Work Text:
“In the name of the air, of the rivers, and of the starlight, I take you.”
What beautiful words. Words he had uttered so has to take, as he said, Celebrían as his soul partner. Following them, she had murmured the same sentence, and then leaned in to swallow his shaky breaths. That night, they had fallen against the pale green grass, laughing as the trees bent to cover their shamelessness. That night, they had coveted; Elrond had entered, Celebrían had shared, and the little blue light of life began.
Now, the words felt insufficient. They paled to what he could not say now.
Elrond should have said more.
It began as a song only he could hear.
One that shimmered over the Bruinen in glass shards of soundwaves. So faint–just nearly inaudible. Yet, it remained completely silent to those it did not want to notice it.
It was a quiet winter, the world, and the valley, was silent without its Lady. The quiet was just enough that through the frozen river, the music began.
It bounced off the walls of snow, into the barren trees, and flowed freely into the halls of Imladris. By the first sprigs of spring, Elrond had memorized the tune–Celebrían’s melody. It seemed as though a part of her still resided in the valley and in the water. Wading through the Ainur’s song, interjecting with her own hymn.
Logically, Elrond knew this was the result of too many nights unslept. Half-elven as he was, he was subject to the same consequences of overtiredness as men were. Had he the mind he would have corrected his body, healed his own aches. But the nightmares were too fearsome, the bed lacking warmth.
The twins found him that first night. He still reeked of seawater and defeat, wrapped in a bundle of Celebrían’s gowns. All bright and gold, the fabric a little too rough to aid or comfort. They had plucked their Atar from his worn spot on the rug, murmuring kindness and what healing they had learned so far.
Yet, all Elrond could do was clutch the fabrics closer to his heart, breathe in what remained of Celebrían’s scent (the one not water-logged and soaked in fear) and whisper, urgently: “she’s here, she’s still here.”
It had been many, many nights since he last slept. In that time Celebrían had visited often.
In spring, he found the river was ripe with what remained of the Lady of Imladris. The song swelled by the river. And deeper, he found, in the forests, it grew until a symphony drowned out all wildlife. Elrond could never forget her voice, the simple sweetness she held in a small hum. It was bell-like, wrought with the scent of summer and the weight of joy. It coaxed him farther into the woods, farther down the riverbed until he was nearly out of the valley.
That was when she appeared. Ghost-like–the sight of which made his chest fill with mossy stones that stopped his breath–she was a vision of white, a speck of dandelion pappi–the effulgence of a crisp, clean morning.
Elrond saw her above the river, her glow spread out in a thick layer of ivory, molten gold. She seemed to float, as though in water. He was submerged up to his waist before she spoke. Here, the song paused for her. The river wavered with her words.
“Meleth, Elrond–in the name of the air, and of the rivers, I speak to you.” Her tongue was laden in a murky loveliness. The pitch was just off. Enough so, that Elrond held a brief moment of clarity. He looked to the river, to his own dappled legs beneath its surface. His eyes burned with tears and exhaustion.
“You–” he began, but the sanity lifted as he saw Celebrían begin to shrink. Her brilliance dimmed, until she was a fine dot on the horizon, just as she was when she sailed.
Elrond turned frenzied. He followed her in the direction he thought she could have gone. The song went widdershins, floating around him. It slunk through the trees, crackling, jumbled, as though heard by a man half-deaf.
“Celebrían!” He called, “Celebrían!”
They found him deep in the woods, head tilted towards the starlit sky. Elrond was scouring the tree-limbs, ears still quirked to the tiny pools of river. Lindir sent a worried look towards Glorfindel when all their Lord could say was that he was guarding her song.
Celebrían appeared habitually. In little shows of light. Like a flickering candle lit by an open window–so easily subject to extinguishing. Sometimes her brilliance was far too bright, her eyes shadowed by her own glow. Her face mottled in darkness. Those days, he closed his eyes, listened to her sing, and tried to ignore the fact that he had forgotten the exact hue of her eyes.
Elrond spent many a day down by the river, soaking in the mud. Listening and listening.
He cannot go on like this. They whispered. How do we heal the healer?
It was Arwen who finally led him from the riverbed. She placed her small hand in his and pulled him to the city.
“Come, Atar,” she said. “You must sleep.”
She laid him in her own bed, Elrond’s body far too long and clunky to fit properly. His legs slung against the wooden trunk at the edge, his head pressed to the wall behind him.. But the bed was warm, it smelt of home. The salt of the sea remained outdoors.
Elrond stared frightfully up at the ceiling. The weeks awake burned tears into his eyes as he traced the painted stars. He didn’t want to lose her song, to lose her. Not again…not again–
Arwen began to hum. A soft hum, with no real tune. His blink soothed the pain upon his face; he turned his gaze to his daughter and watched as she rocked back and forth with her song. She ran a soothing hand along his arm until weariness finally caught up to him. Elrond pressed himself into the bed, curling into the lump of too-small blankets. The night grew dark, this time he welcomed it.
Elrond closed his eyes and listened, until all he could hear was Arwen.