Chapter Text
T.A. 593
Before the shadows whispered in the corners of the world, before the shattering of hearts and the betrayal that stained memory, there was a time of light.
It bloomed not only from the stars nor from the sacred flames of the Eldar, but from the very soul of a young Elven maiden who dwelled in a valley carved by music and memory; Imladris, hidden haven of the West.
Rivendell, as it was known in the common tongue.
A place of twilight beauty, of cascading waterfalls and golden leaves that never fell. The air was laced always with the scent of rain upon stone and the faint sweetness of lavender and honeysuckle. The halls were open, carved from the mountain itself, shaped by ancient hands that remembered the world before it broke. Silver bells chimed in the breeze. Music; harps, flutes, voices older than time, drifted through the air like mist curling around the mountains.
And yet, none of this could rival her. She was known by many names.
To the Elves of Imladris, she was Elwen Amrûniel, daughter of the Dawn, or Morning Star, The youngest daughter of Lord Elrond and Lady Celebrían. To others, travellers who spoke her name in awe, or bards who sang of the Elf who moved with the grace of moonlight, she was simply the light.
Not the harsh light of war-fires or battle banners, nor the distant cold of stars, but something warmer. Wilder. A light that bloomed wherever she walked, that coaxed flowers into bloom and soothed even the most fretful of hearts. When she smiled, the very wind seemed to hush, and when she wept, though she did so rarely, the rivers seemed to mourn with her.
Her beauty was not the sculpted elegance of her sister, Arwen Evenstar. No, Elwen’s beauty was the kind that happened when nature took her time.
Her hair fell in a riot of dark curls, long and unruly, often windblown from her hours spent galloping across the hills or sleeping beneath the trees. In the sunlight, strands caught fire with a glint of bronze, and she wore her hair adorned with things plucked from the world around her; little flowers, dew-touched leaves, delicate golden beads given to her by Arwen or found among her father’s treasures. Several fine braids wove through the wildness, trailing like stories told in silence.
Her eyes… her eyes were something out of a legend.
A stormy sea of blues and greens, ever-shifting, rimmed in silver and touched with gold at their heart. They held questions and wonder, mischief and mercy. Looking into them felt like staring into a glade lit by starlight; beautiful, untamed, impossible to forget. Some swore they saw a glow about her, faint and natural, like moonlight brushing the surface of water.
When she walked barefoot through the gardens or knelt by the riverbanks, flowers lifted their heads toward her. Birds perched without fear on her shoulders. Once, a white stag bowed its head as she passed.
From the day she was born, Elwen was different.
While her brothers, Elladan and Elrohir, were forged into warriors; bold and noble, shaped by centuries of bloodshed and the grief of loss, Elwen had never been touched by war. She was younger, born in a fleeting moment of peace. Her hands were more used to leaf and grass than blade and arrow, though she would later learn both. Her heart longed not for glory, but for stories and love, for hidden streams and creatures that spoke without words.
But where Arwen excelled in diplomacy and the weaving of words, Elwen excelled in the language of the land. Her studies were often abandoned in favour of the forest. She missed lessons to climb trees, snuck out of council chambers to chase butterflies or whisper to the horses in the stables.
Her bond with Arwen was one of soft affection, woven over long evenings reading in the library, or dancing beneath the stars on the rooftops of Imladris. They would whisper dreams into each other's hair, speak of love and sea voyages, of songs and stories and things that had not yet come to pass.
Elrond had taught her to shoot, not with the goal of warfare, but with precision and grace, so she might protect herself if the shadows found her. And though his hands were calloused with age and memory, he guided her gently, never with the sternness he used for his sons.
“You must not just see the target,” he told her once, lining up her stance beside him. “You must feel it. As you feel and hear the forest breathe. You aim not to strike, but to meet the world in balance.”
He admired her gentleness more than he ever said aloud. In her quiet mercy, he saw something the world had not yet ruined. A light that bloomed untouched.
Celebrían, too, had passed down her gifts, not of sword, but of soul. She taught Elwen the names of every tree in the valley, how to hear the rivers when they spoke and the names of every star in the night sky. She brought her daughter to the groves in moonlight, teaching her poetry in the voices of rustling leaves and wind moving through pine.
"Listen with your heart,” she would whisper, their hands pressed against the bark of an ancient oak. “The trees do not speak in words, but they remember everything.”
Elwen was her mother’s mirror, not only in beauty but in spirit, cut from starlight, softened by dusk, and burning quiet and bright like a lantern in the fog.
