Hi everyone!
First off - thank you so much for your wonderful, unbelievable reviews. I'm useless at responding but I promise I will once this one is posted! Last chapter was a mammoth one and this one is no different! We really, truly are on the final stretch now. One more chapter, and then the Epilogue - holy WHAT?!
I hope you all enjoy this one, and I cannot wait to hear what you think. Also - you thought last chapter was bad? One part of this when I wrote it had me crying into my keyboard. Tissues at the ready, and I'm certain you'll all know the bit when you've read it.
See you on the other side,
MM -x
Two days later I finally dragged myself out of my pit, having let myself wallow in my self-pity for long enough. It was dusk, the sun dipping beneath the rise of the hills and leaving a deep purple-red spread across the sky like dyed silk, and I wandered out to the courtyard to get a better view. As I walked, I spotted Elladan leaning against one of the stone arches, twirling a pipe between his fingers with a creased brow.
"You look away with the fairies." I said quietly and his head shot up with a startled expression.
"Bernadette, I did not realise you remained in our halls." I came to stand beside him, and took the pipe from his hands.
"This was Mithrandir's wasn't it?" I asked instead of answering, and he nodded.
"It was. Before he left he granted it to me; I always wondered why he had such a fondness for the leaf of Halflings." He chuckled. "He told me that it helps to slow a racing mind so that we may see things that might otherwise have passed us by."
"Got any of said leaf?" I asked impulsively and Elladan's grimaced – an expression I'd never seen on his face before.
"He said that was my first task – I must find where he put it."
"What was the second task" I asked curiously, and he shook his head once with a distant expression.
"That I cannot say; not yet, at least." He said, still frowning as his head tilted forward. I decided not to push it, recalling the serious expressions I had seen on their faces a few nights before those who were leaving for the sea had set off.
"Okay. Well, your first task is an easy one if you think about it." I chuckled, considering the wizard and the challenge he had set for the elf before me. Mind games did not strike me as a strong point for either Elladan or Elrohir despite their sometimes troublesome and creative natures.
"I am glad you find it so amusing; I have mulled on his words for two nights and have not yet stumbled upon the answer."
"Where do you find answers?" I prompted. Puzzles and riddles like this had always been fun to me, and helped me to twist my mind in different ways.
"It depends on the question, surely." Elladan frowned, and I gave a tut as I realised he needed to be taught how to think in different ways, too.
"You really are a student of the sciences and I bet you're rubbish at riddles." He nodded sheepishly.
"Elrohir was always the more creative of the pair – I prefer to act." He explained and it dawned on me that they were the opposite of the way my sisters were. J was high-strung but artistic, and Tori was easy-going but preferred to act. That helped me to think on how to clue Elladan in to the whereabouts of Mithrandir's gift.
"Lesson number one from the arts student: all of life's answers are in books, and if the answer isn't there right away the next question in your search will be. Clever, really – we learn more than just what's imparted from books in our pursuit of knowledge – searching is a skill, and finding meaning is too. However, one has to be careful they aren't trying to find meaning where there is none."
I watched as he tried to work out how I'd got there, and slowly it dawned on him. "The Library, then. So simple an answer, yet I could not come to it. Are you certain you would not like to take up my Father's mantle?" He joked.
"No, thank you kindly. I'll be helping Haldir enough as it is." I rolled my eyes, leaning back against the arch next to him. "Why didn't you go with them, to say goodbye?"
"Someone must stay behind." He said, but I could tell he wasn't just referring to the management of Rivendell as I took to twirling the pipe in my fingers the same way he had been. "You always befriended my brother and sister, yet I have never had the opportunity to truly know you except for that information which is second-hand." He offered his arm to me and I took it, letting him lead me into the halls of Imladris once more.
"There isn't much to tell, really." I admitted. "Twenty years that were something of nothing, in the end."
"I doubt that. Now, as I did not even know you were still here I expect you have not eaten. Perhaps you could explain to me the finer details, and then show me what precisely I do with this?" Elladan lifted the pipe as in a toast.
"I could be convinced." I grinned. "I was meaning to ask – where was it you found me, and how did you find me?" I recalled what I'd pondered with Haldir earlier in the week when we'd travelled.
Elladan look surprised. "Within the borders of Rivendell, nearby in woodland. Grandmother spoke to my Father urgently saying that she had felt a disturbance, and he sent us out to find the source of it."
"Oh." I pursed my lips. "Lovely, I'm a disturbance. What a compliment – I'm certain Haldir would agree, mind, but still." I said drily, rolling my eyes.
Elladan laughed, and then looked startled again as if he hadn't expected me to joke like that. "You are not the lady I first suspected you to be. You were so timid."
"Well then, over dinner and a smoke you will learn I'm not quite as I appear. Or maybe I am. To be or not to be, that is the question." I gestured grandly and then giggled at his befuddled expression. "I'm not mad, I promise. I am hungry though."
"Well then, let us eat and be questionably merry!" He laughed and walked me to the kitchens, asking everything about what I'd done since we'd last seen each other in Gondor for Arwen's wedding.
