It is set in the final years of Doriath, and focuses on both Galadriel’s role as Melian’s student and her future fate as well as on Celeborn and Thranduil’s youthful friendship, and it ends just after the Second Kinslaying.
It’s very wip-y, in the sense of being mostly “here’s a quick transcription of ideas” rather than actual writing, and I’m honestly not sure when I’ll get back to it…but here’s the beginning at least. It’s the most detailed part, although even still it’s mostly just sketched-out scene-notes with some bits of actual rough-draft prose at the end.
Melian and Galadriel in the former’s garden in Doriath in a courtyard outside the palace that spills out into the wild forest; Melian is teaching Galadriel how to feel the world within her, both of them barefoot on the grass, feeling the flow of the song rise up through the soles of their feet. A peaceful, soft, quiet moment…
Thranduil and Celeborn walk along one of the castle walls, Thranduil skipping on the actual wall and Celeborn scoffing at him from the walkway; they pass two guards, who laugh; no one is taking the guard duty particularly seriously, because they all know Menegroth is safe from harm.
Thranduil says that his father doesn’t think it’s good that they allow Galadriel and Finrod to come here; Celeborn is shocked (and deeply crushing on Galadriel), why!? Thranduil shrugs and says that Oropher doesn’t think that it’s good to have Noldor here when a Silmaril is; his other father, he adds while Celeborn is drawing an outraged breath to argue, pointed out that neither Galadriel nor Finrod are Fëanor’s sons and should not be judged by their deeds. Oropher admitted that was true, but points out that they are still his kin—and perhaps for their own sake, should be kept far from such possible temptation. Other dad was amused by this; does Oropher really think that just the sight of some pretty jewel will overcome them? At that point, Thranduil says, wrinkling his nose, they started saying mushy stuff about being overcome by your beauty, and that’s when he left. Celeborn laughs and calls him a child. Thranduil scowls.
Meanwhile, inside the hall, Thingol and the dwarves clash over the necklace; we open at the end of the argument, when tempers have already flared. Thingol towers over one of the dwarves, trying to intimidate him; another dwarf steps behind him and swings a hammer, cutting him down at the knees; he falls with a cry of surprise and the dwarf raises the hammer over him again…
Melian gasps and falls, Galadriel half-catching her and sinking to the ground with her mentor in her arms. “Teacher!” she cries (look up Sindarin), startled and afraid; what could fell a Maia? Melian smiles sadly, her eyes far away. “Fear not for me, Galadriel. This is the day I have long foreseen come at last, and the darkness that follows will be for you to face, and not for me. I depart these lands now, and leave Middle-earth for a time in the keeping of the elves alone.”
In the halls, one dwarf stares in shock and horror at another; what have you done? The second lowers his bloody hammer and says that Thingol would have kept their treasure for his own. Should they have let him? Are the elves to forever be their betters, because they were made first? We are the forgotten children, unwanted by the song; it is up to us to seize our place in Arda, to make our own place in the song. Will you be forever second-best to the elves?
No, the first agrees; he takes the necklace. No, we will not let our work be stolen or our souls unvalued. Not by the elves, and not even by the Valar themselves. We are dwarves, and we know our worth as well as we know the worth of our treasures; we will not let our value be dismissed. But come! We must away before the other elves learn what we have done, or it will not be our treasures but our lives that pay the wages of this working! They flee.
“Depart!” Galadriel cried, her voice ringing raw and hollow through the garden. “But why? Wherefore should you leave this place?”
“I follow my beloved Thingol’s spirit, my dear student. I know that I shall find him again someday on the other side of the Halls of Mandos; for he has left this land, and my daughter is long lost beyond the Gift of Men; and now comes the time where I depart for the Blessed Realms, and return to my own teacher and my kind and kin.”
Galadriel gasped, her mind reeling beneath the weight of Melian’s words. It was too much; too much all at once. She seized on the simplest, cruelest part: “Thingol is dead?”
“His life’s blood even now spills across Menegroth’s stone,” Melian murmured. She rose, and drew Galadriel up with her. The queen seemed taller now, somehow, but more insubstantial too; she stood like a pillar of cloud before the breeze and smiled down gently at the bewildered elf-maid standing lost and lonely before her. “I say again, do not be afraid, my brightest and dearest student. I will not say that we shall meet again, for far and away will come the chance that may one day lift the Ban that bars you from those blessed shores; and thin even as the blade of a silver knife that chance is. You may well fail it; you may not even live to face the test. ” She clasped one of Galadriel’s hands between both of her own and stroked the bare fingers gently. “But if you do come across fire and destruction to the moment of your measure, and you can overcome both power and pride, then I foresee that the Ban upon your head will be lifted and the Seas will open to bear you home again.”
“I do not think that Aman will ever let me call it home again,” Galadriel whispered.
Melian cupped her face between her hands. “Ask your heart again in later Ages where your home lies, and despair not before then,” she said, and bent low to kiss Galadriel on her brow. “Now farewell, my dear. Farewell, and let not your heart be hardened. On the other side of every nightfall there is a dawn, and the light in you will never go out so long as you will it still to shine. That much, I promise you.”
“Melian—” Galadriel began to say, but the queen was no longer there; only a shimmer of light where she had stood, a gleam of mist that might once have been a smile and a faint echo of a distant song; but she was gone, and Galadriel stood now alone.
Around the borders of Doriath, the girdle of power that had long defended the great green lands flickered and began to fade, following the flight of its maker. The earth beneath Galadriel’s bare feet shivered at the loss of power, but Galadriel did not feel it; she had heart then only for her tears.
