The Choice

"I hate to see you so unhappy, dearest."

Arwen hadn't heard the footsteps of her grandmother, but it didn't surprise her. Galadriel could walk more silently than the wind if she wanted, and Arwen herself had been lost in her thoughts for quite a while. She was quiet for a long a time before answering.

"I am just so lost... Some days I feel so certain and convinced, and the next moment I start to doubt all the reasons I have given for my decision."

Galadriel observed her grandchild closely. She could see the lines caused by anxiety and distress on Arwen's face, and it made her more sad than many cruelties and horrors she had seen during her long life. It didn't feel right that Arwen had to suffer yet again, and this time for love. Love, the one thing Galadriel had always considered to be a pure gift of Valar...

"Look at me, Arwen," she commanded firmly. When Arwen was facing Galadriel and looking into her startling blue eyes, her grandmother continued: "I believe you are talking about Aragorn?"

Arwen nodded, and now there were tears shimmering in her eyes.

"I love him so, grandmother," she whispered and buried her face into Galadriel's shoulder. "I love him..."

"If you know that, what is the problem?" Galadriel asked, raising her brow as Arwen released her hold and stared at her.

"You know it! He is a mortal, and I am not. If I chose to stay with him, it would mean that I would have to die as well!"

"Dear child, listen to me! What I meant was that you have already made half the choice by admitting that you love him. Now you merely need to decide who you love more: Aragorn or your family and kin."

Arwen shook her head, feeling more than ever the burden of her worries. If only she could make someone understand!

"But I do not know! I love my father dearly and I know that he has always opposed our love, but I do not know whether I love ada enough to abandon the true love of my love -"

"And neither you know do you love Aragorn enough to give up your immortality," Galadriel completed. After this statement there was a long silence as they walked together amidst the golden and silvery trees of Lothlorién. It was utterly silent, even the wind was quiet, and their bare feet made no sound as they moved.

"Can you give me any advice, grandmother?" Arwen asked suddenly, her tone more or less pleading, as they reached a white, delicate fountain. "What would you do?"

Galadriel sighed.

"What I would do has nothing to do with your situation, Arwen, and you know it. I can't tell you what to do, and I can't make the decision for you. You are the only person who knows what you truly want."

Arwen hadn't really expected any advice from Galadriel, and her words made her feel even more desperate. She should make the decision herself, was it so? But how could she, when it concerned both her life and her supposed death, and she knew nothing about the latter one?

"What is it like, grandmother? To die?" she asked abruptly after they had sat down by the fountain.

Galadriel's answer was a bright laughter before she spoke.

"And what makes you think I would know anything about death?"

"You said yourself that you have seen many mortals die, especially before you came to Lothlorién."

"True," Galadriel answered, thinking carefully before continuing, "And if my past ever proofed anything to me, then it was the fact that those mortals who died of old age, after a full life, weren't sorry for their death. They said that it was more like a reward. They would pass to a better place, they explained, and it wasn't a sad fate at all."

"Are you saying then," Arwen said slowly, "that I should choose mortality?"

"I am merely trying to make you see that death isn't a big, scary monster like so many elves think. It is a different fate, different to our final sail, but not worse," Galadriel said gently, catching a fallen leaf from the surface of the still water.

"But still, it means an everlasting separation..."

Galadriel rose suddenly to her feet and asked:

"Do you want to look into the mirror?"

Surprised, Arwen rose too and looked inquiringly at the tall elf maiden next to her.

"Can I?"

"I think," Galadriel replied secretively, "that it might help you."

"I cannot see anything," Arwen commented after a few silent minutes, frustration evident in her voice. "This is useless."

"Patience, Arwen, patience," was the only respond she got from Galadriel who was standing by the spring. "The mirror will show you something, I'm sure of it."

And at that moment, as if in a response to Galadriel's words, the grey sky that had reflected into the mirror disappeared. For a moment Arwen could only see blurry figures and colors, and then the image became clear again, causing her to gasp.

There was Aragorn, wearing an armor and a crown, standing in front of a cheering crowd. The picture changed suddenly, and now Arwen saw herself sitting next to Aragorn, a delicate crown on her head too. Then there were the two of them, crying of joy, Aragorn holding a baby boy. More images came, with daughters, laughter and also sorrow as mortals around them died one by one. Aragorn too became older and older, until finally Arwen saw Aragorn lying dead, and she cried as hard as the queen Arwen in the mirror. The last image was from the hill of Cerin Amroth, as she painfully realized, and in it she was as dead as her beloved.

Tears still dropping down her face, Arwen moved to leave the cruel and never-lying mirror, but the mirror hadn't stopped yet. Suddenly it reflected the harbors, where she rose to a ship with other elves. Her father and brothers were there, too, as well as Galadriel and Celeborn. They traveled for days, and Arwen watched herself staring for hours back to the land which she had left. And then there were lovely and graceful images of the land beyond the sea, but still there was no smile on her face. She would walk to the white shore day after day, year after year, decade after decade, and long for the man she had decided to abandon.

"What is immortality without love?"

She wasn't sure whether it had been she or the Arwen in the mirror who had said those words, but suddenly Galadriel was there, pulling her gently away from the mirror and holding her tightly. They stayed like that for long, until all Arwen's tears had dried off.

"I am so sorry, dearest, but you needed to know," Galadriel whispered. "You needed to understand both fates."

Arwen nodded, feeling weak after all she had just experienced. Still, there was also serenity inside her. Something had changed, as if the decision had already been made.

"I am fine, grandmother," she said, trying to smile. "Really, I just need to be alone for a while."

Galadriel smiled softly, compassion in her eyes, and let Arwen to walk away. She had done what she could, and now it was up to Arwen to choose her path.

Arwen walked slowly back to Cerin Amroth, trying hard not to think of what she had seen happening on that place. Up on the hill she sat down, leaning to a tree and looked to the horizon. It didn't give her any of the answers she so desperately was looking for.

When she finally had decided to leave the solitude of Cerin Amroth, and was walking through Caras Galadon, she saw Aragorn walking towards her. He seemed to her more like an elf lord than a mortal, wearing white and silvery clothes, and through him shone grace and royalty Arwen had never seen before.

And at that moment, when she saw him approaching like a king of old times, in his silvery eyes only love and adoration, she knew that her decision was made. How could she leave the man who now owned both her heart and soul?

And when she started to walk towards him, only longing for the embrace of her beloved, she understood that this was the only way it could have ended. She had made her choice, choice of both love and death. Oh Eru, she had made her choice.