Dedicated to the men and women who, over years and centuries, have given their all for their country.

This war is over. This war.

The thought haunts me as I wait to board the ship that will carry me home. War had no place in my life, no space in my thoughts, until that boy showed up. His arrival changed everything.

His ship flies the sky above, stone bound to his brow as a symbol of...hope?

Maybe for others. For me it's an eternal reminder of those bloody stones that started this whole mess. Envy and greed and strife.

And death.

How many of us heard the words of the Valar and agreed to this war?

The Halls are filling and Námo has his hands full of a bloodied bounty.

But for me it is done. For now at least. Because I know this is but a stop-gap. Rumors abound that one day he whom the Valar bound and cast into the Void will return and then... Then a final war will be waged.

Is there ever an end to this?

How I envy the Edain. Called briefly to the Halls, their fëar are free to leave the confines of this world. Not tied to the unending circle that we Elves are bound to until the end of Arda. To be born, to die and be re-born. Oh, it's no rumor, that. I've seen the re-embodied walking in the full light of day.

It is a doom that none of us can escape.

Does it make me fearless? It makes me weary. Heart-sore, sick to my soul, I want only to go home and never again lift a sword. Never again have to see my brothers cut down as wheat before the scythe, laying in bloody bits on a gory field.

I do not want this fate, long years stretching before me as they never have, with the weight of knowledge holding me so very fast to -

"Gently, lad. Set him here, with the others. Least we can do, bringing them home."

"Why aren't we burning them like the others?"

"These are Vanyar, lad. There is no burning for them, save if their bodies consume themselves. We return them to their mountains and valleys. The families will be waiting on the docks."

Home.

See how they handle my body, so reverently? As if it means anything to me now. My mind is turning, like a flower to the sun. There is music, summoning, calling me to leave this shell and come to rest.

Bear me home, white ships. This war is over.