"For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad that you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam."
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Finally
How long we fought, I cannot say. How many battles, I know not. I only know that in the very end, when Melkor at last, forever and for all time was thrown down and his dark light extinguished from this world, we raised bloody swords and gave ragged cheers. I would have cried if I was able, but all I could do was push myself to wander and see if any of my friends had survived.
This was the end of all things, the end of all time. I knew not what came next and wanted to my friends with me.
"You live!" I found Ecthelion, standing at the edge of a crater where Melkor had been destroyed, watching the three mighty victors, Túrin Turambar, Eönwë and Tulkas.
He turned and smiled, slinging an arm around my shoulders. "Elemmakil! I lost track of you in the chaos. It is good to see you, my friend!"
Glorfindel was there as well, and we found as many of our loved ones as we could.
"This is the unmaking of Arda, then?"
"Don't be afraid." Glorfindel's voice was quiet above the sobbing and weeping around us. "Many of us have crossed from death and back again. It holds no terrors."
But I feared, for I had survived all things. Gondolin, the kin-slaying at Arvernion, the sinking of Beleriand, The War of Wrath. Battle was no stranger, but death...
Ecthelion looked upwards to where the stars were scattered across the black sky like rivers of diamonds. Melkor had destroyed the sun and moon and the world was as it had been when our people awakened; in starlight. Throwing aside his sword, Ecthelion knelt. "Though this be my end, I will not meet it with defiance and fearful words, or swords raised in anger."
He began to sing a very old song, far older than even Gondolin, and I dropped my sword, fell to my knees next to him and joined in song. He was my captain, though surely I was far beyond that now. Never had he led me wrong, even in that last, awful battle in Gondolin. I would not leave him.
Not now, at the end of all things.
I heard Glorfindel join the song and then, from all around, others singing, and before long the plain was echoing with voices raised in song.
They say death is a transition, not an ending. The sloughing off of the battered, grimy form, too weak to continue, and the rising of the new, glorious body that echoes the splendor of the spirit.
Arda died. She was worn and weary, battered from our wars, and her travails.
In the blink of an eye, Arda was re-made, and the brilliance of light that filled my wonder-filled gaze was gold and silver untarnished.
A/N:
Happy Halloween! I know, this isn't quite like the others, but then what is Halloween but a transition? A time to say farewell to summer and move into fall and winter (in the Northern Hemisphere at least). To the darker days that come and hope for the return of brighter days. Tolkien never wrote much about the Dagor Dagorath but if you look up the Second Prophecy of Mandos, you'll find where I took this idea from. Thank you for all your amazing reviews! I am slowly getting back to everyone. :)