Starlight in Another World
by Argenteus Draco
She holds the rune stone, and she holds his hand, and she thinks of all the things and all the years that could have been. For days (weeks; months; she loses track) the shadows of these visions haunt her, and though she never really learns to let them go, she does understand that with so many important years still before her, she cannot dwell on a future that never was.
The journey to the Grey Havens is what makes her think of it again. She can understand a part of him now that she never could before, the desire to reach an ancestral home that she herself has never seen. The Elves of Mirkwood have always been isolated, but now they are joined by their kin from Lothlorien and Rivendell, also making their way to the port. They do not travel with the haste she is used to. Most are not militant, few carry weapons. Her horse slows to nibble on some low hanging foliage, and something shining in the grass catches her eye. She dismounts, and reaches down to inspect it. A piece of labradorite, uncarved, unpolished, un-anything, really, but still beautiful and painful because of what it represents to her.
"Tauriel," another member of her host asks, "what is it?"
She lets the stone fall from her fingers and roll down the gentle slope. "Nothing," she says. He nods acknowledgement, and she is left alone with her thoughts.
Some days later, her solitude is interrupted again, but this time by a different voice. "What did you see?" it asks, in a low, lilting alto.
She tries to smile. She has no wish to burden the Lady Undómiel with her sorrow.
"I do not have the gift of foresight, my Lady," she answers. "I see nothing except what is here before us."
"I do not believe you." The Lady Arwen has a dark, penetrating gaze. The gifts that Tauriel lacks, this maiden has in plenty. "You come from Mirkwood. You have seen great loss."
"You speak as one who has seen it yourself," Tauriel replies, before she can stop herself. Arwen's expression turns mournful.
"I feel as though I have," the Lady tells her. "Before it even began."
She knows this feeling too well, and she does not respond.
"I feel as though I see glimpses of it," Arwen continues. "Now and again, like mist and shadow, something is trying to get my attention, but I do not know if it is real."
Silence stretches between them again while she grapples with whether or not to speak. Finally, staring at the delicate braided reins clutched in her fingers and seeing instead a thick gloved hand, she asks Arwen, "Is it painful?"
"Yes."
"Then it is real."
Another long silence. She looks up at Undómiel, her face half hidden behind a velvet hood, but the Lady is no longer looking at her. She is captivated by something in the trees far ahead, something only she can see. She falls behind the others on horseback. Tauriel rides on.
She looks back one last time, and sees Arwen riding away, back toward Rivendell. For a fleeting moment, she thinks to join the Lady, to forsake the Undying Lands and live out however many days she may yet have in the realm that has given and taken so much from her.
She looks ahead, and knows what she must do. She can almost hear him say it.
She will go to the Grey Havens. She will walk in the starlight of another world, and perhaps then she will be able to think of him fondly and without pain.