you.”

“Then we will go,” Galadriel decided, taking up her carved wooden comb. “I’m sure a few weeks away will do the realm no harm.”

“I had not intended to leave,” Celeborn countered, laying aside his own comb.

“What? Why?”

“One of us should stay, to look after things here,” Celeborn said reasonably. “And of the two of us, you, I think, would be a greater help to her now.”

“We do not know fully what it might be that she needs,” Galadriel replied, turning away from her mirror. “It might, in fact, do her more good to see you. You are and have always been the one of us most content here. You should be the one to teach her that shadows are, occasionally, only that.”

And thus began yet another of the Lord and Lady’s famous fights, which took place right in front of whatever servant or neighbor happened to be present, but in total silence. Over breakfast the next morning they bickered, back and forth between minds linked for so long they were both able to carry on other conversations at the same time. Lunch was taken separately, though still they argued, for it was easier for Celeborn to restrain his irritation if Galadriel was in another part of the forest and he did not have to watch the tilt of her eyebrow or subtle smirk when she made a point. Dinner carried the argument further, though it seemed to Celeborn that they simply went round in circles over the same points time and again. His lady wife would simply not give up.

After a week, the Lady’s sheer stubbornness won out, and together, they made ready to set out on the long ride west via the south pass near Nimrodel and into Dunland. The northern pass, of course, was out of the question, and Galadriel did not fancy the thought of attempting the passage through the dwarves’ delving to the immediate north of Lorien in the mine they called Moria. Once was enough.

A bright, sunny autumn day broke the morning of their departure, and the horses, realizing that the cold season approached, seemed well disposed to a journey. With luck, all parties involved would reach their final destinations before winter, though the party from the Greenwood would have to over-winter in Rivendell before it would be safe to take a ship from the Havens. Their need for stealth, they had decided, was not so great for the western journey as the twins’ journey east had been, and with over five dozen people in the group, secrecy would have been difficult. So, the leave taking was made with perhaps a bit more fuss and sadness than may have been allowed in the past, but the final departure of those who over the summer had become friends was a sad moment for all of the First Born who remained: this party was just the first of many, many more to come and go. The time of the Elves was ending.

If the horses and ponies were excited, however, the majority of the traveling party viewed the journey with veiled apprehension. Not the least of these was Veon who, having recovered fully from his physical injuries, was still much more cautious than a child of his age generally behaved. Seated securely on another little hill pony— a grey dapple called Agate— he kept his wooden practice sword strapped across his back in a sheath made specifically to fit both weapon and warrior-to-be, Elrohir’s contribution to the enterprise Elladan and Ninde had undertaken at midsummer. If he thought more of the arrangement than a child’s sword lessons, he did not let on, at least, not to his brother. Frequent glances passed back and forth between the elder twin and their sister, but nothing need be spoken when a simple flick of the eyes would do.

So the party rode out at early dawn, leaving darkened smears and patches of disturbed dew on the grasses behind them as they left the forested areas. Well before lunch, they had reached the crossing point of the Nimrodel and stopped to rest the animals before beginning the climb into the foothills that lay between them and the pass.

It was an ill-timed rest. The first to notice a sign was Arwen who bent to fill her water skin up stream from where the horses drank and saw what appeared to be a bootprint. Sensing her disquiet, her horse jumped, causing Elladan to check it briefly, and see the same trail of boot prints his sister studied so cautiously.

“These are not the prints of elves, or men,” she said in an undertone, looking up into her brother’s steely grey eyes. Naming what had left the prints was unnecessary.

“I had hoped we would not see them this far south,” Elladan replied, looking quickly for his grandfather or brother, or even the captain of the Marchwardens that accompanied them. The first gaze to meet his belonged to Ninde and he quickly looked away.

“You just gave yourself away, brother,” Arwen said softly as she reached for her horse. “She will be curious now.”

“No she won’t,” he replied, tipping his head for his grandfather to join them. “She is far too wise for that. She will already know, or at least venture a correct guess.”

Celeborn did not need to be told what had caused the disruption, but stood thinking for a moment while two of his grandchildren looked on.

“These tracks point north,” he said finally. “I count 3 horses, one of them burdened with something quite heavy, and three or four captives walking in the center.”

“A small group though,” Arwen said. “There could not be a dozen of them.”

“Still a dozen too many, as close as they must be,” Elladan growled, and Celeborn nodded.

“Our way is blocked through the pass to the south,” Galadriel said unexpectedly, exchanging a significant glance with her husband as she joined the group at the water’s edge. “There has been a rock slide now that the autumn rains have begun.”

Catching Elrohir’s gaze from slightly downstream, she smiled with an unfamiliar look in her eyes. “We must turn north.”

“There are goblins to the north,” a Greenwood elf said.

“There are also other elves,” Celeborn replied, “and many fierce warriors in this party. We will be safe until we reach the next useable pass, and be that much closer to our destination once we cross the Misty Mountains.”

“What about the goblins under them?” someone else asked.

“If they approach us, we shall have warning,” Galadriel said smoothly, “and we have safety in numbers.”

Suddenly it came to most of the party that the lady too, perhaps, had the desire to spill goblin blood that had taken such hold of her grandsons. Barely restrained apprehension turned to very visible fear in a moment. The party turned north at the river all the same, all eyes alert and weapons loosely sheathed, glinting now and then in the sun.

