The Farewell Feast | Lord of The Rings
Candy Hearts Exchange entry for @traveleorzea.
Tar-Undómiel was wed, and her grandmother was all out of fruit wine.
"We cannot have that," said Mithrandir, gravely. "The people of Gondor and their allies are bold and true, but of the Lady of Lothlórien are frightened already; they shall be all the more if my lady be displeased in earnest."
"Oh, do be quiet," said Galadriel, and stole his cup.
Tar-Undómiel was wed, and her grandmother was all out of fruit wine.
"We cannot have that," said Mithrandir, gravely. "The people of Gondor and their allies are bold and true, but of the Lady of Lothlórien are frightened already; they shall be all the more if my lady be displeased in earnest."
"Oh, do be quiet," said Galadriel, and stole his cup.
The wine and her pride both tasted bitter on the tongue, and cloying in the mouth. That was good; true enough, in any case.
She was all out of patience for company, besides. It was the decorum of millennia that kept her ears from twitching when Mithrandir made a point of sighing when he sat himself upon the steps to the White Tree.
The light of the stars upon the white trunk of the tree was cold and dreadful and lovely, but more so was the gleam of Galadriel’s face turning to him. “It is not wise to disturb one that may wish to stand alone, and not stand in company.”
“Indeed, if we are to meditate upon the blossoming of the Tree of the King, one will do best to do it sitting,” said he. The bones he wore, the face of elderly age, creased into an irrepressible smile, but at least he made use of his wisdom not to aim it at her.
She minded him not, and stepped closer to the White Tree. The brittleness of its branches had softened and hardened already; damp and rich, the wood grew as tissue, prickling with the promise of new leaves.
The music that swept through the high walls and hallways of the King’s House struck her as a promise as well; the suspended chords as full of possibility as the potent evening.
Mithrandir sighed again, and Galadriel felt the weight of it upon her own shoulders. “The lady is very happy.”
She was. Never had Arwen looked more joyful to her grandmother's eyes, and wiser, and mightier. And yet it had been a joy mingled with sorrow, and a joining of the two that that felt the parting most starkly.
There had been dark circles under the queen’s eyes, and for a moment, clasping her cold hands, Galadriel had seen with perfect clarity the old woman she would be, grey and lined under her veils.
And the ancient lady had smiled at her, just as her granddaughter did, had - the dimpled cheeks, the upturned chin.
"Her reign shall be long and fruitful, and all shadows shall scatter before her name," said Galadriel. "She will be happy. And she will sorrow greatly; but that is the choice of her kind."
"All kinds have their own choice," Mithrandir remarked, not unkindly. "And I shall be certain to win your ire, lady, but I dare it to know the heart of a friend; are you well?"
The gleam of his eyes under his brow was as of a steady fire. The spirit underneath had changed since his return; but not his unfettering nosiness.
They knew each other too well, the two of them.
She had spent the day furious. The year, the decade, the near-century since Gilraen’s young son walked under the golden leaves of Lothlórien and made her solemn granddaughter smile. But then, she had been angry well before then. Since her daughter was captured; since the fall of Eregion, since her brothers died one after the other in treachery and ruin, and before that -
Galadriel had been angry for so long, and now she was tiring of it at last. She was tiring.
"I am well, Mithrandir." Galadriel placed her fingertips lightly under one the new silver leaves, testing the course of sap in its thousand small filaments. "And whatever I feel as an ill is not beyond my bearing."
The drummers had turned their beat slower, and the harpists and flutists lingered sweetly along their melody, before the king and the queen had made their way out of the party; since then, the musician’s hands had flown all the more swiftly, a merrymaking flurry with the last pretense of stately grace out of it.
The feasting would go on for the rest of the night, and much of the coming day besides. Reconstruction work was halted, and much food was made free to the people of Minas Tirith.
