I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.
-- "East Coker," T.S. Eliot
[Tuile 22, Year 2510 of the Third Age, Mithlond, called by some the Grey Havens. Shortly before midnight.]
Eventide had long before fallen over the sea-kissed coast of Cirdan's sanctuary, the soft, incessant swoosh of the waves lapping at the silver-sanded shore soothing to the ear, yet even they could not assuage the deep-rooted torment in Elrond's ancient soul. With a sigh as weighty as the burden of his heart, the Lord of Imladris stared out from the balcony of his long-time friend's private chambers, the sea calling him from the West, his home -- or the seemingly empty shell of a valley he called home -- whispering to him from the East. West was where his kind belonged, where his heart truly dwelt. If Mandos' Halls truthfully be in the West, and not beyond the world itself.
A few hours before, Elrond and Cirdan had watched a single white ship sail west into the ever-widening gulf, bearing Celebrian to the Blessed Lands, and whatever fate awaited her there. Despite the perfection of the afternoon sky, naught but a cloud of grief and guilt clouded Elrond's heart as he watched her silver hair and the ship which carried her fade into the distance.
A sudden hint of motion caught Elrond's attention, and he raised his gaze skyward in time to observe a swift meteor wing its way across the sky. "The Lady herself weeps at Celebrian's pain," he solemnly whispered.
A strong grip squeezed his shoulder, the contact surprisingly unable to bring any comfort at all to Elrond's soul. "You are not the cause of her pain," a familiar voice urged from behind the Peredhil's back.
"I am not so certain of that, my old friend."
Cirdan released his grasp of Elrond's shoulder and softly shifted to a spot along the railing next to his deeply grieved companion "Neither is she the cause of yours."
Avoiding the intense stare of his friend's unelvishly lined and aged face, Elrond instead focused on his forefinger, and the shackle of gold which had bound him for most of this age. He twirled the ring around his finger, pondering how it had never truly felt at home upon his flesh despite the obvious care taken in its crafting to assure a perfect fit. Its identical mate now sailed west, encircling Celebrian's finger. She had somehow borne the gold with far more dignity than Elrond could ever muster.
Yes, she bore the ring with the very same grace with which she had accepted the other glaring inadequacies and travesties of their marriage. Yet even Elrond had to admit the centuries had not passed without some moments of joy. Indeed, much of what Elrond had seen in Galadriel's mirror that fateful night had come to pass. He and Celebrian had been blessed with children as fair as the stars, and their years together had not been unpleasant. Yet as he only recently realized, in a moment of pained pondering of memories after Celebrian had announced her intention to travel West, one vivid tableau had not come to pass -- he had not lost his heart to the ithil-hued tresses which shared his bed.
More troubling still was the realization that he had not seen a hint of Celebrian's sufferings at the hands of the Orcs among the prophetic visions, nor her departure West. Nor had he actually seen his beloved King returned to him from Mandos' Halls. Indeed, he had nothing beyond Galadriel's carefully poised prose to suggest that Gil-galad would ever be returned to his bed, to his heart. Perhaps they had all suffered in vain -- Celebrian, himself, and his now-doomed king and true mate? No, not in vain, for the very first day he had seen the light in his daughter's beauteous face he knew without question that the very visage of Luthien had indeed been returned to the Eldar. That realization alone convinced him that all they had suffered was not in vain, yet he doubted it would ever be rewarded with more than the pain of seeing his daughter make the same choice as she whom Arwen so closely resembled before her. May Celebrian find the peace of the West, and may all her pains be taken from her, even as I know mine are far too deep to ever find the salve of healing.
Another of the Lady's silvery jewels careened across the sky, surrendering its glory to the night in a swift dance of sudden death. Memories of another night flooded back to Elrond, a night many years before, when he looked up at the stars of the valley, another night when the stars fell like the cool summer rain. "Do not close your heart to the Lady. She has most certainly not forsaken you." A tingling tremble of foreboding swept through him, the thought striking him as utterly inexplicable that he should remember the gray-garbed stranger who had spoken those words at this moment, and even stranger that he remembered certain of the unidentified messenger's words in particular. "It is said by some that whenever a star falls from the sky, the Lady crafts another to take its place," Elrond parroted without conviction, wondering if he was repeating the stranger's tale for Cirdan's benefit or his own.
"I have heard that, and many other stories concerning the Night of the Taltel," Cirdan offered in reply, his beard silently bobbing as he slowly nodded.
The sharp sting of unmistakable bitterness crept back into Elrond's voice. "Stories... would that half of the tales of happiness told in Middle-earth were true, and a much lesser part of the ones of misery."
