Until the Stars are All Alight by Dagstjarna  

That night, Elrond dreamed. In the blue morning on an unfamiliar shore, cold mist clung to the dunes. Behind her she saw the hazy silhouette of a building or house. She went that way, to a pavilion with a strong roof of thatched seagrass and walls of airy linen curtains lapping gently in the breeze. Near at hand stood an elf, strangely washed out as if faded by the sun, faint like the moon during the day. She was clad in plain crisp linen white as bone, with a blanket of light and sturdy wool folded neatly over her shoulder. Her bare feet were crusted with sand. 

She turned as Elrond climbed the steps and passed under the roof, and Elrond found herself looking up into a face of startling familiarity. 

     “Celebrimbor!” She breathed. 

Celebrimbor smiled, warm as ever, warm as fire. 

     “Dear Elrond,” she said hoarsely. She had been weeping and her voice was in tatters, but the life in it was strong. It rasped like a lost voice, like one that hadn’t been used for a long, long time. “I am sorry I left you.” 

     “You didn’t,” Elrond told her sternly. “You were taken.” 

     “You forgive me?” 

     “There is nothing to forgive. And if there was, I would have already.” 

Celebrimbor looked away. Elrond stepped over to her.

     “I am newly come from Mandos,” she said hollowly. “And it’s…very strange. Everything is brand new, yet familiar. My memories don’t feel like mine yet. I feel old and young, and the last thing I knew I was making spinning tops and toys for the children in my halls. Where are they now, I wonder.”

Elrond glanced around them. Valinor, she realized. She had never seen it before. There was nothing but milky fog beyond the sun-bleached linen hangings. They seemed to be alone. 

     “What is this place?” 

     “It is where your parents’ followers live between their visits down from the sky. I haven’t seen them yet, Elwing and Earendil. I wanted to come here first.” 

Elrond’s throat tightened. 

     “Where is everyone else?” She managed to ask. 

     “At a feast with Elu Thingol. I came at an odd time,” She shrugged. “I….I may go to Finrod next. I don’t know what to do.” 

     Elrond reached out, wondering if she could touch Celebrimbor, and found that she could. She folded her arms around her, and Celebrimbor sank into the embrace. 

     “I hardly understand what happened, Elrond. I feel lost.” 

     “Far from it.” Elrond rubbed her back. “You are found. Are you afraid to go to your family?” 

     “I don’t know. I miss them. But I miss you more.” 

     “You could…” she almost said it, but held back, not quite sure why. 

     “That is what I wanted to tell you,” Celebrimbor gripped her shoulders, stepping back. “I want to come back.” 

     Elrond frowned. 

     “I want to return to Middle Earth. I have unfinished business there.” She said, with a stubborn set to her jaw. “Annatar was traitorous. I should have listened to you, to Galadriel.” 

     “It wasn’t your fault. You looked for the best in him, and you cannot be faulted for it.” 

     “I don’t think it was my fault, but I have a responsibility to care for the world and do good where I can, just like everyone else. And my role in the making of the rings and the darkness that has followed is not small, however good my intentions were for their creation. It is because he tricked me so well, I think it’s only fitting that I come back to haunt him just as he haunts me still. Hopefully,” She added. “to a better end.” 

     Elrond bit back a sigh. She wanted her friend to find peace, and healing. But that was something Elrond could also offer in Imladris, perhaps better than a land teeming with maiar could for Celebrimbor in particular. She noticed Celebrimbor searching her face, and smile reassuringly at the worry she saw there. 

     “Don’t fret about me,” she poked Elrond’s neck, who laughed despite herself (a secretly ticklish person). 

     “When will you come?” Elrond asked. 

     “I don’t know at all. There are lots of…conversations, that need to be had.” She sighed and rubbed her face, looking like she dreaded the very thought. “Much has changed in Middle Earth since the end of the first age, and much has changed here in Aman too.” 

     Elrond nodded.

Then Celebrimbor added,

     “I won’t come alone, if I can help it.” 

     “Good.” 

     The air began to shine with a soft pink glow. Sunrise was getting on above the encircling mists. Celebrimbor looked at her fondly. 

     “You should wake up now. It will be morning soon in Imladris.” She reached out and tucked Elrond’s hair behind her ears, brushing the back of her fingers against her cheek. “May a star shine upon the hour of our meeting.” 

“Celebrian is in Aman.” Elrond said quickly, betrayed by a tremble in her voice. “If she has left Lorien she will be glad to see you.”

“I will see if she can be found.” 

 “Farewell.” 

