Out There In the Cold by StarSpray  

If you’re out there in the cold
I'll cover you in moonlight
If you’re a stranger to your soul
I'll bring you to your birthright

- “Never Look Away” by Vienna Teng

FA 20
Mereth Aderthad

The feast has certainly been a success, Galadriel thinks as she wanders through the pavilions and tents. The weather has been fine, and on this afternoon the sky is cloudless and the sun is bright. Flowers bloom in between the tents and along the banks of the Pools of Ivrin, bluebells and celandine, niphredil and dandelion. Followers of Fëanor’s sons mingle with those of her brothers and her cousins and uncle. It does seem notable, though, that only two of Fëanor’s seven sons have come. They are precisely the two she had expected, but Galadriel is not sure they, the House of Finwë, can call themselves all fully reunited with five of their princes still so pointedly missing.

She has seen Maglor several times at a distance, but not yet spoken to him. Maedhros has approached her once or twice, with fair and kind words of greeting. His body has healed, but he has changed; there is a fire in him that Galadriel does not recall seeing before. He moves with a certain grace, but it is not that of a dancer anymore, not as she had first seen him in Tirion long ago when she had been a small child and he a bright and buoyant youth. Now when she looks at him she thinks of a large cat, stalking through its hunting grounds. It makes her shiver, though she can think of no reason for it. The only creatures that need quail before Maedhros son of Fëanor are orcs.

“Artanis.” She turns to find Maglor approaching. He is clad in blue and silver, with ribbons in his hair and small diamonds glinting in his ears. He seems more like his old self than Maedhros does, but still there is something subdued about him; the darkness that clings to them all dampens even his bright spirit.

“Macalaurë,” Galadriel says. “It seems you have met your match in music.” Both he and Daeron of Doriath have held them all spellbound every evenings as they play, urging one another one to greater and mightier feats of song and music. For that alone Galadriel thinks it worth coming.

He laughs. “Perhaps I have,” he says, “but I like a challenge. How do you find Doriath?”

“I like it very much.”

“I have heard you gained an epessë there, and perhaps a husband to go with it.”

“Perhaps,” says Galadriel with a smile. “How do you find the eastern lands?”

His smile is sudden and bright. “Wide,” he said, “Ard-galen is a sea unto itself, and then the wind blows through the grass—it is breathtaking.” He had always liked open spaces in his youth, Galadriel remembers, had always been eager to leap into a saddle and take off across the plains outside of Tirion just for the joy of wind and speed.

Galadriel, too, had once been a child of open skies and wide spaces—she had grown up in Alqualondë, racing boats rather than horses, with the stars a bright spill of diamonds across the black velvet sky. Now, though, she is finding an ever-growing love for the deep woods and the shelter of trees, and the greenish hue of the afternoon sunlight as it filters gently through the boughs high above. The beeches of Neldoreth and the birches of Brethil are tall and fair, and the holly trees of Region lovely with their glossy leaves and bright red berries in wintertime.

“Do you think it will work?” she asks, nodding around them. “This reuniting, the leaguer our uncle wishes to establish?”

“The reuniting, yes, I think so,” says Maglor, also looking around, his smile slipping a little. “It must, if we are to work together. As for the rest—what else can we do but try?” He reaches into his pocket and draws out something that glints silver and gold in his palm. “I’ve missed you,” he says as he holds it out. “I wish—it is useless wishing, but I still wish it all had not unfolded as it did.”

Galadriel takes the gift, finding a bracelet nestled into her palm, of a delicate chain in the shape of malinornë leaves, in silver and emerald, and interspersed with golden flowers. She thinks of her first harp, still tucked away somewhere in her childhood home in Alqualondë far away, never to be played or seen again, and of the bright silver and golden days spent learning music under Maglor’s careful and kind tutelage, or of wandering through the groves of gold and silver in springtime. There are no such trees in Middle-earth. “Thank you,” she says, closing her fingers around it as she looks back up at him. “Take care of yourself, Macalaurë.”

“And you, Artanis.”