Over dinner, the barrage of questions only increased as he permitted me to cook dinner for us. As always when I cooked a real meal for an elf for the first time, I made chicken and chips which alarmed Elladan just as it had Haldir's brothers – at first. He quizzed me on my human childhood, my music, and all things university which clearly appealed to his academic nature.
"Fascinating," He leaned forward, chin resting on one hand thoughtfully as the other reached for the basket of chips I'd made – he'd loved them so much he'd insisted on more. "And you studied what?"
"Music – I did a few modules in Literature too, but most of my degree was in Music."
"Fascinating." Elladan said again, chewing on another chip. "And this... institution?"
"We'd call it a University." I explained, and then launched into a description of the place I'd studied. "I didn't have too many friends, but Sam was my best friend. We did everything together – he was brilliant and the ultimate merging of science and arts. God, what did he study? Oh yeah, Music and Neuroscience. I know I've picked up healing quite easily but here it's more an art than a science." I chatted happily.
"Neuro... tell me everything." He demanded, and with a roll of my eyes I tried as best I could to explain the study of the brain. Elladan absorbed everything like a sponge, questioning and querying. For days and days I told him all about my home in the deep rolling hills of Yorkshire, and of the coasts, the highlands, and the lowlands of the country I called home in thousands of years to come. I told him the highs like my fun with Sam, and the lows when my Dad died and the bullying was at its very worst. By the time his family and my own returned, he knew more of my past than even my sisters did and even had a little English down to pat.
Haldir, Tori and Elrohir were subdued, and I felt my husband's desperate sadness as he held me as close as he could; the minute he'd walked in the door to our room he had reached out to me in a frantic search for physical comfort.
"One thing I never understood." I began as I listened to his heartbeat. "Why did Rumil go with them?"
"He was but a child when it happened; when they left." Haldir said to me, lips pressing in to my hair. "He does not truly recall my Father's face, my Mother's smile. I wished for them both to have time to come to know them as I did, and love them. I fear that I was more a parent to Rumil than our Father ever was and I... " A harsh cry broke from him then as his hand grabbed a fistful of my cloak, his breathing ragged. "I shall miss them, my heart. I shall miss them so very much. I have never spent any more than a year apart from them, and I know not what to do."
I held him close, body and spirit, until I felt the tsunami on the great silver lake of his soul calm to ripples every now and again. "We'll get there, and as you said to me we will see them again – they're not gone forever." I stroked his cheek lovingly, and I saw the spark in his eyes once more as he nodded. "Now come on. Let's go home."
xxxXxxx
The years passed, one by one. We stayed in East Lorien for a while as we'd planned but as it emptied and Celeborn took his leave to Rivendell we found we had little reason to stay any further. Legolas and Tori had taken Greenwood elves to Ithilien, where Faramir and Éowyn ruled, and they'd now a fairly decent colony there that they watched over comfortably. Haldir and I had taken an almost-official position as the Lord and Lady of East Lorien, but with a diminishing population we were rarely needed except to sign official paperwork.
"What do you want to do?" I asked one quiet evening, resting my head against Haldir's chest. I'd flopped onto the bed with a groan after a particularly long day pouring over bills for medical supplies, and Haldir had traipsed in not long after with hands splattered in ink from signing agreements with those who intended to stay confirming they all owned the area jointly. Nerwen and Taeglyn, the last of the elves I'd known from Lothlorien, had gone to the Havens with their young son the year before and I was beginning to feel lonely despite the work I did healing and baking.
"East Lorien never would remain a great home for us, love." His fingers trailed a path up and down my spine absent-mindedly. "We have been here twenty years, and that is good. We could move further north to the Greenwood with your kin, or of course there is always Ithilien."
Twenty years, gone in the blink of an eye. Osellë had left me all of her books, and in the boom of births after the War ended I spent most of my time as a midwife to elves who remained in Middle Earth. Most couples managed their own births, but if the men were away or the birth became complicated assistance was sometimes needed. It astounded me that I was forty already – the years were flying and it had been ten years since I had last seen Tori face to face.
"Legolas wrote not long ago – his Father speaks of sailing more and more. I think a move north would be futile in the end." I propped myself up with a huff. "Can we just live in a little corner somewhere?"
Haldir laughed and pushed me backwards, looming over me with his hair becoming a curtain that hid me from all other eyes but his. "Then Ithilien it is. I know you will enjoy having your sister's company again and I long for the day when I am no longer called 'My Lord' or expected to manage trade agreements – I do not know how Celeborn managed to stand it for so long." His lips captured mine, pulling me into his embrace and kindling the flame between us once more.
A year and a half later, we made our final goodbyes to East Lorien and travelled the quiet roads to Ithilien. I was greeted by the greatest embrace I'd ever had from both Legolas and Tori, and Haldir rolled his eyes as Legolas carried me through the woods as he had when I was a Lady in Mirkwood – slung over his shoulder.
"Lady Bernadette of East Lorien, how marvellous it is to have you here!" He said cheerfully and I tried to struggle out of his grip.
