Chapter Text
It had been many years since she had met Gandalf the Grey, and many more still since he had met her.
A bright sunny morning, as it often was in those days, the old wizard was coming to the end of his journey to the Elf city of Rivendell when, by chance, he took a route through Trollshaw Forest he had not gone through before. When stopping for a rest and to smoke a bit of pipeweed, as he sat down on the overgrown giant roots of the moss-covered trees, Gandalf became aware of the cries of an infant.
Odd, Gandalf thought, as there seemed to be no settlements or encampments in the area. There were no paths in this wood, nor any signs of a comfortable living having been made by anyone at all. He extinguished his pipe and knocked it against the tree root he’d made use of as a bench, then stood and followed the sound of the crying to a short, stout tree that twisted around itself and leaned to one side.
“Not an Ent nor an enchanted tree,” Gandalf muttered to himself as he inspected it. The cries had quieted slightly when he had approached the tree, as if whatever poor creature was crying had been startled into silence by the sound of his footsteps. But he could see nothing on the tree or around it.
But then he thought to look on the side of the trunk facing the forest floor. Though not perfectly parallel with it, the trunk was still leaning enough that he had to bend over a little more than he deemed comfortable to give it a good look. Then, once he noticed it, it was hard to figure how he might have missed it at all.
“Oh! There you are, you unfortunate thing...”
On the lesser seen side of the trunk, nearer to the roots than to the upper branches, there was a hole in the tree; and within the whole, there was a small infant wrapped in a cloak, looking very dirty and very ill. Gandalf set his staff on the ground, resting it against the old stout tree, and he carefully reached into the tree and brought the child out. She was awake still, but quiet as a mouse and staring back at him with big, round, frightful eyes.
After sitting down again on the roots of a bigger tree to look at her and make sure she wasn’t hurt – either due to sickness or the bite of a curious animal – he continued on towards Rivendell. As a wandering wizard, he would not do well to keep her too long, and she was cold and poorly; the inviting warmth to be found in the House of Elrond would surely be the best place for her.
Gandalf rode beyond the forest and crossed the valley that stretched onward before him. The Misty Mountains were within view, looking blue and white on the distant horizon, but it would be some time still before he reached them. With another mouth to feed and a young life to preserve, he travelled with fewer rests and a quicker pace, but he dared not to bring his horse to a gallop, lest he upset the poor child. It was by pure luck that he came across the Rangers of the North on the second morning since he’d found the child, and they were able to provide better help with her care.
After resting and renewing their energy, the Rangers offered to travel with Gandalf to ensure a safer journey towards Rivendell, and after accepting, the wizard thought to ask them if they had not heard of any missing children or possible villages he might not have been aware of that would have lost the sickly child. They knew of none, but they all observed – of the ones who were riding near enough to Gandalf to steal a glance of the sleeping infant – that she bore a likeness to any child that might have been one of the Dúnedain. Gandalf had noticed as well that though she was only a baby, she had similar dark hair and had a strange air about her once he gave her a long look with this in thought.
Upon reaching the House of Elrond, Gandalf gave the child to Lord Elrond’s healers, and while she was being cleaned, cared for, and fed, he spoke with Elrond at length about the different possibilities behind her having been left in that wood, in that tree. It was perplexing at first, but they felt it likely she may have been either unwanted or left out of necessity. Whatever the case, it was fortunate Gandalf had found her, and though he parted shortly after alongside the Rangers, he would remember her far better than she would remember anything at all of her first year in Rivendell.
It wasn’t until she was a child running alongside Elf-children, wearing clothes that were Elven in make and speaking very poorly in anything other than Sindarin, when she was formally introduced to Gandalf the Grey, and though he smiled at her fondly and spoke of her with the familiarity of a distant relative, she swore she had never met him before.
By this time, she had two Elves as parents: one, a bookkeeper in Elrond’s library, who was called Dartha-Harthad, and the other, a poet called Aradel. The name they gave her was Silivriel, a name similar to that of their son Silivros, who had been only a boy when they offered to take her in and brought her into their home. She was visibly different from her family and all of her friends, distinctly not Elvish in appearance whatsoever, but once she was let out of the home after her tutoring was through and she began to play and sing songs with the other Elven youth, she could hardly be distinguished from them in her behaviour and her speech.