More often than not, she could be found in the stables, brushing down the horses and humming softly to them in Sindarin. Or barefoot in the forest, trailing behind Radagast the Brown and listening to his tales of creatures and earth-magic. Or in the library with Gandalf the Grey, learning of the world beyond Imladris. Or on the training grounds with Lindir and the guards, learning how to move with a bow or dance with a blade. She trained not to fight, but to flow to move like the wind that whistled through the trees.
It was in the stable, where her father often found her.
“Elwen,” came his voice stern, but laced with amusement.
She froze mid-movement, then turned slowly, hands hidden behind her back like a child caught stealing starlight.
“Yes, adar,” she replied, her head bowing slightly, curls tumbling over her shoulders. (Father)
Lord Elrond raised a brow. “You were not at your lessons today.”
Elwen hesitated, then peeked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “No, Adar.”
His gaze narrowed slightly. “What is in your hands?”
She bit her lip, then reluctantly revealed her treasure, a small, trembling ball of fluff nestled in her palms. A baby rabbit, its fur black as the night, its nose twitching nervously.
There was a long silence.
Then, Elrond laughed. It was a rare sound, deep and warm, echoing through the courtyard like a forgotten song.
“You’ve spent too much time with Radagast the Brown, my little star,” he said fondly, placing a hand on her shoulder as they began the slow walk back toward the library. “You are becoming more bird than Elf.”
Elwen smiled, cradling the bunny close. “Birds are freer, are they not?”
“They are,” Elrond replied. “But even birds must learn their histories, child.”
Elrond let out a long sigh, pulling her gently into step beside him. “Come. We will return the rabbit to its mother, and then you will read with me.”
She did not argue. She rarely did, not because she feared him, but because she adored him. For though he loved all his children, it was Elwen who was the soul of his heart, the soft place he rarely revealed to others. She was the part of him that still believed in gentleness, in light unbroken. She had inherited the heart of Elrond most completely quiet, fierce in its love, ever watchful, and always aching to heal.
He loved her more than she would ever know.
And so, in the quiet corners of the world, her name began to gather like dew on petals; soft, unspoken, almost unsure if it deserved to linger. In Lothlórien, in the Greenwood, even among the sea-bound, some murmured of her:
The Crown Jewel of Imladris.
A title too large for one so young, perhaps. But the world, in its longing for light, often crowns hope before it blooms
The forest had always been her refuge.
Not merely a place of quiet, but a soul-deep sanctuary, a cradle of leaf and wind where time moved slower, gentler, kinder. Beneath the ancient canopy of Imladris, where the trees arched high like cathedral spires and the sunlight filtered down in golden threads, Elwen moved like a whispered promise. The dappled light kissed her skin, soft as breath, and played in the dark tumble of her hair as if the forest itself adored her.
Here, she was unburdened.
The air was cool and sweet, heavy with the scent of pine needles and wild honeysuckle, laced with the earthy perfume of moss and rain-kissed soil. Her bare feet knew every root and stone, toes curling into the soft velvet of the earth. She never wore shoes here, never needed to. The land did not wound her. It welcomed her. Cradled her.
She would often climb, skirts gathered in one hand, a leather-bound book tucked beneath her arm, fingers trailing bark and ivy as she pulled herself into the limbs of old trees. Not with the formal elegance of a practiced Elf-maiden, but with the ease of someone born to trees, someone who had grown wild at the edges of the world. She climbed as others might breathe; thoughtlessly, joyfully. In the cradle of branches, high above the world, she would curl like a cat in a patch of dappled light and read aloud, her voice lilting through the glade like birdsong at dawn.
And they would come.
Not summoned. Not beckoned.
Drawn, as surely as stars are drawn to the night sky. Creatures of every kind crept from the underbrush or descended from above; foxes with soft gold fur, rabbits like wisps of snow, slender fawns with downy antlers, owls blinking slowly from shadowed limbs. Even the shyest of creatures came near. Songbirds fluttered to perch upon her shoulders, mice nestled in the folds of her skirts, and the wind itself seemed to hush when she spoke.
But there was no spell.
It was simply her.
Elwen’s very presence was an enchantment, not of power, but of peace. A quiet magic that asked for nothing and gave everything. The forest did not fear her, for it recognized her. In her stillness, in her softness, in the boundless warmth that poured from her like the silver glow of a star half-remembered. Her calm heart. Her quiet laughter. Her gentle hands.
To the creatures of the wild, Elwen was kin. A sister of the trees, born of moonlight and river-song. The Morning Star made flesh, though she never claimed such names for herself. She would only smile, a tender thing, soft as the dawn, when a fawn nuzzled into her side or when a squirrel nestled against her arm as she turned a page. Sometimes, without even meaning to, she would hum, low and sweet, and the forest would still as if listening to a sacred hymn.
