[POV: Elrond]
After the enigmatic dream, Elrond found no rest in waking.
Rivendell still sang—water over stone, wind through pine—but the song had become distant, as if some other melody had begun to braid itself beneath it. The laughter of the child returned to him in quiet moments, not as comfort, but as a blade turned gently within memory.
And Galadriel's eyes in that mist—those eyes had not merely seen.
They had remembered.
So Elrond did what he had done through centuries when the world shifted by a hair's breadth and doom stirred in hidden places:
He sought the counsel of the Lady of the Golden Wood.
Without delay, he departed Imladris and took the long road to Lothlórien. The journey was not arduous for one such as he, yet each league felt weighted, as if the earth itself wished to slow him. Birds watched from branches and did not sing. Leaves moved when there was no wind. The light that fell through the canopy seemed thinner than it ought to be.
When he reached the borders of Lórien, he was met by Celeborn.
Celeborn welcomed him with a serene smile—yet the serenity had fissures, fine as hairline cracks in glass.
"Old friend," he said, "how do you fare this day?"
Elrond bowed his head. "Well enough. I have come to speak with Lady Galadriel."
At the mention of her name, Celeborn's gaze shifted—briefly—toward the heart of the wood, as though he listened for a sound that did not wish to be heard.
"I fear your journey may find her in silence," Celeborn murmured. "Since yesterday, she has remained… withdrawn. Not ill, not weary—only far away, as if burdened by something that cannot be spoken plainly."
Elrond's brow tightened. He said nothing, and Celeborn continued.
"This morning, when she awoke, she found a golden seed in her hand. Beautiful—radiant—heavy with power. She went to her private pavilion and planted it among the living things she tends with care. Since then, she has sat there, surrounded by greenery and the waters of her fountain, as if to leave it alone would be to invite ruin."
Elrond's breath slowed. A quiet unease settled behind his ribs.
After a pause, he replied, "I think I understand the well from which her silence is drawn. Will you guide me to her?"
Celeborn nodded. "Come."
They walked beneath the mallorn trees. Their gold leaves whispered overhead—old, gentle voices speaking in tongues of memory. Elves greeted them as they passed, their faces calm, their eyes keen. Yet even among them Elrond felt something altered: a subtle restraint, as though the wood itself held its breath.
At length, they came upon a stone stairway half-hidden between roots and shadow. Celeborn gestured downward.
"She is below. Follow these steps, and you will find her."
Elrond bowed. "Thank you."
He hesitated. Words rose in him, too many and too uncertain. Celeborn seemed to sense this and set a steady hand upon Elrond's shoulder.
"Do not force what is not yet ready," Celeborn said quietly. "When the shadow becomes clearer, I will understand. For now, speak with my wife. And when you have found some shape of meaning, return."
Elrond nodded, and began his descent.
The air grew cool, not with winter's chill, but with the hush of places that have heard sorrow spoken aloud and kept it.
At the foot of the stairs, he found Galadriel seated beside a tranquil pool. Her gaze was fixed upon the water's reflection, yet it did not seem she looked at herself. It was as if she watched a different world ripple beneath the surface.
When she sensed Elrond's presence, she turned.
In her eyes, Elrond saw the same weight he carried—only older, deeper, more patient.
"My friend," Elrond asked softly, "did you feel it too—in that place of mist?"
Galadriel did not answer at once. Silence gathered between them like a veil.
Then, slowly, she spoke.
"You mean the child."
Her voice was quiet, but it carried a coldness beneath it—measured, edged, as if she spoke with restraint only barely held.
Elrond's throat tightened.
"You mean how her laughter," Galadriel continued, "her innocence… her voice—everything but her face—called back my daughter."
Celebrían.
The name fell like a stone.
Elrond shivered—not from cold, but from the precision of her grief.
"Yes," he said. "When I looked upon her, it was as if I glimpsed what was lost. Yet I knew it was not your daughter. That light… it did not belong to Arda."
Galadriel nodded once, solemnly.
"No. It was not Celebrían. But the feeling… the likeness… it was undeniable."
