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She still thought of it as her new dagger. She had carried it for fifty years, but it remained awkward in her hand. She kept it sharp enough to whisper through the bark, slicing without tearing. Galadriel peeled away the silver skin of her old friend, placed it gently in her basket, and pressed her fingertips to the wound left behind. The mallorn’s pain flowed into her. It stung and then left behind a dull, heavy ache.
“Mama, stop! You’re hurting them!”
Galadriel turned and opened her arms to the child and her distress. Celebrían had followed her. Just as well. She was old enough – learned and skilled and strong – but she had never understood grief.
“I am, my love.”
The little face buried in her mother’s hair withdrew slowly from the embrace to face the tree. Now her hazel eyes traveled up the trunk, took in the helix of scar tissue that marked the dozens of years just like this one, when Galadriel had come alone to the grove on a spring morning. Celebrían stepped back, looking unsteady for a moment, and craned her small neck to see the other trees bearing the same spiral of old hurts. Fourteen of them stood here, seven for the Valar and seven for the Valier, and for nearly the age of a mortal man Galadriel had come to harvest their skin and share their pain, giving what comfort she could.
Celebrían peered into her face, patient as ever and loving as always, but her brow said she was also repulsed. She was waiting to hear why this was not cruel, and Galadriel had had many years to prepare them both for this disappointment.
A little hand grabbed hers and covered it where it curled around the new dagger’s hilt.
“Why?”
Galadriel pointed to the basket where the still-weeping bark lay.
“Hithlain. Do you recognize it like this?” When Celebrían shook her head, Galadriel lifted a piece to the dappled light and turned it slowly. Glints of silver and opalescence showed themselves beneath the thin sap, and the young she-elf unconsciously reached up to touch her own pale braid. “These are the fibers of our enchantments. Our cloaks, our rope, our sacred garments – the cloth with which I burnish my Mirror – all spring from this grove and this sacrifice.”
From the time when her chubby fingers could first hold a spindle, Celebrían had eagerly followed the women to their spinning circle, learning their songs by rote before she could discern the blessings for holding fast from those for concealment and sanctuary. She wove with the maidens now, and delighted in designing subtle patterns. Galadriel was not stinting with praise, but if she had noticed that Celebrían’s creations shimmered with a potency none of the sisterhood could match – if her daughter’s very whims seemed to impart enchantments of their own – she did not mention it.
And now, the crestfallen face before her told her that delight was no longer untouched by misery. Celebrían put her palm against the mallorn’s wound and a tear trickled down her cheek. Galadriel gently gathered the droplet with a fingertip and pressed it to the exposed sapwood beside the little hand.
A rustle of golden leaves far above their heads whispered of resignation, gratitude, even sympathy.
“But… how can you? How do you bear it? How can they?” Celebrían climbed into her lap as she had not done in a decade, and Galadriel rocked her gently.
“In my childhood, in Valinor, I saw it done elsewise. Some elves plant a new seedling and sing a song of thanks before they fell an entire tree and collect its lifetime’s worth of hithlain. To some, that is kinder.” Galadriel’s throat felt dry. “I cannot. These friends each hold so many years of growth and love, fear and hope… I cannot end that before its time, even to spare myself knowledge of their suffering. So I come alone, and I share it with them.”
Celebrían reached up to place her cool hand against her mother’s cheek, and said nothing. No one could ever deserve this sort of love and forgiveness, Galadriel knew, but she met her child’s warm green gaze and let it wash over her all the same. They both blinked at the same time; each saw a pair of tears fall from the corners of the other’s eyes, and Celebrían laughed.
Climbing to her feet, she held out her hand to help her mother rise. The strength in her grip gave Galadriel a momentary start. Then, standing, her sweet smile compressed into a determined line, her daughter reached out to relieve Galadriel of the dagger. She sang several minutes of an unfamiliar song to the roots of the grove beneath their feet, and took up her mother’s place in the harvest.