”I’m sorry to be late”, Laureanis said.
”Don’t be”, Gwathrandir replied. ”I was early. I was watching a squirrel digging around that rotted root over there, looking for food.”
Gwathrandir had stood up when Laureanis came, but when she sat down on the bank of Hidhuinen where they always met he sat next to her. It was the first truly springlike day in Rivendell Valley and there was promise of summer in the air. They sat in their usual place near the mouth of the Bruinen river, in the shade of stately beech trees.
Laureanis knew Gwathrandir was looking at her and it pleased her. When she finally turned her head to look back at him she was smiling.
Gwathrandir could only stare back in return. He could not help thinking how wonderful her eyes were. They were often light blue yet deep, but sometimes their color would change like a waterfall during sunset. At first he could see elements of green in them and then, suddenly, they were as green as a forest lake. Her eyes seemed to change color with the changing light of day and night. Her face was pale, wide, calm and restful even when she was stressed, hurried or distracted. Only her eyes flashed her soul into life.
”Do you remember the first time we met?” Gwathrandir asked, finally managing to smile in return.
For a short moment her eyes turned gray, as if all memories of those early days of happiness were now tainted with bitterness and pain. But the moment passed quickly. ”Eithel Sirion”, she said. ”We had our own place there too, not much different from this one. Near the source of River Sirion.”
”Ah, Sirion. We were so naive and innocent back then.”
”Not you, Maglor”, she said. ”You were never naive or innocent. Not even then. You must have been born an old soul.”
”Unlike you, Laureanis. You were young when I first met you and you are young still. You have not changed.”
”Do you feel so old then, Maglor?”
Gwathrandir saw her smile, but the question bothered him. ”Not anymore”, he said. ”Every moment I spend with you I feel young again.”
”But when we are not together, do you feel old then?”
Gwathrandir did not know what to say to that.
”Don’t be so serious, Maglor, meleth nîn”, Laureanis said. ”The spring is here and we are together. It’s enough. We don’t have to think about tomorrow yet.”
They both fell into solemn silence for a moment. They watched a hedgehog appear from beneath a bush. Slowly and noisily it rustled towards the beeches, unconcerned by the two elves. Almost no animal makes as much noise as a hedgehog when it moves through the forest floor. Hedgehogs have no need to move quietly. Only the strongest predators like badgers can pry open a curled-up hedgehog.
It had been warm all day. The sky was full of fast-moving clouds that in turn veiled and uncovered the sun as they glided towards the western horizon like ships sailing to Aman.
”Oh look, Maglor!” Laureanis said, pointing her elegant finger at a sparrow that had landed on a branch of a beech tree nearby. ”He’ll sing for us again.”
The sparrow began it’s sentimental song and the elves settled down to listen. It was a forlorn and sad melody. Gwathrandir thought that maybe the sparrow was singing about the last days of Doriath and it’s eventual sinking beneath the waves after the War of Wrath, though he was well aware that the sparrow could not have remembered events from the First Age.
”I never expected to share the days of spring with you again”, Gwathrandir said. ”After all these years.”
Laureanis glanced at his eyes quickly, then turned her own to look at the sparrow as it sung it’s lonely melody.
”You are still a romantic, Maglor”, she said softly, not looking at him. ”I’m glad you have retained that. It’s what I fell in love with you in the first place.”
Gwathrandir had never told her the reason why he had come back to her now, after six and a half thousand years of absence. He had not told her about the man in Gondor, the growing force of orcs and trolls in Dol Guldur or that the regent of Gondor had picked up her name in the palantír in connection to Sauron’s war machine. He had not been sure what he had expected to find in Imladris, but he had not expected to find this – the realization that he still loved her. That he would do anything in his power to protect her and keep her safe.
There were also feelings of guilt mixed with the love he felt for Laureanis. Guilt for the way he had treated her, guilt for the way he had so cruelly abandoned her after her imprisonment in Angband, when she would have needed him most. How easily he had believed the gloomy warnings of his brother Maedhros and the others who had claimed that Laureanis’ soul had been twisted and corrupted by Morgoth. How easily he had rejected her and walked away from her then, to follow his brother to his own doom.
Yet the love he now felt for Laureanis was not borne out of guilt or pity for what had been done to her. It was genuine, passionate and true love; the kind of love only the eldar can experience – the kind of love that can last and stay alive for all eternity. Still, the feelings Laureanis now stirred in his heart were much more terryifying to Gwathrandir than anything he had experienced during the long years of his self-imposed exile after the War of Wrath. Perhaps it was all the winters they had spent apart that now made this spring feel so fragile.
”Maglor”, Laureanis said, startling him. The sparrow had stopped singing. ”What did you do today?”