"Then you should show me the damn respect I deserve." I thumped hard against his back.
"I am, My Lady – such fair feet should never touch the ground. Now, do desist before I drop you. Come, Haldir! You should make your peace with Gimli for he comes here to us more and more as the years pass." Legolas turned to wave Haldir on before heading off in the direction of the home he'd had prepared for us. I snorted, knowing just how much Haldir disliked the grandfatherly dwarf Tori, Legolas and I so favoured.
"Children, the both of you!" He called as loudly as he could, earning only a laugh from Legolas and a bright smile from me as I waved cheerfully. When Legolas had it in his head to carry me, it was sometimes best to let him do it.
The minute we'd fully settled, I was off to Minas Tirith in secret to surprise Arwen. I saw Aragorn first, who spotted me in my human garb and knew who I was almost instantly.
"Lady Bernadette, it is wonderful to see you!" His smile was wide despite the fine lines that were beginning to show. "Arwen will be so happy to know you are here. Come." He welcomed me into the palace and we chatted about life in Ithilien and how Legolas, Gimli and Tori were. He opened the door to the small library, and I saw Arwen engrossed in a book... and rather heavily pregnant.
"Well, you got... round." I spoke and her head snapped up, eyes lighting up as she stood and reached to embrace me.
"Oh, Bernadette, I cannot believe you are here!" She took my hands, giving them a squeeze. "Come and sit, please. Last I heard, you had become quite the Lady – of that land my Grandfather established, in fact."
"Healer, baker, mediator." I chuckled, sitting down beside her. "Do you know what you're having?"
"Yes, a boy. Please, go ahead." She spotted my twitching fingers and the moment I could I let myself gently probe to check on the health of the child inside.
"Hello there, young Sir." I spoke, and I grinned as he kicked at Arwen's stomach "Strong; a good sign for you both." Arwen looked beatific as she placed her own hands upon the firm bump in a tender expression of motherhood.
"I know it. I confess it is comforting to have an elven healer close by – those I have seen I fear I have insulted for they do not understand the connection we have to our babes." I nodded with a grimace – Men didn't have the same way to speak as I knew the Elves did to their unborn and so I expected more than a few midwives would have got in a huff at her assurances the boy was well.
"Would you... I know it may be too much of me to ask, but would you stay? I am due in only a month or two – we are unsure on the term for he shall not be fully elven nor fully mortal."
"I would be honoured." I blushed with pleasure, and six weeks later I was there as she gave birth to her son, Eldarion. He was a beautiful child and I was in love almost instantly, and it quickly became that I was the only lady Arwen wanted at the births of her children.
Eldarion was the only boy, and all the rest were girls as fair as their Mother and as strong as their Father. The more I saw her fierce pride and quiet strength, her unrelenting love for her children, I felt a stir within me that at first I didn't recognise. It was a longing, a desire to protect and to nurture and to love.
I toyed with the idea for months and months until finally I couldn't deny what my heart was asking of me any longer. "Haldir?" I spoke quietly one night as we laid together in our home, propping myself up on one elbow.
"Hmm?" I could tell he was only half-listening to me, so I prodded him sharply in the side so he paid attention to me. "Woman, you are an infernal creature."
"I think I know why I wanted to stay." I let the dust settle from my announcement, and he looked at me with a surprised expression.
"What is that, my love?" He put his book down, and pulled me so I was part on top of him. "I thought you wished to stay for Arwen?"
"At first, that was exactly the reason but then I..." I tried to find the words, and he brushed my hair out of my face as I blew it in a huff. "I wish for a child to be born here, in Middle Earth, so that some of the next generation recall the lives we had here. So it isn't lost in memory and time."
"Is that so?" A small smile began to form on his lips. "I did wonder why you were locking yourself away in that city of man more and more."
"Arwen has six children and I'm in love with all of them." I confirmed, a blush stealing my cheeks. His hands began to roam lower upon my body, and I sighed in pleasure.
"I have always wanted to be a Father. To be blessed with a child of my own..." He brought my head down and kissed me, letting me know what he thought of the idea. "Truly, you do not jest?"
"I'm not joking, I promise. I know it's soon into our marriage, but we've never done anything by half." I swore, and he laughed before pinning me down upon the bed.
"I love you, sweet Bernadette." He spoke, kissing my forehead, eyes, and then my lips before his hands and lips roamed further down, drawing sensations from me that had me writhing in delight.
Within a month of consciously trying to conceive, I was pregnant.
I knew very soon, but not in the way I expected. I could hear Haldir again, as I had years before when we first married. His thoughts came to me like leaves on the wind, more and more until I felt the first flutter of life. It felt like a spark, or the sputtering of a candle as the wick took hold of a flame until it began to burn hot within me. Not only that, but it felt like him, like his heartbeat and his strength and his passions magnified a hundred-fold
"Haldir." I spoke quietly and with surety, hands pressed against my stomach with wide eyes. I was starting to think I was before when his thoughts were coming to me with no effort to hear them, but the knowledge now was so complete I finally had the courage to tell him.
"Yes, my love?"
