Third Age of Middle Earth – 93
Dartho na anim
Every moment, she worked tirelessly with means arcane and less so: poultice and salve, and waxed silk to hold together flesh that would not knit, no matter the effort. No sooner would she stop the bleeding of one wound, than another would reopen, start again. Such was the hideous nature of dragon fire – though it would sear flesh from bone, its fell magic was such that it would not, as other fire would, cause such wounds to cauterise.
Minutes became hours, became days, and spell upon spell, upon prayer fell from her lips, unfailing, unending.
"Lasto, Thranduil, Melethron," she whispered urgently, "Dartho na anim. Lasto beth nín, matho ngalad nín... Rado bardhlein."
Still she could not feel the answering thread of his light, not even brushing against her reaching, searching touch. She was losing him, he was slipping into the gathering dark against even the weight of her healing energies.
More urgent yet, and in mounting desperation, she reached deeper within herself, having no choice; daring everything to save the one she loved. Appealing to all that was sacred, to the very essence of Eru itself, and to every star that ever shone.
"Menno o nín na hon i eliad annen annin, hon leitho o ngurth." She barely drew breath to add, "Eterúno hon!"
** ** **
What should have still been dappled green and gold was fading to the red and dull shades of brown, and not simply because autumn had come early to Greenwood the Great. The truth of the urgent message that had come to Imladris barely four days before came as a flash in his sight and he bent lower against the horse's neck, urging the mount to greater speeds yet as the Greenwood Guard parted before him, granting him free passage across the bridge and into the Royal Halls.
Hooves clattered on the courtyard, and even before Elrond brought the horse to a complete halt, he all but threw himself from the saddle, trusting the Stable Master to see to him and he turned to the Elf approaching him.
He recognised him as the King's Steward, and with barely a brief nod of greeting, he demanded, "Take me to him. Tell me everything."
"It was dragon fire, my Lord Elrond," Galion said softly, and Elrond hissed as he followed the steward's hurried steps with his own, knowing full well the horror such wounds wrought upon their vicitms. "As the captain reports it, he was caught almost directly in the creature's breath as he attempted to save those on the front line. Field surgeons packed the wounds, and..."
Elrond turned a deep frown Galion's way as the other Elf faltered in his telling.
"And?" he demanded with soft urgency.
"Many more of our warriors than those who lost in battle gave their lives to bring him home, and now the Queen—"
"She is with him?" Elrond all but pushed the steward against the wall of the stair which they now hurriedly climbed toward the room at the top of the Northern Spire to bring him to a halt. "What of your healers?"
"My Lord, she will not leave him, nor allow any other to tend him." Galion said, and at the stricken look on the Elf's face, Elrond almost softened, but his heart contracted in fear, and he knew by the steward's words that he was there not to save one life, but two.
Spitting a soft curse, he released Galion, and demanded urgently, "Does Eluilosloth grow within your gardens?" As Galion nodded he continued, "Bring me your strongest fortified wine, and as many blossoms as are still growing. Hurry."
Without waiting, for he knew the other Elf would obey his command, he turned and took the rest of the steps almost two at once. Entering the Spire's uppermost room, he took in the situation with a quick mind born of many millennia of knowledge and experience.
The queen was half braced against the side of the bed on which Thranduil lay, half slumped over the king, her hand lay against his chest, beneath her, and even from the doorway Elrond could feel the faltering flicker of the magic she passed between them.
He crossed the distance in a heartbeat, throwing back his still mud stained cloak as she sat on the opposite side of the bed from the queen and lay one hand onto the back of her neck while closing his other around her own hand.
"Celyndailiel, farn," he murmured urgently, "Let go. You cannot help him this way."
As he spoke, he pushed against her failing energies, bolstering her with his own as much as he dared, for to disrupt her magic was a greater risk yet. She roused enough to register his presence, lifting her head and turning her eyes, which were pale – and bloodshot – with her exhaustion, his way.
"Rest, Celyn," he urged, and all but bodily lifted her from contact with her husband.
"No," she fought him, but weakly, "I cannot."
Her voice was barely a whisper, a gasp in the gathering gloom as the late afternoon sun began to set, and at the quality in it, a deeper fear began inside of Elrond that he was already too late.
"Elrond, please..." Her struggles continued, but in her current condition she was no match for him, no matter her desperation. "Let me go... If I stop I will lose him forever."
At that he bodily lifted her to face him and cupped her face in his hands and made her look at him, and with unmerciful certainty in his voice he told her, "And if you go on, he will lose you."