- -

SA 32
Lindon

Galadriel stood at the water’s edge, contemplating the stones. They were jagged and sharp-edged, newly broken, unused to the constant ebb and flow of ocean waves and tides. Once where she stood there had been a forest, ancient trees reaching skyward, glades of wildflowers and thick ferns, the air sweet-smelling and the sunlight tinged soft green. Now the sky was wide and open above and before her, and there was nothing of green—only the various shades of brown and grey of bare stone and disturbed earth. There were no seashells, but there was a great deal of driftwood—a forest’s worth, entire trees washed up on shore. Galadriel looked up to see a large group of Elves and Men dragging one such tree back toward what would, hopefully, become a city someday soon. For now it was a large and sprawling encampment, one of many scattered up and down the coast of Lindon, as new maps were being drawn and plains made.

Ships were being built, too. Elros the son of Eärendil the Blessed was now a king among the Edain, and he and his followers were busily preparing to depart for the island that the Valar had raised from the Sea for them, a land to call their very own, to dwell in peace and prosperity. Galadriel did not know either Elros or his brother Elrond well, for she had gone east with Celeborn before Doriath had fallen, and was only lately returned over the Ered Luin, but she had noticed that they kept slipping away, vanishing for days or weeks at a time. Perhaps it was the knowledge of their pending separation that spurred it—they sought as much time together as they could now, for once Elros departed, he would not return.

As though her thoughts were a summons, Elrond and Elros came walking up the shore toward her. They were so alike in face and bearing—so like Lúthien, it was sometimes hard to look at them—that Galadriel could not, to her chagrin, tell them apart except when they were dressed more formally, with Elros in his crown. Neither of them wore any ornaments now. “Lady Galadriel,” one of them said, as they both bowed.

“Sons of Eärendil,” Galadriel replied.

“We have heard it said that you have a mirror in which you can see many things,” said the second twin as they straightened. When he met her gaze it was with starlit grey eyes, clear as a cloudless evening. “That it is something you learned from Queen Melian of Doriath.”

“I did,” Galadriel agreed. “My mirror can show many things to whoever looks into it. What would you seek?”

“Maglor, son of Fëanor,” said the first twin. Galadriel’s shock must have shown on her face. “We have been searching for him since the war ended, but we have found no sign. There were—certain signs—we do not think Maedhros survived the upheaval of Beleriand’s sinking, but we have seen nothing to suggest that Maglor does not live.”

“I believe he does,” said the second. “I have dreamed of him—but we cannot find him. Can you help us?”

“Why do you wish to find him? Either of them?” Galadriel asked. After all they had done—and Sirion not the least—it seemed incredible that the sons of Elwing and Eärendil would wish to see them, that they would spend what precious time they had left together on the search.

“They raised us,” said the first twin quietly. “They loved us. Perhaps you find it hard to believe, but it’s true. If we are wrong and Maedhros too still lives, we would wish to find him also—to say farewell, at least, before I leave these lands.” He was Elros, then, and Elrond the other—the one who dreamed.

“I will look,” Galadriel said, “but I can make no promises. My mirror can be fickle.”

She led them away from the coastline, inland to where there were still woods and streams. Finding one that ran clear, falling noisily over a tumble of stony embankments, she filled an ewer, and in turn filled her silver basin, carried with her from Menegroth. It had been a gift from Melian, long ago. Elrond and Elros stood hand in hand and watched in silence as she set the basin upon a tree stump and filled it. She blew over the water, calling forth her power and focusing her intentions as Melian had taught her. She leaned over the water, letting her eyes unfocus as she turned her thoughts to her cousins, to Maedhros with his distant eyes and bright copper hair, and Maglor with his ringing voice and quick fingers.

The mirror was quick to show her Maedhros, his face twisted in pain as he clutched the Silmaril to his chest, its light escaping from between his fingers in brilliant, sharp rays. He took a step forward and vanished, fire leaping up before Galadriel’s eyes. Her breath caught in her throat, but she did not look away, as mists gathered before her, and faded only slowly—and there was Maglor, kneeling on the jagged, rocky shore. He gazed out at the sea, his eyes vacant but reddened from much weeping. Tears still slid down his cheeks, silent and unheeded. On his lap one of his hands rested, blistered and red with burns. There were no Silmarils to be seen, and Galadriel could not tell where he was.

