Disclaimer: I don't own LOTR.
"...If Sauron is defeated, and Aragorn made king and all that you hopes for comes true, you will still have to taste the bitterness of mortality." -Elrond, TTT film
One upon a time, in a world called Earth, there lived two girls by the names of Ariel and Diana. They were best friends, despite their differences, and had been for as long as either could remember.
Ariel was a shy brunette, often quiet but far from even-tempered, bookish and stubborn and rather naïve. Diana possessed a wild head of vibrantly red hair, which refused to be combed, and an equally untamable sweet tooth; she was a bubbly, sassy tomboy, expert in the art of compromise, and utterly lacking in mean spirit. They adored each other's company and referred to themselves as sisters, more often than not, united by a love of nature, years of shared secrets, and currently an all-consuming passion for Lord of the Rings.
Ariel was a book fanatic. Diana insisted that the novels themselves were dry as SAT prep books and contained twice as many incomprehensible words, setting aside FOTR after a valiant but fruitless attempt to conquer the prologue, and enjoying the movies far more. Fortunately Ariel enjoyed the films as well, though she did list their grievances against the original plot, and after a brief conflict had passed the girls entered a rather obsessive phase during which they would spend nearly every spare moment in the basement lounge at Diana's house, watching the Lord of the Rings movies again and again and again. (This was a great annoyance to Diana's brother, who constantly grumbled about drooling fangirls driving him out by their sheer disgustingness).
They were fangirls, indeed, though too dignified to drool, or to squee: Ariel loved Legolas for his loyalty, bravery, and mysterious poetic metaphors; Diana adored Pippin's sense of humor and cheerful disposition. Ariel began a few romances involving her favorite elf, but the writing vexed her to the extent that she deleted all her drafts and did not tell even her best friend of them. Both dreamed of their loves and for a long while thought them mere fancies, no more real than wishes upon stars.
October sixth came, a stormy Saturday, the somber occasion marked by a Rings marathon. The girls watched avidly until their eyes turned bleary and they were lulled to sleep by the sound of rain.
They thought it might have been lightning, for it had been thundering earlier; but without returning to Earth they would never know. In any case they were woken by a bright white flash, and when their sight returned the basement had disappeared, and only the War of the Ring remained.
Diana was a great deal shorter than Ariel now, and both girls had pointed ears. At first they thought it absolutely fantastic, that they could be Hobbit and Elf, and in Middle-earth! And indeed they had grand adventures with the Fellowship, and lived tales of romance more wonderful than either could have imagined. The Ring was destroyed, the War won, and the girls happily married to their loves. Thus for a time Ariel and Diana lived in delirious joy.
They never did think about the end.
When little Faramir Took was three years old, he fell ill. Diana was distraught; there were no hospitals in this world, nor any of the advanced medicines there would have been on Earth, and she feared for the life of her little boy more than she had for anything before or since.
Ariel, who was visiting at the time, was little help. According to the appendices, she said, Faramir would live to grow up and be Thain someday.
"What would you know?" Diana raged tearfully in response. "This is not about the book, Ariel, this is about my son and- and- and you couldn't possibly understand, you- you airheaded Elf!"
She whirled and stormed off, eventually to collapse sobbing into Pippin's arms. He held her close and stroked her hair and whispered that she needn't cry, that she was brave for enduring this and that everything would be all right.
Ariel wandered in solemn contemplation. No, she realized, she could no longer understand. She was immortal. And it was then that thoughts of the end began to trouble her.
It is far too soon, Ariel mourned. How can a whole life pass by in what seems barely a blink of an eye?
It was the curse of elves, she knew, to watch as all the evanescent mortals withered and perished, like leaves falling lifeless from trees each autumn, and to grieve their passing. Deep inside, she knew, despite a desperate wish that it was not so.
Diana's autumn was inevitably fading. Her curls were grey, her face wrinkled, her lungs weakened from a winter ailment. It was rare now for her to leave her bed. But her eyes were still sharp, and filled with the deep, contented wisdom of a life lived just long enough.
Ariel remembered a place called Earth, where she had once lived with a mother and a father and a conniving little monster of a cat. She'd had a best friend there, too. They had been Best Friends Forever; they'd pricked their fingers and made a blood promise of it, when they were eight, like they'd read about in stories.
We'll be each other's bridesmaids, and name our daughters after each other.
We'll be crazy old ladies in a nursing home together.
We'll die within hours of each other.
And we'll be Best Friends forever and ever and ever, promise?
I promise, Ariel thought. Yet however little she had been changed by time, she had rarely felt further from the girl she had once been. And the further away from it she drew, the more she longed for it.
"Di?" She asked. "Di? Do you think..."
"I certainly think, Ariel. What would you like to know if I think?"
She took a deep breath and steadied herself, but no effort could keep a few childlike tears from dripping. "Do you think that when you pass on, you will be where my parents are? Can you say- can you tell..." She trailed off, choking on sobs.
"I'll tell them anything for you, my friend. Don't cry."
"Tell them that- that I'm- that I'm sorry, that I'll never see- see them again, and- and that I- I love them, please, Diana..."
"I'll tell them, Ariel, I promise. I promise."
"And Diana- I- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry to you too..."
"Come here, Ariel," said Diana, and Ariel did. "I forgive you," she whispered. "I forgive you with all my heart. I can do no less for my best friend." And Diana wrapped her arms around Ariel in the last embrace they would ever share.
Ariel stood upon the deck of the grey ship and watched the retreating landscape until it vanished into the distance, the last she would ever see of Middle-earth.
Legolas came up beside her and took one of her hands in his. "Something troubles you, beloved."
"All of this troubles me. Even with the bright future ahead, I cannot help but be troubled."
"You are not looking towards the future, Ariel, you still hold to the past. Come. There is another horizon to be graced with the sight of your eyes."
Ariel sighed and did not turn away. "Legolas... my past is not something I can let go of so easily. I was mortal once, and loved the mortal world... There is a reason why immortality was never given to the race of Men." Or to women, either, she thought wryly. She did not say it aloud; the phrase did not translate well.
"Such is the curse of Elves, to watch unchanging as the world of mortals fades. But Eru Illúvatar wills nothing without reason. In the land to which we sail, nothing will fade, neither the world around us nor your memories. Be at peace, Ariel."
He was wrong; there was still one more inevitable passing to face, one that Legolas did not like to think of. Ariel knew the grief that the death of a good friend brought all too well. But nevertheless, she came with him at last to watch the other horizon, far away and veiled in mist.
She had known and loved and lost two worlds now. She missed both with piercing heartache. But perhaps Legolas was right; perhaps there truly was a better world on the other side of the sea, a beautiful land where nothing faded or was lost.
Ariel knew that she would never have a happy ending. She could only hope that in Valinor there waited, for herself and Legolas, a happy eternity.
And perhaps, some day unimaginably distant, there would be a Dagor Dagorath, the final battle at the breaking of the world, and Arda Healed, and perhaps then what was lost could at last be found.
Thus begins forever.