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Celebrían dreams of Aragorn, long before Arwen is born.
As a new bride, she thinks the smiling stranger in her mind is Elros, somehow lifted from the surface of her husband’s thoughts to wash across her own. Delighted at their union, as Elrond is certain that his brother would have been.
And he wears Elrond’s face, that dream-guest, only weathered. Worn. His smile is what Elrond’s might be, were he certain of his ending.
That weary nobility moves her; it stings the tender spaces in her heart. There is a patient sorrow in him, a look of ancient yearning. And yet his laugh lines are deep, his mouth is soft, and there is a tell-tale prankish sparkle in his eyes.
Was Elros dimpled? Celebrían asks, at breakfast, thinking to surprise her new husband with her reading of his ever-seeking heart.
Elrond only laughs. Oh, no! That was the one way to tell us apart, when we were small. Ros got the majesty, you know. The mischief was always mine. And he flashes that grin that sets her burning, the hollow of his cheek furling as he reaches to kiss her, then lifts her to the table-top, scattering the plates.
Well. Not Elros, then.
She puzzles, as the grey-eyed stranger becomes a recurring feature of her dreams. That he wanders out of place is certain; he is no creature of the time she knows. Who will he be? Celebrían wonders.
Her mother’s prophetic skills have attenuated to almost nothing in herself – what threads of foresight Celebrían draws from wisps of light and intuition are gossamer fine, untelling. There is no harm, she thinks, in waiting. They have all of time before them. Someday, she will tease out what his presence means.
And it is comforting, after a while, to have such a predictable, misty companion. When the days grow weary, or the shadows loom too long, he comes creeping into her starlit hours with his wry mouth and his capable, steady hands. Celebrían drifts in her dreaming, wandering after him on his long rovings, seeking some marker of their common purpose. She tracks him, curious, as he strides with intent through battered, half-familiar lands.
He is never a child in her visions of him; always a man grown, solid and sure. Forceful, at need, but not hardened. Playful, when the spirit catches him. He sings, in her mind’s eye: softly over his lonely campfires or fiercely into the teeth of the harrowing wind. He is so familiar, in the way his eyes crinkle, in how that dimple flashes. In the softness with which he speaks: under everything, he is kind, kind, kind.
Celebrían develops a proprietary fondness for him – this future child of Men who has blundered, somehow, into the cycles of her dreaming. If she could, she would chivvy him as a mother should: to wash his hair, to dance, to take heart against the grinding sadness of the lonely moors, to draw his collar close around his throat when the chill wind bites and the storm clouds loom.
He fades, for a time, when her own children spark into being. The years of their youth are too busy for dreams. But as they grow to their own strength, he weaves back in among them: her fourth child, her spirit’s son. A forward echo, perhaps, of those other boys she fosters in Imladris – all grey eyed and tall, with a flavor of Elros. All those bright lads; those fine, sad men.
And so they drift, dreaming, through the flowing seasons. Until the journey. The terror.
The Pass.
In the bitter horror of the tunnels, Celebrían’s mind slips sideways, fractures, longs to be gone. She cannot bear the desperate touch of her loved ones’ thoughts: seeking, seeking. She is too raw, untethered. She does not wish to be found.
But he is there, a steady presence in her fevered dreams. In tomorrow’s memory he hunts with the twins, laughs with Elrond in the library, dances with Arwen until long after dawn. He is a warm weight, anchoring her. Estel, she thinks.
Celebrían clings to him as a wounded mother might. Seals her heart against the bruising misery. Holds on.
It is enough to save her, perhaps, but not enough to keep her. Among her many griefs, the thought that they will never meet now stings. Elrond will come to her, by the long road or the short, but she will miss this other kinsman she has dreamed of for so long.
Packing to sail, Celebrían sifts listlessly through her jewel case. So many spangled beauties, so inappropriate for the revenant she has become. Arwen tuts her disapproval of Celebrían's mournful mood. She holds up bauble after bauble, teasing her mother to laughter through her tears: this one for gardening, this for your afternoon swim, this one – oh, Ammë, yes! – for teatime with your grandpapa the King.
The green stone glimmers in the depths of the case: a gift from Galadriel that she has never worn. It always felt too heavy, too burdened with the long years of others’ struggles, with the great deeds of the world in which she’d had no part.
She fumbles it into Arwen’s hand, her tongue suddenly swollen with prophecy.
For Estel, Celebrían blurts, thinking of her shadow-son’s fine eyes, his dimpled grin, his confident stride.
Arwen hears the greater meaning of the word. She nods, and shivers, and folds the shining stone against her heart.