A teardrop of her own hit the water, breaking the surface and dissolving the image. Galadriel straightened. “Maedhros is dead,” she said quietly. Elrond and Elros did not look surprised, but they bowed their heads. “Maglor lives, still. I have seen him by the shore, but where or even precisely when, I cannot say. The mirror shows many things—things that are, things that were, and some things that have not yet come to pass, and it is not always easy to tell which of them I am shown.”

“If he lives, then there is hope we may yet find him,” said Elrond. He was so young—they both were—but he spoke with such assurance that Galadriel very nearly believed him. “Thank you, Lady Galadriel.”

“What of Maedhros?” Elros asked. “Is there—he should be given a burial, if it is in our power.”

“There is no body to bury. He—he fell into one of the fiery rents that opened as Beleriand broke apart. I am sorry.”

Elros breathed a sigh; Elrond closed his eyes for a moment. “Thank you,” Elros said, echoing his brother. “We are sorry to have asked such a thing of you.”

“I hope that you find Maglor,” Galadriel said, “and I am glad to know that he did not fall so far that he could not care for you, or you for him.”

The twins left, falling into step beside one another, heads bent together as they discussed their next search—where to go, and when, and for how long. Galadriel had spoken truly: she did hope that they would find him. She did not, however, really believe that they would.

She did not believe she could find him either, but that did not stop her from making a search of her own. She declined Celeborn’s offer of company. He was needed where he was, as the Noldor and the Sindar and others all tried to figure out whether they would be able to come together as one people in this new age, and if so how. After Elrond and Elros departed, heading north, she made her way south, following the meandering and still unstable coastline. Parts of it were still in the process of breaking and of settling; the ground moved under her feet, and she watched an entire cliff break off and slip into the waves less than a mile ahead. How could Maglor be wandering the shores and expect to survive? Perhaps he had moved inland—but Galadriel did not think so. Her heart told her that if Maglor was to be found anywhere, it would be beside the sea. He had always loved the water, had often visited her parents’ home in Alqualondë just to spend hours on the beach listening to the waves whispering over the rainbow sands, or else wandering north or south along the coast to the wilder waters that crashed and pounded the rocky shores—though those waves were yet gentler than what assaulted the remnants of Beleriand now.

Galadriel stood upon a promontory, gazing out over the waters. The wind was cold out of the south, scented with salt and with coming rain as clouds gathered in the distance, dark and forbidding. She had found faint traces of someone in recent days, a footprint here, remnants of a small fire there. They could have belonged to anyone. As she turned to move inland the wind picked up again and she heard something upon it—something like the faint strains of a harp. Galadriel turned and listened hard, but did not hear it again. Instead of seeking shelter from the coming storm she quickened her pace south, straining to hear more.

There was nothing, only the sound of the sea pummeling the land, and the wind singing its own mournful songs.

Maglor did not reappear before the Edain set sail. Elros Tar-Minyatar was smiling as he boarded the flagship, but Galadriel had seen him weeping bitter tears the night before, both to say farewell to his brother and in mourning for the foster-fathers he would never meet again.

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After the Darkening
Alqualondë

The Unlight of Ungoliant has not yet fully dispersed, and the stars over Alqualondë seem dimmed, sickly. They do not shine on the waters of Eldamar as they should, and there is no Treelight streaming through the Calacirya at their backs to illuminate the road and the westernmost edge of Tol Eressëa. The island is just visible, an almost frightening, strange shape in the darkness like some great creature crouched in the bay; Artanis feels almost as though it is watching them.

And at the harbor: chaos. Lamps are lit but they flicker strangely, and the blood that stains the wooden docks is black, thick and slippery, and Artanis presses the back of her hand to her mouth to keep herself from retching at the smell. It is bitter, metallic, mingling with the more familiar fish and saltwater smells that will forever now be tainted in her memory, staining all of her past with red and black. Her sword is heavy in her hand, and she slides it home into its sheath.

She would have used it, does not believe that she would have hesitated, but they came too late. The ships are already moving, and those still on shore are fleeing, away north into the dark night.