** ** **
Her sight dimmed, as though her tired eyes could no longer stand the sight of his suffering.
She lost all sense of time and day or night meant little to her. She felt the beat of her heart only in the few short hours when Elrond permitted her near to her beloved – for even he accepted that as close their bond had always been, likely only she could save Thranduil from the clutches of oblivion. When she rested away from him, she drifted, as if in Shadow.
The food that Elrond gave to her was as ash within her mouth, and the fortified wine, laced with Star-flower left an emptiness that lingered, a hollow that should have been filled with the joyful presence of her Lord and King – her husband, her soul.
Still he suffered.
It was dark.
No moon graced the sky, and the very stars seemed dimmed above the falling canopy of once great beeches, and towering oaks. The tide of the heavens was turning, and all of Greenwood stood trembling on the cusp of an hour grown late, yet come far too soon.
She could hear Elrond moving around in the adjoining annex, no doubt creating the salves and other healing preparations with which he had been working so earnestly for the sake of her beloved – all, it seemed, in vain, and in aid of her own, faltering fae.
By what shred of will remained, she forced away the dizziness as she sat up, crossed the few steps of distance between the chaise that the servants had brought, on Elrond's orders, and the bed where Thranduil lay, stiller than death.
There remained but one choice, one course left open to her. He was Greenwood, and if he did not survive, who would be left to stand when Darkness rose once more? For rise it would.
"You must live," she whispered, and around her stillness fell as if the very woodland itself, and the stones of the Halls around them held their breath.
On legs that barely held her she climbed up to settle on the bed beside Eryn Lasgalen's King, and slowly laid her trembling hands, one upon his chest the other on his too-pale brow, and closing her eyes, spoke softly.
"Ai... Fanuilos.... Lasto," she craved, and though her soul grew still, she felt the quiver in her body more keenly, "Lasto beth nín, ainima Elbereth, lasto beth o pen i-vela... Tai ngalad nín, guil nín, lavo han athra na hon."
Her voice slowed and deepened with each successive word she spoke, and she could almost feel the drawing away of all that she was... the answering of her prayer.
"Nai e cuio!"
She let out a long, slow breath at the ending of her words, aware the door behind her had opened, but caring little, not even as Elrond's voice split the air as an anguished cry.
"Celyn, No!" His arms closed around her as she all but fell forward, and he called over his shoulder, "Galion, the cup"
She heard movement behind Elrond, then felt the Elven healer press the cool rim of a cup to her lips, but she pushed it away.
"No more... Elrond," she whispered, "It was my choice. You have to let me go... to save him."
"There's another way!"
"There is no other way." She reached up to brush at the tears that fell from Elrond's lashes to his cheek. "For as much as I love him with all that I am, I love the Woodland... our people... my son... and without their king, they will not survive the coming storm."
"Celyn, hear me—" Elrond began, but she cut him off.
"No, Elrond... hear me: this is the only way." She gazed on him with beseeching eyes. "Lay me in his arms... one last time."
"Oh, Celyndailiel..." she heard her name as a sigh upon Elrond's lips as he set her gently against the king, her head pillowed against his chest, where she heard as well as felt the long, slow, indrawn breath as time, for Celyndailiel, began to slow...
...flow backwards...
"I think I have seen you here before?"
She looked up, startled at the apparently sudden appearance of a figure in front of her. He was tall, even for an Elf - Sindar, from the look of him, and that was when her quick mind put the pieces together. This was the Oropher's son, the Prince of the Woodland Realm that his father had established east of the Great River.
"My Lord, Prince," she greeted him and dipped a low, graceful curtsy but found he caught her hand softly to raise her to her full height once more.
"No need," he answered softly, and her eyes met his, their ice-blue lights shining, dazzling in her sight.
She felt herself blush, but would not give in to it, instead she said softly, "Would you care to walk, my Lord? The gardens here are very beautiful."
"We walked... for hours... in those gardens..." Unaware she had done so, she called softly to Galion, placing her ring within his trembling hand, whispering, barely breathing, "Tell him: 'I will return to you...'"
...and ultimately stopped.
** ** **
Days became a march of slowly lessening pain under Elrond's healing care.
Despair lingered... hovering always in the shadows, in the unlit corners of the room he had not left for many moons. He felt its presence like a spectre, feared it in his better moods, and longed to embrace its cold promise of fading to nothing when the absence of his beloved light settled, unshakable, over him... and then he feared it all the more.
