IC Inbox

[laurenande]

(Galadriel is fairly used to getting mail but she'll be a bit shocked to receive any in Thedas. For any notes, missives, letters, or other communications.)

Comments

[rowancrowned]

[ he chews over his words, considers them, and then speaks. ]

But it was not [ he said ] a tearing, a rending, a devastation. An unmaking. Only a fading.

[ he sounds tired. his hands stay in his lap, resting, not fussing with his rings or lingering on his sleeves. odd, how her people were excited when the sun first rose. he remembers it. if melian had not told them of the death of the trees, they would not have known, living in starlight only. and if melian had not told them to be calm when the burning ball of fire first rose in the sky, they would have panicked and thought it another device of melkor. ]

A muting of the bond, rather than the destruction of it. [ he does not sigh. the exhale is not purposeful, not a sigh. he lets go of the anger that boils in him whenever he thinks of her, of the manner of her death. he looks- not young, not to a mortal, but if galadriel looks, she will see a set to his shoulder more suited to the thranduil of doriath, rather than the thranduil of mirkwood. ]

Celeborn will worry, and Celeborn will fret, and possibly ride to Elrond with his concerns, where, I suspect, Elrond will tell him he felt much the same way when your daughter sailed to Valinor. A stretching of your marriage, not a severing.

[ he means to comfort, when he sets his hand over hers. ]

The sun will rise again, Galadriel.

[laurenande]

[The shadows that cling to him, when his age settles across his shoulders and his breath slips, silent and unbidden, from his chest, are palpable. There is no apology she can give him that he would accept, nor one that she would offer honestly, and so she doesn't attempt to conjure anything. Rather, she turns her hand beneath his and silently holds his in return.

It is a rare gesture, but one she had offered his wife freely. It is her memory that clings to him and this simple motion is all she can think to do that might ease the pain of it.]

Thank you.

[But it is a meager reassurance, despite how readily she takes it to heart.

She cannot bring herself to admit the truth of things in Quenya; when she speaks again it is in common. The language is brutish and fleeting but well suited to such news.]

He does not intend to sail. [She is uncertain if Celeborn had said as much to his cousin, she had never asked.] In both our absences he will evacuate to Greenwood.

He would not consider leaving, not until the shadow had been driven from your woods, if at all.

Middle-earth is his home.

[rowancrowned]

[ wryly: ] Celeborn is an idiot.

[ he's certainly glad to elaborate on this point. his hand stays in hers. it is enough to center him, though he retreats from further showing of weakness like a cat from water. ]

He should mind his own wood and think less of expanding. He has never fought the spiders, and would be a hinderance to my Silvans in their patrols. Legolas has said that after the War, he stays in Mirkwood and helps her return to Greenwood once more. My son has the task well in hand.

[ he continues to work over the thought as they sit. there is silence, but they are both old enough to know when to speak and when to refrain. ]

Should he arrive in Mirkwood saying you have vanished, I will be suspicious at first [ thranduil when are you not suspicious ] but will provide whatever aid he needs. Legolas is from the Fourth Age; he has not mentioned either of us being absent. [ more firmly. his hand squeezes hers, he looks to her to comfort, to soothe. ] Iluvatar arranged for this, I doubt He will allow for any ... skips that would prevent the destruction of Sauron. Perhaps at the end of our time here, we will return, and it will be as if no time has passed at all. Perhaps we worry for nothing. We are elves, we are patient. We must wait.

[laurenande]

[His first comment is so out of place that he startles a voiceless laugh from her. Her shoulders shake once, sharply, but she doesn't withdraw or seem inclined to continue laughing.

As he continues, though, her expression shifts. She is uncommonly open, right now, and her brows furrow with, at first, confusion and then shock. She is no stranger to arts that bend time, but this--even though Samwise Gamgee wore a cloak of her make, carried one of her own personal affects, and claims they had yet to meet, she couldn't have guessed, wouldn't have guessed--Legolas had seen the turning of the Age?

Sauron was--would be defeated? Her woods had not burned? Celeborn was not lost?

The sheer scope of what he is implying, what he suspects, is so vastly different from what she has resigned herself to that, for an instant, there is an expression like awe across her features. She has only been in Thedas a short time but that grief, that fear, had already begun to drag her down. Like a lead weight pulling her beneath waves, it had been relentless and now--now it was lifted, insofar as it could be.

She had been brought to her knees with grief and, now, she shook as the weight of it left her.

For the first time in Ages, she lacks words. She couldn't thank him for what he had told her and he couldn't have known how it had ailed her. Without thought, she reaches forward, wraps an arm around his far shoulder, and draws him into a tight embrace. It is something she has never done, nor something she would have expected to do, but she can think of nothing else to express the magnitude of her relief, of her gratitude.

She mutters quietly, words and phrases archaic to the point that they are near nonsense, but her meaning is not hard to gather.

She'd had no idea, she had seen none of it, she hadn't dared to hope.]

[rowancrowned]

[ he is stiff, at first, unaccustomed to being held. legolas is so casual with it, but he is used to that. but legolas is legolas, and this is galadriel- this is a female elf.

thranduil relaxes once she speaks, even manages a mirroring arm around her, offering the comfort she seeks. he switches to sindarin, the middle ground between the two tongues, and allows for the familiar pronouns, verbs. he is delicate and kind, because he remembers hearing the same news from legolas, how he had felt. ]

I assumed Legolas had told you when he arrived. Forgive me, Galadriel, I would not have allowed you to be afraid.

[ he holds her-- no, they hold one another, and he firmly does not think of doriath. he has become quite good at it.

he speaks only when she stops. ]

I did not question him at length, but according to my son, you and Elrond sail, as well as the- wizard- sail soon after the close of the War.

[laurenande]

[Her laughter is a light, almost bubbling sound but it catches as it leaves her throat, hitches around the freshest of her grief. The Wizard? There were precious few left and, among them, it was easier to envision Mithrandir, arisen from death, than Radagast stepping onto a ship. The whole of her shakes with her laughter and, after a few moments, she realizes she is all but sobbing into Thanduil's shoulder.]

He fell--[She explains, at first in Quenya but then in Sindarin as she catches herself. Her joy is overwhelming but it is impossible to hide the tears in her voice or on her face. She makes no attempt to.]--he was taken by a Balrog in the mines below the Misty Mountains.

And he lives.

[Eventually, she releases him, but the whole of her is taken by a boneless, weary ease. She hasn't even the tension to hold her posture and bends forward toward her loom, willowy and ancient.]

I did not succumb and Mithrandir survived...and all that I had hoped for came to pass. And your son...he has brought this news.

I cannot possibly repay him, or you, for telling me this.

[rowancrowned]

I am beginning to suspect he was no Man at all. [ such a clever pretext has been kept up, he has been in the dark about so many matters- inasmuch as the courtesy of being told has ever been given to him, but. he can guess. he has always been clever enough. ]

He lives. [ thranduil confirms, and releases her, the hand on her shoulder lingering. if she can draw comfort from it, she is welcome to it. ] He lives, Legolas lives, the Enemy is defeated.

[ it cannot hurt to repeat it like a mantra. his wait is over. the him that legolas knows can sail, once he rallies his silvans. he will see his father, his wife, his mother. or- he would. eru has chosen him for another purpose. ]

You owe me nothing, cousin. [ he withdraws his hand, holds it neatly in his lap. his tone lightens, becomes playful. ] Please, do not say that to him. He is a good son, a good prince, humble- enough praise and he will end up like me.