A familiar voice leads her to the far end of the harbor, where Macalaurë stands, head bowed, a dark shape in the gloom. Artanis can see his hands shake as he stares down at them—at the blood that stains his palms, black in the gloom. “Cousin,” she says, and he looks up. The only bright spots in his face are his eyes, but even they seemed shadowy now, as though she is seeing them through a thick mist, or haze of smoke. She tries to look past them, to catch a glimpse of his thoughts, but cannot. “What have you done? ”

“I don’t know,” he says. His voice is hoarse and faint; his hands are shaking, badly. “Artanis—”

“Canafinwë!” Fëanáro’s voice echoes over the quays, sharp as his swords, and Macalaurë flinches. From out over the water a wailing begins. The waves crash against the shore as Uinen lifts her voice in both wrath and grief. The spray falls over them both, cold, soaking into Artanis’ hair and dripping from her armor.

“You have all doomed yourselves this night, Macalaurë,” Artanis says, her voice coming out cold and hard as steel; she does not recognize herself as she speaks. “Do you think the Silmarils will suffer your touch now, even if you ever come near enough to grasp them? You pull us all down into darkness with you—”

He balls his hands into fists, and lifts his head again. Dark strands of hair fall forward out of unraveling braids, half-hiding his eyes. He looks strange and fey, a fell creature wreathed in shadows that has stolen her beloved cousin’s face, who once laughed and sang in the gardens of Tirion, with shining eyes and nothing at all of darkness in his heart. Artanis does not recognize this Macalaurë. He frightens her. “Yet you still follow,” he says, and turns away.

- -

TA 5
Lothlórien

It was a bright day, sunshine glowing on the golden spring flowers of the mallorn trees, and glinting on the waters of the Celebrant as it flowed away toward the Anduin. Galadriel sat beside it, listening to the music of its waters. Under her power the mallorn seeds that Gil-galad had given her thrived in this wood, to the delight of all who saw them. To most they were only a marvelous new tree come from Númenor ere its founding. Only Galadriel remembered playing among the golden leaves and sitting under the silver branches far away, long ago in Valinor.

She had been so very young, then, and felt so old now. Another Age of the world had passed away, and a new one was beginning—in hope but also in grief. Isildur was dead, his son Valandil suddenly thrust into kingship at far too young an age. Gil-galad too, was dead, and Elendil with him, and Anárion and Oropher and so many others.

Elrond was returned to his valley in the north. He could have taken up Gil-galad’s crown, could have claimed lordship over all the remaining Eldar of Middle-earth if he so wished, but had flatly refused to entertain any such suggestions. Grief weighed him down much as it had in the wake of his brother’s departure with the Edain of Beleriand.

Thinking of that brought another source of grief to Galadriel’s mind, ancient now. She and Elrond had not spoken again of Maglor, in all the long years since as their acquaintance had grown. Perhaps he did not think she would welcome the subject, skeptical as she had been when they had spoken before. If he ever went looking, he told no one of it.

She rose from her seat by the river and made her way back to Caras Galadhon, to the small hollow in which she had made herself a garden. Somewhere not far away she could hear Celebrían singing with Amroth and Nimrodel. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, Galadriel looked up to find Celeborn following. “What is it you seek?” he asked as she filled the silver ewer from the clear and cold waters of the stream.

“My cousin,” she said as she turned to the silver basin. “It is a new Age; if he lives still, I would find him and bring an end to his long exile.”

“Perhaps he does not want to end it,” Celeborn said. “Do you think his kinsman’s realm in Eregion escaped his notice?”

“If I find him,” Galadriel said, “I will ask him. He and I are all that remain of Finwë’s line in the living world. Gil-galad is dead, Celebrimbor is dead.”

“Elrond yet lives.”

“Elrond is Halfelven, holding himself separate from both Elves and Men. Yet he, too, would wish to have Maglor return among us I think.”

“Perhaps,” said Celeborn. “Do not forget what he is, Galadriel. He is your cousin, but he is also a Kinslayer.”

“Has he not suffered punishment enough?” Galadriel asked. “Must he wander forever, alone and forsaken? He is not only my cousin, Celeborn, he was once a dear friend. He loved Elrond, once—after all the terrible things that he did, he was yet capable of that. I will not believe him so lost that he cannot be brought home.”

The mirror showed many things, as it always did. Maglor lived still, of that she came away certain, and he lingered by the coasts. The abject despair and crippling grief had lifted, at least a little, but every glimpse she caught of his face was melancholy, pale and hollow-cheeked and lonely. The light in his eyes was dimmed, so they looked rather flatly grey than the silver that Galadriel remembered. She did, however, recognize some of the places in which she saw him.

