Rivendell is a vale of golden summer, light amid the shadows of mountains, a place where all things green and growing take root and twine, waking the stones until even the statues and pillars of Imladris seem alive.
Arwen would know.
Many hundreds of years have the edges of her trains and veils whispered over the carven walkways, many hours of day and night has she watched sunlight and starlight. The books within the deep recessive libraries are her friends, but they can only speak in whispered lines of script.
They cannot listen.
Even beauty, even grace, even silence—these things can grow heavy, with time.
Arwen would know.
.
She has lived long when she meets him. He is young, so young. Perhaps too young to love, but then again, she too is young in the eyes of her people.
"Someday he will be a king, if he can bear it," Elrond murmurs, his face grave and eternal.
Arwen says nothing. What she thinks is: what will I be? And can I bear it?
Elrond would have her sail to the silver west. She has known this since long ago, when her mother's immortality became an uncertain thing, when her brothers joined the Dunedain and left her with her father and their grief.
To live forever, one must lose much.
Arwen loves her father, but she does not want to become him.
.
Sometimes the world moves quickly. Her world has stood still for so long, but her love's world is spinning around him, putting weight on his shoulders before it puts a crown on his head.
You are Isildur's heir, not Isildur himself. She wishes he would believe her. But why should he believe her? She knows much of loss, but only because she has lived a long time, and taken little.
.
She stitches silver thread into the gossamer banner, and whispers her love to one who is far away. The fabric is slippery and fine, but it is stronger than it looks.
.
You saw there was a child. You saw my son.
Her father's face is lined with sorrow; sorrow for things that have already come to pass, and sorrow for things that will.
"Why did you deceive me?" Arwen demands, as though she does not already understand.
And Elrond answers, "Because I do not want to lose you."
Arwen feels cold—she has felt cold ever since she tugged her horse's reins back, back to Rivendell. "But whether I sail to Valinor or not," she whispers, "I will be lost to you."
He bows his head. Somewhere among the living trees and the vinebound statues, she hears him say, "I know."
.
She cannot feel her hands. The air of autumn in this ale of golden summer is chill and somber; Aragorn rides to war and she, she is the Undomiel, the last star.
As Galadriel told her once, even-voiced and with the quiet mourning of the infinite, even stars must die.
Someday has come, and she cannot bear it.
.
Her love wins his war, and holds up his head with its winged crown, and she is happy, and golden summer comes again.
In the end, she will fade. This rekindled flame cannot burn bright forever; but forever, in the end, is not what she wanted.
Arwen would know.