Chapter 417: Taking Over Rivendell
Kael had used Cemya's power to restore life to Rivendell, and Elrond was genuinely glad of it — but he shook his head all the same.
"You needn't go to such trouble. You already have Hogwarts to maintain. Adding Rivendell on top of that will only increase the burden on you, and I'm not sure it's worth the cost." He paused. "Besides, we will be sailing West before long. This place will gradually fall into disuse. There is no need for you to spend your strength sustaining an abandoned valley."
Kael shook his head. He looked out over Rivendell and was quiet for a moment.
"How could I bear to let something this beautiful disappear?" he said. "And this is where Arwen was born and raised. I'd like her to have somewhere she can return to—somewhere she can come when she misses home."
There was a practical side to it as well. At his current level of strength — Maiar, unbound, with Cemya's power behind him — maintaining both Hogwarts and Rivendell simultaneously would cost him nothing. He could sustain several more besides and still feel no strain.
Cemya's attunement to the earth gave it advantages the Three Elven Rings had never possessed. Where landscape needed to be shaped, soil needed to be nourished, or vegetation needed to grow, Cemya outstripped them entirely. Even a desert, if Kael chose to turn his attention to it, could be made green.
So it was partly for Arwen — so that in the long years before their children grew up and their own departure for Valinor came, she would always have a place to return to when longing for her family grew heavy. When that time came, almost every Elf in Middle-earth would have long since sailed West. Even with Kael and their children beside her, there would be moments of solitude that no amount of good company could fully answer.
And partly it was for himself. He was simply unwilling to watch a place of such age and beauty fall into ruin. Rivendell's gardens and buildings held the craft and wisdom of the Elves in every stone and carved archway. To let all of that moulder away seemed a waste that could not easily be justified.
Elrond listened, and the relief and warmth in his face were plain to see. Gratitude for how Kael treasured his daughter. And gladness — genuine gladness — that Rivendell would endure.
As its lord, Elrond's bond with this valley ran deeper than words could easily account for. He had accepted the call to sail West with a clear heart; he longed to be reunited with Celebrían, who had departed for Valinor long ago. But acceptance and reluctance were not mutually exclusive, and his love for this place had not diminished.
Knowing that Cemya's power would now hold over Rivendell — that even after the last Elf had gone, the valley would remain in bloom, untouched by time's erosion — that was a comfort he had not expected to have.
He turned to Kael with a deliberate, unhurried sincerity.
"Kael — when we leave Rivendell, I would like to place it in your hands. To make it part of your domain. I will see to the full handover of everything before we go. I trust that you will care for it well."
Kael looked at him for a moment. He could hear the weight behind the words and understood what the request truly meant.
He did not deflect or demur. He met Elrond's gaze directly and nodded.
"You have my word. Rivendell will endure. A thousand years from now, those who come after us will still find it as it is today — and the legacy of the Elves will not be forgotten."
A smile came over Elrond's face. He reached out and placed a hand briefly on Kael's shoulder.
"I believe you."
——
After several days in Rivendell, Kael and Arwen took Elthir and Elríen westward to Lothlórien to visit Galadriel and Celeborn.
The signs of decline in Lothlórien were even more pronounced than they had been in Rivendell.
Where Rivendell's vitality had been bound to Vilya, Lothlórien's beauty and life had been sustained entirely by Nenya — Galadriel's Ring of Water. Now that Nenya had gone dark, the enchantment that had held over the forest was unravelling. Time, kept at bay for so long, was moving again with something like vengeance.
The elanor flowers, which had never ceased to bloom, were dying. The forest, which had always seemed to exist in a state of permanent, ageless summer, was shedding its leaves, and a cold, bare quality was settling among the trees.
Most visible of all was the change in the mallorn trees—the very source of the Golden Wood's name. Their golden leaves were falling in drifts, with no new growth to replace them. The entire grove had taken on the look of something slowly winding down towards an ending, the light draining out of it season by season.
If nothing changed, the mallorns would be dead within a century or two, and the name Golden Wood would outlast the thing that had given it meaning.
The mood throughout Lothlórien was one of quiet grief. Elven voices drifted through the trees in songs of mourning—those preparing to sail singing their farewells to the home they were leaving, the Wood-elves grieving the mallorns they could not save.
The atmosphere touched Arwen deeply. She found her way to a mallorn she had planted herself long ago and stood with her palm flat against its silver-grey bark, feeling the life slowly ebbing through it. Her expression was soft with sorrow.
Kael could not stand to watch it. And he had not come to Lothlórien simply to witness the grief — he had come to do something about it.
He had restored Rivendell. He was not going to leave Lothlórien behind.
He raised his hand and drew on Cemya once more, reaching into the earth beneath the forest, gathering the element of soil and living stone. The pale gold light bloomed upward and outward in a great dome, settling over the whole of Lothlórien from edge to edge.
Under Cemya's influence, the forest seemed to catch its breath. The soil deepened and warmed. The vegetation responded as though a long winter had finally broken — energy returning to root and branch, the grey decay swept back, the air between the trees lightening. The mallorns stirred. New buds appeared on branches that had looked beyond recovery. The dying stopped. The gold came back.
The Elves throughout the forest felt it happen. The mourning songs faltered and shifted into something different — voices lifting in wonder and then in joy. Lothlórien was alive again.
From the highest talan of Caras Galadhon, set in the crown of the greatest mallorn in the wood, Galadriel and Celeborn watched.
"Thank you, Kael." Galadriel's voice was warm, the brightness in her eyes unmistakable. "You have let Lothlórien keep its beauty."
The mallorn grove had been her work — planted by her own hand, tended over long ages into the forest it had become. The mallorns were particular in their needs, able to grow only where magic ran thick through the ground. It was Nenya's power that had made the Golden Wood possible, and without it, the slow death of the mallorns had been inevitable. Galadriel had watched it beginning and had been unable to stop it — only to wait as, tree by tree, the forest she had made gave way.
Now it had been given back to her, and the relief and pleasure in her expression were as genuine as anything she showed.
Even knowing she would soon be sailing for Valinor, she had not wanted to watch Lothlórien die before she left.
"You're too kind, my lady," Kael said with a quiet smile. "This is Arwen's home as well. How could I do otherwise?"
Arwen looked at him, the sorrow in her face replaced by something warmer. She said nothing, but the smile she gave him carried everything that needed to be said.
Galadriel and Celeborn watched the two of them, and the look they exchanged between themselves was one of quiet, unspoken satisfaction.
Then Galadriel turned back to Kael.
"Kael — we have heard that Elrond has placed Rivendell in your keeping. Celeborn and I have spoken, and we find ourselves wishing to ask something of you as well."
Kael had already begun to guess where this was going.
"Please, my lady — say what you wish."
"Both Celeborn and I have received the call from the West," Galadriel said. "We will be departing before long." She paused. "And so we have decided that Lothlórien should pass to Arwen. We wish for her to become its mistress."