“Do you wish for company?” Celeborn asked her when she prepared to leave.

“No,” Galadriel said. She paused to kiss him. “But if all goes well, I will not return alone.”

Few elves lingered by the southern coasts. Cities built there now were of Men, as Gondor recovered from the long years of war and began again to flourish. Galadriel kept away from the larger towns, but stopped to speak to more isolated fishermen or farmers near the coastline—and she was not disappointed. They spoke of a voice on the wind on starlit evenings, mournful and melancholy. Some were frightened, but others took it as a good omen. Some older fishermen spoke of a lone wanderer who knew the ways of the coast better than any of their own old and wise traditions, who would sometimes warn them away from going out to sea, or point them to an unexpected place to drop their nets—his advice was always good, and lives had been saved by avoiding sudden squalls at sea, and wherever he said they would find fish, they found it in abundance.

She did not, however, find Maglor himself. She found remnants of campsites that may or may not have belonged to him; she found bits of driftwood that seemed carved by familiar hands—half-finished shapes of horses or of a hound that greatly resembled Huan, though perhaps it only seemed so because Galadriel wished it. She kept each one she found, and tarried for many weeks by the shore, following it north and west as the winds blew, following the stories and the faint traces that Maglor had left behind.

There was a desolate wildness to those shores that was beautiful in its own way, Galadriel supposed. They were weather-worn now, no longer jagged and sharp-edged. The stones were all round and smooth; sand covered the beaches now, instead of jagged rocks and volcanic glass. The dunes were tall and covered in coarse grass. Birds flocked to the cliffs and raced the waves along the wet shell-strewn sands. Overhead the sky was wide and open. Clouds drifted across it, sometimes slowly, sometimes coming up swiftly bringing rain and sharp winds. Galadriel was well-prepared to weather such things, but she thought often of Maglor in clothes worn thin by time and hardship, with little in the way of food, and nothing at all of shelter.

She heard nothing of him. Not even the echo of his voice on the wind. For her part she sang often, climbing the dunes and letting the wind carry her voice where it would, singing of homecomings and of starlight on clear waters, of the mallorn trees of Lothlórien and the golden elanor that bloomed on the green swards of Caras Galadhon. But if her voice reached Maglor, he did not heed it. Maybe he no longer recognized it—maybe it only served to drive him farther away. She could not guess, and it was with a heavy heart that she at last turned northward, back toward the Gap of Calenardhon, toward home.

Celeborn met her at the forest’s eaves. “Any sign?” he asked.

“Some,” she sighed, “but nothing certain.”

“I am sorry.”

They had told no one where Galadriel had gone, but some time later when they traveled to Rivendell, Galadriel showed Elrond some of the carvings she had found. “Maglor’s work, do you think?” she asked.

Elrond picked one up, one of the half-finished hounds. There were shadows behind his eyes, grief weighing heavily upon him still—for Gil-galad, for Isildur, Elendil, and all others who had perished during and just after the war. Sauron had been defeated, but the price had been high. “He used to carve such things for us,” Elrond said finally. “Hounds and horses and birds and fish—toys, when we were still small. He made flutes, too, and pipes…he told me once he wished he had more materials to make us each a harp of our own. Where did you find these?”

“In the south.” Galadriel shared some of the fishermen’s tales. They brought a small smile to Elrond’s face. “He lives still, I am certain, but I could not find him.”

“It seems he does not wish to be found.” Elrond set the wooden hound on the table again, carefully, as though it were made of the most fragile and precious crystal. “Why did you go searching for him?”

“He is my cousin,” Galadriel said, “and was once my friend. A new Age is beginning, and I had hoped…but it seems he is not ready to return to us.” She began to doubt whether he ever would be. Perhaps he had been alone so long that it seemed inconceivable to return among his own people again. “Have you searched for him?”