Elrond woke with a face full of tears, her hair stuck to her cheeks. She felt well rested, warm, and comfortable. That was rare, just as it was for her to dream about Celebrimbor, unless it was of her death. It was so good to see her old and best friend that her whole chest ached. She sat up, and saw a gentle gray light reaching into the room. There was something merciful in the light that morning, she thought. She burst into tears at once.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it!! :-) <333

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Celebrian loved to read. She always said you could spend the whole life of the world returning over and over to the same poem, and leave with something new every time. 

When she left the valley to find healing in the West, she gave to her family the longest lock of her fair hair. They buried it in silver ribbons in the earth, and over it planted an aspen tree. The aspen reached full stature before it multiplied, becoming a stand that gave shade where taller spruces might grow. Now on the mountain side that had once been bare stood a large grove. The branch scars of the aspens looked just like her eyes, Arwen always thought. 

     Hair was not the only thing Celebrían left for them. She also left books, many books, filled with poems she herself had written. She never put her own name to them, though. At the bottom, she wrote the title of the poem as if it were the name of the writer. 

      Arwen had just returned yesterday from Lothlorien. That morning she rose late, still sore from the horseback journey. Taking a volume of her mother’s sweet poems she climbed up to her grove to sit and read. The twins had hardly eaten and bathed before riding out again, and now by the clippety-clip of their horses hooves they were back. It wasn’t long before they joined Arwen in the grove, each of them holding onto one of Elrond’s arms. 

Arwen closed the book, marking the page with a silver tassel. 

     “Hello!” She called, as her brothers legged up the slope to sprawl in the sun beside her. Their freckles were winter-faint but getting darker every day. Elrond sank down next to her, and hugged an arm around her shoulder. 

     “What is this you’re reading?” Elrond tapped the book. 

     “Poems by Naneth.” 

     “Which ones?” 

     Arwen opened the book, and tipped it so Elrond could see. She leaned down to look, and, to Arwen’s delight, began to read aloud.

When I wake, I shoulder a great burden. 

But in my sleep I fly swift, over strong dark water,

My thoughts my wings beside me, long curtains. 

The eves of yester and morrow stretch out under my feet, rolling land

Quiet, under snow

As I am borne up on the thermal wind of dreams. 

The starlight, unenscribed, pathless, and nameless

Holds every weight perfectly.  

 Who knew that light could be so heavy?  

“It has no title,” Elrond added, at the end. 

  “She always wrote such lovely things,” Elrohir said. 

             “You look well, Ada,” Elladan said to Elrond. Arwen agreed: the three of them had kept a close eye on her ever since Celebrían’s torment. Elrond had done well at hiding the worst of her grief from them, but having grown up in a place of healing, and a sanctuary for the bereft, they were not strangers to sorrow, and they knew how much Elrond’s heart must ache. But today she sat in the bright spring day, and the shadows under her eyes seemed lighter. 

    “You slept late, too,” Elladan remarked. 

     “I did not,” Elrond smiled, a little mysteriously. “But I was long in coming out of my room. I have tidings,” 

    Elrond recounted her dream of Celebrimbor, and the conversation about her returning. Arwen gasped. 

“What does she plan to do here?” 

“She doesn’t know yet. I suspect it will concern Sauron and the ring, but nothing is certain.”

“Oh Ada, that would be wonderful for you.” Said Elrohir. “It would be so lovely to meet her.” 

“I’ve lost so many people. I can’t deny it would be…different, to have someone back.” Elrond replied carefully. Her expression was very gaurded. 

Elladan and Elrohir left shortly after to eat. Arwen and Elrond liked to take their time walking to stop and look at every tree and flower, and quickly fell behind. While they paused to smell the roses opening along the garden path, light footfalls announced Glorfindel passing by. Elrond waved him over. 

     “Glorfindel, may I ask you something?” 

“Certainly!” 

“Did you need to get permission from the Valar to return?”

Glorfindel blinked.  

“I asked for their blessing,” He answered thoughtfully. “but I’m not sure it is needed. The Noldor were not the only people who had lessons to learn from the darkening and the exile, and the Valar are not quite as controlling as they used to be. The laws are more relaxed now, just as they are here for us. Why do you ask?” 

“I dreamt of Celebrimbor,” She proffered, in a low voice. “But please keep it between us for now. Nothing is certain.” 

Spring became Summer, and the days grew long, and the nights sweet and brief. Every day Arwen asked Elrond if she’d had any new dreams, and found herself glancing West, waiting for word from Círdan, but none came. Elrond did not dream about Celebrimbor again, so Arwen stopped asking so frequently. The uncertainty was daunting, and after fretting over it for a while, Elrond seemed keen to set the matter aside. 