The last Galadriel had seen of it, the halflings had been rousing their friends to join them in an intricate circle dance - young Peregrin taller than when last she had seen him and his stout heart stouter, Meriadoc’s eyes gleaming, Samwise the Bold with his master’s arm threaded through his. And Frodo Baggins -
“He is not entirely beyond joy,” Mithrandir said. “That is a good start; and beyond it, I knew only of the one certain remedy; the that we shall both have to countenance in time with him.”
“He may not choose to Sail,” said Galadriel, a little pointedly. So much for old friendship! It let them needle and nettle at each other. She might have forgotten entirely what brotherhood was like, if not for Mithrandir.
There was silence, and in it Galadriel was thinking not of friendship, but of the Tree, of the foremother of the Tree: the one in the courtyard of the Kings of Númenor, the was tall and generous - in Elenna, Númenor, the Island of the Gift, where the descendants of Elros had been rained upon by a flurry of blossoms every spring, after the rains turned.
And before that, the Trees of her Youth, which was the youth of the world, and would never be again.
“Soil has been brought,” Galadriel said. “With my own hands I turned and raised it from the rich grounds of Lothlórien.”
“The thought did come to me,” Gandalf admitted. “That there might be some need, and some useful good in having the last power of the ancient in the healing of the Tree. And there is no better gardener on these shores than yourself, my lady; except perhaps for Samwise Gamgee.”
“Master Samwise has done pride to his profession already, and given Tar-Elessar a lecture on the care of old roots,” said Galadriel, and Gandalf snorted against his unlit pipe. “Undómiel shall know what to do for the reviving of these ancient boughs, and they shall be great and glorious once again."
Merry would be the laughter of children underneath it, and many the long centuries of its blossoming in the Age to follow.
Oh, but she was so very weary. Foresight was a heavy thing to carry, even that which spoke of joy to come.
Above, Gil-Estel shone its light. She thought of bold-hearted Earendil at its prow, peering down to watch his granddaughter be wed. Galadriel and Celeborn had sought to do as he and Elwing could not - to be parents and grandparents enough, history and lineage, love and pride. But those griefs they had lived were not a matter of legend, almost forgotten; the children who ran under the newly-made walls of Minas Tirith would know her not, nor their ancestors; and so would the deeds of old be forgotten, and all that was virtuous and terrible in them.
Last she had seen him, Elrond had been speaking with the lords of Men and the halflings, smiling; and now that Elessar and his queen had removed themselves to their marriage bed, he was certain to take himself to some quiet place and hide his sorrow against a balustrade. Not soon; but soon enough. And not swiftly, but swiftly enough, her husband would go to him, and give what comfort might be had. Not she alone would be giving her farewells to Arwen and Celeborn, for all they both longed to meet Celebrían healed anew by the shores of Aman.
She refused to consider Celebrían might not have healed.
Galadriel said, "For a long time, I had not intended to Sail."
Not for remorse, and not for pride; though pride was a thing she suffered to surpass. But the sheer practical need of the thing: the Woods would wane if left unattended; and left to his own devices Celeborn would go off studying lichens and no one would see him again, and her grandchildren -
“Are no more or less likely to refuse the call to the West for having their foremother hovering in anticipation to think badly of their Choice, be it mortality or elvendom,” said Mithrandir. “My lady.”
Galadriel lifted her chin coolly. “Are you saying I have made myself domineering, Mithrandir?”
He laughed. It sounded almost exactly as his laughter had, before his death and return: but clearer - more spirit in it than flesh, and the spirit very bright and strong. “I am saying I am not and have not been afraid of you these many years, lady, and I little behooves me to start now; I am too settled into the habit of it.”
“You ought to have,” Galadriel said, truthfully enough.