When it came, the meeting with the goblins was brief. They had stopped for the day before the elves had tracked their sign, and the out-riding Marchwardens found the camp well before night fell. The captives appeared to be part of one of the wandering companies, though none were familiar to the elvin scouts. The goblins had taken refuge in a south-facing cave and slaughtered, or at least eaten, some large animal. The offal lay thick around the outside of the cave’s entrance, where the captives had been restrained, each tied to an individual tree as one would tether a horse or a dog. As with the party from the Greenwood, one of the captives appeared to be a child, though little else could be told from a safe distance.

“There are eight of them,” the Warden finished, “and at least one is injured. It sits near the cave mouth licking the gash in its arm. They must have had considerable opposition in their last skirmish to have run this far in daylight.”

“But even they must stop to eat,” Celeborn decided, dismissing the Warden. “And so shall we. Camp would best be made, I think, a little way into the forest. Do you agree?” he asked, looking first at his wife, and then his grandsons.

“The Greenwood elves will feel safer there,” Elladan added.

“And the women and child will be harder to find if a goblin happens to sneak past us,” his brother added in an undertone.

“My thinking precisely,” Celeborn said. “We will choose our warriors after the meal is eaten. Each of you will take five men and choose a side from which to approach the goblin camp. The remaining five I will lead in the frontal assault.”

“You should go before full dark,” Galadriel added as they turned back toward the rest of the party. “They may choose to move on through the night in spite of their injuries.”

“They won’t have that option, dearest,” Celeborn promised with steel in his voice, and Galadriel smiled.

Over the meal, the twins debated the merits of the fighters among the sixty-odd members of their party.

“Greenwood elves would be best for the western assault,” Elrohir decided, “and you’re far better up a tree than I am. I’ll take the eastern approach with some of Father’s men, assuming Grandfather does not take them for his company.”

“I believe he’ll use his own fighters first,” Elladan said. “He knows he is more familiar with their specific skills than we are.”

“And that there are enough of them that would like to teach us our places that it is perhaps best that he commands them himself.”

“That too. Will the Greenwood elves listen, do you think?”

“I would assume so. They already like you better, when they can tell us apart,” Elrohir chuckled.

“I will have to choose carefully,” he decided, tearing off a chunk of bread.

“You could ask the boy’s guardian. She has seen them all in battle. She would not lead you amiss,” Elrohir added casually. Almost, he thought, too casually.

“You have a point. Perhaps I should speak to Ninde.”

“Then go. I can eat the rest of my meal without you,” Elrohir teased. “We are no longer joined at the navel last I checked.”

Dusting off his seat, Elladan took his dish to the fire and piled on a large second helping, knowing that if offered, the child would eat it as well. Veon and Ninde had settled themselves against the bole of a very large oak tree, one with branches sweeping just close enough to the ground that with a good boost Veon could be aloft and invisible in a matter of moments. Which of them had chosen it, though, he would not venture to guess.

“May I join you?” Elladan asked as he drew near, and his own face split into a grin when Veon looked up with a hint of hero worship in his eyes. Clearing a space on the horse blanket on which they sat, Veon and Ninde welcomed him cordially enough, though the drawn look about Ninde’s eyes told Elladan that she, at least, was concerned about the night’s camp.

“Finish your dinner little apprentice. Your auntie and I should discuss something,” Elladan said, adding another slice of roast meat to the child’s plate.

“What is that, my lord?”

“I take a party of Greenwood elves on our journey tonight, but I find I do not know them as well as I feel I should. Tell me, of those fighters here camped, who do you trust most to guard Veon and yourself?”

After a long pause for thought, Ninde listed the strengths and weaknesses of each of the remaining elves from the Greenwood party. From her careful consideration of each warrior, Elladan knew how thoroughly she had studied them even as danger flew around her head from all directions, and admired her intelligence all the more.

“And as for myself,” she concluded, “my reach is limited, I’m old, I’m female, but I’m the best archer in the party, a fair hand with sword and knives, capable with a bladed staff, and nearing on deadly with a sling and stones.”

“Who would look after Veon if you went north tonight?”

“I thought you would say that,” Ninde said, “but you asked my opinion of the fighters from the Greenwood camping here, and I am one such, so I gave my assessment. It is yours to do with as you will.”

“She really is good, my lord Elladan,” Veon said around a mouth full of meat. “She can hit a fly from fifty paces. I’ve seen her!”

“But hopefully,” Elladan said, rising, “I won’t have to. You both should stay here and rest. We’ll be back soon enough.”

And so the raid began, and as the last purplish-blue turned to black at the horizon, the party returned with the freed captives guarded carefully at their center. The new child came last, carried by Celeborn himself to the tent where Galadriel waited.

“She will not speak, though she took water and food,” he said, nestling her gently in his own bedroll. “Her parents, one of the others said, were…”

The rest of his report was finished between their minds over the tangled blonde head on the pillow before them.

“And she was forced to watch?”

“We assume. She should stay with us tonight.”

“Indeed. Come little one, let’s wipe away some of the dirt you’ve gotten into,” Galadriel soothed as she prepared scented water and a flannel. “Then we’ll have a long rest and dream pleasant dreams.”

At some point in the night, the child began to cry. Within a few moments, Celeborn woke and, scooping her carefully from the pallet they had prepared for her, brought her with him to the bedding he shared with Galadriel. Nestled snugly between them, she spent the rest of the night in peace.
~*~