“Not in many years. I haven’t…I haven’t had the chance.” Elrond looked away, out of the window. The garden was in full bloom, a riot of colorful flowers and a thousand shades of green in the leaves and the grass. It was a far cry, this valley, from the stark and lonely shores that Maglor wandered, where there was only the blue of the sky and the grey of the water. “Perhaps I should,” Elrond murmured, “one more time, before…”

They had spoken, here and there, carefully, of the Rings. Narya, Nenya, Vilya. The One was lost, and there was still a great risk in daring to use them—but Galadriel was in favor. Her heart told her that the Shadow would rise again, and they would need what power and protection Celebrimbor’s last and greatest work could give them. There would be a cost, though. To use them as she and Elrond intended would be to bind themselves to their own realms in much the same way that Melian had once bound herself to Doriath through her own enchantments; leaving would be difficult, a risk, would leave them and their lands vulnerable.

“Worth trying, maybe,” Galadriel said.

“Yes,” Elrond said, nodding, firm resolve returning to him for a moment, overtaking the grief. “It is always worth trying.”

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Years of the Trees
Tirion

The music coming from the gardens behind the enormous palace in Tirion is bright and quick, music meant for dancing. Artanis does not know all of the instruments, but she recognizes a flute and a drum, and she squirms in her brother’s arms, eager to get down and join the dancing she is sure they will find just ahead.

“Patience!” Findaráto exclaims, laughing as he adjusts his grip on her, hoisting her higher onto his hip. “We’ll be there in a moment, Artanis.”

“I want to dance!”

“And so you shall!” Findaráto steps outside into the bright golden afternoon, and they find Findekáno there with Irissë twirling in circles around him, white skirts flaring as she laughs. She has daisies in her dark braids, like white and yellow stars. Findaráto at last sets Artanis down and she runs to her cousin. They clasp hands and spin, too small still to keep up with their older and taller brothers cousins—Findekáno and Turukáno, Findaráto and Aikanáro, and a handful of others that Artanis does not yet know, for they have never visited her home in Alqualondë.

Angaráto sits on the fountain lip, laughing as he beats the drum in his lap, and beside him the flute player trills the melody, keeping perfect time with the drum beats and the dancers’ steps. When the song ends he laughs, and that is the first memory Artanis has of her bright and musical cousin Macalaurë. His hair is raven-dark and his eyes are bright, and when they are properly introduced he bows and kisses her small fingers gallantly, calling her my lady , and complimenting her dancing.

All of Artanis’ cousins are bright and beautiful, and all of them love singing and dancing, but it is Macalaurë whose voices enchants, who can weave anything into a song and make it beautiful. His long fingers dance over the strings of his harp, and when he lifts his voice to sing even the Valar stop to listen.

Best of all, he always has time for a curious younger cousin. When Artanis asks if he will teach her music, he does more—he makes for her a harp, perfectly fitted to her small hands, of silvery wood sanded and polished until it is soft as satin, and inlaid delicately with gold with leaves and flowers. “Have you ever seen the malinornë?” he asks her as she runs her fingers over the flowers. With a teasing smile he tugs on the end of her braid. “They remind me of you, especially in spring when they are all silver and gold—for they don’t lost their golden winter leaves until the golden flowers bloom, and their trunks are like silver pillars caught in between. Their wood makes wonderful instruments, I have found.”

“It’s beautiful,” Artanis says, and smiles up at him. “Thank you!”

“Come sit here,” he says, and places his big hands over hers atop the strings, showing her how to hold her hands and how to pluck the strings. The sound of the harp is bright and clear and sweet, and as he tells her the names of each note and the best tricks to remembering them all, his arm around her shoulders is a warm and encouraging weight.

- -

TA 3020
Rivendell

“When Bilbo first came to dwell here, he brought some interesting tales,” Elrond said. He and Galadriel walked through the gardens of Rivendell, enjoying the summer breezes and the music of the many streams and the river that flowed through the valley. Daisies and buttercups lined the path. “I have been unable, until now, to follow them.”

“What sort of tales?”

“Of ghosts near the shore, north and south of Lindon, brought back to the Shire by some of the more adventurous Tooks.” Elrond spoke with fondness of the hobbits, particularly of Bilbo. “Of singing heard on the wind, fair but mournful, or at times of the sound of a harp.”

Time was growing short. They would be taking ship soon—not that autumn, but the next or the one after. Galadriel looked down at her hands. Nenya glinted in the sunshine. On Elrond’s hand Vilya glowed deep blue. Their power was gone, and there was no more need for secrecy. Both of them were weary—but not so weary, perhaps, that one last search was beyond them. “Which direction will you take?” she asked.