"I think I'm... I think we've... " I beamed then, and his hands were on me instantly.
"Are you sure?" He asked, eyes shining, and I nodded as I placed one of his hands on my stomach. It was far too soon to feel any movement, but with the touch of a healer I could pass on the early sensations of out child to him.
I'm sure. I let my thoughts out to him as I tugged at the silver thread that I identified as the path to him, and he began to laugh before tears threatened to spill. Daddy.
Mummy. I felt his own thoughts reach me, and his crushing embrace returned as we stood in our sitting room together feeling the little life that was just beginning.
It came remarkably naturally to me, though we kept our news private for as long as we could simply because we enjoyed every moment. Haldir rarely left my side and took great joy in speaking to my growing bump whenever he could, and around 5 months into the pregnancy I began to feel sensations coming from our child – who made it quite clear she was a girl.
"What shall we name you, little one?" I spoke to my stomach one morning, feeling the gentle swell beneath my fingertips. "Will you be named for a song like your Mummy, or shall you be a great warrior like your Daddy?"
She will be like you, I know it. I felt his words in my mind and I saw Haldir return from his hunt with a few rabbits for me to do with as I wished.
You can strip and prepare those. I heard his laughter out loud as I felt a light queasiness grasp me. I had not experienced any sort of sickness before and otherwise my pregnancy had been fairly easy, so I elected to believe it was entirely the feelings coming from our daughter on the subject.
I had hoped to keep it secret a little longer as my bump was particularly compact, but Tori caught me bathing and there was no hiding the swell of my stomach in the water. She had begun to cry, kissing my forehead and then running to Legolas to let him know.
"Don't tell the whole bloody world!" I scolded her as she retreated from me, but I knew that the entirety of Ithilien and Mirkwood would know within a week. Safe to say, Legolas insisted on carrying me everywhere whenever he saw me and despite my insistence I was perfectly fine and otherwise taking it easy, he took his role very seriously until I finally lost my cool.
"Greenleaf, I love you but back off! Christ all-fucking-mighty." I hissed, falling into English, and I heard Haldir's light scolding in my mind as the Prince raised his hands in defeat and stepped back. Even he had managed to become fluent enough in the language of his wife and best friend, so the two became interchangeable to the point we sometimes forgot which we were speaking.
"Fine, fine, but do look after yourself. She will be here before you know it." He looked downcast and I huffed, hugging him around the middle as best I could manage. His own arms went about me and I smiled, knowing neither incarnation of me had ever imagined this outcome for my life.
The months passed far too quickly, and at 11 months I felt truly enormous with still yet a month to go. With Haldir, I'd made a small nursery and was currently sewing together all kinds of clothes in different sizes for our little girl to wear including tunics and leggings as well as dresses, but I was now vastly running out of things to do to prepare.
"Rest, my love." Haldir hushed me as I complained one morning, his hands finding my belly and feeling her kick at him with a look of pure adoration. "We shall have many a restless night soon enough."
"I know. Ow! Madam, desist." I looked down at my growing stomach with a frown at a particularly solid kick. "That hurt, trouble."
"There is pain?" He looked concerned and I could feel the gentle touch of his mind against my own as he searched for confirmation I was well.
"She's a strong one, sweet. I have a feeling we've got our work cut out for us." I felt her kick and tumble in agreement, as did Haldir whose hands still rested on my abdomen.
"I think we may just, and if you reach full term I will eat my tunic." He joked.
I was stood washing dishes only two weeks later when I felt the first twinges and tightening about me. Calmly I spoke to my daughter with my mind, feeling gently with my fingers as I did whenever I healed another. I breathed deeply when another pain came around ten minutes later, and felt a strange peace come upon me as I set out of my home on a walk to ease the cramping.
"Benny?" Haldir approached me from behind just as I was leaning against a tree as a harder pain hit. "It is time." His hands were around me then, resting low on the swell of my stomach as the pain began to come quicker and quicker. His voice was in my head then, his soul enveloping me in a silver peace as he gave whatever energy he could to me.
You will not need to eat your tunic after all. Despite the pain I felt giddy, and he helped me to our home again before he spread blankets, throws and towels on the floor with pillows so I could be comfortable when the time came.
Together we struggled and fought through the night to bring our child into the world, tears of joy mingling with blinding pain and exhaustion until she came just as the sun began to rise. Elves about us heard my sharp cries and her soft ones, and sang from outside our home, welcoming her with love as they had since first we began to walk the earth under the stars.
"Welcome, little one." I spoke tearfully as she was laid upon my chest, cord cut by my seemingly fearless husband. "We are truly blessed, Haldir." I felt my head loll back tiredly against the chair I rested against as she fussed a little.
"We are almost there, love. A little more there is, for that which sustained her within you must be passed. Then you may rest." He kissed my forehead and then reached out a finger to stroke her cheek as he stared at her adoringly.
Another milder contraction came then, my startled cry disturbing her a little. She bashed a hand against me as I lay in a daze, whilst Haldir carried on with no thought for the blood or anything else, and I giggled at her action. With tender hands and gentle words of praise he washed us both clean, and then carried me as if I weighed nothing to bed.
