And then it seemed to him... the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.
This scene, Frodo's first sight of the Undying Lands, is one that immediately struck me on first reading and has been in my mind much since. I cannot overstate how much I appreciate Tolkien's depiction of Frodo. What he went through was nothing short of hell, and it broke him irrepairably. He has kept himself going for the sake of his home, his loved ones, nursing wounds that won't heal, until he knows they are well on the way to healing. He longs for relief, for an ending, but refuses to give into despair. The last glimpse we get of Frodo is not one of devastation, but hope. He looks upon a foreign land, far from home, having left behind so much in pursuit of a small measure of peace, and his first thought is of its beauty. I needed that so much, this hope.
I don't think of myself as an artist really, but I do enjoy dabbling from time to time. This one is the result of playing with graphic markers and acrylic paint pens. I'm pleased to be able to share this with you now that writing for @fall-for-tolkien Scribbles & Drabbles 2025 is underway!
Celebrían was not expecting to meet all of Elrond’s passed lovers when she sailed to the undying land. She didn’t think of them on the long journey across the sea, and if she had, she would only assume they were still in Mandos, along with everyone else she might know who departed Middle-earth.
Celebrimbor is polite in a distant way. He has other things to do (the Fëanorians demand at least one lord). His relationship with Elrond was quite brief, too, and eclipsed by everything that occurred with Sauron and the making of the rings.
Gil-galad is even more gregarious than she dimly recalled and invites himself to visit many times. He drags her around to all the best spots in a few days’ journey of Tirion, or the shore—wherever she stays. He takes her along to visit various distant family members (it’s still unclear if they are his family, but they are hers). She talks to them when she must.
...stands shoulder to shoulder with Elrond as both distantly gaze out over the sea the night before the Ring-bearer's ship is to leave.
"It is a strange thing," Maglor says after some moments of silence, "to laugh even a little after spending so long in loneliness and despair."
"Bilbo Baggins is a singular hobbit," Elrond replies, tone a mixture of proud and mysteriously wistful. "I am of the opinion of Mithrandír Olórin in that hobbits are good for the soul. Especially the Elven constitution."
Maglor tries to pretend at dignified silence before he erupts once more into snorting laughter.
"He called me lad," he chuckles softly as he shakes his head, overcome with the absurdity that is Bilbo Baggins. "He called me lad and then asked how long I was going to wallow in my griefs like a child pouting over spilt milk."
Elrond turns to look at his once kidnapper turned foster-father, silver eyes shining with the remnants of a Silmaril, his unique Maiaran heritage, and aged like only the old and wise Eldar can account, his lips turned up in a half smile that set his face into a mask of mischief.
"I quite look forward to the havoc he wreaks in Elvenhome. Valar know he has brought enough to my own house these past years."
My other fic wasn’t cooperating with me (brain insisted one tense, fic said another), so guess what I wrote.
Summary: Celebrían returns alive, but not whole. Elrond must let her go.
Warnings: Major character death, mentions of torture (mentions, not descriptions)
ao3
Word count: 1.3k
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There is pain in his heart as he watches her, unable to tear his eyes away. She has yet to heal, and so he remains trapped at her bedside, lost in thought and in pain.
He can feel her faintly in his mind, offering some semblance of comfort when it ought to be the other way around. He should be comforting her, should be healing the wounds that she should never have had borne.
But instead his healing hands have failed him, and so instead he sits beside her, watching.
She is resting, that much is a relief. He does not think he could bear it if she were to awaken fully again now, if she were to bear the full agony of her wounds.
The road to her homeland was supposed to be safe. The warriors he had sent with her were supposed to be strong.
Perhaps he should have gone with her, but neither of them could have anticipated that this would be the outcome.
*
She wakes. He wakes beside her, rising from a doze. For all he would do for her if she asked, even he must rest at times.
My love, she says weakly, and he takes her hand in his. She is frail now, weaker than he had ever seen her. Her wounds may be healing, and in time her mind may as well, but he cannot fathom such a thing now.
His wife was before so full of life, before a whirl of energy and passion condensed into a body smaller than his, a warrior of the tongue and of love. She was the driving force that kept him moving as he watched everyone else around him melt away. And with her, he was able to breathe new life into the world, instead of easing only the passing of old.
