The book slipped from her unfeeling fingers, falling for an eternity, time slipping away. She was too cold, too numb to stop it. The book hit the floor, the sound shattering the heavy, oppresive silence; a wind flickered amidst the leaves, lifting them and flitting away with them, dropping them, whispering, stilling. She saw his feet, approaching, now before her.
Elrond came to stand in front of his daughter, bending down and scooping the book into his hand, tucking it away. She stared at her fingers, frozen, thoughts lost in darkness and memory. She did not understand. She felt weighed down, weariness toying with her mind, shadows that played at her thoughts and drug them down into infinity. Weak, she felt weak. As frail as the skittering leaves, to be crumbled beneath the touch of a single finger.
Elrond reached out, wishing to comfort her. She looked so small... so broken. He grasped her fingers lightly, but a sharp shock flooded through him as they came in contact with coldness. He turned his anxious eyes on her, but she would not meet them, fighting her own pain, the hurt that gnawed at her. "Your hands are cold..." he said softly, disbelievingly. Surely this could not be. She was slipping away from him, he felt it, saw it, knew deep inside things would never be the way they once were. She was lost. "The life of the Eldar is leaving you." You are leaving me.
He knelt quickly, gathering her hands into his, trying to bring warmth, security. She turned her pale, grey gaze upon him, and he thought his heart would break as he found no starlight or laughter contained therein, but a shadow and despair. Fading... she was fading, to be lost from him forever. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, feeling the skin begin to warm. Hope, faint and fragile.
"Ada," she whispered, and the word seemed to come from a distance, finding him through twisting shadows and ensnaring darkness. "Whether you will or not, there is no ship now that can bear me hence."
Burning tears blurred his vision. He wished for nothing more then to protect her. He loved her, his beautiful daughter. This should not ever have been. She was not meant to die, not meant to taste the bitter end that would find her so soon. Should not feel such pain, or darkness. He wanted to take this from her, the choice, the love she bore that tore her apart from everything she had known for its own sake. He had sought to protect her all her life, and now, there was nothing he could do. She did this of her own choice.
"Arwen..." he laid his hands on her face, running his thumb across her pale, cold cheek, memorizing her features. She was so cold, so frail. His wonderful, lovely daughter. Her eyes were torn from his. She was pulling away, turning her face, staring out where the valley lay spread, murmuring of the winter, leaves dancing in the wind, falling like a soft shower in the bitterly cold breezes. The deep silver pools had a distant look in them, and he felt her mind reaching out across the land, beyond the sight of the lingering winter, searching lands where her eyes could not see.
She felt the darkness, blocking the groping tendrils of her thought as she reached for the presence of her beloved. Aragorn... she whispered his name faintly into the nothingness. My love, where are you?
"I can not see him," she whispered, and tears welled in her eyes, trickled down her cheeks. "He is gone into the darkness that spreads across the lands, and I can no longer see him." Such infinate sadness. It haunted each word, wrapping it in her pain. She pitched forward, dropping off the bench to land on the hard ground. The rock bit her knees through her dress, but she did not heed it as she threw her arms around her father.
Elrond drew her close, enveloping her in his arms as her shoulders began to shake with deep sobs. The seconds, minutes, hours, fell by in a neverending flow, unheeded. He held her, never wanting to move again, to merely hold her, and never let her go. Tears threaded his own cheeks, and his eyes lost sight of the world as they wandered far away. At last he found himself in reality again, and he glanced down to find Arwen sound asleep in his arms, forehead resting against his shoulder.
He shifted, rolling her back slightly so that he could look at her face. Her eyes were closed, red from weeping. She was sleeping, not the light paths of dreams tread by the elven kind, but the deep sleep of men. He traced the contours of her face, then gathered her up, rising with all the grace of his race that he possessed so as not to wake her, setting her gently on the chaise, pulling a blanket from nearby and laying it over her still form.
He sank to his knees next to her, taking her hand and enfolding it in his own as he watched her sleep. Time slipped away from him, precious moments that would fade too quickly and be lost, withered away into nothing but a memory. Like she would. The ache bit deep, throbbing with each breath. He wanted to carry her away from this place, to scoop her up in his arms and bear her to a land and time where neither of them knew such hurt. Where keeping her didn't mean having to see the regret and despair in her eyes when he looked at her, and letting her go didn't mean losing her for all eternity.
But her choice had been made, and her heart now rested in another's hold. Valar, at last he understood why Elu had locked his daughter away up high in a tree. She would fade, wither away as the days of glory and light had, would become the darkness that was now this world. It nearly drove him mad with desperation. He stifled a raw sob that threatened to burst free, clamping a hand over his mouth as he stroked his thumb over her knuckles with the other, anchoring himself in the storm.
"All is not lost," he whispered urgently, trying to convince himself he believed it, voice parched with grief. He planted a soft kiss against the back of his precious daughter's hand.
"You must believe... all is not lost."