The Rescue of Celebrian

~*~

There was never enough light. Candles, lamps, even the direct rays of the sun herself were not enough once Celebrian came home. At night she huddled in her bed surrounded by every candle and lamp her servants could find, and still she cowered with the blankets clutched to her chest, rocking herself until dawn. Lark could sometimes read her to sleep. Her brother Raven, surprisingly, had luck calming her by singing and his voice had finally allowed Elrond a few hour’s sleep as well. But if healing sleep came at all for the Lady of Rivendell, it was snatched during the brightest part of day on a cot on her balcony.

After she had been home two weeks or so, and still had such a burning need for light, Elrond had a team of fifty strong men, all volunteers, and six yolks of oxen purchased from the human settlements to the south, moving the great pine that blocked the Lady’s westerly chamber window so that she could have her light for as long as possible. She ate, thankfully, whatever Lark gave to her, though slipping sleeping draughts into her food had proved nearly useless and only brought her nightmares. She woke the entire valley with her shrieking, and once struck Aster such a blow with a lit candelabrum that the girl was confined to the healing wing for a week. Elrond attended the child himself, reading to her or reciting from memory poems and epics of the time before his peoples had come to Middle-earth. He had nothing else to do, for through it all, Elrond Half-elvin could not visit his Celebrian, except from a distance. Faced with the sight of him, her fits grew so violent and frantic that they were afraid she would harm herself as well as someone else, and so Elrond was forced to keep his distance. At the least, Aster’s chamber offered a view of the Lady’s balcony. From there he could watch her sleep.

While Elrond watched his wife, his sons watched him with growing concern. To their shrewd eyes, he had aged more in the past two seasons than he had in their entire lifetime. But mentioning their concerns for him had only led to them both being ushered straight out of his sitting room and commanded to bed as though they were still children. Though he did not see it, between themselves the twins decided that their mother did grow stronger, slowly, now that she was home. Some of her color had returned, and while she remained gaunt and chill, her bones did not seem intent to slice her skin to ribbons. Their father, of course, did not know this, though luckily she would suffer her sons in her chamber during daylight hours. At night it seemed that they, too, brought to mind the dreams or hallucinations foisted upon her in the darkness under the mountain, and for everyone’s safety Elrohir and Elladan did their best to stay away, though her crying and shrieks were often hard to endure without offering aid.

It was difficult for the two warrior peredhel to be trapped in such a way, responsible at least in part for her freedom, but unable to help their mother restore herself and enjoy her liberty. At the same time, though, Lord Elrond had laid strict controls on his people; no one was permitted to leave or enter the valley without the express permission of himself, Glorfindel, or select few other captains. Rumor talked of an assault being planned on the mountain holes where the goblins dwelt, but since nothing had been said to the twins, they remained, for the most part, skeptical. After the show of strength that greeted their return to their realm, it made sense to both Elrohir and Elladan that the people would once again enjoy a trip north with bloody thoughts in mind. What they would not enjoy, for the most part, was an engagement with the full strength of the slime that oozed through the sponge of the pock-marked mountain. Generally in times of peace, as before, warfare was left only to a few experienced elders among Elrond’s people, and Elladan believed it was for this reason that the traveling restrictions had been laid. Most of their people who had ridden out for their lady that day knew plenty about butchering chickens and hunting deer, but not nearly enough about dispatching goblins. He also had the sneaking suspicion that the idea, while approved by his father, had been the mind child of Glorfindel, who was often in the forest and prone to worrying overmuch about both the twins and their people in general.

At least, Elladan thought, sighing with relief, messages had finally arrived from Lorien. Their grandfather had written, as had their sister, though her note of love and relief was short. Apparently Galadriel was too excited when first knowledge of her daughter’s state arrived, to make herself able to sit down with quill and ink. But lamps and dishware, Celeborn had jested, were easy enough to replace. Even after a thousand and more years of relative calm, her Noldo temper was sometimes quick to spark. They had been alike in that respect, Celebrian and her mother. But now, it was difficult to tell if their mother would ever be herself again.