He loves her. He cannot bear to lose her.
She smiles, and he feels her hand in his give a faint squeeze. She finds the strength to pry her eyes open, and so their eyes meet, grey and grey, but of different shades. His are ever burdened by life, and hers are the eyes of a woman who finds delight in living. She smiles, stronger this time, and then she returns to wherever her mind takes her when she cannot stay awake.
*
He leaves her side little. Thrice, and thrice only, does he leave, and even then, only because his children each wish to speak with her alone. He sleeps fitfully then, and those around him can do little to ease his pain.
In his head he knows she lives, but his heart cannot yet accept it. He still wakes shaking with the fear of loss that had held him tight in its grasp when he received word of her fate. The fear did not release him until she was found and they returned her to their home, but it seems that even now, as she is healing, the fear cannot let him go.
He rises to his feet and begins the walk to her side once more.
*
There is little he can do for her once she can stand. Her body has recovered, though the scars will linger as long as she does. But he can do nothing for her mind but simply never leave her side. She walks with him, arm in arm around the lands she has helped carve out and protect in the past years, in a life that seems so distant. As a person who seems so different.
Her silver hair lies slack against her, lackluster now where before it had gleamed. He cannot fathom how quickly she has changed. They are both Eldar. They are not creatures of change.
But in the weeks she was gone, she has faded away, and left behind the husk of the person he had pledged his heart to.
He cares for her, and he mourns, and she mourns too, for all that they have lost.
*
He does not know how he survives the coming months, but does, and she survives beside him. Their children step up and do what he cannot, and together with his advisors, they keep their realm together and the woman they love on a path that leads to life.
It will not last. He knows it cannot, knows it will not. She is a fighter, his wife, but he can see that in her heart, she knows this is a battle she cannot win. Her capture had broken her in ways he cannot mend.
For all the good his hands of healing have done, in this, at least, they are tied.
*
Their love does not fade, and for that, he is grateful. Their bond remains hale and whole, and although he must learn to leave her side increasingly often, he feels her in his mind and heart, and knows that still she lives. It is a comfort that does beyond what he thought it could, and yet, it is still a bare one.
Their love does not fade, but he knows that one day his wife will. She cannot linger on these shores, loathe as he is to lose her so completely and so soon. He will not sail for many, many years, and to watch her sail without him by her side is a wound that embeds itself in his chest, digging into his heart and never allowing him rest from the pain.
*
I love you, he tells her one evening, wrapped in her arms as she is in his, lost in grief and in his love for her. She smiles, and tells him she knows, and that she loves him also. She tells him that although she may be leaving him, her love will not Fade with her.
He holds her tighter, and remains there until morning.
*
He does not watch her sail for some months yet, but at last a year and more have passed since she was captured, and so they walk, surrounded by their children, on one final journey together.
Their daughter weeps, and their sons are beside themselves, but none will dare defy their mother on her intent to sail West. They know how she has suffered, and they know of the peace she may find there.
They reach the docks all too soon.
Tearfully, she kisses the foreheads of each, a final gesture of parting. They have said their goodbyes before, but phrases are repeated now. She smiles, tears in her eyes.
At last, she reaches him, and kisses first his forehead, then his mouth, one last time, in the last embrace they will share for the hundreds of years they know they will be parted for. Dear husband, she says, and he fights for composure as she says goodbye, one last time.
The next time I see you, she promises, it will be without the shadow of another parting hanging over us.
She boards the ship, and he stands aside with their- his- children, watching as the wind fills the sails and she is carried out of even their sight.
The twins lift their voices in an old song of parting as their mother sails. He does not know if she can hear them.
He enters quarters he has shared with his wife all these years, and although she has taken little with her, still he can feel the change that has settled over the room. He sits on their bed, now his, and his alone. The room seems empty beyond belief.
There is no comfort in the scent of her that lingers, but he inhales it while it stays, and closes the window so that it may linger a little while longer. He must let go, but he cannot tonight.
He lies down, alone even in his mind as he has so rarely been, and even then, Elrond cannot help but feel the phantom of Celebrían's embrace.
Going through my promos, the Outstanding EP Sailing West, out August 25, won over my ears. This certainly should create some buzz: sounds like Portugal. The Man meets Shlohmo meets Lapalux!
