Lady of Rivendell || Book 2 ||

Ch 5 ~ A Word with the Wizard

I follow Gandalf for over a quarter of an hour before he halts his hurried pace atop a grassy hilltop, overlooking the wide meadow that spreads beneath it to the east.

"There is our road," he proclaims, pointing out the well-travelled path that winds through the wilderness.

"The Great East Road?" I muse, coming up beside him and running an assessing eye over the wide landscape. The flat expanse of rock and shrub runs as far as the eyes can see, before rippling into steep hills at the foot of the shrouded mountains rising in the distance. I glance sidelong at the wizard. "Do not you think it too exposed?"

Gandalf huffs. "It is indeed exposed, Celebríel, but that does not change the fact that it is our road."

I raise a brow at his gruffness. "I take it Thorin disagrees?"

"Thorin is well aware that his opinions on our route are neither needed nor wanted yet he deigns to give them all the same. Swiftness will be our greatest ally in this quest, not stealth. We must move quickly, and this the best path to do so by."

I watch the wizard with amusement. In his harrowed state he rather resembles a perturbed crow, feathers puffed in indignation.

I stifle a chuckle. Yet as my eye turns east once more, a feeling less pleasant begins to gnaw at me, worsening the kernel of cold dread that had settled in my stomach at the sight of the familiar landscape. A somber shroud settles over me, quieting both voice and mind.

"I know these paths well, Gandalf," I say softly, letting the gently-blowing evening breeze carry my words to him. "The Great East Road leads to many a destination, but there is only one which you could possibly wish to reach."

My eyes find his. "Why are you leading us to Rivendell?"

He scoffs. "I should think to you it would be obvious, my lady. There is something hidden in that map. Something which only Lord Elrond has the skill to read."

I give a mirthless laugh. "Yes, which you had all but told to me at the meeting in the Shire. But do you truly expect me to believe that to be your only motive?"

He gives me an innocent look, and I roll my eyes.

"I know you better than you might think, Gandalf, and I know what you are trying to do. You care too greatly for my family for me to remain ignorant of it. But I have told you, I do not wish to reconcile with them. Not now, and perhaps not ever. I have chosen a life of solitude, and I am content with it."

"Chosen," he grumbles. "You are no fool, Lady Celebríel of Rivendell, so don't start acting like one now. This 'life' you have chosen is hardly a life at all. Lonely, and cut off from the world."

His eyes sharpen. "Your family misses you, my lady. The least you can give them is the courtesy of knowing you still live."

"You are acting like an overbearing mother, Mithrandir," I grumble, turning my back to him.

"And you like a petulant child."

Having riled him up when he was already irritated perhaps I deserve the reprimand, but my temper flares all the same. I whirl to face him again, heated words on my lips, but the pity I now find in his eyes instead of the anger I had expected halts me in my tracks.

"You are destined for more than this life of sorrow, child." His murmured words are streaked with feeling, tugging at my heart.

"More in legacy." He pauses, and his eyes flare with insistence. "And more in love."

The century-old wound buried deep within my chest strains, his words plucking at a scar that never truly healed. I gently shake my head, all the fire draining from my body as quickly as it had come.

"I forsook that path long ago, Gandalf. "

The wizard gives an exasperated grumble, irritation rising once more to his weathered face.

"It still lies open for you to take, child! If you would but take your head out of your wallow of self-pity for one moment, you would see that!"

"Enough." I mean for the command to be sharp yet it comes out weary, defeated.

He ignores me, continuing to glare.

"And what of your prince? Do you not still care for him? Is it not that care, which lives in you still, that has been weighing so heavily on your heart for all these years?"

Something inside my chest twists painfully, but I stifle it. "He is not my prince."

A wry smile. "Is he not? Tell me Celebríel, is there anyone else he holds so fiercely in his heart?"

I grit my teeth against his words, my temper beginning to simmer to the surface once more, but he does not relent.

"Did not he go after you, only a month after you left his father's halls, seeking your forgiveness? Did not he travel the long road to Rivendell, against the command of his father and king, only to not find you there?"

The breath leaves my body in a single whoosh, as if knocked out by a blow to the stomach, leaving me feeling as if it really had been.

"What?"

My heart pounds, a thousand questions swirling in my mind as I stare wide-eyed at the wizard. Pity and disappointment now shine in his eyes.

"You didn't know," he sighs, gently shaking his head. "How could you have? Your anger blinded you from ever seeking out the truth."

I simply stare at him, disbelief and dread coursing through me, my blood running cold.

I had spent the better half of a century trying to outrun the feelings that have just come crashing back into me at full-force. Time had allowed me to dismiss my regard for Legolas as simply an object of the past. But now-

He had come for me. To implore, perhaps to start anew.

He had come for me, traversed woodland and mountain, and I was not there to recieve him.

How different would my life be right now if I had been?

Stepping out of the thoughts that now cloud my brain like a fog, I begin to call to Gandalf, to demand the full story from him. But the wizard is no longer paying me any heed.

"Hush," he snaps, ears perked in the direction of the dwarf camp.

After a few beats of silence he starts back west, motioning for me to follow. "Quickly now, Celebríel. I fear trouble has befallen our travelling companions."

My mind still spinning and with an ache in my heart, it is all I can do to follow.