Though aware of her peculiar origins, Silivriel belonged to Rivendell, and she was not at home anywhere else. So when Gandalf the Grey arrived once again to Rivendell with things to do and plans to enact, and still found time to pay her and her family a visit, she of course welcomed him in through the only front door she’d ever known to be hers with a smile on her face, expecting nothing more than to share a dinner and then continue on with her tranquil life after he left again.
In defence of the old wizard, he would have visited and dined with Silivriel’s family regardless of what he had learned of her recently. It pained him greatly to disrupt everything in such a sudden manner, but he felt she had a right to know. Though he was positive that she cared little of her origins in favour of her present life, he had heard from Elrond that her parents had told him she had occasionally – in the past – wondered aloud about herself in ways that others who were aware of their own origins would not.
Once the dinner was had, and they were all sitting at the table with their bellies full and the conversation nearly spent, there came the time for Silivriel’s mother Aradel to recite a poem or song to extend the celebration of the evening just a little longer, and then Gandalf would be off. It was always this way – he came infrequently, but every visit was the same and this was expected – but instead, Aradel looked at Gandalf and told him that Elrond had said he brought news from Gondor.
Gandalf leaned back in his chair and stared at his lit pipe for a few moments before answering. Silivriel and her brother Silivros thought little of this initially, only a brief change in the protocol of the usual visits from the wizard, it was nothing to be concerned over. But when his eyes turned up and peered across the table at Silivriel, he had a grim look about him, one that almost betrayed some nervousness. He puffed his pipe, then straightened his back and began.
“It was some time ago that I found you, Silivriel of Rivendell, wrapped in a cloak inside a tree. Far enough from any settlements for you to have been left by error, but not so far that I – for at least for a brief period of time – suspected you had some relation to the Rangers of the North. I have spoken with Lord Elrond of this many times over the years, and it was not until nearly three summers past that I heard something, completely by chance just as I found you, that caught my interest.
“I was riding with the Rangers, and one mentioned having met a man that was returning from visiting a relative, somewhere in Gondor – where in Gondor, this ranger did not say – and this man had casually mentioned to him that his relative worked for a wealthy breeder of horses that had once had a sister who had been lost for many years. This sister had been adopted by their family when she was only a child, and they knew it was likely she was one of the Rangers of the North, as she wore a seven-pointed star and she described them perfectly, but they kept her and cared for her as one of their own. This was all that the ranger with whom I spoke knew, that the traveller had mentioned it because he had been thinking of it when their paths crossed, and it was enough to plant a theory in my head.”
Silivriel waited, her parents both looked at each other in understanding. They both had their own theories and had suggested multiple origins to one another when they first became Silivriel’s parents, but they had not discussed them in years. Now that Gandalf had brought this information to them directly, they were both thinking of them again. The family waited and waited, and they listened as Gandalf resumed his story.
“I asked for the traveller’s name - it was Vingir, if you would like to know – and with little hope for answers, I set forth towards Gondor to seek out the man’s relative and wealthy employer. Neither was an easy feat, you would imagine, but I managed it... I met Vingir’s cousin Ard, on his way to work with his little son Hamma. They were kind enough to introduce me to his employer, and I... Oh, well, I simply said I was looking for a stable in which my horse would be treated better than in any other, and this employer – calling himself Master Enthor – took it upon himself to try a hand at impressing me with his hospitality.
“As the evening went on, I politely inquired about his family, and he said he had a brother and two sisters, but that one had sadly been lost for many years, longer than she’d been with the family. He explained what I already knew, that his sister had been adopted, and his family suspected she had come from the Rangers of the North. I expressed my sorrow that he had not yet found her, but he surprised me and told me he was not looking. That she had met another Ranger, one she greeted by name upon seeing him for what Enthor had initially assumed was the first time, and while they spoke to one another as childhood friends for a time, this Ranger prolonged his stay in Minas Tirith, and they soon after fell in love.
“Enthor’s mother and father forbade her from leaving with him, but she left the city one night to marry him all the same, taking with her the seven-pointed star she had worn on her cloak when they first found her. Through much subtle prying, I gained a description of this woman, and though some of the appearance is likely from the father, much of her is similar to yourself, Silivriel.”