“Perhaps,” Mithrandir agreed, agreeably, in the way he had of old. It had taken such a long time, until she was wise enough to accept kindness. “Perhaps. And yet I have not. But you have been my friend, lady. Once, you allowed me to prove my right to be trusted, when much cause you would have had to distrust any of my kind - I that am Sauron’s kin, who came to these shores in false guises as he did once. You gave me rest when I needed it most. On you I have held my faith, when mine own wavered before the great work against the Enemy. You might be terrible indeed with the Ring, as I could have been, and done much evil; but I suspect we would have understood each other too well even then to be very effective enemies.”
“I have hoped you might be wrong on that account.”
It had been a comfort, once, to know if she took the Ring the only one that would face her as an equal would be Mithrandir, and he knew her well enough to make strong opposition. To defeat her, perhaps - but that she had not liked thinking of, even when the temptation was not on her.
They had not always been in terms of trust. Galadriel was no friend to Maiar come bringing themselves and their wisdom in the name of aid and generosity; and not without pride, to be eager to be condescended upon as the last of the leaders of the Exiled, as Saruman had. She had been wary, war-strong, grieving; had cheated gladly and without shame in the using of the Ring Nenya, that erased the passing of time and kept the vigour of life full of splendour and might, untarnished by the great exhaustion that called to many of her kin.
Long ago, Mithrandir had come meandering, unwanted, unexpected, a rumour of unlikely aid given in the dark well before they met. He had gained the trust of the people of Middle-Earth. That had been a campaign they had joined forces in for many centuries.
And then the challenge had been put before her, so bright and tempting a thing that some great Power had to be at hand, to put it before her. And she had not failed the test; but it had been a ruinous victory.
Westwards, then: and homewards, to a diminishing life.
"Such wild enthusiasm, lady," Mithrandir said wryly.
Galadriel looked down at him from the high steps. “My husband shall not follow; my kingdom shall vanish into decay and memory behind me. Ought I be mad for joy, that I shall kneel before the Powers and repent?"
"There are worse prices so pay," Mithrandir said, as one who knew well of what he spoke. "To be able to rest. I do not pity you, Galadriel; and I do not think you shall be pitied as you fear, having stood so long against the Enemy."
She had not meant to Sail. Even after the Pardon - only after her daughter went far to the West, where she had never been, with Galadriel's letters tucked under her listless hands as some assurance of welcome among her distant kin. It was a hard thing to choose, but if not for Celebrían she would have chosen to linger, and become a Lingering spirit, as dearly entwined with her lord in this as in all things, a memory of leaves golden and silver, sunlight on running water, the sweet darkness of still leaves and stirring fern-shadows that was Celeborn's eyes and mind.
With Nenya fading from its power, the weariness of the world came to her as a tide rising, sweeping waves and a treacherous pull.
She looked at her friend, older than the world and still as a statue under the moonlight, the white of his robes and his hair and his beard unnaturally stark against the shadows. "And who waits for you, Mithrandir? What welcoming party receives one of the Ainur, returned from work and pilgrimage?"
He snorted. "More work than pilgrimage, I should think! My kin are not less able to love, as well you know, student of Melian! But we feel absence less keenly than the Eldar. I imagine I might walk home to the Gardens of Lorien, and greet my fellows in the Halls of Aulë, and be greeted as if never I had left the shore of Aman our house."
The notion seemed to amuse him, and to please him deeply between the wryness.
Galadriel breathed carefully the smell of the evening.
"I miss the smell. The shadows on Eldamar, where the shining moss grows, and the rivers sing - so quietly, and wild, and untended. Defiance has its glories; but I grow weary, Mithrandir. I should like to abide in a place where the keeping of the water and the earth is not my watchful duty alone."
"We meet both changed creatures, friend. Yet not so different, I think, from what we have been."
"Shall we stand watching the sunrise and speak wise words about the renewal of the world?"
"You make us sound very ancient and dire," said she.
But Galadriel did sit down at last, her bones aching for relief. Together they waited until the light over the city and the walls, the fields of battle, was golden and pink ad a bride, and the first buds of the tree opened their petals with a fresh and very new perfume, unhurried.