There was an ease in her presence, a dreamy sort of grace that did not ask to be seen but was impossible to ignore. She belonged to the hush between breaths. To the spaces where sunbeams danced on leaves and where river stones shimmered like gems. Where silence was not empty, but sacred.
Once, Elrond watched her from afar.
Hidden behind a screen of ivy, he had followed her trail into the woods with quiet steps, unsure why his heart ached so strangely that day. And there she was, seated cross-legged in a hollow of roots, a wild rabbit in her lap, a hawk perched on a branch above her like a guardian. Her face was tilted to the light, her lashes casting crescent shadows on her cheeks, her lips parted slightly as she whispered something too soft to hear. Her whole being glowed, not with power, but with a softness that shamed power itself.
He did not speak. He could not. He only watched, stricken by the sight of his daughter made moonlight.
There was something in Elwen that always left him breathless, a vulnerability so brave it frightened him. She loved without walls. She felt without hesitation. He feared what the world would do to a heart so open, so unguarded. For Elwen did not fear darkness… but Elrond knew, all too well, that darkness feared her; and that made her a target.
But Elwen… she remained untouched.
Unbothered by the sharp edges of the world. Her heart did not seek the cold halls of power, nor the tangled paths of prophecy. She chased not glory, nor titles, but wonder. She was drawn to the magic that bloomed in forgotten places, to moss-covered stones, to half-remembered songs, to the way moonlight moved across water. Her joy lived in the small things. And that, more than anything, made her radiant.
If the forest was her sanctuary, then the library of Imladris was her temple.
The archives stretched endlessly, domed halls carved into the mountain like sacred catacombs. The scent of old parchment and pressed flowers lingered in the air like a spell cast long ago. Elwen had grown up wandering these corridors, her fingertips brushing over ancient texts, her thoughts drifting far beyond the walls that held her. There was always ink on her fingertips, always a soft gleam in her eyes as she learned and unlearned the world.
She studied dutifully; history, healing, languages beyond reckoning, but her mind strayed. Always it strayed. To the edges of maps. To legends half-lost. To dragons sleeping beneath mountains and love spells whispered under silver moons.
It was in the deepest hours of the night that the library breathed for her.
When all else slept, she would tiptoe through the sleeping halls, a candle in one hand, a blanket in the other. She’d nestle into the alcove by the eastern window, the one that overlooked the moonlit falls, and lose herself in books forgotten by time. Tales of starlit quests and cursed kings, of fierce queens who loved like fire and bled like steel. Of brave wanderers with magic in their bones and sorrow in their eyes.
She read them all.
She consumed them like fire, slow and aching and hungry. Sometimes, when her limbs grew heavy and her eyes blurred with sleep, she would rest her cheek against a page and dream.
Of mountains that breathed. Of swords that sang. Of a kiss stolen beneath a sky of stars. Of a love so true it rewrote the ending.
And always, always, there was a figure. A shadow moved through the trees, tall and golden, with eyes like winter skies and sorrow stitched between his ribs.
He never spoke. But she always woke with his name on her lips, though she did not yet know it.
Not a hero.
Not a king.
But someone who saw her. Who chose her.
Someone who, perhaps, would one day follow the sound of birdsong into the woods, and never leave.
T.A. 1979
Even though Elwen had spent most of her waking hours beneath the high canopies of Middle-earth’s forests, wandering both near and far from Imladris, cradled in the hush of leaves and the music of birdsong, it was the stables that had ever been her true sanctuary.
There, among the golden dust motes drifting through the rafters, the slow rustle of hay, and the warm breath of great, gentle beasts, she found a stillness unlike the quiet of the woods. It was a living stillness; a heartbeat she could lean her own against.
The horses knew her. Not as rider, nor as some noble of Elrond’s house to be bowed to, but as one of their own, a creature of wind and open glade. They greeted her not with fear or ceremony, but with a low, contented rumble, a flick of the ears, the soft press of a muzzle to her shoulder. As if they sensed the same untamed thread in her spirit that ran through their own.
And yet… none were like him.
How he came to her is a tale told in many ways, and never the same twice. Some will swear he sought her out, striding from the mists like a dream given form. Others say she stumbled upon him in some forgotten meadow, and that hechose her with the wordless wisdom of his kind.
But the truth, the quiet truth, known to few, was that he was a gift.