She breathed in, as though the air itself were heavy.
"And the seed that came to my hand—look."
She gestured beside the pool.
There, among her careful plants, a sprout had risen. Golden. Ethereal. Its glow pulsed faintly, calm and steady, as though it carried peace in its veins.
To the Elves, the light felt familiar: the hush of Valinor, the remembrance of the Two Trees.
And yet—
Something else lay beneath.
Alien. Ancient. Not dark, not corrupt—simply other, like a song sung in a tongue the world had never learned.
Elrond took an instinctive half-step back.
"This should not be," he whispered.
Then, sharper—fear breaking through his composure:
"Galadriel… did you send word to the Valar?"
Galadriel met his gaze, unblinking.
"No."
The word was simple. Its meaning was not.
"But," she added, "not long ago, Mithrandir sent me word. He spoke of a woman—encountered in the mountains."
Elrond went still.
Galadriel's eyes narrowed slightly, as if she tasted iron in the memory.
"This woman… it is easier to show you than to name. Do not resist."
She placed a hand upon his brow.
And with her ring, she bridged their minds.
The world fell away.
The Shared Memory
A forest ablaze. Orcs laughing, fire dancing in their eyes. Thorin, Bilbo, and Gandalf trapped upon a pine like a last, doomed prayer.
Then—
Cold.
Silver light.
Floating skulls, silver and deep blue, crowned with death.
One struck an orc. He screamed. His flesh blackened and cracked as if winter had bitten the soul from it.
Gandalf's voice rang out like iron:
"Leap. What draws near is Death."
Eagles descended. They caught the falling.
And then she emerged.
A woman cloaked in night. A helm like a hollow void. Brittle gray hair. Eyes like coagulated blood.
A staff carved from a cursed tree's heart.
A ritual weapon thirsting behind her.
The memory ended.
Galadriel withdrew her hand.
They sat in silence, the pool's water whispering softly as if trying to soothe what could not be soothed.
At last, Elrond spoke—barely audible.
"That woman… was the child."
Galadriel did not answer with words.
She only nodded.
Time passed—minutes, or ages. Elrond's voice trembled when it returned.
"What cruelty could remake such innocence into that? What wound could forge her into a harbinger?"
Galadriel's breath shuddered.
"Sometimes," she whispered, "I fear what we are capable of doing to one another. What Morgoth did to his kin. The wars we fought. The cruelty Men still carry, even when they call it necessity."
Her voice cracked—only slightly, but enough to betray the truth beneath her composure.
"Whatever happened to her… it was something I cannot gaze upon without grief."
Silence returned, thick as mourning cloth.
Galadriel rose slowly, eyes fixed on the golden sprout.
"I will try to reach the Valar," she said. "They must know of this growth."
Elrond looked up. "And if no answer comes?"
Galadriel's lips pressed thin.
"Then we will know," she murmured, "that it is not Laurelin that blooms."
She turned toward the light, and spoke as though naming an omen into being.
"It is something from beyond the circles of this world."
A breath.
"Its name… is Erdtree."
And softer still, as if confessing to the water:
"That tree… was not born of our world."
[POV: Gandalf]
Many things lay heavy upon Gandalf.
Dol Guldur. The Necromancer. The strange woman in frost. The dream—the child's laughter and the voice that spoke like a rite over broken worlds.
He sat alone, pipe in hand, smoke rising thin and pale.
It did not comfort him.
Not now.
Then Bilbo came running, his face pale with wonder and fear mingled.
"Gandalf!"
The wizard looked up.
Bilbo held out something in his palm.
"When I woke, this was in my hand."
A golden leaf, shimmering as if it remembered sunlight from a place too holy for mortal feet.
The dwarves, seeing it, quieted. Their shoulders eased. For a moment, the burden of their road lightened, as if they walked not toward a dragon but toward home.
Gandalf studied the leaf.
He did not touch it at first.
He only watched it—listened to the air around it.
"I do not know what it is," he said at last. "But it bears her mark. Not the woman of frost—"
He swallowed.
"—the child."
They resumed the road.
