Out There In the Cold by StarSpray  

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Two

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.

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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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