Cirdan had known Elrond since the end of the First Age, and had known and served the one of whom he spoke for longer still, until his demise on the slopes of Mount Doom.
"Your thoughts are of one particular star, this night, and its eventual replacement," he gently guessed. Elrond wore his loss like an ill-fitting robe, drawing attention to itself with his every movement, with each breath.
"Its return," Elrond hastily corrected, his voice desperately trying to keep some toehold of hope while faced with the sheer precipice of utter desolation of the heart.
For the second time this hour, the gray-haired lord of the Havens reached out a hand and clasped his friend's shoulder in solace and support. "By the Lady's grace, it may be so,"
Cirdan earnestly offered. "Nothing would bring more joy to my heart than to look upon his face again, and to see the light return to yours."
The Lord of Imladris turned his head to meet the other's sincere expression of hope. "By the Lady's grace," Elrond echoed, knowing that was not the entire truth. For although the Lady might open her heart to his prayers, he knew the one, true gatekeeper to the shadowed halls could not be so easily swayed to pity. "If only I had the gifted tongue of my foremother," he whispered sadly, turning away once more.
"Even Luthien could not convince the Lord of the Dead to release her beloved, if it were not truly Iluvatar's will," Cirdan urged in reply, releasing his grasp of Elrond's shoulder.
"And to his thoughts none are privy, not even the Valar, it is said."
With a pain-drenched sigh whose depth rivaled that of the Sundering Sea, Elrond raised his eyes skyward and searched the patterns of the cool, twinkling gemstones of night for an answer other than the one which seemed firmly entrenched in his mind. "Then it may be that I, too, am doomed to the darkness, for the rest of days," Elrond gloomily answered.
"Perhaps we will not rejoice at the return of our King in this age, but that does not mean that your heart must remain in shadow, my friend!" Cirdan insisted vehemently. "Did you not tell me that Celebrian pronounced in the presence of Glorfindel, and Gildor Inglorion, and others of your advisors, that she would not doom you to spend the nights of Imladris alone? That she expected both your heart, and your bed, to be filled with the fire of love before this age ended?"
Closing his eyelids, Elrond could hear with startling vividness his wife's voice echoing in his head. "She said I have far too much love to give to be alone -- that it would be a waste of an unforgivable sort for me to remain with grief as my only partner."
Cirdan smiled broadly, and although Elrond failed to see it, he could most definitely hear the humor in the shipwright's voice. "She is a woman of equal parts beauty and insight." Elrond nodded sagely. "Our children have received both precious gifts from her bloodline."
"And from yours as well, my friend."
Unveiling his gaze, Elrond stared down at his right hand as it tightly clenched the stone railing. "I do not feel the font of wisdom this day." Elrond twirled the ring uncomfortably with his thumb, feeling it chafe his very spirit, as had its silver predecessor on the day of their betrothal. He remembered with agonized longing the golden ring he had worn in grief, hope, and boundless love, during the first years of this age -- the one, true ring from his only true marriage. How he longed to feel it against his skin once more, even as he more desperately ached to feel the one who had left it for him wrapped among his limbs and his lips. But just as he had waited twelve years to the night before binding himself to Celebrian after seeing the visions in Galadriel's mirror, so too he would leave the visible sign of his wife's sacrifices in the name of Middle-earth upon his finger for an equal length of time. It was the very least he could do to honor her.
Curling his fingers into a loose fist, he exhaled forlornly and gazed skyward. Yes, may you take away her pain, Lady Elbereth, and replace it with peace, even as I have failed to do either. Hesitating, he closed his eyes tightly and added one further thought. May you also take away the pain of my children, who understand so little of their mother's true courage. I ask for nothing for myself, save what I have asked for in vain for so long. Although I do not expect you to answer that prayer, as I have come to know pain as my only true friend in this age.
Opening his eyes, he watched in wonder as a brilliant bolide of shimmering gold was given birth near the Vilya-hued fire of Luinil and winged toward the eastern horizon, toward Soronume. Brighter than Vingilot itself, shining as a veritable rival of the Silmaril it bore, the fireball pierced through the heart of the starry eagle image and disappeared below the eastern horizon, in the direction of his home, and the spine of the world beyond.
"The Lady has heard at least a single prayer, this night," Cirdan hopefully spoke, gesturing at the lingering ghostly trail the meteor had left in its wake. "May it be yours."
"May it be," Elrond echoed in a hushed whisper, the tiniest embers of hope in his heart momentarily fanned into a true flame of faith.
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