"You were glorious, my Benny. I know not how you did it, but you have, and my heart is filled... I..." He stroked my hair and face at a loss for words, watching me as I tried to work out how to feed her. He supported her weight a little with me, and I sighed thankfully as she finally took that which she sought. "Beautiful."
"You should announce her birth." I spoke tiredly but with elation and he chuckled. The writhing bundle had settled completely and seemed to sleep against my skin.
"I shall in time. For now, I shall stay with my beautiful wife and our daughter thanking Eru and the Valar for the joyous gift we have been given. Sleep, love. I shall look after our little one and have her settled." He gently lifted her from me and I uttered a quiet thanks as my lashes fluttered shut.
xxxXxxx
When I woke I found that I'd been dressed, and much of the soreness seemed to have eased at least a little. However, what had woken me was a quiet song, sung by Haldir, as he held our daughter by the window looking out over the woods. The sun was high in the sky, the morning long past into afternoon, and I leaned on to my side watching as her hand, small but perfect, gripped his thumb.
"I love you, my darling daughter, and I will protect you always." He swore to her with the fierceness only a Father could muster. My heart melted as he turned, the light catching his hair so that it looked like a blaze of silver around him, and as he came to sit beside me on our bed I saw her tiny eyes open to see me for the first time.
"Hello, sweetheart." I whispered to her, a gentle smile capturing my lips as I rested my head against his shoulder.
Litawen we called her; she was a noisy and rambunctious child who both enchanted those she met and drove them up the wall within minutes. She was so fair, like her Father, and her eyes were more silvery than they were green, but as she began to grow it was clear that she favoured me in her features and her temperament. She was a Daddy's girl in every way possible, stalking him with keen eyes whenever he went out to shoot or take a moment to patrol with Legolas and Tori.
She was twenty three when it first started. I loved her with everything I had, but a strange exhaustion was starting to come upon me as old nightmares of my death and the crash, and when I left the first time, began to plague me.
Haldir saw it, long before I did. One morning, early in spring, I opened up my chest of drawers and pulled out the old chest binding I had used when in Lothlorien, and dressed quietly. Litawen was fast asleep, her blonde hair as curly as mine but almost as fair as her Father's, and he held her protectively in her sleep.
I tied my hair back and left our home, taking the stairs to the floor of the woods before beginning to go faster, and faster still, until I began to run full out. After Litawen I'd gained my figure back easily, but my fitness had suffered as only two hours later I all but tripped over my own feet.
I did this every day then, leaving my house in the early morning to run and run until I could no longer think, and when I returned there was always a small meal left out for me or an embrace from my beautiful daughter. Haldir knew that I was running, and I guessed he must have known why too for he made sure to be around more, watching me carefully.
My strength began to return, the muscles in my legs and rear becoming more defined again, but nothing seemed to help the tiredness and the sadness that was coming upon me. One day it seemed to take everything out of me and as at the foot of a tree I collapsed, legs losing all power and buckling beneath me.
"Benny, what's wrong?" I looked up and there was Tori, in her warden's garb.
"I don't know." I began to cry, and she took me in her arms with a squeeze. She stroked my hair as I let everything go – the stress, the exhaustion, the creeping sadness – and spoke soothingly as I wept.
"Does Haldir know how you've been feeling?" She asked as the flood ceased, coming to sit opposite me with her legs crossed and our knees touching. She took my hands and our heads bowed together, hair mingling in a cocoon around us.
"Maybe. I don't know for certain. I didn't even realise how I was feeling. I'm still not quite sure."
"I felt like that, too." she whispered, and I looked into her eyes. "I... I don't want to be here any more. I miss J, I miss Mum and Dad."
The thought hit me in the stomach, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. "I... I want to leave." I spoke back, and she nodded. "I never thought I'd feel this way."
"I started really feeling it last year. I know Legolas wants to stay for Aragorn, and it's keeping me going looking after Gimli and Lita too, but I don't know how much longer I can last."
"Aragorn will pass this year." I whispered to her in our old language, and she met my eyes. "Not too long now. I don't remember exactly when."
"Really? That's sad. Eldarion will be a fantastic King, though." Her tone was wistful – we'd come to terms long ago that Aragorn would pass but he never seemed old or frail whenever I'd seen him. He would go like the Kings of old – with strength and honour still.
"Maybe that's what was keeping us here. You, the last of the Fellowship, and for me my own knowledge of the future. From now, that's pretty much it. I'm at the end, finally."
"I think you're right." she shuffled so she was sat across my lap and we leaned against the tree, sisters together instead of the Princess and Lady we were as we stared around the forest of Ithilien.
"I don't know if I want to stay, but I feel like I should for Arwen." I spoke of my friend tenderly.
Age had barely touched her, as though her hair was silver in places her eyes were as bright as they always had been and her skin still smooth. She had visited not long after Litawen was born, singing beautifully old songs of welcoming and of joy that she had sung to her own children. We'd frequented the palace often as Litawen took quite the liking to both the King and Queen, and I'd last seen her only a few years ago at the wedding of her youngest daughter.