Silivriel felt seized by the unwanted information. She had wondered in the past, but this was the past. Now that she was hearing all of this, she feared she would be forced to leave some her current and only home behind. There was little in Gandalf’s tone that indicated he was merely telling her and her family this for the sole reason of them knowing it.
“I asked the Rangers again,” Gandalf continued with a heavy sigh, “and they informed me that they did, in fact, know of a woman that fit this description, though they did not know the name I gave them, for it was a name forced upon her by the family that took her in while in Gondor. They remembered that many years before I found you, Silivriel, one of their own returned from Gondor with a pregnant wife that had once been one of their own as well. Her parents had been killed by Orcs, leaving her an orphan. The pair did not remain with the other Rangers for very long after your birth, however, and the Rangers knew not where they might have been for very long... The only other piece of information they could give me, apart from names, was that they gave this woman a thick cloak that was identical to the one you had wrapped around you when you were left in that tree.”
“She is one of the Dúnedain,” Aradel said in a low voice. It was of no surprise to her or to her husband, but it had never before been confirmed.
“Is there a further purpose to your visit, Gandalf?” asked Dartha-Harthad, anticipating an unfavourable answer.
“I am afraid, dear friend, that there is. You see, I returned to Gondor to confirm the original name of the woman Enthor once called a sister, and while he himself had never called her this name, he was kind enough to check his parents’ old papers, and he did find that very name written down on one single letter that his mother never remembered to send to her sister, where she was going to tell her of their intentions to raise a little girl they’d found, but change her name to be more fitting, fearing she would stand out too much among the other young girls on their street.”
“Oh, Gandalf...” Aradel felt she knew where this might have been going and she held her hand over her husband's.
“I thanked Enthor for confirming this connection, and he demanded then to know why I was prying into his family history. I explained everything... and he would like your daughter to visit Gondor, so that he may meet his late sister’s child.”
It was very silent for a moment. Aradel and Dartha-Harthad both waited with bated breath for Silivriel's reaction, though their son Silivros reacted first. Uncomfortable and displeased as he was, he opted against standing quickly and marching out of the dining room as he would have really liked to do, and he instead leaned forward and asked Gandalf, “Is it necessary? You said yourself, Gandalf, that this man was not looking for his sister, so why ought I part with mine to satisfy his curiosity?”
Gandalf’s bushy eyebrows shot up and he puffed his pipe for a moment before reassuring the young Elf. “I am not here to force your sister on the road to Gondor, young Silivros, but should she accept, you are welcome to accompany her, if you’d like.”
Silivriel stood then. Her face was very pink and she wore a deep frown. “Excuse me. I am going to my bedroom.” And she left. Shortly after, Silivros followed after his sister, looking even more upset than before. Gandalf, Aradel and Dartha-Harthad all sighed heavily, and Dartha-Harthad held his head in his hands.
After a few minutes of silence that grew increasingly heavy in discomfort, Aradel stood and tearfully excused herself, leaving her husband alone with the old wizard. Gandalf took no delight in upsetting anyone, but he still had hoped they might have all at least stayed in the room long enough to form a decision of some sort. As his pipe slowly began to go out, he looked at Dartha-Harthad, who was observing him through his fingers. He'd known Elrond's bookkeeper since he was a young Elf, and as composed and elegant as Dartha-Harthad normally appeared to be, he could not hide himself behind good manners all hours of the day. He was too tired.
Dartha-Harthad slouched, brushed his fingers through his hair and set the pin that had held it back on the table. He folded his hands together and shut his eyes for a moment, thinking, then he re-opened them and asked Gandalf, “What is her name? You said the Rangers told you names. Of her mother and father?”
Gandalf gave Dartha-Harthad a very serious look and stated very firmly, “You and your wife are her parents, old friend, do not undermine your care for her like that. The husband and wife who bore her would have been very grateful, no doubt, for all you have done for her. You have raised her marvellously.”
“Thank you, Gandalf. And the names. Of the mother and father she had before us? Or do you know the name they gave her as well?”
“Well, if satisfying your curiosity will cure any upset you feel, then fine. I will tell you.” Gandalf lit his pipe again and blew a smoke ring that danced above the table for a moment. “Her name, dear friend, was Bera.”