     Before long, the coming of the company of Thorin Oakenshield at Midsummer’s Eve put all else out of mind. Rumors of gathering darkness were growing, and Elladan and Elrohir rode out to take word to Mirkwood and the rangers, and to bring back any news they could gather. For years they were hardly home at all. And for many of those years Arwen was unable to visit Lothlorien, the mountains being too dangerous to cross, or away from Rivendell for the same reason, unable to return. 

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Arwen had been born under the first full moon in Autumn. Elrond had been born on the first new moon of Autumn on the Autumn equinox- the very same evening, ten years later, that Earendil first bore the Silmaril up in Vingilot. Celebrian’s birthday fell five weeks later on the waning gibbous moon. Arwen loved her birthday, being nestled between her parents’ as it was, and every year they threw a big joint party on Arwen’s day to celebrate all three. That night they had music and dancing, playing harps and drums and singing themselves all hoarse. Sweet wine flashed in the firelight as it poured from silver flagons. They played charades and crackers and very fast dice games that ended in fits of laughter every round. And songs, mountain songs, night songs, cold songs, and snow songs for the end of the Summer, floated up with the woodsmoke to be caught up on the wandering wind. It had been a long time since Celebrían went West, but a melancholy had hung over them all ever since, and it was fair and free to see it lift for an evening beneath the gold burning stars. 

The next day everyone was nursing a hangover. Arwen and the twins were sitting in the garden outside Elrond’s room drinking tea and having buttery bread in the sunshine. Elladan groaned, laying on the ground. 

“I am so sore from dancing,” said he. 

“My head might as well split in two,” Elrohir mumbled into his cup. Elladan sat up to dig his fingers into Elrohir’s scalp to relieve his headache. 

“Oh me next,” Arwen pleaded. 

They had all woken up in the big garden where the party was held around a bonfire, now merely cinders, still in their party clothes, everything beaded with silver dew. Then the whole household bathed in the river, which of course was very cold at the start of October, puffing and laughing and squealing. Then they all sprinted back naked to the house to get warm with hot drinks. Arwen smoothed the folds in her soft, clean dress, pulling a blanket about her shoulders. 

A few Dunadain children skipped across the garden on business of their own. Away out of sight, she heard Glorfindel singing, probably sitting up on the roof watching the morning as he often did. 

“Good morning brighteye, chaser of mists 

Flinging off the gloom and catching her wrists, 

Tossing her up in a dance and a spin 

Like the foam and the sea, she asks for a kiss!” 

   Then Arwen heard the call of a hawk, keening away in the pines, and looked for it. She saw the silver fleck of it in flight far away, and a bird-shaped shadow gliding across the sheer face of a cliff. Her eye was drawn down to the switchback road into the valley, and there she spotted a handful of horses sauntering down in a row. She shadowed her eyes from the sun with her hand and- “Look, it’s Bilbo!” She cried excitedly. 

“What a nice surprise! I wonder if he knew it was your birthday,” The twins said, sitting up to look. 

“If he did, he’s a day too late!” Arwen laughed, already thinking how she might tease him for it. “He better have brought me a gift!” 

“It looks like he’s brought us something, but it’s elves,” Said Elrohir. “And I don’t recognize them at all.” 

     There were three elves steering their horses in the wake of Bilbo’s pony. Arwen did not recognize them either, but she thought they all looked alike, even at a distance. Right behind Bilbo was a gray horse, its rider dressed all in garnet and green, with gold beads in her hair and cuffs stacked on her ankles. Bringing up the rear on a tall brown horse rode an elf plainly dressed but for a silver necklace and ear hoops, her bare feet crisscrossed on the saddle rather than in the stirrups, armed with a bow and arrow as the rear rider often is. The rider in the center of the party had a long tumble of bluish black hair on a gold horse, her pink dress fluttering in the wind as she looked out across the valley. She turned her head and seemed to look right into Arwen’s gaze. 

They heard a scuffle inside, and Elrond suddenly came scampering out onto the balcony a moment later, hurrying right past them to the railing. 

A huge beaming smile spread across her face. 

“CELEBRIMBOR!” She called, waving. 

One of the elves’ heads jerked up, the one behind Bilbo with the gray stead. She smiled just as much, and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“ELROND!” 

For a moment they almost feared Elrond might jump right off the balcony, but she turned on her heel and sprinted back inside. Arwen and the twins followed after. 

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