"Yes. After the funeral, we should go. Maybe to Rivendell first, see the twins again, and then go on to the Havens." Tori began to play with my hair, twisting it into braids.
"Haldir would like to see Celeborn again." I agreed, putting my arms around my little sister and holding her close.
"Victoria, Bernadette?" A voice interrupted, and I looked up to see Legolas looking down at us, frowning.
"Hi." We said together, and he crouched to our level. He looked into my eyes and sighed.
"You too, my friend?"
"Me too." I confirmed, letting Tori squeeze me back. He always knew, just like I always did for him. The Sea had called to him for over one hundred years, and it was becoming time for him too – the inevitable knowledge we would pass this lands coming upon him with more force than before.
"Then I am sorry to bring this news, but Aragorn... he passed peacefully in his sleep, yesterday eve."
"Oh no. Oh, Arwen." I felt myself begin to cry again, as Tori began to sob in earnest for her lost friend. I wondered if it was my bond with her telling me that the time had come that had caused such a particular reaction today – I would never be sure, but it felt in my heart like it was true.
"Come, we may say our goodbyes in the city as he will be laid to rest soon." Tori clambered off my lap and helped me up, and with robotic movements I walked back to my home where Haldir stood, waiting for me with open arms.
"Come, my love." He held me close. "We will go to Minas Tirith today, and then tomorrow we may start to plan our journey to the West."
"How did you know?" I looked up at him, and his eyes caught mine with a roll of his eyes before he kissed me, his fingers sweeping across my back as he drew me firmly against him.
"I know you better than you know yourself, sweet."
The funeral was a great state one, with all dignitaries there to pay final respects to the King who had united the lands of Middle Earth once more. Lita stood by my side, one hand in my own and the other in her Father's, and her eyes filled with tears as a great speech was made about the King by his son.
She was an incredibly wise child, even though she was naughty to the point of silliness sometimes, and she felt things deeply. She had loved Aragorn, and he had delighted in having a wild young elf running free about the palace whenever we visited. He had told her stories of great Kings and Queens long gone, and filled her head with tales of the Fellowship until she had it so thoroughly in her head that she would be just like her Aunty Tori. He had even designed a little outfit of a Ranger for her, which she had insisted on wearing today despite my best efforts to persuade her otherwise.
Arwen looked on with an expression that suggested warmth, but I saw with each passing moment the light die in her eyes. As soon as the ceremony was over I went to her, taking her away from the court, and she fell into my arms as soon as the library door was shut.
"Oh Bernadette." She gasped, her hand at her heart.
I had no words so I simply held her until the worst had passed, and then she stood straight. "It is time, then. I shall see that my affairs are in order, and then perhaps I shall dwell for a time in Lorien. There will be no peace here for me now."
"It is no longer the place it was, Arwen. Much of it is ruined now, it has had no inhabitants for almost a century." I told her gently, not wanting her to be disillusioned as to what she would find when she arrived there.
"Then it is fitting that it is where I shall pass, is it not?" She took my hands in hers, looking at me with sadness and tenderness at the same time. "But you know this, do you not? You know that my heart has broken, and it will never be healed."
"I do." I nodded, and she gave a rare smile. "With Eldarion ascending to the throne, the last of what I know about this age comes to pass. The knowledge I have now is for thousands of years in the future."
"Then now you must sail." She said firmly. "You are not meant to fade as I have bound myself to do. Go to Rivendell, see my brothers, and let them know that to the last I was content." She went to a desk then, opening it with a small key. "I have letters here. One for each of my brothers, to my Father... and to my Mother." She held them out to me.
"You should seal them." I said absently, and she shook her head.
"I care not who reads them, for I will be long gone from this world by the time they reach their intended recipients." She spoke kindly. "I have had a wonderful and blessed life, Bernadette. Now all that I love is gone, I have no desire to remain. I will go, and be with Aragorn once more in the life that follows."
"I will miss you." I spoke then with a wobble. "Remember the first day we met?"
"You could barely speak, and you were so fraught with nerves that your hands fairly shook." She looked wistfully on at me. "I watched over you then, and in all the days to come I will do so in the halls of Man - my King, and one day my children by my side. And you shall continue, blessed by the grace that the Valar have given you, and I will live on again in the memory of those who love me."
"Always." I promised her, tears pouring down my face in great torrents.
"Go, my dear friend. You have a life to live, and mine is done." Her fingers touched my cheek, and I felt they were as cold as death. "There was one thing..." Her hand reached to press against my abdomen, and her eyes caught mine. "Do not only have one child - fill your life with your offspring, and love your husband more for them. Now go, and be glad."
I walked through Minas Tirith, my fingers touching the stone as I passed the inn where I had worked so long ago. It was still prosperous, and I knew Will's daughter now ran the pub with her husband. How strange it was... it seemed like only days ago, but a lifetime too.
I entered the inn with a decisive nod, leaning against the bar as I waited to be served.