"She gave her life for you!" The memory of Elrond's bitter tone struck hard as he barely managed to limp to the balcony of the high spire by leaning on a carven oak staff that Galion and brought for him once the healers – torturers all of them – had insisted he rise from the bed. "How dare you think to throw such a gift away as though it were nothing!"
"You think I don't know that?" he spat in response. "You think I do not feel her absence with every breath I take, every beat of my shattered heart?"
They fought often.
Any other and he might have been tempted to order the guard to run the other Elf through for his audacity, but they had shared too much, and in his heart he knew that Elrond meant only to help keep him from surrendering to the emptiness that became too large a part of him.
He sighed, closing his eyes, and with fingers still tight with the newness of recently healed skin massaged the ache that settled behind his temples as he had sat peering down into the garden below, his sight still hampered and unbalanced by the absence of it in his ruined left eye.
No spell, no amount of healing, no unguent, magical or otherwise had been able to restore his face or eye to the fullness of health, while the rest of him recovered slowly, even if he were still as weak as a newborn, where once he had been strong.
But he could not... would not reach inside of himself to aid them. He dare not face the full truth of the absence that he knew he would find inside if he did.
"How much longer will you keep me prisoner here?" he asked as he heard the door open and close behind him – no doubt the herald of Elrond's evening visit.
"Prisoner?" Elrond queried, and came to stand beside him, on his left – deliberate, he knew. An effort to make him face and conquer his disability. Instead he turned his head.
"Yes, Peredhil, prisoner," he spat, disingenuously.
Elrond ignored the intended slight.
"You are no more kept prisoner here than you would keep yourself, Thranduil," he said and then spreading his arms asked, "But... where do you wish to go?"
Thranduil felt the shaking begin in his limbs, and spread through the whole of him, almost breaking his resolve, almost making him change his mind... almost...
"I wish to see the final resting place of my beloved queen," he whispered past his trembling lips.
"I laid your wife to rest within your arms, Aran nín," Elrond answered, his voice softer than ever before, "where she requested. But... if you wish to visit her memorial, I will take you."
He gripped Elrond's arm as the other Elf moved to his right, and helped him carefully to his feet. Elrond remained to his right, the wooden staff his steward had given him supported him upon the left, and slowly – agonisingly slowly – the Lord of Imladris guided him down to the Garden of Tranquil Waters that was deep within the walls of his Kingdom.
Almost at the northernmost point of the gardens, it stood, a White doe of carven marble, lying as if in repose beneath the spreading fronds of a cascading silver willow that had been planted, and coaxed by careful nurture to grow strong by Elven magics, between the fall of twin, melodious waterfalls. The place would feel the touch of the first rays of the morning, as well as the last lingering rays of the evening sun, when the kiss of the moon would find her. She would never be without light – for even on a moonless night, the bright stars in the heavens overhead would grace her with their silvering.
"Hanon le, mellon nín," Thranduil whispered as he sank to his knees before the memorial, tears filling his eyes.
He saw Elrond shake his head.
"Many hundreds of years ago," The tone in Elrond's voice as Thranduil look up at him, a frown upon his face, waiting for him to continue. Elrond settled nearby with a sigh before he did. "I saw this..." he gestured, and then clarified, "...saw you kneeling before such a monument. At the time, I assumed I was seeing what had already happened, and that it was your mother's monument after Doriath was lost to Middle Earth... but as Celyn began to fade... I knew I had been wrong."
Thranduil hung his head as the softness of Elrond's words brought the full weight of all the sorrow and loss to his mind, and his tears finally fell – for all his lost kin, and all those left behind at their fading, but most of all, for his beloved Celyn, who had been the only anchor, the only reason in the many long centuries, since he was thrust into the adult world as Doriath fell.
____________________
Lasto, Thranduil, Melethron – Hear me, Thanduil, my love
Dartho na anim – stay with me
Lasto beth nín, matho ngalad nín... Rado bardhlein. – hear me, feel my light... find your way home
Menno o nín na hon i eliad annen annin, hon leitho o ngurth – May the Grace given to me, pass to him. Let him be spared from death.
Eterúno hon! – save him!
Celyndailiel, farn – Celyndailiel, enough.
Fae - soul
Ai... Fanuilos.... Lasto – Oh, Ever-White... Hear me.
Lasto beth nín, ainima Elbereth – Hear me, Blessed Elbereth
lasto beth o pen i-vela... – hear the plea of one who loves...
Tai ngalad nín, guil nín, lavo han athra na hon. – What light, what life is mine, let it pass to him.
Nai e cuio! – may he live!
Aran nín – my king
Hanon le, mellon nín – Thank you, my friend