Turn From Twilight
By Misha
Disclaimer: All places and persons mentioned, as well as the circumstances they are in, belong to Tolkien. I'm just a poor student with no money...
Author's Notes- This is my first Lord of the Rings fanfic. I've seen the movie twice and I'm currently reading the book (I just started Return of the King). I adore Arwen and Aragorn and wanted to write a story about them, this is, in fact, probably just the first of many. Anyway, this one focuses on Arwen's thoughts as she cleaves to Aragorn. This one is taken directly from the book, all the dialogue and the setting are out of the appendix. I just added to it, elaborating on Arwen's thoughts and what she must have been feeling as she made that decision. Well, that's all, enjoy!
Rating- PG
Summery- Arwen's thoughts as she cleaves to Aragorn, turning her back on the immortal life of her people (book).
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He has changed. He is not the youth that I remember him as. He is now fully a man.
If this past season has taught me anything, it is that.
But it has also taught me one other thing, that I love him. I have known it from the moment I first saw him again.
I have not spoken the words out loud, but I know that it is true and what my choice must be. How could I choose anything else?
I think I might have always known that it would be him.
I did not love him all those long years ago, even though I know he loved me, but he intrigued me.
And, long after he had taken leave of my father, I found that he lingered in my thoughts.
It was strange. I did not understand why he was so special, why my thoughts kept returning to him.
After all, he was a mere mortal, and he was certainly not the first to compare me to Luthien, yet there was something that set him apart from all the others. Something that had me thinking of him many times over the next years.
And when we met again, that something blossomed into understanding. To knowledge.
To the knowledge that the reason he affected me so, was that he would change the course of my future. That the path I have always known will not be the one that I will walk from this moment on and that will be because of him.
Neither of us has spoken of it, but we both know it is true.
That is what has brought here to this moment, to Cerin Amroth.
"Dark is the shadow, and yet my heart rejoices; for you, Estel, shall be among the great whose valour will destroy it." I say, looking up into my beloved's eyes.
"Alas, I cannot foresee it, and how it may come to pass is hidden from me." He answers. "Yet with your hope I will hope. And the shadow I utterly reject. But neither, lady, is the Twilight for me; for I a mortal, and if you will cleave to me, Evenstar, then the Twilight you must also renounce."
I turn slightly and then stand still, looking into the West, where I will now never go. I have long known this moment was coming, but it is not the easiest of roads.
As I stand here, as still as a white tree, I remember the words I said to Estel that first day we met.
He told me that he believed that I was Luthien Tinuviel, and that if I was not her, then I walked in her likeness.
I replied that many had said that, however that her name was not mine, but I added: ÔThough maybe my doom will be not unlike hers.'
Maybe in my heart of hearts, I knew even then that I would follow this path. That I would choose to forsake the Twilight because it was the only way I could be with him. But it is so hard to put into words.
"I will cleave to you, Dunadan, and turn from the Twilight." I say at last. "Yet there lies the land of my people and the long home of all my kin."
Even as I say the words, there is some sadness in my heart. I know that my father will not approve and that saddens me, for I love him deeply.
But, I love Estel more and as much as it will hurt to part from my father, the idea of living forever when my love will eventually die would destroy me.
No, I have followed my heart and made the only choice possible, my father will just have to accept that.
With that thought in mind, I turn my gaze from the West, as I turn by back on it and the Twilight forever.
The End