“South.”

“Then I will go north.”

They went to Mithlond first to speak to Círdan, who had little more to say than the tales of the hobbits. Sometimes, he said, he heard a voice on the breeze, but had never been able to trace its origins. Sometimes fishermen or sailors spoke of a helpful figure, there and gone in the span of moments, with whispers of warning or advice— do not go out, for a storm is coming , or wait for the next tide and you will have better luck . When he vanished music was often heard afterward, a distant voice on the wind, mournful as the soft rush of the waves over sand. To hear it was held by some to be good luck. To encounter him was even better.

Elrond struck off south; Galadriel went north. They left their horses behind, instead following the shoreline on foot. The wind off of the water was cool and refreshing, smelling of salt and seaweed. The beaches were sometimes of soft sand, other times of smooth stones. She remembered standing upon the edge of the world long ago, when all had been jagged and sharp like the edge of a broken blade. Now so many thousands of years had passed by, and the winds and the rains and the constant wash of the waves and tides had worn away those edges, turning stones and shells to stand, turning broken rocks to smooth and rounded pebbles.

Galadriel had brought her harp, and when she stopped to rest—which was more often now than it would have been before the Ring’s destruction—she played, songs of Lothlórien and of Beleriand long ago, songs of Valinor in the even more distant past that Maglor had taught her under the light of Telperion and Laurelin, before either of them knew what grief was. For a long time she heard no reply, not even a whisper on the wind or the echo of other harp strings.

After many days she came within sight of Himling Isle. It was shrouded in mist; overhead the skies were grey and heavy with clouds, and the wind out of the north was cold. Through the drifting mists, though, Galadriel could see the walls of Himring that Maedhros had built long ago, still standing even after all this time. Like the stones and the sands they too were worn and rounded—but still tall, still sturdy. Galadriel drew closer and began to wonder if she might need a boat, if Maglor had made his way to his brother’s crumbling fortress to haunt its ramparts as a mournful, despairing ghost. She drew closer, wondering if the the tides went out far enough that she could walk or wade to the island—but before she found out one way or the other she heard a faint voice on the breeze, coming from farther up the coast and not from the island. She turned away from Himling and hurried on, singing a song of her own in reply.

Finally, she came to a small cove, the shores all of grey pebbles rather than sand. At its deepest point she came upon a tree, fallen long ago and hardened into something like the stones, pale grey. On it sat a figure, clad in grey, gazing out at the Sea. His spirit was as frayed as his tattered cloak, as tangled as his dark hair, and Galadriel had to stop some distance away to catch her breath. It seemed the inexorable work of time had been working upon Maglor, too. He was fading, and if she could not bring him back, he would soon be nothing more than a voice on the wind, an echo of long-ago tragedy heard only upon moonless nights when the wind howled about the crumbling towers of his brother’s fortress.

Galadriel approached. Maglor raised his head; his eyes glinted with Treelight still, but his gaze seemed to go right through her without seeing her. “Macalaurë,” she said, sitting on the log beside him.

His gaze focused on her face. When he spoke his voice was dreamy, as though he were half asleep. “I have not heard that name in a very long time,” he murmured. “Is it mine?”

“It is. Do you know mine?”

He searched her face for a moment, and the effort seemed to bring him back to himself a little more. “Artanis,” he whispered at last, “but—no, not anymore. Galadriel.”

“Yes. I’ve been looking for you for a very long time, Cousin.” Galadriel reached out her hands to grasp Maglor’s. Her fingers slid over the scars left by the Silmaril upon his right hand. “The time of the Elves is coming to an end. Sauron has been defeated at last, and it is time for us to leave these shores.”

Maglor looked down at their hands; his grip was weak and half-hearted, but he lifted Galadriel’s hand to look more closely at Nenya, glinting in the pale light. Then his gaze traveled up her hand to her wrist, where the bracelet of mallorn leaves and flowers rested. “I made that, did I not?” he whispered.

“You did.” Galadriel released his hand to brush his tangled and salt-stiff hair from his face, to cup his cheek in her hand. “The kings of Númenor once gifted mallorn seeds to Gil-galad. They would not grow in Lindon, but I planted them beyond the Misty Mountains and there they thrive still, in the Golden Wood.”