"What'll it be, my love?" She spoke, her dark hair curling so much like her grandmother's. She was young, so full of life and vitality.
"A pint of your finest." I repeated as I had done the very first time, and it was placed into my hands. I sat in the corner near the fire where I had the first time, and felt the memories of serving wash over me. I remembered joyful Hobbits, drunken songs, and Jaen's boisterous laugh filling the pub.
A peace began to come over me as I let myself think of all the times we had spent in this inn, and then all the wonders of my life that had come after. I thought of my marriage, my beautiful daughter, of Arwen's words to fill my life completely as she had, and I felt a smile touch my lips. I would bring it up with Haldir, but I doubted that he would be opposed to another child to spoil – perhaps a son.
I drank quietly, watching customers come and go, before draining my pint and standing leaving for the door. I caught the barmaid's eye and she raised a hand to me in a quiet farewell, and I raised my own.
"Goodbye."
xxxXxxx
"What will we do now?" Haldir asked as I held a subdued Litawen at my hip. She was getting far too big to be carried for long but today I felt the need to hold her close to me, until she insisted of wriggling out of my grasp.
"Gimli will come with us, that is certain." Legolas' hand was on the Dwarf's shoulder, and Tori nodded. He was hard of hearing now, stooped and unsteady on his feet, but he was like a Grandfather to Lita and she would be devastated to leave him. As it was, she was now cuddled against him and his age-worn hands held her securely still despite the many winters they had seen.
"Of course. We must go to Rivendell first with the letters Lady Arwen bid Benny to take. We could go there together?" Haldir suggested, but Legolas shook his head.
"No. We three will go to Dol Amroth. A ship I have already part-built for us, large enough for our company, but we need to return to Ithilien first to let all others of our kind know our intentions. Once it is complete we will sail" Legolas said firmly, taking Tori's hand in his own and gazing into her eyes.
"Then we will ride north and spend a little time in Rivendell. We shall wait out the winter there." Haldir looked at me as if I were going to question it, but I simply nodded instead. Arwen's comments about children had my head and my heart in a whirr.
"The seas will not be kind until winter has past now, and the spring can be treacherous still then. May, when the summer months come, would be best. It gives us time to pack our things and take them to Dol Amroth." Legolas looked at Gimli. "Would that suit you, Gimli?"
"Aye, lad, that will do me fine."
It was September, only a few weeks from Litawen's 25th Birthday. If we could get to Rivendell by then it would be ideal, but certainly no later than the first few weeks of October. "Will you take our things to the ship? We will take what we can to Rivendell but it will need to be a hard ride." I asked, and Tori nodded, reaching out to take my hand in hers.
"Of course we will."
The journey home was as subdued as the journey to Gondor, and once there we began to put our whole life into boxes and bags. Our finer clothes we took, our great scrapbooks full of memories, and I took my carefully preserved camera and phone though the batteries were long gone and the mechanisms questionable at best.
My beautiful harp, my wedding present from Osellë, was carefully wrapped to be taken to the ship, as were our multitude of books. Anything that wasn't in a box would be left except for that which we carried.
The last night in Ithilien, Haldir and I took our time in worship of our bodies, taking all of the feeling that we could from each other. He knew my heart and I'd not even needed to tell him what I wanted – he had simply placed a hand on my abdomen with a questioning glance and I had nodded. It was time for us to see again if we would be blessed with further children as Arwen had suggested.
"I love you, wife." He breathed against my skin and I let my heart and body become one with his, only our quiet cries breaking the strange silence that had fallen over the woods we had come to call a home. With Aragorn gone, most felt now no connection to the land any longer and would be gone as surely as we would be.
The following morning we woke early, stirring Litawen from her sleep, and then stepped out into the early Autumn sunlight. Horses in hand, we took a last walk through the woods together as a family.
"Why must we go, Mummy?" Litawen asked me as she sat astride our horse – I would ride with her and Haldir would carry our things with him.
"Our time is done here, trouble." I said fondly, running my hair through her silky fair curls. "I know you have loved these woods, but others we will love too in a place where all is good. This world is for Men now." I explained gently, and she nodded.
"Eldarion is King now, isn't he?" She asked and I smiled, thinking of Aragorn's laughing eyes. I hoped he was looking down on us now, blessing our journey and our lives together.
"He is, and a wonderful King he shall be."
"Will Queen Arwen not come with us? She is an elf." Litawen asked excitedly, and I felt my heart clench in my chest.
"No, sweetheart. Elves cannot usually marry mortals, but because Arwen's Father was half-elven she was given a choice. Because she loved Aragorn, she chose to become mortal so that she could be with him." I watched her eyes mist over. "She will go to live where your Daddy grew up for a little while, and then she will pass from these lands. Her spirit will go to be with Aragorn again."
"She must have loved Aragorn a lot." Her little voice was thoughtful, her accent a strange mix of my own and Haldir's as she spoke both English and Sindarin fluently – intentionally, for I wanted her to know of the time that defined her Mother.