Yet Gandalf's thoughts lingered behind them like a shadow.
And as they walked, he spoke to himself, voice low as prayer:
"We will see her again."
A pause.
"And next time… mercy may not follow."
[POV: Saruman]
In Orthanc, Saruman sat among towers of books higher than any troll.
Candlelight trembled. Shadows clung to stone.
He sifted through old words, older symbols—hungry, meticulous.
"No," he murmured. "It was not Laurelin."
That certainty sat in him like a nail.
The dream's tree rose in his mind again—vast, radiant, connecting heaven and earth, carrying a presence too great to be merely beauty.
He found a passage buried in an older text and read it twice.
Then he leaned back, breath slow.
"That feeling," he whispered, "was like the presence of the Valar… and yet it was not theirs."
His fingers tightened on the page.
"Almost… almost eternal."
A cold smile curved his mouth.
"Fools cling to trees and songs," he murmured, "while the world decays."
But curiosity gnawed at him like a worm in fruit.
If a power existed beyond Arda's song—
He would find it.
And if it could be taken—
He would not be the one to hesitate.
[POV: The Mysterious Figure]
Far away, the figure sat alone, cradling a withered leaf in his gloved hand—darker than Bilbo's, as if scorched by frost and sorrow.
Fear still lived in him.
Yet something else lived beneath fear.
Warmth.
A memory of a lullaby buried under ash.
He looked to the horizon and whispered:
"That tree… was not born of our world."
A breath.
"…and yet, it feels like home."
[POV: None]
Night fell again.
Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves made camp. The pipe ember glowed faintly. Bilbo held his leaf close, as if it could ward off the mist.
They spoke little.
At last Bilbo asked, quiet as a child asking a priest:
"Will it come again?"
Gandalf drew smoke and let it out slowly.
"I do not know," he said. "But I do not think it is finished with us."
Sleep came.
And the dream returned.
Mist everywhere.
They stood together again—Gandalf, Bilbo, Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman—waiting, listening.
Then metal clashed.
And the mist tore open.
A man in strange armor stood beneath a bruised sky. Bronze darkened and ridged like fossilized muscle. A horned helm that erased humanity. A blade vast and ancient, veined like ore pulled from a dead mountain.
Opposite him—the child, now grown.
White hair like snow and starlight. Ruby eyes. A curved blade whose hunger could be smelled.
Its name entered their minds without permission:
Rivers of Blood.
They fought.
She moved like wind—precise, unreachable.
He struck like a mountain—unyielding, crushing.
At last their blades rested.
The knight spoke, voice heavy with pride and disbelief.
"How far you have come… The girl who once struggled to lift a blade now dares to challenge me—Ordovis, commander of the Crucible Knights."
He laughed softly, then asked of Radahn.
And when Tiriana spoke of joining him, when Ordovis teased and then softened, the dreamers witnessed warmth—brief, human, unbearable.
Then came the confession:
"I am with child."
And for a moment, joy lived in the mist.
The words did not fade when spoken.
They lingered.
For a heartbeat, the mist stilled—as if the dream itself had forgotten how to breathe.
The joy that followed was real, fragile, unbearably human. Ordovis laughed. Tiriana smiled, uncertain and bright. Even the air seemed warmer for it.
And yet—
Far beyond the reach of the dream, something vast recoiled.
Not in anger. Not in wrath.
But in refusal.
A pressure rippled through the mist, subtle but undeniable, like a string pulled too far and loosed too suddenly. The ground beneath the vision trembled—not enough to be seen, but enough to be felt in the marrow.
Elrond's breath caught, though he did not know why. Galadriel's presence wavered, as if her light had been brushed by a shadow. Gandalf felt it as one feels the wrong note in a sacred song.
This was not meant to be.
Children were not written into this path. Their lives were not counted among the permitted outcomes.
Somewhere, beyond worlds and laws, the threads that governed becoming twisted—then strained.
And for the first time since the shaping of that distant world, fate resisted a choice born not of ambition, but of love.
The mist shuddered.
Joy remained.
But beneath it, something had cracked.