Third Age, 2510

Elladan had consented to sing before the assembly, and was just concluding. Elrond had been unable to watch Celebrían as she listened to her firstborn sing for what was perhaps the last time. When Elladan resumed his place behind his father and the music changed to a soft and soothing strain of no particular melody, Elrond dared again to turn his head and to look upon her.

She was so changed now, after all her trials. Her face had not recovered either its full colour or its round perfection, but bore still the marks of privation and suffering and retained a paper-white hue that grew grey with the slightest strains. A long scar marred her temple where some evil thing had grazed her with a serrated knife. Her beautiful hair, which had once rippled like a river of gold down her back, was gone. It had been shorn about her ears for reasons of sanitation when she had been brought back to Imladris, and had grown to below her shoulders, its former vivid gold replaced by a limp, sheenless and colourless silver. It was like the hair of a baby now, limp and fine and spiritless. No more did it crackle in the winter air or shimmer in the sunlight. Like the vitality of her spirit and the laughter of her heart it was sapped and exhausted, reduced to a colourless shadow of its former self.

There was some irony in it, that her hair should now be silver. Her mother- name had proved more foretelling than they had supposed, and not merely a tribute to her father. Once, they would have found it grounds for merriment, as the rank she had obtained through her marriage to the heir of Gil-galad had so many years ago. Now Elrond did not wish to mention it: it was painful enough as an unexpressed thought. She was queen no longer, or would not be after tonight. This was her final farewell to her people and to her life in Arda.

'Peredhil,' she murmured, caressing his cheek with a bony hand... the hand that bore the band of gold commemorative of her union to him and recovered at the cost of much orc-blood by her younger son. 'Peredhil, do you remember how we used to dance?'

'Aye, beloved,' he replied. 'I remember.'

'It seems so long ago...'

Elrond felt the tears gathering in his eyes and felt the pain in his bride's, but he was not surprised that she showed no signs of imminent weeping. She had shed no tears in all the time since her capture. She had languished, she had refused food, she had lapsed into silence for weeks on end, but she had not shed a single tear. She was shattered, her spirit crushed, and she could not weep. Though he had healed her body with all his great skill, he could do nothing to mend her soul.

And so, she must depart for the lands where she might find the solace that he could not offer. They were to set out in two days' time. A litter had been made ready, large enough and light enough to carry Celebrían and a companion. It would most likely be Arwen throughout the journey, for in her daughter she seemed to find more comfort than in any other being. She allowed no one but Arwen to bathe her or clothe her, and often she would not rest unless her youngest child was nigh at hand. Yet Elrond and the twins would travel with the large and well armed escort, for none of them would be parted from her sooner than absolutely necessary. They would travel to the Grey Havens, and Celebrían would depart for the distant West and they Undying Lands. Perhaps there she would find peace.

'Will you... will you dance with me now, Peredhil, when I am so changed?' Celebrían ventured. 'Once more, together?'

'Of course...' Elrond breathed, and he felt as if his heart would break. He rose and offered his hand. She took it and rose while Arwen stepped back and motioned to her brothers. As Celebrían curled an arm about her husband's neck her children took up places among the musicians: Elrohir with a flute, Arwen before a harp, and Elladan with a little fife. 'Let us dance, beloved, and let it be our dearest memory of these later days.'

The music began and they moved together, slowly and gently. Elrond held her tightly about her thin waist, supporting her so that the moment did not need to end so quickly. Her head rested upon his shoulder as they danced, and for a moment they were once more as they had been in the beginning, when the world was clean and new and wholly their own.

Elrond brushed his lips across Celebrían's hair and she gazed up at him, eyes shining with the tears that coursed silently down her cheeks. Her healing had begun, but their time together was over. Yet Elrond knew that he would never forget her as she was at this moment, more beautiful than she had ever been before and once again his wife.