"Oh, little one, she did. She loved him so much that her heart filled to bursting, that she gave up everything she once held dear because she couldn't live without him." I felt a sob escape me then, and Litawen took my hand in her own. The woman whose children I'd brought into the world, whose hand I'd held and whose joy I had been privileged to see, would be gone from the world. A candle snuffed out by the winds of time.
"It's okay, Mummy. Like you said, she's gone to be with Aragorn again in the stars. You might not be able to see her, but you can still talk to her."
I smiled through my tears at Litawen, wiser than any child I had ever met.
"I know, and I will. Right now I'm a little sad because I'm going to miss her very much, but I know that she was so happy for every moment of her life ans she was blessed by the Valar completely." I wiped my eyes, and felt the whisper of Haldir's love in my chest, holding me strong as his hand reached out to hold my own.
At the edge of the woods we stopped, mounting our horses, and began the long ride to Rivendell. The nights we spent huddled together in our tent to fight off the wind and rain of the season, or riding through when the night was clear so that we could reach Rivendell sooner.
As we reached Lothlorien I could feel Haldir's longing to go back there, but I shook my head. I felt the desire too to find our little spot by the falls again, but I knew that to go back there would be to see Arwen in a way I didn't wish to. I wanted her alive and vibrant in my memory, not a ghost of the woman I had loved. It would do her a disservice to think of her in any other way and I knew that she wouldn't want it either.
"The time has gone where that was our home, Haldir. Arwen has gone back to her kin, and we should let her rest." I said as we came to spend a night nearer to East Lorien, a few of our own people passing us by with gentle smiles and blessings as they too rode towards the Havens. Lita had crashed completely, her little body frankly exhausted, and so we'd let her sleep early though the need hadn't taken either Haldir or I just yet.
His eyes were sad as he understood my words. "It is good that she came back to her people, where she will ever live on in our hearts and our memories."
"I love you." I said suddenly, standing beside him as Litawen slept on in our tent.
"I love you too, Benny. More and more, as each season passes us by." He put an arm around my waist as we looked up at the stars, their light giving me a strength I didn't know I was missing.
"Strange, isn't it? I came to Lothlorien at this time of year." I mused, and he chuckled.
"You were soaked to the skin and thoroughly miserable. I confess; though it saddens me to leave these shores I look forward to seeing Glorfindel and my brothers again." I felt his sadness, like I had over a hundred years ago when we'd had to say goodbye to them.
"Your Mother and Father too." I added, and his arms held me a little tighter.
"I cannot tell you how I crave to see them again, whole and content." His eyes were lighter then, the melancholy leaving him a little. I couldn't wait either, knowing how happy it would make him to see his Father again after his death. His eyes were trained on the stars but his focus wasn't there, so I tried to see if I could find the silver cord that bound him to me again.
Father, I hope you are proud of all that I have done...
I heard the thought as if it were an echo of an echo, but it settled within me and I smiled, my free hand coming to rest over my stomach. We hadn't really tried for a child that night, but I had let my body be open to it and was willing to see if it would happen. I'd felt the flicker as I had before but I wasn't sure then if it was simply wishful thinking, yet as I heard his thoughts inside my mind I knew that there could be no doubt.
Haldir must have sensed it too, for he turned to meet my eyes with a questioning gaze before they dropped lower to where my fingers sat against my still-flat skin. I felt him trying to reach me then, his heart and his mind and his soul stretching across and I did the same, following the silver cord until we collided in a mass of thought and feeling.
He laughed, sweeping me in his arms and spinning me around above him. "This is Arwen's gift to us." He said as he placed me on my feet, eyes alight with passion and love.
"She might be gone from these lands, but she has blessed us and nothing better could I ever wish for." I felt the tears come as he kissed me tenderly, his hands at my waist as my own fingers wove into the silvery strands of hair that fell about him, wild and free.
Beneath the stars of Middle Earth we kissed again and again in celebration, our daughter fast asleep as we danced by the fire. Whilst our time here was done it had been wonderful, and at last I felt a peace come to settle on me that for two years had been stolen in a black pit of tiredness and terrible dreams.
I slept soundly that night with not a single one of those dreams to interrupt my peace, and when I rose it was with the sun in my eyes and a song in my heart. He must have felt me stir for the light covering of the tent was brushed aside and Haldir held out his hand to me, hair shining like the stars with his back to the sun looking something like an angel.
"Come, Benny." I took his hand, strong and large in my own, and let myself be swept into his embrace. "Rivendell awaits us, and then... home." His hands came to rest against my abdomen and I felt his strength fill me, his unconditional love for the child that was just beginning to grow within me. I was transported back to our wedding day, then, when I very first heard his mind against my own.
Don't you remember, Haldir? With you, I am home.
His eyes lit as he remembered his own words. As his lips claimed my own in a chaste kiss before he dragged me out to begin our ride for the day I heard his voice, drowning out even Litawen running wild around our eternally patient horses.
I always remember, Benny. He took my hand then, bringing it to his lips. Always.
Sad sobs, happy sobs, where are my sodding tissues? Reviews bring joy to my life and I can't wait to hear from you all.
