Like the settling of new-fallen snow upon the earth, the ashes began to settle upon the ground. All though the battlefield beyond Helms Deep, funeral pyres blazed, surrounded by men, women and children, tears like stars plucked from the heavens falling down their cheeks. Far above, a black cloud lifted over the White Mountains, drifting skyward.
Upon the field, the fallen had been gathered, the sorrowful labor bringing a bittersweetness to their victory that had been so desperate. Every soldier had been ordered to eat heartily then to take rest by their captains. Every soldier ate in silence of the stores, then, one by one, they trickled into cots or furs so that the peaceful shores of slumber might somehow lift from them the horrors of the night they had warded off from the Hornburg - every soldier, spare a lone man, his ashen-brown tresses soaked thick with the blood of his fallen foes and his body torn and weary.
Before a single pyre he stood, his crystalline blue eyes filled with the dancing flames. In every tongue of fire, a memory passed. Just as the flames reached desperately for the heavens above them, so his mind was left to reminisce, still struggling against the weight of his heart to turn to the brighter day above. The spinning cinders that danced from the blaze caught the gentle breeze that began slowly to leave the small cleft of the mountains, turning westward.
To the West, where he belongs… his thoughts meandered. He could not be angry, for there was none to be angry with save himself. He could not be disheartened, for it would but undo what was to come at such a great sacrifice. And yet, still entrapped in his own labyrinth, the man could not help but feel both such emotions. However, atop all others, sorrow took him.
He stood before not merely an unnamed soldier's pyre, but that of the Marchwarden of Lothlorien. Guilt had long ago set itself upon his shoulders as the man, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, looked with eyes glassed with weariness and grief upon not only his ally, but as well his friend. How did it come to this? The immortal perish in the wars of mortal men…
Once more, his eyes caught the ashes drifting on the brisk wind. Take him where he truly deserves to lie… amongst the greatest of his kin ever to walk upon i-falas o haeron i-iaun. Mae idh, mellon nin, sidh na le nin.
Translations
lith an i-Dun Sindarin lit. ash to the West
i-falas o haeron i-iaun Sindarin the shores of the distant sanctuary
Mae idh, mellon nin, sidh na le nin. Sindarin Rest well, my friend, peace is yours.