”I don’t call myself by that name anymore”, he replied. ”My name is Gwathrandir now.”
”To me you will always be Maglor, meleth nîn.”
”Very well then. But please, only use that name when we are alone. In this place I am only Gwathrandir. Only Cugusaelon knows my real identity.”
Laureanis frowned. ”I don’t understand your need to stay in the shadows still. Elrond would forgive you everything. He still loves you and misses you. He thinks you are dead and mourns for you still. It would make him very happy to know that you’re still alive.”
”Mourning of loved ones that have passed away makes life seem more precious for those of us who have to stay behind.” He smiled, but his voice was bitter, and he knew that she could hear it. There was nothing he could do to help it.
”You don’t know as much about death or suffering as you think, Maglor.”
”I have seen enough death.”
”Yes. The War of Wrath. But have you forgotten that I fought in that war as well? Have you forgotten that I was taken a prisoner by Morgoth’s forces? Have you any idea of the things they did to me in Angband, Maglor?”
”Laureanis.” Gwathrandir thought he saw a hint of tears in her eyes, but she did not cry. ”I don’t want to fight with you.”
”No”, she said. ”You have made me sad because you have become so cynical. The man I fell in love with was not so cynical. You were a romantic and an idealist. But that is the tragedy of remembering the times when you were young still. One must always compare what you have become to what you once were.”
”I’m still the same”, Gwathrandir said. He realized he was lying to her. Nothing was the same. Even his name was different.
”You were never young, Maglor”, she said. ”Not even then. But I loved you still.”
”And I loved you”, Gwathrandir said. ”As I told you.”
”Yes”, she said softly. ”As you told me.”
”I’m sorry, Laureanis.”
”Let us not talk about it anymore.”
Laureanis, Gwathrandir thought, what have you become? What did I do to you?
The thought would not leave him alone as they left Hidhuinen and crossed the bridge to Laureanis’ home. She took his arm without a word, and he felt that she was shivering.
”It’s going to rain”, she said. ”I can always feel it in the breeze after the first warm day of spring. It always rains after the first warm day.”
They were standing at the door of Laureanis’ home. ”Good night”, he said, kissing her gently. Unexpectedly she held him close and let the kiss linger. When they pulled apart they were breathless. Gwathrandir felt lost. She would not let him go.
”Storm”, she said. ”Can you feel it coming in the wind?”
Gwathrandir said nothing. He could not speak.
”I never hated you, meleth nîn”, Laureanis said. ”But I did not think I would ever again feel love either. My memory had turned into dead ashes, cold and useless. I had forgotten what it was like to feel warm.”
He tried to put his finger on her lips but she turned her head away from him. When she looked back, there were tears in her eyes.
”I so wanted to see you just once, to hear you speak again, to hear you sing, to hear you laugh. I wanted to walk amid the trees of Barad Sirion with you again like we used to. Do you remember, meleth nîn?”
”Yes”, Gwathrandir could barely whisper. ”I remember everything.”
”Oh, Maglor”, she said in a low and haunting voice, voice that ripped him apart. He realized then that she was crying. Not out loud, but there were tears in her voice. Her soul behind her eyes shifted and they changed color again until they were like shallow water over a sandy beach.
All he could do was hold her.
After a long moment she took his hand and led him through the outer door into her home. It was dark inside. They walked from room to room and she did not set light into the candles. She led him into a spiral staircase and they ascended the stairs until they came to a door that led into a balcony. Below, the valley of Imladris lied tucked between the moorlands and snow-capped mountains rising high above the meadows. Above they could see the clouds gathering and darkening on the horizon. The approaching storm smelled fresh to them. Suddenly a lightning shattered the sky into pieces and low thunder rumbled across the valley. The wind plucked at their clothes as they stood there, very close to each other.
”I will not ask you again why you left me”, Laureanis suddenly said.
”Laureanis…”
”No.” She shook her head. ”Don’t tell me anything. There is only one thing I want to know. Why did you come back, meleth nîn?”
”I didn’t mean to… I mean, I didn’t expect to find you here…”
She turned to look at him, very serious. ”All I had was my memories of you, and they could have lasted me for all eternity. My memories did not cause pain to me, not anymore. But now you have returned and I feel all my wounds again.”
Gwathrandir said nothing. He did not know what to say. She closed her eyes as if she was in pain. After a while she opened them again.
”Come”, she said. ”We will lie together on the bed and watch the storm. As man and wife. Like we used to.”
He felt like he was falling. He closed his eyes so that he would not see the fall. He felt her lips against his own. A thousand shards of memories shattered him, piercing him and cutting his flesh.