“I have heard that name,” Maglor said, gaze going distant again. “Tales of the Lady of the Golden Wood. A sorceress dwells there, and few who enter ever return—nor unscathed, if they do.”

“Many have entered and come out again unscathed, though perhaps not unchanged. I have not, however, come to take you back with me to Lothlórien, however much I wish you could see it and walk with me under the flowering trees in spring. It is to Mithlond it would take you, and thence to Rivendell, until all is ready. I am leaving these shores, Macalaurë, and Elrond with me. We would take you with us, if you would come.”

“Elrond…?” A tear slid down Maglor’s face as he breathed the name.

“He has searched for you, also. So did Elros, before he led the Edain away to Númenor. It grieved them both deeply that Elros could not say one last farewell to you.” The tears fell more quickly now, and Maglor closed his eyes, turning away. His dark hair tumbled forward like a curtain between them. Galadriel drew it back again. “Do not make Elrond depart these shores still uncertain of your fate. Do not make him leave you behind as he must leave his daughter. Do not make me leave you behind, please. You and I are the only two left. I am so weary, and I do not want to return to Tirion alone.” Maglor did not answer. Galadriel rose to her feet and held out her hand. “It is long past time, Cousin. Come home with me.”

For several long moments there was silence in the cove, but for the sea beside them. Finally, Maglor sighed, a sound of great and aching weariness, and he reached out his hand. Galadriel pulled him to his feet, and embraced him. He did not seem to know how to accept it; she felt him shaking in her arms. “Come,” she said, drawing back and smiling at him. “It is a long way back to Mithlond.” She took him by the hand, and led him out of the cove.

The clouds were parting, and the mists dispersing, revealing more of Himring upon its island. Birds nested in the towers, and vines grew up the walls. Maglor stopped to look at it. “That was my brother’s,” he said after a little while. He spoke quietly, and his voice was nearly lost in the sound of the waves. “But he is gone.”

“You may yet see him again,” Galadriel said. Maglor shook his head, just once, and did not answer. He did not look back, though, when she pulled him away.

The journey south was long, as the journey north had been. Maglor spoke little and sometimes seemed to forget where he was and where they were going. Galadriel spoke to him to fill the silence, and to try to draw him out, and she thought that it was working, little by little. She sang, too, and that worked even better, though he wept more often than not when she sang a song of Valinor, of their youth—songs that he had taught her long ago, as his big hands guided her small ones over the harp strings.

At last they came to the Gulf of Lhûn, and the towers of Mithlond arose before them. Maglor faltered and stumbled, but Galadriel did not let go of his hand—not until a figure appeared, racing down the beach toward them. Elrond threw himself into Maglor’s arms, already weeping. Maglor staggered under the force of him, but there was no hesitation when he wrapped his arms around Elrond in turn. “Elrond?” Galadriel heard him say, sounding astonished, as though he had not actually expected the sort of welcome she had promised him, or had forgotten what she had told him. She did not hear what Elrond said in reply, but Maglor then said, “I will. I will go with you. I promise.” He raised his head to look at Galadriel then, his eyes very wide and startled as though he had just fully woken from a long and dark dream; there were tears on his cheeks.

True to his word, the next autumn Maglor was just behind Galadriel as she stepped off of the shores of Middle-earth for the last time, onto the ship that would bear them, at least, into the west. They stood near Elrond and Frodo, watching the Havens and then the wider shores recede behind them. Maglor was still dreamy-eyed and distant, but he did not look quite so insubstantial now. The tangles of his hair had been combed out and a circlet befitting a prince of the Noldor lay across his brow. He was clad in fine new clothes, sturdy and warm, and a cloak of Lothlórien lay over his shoulders, secured with a brooch in the shape of a mallorn leaf—but not of silver and green, as Galadriel had given to the Fellowship, but rather the pale gold of the leaves in winter. A year in Rivendell had made a great change in him. As twilight settled over the world like a soft purple blanket, he turned his gaze to the western horizon, where Gil-estel glimmered. Galadriel took his hand, and he looked at her. A small smile touched his lips. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Nai hiruvalyë Valimar Macalaurë,” Galadriel murmured. “Nai elyë hiruva.”

Chapter End Notes

Galadriel's last line is taken from her song of Eldamar in The Fellowship of the Ring.

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