With this thought in mind, Elladan took himself to the library, while Elrohir did… whatever an angry, bereaved, worried warrior did while wandering the areas to which he was confined for his safety and the safety of the rest of their people. It wasn’t that Elladan didn’t trust his father’s judgment in such matters, only that this was an unusual case. Elrond was generally not so strongly bonded with those who sought healing in his valley, and his son began to wonder if his father’s suffering was too strongly linked to his mother’s. By ending one, he thought, he could ease or perhaps even end, the other’s. So he spent night after night with candles and lamps (the few that were spared from service in Celebrian’s chambers) combing lore books about sicknesses of the spirit and how some of them had been successfully treated in the past.

Two more weeks passed in the search, and Elladan grew frustrated. Niphredil grew similarly frustrated by his reticence and frequent absences from both meals and the Hall of Fire, where even in such dreary times, or perhaps because of such sadness, people gathered after the last meal for talk and singing and stories. He hoped that Niphredil would understand, if she thought on it, that his affection for her was not waning, only that he was more sure of her continued health and well-being than he was of that of his mother. Besides which, he told himself reasonably, one’s mother was the first and most important woman in one’s life. Logic seemed to dictate that she would be ever on his mind in her convalescence.

The idea first came, not to Elladan, but to his brother, after yet another very long, boring day of watching his twin shift from chair to floor to lounging couch to perched on the table top with a dusty old book in his lap. Elladan, it seemed, was sending himself quite mad, squinting at the faded brown ink that some healer many years before had used for her, or his, spider web like hand. He was also quite tired of sneezing into his tunic sleeve when a breeze ruffled the pages and sent a cloud of dust and shed book parts up his nose. Elrohir knew this, or perhaps just wanted his brother to participate in a bit of mischief with him after such waiting.

“Did you not find, in some book early in your hunt, a passage about taking shocks to the spirit?” he asked suddenly from the reading chamber doorway. Wearily, Elladan nodded. “What sort of shock was mentioned?”

“Some seem to believe that, after a physical or spiritual trauma, the spirit can be chased or encouraged back into the body by exposing the person to another seemingly dangerous situation. The author of that green bound book there suggested something else entirely.”

“And what was that?” Elrohir asked, flipping open the cover of the aforementioned tome with one finger and listlessly paging through it.

“She, yes, I believe that one was written by a woman, suggested giving the afflicted the same tasks and surroundings as they experienced before the trauma occurred. Once the change in atmosphere registered within the mind, the spirit and body could reconnect.”

“But she has not left her body,” Elrohir said. “At least, not entirely.”

“I know this,” Elladan replied. “But I find myself wondering how close she came.”

“Too close,” the look that passed between the brothers said.

“What would it to do Father?” Elrohir continued.

“I do not know,” Elladan answered, “which is why I have set it aside and kept searching. He is…”

“Worse than he was before we left.”

“Worse than I have ever seen him.”

“Will he allow it?”

“He can’t treat her himself, not when he cannot even be in the same room with her,” Elladan said, leaning back in his chair with a grunt. “Someone has to do something. I can’t stand to listen to Lark reading aloud through the night anymore. She has nearly lost her voice.”

“And I would very much like to have my lamp back,” Elrohir agreed. “I made that lamp with Grandmother on our last visit to Lorien. She would be sad to hear if it has been broken.”

“Nothing we have done has made any progress, beyond feeding her, and she has been home nearly a month,” Elladan concluded. “Something new must be tried.”

Elrohir’s eyes narrowed in thought, skimming the page Elladan had turned to in the green book. “…returning the afflicted to the same tasks…” he muttered.

“What are you planning brother?” Elladan asked, feeling suddenly cautious.

“When was the last time you rolled in the mud?”

Pausing for thought, Elladan replied, “The last time I blacked your eye.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh no…” Elladan groaned, rubbing his already aching head, thoughts of Niphredil’s reaction to what he was sickeningly sure was about to happen settling like frozen stones in his stomach. Elrohir merely smiled.
~*~

(A.N.: Sorry about the false start, there. There was an Unanticipated-By-Canon player on the field. The author has been penalized 15 yards and gives up a down. The officials ask that 42 seconds please be added onto the game clock. The officials also want to thank line judge Binka for flagging the play.)