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Arafinwë sat alone in the Great Square of Tirion.
It was dark all around him. No star shone in the sky above, no night birds sang, and not a breath of wind stirred. Long hours passed since the poisoning of the Trees, and never had it seem so dark until now. It should not be so dark. They who turned back from their rebellious exodus received their pardon, and they were still many. He was their King.
Yet it mattered not. Arafinwë was all alone.
His people, shocked and distraught, all retreated to their homes to share what comfort there existed with loved ones, yet the High King sat by a fountain that no longer sprouted in the Great Square all alone, his lonesome figure not even casting a reflection upon the still pool beside him, for it was too dark. His father lay dead, his brothers estranged and gone, his wife would not return to Tirion now or in a long time, and his children, his beautiful, valiant, shining children, they all left him without so much as a backward glance.
In the depth of his misery he did not see the slender figure approach him until she was right before him. She knelt down and put a small, white hand on his knee, staring up with pale grey eyes.
"I am sorry, my lord," She whispered, "I failed you. I reasoned, I begged, I shed tears, I used every one of my womanly wiles, to no avail. I could not bring your son and your grandson home. This is the only thing I can do, to turn homeward myself."
"Eldalótë, my child," He murmured, faintly surprised yet not so.
"Will you forgive me?" She spoke again, "For abandoning my husband and child?"
Eldalótë's upturned face looked like a pearly rose faintly gleaming in the starlight. She always seemed a little out of place with the rest of his tall and golden brood. She was a slender, dark songbird in the shadowy boughs surrounded by the eagles of the snowy mountain peak. Even wild, thorny Nerwen was gentle and demure around her sister by marriage, as if fearing she might singe the beautiful but fragile flower. Yet Arafinwë always knew that his fragile-seeming daughter-in-law was in truth the strongest of his valiant children.
He said in a low voice, "What is there to forgive? You did what is right, and you have found the strength to forsake duty, passion, even undying love to do what is right. You alone, Eldalótë, have the strength to do so. What can I even forgive? You have only my deepest respect and love."
"I follow where your noble courage lead, my lord," She took his hand and kissed it gently, "My King."
Arafinwë replied, "Call me not King, my child, for King of our diminished people I may be here in Valinor, yet nothing has changed between us. Are we not the closest of kins?"
Eldalótë sighed, and tears glistened in her eyes. She laid her head in Arafinwë's lap and murmured, "Of course, atto."