It happened on a day when the sunlight lay warm across the woods east of the Carrock. Her lessons with Radagast were never predictable, sometimes they spoke of ancient things, of songs sung by the first streams of the world; sometimes they spent the hours in silence, listening to the small creatures of the forest; sometimes they simply wandered, letting the trees decide their path.
Elwen loved it.
Here, far from the scrolls and stone of Imladris, her mind and spirit stretched in ways no council hall could teach. The air smelled of earth and river. The trees leaned close as if to hear her thoughts. And Radagast himself, shuffling in his moss-brown robes, always treated her with the fondness of a kindly uncle who saw in her something worth keeping close.
That day, they had spoken of the wind. Of how it carried messages through the leaves, of how a bird’s flight could change the course of a breeze, and how, if one listened, the forest would tell you who had passed by and when. She had laughed, and he had smiled that quiet, knowing smile that told her she was beginning to understand.
When the lesson ended, Radagast had left her at the edge of the pines, off to see to some urgent matter of foxes or fungi, promising to meet her again on the morrow. Elwen lingered.
She found herself seated at the roots of an old pine, legs tucked beneath her, singing softly to the rhythm of the branches above. The birds answered, not in words, but in trills and whistles, weaving into her melody as naturally as breathing.
It was there he found her.
"Who are you," came the low, rumbling voice, "and why do you linger near fell trees?"
Elwen turned, startled, not in fear, but in mild surprise. Standing in the shade was a man built like the mountains themselves: broad-shouldered, wild-haired, and looking as though he had been carved from stone and bark. His eyes were sharp, brown as wet earth, and wholly unamused.
"Fell trees?" she repeated, tilting her head with a gentle laugh. "I think them fair enough."
He frowned, unimpressed. "Who are you?"
"I am Elwen Amrûniel of Rivendell," she said, rising to her feet with a fluid grace. "And you are a skin-changer."
His eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"
"I have read many tales," she replied, her tone warm and unthreatening, "and there is but one who dwells by the Carrock."
He grunted, a sound neither confirming nor denying. "And what business has an Elf-maid here?"
"I had a lesson with Radagast the Brown," she answered, brushing a stray curl behind her ear. "Now I wait for my brothers to return from Lothlórien."
He eyed her as though she had said something suspicious. "Do you not own a horse?"
"Not yet," she said with a small smile. "I have ridden many, but none have chosen me."
"Horses are not baubles to be chosen like a gown," he muttered, turning to walk. She followed without hesitation, her steps light beside his heavy tread.
They reached the edge of his land, a clearing where the grass bent in the wind like rippling silk. Without warning, he whistled, a sharp, commanding note that cut through the air.
The sound of hooves answered, distant at first, then swelling until the ground itself trembled.
From beyond the rise came a stallion unlike any she had seen, coal-dark, his coat swallowing the sunlight only to give it back in glimmers, his mane a banner of storm-tossed shadow. Every line of him spoke of power, yet his eyes… his eyes were deep and steady, watching her as though they had met before.
The great horse halted before them, tail lashing once.
"Take him," Beorn said curtly, thrusting the reins into her hands. "He is of the Mearas. Never known a rider. He’ll serve you, if you are worth serving."
Elwen blinked at him, then down at the reins. "Why give such a gift to me?"
"You speak to the trees," he said simply, and as though the matter were closed, turned toward his hall.
She laughed softly, stepping toward the stallion. His ears flicked forward, and when she laid her hand on his neck, he did not shy. The warmth of him soaked into her fingers; the slow, steady beat of his heart felt as though it could steady hers forever.
"Thank you, Beorn," she called after him.
He stopped mid-stride, glancing back. "How-"
"I told you," she smiled, "I have read many stories."
A short, reluctant huff of amusement escaped him. "Come back for a saddle," he grumbled, though his eyes were not quite so stern now.
From that day forth, no other touched Tinnuion.
He was hers, and she his.
She never called him; she had no need. He would find her; by river, by glade, even in the deep halls of Imladris, silent as dusk until he stood before her, lowering his head so her brow could rest against his.
When they rode, it was as though the earth itself carried her. They moved without command or rein, flowing together like wind over water. Through gold-lit forests and across moon-silver meadows, they flew. In battle, he was unshakable beneath her. In storm, he was the shield at her side. When grief shadowed her heart, he pressed his great head to her shoulder, the warmth of him holding her together when words could not.
She told him everything. And though he never spoke, she believed he understood.
Some whispered he was no mere horse, that he was born of wind and twilight, shaped for her alone.
Perhaps he was.
For Tinnuion did not belong to Middle-earth.
He belonged to Elwen.
And she to him.